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#i’m moving home from university back to my parents house
piierrote · 1 year
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i’m moving house this weekend so my shop will be closed! looking to reopen mid july, but i will keep you all updated ♥️ any messages/queries on orders will of course still be answered :)!
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waugh-bao · 1 year
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#well I can no longer tease Keith for being/looking obliviously in love with his bff#I think I’ve mentioned before that a big part of the reason I’m going to Taiwan this summer#is b/c my best friend from LSE lives there#we met the first week of university and it all just went from there#(rare for both of us b/c we’re introverted)#anyway#after I moved to the US for grad school#and she moved back to Taiwan to work for a bit and figure out what she wanted to do her MA in#we started sending each other care packages#(before this we used to bring each other stuff back from home during breaks )#((we also meet on zoom every week for a few hours to talk + watch movies))#they’re pretty good sized boxes with (mostly) food and also books and weird t-shirts/clothes and all of that kind of stuff#we’re quite good at this point at getting stuff the other will like#(I always trawl Trader Joe’s for interesting things I think she’ll enjoy. she got me 5 different flavors of salted plum from an indie#company in Taipei because she knows I love ume)#we always put notes for each other in the boxes too#I send hers to her parents house because it’s easier to have packages shipped to there than in her small flat share in Taipei#and her mom (with her permission) sometimes opens them and takes out something for herself to try#what I didn’t know until today#is that her mom also takes out the notes to put on her desk so they don’t get lost#and she’s been hinting to my friend more and more over the past 2 years that it’s okay if she’s ‘not into boys’ and her parents will support#her no matter who she dates (which is very sweet)#now I’m coming in less than a week#and when my friend was visiting home this weekend she took her aside and told her#that she didn’t have to introduce me as her friend and she could openly say I’m her partner of 2+ years#which (again) would be very sweet#if I were actually her girlfriend#I’m not#and I’m having dinner with her parents at some point in the next few weeks#my life is a bad sitcom
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vroomvro0mferrari · 4 months
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LN4 | Kiss and Make Up
Summary: You used to get along with your brother’s best friend, but at some point, it all changed. Lando’s rude comments frustrate you to no end, and your brother is fed up with your complaints. Max only sees one solution: you need to make up.
Lando Norris x Fewtrell!Reader (enemies to lovers)
WC: 5.0K
Warnings: cursing?
Masterlist
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You heard the keys jiggle in the door, followed by the creaking sound of it opening, and your brother stomping through the hallway of your parental home. You finally have some time off from school after the insane amount of deadlines and exams that filled your last couple of weeks and decided to visit your family. You like studying and university, but it’s nice to come home and be taken care of instead of doing everything on your own. However, you’re still in charge of dinner tonight. You can never make it back home without being forced to make your famous lasagne at least once and tonight’s the night your family will be blessed with your famed, home-made dish. 
Max smiled when he saw you standing in the kitchen, chopping up the veggies for tonight. Although he’d never tell you directly, he had missed you. Max still lived close to your parents whereas you had moved further away for school. It made it difficult to see each other regularly, especially since Max had started Quadrant with Lando and didn’t make the effort to visit you anymore. Seeing you in person had become a rare occurrence, something that would only happen in his parents’ house.
Max put his hands on your shoulders as he leaned forward to watch what you were doing. “Hey sis, are you making lasagne?” He said with a smile.
“Hello Y/N, I’ve missed you. How are you doing? – I’m doing well, Max. Thank you for asking.” You mumbled as you continued to cut vegetables for dinner.
You couldn’t see it with your back towards your brother, but he smiled at your antics. “Hello my dear sister, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. I do wonder how you’re doing.”
You turned around and smiled when he pulled you into a hug. “It’s your own fault. You never come to visit me, but I’m doing well now that the exams are over,” you tell him with a chuckle.
Max decided to ignore your complaint, instead redirecting the conversation to what you were busying yourself with. “So, lasagne?”
You rolled your eyes. “Yes, Max. I’m making lasagne for dinner.” 
He silently cheered at your response. A cheeky smile made its way onto his face when he asked, “Is there enough for one more?”
“Depends… Who’s it for? P?” You said, looking back over your shoulder to meet his eyes as you cut up more veggies.
“Does it matter who I invited? You won’t let anyone else eat your lasagne?” He said with a laugh, but you knew the question was serious. He knew you didn’t particularly get along with some of his friends – actually, one of his friends, Lando. To say your relationship with Lando isn’t great would be an understatement. Max didn’t know why exactly you didn’t get along, you’ve never indulged him, but the dislike is clearly noticeable and has been going on for ages. Max had tried to improve the relationship in the past, but nothing had worked, only making it worse. He doesn’t understand why Lando, specifically; you don’t seem to have any issues with his other friends. 
You looked at Max pointedly; he was asking for something he already knew. Of course, you’d let people other than P eat your lasagne. There’s only one person that you wouldn’t allow.
Max sighed at your seriousness, “Yes, I’ve invited P,” he told you.
You smiled triumphantly, “Good! I’ve missed her; more than you, actually,” you said with a snort.
Max rolled his eyes at your comment. “I should never have introduced you two. You’re suspiciously close,” he mumbled as he shook his head, leaving the kitchen.
You grinned at his comment and continued to prepare dinner. You carefully cut the veggies, made the sauce and built the lasagne before you covered it with cheese. After you finally put it in the oven, you went to your room to freshen up. Of course, you cannot cut tomatoes without getting juice on your shirt, so clean clothes are a necessity. You quickly changed your shirt, reapplied your deodorant, and fixed up your hair before you heard the door opening, footsteps and voices following soon after. You smiled as you walked down the stairs, excited to see Pietra after months. You walked into the room, ready to hug your brother’s girlfriend, only to see his boyfriend making himself comfortable on the couch.
Your smile dropped from your face in an instant, and you narrowed your eyes at him. “Lando,” you said in a low voice. What on earth was he doing here? Your brother told you he’d invited his girlfriend, your friend; was she not here yet? Lando must’ve come to pick something up, right? He wouldn’t visit around this time unless he came to pick something up… Or come for dinner… Judging by how comfortable he had made himself on the couch, you doubt it’s the former.
“Y/N! How are you?” Lando said, getting up from the couch to properly greet you. You scoffed and folded your arms as he moved closer.
“What are you doing here?” 
“Nice to see you too,” Lando said with a smirk.
“I hope you’re not here for dinner,” you continue.
“I am here for dinner, actually. Max invited me.”
You shifted your eyes over to Max in anger. He’d told you P would be coming over, not Lando. The little bitch. 
“I take it P’s not coming, then?” It was evident in your voice that you were upset.
Max looked at you with apologetic eyes, like a child being scolded, as he avoided your gaze. At the lack of response, you turned your attention back to Lando.
“There isn’t enough food for all of us, and even if there was, it probably wouldn’t match your fancy diet anyway. Go buy a salad or something,” you told him, rolling your eyes.
Lando couldn’t help but smile at your response. “Such hostility,” he said, his hand resting on his chest in fake hurt, and a teasing grin on his face that made you want to slap it off.
You gritted your teeth at the teasing – God, this man frustrated you to no end, and he was enjoying it, too. 
“Fuck off, Lando. You’re not welcome here,” you said before walking away.
Lando was about to follow you into the dining room, unable to resist teasing you further, but Max stopped him. “Come on, man. Don’t provoke her. She’s already annoyed, especially because I lied to her.” 
You paced the dining room in an attempt to calm yourself down while the lasagne cooked in the oven. You grabbed the plates from the cabinet and started setting the table. You'd cooled off until you realised you’d have to set a place for Lando. You frowned as you stared at the last plate. Why couldn’t Lando just leave you alone? He should know not to bother you, you’d shown him before how petty you could be when he frustrated you, so why did he have to try again and again? Should you act like the bigger person, get over yourself and set the table for Lando, or should you 'forget' about Lando and set only four places? Your parents would be upset for sure, but the urge to retaliate is so strong. You stood still for at least a minute as you weighed your options. 
A smile crept its way on your face when you spotted the kids’ table in the corner of the dining room. Usually, it’s only used for big family events, when your much younger cousins would come to visit. They don’t properly fit at the adult table and have their own tiny table in the corner of the room. A normal-sized human wouldn’t properly fit on one of the seats, but then again, Lando’s short, right? Besides, if he acts like a child, then he can sit at the children’s table. You grab the children’s cutlery and plate from the cabinet and set a special place for Lando. You can barely keep your laughter back at the thought of Lando sitting at the small table in a chair that’s way too tiny for him.
When you heard the timer beep, you tried to neutralise your expression. You placed the lasagne on the kitchen table before calling your family (and Lando) for dinner. Your parents were, unsurprisingly, the first to join you at the table. The boys, naturally, were still finishing up the game they started before dinner was finished. Your parents were already seated and provided with drinks before the boys came walking in. Although your parents hadn’t noticed the table in the corner or the missing chair, your brother noticed straight away.
He looked at you disappointedly as he said, “Y/N, did you seriously not set a place for Lando?”
“No, I did. It’s right over there,” you said, pointing to the kids’ table.
The boys looked in the direction you were pointing, and Max started laughing immediately. Meanwhile, Lando was shocked at how blunt you were being. So far, every retaliation you’d ever taken wasn’t that obvious. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and disappointment as he stared at the table – did you really dislike him that much?
“Where’s the other chair?” Max asked, still chuckling as he stood at the empty spot by the table.
You didn’t look up when you responded, “I don’t know,” shrugging your shoulders as you casually continued to divide the lasagne.
Lando sighed as he tried the chair, his knees pointing out above the table. Max only laughed louder at the image, and your dad couldn’t resist chuckling either while Lando pouted.
“I can’t eat like this.” 
“Then don’t. I told you you’re not welcome.” 
“Y/N!” Your mum scolded you before turning to Lando. “You’re always welcome here, darling. Ignore her,” she said, smiling sweetly at him.
You rolled your eyes.
“Where did you put the chair?” She questioned you.
You sighed, “They’re just in the pantry,” you admitted.
Your mum stood up and grabbed the chair for Lando who was still sitting in the tiny seat, while Max took pictures to post on his story, laughing. Lando smiled thankfully when she came back with the chair and grabbed a normal plate to serve him a generous portion of your homemade lasagne.
You couldn’t help but glare at Lando when he took his first bite. He was undeserving of the food which you had put so much effort and love into. You couldn’t even enjoy your own portion with the boy sitting across from you, although it tasted great. But Lando couldn't enjoy it either with the glares you kept sending him. Your resentment made him uncomfortable, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d be afraid that you’d poisoned his dinner. That was not your style though; he knew exactly how you liked to take your revenge. After all, he had experienced your wrath many times, and he had to admit you were very creative in creating your retaliations. He could never be entirely sure, or prove that you were the cause, but everything about the weird situations he’d been in the past years screamed your name.
There was one time that he’d gotten tens of phone calls every day for a week about a missing key. Even now, he occasionally gets calls about a key that was found. It seems quite innocent, but Lando’s phone was blowing up the entire week at the most inconvenient times: while he was in important meetings, when he was spending time with friends, even when he was streaming. Another time, Lando’s Netflix was completely messed up. All the recommendations on his home screen were for kids’ TV and romcoms. This, too, seems innocent enough, but after he had watched Netflix together with Daniel Ricciardo, and his homepage was filled with Cocomelon, The Kissing Booth, Riverdale and other films and series of the same genre, he had to hear about it for years to come. Some other time, Lando’s clothes mysteriously fell apart after only a few hours of wearing them after he’d stayed the night at Max's place at the same time as you. He didn't know how, but he was sure you had something to do with that too.
Although your reactions were very petty and often childish, Lando did admire your perseverance, resourcefulness and creativity. If he wasn’t always the victim of your crimes, he would have loved them, and perhaps even encouraged them, because, let’s be honest, it’s impressive if you can make someone’s clothes fall apart when you’re not even near them.
Lando didn’t really understand why he was always your victim, though. When you were younger, you’d gotten along fine, but as you’d gotten older you’d become meaner to him. He didn't know where things went wrong, and whether it was his fault or you just decided you were done with him. You used to tease each other, yes, but that was always mutual and lighthearted. Neither of you minded the comments that were made because you both knew it was all in good fun. At some point, you just started doing things like these, and Lando still doesn't know what initiated it.
You know exactly when it started, though. Everything was fine until Max and Lando hit puberty. Suddenly, they were ‘too cool’ to hang out with you, and you were excluded from all of their activities. The teasing didn’t really feel like teasing anymore, but rather mean comments that hurt you. Lando never caught onto your change in perception; he thought you still saw it as teasing. But the comments became more rude over time, and it felt like the boys who were your friends once, were now making fun of you.
Like when you were invited to apply for Honours College at your university. You were extremely proud that your grades in your regular courses were good enough to be admitted, and that you’d been invited to apply. But Lando just called you a nerd and laughed before continuing to talk about his own achievements, as if what you’d done was nothing important or impressive.
It wouldn’t have mattered much if it were any other friend of your brother, but Lando was important. You’d known him for about ten years, and he was basically a part of your family. What didn’t help either was that you had developed a small crush on him over the years. By the time he turned twenty, he’d gone through a glow-up. He finally learned how to deal with his curly hair and his face had matured to that of a handsome man. You were attracted to him, but his ugly personality distracted from his looks – most of the time.
Nevertheless, you wanted to impress Lando; to make him like you so he would stop with the off-handed comments. Though you weren’t necessarily good at sports or karting like he was, you excelled academically. You thought by showing your intelligence, you could gain his respect. Unknowingly, it made Lando feel dumb. He’d never even finished secondary school, and you were taking on extra classes in university without any troubles. He reacted differently than he would have liked to, but he thought you’d understand it was a joke.
Another time, you organised a last-minute surprise party for your brother. You had made sure there were decorations, music, food, and most importantly, drinks. You were happy with what you had managed to do in the time available, but your mood significantly worsened when Lando jokingly said you could have put in a little more effort. He was smiling when he said it, but it felt like he was making fun of you; of the amount of effort you had put in to make sure everything was organised as perfectly as possible. Despite his intention to tease, it didn't feel that way to you.
The comment that you believe triggered your best revenge was on Pietra’s birthday. She celebrated her birthday at Max’s apartment, and of course, you’d come to visit and celebrate with her. A few months before her birthday she’d shown you a top she really liked when she was online shopping, but the colour wasn’t right. So, for her birthday, you decided to crochet the top in her favourite colour. It was a bold choice because you didn’t have much experience crocheting, nevertheless, you tried. If she didn’t like it, you would just buy it from the store after all, or get her something else. You thought it looked pretty good, especially for your first try. Regardless, there were some mistakes and uneven shapes.
Pietra was completely surprised and elated with the present, especially when you told her you made it yourself. She knew how much time and effort it probably cost you to make it, but Lando didn't consider that when he commented on the piece.
“You made it yourself? Maybe you should practice a little more, huh?” He said, laughing, before handing it back to P.
You felt the smile drop from your face at the hurtful remark, but Lando was oblivious to the fact he hurt your feelings. Max turned to Lando in shock, while Pietra assured you that she loved the top, and couldn’t wait to wear it. You plastered a smile on your face, but it was obvious (to anyone but Lando) that it was fake. That night, after drinking your feelings away, you tore the seams in Lando’s clothes. Not every single one, but enough so it would fall apart after too much exertion; the punishment should fit the crime.
The anticipatory pleasure at the thought of Lando’s clothes tearing at an inconvenient moment was enough to satisfy you. When you heard about what happened a few days later from Max, you could barely keep your laugh back.
More recently, you had gone clubbing with your brother and his friends. It was an unusual event because your brother didn’t want to see you flirting or dancing with random boys in the club, but this time it was different. He knew you’d been stressed from school, and he’d rather you let loose when he’s there than when he’s not there to keep an eye on you. 
You were dancing with your brother and his friends when a cute boy came up to you, asking if he could buy you a drink. You said yes, of course. You would never refuse a free drink, especially in good, handsome, company, and you wanted to get over your small crush on Lando. You don’t know why or how, but he always seemed ten times hotter in a club, and you needed to get away from him. The longer you stayed near him, the more his pretty face and well-dressed body seemed to distract you from his unattractive personality, and that couldn’t happen. 
You followed the man to the bar and ordered a drink as he flirted with you. His attention was completely focused on you, but you kept getting distracted by the feeling of eyes on your back. It wasn’t until you were dancing in the middle of the large crowd that the feeling faded. You felt free without the supervision of your brother, and without Lando to distract you.
The man pulled your back closer to him, and you let him. You swayed from side to side with your arms in the air while he kissed his way down your neck. It didn’t feel right, but that didn’t matter; it was good enough. You liked the feeling of his lips on your neck and felt yourself get lost in the moment until suddenly there was a tug on your arm.
Your eyes opened in shock as you felt yourself get pulled away. The man you were dancing with didn’t seem to mind much and moved on with another girl standing nearby as you stared at Lando confused and disoriented.
“What do you think you’re doing?” You asked him as you struggled to pull your arm from his firm grip.
“I’m taking you back to the group, you need to be more careful,” he explained.
You scoffed, “What? I was perfectly safe! Let me go!”
“Were you? He seemed untrustworthy,” Lando continued as he pulled you through the club.
“I was just having fun! God, you’re so annoying!” You say with a huff before walking back to your brother.
Lando watched you as you walked away. He didn't want you to dance with that man, or any man for that matter, even though he would never admit it. However, you had misunderstood his intentions. To you it seemed like he was interrupting your fun, cockblocking if you will, and it frustrated you to no end. 
For days to come, you complained to your brother about what happened, insisting that it was none of Lando’s business and he should’ve left you alone. However, your brother grew tired of your complaints really quickly and couldn’t deal with your issues anymore. Your ongoing dispute with Lando had dragged on for too long and it needed to be resolved, soon, before he went insane. During your next fight, Max would force the two of you to repair your relationship, whether you wanted to or not, because he simply couldn’t take it any longer.
It didn’t take long until your next fight. You were looking at pictures of Lando and Max on Instagram from when they went golfing a few days back when you spotted something. In one of the pictures, Lando was taking a photo with a camera, a camera which he had seemingly ‘borrowed’ from you without your knowledge. 
The second you saw him enter your parents’ house, you targeted him.
“You stole my camera?”
“Hello to you, too, Y/N,” he responded with a grin.
You rolled your eyes.
“Where is it, Lando,” you continued, stepping closer to him.
“I gave it to Max. He was supposed to give it back. He hasn’t yet?” 
“No, he hasn’t. And you shouldn’t have taken it in the first place.”
Your gaze shifted to Max, who walked in behind Lando.
“Where is it, Max?” 
“In my room somewhere, I think.”
“Can you go grab it? Please?”
The words you said were much kinder than the way you said them. Max sighed before walking up the stairs to his room, you and Lando in tow. He looked around the room, getting on his knees to look under the bed.
“You put my camera under your bed?” You asked angrily.
“I’m not sure if I did, that’s why I’m looking, Y/N.”
Max thought this was the absolute worst. He had gotten himself pulled into one of your arguments again, and now he was being yelled at by you when it wasn’t his fault to begin with. He sighed before getting up. 
“I’ll just go grab my phone for the flashlight,” he said before leaving the room.
You merely nodded in response as you continued to look around the room in search of your camera when you heard the door close, the lock falling in place.
“Max? Did you just lock the door?”
Lando lifted his head from his place on the floor, where he was looking under the dresser, at your insinuation. He quickly changed his position to sit up, staring at the door with you.
“Yes, I did. The two of you need to make up. I won’t let you out until you get along. I can’t handle the two of you fighting anymore. It’s really fucking annoying,” he said through the door.
You looked at Lando in shock, to find him already staring back at you.
“Max, you can’t do this! What the fuck is wrong with you! Let us out!” You yelled as you knocked on the door.
When he didn’t react, you hit the door again, “Max!”
You looked at Lando at the lack of response, “Do something!” You said, but he merely looked at you.
“What am I supposed to do? Knocking the door won’t help. I actually think it might be a good idea for us to talk everything out.”
You looked at Lando in shock. “Are you serious?”
He shrugged while he stared at you, and you shook your head in response.
“I’m not doing this,” you said, pacing around the room while Lando followed you with his eyes as he sat on your brother’s bed, an amused smile on his face.
“I’m leaving,” you said, opening the window.
“What are you doing?” Lando asks, quickly getting up from the bed.
“I’m leaving,” you repeated, sitting on the window sill, throwing one leg outside.
“What have I done to you to make you this angry? I can’t believe you’d rather fall out of a window than talk to me,” Lando frowned.
You let out a choked laugh, mouth open in shock. “Are you serious? You don’t know what you’ve done?” You said as you sat on the window sill, one leg outside the window, the other still on the floor.
“Yes. Please tell me, because I’ve obviously missed a lot if you’re willing to climb out of a window. By the way, stop climbing out of the window!” Lando said, all but running to prevent you from dangling your other leg out of the window too. It was already halfway there, leaving you in a very uncomfortable position when Lando grabbed your leg.
“You’re going to hurt yourself, Y/N!” 
“No, I’m not,” you grunted out as you tried to kick him away. You leaned away from him, losing your grip on the windowsill at the exertion. Lando could barely catch you before you fell out of the window. 
“Fuck, Y/N! I told you to get away from the window!” He yelled as he pulled you away from it and back into the room before quickly closing the window. He stood in front of it as if he was trying to block your way from the window, trying to block your escape.
You rolled your eyes at him, “Don’t be such a baby, I’m fine.” 
“Only because I was holding your leg.”
“If you weren’t holding my leg I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place.” You stepped closer to him, huffing in defiance. 
Lando sighed, but he didn’t respond. He kept silent while he stared at you, challenging you as you crept closer without breaking eye contact. The tension in the room was palpable, and it only increased the longer you stared at each other. Your breath was shallow from the adrenaline of your near-fall, and your glare was met with a look of annoyance. Lando’s hands hung limply by his sides, the complete opposite of a mere moment ago when he grabbed you with such urgency.
"Why do you always have to make things so difficult?" Lando's voice was low, strained with frustration.
"Me?" you shot back, your voice rising. "You're the one who's always so demeaning, so... so infuriating!"
"Infuriating?" Lando repeated, scoffing. "Coming from the girl who sabotages my Netflix and sets up kiddie tables for me?"
"You deserved it," you retorted, folding your arms and looking down. "You always mock me and belittle everything I do, every achievement, every effort… Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"
Lando’s confidence faltered at your confession. His eyes softened, and he took a small step closer, stroking your arm softly. "I never meant to hurt you, Y/N. I thought... I thought we were just joking around, teasing. I didn't realise-"
"Didn't realise what?" you interrupted, eyes brimming with tears. "That your words actually affect me? That I care what you think?"
Lando's hand reached out, tentatively brushing a strand of hair from your face. The touch was gentle, almost adoring, and it sent a shiver down your spine. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I didn't know."
You closed your eyes, breathing out through your nose as you let the apology sink in. When you opened them again, the regret you saw in his eyes made you believe him. But it was the love and adoration in his gaze that convinced you.
"Lando..." you began, but your voice caught in your throat.
Before you could finish, Lando closed the distance between you, his hands cupping your face. His eyes searched yours for any sign of hesitation, but all he found was longing. Slowly, almost apprehensively, he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours in an uncertain kiss.
Your initial surprise was quickly replaced by the warmth spreading through your body. Almost automatically, your hands found their way to his shoulders, pulling him closer to you. The kiss deepened, filled with your pent-up frustration and unspoken feelings. Your hands slid up Lando's neck and you ran your hands through his hair, pulling on it softly. The sensation of Lando's hands on your body, and his lips against yours felt right, making everything else fade away.
When you finally pulled apart, both of you were breathing heavily. Lando’s forehead rested against yours, his eyes searching yours for any sign of regret. You could see the uncertainty in his gaze, and you were certain your eyes showed the same.
“What… what just happened?” you whispered, your voice shaky.
Lando sighed, running a hand through his hair, which was now slightly tousled from your fingers. “I don’t know. But it felt… right.”
You swallowed, trying to make sense of all of the emotions running wild inside you. “We can’t just pretend this didn’t happen, Lando.”
“I don’t want to,” he says firmly, his eyes locking onto yours. 
You laughed softly at the situation, leaning forward to rest your head against his shoulder. Lando wrapped his arms around you straight away. 
“This is not what I expected to happen,” you whispered.
Lando chuckled softly. “Me neither, but it’s not so bad, is it?” 
You snuggled into his neck, sighing contently once you were comfortable. No, it wasn't bad at all.
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chilling-seavey · 3 months
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Dreamland (ln4) - Part Three
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↳ A/N Idk where my mind went when I wrote this but I'm almost embarrassed to post it because it's so filthy- Please comment something nice so I don't regret everything and delete these 7.7k words of pure sin LOL
↳ Inspired By: 'Late Night Talking' by Harry Styles
↳ Summary: Ever since your night together in your hotel room, Lando can’t seem to get you off his mind
↳ Pairings: Fanboy Lando Norris x Famous!Author!Fem!Reader (NO use of y/n), University Student Lando x Internet Friend George x Internet Friend Alex
↳ Word Count: 7.7k
↳ Warnings: 18+, NSFW, sexting, dirty talk gets really super nasty, sending nudes, Lando's so incredibly down bad
PART TWO || PART FOUR
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It had been twenty-two days since Lando lost his virginity to you in that Bristol hotel room and ever since, he only thought about you more than he had before. Everything was you as if he couldn’t get enough, having given his trust into the hands of the woman of his dreams, and he was so far past attached that even he himself did not realize the extent of his borderline dependency. He played it cool with you through Instagram dms here and there since your night together and every time he received a notification with your Instagram account handle and a simple little message, he would be grinning ear to ear. 
It had been sixteen days since Lando turned twenty-one. Usually he would message you first since you were still on your book tour and quite busy, but on his birthday you had sent him something early that morning. His only wish was to have more of you…to have all of you, for life. He even made that wish over his birthday cake as he blew out the candles. His sisters took some pictures of him so he could post them for his birthday and you were one of the first people to like them. You made his insides feel so warm and you did so unknowingly. 
It had been three days since Lando moved out of the dorms and back into his parents house. Three days and he was already going crazy. The freedom of the dorms was refreshing but being stuck back at home under his parents’ rules felt suffocating to the now twenty-one year old. Between the curfew, chores, and annoyance from his siblings, Lando was nearly ready to re-pack his suitcase and book a ticket on the next flight out…if only he had more than $14 to his name. His family just didn’t get it. Not like you did. 
“We pay a lot of money for you to go to school and we don’t like seeing you wasting your time and throwing it away.” his mother explained as gently as she could over dinner that evening. 
Lando, elbow on the table and chin in his hand, swatted the last bit of his supper around his plate with his gaze downcast, “I’m not throwing it away.” 
“Well you’re certainly not trying.” his father replied. “Your grades are proof of that.” 
Lando dropped his fork to the plate with a clatter and his three siblings glanced over at him from around the table without a word, listening to him be ridiculed by their parents and waiting for his hostile defences, “It’s not my fault that I’m not as good as the rest of the students! I pull as many late nights as they do but their work is just better.”
“Have you sought out extra help from your professors or the tutoring centre?” his mother offered. 
“God!” Lando tisked in frustration and slouched back in his chair, “I don’t care!” 
“Exactly. You don’t care,” his father agreed seriously, “Your GPA is astronomically low and you’re threatened with academic probation because of it. If you flunk out you will be paying your mother and I back every cent that has gone towards tuition and housing.” 
“This isn’t even what I want to do!” Lando retorted strongly, “I want to, like, go into arts and design…or something.” 
“That’s not a stable career, Lando, come on. We’ve discussed this.”
His mother added, her voice attempting to be gentle, “We went out on a limb with your attempt at the racing and karting stuff and look where that got you? We want to support you, love, but we can’t keep taking financial risks. We still have to get your sisters through university too.”
“What if I had an opportunity to design book covers for a really well known author?”
His family all looked over at him. There was a beat of silence. 
“Do you?” his father inquired, honestly curious. 
Lando dropped his gaze to his plate and crossed his arms over his chest, “Well…not yet.” 
His younger sisters snickered into their forks. 
He glared over at them but recovered quickly at the defence, “But when I met that author that I like at her book signing last month I pitched the offer and she seemed really interested.” 
“Oh my God, here we go.” his youngest sister rolled her eyes. 
“Lando-” his mother started. 
“No, listen-” Lando huffed, “When she gets back to Monaco she’s going to help me get a job…she said so. Something where I can do what I really truly like.”
His parents exchanged flat expressions that had his face falling. 
“She will.” he pressed. 
His father held a hand up to stop him, “You gotta stop living your daydream, son. Come on.” 
“It’s not a daydream!” Lando protested. “Why can’t you guys support me?”
“We don’t want to see you struggling, Lando.” his mother said, “We want you to have a fulfilling life.”
“Yeah, they don’t want you unemployed and living in their basement until you’re middle aged.” his older brother added with a smirk. 
Lando glared over at him, “Says you.” 
Their two sisters “ooo”ed. 
“Regardless of what you think your future is going to look like, you need to better yourself in the present.” his mother continued. 
“Which means focusing more on your degree when the next term comes around…and getting a full time job in the meantime.” his father finished. 
“I don’t want to go back to school.” Lando grumbled. 
“Oh really? What’s your alternative plan?” 
“She’s gonna get me a job-”
“Oh my God.” his middle sister laughed, “You’re dropping her name like you’re besties.” 
Lando clenched his jaw, biting his tongue to smother the dirty truth to answer with the more innocent response, “We talk every day.” 
“She’s being nice.” his mother said gently, “She’s being nice to one of her fans.” 
Lando knew his family didn’t understand but the simple words from his mother sent his heart aching. In all honesty, it had been a few days since you had conversed and Lando had been starting to overthink every reason as to why you had left him on ‘seen’. He could have bet money on the fact that you would never use him and drop him…that your night together was more than just a one night stand…but maybe he was getting too ahead of himself. 
His father only dug the blade farther into his chest, “She is a stranger whom you think you know. She doesn’t owe you anything. She is not going to be your free pass into having a life you don’t need to work for and she is not going to come sweep you off your feet to rescue you from your failing grades. You are twenty-one years old now, Lando, and it’s about time you start acting like a grown man and get your shit together before life runs you over.” 
Lando threw his napkin onto the table and stood up so quickly from his chair that the cutlery rattled on the table when he bumped against it, his throat burning from how he tried to swallow back his anger, muttering under his breath before he stormed off, “I can’t wait to get out of this fucking house.” 
His mother called after him warningly, “Don’t think that just because you’re twenty-one now doesn’t mean we can’t still ground you!” 
Lando took the stairs two at a time and when he turned the corner at the top of the stairs into his bedroom, he slammed the door behind him and locked it. It was a dangerous balance between anger and heartbreak and Lando paced his room while taking a few deep breaths to try and calm down. 
After the freedom that living in the dorms provided, it was hard to return to his house where his parents still ruled. Once he had that taste of independence - a taste of life with you - it was horribly difficult to fit himself back into the little bedroom in which he grew up and grew out of his small suburban town. He didn’t have a bad relationship with his family at all but the reintegration of him back into their house made tensions feel insufferable sometimes. His parents were always on him and he already wanted to escape.
Sitting down on the side of his double bed, Lando pulled out his phone and opened Instagram to send his frustrations to his group chat with his two closest friends. 
landonorris: I need to get the fuck out of this stupid house and get to Monaco like NOW landonorris: I’m gonna lose my fucking mind alex_albon: Oh no what happened  landonorris: My parents are on my arse about school and work and they don’t get it georgerussell63: Don’t get what? landonorris: That I already am on track to get the one thing I want and it’s not being a stupid accountant georgerussell63: You have us for that alex_albon: Yeah we’re always going to support your dreams mate landonorris: I just want HER landonorris: That’s all landonorris: And she promised me a job designing for her books landonorris: It’s going to be real landonorris: It has to be alex_albon: It will be alex_albon: It won’t happen overnight but it will be landonorris: I just want to get out of this house landonorris: It’s so fucking embarrassing living with my parents georgerussell63: Hey we all live with our parents georgerussell63: Are you saying Alex and I aren’t cool georgerussell63: Rude alex_albon: Yeah what the hell mate alex_albon: 🤨 landonorris: Noo it’s different landonorris: You guys aren’t trying to get a self-sufficient borderline famous Monaco woman landonorris: No one like her is going to want some muppet like me who lives at home with his parents  georgerussell63: She clearly does alex_albon: Besides, this is just a temporary stop until you find your own place alex_albon: You’re being resourceful…saving your money georgerussell63: Has she said anything recently? You haven’t told us much these last few days alex_albon: Do we even want to know what she’s been saying? 👀 landonorris: Nothing landonorris: That’s it landonorris: Nothing georgerussell63: Wdym?? landonorris: I messaged her the day I moved back home just to make casual conversation that I moved out of the dorms and she said something like ‘that's nice’ and then when I replied again she just left me on seen alex_albon: Oh georgerussell63: Why?? landonorris: Idfk but I’m stressing so bad over it landonorris: Like what if my parents are right and she just sees me as a fan and nothing more georgerussell63: She took your virginity mate I don’t think she’d be the kind of person to just drop you after that alex_albon: Maybe she’s busy with work. Isn’t she still on tour? landonorris: Her book tour ended yesterday. She should be home now alex_albon: So maybe give her a day or two? Maybe she needs some time to relax after traveling the entire continent of Europe landonorris: Idk landonorris: I miss her georgerussell63: Message her again landonorris: Idk I don’t want to be annoying  alex_albon: Ask for your virginity back landonorris: OMFG georgerussell63: Excuse me mommy can I have my virginity back 🥺🥺🥺🤲🏼🤲🏼🤲🏼 alex_albon: EW GEORGE landonorris: GOEREG STOP georgerussell63: HAHJJKKPFJFJG  georgerussell63: That’s one way to get her to answer you  alex_albon: No that’s how you get blocked landonorris: Lol funny you think I’m the sub tho landonorris: Anyways alex_albon: Pff georgerussell63: Oh yeah with all that experience you have alex_albon: OOF ROASTED landonorris: WOW landonorris: That one night was ENOUGH tbh landonorris: Jeeeezus georgerussell63: Ya those marks you had were fuckin brutal mate alex_albon: In the best way ofc landonorris: YEAH landonorris: I KNOW
Lando flopped backwards on his bed with a smile he struggled to bite back, his worries distracted by his internet friends and the mere memory that was your night together so many days before. 
landonorris: God I miss her so fucking much landonorris: How has it almost been a month georgerussell63: Back to celibacy for you georgerussell63: Rip landonorris: I actually hate it here alex_albon: Just message her  alex_albon: Just a ‘hey’ or something landonorris: Ew that’s cringe alex_albon: ??? How landonorris: Idk georgerussell63: Be like ‘hey how was the rest of your tour’ landonorris: Make me sound any more like a grandma 🙄 alex_albon: Mate georgerussell63: Or tell her you miss her georgerussell63: Girls like that kinda thing alex_albon: Like you would know what girls like 🤨 georgerussell63: 🖕🏼🖕🏼 alex_albon: ‘Hey I’ve been thinking about our night 😏’ landonorris: Brooo landonorris: I wanna sext with her so bad georgerussell63: 😂😂 alex_albon: Oh but just ‘hey’ is cringe okay landonorris: Maybe I’ll send that landonorris: Idk landonorris: Should I? landonorris: Is it too much? landonorris: After being left on seen for two days idk georgerussell63: Go for it georgerussell63: She literally let you come inside her georgerussell63: I think this is nothing compared to that alex_albon: An odd comparison but a valid one there, GR georgerussell63: Hey thanks mate landonorris: Should I?? georgerussell63: Yeah it’s just reminding her that she’s on your mind which is a good thing alex_albon: And it’s not too hot and heavy right off the bat alex_albon: If she responds with something flirty back then who knows landonorris: Or she’ll leave me on seen again and I’ll have to die of embarrassment  georgerussell63: Omg alex_albon: Nah she won’t. Send it georgerussell63: Right now
Lando exhaled deeply and sat up again on the side of his bed as he exited the group chat to find his dm thread with you. It wasn’t too far down on his list since he didn’t talk to many people other than Alex and George and when he opened it up, the little grey ‘seen’ nearly slapped him across the face. He pursed his lips in thought and let his thumbs wave over the keyboard, debating what to say. 
He finally drafted something quickly,
Hey…been thinking about our night recently 
He screenshotted it before he sent it and then shared the image to his group chat. 
landonorris: *sent a screenshot*  landonorris: Is this fine? georgerussell63: Add an emoji alex_albon: Yeah maybe a heart or something
Lando swiped back to his thread with you and added a heart to the end,
Hey…been thinking about our night recently 🧡
He sent that screenshot to the group chat.
landonorris: *sent a screenshot*  landonorris: Maybe? alex_albon: Yes I think that’s good georgerussell63: Yesss now send it landonorris: Ahh idk is that too annoying?  georgerussell63: Blimey mate why are you suddenly all flustered like a teenage girl lol georgerussell63: You’ve literally already slept with her georgerussell63: The hard part is over alex_albon: ^^^ alex_albon: Send it alex_albon: Sendddd it georgerussell63: Send it!!!!
Lando sighed and sat up on his bed again as he exited out of the group chat and opened his thread with you once more. The notifications from his internet friends kept popping up at the top of the screen in silent encouraging cyber chants to get him to send the message. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous exactly. Maybe he had spent too much time dreaming about you that he didn’t want to let one measly message fuck up his one fleeting chance at having you. 
His thumb hesitated over the send button for a moment, debating and overthinking. He got up and paced his room a little, staring at the unsent message and going through every possible situation in his head like it was the last decision he would ever make. With a slightly dramatic huff, he closed his eyes and tapped the send button hurriedly. 
He exited the chat and opened his group chat in a panic.
landonorris: OKAY I SENT IT landonorris: AHHH landonorris: Gonna throw my phone out the window now georgerussell63: GOOD JOB alex_albon: YES georgerussell63: Now we wait 😌 landonorris: For a miracle  georgerussell63: You already had your miracle georgerussell63: That was your night together alex_albon: She’s going to answer Lan dw
Lando didn’t leave his room all night because the concept of facing his family after his slightly immature and dramatic blow up over their inability to see his side of things felt like the worst idea ever. Instead, he dabbled with a few new doodles in his notebook that were infused with thoughts of you and when that got boring, he turned to one of your books for his usual go-to entertainment. His friends were busy with their families and it wouldn’t be until they were ready to sleep that they would reconnect. 
Because of their lack of conversation that evening, Lando was trying to do everything in his power to keep his mind away from his sent message to you. The one that you still hadn’t replied to. The more time that passed the more anxious he got until he had no choice but to dive into your fictional universes as some sort of escape, his phone hiding under his pillow and out of sight. 
His eyes were glued to the page and every carefully printed word as what always happened when he opened one of your novels. The steamy scene in front of him had his hands clutching the hardcover book tightly, spread out comfortably on his bed, and your honest words only brought him back to his own very real recollection of your magical night that you shared almost a month prior. The chapter ended before the scene got too far and Lando huffed and shut the book and tossed it onto his night stand, letting his head rest back against his headboard so he was staring up at the ceiling. 
By that point in the night, it was dark outside and his room was illuminated by only the light of his bedside lamp. He had heard his siblings heading to their own rooms over the prior few hours and eventually heard his parents head to bed too. No one bothered him; probably not wanting to push his buttons with any wrong move. Things would smooth over by morning. 
But Lando didn’t feel at ease at all and it was solely due to the fact that he was scared to death that you were ignoring him. He could only pray that his one message didn’t ruin all that he had dreamt of. 
When the city of Bristol passed into 9pm, Lando checked his phone one last time. Only a few messages from his group chat were waiting for his response. Nothing from you. 
alex_albon: Ok finally done the movie alex_albon: My family wanted to analyze the whole damn thing alex_albon: My sister doesn’t know a thing I stg georgerussell63: Omg we just finished too georgerussell63: I totally demolished my nephew on F1 2021 ngl alex_albon: Ayy the kid didn’t stand a chance alex_albon: Who’d you play as? georgerussell63: Max Verstappen alex_albon: Hell ya les gooo georgerussell63: Did you hear people say he be might be world champion this year?? alex_albon: And beat out Lewis?? Idk… georgerussell63: If my parents had actually let me kart and I made it to F1 I bet I’d be able to beat out Lewis lol imagine alex_albon: Kinky georgerussell63: Ew???? landonorris: George you’d get like 15 points MAXIMUM georgerussell63: That’s so rude alex_albon: Omg Lan hi alex_albon: Did she answer?? landonorris: Nopeee landonorris: I’m gonna kms 😀 georgerussell63: Nooo! georgerussell63: Give her time alex_albon: It’s only been like alex_albon: Three hours… landonorris: Ugh alex_albon: But I gotta sleep  landonorris: Ughhhh georgerussell63: Same georgerussell63: I’m helping my dad run some errands tomorrow so we have to be up early for whatever reason alex_albon: Damn I just have to sleep because I’m tired alex_albon: I’m literally doing nothing tomorrow georgerussell63: Your usual landonorris: Lol alex_albon: Lando you’re so dry its weirding me out landonorris: Sorry landonorris: 🧡 landonorris: Love u mate landonorris: Sleep well alex_albon: Thanks mate alex_albon: Praying that you get a reply by morning georgerussell63: Me too! alex_albon: Love yall georgerussell63: Love u ♥️
Lando locked his phone and tossed it onto his bedsheets, deciding to get himself a snack since he didn’t finish his dinner. It would be at least something to take his mind off his worries. With his family already in their rooms, he could navigate his house without interruption and he tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen silently. 
Glass of water and a handful of chocolate chip cookies in hand, Lando returned to his room and shut the door behind him. One cookie resting between his lips and his hands full with the rest of the stack and his drink, he headed over to his bed once more. His phone screen lit up just as he approached and the notification that was greeting him had the half bitten cookie falling out of his mouth and onto his bedsheets. 
He hurriedly set the glass of water and discarded cookies on his night stand, brushing the crumbs out of his bed as he sat down and re-read the Instagram notification from you. 
-Hey you 💕 I’ve been thinking about it too
Lando unlocked his phone and let his thumbs word a response for him without letting himself overthink it,
landonorris: Was wondering if you forgot about it! Haven’t heard from you in a bit
His message was delivered and opened right away, meaning you were waiting for his response in the chat. That fact had him biting back his bashful smile, but his nervousness still lingered over what your answer was going to be. This could have been the moment you would shut him down for good. 
-Omg never! -Tour ended yesterday and the flight from Miami was crazy…delayed…they lost my luggage…and then after a hefty sleep last night I’ve spent today picking up my retrieved bags and then unpacking and I was just at lunch with my friends
Lando let out an audible sigh in relief,
 landonorris: That’s okay  landonorris: Good to be home? -Very -Tour was fucking incredible but this break is going to be nice  landonorris: Yeah for sure -Did you really think I forgot about you just like that?  landonorris: No I just wanted to make sure you were okay  landonorris: It’s been a few days -You’re a sweetheart -I’m just fine  landonorris: I’m glad 🧡 -But tell me… -What had you wanting to remind me about our night?  landonorris: Nothing in particular  landonorris: Was just missing you a little -A little?  landonorris: …Yes -Mhmm -Well you may keep your pride here all you want but I won’t be afraid to admit that I missed you quite a lot  landonorris: Oh really?  landonorris: You?  landonorris: Miss Monte Carlo? -Oh please -I’m the least Monaco that Monaco can get -And we had something special that night -I don’t throw that around lightly  landonorris: Yeah…  landonorris: Okay…  landonorris: You got me  landonorris: I miss you a lot  -The truth comes out 😌  landonorris: I’ve been re-reading your novels because I miss you :) -Omg really 🥺🥺 -Which?  landonorris: Second novel…chapter eight… -I see 👀 -So that’s what had you thinking about our night 
Lando slouched back against his headboard with a blushing grin that he hid in the material of the collar of his forest green hoodie. He contemplated his response but saw that you were already typing so he waited. 
-Which part were you thinking of most?
His teeth sunk into his bottom lip carefully with what you were smoothly instigating and his mind rushed back to each piece of your night together that had thrived in his memory ever since. He didn’t know how strong to start off so he played it cool,
 landonorris: All of it  landonorris: Kissing in the elevator  landonorris: And in the hotel room -Just kissing?  landonorris: Well you’re an incredible kisser  landonorris: And I fucking loved kissing you -I loved kissing you too -Your lips are so soft  -And your hands on my body felt so good -I miss that a lot -The way you grabbed me  landonorris: I should have done more of that -That’s okay -Next time 🥰
Lando had to toss his phone onto his bed for a second so he could roll over and scream into his pillow out of sheer lustful glee. He was so smitten for you and all his worries were completely erased by the simple reassurance from you that you had been thinking about doing it all again. 
 landonorris: For sure  landonorris: When and where -Sometime this summer maybe -But we can plan later -I want to hear more about what you miss about me first  landonorris: Okay 🧡  landonorris: I miss your body  landonorris: And the way it felt under my hands  landonorris: Your hips…your ass…your tits…  landonorris: So fucking perfect -I swear you’d be so good at body worship  landonorris: Fuck baby I’d gladly worship you anyday -Yeah? 🥰 -How?  landonorris: I want to take your clothes off and kiss over every inch of your body   landonorris: Just breathe you in  landonorris: Trail every curve with my lips or my finger just so every part of you has been touched by me -That sounds so good -And then?  landonorris: You sure you wanna know? -Tell me everything -Don’t hold back  landonorris: I want to spread your legs and taste you -Oh my God  landonorris: Is that okay? -Yeah lol I’m sorry that just made my pussy throb  landonorris: Jesus  landonorris: Did it?? -Yess -I’m an author, words speak wonders to me  landonorris: No pressure lol -Never any pressure with me baby -Tell me more -Just spill your thoughts here  landonorris: I just wanna know what you taste like because I didn’t get to last time  landonorris: You might have to guide me -That’s okay baby -I can lace my fingers in your pretty brown hair and show you where I need you  landonorris: Fuck yes please  -So I can feel your warm tongue all over my pussy -Inside me -On my clit -Feeling you so fucking close  landonorris: I’d kill for your legs over my shoulders right now  landonorris: I really really really want you to show me how to eat you out  landonorris: Making you come on my mouth would be so fucking hot -Yes sir
Lando’s mouth literally fell open in shock, his heart racing in his chest at how quickly this conversation turned exactly to how he had imagined it in his most salacious dreams.
 landonorris: And I fucking loved hearing the way you called me sir  landonorris: That fucking did it for me baby -It was your idea and it was a genius one -It got me off too -Honestly I catch myself moaning out that title when I make myself cum now  landonorris: You think of me? -Yeah I think of you when I touch myself  -Every time  landonorris: Often? -Couple times a week -And right now
Lando blinked at his phone screen in disbelief, trying to picture you in your pricey Monaco apartment and warm in your bed in limited clothing and touching yourself while you spoke with him. His dick twitched in his sweats and he dropped a hand down to palm himself lazily over his growing erection. You sent another message,
-Do you think of me?  landonorris: Always have  landonorris: Only ever you -You’re so fucking cute -God I miss you  landonorris: I’m getting hardddd lol -Good hehe -Are you touching yourself too?  landonorris: Do you want me to? -That’s for you to decide sir -Do you want me to help make you cum?   landonorris: Fuck yes -Okay then strip down and keep talking to me  landonorris: Ok gimme a sec
Lando tossed his phone to the side so he could hurry to push down his pants and boxers in one go, letting them drop to the floor carelessly. His sweater joined the pile, leaving him slouched back against his pillows and the headboard in the warm light of his bedside lamp, his legs spread just slightly. He returned to your conversation, 
 landonorris: Okay  landonorris: What else do you want to know? -Talk to me more about eating me out -Have you thought about it a lot?  landonorris: Yeah baby  landonorris: I dream about it too sometimes  landonorris: I can still hear your gorgeous little whimpers and the way you moan my name and I just want to feel you grinding up against my face and helping me to make you feel so good  landonorris: But I really wanna know how you taste -Want me to describe it?  landonorris: Yes -It’s sweet -But not like candy -It’s more of a warm kind of flavour that tastes salacious -And it drips everywhere and soaks everything -It would get all over your mouth and your chin  landonorris: Fuck  landonorris: I want that  landonorris: And I want to wrap my arms around your thighs so you can’t get away from me and I can feel all of you all over me, just covering me in your wetness  -It’s all for you sir -I’d link my ankles around your shoulders to keep you there too  landonorris: Hands pulling at my hair -Yes please  landonorris: Show me how you want me to touch you  landonorris: Pull me to where you need me -Suck on my clit  landonorris: Whatever you need baby  landonorris: Can I finger you too?  -At the same time pleaseeee  landonorris: I can do that landonorris: My mouth on your clit and two fingers inside you  -Fuck that’d make me moan so loud -Just the idea of your fingers flicking inside me is making my legs shake -I need it  landonorris: How fast? -Slow. I want to make it last  landonorris: Of course  landonorris: And if you’re a good girl for me I’ll let you cum twice -Fuck how can I be your good girl sir  landonorris: Let me have my way with you  landonorris: And show me how good I make you feel with your sweet moans and the way you cry my name  landonorris: You’re so fucking sexy I won’t want to stop -Yes I wanna cum for you -Can I sir  landonorris: I’ll always let you cum baby  landonorris: Just licking and sucking at your pussy with my fingers so fucking deep inside you  landonorris: I bet you taste so fucking good  landonorris: Soaking my face and my hand and the sheets  landonorris: God I’m so fucking hard
Lando glanced down his naked body draped back against his bed to where his dick was resting against his abdomen, already swollen hard and aching for touch. You were taking a bit of time to reply so he reached down to gently rub the tip of his finger up and down along the underside of his cock, watching how his gentle touch made it tense and flinch. He turned back to his phone,
 landonorris: Hello? -Sorry I just had to finish myself off lol  landonorris: Oh-  landonorris: Like right now? -Yeah, you said I could  landonorris: You listened to me? -Yeah?
Lando swelled with pride at that concept,
 landonorris: Good girl  landonorris: Did it feel good? -Would have been better if you were physically here -But yes -It felt really good -Moaned your name when I came too  landonorris: That’s so fucking hot -Now I wanna do more -How do you want to cum?  landonorris: Inside you -Again?  -Dirty boy -I like it -Would you want me to ride you?  landonorris: No I want to fuck you myself  -Go on…  landonorris: Keep you on your back and push your legs open as wide as you can get them and just hold your hips while I push my cock inside your soaking wet pussy -Oh my god I miss that baby -I miss your dick so bad
He was letting lust take over in his messages, typing with one hand as quickly as he could while his other lazily stroked his dick in careful motions. 
 landonorris: Nothing compares to how you feel around me  landonorris: You’re just so fucking warm…so wet -I’m soaked for you -You’d slip in so easy right now  landonorris: Jesus  landonorris: I wish I could see your face when I’m inside you  landonorris: Your pretty eyes just fucking rolling -God you’re so big too what’d you expect  -I’d be fucking drooling for it -I wanna beg for it…have you tease me so fucking slowly until I’m nearly sobbing for you to fuck me harder  landonorris: Will you scratch up my back again for it baby? -I’d do anything you want for your dick
Lando mouthed a swear word to his phone screen, tearing his eyes away for a moment just to look down at his fist wrapped around his cock, the one that you were so persistently fantasizing about in the next state over. His hand was useless compared to how your pussy felt and after he had that glimpse of heaven, it was difficult to go without. Your words certainly helped, even only through messages, and he stroked himself a bit faster.
 landonorris: I’m so hard for you baby  landonorris: I seriously need to fuck you  landonorris: I want to give you all you want and more -Can you take me from the back  landonorris: Yes  landonorris: Whatever you want -What a pleasure dom -You’re such a gentleman  landonorris: Lol just want you to feel good  -I can roll over for you and grind my ass back against your cock until you push it back inside me -You’d get so fucking deep that way -I’m already moaning just dreaming about it  landonorris: Then I can hold onto your hips and fuck you like that -Yes pleaseee  landonorris: Fuck -Can I send a pic?   landonorris: Yes -Ok but no screenshots  landonorris: Promise -*you sent an image*
Lando opened the picture with furrowed brows in intense interest as to what he was about to see. On his screen was the most glorious picture of you he had ever seen, the way you looked on your knees on your bed, fully naked, bent over at the waist so your phone captured your curves in the full-length mirror beside your bed. Lando’s eyes were wide as he soaked you in, licking his lips, and tried to memorize each pixel to keep in his mind forever. He let his lust speak for him in reply,
 landonorris: Fucking hell baby  landonorris: You’re so fucking hot  landonorris: I want to slap that ass so bad  landonorris: Grab those hips  landonorris: Fucking pound you until your gripping the sheets -This pussy is yours sir -My whole body is only yours  landonorris: Do you want a pic of me? -Only if you’re comfortable sending
Lando had never tried before since talking to girls - yet alone engaging in sending nudes - was quite few and far between for him. But he wanted to impress you and the way you tended to gawk over his body made him feel really good and made him hungry for more. He lifted his phone camera up and angled it towards his bare body, staring at himself in the screen as he reached his other hand down to keep a secure hand around his dick, drawing attention right to it. Only slightly self conscious, Lando hesitated for a beat before sending it to you before he could overthink yet another thing. 
He waited while you opened his image and he nibbled at his bottom lip anxiously when you typing bubble popped up in the bottom left of his screen,
-Fuck I think I forgot how big your dick is -You’re stunning -Every inch of you -Holy shit -I want you inside me so fucking bad right now  landonorris: Me too  landonorris: My hand is not the same -I have my vibrator on my clit and my pussy is fucking pulsing for you. It’s just so empty…  landonorris: Jesus fuck  landonorris: I’d fill you up baby -God I know you would -So well too  landonorris: Fuck you until your bed is shaking -Yes sir I want it rough  landonorris: Then you should beg for it -I will -I’ll gladly beg for your cock  -Cry for you to beat this pussy up, spank me, manhandle me -Whatever you want I can take -Fuck me like your own little whore
Lando could hardly formulate a response as the speed at which his hand was pumping his cock had him drawing dangerously close to that sweet pleasurably precipice that anything else seemed like too much of a distraction. He held his phone tightly in his left hand, the messaging thread still open, as his legs laid spread on his bed and his right hand stroked himself off in quick messy motions. 
“Oh my God.” he groaned quietly through his teeth, letting his mind whirl with his memories from your night together and his fantasies of wishing you were with him at that moment. Those thoughts weren’t odd for when he got himself off but this time it was different because even from a timezone away, you were still helping him along. 
-I’m so fucking wet its dripping down my thighs -It’s making the nastiest sounds that would only be so much better if your cock was pounding me from behind
Lando’s hand gripped his phone tighter, eyes focused unwaveringly from your little profile picture and the words you sent just for him to read, a little saucy narrative of your own lust made just for him. He shakily spelt out his encouragement to remind you that he was still there and still so painfully close. 
 landonorris: Keep going -You’re gonna cum aren’t you baby -Thinking about my pussy is gonna make you cum so fucking hard isn’t it? -Letting you fuck me…pound your big dick into me as deep as it can go until I crying for it -Making my fucking legs shake while I scream your name into the bed sheets
Lando read each of your messages so carefully, taking in your every word and transferring it right to the pictures in his mind as a light sweat dusted across his brow. He bit his lip to try and keep himself quiet, smothering his whimpers and groans from his oblivious sleeping family members through the walls. His dick was leaking, trailing precum down the length of it and down to his balls, only slicking up his hand in it to help him pull easier strokes faster and tighter, trying to replicate the feeling of your body the best he was able to. 
-Give it to me sir -Please -I miss you so bad
Lando felt as if he were tingling and he naturally thrusted up into his hand a little, whimpering quietly, dizzy on the fast rising pleasure and the warmth it spread over his body. 
-Send a voice memo of you coming if you’re comfortable baby -Please -I really wanna hear you cum  -I really wanna hear the way you sound when you imagine coming so deep inside me
Lando was already so close that he didn’t even think about it before pressing and holding his thumb down on the audio record button, allowing his phone to capture his every breath and every sound as he finally came for you. He wanted to come inside you so badly that he nearly cried for it, being stuck with only his own touch to work him through his orgasm. His hand stuttered around his dick as the first shot of cum spurted out and fell onto his pelvis, matching the whimpering little gasps that he let out for you in steady waves. 
And he of course moaned your name breathily as he always did, letting his eyes close and his head tilt back to welcome the pleasure that overcame him. He could almost feel you right there and he was desperate to reach out and hold you down on him, aching to give you his everything right then and there. When his thumb lifted from the screen, his recording sent right to you and he watched it immediately turn to “seen” as he kept a tight cum-streaked hand around the base of his throbbing sensitive cock. 
Lando’s chest heaved as he struggled to steady his breathing, his wide blue eyes peering down at the creamy white mess that streaked his hand, his dick, and dotted across his stomach and pelvis. He looked back to your chat as you sent your reply,
-Fuck Lando that was so hot -Oh my God -The way my name sounds when you moan it makes me fucking drip  -You sound so pretty  landonorris: Your words do things to me too  landonorris: Felt so fucking good  landonorris: Wish you were here too though -Me too  landonorris: Did you come again yet? -Yeah lol I got myself off to your audio -It was hard not to  landonorris: And you didn’t record it for me in return?? -Next time 😉  landonorris: Next time you better be with me for real  landonorris: None of this texting shit -Yes sir -I agree -Really miss the feeling of you coming inside me  landonorris: Fuck, me too  landonorris: You’ll have to take plan b again  landonorris: Right? -Of course -But that’s worth it  landonorris: You’re incredible and I honestly can’t believe my luck that I can talk to you like this…have you like this -You’re a sweetheart -I feel the exact same way 💕  landonorris: Wish I could cuddle you right now -Me too 🥺 -And kiss you
Lando reached over to his bedside table and grabbed a tissue to clean himself up, giving him a second to absolutely grin to himself. Oh how he missed you in his arms…the post-orgasm drop off was turning lust into longing quickly. He wiped up the streaks of cum from his body and his hand and disposed of the tissue in the garbage bin beside his bed before returning to your few additional messages as he turned over in bed to cuddle up tiredly. 
-I slept so well with you that night I really miss that -Didn’t know I’d be missing you so much but that week after just had my mind clouded with you and every day since has been filled with wondering when we can see each other next -You’ve really somehow wiggled yourself into my heart and soul Lando Norris and idk how you managed that
It took Lando all of his self control to not tell you he loves you right then and there. He had known you for much longer than you knew him…he had to take it slowly. He had always been hesitant in facing where he stood with you but at that moment, reading your little confession, it just felt like everything was falling into place. 
 landonorris: You’re always the only thing I think about  landonorris: And I am so grateful for you for many reasons I wouldn’t even know where to start if you asked me to -Taking your virginity? 😜  landonorris: LOL yes that especially   landonorris: No one else I would have wanted it to be -I gotta say, you’re certainly not shy over text -Your confidence is sexy -Makes me want to submit to you so bad  landonorris: Donttttt say that or I’ll get hard again -LOL SORRY  landonorris: Tell me more next time 🫣  landonorris: Although I’m probably going to be so shy when we see each other in person again  landonorris: You tend to make me nervous lol -I make you nervous??  landonorris: Yesss you’re my dream girl  landonorris: Ofc you make me all nervous and shy  landonorris: And you make my heart go !!!! -You’re adorable I wanna kiss the fuck outta you so bad rn  landonorris: 🥰🧡 -Gotta get you to Monaco -Gotta get you in my bed  landonorris: Please  landonorris: I literally need that right now -I know you have another term after break but then what’s your summer looking like -Work?
Part of him didn’t want to tell the truth as to what his pathetic summer was looking like but he trust you and you were never one to judge,
 landonorris: Nope  landonorris: No job and living back at my parents place  landonorris: It’s been three days of only winter break and I’m going fucking insane I need to get out of here -Oh my -Would you want an internship or something with my team? Idk if its possible but I can see if I can pull some strings…get you a little summer position at least  landonorris: Oh my god baby I’d love that -Haha okay lover 💕 let me see what I can come up with for you -We’re gonna get you out of this low  landonorris: God I miss you so much  landonorris: You’re fucking incredible  -Anything for you 😘  landonorris: 😘😘 -I’m still pretty jet lagged so I might head to sleep now  landonorris: Ok gorgeous   landonorris: This was fun :)  -Hehe it really was -If we can’t wait until we see each other in person then maybe we should try a phone call next time  landonorris: Fuck I’d say yes except these walls are super thin and I don’t want my parents and siblings to hear every detail about how I want to bend you over your desk and fuck the shit outta you -Fuck offfjffjjfjfjf oh my gosh  landonorris: What?? -You’re making me blush go away 😂  landonorris: 😜 -I seriouslyyyy gotta sleep  landonorris: Yes you do  landonorris: Sleep well baby -You too 💕 I’m gonna imagine you’re cuddling me the whole time  landonorris: Wish I could 🧡🧡 -💕💕
Lando laid there for a little bit, just staring at your little pink hearts with a lovesick grin on his face, still giving his heart a chance to calm down after the events of the previous hour. He scrolled back up your conversation and screenshotted the last little bit of your saucy conversation, starting from his audio recording attachment down to your shared conclusions and then he scrolled back down to your promise of a job. The two most important things to share with his best friends for when they woke up. 
 landonorris: *sent a screenshot*  landonorris: Just made her cum twice over text so anyway how's your nights going 😌  landonorris: *sent a screenshot*   landonorris: And she’s going to help me get the fuck outta this place   landonorris: Get you a girl that can do both  landonorris: I love her so much  landonorris: I can’t wait for the day I can tell her that  landonorris: Good night guys  landonorris: Talk tomorrow 🧡
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cheriladycl01 · 2 months
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Hiiii could you write about Carlos Sainz that he has a secret relationship with an Arab Muslim girl (she doesn't wear hijab) 24 years old, Y/N and Carlos' little sister her friend because they go to the same university from Madrid and Carlos always bothered her, he was always around Y/N whenever she was talking with a boy Carlos made them run away and that's how they became a couple but secretly it was due to Y/N's religion and Carlos likes to annoy her by teasing her face to face or sharing a message by pinching her side because she is ticklish and she also annoys him.
Thanks youu 💖
Romeo to my Juliet - Carlos x Reader
Plot: After studying at the University of Madrid, and making friends with Blanca Sainz you were constantly around her older brother Carlos who was … obviously obsessed with you!
A/N: Ive done research before writing this on Muslim culture and struggles, however I am not a person of colour, and do not want to cause any offence when writing this! Also the wording of this request did confuse me a little bit so I’m hoping I’ve got everything that you’ve wanted in here!
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Carlos and you were two people you wouldn’t pin together. You were quiet and reserved whilst he was loud and expressive. You were shy, whilst he was confident. But it was those differences that actually made you the perfect pair.
Being in a secret relationship with the Carlos Sainz wasn’t easy, and neither is the story that came with it.
It started when you first applied to university. You got into the University of Madrid and your parents couldn’t be more happy as your father had work in Spain taken from the Middle East, so it wasn’t a difficult family move.
You were a very stylish girl despite being shy and with your outfits it wasn’t hard to catch the eyes on campus. And that was how you met Blanca Sainz.
It was a colder day in Madrid, around November and you were in one of your favourite winter time outfits that’s kept you warm and cozy, still not completely used to the cold winters Europe have compared to the Middle East.
You had this Burberry scarf on, a gift from you father and a gust of win caught you, immediately your hands grabbed for your skirt leaving your scarf to fly off from around your neck.
“Oh my gosh” you gasp as you tried to reach out for it but it just flew off into the distance. You started to run after it, until you saw it hit a girl and practically strangle her.
“I’m so so so sorry! The wind … and it just … and oh my gosh I’m so sorry, it hit you!” You gasp at the girl who looks over you before laughing.
“It’s … a scarf I’m fine” she giggled.
That day you guys got coffee on campus before getting to know each other and you’d been fast friends since.
It wasn’t until the end of your second year in university, your mum and dad had moved back home to the Middle East. And you didn’t know what to do about summer break.
Blanca actually invited you to her family trip to Mallorca and to stay with her in her family home.
You felt bad, so you suggest the first few weeks are spent in your family home in Dubai. And she definitely didn’t want to turn that down.
So of course you guys spent the summer, tanning, in your pool playing games with your mum and dad when they were free and going to get ice cream.
“Your house is insane, what the hell does your mum and dad do!” She asked looking around the 6 bedroom Villa your family owned.
“I don’t actually know, but he’s a business owner of some sort” you giggle, always too bored to listen to your father explain his career.
“There’s an aquarium in your kitchen island …” she points at it, mouth open wide.
“Yeah, excessive i know but my dad adores his fish”
“And your house it on the beach! AND there’s a pool? I don’t even know if I want to see the garage!” She exclaims.
“Mmmmmm yeah my dads also a car collector. He actually left some in Spain in the house there” you offer.
“Your like so humble though! I - WHAT?” She asks in shock and you just laugh her off.
You guys definitely enjoyed your time in Dubai and your parents loved her, she was invited back for the Christmas holidays too.
Then when you got to Spain you met the rest of her family.
“Mum dad, this is my friend Y/N” Blanca offers as you enter the home which was a beautiful Spanish Villa.
“Ah Y/N we’ve heard so much about you from Blanca when she calls” her mother smiles. Ana comes running down the stairs immediately pulling her sister into a hug.
“Ah you must be Y/N? Yes, you are gorgeous! Where are you from!” She grins pulling you into an unexpected hug.
“I’m from Dubai!” You smile and that night guy guys all get to know one another through board games.
It got to just after sunset when you realised that it was time to pray for Maghrib. You calmly excused yourself from the family. Blanca at this point knew when you had to pray and was always very respectful and actually intrigued at the way it all worked. She would be with you on campus in the pray room, or in a random corner of a cafe you guys were studying in and offer you her coat to kneel on if you didn’t have one.
She was the sweetest and most understanding friend you’d ever had.
However, this was the time you met her older brother Carlos. You were just finishing up, in Blancas bedroom when someone came into the room.
“Sorry Blanca, I didn’t mean to be long if I was!” You smile turning round only to see a confused man behind you.
“Erm sorry can I help you?” You ask and he still stands there with his big brown chocolate eyes just staring at you.
“A-sorry you must be, Y/N right? Blanca’s friend that she brought home?” He questions and you nod standing up, reaching out to shake his hand.
He looks down at it smirking before lifting it up and placing a gentle kiss on the edge making you gasp and go wide eyed.
“Well, welcome to the Sainz household. Are you excited about Mallorca?” He smiles and you nod, of course you were, you’d be waiting all summer for it.
And it was an unforgettable summer.
Carlos was ALWAYS around. He was like this little lost puppy and the only time you don’t think he was around was when you showered or slept. He bothered you the whole summer, interrupting you and Blanca when you were trying to tan, or would splash you in the pool when you were lounging on a lilo. He was a menace, but there was a certain type of endearment to it.
He was also insanely protective over you. Whenever you all would go out to bars or restaurants or clubs, you got a lot of male attention, which to Carlos wasn’t surprising.
You were the most beautiful person he thinks he’s ever seen, and he wants you all for himself.
“Hey Bonita, why don’t you come downtown with me, and I’ll show you a good time?” A random guy from the island had said to you in a club.
“I’m fine thank you, I’m here with friends” you smile pointing behind you to the table where Carlos Blanca and Ana are sat.
“I’m sure they won’t mind, come on. ¡Vive un poco!” He exclaims looking over you.
“She said she was fine, and I would mind” Carlos said in a gruff voice coming to stand behind you and hand on your shoulder.
The guy swiftly left, seeing who it was. You’d gotten used to the fact that Carlos would be noticed in public, you tried to stay out of it as much as possible. Whenever a fan came over you’d practically glue yourself to Blanca’s side.
But all the guys that came talking to you Carlos had them running away for one reason or another. Whether it was just him, being Carlos Sainz, or the look he gave them or what he whispered to them when you couldn’t here. They always left.
That was how Carlos and you ended up together. You were a modern day Romeo and Juliet. You knew your parents wouldn’t approve of the Spanish race car driver, just based on all the tabloid articles about him.
“We should leave” he said in a huff, he was always like this and a lot of the times that you left was because of Carlos’ changed mood.
“But we didn’t get here long ago!” You offer and he huffs again, getting more frustrated.
“Just, let’s just go home!” He says again, not touching you but giving you a look as if to say, I will drag you out of here.
“We need to get Blanca and Ana, we can’t leave them!” You say as you start to look around the club for the two girls, hoping they would protest to Carlos wanting to get you to leave.
“They’ll be fine, let’s just go. They are pretty preoccupied anyway” he nods towards them with their boyfriends and how they are dancing.
Next thing you know Carlos was dragging you home, poking at your side saying how you broke your good girl demeanour just to leave the club with him.
“I was in a club, I can’t be that good of a girl” you tease him back and he looks over at you with a sparkle in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t even there and it was just from the street lights, but he looked so happy and content in this moment that you couldn’t help but stare.
After this summer, you and Carlos hide your relationship from everyone, you hated hiding it from Blanca the most as he would often come find you in Madrid after race weekends to keep you company.
And don’t even start about him at family venues. Despite Carlos wanting to keep the relationship as secret as you did because of the media, and your parents, he wasn’t very good at keeping his gestures subtle.
“Carlos, I haven’t seen you for a while. And whose this, a girlfriend?” One of his aunts comes over seeing you together chatting at a family reunion his mother had hosted after his race win.
He pinched your side teasingly as if to say that you guys must look good together. And as you look up at his face you can see that.
“No this is Y/N Blanca’s friend from university” he offers keeping up with the secret. And your look down smiling to yourself. It was fun in a way keeping up a little white lie that you were with Carlos.
“Shame, she’s a dime and you two would look great together” she winks before fluttering off elsewhere in the house.
“See someone else who thinks we look great together” Carlos says leaning down to meet your eye level making you blush.
“Carlos leave Y/N alone, you tease the poor girl enough you’ll give her a heart attack one day. Come on sweetie” his mother guides you away, you turn round to catch Carlos’ eye before poking your tongue out in a childish manner.
He shakes his head with a slight chuckles as he watches his mum pull you away to a different crowd of people and introduces you.
When you and Carlos would admit your relationship was unknown, but you knew you’d never been happier than you were with Carlos Sainz Jr.
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nightmare-niko · 9 months
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Welcome Home [Childhoodbestfriend!Coryo x reader]
Warnings: TBOSAS spoilers, angst, two idiots in love, too cute for your own good tbh, no use of Y/n
A/n: Im still getting back in the swing of fanfic writing but if you have any other characters from The Hunger Games universe you want me to write for just lmk!!!!
Copying or translating my writing is not allowed. If you see my work on another site it is stolen. Reblogs are appreciated and encouraged.
Childhoodbestfriend!coryo who searches for your face in the crowded train station, and when he finally sees you, his knees almost gave in.
The two of you didn’t leave off on the best of terms (he blew you off the second he met Lucy Gray) and Coriolanus didn’t think you’d show up to welcome him home.
But there you were.
There in the crowd you stood, nervously playing with the end of your hair just like you always did. You looked through the sea of faces for your best friend, at first you couldn’t see him. Perhaps you missed him? Surely not… But then, there he was. Coriolanus Snow, Your Coryo.
Before you could register what was happening you were barreling towards him. Engulfing him in a bone crushing hug that he doesn’t hesitate to return.
“Oh Coryo!” You exclaim, pulling back from the hug to get a better look at him. “Oh my goodness! Your hair! What did they do to your hair? You’re bald!” You rub your hands in his head, savoring the strange new sensation.
He laughs gently, taking your wrists in his hands and holding them close. “I am not bald! it’ll grow back before you even realize, a swear.” He pauses for a moment, staring deeply into your eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you more than you can know, Coryo”
“I’m sure i missed you more,” he paused again. “Where’s Tigris?”
“Don’t worry, she’s at work, she wishes she could be here but you know how her boss is.” Coryo hums in acknowledgment, “and I talked to grandma’am earlier today and she gave me strict instructions to keep you away from your house tonight.” You take his hand and start walking your way through the platform.
“What? Why?” The grip on your hand tight, as if he’s scared to lose you.
“Oh she wouldn’t tell me, she knew I was just gonna end up telling you anyway.” Your arms brush together as you walk, to anyone else, the two of you look like the loveliest couple. “But that just means you get to spend your first day back your favorite person!”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way~”
“Are you sure your parents are going to be okay with me staying over?" Your parents were never the biggest fan of Coriolanus Snow, they werent fans of the Snow family at all, and when they saw him on to with that District girl they deemed him no good.
"Oh they moved out, I have the place all to myself,” as you approach us your penthouse door you pat at your pockets for the key. "I Prepared the spare room for you for. When you come over, even though you always insist on taking up my whole bed...”
"Your bed is just the most comfortable bed, ever." He raises his hands in defeate. "Your bed is big enough for the both of us."
“It’s only big enough when you sleep normally which you never do. Ever,” the two of laugh as you enter your home.
When he walks through the door of your lavish capitol penthouse, he couldn’t stop himself from crying. The house didnt look the same from when he was last here. When he was last in your penthouse, it was right after his and Clemensia Dovecoats run in with Dr. Gaul. The once colourless decor of your house was now full of life, full of you.
As the tears fell down his pale check, you turned back to look at him. You were at his side in a second, "Coryo, what’s wrong?" You wipe his tears away with the cuff of your Sleeve.
"Nothing - It's nothing really, I just missed this, You." His voice just above a whisper.
“I missed you too, more than you can know.” You smush his cheeks in between your hand.
He swats your hand away, “I’m not a kid anymore, you can’t treat me like it,” a light pink flush blooms on his ears.
“Oh nonsense! I’m your best friend, and I’m older than you so I’ll always treat you like a kid!”
“You can’t treat me like a kid when I’m president,” he jokes through quiet sobs.
"I’m never going to stop, Coryo, I’m your best friend, it’s my job to annoy you," You run your fingers through his hair.
"You’re never annoying...”
As the two of you make your way into your room. It was the same as he remembered.
"It's the same," he points out.
"What is?" you question,
"The room, you didnt change it...”
"Why would I change it? I love my room, and when my parents moved away and left me the house, I figured: Why not just make the whole place my own?"
You take off your sweater and shoes before climbing into your bed. Your eyes follow Coryo as he walks around your room, making himself at home. After taking off his shoes he joins you on your bed, tackling you in a hug, knocking you over.
“Woah!”
You wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, basking in his warmth. Neither of you feel the need to say anything. Sure you were curious about his time away, but you knew Coryo was tired and all you wanted was for him to be comfortable.
Oh how you’ve missed this.
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Tag list: @nallasstuff @chmpgneprblem
(If you wanna be tagged when I post hunger games stuff just lmk and I’ll add u to a tag list!!!)
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cameronspecial · 8 months
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Good Terms With The In-Laws
Pairing: Drew Starkey x Reader
Warnings: N/A
Pronouns: She/Her
Word Count: 0.6K
Summary: Y/N and Drew broke up a long time ago, so why does he still go to movie night with her parents every Friday?
A/N: This is inspired by this post.
Masterlist
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Y/N and Drew broke up six months ago. It was a mutual decision between the pair; they just felt like it wasn’t working out anymore. He is always away at work and this leaves her at home by herself. After the breakup, she moved in with her parents for moral support and because she couldn’t find anywhere else to live yet. It would be hard for her to go back to living by herself after four years of living with Drew. They had been dating since they both graduated from university, so the breakup was a big change in their lives. Yet one thing doesn’t change in their life and that is Drew’s weekly hang out with her father and mother, which becomes more weekly because of the SAG strike. He’ll bring over dinner and watch a movie with her parents every Friday. When they were dating, she used to join the tradition, but the split has made it awkward. Now, she goes over to a friend’s house until he leaves. This week, she has nowhere to go so she’ll just stay locked up in her room. She is watching TV when she gets a notification on her phone. 
Your dad isn’t picking up his phone so let your parents know that I am going to be there in about ten minutes with the wings. She rolls her eyes at his text. We broke up six months ago. Why are you still doing this? When is it going to end? She watches as the three dots get replaced by a text. It’s just a dude having dinner and watching a movie with a married couple. That’s not a crime, Y/N. She leaves him without a response and goes back to her show. Around eight minutes later, the doorbell rings. She waits for her parents to answer it, but swears up a storm when she remembers that they went out to get some drinks for tonight. 
She opens the door to find Drew. His gaze is on the empty driveway and he turns toward her. “Your parents aren’t home,” he states, stepping in and going to the living room to set the food on the coffee table. She shrugs, “They’ll be back soon. They went to get drinks.” She is stopped from going back to her room by Drew. “We haven’t seen each other in months and that’s all we are going to say to each other,” he questions. She turns to him with furrowed brows, “We broke up a long time ago, Drew. What do you want me to say? I don’t understand why you are still doing movie night with my parents?”
“Because it’s good to be on good terms with your in-laws.”
“Good terms with your in-laws? Drew, did you hit your head? We broke up.”
“I know, but we both know that that isn’t permanent.”
He closes the distance between them so she feels his breath on her face. Her neck cranes to look up at him, “What are you talking about?” “Let’s be honest. You broke up with me and I went along with it because I could see you needed space. But eventually, I was going to make you realize that although my work takes me all over the world, I’m going to do everything in my power to not make you feel alone,” he tells her, taking her hand in his. “Because my heart was made for you, so only you can have it. You take as much time as you need and when you are ready to get back together, I’ll be here waiting for you.” Her parents come back home at that moment, which means she can make her exit back to her room without Drew’s knowledge. Her heart is pounding like a race track. She can’t believe what he just said, but what if he is right?
Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @victory-in-the-llama @drewsmusee @starkowswife
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angelickisscs · 2 months
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i’ve been waiting for you ~ blurb ‧₊˚
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୨ ୧ ˚₊ pairing ~ jude bellingham x reader
summary: your sisters poor time keeping abilities lead you to seeing a childhood crush once again !
y/s/n: your sisters name
THE DROPLETS OF water sliddown your windscreen, racing one another to the bottom but rarely did they make it, your wipers soon intervening with whatever fun they were having. With each second that passed, it became increasingly obvious how much time had passed since you had text your sister that you were outside.
You had decided to be a good older sister and offer to pick her up from her friend’s house. Though with the knowledge you had now, you would never be doing that again.
It felt creepy lingering outside of this family’s home, staring up at their front door in hope that it would finally open. You were yet to meet any of them, only just getting back from university, a fact that did not help with pleading your unfortunate case.
With one final glimpse of effort, you attempted to ring your sister once again. You watched as it got further through the familiar song that you had subjected yourself to listening to at least ten times by now. Only on the final ring did she pick up, her voice honeyed.
“You alright?” She asked upon answering obviously forgetting about your previously made deal to pick her up at eleven.
“Yeah, I’m outside.” Your voice was short as you leant your head against the headrest. Not only were you tired, but you were also annoyed. It had already been a long day and it was slowly stretching itself out even more.
Hearing a small gasp come through the line, the sounds of a duvet rustling coming afterwards, there was nothing to do but wait.
“Shit, my bad sorry. I will be outside in a second.” Your sister hastily said, hanging up not second later. With that small hint of hope returning to you, you turned back on your engine having decided to warm up your car slightly for her.
But your body soon blocked its entrance, a text pinging loudly through your phone. At first you ignored it, thinking it was one of your friends or even your parents but a second and third following forced you into reluctantly picking it up.
Can you come to the door pleaseeee?
With an umbrella preferably
I’ll pay for your petrol and everything if you do it :))
All were from your sister, her attempts at bribery leaving you ever so slightly proud but the fact she had decided to use them on you was mildly insulting.
No??I’m not knocking at a stranger’s door at 11:30 at night. You responded and without a second thought, you put your phone back down.
This time, it was your phone that was ringing.
“We are the only ones here, swear.” Yet again, you had no time to say anything before she was speaking. “Well, his older brother might be here but he’s not sure and even if he is, he wont care.”
One thing you were not good at was turning someone down so only five minutes of convincing later you had your hood up, strolling down the driveway you had parked a mere five metres away from. You tucked an umbrella away in your hand, having no use of it as you had been smart enough to put on a coat before you left.
Your mind was afar, not in the current but rather anywhere but. You were alert to sounds still however, your head snapping up upon hearing the door open. Words prepped themselves to take part in a harsh scolding though, when a man stood putting on his own coat in the doorway, they found themselves useless.
He noticed you only when you paused in your tracks, the gravel you had forgotten you were currently walking on creasing under your trainers with a loud noise.
The mans head turned to the side, his eyebrows furrowing into one line. “Can I help you?”
His words were slow with hesitation, it becoming painfully clear that you were not the only one unsure of what to do in this situation. He moved out of the wooden doors’ way, closing it behind him as he closed it behind him.
You could feel nothing but full body paralysis in that second, your mind whirring as even you were confused as to why you were here, as to why you ever let your sister talk you into this.
“Oh, I am y/s/n older sister. I am here to pick her up.” Shoving your hands in your pockets, you shuffled around on your feet in discomfort. The man continued to stare at you, as if he was validating your excuse as to why you had to be standing outside his house so late at night.
A part of you recognised him, having gone to the same primary school basically a decade ago. The two of you were in the same year but not class and for that reason had failed to ever do more than send each other a smile. Maybe it was during lunch or a mixed PE lesson where they forced the two classes to merge for whatever reason, they both had one thing in common, it never went past a smile.
Even if you did have an eight-year-olds crush on him for the span of a day, or two if you wanted to push facts, you never cared to learn his name.
A part of you knew when your heart speeding up when you saw his confusion riddled, bambi-like eyes once again was paired with the instantaneous jelly like feeling that riddled your leg, that sadly enough for you, the childhood crush hadn’t stayed so childish.
“Right, of course. Jobe told me you were coming.” He nodded slowly, taking in your dishevelled appearance. Making no attempt to hide his actions, his eyes had started on your face though soon they were heading downwards even if it was with the speed of a snail. Never had you felt this embarrassed before, having failed to change out of your Disney themed pyjama before leaving your house that night. On top of that, you were wearing a thick, baggy jumper with yet another thick coat on top.
Upon finishing his look-fest, his eyes met with yours, a pink hue settling within his cheeks. “Jude, nice to meet you.”
He held his hand out for you, a silent offer that you only caught onto when he cleared out of his throat awkwardly.
“Shit, yeah. I’m y/n.” You panicked slightly, those words of harsh reprimand that were in preparation for your sister coming back with the speed of light to hide underneath your tongue until it was time.
Jude laughed slightly as your wobbling hand met with his for a handshake. He could feel the anxiety radiating of your body as if you were a lamp. Although, he was in no position to talk, feeling a similar sense of nervousness at the shock of finally having the chance to be in front of you.
He had failed miserably at recognising you at first, having not seen you since the end of primary school. But there was only so much he could forget a face like yours no matter how hard he tried to.
“I love your pyjamas.” He nodded his head downwards, pointing towards them.
You were about to respond when the door opened once again, this time being the person you were expecting to see. With no umbrella, your sister walked out of the door with a deep frown on her face.
She approached you, snatching said object out of your hand so she could lift it above her head. “I have been waiting for you. Hey Jude, nice seeing you.” She took a second to look behind her at the man across from you.
“I cannot believe you took so long.”
Your head recoiled backwards. This time, you were at fault for forgetting the sass that your sister had within her. You had not been a victim of it for quite a while so you would have to give yourself a break this time around.
“Nice to meet you too.” Finalising your almost-conversation with Jude with the first thing that came to your mind, you followed your sister’s almost stop like movements towards the car.
“You made me linger around in their house so you could flirt with him?” She asked immediately when she had slammed the car door shut, looking at you pointedly.
Whilst you started the car for the third time that night, you dedicated a second to rolling your eyes at her with as much energy as you could muster. “Firstly, I was sat out here for like fifteen minutes before you picked up and secondly, I did not know that saying hello to someone was classified as flirting.”
She sighed heavily at you as her head shook side to side like a disappointed mother.
“It is not. But by the way the two of you were blushing at one another, it would have a high chance of either classifying itself as flirting or just embarrassing.”
You lifted your hand up to slap the back of head despite the nagging feeling of butterflies in your stomach.
If there was one thing you were certainly doing for a second time in life, it would be picking up your sister.
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multifariousqueer · 1 year
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Can you write Miles 42 being like really super duper protective and like controls her, he doesn’t let her go out by herself and stuff like that and is like always watching her. They argue about his over protectiveness but he could care less
Ofc babes!!!
warnings: toxic behaivor, miles being annoying, angst, references to robbery and murder, strong language, INCREDIBLY TOXIC BEHAVIOR!!!!!!, brief mention of drinking, lmk if I missed one or two
A/n: Send more miles 42 reqs pls
730 days. Thats how long you were with this man. Thats how long it's been since you got leave the house alone. Miles was very overprotective since his dad died and he saw the world for what it was. Evil and it was filled with nothing but scum. Miles determined that this world wasn't good enough for you and you needed to be "protected" and kept away from this disgraceful universe. So, he took it upon himself to protect the only two things that mattered to him, you and his mom and he did a good job at it.
Miles would walk you to school, work, home and if you needed something, he would be the one to get it for you:
"Miles baby, I can get it myself; its right outside." you pleaded.
"Nah, Mami. I don't want you outside by yourself. People are fucked up and they will hurt you." He said stoically.
"But-" you started
"Cállate, Y/n. Before I make you” he said, stepping closer
You knew Miles well and you knew to stop pressing because he would just shut down and you hated when he shut down. Miles would just put his hand on his braids and kick something before giving you the same speech:
“Y/n you saw what they did to my father, do you want that to happen to you too? Because if I let you go out by yourself, you’re at risk for that to happen and if it does or if anything or anyone touches you, I will kill them; and that’s a promise, Mami. I will kill anyone that lays a finger on you and not bat an eye. Don’t fuck with me, y/n. Stay close. Let me protect you and we will be good. Aight?"
“okay.” you would say. Miles had a way of making you seem two inches tall in these situations.
You never left his side. For two years, he would watch your every move(he put small cameras in your home. You didn’t notice until three months ago); he would take you shopping but never posted about you just in case a villain would use try to use you as his weakness(because lets face it, you’re his weakness), he would kiss you and be sweet in private but he would act hard when anyone else was around.
It was a cold winter’s day when you decided you had had enough. Your friend y/f/n(your friends name) had invited you out to a party. You had never been to one because of Miles but you decided enough was enough and you were gonna go. So you slipped on a small dress, cute heels and a jacket that made your tits look nice and left:
“I’ll be home soon!” You told your parent
“Okay, y/n. Tell Miles I said hi” they exclaimed
“Okay!” You shouted back. They knew how overprotective Miles was but they knew he was a good person overall so they left it alone.
As you walked to hail a taxi, you felt your phone vibrate:
Miles: Wanna go out?
You: No it’s okay, imma just stay in for tonight
Miles: Nah fr. Let me take you out
You looked down and debated answering the text, but ultimately decided not to. You got in the taxi and went to the party when you saw a shadow dash across the roof.
You walked into the party and greeted your friend:
“GIRL OMG YOU LOOK SO GOOD. WHERE’S MILES?” They shouted over the loud music
“He’s not here, it’s just me. Let’s go grab a drink!” You replied
“Oh Okay!!” Your friend said
As you were walking over, you could’ve sworn you saw a man that looked exactly like your boyfriend but he vanished when a man walked past. You brushed it off and grabbed a cup of jungle juice and went to dance. You grinded against your friend who caught it during the beat drop. You were having the time of your life until you checked your phone:
Miles: I know where you are, y/n. Come home or I’m coming there.
Miles: I should’ve known you’d lie to me. You’ve been acting real shady lately, wanting to go out and shit. Just wait till you get home, we’re gonna address this shit immediately.
Miles: I see you
Miles: Stop ignoring me, y/n. You know you fucked up
Miles: Imagine wearing the chrome heart necklace I got you while dancing like a slut on your friend
Your stomach dropped as you surveyed your surroundings, looking for a sign of him. When you couldn’t see him, you hailed a taxi and went home.
You fidgeted and fiddled the whole way home. The driver looked in his rear view mirror at you:
“You good, Mami?"
The name sent shivers up your spine as it was your boyfriends name for you.
“Oh! I’m fine, just cold haha” you laughed it off
The driver turned on the heat and sooner or later you were home.
You approached your doorstep and went to your room. Your parent was asleep and you walked in your room, thinking his threat was empty, until you went to shower and saw him behind the door:
“MILES” you screamed both in shock and horror
“Y/n.” he said, closing the door, encapsulating you both in the small room together
“I’m so sorry-“ you started
“you should be. What did I tell you, y/n? I do all of this shit for your safety but you continue to fight me and pull these stunts” Miles lectured as he closed in on you. Your height difference becoming more and more apparent
“Stunts? Fight? Miles I have been nothing but obedient to you which I shouldn’t even have to do if you treated me like a person instead of an object. That’s all I am to you isn’t it? An object. A doll. Just something you don’t want other people to have or see?” you argued
But your pleas and your confessions meant nothing to the man. He simply looked at you and said:
“yeah, actually.”
“what?” you said
“You are an object to me, you’re something I have to protect otherwise the world will take you from me like they did him.” Miles said, as stoic as ever
“STOP USING YOUR DAD AS LEVERAGE IN THIS, MILES. THIS ISN’T ABOUT HIM, ITS ABOUT YOU AND ME AND IF YOURE JUST GONNA KEEP TREATING ME THIS WAY, I’LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE.” You shouted, exasperated and on the verge of tears.
“do it, y/n. I dare you to find someone who will care for you and spoil you as much as I do.” Miles said, briefly breaking his nonchalant nature
“Fine I will!” you said reaching for the doorknob.
You left and put on clothes as you made him leave.
“You’ll be back.” Miles said, nonchalantly
“Fuck you, Miles Morales.” you said
It had been a week and you were sulking and debating getting back with the man when your family and friends told you were doing the right thing:
“I’m glad you left him, y/n. I heard he’s the prowler.” Your parent said
“Yeah I’m glad I left too.” you mumbled
As you were enjoying your fifth night of freedom, you saw a woman get mugged on the street:
“GIVE ME YOUR PURSE NOW LADY” The masked man shouted
The woman did as told and the man escaped but not before looking at you and running in your direction. With Miles, that man would’ve never even had the though to look at you.
You ran as fast as you could until you lost him in an alley behind your apartment. You decided you missed him too much and he was right so you pulled out your phone:
You: Miles you were right. I’m so sorry
Miles: typing...
Miles: its okay, I knew you’d find out soon enough; so what happened, Mami?
You: Some mugger saw me and charged at me and he had a knife
Miles: What did he look like
You: Beanie, knife, blue shirt and black pants
seen
You went home and went to sleep. The next morning you heard the news blaring in the house, along with the smell of bacon wafting through the house
“What happened?” you asked
“some mugger got killed.” your parent said
You had a stinging sensation in your gut and prayed that it wasn’t what it looked like when you heard the woman on the TV:
“It seemed like there were claw marks In his chest and he had been blasted with a ray gun."
Oh God...
You went to text Miles when you saw his text:
“You don’t gotta worry about that guy anymore, Mami. I’ll be at your house at 10.”
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m1ckeyb3rry · 4 months
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i just read your sae fic and it was absolutely amazing, gorgeous, life-changjng! and when i went on to check your masterlist for bllk, i was shocked when you were the one who wrote the nagi x reader x kira fic bc I've been following it for a while and then i immediately tapped the follow button :x but if you can (only when you have the time and energy), can you write rin whose family is a host for exchange student! reader from another country? it could be hs or college, depending on whichever you're comfortable with. thank you <33
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── CHERRY TREE
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Synopsis: You are one hundred percent convinced that Rin Itoshi hates you — and he does, but not exactly in the way you think.
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Event Masterlist
Pairing: Rin x Reader
Chapter Word Count: 6.2k
Content Warnings: cheesy and cliched asf, otoya and KARASU <3 make brief appearances, rin is rude ngl but reader is as well, rin does not know what a “crush” is, he’s probably ooc as well atp i should just include that on all of my works jic
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A/N: i can’t believe i started bllk because of a rin edit and yet i’ve never written for him…also i’m glad you liked seabird and peregrine anon!! thank you for following 💖 sorry it took me a min to respond to this
Additional: part of my 500 follower event! see the event description and rules to make a request of your own.
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If you didn’t know that your parents would probably put you in an early grave for wasting their money, you would’ve caught the next flight back home from Japan in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, you were far too afraid of their ire, which meant you were stuck in this hostile environment until the end of the semester — assuming, of course, that you managed to survive for so long.
Over the summer, applying to your university’s special first-semester-abroad program had seemed like a good idea. You were already going to be traveling far from home to stay on campus regardless, so your reasoning was that you might as well experience a different culture while you were at it. Besides, the program claimed to pair participants with a host family that would be good fits for their personalities and needs — based on a survey, which in hindsight you really should’ve lied on — so you would be living in relative comfort, at least compared to the ancient dorms on the main campus that probably had thirty different species of mold growing on their walls.
Or, well, that had been the plan. Maybe it was even a reality for the rest of the people in the program, who had no doubt been placed in normal homes, with normal people, who had normal children and normal lives. For you, though, it could not be further from the truth — because you had had the great misfortune of being chosen to live in the same house as Rin Itoshi for the duration of your stay in Japan.
To put it simply, he hated you. He had started hating you from the moment you stepped foot into his house and put your things in his brother’s old room, and he had not stopped since. If you happened to cross paths with him, he’d scoff at you, and considering the fact that the two of you lived in the same house, this was a frequent occurrence. Whenever you tried speaking to him in Japanese, he’d wrinkle his nose and respond in English, telling you that you were so terrible at the language, you might as well give up now and move back to your country early. Once, his mother had suggested he take you to hang out with his friends, as you were all roughly the same age, and he had rolled his eyes so hard that it was a surprise they didn’t get stuck in the back of his head.
There was no doubt about it: your mere existence was a burden to Rin. You couldn’t explain it in any other way; after all, how could he have decided he disliked you before you had even spoken? So you did your best to be as helpful and kind as possible, keeping the house neat, cooking food whenever the elder Itoshis had to work late, staying silent if he happened to enter the same room as you, and offering nothing but slight smiles if you were forced into an interaction with him.
“You know,” Mrs. Itoshi began one day, as you were eating the dinner she had made for all of you. Rin was on your right, and Mr. Itoshi was across from him, his jovial face such a contrast to his son’s dour look. “Rin’s on the Japanese soccer team.”
“Wow,” you said noncommittally. You hadn’t known that; you had assumed that Rin’s hobbies involved throwing stones at unsuspecting children and tripping old ladies as they crossed the street. Soccer had been the last thing you expected, though it did explain his admittedly splendid physique. “Very impressive.”
“Not really,” Rin said. 
“Why don’t you take her to watch your practice over the weekend?” Mrs. Itoshi pressed. 
“She’s not interested,” Rin said. Of course, you really weren’t — why would you want to watch Rin and his friends kick around a ball for a few hours? It would be a waste of time, time that you could spend working on homework or clearing your ‘to-be-read’ list. But you also weren’t fond of people speaking for you, especially not him. He was the last person who could claim to know anything about you, so by what right could he say that you weren’t interested?
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind going,” you said, batting your eyelashes at him innocently when he glared at you out of the corner of his eye, his expression one of utter disgust and incredulity.
“There you have it! Be sure to introduce her to your teammates. I’m sure they would love to show her around,” Mrs. Itoshi said. Rin snorted.
“Oh, I’m sure they would,” he said, though when he did, it sounded different than what Mrs. Itoshi had surely meant. But you were obviously the only one who picked up on it, and you didn’t want to make dinner unpleasant, so you could only ponder what he might’ve meant in your head instead of asking him outright, as you really wanted to.
Although it was the weekend, Rin’s practice was early in the morning, before the day could really heat up and make exercising unbearable. That meant it was before even the sun’s rise that you were following after him, your books clutched in your arms as you waited at the bus stop.
“Why’re you bringing all of that?” he said when the awkward silence grew to be too much for either of you to bear.
“I’m planning on getting some homework done while I’m there,” you said.
“Why didn’t you just stay home if you wanted to do homework?” he said as the bus pulled to a stop in front of you and the doors flew open. Due to the early hour, there was almost no one else on the bus, but given your unfamiliarity with the route, you still followed after Rin, sitting across the aisle from him and putting your things on the seat beside you.
“I dunno,” you said. “I guess I wanted to meet your teammates. Since they would just love to show me around.”
“Stay away from them,” he said. “They’re a bunch of NPCs. All of them are probably the worst people you could ask to show you anywhere.”
“NPCs?” you said. “That’s pretty harsh to say about your own peers.”
“It’s not like we’re friends or anything,” he muttered, crossing his arms petulantly. “I’ll call them what I want.”
“Sure, whatever you say,” you said, massaging circles into your forehead to ward off your impending migraine. Rin raised his eyebrows.
“Got a headache?” he said, in that same clinical, detached voice he always used.
“Yeah,” you said. And you’re making it worse. You wanted to add that, but you thought it probably wouldn’t be prudent, so you kept your mouth shut.
“Don’t stay up so late on your phone, then,” he said. 
“It’s the only time I can call my friends and family. They’re in a different time zone,” you explained before pausing. Why did you feel the need to justify yourself? It wasn’t like Rin particularly cared either way. He was just giving you that advice because he wanted to boss you around and be rude to you. It was a symptom of dislike, not worry.
You had imagined Rin to be an obsessively punctual person, but to your surprise, it seemed like you both were actually some of the later ones to show up. Perhaps the rest of the team was even more concerned with earliness than him, or maybe you had somehow caused him to be later than he typically was, but either way, by the time you walked onto the field, the others had already gathered, chatting amongst themselves while they waited for their coach to arrive and start the practice.
“There he is! We were beginning to think the world might’ve ended,” a boy with dark, styled hair and a beauty mark beneath his left eye said with a grin. “Nothing less could get you to miss practice, eh, Rin?”
“It still might have,” another boy said. His pale hair was streaked through with green, and he wore an inviting smirk as he pointed at you. “Yo, girl. What kind of blackmail does he have on you? Blink twice if you need help. We’ll get you out of there.”
“Um, he’s not blackmailing me or anything…” you said, glancing at Rin for aid before remembering that he would probably rather jump off of a cliff, backwards and into the jaws of a dozen waiting sharks, than help you out.
“So you’re hanging out with him willingly?” the pale-haired boy said. “Yikes. You can do much better.”
“I kind of have to hang out with him,” you said. “I’m staying with his family for the semester.”
“Oh, you’re the exchange student!” a third boy, this one with icy blue hair and wide, pretty eyes said. “We’ve heard a lot—”
“All of you, be quiet and leave her alone,” Rin said, finally, thankfully speaking up. “Otoya, don’t even look at her, or I’ll make sure you’re benched for the rest of the season.”
The pale-haired boy — Otoya? — held his hands up in the air and whistled innocently, shooting you a wink when Rin turned to address the rest of his team. You raised your eyebrows but suppressed your giggle, not wanting to condemn him to further rebuke from Rin.
“This is Y/N L/N. She’s the exchange student my family is hosting. She wanted to come watch our practice because…actually, I don’t really know why,” Rin said shortly. “But she’s just going to be doing homework on the bench, so if any of you were planning on showing off to impress her, then you can give up on that idea now.”
Otoya noticeably wilted at this, but the others didn’t seem to mind. The first boy, the one with the beauty mark and the strange hairstyle, gave Rin a thumbs up.
“Don’t worry, Rin, we’ll leave the showing off to you. It’s about time you—”
“Shut up!”
They must’ve begun practicing at some point, but you hardly took notice, too busy typing up the outline for an essay you had due in a couple of weeks to care much about what they were doing. Occasionally, someone would shout out a particularly creative insult, and you would have to pause your work to identify the trash talker in order to be able to congratulate them later, but for the most part, you were lost in your own world.
“Hey.” Just the sound of Rin’s cool voice was enough to send shivers of fear down your spine, and you hastily closed your laptop as you looked up at him. “Practice is over.”
“Okay,” you said. “Will you introduce your teammates to me now? I know you told them who I was, but I’d like to at least meet some people my own age.”
“Nope,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on, I only even came because I wanted to meet them!” you said. “Outside of school, you’re the only one I know. I get that you don’t want me infiltrating your friend group or whatever, but you literally said you don’t like these guys, so why’s it a problem if I become friends with them?”
“They’re so dull and half-baked that your opinion of this country will actually fall if you interact with them further,” he said. “This is just my national pride talking. Come on.”
You stomped after him. What was his problem? He didn’t want to be nice to you, but he also didn’t want anyone else to, either. Was he that determined to make you miserable? Why couldn’t you have been placed in a family with children who weren’t so weird and annoying? Which question had you answered incorrectly on the survey that had resulted in your match-up with the Itoshis? You wished you could retake that stupid quiz and end up somewhere else. You wished that Rin had been the one sent to Spain instead of his older brother, who was certainly more well-adjusted. You wished that you hadn’t chosen to study abroad at all, that you had instead stayed at home with your friends and had a typical first semester like everyone else.
After that day, you stopped even pretending to be polite to Rin. Both of you were cold, hissing insults whenever you passed in the hallways of the home, leaving the room if the other happened to enter, and generally doing what you could to make each other’s lives difficult. It was only in front of Rin’s parents that you maintained some semblance of civility; after all, making Mr. and Mrs. Itoshi choose sides in your silent war would be unethical and wrong.
“I really don’t get it,” you said to your best friend one night, the covers pulled up over your head, your phone screen dimmed so that you were not blinded by its light. “He’s such a jerk, and for what?”
“Boys suck,” she said, hunched over a calculus problem set. The time difference meant that sun streamed in through her window as she wrote, illuminating the shining graphite of her neatly penciled answers. “Did his teammates mention anything suspicious the one time you met them? They’d probably know better than you or I why he’s acting the way he is. Maybe this is just how he is with everyone — if that’s the case, then you can be reassured that it’s not something you’re doing wrong.”
“Not really,” you said. “He forbade all of them from talking to me. Which, by the way, is a real tragedy, because some of them were super cute.”
“Really?” she said.
“Want descriptions?” you said.
“As much as I would like to say yes, I need to focus on this problem set, and anyways, it’ll just make me jealous, so no,” she said.
“Jealous? Let’s trade places, because at the moment, I’m jealous of you. Maybe all of the guys at your school are ugly, but at least you don’t have to deal with Rin!” you said.
“Is Rin attractive?” she said. 
“No — actually, yeah, I can see why a person would think he is,” you said. Personal biases aside, Rin really was very handsome, and that combined with his aloof arrogance afforded him the aura of a YA novel’s male lead. There was no doubt in your mind that he was popular with girls; however, you doubted he himself was aware of this fact. “He’s such a dick that it cancels out, though.”
“Personality is important,” your best friend said. “Oh, fuck!”
“What?” you said.
“I’ve been forgetting to add the integration constant to my answers. Easy fix, no worries. You can keep talking,” she said.
“Thanks,” you said. “There isn’t really much else to say.”
“Well, if you couldn’t get anything out of his teammates, why don’t you try talking to him?” she suggested. “Ask him to his face why he doesn’t like you.”
“Isn’t that kind of uncomfortable?” you said.
“Not like things can get much worse than they already are,” she said.
“True,” you said. “But the thought of confronting him is actually sickening. I’ll pass. This is character building, isn’t it? I’m going to come back home as an entirely new woman. You won’t recognize my mental strength and fortitude.”
“Sure, looking forward to it. I miss you,” she said.
“Miss you more, but it’s pretty late here, so I’m going to have to hang up,” you said, yawning.
“Goodnight, Y/N, and sleep tight. Don’t let Rin Itoshi bite!” she said.
“Oh my god. Go do your homework,” you said, hanging up before she could respond and almost immediately passing out as the moon rose higher and higher in the sky.
Things between you and Rin continued on in that tense manner for the next few weeks, until you became convinced that your heart might give out from the stress. You couldn’t continue to live in this way. You were supposed to be enjoying your time abroad, not counting down the days until you could finally go home.
Rin was watching a horror movie on the computer when you barged into his room. A woman screamed in sync with your entrance, and you jumped at the jarring sound. Rin did not react, clicking on the mouse to pause the film and then turning in his chair to face you.
“What?” he said.
“What? What? What do you think?” you said.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I had the faintest clue why you were storming into my room in the middle of the night,” he said coolly, crossing his arms. “The movie was finally getting exciting, too. So, what do you want? Hurry up and say it.”
Your eye twitched. “I want to know what your problem is.”
“Huh?” he said. 
“Why do you hate me? What have I ever done to you that’s made you so determined to ruin my life? I could even understand if you didn’t want to hang out with me, but you brought me to your practice and then refused to let me talk to just about anyone! What’s the big idea? I just want to enjoy my semester!” you said.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s easy. You’re ruining my soccer career.”
“I’m ruining your soccer career,” you repeated dubiously.
“Yes,” he said.
“Care to elaborate on how I am accomplishing that, exactly?” you said, your hands on your hips. “I went to one practice, and I didn’t even speak the entire time. If your career can be ruined so easily, then it isn’t much of a career in the first place.”
He huffed in aggravation. “I keep thinking about you. It’s messing with my head. I need to focus on soccer and getting better, but for some reason, I can’t stop my thoughts from wandering to places they shouldn’t. It’s worse because I can’t escape you. If I could have just one day to clear my mind, I could forget about you and get back to considering more important things, but you’re always there, worming your way back in.”
Now it was your turn to be confused. “What?”
“I don’t get it, either. You’re not that special, so why can I quit it? Even my teammates have begun to notice. The other day, Isagi told me to go home early because I was ‘bringing nothing to the team.’ Isagi said that! Yoichi Isagi said that I was useless!” he said.
“That would be a lot more impactful if I knew who that was,” you muttered.
“You’re only here for a few more months, right?” he said. “After that, I can get back to my earlier performance and things will return to usual. Just leave me alone until then.”
Confronting Rin had the opposite effect that it should have. Instead of making things better, they actually became worse. What did he mean by saying that you were ruining his soccer career because he couldn’t stop thinking about you? What a stupid excuse! You weren’t that tiresome, so for him to claim that you were taking over his mind because of that was an offense. 
“Y/N, Rin, will you be alright by yourselves for the week?” Mrs. Itoshi said when, once again, you all were gathered to eat dinner. The Itoshi parents had thankfully not yet noticed the enmity between you and their son, so family meals were a regular occurrence — meals in which you and Rin were made to sit by one another and act kindly, lest you make things awkward for Mr. and Mrs. Itoshi, too.
“It’ll be fine,” Rin said, answering for the both of you, the downturn of his mouth daring you to argue. “You guys should have fun in Spain.”
Apparently, Sae had invited his family to visit him in Madrid for the week that he had off from training, but unfortunately for the both of you, Rin was unable to go due to his practice schedule. It was unfortunate for Rin because it meant he couldn’t see his older brother, who he had the world’s most complicated relationship with, and it was unfortunate for you because it meant you couldn’t get a break from Rin’s dramatics.
The week started off normally enough, which meant that you and Rin did not speak, leading your lives with as much separation as was possible. It was actually easier than you were expecting, mainly because Mrs. Itoshi had left you both enough food to last the week, so you could eat when you wanted to instead of having to sit with one another. Gone were the days of turbulent coexistence at meals; now, you could finally enjoy eating without worrying about the boy beside you! You almost wished his parents would never come back, just because of that rare peace.
The fourth night was when it all went wrong. You were video calling your best friend as a storm raged outside, ranting to her about your professors and the heaps of homework you received every day, when the lights flickered.
“Is something wrong with your wifi?” she said. “You’re breaking up.
“It’s raining,” you said. “Pretty hard. The power’s kinda spotty, but I’m hoping it holds—”
The universe must’ve heard your words and decided to play a joke on you, because in that moment, the lights turned off and your call disconnected with a sad beeping sound, alerting you that your poor connection was what did you in. Pouting, you set your phone aside and stared up at the ceiling of the room, deciding you might as well try to fall asleep, given the late hour. Even if the power was out, you wouldn’t be able to tell with your eyes shut, so it was really the best option.
There was a scratching sound on your window, causing you to jolt into a sitting position once more. Rin had watched a horror movie just like this the other day. You remembered it clearly because you had turned on a rom-com once it had finished, and he had called it lukewarm, which made you so mad that you had turned the TV off and gone to take a shower instead.
What had been the plot, again? Oh, right. The power had gone out, and the victim thought that it had been because of a storm, but it had actually been a serial killer taking advantage of the weather to mess with her house’s fuse box. He had done it so that the cameras didn’t catch him as he climbed into her house through her unlocked window and stabbed her in her sleep. The resolution was that her neighbors saw him and called the police right before he killed them, too — yeah, it was a pretty gory film. Lots of blood and knife wounds. You weren’t sure what enjoyment Rin derived from watching it, but you figured it was another one of his irrational attributes that defied explanation.
Another scratching sound. Had you locked the window? What if the power outage wasn’t due to the storm at all? What if Rin had accidentally manifested the same ending for you as that stupid movie? And you were home alone, too, the scenario was just so similar…
This time, the scratching sound was more like an eerie drag of fingernails against the glass, and you couldn’t help yourself. Squealing, you turned the flashlight of your phone on to guide your way as you sprinted out of your room, racing towards the only other inhabited place in the entire lonely house.
“Rin!” you shrieked, convinced that the shadows were actually ghosts come to haunt you and strangle you and bury you alive. “Rin, wake up! We’re both going to die!”
The door to his bedroom banged open, and you pointed your phone at him, the harsh white glow sharpening the angles of his features, the awkward hang of his pajamas off his body, the way his normally neat hair stuck up in every direction. 
“What are you talking about?” he groaned, using his hand to shield his vision from the blinding radiance of your flashlight.
“Do you remember that movie you were watching the other day? The scary one, with the fuse box?” you said.
“Yeah?” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning. “Point your flashlight at the ground, stupid, or you’ll blind me.”
You did as he directed, belatedly remembering that the two of you very much did not like each other. But beggars could not be choosers, and it remained that at the moment, Rin was your best chance at survival, so you had to stick close to him.
“It’s happening,” you whispered. “It’s literally happening to us right now, as we speak. The serial killer already cut our power, and now he’s trying to break in through my bedroom window, and then — and then he’s going to kill us!”
“I cannot believe you woke me up for this,” he said.
“I’m serious!” you said.
“Seriously dumb,” he said. “Why would somebody try to kill us?”
“Don’t you have any rivals that hate you? Maybe they’re taking advantage of the storm to do you in while they have the chance!” you said, creeping closer to him.
“I play soccer. I’m not in a gang,” he said dryly. “No one’s going to come murder me for being better than them, trust me. Or else I’d already be dead.”
“Go see for yourself, then!” you said. “Wait. But I’ll go with you. People who split up in horror movies always die. There’s real merit to the ‘safety-in-numbers’ theory.”
“How many horror movies have you watched, to make you such an expert on them?” he said.
“You always have them playing, so of course I’ve learnt by osmosis!” you said, inching along behind him as he trudged towards your room. He gave no response bar a click of his tongue as he yanked open the door you had slammed shut in your haste, striding in authoritatively, grabbing your phone and lighting his own way with it instead of relying on your shaky hands.
He pulled the curtains open with a flourish, and you cringed, using his broad back to hide yourself, expecting to see some grotesque face and keeping your eyes screwed shut so you didn’t have to be met with the visage that would spell your death.
“Hey. Y/N. Open your eyes, dumbass. You made me get up because of a damn tree,” Rin said, shaking you by the shoulder. 
“A what?” you said, opening your eyes against your will and then blinking properly when you saw there was nothing there but the boughs of the cherry tree planted in front of Sae’s room. The frenzied wind caused the branches to rub against the window, and this, you realized, was the source of the sound you had been so afraid of. “Oh. A tree.”
“I’m going back to bed,” he informed you. “Wake me up again and you really will be dead, but it’ll be at my hands, not some imaginary serial killer’s.”
You tried. You really tried to stay asleep — you were an independent woman, weren’t you? You had gotten full marks on all of your midterms. You had flown to a different country and learned to live there without much trouble. You had shared a house with Rin Itoshi for the past couple of months, and he was more like a creature out of a nightmare than anything else ever could be. Sleeping alone when the power was out was a piece of cake. You could do it. 
It was not, in fact, a piece of cake, and you could not, in fact, do it. Tip-toeing to Rin’s room, you knocked as lightly as you could, half-hoping that he did not hear. You doubted he had made his earlier threat lightly, after all, and there was a real chance that this action would be your last.
“What now?” Rin said, answering the door a few seconds later. You crossed your arms and stared at the floor obstinately, your pride not allowing you to say anything. He waited for a moment, and then he pinched your upper arm. “Are you sleepwalking? Hello? Wake up if you are, so that I can get to bed myself. I have practice tomorrow, and I need to be well-rested!”
“I’m not sleepwalking!” you said. “I can’t.”
“You can’t sleepwalk? Okay,” he said. “I didn’t really care either way, so there was no need for you to tell me.”
“I can’t sleep at all!” you said. “It’s because of those dumb movies you always watch and those creepy games you play. I keep thinking that something’s going to happen, even though I know that those things aren’t real.”
He narrowed his eyes at you, like he was trying to discern whether you were telling the truth, and then he ran a hand through his hair.
“You have problems,” he said. “They aren’t real, but whatever. Come in.”
“Uh, what?�� you said.
“I’ll take the floor, and you can sleep in my bed,” he said, rolling his eyes like you were the ridiculous one for being taken aback by the offer. “That way you can be less nervous.”
It was the kindest thing he had ever done for you, and you almost called him out for it, but then there was another crack of lightning, so you opted not to argue, darting into the room after him and diving into his bed without a second thought.
“Hand me a pillow,” he said, settling on the ground with a blanket he pulled down from the top shelf of his closet. You were about to throw it at him before wavering, considering what he was truly doing for you. Rin Itoshi, who was so careful with his body, who was a pro athlete that required an exact amount of sleep and the perfect balance of nutrients, had woken up in the middle of the night twice and was now offering to sleep on the floor, all because you were afraid of a power outage. 
If only there was electricity! You needed to call your best friend and get her opinion on this. You had avoided telling her the results of your confrontation with him, believing that she would just make fun of you, but for some reason, you thought she might be interested in this development. You thought that she might be the only one who would understand it, because obviously, neither you nor Rin did.
“Um, you can have the bed, if you’d like,” you said, pushing the blankets away reluctantly, your neck protesting at the mere prospect of spending the night on the hardwood. “It’ll be bad for your back if you’re on the floor.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “At least, it won’t be, if you give me that pillow.”
You caved, giving him the pillow and rolling to the opposite side of his bed, which was even larger than the one you were used to. He grunted out a thank you, and then both of you were silent, but it was obvious that neither of you were asleep.
“Rin.”
“Yes?”
“We could share. Your bed is pretty big, so if we put pillows between us, it won’t be weird. Anyways, it’s only until the power comes back, and then I’ll go to my room, so it won’t even be for that long,” you said. The suggestion was met with sputtering from the ground.
“You — me — what — share? No way! No way, terrible idea, why would you suggest that?” he said.
“I just feel bad that you have to be on the floor, that’s all,” you said. “Especially because it’s your room and you’re doing me a favor.”
He didn’t say anything for so long that you were certain he must’ve fallen asleep. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor for you.”
“Really? I thought you hated me, though,” you said. The bed creaked from an unexpected weight dropping on it, and when you shifted, you saw that he had settled beside you, fluffing up a pillow to serve as a barrier, his face a light pink as he lay on his side to face you. You did the same, peering up at him over the pillow and swallowing when he did not avoid your gaze.
“I do,” he said. “A lot. But I also don’t.”
You furrowed your brow. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ve never been distracted by anyone or anything before,” he said. “That’s why I hate you. I hate things I don’t understand, and I don’t understand why you’re constantly on my mind.”
“Am I that annoying?” you said.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “You’re annoying every time you smile or laugh or say something — say anything, and you’re especially annoying when you act friendly towards my shitty teammates, especially that ninja bastard Otoya. You’re annoying whenever you talk to me, and you’re annoying when you do your homework instead of watching me at the practice you asked to go to. Your lukewarm movies are annoying, and so is your hatred of anything horror-related. It’s annoying that you’re nice to my parents, and it’s even more annoying that you’re better at coming up with insults than I am. You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
You didn’t need your best friend to translate this for you. Despite what Rin liked to say, you weren’t that stupid — you had been selected to study abroad out of hundreds of applicants, after all, and for the first time, you were so grateful for that fact. Because the thought of somebody else being here, in this bed, hearing these things from rude, haughty Rin Itoshi, was unbearable.
“Do you have a crush on me?” you said. He immediately stiffened, his eyebrows drawing together, low and heavy over his half-lidded eyes.
“No,” he said.
“Sure,” you said. “That’s good, because I’m going to leave soon. It would be problematic if either of us liked one another.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“You’re annoying, too, just to be clear,” you said. “The most annoying guy I’ve ever met in my life. Super annoying.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. 
“I’m telling the truth. Once I go back home, I’ll be incredibly bored. No one back there could ever hope to irritate me even half as much as you do,” you said.
“Good,” he said, and at that you smiled into the softness of his sheets, hiding the expression from him. “They’re not allowed to. You’re the only one who makes me feel like this, so the reverse should also be true.”
“I won’t be able to come here again for a while,” you said after a bit. “Likely years. I’ll be busy with school and work and my friends and family, so it’ll probably be goodbye forever when I go.”
Rin’s voice was sleepy when he spoke, reminding you of the late hour and how early he had to wake up daily.
“Then I can finally focus on soccer again,” he mumbled. “That’s a relief.”
You reached across the pillow to pat him on the cheek. “Yes, you can.”
“After I retire, I’ll come and find you,” he said. 
“That long?” you said. “What if I forget about you by then? Because I might.”
“Don’t,” he commanded. “Wait for me. Let me win the next World Cup, and then…and then…”
 His words trailed off into a soft exhale as he finally succumbed to sleep. You allowed your hand, which still lay against his face, to trace his jawline before retracting it and holding it close to your heart. 
He was definitely still a jerk, but maybe you did not hate him quite as much as you had thought You did. Actually, maybe he wasn’t that bad at all, and maybe you could not imagine what an existence without him, which you had craved so desperately only days earlier, might be like. 
You weren’t sure what would happen if that day he spoke of came, if he did fly across the world to find you after the next World Cup. Would he still be himself, or would he be some gentler version? And what of you? Would Rin Itoshi still be someone you paid any mind to, or, by then, would he just be a not-so-fond memory? The strange boy who may or may not have had a crush on you, who was obsessed with soccer and horror movies, who argued with you constantly and made you more infuriated than you had ever been…well, if you thought about it, then there really was no chance of you forgetting him at all. Not so quickly.
So you sighed, turned away from him and let your own eyes shut as well. The house was dark and still, the familiar hum of the refrigerator silenced, the crushing of the ice-maker temporarily halted. Only Rin’s steady inhales and exhales cut through the blackness, lulling you to sleep despite the atmosphere you had previously found sinister.
“I guess I have no choice, huh?” you said as you, too, drifted off. “Brainless, rude, pesky Rin Itoshi. Fine, then. If that’s how you want it…I’ll wait. Just until the next World Cup, I’ll wait for you.”
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Solar return chart observations (2019)
Scorpio rising at 29 degrees
🌪️That year was my most traumatic year.
🌪️There were countless transformations (mostly endings and also new life-changing beginnings) in that year.
🌪️I lost many friends. I got gossiped by the whole class. The whole class didn’t talk to me. I was slut-shamed and they even spread rumors about me being pregnant while I was just gaining some weight. I was notorious with bad reputation in my school. My first love left me. I tried to run away with my first love. My parents caught me and grounded me for several months. I was literally in solitude. I had no one by my side. Both emotionally and physically. I can even write a whole damn book about this year.😭
🌪️However, I learned how to stay alone happily in that year. (It was not an option. The universe was like BAM you need to encounter THIS to achieve THIS success or whatsoever😃).
🌪️My whole personality before and after that year was so different that no one couldn’t recognize me after that year when I went back to school.
Moon in 1st house conjuncts ascendant (in Sagittarius at 0 degrees)
🌪️Maybe due to these traumatic events, my emotions were running high all the time.
🌪️Even though I tried to hide my pain and act like a typical scary silent scorpio rising, people still attacked me because I looked so vulnerable.
🌪️I cried almost everyday in that year.
🌪️Also I gained weight like A LOT MY FACE WAS LIKE AN ENORMOUS MEAT DUMPLING👹👹👹
**I also notice that I gained weight so easily last year when I had scorpio rising even though my moon was in 7th house in Taurus. Might be because of Taurus moon but Idk, scorpio rising year scares me hell a lot now.😺**
Jupiter in 1st house (in Sagittarius at 18 degrees)
🌪️I gained tons of weight because of my only coping mechanism : binge eating and also due to covid and quarantine.
🌪️I felt like food was the only escape in my life and I gained like 60 lbs.🤦🏻‍♀️
🌪️However, I had lucky academic opportunities.
🌪️I had to change my tuition because everyone including the teachers slut-shamed me and only because of that transformation, I finished high school with high marks and now I’m in medical school.
🌪️Thanks to my new teachers from new tuition and also those stupid bitches who believed everything they heard without clearly thinking as grown-up adults.😍
Saturn conjunct Pluto in 2nd house (in Capricorn)
🌪️My self-esteem declined so low that I rarely even went out in that year.
🌪️I felt like no one wanted me and I questioned about my worth like thousand times.
🌪️Throughout the year, transformations related to self-worth and self-love questioned my existence.
🌪️I was always thinking like “do I even deserve to eat this or go to this or be friends with them?” every damn time my mom asked me what I needed and every time someone approached me.
Neptune and Lilith in 4th house (in Pisces)
🌪️My whole family was very confused about me.
🌪️They even thought I was possessed by some ghost because I acted very unusual eg I couldn’t control my anger and I kinda self-sabotaged and I just bursted out and cried so suddenly when I was at home (that was just my trauma response I mean I don’t really know how they expected me to act after all those punishment they gave me and personal attacks received from my ex-mates)😺.
🌪️My parents kept really close eyes on me because they were worried that I would commit su-ici-de and they also had their respective assumptions about me but at the same time, they also outcasted me and thought I was really a slut who slept with lots of men because I did many reckless things without thinking about consequences.
🌪️I also often had intense vivid dreams and nightmares.
🌪️I was addicted to vapes and used them secretly in my room in that year.
🌪️So effed up🔫
Chiron in 5th house (in Aries)
🌪️My first love broke my heart.
🌪️My first serious heartbreak.
🌪️I had to take about 9 months to fully move on from him.
🌪️My inner child got hurt and my creativity and self-expression left my soul in that year.
🌪️I lost my silly child-like spirit in that year.
Uranus in 6th house (in Taurus at 5 degrees)
🌪️At first I was planning to study really hard to prepare for my matriculation exam but due to covid, there were huge unexpected changes in my routines and habits.
🌪️My plans got ruined.
Venus in 7th house conjuncts Amor (in Gemini)
🌪️Amor asteroid represents soulmate.
🌪️I met my first love and fell in love with him like a fool.
🌪️Everyone warned me because they saw red flags🚩🚩🚩🚩but I was blindly in love and was like “I’m gonna marry him”😭😭.*dies of embarrassment*
🌪️That was my first time that I gave actual commitment to someone and I felt like he was my soulmate.
🌪️I couldn’t let go of him for so long.
🌪️I wrote songs about him.
🌪️I wrote short stories about him.
🌪️It was bitter-sweet but now it’s just a memory.🌌
Sun in 7th house (in Gemini)
🌪️My main focus was on relationships relationships RELATIONSHIPS and I strongly desired to build meaningful social connections rather than superficial ones in that year.
🌪️My hidden enemies also pulled their masks off lmao I had to deal with them the whole year because they kept saying things about me that I didn’t even know I did.😩
Mercury conjunct mars in 8th house (in Cancer)
🌪️I remember that I was fully in my hermit mode the year I had this placement.
🌪️I searched articles about how to attack those arseholes spiritually but didn’t really take an action because I believed in karma.🧘🏻‍♀️
🌪️I was always reading books about magic, detective, occult and death and I even thought about committing a su-ici-de because I was severely depressed.
🌪️I was alone but also so blunt (I think I was just trying to protect myself) every time someone tried to befriend me.
🌪️I cursed a lot and my anger issues were like high up in the sky that one time, the wall cracked because I punched while I was angry and I’m just A GIRL🎀💕🥰).
Vertex in 9th house (in Leo at 15 degrees)
🌪️Maybe because of all of this, I started to pray to Buddha every single day in that year.
🌪️I suddenly became so religious and I felt like I only had him by my side.
🌪️My beliefs about religion expanded and I started to learn about other religions too in that year.
🌪️Also fated events occurred at my school so yeah vertex can say a lot about your upcoming year.
🌪️Immediately CHECK YOUR VERTEX IN YOUR SOLAR RETURN CHART RIGHT NOW!!!🥱
My scorpio ascendant was in my natal 5th house
🌪️My main focus was on relationships and dating as I’ve already said.
🌪️I also think I was so fertile in that year or maybe horny?
🌪️I wanted to get pregnant with my first love and I was only 14 at that time💀💀💀 (I know I was so silly but I was just a kid so I forgive myself for that *dies of embarrassment again*).
🌪️Sex education and vapes and drugs might be normal for teenagers in western countries but in my country, they’re like really taboo topics and parents biggest nightmare was their drug addict children getting pregnant😭.
🌪️Almost everyone did not dare to discuss about those openly in those days.
🌪️Also I was just 14 at that time so it’s not my parents’ fault that they stopped me and restricted me too much but however, their punishment was directed in a wrong way and that’s why I had to find other ways to suppress my pain. I don’t know who to blame, myself or those so-called friends or my parents😭.
So in conclusion, it was a very hard year and very life-changing and unforgettable but it shaped me into who I am today so I’m really happy to receive all of those new experiences. English is not my first language so please bear with me if I made some mistakes.🫰🏼💕
Also you can ask me about two placements (maximum) you want from your solar return chart. I’ll answer them as soon as I get free time.❤️
My mood in 2019 as GIF be like:
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bvbygrl-writes · 14 days
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Season of The Witch (1)
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Pairing: Jacob Black x Witch!Reader x Edward Cullen
Word Count: 1.6k
Summary: (Y/n) (L/n) is 19 and still trying to figure out the world. She isn't sure of a lot of things but she is sure of one: she's gonna have her cake and eat it too.
A/N: I recently watched the Twilight Saga for the first time and fell in love with it but I noticed there's not a lot of recent fics so I decided to make them! This doesn't follow the twilight series exactly but the elements and settings are still the same. Everyone is aged up (I mean does Edward really need to be tbf). If this gets enough feedback in my inbox and comments I will continue but this is mainly a tester to see how it does!
Warnings: N/A but it will be 18+ at some point most likely. Minors and blanks dni.
Everyone always talks about how hard it is moving in the middle of the school year. But, what they never talk about is how hard it is to move once you’ve just graduated. Friend groups are already established and due to college, no one is looking to meet anyone new until they’re off to whichever university they’ve decided to attend.
You, however, weren’t off to university. You knew it wasn’t right from you. Your parents supported your decision. In fact, they were thrilled…but not for the reasons you originally thought. Your dad wanted to move back to his home town of Forks, Washington and your mom, being a lover of nature, thought it was the perfect change of scenery. According to the conversation they had with you, it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision either. Your dad had gotten a job as head surgeon and your mom had bought a space to turn into the bakery she had dreamed of owning for years. It was something they had been wanting to do for years but due to the fact you were doing so well in school, they hadn’t wanted to rip you away from that. 
Part of you, the part of you that didn’t want to admit it to yourself, wish that they had. Maybe then you’d have a better chance at your 20s not being so lonely in a town that so far on the drive from the airport, seemed to be desolate and void of any youth. But, it wasn’t all bad. With all the greenery and nature, you’d be able to focus on growing your powers more.
You came from a long lineage filled with powerful and strong witches, your mother being one of them. On your thirteenth birthday, your powers finally presented themselves and everything began to make sense for you. You had always felt different from your peers and having the confirmation that you were healed something in you. Your mom had been mentoring you and through her, you had learned so much over the years. As your eyes gazed out the rain littered car window, focusing on the ocean of trees that passed in a blur, one thing she had said stuck out to you the most. ‘A witch is at her strongest when surrounded by nature’. 
Every weekend, she used to drive 6 hours there and back to a small patch of woods outside of the city. But now, you had access to the forest in any direction you looked.
“I’m thinking of starting a garden in the yard, (Y/n/n), what do ya think?” your mom asked, causing your head to turn in her direction. Her body was turned back to face you, the small wrinkles near her mouth creasing as she grinned. She always had an air of vibrancy and brightness to her that made you question if you were even related sometimes. It was like you could practically feel her emotions buzzing off of her and piercing into your heart. You hummed mulling over your response, turning your attention back to your window, watching as the trees slowly began to turn into homes the further you drove into town.
“Sounds good.” you responded. Your limited word choice was something you had gotten from your father. He wasn’t as introverted as you were, but he only spoke when he found the conversation particularly interesting. And when it came to his wife, he found everything interesting.
“I think that’s a great idea, honey! There’s a lot of space at the house and I know if anyone can make it magical, it’s you.” You watched in the rear view mirror as his eyes flickered towards your mom, full of admiration. Your mom giggled at his small joke, shoving his shoulder in a playful manner. “Maybe in the spring, you could get some fruit growing, use it in your bakery.”
“Why wait till spring? I could do it now with the flick of a finger.” she mused, holding out her palm. Golden sparks hovered above it, swirling in a circular motion. Your dad smiled at her, shaking his head as he pulled into a driveway which you assumed was your new home. Sticking your head out the window, you looked up at it in awe.
In the city, your house was a lot smaller. Lots of identical homes sandwiched far too close together for your liking. But this house, it had character. Faded green framework, a bay window, and a semi wrap-around porch. You noticed a window on the second story, a small balcony attached to it. In your mind you had already claimed it. The slamming of the van door broke you out of your brewing daydream. Looking on the lawn, you internally groaned as you saw people. Just what you wanted to see after a 7 hour car ride. Before you could duck down and pretend you couldn’t exist, your dad turned his head, shaking it as if he could predict what you were about to do.
“(Y/n), come meet my friends!” he called to you. Sighing, you pulled your cardigan closer to your body before hopping out the back seat, stretching your arms as the snap, crackled, and popped. You were finally able to get a good look at the people on your lawn. An older white man with brunette hair, and a thick mustache. Another in a wheelchair, with long, thick black hair, a cowboy hat perched on his head. You recognized them from the pictures from your dad’s office. “These are my old buddies, Billy Black and Charlie Swan. We grew up together!” he explained. Putting on your best smile, you stuck your hand out, shaking each of their respective hands.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you both after hearing dad talk my ears off about you for years.” You joked, causing both men to chuckle. 
“If it makes you feel any better, your dad’s always bragging about ya, kid.” Charlie said. You smile slightly at your dad as he tells you that. Your dad has never been a stranger of telling you how proud he is of you, so it doesn’t shock you that much but it’s still nice to hear it.
“Enough chatting, how’s bout I grab some beers from the cooler and we can start unpacking this uhaul? We’ve got some time but let me tell ya’, the Mrs. does not pack light.” Your dad speaks over his shoulder as he makes his way to the trunk. You hear the sound of ice shuffling as he grabs a few beers out, cracking them open on the side of the car.
“Everything has value, David! You’ll be thanking me when it saves you the money!” Your mom says from the open door, huffling as she grabs another box from the porch, carrying it further into the house. Shaking your head, you smile some. At least some things haven’t changed.
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After a while, you finally got all of your boxes into your new room. The one with the balcony as you had hoped. All your heavier furniture was still on the lawn as Mr.Black had informed you his son would be coming soon to bring it up for you. In the meantime, you had time to put your other things up. Standing in the middle of the room, you close your eyes, focusing your mind for a bit as your body begins to levitate, just barely hitting the high ceilings. Waving your hand, your rolled up rug unfolds placing itself in the middle of your room. You squint your eyes until you’re able to locate the box labeled ‘books’, hovering your hand in their direction. You move it to the built-in bookshelves on the wall, all of your books organizing themselves perfectly. Magic has its perks. 
You decide to go for the books next until there’s a knock on your door startling you. You fall to the ground with a loud thud, groaning as the door swings open. Looking up, your body grows warm at the sight in front of you. There’s a taller boy around your age, shirtless with your mattress under one of his arms. Due to his lack of shirt, you’re able to take in every inch of his chiseled chest and the tattoo on his arm. You recognized the symbol from one of the spellbooks your mother showed you but couldn’t recall the meaning. As you pry your eyes away from his torso, you’re able to focus on his face which is somehow even better than what you were just looking at. Gorgeous brown eyes, thick brows, and pretty pink lips. He was somehow rugged and cute at the same time but you had no time to focus on that as he dropped your mattress on the ground, pulling you up with ease.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a concerned tone. You looked away in embarrassment, clearing your throat as you backed away from his hold.
“Fine. Just tripped over this stupid rug.” You mumbled. He looks you up and down, laughing as he returns to the mattress, lifting it with ease. Almost too much. He leans it against the wall furthest from you before returning to the doorway. He smiles at you, throwing you a subtle wink.
“Just in case. I’ll be back with the rest, try not to hurt yourself in the meantime.” He teases, gone just as quickly as he came. You stand frozen in place, listening as he makes his way down the stairs, the sounds of his steps fading. Once you were sure he was gone, you walk over to the balcony doors, stepping out into the chilly fall air. You let out a groan as you lean over it, playing with the idea of jumping off. At least you wouldn’t be able to embarrass yourself any further. 
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the-common-cowgirl · 1 year
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Greater of Two Evils
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Summary: Your brother is a powerful man and so is Aemond Targaryen. You’re caught as a pawn between the two men. You have to chose between two evils and unfortunately for you, you chose wrong.
Rating: Explicit, Minors Do NOT Read, 18+
Word Count: 4.3k
Pairings: Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader
Warnings: DD;DNE, Non-Con/Dub-Con, Choking, Rough Sex, smut (p in v, fingering, oral sex (f receiving) jealousy , possessiveness, incest-y vibes from brother, unwanted creampie, breeding kink, coercion, mentions of birth control/emergency contraception not being allowed/available to reader, Aemond wants reader pregnant, men being dicks, degration, praise, Capitalism and the Elite, swearing
A/N: This is a spite fic dedicated my first hate comment. I hope you wait even longer now. 💋
Not yet proofread.
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Your brother was a powerful man. One of the most powerful in Westeros. Many say he didn’t deserve his position, both of you coming from near nothing, but your brother was born with a gift your parents would often say was a “creative and hungry mind.” He was 10 years old when he started a small lawn care business in the Riverlands that grew to a full-fledged company at 14 he (and your parents due to his age) ran. At 16, he sold that company, got an internship at River’s Corp. When he freshly graduated University in Oldtown as the top of his class, giving a speech that would be remembered as one of the best speeches Oldtown Univeristy had ever the opportunity of hearing, he asked if you would like to move to Dorne with him, get out of the Riverlands and have an opportunity at Sunspear University. Seeing the chance at freedom and knowing your brother would most likely be paying for your schooling (since he had just been offered a high ranking position at Sunspear Industries) you took his offer and moved in with him a week after you graduated high school in the Riverlands.
That was three years ago. Your brother is now CFO of Rhoynar Industries and you’re in your third year of University at Sunspear studying Political Science. When you first moved in with your brother, the first two months were happy and spent everyday in your high-rise apartment’s swimming pool. But your brother had changed, or maybe, he was finally able to let his true self free during his college days as many young adults often do and his personality shift just took you longer to notice. His controlling behavior started innocent, nagging at your to keep the house tidy, then turning into commenting on what you wore out, turning into full blown comments about your appearance, weight, hair color. He made you dye your hair color black, to match his own natural color. Long gone were your auburn waves but you didn’t notice it then, well you did, but you weren’t as disturbed by it. Telling yourself he wanted you to look the part of perfect sister.
But then, halfway through your first semester, he told you that your Early Education major wasn’t good enough for him. He demanded you change it and when you tried to argue, he simply took your laptop, reminding that he bought it, and emailed your academic advisor that you’d like to change your major and wanted to meet with them first thing tomorrow morning.
That should’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back, you should’ve left that night. Packed your things and went back home to the Riverlands; be with your parents.
I’m every aspect of your life, you always fell short of the greatness of your brother: courage was not exempt.
That next morning, you went with puffy eyes to your advisor’s office and changed your major, dropping out of your current courses and signing up for secondary 8-week courses for your new major that would, in your brother’s words “thankfully start next week.”
You could easily summarize your life in Dorne these past few years: the Seven Hells.
All of this leads you to this moment. Your brother and you were invited to King’s Landing by the head of Targ Corp for an annual celebration they held for their most loyal alliance corporations. It was easy, your brother and his team of associate executives played a simple game: play nice with each other and keep everyone else from rising above. Being around these people made you want to vomit. These posh-assholes were some of the most dangerous and hateful people you’d ever laid eyes on, all wrapped in clothing that were one of their low-level employee’s entirely yearly salary. You didn’t want to be here, not a single bit, but your brother held the carrot stick of Univeristy tuition and free-housing over your head so you played along like the good sister you were expected to be.
You had just gotten out of the shower when you brother came barging into your hotel room without knocking, holding a garment bag.
“Hey!” You shouted, covering your naked self with a towel, “Can you knock next time?” You briefly wondered how he had gotten in, you made sure you locked it twice, then you saw the keycard he had kept for your room sliding back into his pant pocket.
“Wear this tonight,” he disregarded your fluster and laid the garment bag down on the bed you were sitting on.
Your brows furrowed, looking at your own brother with trepidation. He knew you had brought one of the black dresses you had picked out a month ago and he had agreed to it then. Why had he changed his mind so suddenly?
You slowly opened the bag to reveal a dark green, dress that showed off entirely too much skin than you were comfortable with around these vampires.
You began to shake your head, “No, I don’t want to wear this one. It’s cold out and I want to wear the black, long sleeve one I-“
You were cut off with a harsh hand grabbing your jaw.
“Wear it or we’ll see how long you can pay for that expensive schooling on your own.” He spat into your face harshly.
Once he let go, you brought your hand up to rub at your jaw where there might be bruises now. Your skin was sore and your bone ached. “You know what, maybe I don’t want to even get this degree. Maybe I’ll move back in with mom and dad and just fucking live my own life again.”
As you sat on the bed angrily with tears of resentment brimming your eyes, you could feel your brother’s stare on you, boring holes into everything he deemed imperfect about you.
“Do this for me,” his voice was softer, “And I’ll give you anything you want.”
You finally looked up to him, disbelief in your eyes.
He kneeled to reach your eye level, you wrapped the towel around you tighter, “There is a man here I need you to impress. Do this for me and I’ll give you anything you want. I mean it.” His hand came up to brush your nude knee, you moved away instinctively.
You swallowed your unease. “What’s his name?” Your voice was so small.
He smiled at your acceptance, if you willing to work with him on something, if you giving in. “Aemond Targaryen,” he stood, returning to his business-like self. “He’s the son of the CEO, Visery’s. Aemond is a year older than me and he’s in politics. We-“ he paused, smiling at a memory, “We met in University…..He never really liked me.” He looked to you, “He’s the last legislator we need on our side for this deal that Roynar Industries and Targ Corp. are working up.”
“He’s against Targ. Corp?” You sounded flabbergasted, wondering why a Targaryen, the most infamously loyal family in the country, is an against his family’s own interests.
Your brother nodded and laughed, “Yeah, he fucking hates his dad.” He chuckled to himself some more before, “I just need you to win him to my side.”
You heard the implication and you skin began to crawl, stomach turning, “You seriously want me to fuck him?”
Your brother shook his head and chuckled as if you were crazy, “Just win him to our side.” He walked up to you again, towering over you as you sat, uneasily at the edge of the bed. He raised a hand and tapped the side of your head three times, “Use that political science knowledge I paid for.”
And then he left, making you feel like a tool.
You dressed yourself in the green gown, put on simple yet elegant makeup, and wore your dyed black hair up with a silver sun pin that your brother had picked out in his words, “to honor Roynar Industries.” You only felt branded.
Making your way down into the large event room of the hotel in which Targ Corp had set up for the celebration, you were handed a glass of something in a flute glass. The waiter had told you, in truth, but you were too nervous and occupied with looking elegant that you hadn’t really heard.
You spotted your brother across the event space standing with someone Martel from Roynar Industries that has offered for you to go ride on his yacht with him at least three times. Then you could see he was with some silver haired man, probably from Targ Corp. The Targaryens were known for their loyalty, ruthlessness and silver hair. Targ Corp. was the most powerful company in Westeros, they had their hand in everything and could turn anyone’s head the way they wanted. Coming it second was Roynar Industries and the old saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” was prevalent in the relationship with the two corporations. They worked together in most large projects in Westeros and you knew the each of them was waiting for the other to fall.
You walked the perimeter of the event, scanning the crowd for someone you knew or the person you were after. Although, you had heard Aemond Targaryen’s name before you had no idea what he looked like. You used your context clues though and assumed he had silver hair, he was probably tall and lean like all Targaryen men are and most likely flirtatious.
“Great,” you breathe, remembering a girl from Sunspear a few years ago that recalled a horrible relationship with an older man by the name of “Aegon Targaryen.” One in which he not only expected sex from her, he cheated when she refused. You briefly wondered how Aemond was related to this Aegon.
“Are you looking for me?” A deep, soft voice sounded beside your ear. You stopped dead in you tracks and turned like a scared bunny to the stranger.
The stranger. The silver haired stranger who checked nearly all your boxes for the stranger you were searching for. Had he been right?
You gathered your composure quickly, “And you are?”
“I’m assuming the man you’re looking for if you’re his sister,” he pointed behind you to your brother who was not chatting up a dark haired lady and a curly haired man with a cane.
You gave a quick, nervous laugh and stuck out your hand, “Nice to meet you, Aemond. I’m Y/N.”
Aemond looked down at your outstretched hand between the two of you, his his eye flicked up to you. You realized then, only one moved, however, the other, the one that intercepts his scar, is quite realistic. He ran his fingers slowly across your palm before grasping it gently but not shaking. The act was sensual and strange, you tried to pull away but he quickly snaked his hand up your arm and wrapped his large hand around your bicep, pulling you closer to him. He leaned in, “Aren’t you tired of being a pawn for your brother?”
You pulled back to look at him square in the face, at his perfect, angular face that was so sharp. “What the fuck do you mean?” You whispered, wondering what all he knew and how.
“I think you know exactly what I mean.” He whispered into your ear. If you had not been in the edge of the event, you two would be quite a spectacle to behold but someone, this man, this stranger, had planned this. He had to. You were both in the shadows, the outskirts, not to be seen unless looked for and Gods, you hoped someone would look for you. He made you uneasy, uncomfortable, and warm in places you shouldn’t be given the circumstance of your situation. He looked down to your cleavage, “Tell me, did he pick out this dress? This color?”
You furrowed your brows, trying to figure out how Aemond knew this. “Wha-“
“Did he tell you that him and his colleagues have a bet if we’ll fuck tonight or not?”
You looked back to your brother who was laughing with some of his associates from Roynar Industries. “How do you-“
“I have eyes and ears everywhere, I’m two steps ahead of him and always have been. He has such a problem being number two doesn’t he?” His voice was thick with hatred and his grip on your arm was bruising.
“Get the fuck off of me!” You just about screamed, pushing from Aemond. He let go and took a step back, look at you up and down. He resembled a wild predator, maybe that’s what he was. You smoothed your dress, “Fuck you, you stupid bitch,” you spat angrily, adjusting a strap of your dress. “I was just told to be friendly with you. I’m not a sex worker you ass! I wouldn’t fuck you in a million years.” You downed the alcoholic liquid in the glass before setting it on the ground at your feet. Aemond only watched you with a newfound amusement. It made you angrier. “I’m only helping my brother out until I graduate then it’s fuck this place, fuck Westeros and most of all….” You looked him up and down, finally realizing that he was goddamn handsome, dangerously so, if his personality wasn’t so off-putting, “fuck you.”
You stormed away before he could say anything back. You didn’t want to be here anymore, you wanted to return to your room and cry into your pillow until you fell asleep. You were angry and hurt. How could your brother set you up like this? How could a complete stranger be so fucking brash and horrible? How could you be so stupid to believe your brother’s hunger for power would never come to this? Setting you up for his own benefit?
You’re certain your brother saw you in your way out of the venue, he always has tabs on you, but you knew he wouldn’t rush to your aid or to scrutinize you in front of people he wanted to look good for.
You slam your hotel room door and sink against it, hands over your face, crying on the floor. You sit like that for some time before a knock vibrates against your back and rings in your ears.
“Go away,” you try to say through sobs.
The knock comes again.
“I said go away!” Your shout this time is uncomely for a young woman you could hear your brother say in your head but you don’t care.
“It’s Aemond,” come the voice from the other side of the door.
The raises a fire in your heart as you angrily fling the door open to see the posh, pissy man from before. Mascara is running down your cheeks and your hair is falling out of its updo but you don’t care. “Go away,” you remind him dangerously, beginning to slam the door he puts his foot in the way and hand stopping you from breaking his foot ever so casually.
He pushes the door open with ease and steps into the room, making you step back and further. “We both have a problem and I’m here to propose a deal.”
Your brow quirks and your arms cross, “A deal?”
“A deal,” he echos. “I propose that you and I team up, I’ll offer you whatever he did, you offer me information to take your brother down and out.” He takes another step toward you and you take a step back in response, feeling the back of your legs hit the bedside.
“Why would I agree to that? I’m already getting my college paid for and a place to stay during. Why would I agree to everything I have in turn for you to ruin my brother? He’s horrible but I still love him.” You shook your head, “He’s done a lot for me-“
“I can offer more.” He moved in closer, making you lean uncomfortably against the bed.
“I don’t know you-“
“I will offer you more. You can get to know me, we can form a partnership. A friendship you could call it.” His voice was suggestive.
“Your offer of more is a friendship? I don’t need-“
“I can fuck you, can he?”
His words slapped you across the face. “What?” You mumbled like a dumb baby, confused and shocked. Maybe a little turned on.
Aemond brought his hands up your side and pushed you down to sit on the bed, he kneeled down and kissed the inside of your knee. Everything felt so wrong but he looked so goddamn handsome, you wanted it even if you said you wouldn’t fuck him.
“They have a bet, they want us to fuck.” He explained, “Let’s do it, prove we are into each other. You feed me information on him and the legalities of Roynar Industries.” He kissed your other thigh, you leaned back slightly involuntarily, it had been so long since a man had touched you, your brother wouldn’t allow you to date. “And I’ll slowly give you an out.”
Your breath hitched as his long, slender hand reached under your silky dress and trailed its way toward your core. “Slowly?” You questioned him breathlessly as his his thumb found your clothed clit on contact and began working against it. You could feel wetness pooling as he worked you open and your thighs began to move accommodate him as he moved closer and his other hand slid the dress higher and higher.
“Yeah sweetling, it’ll start with dates, then you staying at my flat in King’s Landing, then moving in.” Your dress was high enough to show off the lacy, black panties you wore and Aemond groaned, making you clench and buck your hips up to meet his ministrations.
“Sounds-sound like,” you were breathless and drunk on the attention he was giving you, “you want more than a fucking spy.” You fully laid back and lifted your hips so Aemond could pull your panties down your legs and off.
He ran a dexterous finger though your folds and watched it disappear into you with ease as you moaned. “Yeah maybe,” his voice was husky, “maybe I like putting your brother in his place. Second to Aemond fucking Targaryen. Always has been, always will be.”
He added a second finger, moving dangerously against your g-spot and the coil in your lower abdomen began to tighten. You lifted your back off the bed in a silent scream as he added a third finger and his mouth sucking at your clit. The intense and sudden pleasure gave way to a sharp, nearly painful orgasm and Aemond fucked you right through it.
When the wave of pressure came down, Aemond lapped at the wetness he expelled from you on your cunt and on his own fingers, moaning at the taste.
You laid on your back, trying to regain your senses and trying to remind yourself you were fucking a complete stranger, you should stop here before it was too late but you snapped out of your senses as he rose, half nude already and unzipping his black dress pants, pulling them and his underwear off in one swipe to reveal the longest, thickest cock you’d ever seen. The idea of taking such a thing inside you made you nearly swell with pride and excitement at the opportunity.
Aemond saw the look on your face and gave his hard cock a quick stroke. “Are you on birth control?”
You shook your head, “He wouldn’t let me, said the side effects are too dang-“
“Well I don’t have a condom,” he said, climbing atop you and pushing you up the bed, not giving you a choice, another reason to get the fuck out now. “I’m clean,” he offered before biting your collarbone then kissing the bite mark.
“I’m-I’m clean.” The voices in your head telling you to get out now.
He moved to the other side of your head and kissed your neck sensually, “You want me to fuck you raw?” Practically growling into your artery as he thrust the tip of his hard cock to your clit, making it harder and harder to say no.
“Uh, just, uh, pull out?” You squeaked as he did it again. You just wanted the fucking thing in you already, stretching you out in the way you wanted.
You felt his smile against your skin, “sure thing sweetling,” it sounded unconvincing.
You felt the tip breach you slowly then push forward even slower. Aemond raised to watch himself split you apart, groaning as you pussy sucked him in with a need unknown to you.
When he finally bottomed out, jutting painfully against your cervix he gave you a sound to adjust and gods, was he fucking endowed. You felt his cock throbbing with need and you wanted to please him, to let him know you were worthy so you bucked you hips against his and let out a moan at how fucking full you felt.
He only chuckled darkly and began his rough assault on your cunt. Pounding without warning or abandon into your heat, pushing your thighs to your chest and bending you in half, positioning you in a way that had him hitting your spot over and over until were moaning his name and your pussy began to flutter.
“Slow-slow down,” you pleaded, it felt like too much.
“Oh, poor little sister can’t fucking take it?” He once slammed extra hard after his demeaning question, it made you shriek. “Poor baby,” he wiped a tear forming in your eye with a sarcastic worry. “She played with the big dogs and didn’t know what she’s in for-“ he grunted, “you should be lucky I’m not fucking you in the ass.”
He pulled your dress down, ripping the shoulder straps to reveal you tits. Smiling like a wild man, he grasped them both harshly before sticking his tongue out and licking each nipple back and forth, making you squirm and tighten around him. “Fuck,” he groaned.
Then, as if a lightbulb went off, he pulled out and flipped you over, pulling you to your knees and ripping your dress and destroyed bra from your body. He entered you harshly again and pulled your back to his chest. His mouth on your ear, nibbling then biting, “I need to make you mine. Announce your brother who you belong to- who owns you now.”
His hand traveled down your belly to the bulge of his cock outlined in your lower stomach. “Do you feel me? Do you feel me up there? Feel me practically in your womb?”
You could, it was painful the way he bullied your cervix but the way he pleasured your sweet spot made you clench and fight off an orgasm that waited to burst.
He laughed into your ear, “Fuck, cum on this cock, I know you need to. Come on me and I’ll give you what you need.”
What the fuck did he mean what you need?
But that didn’t matter, he brought his hand to play with your clot as his pounding continued and you couldn’t fight off the orgasm anymore. Your body tightened and the coil snapped, pulsing around his cock, milking it, you screamed his named and he pinched your nipples as you came on his cock.
I’m your haze, he slowly let you fall to to bed as your ass remained up, his hands firmly handing you in place. “Such a good girl. A better girl than I’d thought you’d be. Oh, a perfect girl for me.” His pounding was relentless as he chase his own high.
You barely registered him saying, “Oh gods, we’ll be perfect together,” before you felt him still behind you, then the pulsing of his cock as warmth flooded you. He let out a groan, a triumphant groan, as he came inside you.
A shaking sob left you as you realized you’d been tricked, betrayed again, used again.
He stayed inside you for some time before pulling his softened cock out and putting on his clothes. You collapsed onto the bed, feeling the evidence of his orgasm slowly slide from your body. You grabbing the pillow ahead of you and hid your face in it. That was, until you felt his hand caress your nude back and the bed shift with the weight of him sitting beside you.
“Hey sweetheart, it’s okay. Don’t cry. I need to know you’re gonna remember our agreement.”
You furrowed your brows, “Fuck you, there is no agreement anymore. You lied to me.”
Aemond chuckled and pushed a strand of hair from your face, “Think of it as the lesser of two evils. Marry me and have everything you’d ever wanted or keep being a pawn for your brother.”
“You’re nuts if you think I’d marry you after a single fuck.”
He looked back down to your thighs, where his seed slowly seeped out, then back to you with a smug grin. “I think your brother would kill you if it was all over the press that you suddenly fell pregnant and unwed. We all know he’s a religious freak now.”
You furrowed your brows, “I’m buying emergency contraceptive as soon as you leave this room.”
He chuckled, “I’m not leaving then.”
“Who said I’ll get pregnant anyway?” You were angry, so angry you couldn’t make sense of his hand sneaking up your neck, holding it tightly.
“My father owns the press. If they say you are, then you are. Imagine what your mother would think, your father? Oh, your reputation would be ruined and your brother would be embarrassed of you.” He grit through his teeth, “And I’ll have people watch you, I already do. They give me updates, they follow you, they’ll know, I’ll know if you are. And then,” he let go of your neck, “You won’t have a choice. I won’t give you one.”
“You’re a fucking psycho.”
He chuckled, running his fingers along your arm, “I’m the easy choice. I’ll give you everything, just give me yourself.”
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lovebugism · 1 year
Note
sleepover !! on the plane of dad!steve: what about steve finding out reader’s pregnant? they’re young enough for it to be a shock, but established relationship or casual hookup is up to you
i hereby name this the first installment of my dad!steve blurb series: the "crazy little thing called love" universe &lt;3
By all accounts, you and Steve did everything right.
Sure, you got married pretty young, but after surviving the end of the world four separate times, you thought you were deserving of the rapid elopement. You moved into a little apartment outside of town shortly after, working like dogs until you could afford a down payment on one of those pretty houses people put in magazines. 
Neither of you minded that it was in the middle of the suburbs — that it was “expected” of the Harringtons to live within white picket fences. You were just grateful you didn’t have to live in his vacant childhood home that his parents were kind enough to offer as a present for a wedding they didn’t attend. Steve was more than happy to let the place rot. 
It takes your entire first year of marriage to fully decorate the place. 
The pool in the backyard is lined with white and yellow striped lounge chairs. The living room is more plants than furniture. The kitchen cabinets are painted green to match the tile in the bathroom. And the bedroom’s got a gallery of photos of the both of you on one side and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase on the other — Steve stores his vinyls on the upper shelves and you stash your books on the lower ones.
You’re finally getting settled into your new life in your new house when you realize your period is late.
By two weeks, to be exact.
You don’t even realize it until you’re grocery shopping. 
Steve mans the cart while you strike through the list, as per usual. He’s trying to choose between two similarly scented body washes — accidentally squirting some on the tip of his nose in the process — when you return from the feminine hygiene section. 
You didn’t need tampons, you realized while standing in front of the vibrantly colored boxes, because you had a full pack at home for a period that never came.
Steve uses his sleeve to wipe the peppermint-scented soap from his nose when you return, looking pallid and ghastly — like you’ve just seen a ghost looking for period underwear. His hand slows before falling to his side. “You okay?” he cautions.
You nod before the words catch up to you. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m— Yeah.”
“You could at least try and sound a little more convincing,” he laughs as he puts both bottles back. Neither was worth getting soap up the nose, turns out. “C’mon. Just tell me. It can’t be that bad, right?”
In his head, you’ve just seen someone from high school. You saw an old friend or a mean girl who hated you for no reason or a boy you had a fling with. They tried to chat you up while you were deciding between regular and super tampons, and the unexpected encounter’s got you all shaken up.
The image is so vivid in his head, Steve could laugh just thinking about it.
You clear your tightening throat, inching closer to him when another couple enters the aisle. You whisper like you’re telling him a secret. “My, um… My period is late. By, like… a lot.”
Steve’s blood runs cold. His eyes go wide and he forgets how to breathe. “Oh. Okay. Yeah. That’s— That’s bad, huh?”
“Yes,” you agonize, breathless. “Yes, that’s bad. That’s very, very bad.”
“Alright, c’mon. I’m standing right here,” he half-jokes.
“I just got promoted. If I have to take a year off work for maternity leave, I’ll be right back where I started.”
Steve can sense the panic radiating off of you. It’s rising with vigor like a faucet turned on high in a stopped-up kitchen sink. Once it starts overflowing, it’s harder to stop. Despite his own distant worry, he tries to quell your own.
“You might not even be pregnant, right? So why are you already worrying about maternity leave?” he questions with a gentle laugh. He takes both your arms in his hands, squeezing you in a soft reassurance. “You’re right. You just got promoted. Maybe, you know— Maybe you’re just stressed out about it. That’s all.”
“Yeah… You’re probably right.”
“Let’s take a test first, huh? Then we can start panicking.”
He presses a kiss to the tip of your scrunched nose. 
You’re able to breathe again.
You pick out three different brands of pregnancy tests, shoving them quickly into your cart and hiding them beneath your groceries like sex toys. 
The boxes are stacked on top of each other as they move slowly on the conveyor belt at the checkout counter. The older woman with pink lips and pinker nails smiles as she scans them through.
“It’s exciting, huh?” she gushes, smacking bubble gum between her teeth.
“Yep,” you nod, though the word comes out slightly strangled.
Steve’s charming smile wavers. “Totally.”
The paper bags of groceries are quickly abandoned on the kitchen counter when you get home. You’re far more worried about the pregnancy tests, and Steve’s more concerned about calming you down.
He sits with you on your shared bed, back propped up against the headboard, with you in between his legs. He works your palm with his thumbs, smoothing out the tension you seem to hold there. His chest you lean upon rises and falls with deep, even breaths. 
You’re not sure how he can be so calm about this, but you’re almost comforted by it.
Almost.
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, you know?” Steve admits after a minute or more of pure silence. “If you were pregnant. Actually, you know, I think I’d be pretty happy.”
“I know you would be. It’s totally different for you.”
His brows furrow, though you’re not looking at him to see. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t have to be the one to take off work. I’d have to drop my entire career, and I’m— I’m just getting started. It would change everything for me.”
Steve hums to himself. It’s not the pregnancy that scares you, not the birthing process or the late nights or the constant crying. It’s the thought that you wouldn’t have a life outside of it all.
“I’d be here to help you, you know?”
“I know,” you sigh softly, tiling your head on his shoulder so you can stare up at him. His chin juts closer to his neck so he can look down at you too. “But for a while, we both couldn’t work. For the first couple of years, probably. And we can’t get a babysitter because we wouldn’t have double incomes, and… I don’t know if I’d trust someone to take care of our baby anyway—”
Steve tries not to smile but completely and utterly fails. 
You’re already talking like it’s a for sure thing — you having a baby. His baby. 
He doesn’t want to get his hopes up too high.
“Hey. It’s okay,” he almost coos to end your panicked rambling. “We’ll figure it out, I promise. Let’s just take this one step at a time, yeah?”
You take a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Yeah…”
He waits for you in the bedroom while you check the tests in the adjoining bathroom. He offered to come with you, of course, but you told him you could do it on your own. You said they’d probably be negative anyway, that it likely was just stress delaying your period, and that you were just making a fuss over nothing.
It’s quiet for all of ten seconds.
“Fuck!” you shout, a bit louder than you intended, muffled from the bathroom.
Steve winces.
“I take it they were positive?” he questions when you storm back into the bedroom, completely and utterly frazzled.
“We’re so stupid,” you chastise, pacing ahead of the bed. “We’re so, so stupid.”
Steve finds it in him to laugh, still a bit dazed by the results. “We’re not sixteen anymore. We’re married. Married people have kids—”
“But I’m not ready yet!” you shout with wild eyes. Your hands flail at your sides as you gesticulate. “I wanted to wait, like, five years, at least. I wanted to be CCO before we even thought about having kids.”
“Things don’t go as planned sometimes, babe. We know that more than anybody.”
He was right. After saving the world, you shouldn’t be shocked by anything anymore. You were so jaded by the time spring of 1986 rolled around that Vecna hardly scared you. The thought of uprooting your life to raise a child frightened you far more than any alternate dimension and monsters without faces.
“I was just announced Vice President, Steve. No one else in company history has gotten to oversee the marketing department so quickly. You don’t know what it’s like in the firm, alright? It’s vicious. They’ll replace me the second I’m gone.”
“No, they won’t,” the boy says with so much confidence it almost makes you angry.
“You can’t know that—”
“I do know that, actually,” he argues as he slides to the edge of the mattress to meet you. His larger hands engulf your shaking ones. His honey eyes twinkle as they gaze up at you. “‘Cause they’d be idiots to let you go. ’S why I married you, yeah? There’s not another person in the whole world like you.”
“It’s just something I’ve always wanted, you know?” you sigh, less prickly than before, but still visibly terrified. “I’ve been dreaming about corporate savagery since I was twelve…”
Steve grins. “You can still have all that. I’ve seen you set monsters on fire — you can raise a kid and run a company. You’re the most badass person I’ve ever met.”
“But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“If I can’t work, we’ll be living on your income. I don’t… I don’t want you to have to work more than you already do.”
“I’ll be okay,” he promises, squeezing your trembling fingers. “You’ll take maternity leave for however long you need to, your coworkers will grovel hands and knees to get you back, and I’ll… I’ll stay home with the baby.”
Your face scrunches with worry. “Is that something you want?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a dad, you know? I can’t… I can’t really see myself doing anything else.”
Steve always thought he was broken in that way. His dad was already building businesses by the time he had a kid. He coached Steve to do the same — to graduate, to spend thousands on a degree, to have ten assistants by the time he was twenty-five. But Steve never wanted that. Not Ever. Especially not after the tenth near-death experience.
He just wanted to have a family of his own. 
He wanted to be with you and to be still. That was all. 
“Besides, you always said you wanted a house husband,” he jokes with a crooked smile.
That makes you laugh. A giggle sputters from your lips before you can stop it. The sunshine feeling overpowers your lingering worry.
“I would like that,” you concur with a sheepish grin. 
You can picture it so clearly — Steve with a baby, greeting you with a kiss when you get home, a spit-up towel thrown over his shoulder, hair mussed and jaw stubbled. It was something dreams were made of. 
Your potential reality. 
Your future.
“We’re gonna be the happiest damn people on the planet, babe.”
You lean down to kiss him. It’s hard, though, because you’re both smiling so wide.
Your laughs entwine, pressed into one another, as Steve flops back on the bed and drags you down with him. He rolls you onto your sides, one hand propping his head up and the other resting on your belly. 
My kid is in there, he marvels in his head. This is where my baby’s gonna grow.
“What do you think about Apple?”
Your brows pinch together. “What?”
“For, like, a girl name?”
“…Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Apple for a girl and Wolfgang for a boy,” he jokes with a wide smile on his rosy lips. He shrugs. “And if we have twins, they can be Apple and Wolfgang. Really rolls off the tongue, don’t ya think?”
“You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”
With your hands cradling his jaw, you pull him down for another interrupted kiss.
“What about Moon or— ah,” he gasps with wide eyes. “Or Rainbow?”
“Steve!” you groan.
“What? Tell me Rainbow Harrington isn’t the cutest damn name you’ve ever heard.”
“That is so not a baby name.”
“Anything can be a name if you make it a name,” he argues with all of his Steve Harrington sass. “Like Queen… Or Journey.”
“Yeah, let’s just name all our kids after your favorite bands,” you quip, giggling.
“I know you’re joking, but that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
You shake your head at this boy and his wild head filled with wilder thoughts. 
You sit in silence in your marveling, letting him ramble on — “There’s Roxy and Berlin and- wait, do you think babies can be named after numbers? Because, like, B-52 is a badass name. Sounds like something out of Star Wars, huh?” 
You can’t believe you married this man. You can’t believe you get to be married to this man.
You’re stuck with Steve Harrington and his dumbassery for life.
God, you can’t wait to spend forever with him.
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laurenairay · 2 months
Text
I can't help it if I like it - M. Martin
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Summary: Dhara Nicholls is just trying to make ends meet while working on her Masters degree. Enter Matt Martin.
This is my entry for @wyattjohnston’s summer fic exchange 2k24! My giftee is @comphy-and-cozy and I hope I incorporated everything we discussed. This is the second longest fic I’ve ever written on here and I had genuinely so much fun writing it! Definitely written with a lot of creative license, not only because Matt and Sydney are couple goals, but also because I completely fudged the season dates. I also modelled Dhara’s degree and work after one of my best friends, and her Sikh faith after another friend, so it is as accurate as I could make it without experiencing it all myself.
I hope you enjoy it C! And thank you to Demi for reading through the first half of this monster!
Words: 13.7k
Warnings: age gap, flirting, pining, extremely slow burn, implied intimate moment, some bad language, changed names of Matt’s irl wife and children
Title from Shotput by Still Woozy Lyrics used from Middle of the Night by Elley Duhé
~
Waiter/Waitress…
Bartender…
Tutor…
Barista…
Cashier…
Of all the things to leave to the last minute. Dhara usually prided herself on her organisational skills, but with her summer internship taking up most of the past couple of months, finding a part-time job to give her disposable income (and food, for that matter) for the final year of her postgraduate degree had slipped her mind. Rents had gone up quite significantly in the past few months, so anything extra she had last year was pouring directly into paying for her tiny apartment, and she needed to eat, damn it.
Unfortunately, now that it was already August, there was nothing truly suitable. She needed flexible hours, that was for sure – some of her data modelling work couldn’t just be stopped in the middle of a good coding flow to pick up a shift at a bar. And some of her classes were online this final year, so she wouldn’t find it as easy to travel back and forth to a job on campus. Tutoring could potentially work but it would involve a fair amount of planning and structure that she wasn’t sure she could commit to.
This was the worst timing. And she’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t ask her parents for help, not when she was so close to finally finishing her education. But what could she do?
“Hey Dhara!”
She turned her head to the side quickly, dark curls whipping over her shoulder, before she smiled. The familiar voice indeed matched one of her former dormmates, Melissa. They had lived on the same floor in freshman year at NYU, but with limited student housing, most of the friends on that floor had gone their separate ways into private renting. She’d lost touch with a few of those girls too, after they graduated from their undergraduate degrees, but those she still kept in touch with had carried on their education like she had – only Melissa and another of their friends Janelle had taken up postgraduate study at Long Island University – Brooklyn though, so it was good to see her familiar face outside of the occasional coffee catch-ups, especially after the long summer break.
“Melissa! Hi! How are you?”
“I’m good, I’m good, glad to be back in the city. How are you? Did you travel back to LA to see your parents in the end?”
“I’m pretty good too, thanks. And no, the internship offer was too good to turn down. My parents went on a few trips by themselves anyway, so it’s not like I missed out on too much time with them,” Dhara shrugged, smiling, “Now I’m just trying to get myself set up for final year.”
She loved her parents – really, she did – but she wasn’t as close to them as she had been growing up. The downfall of choosing to study far away from home. Dhara had barely been back to Los Angeles since she moved to New York when she turned 18, if she was being honest, and her parents valued her independence as well as her dedication to her studies. At least they could rely on video calls to see each other’s faces.
“Oh man, tell me about it. Shitty rent increases, right?” Melissa groaned.
“Exactly!” Dhara laughed, “I’m just trying to find something that’ll let me be flexible so I can graduate to the best of my ability, you know?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Melissa sighed, smiling sympathetically, “I’ve got a couple of interviews at coffee chains lined up, but the hours are going to be brutal.”
Dhara grimaced. Yeah, there was a reason she wanted to avoid working as a barista unless there was no other option.
“Hey, you like kids, right?”
Dhara raised an eyebrow at her friend’s question. “I…do. I have plenty of cousins who have kids already, if that’s what you mean. Why?”
“A friend of my roommate works for a nannying agency. Completely certified company, really well paid, you can input your available hours into their website so they match you up, and they cater to a lot of wealthy clients. She told me they’re opening their books, but I’m not a huge kids person myself. If you’re interested, I could pass you her details?”
“Wait, really? Just like that?” Dhara asked, surprised.
It almost sounded too good to be true.
“Really really. The agency do background checks and would want to see your resume as well as do an interview with you in person, but I can’t see you getting rejected from this. You’re crazy smart and super competent,” Melissa shrugged, smiling.
Nannying. For a potentially wealthy client. There were a whole host of problems that could come from that, with both the parents and the children, but could the flexibility be worth it?
Then again, what did she have to lose?
“Okay sure, pass me her details and I’ll give your roommate’s friend a call,” Dhara smiled.
She could only hope this worked out in her favour.
~
Time was running out, Matt knew that much. There were only a few weeks before the season started up again, and it was beyond time for him to hire a nanny for his daughter. He’d been a single dad for two years now, his marriage ending mostly amicably. Sure, his ex-wife’s announcement that she was tired of following him around for his career had been hard, but not as hard as her second announcement that she was following her own career abroad. But she’d not contested anything he'd asked of her, and hadn’t made any unreasonable demands herself, so it was as clean as a divorce could be. Being solely responsible for the upbringing of their daughter Sarah was not something he’d been prepared for, not with his lifestyle. He knew he was lucky that his mom had been willing drop everything and move in with him after his wife left them, but it was time to let his mom live her own life – and for him to move on with his.
Hockey was his first love, nothing would change that. But his daughter Sarah had taken over so much of his heart that he was struggling with the idea of hiring a stranger to take care of her when hockey took precedence. But it was time – for all of them. In the end, he’d decided to go through a reputable agency that a few of the guys on the team recommended, but after three unsuccessful interviews Matt was just about ready to beg his mom to stay a little longer.
The first interview had started well. But it had quickly deteriorated when he realised that they weren’t as flexible as he needed. It was fair enough that the nanny wanted set hours – he knew his schedule was all over the place – but he obviously couldn’t offer that, so he wished them well and cut the interview short.
The second interview had started bad and gotten worse. He didn’t know if it was the way the woman smiled at him when he saw the elegant interior of the house or how she spoke of him being a single dad with a wide-eyed pity smile, but he didn’t like the vibes she was sending at all. He didn’t need a nanny that was more interested in him than his daughter. No, just no.
The third interview sounded promising on paper. The candidate had all the right qualifications and experience, but when it came down to processes and how she handled tantrums and tears? No way. He knew Sarah sometimes got upset when he was on long roadtrips – it was only natural – and there was no way he was leaving his daughter with someone who would punish her for showing understandable emotions.
So Matt could only hope that this fourth interview – his last for the day before he gave up and started from scratch – would finally be positive.
Dhara Nicholls.
When he’d first seen the name, he hadn’t known what to expect. Dar-Rah. That was how the agency lady had pronounced it, so he could only hope she was right – the last thing he wanted was to say the nanny’s name wrong out of ignorance. While he would ask for more detail during the interview, he knew the basics about her from the information the agency had sent over. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, studied BS Computer Science at NYU, went on to study for a Masters in Computer Science at Long Island University – Brooklyn, and was currently in her final year for that. It was the flexibility that he was most intrigued by – and her apparent intelligence. He didn’t care that she didn’t have nannying experience outside of family. If she could take care of his daughter, make sure she was happy and healthy, that’s all that he cared about.
The doorbell rang right on time. Good start.
When he opened the door to greet her, Matt found himself freezing a little. He’d assumed that she wouldn’t be Caucasian based on her first name (as much as he hated assuming anything), but he somehow hadn’t been expecting the sheer beauty of the Indian woman standing in front of him now. At least he assumed she was Indian – and again with those assumptions. He would have to check for sure with some subtle questions because the last thing he wanted to do was act like an ass. But right now, her big beautiful brown eyes, smooth skin, glossy dark curls and sweet hopeful smile had his mind whirling. What was wrong with him?
“Hi! Mr Martin?”
Huh, a typical Valley girl accent. Not what he’d been expecting. Damn assumptions.
“Matt, please. Mr Martin makes me feel like my dad’s standing behind me,” he managed to force out.
The laugh that spilled from her lips sounded like music. He was doomed alright.
“Good to know. Matt it is,” she mused.
“Thanks, Dhara. Please come in,” he said, smiling warmly.
The way she smiled as he said her name let him know he’d said it right. Dar-Rah. Beautiful. No, he needed to be professional about this. He couldn’t let himself be bowled over by a beautiful girl, not when she was (hopefully) going to be employed by him. That wasn’t fair to her. Or to Sarah.
“Can I get you a drink? Water? Coffee?” he offered.
“Water would be great, if you don’t mind,” she nodded.
Matt quickly grabbed her a bottle of water from the fridge, before leading her into the living room, handing her the bottle as they sat down on opposite sofas. She was tall even in flat shoes, maybe 5ft10, and she looked around the room with a smile before her eyes landed on Matt. Captivating.
“Let’s start, shall we?” he said, trying to clear his thoughts.
Right from the get-go, she was impressive. Her upbringing in Los Angeles was very family-orientated, living near her father’s 3 siblings and all their children, her cousins. Her studies alone were remarkable but the way he could tell how passionate she was for her work was the most interesting part of all. He liked that she could be flexible with timings, happy to stay overnight in a guest room during roadtrips, and she was willing to work around her class schedule to even take classes from his house while Sarah was occupied with something she could still keep an eye on. It was more than he could have asked for, if he was being honest. It was all just a bonus that she was warm and genuine on top of it all.
Matt knew what he wanted the conclusion of this interview to be. Dhara was exactly what he’d been looking for, and he knew that Sarah would quickly accept her too. He could only hope that she felt like she’d been a good fit for them too.
“Is there anything else you wanted to know?” she asked.
“I think I have everything I need. I’m not going to lie, this whole process has been a struggle,” Matt admitted, “Trying to figure out who to trust my daughter with is the last thing I thought I’d be doing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dhara said softly, smiling sadly at him, “Would you like me to take any preferences back with me to the agency? So the next person is a better fit for you?”
If he hadn’t been convinced about her before, he absolutely was now.
“You don’t need to take feedback to the agency, Dhara. Because I want to offer you the job,” he said, smiling.
Her lips parted slightly in surprise, before a wide grin spread over her face. Somehow the pure joy in her expression made her even more beautiful, if that was even possible.
“Thank you, Mr Martin. Thank you so much!” Dhara said happily.
“You’re welcome. You’re exactly who I was hoping to find for my daughter. And please, call me Matt, remember?” he mused.
“Of course, whatever you want…Matt,” she said, ducking her head slightly to hide what looked like a shy smile.
Whatever you want.
Now that was just dangerous.
~
Dhara felt like she was dreaming. Three days ago, when Matt had actually offered her the job, she’d felt like her head was spinning, and it wasn’t until she had the official contract sorted and signed with the agency that everything started to sink in. He was willing to be as flexible as she needed, in return for her being as flexible as he needed – it was a small price to pay to stay in the guest room when he was away for her to still be able to attend all her classes. The only thing they’d had to negotiate was her one in-person class every two weeks that she couldn’t do online that was outside of Sarah’s Kindergarten hours, which he’d arranged for one of his teammate’s wives to look after Sarah for a couple of hours until she was finished. And wasn’t that a trip, learning who he was. An NHL player. She was really going to be the nanny for an NHL player’s six year old daughter, and she could still complete her degree. Mindblowing. The only thing that was still sort of in the works were the Kindergarten drop offs themselves – she wouldn’t be put on the accepted pick-up person list until after a first week’s trial, just to make sure Sarah was okay with her. It was fair enough, but still nervewracking. Matt apparently had full faith that everything would be fine though, and had already given her all the details. Drop off was between 8.30am and 9am, and pick up was at 2.30pm – Matt was happy for her to work from his house on the days she didn’t have to go into campus, to save travelling back and forth, which she was absolutely going to take him up on.  It almost felt too good to be true, that everything was working out the way it was, but she wasn’t going to let such a good opportunity to balance work and her degree slip through her fingers.
When Dhara arrived at Matt’s house, having been given a brief introduction to Sarah before Sarah excused herself to the living room, she tried not to let the nerves get to her. Matt looked lighter, like a weight had been taken off his shoulders, and she could only hope it was partly to do with her. He might be nearly 10 years older than her, but he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever laid eyes on, that was for sure. Not that she’d ever tell her new employer these completely inappropriate thoughts of course.
“Now, I have some meetings and final pre-season things to film and so on at the rink today. I’m hoping it’ll all be done in a few hours but it’ll be a good little start for Sarah to get used to me and my mom not being around. I’ve already explained everything to her, and I think she understands the concept of a nanny and that it was time for grandma to get back to her own life in Canada, but if there are any major issues then please call me,” he said seriously.
“I’m sure everything will be fine, especially if you’ve already talked with her, but I absolutely will call you if Sarah needs you. And please don’t rush home? You deserve to spend some time catching up with your friends. Team bonding, and all that, especially if someone suggests lunch. Sarah and I will be fine, I promise,” Dhara said firmly, but with a smile she hoped was encouraging.
Matt let out a shaky breath but nodded, and her heart ached for him. She could tell how much this was affecting him – it was obvious – but the whole reason for her being here was to make his life easier. She could do that, she knew it.
“Sarah, I’m going to the rink!”
She smiled to herself at the sound of fast-paced walking (not running inside the house was clearly a rule) and soon enough Sarah was clinging to her dad’s legs.
“Be nice to Dhara,” Matt said, smiling warmly.
“I’m always nice!” she said, pouting.
He just ruffled her blonde hair, nodding to Dhara with a shaky smile, giving Sarah one last hug before leaving the house. This was it – Dhara was officially responsible for the wellbeing of a child.
“I’m going back to colouring. You can come if you want.”
How generous. Dhara grinned to herself at the young girl’s candour, following her quietly through the house back to the living room where Sarah had a small stack of paper and colouring pencils laid out. Sarah seemed happy enough to thump back down onto the floor and continue with her drawing, silent but focused, and Dhara watched for a little while from the doorway. The most important thing for today – and the rest of this week – was for Sarah to feel comfortable in her presence. She’d never had any problems getting her cousins’ children to like her, so she could only hope the same gentle methods would work with this child.
Sarah didn’t seem to mind Dhara sitting down next to her, barely giving her a glance, allowing her to settle in quietly. So far so good. After a few minutes of Dhara watching her peacefully, Sarah slid a piece of paper over to Dhara, and looked up at her with blue eyes eerily similar to her father’s.
“I’m drawing a picture for daddy, to make him smile when he gets home,” Sarah said simply.
“That’s very kind of you. I’m sure he’ll love it,” Dhara said, melting on the inside at the sweetness.
Sarah side-eyed her briefly before seeming to deem Dhara’s answer acceptable.
“You should draw him one too. He likes my pictures so I’m sure yours will be fine,” she said, sliding over the colouring pencil box.
Kids. You had to love them.
“I will do my very best then,” Dhara said seriously.
Sarah just nodded, going back to her drawing with all the focus a six-year-old could. Dhara just smiled to herself, picking up a pink crayon to attempt to draw some flowers. This was a good start, right?
~
The first month of Dhara’s employment (and final year of her degree) flew by. Somehow, everything was going well so far. There were no dramas, no big issues, and her classes weren’t unmanageable with her new schedule. She could admit that it initially felt weird to be dropping a kid off at Kindergarten that wasn’t hers, especially so early on into knowing Sarah, but that first big smile her charge had given her at pick-up time made everything better. Like, genuinely her heart felt like it had puffed up in size – yeah that’s right, I made her smile – and everything had only gotten better from there. They’d even settled into a decent routine, to the point where Matt even joked that Dhara was becoming Sarah’s favourite person (apparently her bedtime stories were the best?) – and neither of them had even looked at her like she was crazy when she explained her work for her Computer Science Masters like most people tended to.
(“Daddy she’s so smart.” “I know sweetheart.” “I want to be as smart as Dhara when I grow up!” “Well then you’d better show me the new spellings you learned at Kindergarten today.”)
She’d only needed to stay an extra night in the guest room once so far for a roadtrip, which also felt weird, but Matt’s flight had been delayed so there really wasn’t another choice. Thankfully, he’d been there by the time Sarah woke up, so there had been no major tantrums, but the bedtime tears were still an experience she hoped to avoid as much as possible. After looking at Matt’s schedule, she knew exactly how many roadtrips he was going to be on, so hopefully she could come up with some ideas for what to do if that ever happened again.
There were many things she was learning in this new world of being a nanny.
She knew she’d be learning something new tonight too. It was the first game of the pre-season and Matt was in the line-up to play. Traditionally, Sarah always went, and tonight was no exception. Dhara had been hesitant to accept the ticket initially, content with dropping Sarah off with the WAGs she knew and picking her up at the end,  because she was quite literally just the nanny - but Matt insisted. He also insisted that Sarah wanted her there too, and how was she supposed to say no to that?
The plan would be that Dhara and Sarah would take the train over to the arena with plenty of time to spare ahead of warmups (so Sarah could hold her newly-made poster up against the glass), and then Matt would drive them all back to the Martin house – with the late timings, Dhara would need to stay late again. At least this time she had enough clothes in her overnight bag packed.
Nerves washed over Dhara as she entered the UBS Arena, but with Sarah chattering away, holding tight to her hand, it wasn’t too difficult to cover her nerves with a smile. She’d already met Kristy Cizikas – the teammate’s wife who covered looking after Sarah during Dhara’s class once every two weeks – so she would at least know one friendly face. Sarah led the way to the family suite, Dhara making sure her pass was clearly on display so no-one thought she was a fraud, and soon enough they arrived to a blonde-haired sea.
“Dhara! There you are!”
Kristy. Good.
She was thankful for the instantly-warm welcome – she was so out of her comfort zone that it wasn’t funny. Tonight really was her first time being thrown in at the deep end. At least she’d have a break soon to collect her thoughts when everyone in the suite (who wanted to) would head down to the ice for warm-ups. She could do this. She could totally do this. It helped that Kristy introduced her around the group, Grace Lee in particular making her feel at ease with her beaming smile.
The game itself was electric. Dhara mostly kept her eye on Sarah playing with the other kids in the family suite – you know, as it was her job – but by the start of the third period Sarah had fallen asleep on her lap, leaving her free to watch her first ever game of ice hockey with her full attention. Grace helped her out by murmuring along some of the rules and pointing out names of people that Dhara didn’t know yet, and she just felt herself getting fully entranced. She’d never seen anything so graceful and yet so physical. And the speed!
Dhara felt like a bit of an idiot for gasping when Matt full-body checked a player from the opposing team into the boards with a load crash, immediately throwing his gloves off to fight him, her eyes wide as Matt easily took him down to the ice. Fuck, that was hot. Why was that so hot? She could only thank her dark skin for hiding the worst of her blush as Grace and Kristy smiled knowingly at her. Whatever, they didn’t know anything. They could infer all they liked.
That didn’t mean her eyes stopped tracking Matt every second he was on the ice though.
“How was she tonight? Truly?”
Dhara smiled up at Matt, shifting a sleeping Sarah up on her hip as Matt unlocked the front door.
“She was so good. The way her face lit up when you saw her sign in warmups? She didn’t stop talking about it for ages. And she fell asleep on me during the third period so I just let her nap, I hope that’s okay,” Dhara said.
“Of course it is. I’m happy that she feels comfortable enough to do that around you!” he said, smiling.
She was too. She really was.
“I’ll put Sarah to bed, if you want to sort out your bandage?” she offered.
The cuts on his knuckles from his fight had needed a couple of stitches and would need to be cleaned then covered for at least one night, he’d told her that much on the drive home.
“You’re the best,” Matt said, nodding.
Dhara just grinned and headed up the stairs. It didn’t take her long to carefully lay Sarah down in her bed, pulling off her shoes before tucking the duvet over her. But as she slowly crept out of the room and gently shut the door, she could hear Matt cursing in the bathroom, and she frowned.
“Matt?” she whispered, trying not to wake up her young charge.
He cursed again, so she knocked on the bathroom door, and smiled slightly as he cursed in surprise and slowly opened the door.
“The bandage is caught on the dried blood in the stitch and I can’t get it off. Don’t want to rip it,” he murmured when her head poked around the door.
“Let me?” she offered, slowly walking into the room.
Dhara looked up at him through her lashes, holding her hand out, and Matt silently placed his hand in hers. His skin was warm, if a little callused, and it was all she could do to bite her bottom lip as she gently eased the bandage off his knuckles. Matt didn’t take his hand away as she reached for the cotton ball he’d already dipped in the cleansing liquid, allowing her to gently dab at the stitches until they were clean. The two of them stood close together, silent, only their hands touching, and yet somehow this was more intimate than she’d ever been with any man. It was intoxicating to be allowed to take this level of care with him. It was only when she gently pressed down the edges of the fresh bandage that she caught eyes with him once more, the intense blue making her breath catch in her throat, and she forced herself to break out of the moment.
Because it was a moment, and she didn’t know if it thrilled her or terrified her.
“That should be okay now,” she murmured, finally letting go of his hand.
“Thank you, Dhara. I appreciate it,” he said, voice just as soft.
Intoxicating.
Dhara just smiled, nodding her head as she slipped out of the bubble he’d unknowingly boxed her into, and stepped out of the bathroom with a racing heart. She needed to pull herself together. She needed to pull herself together, fast. Otherwise she was going to run the risk of ruining everything.
~
“So give us the details then.”
Matt took a sip of his beer, before frowning at Casey.
“What are you talking about?”
Casey shared a glance with Anders, who just smirked and shook his head incredulously. What?
“Seriously, what details?” Matt asked.
“About Dhara?” Anders prompted.
“Kristy and Grace told us all about meeting her at the game last week, how she was super sweet with Sarah and how much Sarah adored her. What really caught our attention was that they told us about her reaction to your fight. How her eyes lit up, how she gasped, how she was on the edge of her seat,” Casey said innocently, although the sparkle in his eyes was anything but.
“Shut up, she did not,” Matt grumbled.
Their words lit something inside of his though. It was just typical that they waited to interrogate him until they were all six beers deep at Casey’s house, Kristy and Grace having a girls night slash kids sleepover with some of the other WAGs, including Sarah. They were gossip vultures, the lot of them.
Did she really react like that?
He hadn’t been able to get that night out of his mind. The way Dhara came into the bathroom so carefully, like she was trying not to spook a horse. How she held his hand so gently, her skin surprisingly warm and soft. How her cleaning touch was so light that he’d barely felt it, how her ministrations hadn’t hurt at all. How her gaze had been so intense when they caught eyes that he’d felt his breath catch in his throat.
Matt hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that moment they’d shared, and it was driving him crazy knowing there was no way she was having the same thoughts.
But then again, if Casey and Anders were right, if Kristy and Grace were right, maybe she was?
“Bud, you know Grace wouldn’t gossip if she didn’t think there was some truth to it,” Anders mused.
He wasn’t wrong there.
“Dhara is my nanny. Sarah’s nanny. Everything is completely professional,” Matt said firmly.
“Everything is completely professional?” Casey prodded.
“Yes?”
At the hesitance in his tone, Casey and Anders grinned.
“I knew it!” Casey hooted.
“What happened?” Anders asked, eyes lighting up.
“Nothing! Literally nothing has happened. She cleaned the stitches on my knuckles for me because I couldn’t get the bandage off, that’s it,” Matt said sharply.
“Booooooo.”
“Seriously, don’t make it a thing. I don’t want her thinking that I’m some kind of creep,” he groaned.
“Now why would she think that, if you weren’t having creepy thoughts?” Anders teased.
Matt sent them both a flat look, making them hoot with laughter.
“Aww you have it so bad!” Casey cackled.
“You two are the worst. I don’t know why we’re friends,” he muttered.
“You love us,” Anders grinned, toasting him with his beer bottle.
Matt just stuck his tongue out in response, taking a big swig of his own drink. He needed to nip all of this in the bud. There was no way he wanted this to get back to Grace and Kristy, and then back to Dhara. Absolutely not.
“She is pretty,” Casey said, smirking slightly, “Kristy said her smile and her laugh lit up the whole room.”
“And Grace said that Sarah worships her, literally fell asleep on her without a care in the world,” Anders added.
They both knew his weaknesses so well. Matt groaned, tilting his head back, before staring his friends down.
“Enough, okay? Yes, Dhara is beautiful. And smart. And so beyond capable with Sarah that it isn’t funny. But I’m not going to be that guy, okay? I’m her boss and I’m not even going to consider crossing that professional boundary, understood? That’s not cool,” Matt said seriously, “I’m not that guy.”
“We know you’re not,” Casey mused, holding his hands up in surrender.
Anders just nodded his agreement. “We only tease you because we love you. And like I said, I wouldn’t have brought it up if Grace hadn’t seen something herself.”
“Just…don’t make it a thing? I don’t want to make Dhara uncomfortable around me. Sarah adores her and that’s all that matters,” Matt sighed, mostly in defeat.
“If you’re sure, then we won’t,” Anders said.
“But we reserve the right to change our minds later,” Casey grinned.
“Oh my god, get me another drink,” Matt groaned.
Seriously, the worst.
~
Sparkling lights, tinsel, and candy canes everywhere – it only meant one thing. Christmas was coming. With continuous snowfall and the way that she couldn’t escape Christmas songs anywhere, Dhara could hardly deny its upcoming presence, especially with how excited Sarah was getting. As usual, Dhara wasn’t going home for the two weeks break, and the moment Matt found out that her roommate was going home (leaving Dhara alone), he insisted that she came over to spend Christmas day with him, Sarah, and his parents.
(“Matt, no, I can’t intrude.” “No-one should be alone on Christmas.”)
He even tried to offer to pay her for coming over, with that she put her foot down. Christmas was Christmas, after all. In the end, they decided that, with her last class of the semester on the 19th, Dhara would stay over from the 20th to the 22nd, until his parents arrived on the 23rd. They would take over taking care of Sarah with Matt not getting home until late in the evening of the 23rd, and then Dhara would come back over on the 25th, leaving again in the evening of the 26th. It was a lot of back and forth, she could admit, but she’d never had someone in her life so insistent that she spend the holidays with them – and the fact that it was Matt? She couldn’t find it in her heart to say no, especially when he got Sarah and her puppy dog eyes on the case.
Somehow, travelling on the trains on Christmas Day wasn’t as bad as she feared, even with her overnight bag and holdall of gifts. It was only lightly snowing on her short walk to Matt’s house, so she wasn’t fully shivering when she knocked on the door but she was definitely glad that Matt didn’t take too long to open it.
“Hey, you made it! Why didn’t you call me from the station? I would’ve picked you up!” he said quickly beckoning her inside.
“I’m used to the walk now, and I didn’t want to disturb you,” she shrugged, unwinding the scarf from her neck.
“You would never have disturbed me. You’re…never mind, come into the kitchen, my mom’s making hot chocolate,” Matt murmured.
She left her bags in the hallway after taking off her boots, coat, and woolly hat, nervously following Matt into the kitchen. Why was she so nervous to meet his family?
“Guys, Dhara’s here!”
“Dhara! You made it!” Sarah cried out happily.
She knelt down to give her charge a big hug, grateful for the friendly face, before standing up with a nervous smile.
“I’ve heard so much about you – I’m Dawn,” Matt’s mom said, big smile on her face identical to Matt’s.
“And I’m Jim. It’s great to finally meet you,” Matt’s dad said warmly.
Was it really that easy?
“I’ve heard only good things about you too. Thank you for letting me join your family Christmas,” she said, smiling back at them.
“Letting you? I had to practically beg you,” Matt teased.
“Because I see you all year round – your parents don’t get that luxury,” she shot back, still smiling.
“I like you already,” Jim laughed.
“Drinks anyone?” Matt mused.
Once the hot chocolate was passed around, they made their way into the living room, Dhara having grabbed her holdall on the way with the gifts.
“I like your scarf, Dhara,” Sarah piped up, once she was settled on a big cushion on the floor.
Dhara’s fingers brushed over the lightweight blue patterned material draped over her chest and pinned in pleats at her shoulders with a smile. She didn’t usually indulge in her South Asian heritage with her outfits, but her holidays it always felt like a must. She might be wearing a casual plain grey sweater underneath, with light wash jeans, but the chanderi dupatta added a much-needed level of elegance – a casual but respectful outfit. Her mother had loved it at least when she called her this morning, and it was nice to know that Sarah did too.
“Thank you! It’s a dupatta – many South Asian women wear them in many different styles. I like to wear a chanderi dupatta, this lightweight patterned silk, over casual clothes to add a little something extra,” she said, smiling.
“It’s really pretty. Never seen you wearing anything like that,” Matt said softly.
“Thanks,” Dhara said, thankful her dark skin hid her blush, “I tend to only wear dupattas for special occasions. I don’t practice Sikhism as much as I did back in LA, and even then not nearly as much as my mother would’ve liked us all too.”
“Why not?” Sarah asked.
“Sarah!” Matt frowned.
“It’s okay, really,” she said, reassuring, “Well, my upbringing was fairly mixed. My mom’s parents came over from Punjab when they were newly married – my Baba Ji, my grandpa, is an Engineer. My mom and her brothers were born and raised Sikh in Los Angeles. Mom met Dad in university and they fell in love. The only problem was, he was Christian. Or at least, loosely Christian – and very white. While my mom didn’t care about all of that, because she’d fallen head over heels for him and him for her, her parents didn’t approve. She left home and married him anyway, and we haven’t really seen much of my mom’s side of the family ever.”
“But they fell in love!” Sarah cried.
“Culture and religion are complicated things,” Dhara said simply, smiling sadly, “my mom knew what she was giving up, she was very brave. She still had a lot of her friends in the community so she had that connection, and Dad’s family is huge and loud and welcoming, so she never felt alone. She raised me with a knowledge of Sikhism and the welcome to join her in celebrating any holidays I wanted to, but my parents left me to forge my own path, which I did. I have some contact with cousins on my mom’s side thanks to Instagram, so it’s not all a loss. I like to think I get the best of both worlds.”
She couldn’t have asked for more with her upbringing, she knew that. Dhara had been given the world, and been taught kindness for others always, and had an education that others could only dream of, and all the love she could ever want from her parents. She also knew that sometimes her mom struggled but that she had her husband, Dhara’s dad, to rely on for strength. Her mom truly was a hero of hers, and she could only be grateful for everything she’d done for her.
“Thank you for sharing that with us. It can’t always be easy, being so far away from your family,” Matt said softly.
“It isn’t always, no. But I’m following my passion with my degrees, and they understand that,” Dhara nodded, smiling at him, “Besides, we have modern technology, no?”
Matt and his parents just laughed, making her smile a bit wider.
“But Dhara, what about…”
“How about we give Dhara a break from interrogation and pass out gifts, hm?” Dawn mused, interrupting Sarah.
Dhara laughed, shrugging, Sarah just pouting.
“You can ask more questions later okay?” Matt said, glancing up at Dhara to make sure she was okay with that.
Dhara just nodded. The way he checked to confirm with her sent out butterflies she tried desperately to ignore. This was not the time.
As they all passed around presents, Dhara had been pleasantly surprised to learn that she had gifts to open too. She hadn’t expected anything from his parents but they’d still surprised her anyway, with a gorgeous earrings and necklace set that felt fancier than anything she owned in New York. Sarah had gifted her a set of pens and a pretty notebook (which she’d picked out herself, apparently) and she’d looked so pleased with herself that it warmed Dhara’s heart.
For Matt’s mom, she’d gifted her a set of Indian spices, because Matt had told her in passing that his mom liked to cook from all different cuisines – so she’d bought her cumin seeds, coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric, and green cardamom. Dawn had looked so touched when she opened them, giving Dhara a big hug that she hadn’t been expecting. Matt’s dad looked just as pleased by his craft beer tasting tour back home in Ontario, and promised to give her reviews of every single one.
Sarah had squealed in happiness at the book Dhara bought her. A Is for Awesome: 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World. It was important for Sarah to learn about how powerful she could be as a woman, and from Matt’s smile he seemed to agree with her.
For Matt – she’d bought him a cufflink box.
“I’m always losing cufflinks on roadtrips. You remembered,” Matt murmured.
The way her heart fluttered. Wow.
“And now you have a place to store 4 sets, wherever you go,” Dhara said softly.
“Thank you, this is…I love it,” Matt grinned.
Well now she was a goner.
Her last gift to open was from Matt. Again she hadn’t expected anything from him – he was opening his home to her on Christmas, after all – but when she opened the instant camera, Fujifilm Instax Mini with multiple packs of film cards, her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.
“Matt, this is…wow. This is too much!” she gasped.
“You’ve talked about wanting to preserve memories and I thought this would be a fun way to do it,” he shrugged.
A fun way to preserve memories. A whole ass camera. This was just like him.
“Thank you,” she murmured, smiling so widely at him that it hurt.
Matt just smiled helplessly at her in return.
“Can you tell me more about Sikh stuff now please?”
Sarah’s pleading interruption made her laugh, saving her from the explosion of butterflies in her stomach. “If your family don’t mind, I’m happy to tell you more about Sikhism, sure.”
Dhara looked at Matt and his parents, who all nodded and smiled at her. Well, here goes nothing. Time for a basic lesson in Sikhism.
“Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak around 500 years ago in an area called the Punjab. That’s where my grandparents came from on my mother’s side, if you remember – Punjab is an area which spans part of India and Pakistan now, and they come from the Indian side of it. There are lot of different elements to Sikhism, but some of the main things that Sikhs believe are that your actions are important, and you should lead a good life. You should keep God in your heart and mind at all times, live honestly and work hard, treat everyone equally, be generous to those less fortunate than you, and to serve others,” Dhara listed.
“That sounds really nice,” Sarah said, smiling.
Dhara smiled back at her, heart warmed by the sweet words.
“It is, yes. I don’t attend temple, the Gurdwara, as much as I should, but it’s always really peaceful there. I always try to go for Lohri, the harvest festival in January, and I definitely celebrate Diwali in late October because my family always has, but there are many more holy days that Sikhs commemorate,” Dhara explained.
“Can you tell me about them?” Sarah asked hopefully.
Dhara glanced around the room, seeing Matt and his parents listening raptly, and nodded.
“Of course I can! Firstly…”
~
“Watch yourself, Matthew.”
Matt lifted his head from where he was washing up, seeing his mom standing next to him with a dish towel in hand. His dad, Sarah, and Dhara were all in the living room still, playing Go Fish, but Matt and his mom had moved to the kitchen to tackle at least some of the dishes.
“What?” he said, frowning.
“Don’t think I can’t see the way you look at Dhara,” she said pointedly.
Fuck.
Matt took a shaky breath and opened his mouth to protest, but his mom quickly shook her head.
“She is a lovely young woman with a bright future. Unless you can see marriage in the cards, then don’t mess her around. She deserves the best,” his mom said firmly.
Oh.
Oh.
“Yes, yes she does,” he murmured.
~
With Matt’s parents staying through until the 2nd January, the day before her classes started up again, Dhara had the full rest of the week to herself. The only thing she had planned was getting through work for her Database Management Systems class, but Dawn and Jim had insisted that she came to the game with them on the 28th. That whole evening had been so wholesome; it was clear exactly how much Matt’s parents loved and supported him, and to see his smiling face when they went down to see him after the game? Heartwarming.  Matt had also asked her to come to the New Year’s Eve party that Anders and Grace were throwing – his parents weren’t going to that, but he’d paid for them to have a nice dinner in Manhattan for their own celebration. Dhara almost said no to Matt’s invitation (because who was she to go to a private event like that?), but when he said that Grace had invited her specifically, she couldn’t resist. An invite from Grace Lee to her own party was not something that someone turned down. She knew she’d made the right decision when Grace texted her to say how excited she was that Dhara was coming, which made her feel like a little bit less of an intruder.
What was it with these people and forgetting she was literally just the nanny?
“You look nice,” Matt murmured.
“No daddy, Dhara looks beautiful,” Sarah said firmly.
Dhara laughed, ducking her head shyly just in time to miss the way Matt blushed. Her black sparkly long-sleeved bodycon dress was something that she kept on hand as the only semi-formal thing she had in her closet – so it was really her only option for the Lee’s New Year’s Eve party tonight.
“You’re right, my apologies Sarah,” Matt mused, grinning, “You do look beautiful, Dhara.”
Even if it was prompted by his daughter, it was still spine-tingling to hear Matt say those words.
“You’re too kind, both of you,” she laughed, shaking her head.
Matt just winked before kneeling down to help Sarah put her shoes on, leaving Dhara more flustered than she’d ever been in her life. Thankfully they didn’t have to wait long for the car service that Matt had insisted on, and soon enough their party of three arrived.
“Ah, welcome Martins and Nicholls!”
Dhara giggled at Anders’ booming voice, Matt rolling his eyes fondly as they entered the house.
“Thanks for having us,” Matt mused, handing over a bottle of very nice bourbon to his Captain.
Anders just grinned. “You’re always welcome, bud. Grace is in the kitchen making cocktails for the girls – we’re not invited to that, Matt, but you should definitely head in there so you don’t miss any good gossip, Dhara.”
“Oh, but Sarah…”
“Sarah can stick with me while we go and say hi to all her uncles before they get too drunk, hm?” Matt suggested.
“Drunk Uncle Casey is funny,” Sarah giggled.
“That settles it then!” Anders said cheerfully.
He pointed Dhara in the direction the kitchen and whisked Matt and Sarah away, leaving Dhara reeling. This wasn’t what she had expected at all – and now she was being shuffled over to the WAGs like she had any right to be there?
“Dhara! There you are! Grace is just finishing a fresh batch of mojitos – join us!”
She let out a shaky breath at Kristy’s happy exclamation, but followed her with a smile. She could totally do this. She could go with the flow, especially with Matt’s insistence, and she could just get back to watching Sarah after this drink, right? If Matt was okay with it?
In truth, nothing happened the way she thought it would over the night. While she did return back to watching over Sarah, all of the other WAGs with kids insisted they she took breaks to enjoy herself because they could all chip in to watch the kids. It did make her feel weird because hello, it was literally her job to nanny, but Matt’s happy face every time she took a break to socialise was too strong to resist. The main thing that struck her though was how much she stuck out like a sore thumb. Not just in terms of appearance – she figured she was going to be one of the only people of colour there – but just in terms of importance? Not even all the team was here – the youngest ones were off clubbing apparently, which made Dhara all the more aware of how intimate this gathering was. She didn’t belong here, not in this world. What was her life coming to?
She didn’t know if Matt’s presence helped either. All through the night he made she sure had enough to drink (she stuck to water or soda after that first lethal mojito from Grace) and enough to eat. He included her in every conversation, introduced her to people she hadn’t met yet, and checked in on her when she was watching Sarah. Every time she could see a couple of his teammates and/or the WAGs smirking slightly – but not in a mean way. And certainly not mocking her. It was confusing to say the least, like the lines were blurring without giving her any way to read the meaning of the situation, and it was all she could do to try to let it go. Matt was just being a gentleman, that was all.
When it came to a couple of minutes until the ball drop though, Dhara found herself squished onto a sofa in front of the TV that Anders was setting up, with Sarah fast asleep on her lap and Matt sitting down at her side.
“Champagne?” Matt said, holding out a second glass.
“I suppose one glass couldn’t hurt to bring in the new year,” Dhara mused.
She tried to ignore the way her stomach fizzled as their fingers brushed. Eventually, with just 30 seconds to spare, the living room was packed with party guests, Dhara essentially pressed fully up into Matt’s side. All she could do was remember to breathe, keeping her focus anchored on Sarah to distract herself from the warmth of his thigh against hers. It was intoxicating to say the least, and she was grateful at least for the noise of the room drowning out her thoughts.
“3…2…1…HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
As fireworks exploded across the screen and out the windows, and couples embraced all around the room, Dhara’s breath caught in the throat as she looked up at Matt to see him already looking down at her.
“Happy New Year, Dhara,” he murmured.
“Happy New Year,” she said softly back.
The intensity in his eyes made fire burn through her skin, barely softened by the champagne she poured down her throat. The way he looked at her…it almost felt real.
~
Dhara’s birthday was always a strange time of year for her. She never did anything massive to celebrate it, just casual dinner and drinks with friends and a phone call with her parents, but this year it fell at the end of January on a Saturday, at the end of Matt’s bye week. He had no other plans that spending time with Sarah anyway, so he gave her the week off to relax.
Relax, hah.
She had her thesis proposal to finish, with the final submission of the full finished thing due at the beginning of May, but she’d managed to sort out the data she wanted to use in the first half of January – so she was able to use her week off from nannying to finish the proposal. She holed herself up in her bedroom, surrounded by drinks and snacks, barely taking any breaks other than to reassure her roommate that she was still alive, until she submitted it to her supervising professor.
It was worth it, to feel like she’d accomplished something she was proud of.
Dhara emerged from her ‘coding cave’ the day before her birthday, her roommate shoving her straight into the shower while she ordered them both Thai food to celebrate. It felt good to have a little time to actually relax before her birthday, because before dinner and drinks with her friends, Matt had planned a surprise lunch for her.
She should have expected the restaurant he chose to be a fancy one. She’d never eaten anywhere so nice, not even when her parents came up for her undergraduate degree graduation.
“I have one more surprise for you,” Matt announced, just as he paid the bill, “if you have time to come back to the house with us.”
Sarah was basically wriggling in her seat, quietly begging please please please, and how could Dhara say no to that? All through the drive back to Matt’s house, Sarah was whispering to him and giggling away, making Dhara smile to herself. Seeing the young girl so excited made her excited – and after the incredible surprise Christmas gift he’d gotten her? She could only hope it wasn’t something crazy.
“Okay Sarah, you go ahead and open the door while I make sure Dhara isn’t peeking,” Matt said with a smile.
“What,” she said flatly.
Matt just smiled innocently, stepping behind her, and it was all Dhara could to do gasp as he gently placed his hands over her eyes from behind. Fuck.
“Door’s open daddy!”
“Okay sweetheart, why don’t you take Dhara’s hands and slowly guide her indoors,” Matt instructed, “if you’re okay with that?”
“Yeah sure, go for it,” Dhara laughed.
As if her today could get any stranger than this. So with Sarah’s small hands in hers and Matt’s large hands over her eyes (his cologne smelled so good this close, it was unreal), Dhara was slowly guided into the Martin house, taking heed of Sarah’s instructions not to bash into things, until she was standing in what she was sure was the rarely-used dining room. Matt and Sarah always preferred to eat at the kitchen island, but she knew where this room was. Why was she here?
“Ready?” Matt asked.
“Ready. I think,” Dhara mused.
Sarah let go of her hands at the same time as Matt removed his, and as soon as she opened her eyes, her breath caught in her throat. What the hell. In front of her, on the dining room table, were two computer screens, high definition and huge, with a docking station and all the appropriate wires to connect them to a laptop. To her laptop? What the hell.
“Matt…” she breathed.
Sarah just giggled at her reaction before skipping out of the room, leaving them alone. Leaving Dhara with her mind whirling.
“I know you were talking about how it’s easier to see your code side by side, and rather than doing the split screen thing you have been doing on just your laptop, I thought this would be more helpful,” he explained.
He remembered that from her rambling? He was listening?
“I can’t believe you bought me two computer screens. And a docking station. This is too much, Matt, really. I can’t accept them,” she murmured.
This was so personal – no-one had ever paid attention to her like this, and it was coming from him?
“Hey, no, this is important for you. For your work. I want to make sure that you have everything that you need to finish your degree in the best way possible – you’ve done so much for us and I just wanted to do this little thing for you. Besides, you only turn 25 once, right?”
“This isn’t little, Matt. And I’m just a nanny, I’ve barely done anything,” Dhara protested.
“If that’s all that you think you are to Sarah, and to me, then I’m clearly not doing enough to show you differently,” he said firmly.
The tone of his voice made her shiver in all the right ways.
“Matt, I…”
She trailed off at the intense look he was giving her.
“Happy birthday, Dhara,” Matt murmured, smiling softly.
It was all she could do to hug him tightly, sinking slightly into his chest as his arms immediately wrapped around her too. His shirt was soft against her cheek, that intoxicating cologne filling her senses, so much so that as she moved to break the hug, she impulsively kissed his cheek. Fuck. Dhara froze for a moment, stunned at her own audacity, but as she leaned back, Matt looked just as stunned – other than the pleased smile on his lips.
“Sarah! Come and say goodbye to Dhara so she can go out with her friends!” he called out, dropping his arms to let her go.
Dhara smiled at the sound of pattering footsteps, even more so as Sarah hugged her legs tightly.
“Dhara! You’re still my friend too, right?”
Be still her beating heart.
“Of course I am. I’ll be back here on Monday, ready for Kindergarten as usual,” she promised.
“Good. Happy birthday Dhara!” Sarah said happily.
Matt’s eyes never left her once.
~
With only a few weeks left until Spring Break, Dhara didn’t know where her final year of her degree was going. She knew she was going to use that Spring Break time to finish as much of her thesis as possible – and she knew she was going to be spending the whole week at Matt’s. Her new computer screens had stayed at his house as there was way more room for her to work there, and the couple of occasions she’d used them there for her classwork and he’d been home, he always smiled a pleased little smile like he was proud of himself for providing for her. It was…strange.
Everything was strange.
Since that kiss on the cheek, the dynamic between them had grown even more tense. Every stolen glance, brushed fingers, sweet smile, all felt like she was getting away with something forbidden. If anyone knew the illicit way she thought of Matt, she knew she’d burst into flames. And it wasn’t like she could be sure about how he felt about her either. Sure, he looked – but she was a beautiful Indian woman, and many men looked. It just felt different when she felt Matt’s eyes on her body, that was all.
She knew it was futile though. She was his nanny, nothing else. And she didn’t dare mess anything up with her employment now that she was only a couple of months away from turning in her thesis and finishing her Masters in Computer Science. She knew that she had to seriously start applying for jobs for starting in June, knew she didn’t want her years of hard work to go to waste – but it was so hard to decide exactly what she wanted when her head was spinning.
In a dream world, she’d have the career she’d always fantasised about, with Matt and Sarah by her side. But this was reality – girls like her didn’t get the career and the guy. She had to be realistic with herself, otherwise she was going to drown. She knew she had to stop indulging her daydreams and wake up – it wasn’t worth the inevitable heartache, as much as those dreams were nice to fall asleep to.
Still, when Spring Break arrived and Matt refused to let her nanny for him, rather than holing herself up in the bedroom of her tiny apartment, she holed herself up in Matt’s dining room, only emerging when Matt dragged her out to get some sleep or Sarah begged her to eat dinner with them. It was a weird but welcome change, to have people care about her wellbeing like that (her current roommate had her own weird work hours), so when she finally came out of her week of thesis writing and showered, she felt more human than she usually did after a data spree like that. It was refreshing to say the least.
“I can’t believe you spent your final ever Spring Break sitting at my dining room table,” Matt teased, handing her a plate of sliced apples.
Dhara stuck her tongue out at Matt as she happily took the plate, making him laugh.
“I needed to get my thesis finished as soon as possible so I can work on editing it and proving the data works. And I managed to get it nearly finished – now it’s just concluding it and all the weeks of editing to get done. Otherwise, all the hard work of the past three years will come to nothing, and I won’t be able to get a good job like I deserve,”
“Right, yes, of course. A job using computer science,” Matt nodded.
The way he said it though, and the way he looked like a kicked puppy, made her heart ache. “Matt, you knew I would only be able to work for you for a year. We talked about this, right from the start.”
“I know,” he said quickly, shaking his head with a smile, “It’s just going to be strange not having you around. You feel like part of the family already, and you know that Sarah loves you.”
Fuck.
“Matt, you’re killing me,” she murmured.
“Sorry,” he quickly said.
“No you’re not,” she said dryly.
“I am a little bit.”
Dhara huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. “I love systems analysis and the increase in importance of connectivity to keep up with modern systems within growing infrastructure, and I would love to work in something like that because it’s where my passion is. I just…I hope I can find something that takes a chance on a nobody like me.”
“You are the furthest thing from a nobody, Dhara. You’re incredible and talented and a beautiful person inside and out, and you deserve the best. Whatever you need, whatever I can help with, I will, okay? References, making calls, whatever. You name it and I’m there.”
Her lips parted in surprise at his supportive words, eyes stinging with tears, but she found herself smiling. He was such a sweetheart.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Dhara said, voice thick with emotion as she stepped forward to hug him.
She felt herself tremble slightly at the warmth of Matt’s hands on her back, even more so at the way he buried his face in her long thick curls, and tried to savour the feeling of his arms around her while she still could. How had their time together come to an end so quickly? How was this fair?
“Yeah, well, you deserve everything and more,” Matt said gruffly as he stepped back.
If only she could read his mind right now, to see what thoughts were running behind the complicated expression on his face, then she would do it in an instant.
“Thank you, Matt,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome. Make sure you start applying soon, okay?”
~
Network Operations Engineer – Madison Square Garden Entertainment – full time.
Submission – completed.
~
March.
April.
May.
His fleeting time left with Dhara was slipping through his fingers. The harder he tried to hold on, the faster the days flew by, until she submitted her thesis and the end was in sight. He couldn’t blame her for being excited – fuck knows he wouldn’t be sane after all the years of education she’d gone through – but he couldn’t stop the anxiety that built in his chest when he thought of how, soon, she wouldn’t be laughing and smiling and typing away at her computer in his house.
The Islanders had barely lost the first round of the playoffs, kicking and scraping to the last minute, and now with the whole summer stretched out in front of him, the thought of spending it without her was excruciating. But Matt knew he had no claim on Dhara, had no right to feel this way, no matter how she looked at him or smiled sweetly at him or that one time she’d kissed his cheek. She was everything he hadn’t known he’d wanted and needed, and now she was soon to be gone from his life forever.
He, Matt Martin, was completely gone for Dhara Nicholls, and he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do about it.
“Dhara, come on, you’re not watching!”
Matt rolled his eyes fondly at Sarah’s petulant whining. “Sarah Dawn Martin, that’s not how we speak to our friends.”
He could see Dhara biting her lip to hide a smile as Sarah huffed dramatically.
“Dhara, please will you watch this with me? You said you would!”
“Of course, why don’t I just get us some more water each and we can settle in, hm?”
“Deal!”
Matt watched Dhara walk over to where he was putting together lunch in the kitchen, unable to stop himself smiling at her the moment she smiled at him.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
She giggled, shaking her head at herself as she pulled a couple of bottles of water out the fridge.
“How’s it going in there with the Drill Sergeant?” he mused.
“Oh it’s tough, but I think I’ll make it out alive,” she grinned.
Why was everything so easy between them? Nothing had ever been this easy before.
“Look, I, uh…I was hoping to ask you something?”
Dhara raised an eyebrow with a bemused smile but nodded, leaning against the counter next to him. “Go for it.”
“So you know it’s my birthday on Saturday?” he started.
Dhara just nodded, smiling.
“Okay cool, so I know you have things to finalise this week, with administration at your university, but Casey and the guys and girls have organised a night out and I was hoping you’d come? So yeah, come out with us, please,” he said, cursing himself for rambling.
“Oh, thank you – I just…what about Sarah?” she asked.
So sweet.
“She’s having a sleepover with a friend from Kindergarten, I already sorted that,” Matt said simply, smiling.
“Well in that case, I’d love to. If you’re sure?” Dhara said, uncertainly.
“Of course I’m sure. I want you out celebrating with me,” he said firmly.
While he couldn’t tell if she was blushing or not, the flash of surprise and something else in her eyes satisfied something inside of him that felt distinctly feral. He really was losing his control around her, wasn’t he?
“Then I’ll be there,” she said sweetly, “You only turn 35 once after all.”
Matt just grinned.
Saturday night rolled around quicker than he’d expected. The WAGs had taken Dhara out with them to get ready – the full works apparently, hair, make-up, and manicures, all of which he paid for Dhara because it was last minute – and when the ladies finally arrived to the restaurant he’d booked out for dinner? Well, it felt like he’d been punched in the face. It wasn’t that her dark curls were glossy and teased to volumed perfection. It wasn’t that her make-up was flawless, full glam like she never did herself. No, it was the emerald green mid-thigh strappy silk dress she’d clearly borrowed from one of the other ladies. The dress was so dainty and unlike anything he’d ever seen her wear, close enough to a negligee that it sent his mind reeling. He knew she had a great figure already, and that her legs were long and toned, but seeing them like this? It was mindblowing. And, obviously, it had taken everything in his power not to drool or let his jaw drop.
Naturally he missed Casey and Anders smirking at their wives and receiving triumphant grins in response from Grace and Kristy. Dhara’s sweet greeting and warm hug made everyone else in the room disappear.
Still, after dinner and going to a couple of bars, they ended up in a night club nearing midnight, Anders having booked a couple of tables upstairs in the VIP area. The whole group had a couple of shots together, toasting Matt’s 35th birthday, before the WAGs all dragged Dhara off to dance with them. From their table he could just about see her in the middle of the dancefloor, looking like she was having the time of her life, body swaying and moving in a way that had his full attention. Captivating.
He watched her on and off for the next half hour, switching between talking to the guys, sipping on his whisky and coke. But it wasn’t until Casey thumped down next down next to him and clapped him on the shoulder with a huff that he realised anyone had noticed.
“Come on man, just go down to the dancefloor and put us all out of our misery,” Casey groaned.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Matt frowned.
“You’re pining after Dhara and it’s driving us crazy,” he retorted.
“We’ve talked about this. She’s my nanny,” Matt said sharply.
“Yeah okay, like that even matters. I’ve seen the way you look at her and Kristy’s seen the way she looks at you, and it’s not like she’s going to be your nanny for much longer, right?” Casey smirked.
“Oh fuck you.”
“Fuck her.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Matt all but growled.
Casey just grinned, clearly getting the answer he wanted, goading Matt just like he intended. Damn it, he really did know him too well.
“Love you too bud. Stop being a coward,” Casey just snickered, patting Matt on the shoulder, a clear indication to just get out of there.
And if the desire to dance with Dhara hadn’t won out, he knew he’d be scowling at his friend. Instead, he found himself drifting down the stairs from the VIP area to where he lasted spotted Dhara in the crowd, and soon enough he found her. She looked like a goddess: swaying from side to side, multi-coloured lights brushing across her brown skin like a Picasso painting, and he felt himself mesmerised. She turned her head slightly at the prompting of Grace, wide smile stretching across her lips when she spotted him.
“Mind if I join you?” Matt said, raising his voice.
“Of course not birthday boy!” Dhara said happily.
Matt stepped closer to her, barely registering the rest of the ladies grinning at each other and slipping away through the crowd to leave them alone. His attention was completely captured – Dhara’s hips swaying so close to him were a massive distraction – and it wasn’t until a familiar song started playing that he finally looked up at her face.
“I love this song!” she said happily.
Dhara turned her back to him, confusing him slightly, until she looked back over her shoulder expectantly. He knew they’d both had a fair amount of alcohol to drink at this point, but her eyes were clear enough – dance with me. He could barely control himself as he stepped up behind her fully, hands on her hips, pulling her gently back against him, the soft moan that sounded from her lips making him feel wild. Fuck, he could feel himself stirring where his crotch was pressed just above her ass, even more so as she continued to sway her hips.
“Come, lay me down, 'Cause you know this, 'Cause you know this sound
In the middle of the night, In the middle of the night, Just call my name, I'm yours to tame...”
“Matt,” Dhara murmured, looking up at him.
He followed his base instincts for once, staying silent as he used the grip he had on her hips to spin her around to face him, taking pleasure in the look of surprise on her face and the flash of lust in her eyes, swaying their bodies together again.
“…I'm wide awake, I crave your taste all night long, 'Til morning comes, I'm getting what is mine, You gon' get yours, oh no, ooh, In the middle of the night.”
“Matt please.”
It was all he could do to guide her quickly through the crowd to the edge of the dancefloor, to an empty spot against the wall, leaving them mostly in the shadow, the bright flashes of light illuminating them just about enough to see each other’s faces.
“Tell me to stop,” Matt murmured into her ear, hands threading into her thick curls.
“Kiss me,” she replied, lifting her head in challenge.
He didn’t hesitate to press his lips to hers, kissing her just as she’d demanded, his heart immediately soaring. Dhara moaned into his mouth, moaned again when he pushed her firmly up against the wall, kissing him back just as eagerly as her hands clutched at his shirt. It was like she melted against his body as he slid his tongue past her lips, fire zipping through his blood, his head swirling. Matt kissed Dhara over and over again, one hand leaving her hair to clutch at her hip, the silk of her dress driving him mad and doing nothing to mask the heat of her skin, and while the music washed over them, he wanted nothing more than to get her away from this crowded dancefloor and take her home.
Fuck, it was intoxicating how well she fit into his arms, how her body was moulded to his, how their tongues danced together as intimately as their bodies had done. In all the times he’d thought about kissing her, about holding her, nothing could compare to the real thing. Nothing could compare to this.
But he needed to know that it wasn’t just him, that she wasn’t just kissing him because she was drunk. He didn’t think he would survive that. The confused noise she made when he broke the kiss just about broke his heart though.
“Dhara, baby, I gotta know…”
He groaned, kissing down her neck, feeling like he was shaking apart at her soft moans.
“What, Matt?” she gasped as he nipped at her skin.
“You’re not…you’re not too drunk right now, right? You want this?”
“Matt, I’ve been drinking water throughout the night between drinks. I want this. I want you. I just didn’t know if you wanted me,” she said, shrugging with a sheepish smile.
She didn’t know if he wanted her?
He rested his forehead against hers, pressing her fully into the wall again so she could feel where he was half hard in his jeans. Dhara giggled, pulling him down into another kiss with her grip on his shirt, and Matt was all too happy to oblige her, knowing he’d never get enough of her now that he’d tasted her.
“It’s not just sex, baby, I swear. I want all of you,” Matt murmured, breaking their kiss again to suck on the thin skin behind her ear.
“You promise?” she asked softly into his ear, almost shyly.
“I promise,” he nodded, as serious as he could manage in this moment.
“Then take me home.”
“Yeah?” he grinned.
“Yeah, take me home Matt,” she grinned back.
~
Dhara woke with a soft groan, eyes feeling gritty and mouth as dry as an old sock. She blearily lifted her head, grabbing the glass of water on the side table and chugging it, body not recognising the weight of an arm over her waist until her head was a bit clearer.
An arm over her waist.
Over her bare waist.
Matt’s arm.
She let out a shaky breath as all the memories of the night before flooded into her head. Dancing intimately with Matt in the nightclub where anyone could see them. Making out on the side of the dancefloor. The two of them leaving the club without telling anyone, barely keeping their hands off each other in the uber back to his. Then a rush of lips and hands and teeth and bare skin, and waves of pleasure over and over again, crying out his name without a care in the world.
It was everything she’d ever dreamed over, and now, waking up in his bed with his bare body pressed to hers, it was her nightmare all the same.
She’d never acted like this before in her life. Never slept with a man she wasn’t dating. Absolutely never slept with her boss. What kind of trashy behaviour was that? How could he ever think she was worth his time if this is the way she acted the first time he showed interest? Fuck.
But she remembered his words too. How he checked that she wasn’t too drunk, that she wanted this. How he swore it wasn’t just sex, that he wanted her. How insistent he was on promising that it wasn’t just talk to get her into bed. And in between each of the many orgasms he brought her to, he checked in with her each time, making sure she was okay, just because that’s who he was.
He was Matt Martin, gentleman under a rough handsome exterior, and he wanted her.
None of that changed her insecurities though, how all of this was so out of character for her. Not to mention, she knew damn well that everyone knew what they did last night, why they left the club early, and wasn’t that mortifying? No, she needed some air, she needed to think. And to maybe put on some clothes she’d left in the spare room because there was no way she could wear Kristy’s tiny silk dress home in broad daylight.
With a shaky breath, Dhara gently picked up Matt’s arm, moving it off of her body, before slowly sitting upright. If she could just stand up without waking him it would be…
“Good morning. Going somewhere?”
Matt’s husky voice made her freeze, a wave of guilt washing over her, before she turned to face him, sheets clutched to her bare chest.
“I…I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing,” she murmured, more honest than she cared to be.
And if that wasn’t a metaphor for her life since she met him, what was?
He just frowned, sitting upright, and she couldn’t stop her gaze from raking over his chest, his biceps, his shoulders. Damn. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Where should I start?” Dhara said, feeling a little hysterical.
“I thought we were on the same page last night,” Matt said hesitantly, “I thought we both wanted this.”
“We did,” she said quickly, “I did. But…you know this doesn’t make any sense right?”
“Why not? You like me, I like you. You want me, I want you. It’s simple,” he frowned.
If only.
“It’s not simple at all, Matt. Not for me. It’s one thing for you to have the hots for your young pretty nanny, but to actually hook up with her? And to say you want something more? People are going to think I’m a gold digger! That I trapped you! That I manipulated my way into your life!”
“Dhara, all of that is bullshit. I don’t care what people think. Anyone who dares to call you a gold digger is an asshole who doesn’t know us. Everyone who knows us knows it isn’t like that at all. You’ve already got a job lined up waiting for you with Madison Square Garden Entertainment Group and you only just handed in your thesis – like, you’re going to be making your own money so it’s not like you only like me for that, right?”
“Well, no, but…”
“And you didn’t even know who I was when you first interviewed with me, so it’s not like you planned this, right?”
“Of course I didn’t, but…”
“If you don’t want anything more than this one night with me then obviously I would accept that. It would suck and the last few weeks of you working for me would be really awkward, but damn Dhara, I want a future with you,” Matt finished, taking one of her hands in his, the other still clutching at the bed sheet.
He really wants a future with her?
“You do?” she asked softly, almost as if she didn’t believe it.
“Yeah, I do,” he nodded, smiling warmly, “I mean, I’m not sure what you see in me – I’m a 35 year old hockey player who’s nearing the end of his career, already divorced once with a kid who doesn’t have an off switch or a volume control, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life…but I just know that I want you in my life, however I can have you.”
“You’re the kindest, sweetest, most handsome man I’ve ever met, with a daughter who loves you so much, and you see me for more than the Indian girl stuck behind a computer screen. I…I never expected this, any of this Matt, but I want to try?” she said, biting her bottom lip.
The way his face lit up with sweet genuine smile made her heart soar.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me. I’m going to do my best to make you so happy too, Dhara, I swear,” he grinned.
Dhara huffed out a laugh, laughing properly as he tugged the sheet out of her hand and guided her to lie down again in the messy bed, sliding his thick arm over her waist to tug their bare bodies together, lying face to face in the most intimate yet soft way she’d ever lain with another man.
And in that moment, it didn’t matter that her career was just about to kick off while his was in its hockey-twilight. And it didn’t matter than he was 10 years older than her, a whole wealth of life experience that she barely had. And it didn’t matter what people would whisper about them, or what judgemental looks she was get, or that her mother had never met him, or even that none of this would ever have happened in her wildest dreams.
All that mattered was that he wanted her, in his bed, in his family, in his life.
“Can I kiss you, baby?”
“Yes.”
~
Tagging a few people: @jostyriggslover96 @misshoneyimhome @senditcolton @fallinallincurls @2manytabsopen
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petitemistletoe · 1 year
Text
Presents of Mind
Pairing: James Potter x Reader
Warnings: smut, angst
Word Count: 5.2K+
A/N: Do wizards have grad school? What comes after Hogwarts? Also idk why but its canon to me that Sirius walks around naked
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“Why are you moping?” Harry asked you, poking your arm lightly as he sat down on the couch next to you. 
“I’m not moping.” You sighed and set your book down. 
“You are. You’ve been moping since you got that letter last night.” 
“That was my mom,” you sighed again, turning your body fully so you were facing Harry, “she’s going to the United States for Christmas to visit my brother and his wife and their new baby. It’s just going to be too crazy with the newborn so she wants me to stay with my weird Uncle Radolophus for the holidays. I told her I’d be fine here since I have about a mountain of work to finish for my advisor but she doesn’t want me to be alone.”
“Why don’t you stay with me for Christmas? This will be the first Christmas with my dad since my mom started dating Snape.” Harry had a disgusted look on his face. In Harry’s final year at Hogwarts, his parents announced they were getting divorced and his mother moved out of his house a few months later. Professor Snape had become even more insufferable as he tried to win Lily’s affection and luckily for everyone, Lily had waited until after Harry had been settled at university for his first year of a graduate program to start dating Snape. Harry had practically lost his mind and spent several weeks holed up in your shared apartment and you had to draw him out with chocolate frogs and butterbeer. 
“Are you sure? Your dad won’t mind?” 
“Nah, he’s nesting big time. He’s cooking a whole giant dinner and it’s going to be just me, Sirius, and Remus.” Harry shrugged.
“It won’t be weird? Me staying in your childhood home?” You asked, thinking about seeing Harry’s childhood bedroom. 
“No, no, my dad rented a house in Cornwall. It’s a little tradition that him and his friends have. Come on! It’ll be fun. Cornwall at Christmas with my best friend. Snow on the beach!”
“Alright. I’ll come.” You nodded.  
You and Harry had been friends since first year but you had strangely never met and had barely even seen Harry’s father. Harry’s mother had been more involved in all the school things and you supposed that’s why Lily and Severus had grown close again. It wasn’t that James was absent, quite the opposite, he was almost always at Quidditch tournaments and of course took Harry to and from Kings Cross every September but you just never seemed to catch him for more than a few moments since first year. You had heard from Hermione and Ginny, however, that apparently the man was supposed to be drop dead gorgeous. 
“I’m leaving after my exam tonight. Meet you back here at seven?” Harry asked, getting up and stuffing his textbook into his bag. As Harry got ready to leave you heard a knock at your door. You got up off the couch to answer it and let Hermione and Ron in.  They were bickering, as they usually were, and settled down in yours and Harry’s apartment like it was their own. 
“Ron thinks that a vacuum cleaner is an appropriate Christmas gift for his parents.” Hermione sighed, pouring herself a cup of coffee while Ron flopped down on the couch next to you.
“It is! Mum loves to clean and dad’ll love that its a muggle invention.” Ron said, grabbing a throw pillow of the couch and burying his face in it. 
“Your mother is a person beyond the face that she’s your mother. Why don’t you think of a gift that fits one of her interests?”
“She hasn’t got any interests!” Ron groaned and removed the pillow slightly to check his watch, “Harry let’s go! We got to be at the lecture hall in twenty minutes!” 
“I’m coming! God, you two are so lucky you’re done with exams.” Harry said, shaking his head at you and Hermione. 
“Oh Harry! Molly wanted me to ask if you’re coming to spend Christmas with the Weasleys?” Hermione said, finally taking her place next to you on the couch with her warm cup of coffee. 
“No. I’m spending it with Dad this year. Plus, Ginny isn’t even going to be there, she’ll still be touring with the Cannons.”
“You don’t want to come to your best friend’s Christmas because your girlfriend won’t be there? We were friends before you even noticed Ginny!” Ron said, mouth open in shock. 
“Ron, I’m spending Christmas with my father. You can bear Christmas with your own girlfriend and family.” 
“Ugh, my family,” Ron sighed, “do you want to come?” He asked you. 
“Spending it with Harry.” You shrugged. Harry rolled his eyes then looked at you on the couch. “We’re heading out! See you when we get back.”
You waved and then turned back to Hermione after you heard the door shut. 
“So I’m spending Christmas with Harry.” You said. 
“Oh my God. Have you seen Harry’s dad?” She asked excitedly. 
“You know I haven’t! When was the last time you saw him?” 
“I got tea with Professor Lupin a few weeks ago and Harry’s dad stopped by his flat to drop off his broom. The divorce is serving him well, let me tell you. He looks fantastic.” Hermione grinned. 
“I don’t remember the last time I saw you this excited about Ron,” you joked gently. 
“Ron and I have been together for almost five years now,” Hermione said with a bored shrug, “He gets to ogle Fleur and I get to ogle Harry’s dad. As long as we come back to each other there’s no problem.”
“Okay,” you laughed, “I get it. But isn’t this a little weird? That’s Harry’s dad. He’s our best friend.” 
“Talk to me after you see him.” 
You thought about Hermione’s words long after she left your apartment. You had a small bag packed and you were fiddling around waiting for Harry to come back. You practiced transfiguring different objects in your apartment into different animals. You figured you had to stop, however, when you transfigured your fireplace into a dragon and it took a few more seconds than you thought it would to transfigure it back. Your walls were a little soot covered but you were up on a chair trying to get the soot off the ceiling when Harry got back. 
“What are you doing?” He asked with a surprised chuckle. 
“Uh, had a little scuffle with a dragon.” You said sheepishly. 
“Transfiguring the fireplace again?” He gave you a knowing look. 
“How was your exam?” You asked, getting off the chair and pushing it back towards the kitchen table. 
“It was alright. I’m ready to have a drink and not think about school for the next few weeks.” Harry said, setting his book bag down and grabbing his traveling bag. 
“Yeah, real smart of us to go from Hogwarts to uni to grad school without taking a breath.” You rolled your eyes and grabbed your own bag, threading your free hand into Harry’s and waiting for him to apparate.
You stumbled onto a stretch of beach with a large manor that overlooked the water. 
“So this is where we’re spending Christmas? I knew you came from money but I had no idea you were this well off. Sure you’re happy with Ginny?” You said, grabbing Harry’s cheek teasingly. 
“Shove off,” Harry rolled his eyes and led you to the front door. The manor was cute, comfy, and warm. It was more chic than the Weasley home, with newer furniture and more modern decor, but it was still homey. It smelled like warm butterbeer and cinnamon and you could hear casual conversation in the sitting room. Harry walked into the sitting room and you took in the two men who were sitting in there. One of the men was familiar to you, your old defense against the dark arts professor Remus Lupin and the other man was around the same age, with longer dark hair, a chiseled jawline and cheekbones, and a smattering of tattoos that were visible on his chest through his thin shirt. That couldn’t have been Harry’s father…could it? He was beautiful. But he didn’t really look like Harry and everyone was always telling Harry that he was the spitting image of his father.
“Hello,” you said, greeting the two men.
“Ah! There’s my favorite student.” Remus said, standing up and giving you a quick, respectful hug. 
“This is my godfather, Sirius Black.” Harry introduced you to the attractive man, Sirius, who stretched out his hand to you after giving Harry a tight hug. 
“Pleasure to meet you.” He winked at you and you fought down a blush. 
“So where’s my dad at?” Harry asked, flinging himself down on the couch and holding his arm out so you could sit down next to him. You obliged, snuggling up against Harry’s warm body and looking at the two men on the opposite couch. 
“He ran out to buy a few things you for you and your friend. He wanted to make the place feel as inviting as possible and make biscuits for the both of you.” Sirius said with an eyeroll. 
“How’s he been. You know, since it all with Mum and Snape?” Harry asked. Sirius and Remus exchanged a look before Remus shrugged his shoulders and exhaled deeply, his fingers rubbing his temples,
“It’s been hard. Have you talked to your mum recently?”
“No. Not really. She knows how I feel about her and Snape. We’ve gotten tea a few times since but she knows that I wanted to spend Christmas with Dad.” Harry said with a head shake. You felt a little awkward, like you were intruding on a private moment between Harry and his uncles, but you didn’t say anything, just stared at your hands. 
“I have no idea what she sees in old Snivellus.” Sirius rolled his eyes and earned a slap on the chest from Remus.
“Sirius!”
“Come on, you think so too,” Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus, “You hated him just as much when you were teaching as we did when we were at school.”
“Even so-” Remus started to rebut but you heard the sound of the front door shut and you were sure that James was finally home. He entered the sitting room and you had to remind yourself to breathe. He was just as gorgeous as Hermione and Ginny had described. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes and those glasses. He had an easy smile and was muscular the way that Quidditch players were but he also had a distinguished dusting of silver in his dark hair. He immediately bound to Harry and hugged him tightly, his bicep pressing up against your own on the couch. He then pulled away from Harry and focused his attention on you. 
“I’m sorry. Strangely, in the entire time you’ve been close friends with Harry we haven’t really made each other’s acquaintance. I’m James.” James wrapped you in a close hug. 
“Hi! It’s great to meet you,” you nodded, not exactly hating the feeling of his body on yours. 
“So, I thought we would have a little Shepard’s pie if that’s all right with you, love?” James asked Harry. It was clear that he doted on Harry and you thought it was very precious. You had seen the way that Lily had doted on Harry and while that was all well and good it was different from the way that James was doting and it was refreshing and beautiful. You smiled at the duo as you watched them. 
“Yeah, Dad, sounds great.” Harry grinned up at his father. James touched Harry’s cheek affectionately and got up to head back into the kitchen. Remus and Harry got up to help James and you were going to get up too but Sirius sat down on the couch next to you and grinned at you with that crocodile grin he was so good at. 
“So, darling, do you have any connection to the honorable House of Black?” Sirius asked you, his fingers tracing a shape on your arm. 
“No. I don’t believe I do.” You responded. Sirius grinned even wider.
“Perfect.” He said, showing off his white teeth. 
“Get off her, Padfoot!” James called from the kitchen. Sirius waved at James’ general direction and stretched his arms over your shoulders. 
“You wouldn’t happen to have daddy issues, do you?”
“Are you asking me that because you want to know if I’m into older men?”
“So are you?” Sirius leaned in closer to you so your nose was brushing against his. 
“I had a great relationship with my Dad. Right up until he died.”
“Oh,” Sirius’ smile dropped, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright,” you said, waving him off, “That’s all to say that I definitely have some daddy issues.” 
“Silver lining, then.” Sirius said, smiling. You wouldn’t have been surprised if in the following moments, Sirius was going to close the distance between you both and kiss you on the Potter’s couch but Remus walked in and threw an oven mitt at Sirius. 
“Sirius! You whore!” Remus said, feigning anger and walking over to punch Sirius in the shoulder. 
“Ow! Get off me, you’re cramping my style.” Sirius glared at Remus.
“You know what else should cramp your style? The fact that you’ve been dating me since sixth year.” Remus rolled his eyes. 
“So I’m not allowed to live?” Sirius shot back. You were laughing as you watched the match unfold and it looked like Remus was gearing up to shoot another smart remark back but Harry walked back in and said, 
“Dad says dinner is ready and for you two to kiss and make up.” Harry stretched his hand out to help you off the couch. You all took seats at the table. 
“If you wanted to watch us make out, Prongs, you should’ve just said so.” Sirius teased. James stuck his tongue out in return. You took a moment to imagine what it would be like to have that tongue all over your body. You promptly shook your head to rid yourself of the thought. 
“So darling,” James turned to look at you and fought the urge to blush, “Harry told me your last name is Siphera. Any relation to Jack Siphera?”
“Uh yes,” you nodded, pushing around a pea on your plate, “he was my father.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. He was an excellent dueler. A strong member of the Order, you remember him don’t you?” James asked Remus and Sirius. 
“Jack was a very kind man,” Remus smiled.
“Siphera…I didn’t know that he had passed. How did he die, if you don’t mind my asking.” Sirius asked. Remus was shaking his head but Sirius didn’t seem to notice. 
“He was murdered by Bellatrix when she tried to escape Azkaban.” You responded. 
“Bellatrix? My cousin Bellatrix? Bellatrix Lestrange?” Sirius asked, dropping his fork with a clatter.
“Do you know very many other Bellatrixes?” Harry asked. You started laughing and so did Harry until the two of you were both doubled over and gasping for breath.
“Alright,” James said, looking at you two warily, “I bought a bottle of firewhisky for us all, raise your glasses.” James poured everyone a generous helping of firewhisky and then raised another bottle of dark liquor for shots. 
“To many holidays together.” Sirius grinned at you as you clinked glasses. You tipped your head back and took the drink, swallowing against the harsh burn in your throat. A small droplet escaped past the side of your glass and made its way down your chin and dropped between your breasts. You became acutely aware of the eyes that were on you. You rubbed your mouth harshly and took a large sip of firewhisky, averting your eyes to look at Harry. His cheeks were a bit pink from the shot and he shot you a large, easy smile. 
The drinking continued and the evening ended with you and Harry stumbling into a free bedroom and falling asleep. You and Harry had often slept in the same bed, it started when you were in second year and you had both stayed up late revising for potions. 
When you rose the next morning, your mouth was painfully dry and your head was pounding. You nudged Harry lightly and he groaned in response. 
“What?”
“I need water.” You croaked. 
“So get water.” Harry moaned, putting his head into the pillow and trying to wrap the edges of the pillow around his ears. 
“I’m too hungover,” you shook your head. 
“Fine, open your mouth I’ll use the aguamenti spell.” Harry shoved himself up on his forearms and grabbed his wand. You opened your mouth and Harry cast the spell. Unfortunately for you both, it was with much more intensity than Harry had intended and you choked on the intense stream of water that had assaulted your throat. You and Harry began to laugh as you were both drenched in water.
“I’ll go down and make some tea,” Harry said, changing his shirt. 
“I’ll meet you down there, I’m just going to take a quick shower.” You stripped and wrapped a towel around you as you made your way to the bathroom. You let your body relax under the warm water and you thought about how Hermione and Ginny had been exactly right when it came to James. He was unbelievably gorgeous and you couldn’t stop thinking about when he hugged you, when his fingers bumped against yours as he was pouring drinks, as he brushed against you as he served dinner. It was intoxicating. There was also a detachable shower head that you grabbed and adjusted the water pressure. Once it got to a setting that was to your liking, you angled it so it was spraying a steady stream against your clit. You gasped softly at the pressure and let your head rest against the wall of the shower. You tried to imagine the old things that would get you going: the ripped quidditch players, the rugged wizards from romance novels, the occasional rockstar, but then James crossed your mind. The feeling of body against yours, how you imagined his lips felt against your neck. You imagined his cock entering you, the feeling of your body pressed against the shower wall as he pounded you from behind, his large hands on your waist, his breath hot against your neck. You came harder that you anticipated and you muffled your moans in the crook of your arm. You finished showering and changed into a fresh pair of clothes before descending the stairs. You felt your stomach churn in an unpleasant way when you smelled cooking from the kitchen. 
“Good morning,” you said, sitting down at the kitchen table and accepting a cup of tea from Harry who looked just as queasy as you felt. James looked like he had fully rested after a long night of sleep. All around him potatoes were being mashed, green beans were being washed, and a turkey was being stuffed. James himself was charming a rolling pin to roll out dough for scones. 
“Good morning! How did you sleep?” James beamed at you. 
“How is it that even now in our old age, you still have never been hungover?” Sirius groaned, walking into the kitchen completely stark naked and pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Sirius! Cover up. There’s a lady in the house.” James rolled his eyes. 
“What you haven’t seen this before?” Sirius thrust his hips forward a little and pointed at his dick. You laughed and shook your head. 
“Can’t say it’s my first time. Though it is my first time seeing a hickey there.” You and Harry both tilted your heads to get a better view of the large purplish bruise on the side of Sirius’ cock. 
“Moony gets teethy.” Sirius shrugged, leaning against the counter and taking a long sip of his coffee. Remus walked in a few moments later and rolled his eyes at Sirius, throwing a pair of boxers at Sirius’ chest. 
“Animals, the lot of you.” James shook his head. 
“Dad, did you want to go for a round on the pitch?” Harry asked, accio-ing his broom into his left hand. 
“Ah, I wish but I have to finish cooking.” James gestured to all the food around him. 
“I can cook! Go, it’s alright.” You smiled. James gave you a grateful smile and nodded,
“I’ll only be a few minutes.” 
“Take your time,” Remus waved him off, “I’ll stay and help too.”
“Cheers Moony!” James grinned, “Pads you coming?”
“Try and stop me.” Sirius laughed. The three boys scrambled outside and you could hear the chatter between them. You laughed to yourself and began to tend to the turkey. 
“It’s sweet isn’t it,” Remus said to you, “the bond between James and his son.”
“It reminds me of me and my father. I never realized how close Harry and his dad are. I always saw his mother at school functions.” You said. 
“Lily is an amazing mother, despite some of her most questionable actions as of late.” Remus sighed, “I do hope that her and James reconcile.”
“Oh,” you felt your heart do a flip-flop, “you think they might get back together then?”
“I certainly hope so.” Remus said with a sad smile. 
“I don’t.” A new voice said. It was James. He was sweaty and panting as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. 
“You don’t? Not even a little bit?” Remus quirked an eyebrow.
“No,” James shrugged, “I think Lily is an amazing person but after so many years together I think we both realized that we can be better friends apart. There’s no harm in that.”
“I suppose only you and her would know.” Remus had a pensive expression on his face but he didn’t say anything further on the subject. 
The rest of the day passed rather quickly, as you helped James prepare for the Christmas Eve dinner while Remus, Sirius, and Harry decorated the tree. After dinner you drank eggnog by the fire and listened to James tell stories about Harry when he was young and all the Marauders’ adventures. Sirius and Remus stumbled off to bed, thoroughly drunk with Sirius attempting to suck a dark hickey onto Remus’ neck.
“Silencing spell Pads!” James called. 
“Cheers!” Sirius called back, the door slamming shut and the unnatural silence of the spell taking hold. 
“It’s a little tradition in our household to open one gift on Christmas Eve.” James said with a smile. He handed a small wrapped gift to you and Harry. 
“Oh, James, you didn’t have to get me anything. The invitation was enough!” You felt your face burn but you weren’t sure if it was from the egg nog or the gift. 
Harry opened his gift first. It was a necklace with a silvery sword pendant.
“It’s beautiful.” Harry said, watching the way the pendant gleamed under the light of the fire. 
“It’s functional as well.” James stood up and extended a hand to Harry as well. “Hold the necklace by the pendant and flick your wrist.” 
Harry followed his father’s instructions and after the flick of his wrist the pendant expanded to a full sized sword. 
“Whoa! Is that the sword of Gryffindor?” You asked, scrambling up and examining the sword up close.
“Yes it is. It’s been in the Potter family for generations. Flick your wrist again.” James instructed. Harry did so and the sword returned back to it’s pendant size. Harry put the sword around his neck and gave his father a tight hug.
“Open mine!” You urged Harry, handing Harry your gift as well. Harry opened it and laughed. 
“Oh my God! This is great!” Harry grinned, pulling out a jumper that Mrs. Weasley had helped you knit. It was a dark red with a little design of a figure that looked like Harry whizzing by on his broom after a golden snitch. 
“Thanks! It took a lot of yelling from Mrs. Weasley and some tears but it’s done!” You beamed. 
“This is truly amazing. You’re very talented.” James was studying the jumper in adoration. 
“I’m so glad you think so because after I did it once I was able to replicate it and make some tweaks so happy Christmas James!” You handed James an identically wrapped package. Inside was a jumper but the design was a man who looked like James that disappeared and a stag stood in his place. You had remembered the stories Harry had told you of his father’s animagi status and thought it would be sweet. James wrapped you in a tight hug and grinned at you, 
“Thank you so so much.”
Harry gave James his gift and then handed you his gift to you. It was a gorgeous porcelain tea set that was enchanted so the bottom of each tea cup had a grim at the bottom, a silly callback to yours and Harry’s shared time in Divination. James had run out for a moment and then returned with a small box for you. It was a beautiful, dainty bracelet. James helped you put it on. You were absolutely speechless. 
“Thank you so much, James. It’s absolutely lovely.” You excused yourself to the bathroom where you investigated it more. It looked like real gold. Why would James give you such an expensive and intimate gift. You saw there was a little slip of paper underneath the bracelet. You pulled it out and read:
To my one true love, my Lily
That made more sense. James had given you a gift that he had intended initially for Lily. You would give it back to him after Harry went to bed. You were about to round the corner to reenter the main room when you overheard a conversation between Harry and James. 
“-Siphera is a lovely girl. Are you and her…together?” James asked. 
“No, no,” Harry responded, “She’s my best friend in the entire world. I’m glad you got to meet her.”
“I am too.”
You took that as your cue to re-enter the room and you nestled back into your spot and wrapped your hands around your cup of eggnog. 
“Alright, I’m going to ring Ginny before bed. G’night.” Harry gave you another hug before going to bed. 
“So James, while I really appreciate the bracelet I don’t think I can keep it.” You said, handing James to bracelet back. 
“Oh, you don’t like it?” James gave you a look of alarm. 
“No, it’s not that. I just saw this note and…” You handed James the note. 
“I, um, I am so sorry. I had gotten you a box of chocolates for Christmas but then I saw your gift and I panicked. I had bought that bracelet for Lily months and months ago and I needed to give you something better. You’ve been such a light in Harry’s life and honestly in these few short days I’ve loved having you here. I want you to keep the bracelet.” James looked at you with large imploring eyes and extended the bracelet back to you. 
“Oh, thank you so much. You have to know that Harry is my best friend and he’s been amazing. Especially after everything with my father. And I can see where he gets his giving spirit. Thank you again for having me for Christmas this year.” You became aware of how close you and James were on the couch. His hand was on your knee and his breath was warm against your face. He leaned in and kissed you, his hand on the back of your neck. His lips were soft and he was gentle, warm. You pulled away and looked down at the ground. 
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I’ve just…been lonely. But that isn’t an excuse.” James shook his head. 
“I think I’m going to go to bed. Good night.” You scrambled from the room. You reentered your room and tried to think about what had just happened. And then you thought fuck it, you deserved a little guilty pleasure now and again. And before you knew it you were knocking on James’ door, emboldened by the eggnog. 
“I’m glad you’re here. I’m so so sorry-” James started but you wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him hard. He pulled you into the room and shut the door, pushing you up against the door and pulling your jumper over your head. He thread a hand in your hair and tilted your face up a little as he angled his tongue. His hand went down to the waistband of your jeans and fiddled with the button for a moment before sliding his hand down into your panties. 
“So wet for me,” he whispered into your mouth. You were going to give back a smart remark but James pushed two of his nimble fingers into your pussy. You gasped and gripped James shoulder harshly. His thumb found its way to your clit and he started on circular motions as he pumped his fingers in and out of you. His lips made their way to your neck and he was sucking hickeys on your neck that you would curse in the morning but right now all you cared about was James keeping his pace as you approached your orgasm. It hit you like a tidal wave and you were moaning into James’ mouth and begging him for something you weren’t totally sure of. 
He moved you to the large wicker bed that sat in the center of the room. You helped him out of his shirt and unbuckled his pants. You kissed down his chest, along his happy trail, and down to his cock. You took him in your mouth and he moaned lowly, 
“Oh fuck.” He moaned, holding your hair back as you tried to take him as deep as possible. You grabbed his balls lightly and released a strangled, 
“Okay! Okay, I don’t want to cum just yet.” He pulled you off of him and flipped you over so you were beneath him. He pushed himself inside you and you both moaned. 
“You’re so big,” you moaned. 
“You’re so tight,” he moaned back. He was fucking you at a relentless, unforgiving pace. One of his hands was gripping the headboard tightly and the other was alternating between your nipple and your clit. You were approaching your second orgasm of the night and with the way it was building you knew it was going to hit you even harder than the first one. James pulled out completely and slammed back into you and that was it. You orgasm hit you hard and your orgasm triggered James’. He came inside you, babbling thank yous and oh my gods. He pulled out of you and you both laid side by side, breathing heavily and fanning yourselves. 
“We can’t ever tell Harry.” You said, the icy shock of sobriety making you realize the gravity of what you had done. You had slept with your best friend’s dad. That would kill him. James was going to respond when an owl started pecking at the window. James opened the window and untied the piece of parchment wrapped around the owl’s foot. You were able to read it over your shoulder.
James, 
I made a huge mistake. Ring me in the morning?
Happy Christmas
Lily
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