#Chicken Run Fun Pack

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: GameSpot TV - I Am A Diablosaurus

Those giants are up to something...

(4GTV - STREAM WHAT YOU PLAY!)

[cherry-leclerc]

ruined all my plans ☆ cl16

genre: wolff!reader, secret relationship, humor, enemies to lovers (?? depends how you see it ??), forbidden romance

word count: 6.4k

Toto creates a “hands off” rule over his daughter for all the drivers on the grid. Too late, as it appears Charles might’ve already weasled his way into your heart a long time ago.

or

Plot line of schematization that runs along George, Carmen, Lily and Alex to figure out who you’re busy hooking up with. All bets are on.

nsfw warning under the cut!

18+...pentrative sex (f and m), biting

inspired by this and this !

One could argue and say that you’re old enough to make your own decisions, and while everyone around you might see that as true, there’s only one person who would disagree.

“I’m being serious.” Your dad walks away without further comment. Chasing after him like a little girl, you find it almost impossible to keep up with him and his long strides. You pant.

“Why would any of this cause an issue?”

Toto comes to a sudden stop as you bump into his back. You let out a slight umph before putting on your brave face. His heels turn as he looks down at you. “Because I said so.” Leaning down he plants a kiss on your forehead before walking away. You scoff as you click your tongue.

Both your dad and yourself had decided it would be a fun idea if you tagged along for some races of the new F1 season since you haven’t for quite a while, but the moment he noticed the way the grid grew nervous, flirtatious, and some even with tongues hanging out, he regretted it. 

You had been bickering back and forth when he broke the news to you that you would be flying back home as soon as possible. If teleportation existed I would’ve already sent your ass away, he stated earlier as you glared angrily.

“You know this isn’t a proper excuse to just send me away. I’ve behaved! Not once have I responded to any of the driver's advances.” He knows you’re right, but he ignores you anyway. Susie had always pointed out how his stubbornness always had her fuming and in this moment, in you, he noticed just how annoying it could get.

“I don’t care! If this is something I have to do in order for my daughter to stop being gawked at by every driver, so be it. Now, stop yapping and start packing.”

That was the last straw.

As he walks out of the Mercedes garage to make his way to his drivers he hears fast footsteps. Throwing yourself onto his large back you cling on as if he was a floatie. 

“Let go!” He stumbles back and forth as you cover his eyes. Then your arms slide around his large shoulders, squeezing hard. “You're acting like a child!”

“Stop treating me like one then!” This was a bit much, you’ll admit it, but never out loud. You pinch his bicep and he yelps, running like a chicken without a head. You screech as you hold on tighter, head digging into his neck.

“This isn’t going to make me change my mi-” You bite his ear. He tries to push your legs that wrap around his torso, but you just won’t budge. He spins as he groans in pain. He knew you hated to be dizzy, so why not use it against you.

“Cute. Father-daughter quality time.” Lewis smiles as George takes his phone out to record. Toto looks at them with a bright red face.

“Fuck quality time! Get. Her. Off.”

Scurrying over, they each grab a leg. “Let go!” You yell as you turn to look at them, breathing hard.

“Exactly! Let go!” Toto continues to pry your hands off.

Everyone has gathered outside of their garages as they watch in amusement. Carlos bends over laughing.

“She looks like fun, no?”

Taking a sip of water, Charles shakes his head.

“That chicks crazy.”

-

You, Lewis, and George sit in the Mercedes meeting room silently waiting for Toto. Rocking in his chair impatiently, George grins. “Do you guys want to see the video I took?”

You glare harshly. “My dads not here yet, you wanna be next?” He shuts up as he slides his phone back into his pocket.

A minute passes by before your dad walks in with Avengers stickers covering his ear, hand, and neck. You all stifle a laugh. “You think this is funny?” You nod. His cold stare turns into the kind you’ve only seen the times he’s grounded you.

“You asked!”

He shakes his head in disapproval. “These are Jack’s, so I don’t even want to hear it.” Sliding a chair out in front of you three, he takes a seat. “We need to talk.”

You roll your eyes. “Really? I thought we were all gonna learn how to fly.” George lets out a laugh as Lewis nudges your thigh. Just listen, his gaze warns you. 

Toto folds his arms against the tables as he lets out a breath. “I won’t send you home.” Not what you were expecting. Hopping over to him you kiss his cheek as he slightly flinches.

“Thank you, Daddy!”

George raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? If I would ever behave like this with my parents they would ship me to boarding school.” You bite the air.

“Sit down.” You rush back into your seat between the Mercedes drivers. Drumming his fingers against the table he begins. “But I have some rules. Call them…my conditions.” You groan.

“That’s not how this works-”

“No, it’s going to work because I said so!” He takes a moment to relax before continuing. “Look, I spoke to your mother and you were right. I was being unfair.” You clap your hands in delight. “That doesn’t mean what you did was right. But here’s all I ask from you, the same thing as always; don’t date any drivers on the grid.”

You nod profusely. “I promise!” There were some good looking men on the grid, but quite frankly you never found interest. You knew what you’d be getting yourself into if you ever did.

Lewis clears his throat. “This has been super nice and all, but why are we here?” He signals between him and his teammate. 

“Right.” Standing up, Toto places both his hands on his waist. “I won’t ask for much.” Turning to look at them he says, “Just ask for you both to watch over her.”

“Like Jesus?” 

“George, shut up!” You follow Toto. “Dad, I don’t need them to babysit me. What’s the whole point of not being treated like a baby?”

“That’s what you don’t seize to understand. You are my baby.” He cups your face tenderly. “Those are my circumstances if you want to stick around.” He lets go. “And either way, you said it yourself. You don’t pay much attention to them, so why would this be any different?”

“Fine. Deal.”

-

“Where are you headed?”

Miami was always a fun place to be at and you wanted to have some fun. Wasn’t this the point of it all?

“I’m just going for a walk around the paddock.”

Lewis stands up like a guard dog as he slides on his sunglasses. “You know what? I’m kind of in the mood for a walk too. Always a good time to show off my outfit.”

Rolling your eyes you reluctantly agree. He’s telling you about Roscoe’s recent “girlfriend” as you both pass the Red Bull garage. Paparazzi stand outside as they wait for any glimpse of Max, but as soon as they see Lewis they immediately rush over. Almost like a force of nature, Lewis coolly poses as he continues walking smoothly. 

“Yeah, I can’t do this right now.” Taking advantage of the situation, you dart off.

“Whatever,” Lewis yells out as he continues, entertained by the cameras.

Rushing behind a nearby wall you gasp for air. “Are you okay?”

“Crap!” You fling your hand outwards as you smack someone's hard chest. You look at your fist as you recognize the dark blue fireproofs.

“Ow!” Max yelps as he pushes your arm down. You cringe.

“Sorry! I just thought- nevermind. Are you alright?” He nods. 

“Yes. Were you looking for someone?” You notice that in an attempt to get away from the mob you had landed yourself inside the garage of Mercedes’ main rival. You shake your head.

“God, no. I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” You hum embarrassingly. “I should go now.” 

“Hey, I mean you can hide out here with me for a while.” 

The way he smiles shyly takes you back to the day he first asked you out. He was nice, but no. You can’t. Tugging out your phone from your back pocket you giggle nervously. “Oh! Would you look at that! It’s my dad calling. I should go before he starts to worry. Bye Max!” You zoom out.

“Yeah, bye…”

“Where were you?” Toto is sitting in the small room he had set up for you when you were on the road with him and the team.

“I went out for a walk.” That wasn’t completely a lie, but if he found out who you were with he would only start World War III. “Wanted to stretch out my legs.” You kick your legs out as you hop up a few times.

He holds out an envelope as you delicately reach out for it. Opening it up you see what’s inside. Pictures of you with Lewis, but as you continue flipping through you see yourself slipping away. It would almost be funny if it weren’t for Toto’s narrowed look. “Where did you run off to?”

“First of all, this is extremely creepy, zero privacy, but nowhere! I came straight back, you know I can’t handle large groups like those.”

Rising up he nods. “If you say so.”

-

You take a seat next to your dad as you both analyze the race. The Red Bulls are fast, as expected, but Mercedes wasn’t that far off. They might actually get podium if the strategy continued the same. 

“C’mon. C’mon.” It was the final lap and George was fighting for third against Fernando. Anxiety filled up your stomach, you could only imagine what George was feeling. “Goddamn it!” You and Toto both curse out as you both slam the headset against the table.

“Every single time.” 

You congratulate Lewis and George as they walk in after being weighted. “You guys did good.” You smile as they wipe off their sweat with a small towel.

“Ah, I need a drink. Wanna come out with Carmen and I to the club? A couple other drivers are tagging along.” 

“Yes! Okay, just me a second to go back to the hotel and change.” As you run away, Toto strolls over. George gulps.

“Remember…” He warns him as the Brit carefully nods. Of course. You don’t need to worry.

You show up 2 hours late, but it's Miami. The later the better.

“That group right there! I swear I know them.” You had been trying to explain to the security guard that you weren’t some crazy fan and that you did in fact know the group of F1 drivers who had shown up to the VIP section.

“Right and I know Oprah Winfrey…” You furrow your brows. Are you calling me a liar? He shrugs. Just then, Charles walks by and you immediately jump forward, but the guard holds you back.

“Charles!” He turns to look at you as he tries to understand the situation. You’re being held back by the guard as you screech in his arms. He rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, no.” He walks away. Coward! Your body droops into his arms. The tall man drags you out. I swear I know himmmm.

“Yo, is that chick dead?” Your eyes pop open as you hear a familiar voice.

“Daniel! Ah. Thank God! Tell him you know me!” Daniel lets out a loud laugh as he claps his hands in amusement. 

“Oh God, this is amazing.” He hurries over to you both. “Yes, I know her.” The bald man looks like he doesn’t quite believe you, but he lets you go either way. Walking side by side you pat the Australians shoulder. 

“Thank you so much. You won’t believe how long it’s taken me to try and wheeze myself in.” He grins.

“No problem.” He lets you through first as Carmen rushes over.

“Oh good! I thought you weren’t going to show up.” 

“Ran into a bit of trouble, but there’s no way I would’ve missed out on Georgie’s almost win celebration.” George scowls. Bitch, he mutters under his breath. Carmen smacks his head.

Excusing yourself you walk over to the bar as you order yourself a drink. You don’t have to turn to know someone is now standing next to you. You immediately noticed the stack of bracelets. “Hey, dick, what was that all about?’ Charles sighs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You ignored me! You let them drag me away like a beast!”

He snickers. “You said it, not me.” Slamming your palm against the table you make his drink jump up a bit.

“You are a real piece of shit, y’know that?”

“And you aren’t?” 

You toss your head back with a cold laugh before you glare back at him.

“I can’t believe I ever dated you.”

-

There was a time - where you’re embarrassed to admit now - that you actually fell for a driver's charm.

“Charles,” he introduces himself, as you kick your shoe against your leg nervously. For a while you tried to push away, but somehow, something always led you back to him.

Skipping your way down the paddock you make your way towards the taco stand. Rumors had made their way to you that Scuderia had authentic tacos in honor of the Mexican GP and you just had to go. 

The line was long, but you didn’t seem to mind as you answered a few texts. 

“Hungry?”

You blush when you notice Charles with his fireproofs. Glistening sweat makes his brown hair connect to his face. He looks so filt-

“Just a tiny bit.” He could’ve easily made his way to the staff to request your plate much faster, but then how else would he talk to you? For an entire hour, his towering height lingered over you as you both stood under the blazing sun. And he was just as perfect as you could have ever imagined. It wasn’t that long after that you both were sneaking in kisses behind Ferrari’ and Mercedes’ motorhome.

“Fuck.” He kisses you hard as his hands slip underneath your shirt. His cold touch makes you shiver as your body jumps up a bit. This causes you to rub yourself against him. He pulls away, eyes screwed shut.

“What’s wrong? Did I do something?”

He shakes his head as he stares down at you with an enamored smile tugging at his pink, swollen lips. “No, it's just that…” You look down at the tent poking through his jeans. 

“I could fix that.” Your flirtatious tone is enough for him to fall back against your warm lips. He groans.

“N-no. Not here.” You had both been taking shelter behind the Mercedes garage in order to not be caught, but still, this was risky. You sigh as your arms drop to your sides.

“You’re right.” He gives you one last peck as he rushes off to his media duties. Walking through the sliding doors the first person you see is George signing a few hats. He looks up.

“My word, did someone punch your lips?” You rush over to a nearby mirror as you take in your appearance. Your lipstick was everywhere. Bring up your sleeve, you quickly try brushing away. 

“Not a word of this to my dad.” 

And no he never told Toto, but he knew he couldn’t hold onto this by himself. 

“...It has to be someone on the grid. But who…” Carmen, George, Lily, and Alex had gone out on a double date when the Brit spilled the beans.

“What if it’s Max? Have you seen the way he looks at her!” Lily exclaims as she purses her lips. Alex shakes his head in disagreement.

“No. It definitely has to be Carlos. I mean look at him! That’s straight up her type.” Oh. I didn’t even think of that one, Lily pouts.

“You both got it wrong, it’s Lando. They get along so well, plus, they would look so cute together.” Carmen swoons at the image. George pretends to gag.

“Darling…friends… let me explain.” They all sit there eager for the next candidate. “It’s definitely Lewis.” The table dies.

“Mate! You’re insane. He’s old enough to be her dad!” Alex cripples over laughing as he leans his head against his girlfriend's shoulder. She pats his head.

“He’s right, George. It just doesn’t make any sense.” 

Whatever, he thinks to himself. It might be him.

-

“I lost her! Shit, I lost her!” George panics to his girlfriend as she stares up in confusion. What do you mean you lost her! He cringes. “As in; she's gone! And I keep calling Lewis and he’s not picking up and- oh.”

Carmen’s eyes grow wide. “You don’t think…” George laughs wickedly.

“I told you so! Wait until I tell Alex. Alex!” She slaps her hand over his mouth.

“Are you crazy? You can’t just go around claiming this when it might not even be true!” He immediately deflates. You’re right, you’re right-

“Either way, Lando’s missing too.” She giggles as he stares with a deadpan expression.

-

“Shit!” Charles hisses in pain as he bangs his head against the wall. You let out a sweet laugh. 

“Be careful. Also, be quiet!”

You were supposed to be meeting with Toto to go grab dinner with the team and Charles had a last minute defrief to get to, but there was something far more important.

You were both horny.

“Mhmm,” he mumbles as he slips you onto the counter that sits in the privacy of his motorhome. Scrunching your mini dress around your thighs he gets down on his knees as he drags your panties down with his teeth, a teasing look painting his eyes. You bite down on your erupting moan. 

“As much as I love this, I need you to be fast.” He chuckles as he stands up to his full height, slipping his suit down as his cock springs out, looking painfully hard. You lick your lips. His strong hands grab your hips to scoot you closer towards him. You giggle as he pecks your lips one final time before slipping inside of you.

Normally, you moan as loud as you please, but you know you can’t right now. So, you bite the inside of your cheek as he begins thrusting in the most delicious way. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as you softly pant.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmurs. He knows how much you love to be vocal and seeing you trying not to be in order to not get caught has him downright impressed. His hips pick up the pace as you silently whine. His cock brushes against your g-spot and that has you feeling as if you’re going to burst. Slow down, Charles, you moan. He cocks his head to the side. “Sois une bonne fille et prends-le.”

Nodding frantically your hand squeezes against his forearm for support.

“Charles are you almost done changing?” Carlos taps his fingers against the door as he waits for his teammate. Trepidation fills you at the thought of Carlos walking in on you. You had both been keeping this a secret and this was definitely not the way you wanted someone to find out about your relationship. 

“Charles, s-stop,” you whisper, but this only seems to make Charles snap his hips faster. You want to scream when you feel his cock all the way deep inside your stomach. He suppresses a loud groan.

“Just a minute! Go on without me.” You hear a low, Just don’t take too long. Footsteps grow further as the Spaniard struts away. You sigh but that’s quickly replaced when your boyfriend tosses your left leg over his tan shoulder. 

“Oh my God.” Eyes are looking straight at Charles as he admires the way his cock disappears inside of you. The thought makes you blush. He softly kisses your ankle as you moan louder, you feel your tummy grow tighter. “Charles, oh God, I’m gonna cum-”

He covers your mouth, muffled cries vibrating against his hand as he feels you clench around him. The warmness that splatters around his cock makes him bite your ankle as he finishes inside of you. You squirm in pain.

Panting, he lets go of your leg and kisses your temple. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?” You shake your head. 

“I’m okay.” Seeing your fucked out state has him glowing with pride that your his and that only he gets to see you like this. He gives you one last kiss as he pulls out of you. You choke at the slight sensitivity. Sorry, he mumbles as he cleans you up.

You both go your separate ways as it dawns on you that you feel so…complete. It’s a weird feeling to have, but as soon as you remind yourself that this is Charles - your Charles - you don’t feel so lost anymore. Grinning, you walk towards your dad.

“You took forever,” he scolds you before letting out a soft smile, kissing the top of your head. He takes a whiff. “Did you run here?”

“Um, why do you ask?”

He stares at you like a hawk before rubbing his eyes. “No reason. You’re just sweating a bit, that's all. Anyways, we should get going.”

That same day you quickly disappear to a nearby shop to buy a cheap perfume.

“Mmm. Flowers.” Lewis sniffs as he walks past you. 

-

“Are you serious?” Lily and Alex grew suspicious when they saw Carmen and George huddling up together like two detectives, so eventually, they went to investigate themselves. “Have you tried calling her?”

“Goodness! How did I not think about that?” Lily and Carmen shoot a dry look at the Brit before he shrinks down onto his seat. 

“Stop fighting and let’s just think,” Alex interrupts.

Lily’s eyes roam the club as she see’s Checo and Lance talking. Daniel is with Fernando, but wait-

Excited, she turns back to the group. “Max! It’s Max!” She jumps up and down as Alex stares at her in love.

“Sweet, sweet, Lilyicious, you’re wrong. C’mon we’ve talked about this.” She stomps her foot.

“Nu-uh. Look around with your big head.” She points around the club. “Max is missing. It makes sense.” 

“Okay, well Carlos is missing too, how do you explain that?” The couple huff in defeat as they plop down next to George. 

“Well this isn’t working. All our best bets are missing and so is she!” Carmen chugs down an entire glass of vodka as the three of them stare up at her scared. “We’re just going to have to look for her ourselves.”

-

Wanna come over to my room? Fifth floor, #254.

Butterflies fill you to the brim. On my way.

It’s a personal record, really, the way you dash to his room. Part of you thinks about waiting a couple of minutes before knocking, but you know can’t stay away for long. Closed fist almost reaches the wood as the door swings open. Charles stands there with a pair of workout shorts and white socks. Maroon bruises cover his chest from a few nights ago.

Walking towards him you brush your fingers against his chest. “I like where this is going,” you joke as he smiles, kicking the door shut. 

The way he kisses you is different. The type of kiss where someone is really trying to memorize the person. It’s still amazing, but why does it feel any different from the rest? You dig your lips deeper as if this would help you figure it out. His hands move to play with your hair as he pulls away. His fingers feel nice. “Let’s sit.” 

Once you settle onto his comfy bed you stare at him in awe. How is it that he ever paid you any attention? He could have anyone, but he chose you? That must count for something. “I was thinking maybe now's a good time to let everyone know we’re together.”

He clenches his jaw. “I don’t know…”

You tuck your legs under your butt as you lean a bit forward. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Let’s start off slow. Maybe just our friends?” Taking one look at him makes you feel like an anthill. “Or what do you think?”

Taking in a shallow breath he doesn’t look at you when he says, “I want to break up.” You stop breathing.

He doesn’t say I think we should break up or there’s something wrong. No, he just jumps straight to the point. No explanation. 

But you need one.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” This time he looks at you and his eyes don’t hold the same shine they normally do. The kind you love on him. Now they’re dark and empty. Did I do that?

“It’s just that…” He trails off when he notices you looking at him as if he’s really about to try to save your relationship. “...I need to focus on the Championship.”

You bite your lip as you try reaching out for his hands, but when he slightly pulls away before you even can, it makes you shrink. Settling your hand on your lap you let out a shaky breath before pretending to smile. “Of course. I get that. I can give you some space.”

He shakes his head, eyes looking down to his feet. “No. I just can’t be dating you right now.” When you were 7 and your dad accidentally stepped over your favorite tea cup you had claimed  that was the worst pain you have ever felt.

Nothing would beat Charles’ words.

“Me? You can’t be dating me right now, okay.” You start putting your shoes back on and he stares at you with an open mouth.

Stay. I never meant any of this.

But it was too late.

Entering the elevator you’re sobbing, feeling like a nobody. What did you do wrong? Everything was going great. The doors slid open as the last person you wanted to see, apart from Charles, walked in. 

“Honey, are you okay?” Toto frantically searches for any cuts or anything that might be causing you pain. Surface level, you want to cry out. You’re looking surface level, but you won’t find anything.

Tying your arms around his waist he immediately hugs you back, trying to understand. 

“Daddy, I want to go home.”

-

“That’s it. I’m calling him.” The Brit pulls out his phone before his friend yanks it away.

“Do you want to lose your job?” Quickly, he shakes his head. Alex tsks. “But we’ve looked everywhere! God, I’m gonna get fired regardless…”

“Bathroooooom. I need to go to the bathroommm.” A body sways, bumping into Lily, sending her flying towards Carmen. 

“Watch where you’re going dickhe- oh! Max!” The Dutch man squints his eyes. Do I know you?

“Don’t bother, he’s completely wasted,” Daniel says as he brushes past the group. But George is desperate. Shaking him by the shoulders, he questions Max.

“Have you seen her? Was she with you?” 

Max lazily puts a finger over George’ lips. He sighs at the silence. “Much better…no. I haven’t.” They all groan. Letting go, Max zigzags away.

“So, it’s not Max.”

-

I was homesick. That’s all. 

Your mom raises an eyebrow. “But you love traveling, this is new.” You shrug lamely.

“I just really missed you and Jack.” You both look over to your little brother where he silently sits there entertained with his coloring book.

“No you didn’t.” You laugh as Susie stands up to brush your hair. “Honey, what actually happened?” 

A weak smile forms itself onto your lips. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

-

“Should we call the police?”

Lily exhales, rubbing her fingers against her lap nervously. “No. I still think we can find her.”

Alex nods. “Try calling Lewis again.” A disgusted look maps itself on George’ face.

“Gross. No, what if they’re hooking up?” They all groan. 

That’s definitely not true at all, Carmen mumbles. “I still say it’s Lando.” Daniel is passing by with a feathered boa. “Danny!” she shrieks. His pearly whites make her smile. “Do you know where Lando is?” Daniel looks up at the ceiling before clicking his fingers.

“I last with him with baby Wolff!” Carmen jumps up in excitement. 

“See George I told you! I told you so! Eat and-”

“...Oh no nevermind that wasn’t him. It was…oh. Who was it?” He covers his face with the boa as he thinks about it.

“Hand that over. I’m about to kill myself.” The group turns to face Lando. His face is flushed as he strips the boa from his teammate. Daniel lets out a sore cough as Lando pulls it off him, but the Australian had it wrapped around his neck. Sorry mate, he apologizes.

George rushes over to the younger Brit. “Where were you?” 

“I’m okay,” Daniel croaks out as he takes a sip of Lily’s drink. 

“I was trying to get a girl's number.” Carmen’s eyes shine. “Word of advice: always make sure they’re not married.” He walks away.

“Dammit. I was almost sure it was going to be him."

-

“Please, don’t hang up!”

His voice is raspy from the cold as you lie warm in your bed. You can already smell your favorite homemade pancakes your mom always makes for you when you’re feeling down.

“Tough, because as you can see, I just don’t want to talk to you.” You’re about to hang up before he shoots out a quick, Too late. I’m downstairs.

Now, you’re definitely awake. You quickly try to make yourself seem presentable before you rush downstairs. And he was there, sitting with Susie as they both ate your favorite pancakes.

You stand there with your matching PJ’s and one white tube sock. Charles smiles fondly as you blush. 

“You forgot your other sock…” Jack tugs at your shirt to gain your attention as he holds his arm out. 

“Thank you, baby.” You quickly slip it on. 

Susie walks to Jack as she picks him up. “Let’s go, Jackie. This is what we call privacy.” As they both walk down the hallway you can still hear her say, Do you know what privacy is?

“Is she…” 

You stare at him blankly. “She’s teaching him how to respect others.” A distant smile. “Holy shit! Wait! Maybe she can teach you.” He winces.

“Look, I just want to talk. Please…” You take a seat across from him as you snatch his plate away and begin to eat.

“I’m only listening because there’s a really delicious plate right in front of me, but you only have 5 minutes, then I want you to leave.” He nods desperately.

“So, um, that night…”

You can’t help the shaky breath that slips past your lips. You hate that he’s getting to you, because it's not what he deserves. You stubbornly would have bought yourself a diamond ring if you had known he would be here.

“...That night. I never meant anything that I said.” The way you want to laugh has him hurrying to get all his words out. “The media, all the stress, was getting crazy and I was a fool to let that get to me.”

“Are you just word vomiting?” He chuckles.

“This is me telling you that I messed up. I screwed up. I fucked up. Whatever you wanna call it, but you don’t know how much I regret that day. How cold I was being to you.”

“You didn’t even try. You never even let me help you,” you whisper as he shakes his head. I know amour, I know.

He grabs your hands. Soft and warm and his. ��If you need me to beg, I’ll beg…But please. Give me one more chance.”

Looking deep into his eyes you slowly nod, almost as if you can’t believe this is really happening. 

“One more chance.”

-

“If we’re being quite honest, I never thought it would just be you and me, George.” The two best friends share a high five.

“I can’t even believe it. One of us might actually have it in the bag!” Carmen and Lily scoff at their boyfriends. 

“Let me remind you that she’s still missing, dork.” Lily smirks as George snaps out of it.

“You’re right, but we’re getting closer.”

Standing behind Lily, Alex wraps his arms around her shoulders. Despite everything going on around them, Lily still leans in. “Babe,” he starts. “You might actually have a winner in your han- fuck!” His girlfriend jumps up.

“What!”

“Hey, have you guys seen Charles?” Carlos stands there with a puzzled look as Alex curses him out. I bet my money on you! He slaps a 100 dollar bill to George as he does a small celebratory dance with Carmen.

Lily steps aside. “We haven’t, but I think I remember him being with Pierre and Kika. They were talking about - nevermind - that’s not what matters here!” 

Carlos hums. “Okayyy then. Just let me know if you do. He’s my ride back.” He walks away.

“Well, well, well,” George clicks his tongue, tall frame leaning against the table. “And then there was one.”

-

“Are you both sure?” 

Things had taken a sharp turn that it even had you questioning your sanity.

“We’re sure.” You gaze at the bright rock that sits on your finger as Charles rubs soft circles on your hand. You mom sighs, but deep down she’s proud of both of you. Overcoming past mistakes together is a huge deal when it comes to marriage. Jack giggles as you flash your ring up. Charles smiles and Susie can tell by his dazzling green eyes.

The Monegasque is in love.

“You can’t tell dad yet, though!” you yelp as your mom stares back with an open mouth.

Why not?, she says at the same time Charles asks, She can’t?

Shaking your head you kiss your fiance's cheek before facing your mom. “It’s just that he wouldn’t understand. At least not yet. Right?”

Charles nods slowly, not fully seeing where this was going. “Whatever you say, mon amour.” Susie winks in approval. Charles feels quite proud of that one.

“I’ll respect your choice,” she says loudly as Jack chirps up. He nods as he keeps quiet. “Right, I’ll respect it, but you have to find a way to let him know soon enough.” Getting up, you hug her tightly.

“Thank you! And yes I have a plan. Top tier. He won’t even see it coming.”

-

“Now it makes sense why they’re so close! All those late night drives, breakfasts in the morning. No wonder I wasn’t invited for a few of those!” 

“Yeah. That’s why,” Alex shoots as he snickers. Carmen softly pats her boyfriend's shoulder as she lets out a playfully grimace. George flips him off.

“You’re just mad because I actually got something right for once!”

“You said it. For once.”

“Oh, you bi-”

“Huh? Huh! Speak louder you gira–”

“Guys!”

Cut short from their heated argument they all turn their attention.

Lewis stands there with a worried expression. His facial lines noticeable as he pinches his face in slight fear. “I’ve been looking everywhere, but I can’t find her. Oh, God, Toto’s gonna kill me…”

George has his fist wrapped around Alex’s collar as he stares with his mouth hung open. Alex laughs as he pushes George off. 

“Aha! I knew it! There was just no way!” George groans as he tugs at his floppy hair. 

Lewis looks lost. “I don’t have time for this, have you seen her?” They all shake their head as they explain their theory that involved the 7x World Champion. He shudders.

“Gross! She’s like a daughter to me!” 

“Thank you!” Carmen, Lily, and Alex shout as George shrugs. 

“Okay, so let’s backtrack: She couldn’t have been with Max because poor boy is too drunk to even remember his own name, she wasn’t with Lando since he’s too busy hiding from someone’s husband-” 

George and Alex giggle.

“She definitely wasn’t with you,” Lily points to Lewis as if it were impossible for you and him to be in the same sentence. Way to rub it in, he pouts. She shrugs her shoulders as an apology. “And she wasn’t with Carlos because he’s too busy looking for…”

Their eyes grow wide.

“Jesus fucking Christ, where is the bathroom!” Max swings his arms, almost knocking down Yuki. Sorry Uki, he murmurs as he furrows his eyebrows.

“Yuki,” the Japanese driver corrected him.

“Whatever.” Max waves in dismissal. Alex drags the Dutch closer to them. 

“There’s one right here.” Max almost starts to cry as he spots the bathroom that stood close by the group. 

“Thank youuuu.” He rushes towards the restroom as he tugs harshly. He lets out a whine as he bangs his head against the wall in frustration. “I swear I am going to kick this door down…”

Alex runs over. “Don’t do that, mate. Again.” He kisses his bicep  as winks over to his girlfriend. Watch this, he mouths. 

But it won’t budge.

“Move over,” George says as he starts rolling up his sleeves. This one’s for you, Carmen. The brunette girl cringes as she covers her eyes. He groans as he pulls with all his strength. “One minute…”

Lewis lets out a sigh as he walks over and pushes his teammate to the side. Wrapping both hands around the handle he leans back and pulls. Both Lily and Carmen drool over his rippling muscles.

“At least try to hide it,” George muffles.

Suddenly the door swings open. Max cheers as he runs in.

“Gotta pee, fuck, get out!” 

Two flying bodies are thrown out as they both crash onto a nearby couch.

“Dickhead!” you yell out as you rub your head. Charles groans in pain with you on top of him. The entire room grows silent. Well, as silent as it could get in a club. 

“Young lady, when your father finds out!” Lewis exclaims, hands against his hips.

“You’re fucked,” George laughs. “Literally.”

There’s really no way of hiding it. Your short skirt is riding up a tad bit too high as you yank it down. Lipstick stains cover the Monegasque’s face.

“Not a word.”

-

“And how do you think you guys are going to keep it under wraps?” Susie questions as Charles looks at you with an intrigued face. Yeah. How are we?

Rolling your eyes you take a bite of the now cold pancakes. You gag. 

“Easy. We can just pretend to hate each other for a while, make dad believe I’m following his long lasting rule of not crushing on any driver and after a while he’ll trust me and ta-da! We’re getting married, baby!”

You flash a proud smile as Charles high fives you.

Your mom raises a skeptical brow as she leans against her chair. Giggling, you put your hand over hers.

“How hard could it be?”

[jp-nichts]

The Takahe

Curious about the mech on the cover of Reactors & Romance?

The frame is called the Takahe. It's named after a flightless bird from New Zealand of the same name. Even though the mech's "tail feathers" are massive jump jets meant to get this thing soaring!

Lore wise, its a frame designed for mobility and exploration of both terrestrial and space environments. The cockpit is located in the chest, and has an expanded compartment to provide barebones living quarters for extended away missions. Since the pilot isn't located in the head, it's head packed with various sensors and long ranged coms. Perfect for surveying and keeping in contact with distant teammates. It might not have the versatility of arms to pick-up different weapons on the fly, but it's head mounted weapons have exceptional accuracy due to the dampeners in it's neck. These dampeners do have the unintended side effect of making the head bob like a pigeon or chicken when the frame is running pigeon

Like most of my mech designs this one originally started off as a Lego build of mine for the game Mobile Frame Zero. A table top wargame that uses Lego mechs as minis. It's a lot of fun by the way. You should check it out HERE (I think I still have some of my bird mechs featured on their website)

My Lego Takahe build is actually a larger version of my Kiwi mech. Which is very similar in design to the Takahe, just smaller and cuter. I love these little guys and have made so many of them over the years.

Like... sooooo many! I have a whole Pride collection of them with each one colored as a different pride flag.

Here is the first painting I did of the Takahe, which also inspired the color pallet for Reactors & Romance.

I also did some pixel art of the mech too. I was hoping to use for a Lancer game, but that didn't happened. I did get to include it as part of my NPC roster for a game of Celestial Bodies that I ran! The players did a great job completely obliterating my children 😂

[menagerofmischief]

Dia's Diner Menu

olives and cheese friends to lovers cold appetizer rough sex ceaser salad "Lie to me again and you're not gonna like what happens next" sarma "Gonna put a baby in you" orange juice overstimulation strawberry lemonade breeding kink (chicken skewer) "Be a good girl and come for me"

Oscar Piastri x best friend!roommate!reader

TW; fingering, unprotected sex, tinder and bad tinder dates, kind of asshole!oscar at the start

WC: 2k

A/N: can't decide if I love or hate this. also tysm for 100 followers, I love you guys.

❀

I hummed, doing my best to pretend I was listening for possibly the hundredth time this night. I watched as Jake, proving by every second to be my very failed Tinder date, rambled on and on about himself. The stories were never ending, and therefore neither was his talking. 

I leaned my head on my hand, praying he was going to run out of oxygen and choke so I wouldn’t have to listen to him talk anymore.

This whole thing was a bad idea.

I first joined Tinder because I was bored and wanted an easy out from my crush on my best friend, Oscar. This was my third date with a guy I met on the app and each guy, along with each date, was proving to be worse than the previous.

Example A: Steve

First of all, who goes on a date with a guy named Steve. But putting names aside Steve wasn’t all that bad until he was asked me to go back to his place. Which was his mother’s basement. 

Example B: Tod

Was holding a fish in his profile photo. Ordered me a salad. Proceed to talk about his buddy Kevin for the whole night and then ditched me to hang out with him. He may have been more into Kevin than me, to be honest.

And finally, sitting opposite of me, talking about his big finance job, we had example C: Jake.

Perhaps it was about time I gave up trying to find anything on that stupid app and accepted defeat. “Listen,” I pushed my chair away from the table and got up, grabbing my bag. “This has been really interesting but I need to get going.” I took enough money to cover the things I had and put it down on the table before walking away.

✿ ✿ ✿

“Had fun?” Oscar asked from the couch once I entered the apartment.

I put down my purse and the bag from the convenience store and started taking off my heels. “Sure,” I said, straightening up once I was done. “I just love hearing about finance.”

I looked over at him. Oscar was sitting on the couch in a pair of gray sweatpants and a white shirt. He was watching TV, some random movie playing on one of the channels.

Oscar and I shared an apartment - but he really only occupied it on the off season when he wasn’t traveling from one country to another every week. It worked out well for us, I had someone to split the rent to and Oscar didn’t have to bother with finding someone to take care of his place while he was traveling - so it was win-win.

I walked over and sat down next to him on the couch. I pulled a pack of Oreos from the bag and opened them, putting one in my mouth before offering the pack to him. “Want one?”

Oscar took one, turning it around in his hands quietly before looking at me. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was annoyed and his eyes had a dark look in them.

“Wow, okay.” I said, trying to get up from the couch. Sitting in my room and binging Criminal Minds it was then. “If I was annoying you, you could have just told me to go to my room.”

Before I could make my move to leave, Oscar grabbed my wrist. His hold was rougher than I expected, fingers digging into my flesh. “Why are you going on all these dates?”

“Honestly Oscar, why do you care?” I tried pulling my hand away but his hold wasn’t budging.

“Because every time you get dressed up, go on a date with some random guy and come back here with snacks. And then we sit on the couch, eat snacks and you tell me all about how terrible your date was.” He said, his eyes narrowing. “And I nod along, so sympathetic, pretending I actually care.”

I scoffed at him, using all the force I could and yanking my hand out of his grasp. “Fuck you, Oscar!” I told him, rolling my eyes. “No one made you listen to me. You could have told me I was bothering you and I would have fucked off.”

“It’s not that you were bothering me!”

“Oh yeah? Then what is it?”

“I like you, damnit!” Oscar all but yelled, jumping up onto his feet. His hands grabbed my shoulders and I looked up at him. “I like you! And I’m mad. Mad that you’re dressing up for some guys from Tinder when I’m right in front of you.”

My eyes widened, mouth agape. I must have looked like a fish. “Oscar,” my words were quieter than I expected them to come. My voice cracking. “You never said anything.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.” He confessed, his thumb rubbing the skin on my shoulder.

I licked my lips, looking up at him and offered a gentle smile. “I like you too,” I whispered, almost afraid to say it any louder.

Oscar doesn’t waste a second. As soon as the words are out of my mouth he is surging forward, smashing his lips against mine in a kiss much different from what I imagined our first would be like.

His hands move from my shoulders to wrap around my waist, pulling me into him. His lips are rough against mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth. I can barely breathe and my head is feeling fuzzy but still I do my best to kiss him back.

Before I know it, Oscar is picking me up, my legs wrapped around his waist and our lips still connected. Then he’s carrying me to his room and laying me down on his bed, crawling up to me to resume our kiss.

“Fuck,” Oscar mumbled, finally detaching his lips from mine and pulling back to look at me. “I wanted to do that for so long.”

“Me too,” I said, cupping the side of his face, rubbing his skin with my thumb. I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying my best to grind up into him and gain any friction by rubbing myself against the bulge in his sweatpants. “Please, Osc, need you!”

“Need me?” Oscar growled, pulling away a little and pushing up the bottom of my dress, exposing my panties to him. His fingers rubbed over the wet patch on my panties, making me buck up into his touch. “Is that right? You need me to fuck you full of my cum and make you go stupid on my cock, is that it?”

I whined when he took off my panties and roughly pushed two fingers inside of me without any warning. It was an unexpected stretch with just a little burn to it to leave me breathless.

“Tell me, Y/n,” he started, his fingers pushing into me hard and fast, not slowing down at all. “Why’d you join dating apps?”

I took a breath, trying to compose myself enough to form a reply. “Was bored,” I whined, gripping onto the sheets.

He gave me a dark look before his free hand, the one he wasn’t pleasuring me with, came down full force to slap my pussy. I all but screamed out, my body jolting forward with the shock of it and grabbed his shoulder with one hand to steady myself.

“This was a little preview,” Oscar said with a chuckle. “Lie to me again and you’re not gonna like what happens next.” His eyes fixated on me and my cheeks burned both with embarrassment and from how good I was feeling. “Now try again.”

“I didn’t think you liked me so -” I cut myself off with a moan when his fingers pressed against my G-spot, stroking it a few times before going back to thrusting in and out of me. “Fuck Oscar! I wanted to find someone so I could get over you!”

“Good job telling the truth, bad job at trying that,” he said. His thumb started playing with my clit, rubbing it in circles and I moaned loudly, feeling my orgasm approaching. 

“Osc, I’m gonna cum, please let me cum.” I begged, the feel of his fingers inside of me and the added pleasure of having my clit toyed with pushing me fast toward the edge.

“Go on,” Oscar encouraged, keeping the rhythm of his fingers. “Be a good girl and cum for me.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I was sobbing out from pleasure, my orgasm crashing over me and my hips bucking up. 

Oscar pulled his fingers out of my pussy, making me whine at the loss of being filled with something, and keeping his eyes on mine brought them up to his mouth and sucked them clean. 

I sat up a little and reached for him. Oscar let me pull off his shirt and I took a moment to admire his naked chest, running my hands over the ridges of his abdomen. Then he helped me take off my dress and bra, kissing me gently before he started trailing kisses down to my neck and collarbones.

“Osc,” I mumbled out, my fingers pulling on the strings of his sweatpants. “Fuck me please! Need to feel you in me. Need to feel you filling me.”

Oscar wasted no time, taking off his sweatpants and boxers in one go. I only got one good glance at his dick before he was pushing it inside me, bottoming out in one thrust.

He was big, the tip of his cock kissing against my cervix and with each thrust I could see an outline of his dick bulging out on my stomach.

“Fuck,” Oscar grunted. “We could have been doing this much sooner if you had just said you wanted me to fuck you.”

“You could have said something as well,” I shot back.

“Yeah but I wasn’t the one on dating apps.”

Oscar’s hand sneaked between us, his thumb once again finding my clit and starting to circle it. I screamed out in pleasure, hiding my face into Oscar’s neck. “So good, Osc, fuck,” I babbled. “Gonna cum again.”

Oscar sped up, both his thrusts and his fingers. “I’m gonna cum too,” he grunted. “Fuck, gonna put a baby in you so everyone knows you’re mine. You like that huh? Yeah you do, I can feel you clenching around me.”

His thumb brushed over my clit one more time and I was screaming out as my orgasm crashed into me. It didn’t take long for Oscar to reach his peak either. His hips stilling as he spilled himself inside of me.

Oscar rolled himself off of me and laid down on the bed. We laid in silence for a few minutes, only the sounds of us panting for breath filling the air. Then the bed creaked when Oscar got up.

He left the room for a moment and then came back with a towel and my pajamas. He got on his knees in front of me on the bed and started cleaning up the mess between my legs. I whined when he brushed my clit, “Hurts. Too much, Osc!”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m just cleaning you up.” He said, bowing his head down and pressing a gentle kiss on my thigh. I let him do the rest without much protest. Once he was done he tossed the towel away and helped me put on my pajamas, then got into his.

Finally we got under the blankets and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a cuddle. 

“Are you free tomorrow night?” He asked, his fingers playing with my hair, making me shudder with delight.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he hummed. “I’m taking you out on a date.”

I only managed a smile and a nod in response before falling asleep.

[prettypinkporkchop]

Paul lahote x female reader

Chicken Bone

Kim has been helping Emily with the kitchen while you are outside gathering wood with Sam.

"UGH, Sam, I'm tired. Don't you think this is enough for a year?" You giggle and whipe sweat off of your forehead. He laughs at you, making you glare at him. "You can stop. I don't need Paul getting upset with me for overworking you." He puts his hands on his hips, smiling at you. You hum in response and take off the work gloves Sam gave you.

You walk inside to see Emily and Kim fixing up the plates for the boys. There is enough food to feed all of the reservation but you're used to being around the pack at this point.

"WOOO HOOO!" You hear hooting and hollering from multiple men. You knew it was your imprinter and his family. You smile, and Kim rushes next to you. "Y/n, I have been thinking about this the whole time! Me and Emily have a bet. If you were to take a chicken bone away from Paul, I say he chases you. Emily says he just lets you have it." She laughs.

You burst into laughter and wrap your arm into hers. "Well then, Emily! What do you say? Kim do this to Jared too?" You look at the beauty of a woman who is pouring tea into glasses. She smirks at you two. "I think Jared would play a pity party!" Emily giggles. "I say, Jared simply wouldn't care and just pick up another chicken." You bet with Emily. "Oh goodness. This will be fun." She sighs with a grin as the boys all pile in.

Paul steps in front of you with a wide and bright smile. "I've missed you, my princess." He kisses your lips. The butterflies kick in asyou kiss him back. He pulls away and pecks your cheek and then leaves a lingering and sweet kiss on your forehead. He steps away to sit at the table next to Embry. Jared and Quil have their own conversation. Jacob, Leah, and Seth are currently at Billy's house, cleaning up for him.

After everyone finishes up, the boys do their classic thing. The dog comes out and they have to chew on a bone. You find this so funny and cute! Kim makes eye contact with you. She winks at you, mouthing, 'you first.' As Paul is chewing on the bone and laughing at Embry, you quickly grab it out of his hand and step away from him.

"Hey!" He calls out with confusion on his face. You start giggling and begin chewing on it, too. He watches you with his eyebrows furrowed. "That.. was the best bone in the whole plate." He mumbles in sadness. He sighs and sits down to pout.

Kim grabs Jared's and stands next to you. "Hey!" He gets up and she runs as he chases after her outside.

Emily is cackling while tears form in her eyes. All the men look confused. Paul is just brooding.

"We had a bet. Nobody was right." She chokes out.

So, Kim guessed Paul would chase you, but in fact, Jared chased her. And you guessed that Jared would let her have it, but he chased her! Unexpectedly, the pouts came from the hard ass, Paul Lahote.

Feeling bad, you stand behind Paul and hand him the bone. He grabs your wrist with a small amount of a grip. Not enough to hurt you but to be sure you don't move. "Y/n y/m/n, You pull this shit again, you won't be able to sit down." He growls before kissing your lips and then going back to the bone. You shiver and imagine what he is talking about.

Later that night, you get out of the shower, wrapping a towel around you. You step out of the bathroom and into your bedroom that you share with Paul. He's lying on his back with his eyes closed. You drop the towel and began digging through your drawer.

Paul's pair of warm arms pulls you into his hard body. A surprised yelp escapes your lips. "Ya know," he begins and starts leaving sloppy and wet kisses over your shoulder and neck. "Watching you chew that bone that was just in my mouth was very hot." He groans and grips harder onto your waist.

[russellsppttemplates]

Carrying it all on your shoulders (Daniel Ricciardo)

Juggling two kids without Daniel proved to be harder than you thought

Note: english is not my first language. I don't get requests for Daniel that often, and dad!Daniel is very fun and cute to write!

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Tw: reader's self-doubt and low self esteem associated with motherhood and parenting, exhaustion, curse words

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

"Y/N, are you sure you want to do it? I'll do it no problem", your colleague assured you, "even one of the interns can do it, Y/N! Seriously, go home earlier!", she offered.

"I can do it", you added, crossing over the task you had completed on your post it note and writing two more down, "Sophia just started her ballet class and Alice's nursery had a pantomime today so they're keeping the kids for a little longer", you winked at her, gathering the documents and getting ready to complete the task.

Lately, this was your routine. Drop the girls at school and nursery, head up to work, pick the girls up and drive home before homework, playtime, dinner time and then the bedtime routine. When Daniel was still home, it was usually him doing the school and nursery runs so it wasn't like it added a lot to your routine, but it requires more juggling than you initially thought.

By the time you finished the tasks, you were the only one left, shutting down your laptop and closing all of the doors once you had your belongings all packed into your bag, finally calling it a day and heading to your car.

Picking a very sleepy Alice from nursery and then a pouty Sophia from her ballet class, you tried your best to not bother the youngest one, "how was your class today, princess?", you wondered once you stopped at a red light, turning around slightly so you could look at your daughter's face.

"It was okay", she stated, remaining unusually quiet all the way back home as she looked outside the window.

"I'm going to put Alice down for a little nap and then I'll go and help you with your homework, okay?", you said to Sophia as she set her backpack down near her desk, "I don't have any today", she said, closing the door behind her as you walked to Alice's room, laying her down on the mattress and kissing the top of her head, feeling it warmer than usual.

"Oh, babygirl", you cooed, grabbing the thermometer from the medicine cubby and putting it on her ear, silently hoping it was just you.

A minute later, the result showed she was beggining to develop a fever. Sighing, you stored the thermometer in its box and got the medicine from your bathroom, grabbing the syringe to put it in her mouth when you managed to waker her up without a big fuss.

"I know you don't want this, baby", you cooed as Alice stirred in her sleep, big brown eyes looking up at you with tears welling up on them, "take this for mummy, okay?", you pleaded, "you'll feel better, my love", you said, holding her on your arms so she could fall asleep again.

The tiredness came over you pretty quickly, making you sit on the rocking chair, closing your eyes for a little bit and taking a deep breath. Because she was your second child, you didn't feel like the first time Sophia got sick. While in the first time, you ran around like a headless chicken, ready to bring her to the emergency room and messaging her pediatrician until both your parents' and Daniel's parents assured you and your husband you were doing just fine. So far, she didn't seem to bothered by it, just sleep, so you allowed yourself the moment to rest with her, rubbing her back and showering her with kisses and a good cuddle.

"Mummy?", Sophia asked, knocking on the door of her sister's room to announce she was coming in, "what are we having for dinner?", she asked, taking in the sight of you and her sister.

"Oh", you noted, not having given it much thought until that moment, "we can have spaghetti bolognese, I'll just have to boil some pasta - I think we still have some of those heart shapes pastas daddy brought home the other day -, or we could have some chicken nuggets and rice if you prefer that", you offered, thinking of the meal plan meals you had in the fridge as you didn't feel like cooking everything from scratch tonight.

"The spaghetti bolognese is fine", she whispered, coming closer to you and kissing her sister's hand, "is Alice sick?", she questioned.

"She has a bit of a fever, it's probably something she picked up from in nursery, you used to get these every now and again, too", you explained, brushing the curls away from her eyes, "she'll be fine though. Are you feeling okay, beautiful girl?", you checked with her, wanting to be prepared in case both kids came down with this bug.

"I feel fine", she assured you, kissing your cheek before she saw you get up and grabbing the sling, wrapping her sister against you, "do you want to help me with the pasta then?", you smiled, stretching your hand so she could grab it and you both could head to the kitchen.

"I'll set the plates", Sophias offered, making you kiss the top of her head as a thank you and going back to stirring the pasta while the sauce warmed up in another pot.

You ate the food in a quieter environment that usual, and while the reasonable voice in your head told you that it was due to the fact that everyone was a little tired, the snarky and mean one made you feel guilty.

As you washed up the pots and plates from dinner while Sophia spent some time watching cartoons on TV, your mind took you to the mom guilt feelings, rewinding back to all of the times in the last two weeks where you didn't spend time with either of them separately, all of the times where you had to rush to get out of the house all in one piece and all of the things you weren't doing well.

"Soph", you called, "I'm going upstairs to put Alice down, is there anything I can do for you before I go?", you wondered.

"Can I have your phone so I speak to daddy, please?", she asked, "he hasn't called today", she reasoned, "take it from my pocket, bub", you said, tuning your back to her slightly so she could retrieve the device from the denim material, "call me if you need anything, okay?", you checked with her, "okay, mummy! Night night, Alice, I love you", she waved at her sister who blew her a sloppy kiss.

Sitting down on the sofa, Sophia pressed Daniel's contact, smiling at the love heart on the contact despite having seen it many times before, "hey!", Daniel said, a little surprised to see the little girl's face instead of yours.

"Hi daddy!", she smiled, "mummy is putting Alice to sleep so I thought I'd talk to you for a bit", she said, "I have something to tell you".

"Oh, okay, tell me then", Daniel concerned, sensing that what your daughter wanted to tell him was something troubling her.

"I'm confused", she began, "do you remember that book you and mummy read to me and Alice? The one with the monster who is now doctor?", she tried as Daniel nodded.

Anna Llenas was one of your favourite authors for kids' stories and you always read them to your family. The way they spoke about their emotions and how to deal with them became a great tool to get them to talk openly about how they felt and Sophia seemed to be getting it.

"Yes, baby, what about it?", Daniel asked.

"I feel confused, because today I didn't really want to go to the ballet practice but I did it anyway", she said, "so I was really quiet and my friends noticed it, the teacher, too. And mummy, I think she's upset with me, too", she admitted.

"Well, do you remember what the turtle nurse did in the book?", Daniel questioned, "she had her first aid box full of things that make her heart feell warm and good", Sophia mumbled, "go and get it then, princess", Daniel urged.

Sophia pulled the box from under the sofa. The premise of the activity on the book as simple: the kids had to make a box full of things that helped them regulate their emotions and feelings when they felt confused, sad or anxious. While Alice was still too little to make one, Sophia loved the arts and crafts aspect of it and spent the whole afternoon with Daniel making her perfect first aid kit.

"Do you remember what we do with the bee drawing?", Daniel guided, "we take a big breath in, and then a big breath out", he exemplified, doing it three more times with her before speaking up again, "do you feel better?".

"I do, daddy", she said, fishing out something out of the box, "this is the pillow we made with mummy, she sewed it with my favourite soft fabrics", she smiled at the memory, rubbing it on her cheek, "and a picture of us, look!", she showed Daniel the frame with the picture of the first race Alice attended, the four of you in front of the motorhome with big smiles.

"That's right baby, we can also dance it out a little if you want", Daniel offered but she shook her head, showing him the empty bottle of medicine, "this is the 'No medicine', right?", she checked with him. The bottle was of course empty, but the idea was there.

"That's right! Sometimes we have to say no when we don't want to do some things", Daniel advised, remembering the story well enough without having the actual book in front of him, "to adults, we have to be more careful because there are things that we can't run from, but for your ballet classes, for example, you can say you don't want to go if you don't want to, sweetie", he told her earnestly.

"Okay daddy", she whispered, taking another deep breath with her finger following the wavy bee line on the drawing.

"Promise you'll tell me or mummy whenever that happens?", he asked, "I promise, daddy", she smiled, seeming calmer and happier now.

"That's great, Soph. I'm very proud of you for telling me that", he complimented, "Can I ask you about mummy, princess? Is she still upstairs?", he checked with her, not wanting her to think he didn't care about her anymore.

"Yes, daddy", Sophia smiled before pouting, "she's a little tired, and yesterday I think she was crying. I know I wasn't supposed to be up, but I forgot Snuggles by the door", she explained, mentioning her stuffed teddy that she loved to sleep with, "and when I went to pick it up, I heard mummy sniffling, she was doing it quietly but I heard it still", she told him.

Your daughter confirmed his suspicions. Before he left, you spoke about how you were going to handle two kids and your job, and while at the time it seemed good, the practical side of the conversation looked to be otherwise. He called everyday and he noticed you looking more tired each day, but he justified it on the adjustment. Eventually, there would be a day that you finally adapted to the routine, but that was wishful thinking.

"Soph, are you still on the phone with daddy?", you called from the corridor, loud enough for her to hear but quiet enough that it wouldn't disturb Alice in the sleep you worked so hard in getting her to.

"Hey, gorgeous", Daniel said as you appeared on the screen as Sophia handed you your phone back, "I'm going to get ready for bed, mummy, I'll wait for you when you can read my bedtime story", she smiled, kissing you cheek and saying goodbye to Daniel.

"How was your day?", he asked, "busy busy, but it's over now. Things are going at full speed. Sophia was a bit quieter when she arrived, but she seemed better - no need to rub it in that she's a daddy's girl -, and Alice has caught the bug that has been going around", you shrugged your shoulders, "her temperature is slowly cooling down, and other than that, she's fine", you sighed, "and yours?".

Daniel told you about his meetings, not wanting to pester you too much as he could sense the tiredness you felt, "I'll let you go rest, though. Have a good night, gorgeous", he blew you a kiss before your face disappeared.

Opening his laptop, he looked for a flight that would make him arrive just in time for school pick up, "I can't stay for the rest of the week", Daniel said to the members of the team on the meeting room, "Y/N and the girls need me back home, so if that's okay with you, we'll do these remotely", he half stated, looking for any signs of discontentment or disagreement.

As soon as he got the green light, he couldn't wait to finish that sponsorship content meeting, filming everything he needed to as quickly as possible before bidding goodbye to everyone, going back to the hotel room and pack everything up so he could go to the airport. A long flight away from his wife and kids and all would be well.

Alice didn't sleep all that well, and in turn neither did you, so you called in to work to let them know that you would be working from home as best as you could since your little girl was staying home for the day. Sophia seemed well that morning when you dropped her off at school, soothing your heart from the worries that had plagued you.

"It's me and you, baby girl", you said, kissing the top of her head as she slept on the sling, her fist grasping the fabric of your cardigan as you walked around the house, hoping to really settle her when you heard a car outside.

"Why does that look like daddy?", you mumbled out loud as if Alice could give you her opinion, focusing on the man walking up to the front door and giving you enough time to open it.

"Before you say anything, I had to do it and I won't go back", Daniel raised his hands once he set his luggage inside, closing the door behind him and kissing the top of your head and then Alice's as you stood there surprised.

"Danny, we didn't- I-", you tried, and as if your mouth wouldn't let you lie, the words didn't seem to come out of you.

"I came as soon as I could, and I should've come sooner", he said, "I want to be here for you as much as I can and I need to make sure my girls are okay - all three of them", he looked at you, "Soph told me she heard you crying", he stated as he got you to sit on the sofa in the living room.

"Another point for the greatest mother of the year award", you chastised yourself, taking a deep breath to level out your emotions.

"No, none of that", Daniel offered sternly, "you have been juggling everything on your own and it's harder that we originally thought it would be. I'm sorry it took me so long to come", he apoligised, hands undoing the sling so he could get Alice to rest against his chest instead.

"It's been a lot - and frankly, I haven't been very good at delegating at work", you chuckled, smiling at the delicious sight of a sleeping child on Daniel's chest.

"You also need the 'No medicine' Soph has in her box", he giggled despite the seriousness of the conversation, "I can see that you haven't slept all that much, so why don't you go and have a good sleep?", he suggested, "we'll talk a little bit more about this afterwards, but you need to rest first", he said, "I'll go and pick up Sophia, so you just stay here and take care of yourself, okay?", he said, tapping your butt playfully to get you to get up and head to your bedroom.

While you caught up on sleep, Daniel tidied the house as much as he could before picking up Sophia, who excitedly ran up to her father when she saw him and his sister on the parking lot, "Is mummy with you, too?", she wondered, "no, mummy is resting at home. We are going to get some food for dinner so we can all have a cosy night in, how does that sound?", he questioned, earning cheers from her and her sister who qas thankfully feeling much better, giggling in delight as she clapped her hands.

"Who's that? That's mummy, isn't she looking pretty today, Alice? Yes, she is!", Daniel said as you walked into the kitchen, Sophia's notebook open on the table as she wrote on it, "she didn't want to leave the kitchen and I wanted to make pancakes for their snacks, so we found a middle ground", your husband justified himself.

"It's okay", you smiled, kissing everyone's cheeks and tapping Alice's nose, "well, I'm glad you're feeling better, little miss", you said.

"Also, I'm in charge of dinner. I spoke to the people on your team - I'm their boss' husband so I sort of have some power too", he joked, "and they're going to delegate the work these next few days so you can stay home to rest and just work a teeny tiny little bit. I also plan on doing the school pick ups and cooking", he smiled, proud of his plans.

"I'm okay to help, too, Daniel, really", you tried, "no need for that, like I said! I'm going to take charge of the next few days, there's no reason why I can't and it's going to be great", he giggled, "we're in this together, darling, and there's no way you're carrying this all on your shoulders".

[morning-star-joy]

hiiiiii. i literally want allllllll of the smut prompts to take place in the ASHWAH (😌) universe. i’m struggling to request one so i’m going to request a combined one and pray others request the rest 🙏

sooo i’m thinking a combined lingerie and breeding kink drabble. like reader finds it while on patrol and surprises joel with it and he’s a lil feral about it or something like that?? or literally just any of the smut prompts if you don’t like this one 😩

Hiiiii!! I understand completely, I swear I am going to write for these two until the ideas run out or my fingers fall off. Tysm for requesting the lingerie one because I've been thinking about ASHWAH Reader in lingerie for a while! Had lots of fun with this.

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, established relationship, set in the ASHWAH universe

Warnings: Lingerie, Reader feels self-conscious, Joel is reassuring, thigh riding, multiple orgasms, unprotected p in v, praise kink, breeding kink, creampie, pet names for Reader: sweetheart, darlin', baby, mi luna

Wordcount: 2.6k

Part of my 700 follower celebration. If you want to send in a request for a drabble, check out the prompt list here! And tagging @thetriumphantpanda who also requested a breeding kink drabble

You had never felt so ridiculous.

Dark red lace covered your skin, spreading across your stomach, cupping your breasts and accentuating your curves. Your fingers reached down, fiddling with the part that barely covered your pussy, turning around to glance over your shoulder at how your ass was completely bare in the back.

A thong style for the bottom, but the real name of the connected piece of lingerie was lost on you. Never an expert on this kind of thing, you had found the seductive lace on a recent patrol, sitting in a box wrapped with a ribbon, never even worn.

Part of you had wanted to just leave it there, shove it back into the closet of that long abandoned house.

But your fingers had brushed against the lingerie, marveling at how the burgundy looked against your skin, and you sighed to yourself, gingerly lifting up the piece and tucking it carefully into your backpack.

For weeks that lingerie had stayed in your pack, too afraid to take it out and put it anywhere in the bedroom you now shared with Joel, not wanting him to see it and draw conclusions.

What conclusions, though? That you were trying to seduce him?

You didn’t have to try to do that. The two of you had hardly been able to stop fucking since you started, and your sex life had only turned up in temperature once you both accepted your feelings for each other, even if you never explicitly stated said feelings.

No confession was needed. You both understood each other even better than yourselves, and knew what you had together was real. Being with each other was all you needed.

So then why had you taken the lingerie?

You observed yourself in the mirror, tilting your head as you ran your fingers over the lace again, wondering if you looked…pretty.

Joel was a man of few words, even now. But he wasn’t shy either—he had no issues calling you beautiful whenever he was inside of you.

Outside of sex, though, you could probably count on one hand the times he had complimented you on your looks. One such time had been at the holiday party, and you remembered how much your heart had raced, feeling so happy at the idea that he saw you that way, like you were something beautiful.

You weren’t shy either, by any means. In fact, you could be arrogant as fuck at times. You were confident when it came to sex, not caring what you looked like.

But Joel made you care.

With a sigh, you grabbed the t-shirt that belonged to Joel that you had brought into the bathroom with you, pulling it over your head and tugging the hem down, making sure it was long enough to cover up the lingerie so that you would be able to chicken out without him ever knowing what you wore if you couldn’t build up the courage to show him.

Stepping out of the bathroom, you closed the door behind you, smiling to yourself at the sight of Joel leaning back against the headboard, reading glasses perched on his nose as he read the book on outer space he had been trying to get through for Ellie.

“Hey,” you murmured after you had walked around the bed and climbed in beside him, careful to make sure the t-shirt still covered your body as you kissed his cheek.

Joel hummed, turning his head to meet your lips in a chaste kiss before going back to reading his book.

You sat in content like that, tucking your legs under yourself with the t-shirt covering your thighs, hiding any hint of lace as your heart raced in your chest at the thought of what you were wearing, and how he had no idea.

As you rested your head on his shoulder, you read the book with him, enjoying the topic of outer space as it reminded you of your sister. Every now and then one of you would remark on some little fun fact, and when Joel turned the page after you confirmed you were done reading a passage, his hand came to rest on your leg above your knee, drawing lazy patterns against your skin.

So drawn into comfort by the moment, you didn’t notice as his hand rose higher, callused fingers dancing across the soft skin of your thigh until it brushed against the lace resting on your hip right above it.

Joel’s hand paused in the same moment you froze at the sensation you both felt of his hand resting over a part of your lingerie.

His head turned then, glancing down at you as your breath quickened, avoiding his gaze to stare stubbornly at the page even as his fingers danced higher, spreading across the lace on your stomach as his breath hitched.

“What’s this?” he mumbled, his voice husky as he turned to look down at you better, sucking in a sharp breath as he saw just a hint of the red lace on your skin from where his hand had pushed up the t-shirt slightly.

“Joel—”

“Are you wearing lingerie for me, darlin’?” his voice came out in a rumble, eyes flashing up to meet yours, darkening with a familiar desire that seemed deeper, hungrier than how he usually looked at you.

“Uh—” you cleared your throat, feeling your cheeks heat up as your eyes darted away again.

At your hesitancy, Joel’s hand froze from where it was sliding up towards your breasts under the shirt. He pulled back, shifting to sit up and forcing you to do so as well, glancing over your face with a frown.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked quietly, concern mixing with the hunger in his gaze, his affection for you winning over his lust. “You don’t gotta wear anything like that if you don’t wanna, you know.”

“No, I know,” you said quickly, wanting to assure him you didn’t feel like you had to.

But it was hard to admit that you wanted to, that you wanted him to call you pretty. That you wanted him to worship you.

Biting your lip, you glanced away, eyes darting around the room before Joel gently took your chin and directed your gaze back to meet his again.

“Talk to me, mi luna,” he whispered, and you sighed, melting at the fond name he had for you that dripped from his lips in his most affectionate moments with you. “What’s wrong?”

“I just—” you groaned, dropping your face into your hands. “It’s…embarrassing.”

“Oh, darlin’,” Joel sighed, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you gently into his chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, murmuring against your hair, “You don’t ever have to be embarrassed around me.”

He pulled back, leaning his forehead against yours, gazing deeply into your eyes as he added, “I’d like to see you, if you’d let me. But you’re always beautiful, lingerie or not.”

Your eyelashes fluttered, breath hitching as your chest warmed with fondness before you leaned up to meet his lips in a deep kiss that you poured the depth of your emotions into.

Joel moaned quietly into the kiss, slipping his tongue into your mouth for something deeper until he pulled back with a rasp of, “Will you let me see you, darlin’?”

With a nod, you pushed yourself back, rising from the bed as Joel tossed the book and reading glasses onto the bedside table before he moved to sit on the edge of it. You grabbed the hemline of the shirt, bringing it over your head to land on the floor, completely forgotten as Joel took you in.

“Sweet God,” he whispered, voice thick with longing as his brown gaze darkened so much it was nearly black, fingers twitching from where he grabbed the edge of the bed. Wanting to touch you, but wanting to appreciate the way the lace looked on you first. “Turn around for me, sweetheart. Let me see all of you.”

You did as he requested, heart racing as desire pooled between your legs when he saw your ass and groaned.

“Fuck,” Joel mumbled, and you gasped quietly as you felt the rough palm of his hand against your ass, grabbing your soft flesh and bringing moans from both of your lips.

He was grabbing your hips then, turning you around so he could see you from the front again, large hands spreading across the lace on your body, taking in the texture pressed to your skin as he cupped your breasts in his palms. His thumbs rubbed over your nipples, bringing them to peaks that showed through the burgundy lace as you moaned, and Joel exhaled heavily at the sound.

“C’mere,” he murmured, grabbing your hip and tugging you forward, and you collapsed down into his lap, meeting his lips in a desperate kiss as you both fell back onto the bed together.

His tongue slipped into your mouth as you kissed, hot and desperate, saliva exchanging between you as you shifted so you straddled his thigh. You grinded down against him with a moan, finding delicious friction in the lace rubbing against your clit as he cupped the back of your neck with a large hand.

“Fuck, sweetheart, you wanna ride my thigh?” Joel whispered as he leaned back, head falling back against the bed as you nodded, rolling your hips so you could continue to get sweet friction on your throbbing clit. “Go on, then. I want to see you soak through that pretty little lace until you’re coming on my thigh.”

You whimpered, nodding again as you humped his thigh faster, lips parting with fast breaths, chest heaving as Joel intently watched your body roll with the grinding.

“You’re doing so good, baby,” Joel whispered, lifting his leg so he could bounce it gently, meeting your ministrations and nudging your clit in the perfect way, making the sensation even more delicious as you hurtled towards the edge. “Come on, you can do it. Drip all over me, sweetheart, cum for me.”

Your head tossed back, crying out as your body followed his command without a second thought, hips weakly gyrating against his thigh as you rode out the orgasm on his leg.

“Fuck, look at you,” Joel mumbled, using his hand still on the back of your neck to pull you down into a hard, passionate kiss. “Soaked my thigh, darlin’. Might have ruined that pretty little lace of yours, too.”

Joel lifted you up so he could rid himself of the boxers that were containing his erection, fabric now stained with your release from where you rode his thigh. You watched his cock hit his stomach, tip already leaking with precum as he situated you above him.

He curled his fingers around the soaked lace of your lingerie, dragging it away from your pussy with a moan at the obscene, wet sound of it pulling from your folds.

“Would look even better if my cum was on there too,” Joel whispered, and your eyelashes fluttered, feeling the ache for another orgasm begin to fill your lower stomach as his hand found his cock to guide along your folds and collect your release. “Fuck, you’d look so good with my cum leaking out of your pussy, with only this slutty little lace to keep it in.”

“Oh fuck, Joel,” you gasped, head rolling back between your shoulders as he pushed the head of his cock into you, inching inside of you in slow, sensual thrusts until he was bottomed out with your ass pressed to his balls from where you were now sitting on top of his thighs.

When you pulled your head back up to look down at him, you saw his dark gaze fixed on where the lingerie still covered your stomach, and with his previous words, an idea began to swirl through your mind.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Joel?” you whispered huskily, grabbing one of his hands to place it on your stomach, your other hand resting on the bed next to his face as you leaned down to hover your lips inches above his. “You’d like to put your baby in me, hm?”

Joel’s breath hitched, eyes wide as they met yours from underneath you, and for a moment you worried you had taken it too far.

Your mouth opened, about to apologize, when he breathed out a desperate moan of, “God, yes.”

A moan slipped past your own mouth, still open and letting out a steady stream of whimpers and expletives now as Joel lifted his knees up, placing his feet against the mattress so he could fuck up into you.

“Jesus, is that what you want, sweetheart?” Joel grunted, bucking up into you with his hands grabbing your waist tightly, pulling you down to meet each hard stroke. “You want me to fill you up until you’re having my baby?”

You cried out from pleasure as he rotated his hips, hitting that sweet spot inside you that made you lose any coherent thought other than the realization that yes, yes, “Yes!”

“Oh fuck,” Joel moaned, his balls slapping against your ass each time he bucked into you, the obscene sounds of your hard sex filling your shared bedroom. “Fuck yes, baby. Take it, take my cock until you make me cum inside of you.”

“Joel, please,” you whimpered, rolling your hips to meet his movements, and one of his hands left your hip to find that sensitive bundle of nerves between your thighs that was begging to be touched.

“Gonna fill you up, sweetheart,” Joel moaned and whimpered as you stared wide-eyed at the ceiling while he fucked you, vision blurring until you were nearly blind as his thumb rubbing mercilessly over your clit brought you to another orgasm. 

“Gonna give you my baby,” Joel gasped, his thrusts turning sloppy, desperate as his hips rolled underneath you while you grabbed at his knees to try and keep your boneless body up with the aftershocks of your climax rocking through you. “And you’re gonna wear this little piece again. I wanna see your tits spilling over this lace when I get you knocked up for me.”

“Do it, Joel,” you whisper hoarsely, falling forward to brace your arms on the bed around his head, wide gaze meeting his as he bucked up into you. “Cum inside me, fill me up, make me yours.”

“Jesus, sweetheart, fuck!” Joel moaned until he nearly cried out the last curse, pulling you down to meet his hard thrusts once, twice, before his cum began to shoot inside of you, coating your walls as he seated himself as deep inside you as he could so you took it all.

You were both panting heavily, two sets of glazed over eyes meeting in pure bliss as his cock continued to pulse inside of you, filling you up even more than you would have thought until the feeling of the hot cum shooting into you subsided.

Still, you both stayed like that, foreheads resting together as your lips met his in lazy kisses, again and again until his cock began to soften inside of you, and he pulled out with a groan.

“Fuck,” Joel panted, looking down at where his cum immediately began to drip back out of your pussy, coating your thighs as he pulled the lace of the lingerie back into place, moaning as his release mixed with yours on the dark red fabric.

“I guess you really liked this little number, huh?” you teased breathlessly, and Joel laughed softly, rolling you over so he was on top of you, showering your face with affectionate kisses until his lips met yours in a slow, soft kiss that said all you needed to know of how much he cared for you.

Still, he whispered quietly, “you’re so beautiful,” as his face nuzzled into your neck, and you sighed happily, knowing now that you would never feel embarrassed to show yourself off like this for him again.

In fact, it seemed like you may have to find a few new pieces of lingerie now.

[sundrop-writes]

would you be willing to do a follow up to the teen wolf pregnancy hcs? something with the characters interacting with their kid - can be as a baby or older - just them being parents and adjusting to being young parents.

i love your writing 💗💗💗

Fyi, I was not even planning on working on requests tonight, but this caught my attention so much and gave me such a good idea that I had to do it. I decided to do it with the same characters from the first part, but if you want to see this prompt with other characters, then I would do the 'how they react to finding out that you're pregnant' part first with different characters

My requests for Teen Wolf are OPEN, but please read my Rules before sending in a request.

Part One - How would they react to finding out that you're pregnant with their baby?

How would the pack act as parents?

Included: Stiles Stilinski, Isaac Lahey, Lydia Martin, and Derek Hale.

Warnings: fem reader - uses she/her pronouns and has the ability to get pregnant (she is the one who gave birth to the baby, as in the previous part); Stiles's part is extremely self indulgent and something I have been thinking about since I wrote the last part so bear with me; mentions of breastfeeding, giving birth, teething, and other parenting/baby topics; the baby is a different age and has a different name in each section just for funsies; mention of Lydia and reader's baby having red hair - but I did this to drive home the baby's genetic relation to Lydia and I don't think it has to specify the reader's race (someone with darker skin can still have naturally red hair); Lydia calls the reader 'Mama'; mention of the reader being a werewolf in Derek's part because there is a weird continuity in these reactions (and I should write a full fic about Derek and this reader character cause I am slowly becoming addicted to their story, ngl); I believe that's finally it.

Stiles was panicking. He was officially the worst parent ever - everything his dad said was right. He wasn't ready for this, nobody should be a teen parent, he was a failure. God, his whole life was crumbling around him...

You were out of town because your sister was getting married. You had been incredibly hesitant to leave the baby - sweet, adorable, nine-month-old Lila Stilinski - but Stiles had insisted that you go on a weekend getaway to your sister's bachelorette party. You deserved it. You had spent nine whole months growing his baby and then you had given birth to her (a bloody, messy affair that made him faint - to nobody's surprise), and you had spent the last nine months nursing her and getting your degree from home after you had fought through your pregnancy taking double courses to graduate high school early. You were a gem, a beautiful, shining gem of a woman and a mother, and somehow - while you were off getting your much needed rest and having fun - Stiles had lost your baby.

His baby - his baby that he loved very, very much.

He had woken up that morning, late, having forgotten to set the alarm, and rushed around the apartment like a chicken with his head cut off rushing to get Lila ready for day care and himself ready for school, and he dropped her off as usual, with a smile and kiss on her big beautiful forehead. And when he went to pick her up that afternoon - she was gone. The day care worker couldn't give him any other news than the fact that she had been 'signed out already', and it left Stiles panicking, thinking about that cult that sacrifices babies every single day.

In his rush that morning, he had forgotten to charge his phone, so he couldn't get his dad on the line - and he was currently running at top, lung-crushing speed toward the police station, running past the deputy on duty at the front desk, who simply shrugged and buzzed him in when she saw his bright red face and his clear desperation.

"Dad, D-dad, you have to-!" He was going to ask his father to put out an amber alert, to call every single one of his deputies back to get them looking, but when his father turned around - that sweet girl with the bright purple bow in her hair was in his arms.

Then, Stiles shifted on a dime from panic to anger.

"Dad, what the hell?" He barked out, struggling to sound as pissed off as he was while still trying to catch his breath.

"What?" The Sheriff shrugged, kissing his granddaughter on the forehead before cooing brightly at her, smiling at her with all the brightness in the world, paying Stiles absolutely no mind.

"You took her out of day care without telling me first?" Stiles gaped, absolutely angered that his father had let him believe for even a moment that his girl was missing.

He knew it was a cruel irony - a blunt kind of karma. All the times he had come home late, all the nights he had snuck out believing that his dad was simply being too hard on him for giving him such an early curfew. Now, in a single crashing moment, he instantly understood why his father had worried so much - why he was so angry every single time Stiles was out of his sight, especially when there was danger around.

"Your phone was off." Noah shrugged, rocking Lila back and forth in his arms, giving her another kiss on the forehead as he began to hum the tune of a lullaby under his breath. "I got bored on my lunch break, and I wanted to see my baby, so what?"

It was the usual for him - any time he was within ten feet of her, she didn't have a moment in your arms or Stiles's. On the day she had been born, he had brought a giant gift basket to the hospital, grumbling under his breath about how he still thought it was 'irresponsible' of Stiles, but demanding to see 'his baby'.

He had burst into tears upon seeing Lila for the first time, and was deeply aggressive about who was allowed to visit and for how long. When she came home, he stood watch over her crib with his gun in hand for multiple days before he finally gave up and went to sleep (and according to you, he admitted quietly that he had done the same thing for Stiles when he first came home from the hospital).

"My phone died." Stiles stressed. "You could have left a note for me at the school or something. You gave me a freakin' heart attack."

"Be more responsible and charge it next time." The Sheriff grinned at him.

"Just - don't kidnap my daughter again!" Stiles snapped. "She is my daughter-" He argued, taking a possessive, protective stance.

"Yeah, well I made you, so I have certain rights when it comes to this little sweet girl." His father said, trailing off into a cooing baby voice as he began fawning over Lila once again. Stiles rolled his eyes. "Besides, ever since the three of you moved out, I hardly get to see my babygirl anymore."

Stiles felt a twinge of guilt at this, but wanted to argue. The three of you needed your own space, and you had moved into an apartment that was less than twenty minutes away from his father's house. He still saw Lila at least once every single day of the week, unless he was busy working.

"Dad-"

"Besides, it's not kidnapping if I'm the Sheriff."

"It is so kidnapping! It's kidnapping if I report you."

"Is it still considered an abortion if I terminate you now?" His father glared at him.

Stiles let out a huff.

Isaac was tired. He knew that being a parent was going to be tiring, but in the six months since baby Leon had been born, this was his first full night alone with his son. His son who was teething, crying incredibly loudly, and in pain because of his little teeth coming in. He wasn't nearly as upset about the fact that he hadn't slept as he was about the fact that his son was in pain and he could do little about it.

He had considered calling you a few times throughout the night when Leon was letting out particularly harrowing cries and Isaac was on the verge of tears himself (especially considering with his heightened werewolf senses, the pain of those cries seemed to pierce through him even more) - but he had agreed to take care of Leon by himself to get him out of the house that you and your mother shared because you had been studying for the SATs and you needed sleep the night before your big exam. So as much as it pained him, he endured alone and ended up crying with his son while he sucked on a frozen teething toy with tears still running down his chubby cheeks.

The sun had come up a while ago and Leon had just fallen asleep, his portable crib set up in the middle of the loft so that Isaac could watch over him - his hair messy and his eyes bloodshot red as he stood at the counter, chugging down a cup of black coffee, trying his hardest to stay away until after your exam was over so that you could take Leon and he could have a nap.

He was not at all pleased when the door creaked open, seeming like the loudest thing ever - alerting him to the presence of Boyd entering the apartment.

"Hey, man-" Boyd greeted him in a usual bright tone, and Isaac cut him off with an abrupt hush. He put a finger to his lips and then motioned to the crib, and Boyd peeked over, nodding once he saw the baby. "You're on Daddy duty again?"

"It's not like it's a hobby or something," Isaac told him tiredly in a hushed tone. "I am a father now." Even with the tense whispering and the tired droop of his shoulders, there was a certain sense of pride in the way he said this.

"Well you-"

Isaac shushed him again, as Boyd speaking in his usual tone was far too loud for Isaac's liking.

"You know, he's gonna have to get adjusted to noise sooner or later." Derek piped up from his place on the couch, where Isaac had convinced him to sit and read a book until Leon had settled to sleep.

"Shh!" Isaac tried to hush Derek into silence, but he glared at Isaac and kept talking at his usual volume.

"Babies born into pack families are brought up co-sleeping, so they sleep through the noise of a dozen family members-"

Isaac crossed the room and put a hand against Derek's mouth, forcing him quiet this time.

"I don't care." Isaac insisted. "Nobody is going to wake up my son now that he is asleep."

"Stop touching me." Derek said, muffled against Isaac's hand.

Isaac backed off, and before Derek could speak up again, Leon woke with a high pitched wail.

"You guys have fun with that." Boyd said, taking this as his queue to leave.

Lydia was overjoyed. Telling her parents about everything had been nothing short of a confusing nightmare, and after a lot of convincing from Melissa and Noah and a lot of questions without a lot of answers, they had both still been sceptical right up until you had given birth.

The moment they had laid eyes on a sweet newborn baby girl with bright red hair - they were convinced that against all odds, you and Lydia had made a baby together.

That was an entire year ago - and now, Lydia was having the utter pleasure of planning her beautiful Luna Harmony Martin's first birthday party. She was so perfectly in her element - picking out decorations, designing an utterly epic and fabulous birthday cake (including a separate, smaller smash cake that only her daughter would get to touch, because it was only the best for Luna), planning entertainment - a professional princess performer and some magicians (no clowns - Luna didn't need those kind of memories implanted in her psyche this early on), and the best part: picking out cute little dresses for the birthday girl to wear.

Much like her mother, she was a fashion icon, and she would likely need multiple outfit changes for her party - not just with the fact that she would get covered in cake or her own spit-up, but because a proper birthday girl should always be photographed in more than one ensemble.

You weren't surprised when Lydia came home with two large armfuls of shopping bags. You wanted to protest, to tell her that a one-year-old didn't need that many clothes that she wasn't even going to wear, but you knew that Lydia's parents weren't going to take away her credit card anytime soon (and when it came to spoiling the baby, they were even worse) and you also knew that this was one of her ways of showing your daughter love.

So when she came to sit on the cushy foam playmat with you and Luna, dropping the many shopping bags on the cough behind the two of you, you simply let it happen.

"Hello my sweet girl," Lydia said, greeting your daughter in a sweet voice as she kissed her chubby cheeks and pulled her into her lap. "And hello to you, Mama."

Mama. The nickname still made your stomach churn with heat - something that Lydia had gotten into calling you more lately after some rant about how Luna's 'speech centre' was 'rapidly developing' and she wanted to influence what the baby would call you.

You couldn't help but to grin as you kissed her too.

"I see you've been shopping." You said, motioning toward the bags.

"A bit." Lydia shrugged. "After I booked the carousel-"

"A carousel?" You questioned. "Lydia, she's a year old. She can't even ride carnival rides - she's not even going to remember any of this."

"It's for the photos. Obviously." Lydia sighed in return, rolling her eyes at you. "The theme of the party is Cotton Candy Princess, what kind of idiot would I be if I didn't include at least one classic carnival ride in my photos?"

"At this rate, she's gonna want a golden pony by the time she's five."

"Then she'll get one." Lydia cooed at Luna, kissing her cheeks again, smearing pink lipstick on her.

You couldn't help but to smile - you knew that this was Lydia's way of showing your daughter that to her, she was the most important little girl in the world.

Derek was annoyed - not with his son, with you.

Since the moment he had found out that you were pregnant, Derek loved his son more than anything in the world. He loved you just as much, he had right from the moment he had slashed Peter's throat and then turned you where you were dying, bleeding out, and used his newfound Alpha powers to turn you in order to save your life. Because that was the moment he knew he would risk anything and everything in order to keep you alive.

He loved you very much, but he was still annoyed with you.

You were determined not to let Derek sleep with his son - a tradition as old as pack life itself, now being marred by you shoving articles in Derek's face about how co-sleeping was 'dangerous' and how the baby should have his own crib. A baby of only three months old should not be damned to isolation. It made Derek's heart ache just thinking about it. He was used to the comfort of your body - he was used to the sync of your heartbeat, the sound of his voice and Derek's constantly nearby. He shouldn't be off in the corner by himself. You had made Derek feel like some criminal, sneaking out of bed at one in the morning to pluck his son out of that damned crib in order to spend some time with him.

And now, Alexander was sleeping peacefully on his bare chest, skin to skin as nature intended, feeling the peace of his father's heartbeat as Derek dozed into a gentle sleep himself on the sofa himself. He was - until he heard the distinct squeak of the bed springs on your side, a distinct huff from you as you got out of bed.

"Derek," You sighed when you saw what he had done, crossing your arms over your chest - it was an entirely appealing sight; the incredibly small baby perched in the middle of his bare chest, so tiny against Derek's large, muscled frame. But it did make you worry - Alexander wasn't secured in any way - he could fall, he could roll off. Even though Derek was an incredibly capable, loving parent, even in the haze of sleep, he could roll over and crush the baby.

It scared you.

"What - are you gonna take him from me?" He glared at you, deep betrayal in his voice. It was clear that the only thing keeping him from raising his voice further was the restraint not to yell so close to the baby's ear. "Do you honestly think that I would hurt my son?"

You held back tears, hating how much the insinuation clearly pained Derek.

"Never." You told him, your own tears choking your throat. "Derek, I know that you would never hurt him intentionally. But-"

"Exactly." He replied, cutting you off. "And there is nothing that will harm him. I am not going to let it happen."

You sighed, putting a hand to your forehead in frustration.

Derek shook his head, sitting up, putting a hand against Alexander's diapered bum to support him - able to hold nearly the entirety of his tiny body with one hand.

"Didn't you notice that all of those articles you read are written by humans?" He pointed out. "This is something that my family has done for generations. Our senses are honed for stuff like this. The moment that a baby is born, we sleep differently. Haven't you noticed?"

You had noticed - you felt like you had been sleeping with only half your brain, like a shark. You thought it was something your mother had warned you about, how you would never get a full night's rest again after having a baby. But it felt different. You did wake up rested, but you didn't dream anymore. You felt conscious nearly the entire time you were asleep - hyper aware of everything, your body responsive to every single coo, every little noise the baby made. You became hyper aware of the rhythm of his heartbeat while you slept, often using it as a white noise machine while you laid there.

"Yeah." You admitted - Derek gave you a subtle smug grin, and nodded.

"I'm not going to hurt him, not even by accident - because I can't." Derek told you firmly. "I will wake up the minute he cries, and I won't shift in my sleep. And this is healthy for us. Our heartbeats will sync up and this will help him sleep better. Please, just trust me on this."

Derek rarely pleaded with you about things, rather than outright telling you - so you knew that this mattered to him greatly.

"Yes. I trust you." You told him. "Come back to bed?" You posed. "All of us in the same bed."

He smiled, and leaned in to kiss you before he got up off the couch, bringing your son with him.

(When you woke up the next morning, the crib was smashed to pieces, and Derek - who was in the kitchen making breakfast with Alexander still pressed to one shoulder - claimed that he had no idea how it happened.)

...

Teen Wolf Masterlist

[sweetlyskz]

Emerald Gem||Chapter Five

Chapter one|Chapter two|Chapter three|Chapter four|Chapter five|Chapter six|Chapter seven|Chapter eight||Chapter nine|Chapter ten (finale!)|

Pairing: Hybrid!OT7 x fem!reader

Overview: Living away from society has its perks. All natural food from your thoroughly cultivated farm, no nosy neighbors, and peace and security with your animals. But sometimes you did get lonely, having no one the talk to but the pigs. However, when 7 extremely wanted hybrids stable upon your deserted farm, everything changes.

Genre: Hybrid Au, Strangers to lovers, slow burn, smut, fluff

Word count: 1.7k

Unedited

"How much longer do we have to keep walking?"

The group was extremely sick and exhausted, walking miles and miles along the forest. When Jimin had no more energy left, the youngest carried him on his back. The pack leader was fearful of the government coming to find them, so during the day they walked nonstop. And when the sun would finally rest, they would rest in the nearest cave or by the tallest tree.

"Until we make it to some water", Joon claimed, ears perked to listen for the closest stream. "I can hear it. We're almost there."

"We wouldn't have had to run, y'know..." Jimin was absentmindedly whispering his thoughts, delirious from lack of sleep.

"I miss her", Tae whined. "And I miss the food, and the comfy bed, and the little chickens..."

Namjoon ignored their complaints, keeping the same pace. He was just as sick and tired as they were, but his love for his pack kept him strong. Now matter how much they tried to convince him to stay, it didn't work. But they couldn't blame him- Namjoon has been burned before.

And he wasn't gonna let it happen again.

Justin didn't like taking the bus. The older kids always made fun of him. Plus, his school was only a couple of minutes away from home if he took the shortcut. So everyday afterschool he would hop the fence behind the school and take left and right turns through the alleyways to get home.

Until one day where he met a little wolf hybrid. Justin had stumbled upon the little guy next to a dumpster in the alley. He was frail and weak looking. His short was torn, his pants were jagged, and the soles of his feet were black.

"Hey little guy", Justin whispered, slowly walking up to the wolf as to not startle him. However it did quite the opposite.

"Please!" He screamed. "I'll go but please don't hurt me!"

With that, Justin backed away. "I'm not gonna hurt you- promise!" The hybrid stood on his feet with haste, getting ready to make a fast exit.

But Justin didn't wanna let him go.

"Are you lost? Do you need some help?" That's when he realized Justin wasn't coming for him- he probably didn't even know who he was.

"N-no. Im f-fine", he whispered, making his way to the kind human who offered to help him. "Just please don't tell anyone I'm here-please." He got down on his knees and pleaded.

"I won't, I swear. But, you can't stay here. Whoever you're hiding from will find you as easily as I did."

The hybrid thought for a second, pondering over his next moves. He's probably been on the run his whole life. His street smarts are probably beyond compare. At least, that's what Justin thought.

"I have nowhere to go..." He whispered. "My family... they're dead. They're all dead- and I'm alone."

It was like looking in a mirror. Justin had found someone just like him. Parentless, scared, afraid. He had a feeling he could help. "You can come stay with me for a while", he offered.

And just like that- he found himself stepping into Justins small apartment. It was cramped, but it's all Justin could afford so he made it work. They lived together for month before Justin finally asked what his name was.

"Namjoon", he replied. "My name is Kim Namjoon, and I'm wanted for murder."

***

Some of the food in your fridge had spoiled. Just to prevent from wasting you walked miles away to the nearest neighbor and gave them all of your leftovers. It been a couple weeks since the guys had left, and you were feeling lost-empty. You knew who they were. You knew what people called him. You knew they were wanted by the government, but it didn't stop you from taking them in.

And even though they hadn't stayed long, it was hard to imagine what life was like without them- especially when you had already imagined a life with them.

When it was time to rest your head, you would walk by their rooms and whisper goodnight. But even though no one was there, the ghost of them always replied back, "goodnight, sweet dreams."

Every now and then you swear you hear laughing downstairs, the sound of Hoseok rolling around in the grassy field, or even the sound of Taehyung flipping the page of a good book. Every now and then, while making dinner, you feel a presence creep up behind you asking "Can I just have one bite? How will I know if it's good if I don't try it?" Jungkook loved to sneak bits of supper before it was ready.

The feeling made you queasy, and it brought tears to your eyes. It made you anxious, so you watched the new every night in hopes that they hadn't been caught. Because, even though they didn't want to stay with you, you sure as hell weren't going to let the researchers have them.

You had already made that mistake once before.

Your birthday party was absolutely amazing! Your friends were there, all of your family came. Even the gifts were memorable. However, something was missing. Your nine year old self couldn't put your finger on it, but something seemed off about that day. It felt as though you were at someone else's birthday party, like the party wasn't for you.

If wasn't until you got older that you realized that it was true- it wasn't technically your birthday party. It was your birthday- that part it true. However, the party was your father's. It was your father's friends, it was their children. They were never your friends. No one would even notice if you weren't there.

So you left.

By your house was a lake, a peaceful lake where all you could hear was the wind blowing through the trees. That's where you snuck off to that night. That's where you met Mina. She was a wolf- the most beautiful wolf you might ever have seen (the only wolf at that time). Her fur was pure white with specks of gray, and her eyes shimmered in the moonlight. One might've been afraid of her, but you certainly were not. She could tell.

"You come here often, Don't you?" The wolf could speak. For some reason, that didn't scare you either. "From the trees, I notice you come hear to wipe your tears. What's bothering you?"

"I'm alone", you whispered, audibly enough for her to hear. "I don't think I'm supposed to exist. All the signs point against it." You laid in the grass, picking piece to fiddle with. Telling your secrets to a total stranger wasn't the best option. But for you, it was the only option.

"Don't speak such words", she scolded. "Close your eyes. I wanna show you a secret."

You obeyed, shutting your eyes as tight as you could. Out of nowhere, great winds blew and the ground shook.

"Now, open."

She was gone. She vanished, right in front of you. The wolf had vanished, and what replaced it was even more beautiful. Her hair was silver. Her eyes were green. She clothed her self in leaves- fitted like a dress.

"Happy birthday, pup", she smiled. Your eyes began to shed tears. She was the first person to wish you happy birthday- Not even your parents did so.

"T-thank you", you sniffled. "I'm Y/n." She patted your head, the same way your mother once did. It was comforting. Here she was, a total stranger, and she's given you more attention than your mother has in a long time. It entranced you, to the point of laying your head on her

"I know", She sighed. "The nights not going so well, is it?"

You nodded. "When does it ever? I'm nine and feel like I'm an adult- so much I haven't done with so much responsibility."

Daciana was her name, a quite beautiful name. You told her all your fears and she held you close. She comforted you when no one else would.

You will never forgive yourself for what happened to her...

***

The cave was cold, almost icy. Jin wanted to light a fire but Joon was strongly against it. "That'll make us an easy target", he scolded.

Jimin laid flat on his back, having no neck or back support. He thought of you. What are you doing right now? What may you be wearing? He dreamed of the dinner you might be cooking.

Does she even care that we're gone?

Jungkook was trying his best to keep Hobi's fever down, but it continued to rise. Taehyung was in excruciating pain. Yoongi was absolutely delirious and Joon could hardly breathe, choosing the solid ground as the best place to rest.

"Joon, we can't go on like this", Jin begged. It hurt him to see his pack in so much pain. It hurt even more to know the cause of it was his pack alpha.

He heaved, trying to get back on his two feet with no avail. "What else can we do? The minute we think we're safe, we'll will be taken. You know this! Where can we possibly go?"

"Back home", Jimin mumbled, using the last bits of his energy. "I wanna go back home, to Y/n."

"Me too", Kook whispered just audible enough to hear. The rest of the pack agreed, sharing their sentiments- everyone except Namjoon. While everyone whined and groaned, he laughed exasperatedly.

"Are you guys serious? She would've turned us over to the authors the minute she found out who we really are! How many times do I have to tell you this? You cannot trust humans."

Jin was fed up. He was sick, exhausted, and lonely. And he was done following orders.

"What do you think you're doing?" The pack watched Jin as he put Jimin on his back, heading towards the entrance of the cave.

"We're going home, Joon..." Jimin struggled to keep his eyes open, but a smile was plastered on his face. It was hard to miss his excitement, even if it was a little hard for him to express. "Anyone who wants to come can come, but I'm tired of living in fear."

He continued, pointing towards his alpha. "Let me know when you're done too. You know where to find us."

And with that, the six pack member left the dark and empty cave, leaving Namjoon alone with his thoughts.

What am I gonna do now? He thought.

-

-

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[vaaaaaiolet]

This summer, you're a swimming instructor. The cute lifeguard that rescued you from drowning in the deep end of the pool last week invites you out for a romp on the beach and you end up getting a little in your head.

Lucky for you, Leon's a dab hand at his job. Especially for you, even if he's off duty.

f / m, fluff, romance, body image issues, banter, tw: eating issues, reader is awkward and body conscious :( but leon is a sweetheart and a TOTAL flirt, slight?? afab nsfw

a/n: title from "my fun" by suki waterhouse! i'm finally reaching the end of my manic writing streak, and since summer's in full swing, you all better know that you look STUNNING no matter what!! your incredible support means the world to me <3

this fic belongs to sketches for my sweetheart the drunk, a collection of bite-sized fics to stretch out my writing muscles :) i hope you enjoy!

word count: 662 // read on ao3

Can’t do it, nope.

You skitter back under the shade of an umbrella blooming on the beach. The water’s beautiful today. Incessant little waves lap at your feet, coaxing you into the turquoise coast. 

The sinking feeling in your stomach outweighs any of its appeal.

He spots you on his way back from his truck. You’re swaddled in a towel big enough for the both of you, buried in a book that you find super interesting (once you turn it right side up), and just as you get into the nitty gritty of how to win friends and influence people, your reading gets swiped up from right under your nose. “Hey!” 

Leon blinks innocently, twisting his wrist to read the cover, “You’re into this kinda stuff?”

“It’s how I’m so winning,” you cross your arms over your stomach, whatareyousaying?, “and influential. To people.”

“To people.” He repeats.

“Uh huh.”

Way to go. If the cute lifeguard didn’t think you were weird for asking if he knew how to swim, he’s definitely going to think you’re weird now. What kind of swimming instructor doesn’t swim at the beach?

And as you think you’ve screwed it all up with the only cute guy who’s asked you out all summer, Leon just chuckles, hunkering down on the sand next to you. “You’re influential, I’ll give you that. Maybe I’ll put my swimming off until later too.”

So Leon saves you again, like he did at the deep end of the pool last week.

“Toss me something from the cooler?” he asks.

He shucks off his shirt, revealing a set of well-earned abs. Jesus, they ripple, they’re waves. You’d happily take a surfboard to his six-pack. 

Sadly, you settle for handing him a Coke instead.  

“Is something the matter?” he asks after a bit. Leon almost sounds shy, his cheeks a sunkissed pink to match as he sips.

You shake your head no as winningly as possible.

“Are you sick? Cramping?” Oh, he’s a sweetheart, “‘Cause we can go anywhere you want. I just thought since you teach swimming…” His fingers inch towards your towel-covered thigh. 

“Seriously,” you laugh, “it’s not a big deal, you go swim.”

“Really? Cause I’m thinking the pretty girl I finally convinced to go to the beach with me is going to run the other way the minute I turn my back.”

Your face sears with heat as you open your mouth and nothing comes out. 

“Kidding, I swear. Wanna make sure you’re okay.”

You wrap the towel a little tighter around your stomach, and Leon’s brow pinches. “What’s that all about?”

“Just not feeling like I look my best,” you admit, glancing over to the picnic basket you brought along, “It’s just for today, I don’t like how I look and maybe I should go easier on the food-” 

“Absolutely not.” 

The sharp pitch of his voice snaps your eyes back up as he plucks a nectarine out of the basket and slips it into your hand. He won’t take no for an answer – did he see how shaky your legs were at the pool this morning? 

“You spent all day chasing your swimming class around; you need energy to kick my ass at Chicken like you promised, remember?”

“Come on, it’s not that serious. I just missed breakfast.” You’re mumbling now, sounding not at all influential or winning, “I had enough energy for today’s lesson anyway.”

“You’ll lose your boobs.” Leon shrugs, sinking his teeth into another nectarine before you smack him on the shoulder. A scandalized gasp tears out your throat as he laughs.

“That’s a stretch!”

“I don’t make the rules. Eat. Land or water, you’re gorgeous both ways.”

And there he was again, doing what he does best. The sinking feeling lifts with each bite you take of the fruit, and just maybe, you might not have messed this all up.

“Attagirl.”

You meet Leon’s grin with an idiotic one of your own. “Charmer.”

“Pretty girl.”

fun fact: i once got flirted with like leon does to reader at the end but that guy did it much worse and it was a total ick 💀 lowkey i might not keep this up either AHGHG

click for my full drabble collection, and find more of my work here!

comments and reblogs are very much appreciated <3 take care!

[thecapricunt1616]

BlueBell (c.b. one-shot)

𝓢𝓷𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓽 (𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓑𝓣𝓒): When Mikey killed himself.. it was easy to say you were a mess. Mikey was the one who coaxed you through Carmys leaving, letting you know it was ok, that he was just ‘bein’ a lil’ bitch’ and he’d come to his senses soon enough. But he didn’t. And Mikey got sicker. And no matter how much you tried, how many times you called Carmy after a hard shift, or after stumbling into Mikey in the back freezer with a fucking disposable tourniquet tied around his arm, nodding off, begging Carmy to come home through your tears. Pleading, sobbing into the phone for minutes at a time that his brother was fucking killing himself - you never got a call back. 

♡ O/S Inspo: Bluebell - Luck, truth and friendship. Incorporate into rituals to comfort those left behind and ease their sorrow. ♡ Summary: Your childhood best friend comes back to Chicago to take over the restaurant that had caused a rift in your friendship, and wants to make it better. ♡ W/C: 4.6K ♡ Posted Date: 05/26/2024 ♡ A/N: Heyyyyy!! Here is my technically second request for my 200 follower celebration that can be found ♡ Here ♡ based on this request from an anon :) please get your requests in folks! This celebration will be running Today (05/26/24) to next Sunday 06/02/24! I am still working on my first request (First date w/ Carmy) the writing bug just bit me in the butt for this one and I haven't ever written for childhood best friend Carmy it was very fun!!! Anyhoot- I hope you enjoy :D ♡ Warnings for BTC: Angsty (but comfort too!) Not edited, No use of y/n (reader is referred to as 'squish'), No use of skin colors / descriptions for reader (pics are for purely vibes!), Typical TW's that come w/ TB (speaking of suicide and all that), reader feels nauseous but never throws up!oh and not all that edited woopsieee haha sorry yall know the drill btp

♡ 𝐌𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 ♡ ➵ 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 ♡ ➵ 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 ♡ ➵ 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 / 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘵 ♡ ➵ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ♡

You had known Carmy a long time. Too long, was what you’d have said when he first moved back to Chicago. He kept in touch with you up until he left, and then it was simply every time your google search alert went off, you got a warmth in your chest knowing he’d accomplished something else. 

It felt strange, not talking to him every day. You'd had a huge fight before he’d ran off to Paris all alone. That was what baffled you, Carmy and alone - didn’t go in the same sentence usually. All middle school, all high school - he was glued to your side. Any time he needed a new assignment because he lost his, you’d go up for him and ask the teacher for a new one. When he needed to return an overdue library book, you’d face the librarian, claiming he’d forgot it at your house and you were too lazy to bring it in until then. Even going up in the fucking lunch line - he literally gave you his lunch pin so he didn’t have to face anyone unnessisarily. 

He’d meet you in the back of the football bleachers, cigarette between his lips that he’d throw out as soon as he saw you (he took to heart how you despised the habit- and he strongly disliked disappointing you) but with a mother, older brother, father, and older sister that smoked nearly a pack a day? He was doomed to pick it up himself. 

“I heard this mornin’ it was-“ 

“Chicken patty’s” you grimace handing him over the foil covered sandwich. “I didn’t get the fries - the geese are gonna have heart failure cus’a’you” you teased, opening your own and digging the 6 crumpled ketchup packets from your pocket, handing him 2 (you got the extra to wolf down the public school garbage because you made the walk up to the line, and all the way outside for him) 

“They deserve a little happiness y’know?! N-no worse than bread- vegetables are healthy!” He teased, taking the sandwich and muttering a little “Ugh” as he unwrapped it and smeared the 2 packets under the bun before closing it. “After school you wanna go T-T’the restaurant w’me?” He took a big bite. It was shit but it was something that got us through the grueling, sticky Chicago spring schoolday. 

“Mmhm” you hummed “parents outta town- Y’can sleep over if you want after. “ you nudge his hip with your own playfully. He’d been content with staying home lately, for whatever reason, but you wanted your Carmy time back. You’d figured you’d give it one more try 

“Uh-“ he started and you took a deep breath, eyes fixed on your dirty old black and white converse “N-Nat needs help w-with-“ 

“Save it” you snip, leaning against the bleachers and staring out at the pond next to the soccer field. He’d been doing this for the past months, when he used to be at your house every day, making up stupid games together and showing you how to cook his family's favorite recipes- lately, he’d just been going straight home after school and didn’t tell you why. 

“H-Hey-“ he reached out, touching your arm gently and you jerked it away. While his touch used to be comforting, now it felt like it burnt. You’d been having a crush on him for years and it felt like the ultimate knife to the gut he couldn’t see it, and didn’t reciprocate it. It hurt even worse it felt like your best friend in the whole wide world (and your only friend) had recently started ignoring you.

“Just don’t, Carmen.” You muttered, taking another bite of your sandwich. “Gotta get t’health.” You said after a few beats of silence, heading back to the school. It was one of the 2 classes once a week you didn’t have together due to your last names, and usually the worst periods of the week. But this time, it felt like a relief. 

That was the last time you’d ever met him for lunch. 3 months before the end of your senior year, and 7 years of being attached at the hip somehow fizzled to nothing more then longing glances in the hallway, and staring eachother down at graduation. 

Your mom and dad were ultimately confused when you told them you wanted to leave as soon as you’d walked the stage, not caring in the least to go to Carmys grad party - and that confused them even more. It just turned into a bratty screaming match started by your teen self, telling them how they had to ‘butt out of your life’ and to ‘Mind their own stupid business!!!’ Even though they were just concerned you were now completely ignoring the boy they had taken in as a son, and were giving him the cold shoulder when since the sixth grade the two of you had been nothing short of inseparable. 

Then - when you had started working at The Beef - as a favor for Mikey, when he had called - asking if you needed a job your first summer off from college, of course you said yes. And then Carmy took that news…. Worse then you could have ever thought. 

The fight you had the night he’d found out in the back alley of The Beef was burned into your memory since it happened. The angry accusations of you ‘having a crush on his older brother and wanting to fuck him since you were in school’ or ‘trying to weasel your way back into his life when he’d made it clear he hated that you were so ‘obsessed’ with him’ it had literally made you throw up in frustration and sadness and utter disbelief when he stomped off, face red and veins bulging in anger. 

The 5 words though that were seared into your brain ‘How fucking could you?, squish?!’ nearly choking on your childhood name, Tears streaming down his flushed pink cheeks. You never knew it would hurt him so badly that you worked at The Beef, you truly thought you were just doing a good favor for a man who was a big brother to you. Not betraying your best friend in the world, the boy you’d loved for so many years. 

You’d tried calling Carmy, only to be met with the generic voicemail message each and every time. Tears rolled down your cheeks as you wished him well, told him how much you missed him, missed your stupid inside jokes - you missed your bear. 

When Mikey killed himself.. it was easy to say you were a mess. Mikey was the one who coaxed you through Carmys leaving, letting you know it was ok, that he was just ‘bein’ a lil’ bitch’ and he’d come to his senses soon enough. But he didn’t. And Mikey got sicker. And no matter how much you tried, how many times you called Carmy after a hard shift, or after stumbling into Mikey in the back freezer with a fucking disposable tourniquet tied around his arm, nodding off, begging Carmy to come home through your tears. Pleading, sobbing into the phone for minutes at a time that his brother was fucking killing himself - you never got a call back. 

The day Carmy had come home, well - the day he started working at the beef. You were there early, per usual. You liked the 6-3:30 shift as you were out before the busiest time of day, and had maintained this shift since college. You had your degrees, you were going to be leaving after you’d graduated to start a real adult life instead of slinging stupid beef sandwiches for less-than-favorable pay - and then Mikey died. And you were the only one who knew how to do the books at the beef, before you taught Natalie. 

It wasn’t a surprise that Mikey was laundering money through the place, but what was a surprise was he left the place to his idiot little brother who’d abandoned his whole entire family to go do his stupid Executive chef-de-bullshit while everyone drowns in Chicago without him. You highly doubted that he would be able to manage the moving of money Mikey had taught you, but Nat was the only sister you’d ever known- so when she sobbed to you after mike died and she found out it was left to Carmy, and begged you to teach him how everything works- you couldn’t deny your big sis.  

“S-squish?” You heard behind you, and you nearly dropped the entire pan of beef you’d chopped into the large pan you were holding to marinate for the day. Your heart felt like it had been replaced with a hummingbird and its wings were beating so hard against your chest you were sure if you turned he would see it in your throat.

“Uh-“ you started, deciding it was better to not look at him, since tears would likely spring to your eyes. What did he look like in real life now? Was he really so…big? Was he really no longer that skinny, awkward little bear you once knew? “N-no one really calls me that- anymore…only Richie.” You grabbed the bowl of pre chopped onions that you’d grabbed from the fridge, tearing off the plastic wrap that had yesterdays date written on it, crumpling it up and dumping the vegetables over the meat before grabbing the bowl of chopped green peppers and doing the same. 

“So I can’t call y’the name I gave you?” He chides, that old edge of playfulness to his tone you missed so much. It made your heart clench. 

“The last person to use that regular was your brother” you said and that quickly shut him up as you mixed together the meat and veggies with a large spoon after adding the pre made spice mix, the last of the pre made spice mix that Mikey had left, tears brimming your eyes at the realization, shaking your head a bit hoping to will them away. 

“Fuck” he said, barely audible. There was a sadness to his tone, easily picked up by you. This was your first love. How could you not remember every single thing about him?! “Squish I’m-“ 

“Just save it. You’re here to work, right?” You looked back at him finally, and your breath nearly got caught in your throat. He was so… tall. You always teased him that he was just a late bloomer, and would grow into himself just like Mikey did - but he would constantly deny it and tell you he’d just be stuck being ‘a shrimp’ forever.

But fuck had he grown. And he has grown well. He finally grew into his nose, which you wanted to immediately poke fun at him for, his lips were still the same pouty thin ones you’d remembered - but his body. It made your mouth water. 

You’d seen it once, as he’d seen yours. You were sophomores in high school, awkward, fumbling teens that agreed to lose your virginity together. But back then he was lanky, hairless, soft. Now? He was a full grown man. 

“Mmhmm” he hummed, sounding like a child scolded but you could barely recognize the tone of his voice now that you’ve met his face. A man. 

“Carmen” you said softly and his eyes met yours again, recognizing the tears in them 

“Don’t cry, squish” he said just above a whisper, “M’sorry…” he admitted, carefully reaching up and thumbing away your tears. 

“Oh Carm” you broke down, dropping the spoon you were holding onto the bowl and practically collapsing into his arms in choked sobs. 

“I know” he said quietly, gently petting your hair just like he did when you were little. 

“He’s dead Carm, where were you? Where the fuck were you? I called you, Bear! He was sick!” you sobbed mercilessly into his shirt, letting everything out you held in at the funeral to maintain your cool for Donna and Sugar since they were blubbering messes.. You could hear the thick tears in his voice when he whispered a strained 

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Squishy- So sorry” 

Your little moment was interrupted though, by a small voice - 

“Hi! Hey- uh..Hello- sorry- I was um…I got a call - yesterday, about an interview, for an um- a Sous position?” your head shot up from Carmys shoulder, seeing a tall brown-skinned girl with braids smiling awkwardly,  eyes flickering between you and Carm, clearly looking uncomfortable. You would be too, you realized - if you walked in to your supposed-to-be interview, to see your potential boss being cried on by one of his employees.

“Shit- uh” he pulled away quickly, walking up to her and extending a hand. You decided to go to the back of the kitchen to the changing area to have a few swigs from your water bottle and calm down. You didn’t need to relish in the sting that was him dropping you so fast for another girl, even if you were short staffed and you did need the help.

You shook your head, wiping over your tears and taking a few large gulps of water. Teach him how to move the money, and quit. Thats all you have to do, easy right? 

No.

Not at all, actually- fucking impossible. 

Carmen had been bad at math, horrible at it  - actually, so teaching him how to run the books - with Richies explicit instructions to not make him aware his Uncle and Brother were washing blood money through the restaurant - so to try and explain why the electric costed 120K a month for a hole in the wall like The Beef was getting frustrating, because when Carmy didn’t understand something- he asked never ending questions until he got it. Thats what had you and Carmy, sitting in the back office together at nearly 8 PM, going over the books for what felt like the millionth time.

“So - so the General electric, lets go over one more time squish - I’m still.. Why would Mike have done that? An-an’ why we payin f’r a system that y’say isn’t workin’ anymore? Cant we just like- negotiate? Ask uncle jimmy t’fix it?” he tapped his pencil on the desk absentmindedly as he looked over the spiral notebook you’d written the monthly ‘bills’ on, trying to explain it to him without giving away anything he didn’t need to know like Richie instructed.

You groaned, rubbing over your face frustratedly and rubbing your temples. He was gonna give you a migraine asking these same god-damn questions. “Bear- i’m tired- my shift ended like…four hours ago! I was supposed to be on a facetime date” you groan, dragging your hands down your cheeks dramatically.

“The hell is a facetime date?” he asked, that gigglyness in his voice he’d take on when he was making fun of you when you were little.

“You lost the privilege of fucking with me when you ran away” you look over at him, a frown unknowingly etched in your features.

He met your eyes, biting at his lip the way he did, blinking a few too many times as he looked down at your lips before meeting your eyes again. “I never was running from you, squish” he said, his voice taking on that softness you fucking hated because you loved it so much.

“Yeah? Sure fucking felt like it- and for your information, a facetime date is a date you do when someone isn’t close enough to go on a real date. So…yeah. Anyway- like I said - the arcade costs-” he cut you off

“So…where’s this guy live?” he questioned. “You really can’t date a guy in Chicago? Y’gotta go f’r long distance?” he asked, a little smirk on his face. The kind that would have had you wanting to crash your lips into his when you were teens, but now it just made you want to cry at all the lost time, what you could have been if you just told him you’d loved him that night, that the reason you accepted the job was so that hed fucking look at you again. 

“Why the fuck does it matter to you? You stopped giving a fuck about me - what, Tell me fancy pants CDC? How long has it been since you gave a fuck” You got up, grabbing your jacket. “Like I fucking said, Carmen, My shift ended hours ago. I’ve explained this to you multiple times. If you’re still too focused on Paris, or- or Copenhagen - Or fucking Noma- to not understand how to run your familys piece of shit? Isn’t that what you called it- huh? Why don’t you go and ask the fucking sibling you have left how to do it, yea? She’s been trying to call you, We all were- but it’s not like you give a fuck- like I said- figure it out, Bear- and consider this my formal fucking 2 weeks. I’m done in this shithole” you threw your wadded up apron at his chest and slammed the office door shut behind you, stomping off to the lockers to gather your things and go the hell home. 

The next week and a half of work felt much like high school. You and Carmy were in the same exact room, forced to work together most of the time - but not a word was exchanged that wasn't absolutely necessary between the two of you. It wasn’t until the night before your last day, he was brave enough to say something to you. It was after closing, you’d picked up a double since 2 line cooks had called out and you already knew how to hold up pace without any training. You could use the money anyway, the pay was absolute garbage - the only reason you ever put up with it was because Michael was family to you. “So uh…” Carmy starts as he put on his plaid coat, shoving his work clothes in his backpack “How was y’r um… facetime date?” he asked, shoving in his chefs clogs last before zipping the bag shut.

You bit your lip, continuing to fill your tote bag with the remainders from your locker. You wanted to just leave as soon as the clock struck 3:30 tomorrow and never look back, forget Carmen was ever a part of your life. Being around him again brought back that sharp ache deep in your chest that you’d picked up in school when you began ignoring eachother, for why? You cant even remember- other then him shrugging you off to hang out that one last time, and you ignoring him the rest of that week, and it just kept going. You realized the first you’d spoken since then was his first day back, and you couldn’t get that fact out of your head. 

“He never texted me back so- yeah” you folded up a pair of work jeans, shoving them in the bag

“Oh- shit- m’sorry, squish. Guys can be real assholes” he replied. And while you know it was supposed to be friendly and him just trying to console you, It really just pissed you off. 

“Yeah- You would know” you grate quietly, continuing to pack your bag. He frowned in that cure Carmy way, shutting his locker and putting his backpack on his shoulder. Luckily the two of you were the only ones there tonight, so no one had to be present for you unpleasant bickering.

“Are you ever gonna hear me out? Er’ you’re just gonna freeze me out forever?” he asked, his voice laced with genuine hurt. But you couldn’t help but laugh coldly, shaking your head.

“Freeze you out? Freeze you out? Well if this week has been anything like the past few years? I hope it feels half as shit as I’ve felt. Glad you’re finally getting the message, I want nothing to do with you. I don’t stay where i’m not wanted, plus- aren’t I just a whore who took a job to make passes at your older brother- who by the fucking way was literally nearly 10 years older then us? That is just…gross Carmy! Mikey was as much an older brother, a fucking protector as he was to you, and to Nat- as he was to me- I loved you! I fucking loved you, Carmy! And you-” You took a shaking breath, turning to look at him and he was pale as a ghost at your admission.

“And you froze me out first, you- you stopped calling, in school carmen all those fucking years ago? You stopped, and - and when I didn’t come to the bleachers you didn’t try to find me! You just-” you met his eyes once again but couldn’t find them as they were squeezed shut and that 17 year old was right back in front of you, nervously shaking his hand and tears streaming down his cheeks. “Fuck- Bear I didn’t mean t-” 

“D-Don’t” he brushed past you, the familiar smell of smoke and pine and sandalwood hitting your nose, the same Cologne Mikey wore. 

“Carmy” you rushed after him as he made a b-line for the office. 

“You’re right, Squish- go home” he rasped, his voice thick with tears and regret. Your heart broke in that moment. Your chest also bubbled with anger, because - you were right?!

“I’m right?” you asked and he sniffled, attempting to shut the door on you but you shoved it open “Look at me - Look at me and fucking tell me that you meant what you said Carmen!” he sat at the desk, burrying his face in his hands and rubbing over it. 

“Just fuck off Squish! I mean it- go!” He was getting louder now, but there it was again, Squish.

“If you meant what you said- call me by my name” You challenge, nudging his sneaker to get his attention, just how you did when his head would be down in english class when he didn’t want to be noticed so he wasnt picked to read out loud.

“What?” he looked up at you finally, his big blue eyes red and tear stained, rims watery and long sandy colored lashes clinging to stray smaller tears. He looked so sad, and you thought again for the first time since he left that night all those years ago, that you wanted to kiss those tears away.

“You- you keep calling me squish” you shrug a bit “If you really mean what you said - if- if you think I got this job to whore around with Michael?! Call me by my real name. The name the rest of the staff call me- the name people who aren’t a fuckin’ Bear call me.” you challange, a lump growing in your throat as he stared you down.

“Did you mean it?” He asked, voice just barely above a whisper. You knew exactly what he meant, and you were pretty sure your heart was gonna fly out of your throat any second- or you were gonna throw up all over the floor and embarrass yourself - 50/50 

“You- you go first, I asked first” You said and he ran a hand through his hair, greasy from the day before digging in his pocket and pulling out a spare quarter 

“Heads er’ tails?” he asked, and you couldnt help but crack a tiny smile. This- this was normal. In high school, when you’d both ask eachother a question and neither wanted to answer first - even though technically the person who asked first should be the first to get an answer, you both decided to let the universe decide who’d be the first to get an answer.

“You gotta be kidding- you remember that?” You leaned on the desk and he looked up at you, panic mostly gone from his eyes and you knew you still had your bear-taming charm as Mikey called it when you were kids, since you were the only other person to be able to calm Carmy down.

“Are you kidding? I remember everything” he retorts “I call heads then” he flipped it and you gasp, smile growing a bit and you nudge his knee with yours, the gesture causing warmth to flood his cheeks as he flips the coin 

“I thought it’s always ladies first?” you teased and he flipped it on to his hand, keeping it covered. 

“Y’re too slow” he cracked a small smile, before revealing the quarter was heads side up and looking up at you expectantly. That heartbeat that could also be vomit reappeared, and your chest got tight. 

“Yes” you said simply, realizing you’d said loved - not love, not a current state of being, even though it never really went away. When he came back that first day, and you were right back to using all your old coded language and laughing over old jokes - you’d realized the love never really died, you’d just shoved it down as deep as it could go.

“Of course I didn’t mean that bullshit, Squish. I was….so fuckin stupid- I was - I am a fuckin idiot. I- I changed my fuckin number and I didn’t bother to load my contacts cause…I thought you hated me - But I- I never stopped…” he met your eyes again. 

Oh god, your heart was really coming out of your throat right now

“Never stopped….loving me? You- you loved me?” you asked bravely, feeling as if you might pass out - or die - or both if he said no. 

He nodded silently, his gaze fixed on the floor ever so shyly, Classic Carmy, the Cowardly Bear

“Well- which- which is it?” you asked, you weren’t going to let his shyness cheat you out of a real answer.

“I- um…I never stopped” he finally met your eyes.

You felt as if you still may pass out, or die, or both at this admission. 

Instead of that though, you leaned in, cupping his stubbly cheeks. His breath hitched, so did yours - you weren’t even sure you were breathing, the last time you’d been this close was - well, Sophomore year of high school , when you both vowed to never speak of it again, since you were both unsure how the other felt - and much too shy to say anything about it in case of rejection or being viewed as ‘weird’ by one another. You leaned in, the smell of cigarettes and mint on his breath from the gum he would chew instead of eating on meal breaks after a cigarette. 

His eyes fluttered shut “I’ve thought about this every day” he whispers, breath fanning your lips gently. You rest your forehead on his, closing your eyes and your noses bumped sweetly. “Can I please kiss you?” he asked, his voice soft and wanting. 

“You don’t have to ask” you said and leaned in, finally meeting his lips. He pulled you closer, you were practically on his lap. It felt as natural as falling into bed at the end of a long day moving your lips with his, your fingers easily finding his curls and combing out the little knots from the day, causing him to groan softly into your mouth. You smiled a bit, straddling his lap and wrapping your arms around his neck. 

You sighed in relief as he wrapped his arms around your waist, slipping his tongue over your bottom lip, you hummed- opening for him and moaning softly as he ran his tongue over yours, enjoying your taste as well as you were enjoying his. He was the same as you remembered, you’d fantasized about doing this with him again every time you got off - or just every time you were daydreaming in general. You weren’t sure who broke the kiss first, but you both needed to breathe, so it was for the best.

“I still love you, too”

[pondering-gales-left-orb]

i will not accept shane spouse room slander anymore im sick of it

I'm so mad at everyone who is mad at Shane's spouse room and i cant keep silent about it anymore

let me start by saying yes Shane was my first ever spouse in SDV and no i was not thinking i could fix him i was just impressed by his progress and self improvement so i had my character marry him

then i went online to see what are people saying about him and i was SHOCKED everyone was so mean to him and were absolutely wronggggggggggg about him

this man does improve himself he absolutely is better after marriage and everyone that's mischaracterizing that because of his spouse room is a coward sorry i don't make the rules

facts: Shane goes to therapy and starts getting his alcoholism under control by eliminating the source of his pain which is wasting his life away at joja and doing something he loves which is raise blue chickens THAT HE MADE MIGHT I ADD HE INVENTED A NEW BREED OF CHICKENS BTW. that last point alone pisses me of so hard because people so often over look it! he is just as smart as Maru just as creative as Eliot and just as ambitious as Sam, let me repeat myself HE INVENTED A NEW BREED OF CHICKEN WHILE HE WAS DEPRESSED AND SUFFERING OF ALCOHOLISM.... recognize his brilliance please

so that means people saying he falls back into his old habits because he has a six pack in his room is wrong, imo he stops being an alcoholic and goes back to having drinking be a hobby he does while gaming or hanging out with friends at the bar THAT'S THE POINT UR SUPPOSED TO GET FROM HIS HEART EVENTS

yes his room has mud tracks but consider this this man's WHOLE JOB is to RAISE CHICKENS IN A COOP !!!!! chickens who again he literally invented their breed who track mud shit and drop feed on the floor of the coop he is in all day!!! OF FUCKING COURSE HES GONNA HAVE MUD ON HIS SHOES!!

he works all day for his blue chickens and then just wants to come in and relax playing a video game and drinking a beer if he was a horrible dirty alcoholic like people claim he is he would track mud ALL OVER THE HOUSE AND DIRTY UP ALL THE HOUSE but no its just his tiny hobby room

you as a farmer also work all day on chores and after you are done you also just wanna do something fun to relax and guess what YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE HOUSE EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE TO MAKE INTO YOUR HOBBY ROOM some of you fill the house with kegs because you are making it your thing hell one of my farmers who was a witch had an entire room that's just crystals potions and a fucking cauldron , in my Shane save i had a room LINED with fish tanks that was my farmers Hobby, do you think Shane gets mad that i had 4 to 6 fish tanks running all day with puffer fishes and some legendary fishes stinking up the house?? NO because he gets his hobby room and the farmer gets their hobby room everyone keeps to their space period.

i think everyone needs to understand that having a messy hobby room is not a bad thing and that Shane and the other spouses have a right to their own room to look however they want and it doesn't have to match the house

everyone also needs to look at Shane in a better light please I'm begging you to let characters have small flaws and not be squeaky clean perfect

Shane sought help he is helping himself and trying to be better but that doesn't mean he doesn't get to indulge in some guilty pleasures he is human and is aloud to be one even while still in recovery! the difference now is that he HAS CONTROL OVER ALCOHOL AND GAMING CONSUMPTION AND IS NOT SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL LIKE BEFORE he has job he loves a family he takes care of and he makes sure he doesn't dirty up his entire house but gives himself a break in his ONE room and doesn't stop himself form having fun doing the things he enjoys without over indulging or falling into bad habits.

Edit: i know in the end the drinks are non alcoholic as confirmed by him and i mentioned beer and drinks cause i know there is non alcoholic Versions of them som.. but as i said im adressing the MISSCHARACTERIZATION of shane by the shane haters who didn't go through his heart events hence me saying "you are supposed to learn all this from his heart events" cause they dont go through them :D

Anyway,

in conclusion SHANE IS GOOD SPOUSE, a good man and an inventor in his own right. yall just need to be gentle to him in your judgment cause man is he trying his earnest and that needs to be recognized. i mean look at him look at this healthy man <3

[everything-redacted00]

Milo & Darlin, friend hc’s

————

• they like to make fun of each others trauma, Milo: “your dad didn’t fucking love you” Darlin: “your dad didn’t love you either hoe”

• before Darlin met Sam they would call Milo when they couldn’t sleep sometimes

• they’re protective of each other like siblings

• When they where teens they would have competitions to see who would chicken out first while watching a horror movie cuz they’re both pussies

• Milo has a lot of the fights that Darlin has gotten into filmed on his phone

• they both call each other things like dumbass or hoe when talking/texting/etc…

• every solstice party that darlin has ever been to Milo and them have a race during the pack run

• Darlin throws popcorn at Milo when they watch movies similar to when they threw popcorn at Sam

• Darlin likes to jump scare the shit outta Milo and ever since they met sweetheart they both just started tag teaming him

• Milo and Darlin have kissed at least twice (before they had partners)

• Darlin used to go to Milo’s house a lot as a teenager when home didn't feel safe enough so the two got to hangout a lot

• out of the whole pack (other than Sam) Darlin is most comfortable with Milo

• Milo hypes them up to build their confidence

————

might make a pt.2 later but I’m eepy🥱

[bqstqnbruin]

Tattoos of You

Look, I know this gif is ancient but I love this one don't judge me.

ANYWAY here I am with my entry for @wyattjohnston's summer 2024 fic exchange! I had the pleasure of writing for @senditcolton so I hope you enjoy this because I have literally been thinking about this fic so much for the last like three months (yes I have been working on this idea for too long)

These following links are some of the tik toks that I used for inspo for this fic: X X X X X

Special shoutout to @nicohischier for reading this the entire time I was writing it, love you (I swear you'll get a happy fic at some point)

Warnings: Swearing, drinking, aNGST (Nicole you asked for it)

WC: 11k

________________________________

an open book with a sunset coming out of it

The sun was shining, children were running around and laughing, people were splashing around in the water.

Colette was under an umbrella, trying to stay in its shade as much as possible, with a hat on her head and her sunglasses on. 

“Can you please enjoy yourself?” Becca asks. 

“This is as close to enjoying myself as you’re going to get,” Colette mumbles, not looking up from the book that she was reading. It’s not that she hated the beach, it’s that she hated the sun, the sand, the heat, the noise, the crowds of people.

Maybe she did hate the beach.

“Do you want to go back up to the house?” The house was not much better: the AC barely worked when they got in last night, and Colette spent most of the night not sleeping because of how hot the room was. She was also pretty sure that there was a raccoon somewhere in the walls of the house, since the scratching she could swear was coming from behind her head when she was in her bed only happened at night, and magically stopped once the sun came up. 

“Do you want to go back to the house?” Colette asks.

“Not at all.” 

“Well, I’m not going to walk the two miles back alone, am I?”

Becca rolls her eyes, shielding them from the sun despite the huge sunglasses on her face. She looks out to the water and lets out a long sigh. “Everyone else is in the water having fun, why don’t we join them?”

Colette makes a face as she looks out at the rest of her friend group. They were playing some horrible version of chicken, given the fact that she was sure she and Becca were the only ones sober at this point. “Then when you get out of the water, the sand sticks to you because you’re all wet and it’s impossible to get off.” 

“You’re, like, the only person I know who hates the beach this much.”

“I wanted to go to a cabin near the lake we used to go to when we were younger, and you all wanted to ‘try something new,’” Colette points out. “I told you I didn’t like the beach, but you guys said you wouldn’t go away without me.” 

Becca rolls her eyes again, “That’s because we like you, Lettie. You’re the responsible one in the group.” 

Becca gets up without another word, going to join the rest of their friends in the water. “Great,” Colette mumbles, going back to her book.  

She loses track of time, her friends never even coming back to talk to her while she finishes one book and quickly moves on to the next. The people around her come and go, the beach slowly emptying out as people leave for dinner. She wasn’t sure how long her friends would last without food, given the amount of alcohol they had consumed and how little they had come back to their spots in the sand to even grab the snacks they ran around packing that morning. 

“Watch out!” she hears coming from her left, a ball hitting the book out of her hands and into the sand a few feet away before she even has the chance to react.

“You bastards,” she shrieks as two guys come running over to get the ball. “That’s a library book.” 

“Your book is fine,” one of them says, holding up the book with two fingers as if it had a disease or something else rancid oozing out of it. 

“Are you ok?” the other one asks, Colette holding up her hand to shield her eyes so she could at least see the guys she was scowling at with the sun behind them. 

Despite her anger at them for nearly probably injuring her, they were, unfortunately for her, attractive. Not that made her less angry, but if Becca were there next to her, she would somehow manage to force Colette to acknowledge it to their faces. 

“I’m fine, but my book is not,” she says, ripping the thing out of the darker haired boy. “You ripped one of the pages when you picked it up.”

The one with lighter hair looked behind his friend, scoffed and thrust the ball into his friend's chest to pick up the now missing page. “You’re giving her money to pay for a replacement book,” he says, handing Colette the page.

“Fine, I’ll give her the ten dollars.”

“This book cost twenty five,” she tells him, showing him the price from the back of the book.

“Books are twenty five dollars?” he scoffs. “For what?”

“If you could read above a fourth grade reading level, maybe you would know,” Colette mutters, earning a laugh from the lighter haired boy. 

“I’m not paying that much for a book.”

“You’re the one who kicked the ball that ruined her book. You’re the one who’s going to pay for her to replace it so she doesn’t have to. You get, like, a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a week for your paycheck, you can handle twenty five dollars, you jackass.”

Colette nearly chokes when she hears the number he casually spit out, the two sending themselves into a bickering match over the money. She gets out her phone, wincing as she stands up for the first time in hours to hand it to the dark haired boy. “Send the money here.”

He starts mumbling something under his breath, Colette rolling her eyes as he does as instructed. One of the guys from their group calls for them, him running back to them with the ball.

“Sorry about Mat,” his friend says, standing over Colette as she sits back down.

“He seems like a delight,” she deadpans, trying to hide the combination of disgust and excitement as he sits down with her, laughing at her words.

“He’s an asshole,” he tells her, squinting as he looks out at the water. Colette couldn’t help but study him, the green of his eyes, the sharp angle of his jawline, his somehow perfectly styled hair, all combining to something she didn’t understand her need to look at. “And thankfully, my opposite.”

“People don’t talk like that,” Colette blurts out before thinking.

“Excuse me?”

“‘And thankfully, my opposite,’” she imitates him, lowering her voice and earning another laugh from him. “That’s something people say in rom coms.”

“You’re awfully judgemental for someone who doesn’t have to pay for a damaged book.”

Colette laughs, a smile forming on his face that, for some reason, she didn’t want to stop seeing. “It’s part of my charm. I’m Colette, by the way.”

“Anthony.”

Colette loses track of time again, not because of her now ruined book. Becca eventually comes back, as do the rest of the friends, letting her know that they were running to grab food before coming back to watch the sunset. Anthony’s friends had seemingly all but forgotten about him, at one point leaving without him realizing it, only to come back with Colette’s friends with food for both of them. 

“You guys came all the way to Canada when you live in Pittsburgh?” Mat asks.

“We go somewhere every year together, Lettie picked Vancouver for her turn,” Eddy says.

“I did not pick the beach, though,” she says, only loud enough for Anthony to hear. 

“Glad you did,” he replies, again, only loud enough for her to hear. He smiles at her, his hand inching towards hers in the sand as the sun sets over the water. 

a tent on the ground with a pine tree next to it, the moon and shooting star over both

“Those guys from the beach said they wanted to go camping with us this weekend,” Eddy says during their group facetime. 

Becca immediately started making plans of who was driving with who, Addison talking about the tents and sleeping bags she could borrow from her dad and brothers from their scouting days, Devyn talking about the food they would be able to bring, Franco talking about the beer. 

“Hold on, guys,” Colette interrupted, doubting that any of her friends was actually listening to the others. “Since when do we camp?”

“Since hot guys ask us to,” Eddy says.

“You liked those guys?” Colette asks, the rest of her friends laughing at her.

“Oh, come on, Lettie,” Addison teases her. “You ignored us for the entire three days we were there because you were talking to Anthony.” 

Colette rolls her eyes, thankful that her friends couldn’t see the rapid succession of texts from Anthony appearing on her screen at that moment. She didn’t want to tell them that they were right that she liked talking with him that weekend two months ago, so much so that she had been texting him almost as often as she was texting the group chat. She didn’t want to admit that she thought she was starting to fall for a guy she had only interacted with in person once, because who the hell did that? 

But, this was an excuse to see him again, without her friends nagging her about her crush, that may or may not exist, in a way that wouldn’t be a date. 

“I’m not driving.” 

“Does that mean you’re coming?” Eddy asks, all of her friends faces’ way too close to their cameras for her to do anything other than groan.

“Unfortunately.” 

By the time they got to the camping site, the guys already had enough tents set up for a small army. Eddy stops the car, Devyn and Franco getting out and immediately starting to unpack the trunk full of their stuff. 

“Damn,” Eddy drools, Colette laughing. “I never knew setting up tents was hot.”

“It’s not.”

Eddy fans himself, taking in a deep breath. “It is once you realize that that active bakery over there is attached to your boyfriend.” 

Colette cringes, trying not to let Eddy see her looking at Tito with his back towards them, bent over at his waist, his ass right there. “Not my boyfriend.”

“Not yet, babe,” Eddy corrects her. “That could change tonight.”

“And how, praytell, do you see that happening?”

“You’ll share a tent with him, you’ll share all your secrets, fall madly in love, get married with me as the bridesman of honor, of course, have tons of babies, and die in each others arms like that one couple on the Titanic.” 

“You could eat and shit out a bunch of Scrabble tiles and whatever they spelled out would still make more sense than whatever just came out of your mouth,” she says, getting out of the car just as Becca and Addison pull up behind them. 

Eddy laughs, locking the car doors. “Just because I don’t make sense to you doesn’t mean I’m not right. I’ve never seen two people who align so well before you and Tito. You are so meant to be.”

Colette laughs. “I’ll remember that next time you’re fawning over Devyn and Franco’s relationship,” she tells him, gesturing over to their two friends who had already claimed a tent to share together. 

Eddy had a sly smile forming on his face, one that Colette knew was going to lead to something she hated. “Hey, Anthony,” he calls.

Anthony perks up once he sees who calls his name, Colette telling herself that it was simply because he heard his name and he had ‘golden retriever vibes’ in general, not because he saw her, despite the fact that he was looking at her the entire time he came over. “What’s up, Ed?”

Eddy visibly swoons at the sound of Anthony calling him a nickname, trying to collect his composure before Anthony actually notices or Colette calls him out for it. “Lettie here said that she wanted to share a tent with someone since she’s never been camping before.”

“What?”

“Ok?”

“Well, I snore like a jet ski, so I would never want to subject our girl to that,” Eddy continues, throwing his arm around Colette and pulling her close to him, throwing her off balance, “So we were wondering if you wanted to share with her?”

“Oh!” Anthony says, his face turning red. Colette tries to discreetly pinch Eddy’s side as payback, her heart racing as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I was going to ask you that anyway, but I guess you beat me to it.” 

Eddy walks away without another word, leaving an angry Colette and an embarrassed Anthony behind in his wake. “He’s lying, I’m fine on my own if you don’t-”

“You don’t-” he cuts her off, looking down at the ground, “You don’t want to share a tent?”

“No, I mean,” she starts, trying to find the right words. How do you tell someone you want to be near them without it sounding weird? “If you want to, I wouldn't say no to sharing.”

“Oh, I want to,” he says quickly, a small laugh escaping his lips that matched Colettes. “I want to.”

Colette could feel her face getting hot as she smiled at him. “Let’s go set up our tent?”

Their friends wander off again, just like the day they met at the beach, as the day wore on, leaving Anthony and Colette to finish setting up where they were going to start their fire for the night. 

“Hold on,” Colette says, trying not to laugh so hard that she couldn’t get the words out, “She threw what?”

“A dildo.”

“So that photo you sent me of your black eye from last season?”

Anthony’s face was bright red, biting his lip and nodding, “Yeah. yeah, it wasn’t from practice. It was from Tamsin throwing a dildo at me when she thought I was breaking into our apartment.”

Colette cackled, the ugliest sounding laugh she had ever heard bubbling up from her stomach. “I’m so sorry.”

“Like you’ve never had any embarrassing encounters with an ex.”

“The worst I’ve had is a guy named Mason sprinkled packets of those instant mashed potatoes around the lawn outside my apartment complex after a bad break up when we were in college.”

“How’d you know it was him?”

“He texted me right before it rained asking if I liked mashed potatoes, and then I never heard from him again.” 

Anthony laughs, the voice in Colette's head telling her that she wanted to hear that sound as much as she could. They keep talking about nothing as the sun sets, starting the fire before it gets too dark out.

“So,” Anthony says, sitting down on one of the chairs, the shadows from the flames illuminating every Colette had been mesmerized by the first time they met. “We’ve got Dildo Throwing Tamsin and Mashed Potato Mason as our exes.” 

“I think they’d like each other,” she laughs, plopping down on a chair next to him. Colette looks up to the sky. The stars streaked the sky like nothing she had ever seen before. She knew there were millions of stars up there, but she never thought she would see them. “God, you never get to see the stars with all the city lights. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” she hears Anthony say, his face red yet again when she turns her attention to him and smiles. Before she can say anything, he starts, “Do you think we can see each other?”

“Do you think I’m imaginary or something?”

“No, I mean,” he starts, the sounds of their friends coming back to start eating making him jump. He pulls his chair so close to Colette’s they practically overlap as he lowers his voice. “Can we go out when we’re back in the city? Just the two of us?”

Colette felt her face getting hot again, charmed by the nerves he showed around her. “Yes.” 

a mirror with an outline of a head in it, no face

“What are you doing right now?”

“I’m getting ready for work.”

“Do you want to hang out?”

“Did you not hear me?” 

Colette hears Anthony laugh on the other end of the phone. “I heard you, but I still want to hang out. I miss you.”

Colette cringed as she felt her heart skip a beat. She hated that she missed him too, and she wanted to see him, but, “I have to leave in the next two minutes if I want to be on time for my meeting, I can’t. What about tonight?”

“We have a home game at seven tonight. Tomorrow morning?”

“I’m watching my cousin and taking him to his soccer game for my aunt tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“You’re not coming to watch pee wee soccer.”

“What time are you leaving to pick him up?”

“You’re really bad at listening,” Colette says, grabbing the last of her stuff as she heads out the door. 

“What time?” he repeats, clearly not going to stop until she gives him an answer as she rushes out the door. 

“I don’t remember. Can I let you know after work tonight?” 

“Sure. Talk later?” he asks, alarm bells going off in Colette’s head about something she was sure he was scheming.

He hangs up before he can say anything, leaving Colette to stew as to what he was going to do. Anthony wasn’t going to show up at her apartment when she was supposed to leave to get her cousin, was he?

“Why do you look like that?” Addison asks once she sees Colette at work. 

Colette snaps out of the trance she didn’t realize she was in, looking away from her computer for the first time in a while. “I don’t know, genetics?” she asks, a slightly offended tone in her voice. 

“No, I mean,” she says, sitting down on Colette’s desk. “You look concerned.”

Colette shakes her head. “I was just working,” she says, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her eyes. She lets out a sigh. “Anthony was really adamant about hanging out.”

“Oh, no,” she says, fake concern dripping through her voice as Colette rolls her eyes. “The guy you’re dating wants to see you.” 

“He was kind of weird about it, though. He wanted to come over this morning, and I think he wants to hang out tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s not weird.”

“I’m watching Grayson tomorrow.”

“And?”

“And he knows that.”

“So?”

Colette rolls her eyes again out of frustration for herself. Why couldn’t she explain how she felt to her friend? “So we just saw each other, like, two nights ago. Isn’t it too soon to see each other again?”

Addison shakes her head. “Don’t you want to see him?”

“Well, yeah, but what if he’s only asking to see me because he knows I want to see him and he doesn’t actually want to see me? I have to take Grayson to his soccer game. That’s so boring. Why would he want to do that?”

Addison rolls her eyes. “Because he’s obsessed with you?”

Colette groans. “Don’t you have a meeting in a minute?”

The next morning, Colette wakes up to knocking on her door. She gets up, surprised to find Anthony standing on the other side of the door with coffees in hand. “What are you doing here?” she whines.

“You never texted me,” he tells her, pushing past her and heading to her room.

“I, uh,” she hesitates. “Sorry, I forgot.” 

Anthony sets the coffees down on her nightstand, pulling up her sheets as if he was going to start making her bed. “No you didn’t.” 

“I did,” Colette tells him, her voice sounding more sure of her lie. 

“You just didn’t text me.” 

“Look, I love taking Grayson to his soccer games when my aunt can’t, but they’re really boring for other people. Last time I took Eddy, he complained the entire time,” she explains, taking the coffee from him. “I didn’t think you’d really want to sit through that.” Colette starts to get ready, sitting in front of the mirror in her room to get her hair together. 

She makes eye contact through the glass with Anthony as he sits down on her now made bed. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.” 

a cartoon cinnamon bun

Anthony had his arms around Colette before they were even through the door, pinning her against the wall outside her apartment, his lips on hers. They had been like this since they were in the bar with the rest of their friends, them being teased that they needed to get a room. Since Anthony’s eyes got darker when he turned to her, his hands on her waist as he asked her who’s place was closer for them to get in a bed as soon as possible. 

They barely made it through her door and had it shut when Anthony’s fingers danced along the hem of her shirt, pleading with her to take it off and practically ripping his off at the same time. Anthony and Colette stumbled their way to her bed, nearly losing contact with each other when they collapsed onto her mattress, skin to skin and Colette already deliriously happy. 

They woke up the next morning, the sheets a mess, their clothing in a trail leading from her entryway to her bed. Colette’s phone was somehow on her nightstand next to her, buzzing continuously for what seemed like any hour. Anthony let out a groan, a result of the hangover he was probably feeling. 

“Don’t get it,” he mumbles into her pillow, his arm wrapped around her pulling her closer. She could feel herself relax as his heartbeat gently thumped against her back. It buzzes again, Anthony starting to kiss his way from the nape of her neck down her spine, a giggle escaping her lips at his attempt to distract her.

“If it’s going off this much, it has to be something bad.”

“One time it was Eddy melting down and calling to tell you he got water on his new shoes.”

Colette scrolls through her phone, multiple missed calls from her friend group as Anthony’s mouth works his way back up to her neck, propping himself up to try to get her cheeks. Another call from Eddy appears on her screen, her heart racing that something bad happened to one of her friends. 

“Hello?”

“Oh my god,” Eddy screams, “I thought Anthony murdered you.” 

Anthony and Colette laugh, Colette switching over to speaker phone even though Anthony had no problem hearing their conversation without it. “No, we were asleep. What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been praying to God all morning that you were ok.”

“Eddy, it’s like 9 am, and you don’t believe in God.”

“I found God so I could pray that you were ok.”

“I didn’t realize she was lost, but sure. What’s wrong?”

“Your parents are on their way. They said they’d be at your place at 9 am.”

Colette looks at the time at the top of her screen: 8:56 am. 

“Fucking shit,” she screams, dropping her phone on her bed and practically falling over the sheets as she launched herself off the mattress to collect the clothes scattered around her floor. 

“What, what’s wrong?” Anthony calls after her, picking up what he can and throwing on the shirt that was still sitting by her front door. 

“My parents are coming.” 

“And?”

“You’re here.”

“Do you not want me here?”

Colette whips around to face him, thrusting his underwearing and pants from last night into his chest while trying to get her own shirt back over her head. “Of course, I do.” She runs past him and back into her room to throw clothes on and panic make her bed. “It’s just, you don’t have enough time to leave before they get here. And, if you’re here, then they’re going to start asking questions about whether or not you’re my boyfriend, and probably a bunch of other things, too.”

“Then we tell them I am,” Colette hears, seeing Anthony appear on the other side of her bed to help her straighten up. 

She stops, standing straight up to stare at him. “What?”

“We tell them I’m your boyfriend.” He walks around to the other side of her bed to meet her. “Unless, you don’t want me to be your boyfriend.” 

Colette opens her mouth, no words coming out. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Anthony throws his head back in laughter, pulling her in for a hug and kissing the top of her head. “Of course I do.” Colette gives him a kiss, a knock at her door pulling them apart. “You get more clothes on, I’ll go meet your parents.”

Colette scrambles to find something presentable enough for her parents liking, trying her best to fix her hair and the makeup that she never took off from the night before when she hears laughter coming from her kitchen. She finally comes out of her room, her mom’s hand over Anthony’s while her dad is animated talking to him, a pink bag from her favorite bakery near their house on the table filling the room with the scent of the cinnamon buns that made her mouth water. 

“Sweetie, we brought you some breakfast, but we didn’t know you had your boyfriend over,” her mom says, no hint of the fakeness Colette expected in her voice. 

“Why don’t we all go out for breakfast?” Anthony says, getting up from his seat, “My treat. Colette and I can have the cinnamon buns later.”

Her mother swoons as he takes her hand and leads her to the door, a wink from Anthony sent Colette’s way that made her cheeks burn. 

Her dad pulls her in for a hug, his arm around her shoulder as they follow Anthony and her mom down to his car. “Boyfriend, huh? Is he good enough for you?”

Colette hesitates, not sure why she did so before saying, “I think so.”

What if she wasn’t good enough for him?

a phone with an incoming call, no contact on the screen

“Franco, please, you’re giving me a headache,” Addison groans, her hands on her head to massage the headache away.

“No, I don’t care, you guys don’t understand how amazing she was.”

“We do, babe, I promise, but it’s 1 am,” Devyn tells him, giving him a gentle squeeze on his thigh. 

“No, you don’t get it. She has only lost the all-around once on the national and international level in the eleven years she’s been qualified for elite,” Franco argues back, launching into a rant about Simone Biles that none of them wanted to hear when they wanted to go to sleep.

Eddy groans the loudest. “I think you talk this much about your fiance,” he points out Devyn taking a minute before she realized he was right and giving Franco a glare. 

The rest of the group launches into an argument when Colette’s phone rings, Anthony’s name coming up with a picture of the two of them from one night when they fell asleep on the couch together. Eddy had taken the photo and immediately gotten a bucket of water to pour over them to wake them up because he wanted to go out and get food with someone. Despite the aftermath of the photo, seeing it made her smile every time.

“Hey,” she says, walking out of Devyn and Franco’s living room without her friends noticing. “How was the game?”

“We won,” Anthony tells her. They were on a west coast road trip that was supposed to end tomorrow with a game against Seattle. 

“Why do you sound so sad, then?” Colette asks. Before they left, he told her they needed to do well this road trip in order to get into the wild card spot since the playoffs were right around the corner. They needed this win to get the cap between them and the next team even wider.

He lets out a long sigh. “I didn’t really play that well or that much.”

Colette could hear the sadness in his voice. She knew that he had been bouncing around to a few teams in the last couple of years, finally finding what he hoped was a more permanent home in Pittsburgh. “Did anyone score while you were on the ice?”

“No.”

“Did you get an assist or score?”

“Two assists, yeah.”

“Then what happened?”

She knew Anthony was scrunching his face. “I don’t know, I just felt off.”

Colette nodded. “I get that.” Anthony lets out a long breath. “Are you guys leaving after the game tomorrow or the next morning?”

“I actually don’t know. I guess I’ll find out when I’m on the plane,” he jokes, Colette laughing. “I can come over whenever I get in?”

“Yeah,” she says, smiling at the thought of seeing him. “If it’s tomorrow night, just wake me up when you come in.” 

“Nah, I’ll let you sleep,” he says.

“No,” she argues, “I want to see you.” Eddy comes up behind her, making kissing noises at her. 

“Tell Eddy I can hear him,” he laughs, Colette following suit. Anthony lets out a yawn. “Ok, I’m gonna go.”

“Bye, babe.”

“I love you, bye,” he yawns, hanging up before she could say anything else. 

Colette stands there, staring at her phone with her mouth hanging open. 

“What did he do? Do I have to kill him? I have enough gas in my car and money in my bank account to drive to San Jose and commit a felony,” Eddy starts, dragging her back into the living room with the rest of their friends.

“Lettie, what’s wrong?” Addison asks.

“Anthony just told me he loves me.”

The entire group’s jaws dropped, Eddy screaming loud enough that Colette was sure Devyn and Franco's neighbors could hear him. “What did you tell him?”

Colette shook her head. “Nothing. He said it and hung up the phone.”

“That rat bastard.”

“Eddy, say something helpful for once, please?”

Her friends start asking her a hundred questions, all coming at once. Why didn’t she call him back? Was she going to tell him she loved him? When was she going to tell him? When was she going to talk to him again in the first place?

Becca asked the question that made her stop. “Do you love him?”

Colette didn’t know what to say, trying to find the words. She knew she liked him, a lot. He was probably the person she could see herself loving for the rest of her life if he would let her. 

“We should let her tell Anthony first, not us,” Devyn says, Colette letting out a little bit of an exhale as her friend told everyone it was probably time for them to go to bed.

She spent the night on their couch, Becca and Addison in their guest room, Eddy bringing his own blow up mattress and snoring on the floor near Colette. 

She barely slept. Could she tell Anthony that she loved him? She could tell him anything, but if she did, would she mean it? It shouldn’t have surprised her that he would say it first, and it didn’t even surprise her that he said it at all. What shocked her most was that she wasn’t sure what she would say back. 

Anthony was the kindest person to her, the one she wanted to call and see and be with all the time. She would do anything for him, but did that mean she loved him?

What if her love wasn’t enough? What if he ended up loving her more than she was capable of loving him? 

“Eddy,” she whispers, trying not to scare him into waking up. She throws her pillow over to his mattress, hitting his face.

“The fish escaped,” he says, startled out of whatever his dream was. He rubs his eyes, groaning. “I was just about to save the country from the dinosaur fish.”

“You can go back to that in a minute,” Colette says, turning on the lamp on the end table next to her, despite Eddy’s groans. “When you were with Alex, how did you feel when you said ‘I love you.’”

“I think I was drunk and then blacked out.” Colette groans. “Lettie, if you’re freaking out about telling him you love him, then you don’t have to tell him right now. It’s ok for you to not say it if you aren’t comfortable with it.”

“That was out of character for you.”

“A stopped clock is right once a day.”

“Twice, Eddy.”

“Whatever, I’m going back to sleep. I hope this dream lets me play with kittens instead.”

Colette spent the next day stressing, running on pure anxiety due to her lack of sleep the night before. She hadn’t been able to watch Anthony’s game that night, falling asleep before it even started. She woke up Saturday morning to the sound of someone coming in her front door, hoping that it was Anthony and not an intruder.

“Colette?” Anthony calls, wandering into her bedroom to find her just sitting up, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “It’s nearly two pm, are you just waking up?”

“Don’t judge, I couldn’t sleep the other night. I guess it just caught up with me now.”

“I feel like I freaked you out after the game against San Jose,” Anthony says, sitting down. They had barely talked the day before, Colette purposely avoiding him under the guise of being busy all day with something at work. It wasn’t technically a lie, she just also hid her phone in her desk and forgot about it on purpose.

“No, you di-” she starts.

“I do mean it, though,” he says, pulling her in for a hug. “I do love you.”

Colette felt her heart start to race as she felt his hand on the back of her head. She could say it. She was sure it felt right. “Anthony,” she starts, feeling herself start to sweat as she pulls away to look at him. “I love you, too.” 

Anthony smiles, kissing her.

Saying it felt just fine. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel more. 

wheel of fortune tarot card

Colette was exhausted. 

The entire last week was spent with her and Anthony unpacking all the things they had into their new apartment, trying to figure out what to get rid of and what to keep when they realized that consolidating their things meant they now had two of everything they needed to share with each other; two sets of silverware, two sets of plates and bowls, two bedroom sets, two sets of living room furniture. 

Anthony was willing to get rid of anything he needed to, but Colette was having a harder time going through her things. She didn’t mind sharing, but she wanted her own stuff. What if she, for whatever reason, had to move out, or if Anthony got traded and had to take stuff with him and left her with nothing because the stuff he took was technically “his” and not her own?

“Hey, babe,” she calls into the apartment, a little bit of an echo following her through the few rooms they hadn’t finished unpacking yet. 

“In here,” Colette hears, following Anthony’s voice into their bedroom. He was standing in front of the bookshelf he had built into the wall (by someone who knew what they were doing, not by him), putting up all the books she had brought from her old place.

“I told you I would organize these,” she told him, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist, kissing his back. “I have a system.”

Anthony laughs, spinning around and hugging her back, kissing her on the lips. “Your system is ‘I have a bunch of books by this author, so they need to be together.’”

“And?”

“I’m not even touching your books yet,” he points out, turning her attention to all the boxes she left in the corner that were still, in fact, untouched. “These are my books.”

“I didn’t know you read.”

“Not all hockey players are illiterate, Colette,” he jokes, earning a laugh from her.

“No, I mean,” she starts, heading over to one of her boxes to start trying to organize them. “I know you normally don’t have time to do things other than, like, eat, sleep, and play hockey. Reading didn’t seem like something you had time for.”

“Well, you read a lot, so I thought I could do the same,” he tells her, his voice lower than normal. Colette looks up at the shelf he was putting books on; The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn amongst other books she loved and already had copies of sitting there on their own shelf. 

“I already have these, you could have borrowed them at any time,” she points out, feeling Anthony’s arms around her, his chin resting on the top of her head. 

“Yeah, but this way I can take them with me on the road and you’d still have your copies. I’d have a piece of you with me.”

What piece of him would she have with her while he was gone? She couldn’t think of anything as he spun her around in his arms to kiss her, feeling his smile against her lips while all she could feel was distress coursing through her.

a laundry basket full of clothes with a piece of clothing crumpled up in front of it

“What the hell?” Colette comes home from work to find that everything Anthony said he was going to get done was not done. He had promised he would get everything cleaned up before his friends came over tomorrow. “Anthony?”

Her boyfriend peers his head into the kitchen where she was standing, a smile on his face immediately fading when he sees the anger on hers. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, oh shit,” she says, gesturing around her. “This is the third day in a row that you said you would clean up.”

“I’m sorry, I got caught up.” He tells her, approaching her slowly, as if she were a tiger going to pounce on him with any sudden movement. “I’ll start now.”

Colette scoffs as he reaches out to her. He did this all the time. He would tell her that he would help her clean, especially when more than half of it was his mess to begin with, and then it always fell on her. “That’s not the point, Anthony,” she snaps at him.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“No, you aren’t. You tell me that every time you do this. You said you would help with the laundry, and look at where all the clothes are, not even in the basket still sitting on front of the washer and dryer where you left them two days ago,” she starts, gesturing to the mountain of dirty clothes she could see in their little laundry alcove that she swore she could smell from where she was standing. “The dishes from dinner on Monday are still here because you promised me after I cooked that you would clean them, but you disappeared instead and didn’t come home until after I went to bed. You have your coffee cup sitting on the table with coffee in it that I’m pretty sure is from at least three days ago. What the fuck is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” he says quickly, his face getting red as he turns towards the sink to start the dishes. “And, to be fair, you do this to me all the time. I come home from road trips and find you haven’t taken out the trash the entire time, or the dishwasher hasn’t been started. I’m sorry I forgot the last couple of days, but I’ve been busy.”

Colette bit her lip, knowing he was right. She was picking a fight with him they didn’t need to have, yet here she was anyway. “With what?”

“My job?” he says, shrugging, despite the slightest hint of a wavering going through his voice. It wasn’t just hockey. They were in the middle of a homestand and he had the day off today anyway. 

Colette studies him for a second. “You’re lying to me,” she tells him. She could tell he tensed up from behind, the way he does when he’s not telling her the truth about something.

“I’m not.”

“Then what has been going on with you?”

Anthony hesitates, shaking his head and opening his mouth, clearly trying to figure out what to tell her. “Nothing. Like I said, I just got caught up.”

“With what?”

“Mat needed some help with something.” 

Colette scoffed again, walking out of the kitchen and to their bedroom. She knew Anthony was following her, but shut the door behind her anyway. “Why would Mat need your help so urgently that he, on Long Island, needed to take you away from cleaning for the entire day here in Pittsburgh?” she asks, sitting on their bed as he opens the door back up.

“I can’t tell you that, it’s Mat’s business.”

Colette nods, knowing he was still lying. She pulls out her phone, pulling up her boyfriend's best friend's contact. “Hey,” she says when he picks up, seeing the wave of panic flash in Anthonys eyes as he pulled out his phone and started typing furiously on his own phone. She knew he was texting Mat. “Have you heard from Anthony today?”

“Uh, no, why?” Mat says, Anthony throwing his head back, sucking on his teeth and muttering ‘fuck’ under his breath. 

“He just seemed a little off this morning when I left for work, I thought maybe hearing from you would cheer him up a little,” she lies to him.

“Oh, sure?” Mat tells her clearly confused before they hang up with each other.

“I can explain,” Anthony starts, sitting next to her on the bed and putting his hands in her lap. 

Colette waits for a moment. “Then do it.”

“Tomorrow, I promise.” 

She lets out a laugh. “No, now.”

“I can’t.” 

Colette stares at him for a second, him still not looking directly at her but a pleading look in his eyes. “Are you cheating on me?”

Anthony finally looks at her. “What? Of course not.”

“Then what the hell is going on?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Anthony, you know everything about me. I tell you everything,” she says, looking around at the room they shared that he filled with her favorite things. She still hadn’t figured out what she would do for him. She could feel herself starting to panic, a year since they moved in together and she still barely knew anything about him. Colette shakes her head, looking down at his hands still in her lap. “We can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“If we want to be in a relationship like this, we have to tell each other what’s going on,” she lies. She couldn’t do this anymore. 

“I told you, I can tell you tomorrow.”

“What is so important that you can’t tell me now?” she asks, getting up from the bed and starting to pace. Her mind started spiraling, thinking the absolute worst of what he could be hiding from her. She was self destructing, and blaming it on him was the easier way out. She knew it was. “You’re cheating on me, you’re going to break up with me, you have a child you haven’t told me about, you’re dying or you’re seriously sick.”

“Hey woah,” Anthony says, stopping her and standing in front of her. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Colette, why don’t you trust me?”

Colette stares at him for a second, trying to find her words. “I don’t know.” 

Anthony’s expression drops, his hands sliding down her arms as he shakes his head. “I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me like this.” 

Colette tries to hide the hurt that came with his statement. “I can’t be with someone who doesn’t tell me the truth when I ask him for it.” The two of them stare at each other for a few moments in silence. “Does that mean we’re done?”

Anthony nods, his eyes not reaching Colette’s again. “I think so.” 

a glass looking liquor bottle with a small amount of liquid inside, a solo cup on its side tipped over in front of it

The guy in front of Colette was so cute. At least, he was cute enough to flirt with while she was drunk and still wanting more drinks she didn’t want to pay for. The cup of rum and coke in her drink never seemed to empty for long enough with him standing there with her.

She wasn’t even sure what his name was. She wasn’t sure she cared what his name was.

She was pretending to listen to him while twirling a lock of her hair in her fingers, trying her best to make it look like she was intrigued so that he would get her a refill of her almost empty drink. It wasn’t how she normally flirted, but it was working for him, so why not? 

“Lettie, babe, come on,” she hears Anthony behind her, his hands wrapping themselves around her waist and pulling her ever so slightly towards him. 

A month ago, she would have done anything to feel his body against hers like this. 

Now, she wanted nothing more than to get out of his arms. 

“Anthony,” she tries to fight.

“This your bodyguard?” the guy asks her, looking incredibly pissed off. 

“Boyfriend,” Anthony corrects him.

The guy scoffs, running his hands through his hair. “Nice.” He walks away despite her protests, not listening to her as she tries to pry herself free of Anthony’s grasp. 

He laughs, leading her back to their friends. Colette sits down, a now empty cup in front of her since she didn’t get that last refill that she wanted. None of her friends noticed her not participating in their conversation, her anger toward Anthony increasing along with her sobriety.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” she stands abruptly, nearly knocking over the table holding all of their drinks. 

Anthony gets up with her, Colette not hearing him say, “I’m gonna turn in too, I’ll walk her home,” before she pushes her way out of the bar and into the muggy air outside.  

“I don’t know how you could stand there and let him flirt with you when you made it pretty clear that you weren’t even interested in him,” Anthony whines, not noticing how annoyed she was with him. He was acting like a hero when he shouldn’t have been. “I mean, I can’t believe I had to step in and help you.”

“You didn’t,” she snaps at him, catching him off guard. “I was interested in him. He was nice. He was buying me drinks. That’s why he was flirting with me, because I was flirting with him.”

Colette thought that they were actually going to be friends, like they said they would be. They had been out together since they broke up. They had hung out with their friends in the exact same setting and had the exact same scenario happen but without this ending to the night. There was no reason why he should have stepped all over her like that to ‘save her,’ as he put it. 

“What? Oh, come on, I know how you act when you’re flirting with a guy.”

“Do you?” she asks him, followed by him giving her a confident, ‘yes.’ “Really? So what do I do?”

“You, you,” he starts, knowing that he dug himself into a hole. “You smile at him, you laugh at everything he says, even if it isn’t funny. You run your hands through your hair because you know that fucking collar bone of yours drives me crazy.” He stops, both of them shocked that he just said that. That isn’t how she flirts with anyone, that’s how she acted around him when they were together. “Fuck.”

“Anthony, you cannot keep doing this. We broke up,” she starts, not adding that it was her fault, even though she still felt like it was. “Stop interfering when I’m with another guy.”

“I’m just trying to protect you,” he tries to defend himself.

“From what? From who? What could you possibly be protecting me from? Other guys? Why, Anthony?”

“Fuck, Colette, you think it’s easy watching you flirt with another guy? Just because we broke up, that doesn’t mean I stopped loving you,” he spits out.

Colette stands there, trying to process what he just told her. She could feel her heart racing, the sound of it beating the only thing she could hear. “I didn’t know you still loved me.”

Anthony scoffs, looking down at the ground, shaking his head. “Of course I did. I do. You haven’t noticed that I haven’t looked at another girl since we broke up? I want you, and only you.”

“I didn’t,” she tells him. “Anthony, you’re just saying this because you’re drunk.”

Anthony raises an eyebrow, shaking his head and biting his lip. “Look, I might be. But I know that drunk or not, I cannot sit around and watch you flirt with every guy in existence, while you, the one who was supposed to be my best friend, didn’t even notice that I was miserable while it was happening.”

“What do you want from me?” she snaps. “What am I supposed to do? We tried. We didn’t work. As much as we both wanted to, we did not work.” 

They stared at each other for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say. He had to know it was her fault they broke up. It wasn’t mutual, not really.

“I guess, nothing,” he tells her, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Nothing at all.” He looks down at the ground and lets out a long sigh. “I’ll see you at the wedding,” is the last thing Anthony says to her before turning on his heels, leaving Colette alone on the sidewalk. 

a ring, not on the ring finger

“Devyn really picked the worst shade of blue she could find for these dresses, didn’t she?” Devyn’s youngest sister, Blake, complains to the rest of the bridesmaids.

Devyn had just stepped out of the room to do her first look with Franco, leaving the girls alone to finish getting ready. 

“She picked sapphire,” Becca said.

“You know,” Colette continues. “Her birthstone?”

“She should have picked a lighter blue. This dark blue totally clashes with my skintone.”

“Blake,” Kendall, her other sister scolds her, “Devyn didn’t give a fuck about your skintone when she picked her favorite color. Either you’re wearing the dress without complaint or I’m telling mom and you’re not in the wedding.”

The sisters keep bickering, Addison, Becca, and Colette slowly moving away from them. 

“I always forget that Blake is still in high school,” Addison says, grabbing her bouquet before checking her makeup one last time.

“I don’t know how you could when she’s constantly tagging Devyn in her posts,” Colette points out.

“Especially the ones she’s not even in.” 

“To increase her visibility,” Colette starts, reciting word for word what Blake had tried to explain to them during Devyn’s bachelorette party. “So she has more people who know her brand when she becomes famous.” 

“Teenagers make no sense,” Devyn appears, a nervous look on her face. “I think we’re almost ready to start.”

“What’s wrong?” Addison asks.

“Colette, we have a problem.” 

“What did I do?”

“Sebby thinks Becca is hot and wants to walk down the aisle with her.”

Colette could feel the color draining from her face at the realization of what this switch would mean for her.

“Is he Franco’s older or younger brother?” Becca asks.

“The older one.”

Becca turns to Colette. “I’m not coming back to the hotel room tonight,” she tells her, practically giddy. “Oh, wait.”

“That means Colette has to walk with-” Addison starts.

“Anthony,” the four girls say at the same time. 

“I’ll be fine,” Colette says, her voice noticeably higher than it should be. She clears her throat, trying to calm herself considering the last time she talked to Anthony was the night he told her he loved her. “I’m fine.”

Devyn’s wedding planner, Jax, comes over to tell them it’s time to line up to enter with the groomsmen. 

“I love you,” Devyn calls after her bridesmaids, all of them calling back to her the same sentiment. 

Colette nearly stops breathing when she sees Anthony in his suit, helping Eddy adjust his tie. The suit fit him perfectly, Colette silently cursing the fact that Franco picked dark gray as the color. She hated to admit that she still thought about that one suit of his that he wore on game day, one that looked identical to the one he had on now. 

“Hi,” she says, standing next to him, trying to not look at him. 

“Hi,” he repeats, staring straight ahead at the back of Eddy’s neck.

The music starts, both of them rigid while everyone else around them is relaxed.

“I thought this would be us one day,” Anthony breaks their silence as the first couple starts to walk arm in arm down the aisle towards where Franco was already standing.

“What?” Colette asks, caught off guard.

Anthony nods, still staring in front of him as they move closer to the entrance of their venue. “I had the proposal all planned out. Had the ring. Had the reservation for dinner. Had a photographer. Everything. And then, the night before I was going to ask you, we broke up. That’s why I couldn’t tell you what was going on. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

Colette looks at him, not noticing that they were next to go down the aisle, Anthony taking Colette’s arm in his as Jax tells them to start walking. 

a candle with a long wick, uncut, the lid propped up against the glass

“Are you sure you’re ok to come to this?” Franco asks her.

Colette hesitates for a minute. She hadn’t seen him in months, so she wasn’t sure why she was being invited to his apartment. She hadn’t been to his place since he moved in over a year ago, and honestly, Colette hasn’t intended on going. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you’ve looked like you were going to vomit since we picked you up for this?” Devyn twists her body from the front seat to face her. “We can take you back home if you want.”

Franco pulls up in front of Anthony’s new place, knowing that she couldn’t ask them now to turn around and drive the entire way to and from her place again. “No, I’ll be fine.”

Colette takes in a deep breath as Devyn and Franco get out of the car, leaving her behind in the back seat to stare up at the building they were all supposed to be heading into. There was no need for her to be this nervous. She and Anthony were friends. They talked still, occasionally. Maybe once a week. And the conversations were never more than half an hour long, just to check in, but that’s adult friendships.

Right?

She gets out of the car, jogging to catch up with her friends as they were already to the elevator. 

“You’re going to be ok, you know,” Devyn says, putting her arm around Colette.

“Yeah, we’ll kill him if you want us to.”

Devyn smacks her husband's chest with her free hand, scolding him as Colette laughs. 

She could do this. 

They make their way up to Anthony’s place, getting turned around and somehow ending up two floors above where they were supposed to be, thanks to Franco not being able to read a text message properly and upsetting one of Anthony’s elderly building neighbors. By the time they find his apartment, the place is full, their friends and Anthony’s taking up so much space they could barely move. Franco and Devyn break off from Colette, leaving her alone to scope the place out.

She wanders through his place, people in every single one of his rooms. She stumbles across what she assumes to be a guest room. It was way too neat to be Anthony’s own room, despite him always making her bed when they were together. 

Mat appears behind her, laughing at the sight of the room. “I guess it’s easy to figure out which room is Tito’s, huh?”

Colette lets out a small laugh. “I was just thinking that.” 

“How have you been?” he asks, sitting down on the bed. 

She goes to join him, sighing. “I’m at my ex’s place for the first time since we moved out of the place we got together. Clearly, I’m on top of the world.” 

“It could be worse.”

“Maybe,” she shrugs.

“Ok, what animal are you least afraid of?” Colette looks at him, confused by the non sequitur. “I’m trying to distract you.” 

“Fine, fine,” she rolls her eyes as he nudges her shoulder. “I guess fish?”

“No, I said an animal.”

“And I said a fish.”

“No, a real animal?”

“Are fish fake?”

“You can’t find a fish at a zoo. Have you heard of fish zoos?”

“Yeah, they’re called aquariums, you fucking walnut,” Colette tells him, laughing so hard she could feel pain in her sides.

“Oh. Oh, yeah,” Mat sits there for a second, looking down at his hands with a smirk on his face while Colette continues to laugh. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh that hard since you broke up with him.”

“This is the first time we’ve seen each other since before he and I broke up,” Colette points out once she catches her breath.

Mat sighs. “I don’t think he’s laughed as hard as you just did since you two broke up.” 

“Yeah, sure,” she says, not believing him. 

“Colette, you make him want to live as long as possible so he can have as much time sharing the planet with you as he can. He has all of your favorite things in his Notes App on his phone that he will not delete. That one picture I took of you guys way back when we all met is still one of his lock screens, again that he won’t delete. I mean, look around his whole place. You are in every corner.”

Colette shakes her head. “Come on.”

“Look at that bookcase,” Mat says, bringing her over to the other side of the room. A picture of Devyn and Franco’s wedding party is framed on one of the shelves, one where he is looking at her so lovingly that someone in passing would assume they were the ones getting married while she was looking at the camera if not for what they were wearing. Her favorite candle scents were still unlit, sitting on the shelf next to all the books she loved by Leigh Bardugo and Gillian Flynn, the same ones from when they first moved in together, their spines now noticeably more worn, the copies loved by someone who had to have read them multiple times. She picked up the copy of Ninth House, seeing his writing in it and comments saying things like ‘remember when you said this to me?’ or ‘this has to be your favorite scene because’ left unfinished. 

“He was writing these to me,” she realizes, not noticing Mat leaving the room.

“Of course I was,” Anthony says, her turning around so fast she loses her grasp on the book in her hands to send it falling to the floor. “I can’t really read these books anymore without thinking of you.”

“Why do you still have them all then?”

Anthony looks at the book on the floor. “How could I get rid of them?”

The two of them stand there in silence for what feels like forever. She wasn’t used to having Anthony in front of her and barely being able to find the words to say to him. She hated herself for losing him, but how could she have kept him? Colette takes in a deep breath. “We made a mistake breaking up, didn’t we?”

Anthony nods, shrugging. “Yeah, probably.” 

“I don’t think we could ever go back, either.” Anthony sighs, opening his mouth to say something when Colette cuts him off. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“I think I’m still in love with you, but we can’t be together. We don’t trust each other,” Colette hears herself say, shocked at the words that come out of her.

Anthony closes the distance between them, taking her in his arms and hugging her so fiercely she could barely breathe. “I still love you, too.” 

The two of them pull apart, both of them crying. They knew what this was for them.

“God, this sucks,” Anthony laments.

 “It’s kind of amazing, though, isn’t it?”

“What?” Anthony asks, shock in his voice.

“How lucky we are that we got to love each other so much, that a simple goodbye could feel as devastating as this.”

two sets of eyes, one opened set, one closed set

“Don’t panic,” Addison says, Eddy rolling his eyes behind her.

“Yeah, because only good things come from people saying that,” Colette says, handing her friends the drinks she bought them. Becca was somewhere with Devyn and Franco, the six of them out together for one of their increasingly rare nights when they could all be together without having to worry about anything outside the building they were in. 

“She thinks she saw some of Anthony’s teammates,” Eddy explains, guiding them back to the rest of their friends. 

Colette rolls her eyes, looking back to her friend who had already downed more than half her drink. She knew that Addison had a drunken habit of mistaking strangers for people she actually knew, or thought she knew. Just because she thought she saw some of his teammates, that didn’t actually mean anything. “I think we can save the panic for when we know we see him, instead.” 

“You’re already panicking about seeing him again?” Becca asks, overhearing only the last part of the conversation as they arrive back at the table. 

“We are talking about different people,” Colette says. “I was just with Carter last night.”

“That’s, what, almost every night that’s he’s not away for the last five months that you’ve spent the night together, isn’t it?” Devyn asks, stirring her drink with her straw.

“Yeah,” Colette sighs.

“Oh, no,” Franco groans.

“You guys seem really in to each other.” Becca points out.

“I mean, physically, it’s great. But, he just,” Colette starts, trying to figure out what to say. She knew exactly what bothered her; it was why she broke up with Anthony in the first place. “He doesn’t really know me.” 

“Holy shit,” Eddy says, nearly choking on his drink. The group follows his gaze to see that Addison was right; Anthony’s teammates were there at the bar, but so was Anthony. 

Not only was he there, but he had his arm around a girl, guiding her through the place to see if they could find an open table, the only one close to them being the one right next to them. 

“You make it worse if you freak out,” Devyn scolds him.

“Hi,” Anthony says when he sees her, standing right next to their table. 

“Hey, bud,” Eddy greets him, Franco punching him in the arm for the over enthusiasm. 

“We’re going to go get more drinks,” Becca says, all of Colette’s friends grabbing their clearly new drinks in front of them and excusing themselves from the table. 

Anthony awkwardly chuckles as they all leave, just him and Colette alone for the first time in what felt like forever. “So they haven’t changed.”

Colette felt a pit in her stomach. “You didn’t have to stop talking to them because we don’t talk that much. I mean, you were in Devyn and Franco’s wedding.”

Anthony nods, taking a sip of his drink before setting it down on the table in front of her. He was still standing awkwardly, Colette knowing that he wouldn’t ask to sit down with her. “Talking to them made me think about talking to you.”

The two of them sit in an awkward silence for a moment. 

“So who was-”

“I saw you-” they start to say at the same time, both of them letting out a laugh in hopes it would calm them down.

“You first,” Colette tells him.

“I saw you started seeing someone,” he brings up, leaning against the table as he looks down at his drink, a sad smile on his face.

Colette cringes, nodding. She forgot she still had him on her private story. “Yeah, but it won’t last much longer.”

“Oh.”

“I saw you were here with someone?” she asks, gesturing to the girl who was with his teammates.

Anthony looks over, waving at his friends and the girl. “That’s Mat’s little sister. She’s just here to visit.”

“So are you seeing anyone?”

Anthony shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” Colette hears herself say, gesturing to him to sit down next to her.

He waves her off, taking the seat previously occupied by Franco across from her. “It’s fine. I’ll find someone else eventually.”

“No, I mean,” Colette starts, taking in a deep breath and trying to figure out what to say after all these years of not saying what she wanted to. What she should have said. They both knew they had already found each other and they let it go too soon. “I’m sorry for ending things. I’m sorry for being the reason everything fell apart. I’m sorry I didn’t show you how much I love you the way you showed me.”

Anthony looks up from his drink, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You knew everything about me. You have my favorite books, you always knew exactly what I wanted to get when we went out to dinner before I had the chance to tell you, you know my mood based on the smallest things I do. You showed me you love me with everything. I didn’t do that for you.” 

Anthony gives her a sad smile. “You always showed me you loved me.”

“Not the way you did. I feel like I knew nothing about you the way you knew me.”

Anthony shakes his head. “You know me better than I know myself.” Colette starts to shake her head, about to dispute him when he cuts her off. “If I had a bad game, you always had a cup of tea ready for me when I got home with a note telling me how you knew I’d be fine next game. You never tried to minimize how I felt after a game and listened to everything I told you. If I had to get up early for practice or to leave for a road trip, you had my coffee ready for me before I was even awake sitting on the nightstand waiting for me, even if you hadn’t slept great the night before. I’d open my bag and find the notes you wrote for me hidden in my suit pockets so I’d have them with me in the locker room. You still text me after games to tell me you’re proud of me. You think you didn’t show me you loved me? I’ve never felt more loved by anyone before meeting you.”

“I didn’t think those things meant anything.”

“They meant everything.”

I love you

Colette walks into the studio, paper in hand. She had booked yet another appointment with her favorite artist, Eleni, months ago, going back and forth as to what she wanted. Her left arm was covered in a series of small tattoos as it was, enough space right at the start of her forearm for one last small tattoo. 

“Hey, Let,” Eleni greets her.

“Hi, Len,” she smiles back, handing her the piece of paper.

“You want the words, ‘I love you?’” Eleni asks, eyebrow cocked. Colette swallows, knowing that this was the last thing she wanted on her arm. “Whose writing is this? I know it’s not yours.”

“Anthony’s,” Colette admits after what felt like too long of a silence for it to be anyone else's. 

“Are you sure you want this?” 

Colette forces out a laugh. “Every tattoo on my arm relates to him in some way, you know that. You put them all there. The book with the sun, the solo cup, the wheel of fortune. Might as well finish it off with how we feel about each other.” 

Eleni takes in a deep breath, getting Colette ready for her tattoo. “I don’t get why you two aren’t together.”

Colette sighs. “I fucked up. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fix it. Not in a way that matters, anyway.” Eleni gives her a sad look, Colette shaking her head and waving it off. “Besides, just because you think you’re ‘meant to be’ with someone, doesn’t mean you’ll actually ‘be.’” 

[merrybloomwrites]

1D x Reader - Beach Day

Summary: After months of hard work, you and the five boys get a day off and head to the beach for some fun.

Word Count: 837

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s rare for you and the boys to be allowed free time to go out while on tour. You’re either rehearsing, doing sound check, performing, or working on recording the next album.

When you’re not working, you’re forced to stay in the hotel. Sometimes you’re permitted to hang together, but other times you’re all relegated to your own rooms. Without fail, it only takes a few weeks of this for you all to feel like prisoners.

You’re in Italy for a couple of shows, and it looks beautiful outside. It’s mid-morning on a day off. You’re standing on the patio of your hotel room, breathing in fresh air and wishing you were swimming in the gorgeous blue water you can see just across the street. 

You sit on the ground when suddenly you hear a sliding door open to your right. Louis steps out onto his deck and greets you. “Hey there Dolly,” he says, calling you by the nickname you’d earned due to your Dolly Parton obsession. 

“Hey, what are you up to?” you ask.

“Well, I was keeping pretty busy staring at the wall but I started seeing shapes in the wallpaper so I figured I should go outside before I fully lose my mind,” he replies.

“Well I’m glad you didn’t go all Yellow Wallpaper on us.”

“It’s only a matter of time before we all go mad, being locked up like this,” he says and you nod in agreement. 

He gives you a look and starts to climb over the railing that separates the two decks. “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself!” you exclaim.

“Relax love, we’re only on the second floor. I could easily jump to the ground from here.” Another mischievous look crosses his face. “What do you say to a jail break?”

“Are you insane?”

“Nope, but I will be if I have to keep staring at that beach that’s just out of reach. C’mon, go get your stuff and let’s escape for a couple hours.” 

You take in his idea, and while you hate breaking rules, you’re a teenager. You’re wired to be just a little bit rebellious. You agree and both of you rush to pack a small bag with essentials. 

“Alright, I’ll climb down first and then help you,” Louis says. 

Of course, the second he starts to go over the railing, Paul happens to walk by on a nearby path. 

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” he says. 

Well crap, you think to yourself. Now we’re caught. You all love Paul, he’s like a big teddy bear, but still he’s head of security. Which means your plan is completely foiled, and you’re likely to get in a heap of trouble with management.

Even Louis can’t talk back to Paul, and explains, “We’re trying to prevent insanity. There’s a perfectly good beach right there and we’re forced to stare at it. It's cruel, Paul. Psychological torture.”

The man looks at the two of you for a moment and says, “Give me one hour. I’ll see what I can do.” With that he walks away. You and Louis look at each other in confusion, but you both trust the man so you decide to sit and wait.

Thirty minutes later, there’s a text in the group chat that the six of you have with Paul. It reads “Roger and I will be up in fifteen minutes to take you all to the beach.”

True to his word, the security guards show up and within minutes you and the boys are setting up in the sand. 

“Last one in the water’s a rotten egg!” Niall shouts and the six of you all start running. You’re grateful for Louis tackling Liam, ensuring you won’t come in last place. Moments later the two of them decide to become a team and challenge the rest of you in a game of chicken. You and Zayn being the least competitive decide to be partners and quickly lose every round. You don’t even care about repeatedly splashing into the chilly water, just happy to be normal for a while.

Back on the sand, you, Harry, and Niall work together to make a sand castle. It may not be perfect, but it sure is made with love. 

Lunch gets delivered to you all, meaning you get to stay and hang out even longer. After eating, you all set out your towels and nap, warmed by the sun's rays. The two security guards watch over the group closely, and if Paul takes a couple pictures so you can reminisce on the day later, well no one needs to know that. 

That evening you all go back to your rooms to shower and change before meeting up for dinner. For one day, this feels like a vacation, rather than the constant work and stress you normally feel.

You’re all just a tad sunburnt at the show the following night, but a day spent having fun with your best friends is worth it.

[teapartyprincess4two]

Full Set is too damn good you write it sooo well. like I actually NEED more matt stories from you 🙏

Small Town Dreaming- M. Sturniolo

pairing: neighbor!reader x bestfriend!Matt

classification: fluff, best friends to lovers (kinda)

warnings: use of y/n, slow build up, small town au

summary: There’s not much to do in this small town but fall in love.

—

Your small town has been boring for as long as you can remember. The town was so small you could probably run down every street in less than an hour. There was one movie theater that played reruns of movies no one cared about, a bowling alley with 4 bowling balls in total, a park with a wooden termite infested playground, and a library with books so old they had mold. Everyone either had a flock of chickens or a herd of sheep, spending their free time tending to the livestock.

One of your favorite pastimes was to sneak up onto the old water tower and just people watch, occasionally pulling out your sketchbook to draw the familiar faces that passed by. No one ever left this town, it always seemed to suck people right back in and keep them here forever. So many people have tried leaving, packing their bags and driving down the main dirt road to freedom. For some reason or another they always turned back though, throwing their dreams out the window on the way.

“One day I’m moving to LA with my brothers,” Matt sighs dreamily, the both of you laying on the trunk of his car as you watch the stars. Without dreams this small, boring town would crush everyone’s spirits. “That’s a good idea,” you say, squinting your eyes as you pretend to squish the stars between your fingers. They looked like fireflies dancing in the sky.

You had a lot of dreams too, most of them involving running away and never turning back, but none of your dreams were written in stone yet. For some reason you felt like you’d end up like many others, too involved in your daily life to ever do something big. You’ve seen it happen to a lot people, your mom included. She was full of dreams and aspirations, but as soon as she got married and started having children it just felt easier to stay.

“What about you?” Matt asks, turning his head to look at you. “What about me?” You say in a teasing tone, hopping off the hood of the car. You were never the type to sit still, plus you didn’t have a definite answer to Matt’s question yet. “What are your dreams?” he asks again, formulating the question in a way that was much easier to answer. It was simple, you wanted to leave, but you were too scared to say it out loud. You felt like if you vocalized it, it wouldn’t come true. Maybe you’d follow Matt and his brothers, you didn’t know yet, but you didn’t want to stay here for the rest of your life.

You take a while to respond so he interjects again jokingly, “or are you staying here forever?” The idea of staying here forever was actually terrifying, but you’re only a junior in high school so it’s easy to push the thought to the back of your mind. “I am NOT staying here forever,” you reply, shivering at the idea of this town becoming your finally destination. “I won’t end up like my mom,” you whispered, shaking your head as you looked at the ground. Matt stays silent as he hops off the hood of the car, walking over to you and hugging you. “It’s okay. You can just come with me and my brothers,” he whispers against your hair as he rubs comforting circles into your back.

The sentiment was nice and it made you smile. “That could be fun,” you murmured, dreaming about a life that seemed so far away.

—

You’re 21 years old now and that conversation feels like a lifetime ago. You’re currently in the kitchen helping your mom prepare lunch for your dad and brothers. “Make sure you don’t cut the tomatoes too thick,” she instructs as she expertly cuts onions beside you. Over the years she managed to refine her kitchen skills, the onions having no affect on her whatsoever. You, on the other hand, are wiping away the involuntary tears with the back of your hand.

“I know how to cut tomatoes,” you reply, squinting so you can see through the tears. Her eyes are trained on you as she piles the onions into the pan. They sizzle loudly, steam rising from the hot pan. Sometimes you wonder why you even bothered helping her if she was going to be so bossy. “Then why are they so thick?” She retorts, grabbing one of the tomato slices from your cutting board and wiggling it around in her fingers. You laugh as you watch the tomato dance back in forth, “fine you do it then.”

She doesn’t second guess it, instead she grabs the knife from you and swiftly cuts the rest of the tomatoes. She’s done before you can even look away. You walk over to the sink to wash your hands before replying, “no one is gonna die from a thick tomato slice.” She sends you a glare as she grabs the cutting board and slides the tomatoes into the pan. “No, but you need to know how to do this stuff for when you get married. No one is gonna wanna marry a girl who can’t cook,” she responds with a tsk, mixing the vegetables in the pan so they become sautéed.

You don’t say anything, you just watch as she tastes a now translucent onion, checking the flavor. “Needs some garlic,” she mumbles, moving towards the cupboard to grab the seasoning. Talking about marriage and relationships with your mom was always awkward because she always found a way to push your buttons. “Speaking of marriage,” she says again, turning the stove off. Now she’s completely facing you, cleaning her hands on a kitchen towel as she continues, “what ever happened to that Matt boy you always used to hang out with?”

You groaned, she brought Matt up at least once a month. “I haven’t talked to Matt since high school, mom,” you reply, rolling your eyes at her inability to remember details you repeatedly told her. She nods her head almost like it’s the first time she’s hearing this as she whispers, “that’s a shame.” The last thing you want to talk about is an old friend who actually managed to leave this town behind, so you decide to wash the dishes in the sink to avoid any further conversation. Hopefully the sound of the running water would drown out your mom’s voice.

You let the hot water run over your hands as you reminisce over all your memories with Matt. There was homecoming, football games, prom night, nights at the bowling alley, sneaking into the theater for popcorn, and of course stargazing. A small smile adorns your face at the memories, you cherished those moments despite them feeling like forever ago.

“He would’ve been a good husband,” your mom says casually, dumping any remaining dirty dishes in the sink before walking out of the kitchen and into the living room.

She was right, he would’ve made a perfect husband.

—

“I’ll be back!” You call out to your mom as you tug your shoes on and grab your coat from the couch. November was always chilly, especially in a town like yours where there were no large buildings to block the wind. That wouldn’t stop you from sneaking up onto the old tower, instead it actually excited you. The rush of being so high up was the most exhilarating thing this town had to offer.

“Where are you going?” She calls back, peering her head into the living room from the kitchen. “I’m just gonna go hang out with a friend,” you comment, not wanting to admit your true destination. She always scolded you when you told her you were going to the water tower, claiming it was dangerous and reckless. “You better not be climbing that old tower,” she gave you a stern look before returning to her cooking.

You roll your eyes, grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. If you weren’t allowed to do one dangerous and reckless thing, you’d go absolutely insane in this town. “Bye,” you finally say, dismissing yourself in a sing song tone as you walk out the front door.

The walk is short, the only hard part of your journey being the climb up the ladder. It creaks with every step, the rusty metal leaving your hands orange. Finally you arrive at the top, plopping your bag on the metal floor. You carefully take a seat, making yourself comfortable enough to begin people watching. Your legs swing back and forth as you look toward the ground, you were really high up.

People pass by, most of them by foot and you rest against the metal railing as you watch them. All these people were stuck doing mundane things like carrying their groceries home or walking to a friend’s house. So many familiar faces spark your creativity causing you to pull your sketchbook from your bag to begin drawing.

You see your brothers in the distance playing soccer on an old dirt road and you decide they’ll make the perfect warm-up sketch. So, you work diligently to replicate the figures in the distance, trying to capture their motions. The sketch is coming out good, but your pencil suddenly snaps, interrupting the flow you’d created. “Stupid cheap pencil,” you mumble to yourself, resting it in the crack of the sketch book that lays on your lap. You dig through your bag in search of a sharpener, finding it tucked between an old gum wrapper and a candy bar.

Just as you’re about to turn back to your sketchbook, the wind aggressively blows it off your lap. “No, no, no,” you yelp, trying to catch the book before it can slip away. One arm grabs a hold of the railing as the other reaches for the book that’s too far gone. You groan in annoyance, shoving the sharpener back into your bag and getting up slowly so you can make your way down and get your book.

“Ow! What the fuck?” someone exclaims from below, your book hitting them right on the head. ‘Great,’ you think, quickly slinging your bag over your shoulder and climbing down the stairs. Of course your book managed to hit one of the 200 people who populated this town. “I’m so sorry. I was drawing and then the stupid wind-“ you begin to apologize, climbing down the ladder as quickly as possible. You’re interrupted though, “Y/n?!” Everyone in your town knew everyone, who the hell was actually confused to see you?

“Yeah?” you reply, hopping off the ladder and turning towards the voice. Immediately your eyes go wide at the person in front of you. After 3 years of not seeing him, Matt stood right in front of you holding your sketchbook. He looked so much older than the last time you’d seen him. Small stubble scattered across his jaw, his arms adorned with tattoos, and he held a much more modernized look. “Matt?!” you ask in shock, rushing towards him excitedly. Seeing him after so long felt like a breath of fresh air.

“Oh my God! You look so different!” He exclaims, he’s equally as excited to see you. When you both were in high school you were inseparable. Sometimes you’d let your mind wander and dream about a life where the two of you were married, but that was then and this is now. “That’s what 3 years will do,” you chuckled, taking your sketchbook from him and putting it in your back. “Has it really been that long?” he asks, his eyes examining everything about you.

Since the last time he saw you, you’ve grown a little taller and your hair is much longer. You’ve got a woman-like essence about you that you didn’t have before, he’s sure that every guy in town is fighting for a chance with you. Last time he checked, you were the only girl worth looking at, let alone fighting for.

“Yes, dude! Where have you been?” you punch his arm playfully, earning a slight push from Matt. It felt like he never left, you two picked up exactly where you left off. “Chris, Nick, and I have been in L.A,” he responds, the two of you beginning to subconsciously walk away from the water tower. A gust of wind blows past you two causing you to pull your coat tightly around you.

“Aw, Chris and Nick! I haven’t seen them in so long,” you reply longingly, reminiscing briefly on all your memories with the other two. “Yeah we’re here visiting our parents for Thanksgiving. We should all hang out one day,” he says, the word ‘visiting’ leaving a bad taste in your mouth. It was a gentle reminder that they actually escaped this place and only came back as a favor to their parents while you were stuck here indefinitely.

“Yeah that could be fun,” you say halfheartedly. “Are you visiting too?” he asks, genuine curiosity leading him to push further into your personal life. You gulp, becoming scared to admit the truth to Matt. “Ugh no, not really,” you respond vaguely. “Oh, are you leaving soon?” he asks again, unable to stop himself from prying. He can’t help it, he hasn’t seen you in a long time and he’s curious. The two of you are now outside your house, the walk coming as second nature from all your walks home from school. “I never left,” you admit, an awkward cough following the sad statement.

Matt doesn’t know what to say, he finds it hard to believe that a girl like you never found her way out of this place. The only reason beautiful girls like you got stuck in this town was because of marriage, but Matt shook the thought from his head.

“It’s getting cold,” you say as you look back towards your house, breaking the silence that settled between you two. As excited as you were to see Matt, you needed to escape this awkward situation immediately. The wind was howling dramatically, shaking the surrounding trees and picking up the dirt from the roads. “Oh. Um, yeah. I’ll let you go. We’ll catch up another time, yeah?” he says sheepishly, feeling bad for embarrassing you. You hum in response, waving slightly at him before turning on your heel and hurriedly making your way inside.

“Was that Matt?” your mom asks enthusiastically as soon as you walk inside, leaning against the couch so she can get a better look out the window. Had she been watching the whole time? “Invite him inside!” she exclaims, not even giving you time to answer her previous question. “No, mom! He’s busy!” you lie, coming up with an excuse on the spot and watching from the window as Matt walks home.

“That boy is NOT busy. Marylou told me her boys were visiting,” she replies, rolling her eyes at your lame excuse of a lie. If she knew the triplets were in town, why did she ask if that was Matt? She clearly wanted to catch you flustered and annoyed. “Well he doesn’t want to come in,” you retort, shrugging your coat off and kicking your shoes off.

“You are never getting married, are you?” she asks sarcastically, giving you a blank look before disappearing into the kitchen.

—

Matt was home in a good 15 minutes, walking in to his house to find his brothers on the couch awaiting his arrival. “Did you bring it?” Chris asked, leaning against the backrest of the couch to look at Matt. Matt shrugs off his coat and kicks his shoes off, wondering what the hell Chris is on about. “Did I bring what?” Matt asks in confusion, walking over to the couch and sitting beside Chris.

Chris was now squished in between his two brothers, all three of them watching a random movie to pass the time. They had to resort to the old VCR their mom had because their phones didn’t get any service out in the country. Neither of them wanted to go through the hassle or rewinding the movies, so they were currently halfway through one without any context. It was hard to readjust to a slow paced lifestyle after being in L.A for so long and they couldn’t find anything to do. So, they sent Matt out in search of fireworks, but of course he got distracted along the way and came back empty handed.

“The fireworks, dumbass,” Nick chimes in, facepalming at Matt’s failure to complete the easiest task ever. “Oh, yeah, no. I couldn’t find any,” he lied, still thinking about his encounter with you. When your sketchbook fell on him, he flipped through a few pages and recognized so many of the people in the drawings. Some of the earlier pages were even filled with drawings of him and his brothers.

“Bullshit! We saw them yesterday at the corner store!” Chris shouts, getting up from the couch to go find the fireworks himself. “If I find even ONE firework, I’m beating your ass,” Chris says, pointing a menacing finger at Matt before slipping his shoes on and walking out the door, coat in hand. “Did you go to the right store?” Nick asks, watching mindlessly as the characters on screen converse. He has no idea what the plot of this movie even is.

“Well I tried, but I sort of got distracted,” Matt admits, shifting uncomfortable in the couch. He grabbed a pillow from beside him, hugging it closely to him. “How could you possibly get distracted? The store is 5 minutes from here!” Nick exclaims, looking suspiciously at his brother. Nick knew Matt was hiding something.

“I ran into an old friend,” Matt shrugged, sinking further into the couch and holding the pillow even closer to him. He knew that if he admitted to running into you, he’d never hear the end of it. He’d be bombarded with questions about you, how you’re doing, why he didn’t invite you over. Nick is looking at Matt expectantly, wanting him to spill the details on which ‘old friend’ he ran into, but Matt’s gaze is focused on the tv in front of him.

“Matt!” Nick says dramatically, pushing his brother by the shoulder to grab his attention. “Which friend?!” He finally asks once he’s successfully grabbed Matt’s attention. Matt debates whether or not he should just admit he ran into you, but before he can say anything he’s interrupted by Chris arriving from the store.

Throughout this entire conversation, Chris had managed to successfully find the fireworks and even ran into you on his way back home. You were reluctantly running an errand for your mom, but of course got distracted by Chris. He asked about you, inquiring about your personal life just like Matt had, and then insisted you come over. He said something along the lines of, “Nick and Matt would love to see you! Matt especially.” Chris was completely unaware of your encounter with Matt earlier that day, so in his mind this would be your first time seeing each other after years. So, as to not seem rude, you abandoned your errand and followed Chris to his house. He was carrying so many fireworks that he dropped a few along the way, but luckily you were there to pick them up.

“Guess who I brought?” Chris says dramatically in a sing-song tone, dropping all the fireworks at the front entrance. Nick and Matt look towards the front door, Matt’s mouth going agape slightly at the sight of you and Nick immediately jumping up from the couch. “Y/n?!” Nick exclaims, running over to you excitedly and embracing you in a hug. This was very uncommon for Nick, seeing as he wasn’t usually a hugger, but he hadn’t seen you in so long that he made an exception. “Hi Nick,” you greet awkwardly as he smothers you in his arms, hands still full of fireworks.

“Oh my God, girl. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in so long,” Nick let’s go of you, holding you by your arms so he can get a good look at you. He noticed all the same things as Matt and Chris, you looked like a woman. “Here,” you admit with a shrug, not embarrassed to admit it anymore. You’ve already gone through this round of questioning twice at this point with both Matt and Chris. “Oh,” he mumbles awkwardly, offering you an equally as awkward smile.

Matt was still watching in shock, what a coincidence that he ran into you earlier today and now you’re in his house. Well, in retrospect, the town is so small that you probably would’ve ended up here anyway. “How has life here been?” Nick asks again doing air quotes around ‘here’ before taking the fireworks from you and dumping them where Chris had dumped the rest. “It’s.. been” you laugh, rocking back and forth on your feet awkwardly.

Nick nods, deciding he’s had enough awkwardness for one day. “Wanna pop some fireworks with us?” he asks, hoping you’ll just say yes and break the awkward tension. You look between him and Matt, wondering if this was the right decision. Matt’s smiling at you, he wants you to say yes so bad. “Sure, why not,” you reply with a shrug, deciding this will be the most fun you’ve had in a while.

Chris appears from the kitchen, lighter in hand. He’s pretending to use it as flame thrower, waving it from side to side dramatically. “Get ready to burn!” He says evily, earning a laugh from the rest of you.

—

The fireworks left long sparks of color in the sky, the booming sound resonating throughout the entire town. It’s dark now and the wind has calmed down considerably, making it the perfect time for childish shenanigans. You and Matt were sat on a pair of lawn chairs, watching as Nick and Chris lit up firework after firework. They would light one, place it carefully on the ground, and then scurry away like excited children.

Matt is staring at the sky, mesmerized at the colorful sparks that flew by. The stars were faint, the light and smoke from the fireworks dulling their luminosity. You also watched the colorful explosions, but you held your fingers out in front of you to squish the stars. You created a game out of it, trying to squish the stars before the colorful sparks reached them.

Matt noticed this and chuckled slightly, reminiscing on the old habit you never seemed to let go. Upon hearing his laughter, you turn your attention to him quickly in confusion. “What?” you ask with a small pout. He smiles sincerely at you, examining your beautiful face as the colorful light from above decorated your face. The strobing lights seemed to only further accentuate your features.

In this moment Matt felt 18 again. He felt like he was seeing you for the first time and realizing he had a crush on you. “Nothing, you just always used to do that,” he replies sheepishly, pointing towards your hands briefly. It was a habit you never realized you had, you mostly did it to pass the time. You don’t say anything, but the silence isn’t awkward. You just smile at Matt before returning to your make-shift game, occupying your mind the only way you knew how.

You felt so comfortable right now. It felt like everything was the way it was supposed to be. It felt like old times, just you and your friends enjoying each other’s company. With each star you squish, you remember all your late nights under the stars with Matt. All the meaningful conversations and deep secrets you two exchanged, both of you becoming closer and closer each time. You always thought you’d end up following them and leaving this town, but life had other plans for you. Sometimes you even wondered what would’ve happened if you had confessed your feeling for Matt, would you two be married by now? It feels so wrong to think about, because you know that if you would’ve confessed he would’ve stayed and never fulfilled any of his dreams. He, like you, would’ve been stuck here.

Matt, on the other hand, can’t stop himself from smiling as he takes in more of your features. You looked so different, yet exactly the same. He still doesn’t understand why such a beautiful girl like you would stay in such a boring place like this. Of course he wondered if you were married, it was a common custom in your town for girls to get married young. Plus there was no a shortage of men waiting for the right moment to ask you on a date. Matt remembers it all too well, you’d always reject potential suitors in favor of spending time with him. He never understood why, but he always found himself feeling relieved when you did that. Maybe he internally wished you two would’ve started dating, but he never gained the courage to confess. He shook the thought of you being married out of his head, trying to focus on all the positive things tonight has to offer instead.

“Matt! Y/n! These are the last ones, come light one!” Chris calls out, waving the remaining fireworks in front of him, enticing you two to join in on the fun. The two of you are pulled from your thoughts, looking at Chris with smiles. Matt jumps up from his seat, jogging towards Chris and grabbing ahold of one of the fireworks. You get up a lot slower, taking in the moment in front of you. You really missed this.

“Girl! Hurry!” Nick rushes you, becoming impatient with your leisurely pace. You smile again, picking up the pace and grabbing a firework. “Ready?!” Chris asks excitedly, lighting everyone’s firework. You nod, excitement and adrenaline filling your body. As soon as he lights the fuse, you each place the fireworks carefully on the ground and run away in the opposite direction.

Lighting the fireworks was so much more exhilarating than just watching, your heart pumping rapidly as you try catching your breath. You’re standing next to Matt who wraps his arm around your shoulders and pulls you into his side, both of you looking up to watch the colorful explosion in the sky.

—

You don’t see the triplets again until a few days later, too busy helping your dad with the yard work to go anywhere. “Why can’t one of them help you?” You groan, looking at your brothers playing soccer in the field across the street. You always got stuck doing chores with your mom or dad while they got to have fun. “Can’t trust those guys to remember their own names, let alone help me,” your dad replies with a grunt, picking up two heavy buckets of water. You do the same, following behind him as he walks towards the pig enclosure.

It was so sunny today that you felt like you were melting. You were sweating underneath your overalls and the boots you were wearing were starting to rub against your ankles. “Fill that tank over there,” your dad instructs with a tilt of his chin, pointing in the direction he wanted you to go. You missed the tank as you tried pouring the water, some of it falling on the ground and creating mud. Your boots sank into the mud slightly causing you to groan in annoyance again. The pigs were oinking and squealing, almost like they were taunting you.

“Stupid fucking mud. Stupid dumbass pigs,” you grumbled, picking the other bucket up and dumping its remnants into the tank. “Language,” your dad warns sternly, only causing you to roll your eyes. He’s definitely said worse than fuck. You wipe the sweat from your forehead, adjusting your overalls in the process. “Are we almost done? It’s so hot,” you ask your dad, hoping he’ll have mercy on you and let you go inside. He doesn’t. “We still gotta shovel along the back to build that fence your mom asked for,” he informs you with no intention of letting you go early. You groan again, of course your mom wanted a fence. All you could do was prepare yourself for the long work day ahead.

-

Your arms feel like jelly, each pile of dirt you shovel sending you further into exhaustion. The sun was not letting up either, beaming brightly on the two of you. Your overalls were covered in dirt and your sweat mixed with the debris creating a gross mess all over your face and arms.

“You guys almost done?” Your mom asks as she walks over to you two. She’s holding a glass of water in each hand, working carefully not to spill any of it. The two of you stop digging and you’re silently thanking God for the small break. “We still have about 6 feet left that way and another 3 left this way,” your dad says, grabbing a glass of water and taking a few sips. Of course your side was missing the 6 feet, you were a much slower digger than your dad. You down the whole drink in one go, finally quenching your thirst after a hard days work.

“Well do you guys think you could wrap it up? We’ve got a visitor,” she says casually, taking the glasses back as she makes her way inside again. She was not going to stand in the hot sun for a second longer than necessary. ‘Visitor?!?’ you think, as you look down at your dirty overalls and muddy boots. If that’s how dirty your clothes were, you couldn’t even begin to imagine how dirty you were. “We’ll finish up tomorrow after breakfast, shouldn’t take us more than an hour,” your dad says, slapping your back as he follows behind your mom.

You jog behind him, trying to catch a glimpse of the visitors through the window. You can’t see anyone yet, so you just decide it’s probably one of your mom’s friends. If they saw you this messy it wouldn’t even matter. Both of you make your way inside, stomping the mud off on the grass before walking in.

“Y/n! Say hello to your friend, don’t be rude,” your mom immediately says once you walk in, referring to people waiting in the living room. Your mom considered everyone your friend, so you still weren’t too worried. “I’m going,” you call back, slowly walking over to the living room just in case it was someone you didn’t really know. If it was someone you didn’t know, you’d be able to excuse yourself with the excuse that you’re dirty or tired.

“Hi,” you greet plainly, peeking your head into the living room and waving at the unexpected company. “Hi,” Matt greets awkwardly, taking in your dirty appearance. You freeze at the sight of him, why didn’t your mom mention HE was the visitor? That was literally one of, if not the, most important detail of this story. “Excuse her, she’s been helping me out in the yard,” your dad chimes in, wiping his hands on an old kitchen towel before reaching a hand out towards Matt. “It’s nice to see you again, son,” your dad says, taking Matt’s hand into a firm handshake.

“It’s nice to see you too, sir,” Matt responds, getting up from the couch to properly greet your dad. He felt like he was your boyfriend, meeting your disapproving father for the first time. Your dad nods and exits the room, not interested in conversation. All he wanted was a cold shower and honestly that’s all you wanted too.

“I can come back another time?” Matt suggests, realizing he came unannounced and seemingly at a bad time “Nonsense! Y/n’s got time to chat, don’t you sweetheart?” Your mom interjects, listening to the whole interaction from the kitchen. She was whipping up a snack for you two in hopes that Matt would stay longer. She really liked Matt.

“Uh yeah, I got time,” you answered, too embarrassed to admit that you wanted him to leave so you could shower. “I can wait. If you wanna go get changed?” he says, sitting back down on the couch. You want to get on your knees and praise this man for being so considerate, but instead you give him a thumbs up and run to shower and change.

—

After freshening up you return to the living room where Matt is now talking with your mom. She made him a grilled cheese and cut up some strawberries for him, she even sprinkled sugar on them to make them extra sweet. They’re deep in conversation so you wait by the door to listen. “So, Matt, when are you planning to ask my daughter out?” your mom asks casually, unaware of the weight of her words. This sentence alone almost made you enter the room dancing just to have an excuse to shut her up.

“I’m sorry?” he asks, gulping nervously. “You heard me,” she replies, plopping a strawberry in her mouth and looking at him expectantly. “Oh- I- I thought y/n was married?” He says, unsure of what he’s even saying. Matt feels so awkward, he just takes another bite of the greasy cheese toast on his plate to give him an excuse not to talk.

When your mom hears this she laughs loudly, clearly amused with Matt’s assumption, “I wish!” Matt’s caught a little off guard by this comment, were you not married? Or at least spoken for? You wanted to slap your hand over your mom’s mouth before she said anything too embarrassing, but you decide to see where this conversation is going. You lean against the wall, getting comfortable for the eavesdropping you were about to do.

“I’ve been trying to get that girl to date, but no luck,” your mom continues, putting a smile on Matt’s face. He was both happy and relieved to hear that you weren’t taken. “She used to have a little crush on you in high school. And I’ve seen the way you look at her,” your mom won’t stop talking, she just keeps spilling your secrets. This is the first time Matt’s hearing of this, had you really liked him this whole time?

You decide you’ve heard enough, en entering the room with an awkward cough. “Thanks mom,” you say sarcastically, offering her a tight lipped smile. You look at Matt, trying to read his expression while also signaling to him that you want to leave. He gets the hint, dismissing himself politely from your mom. As the two of you are walking out you send a glare towards your mom and she returns it with a toothy smile and a wink.

“Sorry about that,” you chuckle awkwardly, shutting the door behind you. “No, I like your mom,” he replies, beginning to walk down the dirt road. “I know, but she can be a lot,” you apologize, becoming worried that she over shared and maybe scared Matt. “I can handle a lot,” he shrugs, the two of you now walking towards the old water tower. You smile at him, grateful that he’s not making it awkward. Your mom just confessed your crush to him like an old school girl and here he was being a gentleman about it.

When you two arrive to the water tower he signals for you to climb up first, holding your back securely until you’re high enough, then he follows behind you. You arrive at the top, sitting down carefully and patting the spot next to you so Matt will join. He gladly sits next to you, looking over the vast land in front of you. Miles and miles of green grass, crop fields, and only a few buildings and houses scattered in between.

The both of you talk about everything you’ve missed out on for the past 3 years, his stories being about his adventures in L.A and yours being about your life here. “I haven’t been up here in a long time,” he whispers in awe, taking in the scene in front of him as the sun begins to set. He had to admit that this was a beautiful town, despite it being so boring. “Well, you haven’t been here for a long time,” you reply, leaning against the metal railing as you join him in admiring the view.

“I was really surprised to see you that day. I thought I’d never see you again,” Matt says. After he and his brothers left they had zero contact with you and it always felt like a part of him was missing. “Yeah, it was nice catching up with you guys,” you reply, feeling like these past few days were the best you’ve had in a while. When they leave, you’ll just go back to your normal mundane life.

He can sense the sadness in your tone, feeling bad for leaving you here. “I’m glad you got out,” you admitted, resting your face on the arm that laid on the railing so you could look at Matt. “This town kills everyone’s dreams, I’m glad it didn’t kill yours,” you continued, offering Matt a small, genuine smile. If he was honest, he’d be happy staying here forever as long as it was with you.

“I don’t know. There’s one dream of mine that didn’t come true when I left,” he trails off, watching the as the sun disappears along the horizon. The sky goes from orange to purple as Matt feels the sudden urge to tell you something he’s been holding onto for a long time. “I doubt that,” you chuckle, looking up slightly to see the stars slowly come into view.

He laughs too, unsure if he should be admitting any of this to you right now. “I used to have a big crush on you too,” he admits quietly and casually, looking up at the stars too. Your neck almost snaps off as you turn to look at him, he notices this and laughs again. “It was back in high school… Getting a date with you, even just a kiss, was one of my biggest dreams,” he admits, remembering all those nights when he almost told you. “When your mom mentioned you used to have a crush on me it made me think of how different our lives would’ve been. If we ever acted on it, you know?” he continues, looking at you now.

You had a small, sad smile on your face because you weren’t sure if there was still a possibility at a future with Matt, but you were willing to try. “I mean, we can make the dream come true. If that’s okay?” you ask, leaning into him slowly.

“That could be fun,” he whispers, quoting what you told him that one night under the stars. He leans in and captures your lips in his, his last dream finally coming true.

—

MASTERLIST

A/n:

Boop another Matt story for the girlies.

Thank you anon for the nice compliment 🩷🩷 I hope you enjoy this Matt story and that it was everything you hoped for haha.

This took me so long to write idk why. Anywaysss I mentioned im writing a Nick story WELL IM PROBS SCRAPPING IT AND STARTING OVER. I find it so easy to write Nick in my other fics but for some reason when he’s the main “character” i struggleeee.

Okay I’m done now, enjoy reading. k byeeee

- L.A.M.B👼🏻💗