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anika-ann · 6 months ago

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The (Un)Expected - S.R.

Type: one-shot, soulmate AU, good ol' meet-cute (soulmates meeting for the first time prompt)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word Count: 8k

Summary:

A soulmark shows the first words your soulmate will speak to you. A soulmark tells you there is the person for you out there. A soulmark tells you what to expect.

For that, Steve’s is a source of comfort and anxiety to him. You always had a complicated relationship with yours.

But maybe they will teach you a lesson in the end – that the only thing one should really expect, is the unexpected.

Warnings: brief angst, mention of cancer (not reader), canon-typical violence, mention of death (no major character), blood and injuries, language, FLUFF so take it easy on sugar before reading

A/N: written for the Community Revival Extravaganza hosted by the wonderful @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420 . Thank you both so much for hosting and stirring life in the fandom! I loved seeing the traffic and positivity on my dash - you're doing god's work 💕

A/N 2: DIVIDER by @firefly-graphics; enjoy y'all 🥰

Steve Rogers was a sickly child.

He spent too much time to his liking in his bed – and even more time outside of it despite feeling sick for he couldn’t bear resting anymore, craving to explore the world instead – and was sneaked into a doctor’s office by his mother quite often as well. She only got him in as a favour, courtesy of her own good name – a nurse working double shifts and lending a helping hand wherever she could, a single mother working herself to a bone to take care of and set example to her only son.

A single mother, a nurse, a good person – a beautiful soul. She left this world too soon, but she left an imprint on Steve’s heart larger than any other person, perhaps besides Bucky, ever could.

All that told him, even as indirectly, that his soulmate would be one special dame. She would be kind, she would be brilliant and for that alone, he knew she would be beautiful.

Steve knew that as soon as he could read, as soon as he could decipher the words on his skinny forearm.

In a world where first words your soulmate would tell you were laced into your skin for you and your soulmate’s eyes to see only, his words told him his soulmate was a little miracle.

'I’m not a doctor yet.'

Steve had spent a fair amount of time around nurses and doctors to know that all nurses were women and the overwhelming majority of doctors were men – by the time he was ten, barely a few women were allowed to attend medical schools, let alone graduate. But you, you would be on your way to reach that. Brilliant. Driven. Desiring to help people, to heal.

It was only when other children, other guys and girls alike, began laughing at him for being too little, too weak, too bony, when his heart began to ache for a different reason than illness. If you were to be all these amazing things he had dreamed of, what were you to do with a sickly fella like him? With your words to him being these, it was a fair assumption to make that you would meet due to his health issues, perhaps a smart dame taken under a more experienced doctor’s wing during your studies. How disappointed you would be when your soulmate, the one person meant for you and chosen by destiny itself, would be… that?

That upsetting idea haunted him, hurting more than the bruises that had formed under fists of bullies Steve kept trying to save those even weaker than him from, more than stick and stones and words alike.

Then again… there was a little silver of hope in his heart, a little shy voice in his head. If you were to be his true love, then certainly you’d accept him, yes? If he tried, if he tried hard enough to be a good man, the best possible version of himself, if he worked hard to protect and feed his future family, set a good example for your future children as his mother had, worked towards making a better world, you’d accept him? If he could live with not being as great as others but never stopped trying, you would respect him and perhaps even loved him for what he was?

Then, of course, war came and those thoughts were pushed aside.

Then, he grabbed at his chance to fight that war, to do his part, to help – and incidentally, he also earned his chance to literally grow. Healthy. Strong. More worthy; but remaining good, because that was the one part of him he wanted to hold on to no matter what, that one part he would wish his love, wherever she was, would love him for, even if he suddenly shrank back into the back of skin and bones he used to be.

Then, he lost his best friend Turned into a failure.

And then… then he died.

One of his last thoughts were of you, a beautiful woman with vague appearance but strikingly kind heart and sharp mind. He prayed you’d get a new soulmate somehow, even as those cases weren’t heard of. He prayed you’d live a happy healthy life without him, at least as good as he would have tried his best to give you, to build with you, even as his own heart was breaking to pieces, regret veiling his body as water and snow and icy wind would, regret for missing his chance to meet the most special person in his world.

When he closed his eyes and still saw the white of ice and the blue of the deep sea, he’d swear he saw your face, crystal clear, for the first time – and the last time – in his life.

Seeing you, a stunning mirage, his last thought was that you were an angel gently leading him into afterlife.

When he woke up to a new millennium, one of the first things he did was checking his forearm; he words still sat there, taunting, mocking and heartbreaking, another screaming reminder of him not belonging here.

As years passed by, the sense of alienation subdued. Steve Rogers learned to belong, even as a piece of his heart was missing, longing for the past life – and the life he had never got to have – always humming in his chest quietly.

The mark on his forearm remained, a sad memento to a soulmate he had never met, turning him into a martyr.

But many people had rejected the idea of soulmates in this time, rebelling against their so-called fate, taking off on a path of searching love on their own. Steve learned they did so for various reasons – a sense of adventure before they’d truly find their one true love, a quest to choose the fortune and love on their own terms, a fuck-you to the universe when their soulmate turned out to be less than they imagined and hoped.

His own reasons, as he reluctantly started to look for a person to share his life with, were rather unique, but no one looked at him through their fingers for that. If anything, those who cared about him encouraged him, wishing for his happiness.

It was only when he got Bucky back – one of his greatest regrets not erased, not lessened since Bucky had endured unimaginable pain, but transformed, a piece of Steve’s past brought back to life – that he began to wonder about the almost blasphemous thought he had forbid himself from entertaining when he had been first brought back to life from ice.

Were you still there somewhere?

And then, a shier thought:

Is there still a chance for me to find my true soulmate?

And then, the shiest one of them all:

Is there a chance for me to find happiness with you?

When he had thought of that before, he was certain that since you were still alive – he had read reports of people claiming their soulmark changed colours if their loved one died – he had thought of you as an old lady who had hopefully lived her life as he had genuinely wished for her.

But what if fate, that little minx who had taken his best friend for life from him only to give him back, had somehow blessed Steve with a soulmark decades before you were even born? What he hadn’t lost his chance, what if you were still young enough to build a life with him? Was that even possible? There were aliens, flying suits of armour, other realms, downright magical weapons… he had been given a second chance at life. There were things happening Steve would have never thought possible before. So was there a chance…?

The idea of you being a doctor became much more plausible too – in this century, female doctors were a much more common occurrence. That, naturally, did not diminish your brilliance whatsoever, the fundamental idea of who you’d be never changing in Steve’s mind. The image only became less surreal in one way and a whole lot more surreal in another.

For his own sake, he didn’t give in into that hope fully; at least he told himself that despite lying awake at night, a ghost of a woman he had never met lying next to him, radiating non-existent warmth he wished with his whole being he could touch.

He wasn’t chasing after the ghost, didn’t allow himself that – there was no way to do so to his knowledge anyway – for the chances of success were rather slim.

But there was always hope, wasn’t there?

And the longing for love, whether it was in the hands of fate or in his own to find it, remained, built into his very body; etched into his bones, flowing through his veins, laced into his skin beyond the words on his forearm, always humming quietly in his heart.

In the age of information and science, the concept of having your ideal partner for life chosen by some mysterious abstract entity called Fate was literally otherworldly. Alien. Absurd even.

And yet, it still ruled the lives of many.

Which, in all honesty, was almost even more fascinating than the existence of soulmarks itself – the belief people had for them despite being no logic to them at all.

Perhaps it was the little piece of human soul, an inner child people so desperately wanted to cling to for its own beauty and purity, a child who never wanted to stop believing in magic, fate, dragons, mighty knights and kind-hearted ladies, in all things of fairytales and happy-endings the most. Because to a point, that was what soulmarks were – and little fairytale-like book of destiny.

One that not even science seemed capable of beating.

And you should know; you were somewhat of a scientist yourself. And despite how unfathomable the nature of soulmates was, you could not say that you rejected the idea of them, of someone who was born to belong with you, someone you could share your life with, the right partner in the crime of life. Basic bodily needs aside, wasn’t that the most fundamental need of all? To love and be loved; to belong?

Who wouldn’t wish for that reassurance that they could have that, that some strange force of universe itself created a person like that for them? They were the god’s strongest soldiers you supposed; because you were certainly not immune to that tempting comfort.

But you weren’t obsessed – and you prided yourself in the fact. Mostly because the sheer fanaticism of the world over soulmarks, the one thing that kept defying science – besides alien portals, magical blue cubes, demigods walking the Earth and things alike – was dialled up ad absurdum.

There could be billions of dollars poured into research of curing cancer. Cure autoimmune diseases. Helping the homeless. Slowing down global warming. Erasing poverty and famine. Protecting nature, endangered species. Discovering new worlds, exploring space.

But no. Governments poured billions of dollars into researching soulmarks. How was it they existed? How was it you could cut through skin, you could cut off skin and the mark would reappear somewhere else? What was the grand scheme of them? Why was it that only two people who belonged together could see them and the person speaking the words could only see it on their soulmate’s skin after they spoke the words, almost like a fail-safe that couldn’t seem to be broken with any tricks?

It wasn’t a question of physics as far as people knew; they had tried to build sets-up of various optics, thermovision cameras and complex sets of lenses and mirrors, and none of the reports you had ever heard of claimed success. It wasn’t genetic markers either; no one had discovered a sequence of DNA responsible for soulmarks, let alone turned whatever discovery they would have made into a tool of reading anyone’s but their own and their soulmate’s mark. It didn’t seem to be chemistry either; no one had made a groundbreaking discovery or at least they hadn’t informed the scientific or any other community so far.

But by gods, forget the space race. Attempting to be the first one to somehow read everyone’s soulmark and then create an algorithm to monetize it as the one and only soulmate dating app, now that was a competition overflowing with cutthroat madmen. Not to mention the crowds looking to temper with soulmarks, to make another one appear on someone’s body; or worse, to erase the original soulmark and instead design one capable of manipulating the outcome of a soulmate match.

You found the force of that obsession insane – and frankly, all the attempts morally wrong. While dedicated to science and loyal to discovery, you found soulmarks to be something sacred, one of the things that should not be touched by filthy human hands; god knew humanity, while doing a lot of good, had mucked up about just as much.

You were not alone in that belief. There were, in fact, numerous demonstrations against scientists experimenting with soulmarks, people protesting against anyone creating such tool and using it to temper with natural course of things no one fully understood, not for the lack of trying. However – as expected everywhere where politics and money were involved – these protests were in vain.

They were as vain and futile as the research of the marks itself.

As for your own soulmark, you had a rather complicated relationship with it.

On one hand, it gave you a sense of peace – there was someone for you, even as sometimes it did not feel plausible at all. You had time too – because based on those words, you would not meet your soulmate until in your twenties at least. You had plenty of time to become who you were meant to be before a man could turn your life upside down, even as that was not supposed to be what soulmates did, at least not in a bad sense of the word.

On the other hand, it was a ball and chain. You would not find you soulmate sooner than in your twenties and sometimes, you missed them despite not having met yet. When imagining what your meeting could be like based on their first words etched into your skin, you feared they might be a little disappointed – even as you did not let that stop you from pursuing the life you wanted. And despite you wanting to choose the career either way, it felt like someone – be it god, fate or another cosmic entity humanity was yet to discover – had chosen the path for you the moment you had been born if not before.

'Doctor, are you alright?'

Four simple words that couldn’t be more ordinary and yet extraordinary for they represented one of the most meaningful encounters of your life. The source of as much comfort as anxiety.

You couldn’t stand hospitals ever since you were a child. The cold environment reminded you of the strange icy feeling that had settled in your chest over the months you had been visiting your dying father, your naïve eyes watching cancer bite off his energy and smiles first, before it swallowed his whole body and soul. He had been a ghost long before he passed; and in your mind, despite all rationality even years after, that ghost haunted any hospital you visited.

Learning what your soulmark was as a child, you had spent countless nights crying, soul torn into pieces, pushed and pulled between the visceral desire to live up to your soulmark and the crippling nausea at the mere thought of dealing with people drowned in misery caused by any illness in the cold institution they called a hospital.

However, the curious kid you had been, you had fallen in love with science itself.

And that one day at school, when a classmate of yours had brought their father to the class to talk about his job as a doctor, you had burst into tears. You began to sob in the middle of him explaining to third-graders that he was not a medical doctor, but a physicist with a doctorate earning him the degree of a doctor as well. You remembered your teacher leading you outside of class, concerned and absolutely baffled, trying to sooth you helplessly even as you were completely inconsolable – because you did not need consolation.

You were crying the happiest, most relieved tears of your life.

You could still be a ‘doctor’. And you genuinely wanted to be one, not just because of what your soulmark read. You had always wished to help people indirectly, even as you looked back at your life now. Sure, your soulmark could have been adding fuel to your drive when your motivation had been running low, but this was who you desired and was meant to become.

A molecular biologist. A doctor in making. Researching the effects of medicinal drugs with hopes to improve them.

A scientist not researching soulmarks, thank you very much.

And yes, there was the lingering feeling of missing a person you hadn’t even met yet – especially when Doctor Simmons’ face lit up like fluorodeoxyglucose in PET scans whenever she saw Doctor Fitz – but you had other things to focus on. And you had time. There was no pressure.

You were not a doctor yet, after all.

Naturally, just because you dodged the joys and sorrows of being a medical student and later on, a medical doctor, it did not mean that you had it easy. No one working on their doctorate did. But when you decided to pursue your degree and work in research, you signed up for that.

You signed up for a lot of things.

It was a little peculiar for you to be on the SHIELD campus in the science division without a doctorate. It was a known fact that SHIELD only recruited best of the best, this Science ad Technology in particular: you needed at least one doctorate to even walk through the door, which was something you were reminded a lot because you did not meet that requirement and here you were.

But SHELD owned the best equipment and you were fortunate enough to get in by the lovely game of fate, being good and driven enough and having met the right people at the right time. SHIELD Academy’s Science & Tech division had the unique equipment you often needed for your research. Your research was interesting enough for people who had perhaps more power over your little life than fate itself. Stars aligned.

It was no walk in a parc, but you were no fool; jumping after that opportunity after having one too many doors shut into your face was a no-brainer. Even though it meant signing up for a whole extra load of shit.

You signed up to be the weird girl. The privileged girl. Hell, even the stupider than local average girl, because you were only an engineer at this point.

You signed up for being the young girl, even as you had met a few people there who had started younger, having actually earned their first PhD at age 17 or less.

You signed up for mockery and misogyny, for as you were aware the level was blissfully low here compared to other workplaces, especially where science was concerned; in exact science, you observed, more than anywhere you ever heard of, it was customary to keep that one insufferable employee, because they were simply that good at their job, no matter that they had cost the department a few other employees.

You signed up for living on campus with other SHIELD recruits, which meant living in close quarters with other divisions; as a result, some days the whole area seemed to swim in testosterone emitted by the hulking special agents in making from Operations.

But that was okay. You could do it.

There were bright sides too, many of them. Like pursuing your dream career. Being among like-minded people whose brain, to a large point, ran on the same wavelength. Hooking up with a handsome but notbrainless recruit from Operations or Communication here and there, some flings, some relationships, because if you were to wait for the love of your life, you might as well not wither completely. You were only human and you had needs along with your lifegoals.

You more than willingly signed up for working with Agent slash Doctor Jemma Simmons. With her two PhDs and rich experience from the field, she had left the action behind in order to work on her third PhD and help humanity without having her life on the line every day. She was hard-working, with no-nonsense approach and lovely sense of humour with plenty of stories to back it up; she was overall pleasant person to work and be friends with and despite having been through amazing and terrifying experiences other people couldn’t even imagine, she remained surprisingly down-to-Earth.

Sure, she had her quirks like insisting on having a gun at hand at all times and stashing a few small vials of altered Molotov cocktail, a mixture of chemicals which would ignite upon the vial breaking, in one of the nearby cabinets – but you supposed there were worst things to get used to than that in a coworker or a friend. She used to be an active agent after all; in fact, unofficially, she remained one. Much like anyone, you knew that certain habits died hard and being through what she had been – she confessed to you that she once spent months on a nearly deserted ancient planet, among other things – left a mark. If this made her feel safer, you’d take it.

Another great thing about Jemma, Doctor Simmons, was that she was adorably English and was in dedicated relationship with Doctor Fitz who was a Scotsman, so that was the spice of long workdays at times; especially if you agreed to play Scrabble with them and a few friends in the evening.

But there were things you had not signed up for when following the alluring promise of a prestigious spot and unique equipment.

And one of them was a damn Nazi revival group in the form of fucking HYDRA attacking the lab while you were in the peaceful process of waiting for your PCR to finally be finished.

Influx of men in full tactical gear interrupting Jemma updating you the vacation plans, Fiji and all the rare species of fishes that could be observed there when scuba diving.

When you heard the first shouts, breaking of glass and dull echoes of gunshots from afar, your immediate thought was that you had been having a good day and that the experiment had been coming along nicely – and that whatever mess was happening was for sure about to ruin all your progress.

By the time panic settled in, Jemma was practically tackling you down, hand over your mouth to muffle your startled squeak at the sudden movement, her eyes alert and serious, screaming at you to keep quiet.

The sickening shouts of HAIL HYDRA, COOPERATE AND YOU’LL GET HURT LESS was what sent your brain crashing into reality; that and the distant agonized cries of people, coworkers and recruits you knew and met in the hallways every day, following the sounds of gunshots growing in volume and frequency.

You could hear Jemma shuffling next to you further.

You yourself were unable to move beyond stifling a cry behind your suddenly sweaty palm as another female voice wailed in pain.

Blood seemed to freeze in your veins despite your heart thundering in your ribcage and your temples and it helped you shit at all that you were aware that was such thing was literally impossible. By the time Jemma’s hand grabbed yours again and squeezed hard, you realized you were shaking – half in anger, half in paralyzing fear, half in utter shock. It didn’t matter it didn’t add up.

What mattered was the gun in Jemma’s hand. She was holding a gun, ready to shoot, because there were enemy agents, fucking HYDRA burst through the door, guns blazing. And killing people.

You were whispering with exasperation worth of a shout before you knew what you were doing.

“Why?! Why the fuck-“

“Probably the samples they brought in today, precious cargo,” Jemma whispered back frantically, loading the gun and reaching into another cabinet behind her. You only stared at her in utter confusion and mute horror, rapid heavy footsteps approaching and sending your already racing heart into a madness. “Gun or cocktails?”

“I can’t shoot a-!”

Before you could finish, the familiar sound of the sliding door opening and a horrifying echo of tactical boots reached your ears, a set of vials pressed into your palm.

You gulped, pulse thundering in your temples.

Those goddamn Simmons’ cocktails as you named them since she had insisted on keeping around.

You couldn’t believe the moment was here that you were actually grateful for them, even as they seemed to burn in your hand even with the vials themselves intact.

Your eyes snapped to Jemma’s face to question it wordlessly at least, but she wasn’t looking at you; she was listening intently, lying in wake as if she was the predator and not the prey you felt like.

Your own breathing seemed too loud as you allowed yourself to squeeze your eyes shut for but a moment, a desperate attempt to wake up from the nightmare; but the morning didn’t come.

Instead, a gunshot rang in the room, glass shattering somewhere above your head to your right, sending a waterfall of shards flying next to you.

And causing you to cry out in fright.

Which revealed your position to the agents flowing into the lab.

Without a thought you snapped your eyes opened, jumped to your feet and threw two vials in the direction of a black blur with a shockingly clear red patch of the mythical Hydra monster in the middle; peripherally, you saw Jemma attacking as well, deafening noise of gunshot nearly blowing your eardrum.

You crouched back behind the counter so fast you felt vertigo swing you to the left, sharp pain erupting from your palm. It was pure miracle your right hand didn’t clench in instinct and shatter the two remaining vials, setting yourself on fire as well.

As well.

Someone was screaming – a man, you realized – the acid smell of burned flesh and plastic and various chemicals punching your nose and your stomach hard. You had hit someone with the vial. They screamed because of what you had done. You had-

You had no time to feel sorry. You had no time to properly think fucking serves them right.

More steps, more gunshots, movements you weren’t sure how happened or came to you in the first place, flashes of light and crimson and noise and godawful smell--- and pain erupting in the back of your head and suddenly you were barely catching yourself on the counter with your slippery palm--- your fingers brushed metal, knees weak but hands grabbing with all your might, lifting and swinging, a sickening crack on your right before you were falling, landing on your wrist, back hitting the cabinet door and making even more noise as you sent equipment clattering around.

However, the loudest sound was another gunshot; but the strangest sound was unfamiliar whizzing and metal hitting metal and someone most definitely shouting “clear!” that sounded as distant as a whisper over the ringing in your ears.

Instinctively, your head snapped to the voice as you tried to prop up on your hands to see; the world swam in front of your eyes, dizziness forcing you to fall back on your ass and squeeze your eyes shut in hopes to stop the world from spinning, a sting in your palm drawing a hiss from your lips.

You could hear Jemma’s talking to someone, her words blurred into a mumble despite her voice sounding firm and methodical; footsteps, quick and heavy but somewhat soft, accompanied by a brush of air against your skin, making you open your eyes again just as navy blue with speckles of silvery grey glinting in a flickering light filled your vision.

Then, a face; an extremely handsome face even as a helmet made of blue similar to the rest of his suit covered the upper half of it, framing a pair of the dreamiest blue eyes you had ever seen, as beautiful as blurry as a dream indeed.

Somewhere in the back of your brain it started clicking into place – that the man in front of you looked a whole lot like Captain America and he was there to kick HYDRA’s ass; he was hunk and looked righteous and unfairly pretty, the cut of his jaw sharp enough to appear as if sculpted by ancient masters of art and it might be softened by the leather strap holding his helmet in place but that only brought out the sheer beauty of his lips even with a small bloody split on them.

And he was talking to you, his leather-clad hand gently grasping your arm as you involuntarily swayed to side when moving your head to take in the entirety of his large figure.

“Doctor, are you alright?” he asked slowly, velvety voice sweet and heavy with concern at once, the gentle but firm hold on your arm growing stronger when you blinked owlishly, the connection between the meaning of his words and his apparent intention to talk to you slow and fragile.

Your tongue felt as if made of lead even as it tasted of bitterness of adrenalin, but you willed yourself to answer, a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else.

“’mm… not a doctor yet.”

As you responded, you brain began to clear; and it occurred to you that it was a fair assumption for him to make.

You had grown used to clarifying, but hadn’t done so in months, because everyone already knew. However, he was an outsider to this lab and he couldn’t know you were the exception to the local rule. And you were wearing a lab coat, one that now had to be covered in mixture of chemicals you did not wish to identify, but perhaps you should try, because your forearm was beginning to burn.

The beautiful man kneeling in front of you silently observed you for what seemed like an eternity and half, surprise written all over his face. You couldn’t blame him; you were the weirdo of the lab. The fact the person who had purposely stacked explosives at hand was less of an anomaly than that was a thing to consider, but your head hurt too much to think about that and your heart was still beating unhealthily fast and his error seemed so insignificant in the grand scheme of things of HYDRA having attacked your lab and Captain America being right in front of you, holding onto your arm.

His soft baffled smile as he hung his head and shook it a bit with a breathless chuckle, and then lifted his downright shining gaze back to you, well that certainly made for a spectacular distraction from such unimportant thoughts.

Did his thumb just brush your arm as he still held you up a bit?

And had anyone ever told him he had a stunning smile that could melt hearts even if it was barely there and it was certainly melting yours?

“Apologies, miss. I’m going to help you get to medical, alright?” he suggested, those damn gorgeous eyes roaming your face with what almost seemed like wonder, even as his voice sounded all kinds of reassuring. “You’re safe now, I promise.”

Safe. You were safe. Because there had been HYDRA agents, but Captain America and actual SHIELD operatives had come to the rescue. And because Jemma was-

Jemma. Your straightened, dull ache pounding in your back as you did so, vision clearing a fraction with the sudden realization that you couldn’t hear your friend anymore. Your friend whom you owed your life very likely, but even if you didn’t, you would have-

You craned your neck over Captain America’s impressive frame, head snapping from left to right, nausea rising with the movement, but that didn’t matter, you had to-

You turned your alarmed gaze back to the man who was still holding you, an urgent question on your lips.

“Jemma? Is she--- Doctor Simmons, brunet, lab coat-“ you paused, realizing bitterly that you had just described half of the Science and Technology. “Female. She’s a doctor and an agent too, she was with me had a gu-“

A warm squeeze on your arm, the concern which had grown even more evident on Captain’s face melting away and giving way to a soothing smile.

“She’s alright. She’s already left to be checked up and to give her statement.”

Your shoulders sagged, your head dropping a bit; the violent vertigo that seized your body at that was not pleasant and you tried to blink it away, gaze catching the reflection of the still-blinking fluorescent lamp on the Captain’s shield.

Oh. That was probably what had made the whizzing sound before. As your brain conjured an image of that, a spinning shield flying through the air, you cursed yourself mentally for letting your mind even go there since you had already felt like you were the flying piece of metal and the thing you’d hit eventually would be the floor.

“My head is spinning,” you muttered absently as you attempted to refocus your gaze, praying to gods of religion and science alike you wouldn’t throw up on the poor caring man.

Why was he still sitting here with you? Surely there were much more important things to tend to than one little post-grad? How was he so kind and gentle? Wasn’t he known for inspiring speeches in a deep serious voice and for beating up villains with both his physical strength and brains?

So many questions and no answer in those pretty blue eyes.

In fact, the number of your questions grew exponentially when the hand on your arm released the pressure and gently rubbed your elbow instead; his free hand carefully cradled the back of your other hand, the contrast of leather and his warm skin surprisingly sensual, suddenly making you understand why so many regency era literature spoke of hand-holding as indecent even as it was barely Fifty Shades of Grey level of filth.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Captain Rogers said, snapping you from your thoughts. “Let me help you up and they’ll check you up too, including this nasty cut, okay?”

Huh?

Purposely slowly as not to make the vertigo worse, you glanced at your hand in his, feeling a fresh sting just by looking at your palm, your gaze instantly snapping away.

And falling straight onto two intact vials full of liquid of a distinct colour, lying carelessly about two feet away from Steve Rogers’ tactical boots. Your heart jumped in your chest, your hazy mind finally growing aware of your surroundings.

“Shoot! Careful around those, they’re highly flammable!” you warned him swiftly, his gaze snapping to the vials in question, while ours slowly trailed over the utter, utter messthe lab had become.

The sheer amount of broken glass, spilled chemicals, broken pipettes, torn papers and unidentifiable piles of junk was staggering and it was actually a miracle nothing had exploded yet – and as a cherry on top, a few feet away, a relatively small portable PCR machine, the very equipment you had been using, downright murdered along with your experiment and a smudge of blood around it. Jesus.

“Okay, that’s good to know. More the reason to get out,” Captain Rogers remarked, slight amusement lacing his voice, only growing stronger as he continued. “Keep a lot of these around?”

You could have scoffed, but you didn’t. You have no idea, pal.

“My friend is paranoid…” you explained, still staring at them, even as you mentally added ‘or not’, since those little things might have very well saved your life. As your gaze returned to Captain Rogers, your eyes caught on something else, having you sit up straighter in sheer horror. “Is that a stab wound?!”

You gulped at the sight, even as your uninjured hand instinctively reached out towards it – as if you could fix it. The already dark suit, a lovely navy blue, appeared downright black at left his side, right where it seemed to be singed by a flame.

Had that injury been there the whole damn time he had been sitting here with you, eternally patient with your slowed brain, Simmons’ cocktails lying around in one huge chemical dump in risk of exploding any damn minute?

You logically knew the answer had to be yes, but it made zero sense – and his answer made even less sense.

“Bullet, actually. Some sort of chemical damaged the Kevlar lining and they got a lucky hit. It’s just a graze.”

“A gra-“ you choked on the word, spit stuck in your throat causing you to cough and a groan escape past your lips as the sudden rapid movement sent your head pounding again.

“Hey, you-“

“You’ve been shot and you called my cut nasty?” you questioned through the tears, earning a smile worth giving up a career for – painfully warm, kind and… almost fond.

You truly must have hit your head hard.

…as if it hadn’t been evident before.

“I heal fast. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be alright, doc.”

A knee-jerk reaction – again. What was it with him? Had he hit his head, forgetting you had already explained – you had, you hadn’t imagined that, right? – and now he called you a doctor again, turned into a familiar nickname, no less.

“I’m not a doct---- holy shit.”

It slammed into you like a train, struck you like a lightning, even as neither of those things had ever happened to you – yet, you imagined it had to feel like this.

A massive force, a force of nature, realization as bright and as unexpected as a lightning from a clear sky.

Doctor, are you alright?

He had asked that. He had asked that. He had said your words. He had said your goddamn soulmate’s first words to you, what must have been minutes ago, and only now it hit you.

You were left staring at him with wide eyes, myriad of emotions written all over his face, including slight amusement and what you had earlier inexplicably identified as fondness, because the reason why he was still sitting here with you – though perhaps that was what he always did when rescuing, what did you know, you didn’t, this was your first meeting, that was why he had said the words – was that unlike you, he had realized you were his soulmate right away.

He kept watching you, silently letting you process the crucial revelation, a tight but no less kind smile on his lips.

“You said my words,” you said oh so intelligently. “You--- what… what did I—say?”

It was perhaps the stupidest question of all you could have come up on the spot, but you genuinely couldn’t remember – and wanted to know what words he had been looking at his whole life.

…this part of life? Or before the ice too? How did he feel about that? How did he feel about you? Was he disappointed? He didn’t look like he was, but didn’t even know what you had said—

What you did know and remember was that you were supposed to be smart and yet it had taken you an eternity to even notice you were facing your soulmate you had been probably spewing complete nonsense, you were now stammering like an idiot and for someone who had been worried, always, even if in the back of their mind, if their soulmate would find them good enough, you were generally making a bloody awful first impression.

But seriously, what had been your first words-

“You said you weren’t a doctor yet,” Captain Rogers reminded you, voice soft with affection of someone who had imagined hearing those words at least as many times as you had wondered about yours, hoping they would be pronounced by someone who’d respect you and cared about what kind of person you were, and would hopefully, eventually care for you. Loved you even. The tender way the syllables rolled of his tongue, spoken as if they tasted of honey, nearly chased fresh tears to your eyes. Alright, perhaps your first impression hadn’t been as bad as it appeared in your – albeit injured – head. “But if you really don’t remember saying that, that’s not a good sign. We need to get you medical attention. Come on. Hold on.”

Blinking slowly, still processing the light and yet suffocating feeling that found residence in your chest as it was starting to truly settle that this man, this painfully beautiful and criminally gentle man, was your soulmate, he was leaning closer to you, his hands guiding yours to wrap around his neck, a wordless order you had obediently followed, and then one of his arms was sliding under your knees and his other wrapping around the middle of your back.

And then your vertigo hit you anew because you were suddenly up in the air, hands gripping hard at anything you could reach – conveniently, the only thing was him, because he had lifted you upin his arms, some of your weight resting against his chest – despite the pain that shot up your left hand.

“Whoa-“ And then, because your memory did serve you at least a little: “You--- have been stabbed.”

“Shot,” he repeated patiently, fondly almost, and you did recall he had said that.

You recalled despite the scent of pleasant aftershave and peak man suddenly enveloping you as much as his arms and the firm armour – or perhaps that was the muscles underneath? And those pretty blue eyes were watching you with a glint of amusement and a surprising amount of affection for a guy saying he had been hit by a bullet, while effortlessly carrying the girl he had just met in his-- very, very strong, muscly arms and perhaps your head was not only spinning because of the sudden height you found yourself at.

…amusement? How was he amused? Was that-- was that a joke? Was he making fun of his bullet wound, playing it down?

“That’s… really not better.”

He grinned down at you as he made his way to the exit.

Walking. Watching you. Grinning and not even really looking where he was stepping.

Oh no.

Oh no, he was one of those people. You had met men like him at Operations, except for some reason – perhaps some sort of a soulmate telepathy – you had a feeling in him, that the peculiar recklessness many people from suffered, the disregard for their safety, because they could handle it, was dialled up to eleven in him. On a one to five scale. Because scaling mattered; you were a scientist. You’d know.

However, he did make it out of the laboratory without blowing anything up – perhaps at least that recklessness was balanced up by enhanced senses of a supersoldier and indeed, healing fast. And you hoped with your whole heart that walking out unscathed was a conscious effort, be it for him (somehow you doubted that) or for the cargo he was carrying (you had no doubt about that, not when he was looking at you like that). At least he had kept the helmet on; you were thankful for that, even as you’d love to see him without it.

See your soulmate.

You knew what he looked like everyone knew what he looked like. If they had missed the WW II. ed, they could barely miss the news about an alien invasion he had had a hand in stopping, the fall of majority of SHIELD, and other exciting horrifying news.

“I’ll be fine, doc. Now let’s get you away from exploding vials and lab equipment you could knock me out with. I’d rather be safe when I ask you out for dinner.”

You gulped, gripping him a bit tighter as a memory hit you – literally.

The PCR machine. You had done that. You had grabbed it and used it to smash into a HYDRA agent’s face, using the nearest improvised tool of defence. Jesus.

I really did that?

“You… saw that?” was what you asked instead, a few second ticking by as the rest of his words registered in your brain – and god, you really hoped your cognitive abilities would restore soon and the head injury had not caused permanent damage. “Oh.”

As much as your heart started pounding at that, a pleasant somersault in your stomach for a change, it was a little unfair to sort-of ask you when you were in your current predicament. Being carried like that, so close to him, so gentlemanly and tenderly handled despite your weight no doubt straining him, especially since he had been shot – grazed –, yoursenses wrapped in everything that was him and pulling you in, you were fairly certain you might say yes to just about anything he’d ask.

And not just because he was your soulmate.

Your soulmate carrying you in his arms, while wearing a very flattering suit of armour.

“If you’d like, of course,” he added with slight hesitance that only made your heart race further, because he was laying out his own heart for you already, expressive, genuine, and maybe sweetly handsy but not pushy despite his title and rank technically giving him every right to do whatever the hell he wanted. “But either way, I’ll save the real question for when I know you’re not suffering from a concussion. That sounds good?”

“Yes, Captain,” you replied dutifully. It did sound good, his consideration warming you from inside out. His voice sounded good too. “Sounds good to me.”

His smile was bright as the sun itself and basking in its light and warmth felt just as precious. Except he was to be your private sun forever shared with other to a point, but yours. Chosen by fate itself, defying all you had ever believed, beating time by decades, only so you could find each other.

“Looking forward to it, doc. Maybe I’ll get to know your name too while we’ll be at it,” he teased lightly, but without malice. “My name is Steve.”

Steve.

You knew that. You liked that.

Hand trembling a little, but not because you worried he’d drop you as you partly let go of his shoulders, you reached for the clasp on his helmet, a fluttery feeling in your chest eager to indeed see Steve rather than the Captain.

You felt your lips curl up and mirror his when he gave a tiny nod at your brief hesitation, your fingers finally undoing the strap and revealing his face with his help.

His hair was adorably ruffled, a slight shade of dust on his cheeks whispering of where the protective gear had been; but scientifically speaking, as well as speaking directly from heart, he was absolutely beautiful, his tender smile telling you he thought the very same about you.

He was meant to be yours; as you were meant to be his.

And you couldn’t wait to get to know him.

You could tell there were people around you and they were probably staring; but for the moment, you didn’t care at all. You had just met your soulmate.

And you weren’t even a doctor yet.

“It’s really nice to meet you, Steve. But I have to admit…” you said, teasing him with a pause, rewarded by his eyes earning a curious glint, “that the Doc nickname is kinda growing on me.”

Complete masterlist

Steve Rogers masterlist

Oh this feels like coming back to my roots 🤭 but hey, this challenge is a revival of all thigs good of the past, so why not go with the good old-fashioned soulmate meet-cute with a little angst beforehand, right?

AND BEHOLD I WROTE SOMETHING SHORTER THAN 10K. SHORTER THAN 8K ACTUALLY! It’s an extravaganza miracle 😂

Also. There might be some unrelated smut in the works, but I will not finish that today so... won't be part of the cum together extravaganza... ah well 🤭

Thank you for reading and potential feedback 💕

May the Fourth be with you and the rest of May be kind ✨

#CT 2024 raffle entry #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #soulmate au #soulmate steve rogers #the unexpected #anika ann

1K notes · View notes

jayflrt · 9 months ago

Text

the misfortunes and misconceptions of lee heeseung

❝ i'll let you in on a little secret: wanting nothing to do with y/n starts with actually wanting nothing to do with her. ❞

PAIRING ▸ slytherin!heeseung x hufflepuff!fem!reader

GENRES ▸ fluff, crack, hogwarts au, idiots to lovers au

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, the classic amortentia trope because what screams valentine's day like love potions, heeseung is down horrendous, sunghoon missing half an eyebrow, jake is babygirl, lots of catastrophizing, minor bending of canon for plot convenience, and a kiss scene of course

SUMMARY ▸ by no means does lee heeseung hold any romantic feelings toward you. the mere possibility is jarring, considering his luck seems to take a turn for the worst whenever he’s around you. from getting hit with a bludger during quidditch to getting into trouble with filch for setting off dungbombs in his office, heeseung starts to think you’re some sort of bad omen. he’s prepared for disaster when you two become partners in potions, but why does the amortentia smell like you?

WORD COUNT ▸ 13,497 words

PLAYLIST ▸ lavender kiss by the licks

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ this is jayflrt's valentine for you ♡

LEE HEESEUNG WAS CERTAIN YOU MUST HAVE HAD AN AFFINITY FOR NEARLY KILLING HIM REGULARLY.

When he, Slytherin’s prized Seeker, got knocked off his broom by a bludger, there was only one potential suspect he could narrow the crime down to in his head.

In your hand was the very bat that sent the bludger in his way, hitting his miserable self square in the gut.

This seemed to be a pattern between the two of you, where it was mostly Heeseung experiencing great misfortune because of the Hufflepuff’s mere existence. His best friend, Park Jongseong, told him that he had probably wronged you in a past life for him to suffer this much around you. While Heeseung initially brushed it off as a joke, he couldn’t help but start to question if it was actually true.

Back in his first year, Heeseung met you during the Sorting Hat ceremony, where you accidentally tripped him right before he walked up to get sorted. Everyone in the Grand Hall laughed at him, which was not his idea of a welcoming initiation into Slytherin, so he glared holes into the back of your head for the rest of the year.

In his third year, you ran into him at King’s Cross station, causing all of his trunks to go flying. While you were helping him repack everything, you two realized that the Hogwarts Express was long gone, and neither of you could even access the magical entryway to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Heeseung cried into his hands at the train station until a professor Apparated to pick them both up, and then you teased him about his tears for what felt like forever.

In a similar sense, Heeseung had somehow always managed to get into trouble when he was around you. Now, he had naturally grown out of disliking you for causing him so much suffering (mostly because he was far more popular now and everyone had forgotten about how you sent him flying during a duel, unfortunately revealing his strawberry-patterned boxers to an entire room of second and third years), but Heeseung was still wary about the adversity that seemed to follow you.

Were you a friend? Heeseung couldn’t tell for sure. You two spent an awfully long amount of time together, but you both also had your separate friend groups that hardly intermingled. Heeseung supposed you were more of a thorn in his side that hurt more when he tried to yank it out.

Now, there was nothing left for him to do now but clutch his stomach in pain and pray that he didn’t need to spend another night in the infirmary because of you. (Madam Pomfrey started to keep a tally; “Oh, Miss L/N didn’t injure you again, did she? Have a toffee, sweetheart,” was what he was expecting to hear from the school nurse.)

“Heeseung! Are you okay?” you asked, running up to him with your other hand clutching your broom. Thankfully, Heeseung had managed to grip his broom with one hand on the way down until he had safely landed, so there were no damages to his Moontrimmer. “Who did this to you?!”

“I know you’re holding the bat behind your back, Y/N,” he got out through gritted teeth.

He watched as you let your arm fall defeatedly to your side, revealing the Beater’s bat that violated practically every safety protocol.

“Oh, how embarrassing,” Kim Minjeong, the Chaser for the Slytherin team, said with a giggle from behind her palm. She was still floating a few feet from the ground, witnessing the damage done from her broom. Heeseung glared up at her. “Not a good look for you, Captain.”

Normally, he would shut Minjeong up with his usual threat that went something along the lines of putting a curse on her bloodline. This time, however, Heeseung was in far too much pain and humiliation to come up with a witty comeback.

Madam Hooch came running across the field to see what happened to her star Quidditch player. On the bright side, Heeseung knew that you wouldn’t get in trouble because game was game; you were just doing what you needed to ensure your victory, even though Slytherin still had a huge lead on Hufflepuff. After momentary deliberation, however, Heeseung realized that the bright side should have been the fact that he was still alive. Why was he thinking about you, anyway? He would pay galleons to see you get in trouble—but not too much trouble (and Merlin’s beard, he was far too soft).

“He needs to be taken to the infirmary,” Madam Hooch said. She spared you a glance before making a shooing motion with her gloved hand. By this time, his friends (Park Sunghoon, a sixth year who Heeseung ‘adopted’ in his second year, and Yang Jungwon, a broody fourth year with a penchant for rule-breaking) had come running down the stands and across the field. “You can visit him after you finish the match, Y/N. Madam Pomfrey can handle this.”

“Yes, of course,” you murmured, turning to Heeseung again and muttering a pathetic apology, to which he cracked a grin at. Maybe he shouldn’t have been grinning since you nearly cracked his skull open, or maybe he had really lost it this time.

“It’s only been a week since you’ve managed to nearly get me killed.” Heeseung shuddered at the memory of you accidentally setting his cloak on fire last week with a Blasting Charm. “Don’t worry. I knew something was gonna happen sooner or later.”

Words of affirmation weren’t exactly his strong suit.

But upon seeing the awkward grin on your face, like a blast of light that hit him all at once, Heeseung was suddenly painfully aware of everything—the awfully pleasant scent of lavender wafting from you, the searing ache from his injury, the way your hair framed your face, and the cool metal balled in his fist.

Wait—metal?

Before he was about to be carried out in a not-so-dignified manner, Heeseung raised his arm to open his palm, revealing the Golden Snitch that sat obediently, fanning its wings out once before closing again. A gasp rose from the crowd, and then the shocked looks from both teams followed. Minjeong nearly fell off her broom. The Slytherin house all but exploded in cheers after Madam Hooch gaped at the sight, fumbled for her whistle, blew it loudly, and then announced Slytherin’s victory over Hufflepuff.

Heeseung sighed in relief and fully collapsed onto the ground, looking up at the clear sky with contentment lifting the anguish from his brows. And now that he knew the verdict of the match, the pain finally hit him all at once, and he hoped Madam Pomfrey could fix him up before his house started celebrating their triumph.

“Heeseung! That was an incredible play!” Nishimura Riki, a fourth year Gryffindor, cried as he came running from the stands. If by incredible, he was referring to Heeseung getting bludgeoned to the ground, then sure, incredible—outstanding, even. The flash of Riki’s camera went off, capturing a pathetic-looking Heeseung lying limp on the springy turf. “This’ll definitely make the front page!”

Ever since the Nishimura kid got an internship at the Daily Prophet, the Slytherin team had been worried about appearing on the news unprompted—most likely in unflattering angles, too. It had even gotten to the point of Song Eunseok pinning up a poster of Riki to a corkboard in the locker room, as if he was a wanted criminal at large.

“Er, could we retake—”

“You grab his legs,” a voice from behind him ordered. It was Sunghoon, who had come running with Jungwon to carry him out of the field. “I’ll take his arms.”

Heeseung balked. “Guys, wait!”

But it was no use. He was already in the air, and Jungwon and Sunghoon were both ignoring his protests.

As if he was a rather sad sack of potatoes, Heeseung was carried out, body dangling and his eyes screwed shut as he heard more flashes of Riki’s camera going off. Most of all, he wondered if you caught sight of how pitiful he was. Surely, you found it hilarious, didn’t you? He was certain he would get teased endlessly in Charms next week.

“Nice game, champ,” Jungwon commented oh-so-casually, and Heeseung’s blood started boiling.

“Can you put me down already?! We have magic for a reason!” he blurted out, but his two friends ignored him all the same.

“I saw Sunoo being carried out like this the other day outside of the Dueling Club meeting room,” Sunghoon mused, and Heeseung imagined the poor Slytherin also being hauled to the infirmary like a ragdoll. “I heard he got hit with a nasty Disarming Charm. Someone nearly blasted the poor guy right into the Clock Tower’s pendulum.”

“I know. He’s better at dodging than I thought,” Jungwon replied unsympathetically. “What a shame. I’ll get him next time.”

Heeseung blanched. Poor Kim Sunoo.

But then he remembered his current state and thought Sunoo was better off than him. At least Sunoo wasn’t carried out in front of the entire school.

Really, the reason why Heeseung was so agitated was because being Slytherin’s Seeker meant that he had an important role. It was a responsibility that clearly set him apart, and it surely had to look impressive to others—for example, you—but here he was, being carried out of the Quidditch pitch like an idiot. It put all of his hard work and countless hours of practice to shame.

Thankfully, although his failing jock status might have damaged his ego to the point of no return, Madam Pomfrey didn’t seem to think his injuries were too severe this time. After a few healing charms, which made him feel back to normal in no time, Heeseung was ready to leave the infirmary.

Sunghoon and Jungwon ended up leaving right after dropping him off, claiming that they had to go celebrate their win in the Slytherin common room. Heeseung found it completely disrespectful to ditch the very person who brought them to victory.

To his surprise, you were waiting outside the door, twiddling your thumbs and doing that annoyingly cute habit of yours where you chewed on the inside of your cheek whenever you were in trouble (which, frankly, happened a lot of the time). He made a great deal of effort to adjust his cape before walking over to you with raised eyebrows, wondering if an apology was coming his way.

“I just wanted to say,” you started, voice uncharacteristically small and wavering, but then you followed up with an incomprehensible mumble that Heeseung could hardly decipher.

“What?”

“Uh,” you raised your voice this time, keeping it steadier with extra effort, “on the way here—funny story, really—I was telling Jake about how you set off a Dungbomb in Filch’s office the other week. Honest to God, I didn’t even see Mrs. Norris!”

Although you didn’t provide a solid conclusion, he was able to connect the dots and figure out what you were getting at. He almost wished he stayed oblivious because how was this happening to him twice in a day?

Heeseung’s face fell. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Filch is looking for you,” you finished with a guilty look drawn across your face.

It happened to be your second guilty look of the day, actually. Two too many for Heeseung to handle.

There was one thing Lee Heeseung was quite sure of, and it was that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with you from now on.

The aftermath of his scolding from Filch resulted in him receiving evening detentions for the rest of the week. All you brought him was terrible luck wherever he went, and despite how nice you smelled and how shiny your hair was, he didn’t need your misfortune clinging to him like it would be the last breath he’d take.

Honestly, any longer around you and he was pretty sure he would be taking his last breath soon.

But it was honestly ridiculous how hard Heeseung had to restrain himself from going near you. He would pass by your unbothered self in the Courtyard, hoping to get some verbal recognition from you that would change his mind about his whole ignoring thing, but you simply just paid more attention to stupid Jake Sim from Hufflepuff.

Who cared about Jake Sim, anyway? Surely not the several girls in his year that threw themselves at him. There was nothing redeeming about him, not even with his perfect smile and perfect grades and perfect robes. Honestly, where did he get those robes? Heeseung bought his at Madam Malkin’s, like virtually every other student, but they weren’t as perfectly trimmed and fitted as Jake Sim’s perfect robes.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Park Jongseong, a sixth year Ravenclaw, sneered once he saw the glower across Heeseung’s face. “Wanting nothing to do with Y/N starts with actually wanting nothing to do with her.”

“Who said I didn’t not want anything to do with her?” Heeseung fired back, but even he was confused about his response, taking a few extra seconds to process what nonsense had just spewed out of his mouth. “Okay, look, just pretend I said the funniest thing you’ve ever heard when she walks by us.”

“Actually, that was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Heeseung gave him an exasperated look. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean, you’re not that funny to begin with. Kind of hilarious that you think you’d be able to tell me the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You literally just told me I said the funniest thing ever.”

“Funny because it was such a pathetic thing to say. There’s a difference.”

“You’re a stupid git, you know that?”

“Am I now?”

“The stupidest of stupid gits.”

In truth, Jake was the stupid git. Jongseong could tease Heeseung all he wanted, but Jake Sim was the one grinning down at you with a stupid sparkle in his eyes, taunting the Slytherin with those evil, perfect corners of his lips. Didn’t he have better things to do? Like not taking up the oxygen in a place where he was clearly unwanted?

Also, to set the record straight, Heeseung needed to make it perfectly clear (to himself, too, because this was clearly confusing for him and everybody around him) that he was not into you.

Probably.

Sure, he felt a smidge of fondness because you two had gotten into life-threatening situations before (all your fault, by the way), so there was probably some semblance of friendship that was only due to the fact that shared trauma often brought people together. But that was all it was. Heeseung’s feelings did not extend into anything remotely romantic; he even shuddered at the very thought.

That was right. He was your friend, and that was all he wanted to be. Heeseung most definitely did not think about anything like holding your hand, or plucking flowers to braid into your hair, or kissing you in hidden corners of the castle. That would be ridiculous and completely unlike him.

And then you really did walk past him and Jongseong, so Heeseung took it upon himself to punch his friend’s shoulder hard and burst into forced laughter. He tried extremely hard to convince himself that this was a very normal thing to do, but soon after the act, he wanted to lay on the floor of the Owlery until the owls collectively decided to fly his body out somewhere far away—hopefully another country.

“Idiot, I’m the one who’s supposed to laugh,” Jongseong reminded him once you were out of sight. (You did not pay attention to his charade, Heeseung was sad to note.) With a scoff, he added, “You should probably hit the books ‘cause acting’s clearly not up your alley.”

Heeseung let out a retired sigh and stood up from the stone bench they had been sitting on. “I’m going to Potions.”

“Oh, you attend class now? Shocking.”

“I prefer not spending my evenings in detention.”

“Alright. I’ll update you later on the Jake-and-Y/N show.”

“You do that, and I’ll show you how good I’ve gotten at the hair loss curse,” he spat. “I’d start investing in some hats.”

“Is that why Sunghoon’s missing half an eyebrow?”

Heeseung didn’t answer. Honestly, Sunghoon’s predicament had nothing to do with him, but he left it up to Jongseong’s imagination for the sake of intimidation.

As he stormed away (well, more of a brisk walk; Heeseung wasn’t one to storm), he realized that his friends had all sorts of misconceptions about him. He couldn’t wrap his head around why Jongseong would possibly think he was concerned about you and Jake Sim. Sure, he spent a good portion of the morning glaring daggers at Jake Sim, but there was no way that meant Heeseung was that concerned about the Hufflepuff.

What was there to be concerned about, anyway? Heeseung was the Seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team, scored five O.W.L.s last year, and he was the top duelist at Hogwarts. Jake Sim was just another pretty boy who Heeseung could crush under the sole of his shoe if he wanted to.

His mind wandered to thoughts of you and Jake Sim walking back to the Hufflepuff common room together. Your melodic laugh echoing through the halls because of a joke he told; your fingers entwined with his as he carried your books for you; and your eyes practically glowing with admiration as you watched him intently.

The thought made Heeseung sick to his stomach. Not because he liked you or anything disgusting like that, but because Jake Sim didn’t deserve to receive that much attention—not even in a hypothetical scenario that played out in Heeseung’s wild, almost sadistic imagination.

One thought comforted him, though: You had Potions with Heeseung, meaning you had to pry yourself from Jake’s side to attend Slughorn’s class.

As he was about to approach the classroom door, Heeseung realized he had forgotten his Potions textbook. He debated whether to go in without it or run to his dormitory to fetch it, and he eventually went with the latter to avoid being clueless if today required brewing a potion. This resulted in him being about ten minutes late to class, which he decided was your fault somehow.

Immediately upon entering the room, the pungent scent of lavender filled his nostrils, and it was all he could smell. He later recognized that there were a few other smells mixed in—the smell of butterbeer and the smell of fresh ink. The lavender, however, was so intense that it overwhelmed his senses.

It smelled like you.

Before Heeseung was about to blurt out and ask why you doused the entire classroom in your perfume, Professor Slughorn turned to look at him with brows raised in pleasant surprise.

“Ah, Mr. Lee,” he greeted. “You’re early today.”

He was ten minutes late.

“Uh, just forgot my textbook,” he said, holding up the Potions textbook he walked several, brutal flights of stairs to retrieve.

“If you’re ready to join us, I was just going over Amortentia.”

If Heeseung’s memory served him correctly, that was either the potion that boosted one’s memory or the potion that induced laughter. He hadn’t exactly been doing his reading over the summer, which was probably not an intelligent decision on his part considering he was in N.E.W.T. level Potions.

Either way, he was a little too preoccupied mentally replaying how his eyes met yours briefly. Heeseung walked over to stand next to you—for research purposes, of course—because he needed to know if you had really drenched yourself in lavender perfume, or if he had just gone crazy.

He nudged you with his elbow and muttered, “You reek.”

Okay, that was definitely not a chivalrous way of putting it.

“Excuse me?” Your unnaturally high-pitched voice was hardly a whisper, but Heeseung could detect… panic?

“No, I mean your perfume,” he corrected quickly. “It’s everywhere.”

“Is it that strong?” You lifted your sleeve to sniff at it.

“Yeah? It’s—”

“—the most powerful love potion known to wizardkind,” Heeseung heard Slughorn say as he redirected his focus to the actual lecture. “Amortentia’s said to smell different to each person, according to what attracts them.”

So it turned out that his memory didn’t serve him correctly at all.

Heeseung had his fair share of near-death experiences—probably a few more than the average Hogwarts student.

Never had he wanted so badly to combust into flames on the spot like a phoenix. Except he didn’t want to rise from the ashes; he was perfectly content with staying dead and buried without ever having to relive the last couple minutes of his life, which he was sure would scar him forever.

Immediately, Heeseung stopped focusing on Slughorn’s lecture to conjure up some lame excuse in his head. Maybe he could tell everyone that his Muggle-born father owned a lavender farm back in the day, thus his love for lavender scents bloomed. But, Merlin’s beard, that didn’t even make sense! Just because he loved the smell of lavender didn’t mean he was in love with it. The smell was always attached to the person—the very object of his desires.

And, of course, it all pointed back to you.

Heeseung should not have had the realization that he was in love with you in the middle of Potions, of all classes. Astronomy? Sure. He thought it would be romantic to come to terms with his feelings whilst observing the celestial bodies in the sky. Divination? Even better. Gazing into a crystal ball for answers made complete sense.

But Potions? Seriously? This was probably the least romantic place in Hogwarts aside from the haunted bathroom in the South Wing.

No, on second thought, Heeseung saw some potential in the haunted bathroom. Something about the complete isolation of the facility made it all the more exciting.

Potions, on the other hand, was simply downright dreadful.

“Amortentia, as you all know, is extremely dangerous. I only have it out here for educational purposes, so do not even think about touching that cauldron,” Slughorn warned. “Instead, for today’s lesson, I want you all to partner up and brew something… more lighthearted—say, Elixir for Inducing Euphoria. You can find it in your Potions books in chapter eight.”

After his lecture, Slughorn made everyone write down what Amortentia smelled like for them, warning his class about the dangers of the love potion being slipped into someone’s food or drink. Heeseung hastily wrote his down on a scrap of parchment before pocketing it where he would surely forget it existed.

He had been hoping Potion-making was going to be individual work today. He despised partner work, especially when that meant Heeseung would potentially be working with you, which didn’t prove too successful for his heart or his grades.

More importantly, Heeseung did not, by any means, want to work alongside you after accidentally admitting that the Amortentia smelled like lavender to him.

Not to mention you were atrocious when it came to Potions. Heeseung needed more than two hands to count all the times your cauldron blew up in your face this year. Even when Heeseung took the reins and stirred the ingredients himself, you would somehow manage to expertly worsen the situation.

Thankfully, Kim Sunoo also took Potions, so as soon as Heeseung spotted the Slytherin, he grabbed his robes by the nape.

“You’re working with me.”

It came off more as an order than a request, but Heeseung needed to be firm to emphasize the gravity of the situation he was in. What if he died working with you? Did Sunoo want him dead?

“No way,” Sunoo refused. “I already told Sohee I’d work with him. Plus, you never bring the right ingredients.”

Well, that was that; Sunoo hated Heeseung and wanted him dead.

“Are you serious? Sohee?” Heeseung asked, acting as if Sohee wasn’t one of the top students in Potions. “You’re turning your best friend down?”

“No, I’m turning you down.”

“Okay, ouch.”

“Sunoo, d’you have any Sopophorous beans on you?” Lee Sohee asked as he approached the two, reading off his Potions book. “I have Worm—oh, hey, Heeseung!”

With little enthusiasm, he greeted, “Hi, Sohee.”

“Heeseung needs a partner,” Sunoo explained.

“Oh, really?” Before Heeseung could stop him, Sohee turned his head and cupped his hands around his mouth, yelling, “Y/N! Heeseung needs a partner, too!”

“Sohee!” Heeseung hissed, suddenly wishing Sohee’s head was a Quaffle he could launch into oblivion. He lowered his voice to mutter, “Have you considered that maybe I’m asking Sunoo because I don’t wanna partner with Y/N?”

He shrugged in response. “How was I supposed to know that?”

Oh, this was horrible. Not only did Sunoo hate Heeseung and want him dead, but Sohee had joined in on the cause, too. They were both clearly plotting something wicked against him.

But now he had no other choice. It wasn’t like he could turn you down after Sohee had blatantly lied about Heeseung’s intentions. This was the worst outcome yet; he was probably going to fail Potions because of you, and then he would have to write a make-up paper on the stupid elixir they were supposed to brew.

“No one wants to partner with me!” you complained, shoulders sagging and lips forming a pout when you walked over to the Slytherin. “I can always count on you, though, Hee.”

Heeseung couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

No one wanted to partner with you? What had the wizarding world come to? Where was the comradery?

He was almost infuriated by how spineless the rest of his classmates were. Sure, Heeseung was complaining about working with you seconds prior, but you said it yourself: you could always count on him. At the end of the day, failing today’s class and writing a make-up paper was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Heeseung would always extend a helpful hand to those who needed it, or someone he was potentially crushing on.

Get a grip, Heeseung, he scolded himself. You do not have a crush on her. She’s just a good friend, that’s all. A perfectly normal, platonic friend of yours who gets on your nerves sometimes… and smells rather nice… and sort of looks extremely pretty when she has her hair tied up… and—

Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

“Yeah,” he got out in an embarrassingly choked voice. “You were my first choice, anyway—well, after Sunoo turned me down.”

There often came a time when a man had to put himself through tough situations to overcome adversity. As Heeseung approached their table, his shiny cauldron gleaming under the lamp light, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Make sure you didn’t lay a finger on his bloody cauldron.

Sunoo and Sohee were working at the same table, standing at the bench across from them. Heeseung quickly sifted through his bag, and, as Sunoo predicted, he didn’t bring any of the ingredients necessary for the elixir. What the hell was he going to do with Fluxweed and rose oil?

“I have porcupine quills,” you said, pulling a glass jar out of your bag.

“Uh, okay, so I need you to get a Shrivelfig and Wormwood from Slughorn’s closet,” he instructed you, giving you a thumbs-up once you nodded. “I’m gonna beg Sunoo for his Sopophorous beans.”

After you walked off, Heeseung leaned over the table and muttered, “Sunoo, please give me some of your beans.”

“No,” the prick replied.

“Please,” Heeseung begged. “Eunseok’s table took the last of them from Slughorn’s closet.”

“Maybe, but I want something in return.”

“What do you want?”

A sly grin spread across Kim Sunoo’s face. “Tell me what the Amortentia smelled like for you.”

Honestly, Heeseung was perfectly content with writing another twenty inches to make up for a failed potion. He would even take detention, if needed. Anything to get himself out of this sick and twisted situation.

In his head, he imagined Sunoo getting what he deserved, and that was his ass getting properly kicked during Dueling Club. He envisioned Jungwon flourishing his wand and blasting Sunoo square in the gut, knocking him straight into the fountain in the middle of the courtyard.

He gave his friend a reproachful look. “I wish Jungwon’s spell hit you.”

Sunoo chuckled darkly and held up his jar of Sopophorous beans, waving them teasingly in the air. This was almost too much for Heeseung, but he committed to working with you, so he couldn’t let you down while you were off getting the rest of the ingredients.

“Lavender,” he admitted through gritted teeth. “The Amortentia smelled like lavender.”

His eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Hear that, Sohee? Heeseung smelled lavender. You know who else usually smells like lavender?”

At that moment, you returned with the rest of the ingredients. You showed Heeseung the jars and bottles you brought over, but he was too distracted to properly examine them. His gaze remained fixed on Sunoo, eyes burning with resentment. He prayed to Salazar that Sunoo wouldn’t slip up in front of you.

Sohee, who clearly had no idea who Sunoo was referring to, blinked slowly. “Uh, Professor Longbottom? He probably smells like it—you know, with all the time he spends in the Greenhouse.”

“Yes, Sohee, I’m in love with Professor Longbottom,” Heeseung deadpanned. “Thank you for your wonderful insight.”

You made a face. “You’re in love with who?”

“No one,” Heeseung replied quickly once Sunoo finally handed him his desired ingredients. He lit the fire under the cauldron, dropping a sprig of peppermint inside to counterbalance the possible side-effects. “Just peel the Shrivelfig and chop the porcupine quills while I stir.”

The potion-making seemed to be going smoothly for the first few steps. However, when you were chopping the porcupine quills, Heeseung’s chest leaped when he heard an ouch come from you. He forgot about his cauldron immediately and looked over to see your finger bleeding.

“What happened?” He grabbed hold of your hand, inspecting the blood oozing from your cut. “Did you slice your finger?”

“M-my hand just slipped.”

This was bad. If Heeseung didn’t disinfect and bandage the wound, then it could possibly get infected and you’d die. (Merlin’s Beard, Heeseung, it’s hardly a flesh wound, his thoughts annoyingly cut in.) He needed to get you to Madam Pomfrey before—

“Heeseung!” Sunoo yelled from over the table.

He whirled around to see that elixir had turned a deep purple hue, bubbling up to the rim. That was strange; it was supposed to be a bright yellow color by now. Considering he was handling the cauldron the entire time, nothing should have gone badly wrong. Time seemed to slow down as Heeseung speculated what in Salazar’s name he managed to screw up.

That was when he noticed the green bottle next to the cauldron—the Infusion of Wormwood he poured in earlier. Except it wasn’t Wormwood; the brown tag hanging from the neck of the bottle read Flobberworm Mucus.

Before he could curse himself for not reading the label properly beforehand, the failed elixir rose all the way to the top and shot out of the cauldron, spewing purple liquid all over their table and burning a hole through the wood. Slughorn’s head turned sharply in their direction, and he crossed the classroom to see what mess you and Heeseung had caused.

“Evanesco!” the Potions teacher shouted, making the substance vanish in an instant. Slughorn looked mostly unsurprised as he turned to face you and Heeseung, letting a retired sigh slip. “Five points from Slytherin and Hufflepuff—and twenty inches on the properties of Amortentia by next class.”

“Twenty?” you cried, nearly gasping from the shock. “But, Sir, we have so much work from our other N.E.W.T. classes already!”

“And we have the Hogsmede trip after class,” Heeseung chimed in.

And, bless his heart, Slughorn was far too kind of a soul to be too strict with either of you. He typically had high expectations for those he taught, especially the ones he sought out for his reputable ‘Slug Club,’ but he had a soft spot for his N.E.W.T. students.

“Alright then, well… you and Mr. Lee can write twenty inches together and bring it to me,” he decided in his bumbling voice.

When he walked away, Heeseung let his shoulders sag. He couldn’t believe he had to write a paper over this—and with you, no less. He should’ve known that he was cursed to stumble upon misfortune again, but, at the same time, he just couldn’t find a way to blame you. Sure, you were the one who took the wrong bottle from the Potions cabinet, but Heeseung really should’ve double-checked the label before he poured it into the cauldron.

“Oh, well,” Sunoo simpered, wearing a proud smirk, “writing about Amortentia shouldn’t be hard for you, huh?”

Heeseung demonstrated his hair loss curse on Sunoo after class.

“I might get a D on my N.E.W.T. for Potions, Hee,” you complained to him later when you both had snuck away to the lakefront to work on your remedial paper. There was a nice patch of grass that Heeseung liked to sit on and contemplate his miserable life, so he figured that he’d share the location with you. “Or maybe even a T—oh, Godric’s Heart.”

“Hey, failing with distinction would be much more impressive than just downright failing,” he tried.

“Not helping.”

“Sorry.”

Heeseung had a total of four words written on his parchment so far, which happened to be both of your first and last names. He wasn’t sure how he would get to twenty inches without delving into the smells of Amortentia, which he already figured he would need to use a personal anecdote for. He was trying his best to avoid that since it would lead to a rather awkward conversation.

However, everyone was leaving for Hogsmede shortly, so Heeseung was hoping that you would decide to set aside the rest of the paper for later.

As if the universe was rubbing Heeseung’s misery in his face, Jake Sim came strutting over in his stupid, perfect robes. (Except it was quite a normal walk; no strutting whatsoever, actually.)

“Just got out of Arithmancy?” you asked him with a gut-wrenching, brilliant smile on your face.

“Yeah, Seunghan and I were heading to Hogsmede with everyone else,” Jake answered before his gaze drifted to Heeseung. Something seemed to light up in his eyes and he started reaching into his robes. “Hey, nice game yesterday! Did you see that, uh… where did I put it…” After some rummaging through his pockets, Jake pulled out a piece of parchment which seemed to be a clipping from the school newspaper. “You made the front page!”

Heeseung peered to see a moving picture of himself laying on the Quidditch pitch, half-conscious as the Golden Snitch rested in the palm of his hand. Next to him, Sunghoon and Jungwon gave the camera a thumbs-up and feigned shock at the sight of the Seeker on the ground.

He was definitely going to be sending Riki a Howler.

“Lovely,” he replied half-heartedly, fighting down a scowl when he realized that Jake wanted him to keep the clipping. “I’ll hang it up with the rest of my collection.”

Jake laughed, even though Heeseung was dead serious. He had an archive of mortifying photographs of him that Riki had taken ever since he stepped onto Hogwarts grounds. Collecting them was intentional, of course; Heeseung needed evidence for the Wizangamot if he planned to sue Nishimura Riki for defamation one day. If Heeseung had known how much of a nuisance the Gryffindor would be, he would’ve plotted for the kid to be sent back home right after his Sorting Ceremony.

“We have a remedial paper to write,” you told Jake glumly, “so I don’t think we’ll be going to Hogsmede today.”

Jake shrugged. “I’ll see you in the common room later, then.”

“Bye-bye.”

Once Jake walked off to find his friend, Heeseung shot you a dark look. There might have been something warm and soupy in his chest whenever he even looked in your general direction, but he wouldn’t let this slide.

“I’m not skipping the Hogsmede trip.”

“But we have to finish—”

“But Hogsmede,” he whined. “Can’t we meet in the library after and work on it?”

“I have a Transfiguration quiz I need to study for.” You sounded distressed for a moment, but you quickly brightened up. “Who are you meeting in Hogsmede?”

“Uh, well, no one in particular. Just wanted to check out some stores.”

“Then how about we go together?” you suggested. “We can work on our paper in The Three Broomsticks.”

“Oh.” Heat suddenly rose to Heeseung’s cheeks, and although he desperately tried to convince himself that your proposal did not sound like a date, he couldn’t shake how excited he was to spend some one-on-one time with you. “That works for me.”

On Salazar’s name, Heeseung was going to murder Sunghoon and Jungwon in cold blood.

While you and Heeseung had gotten cozy in an empty booth, brushing shoulders as you two looked over the first paragraph you started, his two dear friends decided to show up where they were clearly unwelcome. Apparently, mouthing get the fuck out of here wasn’t sending the message across.

Sunghoon was on some long tangent about how he barely scraped by on his O.W.L.s, but Slughorn finally gave him the green light to take Alchemy. For some odd reason, Alchemy was only available as a N.E.W.T. class, so Sunghoon had been anxious the whole summer over whether his O.W.L. results would be enough.

“Didn’t you get five O.W.L.s?” Jungwon asked, bored.

“Six—A in Herbology,” Sunghoon corrected. “I hate plants.”

“Longbottom let you in with an Acceptable?” Heeseung raised his brows with mild interest, but he quickly steeled his expression. He was not entertaining their company, no. He started practicing the fine art of Legilimency to send a message to Sunghoon: go away, go away, go away, go away.

“He said he was especially impressed that I got into his N.E.W.T. class.”

“Oh, yeah,” you spoke up, pointing at Sunghoon. “Yizhuo told me she had no idea you were in her class until you showed up for exams.”

“I also didn’t realize she was in my class until you mentioned that.”

“How’d you even pass?” Heeseung asked.

“No clue,” Sunghoon replied honestly. “The exam was fine, but I thought the practical would be the end for me. Turns out I’m a natural. They even clapped after I ripped the leaves off a Venomous Tentacula. Like, big deal, it’s a plant.”

Everyone at the table froze. Heeseung practically jumped seconds later, hitting his leg against the underside of the table. He had long abandoned his goal of kicking Sunghoon and Jungwon out of The Three Broomsticks. You choked on your butterbeer, wiping some of the foam off your chin. Jungwon’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. Heeseung’s knee hit the underside of the table, suppressing a groan. There was a shuffle below.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed you ducking under the table for a moment. However, he was too astounded by Sunghoon’s story to divert the topic.

Heeseung set his butterbeer down and asked, “You just walked over and used your bare hands?”

“I suppose not showing up to class has its upsides,” Jungwon said. “Ignorance is bliss.”

“Sunghoon, do you even know what a Venomous Tentacula does?” you asked.

“What? Photosynthesis?”

“Well, other than the snapping jaws that can either stun or kill you, and the vines reaching out to strangle you when you’re least expecting it,” Jungwon started (which didn't sound like a very pleasant start, to be honest), “there's also the venom that shoots out from its sprouts—oh, and the thorns that can kill you if you prick your finger.”

Sunghoon looked disturbed before muttering to Heeseung, “And they call Hogwarts the safest school on Earth. What a joke.”

You excused yourself shortly after the conversation came to an end, claiming that you spotted a friend a few tables over. Heeseung pretended to listen to Sunghoon and Jungwon trying to guess how old Professor Binns was, but really he was keeping an eye on you. Minjeong was whispering something to you, paused when you wrapped your arms around her, and then turned her neck to say something with sudden enthusiasm.

Heeseung wondered how it would feel if he was sitting in that seat instead of Kim Minjeong, if your arms were draped around his shoulders like that. He thought of your hair falling into his face, how he’d brush it away and turn his head to kiss you—

Dangerous waters, he warned himself. Do not go there.

“Every time I ask him—and, mind you, it was only a couple of times—he falls asleep before he can even give me an answer!” Sunghoon complained, bringing Heeseung’s attention back to the topic of the ancient History of Magic professor. “Heeseung, has he ever told your class how old he is?”

“Couple hundred years probably,” he answered. “Can you guys leave now?”

They gawked at him, offended.

Now Heeseung had realized he had driven himself into a corner. He couldn’t tell them the real reason why he wanted them to leave. If his friends found out that he wanted to spend time with you alone, then they would misconstrue the situation into something involving feelings—something which Lee Heeseung might have had but refused to admit out loud or to himself.

“You two have been distracting us from finishing our paper,” he said instead, pointing at their unfinished essay. “Twenty inches! And we hardly have two.”

Jungwon, who saw right through him, asked, “You just wanna spend time with Y/N, don’t you?”

Heeseung coughed loudly, as if that would cover up whatever the Slytherin just said. “What?”

“It’s so obvious,” Sunghoon said. “Would we really be your best friends if we couldn’t pick up on who you’re into?”

“I am not into—” Heeseung paused to weigh his words. His recent revelation brought him to the point of no return; he couldn’t just lie about how he felt now. He threw an anxious look over his shoulder to make sure you were still preoccupied with Minjeong. “We have a paper to write.”

Sunghoon threw his head back to laugh. “See? You can’t even deny it.”

“It doesn’t even matter; she’s into Jake.”

They went silent. Glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

“Jake Sim?” Jungwon asked. “And Y/N?”

“Yes.”

“Jake Sim… and Y/N.”

“Yes,” Heeseung repeated with impatience seeping past his teeth.

“What makes you think she’s into Jake?”

“Uh…” Heeseung was now irritated that he was being put on the spot because nothing was coming to mind. He just thought of you and Jake laughing together in the courtyard and jealousy wrapped tight around his heart. “I saw them together.”

“I saw you in Filch’s office the other day,” Sunghoon said. “Are you two a thing?”

Heeseung scowled at him, but before he could fire back at his friend, Jungwon said, “Just tell us you want us to leave so you can spend time with Y/N, and we’ll go.” A sly grin spread across his face, and he scarily resembled Kim Sunoo at that very moment. “You should probably make up your mind before she gets back.”

Struggling for a way out of this situation, Heeseung gave them both dirty looks. He had no choice but to give Jungwon and Sunghoon what they wanted. You were going to wrap your conversation up with Minjeong any minute now, so he had to act now before his friends terrorized him for the rest of their Hogsmede trip.

“Fine,” he said sharply. “I wanna spend time with Y/N alone, so leave.”

Right on command, the two boys made a big scene about having to leave, throwing their hands up in exasperation and getting to their feet slowly. Sunghoon shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck as if it was a pain for them to be ordered around. Heeseung sank back into his seat in embarrassment.

“Alright, alright, we’ll go,” Sunghoon drawled, “but you better tell us all the details after.”

Heeseung gave them his word, even though he was sure the update would simply be finishing their essay. Once Jungwon and Sunghoon strode out of the pub, he turned his gaze back to Minjeong’s table. For a moment, he just watched how your hair shone under the warm lighting. Heeseung had to avert his eyes when you turned around again to walk back to his table. There was a strange look on your face, like you were trying to work through a puzzle in your head.

“Where’d the others go?”

For the entirety of their Hogsmede excursion, Heeseung had been trying his hardest not to look at you when you were so close to him. Now, though, with his friends gone, it was just you and him sitting almost shoulder-to-shoulder.

He realized he was staring at your lips instead of answering your question. He licked his lips involuntarily and looked away.

“Uh, went to check out some stores, I think,” he lied. “Should we get back to work?”

Slightly distracted, you replied, “Yes, let’s.”

The remedial paper was finally at an impressive twenty inches by the time you and Heeseung thought it would be best to start walking back to the school.

There weren’t many students around anymore as most people didn’t want to miss dinner in the Great Hall. Heeseung felt like something was off. You were focused on the paper the entire time, hardly engaging in any side conversation or recalling some fun memory. When you two ran out of things to write about Amortentia and stumbled upon the topic of describing its scent, Heeseung managed to steer away from writing about how the potion smelled for him. Instead, you two went for a more informational route with zero personal anecdotes.

The walk back to the castle was long, but Heeseung really hadn’t expected you to bring up the topic of Amortentia again. He thought hours of writing a paper on the potion would put you off of it for a long period of time.

“So, you remember Slughorn showing us the love potion in class, right?” you started timidly while the two of you were crossing a bridge in Hogsmede. You didn’t even let Heeseung get to the trail to Hogwarts before you started your interrogation. “What’d it smell like for you?”

Fuck.

Why was everyone so interested in what the Amortentia smelled like for him? It wasn’t supposed to be some groundbreaking piece of information, and it wasn’t a big deal that it smelled like your signature scent! There were far more interesting things to converse about, like how nicely the leaves were arranged on the trees, or how interesting of a shade the sky was.

But there was no way for him to avoid this question—not when you were staring at him so adamantly—so he resorted to lying. A white lie never hurt anyone, after all. Or, well, anyone important.

“Like… books,” he answered, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

“Maybe you and the librarian are meant to be,” you teased.

“I guess sneaking into the restricted section makes the heart grow fond.”

You laughed, and, Merlin’s beard, what a melody. Heeseung could listen to your voice all day. Preferably on a warm day while he was stretched out on some grass with your head on his lap, or maybe he’d like to be laying on your lap. Either way, he would be perfectly content just listening to you talk his ear off until—

“Y’know, that’s funny ‘cause… well, you wrote lavender here,” you said, chewing on the inside of your cheek and holding the very scrap of parchment that was supposed to be tucked away in Heeseung’s pocket.

Suddenly, he felt the urge to shut himself in the Slytherin common room and never hear you speak to him again.

In the couple of seconds he was malfunctioning for, many thoughts raced through Heeseung’s head.

First, he wondered if there was still time left to request a Ministry-issued Time-Turner under the guise that he would use it for his classes. Instead, its intended purpose would be to reverse time until Heeseung had somehow gotten himself out of this situation or destroyed that stupid piece of parchment.

The second revelation that struck him was that he must have dropped the paper in The Three Broomsticks. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he hit his knee under the table. There was a moment when he noticed you picking something up from the floor, but he hadn’t dwelled on it, expecting it to have just been a napkin.

Lastly, he had gone extremely still—to the point of halting in his tracks and staring at you, wide-eyed. His body had completely seized up to the point where he almost thought he was shaking. Shaking—but he was shaking. He was shaking all over. Or maybe he wasn’t. He couldn’t tell. Heeseung clenched a fist to make sure he had control over his body.

“Heeseung?”

You stopped walking, too, looking at him curiously. For a moment, it looked like you were going to apologize for reading what he wrote down, but you looked down at it again.

“Did the love potion smell like lavender?” you asked in a soft voice. Looking visibly flustered, you said in a rush, “I’m just asking because Minjeong said I always, uh… smell like lavender, and I just thought…”

He needed to run. He needed to get out of here. He needed to disappear.

Heeseung felt like his blood was rushing through his ears, pumping so loud that he couldn’t hear anything but his heartbeat for a moment. You were saying something, but he couldn’t even make out the words your lips framed. The world had slowed down, and Heeseung wasn’t quite sure if his feet were planted firmly on the ground.

He would have rather been anywhere else—maybe at Sunghoon’s house where his mother’s baked goods wafted from her kitchen window. He could envision the meadow right behind their house and how he spent the summer in the grass, practicing Quidditch with Sunghoon and his little sister. Jongseong would arrive days later to complain about his O.W.L.s for three hours straight until Sunghoon and Heeseung felt the life oozing out of their bodies.

But here, with your eyes sparkling with determination, Heeseung felt like he was about to melt into a puddle. He was consumed with the ungodly urge to grab ahold of you and kiss you until his blood felt like electricity in his veins. Yes, he needed to be anywhere but here—anywhere where his feelings weren’t worn on his sleeve for the world to see.

You started again, “Heeseung—”

Before you could get anything else out, Heeseung, who was overcome with the will to escape, felt something pulling him from behind. In a flash, he was whisked out of thin air with a tug behind his navel, leaving you gobsmacked and stranded in Hogsmede.

He felt like he was being pushed through a thin vortex, squeezed by the fabric of reality tearing and reshaping itself around him. It took him some gasping breaths to get lungfuls of air into his body, but once he could breathe right again, he realized he was definitely not in Hogsmede.

“Excuse me?” Heeseung asked a nearby townsperson who was walking past him. He must have looked ridiculous in his Hogwarts robes, body awkwardly sprawled over two bales of hay. “Where am I?”

“Feldcroft,” the wizard answered.

He Apparated to Sunghoon’s hometown.

Not only did Heeseung spend thirty minutes trying to Apparate back to Hogsmede, but he was late for dinner. You were long gone, of course, but it seemed like you hadn’t exactly abandoned Heeseung. When he arrived on school grounds, Slughorn and McGonagall were waiting for him at the gate. This was definitely going to earn him a detention or two.

Apparently, you ran back to school to tell McGonagall about what happened. The headmistress also noted that you were sobbing because you were convinced that it was your fault somehow. You happened to be under the belief that Heeseung wouldn’t know how to get back, which he couldn’t argue with because he considered himself lucky to Apparate back without splinching himself.

After receiving a lecture from both professors about the dangers of Apparating unsupervised, Heeseung received two punishments: one week of detention and he wasn’t allowed to go on the next Hogsmede trip. However, he also received a pat on the back from Slughorn and a congratulations from McGonagall for a successful Apparition.

When he recounted the story to Sunghoon, Jungwon, and Sunoo in the common room the following morning, they were howling with laughter. He had to pause approximately four times for them to catch their breaths.

“It’s not that funny,” Heeseung deadpanned.

Sunoo, who was wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, replied, “It’s kinda funny.”

Sunoo was also missing several patches of hair, which Heeseung generously didn’t point out.

“Did my mom give you anything to bring back?” Sunghoon inquired. “I’ve been craving her tarts.”

“I didn’t exactly have time to drop by your mom’s and pick up some tarts! I was trying to Apparate back to Hogsmede, if that wasn’t already clear!”

“On the bright side,” Jungwon said, “you’ll probably pass your Apparition exam now. Sunghoon lost half an eyebrow while he was practicing yesterday.”

Sunghoon, with one and a half eyebrows, grimaced.

“So, you left Y/N hanging and she had to walk back alone?” Sunoo asked, tutting lightly as he shook his head. “Now you stand no chance of asking her out.”

Heeseung tried to cover up how taken aback he was by coughing into his arm, expertly hiding his reddening cheeks from his friends. “It’s not like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Jungwon said. “So, you’d be perfectly fine with Y/N going out with Jake?”

Heeseung’s face turned sour as he turned to look at the Slytherin. “She’s going out with who?”

“It’s a hypothetical question.”

“Well… who she goes out with is none of my business.”

Sunghoon barked out a laugh. “Then why’d you get so worked up?”

“I’m not getting worked up,” Heeseung replied firmly, huffing as he got to his feet. “I simply don’t think she and Jake Sim are compatible, but my opinion’s got nothing to do with her.”

“Yeah?” A ghost of a smirk was plastered across Sunoo’s face. “Why don’t you think they’re compatible?”

There was a fire in the center of Heeseung’s chest, blazing and scorching his heart. He felt as if he would pass out from the immense pressure in his chest, but then his body felt so hot that everything seemed to slip away. He thought of you and Jake again, thinking about how you smiled up at him in a way Heeseung had never seen you smile at him.

The fire in his chest raged.

“Because I exist,” he answered loudly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Defense Against the Dark Arts class to attend.”

Whether they were awestruck or dumbfounded, Heeseung’s friends watched him leave the common room with crooked grins on their faces. He was extremely satisfied that he managed to get his two cents in without his voice cracking or wavering.

After Sunghoon was left in the common room with Sunoo and Jungwon, he slumped back in his seat and asked, “Since when did he go to class?”

Defense Against the Dark Arts was Heeseung’s favorite class. Not because he particularly enjoyed dueling or any violence of the sort, but because Professor Weasley was the only teacher who didn’t assign papers every other day. He preferred a more hands-on teaching method, which usually involved partnering up and practicing spells on fellow classmates.

Plus, when Heeseung was in moods like these—moods where he felt like he was going to burst into flames much like a phoenix would—he looked forward to blasting someone across the room. Someone preferably like Jung Sungchan, who didn’t take it personally when he conjured columns of fire in rapid succession.

Because he was so hot with unexplained anger and unrestrained emotion, Heeseung had to set the record straight (evidently for himself, too) that he most definitely harbored romantic feelings for you.

Admittedly, this was clear after he smelled the Amortentia, but Heseung refused to allow Potions to be the class that made him aware that he was in love. He could almost envision Slughorn taking credit for his future wedding, and the very thought made him shudder.

The fire in Heeseung’s chest grew into more of a wildfire tearing through his body once he saw Jake Sim in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

He completely forgot that Jake took this class, too. The cherry on top was that Jake and Seunghan decided to sit at the desk right behind Heeseung and Sungchan, so he could hardly focus on Sungchan rattling on about Trelawny giving him detention when he was trying his hardest to eavesdrop on Jake’s conversation.

Right when Heeseung heard Jake talking about something potentially dark and dangerous (buying a Pygmy Puff), Professor Weasley raised his wand to signal that he was starting class.

He started discussing familial curses, which Heeseung found especially interesting because he had almost considered a career path as a Curse-Breaker. It was a dangerous line of work, according to Professor Weasley, who used to be one himself before the second wizarding war, but Heeseung thought it was an honorable job to help remove dangerous curses.

Professor Weasley decided to stray from his usual ‘partner up with the person next to you’ and instead asked everyone to practice the Shield Charm with another student who was sitting around them. This, in turn, made Heeseung’s heart drop to his stomach.

If Sungchan wasn’t an option, then Heeseung was hoping he could partner with Seunghan. He quite liked the Hufflepuff, despite him being friends with the public enemy named Jake Sim. Seunghan had always been fun to talk to, and they became closer in fifth year when they were both sent to the infirmary and had beds next to each other. Madam Pomfrey was eventually tired of the two boys practicing jinxes on each other.

Sungchan and Seunghan partnered up almost immediately, and then the girl sitting in front of Heeseung had run off to her friend as soon as the words slipped from Professor Weasley’s mouth. There was no one else for him to turn to—no one but Jake.

“Do you have a partner yet?” Jake asked shyly, and Heeseung had to fight down a bitter retort; obviously he didn’t have a partner, or he would’ve gotten up by now. “We can practice together, if you want.”

Heeseung reluctantly got to his feet. “Sure.”

They were an odd pairing, for sure. Heeseung couldn’t help but feel awkward around Jake, and it seemed as if Jake felt the same way, even though he did his best to be overly-friendly.

Jake decided to be the one defending himself first, so Heeseung was graced with the opportunity to cast offensive spells at him all he wanted. He was having far too much fun casting Expelliarmus and Stupefy at Jake and watching the Hufflepuff draw his wand up just in time to shield himself.

“You’re really good at this!” Jake said, eyes wide with what Heeseung assumed was fear. “Do you duel often?”

“Not really,” he answered. “I just have good aim.”

“Quidditch.” He made the connection quickly with a far too happy look on his face. “I’ve seen you fly. You’re really good.”

Quit playing nice! Heeseung was yelling at him in his head. It was proving quite difficult to viciously attack the Hufflepuff while receiving compliments in return.

“Yeah?” Heeseung gritted his teeth. “Do you watch Y/N—Stupefy!—play?”

“Y/N?” Jake looked confused for a moment, but his smile never faltered. “Yeah, of course! I always support Hufflepuff.”

Oh, right. They were in the same house. Logically, this was where Heeseung should’ve backed off, but jealousy seized him by the throat and made his head go funny.

He sent another streak of orange light flying in Jake’s direction, aiming right for his perfect hair. Jake deflected it.

“Anyway,” Jake continued as he started to get the hang of performing wandless magic, “you guys are playing against Gryffindor next, right? I really think Slytherin’s gonna win. I mean, you guys have such a strong team, and…”

As he kept droning on about how great the Slytherin Quidditch team was, Heeseung couldn't help but feel a bit confused. He was here to intimidate the Hufflepuff, but now he felt like he was at some sort of meet and greet. Why was Jake so bent on praising the Slytherin team? Heeseung assumed that the whole incentive for Quidditch games was for house pride, but Jake seemed to be taking it way too seriously.

Come to think of it, Heeseung did find it strange that Jake had that defamatory newspaper clipping of Heeseung injured on the ground. Why would he specifically go looking for an article of the Slytherin team’s victory?

Heeseung lowered his wand when he heard a yelp to his right. Hong Seunghan had his wand raised over his head, a nearly-invisible shield circling his body that Heeseung could vaguely make out under the lamp light.

“Watch it! This isn’t target practice, Heeseung!” Seunghan cried, looking absolutely distressed as he hastily adjusted his yellow-trimmed robes.

Heeseung’s Stunning Spell would’ve hit Seunghan if he hadn’t reacted in time. On one hand, he felt bad; on the other hand, he really thought Seunghan should’ve been patting himself on the back for his quick reaction time instead.

“My bad,” Heeseung mumbled. So much for his so-called good aim.

“And you,” Seunghan said—to Jake, this time, “stop distracting him with all your Quidditch talk!”

Yeah, you tell him, Seunghan, thought Heeseung, who actually quite enjoyed talking about Quidditch.

To his surprise, Jake’s face started to flush pink. “I-I’m not trying to distract him or anything… I was just making conversation.”

Seunghan threw him a lazy smirk before turning back to Heeseung and rolling his eyes playfully. “Put him out of his misery and set him up with your friend, will you?”

“What?” Heeseung couldn’t stop himself from fuming at Seunghan’s words. The fire in his chest ignited once more, blazing with the heat of a thousand suns.

Sungchan, who had been waiting patiently to attack Seunghan, rubbed the back of his neck. “Er—can we get back to—”

“Seunghan, drop it already,” Jake pleaded, his voice growing smaller and smaller. “It’s not happening.”

Seunghan shrugged and returned to blocking Sungchan’s attacks. The two of them seemed to be having fun with the exercise, at least. Heeseung and Jake were a disaster; Heeseung was far too vexed to think straight, and Jake was as bashful as a first year.

“You can ask her yourself, you know,” Heeseung said coldly, shooting a jet of red light in Jake’s direction. Jake barely managed to cast his shield in time to deflect Heeseung’s spell.

“I can’t,” Jake replied, all meek and timid again, which made Heeseung’s blood boil.

He saw how comfortable Jake was around you, so why was he acting like this now? He was comfortable enough to walk up to you while you were with another guy; he was comfortable enough to keep eye contact while you smiled so radiantly at him; and he was comfortable enough to ask you to go to Hogsmede with him, so why was this such a big deal?

Heeseung felt sick to his stomach. He wanted this class to be over so that he could go to his dormitory and wallow in his miserable state.

Jake sighed wistfully. “She probably has no idea I even exist.”

Heeseung blanked.

He tossed around Jake’s words in his head a couple of times, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Heeseung perfectly understood being shy around a crush, but wasn’t this a bit much? From what he had observed, you most definitely knew of Jake’s existence.

Still confused, Heeseung replied, “I’m pretty sure she does.”

“Really?” Jake’s voice was louder, more hopeful. “She does? I mean, I guess she has to know I exist since we’re in the same class and all, but has she… has she ever mentioned me?”

Heeseung wondered if he should just stun Jake and leave class early.

Deciding against it for the sake of not receiving another week of detention, he answered, “Well, yeah, a couple of times.”

“Really? What did she say?”

“Uh…” Heeseung scratched his head as he tried to remember. “Something about telling you how I set off Dungbombs in Filch’s office.”

It was Jake’s turn to look confused.

“That was Y/N,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Wait, did you think I was talking about Y/N this whole time?”

Heeseung had to duck this time when his spell rebounded off of Jake’s shield and went flying in his direction. He stood up straight again, this time with his eyebrows furrowed and his ears bright red from realizing that he was about to embarrass himself yet again.

“You’re not?” he asked.

“No!”

“Then who are you talking about?”

“M-Minjeong,” Jake stammered out. “Kim Minjeong.”

Heeseung stared at him. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure if this was reality; this could have all been some hyper-realistic dream—one of those absurd ones that hardly made sense but left him gasping for air when he woke up.

But Heeseung’s feet were planted firmly on the ground and he had all ten of his fingers, so this couldn’t be a dream. Yet, when he drew in a shuddering breath, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was very wrong about this whole thing. Had he really been wrong about Jake Sim this entire time?

Also Minjeong? When he was friends with you? Heeseung wasn’t one to judge people’s tastes, but he’d swim oceans for you yet hardly cross a puddle for Minjeong. (Perhaps that was just because he resented the Slytherin girl for always making fun of his Quidditch screw-ups.)

So that was why Jake had been overly-invested in the Slytherin team. He wasn’t a Quidditch-fanatic whose house pride flew out the window; he was just harboring a crush this whole time! Heeseung was so relieved that the inferno in his chest had quelled.

In fact, he was so relieved that he let out a shaky laugh without having half the mind to hold it in. Jake must have thought Heeseung was making fun of his crush, but Heeseung couldn’t help but laugh and laugh about how pathetic he had been this whole time. He had lost sleep over Jake Sim, only for him to like someone completely different.

How ridiculous.

Heeseung crossed the distance between them and patted him firmly on the back, taking the Hufflepuff by surprise. “Minjeong, huh? I’ll introduce you.”

Jake’s eyes shone. “You will?”

“Of course I will. Now, tell me,” Heeseung started, his voice taking on a serious edge as he slung an arm around Jake’s shoulders, “where did you get your robes?”

It was such a lovely day outside; the grass was greener, the skies were bluer, and there wasn’t a single cloud in sight—perfect weather to fly. Heeseung could even hear the birds singing as he strode down the hallway, trying very, very hard to keep himself from skipping.

He wasn’t even trying to eavesdrop, but he picked up on the conversation a couple of fifth years were having nearby.

"—heard they both had to go to the infirmary!” one of them whispered to the other. “It was that bad!”

“Over a silly game?” The other girl, who Heeseung named Girl Two in his head, scoffed. “I’ll never understand Quidditch.”

Girl One shook her head. “Not over the game. It was over Lee Heeseung.”

Heeseung, who was slowly realizing that he was the Lee Heeseung they were gossiping about, suddenly felt very engaged in this conversation that he wasn’t part of. His guilty pleasure happened to be listening in on all of the scandalous happenings at Hogwarts. For him to be indirectly involved was even more exciting.

“Lee Heeseung?” Girl Two frowned. “Why would Y/N pick a fight over Lee Heeseung?”

He nearly tripped over his own feet. Heeseung had to scurry behind a pillar before anyone saw him blushing like a madman, but now he was worried about how strange it looked for him to be spying on a couple of fifth years from behind a pillar.

Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. You fought someone? And you were in the infirmary? His sick happiness was quickly replaced with dreadful worry.

(But he also wasn’t too worried; you could clearly handle your own.)

“No clue,” Girl One said. “I suppose they’re dating.”

Heeseung couldn’t stop the giggle from escaping his lips. He clamped a hand over his mouth as soon as it slipped out, and Girl One and Girl Two looked around suspiciously.

“Who was that?” Girl Two asked sharply.

“Must be that Ravenclaw girl,” Girl One replied bitterly, taking her wand out of her robes.

Heeseung had no idea who ��that Ravenclaw girl’ was referring to, but he knew that he was no longer safe in their vicinity. After casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, he fled the scene immediately, only removing the charm once he was safely down the hall.

He hadn’t even realized his heart was racing faster than it ever had in his life until he found himself sprinting in the direction of the infirmary.

“Mr. Lee, no running in the halls!” Professor Longbottom cried over his shoulder, gripping the pot of a Mandrake tightly. “That’ll be five points from—oh, forget it.”

Madam Pomfrey looked unsurprised to see Heeseung walking in, all sweaty and panting. She simply pointed in the direction of where your bed was and walked off to tend to some second year who, judging by the twigs in his hair, decided to test his luck with the Whomping Willow.

You were sulking in bed, turned on your side so that your back was facing Heeseung. It looked like you were mostly unscathed, but when Heeseung rounded the corner of your bed, all he could see was red when he noticed the cut on your lip and gash on your cheek.

“Heeseung!” you gasped, sitting up straight so that you could swing your legs off the bed. “How’d you know—”

“Who did this?” he asked angrily, drawing out his wand and looking around the infirmary. He remembered Girl One saying that both parties were sent to the infirmary, so they must have still been around. “Who hurt you?”

“It’s not that bad, I just—”

“Not that bad?” he repeated louder. “You’re hurt!”

“It’s not that bad,” you said again, quieter. You held onto Heeseung’s bicep with gentle hands, which happened to immediately calm him down. “Sit.”

Heeseung sighed and sat down on the edge of your bed. He had felt remarkably happier after finding out that Jake did not, in fact, have a thing for you, but now he was riled up again. He wondered what you thought about Jake, but then Heeseung wondered why you were picking fights over him.

“It was the Seeker from the Gryffindor team,” you told him in an oddly calm voice, although he couldn’t help but notice how you were fiddling with your fingers too much. “She was talking down on you during class, so I picked an argument with her after class. That’s how I got these.” You pointed at the cuts on your lower lip and cheek.

“But you don’t need to worry about her; she’s worse off than I am. I got her with a knee-reversal hex,” you said with a sheepish grin. “Let’s see how she flies after this.”

Heeseung stared at you. “You’re insane.”

“I believe the words you’re looking for are thank—”

“I love you.”

He believed he said it very, very softly, but his words echoed in his head so loudly that Heeseung couldn’t be completely sure that he hadn’t yelled it for the infirmary to hear. If it weren’t for the second year complaining loudly about how unsafe it was to have a murderous tree on school grounds, then Heeseung was sure the room would have been dead silent following his confession.

You didn’t move. The worst was happening right now; Heeseung had boldly blurted out his feelings just for you to not answer him and soon hate him for the rest of your life. It was fine. You two would graduate soon. He would no longer have to see you again, even though the smell of lavender would be a constant reminder of his first love and first heartbreak. He would die alone now. Oh, and he’d have to tell his parents with deep regret that they would not have grandchildren.

“Heeseung,” you whispered, and your lips started framing soundless words that you couldn’t get out.

The cat was out of the bag, so all Heeseung could do was stand up and own up to his words.

“You were right,” he said. “My Amortentia did smell like lavender—like you.”

He grabbed the rag on the table next to your bed, soaking it in water and wringing it out. Normally, Heeseung would have been shaking like a leaf, but he was oddly calm as he delicately held your chin, tilting your head to the side enough to get a good look at you.

“I must’ve fallen in love with you years ago—maybe even from the first time you tripped me at the Sorting Hat Ceremony,” he said softly as he dabbed at your fresh cut, and although your eyes were wide and glossy, you hardly even flinched. Heeseung was pretty sure he had never even admitted what he said out loud to himself. When he was done and set the rag aside, he said, “So… glad I got that out before I kept it to myself for the rest of my life. I’ll get going now and hopefully not kill myself on the way.”

He hurried past Madam Pomfrey, making eye contact with no one except the Gryffindor Seeker, whose knees were bent at an awkward angle. She leered at him, to which Heeseung paid no attention because he had far bigger things to worry about, like the fact that his life was over.

Before he got all the way down the hall, though, he heard footsteps getting louder and louder. When he turned to see you speeding after him, Heeseung panicked and started running himself.

“Why are you running?!” you cried.

“Why are you chasing me?!” he yelled back.

“Stop running! Get over here, Lee Heeseung!”

“No!” He was very embarrassed to note that his voice did indeed crack. “I’m scared!”

“Colloshoo!”

It was like he had rammed right into a wall. Heeseung felt like his shoes were glued to the floor, and, with a grunt, he ended up falling forward and landing on his face when they wouldn’t budge. If only you had waited to hex him after he reached the grassy outdoors instead of the hard, stone flooring of the breezeway.

“You hexed me!” He turned to look at you, exasperated. “How could you hex me after hexing someone for me?!”

“Now stay there.”

“No.” Stubborn, Heeseung started walking ahead—right down to the Great Lake so that he could wallow in embarrassment in that particularly nice patch of grass. He abandoned his shoes and trudged ahead in his socks. “And don’t follow me!”

“Heeseung,” you warned.

He groaned and turned on you just before he was looking forward to sitting down on the grass, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “You—you’re terrible luck, you know that? Sheer bad luck. You know I’ve lived eleven years of my life perfectly fine until you showed up? Suddenly, everything goes wrong when I’m around you! And it’s not just missing the Hogwarts Express or blowing up a potion, it’s everything else!”

You calmly listened to him as he continued in his wild craze, “I can hardly breathe when I’m around you! I can’t even look at you for too long, or else I’ll probably combust. You make it so impossible for me to stay away from you, even though the very thing I need for the sake of my sanity is to stay away from you!”

“Are you done now?” you asked calmly, not quite breathing as hard as he was, but your chest was still rising and falling as if you were winded from running.

“Yes,” he said, “so I’ll go drown myself in the—”

Before he could finish the rest of his sentence, you grabbed Heeseung by the front of his robes and pulled him down to kiss him senseless. He thought he had been hit with a Stunning Spell from how still he was, but when he realized that this was real life and you were indeed kissing him, his hand made its way to cradle your jaw as he kissed you back with searing passion.

He was ashamed to say that he had dreamt about this scenario many times, charted all of his next moves in great detail, and fantasized about doing much more than he’d like to admit. Heeseung felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest, but he kept his lips pressed to yours like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

This was everything and more than he ever expected. He was certain he could never grow tired of the taste of your lips, and he was honestly scolding himself for not having done this sooner.

Your arms naturally found their way around his neck, and Heeseung took that as his cue to drop his to your waist. Still locked in a tight embrace, you pulled away to catch your breath, leaving Heeseung to chase after your lips.

“—Great Lake,” he finished his sentence in a breath, “and hopefully get eaten by the Giant Squid—”

“Oh, shut up,” you cut him off to kiss him again.

Heeseung had no further objections. He supposed this meant that he had the shiny new title of being your boyfriend, which he considered a higher honor than Quidditch Captain. This was saying a lot because Quidditch Captains got to use the really nice bathrooms.

Your kiss was slower this time, as if you both realized you had all the time in the world. And when you both finally broke apart, Heeseung let his fingers trace the outline of your lips to commit its shape to memory.

This time when you smiled, it was far brighter than any Patronus Charm he had ever seen.

“I love you, too,” you told him with a shy grin. “Always have.”

“Seriously?”

“Since our first year. Tripping you was by accident, of course. I just thought you were cute.”

Heeseung was pretty sure the average wizard's heart couldn’t handle this overload of emotions. In a few seconds, he was sure he would need to be admitted to the infirmary himself.

Then, you punched his shoulder. Hard.

“If you didn’t Disapparate on the spot back in Hogsmede, then maybe I could've told you sooner!”

“It’s not like I wanted to Apparate away, but… but you put me on the spot!” he exclaimed. Heeseung let his shoulders sag. “Either way, I thought you liked Jake.”

“Jake?” You looked confused before you burst into laughter. “What made you think I liked Jake? He’s so clearly into Minjeong!”

It seemed to be that everyone thought the notion of Jake and you liking each other was absolutely ridiculous. If it wasn’t too late, Heeseung was up for pitching himself in the depths of the Great Lake.

Girl One and Girl Two would surely get a kick out of this.

“Okay, I get it. I’m stupid,” he said, but you wouldn't stop laughing. Heeseung sighed heavily as you wiped tears from the corners of your eyes. “Alright, that’s it, you’re so getting it.”

This time, he grabbed hold of your face (gently, of course, because he didn't want to add pressure to your gash), and he peppered kisses all over your face. You scrunched up your nose, giggling as Heeseung kissed your forehead, your nose, your cheeks, and then finally your lips.

And this—this moment he had been anticipating for seven years—was loads better than letting the Giant Squid eat him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ▸ the next morning, heeseung wakes up and basks in the afterglow of finally confessing to the girl of his dreams!! jay hands him the paper during breakfast and a picture of his shoes glued to the floor is on the front cover. anyways i hope you liked this fic!! so fun to write because i'm deep in a harry potter phase (how did this happen??) but happy valentine's day & thank you for reading <3

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sansaorgana · 3 months ago

Text

— SISTER'S CHOICE

BROKEN OATH (AU)

PAIRING — Ser Gwayne Hightower x fem!Reader // Princess Elaena Targaryen (OC)

SUMMARY — You manage to escape Oldtown after fifteen years of marriage to Ser Gwayne Hightower in order to join your sister Rhaenyra in the upcoming war. Despite the oath given to Rhaenyra, you struggle to be away from your husband and children. Things complicate when you meet Gwayne in the battlefield.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — It’s written from the Reader’s perspective but she is a Targaryen and Rhaenyra's younger sister. I did not describe any of her body or face features except for that she has silver hair, lilac eyes and her name is Elaena. The story is quite long already so I haven't described the beginnings of Reader/Elaena with Gwayne or her childhood – you can find them in the "Broken Oath" fanfic (link above), which is an AU of this one (or this one is an AU of "Broken Oath" 🙈). Canon events are treated very loosely here for the purpose of the plot (Rook's Rest for example).

WARNINGS — Reader/Elaena is responsible for the deaths in the battlefield & if you're Team Black you might be unhappy about the ending (+ I don't like Daemon and it shows, sorry)

WORD COUNT — 9,930 (💀)

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

SISTER'S CHOICE

It was quite a long trip from Oldtown to Dragonstone but you hadn’t made any stops and now both you and your dragon were exhausted. The sun was slowly rising when you arrived but you had a weird feeling deep in your guts – some sort of anxiety – before seeing your sister after fifteen years. How would you even greet her now? What would you say? That fear alone was stopping you from landing.

Eventually, you spotted a few people looking out for you from the castle. They had to be wondering what were you doing, circling around Dragonstone without clear intentions. After spotting your sister’s long silver hair in the wind, you decided to order Onyx to land on the sandy beach and you waited for someone to come out and greet you.

Sighing, you looked around and breathed in the fresh air. It felt so odd to be out of Oldtown – you hadn’t left it in fifteen years. Not even once. You had grown so used to it that you nearly missed it now. You certainly missed your children. They had to slowly wake up now and you wondered what your husband would tell them about your sudden absence.

Would they understand? Would they grow up to hate you? They were only children, you couldn’t expect them to comprehend the complicated situation of the upcoming war, the delicacy of your family’s relations. And what kind of mother abandoned her children like that? Perhaps it was true what they were saying about The Targaryens – just like dragons they rode, they were difficult to tame. Even an obedient and dutiful Princess like you still had fire and blood running through her veins.

Finally, you spotted your sister and a few of her guards walking towards you. You took off the hood of your cloak and petted nervous Onyx to calm her down.

“Sister,” Rhaenyra greeted you and you hurried to her side, leaving your dragon behind you. You gave her an anxious smile as your eyes scanned hers carefully.

She had grown older those past fifteen years but you couldn’t help a feeling that she had grown sadder, too. Either way, she was still your sister but also your Queen now.

“You came, Elaena,” Rhaenyra smiled at you nervously.

“My Queen,” you bowed down and the hood of your cloak fell onto your head again. Rhaenyra chuckled at that and approached you to fix it.

“It is green,” she pointed out while caressing the fabric of your cloak when you two were face-to-face now. Then, her fingers moved down to the golden clasp, which was The Hightower emblem.

“Forgive me,” you unclasped the cloak and let it fall down on the sand. “I am here now, by my sister’s side,” you told her.

“Come, we’ll make space for Onyx in the dragonpit,” Rhaenyra smiled at your dragon and tilted her head a little. “She’s as big as Caraxes now, do you know?”

You were surprised. You had no idea that your young and small dragon had grown so big. It was also unexpected that it had happened in Oldtown where Onyx had been alone and you had not been flying on her often either. She had been spoiled with sheep and your affection but that would be it, really. Other than that, she had been pretty bored there.

“I am glad,” you smiled at your sister. You wanted to take her by her arm but something was stopping you – some invisible barrier between you two and it was not because she was The Queen, no.

She had always been your father’s heir to you anyway. You had gotten used to the fact that Rhaenyra was your superior. The barrier was caused by the fifteen years apart. Despite knowing it was your sister, despite sharing the same blood, the same silver hair, the same lilac eyes – it was a stranger walking down the beach with you.

“Why did you come?” Rhaenyra asked, genuinely. The guards left you behind and watched Onyx fly up again to rest in the dragonpit after the long journey.

“You need dragons and dragonriders in the upcoming war with Aegon,” you answered, a little surprised as if you couldn’t understand why she had even asked that. It was obvious, after all.

“You loved him when he was a babe, did you not?” Rhaenyra smiled gently.

“I love him still, just like I love you – and to you I have sworn my loyalty,” you answered.

“Haven’t you sworn it to your husband, too, on your wedding day?” She kept inquiring and you grew uncomfortable with that. You didn’t want her to mention Gwayne because you were trying your hardest not to think of him.

“Are you suspecting I might be my father-in-law’s spy?” You suddenly turned your head around to look deep into her eyes. “If so, you hurt me deeply.”

“I would never suspect that!” Rhaenyra gasped and held your wrist to squeeze it assuringly. “You have been telling me in your letters that your marriage is a good one, that you love your children dearly. And now you are here, with me,” she pointed out.

“The war is coming,” you only shook your head.

Hadn’t she been expecting you to come and join her? In her letter, you had read that between the lines and now she was shocked to see you? When she had been asking for your loyalty and for remembering your oath… What had she been exactly expecting?

However, you had no opportunity to continue this conversation because you reached the castle and your uncle Daemon was waiting there with a very unpleasant expression on his face.

At first, your heart swelled in your chest at the sight of him. You wanted to run up to him and greet him like back in the old days when you had been a young girl and he would bounce you on his knee. But you froze at the sight of him eyeing you up and down as if you were an intruder.

“What does she want?” He asked Rhaenyra and you swallowed thickly at that tone of his voice.

“She is my sister, Daemon. She came to support me,” Rhaenyra explained.

“And you believe her?” Daemon whispered but you could hear him perfectly well.

“I can hear you, Uncle,” you nodded at him and he shot you a cold glance.

“That is King Consort to you. We don’t trust Hightower cunts here,” he drawled out.

“Daemon!” Rhaenyra scolded him and you were standing there, petrified.

You were not used to being treated this way. In Oldtown you were a Lady of the town – every man was bowing his head at you, they were showing you nothing but respect and your own Lord Husband would challenge Daemon this very moment if he had heard or seen the way you were treated.

But your Lord Husband was not here because you had abandoned him to join your sister. Your sister – not Daemon. So, you held your head high and clenched your jaw at him.

“I am Princess Elaena Targaryen,” you introduced yourself to him in case he had somehow forgotten. “Lady Hightower, to you, dear Uncle. Lady of Oldtown,” you added even though the last title was not technically yours yet as long as your father-in-law was alive but you had been ruling the city in his name alongside your husband for fifteen years now and everyone called you that.

Daemon, however, found your titles somehow funny. He chuckled at you.

“Onyx has grown, Daemon,” Rhaenyra informed him. There was a hint of harshness in her voice that made shivers go down your spine. Something deeply disturbing was going on between them and you had a feeling her marriage was not as wonderful as she had been describing it to you in her letters. “She’s as big as Caraxes now,” she added.

“But not as experienced,” Daemon dismissed that and laid his eyes on you again. He squinted them and looked you up and down before speaking to you again eventually. “Well, come in, Elaena. We are not in a position to refuse any dragonriders,” he said and turned around to walk away.

You looked at Rhaenyra, questioningly.

“Forgive him, he is nervous about the war and we have also lost our child recently… Our baby girl was born dead,” she sighed and caressed your arm.

“I am so sorry to hear that,” you whispered and gave her a hug. “Still, that gives him no right to speak to you in such a manner. You are his Queen, but, most importantly, his Lady Wife,” you explained. “Such manners are shocking to me.”

“It makes me glad,” Rhaenyra answered mysteriously and you furrowed your brow, “for it means that you had never experienced such treatment from your husband.”

You were given your own chambers in the part of the castle reserved for the royal family and you knew that it was the highest standard for Dragonstone but you missed your chambers in Oldtown dearly. The comfort was incomparable… The Hightower was cosier and warmer – it was full of wood and colours instead of the cold, grey stone. The Reach was warmer overall and the sound of the waves was soothing there, meanwhile in Dragonstone the stormy weather was keeping you up all night.

Not just the sound of the raging sea but also thoughts of your family. Each evening you were crying yourself to sleep, imagining the bedtime of your children, remembering all the rituals Gwayne was doing before going to sleep and you missed them dearly. You especially missed laying in your bed together and discussing your day – trying to work out some problems around Oldtown or with your children… Sometimes gossipping together. And now, you were squeezing your pillow tight and trying to communicate with your husband telepathically. Yet, you still had no idea what you would tell him if it was possible.

He hadn’t written you any letter and you couldn’t blame him since you left Oldtown without even a note on his desk. Yet, each time there were new letters coming to Dragonstone, you were expecting to see the familiar green envelope and your husband’s handwriting; begging you to come back. Gwayne, however, had his pride and you couldn’t be sad or angry about it now because you had always admired him for it.

Seeing Rhaenyra’s relationship with Daemon was only making you miss Gwayne more. He was a Lord Husband that so many women could only dream of – even The Queen of The Seven Kingdoms, apparently.

Daemon was not the only person treating you with a hint of mistrust. Your aunt Princess Rhaenys was by your side but even young Jacaerys was staring at you without a word most of the time even though you had been playing with him and bouncing him on your knee when he had been a babe.

It was not easy to get used to all of this – the coldness and emptiness of your chambers, the treatment of others. From the beloved Lady of Oldtown to a mistrusted Princess, a prodigal sister.

Your loyalty and surname that had been given to you through marriage was being brought up regularly, mostly by Daemon – especially during dinnertime or supper.

“It was not my choice to marry a Hightower and even if it was… I married Gwayne fifteen years ago. No one could have suspected this war…” You rolled your eyes at one more remark by the dinner table.

“Don’t be naive, Elaena!” Daemon snapped. “Everyone has suspected. That was the very reason why Otto Hightower sent you to his son in Oldtown.”

You didn’t answer and you felt the eyes of everyone staring at you and expecting some sort of remark. Daemon smirked at your silence, feeling like the winner.

“I am not used to being yelled at and treated in such a way. And I am certainly not used to dinnertime being a battle between the family members,” you stated calmly.

“Go back to Oldtown then,” Daemon scoffed. “If you find it so insufferable here, then go back to your husband. Do you think he is going to greet you with open arms after such betrayal?” He laughed and shook his head while taking a sip of the wine. “He is going to greet you with his sword instead, Princess,” he mocked your title and you swallowed your food thickly, feeling your stomach turning upside down.

Daemon had only voiced out the anxiety that you had been having for some time now – that Gwayne did not miss you at all. That he did not feel nothing but anger at you and that he would kill you at the very first opportunity. After all, you had hurt his pride and you had stained his honour and these things mattered to him more than anything else – except for your children, of course.

Your marriage had been good but it didn’t change the fact it was an arranged union and not a love match. Sometimes, though… Sometimes, laying in your bed, here, in Dragonstone, tossing and turning, you were quite sure that you had grown to love him, which was quite ironic to have such thoughts now when you had already ruined everything between you two. But you were sure he was not having the same thoughts about you anyway.

“My sister is more than welcome here,” Rhaenyra gave her husband a scolding look and squeezed your hand. You smiled at her, gratefully.

But the thing with Rhaenyra was that despite being The Queen, no one really seemed to care about it. No one except for you, Rhaenys and Daemon’s daughters. All the men, though, were still doing everything their own way. And Rhaenyra herself could not find any solution to deal with that, which made you wonder if she would really be a good Queen…

Not that you had ever voiced that out for it would be treason. You loved your sister and you were obliged to serve her because of the oath you had sworn. But still, you sometimes couldn’t help feeling that she was not a strong leader. On the other hand, it was not that surprising because she had no real experience in such matters and when things had gotten difficult in King’s Landing, she had fled to Dragonstone instead of staying in The Red Keep and learning how to be a good ruler.

The death of Lucerys had shaken everyone. The very first victim of the conflict being such a young and innocent boy… You were speechless and you had no words of comfort to offer. You were a mother, too, and you just couldn’t imagine what Rhaenyra had to feel.

You locked yourself in your chambers instead and spent your whole day staring at the small portrait you had taken with yourself from Oldtown. It was a portrait in the size of a locket and it was of your own four children – twelve years old Steffon Hightower with silver hair and lilac eyes standing next to his nine years old brother Loras Hightower who was a copy of his father with his auburn hair and blue eyes. The girls were sitting on the carpet – six years old Lysa Hightower with her father’s auburn hair and your lilac eyes and three years old Roslin Hightower with silver hair and blue eyes. You felt the warm tears streaming down your cheeks and all you really wanted was to hold them and make sure they were alright.

Sometimes you regretted your decision to flee from Oldtown. Perhaps you should have been an obedient and loyal wife like your mother had always been teaching you to be. It would save you lots of trouble.

Fifteen years earlier, before your departure to marry Gwayne, Rhaenyra had confessed to you that she had wished to be more like you – less rebellious, less stubborn. Meanwhile, you had always wished to be more like her and now you kind of were but you finally understood the price for it, too.

It was Princess Rhaenys that came to your chambers on that day. She sighed at the sight of you and approached you with a soft smile. She took the small portrait from your hands and took a look at the faces of your children.

“How accurate is it?” She asked.

“Very,” you sniffled your tears back. “I sleep with it under my pillow every night. And by day, I have them close to my heart,” you confessed.

“They’re very beautiful children,” Rhaenys sat next to you on the edge of your bed and handed you the portrait back. “What are they like?”

You knew she was trying to help you. She wanted you to talk about your children and let out all the tears that no one else in the castle would want to see now. Not even Rhaenyra because she was grieving her own loss. Meanwhile, your children were safe and sound in Oldtown but your heart was in grief anyway. You were grateful that your aunt wanted to hear about them because you felt like it was expected from you to not express any feelings towards The Hightowers, Oldtown, your husband or your offspring at all. Each display of affection or a hint of the fact that you were missing them was perceived as an act of treason.

You had sacrificed so much for them but no one seemed to understand the significance of it. No one except for Rhaenys and Rhaenyra but they were only two and against many.

“You would like Steffon the most, I think,” you caressed his little face on your portrait. “A true Targaryen, look at him. And he is so…” you chuckled through the tears. “So brave and bold. He’s going to be a knight like his father and, somehow, I have a feeling he’s going to be a dragonrider, too. I don’t know how but he’s determined enough to claim one,” you assured her. “And then there’s Loras…” Your fingers moved to your second son. “He inherited all the kindness and goodness and gentleness from Gwayne. From me, too, I assume. There is not a mean bone in his body. And my girls…” You moved your hand down and sighed. “That is Lysa, the one with auburn hair. And the little one with silver hair is Roslin. They… They were spending their whole days following me around and clinging to my skirts… I have no idea how they are managing now…” You sobbed and hid your face in your hands.

Rhaenys put her arm around you and pulled you closer as she rubbed your back to soothe you. She leaned in to kiss your temple.

“Their mother is strong and brave. She is righteous,” she whispered. “One day, they will understand it and forgive you. You had this calling in you, the calling to join your sister for you are a Targaryen, you are a dragonrider. We are never only mothers and wives and proper ladies. We are wild creatures, Elaena. Just like our dragons,” she lifted your chin up, forcing you to look into her eyes.

“I thought of taking them with me but… But they’re safer in Oldtown, far away from here. And Gwayne… Well, he would hunt me down and kill me for that, I am sure. He is a devoted father,” you tried to explain yourself but no matter how much you were doing so, you still felt like a terrible mother.

“You were right to leave them with him then,” Rhaenys caressed your arms. “Your husband will protect them and of that you are sure, I can see. They are safe there.”

“When this war ends, when we win…” Your lower lip trembled. “I will be allowed to reunite with my family, right? Rhaenyra will allow me?” You asked, a little unsurely.

“I am rather convinced that after we win this war, you are going to remain the Lady of Oldtown,” Rhaenys nodded and kissed your forehead. “You’re going to raise your children there and watch them grow happily.”

“And… And my Lord Husband?” You sniffled, while Rhaenys tilted her head. “I mean… He has to die, right?”

“I highly doubt Daemon would allow it any other way,” Rhaenys told you.

“Whatever he might be saying, he is not The King,” you reminded her.

“That decision will not be Rhaenyra’s to make. Daemon and Gwayne will most likely meet on the battlefield sooner or later,” your aunt reminded you and fixed your hair delicately. “You must think of your husband as dead from now on if you want to survive this,” she added and stood up to leave your chambers.

You knew that she had meant that with the best intentions but it only made you sob even more. You took another look at the portrait of your children and your heart squeezed in your chest. What was giving you a guarantee that Daemon would not hurt your babies, too? He seemed to be filled with an ugly desire to wipe all Hightowers out from this world.

Weeks had passed and you had grown colder and sharper lately. Daemon was not around any longer for he had left for Harrenhal, which was helpful, but if he was still in Dragonstone, you would surely be ready to confront him each time now. You were confronting everyone else whenever they doubted you and on multiple occasions you had confronted them to defend your sister, too.

You still missed your family but all those lonely nights had made you turn pretty heartless sometimes. All those suppressed feelings and regrets had made you a woman who was holding her head high and who was more and more sure of her skills. You were flying Onyx every day now to strengthen your bond even more and it was giving you lots of confidence.

Despite the fondness you still felt towards your marriage, you knew aunt Rhaenys had been right and the marriage was over now. You also realised how much you had missed out in those past fifteen years. You had been living more like a Hightower than a Targaryen. Your husband was a good and kind man but still – he had been trying to tame the dragon blood inside of you. You had not been riding Onyx enough and your High Valyrian had become rusty. Now you were finding your old self back again and all the pain you were feeling because of missing your children only fueled you to be even colder and sharper towards all of those who were doubting you.

When you entered the hall where the council was gathered, everyone nodded their heads at you and you didn’t even bother to nod back. As the Lady of Oldtown you had been respected but you had always been kind in return, too. In Dragonstone everything seemed to be turned upside down.

But why would Princess Elaena Targaryen bow down to any of these men inside the castle that had belonged to her ancestors for centuries now? It was your home – perhaps not in the same domesticated way as The Hightower but Dragonstone was your blood’s home and you would not bow down to anyone inside of it except for the monarch.

The only person you bowed at was of course Rhaenyra herself – your Queen, your sister. Not a perfect Queen and only slightly better sister but you had sworn to her and you valued honour just like your Lord Husband did.

“The battle is coming,” she explained to you as she pointed at the table with the map of Westeros because you were late to the gathering after flying on Onyx for a little too long this evening. “Tomorrow, the armies will clash around Rook’s Rest,” she added and pointed at the place.

“That is close,” you tilted your head. “But the castle has no significance to us, does it?”

“We have already lost enough and we cannot lose more!” one of the Lords protested. “It’s about our honour, my Princess.”

“I want to send a dragon,” Rhaenyra moved one of the stone dragons on the map to put it alongside the Black Army. “I do not intend to use it in battle. No burning, no crushing. I do not wish to be remembered as the first side of this conflict who used a dragon to kill her enemies because once we use them as weapons, the destruction from both sides will be unstoppable,” she explained and the Lords from her council sighed and rolled their eyes.

Those foolish, non-Targaryen men really wanted Rhaenyra’s dragons to cause slaughter, not understanding the possible consequences.

“The dragon will be there to patrol the battlefield – it will be there just in case the Greens send their own, too. And it will be there to intimidate the enemy. Intimidate only,” Rhaenyra pointed out.

“I shall go,” Baela spoke up and everyone laid their eyes on her but you spotted that Rhaenyra was unsure. Baela was like a daughter to her and even if the dragon was not supposed to actually participate in any fighting, it still was a risky business to go.

“I shall go,” you straightened your back and now everyone looked at you. Baela was visibly unhappy with that, too. She wanted to prove herself.

“But…” She started.

“Onyx is bigger than Moondancer,” you told her. “And I am older. This is far too dangerous for you.”

“But…” She sighed again and looked at Rhaenyra in a way that suggested she knew something you had no idea of. “Who is going to tell The Princess?”

“Who is going to tell me what?” You shook your head questioningly as you looked at all the gathered members of the council. The men clasped their hands and looked down or they tried to avoid your gaze in different ways; looking through or behind you, turning their heads away and clearing their throats. “Who is going to tell me what?” You repeated the question, irritated now.

“Elaena,” Rhaenys finally spoke up and you looked at her, “it is your husband who leads The Green army now, so we have been informed. Your father-in-law called for him and Ser Gwayne Hightower came all the way from Oldtown to lead the army of his nephew.”

You blinked a few times at that revelation, still not processing it fully.

“And Cole?” You asked.

“Aegon named him his new Hand,” Rhaenyra informed you. “He was summoned back to King’s Landing.”

“And Otto?” You furrowed your brow.

“Probably on his way back to Oldtown, Gods only know,” Rhaenyra scoffed. “It doesn’t matter now, Elaena. What matters is that your husband leads the enemy’s army.”

Short silence occurred and you knew that everyone was observing your reaction carefully as if they were inspecting you. But those past few weeks you had learnt how to keep a poker face on. Your jaw was clenched as you discretely wiped your sweaty hands in your skirts.

“I shall go,” you nodded, surely.

“Elaena…” Rhaenyra gave you a meaningful look as if she was scolding you. “I do not think this is a good idea.”

“It must be. It is my husband,” you explained.

“Do you think he might stop his army from attacking at the sight of you?” Jacaerys asked you but you spotted a hint of mockery in his voice.

“I do not know. It might motivate him further to attack, it might want him to stop or it might make him indifferent,” you admitted, truthfully. “But it must be me going there,” you insisted, looking deep into your sister’s eyes.

You desperately wanted her to understand that it was important for you to see him again – even if it would be under such circumstances.

Rhaenyra nodded and you cracked a smile although some men were whispering between each other about this decision but you decided to pretend not to hear it.

“You shall leave at dawn,” Rhaenyra told you. “But, Elaena, remember – do not attack, do you hear me? If The Greens bring their own dragon and they use it, only then you are allowed to join the fight,” she pointed her finger at you.

“I understand,” you nodded your head. It was the reason why you wanted to do it – because it meant patrolling and intimidating only, not the real fight.

“Good. I trust you, sister,” Rhaenyra smiled at you.

“Thank you, my Queen.”

In the morning, you didn’t even have breakfast, too nervous for the upcoming battle. You let your maids braid your hair according to the Valyrian customs and you wore an armour that had been made for you recently. It would be the first time you'd actually wear it outside.

The armour was made of black metal with the ornaments made of Valyrian steel. It was light and feminine but it was intimidating, too, and surely worthy of a dragonrider. You insisted on the black colour because of Onyx’s scales.

You hid the small portrait of your children inside your armour and you looked at yourself one more time in the mirror. You couldn’t help but smile although it was difficult to recognise yourself like this.

“I am a dragon,” you whispered to yourself and lifted your chin up. “I am a Targaryen Princess and I am a dragon blood, a dragon rider – a dragon myself,” you repeated, trying to motivate yourself and with a deep breath, you left the chambers as fast as possible to go to the dragonpit.

Onyx was already waiting for you and a brand new saddle had been placed upon her back – it was matching your black armour. She purred at the sight of you and you petted her nose the way she liked it.

“We have a job to do, my girl,” you told her. “We have to scare Gwayne a little,” you chuckled and she huffed in a way that resembled laughter, too.

With a smile, you jumped on her back and you flew out of Dragonstone. Onyx roared when you were up in the sky as if she was saying farewell.

It didn’t take long to get to Rook’s Rest on a dragonback but the closer you were to your destination, the more nervous you were becoming. You saw from a distance the banners of the two armies and you could hear the clinging sounds of their armours in the wind, the battlecries and the cannons.

They were starting the battle already when you arrived and Onyx announced you with a long and loud roar. You straightened yourself and looked down proudly, with a smirk on your face. Everything froze below you for a moment and then a thunderous cheer greeted you amongst the Black Army.

It was a powerful feeling, you had to admit. No experience of yours could match with it – no memory from when you had been The Royal Princess living in King’s Landing, no memory of your recent time now in Dragonstone and not even any memory of yours from Oldtown where you had been the Lady Hightower.

No amount of respect and power that had ever been shown towards you could match to what you were feeling now – you felt pretty invincible, in fact. And you knew it was bold of you and it was only caused by the sudden rush of adrenaline but in that moment you felt like The Queen yourself. Like you could challenge Rhaenyra and Aegon both – after all, you were their sister, too. Your father had been The King and you were a Targaryen. You had been born to rule over those people below you – those small figures that resembled ants in comparison to your Onyx and its fire.

It was scary how easy it was to forget that you were one of those ants, too.

You ignored the cheers of the Black Army and you looked down at The Greens, searching for one person only – obviously. And you spotted him as your heart skipped a beat.

Gwayne was sitting on his horse in his beautiful armour that you had always admired. Even from this great height you could see that he was looking up with fear in his eyes. You smirked and Onyx roared once again, more angrily this time. The Green Army was panicking as the men were shouting at each other and some were trying to hide.

All the time stopped for you for a short while, though. Your eyes were fixed on your Lord Husband only – it had been a few long weeks apart from him. You wondered what was going inside his head at the moment but most likely it was nothing but a paralysing fear. It was a painful death to die in the fire and he had been telling you about it a few times before that it was one of his fears whenever you had teased him about using Onyx against him. Now, it was no longer a banter between a married couple but reality.

You didn’t want to torment him any more. You ordered Onyx to fly away and leave The Greens alone for now as you went back higher in the skies to patrol the battle. Despite giving them a sign that you were not there to kill them, from the corner of your eye, you spotted that some of the cannons of the Green Army were now aimed at you and Onyx.

Gwayne, however, shaking out of his state of fear, ordered them to turn around and aim at the castle and The Blacks instead. You smiled to yourself and kept circling up in the air as Onyx roared.

Despite your strong bond with her, you could feel how uneasy she was, how impatient. It surprised you because Onyx was a young dragon and she had no experience in battle. In fact, you had suspected her to shy away or get scared at the sight the real fight. And now, your girl seemed to be pretty bold and angry as she huffed and puffed, while her muscles tensed.

“Lykirī, Onyx, lykirī,” you ordered as you patted her neck to calm her down but you had to admit that her restlessness was making you feel worried if you were even able to fully control her after all.

She roared and lowered herself. You squinted your eyes to observe the battle but you had to shout Lykirī! all the time at your dragon because she seemed to be more than eager to join the fight. The sight of her and the sounds she was making seemed to work, though. The Greens were terrified and kept looking up all the time to make sure she wouldn’t burn them all any second. Your intimidation plan seemed to be working better than you had expected.

A few times during the battle, you found Gwayne’s eyes somehow and he would look up back at you but then he would ride away on his horse. Each time, your heart clenched inside your chest and Onyx had to feel it because it was when she was growing the most uneasy.

So far, it was the Green Army that had been winning battle after battle but now they seemed to be too distracted by the dragon flying overhead. It was not the fault of your husband’s leadership – your knowledge of warfare was little but you could see even from up there that most of his orders and ideas were good. It was just simply not enough when a huge beast was a constant deathly treat. The morales were simply too low and you could see that some knights even tried to desert the battlefield in a desperate attempt to save themselves from your hypothetical dragonfire. Meanwhile, The Blacks were not as organised but they felt more confident than ever with The Targaryen Princess watching over them.

“Lykirī, Onyx!” You shouted at your dragon when you felt that her neck was tensing as if she was about to let out the fire. “What’s wrong with you, girl?” You hummed to yourself and leaned in to pat her neck and then you froze at the sight below you.

Gwayne was not wearing his helmet anymore and he was no longer in the saddle. You couldn’t spot his horse but he was surrounded by the Black Army knights. He was fighting them bravely but he was alone against four men and it was a hopeless struggle yet he refused to give up and become their prisoner. You looked around and spotted that most of the Green knights that remained in the battlefield were struggling in a similar way to your husband. You knew very well how it would end now. It would be the very first victory of your army and Rook’s Rest would be defended.

But at what price?

You could see Gwayne’s face more clearly now as Onyx lowered herself even further. He was exhausted and bruised, dirty from the mud and blood and his lip was cut. You had to fight an urge inside of you to just run into his arms, to hold him again, to kiss him, to be with him.

But, so far, it looked like you would never be able to do it since he would lose soon. And you would continue your life with the image of him dying in the battlefield – you would continue your life with regret of leaving him and then doing absolutely nothing to help him in the battlefield.

Onyx groaned loudly and exposed her claws and teeth. You were about to calm her down again and then you noticed something that you had not noticed before – she was not trying to attack the Green Army but… the Black one.

You froze as you realised that her eyes were fixated on the knights carrying your sister’s banners. The fire forming in the depths of her throat was aimed at the men gathered near the castle walls and trying to stop the attack of Gwayne’s army.

Onyx was not loyal to Rhaenyra, after all. Onyx was your dragon and she was loyal to you only. You were her mistress and her rider. She knew you better than anyone else.

Some of the knights of the Black Army cheered at you and your dragon – so confident and sure of themselves that they hadn’t noticed that Onyx’s anger was aimed at them. You squinted your eyes at the black banners of Rhaenyra and then the few of the remaining green ones of Aegon.

Gods damn it, you thought. You loved them both – your sister and your brother. But you also did not really care about any of them being the ruler of Westeros because you were not close with any of them. You had been close to your sister but that was fifteen years ago and now she was like a stranger to you. Aegon had been a baby when you left to Oldtown. Your real family – the man you loved, the father of your children – he was down there, struggling, and surely about to die soon if you wouldn’t do anything to help him.

“Dracarys, Onyx,” you ordered after taking a deep breath in. You watched as if you were outside of your own body how her fire destroyed half of the Black Army in mere seconds. You blinked a few times, still detached physically and mentally from the scene that you were responsible for.

Your dragon seemed to have lots of fun, though. She landed on the ground, crushing a few Black knights on the way. The remaining ones were widening their eyes, too terrified to move or they were trying to run away. Onyx did not need your commands anymore, she just kept on burning them as her waving tail destroyed the castle’s tower, killing dozens of men in the process. You were sitting in the saddle with your back straightened and your chin high, looking over death and destruction with the poker face you had mastered the previous weeks.

You had just become the murderer and the destroyer – the very first person in this war who used her dragon as a weapon. And yet, you felt nothing. Perhaps the regret would come later but all that mattered to you now was that Gwayne was safe again. The remaining Green knights ran up to him and helped him to defeat his enemies and then they stood behind their commander while watching the scene in terror.

When the Black Army was defeated by Onyx nearly single-handedly, you turned her around to face the remaining knights by your husband’s side and Gwayne himself. Onyx roared at them and you could hear that she was happy to see them but they didn’t know her the way you did, therefore they remained terrified. After all, you could have been a maniac who would kill everyone, right?

You were a Targaryen, after all.

You enjoyed their fear for a short while and then you ordered Onyx to lay down and she did so, allowing you to dismount her. Your legs were a bit shaky from all the hours in the saddle and all the emotions but you managed to do it gracefully enough.

You turned around to look into Gwayne’s blue eyes. They were filled with shock and terror but you ignored that completely, finally doing something you had wanted to do for weeks now.

You ran up to him and straight into his arms, nearly knocking him off on the ground as your armours clashed loudly. The knights surrounding him were observing the scene carefully, too scared to react in any way since your Onyx had just given the show of what she was capable of.

Now, however, she looked pretty adorable and innocent as she seemed to take a small nap in the middle of the battlefield full of ashes and blood.

“My Lord,” you cupped your husband’s face and he looked into your eyes with a hint of sadness that you could had expected. However, you were glad that it was sadness instead of anger. “Will you ever forgive me for abandoning you?” You asked, nearly innocently, while biting on your lip as if you weren’t responsible for all this death and destruction below your feet.

Gwayne looked nervously at Onyx napping behind your back and cracked a sad smile at you.

“Do I have a choice, my Lady Wife?” He tried to make a joke as he put his hands on your waist. “If I say no, you will order your dragon to burn me.”

“Onyx would never burn you,” you shook your head with a chuckle as you sniffled your tears back. “That dragon is more difficult to manage than I expected.”

“She is just like you then, my Princess,” Gwayne raised one of his hands to caress your cheek. His touch was gentle like he could not believe that you were really there, standing in front of him.

“She is my dragon, after all. Onyx knows my heart – I could lie to myself but I could never lie to her,” you nodded and then you looked around. “What a mess I have caused.”

“Indeed,” Gwayne only nodded and took his hand away from you.

He turned around and ordered his men to look for the wounded knights and to go for the castle since it was practically left for the taking now. They had to put the new banners on the walls now. You kept standing there and waiting for him to finish so you would be left alone to talk now. When it happened, he looked at you with a sigh and you cracked a smile at his handsome face even though it was bruised and dirty.

“I had to leave. She is my sister, I have sworn to her, she needed me,” you explained.

“I know,” Gwayne nodded. “It broke my heart, Elaena, but I understood. At least some part of me did. I could not understand how you could leave our children like that,” he approached you and you looked away, too ashamed to meet his gaze.

“How are they? What have you told them?”

“They are safe,” Gwayne assured you. “They miss you…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have lied to them… Well, not really. I have told them that you went to visit your sister. That it was an urgent family matter and you had no time to say farewell but you would be back… Soon,” Gwayne explained. “They are too young to know about the war so they believed me.”

“I doubt Steffon did. He is ten and two now, of course he knows about the war,” you pointed out and shyly looked up. “I shall go to them, even today. I shall take Onyx and go back to Oldtown to hold my children and…” You stopped when you realised something painful. “Of course, that is, if you allow me,” you fixed yourself.

“You are the Lady of Oldtown, I would never forbid you from the city,” Gwayne shook his head. “And you are their mother, they need you.”

“Yes, but so do you. Especially now,” you explained. “After seeing our children, I shall come back to you. I shall accompany you in each battle from now on. I have started something you have no idea of… Now Rhaenyra will make sure to send her dragons to war, too. Her pain and anger will be great from my betrayal,” you pointed out.

“Why did you betray her?” Gwayne asked, raising his eyebrow. “You have sworn to her, haven’t you? What made you change your mind to support King Aegon instead?”

“Fuck Aegon!” You dismissed him and he widened his eyes. “And fuck Rhaenyra. I don’t care about any of them.”

“You shall not be heard saying such things,” Gwayne chuckled nervously.

“They are my siblings, I can speak whatever of them,” you shrugged your arms. “I am by your side only,” you confessed and you looked away.

You knew it was a bit stupid to confess such things when you were the one who had abandoned him without a word of a warning or any explanation. You should be grateful that he was talking to you instead of cutting your head off – as your Lord Husband he had every right to after your stunt and since you were technically a traitor to both of the sides, no one would even punish him for killing you.

But Gwayne moved even closer to you and grabbed your wrist to squeeze it, which made you look up at him shyly again.

“I love you, Elaena. And please, do forgive me that it took me losing you to finally say it out loud. And if it took you running away to realise the same about me, then I can be only grateful for this experience. You are a dragon, my Princess, and I am sorry for forgetting about that,” he whispered.

You couldn’t believe your ears… He was apologising to you?!

“Do not be too greedy, Lord Husband. Do you really expect me to admit out loud that I love you as if I haven’t just betrayed my own army for you? Is that not enough?” You chuckled and so did he, awkwardly. He leaned in to place a gentle kiss upon the palm of your hand and then he caressed it lovingly. You could feel the longing and yearning in those gestures. “I’ve missed you,” you confessed. “I’ve missed us.”

“So have I,” Gwayne kissed your forehead. It was not proper to exchange such affections in public but you were in the middle of the battlefield so you did not bother to care about it. “But it would be my greatest wish for you to stay in Oldtown after coming back there. I do not want you on the battlefield, Elaena.”

“You can’t stop me,” you shrugged your arms and squeezed his wrists lovingly.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?” He tried a different approach as he smirked at you.

“Watch me,” you smirked back and gently kissed him on the lips.

You hurried through the halls of The Hightower while all the maids and servants were staring at you with widened eyes. They certainly had not expected to ever see you again but no one was trying to stop you. You rushed to the nursery room where all your children had been gathered after your arrival. You had changed from your armour into a comfortable dress and had ordered your maids that you wanted to see your sons and daughters.

You finally pushed the doors open and tears of joy streamed down your cheeks at the sight of their faces. Loras, Lysa and Roslin hurried to you with big smiles and hugged you tightly. You crouched down to squeeze them all lovingly.

“Mummy!” Little Roslin seemed to be the happiest and she was practically shaking at the sight of you. Your heart ached for her when you kissed her all over her tiny face.

“We’re so happy to see you again, Mother,” Loras greeted you like a big boy and you cracked a smile at him before kissing his forehead.

“I am so happy to see you again, too, my love. I’ve missed you terribly,” you confessed, looking at Steffon from the corner of your eye. The silver haired boy was keeping his distance from you and staring at you questioningly. “Steffon?” You called for him and he walked up to you reluctantly.

“Mother,” he only said and kissed your cheek before moving away. “Does father know that you’re here?”

“Of course,” you furrowed your brow at him. “I saw him yesterday,” you nodded at him but he didn’t look convinced.

“And how was the time with your sister?” Lysa asked and you kissed her cheeks.

“It was good,” you nodded with a sad smile. “But I regretted that I couldn’t be with you.”

“Will you stay now?” Loras asked and you caressed his head gently.

“I wish I could but I have to join your father,” you explained. “We will be back soon. Together,” you assured him.

“Father left for the war,” Steffon pointed out.

“And I must, too. I am a Targaryen and a dragonrider, my darling,” you tried to explain. “Either way, let’s not dwell on that now. We have a whole day to spend together,” you squeezed the hands of your girls.

You didn’t leave your children even for a second for the whole day and in the evening you allowed them to sleep with you in your chambers that you share with Gwayne. Since he was not in Oldtown, there was a lot of empty space in the bed. Steffon did not join you in the evening, though, and for the whole day he was roaming around but never actively spending his time with you either. It was hurting you deeply but you wanted to give him space and you were aware that he was old enough to realise more than you’d like him to. You could not blame him for being angry.

Watching your sweet babies sleep, you could not drift off to the land of dreams yourself. You had spent the previous night in the arms of your husband after weeks of being apart and it had surely helped you to fall asleep but now you were being haunted by the visions of what had happened in the battlefield and of what Rhaenyra’s reaction had to be after hearing about your betrayal.

You were laying on your back and staring at the ceiling when the doors creaked as they opened and you lifted yourself on your elbows to see the intruder. It was Steffon.

“Mother?” He whispered. “Are you asleep?”

“No, my love. Come in,” you whispered back and carefully left the bed, making sure not to wake up the rest of your children.

You approached your son and put your hands on his shoulders. The night was cold, therefore there was a fire burning in the fireplace. You brought him closer and you both sat on a fluffy carpet there. Steffon avoided your gaze but you could see he was dying to ask you something.

“What is it, my love?” You fixed his silver hair gently.

“I know what the war is about and that you left to see your sister…” He mumbled out quietly. “You chose her. Not us,” he pointed out and dared to look up, his lilac eyes meeting yours.

“No, I chose you. You have no idea what I have done, the choice I have made,” you nodded at him and caressed his cheek with your finger. “I left to see her, she is my sister, my blood. I grew up alongside her, we share the same father and the same mother. But there was a hole in my chest because I missed you and… And I missed your father, too,” you confessed.

“I have never seen him sadder,” Steffon said and your heart clenched inside your chest. “I knew it was not about you visiting your sister. I knew immediately you had abandoned us.”

“I know you are angry at me now and you have every right to be. And I know how much children hate it when they are being told that but one day you shall understand it. Because you are a Targaryen, perhaps the most out of all my children,” you smiled at him.

“Because of my hair and eyes?”

“No, my love. All of my children are as Targaryen as Hightower. But you have the spirit… The fire,” you told him. “I love all my children dearly but you are a dragon,” you nodded.

“Do you have to leave again?” He asked and his lilac eyes filled with tears.

“I’ll be back,” you promised. “But I’m a dragonrider and when the war calls, I am on the go,” you explained. “Your father needs me by his side and King Aegon needs more dragons.”

Steffon sniffed his tears back and he finally moved closer to hug you. You wrapped your arms around him and placed a kiss on the top of his head.

In the evening of the very next day you were already dismounting Onyx in King’s Landing. All that travelling had been exhausting for you and her but it was necessary. You patted her and allowed her to rest in the dragonpit as you were being escorted to The Red Keep by a few guards.

You were wearing your armour again even though it felt a bit wrong to wear the armour that Rhaenyra had requested to be made for you so you could fight the war for her.

Gwayne was waiting for you by the gates to the castle. You smiled widely at the sight of him and you ran up to your husband as he ordered the guards to walk away because he would escort you to The King himself.

“And how was it?” He asked you after kissing the palm of your hand.

“Only Steffon knew, just as I suspected,” you sighed. “But we have explained everything to each other. I believe he has forgiven me or at least he is no longer cross with me,” you nodded. “I miss them again but the pain is less when I know I am with you,” you smiled and Gwayne took you by your arm to lead you to the council meeting.

“You have become quite a controversial figure, my Princess,” he informed you and you chuckled nervously.

“I do wonder why,” you tried to joke.

The doors were opened in front of you and you were announced as Princess Elaena Targaryen, Lady Hightower while everyone was staring at you.

The man sitting right in front of you had to be your brother Aegon because he was taking your father’s seat by the table. You bowed down at him and after a short while of silence, he laughed and clapped his hands.

“Sister!” He greeted you so happily that you were nearly suspecting an ambush. He stood up and rushed to your side to wrap his arms tightly around you. “Sister Elaena! How good it is to see you again! Do you remember me?” He took a step back and looked deep into your eyes, hoping for a positive answer like an excited puppy.

You cracked a smile at him and dared to move your hand up to brush a single silver hair strand behind his ear in a motherly way.

“Of course I do, my King,” you nodded. “You were a small babe then but I remember it fondly,” you assured him and it was no lie. “You loved to sit on my lap by the table and eat all the sweets that I was spoiling you with despite our father’s scolding looks. It was always our secret how many cakes you ate,” you reminded him and Aegon grinned at you.

“This is my sister!” He pointed his finger at you after turning around to face his council. “My sister who has burnt Rhaenyra’s army for me. Her loyalty shall not be questioned,” he announced and walked away to sit on his chair again.

You didn’t want to correct him that you hadn’t burnt anyone for him because it would be a political suicide to do so. You only cracked a smile at your husband. You didn’t expect the greeting to go so smoothly. Aegon seemed to be very desperate for any sort of attention or affection.

“Princess Elaena’s loyalty shall still be proven,” the tall young man without one eye smirked at you. That had to be your brother Aemond, whom you hadn’t met.

You sighed and rolled your eyes at that. Each side had their Daemon, apparently.

“I will be proving my loyalty to The King, brother. I do not owe you anything for we are equals,” you reminded him with a smirk, too.

Suddenly, Queen Alicent stood up and approached you to give you a warm hug. You hugged her back even though you were surprised by that welcome from her.

“We are happy to have you back,” she said and you spotted honesty alongside the sadness in her big, brown eyes. You nodded your head at her.

“My Queen,” you greeted her.

“Queen Dowager,” she fixed you. “Helaena is The Queen now. Do you remember her?”

“Of course,” you smiled at the image of tiny Helaena from your memories. “I would love to see her.”

“After the meeting,” Queen Alicent nodded and pointed at the empty chair for you. Gwayne stood behind you as if he was your sworn guard.

Well, as your Lord Husband, he was.

After the meeting of King Aegon’s council, you went to Queen Helaena’s chambers with Queen Alicent.

“Helaena, you have a guest,” her mother opened the doors gently. “It is your sister, Princess Elaena.”

After that introduction, you walked inside and bowed your head in front of your younger sister. She was standing by the window and turned her head around as her eyes widened at the sight of you.

“An oath-breaker,” she greeted you in a mysterious way that made a chill go down your spine. “You bring death and destruction.”

You had no idea how to answer that and you looked at Alicent, searching for some sort of explanation but she only blushed and looked down, uncomfortably.

“Our Queen often speaks in riddles,” she told you.

“No, your majesty,” you shook your head, “I do know very well what our Queen means.”

MASTERLIST

#gwayne hightower x reader #gwayne hightower x oc #targaryen oc #lilysfiction

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prentissluvr · 4 months ago

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forget-me-nots — sam winchester

pairing : sam winchester x gn!reader ➖⟢ genre : soulmate!au, fluff, very light angst ➖⟢ cw : light mentions of canon typical death, violence, and monsters, shirtless sam aaaaa, light descriptions of injuries and blood, reader believes in ghosts before knowing about the supernatural, drinking/alcohol mentions, silly criminal minds reference to my gf elle, kissing, poor editing ➖⟢ wc : 5.6K summary : in a world where flowers grow on your skin in the exact places your soulmate is injured, you’re constantly covered in forget-me-nots.

MOVED BLOGS TO @sammyluvr !! no longer active on this blog! all fics can be found there!

heartache is one thing. heartache for someone you don’t know, someone whose face you’ve never seen or who you’ve never met, is another, stranger thing. it’s common for many to feel this heartache before they know their soulmate, but sometimes you feel as though you have to worry much more than most.

you try not to let thoughts of your mystery soulmate consume you, but you seem to have constant reminders of them litered on your skin in the form of tiny blue flowers. admittedly, you find it romantic that forget-me-nots are your soulmate flower, with their symbolism of true love, respect, and fidelity. the flowers themself feel like a good omen, a sweet promise of a steady love waiting for you. but, the frequency with which they appear on your skin feels far less lucky and always feeds you so much worry for this person you’ve yet to meet.

this morning, you wake with new blooms snaking along your left collarbone, peeking out from the seam of your sleep shirt. and when you change into new clothes, you find a few more growing on your bicep and the side of your ribs.

sighing, you stand at the mirror lightly brushing your fingers over the small flowers and wonder what sort of trouble your soulmate got into last night. as always, worry floods your chest, but you do your best to tamp it down considering the fact that you only bear a few new blooms. the more severe the injury, the more flowers appear on your skin. today, your soulmate must only be dealing with small surface cuts.

sometimes, you’re covered in so many forget-me-nots that you’re too worried to do much of anything at all. more than once, you’ve wondered how your soulmate could still be alive, and the continuous flowers on your skin serve as your only proof that they're still around. there were a few years where you barely had any blooms, just the usual flower on a fingertip to signify a papercut or the occasional few because of a small accident. but one night the flowers came in bunches and never stopped.

you imagine what you might say or do when you meet them. maybe you’ll want to check on whatever wounds they have, be sure it’s not too bad, or maybe you’ll scold them for making you worry so much. you’ll certainly ask what they do in their life that gets them so injured so often. maybe you’ll do it all.

but for now, you’ll have to move on and get ready for the day. the flowers always linger, though.

⟢⟢⟢

it’s been a rather strange week. the flowers from last thursday have completely faded, and you’ve gone a day or two without any new forget-me-nots appearing on your skin. the strange part has been at work. on monday night, one of your coworkers died in the building, but you still had to come in to work the next day. one of the rooms was taped off, but that was the only evidence of the misfortune. the same thing happened last night, thursday, and you’re ready to do everything you can to get at least the next several days off of work. you don't want to risk anything.

and now, it seems the goddamn fbi is interested in whatever has happened. you’re not a huge fan of the federal government, but you have to admit that the bureau has sent two of its most attractive agents. normally, you’d keep your head down, but you feel inexplicably drawn to one of them. he’s the taller of the two, which is impressive because the other is already tall, and he has pretty brown hair and dimples that you catch a glimpse of as he talks to one of your coworkers.

he looks away from her as he moves away, seemingly done with the interview. he catches your eye, and your breath gets caught in your throat for a moment. he’s a beautiful man; pretty and sweet looking at the same time as he’s traditionally handsome and slightly imposing. you’ve never loved a stranger’s eyes so much.

he approaches you and you can’t help but watch as he grows closer.

“hi,” he greets with a small smile, “i’m agent greenaway with the fbi. can i ask you a few questions about the deaths from this week?”

“i’m not sure i’ll be much help, but sure,” you nod, folding your arms over your stomach. agent greenaway doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but the topic at hand certainly does.

“that’s alright. sometimes the smallest things can really be helpful,” he reassures, keeping the kind look on his face. “have you noticed anything strange about either of the deceased or the building this past week or so?”

you shake your head. “not really. i mean i didn’t work closely with macy, and i never noticed anything off about lex.”

“and the building? any strange cold spots or flickering lights?”

you find the question sort of odd coming from an fbi agent, but you instintually feel like you should take it seriously. “um, yeah, actually. it was really cold by the bathrooms last night when i left. at first i thought the ac finally got fixed, but it was still sort of warm over here. in this area”

“okay. thank you for your help,” he smiles at you again and for a reason you can't quite place, you don’t want the unusual conversation to end. you have to hide a hint of delight from your expression when he hands you his card. “call me if you think of anything else.” you accept the card with a nod. he looks like he’s about to walk away, but he pauses. “and, uh– be careful. you should go home early tonight.”

“oh. okay, i will.” without knowing why, you trust him. you want to see him again.

⟢⟢⟢

saturday night is the second busiest night at the bar, but you’re glad it’s not as crowded fridays normally are. you walk straight to the bar to order your go-to drink. as you wait for the bartender to make it, you stare at yourself in the mirror behind the counter out of the corner of your eye. today, there’s two little forget-me-nots right on your left cheek. they look sort of cute there, and you guess you should be grateful that it’s such a small wound. there’s no other flowers on your body yet, which feels like a good run for your soulmate. that’s a little over a whole week in between different injuries, even small ones.

the bartender slides you your drink and you thank them. there’s a small red carnation on their thumb, and you wonder if they’ve met their own soulmate yet. you suppose that at the end of the day, you’re scared of what just about everyone else is. without trying, you worry about not meeting your soulmate until you're old and left without much time together. you want to meet them, and you think the sooner the better. the idea’s been particularly stuck in your mind since last night.

agent greenaway’s words echo in your head. “be careful. you should go home early tonight.” he seemed so sweet, so genuine and caring, and all you’ve been able to think about since then is meeting someone like him. finding someone kind with a little red mark on their cheek and a forget-me-not on their right pointer finger to match the papercut you got earlier this afternoon.

and simply, you’ve been feeling a little lonely these days. how nice would it be to have your literal soulmate by your side?

you sip slowly at your drink, and when the cup’s empty, you pay the tab. the bar isn’t quite serving as the distraction you hoped it would. as you head for the door, your gaze snags on a mop of brown hair that wouldn’t be considered familiar for the fact that you’ve only seen it once, but feels that way regardless. quickly, you scan the rest of the bar, and sure enough you catch sight of agent greenaway’s partner, across the way and very obviously flirting with a pretty brunette.

for a moment you pause, wondering if it would be weird or too out-of-the-blue to approach agent greenaway, but the pull you feel towards him overrides all else, taking your hand and guiding it to throw all caution to the wind.

he’s facing away from you, and with a friendly smile, you slide into the seat across from him.

“hi,” you greet over the noise of music and talking, “d’you mind if i sit here?” it takes him a moment to answer, like he’s lagging a little bit.

“uh– no, no i don’t mind,” he flashes a quick smile back at you, but his gaze and attention are clearly stuck somewhere on your face. for just a split-second, you’re confused by what he could be staring at, but it clicks not a moment later. you don’t know how you missed it: the red mark on his left cheek, so small that your eyes glossed over it when you sat down. eagerly, you drop your gaze to his hands, one casually wrapped around his beer bottle and the other resting on the table. and sure enough, so tiny and pretty against his big hand is a single forget-me-not on his right pointer finger, exactly where you have a bandaid wrapped around your own.

you suck in a sharp breath, eyes caught on the delicate flower and unable to drag themselves away to look back at his face. just like everyone else, you’ve thought about it a million times over, what it would feel like to meet your soulmate, what you would do, how you would act. in this moment, you feel frozen, but you feel right and you feel a million questions and urges rise up in your heart and mind. you desperately want to reach out to him, to touch his hand and the little flower and make sure that they’re both real.

but you absolutely cannot keep your gaze away from his face for long at all and when you meet his eyes, an irresistible smile stretches across your face. you look at him with nothing short of wonderment. he’s just stunning and you can’t believe that he’s supposed to be… well, yours.

just staring at each other, you feel a little flustered and awkward, unsure what to say to him. then you realize he should probably know your name, and all you know is his last. so you stick your right hand out and tell him your name. he takes your hand with a smile and repeats it back, saying it carefully and savoring the sound and feel of it on his tongue.

when you touch him for the first time, your breath gets caught in your throat and it feels so right that you never want to let go.

“i’m sam,” he says, only letting his hand fall away from yours after a few moments. even then, your fingertips are merely inches apart now.

“sam greenaway,” you echo, easily remembering how he introduced himself yesterday. then you puzzle at his reaction and the way that the name doesn’t feel quite right as you look at him. he cringes slightly, like he’s done something to be guilty of. “or… not?” for a minute, things were starting to add up to you. the way you felt drawn to him yesterday and his job as an fbi agent finally explaining all of his many injuries. you figured he must be in fights often.

“i– i’m sorry, this is so– i mean if we’re really,” he takes a deep breath, trying to reset and figure out how to say things right. “if we’re really, you know, soulmates… well, there’s just a lot– a lot for me to explain. i’m not an fbi agent and my real name is sam winchester. but i swear, there’s a reason for me lying and i promise that i’ll explain it to you if you’re willing to hear it. which i understand if you don’t–”

“i do,” you say in earnest, finally cutting him off. it took you a second because, for a moment, you were too stuck on him saying the word soulmate aloud in reference to the two of you. it felt special and you were only half paying attention to the things he said after because of that. then all you were thinking about was how endearing he seems when he’s flustered and worried. “it’s okay,” you reassure him, “i want to hear it. i– i mean, sure, it’s sort of strange that you lied about, you know, all that, but… i’m not– i’m not gonna just meet my… my soulmate and not give you a chance.” he still looks a little tense, but his shoulders have dropped a bit in relief and there’s the hint of a grateful smile on his features.

“thank you,” he says, glad for your reassurance but still worried about how you might take the rest of the far weirder explanations that he has left to tell you. “can i maybe get you a drink?”

you smile at the offer, but shake your head a bit. “i was actually just heading out when i saw you. would you maybe wanna get out of here? my apartment’s less than a ten minute walk away.” for a moment, you wonder if that’s too much for just having met, but sam visibly relaxes just a little bit more.

“that would be nice,” he smiles. he’s getting ready to stand when he glances across the bar, seemingly remembering about his partner. or not partner. you’re not quite sure. “my brother, dean,” he explains simply when he catches your gaze on the other man. “i should tell him where i’m going.”

“okay,” you nod, filing the new information away in your mind and watching him weave between tables and flirting couples to reach his brother. the exchange is a bit funny to watch. at first dean looks annoyed at being interrupted by sam. then he glances at you with a sly smirk and makes some comment that is probably less than appropriate judging from his expression. and then his face morphs into one of surprise before it’s taken over by a smile. he claps sam on the shoulder and sends him off. you almost miss the look that dean gives you as sam heads back towards you because you’re so focused on the sweet smile that sam’s now wearing. you only catch dean’s look for a second before sam is back at your side. it’s easy to assume dean as the older brother, with his eyes on you being protective, proud, careful, and happy all at once. and they’re close enough that sam told him about you right away.

walking home with sam at your side is both completely strange and familiar all at once. it’s strange for a number of reasons, the main being that you’d never invite any other unknown man to your apartment, especially not one with a cryptic identity and such an imposing build. and yet, you’re not afraid or worried because of how familiar and safe it feels. it feels familiar because it feels right, it feels like exactly what you should be doing.

on the way over, he asks about you a little bit, trying not to overwhelm you with questions or seem overbearing with how eager he is to hear what you have to say. his kindness and carefulness are clear to you, and you love it. you answer happily, despite knowing he’s partially asking to avoid talking about himself until you settle down.

once inside, sam follows you right to the couch in the living room, sitting when you motion towards it and plop down into a chair across from him. he takes in the space, eyes roaming over your furniture, decor, and every little detail. he wants to know about you, just like you do him.

“it’s really nice in here,” he compliments, sounding so sincere that it’s just sweet.

“thank you,” you respond softly, wondering exactly what parts of the room he likes. you let him look around a second or two more before speaking again. “so… can i ask? you know, about it all, i guess? about you?”

he doesn’t say it aloud, but he thinks the way that you ask is so lovely. half of him wants to make up some silly, somewhat believable explanation to spare you the truth, but he knows that would never work out well. not if you choose to stay together in some way or another. already, that’s what he wants. he doesn’t doubt that you’re indeed his soulmate, the one who he’s been sharing wounds and flowers with for as long as he can remember. sam has both yearned for and dreaded this moment. he tries not to be obvious about it or over do it, but he’s sort of a total romantic. he’s had doubts about how this whole idea of soulmates could really be real or make much sense, but those thoughts are eased with each moment he spends with you. he still wants to get to know you before he does anything with you, but the way that he wants to get to know you is something he’s never felt before. it’s undeniably special.

the dread is because he’s known ever since he got back into hunting that he’d never be able to hide the truth of his world from you. he has no idea how he’s going to get to you to believe him or convince you that he’s not completely insane, but he’s going to tell you the truth anyway. even if you do believe him, he wants to give you a choice. you shouldn’t have to get involved with this life in any way at all if you don’t want to. he’d never force you to try things with him if it’s too strange or too scary or hard or anything. and already, he knows that he’ll never stop thinking about you if you do choose to stay away, but he also knows that he’d never try to change your mind or force you to do anything else other than exactly what you want.

“of course you can ask,” he responds, matching the softness of your own voice. “i, um– i’m honestly not quite sure how to say all of this without sounding totally crazy, and i completely understand that, but just– try to bear with me, i guess. and if you need proof, which i also understand, i’ll do my best to get it for you, it’s just– sort of hard.”

honestly, you’re wildly confused as to what the hell he could possibly say that would make him this anxious. it worries you a little bit too. you don’t want him to feel afraid to tell you anything at all. so, you nod at him in encouragement, trying not to seem nervous yourself.

“my brother and i, we– we hunt monsters. real ones. ghosts, vampires, demons, the works. they’re all real. your coworkers who died, they were– they were killed by an angry spirit. we got rid of it last night,” he says those words like they’re a ten ton weight off of his chest, but he’s still got another ten sitting there as he awaits your response. he looks at you so carefully, trying to gauge any sort of reaction.

you raise your eyebrows in surprise, and probably disbelief and a million other things. “angry spirit? like a ghost?” you’re not sure why that’s the first question that slips out, but you suppose it’s an easier one than are you insane? or what the hell are you talking about?

he nods his head carefully, like he’s waiting for you to freak out or call him crazy and tell him to go. “yeah. the ghost, she had died there, near the bathrooms where you felt the cold spot, in the 90s. she was triggered to kill when the man suspected of her murder was granted parole.”

“okay,” you breathe out, sort of nervously. the craziest thing is that you don’t disbelieve him. you’re not convinced by any stretch, but when you look him in the eye and listen close to his voice, there’s nothing but sincerity there. “i mean… that is sort of a kinda crazy thing to say,” you begin, “but i’ve always sort of believed in ghosts, so i don’t think you’re completely, you know, insane.” you laugh a bit, trying to lighten the mood a little. you don’t want him to stress, however unbelievable his words are. “the rest is a bit… shaky, i guess. it’s a hard thing to believe, i mean… vampires. and– and demons. it’s a lot. and honestly, i’m not sure how much i’ll really, truly believe until i see, i don’t know, something, i guess,” you admit, “but… but i don’t think you’re lying to me either.”

“thank you for that,” he says, voice as sincere as ever, “and i completely understand. honestly, part of me didn’t want to tell you at all, but… it’s sort of my whole entire life at this point and it wouldn’t be fair to hide from you. or– or to not give you a choice right off the bat of whether or not you wanted to be involved. it’s– it’s a lot and it’s dangerous. and if it’s what you want, i promise i’ll try to find a way to prove it to you, it’s just… hard to do that without putting you in danger. and i really don’t want to put you in danger.”

“that’s sweet, sam,” you say, not really bothering to hide the way you feel. “i’m not, you know, eager to meet any monsters anytime soon, but whenever it’s… the least dangerous, i guess, you can show me. until then… i’ll just trust you. and in the meantime maybe we can sort of just get to know each other?” you suggest, surprising yourself with how ready you are to trust him on this.

sam smiles at you sweetly. “that sounds perfect to me. i just– i don’t want to force you into something you don’t want for yourself. i live out of crappy motels and my brother’s car while hunting monsters that shouldn’t be real. i’m just… i’m sorry i’m not someone easier.”

you smile at him sort of sadly. “that’s not your fault, sam. i never asked for someone ‘easy’ anyway. just someone kind and respectful and you seem to be just that so far. besides, there’s gotta be a reason, right? that… we’re soulmates. honestly, if you were anyone else i wouldn’t trust you like this. an–and it’s not like i’m trusting you blindly because of something that we’re supposed to be. we just met. i’m only trusting you because it feels right to. and this whole soulmate thing never made too much sense to me until i met you. now it sort of does, because this feels right so far. at least, it does to me.”

“it feels right to me too,” he quickly assures, not wanting for you to misunderstand that for a second.

⟢⟢⟢

as two people who aren’t quite ready to jump into such a committed relationship with completely different lives, it’s a little bit strange to be soulmates. and yet, nothing about it is anything but honey-sweet to you. the night you met as soulmates for the first time, you ended up talking for hours. all you had to do was sort of ignore the huge and slightly unbelievable bomb he dropped on you within the first hour of talking. oddly enough, that was sort of easy. you learned that sam’s appetite for knowledge is just about insatiable, including when it comes to knowing about you.

he had words rolling off of your tongue, asking the best, most interesting questions and providing such sincere and in-depth responses. that night, he was just lovely, and that’s pretty much all he’s been since. he’s this adorable mix of confident and shy, awkward and knowing just the right thing to say. and he’s incredibly smart, an almost stanford pre-law graduate who was headed for bigger things before he was pulled back into hunting a little over two years ago. this explains the difference in all his injuries from the past two years versus the three beforehand. secretly, you mourn for the life that he, and subsequently you, might have had, but only because he gets a little wistful every time he talks about stanford.

mostly, you talk on the phone, only stopping late in the night when one of you catches the other yawning. he seems to sleep so little, yet he lives such a tiring life. you almost always seem to be the one who gets too tired first. one night, you fell asleep to his voice, and since then, you feel like it’s the single best way to drift into dreams.

sam tries to avoid the topic of the supernatural, but you ask him about it anyway. as you get used to the idea of monsters being real, you find yourself wanting to understand it all better. you want to understand him better. and you don’t want him to feel like he has to hide the biggest parts of his life from you or for him to have trouble fitting you into his world.

he always answers your questions, omitting any extreme gore or death, but it doesn’t take long for you to realize how many people he really saves. that’s his life; saving people.

it takes three weeks for you to see him again since the first night, and three more plus a whole lot of convincing on your end for him to bring you on a hunt with him. he tries to hide it, but he’s so worried for you, despite all the reassurances he’s made that this particular ghost isn’t really all that violent or dangerous. by now, you’ve already come to mostly believe all that he's told you, but to see it in real life is still the final confirmation that you need to be fully convinced.

sam keeps you by his side the whole time, one hand on you every moment that he can afford it. the second the ghost appears, he blasts it with a salt round from his shotgun, and he thinks he could cry when you flinch at the loud noise. yet, he feels comforted that you don’t seem all too scared. and strangely, you really aren’t. sam easily makes you feel safe. luckily, the next time the ghost appears, it bursts into flames moments later thanks to dean burning the bones.

the moment it’s gone, sam drops the gun to the ground and turns to you, accidentally ruining the now unnecessary salt line around you in his rush to check on you.

“are you okay?” he asks gently, a hand on your shoulder and the other cupping your cheek as he looks you up and down.

“i’m alright, sam,” you reassure. it’s true that you’re a little shaky, and just the tiniest bit scared, but to have your confirmation and sam by your side is much more important to you.

“i’m sorry,” he apologizes anyway, pulling you into a hug that’s more for his peace of mind than yours. of course, you don’t complain, easily finding his arms to be your new favorite place in the world.

oddly enough, taking it almost slow works well. he kisses you the next time he sees you, a week and a half later, and you’ve never wanted anything more than to have him keep kissing you, over and over again. he just feels like yours and you feel like his and you’ve barely known him for long, but when he kisses you it’s like there’s stars hung from the ceiling and flowers made from nothing but love and healing growing all over you. when he kisses you it’s sunlight and moonglow bottled up and mixed with sweet, pure maple syrup. his lips on yours feel like lucky four leaf clovers, like it’s possible to taste heaven on someone else’s tongue.

and though it mostly works for him to just visit as often as he can, which sometimes isn’t often at all, and to call him at every moment you can, the yearning only grows. you swear that you’re addicted to his lips, to his big hands cupping your jaw all gentle and sweet or his bulky arms boxing you in as he kisses you so hard that you melt right into the sheets.

and some nights, though he tries to hide it, you can hear him struggling with what seems to be the weight of the world on his shoulders. his job is anything but easy or fruitful. before, you thought that you might worry less when you found out exactly why your soulmate was getting injured so often, but now every time new blooms appear on your skin, you spend all day fretting until you can get him on the phone to make sure he’s alright.

you suppose he gets just as worried as you, despite the fact that you’re never in nearly as much danger as he is. a week ago, a jagged edge on a metal wire fence snagged at your skin, drawing a very shallow, but long line of blood down your forearm. seconds later, you had a frantic sam on the phone, so worried about all the little blue flowers on his arm.

it’s not as hard as he thinks for you to tell how much fear and worry he lives in. you know that he doesn’t tell you the half of it sometimes, even when you ask. all you want is to have him a little closer, to be there for him and provide the sort of comfort that you’re sure he’s never really had before. and though he’s told you that having you to talk to, so receptive and encouraging for him, has been a complete blessing, you still wish for more. you want his arms enveloping you and his lips on yours and his warm body in your bed. really, you just miss him. all the time.

⟢⟢⟢

tonight is one of the glorious nights that you get to have him with you. his broad frame takes up so much space in your bed, and you love it more than just about anything. he props himself up on one elbow and you mirror his pose as you let your eyes roam over each other’s features and take turns rambling about every little thing from this past week. unable to resist, sam kisses you often. he just leans over, swiftly closing the small space between you and pressing his lips to yours. he looks so beautiful like this; at peace, his shirtless body and protective tattoo framed all prettily by clean white sheets.

eventually, comforting words turn into a comforting silence, and you drop your head to your pillow. your eyes droop a little as you play with the idea letting a few more words slip from your tongue. you want to say something to him, but you can’t tell if it’s the right time.

sam settles on his pillow, just like you. “what is it?” he whispers, inviting and respectful. his voice tells you that you’re welcome to say whatever you’re thinking about, but that it’s okay if you don’t want to quite yet.

you smile a little at how well he’s able to read you. since he asked so sweetly, you say it. “i can’t be away from you, sam. i love you, i really do.” this isn’t the first time you’ve said the three special words to each other, but his eyes grow infinitely softer than they were before each time you do.

this time, his eyes do soften, but he cringes a little too, because he feels sorry and because he feels the same exact way. “i can’t make you live like i do. i love you, too, so much. and i hate being away from you, but this? this life, it– it’s sort of awful, and it’s dangerous and hard and–”

you swiftly cut him off with a kiss that he more than willingly melts into. “i know,” you whisper against his lips, barely moving from him to speak. “but– but what if we tried something else? you still go on your hunts and all that, but you and dean can stay here in between. there’s this cabin in the woods i’ve been eyeing, it’s sort of small but it’s isolated and we could ward it. i’ve been looking into protection and warding spells, and i think we could make it work… only, you know, if you wa–”

this time he’s the one to cut you off with a kiss, passionate and sweet all at once. when your lips part, he keeps his forehead pressed against yours like he can’t bear to be any further from you.

“i want to,” he says, voice so sure and sturdy. “i really want to… but how’re we gonna get the house? it’s not like me or dean can buy property, and i can’t make you–”

“i want to,” you echo his words, just as sincerely. “please, sam, let me do this. i’ve been saving money for a long time and it’s a little run down so it’s not too expensive. and i’m getting sick of this apartment.”

“you’re gonna live there?” he asks, not bothering to hide his hope and sparkling joy at that idea.

you grin. “of course. there’s three bedrooms and it’s so pretty and i can’t, you know, pay for that and the apartment at the same time. and i– i wanna be there every time you get home.”

that word gets to him. sam doesn’t really have a solid or normal concept of home—the closest thing he has is the impala. but it sounds so right when it comes out of your mouth. “and– and you’re okay with that?” he asks, still needing to be reassured, “you said it was isolated, and–”

“i’m sure, sam,” you emphasize, “it’s only 20 minutes from town and the roads to and from are never busy. i’ve always wanted to live in the woods, i swear. and if it meant i could be with you more, i’d never ever say no to this. please… can we talk to dean about it?”

“yes,” he gushes. “yes, of course, i– you’re amazing.” he seals the deal with a firm, giddy kiss. “and if dean says he doesn’t like the idea, i don’t care. i’m gonna do this with you.” another kiss and your heart softens infinitely. “besides, he loves the pie from the bakery on morrison street, which means he can’t say no.” he gives you another kiss and pulls away again, and you know that he’s bound to keep rambling if you let him, so you wrap an arm around his neck and thread your fingers through his soft, pretty hair. then you kiss him hard until he can’t breathe. he returns the favor by tenfold, whispering through labored breath how much he loves you and wants you and thinks that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

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