#it’ll probably be out by this weekend but I make no promises because I do have a fucking job lmao

[katsu28]

first time for everything

pairing: oscar piastri x reader

summary: a lot of things were in the cards for oscar’s first home race. he just wasn’t expecting confessing his love for you to be one of them. (3.3k)

warnings: maybe a swear word idk

a/n: my first oscar fic! not sure if i've got his personality down quite yet but hopefully i've done him justice :)

“You’re nervous.” 

Oscar tore his attention from his phone camera, where he was messing with the swoop of his hair for what had to be the fifth time. He shook his head, though you could probably see right through him. “No, I’m not—I just didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you were nervous for today.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“It’s okay to be nervous, Oscar. I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”

You were right, he was nervous about a lot of things—this weekend was his first home race, the first race you were able to attend during his time as a driver for McLaren. But the first thing he learned from competing at this level was to never let his nerves show. Put up a front, make it seem like he was cool as a cucumber so people wouldn’t doubt him, let his skills on the track do all the talking. 

Normally, Oscar was good about that. But you could see right through him. You knew him well enough to know how he was feeling and how to help, even if he himself didn’t quite understand it. 

The story of you and Oscar was quite the cliche, really. He knew of you through a friend of a friend and was instantly intrigued without even meeting you, managed to reach out, and the rest was history. 

You hadn’t even met each other face to face until a month into your constant texting, but when you did finally find the opportunity to meet up in person, it was like you’d both found the other half of yourselves in each other. While Oscar was more of a straight to the point, cut and dry kind of guy, you managed to bring him out of his shell a little bit, to get him to expand his horizons (within reason, of course). 

You were the opposite—always smiling, always happy to try new things, warm and sunshine-y and everything in between. Oscar toned you down without holding you back, reminded you to take a breather before immediately jumping into the next exciting thing, to enjoy what you had while you had it so you wouldn’t miss anything. 

He’d only just gained the courage to ask you out a few months back, but it only seemed fitting that you were here with him for his first race in front of his home crowd.

“It’s a lot to process.” Oscar admitted, letting his shoulders creep up towards his ears in a shrug. You leaned against him, looping an arm through the crook of his elbow and slipping your hand into his for a reassuring squeeze, pressing your chin against his bicep. “I just don’t wanna let anyone down, y’know? Wanna make everyone proud.” 

“You’re going to do great. I promise.” You said firmly, reaching up to push his hair into its perfect place. Oscar nuzzled into your touch on instinct, letting you cradle his cheek in the palm of your hand. Your thumb swept over his cheek a few times, lulling him into a sense of contentment. 

“Forget me. How are you feeling?”

“I’m excited! I’ve never done something like this before.” You replied, letting your hand drop. “And kinda nervous, but it’ll be fine, right?” 

“Yeah, ‘course it will.” 

“Have any sage words of wisdom for a first time paddock goer?” 

“Oh, you know me. Keep your head down, walk fast. There’s gonna be a lot of cameras, lots of fans, they’re all gonna want something from you. I’ll be with you as long as I can, so I’ll be there in case things start to get out of hand.” 

“Can I say hi to the fans?” 

“If you want to, yeah. They already love you.” 

That was another thing Oscar had to be worried about. Today was a day full of firsts, it felt like, because it was also the first time you’d be making your public debut as a couple. You’d already become a fan favorite when the two of you were just friends (two very mutually pining friends, no less), but making your relationship paddock official seemed daunting. 

Oscar wasn’t at all worried about what people would think. In fact, he didn’t really care. He was happier than he’d been in a long time and nothing would change that. What he was worried about was how you’d be treated. Oscar loved the fans, he really did, but there were always that handful who thought they knew him—knew what was best for him. Knew who was best for him. 

If he could protect you from any harm that could possibly be aimed your way, he’d do it in a heartbeat, but things could get so very unpredictable out there. The best he could do was keep you close. 

Your grip on Oscar’s hand tightened just the slightest bit at seeing the sheer amount of people outside the window. Noticing this, he rubbed his thumb along your knuckles soothingly. 

“You don’t have to come along.” He said softly. You tore your eyes away from the passing crowds to look at him. “There’s a back entrance, you can go through there.” 

“No, it’s alright! I’ll be fine.” 

“You sure? It’s okay if you're having second thoughts, sweetheart.” 

“I’m not, I promise. It’s kind of a lot, but nothing I can’t handle.” You said firmly, more for yourself than anything. Oscar squeezed your hand with a soft smile. “If you can do it, I can do it.” 

“There you go. You’ll be the star of the show. Everyone’ll be like Oscar Piastri who? There’s the most beautiful girl in the world, and just some guy.” 

You had to bite back a laugh at his words paired with the deadpan expression gracing his face. Oscar always seemed to know how to get you to relax. 

“Well, you’re the hottest just some guy I’ve ever seen.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek, smiling at how his fair skin immediately flamed hot under your lips. 

Despite your previous hesitation, you looked entirely in your element as you made the walk hand in hand, looking around with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. Oscar couldn't help but watch you take it all in, not bothering to mask the awe in his eyes as he did so. He wouldn’t be surprised if photos of him looking at you made it to fan Twitter by the end of the day. 

Oscar was whisked away as soon as you got through to hospitality, giving him barely enough time to say goodbye to you before he was shuttled to meeting after meeting, press conferences and pre race interviews, a thousand things to do in the few hours he had before he had to get ready for free practice. 

He was already exhausted by the time he made it back to his driver’s room, pushing open the door with a heaving sigh. You glanced up at the commotion he was making, smiling at him warmly and setting aside your phone.

“Hey, you,” You hummed, holding out your arms towards Oscar as soon as he closed the door behind him. 

“Hi.” Oscar sighed, folding you into his embrace as comfortably as he could in the cramped alcove. There was barely enough room for one person on the bench, let alone you and your boyfriend with his broad shoulders. You shifted sideways to solve the problem, throwing your legs over Oscar’s lap, to which his hand immediately came to rest on your knee. “I missed you.” 

“Wish I could say the feeling was mutual.” You teased. Oscar rolled his eyes goodnaturedly, giving your leg a gentle pinch that you giggled at before leaning in to press a quick peck to his cheek. “I missed you too.” 

“What did you get up to while I was gone?” 

“Oh, so much! I took a walk around the paddock just to check everything out, and I kinda got lost, but someone helped me find my way back eventually.” You shrugged, not noticing the way Oscar’s eyebrows flew up into his hairline. 

“Wait, you got lost? Why didn’t you call me?” 

“You were busy.” You said, very as-a-matter-of-factly. He blinked at you slowly, a blank expression present on his face. “I’m a big girl, Osc, I can find my way around just fine.”  

That made Oscar falter. You were right. He cared so much, especially about you—so much so that sometimes he forgot you were entirely capable of taking care of yourself. 

“A lot of people asked to take pictures with me. Me! Isn’t that crazy?” You exclaimed, beaming bright. “I promised one of them your sweaty fireproofs in return, but that’s beside the point.” 

“You what?” He spluttered, eyes widening almost comically. His fingers froze in their fiddling with the rings adorning your fingers. 

“I’m kidding, obviously. Lighten up, Oscie, jeez.” 

Oscar rolled his eyes playfully. “Right, well I’m glad you’re having fun.” 

“You know what would make this day even more fun?” 

“I don’t think I want to.” 

You stuck your tongue out at him before continuing. “Can I meet Charles Leclerc? Is that something you can pull off?” 

Technically speaking, it would be extremely easy for him to pull off. All he really had to do was bring you over to the Ferrari motorhome for a quick introduction, and he was sure Charles would take a liking to you, just like every other driver you’d gotten to meet so far. You had that kind of persona; one that made people want to get to know you. 

Oscar quite liked that about you. What he wouldn’t like as much was you being immediately wooed by the driver’s seemingly irresistible French charm. And yeah, you were Oscar’s girlfriend and Charles also had a girlfriend of his own, but still. Nobody wanted to see the girl they loved fawning over another man, even one as cool as Charles Leclerc.

But Oscar would never tell you that, because he loved you, and he’d do anything to make you happy. 

“Uh…yeah, sure. I could probably get you an intro, if that’s something you really want.” He heard himself saying, scratching the back of his neck. His heart thudded a little harder in his chest at the way your face lit up. 

“Really?” 

Oscar smiled tightly. “Why not? D’you wanna go now? There’s some time before we need to be on track.” 

“That would be amazing, Osc.” 

“Right then, let’s go.” He nudged your legs off him, heaving himself to his feet with a groan that would usually be associated with someone much older than him. You threaded your fingers through his as soon as he finished popping all his joints like an old man, following his lead out of the room and the motorhome, all the way to the bright Ferrari red building a few doors down. 

Luckily, Charles was sitting at one of the tables in the main area, so you didn’t have to look far to find him. 

“Charles, mate, you got a second?” 

The aforementioned Monegasque tore his attention from his phone upon hearing Oscar’s voice, an easygoing smile already present on his face. “Oscar! What can I do for you, mate?” His eyes found you next, and he nodded politely. “Hello!” 

“Hi.” You said quietly, clinging to Oscar’s hand tightly. This feeling was foreign to you. You’d never been so stunned into silence by someone before, but maybe that was because you’d never met someone as well known as the Charles Leclerc. 

“This is my girlfriend. It’s her first time in the paddock and she’s a big fan of yours, figured I could introduce the two of you. Y/N, Charles. Charles, Y/N.” 

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard much about you!” Charles exclaimed, popping to his feet. He moved forward to embrace you, wrapping you in a warm hug like he’d known you for a long time, let alone just met you not even fifteen seconds ago. 

Oscar never really understood the whole hugging thing Charles had going on. Maybe it was a French thing. Either way, the hug seemed to have shaken you out of whatever starstruck daze you were in, because you straightened up. 

Charles smiled warmly. “Welcome to your first race. I trust they are treating you well over at McLaren?” 

“There’s definitely a few perks.” You replied, returning his infectious smile. You squeezed Oscar’s hand as you said it, and part of him felt a smidge proud that you considered him a perk. Charles laughed goodnaturedly. “I hate to sound so forward, but I wanted to say I love your music. The way you play piano is…the only way I can think to describe it is beautiful.” 

“Oh wow, you—thank you! That means a lot, thank you. Do you play?” 

“A little bit, but I haven’t had much time to sit at the bench lately.” You replied, giving a haphazard shrug. Charles nodded sympathetically, like he understood the troubles of carving out time to play. “D’you mind if I ask you a bit more about your inspiration while I’ve got you?”

“Of course, yes, yes, I would love to talk about it!” 

Oscar touched a hand to the small of your back to snag your attention for a second. He liked music as much as the next person, but not as much as you and Charles, it seemed. “I’ll be over there.” 

You nodded, popping up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek before returning to your animated conversation with Charles. 

Now, Oscar wasn’t a jealous guy by any means. On the contrary he was always quite calm and collected, so he thought he’d be fine. Secretly a little miffed, sure. It was nothing he couldn’t handle, but actually seeing you go starry eyed while talking to Charles sparked something inside him. He didn’t know how hard he was squeezing the can in his hand until he felt liquid trickling down the sleeve of his fireproofs. 

“Ah, shit.” He muttered, shaking out his arm frustratedly. 

“Stare at her any harder and she might burst into flames, mate.” 

Oscar glanced to his left to see Lando standing there, arms crossed over his chest, expectant brow arched. 

“Dunno know what you’re talking about.” Oscar grumbled, moving to toss the now crumpled can into the nearest rubbish bin. Lando looked wildly unconvinced. “What?” 

“Don’t feed me that shit, Oscar, you’re way too easy to read for me to believe you’re not absolutely fucking in love with Y/N.” 

Oscar made an offended noise from the back of his throat. “I am not easy to read.” 

“Mate, you’re the openest book in the history of open books right now.” 

“Openest isn’t a word.” 

“Whatever! Stop deflecting.” Lando scoffed, wrinkling his nose. “You love her. Tell her that.” 

“I can’t. I mean, I shouldn’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“What if it’s too soon? What if she doesn’t feel the same way yet?” 

“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.” Lando groaned, letting his head tilt back in exasperation. Oscar squinted at him, unamused. “Oh, you’re serious? Mate, come on. Just today, in the half a day I’ve known her, I’ve seen the way she looks at you when you’re not looking. I see the way you look at her when she’s not looking. It’s obvious. You’re both obnoxiously in love with each other, and it’s sickening.” 

The corners of Oscar’s mouth lifted into a grin. “Really?” 

“Oh my god, yes, really. I mean honestly, how dense can you be?” 

“A lot, it seems.” Oscar cast another glance at you, feeling a lot better than he had a few minutes ago. You were laughing at something Charles had said, but now all that was running through his mind was how pretty you looked when you laughed. How happy you looked talking to a person you held a lot of admiration for. Professional admiration, nothing more. 

Part of him felt a little guilty. He should’ve been supportive the whole time, not sulking around being a jealous little prick thinking you would ever choose Charles over him. 

“No point in overthinking it now, bro.” 

“Since when did you become such a wise old man?” 

“Oi, watch it, you muppet. I’m only two years older than you.” Lando huffed, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve always been wise, thank you for noticing.” 

“Sure you have.” 

“Tell her.” 

Oscar nodded once, accepting the clap on the shoulder Lando gave him. “I will. Thank you.” 

“Of course. And if you ever need any more advice, come on down to Lando’s love shack, where you can get—” 

“Leave now, I’m begging you.” Lando took the hint, wandering away to go wreak havoc somewhere else, leaving Oscar alone with his own thoughts as he waited for you to finish up. It wasn’t long until you were making your way back over, practically aglow with excitement as you approached him. “Made a new best friend, have you?” 

You snorted, clearly amused. “Oh, of course. We’ve already arranged to go on a double date when we’re all in Monaco at the same time.” 

“Ha ha, very funny. You do know Ferrari’s one of our top competitors, right?” Oscar laced his fingers through yours once more, letting your joined hands swing between the two of you as you walked. 

“You know what they say—keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Consider my blossoming friendship with Charles your way into the heart and soul of Ferrari’s strategies. You’re welcome.” 

You were just joking, of course, and it made Oscar smile. Lando was right. Oscar was in love with you. He tugged you off the main path suddenly, leading you to a more secluded area between motorhomes. 

“Osc? What’re you—” You were entirely cut off by him stopping in his tracks, and before you could comprehend what was happening, he was kissing you. He curled a hand around the back of your neck, the other coming up to cup your cheek gently. 

It was by all means a sweet kiss, but a completely unexpected one nonetheless. Oscar had never been a public display of affection sort of guy before, so for him to kiss you out of the blue where anyone could see you…well, let's just say there was a first time for everything.

To say you were taken aback was an understatement. You let out a noise of surprise, but returned his kiss wholeheartedly as soon as you realized what was happening. 

“That was new.” You breathed as soon as he pulled away, splaying your palms across the firm plane of his chest to steady yourself after he’d kissed the living daylights out of you. Oscar’s eyes fluttered open slowly, a dazed grin stretching his lips. “You feeling alright, babe?” 

“I love you.” 

Immediately, you beamed, lighting up faster than a bonfire on a warm Melbourne night. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, it’s about damn time you said it.” You poked his chest playfully, stifling a giggle at the way he did the biggest double take ever at your words. 

“You—hang on, what?” 

“I was waiting for you to be the one to say it first.” You shrugged. Oscar’s brow scrunched in confusion now. “Didn’t wanna scare you off and lose one of the best things in my life.” 

“So…you do feel the same way?” 

You reached up, smoothing a stray curl away from his forehead fondly. “Do I love you? ‘Course I do. I think I’ve loved you since the first time we met.” 

“That was a good one, I should’ve said that. You’re so much better at this than I am.” 

“What can I say? I’ve got the best just some guy as my inspiration.” 

“I see what you did there. That’s gonna become a thing now, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, Osc,” You sighed, patting his cheek affectionately. “It already has.” 

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[reverie-starlight]

megumi loves…

a collection of things megumi loves about you.

gn!reader, no physical descriptions. so sweet it’ll make your teeth rot tbh. he won the poll so here’s the fic as promised!! literally wrote this on the bus and train rides this morning after having this planned for weeks. I literally love him sm he is everything to me <3

megumi loves when you play with his hair. the feel of your nails running along his scalp, playing with the nape of his neck- it’s calming. you do it most often when you’re both in his bed, cuddling after a mission or a long day of training. he’ll flop down on top of you, plant his head on your chest and sigh. he waits for you to do something, drawing the sweetest sound he’s ever heard from your lips (a laugh) as he glares up at you when you don’t move your hands. you’ll mumble out a soft “aw I’m sorry, baby,” before giving him exactly what he wants. he’ll press tender kisses to any patch of skin he can reach in thanks. you’d never make him ask twice because you know he truly appreciates this time spent with you and you’d never want him to shy away from you. you’re each other’s safe space after all, who would you be to deny him?

sometimes you’ll do it in public, too, but far less often. these are the times that you just can’t hold back- he’s so cute, why would you? he grumbles about it a bit, especially if you’re around people you know (he’s shy, after all), but can he really complain when you look at him so softly as you play with his dark locks? he’ll endure the teasing and reassure you that he’s fine with it if you start to pull away.

megumi loves running his fingers along your facial features. over the bridge of your nose, the apples of your cheeks, tracing your lips… he just loves your facial structure. it sounds like an odd compliment to give someone, especially if it’s the first compliment you give someone (and in his case, it was the first compliment he managed to stutter out after you offhandedly called him pretty when you were in the transition stage from friends to lovers), but he’s thankful that you seem to find it sweet.

he loves your face when you’re awake, so full of life and excitement that he can’t help but match when you’re both alone in the comfort of each other. the pretty smiles you’ll give him make his heart pump just a bit faster, the lovesick in your eyes after he kisses you… he wouldn’t trade it for the world. he’d do anything to keep you happy.

he loves your face when you’re asleep, too. especially after you’ve had a rough day. you look so serene and peaceful. even if you do drool or think you’re less than flattering, he always thinks you’re the most stunning thing ever. he loves when you scrunch your nose in your sleep, and he always places a hand on your cheek to smooth it out. he adores the look on your face as you slowly wake up and blink at him before cuddling into him further and sighing as you fall back asleep.

megumi loves when you get a bit clingy. everyone is a bit surprised when they see how all over each other the two of you can be (at least, as much as he is willing to show in public- which isn’t much, but for everyone else it’s huge) he loves it when you can’t help but wrap your arms around him because you missed him (you probably saw him less than an hour ago).

he adores the way you refuse to let him get out of bed on weekends, insisting that you need your fix of “never-ending affection” from him before can start his day. and he loves giving it to you. he’ll start with peppering quick kisses all over your face, smiling against your skin when you giggle and wrap your arms around his neck, not at all tempted to squirm away, but rather to pull him in for more.

he’ll be convinced to lay with you for a bit longer, of course, and do it without complaining. because at the end of the day, he loves to feel needed by you. he likes having you close to him more than he hates getting teased by his friends and gojo for being all soft.

believe it or not, he enjoys it when you initiate play fights with him. neither of you go all out- you do that enough on missions- so it’s just the two of you rolling around in bed, laughing and pinning the other down. he’ll pick you up and throw you back down, he’ll summon his demon dog to jump all over you so he can have the upper hand, just to keep you smiling. he knows physical affection is important to you, so why would he deny you of that? he never wants to make you feel like you’re not getting what you need from him.

megumi loves when you tease him. this surprises even him to this day, because he doesn’t like the feeling of getting worked up at all. but his working theory is that he enjoys the intimacy of it. you don’t tease him about every little thing, you know he doesn’t like that, but you do tease him about things hyper-specific to your relationship. for example: that one time he messed up the pronunciation of that word in an argument? you never let him live it down, but you’ll also never disclose the inside joke to anyone else. you might be a nuisance on purpose, but you’re also his number one defender when it comes to anyone else teasing him.

you also like to fluster him. poking him all over when you want attention, blowing air into his face when he leans in to kiss you… it’s all so fun for you. you’ll get close enough to his face to make him blush, you’ll tease that spot on the back of his neck that he’s never told anyone but you about, and he hates how easily you get to him, but he’ll tolerate it because he knows you’re just as easy to fluster as he is.

he loves to tease you back. as soon as you’re back in your room after a full day of not letting up on him, he’s got his arms wrapped around you, and he’s walking you backwards until your laying on the bed, staring up at him wearily… and then you’re screaming because his skilled hands are all over your sides, your ribs and your hips. and once you’re spent, he’ll lean in close to your ear and whisper his own teasing remarks (normally compliments he knows you’d have trouble accepting otherwise) to get you whining and mumbling out laughter-filled apologies he won’t be accepting any time soon.

yeah, megumi just loves you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hope you enjoyed!!! it’s a different format from my other fics so lmk if you’d want this with any other characters!!

[patrophthia]

Hi! Your Theodore Nott works are amazing so I was wondering if I could request something with grumpy!Theo. Maybe the reader is always laughing and just generally really happy and maybe Theo can't help but feel attracted to that sunny disposition and ends up just being annoyed by how much he likes it, idk just and idea.

Thank you for your work, it's absolutely amazing 🩷

GRUMPY X SUNSHINE IS MY JAM!!!! I GOT YOU!!

just fine | theodore nott

pairing: theodore nott x reader

genre: fluff (duhhh), sunshine x grumpy, more of an extroverted reader

part of my 1k celebration event !

There's a few faults to you. You laugh too much, you talk too much, you're too nice, smile too bright, too bubbly, too friendly and Theodore likes you too much for his own good. 

Okay, maybe the last one is his fault rather than yours but it's getting irritating to see just how much you effected him by merely sparing a glance in his direction. Let alone, holding a full conversation with him. 

It's a nice Saturday afternoon, students bustling about as they climb up to the Quidditch pitch —it's going to be an intense match between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, or so he heard. Blaise is leading the way for him and Pansy to follow, he signals for Theodore to sit and he does as told; you occupying the seat next to him just minutes after. 

You're cheering for Gryffindor, solely because you were friends with Potter and you're loud about it. Your thighs brushes against Theodore's, warm against the cool breeze and Theodore hopes that his ear doesn't betray him and flush up. 

You turn to him after a bit, moving your leg away to give him room as if you're afraid you've encroached his space. "Who are you cheering for?" 

"No one." In particular. Draco asked for him and the others to watch the game to study the other team's strategy seeing as he wasn't allowed to be here. "You're one of Potter's, fan girl?" 

"Not a fan girl," you corrected him with smile. "Just a friend." 

"Right," he huffs, turning back the game. From the corner of his eyes he could see you hesitating, probably wanting to make conversation; so —for the first time in his life, he tries to make small talk. "How're you liking the game so far?" 

It takes you a second to answer him, and he wonders what even possessed him to ask you this. Curse you and your weird magnetic pull. 

"It's fun," you tell him, gazing at him as you did so. "How're you?" 

He's slow when he replies. "Fine." Then as if he only realizes that you’re asking him how he’s enjoying the game rather than how he’s doing, he tries to save himself by adding: “enjoying it just fine.” 

And when you giggle at his words, seemingly have caught his slip up —yet, not bringing him up to save him from embarrassment. He decides that he likes you (not that this was new information to him). "Really?" 

Theodore nods. 

“That’s a shame,” you say, your tone is playful and there’s a teasing tilt to it. 

Theodore turns, and he meets you head on; there’s a blinding smile on your face, bright enough to render him blind if he were to look at you for too long, he decided. 

And so he turns back the pitch, ears perked up for your next words. “You should be having fun, Theo.” 

A hum is only the response you get, trying to play it cool as if his hand wasn’t clamming up at how he could still feel your eyes on him. Look away dammit. 

“How about we play a game?” You suggest after a minute. “I promise it’ll be fun.” 

He doesn’t look at you when he asks you: “what is it?” 

You’re smiling again, thighs brushing against his in your excitement. “We’ll make a bet. If Gryffindor wins you have to take me out to Hogsmeade this weekend.” 

“And if Ravenclaw wins?” 

A laugh bubbles out of you and he hates how it was second nature for him to look at you, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as your eyes glaze over with a sense of accomplishment. 

“If Ravenclaw wins then what happens?” He repeats. 

The smile on your face doesn’t leave, and Theodore hopes that it never does. “If Ravenclaw wins, I have to take you out to Hogsmeade this weekend.” 

He understands why you laughed now, why you found it so amusing when he asked what would happen just mere seconds ago. No matter the outcome of the game, he’d be spending the weekend with you. 

And he doesn’t mind it one bit. 

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddie-week.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Day #7 - Prompt: Free Space | Word Count: 1500 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Alcohol | POV: Steve | Tags: AU, Wrong Number, Right Person Trope, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Meet-Cute

Steve dials the number messily scrawled on the scrap of paper. He’s nervous. He’s always nervous when he has to stick his neck out and make a move on a girl these days. 

Yeah, he did the first bit of legwork and got her number out at the bar last night. But he's fumbled the ball and failed enough times, Robin's loving, but accurate, "you suck" burned in his brain, that he's always leery to try again. He should be used to it by now, but it’s still uncomfortable and awkward, every goddamn time. If his friends weren't all fretting about his emotional well-being from being so terminally alone, he wouldn’t put forth half the effort anymore. 

He has Robin. He has his cat. He's happy. 

It rings three times before he hears it connect, “Hello?”

It’s a man’s voice, and he hesitates for just a moment, “I’m looking for, uh, Lyla?”

“Sorry, man. Wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must have misdialed,” Steve says, a different kind of embarrassment. But this is one he can handle easier, for sure. So he pushed the wrong button somewhere along the way. His eyesight isn't the best thing he's got going for him.

“No worries, man,” the other guy laughs, seemingly carefree about being bothered.

They each disconnect and then Steve reads, and re-reads, the number before dialing again. More carefully this time.

It rings only once before it’s connected.

“Still me, dude,” the familiar voice relays, still light and friendly.

“Wow. I’m so sorry. Clearly, I was given a fake number. That's embarrassing,” Steve laughs, because this is more embarrassing than misdialing. He's uncomfortable and mortified to admit that this girl just didn't want him to call her. Even if he's only admitting it to a stranger.

She should have just told him no. He hates that she didn't, for her sake, too.

“Shitty move,” the other guy answers.

“Yeah, well. I'm sorry I bothered you. Again. I promise to cross-check any future numbers against yours before dialing, just in case.”

The guy laughs, "Well, now. Don't go to any trouble for my sake. Honestly,” and he doesn't sound put-out at all, “don’t worry about it. She clearly didn’t have the balls to just, be, like, honest. That sucks.”

Steve laughs, maybe if she'd had balls this wouldn't have happened at all. Most men feel more comfortable just saying no, he thinks, which is sad but true. He swings both ways, and maybe he should take this as a sign to lean the other way for a while. See if that works out any better for him. 

It probably won't, but he could try.

“There goes my big weekend plans,” Steve teases, uncertain why he does it, even as the words tumble out of his mouth. He needs to hang up the phone and let this guy get back to his own life.

“Dude. That's a problem I can solve. I’m gigging tonight. You have to come. Let me entertain you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Whatever. I want to. Just show up. It’ll be a great story, will it not?”

It would be a great story. One he could even tell Robin to convince her he’s living a little, “I don’t even know your name. What if you’re a serial killer or something?”

“Yep, that’s me. Vicious killer,” the guy laughs, “I’m Eddie, man. And I’m a fucking ball to be around. You’ll want to take me up on this awesome offer. We’ll all be down at Hellfire Club around eight. Show up. If you think we’re murderous, you don’t have to follow us to any secondary, secluded locations.”

Hellfire Club is literally two blocks from Steve’s apartment. He's been past it countless times, but never inside. It's always dark. Like it's not even open, making him unsure about what kind of bar it is, it's so nondescript from the outside. Not to mention the name is a little intimidating. He'd half-convinced himself it's a BDSM club. 

But, now that he's been invited, he could just walk down and see what’s the what, “How will I know which guy you are?”

Eddie laughs, “You’ll know. Trust me.”

Steve has a hard time trusting anyone new these days, but Eddie seems friendly enough. 

Steve realizes he must have been quiet for too long, because Eddie starts talking again.

“I’ll have on a badass battle vest. Look for that. You'll see me. It's impossible not to. I promise.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, even if he’s not sure what a battle vest even is.

“Now, are you going to tell me your name, or will that just be a surprise?” Eddie asks.

Steve laughs, “Steve. I’m Steve.”

“Well, I’ll see you later, Steve.”

Steve stands in front of his closet for far too long, trying to find something to wear that doesn’t look too nerdy. He assumes Eddie's cool. He sounded cool, and Steve may have been cool in high school, but these days he just keeps his head down and goes through life, content to be fairly unnoticed. He finally settles on a black t-shirt. Basic, classic. Timeless.

Boring. 

But that's a risk he's willing to take.

He walks down the street slowly and arrives around eight-thirty. The windows are still all blacked out, tinted to the point he can't see anything inside. There's just the neon sign with the Hellfire Club over the door.

When he pulls open the door, he's in a hallway that's painted all black, with a bouncer at the end, stationed at a door. Steve kind of wants to turn around, flee, but he doesn't. He's already here. He might as well at least see. Robin will kill him if he chickens out.

He gives his ID to the bouncer, and is directed down a staircase. He really hopes this isn't a sex club. 

It's not.

And as soon as he crosses the threshold into the bar, yes, he knows Eddie instantly. He’s gotta be the one on the bar, pouring shots directly into various mouths. Steve knows he could turn around right now and this adventure could end. But watching Eddie laughing and prancing up and down the bar with flourish, clearly having fun, makes Steve want to go up and meet this guy.

Steve takes an open seat at the end of the bar, kind of out of the way, and just watches Eddie work the crowd.

The bar is blaring It's Raining Men and Eddie is playing up the song, big time. He's not a stripper, at least Steve doesn't think he is, but he's working the crowd for tips, absolutely. He keeps handing them down to a curly-headed guy, who keeps stuffing them into an overflowing jar.

Steve's pretty sure this is a gay club, or at least queer friendly. Maybe he has found a place for himself, something that's been right here under his nose, all this time.

When Eddie finally jumps down off the bar, Steve watches him work the rest of the room.

The other guy comes over and takes Steve's order, and he doesn't quite have the same flourish, but he's efficient and confident with a bottle and jigger.

"Name for the tab?" he asks, shaking the drink Steve had picked from the list.

"Steve," Steve says, and the guy looks up and meets his eyes.

Surely not. This doesn't feel like this is Eddie. He is wearing a vest, a red plaid one, but the other guy also has a denim vest on, full of patches.

"Eddie?" Steve questions, needing to make sure.

"Gareth," the guy says, "that's Eddie," he clarifies, pointing at the one Steve had correctly clocked as Eddie to begin with. "You're his wrong number guy, right?"

Steve nods. He supposes that's what he is, "Yeah. That's me. Loser in love."

Gareth laughs, and it makes Steve smile.

"That's our specialty here, you'll feel right at home," Gareth teases.

"Glad to hear it."

"I'll tell him you're here," Gareth assures, "he wasn't sure you'd come."

"That makes two of us," Steve admits, and Gareth smiles as he finishes shaking Steve's drink, putting it down in front of him.

"On the house. First-timers to Hellfire drink free," Gareth says, and then he's walking away. 

Steve's eyes follow Gareth across the bar, watching as he taps Eddie on the shoulder, leaning close to his ear, pointing right at Steve.

Eddie looks, meets his eyes, and Steve raises his hand, giving him a small, little wiggle of his fingers.

A huge smile spreads across Eddie's face as he bounds in Steve's direction.

Eddie's quickly right in his personal space, squeezing both of Steve's shoulders, greeting him with a smile, "Welcome to Hellfire."

Steve smiles, liking the feeling of Eddie's hands bleeding through his t-shirt, warming him.

Eddie lets go, and Steve misses the feeling already, but Eddie stays. Sliding onto the stool next to Steve, "I'm glad you came."

And Steve's completely honest as he answers, "Me too."

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddie-week and follow along with the fun!

Notes: If you're too young to remember it, reach out and touch someone was the slogan/jingle for Bell System telephone company back in the day. So, that's where the title comes from, as a play on the wrong number phone call trope.

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 4.4k words

warnings: explicit language, angst, mentions of reader’s strained relationship with her parents

summary: the first night in mexico with steve is not as weird as you thought it would be, but it’s hard to avoid thinking about everything that happened with eddie

CHAPTER TWELVE | ❝𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖❞

Fall Semester 2016

You figured that the first night was weird because the first night in a new place was usually always weird.

But then the next two nights were somehow worse. Alone in a room that you were slowly starting to wonder if it would ever feel like “home.”

You sat in your bed and stared up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, but when you looked at your phone, you saw that only twenty minutes had passed since the last time you’d checked it. An annoyed sigh left your lips as you closed your eyes again, willing sleep to come. 

Unsurprisingly, after another few minutes, it didn’t, and that made you grab your phone and call the one person that you wanted to talk to at that moment. 

When Eddie answered with a soft and tired “Hi,” you asked, “Hey, are you busy right now?”

“At one in the morning? Not really, no.” When you didn’t laugh at his joke, he became serious. “You okay?” 

“This is probably dumb and I already feel that way for asking this, but can you come over?”

“Yeah, of course,” He didn’t hesitate to answer and then things got quiet for a second before he asked again. “You okay?”

“I’ll explain when you get here,” You said, not wanting to go on what you felt like would be a neverending ramble about your current thoughts over the phone. “You can even take the bed if you want. I’ll sleep on the floor. Doesn’t matter to me.” 

“I’m not gonna kick you out of your bed,” You could practically hear him shaking his head at your offer. “I’ll be there in ten.”

He actually made it in five minutes and you were greeting him with a small smile and a promise to give him as many blankets as he needed to be comfortable on the floor when you opened your door. 

“So, what made you wanna do this impromptu sleepover?” Eddie asked once he was settled and you were back in your bed. You knew what the lighthearted question was really saying, What’s wrong? 

“I feel dumb because I should’ve known that this was gonna happen,” You said, starting your answer in the middle because you knew that he’d catch on immediately. “We both know how I am when things are too quiet. But, after my roommate situation last year, I thought this single dorm thing would be better. But, actually, it sucks. Now, I weirdly miss the nights where I had to fall asleep to the sound of her talking on the phone.”

“You’ll get used to this,” He said, but you weren’t entirely sure if that was possible. You did appreciate how encouraging he sounded, though. “Hey, do you want this old TV that my uncle’s been meaning to get rid of? It’s just sitting in my room back home collecting dust right now. You can leave it on all night and it’ll probably make it easier to sleep.”

“Shit, that makes so much sense,” You said. It was the easiest fix and you were now realizing that it probably should’ve hit you before.

“We can get it this weekend,” Eddie told you. “I’ll even give you the old VHS tapes I used to play on it all the time. Lots of horror movies.” 

You let out a quiet laugh. “I don’t know if falling asleep to Friday the 13th or Halloween every night is the greatest idea.” 

“Okay, yeah, makes sense. There are also some cartoons.”

You smiled then. “Now that sounds great. I get to find out what cartoons Eddie Munson loved as a kid.” 

He laughed. “It was a lot of things that were just weird knockoffs of Barney because that’s all my uncle would buy.” 

“That sounds very cute,” You said, still smiling. “Thank you, though. Seriously. And thank you for being here right now too.” 

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

Not even with Chrissy? You wanted to ask that, but you didn’t because you had a feeling what his answer would be and you didn’t want to make things weird or awkward. 

So, instead, you said, “Thank you for ruining your back for me.” You shifted a bit, turning on your side toward him. “We can still switch if you want. I’m fine with taking the floor.”

“Not gonna happen,” He told you and you decided against once again trying to convince him otherwise.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

There was a mourning period that came and went. And it didn’t even feel that overdramatic to call it that. 

Stupidly, you expected to wake up the day after the moment you had with Eddie at his apartment and be completely over him— because you now knew that he’d never see you as anything other than as his best friend. There was no point in having even a little bit of hope for something equivalent to “a fairytale ending,” so you expected every other part of you to understand that too. But, apparently, an almost three-year-long crush couldn’t end that easily.

A part of you felt like you were back to Freshman year— pretending that everything was fine and normal. When, in reality, nothing was fine, and instead your life now felt like you were stuck in a really bad movie or nightmare. 

You didn’t just feel hurt by the rejection— which technically wasn’t an outward rejection, but it felt just the same— you also felt embarrassed about everything you’d done over the past month. Even when days passed and the hurt faded into a wholehearted acceptance that still also felt a little sad, everything else stayed. 

Steve was the only person that you could possibly admit any of this to since he was a part of the whole fake dating thing. You could tell him that it all ended up being an entire waste of time for you. However, somehow the thought of telling him only made you feel even more embarrassed. 

He was so settled on the idea that this would work for you, and he continued doing things in hopes of making something happen over the last few days. It all felt so wrong now, but you simply pretended that it didn’t because you found it too hard to be honest.

You instead actively forced yourself to stop thinking about how everything had changed and how you were the only one who was aware of that fact. And it actually wasn’t the hardest thing to do. Except on the nights when it seemed as if there was nothing to do but think. 

It was usually easy to drown out your thoughts with the sounds of whatever was happening within your apartment, but the circumstances were different at this moment since you weren’t in your room or the apartment at all. Instead, you were in a different country in a random bed with Steve sleeping right next to you. 

You’d been exhausted after the flight and the hour drive to the fancy resort, but once you were actually settled in the huge bed that barely filled out the even bigger room, you couldn’t seem to sleep. Neither you nor Steve had been able to figure out the TV, you couldn’t even find the remote, but you figured that was fine because you thought you’d fall asleep easily. Clearly, you were wrong, though. And you now couldn’t stand to lay in the silence anymore.

You slowly pulled the blanket off of you and got out of your side of the bed— the left had been designated as yours and the right was Steve’s. The bed was also big enough that you had declined his earlier offer about putting a sort of pillow divider to make things more comfortable for you. In your head, sharing a bed with him probably wouldn’t end up being the weirdest part of this trip. 

You maneuvered pretty well in the dark. Finding your sneakers that sat by your already haphazardly picked through suitcase and slipping them on, and then grabbing your phone and room key off of the nightstand and slipping both into the small pocket of the pajama shorts you were wearing. 

It would’ve been easier if you just left without saying anything to Steve because you’d probably be back before he could even notice that you’d been gone. But, for some reason, it didn’t feel entirely right to do that.

“Hey,” You whispered as you stepped a little closer to him. “Steve?”

His eyes didn’t open as he shifted a bit and let out a soft, “Hmm?”

“I’ll, um, I’ll be right back.”

“Where you going?” He asked, words quiet and slightly mumbled. 

“I can’t really sleep, so I think I’m gonna check out that twenty-four-hour buffet for a bit. The one that they mentioned when we were checking in.”

“Okay,” He said, eyes opening and he rubbed them for a second before pushing a quick hand through his hair and getting out of the bed. 

You shook your head at his actions. “You don’t have to come.”

“I know,” He said but kept moving, standing up and going to grab his sneakers. 

“You really don’t have to come,” You told him. “I already feel bad about waking you up.” 

“It’s the middle of the night, and Robin told me that if anything bad happens to you during this trip, she’ll kill me.” 

Hearing that made you laugh, and it didn’t entirely surprise you. “When did she say that?”

“Yesterday, when we were all watching TV at your place,” He answered as he grabbed his phone and pocketed it in his sweatpants. “It reminded me a lot of the game night conversation.”

“It also felt like The Godfather to you?” You asked, pulling open the door as he walked over to you. Abruptly going from the darkness in the room to the harsh and bright lighting in the hallway made you squint. 

“Yeah, it did,” Steve told you and then rubbed his eyes again. “Jesus, it’s really bright out here.”

“Please go back to sleep. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“Wow, good to know that you want me to get murdered by your friend,” He joked. 

You smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I promise I’ll protect you.”

He kept walking with you, though— heading down the hallway toward the elevators— instead of turning around and going back to the room. You wondered if Robin hadn’t playfully threatened him (in your head, the only way you could imagine it was playful) would he still be this adamant about being with you right then. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“Did we really come here just so you could get cereal?”

“I told you not to come,” You said as you picked around the dry bowl of Cheerios. “Also, nothing would have happened to me if I was alone right now. Unless you think that that drunk couple would’ve kidnapped me or something if you weren’t here.”

You gestured in the direction of said couple that were the only other people at this buffet aside from a few workers; they were sitting barely twenty feet away from you and Steve and looked as if they were in their entirely own world as they shared a bowl of ice cream. 

Both you and Steve abruptly looked away when they started passionately making out with each other. 

You let out a quiet laugh. “Wow.” 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Steve started, grabbing a handful of cheerios from your bowl. “I don’t think kidnapping you would’ve been on either of their minds right now.”

You weren’t going to admit it, but you were actually glad that he stayed with you. Sitting at this random table with him in this near-empty room was a lot better than being alone with your thoughts. 

You suddenly wondered what time it was, but you also didn’t care enough to check your phone. “What time do we have to meet your parents in the morning?”

“They wanna get breakfast at eight,” He answered, and you nodded at that. “Apparently, they’re really excited to see you.”

You gave him a skeptical look. “Normally, I would think that’s a good thing, but is it in this case?”

Steve shrugged. “Yes and no. At this point, I think it’s just gonna be a lot more of interrogating you— them trying to see if you’re truly the “right person for me” and all that bullshit. Pretty much the same thing that happened at the dinner, but it’ll probably feel a little worse since we’re gonna be seeing them a lot for the next few days. But still, even if they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t tell me to break up with you or anything, they’re mainly just happy that I’m in something serious.”

You nodded again. “I know your parents can be super intense and overbearing, but in some weird way, I think it’s actually kinda nice that they, at least, care, I guess, about your “love life.” I sometimes wish mine did.”

Steve shook his head. “Yeah, but mine don’t actually care, though. They’re only so focused on my love life because they care about themselves and their image.”

Maybe that should’ve been obvious to you. Because hearing him say that, and when you thought about all of the other things that he had told you before about his parents, it made a lot of sense. “Okay, I fully take back my previous statement.” 

“What’s up with your parents, though? You never really talk about them,” Steve said. “How do they feel about you going on vacation with a guy you just met?”

You shrugged halfheartedly. “I don’t know how they feel about it because I kinda forgot to tell them. Well, not kinda, I did. I did forget to tell them about this.”

It had been the farthest thing from your mind. And deep down, you could even admit that you purposely pushed away the thought of telling them because you knew that they probably wouldn’t have cared that much about it, anyway. 

“Oh,” Steve said, and then things became quiet. You wondered how insane you probably sounded to him right then, or how fucked he must’ve thought your relationships with your parents were if you didn’t tell them about this. “Okay, so if I don’t end up getting murdered by Robin after this trip, it’ll definitely be your dad then.”

You were immediately grateful for his lighthearted comment. You could feel yourself inwardly sighing in relief. The tenseness— that was probably only firmly planted on your side of things— quickly washed away. “That would never happen, but if it did, I’ll once again protect you.”

“Thank you, that’s all I ask,” He joked, smiling at you.  

You were abruptly reaching over the table to fix his hair, there was a part of it that was sticking out weirdly— it was the bedhead, you figured. “Sorry, that was kinda bothering me. Anyway, this is very random and a complete one-eighty from what we were just talking about, but do you ever think about how different some things in your life would be, maybe even how better they would be, if certain things had ended up working out, or if they had ended up happening?” 

Maybe it was the slight sleep deprivation that made you ask that question— that felt like it was the only thing that could correctly explain the abruptness of it. A similar version of that slightly confusing question had also been the exact thing that you’d been wondering about barely thirty minutes ago before you refused to continue to sit in silence and in your thoughts about Eddie.

You were pretty certain what your answer to it was— a resounding yes; you thought about “what-ifs” a lot, probably too much.

A part of you expected Steve to ask why you were asking that question, but he didn’t. “In what way do you mean?” He asked instead.

“Romantically,” You didn’t hesitate to answer, and then you shook your head at yourself when you realized what you were saying. “Actually, that’s probably so dumb of me to ask you since you don’t care about relationships and all of that.” 

“I do think about it,” He told you. “Old relationships and stuff. What went wrong, what could’ve gone better…” He trailed off, letting out an awkward laugh and breaking your gaze. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, this is probably way too much for a middle-of-the-night conversation,” You said and realized just how true that was. You now wished that you had brought up some random lighthearted question about a movie or something.

“No, it’s fine. I’ve just never really talked about this before,” Steve said, and you were about to tell him that he didn’t have to talk about it now if he didn’t want to, but he continued before you could say anything. “Um, I think saying old relationships is a stretch, actually. I’ve mainly just thought a lot about the last one, I guess.”

The high school relationship that he had mentioned to you on Valentine’s Day, you remembered. It was the last serious one he’d been in. You wondered what it had been like, how equal parts amazing and devastating it must’ve been if it turned him off of relationships completely for the foreseeable future. 

“This question is probably so stupid, so please feel free to tell me exactly that, but do you ever miss her?” 

“Sometimes, sure, yeah. But, it never really happens that much anymore. And whenever I feel like I miss her now, I think it’s more of me just missing what we used to be instead of me really missing her specifically. Does that make sense?” He looked up at you then and you nodded. You honestly felt as if you understood him completely— missing the picture itself but not necessarily who was in it. 

It was that analogy that somehow made you realize something that you maybe should’ve realized earlier. Specifically, during the moment also on Valentine’s Day when you asked him why he didn’t do relationships and he pretty much said that he didn’t want to get his heart broken again. He was scared of it now, of love and relationships. It wasn’t just about it being easier not being in relationships and not falling for someone, it was about it being a scary fucking thing to do again. 

It honestly made a lot of sense. So much sense that you really didn’t understand why it didn’t hit you sooner. 

You didn’t say this to him, though, because it didn’t feel right to, and a part of you also really hoped that you were entirely wrong about it. Because this would shift everything that you thought you knew and understood about him. 

It would be a thousand times easier if you solely took everything that he previously said to you at face value. If your understanding of him and who he was and what he wanted was as simple as what he had told you that night outside the arcade and what he’d been telling you this entire past month. He didn’t want to get involved in anything serious for simply that exact reason— he didn’t want to.

You had only nodded in response to his “Does that make sense?” question and you knew that you probably should’ve said actual words, but you couldn’t think of what exactly to say right then. And then Steve was speaking again before you could figure something out.

“And I guess that’s when I kinda think about that question you asked— wondering about how different things would be if it all had actually worked out,” He said. You’d completely forgotten that that question had even started this conversation. “But, it’s kinda hopeless and dumb to think about it, though, right? Because the outcome can never change, so what’s the point of even wondering about it?” 

“Yeah, exactly,” You said softly, abruptly thinking about Eddie again. “What’s the point…” 

Steve looked at you for a second before giving you a small smile. “Why was that question on your mind at,” He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “One-thirteen in the morning?”

You suddenly felt really close to telling him what happened at Eddie’s place days ago, and the conclusion that you had come to about everything; the timing honestly felt pretty perfect. But, you still couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t about you feeling sad about the entire thing, it was about feeling stupid. And you honestly didn’t even think that Steve would judge you or think that you were stupid— he’d probably feel bad for you, you realized, which somehow felt a thousand times worse. 

“I don’t know… I’m always getting randomly existential in the middle of the night, I think,” You answered, and then immediately shifted the subject. “Hey, what’s the name of your cousin who’s getting married?” 

“Charlotte.”

“Okay, got it,” You nodded. “I felt like that was information I should probably know.” 

“And her fiance’s name is Charlie.”

A part of you wanted to laugh, but you held it back. “Woah.”

Steve nodded, also recognizing how slightly ridiculous that was. “Yeah. Once again, I’m sorry that I’m putting you through this whole thing.” 

You gave him a playful smile. “As long as you protect me from any weird family members, like I’m protecting you from Robin, I’ll be fine.” 

You remembered then that this fake dating thing wasn’t at all about you anymore, it was about him. And you quickly decided that you’d make sure to play the “happy and in love” girlfriend part really well— just like he had for you this past month— so that he could get what he needed out of this. Because, at this point, that was all that really mattered. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

You gave Steve’s hand a quick squeeze. “Kiss me.”

“What?” 

“Your parents are looking over here. Just do like a quick peck thing,” You said, looking up at him. 

He didn’t question you further and instead closed the small bit of distance between you two and pressed his lips against yours. You weren’t sure if you expected it to feel weird or unnatural, but it didn’t. Actually, it happened so quickly that it really didn’t feel like anything at all.

When he pulled away, you gave him the sweetest smile that you hoped didn’t seem too exaggerated or fake, as you two continued walking toward his parents and a handful of his other family members. 

That would probably be the easiest part of the next few hours. Before you were forced to embark on a hike that you weren’t at all excited for, but Steve couldn’t get you two out of. It was during breakfast when his mom mentioned it and she was so adamant about making you and Steve come along too. 

“It’s gonna be fun. According to the tour guide, we’re going to get to see the prettiest view of a waterfall,” Anne had said and you finally nodded and agreed to go because you knew that she wasn’t going to take Steve’s attempts to say no as an answer.   

Now it was two hours after that forced yes and you were in an outfit that didn’t feel entirely great for a hike— denim shorts and a black tank top— but it was the best that you could do; you hadn’t prepared “hiking outfits,” or any sort of workout attire for that matter. And walking over to Steve’s parents and other family members, which he quickly whispered to you were a few of his cousins and aunt and uncle, and seeing them look a lot more prepared than you were, didn’t do much to ease your sudden out-of-place feelings. 

“We still have a few minutes before we have to leave, come to the gift shop with me,” Anne said to you before either you or Steve could say any sort of greeting to her and his dad.  

You gave her a small smile and let your hand drop from Steve’s. “Okay.” 

You met his eyes for the briefest second and he gave you an encouraging look, and then you were following his mom to the gift shop that was right next to the lobby. 

“How’s everything going?” Anne asked you as she started looking around the small shop, stopping at a shelf of ceramic mugs.

The question felt weirdly vague, but you still answered it as if you weren’t slightly confused. “It’s been good. Thank you again for everything. You really didn’t have to invite me to this whole thing.”

“Yes, of course, no problem. Tom and I are happy you’re here,” She smiled at you. “And we can tell that Steve is too.”

Inwardly, you waited for the shoe to drop. For her to suddenly come out and say that she and Tom actually hated you because you weren’t from “their world” and you hadn’t been handpicked by them. 

However, with what Steve reminded you about last night, you remembered that it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about them liking or not liking you as a person, it was about them being happy that Steve was simply in a “serious relationship.” And all you and him had to do was show that.

“I’m glad that you guys approve of our relationship,” You said, looking away from the bracelet in your hand that cost way too much and made you realize that this gift shop was way too fancy. You met Anne’s eyes. “Steve was worried about that. It was why he waited so many months before telling you guys about us.”

“Well, it’s probably obvious that you’re not exactly who we would’ve chosen for him. We always wanted him to be with a certain type of girl from a specific kind of family, you know?” You nodded at her words because it felt like that was all there was to do. “But, maybe this is better for him; at least, for now. And it’s so easy to see that you make him happy— probably more than Nancy ever did all those years ago— so that’s great.” 

Nancy. Finally knowing her name made her feel more real to you. You still knew absolutely nothing about her, though, aside from the fact that she and Steve had been happy and in love at one point in time.  

You weren’t entirely sure how to respond to Anne’s words that felt like the kind of compliment that was actually more of an insult. It was almost funny because there it finally was, somewhat of a shoedrop. She really didn’t like you. 

But, clearly, the show you and Steve were putting on was working, and you were inwardly sighing in relief at that realization because that was all that mattered. Ultimately, you decided to simply smile at her. “Thank you. He makes me really happy too.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

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[moonstruckme]

Hi Mae! I absolutely adore you and your writing, you truly have a gift!

Can I please request something with James Potter where readers anxiety is really bad and is super emotional cause pms and is just kinda struggling and needs to be dealt with the most gently? Totally not projecting much at all lol 😬😫🤣

Totally no pressure if you don’t feel up to it! I love reading anything you write ❤️❤️

Hi lovely, thanks so much!!

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 772 words

“Here y’go, love.” James presses a mug’s handle into your hands, and you take it quickly once you realize he’s holding the hot sides. 

“James!” you hiss, chiding. “You’re going to burn yourself.”

Only James Potter could make a shrug seem fond. He sits down beside you on the couch, hand resting on your thigh, and the knee you hadn’t realized you’d been jiggling slows to a stop. 

“What’s eating you?” he asks mildly, rubbing you from knee to hip as he sips his tea, quietly hinting for you to do so as well. 

You sigh, blowing on your tea before raising it to your lips. “Nothing so important I should be this stressed about it,” you say bitterly. “It’s just PMS.” 

You hate how your hormones mess with you around this time of the month. It makes it feel like you can’t trust yourself, because you’re never sure if the emotions you’re experiencing are valid or amplified by your body’s punishing cycle. Your already oversensitive nerves go into overdrive, and you feel three times as susceptible to bouts of rage or crying, though which one it’ll be is as good as a coin toss. Everything is just more, and all the time, and it sucks. 

James makes a sad puppy sound. “Yeah? Are you hurting, honey?” 

“Not really.” You have a headache, but that’s probably more due to your anxiety than anything else. 

“Well, why don’t you try telling me what’s bothering you,” James suggests. “Even if you think it’s not a big deal, maybe I can help.” 

You sigh again, a heaving, dramatic exhale. “Macy’s having a birthday party this weekend.” 

That surprises a smile out of James, and he tilts his head to look at you bemusedly. “Oh, how nefarious! Shall we curse her?” 

You give him a look that says not funny, even as your own lips curl up slightly. James smothers his grin as best he can (which is to say, not very well), nodding at you seriously to continue. 

“I just—” you heave another sigh, and James’ hand redoubles its efforts on your leg, squeezing the fatty inner part encouragingly. “I’m not going to know anyone there, and I’m going to have to go straight after work on Friday, and she and her friends always stay out so much later than I want to. I just know I’m going to be exhausted.” 

“Okay.” James is nodding, still looking slightly confused. “So don’t go.” 

“But it’s her birthday,” you say, the last syllable taking an unexpected turn into whiny territory as your eyes grow wet. “I don’t have an excuse to miss it and I’ll be the worst friend in the world if I do.” 

“Sweetheart, hey.” James’ voice takes on a slight panicked edge due to the appearance of tears, though you can tell he’s trying to be soothing. His hand abandons your leg to snake around your waist, scrubbing up and down your side. “Honey, you’re a great friend. You’re just looking out for yourself a little bit,” he promises, kissing the top of your head. “Let’s think about who’s going to be more upset, alright? If you miss it, Macy might be a bit sad you didn’t come, but she’s still got all of her other friends who don’t know you anyway, and the party will probably go on as it would have. But if you go, you’ll have to hurry there straight after work, you might be too tired to be much fun, and you could end up miserable the whole night. Sound right?” You nod wretchedly, and he hums into your hair. “So just miss this one, and make it up to her with lunch or something another time, yeah?” At your hesitation, he adds, “You have plans Friday night, you can’t make it.” 

You look up at James. “I don’t have plans, though. I don’t want to lie to her.” 

“Sure you do, sweetheart,” he contradicts you, grinning. “You have plans with me, duh. You’ve only been friends with Macy for a couple months, right?” You nod. “Well then sorry, Macy, but I’m pulling rank.” You laugh, and James swoops down to kiss at your dimple when it appears. “I need my girl for Friday night. She’s pre-engaged.” 

James can never stop kissing once he’s gotten started, and you hide your cheek from him in his own chest, wrapping your arms around his waist in an awkward sort of hug. “Thanks, Jamie.” 

You can still hear the smile in his voice. “Anytime, my love. Now, since that’s been resolved, do you think you can drink your tea? It’s gonna get cold.”

[saerins]

PREV: #003 THE FIRST RIPPLE 𖧧 #004 THIS SPARK, IS IT REAL? 𖧧 NEXT: #005 THE ICE SURRENDERS ꒰ series masterlist ꒱

꒰ঌꨄ︎໒꒱ — there’s a lot you don’t understand about what’s going on with sae, but he can say the same about you. question is, once you both find out more about each other, will your growing feelings stay the same?

content: itoshi sae x female reader. fluff/angst. profanity, alcohol, reader is fairly straightforward here, pining, jealousy, misunderstandings. word count: 5.8k

༝༚༝༚ slightly shorter chapter this week ^_^ hehe we’re getting closer to the messier/exciting parts so bear with me heh :) mwah ily guys <3

you’re starting to learn that maybe you can’t get your hopes up with itoshi sae.

a week later, you don’t hear anything from him. you both haven’t spoken since that night he took you out. not that you’re entirely too bothered—it’s a first for you, trying to get to know someone as in-demand as sae. (you don’t count eita because you’ve known him since before the fame.)

it doesn’t help that you don’t really have anyone to talk to about this. you promised sae that you wouldn’t spill, and you’re keeping that promise. somehow, it makes you feel a little warm inside; thinking that there is some sort of intimacy you share with sae that only the two of you know.

besides, even if you could talk to eita about it, you don’t want to. 

is it too quick for you to think you might fall for him?

falling for someone isn’t really in your life plans yet, especially after your last and only tumultuous relationship, but maybe itoshi sae is different. he sure seems like it.

the next week rolls around, and you still hear nothing from him. which is fine with you; you’ve resigned yourself to thinking what’s yours will be yours and not to force anything… even if you spend most of your idle time wondering if sae is ever going to post anything on his private account. did he really just create it solely because you asked him to?

you can see that he logs in to it, judging by his icon on that little viewer list in your stories. but that’s the extent to which you see him online. he doesn’t reply, or do anything much. considering his normal account is probably mainly run by his team, you guess you shouldn’t expect too much from him.

still, maybe it’s a little pathetic of you to be wearing his cap so frequently. it’s sort of become a staple piece for you, somehow. to be fair, there’s hardly any dress code in place for you to follow and considering the bulk of your workwear is mostly casual, it fits right into your style. although, after sumi pointed out one day that it’s a luxury brand and that it costs more than you would personally ever spend on a cap (even if you had the means to), you try to wear it less often. (though that seems like a waste considering it was given to you.)

“you know, you gave the boss a really good scoop, enough to last for a few months,” sumi points out during lunch, taking a lick of her vanilla ice cream as the both of you sit out on the roof, escaping the cramped office. “so why do you look so stressed?”

honestly, you didn’t even realise you did. you thought you were being normal, but it has been a while since you had a normal crush on someone, and since itoshi sae is certainly not just a normal somebody, maybe you had been acting a little off, always waiting for a text, a call even, something.

“nothing, i just haven’t been able to get a good sleep lately,” you lie, hoping that sumi won’t pry.

she doesn’t.

“hm, it’s friday today,” she hums, pondering. “maybe you should find a few of your friends, get out, let loose, you know?”

later at your desk, the clock almost striking 5pm, you think maybe you should. because as much as you love your chill friday nights alone (mainly because your mom is barely home on the weekends), you don’t think it’ll do you much good if you keep mulling over the same old thing.

but just as you’re about to go pester eita again, he gets to you first, his timing impeccable today.

there’s an aching disappointment in your chest when you realise sae isn’t going to be there. maybe it’s just the glaring difference between the life of a celebrity versus someone normal like you. his schedule must usually be packed to the brim after all.

whatever, you’ll let him come back to you on his own time. for now, all you want to do for the weekend is to spend it having fun with the guys and settling everything you need to on saturday and spend sunday to yourself.

this possible thing between you and sae, whatever it could be, can wait. you’re not in any rush. at least, that’s what your head tells you.

your heart feels something different.

it’s only the second time you’re actually hanging out with eita’s friends, but you’re not regretting it one bit. even on the day of the event they’d been welcoming to you, and tonight is no exception.

they’re all sat around the wooden table on the balcony, a ton of beer cans and liquor bottles littered across the table. you sit on the long end, on the long chair, right beside eita, sides of your bodies always pressed close together that it makes a glint form in oliver’s eyes.

he’s still curious, not out of concern but just because, about you and eita and sae and how everything is going to tie together. it’s not everyday he sees eita being okay with a girl that close to him and not complain that she’s a bother. it’s also not everyday that sae creates a private account. oliver got bored and saw one day that you were the first person he followed.

you must really be something.

“where even is sae today?” you hear sendou ask, a hiccup following suit. “i finally come over and he’s not even here.”

he’s sitting on your other side, his profile strangely reminding you of the very guy he’s asking about. maybe it’s the way his hair is a lighter shade of pink, maybe even his sharp jawline. his eyes are different though, more expressive, and universally soft somehow.

you remember how sae’s can look soft, his teal eyes turning gentle whenever you try to approach him. but it wasn’t that way when you first met him, that’s a given.

“i don’t know, said he was too tired,” oliver sighs, stretching in his seat.

“wasn’t he just with bianca yesterday?” yukimiya asks, oblivious to oliver’s glee.

it kind of stings, but you stay quiet, the alcohol slowly seeping into your system. you can feel eita leaning against you a little bit more, and his presence has always been comforting, so you let him.

sendou hums, index finger tapping against his near-empty beer can. “is that still going on? how long has their relationship status been a mystery already?”

karasu snorts, nudging sendou on the elbow. “salty just ‘cause you tried to ask her out and she rejected you?”

as you sit quietly and observe, it seems that sendou was once at an event with her too—apparently, he had asked her for her number and she didn’t even want to give it to him. and then a month later she “met sae and was all over him”, according to karasu.

with the exception of eita, who sits quietly beside you, they start a debate on whether or not sae’s finally starting to see bianca in a different light. or, as sendou points out, “maybe they’ve been a thing all along and just hid it really well from everyone.” it’s not exactly something you want to listen to, even if you are the most curious you’ve ever been about a guy, so you block it out from your ears. 

but oliver leans forward, resting his chin on the liquor bottle in front of him, staring straight at you. you’ve never really noticed it but his eyes are really beautiful, the different shades of green and purple making him seem ethereal just like that. 

“you’re a girl, y/n, what do you think?” he asks you, a lazy drawl in his tone.

mirroring his actions, you bat your eyelashes at him, looking innocent as ever when you answer him. “i think you guys should stop talking about that her behind her back like that,” you say, earning a raise of oliver’s brows in return. he’s surprised, to say the least, but not in a bad way.

it’s not even that you don’t want to hear about her. you’re wantonly curious, especially since you’re beginning to realise your small hint of emotions towards sae, but something tells you that these guys wouldn’t be too kind with their words if you egg them on.

karasu gives you a nod of approval that you miss before he leans back in the chair, whispering to yukimiya, “at least we all know shidou won’t totally hate y/n.” but it’s too soft for you to hear, and you probably won’t even be able to make sense of it even if you did, not with the gradually increasing level of alcohol in your system.

between intentionally drinking to not be a pathetic mess who keeps thinking about her potential love life and having to drink because you’re usually good at drinking games but not when oliver is around with the way he keeps beating you at everything, you happen not to notice a lot of things.

at one point, oliver has replaced sendou next to you, whispering snarky comments in your ear in between games. he’s not the flirting kind, at least not to you, and he doesn’t push your boundaries physically either—he’s more akin to a friend you’d love to gossip with. that’s why you don’t even think much when he tilts his camera towards you, taking a selfie with both you and eita in it.

just a normal picture of friends hanging out, oliver leaning against your legs, propped up on the chair, your own head leaning into the crook of eita’s neck, all of you evidently tipsy from the dazed look in your eyes.

what neither of you notice is oliver’s smirk as he posts the picture onto his private, betting on his target audience of one to see it.

and now, he’ll just have to wait.

one hour later, the doorbell rings and yukimiya’s eyes glance over to eita, comfortable with an arm around you, and he takes it as his cue to open the door. eita’s probably too reluctant to move and he’ll let whoever it is at the door keep at it for hours before he’ll answer the poor guy.

he’s expecting some random food delivery, maybe from karasu because he’s been whining about wanting some chicken with his beer, or maybe even shidou showing up at the last minute from his other party. but this? the person he’s staring at in the eyes right now, is the last person he expected to see tonight. 

“wait, i thought you weren’t coming?” yukimiya asks, but oliver’s already shouting from the balcony.

“hey, sae, what the fuck are you doing here?” he asks from the balcony, taking a swig of his beer.

beside him, you hear sae’s name and your head immediately whips around to look at the door. there he is, looking tired as ever but he’s there, in the flesh, dressed in all black, jacket and sweats, teal eyes finding you from all the way across the house.

sae wordlessly walks past yukimiya, the latter following behind him, still shocked that he’s even present. sure looks like sae always means it when he says he wouldn’t come to gatherings like these.

when he gets to the balcony, earning a cock of oliver’s brow, sae tilts his head, “i was invited, wasn’t i? what’s so surprising about that?”

oliver snickers at sae’s blatant avoidance of the question. deciding he wouldn’t get anything out of him anyway, he shrugs and accepts it. besides, he can already see that sae’s too busy trying to calculate if there’s enough space for him to sit beside you, with the way his eyes are scanning your surroundings. maybe it doesn’t help how eita’s so clingy with you, his arm still around you even when you’ve already straightened up.

both sae and eita are just staring blankly at each other, and everyone is aware of it except for you, because your head’s a little dizzy and you’re still thinking whether sae popping up here is a figment of your imagination.

you’re not that drunk, are you?

you get your answer when a shadow looms over your body, the familiar scent of his cologne wafting into your nose. he smells the same he did that night you kissed him.

“what, this seat taken?” sae asks, and you dumbly look down at the small edge of space beside you.

no, it’s not, but you’re probably going to have to squeeze between him and eita if he sits there, no more legroom. you shift anyway, eita making space (albeit reluctantly), the way sae ends up being so close to you enough to send your mind into overdrive. you’re still wondering why he showed up.

you, and everyone else. not oliver though. he knows why. and it’s not like he wants to intentionally make you cough out your feelings but it looks like the other guys who are oblivious to your feelings are steering in that direction. 

“no bianca today?” karasu asks, a mocking tone in his voice.

sae doesn’t show an ounce of emotion, though. “wasn’t with her.”

“why not? scared we’re gonna make you two make out again like last time?” yukimiya asks, finally relaxing back in his seat. he says it jokingly, although you know the sentence at hand probably isn’t a joke.

“wait wait wait, you two made out?” sendou asks, incredulous, mirroring your exact thoughts. 

a jealousy creeps up your spine, engulfing your alcohol-riddled distractions. some part of you wants to know what it’d be like to be kissed by him. you purse your lips into a firm line, wondering if you were being an accidental homewrecker by kissing him that night.

“it was just a game,” sae responds, making no moves to drink the beer handed to him.

eita pulls his arms away, moving in favour of getting you a drink. it’s not that he even knows anything that’s going on between you and sae, but he can tell by how you’re stiffening up that you’re probably a little affected. he slides a shot over to you, and you down it with ease.

ignoring the way the other guys keep harping on the topic, sae turns his attention to you, flicking the tip of the cap he gave you, and you shift your gaze to look up at him, the small smirk he gives you when you do making your heart flutter again.

why is it so easy for him to do that to you?

“haven’t sold my cap yet?”

you thank the heavens you’re not too tipsy to be normal. “i’m holding out for higher bids, actually,” you quip, grinning. “you can offer one too if you want it back.”

sae hums, head tilted again as he ponders while staring at you. slowly, he leans down to your ear, whispering so only you can hear him, “how much do i have to bid for you to keep it?”

maybe it’s the liquor, but you feel your cheeks heat up. it can’t be his close proximity. it can’t be the way he’s so close that you can see the beating pulse on his neck. it can’t be the way you think you look more intimate here than you should. definitely can’t be the way all the guys have noticed and are giving each other looks.

why does he even want you to keep it? is this some sort of abstract way that he’s using to tell you that you’re not an accidental homewrecker?

you make a mental reminder to yourself to never get drunk in front of sae. you don’t want to end up blurting out some less-than-decent thoughts of yours.

“what’s wrong? too tipsy now to talk back?” sae asks, and you can only pout at him, not in your usual condition to think of smart comebacks. it makes the corner of his lips tug upwards just a little bit more than usual, his hand coming up to teasingly push the cap down further—in that seemingly affectionate way he does.

and maybe it isn’t such a good idea to agree to continue to play games, not when you got roped into never have i ever and karasu, to the delight of oliver, said he has never fucked anyone at this table. seeing that only you and eita put a finger down, everyone can tell there’s probably a complicated history between you and eita. not that you owe them any explanation, though you kind of do feel the urge to tell sae that it was in the past.

you steal a glance at him beside you, the mild look of surprise befallen on his handsome face. you wonder if he thinks badly of you now. you wonder if he’ll think badly of you when he sees what your life is really like. will he think you’re just going to be a stain on his fancy life that it’ll be better off not knowing you?

or maybe… maybe he has a complicated past too. with bianca.

funnily enough, eita loses after yukimiya says he’s never had sex with more than five girls. the disappointing part is you didn’t really get to know anything interesting about sae.

“hey, you feeling okay? you can stop playing if you wanna,” sae tells you later on, after god knows how many minutes have passed and you’re already onto the next game. you don’t even know why you agreed to play two truths one dare in the first place when you know it’ll just be a shitshow for you. 

over the course of x minutes, you’d managed to learn many things, some of which being that karasu and eita had shared a girl in bed, that yukimiya dared to do a body shot on oliver, that sae would consider bianca an important person to him, and that you really can’t make up your mind to go big or go home because oliver had just dared you to spend seven minutes in heaven with anyone of your choosing.

of course, you can safely choose eita and trust him not to do anything if you told him to. but on the flip side, you can choose who you really want. even if you’re not so sure he’d want to anymore.

“you can always choose me,” oliver jokes, lifting the mood. although the smirk on his face makes you question it. “i’ll definitely show you a good time.”

while you’re having an internal dilemma, karasu and sendou are in the background teasing oliver for being fake, saying that he shouldn’t be offering that if he’s already interested in miss manager.

but you snap out of it when the irritated sigh you hear out of sae somehow feels like the world is sending you a sign. in some way. you’re not sure if you’re reaching—is he bothered by oliver’s comments? and why does oliver look so smug all of a sudden?

you’re beginning to regret not being sober, you can’t figure this shit out. but what you do figure out is what you want to do. why think so much about tomorrow when the present is right here?

so you don’t pay it any more thoughts, getting up and dragging sae with you by the shirt, ignoring all the commotion left behind by the guys, save for eita who only stares blankly at you as you drag sae into his own room and lock the door.

“oh shit, sorry dude, didn’t mean to—”

“for the last time, just friends,” otoya snaps, cutting karasu off, although not even sendou believes him. for someone who doesn’t even care to treat people nicely, sendou can at least see that eita treats you a fair bit better than anyone else.

in the room, sae can only watch blankly as you stumble over your feet before finally settling on the edge of otoya’s bed. the envious, green side of him can’t help but wonder how many times you’d been here, in his room, with him. though it’s kind of amusing how you chose to bring sae in here now.

from what sae can tell, you’re probably a little more tipsy than you should be in these types of situation, and a part of him is relieved that you’re not here with anyone else. if you were here with otoya, would you be fooling around by now?

“so, thought you were too tired to show up—what happened?” you ask from where you are on the bed, body swaying slightly, eyes threatening to close.

the moment he takes a seat next to you, you lean close, your head coming to rest on his shoulder, and sae has no doubt that you’d already drank a lot before he came. proximity this close, he can smell the shampoo in your hair, can feel how soft it is.

“i couldn’t sleep, got bored, that’s all.”

your shoulders vibrate slightly as you giggle, pulling away, a suspicious glint in your eyes. “damn, and here i thought you came for me.”

even when you’re intoxicated you still have such a smart mouth. sae shrugs, his gaze turning ever so soft, like every time before when he looks at you. there’s something about you that he can’t quite place, something that makes him act so differently than he usually does, and for once he doesn’t hate it. “did you want me to?”

not taking the bait, you keep up your casual demeanour, even if your eyelids feel heavy and you’re about five seconds away from just passing right out on the bed.

“you know, it’s fine to say you missed me and wanted to see me,” you tell him, grin wide as ever, almost infectious. you’re only surviving on liquid courage right now, the way you unashamedly try to flirt. though, if sae isn’t moving away, does that mean he doesn’t mind?

he looks off to the side, pondering for a while before turning back to you with a straight face, “i missed you, wanted to see you.”

for a moment, you feel like your heart might stop.

“is that what you wanna hear?”

almost instinctively, you grab the stray pillow lying on the bed and fling it at sae, earning an amused laugh from him but you barely realise it, too caught up in the frustration that his words were just strung together to entertain you as opposed to his actual feelings.

crossing your arms, you look away, the exhaustion of the day coupled with the dread of tomorrow nipping away at your consciousness. “don’t patronise me, itoshi sae,” you huff, and you miss the way he looks at you with a smile on his face.

will you remember any of this tomorrow? you’re not drunk, but you’re not exactly thinking straight either.

“were you… very busy this past week?”

your question is voiced so softly, almost like you’re afraid to ask, and sae realises maybe he should’ve at least told you he wouldn’t be able to make it as early as he thought he would.

“yeah, i was.”

technically, he isn’t lying. he was back in japan last saturday, but maybe he had been too wrapped up in his thoughts to do anything else.

“with bianca?”

it’s even softer this time, and for some reason, sae’s almost kind of relieved you’re asking. he just doesn’t know what it is.

“no, not really,” he tells you. it’s complicated, and you don’t even have context; he wouldn’t even know where to begin talking to you about it.

you put your legs up on the bed, hiding your face between your knees, and sae’s left wondering whether alcohol really makes that much of a difference. you seem bold, shy and teasing all at once. his hat is still on your head, your thoughts coming out into the open.

“are you… involved with her?” your voice is muffled, but he hears you loud and clear.

a small smile dawns onto his face, safe from your view. he doesn’t really know the implications of you asking the question, but he likes how you don’t beat around the bush. it’s nice not having to constantly guess what you really mean.

and maybe it’s you rubbing off on him, but he doesn’t answer it straight.

“curious, y/n?”

when you lift your head up to look at him, you see the widest smile he’s ever given you, objectively much smaller and way more subtle than everyone else, but it’s a smile all the same and it makes your heart beat faster in your chest.

“yes,” you answer honestly, because you’re not sure when exactly you’re going to pass out but you have a feeling it’ll be soon and eita’s bed is just so soft.

sae is only mildly stunned by how straightforward you are, so he decides to do you a favour. he doesn’t usually like divulging things like this; topics that bring gossip and are undoubtedly going to come back to him if it gets out. what’s more, you work for a sports magazine so you can totally use this against him, but it isn’t even that you’re intoxicated right now, but more so that he feels he can trust you with it.

slowly, he reaches his hand over, and for once he tips the cap upwards a little so he can see your eyes when he tells you, “stupid, i’m not involved with anyone.” is that clear enough for you? he’s not sure why but he hopes it is.

what does he even want with you?

the moment you hear it, you break out into a wide smile, genuine and actually infectious this time because sae feels the corners of his lips threatening to pull upwards even more. what the heck is this feeling?

“really? i’m so relieved,” you exhale, voice a little airy, looking a little too pretty that sae immediately pulls the cap back downwards. “so,” you move on, adjusting it back in position, daring to move closer to him, face so close to his own that he has nowhere else to look except straight into your eyes. “we have four minutes left. will you grant me whatever i want, itoshi sae?”

you have a habit of calling him by his full name. he makes a mental reminder to get you to change that. not tonight though, he doesn’t want you to forget.

it’s weird how he feels around you; why does he feel so overwhelmed yet want more both at the same time? he swallows the lump in his throat, keeping his composure, “depends, you’re pretty demanding, tell me first and i’ll consider.”

“itoshi sae, i’m not!” you refute, punching him playfully on the arm and he has to hold your arm to stop you from falling off the bed. “i don’t know. the guys outside are probably expecting us to fuck or something.”

there you go, unfiltered and he kind of likes it. his fingers are still around your wrist.

but the answer is crystal clear to him.

“no.”

“huh?” it takes you a while to process. given that the only thoughts in your head as of right now are only: what does sae think of you and eita? and bianca is important to him. “what if it was just a kiss?”

he hums, then shakes his head. “nope.”

“wait, am i not pretty enough for you or something?”

you’re whining and sae finds it cute of all things. you have a tendency to misunderstand, so maybe he needs to adjust how he talks to you. he’ll see. but before he can even say anything else, your head falls into his chest, your regular breathing the only sound that fills the room after. he’s perplexed and amused all at once; how did you manage to fall asleep so quickly?

contrary to your thoughts, sae has always thought you were pretty, ever since the first night he met you. even in your private account where you post yourself in hoodies too big for your body and no makeup, clad in sweats—still pretty.

sae sighs, his fingers stroking your hair now that you’re asleep, and whispering in your ear only when you’re not able to hear him.

“if i do that, i think i’ll end up wanting more.” and you’re drunk and that’s not what he really wants.

but he does give you what you ask for, pressing a soft kiss on your forehead.

that’ll have to do for now.

“so, nothing happened?” sendou asks, bored, as sae carries you on his back as he comes out of the room.

you’re passed out and drooling on his shoulder and he doesn’t really care about that.

“it’s sae, c’mon, did you expect something?” karasu laughs, all of them coming in from the balcony because in the seven minutes both of you had spent in the room, it managed to start raining. “maybe if it was bianca, y’know, then maybe.”

sae ignores all their passing comments, choosing to walk over to otoya, “hey, she passed out, i’m just gonna take her home.”

as much as sae isn’t particularly fond of otoya, he’s probably your closest friend here and he doesn’t want him to think he’s just going to take advantage of you.

otoya’s green eyes flicker to the clock on the wall before he shakes his head, speaking softly so the others won’t hear. “nah, just put her in the guest bedroom. i’ll send her back in the morning. you can head back first.”

there’s an irritation that builds up inside him, but sae maintains his emotionless expression, remembering that otoya knows you much more than he does. “i could just—”

“she doesn’t want to go home tonight,” otoya cuts in, a warning glare in his eyes. “trust me.”

suddenly, sae remembers the last time he met you, your swollen cheek and the way your eyes were glazed over. and he wants to ask otoya what it’s all about but this is about you, and he really shouldn’t ask someone else.

“fine,” sae concedes. if whatever’s at home makes you miserable, he won’t bring you there. “i’ll put her in there before i go.”

there’s a lot more otoya would like to ask sae, because oliver’s not the only one curious at sae’s seemingly odd behaviour. he wants to know what exactly he thinks about you, but everyone’s still around and it’s not a good time, so he sucks it up and lets it go for tonight.

as sae puts you down on the bed and pulls the blanket over you, he gets a brief flashback of the night he set bianca down in her hotel room. you’re both so similar, and yet not at all.

and when he’s about to turn and go, your fingers reach out to tug at the hem of his jacket sleeve, almost effectively making sae’s heart leap out of his chest. your eyes are still shut, so there’s no chance you’re actually conscious right now. still, your mouth opens.

“stay with me?”

sae stills. do you know it’s him? or do you think he’s otoya? either way, you and bianca really are similar, even when you’re not completely awake. so why… why are his reactions so different?

it’s not like he has anything on tomorrow, so it’s really no imposition.

before he knows it, he’s sitting on the floor, right next to where you sleep on the bed, your fingers enveloped in his palm, his head propped on the mattress, his own exhaustion catching up to him.

it’s been a messy week; trying to gather his thoughts about you every single time he’s free, having to talk to bianca and thinking about that, and then coming back just to see oliver and otoya so close to you that it bothers him a little. finding out about you and otoya takes the cake, though.

how special is otoya to you?

the question lingers unanswered as he drifts to sleep, both of you subconsciously finding comfort in the other’s innocent warmth.

the next morning when you wake up, you’re half shocked half happy to find sae where he is, sleeping there peacefully, the previous night’s exhaustion dissipating from his face.

did he take care of you last night? you can only hope you didn’t puke in front of him. that would be embarrassing.

you’d like to stay, wait for him to wake up and talk to him and make sure you didn’t say or do anything too out of line because your memory’s a little foggy, bits and pieces that you can’t quite piece together or even tell if they’re real or dreams.

but you can’t.

you remember what day it is today and reluctantly get out of bed. though, feeling a little cheeky, you quietly grab a small black marker out of the drawer, suppressing a grin as you scribble on sae’s palms, hoping he won’t wake up from this.

a couple hours later, by the time sae gets up, the bed is cold and still undone. it’s already noon, and somehow the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up is you—are you already home? did otoya send you?

but the question that pops up in the forefront of his mind when he sees otoya lazing around on his couch later on is none of that.

and to be fair, otoya has the very same question in his head.

“do you like her or something? y/n.”

otoya is the one to ask, eyes still glued onto his phone screen, typing something out. sae can’t help but wonder if he’s talking to you. 

“what’s it to you?” sae asks. he can hear the snores of the other guys coming from otoya’s room.

otoya shrugs. “just curious. she’s my best friend after all.”

there’s a certain possessiveness in the way he says it that rubs sae the wrong way. still, sae supposes that if otoya’s your best friend, he shouldn’t be too impulsive with his words.

“maybe i like her,” sae says, the tension in the air getting thicker.

“in what way?” otoya still hasn’t looked up from his phone.

“same way you do.”

“i don’t know what you mean.”

otoya scoffs, both of them acting coy with one another. “bianca and y/n, huh? busy guy,” otoya sighs, tossing his phone aside and getting up, walking towards sae, hands in his pocket. both of them are staring the other down, feeling the situation out. “i think i suit y/n better, you can have bianca.”

now it’s sae’s turn to scoff, sharp eyes piercing through otoya’s own. “why don’t we let y/n decide for herself, huh?” he quips, before grabbing his car keys out of his pocket and leaving through the front door.

as he settles down in his car and turns the engine on, it’s only then that he realises the black marks on his palm. 

thank you ᡣ𐭩

somehow, just one look at it is enough to ease the tension on his shoulders.

you really can do wonders.

extras !

otoya’s hostility towards sae was intentional.

sae didn’t try to wash your writing off—he let it fade away naturally.

if yn was sober, she would’ve not been as straightforward as he was in the room with sae. but she definitely would’ve flustered sae a lot more with her playful personality.

the whole time, oliver was live recounting the events of the night to miss manager, all of which are left on read.

if bianca had been there, sae would have been a lot more cautious about his actions and probably wouldn’t have acted too close to y/n.

random fact #1: otoya plays bass, used to perform in a band back in university. part of how he got so many girls interested in him but he was always with y/n which made a lot of them unhappy.

random fact #2: sae has never really been jealous before so now that he’s feeling it, he’s a lot more sensitive to it than normal people.

taglist! @yuzurins @saeskiss @raphsimp @lust4rin @mxplesyrvp @chieeeeeee @yumekolovesyukimiya @kunirayuna39 @auranny @sereniteav @gskill @saesgrl @riseena @rikijbol @sagejin @shironagi @veecynii

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles - Update 03/Nov/2023

A different and exciting update this week!!

So, a little while ago, I had this idea pop into my head, and I just couldn’t let it go. It built and built until it formed into a full-fledged plan in my head and then on paper. But I didn’t really do much about it because time-constraints, etc.

But with Book Four being quite intense in different ways, the idea I was imagining was much more…fluffy, hehe! Not that Book Four doesn’t have some awesome fun, downtime moments, but this other thought was more of that.

Then one day I mentioned it to Nai, and she absolutely loved it, so then it started to become even more of a plan with her excitement fueling it!

And this week, I began making a real start on it…

I don’t really want to promise anything quite yet—as you can probably guess considering the theme of this project that it’s a bit of a tight schedule if I want to get it out on time—and I would hate to disappoint anyone, but I really am slamming through it already and am ahead of the very strict schedule I have for it!

If it comes together as smoothly as hoped, then it’ll be available for purchase via itch.io for Windows, PC, as we haven’t managed to find anyone who could port it for us yet, but hopefully that might still happen! It’ll also be avaliable for $5+ patrons on Patreon as a free download on Windows, PC!

Next week I will be squeezing in social media days before hammering back through this again!

I realise I’m being super vague about this, but I will be sharing much more as the weeks go on, and it begins coming more to life, but I can give a small hint…

--

Waiting at The Square, on a Very Chilly Evening.

Christmas in Wayhaven.

It's sparkling, frosted, and magical…quite literally.

Which means the spirit of the season takes on a whole new perspective when you know magic is actually real.

--

Prepare for something light, fluffy, cosy, and full of festive fun with those Unit Bravo romances… ;D

(This ‘novella/side-story’-type game won’t be considered canon or anything, so you don’t need to play it to enjoy the main series if it’s not something you’re interested in. It’s more just a nice moment between the books to simply indulge much more in the actual romance-side of things, hehe!)

I hope you all have the most amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update again next Friday with more hints about what’s to come…hehehe! ;D

[callsign-rogueone]

not alone - r.g.

Ridoc Gamlyn x reader part three of Ridoc and Sweetheart’s story. words: 1.8k 🏷: Iron Flame spoilers in a vague sense, reader experiencing the joys of RSC, implications of torture but it’s not shown, mild panic attack / anxiety spiral / self-deprecating thoughts, bring tissues maybe, “happy” ending, Ridoc (and Sawyer) to the rescue! I am so stuck on the first-date scene that I just skipped it for now but it will happen eventually, I promise!!

This has to be a dream. It feels like something out of an adventure novel — waking up in a literal dungeon, chained to the wall. 

“Rhith?”

You wait a few seconds, but she doesn’t respond. Oh, gods, what if she… no, she’s okay. She has to be okay, because you’re okay. Maybe she’s asleep or off hunting or something.

But she’s never not responded to you before. She’s always replied, always been there to assuage your worries and remind you that it’ll be okay, just breathe. 

Breathe. Deep breaths, think about the butterflies… You look up, seeing no trace of them, no flutter of blue wings in the dim mage light of the room that you can’t seem to brighten, either.

You try it again, picturing them more clearly, thinking about the patterns on their wings and the colors… Nothing.

Something is definitely wrong. 

Why can’t you make a simple illusion? Is your signet broken? Is that why you’re down here? Is this some kind of reconditioning? A punishment? Or are you here to be executed for being defective?

“Rhith?” you try again, still working to steady your breathing, but every second that passes without a response only tightens the knot around your heart.

There’s no use. She’s not going to respond, because she’s given up on you, finally realized she’d chosen poorly, that you aren’t fit to be a rider after all, and decided to do away with you before the next Threshing, where she could choose a better rider, one who doesn’t need constant reassurance and hand-holding like a child.

The door swings open, a uniformed infantry officer stepping inside, here to decide your fate. He’s fully armed, a short blade in his hand, ready to carve into your skin or to pierce your heart, put you out of your misery — to thin the herd, to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

“I’m sorry,” you plead, as if that will change her mind. “I’m so sorry, I promise I’ll try harder, I’ll prove to you that I can handle it, just please don’t give up on me, don’t leave me here to die, please…”

He scoffs at you. “Crying already? This is going to be easier than I thought.”

You can’t dry your tears with your hands tied behind your back, so you settle for blinking them away and willing them to stop — you need to be strong if you want to get out of this room alive and see your brother and sister and the rest of your family again.

Family. That’s it — to convince them you’re worth it, you need to be someone else, someone who is worth it, like your brothers. 

You’re going to get through this. You’re going to endure whatever they put you through like Garrick would, and do it all with a straight face like Xaden, and be brave like Liam and smart like Brennan, and then Rhith will take you back, and everything will be okay again; you just need to stay strong.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Ridoc can’t find you at breakfast— you aren’t sitting with Bodhi and Imogen and the other marked ones like you always do. Maybe you’re sleeping in, he decides. The thought is a small comfort to him, but he can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

He hadn’t seen you all weekend, but that much is normal — he’d spent Saturday afternoon with his friends at the tavern in town, and you aren’t the going-out type; you’d rather curl up with a book to distract yourself from the rest of the world and it’s cruelty.

You hadn’t answered your door when he’d come to extend you the invitation, but he’d just assumed you were elsewhere. And your relationship is new, anyway, new enough that the word relationship probably isn’t the best to describe what the two of you have — you’ve been on two dates. You aren’t going to be spending every hour of your spare time together. 

But you aren’t at morning formation either, and as he settles into his usual seat at Battle Brief, you’re still nowhere to be found. There’s no denying it now; this isn’t a series of coincidences, this is a pattern, and something is definitely wrong.

Second squad seems to all realize what’s happening at once.

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Sawyer tries, but Ridoc seems unconvinced, bouncing his leg under the table nervously. His eyes snap toward the door as it creaks open, one person walking through.

You make it up to the back of the lecture hall, settling into the open chair beside Ridoc, your usual spot these days.

Everyone’s eyes widen at the cuts and bruises across your arms and face, knowing there’s likely even more covered by your clothes.

“Are you okay?” Violet asks in a whisper, knowing it’s a stupid question, but wanting to say something anyway.

You nod, chewing your lip. “I’m fine, but I can’t feel Rhith. I don’t know what happened.”

You’ve been trying all morning, had tried all night when they’d finally left you to sleep… you haven’t heard anything from her in two full days, but the infantry officer had let you go free, so you must have passed whatever test they’d given you, decided you were worthy of being a rider after all.

Guilt flickers in Ridoc’s chest - he should have told you, given you some kind of warning. “They did the same thing to us last week. It was something in the water. It’ll wear off soon, I promise.” He holds a hand out, a small icicle forming in his palm that he wraps in a piece of soft fabric. “Here.”

You take it from him, holding it to the killer bruise forming on your jaw from where the officer’s fist had nearly broken it. “Thank you.”

You’re exhausted. You’d barely had enough time to shower before class started, and you’re pretty sure you’re concussed; it’s hard to think, and everything is too bright in here, too loud…

You turn your gaze back to the professor, but don’t take any notes, don’t make any move to take a pen and paper from your bag, letting your eyes fall shut as Devera continues her analysis. It goes in one ear, out the other, but you know none of it is true anyway, or if it is, it’s only half the story.

The ice is starting to melt against the warmth of your skin, dripping down your wrist. He takes it back, letting it disappear into thin air and pocketing the wet handkerchief silently, resting an arm on the back of your chair and pressing a soft kiss to your bruised temple.

You blink awake at the sound of everyone getting up to leave — you must have gotten almost an hour of sleep. It’s taken some of the edge off, but your entire body still aches as you rise from your seat.

“Aotrom says she’s on the flight field,” Ridoc says, shouldering your bag before you can protest. “Do you wanna go see her?”

You just nod in response, your jaw still aching too much to speak. You make the walk up in silence, your heart clenching when you see Rhith standing there, waiting for you.

The comforting voice is finally back in your head. “Hello, sweet one.”

“Hi,” you say aloud, voice wavering. 

She lowers her head to you, letting you stroke a hand over the dark green scales of her nose. “I would never want to replace you, sweet one. You are just as strong and just as valuable as your brothers, and I chose you for a reason.”

You realize that she’d heard it all, your desperate pleas for her to spare your life, the promises that you’d be better, thinking she’d abandoned you…

“I’m sorry for thinking that, I just… my signet stopped working, and I couldn’t hear you…” you’re going to cry just thinking about it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she soothes. “Try it again.” 

You take a breath and close your eyes, picturing a butterfly. When you open them, you can see one floating through the gentle afternoon breeze. You add another, just to be sure that it wasn’t a fluke, and another… three of them now, content to flutter around in front of you.

Ridoc is still watching you, silent. The look of relief on your face breaks his heart.

He realizes that by separating you from Rhith, they’d taken away your only friend in that room. He’d had Rhiannon and Violet and Sawyer by his side the whole time, but you’d been entirely alone; no marked ones, nobody from your squad — you’re the only second-year left. They’d taken your best coping mechanism as well, your ability to self-soothe with your gentle projections. 

Rhith looks up at Ridoc, who stands a respectful distance away, your bookbag slung over his shoulder. “She says thank you,” you relay for her, “for taking care of me.”

Ridoc smiles. “Always, sweetheart. Now let's get you to the healers, hm?”

He holds out a hand, and you hesitate a moment before you take it, intertwining your fingers loosely. His skin is warm against yours, soft, gentle, safe. When you make it down the hill and across the bridge to the infirmary, you almost don’t want to let go.

You stay as close to Ridoc as you can for the rest of the day. He treats you incredibly carefully, even after you’ve been mended back to normal, the cuts healed and bruises faded completely.

You’re grateful to wake up in your own bed the next morning, silently getting ready for the day and falling into your place at morning formation.

“Atken,” Dain calls, gesturing for you to come see him. “You’re being transferred.”

What? Why? Your heart races, but you follow him silently, stopping in front of a different squad, in Fourth Wing.

“I think you already know most of your squadmates,” he prompts.

You take a good look at them — nearly all of your friends; Imogen and Sloane and Violet, and now Ridoc and his friends too. You might cry. “Thank you,” you say quietly.

“Don’t thank me, thank those two. They made quite the argument for transferring you.” He nods toward Ridoc and Sawyer — they both smile at you, Ridoc grinning from ear to ear, Sawyer looking rather bashful.

“So you won’t have to be alone anymore,” Ridoc answers before you can ask. 

You fall into the formation beside him, reaching over to hook your pinky around his in a tiny show of appreciation. “Thank you.”

He smiles at you, warm and bright, keeping your fingers interlocked through the morning roll and announcements.

Maybe your second year won’t be so bad anymore.

[forever-rogue]

Spiderling Sunshine

AN | No asked for this, but you’re getting anyway. Here we have a mixture of coffee shop, tattoo artist, and soulmate aus! Enjoy❤️

Pairing | tasm!Peter Parker x Fem!Reader

Warnings | Language 

Word Count | 5.2k

Masterlist | Main | Peter

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You hadn’t heard the soft twinkle of the bell above the door go off. It wasn’t until you heard his warm voice that you even realized that you weren’t alone. 

“Is that challah?” 

You jumped from where you were crouched on the floor, managing to hit your head on the counter. You hissed as you rose to your feet, rubbing at the sore spot that was already forming on your head, checking for blood or any sort of visible injury. Across the counter, much to your surprise, was a handsome man looking at you with a sheepish expression and meekly pointing at the display.

“Yeah,” you managed to choke out, distracted by the throbbing of your head and the glittering ochre eyes apologetically looking back at you, “it’s challah.”

“I’m so sorry,” he grimaced and took a step closer, “I didn’t realize you were behind there and fuck, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m alright,” you promised, knowing you’d taken many worse knocks to the head and been okay. You gave him a small smile, hoping to put him at ease, “no need to apologize. I probably should have been paying more attention too.”

“I’ll make more noise next time,” he joked and you both relaxed. You looked him over and realized you’d never seen him before; the only people that came into the coffee shop at this time of day were usually regulars. Almost as if he could hear your thoughts, he stood closer and held out his hand to you, “I’m Peter. Peter Parker. I just moved into the space down the block - well, my shop that is.”

“Peter,” you shook his hand, trying to ignore the warmth of his skin and how easily his hand swallowed yours. You told him your name and he repeated it softly, testing out how it sounded on his tongue, “oh! The new tattoo shop! I’ve walked by it a few times and was wondering when you’d be here. What’s it called again?”

“Spiderling Tattoo,” he smiled and damn, he had a magical smile that made your knees weak, “we open officially next week! I’m glad I found you…r shop. Now at least I have a spot to get my coffee.”

“Well, I’m here bright and early,” you gestured vaguely, feeling shy under his warm gaze, “so I’ll ughh…be here. Umm…bright and early. For coffee…because that’s ugh, what I do here. Obviously. I, ugh…I’m rambling and making a fool of myself so I’ll shut up now.”

“Don’t worry, it’s cute,” his eyes crinkled in the corner when he smiled wide and if that hadn’t been your weakness before, it was now, “do you think I could get some challah and a coffee to go?”

“Right, yes, of course,” your face warmed and you went to grab a knife to slice the freshly baked bread. You had to get yourself in check and stop oogling your customers. Just because they were incredibly kind, funny, flirty, and cute didn’t mean you had the right to objectify them. But no…you weren’t objectifying…just admiring beauty. Sure, you’d go with that.

“Are you Jewish?” he asked as he watched you carefully slice it. 

“No,” you answered softly, “well according to 23&Me I’m like fifteen percent, but I don’t think that counts. I learned the recipe from one of my neighbors when I was growing up. She was an older Jewish lady and she loved sharing her recipes. Her kids and grandkids had moved out of New York and her husband had passed away, so she kind of adopted me in a way. I used to go see her a lot on weekends, so I like to think that I picked up her little tricks to make it perfect. I’m assuming you are? Jewish, I mean.”

“Yeah,” he liked you, he’d already decided that much, “my aunt used to make challah a lot growing up and I’m particular to it. I can’t wait to see how this stacks up.”

“I doubt it’ll be anywhere near as good,” you wrapped it up carefully and handed it across the counter to him. His fingers brushed against yours and it sent a warm shiver down your spine, “but you’ll have to tell me.”

After asking how he took his coffee, you busied yourself with making it to perfection, feeling the need to impress him. He took a sip as soon as it was in hand and you could see the smile on his face that he enjoyed it, “it’s perfect! Thank you - how much do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house,” you insisted as soon as you saw him reaching for wallet, “consider it a little welcome to the neighborhood gift.”

“You’re the best,” yeah, you could get used to hearing that from him, “I’ll find a way to get you back for this, I promise.”

“Peter-”

“I’ve gotta go,” he looked at his watch and groaned slightly, “I’ll see you soon! I’ll be back, I promise!”

“See you soon, Peter Parker,” you watched him walk out the door, pausing to wave at you through the window once more before quickly booking it down the street. You found yourself staring after him, already missing him. Oh no. You had to pull it together. You’d known him for all of ten minutes, and you were already getting butterflies in your stomach. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were doomed.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The very next morning Peter was back as promised…in fact he was there so early that he managed to beat you. When you walked up, he was scrolling around on his phone, leaning against the front of the shop. Your heart almost dropped into your stomach at the sight. You hadn’t expected to see him again, at least not so soon. 

He looked up as soon as he heard you, he looked up, that pretty smile on his face only growing. A hand was held up as he waved at you, “good morning!”

“Hi Peter,” it was easy to put a smile on, despite the early morning hour at the sight of him, “I’m guessing you’re an early bird?”

“No,” he shook his head as you raised an eyebrow in amusement, moving to unlock the shop, “anything but.”

“What brings you over so early?” not that you minded in the slightest. As far as you were concerned, Peter Parker was welcome any time.

“Wanted to see you,” he quickly blurted, and as soon as he realized his little admission his cheeks turned a pretty pink, “a-and coffee.”

“Ahh, well that I can do,” you promised, motioning for him to follow you inside. He trailed after you like a puppy, watching your every move with awe, “hey, Peter, I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?” he asked as you popped behind the counter and he leaned against, looking so effortlessly and ridiculously handsome, “and just what would that be?”

“Will you,” you mirrored his actions and leaned against the counter across from him, “do me the honor of being my guinea pig?”

“Yes.”

“I - oh my goodness, Peter,” you laughed lightly, a pretty sound that went straight to his heart, “you don’t even know what for!”

“Whatever it is,” he promised, “the answer is yes. Now…what exactly is it?”

“Coffee and baked goods,” you smiled softly, “there’s tons of new things I want to try out and I need an objective opinion on things. Can I trust you to always give me the truth, Peter?”

“Of course,” there was something about his words that let you both know he meant a lot more than just the coffee, “it will be an honor indeed. What’s first on the menu?”

“Lavender rose latte,” you grinned and he gave you a curious look with a bemused smile, “so - iced or hot?”

“Iced,” you gave him a nod before motioning for him to come behind the counter to watch you, “oh - before I forget. Your challah? Amazing…don’t tell Aunt May, but you’re giving her a run for her money.”

“Yeah?” your entire face lit up at the praise and Peter decided that he wanted to see that look on your face everyday. He wanted to be the reason for that look. 

“Definitely.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Peter Parker came to see you every morning without fail. No matter what the morning brought, he was always there to greet you, a pretty smile on that handsome face. You didn’t even want to admit just how hard and fast you fell for your tattooed neighbor. Everything was just so easy with him; everything felt so right with him. Nothing else mattered when it was just the two of you in the early morning hours in your little coffee shop, or late nights at his tattoo studio. It was like time only existed for the two of you. 

You came to know him better than anyone else, and you felt like he knew you down to your very soul. It was hard to explain how two people could have such a connection, or how they’d even find each other in this big, crazy world. Maybe it was completely by chance, maybe it was fate, or some sort of cosmic intervention. 

Whatever it was, you were thankful that he walked into your life and managed to turn it upside down. You just had a feeling that he would be a part of your world for a long, long time. Sometimes it was scary, sometimes it made no sense, but none of that mattered. Only him and you, you and him. That was all.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

But one day it all seemed to come apart, to start unraveling at the seams.

“Peter?” you chirped out his name happily as you walked into his shop, hoping he wasn’t busy. But to your surprise you found a pretty redhead girl sitting at the little front counter, looking bored as she scrolled on her phone. She turned to you with a dismal look and raised her eyebrow, but said nothing, “h-hi. Is Peter here?”

“Why do you need to see him?” oh. That’s the kind of interaction you were doing to have apparently. She set down her phone and crossed her arms over her chest, “well?”

“I-I own the coffee shop at the other end of the block,” you explained lamely, holding up the packages in your arm and putting down the cup in your hand, “I brought him some fresh-baked challah and coffee. Is he here?”

“Oh,” she stood up and gave you a disgustingly sweet smile, “my boyfriend is in the back, finishing up with a client.”

Boyfriend. You didn’t want to admit just how deeply your heart broke at the singular word. You thought you’d gotten to him so well over the past few months, but you had no clue that he had a girlfriend. In all the time you’d spent with him you’d never never once heard him mention her. Either way, she was here now and you had to accept that heartbreaking little fact. Maybe it wasn’t you and him after all…

“It’s nice to meet you!” you put what you hoped would appear as a genuine smile on your face as you gave her name. You set the packages on the counter as you pushed them towards her, “can you please make sure he gets them…?”

“Mary Jane,” she eyed the packages but left them where you had set them, “did you need anything else? We’re kind of busy here.”

“N-no,” you shook your head, already taking a step back towards the door, “that was all. Thank you - if you ever want a coffee or dessert, feel free to stop by and it’ll be on the house!”

“Mhmm,” she was already back to looking at her, dismissing you without so much as a goodbye, “thanks. I guess.”

You were out the door and back onto the street, letting out a long sigh as you blinked back the tears that were stinging at the back of yours. You felt hurt, in a way, because Peter had never once mentioned her and you thought you were getting close to him. The other part of the hurt was the fact Mary Jane had treated you like garbage. Was she that rude to everyone? Or just you? She did think you were trying to steal Peter away? So many questions and so few answers.

But you pushed all of that out of mind and walked back to your little shop; you had plenty of work to keep you occupied.

Meanwhile, as soon as she was positive you were gone, Mary Jane tossed the delicately wrapped packages of fresh challah straight into the trash can along with the coffee and kicked it out of sight under the counter.

“Hey,” Peter had made his way from the back of the shop and came up front, “did someone come in? I thought I might have heard-”

“No,” she insisted firmly, putting a sweet smile that managed to fool him, “I was on the phone that’s all. Nothing important.”

“If you’re sure,” he raised an eyebrow almost as if he didn’t quite believe her, “well, I’m almost ready to go - five minutes. Still want to grab some Chinese on the way home?”

“That’s what we did last week Pete,” she rolled her eyes slightly, “let’s go out on a real date for once. It’s always the same thing with you. It gets so boring.”

“I never knew it bugged you so much,” he raised an eyebrow but she only huffed, “okay, we can go out for dinner and have a date night out more often.”

“Thanks babe,” her attitude changed quickly as she pressed a kiss to his cheek, “you’re the best. Can you please hurry up please?”

Peter bit his cheek to keep from making a comment and opted to simply nod instead. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A few days passed before you saw Peter again, and if you were being honest with yourself, it had been eating you up inside. It had become such a routine to see him in the mornings when he stopped in, for you to go to his shop when you had time during lunch, and for either of you to find the other at the end of the day. This was the first time in months there had been any sort of deviation from the routine. And it fucking sucked. You wondered if something had happened to him because when you’d go by his shop it seemed to be closed.

You missed him. You missed Peter probably way more than you should have. You wondered if he missed you at all. 

But relief came on the fifth day when the bell over the front twinkled gently and you saw Peter Parker walk through your door. You were in the middle of finishing putting some fresh muffins, but stopped immediately as you ran over to him. A small smile grew on his face as you beamed up at him. 

“Peter,” you couldn’t help but wrap your arms around him, hugging him tightly, “I’ve missed you! I was starting to get worried.”

“I was out of town,” he confessed as he hugged you back with just as much feeling, as you nodded, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you. It was a last minute thing.”

“It’s okay,” you promised, “I’m just glad you’re okay, I’m glad you’re here. Hey, did you get a chance to try the challah?”

“W-what challah?” his eyebrows shot up in confusion as you cocked your head to the side, “when did you…?”

“I dropped some off,” you whispered softly, “the day before you left, in the afternoon. I came over and dropped them off along with a new latte at the counter…with your girlfriend.”

“Oh,” his cheeks reddened and you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d hit a nerve, “it’s umm…we…we just recently got back together.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged lightly, “we’ve…yeah. But she didn’t give me anything.”

“I left two packages with her,” you worried your lip between your teeth “they were freshly baked. I tried something new with the one and hoped you would try it. I guess they just…didn’t make their way to you…o-or something.”

“You dropped them off?” you could hear the emotion in his voice and just nodded. You didn’t even need to be told that they were thrown into the trash; you could put the pieces together. Peter on the other hand was still processing everything, “but I never….fuck. I’m sorry - I swear I didn’t get them.”

“‘s okay,” you nodded softly, feeling like crying, “it’s not your fault. I-I’ll make some more soon and you can try it. Can I get you anything this morning? I’ve got fresh cinnamon rolls and I can make you a latte.”

“Actually,” he shook his head and your mouth opened in surprise. He’d never once turned you down, “I’ve gotta go. But I’ll be back, okay? I swear I’ll be back soon.”

“Peter?”

“Soon,” he promised, crossing his heart quickly which brought a smile to your face. But just before he could make his way out of the shop, he poked his head back inside, “but save me one of those cinnamon rolls please!”

“Always,” you whispered despite the fact that he was gone, “always.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Peter didn’t even bother going to open Spiderling Tattoo, opting instead to go to Mary Jane’s apartment. He knocked on the door, his mind reeling with all of the things that he wanted to say, and anger flowing through his veins. After a few moments, the door was opened and Mary Jane looked surprised to see him.

“Pete, what are you doing here?” she seemed perturbed at his sudden appearance, “shouldn’t you be at work?”

He ignored her question and said your name, which caused her face to scrunch up in annoyance, “she did stop by the other day. You said she didn’t. Why?”

“It didn’t matter,” she insisted, rolling her eyes and throwing her hands up dramatically, “why does it matter so much? She’s just the little coffee shop girl. She’s obsessed with you, Peter. It’s weird!”

“What happened to the challah?” 

“Peter-”

“What happened to it?” he was upset with how she was acting, more even upset thinking about how hurt you must be, “tell me.”

“Jesus Peter, it’s just bread,” she sounded like she was ready for an argument, “I’ll buy you some damn bread if it’s that important.”

“It’s not just about the bread, Mary Jane,” he groaned in frustration, “it’s about all of it. Why did you lie to me? Why would you just throw it away?”

“Because Peter! All you do is talk about her and how great she is and what she did,” Mary Jane frowned deeply as Peter listened to what she said, “you’re not dating her, you’re dating me! Me! What’s so hard to understand about that? If she’s so important to you, maybe you should just go to her.”

“You know,” he took a step back, shaking his head more to himself than anything else, “I’ve been wondering why we got back together. It just reminded me of why we broke up in the first place. I don’t want to do this anymore, Mary Jane. We’re not good together…all we do is push and pull each other and I don’t think either of us are really happy. So let’s just…not do this.”

“You’re just going to break up with me?” her brows knitted together and her mouth formed a small o, “have you been fucking her!?”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Peter shook his head, “you always assume the worst, but just to answer your question, no. I have not. She’s my friend. But you? You’re not being a friend right now. It’s over, MJ. We’re done.”

“Whatever Peter,” she slammed the door shut in his face before he could even say another word. He shook his head and got out of the daze he’d been worked into. When he had first gotten together with MJ, things had been good, and they’d been good together. But he soon learned that she was prone to jealousy and acting irrationally. If it hadn’t been for that they might have worked out. But something in his gut told him that there was something else beneath it all.

The thing Peter knew was that he needed to go back to you.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was getting close to closing time and Peter hadn’t come back. You thought he’d meant it earlier when he said he would be back soon. You really shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it, because it clearly wasn’t. Besides, the two of you were just friends. Just friends that happened to own businesses near each other. And that’s all you ever would be. You hated how much that broke your heart. 

You’d locked the door and were just about to flip the vintage, handmade sign on the door from open to closed, when you heard the rapid tapping on the window. You looked up and couldn’t believe the sight that met your eyes. Peter Parker was standing outside, a nervous but excited look on his face, his cheeks pink from the slight chill, hair messy as always, and a handful of sunflowers and daisies in his hand. You couldn’t right back your own smile as you beamed back at him. 

Let me in? he mouthed as you nodded, quickly unlocking the door and pulling it open as he came inside. You locked it behind him and flipped the sign before turning to him with an incredulous expression on your face.

“Peter? You came back...” you whispered softly as he seemed to mull over the right thing to say. Sometimes his mind worked way faster than his mouth, and he found him looking at you with a dopey little smile, “is everything alright?”

“These are for you,” he held out the flowers to you, causing your heart to beat impossibly faster. You gently took them, clutching them gently to your chest as you inhaled their sweet scent.

“They’re lovely,” you whispered, immediately touched by the sweet gesture, “but why…”

“They reminded me of you,” he confessed, a nervously anxious little smile on his face, “sunflowers because you always brighten my day, and daisies because they’re delicate and gentle just like you, and I know you told me a long time ago they’re your favorites.”

“Peter…” you blinked back the tears that had threatened to spill down your cheeks, “I don’t know if you should do this…”

“It was MJ,” he breathed out and the name was enough to make your heart constrict, “she threw it all away, and she lied to me about it. I…I’m so sorry. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“Or to you,” you shrugged lightly, lips trembling with effort as you tried to hold back your tears. 

“I broke up with her,” he confessed, causing your eyes to snap to his with a hopeful little expression, “I should never have gotten back together with her. I knew that but I still did…”

“Why?” you swallowed the lump in your throat. Your heart was beating so fast you wondered if he could hear it threatening to burst through your ribcage, “why did you?”

“I hadn’t seen her in a few years and she came back and I thought that maybe…maybe being with her would help me get over you,” now that it was out in the open, Peter felt a million times better. But the look on your face didn’t necessarily make him feel relieved, your face was a mask of confusion, “but that turned out to be a huge mistake.”

“You were trying to get over me?” your voice was small and trembling as you clutched the flowers tighter in your hand, “what do you mean? Why? Peter, I-I don’t understand.”

“It’s been you,” he breathed out, more nervous than he had been in a long, long time, “from the day I met you. And I just…I asked myself why you would ever want to be with someone like me? I’m just…I’m just a-”

“I’m in love with you,” you cut him off before he could say anything else, lest he go on a self-deprecating tirade. His mouth dropped open and he looked at those you had grown an extra head. You offered him a nervous smile but nodded, confirming that he had actually heard you correctly, “if you would have asked me I would have said yes, you know.”

“I didn’t want to flatter myself that much,” he breathed out, stepping closer to you and leaving almost no space between your bodies, “to think you could ever love me as much as I love you.”

“Well,” you gently laid the flowers on the counter as you shrugged lightly, “you were wrong.”

“I was wrong.”

“Yes.”

Without wasting another moment his hands found your face and he pulled you into him, crashing his lips onto yours. It took you only a moment to respond, your arms wrapping around his waist, almost melting into him. You let him take the lead, deepening the kiss as you practically became putty in his arms. He didn’t stop until he’d kissed you dizzy, still not wanting to let you go. 

“Peter,” his name whispered from your lips sounded better than anything he had ever heard and he had to fight back a soft groan. Your eyes fluttered closed as he pressed his forehead against yours, feeling your eyelashes kiss his cheek. You could feel him smiling against your lips as his hands settled on your waist, “you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for that.”

“I think I might have an idea,” he chuckled softly before kissing you again, all nervous and excited brushes of lips and promises of so much more, “I really like kissing you. Feels so right.”

“Funny,” you teased softly, brushing a hand through his hair gently, “I was just thinking the same thing. You know what that means, right?”

“Hmm?”

“Kiss me more.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You were sitting on Peter's kitchen counter, watching him cook in between stealing kisses and sips of wine. You liked watching him cook - there was something inherently sexy about it - but couldn’t help but laugh at how messy he was. He’d managed to spatter himself with wine, oil, and sauce before he was even finished. 

“Pete,” you shook your head at him, all affectionate sighs and soft smiles, “go and change your shirt and soak that one so it doesn’t stain permanently.” 

“It’s fine,” he insisted meekly, looking down at his own shirt before groaning, “fine. But you stay right there.”

“Hmmm,” he quickly kissed you a few times before running down the hall to his bedroom. You let out a small sigh of content as you looked around his apartment. You liked being here, and found yourself at his place more often than not. You were taking it slow, but everything about this felt right. You knew Peter was your future, you could feel that in your bones.

“I settled on an old shirt,” he  came padding back into the kitchen, “that way if it gets dirty it won’t matter!”

You turned to look at him and nearly choked on your wine. The shirt in question was in his hands and he was currently shirtless in front of you. And what a damn fine sight that was; it sent every part of you into overdrive. He was lean and well built, and you were trying not to objectify him or study the deep v of his hips or the dusting of hair under his belly button that disappeared under the waistband of his joggers. 

Ample tattoos littered his body, which you had surmised from the amount on his arms, but still. They were gorgeous  - he was gorgeous. He caught you staring, which you were doing nothing to hide, and chuckled in amusement, “it’s rude to stare, pretty girl.”

“‘m not,” you lied sheepishly, sighing playfully as he pulled on the shirt. But just before he was covered up again, the tattoo on the side of his ribcage caught your eye, “Peter.”

“What? What’s wrong?” his hand settled on the side of your face as he gave you the once-over to make sure you were okay.

“That tattoo, on your side,” you reached for the hem of his shirt, but he beat you to it and pulled it up. The ink came back into view and your heart almost caught in your throat. Neat and polished was a pretty, intricate flower, a little spider perched on one of the edges of the petals, “I…it’s beautiful. But…it’s…how long have you had it?”

“This?” he seemed bemused as you traced your fingers gently along his inked skin, “a long time. It was one of the first pieces I got…kind of what pushed me into tattooing myself. Why?”

You remained silent as you slid off the counter, leaving Peter to watch you curiously. You looked into those pretty brown eyes before pulling up your own shirt. He watched you intently, but his eyes widened in surprise as soon as he saw it. There, on your own ribcage, on the side opposite of his own, he saw the tattoo that was almost identical to his own. Yours was a different flower with a different little spider, but eerily the same. He made a small sound of disbelief as he reached up and traced his fingers along the edge, leaving fire in their wake as you closed your eyes. 

“How?” he asked out loud, speaking his question into the ether, “how could we…when did you get this?”

“Almost ten years ago,” you breathed nervously as he settled his hand on your waist, “it was a small place in California…that’s where I went to college before moving back here. What about you?”

“Almost ten years ago,” he echoed and you both laughed softly, “but here, in Queens. How is this possible? They couldn’t have known…but they’re almost identical. I know this was hand drawn for me but…you too? I don’t understand. It makes no sense…”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to,” you set down your shirt and looked at the breathtaking smile on his face, “maybe it was -”

“Fate,” he finished for you. Peter Parker was a man of logic and science, tangible things that made sense. This? This made no logical sense at all, but at the same time it all made perfect sense. It all felt so…right, “I love you, you know?”

“I know,” you kissed him, pulling him into your arms, “I love you too, Peter Parker.”

[loversj0y]

this is me trying

coming back to london and being away from wilbur was hard. fighting your own coping methods and trying is harder.

pairing: wilbur soot x gn! reader

angst, hurt/comfort

TRIGGER WARNINGS: fighting, yelling, broken bottles, lots of tears, and alcoholism, plus the briefest (one line) insinuation of suicidal thoughts.

note: this is part of the 'tis the damn season universe, but doesn't particularly have to be read alongside it (though you'd probably be very confused if you didnt read it). this part is pretty heavy. not even going to lie, i had to stop writing a few times to keep myself from getting too stressed, really heed the warnings. at least im getting better at writing fights? ao3 version

word count: 5.7k

You and Wilbur hadn’t seen each other in months. It was May, and the warm air was making the days feel a bit more pleasant if it weren’t for the glaring guilt in your chest. 

The last time you and Wilbur had seen each other was Valentine’s Day, when he’d taken a train up to London to visit you and surprise you with some takeout and roof access to your apartment — you didn’t actually know you could get up there. He wasn’t able to spend too much time with you, mostly due to your own time constraints, but it was a nice trip nonetheless. When he left, you’d promised you’d come down to Brighton to visit him soon.

That didn’t quite work out. You were going to visit for a full week at the end of the second term, however, once you’d met with your advisor, you learned just how behind you were on your final dissertation. It was incredulous because you had thought you were on track with it, but regardless you had to spend break trapped in the library, trying desperately to catch up on writing your paper on Lord Byron’s work. Then, you were supposed to visit during the Easter weekend, but you were given a paper, due in a week, that blocked any opportunities for travel. 

But you were determined this time. You had to do this. You devised a plan, and you found a perfect weekend where you would be completely free of assignments if you hustled. You even got Tommy in on it. 

“Hey, Tommy, sorry to call you like this, do you have a moment to chat?” 

You heard a laugh through the phone, “Yeah, hold on,” he mumbled something off the phone, and you could make out the sounds of him walking to another room. 

“What’s up?”

“I want to surprise Wilbur, and I need your help.” You smiled as you started launching into the details of your plan, each piece meticulously planned out for a wonderful weekend. 

He grinned, “Aw, he would love that. Why d’ya need my help though?” 

“Well,” you faltered a bit, “there’s a flaw in my plan, and it’s that I don’t know where Wilbur’s apartment is, and I especially don’t know how to get there from the station. So, I was wondering if you’d be able to pick me up and take me to Will’s?” 

“Oh, yeah, no problem, plus it’ll allow me to annoy him a bit as well, so yeah, sounds good.”

You cheered a bit, “Thank you so much, Tommy, you’re the best. I’ll text you all the other details, yeah?”

“Aw, I am the best, thank you. And yeah, that works.”

“Perfect, bye, Tommy!”

He responded with a quick bye in return, and you felt yourself grin. You had been trying so hard to find time to be able to go see him, and this was it!

You got a call a few minutes later from Wilbur himself, and you worried immediately that Tommy may have spilled something accidentally. You didn’t even have a chance to speak before he questioned you.

“Why did you call Tommy with something he will only describe as being ‘important’ and ‘for cool people only’?”

You snorted out a laugh, rolling your eyes a bit, “Well, hello, to you, too, Wilbur.”

“Hi, darling, I hope your classes went well today,” he rushed out, “Now answer my question.”

“I just had a question for him, Will.”

“One that you couldn’t ask me?” You could hear the pout in his voice.

“Nope. As he mentioned, it's for cool people only.”

He let out a gasp, indignation clear in his voice, “Darling, how could you? I am much cooler than Tommyinnit.”

You could faintly make out the sound of Tommy yelling at Wilbur in the background. 

“Don’t worry, alright?” You laughed, “It was just something only he could really answer.”

“Are there questions that exist that only that gremlin child can answer?”

“Believe it or not, yes.”

Wilbur whined on the other side of the phone, “Love, you know he’s going to hold this over me for months, right?”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

“So, why?”

“Well, if I’m going to ask a Minecraft-related question,” you lied cooly, “it’s better to ask a professional, isn’t it?”

He was silent for a long moment. “...I am a professional.”

“Will, we’ve played Minecraft together for years. You’re good, but even I could beat you at PVP.”

He groaned, “Is this some ploy? Are you messing with me?”

“Is it wrong for me to try and get closer to your best friend by asking him questions about his interests?” Okay, truthfully, that was a low blow. But the surprise would make it worth it.

“I guess not.” He chuckled, “Sorry, I’m just annoyed about how smug he’s going to be about this.”

“Don’t apologize. You know I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to chat with you, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t either, love,” you could hear the smile in his voice, and the vague sound of Tommy speaking to someone. From over the phone, the room sounded louder than before. 

“Is… something going on over there?” You chuckled, trying to hide the nervousness in your tone. You didn’t even know why you were nervous. Something was just gnawing at the back of your brain, and for some reason, you just felt… tense now.

“Oh, uh,” he paused, and you could hear more people talking now, “sort of. It’s nothing big or anything just, uh, Tommy’s having some friends over is all. He and I have been hanging out for a bit today, but we’re just at his now, so he invited a few people over and stuff.”

You nodded quietly. You couldn’t help the sadness you felt fill your chest. You were trying to be there, but it was still hard to hear about all the things you were missing out on, all the times you missed him, and stories and inside jokes you would never truly understand. 

“Right, okay. Well, I-I’ve got to get back to studying, anyway, so.”

“Darling, it’s nothing, really-” “No, it’s not an excuse or anything,” It was,  “I-I just… ‘m busy, is all, so I’ll let you hang out.”

You were both silent. He knew you were lying, and you could tell. But he wouldn’t call you on it. Not now. Not when you hadn’t seen each other in months and every slight felt like a balancing act, trying to keep the other from pulling away. You were so excited a moment ago, and you didn’t mean for the sadness to overtake your entire conversation. You just couldn’t help sometimes how every conversation, every time you heard him talk about the things he was doing, cut you open more and more. He didn’t mean to, and you would never hold it against it but almost every conversation opened the wound a bit further. 

He spoke up after a minute, “Okay, well… good luck studying, and text me when you’re done,” he paused, voice softer, “I love you.”

You bit your lip, unable to hide the guilt bubbling in your chest at his solemn tone, “I will. I love you too.”

You hung up quickly, setting your phone down on your desk. You placed your head in your hands, taking a shaky breath and fighting off the tears in your eyes. It would be easier, soon. You’d see him in a week. You tried to console yourself.

 You wouldn’t admit it out loud to Wilbur, no matter how much he asked, but you weren’t entirely adjusting well to being back here, without him. The first week, you could only fall asleep if he was on the phone with you. Then, there was one night where he fell asleep before you could call. You ended up turning to an older sleep method, knowing that you needed to get to bed in order to be able to make it to classes. Before you knew it, your room became littered with empty bottles you barely had the energy to clean up. It was an interesting dichotomy, the clear vodka bottles piling on your nightstand and the white Panadol bottles piling on your sink and in your backpack. You were mostly lucky the weekend he came for Valentine’s Day, because you had forced yourself to clean up your room a few days before, meaning there was only one half-empty bottle of vodka on your shelf, and a single bottle of Panadol left on your sink (though there were numerous more inside your school bag). 

You weren’t completely lucky, though. Your weekend with Wilbur was almost entirely perfect. Until the end. Every time you thought back to the end, you watched the memory as if it wasn’t you, as if you were a watcher, not the one actually there.

You’d walked back in with Wilbur, around midnight. The apartment was mostly quiet, except for one of your roommates who was standing in the kitchen,  fixing themselves a drink. When they heard you enter, they turned, perking up a bit.

“Y/N, hey, could I borrow some vodka? I ran out.”

You’d nodded, “Yeah, I’ll grab it, hold on.”

While you’d gone to grab the bottle, Wilbur took his coat off, your roommate lightly chatting with Wilbur while you walked to your room and back. You’d only caught the ending of their brief conversation, listening in as you walked slowly from the hallway back to the kitchen, trying to not wake up your other roommates. 

“-mean, seriously, Wilbur, they can even drink me under the table. Every week, they come in with a new bottle.”

“Wait, every week?”

“Yeah!” Your roommate was laughing, and it hadn’t even crossed your mind yet that they were talking about you, “I mean, seriously, once a week, they walk in and one hand has a bag with vodka from Tesco, and the other hand has a bag from the chemist’s.” 

You walked back over by the time your roommate finished speaking, placing the bottle in front of them. Wilbur gave you a strange look as you did, going uncharacteristically quiet as you said a quick goodnight to your roommate, bringing Wilbur, and the bottle, back to your room. 

You placed the bottle back on the shelf while Wilbur closed the door. With your back turned, he spoke up finally. 

“Darling…” he seemed to struggle to find the words, “Are you… okay?”

You’d chuckled, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You tell me,” he spoke, and you turned to face him. He had a sad look on his face, almost pitiful, and in the moment, it made you feel sick. “You’ve apparently been going through a bottle a week.”

Your entire body had gone rigid, eyes had gone fearful for a moment before you’d defaulted to being defensive. “That doesn’t mean anything is wrong, Wilbur. It just helps me relax, and you know that I can handle my alcohol.”

“Love, you can’t seriously expect me to just accept that answer,” he scoffed, and he almost looked mad. Looking back, you knew he wasn’t mad at you, more just concerned that you were trying to hide this from him. Even so, in the moment, you thought he was mad. While you couldn’t really place why he would’ve been mad, you knew that it made your own blood heat up. 

“Well, it’s- the fucking truth, okay? So just- leave it.”

“How many bottles?”

“Wilbur, what-”

“How. Many.” He looked tense, walking to your bathroom and grabbing the bottle of Panadol, “How many weeks has this been going on? How many bottles have you gotten? If you’re struggling, you should–”

“I’m not fucking struggling, you’re reading into this!”

“Oh, am I? Really?”

“Yes, Wilbur! I am fine, better than fine, in fact, and don’t act like you haven’t been drinking too. You always text me when you do!”

“I’m not against you drinking, but you know how insane going through a fifth a week is. I know that’s not normal for you.”

“How the fuck do you know that? Hm?” You’d practically yelled out before you spoke out again, each word spitting venom at him, “You haven’t been here, Wilbur, you don’t know anything about the way I am when I’m here! Please stop fucking acting like you know everything about me.” You’d gestured with your hands while you spoke, eyebrows raising as you looked at him incredulously, “Yes, okay, fine, you win! I have been drinking more! Basically every night, but that doesn’t mean that something is wrong with me, Wilbur. I am trying my hardest just to fucking exist enough to finish the school year, I am allowed to have vices without it being some big, stupid conversion. Now, let’s just drop it, we’re both exhausted. It’s not going to help to just stand here and argue, okay?”

You’d panted softly as you’d finished. You watched as waves of hurt appeared on Wilbur’s face, and now that the moment had passed, you’d felt just complete, immediate regret as you watched his face fall, staring down at the floorboards. 

“Yeah. Fine.” He spoke out flatly.

You two went to bed that night next to each other, still sharing a kiss and exchanging “I love you”s, but feeling tenser than ever before. 

In the morning, you two had been able to patch things up, but not before Wilbur made you agree to just call him anytime you needed to relax instead of immediately turning to alcohol. You agreed, and you’d been doing a pretty good job of it, even if you still drink sometimes. But ever since the fight, there’d been this tense air in your relationship, lingering in each conversation, both too scared to overstep and lose the other all over again.

You stared at the bottle on your desk as if it was taunting you. You couldn’t call him, so it was that or sleeplessness. You sat up, shaking your head slightly and wiping the tears from your face, taking a deep breath. You couldn’t. Wilbur would call before bed, he always did now. Instead, you distracted yourself, pulling up your laptop and writing out your list of due dates for this week and the next two weeks, albeit the tears in your eyes made it a bit harder than usual. You wrote the list on a sticky note, placing it on your laptop. Some of these things were easier to knock out than others, for sure. Three big assignments and three small ones, plus whatever reading you had to do in between. Thankfully, only two of the big assignments were due this week, the last one could be left for after you came back from visiting him. 

You got started, working on a poem analysis for your Romantic Poetry class and letting your own thoughts fade in the noise of Wordsworth and Keats. 

You’d started working on your second small assignment when he’d called later that night. You set your phone up against your laptop, accepting the video call with a gentle smile on your face. 

“Hi, darling,” he grinned, and with a quick listen to his voice, you could tell he wasn’t entirely sober. You didn’t bring it up.

“Hi, Will. Did you have fun at Tommy’s?”

He nodded quickly, turning to get comfortable in his bed, “Kid’s a menace, for sure, but yes,” he frowned, getting a better look at you, “Babe, are you still studying?”

You sighed, “Yes, Will, I am.” “It’s been like three hours, how dare they? How could they possibly assign you so much?”

“God, I wish I knew. It’s like they all just decided that everything would be due this week. I might not be able to do our video chat dinner this Friday. I have a huge project due on the 21st.” In reality, you would be taking an hour train to his place and having real-life dinner, but he didn’t need to know that yet. 

“That’s not for so long though,” he whined out, pouting.

You chuckled, rolling your eyes a bit, “Yes, but it’s Professor Brian. He makes us all come to his office hours, so he can make sure we’re on the right track, and I need to go in early before the other students can take up all the timeslots. I need to make sure I have everything prepared for that.”

He sighed, relinquishing, “Okay. I know how important all this is, anyways. Plus, graduation isn’t too far now, so you need to finish strong.” He smiled, nothing but supportive towards your academic goals. 

“Graduation will be here before we know it. Still gonna host me that party?”

You both laughed, and he nodded, “Oh, absolutely. We’ll have two parties, a moving party and a graduation party all in one.”

You smiled fondly at him, nodding, “Yeah. That sounds really nice.”

He gave you a look, eyes full of love and adoration, “I miss you so much, love.”

You sighed wistfully, “I miss you too. We’ll see each other soon enough, I’m sure. We’ve waited years, we can do months.” 

He grinned, repeating your words, “We can do months.”

The rest of the conversation was standard, asking “How’s your day”s and sharing loving words. He tried to convince you to sleep once more, but you told him how important your work was, and he eventually gave up the topic. You wished each other a goodnight, saying “I love you”, before he eventually headed to bed fully. After you hung up, you looked back up at the bottle. The urge to drink was gone now. And if you weren’t going to get any sleep, you may as well continue working.

The rest of the week went by smoothly. The stress and weight of assignments and your plans for Friday kept you from sleeping properly, which at least gave you more time to work on your assignments. 

Friday approached quickly, and you couldn’t sit still in a single class the entire day, let alone Professor Brian’s class. He taught your Victorian Literature class, and he was a genuinely caring professor, despite being a bit intimidating. You could barely focus throughout class, far too excited. When it was time for class to be dismissed, you stood eagerly, but Professor Brian stood in the way for you to leave.

“Do you mind staying a few minutes?” He asked, a kind smile on his face.

As much as you didn’t want to, you really liked this professor, and his opinion of you meant a lot to you. So you nodded, following him to pull a chair up to the other side of his desk. 

He sat down, giving you a gentle smile, “I wanted to ask how your paper is going. You haven’t come in for office hours yet.”

Wow, and you thought you were the early prepper. “Well, I was planning to come in on Wednesday since it would give me a week until the project was actually due.”

He frowned, “What day is the paper due?”

You gave him a confused look, responding simply, “The 21st.”

His head tilted back, and he nodded slowly, “Right, I’ve found the problem then. The paper is due the 12th, not the 21st.”

You felt your heart stop. You pulled out your laptop, looking at the sticky note you had taped to it. You had certainly written the 21st. Fuck, you thought, realizing quickly that it must’ve been a consequence of your own mental state since you’d been crying when you wrote the list. 

“Oh. Oh, god, I’m-” You struggled to continue your sentence, too distraught. The paper was due in three days, not twelve like you’d thought.

“Hey, don’t fret,” he pulled out his calendar, humming for a moment, “It’s an honest mistake, and you’ve always been on top of your classwork. I can’t offer a major extension, but I can give you until Wednesday the 14th, but that’s only if you come to office hours first thing on Monday. I can help out with some more of the editing work for the paper, but only on that day, and you’ll need to have at least most of it worked out. I trust in your abilities to create a well-thought-out thesis, especially given your passion in previous classes when we’ve discussed Wilde. Does that work?”

You nodded quickly, fighting tears as your entire plan crumbled around you. “Yeah, yes. I-I can do that.”

“Alright.” He offered you another kind smile, though it did nothing to stop the feeling of the world-shattering around you, “And are you alright? You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t wish to, but you were much more quiet in class today than usual.”

“Yeah. It’s nothing now, anyway.” You sighed, biting your lip to keep it from quivering too much. You stood, pulling your bag on while he nodded slowly.

“Keep your head up, alright? You’re a brilliant student. I don’t like to see you falling behind.” 

You knew he meant no harm with his words, but it added to the pit of self-hatred that you were slowly sinking into. 

You just nodded, turning and heading towards the door, “Thank you, Professor.”

“Have a good rest of your day.”

“You too,” you spoke, trying to put more enthusiasm into your words than you actually felt. 

You practically ran out of the hallway, the air feeling like it was choking you. You walked to a random bench outside, on the edge of campus, unable to stop yourself from completely breaking down. You’d been planning this for weeks, how could you have fucked up this bad? You sobbed, head in your hands. 

The tears didn’t stop. The sun was starting to set, and all of a sudden it felt like there were too many eyes on you, so you stood and ran. You ran all the way to the water, panting heavily as you stared out at the river, standing on the old bridge that was always abandoned this time of night. You stared at the water as you sobbed, chest heaving as you struggled to breathe. 

Fuck.

Fuck.

You had to call Tommy. You already felt like enough of a fuck-up, you could at least prevent him from wasting his time picking you up.

With shaky hands, you took out your phone, dialing Tommy.

It rang once before he picked up, your sobs immediately carrying over the phone.

“Y/N?” He asked, panicked, “Are you crying, did something happen?”

You heard some arguing over the phone, but you could barely hear it over the sounds of your own crying as you began to speak, “Tommy, don’t- I-” your voice quivered, biting your lip hard enough to bleed. 

There was still some arguing happening on his side, but you paid it no mind.

He tried to say something, but you cut him off before he could as the words broke through your sobs. 

“Don’t- don’t bother p-picking me up,” you sobbed out, “I f-fucked it. I fucked it all up.”

“Y/N, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“It’s- it’s stupid, I- I’m sorry. I can’t- I can’t come anymore. I fucked up,” there was sarcastic laughter behind your words as you continued speaking, tears streaming down your face, “I can’t, fuck, I- I fucking ruined everything, I- I was trying, I am trying, but I-” you gasped for breath, one hand clutching your chest weakly as you sat at the edge of the bridge. 

“Take a deep breath, come on. What are you talking about?” It almost sounded like he was pleading. 

“I just-” you sobbed, trying to muffle your cries to get your words out, “Tell Wilbur I’m sorry.” You pulled your phone away from your ear, ending the call despite hearing his panicked voice through the phone. You shoved your phone in your bag, curling up into a tight ball as you sobbed until you could barely think.

Unfortunately for you, you could still think. Your sobbing had been reduced to slow tears and the occasional hitch in your breath. As the sunset faded into the night sky, you became so acutely aware of how you’d fucked up your relationship. The one you’d spent years pining for, that you wanted to work so hard for. You let all of it fall apart. Even when trying so hard, your trying just wasn’t enough. You stood up, walking to the railing and staring down at the water. 

The rushing water felt like it stared back at you. 

You gripped the railing tightly, and you suddenly felt like you couldn’t breathe all over again. You slowly backed away, letting go of the railing and trying to collect yourself. 

Once you were calm enough, you turned, walking the slow trek back to your apartment. Your eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and it’d be impossible to hide that you’d been crying even if you tried. You realized off-handedly that you had no clue how long you’d been there sobbing. The sky was your only reminder that time had even passed. 

You walked to the apartment slowly, body feeling drained. When you opened the door, you were met with all three of your roommates in the living room, staring at you with concern. One of your roommates, Jayden, sighed softly, speaking into the phone and looking away. 

“What’s going on?” You asked softly, voice cracking. You didn’t have the heart to be embarrassed. 

“Wilbur called,” your other roommate, Quinn, spoke up softly. 

You didn’t bother responding, just nodding and walking to your room. They didn’t fight it, watching you quietly. 

You grabbed the bottle, laying down in your bed, and staring at it. There was barely anything left, probably about a shot’s worth. Your hands shook as you stared, mentally waging a war over whether or not you’d take that final sip. A sob wracked your body, and instead of drinking it, you threw the bottle against the opposite wall, watching it shatter and spill over the floor. You couldn’t be bothered, turning away from the door and curling up into a tight ball. You heard movement outside your door, but you didn’t move, and eventually, the footsteps departed. You closed your eyes, lying drained on your bed and letting yourself drift in and out of restless sleep.

When you came to at one point, you could make out the sound of someone picking up the pieces of glass you’d shattered. You wanted to turn, to mumble a thank you to whichever roommate had cleaned it for you, but you felt frozen in your own sadness. You listened, though, keeping your eyes closed. The sounds of each shard falling into a bag, the sound of a towel wiping at the wet spot left by the vodka. Then, there was a pause before you heard the gentle sound of footsteps moving toward your bed. You felt the bed dip, and you couldn’t fight the confusion that creased into your brow. An arm slowly wrapped around you, and you let your eyes open, taking a moment to process. You thought you must be dreaming.

Your voice sounded weaker than you’d hoped it would as you spoke. 

“Wilbur?” You turned, looking up and seeing the face of your lover staring back at you. He looked as exhausted as you felt, and it looked like he’d been crying as well.

You sat up slowly, and he did the same, brushing back some of your hair. 

“Hi,” He sighed softly, sitting across from you, “You scared the shit out of me.”

Tears welled in your eyes, and your hands reached for him as if to make sure he was actually, really there in front of you. He held onto your arms gently as well. 

“What- what are you doing here?” “You were on speaker when you called Tommy.” He sighed softly, “We could only come for tonight, but we really need to talk. We could wait til the morning if you’d prefer.”

As much as you’d like to have one last good night in his arms, you’d rather rip the bandaid off now.

“No, let’s talk now.” You sighed.

He nodded, watching you quietly, “Can you tell me what happened, then?”

You took a shaky breath, nodding softly. “I was going to come down this weekend. I spent weeks planning it, making sure I could get everything done in perfect timing. But that night I called Tommy, after you called me, I started crying, and I wrote down one of my due dates wrong,” you sniffled, chuckling sardonically at yourself. “God, it’s so stupid. But my professor stopped me after class, and he extended the due date, but he could only extend it by two days. So, I couldn’t come to surprise you anymore, and,” you sobbed, biting your lip and trying to hold yourself together, “I called Tommy and let him know that he didn’t- he didn’t have to pick me up anymore.” 

Wilbur nodded as he listened to you explain. He knew you better than you ever wanted to admit. “On the phone, you said… you ruined everything. You weren’t just talking about the plans, were you?”

You shook your head, moving your hands to hide your face behind them, “No.”

“Did you… think that I would stop talking to you because of this?”

You took a shaky breath. It felt like your last chance to be honest while you still could. So, you let the words spill from your mouth in endless streams.

“I just- I haven’t been doing well, Wilbur, ever since I got back here. I was drinking every night, really heavily, and I know it wasn’t good. And I’m sorry for how I talked to you that night, I was just scared and defensive, and,” you took a shaky breath, “every time we’ve talked after that fight, everything would feel different, and I was just getting terrified that my time was running out, that you were going to finally decide that you’ve had enough of the fucking mess that I am. Every time you would tell me about the cool things you were doing, I just couldn’t help but feel like it was cutting me open, no matter how happy I was for you, and now, I just I feel like I’m an open wound that can’t close no matter how much I try. And I am trying. You have to believe me, really, I am trying. I didn’t,” You cried softly, head still in your hands, “I didn’t drink it. The rest of the bottle, I-I didn’t drink it. I am trying.” You felt like you were pleading for him to believe you.

“Hey, hey” he spoke softly, gently holding onto your forearms, “Let me see your face. Please.”

You let your hands fall, looking up at him. You never felt smaller than in that brief moment where you could feel him seeing you in your entirety. 

He gently moved a hand to your cheek, wiping at your eyes softly. 

“I know you’re trying. I’m proud of you for not drinking it. Really, I’m insanely proud of you. I can see that you’re trying. I’m not going to leave you or stop talking to you because you’re struggling. That doesn’t mean what happened is okay, but darling, you need to communicate with me. Neither of us are going to be perfect about anything, and I know I’m not perfect with it either, but when you start having these thoughts and ideas that I’m going to leave you? That’s when you need to come to me and talk to me. I know it’s hard, and I’m not expecting it to be an easy or quick fix, but I need to know that you know that you can come to me. That I’m someone you truly trust. Because if not, it will just hurt us both.”

You nodded quickly, leaning into his touch, “I’m sorry. I’m going to try, I just- I get so in my head sometimes, I just-” You took a shaky breath, and he carefully moved forward, pulling you into a tight hug. You hugged him back just as tightly, burying your face into his chest.

“I do trust you,” you whispered, “I’m just scared you’re going to see me the way I see me.”

He took a shaky breath, kissing the top of your head. “And I’m just trying to get you to see yourself the way I see you.”

You sobbed softly, clinging onto him tightly. He held you just as desperately, rubbing your back.

“I love you,” you spoke softly once you’d calmed down enough, “so much.” “I love you so much too.” He pulled away, only to pull you in for a kiss. You kissed him back, your arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. The kiss felt like breathing, a strong sense of relief in the physical confirmation that despite everything, you didn’t lose him.

When you pulled away, you rested your forehead against his, and you both sat like that quietly for a few minutes.

“I missed you,” You spoke softly, looking up at him. “You said you’re only here for tonight?” 

“I missed you too. Even if it didn’t go as planned, at least we still got to see each other this weekend,” he lightly joked before nodding, “We are only here for tonight.”

“Wilbur, I can’t go to Brighton anymore, I have to write my paper,” you sighed.

“Oh, no, I know. I wasn’t talking about you.” “What?” “Tommy insisted on coming with. He was really worried too. He’s currently sleeping on your couch.” 

You chuckled, your chuckle soon turning into full laughter as you imagined Tommy’s lanky limbs leaning off your cheap couch. Wilbur started laughing as well, arms still wrapped around you, slowly rubbing up and down your back.

Once you stopped laughing, you leaned into him, relaxing against his chest. He moved both of you into laying down. 

“I’ll talk to him in the morning. Today’s been exhausting. Can we just sleep?” Wilbur nodded, kissing the top of your head once more. “I would love nothing more than to sleep with you right now.” 

You groaned, lightly hitting his chest, but you couldn’t deny the laughter that bubbled up in your chest. 

“Goodnight, love.” He grinned.

“Goodnight, Wilbur.”

taglist: @shubblelive / @superioritycomplexes / @your-shifting-gurl (send an ask/dm me if you want to be added)

[wellcollapse]

idk if you're still writing the post-cemetry scene fic with pining eddie (idk if i'm describing it right) but i would love to hear more about it/see a snippet or too if you feel so inclined 👀

someone asking about angsty pining fic in the month of our lord april 2024? this was such a lovely surprise 😭 i'm gonna be honest with u anon i'm likely not going to publish 911 fic again BUT because you asked so nicely i'll give you a few older snippets from my draft:

Eddie sighs, breaking the stare. “You have a key, you know,” he says finally. “Feel free to come join me whenever you want.” He turns on his heel and walks back inside to finish his goddamn brownies, leaving Buck standing in the doorway.  It’s silent for a few minutes. He’s in the middle of measuring a tablespoon of espresso powder when Buck steps into the kitchen and shuts the door behind him. Eddie feels the weight of Buck’s gaze on him as he folds the powder into his brownie mixture, but he doesn’t turn to meet his eye until Buck speaks.  “Is that…” Buck falters. He clears his throat. “Is that my recipe?”  “Yeah,” Eddie says gruffly. “Chris asked me to make it. Said he wanted to share it with his friends when they come over tomorrow for their playdate.”  Buck snorts. “Man, you can’t call it that. Chris nearly bit my head off last time I tried. Kept reminding me that ‘playdates are for kids, Buck,’ and that he’s not a kid anymore.”  Buck emphasizes that last bit with air quotes, and Eddie can’t help but grin at that. But his smile fades instantly, remembering the somber look on Buck’s face when he’d opened the door. He highly doubts that Buck came over just to commiserate about the trials and tribulations of watching Christopher grow up.  Eddie bites the bullet. “Why are you here, Buck?”  Buck shifts nervously. He shrugs and looks away from Eddie. “I — I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to answer that. You’ve never asked me that before.”  Eddie scrubs at his face. “I've never had to ask you that, Buck. Things are different now. You’ve been busy.” 

+

“Wow,” Buck says acidly, all traces of heartbreak gone. “I’ve never heard that one before.”  Eddie frowns. “What?”  “Really, Eddie?” Buck’s voice cracks on the last syllable. He shakes his head. “Unbelievable. Just — unbelievable.” “Buck — what are you talking about?”  “We were just trying to protect you, Evan," Buck mocks. "You were never supposed to find out. We kept it from you because we love you. Any of that sound familiar to you?” Eddie’s breath hitches on the word love, because he doesn’t know, he can’t know, but then —  Oh.  Fuck.

+

Buck: We’ll get through this just like everything else. I promise. It’ll be okay.  Buck: Eddie, did you eat enough today? Should I come by and bring you some food? Buck: You know you’re still my best friend, right? That’s never going to change, Eddie. Never.  He reacts with a thumbs up or a tap-back heart on most of the messages, too exhausted to do anything else. He replies with a thumbs down to the message about food, certain that he wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Buck so soon. He knows he’ll have to face him in person eventually, but his tired, broken heart just wants to postpone it as much as he can.  The last one, though, is a balm that both soothes and agitates Eddie’s burning, aching heart, and he taps out a brief, Thank you, you too. Always, in response. It feels like too much and not enough all at once, and Eddie wishes once again that he was a little better at resisting Buck, that he didn’t feel that need to reply to his every message lest Buck worry even more about him. The only one he actually acknowledges is a message that comes in at 2:43 AM on Sunday. As he opens the message, Eddie absentmindedly wonders if Buck’s having a hard time falling asleep for the same reason as him. Probably.  It’s a link to a new exhibit at the Griffith Observatory, accompanied by a text that reads: Can I take Christopher here next weekend? Eddie squeezes back tears as he replies with a brief, Of course, and puts his phone down, letting the darkness swallow him again. 

+

Hen beats him to it. “What happened, Buck? I thought you really liked her. Weren’t you planning to introduce her to Maddie and Chimney next week?”  “Not anymore,” Buck mutters. “I broke up with her.”  “What?” Eddie snaps head snaps up. “Why?”  Buck doesn’t meet his gaze, his lip quivering. The rest of their team is watching them, eyes darting back and forth, and Buck blinks hesitantly before swallowing down a sip of coffee. He wipes the cream off of his upper lip and looks Eddie in the eye.  “You know why,” Buck whispers. 

[nymrs]

#1. UNFAITHFUL | Kylian Mbappé

Summary: above

Genre: angst

Pairings: Kylian Mbappé x female reader

The entrance door clicked open. He had a hard time finding the keyhole, probably still tipsy from his night out. "Bébé? Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s 5am. What made you wake up this early?", he asked as he entered the living room of your shared apartment. If he only knew you haven’t slept a single second. The room was dark and silent, only a few candles lightening up the room, the music you’ve been playing was almost too quiet to hear. He only saw your silhouette in front of the window, the moonlight shining right on you. Your back was turned to him and you were refusing to turn around. "Are you drinking? What did I miss, are we already celebrating our anniversary?", he joked the moment he realised you held a glass of wine in your hand. Yes, the next weekend would mark your three years anniversary. But it wouldn’t even get this far. You scoffed and took another sip. "I'm celebrating my comeback to the world of singles." Obviously nothing Kylian expected to hear, you could tell he was lost for words. "Wha- what? Y/N, what are you even talking about?" Slowly turning around, you looked him dead in the eyes. He took a step back when he saw the blurred mascara under your eyes that left marks of the already dried out tears you’ve been crying the entire night. "Instead of making a scene I decided to pack your belongings so you could leave as soon as possible", you informed and nodded towards the bags you’ve placed on the other side of the room. Kylian stared at you in disbelief, "Are you serious right now? What are you doing this for?" Your wine glass dropped onto the floor, the red liquid pouring all over the ground. "Y/N, what the fuck?! What got into you?" The sadness you felt earlier turned into nothing but anger and hate. "What I’m doing this for? You’re honestly asking me what I'm doing this for?", your voice got louder with every word. You took a few steps towards him, but still left enough space between you two. Kylian bluntly looked at you in shock before you threw your phone into him. "Reason enough?", you cried out. He picked up your phone that landed on the floor, only to see an instagram reel that showed him all snuggled up with another woman. She was sitting on his lap, they’ve been whispering sweet nothings into each others ear, then she started tugging at his shirt and leaned in for a kiss. "Y/N, I'm so sorry", he sighed, running his hands through his face. "I don’t need your fucking apologies Kylian, grab your damn things and leave!"

"Bébé, I know this shouldn’t have happened, but I regretted it the moment I realised what I was doing. At this point of the night I got absolutely smashed. I immediately told her to leave and haven’t been drinking after", he tried to explain himself but you couldn’t even bother to listen. "It didn’t mean anything to me, I promise."

"The only thing that doesn’t seem to mean anything to you is our relationship, the bond we had, the life we’ve built together. If you think being drunk is an excuse for cheating, then why haven’t I cheated every time I was black out drunk? Why were you the only person I was always thinking about, the only one I wanted to go home to? Trust me, I had a lot of opportunities to do what you did, but I didn’t. Because I truly loved you." You were trying to hold back the tears that threatened to roll down every second. Even being in the same room as Kylian right now, you couldn’t stand it. You needed him to go.

"I love you Y/N, it was just a moment of weakness. It’ll never happen again, I swear on my life." He tried to keep up with you as you were walking up and down the room. When he finally placed his hands on your shoulder in order to calm you down and look at him, you absolutely lost it. "Don’t fucking touch me", you exclaimed and pushed him away, "You humiliated me Kylian! The whole world knows what you’ve done!" All the articles that have been written in the last few hours popped up in your head. "Football star Kylian Mbappé apparently cheating on singer and actress Y/N Y/L/N." "Are (your ship name) over?" "Kylian Mbappé enjoying his freedom after ending his relationship of three years with singer Y/N Y/L/N." Even your manager already called you, asking you to make a statement saying the two of you have broken up some time ago, to make it look like you’re not a victim of betrayal. Only thinking about all those interviewers and paparazzi asking about Kylian made you feel sick already. You turned your back to him again, hearing him sobbing and sniffing. "Grab your bags and go. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you", you spoke up, surprisingly in a calm voice. The tears you’ve tried to avoid slowly ran down your cheeks. You heard him hesitatingly walking to the other side of the room, his crying got harder when he took his stuff. "I'm sorry. I’m really sorry what I’ve done. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me someday. I love you", was the last thing he said before he stepped towards the door and left.

[rowdyhughesy]

could you do something fluffy with trevor or mark? like them helping you through something?

Never let you fall - T.Zegras

” She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all. “

- F.Scott Fitzgerald

I am in no way shape or form trying to romanticise mental health. It’s a serious subject and just know that you’re never alone no matter what. There are always people willing to listen and help. I am available if you want somebody to just listen or talk to♡

It’s easier to ignore the fact that you’re not okay than doing something about it. Living in this fantasy that the world doesn’t feel like it’s caving in on you, that it’s not squeezing your airways from the inside. By ignoring it you don’t have to tell anyone about it. You can continue living in denial and not worrying those closest to you. Because your brain is telling you that nobody wants someone that can’t handle the world.

So that’s why you’re currently sitting on the roof of your apartment. It’s quiet up there, nothing to think about as you try to swallow down the tears that are threatening to slip out. Chest and throat burning as you inhale the smoke from the cigarette hanging between your lips. Headphones on playing your well thought out playlist with songs for when you feel like this. Empty. Alone. Your phone has been buzzing nonstop for the last two days but you haven’t had the energy to answer any of the texts. Most of them consisting of your parents reaching out about plans for the weekend or your friends asking why you haven’t been at work. Some are from Trevor, wondering why you weren’t at his game like you’d promised.

All of that making you think of how you’re letting people down. How you make promises you know you can’t keep when you feel like this. That thought alone breaks the dam. Leaning your forehead against your knees you cry. The words of your guardian angel by the red jumpsuits apparatus echoing inside your head.

I will never let you fall (let you fall). I'll stand up with you forever. I'll be there for you through it all (through it all) Even if saving you sends me to heaven. It's okay, It's okay, It's okay.

Aggressively wiping your cheeks with the sleeve of your sweatshirt you notice the car headlights pulling into the parking lot. The familiar BMW stopping in one of the open spots. Trevor.

Pulling the hood of your sweater over your head you hope it’ll aid you in camouflaging yourself from his view. Except for the obvious red glow still lit in your hand. Following his path from the car to the front door with your eyes you pray that he’ll go away when he notices you aren’t answering the door. But knowing the hockey player that’s the last thing he’ll do. Trevor is nothing if not persistent and always wanting to know that people he cares for are alright. That including his mess of a girlfriend at the moment.

Pausing the music you listen for signs that he’s going to walk away as you take another drag of the nicotine. White see through smoke escaping past your parted lips and disappearing in the air. The only times you smoked where when you were having an episode, just like now. It gave you something to focus on. Following the smoke as it makes it way into your lungs and out as you exhale.

“Angel face I know you’re up there.” Trevor’s voice travels through the quiet California air and inside the headphones. Realising you’ve been caught you pull the hood down along with the headphones. Still sitting with your legs bent towards your chest. The tear tracks are now dried making your skin feel stiff.

Noticing that you probably wont answer him Trevor sighs before walking towards the building wall. You know he’s scared of heights and seeing him climbing up the gutter on the side of the building before heaving himself up to the balcony makes your hearth grow warm. Suddenly his tan ringclaid hand makes an appearance by the end of the roof. Waving it back and forth as a sign for you to take it.

Scooting closer to the edge you grab his outstretched hand, aiding him in climbing up onto the roof. Trevor face is flushed as he looks up meeting your gaze. His eyes scanning your face, looking for any signs as of why you would be up here before they lock on the pack of cigarettes laying beside you. Brows furrowing. He knows you don’t smoke unless..

“Angel face-“ Trevor wraps his arms around you, setting your shorter frame in his lap as he hugs you close to his chest. “I just feel like the world is caving in Trev, I don’t know what to do.” Voice barely a whisper, hoarse from the crying and after not drinking anything for the last couple of days. Trevor places a featherlight kiss on your temple, hand running through your hair in a soothing motion. “You don’t have to do anything baby, if the world is caving in I’ll be there to build a wall around you. I’ll be that wall if that’s what it takes.”

A teary laugh escapes your lips, hand reaching out to take one of his. Intertwining your fingers as they lay on your lap. “What did I do to make you of all people fall in love with me? You’re so good. Kind, gentle and loving, always knowing how to make others laugh.” This time it’s Trevor’s turn to let out a quiet laugh, placing yet another kiss on your kiss except this time it’s on the corner of your mouth.

“You didn’t have to do anything, I just took a look at you when we where at that bar and knew that you were the one piece missing. I wasn’t who I am now when I met you. You were the one that shaped me into this gentle and loving guy. I wouldn’t be who I am now if it weren’t for you.” Nuzzling your face against his neck you inhale the smell of his cologne. A smell that always seems to ground you. Pull you back from wherever you’ve drifted off to in your head.

Climbing down from the roof the two of you make your way to the bedroom, changing into comfy pyjamas as Trevor drapes the comfort over your bodies. Arm still wrapped around your middle hugging you close to him. Letting the silence settle over the room, the only light inside peeking in from behind the drawn curtains casting a shadow over the walls.

Trevors whispering breaks the long silence. “You don’t have to push me away you know. Ever. You can push all you want but I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me now.” Turning your head so that you’re facing him you place one of your hands on his cheek. Leaning your forehead against his you bask in the feeling of being surrounded by him.

His touch, his smell, his love.

Trevor takes the chance to lean in, his lips parting as they meet yours. A content sigh slipping out as he feels you kiss back, your free hand tugging him closer to you as the other stays on his cheek. You stay there for what feels like forever. Kissing and tugging at each others clothes as if one of you might slip away. Whispering I love you in the dark over and over again as sleep consumes you.

The last thing you hear is Trevor’s voice. “You won’t ever have to go through this alone again. I’ve got you angel face, it’s you and me.”

[champagnepodiums]

Some Early(ish) Thoughts on the whole Alex Palou Contract Situation™️

I am dumping the thoughts that have been percolating in my head all weekend about the situation here, hopefully it’ll all make sense but cohesiveness is not generally my strong suit but these are the things that have stuck out most to me so far about the whole situation:

The Inciting Incident: I think it’s REALLY interesting that an internal e-mail from Zak Brown somehow just magically managed to make its way to Jenna Fryer who ofc did her due diligence and wrote about it. The telling? thing to me though was that Nathan Brown from IndyStar was very quickly (like I think it was within an hour or two) able to confirm the story. On a Friday evening 🙃. Like it doesn’t seem like a far stretch to assume that McLaren wanted to establish this story to reflect favorably for them.

The Concept of Loyalty in Motorsports: This whole situation has sparked lots of discourse and it is interesting (and frustrating) that people on Twitter at least, already seem to be siding with McLaren and slamming Alex Palou for not being loyal but really — why should he? He is the hottest prospect in motorsports right now and if McLaren has failed to provide things they have allegedly promised (F1 opportunities and a comparable IndyCar program), why does Alex owe them his loyalty? (I am talking specifically about loyalty here). If teams can break contracts, why can’t drivers?

The babygirlification of Alex Palou and why I admire him through this: okay like it is very humorous that the smiliest driver on the grid is the one causing trouble but people are acting like just because he’s outwardly smiley, there’s no way that he can actually be apart of this and make no mistake, both can exist at once. I think all racing drivers at the top level have to be a certain degree of ruthless and I think Alex Palou is just willing to bet on himself and ruffle feathers in the process to get the best deal for himself. I personally think that it’s admirable, I mean, he is the one strapping himself into a deathmobile so like why should he be stuck with Zak Brown’s promises that I don’t think he really had much intention on completely following through with (see Pato’s F1 deal lmao)

Chip Ganassi Issued the Statement Against McLaren because He Saw An Opportunity to Be Petty and He Couldn’t Resist: The Race published an article that basically was like “Is it fair to McLaren that Chip Ganassi called them out but didn’t call Alex Palou out because this is his fault” and that’s stupid for so many reasons. Like did Chip really have to make a statement? Probably not. But was he going to pass up an opportunity to say some mean shit about his nemesis? No lol. But also it makes absolutely no sense for CGR to slam Alex Palou, especially if all of this means that he will stay?

We Actually Don’t Know What is Going On: There was a lot of speculation and opinions from everybody over the weekend about the situation (most of which I cover above) and I think something we should keep it mind is that all we know at this moment is Zak Brown’s version of events (the ex-management company too but uh, I don’t trust anything they say so). There is still so much that we don’t know so while speculation is fine, I think completely writing off Alex Palou should be avoided — it’s honestly probably what Zak Brown wants everybody to do.

I think that sums up what I’ve had rattling around in my brain. I’m up for discussing this whole situation so feel free to send your thoughts my way 🫶🫶🫶

[bronx-bomber87]

First off like to thank @timlucys /chenfordsource for reaching out to me and letting me know how to properly gif credit. Apparently I was not doing that right like at all LOL Apparently there is gif Library that does it for you who knew? haha Thank you again, Nothing I wanna do more than properly thank and credit all the beautiful gifs on this site. Tumblr wouldn't be a thing without all you gif makers so thank you for showing me the ropes yesterday on how to properly tag/credit our hard working gif makers. You being one of them.

Wanted to round out the weekend with one more review.

Off we go onto ep 7!

1x07

‘The Ride along’

The look on Tim’s face when Lucy comes rolling up late LMAO He's checking his watch and doing everything but pacing. His body language is anything but relaxed while he waits. Lucy is doing what she does best....rambling. I love her nervous rants with him. She has zero filter when it comes to him. Makes me so happy haha

He's not in the least amused by her usual charm today haha Tim is definitely edgier than usual. She tries to lighten the mood with her snow joke to no avail. Starting the day off with hard ass Tim it would seem....

Gotta love Lucy's company line reply. Beautiful thing about Lucy. She knows when not to push it with him. Picks her battles as it were. Is very attune to when to fire back. This is not one of those moments. They unfortunately get interrupted by Grey needing to talk to Tim before they head out.

Sadly the reason he's been pulled over is because of Isabel...*sigh* Every time Tim thinks he can breathe, resurface emotionally, and just have a handle on his life Isabel drags him back down. Grey pulling him into his office is heartbreaking. Telling him she’s been arrested for possession/dealing. Eric absolutely kills me with how he conveys what he’s feeling in that moment. I wish there was a gif set of this scene. The minute they bring Isabel in, there is instant concern on Lucy’s face. She’s already gearing up for an emotional battle for Tim.

They make it back to the station after Grey sends them out on patrol. Tim bringing in a guy that clearly didn’t need to be processed. Just so he could be back in processing for an update. Lucy knows this and says she’ll keep an eye out for the detectives for him.

What absolutely kills me about Isabel in this stage is how quickly she can utterly destroy him. Anytime he’s getting his head above water, she’s there to shove him back down. Pains me to watch him get eaten alive emotionally by her. Any conversation he has with her wrecks him. He loves Isabel and it’s actually killing him. The hurt he carries around is on full display in this scene. She is asking the world of him right now. Baiting him with promises of rehab. Manipulating him to help her. The inflection in his tone is so tragic. He's trying so hard to not break.

Once again I applaud Eric for being incredible at his job. He’s wearing his heart on his sleeve while he talks to her. The emotional manipulation she thrusts upon him is brutal to watch. She's saying all the things he's longed to hear. Probably dreamt about the past year or so with her gone. When Tim Bradford loves he loves deeply. Isabel knows he still loves her. So she is very aware he would/could cross this line for her if she begged him to. What she doesn’t realize at this point is how it’ll destroy him if he does. Lucy is watching all this in the distance. It’s written all over her face something is very wrong.

This scene is HUGE. Lucy once again swallowing her fear for him. Standing in front of the raging sun that is Tim. The way he slams that car door and storms over to her. Phew Lord. She is bracing herself for Hurricane Tim, He is ready to chew her a new one. You can see she is not excited for this fight. But she also knows he needs to hear what she has to say. Because if she doesn’t he will do something he will regret forever. She's seen the good in Tim. She can't allow him to take on this burden for Isabel.

Tim my sweet boy she is right in her depth with this. Lucy is spot with her assessment. He does project being rogue with her and she sees through it. Knows his moral compass runs deep. That in the end he would regret compromising it. Even for Isabel. So he lashes out in response because he knows she’s right. Whenever she pegs him like this he defaults to being defensive. Like I've said before he's never had someone fight for him like this. Or stand up to him even when he's being obstinate as hell. Especially when he is.

There is no way Lucy is walking away from this fight. Not before she says her piece. She continues to try and protect him emotionally. By firing back with her caring. He’s never asked this of her but she does it regardless. She can't stand by and watch him destroy his ethics. Just like he could never truly live with himself if he did.

The look on his face after she tells him this. Ugh My heart Tim. She already knows him better than he would like to admit. In the back of his mind Tim knows taking the drugs is only enabling her. When he came back out to his car he sure as hell wasn't expecting to see Lucy there. Not only was she there but she was fiercely battling for his soul. To keep it intact even if he was livid about it. You can see it in his face. The words are registering with him. She’s breaking through a bit.

Even though what she's saying is hitting him, he’s so full of anger and conflict he just walks away from her. Leaving her standing there wondering if she made a difference at all. All she can do is watch him drive away angry and hurting.

Lucy being Lucy wants clear the air about last night. Tim shuts it down right away. Letting her know this isn't to be discussed further. Ah bristly closed off Tim. You’ll get there Lucy keep trying haha I love that she gets to hear about Tim leaving the drugs behind. Grey comes up to report and apologize to Tim they were found in her apt.

Whether he wants to hear it or not she tells him he did the right thing. He’s still conflicted and says ‘Not for Isabel.’ oh Tim.... I think he had crisis of conscience before her arrival. Then when she showed up it only reaffirmed he did the right thing. He was still feeling guilty/conflicted but Lucy helped him decide what he did was right. Even if he was raging about it when she was there.

That final scene with Isabel with Tim hurts my soul. He knows he did the right thing even if she hates him for it. Brutal to watch happen. The tears in his eyes. Oof. Talia and Angela finding him after is so sweet. Just being there for him even when he protests. The Tim Bradford special haha Being good friends just in case he might need them. Love them for it. Taking him out for drinks just what he needs.

~~~~

Side notes.

Not a ton in this ep for me.

Wes’s first episode yay I do love me some Wesley Evers.