paulysalvatore-blog

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Junicrane/Starstruck Ramble

I will not be brief, all under the cut

To clear some things right off the bat:

No corpse, no proof with Juniper. Obligatory this is set in a canon where he's alive and adjacent to the agency in some way.

Reggie & Juniper are just gay to me, but I don't mind any interpretation of their sexuality

The games are set in 1967/68 to me (based on a couple bits in game) which is before it was legal to be gay in America at least (1971), which is relevant to how I interpret canon as being somewhat grounded in reality, despite unrealistic elements.

This is just an insane amount of headcanons/elements of and AU all culminated into one post. I will talk about some headcanons like they're just facts because they are established in my head, and it saves me over explaining literally everything, however I will explain some parts a little bit for clarity.

Alright. Actual beginning of the ramble:

Juniper is a character to me who had gotten so lost in his job as an actor and a social presence that in the end his whole life revolved around that 'role'. Because of this, by the time he's put into the situation where he's around the Agency, he basically knows nothing about himself, though he doesn't realise at first. Furthermore, what little identity he had has changed in so many ways. He's no longer a beloved famous actor in the prominence of public light, he's legally dead and he tarnished his career just before he was supposed to die, with the bonus of that making him lose the majority of his estate. From that, he also has horrific facial scarring from the electrical burns from literally having his face fried. I believe a friend of mine made a post about this a while ago (I also think they were the first to think it up also), but, to me, Juniper has a permanent trimmer in his right arm (aka his dominant hand) from the electrical current and it is messing with his nervous system.

All in all, he's not doing great, but he's too proud to admit that he's not doing great, because if anything, what's left of his ego is all he has as a defense since he's deep in unfamiliar water.

Before ending up around the agency (I have multiple interpretations of this, so I'm just going to bring it up generally), he'd never actually seen Reggie, and his only impression of him is a single voicemail, which was his only reference he had to later impersonate him. Juniper probably has very little feelings other than the ones he projects onto him because of Phoenix and that, at the very least, he's physically attracted to Reggie to some degree (that's like the beginning of how everything else would tumble into place in this sort of interpretation at least).

And on Crane's side? His feelings towards Juniper are probably very intense and muddled. On the one hand, he adores musical theatre, and that's his now ex-favourite actor. The thought of just casually being around him blows the bit of fanboy in him away at first because THAT'S the GUY, plus the inklings of a celebrity crush which still poke at him. And then there's the rational side of him, which knows Juniper has committed absolute atrocities on the side of Zoraxis, and hates him for that. Then there's how much Juniper comes off as an asshole at first because he refuses to cooperate with anything the Agency tried to put in place. He finds Juniper endlessly frustrating, and yet he's stuck working with him since, afterall, he's the one who knows the Agency's history with Juniper the best. I imagine him acting a lot like how he does IEYTD 1 around Juniper.

At this point, I'm just describing the pitch for a romcom.

I think the start of their relationship with one another largely started with Juniper trying to wind Crane up. It was a way of getting his attention, and I don't think Juniper knows why he's so dead set on that at first, because I don't think he realises he has a crush on 'this grump' at first. (I think that's actually the fun part about these two, because it's almost like a role reversal of the celebrity crush dynamic. This ex-big name actor has a TERRIBLE crush on an average joe and it is KILLING HIM.) But of course the Agency keeps them together because Juniper is at least conversing with Crane, so it's a start.

Through one way or another, they actually get talking casually, at least mildly at first. It takes Juniper a long time to fully deconstruct the wall he's built, and the thing is, Crane isn't the one trying to deconstruct it, at least at first, because yeah, Juniper realises if he wants Reggie to actually like him in any way, he can't keep winding him up. So they talk. Small talk at first, something rhythmic and almost easy to keep to a script. And over time that turns into actual conversations. Genuine ones in which Reggie rips out the occasional one of his jokes which Juniper is endlessly endeared about. The way he smiles just before he makes them, like he wants to chuckle at what he's about to say before he says it. That's probably when Juniper realised that he does have some vague crush on him, and that it wasn't going away.

This is what kickstarts John I can't-buy-you-things-to-impress-you-so-acts-of-service-it-is Juniper to do little things for him. It mostly starts off as him trying to make Reggie his tea how he likes it. However, the nerve damage in his arm makes that hard, as the weight of the kettle and trying to pour is hard all of a sudden. And he refuses to accept that, so he tries for a very long while. Long enough that Crane would go to investigate what was going on. And when he does see Juniper leaning over a cup with the kettle as he uneasily tries to pour it, and when Crane asks Juniper responds so matter-of-fact that his intention is nothing but genuine. And it catches Reggie off guard because Juniper hadn't done anything like that up to that point, and his very apparent vulnerability is so clearly on show.

It shifts something between them.

From that point on, conversations are longer, more familiar. Both of their attitudes soften, and Reggie makes more jokes. Juniper learns how to better use his left hand while strengthening his right back to a point where it could be used again. Slowly, they're both spending time with one another not because they have to, but just because they can. Little bits at first, not too far outside what they already were doing, but those little bits turned into long bits to a point where the other person's company was genuinely desirable.

As time passes, Juniper probably realises that he doesn't genuinely know much about himself or what hobbies he's into, because he never really had the time when he got big, and his home life in his youth wasn't bad, but it wasn't picturesque. I think Reggie would pick up on it, and absolutely try to introduce him to some things he's into. Some things stick, other things don't (corn husking very much stays Reggie's passion, and John will go with him sometimes because it's him, but it's not something he strongly cares for). Crane introduces him to a lot of music, and it's something that becomes a staple between them, with tracks they listen to more than others (tragically, I know relatively little about 60s music so I couldn't really say what). Occasionally they dance, never anything intense, think slow dancing, but the closeness is nice.

Through all of it, Juniper is battling the worst crush of his life, and he can't stand it, because I think he struggles to read people since he doesn't have anything like a script or a director to refer back to, so he has no idea if Reggie likes him back or if he's just desperate for that to be true. I think because of that any sort of confession between them would be incredibly raw, not only because of the time they live in making it hard for them to be truthful about how they love, but because it's a complete show of Juniper who's worked to be this better person. I don't exactly know how that would go, mainly because I don't have one set version of their dynamic, this post is just a generalisation of main consistent points.

Reggie does like him back, because he's gotten used to Juniper being just this guy, not a figure in the public eye, not a Zoraxis lackey, and not any sort of Agency operative (despite being under their care to some degree). He's someone he genuinely cares for, because they've given one another the time of day to learn one another, and I think because Reggie was a field agent, he was a lot better at reading Juniper than Juniper was at reading him. Eventually Juniper's company becomes something he could see around him for the rest of his life, and I think he accepts that he likes Juniper a lot more gracefully.

I think any affection directed at Juniper would at first be met with him feeling a little muddled. Reggie was a very physically affectionate person when he could be, and sure the initial flirting with one another came with the occasional little touches, but everything now was so deeply intentional. I also don't think Juniper would almost ever get over the novelty of being able to kiss him, or many other gestures, because it made the fact that they were together so very real, and it was great. I do think it comes easier to Reggie, and it's a big way of showing how much he cares, so it's important for Juniper to try and show it back because he knows how much it means to the other.

I like the idea of them eventually living with one another, too. I think Juniper would have always had a quiet little daydream of sorts where he does just live a domestic quiet life, and he can with Reggie (well, as close as they can get between the Agency and Zoraxis always being at odds), and he loves that, and he loves him, and it's immense.

I think they cook for one another a lot, it helps Juniper work on his dexterity in a controlled environment, which means a lot because it's a huge point of insecurity (that and his scars). He does improve, and Crane is proud of that and shows it and it's great. I also think they'd probably cook together too, because they can deal with being in the kitchen together and they work well with one another. It's probably a good way for them to unwind because over time they can do it in relative silence.

As I said before, I also think music is a staple in their household, and that Reggie listens to things on vinyl almost all of the time because he likes the background noise. Sometimes Juniper will catch him chuntering along to the music which he finds endlessly endearing. I wouldn't put it past his dramatic ass to also join in to fluster Reggie, but I also don't think Reggie would mind that terribly because Juniper has listened to the music enough to know the lyrics, and that's huge to him.

I don't think they are without rough patches, no relationship is, but I think the good part about them is that they're willing to talk about it (... eventually). They're used to long conversations, and while they're often less fun conversations, they're needed and they know that, and it works out.

Alright. I think I'm done for now. I haven't mentioned everything, but this definitely got the worst of it out of my system. If you ever want to hear any specific thoughts my ask box is open but other than that, behold my general dynamic for these two which has been festering in my head for years. I think they're great

[star-mum]

"comfort for what? HAVING A BODY" you continue to be fucking iconic. like that entire rant had me CLAPPING but that part in particular was just oOOOOMF. that was it so like.... Gar x fat reader where Gar hugs her and his instincts go feral because feeling someone with extra fat on their body ignites his breeding kink?? like his animal brain is like "this is a wife. this is a wife who will bear your children and do it well. this is a plump, healthy body for your children. you're gonna fuck her brains out" and he gets a raging boner in what is supposed to be an innocent hug and has to excuse himself and wants to die of embarrassment and the reader is like INTRIGUED by him from that moment on but then he keeps dodging her and avoiding her because of his personal embarrassment

(set during s2 with a reader who is physically affectionate for no reason and would just give him a random hug)

thoughts?

I had to actually take a break when the words “breeding kink” showed up— LIKE THE GENIUS OF THAT ??? AND ABSOLUTELY HE WOULD AAAAAAAAAAA

Me reading this:

So,,, uhm things got a bit out of hand skskks and I talked way to much as usual so,,,

OKAY— so yes to everything you just said !! I can just SEE everyone’s in one the common areas (maybe a post training snack or breakfast, let’s say breakfast 🥴) and Gar’s standing with his back to the door talking to the rest of the group as the coffee machine does it’s thing and reader just walks up to them, greets everyone good morning and hugs Gar from the back, maybe rests her head either on his arm/shoulder so she can join the conversation OR on his back cause she’s just so tired and he just MALFUNCTIONS !!!

Everyone is still in pijamas and she’s not really wearing a bra, so he can feel her chest pressed up against him and hOMEBOY’S DOING FUCKING BREATHING EXERCISES IN HIS HEAD TO CALM HIMSELF DOWN !!! Whoever he was talking to — probs Rachel — goes “you,,, okay dude ?? you look,,, very intense in the face” and he freaks out, not thinking on an excuse quick enough and just BOUNCES “what?! 😧 Uhh yeah yeah im good,,, i just have to,,, i have to go now”

Also not to, once again, pull up my brazilian card BUT we have a habit of greeting people with a hug and a kiss on the cheek — it can be a real like kiss on the cheek or that like fake one sksksk where you touch the side of their face with your face and make a kiss noise KSKSKS most common to do that actually — my friends and I see each other every night in college but we still greet each other like that every time and less cause it’s the “polite thing to do” and more cause its a way to show we like each other and we’re close

SO— in my head, reader — who’s me cause,,,, who the hell else would she be sksksks — does that every morning. It’s a habit !! And when she asked the team if it would make them uncomfortable, to greet them like that, they said no !! So everyone’s getting a hug when she sees them, specially like the ones who don’t live in the tower the whole time !

And that’s fun in TWO different ways CAUSE

1. Gar really likes it and gets all weird about it later, cause the more times he gets turned on by her touching, the more innocent touches start making it happen too

2. POSSESSIVE ANIMAL INSTINCT BABY !!!! I hate — not really — to bring them into this BUT i feel like the ones who’d make Gar the more jealous of are -> Jason and Hank (stop rolling your eyes I have a nom biased explanation KSKSKSKS)

Jason is more of a logical jealousy, he’s hot, he’s their age AND he’s a major flirt/fuck boy sksksk even if it’s in jest or a friendly flirting when Reader hugs him or touches him, he’s still gonna say some bullshit like “i know im hot babe, but you really gotta stop touching me like in front of everyone” or “can’t keep your hands off me huh?” I desire him carnally

Hank is more of a — Absolutely One Sided — physical/animal instinct thing for suuuure. Like out of all the guys, he’s definitely an the closest thing we have to a Natural Alpha, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s agressive and dominant (not sexually but how he holds himself around other ppl) and Gar would just FEEL some sort of anger and jealousy when he sees Reader giving Hank any type of attention, even tho he KNOWS nothing’s ever going to happen (cause 1. Hanks not a fucking predator and 2. He’s very clearly with Dawn) — it definitely would NOT help if Reader let slip something about finding Hank hot/attractive, during a forced teens game night maybe? KSSKKSKS

She’d know RIGHT AWAY something’s off with Gar — cause she swears she saw his eyes turn green after a particularly Fuck Boy-ish quip got Jason a little slap on his arm/chest — he’s both avoiding her like the plague but also ALWAYS standing very close to her in social situations — on the off chance she holds onto him — so she’d up the antee completely -> push him til he breaks

And oh boy does he ever 🥵 Breeding Kink Gar is just supreme, I am not sorry

like I have personally a very clear stance about not wanting kids AND not wanting to experience pregnancy BUT IN FICTION ????? GIVE ME THE BREEDING KINK !! GIVE ME THE GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING KIDS !! THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCES TO MY ACTIONS !!!! LETS FUCKING GOOOO

[rosicheeks]

From the fun asks - 1, 31, 46, 71?

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

more cereal 🥰

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.

Ohhhhhhhh I’ll go off in the tags about socks 🥰

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.

Gee-I’m-a-tree 🤦🏽‍♀️😂

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea?

Honestly I’m not a huge tea person. Mainly cause I haven’t tried many and I want to try them but they expensive and I’m scared I won’t like it hahaha

[hellfireeddiemunson]

love how my mom only does something for me unprompted just bc she wants something

[celestialmancer]

⛈️ //

[xdjville]

nct dream's voicemails

pairing: nct dream x gn!reader

genre: really all of them are different genres so idk buckle up; angst, established relationship (mark); comfort, established relationship (renjun); friends who have a thing going on and the dreamies are menaces (jeno); classmates, acquaintances but you're kinda cute (haechan); sick reader, fluff, established relationship (jaemin); basketball player and his "friend", bonus: he's drunk (chenle); idol x non idol, established relationship, kind of angsty if you squint but not really (jisung)

cw: cursing in mark's and jeno's, chenle's under the influence and he calls reader "pretty"

#mark

"i'm sorry. look, i... i know you probably don't want to talk to me right now, i get it. i shouldn't have said any of that and i'm so fucking sorry. i hate what i did and i have no excuse for being an asshole to you, but it's been almost two hours since you left and honestly i'm so worried i'm losing my mind. you don't have to come back yet, or call me back if you don't want to, but please, for the love of god, just let me know you're somewhere safe. shit, i'm so, so sorry. let's talk when you're ready, okay? i'll sleep on the couch tonight, so if you come back you can take the bedroom. i'm sorry. i love you."

#renjun

"hi, y/n. i'm sorry for calling so late, but, uh, i wanted to check up on you, you seemed a bit off today. maybe i'm imagining things, i don't know, but i couldn't stop thinking about it so i still wanted to ask. you don't have to tell me now, we can talk about it whenever you're comfortable, or not at all if you don't want to. just know i'm here for you, okay? it's normal to have worse days, so i'll try not to worry too much. i hope you'll feel better when you wake up in the morning. call me tomorrow, hm? we can go to that new ice cream place you told me about. sleep well, love you."

#jeno

"jesus, can you guys shut the fuck up– hey, uh, sorry for that, it's jeno. um, i'm calling because we're going to get some drinks at the bar down the street later tonight, and i– we were wondering if you maybe wanna tag along? we thought it could be fun hanging out outside of class since the semester is almost over. it's fine if you're busy though, no pressure. we're going out around, uh, nine, i think? so if you're up, call me back and i'll give you the details, yeah? alright, that's all, talk to you later. seriously, you guys are such fucking–"

#haechan

"uhm... hi, it's donghyuck. you probably didn't pick up since you don't have my number, but, uh, i called tell you that you left your sunglasses at the library yesterday. i asked mark for your number because we won't see each other untill chem next week and i thought you might need them, so... if you'd like to get them back just let me know? we could meet at the library again, or at get a coffee... or something. or i can give them to you in chem. whatever works for you! i don't mind either. just, uh, just let me know, okay? bye."

#jaemin

"hi, baby. how are you holding up? you must be sleeping, that's good. you need a lot of rest, hm? i hope by the time you're listening to this you will be feeling a little better. did your fever go down yet? there's food from my mom that i left in your fridge, you should eat that, i'm sure it's going to set you up. remember to stay hydrated too, yeah? i'll drop by with some groceries tonight, so let me know if you want anything specific. now rest well, love, i'll see you later."

#chenle

"y/n... you told me to call you when i get home, so why didn't... why aren't you pickin' up? well i– i'm home now, and, uh... renjun drove me there, so don't worry. anyways... i wanted t'say thank you, for coming to the game today. i honestly think we won only because you were there. you looked like... really, really... pretty. like... super pretty. when you, uh, hugged me after the match, i almost kissed you, you know? you're like my lucky charm... yeah, my lucky charm. i wanted to kiss you really bad. i wish you were here now so i could kiss you. can you come over tomorrow? mhm, 'm gonna go to bed now. bye, y/n–"

#jisung

"hey, how are you doing? it must be the middle of the night for you, you're probably asleep. i hope i didn't wake you up, i'm sorry if i did... i called you because i wanted to hear your voice. i, uh... i miss you, a lot. we had a day to ourselves to explore a bit, it was fun! it really was. but the whole time i couldn't stop thinking about how much more fun it would be with you there. i didn't want to kill the mood for the others, but i couldn't help missing you more today. did you miss me more, too? maybe it's like a soulmate thing... god, i sound so cheesy right now. anyways, the guys said they miss you too. chenle said we should all get hotpot together when we're done with the tour. sounds nice, right? oh, this voicemail is getting long... let's talk when you wake up, i'll call you after the concert. i lo– i miss you. sleep tight."

#taglist ➼♡ @bambisnc @suzayaaa

©xdjville

[fatesundress]

⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader

summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.

tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people

note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡

word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)

You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.

You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.

He evidently does not.

“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.

You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”

“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”

“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”

He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.

It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.

There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.

That decides it. Flotsam still floats.

Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine. 

…It’s just that he’s insufferable.

The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.

Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones. 

“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.

You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”

“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”

In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.

I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.

You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.

It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.

Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.

You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.

When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.

You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary. 

Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.

You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.

For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly. 

You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.

It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.

Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.

You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.

Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.

Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.

“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”

“I wonder why.”

He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.

“What, Tom?”

He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”

You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile? 

It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.

“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”

“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”

“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”

All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up. 

Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.

Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about? 

You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers. 

For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.

He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)

Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.

You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession. 

They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.

You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair��s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.

“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.

He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”

“Curiosity—”

“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”

He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.

You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.

But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”

“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”

This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary. 

“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”

He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure? 

It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.

The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning. 

The worst of the world has impeccable timing.

A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.

So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.

And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.

BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES

DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN

All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.

The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.

It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.

In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with. 

You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.

Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.

But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge. 

He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.

You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books. 

You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.

“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.

Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.

He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”

“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”

You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls. 

“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”

“An altercation.”

“Very good, that is what I said.”

You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin. 

“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.

You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.

You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated. 

But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again. 

She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.

For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.

Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)

Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.

“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.

“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.

“What? Malfoy?”

You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.

But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”

Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —

“A professor?”

“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.

He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.

It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.

He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.

Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.

You consider it a warning.

Tom does not.

“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”

His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.

“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”

“So?”

It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.

“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”

He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.

“Are you stupid, Tom?”

You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.

“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”

Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.

Tom acts stupid.

Dumbledore knows.

It all happens very fast.

You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.

You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.

You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.

“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”

Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”

You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.

“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”

“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”

“I —”

“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”

You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.

“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”

“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”

“So nothing novel then.”

“D’you want me to blast you again?”

His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.

You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”

That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.

“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.

“Tom.”

“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”

“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”

Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”

“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”

And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.

It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.

The day everything changes starts the same as any. 

You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now. 

Tom has cracked the book.

It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.

“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.

He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.

“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”

“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”

You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”

“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”

“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”

“I have no need.”

You frown. “You… you already know it.”

“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —

“You’re not muggle-born.”

“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”

“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”

“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”

You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.

“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”

He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.

“Are you trying to murder me?”

“I might.”

“You’d be the first suspect.”

“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”

Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.

He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice. 

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.

“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all.  You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.

There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.

“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”

You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”

The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.

“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.

He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else. 

“Should I?”

And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”

It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.

Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”

The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.

You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.

Summer blisters when it comes.

Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them. 

And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.

A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.

Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.

But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.

It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?

You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.

“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.

“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”

And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.

He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.

Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.

You always are.

The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten. 

Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.

He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.

And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.

You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.

You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.

You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.

Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.) 

You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.

So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true. 

It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.

It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.

Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.

The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer. 

You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.

Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t. 

But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.

“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.

Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.

“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”

He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.

You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”

“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.

“You’ll get sick.”

His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”

Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.

Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.

When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid. 

What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.

You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.

Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.

You are regardless. 

It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.

A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.

Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.

It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.

You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.

And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.

“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.

He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”

“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”

“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”

“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”

“Why?” he deadpans.

You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”

“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”

Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.

To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.

“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”

You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.

You are not his keeper. You know that. 

“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.

He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.

And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.

What? Sorry. What’s going on?

He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”

You’re almost positive you did not.

Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.

You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.

Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

Your contentment is remedied quickly.

Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.

You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.

Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.

“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.

You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.

You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”

“How’s that?”

“No one would be senseless enough to try.”

And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.

It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.

You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.

It happens again.

Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.

There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.

You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.

This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.

You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)

He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. 

And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.

Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.

And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.

The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.

The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.

That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.

One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.

The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?

You take to the library.

Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.

The third sign is the end. 

You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.

He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight. 

And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.

So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.

Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.

He’s something else entirely.

What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.

You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.

His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes. 

You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand. 

“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.

You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.

“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.

Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’ve been good at it.”

His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.

His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.

“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.

You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.

You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.

He sees all of you.

Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.

“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.

“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."

He stares at you. There’s nothing there.

“Tell me, Tom.”

Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.

“I cannot.”

Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.

It’s late winter and it’s too cold.

“You killed her,” you say quietly.

“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”

“What are you… so it was an accident?”

“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”

“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.

He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.

“You told me to change things —”

“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”

“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”

“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”

“Her death is the first step to —”

“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”

“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.

All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.

“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."

You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.

“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."

“...What?"

“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”

You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”

“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.

“How lucky for you.”

“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”

“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”

His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.

“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."

“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain,  a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”

And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him. 

You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love. 

“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock. 

Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly. 

Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.

“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it. 

He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.

After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"

“I thought I would have time.”

“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”

He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you.”

“Very cogent.”

“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."

He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”

You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.

“You have lost me, Tom."

He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.

You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.) 

You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish. 

There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.

You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.

Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.

That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same. 

You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.

And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.

You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.

It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.

Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.

Be well.

You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —

You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.

Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.

Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.

It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.

You find that to be true.

Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.

Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. 

“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.

You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition. 

Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.

Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.

Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.

Due February.

It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”

Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”

Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.

You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”

Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”

And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.

Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.

You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.

You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.

Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.

You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.

But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.

You drink, and don’t look away.

By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.

There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.

You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal. 

An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.

You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it. 

You’re better than them. You can do it forever.

The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.

The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.

“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.

You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.

You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.

The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.

He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.

You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.

Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)

“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.

You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.

Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”

You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.

“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”

“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”

“I take that back.”

She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”

Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.

You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.

It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.

On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.

There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.

Indifferent it is. 

“Can I help you?”

“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.

You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.

“Am I?”

“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”

“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”

Indifference effaced. You’re angry.

He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”

Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.

It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.

“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”

Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.

He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.

He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”

You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.

“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.

Where is Mari?

“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”

You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?

“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.

“Well then —” 

Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.

His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.

“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —

“That would be wise.”

He’s still looking at your lips.

No one else is looking at you at all.

It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.

Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.

“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.

“I haven’t protested.”

But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.

“But you will.”

His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”

You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.

The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)

You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”

“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.

“You still lost me.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

He pauses for a moment. “I know.”

You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.

“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”

You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.

He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.

“My door is always open,” he says.

He lets you go.

You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.

Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.

If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.

It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?

You think of him often. You think of his offer.

My door is always open.

Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?

Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.

It’s a tempting door.

The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.

You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.

The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.

Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.

The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant. 

It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.

But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor. 

A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.

My door is always open.

Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.

Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.

She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.

When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.

It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.

A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.

“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.

“Renauld?”

He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.

“Well, yeah —”

You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”

“But McCormack sent him.”

“Where is it?”

“I… McCormack said that —”

“Where is it, Flack?”

“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”

That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.

The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.

But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”

You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”

“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”

You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.

It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.

“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.

Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”

“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”

“Who authorised you?” he hisses.

“I did.”

In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.

But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.

You were completely out of line and utterly right.

It isn’t something people like you are allotted.

Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.

And… he does.

With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.

It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.

There’s really no choice but to promote you.

Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.

By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.

The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.

Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.

After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.

“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”

“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”

Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.

“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.

“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”

“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”

“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.

“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”

“Alves, I’ll have you know —”

You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”

She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

You roll your eyes, taking a drink.

That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.

But something about it itches.

You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.

You are green, through and through.

Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.

You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.

You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.

And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.

That makes it much worse when you sleep together. 

There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.

“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”

“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”

“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”

You’re incredibly daft about it.

There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident. 

The itch exacerbates.

You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.

You wake up and he isn’t there.

It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.

The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.

And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.

You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.

You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.

All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.

R.R

It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.

You return to Hogwarts posthaste.

It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.

The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be. 

You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.

“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.

Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.

“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”

“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”

And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.

Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.

There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.

But you do, because he told you.

You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.

It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop. 

It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.

You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.

The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece. 

It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.

You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.

He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.

“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.

“I thought your door was always open.”

You see his posture change from just his silhouette.

“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that." 

He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.

“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.

You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.

You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.

“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."

“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."

His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"

“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval. 

Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.

“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”

“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will." 

You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"

“Yes."

You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.

“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”

“I earned this,” you hiss.

“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles. “There you are.”

“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”

The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.

You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’d need a Vow for that.”

You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”

“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”

“A Vow.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tea, then? Biscuits?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”

“Hm. Terrible shame.”

Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”

He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”

“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”

“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”

Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis. 

“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain. 

He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.

“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.” 

You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”

Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.

“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.

“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.

He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.

“I should have killed you,” he repeats.

It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.

“Yes,” you agree.

It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.

Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.

There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.

He was your first in everything but this.

You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.

You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.

“How long?” he asks thickly.

You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back. 

“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"

You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"

His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake." 

You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster. 

“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"

“N-no.”

He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."

Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating. 

But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself. 

You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.

He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.

Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.

His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh. 

You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.

He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.

“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.

You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.

“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”

And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.

You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.

He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.

You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…

A finger presses inside and you moan.

“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.

“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”

Oh, fuck.

He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”

Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.

You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes. 

Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.

You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.

He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.

But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.

Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.

“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.

“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.

“Will you give me more?”

Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.

He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.

You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.

He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —

“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.

That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.

You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”

A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?

And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.

Maybe you already do.

Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —

He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.

“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”

You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.

“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”

You whimper.

“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.

If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.

“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”

Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.

“You can — uh — you can — ”

"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”

And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.

You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.

“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.

You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”

You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.

He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you. 

He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.

You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.

But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.

Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.

“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.

You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.

He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.

You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.

“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.

You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Someone New 2

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include angst, pining, romcom tropes, and some darker elements later in the series. Some triggers may not be specifically tagged. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This fic will contain explicit content. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You’ve had a crush on your best friend for years, but you’re slapped in the face with reality when he takes things to the next level with his girlfriend.

Characters: Steve Rogers, Thor

Note: Idk why but I'm so over dealing with people!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You swipe away another phone call. You have at least a dozen missed. Let them buzz in your pocket for another few hours. You try not to think about it as you turn your attention back to the plot before you, the tight foot by foot square, and continue to gently sift through the dirt. You stop only to make notes on the map and examine the odd bit of animal bones you find. 

Bzzzzzz. The constant vibration in your pants makes you anxious. You should put it to silent but keep forgetting. Whatever. You’re busy. Whoever it is will have to wait. You know who it is. He’s been calling for days. You’ve been ignoring him just as long. 

You should pick up. You should be there for him. You should be happy for him but your heart feels rotten. Years of pining and you can’t pretend any longer. Not after the party. Not after seeing him on his knee for another woman. That’s it. That’s the seal on the envelope. The dream is crumpled up and in the bin. 

He didn’t even notice that you left early. You don’t think anyone did. You spent all those weeks planning and fretting and laying awake at night and for what? To pretend that it could ever be all for you?  

You sigh and sit back on your heel, one leg bent under you as you rest your arm on your other knee. You blow an insect away from your face and push your hat back. The sun beats down, offering great light for the excavation but less than ideal temperature. 

“Eh, there you are,” Arturo waltzes up in his round tinted spectacles, “find anything good?” 

“Nah,” you shake your head and shrug. 

“You know where you’d find something amazing? Norway,” he smirks, hands on his hips. “So... you thought about it?” 

“Mm, yeah, been thinking,” you utter dully as you look up at him from under the brim of your hat. “When do you need a decision?” 

“The sooner the better. The grant proposal is all but approved, we just need a name on that blank line,” he says, “this could be really good for you. No, I know it will be good.” 

“Right,” you nod and stand up, dusting off your tan pants, “I know you said you weren’t sure but any idea how long? I’d have to worry about my apartment and telling my family...” 

“A year. That’s about right,” he proclaims, “could be longer but I’d plan for that.” 

“A year?” You wisp as your chest deflates. You put your hand on your pocket as your phone buzzes again. “Wow.” 

“You really want to spend another year in the city sweating for crow bones?” He asks. “Not trying to push you but these opportunities don’t come along often.” 

“Norway,” you suck your teeth and angle your chin as you think, “viking stuff?” 

“Possibly, could be an early Christian settlement too. How about I send you the proposal and you give it a look?” 

“Sure, I... I guess I should.” 

“It’ll all be taken care of; accommodation, travel, stipend,” he lists off with his fingers. “I know it’s not Ireland like you wanted.” 

“No, no, it’s okay,” you assure him, “I’ll keep thinking.” 

He winks and grins triumphantly, “tomorrow. I need to know tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow?” You echo back in a hollow murmur. 

He’s already walking away. Your phone starts to shake again and you growl. You shove your hand in your pocket and rip it out. Your gloves smear dirt on the screen as you press the red button. You pause before you can drag your thumb over. You inhale and push your finger the other direction. 

“Bucky,” you answer in confusion. He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t an emergency. 

“Ah, there you are kid,” Steve’s voice comes in place of the expected timbre. You hiss. “You avoiding me or something?” 

“Uh, no,” you reply thinly, “I’m working,” you rub the back of your neck with your other hand, “it’s been busy and I’m sure you’ve been running all around with... everything.” 

You can’t bring yourself to say it. Wedding. Ugh. He’s getting married... to her. 

“Well, Peggy’s doing most of the planning, really. I don’t know,” he chuckles crisply, “you know, more a lady’s thing. She’s already knee-deep in the engagement party. Maybe you could give her a few pointers.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” you grumble as you bring your hand forward to rub your thumb with your index, scratching away more of the dust. 

“I didn’t get to say thank you. Again. That party was amazing. It was perfect, kid.” 

“Steve, we’re the same age,” you gripe at his pet name. 

“Yeah, but you hate it so much,” he teases. 

You can’t smile. Even as your cheeks pinch, you can only grimace. You drop your arm and close your eyes as you push your head back. 

“She loved it. I did too. We’re so happy and you made that happen--” 

“Steve, why are you calling? I’m buried right now,” you huff. 

“You are? I thought you’re supposed to dig stuff up--” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Well, you missed Opening Day so I thought maybe you’d wanna come watch the game. Sam’s doing his famous nachos and Bucky is... coming.” 

You hear the very man mutter in the background. Great, you even have an audience. You wouldn’t be surprised if he had you on speaker. Why would anything between you ever be intimate? 

“Tonight?” You wonder, “you sure you’re available?” 

“Me, I should be asking you,” he scoffs, “come on, how long’s it been since we’ve been apart a whole week?” 

“Work...” 

“Can you dig in the dark?” He challenges. 

“Steve,” you sniff, “I’m tired...” you feel your heart sinking. You feel bad. You never say no to Steve. It’s not easy. You tried but he’s right. You can’t remember the last time you didn’t see him at least every other day. “Fine, twist my arm.” 

“Good,” he chirps victoriously. “I wasn’t looking forward to driving up there and digging you out. So, seven?” 

“Seven, right,” you agree. “See ya then.” 

“Don’t make me come find ya, kid.” 

You hang up and cringe. You don’t even like baseball. It was just another personality trait you took on hoping to be close to Steve, hoping he might realise you’re destined to be together. Well, that’s not true. You’re just stupid. It took you too long to grow out of being that stupid college girl fawning over the blond hunk in his coed sweater. 

Still stupid, still alone. 

💟

You never show up empty-handed. Even when you were a poor sophomore. So it is that you delay the inevitable by stopping at your favourite local bakery. They’re closing and you get the eclairs for a discount as they’ll be on the day-old shelf in the morning.  

The owner, Marigold, knows you and puts in an extra one. You leave a tip as you listen eagerly to her rambling story about her granddaughter’s first soccer practice. Usually, you would be checking the time but today, you got more than enough. Finally, she sends you off as she turns off the sign. 

Fine, you’ll go. 

You find a visitor’s spot behind Steve’s building and linger in the car. You eat the extra eclair to keep from crying. Sugar is good for clogging up your tear ducts. You wipe your mouth and make yourself get out of the car. 

As you wait in the lobby for the buzzer to pick up, your insides squirm. You’re not ready for this. You’re not ready to face the truth you’ve been running from. The one you know you can’t deny any longer. 

“Hey kid,” Steve unlocks the door without awaiting a response. It’s typical; you have your patterns. Those little rituals are all going to end. 

You go through to the elevators and contemplate taking the stairs as you wait. The doors open and you step on, facing your reflection in the mirror doors. Your pants are still filthy from working in the dirt, your shirt is stained with your sweat, but at least you remembered to change your shoes. The elevator dings and you nearly let the doors close again before you can find your strength. 

You walk down the hallway and knock. You can hear their voices through the door. Steve opens it from within and gives you a strange look. 

“What’re you knocking for? You know you can come right in.” 

“Yeah, sorry, tired, long day,” you babble out the lazy excuses. “Here.” 

“Oh, nice,” he takes the box of eclairs, “you weren’t lying. You look exhausted.” 

“Ah, you really know how to talk up a woman,” Sam interjects as he appears in the doorway further down the entryway, “it’s a wonder Peggy said yes.” 

“Shut up,” Steve throws back as he turns to head back to the kitchen. 

You take your time in pulling off your shoes and sense Sam lingering, watching as you meander. You clear your throat as you stand and head down the hall. He nudges you as you step into the doorway next to him. 

“Where ya been?” He asks, “these jackasses have been driving me nuts.” 

“Work,” you repeat again, “lots going on.” 

“Right, yeah, now that you’re not spending all your time planning someone else’s girlfriend’s birthday.” 

You give him a sharp look and he shows his palms. You shake your head. He’s right. You wasted all that time. You’ve wasted years. All for nothing. 

“Fiancee, now, I guess,” he adds. 

“Yeah, the happy couple,” you snip and step into the room, “so we watching the game or are we giving him another pat on the back.” 

“What? You’re not excited? You’ll get to be a bridesmaid or whatever. Since I’m best man, I’ll be sure to save you a dance,” Sam chuckles. 

“You? Best man?” Bucky sneers from the couch where he slouches and flicks through a motorcycle magazine, “don’t think so, bud.” 

“Oh, you don’t think I’m better than you?” Sam challenges. “Let’s race for it.” 

“You cheat,” Bucky growls. 

“No, I have strategy,” Sam counters. 

You roll your eyes. Wedding talk, already. The exact thing you can’t handle right now.  Bucky sits up to glare at Sam as he closes the glossy pages. You let them argue and posture at each other. 

You leave the room and let yourself onto the balcony. The fresh air is chilling. You shiver as you step up to the railing and look across the city. You take in the skyline, each window, each peak, each speck of a car on the streets below. It feels so grey. Like it’s the last time you’ll be standing here looking over it all. 

Maybe it is. 

💟

You sip from the bottle of beer as Sam nearly drops his nachos off his lap in excitement. He hollers at the screen as Bucky gives him a look. Steve shakes a fist at the second base run. You’re happy enough to tamp down the heat of the peppers with the wheaty ale.  

Sam rights himself beside you as Steve reaches forward to set down his plate. He grabs the square of paper towel folded on the coffee table and wipes his lips. He sits back and slings his elbow over the armrest as the next batter takes his place. 

“So, how do you guys feel about a destination wedding?” Steve asks. 

You clamp your lips tight and scoop up more fixings with a chip. Sam swallows loudly as Bucky shrugs. No one says a word. 

“Peggy asked earlier. I wanted to do it at a cathedral here. Just how I always pictured it,” Steve says. 

Yeah, that sounds like him. He likes old-fashioned and elegant. Everything Peggy is and you’re not. Makes you wonder why she wouldn’t want the same venue. 

“Back home?” Sam wonders. 

“England? No. I suggested that and she was not into it.” 

“Somewhere tropical?” Sam prompts again. He’s at least trying. You’re too sick to open your mouth. 

“Sure, that’s what I was hoping,” he smiles, “especially if it’s a winter wedding. The date... yeah, that’s a big deal too. You know, I thought the ring was a pain.” 

You keep your head down, hoping the pain doesn’t show. Not only did he propose to her, he kept it from you. You’re best friends and you had no idea. How much had you been through with him? He had you plan that whole party but he couldn’t tell you that?  

No, no, you’re being dramatic. You’re friends. He doesn’t owe you that. It’s between him and Peggy. His future... wife. Ugh. You can’t even imagine that happening. You try and try but you just can’t stomach the image. Peggy in white, Steve in his tux, and you just standing, watching. 

“I can’t come,” you blurt out abruptly. 

“Huh?” Steve blinks and flinches as if he’s been slapped. 

Sam angles beside you to squint at you and Bucky’s brows pop up. Another silence, this one deadly. You’re suffocating as you search for words. 

“I won’t be here.” 

“Well, yeah, like I said, it’s gonna be somewhere else. You don’t even know when it is,” Steve blusters as his face creases in disappointment. 

“I’m going to Norway,” you blather and nearly choke at the realisation of what you said. 

“Norway?” Sam repeats hollowly. 

“Yeah, uh, work... offered me a grant contract and I’ll be going to Norway. For at least a year. So... yeah.” 

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Steve blinks rapidly, “how-- when were you going to tell me?” 

“I’m telling you now,” you push your shoulders up, “I just found out.” 

“You can’t...” Steve begins. 

“That’s awesome,” Sam speaks over him, “hey,” he nudges you, “that is so fucking cool. Norway. Vikings and shit.” 

Bucky nods and gives a thoughtful look, “rains a lot.” 

“So I’ve heard,” you utter dumbly, not sure how to respond. “I got a lot to do before then so I might be a bit absent.” 

“Don’t even worry about us,” Sam insists, “you need any help at all...” 

Steve stands up suddenly and slams his bottle down. Before you can speak, he twists on his heels and storms across the apartment. You stare after him as he disappears into the next room and you hear the balcony door slide back then snap shut just as quickly.  

You grip the beer bottle tight and look down. You didn’t think he’d be mad. You’ll be out of the way. He can get married and be happy. 

“What a baby,” Bucky grumbles, “can’t be happy for anyone but himself.” 

“Well, you are his best pal,” Sam snipes, “birds of a feather.” 

“So that means I’m best man,” Bucky intones mischievously. 

“No, it’s not best buddy, it’s best man--” 

They continue their banter and you get up. You put down your chips and beer and leave without notice from the bickering couple. You near the balcony and look through to Steve as he leans on the rail, his head down. Gently, you slide the door open and step out. 

Only the wind blows as you come closer to the railing. He roils in the cool evening air. You take a breath as you come up next to him. 

“Sorry, it’s... a good opportunity.” 

“No...” he drones, “I’m happy for you. I just... I can’t imagine my wedding without you. Or my life.” He lifts his head to look at you. “What am I going to do? You’re supposed to tell me what bowtie to wear and how to do my hair.” 

“Peggy can do all that,” you cross your arms, “Steve, I can’t pass this up. If I stay in the city...” you let your voice trail off into the wind. If you stay, you’ll have to watch his happily ever after while yours never comes. “I’ll never do anything.” 

“I know,” he dips his head again, “I’m proud of you. Really. But I’m going to miss you.” 

Your cheeks tauten and your throat clenches. Your voice is creaky as you speak, “I’ll miss you too.”  

He’ll miss you but he’ll never love you like you do him. 

[deanbrainrotwritings]

— BEING DEAN’S WIFE

REQUEST : “Hey, can i request a hcs of be Dean Winchester or Jensen ackles wife? and be super sweet and pure girl that is younger than them” — anonymous

PAIRING : dean winchester x fem!reader

CHARACTERS : none

WARNINGS/TAGS : fluff, angst (if you squeeze your eyes together, til you make a crescent moon shape), a little bit of nsfw at the very end bc it’s hilarious

A/N : uh, yeah, here’s a little gift! I didn’t wanna do university work so i did this instead ☺️ anyway, i think this is just a list of things i love about dean… LMAO XXXX

he will just stare at you for no reason

well, the reason is actually that he thinks your lovely to look at LOL

all those chick flicks he secretly loves to watch? yeah, he’ll recite the romantic stuff because he’s literally down bad for you

… he’s cringing on the inside but also knows he means every word

he’s so pathetic for you and he doesn’t even care

he loves to give you forehead kisses

and he wants them, too, but your lips need to linger a bit, and he’ll close his eyes and just release all the tension in his body because he’s touch starved

he plays with your wedding ring when your hand is right there in his line of sight

he will hold your hand and just stare at the way the ring shines in the sunlight and he will grin like a gigantic dork

ex : if your talking to him or someone else, he’ll just take your hand and gently run his fingers over the ring

he likes when you hold his head against your stomach

when he’s sitting and you’re standing and you move between his legs just to hold his adorable little face close to you, HE LOVES THAT

you’ll let him talk for hours about things he likes, things he wants to share with you

and when you admit you have no idea what he’s talking about when he makes references to old pop culture stuff, he’ll show you everything

.. if all that stuff he references was associated with something else, now it’s all associated with you and him

it’s like THERAPY, to redo stuff with you, to make it his again, and yours

teaching him how to use technology because he’s an old man (affectionate), and he learns fast bc he’s SMART

LOL, witnessing firsthand how genius and resourceful dean is when something breaks [yeah, I can’t stop thinking about him making his own EMF and Sammy being a complete NIPPLEHEAD (affectionate) about it ! as a STEM girly that was so sexy of dean]

HELLO HE SINGS, TO YOU. HE WILL SING YOU ALL THE LOVE SONGS OMG

or he’ll just sing randomly and not even notice that you’re listening to him

silence, comfortable silence, not sad, just.. peaceful

he likes not having to say anything sometimes, just being there with you

he plays with your hair A LOT, he’ll take strands and just feel the texture of it between his fingertips, he’ll even try to do your hair if you let him, if it’s long enough

CUDDLES, he needs that, too.

but he’d rather be on top when you cuddle, with his cute face on your chest, listening to your heartbeat, to your breathing, falling asleep if you run your fingers gently along his back or if you play with his hair

Dean starts mumbling a lot against your chest or shoulder when you’re just relaxing and having lazy conversation as you cuddle

how about KISSING HIS LITTLE DIMPLES??? idk about you but I just wanna kiss his little dimples when he does that specific SMILE or POUT, ya know what I mean! •ᴗ•?? or •~• ???

he flirts with you because you blush so easily

he gets flustered when you flirt back, BC HE’S NOT USED TO IT

he looks like a strawberry, just eatable, with the tips of his ears all red, then the pinkish hue pouring across his freckled cheeks and down his neck in cute little splotches 😭 ALRIGHT YEAH I THINK ABOUT THIS OFTEN

teasing him ABOUT EVERYTHING because that’s hilarious, and he’s indignant but also knows you’re so right and he’ll roll his eyes at you and pretend he’s mad

he can never be mad at you, only playfully!

UHHH ! KISSING THE LITTLE WRINKLES AT THE CORNER OF HIS PRETTY EYES !!!

squeezing him very tightly when you hug and just holding him until he’s practically putting all his weight over you like a willow tree

he’ll bother you on purpose, especially if you’re serious

ex : he takes strands of your hair and will put it in your ear LMAOO or tickle your face with it bc he’s never gonna let a single moment be boring

he grins like the cutest idiot in the world and you can’t be mad at him because he looks LIKE THAT, like the cutest idiot in the whole universe

wearing his clothes and pretending to be him, he thinks it’s cute and funny

he’ll hold your face a lot

and kiss you all over bc you’re cute and pure and deserve all the affection he can offer

and his hands are big and calloused, but he’s so tender and gentle, and warm

hugs from behind

smashing your face into his back and taking in the smell of his body (Mrs Butters lied, Dean smells good)

he’ll love the smell of your hair when he nuzzles into your neck, or the smell of your skin, or the softness of it

going on cute dates, like picnics, watching movies, going to the cinema, going to comic book stores

watching Disney movies together and he can recite the Dory movie by heart because HE LOVES THAT FISH FR

he’ll make you playlists of songs that remind him of you

He takes lots of photos, Polaroids are his favourite because he gets to put them anywhere and everywhere so he can smile and see you if you’re ever busy

you’ll always dress up on Halloween or just for fun whenever he wants

✨healing his inner child✨

grocery shopping together, he pouts when you don’t let him be unhealthy

if you’re short, he’s making fun of you for being shorter than him when he has to reach for stuff on shelves that you can’t reach even on your toes

he teaches you how to cook if you don’t know how to

and you eat the crazy food combinations he comes up with, like those marshmallow mac and cheese he said he made for Sam when they were kids , I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THAT TASTES LIKE

he teaches you how to fix cars! he’ll stare at you when you’re being silly ANYWAY PLS TEACH ME DEAN PLS

HAHAHAHAH but like hahahahah as in, 👀 the cute little names he calls you, and you thought they were cringe when couples said them to each other but actually when HE says it to YOU it makes you swoon and you blush, but you pretend you hate it at first because you’re not used to it but he can see through you, you love it

(I’m convinced that if he calls me darlin’, I will die on the spot, or my illnesses will be cured idk idk, I just know something spontaneous or magical will happen)

sharing everything, as in food

he’ll eat your leftovers, if there are any

or if he likes your stuff better than what he’s got, he’ll eat it when he think you’re not looking, but you are definitely aware, you’re just pretending because he’s so cute

trying all the Starbucks drinks together

having to deal with his grumpiness in the morning

even better, you’re not a morning person either so you’re both grumpy

he’s so cute when he’s had his first cup of coffee in the morning :’)

when you shower together, you both play with the shampoo on you heads LMAO

he gives really good massages, like MIND-BLOWINGLY GOOD, I know them hands are magical

BUYING EACH OTHER JEWELLERY, he’s too pretty to not wear jewellery

kissing his freckles BC HES CUTE AND he blushes

kissing his scars (flashback of emo memes) NO, not saying anything about them, just gently pressing your lips on his sensitive skin so he’s not insecure about all of them

reading all sorts of magazines together BC THERES NO TOXIC MASCULINITY IN MY HOUSEHOLD AND MY BOY IS ALLOWED TO DO WHAT HE WANTS YA DUMB— right, anyway

he throws you over his shoulder and then walks around to bother you

butt smacking, that’s it, imagine the possibilities

pretending he’s picking you up at bars (like Claire and Phil from Modern Family 😭)

he’ll throw out his best pick up lines and you have to hold in your laughter at the faces he makes ALSO it works bc that’s your husband

being the best husband when you’re sick

making the yummiest foods and making sure your taking natural vitamins along with medicine

hanging out with you the whole time, not caring that you’re sick even though he’s kind of a germaphobe

whining a lot when he’s sick, but he’s partially just messing with you bc he wasn’t allowed to whine about anything as a kid (I’m right behind you, John)

he’s holding your boobs for comfort LMAO

I feel like he likes to bite, so he bites you a lot for no reason, and then goes about his day

pretending to have accents

more importantly, Dean knows how to speak Spanish, supernatural lied (all that porn and all those novelas and nothing stuck? nah, he’s very good at Spanish)

so he’ll try to seduce you with his Spanish speaking skills (and if you’re Latina/hispanic like me, you think it’s so sexy or it’s just plain cute, idk yet)

playing video games together and being very competitive

he’s very clean and very neat so you never have to tell him to clean up after himself !

he’s very protective of you, but never oversteps bc he knows you can handle yourself

he likes introducing you as his wife

it’s probably not even necessary but he’ll say it very loud and with a gigantic smile and he’ll embarrass you but it’s okay bc it’s Dean

he lies and says he’s your sugar daddy when people comment about the age gap

dude, dude, he’ll tease you a lot like… 🤣 he’ll copy your moans, or repeat stuff you said to him during sex. he’ll tell you very descriptively about how it all went down and the faces you made and the sounds you made.. you know, like in rock and a hard place [09.08]

especially if you’re shy

you wanna strangle him, but you don’t bc he’s the love of your life !

did I do this right? :( doesn’t matter, add some headcannons in the tags or comments 😭 i love husband!dean

taglist

@rominaszh @lanassmarty @murdockscumsock @zepskies @candy-coated-misery0731 @lyarr24 @spnfamily-j2 @globetrotter28

main masterlist

dean winchester masterlist

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO DEANBRAINROTWRITINGS 

do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or republish my work on another platform

[sunkeji]

Scenarios of Ace and Deuce being your bffs who both have a crush on you

a/n: forgot to post,my bad!

tags: mentions of reader wearing a skirt in the 3rd section; lmk if I missed anything.

synopsis: Daily scenarios of Ace and Deuce being your bffs and them both having a crush on you

when you, Ace, Deuce and Grim get punished and tasked to clean the animal enclosure; specifically the hedgehogs, the first 15 minutes are spent actually doing your jobs and then you all collectively get distracted by each other.

Deuce has the brilliant idea to make bets on the hedgehogs and you all immediately agree except the hedgehogs scatter in different directions. In the end, a ridiculous debate ensues on whose hedgehog would have potentially, won the race

***

If you guys have a considerably long break between lessons, the four of you would head back to Ramshackle to play whatever card or board games are available with the ghosts.

quite a handful of times you guys lose track of time and have to fly back to the mirror (literally), through the halls (and hoping you don't get caught) and into the classroom.

Your positions on the broom are predetermined as follows: Deuce Infront, you in the middle with Grim on your lap and Ace behind you. Deuce gets to drive(?) because he has more experience in driving recklessly but safely...

Deuce was initially a bit shy because you're holding onto him but after a few more occurrences of the same thing, he got used to it. The giddy feeling he gets whenever you wrap your hands around his waist and the warmth emanating from your body never goes away though.

Grim is just happy because some type of chaos is going on and he gets to keep warm being sandwiched between you and Deuce. If you ever lean your body forward onto Deuce's, he might start feeling faint and lose his concentration on flying.

Ace is absolutely having the time of his life behind you because he gets to HOLD YOU. And if Deuce isn't driving steady enough, he has more of an excuse to hold you tighter. He would also try his luck each time and see how far he can go. Would you allow him to lean on you completely? Rest his head on your shoulder? The possibilities are endless.

***

Whenever the Aduece duo are hanging out in your room and are left unsupervised for too long, they'd either enable each other into doing stupid shit or start bickering. In this case, it's the former scenario.

You left them to their own devices while you went back to the classroom to get one of the books you needed to complete a homework assignment.

Usually they'd want to follow you because hey, you get to spend more time with the person you like, What more could you want?

But since the person they like doesn't originate from the same region, better yet same dimension; what better way to learn more about your crush then to snoop around their room?

So they do snoop around and after looking through your personal belongings on the shelves and drawers, they move on to your wardrobe.

Out of sheer curiosity, Ace opens your wardrobe and finds your clothes. His eyes straight away land on the skirts that are hanged neatly and immediately has a brilliant idea.

By the time you get back to Ramshackle and open the door, you're rendered speechless by what you're seeing. Both Ace and Deuce are wearing your skirts and are taking mirror selfies all while posing in cute positions.

The image you see before you is truly baffling that you still hadn't moved; seeing this, Ace flips his phone to you and takes a picture of your shocked expression. Definitely posts everything on magicam (idk how to spell it)

[sp00kymulderr]

stretch

Dieter Bravo x gn!reader x yoga instructor!Joel Miller

Warnings/Tags: M for mentions of sex. AU in which Joel is very flexible. Dieter is a menace. Daydreaming about a threesome. Reader is able bodied/takes part in a yoga class. No use of pronouns for reader but they are called babe & baby.

Words: 890 words

Summary: Dieter introduces you to his yoga instructor.

A/N: for my love @ravensmadreads. idk where this came from. You mentioned something about trainer!joel and being told to bend over and my mind went to yoga so??? Consider this a little offshoot of gym crush Joel. An au of the au.

Dieter had been insistent on your coming to his yoga class today.

He was practically dragging you along through the luxury gym floor to the studio - an intimate set up with space for just the two of you and the instructor. Perks of being an actor, Dieter didn't have to work out with strangers.

He'd never been that into yoga before he'd gone off to film Cliff Beasts 6. But he'd come back particularly enthusiastic about it. Something about a mirror. Someone called Kate. You weren't sure you particularly needed to know the rest and frankly, the sex had been even better since he'd gotten more flexible and active so who were you to say anything.

He's happy, giving you an excited nudge as you both sit down on your fancy mats, sitting cross legged as you wait for the instructor to show up.

"You're gonna love this, babe" He mutters, giving you the kind of smile that is all mischief.

"Dee, I love your enthusiasm but I really don't think-"

You stop, words scrambling just like your brain cells as another man joins you two in the room. He pads quietly over to the mat in front of you both and greets the two of you. Where Dieter's energy is very 'bouncing off the walls', this man seems calm and gentle, in a way.

It doesn't hurt that he's gorgeous too. Beautiful brown eyes that seem to tell a thousand stories at once, greying brown hair, scruffy grey-speckled facial hair that accentuates his handsome features. He's…gorgeous isn't even really the right word. Breathtaking feels more like it.

Well, you understand why Dieter has been particularly keen about this class.

He introduces himself as Joel before sitting down on his mat facing the two of you and mirroring your crossed-leg stance.

Your mouth feels dry. It's a little embarrassing how quickly you're affected by the man. He's started talking but you're zoned out, hopefully subtly scanning eyes over him; the way his t-shirt is just a little too tight around the biceps, the tiny sliver of skin when it rides up as he raises his arms.

Dieter, thoroughly amused, nudges you back to reality. For a moment you stare from him back to Joel and then, "Oh right" you awkwardly say, raising your arms up with a deep breath.

If you thought Dieter was flexible now, he was nothing compared to Joel. He made every flow look easy, and showed his strength with a quiet grace that you were finding very difficult to not continue to be struck dumb by. Your mind was definitely going to places it shouldn't…specifically to Joel in bed with you and Dieter…how that might go. Hearing him tell you to bend for a different reason might drive you completely overboard.

As the class continues you're wondering what positions he could put you in, lost in thought right as his hands gently meet your hips to help you into a pose you might not be struggling with if your mind wasn't in the gutter. The touch of his hand makes your breath hitch. And not subtly.

"You okay?" Joel asks, his voice low and quiet, fingers giving you a little reassuring tap on the hip. You nod back, waiting for the floor to open up and take you away. Dieter gives you a knowing look and you glare back at him, now fully aware why he'd so badly wanted you to join the class.

It's either a blessing or a curse that you have the same taste in men.

It's a relief when the class ends, when the 45 minutes are up and you can hopefully get out of the small studio and clear your head of dirty thoughts about a man just doing his job.

You look over to Joel as he's clearing away mats, give him a little smile and say your thanks and pray that you aren't somehow giving away the things you'd been thinking about him for the whole time. To your surprise he gives you a smile and a wink as you're on your way out.

"Give me a couple minutes, baby" Dieter says mysteriously. Maybe you should be worried about that particular glint in his eyes as he approaches Joel when you exit the studio.

You're checking your phone when Dieter comes back out, taking your hand and walking with you back to the car.

"So?" He asks, looking at your like an expectant puppy.

"Hm?"

"You liked it? What'd you think of Joel?" He says, his tone telling you he's much more interested in knowing your thoughts on the other man.

"He's very…" You start, not sure quite how to describe the things you felt about him in that short amount of time "bendy?"

"Yeah he is" Dieter sighs happily, pulling you towards him out by the car and turning you around to face him. His arms nake round your middle, holding you close. "You liked him, right?"

You sigh, returning his embrace. He always looked for a reason to be as close to you as possible. You would never complain about that.

"Yeah, I like him"

His smile lights up the entire parking lot. You knew he was up to something.

"Good" He kisses the tip of your nose before pulling back.

"Cause he's coming over tonight to give us a special session"

[lokh]

what do you think toshiro's version of laios would've been like if he was still with the group during the shapeshifter shenanigans

there have been a few speculations in the tag and among the fans and they are all very good SO i am going to take this opportunity to insert a bit of my shipping bias as i like in my interpretation LMAO agdsfgdfgv

i noted that in actuality shuro seems to have a very good grasp on laios' character??? this is most obvious in the manga later on but even seeing how he criticises laios in their fight... iirc nothing he says is actually untrue or wildly exaggerated, and while he does express frustration over something he feels like laios Should have control over (noticing his cues), he is also aware that laios isnt being malicious and that hes Just Like That. what i mean to say is that while i think his version of laios may seem more pushy and in-your-face, i dont think it will be overwhelmingly so. if its post-fight, i think the idea of laios (and marcille) being willing to do anything to get falin back made a big impression on him, as well as the idea that they need to eat and rest in order to succeed in their goals, so those aspects would be prominent in his version. he seems pretty observant, so i think for the most part the physical traits would line up, but i think there would be specific things that stand out to him that would appear strangely striking on his version of laios (like. idk something about his eye colour or the subtle contrast of his armour and chainmail. he seems to have a weird sense of aesthetics if extras are anything to go by lmao). if hed actually been paying attention all those times laios had gone on about what the hell ever, then it might be even MORE hard to tell apart his version since he would also have a good grasp on what laios should know. so either his version of laios is pretty difficult to pick out, OR despite the character being accurate his appearance is too. stylised lmao (exaggerated features or something) OR!! they just get him to pull out his monster gourmet guide thing and are able to tell from there. iirc everyone was surprised at its appearance so its possible toshiro had also never seen it before

IN MY IMAGINARY SHIPPING SCENARIO............ lets say that his laios isnt able to be picked out immediately and that the monster guide thing also doesnt immediately occur to anyone. what the real laios Specifically notices is how close this other laios keeps getting to shuro. and hes like. ??? why is he getting so close to him, theres no way i get that close to him??? but no one else seems to be picking up on it as weird, so hes having a small crisis like do i REALLY get that close to him???? and now that hes on the outside he notices shuro subtly leaning away and he feels both a wave of shame and..... protectiveness??? (JEALOUSY??????) and he immediately steps in and grabs him like Hey!!! cant you see hes uncomfortable???? weve been through this already!!! and like. ok i cant believe im doing this again but i need to separate this into different endings

a) the whump route: i dont think shuro ever envisioned Actually Telling laios about his frustrations outside of being basically cornered into it. has he ever spoken up against what was expected of him?? has he ever been confrontational???? i think part of what held him back from expressing his frustrations, along with the cultural norms, could be fear of what the reaction would be. if he had done the same in any other aspect of his life (his family, his inheritance), i think he would expect disappointment, disapproval, more proof that he doesnt add up to expectation. to be honest i dont think he Truly believes that laios is the type of person to react like this. but it was strong enough to prevent him from acting and i think would be projected onto his image of laios. maybe fake!laios says something dismissive like Well if it really bothered him hed say something right? what, he cant even stand up for himself? cmon, shuro, prove that you cant handle it just like everything else. and thats pretty much the fastest giveaway that it isnt really laios. of course this would be a HUGE tonal departure from what the actual episode/chapter was, so:

b) the dumbass route: both laioses break into fisticuffs, and, yes.... barking. and so they speedrun the entire encounter as the shapeshifters true form appears and, after laios points out that thinking too hard about others versions of you can tear apart groups and peace of mind, they pointedly do not speak of it again. they think about it though. a LOT

c) the normal route: both laioses argue normal like and the group ends up being able to tell them apart because the fake laios goes on a little too long about how theyre all here for falin and everyones like ok its not like he DOESNT love his sister but.......... the rest of the scenario probably goes like canon, though then i would want to see what everyone Else thought of shuro

[mazzystar24]

I hope I can ask you this because I don't want to ask in the tags, I'm scared 🥹 but I've seen a lot of discourse about why tommy isn't good for buck, he's cold, the relationship is toxic etc and I was wondering why people think that? Is there anything specific that started it?

I fully believe eddie is buck's true love, endgame, whatever we want to call it and I'm sad we don't have that (yet) but I thought bucktommy was kinda fun in the meantime. I just want to understand 🫶🏻

Oh hey darling! you were so sweet and genuine in your response so please know I’m just answering what I’m asked and if you wanna enjoy and have fun with bt that is completely your prerogative but I’m just offering my perspective on it

And i am warning you this is gonna be long because I feel a constant need to go really in depth in my thoughts

Okay so idk how I’m gonna break this down but maybe I’ll do it in like main points?

Also if you’re new here whenever I use bullet points I’m just doing it cos I find it easier to chunk up my thoughts not cos I’m being curt or anything with you

1. The chimney and hen begins episodes

He wasnt just passive in the episodes and letting Gerard get away with his racist and misogynistic behaviour he ACTIVELY participated in it

This includes:

• Asking if they forgot to tip the delivery guy WHILE THEY WERE EATING CHINESE FOOD when chimney first comes up despite the fact that 1. Chimney had a big ass lafd bag 2. They were probably already told a probie would be coming 3. Probably would’ve seen the actual delivery guy 4. I would bet my absolute life that question would not have been asked if buck or bobby had walked up those stairs this wasn’t an innocent comment it WAS RACIST intentionally like the entire point of the episode was to show how bad they had it

• the New York bitchiness comment

• throwing his tools down along for hen to clean up

• going out of his way to treat them like outcasts and hating chimney before he even knew him despite chimneys efforts

• the way each of them had to “earn his respect” in some way before he acted like a normal coworker to them and this was never in the typical ‘oh it’s a new person’ type of way it always had to do with their race or in hen’s case her gender too

A defence I see a lot for this is “oh he was closeted” and honestly to me that is such bullshit because 1. Eli was perfectly capable of not participating in the racism and taking chimney under his wing without getting any shit for it and chimney is quite literally a Korean man (something he literally can’t hide) and he had just got his head above water with Gerard’s racism when hen came and he STILL was a friend to her 2. Again tommy wasn’t passive in it and just letting Gerrard be racist (which would’ve been one thing) no he actively participated in it to be part of the boys club 3. Let’s say that somehow not being a dick would’ve meant that that was a threat to the closet he was in- that is still in my opinion a fucked up sense of preservation if you spare yourself the possibility of bigotry (despite having inherent social capital by being a white man in that job) by inflicting others to bigotry

Now when Tommy was first reintroduced I was like keeping an open mind and saying okay it’s been a lot of time and maybe he has genuinely made amends because I do believe in redemption but imo they have made no attempt to show us that and had him honestly put more of the blame on Gerrard for his behaviour or the writers flat out avoiding mentioning it to retcon tommy a little and hope we forget

Another defence I see is “oh chimney and hen became friends with him so they must’ve forgave him”, hen went no contact the moment he left (something the writers went out of their way to include that line) and chimney didn’t even invite him to his wedding which was quite big after the Buckley parents got involved so it’s not like it was cos it was such a small and intimate wedding and he only called him as far as we know in those years when he needed a favor, which all means that most likely they had kinda just put it behind them and kept up a coworker relationship with him, but no actual friendship or actual forgiveness or redemption had taken place

Oh wow all that was just point one and I can probably talk more on it but I’ll just leave it with saying that Lou’s comments about it being teasing or how Tommy genuinely didn’t know hen or chimney were capable etc just makes for a worse case than saying it’s cos of being in the closet (and that is genuinely a large part of why idk much abt Lou but those comments are enough to make me hate him) and I’ll also say that poc (myself included in that) have these situations so often- situations even as specific as gay men being racist to them to fit in - and we understand the nuance and shit to it but we also understand on a deep level how it feels to be on the other side of that

And getting toxic bt fans try to come up with ways to downplay or minimise racism honestly pisses me off so much cos believe you me we have heard every excuse and downplay under the sun and I for one am sick and tired of it

2. Why he’s viewed as cold and his jokes

• literally from the small parts we saw of him and Eddie hanging out we have seen the man is in fact capable of joking and being light and having fun but around buck in particular he’s like 🧍‍♂️😐 and the occasional 🙂 like it just feels very stiff and just plain in a way

• his humour consistently falls flat and feels passive aggressive more than anything like blunt or sardonic humour DOES work like I personally love it but it’s not being written OR executed right

A. It’s always in response to genuine moments or questions such as buck talking abt the award or the daddy kink joke or henren questioning him

B. It’s the the majority of what we see from him, there is not enough balance for it

C. Lack of rapport, when friends or couples make jokes that can come off the wrong way if said to anyone else it’s cos of the rapport built already, this rapport is not established with the characters OR with the audience for these jokes to come off right

D. I gotta say this one too but the execution just isn’t right from writing to acting, it’s the same reason sardonic humour lines from Sandra oh as Cristina Yang or hugh Laurie as house still lets you like the characters and find them funny but Tommys lines come off as annoying to a lot of people

3. I think fandom discourse probably has something to do with it but not in the way you think

I’m not saying like oh ppl who ship buddie just hate him cos of the ship no I’m saying that like what takes him from an annoying disliked character to a hated character is most likely the fact that his role stirred so much drama and caused so much damage to how the fandom used to be that its turned the dial up

4. A lot of his development, lore or redeemable factors or cute things are just not canon

This may be blunt and I am sorry for that but I think his character has been blown up to such a degree that it’s genuinely shocking

Like I look at posts or get sent hate and I’m like where did any of this happen this is just not canon this is just not a show like at times I’m genuinely convinced it’s a social experiment where different ppl saw a different show like some spiderman multiverse situation

Listen I’m all for headcanons genuinely like if you wanna take extra number three and make a whole backstory and lore and cute stuff abt her I’m all for it but it’s when it’s said as if it’s fact or canon that I’m like hold up a second rewind

I think this is kinda a result of Lou’s cameos (which honestly deserves its own post but you asked why the tommy hate so imma stay on topic) and also this like need to defend the character but not having much material to work with

Like if we look at canon we can literally break down the entirety of Tommys appearances this far in the show and what we learn about him:

• chimney begins- he makes a racist comment and he tries to suck up to Gerard, there is a little hint abt his gayness with the gf comment, Eli says to chimney that’s just how they are and tries to reason it could be fear of losing friends but we see tommy having friends in the firehouse while eli says this, chimney tries to make friends with him and tommy makes no attempt to get to know him and says he’d hate him anyways, chimney saves Tommys life thus earning his respect

• hen begins- she’s met with the same racism chimney is but also met with misogyny (and homophobia but that’s not relevant to the tommy of it all), we find out chimney is still isolated from the rest despite having earnt that respect, chimney befriends hen and again tommy still doesn’t try anything like that until hen proves herself and earns his respect, ppl reported Gerard but it’s never actually stated tommy was one of those ppl so again that’s not canon that’s speculated

• bobby begins- chimney and hen both seem to be like coworker friends with tommy and Sal, Sal throws hissy fit bobby “fires” him tommy says it’s an overreaction bobby reveals it was a transfer, they all seem to make nice, tommy leaves to 217

• chimney calls tommy for help and tommy helps

• we see nothing from tommy,then cruise ship he helps the team but also in this we find out hen cut off all contact since he left

• buck takes tour of harbour, Eddie and tommy have a friendship and we find out some of Tommys interests and that he was in the army, basketball scene and the subsequent apology and kiss

• dinner date, Tommy explains how he was in the closet, Buck has his little awkward moment (which will be elaborated on in my next point) , Tommy says nothing abt it till the Uber arrives and he leaves buck

• buck reaches out and apologises and asks for a second chance inviting tommy to the madney wedding

• bachelor party and the issue of the lack of costume and not just taking the day off for neither wedding nor bachelor party (which you can reason is reasonable but also I feel like this deserves its point for the narrative choices)

• tommy shows up straight outta work they kiss buck has the soot coming out award ceremony - buck being happy abt the reward to which tommy sardonically says enjoy it while it lasts enter bigoted cunt gerard then chimney comes and insults gerard and they walk away

• we don’t see tommy again till the dinner date after Bobby nearly died and when buck tries to explain Bobbys significance to his life tommy throws the your dad is still alive which is just honestly one of his worst moments imo and I made a whole post abt it but can’t find it and then we all know the rest of that convo and I could make a bullet point for it but actually I made a whole post before so I’ll link it: here

AND THATS IT

Like all this comes down to what maybe like 30 mins screentime? If that?

5. The leaving buck on their first date

The defences people use for this are:

• buck was trying to shove him back in the closet

• buck was obviously not ready

• people angry abt this are just babying buck like he can find his own way home it’s not that big of a deal

• buck was at fault there and tommy would’ve been justified in being angry and not giving him a second chance

And honestly every last one of these are bullshit imo and lemme go point by point

• buck panicked, I don’t think that what buck was feeling in that moment can be properly described because unless you’re a queer person and you’ve experienced that like bone deep panic that like brain overload then you won’t get it

Like one it’s his first queer date

Two he doesn’t even understand his own sexuality atp

Three his closest friend just walked in in a situation that’s already putting him on edge

So he’s not only panicking he’s not understanding why he’s panicking he’s trying to make excuses eventhough part of him knows he doesn’t need one but also he doesn’t even understand this side of himself yet so he doesn’t want to have to potentially explain it

Like it’s a million things and a million emotions and no one can claim they would behave rationally or appropriately in that situation and if you say that you would you’re lying simple as that

Also then we find out that Eddie thought tommy was straight anyways

• the reason I love the buddie coming out scene is because of Eddie’s “and what do you think” line because it’s not up to tommy or anyone else whether a person is “ready” enough in their queerness to date. Full stop.

Also tommy knew it was Buck’s first date with a man and was still down so why is he using that as some sort of out

•it’s not about babying buck and it’s not about him finding his own way home it’s the fact that Tommy could’ve done it with much more grace and he could’ve been a lot nicer with it but he wasn’t, and this is again bucks first date with a man even if it doesn’t end with a second date it should at the very least not end up with him feeling like a screw up on the side of the road

• to the ppl who say that- kindly shut up cos again see the first point but also I wanna point out that somehow the ppl saying this are also the same ones saying that Tommy was justified to be RACIST for a prolonged period of time due to being in the closet yet Buck what? Panicking for a few seconds and being a little awkward? is somehow this giant inexcusable thing

5. The narrative choices with him have been reasonably clear and tbh if they had been made with a woman it would not be up for debate:

• tommy leaves buck on their first date then he comes back and gives buck a chance- we as a fandom have been unanimous in saying for years that Buck’s endgame would be the one that doesn’t leave him cos this pattern has been something we saw over and over with him

• tommy not dressing up- again you can rationalise it but it’s a narrative choice and it’s glaring when contrasted with Eddie suggesting the duo costume

And if we had this scene with Taylor so many ppl would be saying that it’s once again showing that her and Buck’s personalities don’t align

• him being on standby for the wedding and bachelor party- again you can say oh buck invited him last minute or oh he couldn’t taken the day off (which lbr he could’ve he’s not the only firefighter pilot in la) - but again narrative choice

If it was Taylor everyone would’ve been like SEE? Again they’re showing the audience that her work is this looming presence in their relationship

Anyway I’m gonna shut up now cos this is A LOT

I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond tho and sending flowers in apology💐💐💐💐💐💐

Love ya for being so genuine when asking and hope all this didn’t come off too strong and that it was idk helpful?🫶🫶

I realise my response is abt to have toxic bt fans scurry to my inbox like rats to send hate and to that I say go fuck yourselves I’m responding to a question here

[holllandtrash]

may the best man win | lando norris, pierre gasly

pairing: lando norris x reader, pierre gasly x reader part 7 (final part) to better left unsaid (the better series)

time passes, feelings changes and sometimes they grow stronger. do you attempt to return to the history you know, to what once made you feel comfortable? is it even possible for you to love again, but more importantly, are you ready to be loved?

word count: 6.6k tags: heartbreak lmao but its not all heartbreak, or is it idk all i know is im team max

Two Months Later

Pierre should have been ecstatic as he crossed the finish line in Abu Dhabi. It was his last lap, his last race of the year. He finished in the top ten in the driver standings, ahead of his team mate, which was something he should have been proud of, and he was. 

He was also proud of the fight he put in this season, especially when the points became close, specifically with Lando. The two of them spent the better part of these last two months battling it out for the same finishing positions.

But competition with the British driver had been tense ever since Monza. While it was unspoken, they both took their frustrations out on the track. Both of them blamed the other for why you weren’t there. 

Fans had picked up on it. Noticing that the two of them didn’t interact as much as they used to. There were no inside jokes shared in the paddock. They barely glanced at each other if they had press conferences lined up. There was a clear line drawn between them and that line was you. 

Pierre told himself that you were at home watching the races, that you were still cheering him on, but there was no way of telling if that was true or not.

He had thought about inviting you to the last race of the season, just out of kindness, but he didn’t want to push you further away. You needed time. 

So there was no one to congratulate him at the end of his last race. No one to drive back to the hotel with and reminisce about the season's highlights and no one to accompany him to the club where everyone was celebrating. It didn’t help that the girlfriends of other drivers were all there as well and Pierre just had to smile and greet them, pretending he wasn’t jealous even though all he wanted was you at his side.

Pierre stepped up to the bar. He’d be blind not to notice the tall blonde girl sitting on the stool wearing a tight black dress that made her legs look even longer. She eyed Pierre up as he approached, a coy smile on her face.

Pierre was polite, he smiled and nodded. She could have been a fan of motorsport for all he knew, he wasn’t going to be a prick. He rested his forearms against the surface of the bar and when the bartender approached, Pierre ordered a rum and coke. He didn’t need anything fancy tonight, he just wanted to get drunk.

The girl next to him adjusted herself on the seat, nearly slipping off. Pierre glanced in her direction, strictly out of concern, “You alright?”

She let out a breath of a chuckle, “Yeah, all good. Just-” she glanced around, but Pierre knew these tactics, he was familiar with them. “-just waiting for a friend, but I think I may have been ditched.”

Pierre hummed, turning his attention to the bar again, tapping his fingers against the counter as he waited. It was rum and coke. How long did it take? 

He froze when he felt a freshly manicured hand rest on his arm. He glanced at the contact, trying not to let the distaste show, but why was this girl touching him? 

Since you left him in Monza, Pierre hadn’t even bothered looking at another girl. He’d go out with his friends and other drivers, but he’d always end up back at his hotel room alone. He no longer cared about the chase, he didn’t care about getting in a quick fuck.

If he was being honest, there were dozens of nights where Pierre hovered his thumb over your contact name, debating calling you after a long day. He wanted to hear your voice, even if it was just for a second, even if you didn’t answer and he was left with your voicemail, he just wanted to hear you. 

But he never called. He didn’t text. Didn’t even like any of your photos on instagram, giving you the space that he knew you needed. Granted, you made it clear it was Lando you were trying to distance yourself from, but Pierre knew that trying to interfere while you were in the process of moving on wouldn’t be beneficial. 

So he waited, in the hopes that you would call. Or text. Or like one of his fucking tweets, literally anything. Anything to show that you still cared. That you weren’t done because he certainly wasn’t. 

No one compared to you, and Pierre had known that for a while, long before that night in the club. 

Ever since Lando joined F1 and you showed up at his side, Pierre took an interest in you. In the beginning, he didn’t know what sort of relationship you and Lando had, so he kept things respectful so as to not cross a line. 

But he could hear your laugh from halfway across the paddock and instantly recognize it. Your smile lit up whatever room you walked into and it wasn’t long before Pierre came to realise that he wanted to be the reason for it. 

So he tried talking to you, but at that point, he already had a reputation. You were polite, sure, but you didn’t give him the time of day that he wanted and your attention always went back to Lando.

Pierre noticed it pretty quickly, how in love with him you were. He could never figure out why, he still couldn’t. You deserved someone better than Lando, someone who put you first in their life. 

And even when you started to see that someone else could love you, that Pierre could possibly love you, you still went back to Lando.

Pierre should have accepted this as something that would always happen. He should have gotten over you and flirted with the girl next to him in an attempt to forget you ever existed. 

But that just wasn’t possible. You had made too much of an impact on his life and left too large of a gap when you left.

“You seem lovely, but I’m really not looking for anything,” Pierre let this girl down gently, slowly peeling her fingers off of his arm. He turned his head forward before she could say anything else and it was only a second later when she hopped off the seat and walked away.

The bartender came and placed the drink in front of him, apologising for the wait. Pierre brushed it off, it was a busy night in this club. He reached for his wallet to pull out his card and start a tab, knowing he’d be here for the next little while.

But the bartender shook his head. He wasn’t about to take the payment. 

Pierre chalked it up to him being recognized. Not that it happened often, but every now and then he’d get a meal comped or his drinks paid for if the employee or manager of the establishment was a fan. 

“Thanks mate,” Pierre put his wallet away and grabbed the rum and coke. 

The bartender only nodded his head towards the opposite end of the bar, “Don’t thank me. Thank her.”

Pierre’s smile dropped. If it was that blonde girl again trying another move he would feel bad because he’d just have to let her down a second time. Pierre took a sip of his drink before working up the courage to look towards the end of the bar. 

But that blonde girl wasn’t there. In fact, no one on that side was even remotely paying him attention, all focused on their own drinks and conversations or trying to shout their orders to the bartenders. 

Pierre didn’t let himself think too much about it.

Until he felt a tap on the back of his shoulder.

He sighed, “I already said I’m not looking for anything.”

Pierre turned around, fully expecting to come face to face with the girl from earlier. He was bracing himself for the tight dress, shy smile and long blonde hair. 

What he didn’t expect was you. 

Standing there wearing a baby pink long sleeve shirt with a neckline that showed off more cleavage than normal and a white skirt that sat high on your hips, giving you a very barbie-esque sort of feel, especially with the coloured heels to match. The lights from the club were flickering, highlighting the features that Pierre had burned into his mind. Your full lips, the small birthmarks you tried to hide with make up and your eyes that weren’t as important in colour as they were in the way that completely absorbed him. 

You were standing right in front of him. 

You glanced at the rum in coke in his hand, that familiar charming smile appearing on your lips as you darted your line of sight upwards to meet his own eyes.

“I owed you a drink,” you said, then you swallowed, eyebrows pinched together. “Or maybe I just owed you a thank you, I couldn’t remember.”

It was a cute call back to that night in the club, the first time you had given him more than just a friendly smile. He charmed his way in that night, and the rejection from Lando made it all the much easier to agree to leave with him, but you were thankful the night didn’t end with the two of you tangled between the sheets.

A relationship started that night. It started the second Pierre bought the drink for you, knowing he’d have an excuse to approach you later. Neither of you could have predicted how the next few weeks would follow.

Now here you were, after avoiding him for two months. And Pierre wasn’t one who often found himself speechless, but there were no words in any language that could describe how he was feeling. 

He wanted to be happy to see you. He wanted to pick you up and spin you around and kiss you like no one was watching. 

But the fact that you were in Abu Dhabi and he wasn’t the one who invited you, the door creaked opened for more insecurities to slide in.

If you weren’t there because of Pierre, you were there because of Lando.

Two Weeks Earlier

You flipped through a manila folder, slowly spinning back and forth in your chair. Recently you’ve been dedicating more time to your job and it was a helpful distraction. Most of your coworkers knew you had connections in the F1 world, but none of them knew what was going on behind the scenes. 

And because this motorsport series was so popular, you found yourself walking in on various conversations. Someone asked for your input on the Circuit of the Americas and you said about five words before changing the topic. Someone else asked what your thoughts were on the unexpected Alpine podium and you just shrugged and smiled, saying something along the lines of it was well deserved. When another coworker asked about an incident Lando faced during the qualifying session in Mexico, you said that it probably wouldn’t affect his race and then you pulled out your phone to tune out the rest of what was being said.

You couldn’t escape these drivers, you couldn’t run from this sport. The most you could do was at least try and avoid the conversations about them.

But when your coworker, Sam, walked by your desk at the end of a work day, he did a double take and knocked on your cubicle wall.

“Hi,” you glanced up from the documents in your hand. “Heading out?”

“Yeah, but I meant to ask-” Sam looked over your head at the row of windows on the opposite side of your work station. “Since when does Lando Norris let you borrow his cars?”

You scoffed, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“There’s a McLaren 720S outside,” Sam pointed out. “Isn’t that what he drives?”

“I don’t know what Lando drives but I can assure you, that man wouldn’t let me behind the wheel of any of his cars,” you spun to face your computer, wanting this conversation to be over. You wished no one knew you were friends with him. 

Sam didn’t leave though. Instead, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket. You could hear the keyboard sound effects as he furiously typed away before shoving his phone in your face. It took you a second to understand what you were looking at, but on the small screen was an image of Lando next to a blue McLaren 720s, a huge smile on his face.

“What am I supposed to do with this information?” you looked up at Sam.

“It’s the exact same car that’s outside.”

“Well I didn’t drive it.”

Sam’s eyes widened, “Is he here? Is he picking you up from work? Do you think I could-”

“Okay slow down,” you laughed, trying to make light of this situation but internally you were panicking. Was Lando here? In London? “I’m sure he’s not the only one who owns-”

You couldn’t finish your sentence. Not when the man of the hour himself came walking around the corner, being escorted by two other employees who were undoubtedly fans. Why else would they have let him into the employees only area? Lando wore a baggy jumper, his hands tucked into his pockets as he looked around with wide eyes until he finally spotted you. 

Sam’s jaw dropped and you understood why. You never tried to hide your friendship with the driver, but him showing up at your place of work was not something that ever happened. And you couldn’t understand why it was happening now. 

Lando’s feet shuffled against the floor. He thanked the two employees for showing them where you sat, but they didn’t return to their work, they just hovered a few feet away, curiosity getting the better of them. 

He nodded at Sam, offering him a smile as well and when Sam glanced your way you nodded your head for him to get the hint, hoping he’d give you at least a bit of privacy. Sam cleared his throat, still starstruck, but he walked away, joining the other employees who stood near the corner.

Lando stepped into your cubicle and leaned against the desk. You weren’t a fan of the height difference and you didn’t want to feel as though he was talking down to you, so you stood up from your chair. You leaned against the wall opposite of him, making sure to keep as much room between you as possible.

“This part of the gallery usually isn’t open to visitors,” you pointed out, not even bothering with an actual greeting. You didn’t like that he used his status to enter this side of the building. 

“Look I said I was fine waiting for you to get off work and they just-” Lando glanced over his shoulder and at once, the three coworkers of yours all scurried off in their own directions. Lando sighed and looked at you again, “I needed to talk to you.”

It had been just over two months since you last spoke. Since you left Monza without giving him an explanation. Since you stood in his driver's room and said ‘this ends here’. You were firm with that statement. 

Lando respected that, for the most part. He gave you space. He didn’t call or text, even though Max told you that there were a handful of times when he almost did and he had to physically force the phone out of Lando’s hands. 

But he should have waited until you decided you were ready to reach out again. He had no reason for showing up at your place of work. 

Now that he was here, you felt so unprepared. You didn’t know what to say to him, you didn’t know what he was going to say. Usually you worked your way up to any difficult conversations but Lando showing up out of the blue completely blindsided you. 

I needed to talk to you, he said. You hated that. The word need. Lando always needed something from you. He took so much. Your energy, your time, your love, and never gave any of it back and you put up with it for way too long. He didn’t have the right to need anything from you anymore. 

“This couldn’t have waited?” You asked, gesturing to the work space around you. “Better yet, you couldn’t have waited until I wanted to talk?”

“No, because I was starting to get the feeling that time would never come.”

 “So instead of respecting the space I asked for, you decided that what you wanted took priority?” You crossed your arms over your chest, “Do you sort of see how that’s not fair? How it’s selfish? Or have you just not learned anything in my absence?”

“I learned you don’t need me,” he shrugged his shoulders, as if that conclusion was one he could just brush off, like it still hasn’t fully resonated with him.

But it was a true statement. Your silence said it all.

Lando nodded slowly, “So you don’t- you don’t miss me at all?”

That’s where you still conflicted.

You did miss Lando, there was no denying that. He was your best friend, you shared hundreds of memories with him and it did feel like something was missing in your life these last few months. 

But you needed him gone to get over him.

Being in love with him took so much out of you. Knowing that he didn’t, and never would, love you back was something you needed to accept and grow from. Taking this step back, you realised just how much of yourself you dedicated to Lando and to his life. 

So you kept taking those steps back until he was no longer within reach. You needed to keep putting the distance between yourself and him. You needed to be your own person. You couldn’t just be Lando’s best friend anymore. As much as he wanted that, it wasn’t doing you any favours.

“Of course I missed you,” you dropped your head, jaw tightening for a second. “But I don’t love you anymore, Lando.”

Again, Lando nodded. If you were looking up, you would have seen the way his features softened, making him look so much younger than he actually was. He always had a boyish charm to him and when he was hurt or unsettled, those young mannerisms in him jumped out.

“Sort of feels like a break up,” Lando forced a smile on his face, as if it made this any easier.

But he was right. This was, in a sense, your relationship coming to an end. There was a dull ache in your chest as it hit, but deep down you had known this was coming for a while. The conversation, the confrontation and eventually, the conclusion. 

You once loved Lando. How could you not? 

You once loved everything about him. From his different types of laughs to the way you could tell his smiles apart better than he could. You supported him for years, you were his rock and one point, you thought that he was yours. 

But he was a crutch. Something you could learn to live without. Something you didn’t need, but was too scared to give up.

He would always be someone you cared about, but his place in your life meant something different now. More importantly, you took away his ability to crush your heart in his hands without so much as a second thought. 

You both noticed a few employees sliding on their jackets and heading for the door. Lando ran a hand through his hair before glancing at his watch, “Did you want a ride home?”

“No, I’m meeting a friend for dinner,” you denied his offer, but you noticed the way his eyebrows momentarily raised. You rolled your eyes, “It’s not a date if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“No I-” Lando stammered over his words. “I mean, it’s natural to be curious. But you’re allowed- obviously you can date whoever-”

“Lando,” you cut him off before he could say something stupid. He instantly closed his mouth and let you speak. “I’m going to walk you out, okay?”

And that was that. You grabbed your jacket and turned off your monitor. Lando grabbed your bag for you and waited until your coat was on before handing it over. The two of you walked side by side towards the doors of the gallery, elbows brushing occasionally. 

As you stepped outside, you were thankful that the silence wasn’t heavy. There was nothing left for you to say and Lando knew he couldn’t change your mind. Your friendship, while not completely destroyed, was certainly tainted. The space between you might become less distant over time, but it was permanent. 

You could still watch the races and support him, but on your own accord, the way you decided to. There would be no more McLaren paddock passes. There would be no more hanging out in his motorhome, you would just be a friend who could cheer him on from afar. 

Sure enough, Lando’s McLaren was parked outside. You walked with him towards the driver's side door, but you weren’t surprised in the slightest when he made no effort to get in or say goodbye.

He inhaled a heavy breath and you just knew whatever words were to follow weren’t going to be good.

“What if things were different?”

You had spent so much wondering about the what if’s that hearing Lando ask it now was almost humorous. 

“That’s a dangerous game, Lando.”

He leaned against the side of his car, “What is?”

“Asking what if.” 

Lando chuckled, dipping his head momentarily. “It’s a genuine question, though. What if things were different?”

“But they’re not,” that was all you could say. It was the truth you accepted and now it was his turn to accept it as well. “Things will never be different. You don’t love me, you never loved me and that’s all I wanted from you. I can’t hold that against you and in return I need you to be okay with me taking a step back from your life.”

There were so many thoughts travelling behind those bright eyes of his, you could tell he was trying to figure out which one to land on. 

You made it easier for him, “Why did you come here?”

That seemed to catch him off guard, “What do you mean?”

“Well I know you didn’t come here to ask me what if things were different so why are you here? I mean, you have two races left. You’ve gone this far without me. If you’re trying to pull some sort of grand gesture, could you not have at least waited until the end of the season?”

Lando hesitated before answering you, thinking of the right words first before just opening his mouth, “I won’t lie, Y/N, I wanted to see how you were doing. I think part of me expected you to come back or reach out and when you didn’t-” he shrugged, he always shrugged. “I just wanted to check in. No grand gesture, don’t worry. I know where you stand, but I’m allowed to still care about you.”

A gust of wind hit your back, blowing a few strands of hair in front of your face. It was early November, not an ideal time of the year to be standing outside and having a conversation, but this might be the last opportunity you two had to air things out. 

So you sucked it up and dealt with the cold, shoving your hands in your pockets and watching as Lando licked his lips. He also avoided your eye contact, something he only did when he was nervous.

“I also want to apologise.”

Your eyebrow twitched, “For what?” 

This man definitely owed you a few apologies, but you didn’t know what was going to come out of his mouth next.

“Everything, really,” Lando laughed softly and it almost made you smile in response. You were only human, you could miss his laugh. 

You nudged your foot against his, “I’m going to need a little more than that.”

He finally looked at you. There was a time when his grey eyes would have floored you, but not anymore. You were still standing.

“Everything,” Lando repeated, quieter this time. “For taking you for granted. Your friendship, your support, everything you gave me. For not appreciating you how I should have. For leading you on. For getting in the way of you and Pierre. For not loving you the way you wanted me to- I could go on, Y/N, but I need you to know I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed.”

Maybe he did learn something in your absence. 

You didn’t know what to say. There were no words that could show your appreciation for his growth, for his ability to take responsibility and acknowledge what went wrong.

So instead of trying to rely on words, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him. Lando hesitated, unsure if he was even allowed to hug you back before slowly raising his arms and snaking them around your waist. 

He knew this would be the last time he’d get to hold you like this. 

You knew this would be the last time you’d ever allow yourself to be this close to him.

So there was no hurry to pull away. You could feel Lando’s heartbeat against his chest, his body heat pulling you in like a moth to a flame, his heavy breath as his face dipped right next to yours. 

You held each other for a minute, maybe two. No more words were exchanged, but you and Lando had a bond that couldn't be described by anything the English dictionary had to offer.

Even in these uncertain times, you could count on his embrace to make the world around you freeze. You both had your own problems, your own reasons for needing space from each other but in his arms, they didn’t matter. You felt safe, comforted, this was the Lando that you had loved and it was hard to believe you weren’t going to have this anymore.

And then it was like Lando knew he had to be the one to let go. He had to be the one to release you, to stop giving you a reason to hold on. 

He dropped his arms, both of you deciding not to speak about how painful this was, but your staggered inhale of a breath said it all. The way he sniffed and rubbed the back of his neck told you that this wasn’t any easier for him than it was for you.

For a brief second, you were almost crazy enough to apologise. It always hurt you to see Lando struggling, but your absence was something he was going to have to learn to live with. You didn’t need to apologise for it, for trying to better yourself.

“There is, actually, one more thing,” Lando suddenly said, reaching for the handle of the door, propping it open. You watched as the door to his luxury car swung upwards instead of out as Lando reached inside and grabbed an envelope. When he turned back around and handed it over, it was impossible to tell what it was.

Lando didn’t say anything as you opened it. His lips curled upwards when the realisation of what was inside slowly hit you. 

“A Paddock pass,” you swallowed, recognising the lanyard. 

“And plane tickets,” he added. “And a hotel booking. For Abu Dhabi.”

“The last race.”

“You should be there,” he said, taking in a sharp breath. His shoulders tensed, like he was suddenly debating if this was the best idea.

“Lando I can’t hang out in McLaren,” you sighed, wondering if the last five minutes of your conversation had already escaped him.

“No, you should be there for you,” Lando clarified. “You love the sport, Y/N, you’ve always attended the last race of the season. That shouldn’t change.”

You pulled the pass out of the envelope and twirled it around your fingers. The bright font of Abu Dhabi Grand Prix stood out along the black and you had to admit, it was a kind gesture, a selfless one for a change.

“You should be there,” Lando repeated. “And I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

Your eyebrows pinched together as you looked up at him again, dropping the pass into the envelope. “What do you mean?”

This man actually had the audacity to look at you like you were stupid.

“Oh come on Y/N,” a chuckle passed through his lips. “Pierre?” 

You hesitated, “What about him?”

“He wants you there.”

“We haven’t spoken in weeks.”

“He still wants you there.” Lando shook his head, putting a stop to your doubts before they could creep up. “He’s just got more restraint than me and isn’t about to reach out or make you feel like you have to be there.” 

You shrugged your shoulders. There was no question about it, you missed Pierre, but you were the one who ended things with him. You weren’t sure if you had the right to go back to him now and ask for a fresh start.

“Think about it, okay?” Lando extended his hand to give your arm an encouraging pat. He then made the move to get into his car and you took a step back to give him space. His eyes raked over you once more, probably wondering if this was the last time he would see you in the next little while, but he didn’t comment on it. He chose not to acknowledge it either, instead saying a quiet, “See you later,” and hoping those words would come true.

You had a few weeks to decide if you wanted to attend the last race of the season. You wanted to be strong and stay home. You nearly ripped the tickets up at one point, thinking it would make the decision easier, but everything was digital nowadays so it wasn't like that gesture mattered. 

You wanted to watch the race. You wanted to cheer on your favourite drivers. You wanted to see Pierre. 

And eventually it was your desire for all of those things that overpowered the distance you knew was better for you. 

So you found yourself in Abu Dhabi that last weekend in November. You walked into the paddock when you knew the drivers would be busy with their teams and headed straight for the Paddock Club, choosing to watch the race from there. You kept your sunglasses on and made yourself as unapproachable as possible as you silently watched and rooted for the French driver. 

When word got out of a few drivers heading to a specific nightclub, you knew that would be your chance to talk to Pierre. After the race and before he got drunk. 

You weren’t even sure what you were going to say. Lando said he would want you to be there, but you still had your fears. You had called things off and there was no guarantee that he would want to pick things back up, that he would be so open to letting you back into his life. 

When he ordered a drink, you saw it as an opportunity. When the bartender was near you, you quickly paid for Pierre’s rum and coke. He didn’t question it and neither did Pierre. 

You walked around the side of the bartop, behind all of the other patrons and watched as Pierre tried to look for who had paid for his drink. You thought about saying his name to get his attention, you even thought about just walking away because was this really a good idea? But when his back was towards you, something in you pulled you forward, just enough so you could tap on his shoulder. 

He turned around, wearing an expression you couldn't quite read. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“I owed you a drink,” you blurted out, thinking of the first night you finally decided to give him more than thirty seconds of your time. 

Pierre had approached you in the bar and bought your drink, telling him that you could thank him later. His words were laced with dirty intent, and while you were nowhere near as charming as Pierre was, you still tried. 

 “Or maybe I just owed you a thank you, I couldn’t remember,” you quickly added. 

Pierre was silent for a few seconds, mouth slightly agape. He certainly hadn’t expected you to show up and now he was speechless. There had been hundreds of things he wanted to say to you over the course of the last few weeks but for the life of him, none of them came to mind.

You had no choice but to take control of the conversation for a change, “It was a good race. Good job. A top ten finish, and you beat the McLarens that must-

“You watched?” Pierre asked. He hadn’t meant to cut you off but he was still trying to process that you were actually right there and now to find out you were also in the audience watching? He was about to implode. 

“Of course,” you nodded. Someone tried to step past you so you moved closer to Pierre to make room. And it was like nothing had changed, Pierre raised his hand to rest on your waist, automatically feeling that urge to reach for you, to be touching you. 

He quickly put the drink down on the bartop, he had no desire for it anymore. The absolute last thing he wanted to do right now was get drunk. 

With his other hand free, Pierre raised it to cup the side of your face. He tucked a few strands of hair behind your ear, his thumb tracing over your cheek. You were really there. 

“Chérie,” he spoke so quietly, his voice almost drowned out by the music playing from the speakers around you. But you watched his lips as he spoke, taking in every word, every breath. “You don’t know how bad I missed you.”

That was a weight lifted off your shoulders. Lando was right, Pierre did want you there. 

And you could have said you missed him too. You could have laughed it off and teased him for it. You could have rolled your eyes, something he was all too familiar with seeing. 

But instead of doing any of that, you grabbed hold of the collar of his shirt and closed the last bit of space between you. You kissed him like you were making up for lost time, you basically were. Pierre’s hand slid to rest where your neck met your jaw and there was a desire to rush, to taste every bit of his tongue against yours, to let him intoxicate all of your senses, but Pierre’s moves were slow. He wanted to take his time, relish in this moment and to keep you in his grasp for as long as he could, until you were both desperate for a breath.

Pierre pressed another kiss to your lips, and then another, and another and then to your cheeks and your forehead and every visible spot on your face that he thought needed some attention. You giggled like a schoolgirl as his arm slipped around your neck, pulling you tight into his chest to hold you, hug you, feel you in his arms. 

“I missed you,” Pierre said again, still quiet but there was no underlying ache in his tone. He missed you, but he didn’t have to anymore. You weren’t going anywhere. 

Neither of you cared that you were sharing this embrace in the middle of the club, but other people certainly didn’t like it. When someone made a playful 'get a room' comment, Pierre laughed into your ear. God you never wanted to go two months without hearing his laughter ever again. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Pierre suggested, placing his forefinger under your chin to tilt your face up. He kissed you again, his hand slipping into yours before turning around, his eyes set on the door. You happily followed.

The club was crowded. You recognized a few paddock employees and members from various teams and of course the drivers who were out partying, but everyone was in their own little world as the two of you walked past.

Well…

Not everyone.

It happened so fast. You turned your head at the right second and caught Lando’s eyes from where he sat in a booth. Not only was he watching you, he was watching you leave with Pierre. 

Someone walked in front of you, cutting off your line of sight for a brief moment. You felt Pierre’s grip on your hand tighten. Looking up, and saw that Pierre was staring straight ahead. If he noticed Lando, he didn’t hint towards it. 

Glancing back at Lando one last time, you watched as he lifted the drink in his hand and nodded once, a toast-like gesture, but in this case it was so much more than a little congratulatory one-sided cheers. 

He released his final hold over you. There were no more strings tying you to Lando. He wasn’t going to get in between you and Pierre. He was going to let you be happy with the French driver. 

Lando would still continue to want what was best for you, but that wasn’t him anymore. That was Pierre.

So he watched as a sliver of a smile appeared on your lips, so quick he almost missed it, before following Pierre outside. You were gone.

Feeling a nudge on his arm, Lando turned his head and met the concerned eyes of Max. Max, someone who had been a witness to everything these last few months, was definitely happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

“You alright?” Max asked him and Lando just nodded, glancing at the spot you just abandoned. 

“Yeah,” he didn’t sound very convincing, but Max knew that eventually he’d say it and mean it. 

He brought his drink up to his lips, “I guess the best man won.” 

Lando rolled his eyes, shoving Max with his elbow. Not hard enough to hurt him but enough that he spilled his beer over the front of his shirt.

“It was never a competition you numbskull.”

Max plastered his best dumbfounded look on his face, “Oh, you mean Y/N? I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about the driver standings.”

Lando snorted, knowing that Max was most definitely not talking about the driver standings, but it was a good retort to fall back on. Pierre had beat him in the last two races, putting him ahead of the two McLaren drivers in the championship. 

Lando put up a good fight throughout the season but towards the end he managed to come to the realisation that no matter what, he wouldn’t pull ahead. Beating Pierre wasn’t in his cards. 

Neither was keeping you.

But not all hope was lost. Lando would fight even harder next year. This year’s competition made him a better driver. And motorsport aside, he knew he’d still see you around. At a distance, only in passing, and most likely with Pierre, but you’d be there. 

Losing you forced him to grow up. He had no choice but to better himself, and he would. 

The what if’s would continue to haunt him, they would haunt all of you. The ghosts of what could have been. The paths you never took. What if Pierre hadn’t hit on you that night in the club? What if Lando spoke to you the morning after? What if you spent the summer break alone? What if what if what if. 

The thing was, though, none of it mattered.

You were happy. Lando would learn to live without you. Pierre played the long game and it worked out in his favour. The lingering questions didn’t matter. The only thing left to do was look ahead. The past held nothing, whereas your future, all of your futures, were brighter and better than they had ever been before. 

why am i crying lmao

and with that, the better series comes to an end :') thank you everyone for reading and for sharing your thoughts and being so invested in their silly little lives.

i will most definitely be writing another mini series, and if you have ideas or see something on my prompt list, pls send me a request here! i can't promise it'll turn into a 7-part fic but i do love getting requests and who knows?? maybe i'll write a lando fic and turn u all back into lando girlies??

love u all so much and for the record, i was always team pierre

[ssaaaronmontgomery]

what about Aaron forgetting his gf’s birthday but his team has all remembered and put something together because they adore her and he just feels dreadful so of course he has to make it up to you in 100 different ways

It's Your Birthday?

Warnings: Slight angst? (Aaron is basically feeling guilty), fluff, ever so slightly suggestive but nothing is nsfw.

Word count: 1.2k

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!reader

A/n: Aw :( Aaron would feel so so bad if he forgot your birthday. I don't know if I like the way it turned out :,) but I did my best and I hope you like it! Also if anyone wants to be added to my forever tags just let me know :)

Tags: @hotchnerbau (babes idk if you wanted to be tagged I literally forget who I mention these to so if someone wanted to be tagged and wasn't, I apologise)

Forever tags: @greg-montgomery @boredelle @hotchsdoormat

Aaron felt like he was missing something. Like there was something happening today that he was either unaware of entirely, or that he'd forgotten something. And he has no idea what it could be.

All day people had smiled at him, just members of the team. But a couple of them mentioned to him that "you must have something really special planned tonight" and JJ specifically said "If you want me to take Jack for the night I'd love to! My boys have been asking for another sleepover with him anyway." Anyway. Anyway? Something was implied and he wasn't sure what. It seemed so out of the blue.

Throughout the day Aaron forgets about how off he feels. He's shut in his office and after a number of hours there's a knock on the office door.

Penelope walks in.

"Sir! Hi! Quick question! What colour does y/n prefer? Does she have a favourite?" His brows furrow as confusion takes over him but he answers Garcia's question and then asks "Why do you ask?" She just grins at him "Oh, sir. You know!" No, he doesn't. But she leaves before he can ask anything else. He ponders momentarily before pushing the thoughts away and going back to his reports.

Another couple hours went by, he had closed the blinds and kept the door shut. But when he hears some sort of commotion outside his office, he quickly stands and opens the door.

He's met with party decorations all over the bullpen and you standing there with a huge smile on your face.

He makes his way down the steps and walks over to you standing with his team members.

"Honey, what are you doing here? What's going on? What is all of this?" The last two questions are directed more towards his team.

You look at him a bit confused as does everyone else. "We're throwing y/n a birthday party, sir! It's her birthday!" Penelope says excitedly but you look at him with a slight frown.

He looks back at you "It's not your-"

Aaron cuts himself off and stands there for a few seconds as he realises that it is, in fact, your birthday. And guilt immediately overtakes him. He feels terrible for forgetting. And the fact that his team remembered when he didn't, made him feel even worse.

"Oh, oh Sweetheart I'm so sorry. I forgot. I didn't...I must have just..." He trails off and looks down. He doesn't want to give you some excuse for his lack of remembering your birthday. "I'm sorry, y/n, really." He looks back up and he expects you to be upset, but he's met with a small smile.

"It's alright, Aaron. Don't worry about it. You know now. It's fine." You step closer and kiss his cheek, a kiss he doesn't feel like he deserves. Then he receives a warm hug from you but you're being pulled away by Garcia seconds later, something about cake and some gifts needing to be opened.

Gifts. Gifts! He didn't have a present for you. There was an empty desk with presents from the team on it and none were from him. He didn't have one at home. This all completely slipped his mind. He's internally scolding himself but he puts on a little smile every time you look at him.

He starts thinking of ways he can make it up to you. Of course, one option would be taking JJ up on her earlier offer and giving you a fun birthday night. But he wants to give you more than that. He's thinking more on the material side of things. Jewelry immediately pops into his head. He has a necklace hidden away for your upcoming anniversary (upcoming as in six months away, ever the planner aside from this one time) but it's meant for that day and there's even a card written with it about the anniversary. Not your birthday. And you already know that he's forgotten now. He can't play it off like he already had the necklace as a birthday gift.

He watches you open all of your presents. One from each member of the team (apart from him) but there are at least five from Penelope. Which doesn't surprise anyone, really.

He's watching your face light up as you see each new item and read each card, all having meaningful words written in them. You weren't on the team. You're a civilian. But the team loves you like family and you're close friends with them all. You see them as much as possible given their work and their lives outside of it.

"Aaron, look!" He smiles as you hold up the book that Reid gifted you. "You'll have to read it to me." You grin as you read the summary on the back of it. In his head he agrees. He'll do anything you want, especially now to make up for his lack of remembering your special day.

After cake and chatting with everyone, you go to Aaron's office when you see he's not out there. Leaving the rest of the team to enjoy the small party.

He's alone and sitting at his desk staring at nothing but he looks up at you when you walk in. "Aaron? What's wrong? If this is about forgetting what today is, it's really not a big deal. You don't need to feel so bad about it, baby. Really." He hates how sweet and forgiving you're being. The fact that you're not even slightly upset about it. That you're so understanding. But he knows he would be just as understanding if it was the other way around and you'd forgotten his.

"No, y/n. It's not okay. I forgot your birthday. I didn't do anything for it, I didn't get you anything, I didn't even remember to wish you a happy birthday this morning before leaving. Everyone except me remembered and even threw a party for you." You know he's eating himself up inside.

Walking around his desk and standing in front of him, you lean back against the wood and sit on the edge of it. Grabbing his hands and looking at him with a stern expression. "Aaron, don't beat yourself up over this. There will be more birthdays. And you don't need to get me anything. I don't care if I get presents or not. I'm fine with not doing anything special for today either way. But you can wish me a happy birthday now." You give him a kiss on the forehead and smile at him which he returns with the best one he can give, still feeling guilty inside.

"Happy birthday, y/n." He gives your hands a gentle squeeze. "But I still want to make it up to you." You think for a moment. "Okay. How about dinner? All I've had was cake because that's all there was here. Jack is with Jessica right now because she picked him up from school but I'm sure he wants to go to JJ and Will's for a sleepover. And you can make it up to me however I see fit." You tell him the last part with a smirk as you grab his tie and pull him to you, making him stand in the process. Slotting himself between your legs as you give him a slow kiss.

"I think that sounds like a good way to start."

[unknownati]

iii. are you still watching?

a/n: EEEK ilygsm. im glad ppl liked the last post so much ^_^ <333 thank u!!!

u didnt hear this from me but i MAYYY be working on a lil something w ellie 😜😇🤫🤫

ngl? idk if i like this! i'm very 50/50 on it but ur the judge 🤷🏾‍♀️

warnings/tags: suggestive? like you're literally on the BRINK of fucking (so mdni!!) , still fluffy tho (you already know i can't live without it), "netflix n chill 🤓", cuddling, making out, not really tlou aligned more of a modern au, ending kinda sucks lol, guess what. NOT PROOFREAD 🔥🔥, once again not very long but still made with love 😁 🫶🏾

__________________________________________________

it took you an abby an hour to actually pick a show to watch. it always took you two forever, and the first 10 minutes of disagreement was usually on whether it should be a show or a movie. once you got past that, then it was which one to actually watch.

horror?..not really abby's thing.

sci-fi? not feeling that.

mystery? you didn't feel like thinking.

thriller? nothing good.

you eventually just settled on 'insecure' since you'd had your eye on it for a minute (and abby didn't feel like going back and forth with you anymore).

once you made it past the hour of picking something to watch, these were your favorite nights to have with abby. she'd come over, sometimes you'd order food, and you'd whip out your comfiest blankets to bundle up in. you had this specific blanket that abby loved to use, it was not too thin but not too thick, and it was adorned with these cute little cartoon dogs. she refused to let you use it even though it was yours.

you were fully invested in this show, but the same couldn't be said for abby. she kept glancing over towards you, staring for long enough that she didn't know what was going on.

you kept making small comments about the show just to receive late 'mhm's and 'ohhh's back. it wasn't until you took a peek at abby that you realized she wasn't even looking at the screen. "are you even watching it?"

she shrugged and nodded, almost defensive. "i am! you're just..." she exhaled, the faintest grin spreading across her face. "distracting."

you blink, raising a brow but matching her expression. "how am i distracting you? i'm not even doing anything, babe."

she nudges your leg with her knee. "you're just so pretty, i can't not look at you." you roll your eyes, focusing your attention back on the screen when the intensity starts picking back up. and abby let you watch. for a couple minutes, at least.

right when it was getting good, you felt a hand at your thigh. you glance over, she's darting between your face and your thigh; testing the waters. you don't say anything, still partially trying to see what's happening. her hand moves, up, up, right to the hem of your shirt. she pushes the fabric up, and that fully captures your attention.

"whatcha doin'?" you question, watching how she moves closer to you and looks at you with the prettiest, most love-struck eyes you've ever seen.

"nothing. just keep watching," abby reaches up and turns your head back towards the tv. you try your hardest to focus, but the feeling of her hands sliding up your shirt and slowly savoring every inch of your skin was a lot. and it didn't help that she started to kiss your neck, taking her sweet time to cover you with affection.

she trails up your neck, and soon she's kissing your jaw, her hand stationed at your waist. "you're so pretty. can't keep my hands off you, just wanna touch you all the time."

"abby..." you whispered, turning to give her a proper kiss. and that was all she needed. the way your voice sounded was like music to her ears, especially the way her name rolled off of your tongue and dripped like honey. heavenly.

it doesn't take long before you're on your back with her on top of you, her hand pulling your shirt up above your chest like she'll die if it's not off of you. it's so cute, the way her brows are furrowed while she kisses you, the small noises she makes that are just enough to tell you how bad she needed you. her touches are so gentle. she treated you like the most delicate piece of glassware yet she was so desperate for you.

her lips trail down, kissing down your sternum while she looks up at you with glimmering blue-grey eyes. she makes her way down your body, stopping right above the hem of your shorts. by this point, you your hear your heart thumping in your chest even over your thick breaths. "can i?" she asked, voice breathy.

you've never nodded and muttered a 'please' like that any faster.

it wasn't until you felt your shorts slide off and be carelessly tossed to the side that you noticed your show had paused and a large box of text popped up on the screen.

'are you still watching?"