#Angst with a Happy Ending | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

moonbug333 · 2 days ago

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YES OMG YES THIS IS AMAZING

— 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 | 𝒂. 𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏

emt!abby x clumsy fem!reader, fluff / angst / smut (mdni!), wc: 8.8k (abby makes me ill).

synopsis: abby’s recuperating from a rocky relationship. tending to you more than once has gotta be fate.

content warnings: language, 18+ content (MDNI!): fingering (abby & reader receiving), oral (abby receiving), standard emotional constipation, non-graphic depictions of injuries / blood. let me know if i miss anything! not proofread well!

tagging those who interacted with my interest post! @eden-nox , @feeeeebbb , @thecowardwrites , @dawn-bunni , @dykefromstatefarm , @kingofcrabs17 , @deadliebalboa , @caitlinisfruity , @matchabxba , @abbysidechick

main masterlist | tlou masterlist

THE FIRST TIME ABBY TENDS TO YOU is an embarrassing circumstance all its own. And not necessarily because you’d hurt yourself, but because of one meddling little sibling in particular.

It’s nearly 2am in the morning, a little brisk outside of the apartment complex, and Abby’s trailing behind her rotation partners up three rickety flights of stairs.

“Seattle EMS!”

The door’s flying open and a frantic girl no older than fifteen is ushering the trio in the apartment.

“It’s my sister,” she says quickly. “She cut her hand with a knife. Won’t stop bleeding.”

Abby’s observing her surroundings, eyes flitting around the space as they file quickly down the hallway, walls neatly littered with polaroids, picture frames, and various other decorations and knickknacks.

As they spill into the living room, Abby’s eyes settle on you, sitting on the coffee table in nothing but an oversized tee and some boyshorts.

There are tiny smears of red across your thighs, right hand applying pressure to your left palm with a wad of paper towels. One look at your face shows draining color and Abby’s setting the duffel on the floor.

“Need her rate and blood pressure,” one of her partners says. “Anderson, can you assess the damage?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Abby says, kneeling in front of you.

She swears she feels a jolt of electricity pass through her nitrile gloves when her fingertips brush your skin. You’re shaky, eyes droopy because you’ve never been great with blood.

“I’m gonna take a look,” Abby says softly, coaxing the paper towels away from you. “That okay?”

You nod, hair falling into your face as she turns your palm over to analyze the wound.

“Sheesh,” she whispers. “What’d you do?”

When you’re silent for a moment, warmth momentarily returning to your cheeks as embarrassment floods your system, Abby’s eyes swing to your younger sister who’s seemingly clocked the considerable tension between you and the hot EMT.

“We were making brownies,” she fills in helpfully. “Big sis was chopping up the nuts.”

One of Abby’s partners chuckles, the one filling out the paperwork, and Abby glances at you again, something niggling in the pit of her stomach when she sees the flustered way you bite your lip.

“Personally not a fan of nuts in my brownies, but that’s a hill I’ll die on.”

Abby’s trying to distract you, take your mind away from a the gnarly gash cut deep in your palm line. It works, she thinks, when you crack a small smile.

“Me neither,” you agree, and it’s the first words you say all night.

Your voice has a sweet rasp, one that makes Abby’s gut twist.

“Guess this means nuts really are a no go,” you say, hissing momentarily when Abby makes start with cleaning your wound.

For a moment she forgets you’re talking about brownies and your little sister’s searing gaze should be confirmation enough, but after gathering all of your important information and spending the next forty-five minutes cleaning you up, Abby’s being stopped in her tracks as they file out of the cramped living room.

Your little sister catches her as the two other techs swing into the third floor hallway.

“My big sis is gay, FYI,” she giggles mischievously. “Like real gay.”

You call her name, absolutely horrified.

Abby can’t help the smile that splits her face.

“Mmm, good to know.”

You’d barely recovered from that moment, still reeling nearly a week later after your failed sleepover party with your little sister that ended in the hottest tech seeing you in the worst condition possible.

And while you thank every force above that Abby hadn’t seemed too perturbed by your sibling’s antics, it’s still something that makes you rub the heel of your palms into your eyes and kick your feet in annoyance before bed.

But just when you think you’re finally getting over it, you cross paths again.

Fate has a cruel way of flexing its humor because you’re turning an especially crowded corner in the freezer section of Whole Foods when your toe catches the corner display.

“Shit!” you hiss, basket clattering to the floor.

Your jar of extra garlic-y marinara is rolling away and a few of your lemons are scattering between avoidant feet.

“Hey, you alright?”

And you’ve heard that voice before, familiar hum haunting your dreams for the past week and a half.

You look up just as the body associated with the voice crouches in front of you, pasta sauce in one hand and trio of lemons in the other.

Of course it’s Abby in all of her glory. Her hair is loosened from her braid, falling over her broad shoulders as she searches your face. She’s in her work polo, few buttons undone and belt somewhat loosened.

Something akin to recognition flashes over her features as she takes you in.

“Thanks,” you whisper when she rights your basket and carefully sets the runaway items inside.

“You’re always hurting yourself,” she teases, standing to her full height before offering her hand out to you.

For a moment you were caught up, so engrossed in seeing Abby again like a direct manifestation of your very fears (and a wet dream or two), that you hadn’t noticed that people were staring.

Your face is hot as your fingers brush her palm and she’s hoisting you up like you weigh nothing. When you shift your weight to the foot you’d tripped on, your face screws up in discomfort.

Abby’s scarily perceptive, equal parts because it comes with the job even when she’s off duty, and also because it’s you. She doesn’t know what’s so different about you, especially because she hasn’t bat an eye at another girl in the past seven months since her previous break-up, but she can’t take her eyes off of you. She’s certain her pupils are blown wide by now.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, steadying you with warm hands.

Abby has to force herself to glance up at you when she happens to notice the way your chest hitches, pendant on the dainty chain that rests between the divot of your collarbones glinting under the fluorescents.

“A little,” you admit.

Abby doesn’t hesitate to take your basket alongside hers and offers you a perfectly sculpted arm.

God you could actually combust, not only because you’re beyond embarrassed but because Abby’s too fucking hot for her own good.

“Easy,” she tells you as you move through the aisles slowly.

She’s guiding you to a quiet corner in the foodcourt, setting you gently against the bench before plopping down next to you.

Your lips part to thank her, tell her that you’ll just rest here for a moment before going about your day, but she’s lifting your leg into her lap and undoing the strap of your sandal wordlessly.

“Oh—”

Her gaze swings to yours.

“Gotta get a better look,” she tells you with an easy smile, fingers gentle around your ankle.

She starts rolling, testing your range of motion. When your expression pinches, she’s rummaging through her basket, only to produce a frozen bag of peas a few moments later.

“Doesn’t look like any bruising is forming and you’ve got your full range of motion,” she observes. “Just a rolled ankle. Nothing some ice won’t fix.”

You stare at her unblinking, nodding stupidly as she applies a slight amount of pressure with the frozen vegetables.

“I, ah—” you let out a low hiss and Abby shouldn’t lick her lips, but her mouth’s dry and the skin of your legs are like butter. “I think I’ll be okay.”

The concern that shades Abby’s features makes you squirm on the bench, ankle still propped in her lap.

“Did you drive?” Abby presses, and she knows that this is a bad idea.

The two of you could be on your way, paths officially untangling, but something inside of her is compelled, tugged hard at the sight of you.

“No…” you trail off sheepishly. “I walked.”

Abby’s lips part, words escaping her before she can stop and think twice.

“I’ll walk you home,” she offers.

“Oh, Abby, you don’t have to do that,” you say gently.

It’s like someone squeezes the air from her lungs at the sound of her name leaving your lips in a rasped hum, makes her wet her lips again because her mouth’s gone dry.

“You’re probably really busy, I don’t want to be a bother,” you add with a soft smile.

“You wouldn’t be,” she assures you. “Just wanna make sure you make it home safe.”

And it’s such a sweet sentiment, one that makes warmth bloom in your chest and your tummy. But there’s a dull ache, a squeeze that makes your thighs involuntarily press together. It’s barely perceptible and you hope to whatever’s in the universe that Abby’s not keen when it comes to body language.

The planes of her face are serious, bump on the bridge of her nose pronounced as you watch the set of her jaw. Fuck, did you want her bad, feel embarrassment creeping because if anyone nearby could intercept your brain, they’d find a slew of less than appropriate thoughts accompanying the more tame.

Without another word, Abby’s hooking your sandal back on, patting your shin gently before setting you right and gathering the combination of your groceries and hers.

You make a move to follow her, but she levels you with a warning glare.

“Stay put,” she urges. “I’ll take care of it.”

“But, Abby—” you splutter.

Your name is stern on her lips and another dull ache ebbs as she stands over you in her uniform, muscles stretching the fabric taut.

She’s off a moment later and after what seems like an eternity waiting almost helplessly, Abby returns with a few paper bags. She’s stuffing the receipt in her pocket and your expression shifts, lips pursing.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask as soon as she offers her elbow to you.

“Don’t worry about it,” she quips, body tensing in the slightest as she acclimates all over again to the feeling of you clinging to her. “Now let’s get you home.”

“Abby!” you whine, drawing her name out petulantly.

It’s so domestic, all of it. Carrying your groceries with your arms looped through hers and the two of you strolling down the sidewalk to accommodate your hurt foot.

“What?” she mocks, and you can’t help but smile.

“You’ll be late for work,” you say softly, unable to stop the passing observation of how sturdy she feels against you.

“I’m off.”

And something like relief, excitement, jolts at the thought. Makes you hush the rest of the way to your apartment building like the courage is still brewing.

The middle-aged woman that sits at her desk in the lobby and plays Candy Crush half of shift pauses to spare the two of you a passing glance as you walk in, eyebrows raising and lips twitching.

“Afternoon, Marianne,” you greet sheepishly.

“Good afternoon,” she parrots, rolling her lips to hide the amused grin threatening to spread.

Abby is none-the-wiser as her eyes flit around the lobby in search for the elevators.

The ride up ends up being shrouded in total silence save for the whirring of the lift’s gears and your shallow breaths. For a moment, Abby wonders if she’s overstepped. If she’s made you uncomfortable and read all the signs wrong.

As the two of you approach your door, the very one her and her coworkers had banged on a little over a week ago, she’s trying to come up with the words to apologize, tell you that she really just wanted to make sure you were okay.

(Even though she’ll only ever admit to herself that perhaps part of it was self-indulgent and the softness of your skin was like a high).

But you’re beating her to it, untangling to shift your weight to your uninjured foot and turning to face her.

“Do you…” You swallow and blink once, then twice, gathering the rest of your courage. “Do you wanna come in?”

Oh— Abby hadn’t been expecting that. She’d been expecting you to fumble with your groceries and close the door in her face for good. But now you’re looking up at her through thick lashes and a shy grin and all she can think to herself in this moment is that she’s a goner.

“I’m making dinner,” you add. “If you’d like to stay.”

Another slice of domesticity that has Abby’s wires crossing.

“Sure,” she agrees easily, and it takes everything inside of her not to teem with too much excitement when you turn to slot your key into the lock and the door springs open.

Your apartment is just how she remembers it from the little details she’d picked up the last time she was here. That same scent of lemons and what she thinks could be incense. Though it’d felt a little out of line, unprofessional to be too engrossed in her surroundings the first time, especially when her eyes caught a particularly suggestive photo among the wall hosting polaroids.

You’re with a group of girl friends, bent over in a too short skirt so that the swell of your ass is pressed to the girl in the center’s front. The shot gives a perfect eyeful of your cleavage in a tiny little triangle bikini top and the cherry on top is the pair of red cat-eye glasses sliding down the bridge of your nose as you wink at whoever is behind the camera.

You pause at the end of the hallway when you notice Abby’s no longer close behind.

“Looks like somebody knows how to have a good time,” she observes jokingly, but her cheeks are so incredibly warm because christ you’re beautiful.

You’re sheepish.

“Definitely retired from that life,” you tell her, and she notes that the neat sharpie dates back nearly six summers ago. “Now I like to bake with my little sister and injure myself.”

Abby can’t help the smile when you start gazing at all the other polaroids tacked into a heart formation on the crisp white walls.

“You seem like the life of the party,” Abby says, eyes lingering on another polaroid of you in what seems to be a dorm room with a joint pinched between your fingers, sporting a feather boa, a paper crown that says ‘birthday girl’ and those same red sunglasses.

You huff out a laugh.

“I wouldn’t say that...”

She wonders if she’ll see that side of you. So far you seem so quiet, reserved. It makes her want to peel away the layers and learn you.

The thought makes her blink hard.

“Kitchen’s this way,” you say after a few moments pass, turning on your heel to pad down the hall and swing left.

Light pours from where you flip the switch to the kitchen’s fluorescents.

Abby finds that the living room and kitchen is far tidier than the last time she’d been here, obviously cleaned after the entire baking debacle with your little sister.

My big sis is gay, like real gay. The words were like a subtle push. One that made Abby weigh the potential.

She’s setting the paper bags on the counter, making a move to go through the bags to help you put the groceries away, but your hands close over hers, slightly smaller and warm as you halt her movements.

“You’ve done enough for me,” you say, smile crooked. “Make yourself at home.”

And the household phrase is so cliche, but makes a split second reel of what making herself fully at home entails. She’d never admit it out loud, but part of it is bending you over the kitchen island.

She swallows the lump in her throat as you limp around the kitchen.

“You should rest your foot,” she says.

Your smile widens.

“I’m okay,” you assure her.

She leans against the counter, watching as you file everything in its rightful place. The muscles in her face involuntarily twitch when you stand up on your tip toes to throw a box of cereal on top of the fridge.

Your ass looks absolutely edible in your jeans and the low cut of your top shows the way your shoulder blades contract.

Definitely doesn’t help her blooming kitchen fantasies.

“You want something to drink?” you offer.

“Just water, please,” Abby clears her throat, gaze snapping up to meet the gaze you throw over your shoulder.

And she has to use the cute little glass you give her as a lifeline, nearly crushing the frosted green glass to bits multiple times over the course of you prepping dinner and the actual thing.

Because not only are you wickedly witty in a way that’s easily overlooked, but you’re phenomenal in the kitchen. Nearly drools watching you cut through your produce while chattering happily about growing up on the west coast and your college years.

You work through the building heat to set a painted ceramic dish piled high with pasta that Abby absolutely devours with nearly as much fervor as she likes to think she would you.

“Good?” you ask hopefully, leaning forward on your elbows.

“Better than good,” Abby says eagerly. “Great, fantastic.”

“Yay,” you cheer pure-heartedly and she could melt. Especially when she polishes off the plate and you sit up straight. “More?”

She easily agrees just for the sake of watching you.

“You should, uh—” You scratch the back of your neck nervously as she continues eating. “You should stop by again. If you, y’know, wanna…I cook a lot and there’s usually a lot left over.”

Abby could scream in excitement. She’s one intrusive thought away from reaching over the island to squish your cheeks and tell you that there’s literally nothing else in the world she’d wanna do than to see you again. Instead she forces her composure with an easy smile.

“I’d really like that.”

And the way she sits back in her seat, legs obviously spreading under the surface to stretch has you wiggling uncomfortably. The last few buttons of her polo have come undone, exposing a freckled expanse of skin that you’d love to sink your teeth into, and somehow, sometime while your back had been turned, she’d opted for undoing the rest of her loosening braid to throw it into a topknot.

The tension is palpable, thick enough to choke, and at times, as the two of you chat over the kitchen island, it has you stumbling over your words.

Even more so when you walk her to the door at half past ten. She’s leaning against the doorframe like she doesn’t want to leave, and truthfully, you don’t want her to. Want to spend as much time as you can caught up.

“I’ll call you?” you bite the bullet despite the tremor in your fingertips.

Abby nods, arm banded around her paper bag of groceries, a tupperware of leftovers nestled on the top.

“Yeah, please,” she hums.

And there’s one final moment of tension that clings between the two of you as she kicks off the doorframe and you close the door, back pressed against the wood.

After that night, the lines you dance blur impossibly. Always a will she, won’t she that seems to equally frustrate the two of you for vastly different reasons unbeknownst to the other.

You because you can’t get a read on Abby, always teetering over a steep edge trying to get her to bite your advances. But you know, know that there’s something there. Abby because she’s given more and more reason to fall into you with every passing moment, but can’t seem to take the plunge, entirely too freshly single to think about another commitment that could fail and leave her already mending heart beyond repair.

And she knows it isn’t fair, especially when the tension both romantic and sexual is absolutely brimming. You’re nothing like the partners she’s been with before, especially not her last girlfriend who was practically your polar opposite. You were gentle, sweet, funny. Good at practically anything you could get your hands on.

But something stalls her, keeps her from diving headfirst despite late nights laying on your living room floor talking about things both minute and infinite, cooking with you in the snugness of your tiny kitchen, even inviting you to outings with friends and vice versa.

So you take the plunge instead, one Saturday evening weeks after your first meeting, after spending long swathes of time tangled in each other’s presence.

You’re at a bar with her and her friends, slight buzz giving you the smallest nudge of confidence to cling to her arm. And god does Abby look good tonight, especially so, in a dark button up and fitted pants. She’s got her hair down, tickles your cheek when you nuzzle against her shoulder.

Her friends’ eyes are inquisitive, curious because touches between the two of you rarely linger for longer than a few moments, but you’ve been glued to her side all night. She doesn’t say anything though, doesn’t shrug you off, even wraps an arm around your shoulder when you return from the restroom.

So with a few more drinks and a little more liquid courage, you’re toeing a little over the line. You’ve pushed her hair over her shoulders, pressing your lips experimentally to the skin behind her ear. It’s a sensation that has her freezing up almost imperceptibly, but you can tell with the way her muscles grow taut under your fingers.

“What’re you doing, angel?” Abby asks quietly, span of her large palm gripping your thigh.

“Nothin’,” you hum, nose bumping her ear.

She breathes out a hollow laugh, tries to turn her attention to her friends who are obviously trying to ignore your displays of affection. But then your lips are brushing with more force against her collar and she’s sliding out of the stuffy booth to get some air.

Her resolve is obviously crumbling, even more so when she stands at the bar waiting for the next round of drinks and your arm bands around her waist, the other flattening below her belly button. When your pinkie slides beneath her belt buckle, she’s pushing off the counter.

And for a moment you think you’ve upset her when she gathers all the stout glasses and winds through the crowd to return to the booth you’d previously occupied.

You barely make it to the back of the bar when she’s emerging from the bodies and grabbing you roughly by the bicep.

“Abby—”

Her lips are slotting yours before you can apologize, and she tastes like cherries and liquor. Her arms wind around your waist, one hand on the small of your back, the other grabbing a handful of your ass.

“Abs,” you whisper breathlessly, unable to feel any embarrassment for taking up a high traffic aisle as she bites your bottom lip.

“Your place or mine?” she asks, voice gravelly. “Because you started something that I’m gonna need you to finish, princess.”

And your knees are jelly the entire trek to your apartment, insides liquid and tummy fluttering because a warmth has begun to pool in your panties. The way Abby can’t keep her hands off you through the elevator ride up makes it all the worse.

“You’re such a fuckin’ tease, y’know that?” she hisses in your ear as you miss the keyhole a few times. “For the last six weeks all you’ve done is toy with me and—”

Her breath hitches when she presses her front to your back and slides her hand up the skirt of your backless sundress to feel the stickiness forming between the plush of your thighs.

When you finally force the door open, Abby’s kicking off her shoes and her fingers are making work of her top buttons. You’re quick to swivel on your heel, shoving her roughly against the front door to push up on your tiptoes and pepper kisses over the curve of her jaw.

“Me?” you huff petulantly, an uncharacteristic gleam in your eye as your fingers are deft on her belt buckle. You unbutton her dress pants. “You waltz in here all the time looking so…so…fuckable.”

Abby nearly chokes on her breath.

“And you try to play coy, but I see right through you, Abby,” you say in such a gooey tone. She throws her head back and moans. “I see the way you look at me. The little things you do. You’re not subtle Anderson.”

And that’s new. Calling her by her last name.

Your hand’s down the front of her pants, under her boxers and you feel it. How wet she is. Feel the slick between her folds as you circle her clit.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathes, lips parted as she takes the sight of you in.

“Wanna make you feel good,” you sigh, biting your bottom lip as you stare up at her.

She nods eagerly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you hum.

Her hands come up to cup your cheeks, leaning down to steal a few kisses before her hand’s wrapping around your wrist and pulling you from her heat.

“Open,” she barks, guiding your fingers to your lips.

You do so without argument, the taste of Abby making your eyes hood.

You make a noise in the back of your throat, and Abby’s walking you back towards your bedroom.

“You wanna make me feel good?” she asks, back of her knees hitting the edge of your mattress. She’s got you situated between her legs, shucking off her top and shimmying her trousers and boxers off in one go. “Then get to work.”

She’s spreading her legs, gaze locked as you lower until you’re eye level with her cunt. The pale moonlight that filters the window making it absolutely glisten.

You’re kissing the skin of her inner thighs, hands on her knees as you glance up at her, only find her with her bottom lip tucked harshly between pearly teeth.

“Want you bad,” you admit breathily, biting the taut skin before laving at it with the flat of your tongue.

All you receive is a shaky breath, seemingly knocking the words straight from her lips.

“Nothing?” you taunt, biting the other side.

Abby’s opening her mouth to say something snarky, but your lips are on her clit and your middle finger’s sliding in with ease.

“Jesus, fuck,” she whispers breathlessly.

And you’re smug as you eat her out, vibration of your moans rumbling through her core when she threads her fingers through your hair and tugs ‘til the tension in your scalp stings deliciously.

“Shitshitshit,” she chokes when you add another finger.

Under normal circumstances, she’d be embarrassed when her body locks up and her legs shake after what seems like only mere moments, but after she comes down and the fog clears, she’s wiping that smirk off your pretty face.

The sight is one to see, Abby leaned against your headboard with your back plastered to her front. The skirt of your dress is scrunched around your waist, flimsy straps knocked from your shoulders.

She’s merciless, thick fingers plugging you full.

“Ah, Abby,” you hiss, hand wrapping around her wrist.

“Can’t get over how tight you are.” She bites your earlobe. “You can barely take two.”

As testament, she stuffs you deeper. The squelch is downright filthy, your arousal pooling down your slit and onto the sheets. For a moment Abby’s pulling her digits from your heat, spreading her fingers in front of your face to show you the stringy strands of clear that web her knuckles.

“See that, princess? See how wet you are?” she teases, other hand taking a palmful of your tits while her mouth maps each blemish and mark with kisses across your shoulders and neck.

“So fuckin’ pretty like this,” she husks. “Wish you could see how pretty you look.”

You throw your head back, chest heaving as her fingers curl inside the spongy walls of your cunt and applies such a toe-curling pressure against the spot that has you seeing stars. It makes your back arch, knees twitching against the legs that Abby uses to keep your thighs spread.

“You gonna cum, pretty girl?” she whispers, blowing air against the shell of your ear as her ministrations grow sloppy.

You nod quickly, body tensing.

“M’gonna fuckin’ cum,” you whimper, “Please, Abs, don’t stop. I’m—”

Abby could cum all over again when your chest pushes forward into her hold, head lolling back against her shoulder as you let out a pitched whine that sounds a lot like her name.

“Fuck!” you swallow, falling slack against her sticky skin as you gush.

Her other hand drops to your clit, lazy circles making your pussy clench around the fingers still stuffed inside.

“That’s right, princess,” she huffs. “Cream all over my fingers.”

Your breaths stutter, pussy clenching as you let out a needy little moan.

“So good,” she praises. “Such a good girl.”

And you’re absolutely boneless, head knocking gently against hers as you push further into her chest. You feel her weight shift as she reaches, then the gentle feeling of her cleaning you up despite sleepy overstimulated protests.

It’s warm in your room as Abby slinks down the pillows and pulls the covers up. Her chin rests on top of your head as you cozy up to her, mumbling about how much you like her and how you’ve waited for such a moment.

You don’t remember the last thing you say before you doze off.

Abby does, though.

It keeps her up the entire night. Has her eyes blown wide as she stares up at the ceiling and the weight of the evening dawns on her.

Always wanna be with you. You’re my person.

And she doesn’t know how it’d gotten to this point. How did she let herself get so entangled with you? She’d always been aware that there’d been something there, that she was crushing and was almost a hundred percent sure you reciprocated, but this was far more than she’d anticipated.

It’s a step away from the ‘l’ word, and she’s not so sure it’s something she’s willing to fall into.

So Abby does what she does when she’s scared and she’s running. She’s replacing herself with your pillow as the sun comes up, heart squeezing when your cheek nuzzles against the fabric and your lips part to blow a breath.

She’s dressing as she makes her way to the front door, takes a final look at the polaroid wall that stares back at her as she tugs her shoes on, and slips out of the apartment building into the chilly Seattle air.

You’d been prepared for a lot of things growing up and into yourself. Had learned to swallow the bitter side of sweet, but nothing could have prepared you for the splintering feeling of Abby’s absence.

You wake up a few hours after she leaves, naked and hugging one of your pillows. The apartment is eerily silent as you wait in stillness for any signs that she’s just an early riser.

There’s no shower running, no clattering in the kitchen, no shuffling in the hall. And when you survey your surroundings, comforter wrapped around your shoulders, you suck in a deep breath.

Maybe she has work.

It’s a futile attempt to rationalize the situation, but you know Abby. Know that she’d leave a note, maybe a text, or—

You scramble for your phone, but deflate when you find a notification to water your virtual plant. For good measure, you open her text thread, but all that stares back at you is the confirmation that she was picking you up the night prior.

“Oh, Abby,” you whisper to yourself, something like sickness making your stomach twist.

The cursor blinks, keyboard clicking as you type and retype anything that’ll confirm that maybe you’re just being paranoid, reading into things too much.

So you settle on good morning 💘.

It’s almost instantaneous.

Read at 7:47am.

It takes a little under two weeks for Abby to surface again. Not without ample prodding. You’re a communicator, she realizes, as she sits outside of Jo’s Coffee and stares down at the string of texts from you over the past week and a half.

pretty girl: good morning 💘

pretty girl: have a good day at work

pretty girl: i made dinner if you wanna stop by

pretty girl: can i swing by the station with lunch?

pretty girl: just want you to know that i’m thinking of you

pretty girl: meet for coffee? wanna see you.

pretty girl: text me whenever you’re comfortable, i’ll leave you alone til you’re ready 💗

That final text is what makes her crack. Makes the guilt eat away at her. So she messages you when her shift is over.

me: jo’s at 4

pretty girl liked ‘jo’s at 4’

She looks up when the chair across from her scrapes against the concrete. You drop into the seat, fresh-faced and obviously newly showered. But she can see it in your eyes, the bags that puff like you’ve been crying.

And you have, even if you won’t admit it, because Abby’s the closest thing you’ve felt to what love could be like and these past two weeks have been agonizing as you try to pick apart every single facet of your situationship with her.

“How are you?” you ask, giving her a weak smile over the table.

“Good,” Abby lies, but you don’t see through her poker face and it stings, thinking that she’d been so unaffected by all of this.

You nod, fiddling with the fake leaves of the center piece.

“I missed you,” you admit shakily.

And fuck, did Abby miss you too, but she can’t find it in herself to face her fears head on. So she just nods, biting the inside of her lip.

“Didn’t miss me?” you tease, trying to make light of the situation.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” Abby cuts to the chase, words leaving her lips like a shot that echos in the night.

It makes your ears ring, your brows furrowing as your lips twitch into a frown. Abby braces herself, knows what a brewing argument feels like. It’s sick to say that it’s familiarity, that sharp words and hoarse voices are a norm.

But you just shrink in your seat.

“Why?” you whisper.

Abby sucks in a deep breath.

“You don’t remember what you told me?” she asks like an accusation.

You blink.

“You told me that you wanted to be with me. That I’m your person,” she says.

And you wonder what’s so wrong with that. Especially when you’ve spent two months glued, when you were so sure it was mutual.

“I do,” you affirm softly. “You are.”

Abby squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head.

“I’m not—” She clears her throat. “I don’t want a girlfriend. I don’t need the distraction. Especially not now with work and my personal life.”

Ouch. That had hurt, Abby calling her time with you and any subsequent moments nothing more a distraction.

“Oh.”

She doesn’t know why your response frustrates her, makes annoyance pinch the back of her brain as she takes you in, but it does. Full force.

“We’re better off as friends,” Abby says. “It’s easier, it’s—”

“Friends don’t fuck each other, Abby,” you say simply, and the calmness in your tone makes her upset.

She’s used to the shouting, to the arguing and being at each other’s throats in conversations like these. But you never fail to amaze her as you keep your composure.

“I have no intention of sleeping with you again,” she says stonily. “That night was mistake. I hadn’t been with someone in months and you were giving me attention and—”

In her frustration with the entire conversation, she hadn’t realized that tears were pooling in your eyes. That you were trying not to cry.

Her face softens when she notices.

“I’m sorry, I just—”

“You what?” you murmur. “What were these past three months, Abby?”

“I dunno,” Abby sighs in annoyance. “Two people enjoying each other’s company? We were drunk and—"

You simply nod, knuckling away the brimming tears before shrugging your bag over your shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Abby sighs when you stand.

“Home,” you answer quietly. “Whatever. Let’s just forget any of this ever happened.”

She grabs your arm over the table, opening her mouth to apologize again, but you’re shaking her off.

“Take care of yourself,” you tell her.

The days blur like the edges of a muddy watercolor.

You start to think that things could look up, that maybe Abby was put in your life for some reason you’ll uncover in the future. But the universe can be so cruel sometimes, knows exactly what to do to shatter the broken pieces you’d tried so hard to glue together.

It comes in the form of a night out nearly a month after you’d last seen Abby. She made no additional efforts, just left you wondering if you’d imagined it all, and your friends are especially tired of your moping.

It’s a surprise!

And you’re not really one for surprises. Especially not now, but they’re dragging you out, carting you across town. Your stomach sinks to your ass when you see the familiar neon lights. Feel your chest tighten on the trek up the stairs to the same bar that preluded your spiral.

You could throw up when you’re situated in a booth with your friends and you glance at the bar by chance.

Abby’s leaned against the counter top, looking as good as ever, but she’s not alone. There’s a girl that hangs off her shoulder, skin umber and eyes warm. She makes no moves to distance herself and you don’t know why you feel the anger begin to sizzle. Abby hadn’t been yours in the first place.

“What do you wanna drink?” one of your friends asks.

“Nothing,” you answer stiffly.

She follows your gaze to the countertop, sees the way your eyes burn.

You’d kept your situation with Abby private, didn’t want to jeopardize such a potentially good thing with your well-meaning meddling friends at such a fresh stage. But now that it’s soured, you stare openly.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” she asks, and your avoidance is answer enough. “C’mon, let’s show her what she missed out on.”

As it turns out, it doesn’t seem like much. Because she doesn’t even blink when you sidle up to the counter with your friend, three patrons between the two of you.

You’d always thought the two if you had a sixth sense for the other, but Abby’s oblivious to her surroundings, too engrossed in her drink and the pretty brunette hanging off her shoulder.

One of the bartenders goes up, asks what he can get for the two beautiful ladies, and your ears perk when her voice sounds. Nearly throw up the empty contents of your stomach all over the bar top when you see the way she slings her arm over the girl’s shoulders.

“Another vodka soda for my girl.”

She’s buzzed, you can hear it, but it’s the most sound declaration you’ve heard from her in the time you’ve known her.

You break away from the bar, and you run.

Abby feels like a shell of herself.

She’d gone out over the weekend, celebrating a visit from a close friend from the east coast. And it’d done a good job of numbing the pain for a little while, of taking her mind off of you.

But it’s Tuesday, the first day of her rotation this week and she hates that this feels worse than her previous break-up despite the unlabeled status of your relationship. You hadn’t even put up a fight, just took her rejection in stride.

It makes her feel infinitely worse, knowing you didn’t have it in you.

She doesn’t even realize she’s spaced out in front of the drink coolers of the convenience store after her shift when a voice snaps her out of it.

“S’cuse me.”

And she knows that voice. It’d been her greenlight all those nights ago.

Your little sister is brushing past her, going straight for the Body Armors and Gatorade. She must feel the way Abby stares because she’s side-eyeing the older girl from her post.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says, turning her nose up in the air.

Abby swallows.

“Hey to you too,” she says hesitantly.

Your little sister humphs, snatching the golden berry flavor and a yellow Gatorade. Abby takes a moment to glance at her basket, sees fever medicine and Tylenol among other things like instant ramen and Vitamin C gummies.

“Are you sick?” she asks.

Your little sister’s face screws up in annoyance.

“No, but my big sis is,” she says matter-of-factly.

That information makes Abby’s heart sink.

“She alright?” she asks carefully.

“She’s seen better days no thanks to you.”

And on a normal day, Abby would laugh because your little sister is witty, just like you. Can see where she gets it from. But right now, all she can imagine is you bed ridden and coughing up a lung.

“I can take a look at her,” Abby offers suddenly. “I—”

“Yeah fucking right,” your sibling scoffs.

Her language stuns Abby and this time she really can’t help but chuckle.

“You think this is funny?” she gripes. “You broke my sister’s heart. She’s been so fuckin’ sad because of you and you’re laughing.”

Abby sobers up quick, shakes her head.

“No, no, that’s not—,” she splitters urgently. “I– I’m laughing ‘cuz you’re just like her.”

Your little sister doesn’t look convinced, uses the back of her hand to wipe her nose as she levels Abby with an unrelenting stare.

“You suck, y’know that?”

“Yeah,” Abby sighs, hands flailing in defeat. “Trust me, I know.”

“And you’re a pussy,” your little sister adds childishly. “I know you really like my sister.”

Abby doesn’t even bother denying it, just stands there with a prepackaged sandwich that pales in comparison to your cooking and a diet soda.

“I do,” she affirms quietly.

“Then do something about it,” she says surprisingly. “My sister’s a catch, the coolest person I know. You’d be the biggest fucking dumbass if you don’t lock her down.”

And her candidness makes Abby crack a smile.

They stand there for a few moments in silence before your little sister is shoving the basket in Abby’s arms and prancing down the aisle.

As soon as Abby’s paid, black plastic bag in her grasp, she finds that your little sister has lingered outside of the convenience store.

She’s shoving a key in her hands.

“She’s too tired to open the door,” she says. “She likes extra lime in her ramen and runny eggs. Also hates swallowing pills so you’ll probably have to crush it up and put it in her water or something.”

“Who’s the EMT here?” Abby grumbles.

Your little sister pins her with a narrowed look.

“Don’t fuck this up Anderson,” she warns. “If Big Sis asks, I took a train to the mall to meet up with my friends.”

And just like that, she flounces away.

You’re asleep when she sneaks into your apartment.

She kicks her shoes off, sets the bag of convenience store goods on the kitchen island before padding through the living room to peek into your room.

Buried under a mound of blankets, just your eyebrows and forehead peek from the top as you snore softly. When she peels the covers away, she not only finds that you’re sweaty and your cheeks are flushed, but you’re wearing her favorite hoodie.

She hadn’t realized she left it here, but seeing you in it has her sinking to her knees by your bedside, chin resting on her bent arm.

“Hi, angel,” she whispers quietly, pushing the sweaty strands of hair from your face. “Missed you.”

You don’t budge, cheek smushed in your pillow as you snooze peacefully. And maybe she shouldn’t have come here, because all it’ll take is you asking her to stay.

She tucks the blanket to your chin, leans forward to press a kiss against your temple.

In the kitchen, she’s only reminded of how much she misses you. Misses this. She’d spent nearly everyday here during your time together. Brushed shoulders with you while you guys cooked together, leaned against the counter while you took extra care plating her food despite her protests of ‘we’re gonna eat it anyways’. You guys frequently laid out on the living room floor, snacking while watching movies, flipping through coffee table books or getting existential.

She’d made so many memories here, made a home out of you.

The thought stirs something emotional inside of her, makes tears prick the corner of her eyes as she rips open the packet of ramen and digs the seasoning sachet out.

Frustration wells as she goes through the motions in your kitchen by herself. Wonders why you had to go and be so fucking wonderful and make her fall for you.

She’s halfway through and angrily brushing her tears away when she hears your door creak open and your voice croak your little sister’s name in question.

When you stand in the doorway of the kitchen, her name is falling from your lips.

“Abby?”

You rub your eyes momentarily and Abby feels like the biggest piece of shit on the planet as you stand there with the hood of her pullover on, Christmas pajama pants and some crew socks.

“Hi,” she breathes.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, bewildered eyes bouncing around the kitchen as you take in your surroundings. The bags under your eyes are swollen, your lips chapped as you fidget in the archway.

“I ran into your sister at the convenience store,” she admits. “She said you were sick.”

“And?” It’s like you can’t fathom the fact that Abby would have any concern for you. Something like anger bubbles at the idea.

“What do you mean and?” Abby asks, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re sick and I… I care about you.”

There’s that normalcy again, that familiar feeling of emotions beginning to reach its boiling point. But she’s not angry at you. Could never be when all you’ve been is perfect to her. And perhaps in the back of her mind that plays the tiniest role, because you’re everything she could ever want, need, but she steady fucks it up every go around.

“Do you?” you whisper.

You look small, defeated, unable to meet her eyes.

“Of course I do, what are—”

“You really hurt me, you know that?” Your breath hitches. “You came into my life like fate, over and over again. Still do apparently. And you— You made me like you more than I’ve ever liked someone in my life. You let me see you, let me fuck you, let me… let me…”

It’s your first real display of heightened emotion. You don’t bother trying to hide your tears, or hide the way Abby’s built you up and ruined you these past four months.

“And then you just left.”

The lump in her throat nearly chokes her breathless.

“I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, y’know?” you continue and Abby’s hands tremble. “That maybe you really just needed the time for yourself, but then I saw you, and—”

“Saw me what?” Abby interjects. “Where?”

“At the bar,” you squeak. “She’s really fucking pretty, and I hope she makes you—”

“What are you talking about?” Abby grills, taking a step towards you.

“If you didn’t want to be with me, if you didn’t feel the way I felt about you, you could have just said that,” you whimper, dashing the tears away in embarrassment. “You didn’t have to make an excuse about not wanting a distraction.”

“I’m so lost right now,” Abby says. “I—”

“I saw you at the bar this weekend,” you tell her straight. “You were with a girl, called her yours.”

And that floors her. She’s almost a hundred percent certain she would’ve felt your presence a mile away, But as you reveal that you’d only been meters away from her, the closest you’ve gotten in weeks, it makes her gut pinch.

She wracks her brain, tries to recall that weekend, tries to think of any woman who’d give you the idea that she’d choose anyone but you.

She draws a blank at first, but then she remembers the bartender’s passing comment.

You and the birthday girl are too sweet.

Abby had fake retched and Nora’d drawn out an exaggerated ewwww as the bartender set the vodka soda before them.

She’d been far too engrossed to realize that you’d been in the vicinity. But she’s not so sure she would’ve done much to take advantage of your presence if she had.

This is her first act of courage in months and she’s falling head first as she crosses the berth between the two of you.

When she stands a few inches away, you look up at her, thick lashes wet and nose snotty. You look like a mess, but Abby’s always thought you were beautiful.

“Nora’s not my girlfriend,” is the first thing she says.

You think you should feel relief, some semblance of hope flickering, but this feels a lot like uncertainty and you hate the limbo.

You don’t say anything, just wipe your nose on the back of your hand.

“I’m sorry,” Abby whispers, hands coming up to grasp your shoulders.

You make a noise in the back of your throat, corners of your mouth turning down in that telltale sign that you’re not done crying yet.

“C’mon, angel, stop crying,” Abby says weakly and the nickname makes your stupid heart flutter.

Her thumbs are brushing underneath your eyes, over the puff of your eyebags before she’s crushing you to her chest, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other winding around your shoulders to keep you anchored.

Your arms wrap around her waist, taking in the scent of her pine body wash and the softness of her detergent.

“I hate you,” comes your muffled hiccup.

Abby only hugs you harder.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

And perhaps she deserves that, but you’re pushing your face further into her chest and she barely hears you.

“I missed you,” you admit a second later, back of her work shirt fisted between nimble fingers.

A shuddering breath leaves her at the admission, makes her body relax as the two of you stand at the edge of your kitchen.

“Missed you,” she murmurs, savoring the way your body feels melding against hers for the first time in weeks. “Fuck, I missed you so much.”

“You’ll stay?” you whisper.

“Yeah, yeah,” she assures you. “I gotta go home and get some stuff, but of course I’ll stay.”

Your hold tightens and your head shakes.

“I mean stay, Abby,” you clarify. “With me. Don’t…don’t run away anymore.”

Her breath catches in her throat, a new onslaught of tears choking her as she nods fervently.

“Yeah,” she croaks, kissing the top of your head. “M’not going anywhere.”

BONUS

You don’t know where the time goes. It all seems to blur together in the moments you spend with Abby, and before you can wrap your mind around the fact, a full year has passed the two of you by.

“You look so pretty,” Abby comments, sitting on the edge of your bed with her legs spread.

She’s watching you through the mirror, blue eyes piercing and unblinking.

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to the way she always seems to make you warm.

“Thanks,” you mumble, unable to hide the smile that twitches while you screw the cap back onto your lipgloss to take one final look at yourself.

“Not gonna say it back?” Abby feigns annoyance, pushing up from her seat to wrap around you, one hand bracing against the dresser as her chin drops to your neck.

“Then it’d be insincere,” you deadpan, head tilting to rest against hers.

She humphs under her breath, shamelessly sliding a hand up your dress.

You stop her fingers in their tracks, pushing off from the drawers to create space between the two of you and alleviate the warmth beginning to bloom behind your navel.

“We’re gonna be late for Nora’s birthday,” you quip, fingertips barely brushing the doorknob before Abby’s hands are gripping your waist.

She’s hoisting you to throw you against the mattress playfully.

“She’ll survive if we’re ten minutes late,” Abby assures you wolfishly, climbing over you to cage your body between her thick thighs.

“You’re gonna mess up my hair,” you whine, pushing at her shoulder.

Abby captures your wrists in one hand, other tilting your chin up to slot her lips between yours. The taste of the fresh coat of lipgloss you’d just applied makes her smile against your mouth.

She relaxes a fraction when you reciprocate, tongue languid. A noise of approval rumbles from her chest when you nudge her onto her back and bite down on her bottom lip. With a wicked glint in her eyes, she’s pulling away, hands resting against the curve of your ass.

Now you’re straddling her, manicured hands mapping from her waist to her shoulders to feel the ripple of taut muscles underneath. She’s tense, obviously waiting for your next move with bated breath and kiss bitten lips.

But then you shift teasingly over her zipper.

“Let’s go,” you hum, pressing a final kiss to her jaw before climbing off of her anticipating figure. “No dessert before dinner.”

#fic recs #recs #abby #smut #fluff #slight angst #angst with a happy ending

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you-have-a-metal-arm · 5 months ago

Text

JAMES?

pairing : Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count : 1.2k

Warnings : Just general fluff

Summary : When you call Bucky “James”—a name no one else dares to use—he reveals to a stunned Steve and Sam.

Authors Note : Hey y’all i’m back!!! Enjoy this fic 🙈

You stood quietly in the doorway, arms crossed as you watched him. His hair was damp with sweat, clinging to his temples, and his jaw was set in that stubborn way it always was when he refused to admit he was hurting. You let out a soft sigh. You hated seeing him like this—so hard on himself, so weighed down by things he didn’t deserve to carry.

He didn’t notice you at first, too lost in his own storm. But you stepped forward, not hesitating for a second.

“James.”

Your voice cut through the room like a blade, soft yet sharp enough to reach him. The sound made him freeze mid-punch, his metal fist stopping inches from the bag. His head turned slowly, his stormy blue eyes locking onto yours. And in an instant, the tension in his shoulders melted. His gaze softened in a way that made your heart ache, because you knew—you knew—no one else ever got to see him like this.

“Hey,” he murmured, his voice rough from exertion but laced with something warmer. Something vulnerable.

Steve, halfway through a set of sit-ups in the corner, dropped to the floor in disbelief. “Wait—what?”

Sam, leaning lazily against the wall with a water bottle in hand, nearly spit out his drink. “Hold the hell up,” he said, straightening. “Did she just call you James?”

Steve sat up fully now, wiping his forehead with his shirt and glaring at Bucky like he’d just witnessed a miracle. “She did. And—” his voice faltered as he pointed a finger at Bucky, “—you’re okay with it?”

Bucky glanced at Steve, then at Sam, his jaw tightening ever so slightly. But when he looked back at you, something in his expression shifted. He shrugged, completely unbothered. “Yeah. So?”

Sam’s jaw practically hit the floor. “So? You nearly ripped my arm off when I tried calling you that one time!”

Steve nodded furiously. “He’s not exaggerating. You said, and I quote, ‘Don’t ever call me that again unless you want to find out how fast I can break your jaw.’”

“Exactly!” Sam threw his hands up. “And now she just waltzes in here, says James like it’s nothing, and you’re—what? Cool with it?”

Bucky’s gaze hardened, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. “She’s not you.”

“Oh, no, we get that,” Sam said sarcastically. “But why the hell is she the exception?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. His hand flexed at his side—flesh and metal both—but his focus stayed on you, his eyes tracing the curve of your face as if grounding himself. Finally, he said, quietly but with conviction, “Because she’s mine.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Steve and Sam exchanged a look—a mixture of shock, disbelief, and maybe even a little amusement—but neither of them dared to speak.

You, however, raised an eyebrow, lips twitching as you fought back a smile. “Yours, huh?”

Bucky’s ears turned a faint shade of pink, but he didn’t back down. His gaze was steady, unwavering. “Yeah. Mine.”

“God,” Sam muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “This is so disgustingly soft, I think I’m gonna puke.”

“Agreed,” Steve said, though there was a small, knowing smile on his face as he stood up. “You two can have your… moment. We’ll leave.”

As the door closed behind them, you turned back to Bucky, who was already watching you like you were the only thing that mattered. His expression had softened completely now, the rough edges smoothed out into something raw, something real.

“James,” you said again, stepping closer, and you saw the way his shoulders relaxed, the way his lips parted slightly like he needed to hear it just one more time.

“Yeah?” he murmured, his voice quieter now.

“You’ve been at this for hours,” you said softly, reaching up to brush a strand of damp hair away from his face. “Come take a break.”

He hesitated, his eyes scanning your face like he was searching for something. “I just… I didn’t want to bother you. I needed to work it out.”

“James,” you said, firmer this time, and his breath hitched like the sound of his name from your lips alone was enough to shake him. “You don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore.”

His chest rose and fell with a deep breath, and his hand—metal and warm and steady—reached up to wrap around yours. He held it there, against his cheek, like he was afraid you might pull away. “It’s not just the name,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible. “When you say it… it’s different. It feels… good.”

Your heart swelled, and you gave him a small, reassuring smile. “That’s because I love you, James. All of you. Even the parts you don’t think are worth loving.”

His eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again, they were glassy, like he was fighting to keep the emotions at bay. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Stop it,” you said gently, stepping closer until your foreheads touched. “You deserve everything. And I’m not going anywhere.”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just held you there, close, his arms wrapping around your waist like you were the only thing anchoring him to the world. And maybe, in some ways, you were.

“Say it again,” he whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

“James,” you murmured, brushing your nose against his. “You’re safe with me. Always.”

A soft, broken laugh escaped him, and he pulled you closer, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “You’re all I’ve got,” he whispered, his voice muffled but full of emotion. “And you’re all I need.”

You held him there, running your fingers through his hair, and for the first time in a long time, he let himself just be. Vulnerable. Loved. Yours.

Thanks for reading 😁

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starl1ght444 · 11 days ago

Text

jason todd x fem!reader

── .✦ angst

[jason’s hurtful words lead you to leave for a couple days]

long story — [7k word count]

second person writing / edited-ish

*.ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

you don’t even remember what started it.

maybe it was the late nights. the blood on his knuckles. the way he shut you out like a slammed door every time something bothered him. maybe it was the way you kept asking, over and over, “are you okay?” and getting that practiced silence in return. or maybe it was you. wanting too much. needing answers he wasn’t ready to give.

It starts with the quiet. the kind that creeps in before the thunder hits. jason walks in, his jacket soaked with rain and something darker. his eyes avoid yours. you’re used to it, but tonight something in you snaps. “did you kill anyone yet?” you ask. not because you want to accuse him. but because you have to know.

he stiffens. “what the hell kind of question is that?”

you don’t back down. “a serious one. because I can’t keep pretending I don’t know what you’re doing out there.”

jason tosses his helmet on the counter with a loud clatter. “don’t start this.”

“no, you don’t get to tell me when I start. you come home covered in blood, you don’t talk to me, you shut me out—”

“because it’s none of your business!” he snaps.

that stings. you feel it in your chest, sharp and immediate.

“I am your business, jason. or am I just something you keep around to feel normal?”

he laughs—bitter, cold. “don’t flatter yourself.” —silence.

you blink. his words hit you like a slap, and he knows it. he flinches for a second. just one. but he doesn’t take it back. you try to keep your voice steady. “so that’s what I am? just… convenient?”

he doesn’t answer. you’re waiting for him to say no. to soften. to say he didn’t mean it. instead, he mutters, “you knew what this was. don’t act like you didn’t sign up for it.”

that’s the thing. you did know. you knew loving jason todd would mean long nights, fear gnawing at your ribs, and blood on his knuckles when he kissed you goodnight. but what you didn’t sign up for was being invisible.

“I didn’t sign up to be treated like an afterthought,” you say, standing now, voice rising. “I didn’t sign up for being ignored, for being lied to. you don’t talk to me, jason. you just disappear.”

jason scoffs. “and what, I should be reporting in every five minutes? you want a boyfriend or a lapdog?”

your heart aches, but you don’t back down. “i want you. the version of you that lets me in. the one that doesn’t shut down and push me away every time something gets hard.”

“I don’t need you to fix me!” he shouts, voice suddenly cutting through the air like a whip. “I don’t need your sympathy or your constant hovering. you think loving me gives you the right to pry into every dark corner of my life?”

you stare at him, stunned. “It’s not prying when I’m trying to help jay..”

“I didn’t ask for your help!” he barks. “god, you’re so damn exhausting. always needing something. always complaining. maybe I’d be better off without you dragging me down all the time.”

you stare at him like you’re seeing someone else entirely. “you’re a coward.” — wrong thing to say.

jason steps forward, eyes burning. “you think I’m the coward? you sit here in your nice little apartment, judging me like you’re above it all. you don’t know what it’s like out there. you couldn’t last a week in my world.”

“and yet I’ve been trying for months!” you shout, your voice breaking. “but you don’t care. you never really let me in. you just wanted someone to come home to—someone who didn’t ask too many questions.”

“you think you’re some kind of savior?” he sneers. “you’re not. you’re just another person who thought they could fix me.”

you stop. you feel it crack right there—something fragile and important inside you. “i didn’t want to fix you,” you whisper. “ i just wanted you to let me in.”

he scoffs. “then you wanted too much.” and that’s it. a finial look into jason’s eyes of any hint of regret— nothing. just pure frustration and anger. a weight in your heart dragging you towards the door. no dramatic exit. no final scream. just you walking past him, grabbing your bag, and shutting the door behind you.

at first, jason doesn’t move he doesn’t feel much of anything, honestly. just numb. tired. angry in that hollow way that doesn’t have a target anymore. he just stands there, staring at the door like it’s going to swing open again. It always does.

you always come back. — he grabs a beer from the fridge. sits on the couch. flips on the TV. something violent and loud, because silence feels like guilt.

hours pass. no call. no message.

he scrolls through his phone. no unread texts. he opens your thread—nothing. his fingers hover over the keyboard, then stop. he locks the phone and throws it on the table.

then he starts thinking about what he said. really thinking.

“you’re just another person who thought they could fix me.”

the way your face changed. he remembers the silence right before you walked out, how final it felt. and something cold settles in his chest. it’s been almost 4 hours since you left.

he starts pacing. that tight feeling in his chest creeps in like smoke under a door. his palms feel clammy. he’s sweating. his vision is narrowing. he can’t think. — you didn’t come back.

you always come back. “shit,” he whispers, running a hand through his hair. “shit, shit—”

the room feels like it’s closing in. the walls are too close, the ceiling too low, like everything’s pressing down on him at once. he can’t breathe. his knees buckle, and he slides down against the wall, gasping for air, chest heaving like he’s drowning. his hands shake. his throat burning.

he didn’t mean it. — of course he didn’t mean it. you’re not convenient..you’re the only thing that’s kept him afloat. you’re the light he pretends he doesn’t need but clings to in the dark.

and now you’re gone. the words he threw at you, the venom he spit out just to win a fight, ring louder than the silence you left behind. he says your name into the empty apartment. once. then again. then louder. like if he says it enough, you’ll hear him. — but you don’t. and now the silence is unbearable.

he can’t breathe. now It’s been five hours since you left, and jason’s chest is on fire. not the kind that comes from bruised ribs or a bullet wound—he knows that pain. he’s good with that pain. this is worse. this is panic. helplessness.—this was worse kind of hurt because it doesn’t bleed.

his phone is clutched so tight in his hand, his knuckles have gone white. he stares at the screen, thumb hovering over your name in his contacts again. he’s already called five times.

no answer. — just the sound of your dumb voicemail message, cheerful and playful and now completely soul-crushing. “haii! Its (y/n), im sorry i missed your call! im not home right now! but i can take a message… let me grab a pencil…hm okay! what would you like me to tell me?” it used to make him smile. now it makes him sick. he hits redial.

one ring.

two.

three.

voicemail. — again. again. again.

he runs both hands through his hair, dragging his fingers hard through the strands like maybe pain will wake him up. like maybe this isn’t real. like maybe you’re still coming home, keys jingling, saying his name like you do when you’re trying not to smile. but the apartment is dead quiet. and it smells like rain and blood and something fading.

“pick up,” he mumbles to no one. “please (y/n).. please just pick up.” he calls again. and again.

his hands are shaking now, so bad he nearly drops the phone. his mind is running circles around itself—what if something happened? what if she didn’t look crossing the street? what if someone followed her? what if she’s hurt?—and he can’t shut it off. his heart is pounding too loud in his ears, drowning out reason. he stands up fast, then stumbles forward, grabbing the edge of the counter to steady himself. everything’s spinning.

he opens your location on his phone. nothing.

either you turned it off or the battery’s dead. or worse. his brain fills in the blanks faster than he can stop it. “goddammit,” he breathes, slamming his hand down on the counter. the sound echoes in the empty room.

this wasn’t supposed to happen. you were supposed to yell, slam a door, crash on the couch, and by morning everything would be fine. that’s how it’s always gone. you fight, you cool off, you come back. you always come back.

but not tonight. tonight, you left like you meant it.

and jason realizes—too late—that he pushed you harder than he ever had. too far. past the point of no return. past the point where an “I’m sorry” could fix it. he scrolls to your name again.

calls. again. “haii it’s (y/n)! im sorry i mi—” he shuts his eyes and grips the phone like he could tear it in half. your voice is soft, light, untouched by the mess he made. It makes him want to scream. It makes him want to curl in on himself and disappear.

you’re gone. and you’re ignoring him. that’s what finally breaks something inside him.

because jason todd—red hood, vigilante, killer, survivor—can handle almost anything. bullets. torture. death. — but he could not handle being ignored by the one person who made him feel human.

he sinks down against the wall again, chest heaving, lungs burning. his phone slips out of his hand, landing face-up on the floor, screen still lit up with your contact. a tiny, cruel reminder: your not picking up. you don’t want to talk to him.

his mouth is dry. he tries to swallow, tries to breathe, but every inhale feels like it’s too shallow. like he’s not getting enough air. his arms wrap around his knees. he’s shaking. his thoughts are racing.

‘she’s not coming back. you blew it. you pushed too hard. you said too much. she hates you. she should hate you. why would she come back after that?’ he doesn’t know how long he sits there like that—maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour. All he knows is the silence. and your stupid voicemail. and the gnawing, tearing fear that he might’ve lost the only good thing left in his life.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says aloud, as if the room cares. as if his regrets can travel through walls and streetlights and find their way to wherever you are. “I didn’t mean any of it.” but the universe doesn’t answer.

he pulls himself off the ground. head still spinning, he can’t keep sitting around for you. he needs to find you. the air outside hits him sharp and cold, but it doesn’t clear his head. the city is still dark, the streets damp with leftover rain. his helmet is in his bag. he doesn’t wear it. doesn’t need it. he’s not red hood right now— he’s just jason. — and jason’s falling apart.

he makes his way through the city on his motorcycle, his mind endlessly searching for you. stopping when he even sees a glimpse of someone with your same hairstyle. everything reminding him of you. he feels hopeless knowing how huge gotham is, even more so how dangerous it is.

he ultimately decides to stop at some of your favorite places, maybe to soothe him with precious memories. he knows it’s to early in the morning for most of these places to be open, but he needs to check. needs to try anyways.

his first stop was a café. your favorite locally owned coffee shop, where you two became regulars. it was a small business, on a strip walk between a laundromat and boutique. — the coffee’s always too strong and the chairs wobble if you don’t sit just right. you loved that place.

he memorized your order. it was always the same thing everytime you came here— your order barely changed. — the smell of coffee, occasionally tea on ur breath, he was craving to kiss your lips just to taste your order again.

jason stands across the street for a second. the lights are off. homemade “closed” sign hangs crooked in the window.

he still walks up. presses his hand to the door like it might open. It doesn’t. he presses his palms to the glass, looking in

your spot is empty. the corner table by the window where you used to sit and steal sips of his coffee when you swore you didn’t want one. where your eyes would crinkle when you laughed, lips covered in foam you never noticed until he wiped it away. he stands there, remembering the time you convinced him to try that stupid seasonal drink with cinnamon and syrup and something else sweet that he pretended to hate—but secretly liked, because you liked it.

he thought if he came here, maybe you’d be sitting there again. your beautiful eyes locked in a book he’d recommend while eating a pastry. but there’s nothing. only cold glass and silence and now an emotional memory.

he sits on the bench outside and closes his eyes, trying to summon your laugh. where you are the happiest, and he remembers your smile when he took you to his favorite library.

it became a sacred place for you to. both calm and quiet while enjoying each-others company. so that was his next stop.

the library.

not a big, fancy one. no marble columns or quiet rules. this one’s cramped, unknown, smelling of dust and secondhand pages. you loved it for its charm—for the creaky floors and mismatched chairs and the old man behind the desk who always smiled when he saw you.

jason picks the lock with trembling fingers. slides through the back door like a ghost. third floor. far left corner. your nook.

he stares at the armchair you always claimed, the stack of dog-eared romance novels that you teased him with—the window seat you used when the weather was just right and the sun poured in like liquid gold. he walks through the aisle, trailing his fingers along the spines of books you once handed him. he can almost hear your voice echo in the stillness.

walking around until he was in the aisle where he first met you. making his eyes burn, to many memories flooding in his head— where he tried so desperately to be cool in front of you, and staring at you from afar admiring how divine your presence felt. — jason reading all the books he thought you’d like before even knowing you and putting his name in the checkout card. and watching your face light up from seeing his name once again. giving him the courage to go and talk to you.

a tear burning his cheek, he puts his head down feeling ashamed of pushing you away when memories like these made him feel alive again.

jason left the library, riding off having the city district him. he rides for a while thinking of any more possibilities. he was about to run out of gas and just decides he needs to take a walk anyways— and when he gets off his bike, he notices he’s at a familiar park — It’s further out, away from the main drag, quiet enough that the chaos of gotham doesn’t touch it. you both used to go there when things got loud—inside his head, inside the world.

It’s mostly empty, just a jogger in the distance and birds rustling in the trees. jason walks the winding path slowly, like a man retracing his own history — here—this is where you tripped over your own feet and he caught you, both of you laughing like kids. over there is the tree you climbed and got stuck in, yelling at him between laughs while he pretended he wouldn’t help you down. there’s a bench under the big oak tree. you kissed him there for the first time. real, honest, vulnerable. no masks, no walls. just lips and nerves and something too tender to say out loud.

he passes through more bench where you sat one night, eyes puffy, telling him things you hadn’t told anyone else. and he’d wrapped his jacket around you and promised—promised—he’d never be the one to hurt you.

he sits down there now, gripping the edge of the bench so hard his knuckles go white. — “i lied,” he whispers to no one, his voice strained. becoming angry with himself.

but there was still no sign of you.. and so he knew despite it all he had a couple more places to check. his mind became desperate. he heads where he should’nt, hoping you’re not there. he still had to check— ‘the narrows’ — ‘ park row ‘ — ‘crime ally ‘

he checks alleyways where addicts linger and criminals circle like vultures. every step, he begs he won’t find you there. But he has to check. has to know. he’s on a rampage now, eyes wild, heart racing. he gets in a guy’s face just for looking at him too long. knocks someone out cold when they make a comment about “that girl he used to walk with.”

he checks rooftops. alleys. places you shouldn’t be, but maybe are. places where bad things happen. — places he belongs, not you. he asks around. no one’s seen you. and those who know who he is don’t dare lie. — still nothing. jason’s a mess—bloodshot eyes, raw knuckles, unshaven. he looks like he hasn’t slept in years instead of just a night.

and then — “jason?”

jason turns around. it’s dick.

“jason?” dick calls, landing on the fire escape in full nightwing gear. “what the hell are you doing back in this part of town?”

jason doesn’t answer at first.

dick jumps down in front of him, blocking his path. “jay—hey. talk to me.” — “I messed up,” jason says hoarsely.

dick blinks. “with…?”

jason swallows hard. “(y/n)... she left. and she’s not answering. It’s been hours. I’ve checked everywhere. the café, the library, that damn park. nothing. I don’t even know if she’s okay. I just—I said too much. I said shit I didn’t mean and now she’s just… gone.— dick, i can’t breathe.”

dick moves quickly, placing a hand on jason’s shoulder. “hey. breathe. look at me.” jason meets his eyes, jaw clenched so tight it hurts.

dick doesn’t say anything for a moment. then: “alright. sit down.” dick says guiding him to sit on a nearby stoop.

jason does. because for once, he has nothing left to fight with.

“you love her?” dick asks, voice low. jason nods without thinking, like it’s a reflex. “then tell her. find her and tell her. but not like this. you’re spiraling.”

“I can’t stop,” jason whispers. “every second she’s not answering, I keep thinking she’s hurt. that it’s my fault. that I broke her. I can’t even hear her voice without thinking of what I did.”

dick sighs and puts a hand on his shoulder. “you didn’t break her. you pushed her away. that’s different. and maybe you don’t get to fix it. but you sure as hell don’t stop trying. not until she tells you to.” jason looks at him. “and if she never does?” — “then you mourn. but not until you know for sure.”

jason’s quiet for a long time. watching gotham pass by with his brother “never give up jay, i believe in you” and jason stands up, continuing his search.

but he doesn’t find you.

he checks safehouses. rooftops. he climbs halfway up wayne tower before turning around because he knows you wouldn’t go there.— by the time the sun rises, his hands are shaking.

his head is pounding. his legs feel like lead. and you’re still gone.

he stumbles home like a ghost. kicks off his boots. sinks to the floor. doesn’t even make it to the couch. just sits there.

and stares at the door. It never opens.

three days pass.

no texts. no calls. not even a read receipt.

jason doesn’t eat. doesn’t sleep. barely moves. the apartment is dead quiet except for the occasional replay of your voicemail, like he’s torturing himself on purpose. by the fourth morning, he can’t take it anymore.

he grabs his bag and heads to wayne manor.

bruce meets him at the batcomputer. he doesn’t ask why jason’s there. just takes one look at him—pale, tired, shaking, blood shot eyes — and knows. “use whatever you need,” bruce says softly, walking away.

jason nods, throat tight. while the system loads, alfred appears at his side with a quiet sigh and a fresh mug of coffee and a blanket. he doesn’t speak right away.

then, gently, “would you like to talk about it, master jason?”

jason’s jaw clenches. he shakes his head, but then his voice breaks. “I ruined it.” a lump in his throat, looking at alfred.

alfred sets the coffee and blanket down and pulls him into a hug without a word. just strong, steady arms and that grounding kind of warmth jason hasn’t let himself feel in years. “i don’t know how to fix this,” he whispers.

alfred holds him tighter. “you start with the truth. then you wait. and if she’s worth it—and I suspect she is—you never stop.” jason nods against his shoulder

and for the first time in days, he lets himself cry. sobbing into the older man’s shoulder releasing all the pent up sadness and anger he kept inside for days. “I’ve cleaned blood off your boots, patched holes in your uniform, and stayed up more nights than I can count wondering if you’d make it back. but what worries me most… is how quick you are to believe you don’t deserve good things.. ” he said rubbing jason’s back soothing him, letting himself cry. “i love her so much, alfred— I don’t know how to hold on to good things without breaking them.” jason hiccups “it hurts how much i love her”

and they stay like that for a while, talking about jason’s feelings and what happened causing you to walk away. alfred listening and making him eat and drink to get something in his system. jason slowly getting tired, the comfort he craved slowing his brain down. alfred replacing you for a little while.

you always comforted jason, your touch melted him into a different man. you were his safe place and made him feel completely loved. the unconditional love he never felt before, ‘she’ll come back..’ - ‘ she’s okay, she’s safe’ — he kept repeating to himself, trying any possible way to soothe himself — jason became tried once again, but this time he was willing to sleep. he slept next to the computer, with the blankets alfred placed over him. he got a couple hours in until he woke up, a reminder of what happened.

now five days have gone by—

the coordinates come in just after midnight.

a quiet ping from the batcomputer—courtesy of a city-wide search bruce helped set up. jason had loaded every street cam, signal ping, and facial recognition tool he could, but deep down, he hadn’t really believed he’d find anything.

until now. a small rental apartment in the east end. under a friend’s name. you hadn’t left the city—you’d just gone off the grid. he finally found what he was looking for.

the screen flickered, and your image appeared in the facial recognition software. jason’s heart dropped as he studied the image that was pulled from surveillance footage. your face, usually full of life and fire, looked hollow. the light in your eyes were dimmer than he remembered, like you’d been carrying an unbearable weight for far too long.

your skin was pale, darker circles under your eyes indicating sleepless nights and too many tears shed. lips, once always curled into a small, knowing smile, were now pressed into a thin line. the fight had drained you, and he could see it in every inch of your face.

the camera hadn’t caught the vulnerability posture, but jason knew. you weren’t just physically tired—you were emotionally worn out. the woman he loved wasn’t the same one who had walked out five days ago. this woman, this (y/n), looked like someone who had been pushing through the world alone, all the weight of her pain carried on her shoulders.

he gripped the edge of the desk, eyes locked on the screen, his chest tightening. guilt, sorrow, and a deep sense of regret clawed at him. he had to find her. he had to make things right before it was too late.

he reads the address three times to be sure, then grabs his helmet and jacket and is out the manor doors before bruce can say a word. he jumps on his motorcycle and starts the engine, the loud sound of his tires screeching in the cave as he raced out to find you. he was lighting on the road, dangerously weaving in and out of cars, adrenaline of seeing you alive making him rush even more.

then he makes it to your location. his feet on the pavement, one flight of stairs, then two. his heart is a riot in his chest. his hands are sweating, shaking, cold. an a rush of anxiety washes over him.

what if you slam the door in his face?

what if you don’t even open it?

what if you’re gone again?

what if you don’t want to see him?

but he still knocks. soft at first. then harder.

he hears the lock click. the door creaks open a few inches. you stand there in sweats your friend let you have, eyes puffy, hair lazily in your face like you stopped caring how you looked days ago. and you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

your eyes widen when you see him. and that’s all it takes. jason breaks down.

his legs give out. he drops to his knees like something inside him finally caved in. and before he can even stop himself, he wraps his arms around your waist and presses his face into your stomach, sobbing. not the angry kind. not the kind that comes with yelling and fists through walls.

the kind that’s quiet and raw and scared. the kind that says thank god you’re alive and I’m sorry and I missed you all at once. he was relieved.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m so fucking sorry—please, I didn’t mean it, I was angry, I didn’t know how to say it right, I—god, I thought I lost you—” you freeze. shock, sadness and joy all overwhelming your head. your hands hover for a second, unsure, still hurt, wondering if this is a dream or not.

but then they come down gently, slowly, fingers threading through his hair as you hold him against you. your voice is quiet. “jason…” a melody to his ears.

he can barely speak. “I looked everywhere. I thought something happened. I thought—god, I thought maybe I deserved it. maybe you were better off without me. — I’ve never been this scared in my life.” you listen to him, his words muffled into your stomach. as he plants small kisses in between each sentence— his words rambling and gasping in-between for breaths. “baby.. come here.”

you helped him stand up and stared at his face. “I was angry,” you admit. “you hurt me.” — “i know.. i never wanted to hurt you.”

he leans into you like he needs your heartbeat to breathe.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers. “I keep ruining everything good in my life. I say the wrong thing. I push too hard. I scare people off. and then when I finally realize what I’ve done, it’s too late.” you pull back just enough to make him look at you. — his eyes are red. wet. desperate.

“you didn’t scare me off,” you whisper. “you hurt me. but I left because I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. I needed time.”

jason swallows. “you should’ve. said something worse. hit me. I deserved it.” — “you don’t get to decide what you deserve, jason. I do.”

a beat. “and I still choose you.” he exhales a breath that sounds like a sob.

his eyes are rimmed red, exhausted, glassy with the tears he’s still trying to keep at bay.

“I went everywhere. the café, the library—the park,” he continues, his arms tightening like he thinks you might slip away again. “every place we made a memory. every place that still smells like you. I kept thinking, maybe I could find one more piece of us that wasn’t broken yet.— I needed to find you. I was losing it, sweetheart. I checked alleys. dangerous places. I—fuck, I was hoping I didn’t find you there but I had to check. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sit still. I just wanted to see you. to say I’m sorry. to fix it.”

you nod slowly, listening to him. watching the way he talked.

“I knew I took it too far, even when I said it,” jason continues, clutching you tighter. “I was mad at the world, not you. but I threw it all at you because I knew you’d still love me, and that makes me the worst kind of person.”

you press your hand to his cheek, and he leans into it like it’s the only thing keeping him together. “I didn’t mean it,” he whispers. “not a single word. I was angry and afraid and so fucking overwhelmed that I—” his voice cracks. “I lashed out. at the one person who loves me the most. and when you left, I knew. I knew I deserved it.”

you stare at him for a moment. because your silence isn’t punishment—it’s your own unraveling. choosing your next words — “you said I was just a distraction,” you whisper finally, voice shaking despite how hard you try to steady it. “that I make things worse for you. that I don’t understand you, and maybe never will.”

jason flinches. physically recoils at the words he remembers far too well. the words that have been haunting him for the past few days.

you swallow, continuing. “you didn’t just lash out, jason. you hit where you knew it would hurt. you said things I’ve been afraid of ever since we met.”

“I didn’t mean any of it,” he whispers again, desperate. “god, if I could tear the words out of the air and bury them, I would. I would’ve rather taken a bullet than see you walk out that door. I just—” he breathes in deep. “I’m not good with… emotions. with fear. and losing you? that’s the scariest thing in the world to me...”

you nod slowly. “you self-destruct.”— he presses his forehead to yours, eyes shut. “yeah. and I took you down with me.”

silence stretches again, but it’s different now. heavy, but not hostile. like the fog after a storm. “I wasn’t leaving forever,” you whisper. “I just needed time. space. I needed to remember who I was outside of what you said.”

running your fingers through his hair. “I love you, jason. that didn’t change. but you hurt me. bad. I will never stop loving you. i will always come back to you— I needed to know I could still choose to come back on my terms. not because you begged. not because you were falling apart. but because I wanted to.”

his arms tighten around you again, and for the first time since last night, his tears start to fall freely. once again. no restraint. no pride. just a man drowning in his own grief, relieved to be seen, still loved despite everything.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers into your shoulder, his voice small and shaky.

“no,” you say gently. “but you have me. and that means doing better.” and you both stand there for a while. two exhausted people wrapped around each other like maybe the world will stop spinning if you just stay still long enough.

after a while, you hold out your hand. “come inside.” and he does.

the apartment is small, quiet. the kind of place that smells like lavender and old books and something that’s just you. jason steps inside like he’s walking on glass—like the walls might collapse if he breathes too hard.

you close the door behind him. lock it gently. like you’re not locking him out, but keeping the world away.

neither of you says much as you move to the small couch in the living room. he follows you, slow, cautious. sits on the edge like he doesn’t deserve the whole cushion. like if he gets too comfortable, you might change your mind and tell him to leave.

you notice the way he keeps stealing glances at you from the corner of his eye. the way his knee’s bouncing, nervous. his shoulders are curled in, defensive, like he’s ready to run the second you flinch.

finally, you break the quiet. “why are you sitting like you’re afraid I’m gonna hit you?” jason freezes.

you don’t say it to hurt him. you say it softly. genuinely. because you see it—the hesitation, the fear, the way he’s pulling away without moving an inch.

he exhales. “because I don’t wanna fuck this up again.”

“you think being quiet is safer?”

he shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s safe with you anymore. I keep playing every version of this in my head—if I say too much, if I touch you too soon, if I breathe the wrong way—maybe you’ll walk out again.”

you shift toward him slowly. “I didn’t leave to scare you.”

“I know.” he finally meets your gaze. “but it scared me anyway.”

you nod. “and now you’re trying not to want anything.” he doesn’t answer. “jason, you’re allowed to want me.”

his breath catches. you reach out, gently covering his hand with yours. he looks at the contact like it might vanish.

“you’re not scaring me off,” you say, voice soft but sure. “you’re hurting. and so am I. but I didn’t stop loving you. I didn’t forget all the good just because of one night.”

jason’s voice is raw when he answers. “It was more than one night. I’ve been shutting you out for weeks. I didn’t let you in when you were trying. I turned everything into a war when you just wanted peace.”

“yeah. you did.” he flinches. “but,” you continue, tightening your grip on his hand, “you came back. you searched for me. you let yourself fall apart. that means something to me, and im sorry too. i didn’t intend on being away this long. i just felt so lost” he closes his eyes, jaw clenching.

“i’ve never felt this afraid,” he murmurs. “not even when I died.” you squeeze his hand.

“I’m not good at soft,” he admits. “I can be violent, I can be angry, I can be the guy who kicks in doors and breaks bones. but being… gentle? I don’t know how to do that without thinking I’ll screw it up.” you lean forward, pressing your forehead to his.

“you’re being gentle right now.” he nods, barely. and for the first time since that fight, he lets his hand curl into yours. not tight. just enough.

enough to say I want this.

enough to say I still love you.

he presses his lips to your temple, hesitant at first, then lingering. not hungry. not desperate. just present.

“i love you eternally jason, im sorry too, i’m truly sorry for walking away.”

“i love you so much (y/n), so.. so much it’s a unbearable pain i never want to let go of. you are my heart.. my soul.. my person”

he pressed kisses on your hand inbetween words. whispering softly to you, sweet nothings. just wanting to cherish you. “i cried to alfred, cried like some damn kid and I was just—gone. full-on sobbing in his arms like I was ten again.”

(y/n)’s eyes softened, reaching out but letting him keep going.

“I told him everything. told him I screwed up. told him I was scared you’d leave for good. and he just… held me, made me miss your touch.— i’m still sorry,” he whispers

“I know,” you say. “i am too jay”

the two of you sit there, wrapped in the silence that used to hurt—but now, maybe, it’s just healing in disguise. you pulled jason in to cuddle him. he wraps his hands around your body. feeling fortunate to have you, to touch you, to kiss you. he hasn’t been able to breathe normally since you left, but now his chest feels lifted. he’s calmer and exhausted. he can tell you were too. he rubs your body while kissing all over you until he knows your asleep in his arms. watching you sleep so peacefully puts him at ease, helping him drift off into a wonderful slumber he’s been dreaming about for the past five days.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

ahhh :3 i couldn’t do a sad ending— i was going to!!, but he’s been out through to much already!! haha

hope u enjoyed!! im trying out different writing, angst is one im not the best ask but i like trying! it feels repetitive sometimes :p

have a good day / night!! xx

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yamumsyadadd · 3 days ago

Text

hidden (3)

part 1, part 2.

this one is short, i had to find the best spot to cut it in half. there will be 1 more part :)

Returning home was supposed to be relaxing, but instead it filled you with anxiety. You hadn’t been bothered to turn your phone back on, not wanting to deal with Alexia’s excuses.

But as you sat in your childhood bedroom, the same room that saw you confuse your love to your best friend, the same room that you kissed in, you couldn’t help but feel a dull ache in your chest.

You want Alexia to be here, experience your childhood house, your parents and brothers to embarrass you with silly stories. But that wouldn’t be happening. Instead, you were stuck in your room silently crying.

There was only one place you could think to go. Portland was your home for so many years, it’s where you grew up, fell in love for the first time and soccer your first professional goal.

It didn’t take long for someone to join you. You knew who it was as soon as she sat on the swing next to you.

“Your mom is worried about you.” You didn’t look up, just continued to kick the bark beneath the swing, “do you want to talk about it?”

“I was seeing someone.” You looked up at her, really looking at her. She was older now, as were you, but she was still the girl you fell in love with, even if you weren’t in love with her anymore. “I love her Sam. I really do but I can’t kept being a secret. I didn’t even want to go public, just met her friends and family. Every time I tried to push it, she would snap, and we would fight. Loving her is so exhausting.” Sam let you sit there and cry, and when you were done, she reached over and hugged you.

“you don’t deserve to be a secret, if she cant love you loudly and proudly, then she doesn’t deserve to love you in private.” You knew she was right but that didn’t make it hurt any less. for while, you both just stayed there. It was like you were kids again, talking about everything and nothing, while swinging on the swings or sitting o the slides.

When camp started you felt lighter, you were focused and ready to go. After the last Olympics and the disaster of a world cup, you were prepared to fight as hard as possible to medal.

The USA was grouped with Germany, Australia and Zambia. Out of the three teams, Australia and Germany were the two toughest, you never knew how the games could go.

France in the summer was beautiful; it was the best place for the USA to play some beautiful football and you did. The first game was 3-0 win against Zambia, then another win against Germany and finally the hardest game you’d have to play, against Australia, winning 2-1.

The communication with alexia had been silent and you were glad for that. She tried a few times to call and text, but once her own camp started, she left you alone. The Barca girls didn’t though, the group chat with Cata, Pina and Patri was consistently going off.

Mainly the conversations were about the Olympics and a quick trip away before pre-season, expect there was one comment that made you hold your breath.

“Alexia is upset. Irene seems to be on the war path about it.”

To them it was just gossip, but to you. To you it made your chest tight, your hands clamming and your eyes hurt. Alexia had obviously mentioned something to Irene. Your other captain.

You threw your phone onto the desk and walked out. This was not the time nor the place for this. You needed to focus, to do better and be better. There wasn’t time for feelings or apologies. Later, if the time came, you could deal with it then.

As the Olympics continued on, you secretly watched Spain play. They were going well, by the time the knockout round came, you could see how exhausted they all were. It was their first Olympics, none of them had been here before, felt how exhausting it was, bone crushing, soul burning, exhausting.

You were sure Spain would make it through to the Gold Medal game, but when Monste didn’t start their best player, Alexia, a horrible feeling washed over you. By the time she could subbed on, it was too late. The damage had been done, Brazil had scored four goals and that was a lot for them to make up in less than thirty minutes.

As the camera panned over the Spanish team, their tears and disappointment was clear but it wasn’t until you saw alexia that a few of your own tears fell. Your heart broke for her, she looked so sad, so exhausted and you wished you could reach out but you couldn’t bring yourself to face the hurt again.

After your own game against Japan, your phone was blowing up, as it turns out, the Spanish girls had also watched. They sat through the entire 120 minutes, some cheering as you tackled and won back the ball. You must’ve watched the videos back three or four times, watching everyone’s different emotions.

The bronze medal match between Spain and Germany took place the day before your gold medal game. You were holed up in your hotel room, away from the conference room and your teammates. You wanted to keep a little bit of dignity.

When Spain went down 1-0, you almost cried. They were playing so hard, pushing their bodies as much as they would go but it wasn’t enough. There was hope, a minute before the end of the game, a penalty was given to Spain and you knew that Mario was the first in line to take them, but then she didn’t. Alexia did.

And she missed. Your heart broke all over again, and for different reasons. You knew she was getting older and by the next Olympics she might not even be playing or selected. When the game ended a minute later, your eyes stayed focussed on her. She went through the motions, shaking hands, swapping shirts, but you knew behind it all, she was broken and exhausted.

The only text you sent off was to the group chat, extending your apologies. You wanted to reach out, to say something, anything, but you were pulled away for dinner.

Everyone knew the game was going to be hard, this would be Marta’s last chance at an Olympics, a chance for someone completely different to win. But somehow, the football gods were in your favour. When you scored in the 57th minute, the team crashed onto you. All you could think about is holding the led, even scoring again.

At no point did you think to look at the crowd, it was something you didn’t do until the end of them game. So when the final whistle blew and the celebrations finally slowed down, you finally took the time to look around.

The stadium was packed, different people, friends, families, strangers all littered the stand. They were all there because they wanted to be, they wanted to enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy women’s football.

When you spotted your Barcelona teammates, a smile broke out on your face, you made your way to the barrier but stopped just before you reached them. Admits the team, there she was. A white tee shirt, jeans and her favourite sunnies covering her face.

Alexia.

For a split second, you let your emotions show all over your face, forgetting about the cameras and the people around. If the others noticed, they didn’t say anything.

The girls all said their congratulations, gushing over how well you played and how proud they were. Only two people were silent, alexia you expected, but Irene you didn’t.

The post-Olympic celebrations carried on all night, the drinks were free, and the music was loud. You were so happy, almost the happiest you’d ever been. There was a moment, as the couple filled the dance floor, that hurt. You needed air and left.

You let the tears fall as you watched them all dance together, sharing their love with the ones around them, laughing and enjoying yourself. It made you remember the night on the beach with Alexia.

“After I win the Gold medal with Spain, we will go away. Somewhere quiet, on the beach, just the two of us.”

“oh you think you’re winning the gold over me?” you laughed as she scrunched her eyebrows.

“of course. I will win the Gold, and you will win the Silver. What is that Vicky says? We would be a power couple.”

“a power couple?” you laughed again as she pulled you into her and spun you around.

You didn’t hear the doors to the balcony open or the footsteps towards you. So when two different people wrapped their arms around you, it startled you.

“it’s okay baby girl. Your okay.” Christens voiced filled your ears and you couldn’t help but cry harder. You loved alexia, you loved her so much that for entire year you put your own wants and needs on hold. She was more important, and you would do anything to get back to her.

‘I’m in love with alexia Putellas… I don’t want to be a secret anymore… it hurts so bad.” You sobbed out, barely able to make any sense.

Sam had watched you leave the room in a hurry, she knew she couldn’t follow, she wasn’t what you needed anymore so she got Christen and Tobin. They would know what to do, they always did.

For an hour they sat with you, calming you down and sharing their own stories of their hidden relationship. By the end of it, you were exhausted, from playing a full came, the excitement and the sadness.

They helped you get into your hotel room, leaving you with water and Panadol for the incoming headache. Before you passed out from exhaustion, you finally let yourself message Alexia.

To Alexia: I am very sorry that you lost. You were defs the player of the Olympics, you deserved to win. You deserve everything Ale.

Your stupid drunk brain couldn’t just leave it there though.

I love you. I love you and you broke my heart, but I still love you. I don’t think ill stop.

You didn’t notice her reply in the morning or for the following weeks. Somehow, you had managed to mute the text thread with her in your drunken state. It wouldn’t be until you went back for pre-season that things would come out.

#woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso x reader #alexia x reader #barca femeni #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas fanfic #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas #woso community #woso soccer #angst with a happy ending #angst

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spiteful-opossum · 2 days ago

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I wanna see Jason have a mental breakdown because he was sure Bruce didn’t care about him. The league had told him he hadn’t even tried to kill joker. But here Bruce was, killing the joker, for him. I wanna see Jason struggle with what to do because Bruce just did exactly what Jason was going to do to reveal himself. I want Jason to flounder because his plans and everything he thought he knew just went up in flames in front of him.

I want drugged Bruce to beg red hood to let him die so he can finally see his baby boy again. And I want Jason to be completely destroyed by this. I want Jason to have to knock Bruce out and restrain him because he’s genuinely concerned for Bruce. I want Bruce to wake up sober and restrained with red hood sitting in a chair watching him. I want Jason to undo the restraints and take off his helmet. I want Bruce to cry and hug Jason about this because that’s his baby who’s alive again.

I want Jason to then have to explain everything to Bruce and for Bruce to be upset that Jason thought he didn’t care about him. I want Bruce to then have to explain to Jason that he’s tried to kill joker before but he always survived so he just gave up. Then I want Bruce to make Jason come home with him. I want Dick to start crying because his baby brother is alive.

Brucie Wayne accidentally killing the joker

This happens before Red Hood is revealed as Jason, but after he shows up. Bruce is at a gala and has been very stressed lately, which is why he was so caught off guard with the Joker arriving. A big thing about today? It’s Jason’s adoption day anniversary. Bruce is barely clinging to being good.

However, Joker has a new laughing gas that he thought would make everyone fall into a catatonic state of laughter, striking a blow against all of Gotham’s elite.

That’s what he thought it would do.

Instead, it lowered inhibitions and increased their emotions. It also reduced their ability to think things through. Doing this to Bruce, who is stressed with Red Hood making moves and Justice League stuff getting more stressful and it being the anniversary of the day he could finally welcome his beautiful boy into the family, only to be face to face with the reason he lost his kid?

It only takes one comment about the old Robin for Bruce to go feral.

He isn’t thinking things through, isn’t focused on how hard he is hitting things, or where they are moving until he’s on a balcony with the Joker, and he’s distantly aware he’s been screaming about the clown having done enough-

Everyone watches, spellbound, as Brucie Wayne, under the influence of this new gas, pitches both the Joker and himself off the balcony, twenty stories above the ground.

Red Hood catches Brucie Wayne.

No one catches the Joker.

The morning papers scream about how the Joker died from Gotham’s prince being drugged, and how the city’s new crime lord kidnapped Brucie before he could die.

Everyone in Gotham is in disarray.

Dick is panicking after seeing the headline. (He was in Bludhaven.)

Tim is cursing himself. (He was home sick with the flu.)

Jason is struggling with his emotions.

Alfred is loading his shot gun.

#bruce wayne #batman #batfamily #jason todd #red hood #angst with a happy ending #I just want them to be sad and filled with angst #but also a little bit of happiness as a treat #Brucie kills joker publicly #and not as Batman #pls I really want more fics and ficlets of this #I might come back to this when I have more motivation #so probably at 2 in the morning

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strawb3rry-hon3y · 5 days ago

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Echoes of You

Pairing: Ahn Su-ho X !Femreader Requested: No

Summary: Memories of Ahn Su-ho and the others stay close after everything changes. While dealing with Su-ho’s coma and Si-eun’s move, bonds are tested and new friendships form. Even surrounded by new people, the past remains a constant, shaping every step forward.

Length: 4921 Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Friendship, Light Romance.

Warnings: Spoilers! Weak Hero Class 2. Violence Mentions, Hospitalization, Emotional Distress, Grief/Loss Themes, Past Trauma, Mild Angst. Status: Complete!

My feet pounded against the pavement, the world blurring at the edges. I didn’t know if I was chasing something or running from it, maybe both. Every breath burned. Every step dragged pieces of the past out of hiding, raw and stubborn.

Si-eun’s voice still echoed faintly in my ears, but everything else started to slip away. The noise around me, the ground beneath my feet, the weight of the moment. The present faded until all that was left was the past, unfolding around me.

The tires hummed beneath me as I pedaled toward Eunjang High, the path so familiar I could have ridden it blind if I truly wanted to. I was supposed to meet Su-ho, like always. As i approached the street right Infront of the school entrance the sudden buzz of an engine snapped me out of my thoughts, and I barely had time to react before a white motorbike streaked past.

I recognized it instantly, the big black box strapped to the back, covered in a mess of peeling stickers he never bothered to take off. Su-ho was in the front, his posture relaxed like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Behind him sat someone I didn’t know, a boy with a cautious grip on Su-ho’s shoulders. For a moment, I thought maybe Su-ho hadn’t seen me. Maybe he was distracted, in a hurry.

But then he turned his head just enough to catch my eye, a smirk tugging at his mouth, and kept going without slowing down. The boy riding with him glanced back at me, his expression confused. I called out for Su-ho, the words sharp and desperate but they were already too far.

My hands tightened around the handlebars, the metal digging into my palms and before I could think better of it, I pushed hard on the peddles of my bike making a quick U-turn to trail them at a distance. Something was strange. Not wrong exactly, not enough to set off alarms but it prickled at the edges of my mind stubborn and persistent. Su-ho wasn’t the type to ignore me, Not without a reason atleast.

As I followed them, it wasn’t long before they came to a sudden halt. I skidded my bike to a stop a few good feet away, just in time to see Su-ho swing off the motorbike and dart down a narrow alleyway without a word. He was obviously in a rush.

The stranger followed him, not as quick but fast enough to disappear with Su-ho into the shadows. I didn’t know what was going on down there, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. That wasn’t my business.

So, I pulled my bike up next to his motorbike and moved to sit on it, planting myself stubbornly on the seat. The big black box on the back wobbled slightly under my weight. I settled in, watching the cars blur past on the street, counting them without really seeing them.

It didn’t take too long before I heard footsteps, slow and uneven, followed by a loud yawn. "I'm hungry after doing all that. Let's go eat. I know an awesome place we can go. Time to pay your bill..." His voice trailed off as I twisted my body to face the direction it came from.

Three boys stood in front of me all with different facial expressions. I stayed where I was, resting casually against my childhood friend's bike. The boy riding behind Su-ho earlier blinked in surprise, like he hadn’t expected anyone to be waiting.

He hung back a little, shifting awkwardly on his feet, glancing between me and Su-ho like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. The other one, standing a few steps farther away, Shorter then the others, didn’t move at all. He just watched all calm and quiet, with a sharp kind of look that made it clear he was taking everything in, saying nothing. There was something different about him. something harder to read.

Su-ho didn't seem bothered at all by the way I was sitting on his bike. If anything, the grin on his face widened like he found it funny. He walked up casually, swinging his helmet off and tossing it onto the seat next to me with a careless thud.

"You know," he said, leaning a little too close like he was letting me in on a secret, "most people ask before they hijack my ride."

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, not moving an inch. He chuckled under his breath, like he knew I wasn’t actually mad.

Straightening up, he turned to the two boys still standing a few feet away. He jerked a thumb toward me, casual and proud.

"This little pest is mine," he said, almost affectionately. "Been stuck with me since we were kids." I moved my hand up to slap him in the arm for calling me a 'pest' before turning my glace at the new boys once again, "Y/N" I said plainly before glaring at Su-ho once more.

The boy who had been riding behind him looked even more confused now, shifting his weight like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to introduce himself too. The shorter boy stayed quiet, still watching me with those sharp eyes.

Su-ho didn't seem to notice the awkwardness, or maybe he just didn’t care. He grinned at me again, wide and boyish as always. "Come on. If you’re gonna lurk, you might as well come with us."

At first, I try to distract myself. I pull out my textbooks, sit at my desk, and tell myself I will just study for a little while until they answer. It is fine. Everything is fine. Su-ho always takes a while to text back. Si-eun too. Beom-seok is skittish, but that is nothing new.

The words on the page blur together. I keep checking my phone every few minutes. Still no messages. Still no calls. The pit in my stomach grows heavier, gnawing at my ribs.

I text them again. Nothing. I call. Still nothing.

When Si-eun finally picks up, it is rushed and cold. "I'm busy," he mutters before hanging up without another word.

That is when the studying stops. That is when the panic really starts sinking in, slow and suffocating like someone has thrown a weighted blanket over me. I cannot sit still anymore. I pace my room. I stare at my phone. I jump every time it buzzes, even when it is just spam.

Then finally, the call comes. A number I do not recognize flashes across my screen. My heart jumps to my throat as I answer. "Hello?"

"Y/n?" a voice says, softer than I expect. It is Su-ho’s grandmother. "I just wanted to let you know... Su-ho is in the hospital, but he’s okay. Nothing to panic about, sweetheart. Just come when you can."

Her words are gentle, careful, but I can still hear the worry tucked under them, hidden like a frayed seam.

I do not even remember moving. One second I am in my room, and the next I am flying down the streets on my bike, pedaling so hard it hurts. I can barely see through the tears stinging my eyes and the panic clouding my head.

When I get to the hospital, there are two people waiting in the chairs near the front. Si-eun is hunched forward, elbows digging into his knees, staring at the floor like he is trying to disappear. Sitting next to him is a girl I have never seen before. She has neat dark hair, simple jeans, and a jacket that looks way too big on her. Her face is pretty but serious, completely guarded.

"What happened? Where’s Beom-seok? Is he okay? What is going on with you three? Don't lie to me." My voice is raw, panting from running more then i ever have. I wanted to cut the the chance, i was done the the lying in this friend group.

Si-eun looks up slowly. He does not say anything right away. He just stares at me with that same exhausted, hollow look that makes my skin crawl. For once, he does not try to dodge the truth. He tells me everything. About the fights. About Yeong-bin. About Beom-seok’s fear. About Su-ho trying to fix things himself before it all went wrong.

It is too much. I stand there for a long minute, feeling like I have stepped into someone else’s nightmare. My eyes snap toward the girl next to him. "And who are you?" I demand, sharper than I mean to be.

She stands, calm and steady, like she is ready for me to ask. "I’m Yeong-i," she says quietly. "I am... part of it."

I do not have time to unpack what that means. My focus is already on the hallway leading to Su-ho. As I start walking, Si-eun's voice follows after me. "He threatened us if we involved you in this." He says it so plainly, like he knew he didn't mind the earful he was going to get from his bestfriend.

I do not answer. I just keep moving, following the sterile scent of the hospital until I find the right room. Inside, lying still beneath the white hospital sheets, is Su-ho. He looks so small, his breathing steady and slow. He looks fragile in a way I have never seen before, so unlike the boy who used to grin at me like he had the world in his hands.

I stand in the doorway for a moment, just staring at him. His face is relaxed, the lines of tension gone, but it doesn’t comfort me. I wish I could hear him talk, see his smile again. But instead, I just watch him sleep, my chest tight with worry I can't shake.

Su-ho looked a little beaten up, but he was okay. His face had a few bruises, his cheek was bandaged, but there was no mistaking the relief I felt seeing him awake. As I stood there, staring at him, he stirred slightly and blinked his eyes open. When his gaze met mine, my chest tightened, the tears I had been holding back threatening to spill over.

I couldn’t help it. I sighed in relief, watching his eyes, knowing he was alright. But the worry didn’t leave me yet. It lingered, heavy in the pit of my stomach.

Su-ho’s lips curved into a small smile, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Well, well, if it isn’t my personal stalker," he teased, his voice rough from sleep. "Didn’t think you’d be the type to break into hospitals just to check on me."

I rolled my eyes and made my way to his bed. Sitting down next to his legs, I reached out without thinking, gently touching the bandage on his cheek. He winced slightly but kept up his usual cocky attitude.

"Seriously, you’re unbelievable," I muttered, my fingers brushing the bandage carefully. "You really worried me, you know that?" My voice softened as I looked at him, feeling the weight of everything that had happened the unknowns, the fears, the secrets.

He just smirked, his usual charm somehow intact even after everything. "Hey, I’m fine. Nothing you need to worry about," he said with a shrug. "It’s all just a scratch. It’s nothing."

Frustration built up inside me. "Cut the crap, Su-ho," I snapped, my voice rising slightly. "I know everything. Don’t pretend like this is all nothing. I’m not stupid."

His smile faltered. His eyes grew more serious as he leaned back, clearly trying to find the right words. "You don’t get it," he said, his voice quieter now. "I just didn’t want you getting involved. It’s too dangerous for you."

I blinked, caught off guard. "What do you mean? We aren’t kids anymore. I’m not some helpless little—" "I know we aren’t kids anymore," he cut in, his tone soft but firm. "That’s not what I mean."

He hesitated, like he was gathering courage. Slowly, a smug smile started to pull at his lips. I frowned, confused. "Come on," he said, teasing again but with something deeper behind it. "You really didn’t know? I’m in love with you."

The words hit me hard. My face heated instantly, my heart racing so fast it made my head spin. I stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence. "Y-you... what?"

His smile only grew wider as he leaned in a little closer, his hand reaching out to gently touch mine. "Yeah," he said, his voice low and almost playful. "Thought maybe you would've figured it out by now—you being the smart one and all."

I was too flustered to respond. Before I could even think, he was pulling me toward him. His lips met mine, soft at first, then deepening as he held me close. For a second, I froze, completely overwhelmed, before I melted into him, my hands finding their way to grip his shirt.

The world slowed, everything else fading away...until a throat clearing broke the moment.

I jerked back, my face burning hotter than ever, and looked over to see Si-eun standing awkwardly in the doorway, clearly trying not to laugh. The girl next to him, Yeong-i, was grinning like she had just witnessed the cutest thing in the world.

I shot her a look, but even that couldn’t erase the warm, fluttering feeling in my chest.

Su-ho just chuckled and pulled me back against him casually, like he didn’t have a care in the world. "Guess we have an audience," he said, smirking.

When I pushed the door open, the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. The room still carried the faint smell of pizza and frosting. The table was filled with a few boxes of half-eaten pizza, some plates stacked neatly nearby. Sodas sat opened but unfinished. Balloons floated lazily near the ceiling, and a "Happy Birthday" banner hung across the wall, a little crooked but still holding strong.

And there on the couch, Su-ho was fast asleep. He was sprawled out comfortably, one arm draped over his stomach, his head resting against the couch cushion. His breathing was slow and even, the quiet room making it sound louder than usual.

I stepped inside carefully, closing the door behind me without a sound. For a moment, I just stood there watching him. The sight of him like this relaxed and safe made my chest ache a little.

Quietly, I made my way over and crouched beside the couch, resting my arms on the cushion and my chin on top of them. I stayed like that for a while, just studying his face. Without the teasing grin he always wore, he looked softer, almost boyish.

Without thinking, I reached out and brushed a bit of hair from his forehead. The slight touch made him stir. His eyes fluttered open, confused and sleepy at first, until they landed on me.

When he saw me, a slow, lazy smile spread across his face.

"Hey," he mumbled, voice rough with sleep.

"Hey, birthday boy," I said softly, smiling back.

Still heavy with sleep, he reached out and tugged at my arm, pulling me gently onto the couch with him. I let out a breathy laugh as I shifted, ending up half lying against his chest, fitting easily into the space beside him. His arm wrapped around me securely, his chin resting lightly against the top of my head.

"You came," he whispered, sounding happy.

"Of course I did," I said quietly, settling into him. "Like I'd ever miss your birthday."

We stayed like that, tangled together on the couch, the world outside the room feeling miles away. His hand moved slowly up and down my arm in a soothing motion, and after a few moments, he spoke again, his voice even softer this time.

"I love you," he murmured, the words barely above a whisper.

My heart skipped, then raced, but I didn’t pull away. I tightened my arms around him instead, closing my eyes and letting the warmth of him sink into me.

A few seconds later, I felt him smile against my hair. "Best birthday," he mumbled, sounding completely content.

I let out a small, quiet laugh and lifted my head just enough to look up at him. "You’re so dramatic," I whispered back, but my voice was thick with emotion.

Everything had been weird lately. Si-eun barely talked to us anymore. Beom-seok was hanging out with the wrong people, and Su-ho... he just seemed off. It was worrying. He’d still tell me everything was okay, kiss me like nothing was wrong, but I could see it in his eyes — he was planning something. I knew it. But deep down, I believed that if it was truly bad, he would tell me.

I tried texting Si-eun, but he only ever insisted he was fine, just busy. Beom-seok didn’t talk to me at all. Once, he sent me a message asking to meet somewhere, but I had a horrible feeling about it and didn’t go. That pit in my chest was back — like something bad was happening, and I was the only one still in the dark.

I pushed the feeling away and forced myself back into studying. That was until my phone rang. It was Si-eun. His contact photo popped up — a picture of him and Su-ho smiling together.

I answered quickly. “Is Su-ho with you?” was the first thing he said, his voice tight, panicked.

“No... he hasn’t answered my calls either. Si-eun, what’s going on?" Beep. Beep. Beep. The call ended.

My heart dropped. I immediately started freaking out, calling him back, then calling Su-ho, then anyone I could think of — no one picked up. Desperate, I scrolled to Beom-seok’s contact and called. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Finally, someone picked up.

"Beom-seok?... I’m really worried about Su-ho, is he with you?" I asked, my voice trembling.

All I heard was a loud "Hey! Eat shit!" from somewhere in the background. That pit in my stomach grew bigger, swallowing everything else.

"Where are you... Beom-seok, where are you, you son of a— WHERE IS SU-HO?!"

He tried to say something, but I wasn’t listening. He must’ve realized, because he hung up. I called Si-eun again, my heart pounding in my chest, before running out of the house without even thinking. My feet carried me blindly down the streets, to anywhere I thought they might be. Anywhere Su-ho might be.

No answer. No answers anywhere. Everything was hurting by the time I finally couldn’t run anymore. I collapsed onto a bench, trying to catch my breath, when my phone buzzed. A text.

It was from Su-ho’s number. "Working out." That made it worse. It was late. What could he be "working out" at this hour?

I didn’t sleep that night And the next day at school, just as I tried to keep my mind from spiraling, I got a call.

Yeong-i. Confused, I answered. The moment I heard her sobbing voice, I knew it was about Su-ho. it didnt take long for her to tell me, Told me what Beom-seok and his gang had done. That Su-ho was in the hospital.

I didn’t think. I just stood up from my desk and quickly left my class, ignoring the calls of my teacher.

By the time I got there, Yeong-i was sitting outside the hospital room, crying into her hands. I sprinted up to her, panic exploding in my chest.

“Is he— Is he okay?” I asked desperately. She couldn’t answer. She just looked up at me with those tearful, broken eyes.

I moved to the hospital door in a panic. my legs moving on their own. Inside the room, I saw Si-eun first, he was crying, shoulders shaking. Su-ho’s grandmother was sitting next to the hospital bed, her face buried in her hands.

And there he was. Su-ho. Lying on the bed, a breathing mask over his face. Still. So still. His eyes weren’t opening like last time.

I covered my mouth with my hand, a muffled sob breaking free from my chest. I heard Si-eun cry, My eyes burned with tears as I forced myself forward, my hand instinctively resting on Si-eun’s shaking shoulder in hopes to comfort my friend.

Su-ho’s grandmother looked up at me, her face pale and worn. She shook her head slowly and explained through broken words he was in a coma.

My breath hitched violently as the reality hit me, slamming into my heart. He wasn’t just hurt this time. He was gone somewhere I couldn’t reach.

Without thinking, I stepped forward, taking my hand off Si-eun. My knees hit the cold hospital floor as I collapsed beside Su-ho’s bed. Grabbing his hand tightly in both of mine, I lowered my forehead onto it, whispering his name, willing him to wake up as cry's escaped my lips.

One afternoon, after another brutal day where everything felt too loud, too heavy, I found myself at the hospital again. The hallways smelled like bleach and cold air, but it was the only place that felt even remotely right anymore.

Si-eun was already there, sitting quietly next to Su-ho’s bed, his shoulders hunched forward like the weight of everything was pressing down on him too. He didn’t even look up when I walked in.

I quietly slid into the chair beside him, the scrape of metal legs against the floor the only sound between us. For a while, neither of us said anything.We didn’t need to.

The low beep of the heart monitor filled the room, steady and soft, a cruel reminder that Su-ho was alive... but not really here. My throat tightened as I stared at Su-ho's peaceful face. I hugged my arms around myself, feeling so small, so helpless.

"I miss him too," I whispered, the words breaking free before I could stop them. Si-eun stiffened slightly beside me, like he hadn’t expected me to say it out loud. I bit my lip hard, trying to keep the tears from falling, but it was no use. They slid down my cheeks, warm and painful.

"I don’t know how to do this without him," I said, voice cracking, eyes never leaving Su-ho. "You’re doing it," Si-eun said quietly, almost like he didn’t believe it himself. "You’re still here."

"But I’m not me anymore," I choked out. "I feel like I’m just... surviving. Like I'm stuck in some nightmare and everything’s wrong." Si-eun finally turned his head to look at me. His eyes were glossy too, raw from the same grief I was drowning in. "That's all any of us are doing," he said quietly.

The room felt heavier than ever. The weight of everything we were too young to carry sinking deeper into our bones. Unable to hold it in anymore, I leaned forward, pressing my forehead gently against Su-ho’s hand. His skin was warm under mine, but it wasn’t the same.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the heart monitor, and my own broken breathing. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, Si-eun’s. Steady and grounding.

I let myself cry, Really cry. Not just quiet tears, but the kind that shook my whole body And Si-eun stayed right there. Silent, Hurting too.

We sat there like that for what felt like forever. Two people who loved him so much, just trying to survive the wreckage he left behind.

Months had slipped by. I was getting better at surviving the days not really happy, not really sad. Just... waiting.

I still visited Su-ho every chance I could, sitting by his side, telling him about everything and nothing, even when the room felt too big and too quiet.

Si-eun and I had gotten closer too, finding time for each other even after he moved. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped.

One day, we were supposed to hang out, but he canceled last minute, claiming he was busy. I didn’t believe him. Not this time.

So I went to his mom’s apartment, where she casually mentioned he was volunteering at a youth cultural center for the weekend. I asked for the address and went straight there.

The building was huge older, with tall windows and the kind of floors that echoed your footsteps no matter how quietly you walked. Kids’ voices bounced around the halls, laughter and shouting bleeding through the open doors.

It smelled faintly like cafeteria food and something cleaner, more sterile. I wandered for about fifteen minutes before I heard it: a loud burst of muffled laughter coming from deeper inside. I followed the noise until I found the cafeteria.

It wasn’t packed, just scattered groups here and there. The light overhead flickered slightly, and the tables were old, the kind you could still find gum stuck underneath if you checked.

Near the back, four boys sat gathered around a table.

One had messy black hair and sharp, narrow eyes that flickered up as soon as I got close. Next to him was a lankier boy with glasses, his frame thin and awkward. Across from them sat a broader guy, shoulders hunched slightly as he focused on his food. And finally, there was Si-eun sitting quietly among them, not laughing, not talking, just eating with that same stoic expression he always wore lately.

I stepped closer until I was standing right beside the boy with the messy hair — the one who had noticed me first.

He looked up at me properly now, giving me a bold once-over before flashing a cheeky grin. "Lost, pretty girl?" he said, voice teasing but not unkind. "Or were you looking for someone?"

He leaned back casually in his seat, one arm draped over the back of his chair, looking way too pleased with himself. I give him a unamused look.

Across the table, Si-eun finally glanced up at me, his eyes meeting mine. He didn’t say anything, just stared, frozen mid-bite, his face impossible to read. "Since when do you volunteer?" My question was directed towards Si-eun, the three strangers around him looked surprised that I knew him, or that I actually spoke to him. "Y/N...What are you doing here?" His voice was calm as he set his chopsticks down. I shrugged walking past the other boys to lean on the table next to him. "I came all the way here to hang out with you this day, as always and you say 'I'm busy" I mock his calm tone, trying my best to make a bored expression like he does. That caused a snicker from the loud boy at the end of the table.

"I am." is the only thing he says before taking another bit of his food. I roll my eyes looking around before grabbing another chair and pulling it up sitting next to him. "well then I'll be busy with you. Y/N. Nice to meet you all" i give a kind smile to the three boys who look utterly confused.

The world blurred around me as I ran, my feet pounding against the pavement and my lungs burning with every desperate breath. I didn’t know exactly what I was running toward only that I had to get there. Had to see it for myself.

I stumbled onto the hospital property, my heart racing faster than my legs could carry me. Just ahead, standing outside the entrance, were four figures. Park Hu-Min, Go Hyun-Tak, Seo Jun-Tae, and Si-eun. I didn’t even think. I just kept moving, the ground beneath me almost nonexistent.

The three of them stood with their backs to me, facing something or... someone that I couldn’t see. I pushed my way between Hu-Min and Hyun-Tak, desperate to get through. As I brushed past Hu-Min, I caught a glimpse of his face, and for the briefest moment, I saw the sadness lingering in his eyes.

My eyes locked forward. There, just beyond them, was a wheelchair. And Si-eun, speaking softly to someone I couldn’t quite see yet.

My ears were ringing from the adrenaline, the noise of the world around me dulled to almost nothing. My heartbeat drowned everything else out. Each step closer felt like I was moving through thick water, like time had slowed just for this moment.

"Si-eun..." I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of my fear. "Is that...?"

He turned at the sound of my voice, and when he moved, I finally saw him. Su-ho. There he was, awake.

His hair was a little longer, and he looked thinner, paler than I remembered, but none of that mattered. Nothing mattered except that it was him. My childhood best friend. My boyfriend, The person I thought I had lost forever.

When his eyes met mine, I saw the light return a tired but unmistakable smile slowly growing across his face, the same crooked grin that had once made me fall so hopelessly in love.

I stumbled forward, tears already spilling over. My hand lifted, shaking, reaching out to him like I needed proof that he was really there, that this wasn’t another cruel dream I would wake up from.

Before I could touch him, he reached up first, his hand finding mine and holding it tightly, like he was grounding me back to the earth.

"There you are, stalker." Su-ho said, his voice rough but teasing, full of more life than I could have ever hoped for. "I thought you gave up."

Taglist: N/A Header’s Creator: @saradika-graphics

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urfriendlywriter · 19 days ago

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Angsty Prompts

(feel free to use, tag me when yall write!!! mwah xoxo)

"You're okay, look at me--yes, my love, you're okay. I'm here now."

tight hugs, their hands cradling you and your heart close to theirs.

Their heart shattering with every ragged breath u take and every sob that escapes your lips

"Do u know.. it's incredibly brave of you to.." They pause, gently rubbing the tears stains off your cheeks, "Be vulnerable with me? It's my honor, to protect you, and be a safe place for you."

being hospitalized, and waking up to find them curled at the foot of your bed, holding onto ur hand.

Voice breaking as they whisper, their hand tightening around yours, "I-I thought I lost you.."

pressing your lips their forehead, as they break apart in your arms, clinging onto you. eyes full of pain, tears and rare vulnerability that bares open their entire being to you

^ caressing their face, unable to know what to say or do but whispering, "Let me hold you through this all. It's okay to cry, my love.." and they completely shatter.

Them curling up into ur chest, needing comfort, security and strength

"I'm so sorry--" "No, no, no. You did ur best, my soul, i---i am the one sorry."

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rafes-honey · 3 days ago

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Thinking of… 𐙚ᣟ݂

Dumb!ditzy!reader x Rafe when they fight:

The fight had been stupid.

Okay, maybe it had started because you called his dealer “kind of nice” after he held the door open for you — and maybe you did giggle a little too hard when he complimented your lip gloss. But it wasn’t that deep.

But Rafe’s eyes had gone sharp, mean — and before you could blink, he was barking at you in front of everyone. That angry tone. That cold stare. The way he spat “Do you even think before you speak, or is your head just full of lip gloss and Instagram filters?”

You’d said nothing.

Just stood there like a kicked puppy until you finally turned around and left. You didn’t even wait for him to follow. You barely remembered how you got home.

Now it was hours later.

The silk tie on your robe was knotted too tight. Your lashes were clumpy from crying. And you were curled up in the corner of the bed, surrounded by pillows and a half-eaten bowl of cereal you didn’t want anymore.

Your eyes hurt. Your face hurt. Your heart hurt.

Your bottom lip wobbled as you stared at the door, waiting. Hoping.

He’s not coming home.

He was probably out somewhere still pissed, chain-smoking and calling you names in his head. Maybe he’d realized he was tired of babysitting his airhead girlfriend. Maybe he’d finally decided you were too much work.

And maybe you were.

You sniffled as you pressed your face into your sleeve. You were stupid. You knew it. Everyone always said you were — Rafe included, sometimes, when he was tired or mad or both.

But you loved him.

And now he hated you.

The front door creaked open.

You froze. Heart stopping. Head snapping up, curls falling into your eyes. You heard the soft sound of sneakers on hardwood, then his voice — calm, gruff, like nothing had even happened.

“Baby?”

You didn’t say anything. You stayed in your nest of sadness and almond milk. He appeared in the doorway seconds later — messy hair, tired eyes, hoodie slung over one shoulder.

And in his arms…

…a kitten.

A tiny, gray, squirmy little fluff ball with big ears and a pink ribbon tied gently around its neck.

Your mouth parted. A soft, wet hiccup broke from your chest.

“You got a cat,” you said stupidly.

Rafe ran a hand over his face. “She’s not a cat yet, she’s a baby. Just like you.” He walked over, nudging a pile of your blankets aside with his knee. “Figured if you’re gonna cry this much, you should at least have someone to match your energy.”

You stared at the kitten. Then at him.

“I thought you were mad at me,” you whispered, voice all glassy and broken.

He looked at you for a long second.

Then dropped the kitten gently on your lap — where it immediately started climbing onto your fuzzy pink robe, purring — and knelt in front of you, resting his hands on your knees.

“I was mad,” he said slowly. “But I still love you.”

You blinked fast, overwhelmed, reaching out to touch his face with trembling fingers. He let you, his eyes dark and tired but so soft.

“You think I’m dumb,” you mumbled, voice cracking again. “You said my head’s full of filters.”

He sighed, fingers curling around your thighs.

“Sometimes you say dumb shit. That’s different. You’re not dumb, baby. You’re just…” he searched for the word, lips twitching a little. “Sweet. And clueless. And too trusting. And it scares the fuck outta me.”

You pouted. “I didn’t even like his compliment. It was a gross compliment. I only said thank you ‘cause I was raised polite.”

“I know.” He leaned in, pressing his forehead to your knee. “I was being an asshole. I know.”

You were quiet, running your hands through his hair, lip wobbling again.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” you whispered.

Rafe’s eyes shot up to yours.

Then — without another word — he stood, pushed you gently back onto the bed, and climbed over you.

The kitten meowed indignantly and trotted off the blanket, leaving you breathless beneath Rafe’s weight, the scent of smoke and mint gum clinging to his hoodie.

His hands found your waist. Your thighs. Sliding under your robe to touch bare skin.

“I always want you,” he said lowly, voice thick. “Even when I’m mad. Even when you drive me fuckin’ crazy.”

You bit your lip, heart racing, legs falling open just a little.

“You forgive me?”

He kissed your cheek. Your jaw. The tip of your nose.

“Nothing to forgive.”

His hand slid between your legs, slow, possessive. You gasped softly, fingers curling into his sweatshirt.

“Now stop crying, baby,” he whispered against your skin, “and let me remind you whose dumb little girl you are.”

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moonbug333 · 1 day ago

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and then they lived happily ever after THE END

THE SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS STICKING LIKE HONEY

feat. contractor!abby x exgf!reader

content warning. eighteen+, smut, angst, some fluff sprinkled in, devastating dykes, nickname for reader (cherry), jealousy, long lost love trope, hazel (spoiler alert, she’s a cunt), just an emotional ass fic.

THE SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS STICKING LIKE HONEY, she was the healing in a world that struck so much pain, a life you would like to forget, but can you truly forget just how much you loved her?

rayray sesh. been working on this baby for over a month and i’m very happy to post it on time! happy birthday, pookie — @sinstear ♡ this is my special crafted gift i wrote just for you on a day to celebrate just how amazing you are. erenboo, you deserve all the love in the world. i hope you enjoy this as much as i took joy in writing it for you. my love, sweat, tears, and cum are laced in it. special delivery. i love you so much, bub. always and forever.

✶ special shoutout to @hypnagogics aka my co-yap captain. thank you for proofreading my bigger projects. you are a godsend. my nonsensical typos would surely make it if it wasn’t for you. mwahmwah! you’re the sweetest, ily ♡

✶ header heavily inspired by the lovely @hcneymooners

word count, 14k.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞: 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝 ❞

The more you try to hide from it, the harder it’ll be when you face it — at least those are the words Abby had heard from her old man for as long as she could remember. Suddenly, nearly thirty-years later, they reverberated in her mind like a ring of a bell. A vibrating reminder of how her life remained the same, your love having limitations, requirements she never could have been aware of at the ripe age of eighteen.

All she needed was more time, more understanding, and a patient heart that was never reciprocated. On a day like today, she’s reminded of

In Jacksonville, there wasn’t much going on, and talk travels faster than the speed of lightning. Murmurs of your return started the moment Dina found out, then it spread like wildfire. All of it feels just like yesterday but the spring of her youth is a far cry away, just dust and bones to be found on the ashes of adolescence.

If the world was perfect, Abby could avoid all of this.

Maybe if her life had turned out the way she envisioned.

But it didn’t and neither did yours. Not as of late. Although Abby had to be tightlipped about it, business and pleasure entangled, all of that nonsense floating around her pretty head. A voice she once thought she had forgotten comes back with a violent need to be recognized, a calming notion before it punches her in the gut.

Not to mention, she just had to be on your father’s payroll, had to face the person she was never good enough for. All of it feels nauseating. Excruciating.

Reminder of a wound she’s never recovered from. Memories high and low come flooding, and with you in her line of vision, it only gets worse.

Way fucking worse.

“What is she doing back?”

“As if anyone would want her here.”

“Abby, was she even supposed to be here?”

The questions pile along with the bile collecting in the back of Abby’s throat. The pit in her stomach manifests a black hole, feeling herself succumb to the spin of everyone’s empty threats spilling from her friends to you. Abby can tell just by the way you’re downing the glass of champagne and picking up the next, coming here wasn’t your choice.

If you could have helped it, you would have never come back in such a public setting.

“Abby, are you listening?” She sighs, but still unable to take her eyes off you.

“Do I need to rea—”

“Yeah yeah, all of you hate them. I get it.”

“It’s not that simple. They aren’t good for you.”

There’d been murmurs through the small town of your return. That’s what happens when your mom gets sick, you come home and that you did. The anniversary of your parents, forty years strong, is the first public appearance. The absence of your brother’s appearance isn’t talked about, it’s brushed over, just like everything else, just like you.

“Yep, I got it.”

“I’m just looking out for you. They don’t appreciate you and—” Abby shoots her a knowing glare, annoyed with the intrusion of everyone thinking they knew best instead of herself.

“Yeah, like I said, I hear you, but you don’t fucking know her. Neither do I, certainly not anymore.”

Running a hand through her blonde-glistening locks, the sunset saturates her golden as she ignores Hazel, taking a sip of her beer as she takes you in. Everyone always has shit to say about you. Your parents, her friends, Abby’s parents, but no one really knows you.

It’s not easy for you to let people in, you seem as harsh as can be to others, but Abby knows you’re quite the opposite.

Different from everyone in the room, a polished cream suit and open collared button up shirt with your delectable collarbones exposed, your rings twinkle as you pet the husky, one you don't know belongs to Abby. If you did, your hand might feel repelled.

It’s what you always wanted. A life out of here, out of the small town where you’ve always felt judged, persecuted, even ostracized when you came out — and you succeeded — leaving Abby behind in the process. Even if you didn’t intend to, it sort of just…happens. We leave the ones we love behind, even if it’s our last possible intention.

Goodbye notions simmer and we forget about the love we once had.

“Hazel, Dina was asking for you, she mentioned needing some help finding JJ’s pacifier?”

“On it!” Abby chuckles as the cherry-haired girl flees into the other direction as Ellie laughs harder when she’s gone.

“You’re welcome. She's like a dog with a bone when it comes to your beautiful ex-girlfriend.”

“Watch it. Calling another woman beautiful, Dina might just skin you alive.”

“Nope. She loves me too much.”

Ellie chuckles as they watch you down another glass of champagne. Freeing your hair from the tight bun, your hair springs to life as it falls around your shoulders, framing your jawline as piercing eyes find the weeds poking through the freshly cut grass.

A few people had offered up a sloppy introduction, a grievance of pity, before returning to their groups. Anxiously, you tear at the loose thread on the cuff of your sleeve. It gets longer and longer, avoiding everyone watching you.

Pretending you don’t exist. You never do. Not in this wretched town where all dreams get sucked into a bottomless pit, where believers go to die.

Abby nods, the feeling builds in the pit of her stomach as she yearns to get closer to you. Even after all the hurtful insults thrown her way years back, she’s conflicted. A missile is thrown into her life with your arrival and all of her friends, besides Ellie, tell her not to fall back into old patterns. Not to fall for your charm, not to be a victim to reckless love.

The kind that left her empty for years. Abby knew the moment she fell, from the very first time they met, if you ever left her she’d never be the same again. You don't forget a love like this. It tears a hole within you before you even get a chance to think about it, their presence consuming your entirety, an empty promise of endless salvation dies on the tip of your tongue.

Impossible shoes to ever be filled.

Truly, Abby thought she had been in love before you, but she wasn’t. The feeling she’s been chasing for the rest of her life returns when she looks at you. Those bright eyes when you play with the pup, the gentle hand as your scrap his chin with the crescent of your blunt nails.

She feels more looking at you for one moment than anyone she’s dated after you.

It’s sickening.

Still, her friends ridicule her any chance they get. Telling her of what you’re like, how you hurt her, what you’ll do when your claws sink into Abby. It falls on a hyper fixated heart. She can’t think of anything when all the blood comes rushing to her head, how beautiful you look when she sees you anxiously biting your bottom lip, something you do when you’re attempting to stop the tears from spilling.

None of them knew what it meant to look in your eyes and wonder how someone so good couldn’t recognize the purity in your eyes, the love you give out when the world feels like it’s crumbling around you. They didn’t see the years of torture, the family that wasn’t so perfect, the anger you held wound so tight. You didn’t have anywhere to put it. Never could. Not when the image of the perfect daughter is meant to be upheld.

Not a soul knows the information Abby does. There’s nothing more you love than to hide in the shadows, hoping to be forgotten, how you nearly crave to be eaten alive if it means an end to your misery. It isn’t lost on her how much she wants to shield you from it all.

“Why don’t you go and talk to her?”

Ellie points the glass of wine she’s been nursing to you, watching as you excuse yourself into the empty guest house. Your body is still viewable through the tall glass windows, your body disappearing from the common area of the small home. The exact one she’s been renovating per your mother’s request.

“She’ll just—” Absentmindedly, Abby kicks the dirt with the toe of her boot, rooting her heel in the ground as she bites the wall of her gums, trying to center herself. Attempting to not let her mind wander into what if’s, what could have been.

“What? Figure out you’re scared?”

“I’m not scared.” Sighing into the palm of her hands as she can’t help but bite into Ellie’s comment, “It’s been years. For all I know, Cherry hates my guts. Not that it fucking matters, but I’m the last person they want to talk to. Plus, when she’s upset the last thing they want is to talk.”

“You’ll do just fine, can’t be too bad. They were always sweet on you.”

“It’s been years, Hazel’s right, in some sense I—”

“Please, even you know the only thing she wants is to get in your pants. That part is lost on me, you’re too beefy for my taste.”

“Some people like that, dick.”

“Your girlfriend sure did.”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

The rest of the night Abby avoids all of her friends, especially the meddling junkie, Hazel; fucking hazel. She wouldn’t let her rest. They never had done more than share a friendly hug and for some reason she always looked at Abby like she hung all the stars spreading across the galaxy.

“Are you going to let Hazel think she has a chance forever?”

Abby just shakes her head in omission.

“There’s no chance, I’m not—”

“Abby! I got you a glass of lemonade. Sweet with just a few cubes of ice, just the way you like it!” Ellie wiggles her eyebrows at Abby as if she has proved her point.

As soon as Hazel turns around, Ellie goes right back to the pitch of her ex-girlfriend, trying to sell Abby on the past. The only woman Dina and her had liked in her mess of a dating scene. A long line of hookups, one serious relationship that ended so horrifically the cops had to be called, and then there was Hazel. A naive girl who had been harboring a crush for nearly a year, the time Dina had adopted her into their little makeshift family.

You walk out of the guest house more comfortably. A pair of dark denim and a black graphic tee with the sleeves cut off. Abby smiles at how much you look like the woman she fell in love with, the youthful ache she still feels with every beat of her heart. The one you crushed in the palm of her hands without thinking twice.

Abby’s throat constricts when you catch her staring, quickly looking away, biting at your fingernails before your father introduces you to the new neighbors.

“What’s so important, Hazel?” Ellie bites.

Hazel ignores her. All she can see is Abby looking right at you.

Abby had realized she completely zoned out, her energy and focus harbored on you. Five minutes within your arrival and her head was already feeling the rapid hum of her heartbeat caught in the bottom of her throat as you looked at her again, just for a second longer before you turned the other direction, away from her gaze.

“Abby—”

Abby hums absentmindedly with you on her mind, infecting her thoughts like a former addict getting their first fix for years. The high. It feels even better than her mind could remember. The curious gaze in bright eyes feels intoxicating, too good to be true, and the fall feels higher than it ever was to begin with.

“Yeah?”

“She’s coming over here.”

It only takes a few minutes before Abby takes a swig at her beer, wipes the sweat collecting on the palm of her hands. When you get closer, she notices the engraving of A.A. engraved on a glimmering silver ring.

Did you keep it after all this time?

“Tell her to leave—”

“Hazel, for the love of god, would you shut your mouth?” Ellie barks as you make your way over to Abby.

Abby tries to make her resolve hard, icy even, but it’s not. Her electrified blue eyes are warm, full of curiosity and wonder, her freckled cheeks are flushed from the heat of the sun and her barely there grin has you offering one of your own.

“Abigail, hey.”

Abby is surprised you hug her and she doesn't want to accept but it feels too rude not to. But the second her arms envelop around your body you fit perfectly into her. Just like all those years ago, you’re everything she loves. Like no time has passed, as if you didn’t rip her heart and stump out the love it once held.

“It’s just Abby now.” Hazel interjects.

“Sorry, I didn’t know, Abby, right.”

“How could you? You’d have to be around—”

Ellie gently elbows Hazel in the stomach, trying to silence her best efforts to scare you away from the treasury stock of a blonde she believes to be hers.

“Abby, sorry. I’m just—”

“You’ve always called me, Abigail. It’s alright. Promise.”

There she is.

The charm that makes you fall when you don’t need to. It’s laughable that Abigail can make years of therapy, years of dating other people to get over her seem like a dream, as if it’d only just been the two of you all of this time. Like nothing had changed.

But everything has.

“Um, do you mind if we talk in private?”

Abigail follows your lead into the empty house, the party rages outside as the two of you sit in the living room, neither of you knowing what way to take your best foot forward.

“Sorry if I made things awkward with you and your girlfriend—”

“Oh, uh, she’s not….we’re not dating or anything.”

Shit.

You wish she was.

Abby doesn’t know what to think when the expression on your face wasn’t instant relief but instead turmoil within yourself. Your eyebrows furrowed as if you expected her to be in a relationship. It would leave you to escape from the overflow of feelings you had rushing through your core.

“You look shocked.”

“I just—” You bite your lip, looking anywhere but her, trying to put your best foot forward, like your father says, he’s the whole reason this conversation is even happening. “I can’t lie, it would have made this…easier? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“What are you trying to do?” Abby has a bubbly laugh threatening to burst but she swallows it for the sake of your dignity.

“Okay, well that’s not nice.”

“Do you want me to be?”

“Well, my dad he just thought that—”

“Wait, you’re talking to me because of your dad?” Abby stands up from the couch, rubbing her hands over her flushed face. “Not even because it’s been years, but because — well, why?”

“He was just encouraging me. I’m nervous, isn’t that fucking obvious? I can’t even look at you without feeling like I’m eighteen again.”

She’s standing at her tall height, looking down at you as you begin to cry.

Well shit.

“Hey, hey—” Abby sinks to the floor on her knees, her body between your legs. “C’mon, there’s no need for all of that.”

“I hate that you haven’t changed.”

“Did you want me to?”

No, you say just to yourself. Not trusting the waver of your voice to give her the truth. There’s always so much on the line with her. Everything feels heavy, final, an anchor to hold you down but also drag everything you are, tangled with her sweet, honey-filled baby blues.

“Can’t you be mean to me or something? Even the playing field a little bit.”

“Not even a little, sweetheart. We both know I never could.” Her fingertips trace your forearm, a shiver courses throughout your body, “I will admit, everyone says I should.”

“They’re right. I deserve it.”

“If we all got what we deserved, well, that would be such an ugly world, wouldn’t it? Just because you did something hurtful doesn’t make you cruel. It makes you human.”

“But I do deserve the cruelty.”

“Fine, I hate you.” Abby says with a smirk on her face, wiping away a stray tear, looking too fondly on the woman who broke her heart. She’s too kind for her own good.

The giggle Abby omits rivals sunshine.

“I just didn’t want it to affect the work on the house, everything between us, it’s complicated and I’ll be in the guest house while my mom’s—”

“I know, you don’t have to say it. Your dad may have mentioned it to me. I’m sorry, I truly am.”

“I am too. For everything. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. I was so young, scared, and I wanted you to hate me. It just seemed easier than having you actually miss me.”

“I did miss you.” Abby's warm palm might as well be burning your denim jeans through as she touches your thigh. “You could have done the worst thing imaginable and I still would have. I’ve never had, uh, reason with you I guess. Love doesn’t know scorn, like a child with a knife, even if you can get hurt — sometimes it’s worth it.”

The stars in her blue eyes hold the same light in them, too full of love, her older and refined spirit lays beneath them and she has become someone you have even more love for. It’s too damning. Abigail Anderson has always been more than you can handle, always outshining everyone in this small town even if she couldn’t see it for herself.

“I’m surprised you came back for them, you know, after everything.”

It’s not just them.

“They say she doesn’t have a lot of time, so—” You sigh heavily into your palms, “And that’s not your problem, but thank you for being so cool about everything. Maybe we can be friends?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Abby knows neither of you can’t. It’s never worked out that way. It’s all or nothing and she’s always been the all-in type of girl. She loves big, not caring if her own heart gets trampled in the process.

Her love blinds like the sun, but it settles over your heart like the moonlight kissing the waves — you just hope the tide is strong enough to bring you home.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧, 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ❞

The first few weeks back at home felt like a breath of fresh air. As much as you disdained being home, the cracks of your family nearly breaking you in the process, you had her.

Even if you didn’t really have her.

The definite silence was not so, Abby still soaked in her warm heart, the one you hoped she kept. The best part of her. She’s too kind, even when you don’t deserve it, she still freely gives it.

It bleeds into her work.

Clearly, your father was more than fond of her. Several occasions they would be chumming it up, your father even grilling a few patty hamburgers up for them both when the clock struck noon. They always did love her, possibly even more than you, but to say they were devastated about the break would be a tragic understatement.

Get her back.

She’s a prize in this town.

Abigail Anderson is the best you can do, you’re not doing better than Dr. Anderson’s daughter.

But you never did try. You trusted the universe as a sign given. The people driving you out of this town sided with the woman you had broken up with, so you left and didn’t look back twice.

Yet, she did, in more ways than you were even aware of.

Because of her stupidly built physique, you couldn’t stop looking.

Anchored into the heat, her muscles constrict as she helps the crew demo the tile of the master suite, the last touch of the renovation needs. Besides the final paint job in the guest house, Abby had finished it all. In all honesty, Abby was hoping all of it would be complete by the time you arrived back in town. Being around you on a daily basis, her friends telling her it’s only a matter of time before she’s back in your arms, it feels like a slap in the face.

As if she has no self restraint.

To be fair, she doesn’t.

Abby’s gone to lunch with you three times, had coffee with you once, and she exhibits her obsessive memory — still having your order memorized — even if it's the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard of. She still finds herself stuck between your teeth like cotton candy.

It’s all friendly, supposedly, but it’s the easiest thing to slip back.

Old habits do die hard.

Right now, you’re just watching her work.

You’ve been doing it a lot lately.

Out of habit, nervousness, maybe it’s the anxiety flooding through your bloodstream. All of this feels erasable. Too much thrown at you, with her, it always happens to be too irreplaceable.

The ghost you’ve been running from, the one that hides in the shadow, even if you’ve tried to stay on the path you’ve created. Dug from the ashes of all your failures, she’s the one thing you haven’t made right. The nights where you got too drunk, nearly texting her or calling her, the picture you still curated in a specific folder, the one you would look for when you’re the weakest.

Being back in your hometown, the first person who ever truly loved you, it feels suffocating.

It doesn’t help that she looks so good. Or that she’s even kinder. The love in her eyes is even more whole-hearted than they were ten years ago. Part of you tells yourself you couldn’t even help yourself if you tried. This is just how it’s supposed to be. The heartbreaker pining for the woman’s heart you shattered into pieces.

All it took, a few cups of coffee and Abby taking you to lunch and paying — it feels awfully like a date but you keep your mouth shut. Her being present in your life is already confusing enough; the added weight would just be unbearable.

But after today, you won’t see her again. Painting the final room in the guest house is the last duty she has to fulfill and the renovation is done on your parent’s property. The ache in the pit of your stomach is unsettling as you attempt to simmer through and wonder why the pain becomes so deep. As if the woman in front of you was scorning you alive.

“You need something or are you gonna stare at me all day?”

You watch Abby throw the paint roller back in the tray, running the brush in the sage green, before turning the attention back to the wall, waiting for you to respond.

“No, I wasn’t staring.” Abby chuckles at that.

Chuckles.

“Yeah, sure.”

If you could see her pouty lips, you’re sure that they’d be pulled into a smirk. Lately, she’s been enjoying this too much. Catching you staring at her for too long, biting the precious bottom lip of yours as she’s putting her muscles to work or when you caught her peeling the sweaty tank of her body for a new one, every inch of her skin glowing in the wake of the blistering sun.

Her abdomen, toned with a not so subtle four pack, her v-line defined as it disappears into her jeans. It’s sickening. Really. It is. She catches your self control slipping through the cracks, dignity along with it as you give in to her adonis-like physique.

The shock going through your body, going completely still as Abby just chuckles, winking at you before she goes about her day. Like it was nothing, like this is a normal occurrence for her. You’re not sure what thought made you feel even more sick.

Women fawning over her or what happened after.

But you didn’t have a right, you know you didn’t.

You swallowed the unflattering buzz of sweeping jealousy until you couldn’t feel in anymore. It’s not an emotion you even deserve to feel. While the two of you had been getting closer the longer you spent with each other, you knew your boundaries well enough to know you still weren’t there, you never would be.

The ghosts from your past made damn sure of it.

“I can pose for you if you’re going to keep looking.”

“I wasn’t—”

Abby wipes the mixture of sweat, oils, and paint on the pair of old blue-denim. She lets her blonde hair out of the bun she wore, despite the icy temperature, her body runs warm.

“It’s okay to admit it.”

“Admit what?” Suddenly you become defensive, arms crossing over your chest.

“That you’re still attracted to me.” Abby takes your curves in and nearly blows a low whistle, “You’re awful at hiding it.”

“I-I’m not, this isn’t….you’re not, like, easy to look at, you know? Uh, ummm….”

Standing there like an idiot as you struggle to get the words out, nearly impossible to get them released, your mouth staggering, unable to even keep them shut as Abby stalks you, your body pressed against the kitchen counter, the new one she installed days ago.

Nothing comes out on the way you intend it to. Fuck. Did you offend her?

“I’m not?”

She whispers into your ear, her lips ghosting your skin. A free hand plays with the buckle of your belt before she pulls you closer by the fastened leather. It’s soft to the touch, making her want to sink her teeth into you, until her canines break the surface of your skin, claiming you as hers once again.

Abby thinks about removing it off you, bending you over the counter and punishing you for it or even fastening the belt around your neck, pulling you along until you’re right where she pleases. The craving in the pit of her belly only stirs into an unmanageable peace the longer you stand there — squirming with satisfaction — waiting to be put out of your misery.

Golden locks tickle your jaw, the static energy radiating off of her shocks your skin, goosebumps come alive on every inch of you as she makes her presence known. One fact you haven’t been able to shake, Abby Anderson is a force to be reckoned with. Ten years, ten full years, and your life means nothing now that she’s right in front of you.

“Abigail, I don’t really think this is a good idea.” Abby waits for you to push her away, but instead you place your hands around her forearms but she’s so big, and it’s intoxicating that she stands taller than you. Her biceps the size of your head, veins protruding as she flexes, as if it didn’t make matters worse.

“Then why don’t you just admit it?” Abby presses her pelvis even closer to yours and you wonder if you’re hallucinating the barely-there kiss to below your ear. “You want me just as much as you did back then. Ten years apart won’t change that. You still care about me, even though you wish you didn’t, you do.”

“Abigail, we can’t go there, we both are—”

“What? I’ve always been a patient girl. I can wait.” Loudly, you groan as she peppers kisses down your neck, before scratching at her skin, when she kisses the one spot behind your ear she certainly didn’t forget about.

Abby digs her teeth in as you hiss, she enjoys the thrill of your soft whimpers, she’s barely started and you’re giving her just what she needs. The two of you know it, there isn’t a fix for this, the thread of a craving pulls until it’s fed.

“Oh–”

Rough hands hoist you on the counter top as she slots herself between your thighs, her frame protecting you as if you were a wild animal trying to be saved from extinction. The greed in Abby’s palm finds salvation when she touches exposed skin, silk to the touch — it doesn’t feel quite as sinful as she’s been told.

She should hate you, right?

You hurt her, didn’t look back twice, and you’ve never been the same.

All of this is just a facade. The life you have, the future you always dreamed of building is thousands of miles from here and she just doesn’t fit within it anymore, everyone tells her she never did. A missing puzzle piece with a jagged edge, the more Abby tries to fit with your world, the further she pushes away.

But she held onto the hope that your world no longer fit you and maybe — like a fool who believes in their first dream — she could be your world again.

Sparkling, honey-blues dazzle their way into your heart once again, reminding you of everything you love, striking a reminder through your soul of just what you had hurt. The life you stole, the one you wanted to so desperately have but fear still swarms you. The memory doesn’t feel so distant, the past isn’t the past but lies as a reminder of the blood still staining your hands.

With hesitance, you hold her full-freckled cheeks in your palms with a delicate hand, fearful any touch from you would burn her in the process.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” You bite into the isolating air, threatening to swarm your soul but she finds you first. Abby’s warm breath feeds into the need blossoming like a seed rooted in soil, solidifying the growth of budding salvation.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She’s so sweet on you, even as the trickle of poison burns her, Abby would gladly let it absorb every inch of her skin if it meant this. The wondrous arrival of a love once lost, her heart torn right down the middle. Unsure if giving into reason or a festered dream.

It all grabs a hold of her the same, unwillingly to release her from the pure agony she feels when you’re not around. More dramatic than she intended it to be, the dagger once pushed through her heart, exerting every drop of blood until she felt unsatisfied iron saturating her tongue.

She would even show gratitude if you let her.

“Everything I think I know changes when you’re involved, so no, I don’t.”

Leaning into your touch, Abby swears into the palm of your hand, her hands smooth over the fabric of your pants and your entire skin leaves a trail of fire anywhere her large, calloused hand scorns you. The weight of her love feels heavy, as it always has, but the temptation to carry every ounce of it is heavier than it’s been in years.

With a terror in your chest, you blurt out the first thought entering you mind. “You’ve aged really well, can barely tell you’re hitting thirty.”

“Oh yeah? I can think of a few ways to show you.”

Shit.

A rapid heartbeat ready to burst, you’re not sure if it’s you or her. She’s inching closer, lips ghosting yours, her minty-ice breath makes home over yours. With a slight graze, you inhale a sharp breath, read for her to lean into you.

Slam!

“Am I interrupting something?” Immediately, you push Abby off of you, a judging pair of eyes scanning the two of you.

The woman from the party looked like she could actually kill you with her bare hands. Then there’s Ellie sitting there grinning like the joker, one giggle away from sounding like the maniac himself. As if she was fully aware this would happen. The two of you are running off of pure animal instinct, unable to keep your hands off one another.

“Abby? What’s going on?” The snip in the woman’s voice is evident, so is the possession she so clearly feels over your ex-girlfriend. The jealousy you feel over the thought sends an unwanted shiver up your spine.

Then she’s looking at you, expecting you to disintegrate into nothing right in front of her. Like you had done something terribly wrong.

Didn’t Abby say she’s single?

“Chill out, Hazel.” Ellie rolls her eyes, smirking at the steam practically boiling out of Hazel’s ears. “Ready for that drink? Dina and Jesse are already waiting.”

“Uh—” She looks back at you, avoiding eye contact with everyone. “Yeah, can you just give me a sec?”

“But I really think we should—”

“Down Hazel, god, you’re worse than a dog. They clearly were about to suck each other’s faces off. Move it.”

Hazel clearly looks offended as she desperately looks at Abby, hoping for her to save a little bit of dignity but Abby just punches the bridge of her nose as Ellie escorts out an extremely frigid Hazel.

Abby doesn’t miss the way the woman who has far too big of a crush on her tries to shoot daggers into you but you’re too busy focused on plucking your overgrown cuticles.

As soon as the door shuts you bend over the counter, forehead pressed into the white marble of the island, settling for a frustrated groan even when you want to scream.

“That bad, huh?” Abby stands behind you, watching as you lose it in front of her.

“Your friends already hate me, was that really fucking needed?”

There’s an itching, envious need to ask why Hazel seems to be protective over Abby, borderlining on obsession, but you keep your mouth tight lipped. Even if it’s the first thing ready to roll off your tongue.

“They’re fine, Hazel is just—”

“Protective.” You avoid her as she smirks, clearly enjoying the clear look of jealousy in your beautifully bright eyes.

“Oh?” Abby is grinning, pearly whites shining as majestic as the moon. “I didn’t think you’d even feel like that about me.”

As if it's instinct, she can’t stop how much she’s loving this. One moment of her lips on your skin and suddenly you want her all to yourself. Your head is spinning and her stupid, blue eyes won’t stop looking at you like a divine treasure.

“I-I don’t know what to say.”

You never did well with things out of your control, never really could. It’s why all of it ended the way it did. If you couldn’t somehow manipulate into what you wanted, it faded until you couldn’t hear it any longer. Abby faded into the noise, into your past, but maybe she is the noise and for the first time in ten years you can finally hear.

“You don’t have to say anything but you can come with me.”

“With your friends?” Abby nods.

“All of your friends hate me and one looks like she might actually kill me. Why on earth would you think that’s a good idea?”

“All of them are adults. They’ll handle just fine besides, I want you there.” As soon as Abby says those words, your harsh seamer softens, rejection melts and dissipates from your vocabulary. She’s always been a difficult person to say no to. “You could use some social interaction, you don’t even leave this guest house.”

“How did you know that?”

“I have eyes?” Abby states it as more of a question, a giggle threatening to bubble out.

“Oh god.” Abby laughs as she takes off her tool belt before finding her jacket and slipping it on her body. Grabbing her keys on the counter, looping the carabiner on the loop of her weathered denim.

“Ready?”

There’s a look of uncertainty in your eyes, nearly bleeding into an unwillingness to bend, but her words reassure you before you even get a chance to explain. As if she settled in your heart ten years ago and never left.

“Don’t worry, okay? If anyone’s mean to you, I’ll set them straight, Cherry.”

The nickname falls off her tongue, the sentiment hits you like a tsunami of emotion, bringing you back to every loving emotion she exposed to you for the first time.

It shouldn’t cut you this deep but it will — she always will.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞 ❞

March 26th, 2013

“C’mon dance with me!” Abby screams over the loud music of the party. Fluorescent lights, a disco ball and tequila raged through her body, the alcohol pumping through her veins as she finally mustered the liquid courage to talk with the girl she’s been crushing on all sophomore year.

Her friends had been teasing her all night about it, but when the girl looked at her in disgust, shoulder checking her into oblivion, she couldn't help but take it to heart. Her blue eyes swell with tears, a waterfall raging within her as she makes her way to the bathroom, puking out her dinner at her father’s house.

So much for prom night, right?

Making a beeline for the bathroom, with yet another rejection to check off the list, stupid fucking after party she lied to her dad about going to. It’s all so stupid, of course Lacey wouldn’t be into someone like her. No one likes her, no one ever will, she’s just the lame screw up in this town who can’t like boys, not when the rest of the girls in the wretched town do.

Even if her dad tells her, it’s what makes her special — it’s a bunch of horse shit.

So, in the home of the girl she confessed her undying love for, she pukes her guts out in the bathroom until there’s a knock at the door and a soft yet concerned shout that follows. “Hey, are you okay? Sounds a little rough in there!”

“Shit, yeah, just one second…” Abby collects herself taking off her jacket as she rolls up the sleeves, residue of what she chucked up on the cuff of her shirt. Quickly, she rinses off and roles the sleeves up.

Well, it didn’t get any more embarrassing than this.

“Are you sure you’re alright? I can get someone it’s really not a pro—”

Without a further beat, the door is swung open. Abby suspects to see someone she knows, but she doesn’t. It’s a fresh face and she’s never been more grateful. The eyeliner she thought Lacey would like was probably smudged all over her face, Abby had no doubt she probably resembled someone operating an oil rig of some kind.

Just as Abby tries to talk, she feels another round come up and she runs to the toilet, sinking to her knees as more bile comes out. Way to go Anderson, you’ve managed to utterly humiliate yourself in front of two beautiful women tonight. Truly, there should be some type of an award for being the dumbest idiot on the planet.

Somehow, she knows all of this will come back to bite her in the ass. There’s no way that she isn't the complete laughing stock of the high school until she walks across the stage in two years with a diploma on hand. Whoever you are, you’re sure you’ll tell the entire town.

A stupid pathetic lesbian who can’t have one good night to save her life.

One of the most important nights of her life.

But she doesn’t hear a mockery laugh, a snide comment…she isn't even met with pure disgust. The third and fatal option. There’s a comforting hand on her back, reassuring her everything will be just fine, the other holding her hair into a makeshift ponytail, ensuring there isn't a single strand getting tied into the mess of her sickness.

By the time Abby’s done, she feels even more humiliated, her body running hot, cheeks aflame but you’re already running warm water underneath the towel folded on the shelf above the toilet. Kneeling down again, you angle her by the jaw, wiping the residue off her lips and you carefully wash away the black eyeliner smeared all over her freckled-cheeks.

For a second, Abby notices you staring at her pouty lips but she doesn’t say a word about it.

Turned out so wonderful the first time��

“Here!” You pull from your pocket, a pack of red labeled gun, cherry flavored, and pull out one piece wrapped in paper-tin foil. “For your, you know, breath.”

“Is this your nice way of telling me I have bad breath?” Abby teases, one moment with a pretty stranger, and she already felt more like herself. Abby takes a piece of gum, unraveling the piece before shoving the strip into her mouth.

“Well, you did puke.”

Regretfully she chews as the taste turns sweet instead of mint, her face contorts in rejection but still she chews. It’s not exactly what she had in mind.

“You don’t like Cherry flavored? That’s just bad taste!” You grab a piece of gum for yourself, throwing the piece of paper in the trash, consuming it wholeheartedly, almost moaning as you put on a show.

“Whatever you say, Cherry.” The sun might as well be shining on you from just how warm you feel. Heat rising in your heart, blossoming through your chest, thriving from the attention of the sun,

“Hey! That’s not fair. I don’t know your name.”

“Well, I don’t know yours either…” Abby hints, tilting her head to the side with a smirk the size of Texas. For once, she finds this easy, talking to a pretty girl, flirting with a pretty girl — proving it didn’t always have to be so hard to have something this good.

“Call me Cherry, it’s better than my real one, trust me.” You smile sweetly, fully willing to rot each tooth if it means you could feel like this. “What’s yours?”

“Abigail.”

The two of you just stare at each other like idiots, two losers, two outcasts and all of it started to make sense. Every heartache dealt out by careless handlers of the heart, each person who made you feel small, unworthy, who knew all of it could be healed by looking into the brightest pair of blue eyes, the warmest, full of honey and marvelous wonder.

It feels wonderful, being this close to a feeling, a lover's dream in the sunshine of spring, kissing shoulders never exposed to the brightful joy, freckles sprouting like bees flees to honey. One more kiss of sunshine until the sweetness falls on your tongue, guiding you to the spirit of love and everything you ever lost.

One person, one perfect person who makes your youth scream of joy again. Jumping off a cliff, plummeting into the cool ocean without second thought, hoping they’ll be there to jump off it with you. Even if it takes a lifetime of waiting — you’d wait your entire life for her.

As long as she’s in the sun, freckles being painted by pure light, you’d soak in the sun right along with her.

“Thank you.” She squeaks out the words so small, you nearly miss it.

“There’s no need for thanking. Just doing the right thing s’all.” Your smile is so sweet, Abby nearly feels every part of her body rotting with sugar. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“There was just this girl and I really thought she liked me but she really didn’t and I have this thing where I get a lot of anxiety or nervous I kind of just puke. It’s totally lame, god, I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

“Me too. High school sucks.” You agree with her, offering a small smile as you finish cleaning her up. “But she’s totally lame for not seeing how great you are.”

Abby tries not to blush, but she can’t hit the crimson swell painting the apples of her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “Did you try to kiss her or something?”

“I didn’t really get that far, she wouldn’t even dance with me. Not here, not prom, guess I’m not cool enough for her.” Pushing the metal frame of her glasses up her nose, trying to stop herself from biting into her blunt nails, nearly drawing blood. Now that she’s come down from her puking fest, she sees how beautiful you are. The kind of beauty that would bring her to her knees if Abby wasn’t already there.

“Cool is overrated. Who cares about being cool? We’re all losers trying to figure it out.” You say it as if it’s the most obvious statement in the world, as if you’re confident in exactly who you want to be. Abby is envious of it. She wonders what it’s like to be so free — to not wonder what everyone is constantly thinking about you — if you’re good enough.

You don’t seem to care.

“If you still wanna dance, I’d dance with you. We can be losers together.” You offer up to her as you stand to your feet, offering a hand up to her and she takes it willingly. You grab the jacket to her suit, helping her slip into it and she smoothes the jacket over her frame.

“You really don’t have to—” But you look at her with the most absurd gaze of refusal, eyebrows furrowed as it makes this cute little line between them. Abby can’t help but admire it.

“Oh, we’re going to fucking dance and show whoever this bitch is just what she’s missing.”

Present day.

There’s a lot to be said for how you let yourself succumb to her again, it didn’t take much, just a batting of blonde eyelashes and irresistible pouty lips and you’d fallen victim to Abigail Anderson. The hardest thing you’ve ever done was leave her. All these years later, you’re right back to where you were before all of this had started.

It seems to shock all of her friends when the two of you walk on together and even more shocking when Abby throws her arm behind you, engaging in conversation here and there. Mostly, you tune out the conversation and mindlessly sip on the beer in front of you.

Hazel isn’t happy about the predicament, cold brown eyes sport a simmering guidance of rage as she watches Abby’s fingers on your shoulder tracing random patterns into your skin. The arrival of your presence in turn makes her take jabs at you all night. Even with your silence, it doesn’t stop her, and when you have no visceral reaction she finally goes for something that brings silence around the entire table.

“Why are you even here? Breaking Abby’s heart wasn’t enough the first time? Why don’t you run back to your sick mother and stop playing with people just because it’s fun for you.” Hazel bites and you feel the swarm of your tears begin to build and she keeps going, “Isn’t that why you came back? Not because you actually care but because your mom is going to die.”

“Sorry, excuse me—” Hazel scoffs as you slither away and head towards the bathroom. As if she’s accomplished, she sips on her margarita, like what she just did was a service to everyone here.

Ellie and Dina sit there in shock, trying to process what the fuck had just happened. Jesse sits there silently, discomfort written all over his face. But Abby? She’s filled with a soaring hot rage, face flushed violet as her knuckles turn white. Hazel immediately shrinks into the booth, unprepared for what’s about to happen.

She thought Abby would be happy, kicking someone who so wrongly hurt her to the curb. You didn’t deserve her. You never would. Hazel deserves you. She’s been here, waiting for Abby to see her and love her, not you.

“What the fuck is your problem? Cherry wasn’t even doing a goddamn thing and you’ve been attacking them all damn night.” Abby’s rage is palpable, steaming to the touch, and nothing like any of them have ever seen.

“I did this for you! She treated you horribly! She broke your heart! She deserves it.”

Abby pinches the bridge of her nose, tossing her head against the wall, “This has got to fucking stop. Cherry broke up with me goddamn ten years ago and it’s none of your business.” Hazel could practically see the steam rolling off her before Abby raised her voice even more, “You didn’t have a right to bring up her mom regardless of whatever happened. Jesus, if I want to be around her or want Cherry around, everyone here is just going to have to fucking deal.”

“Abby, we’re just trying to look out for you. Cherry only ever thinks about herself.”

“Well fucking don’t. I can handle myself despite whatever you think I can deal with. Stay the fuck away from her or you’ll live to regret it.”

Throwing a twenty on the table to cover her tab, she finds you washing your face, trying to get rid of the puffiness in your eyes. When you see her, you turn her away, a lame attempt to stop her from seeing you like this.

Weak. Overbearing. A winded rush pressing on your lungs, struggling to breathe — you didn’t need any of this. Not to be back right where it all destroyed you. Then here she is, the living reminder of your transgressions, your failure, the one thing you couldn’t fix.

All roads lead to her. All of it is sick and twisted. The look of love pierces through your soul, scouring through the place you keep hidden under lock and key; the part that still loves her.

It demands attention. To be heard. To be seen. To violate you and your dreams, to place her before everything else. A violent reminder of how all of this started. Before you could catch up with the tide, everything flips, your entire life becomes a reflection of what you feared.

Abby has her life together and yours is coming apart.

Everyone hates you for what you become. For how little you cared about leaving the first twenty years of your life behind, a chapter closed and discarded as if it never existed to you in the first place.

“Let me take you home, alright? I’m sorry for Hazel she’s—”

“It’s fine.” You cut her off, drying your eyes, or trying to but you can’t stop crying in the first place. “It was stupid of me to agree to this.”

“You aren’t stupid, sorry, she was being a cunt. It won’t happen again. I won’t let it happen.”

Abby carefully wipes your tears away, “Hey, let’s get out of here. Yeah? My place is just up the street. Just the two of us.”

You nod as Abby leads you out, her palm feels welcoming in your grip, a homecoming you have been dying to feel. Her touch feels warm, perfect as her fingers interlock with your own. Like no time has passed, it’s easy for you to slip back into her grasp.

Everything about her feels right. When she helps you get in her truck, the old one her father always wanted to renovate and it seems she did just that. The ride is only a couple minutes before she’s parking in the garage of her home. She opens the door for you, a hand on your back as she leads you towards the door leading into her house.

What you expect to be a farmhouse, a hint of southern barn meets boho chic, but you’re met with something else entirely.

It’s exactly what she talked about building growing up. Everything else feels modern except the cherry red kitchen with white accents and marble countertops. There’s cherries everywhere, but it’s subtle enough to the naked eye, you wouldn’t blink twice.

The memory comes back to you in a hot flash, one you weren’t fond of.

“We can have it all. I’ll buy you a damn house, I’ll give you whatever you want, whatever you need, I want this, Cherry. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. I love you, please, can’t you see a future with both of us?”

“But I don’t want to be here. You know that! My dad can hardly look at me because I’m with a woman, my mom tries but she doesn’t understand. Is this the kind of life you want? They remind me that I’m not good enough. Who I love isn’t good enough, not if I’m not with a man. Can you understand I’m dying to get out of this nothin’ town?”

Abby gnaws at her bottom lip, teeth drawing blood as she sees you drawing within yourself. Pulling back at the first sign of hardship. Even Abby wonders if she’s worth fighting for.

“You mean dying to get away from me? I’m in this nothin’ town you despise so much.”

“Abigail, you’re taking words out of my mouth, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“You just want to leave and I don’t.” You look at her, her adorable pout in a frown, arms she’s been bulking for the past couple years begin to show definition. The freckles she hates grew more prominent on her skin as she spent the summer working for father’s construction company.

Her life is here, her future is here, but for once since the two of you met, your own two different paths and no matter how much you love her — it just won’t work.

“We’re eighteen! Our entire lives are in front of us. I can’t stay here, Abigail. I just can’t. I dream of a big city, somewhere my stories will take me places, a life that I can’t find here.”

“You got the scholarship, didn’t you?” Abby barks, her chest puffing out, jaw clenching as she pleads for you to tell her the truth. “Tell me the truth. You’ve been lying to me, hoping I’d change my mind?”

“I wasn’t lying. I just—”

“What? You were just going to leave one morning and never come back? Like I mean nothing to you?” Abby removes her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Like the past two years have just been what? A way for you to pass time until your real life comes along. Fucking great.”

“I told you from the start, I want more. I need to do more! No one gets into NYU around here and certainly not on a scholarship. I have a chance for a real future, a way out from my parents, a new life, I’ve always wanted this. You know I have.”

“And I’ve always wanted you.”

Silence engulfs the room, a pindrop could be heard, the tension could be cut with a knife but Abby sees the wall closing around you. Covering her from the heart you slowly opened up to her, what she fought tooth and nail for. She always fought for you but it’s hard to do anything when you don’t believe this is worth saving.

“You don’t even have the decency to ask me.”

“What?”

“You just want to write me off. You lump me with everyone else because you don’t even give me the chance.”

“What are you saying?”

Abby’s blue eyes turn into ice, all the warmth void as the chill sends a shiver down your spine. Her throat feels tight, like even if she swallows her own spit she’ll choke.

“Do you love me enough to make this work?” Abby flinches when you don’t immediately answer, because she knows where she stands, she would follow you across the world if it meant that’s what you wanted. To make you happy. But she can’t help but feel like she’s splitting herself apart for someone who doesn’t care in the way she does.

With tears in your eyes, they cascade down your cheek before whispering to her, “I don’t.”

“Get. Out.” She murmurs through clenched teeth, using the sleeve of her t-shirt, one you gifted her, to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop coming. The overflow of the heartache racked through her body like she’s never felt before.

You don’t love her. You don’t love her. You never loved her.

“Abs, please, don’t make me leave like this. Can we talk about this?”

“What’s there to fucking talk about? We don’t love me, Cherry. What else is there to fucking say?”

You nearly scream, not sure why anything you’re saying isn’t coming out the way you intended it to. “You’re not listening to me I—”

“Right. You just need to find a man, right? God, you’re just like Lacey.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” You bite, and if looks could kill, Abby would be dead right now. She’s struck a nerve, the memory of sophomore year comes flooding back to her, back when all of this started. “God, fuck you. How could you possible compare me to the straight girl that pulled you along because what she really wanted was Daniel Collins to fuck her so stupid she ended up pregnant junior year.”

“You’re leaving, when your back is pressed up against a wall, you’ll always leave, Cherry.”

“But I—” You stop yourself before you could speak the forbidden words, the ones you’ve said to her a million times, the one you just refuted that you did even if she can usually call you right on your bullshit. But you’ve diluted her sense of reasoning and all she hears is her girlfriend of two years just told her she doesn't love her.

“You what? What other lies are you going to tell me?”

“Fine.” Your expression turns stone cold, “Let’s both be done with it then. There’s nothing left to fight for.”

Prideful ego gets in the way of what Abby wants and she finally lets her head speak for her, “Sounds good to me.”

“Are you alright?” Abby asks but then she notices you’re just staring at her kitchen and she’s never been so self-conscious in her life. She didn’t even think about it, she’s so used to others seeing it but it’s different when your muse is taking in the craft you created with them in mind.

“Oh, right, the cherries.” She stutters out, scratching the back of her neck as she turns the lights on. It smells of vanilla and something oak, just like she smelled in high school. To others it may seem boring but it’s refreshing to know she’s still the same as she was.

“You still did it?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda lame honestly, maybe I should have done something else but nothing ever fit right with the rest of the house so.” Abby pops open a beer, somehow needing to have some type of liquor while you gawk at the work she created with you in mind. “If I’m being honest, I think it was just a way for me to hold onto you. I sure didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“Me neither.” You answered truthfully, the loss of Abby rattled you, even though you were better at hiding it. Losing her is still the most painful loss you had to endure, which she considers fortunate, but not fortunate enough. “I always thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t been so headstrong. I think I had to convince myself in order to leave, I would have stayed here for you if not.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Even if she pretends not to be, Abby’s still bitter.

“Why?”

“You always knew what you wanted out of life and that wasn’t me.” Abby chews on her bottom lip again, picking the label of the beer before taking another swig. “Hell, you left before I even got a chance to say goodbye.”

“What?” Eyebrows scrunched in confusion as you take a step forward, “Did you come to the house?”

“Of course I did. I wasn’t going to leave things like that. Did you not—”

“No, I didn’t know, I thought that was it. I didn’t expect there to be more for my sake.”

The way she looks at you feels like she’s peering into her soul, the way she sees you so clearly, better than anyone ever has, chilling you to your core. Bits and pieces of your love located in eyes that glimmer only for her, light electrified the moment your sights are set on her.

It feels like falling in love with a broken melody.

You admire the imperfections instead of leaving at the bridge.

“I waited on your porch for hours but then your parents came home, saying they just had gotten back from dropping you off.”

In a matter of moments, your entire world feels flipped, like everything you had known for the last ten years, a terrible lie you wished to never know. A nightmare you would hope to wake up from. That’s all this was, you would wake up in her father’s home as you fought in the kitchen, you convince yourself not to let go of the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“You came back for me?”

Closing the space between the two of you, grabbing her beer and placing it on the countertop. Abby takes an intake of breath as you invade every part of her personal space. As corny as it sounds, you do smell of cherries. So sweet, her bones feel weak with need, as if she doesn’t inhale the sugar she’ll just crumble at your feet, begging for just one drop.

“Yeah, I cried in front of your dad who hated me at the time, might I add. After that, he was kind, I think because he saw how much I…you know…”

You remember how much he changed when you came home for the holidays three years later. Naturally, you always accepted he had just come around over time, but it wasn’t that at all — the weeps of your high school girlfriend convinced him.

“Guess he saw how much I loved you or something…I don’t know…” She shrugs like it’s nothing.

Like she's nothing; the careless lie you let her believe.

Even with her dominating physical presence, she’s always been shy about this sort of thing. Expressing her feelings never really came easy, even if she wore them with her heart on her sleeve, admitting them was different than feeling them.

“You changed his mind.”

“He would have gotten there eventually. I’m sure he liked whoever you dated after me.”

“Hm.” You grimly laugh, “He didn’t. Not the two I brought home but he always spoke fondly of you, he definitely likes you better then he enjoys his own kid.”

Patient she is watching you process the information, it’s almost too much for her to swallow. What if you had been home when she was going to say goodbye? Would this be your home with her? The dreams of kissing her in the kitchen, cherry inspired, the family home she always wanted to build for the two of you. Now she’s here with no one but herself. Withering away the soul of a woman who only wanted love.

“He loves you and if he doesn’t, that’s his loss. Trust me, I know it too well.”

The confession hangs on the walls like a memorial, taking a trip down memory lane, or more like the hell of your own making. Demons you conjured cast over your past as if they only exist in hollow halls. The deeper you go, the more your heart slivers in the cracks of her delicate grip. For the first time, you don’t mind when she presses on your heartbeat — demanding more with just looking at you the way she does.

The way she always has.

“Do you still love me?”

“Are you going to run away if I tell you?”

Lips ghost over you, her breath hits your face, making it flush with heat. She leans against the counter, wrapping your back with one of her arms, tugging you close to her.

“Abby, I’m a mess.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what my family is going to look like or my future.”

“I know.”

“Abigail, would you stop saying that?”

“I’ve only ever cared about you, I don’t care if your life is together. I’m here and I—” She dips her head to kiss down your neck, decorating your collarbones with her lips as she creates a map back to where she wants to the most, “will take care of you.”

Abby kisses you like the air in her lungs is expendable, as she has endless amounts to give. That’s all she is love, pouring into every ounce of you that she can find. With desperate abandon, she wants to wipe your memory of every wrong she ever did you — she only wants to remind you of the reason why she loves you. Maybe it’ll be enough for you to wake up in her arms again.

For once, she might be enough.

“We don’t have to do this, I don’t know what it all means and—”

“Right now? I don’t fucking care.” Abby leeches off your neck, kissing and delicately sucking, grazing her sharp teeth against sensitive skin. “I just want you.”

Thoughtless abandon goes out the window as she guides you back into her apartment, off the spacious balcony and corners you into her room. Letting you fall on her bed as she stands above you, as she strips in front of you. Making a show of it, torturing you for sport, before she goes in for the kill.

The alcohol still alive in your mind as she pulls off, a freckled maze maps its way all over her body. The subtle blonde happy trails travels underneath her navel and disappears beneath the fabric of her denim jeans. Your own self-control begins to slip, but Abby is too concerned with evening out the playing field. Even if this is a long-lasting goodbye, she’s going to make it last.

Slipping your trousers down your legs, she’s met with cotton boxers — soaked all the way through.

“Is that all for me?” Abby snaps the waistband against your skin as you squirm underneath your touch, bucking your hips into the air. Impossibly desperate for her touch.

“Y-Yes, It’s for—” Irrevocably your eyes roll back into your skull, “Abigail, oh shit, shit, shitttt.”

Sneaking a hand in your boxers, she opens up your inviting folds, slippery and as Abby glides along, collecting your slick with the calloused fingers. You squirm and shift, bucking into her hand, waiting for more to be given to you.

“Just say my name like that pretty girl, so good for me, aren’t you?” Abby removes her hand as she pulls your boxers off your legs and without being asked she slides them down your legs as she pushes your shirt up to your tits, exposing the swell of your breasts to her possessive eyes, waiting to lay claim onto what she’s missed for the past ten years.

“I wonder if you’re just as…” Abby takes a beat before rubbing over your hard nipple along her tongue, her denim-glad thigh grinding against your thigh as she suckles at your breasts. “Sensitive.”

She moans into your skin, using her free hand to play with your pussy, soft strokes to your clit as she elicits more moans from you. The force of her strength and weight keeps you down, the stutter of your hips chasing her fingers.

“My pretty baby, not so mean and bossy anymore, huh?” She bites your nipple gently before whispering in your ear, “Did you miss me that much?”

“I just want more, please.”

In any other circumstance, she happily would make you pay for it. Wait even, but if she doesn’t have you in her mouth for another second, she won’t survive. You’re so beautiful, you’re perfect in every conceivable way. The years had in fact been kind to you, different from what she knew when the two of you had sex but god, she thinks you’re even more exquisite now.

“More?” Abby removes what remains of her clothing, leaving you to gawk at her muscled frame, small tits frame her chest perfectly. “How about you sit on my face, angel? How does that sound?”

She’s already made you come twice, just on her tongue alone, pushing for a third as she holds you by the waist, waiting for your overstimulated body to give into her once more.

Abby makes everyone look inadequate when it comes to her, no one could touch you like this, fuck you like this, slither their talent tongue inside your waiting hold as you take her out for a ride. Muffled moans against your dripping cunt sends shivers throughout your spine, body twitching as you feel yourself hurling closer to the edge.

You can’t help but ride her face as your head lies on the bundle of curves covering her mound and you’ve been too fucked out the entire time to do anything but you can’t help but notice the way her patient cunt is shining with her slick. Curiosity blooms within you as you notice the slight thrust of her hips, chasing a part of you that isn’t there.

With no sudden warning, you vigorously rub on her wet folds, applying pressure on her bundle of nerves as you spread her sweet juices along her puffed lips.

“Baby, nghhh, oh my god.” Abby slurps as she sucks your clit into her mouth before you fall right over the edge again. Her eager tongue fucks your through it with her tongue, letting your ride the high as your nails scratch her stomach, marking her as yours once again.

Abby helps your weak body slide down her legs, flipping you over as your pussy falls against her, her legs spread open as your head rests against her sternum, feeling the increased rate of her heart beat thump against her chest.

She smooths her hand over your hair, gorgeous hypnotic eyes pull at Abby’s heart. “We should get some sleep.”

“We can…unless you want to entertain a thought I’m having.” Abby raises her eyebrow as rotate your hips, clit bumping against hers as she throws her head back, a string of curses fall from her lips as she grips onto your hips. Happily, she lets you take control, pushing her strong leg over your shoulder as you glide against her soaked pussy.

“Oh fuck, fuck, holy fucking shit—”

Perfect tits bouncing as you rock your hips against her movement, the more you look in her eyes, you feel yourself yearning for another release. It’s never been this good, never with anyone. The moans she whispers, kept in the secret coven of your love, the spells she casts to keep you near — it trumps anything you’ve ever felt.

“Keep looking at me, Abigail.” The whine of her full name, only ever falling from your lips, the most wonderful symphony. It’s intoxicating how much she loves it. How much she loves you. Deep in her bones, even if she tries her best to pull away, she knows not a damn thing will ever compare to this. For this life and the next, she’ll be searching for you in everyone she meets.

She can’t live another moment with you. Not after ten years of agony, fuck no, she needs you like she needs oxygen to breathe. You’re not sure how long it takes, but you don’t forget how Abby looks at you with a tender heart that basically pours out of her.

“Baby, please. N-N-gh, I need you.” You push her forward, hitting a deeper angle than you were before until you hear just how wet she is with your forehead pressed against hers, “Show me how my pretty girl comes, yeah? Need a reminder, princess.”

Abby moans out your name, her body fucking up into you, slithering her convulsing cunt against your clit as her defined abdomen twitches and only relaxes when you follow her lead, you body collapsing on her. Two hearts beats become one as the two of you fall asleep, a quiet whisper of I love you, but you’re not sure if it falls from your lips or hers.

The morning air breathes lilies and fresh espresso, her sweet cinnamon cologne lingers in her sheets, where she held you all night with her heavenly embrace. Reality sinks in and then you’re afraid once again. You slip one of her button up shirts on, pulling on a pair of her sweats before your feet are met with the cool wooden floors.

She’s sitting there, those stupid glasses she apparently didn’t get rid of. Making her look stupid cute as she read the velvet-green covered book in her large palms.

It’s easy for her to tell how you feel, Abby knows you too well as she watches you with cautious eyes. You’re so afraid of it all. Always, you’ve been afraid of what she makes you feel, how close she pushes you to the edge of no return. A love you feel helpless to, especially when it eats you from the inside out.

“Do you wanna leave? I can take you home.” Abby doesn’t even look up from her book, she sounds annoyed, completely different than her vulnerable demeanor last night. It puzzles you when she closes herself off.

“Am I missing something? Did I do something wrong?”

Abby folds her book, marking the page on the sharp corner before she takes off her glasses. “You don’t owe me anything if that’s what you’re worried about. You felt like you didn’t before. You in all your city glory.”

Something happened.

“Abby, what’s going on?”

“You tell me.” She places your phone on the table and it’s the email detailing of your new book tour in Europe. One that lasts the better part of the year.

“You snooped through my phone?”

“I didn’t mean to, I thought it was mine, okay? I would never do that.” Abby sighs, “I really didn’t mean to fucking look. I just, it’s happening all over again, I’m losing you over something. I’m never what you pick and I can’t ever be enough for you. Even Hazel was right! All you do is hurt me and it’s my fault because I let you. I can’t keep chasing you. It’s a stupid dream I’m too dumb enough to let go of.”

“So, that’s it? Last night was just what? A mistake?”

“I didn’t say that—”

“But you did! Fuck, I should have known things wouldn’t change.”

“You should have known? This is the same reason why you left me. I’ll lose you, again, to something I can’t compete with. The both of us know it to be true. At least have the decency to admit it.”

“Do you want me to apologize? I did what I wanted! I have everything I wanted. This is everything I’ve worked towards for the best ten years—”

“But you don’t—” Abby puffs out her chest, standing taller than she has since you’ve been back. The words spill just like you did the night before, “You didn’t get everything, you made sure of it the moment you left me behind.”

Abby has backed you into a corner, stalking you like you’re her prey but this isn’t how she wants everything to be. Looking into your dreary eyes, she’s transported back to when you shattered her heart, splitting into pieces that no longer fit. The harder she tries to piece them back, the more jagged she becomes.

“I don’t want this. I’ve let go of it.”

I let go of you, sounds entirely too painful to say.

“That’s your plan? To pretend none of this has happened?” Abby’s tongue prods the inside of her cheek, a cocky smirk flashes your way. “Look at how well it turned out the first time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Your arms cross over your chest, attempting to create some distance between the two of you, but Abby only closes you in.

“Why do you still wear it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Abby reaches for your hand, you untangle your limbs, the pad of her thumb loving running over the silky skin. Her calloused hand feels rough, just as it always has, but it also feels right.

The silver ring on your pinky, the one you lost and the one your father had conveniently found. But it was never him who located your perfect gem, nope. Not at all. Just Abby’s biggest fan, besides Hazel.

The reminder of her leaves a sour taste saturating your tongue, but you have no right. It's her friend, and just because you’re not fond of her, doesn’t mean a thing. You’re just a ghost still lingering in her life. Even if she answers there’s nothing, Hazel looks at her like you used to. When the same protectiveness switched into high gear last night, she only thought of how much you would do the exact same thing Hazel did if the roles were reversed.

Just maybe, not as cruel.

Abby takes the ring off your thumb, it shines in the dim lighting in the room.

“The day I fell in love with you, three months into our relationship, I gave it to you. Do you remember what I said?”

Simply, you nod.

“Wear this for as long as you love me and when you’ve taken it off, I’ll know we’re truly done.” Abby hums, your eyes shut as her thigh wedges between your legs but it only rests there. “But I hope you wear it forever.”

“Then let go of me, give it back, throw it away, but stop acting like you might still feel the same. I’m tired of being played. You know how much this ring means to me. Don’t leave me, again.”

It’s a cop out for what she really wants to say, the both of you know it is, but you have the decency to let it swarm past without making a single comment.

She’s begging for mercy. She’s tired. The lines on her skin are an indication of the hours she spends in the sun and the time passing by, engaging you in a never-ending tsunami of Abigail Anderson’s love.

“Abigail—” You say her name like it’s a curse, a spell you keep casting to make her fall deeper in your endless abyss. “Just because it seems like a good idea doesn’t mean it’ll work out. What makes this time any different?”

You slid away from her, needing to breathe, you can’t think when she’s too close. Serendipity finds home into honey blues, working its magic until she finds purchase in your heart once again. You’d let her get too close, more than you should let her allow.

Abby, the heart.

You, the head.

The dreamer. The thinker. Forever intertwined by the deadly kiss of fate.

“But if it did? What if we did?”

Abby doesn’t want to beg, but she is. She learned her lesson the first time. She said nothing all those years ago, letting you take the relationship the two of you had by the reigns, your cruelty being the fatal blow to what the two of you had worked so hard to build. Naivety crushed the future right in front of her — the one she regularly dreams of.

Each what if connected like constellations in the sky, each one just as bright as the next, Abby can’t make of which she wants. But Abby has always known it to be true, this has always been it for her but you’re so afraid.

Still petrified to be loved.

“I can’t let myself go through it again, if we didn’t? I can’t just—” You begin pacing, trying to get yourself into a position to clear your mind. The hope she has, it could kill you in your sleep. “I fucked up, okay? Last night shouldn’t have happened. I needed something and I used you. Is that what you want to hear? Will that satisfy you enough?”

“I want the goddamn fucking truth, Cherry. Stop with the lies. Tell me you want this to end because you don’t love me anymore, or that you want to go on this book tour, not because you fucked up. I don’t care if you fucked me because you needed your clit sucked for the night. Tell me the truth, Cherry, please.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Abby chuckles maliciously, “Why? You don’t like to remember when you were in love, the only time you ever were happy, the only time you ever let anyone get close to you?”

She attempts to get closer to you but you dodge her and walk to the other side of the room.

“You’re quite literally running away from me. Anything but facing the truth, right?” Abby sighs into her hands. The muscles in her body are exhausted, her heart is over spent, and her mind is filled with you. Even if she doesn’t want it to be. “Do you think I want this? To feel like this? To put my heart on the line when you clearly show that you’ll discard it every damn time? Do you think this is enjoyable for me?”

“Then stop! I’m not asking you to, just let me leave, let me go.”

“Let the ring go.” Somehow, in your heat of emotion, you grabbed it back from her and didn't realize it had been placed back on your thumb. “You know it was my mom’s, how could you so selfishly keep this?”

“What?”

Fuck. Abby runs her hands through her hair, gripping so tightly her sunkissed knuckles turn white from nearly being pulled from the root.

“But you said this was—”

“I lied! I was eighteen and scared shitless, okay? I didn’t want you to—”

“You didn't want me to….?”

Abby sighs rubbing her hand over her face, a habit she seemed to pick up in your presence. “If I tell you, you’re just going to run.”

You grimace, tearing up as you look at the ring, it means so much to her and all this time she was perfectly fine with thinking you got rid of it. Abby never so much as asked for it back. But everything feels more final with the ring in hand, the shining promise of something more. But the naivety of youth chilled her bones, made her believe that love like this comes and goes. It goes. And goes. And goes.

It never comes.

“Do you want it back?” You dodge whatever omission she was about to let fall. It’s what you do best. Avoiding the future — she’s always been ominous, constantly you’re scared to believe in the faith of her undying love. The forgiveness of her heart pours like an overflowing well. Abby teeters you along the line of grace you don’t quite deserve.

“No.” Abby sighs before she brings herself close to you. “I want you back, Cherry. There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted as much as you. When you left, everyone told me it’s just because you're my first love. Time heals all, right? But it doesn’t. Despite your best efforts, I’ll always love you. You’re—”

You take a step closer to her, “I’m what?”

“You’re the love of my life. If you walk at that door, it’ll take the rest of my life to fill the gap you leave. But if you don’t love me, then please, put me out of my misery and just leave.”

Abby looks down at the wood floors, tears collecting in her eyes as she expects you to walk out the front door, leaving her in the dust. But the slam of her front door never comes, instead you sink down on your knees resting your head on her knee, waiting for her to look down at you.

“What?” Abby grunts.

“There was this cute, really nerdy blonde girl, she puked on prom night, crying over some straight girl and somehow I managed to fall in love with her despite all odds but you know what the real kicker is?” You intertwined her hands with her, your head tilting to the side as your dreamily looked into sunny-blues, sticking to you like honey,

“I never, ever stopped.”

#fic recs #abby #fluff #smut #angst #angst with a happy ending

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ivyyisbored22 · 2 months ago

Text

𝐒𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲—𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘹 (𝘧𝘦𝘮) 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

A Stray Kids one shot

Synopsis: You tend to remember the smallest things and dates which are of you and Chan, so you decided to surprise him with a homemade dinner on the date of when you both met for the first time. Except for, you didn't expect Chan to forget it, let alone react the way he did.

Warnings: Couple arguments. Use of strong language, a bit of angst & tears, Smut🔞, unprotected (make-up) sex, intimate, oral (f.receiving), pet names, brief mention of a tummy bulge (so size kink if you squint I guess?). Use of Y/N (but only twice).

Minors do not interact!!!

Note: I think I'm going through a phase rn, somehow I am ADDICTED to writing angst and tears— LMFAOOO @mrs-hwangh what have you done to me???

If this isn't your thing, you're more than welcome to skip it. Reblogs, likes, comments and feedbacks are always appreciated.

ɪ'ᴠᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴏꜰ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ɪᴛ ᴀ ᴍɪʟʟɪᴏɴ ᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ʙᴜᴛ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴘᴏᴛ ᴀ ᴍɪꜱᴛᴀᴋᴇ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴡʜᴇʀᴇ, ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ.

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𝑬𝑵𝑱𝑶𝒀!

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Your soft hums of your favourite song echoed quietly in the living room, smiling to yourself as you fiddled with a silver bow, wrapping a small box that contained a gift you bought for your boyfriend a few days ago.

Today was the day when you both met for the first time four years ago, in the same college, at the same coffee shop where he accidentally bumped into you and spilled his drink all over your notes and you never would have imagined that moment would lead to this.

To love. To Chan.

Your heart swelled at the memory, a fond chuckle escaping your lips. You had planned a simple evening, nothing too extravagant, just the two of you, sharing memories over a homemade dinner and the gift you picked out so lovingly. You knew how busy he was, but today mattered to you. It was the day everything began.

Once you had everything set, you waited for Chan to return home from work, your leg tapping on the floor and fingers playing with the hem of your dress.

Minutes passed to hours and you hadn't received any calls or texts from him, but you waited patiently. Maybe he was caught up at work. Maybe he forgot to check his phone. Still, you gave him the benefit of the doubt.

The sound of the door unlocking cut through your thoughts, and you quickly stood up, smoothing down your dress. Relief and excitement flickered in your chest as Chan walked in, rubbing the back of his neck, looking utterly exhausted.

His bag slumped onto the floor as he kicked off his shoes, barely glancing up at you. Your heart sank ever so slightly but you tried not to let that disappointment settle in.

“Hey,” you greeted softly, stepping forward. “Long day?”

He nodded, letting out a tired sigh. “Yeah. I’m drained.”

You swallowed, suddenly nervous. “I… I made dinner. And I got you something,” you said, gesturing to the neatly wrapped gift on the coffee table.

Chan barely spared it a glance, his brows furrowing slightly. “What’s the occasion?”

Your heart dropped, but you put on a soft smile. You couldn't get mad at him if he forgot it, even though you wished he didn't. That he didn't forget the date or not acknowledge the effort, the way you had been looking forward to this all day.

"You don’t remember?” Your voice came out quieter, trying to mask in a playful tone.

He sighed again, rubbing his forehead, looking as if he'd been asked questions in an interview. "Um no, why don't you tell me?"

The way his voice sounded made you feel like you got slashed with a blade, but you shoved that dramatic thought aside and walked closer to him, biting your lower lip in order to swallow the hard lump that had formed in your throat.

“It’s the day we met.” Your voice wavered slightly, the weight of unspoken emotions pressing down on you but you continued smiling softly. “Four years ago today.”

Chan exhaled, running a hand through his hair, frustration creeping into his features. “Babe, I’ve been swamped with work. I barely know what time it is.”

You blinked, his words stinging more than you expected. “I get that you’re busy, Chan. I really do. But this was important to me.”

He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Come on, don’t do this. It’s just a date. It’s not like an anniversary or anything.”

You took a small step back as if he had physically pushed you. You blinked up at him, trying not to let his words form the tears to gush up your eyes.

Your arms wrapped around yourself, hoping that would keep you steady. "I just thought this would mean something to you too."

His brows furrowed deeper, irritation creeping into his voice. "Of course it means something to me. But I don’t have the luxury of remembering every single date when I’m drowning in deadlines."

Your heart clenched, his words cutting deeper than you expected. "So, what, I'm just supposed to understand that I come second to everything else in your life? That it’s okay for you to forget something that mattered so much to me?"

Chan scoffed, shaking his head. "That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just a date."

"Just a date?" Your voice cracked, a slight tone of anger and heartbreak mixing in your chest. "It’s the day we met, Chan. The day everything started. I planned this for us. I waited for you, and you didn’t even think to text me back? Or check your phone?"

"I was working! I don’t have time to be glued to my phone every second!" His voice was sharper now, making you flinch hard, his frustration spilling over. "I come home exhausted, hoping to relax, and now I have to deal with this?!"

The venom in his voice made you shiver and you hugged yourself tighter. "Chan, please don't shout..."

"No, I mean you always do this. I get it, that you remember small things, but I just want an evening of peace after a long day at work."

Chan had rarely raised his voice, your throat tightened at his words, a dull ache forming in your chest. You took a shaky breath, forcing yourself to stay calm even though his tone made you feel like you were drowning.

“I’m not asking you to drop everything for me, Chan,” you said softly, voice trembling. “I just thought—” You swallowed hard, fingers gripping the fabric of your dress. “I thought maybe today would matter to you too.”

His jaw clenched, and he ran a frustrated hand through his curls, exhaling sharply. “Sure you did,” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “You always do this, Y/N. You put so much weight on things that I—”

He stopped himself, hesitating, but you already knew where he was going with this.

“That you what?” You challenged, your voice barely above a whisper. “That you don’t care?”

Chan looked at you then, eyes dark with exhaustion and irritation. “That I don’t have the mental space to deal with every single date, every little detail, every expectation you set for me without telling me.”

His words cut deeper and deeper, the sting of them making your eyes well up. You blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall.

“I never asked you to be perfect, Chan,” you whispered, voice thick with emotion. “I never expected you to remember every little thing. But this?”

You gestured weakly toward the dinner table, the untouched meal, the small, neatly wrapped gift that now felt like a stupid afterthought.

“It's the day we met for the first time, so it just meant as much to me as our anniversary.”

Chan’s lips parted slightly, his brows furrowing, but he said nothing. That silence, that hesitation, hurt more than his words.

Your fingers wrinkled your dress, feeling a chill despite the warmth of the apartment. “You know, I wasn’t even mad that you forgot. I just wanted to spend time with you.”

Chan let out a humorless chuckle, shaking his head. “You think that I don’t want to spend time with you? Do you know how exhausting it is to juggle everything, to be everywhere at once? And now, I come home and instead of just relaxing with you, I’m being guilt-tripped over a date I forgot?”

The sharp sting of his words left you breathless.

Guilt-tripping? That was what he thought this was? Your efforts, your love, your excitement, had all of it been reduced to you being an inconvenience to him?

Your lips parted, your throat constricting as a wave of emotions surged through you. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Chan,” you said, your voice wavering. “I just wanted you to remember. I wanted you to want this too.”

His expression flickered, something unreadable flashing across his face, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a heavy sigh. “I’m tired, okay? I’m so damn tired. I don’t have time to remember every little thing—”

“Every little thing?” you cut him off, your voice suddenly louder, cracking under the weight of your emotions.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. “I didn’t say it wasn’t important, I just—damn it, I forgot, okay? I’m human! I make mistakes!”

Your chest heaved as you stared at him, eyes stinging, heart breaking. “Forgetting is one thing,” you said, voice thick with unshed tears. “But the way you’re acting right now? Like I’m just another problem you have to deal with?”

You let out a shaky breath, your hands clenched at your sides. “That hurts more than you forgetting.”

Chan’s eyes widened slightly, the anger in his expression flickering for a brief moment. But the damage was done. The silence between you was heavy, suffocating, the walls closing in around you.

You shook your head, backing away from him. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Y/N…” he started, but you turned away from him.

“No. I get it. You’re tired. You need space. And I’m obviously asking for too much,” you said, your voice hollow. “So I’ll make it easy for you.”

With that, you turned on your heel, took your keys that were sitting on the coffee table and walked toward the door, grabbing your coat. Chan’s eyes darkened, his hand wrapped around your wrist. “Where are you going?”

You untangled yourself off his grip and slipped in your coat, brushing away the tear that slipped down your cheek with the back of your hand.

“Somewhere that doesn’t make me feel like I’m begging for your attention.”

His face fell, and for the first time that evening, you saw a flicker of realization in his eyes—as if he finally understood just how much he had hurt you.

“No, wait, please,” he said, reaching for you, but you pulled away before he could touch you.

You turned away and closed the door behind you, walking away as fast as you could to your car, driving back to your apartment.

Behind the door Chan grabbed fistfuls of his hair, grunting and growling under his breath as he fell on the plush couch.

His eyes caught the small, neatly wrapped gift that was sitting on the coffee table, he hesitated for a second but then opened it, his heart sank like a stone thrown in the ocean when he saw what was nestling inside.

His favourite bracelet he lost when we went on a business trip a few months ago. It was the exact same design and brand.

His fingers trembled as he picked up the bracelet, the silver catching the dim glow of the living room light. His throat tightened painfully as he turned it over in his hands, his vision blurring slightly.

And you… you had remembered. You had gone out of your way to find it, to replace something that meant so much to him, because that’s just the kind of person you were.

Chan exhaled sharply, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Fuck,” he whispered, the weight of his words from earlier slamming into him like a truck.

What had he done?

***

The next morning you woke up, exhausted, your vision blurry, nose stuffed and what felt like a dull headache creeping up your forehead. You groaned softly and walked into the bathroom, to find your state in a mess.

Disheveled hair, puffy cheeks with stained mascara, swollen eyes and lips. You had barely stepped inside your apartment before the dam broke, tears spilling freely as you sunk in your bed.

You didn't know at what time you reached home or when you had fallen asleep.

You hated arguing with Chan.

Sure you had a few disagreements once in a while but they were different. But this kind of argument; where it wasn’t just a misunderstanding, but something way deeper, made you question if you were the only one holding onto the pieces of your relationship while he let them slip through his fingers so easily.

You fixed yourself into the shower, letting the water wash away the fresh set of tears that began to run down your face. After a while you stepped out and changed into a comfortable pair of sweats and grabbed your phone, only to see a dozen calls and texts from Chan.

Your thumb hovered over the screen, heart pounding as you scrolled through the missed calls. Channie <3 (12).

The unread messages blurred together, but you caught glimpses of them as your breath hitched.

Channie <3 [1:12 AM]: Please, baby, pick up. Channie <3 [1:13 AM]: I know you’re mad. I know I fucked up. But please, don’t shut me out. Channie <3 [2:03 AM]: Are you home? Are you safe? Just… let me know you’re okay. That’s all I need right now.

Your fingers trembled as you scrolled further, his messages growing more frantic, more desperate.

Channie <3 [2:45 AM]: I can’t sleep knowing I hurt you like this.

Channie <3 [3:20 AM]: I love you. I love you so much. I don’t deserve you, but please tell me you’re okay.

Your chin wobbled as you closed your eyes and kept your phone face down on the nightstand, not knowing what to respond to him. You weren’t sure if you were ready to face him yet, if you could talk to him and not break all over again.

You walked out of your bedroom, to the kitchen to make yourself some coffee when the front door bell rang. You glanced at the clock hanging on your wall, wondering if you were expecting anyone in the morning, you sighed heavily and walked to the door, only to be greeted by someone that made you feel like you got pulled into the floor.

Outside stood Chan, his face masked with exhaustion and faint hints of dark circles under his eyes and messy hair as if he had been running his hand through it the entire night. He was holding a bag, what looked like it was from your favourite bakery and bouquet of flowers, his gaze locking in with yours, pleading you for a chance and forgiveness.

You attempted to close the door but Chan held it, interrupting you from shutting him out. “Sweetheart…” He started but before he could say anything, you left the door hanging and walked into the living room.

Chan hesitated at the doorway, gripping the bag and flowers tightly as he watched you walk away. He took a shaky breath and stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

The quiet of your apartment felt heavier than usual, like an invisible barrier had formed between the two of you. He placed the bag on the kitchen counter, setting the flowers beside it, before slowly following your retreating figure.

You kept your back to him, your arms crossed over your chest as you stood near the window, staring outside as if willing yourself to be anywhere but here.

“Baby…” Chan tried again, his voice softer this time. Apologetic.

You tensed but didn’t turn around.

He took a careful step forward. “Please, just—”

“Don’t,” you said, your voice a whisper, but it carried enough weight to stop him in his tracks.

Chan swallowed hard. He wanted to reach for you, to hold you, to tell you he was sorry in a way that would make up for last night. But the weight of the argument hung so heavily between you both, without sparing a glance at him, you went inside your bedroom.

The soft click of the door shutting behind you echoed louder than it should have, and Chan exhaled shakily, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

He had messed up. Badly.

His gaze flickered to the neatly wrapped pastries and the bouquet he had brought. He had stopped by your favorite bakery the moment they opened, hoping—praying—that it would mean something, that it would show you he was trying to make up for the way he reacted.

But he knew better. A box of pastries and a bouquet of flowers couldn’t, wouldn't erase the way he had hurt you.

With a tired sigh, he sank onto the couch, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared at the floor. He didn’t know how much time had passed, only that the silence in the apartment was suffocating.

He glanced toward your closed bedroom door, debating if he should give you more time or if he should go to you now.

But his heart won over his hesitation.

Slowly, he pushed himself up and walked toward your door, his footsteps hesitant but determined. He paused just outside, lifting a hand to knock, but stopped himself at the last second.

Instead, he carefully turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

You were sitting on the bed, your back facing him, silent sobs filling the room. As much as you wanted to hate him for the way he behaved, you simply couldn’t. His presence alone was enough to pull you over, but the heaviness of your emotions made it hard to think.

Chan’s heart ached at the sight and the sound of your sobs. You heard his footsteps, with a choked voice you said, “Chan, go away.”

He couldn’t go away like that. Not until he tells you how sorry he is and how much he regrets last night.

“Honey…”

Your shoulders shook harder with each breath, Chan made his way towards you and sat next to you, hesitating for a fraction of a second before his arms wrapped around you and pulled you flush to his chest. You couldn’t react, just stayed frozen in his embrace.

“Baby, my love, I’m so sorry…” He exhaled deeply. “I hate myself for the way I was last night. I hate that I made you feel like you weren’t important to me because, God, baby, you are everything to me.”

“I messed up,” he admitted, his voice thick with regret. “I was stressed, and I let it make me forget what really matters. I forgot us. And that’s not okay.”

You swallowed thickly, your body still stiff in his hold, unsure if you should let yourself sink into his warmth or resist the comfort you so desperately craved. His arms tightened around you, his heartbeat pounding in a frantic rhythm under your ear.

“I should have come home and held you,” Chan murmured, his breath warm against your temple. “I should have kissed you and told you how much I love you instead of making you feel like you were asking for too much.”

Your lips parted in a shaky exhale, the weight of his words pressing against your fragile heart.

“You never ask for too much,” he whispered, his voice raw, filled with self-reproach. “You only ever ask for me,” his throat flexed, “and I failed you.”

A fresh wave of tears spilled from your eyes, but this time, you weren’t alone in your grief. Chan pressed a lingering kiss to your temple, as if he was trying to kiss away the pain he had caused.

He gently turned you in his embrace, urging you to face him, his hands cupping your cheeks as he tilted your face up to his. Your vision was blurry, so you closed your eyes, unsure if you could look at him.

His thumbs brushed away the tears clinging to your skin, his touch featherlight, reverent. “Please look at me, sweetheart.”

And then you did. And what you saw made your breath hitch.

Pure, unfiltered love—wrapped in sorrow, wrapped in desperation. His dark eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, rimmed with exhaustion and regret. His lips were slightly chapped, parted as if he had a thousand apologies to spill but didn’t know where to start. He looked just as broken as you felt.

His mouth brushed on your forehead, lips trembling as he whispered, “There is nothing in this world that matters more to me than you, baby.”

Your chin trembled. “Then why did I feel like I was alone in this?”

Chan inhaled sharply, his expression crumbling. “You’re not,” he said instantly, his voice urgent. “I swear, you’re not. I just—” He exhaled heavily, his fingers trembling as they traced over the curve of your jaw.

“I shouldn’t have taken out my stress from work on you, when you only wanted to spend time with me on a day that I should have remembered too. I’m really sorry baby. I can’t lose you over this.”

Your gaze dropped to his lips, then back to his eyes, searching, wavering. His words poured out so thick with emotion, unfiltered and raw, it made your chest tighten so hard, it hurt.

“Tell me now,” his fingers brushed away the faint tear stains from your face, “Do you want me to go?”

Your breath and words were stuck in your throat. Part of you wanted to let your pain fester a little longer so he could understand just how much last night had hurt. But the way he was looking at you, so full of remorse, it broke through the wall you had tried to keep up.

Chan was here. And he was trying.

The sincerity of his voice and his presence thawed the ice that built around your heart overnight, you couldn't stay angry at him for another moment longer. Because you knew the love you had for him could overshadow any kind of pain.

Your fingers reached up, hesitant, before threading through his soft curls. He sucked in a breath at the touch, his eyes fluttering shut, his grip on you tightening.

Time was frozen, breaths were stolen and before you could stop yourself, your arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him flush against you. “Don't hurt me again…” You chokingly whispered.

“Never sweetheart. I won't ever do that again.” He let out a shaky breath against your neck, his hands running up your back, molding your body to his like he was terrified you’d disappear if he let go.

“Let me make it up to you,” he whispered, his voice so low and vulnerable that it sent a shiver down your spine.

His lips brushed over your cheek first, barely there, as if he was asking for permission. Then he kissed the corner of your mouth, lingering and waiting. “Please.”

And when you didn’t pull away, he finally pressed his lips to yours.

Soft and hesitant.

Not demanding, not rushed, just a quiet plea wrapped in tenderness.

His lips molded against yours like a silent confession, staying there as if he wanted to memorize the way you felt against him.

His hands moved up your sides, thumbs tracing absent patterns over your skin. He wasn’t taking, he was giving, pouring all of his love into every press of his himself, every stroke of his fingertips.

Your body melted into his instinctively, your hands tightening in his hair as you deepened the kiss, letting yourself drown in the warmth of him.

He made a quiet sound against you, almost like a sigh of relief, as if he had been waiting for this, for you to accept him, to let him back in as he laid you on your back and toyed with the waistband of your pants.

He had barely touched you and you were already on liquid fire. Blood coursed through your veins when he pulled them down, the chilly air making you shiver at the contact of your heated skin.

“Chan…” Your voice came out in a breathy whisper, half moan and half command, when his lips danced over the soft skin of your thighs.

“Hmm?” when he pressed there, you couldn't help but sigh completely. “What is it honey?” He coaxed, the huskiness of his voice that made it hard to think. Did you want him to stop? Or did you want him to go on?

“I…,” He smirked against you as he made his way up, a path that he knew like the back of his hand. He spread your legs apart, the glistening sight before him reawoke a rush of possessiveness in him.

“I hate fighting with you.” Chan whispered against your flesh, voice raw and aching.

Your fingers found his hair, tugging him closer as if that alone could answer him. His breath fanned over your core, and his thumbs rubbed soothing circles into your thighs.

“You’re my world,” he admitted, looking up at you, eyes dark but filled with something deeper than lust. “And I want to give you everything. I'm sorry for ruining last night baby.”

The words sent a warmth spiraling through you, melting away the remnants of your argument.

He brushed a kitten kiss right on your swollen clit, and your body responded instantly, arching toward his touch. He took his time, tracing delicate patterns with his tongue, exploring you with a reverence that left you breathless.

His hands kept you steady, but the way he worshipped you made you feel as if you were floating. You couldn't help but squirm, soft moans spilled from your lips, and when you murmured his name.

This wasn’t about just sex. It was about him making up for every harsh word he said, erasing any distance that had carved its way between you both over the past 12 hours.

His mouth moved over you like he had all the time in the world, savoring every reaction, every soft gasp that spilled from your throat. His hands, rough and calloused, held you with the gentleness of a man afraid to break something precious.

“Cha—nhg,” You whimpers didn't slow him down. It only made him go faster and faster, tongue flicking and licking with an agonizing pressure.

He groaned against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through your veins. You attempted to pull his head away from your pulsing core but he wouldn't budge.

“I'm not done.” He looked up from your pussy, chin and lips swollen and glistening with your arousal.

He dove back in with a renewed, hungry pace, his nose nudging against your clit, the warmth shooting up to every inch of your body. He couldn't get enough of how you tasted, how you moaned and screamed only for him. If he could, he would stay right were he was forever.

The band in your lower belly knotted tighter and tighter, had you writhing and bucking your hips, it was on the edge of snapping

And then you surrendered to him. Your orgasm left you gasping, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes and only his name escaping your lips, Chan held you firmly as he helped you ride it out.

He didn't let you go for a second as he sucked and licked your pussy splurting with arousal like he was on the verge of starvation, until he left you boneless but content beneath him.

Slowly, he made his way up your body, removing your top and his mouth hovering your hips, across the plane of your stomach, up the valley between your breasts. Each of it was an apology, a whispered promise against your skin.

“Baby,”—smooch—“fuck you're so sweet when you,”—smooch—“come on my face.” He said between kisses and gentle nipping on your sensitive, peaking buds that rebuilt the anticipation.

Soon enough every piece of clothing was discarded until it was only the fiery sparkles of your sweat misted bodies flying between you both. He shifted, positioning himself between your legs.

The tip of his cock nudged your nub softly before entered you slowly, filling you inch by inch, watching your face for every reaction. You gasped, your hands clutching at his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. Chan let out a shuddering breath, his forehead pressed to yours.

Your arms wrapped around his neck, holding him close as he started to move. His pace was slow, deliberate, each thrust sending a fresh wave of pleasure crashing over you, but it was more than that.

It was a silent conversation, an absolution, a way of reminding each other that no fight, no disagreement, could ever take this away from you.

You pulled him in deeper and deeper, his cock twitched hard inside of you, the rhythmic slapping of skin against skin, sweat and groans soaked the air.

His eyes fell down to where you both joined, what he saw drove him out of his mind. A soft but visible movement in your tummy.

“Shi— fuck.”

Your eyes fluttered open when he held your hand and brought it over your tummy where you felt the bulge that was moving in and out of you.

“Feel that?” He pounded into you that made you arch your back, digging your nails into his skin. “D’you feel that baby?”

You nodded, out of breath, mouth falling open until the cries of pleasure consumed you whole, the feel of the bulge just spurring you on more.

His hands roamed your body, mapping familiar paths, his lips never straying far from yours. He whispered sweet nothings against your skin, words of love and devotion, apologies and reassurances.

“I love you,” he murmured, his voice hoarse but steady.

You smiled softly for the first time after the long hours, tilting your head to kiss him once more. “I love you too.”

And just like that, the fight was forgotten. Not because it didn’t matter, but because what you had together was always stronger.

“You're squeezing me baby,” his orgasm rushed fast and threatened to take over him, climbing up his spine and snapping his restraints.

“Chan I'm… I'm going to come,”

And your release finally crashed over you again, it wasn’t just pleasure—it was catharsis.

A loud cry tore off your throat as you flooded around his cock, shaking and moaning, Chan followed seconds after slamming into you in one last thrust, burying himself deep with a breathless groan, his body caging over yours.

The post sex high lingered but he didn’t move or pull out. He stayed wrapped around you, pressing lazy kisses to your temple, your shoulder, anywhere he could reach. His fingers traced slow patterns on your skin, grounding you both in the quiet aftermath.

“Do you forgive me?” He asked softly, his fingers brushing away a few strands of hair.

You smiled cheekily, fingers running through his damp sweat hair, “No,” you said lowly that made his eyes widen in disbelief.

His reaction made a laugh bubble up your throat, you pulled him down onto your mouth letting your tongue slip past his lips and had him melt all over again.

“Yes, I forgive you Chan.” You said pulling back, chest heaving and content.

He chuckled deeply, hugging you tightly, the lingering amusement from your playful teasing was still evident in the crinkle of his nose.

Then, with a slow, deliberate exhale, he shifted, reluctantly pulling away from your warmth.

You watched him as he retrieved a washcloth from the bathroom, wiped you clean before he reached for his pants, discarded somewhere on the floor, and retrieved something small from the pocket.

When he turned back to you, he held a tiny velvet box in his hands.

Your heart skipped a beat.

Chan hesitated, his thumb brushing over the soft fabric of the box as if gathering the courage to speak. Then, with a slow inhale, he flicked it open.

Inside, nestled against the velvet lining, were two delicate rings, a simple silver band with a tiny, shimmering stone embedded at its center. It wasn’t flashy, nor extravagant, but it was beautiful in a way that felt so intimate and personal.

Your eyes flickered from the ring to his face, your heart hammering against your ribcage. “Chan…?”

He let out a quiet chuckle, but you could tell he was nervous. His free hand found yours, fingers lacing together as he held you close.

“I’ve been carrying this around for weeks, waiting for the right moment. And I—” He sighed laughing, shaking his head. “I guess last night was the moment but…”

Chan took a steadying breath, his fingers tracing the edge of the velvet box. “I know I can be a pain in the ass sometimes,” he admitted, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. “I push too hard, tease too much. And when we fight, I say things I don’t mean.”

You shook your head, reaching out to cup his cheek. He leaned into your touch, closing his eyes for a brief second before continuing.

“It’s not… a proposal,” he clarified quickly, though his lips curled into that familiar teasing smirk. “Not yet, at least. But it’s a promise.” He squeezed your hand, eyes searching yours with a raw kind of vulnerability.

“A promise that no matter how much we fight, no matter how many times I mess up… I’ll always choose you. I’ll always come back to you. If you’ll have me.”

Your throat felt tight, emotions swelling so intensely in your chest that you could barely breathe. “Oh Channie,”

His smirk faltered, concern flashing across his face. “Is it too much?” he asked hesitantly. “I know we just—”

You shook your head quickly, cutting him off. “No,” a shaky laugh escaped you . “It’s perfect.”

Relief flooded his features, and for the first time, you saw the nervous tension completely drain from his shoulders.

“Then… will you wear it?” he asked softly, lifting the ring from the box.

“Of course, I will.” You nodded, biting your bottom lip and holding out your hand, he slipped the cool metal onto your finger, the fit perfect, like it was meant to be there all along.

You took the other one from the box and slid it onto his finger with the same reverence, looking up at him through damp lashes.

“This is my promise to you,” you echoed, voice soft but sure. “That even when you’re a pain in the ass sometimes, I’ll still choose you. Every time.”

Chan let out a breathless chuckle, his head tilting slightly as he gazed at you like you hung the stars.

“God, I love you,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion.

You didn’t get the chance to respond before his mouth collided with yours again, slow, deep, and filled with a devotion that made your heart flutter in the best way possible.

And as you fell back on the mattress, tangled in each other yet again, the silver bands glinting under the soft glow of the morning light filtering through the window, you knew; there was no one else for you but him.

Enjoyed this one shot? Consider checking my masterlist for more. Requests? Check 𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚜 (& 𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚜)

Thank you for reading!

xx,

Ivyy

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rosesareredrosa · 8 months ago

Text

Exactly What I Needed

Theo Nott x fem reader

Summary: based on this ask <33

w/c: 945

a/n: Why is medical school so hard?? literally, i am rotting in bed with assignments everywhere send requests

You’d always known Theo wasn’t the type to openly crave affection. He had his moments—fleeting as they were—where he’d pull you close, bury his face in the crook of your neck, and let out a sigh that told you he needed you. But for the most part, his love was quieter, tucked into stolen glances or the brush of his fingers against yours in passing.

You didn’t mind. You loved him enough to make up for the gaps he left behind. That’s why you didn’t think much of it when you reached out to him one evening, wrapping your arms around him from behind as he sat at his desk, papers and textbooks scattered around. You nuzzled into his shoulder, pressing a soft kiss against the side of his neck. "How’s it going?" you asked gently.

His body stiffened in your embrace, and without warning, he pulled away. "Can you not?" His tone was sharp, cutting through the air like a knife.

You blinked, taking a step back, confused. "What?"

Theo sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "I just… I need space, okay? You’re being… clingy."

That word felt like a slap to the face. Clingy. The air between you shifted immediately, and you pulled your arms close to your chest as if trying to physically protect yourself from the impact of his words.

"I didn’t realize I was bothering you," you said quietly, feeling a tight knot form in your stomach.

"Well, you are," Theo snapped, his irritation flaring. "I’m already stressed enough without you hanging off me every second."

You swallowed the lump in your throat, trying to keep your voice steady. "Okay."

Without another word, you turned on your heel and walked out of the room, feeling the sting of tears prick at the back of your eyes. You couldn’t believe how cold he’d been. And worse, how easily he had brushed you off as if your affection was some sort of burden.

For the next few days, you gave Theo exactly what he asked for—space. You stopped greeting him with hugs, stopped reaching out for his hand, stopped slipping into his side on the couch when you watched TV together. The house became a strange, quiet place, filled with a tension neither of you wanted to acknowledge. Theo was so focused on his work that he didn’t seem to notice at first, but then something shifted.

At first, it was subtle. He started glancing over at you during meals, as if expecting you to say something, to touch him. But you didn’t. You kept your distance, heart aching every time he looked at you with those confused eyes. Then came the moments where you’d walk past him in the hallway, and his fingers would twitch, as if he wanted to reach out but couldn’t figure out how.

It wasn’t until a few nights later, when you climbed into bed without saying a word to him, that Theo realized something was really wrong. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, unable to sleep as the weight of his own actions pressed down on him.

He turned to you, his voice soft, hesitant. "Y/N?"

You hummed in acknowledgment, still facing away from him.

There was a long pause, and then he sighed. "Have I… have I done something to upset you?"

You swallowed hard, the rawness of your emotions rising in your throat. "You told me I was being clingy. I’m just giving you the space you asked for."

Theo flinched at the reminder of his harsh words, guilt flooding his chest. He had been so wrapped up in his own stress, so overwhelmed by the pressure he was under, that he hadn’t realized how cruel he’d been. And now, here you were, doing exactly what he’d asked, and it was killing him.

"I didn’t mean it," Theo said quietly, his voice strained. "I was stressed, and I took it out on you. But that’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t have said that."

You stayed silent for a moment, your heart pounding as his words sank in. Part of you wanted to forgive him, to turn around and let him hold you like he always did when he realized he’d messed up. But the hurt still lingered, and you weren’t sure you could just brush it off like it hadn’t happened.

"You can’t just say things like that, Theo," you whispered, your voice trembling. "It hurts."

He shifted closer to you, hesitantly placing a hand on your arm. "I know. I’m sorry." His thumb rubbed small, apologetic circles against your skin, and you could hear the regret in his voice, thick and heavy. "I don’t want space from you. I need you. I always need you."

Your breath hitched, and you finally turned to face him. His eyes were soft, filled with a kind of vulnerability that Theo rarely showed. It tugged at your heartstrings, and despite everything, you could see how much he wanted to make it right.

"I’m not just something you can push away when things get tough," you said softly, but firmly. "I’m here because I love you. But I can’t keep putting myself out there if you’re just going to shut me down."

Theo’s face crumpled slightly, and he leaned in closer, his forehead resting against yours. "I know," he whispered, his breath warm against your skin. "I promise I’ll do better. I don’t want to push you away."

You stayed there for a moment, the two of you breathing in sync, the tension between you slowly easing as the apology hung in the air. His arms wrapped around you then, gently this time, like he was afraid you might slip away if he held you too tight.

After a few moments, you let yourself melt into his embrace, allowing him to pull you back into the warmth you’d missed. "I missed you," Theo murmured, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. "I’m sorry I made you feel like you were too much when you were exactly what I needed."

You exhaled softly, your head resting against his chest as you felt his heartbeat against your cheek. "Just… don’t do it again."

"I won’t," he promised, his voice resolute. "I swear."

And for the first time in days, the distance between you began to fade, replaced by the quiet comfort of knowing that you were still the most important thing to him, even when he didn’t always know how to show it.

#slytherin x reader #slytherin boys #theodore nott #theo nott x reader #theodore nott x reader #fluff #theodore nott imagine #angst with a happy ending #theodore nott x you

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goorgeousz · 18 hours ago

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so i have a request or idea but i'm sorry to say i didn't think about her in the shower, i thought about her while i was crying lmao🫠🥲

a few days ago i read a book where the protagonist's father treated her terribly:( and her partner tells his father'don't talk to my wife like that' and they leave, he comforts her and is the best husband ever written.🥹🥹

so all I thought about was my big, angry man ✨Hotch✨ maybe they go to a family dinner for the first time and see how the reader's family treats them, belittling their work and stuff like that, until at one point they say like 'we never know how she got someone so as interesting as you Aaron' and he just explodes because cute man defends his lady and he's just grotesque and all to defend her and she's crying because she loves Hotch too much and that he saw so much in her It means a lot because she has never really felt like this. 😭🤍🤍

i hope this helps you, it felt better in my head than when i wrote it.🥹🥹♥️

i love what you do, sending you love!

xoxoxo

to be loved is to be known | aaron hotchner

pairing: bf!aaron hotchner fem!gf!reader

summary: reader didn’t want aaron to meet her family. after one dinner he understands why.

content/tw: established relationship, crying, reader has siblings, toxic family, angst, fluffy ending, reader’s mother makes comments about her weight

word count: 3k

a/n: I absolutely loved your request, best believe I dropped all of my WIPs to write this one (sorry not sorry). I hope whatever reason you were crying about it’s over, but if it isn’t, then I hope this can warm your heart a little. Thank you so much for your request and your kind words!!! Sending much much much love, hugs and kisses!!

all hotch tag: @winyourheartemma

dividers by @uzmacchiato

masterlist <3

You weren’t hoping for a car accident. You weren’t hoping for your boyfriend’s phone to start ringing with a new and very urgent case.

But as you sat in the passenger seat of your boyfriend’s car on the way to your childhood house, you couldn’t help but wish something – anything – got in the way.

It was only a few days prior when Aaron, your boyfriend of almost 7 months, decided to drop the bomb. The ‘I’ve never met your family’ bomb. And later that day, when your mother called you (like she did every Tuesday night) he was with you. He was comfortably seated on your couch, staring at you with puppy eyes as you had the weekly catch-up with your mom (which resumed in talking your ear off about whatever stupid subject was on her mind). So, you couldn’t help but offer a family dinner to introduce them to your boyfriend, to which she, for the first time in a few months, was actually happy and excited about.

The regret hit it like a truck at the exact moment he walked out your door. But there was no way of coming back now, after it was all set up. Aaron seemed actually excited about meeting your family, and you understood that this was probably a big deal for him. In general, actually. It was a big step in a relationship, you recognize. And it’s not like you weren’t ready for that step, you and him were probably living together by now. It was that you didn’t want to pop the perfectly healthy bubble you both created.

And family dinners were always… stressful.

You could’ve just explained that to him. Aaron, being the perfectly polite and respectable man that he was, would understand immediately. But you didn’t want to be the whiny immature little girl who couldn’t deal with problems. You were an adult, you paid your own bills, you had your own place. And he was the Unit Chief of the BAU, a title that on its own raised expectations. You couldn’t be the FBI bossman’s girlfriend and stress about your mom calling out your weight, or about your father criticizing your job. And if this wasn’t enough, Aaron was amazing. He was the most kind, loving and appreciative man you’ve ever met. You wanted to be good for him. So if you had to endure a few hours with your family, then be it. He was worth it.

And selfishly, you wanted to brag about dating him to your family. Yes, dad, mom. I’ve made it. Suck it.

When the day came, saying you were stressed was an understatement. Aaron sat quietly on your bed watching you change your outfit a handful of times, try at least three hairstyles and do a full face of make-up twice. He didn’t say a word about it. Unless when he complimented you, to which he did evey time.

You didn’t cry, which was always a good sign.

You held the flowers and the wine he brought while he drove. The forty-seven minutes drive rode without music. He found it strange, because you insisted on blasting your playlists even when the drive wasn’t long enough for a single song (when it happened, he always made sure to drive extra slow to make sure you sang every word and drummed every note of it).

If he noticed you shifting your position (every two minutes), or you rechecking your makeup on the rearview mirror (every red light), or you applying your lipgloss (three times and once more when you got there), he didn’t say anything.

Just before you reached the handle to open the door, he turned to you, reaching over the console to grab your hand.

“Is everything ok?” you huffed a laugh at his question, leaning over and giving him a peck on the lips.

“They are gonna fall in love with you, Aaron. Just like I did.” you said, honestly. He scanned your eyes and when he made sure you were being honest (he always knew when you lied, that’s why you came up with a method of being evasive everytime you didn’t want to tell the truth).

Squeezing your hand one last time, he stepped out of the car, quickly making his way towards your door. He took the flowers and the wine off your arms, helping you get off the seat and walking with you up the front stairs.

Before you knocked you turned to face him, a rush of courage running through your veins with being so close to the house.

“Listen, before we get in…”

Whatever you were about to confide in him got interrupted by the front door opened. Your mother stood there, with a tight smile she reserved to you, her beloved daughter.

“I thought it was you, my dear. You must be Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner. It’s a pleasure finally meeting you.” she cheered, standing her hand. He gave her a polite smile.

“Just, Aaron, please. The pleasure is all mine, Ma’am.”

“Come in, please. Honey, will you please finish up the kitchen?” she asks, rushing your boyfriend inside without giving you a second glance.

Aaron chased after your eyes, worriedly, but you just dismissed him, winking and mouthing a ‘Told you.’

You quickly made your way towards the kitchen, your body remembering all too well how to walk those corridors. Just like always, you finished off dinner, making sure the dishes were done and everything was in its place while you heard the laughter of the rest of them in the living room.

“There she is, my beautiful baby girl.” your father cooed, standing up on his seat next to Aaron when you walked in and approaching you to hug you “We were just showing Aaron here your child pictures.” he spoke, laughing.

You felt your cheeks burn in embarrassment, biting hard on your inside cheeks to keep from complaining. No mature woman would throw a tantrum over a child photo album.

“She hated pictures. We tried to collect memories, you know, Aaron?” your mom recited, showing a sequence of pictures “But she just didn’t accept it. Always grumpy, always turning away. You got yourself a hard one.” she laughed, playfully pushing his shoulder.

He stared at the pictures, somehow amazed. Your heart raced at the smile growing on his face (like it always did). He held one photo, your least favorite one. Your face was puffy with crying, your hair wildly flying everywhere. You had your mouth open like you were saying something (probably begging them to stop), and your braces shone against the flash of the camera. Your clothes were clearly not your size, your posture curved like you were trying to turn into a ball.

You hated that picture with all of your being, but your parents kept showing them to everyone who dared to stop by. Aaron held it close to your face, his eyes with nothing but found as he said

“So your eyes have always been this shiny. I’ve always wondered.” you smiled at him, the warmth of his love for you never failing to make you feel at home.

“Well, let’s eat before the food gets cold, right?” your mother announced, rushing everyone into the dining room.

It all went surprisingly well (at least as well a dinner with your parents could go).

“This is delicious, Mrs.” Aaron complimented, after your mother refilled his plate.

“Thank you, dear. Do you cook, Aaron?” she asked, dragging his name as if she was enjoying being that close to an FBI agent.

“I can get by.”

“He’s lying. Aaron is an amazing cook.” you interrupted, nudging him with a proud smile.

“We figured, right, darling?” she asked your father “I noticed the moment she started eating more. Her puffy cheeks can’t deny it! Just like when she was my baby, following me everywhere.” your mother cooed, leaning over to your chair and pinching your cheek.

For the first time that evening Aaron looked absolutely mortified. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, anything, but nothing came out. He didn’t know where to begin. It would be funny seeing him all flabbergasted if it weren’t for the ache on your heart from your mother’s words.

Whoever said that time heals everything is full of shit.

Just like that, your father changes the subject for your teenage stories: your least favorite subject in the entire world.

“I’ll tell you what, Aaron. You’re a brave one. We knew it from the one: she’s a hard one.” your father pointed at you with his chin, smiling like he was complimenting you.

“What do you mean?” your boyfriend asked, sounding genuinely confused.

You could see right through his act. The way his knuckles went white at how hard he gripped the silverware, the muscle on his jaw flexing like he was struggling to keep tightly shut. You wanted to kiss his cheeks until his dimples started showing again.

“Oh, you know. Don’t take me the wrong way, we love our grumpy baby girl.” and then, he turned his attention to you “Take it easy on him, sweetheart. He’s a good one, you won’t want him running away. Don’t make it so hard for him.”

Aaron stepped up, interrupting before any other subject got introduced and he lost his chance.

“Loving your daughter is the easiest and most effortless thing I’ve ever done.” he said, with a slight frown.

He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t trying to make you feel better. He was stating a fact. He was saying it so sure of himself, that made your parents seem crazy not to feel the same way.

You bit back a smile, bumping your knee against him. He did it back. ‘Thank you.’ ‘I got you.’

“Of course you say that.” your father laughed like he told an inside joke “Look at your job. Speaking of which, we want to hear everything about it.”

And then your mother started rambling about a few cases she watched on the news, asking details and making all kinds of questions, to which Aaron made sure to answer evasively enough to not break protocol, but making sure to spill some uneventful details to distract them. Your heart swelled with love every time he directed his attention towards you, asking details he “forgot” but told you in private, just to include you (on dinner with your family in your childhood home).

“I want to take a moment to appreciate you being here, Aaron.” your mother started, beaming at him “I know you are a very busy man, and I hope it didn’t mess your schedule up.”

“No, I really wanted to come. Thank you for having me.”

She just dismissed him with a wave of his hand “I can only imagine how hard it must’ve been to make time to be here with us. It’s very important for our family. I say this because our other children all also have very important jobs, and unfortunately weren’t able to make it in such short notice.” she looked at him apologetically. Aaron only stared back, once again too stunned to speak. Your mother looked back at you, throwing a wink and a lopsided smile “The perks of not having big responsibilities.”

“That’s not…” Aaron’s speech got interrupted right away. You tried not to sigh too loudly.

“There’s something I want to do.” your father announces, clasping his hand together with an excited smile.

Your mother gasped “Do you think it’s time, my dear?”

“Absolutely, darling. Wait here, you two.”

You weren't sure what was about to happen, but you were sure it couldn’t be good.

What an euphemism.

A couple minutes later your father gets back with a champagne, sparkly and expensive. Your face falls at its sight. You bite your cheek not to cry.

Your mother stands up right next to him, and they look at you like they were about to make an oscar-winner level of speech.

“When our children were babies, we bought each of them one of those.” he lifts the bottle “We kept them with all of our love, waiting to pop them open when the moment came. And today, it's time for our final bottle. We had promotions, graduations, admissions. It makes me emotional to think how long we’ve come. When our baby was just seven, she had a dream. She wanted to find a loving and rich husband and live as a princess.” he chuckled, raising his hands in apology “Now, I do not want to jinx it, but I do think…”

“That’s so unbelievably disrespectful.” Aaron spat.

Silence.

More silence.

Your father clears his throat.

“Perdon me?” your mother tries.

“The entire evening I watched both of you mistreat her, sugarcoating it with a half-hearted compliment. It’s very clear to me that none of you value her as the woman she is, and there’s only one reason: you don’t know her. And aren’t even slightly interested in doing it." His tone was harsh and straightforward, glaring daggers at your parents. They seemed small and insignificant in front of the anger boiling over Aaron’s eyes. “It’s impressive to me how you don’t even realize how poorly you’ve been treating her. She’s the smartest, kindest, most selfless and talented woman I know, and you two have the audacity to pop up a champagne as if her biggest accomplishment in life is getting a boyfriend?” he chuckles darkly “I’m incredibly proud and sorry at the same time at how immune she is to your behavior. But I’m not, and let me say this loud and clear: I will not, under no circumstances, tolerate anyone treating my girlfriend like that. Anyone.”

He said, his eyes fulminating them. With a short nod, Aaron stood up and walked himself out the door, not waiting for anyone to lead him out. You followed suit behind him, not even sparing a glance to your parents.

The two of you drove silently all the way back to his place, without not much more than a word. Your mind raced with thoughts, your whole life passing through your mind like a movie, so many things you thought were normal. So many memories, so many feelings. You were nowhere near comprehending everything, but it was a start. You could see it more clearly now.

Aaron locked the door after you got in, and you heard him sigh.

“Listen, honey, I’m so sorry…” he interrupted himself when he heard you sniff. He touched your shoulder, aching to hold you close, but now knowing if that’s what you want “Are you crying? I apologize, it wasn’t my place…”

This time, you were the one interrupting him. You turned around and threw yourself on him, burying your face on his chest and crying your eyes out. His breathing deepened, kissing the top of your head and stroking your hair.

You had no idea how much time you spent like that, but eventually he picked you up with ease and sat down on the couch with you curled up on his lap.

After a while, when your sobbing toned down to silent tears, you glanced up at him.

“Thank you, Aaron. I’ve never felt so seen in my entire life.” he held you closer, like he wanted to keep you close to his heart forever, protecting you from every possible harm.

“At first, I thought you didn’t want me to meet your family because you weren’t there yet. Relationship wise.” he began.

You pulled yourself away from his chest, still seated on his lap but shifting to face him “Not at all. I just didn’t think they deserved you.”

He gave you a pointed look “They don’t deserve you.” He stared deeply into your eyes, as if he wanted to make sure you understood “The very first thing you said to me when you first met was that you were complicated.”

Aaron took a deep breath, watching your eyes like he finally completed the puzzle. “You always seemed ready for me to leave you, always made sure to look understanding. Like you believed I would give up on you, and it would be only the right thing to do. You always mentioned, between a joke and another, that you were a problem, a burden. That you didn’t deserve me, like it isn’t the other way around.” your gaze fell to your hands, the weight of being seeing hard on you.

“Aaron…” you whispered, your voice weak from all the crying. He gently grabbed your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes. To see every emotion he felt towards you. He kissed your chin, each of your cheeks, where you probably had tear strains. He kissed your swollen eyes, your makeup defined smudged. He kissed your forehead, your nose and your lips, taking extra long there. When he made sure you were paying attention, he pulled back and kept speaking.

“I remember thinking what on earth made someone like you believe that. The thought consumed me. I needed to know, needed to understand where all that came from. You know, profiler.” he joked, which made you laugh weakly.

“And somehow you missed the reason why I didn’t take you to meet my parents sooner.” you teased. He rolled his eyes.

“In our line of work, when we end up in a case that is, for some reason, personal to us, the protocol is to step back. Do you know why?” you shook your head “Because love can cloud your judgement. It certainly did mine.”

“Careful, agent Hotchner. You might make me think you’re in love with me or something.” you joked. He smiled, giving you another kiss.

“I am. Desperately so. And apart from what you think, it’s not difficult. I can’t imagine a life where I met you and didn’t fall in love with you. It’s the most natural thing for me.” you press your lips together to keep them from shaking, as your eyes filled with tears “Do you realize you’ve absorbed their disturbing opinions of you? You keep repeating them to yourself like a mantra, like it's a fact. I always wondered why you think so lowly of yourself. It’s now clear.”

“I hate that.”

He kissed the tip of your nose.

“ I’ll tell you what: we’re on this together.”

“On what?” you gave him a puzzling look.

“We’re breaking down those walls, brick by brick. Every single lie they made you believe was true, we’re tearing it all apart.”

“Ugh, this sounds like a hard job.” you muttered.

“It’s not. In the slightest.” he disagreed immediately “Thank you, honey. Thank you for letting me see that part of your life. Thank you for allowing me to love you, and for loving me back. You amaze me more each day, and I’ll make it my personal mission to make you see it too.” His words were low and serious, not made to impress. Made to let you know, to make you believe.

“Even if it takes your whole life?” you asked, trying to make it sound like a joke to mask your insecurity.

It would be a long way to go, but the love flooding over his eyes was a great first step. “Especially if it takes my whole life.”

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