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starbuckie · 3 years

Text

𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠

prompt: “you're leo’s ex, who still has feelings for him (duh), and you try to keep your distance from him until you find out that mick beat the shit out of him. then you end up finding yourself on his doorstep, desperately wanting to make sure he's okay :) maybe a lil happy ending with them?” from @bxcketbarnes

pairing: ex!leo reilly x reader

words: 7.1k words

warnings: hurt/comfort, mentions of little violence, fluffy fluff, exes to lovers

summary: this was the problem, over and over and over again. he was reckless and hurt and you loved him too much to not turn up on his front step to fix his scars.

a/n: my darling britt, i’m so sorry that this took so long to post. right now my tags are working so even though you are sleeping, i shall post so you have a nice lil’ fic to wake up to. i ended up writing so much more than i intended, good lord, but i’m not upset about it. i do hope you enjoy this little charmer <3

main masterlist || sebastian stan characters masterlist

“Ignore it,” your roommate glares at the side of your head, piercing emerald eyes boring into every hope and whim you carried inside you. You can’t be angry. You know that she only wants what’s best for you. You know that her restraining you from attacking your opponent is what is best for you.

Across the room from you, your enemy: the periwinkle corded phone hanging against the front wall of your dorm, ringing relentlessly. Each increasingly loud sound that emits from the small box only increases your anxiety, and your mind is tearing apart at the discipline you’re using to not rush over to it. You don’t have to pick up to know who it is. Leo Reilly has been calling you almost every night for the past three months.

And your patience and your will are growing real goddamn thin.

With a pout you let your head fall back in your chair, any part of focus left for your creative writing homework soaring away just as quickly as your inhibitions. “Why, Mary, why is it so difficult to just let him go? He managed to do it pretty damn easily.”

The brunette woman coos at you affectionately from her bed, setting her book beside her to meet the sad sight of you moping from your desk. Her hazel eyes fix on you with sympathy and while you appreciate and adore your friend with all your heart, sympathy is not what you want. Nor what you need. The eyes that scream I’m sorry you’re still not over your ex have been all you received from everyone in your classes for the last three months. “It’s hard, Y/N, I know it is. But Leo Reilly was no good for you. He’s a sweetheart and a great friend,” she sighed, walking over to your leaned back head and playing with your hair gently, “but we all know that he has a little trouble when it comes down to long-term stuff. He just lives for the fun of it all, and so should you.”

You consider her words carefully. By no means are you one to turn down a party, you adore the process of getting ready, slathering yourself in richly scented perfumes and oils that make you glow, and pregaming shots with all your closest friends, yet you aren’t exactly spontaneous. Hookups are a foreign concept to you. The mere thought of not organizing a get-together makes you sick.

But dating Leo Reilly was like a rollercoaster. From the instant he entered your life, he had encompassed you in his sunshine-filled haze, dragging you through pretty drunken nights and rosy smiles in the early morning. Maybe it was because being with him was like inhaling fresh air after being trapped in a hot room or coasting along a highway with every car window open, but he was your great love. No matter what stupid shit he pulled, what he surprised you with, you managed to just fall into his honey-coated trap more and more, following two pretty azure eyes and sweet-slick words. Loving him was the most spontaneous thing you’d ever done, and it was the one thing that you never would have gotten sick of had he not ended it all so suddenly.

No, no, no! Stupid brain, stupid, dumb, heartbroken… heart.

Mary’s first rule of moving on was to think vile, foul, nasty thoughts about your ex. Easier said than done. Leo was a dream, one of those that escape you as soon as you wake up. But you still cling to it months later.

“I don’t know, Mary,” you sigh, bringing yourself down from the fluffy, cream clouds of happy memories, not a single one tainted even after he broke your heart. “Maybe I should hear him out. I mean he was my best friend before we started dating, he deserves at least that bit of explanation.”

“What am I, a piece of flesh?” She rolls her eyes and spins your chair around so you can face her. She sees into your eyes. Into your soul. Mary is scary. “You will not talk to that airhead again, okay? It’s no good for you, Y/N, how many times can I-“

The phone began to ring again with exigency, cutting your friend off effectively. A growl escaped her lips and if her eyes were indicative of her frustration, the phone would be melted into a puddle of liquified periwinkle plastic. “That goddamn phone, I swear I’ll rip it off the damn wall.”

“I’ll mute the phone for now, just so we don’t get any more ringing,” you lie through your own teeth, shooting up from the chair and making quick steps over to the phone. Each glide of your sock-covered feet against the rough carpet makes your heart thrum. The phone immediately starts ringing again after its brief pause, just like it has been doing for the past three months. And for the past three months you’ve been able to ignore his incessant calls without (too much) issue.

Yet now, you make your decision quickly. It’s pretty easy given it’s the one you’ll make over and over again.

Your roommate can see it too and does nothing but groan a pained, “if you get hurt again it’s gonna be all on you, Y/N.” Her feet carry her to her bed where she faceplants and covers her head with a pastel pink pillow, covering her ears in a dramatic fashion. You roll her eyes at the overly exaggerated actions and let your fingers just graze the phone. It’s stupid, to be so afraid of a small box that carries nothing but messages and voice, but to you it’s your greatest rival. Lots of tussles and silent glares have been had with this telephone.

You grasp the phone like a lifeline when the courage finally reaches you. The plastic is cool under your heated skin but you feel as if it’ll slip from your sweaty fingers as soon as you bring it up to your ear. The ringing stops and there’s just quiet, huffing breaths coming through the speaker. The mere thought of him makes you shiver, but not more so than when his voice finally carries through.

“Y/N?” You haven’t heard his voice in so long. The low whine of his words makes your heart churn violently. “‘S it really you?”

A breath catches in your throat. And a whimper escapes. He catches it and you can hear a gulp and sigh before he speaks again.

“C-can you, uh, come over? I need you, baby.” You can hear the phone shift along with his body movements but what really surprises you is the pained groan that comes through the speaker. It’s guttural and that alone sends fear racing through your blood cold. “I need you.”

He doesn’t need to explain himself. He never has, and never will need to because in the end it’s always you who’s running to him. Stretching the cord of the phone out long and tense, you race as far back to your bed as you can to grab a vibrantly-colored scrunchie and your most comforting button up to cover your tank top before answering him with haste.

“I’ll be there, Leo, just hold on, alright? Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be right back over at your house, baby.” He hums softly and you rush back to hang up, struggling to shove your shoes on your feet without having to unlace them.

“Baby?” Mary fixes you with one more disapproving expression, giving herself one last chance to change your mind. Yet she still does nothing to physically restrain you from visiting your ex. She probably knows it’d be fruitless either way. “Just like that you’re all over the moon for him again?”

Your blue Nikes are on and out the door in answer.

The run over to Leo’s is brisk. Early December brings a frosty snow across Upstate New York, capping off the dying bushes and leafless trees. Buildings have a coat of condensation covering their windows, obscuring what you can only hope is a cozier inside. The air has to be well in the low twenties today, you realize as your breath comes out in vapor, dissipating as you walk through it repeatedly. The few people you pass by shiver as they stroll, clutching to their loved ones or wrapping their arms around themselves. However, the light wash jeans and long-sleeve you adorn do pretty well in keeping you warm.

The shirt is one of Leo’s, you realize as soon as you enter his neighborhood. Oversized, a pretty lilac shade, you remember how you’d woken up the morning after you first slept together and stole it from him, forever making it a home in your collection of clothes. When he’d broken up with you he’d never asked for it back- he actually hadn’t asked for a single thing from you. Not that he should’ve, you deserved more than kindness after he abruptly ended the relationship, but still it was sweet. He was sweet.

Still continuing to walk at a quick pace, you find yourself pulling up the collar of the shirt to your nose. Your eyes flutter shut as soon as the scent of Giorgio Beverly Hills fills your nostrils. The cologne has always been a little strong, your man- Leo wasn’t too good at subtlety. However, you suppose that’s just one more reason your heart refused to let the dorky idiot go.

And more importantly, the scent of the cologne, of him, is the only thing keeping you from completely sprinting and sliding across the icy sidewalks to see if he’s okay. Your heart races as you see his house down the road and it’s the spicy sandalwood and carnation flowers that are keeping it from popping out of your damn chest.

You barely realize when you reach his house. It’s right on the edge of the waterfront, water with boats taking up what seems like every crevice of the small port. You’re able to point out his ship pretty easily- it’s a shiny white with pretty navy blue cursive lettering. The day he’d blown nearly a hundred grand on it was the day his mother had had contact with him for the first time in nearly two years, only to yell at him and ask what the hell he was doing with his life. A shudder passes through you at the memory, your fear increasing only more as you ascend the steps of the black wood and brick two story.

He opens the door before you can even knock. A poorly bandaged hand lays dead at his side, nose slightly crooked and a smattering of blood spread across the color of his lime green button up. A pair of rockstar jeans hug his legs that seem to be about the only thing of him that isn’t busted up. Wild, blond hair looks as though it’s been pulled and dragged through the dirt, sticking up in different directions, yet it doesn’t deter you from almost crying at the mere look of him. And the sight of his pretty, lit up, cerulean eyes when he sees you for the first time in three months is what makes you whimper, nearly knocking the air out of your lungs.

Even through his injuries, he has the audacity to hit you with one of those smirks. The one where the right side of his mouth lifts up and you can see his smile, pearly teeth grinning at you with oozing boyish charm. His wide eyes get a little bigger when they roll over the old shirt of his you adorn. So it’s even more audacious of him to ask, before you can check in on his physical state, “that my Ralph Lauren button-up?”

Out of all the things you expected him to say, that was not one of them. You feel burning heat prickling at your pores despite the freezing weather and you begin to pluck and pull at the thick material, wishing in the very moment that it would burn up in flames and vanish from your body. But then you would be left in your tight tank top. Oh God, you don’t think you’d be able to handle that heated look of lust he used to hit you with when he wanted sex. You’d give in far too easily.

You knew that he was going to bring it up and it still throws you off guard. “Y-yeah,” you finally meet his fond gaze, throwing him a tiny but genuine smile when you see his own. It’s truly infectious. “I guess you just forgot it when you left.”

The memory of what he actually did forces a cloud of self disappointment to wash over his previous joy in seeing your face. And you look just as pretty as he’s dreamed for the lonely three months after he left you, even as your eyebrows furrow and your lips sour into a pout.

Leo has no right to feel remorse for what he did to you. He made his choice and that afternoon you had begged for an explanation and wishfully hoped for one, but right now, in front of him, with the sheer amount of audacity and shit he’d pulled within the short minute of you standing cold on the welcome mat, you’re a little short of pissed off.

You gently brush past him as you walk into the house, the comfort of the living room fireplace warming your bones. It looks… a lot worse than the last time you’d been there. Bottles are strewn lazily around across the floor, cards thrown across the table like a game had been rudely, violently, interrupted. The table too, is also being balanced with a stack of books and magazines under two broken legs, and you wonder what fucking incident forced a mess of that severity.

Leo must notice the confusion and worry in your eyes as he speaks. “Sorry ‘bout the mess,” he sounds sheepish when you turn back to him, his good hand pulling at his shirt like he’s embarrassed. “I think you know it usually looks better.”

He normally does good in keeping his house neat. Or he did at least when you were together. He’s always been rich and he enjoyed splurging on nice things to decorate and treat himself too, yet one thing you’d learned about him in your year of dating was that he enjoyed cleaning. Sometimes you’d wake up in the late morning, skin all warm and sticky from a good night of slumber, and he’d be standing with a pair of sweats on in the closet next to the bed, rearranging his ties by designer. So the sight of the worsened state of the house has you a tiny bit worried for what he’s been facing the past few months since he’d been out of your life.

“What the hell happened in here? It looks like it got rowed over by a bulldozer,” you comment with shock evident in your features.

It doesn’t take him long to respond, just a simple deep sigh, like he’s a disappointed father of two kids who got caught trying to steal cookies straight from the oven. “I invited Charlie and Mick and some of the other boys from their chemistry class over to play poker this morning. Mick ‘s, uh, he’s-”

You know Mick Leary. He’s an asshole. Hit on you so many times while you were dating Leo and touched you in ways far too inappropriate. More importantly, you know that Leo hates him. They had a few physical fights in which you’d played the dutiful role of doctor and patched him up after. And being the ever-so sweet boy he was, Leo never said a thing afterwards. He tried to be accommodating to the idiot’s needs and insults, but you always were able to see right through him.

“Mick is an asshole, Leo, you don’t have to pretend with me.” You grumble, crossing your arms at the thought of the disgusting bully.

The blond laughs, giving you a fond grin as he acknowledges your bluntness. “Yeah, he is, I’m not gonna lie about that to you. But he didn’t have the money to pay up for what he’d lost by the end of the fourth round when I pointed it out,” he holds out his bandaged arm with difficulty, “and Mick, uh, he beat the shit outta me.”

You wanna beat the right shit out of Mick yourself for laying a hand on Leo again. But you can’t do that. Apparently he’s run away (yet again) from his anger issues, but you know he’ll be back in about a month or two. He’s been doing this since last year, neither of you know how he hasn’t been expelled yet. So the least you can do for now (and for yourself), is to take care of Leo’s injuries and then immediately leave before you pull any more good memories of your relationship with him from your heart.

“Well, we’re gonna get you in the shower before I clean you up, stud,” you calmly respond.

It’s his response that manages to throw you off guard.

“Are you going to be joining me?” Your mouth falls open at the question. Is he being serious right now? “I only have one working arm right now and my hair could use some loving hands.”

He is being serious. The situation is too ridiculous. Yet you still feel yourself wanting to join him, your heart lurching at the thought of being in such closeness. Down girl. You can’t be foolish like that so you chuckle sharply. Leave it to Leo Reilly to simply have the audacity.

“I think you’ll manage, baby,” the pet name sends a thrill through him and he follows you like a puppy when you begin to walk away. “Might I also say that you seem spritely for someone who seemed to be groaning a whole lot over the phone earlier,” you gently accuse as you make your way upstairs to his bathroom.

Immediately a pained, wretched sound leaves his lips and you have to hide your smile by looking down. But he knows that you think it’s funny anyways. You always laugh at his jokes, and that’s why he fell in love with you.

He offers your room to sit down in while he showers in the bathroom next door. Even after a long period of time, his room looks exactly the same as the last time you saw it. From the navy blue comforter and the collage of his near six full years worth of college memories splayed across the wall. You’re featured in many of those. The same pair of Prada sunglasses you’d bought him last Christmas sit on the bedside table, along with your favorite photo of the two of you. It causes your heart to ache even more.

If Leo notices your thrown-off expression he sure doesn’t say anything. In fact, he seems calm as ever as he grabs a few articles of clothing (you notice one of your old, oversized, plush bathrobes you’ve been missing amongst the armfull) and dawdles out of the door into the bathroom next door.

The water starts up and you can hear when the curtain opens, and those first few moments are quiet. Like, actually quiet. It’s ambiance, silent nature and the pure feeling that you don’t have to do a thing until he steps back in the room. Fingers fiddle with everything as time gets to you- with his old shirt you wear, the sheets on the bed, your hair, until you can’t find one more thing to mess with and decide to take a closer look at the one thing you’ve been eyeing up since the moment you got here.

The picture on the nightstand is one of the only images that is good quality. The rest thrown around his room are either polaroids or cheaply printed out photocopies he got from the convenience store next to the science department back at school for twenty cents. But he has this memory of you framed like a goddess on this nightstand, pure, innocent love captured in an engraved glass frame.

You’re kissing him. Kissing him good. God damn it, you’re practically devouring his face and you can practically feel the way you’d pushed and tangled your tongue with his, and you can almost see the photos you took after this one with your pretty rose lipstick smeared all over his face. On a sunny spring afternoon, he’d brought you out on the boat, overseeing the waters and greenery of Upstate New York. A simple charcuterie board had been demolished within minutes but none of that mattered, not when Leo tasted like strawberry champagne and had pressed his weight into you while kissing your smile so deeply that he just had to capture the moment with his camera. You spend so long remembering this that you don’t even notice how the water has shut off and the other presence at the doorway, leaning against it and admiring how you admire the memory.

He catches you longingly staring at the photo of your kiss on the boat picnic and his heart clenches. He misses you too much. It’s painful. Every night he spends tossing awake in the blankets of his bed, reaching out for a cold that only shocks him every time because you’re not there beside him. No longer can he wake you up with a cup of Earl Gray tea and pumpkin pancakes that his nanny taught him to make, no more shopping trips into the city and spoiling you like the princess he knows you secretly are. There’s no more kissing you on boats and lazy makeouts on the pool table in the family room and it’s all his fault in the end. So he looks over at you with one more fond look in his blue eyes, letting them glaze over only a little bit as he keeps your own fondness over the pictured memory in your heart.

“Hey, Y/N,” he calls and you swiftly turn around, heat crawling up your body at being caught. “I’m, uh, ready for your help, Doc.”

You smile at the little jab to your career choice. “Alright, patient, let’s get you stitched up.”

He freezes as you trail behind him, turning back to you for a glance. “I-I’m not actually gonna need stitches… right?”

“No,” you laugh, “though that hand needs to be way better bandaged. I’d be surprised if you don’t get an infection.”

The air of the bathroom is humid as you walk in, condensation dripping down the fancy framed mirror and smelling like piña colada three in one shampoo. He’s got an array of random medical supplies spread across the counter as he hops up next to them, a bright smile on his face. The fluffy blue robe (yours) is draping off his shoulders and he’s wearing a Phil Collins concert shirt with a pair of striped boxers underneath it. He looks much better, fresh and clean- the blood has gone away, and with the nose clear, you can see that it’s not too bruised and the crookedness isn’t even as bad as before.

Searching through his stock, you find the rubbing alcohol, bandages, gauze, and Neosporin. His injuries, while less painful looking now, will still need lots of TLC and lots of cotton swabs.

“How’s life been?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know that you’ve been more miserable than him. His nature is to always try and lighten the mood and while it used to be one of your favorite things about him, currently it’s just making you anxious. You don’t actually have a good reason for why.

You snort and do nothing but focus on the strip of fabric as it wraps tightly around the space between his thumb and pointer finger. “Not much. I got turned down for my semester abroad in Puerto Rico, the one to help deliver babies.” He recalls you applying for that earlier in the summertime, when all he wanted to do was stare at you in pretty, expensive bikinis and kiss you in the pool. But he’d encouraged you to do it either way. “‘S okay though because it means I can start my med training earlier. I’m pretty stoked about that.”

That takes him a little by surprise. Because he knows you’re crazy smart- you’ve helped him out with essays and studying more than he ever helped you in a year of a relationship- but this is something new. You’re further ahead than two thirds of your class, and though he knows he has no right to, he feels a sense of pride for his girl getting that far ahead. “That’s totally rad, Y/N,” he grins with genuinity, “I’m really happy for you. ‘S there anything else going on, smartypants, or is it just becoming a hero for you right now?”

You scoff at his compliment, but your cheeks heat up nonetheless. “Well, for the past three months there’s also been some psycho calling me and Mary’s room constantly, I almost had to keep her from ripping our phone out of the wall this morning.”

“‘M sorry about that,” you hum in acknowledgement. The apology is almost worse than the moment he broke up with you, but you get through it anyway. Once again, the faster you get done patching him up, the faster you get to run away from everything you’re feeling. But he just has to make it more difficult. And you just have to be curious.

“Why do you do it Leo?” Your words are calm as you bandage him up, but just as piercing and sharp as if you were yelling at him. Your frustration comes through just the same. “You broke up with me. You don’t get to call at two in the morning every night for three months, that’s supposed to be me.”

It’s pathetic and just as petty, you know, but you really can’t help but to wonder why. You were happy. You thought you were at least. A year may have seemed too short and naive to fool around and fall in love, especially when you were fresh out of highschool, but Leo was it for you. It could’ve been ten different storybooks, each starring the two of you, and the ending would be the same every time- Prince Leo would carry you off into the sunset on a majestic black horse, kissing you with everything in his being just like he always had. Never were you able to see one of those happily ever afters ending up like this.

“I know I don’t have a right to feel upset about this, baby,” he begs for you to ease your glare, but you’re relentless. You may have fallen through on your strength by showing up to his door but you’ll be damned if you let him charm his way back into your arms so easily. As soon as he sees that you’re not going down without a fight, he relents, only slightly. “It was stupid and idiotic and I was scared of what…”

His refusal to finish his sentence pisses you off, and at the same time fuels your curiosity only more. You have the right to know why he broke up with you so easily.

“Of what, Leo? You’re the golden boy on campus. I literally haven’t met a single person who hasn’t wanted to be with you or be you, and that’s all you’ve ever needed to get along. What the hell were you so scared of that you had to break me?” You hope he can hear the desperation in your voice, the near spiral of insanity you’ve been sent into on the downlow ever since that day.

“I couldn’t have you leave me,” he admits, tracing his thumb over your cheekbone and down your heated skin. And your chest hurts with his words. “You’re smart and pretty and young, and I’m old, Y/N. Older than you. You’re a sophomore and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I mean you’re gonna be a pediatrician, already starting med classes just a few months into your third semester.”

He chuckles almost in a self deprecating way, letting his hand fall from your skin. A barely noticeable whine leaves you as soon as his touch leaves you. “I had to repeat a year. Freshman. Supposed to be the easiest one, and, well,” he sighs with pure sadness, “I managed to even fuck that up. I’m a fuckin’ failure, sweetheart, and I’m fuckin’ old. When I compare it to everything you’ve done with your life, it just…”

He trails off near the end of his sentence, hoping you’ll understand, and you do. You hate the fact that you know exactly what he’s trying to communicate to you.

Because what a fucking excuse it is. He has the gall to pity himself so much that he broke your heart in the process? What a fucking idiot. Yet your chest still falters when you hear the sheer sadness in his voice. It brings the crack in your heart just a little closer to completely shattering into pieces. His parents weren’t the most supportive of his endeavors, they were absent and judgemental when the time came they actually spoke to him, but he had tried. He was trying. You know him and you knew that his heart was always in the right place, though his trouble in understanding and catching up in some of his academics was what really broke you.

But you only scoff, swatting his unbruised arm with your own hand before resuming to fix him up. It’s better to leave the things he wants to say unsaid, especially because you know they aren’t true.

“You’re five years older than me, Leo, don’t make it seem like you’re over a hundred.” Searching through the piling mess of cleaning materials, you find the gauze and Band-Aids, setting a few of them to the side before you begin to apply them to his wounds. “I wish you would’ve just talked to me about this. Could’ve helped you. Could’ve gotten us-” you pause and take a deep, shaky breath before continuing. Today, right now is not the time to be dwelling on what ifs. Those seem like a possibility far away, but with Leo’s warm breath fanning over the soft skin of your face, you can’t be sure of anything. He makes it hard to focus. Your dream boy. “Could’ve gotten you through this easily and I would’ve told you that you’ve never been a failure. Not to me.”

The fast beating of your heart rings in your ears as you refuse to meet his eyes, but feel them roaming your face in wonder. “I always thought of you as my hero, really. My Prince Charming,” you chuckle a bit, swiping the rubbing alcohol pad over the open cut on the bridge of his nose once more as he winces. You blow cold air onto it and Leo can’t help but stare at your puckered lips, painted over in a bright pink gloss. He wonders if you put it on just for him. He hopes you did. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to finish college, ‘cause that never was and never will be something I use to define your worth.”

You place the bandage on his nose, covering the cut and ultimately fighting the urge to kiss the tip of it, just to make it feel better of course. He still has injuries upon injuries left on his body- you’ve just scraped the surface by cleaning up his nose and placing an ice pack on his bruised hand, still purple and red from his attempt at roughing Mick up.

Your eyes linger on his remaining injuries before returning to his face, only to find him staring at you already, adoration laced into his expression. You know what this means. You’ve seen the hint of a dopey smile, the flirtatious bright eyes, his tongue running along the expanse of his lower lip because it was the look he’d always given you before apologizing for something. Right after another night where he got a bit too drunk and he would drag you back to this very house, his favorite salmon pink blazer wrapped around your shoulders as he’d pull you in by your belt loops and kiss you until you were putty in his arms. It reminds you of better times, this does, but even with those fond memories, you know you can’t do this.

“Don’t do this, Leo,” you whisper, your eyes pleading him to either stay or to go, you don’t know which. Because you want and need both. Your blood rushes as you long to grab him closer, but to also smack him in the face and cry, telling him how stupid he was to let his unresolved, unspoken insecurities creep upon him in the form of pure, true heartbreak. “Please.”

But then he whimpers your name. Neither of you notice until his free hand is brushing your hip, but he’s leaning in. Getting lost in the depth only found in the eyes of true love, the pull is undeniable. Just a few millimeters up and you’re kissing him. Leo Reilly. The man who has been the object of your affections since the beginning of your freshman year, the man who your heart belongs to still a year and a half later. He never really lost it in the first place.

“Baby…” Your hands find purchase on his jean-clad thighs, squeezing gently as his eyes flutter shut. You can feel each individual lash brush your face before the sweet reverie ends.

No. Absolutely not. This has only ended in one way, always. With sweaty, tangled limbs, a fullness thrumming strong below your stomach, but an emptiness just above it in your dulling heart. You may have fallen through your resolve once to pick up his call and to come over, but what you will not do is stay the night.

So your body betrays your true desires, pushing Leo’s good shoulder away from where he’s getting too close to comfort, grabbing the glass of whiskey that sat on the counter and downing the rest of it in hopes that it’ll wash the last forty-five minutes away. Craving for a splash of that carefree courage and pure mindlessness you get from the rush of it all. But it seems that the young Reilly’s alcohol fails to deliver- for the first time ever.

Instead, you turn your back to him without another word, leaving him sitting on the counter with the bright blue eyes you love so much dimmed.

Tears brim at your gaze as you look into the guest bedroom, the elegant yet empty charm of it taking your breath away again, just like the first time you laid your eyes on it. At some point in time you imagined your kids growing up in this room. Maybe it was a naive, foolish thought. You hadn’t even finished college and you were already planning a whole future with the man you’d been dating for a year. But you knew love. Well, you thought you did at some point.

And that little childish part of you still thrives and strongly pulls at your heart and begs you to take Leo back.

“Don’t you miss this, baby- miss us?” You don’t push him away as his arms hesitantly surround your waist, his breath blowing the small baby hairs around the base of your neck against your all too suddenly heated skin.

“I don’t wanna get hurt again, Leo,” you whisper, tears caught up in your voice. You're just thankful he can’t see how pathetic of a mess you really are in his arms. “I can’t do it again, ‘s too much hurt.”

“I know what you wanted, baby,” he speaks into your hair as your body freezes with cold realization. He senses your fear and he massages the skin of your hips “I wanted to marry you so bad. Promised myself that as soon as I graduated I’d buy you a ring. And then I’d be able to give you everything you ever wanted.”

The ghost of two little kids with your eyes running around the spacious room fade away just as easily as they appeared, and you know he’s referring to that kind of want. It was something you thought you kept well hidden, but he knew you. Apparently not enough to know that the only thing you’d ever needed was for him to love you unconditionally.

“Nothing ever beat you, Leo.” Your face heats up with his words. Pressure was something that he didn’t deal well with. Were your fantasies his pressure? Were you the bane of his stress? God, you hoped not. “I-I don’t need all that to be happy, I never needed that to be happy with you because I already was happy. Your love was more than enough.”

“Then why don’t you come take it again?” He spins you around like a princess, holding you with such delicacy and poise that you feel like one too. His eyes bore into your own with ferocity, but unlike those you’ve known before, they’re full of tears and pleading. Of unspoken apologies and more importantly, they scream I love you. After all, you know him just as well as he knows you. “I will never stop loving you. I don’t know how many phone calls or date nights or whatever it is that you want it’ll take to get you back, but I’ll do whatever it takes, princess. You’re all I’ve ever needed. You’re the only one I’ve wanted.”

The damn breaks loose, as do your inhibitions and your truth. The truth is simple- you love Leo, and much like him, you’ll never stop. You never really did.

Tears run down your face, but they aren’t full of agony anymore. Heartbreak is soothed over with this peace of mind you gained, the crack in your heart sewed back together with the way he whispers princess. “We’ll take this slow,” you grin, biting back the large smile you really want to as his eyes light up. He doesn’t hold back his pure happiness, fat drops of his ebullience rolling down his face as he presses his forehead to yours. It’s intimate and close and real and something you missed and longed for. His touch lit up your skin with fire, but the fireplace kind of fire, warmth and comforting and familiar. That’s what Leo was to you. “It’s going to take a while to adjust. It has been three months, and it’s gonna be awhile ‘til I can trust you again.”

Your nose nudges his, smiles mirroring each other as giddiness slowly but surely overtakes him. “Whatever you need, baby,” he answers immediately, responsive and accommodating each and every whims of yours. “I’ll give you a ring, I swear, one day.” You whisper something about how that’s the exact opposite of taking it slow, but you don’t really mean it. If he dropped to his knee and proposed in three seconds time you’d say yes. He playfully rolls his eyes at the truth of your statement still. “We’ll still wait until after I graduate, which might take a while considering this is my second senior year, but God, one day I’ll marry you, I swear it.” He’s never been so charming as in this moment, sweeping you off your feet like in all your storybook fantasies and stealing your heart in the process.

“I can help you out- tutor you maybe, you know? Speed up the process a little bit.” You suggest softly with a grin, grabbing him around the waist even tighter as you stain his own cheeks with your tears, salt and unadulterated joy leaking from your eyes and mixing with his. A full smile finally takes over your lips, wide and stretched, breaking those pearly whites out for the first time in three long months. “I’m somewhat of a scholar myself.”

He groans at your little burst of cockiness, but he loves it because he has you back. He missed you more than anything. Missed the smartass side of you mostly though. With his large hands he squeezes your hips and pecks your nose chastely, knowing that the both of you wish for more than just that. But he's not going to mess this up, he can’t because you’re his lifeline and all he has left and he can’t spend one more minute without being encompassed by the thrill of your love. So he takes it slow. “Let me get another drink before you start with all your smart science shit, baby.”

As he turns to go grab the bottle of Riesling he’s been planning on splitting with you if he was ever lucky enough to get you back, you slap his ass and take childish happiness in the way he yelps in surprise. Your hands curl over his shoulders and run down his slender chest before he surprises you himself by turning around and lifting your chin with just three fingers, capturing your lips in what has to be the world’s best reunion.

Your laughs taste better than any alcohol he’s ever been able to get his hands on, a high rushing through him like he’s never experienced from full house parties or running midnight in the freezing ocean. Because your love will always melt him at the end of the day. And he will always be your savior. He is your Prince Charming, after all.

He groans into your mouth and you allow his tongue to caress your lips open. A symphony of pure harmonious care and adoration surrounds you. Your hands card through the short curly blond hair that sits wet and unkempt on his head, tugging when he nips at your bottom lip. His arms tighten around your waist to pull you in closer to his body, molding your skin together like puzzle pieces just slotting together in the most pleasing way. There’s nothing remotely sexual about it because it’s just love. You are in love.

It looks like you’ll end up staying the night after all.

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x reader #leo reilly #leo reilly x reader #𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠

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