#most of all i love you ridiculously long fall out boy song titles

[sugaryplum]

haunted

pairing: theodore nott x fem!reader summary: “i hold on to every ounce of sin / i know he don't love me quite like i love him / i swear to myself as he leaves at dawn / this will end, 'til he haunts me again” warnings: (strong) sexual innuendos, language mistakes, this is for the angst girlies (i personally don’t consider myself an angsty girlie but gosh, i’m so proud of this little fic, i might as well become one), i mean, angst is what i imagined but i don’t know how it came out. +i pretty much only read fluff so this is just something new! notes: inspired by the song “haunted” by laufey, hence the title. i’m actually obsessed with laufey and with this song especially!!! i couldn’t recommend her music more, please LISTEN TO LAUFEY. also, let’s settle something important. the plot of this is at the yule ball but the characters are not fourteen omg. let’s pretend it’s an annual event or something and everyone is aged up please please please

the moon is already shining, as you're going through the empty hallways towards the great hall. it’s the fastest you can go without tripping over your long dress. merlin knows, you’re most likely going to trip over it anyway, if not now then later tonight.

you’d like to say you’re “fashionably late”. but the truth is, you spent way too long putting on red lipstick and then struggling to take it off when you decided it’s not for you. it’s not like anyone particular is waiting for you. there’s no date. in the past month you declined every single invitation that came your way, secretly longing for someone else to ask you. your eyes always focused on theodore. he’s your heavenly affair, your boy.

the problem is, he’s your boy only in the sheets, only at night. only when you’re beneath him, breathing out sweet nothings while he’s softly whispering your name.

and here you are, late, without a date, longing once again. the crowd smells like different perfume notes mixing. all belong to different pretty girls, all trying to catch the attention of different pretty boys.

you don’t want to be one of them. you don’t want to have to be one of them. yet even now, with the loud music and sparkly lights and dancing bodies, it takes you only seconds to spot him from across the room. looking as handsome as ever, dressed in some suit that is probably ridiculously expensive. but it serves him well, that's what he would say. he’s talking to a beautiful girl in a green dress. he doesn't notice you and somehow you still feel the butterflies in your stomach. or maybe it’s knots? maybe it’s not a good feeling at all.

you spend the next hour wandering from corner to corner, eating pink macarons and drinking sugary–sweet punch. you don’t flinch at the taste of alcohol, remembering the last time you visited theo he said something about enchanting drinks at the ball. it was vague. everything he says is vague but you still fall for it helplessly. over analysing every word, glance, brush of shoulders. romanticising every faintest hint of a smile, telling yourself he might love you just like you love him.

a ravenclaw boy, one of those you previously declined, asks you to dance and soon enough you get tangled into the crowd. it’s nice for a few moments. you don’t feel any confetti exploding inside you, your cheeks aren’t burning so pleasantly like when theodore touches you. but you feel nice, you feel safe. and when you get comfortable with someone else, that’s when he finally notices you.

“him?” you’re breathless when you turn around to see theo. his face is emotionless and he looks so gorgeous, you’re already swooned. “who?”

“the guy you were just dancing with, is he your date?”

“...he’s not.” you want to fight, say something mean, try to make him feel like he makes you feel all the damn time, but you can’t. when he’s standing in front of you, you crumble.

“do you wanna get out of here?”

the next thing you know, you’re being pressed against the wall of your dormitory, eyes closed. he tastes like wine, where did he get wine? his hair is so soft and oh, when he’s kneeling in front of you, leaving bruises on your thighs, you think you could marry him on the spot. he’s yours for the night and in the short moments between kisses you get to pretend that it’s forever.

he leaves in the dawn without saying goodbye. like a ghost, he always visits, but he’s never meant to stay. you move to the side of the bed where he was laying just minutes ago, pillow still warm, scent still lingering. you sigh and close your eyes, starting to count down the days ‘til he haunts you again.

[jiminy-crickets]

make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then, tag as many people as you have wips.

Aaaaughhhhh @nightshadehasblorbos omg tytyty I can’t wait to info dump about my beloved WIPs

I’m tagging @mercurymilkcap (ty bestie for letting me yap at you about my fics) and @v8mpvrse (again ty for letting me yap) and literally anyone else who wants to do this <3

Obsessed

Mattdrai with past mcdrai, takes place from 2018 to the november 20th Edmonton Florida Game of this last season, it’s a song fic based off of Obsessed by Olivia Rodrigo, and it is from Matthew’s POV as he spends YEARS feeling like a bad boyfriend for obsessing over Leon and Connor’s long since ended ‘friends with benefits’ esque situationship, but it’s mostly about just falling in love how how to be a good boyfriend when you are both closeted public figures who have to keep up appearances of being rivals, and surviving long distance and what it’s like when you haven’t even met each others parents because you can’t come out because your father is a blabermouth with a history of hating you for being gay, the mortifying ordeal of coming out to your teammates and having them think you are actually dating your boyfriends ex, and figuring out how many ways you can have phone sex to forget about the thousands of kilometres between you and the love of your life.

Winners room trope exploration

It’s what it says on the tin, this is a doc with a bunch of half finished ideas, and outlined one shots exploring the logistical side of winners room verse, I made up a fun new job position “player health coordinator” who on paper are essentially health advocates for players and make sure that the team doctor is acting in the players best interest not the teams, but do double duty as being the people who organize rooms, and make sure the rules and followed and enforced. Also they gossip with each other and have a group chat where they are like ‘XYZ is being a little bitch lately, do NOT let him in rooms with dudes who are doormats, it will NOT end well” and “please remind visitors to XYZ arena that the room has shut sound insulation, the things I have heard would make a sailor blush” but these fics are mostly just like explorations of the culture around rooms, what teams let the winners pick? What teams pull straws? What is it like when you are dating someone and you meet them in the rooms? What players do people never pick from unspoken rules? What’s it like as a rookie? Etc etc etc

Lake House: Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate

This is my baby!!!! Quinn/Brady “secret dating” (everyone knows) the title kiss me over the garden gate is a type of flower that Quinn grows in the garden Brady made for him at the lake house <3 it’s about being tender and domestic and in love with your boyfriend of almost a decade for the short amount of time you have together before you need to go back to other sides of the continent and separated by five timezones… it’s also about how a LOT of queer teens/young adults want families, kids, white picket fence etc etc, and how it can seem impossible to achieve and how being closeted public figures who lives across the country from your LONG TERM boyfriend is hell, and how some days it seems like you will never get the life you want with one annother…. But mostly this fic is about Brady and Quinn being gross and sappy and in love and Jack, Luke and Matthew third wheeling them and they can’t even say “ew you guys are gross and in love and we hate third wheeling yall” because they made a pact when they realized Brady and Quinn were dating that they would let them come out when they were ready… but they made that pact seven years ago and oh my GOD can they be ready to come yet???

I know what boys like

Sid being a dude magnet at clubs and being all coy and not actually letting them hit because he’s a TEASE (and a closet case) and also because it’s MUCH much more entertaining to make dudes think they are about to hook up with Sidney Crosby then go “this is was fun… bye” before hopping in the closest taxi and speeding away to go jack off in his hotel room. Anyways he tries this trick with Colby and Colby is having NONE of it he’s like “sid!! I know your tricks I am wise to them!!! You cannot do this to me, I won’t let you!!!” Sid does however succeed in making Colby think they are gonna hook up… and they do!!! And it’s very sweet <3 (song fic based off of I know what boys like by the waitresses)

Guess

I’m not 10000% sure on the pairing, but… the vibes are telling me it’s two leafs, this is yet another song fic based off of guess by Charli xcx, and it’s very much living upto the chorus “you wanna guess the colour of my underwear, you wanna know what I got going on down there, is it pretty in pink or all see through? Is it showing off my brand new lower back tattoo? You wanna put it in your mouth, pull it all down south, you wanna turn this shit out that’s what I’m talking about, you wanna try it bite it lick it spit it pull it to the side and get all up in it, wear em post em might remix it send it to the dare yeah I think he’s with it” and “guess how much money I just took from this deal, guess the password to my google drive, you wanna guess the adresse of the party I’m at, you wanna guess if I’m serious about this song” basically player A just told player B that he’s about to sign a new deal (player A and B are in a FWB situation) and player B is like ‘let’s go out let’s celebrate!!’ And so they do… and right before they get into the Uber to head out player A sends player B a photo of a messy ‘someone just rummaged through here” drawer of panties and poor poor player B spends the entire evening hard and wanting to KNOW what player A is wearing but he can’t ask because ya know closeted athletes in a major hockey market and people eavesdropping, anyways it ends with player B indeed trying, biting, licking, spitting, wearing, pulling to the side and getting all up in player A’s panties.

Girl at home (mcdrai edition)

Wow shock and surprise yet annother song fic, though this one is more playfull teasing based off of the title then actually based on the song (girl at home by taylor swift) its mcdrai (oh and it’s called “mcdrai edition” because years ago I started… and abandoned [sorry to the ao3 commenter who was exited to read the rest] a Sidon/Zelda/Link fic based off of the same song) with background Edmonton polycule, and it’s right after the WCF and Connor is making big puppy eyes at Leon to kiss him in the locker room and Leon is all ‘it’s gonna be so embarrassing to pay a PDA fine as the captain, smh Lauren is gonna be mad if she isn’t the first one to kiss you after that goal’ and Connor is like ‘oh please we both know her and Cel are up in the box three white claws deep dry humping each other infront of the other WAGs’ and Leon is like ‘hehe yeah <3 they areeee <3’ and then they do kiss because Leon is powerless against Connor’s puppy eyes.

Kevin/Connor nesting fluff

Everyone give @pwhl-mybeloved a big round of applause because these two WIPs would NOT be possible without Mary indulging my Connor brainrot and bouncing ideas about how weird and funny he is. Anywaysss THIS fic is gonna put the ‘non traditional’ part of the ‘non traditional A/B/O dynamics’ tag to work lmao, basically in this world being an alpha or an omega is a vestigial trait, and 90% of people will never know what/if they are one, and heats and ruts are most commonly brought on my stress and lifestyle changes… and Connor breaking his jaw and being hopped the fuck up on painkillers send him into heat. But again its not a traditional omegaverse heat, plus the fact that he’s on hella painkillers he just makes himself a nest in the shooting room at the practice facility (using whatever things and gear he found around the facility) and camps himself out sleeping, walking up and practicing as much as the trainers allow him, and drinking protein smoothies, Kevin tries to get his sweater back from Connors nest and Connor is VERY firm on that not happening, but he does let Kevin in to cuddle and they chat and nap, and it’s very sweet and fluffy and Connor is high and passively horny so he’s just happy someone is taking care of him without telling him “no Connor you can’t practice big shots! No Connor you can’t skate!!”

Road Roomies (it’s not gay if I don’t kiss you)

Yet annother Connor/Kevin fic we all can thank @pwhl-mybeloved for, this one was gonna be a simple one shot… and then it grew… a lot. I think I can still make it work as a one shot but it’s gonna be LONG. And yeah, it’s road roommates + masturbation based hockey superstition/ritual + the mortifying ordeal of being on a team that fucking sucks and they keep looking at the new kid to fix it + having a crush on the one person you really fucking shouldn’t (x2) + how to come out when you have spent the last few road games jacking off in proximity to one annother + miscommunication (very brief though, because I don’t like miscommunication as a trope) and then to quote my outline “they just fall into bed and exchange sweet puppy love big cow eyes looking at each other tender kisses on the others nose soft and sweet handjobs”

Muahahahaha I love yapping about my WIPs <333333 yippeeeee

[writingmochi]

! “wip challenge #2” tag game !

rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips.

tagged by: viv via @oiwxa !! this will be interesting because of the updates between this and the first iteration (+ the addition of ateez)~ thank you so much for the tag!!

note: like last time, i will differentiate it between in the list and not in the list! maybe just talking about it makes me motivated to do them lmao + i won't do the member count and instead do the description just like what viv did

be prepare for how long this will be. i apologize for this (but do i if you guys want to read it?)

in the list

ATEEZ

[] spirit phone (seonghwa) - "have you ever heard of the fifth beatle? what if this happens in kpop too? ateez is a seven-membered boy group from south korea, but there is a rumored eighth member that seems to not exist..."

TXT

[] we are dreamers (taehyun and hueningkai) - 4 weeks to go before graduation!

[] blitz storm (ot5) - txt meets the umbrella academy? now that is a mess

[] murder by numbers (soobin) - what if you're with soobin in a slasher movie situation?

[] alternative (beomgyu) - a festival in 1992 was where beomgyu, a grunge guitarist, meets y/n, a shoegaze bassist

ENHYPEN

[] chromaquest (enhypen maknae line) - the journey in the nether plane to find the seven bands to complete the band of iris

[] the sun, the moon, and the eclipse (jay) - tangled meets assassin's creed? yes, please!

[] terra incognita (jake) - 2050 neo seoul. two opposites sides meeting to converse in the middle

[] menari dengan bayangan (ot7) - inspired by my favorite indonesian indie album, all stories will only be set in a one 24-hour time window [only putting titles!]

evakuasi (sunoo)

besok mungkin kita sampai (niki)

untuk apa / untuk apa? (sunghoon)

secukupnya (jake)

membasuh (jay)

rumah ke rumah (jungwon)

evaluasi (heeseung)

OTHERS

[] smirch (txt and enhypen 01-03 liners) - this has been going on since 2022. take a chance on it, pls! [only putting titles!]

episode 3 (taehyun)

episode 4 (sunoo)

episode 5 (beomgyu)

episode 6 (jake)

episode 7 (kai)

episode 8 (sunghoon)

[] loveless (txt ot5 & enhypen hyung line) - a love letter to loveless, my bloody valentine, and the shoegaze genre [only putting titles!]

only shallow (sunghoon)

loomer (jay)

when you sleep (hueningkai)

i only said (soobin)

come in alone (jake)

sometimes (beomgyu)

blown a wish (taehyun)

what you want (heeseung)

soon (yeonjun)

not in the list

[] frequency modulation (ateez, txt, enhypen) - an anthology series based on my favorite radiohead songs [only putting titles!]

high and dry (sunghoon)

fake plastic trees (san)

just (wooyoung)

my iron lung (hongjoong)

airbag (jungwon)

paranoid android (hueningkai)

subterranean homesick alien (soobin)

karma police (jay)

climbing up the walls (seonghwa)

lucky (jongho)

man of war (yeonjun)

how to disappear completely (taehyun)

motion picture soundtrack (heeseung)

pyramid song (yeosang)

knives out (beomgyu)

15 step (mingi)

bodysnatchers (niki)

reckoner (sunoo)

house of cards (yunho)

jigsaw falling into place (jake)

[] laurel hell (heeseung) - yes, this is the heeseung college au baby daddy fic and mc LOVES mitski!

[] untitled (txt ot5) - the jonathan larson stories series. inspired by rent and tick, tick... boom. set in early 90s new york

[] synchronicity (txt and enhypen 02 liners) - inspired by five tracks from the police's synchronicity album

[] untitled #2 (ateez 99 liners) - inspired by the b-sides to seulgi's 28 reasons album

[] untitled #3 (san) - inspired by the movie laskar pelangi

[] untitled #4 (taehyun) - used to be part of @/koishua's collab "and then there were two" and it's now in limbo because they moved blogs but I'll definitely do it whenever i could

[] untitled #5 (txt ot5) - inspired by disney channel original movies [only putting titles!]

status quo (yeonjun)

drift away (soobin)

underdog song (beomgyu)

untitled #6 (taehyun)

untitled #7 (hueningkai)

[] untitled #8 (txt ot5)- the dnd/dungeonpunk txt au

[] untitled #9 (jay) - inspired by the dark side of the moon by pink floyd

[] untitled #10 (sunghoon) - post-apocalyptic au (attack on titan meets dune meets hadestown meets the last of us lovechild)

[] untitled #11 (jay) - the family mystery au that you chose jay to star in teehee

tagging: @it-rains-blue @tyunlatte @boba-beom @enluv @thelargefrye @rinbowaman @talesofyuan @tenelkadjowrites and anyone that wanna join cause how the heck am i gonna tag this equal to the amount of my wips ffs! *eyes*

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

I love you Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued I love you Of All The Gin Joints In The World I love you Dance, Dance I love you Sugar, We're Goin Down I love you Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner I love you I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth I love you 7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen) I love you Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year I love you Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends I love you I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song I love you A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me" I love you Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows) I love you XO

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Wrap You Arms Around Me, Baby Boy

Summary: Sometimes love at first just might be the thing that’ll make you want to get married with paper rings.

Word Count: 2.8K

Author’s Note: This is one of @railmereid rejected fics! I saw that it was requested as a Taylor Swift/Paper Rings and I couldn’t help myself!

Content: Fluff like ridiculous fantastical fluff, brief innuendo

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Wrap Your Arms Around Me, Baby Boy

JULY 4th, 2008

It was like she was floating. It sounds absolutely ridiculous and down right absurd to realize you’re in love with your neighbor’s co-worker at the annual FBI and Secret Service baseball game just within minutes of meeting him, yet she’s walking home with a skip in her step because she knows he’s the man she wants to marry. She thinks about all the what ifs, to all the times that they could have met, to all the almost encounters. Being in love with Spencer makes all the love songs sound like fulfilled promises and makes her call destiny tomorrow.

It’s not like her to fall in love with a man she just met, but somehow, as she rushes home, she’s never felt more like herself. She knows it’s crazy to feel that much about a person that she just met, but there’s something and there’s everything about Spencer that makes her crave more.

Humming the greatest love songs in her head, Y/N reaches her lobby and has to resist the urge to dance her way up the stairs to her apartment. What was it about that man that made her want to shake? What was it about him that left her thinking about the next time she’d see him even before they said goodbye for the first time?

Sinking onto the couch, Y/N eyes her laptop that rests on her coffee table. Unable to help herself, Y/N kneels on the floor and begins to type in Google, “Spencer Reid; FBI,”. It’s amazing, the milliseconds that it takes to bring up the many new articles about the elite BAU team and all their heroic adventures. At the top of the page, is a much younger, much more nervous looking Spencer. He’s wearing clothes that are all too big for him and looks like a lost little kid.

She scans the page, but her eyes catch what she can only assume is one of Spencer’s dissertations. Clicking the link, she’s brought to a PDF that’s nearly 250 pages long. Even the title of his dissertation is so Spencer that it makes her want to call him up and make him read it to her. Somehow she settles on reading Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression in her best Spencer voice in her head.

Y/N clicks out of the pdf of Spencer’s dissertation, not before bookmarking it for later reading. She clicks on the “Images” banner of Google and is brought to a couple pictures of Spencer. Most of them are news articles about the BAU and their many cases. But one catches her eye. She can see that the article is about when Spencer joined the team; “The BAU Welcomes it’s Youngest Member, Dr. Spencer Reid,”

“Oh my god,” Y/N says, maybe a little too loudly because her cat, Mr. Knightley, jumps down from his cat tree in the corner of the living room to investigate the source of her squeal.

“Don’t judge, Knighty, I just may have met your new cat dad. Give me a couple of months,” She says, fully aware that she’s cooking up strangely sweet domestic fantasies involving Spencer and Mr. Knightley in her head.

Y/N looks over at the article, but can’t seem to tear her eyes from the picture. Spencer, with no doubt, is very attractive, but he looks so bright in the picture. His cheekbones are still just as sharp and his wide grin is still there, but there’s something a little more naive and optimistic about the way his eyes twinkle in the picture.

Pressing “Control, T” on her laptop, Y/N goes to her Amazon account. She looks at Spencer’s messy scribble on her hand, where she made him write his number and all his favorite books on her hand. It’s difficult to make out but, she places orders for The Illustrated Man, War and Peace, and The Little Prince.

It might seem crazy, but there’s something special about that Spencer Reid.

JULY 9th, 2008

“I’ll take an iced green tea, one Splenda please,” Y/N asks the barista at her local coffeehouse. She moves to turn, but bumps into a very tall and very lanky young man.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Y/N says, thoroughly embarrassed at her lack of spatial awareness.

“Y/N?,” The man asks, and as soon as Y/N brushes herself off, she realizes the man she ran into is no other than the boy who’s been occupying her daydreams.

“Spencer! Oh my goodness, you go here too?” She asks, trying to not let on how excited she was to see him.

“Um, yeah, you mentioned it the other night at Garcia's and I thought, well I should just check it out,” Spencer says nervously, scratching the back of his neck as he talks.

“Really? You took my suggestion?” Y/N beams, not so secretly thrilled that Spencer Reid took her advice.

“Yeah, I mean you seemed to really enjoy it, besides, I like that they’re transparent about where they source their coffee beans. Did you know that a standard cup of coffee requires more than 37 gallons of water, while most of that water is needed for maintaining a healthy plant, it’s still quite a bit. And as someone who lives on coffee, I think that it’s important to recognize the environmental footprint that our habits have on the Earth,” Spencer says quickly. He’s not the best at maintaining eye contact, but Y/N doesn’t find it less enthralling to listen to him. They stand there for a couple too many seconds just looking at each other, but for some reason it’s anything but awkward.

“Tea for Y/N!” The barista calls and Y/N excuses herself from Spencer to retrieve her drink.

“Is that The Illustrated Man? Looks like I’m not the only one who took some advice” Spencer asks, catching a glimpse of the book tucked under Y/N’s arm.

“Yes,” She says, slightly embarrassed that Spencer pays just as close attention to what she says and she does with him.

“Are you liking it? Maybe we can uh, sit and talk about it?” Spencer suggests, extending his hand to the small table that he claimed earlier. It’s covered with dusty copies of old books and what Y/N thinks are FBI case files that probably should not be left out in the open.

“I’d love that Spencer,” She tells him, unable to hide her smile.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Who knew playing hard to get would be hardest on the person doing the ignoring. Even though she was exhausted from the pinning and waiting for Spencer to make the move, Y/N feels a little bad for ignoring his texts.

“I can’t do this anymore, Penny,” Y/N laments, throwing herself dramatically across Penelope’s bed as she gets dressed for a double date.

“Honey, that boy’s fallen hard for you, he’ll come to his senses soon. You’re a catch and he’ll realize that the good ones never wait,” Penelope counters.

Y/N, hating the idea of having to keep Spencer at arm’s length, groans loudly into Penelope’s purple and pink sequin pillow.

“It’s hard to ignore him when he sends me selfies of him reading the books I suggest,” Y/N says in a voice that’s so quiet one would think she’s talking to herself.

“You know he upgraded to an iPhone just so he can see all the pictures you send him, right? He made me go to the mall to pick out the phone and practically forced me to teach him how to use it,”

“Really?” Y/N asks, bravely picking up her head from the pillow to look at Penelope.

“Y/N that boy is even more clueless about love than he is about technology. He’s in love. L-O-V-E. Love. With you,” Penelope teases, zipping up a fabulous dress that’s made from blue and teal silk.

“Wear that one, Penelope, it brings out your eyes,” Y/N says, barely able to summon the will to ignore the incoming text from Spencer.

Spence 💖: I thought I saw you today. My copy of The Wide Sargasso Sea came and I finished it already.

“Ugh, Penny. Do you know how hot it is for men to actually read the books you suggest to them,”

“You’re in deep, Y/N,” Penelope says sympathetically, “but so is he,”

OCTOBER 28th, 2008

As it turns out, Y/N’s will when it comes to Spencer is next to non-existent. She’s not too sure when it began, but maybe that’s the beauty of it. They kind of just fell into a relationship naturally. One day their friendly coffee and book chats turned to lazy Saturdays spent curled up on Y/N’s couch with Mr. Knightely by their feet. They’re awkward hugs turned to equally awkward, yet simultaneously sweet kisses.

Spencer’s surprisingly heavily arm thrown lazily around Y/N’s stomach is a testament to how quickly her will crumbled before her eyes when he was close. Laying there at 2AM, Y/N was beyond exhausted, but watching the way the moonlight drips across Spencer’s nose and the sound of his steady breath is enough to keep her wide awake.

“You stare loud,” Spencer mumbles sleepily, moving his face deeper into the crook of Y/N’s neck. Even in their sleepy state, they manage to hold hands.

“I can’t help it, you’re just such a lovely work of art,” Y/N explains.

“I have to disagree on that one, my darling,” Spencer says, tugging a little tighter on Y/N’s waist.

“I missed you, Spence. You’re my hero, by, but sometimes I wish you can just be the hero in between my sheets. I miss you when you go away,” Y/N says, joining her hands with Spencer’s. She likes how the sweet, tender touch still makes her heart skip.

“Oh yeah,” he laughed, “Mr. Knightley doesn’t keep you warm enough, Y/N,” Spencer says, his voice low and gravely, but in the quiet hush of the street it was the most beautiful noise Y/N ever has heard.

“Don’t tell him I’ve said this, but you’re a much better cuddler than Mr. Knightley,” Y/N says, leaning in to press the lightest butterfly kisses along the bridge of his nose.

“It feels good that going away is hard, you know,” Spencer starts, “before you I never had someone really miss me. I never had someone to come home to,”

“It feels even better to be the one you come home too, Spencer,” Y/N says, she dips her head down and lightly kisses Spencer on the lips. He’s had lots of long nights at the BAU; she can see the way his dark brown eyes look a little more haunted and a little less sparkly.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you to be alone,” Spencer confesses. His voice makes that gravelly sound again and Y/N swears that the sound is her anchor to this universe.

“It’s gonna be alright, Spence. We’re going to be just fine, sweet boy,” Y/N tells him, pressing two gentle kisses to both sides of his temples.

Spencer hums in something resembling frustration or understanding; or maybe some odd mix of the two. Y/N notices the way Spencer’s fingers seem to press into her body a little firmer. Like he’s forcing himself to remember that he’s really there in her bed at 2AM.

“Where were you my whole life? Hmm?” Spencer asks, taking the opportunity to sneak his head into a warm spot between Y/N and chest. He places three lazy kisses on the skin exposed by the loose bed shirt. It’s the kind of kisses that don’t need to be perfect because the moment you open your eyes you know you’re getting more.

“Waiting for my hero,” Y/N says, raising her chin slightly so Spencer settles in so close he can hear her heartbeat.

“I bet you didn’t think he’d come with both a pocket protector and a gun,”

“Hush, go back to sleep, you’ve been working like crazy,” Y/N says, squeezing Spencer’s hand.

“Hmm, good night, my love,” Spencer says, before, like a light, he’s drifted off to sleep.

APRIL 21st 2009

It's the champagne. It’s making her think things that someone who’s only been in a relationship for less than six months should definitely not be thinking. But who is Y/N kidding, she’s had those thoughts since the night she went home and tried to stalk Spencer on the internet.

“Uncle Spencer! Magic trick! Magic trick!” Henry screams with joy, bouncing up and down to get Spencer’s attention.

“Okay, Henry, you ready buddy?,” Spencer says. Y/N thinks back to how cute he looked this morning when he was prepping all these magic tricks to show Henry and Jack.

“Ready, Freddy!” Henry squeals. His bright blue eyes practically glisten with admiration and happiness as Spencer folds two small pieces of newspaper into interlocking rings. Everyone should look at Spencer like the way Henry looks at him, Y/N thinks. He’s kids sure will, or rather their kids will.

She’s so lost in the thought of their kids, their babies, that Y/N doesn’t notice when Spencer, slightly buzzed from the champagne covers up her eyes with his hands.

“Guess who?” He says, in between giggles.

“Hmm, is it Greggory Peck?” Y/N says, facetiously, knowing that her crush on the actor caused Spencer to get a little sheepish.

“Unfortunately, it’s just me,” Spencer says, joining Y/N at her stop at the table. He looks so dashing in the navy blue suit and tie with light pink flowers.

“There’s nothing unfortunate about seeing your face, baby,” Y/N says, tapping her finger against Spencer’s very chiseled cheeks.

“How about we get out of here,” Spencer suggests, his voice low and his breath against Y/N’s neck. His proximity makes her face heat up. Not trusting her voice to work properly, Y/N gives Spencer her hand, signaling to him to take her wherever he pleases.

Walking away from the wedding, Y/N let herself think for even a second this could be her and Spencer’s wedding. Maybe it’s too soon to bring that up, she doesn’t want to scare Spencer off with her big forever plans, but she knows what they have won’t ever be found again.

“You seem occupied, Y/N,” Spencer deduces, he clasps hands with Y/N. He draws small shapes on her hand, letting her know, silently, that he’s here for her.

“Just thinking how much I love you, all of you Spence. I love all of your brilliant parts and all of your complications too,” Y/N says, unable to hide her gush from Spencer.

Spencer brings up Y/N’s hand that holds him to his mouth. He places the softest kisses on each of her knuckles. It’s a gesture that’s kind and sweet and leaves Y/N needing more from him. Each time she gets a little slice of love from Spencer, she’s immediately craving more.

“Y/N, I desperately want to marry you ever since I met you. I want to marry you so much and dance with you at the wedding and at night I want to twist my hands up in your hair as you writhe under my touch,” Spencer says, he’s grip on the Y/N’s hand telling her how serious he is about this.

“That’s good darling, because you’re the one I want,” Y/N says.

“Well, it’s a good thing Henry begged me to do this trick,” Spencer laughs nervously. He takes out those interlocking paper rings, and with a couple twists he has them separated.

“Now I though that this is probably not ideal and I’ve never been good at timing, I’m always a little early. But what I’m trying to say, Y/N, is that I can’t wait another second without being married to you,” Spencer says, he’s already down on one knee.

“Yes! Spence come on! Get off the ground and kiss me already,” Y/N yells, pulling Spencer up off the ground by his tie, eliciting giggles from her now fiancé.

At his full height, Spencer cups Y/N’s jaw delicately. There’s nothing salacious or seductive about the kiss. If anything, it’s a silent promise mixed with the sensations of clashing teeth and curious hands on the napes of their necks, daring to go closer to their hair.

Even when they pull away, Spencer and Y/N stay so close that it’s almost like they’re still intertwined.

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to whatever store you want and I’ll buy you the shiniest ring,” Spencer says, his mind calculating the next steps so he can already be Y/N’s husband.

“Spencer,” Y/N says, taking the paper rings from Spencer’s hand and placing each of them on her finger then Spencer’s, “I might like shiny things, but I’ll marry you with paper rings,”

Thank you for reading!

I hope that whoever requested this, enjoys it! It was a lot of fun to write :)

Taglist (Comment or Send in an Ask to be added!)

@calm-and-doctor

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[abovethesmokestacks]

we go crashing down

Title: we go crashing down

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader

Word count: 5.4k

Rating: Teen and up

Warnings: angst (what did you expect from me?), implied adult situations but nothing explicit, me giving the finger to Endgame while riding into the sunset.

This started with a photoset and a Taylor Swift-song. And then it grew into something that, as per usual, got away from me. A huge thanks to Beka, @hispeculiartreasure​, who betaed for me and gave me that most glorious compliment, “I say this with all the love in my heart, as you are one of my dearest friends. Fuck you.” Feel free to tell me the same if you enjoy this.

My works are not to be copied and/or reposted anywhere else without my permission. The only other place I post my fics is AO3, where you can find me under the same handle as here.

You meet…

Well, does it really matter? It's mundane, and yeah, you're starstruck and stunned for a moment. Who wouldn't be? The all-American boy and his blinding smile and the blue eyes. It's stars colliding and a world still trying to right itself and people left behind. It's whiskey neats and vodka on the rocks, and Steve Rogers follows you home and to your door and into your bed.

You ache in the morning and blush when you see the faint lines of your nails down his back when he pulls his shirt back on. He makes no promises and you don't ask him to call. That would be too much like hope, and hope does not much linger these days. You're lost in an apartment that overlooks a street that barely sees any traffic anymore in a city that feels too big for comfort. The posters lining every lamp post just make you cry, the hum of distant trucks makes you angry because slowly, slowly, they are trying to erase the mayhem, peel away the horrible and naked truth of what had happened, scraping out a façade that almost, almost seems familiar. The groups so helpfully suggested to you only have your arms curling tighter around your chest. 

It's not what you want. You’re fine. What good is talking, what good is remembering, what good is anything? Life in a post-snap world is one of apathy and despair and you have found there is little inbetween.

Until Steve.

Until three nights of restful sleep and dreams of fingers carding through long hair, the rough scratch of his beard and a voice like honey in your ears. It's a good three days, a blessed three nights. You don't hope, but you long and dream and languish for that bliss to return when once again you wake with a scream trapped in your throat and the feeling of dust all over you. The pipes rumble and creak before the showerhead shudders and water starts pelting your back. It starts cold, like daggers in your back before it turns scalding and you scrub until you feel your skin burn. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

Life goes on, much as you thrash against it and dig in your heels. When Steve crosses your path again, it’s on the verge of being blackout drunk and the bartender, barely 21, his voice trembling when he asks you if you came here by car and if so would you give him your keys. Enraged, not at him, but the world and all the gods and demons in it, you throw down your measly keychain on the counter, only to stagger into a solid body, and it’s like falling, like being suspended, it’s familiar and there’s his voice:

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

The rest goes in snatches. 

“I know-”

“- get home.”

“C’mon, honey.”

It’s a ridiculous car, but it’s a car, and Steve makes sure you’re belted in, and maybe it’s okay to relax. You’re safe. He talks to you on and off, making sure you’re awake and it’s sweet how he all but lifts you out and carries you up the stairs, takes hold of your straying hand when the goddamn fucking key won’t fit into the lock and why are there five of them and why is everything so fucking wrong and why can’t you just fucking function?

It’s the gentleness that breaks you. The quiet, resolute gentleness of his hands over yours, the solid press of his chest against your back, the way he guides you inside like you’re precious cargo. It’s the warmth of him, where you have rarely felt warm in months, and it’s such a small thing, a creature comfort and you break and you cry and you beg him beyond any shame not to leave you, please, please, Steve don’t go, don’t disappear.

He doesn’t. Not immediately. Steve lets you cry yourself out in his arms, on his lap, pressing kisses to your temple and rubbing his hand up and down your back, murmuring sweet things that wrap like a blanket around you. He lulls you to sleep and you let him, clinging to him and the steady beat of his heart and you dream of nothing, absolutely nothing.

Steve, he doesn’t disappear. Not immediately. There is honour in the moniker, but he does not stay either. He’s there when you wake up, hair disheveled and a pensive look in his eyes. It’s hard not to feel small in the face of that gaze, to feel like something fragile under a god’s divine touch.

“Sorry I ruined your night,” you mumble, looking away, down at the inch of space between you. “I was…”

Angry. Miserable. Empty.

All of the above.

“I get it.”

And for the first time, there is no bile rising in your throat, no resentment singing through your veins. For the first time, the reply feels genuine. 

He doesn’t ask, you don't want him to, it is as it should be, as you’d want it to be. Steve makes you a bowl of oatmeal that you crook an eyebrow at, but it goes down warm, a sprinkle of half melted brown sugar adding sweetness. You know he’s leaving. He’s tying up loose ends; feeds you, checks your apartment under the pretense of pulling curtains and opening a window, presses a kiss to your forehead. You want to keep him.

“Steve?”

For a second, you think he might ignore you. His back is tense, but bless him, seconds pass in hesitation before he turns to you by the door.

“I… I don’t know if you… where you live. I mean, if you have a place here in the city. But if you ever need someplace to crash… my door is always open. For you, if you need it.”

There's a wry smile, and nothing else. At least you tell yourself it's that. That he is a rascal and that what you saw was not pity or worse. You give yourself worse for days. Really, you told Steve Rogers- you told Captain America that he could drop by. Surely he has safer havens, older and more comforting haunts to go to than this place that still tries to sell itself like a home.

So it’s a surprise when three weeks later a heavy fist lands in rapid rhythm on your door, and behind it, you find Steve, wild eyed and looking like something dangerous and sharp. His breath is ragged, and your eyes skitter, looking for signs of injury, finding none. The uniform has been left behind, his armour in this new world is a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt that clings to his torso and a dark jacket that sits tight over his shoulders.

“Steve?”

“You wanna get outta here?”

“What?”

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

His voice is low and rough, husky. Just like when he- It’s like a touch, sense memory of filthy kisses and filthier words, the drag of his beard down between the valley of your breasts. Heat creeps up your cheeks, and you clench your fists. Focus.

“Where to?”

It’s an honest question as much as it is an answer. Steve holds out his hand, and there is no hesitation. You can see why he was such an effective tool for the war propaganda machine, why his friends would follow him into battle and exile and death. You’d do the same in a heartbeat.

He doesn’t take you into battle tonight. There’s a car far more ostentatious than you would have expected from him parked outside, and he holds the door open, offers his hand to help you get in. Some things remain sweet and chivalrous, you think.

“Fancy car,” you tease when Steve gets in behind the wheel, turns the ignition to make the beast of a machine roar to life.

“Borrowed it from a friend,” Steve replies, and there’s a hint of a smile that tells you just who he borrowed it from.

“Nice friend.”

The city flashes past, Steve taking you through Queens as the sun starts setting. It’s a strange sensation as you get out onto the Long Island Expressway. It’s dark when you hit the Hamptons. This playground for the rich, and now their mansions stand like empty shells, and the small communities are dotted with only a couple of lit up houses. Steve drives, one hand on the wheel, one on your thigh, and you slowly relax into the ridiculous seat, singing along to an automated radio station that plays 90’s nostalgia. If you don’t linger on the surroundings, on the way the evening gets darker, it feels… 

It feels like something you should not covet.

The drive should take three hours, but Steve makes it there in just over two, turning onto a deserted parking lot. A cold wind is blowing in from the sea when he opens the door, holds out his hand for you, takes you up along a path to the night’s destination. The Montauk lighthouse towers towards the sky, the beam of light circling around and around. Shivers run up your spine, something about the solitary bastion making a lump form in your throat. You should have brought a warmer jacket.

Steve stays quiet, sinking to the ground to sit, head tipped back. In the light, his features look so serene, shadows playing so beautifully along the planes and angles of his face. He looks like something sacred, gilded and frozen in time. The best you can do is sit with him and hope that the warmth he radiates will find its way to you.

“Did you know this was the first lighthouse in New York state?” Steve asks, an eternity that may as well be ten minutes later.

You shake your head, too afraid that if you spoke, your chattering teeth would give away how cold you are. 

“Built in 1796,” Steve continues, “fourth oldest in the country. Was one’a those things we’d hear about in school, and we’d see pictures. I’d tell myself, one day, I’d come here. On a good day when my lungs weren’t bothering me, and I’d sit on the beach and sketch and pretend I was one of the rich people who’d have their second home out here.”

He sounds so far away, trapped in a past that has you wondering if that life would have been kinder than the hand he was dealt. Harder, definitely, you won't deny it. But this life, this… reality that has trapped you both. It does unkind things to kind hearts, and Steve is looking more and more like a shadow.

You wrap your arms around you, soothing and rubbing for warmth, and Steve brings you into his arms, wrangles you to sit back to chest with his drawn up knees cradling you on either side. It's nice, sweet, but his fingers dig into your shoulders just a little possessive, like he's afraid you'll slip through his fingers, like you'll turn to dust like so many others.

“We can pretend,” you tell him quietly, one hand coming to rest over his.

You're here. You won't leave.

“Paint me a picture?” you ask, tilting your chin to look up at him. “Please?”

His voice is honey in your ears, drowning out the wind and the cold and suddenly you’re there. A different time, a different Steve with Brooklyn spilling from his lips, a Steve who is self-deprecating and sweet in equal measure, who uses the tip of an index finger to draw out a sketch on the palm of your hand. You see it all, hear it all, and with every passing second, every light brush to shade out a shadow or line to denote the slope of a nose or the curve of a back, you lose your breath more and more. 

“They’d look at us, whisper among themselves how such a pretty dame like you would be seen with a loser like me, 95 pounds soakin’ wet, peanuts to spend and everythin’ wrong with me and then some. You’d look so pretty, done up all sweet and that sunshine smile like I’d’a hung the moon for ya.”

There’s a pale sun on the horizon when you walk back to the car. You don’t make it halfway through Long Island before his hand on your thigh has wandered and you squirm in your seat. You crawl onto his lap by an empty beachfront, and any lingering chill leaves your body as he fills you slowly, lets you take what you need and nips at your throat when you slump against him, a slow throbbing between your legs. The walk up to your apartment is not one of shame, but of infinite sadness over a man and a life lost to time. It does little to make this world better.

In fact, it only makes it worse, and on your loneliest days you sometimes wonder if Steve is just a figment of your imagination. He transforms in your mind, you venerate him into something that makes memories seem like grace and his words like blessings. All of his faults, all of his mistakes both real and perceived fall by the wayside, forgotten because what glory could not outshine them?

Gods are fallible and gods are treacherous and gods will take anyone willing to worship. You learn this on another rare night out. The world is healing, but you wonder if you have somehow fallen behind. There’s a line outside the club, and you hope that the pulse from inside might fill you up and make you feel alive again, that something might strike you and resurrect you. You just want to get inside, to feel the press of bodies so you can close your eyes and pretend things are the way they used to be, drink and dance and stay out long enough that the silence of your apartment can be imagined into something less tragic.

It’s the laugh that catches your attention. Loud and shrill and so… wrong. Your head turns, neck craning, scanning the line, the street, trying to find-

Trying to find the source of the laugh and finding Steve. 

Steve, jeans and a white tee under a leather jacket, charming smile and an arm around a woman who is- 

Who is everything you're not and who holds him with an arm around his waist, hand tucked into his pocket, and hangs on every word leaving his lips.

It’s not that you are- not that you were- not that you thought you had been exclusive. An item. That is for another life, another universe. Still, it makes your stomach drop, and you wonder if Steve senses it, if that’s why he suddenly looks up, if that’s how he finds you so quickly. You wonder if he feels anything beyond the recognition that flashes in his eyes. No matter. You feel plenty. The bouncer calls for you to enter. End scene. Begin another.

It’s a petty decision. You’ll be the first to admit it.

But two can play that game, and when you wake up in the morning, it’s the first time in 584 days that you have not woken up alone. It’s not awful. They expect nothing, there’s even a cup of coffee, digits on a post-it note that you stick to your fridge. If nothing else than for proof that maybe life can go on.

Steve takes his time. It’s weeks before there’s a knock on your door, and you’re not expecting anyone, least of all him. Button-up shirt, sleeves meticulously folded with his hands clasped in front of him, ruggedly handsome as always. It’s not that you don’t want to invite him in. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t missed seeing him. But after- 

It used to be that this mystery between you intrigued you. Now it sits like an obstacle, and you hesitate in being the one to remove it. The silence stretches on like a game of chicken, seconds ticking away and a neighbour passing you with a long look.

“I-”

Steve’s voice is like a roll of thunder in the hallway, and he anxiously looks over his shoulder, makes sure no one’s there, that no one heard.

“Look, can I come in?” he tries, lower, gentler.

“What is this?”

It’s still there, a barrier between you and a lump in your throat.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not asking to force you into a choice,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest. “I just want to know what this is. What to expect. I don’t mind hooking up, I don’t mind the trips and the sex and the kisses. I just… want to know what this is. I want to-”

You swallow, push against the barrier, wishing for it to hold just a little longer. Steve is looking at you like a wounded animal and against everything, bile and anger rises in your throat.

“I didn’t care. Life moves on, right? Everything fucking moves on and keeps spinning. Except me. I told myself not to hold on to you, and like a fucking idiot, I somehow still did. So just tell me what this is, so I can let go, and find something better to hold on to.”

“You think I’m not trying to hold on, too?” He stands stockstill, but you can tell every part of him is aching to crowd you, to grow before you and fill up the space. “You think I’m- I was there-”

“We all were, Steve. I watched my- I had someone slip right through my fingers. A whole street full of dust and shock.”

He has the decency to look a little ashamed, and why does that feel so good? Why does that give strength to your barricades?

“What do you want me to say?”

They are the words of a good soldier, someone who has parroted the ideologies of others for so long. Give me a cue. Give me a hint. Give me a purpose. Give me a fight.

“I want you to answer the question. No bullshit. I’m not looking for an excuse. I don’t know that we owe each other any. Just… Tell me what this is. What… What I am. What- Why do we keep coming back to each other when nothing and everything changes?”

He seems to deflate in front of you, all at once weary, as mortal as you, as broken as you. It’s easy to push it all on him, to only see his gilded lines, the light of the man he hides behind. He’s been on a pedestal for decades, and you have certainly not given him a hand to climb down.

“I think… I think maybe I’ve been holding on to you, too. Without meaning to. Without wanting to. I think you and I, we still live that day. I… For the first month I was torn between washing my hands because I could still feel Bucky’s dust on ‘em and then breaking down because I had lost the very last part of him in this world. You… We carry the same kind of grief, I think. Same but different, so we’re pulled together. We’re good at pretending, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is falling for it.”

It’s hard to contest with the truth. It hurts and you rage and you look at him and you see your own defeat and grief mirrored in his eyes. You were good at pretending, and so was he. You step aside, finally letting him in, finally putting down your sword and your shield. The door closes behind him. Steve steps up, and it feels like all the air leaves the room when he wraps his arms around you. The construct you built is crumbling, but this is real. Steve is warm and solid, and this will always be real.

When your lips meet, you instantly know. This is the beginning of the end. His kisses are tender, his touch reverent, and you take it for what it is. One last moment of make believe. Steve spreads you out, making you the divine, worshipping with a generous body and sweet prayers to you between kisses while staining himself with your red lipstick. It’s as good as ever, as satisfying, and your nails dig into Steve’s back as he cants his hips just so.

But the world keeps spinning just a little differently. The magic, it’s not exactly gone. The moments after are still soft, and for a little while you two exist in a vacuum of tousled hair and rumpled sheets, but reality seeps in, slower and easier than before, a magic in its own right.

“Should we…” Steve’s voice is a whisper, like his touch as he traces fingers along your cheek. “Is this it?”

You close your eyes. One more time. Pretend one more time.

“Do you want it to be?”

He considers it for a moment, but you can see by the set of his mouth that he has felt the truth of the world just like you have, “No… but I don’t think we can continue, either.”

You trace your finger along the edge of his beard, soft and coarse at the same time, up to where it fades into his hair, matted gold and pushed back. He is always beautiful, but this makes your heart flutter a little. You wonder if this is the Steve he wants to be or just another mirage to fulfil his own fantasies. Another attempt at hiding, at pretending.

“We were good, though, weren’t we?” you murmur, and it’s sweet, domestic, the way Steve kisses your forehead.

“We were good, sweetheart.”

The day continues like a good rerun. You are soft and warm and deliciously boneless. Steve scrounges through your cupboards, patches together a breakfast from odds and ends in nothing but unbuttoned jeans. When he goes to find orange juice from your fridge, there is a second of hesitation, where you know he’s looking at the post-it, now just a little bleached from the sunlight. There's a look shared, and Steve smiles a little when he sets down his offerings before you.

It's quiet. It's nice. And like all things nice, it can't last forever. Every last minute has been wrung out, you're teetering on the edge to where things will break. You follow Steve to the door, and he hesitates, hand on the deadbolt.

“It was for a mission.”

No context needed. You shake your head.

“No, it wasn't.”

Steve glances down, then back at you, a smile like it was worth a try, “No. No, it wasn't.”

You hum, set your hands on Steve’s chest, feel the strong heartbeat against his chest. Inhale. You're ready. It's fine.

“This is it. This is where we stop pretending.”

Exhale. It's fine.

“I hope you find something better to hold onto.”

A kiss to your cheek. There it is; a crash into reality with the ghost of the past bidding you goodbye. Steve makes no promises. You don't ask him to call. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

The door closes. When you turn around, the post-it note falls from the fridge, flutters down and lands right on the one sunny spot on the floor. You smile. Maybe life can finally go on now.

The world keeps moving, and slowly, slowly, you start taking steps with it. A phone call here, a complete and utter breakdown there, days when you feel accepting of what happened, days when you are back to where you were. This is a life, too, you suppose, one where it's taken you close to five years before you could go down to the big memorial and look at the names and wonder at the cruelty of chance. Your apartment feels bigger than ever when you return. Maybe it’s time to move on.

Yeah.

Maybe.

This is the new normal. You can almost accept it. It’s time.

Everything is packed up, neat boxes, and the last of the trash is taken out when the sky darkens, a ship looming in the distance, hell coming with it. 

No.

No, no, no.

People are screaming around you, but your feet are frozen to the pavement, gaze defiant. They can take you for all you care, but Steve. He hasn’t called, you haven’t expected him to, it’s been good, but this- He’d take this fight. He’d be the first line of defense, he’d be the last. He is the one constant, and you hope with every fibre in your being that he’ll remain.

You stand. You wait. No invasion in the street, no feeling yourself fade. You stay. You stay until an elderly neighbour herds you back in with gentle words and gives you tea and scotch that you don’t make it past one sip of. Dust and ash. The tea is safer. It’s warm and your muscles relax under a scratchy blanket. It’s fine.

He’s fine.

It’ll be fine.

The next month passes by in a blur. People returning. Things changing. A whirlwind of change once again and nothing to hold on to. It should be easy. It should be like before, normal and easy, and yet you walk around on eggshells, and look for a new place to run away to. You wonder if he’s okay. You force yourself to not say his name, to cast him as someone else, but every blond man you spot in the street turns into him, and you worry and reassure yourself in equal measure. 

When the chance presents itself, it’s too good to pass up. You need to move. You need to move on. Boxes are packed again, you find a post-it note so bleached by the sun that the digits have all but disappeared. It’s a silly thing, but you keep it, a strange little memento from the day you tell yourself you started to heal.

Away from the city, it’s a little easier to live. It’s easier to smile, to sit in the quiet and not feel it like a shadow. Away from the mess, from the memories, it’s easier to… not exactly forget, but to not be too close to the memories. You try to ignore it, but you know it’s another form of pretending, another imitation of life. You have found a job, you put on a smile, you make your way through the narrow streets down to the water. 

Far out there, there is a blinking light. Montauk lighthouse, the locals would tell you when you first started turning up down by the beach. Fourth oldest in the country, ya know. Nod. How interesting. I’d love to go there. Maybe in the future.

It’s as close as you’ll ever allow yourself, as close as you’ll get to ever admitting that maybe there was something there that you wanted to hold onto. You watch the light blink. There, and then gone. Just like- 

“You know what that is?” comes a voice behind you.

It pulls at something familiar, but in the moment, you figure it’s just another local, just another schmuck trying to talk you up, just another disappointment and a distraction from your peace and quiet.

“It’s Montauk,” you say, not even turning around. You know where this goes. You mouth along.

“Fourth oldest in the country.”

“Built in 1796,” you finish, resting your chin in your hands, elbows digging into your knees. The light sweeps past, in and out of view, in and out of existence. “You ever been?”

There’s no answer, just the light breeze bringing in waves that are only barely capped in white before they crash against the shore. Maybe he left. God, you should be so lucky. You crane your neck, find a pair of Chuck Taylors, legs in skinny jeans, up to a slim chest drowning in a peacoat and a face-

A face with a smile like a-

Like a god.

Like a dream.

Same, but different.

“Once,” he says, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, “but it feels like an eternity ago. Sat on the hill by the lighthouse with this girl that I did not deserve. So sweet, smiling at me like I’d’a hung the moon for her.”

“Steve?”

The memory of him wants to force itself into the moment, blame it on a forced perspective, strange angles, it wants to push the golden boy, the hero, an Adonis crowned in light onto you. It wants to give you the Steve that was created, but as you get up to your feet, it hits you. This is the Steve that was born. His height has diminished, his build is slimmer, but there in his eyes he is as he has always been. Strong. Stubborn. Steve.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

Your arms are around his neck in an instant, those words like a magnet. Steve. Steve is real and he’s there, and his fingers press into your back as he holds you, the crook of his neck feels cold when you press your nose to it, and it’s as if the world finally catches up, finally syncs you with the passing of time and it’s good, it’s safe, you are fine.

“What happened?” you ask, hesitant to let go of him even a little.

“Couldn’t even begin to tell you,” Steve replies, jerking his head in an attempt to flick a stray fringe back. “I thought I- I was… gone. For a while, I think. I was somewhere- I was like before. And then I wasn’t. Came back, felt like the universe spat me back out. At least it kept all the illnesses I had before the serum, but it took me a while to find my footing. Can’t exactly be Captain America like this.”

His hair falls down over his forehead again, and you tuck it gently back, fingertips following sensitive skin.

“It’s funny,” you murmur, hands coming to rest on his chest, smiling when you feel the same solid heart beat as when he walked out of your apartment. “Those five years, and I just wanted it to be a bad dream. I wanted to wake up and have everything be as it was, everyone back. And when it happened… It was like I didn’t know where I was anymore. Who I was supposed to be. I’d… I think part of me disappeared along with all of those people, and it didn’t come back with them.”

“Did you ever find something better to hold onto?” Steve asks, voice a whisper like it is a secret between the two of you.

“No. Yes. I think I just tried to move with everything. Wasn’t maybe the best, but it got me here.”

“Life moves on, right?”

You give a snort, “It moves to where I’m thinking back to that one time I had something to hold on to. I keep coming down here, just to look at the light from Montauk and tell myself it’s just for the view and nothing else. We couldn’t keep on holding onto each other, but it was good while we did and… And it’s nice to remember that.”

“I know it’s a different world now. I’m different. And I’m not- I don’t expect anything.” Steve fumbles with the words, looks down while pink tinges his cheeks.

“We were always good at pretending, weren’t we?” You look out again, to the blinking light. There. Gone. There. Gone. Enticing and alluring, a chance presenting itself again and again. “I’ve pretended for a long time.”

“Oh? And what have you pretended?”

“That I could let go of you. That given a chance, I wouldn’t take it because I know where we ended. That one day, you’d walk back into my life.”

Steve barks out a breathy laugh, leans in to where your foreheads touch. “This isn’t pretend.”

“I know.”

“Today is not like a year ago.”

You shake your head, “No, it’s not.”

“Our lives can be our own.”

To the world, he may not be a god anymore, no paragon of truth and justice, but to you, his words have weight, hope, promise. You meet again like you’ve always met; by chance, by fate, pulled together by something bigger than yourselves. Life keeps giving you chances, maybe now your lives will align?

“Take me home.”

Inhale. We can try. We can. It will be fine. You look at Steve. 

[blouisparadise]

Upon request, here is a rec list of bottom Louis fics where Harry radiates sex appeal. We hope you enjoy this fics! If you find our rec lists useful, please support them by liking the post and reblogging it to help spread the word. Happy reading!

1) Gimme Gimme | Mature | 5957 words

He dragged himself to his bedroom and flopped down face-first onto the bed, groaning, and started thinking about that new neighbor. Maybe this was his chance. Maybe this was the time for him to actually try and find a love interest that lasted longer than 2 weeks. He rolled over and sat up on the bed, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked out the window.

And what he saw was probably the most amazing thing on the planet.

Walking into his new neighbor’s house was a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase while his Porsche sat in the driveway.

2) Under the Vanilla Sky | Explicit | 8006 words

Who the hell wears a hat like that on a yacht?  That's one of the things Louis thinks when he sees Harry from across the deck of the most expensive, ridiculous boat he's ever been on.  He also thinks he'd like to get closer.  Just to see what's under those aviators.  Just to verify that, yes, in fact, those white swim trunks might be a little see-through when wet.  Just to see if someone could really be that hot in real life.  On a yacht.  In the Caribbean sea just off the coast of St. Barts.  

Here's what really happened on that yacht.

3) Sweet Like Cherry Vodka | Not Rated | 8039 words

When he exits the building he instantly sees him. He’s leaning against his white Mercedes Benz convertible. The car makes him look more expensive. Of course, the navy blue suit that fits tightly around his broad shoulders — making Louis want to fall to his knees, mind you — also helps to get the message across. He looks up from his phone, his sleek black aviators block Louis from seeing his dark eyes.

When Louis knows Harry's watching him he smiles. A grin grows on Harry’s mouth, his strong jaw moves cockily while he chews his gum. How does someone make chewing gum so hot?

“Need a ride sweetheart?” Harry calls to him, the statement adds to his cocky demeanor.

“You know I do, silly.” Louis laughs at how ridiculous the older man can be.

4) You And I ‘Till The Day We Die | Explicit | 10807 words

Prompt 124: A fic inspired by Groupie Love by Lana Del Rey, where Harry is a Rockstar and Louis is his cute little boyfriend who tries to hide himself in the middle of the crowd. (Preferably set in the 80s)

5) Guns N Roses | Mature | 14069 words

Harry's an assassin, Louis is a government agent. They hate each other but not really.

6) My English Love Affair | Explicit | 19198 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

The thing about sleeping with a member of a famous indie band is that the inevitability of having a song written about you is most likely a hundred percent. The second thing is that in the end, nobody's supposed to find out it's about you.

The one where Harry writes a song about his English love affair and Louis sleeps with someone in White Eskimo and all he gets is a stupid song written about him.

7) The Way The Storm Blows | Explicit | 21649 words

Louis doesn’t have a habit of thinking about Harry’s dick.

That would be weird, seeing as they’re best mates, and they share a flat, and they’ve spent holidays at each other’s family homes. Their friendship hasn’t ever risen to a point where Louis should want to see his mate’s dick, and he’s happy to keep it that way.

Except, all that Louis can think about is exactly that. The size of it. The shape. The amount of people it’s been in.

Maybe it’s the tequila talking, or the fact that Louis’ just recently walked in to an eyeful of Harry taking turns on some slags that he’s never seen before, but. Louis’ mind can’t stop obsessing over the idea.

8) Even The Best Laid Plans | Explicit | 25190 words

Louis wants to have sex with someone and decides Harry is the perfect alpha for the job.

9) A Trail Of Honey Through It All | Explicit | 27086 words

The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him.

10) Carnelian | Explicit | 30631 words

Louis finds himself donating blood to the most beautiful being he's ever seen.

11) Take My Pure (And Wash It All Away ‘Til I’m Cured) | Explicit | 40629 words

They're all 19. Louis is a twink, Harry is a frat boy hunk. Harry for some reason wants his makeup done for pride, and Louis is just trying so very hard to stay clear of all alleged fuckboys this year.

12) In The Still Of The Night | Explicit | 68568 words

The Dirty Dancing AU where Louis is a feisty omega who wants to change the world, Harry is an alpha from the wrong side of the tracks, and nobody puts Louis in a corner.

13) Waiting On You | Explicit | 76576 words

“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.

Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.

Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.

14) Your Name is Tattooed on My Heart | Explicit | 86809 words

Note: This fic has mentions of top Louis.

Louis is ready to find the love of his life, but first he has to stop falling for the punk rocker next door.

15) Beyond The Point Of Weird | Mature | 108331 words

Louis meets Harry one night and well... Of course things lead from one thing to another. How could Louis not be interested in having a go at the ex-Rockstar who'd starred in his first wet dream?

When Harry asks him to pretend to be his boyfriend to help him clear up his image, Louis agrees because why the fuck not. Yet it kind of feels like the only 'fake' part of their relationship is the title they chose for it... And then it gets confusing.

Louis' pretty sure he walked right into a trap - one he's not quite sure he wants to escape.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[holden-caulfield]

Stairway To Heaven

↪︎ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Summary: draco and reader are best friends. Or so she thinks.

Warnings: one swear word i think.

Word Count: 1555

This is not inspired by the song in any way, but the title was fitting sooo

//

You and Draco had been friends for a very long time, since you could remember, and yet it wasn't unusual for you to be found arguing with the blond at least once a day. Sometimes you would argue about his rude attitude or the latest student he had bullied, but most of the times you simply wanted to tease him. Apparently, seeing what new witty remark he could come up with was the highlight of you day. You loved the banter that characterized your friendship and you couldn't really imagine your life without it.

"I'm telling you, you two are made for each other!" squealed Pansy from the big couch in your common room.

"We are just friends, Pansy! Friends!" you replied incredulously as you plopped down beside her.

"Yeah, just friends... Y/n, it's so obvious!"

"Are you sure you're okay?" you asked feigning concern as you put your hand on her forehead to check her temperature.

"Oh, shove off!" she scolded, swatting your hand away. "Don't tell me you've never thought about it!"

"Of course not!" you lied.

You had thought about you and Draco being something more quite a few times now, but the prospect of ruining everything was enough for you to put that thought aside. You found yourself daydreaming about his soft blond hair and his sharp jawline more than you cared to admit. Not to talk about his eyes, always looking at you and making you feel as if you were the most precious thing in the world.

But you couldn't ruin your friendship. He probably didn't feel the same way and even if he did you couldn't risk losing what you had. The ease, the trust, the teasing.

In that moment, someone descended the stairs of the boys' dormitory, Draco. You and Pansy looked up at him, eyes wide. He stopped behind the couch, confused by the weird stares that you and Pansy were giving him.

"What?"

"Have you heard us?" you asked, slightly panicked. You didn't know why you were feeling this anxious, maybe some part of you wanted him to feel something for you other than friendly affection.

"Why? Were you talking about me?" his face instantly lit up with a smug smile and he leaned on the couch with his elbows.

"Why yes, in fact. I was just telling Pansy how immensely insufferable you are." you retorted, feeling incredibly relieved knowing that he hadn't heard you.

He got up from his previous place and resumed his path towards the door of the common room, scoffing. Before exiting, he added another comment, smirking playfully, "Oh and Pansy, me and y/l/n? Really? I hoped you thought more highly of me."

You knew it was nothing more than a joke, but why did it hurt? He had obviously heard you, he heard you saying that you couldn't even picture him as your boyfriend and he had said the same thing, yet it hurt more than you imagined. Maybe Pansy was right.

The next few days, you tried to forget about your new-found feelings for your best friend and your last conversation, but it was easier said than done. You felt as if you owed him some kind of explanation even though he expressively said he saw you just as a friend. Nothing more.

"Draco, wait a moment!" you began, preventing him from entering your first class of the day. He simply raised his brows and you continued.

"I wanted to apologize. For the other day. I shouldn't have said that."

"Said what?" you rolled your eyes, he was one of the smartest people you knew and yet he could be really daft sometimes.

"About you. That i could never see you as something else."

"But you are right. We are friends, nothing else." with that he left you alone and entered the classroom. You didn't know whether his answer cheered you up or devastated you. Definitely the second.

You tried behaving as always, but he seemed to be ignoring you. You had almost all of your classes together and yet he managed to avoid you every single time. Even when you could actually talk to him, he was different, he was suddenly very cold. He was with everyone but he had never been with you and this really bothered you. So you decided to confront him, you decided that you would have told him what you felt: your friendship was already in jeopardy, might as well completely ruin it. The idea terrified you, Draco had always been by your side and imagining a life without him seemed impossible. Maybe you did like him. Maybe you did love him.

"Draco! Draco, we have to talk!" but Draco sped up, not even glancing up. He had no right to ignore you like that so you quickened your pace to match his.

"Draco, we need to talk!" but the boy continued on walking, ignoring you completely.

"Fine! If you don't want to talk, you are going to listen." you asserted and Draco simply covered his ears. Mouth agape, you stared at him, still walking, almost running. The audacity of this man.

You swatted his hands away and he glared at you. He had never glared at you, not in that way. Pure hatred seemed to dance in his icy eyes, even colder than usual. You took a deep breath and started your speech which eventually turned in an incoherent mumbling.

"Listen Draco, i don't know what i did to deserve this, but i highly doubt i did something so spiteful to earn this kind of treatment." he still wasn't looking at you and continued his way towards the common room, but in his eyes something changed, he looked almost ashamed.

"You are incredibly important to me, you've never shown me anything but support and that's why i could never forgive myself if i involuntarily hurt you in some way. You are my best friend, for Merlin's sake!" Draco's eyes seemed to harden again and a scowl started to paint on his face.

"And i won't deny you that you're even more than a friend to me." Draco finally side glanced at you as the two of you were now walking up the stairs, surrounded by hundred of paintings looking at you curiously.

"I care about you so much and you don't even look at me. Every day i look forward to see your stupid face and hear your stupid voice, to have one of our usual stupid conversations and hear your stupid laugh so that every night i can go to sleep and think about your beautiful face and your beautiful voice, about our conversations and your laugh that i wouldn't trade for the whole bloody world." Draco was proceeding increasingly slower and you were walking side by side, trying to get him to look you in the eyes as you kept on going upwards.

"At least look at me, you stupid, unbearable, prissy, arrogant, pretty, handsome git!" your face was red with anger but he didn't stop. "Because what i'm trying to tell you is that i l-"

Draco abruptly grasped your waist and pulled you closer to him. You had been so engrossed in your discourse that you hadn't even noticed that the stairs were changing and that you were about to fall, one foot already dangling in the air. But Draco caught you and you were now pressed against his chest while he gazed at the void you were about to fall in. His chest rose up and down wildly and you could hear his heart thumping at a ridiculously quick pace under your cheek.

The stairs stopped again in front of a corridor but neither of you seemed to able to move. Then, Draco grasped your shoulders pulling you away from him but still exceedingly close.

"Are you ok?" his eyes searched yours for any signs of hurt and you just stared back.

"Are you talking to me now?" you asked sternly, making his expression go from one of concern to one of sorrow in a matter of seconds.

"I'm sorry, y/n." he admitted, eyes glinting as he held you firmly in front of him.

"For what? For being an asshole?"

"For not telling you before that i never wished for us to be just friends." his unexpected confession caused you to stare at him for a few seconds before a huge grin spread on your face and you took his pale face in your hands, which turned bright pink at the sudden contact. You kissed him, you finally kissed him.

"I advise keeping such displays of affection for closed doors." boomed a voice in front of you and you and Draco leapt backwards, clinging to the railing behind you with both hands. Snape eyed each of you with scorn before passing between you two and descending the stairs. "10 points from Slytherin."

As he got out of your sight, you couldn't help but burst out laughing and Draco followed swiftly. You then looked down at your feet, a big grin still plastered on your face. He inched closer, lifting your chin up to face him.

"So... you think i'm handsome." he said smugly.

"I also said that you are unbearable."

"Yes, but you think i'm handsome."

"But i-" he cut you off by reconnecting your lips together.

"I have to admit that i kinda like this new way of shutting me up."

//

Taglist <3

@turn-to-page-394-please @gwlvr @dracosaccount @astoria-malfcy @dracomalfoys-wh0re @ch0kemedracomalfoy @cherie-draco @oeuryale @wh0re4blaise

[if your name is crossed out, check your privacy settings!]

[ladyartemesia]

Yooo your love story straight out seems like an e2l slow burn tumblr fic. Do you have any plans using at as a plot?? I would def read it 👀

I don’t know if I would truly call it enemies-to-lovers because—although I got irritated with him and his behavior and did snap at him from time to time—we were not really enemies. In fact we were barely friends for most of the years we knew each other—

Well.

Ok. So that’s not totally true...

We fought online constantly. From the time we graduated college (where his crush first developed and I routinely forgot his name) the two of us were always fighting on social media—usually about politics—and occasionally about other things but both of us were too smart to ever truly get the better of each other so there was a grudging respect, (his mom said he used to yell at his computer screen about me). We had it OUT several times online even though we rarely—if ever—spoke in person.

My poor sweet boy DID get himself in trouble over me in more ways than one though—even if we’re weren’t close yet...

His college girlfriend set him up to fail asked him who he would date if the two of them weren’t together and he answered immediately—vehemently—

“Viola. I would definitely date Viola if I could.”

🤦🏻‍♀️ (oh...honey...no)

(That would become a huge THING in their relationship. Every time they got into a fight his ex would shout “why don’t you just go date VIOLA then?!”—When he married me he said he felt like a real winner in that particular collection of conflicts. Playing the long game I guess 🤣😂)

Back then I was all about the music/dramatic arts scene and I was dating a string of empty headed pretty boys who bored me nigh unto death because I was young and completely stupid.

In contrast my someday-boo was painfully quiet and shy (though not really with me because he was too busy trying to prove me wrong), but everyone who met him or spoke to him really liked him and respected him.

After college we were were still in the same extended social circle (and—as previously mentioned—fighting online), but I went to grad school and my not-yet-husband decided to chill for awhile and take a job as a landscaper while he figured his life out and... here’s where it gets complicated because...

—that’s where the girls came in. You see... he’s always been a really nice guy... maybe a little too nice 🤦🏻‍♀️

The term fuqboi tends to conjure up impressions of a cocky frat bro who slyly shags his way through a mountain of willing women with disconnected efficiency and a subtext of emotional constipation.

But that would not be the case here.

You see my husband is a listener. He’s an INFP. He, unlike many of his brethren, understands emotions and can really make a woman feel seen. Combine that with his good looks, brilliant mind, and broody nerditude and you have a recipe for women who were ‘just friends’ randomly dropping to their knees (and a lot more) for him.

Never one to stand in the way of a lady’s dreams, pre-me-hubby figured that if they were that determined to (*insert miscellaneous sexy stuff here*) with him then—well—he’d let them.

I mean why not, right? No harm done.

Wrong. 🤬

And here is where our paths truly began to merge (in the real world) for the first time.

As the FOURTH girl (just in my friend group) he graciously allowed (🤦🏻‍♀️) to have her wicked way with him sobbed in my arms, I became determined to put this ridiculous man-child IN his PLACE—this time in the tactile world as well as the virtual one.

...Poor Liz

She realized that he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to be in a relationship with anything other than his WoW account and she was insistent that he had broken her heart.

So I cornered him and we had it out. (Call me meddlesome, but to be fair he was four friends deep at this point.)

The problem was that... the more I talked to him...the more he was not really what I expected... I found myself...oddly...intrigued?

Later it would come out that I was the first girl—ever—that he actually pursued. And I was not even aware of it for like the first three months.

He was pretty slick after all when it came down to it.

That man convinced me to ‘help him’ with women—to make sure he didn’t get himself into another situation where some girl with heart eyes was tearing off his clothes and expecting commitment.

HE ASKED ME TO BE HIS ‘EXCUSE.’

🤦🏻‍♀️(...I know. I’m an idiot.)

“We can hang out. You’ll teach me how to spot if a girl is about to catch feelings and take off my pants. And I will have an excuse when they call as to why we can’t hang out” (—and ...they really were always calling. It was wild.)

....I mean he WAS shy! It SEEMED plausible!

So yeah my dim self agreed to it. (🤦🏻‍♀️)

I considered it a valiant attempt to save the rest of my social circle from the most clueless ‘accidental’ fuqboi on planet earth and maybe even an opportunity to teach him how to be a real human being and what not.

And before you think ‘fake dating’—we weren’t. We were just hanging out as friends. You see when I went to yell at him (and chased him down after he laughed at me and tried to escape) we ended up talking in his car for like four hours. And then that happened like three more times randomly so... I... actually... wanted... to be his friend... 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was still 110% not interested romantically.

Your girl (me) was after some bland banker dude (🤦🏻‍♀️) and so I blissfully fell into friendship with my actual soulmate without a single second thought. And I never worried about either of us catching feelings because I had a crush on someone else and he had heavily implied that I was not his type. (He told me later that I just assumed this and he simply never corrected me 🙄)

I don’t remember falling for him. I never decided to. I never thought about it...

But one day after the whole crew was hanging out at a restaurant (and the waiter kept giving me free drinks which may have pissed my once-and-future man off) the two of us went out to his car to have our customary three hour post-chill chat...

I was teasing him about something—some girl he was still attempting to untangle himself from—and I said—as had become my habit (seriously I said this so many times as a joke)—“It’s too bad I’m not your type—you could just tell her you have a girlfriend.”

(Now. I know what you’re thinking. But I was still firmly on team platonic ok! I was just a flirt. And maybe part of me was starting to feel weird things about him—but those feelings weren’t like anything I recognized so I thought I just needed to cut back on sugar or something.)

(Have I mentioned I’m an idiot?)

ANYWAYS he looked me right in the eye. So serious. And instead of saying “that’s too bad”—LIKE he ALWAYS did—he said—

“You...are my type, Viola... You’re exactly my type.”

To which I responded—“....What? No I’m not. You said I wasn’t.”

“Never said that. You assumed.”

“You LET me!”

—followed by a good ten minutes of me having an existential crisis/yelling at him for allowing me to believe he didn’t find me attractive and lulling me into a false sense of security. He was infuriatingly unapologetic.

At the end of it all he asked me to give him—give us—a chance.

And I agreed to go out on a few dates with him (mostly to prove to myself that there was nothing there).

(🤦🏻‍♀️)

The only thing I ended up proving was that I was wrong about what I wanted and even more wrong about what I needed.

You see...

Those weird feelings turned out to be love.

(🤦🏻‍♀️)

And it was a really special experience to sit in a room full of girls who had cried in my arms over him—girls I had lectured repeatedly on the dangers of his heartless ways— and admit that I was his girlfriend.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Love was—and continues to be—nothing like I expected and frankly I couldn’t be happier.

... to answer your questions

1. I have considered writing a fic based on our story called Broken Road. The title is taken from an old Rascal Flatts song that—as insanely cheesy as it is—really reminds me of us. Don’t know if I will actually write this. Thought about it a lot though.

2. Tags I would use for this story?

#enemies-to-lovers / #idiots-to-lovers / #college au / #outgoing!fem reader(me) x shy nerd!accidental fuqboi / #reader is also a huge nerd actually / #she’s just a loud one / #frenemies-to-lovers / #the love is requited / #they’re just idiots / #pining (his) / denial (mine) / #reader has terrible taste in men / #except for that last one / #she really redeemed herself there at the end

[cursestothemoon]

I Won’t Say I’m In Love

i.

Fred Weasley x Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Read the summary here

Warnings: Language, suggestive themes

Word Count: 2569

SERIES MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST

(i found the picture on google, there is a name on it but other than that i am not sure who owns it. I do not.)

The leaves, newly fallen from the on coming of Autumn, crunched under the feet of hurrying students. Hogwarts had begun it’s new school year, witches and wizards were hurrying from boats and carts to get into the castle and catch up with friends. Just outside of the dining Hall was a sea of students, chattering with friends, everyone staying in clumps of like colors.

Gryffindors stayed with their own, as did Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs were the ones to intermingle the most, having friends in almost every house. Then there was the house of Salazar Slytherin, a proud bunch, robes of green tightly knit together leaving no room for outsiders or stragglers, not that the other houses (excluding Hufflepuff) thought highly enough of the green and silver house to make friends.

Y/n L/n, a proud member of Slytherin stood proud with her friends and housemates. Her chin was held high, a playful smirk painted delicately on her features as she listened to Blaise Zabini give a recount of his summer holiday. Blaise had always been a nice boy, his mother was a beautiful woman who was familiar with the front page of many high end wizarding fashion magazines. Then there was Lily Webberforth, another pureblood from a family of wealth, she was in Y/n’s year and a cherished friend.

“Father said he’d be purchasing a new peacock for the manor, though he couldn’t decide between albino or not.” Draco informed.

Draco Malfoy had wormed his way into the group during second year, a good kid...when he wanted to be, but absolutely snotty otherwise.

“Y/n, how about you wear my jersey for the first game of the season?” Adrian Pucey asked, arm slinging around Y/n’s shoulders making her internally cringe.

She was never a fan of being touched and Adrian seemed to be all for it when it came to her. They were in the same year and he’d been trying to convince Y/n to make it official since third year. She preferred to play with him rather than commit to him. It was easier that way, being able to differentiate her feelings from an early age, she knew she didn't particularly like him, but they had a few good nights and now she can’t shake him. He had become rougher over the years, harsh and controlling with an affinity for blackmail.

“No my clothes are just fine, Pucey, thanks.” She shrugged off his arm as Lily snickered at the exchange, finding joy in giving Adrian a look that told him ‘better luck next time’.

Adrian, not the biggest fan of rejection then turned to Lily in hopes of getting a jealous rise out of Y/n.

“What about you, Lils? You’ll wear my jersey won’t you?”

Lily shook her head, “I’m on the team with you, clear why you're not in Ravenclaw isn't it?”

Y/n laughed at the comment and moved to stand next to Lily, away from Adrian. Luckily, he got the message, for now, and left to find Marcus Flint.

“Have you seen the twins yet?” Lily asked, leaning closer to Y/n to make sure she wasn't overheard.

The girl gave her a questioning look before asking, “Why would I go looking for them?”

“Their hair’s come in nice, looking a bit shabby last year, remember?”

“Yeah, they’ve finally cut it?”

Lily shook her head, her eyes glowing with excitement, “Even better, it’s grown out a bit longer. Real nice looking, George looks rather well I’d say.”

“I always figured you had a thing for him.” Y/n laughed.

“Oh please, you and I both know that you love how much attention Fred gives you.”

Y/n tried to respond, really she did, but she was both out of words and interrupted by Lily again.

“Look, here they come.” Her voice was quite as she nudged her head in the direction behind Y/n.

Y/n turned slowly, in no rush to give Fred Weasley the satisfaction of having him know they were talking about him. When she did finally meet his eyes she couldn’t help but agree with Lily, his hair had grown out quite handsomely and he seemed to have reached an impossible height, well over the six feet he towered at in the previous year.

“Ladies.” They greeted simultaneously, Fred eyeing Y/n as they neared.

She gave a silent nod to them as Lily vocally greeted them with a reserved, “Hey.”

“News is that the first match of the season has our houses against each other. Shame isn’t it, Poppet? You can’t cheer for me.” Fred asked, arms crossing in front of his chest and lips stretching to a smirk.

Anyone could tell Fred was proud of his large frame, as a beater he worked hard for his toned arms, and thick biceps but his height was a complete natural gift bestowed upon him by the gods and he wouldn’t waste their generosity.

Y/n snorted, “Oh yeah, makes me feel empty inside when I can’t cheer for you, Weasley.”

“I know, no need to tell me. I fill you right up don’t I?”

The comment made her sneer at him, but she was unable to say anything back as her house was called into the Great Hall for the beginning of the year feast. Fred watched her leave as George poked fun at his inability to charm his way into her heart with innuendos and sarcasm.

It annoyed Fred, it was common knowledge that you had been with a few guys, some people even going as far as giving Y/n an undeserved title for it. Unfortunately, common knowledge happened to be a common rumor made by people who disliked her. Fred didn’t know this however and her constant rejection made him wonder, what did all those other guys have that he didn't?

Y/n and Fred had a back and forth relationship, neither being afraid to throw jabs at the other with the underlying tone of flirtiness yet both of them knowing the line not to cross. Fred thought she was ethereal, the way she seemed to glow as she walked through the halls had him weak in the knees. Her voice was buttery and soft, a velvety quality that seemed to grasp onto each of his heartstrings. Fred was head over heels for her and he hated it so he used sarcasm and a condescending tone to combat his feelings. Over time this developed into a false belief that he really didn’t like her, she was cunning, sly, and so easy to hate when he couldn’t love her.

--

Lily and Y/n sat in potions class, potion already brewed and completed as they gossiped in hushed tones and watchful eyes.

“So, anything new with Weasley?”

Y/n didn’t need a first name to know who her friend was referring to and she groaned.

“No, and there never will be.”

A loud groan emitted from Lily’s lips, “When are you gonna stop lying to yourself? I can see right through you.”

“There is no chance, no way that I’d ever fall for him.”

“You’d never fall for him or you’d never let yourself?”

The following silence was just as good of an answer as any, and Lily gave her a smug looking knowing she had won the argument.

Class ended shortly after that exchange, Y/n and Lily now having a free period chose to hang out in the room with the goblet of fire, watching as people put their names in. It was only last night that Fred and George had voiced their complaints quite loudly at the age restriction and Y/n was excited to rub it in Fred’s face that she was of age. Of course she wasn’t going to put her name in the goblet, she had better things to worry about than some tournament.

Lily and Y/n entered the hall at seemingly the wrong time, seeing as Fred and George had run through the doors leaving the girls in their dust. The whoops and hollers from bystanders made Y/n roll her eyes much to Lily’s amusement.

“How can you not be annoyed by their arrogance?” Y/n asked incredulously.

Her friend shrugged, “They are amusing.”

Y/n ignored the comment as they neared the twins.

“It’s not going to work.” She sing-songed loud enough for them to hear as she walked by.

Fred and George heard the comment and made a b-line for her and Lily. Fred plopped down behind Y/n, his face turning to meet her eyes, George doing the same to Lily.

“You don’t think that, do you Lily?” George asked Lily with a feigned look of childlike innocence.

“Come on, Poppet, have a little faith in me.” Fred said, a sarcastic look of pleading falling over his features.

For extra effect Fred jutted out his bottom lip making Y/n laugh at his ridiculousness, and oh how he loved to have her attention to himself.

“It’s incredibly dimwitted.” Y/n answered.

Lily nodded, “See that there?” She pointed to a white line around the goblet as she continued, “it’s an age line. Dumbledore drew it himself -”

“Meaning something as pathetically dimwitted as an aging potion isn’t going to get past it.” Y/n finished.

Fred tsked as he shook his head, “That’s why it’s so brilliant.”

“Because it’s so pathetically dimwitted.”

The twins stood up abruptly and Y/n’s eyes followed Fred’s figure. The way his jaw flexed as he drank the potion and his hair flopped when he jumped down from the bench with George made Y/n lose grasp on her emotions for just a moment.

He was good looking, she couldn’t deny it. Fred Weasley seemed to be built by the gods, his hair burned as that of Ares’, and his face chiseled to the likeness of Apollo. But Y/n had been there and done that with pretty boys, all of them were the same and wouldn’t give in to another one. She refused to let herself fall for him, afraid of the repercussions of really loving him.

The fire let out an angry growl that brought Y/n’s mind back to that room and what was happening, with good timing too as she then watched George and Fred get thrown a few feet in the air and land away from the age line. They sprouted long grey beards and got into a tussle on the floor.

The sight made Y/n giggle before she quickly regained her composure and acted as unbothered as possible making Lily roll her eyes. It would’ve been a fairly enjoyable time, regardless of what Y/n would’ve told Fred, but Adrian Pucey walking into the hall made her shrink in her chair as she grimaced.

“Go, don’t think he’s seen you yet.” Lily whispered, eyes trained on the other Slytherin.

Y/n nodded and hugged the walls as she made her way to the door, hopefully, unseen. She celebrated too early, and her face fell as she heard the unmistakable tone just as she made it through the doors.

“Running away from me?” Adrian called, his smirk evident in his words.

She stopped, turning to look at him as she spoke, “Don’t be so surprised. You ought to have realized by now your company isn’t wanted.”

“Come on Y/n, give us a chance. You know you want to.” He said coming closer to her.

“Really, Adrian, I don’t.”

Adrian reached out to pull her under his arm and forced her to walk with him, the act making her tense up but he didn’t seem to mind. He leaned closer to her ear, his breath hitting her skin making her incredibly uncomfortable.

“You’re mine, you know that don’t you? And no fucking ginger is going to get in my way.” He growled.

“You’re disgusting.” She spat, eyes burning with the anger of Hephaestus’ greatest fire.

Adrian laughed as he leaned closer to Y/n’s ear making her give an uncomfortable shiver, “Careful, darling, your feelings are showing.”

--

“Miss me, poppet?”

Fred Weasley’s voice was chipper and cheery as he greeted Y/n in their first class of the day. He had just woken up and it showed, his red hair looked as though it was hastily brushed through with his own fingers and his eyes still a bit puffy. He looked positively endearing as he took a seat at his table with George, just behind Lily and Y/n.

“Ridiculously.” Y/n mumbled, not looking up from her Herbology book.

“We’re only a few weeks in, what could you possibly be studying for?” Fred asked as he leaned over his desk to catch a glimpse at what you were looking at.

You glanced at him momentarily before looking back at your book, “Just giving myself an idea of what to expect.”

“Not a bad idea.” George said, considering doing it himself.

Fred gave him a funny look before turning his attention back to the girl in front of him, chin resting on his hand propped up by his elbow on the desk. She wasn’t paying attention to him, instead focusing on the book in front of her. She was slightly to the side allowing Fred the perfect view of her face without giving her the satisfaction of knowing he was staring at her.

Y/n’s hair fell in gentle waves down to kiss the top of her hips, she had fring that framed the length of her face and parted in the middle that was incredibly voluminous. Her eyes were focused with intense determination as she read, face relaxed as she was completely absorbed in what she was doing. Fred noticed early on that she rarely laughed, a genuine, eye crinkling, giggle but instead always had a look of unbothered casualness. He couldn’t understand this, not in the slightest, seeing as he was sure he had smile lines forming already.

He wanted to know more about the ethereal Slytherin, he craved it with everything in his being. Something about her drew him in, held him in place and refused to let him go.

Deep in thought, Fred failed to notice her eyes now looking at him with a curious glint and her hand coming out to poke him with her index finger.

“Alright, Weasley?” Her eyebrows were furrowed and Fred shrugged off the bubbly feeling he got in his gut.

He smirked, “Aw, do you care about my well being? Georgie hold me I may swoon.”

George laughed and shook his head at his brother, Lily joining in on the laughs as she watched Y/n’s face contort to one of distaste.

“Oi, Freddie’s got himself a girlfriend.” Lee Jordan, a close friend of Fred and George’s called from his table on the other side of the greenhouse.

Fred gave a short chuckle, his defenses coming up instantaneously as he tried to ignore the burning of his cheeks. And maybe if he hadn’t been so keen on putting down any and all rumors of him having feelings for Y/n he would’ve noticed the shy smile that graced Y/n’s lips as she turned her face away from the boys.

But alas, he didn't, and instead opened his mouth to shout over to Lee.

“My standards aren't that low, mate. I’d just as soon shag a goblin, Godric knows they’d be less bothersome.”

Taglist

@freddieweasleyswife​  @anywherebuthere​ 

[blush-and-books]

she lives in daydreams with me

3+1 in which julie’s daydreaming spreads to luke, too. title and inspiration from she by harry styles. 

a gift for my fellow fantoms on this beautiful clowngate.

a/n: this isn’t meant to be tied to/inspired by blissful reveries by noblealice on ao3, but it’s a great fic that i love and it’s a julie daydream fic so i may as well link it because you should check it out!!! 

Luke noticed that sometimes, Julie would completely zone out. 

It wasn’t often that she did it around him, but while she would try and study her pencil would be moving on the paper but her eyes would not be focused. Or when she would be washing the dishes, a faint humming could be heard under her breath as her hands mindlessly rinsed the plates and placed them into the dishwasher. 

“They’re daydreams,” she whispers into the nearly pitch-black garage one night when they stay up, despite their exhaustion, just to be with each other. “I had them a little when I was a kid. It was how I got inspiration for a lot of songs.”

Julie’s voice raises to a higher pitch at the end of her sentence. It’s a familiar sound to Luke, now -- most of her little vocal cues are -- so he turns on the floor to face where she’s lying on the couch, and brings his hand up to her bare ankle.

“They’re musical?”

“They were, and then… They weren’t. I daydreamed a lot after my mom, but it was mostly her walking through the front door like she never left.”

He doesn’t have to say anything. He just needs to be there.”

“And then,” Julie continues, “after I met you, the music came back.”

His heart skips a beat. He knows she meant “you” as in him and Reggie and Alex, them as a collective unit; but it’s a fun little dream of his own for her to just be thinking of him. 

Lightly, his thumb skates across her skin. “I’m glad. If anyone should have music in their life, it’s you, Julie.”

“Do you ever daydream?” Her voice is quiet. She’s probably falling asleep.

There’s no reply. So it’s just the two of them, in the dark, with his hand attached to her because now that he can feel her like this he doesn’t want to stop until he has to. His hand is just barely on her ankle, but with every trace of his fingers back and forth along the curve he marvels at his ability to do it in the first place. 

A smile pops at the corners of Luke’s lips. “Not really,” he tells her. “If I did… They probably wouldn’t be musical, like yours.”

“Then what would you do?”

He stares, fixed, at his hand on her leg. 

“The stuff I want to do, but can’t.”

nine in the morning, a man drops his kids off at school; and he’s thinking of you (like all of us do)

It’s a few days later when Luke realizes that something is off. 

A simple Wednesday morning, when Julie darts into the garage before school with her backpack bouncing on her back as she runs up to each of them for a hug. Luke is the final recipient. 

He enthusiastically throws his arms around her just as tightly as he does every morning, because in his heart, he wishes she could just stay. It’s ridiculous, and selfish, but he longs for the ability to lay on the torn old couch with Julie at his side and never have to leave. 

“Writing when I come back?” 

Her eyes are gazing up at him, round and wide and hopeful as her arms stay latched around his neck. Safely, he keeps his hands at her hips and doesn’t allow himself to consider letting them go anywhere else. 

“Won’t you have homework?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, but I also have a song I want to work on and I won’t be able to focus until we finish it.”

Ironically, it sounds like one of the excuses he would give his parents long ago. Once the music was out of his head, he would tell them, then he could focus on homework. 

(He didn’t.)

“You’re turning into me,” he jokes at her; to which she laughs with a bright and beautiful smile right in front of his face. His eyes can’t help but slip their focus to it. “Music before school? What happened to your dad saying ‘school first?’”

“I’ll tell him I’m going to the garage for peace and quiet.”

God, she’s making this harder and harder. For months, she was the one scolding him about her need to focus on school; and so he trained himself to come across as (marginally) less eager. But now that she’s bouncing on her tiptoes and her head is lifting right in front of his face as she teases fibbing to her dad to write with him, he doesn’t think he has much restraint left. 

“How about…” He begins, trying to find something neutral to say. “How about you see how much homework you get and then decide what you want to do first?”

“Since when did you-”

The sound of Ray honking for Julie to come out ends their back-and-forth. It Luke looks close enough -- which he is, because why would he have anything better to do right now than look at Julie -- he can see her disappointment. “Go on, Boss. Your ride’s waiting. I’ll see you after school.”

Carefully, she slips from his arms and wishes them a final goodbye before hustling out of the garage. 

And Luke collapses onto the couch the second she’s gone. 

“You okay, man?”

“He’s fine, Reg. Just an idiot.”

Luke’s arm, that was covering his face, slides up so that he can glare at Alex. “Hey! Rude. Why am I an idiot?”

“Because all you do is agonize over Julie instead of talking to her.”

His forearm comes back down, blacking out his vision. “No point.”

Moments of quiet pass between the three boys, and eventually, the telltale sound of his bandmates poofing out of the room is faintly heard. Luke is left alone, on the couch. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes where he sits in his self-made darkness before the garage door is opening again, and Julie is standing in the doorway, looking adrenaline-rushed and practically glowing. Luke, being Luke, jumps up from the couch in surprise.

“Julie! Hey, uh… What are you doing here? Didn’t you leave for school?”

Her grin is almost fake, it’s so blinding. “I forgot something.”

Unprompted and unexpectedly, Julie is confidently making her way towards him before softly resting her hands on his jaw and pulling his lips down to hers.

Even through his all-encompassing shock, his hands somehow find their way to her waist, and then her back, and then her hair. She’s pulling him down to her, so he’s kind of uncomfortably arched over her but he doesn’t care one bit. Just the same as this morning, she is pressed against him from head to toe but this feels so much better. 

He’s trying to keep it slow and soft so that he can savor every moment of this random, welcomed action; but Julie’s asking for a quicker tempo. Her hands are skating across his shoulders and running up to his hair, pulling him down even farther, and he finds himself grasping at her thighs to lift her up and make things more comfortable but she’s pulling away before he can. 

Once they part, she shyly takes her bottom lip between her teeth and Luke almost steals her away and begs for more. “That was it,”  she mumbles, and then the car horn is echoing out front again, and-

Luke shakes awake.

--

he takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away (and not telling his mates)

He knows it’s a daydream almost immediately -- a long period of staring at a blank journal can do that to a guy -- when Julie suddenly appears and dangles car keys in front of him. 

She’s only just got her permit. She can’t actually drive independently yet. 

But he’s spent time on more than one occasion considering what they can go do together when she can.

“You ready for a break, Rockstar?” She asks with a coy smile, and it’s just more confirmation that it’s a fantasy. Julie has only ever called him “Rockstar” once. 

But he already likes where his imagination is taking him, so he puts the journal on the coffee table and poofs over to her. “Born ready.” 

Her hand tangles itself in his, and she enthusiastically tugs him from the studio into the sunny daylight where her dad’s car sits in the driveway. “Carlos and Dad and Tia are at a baseball game,” she grins, almost proudly, “so you and I get to have an adventure.”

God, this really is a dream. Julie isn’t as impulsive as he can be, but he occasionally finds himself wanting at the idea of going MIA for a day. Just a day. Less than 24 hours, even, with Julie by his side and nobody around who knows them or their situation. Julie and Luke against the world, against life and death, and whatever comes next. 

“Lead the way, Boss.”

Nearly within the blink of an eye, they’re on the PCH, speeding down the asphalt with loud music blaring from the speakers. With the windows rolled down and the humid but fresh air billowing around them in the car, it was all too easy for Luke to imagine that he was…

Alive.

This should have been them in 1995 -- him and Julie, him and the boys, all of them together and feeling the rush of being a group of stupid teenagers who love each other. 

He knows his hair is getting ruffled as he tilts his head back against the leather headrest, closing his eyes to directly face the air blowing into him. Maybe, through this dream, just for a moment, he can be human. 

“This is so fun!” Julie screams next to him, and his face just breaks into a grin because it is so fun. She sounds so full of joy. It’s his favorite sound.

While a part of him wants to hold the daydream in this moment, with the sun hitting his legs and Julie’s hair chaotically whirling around her head; he decides to let things keep going. A moment later, they are pulling into a nearly empty parking lot on the beach. 

Their seatbelts click and slide from their chests. Julie’s hand firmly latches around his wrist and proceeds to sprint with him laughing hysterically as he trails behind her, the ocean shimmering in the distance. The moment that their feet splash in the saltwater, Luke takes the chance to pull Julie into his arms by her waist and lift her up; droplets popping up from the water in a cyclone of laughter.

There’s already sweat layering both of their foreheads, but Luke feels honored that he’s standing close enough to her to be able to see it.

Hours -- or, what he assumes are hours -- pass by with water lapping their legs and Luke licking the salt from her shoulder in a move that started as a joke but was really just another ridiculous fantasy fulfilled. After he tries to splash her particularly roughly, she squeals and turns away; turning back to reveal a dripping wet face behind a curtain of hair.

Even though there’s a glare in her eyes, it’s playful. And she doesn’t fight him when he walks up to her, lifts the hem of his loose-fitting tank, and swipes across her cheeks to catch most of it.

The blush on her cheeks could be blamed on excessive sun, or the affectionate gesture, or-

“Luke?”

It takes less than a second for Luke to be back in the studio, back in front of the blank page, back in his reality. 

And Julie is in the doorway. 

Her cheeks aren’t  pink, her legs aren’t bare, her skin isn’t sweat and seawater sticky. It was just a regular school day for her. 

She still glows.

“Luke?” He hears her say again, and it’s the final nail in his coffin. 

“Yeah, sorry. I was zoning out there for a sec.”

Her curious smile relaxes, and she takes the unspoken invitation to enter the garage  and throw her backpack down next to the couch. Her eyes quickly find the journal, “write anything good?”

“Not a word. Didn’t have my partner.”

The line earns him a friendly shoulder-nudge. It’s not much compared to what he just had, but it’s something. 

Only, his impulsive brain tells him he needs more. 

“Can we go to the beach one day?”

Refocusing her gaze from the open notebook to his face, she amusingly furrows her eyebrows. “I mean… When I have my license, totally. Whatever you guys want.”

“I…” Shut up. Stop here. “I was thinking you and I, actually. Just us.”

“Oh.” He knows that “oh.” It’s the same one she gave him when she was flustered in the school hallway. He can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad sign. Her fingers are twitching against her legs and her eyes avoid his, but a part of him sees his daydream bleed into reality when a pink hue dusts her cheeks. “Just us.”

“Yeah, if you’re-”

“I’d love to.”

Her mouth zips shut like she didn’t mean to say it. But he’s already smiling at her, and probably sporting a blush of his own, and he knows he doesn’t even have a funny remark  to say in response. 

All he can do is count the days until Julie gets her license.

--

and she sleeps in his bed (while he plays pretend)

Sometimes, when Julie is gone, he’ll just… Go to her room. 

It’s not weird. 

He doesn’t snoop -- well, he tries not to -- but everything that’s out in the open is there for his eyes to take in. This way, he gets the little intricate details of what makes Julie Julie that would otherwise take years to learn about a person. 

Today, when he poofs in, the bed is unmade. Normally she makes it before leaving for school, but on the rare occasion that she is running late, it will remain in disarray until her return. 

Unless, he…

No, no, boundaries. 

But it’s just a little favor. And it’s not like she can kill him or anything right?

Once again, his impulsivity dominates the argument. And he’s suddenly wrapping her sheet in his fists and tugging it up and over her pillows, followed by the comforter. 

With each puff of air that brushes his face from the falling sheets, he catches a bit of her peach perfume. 

The action of making a bed feels so distant to him, but he remembers having to do it himself like it was yesterday. He was too careless to tuck anything in or smooth anything out -- it was just a simple tugging of his sheets to cover the mattress. If he had Julie around back then, pulling him back from the precipice of his relationship with his parents and making music that Bobby wouldn’t steal, then she probably would have shown him how to make his bed more presentable for when she came over.

In front of him, the bed he's making doesn’t look like Julie’s anymore. 

It looks like his. His old twin bed at Mitch and Emily Patterson’s house, his old bedroom tucked in at the end of the hallway. Every shade of blue and gray and yellow feels so familiar but only a little off; like his brain is vaguely reconstructing his home with blurred edges and familiar memories.

“Your bathroom is surprisingly clean,” a familiarly warm voice says from behind him. Julie stands in his doorway, adorning an ethereal flower-patterned dress and clunky black combat boots. 

The strength of the daydream takes over when she approaches him with a smile and his hands, on instinct, find her hips. “I don’t know why you’re shocked. I’m not a slob.”

“Well…” They both chuckle at her tone. “I thought that with your parents out of town, everything here would be falling apart.”

“Well, you’re here, so that could never happen.”

Her smile is the one thing that he knows he got exactly right in this reconstructed environment. He will always know Julie.

The smile that he leans down to lightly kiss is the same smile he sees when they know they have a catchy chorus on their hands, or when she gets an A on a test, or sometimes just when she comes come to say hi to them. It’s pure Julie joy.

“Now that you’ve made your bed since I was in the bathroom,” she murmurs as they pull away, “can we take that nap we were talking about? School was exhausting.”

Tiredly, her head falls to his chest. It’s such a small, warm gesture; but it sends his heart soaring painfully into the wall of his ribs. “Of course, Boss.”

With a gentle touch, he pulls back the covers of his bed and gestures for Julie to crawl in first. She waves him off, trying to tug at the laces of her boots so that she doesn’t sleep in her shoes, but Luke is quick to prop himself on the edge of the bed and lift her foot to her knee. 

“Such a gentleman,” she mocks him, but there’s no venom to her voice. In fact, she’s looking down at him like she loves him. 

He slowly helps her slip her foot from the boot with a soft grip on her ankle. “For you, anything.”

Charged, quiet beats pass between them as he finishes work on the other shoe and instantly scoots over to make room on the bed for her to lay next to him. He can make out a small, pleased smile as she does so; rolling over to cuddle into his chest and tangle their legs the moment that she is able to do so. 

He feels her take a deep breath against his collarbone as he pulls the sheets up to cover them both. “It all smells like you,” she sighs as she exhales.

“Is that a good thing?”

No verbal response -- just a nod, and the sight of her fingers curling into the edge of the sheet and pulling it up right under her nose. “You cozy, Boss?”

Her melodic hum vibrates against his sternum. Parents out of town, cuddling with his girlfriend, playing music -- this was the dream. 

Truly, because it fades around him the moment the recognizable sound of a car rolling up the driveway hits his ears. 

And he’s poofing down to greet Julie, acting as if he doesn’t have all of these wants and needs in his head that all go back to her.

--

It’s a late night, it’s after a gig, and adrenaline is still running fast through Luke’s nonexistent veins. The elevation is still carrying him across the walkway as he recalls the way he shredded his solo and the audience leapt to their feet in roaring applause. 

Sometimes, just to spend a few more minutes with her, Luke will walk Julie to her front door after a gig. She’ll send her dad inside and tell him she was going to “call” the guys, when really they would be partaking in a celebratory band hug before they all cleaned up and retired for the night. 

Tonight was one of those nights, and the cobblestones felt like clouds under Luke’s shoes. 

“Jules, you don’t understand, that high note? I didn’t think it could get better, but something about the lights and the crowds and-”

“It was your guitar solo that kept the audience hyped, though!”

“I think after you swung your wrecking ball voice at them, they would have listened to anything afterwards. You don’t get how magnetic you are, Jules.”

The two of them step up her porch, lingering on the top step. Even though he’s been looking at her all night, post-concert Julie has messy makeup and wild hair and he still sees the flashing lights of the stage reflected in her eyes. She carries the energy of performing with her everywhere she goes.

They’re closer than he realized. He can see the exact dark clouds under her eyes where her mascara has rubbed off, and the strands of hair dotting her hairline, and-

“Luke…”

He doesn’t know what she wants to say, but he doesn’t care. “You’re magnetic, Julie, really. It’s like magic. Nobody can resist you.”

The energy crackles against his fingertips, because he can feel himself twitching to touch her. 

It’s true -- she’s magnetic. He’s leaning in closer and closer with every passing second. 

But she’s the one who makes the first move.

It’s expected and it isn’t when her hands dart from her sides to his neck to his hair and guide him to her as if he would need any help finding her. His hands waist no time in pressing up against her back, bringing her body against his in a way he only feels in hugs-

Only this time, their lips are colliding, and he almost convinces himself this isn’t real.

It’s a sudden and beautiful situation that he’s sure he could only conjure in his daydreams that he has her to blame for in the first place. He’s probably laying on the couch in the studio replaying the look on her face when she hit the high note in question at the gig, and how the gasp she let out at the end propelled him into his solo like he’s never played it before. 

There’s no way he’s making out with Julie right now. 

And he doesn’t mean to vocalize his hesitation, but as her mouth breaks from his with deep breaths that are muted versions of the gasp from the gig, the words tumble from his mouth. 

“Is this a dream?”

With a confused mirth in her eyes, she scrapes the back of his neck with her fingernails and it’s almost tantalizing enough for his head to lull back. 

Please let this be a dream so that he doesn’t wake up tomorrow realizing he did all of this on the Molina’s front porch. 

“I don’t think so,” Julie whispers through her grin. Her fingers apply pressure on the back of his neck, wanting him to come back to her lips probably as much as he wants to come back, and she leans farther into him with their faces barely an inch apart. “But even if it is -- isn’t it a wonderful dream?”

As her mouth parts underneath his and he coaxes another gasp out of her, he agrees -- it is a wonderful dream. 

Tags: @willexx @bluefirewrites @pink-flame @lydias--stiles @constantly-singing @fighttoshinetogether @babydagger28

[julemmaes]

Honey - part one

Elide Lochan x Lorcan Salvaterre roommates au

A/N: today I found a list of prompts that I just l o v e d and I decided to write an Elorcan short story cause I really really love them and I just don’t write them enough, so please enjoy this fluff turned mild angst and then again fluff I guess.

masterlist

Word count: 3,073

Elide would have loved to sleep. To be able to put on the soft plaid pyjamas that Lysandra had given her for her birthday only a few days before and slip under the warm covers - the General Psychology paper sitting in front of her as that black dash at the end of the sentence flashed was her only enemy at that moment.

She huffed, closing her eyes for a moment, enjoying the soft music coming out of the computer. She didn't know the song, because the playlist she was listening to had been sent to her by Lorcan and she hadn't had time to scroll through the song titles to memorize the ones she liked best. She couldn't even hear the words, just the soothing melody, but she could guess that it was a love song.

After all, every playlist Lorcan made for her to study with consisted mainly of sappy, romantic songs. Quite the opposite from what Lorcan himself represented, with his trademark grumpy, pissed-off attitude.

She giggled wearily, sliding even lower into the pillows as she thought about what their friends would say if they found out that her roommate looked for chill, love songs in his spare time just to help her out.

Elide never had too much time on her hands, always busy between university and the two jobs she worked to support herself, and when she could actually relax she never thought about finding new music, it was far too much work and tiring. But Lorcan wasn't studying and the shifts at the toy shop or the animal shelter were very often lonely and quiet, so he had time to listen to music for hours on end without anyone interrupting him. Only later, when he would have free time and nothing to do but play video games with Aelin and Rowan, would he get on the computer and create yet another playlist with the songs he thought she would like the most.

She was about to fall asleep when she heard Lorcan's scream and several alarms going off all over the neighborhood.

"No, fuck!"

She snapped her eyes open as she sat up and was surprised to find the room shrouded in darkness, the only source of light coming from her computer. She frowned, reaching for the switch and trying to turn the light on and off. Nothing.

She closed her eyes again, banging her head against the headboard.

This was the third blackout in a week. She couldn't take any more. And she could only hope that the alarms would all be turned off within the hour, because the last time, the building next door had taken over three hours to turn off the last one, causing everyone to lose hours of sleep in the middle of the night. She was just waiting for the dogs' barking to start as well.

Her plan to go to sleep early dissolved like candyfloss in water.

"Lorcan? Everything okay?" she said loud enough for the boy to hear. When no answer came she shook her head, huffing.

Elide looked for the phone among the blankets so she could turn on the torch, but she couldn't find it anywhere. She placed the computer on the floor, getting out of bed and paying attention to where she put her feet, "Where the fuck did I leave it?" she muttered to herself, moving the stuff she had on her desk over to the chair. It wasn't even there. She looked down at the bed again and then touched the pockets of the jeans she'd promised herself she wouldn't take off until she was done studying - nada.

She was about to leave the room when the door jerked open, "Ellie?" the computer screen was pointing too low for it to give enough light for Lorcan to see her, "Are you asleep?"

"Nop," she said from across the room, "I can't find my phone."

Lorcan sighed, "Mine's dead."

"Shit." she cursed, she wasn't a fan of the dark, "Do you remember where we put the candles last time?" she asked walking tentatively towards the doorway.

Suddenly, the music stopped and the computer made the worst sound it could have made at that moment, shutting down for good. She didn't worry about the paper that she had to finish, she knew it would be there once she turned it back on.

"I can't believe it," Lorcan muttered. They were plunged into darkness. "Can you make it over here without killing yourself?"

Elide was trying not to panic. She knew there was nothing in the dark, but that stupid childish fear had never really left her and her heart was beating wildly in her chest. It wasn't anything crippling, but it certainly wasn't a pleasant feeling.

She nodded, realizing then that Lorcan couldn't see her, "Yeah, wait."

"Take my hand."

Elide walked with her arms outstretched forward, moving them to avoid hitting the wardrobe or dresser she kept near the door, but her strategy didn't seem to work as she slammed her side into the latter and knocked half the stuff on it to the floor.

She grunted in pain, bringing both hands to the sore spot, "For fuck's sake."

She heard Lorcan chuckle, "What did you hit?"

"I think the dresser," she whined, then raised her head, as if she could see him, "Where are you?"

He snorted, "I'll try to get there. Stay right where you are."

"Where do you want me to go." Elide frowned, speaking so softly that even she struggled to hear herself over all those alarms. Another chuckle was soon broken by a growl of pain, followed by a series of very colourful swear words that made the girl burst out laughing.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," continued Lorcan, who, by the sound of the various thumps, was probably hopping on one foot, "I think I stepped on one of your stupid earrings."

"Oh, god," Elide wheezed, more out of exasperation than anything else, "pray you didn't break it because I might kill you."

"It's already taken care of that. We'd only be even if I broke it," he said, cursing as he put his foot back on the ground, "Just stand there and I'll try to pick everything up."

Elide couldn't keep the smile off her lips, "I'll help you."

They hadn't realised how close they actually were, because the second she lowered herself to kneel on the ground, her head slammed into something very hard. She grunted in pain again, bringing her hands to her forehead, but burst out laughing soon after. The situation was getting ridiculous.

"Christ, Elide, are you alright? Please tell me that wasn't your head." asked Lorcan immediately, stretching his hands forward.

Elide didn't know what he had wanted to do, probably make sure her head was still in one piece, but what his hands touched certainly wasn't her head. The laughter died in her throat with a broken sound and before Lorcan realised he was palming her, several moments passed. When he too seemed to come to realisation, he let out a squeak and immediately moved his hands away.

Lorcan squeaked.

"Did you just touch my tits?" asked Elide in a whisper. At the sound Lorcan made, Elide's entire body was covered in shivers.

He cleared his throat, "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay." she grinned. Elide managed to sympathize with the darkness in that moment, almost thanking it for hiding what was sure to be the reddest face Lorcan would ever see.

"Are you okay?" he asked her again, "Sorry I didn't mean to knee you in the forehead."

"I think I might have a concussion," she said, deciding to fuck with him.

"Ha ha," he huffed, "very funny."

Elide imagined him frowning more and more, then sighed, "Okay come on, let's go find these damn candles." she pulled herself upright, one hand on her head and the other on her hip, then muttered, "And tomorrow we're going to go buy a supply of electric torches."

She heard him chuckle, "Can you follow me or do I have to hold your hand?"

Without a second thought, she reached out a hand towards where she thought his would be. Only her fingers didn't meet bare skin, but the fabric of Lorcan's sweatpants, who with a surprised yelp took a few steps backwards, "What's that? Are you trying to even the score?" he said amused.

"Please tell me it was anything but your-" the words died in her mouth. She would have rather died and groaned, bringing her hands to her face when he burst out laughing.

"If you wanted to touch all you had to do was ask, babe," he teased.

"Fuck, knock it off," she said throwing a hand forward, at a safe height, and hitting him in the chest with her fist.

He grunted, but grabbed her wrist, finally intertwining his fingers with hers, "Was that so hard?"

She said nothing, but dug her nails into his flesh and that was enough.

She dragged her feet on the floor so she wouldn't risk sticking earrings or anything else in the soles of her feet and when they were finally in the hallway, she didn't worry about where to walk because she was simply following Lorcan. The warmth of his hand clasped in hers was reassuring her greatly.

"How long do you think this will last?" she asked once they reached the kitchen.

"I honestly have no idea," he said. Elide heard the light switch being turned on and then a faint, "Ah, yeah." coming from him.

She giggled, then brought her hand to her mouth as she yawned, "I just wish I could sleep."

"Rough day?" asked Lorcan, opening the hand that was gripping hers. It took her a while to realize that he was silently asking her to let him go. She felt herself flush again for not realizing it right away, and with deep chagrin she pulled her fingers away one by one, immediately missing him.

She nodded, flinching when one of the alarms changed pace, becoming louder and more insistent. She sighed, knowing they were doomed to at least another hour like that, "Classes this morning were boring as hell, but they were important so I spent six hours on books and there was no one at the café this afternoon, which means not getting too tired and not running after every order, but it also means-"

"-no tips. Yes, I know," Lorcan finished for her. She could feel him opening drawers and rummaging through items looking for anything candle-shaped.

"Your day?" she asked, yawning once more.

She heard Lorcan halt, "God, you're exhausted." she didn't answer, so he continued, "Nothing much. They came to adopt one of the newcomers this afternoon though, and I'm pretty positive that family is perfect for that pup."

Elide could hear the smile in his voice.

Lorcan might have seemed like a mean person on the surface, callous. And indeed he was a bit of a jerk if you weren't one of the people he 'put up with', as he always said, but anyone who really knew him could confirm that he was one of the most loyal and trustworthy people ever.

The fact that he worked at an animal shelter and cared about the families to whom the puppies were entrusted or at a toy shop where Elide had often seen him help multiple parents choose the perfect gift were just two of the examples that could be given to prove such a point.

"Good," she murmured.

"Ro's going to kill me," he complained, "We were playing against a bunch of kids online and now they're going to think I quit because we suck."

Elide grinned, "But you guys do suck."

The shuffling sound stopped again, "Say that again. I dare you."

She chuckled, moving a chair and sitting down. She yawned for the third time and furrowed her brow. She didn't like yawning.

"Ellie, what the fuck," Lorcan huffed in disbelief, "help me instead of just sitting there."

She groaned, "You kneed me and I'm dead tired, I have every right to do nothing," she justified herself, "Besides, the light will be back on in a few minutes. Chill out."

"Chill out." he mimicked her voice. Then he cheered, making her gasp, "Found it!"

"Good luck finding the lighter." she whispered, crossing her arms over the table and resting her head on them.

He whistled, "How nice we are tonight," then he closed the drawers slamming them shut one by one and Elide wanted to punch him again for all the noise, "But it doesn't touch me, because it's in my pocket." and then a flame lit up the room just enough for Elide to see his face.

She scowled, "Why do you have a lighter in your pocket?"

The victorious, sly expression Lorcan had had fell away so quickly that for a second Elide thought something had happened or he'd been burned.

She was almost afraid to ask, "Have you started smoking again?"

"No." he answered too quickly.

Elide stood up, throwing her arms in the air, "Lorcan!" she opened her eyes wide, "You quit over three months ago."

He grimaced, "Not really." he spoke so softly she almost didn't hear him.

Her frown deepened, "What do you mean, 'not really'? You're such a dick," she mumbled, shaking her head.

In the meantime he had lit more candles and was arranging them on the kitchen counter, but when he spoke he looked at Elide and she saw that he was holding back from insulting her in turn. "I'm not a dick, I simply didn't tell you that I had resumed..." he trailed off, then huffed, "two weeks after I quit."

Elide opened her mouth wide, "Two we-" then exploded, "Lorcan, it's bad for you.  B-a-d." she spelled, drawing the letters in the air with her finger, "Do you understand that if you keep smoking your lungs will turn so black they'll look like ash?"

Lorcan clenched his jaw, "I know, thanks for reminding me."

Elide crossed her arms over her chest, speaking in a strained tone, "Why did you start again? Why didn't you tell me?"

He turned his back to her at that, with the excuse of arranging the candles around the kitchen better, but Elide knew it was because he didn't want to look at her face. He didn't answer.

"Where are they?"

"What?"

"The cigarettes. The packet? Where is it?" she demanded to know, walking up to him.

Lorcan turned, taking a step back when he realised she was less than a metre away from him. He frowned, "I'm not telling you."

Elide's eyes went wide, "Why?"

"Because you'd snap them all," he said in an obvious tone.

She nodded vehemently, "Yes, exactly!"

Then he sighed, "Can we just let it go?"

"Sure, if you want to let it go that you're going to die of cancer and that you've been lying to me the whole time, we can let it go," she said, biting her bottom lip and shaking her head. Then she huffed out a laugh, "You're unbelievable."

"Ellie, listen, I'm not smoking as much as I used to, we're talking about one to two cigarettes a day at most," he tried to reassure her, running a hand through his hair. She could hear it in his tone of voice that he felt guilty and embarrassed, whether it was because he had lied to her or because she had found out she couldn't tell.

With a little more light brightening up the room, Elide realised only then that he was shirtless.

Fuck, she thought. Lorcan with his shirt off was a feast for the eyes.

She quickly shifted her gaze to the floor as the light returned in a flash and she was forced to close her over-sensitive eyes. They heard the tv turn on again and the melody of the video game fill the silence.

"Thank fuck." Lorcan muttered as almost all the alarms went off. Now only the few that had to be turned off manually and the dogs continued their assault on their ears.

When Elide opened her eyes again, she cursed. There was blood on the tiles. She leaned forward, looking down at the crotch of her jeans to make sure it wasn't hers, even though she knew she wasn't on her period. "Lorcan?" she asked hesitantly, then turned her head towards him, not moving her gaze from the floor, "I think you're bleeding."

"What? Oh fuck." he chuckled. Elide looked up at him at that point and saw him leaning on the table with one hand and placing the ankle of his right foot on his left knee. He looked up at her, "Your earring stabbed me."

A laugh bubbled out of her, "I'm sorry."

Lorcan looked into her eyes and his shone, "Don't worry, I'll clean it up."

"I'll help if you want." she offered, then yawned and cursed in the middle of it.

He snorted, one corner of his mouth curled up, "Nah, go to bed. I'll take care of it."

Then she let go a whine, "Oh my god my room is going to look like a crime scene if you managed to get blood in here too."

Lorcan smiled tightly, "I'll take care of that too."

Elide nodded, admiring her friend's bare torso and arms one last time.

If Lorcan noticed, he didn't show it, and Elide was grateful for that moment of discretion, they'd had enough of awkward moments for that evening.

Warning him that she was going to bed, she went into the bathroom, undressing very slowly and slipping into her soft pyjamas. When she returned to her room, she noticed a wet spot on the floor and smiled, realising that he had started cleaning from her bedroom. She shouted a simple "goodnight" to him and without waiting for an answer slipped under the covers, ready for a deep and well-deserved night's sleep.

Just a second before she could fall asleep, the door opened slightly and she heard what could only be Lorcan place something on her bedside table. She couldn't open her eyes or bring herself to talk in that moment to ask him what the hell he was doing, but when she woke up the next morning, two packets of cigarettes and the lighter he'd used the night before sat there.

tog tag list (if you wanna be added or removed just send me an ask or dm me)

@maastrash @ireallyshouldsleeprn @sleeping-and-books @ladywitchling @thegoddessofyou @ghostlyrose2 @claralady @anne-reads @sayosdreams @perseusannabeth @letstakethedawn @simping4bookboisngrls @thewayshedreamed 

[loverboytrashmouth]

Wish You Were Sober

pairing; Reddie

word count; 4k

summary; Eddie is tired of Richie flirting like a madman whenever he gets alcohol in his system.

a/n; so i decided i’m making a kind of series of reddie fics i write based on songs, bc i’m the type of bitch that listens to any music or intakes any kind of media and thinks “iMagiNe tHiS bUt rEdDiE<333″ so ya there’s that lol. here’s a lil angsty one shot based on wish you were sober by conan gray, aka a superior song if u ask me. as always, read on ao3 here if you’d like and enjoy ! :)

Nirvana blared through the speakers and traveled throughout the too small apartment owned by some random guy in one of Richie’s classes. Richie didn’t know him too well - he thinks his name is Chris? Collin? Something with a ‘C’ - but, hey, a party’s a party, and free booze is free booze.

The trashmouth was chatting loudly over the music with Bill on a dingy leather couch, waiting for Stan and Eddie to return with more drinks. Richie was already significantly further along than his friends in terms of his drunken state, all obnoxious laughs interrupted by hiccups and long, gangly limbs flailing more wildly than usual. It almost should be concerning to the other Losers, having only been at the party for less than a couple hours and their friend already being long gone, but it was what they were used to. Since they were 15 and stealing liquor from their parents, the Losers constantly saw Richie’s “go big or go home” attitude with drinking. They assumed it was just Richie wanting to be the life of the party and center of attention, whether that meant going shot for shot with Mike, accepting any type of drinking related dare from Beverly, etc.

Richie let them believe this, because it was better than telling them the truth. It was easier than admitting to them that around the same time he started sneaking a copious amount of vodka from the Tozier’s alcohol stash, he was also realizing certain feelings he had for a certain Loser.

Richie Tozier loved Eddie Kaspbrak. Richie was sure it was just one of those basic laws of the universe, one that’s impossible to ignore and inevitable to come to pass. Despite this, living in a small town like Derry meant getting the shit kicked out of you if you even look at another guy for too long, soulmates or inescapable love or whatever be damned. Richie had gotten beatdowns left and right from neighborhood bullies for being a “faggot” before he even knew what the word meant, so he, unfortunately, knew this from personal experience.

But now, sitting in an apartment in Manhattan of all places, attending NYU with three out of six of his best friends, away from those assholes in Derry, Richie thought he’d loosen up. Let himself be brave.

He soon learned that was easier said than done; who knew what 19 years of internalized homophobia could do to a man?

It’s not like he was afraid of being more of an outcast; he was already a loser with a capital “L,” and he, along with the rest of his friends, carried the title like it was given to them by the Queen herself. Deep down Richie knew the rest of the Losers wouldn’t even bat an eye at the fact that he liked dudes the way he should have liked girls, so he wasn’t afraid of losing them either. And deep, deep down, Richie also knew there wasn’t really anything wrong with him. Why would he feel such a way if it was supposed to be such an unnatural and vile thing? He couldn’t help who he was, who or how he loved, and God, he loved Eddie so much he thought he could just burst with it sometimes.

That shred of acceptance, though, was buried so deep in his lanky form, and the only way to reach it was through a ridiculous amount of shots. Or beers. Or just about anything with a decent alcohol content, really. He’d even settle with wine if he had to.

When Richie was drunk, he was able to be more clingy and face less consequences. He was already an affectionate guy, constantly pinching Eddie’s cheeks and throwing a lazy arm around the shorter man’s shoulders whenever he could. With alcohol, though, he’d give sloppy cheek kisses and intertwine his fingers with Eddie’s and allow his face to form a subtle blush when an intoxicated Eddie would lean into it.

“Sorry for being all over ya last night, Eds. You know how gross and clingy I can get,” he’d say the following morning, and then they’d fall back into their rhythm of bickering and ‘your mom’ jokes. Business as usual, like clockwork every time they’d get wasted.

Richie thought it was going well, that his feelings were going totally unnoticed, that he was stealth. Until this particular college party, that is.

Richie’s attention left his conversation with Bill about the newest Die Hard film when he felt the couch sink next to him, turning to meet eyes with a mildly tipsy Eddie. The taller man’s face immediately lit up, a goofy smile spreading across his chapped lips.

“Hiya, Spagheds! What’s cookin, good lookin’?” Richie slurred out, his arm finding its way around Eddie’s waist and using his other hand to snatch the mixed drink his friend was holding out for him. Eddie responded with his usual scoff and eyeroll, but Richie noted an extra bite to it that he wasn’t used to getting from him.

“Don’t call me that, asshole! And haven’t you ever heard of personal space?” Eddie grumbled, wiggling himself out of Richie’s side embrace and putting some distance between the two. The arm that was once around Eddie made its way to Richie’s own body as he dramatically grasped at his chest.

“Eddie, baby, you’ve wounded me! Since when do you pass up some signature Tozier cuddles?” Richie was met with a simple huff in response as Eddie avoided his gaze. Richie’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion at the lack of attention he was receiving from the man who would usually be giving him the most attention, but he was overall too drunk to overthink. With a shrug, Richie downed his freshly made drink in record timing before crunching the plastic cup in his hand and tossing it over his shoulder, causing Eddie to scoff again from next to him. Stan spoke up from beside Bill before Eddie could ream his friend about his lack of care for tidiness.

“Maybe you should start on some water, huh, Rich?” Richie gasped dramatically, turning to look at Stan as if he had just told him pigs fly.

“Staniel, did you just ask moi to drink water? What’s the point of free booze if you’re not gonna take advantage?” He asked incredulously before standing, wobbling on his long limbs for a couple seconds and giggling a bit before regaining his balance. “Speaking of, I’m gonna go see if my boy Chris has any good brewskis lyin’ around.”

“Isn’t his name C-C-Connor?” Bill asked, shaking his head in amusement. He seemed to be the only one enjoying the trashmouth’s antics this evening, as Stan’s eyebrows were furrowed in concern which he tried to pass off as annoyance, and Eddie still kept his gaze elsewhere. It was the latter that made Richie itch for another drink.

“Whatever the fuck, Billiam. I’ll be back in a jiff, my loves! Try not to miss me too much!” Richie exclaimed with a bow, breaking out his British accent for his next sentence. “But if I find m’lady Mary Jane, don’t wait up, lads! Pip pip!”

Before Richie could step five feet from the couch, an aggressive hand was yanking him back by the wrist. Losing his footing due to the intrusion, Richie stumbled once more, nearly toppling onto Eddie. The shorter man’s tight grip on his arm was the only thing that kept him from sending them both back onto the scratchy leather of the couch below. Richie beamed at the attention he was finally receiving, despite the glare Eddie was boring deep into his features.

“Sit the fuck down, Richard. You’re not drinking anymore fucking beer and you’re definitely not smoking anything. You’re drinking some water and I’m taking you the fuck back to your room, asswipe,” Eddie said sternly, getting as close as he could to Richie’s face with the height difference between them. Richie couldn’t help but love when Eddie got like this; sure, he was red in the face more with anger than with the alcohol, but the anger was backed by mountains of concern. It reminded Richie how much his love cared about him, even though he was sure their forms of love differed. There was still some kind of love there, and sometimes, that was enough for him.

Although Richie felt his chest swell and he wanted nothing more than to ease Eddie’s anger and please him, his mouth rambled before his brain could tell it what to say, as usual.

“If you wanted to get me alone, Eds, all ya had to do was ask,” Richie slurred with a wink, slowly bringing his hand up Eddie’s arm, his calloused fingertips slightly teasing the warm skin. Eddie’s face flushed an even deeper shade of red, from anger or something else, no one was sure - until Richie’s hand was being swatted away, the smack of it loud enough for Bill and Stan to hear over the music from their spot on the couch. Richie mumbled a curse under his breath as he rubbed the skin Eddie came in contact with, a sting lingering there. He opened his mouth to speak again, some kind of excuse or apology on the tip of his tongue, but never got it out due to Eddie’s voice cutting him off.

“Stop doing this, Richie! Just stop! I’m tired of it!” Eddie's voice was slowly rising, and the tremble that laced within his words acted as some kind of magical potion; suddenly Richie had never been so sober. 

“Hey, Eddie, it’s okay. I’m sorry, whatever I did I’m sor-” The apology was interrupted with another signature scoff as Eddie looked at the ground, shaking his head, breathing out a humorless chuckle.

“You don’t even know what you’re doing,” he said with a frustrated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking Richie in his eyes once again. Despite the apartment being dark with the exception of a couple of lamps scattered around the area, Richie could see the glistening threat of tears waiting to spill from the doe eyes he loved so much. His heart ached.

“Of course you don’t know what you’re doing, Rich, because you’re too fucking drunk! You’re always too drunk. I just… I just wish you were sober for fucking once!” Eddie practically screamed, before his voice softened with hurt again. “I just wish you’d act like this with me without fucking booze.” There were a couple beats of silence between them, two pairs of dark eyes swimming with gallons of emotions simply blinking at one another, the only noise coming from Eddie’s sniffling. Richie did all in his power to search for a response, but for once in his life, the trashmouth was at a loss for words. After what felt like forever, Eddie finally ended the moment by turning on his heel and making a beeline for the door, leaving Richie to stand in dumbfounded silence while his intoxicated brain processed the scene that just unfolded. His thought process was interrupted by a voice coming from the couch.

“Wha-what just happened?” Bill asked, his amusement from earlier in the night completely dissipated and replaced with a mix of confusion and concern.

“Richie’s oblivious and a dumbass is what just happened. Nothing new,” Stan deadpanned from next to him. Richie snapped his body towards the pair, making his head spin and reminding him of just how drunk he was. He blinked at the two in an attempt to adjust his sight before raising his hands in defense at Stan’s comment.

“What are you talking about? Do you know what that was about?” Richie asked, pointing towards the direction Eddie stormed off in. Stan rolled his eyes before standing up and grabbing Richie by the shoulders with both hands, giving him a serious look.

“When we went to get drinks, Eddie talked to me. About you. About how you act when you’re drunk, all over him and shit, more than usual. And how much he likes it, but he hates that he likes it, because you only do it when you’re drunk.” Richie continued to gape at his friend, clearly not connecting what Stan’s words meant. Stan sighed, scrunching his face in annoyance and gripping Richie’s shoulders tighter. “He’s in love with you, asshole! Either tell him you love him too, because trust me, everyone except him knows you do, or stop leading him on. It’s fucking ruining him, man!”

Realization finally hit Richie, his eyes welling with tears as Stan’s grip on his shoulders softened. “He- He is? Are you sure? This- This isn’t funny, Stanley. A-Are you sure?” he breathed out, and if it wasn’t for the weight of the situation, he’d made a joke about how he was sounding like Bill, nervous stutter and all. Stan gave a slight nod and responded, but Richie didn’t hear what he said. His mind was suddenly racing; find Eddie. tell Eddie. kiss Eddie. EddieEddieEddie.

Before he knew it his feet were running just as fast as his thoughts, not 100% sure where he was going, just knowing he needed to find Eddie. Richie raced out of the apartment building into the chilly air that was New York City on a late November night, frantically scanning the streets. His eyes soon locked on a figure about half a block down, leaning against a mailbox, head in his hands. Even with the distance between them, Richie could tell he was trembling, either from the cold or from crying, he wasn’t sure. As he felt the sharp breeze across his skin exposed by the rips in his jeans, he assumed probably both.

Richie thought better than to call out his name, opting instead to slowly approach Eddie. He did his best to labor his breathing in his short walk over, mentally preparing himself for the confrontation that was about to take place. The confrontation that would bear all feelings, all confessions. All of the walls Richie had been building around himself since high school would finally come down.

He wished he had another drink.

“Eds?” He spoke softly, possibly the softest he’d ever spoken, as to not scare Eddie and send him running. The shorter man lifted his head from his hands, and Richie’s heart broke even more at the sight before him. Eddie’s eyes were red and puffy, a wall of hurt extremely evident in the soft brown. His nose was runny, and his lip quivered as he looked away when he realized who was standing in front of him.

“Don’t call me that,” he practically whispered, just loud enough for the other to catch it over the bustle of traffic in the streets surrounding them. Although he was avoiding the other man’s gaze like his life depended on it, Eddie made no attempt to walk away. Richie took that as a small win.

“Eddie, talk to me. Please. What’s up? It’s just me and you, man. C’mon.” Richie wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch Eddie. Offer a comforting hand on his shoulder, run his fingers through his hair, hold him close, tell him everything would be okay. But he didn’t dare move.

A car honked down the street, offering the only noise that cut through the thick silence when Eddie didn’t take Richie’s offer to speak. The former stayed silent with his head down, finding the dirty concrete under his pristine white converse highly interesting. Richie let out a sigh.

“Okay, you don’t have to talk. I’ll do all the talking. I’m the Trashmouth after all, aren’t I?” Richie offered a lame chuckle when his attempt at a joke fell flat, Eddie not breaking his frown even slightly. Richie cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing. “Look, I talked to Stan, he told me what you guys talked about, and -” He was cut off by the same humorless chuckle he heard in the apartment minutes ago, but this time it dripped with sadness rather than anger.

“Dammit, Stanley, you fucking traitor,” Eddie mumbled mostly to himself. He shook his head with a deep sigh and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, making them impossibly redder, before willing himself to look at Richie, his voice finally reaching above a murmur for the first time since leaving the party. “Secret’s out, I guess. I’m a fucking cliche. The fuckin’ queer that fell for his best friend.”

All Richie could do was silently stare, mouth slightly agape and eyes comically blown, amplified more so by his glasses. Sure, Stan had told him this not even five minutes beforehand, but hearing it from Eddie himself was an entirely different experience. He figured under different circumstances, Eddie would probably be laughing at how dumb he was sure he looked. Instead, the shorter man looked at him expectantly with tears still in his eyes, clearly waiting for some kind of response, and expecting the worst. They stood this way, basically a mirroring of what played out in the party upstairs before Eddie stormed out, for a solid minute before it was - once again - Eddie who broke the silence.

“So much for doing all the talking,” he muttered, the volume of his voice lowering, Richie realizing as Eddie looked back at the ground that he was closing in on himself once again. “Good night, Rich.”

“No,” Richie finally spoke, his arm darting out to grab Eddie’s hand before he could even adjust his feet to leave. “Please don’t walk away again. Please.” His voice broke on the last plea, his own eyes finally beginning to water. Eddie was still staring in the opposite direction down the concrete path he was planning on following before he was interrupted, but was staying put, not rejecting Richie’s hand in his. “There’s so much I wanna say to you, Eddie. So much. I just… Shit, I just don’t know how.”

Richie was crying just as much as Eddie was at this point but quieter, unable to pull himself together as much as he wanted to be brave. Eddie turned his head to face Richie with his glare still hardened, only softening when he saw the state Richie was in. Eddie had known Richie since they were literal children, and he knew better than anyone that Richie Tozier didn’t cry like this. Not unless something was truly eating at him. The anger Eddie felt towards the situation seemed to have completely disappeared as he comfortably squeezed Richie’s hand, giving him encouraging eyes.

The taller man used his free hand to rub the tears from his eyes, giving him a better look at Eddie. They were standing fairly close to the lone street light of the block, the faint orange tint of the bulb complimenting Eddie’s lightly tanned skin and chestnut eyes. Without thinking, Richie brought his hand up to Eddie’s face, cupping his cheek and wiping a stray tear away with the pad of his thumb. He continued softly rubbing at the skin there after the tear was gone, his thumb dancing across the freckles, his mind flooded with thoughts of how beautiful the man before him was. Eddie closed his eyes for a brief moment, taking in the feel of Richie’s touch.

Unable to find words again but refusing to let the moment slip out of his fingers for the third time of the night, Richie did the only thing he truly knew how to do; he acted impulsively.

If asked, Richie wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly when he decided to kiss the man he’d loved since he was 15 in the middle of Greenwich Village at one in the morning. Before he knew it, the hand on Eddie’s cheek slid down to his neck, pulling their lips together before the shorter man could react to the shift in Richie’s hold on him. As much as he didn’t want to admit the fact, Richie knew he wouldn’t have taken such action if it weren’t for the alcohol flowing through his veins, but at this point he didn’t much care. When their lips met, he forgot all about the booze, and became drunk on Eddie.

Eddie kissed back without hesitation, letting go of Richie’s hand and easily snaking his arms around his neck, with a comfortability as if they had done this thousands of times. It was sloppy due to the pair’s mixed tears along with their lack of experience, but nevertheless the two men kissed with purpose, as if the fate of their livelihood depended on this moment. Perhaps it did.

By the time they pulled away and rested their foreheads together, Eddie’s fingers had found themselves tangled in Richie’s dark curls, and Richie’s hands were gripping Eddie’s hips for dear life. The kiss hadn’t lasted too long - thirty seconds or so, if that - however the energy both men poured into those short seconds left them panting heavily, their breath tangling together, hot in the other’s face in the midst of the cold air around them.

“That was better than talking,” Richie breathed out with a wet chuckle, causing Eddie to finally crack his first smile of the night. It was a small one, the corners of his mouth curving only lightly, but Richie saw that his happiness had made its way into his stare.

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie whispered with no real bite in his words before bringing their lips together again, this kiss softer than the last. While their first kiss was filled with the passion built up from years of mutual pining and secrets, their second let them convey the deepness of their love without words to speak. A tender peck of their lips told Richie everything he needed to know; this moment was very much real, and Eddie Kaspbrak very much loved Richie Tozier.

And if the kiss wasn’t enough, Eddie made sure to tell him when he pulled out of the kiss and rested his head on the taller man’s shoulder, pulling him into a proper embrace.

“I love you, Rich. I- I think I always have,” he confessed, his voice slightly muffled from where his face was buried in Richie’s neck, but the other man heard him loud and clear all the same. Richie released his grip on Eddie’s hips and wrapped his arms around him, letting himself breathe out a sigh of relief as he held him impossibly closer.

“I love you too, Eds. So fucking much, fuck.” Richie pressed a kiss to soft brown waves, breathing in the clean scent of lavender shampoo mixed with light cologne, his senses filling with just Eddie.

Standing in the middle of a bustling city they barely knew in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, arms wrapped tightly around one another, ignoring the strangers that walked past them most definitely giving them some variation of judgemental stares, Eddie and Richie had never felt more at home.

“Alright, Trashmouth,” Eddie started, reluctantly pulling away from Richie’s hold. Richie pouted at the loss of feeling Eddie’s body pressed against his own, making the latter chuckle and playfully roll his eyes. He pressed a quick peck to said trashmouth before continuing. “We can talk about this more in the morning. Right now, you need water and sleep.” Richie slapped a toothy grin onto his chapped lips after, once again, being reminded of how intoxicated he still was, falling back into his goofy demeanor with ease.

“Ya gonna take care of me, Dr. K? Ugh, what a dreamboat,” he replied, miming a cartoonish faint. Eddie simply giggled and grasped Richie’s hand once again, interlacing their fingers and leading him in the direction of their dorms. Richie fell back ever so slightly as to not get caught looking at Eddie like the lovesick dork he was, feeling a warmth grow in his body he was sure wasn’t due to the alcohol.

Richie still drinks after this night; old habits die hard, of course. However, Richie didn’t have to be drunk anymore to admit he loved Eddie. He told him sober and drunk, day and night, and vowed to remind Eddie just how much he loved him until the day they died.

[grayintogreen]

WIP TITLE ASK GAME

WIP title ask game!

the rules are: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it. And then tag as many people as you have WIPs. hahaha no.

I got tagged by @marymauk and boy this is gonna be a trip. For the sake of not posting the entirety of a twelve-page document, I'm only doing the Critical Role ones since... That is what people mainly follow me for. Also that's... the bulk of them anyway. The only ones I removed are the ones I'm holding back as possible Wildflowers treats, the rest is accurate to the true unlimited potential of my brain just throwing ideas at the wall and waiting until the right time to do them. Also seriously my wip document is extremely well organized. Like before we get into this I need to show you what exactly we're dealing with:

Fortunately you're only getting the titles and if you're lucky I have actually written something for one of these. If not you... get the little summary and how long it is so you can laugh about why it's not written yet. I'm hoping to clear a bunch of these in the three month gap between OUADYA's ending and the sequel's beginning.

ANYWAY. TO THE TITLES... There are SEVENTY. I HAVE A DISEASE. IT'S CALLED "A THOUSAND IDEAS AND NOT ENOUGH ENERGY TO WRITE THEM." I am not tagging anyone specifically, because... 70. And I don't know who hasn't done it because I'm terrible. If you wanna do it, you can say I tagged you. There ya go.

have caution when the fox begins to dance

how many miles to babylon?

i have trod the mortal paths and danced the faerie way

and I'm certain the clues and deductions will help you to run me to ground

if you follow me, follow me, follow me down

you can never hope to beat the tricks that centuries have taught her

give me cold kisses now- one, two, and three

the flower in the shadow of the hanging tree

you can’t keep the ghosts out (when you’re the one who’s the haunted house)

there isn’t a past, there’s only the present flowing into the future

and the seasons turn like pages in the story of our lives

only the spiders are cunning enough to keep us from seeing the seams

of spindrift and footsteps and blood in the waters

some stars fall home, and this one still could

they weave their wicked webs among the spindrift and the rot

we build our homes on the water, and we wonder why the flood runs in

there’s not much point pretending this tale will have a happy ending

and we are the hope that you hold when the darkness grows strong

like an answer is something you’re allowed to choose

no judges here, just wicked men:

our hearths have grown cold

sharper than a serpent’s tooth (the lies they tell us in our youth)

the trick is not to fear him

a hand to guide them down the primrose path

these half-hidden lacerations won’t be healed by incantations

there’s always some new sucker who just won’t get out alive

this is a song of mornings after

went tilting at the windmill

and the scars you leave behind you never heal

are you sure that where it leads you is a place you want to go?

we were never a mistake

choose your words carefully

gulping pretty poisons that devour me in return

his pretty hands just won’t come clean

as you’re facing the future they gave you

we’ve had quite enough of that

your love has a cost nothing human can take

and always one page at a time

and the sky lights up with fire

i am not a sheltered princess and i know that good men die

it’s the midnight special, baby

light a candle for a wanderer who never meant to roam

let me be your lighthouse, and guide you to shore

she gives cheshire kisses; she’s easy with white rabbit smiles

strawberries smothered in snow

the math that makes us real

the word that ends the story

one day you’ll pay the piper’s fee

where the ash and willow grows

you know that all the heroes are gone

as in the painted parlor, ophelia dreams

there’s something divine in the way screams can sound

and no one could say where the story would bend

and the absinthe and the wormwood are the lost years creeping in

and the sea is never silent and the sea is never tame

blood burns like fire (and it always burns through)

so place your orders, place your bets, and draw your final card

how much dark before you just lose the light?

the tribe of crows and tinkers sang the roads across the world

they say her tale’s last word was known before the first was spoken

for the chains that we forge can be broken

give me coyotes to sing up the sky, for their voices are suited to labor

it's hard to explain all the sorrows you've seen, or the reason you keep buying more

and then came act two

in the shadow of the broken tower

wicked girls saving ourselves

she met the fate of fools who love the winter’s king

the cold sacrifices you can’t even see

for when the gods dare to believe, the light never fails

this is a song of all the troubles you’ve been bringing

[karelysse]

listened to ‘ruin’ one more time after this revelation and oh boy… (warning: long post ahead)

“I will bring you ruin in everything I do / It's never my intention, but it happens all the same / It starts with love and comfort, becomes a strength of will / But all that strength made rubble of the towers we built” — is this not… is this not an encapsulation of their rivalry. ‘we’re better because of each other’ but also you’re still direct competitors fighting for the same medals. 2014, when yuzuru wins in sochi. 2015, when javi wins at worlds.

“Cause brick by brick, you built us and I'd fill in the cracks / Nothing quite prepares you for when they don't come back / I wish I'd done things different, I wish that I'd been brave / I wish I'd known these stones were something I could save” — the 2016 season. yuzuru’s injury. boston (that last line… yeah it’s boston). javi winning again. the distance and the no-longer-training-together. fast forward to 2019 ‘i wish i [could compete] with javi too’.

“Our mortar was your laughter / And you hurled curses at the land / We didn't talk, we made universes / Out of bitten lips and broken hands” — we both speak english as a second language, but you still manage to make me laugh. when words fail, just hug me close until our hearts fall into synch.

“You said, "I love you less than when it all began" / And I said fewer 'cause I make jokes to show how broken I really am / And in the wreck of all we burnt, stands our piano like a wound / I play our song to see if it's in tune (I'll sing silence)” — deviating from theme for a second. isn’t this the epigraph for their potential FaOI reunion?

(skipped the next line because i think you covered it well!)

“"We can rest," you say, "in the pieces of what's left / Or what what we've found" / I wish I'd done things different, oh, I wish I'd made it right / But we'll burn a hundred theatres / If it means we get the wallpaper right” — 2017 worlds. ‘i told you last year, right? you work hard, you can get it’. yuzuru putting his medal on javi, because the passing of the world crown is never easy.

“I'll, brick by brick, rebuild us / Out of how's and why's, not when's / Nothing quite prepared me for when that piano sang again / Tomorrow I'll do things different / Tomorrow I'll be brave / (You'll make me brave)” — 2018 pyeongchang. javi redeeming himself after sochi. yuzuru winning his second Olympic gold when he had only started retraining quads two weeks prior. yuzuru breaking character during seimei when he realized he had done it. ‘i think i owe what i won to him’, ‘i’m glad we could share a podium at the olympics’. the tears and the hugs and the joy and the smash-cut to ‘i can’t do it without you’. maybe this is it. maybe this is the best shot the two of you will ever get at a happy ending.

…this is so long and completely ridiculous. but i hope it was fun to read! as always thank you for your input, it’s great to hear your thoughts 💞

Song title : Ruin by The Amazing Devil 🎼

ahhhhhh my fave anon strikes again!!! 💞 this was a RIDE and I loved every second of it. contender for possibly the angstiest yzvr anthem ever? adore this.

The part that hit me the most at my first listen (apart from the first line ugH) was really the mortar/laughter part you summed up so well. I really have an ESL fascination. that whole verse just!!! hits so hard for them!!!! the whole song!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!

I was a bit sad at the « tomorrow I’ll be brave » part at first listen because I picture both Javi & Yuzu as very brave people, as high leveled as they are and with all the achievements behind them, but imagining the line as pre-olympics 2018 really hits the spot. Guess even them needed courage at some point (and still do!!! I believe it’s a conscious choice you have to keep making & making, not a permanent character trait).

Well oh my! Thank you again so much for this lovely message 💞 sharing so everyone can benefit and cry about it like I am ✌️

[girlsbtrs]

How Being a Woman in Hardcore Helped Me Learn to Love Myself

Written by Jen Moglia. Graphic by Laura Cross. 

Since this is my first piece written for Girls Behind the Rock Show, I figured that I should introduce myself; hi, my name is Jennifer, but most people call me Jen. I live on Long Island in New York, and my favorite things include my cats, the color pink, giving gifts to my Animal Crossing villagers, and watching sports. Above all else, however, I love music.

I frequently refer to music as the love of my life. It somehow plays a role in everything that I do. I got my first iPod when I was five years old, stacked with everything from Miranda Cosgrove and Avril Lavigne to Tool and Deftones. Some of my favorite memories growing up are sitting in my pink and purple bedroom singing and dancing along to Paramore’s crushcrushcrush and Fall Out Boy’s Thnks Fr Th Mmrs on the local alternative radio station. I danced for 12 years, played cello for seven, and am currently a wannabe ukulele rockstar after buying one on impulse and starting to teach myself how to play four years ago. Even on the simplest, barely noticeable levels, music has been everywhere in my life for as long as I can remember; even now, I can’t complete a basic task without a song playing in my headphones.

Music became an even bigger part of my life when I started attending live shows. I went to my first concerts at age 10, seeing my two favorite artists - Nickelodeon boy band Big Time Rush and classic progressive rock band Rush - within one month of each other. By the time I was 15, I had been to my fair share of arena/seated shows with one or both of my parents, from Fifth Harmony to Fitz and the Tantrums to Alice in Chains. My first general admission show was seeing the Foo Fighters at Citi Field with both my mom and dad when I was 12, but my first pop-punk general admission show (yes, they’re different) came a few years later. I had the typical list of favorite bands that you would expect from a young teenager getting into alternative music: Neck Deep, Knuckle Puck, Real Friends, and State Champs. 

In late 2018, I was able to see all four of these bands for the first time, and I am a firm believer that it changed the course of my life. I met, cried-during, and eventually got the setlist for Neck Deep at Stereo Garden on Long Island in September. I sang all of “Untitled” at the barricade for Knuckle Puck at SI Hall at the Fairgrounds in Syracuse in October. I had my first minor concussion scare (yay!) before Real Friends’ set at Irving Plaza in New York City in November. Finally, I crowd surfed for the first time during State Champs’ anniversary show for The Finer Things at House of Independents in Asbury Park in December. After just a few shows, I had fallen in love with this new brand of live music that I had just been introduced too. There was something so magical to me about skin covered in sweat and Sharpie marks, feet hurting from dancing in the pit all night, and meeting strangers on line outside the venue who would become your best friends and know your deepest secrets by the end of the night.

After making some friends at all of the pop-punk shows I was going to, they started to tell me that I should get into hardcore music. I was hesitant at first - the heaviest thing I had listened to at that point was nowhere near the snippets of hardcore that my friends had played for me - but, eventually, I decided to give it a chance. I was bored and home alone with nothing to do one night over the summer of 2019 when I listened to my first hardcore album, Laugh Tracks by Knocked Loose. Immediately, I got that gut feeling that you have when you know you’ve heard one of your favorite bands for the first time. I knew that this was something special that I was meant to find at this point in my life. For the rest of the summer, I worked my way through the rest of my friends’ hardcore and hardcore-adjacent recommendations, with Cost of Living by Incendiary, Stage Four by Touche Amore, You’re Not You Anymore by Counterparts, Time & Space by Turnstile, Springtime and Blind by Fiddlehead, Smile! Aren’t You Happy by Absence of Mine, Bad to my World by Backtrack, and Reality Approaches by Harms Way being some of my favorites. By the time the next school year started, I was hooked, and I already had tickets to my first few hardcore shows in the fall.

My first hardcore show was in November 2019, seeing Knocked Loose at Webster Hall in New York City - fitting, right? They were on tour supporting their new record A Different Shade of Blue, which I had become obsessed with the minute I heard it for the first time. Although I was ridiculously scared of getting stepped on and breaking all my bones (yes, that was an actual fear of mine), I had the time of my life at that show. There was something about this newer kind of live music that prompted a cathartic release, one that I hadn’t found anywhere else before. As soon as the show was over, I was counting the days until my next one.

My love for live hardcore music (and live music and hardcore music in general) has only grown since then, and that story sort of ends there. However, I want to go back to that first hardcore band that I listened to, Knocked Loose, and the album they put out that first summer that stole my heart. I was taken by storm as soon as the first notes of A Different Shade of Blue rang through my headphones, but something was different about the third track, A Serpent’s Touch, particularly the ending; I heard a voice that sounded a little bit more like my own.

This song features Emma Boster, who does vocals for one of my favorite hardcore bands right now, Dying Wish. When I heard A Serpent’s Touch for the first time, though, I had no idea who she was. I was used to the aggressive vocal delivery of frontmen in hardcore, particularly that of Knocked Loose’s Bryan Garris, but hearing it come from her changed my perspective on a lot of things. It’s not like the song was super angry and changed its tune to be lighter once the token girl came along; in her verse, Boster sings, “I watched the venom / Overcome your spirit / Jealousy holds you now / Distorting your appearance / Bleed out.” These were lyrics that held the same intensity that the lines screamed by the men held, and they sounded just as cool coming out of her mouth. As cheesy as it sounds, it had never even occurred to me that women had a place in this new world that I had discovered. The audiences in the live videos I watched (and eventually at the shows I attended) were made up of mostly men who looked bigger and older than me. When I did start going to shows, most of the non-man population consisted of my friends and I. Emma Boster, along with so many others, began to open my eyes to the fact that a place for people like me existed in this community. It didn’t matter that I had bright red hair or liked butterflies or wore pink - I was just as much a part of this magic as the men multiple feet taller than me with tattoo-covered arms, and I belonged there just as much as they did.

As time went on and I got more involved in the genre’s music and community, I discovered more bands with women in them, and it only fueled this fire of empowerment inside of me. When I felt insecure, I’d watch live sets from Krimewatch, a hardcore band from New York City, just half an hour away from my hometown. They have multiple women as members, including their energetic badass of a vocalist, Rhylli Ogiura. Year of the Knife became one of my all-time favorites, and their bassist Madison Watkins became a serious inspiration to me; the way that she can balance killing it on stage and running the cutest, most pink apparel brand I’ve ever seen (aptly titled Candy Corpse) amazes me. Even some of the bands I’ve found more recently have had an impact on me. I started listening to Initiate last year when their EP Lavender came out, and their beautifully colorful cover art caught my eye before I had heard any of their songs. Their vocalist, Crystal Pak, is also a woman, and she’s insanely talented. Discovering this kind of representation in this new universe that I had come to feel so at home in introduced me to a world of confidence and determination that I had never known before.

When people ask me why I love hardcore so much, I often give the easy answer; “the music sounds good.” If the person allows me to ramble on for a little longer, the answer becomes much more emotional and cheesy. Hardcore taught me that speaking up for what I believe in is important, and if there’s something I’m passionate about, it’s worth shouting about. I became familiar with this when listening to one of my favorite bands ever, Incendiary (the second hardcore band I ever checked out), before quickly realizing that politics are a pretty common topic within the genre - it’s what this music was practically built on. The first time I heard their vocalist Brendan Garrone singing about police brutality and injustice on songs like Force of Neglect and Sell Your Cause, I realized that there is so much more to music than just sounding good.

However, at its core, the thing I love so much about hardcore is what it taught me about being a woman. Growing up, I was the loud girl with the personality bigger than the room who always had something to say and had a never ending supply of excitement about just about everything. As I got older, I was taught that this was not okay. People didn’t like how enthusiastic I was about everything, or that I constantly had new ideas and new discoveries I wanted to talk about. As cliche as it sounds, I felt like everyone around me was trying to dull my sparkle, especially some of the men that I was encountering on a day-to-day basis. Even when I started to come to terms with my big and bright personality, in turn also coming to terms with my own femininity, I was told that this wasn’t how girls acted. I had to pick one - I could watch Disney princess movies and wear Hello Kitty hair clips, or I could be outspoken about my beliefs; but never both. The women that I mentioned earlier, along with so, so many more, helped me unlearn these toxic mindsets. Seeing someone like Emma Boster take the stage and scream ferociously for a full set helped me see that I could be a girl and still be a powerhouse. Following Madi Watkins around on social media showed me that I could love bands like Year of the Knife and also love heart-shaped purses and wear pink from head to toe. My aggression and passion didn’t make me any less of a woman, and my femininity didn’t make me any less of a force to be reckoned with. 

So, at the end of this love letter to hardcore and the women who run it, I say this; thank you for teaching me that I don’t have to shrink myself anymore. It has made a world of a difference.