lover of mine
drew starkey x actress!reader au
— in which drew and y/n, secretly exes, must fake date in order to keep the peace at a mutual friend’s wedding, but the forced proximity makes them question whether they ever truly moved on.
warnings: sweet baby boy drew whos willing to help u, nothing else rly
tropes: second chance, fake dating, one bed, forced proximity
authors note: i wanted to give it a sort of “the proposal” / “anyone but you” type of feel !! this is obviously going to be a series so let me know if u want to be added to the tag list from now on so u dont miss an update ! <3
your body freezes in place when you’re asked about the wedding. crap, you forgot. but it isn’t like you received any invite.
“theo sent you an invite through the mail. you got it right?” your friend, leila, asks you. leila and her fiancé theo have been your friends for years now, ever since leila applied for a job at your work. she’s been your closest friend, so theo naturally had to come along too.
“what? yeah,” you lie right through your teeth, and guilt punches you in the face when you stare right into her bright eyes. you raise the cup of coffee. “was literally jumping for joy when i got it.”
leila sighs in relief. “thank god we got the right address,” she says and you question what she means by that before she continues, “we didn’t know whether to send it to your apartment or drew’s.”
your breath is caught and you pause before your drink reaches your lips.
“drew,” you repeat, and she nods.
“yeah, but we figured you’ll both see it either way so, sent it to his place ‘cause theo said it was closer,” leila says, and you raise your eyebrows in amusement. “but anyway! before the wedding, i wanted to stay with our inner circle so if it’s possible for a little two-week vacation? the venue is close to my mom and her boyfriend’s house so we’d just be staying there. i would’ve picked after the wedding if theo didn’t already have the honeymoon planned. he’s too excited.”
“wait, two weeks?” you inquire, “who’s coming?”
she shrugs, “you and drew, libby, gia . . .” she trails off as she thinks about it, and you swallow as you set your cup down. “i forgot who else. i know it’s one of theo’s coworkers but i forgot who. let me text him actually.”
your face lights up at the opportunity to get away, and you nod. “i need to call drew actually,” you say, and she smiles and nods as you stand from your seat and make your way to her living room. “need to remind him to take the . . . fish . . . out.”
“fish?”
“we’re having fish tonight, yeah.”
you turn away to scroll through your contacts until you find his, then click on it. you settle down on the couch as you wait anxiously for him to pick up, and just hope that he does.
just before the call goes to voicemail, the line clears. “yeah?”
“you are such a—!” you hiss quietly, careful not to let leila hear you. “why didn’t you tell me leila and theo sent you a wedding invite for us?”
“i literally just checked my mail, alright? i would’ve said something about it as soon as i saw it,” he tells you. “i just flew in two days ago, y/n. i’m at the . . . i’m not at my apartment right now but my mail’s all on my counter. i’ll look for it once i’m home and then send you pictures of it, okay?”
you know that your situation with drew is slightly complicated. you were together for five years before ending things just a year ago.
because of your careers, you aren’t surprised that people assume you’re still dating. even close friends like leila and theo. everything was kept private. a year into the relationship was when fans even found out about you two.
you both have been looking for a time to address the breakup, to friends first for sure, but with your conflicting schedules, the time’s just never come up, and sending a “by the way, we broke up” text to an imessage groupchat wasn’t totally ideal.
even with the wedding coming up, having to be around everyone while you celebrate your closest friends, how are you either of you supposed to bring it up now?
“okay,” you tell him. “just text me when you’re free. any time before 10, please.”
“okay,” drew’s voice is soft and understanding. the line goes dead and you pull your phone away from your ear, seeing that he’s hung up.
your expected text comes around 8pm. drew’s sent you four different attachments. all are photos of the elaborate and detailed wedding invitation. the designs must’ve been leila’s idea.
you’re surprised to see an incoming call on your laptop right after. you hover over the accept button, then click on it.
his face fills a rectangle of your screen. he’s on his phone—“do you see it?”
“yeah wait,” you mumble, clicking out of the facetime to open your messages with him, then click the first photo. “leila and theo; rsvp by september twenty-seventh.”
“the letter’s addressed to my place but they put our names on the envelope,” drew tells you, and it looks like he’s ruffling through something before he flips his camera to display his counter. on it is the envelope in question, which is addressed to his apartment, but for y/n and drew, it says.
you hum. “are you going?” you ask him.
“of course i’m going. what do you mean?”
you shake your head, “nothing.”
drew only knows of leila or theo because of you, because leila works with you. maybe he’s made friends with theo but it’s not something you’ve personally seen, so you’re just assuming that maybe since you’ve broken up, there’s no reason for him to go? especially when he’s filming soon?
you stare down at your keyboard as you speak again, “leila wants us to come on a two-week pre-stay with her and theo. and others.”
there’s a brief pause from drew, like he doesn’t understand.
you sense it immediately and continue. “like, before the wedding, she told me today about how her mom has his house she wants us to stay in, just a few of us for two weeks, then they have her wedding— i don’t know, i need to ask her more about it. i think she just wants to fly everyone out and spend more time with us before she’s on honeymoon and living the wife life.”
“could be fun,” drew says. “i mean, i can’t even remember the last time i was out with theo or leila. it might be good for us.”
you furrow your eyebrows at him through the screen, and you try to read him to see if he’s joking. “there is no more ‘us’, remember? and by the way, neither leila or theo or anybody else knows that.”
drew hesitates as if he’s trying to justify your situation.
you rub your eye before resting the side of your head against your fist, “they addressed the invitation to both of us, drew. i feel like we should at least tell them the truth so that when we get there, they know.”
drew hesitates, his eyes moving around as if searching for the right words. “yeah, i know. it’s just . . . complicated.”
“complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it,” you say, feeling frustration build up. “it just feels dishonest. they think we’re still together, and if they find out at the wedding, it’ll look like we’re hiding things.”
“we are hiding things,” he reminds you. “we’ve been avoiding the topic. do you really want to drop this bomb on them right before their wedding?”
you go silent as you think about it, because if telling them isn’t a good option then . . .
“what if we just kept up the appearance that we’re still together?” drew suggests. it draws your attention as you look up at your laptop. “for the wedding and the pre.”
you blink, taken aback. “what do you mean?”
“i mean,” drew continues, “what if we act like we’re still together while we’re there? it might make things easier for everyone. seeing us apart will just create tension. people will feel like they’ll need to walk on eggshells around us.”
you give him a skeptical look. “acting like a couple isn’t the same as actually being one. i’m not sure i can just pull it off without it feeling fake.”
“we’re not faking,” drew says gently. “we’re just playing a part for a bit. we’re professionals. it’s literally our job. we can do this for a few days.”
you pause, considering his words. “but what if it just makes things worse? what if pretending just complicates everything?”
drew’s expression softens, and he speaks more earnestly. “look, we’ve been in tough spots before. there’s been so many times on set with you and i before that we’ve had to navigate headfirst. this is no different. think of it as a role we have to play for a short time. it doesn’t change what’s real.”
you sit back, processing his suggestion. “so we fake it for now and deal with the truth later?”
he hums. “it’s not ideal, but it could save a lot of awkwardness and stress. we can be civil and supportive for their sake, and then handle everything after.”
you let out a long sigh, feeling the weight of the decision. “it just feels like a lot of work to keep up a pretense. but i guess if we’re going to do this, we need to at least figure out how to make it believable.”
“we’ll figure it out,” drew says, his voice a little more hopeful. “it’s not about being perfect. it’s just about getting through the weeks without making things worse.”
you nod slowly, still feeling uneasy but recognizing the practicality of his idea. “okay. pretend for leila and theo, and then deal with the fallout afterwards.”
there’s a faint smile on his face as he nods at you. “just two weeks, remember? we can do that,” he says. “i’m gonna head to bed. i’ll talk to you tomorrow about it, alright?”
“okay,” you murmur, and drew hangs up on you.
the facetime window closes and displays your last app that’s been open, your messages. you’re face-to-face with the photos of the invitations once more, and a part of you is overwhelmed with emotions—fear, excitement, guilt.
two weeks. that’s all it is. just two weeks with your ex-boyfriend. you can survive that . . .
right?
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Several weeks ago, my retirement-age mother requested that I play Baldur’s Gate 3 for her because she has trouble with controllers/keyboards and wanted “to see what all the fuss is about with that cute wizard boy.” For context, my mother and I have done this sort of thing in the past with certain RPGs (dragon age, mass effect, etc.), but it’s been a few years since she’s personally requested a game like this. Basically, I control her Tav but let her make all the choices so she can determine how the story plays out without worrying about mechanics. She treats it like a choose-your-own-adventure book.
Anyway, here is a list of some of the things my mother has said and/or chosen to do throughout the course of BG3 in no particular order:
She is (obviously) romancing Gale. She is quite smitten with him and his passion for books and learning; she also thinks he’s polite and qualifies as “relationship material.” She also REALLY likes the things he’s said about his cat so far (my mom is a cat lady), so I know she’s gonna flip shit when we meet Tara in Act III.
She’s playing a normal druid Tav with a generally good alignment. Her favorite spell is Spike Growth because she thinks it’s hilarious whenever enemies walk into the AOE and die. I usually end up having to cast it at least once per battle per her request. Sometimes twice.
Contrary to her alignment, my mother tasks me with robbing every single chest, crate, barrel, and burlap sack we come across; this also includes people and their pockets. The party is always at max carrying capacity. ALWAYS. She doesn’t like selling things because “what if I need them.” The camp stash is in literal shambles. There is no hope of organizing it. She’s got like fifty seven sets of rags and a billion pieces of random silverware.
She MUST talk to every animal and corpse in the game. I think five hours of her total playtime so far (47ish) has been spent speaking to animals as many times as humanly possible. Like, I was thorough in my own playthroughs, but this is on a whole other level.
She did NOT get Volo’s lobotomy, but she did let Auntie Ethel take her eye in hopes of a cure for the tadpole. I did not understand the logic then. I still do not understand it now.
She is far more interested in fashion than equipment stats. Do you have any idea how much gold I’ve had to spend on dyes just to make things match? SO much. Same vibe as that “please someone help me balance my finances my family is starving” tweet but instead of candles it’s thirty thousand fucking bottles of black and furnace red dye.
We broke the prisoners out of Moonrise, but they got on the boat too early and bugged the fight by leaving Astarion and Karlach behind. Wulbren Bongle somehow got stuck in combat mode even after engaging the cutscene on the docks below Last Light; he he kept trying to run ALL THE WAY BACK TO MOONRISE nine fucking meters at a time while I frantically tried to finish the fight with the Warden, otherwise Wulbren would have run straight into the shadow curse. (I would’ve let him go; fuck Wulbren Bongle, all my homies hate Wulbren Bongle. But my mom didn’t know that, and she wanted to keep him safe. So.)
She had me reload a save like eighteen times to save the giant eagles on top of Rosymorn Monastery. Wouldn’t even let me do non-lethal damage just to get past things. I think getting that warhammer for the dawnmaster puzzle took us like an hour and a half alone. (Yes, I know you can use any warhammer, but SHE didn’t.)
She’s started keeping an irl notebook to keep track of her quests between play sessions. She writes down ideas and strategies when she thinks of them during the week, then brings them to her next game session at my house. I think she wrote about three pages on possible approaches to the goblin fortress alone.
She insists that I pet Scratch and the owlbear cub before every single long rest, no exceptions. Sometimes I have to do it multiple times until she is absolutely sure that the animals know exactly how much she loves and cherishes them. She has also commissioned a crocheted owlbear plush from a friend of hers and is very excited.
I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting, but those are some fun things I thought of. She’s enjoying the game and is telling all of her retired friends to get it and play it for themselves. She asked me “what is Discord” yesterday and I think my life flashed before my eyes.
anyway shout out to my mom for being neat
Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5
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