#you know what always fucks me up?? steven getting inside luke's red room. like. someone special being able to get into another character's

[lesbianlotties]

do you guys ever have those moments where like going on about your day like completely normal and then you're struck by a feeling of "holy shit the haunting of hill house really was a perfect tv show wow"???

[russian-romanova]

hill house

title: hill house

pairing: none, female crain!reader

word count: 9.1K (longest one yet bbysssss)

warnings: spoilers, mentions of death, suicide, intense scenes and images, language, mature themes explored by ‘the haunting of hill house’, also timelines that don’t match up that great.

notes: thank you so much to anyone who reads this. i’m sure the audience is going to be very small, but i absolutely poured my soul into this for a while and you simply looking at this fills me with joy. feedback is appreciated!  

summary: to the remaining five crain siblings and their father, the death of a close family member seems to bring a renewed remembrance of the nightmarish hill house that haunted their childhoods. 

She was the youngest. This was one of those indisputable facts that Y/N was forced to cling to in life, such as the intangible fact that she would never be mature as Shirley or as smooth as Theo, but she was the best listener out of all of them. 

She was the youngest, and she would always be the youngest. What Y/N Crain never expected, however, was that she would become the youngest of five Crain siblings. 

There was supposed to be six of them, eight with their parents. Mom, Dad, Steven, Shirley, Theo, Luke, Nell, and Y/N. Eight was the magic number, she had been sure of it all 32 years of her life. She would use eight to brag about how big her family was in elementary school (counting Aunt Janet instead of Mom, but no one needed to know that), just as Luke would find himself counting to eight every time he got too anxious or scared. It was supposed to be six siblings, at least until Hugh Crain had called his youngest daughter to tell her the news, to tell her that her sister was gone. Y/N hadn’t understood him at first, but she found out later how normal that was. 

It had been late at night, and Y/N had found herself restless and annoyed. She had shot up at three o’clock in the fucking morning, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. For the smallest moment, after her eyes had opened, the air just wouldn’t move into her mouth and she worried she was dying. Less than a second passed before it rushed in, and her lungs filled up and let it out. Maybe she had been having some sort of a nightmare, Y/N had reasoned to herself in the cold emptiness of her apartment room. Like the ones that Nell would get about the Bent-Neck Lady. A shiver ran through her just thinking about it, and she suddenly became more aware of her surroundings than she had been. The moonlight from the window pierced her view, bringing her back to earth and leading her to her bedroom door. Slippers on her feet, Y/N Crain made her way away from her warm bed and into the unknown. 

She had put on water for tea, a trick her aunt had taught her what felt like forever ago and moved slowly to her counter in search of something to do. She hadn’t brought her cell phone with her from her bedroom and didn’t see much point in going back to get it. ‘Phones make it harder to sleep,’ Theo had pointed out to some degree of what Y/N suspected must have been hypocritical. ‘Something about the lights and radiation and shit like that.’ 

Her eyes fell on already opened mail, a copy of a magazine she had been meaning to read, ads for windows and preschools to potentially work at in the area, her ongoing shopping list, and other various papers she didn’t have the energy to sort through. Halfheartedly, she picked up the magazine and flipped through the pages.

From behind her, the tea kettle began to already let out a growing whistle, the sound coming much sooner than she had expected it to. Pulling her robe closer, she shuffled towards the sound and pulled the kettle off, the sound dying down and the steam dispersing. For some unknown reason, she thought back to her middle school science classes. 

The cup was light blue and warm. Her mind was fuzzy as she moved to her spot at the table, pushing aside the unchosen reading materials and placing her teacup and magazine down. 

Then she was awake. Blinking, she felt the feeling of blind confusion for the second time that night, realizing that the hard surface under her arms and head wasn’t her pillow, but the table. She had fallen asleep, and the cup of tea remained practically untouched. 

Some asshole outside was playing music, she thought as she turned to glance out the window. It was loud. It was loud and it was coming from inside her house. Murderer? Kidnapper? Pop-up DJ? Clarity came and with it a single word: phone. 

Who the hell was going to be calling her at this hour? Sighing, she pushed the chair away from the table and made her way to her bedroom. Sure enough, the screen was lit up and the phone itself was buzzing in place. ‘Dad,’ it read in bolded white letters, and Y/N felt the instinctual drop in her stomach that accompanies a late-night call, especially one from her quiet father.

Her hands were already shaking when she picked it up. “Dad?” The word came out less calm than she had intended. For a minute, Hugh Crain was silent on the opposite end and Y/N hoped that it was a mistake, that her father had never meant to call her. She was close to hanging up when his voice buzzed from the other end.

“Are you sitting down?” 

“Yes,” Y/N lied. “Yeah, Dad, what’s up?”

“Y/N, honey,” The other end filled with breathing for a moment. “Nell’s gone.” 

“Gone? I-” Any fear in her mind froze for a moment as she processed his words. “What do you mean gone, Daddy?” The younger woman’s voice was small and childlike. 

“She killed herself. Nellie’s dead.” His voice cracked, and Y/N found her own voice couldn’t do even do that. It was completely gone. Somehow, this seemed worse than the numerous endings she had seen in her head. Nothing specific ever came to mind, but visions of horrible accidents and even death floated in the back of her mind. Y/N couldn’t have imagined this. Never, not in a million years. 

“No,” The word broke the silence that had accompanied the confirmation. She wished she had sat down and her feet stumbled for footing. Landing on her bed, her hands moved to her mouth. “No, no. Nell. Nellie. Not Nell.”

It was too much at that moment. Y/N felt like she was going to explode, but she couldn’t breathe enough to do so. Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes began rapidly blinking away tears. Her father said something to her from far away, but she couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything past the buzzing in her ears that seemed to want to block out all other sounds, leaving her feeling small and alone. She could feel the distinctive lump in her throat growing, urging her to a complete breakdown. “Dad, I have to go,” Y/N spoke, though unable to hear herself talk. Hanging up before he could respond seemed the only way to save both of them from Y/N’s breakdown, and she opted to instead have it alone on the floor next to her bed. 

Nell had fallen into the role of big sister so quickly and so perfectly. It was as if she was born for it, possibly even more than Shirley or Theo had been. Any minutes she could spend watching Y/N were minutes Nell considered a success, although Y/N never knew this. All that she knew, and all she needed to know, was that Eleanor Crain had loved her so much, and now she was gone.

Y/N didn’t remember when her mother had died, but if she did she would know that how much she cried then was nothing compared to her screams now. Perhaps she hadn’t understood it as a small child, with her h/c hair still in the braids her mother had done them in before she had gone to bed. Her pajamas wrinkled and warm, her eyes sore with sleep as she rubbed them. She had been sleeping with Theo that night, at least when it all happened. It was a strange pull that brought her to Theo that night and not Nell as she had gone to often times before, but it seemed to make sense to Y/N in her young age. 

That brought about another thing Y/N Crain didn’t know, nor would she understand, was that she would have been in the Red Room with her siblings if she hadn’t had a nightmare, one where they sat around their mother’s coffin as it rained and that her nightmare had effectively saved her. 

If not Nell, Theo was the one Y/N went to when she was scared. This lingered in her mind, somewhere behind all of the pain, and she grappled for the phone. Y/N knew Theo’s number by heart, as she knew all of their numbers, but she went first for the contact containing it and paused. What would she say? Y/N didn’t think she actually wanted to talk, and she was almost positive Theo didn’t either. It would be nice to not be alone, but if she called Theo she would have to be alone after anyway. The pain of hanging up from that call might have been worse than she felt now. 

With a click, the phone’s screen went black. Y/N sighed a rough and uncomfortable sigh that bounced around in her throat as tears pushed against it. There was nothing left to do except cry, because what else can you do? After losing someone so close, so suddenly, and so horribly, there’s no way to process that. This must have been what Nellie felt like after her husband died, Y/N thought, before the picture of Nell she formed in her mind brought tears to her eyes once more. 

She would have to book a flight. It hurt, but one could only spend so much time wallowing before you have to move on. Isn’t this what being an adult was like? When Olivia had died, Y/N couldn’t remember seeing her dad cry at all. Granted, there wasn’t much she could remember about that day, but Y/N remembered how every single Crain around her had been so strong. And now, even she had to be strong. 

• • • 

Y/N Crain remembered very little about leaving Hill House, but she remembered almost all of the day they had arrived. The days in between blurred, and her four-year-old memory struggled to keep straight what was important and unnecessary. She remembered the buttons that Nell loved and cared for with such insistence, the time the siblings had all shown up to breakfast with their shirts backward to see if Mom and Dad would notice (Y/N was too giggly and practically gave it away), or the dresses that their mother would wear. No matter how hard Y/N had tried, however, she could never remember the warning signs towards her mother’s death, the horrible storm that shook Hill House, or the day Luke thought he saw a zombie in the cellar.

The wallpaper in the hallways was etched into your mind, the greens and blues that resonated and showed up in your most vivid dreams. ‘One could lose themselves in the memories of that house,’ Y/N reasoned, and yet she remembered almost nothing at all. 

As a child, she had followed Theo around through the dingy halls of Hill House. Theo had always been vocally annoyed by the younger Crain and the constant shuffle of her feet behind her, but secretly Theodora Crain was incredibly proud. And who could blame her? The twins had each other, Steven and Shirl seemed to get each other, and Theo liked to keep to herself, but where would that put Y/N? Nowhere fair, surely. So Theo was the obvious answer, she would just have to sacrifice her free time for a while. 

“Theo,” She remembered asking her from a yard or so behind her, Theo’s gloved hands swinging back and forth in her view. “Why can’t we get a puppy?” 

“Mom’s allergic,” She replied in the way that only Theo seemed to be able to do, without pause or thought but lathered in confidence. “Besides, I think a dog would be kind of annoying.” 

“Annoying?” Y/N repeated, turning the word over in her mind. “Why would it be annoying?”

“I don't know. They’re loud and get mud everywhere.”

“Daddy said they do poop a lot,” She added, ever eager to please Theo. Agreeing with her point seemed like the easiest way to do so.

Theo huffed. “I guess,” Y/N supposed that Theo did a lot of huffing, at least from her experience with the sound. Sometimes her huff was more of a sigh, but Y/N didn’t understand the difference yet, so she assumed they were all huffs. 

“We could get a fish,” Y/N continued with the idea. “Stevie said he wanted a fish, ‘member?” The word ‘remember’ was long for Y/N to say when she was excited or nervous, the times when her voice sped up and words blurred together, so it came out more like ‘membeh’.

“Fish are dumb,” Theo said, walking towards the black, spiraling staircase. “They don’t do much.”

With her dreams crushed, Y/N nodded solemnly. “I guess.” She joined Theo on the staircase, her small hand gripping to the railing. She would never admit it, but this staircase scared her, at least slightly. With its steps painted black and the handrails always feeling cold, Y/N could swear she felt like she was a single misstep away from falling every time. Theo seemed unnerved, skipping up the staircase with such speed that Y/N struggled to keep up. With a final huff, Y/N reached the top steps after her sister, although the two went in different ways. While Theo turned to the left, Y/N’s eyes spotted the younger children’s biggest mystery of Hill House: The Red Room.

The name encompassed most of what they knew about the mysterious room. The door was a vibrant red, with the same lion on the handle that the other rooms had. Hugh, even with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, had failed to produce a key that could open the door. It hadn’t admittedly been high on his list of priorities, and the younger children seemed to be having a good time guessing what was inside. They would get there eventually and likely be disappointed, so their father had figured there was no rush. 

The locked door had confused Y/N. Sure, she had encountered things that wouldn’t open before, but then she would just ask her parents or Steve and it would open eventually. She understood the concept of not being allowed into a room, but she knew that they were allowed in here. 

Her legs brought her to the right. “Let’s go in,” Y/N urged her older sister, her hand jittering the door. “Help me open it.”

“It’s locked, Y/N. We don’t know what’s in there. We can’t open it.” Theo said from a distance. 

Y/N frowned. “Mommy was in there.”

“No, she wasn’t. It’s locked.”

The younger of the two turned to look at Theo, her own stubbornness coming out to match Theo’s. “Yes, she was. I saw her in there. Luke and Nellie, too.” 

“Okay, well go ask her. She wasn’t in there.” Theo crossed her arms, her eyebrows raised. This was one of the many times she was right -- she was sure of it. Y/N liked to be stubborn lots, but she wasn’t usually right. Theo, on the other hand, seemed to have an ‘intuition’ (a big word that she had caught from a book Olivia was reading to her) when it came to these types of things. As if to drive this point, she added: “I know what I’m talking about.” 

Y/N paused before walking towards the staircase. “Mommy?” She called out, unsure of where Olivia had planted herself in the large house. Her mother responded that she was working on somethings, but Y/N knew that was just an answer to let the young girl follow her voice. 

They arrived in one of the bedrooms, their mother with her back facing the door as she scrubbed furiously at a stain in the corner of the hardwood floor. “Mom, Y/N thinks that you were in the Red Room,” The name felt natural as if she had been saying it as long as she had known colors. “But it’s locked.”

Olivia paused, turning to look at her two daughters. They stood in the doorway, Y/N squished against her older sister’s legs as they fought for space. It took their mother a moment to realize what Theo was talking about, but when she did, a laugh crept out of her lips. “No, I haven’t been in there,” She meant to continue, telling her daughters about how the moment that she or Hugh got in there, they would all get a proper look around and see that it was probably nothing to get nervous over. Before she could, Theo muttered something to Y/N about being right and walked away, probably to hide away so she could read in peace. 

“But Mommy, I know you were in there,” Y/N tilted her head, and Olivia smiled at the action. It would be years before Y/N would grow out of it, moving her head left and right whenever she was confused. “I know it. I saw you with Luke and with Nell. You were having a tea party, ‘member?” 

Olivia Crain looked into her daughter’s eyes, watching with curiosity as she insisted. The ‘special’ talk she had given Theo remained fresh in her mind, and Y/N’s ‘again?’ played in the back of her mind. “Can I give you another really big word?” She spoke softly, gesturing for Y/N to come closer. Her daughter complied with a nod. “Okay, this one is déjà vu.” 

“Dé-jà-vu,” Y/N repeated slowly. 

Olivia smiled. “Déjà vu is just a way of saying that something you see, or hear, or experience, is something you remember, but you just don’t know how,” Y/N nodded, her eyes not leaving her mother’s. It was these images that Y/N would cling onto later in life when Olivia was long gone. Her dark brown hair, practically black, falling in waves over her shoulders. Eyes bright and soft, her face aged but perfectly so. Her mother was perfect. “I think-” Olivia began slowly and hesitantly. “I think that when you walked into Hill House for the first time, you felt déjà vu, right?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I think that’s because you’re special.” 

Y/N was conflicted by the word. Her parents used it with such praise, but sometimes Steve or Theo would say it sarcastically, with a negative connotation as they teased their siblings. She repeated it, feeling stupid as she continued to say the same things her mother had said but unsure of what else to say. Looking back, Y/N remembered so many of the vivid points her mother had brought up as the two of them crouched in the corner. They had blown her mind; sent her reeling. The reason why Nell always seemed to understand things the others didn’t, how Theo had to start wearing gloves, her mother’s headaches and Shirley’s sleep talking. Special. There was no other way to describe it without sounding dumb, and Y/N appreciated her mother giving it a word so many years back. Y/N was special, just as her sisters were, and just as her mother was. 

Whatever Olivia was, Y/N was fine with being. “I think we’re going to get into the Red Room, and to celebrate we’ll have a tea party. I think your déjà vu just gave us hope, huh?” Olivia’s voice finished in a pleasant whisper, and Y/N nodded without even thinking about it. When her mother looked at her like that, with so much love and pride, how could you not?

Politely, Y/N said thank you before moving out of the room to look for better things. Olivia watched her daughter leave, her small bare feet leaving momentary prints on the wooden floor before vanishing like mist. Her youngest was growing up so quickly, she realized. Moments like this confused Olivia so much, the mixture of joy and pain as she thought of how only yesterday it was Steven being born, and tomorrow they would all be gone and through college. ‘We have to enjoy the time we are in now,’ Olivia reminded herself before turning back to the stained carpet. ‘No one knows if we’ll ever get to come back.’

• • • 

Y/N Crain did a lot of thinking on the plane, trying to distance herself from the woman and her toddler to her immediate right, and the man who kept moving from his seat to the bathroom in the aisle next to her left side. In all of those thoughts, Y/N came to this conclusion: 

The house had always wanted Nell. From the moment the family had laid its eyes on it, it knew it would be her. But it could never get the young girl, not then, because she had all of them. Her family. Their poor mother, in her beautiful green and blue dresses and sun hats was vulnerable. Y/N was there, and all of your siblings were there, but the burden of motherhood was too much for Olivia. She was weak, though none of them would ever know it, and the house took her before it could ever get to Nell. 

But it did get to her, and now Eleanor Crain was gone. Y/N’s beautiful older sister, with her buttons and long hair, her converse and sweaters, her visions and her worrying. Y/N didn’t realize this until later, much later, but every time she ‘dreamed’ of the house, Nell was there too. Sometimes the others would be there — Shirley leading the way or Steve telling her to be careful. But Nell was always there, watching Y/N with smiling and empty eyes. 

She had been thirty-one, six months before Nell would die and she had fallen asleep into Hill House. It was crazy how much Y/N dreamed about it, about the details that she unknowingly got correct, down to the number of patterns in the carpet under her feet. In these dreams, she was never younger than her own age. Y/N floated somewhere between who she was then and who she could grow into, but her siblings were always adults. They would act like children sometimes, and Y/N’s mind seemed to blend fiction with reality. 

This time was different.

She had arrived at an empty exterior. It was an empty shell of a nightmare, the windows dark and the door opened just enough for her to see it was dark in there too. In this dream world, it never occurred to Y/N that she may have been in danger. She was only curious, so she kept walking. Her feet froze at the entrance. The door pushed out winds somehow colder than her surroundings. Every bone in her body urged her to run away from the door, telling her that she wouldn’t like what was inside. With cold hands, Y/N pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was like walking into a different house entirely. Where Hill House had looked dark and intense from the outside, the interior was warm and well-lit. Her eyes traced the staircase, the ceilings that seemed to blend into the sky. Slowly, her feet brought her along towards the center of the room. Her siblings were standing there, Y/N realized once she had leveled her vision. Steven, Shirley, Theo, Luke, all standing in one line that blurred near the end. There were more people, she just couldn’t make out faces. 

All of the Crains were dressed in white. White dresses, white suits, white shoes. Y/N’s own outfit, if she had thought to look at it, was a faded white as well. They smiled at her warmly, and she felt comfortable. Y/N always felt comfortable in these dreams, never frightened or unsure. She was confident in her actions, walking her to greet her eldest brother at the head of the line. His hands were crossed in front of him, his whole face smiling. The bags under his eyes were gone, and he had seemingly left the tired author look behind him. 

“I saw her,” Steven smiled at his sister. “I saw her.” He leaned down to give her a hug, warm and comforting. Y/N secretly thought that Steve gave the best hugs, although Nell had been a close runner-up. Steve just had that very loving and caring feel that came from a lifetime of being the older brother. ‘He was never the youngest,’ she realized. ‘He never got to be me.’

From next to her, Shirley pulled her sister in for a warm hug, her eyes smiling in the way Y/N hadn’t see them do for quite some time. As they embraced, Shirley leaned into her ear. “Nellie’s in the red room,” Her voice was soft and comfortable, alright with the unusual statement. Y/N nodded as if she understood, moving onto Theo. 

The dark-haired sister paused when Y/N moved in front of her. After looking Y/N over, Theo seemed satisfied enough and pulled her in for a hug as the other two had done. “Oh, Y/N,” Breaking away from her, Theo took Y/N’s hands in her own pale, gloveless ones. She never wore gloves in these dreams. “I touched her. I touched Nell, and I touched death.” Her blinks were slow and calm, her voice as jovial as everyone else’s.

“I knew it,” Luke admitted from next to them. “I never thought about it, but I knew it without touching her or hearing her or seeing her.” Y/N nodded and pulled her brother in for a hug, wrapping her arms firmly around his. His face was clean, his hair brushed. Luke’s words were terrified, but his eyes smiled at her. Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the dream of her older brother, almost too sad to know she would move on again. 

“Y/N, honey,” The voice of her father spoke from next to the two women, and Y/N turned in the direction of the older man. When she saw him, however, Hugh Crain wasn’t older at all. He was the same age as the rest of the Crains, the age that the house remembered him as, and he looked brighter than Y/N had ever seen him look before. He extended a hand to her shoulder, his lips turning up in a soft smile on both sides. He looked calm, all-knowing. So much like her father, but a foreign being all the same. “Nell’s gone.” Y/N nodded, smiling softly back to him. 

In that second, it was if she understood it all. They would see Nell in her casket, in the same autumn-colored dress she would find herself in over ten years later. It wasn’t sad: they were all smiling. It wasn’t sad because it was a dream, it wasn’t real. “Y/N,” A voice floated down from next to them, a voice like a song if it could talk. Y/N Crain gave her father one more smile before turning her head and letting her feet walk. 

Their mother stood at the end, smiling. Y/N’s breaths continued on normally as if her dead mother wasn’t in front of her. It was a dream, Y/N reminded herself. Only a dream.

Olivia Crain smiled at her youngest daughter. “She came home,” She whispered softly and simply, although Y/N heard every sound. 

“She came home,” Y/N echoed, mesmerized by this dream of a mother. 

“You have to see Nell,” They spoke from behind her, their voices in unison. When she turned back to look at them, her siblings were all children. She guessed that they must have ranged from young teens down to kindergarten ages, although her parents remained the same. Her mother with her soft dark hair, never to be cut. Her father with his blue eyes that seemed to have dulled from this young man to her current image of him. “You have to see Nell.” 

“I have to see Nell,” Y/N turned around slowly, the smile painted on her face. She didn’t know where Nell was, yet she wasn’t lost. There was no rush as her feet moved slowly, her family wordlessly trailing behind her. She walked right of the staircase, the short hallway lit with white Christmas lights, twinkling on and off in rotating sequences. On the other side, they shot off in both directions, lining the top of the room and twirling around the statues that kept her sister company. 

Nell Crain lay in a bed in front of all of them, the white sheets neatly made under her body. She was dressed in red, starkly contrasting against the monotone white of your sibling’s outfits. She could have very well been asleep, but her chest was still. She looked fake like a doll would after she was lovingly dressed and her hair brushed. 

This was not her sister, but she smiled despite herself. “Nell,” Y/N whispered. The body before her didn’t move to answer, but she hadn’t expected that it would. The younger of the two reached down a hand -- a shaking hand, although she hardly remembered this -- and touched Nell’s shoulder, wrapping her grip around it as if it could wake her up with a squeeze. 

“She’s not sleeping,” A young Theo spoke from behind Y/N, suddenly closer than the others had been. Y/N turned to look at her, although her sister’s eyes fixed on Nell. 

Olivia stepped closer. “She’s awake now. Nellie’s awake.” In the fleeting moments of a dream, Y/N looked at her mother. It was when she saw her here that she realized the extent to which she missed her. Y/N had grown up motherless for the better part of thirty-two years, and she spent every moment of that time missing Olivia. She hardly remembered the last few days, when Olivia hadn’t been herself but some evil version of their mother, brought on by the wicked house. The memories Y/N had of Olivia Crain, although few, were all good. This was chiefly because she was a good mother. A great mother. 

She stood before Y/N now, her dress spilling out in folds of cloth across her legs and onto the floor, the sleeves flaring out only to tighten around her wrists. Her dark hair starkly contrasted the outfit, falling across her shoulders and back as if it was carefully placed there. Her mouth moved, repeating the last phrase Y/N had heard her utter, although no sound came out. Turning to where Nell had been, Y/N saw only darkness. It surrounded her, as it always did near the end, and Y/N woke up.

• • • 

Y/N had landed late at night, and gone straight to get a rental car. Shirley had called her the night before, to talk and check-in, and also to tell her that she had a room she could stay in at her house. It was an extremely nice, extremely Shirley thing to do, and Y/N appreciated it more than words could say. The rain that had been falling as she landed turned quickly to a storm and Y/N arrived at her sister’s house wet. She waited in the car for what felt like minutes, scared of going inside. Shirley had warned her that they would be setting everything up -- including Nell. She didn’t want to see her sister, not like this. It was a little funny, in a dark way, that Shirley was the one with a funeral home. She had been the one so scared to see their mom in her casket, which Y/N remembered so vividly because her sister being scared had scared her. Y/N had been attached to Hugh every moment she could since they left Hill House, and she had been holding her father’s hand as he had tried to convince Shirley to go up. They had all been scared, but none of them as much as Shirley. 

Once she got out of the car, she found herself hurrying more than she had been to get inside. The rain was coming down in bullets now, pounding against her jacket with such forces she felt she was practically soaked. Y/N hadn’t thought of bringing an umbrella, so she would just have to push through it. 

She rung the doorbell, thankfully waiting now under the cover of a porch. Shirley opened the door, Theo standing not too far behind her. Y/N sniffed from the cold, smiling at her older sisters. Her only sisters.   

“Y/N, hey,” Shirley spoke Y/N’s name first, her voice pleasantly surprised at the younger Crain’s appearance. Her mouth moved as if to habitually ask how Y/N was doing, before realizing the situation and moving in only for a hug. It was Y/N’s first hug since she had found out, she realized as Shirley wrapped her arms around her. They stood there for a moment, and Y/N had to remind herself to take deep breaths as her eyes watered. In the presence of her siblings, she felt younger than she did every other day, and she had to push to not fall into the role of younger sister waiting to be comforted. “Steve’s going to be here soon. He’s bringing Dad and Luke.” 

“How is Luke?” Y/N asked, voicing the worry she had been carrying for Nell’s twin. 

Shirley paused. “He wasn’t in rehab when they found him.” She said simply, her eyes darting between her sister’s to gauge her reaction.  

Y/N’s mouth formed an ‘o’, silently realizing what that meant. Nell had fucking died, and Luke had been off shooting himself up. She couldn’t help but feel bad for her brother, though. Nell and Luke always had their special connection; their ‘twin thing’. 

From out of the corner of her eye, Y/N saw Theo step closer. Y/N moved to her next, Theo forced to balance her almost empty drink as she was met with a hug from Y/N. It wasn’t nearly as warm or as long as the one she had shared with Shirley, but that was what she had expected from Theo. “Hey, kid,” Her voice was warm as she stepped back, crossing her arms enough to balance her drink. “How was your flight?” “Fine,” Y/N said, looking around at her surroundings. It was dimly lit, the blue walls making the room feel big enough that she almost didn’t see the front of the room, the shiny casket balanced near the wall. 

Shirley had followed Y/N’s gaze, and said softly, “You should go see her.” 

“Who?” Y/N said dumbly, before muttering that she was sorry. Who else would she be talking about, who else could she be talking about? These were the female Crains now, Y/N realized. Shirl, Theo, and her. No Mom, no Nell. Slowly, her body turned the direction of her dead sister, seeing the top of her face peeking out from above the edge. “Oh, God. Fuck.” 

She wished that either of her sisters would say something, keep her away from the casket. If she saw it, especially if she saw it as she had in her dream, that would make it true. More than anything, Y/N was praying that it was anything but. There hadn’t been much to say, however, and they all knew it was time for Y/N to do as they had done. “She looks really nice,” Shirley tried to ease her forwards, using the voice that she would bring forward when the small children were scared of the funerals. “You’ll feel better when you do.”

“I know,” Y/N brushed her sister off, taking her first step forward. “I have to see Nell,” The five words were uttered unconsciously, and only to herself. Her walk was slow and deliberate as if she could see it happening in some cheesy movie. Nell came more into the view as Y/N walked, scared to see what she knew was in there. Nell was in there, she saw when she reached the edge. Oh God, that was her Nellie. The same one who would give her two dozen hugs every time they saw each other, the same one that Y/N thought of every time she saw a button. “Shirley, I-” Y/N began, but her voice faltered. Her vision clouded, and she turned around blindly. “Shirley, I wanna go. I don’t wanna see her,” Y/N’s fragile voice echoed in her sister’s ears. Y/N walked clunkily away from her dead sister and towards the two remaining sisters, clutching her own torso as she cried. Shirley met her halfway, catching Y/N in a hug. The younger began to cry harder, Nell echoing in her mind. There was no reason to look at her any longer than she had; Y/N not only knew her sister’s face but she knew the situation. 

Shirley held her sister for what felt like five minutes. She had looked to Theo three times, but the first two the middle sister had been too engulfed with the bottom of her drink, and the third time Shirley Crain had realized there was nothing she could say or do to make it better. It was one of the hardest things as an older sister, having to assess the situation and leave it as it was. She held her sister because that was all she could do. 

By the time Steve and Luke entered, the three had sat down. Y/N had calmed down, her eyes still red and puffy but her voice steady. Shirley stayed next to her, letting Kevin fuss over the minor details of Nell’s appearance. They were discussing their father softly, the three sisters realizing that he had never been to the funeral home before. The doorbell broke the bubble the three had created, although Kevin jumped to get it. He was taking the reins, Y/N noticed. That was good. Shirley needed that break. 

None of them stood up. No one was eager to anything, which she had understood. “It’s funny, Nellie was always trying to get us together in one place,” Shirley spoke in her still voice, clearly uncaring at the familial appearance. “Even Dad tried for years,” Steve said something from the doorway, and the sisters stood up. They would face this burden together, they had agreed silently. 

Theo, who was the last to rise, said something from behind Y/N that she could hardly hear.  Her eyes were focused on Luke and Steve, their coats wet from the rain. Shirley made small talk, and Y/N could tell it was more forced than any conversation the two of them had shared that day. She was still mad at Steve for the book, Y/N reasoned. The younger patiently waited for a little behind her sister as Steve gave her a hug, fiddling with the sleeve of her jacket. She was nervous and hardly understood why. 

“Hey,” Steve moved to her next. “You okay?” It was clear that he had noticed her tear-stained eyes, although she couldn’t blame him. 

Hugging her oldest brother, she answered honestly, “No.”

Steve softly chuckled. “Fair enough.” He moved towards Theo, who walked past him.

Luke was next. He didn’t look high, you had noticed cautiously. In fact, he looked only as bad as the rest of the siblings, which was alright by Luke Crain standards. “Lukey,” Y/N extended your arms out and embraced him. He was cold under her grasp, and she wished that she could make him warm at that moment. Words left her brain, unsure of what to say as they hugged. They released, and Y/N could already tell his eyes were on Nell. She could watch him but refused to follow his gaze any further than when the chairs began. 

There was nothing that dictated who should go first between twins. For the rest of life, it’s supposed to be the oldest. Steve used to always joke about the five younger Crains planning his funeral, and it’s a worldwide regret when a child dies before the parent. Steve especially could see this in Hugh’s eyes, no matter how much he tried to brush it off or hide it. But Luke and Nell were twins. How were they supposed to know who ended in the coffin first?

Certainly not like this, Luke realized as he stared at his sister. Nell looked so serene, not like she was sleeping necessarily, but as if she was at peace. The harder he looked, the less she looked like Nell, however. Maybe the Nell lying there looked like the hundreds of pictures they had of her, but that wasn’t Nell. She was never some picture, and she wasn’t supposed to be some memory. She was Nell, and this was not Nell. Maybe it was better that way, for her to look like a memory of Nell and not his dead twin sister. 

From somewhere far behind him, lost in the emotions of it all, Shirley cleared her throat. “Dad’s not with you?” 

Steve nodded. “Uh, he’s still at the hotel. He told us to go ahead. He, uh, kept changing his clothes.”

Y/N joined her siblings. “He’s nervous.” 

“Yeah.” Steve looked at his sister. She looked more tired than he had ever remembered her seeming, her hair still damp from coming inside. His author’s mind formulated the words to match these pictures, the adjectives coming out sad and forlorn. Watching his siblings hurt like this was painful to Steve. He could hardly bring himself to look over at Luke, he wanted to tell Y/N to go take a needed nap, to tell Theo to try some water instead of the drink she was pouring herself. Steve even wanted to hug Shirley, who he hadn’t been on the best of terms with, and tell her it was going to be okay. 

Y/N spun out of his view as Luke rushed by, unable to even look at his twin sister in this state. No one moved to help him, because no one knew how. Luke needed to be on his own, and that was okay. Shirley brought the attention away from the awkward moment. “He seems a lot better than I expected.”

“Yeah,” Y/N agreed. “I don’t know what I expected, but I guess... higher?” 

“I know,” Steve said, nodding. “I think he’s actually clean a little while now.”

“So what was with the jailbreak?” Shirley asked. 

Steve shook his head. “Long story.” Not sure he wanted to tell it, he moved away to follow his brother. Y/N moved almost in sync with him, as if his movement had triggered her feet instantly. 

She let Steve do the talking. Everyone seemed to form in a circle around the two as they talked for a little, finishing with a hug. He knew how to do it, and all of the other Crain siblings recognized that.

• • • 

Hugh Crain arrived a little later, and things didn’t go as smoothly as Y/N or any of the others had hoped. Steve and Hugh were fighting it out, Shirley had just found at that Kevin had accepted the book money, and Theo seemed to be along for the ride. Someone had put buttons over Nell’s eyes, Steve had blamed Hugh, and the power chose the perfect time to go out. 

Things had only gotten worse from these, with Steve telling his father that the wrong parent had died, and Nell’s coffin came tumbling down. It took a moment like this, one so powerful and heartbreaking, to stop their fighting. Nell never liked it when they fought. 

Y/N had taken the silence to speak. “ I need to tell you something,” Y/N spoke quietly, but loud enough for her family to hear.

“Y/N-” Shirley began, her voice cracking. 

“I see things,” Y/N blurted out, and all five Crains looked towards the younger woman. “Future things.” She glanced from face to face, examining their reactions. Shirl’s eyes widened and her gaze seemed to focus like a camera at her sister as if she could see into her mind if she tried hard enough. Luke seemed to sit up a little straighter, his shoulders tensed and his head pushing forward. Steven looked as Y/N had expected him too — eyebrows raised, his position shifting to balance on both of his feet. If the circumstances had been altered, she almost would have giggled as his hands moved into big-brother-lecture-position on his hips. Theo just stared at her, face unmoving as she took a swig of her liquor. It was brought down with careful precision, her body swaying a little with the movement as she looked at Y/N, almost as Shirley had done. Theo’s gaze was more assertive, more final. Where Shirley wanted to see what was inside Y/N’s head, Theo was reading it. Hugh’s face remained focused and kind, nodding slowly. It was nice to look at him, unusually calming.  

“Future things,” Shirley repeated slowly. It took a momentary pause for Y/N to realize that this had been a question, and she nodded. “What kind of future things?” 

The h/c woman was stunned for a moment. For some stupid reason, she hadn’t expected they would ask what you saw. “Lots of things. Um, somethings are pointless. Like I saw Theo falling asleep during an AP exam a while back, or us picking out bridesmaids dresses with Nell.” She swallowed. “But then there’s... bigger things.” 

“What do you mean? What is this supposed to mean?” Steve scoffed, his voice confused and brotherly. 

“What kind of things, Y/N?” Luke asked softly. For a moment, Y/N looked to him without being as sure as she had been before. Unsure if she wanted to tell them, unsure if she wanted to reveal thirty-two years of safekeeping to anyone, even her siblings. 

Oh well. 

“I saw Steve’s book.” She gestured in his direction. “I saw Shirley get married. I saw Nell,” Y/N froze, suddenly too scared to say what she had really seen. In their eyes she could see that they all knew, however, but she looked down and croaked out, “I've seen Nell’s funeral.” 

What Y/N Crain had neglected to mention that when she walked into Hill House for the first time, she had said “Again?” firmly and distinctively. Olivia had smiled, although you didn’t see it, as if she knew something secret. She did, of course, but this was something Y/N would never find out from her, never find out at all for a long time. ‘It was as if she had been there before,’ Olivia had explained to Theo later on. ‘As if she knew the house from somewhere else.’ 

The siblings looked stunned. Theo was the only sibling to regain her cool composure, but even her face focused more on Y/N as she breathed heavily for a moment. 

“You what?” Luke’s voice was cracked, and Y/N almost heard the echo of the boy he had been. 

Closing her eyes for a moment, Y/N continued. “It was different, but we were all there. Mom was there.” She opened her eyes, glancing from person to person. “Nellie was lying down, and no one was sad. But it was a funeral. It had to have been.” 

Silence fell for a moment. They were all processing, thinking of the implications brought with the news. “When?” Theo spoke finally.

“What?”

“When did you see it?” Her voice was soft, the cold softness that only Theo could produce. 

“Um, a few months ago?” You guessed, struggling to remember. “Half a year, maybe. At most.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shirley’s voice, which had been harsh and bitter minutes earlier was now kind again. She had sat up a little straighter, her shoulders pushed back and her face a little paler than it had been before. Y/N never thought it would be this easy, never in the millions of minutes she had thought about telling them. Maybe they all knew, deep down, just as Y/N suspected they all knew about Theo. 

“I was scared,” Y/N admitted. “I had hoped it wasn’t true. But they always are.” 

“Always?” Luke repeated. 

Y/N nodded. “I’ve had these ever since Hill House. I don’t know, I hoped that maybe this time I-I was wrong.” 

“I think that’s one hell of a coincidence,” Steve said.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Hugh spoke up, and Steve rolled his eyes as he looked towards his father. “Your mother didn’t think it ever was, at least. She was hardly ever wrong.” 

Y/N jumped back in to prevent another father-son argument. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’m sorry. I just needed to tell you guys. I thought you should know.” 

Theo nodded. “We knew.” No one argued or said anything. 

• • • 

It was of the most stressful nights of both Y/N and Theo’s lives. The two had gone over to Theo’s place, bringing a few bottles of alcohol with them. Y/N Crain didn’t drink often, but when she did it was hard liquor. She supposed it was because when she needed it, she often really needed it. And with her mind flashing back to the fall of Nell’s coffin, the same moment she had felt her own chest fall.

“I feel like I shouldn’t have said that, not then.” Y/N admitted to her sister. The two were sat in chairs, practically side by side as they held clear cups in their hands. “It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Theo said. “What’s stupid is that you felt an obligation to tell them at all.” 

Y/N chuckled. “Easy for you to say. You’ve already sworn off telling anyone.” 

“No, I haven’t sworn off telling anyone. I’m just not ready.”

“When will you be ready?” Y/N asked, looking towards her sister.

Theo paused. “I don’t know. I’ll know when I need to.” She met her sister’s gaze before adding, “You did.”

Y/N chuckled slightly. There was a comfortable lull in the conversation, the air filled with silence and the soft scent of booze. “I feel like I’m drowning,” Y/N admitted out of the silence. “In all of it, all of this shit.”

“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.” 

“No, no, I know that. It’s just-” The words froze on her tongue and she sighed. “I miss Mom.” The admittance was soft. “Maybe she was an asshole and maybe she wasn’t, but I love her and I miss her.”

Theo nodded. “None of that was her fault.” 

“It wasn’t.” Y/N said confidently. “I mean, we don’t even know what shit went down in there. We may never know, Theo. And you know, I think I’m okay with that.” 

“Ignorance is bliss.” Theo nodded, her silky glove rubbing circles on the glass. “Fucking bliss.” 

“Fucking bliss,” Y/N repeated, mocking the action like a small child. “Not always, though. I’m glad I’m not ignorant about Mom. I’m glad I remember her, at least a little.” Y/N coughed after downing her drink.

“It’s good to remember,” Theo said, the way Y/N used to say ‘member’ lingering in her mind. 

“Yeah,” Y/N chuckled, looking down at her legs as she crossed them. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Theo nodded as if expecting more. “Got anything?”

“I remember this one time when we were all going somewhere, on a trip or something,” Y/N began, twirling the bourbon in your glass to watch it swirl. “Mom was sick and we were all so confused. Why can’t Mom come? Why does she have to stay at home? We were so angry and so confused and Dad -- poor Dad! -- he had to explain that we would be fine without her, that it was time for us to go and that she was sick. God, I can only hope we calmed down.”

Theo Crain froze but said nothing. Her youngest sister, Theo realized, had misremembered the most disturbing night of their lives, and perhaps she was better for it. Maybe it was better as a trip that they all took, hidden in a place where Mom’s problems were the flu or a cold, and Hill House was only a house. 

Only a house. she had told herself for years that it was only a house, just wood and concrete, and glass. The wallpaper was just a fresh covering, the paint a disguise. That there was nothing in those bedrooms, nothing in the cellar, nothing in the dark that could hurt her. And if it could, she had her family there. Her brothers would calm her down and her sisters would surely be able to take on whatever was intending her harm. In her parents’ eyes, she saw that they would never let it come to that, not willingly. And it never was willingly, not with their mother and certainly not with Nell.

There was some hidden comfort in that thought, Y/N supposed before smiling softly to herself. They had gone away, yes. Even though it had been at their own hands, she knew that it was never their intention to hurt everyone like this. She hoped it wasn’t their intention -- especially Nell’s -- to bring them all together in some twisted way. She would never admit it, but she was going to hug her siblings a little tighter and a little longer when they said goodbye again. 

They were Crains, and Crains were as strong as hell. That didn’t take much thinking. You could look to any one of your siblings and see time after time when they had overcome, both individually and as a family. When it felt like it was going to be too much, because it would certainly come to that, Y/N made sure she would be there a little sooner and a little longer. 

Looking up at Theo, Y/N smiled. “What?” The older woman said, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Y/N remarked softly, her eyes turning to the table. She looked back up, adding, “I love you.”

Theo gave her a curious smile. “I love you, too.”

Y/N knew that when her sister spoke, it was final and for all of them. They all loved her, she knew that. It was nice to hear it, to know for sure that she was loved by these people she gave her heart and soul to every day of her life. They loved her, and at that moment, that was all she needed. 

[hamiltontrashaccount]

Promise Me: Part 6 (Anthony Ramos x Reader)

SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG SCHOOL IS WACK EW EW EW EW BUT HERE IT IS YALL HOPE YOU LOVE IT <3

Pairing: Anthony Ramos x Reader

Word Count: 2847 (damn das long)

Warnings: some NSFW things, cursing, just anthony ramos in general sooo

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

MASTERLIST

You didn’t hesitate to kiss him back.

One of Anthony’s hand traveled back up and cupped your face, bringing it higher so that he could get a better angle of your lips. The kiss got deeper and deeper by the second. It started out hard and fast, but the more you two got used to the taste of each other’s mouth, the slower the kiss became.

His lips slowly caressed yours, sliding his tongue between your lips. You moaned and he responded by lightly pulling on your hair. Your bodies were still grinding to the music, and the kiss was still getting hotter. Your arms snaked around his neck and your fingers buried themselves deep into his curls.

When Anthony started biting your lip, you felt a vibration from the back of your jeans.

You broke away from the kiss and Anthony groaned.

“I think my pants are vibrating.”

“Kinky.” Anthony mumbled. He started to kiss your neck while you took your phone out to check who it was that was calling you.

It was Phillipa. She had called you ten minutes ago, and the vibration that you felt was her sending a text.

“Hey, pick up your phone”

“I’m heading home soon, do you want anything to eat?” She texted.

“Antho- Mmmmm…” You moaned when Anthony started sucking your skin. “Wait, no stop.” He pulled away and looked at you.

“What’s up?”

“Phillipa is going home now and we’re nowhere near there.”

“Oh shit.” he said. He grabbed your arm and started dragging you towards the door.

“Oh my god, I’m so wasted. She’s gonna know I went out.”

“Relax. She can’t get mad at you for leaving the house. Didn’t she tell you to go out and do something?”

“Kinda? Wait, slow down. You’re gonna make me sick.”

“That’s not something I hear often.” Anthony mumbled, slowing down to let you breath.

Your phone vibrated again.

Another text from Phillipa. “I’m like 20 minutes away, I guess youre asleep.”

“Aw shit, she’s almost home. We gotta hurry.” You said, starting to walk faster.

Anthony was finally able to hail down a cab.

“Hey, if you make it there as fast as you can, I’ll give you an extra $20 tip.” Anthony said after he told the cabbie where to go.

“Does that mean you want me to run some red lights?” He asked, turning around to look at the both of you.

“Do whatever you want.” You said.

The cabbie shrugged and drove off. You and Ant were pushed back by the force of the car’s speed.

The cab got in front of your apartment building 10 minutes later. You both ran up the stairs, knowing the elevator was probably going to take too long.

Once inside your apartment, you and Anthony took a breath.

“We did it.” Anthony said. Suddenly you heard Phillipa and Steven’s voice from behind the door.

“Oh fuck. You’re not supposed to be here.” You said. Anthony looked around, searching for a way out.

“My window!” You whisper-shouted. Anthony nodded and followed you into your room.

You practically pushed him out of your window. “Hurry up!”

“Hey, wait! Don’t I get a goodbye?”

You rolled your eyes. You gave Ant a kiss on the cheek and he smiled, then left. You shut the window and heard the front door open.

“Y/N!” Phillipa called out. You quickly took off your jeans and threw on your pajama bottoms.

“I’m in my room!” You answered. Phillipa walked in, wearing a short dress and high heels.

“How was the date?” You asked, giving her a wink.

She giggled and sat down on your bed. “It was fun. Me and Steve went pretty far and we tried like three different restaurants.” She turned her head to the side. “What’s that on your neck?”

“What?” You said, turning around to look in the mirror. Right there, in the middle of your neck, was the biggest fucking hickey to ever exist in mankind.

“Oh, I dropped my phone on me last night.” You explained.

“Damn, how high did you have the phone? Mine has dropped on me but its never that bad.”

You shrugged your shoulders. Phillipa sighed and said, “Okay, well it’s almost 1 in the morning so I’m heading off to bed.”

“‘Kay. Goodnight.” You said, hugging her. When she was out of the room, you grabbed your phone to text Anthony.

Without looking at the contact, you typed out, “You gave me a hickey, shithead.” You had just hit send when you looked at who you sent it to.

BOYS WITH BIG CATS

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck no.” You said, typing out an apology.

“That wasn’t meant for you guys ignore that omfg”

“Who the hell is giving you hickeys at 1 o’clock in the morning?” Daveed asked.

“No one. I said ignore the text.” You texted before shutting off your phone. “I need to sleep.”

The next day was chill. You and Phillipa spent the day inside, only leaving to get food then coming back home. You and Phillipa finished watching season 6 of Gilmore Girls that night.

“Loralei and Luke belong together.” Phillipa said.

“I know. Oooh, also Jess and Rory. I love them.” You added.

“Meh, I preferred Logan.”

“No way! Logan is hot, but Jess is sexy.”

“I guess.”

It was 10 by the time the last episode finished. Phillipa said she was going to head off to bed then left the living room.

Since you hadn’t checked it in a while, you decided to look at the boy’s groupchat.

They sent a good amount of messages in the group chat that day, too many for you to read them all so late.

You were skimming the messages, trying to get a gist of what the boys had talked about when you read a message from Daveed that made you stop.

“Anthony gave you the hickey, I fucking knew it”

“What? What would make you think that” Anthony asked.

“Oh, maybe this picture here that a friend of mine took”

Sure enough, Daveed had a picture of you and Anthony making out at the party.

“That doesn't even look like us”

“Oh shut up we all know it was you guys. Why are you trying to hide it” Oak sent.

“Whatever" Anthony said, with an emoji that was rolling it's eyes behind the text.

The conversation changed after that, to sports then to some restaurant.

You didn't respond to any message, knowing they would start blowing up your phone again if they saw you were awake.

The next day, Phillipa invited you to go to the theater with her. While Phillipa was in the shower, you baked some brownies real quick, wanting to give the cast a little bit of sweets before their performance.

Of course, Daveed was the first person to walk up to you.

“Are those brownies?” He asked, pointing to the pan that you were carrying.

You nodded your head. Daveed wasted no time in trying to grab the pan from you before you loved it out of his reach.

“This is for everyone.”

He frowned and let you walk ahead of him to let everyone else grab.

Nobody was really doing anything, since the show started in an hour and a half.

Anthony walked towards you. “Hey,” he said.

You smiled at him and raised the pan, offering him a brownie.

“Well don't mind if I do.” He said taking one and moaning as he took a bite. “These are fucking good.”

You giggled and thanked him. You both stared at each other, completely forgetting that there were other people in the room with you two.

You suddenly remembered the night before last and your cheeks turned red. As if he could read your mind, Anthony's face started turning red also, but a smirk looked like it was trying to make its way out.

Someone cleared their throat, making you and Ant get out of whatever trance you had each other in.

“I'm gonna go give brownies to other people.” You said. Anthony nodded his head and turned away from you. You saw him shake his head as he walked away.

You found Oak in his room, texting on his phone.

“Who you textin?” You asked him. “A hot date?”

Oak laughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, my girlfriend. She might be coming to see the show today.”

“Oh cool, I wanna meet her.”

“Of course.” He said, taking a brownie from the pan.

Pretty soon the brownies we're all gone, some people having gotten seconds.

“Arm wrestle, you and me!” Daveed shouted to Anthony.

They were both on stage, so you and a couple of people had to walk from backstage to see the battle.

“Let's go!” Anthony shouted. Both him and Daveed took of their shirts.

A couple of people cheered, you being one of them.

Jasmine was standing next to you. “Do they always do this?” You asked.

“Yeah, any time someone challenges you to an arm wrestle, you have to do it shirtless.”

You gave her a confused look and she shrugged in response.

Everyone watched both men struggle to win the game. In the end, Anthony won.

Everyone cheered for him and he jumped around, throwing his hands in the air. When the cheering died down, everyone walked away, going back to doing whatever they were doing before the game.

You couldn't help but start at Anthony's body. You already knew he was ripped, but shirts didn't do him justice. His body was so much better with no clothes on.

You tried your best to not stare at him, you really did. But it was hard; maybe one of the hardest things you'd ever done. Anthony, thankfully, didn't catch you staring, but it seemed like he knew you were watching. His biceps flexed much more than usual; the veins in his arms were more pronounced. And his ass in those jeans? Perfection.

You walked around, passing by different dressing rooms, still thinking about how amazing Anthony looked and how much more amazing he would look if he we're completely nak-

“Hey!” You heard Anthony say, stopping your thoughts from going completely in the gutter. He was still shirtless.

“Hey.” You greeted back, trying hard not to look down.

“Are you staying for the show or…?”

“Oh yeah, of course. What else am I gonna do, right?” You laughed awkwardly.

Anthony chuckled with you, just as awkward. Both of you stood in silence before Anthony stepped aside to let you into his dressing room. You walked in and he closed the door, leaving a small crack open.

“So what is this whole… taking off your shirt thing?” You asked, gesturing to his naked torso.

“I don't know. It's this dumb rule we made up that when we have an arm wrestle we do it shirtless.” He said. “Not a lot of people like to play it, for obvious reasons.”

“Well duh. Who can compete with that body?”

He winked. “That's what I've been saying.”

The conversation stopped. In the silence, you finally looked down at Anthony's shirtless body. Without realizing it, you licked your lips. He smirked, moving closer to you. You moved your eyes up, drinking in his beauty before you finally looked at his face. His lips looked amazing; you could remember the taste of them from Saturday and you had the worst thought ever: you needed to kiss him again.

Without thinking, you grabbed into his face and brought his mouth down to yours.

He kissed you back, his arms wrapping around your waist. You opened your mouth, letting his tongue slide between your teeth.

The kiss felt just the same as it did that day. It was just as hot and just as sensual.

So it wasn’t the alcohol. You thought.

Anthony’s hands moved down to grab your ass, rubbing you into his body like he’d done that weekend. Your own hands buried themselves into his hair, pulling at the curls, making him moan loudly. You broke away from the kiss.

“You trying to get us caught?” You giggled. He smiled and picked you up. You quickly wrapped your legs around him and he carried you over to the small desk. He sat you down on it, his lips never leaving your neck.

“You better not leave another hickey.” You said.

Anthony breaks away from your neck and looks at you. “Whoops.”

“Ant!” You shouted, hitting him on his shoulder. He smiled again and reached up to kiss you.

You weren’t mad anymore. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was Anthony, his lips, and all the places his hands were roaming. The entire world melted away, until Anthony was the only thing you could think about.

“Woah.” A voice said from the doorway.

You and Anthony quickly moved away from each other. You felt a breeze on your chest and looked down to see that Anthony had stretched your shirt low in order for him to kiss down your chest. You tried to lift your shirt up to cover up your breasts and failed, so you settled for just putting your arms over your chest. You could see Ant trying to fix his jeans; you guessed it was to hide the boner he’d gotten during your makeout session.

Oak was the one standing at the door. You released the breath that you’d been holding since you’d been caught.

“Y/N, I think you have a little something right there,” Oak said, pointing at a spot on your neck. You knew that he was talking about the hickey.

“Okay.”

“You should look at it, it’s really big. It’s right there. All big and purple, just this huge bruise in the middle of your neck.” He looked lower. “You also have one-”

“I get it! Just get out!” You shouted, pointing at the door.

Oak slowly backed out of the room, holding his arms up in surrender. He didn’t close the door on his way out.

You ran to the door and slammed it shut. “You don’t think he’s gonna tell, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

“Definitely as in he won’t tell, or definitely as in he will tell?”

“Answer choice B.”

You turned to Ant. “What?”

“Relax, relax. I’ll talk to him.”

You didn’t respond, only stared at Ant.

“Hey, it’ll be fine. All we were doing was making out.”

“Anthony, I’m not embarrassed, I’m worried. What if he tells Phillipa?”

“I- Y/N, I don’t know why you’re so scared of Pippa knowing that we’re hanging out.”

“Because… She...”

Anthony looked at you, waiting for an answer.

“I… She said you’re a player. That you won’t treat me right, and that...” You didn’t want to say the other thing that Phillipa told you.

“That?”

“That you’re an asshole and that you don’t even deserve me.”

Anthony looked angry. “What? Is that what you think of me?”

“No, Anthony, I-”

“I don’t do that, I don’t- Gah!” He ran his fingers through his hair and turned away from you.

“Anthony,” you said walking up behind him and putting your hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think of you like that.” He turned his head slightly until he could see you in the corner of his eye and you kept talking. “I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’re the sweetest, most thoughtful guy I’ve ever known. You always know how to make me laugh and if I’m ever angry or sad, you always know how to calm me down. You’re my best friend in the whole world. There’s no way I could not talk to you.”

Anthony was now facing you. “Best friend?”

You were silent before you swallowed your fears and said, “Yes... but I wish you were more.”

His eyes flashed with emotion; could that be hope that you saw?

“I- I’ve never felt like this about anyone. You complete me. And I can never stop myself from thinking what would it be like if we were… more, you know?”

He smiled and his hands cupped your face. “Me too.”

“Me too what?”

“I want to be more too. I want to be so much more.” He dropped his head until your foreheads touched. “God, I like you so much it hurts.”

You smiled and tilted your head up to kiss him but he moved back before you could.

“Y/N, are you sure you want to do this? If Phillipa finds out… I just don’t want this to ruin what you guys have with each other.”

You shook your head. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks about us. I just want to be with you.”

Anthony smiled. He slowly brought your heads together until your lips were almost touching. The suspense was too much. Without waiting another second, you slammed your lips onto his and you both kissed each other until you knew he had to get ready for the show.

As you walked out of the dressing room, you sighed. God, You thought. Life is so great. What could go wrong?