#she gets 10-11 years before it begins to come for her

[shadowglens]

lilah growing her hair as a form of healing, as proof that her body is capable of growth and life after so much death. lilah gaining weight slowly, in bits and pieces, over the years as a symbol of her life becoming stable and safe. lilah's skin becoming more suntanned, less death-pale, as a sign that she has fought back against the cursed blood in her veins. for a few years at least, lilah looking healthy and content and happy.

[pinkrelish]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶What happens when Eddie tries to hide the less-than-fun side of being a single parent from you, and you discover Miss Mouse can't always save the day?✶

NSFW — angst with a happy ending, reader wears eddie's hoodie, comfort, kissing, 18+ overall for smut, drug/alcohol mention/use

chapter: 11/20 [wc: 14.2k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 11: In the Beginning...

——Then——

In the beginning…

It was January 31st, 1988, and Wayne had come in to check on him again. And maybe he had a reason to when Eddie continued to stare at the pockmarked ceiling, dressed in the same clothes as three days prior, laying on the same bedsheets last washed by well-meaning, pre-aged, liver-spotted, wrinkled hands gnarled from factory work after being tanned on a big rig’s steering wheel for decades.

No music played from the stereo record player; The Doors still sat with the album art turned, stopped mid-spin. The paperback on the nightstand remained unfinished, its dog-eared page trapped as a placeholder from New Year’s Eve. Dust and cigarette ash clung to the room as if saving it in a time capsule of the morning he was arrested, and any movement would disturb the illusion.

“Eddie?” Wayne called out to him with his Free name; one that shouldn’t hold a stigma, because Eddie was a free man, wasn’t he? He was innocent. Even if they hadn’t caught the other guy yet. “You okay if I go?”

Tracing the bumpy lines of the most recent tattoo on his stomach, he answered, “Yeah, I’m fine,” and his uncle breathed as he usually did when he was wringing his mouth with indecision.

Wayne twisted the doorknob, uncertain. “If you’re sure.. And, uh, I’ll stop by the hardware store and pick up somethin’ for the spray paint on the trailer if the cookin’ oil trick doesn’t work, don’t you worry about it.”

Whatever rude thing someone wrote this time, Eddie hadn’t gone outside in days to know.

After a long silence, Wayne cleared his throat and gave a gruff, “I’ll see ya after work,” and left, as foretold by his rackety truck fading further into the night, and the deadness of winter taking over. A staleness of midnight inactivity in the crisp air invading the guitars and amps and magazines Eddie never touched anymore; the ceramic of his bedside lamp, the model car next to his lighter, the binders stacked on his desk with a pencil he hadn’t sharpened since it broke six weeks ago. He didn't get much relief from his routine of ignoring, shutting down, isolating, and desperately trying to get tears to form when he had none left to give, so he wept agape and dry, spiraling downward.

The phone rang.

He wasn’t going to answer—he hadn’t since December unless under obligation—but in case it was Wayne, he did.

“Hello?” The other end of the line was equally hesitant to answer his unrecognizable voice, gone hoarse from disuse. “Hello?” he repeated.

“Eddie?” A beat. “I guess I’ll get this over with. Look, uh, do you remember selling to a girl at Brad’s party a couple months back? Not the Halloween one,” they said, definitely a young woman’s voice, but with each word spoken she lost her fluttery nervous edge and replaced it with a direct tone, leaving no time for him to dawdle.

He hurled his mind into searching his memories before the ones made in the weeks prior, only grazing past the details which haunted him, and registering the question he was asked. “Uh, yeah, yeah I think so. Ah, Sarah? Something generic like that. Sold to her a couple times before. Why?”

Her severe silence loaded the chamber. His forthcoming nature pulled the trigger, never learning when to shut his mouth and keep information to himself. There was no telling who he was speaking to, or what happened to the girl he sold to, or why he was the subject of interest. His stomach clenched in knots at the whiff of gunpowder. He was too relaxed at the prospect of a normal conversation. He said too much. It was happening again. The police sirens would wail any minute now. Whatever happened to Sarah—or whoever—was bad, and he incriminated himself. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

But it was her next words that fired the shot. Rang in his ears. And he knew then, as the cold sweat took over his body and bile stung his throat quicker than his heart leapt black spots to his vision, life as he knew it was over.

“I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”

————

In the beginning…

It was March 7th, 1988, and Eddie walked out.

It was better than listening to Wayne blame himself for not doing enough, or being involved enough, or whateverthefuck he was saying about failing Eddie, because soon those judgments would turn into nags about how Eddie’s irresponsibility got himself into this mess, and those arguments would become shouting matches about his lack of preparedness for raising a baby, and Eddie would end the fight with his fist through the hallway closet door, where his piece of shit father’s jacket swung on the hanger and fell to the floor.

Following the Munson name.

————

In the beginning…

It was April 29th, 1988, and Eddie left his motel room to drive forty-five minutes outside of Hawkins to sit across from a woman in a dimly lit restaurant with her hand laid atop her round belly, and his cold chicken alfredo. The cheese in his oval shaped dish had coagulated, but he wasn’t hungry anyway.

The entire time his mouth ran sentences, he kept his gaze focused on a crumb dirtying the white tablecloth as the candle flickered shadows through their untouched water glasses. Yet, his tone remained animated and optimistic, though a bit hollow. “—So, uh, with the money from workin’ at the gas station, and what I have saved from that graveyard shift I picked up at the laundromat, I can afford the crib no problem. Maybe you could, ah, come with me to pick it out! I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be looking for, but whatever you want, you got it. And—And I’ll start stocking up on diapers, and stuff. Y’know, different sizes. Some clothes. Could even get a nice baby blanket, or somethin’. I guess cribs have those teeny mattresses, so we’ll need sheets for that, too. Um, one of those, y’know, things that hangs over it and spins, puts them to sleep.” His lips hinted at his first smile in weeks at his dumb explanation for a mobile. “And with your job, you have health insurance, don’t you? That’ll.. That’ll really help us out,” he emphasized by bugging his eyes, and nodding. “There’s a position open at an auto shop in town that I’m gonna apply for, but I don’t think insurance will kick in until I work there for a certain number of days. Sucks, but it’s decent money. Better than what I make now, anyway. Um..” Thinking, he sorted through his plan for the future in his head, making sure he didn’t forget anything important—

That’s when he made the mistake of looking up, and a different type of heartache wrung his chest.

Indifference powdered her shimmery beige eyelids, darkening to smoky apathy at the outer corners with a touch of heavy mascara weighing her eyes half-closed. She appeared bored—he wished she appeared bored—but in the eternity he glanced at her, she resembled a loaded chamber moments from cutting him off.

Continuing, he said, “I can also handle the small stuff like bottles, and bibs, and pacifiers. Depending on how much the crib is, I can probably swing the carseat too, just gotta sell my other guitar, and—”

“Eddie,” she stated. He winced.

There was no trace of his smile left on his lips; trembling and licking at the sore metallic-tasting spot he bit out of habit. The first sign of rejection welled behind his eyes. A sense of shame clogged his throat, but he tried, “Are people still bothering you about me?” he asked, so meek and defeated.

Her words were a merciless killing, “Does it matter?” He shrugged, running the side of his hand along the table’s edge, concentrating on the crumb. “And don’t bother buying anything.”

“Why not?” he faltered. “I’m not gonna be some deadbeat who doesn’t provide, okay? I’m good on my word.”

“You know why.”

The cruelty, the truth he denied, struck him.

“You don’t want to try?” His voice went watery, and the candles swam in his vision. “We’re having a baby together, and you don’t want to try and work something out between us?” There was a reason he avoided addressing where the crib would go, or what the arrangement was after coming home from the hospital. In the first few calls they had, she seemed interested when he rattled off the list of cheap apartments he found around Hawkins scribbled into his notebook, and when he lightened the bleak mood with a joke, she laughed, sort of.

Though, he was always the one to call her, and her answers were refined to short words such as yeah, or no. And she did pick up the phone less often, but she was busy with University or her career or there was a family thing that had come up or she was just headed out the door, so he stuck with planning their future by himself, aware of the ugly reality twisting his stomach with dread.

Maybe he was being naive, but he thought she’d come around by now. See how responsible he was being, and maybe.. maybe..

“I’m not interested,” she dismissed him in monotonously stern frankness.

“I thought you said you liked me,” he reminded her, on the verge of something pathetic, “at the party.”

The corner of her jaw twitched from an emotion she ground between her teeth.

That was the final straw.

She swung her gaze around the restaurant, releasing a hard sigh of frustration, and shaking her head. Dropping her hand to the bottom of her belly, she leaned forward, and eviscerated any hope he had for them being together. “I’m not interested,” she hissed under the susurration of nearby tables, “in raising a baby with someone whose reputation is for giving girls discounts when they flirt with him.”

Eddie shrunk into himself, not expecting the hit below the belt.

“You’re just the loser dealer that all the guys send their girls to because they know you’re too lonely to turn them down. I wish I stuck with flirting, because let me tell you, having a couple of smarties to get me through last semester wasn’t fucking worth it.” She motioned at her stomach, he assumed. “I almost missed my finals because I couldn’t stop puking.”

Fat drops wobbled his vision. Anxious sweat from holding his breath prickled his hot face. His knuckles hurt from clacking them against one another, punching bone-on-bone in his lap to distract himself from letting the venom win. Biting impressions of his teeth into tongue from the weight of his one chance at normalcy slipping through his fingers.

The ache of deep-seated rejection stung worse, built worse, escalated worse with every heartbeat echoing in his head: not even someone who’s having your kid wants to be with you.

Chairs skid across the tiles behind him, and a family stood to leave. Eddie faced the stained glass window as they passed, pretending to admire the intricate details while warm tears spilled over the dam, and onto his cheeks in steady drops like rain. Drip, drop, drip, drop..

Embarrassment, failure, freak..

Even before he was wrongfully arrested, his reputation was trash.

Pathetic loser not good enough for his dad, his uncle. Can’t pass fucking high school, or get a girl to stick around for more than a few weeks; just long enough to feel the safety of attachment, learn their likes and dislikes, what their favorite flowers were, and then they’d leave too..

“Doesn’t matter,” she exhaled. One, two—she took two calming breaths through her nose while his was running, and he was trying to not sniffle through the grossness of crying.

Composed and diplomatic, she sat up, smoothed the buttons of her burgundy maternity blouse stretched across her swollen middle, and informed him “I’m giving her up for adoption.”

Eddie froze.

Her.

Tiny tines of salad forks ceased clinking on plates. Silly dull knives unworthy of much else sank into whipped butter, and stopped. Pretty laughter faded, leaving red lipstick kisses staining the rims of wine glasses.

Her.

He froze. A strange cliche to explain how his body reacted. How his heart pounded, and tears splashed onto his clenched fists. How his brain latched onto one word, one word only, and the blood drained from his cheeks to pool liquid rage in his empty belly. How his temper surged like a wave, and crashed, again and again on the shore of fate. How he was thinking sharper, seeing clearer, smelling the raw flame of the candle being snuffed out from his sudden movement.

The tableware rattled when he planted his elbow next to his forgotten dinner, and pointed a stern finger at her stomach. “That’s my daughter, and you will not—”

“C’mon, Ed—”

“No,” he cut her off. He didn’t give a damn if another tear rolled from his wide eyes when he said it, he put conviction behind his voice even when it cracked, “That’s my daughter, and you are not giving her up for adoption.”

“Be serious,” she spat back. “You don’t have the means to take care of a baby. I’m doing this as a favor for the both of us. Mostly for you.”

Eddie sucked his bottom lip inward and chewed the flesh. Shivers of indignation trembled his body, and his nostrils flared from the absolute power he invoked to rein his voice from the snap, bite, snarl his upper lip suggested. “I don’t care what you think is best,” he maintained through the viscous tar coating his refusal in the abhorrence she deserved. “That baby.. She’s mine.” He nodded until the motion was ingrained, and her expression changed. Pointing to himself, now. “She’s mine, and I want her.”

There wasn’t much thought put behind his decision. It was done. It was innate. It was automatic, and her soft warning—”You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,”—was as heeded as the candle’s flame.

He paid for the date. It cost five hours of his minimum wage. That was all his money. He was hungry when he got back to his shitty motel; opening the door to darkness, and a suitcase of dirty clothes he’d need to sort before going to work at the gas station at the edge of town where his boss cut his hours last week because it was making customers uncomfortable to see a criminal serve them at the till, and a new sound replaced the ding of the cash register: loser, loser, loser..

Already, he couldn’t afford diapers.

Already, he failed.

Already, he was worthless.

Already, he was alone.

Not even the woman he was having a baby with wanted to be with him.

——Now——

Eddie hung up the phone, and you watched his shoulders rise and fall for long moments, listening to the rain pattern shift above. The storm spilled its sorrows on the tin roof, uncaring if the structure could handle the stress of another trial when it was weak and susceptible. It poured, and poured. Ruthless. Vicious and brutal as nature could be, targeting the vulnerable and strong alike.

His back broadened with a breath, and finally, he dropped his hand from the yellowed plastic, staring at the dial pad as his arm went limp at his side. Absorbed by his thoughts as the old night rolled into another low growl of thunder, and whatever was on his mind reflected heavily in his vacant appearance.

“Ed?” You waited for him with a kind lift to your brows, but as soon as his glance landed, your chest tightened.

The emotion in Eddie’s eyes was heavily guarded, communicating little as to what caused the tenseness in his jaw when he averted his gaze to the floor, walking fast and purposefully away from you standing half-dressed in his kitchen, and stopping at the front door with his head down. Going through the motions of buttoning his pants, and buckling his belt, rigid and rough, snapping the leather against itself.

“Is Adrie okay?” you asked, voice coming out painfully shallow, like when you were using it to diffuse a customer service issue with the breeze of happiness and a plastered smile.

Leaned over, he shoved his feet into his boots, and began lacing. “She’s fine.”

Blunt, and closed off. Not like your Eddie from an hour ago. And you didn’t know how to navigate asking him what was wrong, and easing him into opening up to you, coaxing him back to that place of union and understanding.

Left feeling confused, you gleaned that this wasn’t the time to bother him about it, and mumbled, “Okay,” and assumed the rest. You dragged the whispery ends of the blanket across the floor, and picked your sweater off the carpet, having that particular sense of embarrassment as if you’d missed a cue, and should’ve read the room sooner, and been clothed and leaving without him asking.

You dressed in silence, doing up the buttons on the cardigan he so skillfully slipped you out of. Treading over linoleum to wash the evening off your hands and mouth. Making yourself small to fit next to him in the entryway, and putting on your shoes in a state of quiet obedience, missing the warmth of his hands and the comfort of his lovesick grin. Wilting under the coldness of his attitude, and wanting nothing more than to reach out, and soothe that bit of regret knotted between his eyebrows.

He regarded the exposed skin of your upper chest, and handed you his black hoodie from where it hung next to his canvas work jacket. “Here.”

Here wasn’t much of a break in the distance he resurrected between you, but you pulled the heavy scent of cigarettes and cologne over your head, and he almost found himself braving eye contact to tell you, “I’m dropping you off first.”

“What? No,” you blurted, “I’m going with you to pick her up. She’s just scared of thunderstorms, right? No big deal, you can drop me off after.” Which seemed like the right thing to say; that you were fine with Adrie crying, but when he set his gaze on you, a small image of yourself swam in his endless pupils, and your stomach clenched at the animal warning in his unbreakable stare.

Eddie shook his head an imperceptible amount, only enough to loosen the curtain of curls tucked beneath his jacket’s collar, and shift the lamp’s glare at the edge of his bitter coffee eyes. It was a threat to back off. Leave well enough alone. Stop encroaching on the parts of his life he hid, and keep the illusion intact.

“I wanna go,” you assured gently.

However, your support fell short when challenged against the aggressive shine swallowing you whole. He looked at you. Really looked at you with the same intensity as when his hands were on your hips and you rocked yourself in his lap, chests flush together with a lazy prayer of your name on his tongue; when nothing mattered more than honoring each other with lips and teeth, tasting sweat on necks and sucking bruises until moans were spilled from heads thrown back. But instead of unraveling you in shocks of pleasure, the ignorance of your child-free lifestyle softened the harsh lines of his face, and slowly, slowly, the shine dulled. The fight left him.

He saved his apology until his back was turned, and the squeaky doorknob gave under his heavy palm—turning it with too much force—and he cracked open the world beyond the two of you, dousing the lingering tenderness of your affection on his skin with frigid mist. “Sorry tonight ended this way.” The door banged open on the rusted iron handrail, caught on a gust.

The trailer park was bright with daylight. Flash, after flash.

Eddie’s silhouette eclipsed the doorway, outlined in lightning. He stood impossibly taller—like the animal threat still lurked within his structure, and caution stayed within your subconscious, altering how you perceived his lanky frame into something more imposing. His shoulders carried many burdens, bulked from five years of hard labor, possessing strengths you couldn’t imagine. He stepped to the side, insisting the door stay open with the spread of five fingers only, and his body no longer shielded you. You were exposed to the cold splash of rain on your shins. His palm was firm at your lower back, and you peered up at the hard set of his jaw feathering the muscle at the corner, sweeping the bone in a mature edge of stubble. Strands of his frizzy hair whipped in the wind. Droplets speckled his nose like freckles. His gaze, anchored on his car through the downpour, brewed with resentment.

His deep timber resonated in your chest beneath the safety of his hoodie, “Car door’s open, I’ll lock up behind you.”

And you were pushed.

Beaten down to a hunch, you took careful strides in your heeled shoes down the concrete steps and into the soft mud, covering your head as best you could from the cloud’s assault, and flinching at the closeness of the strikes darting around the boundary of treetops surrounding the trailer park. You tried the handle, and the car welcomed you into its dry insides. Guilt followed your tracks of caked on mud, leaves, and dead weeds on his nice red interior, but when you shivered to the bone, you didn’t care as much. Curled in on yourself, you spied Eddie’s vague shape through the waterfall blurring the windshield, and listened to his heavy boots trudge up to the door, and soon, the car sank with his weight too.

The engine roared to life. Heat wouldn’t come from the tiny AC units for some time, but the promise of such gave you hope. Eddie, beside you, drenched beyond measure, did not match your enthusiasm. Shadowed streams snaked across his pinched expression, swimming down his heavy brow, and splitting his raw lips. His bangs stuck to his forehead, and his cheeks trembled from his clacking teeth.

Soft music played from the radio station.

Riders on the Storm.

Two booms of thunder ended your small attempt at a smile from the timing.

Leftover adrenaline pulsed in your veins, fumbling your grip on the seatbelt. Wet earth and unease stroked your skin like skeletal hands, muddying your tights, and soaking his hoodie, weighing it down to your crushed sweater beneath. You wanted to speak; to poke, to prod, to press him to talk to you. The questions were there. On your tongue. At the ready; inviting him to tell you why his mood soured over a situation out of his control, other than the obvious weather.

But Eddie’s face was carved with irritation, baring his teeth as he attempted to buff circles into the icy fog on the windshield, only for it to cloud over in an instant. “C’mon..”

The wipers couldn’t keep up with the powerful current, and the tires struggled to find traction. “Fucking—damnit,” he said, interrupted by him slapping the steering wheel, cascading water off his work jacket, and onto every surface around him.

You twisted your hands in your lap at his mild slip in temper.

Now was not the time to bother him.

In a lurch, your shoulder bumped the door, and your head rocked side to side from the car backing over the swell of mud behind the tires. With another frustrated stomp on the gas, it evened out on paved road, and though the visibility was low, you were off towards the nicer side of Hawkins.

For once, he drove responsibly. Street signs could be read before he passed them. Fallen limbs in the road could be avoided, not ran over. His rings tinked off the glass when he rubbed at the thin fog, and the music was dialed to a somber ambiance behind the deep sighs through his nose. Dark stretches of treetops bent to the wind’s will. Short buildings sat so dim beyond the faint streetlights, they might as well have been deserted. Each red light was a necessary break for him to shove his fingers in the air vents to thaw them.

He never spoke. Never looked at you. He kept himself busy with tasks, and when those tasks were over and his hands were defrosted and the windshield was mostly clear, he regressed within himself. Unnervingly quiet. Turning onto streets with heavier regrets sagging his features the longer he crawled in front of white picket fence houses, and stopped.

The two story home was lit beautifully by the ornate sconces placed on either side of the doorway. Their lawn was manicured, and the sidewalk was free of weeds. No cars were at the mercy of the storm, they were parked inside the two-door garages. There was activity behind the embossed curtains hung in the living room of the residence. Presumably, the biggest shape was the father who called over the phone.

Someone who wore a business suit to the preschool’s Thanksgiving play lived here.

Eddie stalled. He remained seated forward, hands gripped at 10 and 2, squeezing the steering wheel as rain echoed in the belly of the car, battering the roof inches above your damp hair. There was a pause in his movements, his breathing. An awareness in his silence at the questions you didn’t ask. Tension in his pursed lips, rubbing them together as he surveyed the street.

He opened his mouth. Then, he thought better of it, and got out.

Your earnest call of his name was swallowed by the sea cleansing his body of your night together.

Leaping up the bullnose brick stairs, Eddie raised his hand, but before he could knock, the artisanal stained glass shimmered with movement. The immaculate door opened to a winced face. The man’s glasses were askew on his aged eyes, and his peppered hair hung over his eyebrows, no longer gelled back. He exchanged a few tight words with Eddie as Adrie was handed over, and Eddie, of course, shuffled into a meek posture, dipping his head, apologizing profusely. Almost bowing to this man dressed in matching pajamas and a robe. In horror, you watched the door close during one such apology. You could tell it happened in the middle of him speaking, because you had to sit through the agony of Eddie animatedly explaining something only for him to look up, straighten at the realization, and stand there for a few more seconds until the sconces dimmed off.

Worse, still, he cowered in the nook as cruel rain belted his back, doing his best to bundle Adrie in her tattered quilt and securing her on his hip, keeping all of her dry except her little legs wrapped around his middle. She buried her face in his neck, and he hesitated on the balls of his feet, judging the distance between the house and the car. His large palm covered the blanket over her head. All he had was his jacket.

Lightning revealed his weary frown.

At the clap of thunder, he sprinted.

Back in New York, at the going away party your friends threw in your and Robin’s honor, they warned you about moving to the Tornado Alley, and what to look for if one were to appear—green skies and all—but most importantly, they told you an incoming tornado sounded like a train. Being city dwellers, they wouldn’t actually know, but Robin confirmed it. And now you could too, because the piercing wail coming towards you could only belong to a natural disaster, not a four-year-old girl.

Murky water flooded to Eddie’s ankles from where it rushed against the sidewalk, sloshing in with his boot stomped to the floorboard for balance as he ducked inside amidst the fuss. He got Adrie into her carseat as quickly as possible. In the chaos, her overnight backpack fell somewhere in the dark, her quilt was chucked aside, and he cursed when the buckle bit into his thumb. She had a fistful of his hair, tangling it, making it harder to see what he was doing. He may have even threatened her full name to let go. It was hard to hear on account of the shrieking.

“Daddy!” The vowels were elongated, broken by hiccups. He shut the door, and in the small space with no escape, her big emotions rang louder. “Daddy!” Again, the y was screamed with the full power of her lungs, which would be impressive for their tiny size if it wasn’t for the pounding in your skull. She hollered louder when he sat heavily behind the wheel, “Daddy!” He didn’t shush her fourth tantrum spilt on his name; he accepted it, knowing it was futile.

It took all your strength to blink. Sat half-turned in your seat, frozen, gaze unfocused, marveling at your brain’s ability to function. You shifted your attention to Eddie’s face, a surprising few inches from yours.

The heat of his concentration scorched shame to your cheeks.

Avoidant no longer, your reaction to Adrie’s meltdown was the sole subject of his interest. Zeroed in on, dissected, and picked apart by just his eyes alone. Didn’t matter which eye you shied from, you were pinned in both, your discomfort blatant for him to witness. Your clamped mouth, your apologetic withdrawal, your fidgety fingers on your skirt; all of it. All of it was captured in his periphery because he didn’t dare break sight as he turned the key in the ignition, and started a raucous engine you couldn’t remember being turned off.

Humbled by the girl assaulting your senses, your questions were answered.

This was why he didn’t want you to come. This was why he slighted you with a pointed look from the recesses of his annoyance when you trivialized his daughter’s behavior as ‘No big deal.’ This was why he kept you separate from his parental sphere where everything wasn’t made of sunshine and rainbows. This—coming to terms with your inexperience staining each uncontrollable contortion of your unprepared expression—was why he never let anyone near his heart.

Adrie could no longer form his name through her open-mouthed cries, resorting to plain, wet screams which trilled past your eardrums, resulting in a throbbing headache.

At that, he grasped the gear shift, put his boot to the gas, and cut fat lines through the river overflowing the pampered neighborhood streets.

Eddie’s anger was a presence. His embarrassment, too. Just like at the auto shop when problems stacked and stacked into an unbearable weight on top of his sleepless nights and long mornings, he turned inward to delay his outburst. To feel everything so fully in his fists wringing the leather covered steering wheel until it creaked, and teeth gritted until they begged no more. Just that one second to release his frustration, and then it was suppressed from sight. But you felt it. His ire rested below your braced muscles, beneath your clammy palms and in your shallow breath. It invaded the tidy home you kept behind your ribs, taking up residence in your hammering heart.

The humiliation of having the date end when it did paid its dues in his bad mood. Disappointment radiated off his narrowed eyes, and slack frown. “Adrie,” he warned in a low tone.

She bawled louder, shriller than the crack of lightning.

The immense pressure to adapt was upon you. There was no sense in parsing what he expected you to do in this situation, it was clear he was soured by your ineptitude the moment you let it show on your face, but.. Only two short weeks ago, he relied on you to divert Adrie’s meltdown before DND night. And sure, she had already stopped crying by the time you got there, but you could come to his rescue again, couldn’t you?

You twisted around in your seat, proud of yourself for thinking of a solution, and showed him you could handle a modicum of parenthood. “Adrie, look!” you tamped down your children’s television host voice to a delightful, excited cheer, “I’m here. Miss Mouse is—!” Shocked with your hand reaching towards her, shooting pain traveled up your arm from her swift kick to your wrist. You recoiled, rubbing at your forearm without blame. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t even looking at you. Her fit was directed at the window she couldn’t peel her attention from, dropping tear after tear from her swollen eyes at the thunder shaking the car. “Adrie?” you tried softer, but she beat her hands on the carseat harder. Wailed until you were defeated to a wince. Yelled until you accepted a unique heartbreak you weren’t prepared for.

Miss Mouse couldn’t always save the day.

Acute twists of rejection wrung your chest. Eddie wasn’t the type to say I told you so, he wasn’t mean like that, but when you sat forward and your gazes moved past one another, never quite meeting, you knew what he was thinking.

Little else stung worse than his obvious cynicism at how this date was concluding.

Exacerbating the issue, Adrie escalated to screeching her distress. Every open sob of hers pulled your focus, invaded your brainspace, overpowered any thought before it began, and set your teeth on edge from the high-pitched squeals you swore vibrated in your bones. Her behavior seeped into your nerves, winding them up, scratching them with the very tip of a brittle nail, inciting a riot. The need to flee crawled under your skin. Breathing was uncomfortable. Your ankle hurt. There was to break in between the blinding pulses of your headache. The car was too hot, too cold, too swerving from the high winds buffeting it sideways. Your tights were too tight. His hoodie too stifling. Itchy yarn from your sweater chafed your damp neck. Alarms of panic battled inside. Louder, louder, louder—Adrie cried louder. Eddie’s lips tugged down at the corners, chin wrinkled, tensing his face from a sadder response. Your lashes fluttered from the chokehold his frown had on you. Fingernails bit your palms. You tried to bide your time, to resist snapping. Dug down deep for something, something you could do, something.. innate. Some answer within you to fix it all. To get her to stop. To get him to relax. Something, something, something—instinctual.

“Pull over!” you barked; Eddie had every right to whip his head around at your sudden demand, but in your panicked state you only cared about the road ahead. “Ju-Just—just—” You scanned the dark parking lot outside the hardware store, and stabbed your finger on the cold window, pointing past it. “The gas station! Under the roof-thing.”

When it wasn’t clear he heard you, you turned towards him at the same time he leaned forward to catch your eye. Justifiable skepticism burdened his brow, tightening the edges of his crow’s feet. His lips hung parted with a confirmation hesitating between them; however, it was silenced after you maintained your need, and the fight against the wind won.

Soppy pebbles scraped wet asphalt, muddied in the bump and grind from Eddie turning too sharply into the sloped driveway, banging into a pothole, and rattling the innards of his already rocky cargo. He careened towards the closed convenience store with its row of dim fluorescent lights inside. Pulling up alongside the gas pumps, he slammed the breaks. A second later, he slapped the windshield wipers OFF, violently shushing their grating squeak.

His patience strained thinner. Working through the sensory overload festering like infected wounds on blistered skin, he rumbled a shallow apology past his aching teeth. Quickly, it devolved into a barrage of doubt. “Look, I’m sorry she—Wait, where’re you—?” The instant fear of rejection shot past his octave. “Wait! Please don’t—”

Cruelly, he thought; heartlessly, he knew; the sun-faded black cotton draped about your shoulders was the last image his adrenaline latched onto, playing it over, and over, door slam and all. He wasn’t parked for more than a clock tick, and you hurled yourself out into the storm, leaving him behind. His first assumption was gentle. Kind whispers stroked the angst in his chest, telling him you needed a break from the noise, that was all. Then the hatred of abandonment gutted his center.

“Giving up already?” he asked aloud in a conclusion only meant to hurt himself when no one was there to answer.

As if sensing his hopelessness, Adrie sniffled into the worst of her hyperventilated cries. Broken disjointed things. Sinking him deeper, deeper into his seat, crossing his arms over his caved chest, shuddering at the hot sting wobbling his vision at his own inadequacy.

Never good enough for anyone to stay.

Tremors of repressed memories wakened the churn of nausea making him sick.

“Baby, baby, it’s okay,” soothed a voice behind him, trickling in with the splash of faraway drops. “It’s okay, sweet baby, I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Eddie jerked his chin up and stretched his neck to see into the rearview mirror. The wall of water teetering on his lash line made everything blur, so he tugged down the slick skin beneath his eyes to suck back the tears, and almost allowed them to spill at the scene behind him anyway.

In the reflection, you crawled across the backseat and unbuckled Adrie’s carseat, learning how to maneuver the straps from watching him. She reached for you, your hair, your clothes; small fists belying their strength. You didn’t care. You calmed her struggles with pretty words. “It’s okay, yeah, you can hold on to me, baby. Let’s get you wrapped up nice and warm. There we go.” Shhh. “Let me see your face, so I can clean you up.” Shhh.

“M–M-Mizz Mou—se,” Adrie got out between body-wracked sobs.

“Mhm, I’m here.” Shhh. “Miss Mouse is here.”

—Oh.

“Baby..” So modest was his whisper when so resolute was his yearn.

He leapt into motion, flushed with adrenaline.

The ripple effect of your actions caused tidal waves to swell and crash over him; body hitched in the place where his past convinced him he lost it all, only to collapse into a stuttered exhale of acceptance, understanding there was someone out there who cared about him to this degree; throat constricting with gratitude he could only express by stumbling out into the foggy cold, throwing open the door, and sliding into the backseat with you.

His fingers grazed the baby hairs at your nape on their way to the side of your head, using his wide palm which took up too much room to cradle you steady with a gentleness unknown to his tough skin. He trusted you to forgive him for how hard he knocked his forehead to your temple, and smashed his nose to the soft of your cheek. He need not worry. Beautifully, you adjusted to the bulky arm behind your neck, leaned into the crook of his body he hollowed out for you, and filled the familiar place at his side. You worked diligently to clear his daughter’s face while he passed a strong hand over her back and dropped it to shape his grip at the end of your thigh, curving his fingers in and slotting them to the underside, behind your knee.

“S’okay, Adrie,” you cooed, wiping at the sticky grossness clinging to her nose. “I’ve got you,” you continued the mantra, albeit with a lapse in motherly tenderness as a result of trying not to gag too hard.

Outside the car, the gas station’s tall canopy provided enough coverage to stop the rain from pounding the roof. Harsh winds howled past, encouraging the woeful sobs dropped onto your breasts, but the lightning stayed within the clouds, and the thunder faded in the distance. “Look at me,” you guided, sweeping the hoodie’s cuff over her puffy cheeks glowing splotchy red from the neon beer signs in the postered up convenience store windows. “We’ve got you. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here.”

Eddie lips pulled thin against your skin, breath stuttering damp and thick on your neck like a smothered cry.

“Nothing bad can happen when we’re here, okay?” Repeating the union of you and him, you went on, “We’ve got you. You’re safe with us. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here. Right, sweet bean?” You tucked the quilt around her feet, and held her close. “We won’t let anything bad happen to you, ever.”

With her hands latched into the folds of fabric around your neck—cotton, yarn, and canvas—her big coughs were cushioned by your arms snuggling her to your front while Eddie’s chest was at her back, embracing her between your two bodies converging to protect her in a toasty nest. Warm air hummed from the vents, shooing off the stale chill clinging to the backseat, now disturbed by activity and plucky guitar strings playing over the radio.

Across the Universe.

Undertaking the complexities of the man rubbing his forehead into your hair with the same sort of neediness as his little girl wringing your clothes, you assumed the responsibility of consoling them both. “Nothings gonna change my world,” you mumbled the lyrics into the patchwork quilt covering Adrie’s curls. “Nothings gonna change my world,” you sang to Eddie, face tipped up and eyes falling closed, seeking out his nose to trace the tip of yours along the soft bumps in a devoted offering after the turbulent events causing you both inner strife.

His fingertips became an imposing force spread across the scope of your cheek, turning you toward him, capturing you in a deeper kiss than you were ready for. It was demanding, hard with desperation, misaligned and urgent. Born out of necessity in the moment. He kissed you in front of his daughter, where she could see if she picked her face up from your chest, and a dart of surprise lit your heart at the recklessness. You kept a level hand atop her head in case he’d come to regret the decision, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. He sighed into a second helping, and at the sound of the wet smack, she stirred.

Adrienne hooked her fingers into your collar and sniffled hard, soothing herself from further cries by hugging you tight, huddling into your comfort, oblivious to what was happening around her.

Easily, you fell into the third kiss. Became what he needed, mouths mashing together at the odd angle, your lower lip plush between his. Dizzying amounts of reverence manifested in his spontaneity. He packed a lifetime’s worth of bottled up feelings into the affection he was privileged to. Giving, and taking. But his impulses were still a puzzle. When he’d drank his fill, he squeezed your leg, broke apart from your lips in a silent slick slide, and drew a deserved breath.

“Sorry, no one’s ever just.. done that for me before.” He shrugged his hand off your thigh at the poor summary of the millions of things on his mind, and left it at that.

Spurred by the praise, you seized the opportunity for communication. “Remember how before we played DND that night, I told you to call me first next time you needed help?” you reminded him, and something vulnerable, maybe even pleadful, entered your tone. “I want to be someone you can rely on, Eddie.”

An unfortunate amount of complicated emotions passed in his eyes. There wasn’t much to garner from them, nor his soft grunt when he dropped his nose to the column of your neck, above Adrie’s head, and regressed into his quiet self. Reserved. Hard to decipher. He did speak up once to warn you she would fall asleep with how you were holding her—same as he did most nights on the couch while Late Night with David Letterman aired—and you embellished your promise to him with a kiss to the stringy curls frizzing at his scalp, “That’s okay.”

And it was okay, truly, when the storm raged heaves of rain against the car, spraying the windows with shocks of water. You dabbed Adrie’s cheeks. Wiped her nose. Rocked her in the same tempo as the backs of Eddie’s fingers stroking your cheekbone, flexed bicep behind your neck. Thunder occurred. Lightning happened. But with your quick thinking, lulling gestures, and genuine effort to speak past the fondness clogging your throat, you calmed her. Calmed her so well, in fact, her hands went limp and her body relaxed, fatigue claiming her victim to the numbered sheep hopping over fences in her dreams. After her tantrums, she was taxed out. Drained.

Stuck in the cramped middle between Eddie and the carseat, you rearranged your legs before they went tingly numb from her weight on your lap, and shifted the pressure off your heels. It was sweet having her fall asleep on you. Her slow breaths filled your arms as a reward for your efforts to hush her. The quilt smelled of their home, cozying itself in your lungs and sweeping you in a sense of longing for the humidity in his kitchen after making soup.

Though, as much as you thrived on the temporary role you played as parent—taking over for Eddie and dwelling on the fact Adrie slept propped on your chest like the many times she napped on his stained coveralls—you could do without the additional pain of him leaning on you too.

You groaned at the sharp twinge in your spine from slouching sideways, and conveniently, your movement roused his consciousness. He launched into a sleepy inhale. Robust, filling his lungs to the brim, too loud, too silly and sweet. He primed you for a solid press of the bridge of his nose to your jaw by thumbing you towards him, after which he pulled away, separating himself from you fully.

Eddie rolled his shoulders, stretching out from the uncomfortable position, and faced the window. He commented in a sincere tone, “You’re good with kids.”

“I know how to entertain kids,” you corrected him. “I don’t know how to do any of the hard shit you do.”

The streetlights painted strokes of dotted orange on his complexion cast in shadow. He played with the tips of his fingers, squishing each one in a line as he ruminated, staring elsewhere, perspiration blurring the outerworld, sealing yourselves in this crowded car together. “You do a good job,” he reassured, petering out in a hoarse whisper.

Ceaseless nerves gnawed at his absent-minded ring spinning. Not a big production like when he wrung his hands or bit his nails, but enough to show he was getting anxious. You’d expected his leg to be bouncing by now, but it was laying softly against yours. Something big was on his mind.

You bumped your knee into his. “Talk to me.”

Talk to me. Yes, you asked the world of him. You knew it, too. Encouraging his gaze to flick to Adrie bundled in your arms, and back to the window. His eyes weren’t wide with fear, just larger than normal at the subtle confrontation. It was time he opened up to you. There wasn’t a concrete ultimatum if he didn’t, but there was a mutual understanding that if this were to continue, he needed to trust you to be there for him. No more reluctance.

He extended his hand towards your knee, patting twice before claiming it in the great breadth of his palm, stroking his thumb over the thin pantyhose; bridging the gap from his earlier behavior, but not yet apologizing for the soreness he caused.

Sorting his thoughts, his throat bobbed twice on the swallow.

And of all the questions he could ask, of all things he could say, of all the topics he could choose, he picked, “Did you ever want kids?”

Heat swam to your cheeks, blood rushed to your ears. Buds of true belonging bloomed at the question, adorning stems of untended longing first planted during the Christmas party at work, ever growing. Your heart pumped faster at the inherent past and implied future of the subject. His curiosity was a mild prod, perhaps not meant to encourage these leaps in logic considering he announced it in the same buckled cadence of someone who was asking about the weather—and yet, the hold it had on you was impossible to deny. A blend of you, Adrie, and him, just like now, but in different contexts—different meanings other than sitting in the back of his car—something domestic, like being piled together on the couch watching Disney movies; that’s what was pushed to the forefront of your mind.

But, despite those instantaneous fantasies, this was a place for honesty, and the significance of your pause between his question and yours was an entity of its own, stiff like his posture.

“Are you ready for this conversation?” you checked. He fostered an anxious glance and nod. “Having kids is not something I ever saw for myself, no.”  The consequence of your answer marked his immediate dropped eye contact, but ever patient with him, you continued strongly, “With how I dated and moved around, I didn’t think it was for me, that sort of lifestyle. It’s just not something I put a lot of thought into except when my friends were having kids, and really, they kinda turned me off of the idea. Pregnancy sounds.. daunting. Or—you know—really fucking scary. They’d always talk about how awful it is, all the complications you could have, the risks, the near death experience in one case,” you broke off in a squirm. “And then you don’t even get the relief once the baby comes. Like, seriously, taking care of a newborn sounds straight up terrifying.”

Eddie cracked. His hiss of laughter was a welcomed reprieve, especially when it sank to his chest, gripping his shoulders in a hearty shake. “Y-Yeah,” he got out, face crinkled in all the ways you adored, “it is straight up terrifying.”

You giggled in the softest way, careful to not disturb Adrie’s shallow breaths, and careful to not swoon too head-over-heels over the image of him rocking a baby. “It seems easier when they’re older, though,” you said, broaching the real crux of the conversation with your chin dipped to the top of her head. “Like it’s not as bad when they can actually communicate why they’re crying, or tell you what’s bothering them.”

“Not necessarily easier, just different,” he clarified. “It’s less about making sure this little tiny thing that can choke on its own snot survives the night, and more about the emotionally draining problems like her telling you about her day at preschool, explaining a situation where a group of kids kept giving her tasks to do that sent her away, and she’s smiling so big when she’s telling you, thinking it was a game, but deep down you’re just waiting for the heartbreak years down the line when she realizes they gave her errands to run because they were excluding her, and the reason they were laughing every time she came back was because they took joy in being mean to her.”

Wilt tinted your faint, “Oh..”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He upped the pressure he used to pat and rub your knee. “S’part of life.”

Consumed by his side profile, you studied the scope of his impassive expression set on the premature lines edging his face. The urge to find the right thing to say amidst the convoluted churn of anger on his behalf, and sadness on Adrie’s, itched something fierce beneath your skin. Ultimately, no words of inspiration came.

Eddie took an anticipatory breath.

The radio garbled advertisements for the station’s sponsors.

“Still wouldn’t trade it for those first months when she was a newborn, though.” Pursing his mouth thin, he rolled his lips inward with a hardened brow, releasing and scrunching tension around his nose as he shook his head slowly, addressing the memories of those days with a shine of pain to his eyes, and a loud smack of his tongue. “The moment I found out Adrie’s mom was pregnant, I wanted to do the right thing—y’know?” He took his hand off your leg to demonstrate the narrow path he followed. “Kept my head down, stayed focused, didn’t bother anybody, got a real job, and kept my mouth shut. Lotta places didn’t wanna hire me, obviously, but I applied anywhere I could, and when I got the job, I’d go get another one on a different shift, and another one on a graveyard shift. Sold whatever I had—guitars, ‘nd shit—bought what I could with the money. I wanted to be a good man. Be a provider. Be worth something.” Scrubbing his shaky fingers over the stubble on his chin, he aimed to calm himself, but when bringing up the Hell he went through during those times, there was little to stop his pitch from wavering. “Still wasn’t good enough.”

A verdict aimed at him flippantly, yet the impact on his self-esteem was immeasurable.

Gathering himself, he licked the inside of his cheek, and explained, “In the beginning, when Adrie was born, I tried to make it on my own. Locked in this little motel room with a crying baby. Couldn’t go to work. Didn’t have anyone to call to watch her for me, y’know, didn’t.. didn’t have anyone to rely on after walking out on my uncle, and isolating myself from my friends. The people at the bullshit resource center said I wasn’t eligible for benefits because they were for single moms, not dads. And child support was taking too long to kick in. Not like it mattered when it couldn’t pay for a single canister of Similac. I didn’t have fucking anything. Or know anything.”

His shame was only beginning to unravel.

“There were these free classes at a clinic for expecting parents, but I..” He dropped his knuckles to his thigh and fed them along the coarse cotton, using the friction to burn away the guilt. “I-I didn’t go. I didn’t want to go alone. Be the only guy there, by myself. Have all these people w-who might know who I am fucking.. fucking staring at me.” With how he was looking down at his lap, rocking slightly with his movement, he stood no chance against the wall of tears damming at his lashes. “I didn’t want to go because of my sense of pride, and my baby suffered because of it.”

“Eddie, that’s not true—” you stepped in.

Three effective beats of his fist on his leg, and you were left to witness his face crumple from the utter contempt he had for himself.

“It is true,” his volume fluctuated in jumps. “She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t fucking eat and keep it down.” Droplets splashed his jeans in unyielding splats. Drip, drop, drip, drop.. They slipped and spread in splotches of salty remorse he couldn’t wipe away quick enough. “Nothing worked. Couldn’t get her to latch onto a bottle, and, and—I didn’t know, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to microwave the formula, but she wouldn’t take it room temp, so if it was too hot she’d just scream at me until it wasn’t, and I–I just—I was having these breakdowns, I don’t know. I blacked out, and next thing I knew, I was at Harrington’s, and Nancy was taking care of her for me.” The emphasis alluded to much, though the fact their son was only a year older, and Nancy would still be producing milk said it all. 

Frantic breaths which wouldn’t catch were pulled past grimaced lips parted on the unrefined sob his confession emerged on. “I never wanted to be with Adrie’s mom, but proving what she said was right, th-that I was a fucking loser who didn’t know what he was doing, it-it-it.” In a desperate flourish, he pointed at his temple, It lives in here, and another tear clung to the tip of his nose, smeared by the back of his wrist.

Stunned useless by the suffocating urge to help him, you blanked. Sat still while your favorite mechanic reduced himself to the wrong opinion of others; the same person who showed his gentle nature by picking worms out of the garage after a heavy rain so they didn’t dry out. Remaining frozen while silent pain wracked your friend’s held breath, heaved and shuddered out as a cough into the same palm he used to catch your ankle when he challenged you to a race on the creepers, and he had to cheat to win before you beat him to the service door. Saying, “Baby, no,” to the man who snuck a smirk over his daughter’s head when he caught you doting over her as she sat on his hip, and the smell of Christmas potluck embedded itself into the memory of Eddie’s eyes hinting at a deeper glint than the tease on his grin.

“I am a fucking failure,” he seeped out his regret. “C-Couldn’t give her what she needed. I still can’t. Still can’t give her what she wants, ever. T-T-Tellin’ her I can’t get her something when she asks for it—and the disappointment. Just a piece of shit who disappoints her. Never good enough—” There was another high-pitched stutter, but it was muffled behind his trembling hands covering his face, and smothered by your intervention.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” you shot out, hand and voice working together to untangle the trauma his knotted fingers attempted to hide. “Listen to me.” No please, but no lack of kindness, either. “You are not a disappointment. Not then, not now, not ever. Do you hear me? You’re not any of those things.” You tugged at the canvas jacket around his stiff arms tucked tight to his body, and rocked him away from his huddle against the door.

In the aftermath of your scramble to comfort him, Adrienne startled awake. Her soft hmm? became a grunty whine when the sensation of slipping backwards disoriented her. “Daddy?” One of her fists found your hoodie for balance, but her groggy curiosity dealt a heartbreaking blow.

She traced the wet trail on his cheek, encountered a tear in its path, and broke the droplet’s surface tension on her finger, wondering aloud, “Why’s Daddy crying?”

Thinking quickly, you used your muscles earned through unloading car parts from delivery trucks, and scooped her from your lap onto his, diverting the nuance of grown-up-problems by fumbling out, “Daddies cry sometimes, too. Have you told him you love him today? Can you tell him? It’ll make him feel better. Please, Miss Adrie?” Whether or not it was the perfect phrasing wasn’t important. What mattered was the unsuspecting gratitude laden at the base of his frown.

“I love you, Daddy,” Adrie said, latching her arms around his neck. “I love you.”

“You’re a good man,” you added, and rolled onto your hip, fitting your body to his side. You nosed through his long, frazzly curls, and spoke earnestly, but softly into his ear, “You’re a good man, Eddie. Look at how well you take care of her. Look at how well fed, clothed, and happy she is. You make her so happy.. You make me happy, too. You’re the best dad I’ve ever met. No one else compares.”

He dragged a sniffle from his last sob into an unintelligible mumble.

“I’m here.” Shh. “I’m here.” You included Adrie in your hug as you brought your hand up to the other side of his flustered hot face, blending your fingers through the hair stuck to the sweat and stubble on his jaw. “We’re here for you. We’ve got you. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here.” Sweet with conviction, “It’s okay, handsome, I’ve got you.”

Overwhelmed by the small I love you, Daddy, on one side, followed by You’re a good man, on the other, his inhale shivered, and he cuddled Adrie to him for a watery, “I love you, too.” Croaky and real, and mouth agape on an ugly cry he let you witness until his needy reach cupped the back of your head, and smushed you to his wet cheek, scratching the same sentiment into your nape, just like you were rubbing it into his scalp, exchanging the affection without words.

Us and Them funneled through the car, mellowing the heightened emotions with its dreamy saxophone opener.

“I’m so glad to have met you,” you prized in tender sweeps of whispers and thumbs. “I actually look forward to coming into work because of you, even when you hide my pen cup, and tickle me when I go to reach for it on top of the Coke machine. Which is unfair, by the way.”

“Yeah?” he asked for dear reassurance, and distraction.

Humming against the intimate corner of his jaw, you nudged the prickly scruff, and melted into his uncoordinated pets over your ear. “I see your sacrifices, and trust me, Eddie, you’re doing a great job at raising your daughter. Stuff like buying her toys, or cookies, or whatever doesn’t matter. The love you show her is better than any of that. She’s so lucky to have you.”

Another tear dropped to the tattered quilt. Another, another dropped. He squeezed his eyes shut and more fell. Hindered breaths let go in stuttered huffs shook his chest, swayed his damp hair. You circled your thumb over the rivers on his sensitive skin, and found a dry section of your sleeve to clean the price he paid for being a good father without the proper support he needed. Soothing him with fond shushes and feather touches. Forming a ball of comfort around him: cramped in the tiny car, a cast of solid fog on the windows for privacy, Adrie’s blanket draped about your jumbled legs, and her lanky arms wrapped around his neck where precious words were stoked from the embers of a fire which he built. “I wanna color with you to-mah-rrow,” she pronounced. “You can have the dinosaur book, because I want the kitty cats. Deal?” Deal, he nodded.

Your bottom lip introduced a blessing at his sideburn, “You deserve to see yourself how we see you.”

Recovering from the unbearable throb his stuffed sinuses drove to his headache, he tried—“Thank you, baby,”—though the letters were mashed together, and further pulped by the thickness in his throat. Loud, however, was his hug. Crushing you both to him with honed strength; flexed forearms demonstrating the power lying dormant in the track of muscle he snaked around your waist. Groans were earned from his expertise. Bones protested the gesture, begging to be released. It took several seconds of your heartbeat pumping visibly at the edge of your vision, but he let go. Afterall, there was no praise to be had by flattened lungs.

“That hurt,” Adrie complained.

“Ow,” you agreed.

“Sorry,” he said in non-apology.

At a change in tone, you fawned, “But that was a nice hug.”

Adrie rated it, “An 8 out of 10.”

Crowded together, the bond was unmatched. His arms were spread like a greedy dragon hoarding its wealth. Chest open, collecting his most remarkable treasures to the roaring furnace locked within the confines of his body, ready to share the warmth to those who could appreciate its value. Clasped in your hand was Adrie’s ankle, gaining squirmy kicks for each smile and giggle traded under Eddie’s chin. Dressed in his well-loved hoodie, the crook of his elbow fit to your figure, and the backs of his fingers strummed your bicep in a trained motion. None of it was perfect, no. The hoodie could smell less like cigarettes, his forearm stuffed behind you meant you couldn’t recline comfortably, and when he patted your hip, he awakened the dull throb of the bruising grip he left during earlier events.

Those weren’t bad things, though. They were as real as human flaws. Accepted as such, too.

“Are you feeling better?”

Sporting a grin favoring one cheek more than the other, Eddie’s eyes were framed by clumped together lashes after being stripped to his barest self and given the grace he needed. “Yeah,” he answered Adrie in fondness, “I’m feeling better now.” Not forever. He wasn’t cured. But with time, he guided his gaze to the velcro shoe you were wiggling back and forth onto her heel, and climbed his soft study up to the plump concentration on your bottom lip after you released it from between your teeth.

Perceiving his attention, you clocked him with a sneaky grin. “We’re a sardine family.” Brightening at the bewildered noise he made, you tapped Adrie’s knee, and imparted your wisdom as if he should know it too. “Yeah, you know, you, me, and Adrie. Jammed packed back here like a tin of sardines. All squished together.”

They blinked at you. You blinked back.

“And I thought I was supposed to be the one with bad jokes,” Eddie offered after some thought. You cut him a look. “But I like the image,” he amended.

“I like sardines,” Adrie chimed. She didn’t know what sardines were, but you appreciated her enthusiasm.

The conversation waned from there. Drowsiness from the old night seeped into your collective huddle, slouching you all towards one another. Heavy limbs went boneless. Tender brushes of thumbs came to an end. The sound of deep breaths were heard between the local ads for Indiana’s finest antique mall and an uptick in the rain smacking the paved street. Near the edge of sleep, you convinced yourself to get Adrie up and into her carseat. Eddie sat back and watched you go through the steps of buckling her in, listening to her plea for Fluff in her backpack, tucking the quilt around her just right, and hitting your head on the roof in pursuit of making her happy. Taking care of his kid. You collapsed beside him, far closer than would be proper for coworkers, and basked in his approval, noting the pride in his charged gaze. The emotional rollercoaster of the evening took its toll on his swollen face—nevertheless, romance novels could learn a thing or two from the way his stare rendered you weak.

“Should get you home before the storm gets worse,” he warned in an attractive thrum of sternness. He might call you lil’ lady next. Or remind you he promised your father he’d have you back on time.

Floating in the fizzy pool of your crush's attention, you nodded your dizzy head, and observed without need, “Yeah, should get home before it gets worse.”

He laughed. You swam in his laugh, in the instinctual desire based in his mood after watching someone nurture his young. A silly thing to rock you into a sultry sweat considering the outcome of your second date. Luckily, when you stepped out of the car, the frigid mist stole your focus, hosing you down and keeping you from reading too much into the odd chemical imbalance that must be happening in your brain.

The night was really fucking long.

Driving with the radio on low, Eddie drifted his ringed fingers over your forearm whenever they weren’t being used on the stick shift. A small gesture letting you know he was thinking about you when there wasn’t anything to talk about, not that it was needed. The calm was nice. The storm behaved en route to the Buckley’s, avoiding the occasional tree limb blocking a lane. He removed his touch from your person, and with a glance, you were assured it wasn’t the last.

“You didn’t have to walk me to my door,” you gasped, posing with your arms stuck out, useless against mother nature sagging your soaked clothes.

A puddle formed on the wood planks where he wrung his hair. “And make you do this run all by yourself? C’mon, sweet stuff. I’m a gentleman.”

Shivering on the covered porch, your shoes were partially to blame for the slipping incident(s) in the muddy driveway. The lack of the house lights on was another, slowing down your sprint into a crawl. A yellow cast from a lamp in the back room lit the hallway, but other than its soft glow, that was it. Clearly, no one expected you to come home.

“Is it okay if, uh,” you began, “Is it okay if we kiss in front of Adrie?” Oh, how your awkward pointing from yourself to the car came to a charming halt, fingers caught in the stiff fabric of his jacket, under his spell.

Plush pink lips warmed by vented heat promised your worries away.

“I think she’s asleep anyway.” His voice was playful, tugging syllables in the way his lopsided grin ought. “But,” he softened, “yeah, we can kiss in front of her.”

The permission washed over you. Weeks and months in the making. Brewing tension under the surface in your daily interactions—and now? You kissed him. Just for fun, just to show off. You kissed him again. Gentle, pretty brushes. Tame, refined, and for the sake of exploring the lack of boundary before saying goodbye.

Working man arms defined your waist.

Fingers calloused from gripping pens grazed his steady throat.

He swallowed, and spoke endearments with his busy mouth, “Could kiss you all day, baby.” Your lips kicked into a smile which he devoured, kiss after kiss. Neat little things. Virtues, maybe.

“Could’ve kissed me since the day we met,” you answered, feeling the squeeze around your back when his belly pressed you into his embrace. Though, his dismissive snort caused you to frown. “I’m serious. Coulda had me back then. Or at least you could’ve kissed me when we were slow dancing in the garage, or standing under the mistletoe at the Christmas party. Like, seriously, way to make me feel rejected.”

His wide passionate eyes shared common ground with his genuine smirk at your feigned agony. “Excuse you, but I am not having our first kiss be at work.”

“Then why not at DND when everyone left?”

“Because, sweetheart,“ his cadence loved those two words most of all, “I knew I only had a few minutes with you. And I needed a helluva lot more than a few minutes with you.”

“Or, what about when—”

Crazy how you strove to be silenced by his mouth. Craved it like no other, provoking him into eager unions, fulfilling the itch and providing the scratch with your bottom lip between his, just how he liked.

You shifted. Your inner thighs rubbed through your ripped tights. The untimely circumstances bringing you to Robin’s door lived on the surface of your chilly skin; ushering you to reality, and he as well.

“I’m sorry for how all this turned out.” Eddie’s sincere apology pitched his voice to something sorrowful, something deeper, and maybe you underestimated how much the night ending when it did upset him as a man.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

He shuffled his stance, scraping his boots in dissatisfaction. “Baby, you didn’t even get anything,” and you knew what he meant. And it annoyed you he’d even brought it up.

Combing your fingers up from his nape through his hair, you drove him into you, chasing the molten ooze pooling at your center in effort to shut him up. Wet, hard, nipping kisses at his plump lips until they were raw like his tear-stained cheeks. You forwent air. Mouths melding as one, then apart as two, then one, then a set of awake eyes boring into his drunk ones. “Our date was perfect. We needed this.” The trust, the experience, the uncomfortable glimpse into his life and how you handled it. His breakdown, his shame, his face when he finally let go and ugly cried in front of you. “I don’t regret how our night turned out.”

Nodding into a nudge of his nose stroking the side of yours, he was honest with himself, “I don’t regret it, either.”

“Well, you might regret it in the next half-hour if this storm keeps up, and you’re stranded with Adrie in the car because a tree fell across the road.”

“Shit.” Indeed, the weather was turning again. If luck were on his side, he could deal with the high winds and sheets of rain until he got home, but, more likely, he drained his luck over the course of the date, and lightning was about to start again.

Eyeing the sky with hesitance, he asked, “Can I call you tomorrow? Or—today?”

“I’d be upset if you didn’t.” Acting as an endorsement to get going before things worsened, thick forest branches creaked in the distance, popping like warnings. You followed it with snappier affections doled between your palms fitted to his jaw. “Please be safe, Eddie.”

“I will, I will. Kay?” Urgency swept him from kiss to kiss—needy, and intense, treating them as the last. “I adore you, baby. Tell me you adore me.”

Mushy under his tender affirmations, your body went pliant and he accepted your weighty lean on his chest, making it harder than it already was for him to leave his sweetheart behind. “—dore you too, handsome,” you moaned into his mouth, sending him off on a proper goodbye.

“Jesus Christ, woman.”

Ever the lovestruck fool, he stayed rooted on the porch watching your figure move from shadow to light within the home, eyes glued to sways and curves as you met the hallway and bent to peep inside Robin’s room. It was the single lamp being turned off which broke his greedy gaze, and ended his fun. Oh well. His Monday morning was booked with penciled in meetings for his admiration and your assets.

Eddie spun on his heel and stopped stalling. He didn’t bother throwing his arms over his head, he accepted his fate, and ran. Sloshing through puddles, slipping in mud. He wrenched open the door, and fell inside the car. The heater made him sticky warm in the gross way, so he turned it down, and got comfortable behind the wheel, adjusting, adjusting.

Pulling oxygen into his outkissed lungs, he heaved a solid breath, and sank into his seat, unable to comprehend the recent events carving out a new path for him to consider where there wasn’t one before.

——Then——

In the beginning…

Summer died to autumn, and it was time to move on from Steve's. Eddie tried to make it on his own in the motel room over the three day weekend break from work, but his wallet was empty, his baby was dressed in another family's blue sailboat onesie, and come Tuesday morning at 7AM, he needed someone to watch Adrie who wasn't an overworked Nancy Harrington.

Infant in hand, pride left behind in his boyhood, Eddie knocked on his uncle's door, and in Wayne's usual manner, he answered by clearing his throat when neither words nor greetings failed to repair the strained relationship.

“Can I live with you?”

Taking in the marks of fatigue under his nephew's averted eyes, Wayne said, “Of course, son,” and welcomed him inside with a swung gesture.

The walk to the single bedroom humbled what spirit Eddie had remaining. Or, crushed what was left of it. He passed by the kitchen table which still had his chair cocked out, noticed the patched-up hole in the closet door, and flicked on the lightswitch, grazing the curled edge of a poster he hung over a decade ago. His stomach sank at the familiarity.

Blazed by the ornate lamp hung in the corner, standing out like a behemoth beside his white desk, was the crib he was never able to afford.

Adrie grunted awake in her carseat. Looking down at her would spill his tears, so he cranked his head back to stare at the ceiling, steeling himself after spotting the new bedsheets stretched across his mattress, and he knew—he knew—if he turned around, the pullout bed in the living room would still be set up.

His uncle never took his room back.

Defeated by the routine pang of worthlessness, impressed to have any self-esteem left to be stolen from him at the point, Eddie sank to his childhood mattress with his three-month-old daughter at his feet, undressed himself from his boots, and made a clear spot for them both on the bed, away from blankets or pillows. He laid on his side, legs crossed and knees bent with an arm beneath his head. Same position he assumed on the motel’s carpeted floor yesterday when Adrie experienced a milestone: rolling over. Not from her back to her stomach, she wasn’t coordinated enough for that yet, but with enough powerful kicks and wiggling, his paranoia coaxed his other arm around her.

He molded himself to be her protector. Chest sunken on a shallow breath, forearm spooned to her side closest to the edge, and gaze trained on her chubby cheek. Her babbly noise of happiness brought him a sense of reward, and though the newborn smell had faded in the weeks where motor oil stung his nostrils, he put his nose to the top of her head for a whiff of a sweet scent that wasn’t there, and felt the peace it brought him anyway.

Wayne shuffled into the room with a sizable stack of chunky hardcover books between his hands. “I, uh, checked these out from the library. Been doin’ some readin’ while you were gone.” He set them down on the bedside table, and pointed at a few of them. “Learned a lot from the one on the bottom, but they were all, ah, educational, I s’pose.. Some lean more religious than others,” he grumbled. “But, uhm..”

The expectant pause in his uncle’s speech drew Eddie’s awareness.

“Can I hold her?” Wayne asked.

“Yeah.” He almost had the strength to clear the rasp from his throat. “You can hold her.”

Putting his new knowledge to good use, Wayne first worked his palm under Adrie’s head before scooping her into his folded arms. Eddie took his shame in small doses, glancing at his uncle meeting his grandchild for the first time, and looking away when he cooed over her. Three months and his only family member had yet to meet his baby. Three months spent avoiding this trailer, and depriving his uncle from making these memories.

Self-loathing boiled under Eddie’s skin, and still, there was a fleeting desire to brag about Adrie’s neck strength, and how it wasn’t so necessary to be wary of her head falling back.

But he stayed quiet. He pushed his overgrown bangs out of his eyes, and read the book’s titles, wondering what sparked enough interest for Wayne to stuff receipts between the pages, or mark them with paper clips if they were particularly interesting.

Speaking in his gruff smoker’s voice with an edge of seldom heard unease, Wayne introduced a conversation, “I read in that yellow book there that babies shouldn’t sleep in the same bed as the parent. Dangerous, with how tired you are, ‘nd all. Should I put her in the crib?”

As gingerly and delicately as one could be when discussing the reality of a child suffocating to a parent who was well aware of the risks, Eddie regarded him with an annoyed expression, and Wayne shut his mouth in apology.

“I’ve gotta do her night routine again, so I’ll be up for a bit.”

“Yep.” A solid statement, and conclusion, to the conversation.

Bending down, Wayne positioned Adrie in the hollow Eddie created for her, and mentioned there were leftovers in the fridge on his way out. He shut the door behind him. It didn’t take long for tiny fists and tinier fingers to find a lock of his hair, and pull it into a drooly mouth. Didn’t take long, either, for his exhaustion to kick in and for the emotions to crash through his walls.

Tears slipped sideways along his features. Cresting over the bridge of his nose, colliding with his other eye, and joining the wetness at his hairline, dotting the bedsheet. He pressed his face to his baby who was too innocent for this world. “Daddy loves you,” he whispered, tasting the word for the first time. Daddy. It didn’t feel right when Steve stepped in as a father figure, but he could acknowledge it now. He was a dad. A momentous occasion followed by, “I’m so sorry you’re mine.” An apology uttered on a wet hiccup—borderline unintelligible—but after coming back to this trailer, and enduring his memories trapped between its thin walls, he promised, words slurring to a constricted squeak in his throat, “Daddy’s gonna get us a nice house, okay? Your own room. Your own bed. Daddy’s gonna do it. Just give me some time, okay? I’ll do it, I swear. Daddy loves you so much. So fucking much.” The promises bred dread even then, living in the pit of his stomach as future disappointments, knowing he would fail.

Perhaps sensing his distress, his little girl used the last of her energy to kick his arm in a fair warning before her face scrunched, and the wet coughs preluding her wail for food began.

He dried his face on the bedsheet. In this moment, it was hard to continue crying when he had another human relying on him. It was time to move on. Time to bury the pain, and move on. Time to neglect himself, and move on. Time to give up, and move on. Kiss her chubby cheeks so fucking much he feared he’d never be able to stop, and move on.

——Now——

Now, he checked the rearview mirror and Adrie was looking back at him, possessing a curious pinch between her brows at his reflection.

“You were kissing Miss Mouse,” she accused and questioned.

“I was,” he confirmed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, ah,” he filled the pause with another ah while he searched, “It means we’ll be seeing more of each other. She’ll be coming around more, and stuff. Hanging out with us.”

Ever ponderous, ever candid, ever blunt, she asked, “Does that mean she’s my–”

Crazy Little Thing Called Love blasted their eardrums.

Eddie’s fingers slipped over the volume dial by accident—totally by accident—as he reached for the stick shift, turning the music on high and drowning out the last word of her sentence.

—Mom.

No way in hell was he ready for that conversation after the emotionally grueling night he’d had.

“Whoops,” he pretended, “Sorry, couldn’t hear you—but, uh! Hey, do you wanna start our bedtime story early? Should I go with the princess one, or the Sesame Street gang running their own bakery? Hmm.." He drew out his hum until he was in the clear of the Buckley's mailbox, swearing he wasn't the reason it was laying flat in a ditch. "How about we pick up where the princess one left off? So! The firbolgs have declared alliances with Toadstool Kingdom, and.." Throwing it into first gear, Eddie raced home as quickly, but responsibly, as possible, talking non-stop. His parched throat begged for a drink by the time he pulled into the trailer park—a scratchy pain made worse by his nervous chatter in the elusive quiet of his parked car.

He wrapped Adrie in her quilt as best he could while securing her on his hip and booked it through the rain, unlocking the front door and ducking inside right as an unlucky flash of lightning came.

And when nature’s nightlight died, he blinked and blinked at the spots in his vision.

It was unfathomably dark in his living room.

Stumbling over a small shoe in his way, he patted the wall for the lightswitch, and flipped it. And flipped it again. And harassed it some more. Sighing heavily in defeat, he grabbed the giant flashlight on the kitchen counter, and lit the way. "Looks like we're camping tonight." (Their codeword for when the power was knocked out.)

"Okie dokie," she said, ignorant to the cruel world of no pancakes for Sunday breakfast when the electric stovetop was out of commission.

In the meantime, he got them both ready for bed with the added pain of doing it by a single wobbly light source, ready to pass out the second his body sank to the mattress and his head hit the flat pillow—

But of course, Adrie rocked his shoulder incessantly, goading him into giving her attention at her whim, sanity be damned. "Mm?" he grunted, coating the noise in mild annoyance.

"Daddy?" she checked.

The wait for her question grew excruciatingly long.

He almost wasted an eye roll. "Yes, my child?"

"I wish Miss Mouse was here."

Surprised more so by his yawn than the request itself—and then surprised again when his heartbeat remained calm when confronted with the reality of Adrie noticing too much—he struggled to stay awake in his best interest, perhaps giving an inappropriate answer, and unwittingly feeding into her inner wishes, "I do too." He was fading, and quick. The hard rain had returned, droning white noise on the roof, soothing his eyelids closed over the dry sting they drew. Rolling, fighting the stiff sheets tucked around them both, he threw an arm over her before the doom-roll of thunder came. Sweet dreams greeted him in a pair of tiny arms folded to his chest. Brain shutting down. Night, night. Asleep.

"I wish she was my mom."

"Goodnight, Adrie," he stressed.

[azsazz]

Midnight Muse (Part 24)

Azriel x Reader [Art School AU]

Summary: You and your best friend Feyre have just moved into a new apartment for your sophomore year of college at art school. What you didn't know when you signed the lease is that you'd be living next to three rowdy boys.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 3,511

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15] [Part 16] [Part 17] [Part 18] [Part 19] [Part 20] [Part 21] [Part 22] [Part 23] [Masterlist]

_________________________________________

Things slowly begin to enter a new normal.

You go to class, see your friends, and spend most nights with your boyfriend, licking, teasing, tasting each other on every available inch of skin you can find. The five of you hang out as a group and you’ve never been happier.

You’re even passing art history, thanks to Azriel’s fool-proof system of studying; a sexual favor in exchange for every correct answer you give.

For the most part, everything seems like a dream. Compared to the beginning of your year, it is. There's still that niggling feeling inside of you that you just can’t seem to get over, though. As you sit in the art building working on your project for Alis’ class, you’re not entirely sure what to do. It’s the last assignment before the semester ends and you’ve started and restarted the drawing three times already, all of your attempted creativity fizzling out within hours.

Now, with only two days to go before it’s due for critique, you’re on the cusp of tears. It’s not from lack of trying, but because you’ve been forcing yourself to tap into your inner creative and find your muse. You want to create something that you’re proud of, but there’s nothing for your heart to grasp onto, no genius ideas that make you want to pour your soul onto the paper.

You’re starting to think that you might fail this class.

Feyre had offered to tag along, but she’s already finished her project fairly quickly after the assignment was given out, and things have been a bit awkward between you and Lucien since he found out that you and Azriel are officially dating. 

Naturally, the event had occurred after one of your drawing classes. It almost felt like deja vu, with the way Azriel was waiting outside of the building. This time, you were more than happy to see your boyfriend, who was leaning up against the side of his motorcycle, helmet tucked under his arm with a second one perched beside him. 

You could admit that you’re starting to enjoy riding on his motorcycle with him. He’s even taken you to his favorite spot where he often goes to draw or think, escaping the stressors of his life back on campus such as his father pestering him about the buying building he lives in. He hasn’t responded to a single text message.

“(Y/N), hold up a minute,” Lucien said, stopping you from going down the stairs of the building to meet your boyfriend with a hand on your shoulder. Feyre continues downward after you gently wave her on, but you don’t miss the way Azriel’s eyes narrow.

“What’s up, Luc?” you ask, although you already know what he’s wondering. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that whatever you and Azriel had started out as is now the complete opposite. He’s no longer your infuriating neighbor, but the boy you you’re slowly starting to fall—

Thankfully, Lucien interrupts the thought before you can dwell on it too long. “What’s going on with him?” he asks, jerking his head to where Feyre and Azriel are talking quietly. The latter watches you and Lucien’s exchange intently. “I thought you two hated each other, but now you’re hanging out with him all of the time? Did I miss something?” 

A pang of guilt gnaws at your stomach. You feel bad for not telling Lucien about your newfound romance with Azriel, but you’ve been wanting to tell him over lunch or coffee, but with the end of the semester projects and tests coming up, the both of you had been too busy to properly hang out.

Your cheeks heat and it’s hard to look him in his eyes when he looks so confused. “Yeah, um, Azriel and I are sort of dating now.”

Lucien frowns, “Sort of?” 

“We are,” you shake your head, answering more solidly this time. “We’re dating.” 

You don’t miss the hurt that flashes through his eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

You sigh, kicking and digging the tip of your shoe into the concrete for something to focus on. You don’t like the way that Lucien is looking at you, like you’re no longer his friend, which isn’t the case at all. Sure, you know that for whatever reason he and Azriel don’t see eye-to-eye, and you can admit that you’ve only fed into that storyline by spending most of your time these days with Azriel and not taking the proper time to check in with your friend, but right you feel like you’re the one at blame for not reaching out.

It seems as if Azriel has had enough, pushing up from his motorcycle to ascend the stairs. His strides are long, sure, and his spine straightens with each step closer he takes, shoulders widening and chest puffing. 

“Hey, princess.” 

“Azriel,” you greet with a nervous smile, accepting the way he tucks you into his side and presses a kiss to your cheek. His hand is firm against your hip and you enjoy the way he feels, the way he allows you to siphon some of his strength for this conversation. “This is Lucien. Lucien, this is Azriel.” 

The two boys stare at each other, sizing one another up. It makes you shift on your feet but Azriel’s hold only tightens, showing you off, staking his claim.

It’s awkward, to say the least. Neither of them greet each other and it's as if they’re both waiting for the other to look away first so the other can snap at their neck like a rabid dog. You shoot a look towards Feyre but her head is buried in her phone, an enormous smile on her face, completely oblivious to the pissing contest that’s happening up the stairs.

A muscle ticks in Lucien's jaw before he rips his gaze away from Azriel to settle back on yours. He gives you a single nod, and you’re not sure how to feel when his throat works around a swallow, his normally honeyed voice coming out rougher. “I have to go, actually, before I’m late. I’ll see you around, (Y/N).” 

“Lucien,” you call, but he’s already turned down the stairs and is brushing past Feyre, whose eyebrows furrow with concern at the sight of your friend. She tries to speak to him but he brushes her off gently, and when her heavy blue-gray eyes settle on you, you deflate into Azriel’s side. 

You feel similarly to how you did then, defeated and glum. The piece of drawing paper before you is filled with the darkness from your charcoal, your fingers coated in the chalky substance, and the shapes you’d been sketching stare back at you, taunting you, because no one is going to be able to finish this except for you.

It’s a fairly simple task, to draw yourself as some sort of hybrid, but as you look in the mirror hanging to your left, you can’t seem to figure out what kind of creature resonates with you. Feyre had drawn herself as some sort of beast, her true self, she claimed. When you had asked Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel what they had done when they took their drawing classes, Rhysand said he drew himself with dragon features, Cassian morphed himself with a grizzly bear, and Azriel had drawn himself with the bat wings inked across his back.

The last time you spoke with Lucien before your relationship became strained, he’d been drawing half of his face as a fox, and you’d seen one of the other girls in your class, Vassa, you think her name is, drawing herself as a phoenix. Everyone seemed to light up with their ideas immediately when Alis had announced the final project, and you had only ducked your head, unsure of what to do.

Voices trickling down the hall startle you from your thoughts. You set your chalk down as you recognize the tenor, the laughter echoing around the silent building. Azriel and Cassian appear in the doorway to the classroom. Cassian’s splattered with clay from having been working on his own final project of the year, something he’s been boasting about but refuses to tell anyone what it is, and the smile that lights Azriel’s face when his eyes connect with yours is perfect.

You hadn’t realized how tense your shoulders had been, but the way they deflate at the sight of him makes you realize just how tired you are. There isn’t much time left until your project is due, and you’re sure to remind yourself that once again, you need to focus.

But the way Azriel’s eyes drag down your hands, coated in soot from the charcoal, flaring with heat, you’re forgetting your deadline and the project you’ve barely started completely. 

“Hey, princess,” Azriel greets, leaning down to press a firm kiss to your mouth. You can’t help but to slant against him a little, your energy from your long night sapped. His hand caresses your cheek and he frowns a little, examining your exhausted and frustrated state.

Your heart flutters at the warmth, at the care he shows you. How he isn’t afraid to hide his hands from you because you’ve spent night after night showing him just how much they mean to you. 

“Hi,” you reply with a soft yet strained smile, you turn to Cassian next. “Hey, Cass.” 

“Hey (Y/N). How’s the art project coming along?” 

You sigh, leaning further into Azriel’s warmth. “Not amazing, if I’m being honest.” 

“What’s wrong?” Azriel asks, “It looks like you have a solid start.” 

You crinkle your nose, examining your paper. It looks more abstract than anything, and you wonder for a moment if Azriel’s just being nice about it. But you know him better than that, and he would never tease you about a craft so dear to both of your hearts. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you groan.”I’ve started over three times.” All you want to do is throw your head in your hands but you don’t want to get chalk all over your face, unless Azriel is the one putting it there. Naked.

Maybe having sex will help get your creativity flowing?

Your boyfriend frowns for a moment, examining your work. You can see the cogs turning in his head, how he might help you figure out what to draw for your project. Of course, you could easily draw any animal mixed with yourself, but you really want this one to have meaning behind it. 

“Why don’t you take a break and we can all grab something to eat?” Azriel suggests. “A break might do you some good, and Cass and I were going to head over to Ritas.” 

A hot waffle and a large milkshake sounds absolutely superb right now, to be honest.

You stare at the paper before you. You really should stay and put in a few more hours of work, but at the same time you can’t stand to stare at it any longer. 

Two more days. You still have two more days.

“Yeah, I could use a snack,” you agree, picking up your pencil box from the floor and tossing your sticks of chalk into it. “Give me a few minutes to pack up.” You stand from your art horse, eyeing the mess of black. “You should too, Cassian. You’re covered in clay.”

He only grins and you—once again—regret saying anything to him. “The ladies like it dirty, (Y/N). But you know a little something about that, don't you?”

You try to force the warmth from your cheeks as you think of just how thorough Azriel had been the last time he drew you. How up close and personal he’d gotten with his stick of charcoal, how up close and personal he let you get with some paints you’d bought. 

Sometimes you love being an artist.

“Fuck off, Cass,” Azriel gripes, flipping your large sketchpad shut. He helps you pack your things while Cassian snickers, and his eyes are hot when you rub your hands together, trying to dispel the dust from them. He slings your backpack over his shoulder and your sketchpad under his arm while you dart off to wash your hands before Azriel can get any ideas. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Rita’s is…bustling for a Friday night. 

It looks completely different from when you’d been here last. No sign of the irritable waitress, no sign of anything really, you’re unable to see through the mass of the crowd, stuffed in booths and gyrating in whatever open space is left.

The lights are low. A colorful disco ball spins in the center of the diner that you hadn’t even noticed your first time here. Spots of color percolate around the room, seeming to guide the students on the little dancefloor as they sway their bodies, the tables lined up against the walls for this purpose.

“Rhys and Feyre are on their way,” Cassian says, reading a message on his phone before swiping at the screen. You don’t see the way that his eyes darken at whatever notification pops up because Azriel’s tugging you through the crowd.

The air is hot with bodies and laughter and as you make your way through the throng of people, you’re glad Azriel had talked you into a quick pit stop at the apartment to put your things away, as if he had known the diner would look like this tonight. He must spend more time here than you thought because he eases through the crowd, shoulders lax, letting the clubby music pouring from the jukebox wash over him.

“Are you sure this is Rita’s?” you call over Azriel’s shoulder, genuinely confused to how the dingy daytime diner has turned into this delightful nighttime dance party.

He tosses you a smile over his shoulder that makes your heart flutter.

“It’s where all of the cool kids go before and after the bars,” Cassian teases when Azriel finally finds an empty spot for the three of you to stand. He’s scouring the restaurant as if he’s looking for someone and returns his hazel gaze to you with a lazy grin. “C’mon, (Y/N), it’s like you don’t even go here.”

You roll your eyes, grumbling a little as Azriel pulls you to his front, settling his hands on your hips. The music is surprisingly loud but it’s good, causing you to roll your hips a little with the rhythm. Your boyfriend’s grip tightens, pulling you closer, and you can feel the interested bulge in his pants as his breathing turns heavier with your motions. 

“Spent most of my time at house parties last year,” you answer, shouting over the volume of the bar. “I’m hardly of drinking age, lest you forget.” You lean towards Cassian so he can hear you, pressing your ass further into Azriel’s cock. His thumb sneaks under the hem of your shirt, brushing against your exposed skin, sending a shiver up your spine. 

As if he isn’t the one that brought you here, he seems to have changed his mind fairly quickly.

“In that case, allow me to buy you a drink, my lady,” Cassian bows a little, taking his time eyeing the lower region of a girl that passes by. “What are you having?” 

You shrug, no longer in the mood for a milkshake. You scan the crowd, flickering over everyone on the dancefloor as you mull it over. “Something with rum,” you answer, and you don’t even think he’s listening anymore as the girl gives him a salacious smile over her shoulder and he starts chasing tail. 

“Think he’s coming back?” you ask over your shoulder. Your squeal is eaten up by the changing of songs as your boyfriend spins you abruptly in his arms, plastering his hips against yours in a slow grind that matches the heavy bass that makes the crowd cheer in excitement. 

“Don’t care,” he breathes into the shell of your ear. He follows his words with a nip at your lobe and you bite your lip, winding your arms around his neck. 

“Azriel,” you tut, but you can’t stop looking at his lips. His stare is hot and his hold is demanding, keeping you glued to his front as you grind your hips against his teasingly. “Cassian is your friend.”

“I don’t want to hear another man’s name on your lips right now, princess,” Azriel all but growls, golden eyes igniting. 

“What do you want?” you ask breathlessly, your nipples tightening into pebbles beneath your shirt. 

You’re thankful no one’s eyes are on you right now, all lost in their own conversations or dances with their partners. You don’t think it would matter if they were looking anyway, because you’re so focused on Azriel and the way his body reacts to a simply press of your body against his, warmth flooding you the way it always does when he’s around, that you might need that drink poured over you to pull your attention from him. 

“First, I want to take you home,” his hand strokes a long line up your spine and he buries it in the hair at the nape of your neck. You gasp at his firm hold, arousal dripping to your core when Azriel uses that hand to guide your head away from him to suck at your neck. You arch into him, eyes rolling into the back of your head. “Then, I’m going to strip you of all of these clothes,” his free hand grabs a handful of your ass and your approving hum sounds more like a moan. “And I’m going to ask you to ride me, princess. I want you to guide my cock into your tight, drenched pussy and take what you want, because you’re my needy girl, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” your nails rake down the back of his shirt.

“And when you’re cumming on my cock, squeezing me tight, I want you to—”

“Your drinks,” Cassian says gruffly, shoving a cup between you and Azriel. It forces him to stand straight, glaring absolute daggers at his best friend but it seems to bound off of Cassian’s shoulders easily, because he looks just as pissed.

You’re still a bit dazed, so it takes you a moment or two to figure out what’s going on. Azriel won’t let you leave your position, can’t let you leave your position because his boner if full on fucking raging right now, but he does allow you to turn around again, taking the drink from Cassian to quickly take a sip, trying to quench your parched throat.

“Thanks,” you say but Cassian hardly acknowledges it, passing a beer over to Azriel. He had two still clenched firmly in his free hand but he takes one and slams it back quickly, emptying its contents before Azriel’s even had a sip of his own. 

“You okay, Cass?” Azriel asks, his hand sliding protectively over your hip. There’s no need to protect you from Cassian, but even you can admit as you shift from one foot to the other, that it’s weird seeing him like this. Not as carefree as he normally is. 

“Fucking dandy,” Cassian grunts, hazel eyes grazing down where you and Azriel are still pressed tightly together. He looks away just as quickly and you think you see his lip curl a little.

Azriel stiffens behind you.

What the hell is going on with him?

Before you have the chance to ask or Azriel has the chance to bait him, Feyre’s pushing through the crowd, towing Rhys behind her. One girl glares at her as she passes but Feyre doesn’t seem to notice, eyes lit with happiness when they finally reach your little group, unaware of the clouds of tension bubbling around the three of you.

Cassian makes an effort not to choke down his entire second beer but it’s all too tempting. He takes a deep sip so he doesn’t have to speak.

“Hey,” she greets, cheeks a little flushed already. Rhysand and she must have been drinking before they came out. Or had sex. 

“Hi,” you respond, trying to keep your grip on your cup relaxed. Cassian is acting strange. You glance up at him again but he’s avoiding eye contact with everyone right now, glaring into the mass of people. Yup, definitely avoiding looking at any of you.

“Rhys,” you hear Feyre say as you share a confused look with Azriel. His brows are pulled tight as he examines one of his best friends. He’d seemed fine back at the art building, his normal cheery and cheeky attitude threatening to drive him up the wall, so what happened between then and now? “Will you go get me a drink, please?” 

“Of course, Feyre darling,” he agrees, but Cassian’s already shoving past him, muttering how he’ll get them drinks. Rhysand’s mouth parts but Cassian has already disappeared into the crowd. Well, as much as any six-foot-five man can disappear. “What’s his problem?” 

Azriel shakes his head, taking a sip of his beer. “If we only knew.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

MM Taglist Part 1: @justvibbinghere @nickishadow139 @going-through-shit @honeycriess @natashachelsea @thisisew @kennedy-brooke @cat-or-kitten @sourapplex @magical-mischief-makers @reiincarnatiion @ccucumebrs @secret-ly-here @throneofsmut @cami26cami @torchbearerkyle @a-frog-with-a-laptop @sevikas-whore @endless-worldss @vellichor01 @bangtans-jagiya @kalulakunundrum @pinksmellslikelove @sakura-frost3-blog @imxnotxhere @bookishbroadwaybish @justdreamstars @i-am-infinite @whichwitchisthebitch @i-am-a-lost-girl16 @sia-r @ssmay123 @blackthorngirl @haivenhoule @18crazybutcutealsopsycho @bloodicka @wilmalovegood @jw83 @acourtofbatboydreams @hannzoaks @judig92 @aaronwarnerobsessedmylove @ilikefictionalmen @harrystylesfan2686 @dr4g0ngirl @helensophie

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || ch. 11]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to not only protect his new family from Hell's Kitchen, but from the world.

pt: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Words: 4.3k

banner thanks to the wonderful @theradioactivespidergwen

You are folding laundry when Minnie gets up and starts waddling towards you, dragging Scooby behind her. You tell yourself you cannot be jealous of a stuffed animal, but Pig was what you gave her in the hospital, and you want him to be the favorite. But Scooby is really soft, so you'll admit defeat.

She comes up to your bed and climbs up. She crawls to the middle, then sits, laying Scooby beside her, “Hi, Mommy.”

You smile down at her, curious what type of visit this will be, “Hi, sweetie.”

She grabs one of her shirts from the pile of clothes and begins to try and fold it, making you huff in laughter. You let her help because she is making it into a square and that's all you really need. She purses her lips and you wait for whatever question you know is coming.

“Where is your Mommy?”

That slams into you in a way you do not expect and you have to clear your throat before answering, “Mommy’s…mommy and um…daddy, your grandparents, aren't alive anymore. They died a long time ago.”

Minnie takes this in, lips still pursed. She grabs another shirt and starts to fold it carefully. You wonder where this is coming from - you knew it would come eventually but you are curious about the trigger. But you aren't going to push. You want her to be able to come to you with these and any questions.

After about a minute, she gets up and crawls to you, reaching out to be held. You quickly scoop her up.

“Did my Daddy die, too?” 

Oh, this is it then. You've practiced this speech in your head a million times, you just didn't think it would be so soon.

You turn so you can sit on the bed and set your daughter on your lap, tucking some hair behind her ear as you speak, “No, he didn't die. I just lost him for a little while.”

Minnie screws up her nose and you don't know if it's from confusion or from judgment, “you lost him?”

You nod, offering her a soft sad smile, “I lost him. You know how sometimes, when we go to the park, you meet other kids and spend all day playing together, but then you don't see them again for a long time?” She nods and you continue on, “You just lost them for a bit. They aren't gone - you just don't know where they are and eventually, they will find their way back to you. That is what happened to your Daddy and I. We were at the same place and became friends, but then we lost each other.”

Mouse puts her fist into her mouth, and you know she's thinking hard. You hope she understands. You've read so many different forums and articles on the subject and just want to tell your daughter the truth in a way she computes. 

Finally, she looks up at you, dragging her fingers out of her mouth and letting them fall into her lap, “did you find him?” 

Your lips twitch into a smile and you nod. Her eyes get wider, and she practically begins to vibrate with excitement. You begin to gently rub her back, wanting her to feel all of your love, “I did. I found your Daddy. Do you want to know who it is?”

“Mister Matt?” Her voice is so hopeful that your heart swells to the point you can feel it in your throat. 

You nod, your cheeks beginning to hurt from your smiling, “Mister Matt.”

She throws her arms around your neck and squeezes you so tightly that for a moment you can't breathe. You hug her back, rocking her in your arms. You never expected to have this conversation like this - you've not really had discussions about family with her yet, but you suppose that doesn't matter now. Your daughter knows the truth and you can feel her smiling against your neck. Tears of joy are gathering in the corners of your eyes, and you fight to keep them from escaping. 

You don't know how long you stay there, holding and rocking Mouse, but eventually she pulls back to look you in the face, “does Mister Matt wanna be my Daddy?”

You cup her face and bring her close to start peppering kisses all over, “Yes, yes, he does. He wants to be your Daddy very much. Do you want him to be your Daddy?”

She nods enthusiastically, “I want him to be my Daddy! Please thank you!”

You pull her into a tight hug again and she dissolves into giggles. You don't know if she fully understands but you know this is the first step in her getting it, and you want it to be a good moment. You kiss her forehead, then decide this is a good opportunity to practice talking about feelings.

“How does Mister Matt being your Daddy make you feel?”

She stays nestled against you. You let her think and after a few moments, she whispers, like it's a secret between the two of you, “it makes me happy.”

“It makes you happy?” You confirm. 

She nods, before adding, “He has a happy heart. We make him happy. He makes you happy.”

You take in her observation and realize it's true. You find yourself smiling more when you are around Matt - mostly from watching him and Minnie interact. They are the sweetest pair. And you don't need Minnie or Matt's hearing to know how happy Matt is to be around Minnie. His entire being screams it. 

“He does make me happy,” you agree. “And it makes me happy he is your Daddy. And hey, Mouse. Look at me?” She pulls back and looks at you with wide eyes and you make sure you hold eye contact, “Our next Big Girl Talk will be about how things will change now that you have a Daddy, okay?” She nods eagerly, a serious look coming across her face. Telling her in advance about what you will be talking about helps with her comprehending it is a serious topic. 

You take a moment to look her over, noting in all the ways she looks like her father before leaning in to kiss her cheek again. “I love you, Mouse.”

“I love you, too, Mommy,” she replies, all smiles and sunshine. She mimics you by placing a sloppy kiss on your cheek with a big ‘mwah’ added for good measure, then she hugs herself to you again. You wrap her up in your arms, content to just hold her. It doesn't last long - she's still a wiggly toddler and she eventually wiggles away from you. She crawls back onto the bed, grabbing Scooby before dramatically flopping over.

“Can we has pizza for lunch?” 

You guess life changing news time is over now and you are back to your regularly scheduled day. You hum at her question, thinking pizza sounds perfect for lunch. “Do you want to make it or do you want to go by Tiny’s?”

“Make it!” 

You laugh and your wallet thanks your daughter's desire to make things from scratch. Luckily for you, you already have pre-made pizza dough. You just have to add toppings and bake it. 

“Okay, we can make pizza for lunch,” you tell Minnie, and she responds by making Scooby cheer, pushing his arms up into the air and waving them around. You smile at her excitement; glad everything is going so well. You know this would not be as easy if Minnie didn't absolutely adore Matt. You can't imagine how things would have gone if she started asking these questions months ago. 

You pull yourself away from your thoughts to focus back on folding laundry. Mouse rolls back up into sitting and snatches up something from the pile to help you. It takes her a full thirty seconds before she dives into make pretend and you both work as she narrates your adventures of tidying up before the big princess ball.

-----

You check in with Matt to make sure you are disrupting anything before you and Mouse start towards his office. Your sweet little girl wanted to bring her new Daddy lunch and Matt had not said no to the offer of homemade pizza. You hadn't hinted that the truth had been revealed to Minnie - you kind of want it to be a surprise for him and you want to be able to see his reaction in person. 

Your daughter is undeniably excited. She's swinging her arms as you walk, and every other step is a bounce. You are trying your hardest to not laugh at her antics and she has picked up on that and it has become a game. When you pause at the crosswalk, you look down and she sticks her tongue out at you. When you return the gesture, she gasps, then squeals with joy. You wrinkle up your nose at her, pulling a funny face to keep up the positive energy. 

She bunny hops across the street and keeps at it until you are in front of the building holding Nelson, Murdock, and Page. She seems to recognize she's been here before, pausing to look up at the building before hurrying up the stairs. You follow her inside and she keeps a hold of your hand as you go up to the right floor. 

This time, you let her knock on the door - you don't want to walk in on anything awkward again - and a moment later, it swings open to reveal Karen. Mouse practically teleports behind you, obviously not expecting someone other than Matt to answer. The blonde smiles warmly at you, a twinkle in her eye.

“Pizza delivery?” you say, hoping it will lighten the mood and Minnie will be less afraid of the woman in front of her. 

Karen steps aside with a laugh and you usher Mouse inside, “I heard it was homemade.”

You flush over the idea of Matt talking about you to his friends, but you had offered to bring his law partners lunch as well. “Uh, yes. It's just cheese, nothing fancy,” you tell her, hoping to not get her hopes up over it being fantastic pizza. Cooking for yourself and a toddler is far different from cooking for adults, and you are suddenly very aware of how high their expectations may be.

“No one in their right mind complains about pizza, let alone homemade pizza,” a voice says from your left and you turn to see Foggy and Matt in the conference room, both sitting at the table and gathering up remnants of their work. 

“Your cooking is amazing, don't sell yourself short,” Matt adds, his smile causing your heart to pound in your chest. The praise makes you a little dizzy and you tell yourself to stop acting like a school girl - he's probably just being polite. 

“He lorded that lasa-”

Foggy’s joking is cut off by the sudden pitter-patter of feet and the absolute toddler screech of, “DADDY!” 

Minnie is halfway to Matt before you even realize she's left your side. You hurry after her, Karen right behind you, and you make it in time to see Mouse crash right into Matt's legs. He looks completely dumbfounded - eyes wide behind his red lenses and lips parted in surprise - and your daughter uses his shocked state to scale him. She throws her arms around his neck and hugs him as tight as her little body will allow.

Matt returns the hug with just as much force once he realizes what's going on, burying his face into her hair. His shoulders start to shake, and you can just barely hear him confirm for her, “Yeah, baby. I'm your Daddy. I'm your Daddy.”

You can't help but let the tears fall this time, covering your mouth so you don't disturb the sweet moment. Movement in the corner of your eyes lets you know Karen is also covering her mouth and crying. You are pretty sure Mouse is the only one not crying. 

Your little one can only stand being crushed for so long and she pulls away from Matt but stays standing on his lap. She places her hands on his cheeks and you don't know if she's trying to keep balance or mimicking a gesture you frequently do with her. 

You can see Matt's tears from across the room and your heart twists. How long has he wanted this? How long have you wanted this? You want to hold them both and never let go - just so you can keep this feeling of overwhelming love forever.

Minnie breaks the symphony of sniffles, declaring, “Mommy said she lost you.”

Matt gives a wet laugh, his smile so bright and full of adoration for his daughter, “she did? She won't lose me again. I promise. I'm not going anywhere.”

You have to keep yourself from sobbing at his words. Too many emotions stir at his promise, and you have to remind yourself he's talking to Minnie and not you. As much as you want to hear the words yourself, to have someone say they'll never leave you - you know it isn't in the cards for you. You wrap your arms around yourself and watch Minnie search Matt's face.

She pats his cheeks with both hands, telling her father in a serious tone, “you have to stay close. Or Mommy will put you on a leash.”

It takes a moment for you to realize she's referring to her tethered backpack, but the damage is already done.

“You don't want her to put you on a leash, do you Matt?” Foggy asks, not missing a beat and not at all sounding like a crying mess despite being one.

Karen lets out a scandalized “Foggy!” while you bury your face into your hands, wishing the floor would swallow you up.

Matt doesn't even get to respond to the tease - Minnie whips her head around and her eyes get wide as she seems to realize other people are in the room. You can see the wheels turning in her mind before she crashes herself back into Matt's arms with a giggle, “Froggy!”

Matt doesn't seem to mind being used as a jungle gym and wraps himself around Minnie to hold her close. He kisses the top of her head and chokes out, “Yeah, that's Foggy, and that over there is Karen. Do you remember - I told you about them?” Your little one hides her face against his neck with a nod. You see her jaw move as she mumbles something to Matt, but you are too far away to hear but whatever it is, Matt gives a pleased laugh, “Yeah, his hair is too short to braid.”

Foggy scoffs at this reveal, “That is nonsense. My hair is long enough to braid!” He looks at you and Karen for confirmation, “Is my hair long enough to braid?”

“I mean,” Karen says, wiping away her tears with a smile, “They'd be pretty small. It would certainly be a fashion choice.”

“It's longer than Matt's hair,” he argues, a pout forming on his lips - but you can tell it's playful. 

Minnie peeks away from the crook of her father's neck to peer at Foggy. She eyes him before declaring, “Too short!”

“Looks like you've been overruled, Fog,” Matt says, resting his cheek against the top of Minnie’s head, happy to let her hide against him. He's stopped crying, but his voice is still a little wet. “You’ll have to go with another style.”

“Liberty spikes?” Your mouth offers before your brain catches up. 

Foggy and Karen both look at you and you fear they think you are insane. The familiar pounding starts in your chest and your mouth feels dry, but before panic can see in, Foggy shakes his head, throwing his arms up as he speaks.

“Do you know how much product those need? It's like a can of Got2B per day and I promised myself ‘never again’.” 

“When did you have liberty spikes?” Karen asks. She moves to sit at the table with Matt and Foggy and you quickly follow, not wanting to be the only one standing.

“High school was a weird and wonderful time,” is the reply and you try to picture this sweet friendly lawyer with a punk aesthetic. It doesn't really work, but the image makes you smile. 

“Daddy can do puffs,” Minnie mumbles across the table to Foggy and you are proud of her for being so brave, “and Mommy…. Mommy makes Moon Buns. She can make you extra pretty.”

Foggy grins at you, waggling his eyebrows, “Well, if she can make me extra pretty…”

Karen swats at Foggy's arm, “how about you keep your hair as it is - we don't need Marci coming after us.”

“Please, she appreciates my daring sense of fashion,” he scoffs.

Matt hums, then stage whispers to Minnie, “Mouse, can you tell Daddy what Foggy is wearing?”

Minnie turns slowly to look at the man in question. Her fist goes up to her mouth and she leans heavily into Matt as she examines him. The blonde man stands up and takes a few steps back, so his outfit is on full view. He even does a slow spin.

“He looks like Barbar,” she decides, and you snort with laughter because you one hundred percent see it. He's in a gray three-piece suit but his tie is a dark green. 

“I…I don't know who that is,” Foggy says, a somewhat panicked look on his face. He turns to you, “What does that mean? Is that a good thing or have I just been roasted by a toddler?”

“The elephant?” Matt questions, brows knitting together behind his glasses. You wonder if he read the books when he was a kid, before he lost his eyesight, or if he's been doing his research.

“He wears a three-piece suit,” you clarify, letting yourself start to relax as conversation flows. “He's very fancy.”

“Aren't those books banned?” Karen asks. She doesn't sound judgmental - just like she's clarifying the reference. 

You shrug and smile towards your daughter, “they made a new show a few years ago.” 

“I still don't know if this is a good thing.”

“You look…handsomes,” Minnie mumbles before turning back to tuck herself under Matt's chin. You read her body language easily - she isn't scared or upset at the interaction. She's just shy. You can see her hidden little smile.

“Oh, you are so his kid,” Foggy whispers, “That was smooth.”

You feel your cheeks heat up and you look down at your lap. Matt certainly is smooth. It is like he can't help himself, as far as you have seen. He's just naturally charming - and your daughter is sweet as can be. You are a lot more clumsy.

The man beside you chuckles and out of the corner of your eye you see him rub Minnie’s arms. With a slight cockiness in his voice, he asks, “Mouse, can you tell Daddy what Foggy had for breakfast?”

You can feel the shift in the air - Karen's interest in your daughter's assessment is practically vibrating off her.

You suck your bottom lip between your teeth, your anxiety spiking at the question. You trust Matt, but you don't know these people. You've only just learned what your daughter can do and already it is being shared.

But, you have no doubts about your daughter’s ability to answer the question. Matt had spent his entire day off playing ‘what's that smell?’ and ‘what's that sound?’ with Mouse and she just wanted to show off for him. Plus, she just likes to answer questions.

Still, she stays against his chest and for a moment you are worried she might just be too shy to answer, but then she starts to whisper.

“Froggy ate a banana. And coffees.”

Matt nuzzles into her hair with a smile, looking proud as can be, “Anything else?”

Your little one sways back and forth, clearly thinking over the question. Her little fist stays against her mouth as she adds, “Cookies.”

She gets a little chuckle from her father, and he kisses her hair before explaining, “That's close. When there are cookies and banana smells for breakfast, that usually means a banana muffin.” He tilts his head towards his best friend, “Right, Fog?”

Foggy nods as he sits down, pulling a face as he does, “Right, a banana nut muffin and coffee. I'm so glad there are two of you to know that now. You are going to give me a complex.”

You can see Minnie screw up her face in thought, then she turns around in Matt's arms to properly look at Foggy again. 

“Froggies can't have people food,” she advises. “Froggies eat bugs.”

“I'm not…my name is Foggy, not Froggy. I'm a people.”

You wonder how many times this will happen and decide that while the back and forth happens, you should start setting up lunch. From your purse, you start to pull out the tupperware containing pizza.

“Froggy.”

“Foggy. Fog-gy. Not Froggy. Buddy, help me out here.”

“This is out of my control,” Matt hums. He looks like he is having the time of his life and his smile is infectious. You look up to see Foggy looking at you, silently pleading, but you can tell it's all an act. If it was actually bothering him, you would correct Minnie. 

Instead, you simply add, “Ribbit ribbit.” 

There's a dramatic groan of “but I don't even like flies!”

“Froggy! Frog!” is Mouse’s adamant response. You are grateful Matt's friends want to engage with your daughter instead of just ignoring her. You know he thinks of them as his family, and you want a good relationship with them.

“I don't know, I think I like Froggy. It's better than Franklin,” Karen says with amusement in her eye. She leans forward and asks Minnie, “Did you bring a bug pizza for him?”

Minnie shakes her head, eyes going big at the idea of a bug pizza. 

“Okay, if I am a frog, what is she?” Foggy asks, accepting his fate as he points at Karen. 

All eyes turn to her, and the blonde woman straightens up and smiles brightly at your daughter. 

“A princess,” Minnie decides after a brief examination, “of Froggyland. Princess of Froggyland.” 

Karen absolutely grins at the assessment while the newly assigned amphibian looks scandalized. “The Princess of Froggyland? She rules over me? I reject the monarchy - I'm staging a rebellion.”

“Long live the Queen,” Matt teases and both you and Minnie laugh. 

“Excuse you, I'm a princess, not a queen. Yet.”

“Who rules over Froggyland?” You ask Minnie as you pass out the pizza. You get a chorus of ‘thank you’s as your daughter considers her options.

“Jimmy Cricket,” is the final decree. 

“A bug rules over Froggyland?”

“I mean, the physical embodiment of a good conscience would be a good king, right?” Matt theorizes. 

“All kings are unethical,” counters his law partner and Karen must sense a debate coming, as she puts her foot down.

“No politics while eating.”

“I didn't start this, your highness,” Foggy playfully bickers. As they start going back and forth again, you look over to the pair beside you.

Matt helps Minnie sit down in his lap and once she is secure, he goes to open his pizza. He's ducked his head so he can whisper to her as he does - you can see his lips moving but once again, you can't hear the words. You wonder if it is about the food, but part of you honestly doesn't care what it is. You are just happy that all of this is happening. 

You are happy your daughter knows the truth about who her father is and that she seems excited over it. You are happy you get to see them bond and you are happy to see Minnie be so social. You can already see the hints that this dramatic life change is going to be good for her, and that doesn't even include the new information you learned about her senses.

You scoot your chair a little closer to Matt's, preparing to bring Minnie over to your lap so he can eat. Before you can reach for her, Matt places his hand on your knee. You try to not turn into a blushing mess as he starts to rub little circles with his thumb - this isn't what you intended to happen and it's far too embarrassing to push his hand away.

Not that you want to push it away. The touch is awkward on your end, but only because you are so unused to being touched. It isn't unwanted. In fact, it's a little comforting, even though it is sending all sorts of mixed signals to your brain, heart, and cunt. You try to ignore the latter - those thoughts have no place in this moment. 

At least that is what you tell yourself until Matt turns his head towards you and gives you the softest smile. Your brain, heart, and cunt all clench before doing all sorts of flips inside of you. He mouths ‘thank you’ to you and the only thing you can think to do is wrap your hand around his and squeeze. He turns his palm up and laces your fingers together and it does nothing to soothe your pounding heart, but you don't think you mind. 

You squeeze his hand again and your entire being explodes with love when Minnie realizes Matt is looking at you and turns her head to beam up at you.

“Love you, Mommy.”

“Love you, too, baby.”

She tilts her head back so she can see Matt and in the softest voice says, “Love you, Daddy.”

You're pretty sure Matt starts crying again as he responds, “I love you, too, Minnie. I love you so so much.”

tags:

dnightreids @cloudroomblog @yeonalie @thychuvaluswife 

 @petrovafire39 @allllium

@dorothleah @mattmurdocksstarlight @mars-on-vinyl @mywellspringoflife @sleepdeprived-barelyalive @simmilarly @soupyspence @darkened-writer @akila-twt

@murc0ckmurc0ck @groovycass @sumo-b98 @just3rowsing @tongueofcat @zoom1374

@theclassicvinyldragon @aoi-targaryen @lunaticgurly @nikitawolfxo @shireentapestry @snakevyro @yondiii @echos-muses @honeybug-victoria @the-bisaster @ristare @mrs-bellingham @eugene-emt-roe @cometenthusiast @stevenknightmarc @hunnybelha @

Specialagentjackbauer @yarrystyleeza @ofmusesandsecrets 

@mayp11-blog @danzer8705 @thinking-at-dusk @remuslupinwifee @akila-twt  @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @dil3mma @allllium 

@

two-unbeatable-beaters @kiwwia-wiwwia @1988-fiend @xblueriddlex @loves0phelia @ninacotte @lovelyygirl8 @littlenosoul @ednaaa-04  @ astridstark13

[incognit0slut]

Right Kind of Wrong (1)

Reader never thought she would be involved in a murder investigation and encounter her one-night-stand again, the awkward guy who isn’t exactly that good in bed—Or is he? Offended by the sentiment, Spencer is determined to prove her wrong… But as he gets tangled with the beautiful stranger, he realizes there is more to her than what meets the eye.

Part Summary: Reader and Spencer face the aftermath of their tryst. wc: 2,8k

Series Warnings: 18+ explicit content, graphic details of murders, mentions of suicide, mentions of SA

Other parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

"YOU NEED TO LEAVE."

Since when did her life come to this?

She wasn't sure what to make of when the words softly left his lips. The words weren't exactly pronounced in a way that the urgency was prominent, but she could still sense the weight of them as she stared into the dark walls of his bedroom, sprawled out across the bed of this foreign man she had spent the past two hours with.

What was his name again? Stephen? Sean? Or was it Sebastian?

It definitely started with an S.

Her eyes slowly made their way toward him, eying his tall figure as he carefully walked over to his drawers. He awkwardly tripped over a piece of her clothing which lay on the floor before mumbling some incoherent words. He shot her a dubious look past his shoulder and turned his body away, quickly grabbing the first thing he saw on top of his pile of clothes.

His sudden modesty seemed amusing to her when it was barely minutes ago they had shared the sex-induced fantasy of sharing body heat between complete strangers. It was as if he wasn't the one thrusting above her, eyes glazed in desire and mouth open in ecstasy, reaching the peak of his high with her legs wrapped around his narrowed waist.

Surely he hadn't forgotten all of that?

She prompted herself on her elbows and found the piece of clothing he had grabbed in his haste was a pair of brown pants and a nice clean dark shirt. She watched him again and under her scrutinizing gaze, he backed away even further.

His sudden discomfort should've offended her, but it didn't. Somehow it intrigued her how much he was trying to be oblivious of everything around him—the lustful tryst that took place moments ago. The naked woman under his covers. The sudden shrill of his phone ringing on the bedside table.

The latter seemed to catch his attention as he glanced at the source of sound with an alert expression. He crossed the room and quickly answered the call.

"Yes?" There was a muffled reply from the other end before he glanced at the still-naked woman staring at him with curiosity. He cleared his throat again and gave her a look. "I need to take this."

She shrugged. "Sure."

She saw him hesitate for a split second before slipping out of his room, throwing a short reply to the receiving end of his call that didn't go unheard. "Yes, Garcia, I have company." More mumbling. "What? I'm not answering that..."

His words were cut off as he closed the door behind him, leaving her to grasp the situation she had put herself in.

Having a one-night stand wasn't something she often did. She wasn't sure it ever happened again since her freshman year of college when sleeping with a senior at a raging party would solidify her college experience. It seemed right at that time. It was what everybody was doing and her innocent mind believed it was a good idea to expand her nonexistent romantic life.

New place, new experience, new beginnings.

The experience wasn't so bad. Brandon Wallace—who was now happily married according to his recent social media post—wasn't exactly the best lover she ever had, but he also wasn't that bad. It was the awkward moment after the endeavor that made her avoid any repeated situations with somebody she barely knew.

Which was why she was questioning why she let that exact avoidance happen tonight. Why she had stepped into her favorite bar on a random Wednesday night and laid her eyes onto the awkward man sitting a few stools away from her.

Maybe it was the way he seemed out of place. Wearing a crisp blue shirt and a vest over it, he sat in a poised manner while constantly wiping down the bar counter with the napkin he seemed to keep requesting the bartender for.

She was there because she needed the kick of alcohol to calm down the stress from her current work assignment. Jamison, her strict boss who didn't take no for an answer, was starting to make her consider the act of murder. But committing such a heinous crime wasn't exactly nifty, so alcohol was the safe bet.

And thus, what was he here for? The cold beer sitting in front of him was barely touched as he looked around the room in a very uncomfortable manner.

Maybe the fact that she was sitting in an almost empty bar had loneliness wash over her, or maybe it was the alcohol finally kicking in, that she found herself making her way over to him. She was only going to greet him, introduce herself, and remark on how he stuck out like a sore thumb when he clearly was trying to keep to himself.

The hue of the bar lights reflected into a golden halo around his head. She slid beside him, tipped her drink towards his way, and gave him a simple smile.

He shifted in his seat and turned sideways, throwing her a questioning look. Up close, she could see his features clearly. The sharpness of his jaw, his hooded eyes, the unruly mess of brown hair on top of his head. She could tell he wasn't sure how to react to her sudden appearance, but he didn't seem to mind.

She sat there, her lips inching wider at the frown forming on his brows. How could someone be awkward yet adorable at the same time? Y/n was about to introduce herself when he suddenly sat forward, threw her a hesitant smile, and slowly asked, "Do you have any change?"

The random question startled her. "Excuse me?"

"I... I need to pay for my drink."

She shot him a ludicrous look, not sure she was hearing him right. Was he really trying to ask a stranger to pay for his drink? So much for spending the night with what looked like good company. But before she could counter her disappointment, he reached out his hand and in a swift motion revealed a ten-dollar bill from the back of her ear.

"Never mind.” He waved the money in front of her face and cleared his throat. “Found it.”

She blinked, once, twice, trying to comprehend the past few seconds. Then her lips twisted into a wide grin, his own lips twitching into a shy smile.

His attempt at an introduction based on a silly magic trick tugged her heart in a way that had her leaning closer, fingers tracing across his other hand that rested on the table. She didn't know what had impulsed her to be so brazen. It was very unlike her to show interest in the opposite sex, but here she was, touching the warmth of his skin.

But then his breath hitched and her stomach dropped. What the hell was she thinking? Touching a complete stranger without consent as if she was trying to maul him in public.

She shook her head and backed away, an apology already hanging at the tip of her tongue when he suddenly leaned in and wrapped a hand around her wrist. The gesture was very innocent, but somehow his fingers manage to burn her skin. She looked up and held his gaze, found the same bashful smile still playing on his lips, and relaxed at the warmth radiating from his body.

And then the rest was history, to say the least.

Yet even after the travel from the bar to his place, after the haste of removing each other's clothes, and after the post-orgasm that left them both satisfied—although to be completely honest, she would've been more satisfied if he'd let her have her second orgasm—she was starting to question her decision.

She finally threw his covers away and slipped out of his bed. She picked up all her clothing scattered around the room and slowly dressed herself as she carefully tried to listen to the conversation in the other room. But all she heard was muffled voices, and deciding that she couldn't pick out his exact words, she tuned out his voice and smoothed down her hair with her fingers.

Feeling more presentable, she stepped out of his room and finally took in the personal space he lived in. Now that she wasn't preoccupied with unbuckling his belt, she realized how dark his apartment actually was.

There were stacks of books lined up on the walls and scattered papers laying around every corner. He clearly wasn't a clean freak. Although he did seem to dislike public spaces, and honestly she couldn't argue on that when her mind considered the sticky, sugary residue that coated the floorboards and every other surface of the bar.

His hushed voice sounded aggravating and she turned to find him standing in what looked like his kitchen, his back facing her. Not wanting to interrupt him, she decided to look around her surroundings, eying the few framed certificates hanging on one side of his walls. There were a lot of certified achievements he was definitely very proud of with his name glorified on each frame.

Dr. Spencer Reid.

His name was Spencer!

She let out a chuckle. She wasn't exactly good at remembering names. Hold on—doctor Spencer Reid?

Her eyes went wide. But before she could feed her curiosity, she heard footsteps coming closer behind. She quickly turned away and found him glaring at his phone as he strode into the room.

"Bad call?"

Spencer—it was nice to finally put a name on him—abruptly looked up. His eyes studied her in bewilderment as if realizing she was still there. Then his expression slightly softened as he threw his phone away on his couch. "Not really, it was a work thing."

She raised her eyebrows. "You still work this late?"

"I don't exactly have a scheduled working hour."

There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask. What kind of work did he have to be getting calls this late? Why was he inside that bar when he clearly looked like he didn't want to be there? Was he really a doctor? And why did he look so adorable with that frown across his face?

There was something strange and hollow in his eyes that she couldn't quite put on as his hand rubbed over the back of his neck. She could sense the awkwardness stretching between them and needed to fill in the silence.

"So..."

"So..."

She let out an awkward laugh. He, on the other hand, started to fumble with his words as he suddenly spoke, "Did you know that awkward silence is the result of a disconnect between people?" She peered up at him with raised eyebrows. "When there is nothing to say, or maybe one person feels uncomfortable in a situation and doesn't know how to respond."

She blinked in confusion. But he wasn't finished.

"Statistically speaking, 80% of communication is nonverbal, whereas 20% is verbal. So in a way, silence can also communicate just as much information as speaking does. It is used to express anger, sadness, excitement, and other emotion. It can also create tension in a conversation or release it..." He trailed off before letting out a sigh. "I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"You most definitely are," she confirmed. "Where did that suddenly come from?"

He looked away as a blush crept on his cheeks. "I have an incredibly active imagination. It—uh, it leads to a tendency for me to ramble as my thoughts are constantly flowing."

"And you just know all these random facts?"

"I have an eidetic memory."

"You don’t say?" Her sarcasm was followed by eying the framed achievements plastered on his wall before glancing back at his confused face. She sighed. "Look, I'm not better at this than you are. Let's just... I don't know, thank each other? Say goodbye? Shake our hands?"

His eyes lit up as another piece of information filled his brain. "You know, the number of pathogens shared during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to..." He trailed off again and suddenly gulped, mentally kicking himself when he realized the fact he was about share. "...kiss."

She couldn't help the smirk twitching on her lips. "Is that so?"

He absentmindedly nodded as his eyes glanced toward her mouth. She instinctively took a step closer, noticing the tension in his body as he quickly looked away. This man had just flirted with her using an adorable magic trick, had his head between her thighs minutes ago, and reached an earth-shattering orgasm... yet he had the audacity to act all flustered.

She should probably leave. That was what he wanted moments ago, wasn't it? The words came out of his mouth the moment he checked his phone before jumping out of bed at lightning speed to dress his naked body. He needed to be somewhere. He had this somewhat confidential work he had to do.

Yet somehow he was warm and her hands were surprisingly very cold. The heat radiating from his body called out to her and without registering what she was about to do, she softly placed the palm of her hands on his chest.

She was internally screaming when she inhaled a sharp breath, his scent suddenly engulfing her senses. He smelled slightly sweet with a hint of spice; a woody, earthy musk that was mixed with his natural scent of sweat and hormones. She peered up into his eyes, traveling down to his cheekbones before they rested on his lips.

A riot of emotion burst inside her as she saw his tongue flicking out and holy shit—she just stared at him, completely, utterly enraptured.

Her focus was on his hot breath against her mouth, his lips a mere inches away from hers. He was so close she could practically hear the fast pace of his heartbeat. She could feel him everywhere, his hard body flushed against hers, his head moving closer to her and—

Then his damn phone started to ring again and all her senses went to alert. She quickly took a step back.

Now that was her cue to leave.

And it was a pity because whether she liked it or not, a part of her wanted to stay. But that was not an option. He wanted her to leave and she needed to do just that. She needed this to be a one-time thing.

Because there was never going to be another time. The moment she walked out the front door, they were back to being strangers. She would go back to her life and he would go back to his, probably back to his seemingly not-so-normal job with the way he described his working hours. Or the lack of it, anyway.

His phone stopped its ring and he shifted his weight from one foot to another. He was back to being awkward and she was back to being rational. Although her heart was beating fast and she was as flustered as he was, she didn't him to know what, especially when it seemed like he was about to kick her out again for the second time.

She was too busy oscillating between stunned, mortified, and turned on. She refused to blush. She refused to appear even an ounce embarrassed.

His phone rang again and he looked flustered about what to do. She helped him decide by grabbing her bag that was conveniently hanging by the door. "I should probably go."

She knew she was slightly disappointed, but she'd be damned if he knew the truth. Her mother used to describe her as a spiteful person ever since she was young. But then again, was it so wrong to feel that way? She figured she was just evening the misery out. If something was making her unhappy she felt it was her right to bring at least equal measures of unhappiness.

It seemed relatively immature, but she didn't feel like caring especially how her night had turned out. She took a deep breath and worked out her pettiness.

"Thank you for tonight... Stephen."

He suddenly tensed. "It's Spencer."

She studied the frown on his face. God, she was evil. She would probably regret this childish behavior of hers, although that was something she could deal with later. The very least she could do now was to give him a proper goodbye before she turned her back towards him for good.

"Well, good night, Spencer."

She wasn't sure he even remembered her name or whether he was just as petty as she was. It was more likely the latter considering he had an eidetic memory. "Good night."

She gave him a final nod. He answered by throwing her an awkward wave, a tight-lipped smile, and an even deeper frown as she slipped into the cold air.

>> NEXT PART

[pitchsidestories]

10 Things I Hate About You (2) II Alexia Putellas x Reader

Can be read before part 1

part 1 I part 3 I masterlist I word count: 2255

2017

Your first day as a player for FC Barcelona was about to start. With a deep sigh you entered the facilities. Overwhelmed by the amount of new impressions, you didn’t realize that another person stepped to you. You flinched in surprise when you heard a female voice say; “Hola! Are you new here too?“

“Actually, I am.“, you answered, turning around to the other young woman. She was blonde and wore a big smile on her face. She held out her hand for you to shake it; “Oh good. Hi, I’m Mapi.“ “Nice to meet you, Mapi.“, you smiled, taking her hand and introduced yourself. “Pleasure.“, she grinned. For some reason, her presence calmed you a bit. “Ready to meet the rest? They do have quite the talented squad.“, you asked. Mapi just shrugged; “That’s what I heard. But we wouldn’t be here if the coaches didn’t think we could keep up with them.“ “True.“, you had to admit, your nervousness almost gone.

“Hi, guys. You must be new here.“, another player chimed in who introduced herself as Aitana. The team mate next to her, named Alexia just rolled her eyes; “And already late.“ You gave her an apologetic smile; “Yeah, we got a bit lost at first.“ “But we’re here now.“, Mapi added, gesturing towards the both of you. You nodded; “And ready to play.“ But your enthusiasm was not well received. You could feel Alexias scrutinizing glance on you; “We’ll see about that.“

Another player, Leila, gave you an encouraging wink; “Ale is just worried one of you will steal her place.“ “That’s not going to happen.“, Alexia shook her head with determination. Mapi casually ignored her new team mates bad mood; “Yeah, I’m a defender so no worries, Ale.“ “I wasn’t worried to begin with.“, she snapped and turned around to make her way towards the pitch. You watched her with raised eyebrows, leaning over to Leila; “Is she always like that?“ “She’s different when you get to know her. Trust me.“, she assured you, laughing. Together, you followed her for your first training session with Barcelona. “I hope you’re right.“ Leila smiled confidently; “Trust me, I am.“

During the training session you could feel Alexias eyes staring intensely at you and you asked yourself why she did that. Was it true what Leila said earlier? That she was worried you could take away her position she already built for herself at this club. Anyway, you could not think about this observation for too long as you needed to concentrate on what the coach wanted to see from you and your teammates. Becoming a part of this special team was a childhood dream come true for you and you wanted to show him that he should consider you as part of the starting line. No matter what a certain number 11 thought of that.

After the training the coach wanted to speak to you and Alexia.” You too..”, he started. Alert to the tone in his voice you interrupted him:” Yes?” “What is it?”, the brunette woman added impatient. The older man cleared his throat: “I want you two to play together.” “Uhm you do.”, unsure you looked to the other midfielder. This was too much for Alexia, she didn’t like his idea at all: ”What?” “Yes but.”, the coach tried to intervene. Expectantly you waited for him to continue: “But?” “No, whatever it’s, it’s a no from me.”, the brunette shook her head. You clicked your tongue at her: “Wait, let him explain his idea first.” “Shut up. You just want playtime on my position.”, she hissed. Calmly you admitted :”Of course I want to play too.” “Then get in line.”, Alexia grumpily demanded. Determined you answered: “No.” “No?!”, the midfielder repeated in disbelief.

“Oh please, you’re not the only one with ambition and to whom this club means a lot. Besides you’re only a year older than me so stop being so full of yourself.”, you scolded her. Everyone knew her history by now, she was the young shining star of this team, and you tried not to be blinded by that fact, besides she only showed you her ugly side so far. Much later you’d realize how similar your two ways have been and what a wonder it was that your paths hadn’t crossed earlier. Suspiciously Alexia threw an eyebrow up: “If this club means so much to you then why did you join only now.” “I had some difficult injuries in the past but now I’m here.”, you swallowed hard. Drily the brunette commented without showing any empathy in her eyes:“I’ll feel bad for you later.”

You let out a huff and cocked your head; “Oh please, I don’t need your pity, princessa.“ “Call me princessa one more time.“, Alexia pressed through gritted teeth. But you didn’t let yourself be intimated by her. “Or what? Will your fake eyelashes fall off, princessa?“, you continued. Slowly, she nodded. Her smile was more a teeth-baring than an actual smile; “You think you can make fun of me? I’ll show you on the pitch, little one.“ “I’ll be ready.“, you answered and completely ignored your coach who looked at the two of you in exasperation; “You’re supposed to work together, not against each other!“ “Say goodbye to your career then.“, Alexia replied unimpressed. You crossed your arms in front of your chest; “Oh, I don’t give up that easily.“

“Girls!“, your coach finally called for attention. You looked at him surprised; “Yes?“ “You either play together or none of you plays!“, he threatened, his tone did not allow any discussion. Though, Alexia tried it anyway; “Wait. Are you serious? You can’t do that to me. I’ve been playing here for a long time already!“ “You heard me.“, he ended the conversation and left. Alexia barely looked at you as she followed him out of the room.

Sighing, you almost ran into Leila on your wait. “Do you want to get dinner with some of us tonight?“, she asked full of excitement. You needed a moment to understand the questions, your thoughts were still spinning around the conversation from a moment ago. “Oh. I’d love to but I can’t. My little sister arrived today.“, you shrugged apologetically, giving her a half-smile. Leilas face turned serious; “Oh. I understand if you want to show her around and stuff. But you can also bring her if you want.“ “Really? I’ll ask her.“ You pulled out your phone, texting your younger sister who replied within seconds with several Partying Face-Emojis. “We’re both coming.“, you told Leila with a smile. She clapped her hands happily; “Amazing. I’ll text you the address.“ “Great, I can’t wait.“

You and your sister were some of the first people at the restaurant. You were happy to see Mapi when she arrived only a few minutes after you. “Who’s that?“, she asked when she sat down. Her gaze fixed on your sister. “Oh, that’s my younger sister.“, you explained, gesturing towards her. She smiled at Mapi with big doe eyes “Hi, you must be Mapi.“ They shook hand across the table. “I am.“, Mapi confirmed, blood rushing into her cheeks. “Pleasure to meet you.“

“Marta, do you know if Ale is coming with Alba aswell?”, Leila asked her teammate casually. The older defender nodded smiling:“Yes, I think she said they wanted to come.” “Oh god, no.”, you muttered as you realized the notorious midfielder was coming too tonight. Confused Marta looked at you: ”What?” “Alexia hates me.”, you informed her. Amused Leila asked: “After one day here?” “Yes.” “That must be a new record.”, the defender laughed. From her you wanted to know: “Does she hate every midfielder who comes new to the team?” “No, she doesn’t.”, Leila answered seriously. Truthfully Marta added, not without a wink: “Alexia only hates the ones who she thinks will be her biggest competition.” “Oh really?”, you said not completely convinced by what they said. This could not be only the reason for Alexias’s hatred, right?

Playfully Aitana pouted: “I take that as offense.” “You’re still young Aitana your time to shine will come.”, Leila promised the young midfielder.  In a cheerful tone Marta told her:“ Don’t worry. They’re probably just too similar. That’s all.” “The similarities are creepy.”, Aitana admitted smirking. “I don’t see any similarity.”, you interjected. This did not stop the young midfielder from starting to count the things she thought you had in common with Alexia: ”The position, the younger sisters, the clear ambition to be the best, the early death of a parent.”  “Still that does not make us the same person.”, you remarked. A small grin was on Aitana’s lips as she concluded:  “Not the same but very similar.”

Suddenly the person they were talking about was standing at the end of the table and was throwing an apologetic smile at her teammates: „Sorry for being late but Albs could not decide what dress she wanted to wear.” Alba was poking the brunette with her elbow slightly into the side for her comment.  “As long as you’re here now.”, Mariona waved it off. “Exactly sit down, you’re lucky we started with drinks first.”, Patri told the arriving sisters. Alexia’s smile froze as she spotted you:”Drinks are the most important part of the evening anyway. Wait.. who invited her?” You could feel the temperature dropping around the table.

“Me.”, Leila answered who was in a good mood besides her teammates cool tone. She kept asking:“Why would you do that?” “Because she’s new and a restaurant visit is a great way to get to know the other teammates.”, the older woman replied nonchalantly.Alexia took a deep breath to collect herself and sighed; “Right. I’ll need more drinks than that if I have to spend the evening with her around.“ Her team mates didn’t disappoint. As the evening went on, they made sure Alexia always had a drink in hand. The later it got, the more relaxed she seemed to be. Mostly thanks to the alcohol.

Around midnight, Mapi leaned over to her, pointing a finger; “Oh, I know why you behave like that!“ “Like what?“, Alexia asked, scrunching her nose. “In front of her. You have a crush.“, Mapi explained, nodding into your direction. Alexia let out a high pitched laugh; “Don’t be ridiculous.“ “I’m not. You are!“, Mapi grinned back at her. With a smile, Alexia shook her head, eyes fixed on her team mate; “You know, Mapi, you’re pretty funny. I’d like you if you weren’t friends with her.“ The defender raised an eyebrow; “Excuse me? I’m very serious. And we’re both just new to the team.“ “But you already spend a lot of time with her, so… looks like we can never be friends.“, Alexia replied, taking a long sip of her red wine. Alba joined them, clinking her glass to Mapis; “Ale’s just joking. She already likes you, Mapi.“ “I think she does. I like her too.“, the defender answered, amused. “But you like her as well.“, Alexia complained, her gaze flicking to you for half a second. Her new teammate nodded slowly; “I do. She’s my friend too.“

There was silence for a while before a smirk appeared on Alexias lips again; “Speaking of crushes, you and her sister…“ Wide-eyed, Mapi cut her off immediately; “No. Absolutely not. Forget about it. You say you don’t have a crush, I say I don’t have a crush. We leave it at that.“ “But you’re clearly-“ “No.“,Mapi curtly but with certainty.“Okay, got it.“, the midfielder finally gave in. “Thank you.“ “You’re welcome.“, she laughed. “Do you want another drink?“, Mapi offered. “Yes.“ “Here you go.“ Alexia eyed the drink that Mapi had pushed in front of her with a sceptical expression; “Thanks.“

A few weeks after this first team event, things between you and Alexia hadn’t changed much. The loss in your first game of the season was not exactly helpful either.

Once again, the coach called you two back into his office. “What did you two think you were doing?“, he yelled. Taken aback by the sudden outburst, you plainly answered; “Playing?“ “That doesn’t work if you two keep ignoring each other!“ Alexia gestured towards you, clearly offended; “She’s just not fast enough.“ “I don’t want to hear anything! I never say this to any of my players but this time it is true. You two lost us this game!“ Intimidated you looked up; “We’ll win the next one. Promise.“ Decidedly, he shook his head; “No. I don’t want any empty promises. I want actions. You two will come early before training tomorrow and work on this!“

Startled Mapi looked at Alexia who stormed into the changing room:“Ale, what did the coach want from you two?” “He’s an idiot.”, the midfielder mumbled grumpily. The blonde tried to soothe the nerves of the brunette: “Ale.” “We have extra training together. Tomorrow.”, Alexia groaned exasperated.

Cautiously Mapi answered:” Actually, that sounds like a good idea.” “Oh, shut up, Mapi.”, the midfielder hissed. But this did not intimidate the defender at all:” You can pretend to hate her all you want but I saw how you look at her when she’s not watching.” “Have you ever considered getting yourself some glasses? Because you’re obviously not seeing right.”, the brunette sneered. Amused the blonde rolled her eyes:” Sure, Ale.” “Keep your mouth closed, Mapi. You might find it funny, but I can’t deal with her.”

“You’ll have to though she’s part of the team now.”, Mapi remarked with a knowing smile.

[romanarose]

Happy New Year, Mr. Miller

DBF!Joel Miller x fem!reader

Join my taglist : Masterlist

Summary: It's almost midnight, and you aren't sure you're getting a new years kiss. Joel is a little preoccupied with your mouth.

Warnings: Throat fucking, blowjob while on the phone with your father, cumming in mouth, cum swapping, gagging. Reader attempts to move away from his dick, not because she doesn't want it but she assumes he wants her to stop, but Joel pushes her head backdown. Reader and Joel have an establish system for checking in and whats okay and what isn't. If reader wanted to stop, she could let Joel know and he'd stop. Reader's dad hears her gag on Joel but doesn't know Joel is getting a bj

Immersbility: Reader is fem, has grabable hair longenough to put in pigtails.

A/N THATS IT! DBF Holiday Joel is a series now. Have fun. Previous part here with Tommy

**************

After Joel shared you with his brother, you are surprised and relieved to find him acting normal around you. Sure, sometimes you'd see him wink after you and Joel interacted nonchallantly at a family event, all of you keeping the secret of your relationship with your dads best friend. Luckily, it didn't seem that Tommy had any expectation of having you again. You would love to be shared, Tommy fuck well, the 'uncle Tommy' bit was hot, and Tommy was beautiful to look at... but you didn't want to just be something the Miller brothers used.

Unfortunately for you, you're little trysts with Joel were developing into real feelings.

"You're gonna kiss me at midnight, right?" You asked Joel, on your knees in Tommy's spare bedroom. Joel had not so subtly carted you off into privacy 5 minuets before midnight at Tommy's New Years Eve party. Being here was a little risky, but Tommy promised no one your dad new would be here.

Joel loved the way you looked on your knees for him, pretty eyes looking up as you jerked him off. "Now baby, is that any way to speak to me?" He chided you.

You frown, a little disappointed in yourself. "Sorry, daddy."

Taking his cock in his hand, Joel guided your mouth to his length. "Better make it up to me, only got a few minuets before midnight, and if you're gonna have your mouth free, you're gonna need to hurry."

He was so frustrating sometimes, but you were a good girl and you would do what you were told. You went to work, taking him down your throat slowly before picking up speed. Gagging a bit, you let the drool drip down your chin. Joel liked it messy.

If you weren't acutely aware that Joel was twice your age, you were when he got a phone call, with his ringer on, and it played that old country default ringer Walmart phones come with. Absolutely insane. Your blood runs cold when Joel answers, he fucking answers the phone with your mouth around his cock. And greets your dad.

Assuming Joel wants you to stop, you begin to pull yourself away but a large hand goes to the back of your head between your pigtails into your hair and thrusts you down, making you gag up saliva.

You can hear your dad over the phone asking if he's okay. Fuck, he heard you.

"Yeah I'm good, just a bit of a cold. Got all that mucus."

2 minuets to midnight. Joel's not going to kiss you, and he's gonna ring in the new year with his dick in your mouth on the phone with your dad. Great.

Desperate to please, desperate to make him cum, you move quicker, hands moving to his heavy balls hoping to speed up the process. It seemed to work. The clock just hit 11:59 when Joel announces. "Well, happy new year, see yuh next week!" And when your dad hangs up, Joel throws the phone at the couch, gripping both of your half-up pigtails

"Teasing little slut." He grunts, taking control of the pace. 30 seconds left, and Joel fucking your throat, snapping his hips into your mouth as you continue to play with his balls. "Couldn't even wait a few minuets to suck on your daddy?"

10

Drool dribbles down your face, Joels public hair thrust up against your nose.

9

"You wore this hair just because you wanted daddy to control you, didn't you?"

8

You did, he was right.

7

"Fucking drink it up, drink daddy's milk, make daddy proud"

6

Joel's cock flooded your mouth, overflowing you. As he continued to thrust, his cum spilled out around the corners of your mouth.

5

"Little baby needs a bib, doesn't she?"

4

Joel pulls out, allowing you to finally breath, feeling dizzy from excitment.

3

Maybe if he didn't kiss you, he'd at least make it up to you by making you cum multiple times

2

Joel swoops down, taking your chin in his hands tightly, making it known who you belong to.

1!

His lips on yours, hungrily devouring you whole. With his tongue claiming you, Joel was not deterred by the taste of his cum in your mouth, in fact he early lapped it up, exploring the corners of you and licking up every drop. You, however, were preoccupied. You loved the feeling of your daddy's mouth on yours his soft lips, warm his, strong and dominating presence. You didn't have to worry about a thing when he was around, it was just a shame it wasn't all that often.

When he finaly pulled away, fireworks from the window illuminating his brown skin making Joel look downright angelic. "Happy New Year, baby girl."

You nuzzle up against his cheek. "Happy new year, Mr. Miller."

***************

Up next, Valentines day!

Or should I do something for presidents day XD

EDIT. Embarrassing. Realized Presidents’ Day is after Valentine’s Day. Rip. Keeping it up bc that’s a funny thing for me to forget

Anyways, HAPPY NEW YEAR YALL!!!

I adore you!

Im not getting rid of my tag list, but im adding an update blog, @romana-updates ! come follow and/or turn on notifications so you dont miss a thing!

But if being tagged is more your style, comment on the tag list linked above!

@fandxmslxt69 @runa-falls @k-ra @whatthefishh @ahookedheroespureheart @mikaelak @littlenosoul @stevenandmarcslove @pikapuff-316 @del-ightfulling @faretheeoscar @harriedandharassed @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @campingwiththecharmings @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @milly-louise @casa-boiardi @joeldjarin @casa-boiardi @mrs-oharaxx @pedge-page

[nathanielzalexandria]

I love all the headcanons of "Steve is not dumb he's..." Hard of hearing, has poor eyesight, learning disability or his primary language is not English. I particularly enjoyed @dwobbitfromtheshire 's recent headcanon that he's hiding it because his father hates feeling inferior and only Eddie realizes that he is not dumb. But I would like to throw my own hat in the ring.

Steve is not dumb. Actually, he's quite smart and did quite well in school (because his parents would not expect anything less). He just wasn't into nerd culture and everyone just placed their stereotypes and rumours of him being a pretty and privileged rich jock who bought his way out of school but couldn't buy his way into college. Nevermind that he was in the top 10 students of his year and for most of his classes if not topping them and if not he wasn't failing the rest other than one or two science/math-based (rumours say the school forged those marks so that Steve could continue sports) and had a 3.6 GPA. It wasn't enough to get into his Dad's alma mater so his dad dismissed any of the other schools he got accepted into.

He does not try to hide his intelligence from Nancy or the Party, but Nancy had bought into the "Steve is simple-minded " narrative and the like before they got together and failed to realize that they are both in the same AP classes that were full of seniors and in any group or partnered project he more-than-well pulled his weight and had his own insights. So she spreads the narrative to Mike who spreads it to the rest of the party so by the time the events that befan with Dustin asks him for help with his "dog" and developed into concussed in the back of a car while a preteen drove his car, the kids have also bought into parts of the narrative. It doesn't help that he really isn't into the stereotypical nerdy stuff

Even his best friend Robin believed the lie until she worked with him and then got tortured with him by Russians. She eventually realises that he's way smarter in a practical sense than people give him credit for (he did raise himself since he was 11 or so) but does not think of it as stretching into the academic side of his life. She has not stopped calling him "dingus" though.

Eddie on the other hand knows better, which is why when a specific exam was coming up he turned to Steve.

He barged into the Harrington home a day when tye entire party was their.

"Stevie, you either have to tutor me or lend me your notes for this class. I am not failing this class and increasing the possibility of another year at fucking Hawkins."

Mike and Dustin burst out laughing at that before Steve can answer.

"I know you're e bad at that subject, but I didn't realise you were desperate enough to use Steve's notes," Dustin says with that condescending tone that means it should be obvious to Eddie.

Mike snorts at that derisively, "If he even has notes."

"Maybe," Lucas said diplomatically, "there are better options than using Steve's notes?"

Nancy steps up next offering some of her notes and flashcards since she took the class last year/is taking the class, "It's not my strongest subject but if we do a study group I'm sure you won't fail the class."

Eddie stares at the group with growing bewilderment as they agree that Nancy is the best choice while implying that Steve was not. Actually, they were acting as though he was dumb for even asking Steve, which made no sense to him.

Eddie turned his eyes to Steve. His posture by the kitchen island was much more different than when Eddie burst in. He had subtly curled into himself as if to make himself smaller, shoulders tense and a resignation on his face as if he's been through this conversation so many times before.

It was almost as if...

"You guys think that Steve is dumb, don't you?"

There was the type of silence that only comes when the quiet part is said outloud.

"No we don't think Steve's dumb," Robin begins and Eddie can hear the 'but' before she even said it, "But you know he wasn't good at the school part of school."

She continued to ramble on from there but Eddie did not hear any of it. He was too busy reevaluating the group he was with and rechecking old memories and facts to see if there was any inkling of truth to this strange idea that even the older teens should know isn't true.

It took him a moment to find the answer, and when he did he could not stop the derisive laugh that burst out and interrupted Robin's ramble.

"You guys fucking bought into the rumours, didn't you? I expect that from the kids maybe even Johnathan, maybe even Robin because of you became friends after he left school, but not from you, Nancy."

Nancy had that look on her face that she got when she was ready to argue but Eddie steamrolled over it.

"Jesus H Christ! Weren't y'all together for a whole fucking year? How do you not know that he was at the top of his year when you were together? Unless you dismissed that in favour of believing the rumours that his parents paid for his grades and the school wanted to make sure he kept on playing sports?"

He paused for a second waiting for someone to contradict him, but the look on Nancy's face was one of scrambling to defend herself. He sighed at that; she still wasn't getting it and it a sweeping look at the others proved they were lost too.

"Even if they paid off the school he would not have been in the top ten of his year, he would be like Carver and Hagan whose parents paid and their grades were just good enough to get into a decent college without too many questions. And they would not have kept on giving him high grades after he stopped doing any kind of sport in his last 2 years at that dump. Hell if Hargrove wasn't such a fucking beast at sports he would have been told he would have to repeat his senior year with me."

"It's okay Eddie; leave it go." He turned a fake sunny smile with his eyes tightly shut towards Eddie as if to pacify him.

Eddie turned to Steve who had yet to say anything throughout Eddie's diatribe up until that moment. He just continued to robotically make dinner for the party as though nothing was wrong, as though the hurt dripping off him didn't matter.

"I'm not letting this go! They had classes with you, some of which I'm pretty fucking sure were AP classes. If I had the attendance needed I would have graduated last year because of you, Stevie. So excuse me if I'm a bit annoyed that our friends are so blinded by a rumour that they can't fucking see your Salutatorian medal. Hanging. Right. There!"

All eyes except Eddie and Steve's turned in the direction that Eddie pointed at.

And there on the wall, was a framed silver medal with the word "Salutatorian" emblazoned on it. The party immediately burst into chaos amongst each other.

"Now, pretty boy, are you gonna tutor me or what?"

Or it goes something like that, I'm not sure.

[vanishingcherry]

GOT A SENSE I'D BEEN BETRAYED

pairings: lando norris x reader

warnings: swearing, mclaren being shitty, lando being shitty for agreeing with mclarens plans, break ups, general angst

authors note: based on this request hii! thanks for requesting! the start is just a bit of a backstory, so its not that great. prompt 9 is "'you promised' 'i know'", prompt 10 is "none of it was real... was it?" and prompt 11 is "don't touch me". check out my prompt list

masterlist

๑ ⋆˚₊⋆────ʚ˚ɞ────⋆˚₊⋆ ๑

When introduced to the world of F1, you immediately became a fan.

After a couple years of watching the sport on TV, you managed to get tickets to a Grand Prix not too far from your city. You were overjoyed as you walked through the entrance on Friday, having managed to snag tickets for all three days of the race weekend as well as a paddock pass for free practice.

Decked out in all the merch you owned, you were a sight to see. Lucky for you, the clashing shades of red, orange, black, green and blue were an all too common sight at a race, allowing you to comfortably blend in wherever you were.

Your day at the paddock was amazing, to say the least. Watching pitstop practices, meeting other fans and even taking pictures of and with a few of the drivers. It was, arguably, one of the best days of your life.

You were just about to leave the paddock when a McLaren employee walked towards you, blocking your path.

"Hello! I'm Julie, what's your name?"

After replying with slight confusion, she explained why she was talking to you.

"Lando saw you earlier in the day when you were outside his garage and wanted to talk to you! I'm glad I caught you, he wanted me to give you these paddock passes for tomorrow on behalf of McLaren."

She went on about everything the passes included, but you were still stuck on the fact that Lando was the one who had invited you.

"Wait- I uh- Lando? As in Norris? The driver?"

"Yeah." she laughed at your reaction. "Just come and show these passes to anyone at the McLaren hospitality tomorrow and they'll tell you where to go."

When you showed up the following day, weirdly enough, they directed you straight to Lando. You got to talking, and before you knew it you had spent hours with him. The two of you were interrupted a while before qualifying was meant to begin, and shockingly, he asked to take you on a date the next week.

You were slightly skeptical, it seemed like something straight out of a movie and you knew that going on a date with Lando could have repercussions on your entire life. Nonetheless, even you knew that turning down this invitation would be stupid. Even if it didn't lead to anything, it would be an experience for sure.

To your surprise, it was one of the best dates you had ever been on. A year later, the two of you were still together. Despite the unordinary circumstances that had brought you together, you were glad to have caught his eye that day.

Since then, you had accompanied him to many races, and today was no different. Heading towards his driver room, you lift your hand to knock, before stopping centimeters from the door. Someone else was in the room, you could hear hushed voices. You turn around, taking a few steps away, giving them their privacy.

"Y/N deserves to know!"

It was the voice of one of his friends, and the sound of your name had caught your attention.

"I can't tell her right now, okay? I- I'll tell her soon." That was Lando. You frowned at his statement, now wondering what he was keeping from you.

"Lando the longer you keep this from her, the worse it's going to get. In fact, you're probably lucky if she finds out now and doesn't leave."

"Don't you think I know that? Why do you think I'm not telling her?" Lando's sudden outburst was too much. He was hiding something that potentially changed the entire course of your relationship, you deserved to know what.

You slowly open the door, walking in just in time to hear what Lando's friend says.

"If you're not going to tell her, I am. She deserves to know that this started as a publicity stunt, even if that may have changed now."

"What?" you say in disbelief. Even though you barely heard the word yourself, both Lando and his friend turned to you at the sound. It would have been comical, how fast their eyes widened and expressions changed. But in the moment, all you could focus on was the fact that Lando didn't deny it.

Started as a publicity stunt.

Why do you think I'm not telling her!

You're probably lucky if she finds out now and doesn't leave.

Lando's friend murmurs an excuse, brushing shoulders with you as he walks out and softly closes the door behind him. Leaving you and Lando alone. If it was any other day, you would have been overjoyed to be alone with Lando, with his schedules and races you were rarely left alone. But right now, all you wanted to do was leave. Still, you ask.

"None of it was real... was it?"

Lando didn't answer. At a loss for words, his mouth opened and closed. He was wracking his brain, trying to think of something to say that would make you believe him, trust him. He had fucked up, he knew it. He just had to figure out how to fix it, make things right so that you wouldn't leave him.

You didn't notice the look of anguish on his face, instead you continued speaking, trying to make sense of the situation.

"You just thought that it would be okay to lead me on. That when I found out I was just for publicity, I would be okay with it. Or actually, you probably weren't going to tell me at all, based on your conversation" you all but shouted, referring to what you had overheard.

"I can't believe you!" The room, although large, seemed to be closing in on you. You felt like you were suffocating. "Say something Lando."

He stayed silent.

"God!" you turned around, resting your forehead in your hands, going through every moment of your relationship. The bright and happy memories were now darkened with the knowledge of Lando's initial intentions.

Waking up from whatever trance he had been placed in at the sight of you, Lando silently walks over. He carefully wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his chest.

"I'm so sorry, my love. I wanted to tell you I swear, I just chickened out every time. I love you, okay? I love you so much and I swear I'm not lying." He starts off, trying to explain before you cut him off.

"You promised." you whisper.

"I know." he mutters, knowing exactly what you meant.

"You promised, Lando. You promised you would never hurt me." Your voice cracked as you shrugged off his arms. He takes a few steps back and instead picks up your hands and plants a small kiss to your knuckles.

"I know, I'm so, so sorry. Darling, please just-"

"Don't touch me!"

He flinches at your tone, moving his hands from your own and taking a step back. Taking a couple deep breathes, he tries again.

"My love, I am so sorry." He bends down slightly, trying to make eye contact. "It started as a publicity stunt, yes, but I fell in love- I am in love with you."

He pauses for a moment, but remains undeterred when you don't respond. "I swear, all of it was real. My feelings are real, I never lied about those."

"Yeah, just lied about everything else" you scoff.

He almost reaches out to you before remembering that you didn't want to be touched by him. He flexes his hand before balling it into a fist near his thighs.

"I'm so sorry. Please just let me explain and I swear I'll fix this, okay? I- i'll figure something out and I'll fix this and we're going to be okay." At this point, he was convincing himself more than he was you.

Before he could say anything else, there was a knock on his door, signalling that he had to get in the car.

"Lando, its time."

"I know, I- just give me a minute" he begs.

"Lando we have to go right now, the race starts in 10 minutes". His engineer is adamant, slamming the door behind him, leaving no room for argument.

"Fuck!" he turns to you. "Darling, just stay here, yeah? Just for a while. I- we can talk after the race, I'm so sorry, just please stay here."

He waits for you to nod, eyes frantically scanning every inch of your face for a sign that you would stay. When you don't provide one, he sighs, running a hand through his hair.

"Please. Please, I am begging you just don't lea-"

"Lando! Now." A voice calls through the door.

"Coming." He shouts back. Turning to you again he speaks, walking backwards out the door as he picks up his baclava and helmet. "Please, just stay. I'm so sorry, we'll talk right after the race I promise. I love you."

With that, he leaves you alone in his driver room. You take a deep breath before sitting on the chair. You couldn't find it in you to stay, and so the moment the race started, you were up and finding a taxi back to the hotel.

Lando couldn't focus. From the moment he sat in the car till the moment he got out, all he could think about was you and the pained look on your face when you found out.

He regretted everything. The fact that he had kept this a secret for so long, and the fact that he didn't let you find out this way. But most of all, he regretted the day he agreed to the publicity stunt.

No one was supposed to find out about it. It was simple. He would date you for a couple months, and then make an excuse to break up. You wouldn't find out, the media wouldn't find out and he would have the publicity the team wanted. It would serve as the perfect distraction too, any poor performances would be overshadowed by the news of his new girlfriend. The team thought it was great, it would mean more fans interested in him because it wasn't everyday a driver dated someone that wasn't a model or famous.

Till he fell in love with you. He fell hard too, it wasn't slow and gradual but all at once. He was just sitting at his apartment, watching you read a book on the sofa when the realisation crashed down on him. That he would give up anything for you, that you were it for him. You were the only one he wanted to spend time with, only one he wanted to see when he came home after a race.

Lando knew that he should have stopped it then, broken up or at least told you. But he was selfish, he wanted to stay in the bliss you had created together. And so what was supposed to be a few months turned into 6 and then a year.

The race was shit for Lando. He had half a mind to crash on purpose, just because it would mean getting back to you faster. Nonetheless, he stayed on track, praying that there would be no red flags to delay the end. He had qualified well, at P8, but slipped back to P15 by the time the checkered flag came out.

The second he entered the garage, he walked straight to his drivers room, completely ignoring all the mechanics and engineers trying to console him after the bad result.

Opening the door in a hurry, he swears at the sight of no one in the room. "Fuck fuck fuck!"

He spins around a couple times, making sure you weren't there before opening his phone and walking out of the room in a hurry. At the back of his mind, Lando knew that there were a million things he had to do before leaving, but he forgot about all of them, running to the spot where his car was parked.

He tries calling you, repeatedly pressing on your contact as he speeds past the red light. He'd pay all the fines they wanted, getting to you was more important. He sighs when you don't pick up, face scrunching as he tries to keep the tears back.

Reaching the hotel, he hands the car to the valet, running through the lobby, just managing to slide into a closing elevator. Once at the right floor, he unlocks your hotel room.

He is close to crying when he realises that this room too is empty. You had taken your belongings, and all that was left was Lando's half-open suitcase in the corner.

But what really got him crumbling down is the note you'd written and left on his pillow. He read it over and over, making sure his eyes weren't deceiving him.

I'm sorry, I just can't. Don't message me. Please.

[thelov3lybookworm]

Remember Me? (Part 12)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

Summary: Under the Mountain, Y/n met the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand. She was scared of him, but soon she found out that he wasn't who he pretended to be. Despite her efforts at not falling in love with him, she fails. It's not that bad as he loves her back.

But now he's gone, and she's left alone with nothing.

Except for a very adorable reminder of him.

•○●⛦●○•

Tw: secret pregnancy, none more that I can think of, so let me know if I need to add anything.

A/n: heh

thats all i got to say lol

enjoy!

•○🌑○•

Y/n rose her eyebrows at Eris, waiting for him to begin speaking.

Sometime ago, a servant working in the Autumn Court's palace had informed Y/n that Eris was looking for her, and Y/n had rushed to meet him. Now she stood facing him, just like that night a month ago, the gentle evening breeze curling in the air, making the leaves outside the large window rustle softly.

It also didn't go unnoticed by Y/n that this was the same window that she and Eris had stood in front of that night Feyre had arrived in autumn court.

"You know how each year we have a high lord's meeting since the war with Hybern?"

Y/n nodded. It had become common knowledge that to prevent any more disputes between the courts, the High lords had decided to meet every year.

"This year Autumn is supposed to host the meeting, and the meeting is in a week's time."

Y/n blinked. "And?"

He rose a brow. "All the court's officials will be present."

Dread spread through Y/n when she realised. "Is Rhys going to be there too?"

His eyes flared with something like rage before his expression smoothed out. "No, because I have barred him from the court, but some of the members of his inner circle will be present."

Y/n heaved a sigh of relief. "And why are you telling me this?"

"So you can warn Feyre of it. The members are going to question if they find Nyx running around the corridors. Tamlin is also going to be present, and I don't know if you know of their history, but it was a messy situation she left him in."

Y/n nodded. "I'll let her know. Anything else?"

He nodded slowly, his eyes travelling leisurely to her feet and back to her eyes, making her heart start racing when he stepped forward

Only when she could feel his breath on her face did he stop advancing and speak, and Y/n ignored the urge to take a step back.

"One thing. Keep that bastard's name out of your mouth."

Y/n suppressed a shiver, instead lifting her chin and meeting his gaze head on.

"And what if I don't?"

"He will find himself incinerated." He murmured, the embers of a fire beginning to form in his eyes.

"Who do you think you are to tell me whose name to keep out of my mouth?" Y/n had no problem in not speaking her former lover's name, but an opportunity to get Eris riled up was too good to pass up.

There was an inferno raging in his eyes as he pushed the words out with gritted teeth.

"No one."

Though Y/n was disappointed, she wondered why she even expected a different answer.

"I will speak whomever's name I wish, then."

He looked away, his jaw clenched.

A muscle began feathering in his jaw, and Y/n blamed what she did next all on her distracted mind, but she reached up, gently running her fingers on that muscle in his jaw.

He stiffened instantly, and despite wanting to pull back her hand, her mind wouldn't let her.

He turned his head to her again, a different type of fire in his eyes now.

His eyes dropped to her lips, and Y/n held still as he leaned closer.

The air between them changed, becoming charged. Y/n waited with baited breath, not daring to take in necessary air in fear it would prompt him to turn away.

His hot breath washed over her face, and her eyes fluttered closed. Anticipation coursing through her very veins alongside her blood, she waited for that first caress of his lips.

Only it never came.

What did come, though, was the sound of screaming children, and Y/n and Eris barely had any time to jump apart before the kids came into view.

Y/n sighed, caressing the wall, pretending that she hadn't been about to kiss the high lord.

When the pattering feet came closer, she turned, flashing the little kids a dazzling smile as they came to a stop next to her feet.

"Auntie Y/n! Do you want to play with us?" Nyx asked, his eyes glittering.

There was obviously nothing else Y/n had to do, she agreed. Especially with what almost happened occupying her mind, she was sure she would not be able to focus on anything.

"Come, we have a few hours before dinner time, so we can play."

The children grabbed her hands, beginning to drag her away.

Y/n felt eyes on her all the way until she turned a corner and disappeared from his view, which did nothing to cool the warmth on her skin.

Feyre spoke up when she caught up to the Fin and Nyx, who were debating on what to play while Y/n watched.

"How about we play hide and seek?"

Y/n knew Feyre had questions, and so she didn't argue when she decided that Y/n and She would seek the kids.

"Y/n?" Feyre said as soon as the kids were out of earshot.

"Yes?"

"We need to talk."

Y/n sighed, nodding.

•○🌑○•

General Taglist: @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @harrystylesfan2686 @cassie6392

Eris Taglist: @kennedy-brooke@hnyclover@minnieoo@sidrapotter

Remember me Taglist: @holb32 @awoa1 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @luvmoo @we-were-beautiful @eerievixen @zoe2 @fussel9913 @j-pendragonx @thesnugglingduck @jesssicapaniagua @devilsnightz @esposadomd @littleffawn @mandowhatnow @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @princesslolaasworld @asemkta @cat-or-kitten @txzii @bunnyredgirl @theofficialmadman @leeknows-wife @aria-chikage @amygdtjhddzvb @azriels-mate123 @inky-clover @kemillyfreitas @12358 @justdreamstars @cuethedepession @princessvesta @fides25 @nocasdatsgay @acourtofbatboydreams @stained-glass-eyes0708 @glaciuswduo @wallacewillow0773638 @cassie6392 @quackitysdrugdealer @txzii @anuttellaa @coisas-da-dani @hnyclover @sassyslytherinshai @historygeekqueen @why4anne

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

I'm Your Man - Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal x OFC - Chapter 1

Masterlist |-| Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13

AO3

Summary: As Frankie reaches the end of her second week at Thorpe Abbotts Airfield, she begins to find her footing among the men of the 100th Bomb Group

Warnings: Excessive alcohol consumption, language

Word Count: 4k

Tags: @mads-weasley @xxluckystrike @curaheehee

The setting sun cast a golden blanket over Thorpe Abbotts airfield, basking everything in an idyllic, orange glow that was almost beautiful enough to distract from the heady stench of motor oil that lay thick on the air, permeating hair and clothes so thoroughly that anyone who spent even five minutes in the place would carry it with them for the rest of the day.

Frankie Bevan clamped a flashlight tight between her teeth, the narrow beam of light illuminating the underside of the B-17's gun turret as she surveyed it for any cracks or gaps in the glass that could compromise its integrity. The rest of the ground crew had called it a day almost two hours ago, but the Yanks always did prefer to work in the daylight. She was nearing the end of her third year in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and after so many nights spent running the airstrips in the darkness for the RAF, Frankie was well accustomed to toiling away into the night.

Thorpe Abbotts was new, and yet much the same. It was only her second week here, compensating for the Americans' manpower shortages. The job was always the same, no matter where she went or what planes she worked on - checks, fixes, refuelling, over and over again - but thus was the nature of a mechanic's job. What she was not yet quite used to was the Americans themselves. Loud and brash and self-assured, Frankie was sometimes glad they worked different hours.

Taking note of a few cracks in the glass panelling, she reached up to swipe the torch from her mouth, offering a satisfied nod as she completed her checks for the night. All that was left was to pin her list of concerns up on the board inside the mechanics' Nissen hut, and then it was off to the pub for her.

Once she changed out of her oil-stained coveralls, that was.

"They're working you like a dog down there on the strip," Georgina, one of Frankie's bunkmates, pointed out, flipping nonchalantly through a magazine as she lounged on her bed.

"Someone's gotta do it," She shrugged, kicking off her coveralls as she rummaged in the shared wardrobe for the correct service uniform. "Some of the mechanics they've brought over are practically kids, not sure I'd trust 'em to fix my plane if I was going up there."

"You'd better show 'em what for, then," George smiled, glancing over as Frankie finished buttoning up her blouse, reaching for the navy blue jacket.

"You coming for drinks?"

"Uh, nah - I'll go tomorrow. Sandra thinks we'll be starting early tomorrow so I wanna get a decent night's sleep."

"Ooh, luxury," Frankie teased, shimmying her shoulders as she made her way to the door of the hut. "Alright, see you later."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The pub was crammed from door to door as she forced her way inside, the sound of chattering overpowering the music blaring from a radio in the corner. The American invasion of Thorpe Abbotts had well and truly been successful, scarcely a flash of RAF blue visible amongst the sea of khaki as Frankie burrowed her way through the crowds towards the bar.

"Pint of Guinness, please," She called over the din, the bartender offering a friendly nod of affirmation as she felt the crowd behind her push her body further into the edge of the bar.

"There y'are, love," The man nodded, placing the pint glass in front of her as she smiled her thanks, foam lining her top lip as she took her first sip. Frankie barely had time to wipe it away, turning to take a step back from the bar, before another body collided with hers. She gasped as the beer she had so looked forward to sloshed over the rim of the glass, pooling on the floor and staining the front of her uniform, as the other man's drink did the same.

"Woah, careful there!" The man cried, flicking a few stray droplets of spilt beer from his hand onto the floor. A deep frown creased her features as she peered up at him. The soldier was so tall that the tip of her head didn't quite pass his shoulder, and yet the irritation in her expression was so palpable that he took a full step back.

"Oh, that was my fault, was it?" Frankie tutted.

"Well, sweetheart, maybe if you'd been looking where you were going-"

"Maybe if you bloody Yanks gave us some room to breathe in here we wouldn't have a problem!"

There was an easy smile on the man's face that struck her as distinctly annoying. Discarding his now almost empty glass on the bar, the man put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. Look. We're not gonna agree on this, so what d'ya say we settle this with a little friendly competition?"

She raised a brow. "What sort of competition?"

"Uh... how 'bout a drinking contest?"

Frankie let out a guffaw so forceful that the man's confident smile disappeared, and a few nearby airmen turned to watch the scene unfold. "Y'know what? Yeah. You're on."

With a nod, he turned away, marching towards the closest table. "Alright boys, gimme some space, I got a contest to win against half-pint over here."

She approached the table, sitting down opposite the soldier, smirking at his arrogance. The airmen he had kicked out of their seats were lingering to watch the spectacle unfold, and it was clear their bets were on her opponent.

"Now," He sighed, taking a seat. "In the spirit of good sportsmanship, I oughta introduce myself. John Egan," He said, reaching a hand across the table.

"Frances Bevan. Frankie," She nodded, shaking his hand.

Egan nodded. "So, normal rules apply. No spilling, no vomiting, gotta drain the glass. Still wanna do this?"

Frankie nodded firmly. "I'd never pass up such a wonderful opportunity to humble you Yanks," She grinned.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Egan was turning red, his smug smile long since vanished, the motion of his arm slowing as he reached for the next shot glass, glancing across at her with a slightly nauseated expression. The crowd surrounding them had long since grown since they had begun, although how long ago that was she couldn't quite remember. The huge pile of empty shot glasses in the centre of the table did nothing to jog her memory.

"Oh, come on, Egan, you've gotta do better than that," Frankie teased, reaching forward and downing her next shot. In fairness, she too was beginning to feel light-headed, but it never showed on her face, her demeanour as cool and collected as it had been when she first sat down.

"I thought... I thought this would be easy," John complained, grimacing as he brought the next glass to his lips. "You're so small, where are you storing all this liquor?"

"I'm British - pretty sure it's in our bloodstream," She teased. Egan's eyes narrowed as he weakly upturned the contents of his glass into his mouth, screwing up his face as the liquid ran down his throat.

"I really like her," John admitted, letting out a long sigh as he drew a hand over his eyes. A few of the airmen laughed, clapping him over the shoulders.

"I think we're done here," Frankie chuckled.

"You forfeit?" He asked hopefully.

"No, I'm saying you're about to. That or you're gonna throw up - either way, I win."

"Nuh-uh," Egan shook his head. "Not gonna happen," He fought to suppress a burp, and the room seemed to brace itself for the inevitable vomit that would follow, letting out a collective sigh of relief when he swallowed his nausea back down. "...Yeah. Ok."

She clapped, throwing up her hands in victory as a couple of the men standing behind her cheered. "Well, it's been a real pleasure doing business with you Major," Frankie chuckled, fighting through the splitting headache that was growing in her temples as she rose from her seat, offering him a hand to help him stand.

John batted her away, but stumbled as he got up, one of his friends pressing a firm hand on his back to keep him upright. She smiled. "I'll help you get him back since it's my fault. Gotta get back to the huts anyway."

The airman accepted, each of them slinging one of Egan's arms around their shoulders as he tilted haphazardly over to one side, struggling to prop himself up against her due to her height. Trailing towards the door, a few of the men let out celebratory whoops at her as she passed, praising her victory.

"Thanks for the night, gents - I'm here all war," Frankie called over her shoulders, a cheer erupting from the crowd as they dragged Egan sideways out of the door.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was growing difficult to see as they marched John back to the huts, the street lights growing more and more sparse the closer they got to the airfield. "You gotta teach me how to do that," He slurred, tilting his head down towards her, the smell of liquor thick on his breath.

"You gotta get more practice in - you Americans with your 'no alcohol until you're 21' rule never stood a chance, we've just been in the game longer."

"Ah," He nodded, pausing for a moment. "Hey, why'd you call yourself Frankie?"

"Because Frances is a terrible name," She scoffed.

"Can I call you Fran?"

"Only if you want to die."

"Fair enough."

As they reached the end of the row of men's huts, she shrugged his arm off of her shoulders, relinquishing custody of John to the other airman, who thanked her for her help.

"See ya 'round, Shortcake!" Egan called as they trailed away, grinning proudly to himself at the nickname. Frankie scoffed, rolling her eyes and massaging her temples as her headache steadily worsened.

"You look like shit," George whispered as she wandered back into their hut. She had rolled her hair up into pin curls, protected beneath a headscarf, and was reading a copy of Wuthering Heights in the dim light of her bedside lamp.

"Got into a drinking contest with one of the Americans," She shrugged, tossing her beer-stained blouse and jacket into a crumpled heap at the foot of her bed, a reminder to wash them tomorrow.

"Did you win?"

"Of course."

"Shh!" One of the other women hissed from the opposite end of the room, shrouded in the darkness. Frankie pulled a face at her scolding, dragging a brush through the knots in her dark brown hair as George stifled a laugh, discarding her book and turning off the light once her friend had changed and gotten into bed.

It was silent for a while as she lay beneath the blankets, staring up at what would have been the ceiling if not for the complete absence of light. Her alcohol-induced headache thrummed behind her eyes, a constant, dull pain keeping her from sleep.

"George?" She whispered.

"What?"

"Do you have an aspirin?"

The sound of quiet rummaging was audible in the stillness of the hut, and she struggled to suppress a laugh as she felt the tube smack her in the face, a result of Georgina tossing it blindly in the darkness.

"Thank you," She giggled, trying not to gag as she took the pills dry, lying back and waiting for the pain to subside as she thought back on the night's events.

I'm not that short.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The blinding morning sun was unwelcome the next day as Frankie made her way to the airfield from her hut, bike resting against her hip as she made a momentary stop to fix her hair for the day ahead, hair tie held between her teeth as she scooped it into a ponytail. Most of the women she shared the Nissen hut with had left over an hour ago, hurrying to the flight tower in anticipation of the arrival of yet more American pilots, but her job didn't begin until after the planes landed, so fortunately for her, she had been afforded a little more sleep, her headache now more or less dissipated.

A loud honking startled her, the hair tie slipping from her teeth and falling to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, a jeep rolled to a stop in front of her, the horn parping once more.

"Fuck's sake, what?" Frankie muttered, glancing up to see the cheery grin of Major John Egan smiling down at her.

"Mornin'."

"Are you even fit to drive after last night?"

"Fifty-fifty. Hop in, throw your bike in the back."

She frowned as she noticed the pile of bikes already forming in the back of the car, but stacked her on top all the same, sliding into the passenger seat beside him. "Starting a collection?"

"Won them in a bet, night before last. Got one for me and my buddy Buck, he's arriving today."

"Is that Major Cleven?" She asked.

"Sure is," John nodded as the engine roared to life, taking them sailing along the road towards the airstrip, the wind ruining her hair before she even had a chance to finish it.

"So..." He began, swerving slightly to dodge a few maintenance workers on bikes. "Where ya from, Frankie?"

"Stratford."

"I... do not know where that is."

"I didn't expect you to," She chuckled. "Grew up with my dad working his garage, that's what got me into it. Always preferred planes to cars, though."

"You and me both," John nodded, slowing as they neared the landing strip. Up ahead, the flight crew were beginning to disembark, and Frankie's eyes narrowed as she noticed one of the airmen carrying a large dog.

"If they let that dog shit in the plane, I'm not cleaning it up," She stated. "You've heard me say it, that's on the record now."

"Yes ma'am," Egan affirmed, pulling to a stop, a grin spreading across his face as he got close enough to recognise his friends.

As he clambered out of the car, stepping forward to greet his comrades, she climbed out of her seat, wandering around the back of the jeep to disentangle her bike from the pile, tugging it free as the sounds of wind and aeroplane engines overpowered the men's voices.

"Oh, and, uh - This is Frankie Bevan," John called, guiding Cleven towards her, speaking louder so that she could hear. She raised her hand in a somewhat awkward wave, almost dropping her bike on her foot as she hauled it off the back of the jeep. "Best damn mechanic we've got, she's holdin' us together, that's for sure."

"Ma'am," Cleven greeted her with a tilt of his cap.

"He's never seen me work," Frankie shook her head, stepping forward to shake Cleven's hand. "We only met yesterday, he's just being nice in the hopes I won't tell you about how I drank him under the table last night."

John scoffed. "That is not what-" She raised a brow and he stuttered. "Yeah, that - that did happen."

Cleven laughed, squeezing Egan's shoulder. "Well, I'm sure glad he's had someone to keep him humble before I got here. Thank you for your work, ma'am, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of each other soon."

She nodded, grinning at Egan's embarrassment. "How was your flight?"

"Smooth sailin', not sure there'll be anything to fix up this time."

A soldier she had heard John greet as Demarco spoke up from where he was stood, scratching his dog's stomach. "The dog dropped a deuce in the cockpit."

Clicking her fingers, she pointed to Egan. "She's not doing that!" He called, craning his head over his shoulder as Demarco put his hands up in surrender.

"Well, that works wonders," Frankie chuckled, lifting her leg to straddle the seat of her bike. "Now, if all you gents have planned is standing around, I've got work to do."

"Bye Shortcake," John grinned as she pedalled the bicycle into motion, ringing the bell and offering up a middle finger as she left. He chuckled, feeling Cleven clap him over the shoulder again.

"She's interesting... nice," His friend began. "Bucky, I know you're sick of Marge tryna set you up, but she is definitely-"

"She's definitely my friend, Buck. Besides, I could never date a woman with a higher alcohol tolerance than me. That's just embarrassing."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The wind whipped her hair this way and that as Frankie hammered at the pedals, gaining speed faster and faster with each second until the rolling fields beyond the airstrip were little more than a green blur. She'd always loved to cycle, preferably as fast as she possibly could. Her father used to say she should try racing, but his ambition curtailed rather when she got in trouble for almost taking out a couple of tourists outside Shakespeare's birthplace on her way home from school. Besides, she'd never quite had the discipline for sports.

Her breaks squeaked noisily as she rolled to a stop outside the mechanics' Nissen hut, stationed just beyond the main runway. They had been given a single hut for all of their operations, much to the chagrin of many. The back end was an orderly pile of spare parts - buckets of rivets, piles of sheet metal - but someone had supplied them with a table and chairs, and the recent addition of a gas stove and kettle had proved a huge hit.

Ken Lemmons was sat at the table as she wandered in, glancing at the corkboard by the door where she and the others posted notice of anything in need of urgent repair.

"A couple of the guys replaced the glass in the gun turrets earlier - thanks for the shout," Lemmons spoke up.

"Ah, good," Frankie nodded, taking a seat opposite him. As much as she bemoaned her younger, American co-workers, she had grown fond of Ken. He was sipping a cup of coffee, and by the look on his face, he was not enjoying it. She tossed the paper bag containing her lunch onto the table, retrieving a cucumber sandwich - meagre subsistence, and a sight that made the boy frown.

"I think I'd actually murder someone for some Hershey's right about now," He remarked, grimacing as he took another sip of coffee.

"Hey, we make do with what we've got," She shrugged, attempting to devour the sandwich before the cucumber could soak through the thin slices of bread. "I know one of the girls in the Land Army - I darn her jumpers in exchange for a bit of her extra cheese ration."

Lemmons chuckled, leaning back in his seat. "I miss good chocolate. I can't get used to... Cad-berry's?"

"Oh, that's sacrilege," She laughed, tossing a slice of cucumber at him, which stuck to the breast pocket of his coveralls. "If you'd come a couple years ago when they were still making Dairy Milk you'd've thought you'd died and gone to heaven."

"I'll believe it when I see it," He grinned, plucking the slice off of his clothes. There was a pause before he spoke again. "One of the fellas says they're actually taking off later."

Frankie nodded, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as she spoke around her food. "Oh yeah? This gonna be your first proper go at it?"

"Yeah..." Lemmons admitted, looking momentarily nervous. "You?"

She snorted back a laugh. "Nah. I've been in the WAAF nearly four years - moved around a bit, but whether it's Attlebridge or Docking or Thorpe Abbotts, it's all the same gig. You stick with me when the planes start coming back down and you'll be fine."

The corner of his mouth tilted upwards in a smile. "You're gonna babysit me?"

Frankie grinned, standing up to reach across the table and ruffle his curls. "With a cute little face like yours, who could help it?" She teased, laughing as he batted her away.

"Get off, I'm serious," Lemmons chuckled, but the smile never faded from his expression.

Ken's buddy hadn't been wrong, per se, but his fabled mission had come not hours, but days later, with a hammering knock on the door to her hut, the women stirring from their sleep in a wave of disgruntled moans.

"What time is it?" Frankie whined as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, resisting the urge to burrow her head beneath the pillow and block out the relentless knocking outside.

"Four thirty," George groaned, frowning vindictively at her watch as she put it on, as if time itself had caused her personal grievance.

"They're flying today, get ready!" A young male voice bellowed from the other side of the door, clearly too shy to bare his face to a room of half-dressed, irritated women.

"Fuck me, I'm coming," She muttered, brushing her hair with one hand as she buttoned up the front of her coveralls with the other.

"Spot me! How's my lipstick?" George called, and Frankie leant across the bed that separated them to wipe a stray smudge of red away with her thumb.

"All good."

"Right," Her bunkmate huffed. "I'll see you later, yeah?"

"See you later," Frankie affirmed.

"I'll join you for drinks this time if all goes well!" George called over her shoulder as she scurried towards the door.

"I'll hold you to that!" She replied, smiling as she laced up her boots.

The planes left and returned in mere hours, but the in-between had felt never-ending as the ground crew waited in tense anticipation to see how many would return and in what state. Frankie had sent Egan away to the flight tower after his nervous hovering had started to get on her nerves, and she had since spent the last half-hour sitting in the grass beside the runway making daisy chains with a few of the local children as a way to pass the time.

"Frankie! They're comin' in!" She heard Lemmons yell from across the airstrip. Hurriedly sending the children back to their parents as the sound of plane engines grew steadily louder overhead, she scrambled to her feet, grass stains streaking the knees of her coveralls as she jogged over, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as the planes began to descend towards them.

"...10, 11, 12..." Frankie muttered, coming to the slow realisation that many of the men they'd sent away that morning had not returned. But that loss did not negate the importance of the work they had to do now. "Ok, let's go," She patted Lemmons on the shoulder, and they reached for the bikes they had discarded on the ground nearby, pedalling hard towards the landing strip.

From the second they arrived, she was surveying the damage, scanning the planes for the areas that would need the most attention. It was impossible to pick just one.

"There's a reason we go at night," She muttered, so softly no one else could hear over the din of shouts and dying engines. The mechanics weren't emergency staff, but she'd seen a fair few planes come in either on fire, half-collapsed or both over the years, enough to learn it was best to get in as soon as possible.

"Shit," Lemmons huffed beside her, staring up at a huge, jagged hole in the metal of one of the plane's wings.

"Send a couple of the boys back to the hut - tell them to bring a car back with all the sheet metal they can put in it. Oh - and get me a welder!" She called to him, and the young man began barking orders at the other mechanics, the crew erupting to life around the plane as they began to fix the mess that had returned.

"Frankie!" Egan's voice rang from down below as she climbed up onto the top of the plane, marking out the areas of the body that needed replacing. She looked down at him as he yelled again. "You need anything?"

"Nope, we're good here!" Frankie replied, holding up a thumbs-up in case the wind drowned out her voice. Looking down at the work to do below her, it was as if she could map out every fix in her mind, envision every action in order, play it out in her head until the beast was as good as new. She smiled to herself. "This is what I do."

[apomaro-mellow]

Hot for Teacher(s) 11

Part 10

The smell of a pup was usually a fresh, neutral scent on their own until they officially presented and it ripened with the unique scent of adolescence. It was why scenting one’s child was important. A way to mark them as your own for the whole world to know. And it was typical of parents to do this before seeing their child off somewhere, particularly school.

Shawn never really noticed before now how sometimes his classmates would smell just a little different, depending on who scented them. He wasn’t the only one with one parent but Daniel got to see his mom on weekends, and Elodie still talked to her dad. Shawn was the only one with a single parent with no contact with his other. And he wasn’t complaining. But now that he noticed, he wondered if other people noticed his single note of a scent.

No one had ever made him feel bad about it but maybe they were just being nice about his situation…

Eddie greeted his students in the morning, usually with a high five or a fist bump. “Warm up’s on your desks, make sure you have a sharpened pencil.”

Elodie got to her desk before unpacking and looked at the worksheet. “Do we get to color?”

“What do the directions say?”, Eddie asked, encouraging her to read.

“‘Color…your fa…vorite food’. Yay!”

Eddie told her good job before seeing to the other students and making sure unpacking by the cubbies went without any drama. It all seemed to be going well, so he turned his back. Of course, that was when he heard shoving and the beginnings of a wailing cry.

Shawn was at his desk while Mr. Munson tried to soothe Yasmin. She bumped her head against his leg like she was much younger than six, a move that would normally get an adult to scent her and assure her she wasn’t in trouble. Mr. Munson just gave her a pat on the head and reminded her that the cubbies had names and she couldn’t just put her things wherever she wanted, but also Daniel shouldn’t toss other’s belongings onto the floor.

Mr. Munson was really nice like that, giving head pats, and high fives, but he never scented any of the students. That would be weird. But would he scent Shawn? Where did they stand, now that he was dating his dad?

After school, Steve came and he rubbed Shawn’s cheeks. “You’re like my cute mochi thing. What do they call it? The white thing?”

“Cinnamoroll?”, Eddie and Shawn said in unison.

“No, the other thing. The rabbit.”

“That’s Cinnamoroll, Dad. Now please release my cheeks”, Shawn said.

That just made Steve squish them together more. “No, there’s something else. And I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a dog anyway.” He let Shawn’s face go and looked up at Eddie. “We still on for tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world”, Eddie promised.

Shawn waited until they were in the car before asking. “What’s tonight?”

Steve smiled. “He’s coming over for dinner.”

“What’re we having?”, Shawn asked, trying to look nonchalant as he played with his seatbelt.

“I was thinking cockroach legs and frog’s eyes”, Steve said, snickering at the look of disgust that he caught in the mirror. “Well what would you serve then?”

“Make your own tacos. I saw you taking out ground beef earlier.”

“You know what, that could work”, Steve agreed. Nevermind that Shawn also would’ve seen the different vegetables on the counter, as well as various sauces which could only be used for tacos. Christopher Nolan, eat your heart out.

Eddie would be spending the evening with them as it was decided that he should do so without it being a date. He and Steve knew they worked well together, now it was time to add Shawn to the mix. He would only be his teacher for a few more months after all. And then in a few years, he would probably be Steve’s. So keeping them apart for that reason was about to be null and void.

Steve had Shawn finish his homework at the table while he started cooking. Eddie arrived about half an hour later, knocking at the door. Steve sent Shawn to get it only because he was washing his hands from touching raw meat and he recognized the roar of Eddie’s van by now. 

“Well, if it isn’t the man of the house”, Eddie smiled when Shawn opened the door.

“Are you here to sell cookies?”, Shawn teased.

“Hmm, no cookies, only pie”, he said, bringing one from behind his back.

Shawn shrugged. “That’ll work.”

He let Eddie in and they joined his dad in the kitchen. Eddie greeted Steve with a kiss, who smiled when he saw the dessert Eddie brought. 

“You didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t. Safeway did.”

Dinner was a fun affair. Probably the only low point for Shawn was when the two of them randomly broke out into a song that he didn’t know and even danced along to it. Did they not see how embarrassing they were? The tacos were good though. Shawn liked to put a ton of cheese on his. 

“Hey, you got something there”, Eddie said in the middle of eating.

“Where?”, Steve asked, trying to look at his own face.

Eddie put a swipe of sour cream on his nose. “There.”

Shawn laughed enough to shake his own taco (#3) and make half the ingredients spill out onto his plate. After eating, Shawn helped by bringing the dirty dishes to the sink and helping Steve wrap up the leftovers while Eddie got to washing. Shawn got to take his slice of pie to the living room so long as he ate at the coffee table, leaving the two adults alone.

They were shoulder to shoulder as they washed and dried. At one point, Steve put his head on Eddie’s shoulder and they paused for a moment, soaking it all in. It was only one night but this one night boded well for their future. Once the dishes were done, they joined Shawn, who had taken up the middle of the couch. Without a word, they sat on either side of him. Shawn had it on a kids’ sitcom, but honestly it didn’t matter what they were watching. 

Steve and Eddie’s arms were across the back of the couch so that they could touch, leaving Eddie’s side open for Shawn to lean into. Shawn let out a yawn, full and tired. Then he bumped his forehead against Eddie’s chest. His eyes bugged out, looking at Steve for a sign, approval, something. He didn’t want to spook Shawn by using his voice though. Steve’s eyes were glistening a little as he nodded. 

Slowly, Eddie brought his arm down and rubbed his wrist against Shawn’s hair and cheeks. Steve could just barely hear the coo of contentment. When they were sure he was asleep, Eddie gathered Shawn in his arms and carried him to his room, Steve leading the way. 

“Wait for me in my room”, Steve whispered so that he could give Shawn a bit of privacy while dressing him down in his pjs.

Eddie waited faithfully, sitting on the edge of the bed when Steve finally came in. They spent the night sharing slow kisses, building each other up while using just their hands to finish the job. It was still a school night, after all.

From then on, Eddie took some time to scent Shawn while he was fully awake, sometimes even at school. The other students didn’t think much of it but the week after just happened to be the school-wide spelling bee. A few parents were in attendance. Steve couldn’t make it, as it was the middle of the day, but Eddie promised him pictures.

Shawn took first place, almost stumbling on the word ‘lightning’ but pushing through. The awards were given and parents congratulated their kids, getting pictures as well. Eddie kept himself available, only about half of his students’ parents showed up. Shawn showed his trophy to a friend who was standing by their dad.

He knelt down by Shawn. “You want me to get some pics for your dad, kiddo?”

“Mr. Munson’s gonna text my dad, right?”, Shawn beamed.

“That I will”, Eddie promised.

It was such a benign interaction that Eddie didn’t think a thing of it. But in that moment, the other parent caught a whiff of Shawn, who smelled too similar to Mr. Munson. And texting a parent? On its own, not strange but he’d been careful not to give out his personal number to anyone. He communicated mostly through emails. Sometimes a flyer in the kids’ folders. It was all just adding up to something fishy in his opinion…

He voiced as much to his wife when he got home and she just didn’t see it.

“Are you trying to say Shawn’s dad slept with the teacher so he could win the spelling bee?”

“I mean I’m not saying that exactly, but it seems kind of rigged, doesn’t it?”

She called their daughter down from her room. “Is your friend Shawn a good speller?”

“Yeah, he can even spell some second grade words. They ran out of first grade words to give him.”

“Well, your daddy didn’t mention that.”

“I just think we shouldn’t rule it out.” A lot of the parents knew each other, at least in passing. So it was no secret that Steve was single. Of course, most would never suspect he was dating his son’s teacher but considering the scent he was carrying…

As this was brewing on Eddie's side, from Steve's past a familiar face approached closer and closer.

Part 12

Fun fact: that actually happened at my school's spelling bee. Two of my first graders spelled so well, they had to move on to second grade words. Don't praise me though, they came to me that smort.

Taglist

@anne-bennett-cosplayer @aol19 @lololol-1234 @gregre369 @attic-cat-blog

@hippieg1rl420 @spectrum-spectre

[formulaforza]

miss americana & the heartbreak prince masterlist

charles leclerc x female oc —what's the point of it all if you're not going to fall madly in into love?

—00. prologue

playlist social media au teaser orange show speedway

—01. all american girl

"“Because.” He doesn’t really know why he can’t land on a message, why everything he types sounds entirely too casual or formal or nothing at all like what he would say to another human being. This isn’t a problem that he’s used to having. It’s the in-person flirting that fucks him up, not the texts and DMs and comments. She was just… he doesn’t know what she was. She was just. End of sentence."

—01.5 hey google, who is christyn elliott?

—02. over the ocean call

"Chris has one student, Quinn, whose family can’t afford reduced lunch prices but also won’t request for Quinn to qualify for the free lunch. She thinks it’s an ego thing, that Quinn’s mom just isn’t able to accept that the family needs help. It’s a single parent household and the mom works two full-time jobs to try and make ends meet. After a newsletter was sent home in need of parent signatures at the beginning of the year and returned with Mama written in sloppy green crayon, Chris learned that Quinn was living a relatively self-sufficient life. As self-sufficient as a five-year-old can be." 

—02.5 like real people do

—03. i think i fell in love today

"If there wasn’t something weird in the air before, there certainly is now. A new weird. A good weird. An implication of something in the air, weird. It’s out there now, just hanging above them. I want to kiss you. You can kiss me. Now all that’s left is for one of them to make the move."

—03.5 do the girls back home touch you like i do?

—04. every finger, every sigh

"She can feel eyes on her. Charles, she hopes. Charles, she can’t find in the chaos. When she does spot him, half-dead sparkler still in his hand, head drunkenly bobbing along to the beat, he’s looking right at her, grins a stupid grin and winks."

—05. monte carlo ave

"He shakes his head. “You don’t understand.” She can’t possibly understand it because he doesn’t even properly understand it, the way he feels about her. The fear he feels about losing all the indecipherable feelings. It’s just good, everything about her, about being near her. It’s all so sweet and nice and good and he really, really doesn’t want to screw it up."

—05.5 still so much I have yet to know

—06. quarter of the way

"As soon as they reach the cover of the trees, Chris is telling Hannah everything. Everything. She tells her about Austin, about how she met a guy who was just too charming to not get her number. About every nervous text and hours long FaceTime call and every picture and every conversation. She tells her about how crazy she feels, how insane she felt agreeing to fly across the world— “Wait,” Hannah questions. “You flew across the world?”"

—06.5 you're invited! welcome to dawsonville!

—07. homegrown

"It’s a twenty-three minute drive to Pig’n’Chik Barbeque in Northern Atlanta. Charles is visibly apprehensive of the little red building and the parking lot filled with the aroma of southern barbeque, but he keeps his commentary to himself. Chris knows it’s probably a little overkill, the hole-in-the wall joint being even a little too gimmicky for her taste, but that’s the whole point."

—08. it's so sweet

“I’ll be right back,” she says hurriedly, over her shoulder, letting the little girl pull her away. Charles nods and flashes her a quick wink before she’s properly whisked away, leaving him with nothing better to do than shove his hands deep in his pockets and analyze the artwork of primary school students. 

—09. sweet nothing

coming soon

—10. i saw the end

coming soon

—11. the bees envy me

coming soon

—12. if i tremble

coming soon

—13. see the world

coming soon

—14. yours to keep

coming soon

—15. yours to lose

coming soon

—16. the view between villages

coming soon

—17. heaven in your eyes

coming soon

—epilogue. for the worms to eat

coming soon

[audhd-nightwing]

reverse robins au timeline

bruce meets talia while training to be Batman. damian is (unknowingly) conceived. three years later bruce becomes Batman. four years after that, talia sends damian (7) to bruce with a letter explaining everything.

two years later, damian (9) becomes Batboy

five years later, bruce finds duke (10) and takes him in. damian (14) is insecure at first but eventually grows fond of him

two years later, tim (10) starts staying at wayne manor while his parents are away. damian (16) and duke (12) both enjoy his company

a year later duke (13) becomes Signal, and tim (11) figures out their vigilante identities and helps out on comms, going by ‘T’

another year later, dami (18) becomes Leviathan and tim (12) starts going by Rumor. duke (14) is just vibing

steph (13) starts out as Spoiler when damian is 19, duke is 15 and tim is also 13

after a year working together, damian (20) and duke (16) reveal their identities to steph (14) and she meets tim (14) for the first time in-person

when damian is 21, duke is 17 and timsteph are 15, tim’s parents die in a plane crash and he is officially adopted by bruce. after this he is finally allowed in the field as Rumor (he was just doing comms/tech before)

about a year later, cass (14) shows up in gotham and bruce brings her back to the manor (damian is 22, duke is 18, and timsteph are 16)

jason (12) is found stealing the tires off the batmobile and bruce adopts him. cass (15) is the vigilante Orphan, tim (17) & steph (17) are still Spoiler & Rumor, duke (19) is still Signal and damian (23) is still Leviathan

STORY BEGINS

jason (13) takes up the Batboy mantle, and the circus comes to town. newly orphaned dick (9) is taken in by bruce. (cass is 16, timsteph are 18, duke is 20, damian is 24)

dick (10) becomes Robin, and meets babs (9) in school. they become best friends. cass (17) changes her vigilante name to Black Bat

jason (15) is killed by joker. dick is 11, cass is 18, tim & steph are 20, duke is 22, damian is 26

bruce gets lost in time. damian (27) takes over as Batman, duke (23) is still Signal, cass (19) is Leviathan in damian’s place, tim and steph (21) are still Rumor & Spoiler and dick (12) is still Robin. jason (16) is taken to the LoA and revived in the lazarus pit. dick kills the joker as Robin

jason (17) returns to gotham as Red Hood. babs is 12, dick is 13, cass is 20, timsteph are 22, duke is 24 and damian is 28. bruce is still gone so dami is still Batman and cass is still Leviathan

bruce returns. babs (13) starts out as Batgirl

[oreo102]

Yaz is cool as fuck and people don’t appreciate her enough, a very long ramble

TLDR because this is so long: yaz is really cool and a compelling character and not enough people talk about how good of a character she is, both with and without the doctor, enough

In the first episode we learn as soon as we meet her that yaz wants to help people. She is tired of getting parking disputes and wants something more serious, and after meeting the doctor immediately starts helping her even if she isn’t supposed to be, and later it’s implied (I don’t think it was ever confirmed?) that she originally became a cop because one helped her when she had ran away/was suicidal, maybe?

Throughout season 11 we see her be the most empathetic/caring (episode 3 with the racism Ryan specially was facing, episode 6 with her grandma’s first husband, episode 7 with dan from kerblam, 8 with the kid who’s grandma was killed for “being a witch”, 9 with the blind kid), and is also very loyal almost immediately (“more of the universe.. more time with you!” “No. I’m with you, whatever happens” and more I’m forgetting)

She also has a very similar sense of justice to the doctor, practically immediately and comes to share her view on a lot of topics (she was hesitant to take the gun in TPOTD, she wrote wwtdd(which is adorable btw) on her palm, she defended Tesla, stands up to the master, once again more I’m forgetting probably)- hell, when seperated from the doctor without instructions/for a long time she takes 13s place as leader

Circling back to loyalty: she spent 10 months obsessively trying to find the doctor, she slept in the second tardis, she probably (I think it’s implied?) neglected her own health, social life, and job (if she still had one at this point) just to obsessively try and figure out how that tardis worked, to figure out how to get back to the doctor

And that was after she walked into a portal to an alien planet, not caring about danger because it’s what the doctor would do if it were one of them (she was already half way there by the time Graham finished asking who was going first, walking quickly and had a very determined look on her face. I really do believe if it had come down to facing the master or cybermen she would’ve to ensure 13s safety), which btw, is one of my favorite scenes in the show

And then s13. Gods I think I could talk about yaz in season 13 and those last 3 specials for days. A) Dan is more her companion than docs, let’s be very clear- they spent 3 years trapped in an unfamiliar time together with yaz acting as the leader (see above about her taking on the Doctor’s role when the doctor isn’t there to)

She handles 13’s outbursts and venom astonishingly well through the whole series but esp in s13, when she is double guessing her identity and even more unwilling to share than before, like it’s downright elegant that yaz is able to ignore 13s jabs sometimes, cuz personally I would’ve thrown hands. Although she doesn’t let the doctor walk over her, she doesn’t just accept the bullshit, she argues with the doctor quite a bit (telling her she is fully at fault for the situation at the beginning of s13 ep 1, telling her to stop leaving them all the time, shoving her when she shows back up after the 10 months)

As mentioned before the “what would the doctor do” being written on her hand is a really good touch and it does well to show just how much yaz looks up to 13 and how much she loves her (a very much amount, like infinitely)

This is getting very long so I’ll try to wrap it up somewhat quickly. Anyway, I really love yaz’s coming out scene (although I detest Dan outing her), it feels very natural and is filled with a lot of great emotions that we don’t see her have very much- like, she cries! Yaz, while shown having emotions, isn’t shown sad very often (which considering she was depressed as a younger teen and might still be, could just be her repressing those emotions) and is shown as scared much less, it’s nice to see those emotions on display

Speaking of emotions on display: “stop leaving us” is one of my favorite scenes/lines. Getting to see just how anxious yaz gets when the doc leaves, just how much she hates being separated from her, is a really nice insight to how she thinks- the doctor has already left her twice before (neither times were her fault, though) so who’s to say it won’t happen again? Easier to stay by 13 than to be crushed by her disappearing without warning

(Also side note but after that the two don’t separate much/if at all, showing that the doc did genuinely listen to her)

I’ve heard people say that they didn’t enjoy Legend of the sea devils that much but personally I love it- both because holy shit they’re so gay, but also because it again demonstrates that yaz is genuinely so smart and capable and there’s really no wonder 13 fell for her so hard (because she did. 13 fell so hard) I also like that this episode shows that the two play off each other and trust each other a lot, even if they aren’t always in sync

And finally onto the power of the doctor! Yaz’s best episode by far and my favorite of the entire series!

Yaz. Is. So. Fucking. Amazing. In this episode. She really shines so much which is saying a lot because she usually shines anyway. She looks so ready to punch the master if only he’d give her a reason, ready to shoot him (maybe not fatally… maybe) if he threatens the doctors or her own safety

She openly defies him, she leaves him stranded on a planet and if not for the plan she might’ve never came back for him, she flies the tardis! All on her own! We can assume that the doctor helped teach her but how much of that knowledge is from those 10 months? (I like to think that the first time yaz helped fly it was completely by accident)

Do the doctor holograms share knowledge? Cuz if not, that implies that she figured out it can change interface on her own and used it in their/her plan.

She saves the doctor! Multiple times! Runs out towards a fucking laser to make sure she’s safe (another favorite scene), she flies everyone home while the doc rests and recovers, she is just so cool in this episode!!

And honestly, I hate her ending. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic that she survived, really truly fantastic, if they had killed yaz I’d have balled my eyes out and sworn doctor who off for a second time, but her ending? No.

I do not think she should’ve stayed with the doc, I believe she loved (romantically, she’d love every doctor platonically but) 13 only, she’d be traveling the stars with 14 or 15 but I think over time she would’ve slid into that grief, that the doctor is still there but hers isn’t. But just having to go back to normal life? Go back to her family and job and life? That’s bullshit

Graham and Ryan got the psychic papers, yaz could’ve too (which btw that’d make a fun spin off I think), or she could’ve gotten the doctors coat (which would’ve been the cutest thing ever), or even her sonic! (Least likely) but- nothing? Nothing? No!!

She and 13 should be allowed to be immortal space wives together (with river, maybe) and nothing bad should ever happen to them

[rorywritesjunk]

I can’t tell where the journey will end But I know where to start

Prequel to my Kid Buggy fic, set about 11-ish years before that story.

Buggy meets you by chance when he needs his buttons sewn back onto his jacket. He’s young, up and coming, and he thinks everyone should cower before him wherever he goes, but all you do is smile at him.

Rating: PG-13ish just for some swearing. Warning: Buggy’s in his early 20s. He’s an asshole. He just is because I wanted to write him loud, demanding, everything. There’s 3 new characters thrown in because why not? Future Wife gets a name as well! A/N: I have no idea when Buggy became a Captain, so he’s a fresh faced captain in this. No clue how long this fic will be. I just started on the 4th chapter but I’m excited to write it out! I had fun with the original fic and decided to write the prequel to how they met. Enjoy!

Also I have to go back to chapter 5 of my Kid Buggy fic since they talk most about their relationship beginnings in there, oops. I also wanted to write Buggy as the sort of "I'm a smooth operator until I'm not". And the Future Wife gets named in this chapter because I decided she needed a name.

Title comes from “Wake Me Up” by Avicii.

TAGLIST: @lostfirefly @ane5e @kingofthemfingpirates @the-angriest-angel @tiredemomama @valen-yamyam16 @i-reblog-fics-i-like @plethora-of-fickleness

Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7 + Chapter 8 + Chapter 9 + Chapter 10 + Chapter 11 + Chapter 12 + Chapter 13 + Chapter 14 + Chapter 15 + Chapter 16 + Chapter 17 + Chapter 18 + Epilogue

Chapter 3

You saw him again a month later. He really was popping by for every little thing now, and this time was no different. You were working on a dress for a customer while the girls were ironing and hemming other orders. When Buggy burst into the shop he paused for a brief moment when he saw you before marching up to the counter where your boss waited.

“What now?” She demanded. Buggy glared at her but he held his ground, not backing down from her.

“I… need something fixed.” He said, glancing in your direction briefly before pointing to his shoes. “My socks.” 

“We don’t mend socks.” Your boss told him firmly. “Throw them out and get new ones.”

“You can’t fix them?!” He exclaimed. Miss Pins shook her head. Buggy took a deep breath, looking as though he was trying to think of something else. “Well, can you-”

“I can darn the socks.” You told him as you set your needle and thread down. Your boss glared at you, trying to tell you to sit down and stop helping this guy without speaking a word but you chose to ignore her. You pushed your chair back from the table and smiled at him. “But I’ll only do it if they’re washed. I assume you’re wearing them right now?”

Buggy turned red and looked away from you as he nodded. You chuckled softly and shook your head as you stood up. “Okay, come with me. Let’s get you taken care of.” 

Your boss and coworkers watched as the pirate followed after you to the backroom like a little puppy follows his owner. Miss Pins was going to have words with the both of you about this: he needed to stop coming around and you needed to stop being nice to him. He wasn’t some stray you needed to keep feeding. He was a damn pirate who needed to get back on his ship and sail away. While it wasn’t uncommon for the shop to have repeat customers, he was a thorn in Miss Pins side since he first showed up. She did not like him one bit and she did not like the way he looked at you.

You had Buggy sit down and remove his shoes while you got the washing bin ready. Since one of the services was to clean customers' clothes for them, you saw no reason why you wouldn’t wash his socks before mending them. Buggy said nothing as he removed his socks and held them out to you, but you grabbed a bowl and had him set them in there. He frowned but did as you asked before leaning forward in his seat, watching you as he tried to tuck his feet under the chair.

“I never know when to expect you, Captain.” You told him as you mixed the cleaning solution into the bin. Once it was ready you grabbed the bowl and tossed his socks into the soapy water. “But I enjoy the surprise of you showing up.”

“Well, I have things that need to be mended.” He shot back as he turned red. It wasn’t like he was coming here on purpose to have you fix his things. “And this is the only place that caters to pirates and does a decent job.”

You glanced at him with a smile as you added a small agitator into the bowl, stirring up the water and socks to get them clean. “I’m glad you chose us then, Captain.”

“Buggy.” He mumbled, looking down at his feet. You frowned, not hearing him at first but he cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “You can call me Buggy.”

“Oh.” You looked back at the water that was getting dirtier with each agitation. Calling him by his first name was a little personal. “Okay.”

“I… never learned your name.” He continued to mumble, looking incredibly uncomfortable and unsure of himself right then. 

“That’s because I never told you.” Was your response as you pulled the socks from the water to wring them out. You set them aside and dumped the dirty water before refilling the tub with fresh water. 

“Well, what’s your name then?” Buggy asked. “What should I call you?”

You winked at him and went back to cleaning the socks. “Whatever you want to call me, Buggy.” 

He felt a small surge of courage right then as he now leaned back in his chair with a smirk. The chair tilted backwards, resting on two legs while the other two were inches off the ground. “Can I call you Babe?”

The courage left as soon as it arrived because you turned to look at him, face unreadable, and he lost his balance and tipped the chair backwards with him in it, his legs flying up and over, his torso separating from his body and landing beside him. 

You just stared at him in shock for a moment before rushing over to grab his legs. This… was weird. Very weird. His body seemed to snap back together and he stared at you in horror. Was this something pirates were able to do, separate their body parts like that? 

“Are you okay?” You managed to ask. “Buggy, your body-”

“I’m fine!” He snapped as he pulled away from you, embarrassed by what you saw. He didn't want you to see that, not yet when he was trying to get to know you. “Don’t to-”

You took his hat off his head and set it aside, ignoring his temper as you touched his head, feeling for any bumps from the fall. His entire body went rigid, eyes wide, almost fearful as you cupped his cheeks, looking into his eyes. You were just checking for injury, maybe a concussion from the tumble, but then you smiled with relief.

“You didn’t hit your head too hard it seems.” You said as you started to pull your hands back, but he grabbed you and your eyes widened when you saw his hands on your wrists but with no arms attached to them. “Buggy, are you okay?”

“What’s all this noise?” Miss Pins demanded as she came into the back, Livia and Edith following behind her. “I swear, if you two are fu-”

She stopped when she saw the two of you: Buggy on the ground with you kneeling over him with disembodied hands on your wrists. At least Buggy had the mind to look embarrassed by the situation while you just smiled at your boss as you explained what happened.

“Chair tipped back and he took a tumble, but he’s okay.” You told her as his hands returned to his arms. “Sorry if we were loud.”

Everything was okay for a moment, but you and Buggy both saw Livia lean over to Edith and not so quietly whisper, I guess his nose is real since it stayed on when he fell.

What if it’s glued on? Edith whispered back. I still think it's fake. No one has a nose like that. 

He has a nose like that. Livia grinned as she glanced in his direction. I bet it honks.

Buggy didn’t even have the chance to react because you were scolding the teenagers for him; even Miss Pins had her arms crossed and was giving the apprentices both a look. 

“Don’t talk about his nose, you two!” You snapped at them, friendly demeanor gone and replaced with a fierce protectiveness, startling the two of them and even Buggy. “Honestly! Apologize for being rude now! I cannot believe you both!”

“But-” Livia started to say but Edith cut her off. 

“You’re not in charge!” The other teen exclaimed, looking up at Miss Pins. “He’s been nothing but rude to us since he first came here! Why do we have to be nice to him?”

“Because he’s a paying customer.” Miss Pins told her. “And he’s never been rude to you two, just me and Sunny, so you two apologize to the Captain now.” 

The two looked at their caretaker before reluctantly looking back at Buggy. With the way you were glaring at them they knew they needed to apologize or else. The look of absolute fury in your eyes terrified them more than Buggy’s behavior had so far. 

“I’m sorry.” They both said before you pointed to the door.

“Go clean the kitchen and start dinner, both of you.” You ordered. “You’ll also clean the kitchen again tonight after dinner.” You shook your head and sighed. “I’m so disappointed in the two of you.”

Livia and Edith’s jaws dropped and they looked at Miss Pins once more. She nodded in agreement with what you were saying. At this point she trusted you (kind of) to make certain decisions, and speaking about a customer like that in front of him was grounds for punishment. Both left the room, grumbling about it being unfair. 

“Fix his socks and then he leaves, understand?” Miss Pins said. “And be quieter in here.”

You nodded, swallowing heavily as you tried to calm yourself down. It wasn’t often you got angry like that, but you were upset for him that they would say that in front of him like that. Your hands were shaking as you stood up, reaching out to pull him to his feet. He reluctantly allowed help, but as soon as he got to his feet he turned to head to the door but you held onto his hand.

“Buggy, wait.”

“What?!” He snapped as he turned to face you, cheeks burning from embarrassment. You were just a tailor, a shopgirl, you had no business being nice to him apart from getting paid for it. He didn’t need you coming to his defense when people made comments about his appearance, it happened enough that he always handled it with yelling and violence. No one ever apologized, and yet you had the two do it. 

“I’m sorry.” You told him, giving his hand a squeeze. “They shouldn’t have said those things.”

Buggy stared at you for a moment. His brain was going a million miles a minute as he processed your words, the way you were looking at him with those kind eyes that minutes before were full of absolute fury. He felt your warmth through his gloved hand and he wondered if he should take it off so he could feel how soft your skin was. There was a brief flicker of familiarity of your words, but he couldn’t recall ever hearing someone say that before to him. It must have happened in a dream.

He finally jerked out of your grasp and grabbed his boots and hat before storming out of the backroom. Miss Pins looked up as he walked through the shop, eyebrow raised as she saw him carrying his boots, but she said nothing. Maybe he would finally stop coming around and being a nuisance after all this. 

Except he would need to come back for his socks.