#I have a recommendation from my boss and everything | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gojorgeous · 1 year ago

Text

"sure thing"

pairing: target!gojo x assassin!fem!reader summary: you've been hired to kill the satoru gojo. how will you pull it off... and what will you do when he figures it out? content: MDNI (18+ only), nsfw, darkish content (all is well in the end), no established relationship, assassins/organized crime, blackmail, mention of a “suicide mission”, attempted murder (uhhhh), hidden identity, intended use of sex as a means to an end, mating press, unprotected sex, p->v, creampie, oral (fem!receiving), praise, pet names (gorgeous/sweetheart/baby), slight aftercare. a/n: me 🤝 describing gojo as having dimples welcome to my second 1k followers event fic! At this rate tho i’m going to hit 2k before i finish the 1k event LMAO. not that i'm complaining hehe. thank you for being patient and for all the support on my recent works! i really appreciate every ask, comment, follow, reblog, everything. they mean the world to me. check out the rest of my 1k event here. enjoy and remember that ALL AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED! creds: twitter template by @cafekitsune wc: 7.8k

“Who?!”

No fucking way. There’s no way he just said what you think he said.

“You heard me,” he scowls. He glares at you from across the desk. His seat is one of those cushy little office chairs, of course. Yours is plastic– cold and hard.

“Are you fucking insane?” you hiss. There’s no other explanation for what he’s asking you to do. He’s lost his fucking mind.

“We have a client willing to pay big money for this. Big money for just an attempt,” he answers.

You laugh, but there’s absolutely nothing funny about this conversation. “Oh, I’m sure you do. Probably because he’s practically invincible. I’ll never even lay a hand on him.”

Your “boss”, for lack of a better term, only scowls harder, the wrinkles forming near his eyes etching deeper in his skin. “Well, you’d best find a way to make it work. You’re taking this job. That’s final.” You scoff. Maybe you should recommend he see someone… “No. There’s no way. I’m not doing this.” You stand, grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. “Get someone else to go on your suicide mission.” You take a couple strides toward the door before two very large men move to block your path.

“Not so fast,” your boss calls. You pause, eyeing up your competition. You could definitely take them if you needed to. You sense only a very faint amount of cursed energy coming from each of them– not even enough to make you blink– but something in your boss’s tone makes you turn back.

“Yes?” You cross your arms over your chest, fingering a blade hidden in your breast pocket.

He fiddles around in his pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up right there in his office. You don’t try to hide the way your nose scrunches up. “You want to do this job.”

Your eyes narrow. Something tells you you’re not going to like what comes next. “And why’s that?”

He takes a long puff, letting the smoke flowing out of his lungs with a slow exhale. “Because otherwise that little brother of yours is gonna be…” he pauses to give you a smile that makes your stomach churn. “Hmm… a lot smaller, shall we say? Maybe in several limb sized pieces?”

You think your heart stops. Time halts as ice runs through your veins. Nobody knows about your brother. At least, they didn’t.

Your boss’s smile grows even wider. In all your time as an assassin, you’ve never wanted to kill someone more. But you know you can’t. Just an attempt on his life will end your brother’s.

“Don’t worry. He’s all tucked away and safe at home where you left him.” Just a tiny piece of your heart thaws with relief. “But try to run with him, or run yourself, and he won’t be safe much longer.” Your pulse pounds so viciously you’re sure everyone can hear. A bead of sweat rolls down your neck. “Now, will you accept the assignment?”

Your jaw clenches. He got you. In all these years of working for him you’ve been careful, meticulous about hiding every piece of your personal life to avoid situations just like this. But he still got you. He got you.

“Yes,” you breathe. You have no choice. You will either kill Satoru Gojo or you will die trying.

“Good,” is all he says, and then you’re being escorted out of the office wondering where the hell you went wrong.

It’s been three weeks since that fateful meeting with your boss. True to his word, your brother has remained unharmed, but you see his lackeys lurking around every corner. Neither you nor your brother are truly safe and you never will be again unless you can pull this off and then put together some plan to escape your boss’s clutches.

You’ll fail. You know you will. The thought eats you up inside with every waking moment.

You’ve done your best to learn every possible piece of information about Satoru Gojo in the past two weeks. You know you can’t tail him closely– he’d pick up on your cursed energy and notice your incessant presence, so you’ve had to study from a distance with only minimal moments of proximity. You know where he works, who he works with, what restaurants, bars, and clubs he frequents and what days of the week he tends to visit. You know what his order is at his favorite ramen restaurant, where he lives, what time he wakes up. Hell, you know what fucking brand of dish soap he uses. He lives a surprisingly… predictable lifestyle. He makes no attempt to switch up his schedule or cover his tracks. In any other situation he’d be every assassin’s dream, but this is Satoru Gojo and Satoru Gojo doesn’t need to worry about assassins– assassins need to worry about him.

It took you the first week to come up with a plan. You had no clue how you were going to get close to him, much less kill him, and his infinity technique was going to prove particularly problematic. How were you supposed to kill him when you couldn’t even touch him? You had to get him in a situation in which he would willingly let his guard down for you.

You’d been on the subway when it hit you. Sex. You’d get him to have sex with you. If you could get him to take you home, he’d have to turn infinity off for at least a short time. That would be your time to strike.

You’d spent the next two weeks primping yourself. You’d bought the most expensive dress you’d ever owned, got a mani-pedi, whitened your teeth, and spent a small fortune on makeup. Considering your circumstances, you thought your plan was quite a good one. You knew when he’d go out to the bar with his friends, which bar he’d go to, how long he’d stay, how he’d get a taxi home. You also knew when you’d arrive, how long you’d stay, and how you’d get a taxi with him– everything planned perfectly to best catch his attention. But for all your planning, there was still one thing you didn’t know. What kind of woman did Satoru Gojo go for? Someone submissive? Teasing? Aggressive? Playful? In all your time tracking him you’d never seen him take somebody home. It struck you as… odd. He was Satoru Gojo, renowned for his power, wealth, and good looks– surely he had women falling at his feet. Maybe he was just a little more… selective. If that was the case you’d have to be even quicker on your feet when you finally met him. And that time is now.

You’re in your bathroom, checking your makeup one last time before heading out the door. Your brother sleeps soundly in the room down the hall, safe for the time being. You’ve contacted a friend, one who is at least willing to try to get him out if– when– you fail. You doubt it will be enough.

You make your way to his room. A quick peek inside reveals he’s snuggled up with a plushie elephant that he carries around like they’re attached at the hip. You creep inside, a sad smile on your lips. This may very well be the last time you see him. You brush a stray lock of hair from his eyes and press a kiss to the crown of his head. With one last whispered ‘I love you’, you’re out the door. If you linger, you won’t be able to go– and you have to. For him.

The streets of Tokyo are cold tonight, like the weather knows what you’re about to attempt, like it’s preparing for death, for failure. For your failure.

The club you arrive at is upscale, and one where you’ve already tipped off the bouncer to let you bypass the line. You hear a few groans from the people behind you as you saunter straight inside.

You’re conscious of every little move from the second you step inside. At any moment, he could see you and it could make or break your entire plan.

You press your shoulders back. You have a plan– stick to it.

You make your way over to the bar, weaving your way between groups of people who are somewhere between giggling a little too loudly and tripping over their own feet.

You find a free space at the bar and lean up onto your elbows, your eyes screening the bartenders. You smile when you see a familiar face.

“Hey, Dean,” you call.

He turns and the sight of his friendly green eyes sets you a little more at ease.

“Oh, shit. Hey!” He slings a towel over his shoulder and comes to stand across from you. “You’re back,” he says. You nod and smile softly. Ever since you’d determined this would be the place you’d been coming periodically, chatting up the bartenders. The last thing you needed was to stand around in a corner alone with seemingly no friends. That wouldn’t attract anyone, much less Satoru Gojo.

Out of all the bartenders, Dean was your favorite– and you’d been oh so happy to learn that his schedule put him on every Friday night.

“Yeah. Long day at work.”

A smile pulls at his lips, but there’s a hint of sympathy in his eyes. “The usual, then?”

You nod solemnly. “That’d be great. Thanks.”

You watch him prepare the drink for you, feeling a little bad that it’s all a lie. There’s no bad day at work, you didn’t just happen to come in here one day and strike up a conversation with him. All of this is premeditated, planned, and it feels… lonely. It feels lonely to know that on what is probably your last night on earth you are surrounded by people who only think they know you.

“So, anything new happening?” Dean drops your drink in front of you and you have a feeling it’s filled with a little more vodka than he’s supposed to put in there.

Your eyes shift around the bar as subtly as you can manage. As much as you want to seem like you fit in, you also need to find Gojo. It’s a fine balance.

You shrug. “Yeah, I guess I just feel like a lot of things are going to be changing for me pretty soon.”

His brows pull together and the look he gives you is one of genuine interest and concern. It makes your heart wrench. “How so?”

You swallow. “Dunno. Just… everything.”

There’s a moment of silence and then the tapping of a finger on your glass. “Damn, girl. Drink up. You need it.”

You can’t help but smile. You have a feeling that Dean would have been a good friend of yours in another life.

You take his advice, though, and bring your drink to your lips and force a smile. You can’t be moping– not tonight.

The next twenty minutes are spent with Dean. Even when he’s making other drinks he’s still chatting with you, still being a good… friend. You dread leaving your little haven at the bar. The time is coming when you’ll have to seek out your target.

You’re shocked when it’s the other way around.

“Hey, gorgeous.” There’s a light brush on your shoulder and you turn. It takes all you have to keep your features schooled and calm. Satoru fucking Gojo just tapped your shoulder.

Nothing prepared you for how handsome he is up close. All those days of research, of tracking and tailing– none of it does the real thing justice. Even with those stupid sunglasses inside… he’s fucking beautiful. “I’ll pay for all of your drinks tonight if you let me skip this hideous line,” he whines.

You give yourself no more than a second to recover. You school your features into a smirk. You glance at Dean with an ‘is this okay?’ look. He just smiles and shrugs.

You turn back to Gojo, bracing yourself this time for the beauty you’re about to face. You meet his gaze and know you could get lost in it. “Be my guest.”

His smile nearly blinds you and his dimples nearly make you pass out. Still, you keep your cool.

“Yesssss!” He looks like a puppy just offered a bone.

He spills his drink order to Dean and it’s far more than could possibly be just for him. He’s here with his friends, then. Probably the blonde man who always looks too tired to be here and the girl with the brown hair who always seems like she’s just along for the ride.

You bite your lip to hide a laugh when he orders himself two strawberry daiquiris. Somehow you still catch his attention.

“What?” he pouts. You can’t help but feel a small stirring of surprise in your gut. He’s far more… relaxed than you’d expected him to be. He’s almost… childish?

You press your lips together and shake your head. You’ve reached the point where your research can’t take you any further. From this point on, it’s up to you to discover what Satoru Gojo likes in a woman.

You debate how to answer. Play coy? Tease him? Stay silent? Any option could be as correct as the next. You didn’t know where to start… so maybe you’d just start by being yourself.

“Just, um… not the order I was expecting,” you laugh. It’s halfway genuine. With the way he’s acting, it’s hard to remember that he’s the most powerful man alive.

His pout only intensifies. “Well, what’s your order?”

His question is answered when Dean sets another cosmopolitan in front of you. You laugh. “Never said I was judging, just that it wasn’t what I expected.”

Another smile tugs at his lips and something stirs in your gut that you try your very hardest to ignore. This was a job. There was no room for actually enjoying it. This man was probably going to kill you later, in a matter of hours.

There’s a beat of silence, and then a slight shift in his demeanor. He leans closer and you see a twitch of his lips. Your heart jumps.

“You’re a sorcerer,” he says.

You hold back an exhale of relief. You thought he might be onto you. If he is, he’s choosing not to reveal it yet.

You nod and take what you hope is a casual sip of your drink. “And you’re Satoru Gojo.”

A brow arches high enough for you to see it over his sunglasses. “You know who I am?”

You force a chuckle, smirking despite the pounding of your heart. “Who doesn’t?”

You’d decided long ago to tell him that you knew exactly who he was. It would seem more suspicious for a fellow sorcerer to have no idea what the Satoru Gojo looked like.

He flashes you a smile full of white and stupidly fucking perfect teeth. “That’s true, heh.” You press your lips together to avoid a smile. Not too humble, then…

“So, what’s your technique”

You shoot him a glance that questions his sanity. Asking a sorcerer what their technique is… is personal. It’s not information you give out to a rando at the bar– even if it is Satoru Gojo.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” You take another sip of your drink, trying your hardest to remain somewhere on the border or interested and casual.

“Bet I could find out.”

That makes you turn fully, angling your body toward his. “Oh yeah? You challenging me to a fight?” You smirk and shake your head. “I’ll pass.”

He pouts again, but you see a hint of a smile peeking through. “Aw, come on. That’s no fun…”

You chuckle and take another sip of your drink. You’re not sure you’re sipping just for appearances anymore. You think you probably just need a little liquid courage to see this thing through. “Sorry. I value my life.”

You watch as he slides his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, just enough for you to get a glimpse of what’s behind. You nearly choke again and this time you don’t manage to hide your nervous swallow when he smirks.

“You’re so sure you’d lose?” His voice is teasing now and you hate that it’s actually having an effect on you. Job, job, job, just a job…

You clear your throat. “I like to think I’m not stupid enough to think that I could win.”

His eyes are blue– so fucking blue– and you feel like he’s seeing straight into your soul. Can he see? Can he see your filthy intentions? Your plotting? The rottenness of what you’re going to do? “What if I promise to take it real easy on you?”

Your drink is forgotten now. You’re lost in what he’s saying– in him. “No thanks.” Your voice is growing lower and you feel like there’s some magnet forcing you to lean into him, to seek his warmth.

“So you like it rough, then.” The trance is broken and your blood runs hot. Holy shit. This man is flirting with you and you hardly even had to try. He's trying to take you home. Little does he know, you’re a sure thing.

You watch as he throws back the rest of his strawberry daiquiri with a pleased “ahhh” at the end. When he turns back to you his eyes have a certain spark in them that makes your thighs press together. “You wanna dance with me?”

Fuck. This is going too well to be real. But you’re not about to pass up a good deal.

“What about your friends?” you ask and eye the several untouched drinks still left on the bar. It’s risky– giving him an out, but you can’t seem too eager.

He follows your gaze only to bounce his eyes straight back to you. “I’m sure they’ll get a look at ya and understand.”

The smirk he’s giving you is making electricity shoot straight between your legs. Damn. You really wish you didn’t have to kill him– or at least try to.

When he extends his hand you only hesitate for a second. Your heart leaps when you feel his skin on yours, knowing he’s let infinity down. He pulls you onto the dancefloor and it’s not long before he’s running his hands all over you– groping your ass, pinching your thighs, nipping at your neck. Pretty soon the dancefloor evolves to a dark corner of the club with his lips on yours and goddamn he’s a good kisser. You’ve got your fingers in his hair and his hand way too close to your boobs when he whispers those fateful words– “let’s get out of here.”

You can only hide your swallow and nod before he’s pulling you through the crowd, leaving the club behind. He hauls you both into the backseat of a taxi and the door’s barely closed before he’s all over you again. You think you hear the taxi driver mutter something about ‘staining the seats’ but you’re too far gone to give a shit.

Fuck, he feels good. He’s kisses you like he’s starved and your lips are the fountain of fucking life, like he’s never felt something so good and now he can’t get enough. And, god, he’s handsy. You’re forever grateful to your past self for discreetly hiding your blade in your bra– he would have felt a holster on your thigh at least ten times over by now.

He groans when you arrive at what you know is his apartment building, though you don’t let on that you recognize the place in the slightest. The look on his face makes you think he’s feeling actual physical pain at the prospect of having to peel away from you for even a second. Nonetheless, he tosses a wad of cash at the taxi driver and pulls you straight inside.

He can’t even wait for the elevator to come, groping your waist right there in the lobby and then when the elevator finally does come, shoving you up against the metal wall a licking stripe across your collarbone.

You can’t deny how nice it feels to be so desperately… wanted. Never once has a man made you feel this way– so consumed by him, him, him. Once again you curse the universe that you’re here with a mission other than getting laid.

You find yourself giggling when he pulls you out of the elevator and presses his palm to a fucking scanner to get into his apartment. You try to pull yourself together, but when he laughs with you, you can’t help but melt into him a little more.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind you, he’s got you up against another wall with your legs wrapped around his waist and his face buried in your neck. His sunglasses are long gone and you pull at his shirt, popping the buttons straight off the fabric until you slide the shirt down his shoulders and onto the floor.

“That was Versace,” he whines.

You plaster your lips to his. “I don’t care.” All he does is chuckle.

“So gorgeous…” he breathes and your head slumps back against the wall, giving him better access to the soft skin of your neck. Any minute now. Any minute he’s going to start stripping your clothes off and you’re going to have to let this charade crumble. You don’t want to. He’s practically worshiping you. It’s perfect, it’s amazing, and you don’t want it to end.

His fingers dig into the flesh of your ass and suddenly you’re moving again– moving, moving, moving until your back is bouncing against the softness of a mattress and you’re fucking giggling again like a lovesick idiot. Maybe you’d had a few too many sips of those cosmopolitans.

He’s smiling as he crawls over you and the sight makes your heart flutter with both lust and terror. Lust because he’s so fucking beautiful and terror because you know that any moment now you’re going to attempt to end that beauty forever.

A lump forms in your throat and you try unsuccessfully to swallow it. You have to do this, have to try. There’s no other way, no other option. Not for you.

Your thoughts must not have been as perfectly concealed as you’d thought because he quirks a brow. “Something goin’ on up here?” His lips slide across your temple in a touch that feels far too tender for a hookup. “Don’t worry, baby. It’ll fit.” He snickers at his own joke before burying himself in your neck. His hand slides down your side, pressing you up into him until you can feel every curve and cut of his muscles.

You bite your lip. You’ve already slipped enough for him to notice your nerves– you can’t let it happen again. You have to do it soon. Now. As soon as you see an opportunity you have to strike. You have to.

You arch up into him, scratching your fingers down his back, trying to seem as invested in the moment as you can. He gets greedier, leaving open-mouthed kiss down your neck, across your collarbone. You nearly freeze up when he kisses low into the valley of your breasts– as low as your dress allows. Then he moves over your clothes, kissing down your stomach as his hands rub your thighs.

Now. Now, while he’s not looking.

You slide a hand into his hair and another up to your chest, trying to play it off like you’re touching yourself. You sneak your fingers into your bra, feeling the cool metal of your blade glide across your thumb. Now.

You fist your fingers in his hair, holding his head down as best you can while you arc the blade toward his neck. Just one good hit, please…

You think you’re going to strike true– you’re so close– and then a firm hand wraps around your wrist, stalling your attack just as it was about to land.

Fuck.

He doesn’t look up right away, but you hear him sigh, feel his hot breath fanning over your thighs and stomach. When he finally does look up it’s with the eyes of a teacher who’s disappointed his student didn’t do their homework.

“Come on now, baby. I was really hoping you’d forget about all this and we could just have a good night together…” He’s pouting, whining, like a child who’s been told he can’t have dessert before dinner. Your shock stills you long enough that he easily maneuvers the blade from your hand, throwing it with a thwack into the wall to his right. It lands perfectly.

This is it. You’re going to die now. But not without a fight.

You spring up from the bed, kicking him a couple times in the process. You’ve missed your only chance. Now, if there’s even the slightest chance of escape, you have to take it.

You bare feet hit the carpet. No time to find your shoes. You dart for the door and hear him groan behind you. For a second you think you might actually make it, but you should know better.

He appears in front of you, straight out of fucking thin air, and his pout has transformed into something a little more sinister. “Come on, gorgeous. Let’s talk it out, yeah?”

You take a shaky step back, but you know it’s no use. He’s got you. It’s over.

You swallow and lift your chin– you at least want to die with a little dignity. “Just make it quick. Please.”

He sighs again and slides his hands in his fucking pockets, like this is just a stroll down the street. He stalks toward you, forcing you back until you’re pressed up against another wall. This motherfucker really likes walls.

His pout shifts to a smirk that borders far too closely on a grin. “Oh, no. I’ve always had a thing for taking it slow.”

You nearly snort. He certainly hadn’t had a thing for taking it slow just a minute ago. His arms cage you and your world grows infinitely smaller until it’s just him and those blue-ass eyes staring you down. Some distant part of you thinks you might not mind if it’s the last thing you ever see.

“Damn, I really thought you might give it up and just let me fuck you,” his pout returns. “So disappointing…” he sighs.

Your lips part. “You knew?”

That lights his face up like a Christmas tree. “Sensed you tailing me these past few weeks. Started on theeeee– 21st, no?”

Fuck. You’d been so careful. You’d only tailed him in public spaces, where your energy would be more diluted by the crowds. You’d stayed far enough away that he should only have caught mere glimpses of you, even suppressed your energy. He should not have been able to sense you. But he was Satoru Gojo– things people were not supposed to be able to do came easily to him.

But you have one thing on him.

“The 18th,” you whisper. “Started on the 18th.”

There’s a beat of silence and then his smile is growing wider, wider, wider, until it’s practically blinding you. “Well, shit,” he laughs. “You’re pretty good.”

You let a tiny smile slip through your terror. “I try.”

His eyes travel up and down your body, his pout slipping away to a frown. “What to do with you… hmm…” You lift your chin, taking shallow little breaths through your nose. You’re looking death in the face, but you’d never thought it would be so beautiful. He sighs. “I guess I could let you go.”

You freeze. He notices.

He quirks a brow, another smirk sliding across his lips. “What? Didn’t think that was an option?” You stay silent. No way he’ll let you go. It’s a bluff. A cruel trick. “It’s not like you could try again, gorgeous. I know your energy now and what you look like. Sorry, but your chance is gone.” That was fine by you. Your breaths come a little heavier, hope pulsing in your veins. “But–” shit. “Letting you go is so… boring. Especially after where we left off, yeah?”

Your jaw drops. “You cannot seriously be suggesting that we–”

He cuts you off with a kiss, one that makes your toes curl in the carpet and your stomach clench in anticipation.

“Oh, yes I am,” he chuckles. You feel his hand sliding down your hip, cool and calculating. “I know you weren’t faking the whole thing, gorgeous. Nobody makes out like that when they’re faking it.” You feel your cheeks heat. “And nobody gets this wet-” his fingers snake beneath your skirt, pressing to the wet patch on your panties. “When they’re faking it.” You gasp and reach out, hands clasping onto his shoulders for support. He only chuckles. “No worries, gorgeous. No need for any more faking tonight. I’ll make sure it’s all real.”

Somehow you’ve got your legs wrapped around his waist again and you’re headed to the bedroom– again. It’s like a replay– a redo.

“Let’s keep it less killy this time, yeah?”

Your back hits the mattress, your body bouncing lightly on its softness before he’s crawling after you. It’s simultaneously the best and worst deja vu you’ve ever experienced.

His hands slide down your body again, fingertips hooking beneath the hem of your skirt and shimmying it up your thighs until your panties are on full display.

“Shit,” you breathe. He’s moving so fast, like he’s desperate to go further, to get his greedy hands all over your bare skin.

You can’t say you blame him. You feel the same.

His thumbs hook under the fabric of your panties and you know it’s over for you. You can feel his warm breath skating across your thighs, feel the calluses on his hands scraping against your skin. You reach a hand down, tangling it in his hair, and you nearly faint when he smirks and looks up at you with those blue fucking eyes.

“I think I’ve seen this film before, sweetheart.” He tilts his head, resting his cheek on the plush of your thigh. “No more knives hiding anywhere, yeah?”

You clench your jaw, trying to control your pounding heart. You can’t believe you’re doing this. Why are you doing this? You wish you had a better answer than he’s beautiful and sexy and just a glance at him makes you want to rip his clothes off and climb him like a tree.

“Silent, hm? Guess I’ll just have to check myself…”

He’s pressing up the hem up your skirt, more, more, more, until he’s pulling your dress straight up over your arms and running his hands down your bare sides.

“None there…” His fingers cup your breast and you gasp, unable to contain your shock and the jolt that just rushed through you. He traces the outline of your bra. “You had the last one in here, no?” Your chest heaves under his touch, pressing the flesh of your breast up into his fingers. He smirks. “Best check again.” You feel an arm slide beneath you back and then your bra loosens before it’s completely gone.

There’s a beat of silence, of admiration. He gazes down on you and you see his snark falter for just a moment, replaced by a sparkle in his eyes. It makes your skin heat. His fingers brush the swell of your breasts, thumb trailing down over a nipple. You arch and gasp again.

“Fuck. Quit teasing so much.”

He chuckles and the sound washes over you until it settles in your bones. “Sush. I’m not done checking for weapons yet.”

You scowl but before you can even move to open your mouth he’s sliding your panties down your legs, hooking them around your ankles and tossing them somewhere on the floor.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips and you watch him settle himself down between your thighs, eyes never once leaving your center. “Don’t see any knives here, either, but maybe I should double-check…” he breathes.

He hooks your legs over his shoulders and you shudder, your breaths shaky. Fuck. You were supposed to kill him tonight but if he keeps going like this you’ll be the one deceased.

He meets your eyes when he takes the first long lick along your folds. You swear he’s smirking.

Your head rolls back and a pathetic sounding groan slips past your lips. You hadn’t realized how much he’d worked you up. Just the slightest touch feels like heaven.

His tongue nudges at your clits and your legs clench, tightening around his head. He laughs into your cunt and his warm breath skates up and over your tummy. Your fingernails scrape his scalp.

“I think you like this, gorgeous.”

Each word sends little puffs of air against your folds. It’s driving you crazy. You stare down at him, letting a smirk pull at your lips. Your eyes dart over his mouth, wet with your slick, and you don’t fail to notice the way he’s struggling to hold your gaze, eyes flickering back down to your cunt every second. Your smirk grows. “I think you’re liking this, too.”

He licks another stripe, from you pulsing hole to your throbbing clit, and this time he’s the one groaning. “Damn right I am.”

He eats you out like he kisses you– like a starved man, like he’ll die if he stops for just one second, like he can’t live without your juices on his tongue.

You whine and bury both hands in his hair, tugging desperately when his lips wrap around you clit and suck. It’s so much, too much, and yet it’s just right.

Your hips buck and squirm, but he’s got his fingers pressed deep into your flesh, holding you down to take whatever he gives. You think you see heaven when he slides two fingers into your walls, curling them into that gummy spot that has an unbearable heat building deep inside you.

“S-Satoru-” you stutter and you hear him moan and mutter into your cunt like he’s unwilling to leave it for even a second.

“Fuck, yes. Say my name, sweetheart.” Who are you to deny him? You whisper, whine, and whimper his name with every thrust of his fingers, every lick of his tongue. It’s delicious. Every so often he swaps his mouth and hand, thrusting his tongue as deep inside you as he can while his fingers rub dangerous little circles on your clit. Whenever things get a little too filthy he laps his tongue across your entire cunt and along your inner thighs, cleaning up every stray drop. You don’t know how much longer you can last under such a complete and total assault.

“S-Satoru, ‘m gonna-” He licks a thick stripe through your folds that makes your sentence end in a whine, his lips settling to suckle on your clit again.

God, it’s messy. It’s fucking disgusting. His whole chin is covered in spit and slick– and you love it. “Cum for me, baby,” he breathes.

You don’t need to hear much more. You let the heat inside you release with a whine, thighs trembling on his shoulders. Your walls pulse and throb around his fingers, sucking him in and never wanting him to leave. His tongue continues to rub lazy circles around your clit, working you through your high and making it last so long you think you might pass out.

Warmth spreads from the top of your head to the tips of your toes and your muscles tense and clench with each pulsing throb. You swear to god you see fucking stars.

It seems to go on forever, leaving you limp and shaking when the last waves finally slip away.

He presses a final kiss to your clit, one that makes your hips jolt from the overstimulation before he’s lifting himself up. “Wow. That looked like a big one,” he chuckles. He runs a soothing hand along your thigh and you don’t even have the energy to give him some sort of snarky reply. There’s hardly even a pause before something shifts in his eyes. “Let’s see if we can get one that’s even bigger, yeah?”

Before you can even process what he’s said you feel strong hands slide under your thighs, pressing them tightly to your chest as he settles himself close to you

You grasp at the sheets, hearing the clinking of a belt buckle and then the familiar pitch of a zipper being undone.

“Fuck,” you mutter. He’s big. Long and pretty and with a perfectly flushed tip. Your eyes are rolling back just thinking about having him inside you.

A strong hand smooths along your thighs, folding you in a way that feels more vulnerable and exposing than anything you’ve ever done before. He pauses for a beat, just staring down at you silently.

“Gorgeous,” he finally mutters, and something in your heart squeezes. His hand grips your hip firmly, holding you in place and you gasp when you feel him prodding at your entrance. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. Big bad assassin turned simpering little bitch over some good Gojo dick.

“Just relaxxxxx, baby.” His hand rubs soothing little circles into your side and it’s so divinely distracting that it catches you by surprise when he starts pushing into you. You gasp and he only chuckles. Asshole.

He’s big– really big – and the stretch is somehow both painful and perfect. You groan into the air, struggling to take him. Every inch feels like it must be the last, but then there’s more. Your walls clench around him on instinct, trying to force him out.

“Fuck, baby. What did I say about relaxing?” You hiss when his hand skates down your tummy to rub messy circles on your clit. The relief is instant and you moan when you feel him slide in a little further. “There we go. Good girl.”

He continues feeding his dick into you, inch by inch, until his hips finally press to yours and you think you can feel him in your fucking throat. You hear him exhale, like it’s a relief to finally be fully inside you, like he’s been waiting for ages.

You expect him to not hold back, to let himself go and pound into you relentlessly, but he doesn’t. He only leans down closer to you, settling in when he starts a pace of slow, sensual thrusts. His brows pinch, his eyes hardened in concentration.

“Ah, fuck. You’re so tight.”

You want to shoot something back at him, but you’re hardly remembering to breathe with how deep he’s sliding into you. Instead, you just end up holding him tighter, your eyes fluttering shut.

Lips dust across your cheeks, just below your lashes. “Keep your eyes open, gorgeous. Wanna see you.”

You blink, thinking that it’s a notion that feels a little too intimate for a hookup. Regardless, you do as he wants, opening your eyes and holding his gaze.

A smile splits his lips and he presses his forehead to yours, picking up the pace of his thrusts. It’s not long before the sound of skin on skin fills the room and you’re both panting. His breath skates across your skin, hot and heavy, hitching with the groans and whines that spill from his chest. You can’t help but pull him closer, raking your nails down his back hard enough to leave marks. The action makes him emit a noise you can only describe as a desperate whimper. “Fuck, baby. Yes.”

His lips press to yours in a kiss that’s all desperation and teeth and tongue. You kiss him back with equal intensity, your body rocking with each heavy thrust. He’s pounding into you now, frantic for more, more, more of you. You want him to take it, take all of you.

A familiar heat pinches in your stomach and you know it won’t be long before he’s pushing you to another release. His dick drags in and out of you, prodding at the gummy spot inside you with every thrust and brushing so deliciously against your cervix that you can’t stop the moans spilling from your lips. It has you seeing stars again, has you clawing at him and panting into his mouth.

“Satoru… harder,” you breathe. You need more– more of everything, of him.

He groans. “You got it, gorgeous.”

His hips slam into you and it’s so perfect that you can’t help but whimper beneath him. It only gets worse when you feel his fingers on your clit again, hand pressed between your bodies. “Cum on my dick, baby.” Your eyes roll back, that coil inside you rolling tighter. You feel his muscles tensing and shaking above you and you know he’s close, too. “Where do you want it?” he asks, and from the pinched look on his face you can tell exactly where he wants it. You know you’re an idiot for feeling the same.

“Inside,” you breathe. He groans so loudly it rattles in your ears.

“That’s my girl,” he says, but it’s nearly a whisper with how strained it is. His hand continues at your clit, rubbing perfect little circles that make your legs tremble where they’re pressed against your chest. Your jaw hangs open, but you don’t dare close your eyes. Satoru is still holding your gaze intently, desperately, like he needs to see you. The thought throws you over the edge.

You cry his name, clawing at his shoulder and shaking like a leaf as you feel yourself gush and pulse all over his dick. For the second time that evening you feel the heat inside you swell and burst, washing through you in waves that nearly consume you whole. It’s a struggle to hold his eyes, to not let them roll back into your skull and give into the pure ecstasy of your high– especially when he’s cumming, too. You can hear him moaning in your ear, feel him twitching inside you, feel his hot cum coating your walls and there’s just so fucking much of it. You swear he cums for a minute straight before he slumps down onto you, burying his face in your neck as you pant.

You’re shaking and so is he, breaths heaving in and out. Reality slowly starts to seep back in, even with his dick still softening inside you and his cum leaking down your thighs.

You tried to kill him. You failed. You had sex. Now what? Would he really let you go like he’d said he would? You wanted to believe it, but life hadn’t taught you to be that trusting. You should move, untangle yourself from him and escape before he has time to change his mind.

“You assassins are always thinking so hard,” He mumbles into the curve of your neck. “Maybe you should try to relax for once.”

You swallow when you feel him pressing his lips to your throat, trailing up to your jaw. It’s… tender, gentle, and it feels so nice. You can’t help the way you melt into the touch a bit. You feel him smile into your skin. “There we go.”

His hand settles on your waist, rubbing soothing little circles that send a jolt of urgency up your spine. No. You’re enjoying this– being close to him, laying here with him, breathing him in. That’s not what this is supposed to be.

You tense again, shifting to get away from him, but he only sighs and presses his weight onto you.

“Come on, gorgeous. No need to leave so soon. Just stay for a bit, yeah?” He nibbles at your jaw, but it doesn’t work this time. You have to go. You’ve failed your mission. You don’t know what that means for your brother. You’d never thought this would have an ending besides your death.

“I have to go,” you mutter, pushing at his chest.

He chuckles, but you don’t miss the strain and… hurt? “Got something more important than trying to kill me?”

You clench your teeth, trying once again to shove him away. “Yes, actually.”

He finally pulls back to meet your gaze, brows slightly pinched. “Like what?”

You push in earnest now, anger and panic rising in your gut. You have to go, have to check on your brother, have to figure out what you’re going to do. “That’s really none of your business,” you seethe.

You go for another shove, but strong hands clasp around your wrists, pinning them to the bed. His expression has gone flat now, serious. “Actually, I think it’s completely my business. You going to report your failure? Should I expect another assassin soon?”

You scowl, tugging at his grasp and trying to free yourself. “Yeah, probably. He’s an insufferable idiot. I told him it wouldn’t work and it didn’t, but I don’t doubt he’ll send another.”

His face cracks, his brows pulling together again. “If you knew it wouldn’t work then why’d you take the job?”

You struggle again, less angry and more desperate now. “Because he’s got my fucking brother at gunpoint and I’ve got to figure out how the fuck I’m going to save him!” you shout.

There’s silence for a long moment– a long, uncomfortable beat of it– and then his expression softens into something… tender. It sends a chill up your spine. Satoru Gojo was never supposed to be tender with you, and that’s all he’s been.

“I’ll save him,” he says. Your heart jumps and his grip on your wrists loosens, allowing you to slip free.

“What?” you breathe. He sits back, allowing you to prop yourself up into a slightly less vulnerable position.

He exhales slowly, but you don’t miss the way his hand settles on your bare thigh, a comforting weight. “I’ll save your brother and then I’ll take care of your boss.” A smirk creeps across his lips. “What? Don’t think I can do it?”

You stare blankly, lips parted. There’s no doubt he can do it, but that’s not the question swirling in your mind.

“Why would you help me?” You’d tried to kill the man. You couldn’t make heads or tails of a reason why he’d go out of his way to help you.

He chuckles. “Well, in case you didn’t know, I’m a hero of sorts.” You have to fight not to roll your eyes. “And… there’s something I want from you.”

There it is– the catch. He wants something. You have no idea what you could possibly have to give him, but you’re willing for it to be just about anything. You narrow your eyes. “What?”

He grins, but you can see the glint of mischief in his gaze. His hand slides further up your thigh, up your side, over your shoulder, until it rests at the nape of your neck and his face is only inches from your own. “What’s your number, gorgeous?”

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martian-astro10 · 10 months ago

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Solar return observations- Part 5

If you have Saturn in 12th then sleep well, that is....if you manage to fall asleep in the first place. (I have it this year and IT SUCKS, I have literally not been able to sleep, I've tried every single tea, every meditation, white noises, NOTHING WORKS, I also have mars in 12th, so I'm just fucking tired the whole time)

North node in 2nd is an indication that you'll start earning money for the very first time in your life, it doesn't have to be a full time job (I have seen this a lot of times when a person starts working for the first time, like a part time job or something. You get to experience what it's like to have "your" money)

I'm pretty sure that an astrologer has already said this, but I don't remember who, so I'll say it again, Uranus in 3rd means getting a new cycle, bike or car, basically anything that helps you with short distance travelling. (One of my friends have it this year and he already had a cycle but it got stolen and he just decided to buy a car, since he has money saved up for one)

This is very specific, but if you have Jupiter in 9th/ 11th then GO GET THAT RECOMMENDATION LETTER. (If you are graduating or planning to get a new job, this year is good for that. The years in which my sister, my friends or I have had this, our teachers, bosses or colleagues were SO impressed with us and we got really good reference letters, we slayed so hard in those years)

Vertex in 6th can be a VERY busy and exhausting year. Too many responsibilities and not enough knowledge of how to deal with them. (I had this the year in which I started living alone, It was also squaring my moon and dude, TW the suicidal ideation was STRONG. I wish I could give some sort of an advice but I don't know what to say, you just need to learn how to deal with the problems as they come)

Mercury square Neptune....the level of miscommunication is insane. (One of my closest friends has this and she...I love her but she's being very annoying. We were on a trip and she was talking to some people, so me and my other friend, we started clicking pictures, cuz we didn't want to disturb her and she comes up and says "why are you guys doing this without me, why are you not including me, if you don't wanna hang out with me anymore just say it" like GIRL) if you have this, don't start unnecessary drama, communication will be difficult so just stay quiet

Chiron in 12th is one of the shittiest years in regards to mental health, I hate this. (My friends have had this before and it's there in my 2025 solar return chart and I'm already dreading it. Everything bad that can happen...happens. I don't care what anyone says, this placement is just pure EWWWW and NOTHING can convince me otherwise)

Aries in 8th can be the year in which you lose your virginity (If you WANT to) I know quite a few people who had this the year they lost their V-card. (It's completely okay if you don't though, take your time and do it with a person who you trust and love, no pressure)

Mars in 9th is such a good placement for travelling and studies. (I had this in my 1st year of college, I remember I was so excited, studying was very easy, I loved learning new things and stuff, it was very nice. I was also travelling a lot, discovering new places. I had a lot of energy, really fun year)

Sun in 7th is a great placement if you want to work with others. (My mom has it this year and her business is ON FIRE, every time she has a meeting, it goes so well and she always gets a better deal than what she expected) this is a really good time for working with others, in partnerships. If you are a student, then you're going to do especially well in group projects.

(all pictures are taken from Pinterest)

#astrology content #astrology #astroblr #astrology community #solar return observations #solar return chart #solar return #astrology observations #astro notes #astro observations

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 5 months ago

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A Hole in the Heart

Between this and the drunken confession from Leona fic 😭 I must be in my Savanaclaw era… Maybe I’ll write a food-related Jack fic too, who knows www

Imagine this...

There’s a cute guy working behind the counter.

You can only afford to dawdle for so long. Your eyes are supposed to be focused on reading the menu mounted overhead or browsing the glossy breads and cakes on offer. Instead, your gaze drifts up to the employee—a hyena beastman—sheepishly awaiting your order.

He leans on the glass display case, face nestled in his arms, cheek to forearm. His dirty blonde hair sticks up like someone has aggressively ruffled his head. The boy blinks at you with big, blue-grey eyes, mouth permanently etched into a sloped smile that suggests he is capable of stirring up trouble off his shift.

An apron hangs loosely from his lanky frame, and a cap is clamped down between two large, twitching ears. His tail, short and stout, wags like a metronome, in time with the rhythm he taps out with a finger.

Yeah, he’s definitely super cute, you conclude.

“… Hey.”

You jolt at the hand passion waving in front of your face, at his voice. It’s casual and warm, like the sound of an old friend’s greeting after a long day.

The bakery employee lifts his head and quirks a brow. “You decided what you want yet? You’ve been starin’ for a while now.”

W-Was I really staring?!

A hand flies to your face, testing it for signs of self-consciousness. Your skin is flushed and tingles, like flames have been lit under it.

“S-Sorry, I must’ve dozed off,” you mumble, burrowing into your collar and praying that he doesn’t notice. Focus here, you remind yourself. “You have so many options, I’m having a hard time deciding. What do you recommend?”

“Me?” He fully draws himself up, trading his smile for a smirk. “I know just the thing. Hang on a sec!”

The employee peels away and snags a donut from the display case, wrapping it in a checkered napkin. The pastry is plump and full, fried to a golden perfection and covered in a shiny sugar glaze.

“Oh… It doesn’t have a hole in the center,” you realize.

“The holes are usually there to help the dough cook evenly. We repurpose what’s punched out as donut holes,” he says, eyes glittering with gluttony, “but nothing beats having the whole thing, hole and all.”

“Pfft. When you put it like that, it feels sort of sad.”

“How do you figure?”

“A donut with a hole sounds like a person that’s missing their heart. Some important part of themselves just… poof. Gone.”

“A person missing their heart, huh? You got an imagination on ya.”

D-Did he just compliment me?

Your heart leaps up and lodges in your throat. It’s suddenly difficult to usher your words out.

He shakes his head and turns away, setting to his work. The boy becomes but a blur of activity, and you watch him, mesmerized.

He generously ladles chocolate sauce onto the donut, garnished by a handful of sliced nuts. Then he glops on a healthy helping of custard cream, a spritz of whipped cream, and a big spoonful of berry jam. The result is one decadently sticky pile of sugar with everything under the kitchen sink thrown onto it.

He presents the towering donut to you with a flourish. “Ta-dah! I give you… the Ruggie Special!”

You gape at it, unsure of what to do or say. There’s no way I can finish this before class starts, you fret—but you accept the donut in a daze, not wanting to reject all his efforts. Your fingers and his graze, sparking a thrill within you.

“What’s ‘Ruggie’?” you ask shyly.

“That’s me.” He winks and points to himself. No, to the name tag pinned to his chest. “Ruggie. Ruggie Bucchi.”

H-He told me his name. You clutch your hands together in an attempt to calm them. Is he flirting with me?

“W-Wow, you have a menu item named after you? That’s cool,” you babble. Oh no—you’re so horrid at small talk, you scold yourself.

“Unofficially, yeah. The boss doesn’t mind if I use the extra ingredients lying around to experiment. Oh, speaking of—” He holds out a hand. “All that extra stuff’s gonna cost ya. That’ll be 700 madol, if you please!”

“700…?!” You startle, as if waking from a dream. The donut’s mountain of topples wobble, threatening to tumble. “That’s over 5 times the cost of a single plain donut!”

“Well, this is a single plain donut with all the fixings,” he corrects you with a snicker. Ruggie points to your Special. The chocolate sauce is rapidly dribbling down, cream leaking into the napkin. “Look, it’s already getting all over you. Better cough up the cash and get to eating it real quick~”

“Nrgh…” You reluctantly fish out 700 madol and slap the bills onto the counter. “Here. Just take it already.”

“Nishishishi, thank you for your patronage!” Ruggie happily scoops up the money and deposits it into the register. The bills are swallowed up by the metal contraption, as if it is feasting on your misfortune.

Why do I feel like I just got duped by a pretty face?

Your stomach lurches, disappointed with yourself. Friends and classmates always teased you for this. Head in the clouds, too sentimental, unlucky with guys, so quick to fall in love and even quicker to have your heart broken—all phrases they used to describe you.

Someone absolutely hopeless in their flights of fancy. A donut wandering around with a hole where their heart should be, seeking what they lack.

You flush deeper. Maybe I’m proving them right. I’m seeing things that aren’t there.

“W-Well, thank you for your recommendation,” you say hurriedly.

“No prob,” he replies with the tip of his hat. “All in a day’s work.”

A day’s work, duh. Stupid, stupid. He was only buttering you up to swindle you into a sale.

The donut is oozing into your palm now. You frown and attempt to mop what is spilling with your tongue. Ruggie laughs a little—and you’re not sure if he’s laughing with you or laughing at you. Truthfully, you don’t know which you’d prefer.

“Need more napkins?” he offers, a wad of them at the ready. “These’re free.”

“Th-Thank you,” you mutter, grabbing them with your free (clean) hand. “I have to get going, or I’ll be late.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t they all?”

You gather yourself, hurrying to the door and flinging yourself through. It swings as you exit, the bell above jingling and ringing out your departure. The warm, comforting smell of sugar dissipates into the outdoor air.

“See ya around,” he calls after you, a teasing lilt in his voice. You don’t see what kind of an expression he’s making, but you don’t dare allow yourself to look back and find out.

You try to busy yourself with scrubbing clean. A bathroom—you should have stopped by the bakery’s bathroom to wet the napkins, to wash your hands with soap. But you have your pride, and you refuse to march back in, to have him mocking you a second time.

You wipe at your thumb, but the napkin catches and sticks at the corner. There’s a blot there, dark-colored and bleeding.

… Huh? What’s that?

You lift the napkin and squint at the smudged shapes scrawled onto it. Letters and numbers come into view.

Ruggie Bucchi, followed by a series of numbers strung together. A phone number.

Everything in you stills.

When did he…?

You rifle through the rest of your napkins, looking for other hidden messages. Nothing else, just the one.

But if he passed me his phone number, that means… He’s interested in me too?!

Excitement kicks up in you again. Hope, dancing a little jig.

You melt, pressing the napkin to yourself. Your heart practically beats right out of your chest, as if it wants to see the proof with its own eyes.

Ruggie. Ruggie Bucchi… The quick-witted guy in the donut shop, the boy with an impish grin and fast fingers.

The hole in your chest fills, having found its missing part. Whole at last, tasting sweeter than any confection.

You’ll have to text him first chance you get.

#twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Ruggie Bucchi #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #Ruggie Bucchi x Reader #Reader #self insert #something no one asked for #twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #twst scenarios #twisted wonderland scenarios #imagine this

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augustjoy · 8 months ago

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I Can’t Do This.

Sneak peek: Reader is recently off of a long-term undercover operation (similar to Emily’s) that left her in a bad way. Director Cruz reaches out, assigning her to the BAU. After speaking to her therapist and expressing her concerns, they come up with a solution of how to inform her new boss of some of the horrors she endured on her mission. Hotch keeps a close eye on her, being careful not to trigger her…until one day, he accidentally does in the worst way. ITALLICS ARE FLASHBACKS! BOLD ARE THERAPY SESSIONS.

Aaron Hotchner x (Fem) BAU! Reader

Angst/Fluff

Word count: 5605

REQUESTS ARE OPEN - not edited - please be kind. Requests are open and feedback is welcome if it's constructive!

Warnings: My blog is 18+, minors DNI,YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN MEDIA CONSUMPTION. age gap (reader is in their 20’s and Hotch is in his 40’s), explicit language, mention of canon typical violence, mention of therapy, reader attends regular therapy sessions, mention of a toxic previous “relationship”, mention of a previous dom/sub dynamic, murder, talk of trafficking, forced consent (reader is working the undercover op) mention of previous abuse and manipulation, some use of y/n, Hotch accidentally triggering the reader, let me know if I missed anything!

I do not consent to having my work translated or reposted to any other site. That being said I do not own the characters portrayed in this story.

“Y/n it has been three months since you returned from your undercover op, it’s time. The BAU needs an additional agent, and you’d make a great addition. It’s really not up for discussion.” Director Cruz ended with finality.

“I really don’t think I am ready. Director Cruz, I know it has been three months, and you guys have been so gracious with the paid leave, but I’m still working through everything I went through when I was under.” You explained.

“Your therapist and the FBI issued psych eval have both cleared you to return y/n. You’re joining the BAU. You’ll begin next Monday.” Cruz decided.

“Okay.”

With that you stood and exited his office. It’s not that you didn’t want to work for the BAU, in fact, under normal circumstances you’d have been begging for this placement. But after everything you endured while undercover, you weren’t sure you could handle being on a team, especially not one run by Aaron Hotchner.

“You were recommended to me by Sheri, did she tell you anything about me?” He questioned.

“She mentioned you were looking for someone who knew how to follow rules.” You answered.

You had been assigned to an undercover operation in which a very powerful man would finally be brought to justice. Emilio Alvatorre, one of FBI’s most wanted. This man did unspeakable things and lucky for you, he was in the market for a new submissive. Normally the FBI wouldn’t jump at putting an agent in this kind of situation, however, in this case Emilio was known to keep his subs knelt at his side in his office. That would mean that you would be privilege to information that could take him down.

“So, are you good at following rules?” Emilio said in a voice meant to be sexy, but it was truly repulsive.

Leaning in to whisper in his ear, “The best.”

“I’m worried that Agent Hotchner is going to give me a directive and that I will follow it whether I agree with it or not. I am terrified that I have completely lost myself, and that I will just blindly follow.” You explained.

“Y/n we’ve talked about this, you are strong, you are capable of making decisions and speaking up for yourself.”

“Yeah but being at the BAU with Agent Hotchner, he’s a very commanding and dominant man, what if I fall right back into…” You trailed off.

“He is commanding and dominant, but he isn’t Emilio. I am going to give you some homework, and then I’d like to see you again on Thursday so we can go over it before you join the BAU Monday.”

“You’re right. What’s the homework?” You asked.

“I want you to first come up with a list of coping strategies for when you begin to feel anxious or overwhelmed on the job. Then I want you to write a letter to read to Agent Hotchner giving him some insight as to what you have been through.”

“Absolutely not! Sylvia I can’t do that!”

“Y/n I am not asking you to give him all the details, just a little bit that might help him to know you.”

“Fine.”

You had a hard time figuring out what to put in the letter to Agent Hotchner, debating what was too much versus what was too little to say. How much did he need to know, how much were you comfortable sharing…it was all becoming a bit much.

Ultimately, you’d written something up along with a perfect list of coping strategies that you knew would satisfy your therapist.

After meeting with her on Thursday and going over what you came up with, and allowing her to help you tweak a few things, your body filled with dread, anxiously awaiting Monday morning when you’d have to go into the BAU.

Director Cruz escorted you to the floor that houses the BAU, bringing you into Agent Hotchner’s office for introductions. You felt like you had just walked out on a stage completely naked with the way all the other agents were looking at you.

“Hotchner, this is Agent y/n. I sent over her file last week. She is going to start with the BAU today.” Director Cruz announced.

“Yes, I saw your email. It is nice to finally meet you.” Agent Hotchner greeted.

“Y/n would you excuse us for just a moment, I’d like to speak to Hotch here.”

Without another word you followed the director’s order. You stepped out of the office and stood patiently waiting for their conversation to end.

“She’s anxious.” Spencer mumbled.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Emily replied.

“No, look at her, she’s digging her nails into her palms, a light sweat has broken out on her neck, her heartrate has increased slightly, and she hasn’t looked up at us once. She’s probably suffering from severe anxiety.” Spencer rambled.

“Don’t profile the newbie Spence.” Emily scolded, patting his shoulder.

“Alright, y/n go on in and Hotch will fill you in on what his expectations for you are.” Director Cruz headed off.

With a light knock, you awaited Agent Hotchner’s approval before entering his office once again. Mentally chastising yourself for your submissive actions.

“Agent y/n, please, have a seat.” Hotch gestured.

You sat in one of the chairs across from him.

“It says here in your file that you’re recently returning from a twelve-month assignment. I noticed the assignment isn’t labeled as classified, but quite a bit of it was redacted. Can you speak on that at all?” Hotch inquired.

“Agent Hotchner, if it is okay with you, I have somethings I’d like to discuss. Some of which is relevant of that case, but it is primarily regarding the effects that case had on me.”

“Go ahead.” Hotch nodded.

“The undercover op I was working put me in a position in which I was forced and manipulated to blindly following directions from someone. I had to do this for twelve months, and since then, I have had a pretty hard time finding my voice again. Certain things can be triggering for me, so I wrote up some things for you, with the help of my therapist. There are coping strategies that I may need to utilize and there are somethings there for you, to navigate situations that may come up.” You were worried that this was all going to lead to Hotch doubting your ability to do this job. “I also want to make it known that I told the Director that I wasn’t ready to return to work.”

“Thank you for sharing this, I think it’ll help me to make your transition back to work smooth. As for you being ready, I think you sharing that information shows a lot about your strength and I think you are more than ready to be here.”

“Kneel.” Emilio ordered with a snap of his fingers.

You slowly dropped to your knees, sitting back on your heels and resting your palms on the tops of your thighs, your gaze focused on the frayed rug that covered the hardwood floor in front of you.

“Bring him in.” Emilio spoke into the intercom that connects him to his security.

The guards drag in a man who appears to be near death, clearly beaten. Emilio rests a hand on your head, gently petting your hair before speaking in a tone you don’t recognize.

“I heard you’ve been snooping around. Talking to Jeremy and his guys.” Emilio spat.

“I haven’t sir I swear!” The man was begging for his life.

“I don’t like snakes.” Emilio raised his gun and shot the man point blank.

You couldn’t help but flinch at the sound. A strong hand was quick to grip your chin.

“Flinching is a sign of weakness. I can’t have a pet that is weak.” His grip tightened “Are you weak?”

“No sir.” You reassured.

“Good.”

Working with the BAU had been going well, Hotch had truly been incredible. He’d encouraged you to share your thoughts and theories while on cases. He also reminded you to use your coping strategies when the cases became particularly overwhelming.

Like today for example. The team was working on a case that was taking a toll on you, mentally and emotionally. Women were being kidnapped then brutally tortured and left for dead in the street. It was becoming increasingly difficult to detach yourself from what these women must’ve been feeling.

Hotch was quick to notice the change in your demeanor and he made it a point to assign you with Spencer at the precinct. You were tightening up the victimology while Spencer worked on the geographical profile. You had come to the conclusion that the unsub was targeting victims primarily on their looks, they had all been of similar height, had same color hair and eyes. Worse than that…they all kind of looked like you. The sound of Derek and Emily approaching made your stomach sink. Spencer had clearly picked up on your anxiety since you’d been with the BAU, but the others, not so much.

“Hey guys, what did you find out?” Emily inquired.

“Well, I’ve narrowed down the geographical profile. This area right here…” Spencer gesture to the map covering the screen “this is his comfort zone, all the abductions and dumpsites fall within this five-block radius.”

“What about you new girl?” Derek nudged you gently.

“I looked into all the victims, and they all were approximately the same height and build, same color hair and eyes. I spoke to Penelope; she confirmed that all of the women frequented the same coffee shop.” You explained.

Hotch, Rossi, and JJ all entered just in time to hear Derek confirm your thoughts…which led to a suggestion that made your heart sink.

“Y/n these girls all kind of look like you...” Derek walks over to where their pictures are pinned up to the board. “Maybe we should send you to the coffee shop undercover. It could help us find this guy.”

You heart was pounding, causing a loud whooshing sound to drown out your hearing. You closed your fists and dug your nails into your palms. You could feel the sweat breaking out along your forehead.

In and out…deep breaths. You reminded yourself of the coping strategies you’d come up with for instances like this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

“Absolutely not!” Hotch commanded, shaking you from your thoughts while simultaneously distracting the others from your very obvious panic attack.

“Hotch man come on! She fits the victimology perfectly; it could end this case if she could catch his attention.” Derek argued.

“It’s not up for discussion. I will not send a new agent undercover, not until she is more comfortable on this team. Undercover ops like that require a significant level of trust, one that she may not have yet.” Hotch shut Derek down.

“We know he must go to this coffee shop; JJ and I could go in and watch. Keep an eye out for a man acting suspicious.” Emily suggested.

“Good, first thing tomorrow.” Hotch said before dismissing the team for the evening.

“Sir, is it safe to be talking about this…with her here?”

“Are you questioning me?” Emilio sneered. “My pet is well behaved. I wouldn’t have her here if I thought otherwise. Who are you to question my decisions?” His voice raised.

“I’m sorry sir! I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. I just wasn’t sure.”

“Don’t let it happen again. Now I’ll ask again. What is the update on the shipment?” Emilio demanded.

“There are going to be three crates in the shipping container. The boat is set to anchor Friday at midnight.”

“And everything we were promised will be there?” Emilio asked.

“Well, not the girls. This shipment is just the weapons.”

“Excuse me?” Emilio’s expression turned sinister.

You were knelt by his desk like always. This conversation had been one you were banking on; it was hopefully going to allow your team to pick him and his associates up. Only, this conversation had taken a turn that you weren’t expecting. His shipments thus far had only contained drugs and weapons, so why was he asking about girls?

“I was assured that everything would be included. How fucking hard is it to follow orders?” Emilio shouted, his fist slamming onto his desk.

You sat still, silently taking in the situation. That night you’d check in with your team and fill them in on the new information. You just needed to get the logistics of when the second shipment would arrive, and honestly, you were scared Emilio would kill this guy before you got that information.

“I know boss. They told me that the girls would be here soon. There was an issue getting paperwork for some of them. But it should all be worked out now.”

“I need a date and time. By the end of the day. Otherwise, you’re done.” Emilio hissed. He then brushed his hand over your head. “C’mon pet, let’s go to bed. And you, I’ll be expecting your call.”

Going to bed with Emilio had initially been the worst part of this assignment. Thankfully he’d had you STD tested which meant you were both clean, and he’d ensured you received birth control shots. The sex had surprised you; you had expected it to be rough and painful but, it had been soft and gentle. Emilio whispered sweet nothings to you, and he held you close, and he’d carefully bathe you afterwards.

It may be sick and twisted…but it didn’t bother you, having sex with him.

A light knock at your door had startled you. You made your way over to check the peephole, and there he was waiting patiently.

“Hotch, is everything okay?”

“I should be asking you that. Morgan was out of line suggesting we send you in.”

“It’s okay, really. He doesn’t know any better.”

Hotch gave you a sympathetic look. You could tell he was doing everything in his power not to profile you. You appreciated his effort, and it truly was endearing. Around Hotch, you’d started to feel more comfortable, and his consistent care of you and your mental health had been the thing that drew you in. He cared so much, and it meant the world to you.

“You seemed nervous earlier, does that have to do with the undercover assignment you worked?”

“Yes.” You sighed.

In the last two months of being with the BAU, you and Hotch had been teetering this fine line of coworkers and more. It wasn’t necessarily leaning toward something romantic, at least that’s what you were both trying to convince yourselves of but, it had definitely become a friendship. Hotch had allowed you a safe space in which you were starting to feel like yourself again. He had never pushed you for information about your past and he continuously checked in with you to make sure you were comfortable and okay. More recently though, as things like what happened today occurred, you have felt like maybe you should tell Hotch a little more about what you endured.

“You know, if you ever want to talk about it, I am here for you. I don’t want you to feel pressured or like you have to tell me anything! But if you should choose, I’d listen.” Hotch admitted.

“I was sent in undercover to investigate Emilio Alvatorre…” You began.

“Emilio Alvatorre? He was one of FBI’s most wanted! Lucrative arms dealer, importing drugs…I heard he was ultimately brought down for sex trafficking.” Hotch was stunned.

“Yeah, that was me. Emilio took part in a certain lifestyle; he is a dominant and he was seeking a new submissive…and I guess I fit the bill. He essentially owned me, and he referred to me as his pet. It was my job to follow his orders blindly, and I did.”

“What was it like?” Hotch questioned.

“Well…

“Good morning pet.” Emilio purred pressing a kiss right below your ear.

“Mmm, good morning sir. Can I make you breakfast?” You offered.

“No darling, the cook will prepare our meal. I think it is sweet you still ask.” His kisses travelled down your neck.

“Do you have meetings today?” You inquired.

“Today is all about you pet. We are going to get you some new clothes, shoes, and maybe a new necklace. I want to spoil you today! We are celebrating!” Emilio gushed.

It was the moments like this that fucked with your mind the most. Emilio could be so kind and gentle, he wanted to take care of you and in the time you’d been with him, it had been increasingly easier to let him. But then there were moments when he turned dark…the other side of him came to light and you couldn’t help but question your mind.

“Boss…” Emilio’s associate barged into the office, only to find you bent over his desk while he pounded into you from behind.

“Not now!” Emilio growled.

“But boss!” This guy really couldn’t take the hint.

Emilio wasn’t one who took well to being interrupted, in any aspect of his life. So, when this associate decided what he had to say was more important than Emilio’s time…you knew it would be bad.

Emilio’s hips never faltered, not upon the initial interruption and certainly not when he leaned to the side, grabbed his gun, and shot the man standing in the doorway. You pinched your eyes shut, knowing better than to react to the horrific sight before you. Emilio continued thrusting, his grunts becoming more erratic, and when he finally finished, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of your neck.

“Go run a hot bath. Get in and wait for me. I need to go see about this issue and get this cleaned up.” Emilio stated as he assisted you in standing upright.

“Yes sir.”

“It was really hard for me to deal with the two sides of him. I became confused and my mind was so foggy as to whether or not he was truly awful. And I know that so much of that is the manipulation of being his submissive, but I was with him for a year, it was easy to forget what things had been like before Emilio.” You trailed off.

“I can’t even imagine all the things you must’ve seen and gone through in that time. I can understand why you weren’t sure about joining the BAU initially…but I am really glad you did.” Hotch expressed, placing his hand atop your own.

“I’m glad I did too.”

The next morning Emily and JJ were sent into the coffee shop that all the victims frequented, and they couldn’t track the unsub. Either he was far too subtle, or he hadn’t shown up. The team was currently in the precinct trying to figure out the next steps, when Derek suggested it again.

“I still think y/n should go undercover, it’s our best bet in finding this guy. What do you say new girl?”

You were taken aback; your mind was screaming at you to decline. You weren’t ready for this, going undercover, blindly following team orders. It’s for the greater good though, isn’t it?

“I could do that.”

“Morgan, I already said it’s not happening. She isn’t ready.” Hotch commanded.

“Hotch, we have all had to go undercover. There is no reason that she can’t go into the coffee shop and order a freaking latte. We will all be there to keep her safe, just like any other case!” Morgan was practically shouting.

“It’s okay. I can do it.”

“Y/n you don’t have to do this. Not if you aren’t comfortable.” Hotch was obviously trying to profile you based on his expression.

“I’m okay. I’ll do it.”

You were ordering a coffee, meanwhile Spencer was sitting in the back of the café reading a book and Rossi was in line, about three patrons behind you. Hotch insisted on sitting at a table just outside the entrance to keep a close eye on everyone coming and going. JJ, Derek, and Emily were all in the surveillance van parked across the street, waiting for the signal.

After you received your coffee, you found a seat at an empty table. It wasn’t long before a man approached you. He was tall and clearly strong; he had a very sinister aura that gave you the chills.

“Mind if I sit here?” He asked.

“Oh, sure.” You agreed.

The man sat, but only after he moved the chair closer to you. He was talking to you, but you were having a hard time listening. You were silently begging the guys to come to help and get him away from you.

“You know, you’re really pretty. Why don’t we get out of here? We could go get lunch.” The man suggested.

“Oh, I’m not sure I should.”

“C’mon, be a good girl and get up.” His tone became more aggressive.

You stood up without a second thought, much to the unsub’s delight. He grabbed your arm in a bruising grip and began leading you out of the café.

“They’re on the move. Why is she going with him? This wasn’t the plan.” Derek exclaimed.

Hotch’s demeanor instantly changed. After you opened up to him about your previous assignment, he understood now why you had seemingly always followed orders willingly, only your willingness had been conditioned. Instilled in you through the manipulation of a very dangerous man.

“I got it.” Hotch

Hotch stood up and turned abruptly, purposefully plowing into you and the unsub. He made a move that shifted you away from the unsub and placed himself between you.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Hotch feigned innocence.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Watch where you’re going asshole. Let’s get out of here.” The unsub reached for your arm once more.

“She’s not going anywhere with you.”

“You want to bet?” he said, pulling a gun from his waistband and pointing it directly at your head.

You didn’t flinch, in fact you didn’t move a muscle. All the while everyone else sprung into action. Hotch tried to talk him down while the rest of the team surrounded him on all sides. You had stood there completely disassociated while this man threatened your life and ultimately met his untimely end via Emily’s weapon.

“Y/n would you please come to my office?” Hotch requested.

You silently followed Hotch to his office. You were wringing your hands, hoping that he wouldn’t reprimand you for your behavior today. You couldn’t handle disappointing people.

“You didn’t even flinch. You had a gun pointed at you and you didn’t even blink. You also willingly left the café with him, which was not a part of the plan we had discussed.” Hotch stated, his tone calm.

“I’m sorry Hotch. He told me to get up and I just…I wasn’t sure what to do. I know we needed to catch the guy.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.” Hotch admitted. “I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt. I also don’t want you to agree to do things simply because someone tells you to. Like agreeing to go undercover.”

“I don’t know how to do that. Disagree I mean. I’m not sure I have that in me anymore.” You did everything in your power to keep the tears at bay. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Y/n I’m not disappointed. I do think that it is very important you continue to work with your therapist.”

“I will.”

“…and I just stood there.”

“Y/n you we conditioned for over a year to sit still when any sort of firearm was shot, you watched people die right in front of you. You were covered in their blood and forced to remain kneeling until instructed otherwise. I can’t say I am entirely surprised that you didn’t react to having a weapon pointed at you. What does surprise me though was that you agreed to going undercover.” Sylvia finished.

“I knew it was our best option to finding this unsub. I fit the victimology, and I was able to fish him out. It was a no-brainer.” You shrugged.

“Now that sound like someone making a rational decision.” Sylvia smirked.

“Yeah well, after the case Hotch called me out and I felt like a child being scolded. I could barely hold back tears.”

“Why do you think that is?” She pressed.

“I don’t know. I guess, I’m afraid of not being good enough and worse, disappointing him.”

“The only person you should be worried about disappointing is yourself. Y/n you have made huge strides in the last five months and as long as you stay true to yourself, you will continue to do so.”

The months went on, as did the cases and your therapy sessions. Oddly enough, you had started to feel more like yourself. Things with the BAU have started to become easy, you were opening up little by little to the others and you were getting better at making your own decisions.

Hotch had also noticed the change. It had warmed his heart to see you really coming into your own, to really get to know the real you. Which had only strengthened his feelings toward you, causing him to work extra hard to shove them down. Rossi knew simply from the look Hotch gave you, but that’s a story for another time.

The team had been working back-to-back cases all over the country for the last few weeks. It had been exhausting and the team were getting to a point where everyone was snippy. Lack of sleep had led to a horrible lack of patience, and the local officers weren’t making matters any better.

“What if we were wrong, I think the unsub is a woman. I mean look at the attention to detail in the clean up and at how the bodies were presented.” You offered.

“Y/n could be right; a woman would take the time to be precise and it would explain the…”

Before Spencer could finish his thought, Officer Riley decided to provide his own theories.

“There is no way it is a woman. They don’t have the courage to take care of people like this. That’s why the statistic proves that the unsub is a man.”

“With all due respect, women are just as capable of murder as men, and when they do it they are often far more meticulous which is why that fits better here.” You explained.

“Well, with all due respect ma’am, I’ve been doing this job longer than you could walk.”

“Excuse me?” You couldn’t bother hiding your surprise.

“All I’m saying sweetheart, is that perhaps you’d be better off getting us some coffee.” Officer Riley sneered.

“Last time I checked, I’m the one working for the FBI and not some Podunk little police station in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. So how about you back off and let us finish our…”

“Y/N TAKE A SEAT.” Hotch demanded.

Despite your shock at Hotch’s tone toward you, you took a seat without hesitation.

“Officer Riley, please let my agents do their work. We have much more important things to be doing than arguing about the duties of a woman.” Hotch chided.

“Well, you clearly agree with me given the fact that you gave her an order. If you’d been on her side you’d have probably told me off.” Riley turned to you, “and you clearly do know how to listen to a man in charge. Perhaps I misjudged you.”

With that, Riley made his leave with a low chuckle, and you sat there considering what had just happened. Hotch had commanded you to sit down knowing full well you’d comply, that way he could deal with Riley without you continuing to tell him off. He used what he knew about you against you, despite all the conversations you’ve had with him. Despite him knowing full well your fear of blindly following orders.

“I can’t believe you.” You stood up and walked out, heading straight for the precinct exit.

“Y/n wait!” Hotch followed you.

As you landed on the sidewalk just upon the exit, Hotch’s had made its way around your upper left arm in a desperate attempt to slow you down and hear him out. Only you were in no mood to listen to him or anyone else right now. All you felt was the sense of betrayal blooming in your chest.

As he swung you back around to face him, you did something that shocked even you. You right arm followed around, landing a harsh slap to Hotch’s cheek. Your breathing was ragged, a look of surprise painting your features…a look of guilt flooding Hotch’s.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” You paused.

“No, Y/n I am so sorry I shouldn’t have-” Hotch pleaded.

“I need to go. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” With that you left, calling a taxi, and heading back to the hotel.

“YOU STUPID BITCH! HOW COULD YOU?” Emilio Screamed, lunging toward you.

“Emilio I didn’t, I just…I”

Emilio wrapped his hand around your throat, harshly choking you as SWAT swarmed the shipyard. They quickly made their way to you, removing Emilio from his position over you. As they pulled him away you couldn’t help but watch him.

“Kneel Pet!” Emilio commanded.

You couldn't help but follow his order. Immediately dropping to your knees, resting your hands atop your thighs and letting your gaze fall to the ground.

“I will always own you! You will always be my pet, perfectly broken in!” Emilio hollered as they put him in the back of a vehicle.

“Y/n you’re okay, lets get you up and checked out.” Your unit commander suggested.

Only you didn’t move. You couldn’t get up, not without his permission.

That night, the paramedics had to sedate you to get you into an ambulance. And after that you were placed in a psychiatric facility for 30 days to help undo the brainwashing you’d endured.

“Sylvia, I slapped him. My boss, I slapped him right in the face!”

“Y/n you reacted to a situation and based on what you just explained to me, it seems like he knew he was in the wrong. You shouldn’t be blaming yourself and honestly, you should talk to him.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Maybe tell him how you feel.” Sylvia suggested.

You spent the afternoon practicing what to say to Hotch, Spencer had been texting you updates of that case as it progressed. He’d let you know that they caught the unsub and were headed back to the hotel. So, as you opened your door to make your way to his room, you came face-to-face with the man himself.

“Hotch.” You gasped.

“Y/n can we talk?”

You moved aside to allow him access to your room. You couldn’t help but feel nervous about the conversation that was to come.

“Hotch, I am so sorry for slapping you! I was just-”

“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing. Y/n I am so sorry, I heard you going off on Riley and I knew that if you kept talking he’d report you and I’d be forced to suspend you, only I hadn’t considered the effect that me demanding you take a seat would have on you. I need you to know it was not my intention to take advantage of you like that and even worse, I shouldn’t have put my hand on you the way I did. You had every right to slap me.” Hotch explained.

“You were trying to protect me?”

“Riley had made threats of reporting our staff for going against orders of the precinct. I knew that he’d report you for your behavior, despite him clearly being in the wrong. I didn’t want to suspend you.”

“I didn’t realize. But Hotch telling me to take a seat, in the tone you did, it felt like I was right back there. Following orders without thinking. With you, I can’t explain it, I would do anything you asked me to and that terrifies me. My feelings for you only add to that need to do anything you say, to do anything to please you. I can’t help it.”

“You have feelings for me?”

“Aaron! Is that all you took from what I just said?”

“Please say that again.” He whispered.

“Aaron.”

He let his eyes close and took a deep breath. You could tell he was holding back and though part of you was begging you to walk away, the other was telling you to jump in. You thought about what Sylvia would say, and you couldn’t help but release a breathy laugh, knowing full well that she would tell you that only you can make the right decision, and it is okay to trust yourself.

“Aaron, I am terrified…and it is going to take me some time to fully trust myself again, but I really like you and if you’re up for it, I’d like to give this a shot. Unless you don’t feel the same way, then please ignore what I just said an-”

Aaron pulled you in and pressed his lips to yours in a searing kiss. One that told you everything you needed to know.

“I’m scared too, but I want to try this Y/n. I know that you’re still working to find yourself, I am willing to wait if that is what you need, but I am also willing to be by your side every step of the way.”

“I don’t want to wait.”

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katiekatdragon27 · 8 months ago

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Dandy's World Roleplay servers are so wild and unhinged that it makes me come up with AUs. And yes, it's shinyshrimp. I'm so cringe <333

So, while in the roleplay server, I got into an argument with a Shrimpo as Glisten about not being able to see proper reflections though Glisten's face. Then a Goob showed up (my sibling) and asked if Shrimpo was a vampire. Then they asked if Glisten (me) was a vampire. Then we asked the Goob if he was a vampire, and he turned emo. And then I shared this experience with my friends, and they egged me on to make an AU about it lol.

Glisten: So. Is this the part where we make out, orrr-?? Shrimpo: WHAT??!

Dandy: No cuz it's genius! If they hate each other, that's two less annoying people to deal with! (He underestimated the power of enemies to lovers)

The general plot is Glisten is a monster hunter and Shrimpo is a human turned vampire-werewolf (he has no memory of how that happened btw). Glisten is specifically hired by Dandicus to hunt down and kill Shrimpo. Glisten manages to hunt Shrimpo down, but since Shimpo hasn't been non-human for that long, he puts up a kinda pathetic fight. Glisten puts Shimpo's arrogant ass in place and refuses to kill him so they can fight honorably. Shrimpo takes this personally lol and strives to get better at fighting so he can show up Glisten.

Badabing badaboom, enemies to lovers setup.

Dandy did not see that coming and it pisses him off lol.

Shrimpo: I HATE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- Astro (to himself): WTF is up with this guy?

This was a doodle recommended by an awesome artist in a server I'm in (dunno if they wanna be tagged lol). Astro being a moon moth thing causes Shrimpo to howl at him lol. Also part of the reason Dandy dislikes Shrimpo lol. Also also, Astro is a witch.

Also also also, here's the emo Goob my sibling became when discussing vampires. He unemos when he becomes a weredog lol.

Below is a buncha doodles all about Glisten (and his failing mental health).

TW FOR UNINTENTIONAL S.H. PROCCED WITH CAUTION:

You guys know Wiggle from Bugsnax? You guys know Millie from Helluva Boss? Yeah. They were the main inspos for this design hc lol (the buck teeth part not the insecurity part).

I have this goofy hc that Glisten's og design never intended to give him buck teeth. When being made, the ichor messed up and gave it to him. Learning about this is his first instance of feeling insecure about himself, and he develops the mannerism of covering his mouth when laughing (bc it makes his teeth really obvious lol)

And since Glisten now has buck teeth, that means Shimmer also gets buck teeth! However, her reaction to them was completely different to how her dad reacted to his.

I have this hc that Glisten can't handle backlash that well. With the machine messing up with his face (his teeth), and his general vibe being disliked by many people of the time of Gardenview (prob bc the 90s and very queer-coded kids' character didn't exactly mix well), he feels this crippling pressure to be the "perfect" version of himself.

If he deems you lower than him, your words don't matter. He doesn't care what you think about him

However, if he views you as an equal or higher, any kind of negative opinion said to him will be taken personally, and will either be repressed into self-hatred, or actively worked upon in order to be "better" (which ends up hurting him more depending on the situation.) His need for perfecting also makes him a workaholic when in a spiral, leading him to self-isolate and just kinda hide away from everyone for a couple days, and sometimes injure himself trying to get better on his own (he has a tendency to scratch his arms and face too, only fueling his need for isolation).

He refuses to open the door and get food outside, so ppl will slide him snacks and things under the door. People still care about him, but he'll never them see him cry.

Glisten has such horrid insecurity that he will never let anyone see. However, not everything is bleak for the guy.

Shimmer: Hey Dad! Guess what!? My teeth grew in! Now I look like you! Isn't that cool?!

She was not born with them unlike Glisten. Instead, they grew in near her "10th" birthday. She was very happy to have them. I like to think that seeing Shimmer be so happy to have a very sensitive trait of Glisten and loving every second of it helps him heal a bit of his insecurity.

After all, how can he hate a part of himself that his kid adores?

Kids don't fix everything, but they can aid in healing lol

Have a good one dudes^^

#the monsters and hunters au is still a heavy wip lol #i am open to ideas and questions about it #also i love putting my favs though horrible stuff it's so freeing in a therapeutic way #overworking glisten i love how relatable you are #also i think when glisten is stressed he gets work paralysis which only stresses him out more #i hope i ended this on a light enough note #tooooooooooootally not projecting #not at all #dark topics #tw self destructive behavior #tw unintentional selfh4rm #tw scratching #tw self isolation #dandy's world #dandys world #dandy's world fanart #dandy's world oc #roblox dandys world #dandy's world glisten #dandy's world shrimpo #dandy's world dandy #dandy's world astro #dandy's world goob #dandy's world ships #glisten x shrimpo #shrimpo x glisten #glisten the mirror #shrimpo the shrimp #dandicus dancifer #astro the moon

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wannabeschyulersister · 1 year ago

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lovelorn and nobody knows

Sometimes it felt like you had the words “I’m in love with my boss” written on your forehead in big capital letters.

As much as you tried to hide it, you couldn’t help but marvel at him. He was truly amazing at his craft and seeing him so passionate made you want to do it as well.

There were times that he acted a little like a jerk but he’d redeemed himself recently. Thanks to Sydney.

And to Claire.

You were surprised when you learned he was seeing someone. He brought Claire around when the restaurant was practically falling apart. It was such a weird moment. You physically could feel the awkwardness in the air.

She seemed really nice but part of you still disliked her just because she could call Carmy hers.

You avoided being around them as much as possible. It hurt just looking at the way he smiled at her.

Every part of your being wished that were you.

You wished you were the one he confided in after a long day at the Bear. You wished that you were the one he walked around the city with hand in hand. You wished you were the one that had his heart.

You felt like a lovesick fool.

Instead of subjecting yourself to seeing the happy couple, you started to back out of any group activities unless it was absolutely necessary.

The group would often go and get drinks at a nearby bar at least once a week. You stopped going as soon as you heard Claire was a regular now. People would ask if you were going and you always had a lie ready to go.

As much as you loved working at The Bear, you knew that it would probably be best if you removed yourself from the situation. It hurt every time you had to be around Carmen and Claire. You didn’t want to constantly put yourself in heartache.

There was a popular Italian restaurant across town that needed a sous. You had a friend of a friend that recommended you. It was the fresh start that you needed.

When you got the job, it was bittersweet. You should’ve been happier than you were.

So, you drafted up a letter of resignation, took a deep breath, and walked into Carmen’s office after closing. He was busy looking at an invoice when you knocked softly on the doorframe to make yourself known.

He looked at you and smiled a little, “Hey, stranger. We missed you last night.”

“Yeah, sorry I missed it. I uh- have something to give you.” You wanted to get this part over with.

“Yeah? What’s that?” He reached over and grabbed the letter that you handed him. You hoped he didn’t notice the slight shakiness of your hand.

You didn’t answer him because you didn’t trust your voice in that moment. Carmen quickly read through your letter and you watched the expression change on his face.

“What the hell is this? You’re leavin’?” Carmen stood up from his seat and placed your letter down.

“I got a job opportunity that I couldn’t say no too. I’m sorry that this puts you in a situation where you are short staffed but I’m giving you a two weeks notice.” You explained to him.

“I don’t understand. You’re happy here, aren’t you? D-did something happen’ that I’m not aware of?” Carmen questioned.

Yeah, you fell in love with someone else.

You shook your head, “No, nothing happened. I just think I’m ready for a new challenge.”

Carmen didn’t look like he bought your lie. “(Y/n), you don’t think that I’ve noticed that you’re distant and-and you haven’t been coming out with all of us?”

Shit.

You’d hoped that maybe he was so busy with Claire that he hadn’t noticed you slipping away from the group at all.

“I’ve just been busy with other things.” You lied again.

“What’s going on?” He questioned.

“Nothing is going on, Carmen.”

He crossed his arms against his chest and it took everything in you not to stare and drool. Even when you tried to be strong, his biceps made you feel weak.

“I don’t believe you.” He stated.

“That’s fine. I just wanted to do the respectable thing and give you an adequate notice.”

Carmen stared at you and it made you feel like he could read your mind. Like he knew the exact reason on why you were leaving.

“I don’t want you to leave, (Y/n). I think you’re amazing and- and you have a bright future in this industry. I think it’s a mistake.”

Your chest ached at his kind words. “I’m just ready for something new.”

He sighed and looked away from you as someone knocked on the door. You turned and saw Claire holding a takeout bag, “Thought I’d surprise you with dinner.”

“Now isn’t a good time, Claire.” Carmen told her.

She looked disappointed, “Am I interrupting something?”

You quickly shook your head, “No, the conversation is over. Have a good night.”

“(Y/n), wait!” Carmen called out to you but you left his office without another look back.

Even thought it killed you to walk away from him, you had to put yourself first.

#carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto imagine #carmen berzatto x (y/n)#carmen berzatto x you #carmen berzatto #the bear x reader #the bear imagine #carmy x reader #carmy berzatto

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bratbarzal · 3 months ago

Text

The Secret of Us (LH43) 3/3

aka the sequel to let it happen

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

>PART ONE< / >PART TWO<

the pain of, the reign of, the flame of us

WC: 31k (I need therapy atp)

General Warnings: angst!!! did we expect any less for the final instalment of the epic highs and lows of this criminal situationship? (god bless the anon who sent me that line I think of it daily) cursing probably, inaccurate timeline of events regarding hockey and all but it's fiction just play along lmao, mentions of jack's injury, meddling friends, miscommunication final boss, hypocrisy final boss, jealousy and avoidance final boss and an ending 🙂

A/N: guys I wish I could put into words just how much joy writing this fic has given me, I have so much love and gratitude for the way you all responded to it. writing fic can sometimes be such a lonely and stressful experience in a weird way, especially something as long as this, and you guys turned it into this giant team effort and I felt like you were pushing me along the whole way!! this is such a corny a/n but I really love you all so much - thank you for being so kind to me, thank you for discussing every single element of this fic with me, thank you for loving (or hating lmao) the characters, and making them real enough in my head that they just flew onto the page. thank you to everyone who recommended this fic to anybody else, or who loved it so much that they went through everything else I've written and liked that too!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I hope this final part is loved as much as the rest, and I can't wait to talk to you guys about it!! my ask is always open for lih/tsou discourse!! these two will live with me for the rest of time lmao but I do now feel the need to run and hide because I'm terrified to post this actually so hope you like it lol

You can’t remember the last time you ever felt so lost in your life.

You’ve always been someone that finds your way - lands on your feet, figures things out - because you’ve had no other choice, before. Forced to be independent before you ever needed to be, you can usually work your way out of sticky situations with minimal scarring.

But Luke Hughes has somehow managed to crush you beyond recognition.

You thought things were finally going well, you were taking this monumental leap into something more, kissing him like you’ve been denying yourself for too long, and then all of a sudden you’re struggling to get your words out, letting him assume the worst of you and running with it, because what other option do you have now, knowing that he doesn’t want you back?

You’re a little caught of guard at the initial rejection, but the words that follow make you speechless, entirely, gaping open-mouthed like some dumb-struck idiot as he tells you that he’s moving on, and you only want him because you don’t want to lose him.

And you’re so consumed by this wave of renunciation that you can’t even fight him on it.

And then he’s gone.

The silence that follows Luke’s departure from the porch almost makes your ears pop - pressure building and building to the point of eruption inside your head, and you’re so caught up in your mind that you’re barely functioning otherwise.

It’s below freezing out, a cold wind whipping at your cheeks, and every breath you take feels rough and textured like you’re rubbing coarse sandpaper at your chest cavity - you really shouldn’t be out here, exposed to such harsh conditions, but what does that matter when you would be hurting anyway, no matter where you are.

You don’t even know how you got here.

One second you were running through the house with the best news of your life and only one person in mind to share it with, and the next you were out in the cold - key moments from the night playing in your head like some horror movie sequence.

Ellie’s warning of, he’s gonna crush you when he starts seeing someone and you get left behind.

The way she’s been keeping it to herself that he already is seeing someone, or speaking to her, at least, whatever that entails - because, the two of you speak. You speak every day.

Seeing Victoria with her hands on Luke, sinking her claws into him while he gave her one of those cute, toothy grins - the kind that made his eyes gleam and crinkle in the corners.

And then, I don’t want to be with anybody but you tonight, I promise.

How can anybody possibly hear that and not want to kiss him?

Sure, it was some weird, territorial spur of jealousy that consumed you and forced you to take that final leap, but it’s not like you haven’t thought about doing it before. Sat on your bed watching Wall-E on your birthday, the plush he had bought you tucked into the crook of your elbow and your hand brushing repeatedly against his in the bowl of popcorn. Or when he’d snuck out of your house the morning after, only just managing to evade being caught by your sorority regime and holding you against him with a kiss to the side of your head as the two of you said your goodbyes on the porch.

Does it really matter what the final catalyst was if the finished result was what you’ve both been wanting this entire time? Plus, it’s not like he hasn’t encouraged those feelings before - Mr Tell me that the thought of me even talking to another girl makes your skin crawl.

But that’s the problem. You’re probably too used to acting impulsively with Luke - doing first, thinking later - and he’s starting to realise it, too, growing tired of your stretched out resistance and finally throwing in the towel.

We both have to find a way to move on.

Maybe it’s not what you’ve both wanted the entire time.

Maybe Luke hasn’t wanted it for a while - has wanted to move on and find someone new. See someone else - speak to her, or whatever.

God, you feel pathetic.

A feeling that worsens when Ethan finds you, teary eyed and shaking - too consumed by your own humiliation to feel just how cold it is outside until he shrugs a jacket over you, holds it closed in front of your torso and peers down at you with nothing but concern in his chocolate eyes.

His mouth moves, but all you hear is muffled noise alongside the sound of your racing heartbeat, and you try to read his lips, but it’s hard to see through the blur of tears. His hands start rubbing at your arms, and the friction brings everything back into focus, a little. The cold night air, the cologne rubbed into the collar of the jacket, the voice of the caring boy in front of you.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he mutters, “Let’s get you home.”

You nod wordlessly as you accept his help, a guiding arm around you that ushers you off the porch, helps you down the steps and pushes you gently to the edge of the yard until you’re walking side by side down the street. You sniffle, not even realising that you’re crying until you try to remedy the dryness in the corner of your lips and taste the salty tears that have fallen there, and you end up crying the whole walk, trying not to be obvious about it - arms wrapped around yourself and head dipped to watch your feet as they move along the sidewalk.

Ethan doesn’t try to talk it out of you, for once, which you’re grateful for, and he walks you all the way up to the front door, turning away without any prompt so you can fetch the key you hid under one of the plants before you left

“Thanks,” you mutter, once you’ve retrieved it, standing back up and watching as he spins back around. “For walking me back, sorry that I got upset and weird.”

“It’s alright,” he shrugs, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans to maintain some semblance of blood flow, the below freezing temperatures making it almost painful to breathe. “Lot of tears for a guy you’re not into, though.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, because what’s the use in denying it anymore. It hasn’t done you any favours this far. You fumble your key into the lock and shoulder the door open, leading him into the house with a silent invitation, thankful that he follows without any hesitation and seals the heat back in behind him. “Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it’s quick, I got a beer pong championship I need to retain, I’m on for a three-peat, kids in this town will be talking about it for years.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to hold you back from greatness,” you scoff, offering a lighthearted chuckle as you shrug off the jacket he had slung over your shoulders before. Luke’s jacket, you’re pretty sure, that in any other circumstances, you’d keep, but the smell of him is probably going to suffocate you if you inhale it any longer. You hold it out to Ethan, quirking a brow when he frowns down at the garment. “You’re off the hook, it was stupid anyway.”

“No, come on,” he prompts, “I was kidding.”

He blinks slowly at you, dark eyes warm and encouraging as he steps a little further into the foyer, leaning against one of the pillars by the door. He’s settled in, and he’s giving the kind of energy that it’s hard not to reciprocate - open and receptive to whatever it is that you want to talk about.

“Do you guys talk about, like, girls and stuff?” You ask, brows creasing almost immediately at how dumb it sounds to even bring it up. God, you’re starting to hate what he’s turning you into. “I mean, like, if he was into somebody, would he tell you?”

His eyes go darker, somehow, amusement flashing through them as his lips quirk, and he can try all he wants, but it’s so obvious he’s biting back a smile. “He doesn’t have the track record for it since he moved away, no, but Luke’s a pretty private guy. Even when he was here, he was never really big on talking about that kind of stuff.”

“Oh.” You sigh, because great, you’ve just made an idiot out of yourself for no good reason - to Ethan, of all people, who’s been trying to eke information out of you all year.

“Awful poker face, though,” he adds, “Like anybody could see from a mile off that he is into somebody.”

That doesn’t make you feel any better. If he isn’t talking to the boys about any girl he potentially is interested in, why would he tell you? Maybe you had been wrong, when Ellie brought up him speaking to somebody back in Jersey, maybe he wouldn’t have told you. Maybe he’s a pretty private guy, like Ethan said, and that privacy extends to you in the same way it does to the guys - where Luke keeps his cards close to his chest, just like he had back in summer, when the two of you were a thing.

“Ellie told me that he was,” you lament, leaning on the pillar closest to Ethan’s, crossing your arms over your chest, “I didn’t believe her, I thought he’d tell me, but now I don’t know.”

“Is that what you’re upset about?” Ethan’s eyes narrow, “That he didn’t tell you?”

“I guess maybe he did,” You sigh, replaying his words over and over in your head. We both have to find a way to move on. I don’t know how long I’m supposed to wait for you to figure it out. It hadn’t been explicit, but the sentiment was there - like he was laying the foundations of something he’d be more ready to build onto at a later date.

Maybe this thing with Yasmin is early days, still. Maybe you put him so far off the idea of letting anyone else in on what could be a good thing - through fear of it all coming crumbling down, just like his relationship with you had done - that he won’t tell anybody until he knows for sure.

“I feel like an idiot.”

The idea of him letting go of his feelings just as you started to come to terms with your own hurts, but you can hardly be mad at him. He had been right - you’d told him in no uncertain terms that you weren’t willing to take things further again, and even though that was almost 6 months ago, now, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve withheld your feelings, since. You don’t even remember what you were trying to protect yourself from, because it can’t have been as bad as this.

“Maybe you should talk to him before he leaves again, tomorrow,” Ethan suggests, “I can try talk some sense into him if you want?”

“You’re good,” you decline, figuring you’ve done enough invading his privacy for the time being. You need to let him figure things out on his own, you think, instead of acting out of impulse and making everything explode in your face. “I’ll call him in the morning, thanks though.”

Ethan straightens up as he starts to get ready to leave, but just before you can say goodbye, he turns at the door. “He really cares about you, you know.” He tells you, “In case he didn’t tell you that, either. He can be an idiot, but he cares.”

“I know,” you breathe, smiling softly to try and reassure him - because if you do know one thing about Luke in this whole fiasco, it’s that he cares. Whether it’s too much, or not enough, you’re not sure, but it’s there, nonetheless.

You thank him again, because you really are grateful that he walked you back, and that he was so willing to lend an ear to your stupid questions without making you feel entirely stupid for them, and grins back, boyish and sweet, before he leaves.

The house is unsettlingly quiet - the rest of the girls either in bed or at the party - and you just want to go to bed, yourself to shut out the unbearable silence, but your room doesn’t provide the kind of escape you thought it might.

One of Luke’s sweatshirts is slung over the back of your desk chair, and even without it being there, you think you’d see him in every corner. He’s in your reflection in the bathroom, brushing his teeth by your side and nudging you out the way to spit the residue into the sink. He’s poking and prodding at your skincare on your vanity, reading the bottles and asking what they do. He’s sat at your desk, looking at your little calendar and telling you that you really need to take a break for yourself when he realises just how many spaces are filled in. And he’s in your bed, his scent in the sheets you’re yet to wash since he slept in here on your birthday - and even that isn’t giving you reprieve like it had the night before.

You can’t get to sleep at all.

And it’s probably morbid curiosity that will be the end of you, because as you lay in your bed, tossing and turning and trying to drown out your thoughts so that you can finally drift off - there’s some stupid, sabotaging part of you that thinks it’s a good idea to open up instagram. And then it seems reasonable to check Luke’s profile, knowing that he hardly ever posts, but heading straight to the accounts that he’s following.

You type her name before you can convince yourself how bad the idea is, watching as the results narrow down to just one with only a few letters, and you click straight through to the profile that remains.

It’s unassuming, initially. Her name is Yasmin Keating. Her bio suggests she’s a student, her location says North Carolina, and most of her feed is dedicated to her time spent decked in blue and white playing basketball at UNC. And she’s gorgeous. She’s athletic, and would probably understand all of his weird sports references more than you do, would probably understand his lifestyle, and the stress he’s under. She’s sociable, probably wouldn’t hide him away and make him feel like some dirty secret.

And one of her latest posts is tagged in New York, from a couple weeks ago. A carousel of photos, each as pretty as the last, and you hold your breath as you swipe through them for any sort of sighting of the curly brown hair you know too well.

The sighting doesn’t come, but as you scroll down a little, you find something just as bad.

Liked by lhughes_06.

If you were hesitant to accept Ellie’s word for it, confused by Luke’s own reluctance to let you in, and Ethan’s shifty explanation of his best friend’s privacy, then this is the confirmation you need to finally accept the truth.

Luke is moving on.

And maybe you need to let him.

When Luke wakes up the morning after, his head is pounding. There’s a relentless thud between his ears, and he swears his brain feels loose, like it’s rattling around his skull at even the slightest shake of his head.

He doesn’t think it’s a hangover - he’d had a few drinks, but not that many, and had ended up coming home a lot earlier than anticipated, his party spirit dampening as soon as you left, anyway. He’d fallen asleep with his phone in hand, staring at your message thread and trying to figure out if texting you would be a good idea, so maybe it’s staring at a screen for almost an hour that gave him such a headache, he thinks.

But all his usual remedies aren’t working.

He drinks a full bottle of water straight from the refrigerator, chugging the contents down until the plastic is squeezed to within an inch of its life in his hand, and manages to swallow down some Tylenol with it. He showers, letting the water spray directly onto his neck and shoulders to try and relieve the tension there, and spends a little longer than usual to try and wash the pain away. He even makes himself a decent breakfast to try line his stomach, but by the time 10am rolls around, he still feels like crap.

He is supposed to fly back to Jersey in the late afternoon, and as the hours tick on, there’s a panic that stirs within him - a feeling like he’s forgotten something, already, even though he doesn’t have to leave for a while. His bags were packed yesterday - he had figured he’d get ahead so that he isn’t stressing - and he doesn’t have to worry about returning a rental car, because he’s been driving his dad’s while they’re out of town and is supposed to leave it at the airport, anyway. He’s checked all the windows around the house, and the settings on the heater - there are no dishes in the sink, no clothes left in the washer or dryer, and it’s about as tidy as it was when he arrived last week.

And it’s only when he checks his phone for what is probably the 20th time that he even realises he keeps doing it - realises what he thinks he’s missing.

You.

He probably would have been with you, if things didn’t blow up last night.

He’d have been at your house, or you’d have been at his, and you’d have kept him busy all the way up until the point he needs to leave. He’d have slept by your side, like he’s pathetically getting so used to doing, now, and would have woken up to your pretty eyes slowly blinking back at him. And he figures that’s why he felt off as soon as he opened his own, with the sun peering into his bedroom through the thin curtains, and the slight chill that wracked through his body without yours to keep him warm.

You haven’t even text him - the last message on his phone being from Ethan, last night, after he’d dropped you off, one Luke had seen as he sat in the back of his Uber home, all desire to be around anybody swiftly drained as soon as you were gone.

His hands start to shake the longer he thinks about it, and the more he remembers - pushing you away and watching you leave - and he can’t even rationalise it all, anymore.

Summer might feel like a lifetime ago, but if that’s the case, then it’s a lifetime of Luke still wanting you. It’s months of trying to fan the flames of your affections, trying to keep the spark alive, despite all the ways you had told him it was long blown out.

He knows. He’s always known that there was something left.

But he’s tired of being the only one who believes in it, anymore.

Jack doesn’t support him, his parents are none the wiser, his teammates barely have time for their own relationship dramas, let alone his, and the only person who had ever encouraged him to pursue more with you lives on the other side of the continent.

But right now, the last remedy that comes to mind is a call with his oldest brother - one last ditch attempt to clear his mind before he flies back to Jersey and throws himself back into hockey for the last few months.

He’s found himself calling Quinn much more while he’s been home alone for the past 10 days, with Jack busy with the tournament, and his parents busy watching them - he thinks there’s a common ground there, with Quinn, where he’s sort of detached to the point of novelty when it comes to Luke’s life.

He offers a fresh perspective, gives unbiased advice - helps him make pancakes over FaceTime for the girl in his bed who isn’t his girlfriend, and doesn’t make snarky comments or push him to talk about it.

And so he’s pressing on his contact before he can think better of it - waiting until Quinn’s face pops up on his screen, seemingly propped up while he makes himself a breakfast smoothie all the way over in Vancouver.

“Lukey, what’s up?”

“Hey man, you got a minute?”

“Sure, let me just back away from the blender before I try to multitask and blitz my kitchen.”

He watches with a grateful smile as Quinn makes his way through his apartment, walking into the living room himself and throwing himself down onto the seat in the bay window.

“Surprised you found the time to call me, thought you’d be spending your morning at a certain sorority or something.” His older brother laughs as he lowers himself down onto the couch in his apartment, the view behind him that of a misty Vancouver, the sun barely seeping through the clouds.

It makes him feel a little closer, to see it - peering through the glass at the front of their parent’s house, himself, and looking up at familiar grey skies.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Luke frowns, hating the way his gut twists guiltily at the vague memory of last night - of your elation turning into evasion, and the way he still thinks he can taste you if he swipes his tongue across his bottom lip. “I don’t think she wants to see me right now.”

“What did you do?”

“Why do you assume I’m the problem?”

“Are you not?”

“I don’t even know.” He groans, looking back on the evening with a lot more clarity than his beer-goggles had allowed him, before. “I sort of blew up at her last night about something, I had a couple drinks, and I think I was pretty harsh. She left the party early and we’d usually text by now, but I think she’s probably avoiding me.”

“You’re gonna have to quit being so vague if you want me to help you out, man.”

The look Quinn is giving is like the virtual version of a brotherly swat, a blank but bold stare at the screen that’s his own silent way of telling his little brother to just spit it out, already.

And Luke takes little convincing - despite all the months he’s held back from doing so. This is technically a boiling point, and keeping this whole thing between the two of you such a secret has done absolutely nothing to serve him, so far. He could really use the help, he thinks.

“We’re supposed to be friends.” Luke sighs, “Back in summer, we had a thing, like we were sort of, almost together,” he cringes as he says it, unable to think of a better way to lay it out. Sure, he’d spoken to Quinn a little about you, back then - had admitted to having a crush, at least, but he hadn’t shared much past that. And it’s different with his older brother, he thinks, on the other side of the continent, oblivious somewhat to Luke’s day to day, and just how much it probably involved you by now. He needs to explain it for it all to make any kind of sense. “Like we were hanging out together all the time, and sleeping together, and it sounds like a mess but it was perfect when it was just us.”

“Are you waiting for me to be shocked or something?” Quinn queries after a moment’s pause, quirking a brow with narrowed eyes pointed straight at the camera. “Because we all knew you were sort of, almost together, you couldn’t have been any more obvious about it if you tried. Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“I don’t even know anymore,” Luke huffs out an elongated breath, the whole thing feeling like a waste of time, right about now. Keeping you hidden, abiding by your rules of saying nothing about whatever was going on between the two of you. What was the point in kissing you behind closed doors and rushing you back to your bedroom in the mornings if everybody knew, anyway? What could the two of you be, now, if you hadn’t held yourselves back? “I really fell for her, though. Hard. Like the worst hit I’ve ever taken in my life. And I fucked it all up by being stupid, and I said some pretty awful stuff about her that she overheard,” he winces, hating even looking back on that stupid conversation with Cole, not wanting to slip and indulge too much to his oldest brother about it through fear of valid judgement. “And it took her a while to let me back in, and she said that we’d only ever be friends, and obviously I want to be more, obviously I’m still in love with her, but she made it pretty clear we’d never cross that line again, and I can’t spend the rest of my life standing at the wrong end of a bridge I can’t cross, do you know what I mean?”

“No,” Quinn deadpans, “I’ve never heard anything so dumb in my life.”

“She kissed me, last night, Quinn,”

“Sounds horrific.”

“And I pushed her away,”

“Sounds idiotic.”

“You don’t get it,” Luke’s jaw tenses, glaring at his brother through the screen. “She only kissed me ‘cause she didn’t want me to kiss somebody else. She saw me with this girl she hates and I found her after, she was pretty upset.”

“Lukey boy,” Quinn chuckles, giving an amused, crooked smile on the other end of the call, “You’re so full of shit, the hot girl that you like kissed you, it’s hardly the end of the world.”

“Don’t be a dick, Q,” Luke scowls, trying to push past the flare of agitation that lights within him at his brother referring to you as the hot girl. Even he can see how hypocritical it is, but it’s instinct - he can’t exactly fight it.

“No, come on,” his older brother starts, straightening up where he’s seemingly reclining on the couch, a surefire sign that he’s about to give some sort of lecture. “You spend your whole summer obsessed with her, and God-knows how long before that, and you fuck up so monumentally that the girl doesn’t talk to you for like 6 weeks, and then by some miracle she lets you back in and you fuck it up again.”

“Jack said I should move on,” Luke huffs in response, some attempt at trying to rationalise how stupid he had been to push her away last night.

“Jack’s an idiot.”

“He said that she’s probably moving on, and he made out that it was all sort of one-sided, and you know how much him and Ellie talk, I figured it had to have come from somewhere-,”

“It came from him being an idiot,” He repeats, “And it must be contagious, because why would you not just talk to her instead of letting it all blow up like that?”

“I tried,” Luke whines, “We went to a game together last week, I asked her about dating and stuff,”

“And?”

Luke frowns as he tries to remember the crux of the conversation - you’d joked that you wouldn’t go to a hockey game on a date, that you hadn’t been going to games on dates, and it never really expanded further than that, his attempt too specific to the situation and not the wider issue.

“I guess she said she wasn’t, but I probably wasn’t asking the right question.” He admits, blinking slowly as he tries to come up with any other reason why he had acted so irrationally the night before.

“So let me get this straight,” Quinn’s voice brings him back a little, shoulders stiffening in preparation of the verbal lashing he’s no-doubt about to receive. “You two spend a whole week together, like every waking second in her company when she’s not in class or with her friends, she spends valentines and her birthday with you, she tells you that she isn’t dating anybody else, she gets so upset about seeing you with somebody else that you find her almost in tears, and you somehow ignore all of the evidence that she is, in fact, into you, only to push her away because Jack implied she might have moved on?”

Well that sounds fucking stupid, Luke thinks.

“But she-,”

“She what?” Quinn asks, raising an expectant brow. “She snuck you into her house all week, despite the fact we both know how strict those girls can be about having guys over? She spent every day doing things that were important to you, trying to learn about the things you like, hanging around your friends, coming to you when she was upset?”

“You don’t get it,” Luke huffs, regretting all the information he’d been sharing with his brother throughout the last week right about now - not realising the little parts would be pieced together and used against him like this. “She told me she only wanted to be friends, she told me multiple times, and she only ever wants more when she is upset, like I’m just there to comfort her, or something.”

It had been the same back in summer, initially - you only ever sought him out when you were agitated or emotional over something you wouldn’t talk to him about. You followed him up to his bathroom after seeing him with Victoria, you brought him upstairs to his room in the middle of a party after an argument with Jack - and he had been fine with it, at the time - encouraged it, even, trying to flare up your jealousy to prompt you to give in to him, taking whatever scraps of your affections you were willing to give - but this feels different.

He can’t keep carrying on like this.

“Don’t you want to comfort her?”

“Of course I fucking want to comfort her,” he scoffs, because it isn’t about that. He loves you, he’ll always want to comfort you if you’re hurting or upset, but he can’t keep himself on stand by to be available to your methods of avoiding your problems only for you to keep pushing him away, otherwise. “But, I don’t know, there has to be a line, you know?” He sighs, “I have to put a line there before I fall any further and she pulls the rug from under me when she does start dating. Like she just saw me speaking to some girl she doesn’t like, and then she said she doesn’t want to see me with anyone else, but she still wants to be friends! I told her that we both need to move on, I don’t even know why, I don’t even think I want her to.”

“You need to talk to her, man,” Quinn frowns, “You need to tell her that.”

“That’s what last night was-,”

“No, last night was impulse,” he sighs back, “It was you after a few drinks, and both of your emotions at a high, and you blew up at her out of nowhere. Sure, she probably shouldn’t have kissed you, but you’ve got to give her a chance for her to think about what she wants instead of just telling her she needs to move on because she didn’t give you the right answer in the moment, Luke.”

You weren’t there, Luke wants to say, you don’t understand.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe an outsider’s perspective - someone like Quinn, who is fair and reasonable, who doesn’t let his loyalty to or protectiveness over his little brother cloud his judgement, who always understood the depths of his relationship with you before Luke could ever admit it to anybody - sees more than Luke could, himself.

“Go over, before you head to the airport,” Quinn says, his tone suggestive, but classically authoritative, “You don’t wanna leave it like that, trust me.”

“Yeah,” Luke breathes, “Thanks, man, sorry for dumping all of this on you.”

“It’s fine,” Quinn smiles back, crooked and familiar, bringing the kind of comfort Luke finds himself craving, sometimes, when his other brother is being a dick. “I’d rather you come to me than Jack, he just ends up making a bigger mess that I have to clean.”

Luke gives some attempt at a laugh that doesn’t quite seem right with how heavy everything else feels, and lets his brother carry on with his own morning routine with no more whining from him.

He gets himself ready, loads his bag into the trunk, and makes sure everything is locked up and secure before setting off across town on a route he now knows like the back of his hand. He sits in the car, parked up across the street from your house, for 10 minutes - trying to think of how he can possibly clear everything up before he leaves - when he sees something that makes his breath catch.

You come out of the house, bundled in what looks like a bunch of layers and his sweatshirt on top, your backpack slung over your shoulder, and you’re smiling as you turn back to speak to someone following you out of the house. Even from as far away as Luke is, the sight of your smile calms something within him, but that calm quickly turns frigid as he takes notice of who is coming through the door behind you.

Ethan is wearing the same clothes as last night, his hair is shaggy and unkempt, and Luke recognises the kind of wry grin he’s flashing your way from back when the two of them lived together when he was in college. It’s the kind of smile that follows a phrase Luke can still hear in the back of his mind, as if it were last uttered to him yesterday, and not almost 2 years ago. I don’t kiss and tell.

And that swirl of panic comes back tenfold - fingers clenching against the wheel as he starts the car back up and drives off as quick as he can, not wanting to watch anymore of whatever scene that was between the two of you unfold.

If he hadn’t regretted last night before, he sure does, now - because he understands you more than ever - 8 familiar words ringing around his skull like a siren sound.

I don’t want to watch you move on, you had told him, pupils blown and lips swollen as you spoke, the surface of them still slick and pink from his bruising kiss. And being the idiot he is, he had encouraged you to do just that - had thought it would be what’s best for you both, what’s healthy and right.

But he doesn’t want to watch you move on, either.

And now it seems like he has no choice.

Trying to distract yourself from the fact that Luke is actively avoiding you is harder than you ever thought it would be.

You lived so much of your life before him that it really shouldn’t take a lot of effort to try and reignite some form of your old routine, but as the days pass by - and the conversation lulls, the texts dwindle into short responses, and the FaceTimes cease entirely - you think you might have forgotten what your world was ever like without him.

You throw yourself back into your school work for a couple weeks, but it doesn’t really work the same as it used to, and you find yourself thinking about your future too much - about your grades, about NYU, about all the plans that involved him and now don’t seem as certain as they once did. You get back into the groove with your sorority responsibilities, spend a lot more time with your sisters, helping to plan the activities and events like you did a lot more last year, but you find yourself checking Luke’s game schedule more often than you should, trying to make sure nothing clashes even though he probably doesn’t care by now and he no doubt has Yasmin to support him instead of you.

And then you try to do things for yourself. You get back into your routine at the gym, you pick up swimming again and even volunteer on your one day off a week to teach a few lessons at the rec centre, thankful for those few hours you spend with a bunch of kids who just want to splash around and dive for the random items you throw into the deep end for them.

You manage to find some semblance of balance, but he’s always in the back of your mind, and before you know it, weeks have passed - whatever spark you had left with Luke fading as they do - and the last text you have from him is from 5 days ago. You’d tried to lure him into a movie night, asking about his availability, and he’d said he would let you know. He never did. And that is what led you to tonight - going out to the movies instead of sitting on your bed and thinking Luke should be beside you, and you figured it was the safer option, going somewhere that you never went with him.

You even ran into Ethan while you were out - and where the initial sight of him might have previously made you a little nauseous just from the connection to Luke, the last few weeks have alleviated that, somewhat.

After Ethan had dropped you home that night of the party, you’d left your bedroom to find him hiding behind a corner at the top of the stairs while the rest of your sisters lingered around at the bottom. He had been wearing the same clothes from the night before, and was close enough to your friend Megan’s room to understand that he had spent the night there. And you know Megan well enough to know she probably kicked him out and left him to his own devices, too exhausted to try and sneak him out of the house, herself.

So you did the honours - you figure you’d gotten good at it with the amount of times you had snuck Luke in and out the week prior - and helped him navigate his way out without getting caught, leaving the house with him on your way to class. He’d offered to drive you as repayment, and you’d gladly accepted, and the two of you ended up speaking more often - finding comfort in the way you didn’t really have to hide from him, anymore. He’d seen a vulnerable part of you that you no longer had to cover up, and it had been nice to have someone else that you didn’t really have to pretend around.

The local IMAX was playing The Martian, one of your favourites - so what if it was something you watched with Luke all the way back in summer? And you’d just planned on watching the movie and going home, but bumping into Ethan had stretched out your plans a little.

You’d both been hungry after the movie, despite the copious amounts of popcorn you ate and the giant soda you drank, and he suggested grabbing burgers. And then the burger place he drove out to was right beside an arcade, and he’d wandered in there first, really - you just followed - but you don’t regret it.

You ended up having a lot of fun - the weightless kind, where Luke sort of slipped from the back of your mind. And it wasn’t even just Luke that slipped - it was the stress of school, of your finals coming up, of finding out your dad was going to be on vacation again when you were due to graduate, and you’d gotten into a fight with your mom about NYU and turning down the job you had lined up back in Chicago. It was all the things that you’d been bottling up now that you didn’t really have Luke to talk to, and forgetting them for even just one night was nice.

Ethan had dropped you home after the arcade, and left you at the side of the street in front of the sorority house with the stuffed animal you had won just for Ellie, because she’d seen the little duck in the back of the picture you sent to her of your whereabouts.

And you’re just about to knock on her door when it swings open - Ellie’s eyes red and her cheeks puffy with fresh tears, alarm and panic in her features that immediately elicited the same in your own.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, heart seeming to thud to a dramatic stop as you watch her lips tremble and she ushers you into her bedroom.

“It’s Jack,” Ellie sniffles, “He got hurt, it’s pretty bad.”

“Oh, El,” you reach out to take her into your embrace, rubbing at her back as sobs wrack straight through her spine. “What happened?”

“He took a hit and went straight into the boards, I can’t bring myself to watch the replay, they’re saying on twitter that he passed out, and I can’t get a hold of anybody. Could you watch it for me? Could you tell me if he looks alright?” You hadn’t even realised there was a game on tonight - too consumed in your plans and your determination to have a night off from thinking about Luke to even check.

“Oh, I don’t-,” You break away, trying to think of how best to get out of it. You’re really not the best with injuries, and if it’s bad enough for her to be this upset, you have a feeling it’s going to make you feel sick. “Maybe I should ask Ethan to come over and watch it for you, I-,”

“Please?” She pleads, eyes round and welling with tears, a surefire way to get you to agree. “I just need someone to be honest with me.”

“Yeah,” You resign, holding out your hand for Ellie to give you her phone, seeing the video is already loaded once she’s unlocked it. “Yeah, alright.”

Ellie turns away with her hands covering her ears as you press play, and you watch as Jack skates toward the net, readying himself for the puck to be played towards him, not expecting the way he’s being approached from behind all of a sudden, and can’t bring himself to a stop before he’s colliding straight into the boards, the opposition player bumping straight into the back of him.

You try not to wince at the impact, at the way Jack’s body goes limp and he has to be turned over by the other player. You try to focus on the positives before you assemble your thoughts - he gets up, he can skate on his own, he isn’t bleeding anywhere - but it’s hard when you know him.

It’s hard when, as much as you and Jack don’t really get along, you’re similar in more ways than you’d like to admit, and you know that seeing him express even the slightest bit of pain must mean he’s in absolute agony.

She said that she wants honesty, but you know Ellie - she doesn’t want to worry, you don’t want her to worry, not until she knows all the facts.

“He’s up, he’s skating off,” you tell her, glancing up and offering what you hope is a comforting smile, a slight twist of your lips that does little, probably, to hide your own concern. “I don’t think it’s the same shoulder he hurt last year.” You remember how much she stressed about that at the time - about his surgery, and the aftermath, and you’d been living with him back at the beginning of summer, enough to know which side he previously had in a sling, or which side he avoided doing much activity with in the earlier weeks. “It doesn’t look great, but at least he can take himself off the ice, right?”

Even from clips of the incident, you can tell how much it worries the people around him - players on the ice, fans in the stands, and you wonder for a second about Luke, about how it must feel to watch from the bench and have to carry on without knowing what’s happening.

And now you’re worried about him.

You hand Ellie’s phone back over, watching as she chews nervously at the inside of her cheek, spinning the device in her hand and fidgeting erratically.

“I’ll wait with you until we hear something,” you promise, placing a hand gently on her lap to try and stop her knee from bouncing. You hand the stuffed animal you’re still holding out to her, and she takes it with a limp smile that comes nowhere close to reaching her eyes. “I’ll get you a drink, do you want something warm to calm you down? I can make you a sleepy tea, if you want?”

Ellie nods, eyes glistening as she maintains that weak effort of a smile, and you smile back, an attempt at reassurance before you hand her phone back and head downstairs to the kitchen. You’re thankful it’s empty when you finally walk in, able to wait around while the water boils and try to calm yourself down.

You know it’s selfish as soon as you start to think it - your best friend in pieces upstairs about her boyfriend being hurt - but all that flashes through your mind is Luke. That could have been Luke. How would you feel if Luke was hurt? How do you feel that he’s potentially, probably hurting now, even thought it isn’t him? How are you supposed to help him through this from so far away, with everything going on, afraid to even text him first, anymore? Would he even want you to?

Your cellphone burns a hole in your back pocket, the urge to reach out is practically making your fingers itch, and you cast a glance to the clock that flashes on the little screen on the range. He’s probably back in his hotel, by now. Or he’s with Jack and the medical team.

You could call him. Just so you’ve at least tried. Just so he knows you’re there if he needs you, and that the last few weeks of minimal contact mean nothing if there’s any potential of something happening to him.

Sitting around and dwelling on the fact that he hasn’t tried to call you is pathetic, you think. It’s self-centred and petty, and you need to be better than that. He deserves better than that.

So, as Ellie’s tea is brewing, you reach into your pocket, swipe at your phone with muscle memory and bring it up to your ear, waiting for the beep of his voicemail so that you can leave some sort of message, even if he probably won’t listen.

“Hey,” his voice cuts at your spiralling thoughts, low and tired, more like a sigh than anything else, and your body straightens against the counter as you rush to respond.

“Hi,” you say, a weird flutter in your chest at the mere sound of his voice after so long. “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

He doesn’t reply other than a little huff, and you’re sort of thankful for it - if he doesn’t reply, he can’t say something you don’t want to hear, like how he doesn’t want to hear from you.

“I just got back to the house and Ellie told me about Jack, I wanted to check on you.”

“Pretty late to be just getting back,” he murmurs, and you hear a little shuffling, like he’s moving around, before you hear the soft clasp of a door in the background. “You overstay your welcome at the library again?”

“No,” you breathe out a little laugh, leaning against the counter as you watch steam rise from the mug of tea sat on top. “I finally followed your advice, actually,” you tell him in the hopes that hearing that might perk him up just a little. “Ditched the books for a day, did a whole lot of not studying.”

For as long as you’ve been stressing about school, Luke has been trying to guide you towards some sort of balance - giving yourself a little grace to actually have a breather - and maybe your main stressor hadn’t been studying, this time, but he doesn’t need to hear that, right now.

“Oh, really?” You can hear his smile through the phone, small but sure, and the sound of it eases a little of the anxiety swelling in the pits of your stomach. “You get up to anything cool?”

“Yeah, actually,” you stir at Ellie’s tea absentmindedly, hoping you’re offering some sort of distraction. “They were playing The Martian at the IMAX, I got all up close and personal with Matt Damon and his shitty potatoes.”

“Sounds like you had fun,” he snorts, and you’d like to think you can hear the soft semblance of a smile, even if his heart isn’t entirely in it.

“It was great, we went to go get burgers and play pinball after, which is why I’m so late home.” You sigh, only just starting to feel the exhaustion from it, hoping this sleepy tea does its wonders on Ellie so that you can both go to bed pretty quick. “I feel like I haven’t done anything fun like that all year.”

“Who’d you go with?”

“Just Ethan,” you scoop the teabag from the water and dispose of it, frowning as you realised you’ve somehow made this whole call about yourself, guilt seeping into your subconscious. “But enough about me, how’s everything with you? How’s Jack? Ellie said she hasn’t been able to reach him, which is why I thought you wouldn’t pick up.”

“Uh, they think they’re gonna send him back to Jersey,” Luke laments, “He’s gonna miss the game in Dallas, he’s convinced his season is over, so he’s pretty down right now. I think he’s about to give El a call and tell her.”

“What about you?” You bite your lip, hoping Ellie is occupied upstairs and you can stay on with Luke a little longer. This feels less charged than the last few times you’ve spoken - easier, despite the heavy topic - and you just want him to know that this sort of stuff is still on the cards. At least, you hope it is. “Can’t have been easy, watching him go down like that.”

“I’m fine.” The way he says it is short, obviously a lie, and you try to tell yourself not to take it personally. Luke never usually lies to you. Sometimes he doesn’t really talk about stuff, but he’s never hidden his feelings from you. But this isn’t the kind of thing the two of you have really had to navigate, before. Maybe it’s even the kind of thing he doesn’t want to navigate with you - maybe it’s something friends don’t navigate together.

“You know you can talk to me if you’re not,” you assure him, in the hopes that he won’t shut you out. “I told Ellie I’d stay with her for a bit, but I can always call you after, even if you don’t want to talk, it’s been a while, I-,”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, even shorter this time, his tone clipped, and the silence that follows feels like it goes on forever.

“Okay,” You croak after a moment, hesitance creeping up on you, again, all joviality from the previous conversation drained.

“I gotta go,”

“Luke, I-,” you don’t even know what you want to say, but there’s this voice inside that’s screaming to say something. To put up some sort of fight, to make sure he knows you want to be there for him. But this sudden reluctance is all consuming. It’s debilitating, even, and it overpowers that meek, unsure voice in a booming, unavoidable roar, that tells you he doesn’t want your help. He wants to move on, and you’re not letting him. And so all you can bring yourself to say, again, is “Okay,” like a whispered resignation.

He mutters out some form of goodbye before he hangs, up, and you find yourself staring at the billowing steam rising from the mug of sleepy tea until a hand on your shoulder shakes you from your reverie.

“Was starting to think you’d knocked yourself out with this stuff,” Ellie huffs out a weak laugh as she steps up to the counter beside you, taking the mug by the handle and bringing it to her lips. You watch as she takes a sip, as the line of frustration between her brows smooths itself out, and her shoulders slump a little, relaxed and soothed. “Just spoke to Jack, he’s flying out to Jersey in the morning for further evaluation, said he’ll update me after.”

“Oh,” you shake yourself out of your own head, feigning ignorance as you cross your arms over your chest. You can’t tell her about your call with Luke, partly because you don’t know what Jack has told her to try and ease her worries, and partly because talking about Luke with Ellie fills you with unyielding dread every time, and it’s the last thing you need. “Does he have any idea what’s wrong?”

“Won’t know until tomorrow,” she sighs, “He thinks he’s gonna need surgery, though.”

“Shit,” you mutter.

“I think if that’s the case, I might ditch spring break and go spend it with him. Help him out while I can, you know?”

You nod, pressing your lips together. The two of you were booked on a trip to Cabo, your last spring break together as seniors, and a few of your sisters were going, too, so you won’t be on your own if she does have to ditch you. You can’t hold any resentment about it.

You’d do the same, if it happened to Luke, you think. Not that he probably would want you to, anymore.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s right about boundaries, and blurred lines. Maybe you’re taking things too far.

“Of course,” you try to offer comfort, a reassuring smile that doesn’t feel as authentic as you’d like and a gentle pat to her shoulder, hoping you don’t reek of condescension.

Ellie chews at the corner of her bottom lip, like she wants to say something else, but nods, instead, diverting her gaze as she sips at her tea. “I’m here for you too, you know,” she says, after a few seconds, eyes peering up carefully to meet yours. “If you need me.”

“I’m not the one with the broken boyfriend,” you chuckle softly, thankful for the smile she gives back, a little of the tension eased from your shoulders.

The fact that you’re the one with the breaking bond goes unspoken, but you can tell Ellie is thinking it - it’s why she offered, in the first place, more perceptive of your situation with Luke than you probably give her credit for.

But you don’t want her pity - you don’t deserve it. You made your own bed with Luke, and all you can really do now is lie in it. He doesn’t want you anymore - not in the same capacity he used to, not like summer, whenever he cast a heated glance your way, and you’d feel it all the way through to your bones. You don’t think you’ll ever go back to that, it’s too late to get that back. You need to give him the space he so clearly desires, and maybe the two of you can find your way back to something resembling the friendship you had before you monumentally fucked it all up.

And maybe Ellie can give you the perfect distraction to do just that - focusing on fixing your relationship with her instead of investing all your efforts on a guy that no longer wants you back.

Luke knows it’s a selfish thing to say, but Jack’s injury has been hard on him.

For the second year in a row, his brother has had to end his season early, at the most crucial, cut-throat point as the team battle to make it to the playoffs, and Luke has had to shoulder a lot of the aftermath on his own.

There’s media, who are constantly asking him about it, waiting to trip him up, make him share something he’s not supposed to, or say something he doesn’t want to, and every time there’s a camera or a microphone shoved into his face, he dreads the social media discourse that follows.

There’s commentators and people in the league themselves, providing a constant reminder that the Devils are at some sort of disadvantage, and have to work twice as hard to make up for everyone that’s slowly succumbing to the brutality of the sport as they finally near the peak.

There’s coming home to an empty apartment while Jack’s away getting his surgery, and trying not to worry or overthink what he’s going through.

And then there’s Jack himself, when he returns - a grouchy, bitter mess of a person who can’t see the wood for the trees, can’t focus on anything other than where he’s stuck, watching his team persist in his absence and wishing more than anything in the world he can take someone’s place - that the misfortunes that keep finding him lose track, just once - even though he would never want anyone else to hurt like that.

And trying to juggle accommodating his brother's situation with his own is rough. Back to back losses following Jack’s departure, increased pressure on Luke as he takes on more responsibility within the team, and if you throw all of that in with the loss of his own coping mechanisms, Luke has found himself in a rut.

He isn’t sleeping the best, and he’s distanced from everyone - too in his head about seeing you and Ethan together to reach out to either one of you where he usually would - and he’s losing himself as the weeks blur by, and it isn’t until Jack mentions that Ellie is around that he lets himself think about you - about everything that happened in his bye-week, about how he’s been a pretty shitty friend to you, since.

“It’s spring break,” Jack says as Luke comes home to find him up and dressed for what seems like the first time since he got back from his surgery - struggling to shrug into a jacket while he only really has use of one arm. “She came out to spend it with me, gonna go over to her rental and watch a movie, you’re coming too.”

“Dude, I’m exhausted,” Luke huffs, throwing his keys into the bowl by the door as he watches his brother glare back at him, “I just want to go to bed, you don’t need me around when you’re hanging out with your girlfriend, I really don’t want to be seeing all that.”

“Lucky for you, there’s nothing to see,” Jack scowls back, “Ellie brought hell-spawn over with her, that’s why she isn’t staying here. Need you to work your magic as you seem to be the only one of us she can tolerate and I’m not in the mood for her bullshit.”

You’re in Jersey?

“I thought they were going to Cabo?” Luke frowns, too in his head about the fact that you’re in Jersey without telling him that he doesn’t call Jack out on how stupid he sounds, stopping in place as he watches his brother shrug in response.

“Ellie wanted to come out and see me, I guess she followed.”

And before Luke knows it, he’s driving the two of them over to the condo the two of you have rented for the week, and Ellie is answering the door with a giant grin on her face, cooing at Jack as she ushers them inside.

He’s looking around like a madman until she tells him you’re in the kitchen, and that you’re gonna need some help getting the snacks and drinks together - and despite it only being a few feet away, Luke feels breathless as he barges through the door, like he can’t calm down until he sees you in person.

Your back is to him when he enters, but the commotion he makes is enough to draw your attention, and your eyes are wide when they land on him, and not in the way that he usually likes.

Something about this whole situation makes him uneasy - the weeks of minimal contact, the lack of closure, the way you’re looking at him like you don’t know what to say.

You’ve never not known what to say, not when it comes to him.

“Hi,” he offers, because it’s the easiest thing for you to respond to, and the rest of the problems between the two of you are his own fault, so he may as well be the one to start to fix them.

“Hey,” you give back, the microwave pinging behind you, and you turn back to retrieve the bags from in there before you transfer them to the side. “I didn’t realise you were coming.”

“I didn’t realise you’d be in town,” he frowns, “Last you told me you guys were going to Mexico, your big senior spring break trip.”

That had been last month, and he has been a little distant since he left Michigan, but if you’re around, he would want to know about it. He can’t fathom why you’d be in the same city and not even tell him that you’re around.

He also can’t fathom why you’d give up something you’ve been looking forward to all year.

“Yeah, well, Ellie wanted to be here for Jack,” you shrug, busying yourself by emptying the popcorn out of the bag and into a few bigger bowls. He can’t remember ever having a conversation where you didn’t give him your full attention, and he feels a little nervous as he watches you focus on anything but him. “And I want to be here for Ellie, she shouldn’t have to miss out on her last spring break.”

“You couldn’t have told me?”

“Thought you’d be busy,” you reply, still not looking his way, “You’ve been busy most times I’ve tried to reach out the past few weeks.”

He wants to tell you that’s different, but it isn’t. He’s been avoiding you, and it’s obvious to the both of you that he’s been using the distance as the perfect excuse. He technically has been busy, but it’s no more than he was before that night in Michigan, and he managed to make time for you then. Sure, he’s been on the road, and there’s been a string of some pretty shitty games, but he’d had the same in January, too, and the two of you still kept up texting, at least.

“I mean, I’m playing like every other day this week,” he pouts, “But I’d still want to see you.”

He watches as your brows knit together, your movements coming to a halt as you stand in front of the counter, still not sparing him a glance. You pull your bottom lip between your teeth as you contemplate a response, and he wants to give you the time to think of one - doesn’t want to rush you again into saying something you don’t entirely mean.

He might have ignored Quinn’s instruction to clear up this entire mess before he left Michigan, but the rest of that conversation has still been weighing on his mind - about how he had been impulsive, and unfair, and he hadn’t considered all the ways you showed him things, without necessarily telling him.

“There is this art installation I wanted to visit,” you tell him, hesitantly meeting his eye, “We could go together, if you’re free at all?”

“As friends?” He asks, because he can’t help himself, watching as your eyebrows raise a little, like you’ve just been hit by an unexpected impact.

“Yeah,” you nod, although you don’t look entirely sure. “As friends.”

And he hates how he can’t even withhold the disappointed sigh he gives, your own shoulders slumping as you notice the reaction, and you retreat a little into your previous distance, eyes darting down until he can no longer see your irises.

“Maybe we should do something else,” he mutters, trying to push down the immediate need to backtrack when you don’t even respond, “You could come to a game, or something? An installation sounds cool and all, but that’s the kind of thing you do on a date, and we’re supposed to be moving on, right?”

“Are you?” You ask, peering up at him, again, “Moving on?”

He nods before he even realises he’s doing it, but it’s too late to stop before you notice, and all he can think about is the day he came back to Jersey, when he’d seen you leave your house with Ethan. All he can think about is losing you, and for some stupid reason, he thinks this is the only way to stop that. “I’m trying,” he shrugs, like he isn’t actively saying the most insanely stupid lie he’s ever told, “It’s what we said we’d do.” And he only says that to make himself feel better, he thinks - that you were only ever following the rules that he laid out for you, because it helps him to be delusional like that.

“Oh, okay,” you breathe, stepping back with a pained attempt at a smile and dodging his gaze, again, even quieter in your acceptance of his rejection, and it sort of makes him panic. “Yeah, it was stupid, this was stupid, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he frowns, the way he so quickly needs to correct you when you try to shrug him off coming by instinct, now. And he doesn’t like where this is going, now - misses the way you used to just roll your eyes and call him an idiot when he’d act like this, choosing the wrong path at every turn. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you call yourself stupid, and he has to try to reassure you. “It’s not stupid, it’s cool, it sounds like it would be fun, it’s just-,”

“Not together,” you bite back, “I get it.”

He sighs out your name, regretful and apologetic, “That’s not-,”

“Are you guys almost done in here?” Ellie huffs as she shoulders her way into the kitchen, features curled into a soft scowl as she stomps toward the counter, and Luke bites down on his tongue, fighting the sudden urge to tell her to go away. Her and his brother both have the single worst timing he’s ever known in his life. “Jack won’t shut up about how hungry he is."

“Yeah, sorry,” you mutter, “We’re ready.”

And Luke steps back to let the two of you carry some drinks and snacks through to the living room, holding the door open for the two of you and trying to meet your eye as you slip past, his chest aching all over when you don’t. He grabs whatever’s left and follows the two of you out, watching as you sink down into one of the smaller loveseats,

Jack and Ellie are taking up most of the couch, so he walks straight over to the seat opposite yours, an entire coffee table separating the two of you where you’d usually sit together, and he tries not to think about the last time you watched a movie - your birthday, when you’d been squished up against his side in your bed, the Wall-E plush he got you smushed between you as you watched the film, itself.

The last time things had felt easy - the last time any of it had felt right.

And then he’d gone and ruined it.

Jack tees up Good Will Hunting, huffing and puffing when the remote isn’t working like he wants it to but refusing to accept anyone’s help on the matter, and Luke busies himself with his phone while it starts, trying to sort some tickets for his next game so he doesn’t let you down on that front, either, and every time he peers over at you, he thinks the tension grows, somehow, your jaw set and your eyes focusing only on the screen.

He dips in and out of the movie, waiting for an update so that he can hopefully set about bridging the gap between the two of you tonight, and he only tunes back in at random intervals.

He’s seen it before, it’s one of his favourites, and he probably could quote it back to front without assistance, but certain parts have a new meaning when he really hears them, this time.

Especially when it comes to a certain monologue, the comforting voice of Robin Williams ringing throughout the room as his character sits beside Will in the park, watching the swans and realising just how short Will’s perspective on life is.

“If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favourites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.”

He tries not to glance your way, his jaw tight as he blinks slow, recollections of waking up by your side flashing in his mind like something out of a dream. A blissful peace he hasn’t quite experienced elsewhere, his eyes flitting around your features as you slept, trying to study every inch of your face to commit it to his memory, never knowing if each time he got to experience it that it might be the last.

“I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.”

He thinks of all those times he sought you out for his own personal comfort - after back to back games that drained every ounce of his energy, long stretches away from the comfort of his own bed, the constant comparisons to his brothers, and how he’d always come up short - but he was always first, to you.

Even when the two of you were caught up in the in-between, whatever you were before - friends, or something more - he always felt like a priority to you. Always wanted you to feel like a priority to him.

“And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever, through anything.”

The night of your birthday, the light in your eyes when he gave you those gifts, the soft but beautiful curve of your lips as you told him he was your best friend. The way you were worried he’d get tired of you, and he had promised that he wouldn’t.

“You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.”

He hopes with everything in him that this isn’t the same - that he isn’t losing you. That his own immaturity and impatience hasn’t ruined the best thing he ever had in his life.

Because he does love you. He’s loved you for a long time, now.

Since the night of his cousin’s wedding, he thinks, when you’d opened up to him for the first time. Back when you laid in his arms in the dead of the night, your head on his chest and his arms around your body, and it finally felt like you were equals. Like he could stop chasing you, like you’d stop running.

He’s never felt the way he feels with you about anybody else. He doesn’t want to, doesn’t think he possibly could.

He doesn’t know why he ever made out like he could move on.

But he’s too familiar with saying things he regrets, now. It just keeps happening. Mouthing off to Cole back in summer, agreeing to be just friends in the fall, telling you that he can’t wait around for you at the end of winter, that he’s trying to move on.

Quinn was right, that morning when he called - he keeps doing stupid stuff out of impulse. Keeps letting his emotions get the better of him, and not giving you a chance to figure things out for yourself.

When he finds the courage to glance your way again, he just about catches you before you look away - a blink and you’ll miss it moment where he’s not even sure if he imagined it, but he keeps trying for the rest of the movie, a lot more focused on the ending than he previously was on his phone.

He thinks when it ends, and the credits start to roll, he’ll be able to find a way to ease the tension - to get you alone and talk it out, but his stupid brother opens his stupid mouth, and things escalate before he can even make sense of what’s happening.

“Stuff like that just doesn’t happen in real life,” Jack huffs, giving his thoughts on how Will chose to leave and go after Skylar, despite their mess of a relationship and how much he hurt her before, “These big love confessions, this whole corny, I gotta see about a girl, thing, why wouldn’t he just be honest about his feelings in the first place instead of trying to sabotage himself? Would save them a lot of trouble.”

You scoff from your own corner of the couch, and Luke’s eyes dart over just in time to catch the distinct roll of your eyes, barely even sparing a glance to Jack as you say, “That’s rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack winces as he straightens up, Ellie frowning from under his good arm as she follows suit, and Luke feels his own shoulders stiffen in anticipation of an argument - Jack’s been riled up to have one since he got injured, and you’re walking straight into a trap without knowing it.

But you can handle yourself, he thinks, especially when it comes to Jack.

Only something in you deflates when he looks again, the usual tenacity dissolving right before his eyes, and he watches as your gaze softens, flicking between the couple at the opposite end of the couch. “Forget it, doesn’t matter,” you mutter, your jaw set and your attention diverted back to the screen as the credits roll.

“That’s what I thought,” Jack grumbles back, accepting the swat Ellie gives to his good side to tell him to reign it in.

Luke doesn’t know why he stays silent, the urge to speak up for you is so strong it’s making his fingers twitch, but you sink into your place against the arm of the seat and fold your arms over yourself, like you’re giving up entirely.

“I was just saying, he’s a smartass, he’s hard work and she isn’t cut out for it, it shouldn’t be such a struggle to get somebody to open up, their relationship probably wouldn’t last a month once the movie’s over, if she even lets him back in when he goes to California, that is.”

Luke can see as clear as anything that Jack’s only using the film to vent his own frustrations - that he’s angry, and he’s exhausted, and he’s upset at everybody and everything - but he only understands that because it’s his brother. Because he’s known him his whole life. Because he gets where he’s coming from as a player - and Luke thinks he would be the same, if his season came to an abrupt end when he was on such a high, and all he’d known for the past month was loss and pain. He’d be angry, he’d snap at people, try to get them to hurt just a little bit so that it means he’s not alone. And it’s shitty, but he gets it - if his words were spoken to hurt Luke, he’d probably just shoulder the blow.

But they aren’t.

They’re meant to hurt you.

And when Luke looks over, and you’re staring at the wall with a distant, glassy look in your eyes, your lips twisted to stop them trembling, and your arms wrapped around yourself so tight that your shoulders are all hunched up, he can’t really bite his tongue anymore.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” he spits, eyes narrowing as they focus in on his brother, “You’re hard work, and you’re lucky Ellie isn’t running for the hills,”

“Whoa,” Jack frowns back, lips pouting as he diverts his attention across the room, “Chill out, man, it’s just a movie, I’m just saying my thoughts on it.”

“No one asked for your thoughts on it,” Luke scowls, “You’re being a dick for no reason, you don’t always have to spout your opinion on every little thing like it’s fact and shut down anyone who tries to argue with it.”

He expects to have caught your attention, seeing you move out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t expect for you to push yourself up and leave the room entirely, your feet padding softly against the carpet until the sound of them disappears completely, and the door to the kitchen swings closed behind you.

“Clearly touched a nerve,” Jack mumbles, and even Ellie pushes herself off of him, rolling her eyes until she storms off after you.

Luke almost wishes she hadn’t - wishes that he could be the one to go and comfort you, but after your conversation in the kitchen, before, he’s not sure if that’s what you would want.

And he knows it’s his fault for this wedge that’s between the two of you, after pushing you away and telling you to move on and getting all in his feelings about you potentially doing so, leaving Michigan before the two of you could actually talk about it and neglecting to patch up the now gaping hole in your relationship - but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

He doesn’t know how he can sit around and pretend like everything’s fine.

“You really can be an asshole, you know,” Luke snaps at his brother, using the situation as a cover for the way he wants someone to tell him the same - wants you to say it, for you to tell him that he’s dumb, and an idiot, and that he’s hurting you. He doesn’t want you avoiding eye contact and sitting on the other side of the room and coming to Jersey without even telling him.

“It’s not that deep, Luke-,”

“Seriously?” He scoffs, standing from his own seat and glaring down at Jack, his good arm sprawled across the back of the couch like he’s trying his best to make himself bigger, like Luke can’t see straight through the facade. “I get that you’re having a shitty time of it right now, but you don’t have to take it out on everybody else. You asked me to come with you to try and keep things from blowing up, but all you do is make digs at her for no good reason. I don’t get why you can’t just be nice.”

“I asked you to come with me because I thought you two were friends,” Jack lowers his voice, mindful of the fact that there’s only a wall that separates you and Ellie from the two of them, and he’s obviously on the verge of being in his girlfriend’s bad books after his behaviour. “She was annoyed about something before we even started the movie, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what when she won’t even look your way, Luke. I’m sick of you blaming me for her pissy attitude and not just having it out with her.”

God, he wishes Jack would just butt out of his business, for once.

Why can’t there be a middle ground between his unrelenting cynicism and Quinn’s blind hope?

If there was just one distinct voice for him to listen to, one clear instruction for him to follow, then he’d be able to make sense of everything swirling around his brain.

He thinks that voice would probably be yours, and he’s going to fall apart if you keep it from him much longer.

“I think you two should go,” Ellie’s voice carries softly over from where she’s come back out of the kitchen, “You have that appointment in the morning, Jack, and you have a game tomorrow,” her eyes are cautious as she casts her gaze toward Luke, raising a brow as if pleading for his help in getting his brother out of the way.

“Yeah,” he mutters, cursing himself for not being the one to go straight after you, instead.

Jack doesn’t put up much of a fight other than his usual huffing and puffing as Ellie helps him into his coat, and Luke gives the two of them a second to say their goodbyes as he stands to the side, keeping an eye on the door you’re yet to reappear through. He wants to give you space - knows that he shouldn’t follow you in there to corner you again, but if you peek your head out, maybe he’ll feel a little less anxious. Maybe then there’s hope.

“Could you let her know I got her a ticket for the game tomorrow?” He asks Ellie before he leaves, “I can get you one, too, a couple of the guys from Michigan are gonna be there, I’d love it if she came.”

“I’ll let her know, Luke,” Ellie’s smile is apologetic, but it just makes him feel worse, and he drives him and Jack back to their apartment in the most uncomfortable silence of his life, his jaw set so hard it aches when he’s home, and he storms straight to his room with a dramatic slam of his door.

He opens up your text thread as he lays awake for what feels like an hour, staring at the keyboard and willing some sort of explanation to come to his head as to why he’s such an idiot.

And that’s how he ends up falling asleep, phone still clutched on his hand, and no further clarification on what the hell is going to happen with the two of you.

When Ellie had told you last night about Luke’s invitation to his game, it had felt like a no brainer at the time that you’d skip this one out.

You don’t really know how many more knock backs you can take from him after telling him about the installation - an exhibit you’d seen online months ago, that would only be in town for a limited time following its success in Europe, and Luke had been the only person in mind you’d have ever wanted to go with.

But he doesn’t want to go with you.

He wants you at a safe distance, with distinct boundaries, and while you’re grateful for his attempt to try and lessen the blow of his rejection, you think foregoing the game entirely is the safest distance you could possibly wedge between the two of you.

As friends? He’d asked, almost immediately, like he was rubbing your face in it - like the mere thought of you wanting to go as anything more wasn’t even worth entertaining, anymore. And agreeing had been your last attempt to save face, because the last thing you were gonna do was put your heart on the line with his dickhead brother only one room away. You’re not that much of an idiot.

Plus, Ellie has taken your place - and she said some of the guys from college would be there, anyway. He probably won’t even notice you’re not there, just like how he’s managed to pretty much ignore your existence since he left Michigan.

And you can enjoy your first night of peace during your spring break, the others so far consumed by Ellie - not that you mind, all that much, it’s been kind of nice for the two of you to be away from everything, even though you’re within dangerous proximity to her demon boyfriend.

The rental she found is nice, too - the kind of place you could see yourself living in when you move over this way - spacious but cozy, with a giant TV that you can’t wait to watch your heart-shredding movie marathon on.

You set the space up as soon as Ellie left for the game, blankets thrown onto the couch, an array of snacks on the table, My Best Friend’s Wedding on the screen, and you’re about to settle in when there’s a harsh knock at the door, shattering your illusion of peace in an instant.

You grumble the whole way to the door, making sure the chain is on before you open it - all too aware you’re on your own in a city you aren’t entirely familiar with, and it would be just your luck to be murdered, probably.

But when you open the door, you almost wish it was a masked killer.

Jack Hughes stands on the porch, eyes narrowing as you peer at him through the crack in the door, his hip popped impatiently and foot tapping against the floor.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Are you gonna let me in?” he asks, raising a brow as he huffs out an irritable sigh, “Considering I’m paying for the place, I really shouldn’t have to ask.”

You frown as you move, unlatching the door and giving him enough room to pass you without the risk of bumping your shoulder and agitating his. “I didn’t know that,” you mumble, annoyed even more so now that Ellie had chosen not to tell you that. You suppose it’s your own fault for not asking, but she of all people knows how you are about others paying your way. “That you were paying, I’ll pay you back if it’s a problem.”

“It isn’t.” He rolls his eyes as he stands in the room you thought was actually nice before he arrived, and now you sort of hate it.

“Alright, well you didn’t answer my question,” you glare, “Why are you here?”

“I’m supposed to be checking up on you,” he says, rounding the couch before he throws himself down onto it, kicking off his shoes before he swings his legs up. “Usually when I have a headache so bad I can’t leave the house, watching the TV is the last thing I’d be doing.”

“Yeah, well, some of us are built different,” you scowl, “I’m fine, you can go ahead and crawl back to whatever pit you came from, I’ll let Ellie know you fulfilled your supportive boyfriend duties for the month.”

“Can’t actually,” he shrugs his good shoulder, reaching forward and grabbing the remote from where you left it. “Game’s starting in ten minutes, I won’t make it back to my place in time so you’re stuck with me for the next few hours.”

“Great.”

“Plus, Ellie didn’t send me, Luke did.”

You don’t exactly know how to feel about that. Jack couldn’t be more obvious in his distain for you, and you couldn’t have made it any clearer that you aren’t his biggest fan either, so why Luke would send him of all people instead of just texting you and asking if you’re alright, you don’t know. Especially after the movie last night - Jack is the last person on Earth you would want checking up on you.

“Sorry he wasted your time, then,” you sigh, “I’m gonna go to bed.”

“We both know you don’t have a headache,” Jack calls over his shoulder, “So you can give up the act. You’d really leave a guy in a sling on his own for hours? What if I need a drink?”

“That’s what your good arm’s for,” you smile, sardonically, a quick flash of sarcasm that drops as soon as Jack rolls his eyes, “So lucky that you have two.”

“Please?” He asks, uncharacteristically, the sudden shock of him actually being polite instead of demanding causing you to still, “I don’t like watching the games on my own, it makes me all tense, which makes everything hurt a whole lot more.”

And the sudden vulnerability from him seems to hypnotise you, huffing out a petulant fine and sitting as far away from him on the couch as you possibly can.

You’re leaning against one arm, and he’s leaning against the other, and the two of you sit through the build up and the first ten minutes in complete silence until he notices that you’re actually watching, unable to help himself from being a dick, apparently, and asking, “Do you even know what’s going on?”

“No, I just watch for the hot guys,” you scoff, “Thank god you’re not there to lower the average anymore.”

The genuine laugh he snorts out in response in unexpected, and you side eye him until you can feel his attention is completely diverted, the two of you settling back into the quiet until a play towards the end of the first period stuns the two of you.

Luke has the puck, and he’s going so fast you can barely focus, gliding in between the opposition seamlessly until he’s advancing on the net, and just as he’s about to shoot, a much bigger body slams into him, knocking him back until he collides with the boards and crumples over, and a sickening sense of deja vu creeps up on you so quick it makes you dizzy.

You watch the aftermath wide eyed, the whole thing blurring together as Luke takes himself off the ice, and disappears down the tunnel.

The game carries on, but you can’t move - you don’t even think you’ve blinked in a minute - and your mouth is still gaped open like an idiot, the inside of it drying so much that you feel it all the way down your throat.

“He’ll be alright,” you hear from the side of you, a hesitant, reassuring tone that you don’t think you’ve heard come from Jack, before. You turn your head to meet his eye, and his body is fully angled towards you, his gaze scrutinising and intense. “It’s just a knock, he’ll be back on after the intermission probably.”

“Reassuring coming from the guy who just had to have surgery after a knock.” You can’t help but snap back, little bite in your own inflection, but you ache from the tip of your tongue all the way down to your stomach. It didn’t look like just a knock - you’ve seen Luke take knocks before and never have to go off for medical attention - it looked way worse. And all they’re gonna do for the next 15 minutes is replay it over and over.

You feel sick.

“Lukey’s made of harder stuff,” Jack responds, the same relaxed lull to his voice. “That’s what my dad’s always said, anyway. Quinn would tell you the same, there’s something about him that always just bounces straight back, pisses me off a little sometimes, if I’m honest.”

You should probably know that better than anyone - for all the times you’ve pushed him away. But you’re starting to lose faith in that fact, a little.

“I just don’t want him to be hurt.” You mutter, trying to swallow past the stinging at the back of your throat, gulp down the growing insecurity that maybe you’ve made him weaker, maybe, somehow, this too is your fault.

“My phone’ll probably go off during the break” Jack sits up a little straighter, gesturing out to his cell that sits on the coffee table in front of the couch. “They’ll text me as soon as they’re done taking a look at him. I promise they’d know by now already if it was anything serious. I’d have gotten a call, our medical team are seriously good, they can tell stuff like that in an instant.”

It might be the fact that you’re relying on Jack Hughes of all people for reassurance that forces the tears to start welling in your eyes, your view of him blurring a little - or maybe the fact that he’s actually wilfully giving the reassurance, but either way, you don’t really want him to see you cry.

You sit in an uncomfortable silence as you watch the rest of the period, fidgeting in your place on the couch and picking painfully at the skin beside your fingernails, and it’s only when the last few seconds tick down that you can see Jack shuffle himself in your peripheral, turning until he’s properly facing you again.

“You really care about him, huh?”

You try to blink away the remaining threat of tears before you turn, yourself, meeting Jack’s eye across the couch and trying to muster up some sort of strength to shrug off this awful feeling that you can’t shake. “I’m not the heartless bitch you think I am, Jack,” you denounce, “Of course I care about him.”

He narrows his eyes in a glare, and you can tell he’s biting his tongue, careful not to goad you into some disastrous argument that neither of you really want. Last night had no doubt scratched his itch to lash out at somebody, and you don’t really think you’ll manage a round two.

The two of you stay locked in a heated, silent exchange for a few extended seconds, his jaw tense and your teeth chewing at the corner of your mouth in anticipation.

“Do you love him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you sigh, like it’s instinctual at this point, and you wince, even, once the words come out. They feel wrong. They feel like a bare-faced lie. Like some foreign language you have no business even attempting to speak. “I’m hard work, you know that, he knows that, and I think I’m all out of chances to try and convince him otherwise.”

“He doesn’t think you’re hard work,” Jack replies, “Trust me, I’ve been trying to convince him of as much since last summer, and he refuses to listen.”

“He said it himself to Cole,” you huff, hating how quick the memory comes to the forefront of your mind, hearing him say those things about you like it was nothing, replaying them over and over in your head like they were everything. “I heard it, Ellie heard it, he said that I wasn’t the kind of girl that he would date, and that I wasn’t worth the hassle.”

“And I’m sure he told you after that he didn’t mean any of that,” Jack tries to defend, brows furrowing as he thinks of any way to get his point across. “People say stupid things in the heat of the moment, we know that better than anybody, you can’t seriously think he actually believes that stuff,”

“He had to have been thinking it for it to have been said in the heat of the moment, Jack, he didn’t pull all that stuff out of his ass. He always knew it wasn’t gonna work out.”

Jack sighs your name, his free hand rising to rub at his temple in exasperation, and you wait as he winces, your eyes darting to check for any uncomfortable movements with his shoulder - but it’s something else that’s bothering him.

“I put those thoughts into his head.”

The concept isn’t surprising - you’ve always known Jack hadn’t liked you, always knew he was badmouthing you to whoever would listen, and snarking at you for the entire house to see. It’s what he’d done last night, using the movie as some sort of metaphor for just how fucked up you are, and everybody in the room could see it.

“I told him every opportunity I could get that you weren’t gonna work out, and that you were bad news, and you’d just mess him around until you got bored.” Jack admits, and again, you’re not shocked. He’d said as much to your face. You even thought you’d resolved this whole thing with him last summer, before everything went to shit, but he’s been off with you since then, so you have no doubt his sentiments have picked straight back up where they left off all those months ago. “And every time I did, he’d just tell me to go fuck myself. Still does. I tell him all the time you’re not good for him, and he just tells me I don’t know you. You’re like the only thing we fight about, and we live together for God’s sake, he’s messy as all hell and I don’t give him half as much grief about that as he gives me about being a dick to you.”

“You’re just proving my point,” you huff, “If I’m causing arguments between the two of you, I’m hardly the kind of person he should be keeping around.”

“He loves you too, you know,” Jack offers as rebuttal, raising a brow as if pushing you to fight back on the fact when you zero in on him. “He told Quinn when he was in Michigan. I got this huge lecture off of him about butting in on your business where I’m not wanted.”

You chew a little at the corner of your mouth, the sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh rising within you at the thought of Jack getting a telling off from his big brother.

“I’ve been angry this whole time that he doesn’t talk to me about stuff when it comes to you, but I guess I’ve been giving him a good reason not to.”

And as much as you don’t get along with Jack, the thought of driving a wedge between them - between all of them - makes you feel like crap, so all you can do is carry on fighting him.

“He wants to move on,” you shrug, “And he said some pretty shitty stuff about me back in summer when Cole said he wanted to take me out, he doesn’t think as highly of me as he makes out.”

“You’re gonna sit there and tell me that if a girl came up to you and said they were gonna ask him out, you wouldn’t try and talk them out of it?” Like you didn’t storm off at the mere sight of him with Victoria at that party. Like you haven’t been spiralling for weeks over him liking some girl’s post on instagram. “That you wouldn’t feel like someone was trying to take something from you?”

Of course you’d feel that way, you think.

Luke Hughes might be the only person you’ve ever let all the way in, and if someone were to swoop in and snatch him from your clutches, you’d probably go insane.

You’d do anything you could to deter them - including using Luke’s flaws and self-doubts against him. You’d even stretch them to fit your agenda, exaggerating the depth of them to make sure you really put them off.

You’d tell them he can be really insecure - that he gets in his head about stuff, especially anything that can be considered a comparison to his brothers - and that sometimes it brings out something avoidant and petty within him. You’d tell them that he isn’t serious when he needs to be, and that, 9 times out of 10, he’s going to crack some awkward joke that doesn’t land and he doesn’t really know how to properly resolve tension. You’d tell them that he craves validation, and it can be a minefield sometimes to navigate his need for attention.

You wouldn’t tell them that you love all those things - that he gives you this look when you stroke his ego that makes your heart stop, and that your sense of humour matches his like two perfectly placed pieces of a puzzle, and that he somehow manages to creep under your thick skin when you’re trying to stay mad or upset for no reason other than you think you need to. You wouldn’t tell them that he fills the exact same validation-void in yourself, and that the two of you balance each other out like two sides of the same coin.

And as much as the things he had said last summer crushed you - and for as many times as you’ve replayed them in your head over and over for the past several months since hearing them - you think you finally get it.

Jack Hughes is going to be the last person that you admit that to, though.

“We’re not each other’s property,” you protest weakly, instead.

“Oh don’t come at me with that bullshit,” he exasperates, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “I’m not saying he owned you, or that you own him, I’m saying the two of you put in way too much fucking work for someone else to reap the benefits of it.”

“You have a lot to say, all of a sudden, for someone who’s been trying to put him off of me for God-knows how long.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was wrong about you.” He huffs, like it pains him to say it, “And maybe last night I was angry about something else entirely, and I took it out on you because I didn’t want to feel that way on my own.”

Oh.

If that’s as close to an apology as you’re gonna get, you don’t think you entirely mind it.

It makes sense, after all, you think. The two of you have always had this incessant need to rile the other up, and you were the easiest bait he had to make himself feel better.

If you’d had a month like Jack just had, you’d probably do the same.

“Why didn’t you go to the game?” He asks, and just as your lips part to respond, he adds, “And don’t insult me with the whole headache thing,” forcing you to press them back together.

You sigh, weighing up in your mind if it’s even worth it to open up to Jack at this point. Sure, he’s making out like he finally sees your true intentions, but does it really matter anymore?

“He doesn’t want me there.”

“Of course he wants you there,” Jack frowns, features curling in confusion. “He got you a ticket, he invited you.”

“It was like a consolation thing,” You huff, thinking back on that conversation in the kitchen, where you’d mustered up the courage to cross some unspoken boundary, and he’d shut you down. “I wanted to do something else together, and he said it was too much, said we should be moving on. Blurring me into a crowd of thousands is the only alternative, apparently.”

Jack snorts out some muffled noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff, and you glare at him as you wait for him to clarify whatever the hell sort of response that was. “You’re both as annoying as each other, you know.”

“Whatever,” you pout, shuffling your body to turn away from him again as you fold your arms over your chest like a petulant child, “He wants to move on, so I’m giving him the space to do that. I’m done with it.”

You don’t know who you’re trying to convince, but you should know better than to think that would ever work on him.

“Right,” Jack snickers, “So done with it that you’re sat here almost crying at the thought of something happening to him.” You scowl, then, because what’s the point in trying to soften your reactions if he’s just going to be an asshole about it. “He’s fine, by the way,” he shakes his phone, then, giving a blurry glimpse of a message thread you can’t even read.

And you thought good news would have lessened the pressure in your chest, this pulsing, swelling feeling that grips at your heart like a vice at the thought of him being hurt - but it doesn’t really go down, at all.

Luke said he wanted to move on. He said he wanted to be friends, and that the two of you should stop blurring the lines.

So why is he sending one brother across the city to check up on you? And why is he telling the other that he loves you?

You weren’t entirely lying, before.

You are done.

And the only way you think you can ease this pain now is to talk it out, with him, once and for all.

Trying to talk to Luke is harder than you ever thought it could be.

Texting him seems out of the question, as stupid as that sounds, but when you open up your messages to try, you’re faced with weeks worth of one-word responses that put you straight off - the thought of him shutting you down one more time almost toppling you over the edge of insanity.

And you could call, but it fills you with the same sort of dread. The last time the two of you spoke on the phone had been when Jack was injured - when you’d offered to be there for him if he needed you and he’d sort of snapped at you.

And sure, emotions were high, but things haven’t really been the same since that conversation. They haven’t been the same since the kiss, but there’s a part of you that doesn’t really want the burden of all the blame on your shoulders for once.

There have been countless opportunities for the you to clear everything up, but there have been chances for him, too, and you’re starting to think that maybe the two of you are far too content to let each other suffer instead of actually communicating your feelings like adults.

And after you spend the whole day after the game you missed dwelling on that fact, you’re grateful for a little reprieve when you get a text from Ethan, in town to talk about his own career, who wants to go out for drinks to toast to everything - to spring break, to your NYU acceptance, his devils contract.

He drops a pin for a bar in Hoboken, and you and Ellie make your way down together, meeting up with him and a few of the other guys to celebrate, and it’s the first night in a while that you feel like you don’t need to stress about anything.

You manage to push Luke to the back of your mind for a while, sat in a booth beside Ethan as he shows you pictures of the apartment he went to look at a couple days ago, his plans to move over here coming a lot sooner than yours, but apparently the building have vacancies coming up in the fall, and the two of you talk about how weird it is that you’re gonna be close, again.

You’re joking with him about his hookup with your sorority sister Megan, threatening to bring her over as your roommate and giggling into your hand through a drunken buzz, when the one person you’re trying to forget for a second appears out of nowhere, standing beside the booth as he looks down at the two of you with an unfamiliar sadness in his eyes. He looks a little run down, dressed in a hoody that stretches across his shoulders, and donning a baseball cap that’s probably supposed to keep his presence lowkey.

“Lukey boy!” Ethan exclaims as he stands to greet him, the two of them doing that brotherly fist bump and hug that all guys do, “Thought you were too beat to come out!”

“Changed my mind,” he shrugs, eyes glancing back at you. “You mind if I sit?”

“Nope,” you shrug, nodding to the opposite side, where he slides in, and his knees knock against yours under the table.

“I’ll get you a drink,” Ethan tells him, winking over at you as he backs away, your eyes wide as you watch him retreat before you look back at Luke, the silence around you almost visible in animated ellipses that dot in the space between the two of you.

“Since when are the two of you so friendly?” He asks, tone surprisingly bitter as his eyes darken, and you feel your defences build despite them usually being so weak in his presence.

“We’ve always been friendly,” you frown, “Since when are you so rude? What happened to hello, how are you?”

“I don’t know, probably since you started avoiding me,” he juts out his bottom lip, leaning into the back of the booth and stretching his hands out on the surface, “Hard to stay nice when you come to town without telling me and send Ellie to a game I specifically invited you to.”

“You told me you didn’t want to hang out with me,” you scoff, uneasy with how quick this entire conversation is escalating. You’re a little tipsy, but there’s no excuse for how he’s so quick to snap at you.

“That’s not what I said and you know it,” he huffs.

“No, I don’t know it, because you’ve been avoiding me too,” you bite back, “Why are you being such a dick all of a sudden?”

“You kissed me,” he leans forward onto his elbows, eyes dark under the shadow of the bill of his cap, and you feel a shudder run through you at the intensity behind his gaze, at the memory the mere mention of it invokes - combined with the rasp in his voice, it’s taking everything in you to fight the urge to do it again. “It was barely 3 weeks ago, and now you’re here, without telling me, and you won’t talk to me, and you’re all buddy-buddy with Ethan all of a sudden-,”

“You pushed me away,” you snap back, eyes narrowing to mirror his, “You told me I was making things harder for you, and that I should move on, and then you started avoiding my calls and sending one word responses to my texts, you don’t get to sit there and be an asshole to me just because I’m hanging out with somebody else.”

“So that’s what this is,” He points over to where Ethan is lingering at the bar, no doubt flashing those puppy-dog eyes to the girl behind it, a charming grin cast her way as you can see her blush from all the way across the room. ”This is you moving on?”

“Ethan and I are just friends,” you frown, watching as Luke’s jaw tenses in response, clenching at either side of his face in a way that would usually turn your mouth dry. “I’m not moving on, we aren’t dating.”

Luke’s eyes are stormy when they meet yours - strained and serious as he weighs up your response. “Neither were we.”

The next breath you take is sharp and jittery, gaze still fixed on his from across the table - and despite the proximity of your bodies, him leaning forward, and you just about doing the same, and the urge you had mere seconds ago to close the gap between you, you couldn’t feel any further apart.

You see his hands shift in your peripheral, long fingers picking at the label on Ethan’s empty beer bottle before his gaze shifts down - guilty and withdrawn. You can’t look away, though - you need to properly look at him, you need to try and see some lifeline you can cling to, here.

He’d pushed you away back in Michigan. He’s been distant, since - too busy for calls, too avoidant for any attempt at a lengthy text conversation. He’s irritated, now - even if he won’t say as much - you can tell by the heavy set of his jaw, and the way his eyes narrow whenever Ethan is too close.

“What were we, then?” You ask before you can think better of it, before some internal part of you convinces yourself that his answer will only serve to hurt you. You’re not going to get anywhere by holding back, anymore.

He’d drank from that cup all those months ago back at that party. Never have I ever been in love. He’d looked you in the eyes as his lips pressed to the red plastic, and he’d watched and waited for you to respond.

And everything that happened after that will never erase the memory of that heated look in his eyes - piercing straight through the flames in the middle of your circle of friends, burning into the very depths of your being and warming you just enough for the months that followed.

All the talk about being only friends, of getting any other feelings out of your systems one last time and pretending to rinse them away - it was that night out in the yard of the hockey house that kept things alive, you think.

Knowing that somewhere down the line, despite everything you put each other through - despite the insecurity, and the jealousy, and the pain - he loved you, and he might possibly be the only guy who ever has. The only guy you ever want to.

“Friends,” He frowns as he continues to pick at the sticky paper, tearing the corner until it starts to peel, briefly glancing up to meet your eye as he asks, “That’s all we’ll ever be, right?”

You gulp, your own gaze dropping to the surface between you, eyes tracing the rings of condensation on the table left behind from the chilled bottles.

“I don’t know if I’m good at being friends,” comes out somewhat instinctively, your brows furrowing as the circles your eyes were mapping seem to hypnotise you into unprompted vulnerability. “I’m having a hard time moving past what happened last summer, I think,” you admit, a rattling breath following, hesitant to do so but needing to get it out, to make him understand that none of this is easy for you - letting him go and moving on isn’t some minor thing he can simply suggest to make things better. It’s not possible. “I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, like I can’t let it go.”

Spilling secrets by the fountain at the country club, kissing in his car when he’d pick you up from work, pulling over on some deserted side road where no one could see, splashing at him in the lake, the sun rays bouncing off the water and bringing out the sea-glass shade of his irises. Trying on stupid disguises in the thrift store at the mall together, his hands on your waist as you danced together at his cousin’s wedding, defending you to his brother whenever Jack tried to pick some stupid fight with you.

It all plays like flashes from a movie at every given opportunity - the second you give your mind a chance to wander, it travels straight back to those weeks spent in his company, to a time where you’d shared a connection so intense that it permanently altered some deep, previously untouchable part of you.

“I thought that I could just push it down,” you sniffle, “I thought that being friends might help me forget, but I can’t, it just feels harder.”

He mutters your name, softer and quieter than before, but the intention is there to say something as a rebuttal, you can tell by his tone.

You don’t really have much fight left in you, though, not anymore.

“And you were right, back in Ann Arbor, it’s not fair to you.”

“That’s not what I meant-,”

“It is,” you resign, “I don’t know how to be your friend, I don’t know what I want anymore, and I can’t keep pretending and making everything worse for you when it would just be easier if we,”

“If we what?”

“Stopped.” You croak, every muscle in your throat working to resist the words from actually working their way up and coming out. “Whatever it is that we’re trying to be, or trying not to be. So that you can move on, like you want.”

You chance a quick glance up, vision blurred by a thick wall of tears, and meet his startled gaze.

“Is that what you want?” His voice shakes a little as he asks, breathy and reluctant - like he’s bracing himself for your own response to hurt.

It doesn’t really matter what you want, you think. You’ve long lost any right to fight for it - not when it comes to him. You had your chance in summer, to open up about all the things you were starting to feel, and you chose to push them down. You don’t even know why, anymore.

You really thought there would be something left to salvage of your relationship with Luke - something to cling to so that he couldn’t push you away, something that got the two of you back on track, especially after talking to his brother, last night - but now that you’re here, everything just feels wrong. It all feels like a stab in the dark, like you’re no longer familiar with the boundaries of what is or isn’t okay with him, and that leaves you feeling lost, again. Like even the slightest attempt to bridge the gap is one giant wasted effort.

And you know all too well where this feeling gets you - too afraid to put your heart on the line, you hide it away, lock it up and throw away the key so that no one can even attempt to get to it again.

He doesn’t want to hang out one-on-one, away from the safety of using Ellie and Jack as a buffer. He doesn’t want to watch movies like you used to, or talk on the phone, or even be within 5 feet of you, it seems. He’s annoyed that you’re close to his other friends, he’s annoyed that you’re around at all, you think.

He doesn’t want you anymore - he shuts down every thought of being anything more, and he can talk all he wants about blurring lines and still being friends, but you know how this plays out.

He wants to move on, he’s said so too many times now for you to discount it or try and find a work around. And when he moves on, and he finds some other girl, like Yasmin, or even Victoria, who doesn’t push him away, or make his life hard, or knows how to express her feelings without saying or doing the wrong thing, he’ll have no use for you.

His brothers will like her, and he’ll show her off to his teammates, and their relationship will expand beyond a phone screen and the distant, foggy memory of something more. And it will be easy.

And he deserves that.

He deserves so much more than you’ve ever been able to give him. Maybe if you saw that sooner this whole thing wouldn’t be such a mess. Maybe if you’d been more accepting of your blossoming feelings in the summer, and you hadn’t been so insistent on maintaining control, everything wouldn’t have spiralled so far out of reach.

Ellie might have seen your interest, Cole might have turned his attentions elsewhere, and Luke would never have said those things about you to try and deter him. And then these last few months would have been easier, too. Your walls would have long been knocked down, your defences weakened, and you’d have just let him in like you’ve always wanted to.

And Luke wouldn’t have gotten tired of trying, just like you predicted all those months ago.

“I think your brother was right, the other day, about the movie, and people being hard work. I want you be happy, Luke, and you said it yourself, I can’t make you wait around for me to figure shit out, you have enough going on without me making you feel like this.”

You feel a shift when you look at him again, a slump of his shoulders as he leans back into the booth - something like resigned acceptance - and you can’t help but be reminded of the exchange that started this whole ordeal.

Him on the other side of a booth in the restaurant at the country club, a hopeful gleam in his earthy irises and his chest puffed out in what you remember thinking seemed like a facade of arrogance, with something much gentler beneath the surface. Things had been much lighter then. Playful and easy. And you don’t think it’s been like that for a long time.

You did that, you think.

You sank into the dark, murky waters of your own insecurities and you dragged him straight down with you - and now it’s time to set him free.

The silence that follows your words is awkward, maybe for the first time ever with him, in a way that makes your skin itch with a prickly heat. You had been so intent on speaking to him, before, and now all you want to do is leave so that he can’t stretch this out, or leave so you don’t have to sit here and watch him not even try. You want to run. Scream. Cry, even. Do anything but wait around for him to agree.

“I’m sorry,” comes out croaky, and broken, and you blink out the tears that blur your vision, feeling them run their course the whole way down your cheeks until you swipe them away from your jaw.

“Me too.”

You want to tell him he doesn’t have anything to apologise for. You want to tell him that you’re the problem, and that you shouldn’t have led him on for as long as you did - but you don’t really want to keep going in circles with this conversation.

You just want to go.

And you couldn’t be more thankful when Ethan comes back, oblivious to the tension between you and his best friend, pushing another bottle across the table and sliding into the opposite side of the booth, right next to Luke.

“So, Lukey, are you gonna let us in on all your favourite spots around here for when we’re both back in the fall?” He slings an arm over the back of the booth, falling naturally above Luke’s slumped figure, and you straighten up in your own seat.

“I’m gonna go find Ellie,” you say, shuffling out from your own side, smiling meekly when Ethan frowns at you, not even daring to look Luke’s way. “I’ll leave you two to it.”

And then you walk away, because that’s all that’s left to do - and when you find Ellie, she takes one look at you, and she knows.

Eyes welling with tears, lips trembling - a mirror image of the girl she found back in your shared room that afternoon of her party, back in the summer - and she ushers you out of the bar and holds your hand the whole way back to your rental, your head on her shoulder as you try not to sob in the back of a taxi.

For all the times people in his life have called him an idiot, Luke has never felt as stupid as he feels right now.

Watching your teary eyes from across the table, able to do nothing but stare back at them, speechless and spineless as you finally throw in the towel, as you finally admit what you’ve been holding back this entire time.

That you can’t move past what happened in summer.

That this whole time, you’ve been trying to distract yourself from how much he hurt you, how much he fucked up, and all he’s ended up doing is hurting you again.

I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, you had said, like I can’t let it go.

Like he can never take back all the stupid shit he said to Cole when he was jealous and immature - like he still can’t handle those sort of emotions when he’s around you, and he lashes out when you don’t even deserve it, all because he can’t handle seeing you with anybody else.

He doesn’t even know why he came at you so quick.

All he remembers is seeing a photo on an instagram story of the guys at the bar, of seeing you and Ellie crouched in the front, carefree, giant grins etched into your faces, and all of a sudden he was walking in.

And you were smiling so sweet, your nose scrunching up and your body shaking with laughter as you sat beside Ethan, absolutely no space between you in the booth, and he had felt something ugly consume him before he even had a chance to realise what was happening.

And now you’re gone, and his heart is pounding in his chest, and the sound of your soft voice uttering one final apology is echoing around his head.

“Are you okay?” Ethan asks from beside him, leaning forward until he appears out the corner of his eye, and Luke shakes himself out of the trance you put him under.

He mutters your name, and Ethan’s head tilts in confusion until Luke asks, “Are you into her?”

“Into her?” Ethan’s eyes widen in alarm as he almost chokes on a sip of his beer. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, a pathetic attempt at nonchalance that he can tell doesn’t land as soon as he does it, “You looked close when I came in, and she said you went to the movies together the other week. Got food after, sounded like a date to me.”

“Interesting observation,” he scoffs, “Considering all you two do together is watch movies and eat.”

Luke frowns, especially when he looks over properly, and Ethan is smirking at him. He feels like he could throw up. “She’s my friend,” he says, although he supposes that’s not really true, anymore, but he’s sick of having to explain it to everybody. “I’ve told you like a million times.”

“Mine too,” he snickers, and Luke can feel his blood start to boil a little at the implication that your relationship with Ethan might at all be similar to your relationship with him. “She’s a cool girl.”

“Yeah,” Luke agrees, a nauseating sense of deja vu washing over him, soaking him to the bone in remorse.

She’s a really cool girl, Cole had said, back toward the end of summer, really funny.

He feels the same swirls of panic stirring in his chest, a stutter to his heart rate that has him holding his breath to try and correct it, somehow.

“We’ve just been hanging out a little more the last few weeks, ever since I took her home,” and the mention of that night back in Michigan makes him feel worse - that swirling feeling evolving into something sinister, catastrophic, even. He’d upset you and you’d turned to Ethan for comfort - you’ve continued to turn to him, since. And Luke had really left you no choice but to do so, so upset at the thought of the two of you together that he shut you out, entirely. “I guess we got closer throughout this year, but it’s mostly been in a group, like at parties or whatever. She’s a lot different to how I thought she’d be, especially when it’s just her, we get along.”

“Yeah,” Luke breathes, monotonous and slow, because he can’t really muster much else.

He could probably cry, if he thinks too hard about it. Could probably break out in a sweat and hyperventilate, and all that’s stopping him is the nails digging into his palm to keep him grounded to reality.

He had you, he thinks, back on that porch outside the hockey house, and he let his own fragile ego get in the way, once again. Just like back in the summer, when he had you, and let this panic and jealousy consume him, turn him into something ugly and cruel, saying things he never meant, or never had any right to divulge.

“I think uhh,” his jaw feels tense as he speaks, like something in him doesn’t want to carry on, but he fights past it, “I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about her.”

“How do you mean?”

“People judge her based on what they think she’s like, but they don’t really get to know her.” He relaxes back into his seat, a little, trying to alleviate the growing tension in his spine. “I’d say she doesn’t really let them, but people don’t try hard enough. It’s like you said, she’s really cool.”

“Funny, too.” Ethan smiles a little, and the look in his eyes brings the essence of tears to Luke’s, almost.

“Really funny,” he agrees, pushing through the way his throat feels like it’s closing up, lips twisting up into some attempt at a smile. “Really quick, not even just telling jokes but like, she can just read every situation as it’s happening. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation where she hasn’t made me laugh, even if she’s trying to bite my head off or something or I’m not really in the mood to be laughing.”

Ethan nods along, like he could possibly understand what Luke means - but maybe he can, Luke worries. Maybe that’s what you’ve opened his eyes to, while the two of you have been growing closer this year with him being none-the-wiser to your budding relationship.

“And sure, she’s snappy, but she’s like,” he pauses, a breathy chuckle as he fights the swelling of his chest, now, too, “the most caring person I’ve ever met. You feel it, too, even when she is biting your head off or whatever, she’s doing it because she thinks it’s just as much fun for you as it is for her, and she just wants to keep you hooked. And sure, it takes a while for her to warm up, but when she does it’s like, I don’t even know, man, like her smile,” another pause, and Luke smiles a little more, himself, the upturn of his lips coming so naturally that he can’t tell he’s doing it until his field of vision narrows a little, “She has this smile that’s all slow and cute, and I swear it could thaw ice or something corny like that.”

“She’s got a cute smile,” Ethan agrees, but the way he’s looking at Luke makes him feel a little too seen, and so he straightens back up in his seat before he can sink any further. “Not sure it’s worth losing one of my closest friends over, though.”

“You wouldn’t,” Luke gulps, trying to swallow past the growing lump in his throat at the mere thought of you and Ethan together, a feeling that’s achingly reminiscent of how he felt about you and Cole - sick to his stomach. But this had been the problem before - thinking he has any sort of say over how you move forward with anyone that isn’t him. “I just want her to be happy, I know you’d look after her.”

He’d told you to move on. He’d told you he couldn’t wait around for you to figure things out. He’d shut you out, forced you to close yourself off to him, accused you of only wanting him when you think you’re losing him to someone else - and here he is, falling apart from the inside out, once again, at the mere thought of you with anybody else.

He’s a hypocrite, and he hates himself for it - he’s going to lose you because of it. Maybe he already has.

“You’re an idiot,” Ethan scoffs, mouth curving up at one side in amusement. “You’re seriously gonna sit there and say you want me to ask her out? You want me to date the girl you’re very clearly in love with because at least I’d look after her?”

“C’mon, E-,”

“Like she needs looking after?” Ethan’s dark eyes narrow as he levels Luke with an incredulous glare. “You know if she heard you, she’d beat your ass, right? Trying to auction her off like some sort of prize, are you insane? I swear to God, the two of you are borderline painful, you’re as bad as each other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I honestly thought you were both just being oblivious, or something, but it’s like you’re actively trying to sabotage yourselves, you need to talk to each other, you need to tell each other how you feel.”

“I know that you slept with her,” Luke blurts out, eyes wide as Ethan’s face curls up in horror, “I saw you come out of the house with her the morning after the party,”

“Whoa-,”

“And it’s fine. Not that either of you need my permission,” Luke scoffs, “But I’m not blind, E, she was with you the night Jack got injured, too, she was smiling at you tonight like she hasn’t smiled at me in forever, I just want her to be happy, and if that’s not with me-,”

“I slept with Megan,” Ethan interrupts, “The night of that party, I dropped her off like you asked, I went back to the house, and I hit up Megan because we were hooking up for a while before she got all crazy on me. You remember her, right? The girl with the tattoo of her cat?”

“You were hooking up with a girl who had a tattoo of her cat?” Luke frowns, distracted momentarily until he realises what’s happening.

“She’s in the same sorority,” Ethan scoffs, “What you saw was her sneaking me out of the house because I got stuck upstairs and Megan wouldn’t help me.”

“But the movie, and the pinball,” Luke fades a little, brows furrowing as he tries to piece together whatever the hell he’s managed to fabricate between you and Ethen this entire time - weeks of avoiding you for nothing.

“We just bumped into each other at the IMAX, she seemed a little down, so we hung out after. Like friends do. Like you’d probably know, if you talked to her. You really thought that either of us would do that to you? That girl is crazy about you, Luke, she pretty much cried the whole walk home because you didn’t tell her you liked her.”

“She what?”

“Kept asking me if you’d said anything about being into anyone, she was being all cryptic and weird, I tried to imply you were into her, but clearly it didn’t help.”

“No, no, no,” he shakes his head, muttering repeatedly as he remembers that night, remembers what Quinn had tried to tell him, remembers everything from the past 6 months, all at once. He runs two shaky hands through his hair, trying to squeeze at his skull to stop the influx of regret that’s starting to vibrate in there, incessant and relentless, like it will never go away. “I need to go after her.”

Luke pushes gently at his best friend, frowning when he doesn’t budge.

“E, I need to apologise to her, I need to talk to her,”

“Tomorrow.” Ethan advises, “Her and Ellie knocked back like a whole margarita pitcher together, you don’t want to do this when she isn’t in the right state of mind.”

Wrong.

He wants to do it as soon as he physically can.

And he’ll do it on the hour every hour until you’re sober, he thinks.

“Trust me,” Ethan pats at Luke’s leg, a brotherly gesture that does little to calm his nerves. “Take tonight to think about what you want to say, and say it tomorrow.”

Luke hates that he’s right - just like Quinn had been right all those weeks ago.

He can’t do this out of impulse.

He needs to do it right.

When Ellie knocks on your bedroom door the next morning, she’s merely a fuzzy blur through your puffy eyes, and you can barely muster a smile as she walks in with a cup of green tea and a slice of toast for you.

“Thanks, El,” you croak, voice thick with sleep, and maybe dry from the salty rim of the many cups you drank from last night - or the way you cried for maybe an hour until you eventually drifted off.

Ellie had been your literal shoulder to cry on when you got home, letting you sob and finally release months worth of pent-up frustrations as she listened, taking it all in while she stroked a gentle hand through your hair.

You told her everything - about halloween, and christmas, watching movies over FaceTime and spiralling over them alone in your room after he hung up. You told her about texts that made your knees go weak, and calls that lasted until the early hours of the morning, and sleeping in Luke’s arms when you finally saw him in person. You told her about the gifts, and opening up to Luke about your family, and kissing him on the porch back at the hockey house.

Then you told her about the aftermath. About distancing yourself from him to let him move on, about him distancing himself from you because you’re too much of a mess for him to make sense of, and then about that conversation in the bar - about finally letting him go.

She just let you air it all out until it exhausted you - tucked you into your bed where you sobbed into your pillow for a little longer, and promised to talk more in the morning.

And you suppose that’s what this is - breakfast in bed, a soft smile sent your way as she lowers the tray onto the sheets in front of you, muttering a short, you’re welcome, as she perches herself on the end of the bed.

The two of you make a little small talk as she watches you eat, concern in her eyes and hesitance in her posture, and you figure you must have freaked her out a little too much last night - probably still freaking her out, now your face still swollen from all the crying.

“I��m sorry about last night, El,” you sigh once you’ve swallowed your last bite of toast, pushing the plate away. “I feel like such an idiot, you get a free pass to say I told you so, or whatever.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” her lips twist, unsure and uncomfortable, as she shuffles against the footboard. “It wouldn’t be right after what I did.”

“What you did?” You frown, “What do you mean?”

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Ellie shrinks away a little, face scrunching in anticipation of some poor reaction, and all you can hear is the persistent thudding of your heartbeat - still reeling from last night, a little. “I was just trying to help.”

“Help with what?” You blink slow as you watch her, eyes drawn to the way her lips twist and turn, tugged between her teeth as she tries to work through whatever it is she wants to tell you.

“It was sort of Jack’s idea, initially,” she starts, “I mean, I guess I took it a little too far, but he’s the one who brought it up-,”

“Ellie-,” you warn, the anticipation of it all only making things worse.

“He thought if the two of you felt like you were losing each other to somebody else, you’d realise you actually wanted to be together, and you’d stop forcing the whole friend thing and make the next move.”

“I don’t understand-,”

“He said he tried doing the same thing last summer, when he was being an idiot about asking me out. He took some girl from the club on a date, picked someone that he knew you’d find out about, but I guess you never did, ‘cause you’d have told me about it and I’d still have a dent in my head from where it would have hit the roof.” The nervous chuckle she gives does very little to lighten the mood.

“Right,” you nod along, muttering out the affirmation despite the fact that you’d done the complete opposite.

You never told her about Jack and Jessica, the girl from the club last summer - who you and Luke had spied on in the earlier days of your scheming. It was for her own good, though. You didn’t want to hurt her over something that clearly wasn’t worth her time. Jack was being an idiot, that much was obvious at the time - even without the context you now have that he was trying to get caught - and so you feel less bad about lying about the whole thing.

Although, your eye starts to twitch a little at just how ridiculous this whole thing has started to become.

“So he pushed Luke to date this Yasmin girl for the same reason?”

“Not exactly,” Ellie winces, “I think he tried to get him out of the house one time just to test the waters, but nothing ever came of it. And then Jack got busy with the tournament, and Luke came out to Michigan, and I felt like I had to take the reins a little.”

“Take the reins on what?”

Your tone must unintentionally reflect just how tired you are of this whole thing, because Ellie cowers a little, eyes glassy as she skirts around what it is that she wants to say.

“I need you to understand that I felt really bad about the whole Cole thing, okay?” She says, “And then ever since summer, you haven’t really been yourself, you know? Like you don’t wanna come out anymore, and you’re letting school get to you, and you don’t talk to me about stuff, even when I know that it’s bothering you,”

You look down, your own lips pressing together to try and ease the tension elsewhere in your jaw.

You have been a little more reserved, but it’s not entirely because of how your summer ended. And it’s not like you weren’t coping, entirely - you just weren’t running to Ellie like you normally might have.

Maybe it was unintentional, the way you had shut her out, even since the start of summer, but that doesn’t mean it would have affected her any less. Guilt starts to nip away at you from the inside out, her meek response heightened when you lifted your gaze back to watch her.

“And I just thought maybe you needed someone to look out for you, to give you a little nudge in the right direction, I didn’t realise it would have made things worse.”

A nudge - just like the kind of nudge you and Luke were supposed to be giving her and Jack last year.

You’re starting to get a headache with it all, the way you seem to have come full circle in the worst possible way - where the universe throws you Ellie and Jack of all people to try and gain some semblance of order to your life.

It’s tragic.

“What are you even saying?”

“There is no Yasmin,” she blurts out, “I made her up.”

You blink slow, feeling as your face slowly contorts with confusion - lips turning down, brows scrunching together, little creases forming in the side of your nose. “No,” you mumble, shaking your head as she stares, wide-eyed and panicked, back at you. “I saw her instagram. He liked her pictures.”

“I’d imagine that was just some random girl he follows,” she shakes her head with a grimace, “Dumbass likes every post he sees on his feed, I think.”

You gape back at her, your eyes widened in shock and your heart racing in your chest, because what the fuck?

You’ve been pushing him away this whole time to move onto a girl who doesn’t even exist?

“And I know I should have told you sooner, but I got swept up with all of the Jack stuff, and I,” her lips tremble as she stares back at you, apologetic and regretful. “I didn’t realise how bad it got between the two of you. I didn’t know it would end up like this, I was just trying to make things better again.”

You stare down at the empty plate at the bottom of your bed, and all of a sudden you can feel every swallowed bite swirling around in the pit of your stomach. “I feel sick.” You slur out, pushing yourself up off the bed and stumbling towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind you as you fall down against it, and you can hear the soft patter of feet as Ellie follows behind.

“I’m sorry,” she cries through the wood, “I know that I should have known better than to interfere, but I just-,” she hiccups then, and you resent just how much it affects you, guilt and shame swirling around with the nausea. “I wanted my best friend back. You haven’t been the same since summer.”

And you sob, yourself, because you know that’s true.

You’d admitted it to Luke, last night, when you had told him you didn’t think you could ever get over it.

And now you’ve lost him.

You can’t even blame Ellie, either.

She had planted the seed, but you’d been the one to water it - constantly avoiding having to have a difficult conversation with him until everything boiled over, until it was too late.

You could have talked to him at the party, the night you kissed him. You could have told him there and then that you loved him, because you knew it as sure as anything, but you didn’t. You could have told him at any point since then, and you never did. Because you were scared, and insecure, and weak.

Ellie calls your name from inches behind you, soft and shaky, and the thought of ruining everything with her too is too much for you to handle.

You need to get out of the bathroom, need to get out of the house, need to get away period.

You just need space, and you know exactly where you’re going to find it.

Luke has never been more thankful for a day off in his life.

And he’s never been more proactive in one, either.

One of the biggest joys usually comes from turning off his alarm the night before. No morning skate, no practice, no training, no meetings, no game to prep for.

There’s just you, across town, thinking he doesn’t care enough about you to stop you giving everything the two of you have up.

So his alarm had stayed on, shrilling beside his head at 7am, and he shoots right out of bed, not even putting it on snooze for four times before he gets himself up.

He makes breakfast, eggs and avocados on toast, brain food as his mom might say, and starts to think about what he’s going to say to you - making notes on his phone like it’s some dumb presentation - until he feels satisfied that there’s enough of his heart in it to actually make an impact.

He’s done letting his emotions control him.

The two of you are going to figure this out, and it’s going to work out - he’s sure of it. He has to be.

And just as he’s about to leave, Jack appears from his room, also dressed and ready to face the day, quirking his brow at the abnormal pep in his little brother’s step.

“What the hell’s got you so jumpy this early in the morning?” He asks.

“If I tell you, I don’t want to hear a lecture about it.” Luke huffs, because this is the last parade he would ever let his brother rain on, and he’s kind of worked himself up to the point of delusion. Jack just nods in response, and Luke can’t help the giddy smile that breaks out right before he says, “I gotta go see about a girl.”

Jack’s eyes widen, and Luke feels like he’s been punched in the gut when his lips quirk up, preparing himself for the blow of being laughed at by his own brother.

But what Jack says, instead, is even weirder.

“Let’s go then.”

And Luke practically stumbles over himself to get the two of them to his car, the weight of his brother’s approval pushing him further than he ever wanted to admit that it could, his entire body buzzing as he drives them over to the rental you and Ellie are staying in, and he tells Jack about his plan on the way.

He tells him how he’s gonna get you out of the house, gonna take you on a walk, somewhere, where the two of you can finally talk things out, and he’s gonna tell you how he feels. He’s gonna let you speak, gonna give you the time you need to figure things out - he’s gonna lay his heart on the line, and he’s gonna be a man and let you decide whatever it is you want to do with it.

You say you can’t get over the summer, but you don’t understand how much he regrets it, how much he loves you, how he’d never hurt you like that again. And if you turn around, and you don’t feel the same, then he can do whatever you want, but at least he’ll know he tried - at least you’ll know what you mean to him.

Jack gives him pointers, like he’s ever gonna take love advice from a guy who took like 3 years to ask his girlfriend out, but Luke just nods along with a smile on his face, too in his head with the hope that this could finally be it.

And that hope carries him all the way from one side of Jersey City to the other, airy and light, until he’s knocking on your door and waiting for you to finally open up for him - and all of it drains from him the second he sees Ellie’s teary fave on the other side. He’s too confused by the situation to notice when Jack brushes past him to comfort her, and he finds himself looking around for you again, that light, airy feeling growing heavier by the second.

“Calm down,” he hears Jack coo, “It’s alright, what happened?”

“We got into a fight,” she sniffles, “Or I don’t know, a disagreement, I guess. I was gonna give her a little room to breathe, so I went to my room, and then she left, and she’s not picking up her phone.”

Luke feels the colour drain from his face, a dizzying wash of panic flooding his system that causes his chest to swell. He reaches for his phone before he even realises what he’s doing, fingers knowing the way straight to your contact and pressing on it within seconds, the call reaching voicemail before he even lifts the device to his ear.

“It must be off,” he frowns, the swelling worsening with every second that passes. “She just left? She didn’t say where she was going?”

“She was pretty upset,” Ellie tells him, tears welling in her eyes as her face twists with guilt, “I really, uhm,” she runs a hand through her hair as she turns away from him, taking a few pacing steps to distance herself, “I really fucked things up, I think.”

“Fucked what up?” Luke asks, following by instinct to close the gap, trying to get her to look at him just to get a read on the severity of the situation. He’s witnessed a couple of your arguments with Ellie - mostly minor irritations that you come to him to talk you through, and it’s never been bad enough for you to get seriously upset over it. Not like this. And Luke has known Ellie for a long time, too - had seen all the ups and downs of her relationship with Jack before they ever got together. He’s never seen her like this, and dread pools in the pit of his stomach. “What happened?”

“I uh,” she takes in a trembling breath, staggered and shaky and doing little to make him feel any better as he hears it. “I thought I was helping. I thought she just needed a push, or something, like someone to guide her-,”

Luke can’t imagine a world where you would need guidance on anything. Headstrong and self-assured, he can’t picture what on Earth would make Ellie assume you would need her to push you.

“I swear, I thought I was doing the right thing. I wouldn’t have gotten involved, especially after summer, you know, I felt really bad, and I just wanted to try and fix it somehow, but she never tells me anything, so I didn’t realise she was kind of getting there on her own and I think I just made everything worse.”

The mention of summer makes him wince, Ellie’s words all merging together into one long, confusing blur of excuses that don’t quite make sense, but this has to be about him, somehow, he thinks - because you would have told him about anything else happening in your life, something else that might have happened in the summer.

Ellie felt bad about the whole Cole thing - that much seems obvious. Lending her efforts to him asking you out, being the catalyst to the whole thing blowing apart from the inside, out. But how could she ever possibly fix that? Especially considering he was the master of his own downfall, in the end.

“What did you do?”

When Ellie’s eyes meet his, they’re flooded with remorse, round and watery and it does little to quell the panic continuing to rise within him.

“I told her you were seeing somebody else.”

Luke feels time stop, his heart coming to a screeching halt, and all thoughts wiped from his brain until all he can hear is your voice, soft and small and vulnerable as you tell him, “I don’t want to watch you move on.”

“I just thought she needed a wake up call, or something, like if she thought that there was the potential that you were moving on she might have finally realised that holding back this whole time was doing more harm than good, but I don’t know what happened, she just shut down, after-,”

“After what?” Luke asks, although he doesn’t know why, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer to both questions he poses Ellie’s way. “When did you tell her that?”

“Before the party back in Michigan,” she gulps, “Before you left.”

Luke stumbles back a little, hands finding purchase on the back of the couch, needing something to steady him, to ground him before he spirals out of control.

“Jack told me that he’d been trying to get you to move on, that he took you out with the guys, that you were just flat out rejecting the idea of even speaking to somebody else, and I just thought-,”

“You knew about this?”

“No,” Ellie is quick to defend him, quick to take responsibility, for once, “Well, sort of, but he told me not to do it, and I didn’t tell him that I did, so he’s not to blame, here. I thought if I just said that you were moving on then she wouldn’t have believed me, so I made somebody up, but I guess you’re following some girl with the same name on instagram, and you liked a couple of her pictures, and last night she kept saying that you don’t want her anymore, that all she can think about is how much she loved you back then, but you don’t feel the same,”

I’m having a hard time moving past what happened last summer, I think

He thought you meant the Cole thing. He thought you meant you couldn’t look past his mistake.

I feel like it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m with you, like I can’t let it go.

You weren’t talking about the bad stuff.

You were talking about the rest of it.

And now all Luke can hear in his head is little snippets of conversations from the past few weeks. I want to, which he now sees as an admission of your feelings when he had asked you to let him in. Are you moving on? After he had turned you down for that art installation, wedging an insurmountable gap between the two of you while you assumed he was seeing some other girl. He’s hard work and she isn’t cut out for it, and the way you so quickly gave up when it came to Jack’s stupid outburst.

All of that had been with idea of him already having moved on.

All of that, and you still refused to do so, yourself.

Oh no.

“I was just trying to help, Luke, I swear, I just wanted to help her. She just lets things pass her all the time, for as long as I’ve known her, she gets all in her head, and she doesn’t let people in, and she was doing the same with you, and I just wanted her to take something for herself, I wanted her to win, I didn’t realise it would become this huge mess-,”

“Stop,” he huffs, because he can’t let her blame herself, not entirely - he made a mess of this, too. He’d jumped to conclusions, after the kiss. He hadn’t let you speak, hadn’t let you come to terms with what you were feeling. He’d misunderstood your intentions and jumped down your throat, and let his own hurt in the situation stomp all over yours. He hadn’t talked to you, despite all the times he had been urged to.

“Where would she go?” He asks, trying to shake himself into action. “Does she have any other friends around here, did she mention anywhere to you that she might escape to?”

“No,” Ellie whines, “She only came here for the first time in October, the only places we mentioned were lunch spots, I don’t think she ran off in tears for a bagel. The only person I could think of was you, but you’re here.”

Luke wracks his brain through the last few conversations the two of you had - and all he hears is the multiple opportunities he had to clear everything up. The multiple attempts you made to bring things back to normal - to bridge the gap he had forced between the two of you.

Movie nights, coffee shops, the game the other night, the art installation.

The art installation.

“Did she bring her laptop?”

You can’t really pinpoint where your obsession with space started.

It’s probably somewhere between laying awake at night, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars your dad had stuck to your ceiling, and a field trip to the Henry Crown Space Center - and the two memories are probably a lot more linked than you care to think about, both providing distractions when you needed them the most in life, but you’ve never experienced anything like this.

You’d found out about this exhibit on TikTok of all places, putting the you in for you page to work when you first started seeing it on your feed, saving every video that came up. Destination Cosmos originated in Amsterdam from what you could find, and you’ve wanted to go for years. It feels like fate, almost, that it would be in New York for one week only while you’re just across the river for spring break, and missing out on it would have been your biggest regret since coming out here - which considering the events you’re actively trying to escape from, is probably saying a lot.

Maybe if you’d have sold it a little better to Luke than just being an art installation, he might have come with you. Maybe if you’d done a lot of things differently, he might have come with you.

As you stand in the centre of the universe, projections of everything you’ve spent your whole life admiring only from afar, chasing something you still don’t understand, you feel smaller than you’ve ever felt in your life.

It’s overwhelming, almost, how lost you feel now.

On your own, in the middle of an exhibit you’ve been dreaming about for years, in a city you don’t really know, but are going to be moving to before you know it, with all other aspects of your life imploding in calamitous fashion around you. The way the images flash across the walls - stars, planets, nebulae, supernovae - make you feel like you barely even exist, and you hate it.

You’ve never felt so alone, so afraid of what comes next, and all you want is for someone to reach out and shake you until you don’t feel it anymore.

And when somebody actually does, when the soft but familiar mutter of your name brings you out of your reverie, and a gentle grip forms around your wrist, you gasp, yanking your hand away like the touch burns.

You have to be dreaming, you think.

There’s no way you haven’t slipped into some sort of coma, or something.

Maybe you missed a low ceiling somewhere on your way into the exhibit, hit your head and knocked yourself out.

Because there’s no other explanation for how Luke Hughes could possibly be standing before you, in front of the most beautiful backdrop of glistening constellations, other than you imagining the whole thing.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, taking in his frantic form - chest heaving with rushed breaths and his baseball cap askew, probably from where he keeps taking it off to run his hands through his hair.

“I uh-,” he pants, blinking slow as if you’re just about coming into focus. “I came to see about a girl.”

You blink back, brows pushing together as he takes another step, “What?”

“Good Will Hunting,” he clarifies, “Declarations of love, I know you hate them but I uhm-,” he frowns, cringes, even, like he’s thinking better of doing this already, and you wait with bated breath for him to string his thoughts together. “I’m doing this wrong, I think.”

“Luke-,”

“I was trying to think the whole way here of some sort of speech, like one giant combination of all the soppy, cheesy movie quotes you love so much. Y’know, like, uhh,” his bottom lip juts out as he takes a second, and all you can do is watch, “Like a megamix or something.”

“A megamix?”

“Yeah, like a little How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, a pinch of Notting Hill, just this huge shit show of the corniest garbage you’ve ever heard in your life.”

“Sounds great.” You frown, a little lost on how he went from declarations of love to corny garbage in a matter of seconds.

“Probably would be,” he nods as he takes another step, and you fight the urge to retreat, your feet staying firmly in place and your arms wrapping around yourself in some twisted protective stance. “But all I can think about is that one scene in When Harry Met Sally, y’know, when she’s all frizzy and crying on her bed, and he’s there to comfort her?”

“I don’t really remember,” you mutter, although you have a vague recollection. “I only watched it that one time and I was a little distracted.”

“I watched it 8 times.” He tells you, “Could probably talk you through the whole thing.”

“You don’t have to-,”

“So Sally’s just found out her ex is engaged,” he starts, anyway, and you don’t even have time to question why the hell he watched that movie 8 times. Once was enough to scar you for life. “And she’s like sobbing to Harry, and saying all these things about how she was just a transitional person, and she thinks something’s the matter with her, ‘cause her ex never wanted to marry her.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“She says, I’m difficult,” he mimics her voice, somewhat, a soft smile curving at his lips as he recalls the scene, “And Harry tells her, you’re challenging, and every time I watch it, I think of you.”

Ouch.

He must see the way your face drops, because he takes another step, and the distance between the two of you is so small now that you could conceivably touch without reaching - if he stopped making out like you’re a problem, that is.

“‘Cause that’s when they kiss, right?” He asks, and you nod, hesitantly, because you sort of remember it a little better, now. “That’s when he realises how deep he’s into this thing with her, and how right he was that they could never be friends.”

“I guess so,” you pout, your chest clenching at the mere mention of your friendship - the one you had denounced only a day ago, and are still very freshly mourning the loss of.

“And then I think about the other night, about what Jack said.”

You’ve already gone through this whole thing with Jack, you really don’t want to do it, again. Not here, not now, especially. “Luke-,”

“He shouldn’t have said any of that stuff to you, and he was being a world class dick, but he was sort of right,” he tells you, a crooked smile cementing itself into his features as he reaches out to tuck your hair behind your ear as it falls forward, leaving you to watch in confused silence as amusement flashes across his irises, despite the fact that it’s not remotely funny. “You are hard work.”

“Did you seriously come all the way out here and hunt me down just to tell me that?” You scoff, something within you switching as you unfold your arms and reach up to push his hand away. “That all I do is make your life hard, you don’t think I already know that?”

He grabs yours, instead, intertwining your fingers despite your resistance, and smiling even deeper. “When did I ever say I want things to be easy?” He challenges, his other hand rising to the opposite side of your face, cupping at your jaw and lifting your face until your eyes meet, “I love that you’re hard work.” And just as you scoff, just as you try to argue such a ridiculous statement, he continues. “It makes being with you and you letting me in all the more rewarding, like I earned it. I’d like to think that I did, too. I’d like to think we’ve come really far from where we started.”

You gulp down the urge to tell him you agree, still a little confused by this whole speech, where one second he’s comparing you to a sobbing emotional wreck, and the next he’s suggesting you’re sort of a nightmare. Still confused by how he found you in the first place, but it feels too late to ask, now.

“Ellie told me about Yasmin,” he says, and you swear the way your heart skips a beat is wishful thinking, your mind praying that the ground will just swallow you up. You were embarrassed enough without him knowing about it, too - that you got all in your feelings about some girl that never even existed, enough to end up ruining everything with him over what turned out to be nothing. “And Ethan told me about Michigan, about how you were upset that I didn’t tell you how I felt.”

What? You’d been upset he hadn’t told you about Yasmin, who you now know doesn’t exist, not-

Oh, Jesus Christ, you think, too embarrassed to even react. Ethan had been talking about you.

Anybody could see from a mile off that he is into somebody.

“It doesn’t even matter-,”

“Don’t do that,” he pleads, desperation flashing across his eyes, stunning you a little into submission. “Please don’t do that, not about this.”

“Luke-,”

“I love you.” He says, voice sure and steady, a little louder than he’d been speaking before but you can’t really find it in yourself to care. “I’m in love with you. I don’t think I’ll ever not be in love with you. And there’s no Yasmin, there’s no Victoria, there is nobody else and there never will be. That’s what I came all the way out here to say.”

That’s a little better than whatever the hell he was saying about a megamix, you think.

“That there’s only you.” He’s still sure, but quieter now, like a whisper that’s only meant for you to hear. “That I love you, and it matters.”

He’s giving you this heated look, like he can see every single cell of you - like he loves every single cell of you - eyes dark and intense, and you can’t look away, too entranced by whatever hold he now has over you - barely able to even form a cognitive thought, let alone voice one.

“I love that you’re weirdly nerdy about space,” he maintains a hold on your cheek, his touch soft but his presence solid, and uses his other hand to gesture around you, to the spectacle around you - to the vibrant projections of planets on walls that seem to extend light years right around of the two of you. “And that of all the places in New York you’d even want to go during your last spring break, this was the only place on your list. And despite that, somehow I’m the dorky loser out of the two of us.”

You feel your lips quirk up, still gazing up into his eyes, your own wide and watering as you watch him continue.

“I love that you never mind spending time with me, even if it’s just watching movies, or watching hockey, or eating, and you always know what food I like, even though you complain that I eat more than any human should. I love that I never feel too much for you, or too little, or too loud, or like I’m not saying enough. You call me an idiot all the time, sure, but you never make me feel like one.”

Everything around you turns into a blur, now, beyond trying to blink away your tears as they slowly start to trickle from your lower lashes, Luke’s thumb coming to swipe at your lip when one settles there, offering a soft smile that makes your heart melt in place - this warm, sticky sensation spreading between your ribs.

“And I love the way you look at me,” his voice is so soft that it makes you feel boneless, and you think if he didn’t have a hold on your face you might just dissolve into nothing, “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only person who actually sees me.”

You love that about him too, you think - the first tangible thought you can muster as he does his best to turn you into complete mush in the palm of his hand.

“I love that you make the 600 miles between here and Michigan feel like nothing. Like I miss you all the time, but you always make it seem like you’re here, even when you’re not, as stupid as that sounds.”

It doesn’t sound stupid. Not at all. It’s crazy how much comfort Luke has given to you just through a phone screen for the past 5 months, like he’s been with you the whole time, all those worries about your relationship being too weak to withstand the distance that you had at the end of summer dissipating almost instantaneously.

“And I’m sorry I keep giving you reasons to think otherwise, but I’ve never felt this way about anybody before. I love you so much it makes me crazy, and it makes me do stupid things, and say shit that I don’t mean, but I mean this, I need you to know that, as insane as this whole thing is I’ll say it all again and louder if you need me to.”

Your heart is pounding against your ribcage, the trembling breaths you take to try and alleviate it providing very little relief, and Luke watches you with bated breath of his own, wincing a little in anticipation as he waits out some sort of response.

You reach up to the hand that rests on your cheek and peel it from your skin, fingers clasped around his palm and tugging it away carefully until you can bring it down. You step just a little closer - close enough that you’re looking up, close enough that you can place his hand against the rampant thudding in your chest, and hope that the proximity of him now helps calm you - helps build the kind of courage it takes to stand in front of the person you love and lay your heart on the line, like he just had.

“I love that your version of a declaration of love starts out as you calling it a corny garbage megamix,” you tell him, hesitant but hopeful, like you’re testing the waters, watching as his eyes start to well up too and relief wracks through him in a visible shudder. “And that you watch some movie 8 times on your own because it makes you think of me.”

He huffs out a breathy chuckle, the smile that takes over his face is unwavering and it spurs something courageous within you, fingers intertwining with those on his free hand and smiling straight back.

“I love that every text you send me is a triple text,” you snort, “Like you couldn’t possibly just type out a paragraph, you have to send me every single thought as it passes through your brain. Like I’m the first person you want to come to about anything and everything, it makes me feel like you value me, it makes me feel good. And I love that you make everything lighter, and easier, and you never let me sit in my feelings, or let anybody make me feel bad.” You think of all the times he has defended you - to Jack, to yourself, even. He’d been so sure of you getting into your graduate program, more than you had ever been, and the stress around the whole thing seemed to dissolve whenever he was around. He’d backed you up when Jack went on his weird tirade at movie night, and has apparently been doing so the whole time Jack’s tried to sabotage things between the two of you. “Even if you do agree that I’m hard work.” Your lips twist in amusement as he dips his head a little, but you understand what he meant - where he was going with what he said.

“I love that you make me second guess myself,” you tighten your hold on him a little, “And you make me think differently, think better. I don’t feel afraid or unsure when I’m with you, not about the real stuff.”

He tightens his hold, too, readjusts his fingers where you’re clutching at them until he can move your hands to your sides, pulling back until you’re touching, almost, chest to chest.

“And if you asked me a year ago if I ever thought I’d want the boy I love to hunt me down in a dorky space exhibit, I’d have probably curled up and died from embarrassment at the thought,” you snort, “But I wanted to be here because it reminded me of you. Because you call me a dork, but you never make me feel like one, either. And because I used to want to feel like nothing when I thought of this stuff, but now I know that I don’t want to feel small, or insignificant, or unimportant,” you’re so close now that your voice is like a soft hum, stretching up on your toes and untangling your fingers from his for them to find purchase on his chest, helping you balance better. “I want to feel like I matter, and you’re the one who taught me that I do.”

You break eye contact only to watch the slow roll of a tear down his cheek, one he doesn’t even bother to wipe away, not afraid to show just how much it means to him for you to say all of that stuff back.

“I love you, Luke,” you almost-whisper, but the lack of volume does little to lessen the meaning behind the words, and your eyes drift back up to meet his, “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”

“Can’t believe you just outdid my own corny declaration of love.”

“Consider yourself megamixed.”

“Shut up,” he laughs, the sound rumbling all the way from the depths of his chest and into your lips as he presses his own into them, fingers curling around the back of your waist as he pulls your body flush to his, and you think you see the swirling stars even when you close your eyes, a bright burst of colour consuming your brain until it’s all that you feel.

You kiss him without a single care in the world, forgetting that you’re in the middle of an exhibit, and that people might see, or stare, or think that you’re crazy. You love him, and you’re done hiding just how much. He kisses you back the same, with intensity and intention, like he’s trying to cement all those wonderful words he said to you before into the core of your being.

When you pull apart, slow enough that you barely separate at all, you watch as he smiles, swollen lips curved all the way up, the slight flash of teeth, cheeks balling up and his eyes creasing in the corners, and you feel your face mirror his, your noses pressed together and your hands still clutching at the shirt on his chest.

“Y’know,” he breathes, a slight rasp to his voice, “I was kind of right about one other thing.”

“What’s that?” You ask, backing away to give the two of you the slightest bit of breathing room.

“This feels like the perfect place to take somebody on a date.”

Your smile deepens, somehow, big enough to ache a little, and when you rush and stumble out of sheer instinct to kiss him again, his hands are primed to catch you.

And they don’t let you go for the whole 90 minutes you spend exploring the exhibit, where the two of you learn all new things about the universe and everything beyond it, and for the first time in a long time - the first time maybe ever - you let yourself believe that everything is going to be okay from here on out.

School might be hard, but you’ve worked almost the whole way through it with an end in sight, and a you’re building a life for yourself that you’ve never been so excited to live.

Your parents might be shitty, and they might not show up when you need them, but you have other people who do.

You have Ellie, who, for all her faults, has always been there to fall back on. She lets you spend the summer with her, with all intentions to have you stay the whole time, even if the two of you ended up elsewhere, and lets you impose on the holidays - shares all her traditions and never makes you feel like you don’t belong there. She cares so much about you that she goes a little crazy, but you think you’d rather have it that way than not at all.

You have Ethan, and you have Quinn, who both refused to fall for everybody else’s misconceptions of you - who encouraged Luke to persist when you gave him a million reasons to give up, and who were both in your corner without you ever even knowing about it.

And you maybe even slightly have Jack, who was just trying to look out for his little brother, like he’s so used to doing in all other aspects of Luke’s life, and who was willing to admit he was wrong despite how much you know it pained him to do so.

Everything in your life leading up to now might have jaded you a little, might have skewed your perception on what it meant to be loved, but you have Luke, now, to clear it all up.

Luke, who is dorky, and unserious, and loud, and uncoordinated, and acts out of impulse sometimes in ways that hurt you, but cares about you too much to ever leave you behind. And that, yes, he’s someone who doesn’t leave, but he’s also someone who comes back - who keeps showing up for you despite you giving him a million reasons not to.

Luke, who persistently slips in through the cracks of your long-caged heart and cements himself a place so deep in there that you’ll never get him out - you won’t ever want to.

Luke, who you love, and who loves you back, and who tracks you down in the next state over with a bunch of ridiculous movie references and makes you regret ever telling him you were freaked out by declarations like that, because you’ve wasted far too much time now trying to convince yourself you were a cynic.

Luke, who told you all the way back at the beginning of summer exactly who he was - who he was always going to be, and you were just too stubborn to listen.

Luke, who is, and always has been, inevitable.

When spring turns to summer, you find yourself back where it all started, your eyes fluttering open at the familiar sound of tyres rolling across the gravel driveway of the lake house, sun beaming harsh enough through the windshield that you have to squint against it, and your heart hammering in your chest.

It’s been a few weeks since you last saw Luke - when he’d surprised you at your graduation, and had helped you box up all your stuff back at the sorority, and the anticipation of a promise he’d muttered into your lips on your last night together has been the only thing keeping you going while you were back in Chicago with your mom.

The whole summer, he had promised when he invited you to stay, and I’ll even be your chauffeur again.

The thought of coming back to the place you fell in love, with the boy you fell in love with, and getting to experience the beauty of it all through eyes that finally let you truly see it makes your heart do little somersaults in your chest - a feeling that’s only exacerbated when you climb out the car to see Luke sat on the stairs leading up to the front door, waiting for you.

You feel the weight of his crooked grin even from a short distance away, a warm, gooey sensation spreading throughout your entire body as you run straight for him, ditching Ellie to get out the car on her own time and leaping into his arms.

You press frantic kisses wherever you can reach, and he holds you up so that you don’t fall, your legs wrapping securely around him as his glorious laughter rings out into the air around the two of you - your lips against his cheek, and his jaw, and his forehead, his nose, his eyes, even, and finally his mouth, where he matches your enthusiasm like he’s been waiting the whole time to do so.

“You missed me, I take it.” He chuckles, lips moving against yours as the words fall between your lips, and you hum back, kissing him again as a response.

“Get a room, that’s disgusting,” you hear the bitter scoff of Jack as he brushes past the two of you and heads straight for Ellie.

“Don’t listen to him,” Luke mumbles as he carefully lowers you back down until your feet touch the ground, “I got us a room, I even put some things in there for you, do you wanna go see?“

“What about my bags?”

“Your bags can wait,” he smiles coyly as he grabs at your hand - tugging until you’re following him into the house, and up the stairs, a layout you could still follow with your eyes closed. The familiarity of it all makes your heart ache in the best way, a stupid, lovestruck grin taking over your face as he guides you towards his room - your room too, now, apparently, and holds the door open for you to walk in.

It’s pretty much exactly how you remember it, the big window looking out over the pool at the back, the lake in the distance, and a soft breeze causing the curtains to flutter gently.

There’s the bed in the centre of the room, where you slept for the first time beside him, the same navy sheets, and you bet they still have the same soft linen smell to them, the same detergent kept in the laundry room downstairs. There’s the dresser to the side, where he once kissed you so stupid you never thought you’d think straight again. And the en-suite, where you first taken things a little too far with him, not that you regret any of that now.

The summer you’d spent so long trying to squash down is here now, larger than life, impossible to suppress or forget. And the boy beside you is the same.

You can’t fight the smile as you turn to him, his eyes glinting back at you the same way they have ever since that day in the exhibit, a light in them that you don’t think will ever go out.

“What did you put in here for me?”

“Nothing, it was just an excuse to get you up here,” he chuckles, advancing on you before you even realise he’s doing it, hands sneaking around your waist until you’re pressed flush to his body, and he’s dipping his head to kiss you again. “But if you want to go shopping later, we can get you some stuff. Make it feel more like your room, too, add a feminine touch, or whatever.”

“A feminine touch?” You scoff, grabbing at his t-shirt and turning the two of you until you can push him down onto the bed. “You gonna let me paint the walls with rainbow sparkles?”

He scoffs, thighs tensing as you lower yourself onto them, straddling his hips and grabbing at his hands so that they can’t hold onto you like he wants. “If that’s what makes you happy,” he smiles up at you, dorky and adorable.

“I’m happy,” you tell him, leaning in and kissing him slow, and sweet, unable to help when your lips curve up where they are pressed to his. “I will put one feminine thing on the list, although I don’t know anywhere around here that might sell them.”

“What’s that?”

“Pink fuzzy handcuffs,” you smirk, leveraging your hold on his wrists to lift his arms and press them back down into the bed, heart racing at the way he looks up at you - like you’re the entire universe. “So I can tie my pretty boyfriend to our bed.”

And then you lean forward again, pressing the curve of your lips back to his, revelling in the way his laughter ripples out into your mouth - swallowing it down until it swirls like petals in the depths of your stomach, cinematically swept up by a soft breeze, dancing and falling in slow motion.

“You’re gonna make me regret this, aren’t you?”

“Definitely.”

A/N: guys I could hardly warn you above for the cheesiest ending you'll ever read in your life without spoiling the whole thing, but if a guy professed his love to me at destination cosmos, I'd melt into a pile of water slime or something. this is honestly so wild, and probably repetitive, and might feel rushed and insane towards the end, but I feel like it needs to be, because these two are insane.

I hope you guys are happy with this lmao, I've had a lot of fun torturing you the past few months!! a lot of LIH callbacks in this final chapter, if you can pick them out ily, it really feels full circle, and like the right ending for both of them, so I'm praying you guys enjoy it as much as the rest!!

Ending this series is bittersweet, because I truly do adore these two idiots, they have a place in my heart forever, and if they have a place in yours, I would welcome any asks/conversations about them in the future!!

Again, thank you. I don't really know how to end this without being a blubbering mess at how much I love you all for getting me here!!! Being able to finish something like this, and be genuinely proud of it, isn't something I've ever done before I came on this site, and your support of my writing, whether it be LIH or OYS or anything else, brings me so much happiness I can't even describe it.

#luke hughes #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes imagine #luke hughes fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #luke hughes fluff #luke hughes angst #*writing #shoutout to megs dolls they’re gonna need a good 30 minutes of privacy #I dread to think what sort of shapes they’ve been smushed into

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winterzsurprise · 10 months ago

Text

Change My Mind [2]: Hate You

Pairing: BTS x reader

SUMMARY: As a make-up artist, you were expected to glamorize your clients with brushes and products that cost a week-worth of food, not to befriend them outside of work, let alone have them save you from dates yet here you are five years later as one of their closest confidants.

Being a stylist of the world's biggest boyband is no easy feat, someone is doing flips, someone can't stay still and one's asleep but its fine, you can work around their chaos but then one day, you find out they're all your soulmates, a whole different can of chaos you don't think you can handle.

Tags: Soulmates AU, Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Not Beta Read, Slow Build, Polyamory, Attempts at Humor

Words: 8.6k

I posted this a day later than the one on ao3 because I forgor :''DD

Seeing the support and comments from both website got me off my ass to fix the storyline, even made a lot of changes on the chapters I've had preserved.

this chapter got rewritten a LOT, and was longer than it initially was so I hope y'all don't mind long chapters.

<<<Prev || MASTERLIST || Next>>>

__________

There's been times where your heart has truly fluttered for a man throughout your lifetime. Too many times has it been because some of your bosses (read: Jimin) flirted with you but you have never felt anything remotely giddy for anyone else outside the group.

Except for the man now sitting in front of you, flashing you a dimpled smile after handing out his card with an ease you only see in your friends and male leads in dramas. An action more attractive than any kabaedon or flexed muscles.

He's attractive but you don't like like him.

Yoo Guwon came to you as a bashful giant, rubbing the back of his head whenever he’s flustered and a constant sheepish smile featuring his deep set of dimples indented on both cheeks. He’s charming and articulate with his words just like a lawyer would be. Everything about him reminds you of another gentle and clumsy giant probably hunched over his music equipment back in the BigHit building.

It’s only been a few hours but you surprisingly covered most of the basic grounds of first meeting conversations during the short time you drove around Han River in a two seated bicycle. From the meager questions of ‘what dreams do you have?’ to the more complex and deeper ‘If the world falls into ruin, will you burn my body when I die?’.

Too graphic for a first date but you wanted to test the waters and you concluded that he’s too perfect.

He knows the right words to say, the proper way to act and it makes you suspicious. Your mother has never recommended you to a good guy before, having a track record of ten shitty suitors who all ran their mouths about their mediocre achievements, and dared to ask you about your purity before ranting about how dirty you are for not saving yourself for your husband the moment they find out you're not a virgin anymore. Then all of a sudden, she led you to good boy Guwon.

And it makes your skin crawl.

What did that woman eat? Has your father fed her something bad this time? What is she planning? It’s scary how she has finally advocated for an actual nice guy.

After taking you to a museum you're sure Namjoon has visited once, he drove you both to the Han River to rent a double seated bike to drive around with before ending the night with a nice reservation somewhere in the Seocho district.

The place is as sophisticated as fine dining areas usually are. With an intimate lighting, marbled tabletops matched with soft cushioned seats and high ceilings to make space for modern glass chandeliers, the restaurant was no doubt expensive, the type you have to reserve a spot two months prior to be able to experience its greatness. The point was driven home when you saw the amount of zeros it cost for one can of soda.

You asked him how he managed to get a table and he went down the rabbit hole of the many advantages he got from successful cases, ranging from a free monthly subscription to fruit baskets to a free week-long voucher to a five star hotel somewhere in Busan.

Going back to the butterflies, while not as wild as it got when Hoseok possessively wrapped an arm thrown around your waist to pretend as your boyfriend to ward off a persistent suitor, they're there, albeit subtle.

Very subtle.

Maybe it's in the way he didn't think twice to hand out his card towards the waiter in the most suave way with the thick golden watch decorating his wrist, sleeves neatly folded up to reveal the thick cords of veins on his forearms with his hair strewn messily and a dimpled smile that made you react like that.

You ignore the voice comparing his uncannily similar traits to someone else.

Meeting Guwon wasn't like how the movies illustrated love at first sights. They talked of fireworks exploding in the background and hearing the sweet chimes of wedding bells upon eye contact but for him, it's just that. A meeting far more formal than you'd like. He has a lot of qualities that check your list of husband material traits yet instead of butterflies, you could only feel an echoing hollowness in your chest as you listen to him list out his future plans.

It felt like surrendering to the fate the divinities had weaved out for you which is being an untethered forced to love someone you don't even feel any spark with.

He's a nice man who’s offering a comfortable future and you're just a woman who wishes to live a lavish life at home while your husband wastes his years away in the office. You might be a hopeless romantic who wished for soulmates and the like but you're not blind to the opportunity Guwon offers you.

You haven't texted the gc anything during the date other than the selfie you took before you left for the date but there's been constant vibrations in your purse and it's no doubt the guys asking for updates but for a moment you wanted to try to focus on the man before you.

Not that it wasn't hard to try with Guwon anyways.

Whenever the man spoke of his achievements and hobbies with a humble approach, he never forgot to ask you for your opinion or input on the topic. You also noted how he has never cut you off and let you speak whenever you wanted, listening with an eagerness only your friends usually show. He asked relevant questions with a genuine curiosity, eager to know more about you.

So when he asked if you wanted to go on a second date that night, it came to no surprise for anyone when you accepted it albeit the heaviness in your heart.

It was funny how eagerly you searched for a husband you could bring to your parents' doorsteps but the moment someone with all the qualities you seeked came, it felt disappointing. Boring even.

But you can learn, this man is your ticket to living without working anymore.

It came to no one's surprise that your mother was overjoyed, she wasted no time calling you before you could even change to squeeze the memory of today out of you.

The shrill scream of victory she let out that night was unforgettable because finally, a suitor you actually liked. Your dad even congratulated her off-screen for her matchmaking achievements before telling you to bring Guwon home to meet them.

Logically, you’re aware you've won the love roulette—Guwon has it all, he checked every box on your list, yet it felt like defeat and it tasted foul, bitter on your tongue.

You couldn't tell them that it was you deciding to settle, that would break her heart.

Tapping the end call button felt like the dam breaking and all the water held onto for so long flowed out. You fall lifelessly on your bed with a heavy sigh. Taking a couple evening breaths, you finally opened the group chat with an overwhelming number of unread messages.

[Today, 08:49]

[08:49] Mimi: I'd run my bank dry to take you on dates if you'd dress so pretty like that, noona~

[08:49]Tete: We're really seeing this for free when the poor guy has to pay for it. #livingapriviledgedlife😁👍

[08:49] Hobi: Wow noona🤯

[08:50] Yoongs: 👍

[08:55] Tete: Wait, I don't think those shoes fit you, go back home and change it😁

[08:56] Jinnie: Hey, you're showing too much skin on the first date! Go back and change!

[08:57] Joonie: Ignore these haters noona, I hope you enjoy your day😊

[Today, 21:48]

[21:48] Jinnie: are you home yet? You haven't seen our messages in HOURS.

[21:48] Tete: NOONA DID YOU GET MURDERED?!😱

[21:50] Joonie: Let's be rational guys, don't jump to conclusions. The date might just be going great if she's busy enough to not check her phone😊.

[21:51] Mimi: doing great? don't scare me like that hyung😵‍💫

[21:51] Tete: BUT WHAT IF SHE GOT KIDNAPPED HYUNG????

[21:51] Hobi: please reply soon, we're worried🥲

Jungkook's absence from the conversation didn't come to you as a shock, the kid doesn't even reply to you for a week despite being one of the people who raised him. Nonetheless, you sat up from your bed to record a quick video of you giving them a thumbs up and turning the camera to show your room.

The latter was an assurance to Taehyung that no, you also didn't get kidnapped into someone else's house to be someone's housekeeper, and no, it wasn't a clone either.

The moment your message gets sent, the replies blow up your phone almost instantaneously.

[22:28] Mimi: noona you're alive!

[22:28] Joonie: How did the date go?😊

[22:28] Jinnie: how nice of you to remember to update us PEASANTS.

[22:28] Mimi: How was Guwon?

[22:29] Tete: I KNEW WE SHOULD'VE WENT WITH YOU ANYWAYS

[22:29] You: Shockingly, he's a pretty nice guy. Not too bad on the eyes, and pretty smart. I think you'd get along well with him, joon. He's a lawyer so he covered most of the expenses today😁

[22:29] You: Overall, it was great, we're gonna go on a second one. He's pretty cool.

Instantly, messages from the members, even Jungkook’s to your surprise, flooded your screen.

[22:30] Tete: Noona you've been cursed! We need to bring you to the nearest shaman to break it!!

[22:30] Mimi: don't joke with us noona

[22:30] Mimi: I just got goosebumps!

[22:30] Joonie: Congratulations are in order then? Will we be expecting him around you soon?

[22:31] Yoongs: I need to meet him, need to know if he's good enough

[22:31] Yoongs: men are trash, I need to see him for myself before I decide

[22:32] Yoongs: and you know what they say about lawyers, they LIE. I wouldn't trust him

[22:32] Jinnie: WE need to meet the man who managed to steal your heart! I want to talk to him😊

[22:32] Mimi: don't use that emoji again, hyung

[22:32] Hobi: SCARY JWANN😱

[22:32] Joonie: Let’s not threaten anyone please.

[22:32] Joonie: But I'm really happy for you 😁.

[22:33] Tete: Those periods really scares me hyung…

[22:33] Tete: Somehow, I don't think you mean it…

[22:33] Joonie: What makes you think that, tae?😁.

[22:33] Tete: 😰

[22:34] Ggukie: a few drinks will fix you up, noona😁

[22:34] Mimi: you'll invite me this time right?

[22:34] You: I don't know, you already used your mischief hours this week, I doubt Sejin would be so kind next time.

[22:34] Hobi: if he does that right now during practice, I also wouldn't be so kind to him😊

[22:34] Mimi: you are scaring me hyung…

[22:34] Hobi: good😊

[22:34] Tete: Hyung, are you just gonna ignore Jungkook leaving?!?!!?

The messages continued for a good five minutes, mostly consisting of holding Jimin back from leaving practice and him sending pictures of the infamous Hoseok death glare from across the room before your doorbell chime rang, making you shoot up straight.

A beat. Then it continues in three quick successions, the knocks almost in sing-song and sounded like two hands were used to produce the tune, giving you an inkling on who might be visiting you at this late hours of night.

Padding out of your room, the front door suddenly swings open without warning and you yelp. By the doorsteps stands the intruder, a tall man in a black coat with his face hidden by a mask and a cap. Your body would've frozen a thousand times over if you didn't know this stranger who's hugging two paper bags, one overflowing with snacks and the other a breeze away from tearing apart from the weight and water drenching the material of the bag.

"Hi noona!"

After today, seeing Jungkook felt like a cure, his presence alone repelling the heaviness in your shoulders and you ushered him inside and he wandered into your home with ease, approaching the coffee table to place down the shopping bags.

Suddenly you remembered what he had scheduled prior.

"You're putting me on Hoba’s punishment rotation, what are you doing here?"

He giggled. “We both know he won't, hyung loves you more than me.”

He falls on your couch with the ease of someone who has visited your space numerous times throughout the years, propping up his feet on the back support and folding his arms underneath his head before staring up at you, expectantly.

"Anyways, I brought us food and drinks, don't I deserve a little praise?"

Sometimes it's easy to forget how young Jungkook really is, forced to grow and act mature to blend in with his surroundings, you've always seen him stand with pride alongside his hyungs. Seeing him awaiting for your praise so eagerly like a pup fills your heart with awe.

"Yeah yeah, good job. Now move over, let me sit down."

You tapped his arm, motioning him to move over so you could sit next to him, something he obeyed without resistance, busying himself in removing the contents from the soiled paper bag instead.

“Couldn't you have put some effort into it? At least sound grateful.” He pouts. Placing down the cluster of beer cans, you turned to him and pinched his cheeks.

“Oh my dearest darling, thank you for saving this noona of yours. Such an amazing baby I have here.”

Despite being the one who asked for it, Jungkook only rolled his eyes with a barely held back grin as he slapped your hands away, making you laugh, and turned to the bag holding the snacks he bought. You didn't miss the redness dusting his cheeks or the cheeky grin that tugged his lips wide as he spilled the contents of the last bag onto the table.

There's a significant amount of sweets and snacks laid before you, as well as stacks of canned beers and you turned to him with furrowed brows.

"Wouldn't this ruin your diet?"

He waved you off with a huff. "I work out enough to eat all of these in one sitting."

Instantly, your mind brings you back to white walls and gray furniture, faced with manager Sejin who warned you about interfering with the idols' diet at the start of your career. If it wasn't for Bang PD waving off their concerns, saying they needed to be rewarded for their hard work anyways, you would've been long booted out of the company.

It's a matter long settled yet it remains to weigh heavily in your head.

Seeing the hesitation in your eyes, Jungkook continues.

"I can show you proof of my efforts,"

He then reached down to the fabric of his shirt tucked into his jeans and tugged it up, flashing you the tightly corded muscles in forming on his abdomen and the thin happy trail you often see when patting his sweat down during concerts and you hastily pulled it back down with a yelp, cheeks growing hot while he laughed.

As he throws his head back in his mirth, you couldn't help but notice the way adulthood has taken away the fullness of his cheeks and has sharpened his features. A far cry from the sensitive young boy who cried his eyes out every time his hyungs got hurt.

There was no denying that Jungkook had grown without you noticing and it makes your chest swell with pride knowing he's been raised well by the others, in extension, although not so much, you as well.

"Don't worry so much about me, noona. I can handle the consequences now, you leave the reprimanding to me."

Under the warm overhead light of your living room, even with the exaggerated puff of his chest and his nose turnt up high, Jungkook's shoulder had never looked sturdier, reliable, in your eyes. You smiled, reaching to pinch both his cheeks making him grin wider than he already was.

"Look at you acting so cool, when did you grow so much?"

He rolled his eyes, pulling your hands away from his cheeks and entangling it with his. “I've always been cool, you just don't pay attention to me, noona.”

Before you could reply, he's already moved to reach for the beverages on the coffee table, popping two of them open and handing you one can, immediately you take a swig.

The beer fizzled in your tongue and left a trail of burns down your throat. The sensation is refreshing nonetheless and you place it down next to him before picking up the large bags of chips and standing up.

"I'll go put these in a bowl, go put something on the tv."

"Can I play anime?"

You waved at him dismissively, unable to find it in yourself to say no to him as you head towards your kitchen to transfer the junk into a bowl when a shrill tune from your bedroom cuts through the air, someone was calling you. You look over to Jungkook, scrolling through his phone, no doubt looking for a movie online.

"Gguk, can you pick up the call for me? My hands are busy right now."

There's a shuffle of feet behind you and in a moment, your phone quietens down. Finished with filling one bowl, you turn to find Jungkook leaving your room with a deep look and your phone in hand. His jaw set tight as he stood there with furrowed brows, eyes lit with irritation.

Looking at his reaction, you asked about your mysterious caller.

"Who was it?"

When he turned to you, the tick in his jaw dispersed. All of a sudden, he's smiling at you with mischief twinkling in his eyes, the change giving you a whiplash.

"It was the others, didn’t answer their calls cause I want you for myself tonight, noona."

(Later on, you'd find yourself staring at the many unread messages and two missed calls from Guwon, wondering in your drunken state if you've muted your phone at some point earlier.)

Hearing it from his lips now, your body locks, heart stuttering in your chest and butterflies exploding in your stomach, spreading a tingly feeling throughout your body and you laugh.

"Where did you hear that line from, brat? You just activated my fight or flight!"

"Taehyung says that and gets thanked but when I do it, I'm punished?" He pouts, stomping as he approaches the island counters and crossing his arms on the marble surface.

It reminded you of a bunny you saw from a video on the internet, angrily thumping their feet at their owner when it was being purposely ignored.

“In his defense, he does it while he’s acting like my crazy ‘exes’ and saves me from dates.”

“That’s just favoritism! I saved you once from a date!”

You threw him a deadpan stare. "Throwing me over your shoulders and kidnapping me isn’t the same as Tae and Jimin acting crazy enough to make the other guy uncomfortable to save me.”

Hoseok had your favorite troublemakers kneeled on the floor with both their hands up and facing the wall at the time, punishing them for being an hour late to their practice. He had called you in, asking if they had been accompanying you during —they weren’t.

Long story short, you didn't risk sharing Hoseok’s wrath with the two and took Jungkook instead, a decision you quickly regretted later on in the night when instead of approaching to act like one of your exes when you gave him a signal, he hoisted you up onto his shoulder and ran away while your date only watched in terror.

“Now that’s blatant favoritism! I didn’t kidnap you, we ran away together into the sunset! It was romantic!"

"Not for the other guy, no! He was shitting bricks when he called my mom. She got me squatting the entire afternoon when we met again."

Mentioning it alone made phantom pains throb in your knees and thighs, you shivered. If torture wasn't a socially unacceptable and punishable offense in the modern world, you were sure your mother would have stripped you down to your underwear and made you squat under the sun in front of your family house instead.

The absolute fury she unleashed on you that day is enough proof that she would've done it with no hesitation if it was lawfully appropriate.

"That's too much for a failed date."

"No reason to dwell on it. Main point is, don't take notes from dramas anymore."

With a last roll of his eye, Jungkook then picked up the bowls and brought them to the coffee table following you who had returned to your seat ahead of him. Once the two of you are situated back on the couch, he navigates through the streaming app for an interesting title before eventually settling on the romance anime he claimed to have heard amazing reviews about.

Without hesitation, Jungkook navigates himself into a familiar between your legs and leaned back on your chest, head finding his rightful space under your chin with a precision gained from doing so for years.

It goes without saying that Bangtan is affectionate. With the pressure they had during their rise to fame, it wasn't shocking that they comfortably seeked each other's comfort and spared no skinship. As one of the only staff within constant exposure that's close to their age, you too became one of their pillars of serenity.

It was the reason you had crushes on everyone at least twice during your time as their make-up artist, not that any of the boys knew nor does it matter.

Stability and work takes precedence over something as shaky as love.

There's only so much comfort another man can offer, your mother says from years before.

Jungkook more than anyone else in the group.

As a boy who sacrificed his childhood and time with his parents to pursue his dream, you felt more inclined to watch over him than the others who were adults by the time you joined. You were there for his first heartbreak, his first drink, his high school graduation; the point is, you were there and you held him every time he struggled with problems—mostly girl problems—he's too shy to seek his hyungs for.

But now with his growth spurt, cuddling up to you like he used to when he was younger with his gangly legs awkwardly hanging from the couch, carelessly leaning his head in between the mounds of your breast while his large hand mindlessly drew circles on your knee, you found yourself wondering about the appropriateness of it all.

A man and a woman alone in a room at night in close proximity, body leaning against each other. Society would argue they wouldn’t end the night as friends anymore after the encounter.

You paused mid-drink and grimaced.

It must be the beer talking.

"Noona."

"Yeah?"

"Wrap your arms around me, it's cold."

You raised an eyebrow at him. "It's not though? I always keep my house warm."

He let out an exasperated groan before reaching behind to grab your arm and roughly slinging it on his shoulders.

As time continued its cycle and episodes started to fly across the screen, the pile of opened beer cans on the table expanded. You really tried to focus on the movie but the feeling of his fingers tracing stars on your bare thigh left you oddly bothered. Jungkook has shifted his position higher at some point during the movie, his body now turned sideways, successfully squeezing himself into the small space between you and the back of the couch, legs entangling itself with yours while an arm is thrown across your body.

This position puts his nose closer to your ears and it makes you shiver. The feel of his hot breath fanning across your skin has given you more goosebumps in under an hour more than you've had throughout your life.

Even drunk, you could feel the building tension thickening around you and the will to tell him to off ebbs away with every caress of his fingers.

Gone were the innocent traces of stars and hearts on your thigh, his hand now grabbed onto your waist almost possessively, thumb rolling slow circles on your bare stomach; the motion conjuring the most unholiest of thoughts known to mankind.

When the credits started rolling, you knew you had to draw the line before you lost yourself to intoxicated thoughts and end the night with regrets.

"Time for you to go home now, your hyungs must be looking for you."

You tried prying his hand from your waist so you could reach for your phone on the table only for him to tighten around you, stopping you from moving away. He groaned, head nuzzling closer into your neck and his lips grazed your skin.

Instantly, electric jolts shoot through your body.

"Jungkook, I need to get my phone and tell someone to fetch you from here."

"Can't I just stay the night? I'm too comfortable right now…"

The gruff in his voice and the sensation of his lips moving on your skin has your stomach fluttering and you're too drunk to address the growing heat in your abdomen but thanked the sense of professionalism seeping through the fogs of your intoxicated mind.

Managing to pry him off, you reached for your phone and opened up SMS to tell Jin to pick their youngest up.

[01:21] You: Jwannn

[01:21] You: can you pick up your kid from my house? He's drunk and stinkyyy

[01:23] Jinnie: your knight in shining armor is on the way!

“Just let me stay the nighttt,” he whined into your skin.

"I don't have any more spare beds other than this couch for you to sleep in, Gguk. I turned the other room into a closet, remember?"

"I can just sleep with you on the bed, we used to do that, didn't we?"

He attempted to reach around you again but you pushed his limbs away once more before slapping his arm.

You tried not noticing how thicker and harder the muscles felt, you really did.

"But it's different now, Gguk. Come on, go wash up and drink water, I've already told someo—"

The moment you rose to stand, his arms shot around your waist in record speed and pulled you flush to his front, nuzzling his nose on the back of your neck before he sighed. When the first hot exhale hits your skin, you flinch away but the limbs wounded tightly around your middle restrict you from moving.

You try to ignore the heat simmering under your skin but it was hard when you felt the press of his plush lips on your nape as he leans closer into your skin.

“You always smell so nice, noona.” He whispered breathily, the sensation of his moving mouth sending shivers down your spine and you shivered.

“I-I can give you my lotion brand later, let me go so I can get it.”

“But I'm comfortable here…”

Mustering every strength left in your body, you manage to pull an arm out of the death grip he had on your body and slapped his hand. Jungkook easily ignores it.

“Come on Gguk, let me out now. This isn't appropriate.”

"How is it different now?"

The alcohol intoxicating your system loosened your grip on your inhibitions and your lips regrettably moved faster than your brain.

"You're a man now, Gguk. Honestly, we shouldn't be even doing this right now. It's inappropriate."

You try to stand once more, managing to pry him from your waist and standing up before his arms hooked around you once more and tugging you back down, this time on his lap as he burrows his head onto your back.

"Gguk?"

"Yo-you see me as a man, noona?"

As a child your mother has taught you how words could heavily influence and drastically change a situation, now as an adult, you've mastered the art of speech. But as you sit still on his thighs, body warm and inhibitions blurred by the alcohol, your loose lips have led you back to the very thing you try to avoid.

"It's hard not to think so when you've grown up this much."

In a flash, Jungkook is now hovering over your face as he places you back down on the couch, his nose a hair's width from touching yours and his hands planted on each side of your head.

There's a feral hunger swimming in his eyes as it stared into yours, desperate and intense before it fell to the plush of your parted lips and his gaze darkens. All of a sudden, you're a prey pinned down by an apex predator who's ready to devour you at any given moment.

Fire alarms blared in your mind and you regained control over your senses.

“Jungkook.”

"Noona."

You tried wriggling out of his grasp but it was no use, he's stronger. "Get off of me, kid."

“How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not a kid anymore?”

“I'm not hearing anything out when you're acting like this, Gguk.”

He scoffed. “I just want to sleep here, in the same bed, nothing else is gonna happen. Why is it such a bad thing?”

“It's different now, Gguk. Come on, let me go.”

“How is it so different? You and Jimin hyung cuddle sometimes, I've seen you fall asleep next to Hobi hyung once, why is it different with me?”

“It's different because we're both drunk and things could happen.”

“I wouldn't mind it.” Jungkook responds with a cheeky smile. His grip on one of your wrist loosened enough that you were able to hit his arm and he giggled in response.

“But I do. It wouldn't be fair.”

Even something as small as letting one member stay at your home without the others can be the loudest announcement for the rest of the group. All those times you've rejected your friends, with reasons like ‘I don’t want to risk everything’, and ‘I don't want to hurt the others’, to turn back around to accept their youngest would be hypocritical of you.

He scoffs. "You tell us about all your stupid dates, don't you think it's more unfair for us?”

A familiar weight grows in your chest. Guilt tasted like rust on your tongue and dug into your heart with a ribbed knife. Your own late night thoughts manifesting before you and you pushed him away.

After everything, you were all friends, you trusted them more than you do with your other circle. There's not a secret left undiscussed between the eight of you so it was no surprise that you had indulged them with the details of your quest for a husband. Nobody ever raised any complaints with you sharing your days so you never thought twice about it.

It's been five years since Jin had confessed, three for Taehyung. Their eldest had confessed for the sake of him finally being able to move on after your rejection and with how he acted after, you had believed him. It was different for Taehyung who had continued to act like normal after his confession, neither dejected nor did he show signs of letting go but he did introduce a date to your group once, a year later, so you had assumed the same.

Were you wrong after all?

“Jungkook, we're drunk. Let’s talk about this tom—”

“I've never been more sober in my life than I am right now, noona.”

You didn't respond, couldn't reply.

What were you supposed to even say?

Jungkook usually obeyed you and his hyungs without hesitation, happily offering his aid whenever he could. He's the type of friend who's run himself dry just to fetch you a cup of water from the other side of the world but now as he hovers over you, he became a whole new person.

Greed has always been an irritating parasite that eats away at a person's morals but somehow in your drunken mind, you thought it looked so good on him. It fits him and his generous character the way one light clothing molds well with the dark fabrics. His familiar scent of vanilla and coconut clouded your senses, calming your panicking mind into a hush, leaving nothing but the thoughts of how his lips tasted and wondering if he’s as sweet as he smelled.

He let out a shaky exhale from through his mouth as he watched your parted lips with a rapt attention as if hypnotized by the way they subtly trembled with every breath that passed through.

In the pregnant silence of your room, his voice cuts through like a knife.

“Can I kiss you?”

He whispers against your lips, voice breaking in the middle from the weight of his request, honeyed and pleading, as if your kiss holds the answer to the problems of the world and holds the power to break him.

His hand travels up to cup your cheek oh so carefully like you're fragile china yet you feel yourself shatter under his touch.

You are losing grasp on your sober thoughts as lust starts to cloud your already compromised judgment, his request far too tempting to ignore.

Maybe a kiss wouldn’t hurt.

But wouldn’t it be unfair for the others who have expressed their romantic intentions to you since years ago?

It was a last ditch effort to reason with your mind and your body froze from the cold wave of realization. In the short time after his question, you recall the confessions you turned down to not ruin the relationship Bangtan has established for themselves and the bitter taste it left on your tongue.

“Jungkook… we can’t.”

Watching his expression contort into confused hurt almost made you want to take your words back, but your mind takes you to memories of apologetic and understanding smiles you’ve received throughout the years and the aches from those moments resurfaces, squeezing your heart in a tight grip.

“I-I’m sorry I can’t control my feelings, I just wanted to tell you about it… Thought that maybe after this, I could move on.” An apologetic voice whispers, the memory of premature confessions in the middle of a cleanup resurfacing.

“I can’t—I can’t do it to them, it’d be unfair.”

You pushed him back and he relented, letting himself be sat back onto the other side of the couch defeatedly. Despite it, his tight grip on your waist remained, pulling you flush to him and burying his face in your chest as if trying to hear the lie in your words through the beatings of your heart.

“I’m also seeing Guwon now.”

“Then don’t let me meet him. I-I don’t know if I can take it.”

It was heart wrenching and at the same time, left an uncomfortable twist in your stomach. Jungkook never had to beg since you first met him, everything he could ever want was given to him by you and his hyungs without hesitation. Hearing him plead for you to never bring Guwon around if fate had actually paired you both, it was a different kind of pain.

It felt like thorns growing and rooting its stems of pointy ends into the deepest parts of your heart. You hated this, but you don’t want to hurt any of your boys by accepting one.

Relief comes in the form of Taehyung when he busted into your apartment while Jungkook has excused himself to your bathroom to sober up just a moment before. Seokjin trails behind him, calmer than the younger man who declared his arrival with a deep voice and a loud bang of the door. You immediately thought of the elderly couple and the new family of three living next to you and internally facepalmed.

“Noona! We’ve come to take Jungkook away!”

Kim Seokjin’s face has never been more handsome when he closed the door behind him, and you verbalized your thought, leading his ears to glow red in embarrassment.

“Am I only handsome to you when I’m closing the doors?! This face that people fawn over all over the world?!”

“It’s your true calling, door guy.”

“Oh shut it hyung, you’re making my head hurt.” Jungkook mutters as he reentered the living room, looking far better than when he left.

The tension was palpable, the effect of a rejected profession still raw and thick in the small joined space of the living room and kitchen and you caught Jin's eyes as the two youngest bickered, there’s a knowing look passed between you, an unsaid ‘let’s talk later’ hanging in the air.

“Hey, just because you got to escape Hoba’s practice without scratch doesn't mean you're hot shit, show me some respect!”

Seokjin scolds, accompanied by a playful kick to their youngest’s butt. Immediately the stuffy air dissipates and Jungkook responds in kind; by kicking him in the shin, hard enough to launch Seokjin into another lengthy nag.

It was a quick retrieval after his rant. Jungkook lets himself be towed out of your apartment by an oddly enthusiastic Taehyung who's going on about a new game trailer he saw online while Jin has offered to be left behind to clean up the mess. It was no doubt obvious, the familiar awkwardness and tenseness brought by a rejected confession lingered in the air when they arrived, it only took him one look at you and he already knew.

The moment the door slams shut behind the boys, he immediately began:

“Did he admit it?”

His voice was soft yet it rang loudly in the pindrop silence of your living room. The sigh he let out echoed more when you nodded.

“I told him to not do it, you know? But you know how stubborn he gets.”

You didn’t reply. You simply move, walking to the trash bin to put the empty beer cans in and Jin follows close with the bowls stacked on top of each other to place in the sink. It was a brief moment of reprieve. He let the moment from earlier simmer in your stomach, let the smoke from it fill your lungs and weigh your heart till you burst.

Out of the seven boys, you've always turned to either him or Yoongi as they're older than you, so it came to nobody's shock when you break and told him.

“It just never gets better, I always feel guilty even if I didn’t choose. I’m just lucky I didn’t have to suffer through seven of these, I don’t think I could take it and just quit.”

It was a thought you’ve entertained when Taehyung came to you with his heart in his hand, giving it to you carelessly despite knowing how you’ve handled the other confessions. He was all dopey smiles and flushed cheeks, it continued even when you’ve pushed his heart back to him with an apologetic look.

Seeing the happy creases in his eyes iron out despite the huge boxy smile continuing to play on his lips, the existing pressuring guilt reawakened. Taehyung’s heart that gleamed and glowed gold, vulnerable for you to take and use from where it settled in the middle of his offering palms. You could’ve taken advantage of it all as they were rising in fame, when they were facing discrimination from the other companies and had found comfort in you but you didn’t.

Even with the attraction you've felt for them, you were nothing but a makeup artist to the company. Another asset to deploy and replace if it got annoying to handle. You couldn't risk your career on uncertainties, this is your dream job.

You loved them all equally and held them in the same regards as the others, they’re your best friends, chosen soul companions even without the marks to solidify it.

They loved you and you loved them all but you wouldn't bet your life on an uncertain future.

“You should give us more credit, you know?”

He says from the kitchen sink, the sound of water slowing into a halt. Seokjin didn’t move for a while. When he did, it was to place down the plates, washing his hands before turning around to face you.

“We’re grown adults now, we can handle rejection so don’t feel too bad about it. You can choose and we’d even help you keep it a secret from everyone besides us eight.”

It was genuine. Even in the haze of your intoxication, those words felt like a cool balm for your aching heart. While Namjoon’s words were cited research, formal and factual and Yoongi’s were calming droughts to ease the discomfort of sadness brought by gloomy thoughts, Seokjin speaks from the heart, true and unbiased but says it with a gentleness and care.

Guilt sets like a boulder on your heart. Being able to feel, to experience such a privilege when all you've done is break his heart since your hunt for a husband, the weight in your chest multiplied and tears sprung from your eyes.

You wanted them but you couldn't risk your dream job, couldn't risk a friendship as precious as theirs for kisses and hugs that eventually has its ends.

You didn’t even notice it when he crossed the distance between you both and pulled you plush to his chest but you recognized the familiar sensation of plush lips pressing against your forehead.

If it lingered a few seconds past what's platonically allowed, you didn’t mention it.

Seokjin’s muted scent of freshly baked cakes brought silence to the rampaging waves of thoughts in your mind and if you pressed your nose flush to his chest to bury yourself in his fragrance, he didn’t say anything, bringing one hand behind your head protectively.

“I'm sorry to put you through this pain, Jinnie. I-I didn’t know.”

“I knew you didn’t know but I'll be fine... eventually.” He breathes out before leaning down to bury himself into the nest of your hair. "As long as you're happy, then I am too."

It was heavy, being loved and held so preciously even after you’ve turned him down, it felt cruel, sadistic even. But like the selfish woman you are, you accepted it. Soaked in his affections greedily.

“You know, he asked me to never show Guwon around you guys.”

He sighed. “I knew he would.”

“Do you want that as well?

Silence followed but you heard his answer loud and clear.

The second date happened after the first leg of the tour in Seoul.

Although planned suddenly, you appreciated the downtime after being lost in the haze of rushed outfit changes, reapplying makeup, and patting sweat from foreheads. If anything, you were thankful you could loosen up after earlier. The awkward tension didn’t go amiss, it only took Namjoon and Yoongi one look between you and Jungkook before taking charge on how the night progresses.

Yoongi didn't waste any time waving you over to ask for help for his makeup, even when he was already being prepped by one of your older colleagues, Ji hae. Thankfully, the woman lets you take over, saying she wanted a snack anyways.

The man didn't bother asking you what happened and settled comfortably in his chair but not before offering you the snack he bought earlier and was laying neglected on his lap. Yoongi asked about Guwon in a hushed voice, because while you were living in a reverse harem with most of his brothers, he was genuinely curious about your boyfriend-to-be.

Maybe it was the fact he has never admitted his affections for you that made it comfortable to discuss topics you could never talk about with the others with him, but you let your tongue a little loose.

And he listened.

Yoongi has always been a man of action not words, his love language has always been opening water bottles, blankets appearing from nowhere when you're passed out on their couch, and listening attentively. Despite what the world says about his nonchalance and silence, in your eyes, he's the sweetest guy on the roster—not that you'd tell Jimin that of course, he'd riot if he were to find out.

By the end of the concert, Guwon asks you on an impromptu date. A simple late night walk on a market nearby because there's apparently a food fair, and as usual, the expenses are on him. Hungry with a principle of never turning down free food, of course you accepted.

Though you had a long time deciding whether to go or not with Jungkook’s confession still fresh.

Minutes later, he's waiting for you by the exit. The scene of him leaning on his Mercedes, waiting for you to reach him at the bottom of the stairs looks like it was pulled out of a kdrama.

Oddly enough, they didn’t question your lack of updates in the group chat but Jimin reached out later on and you suspect he told everyone your whereabouts instead, hopefully minus the date part to spare the others (read: Jungkook) from heartbreak.

The fair looked like a mirage of a paradise in the night hidden away in a small gently-lit up alley. The path was lightened up with gentle lanterns hung above you, the warm colors setting a more intimate scene. It wasn’t as luxurious as dinner from yesterday or as calming as the bike ride around the Han river but you appreciated it nonetheless.

You’re ready to drop dead but you pushed through, you wanted this relationship to work. Because then, maybe the monsters—your mother and her wide selection of personalities as well as aunties, her friends, trying to refer you to their horrible sons—haunting you from under your bed will finally leave you alone.

It was cruel that you’re using someone else to erase the memory of being professed to by one of your best friends.

Guwon was happy enough to take charge the whole date, leading you from food stall after food stall, ordering whatever your eyes lingered at which is half of what the fair offers. He understands your lack of responses as it is, tired from work, and talked enough for the both of you. Which you are grateful for.

He talked about his job and what happened that day, willingly telling you about the story of how he and his co-workers clicked back in College, never to part till now in the field they wanted. He spoke of his dreams, how he envisioned his dream home by the province surrounded by nature and the cat named Nabi waiting for him at home.

There's nothing more blatant of a signal than the last part, whether you accept it or not depends on you.

Normally, you would've frowned at the thought, immediately thinking of running away but as the night deepens and stalls start to close, the idea grows more and more tempting despite the logical voice in your head disagreeing. Seeking a distraction and possibly leading on a kind man is cruel, both to him and you.

But at the end of the day, it’s just an escape from the reality you're stuck in, a temporary answer to a long time problem.

How harmful can it be?

People had hookups before, you’ve had hookups before your mother has started a hunt for your husband this year so what are you so reluctant for?

If this man is to be your husband, you should check your physical compatibility right?

You shivered. God, you sounded like one of those shitty guys you’ve dated before.

"Hey, the stalls just closed. Are you fine with me driving you back to your house?"

His voice cuts through your deep thoughts and you turn to him. Even in the dimly lit corner of the alley, Guwon looked attractive as ever with his dimpled smile and laid back attitude, his soft eyes gleaming under the lanterns, affections overflowing from his gaze and you. shuddered from its weight.

Staring at the man, you wondered if you'd ever fall in love with him as he seemed right now.

Soon enough, you both arrive in front of your apartment building. However, not every plan goes through as you thought it'd go and you find two familiar figures rushing down to meet you.

Taehyung didn't hesitate to run up to you with open arms and a wide smile. He didn't even care that you both almost toppled over if it wasn't for Guwon hand supporting you from the back.

"Wh-why are you two here? Shouldn't you guys be resting?"

Jimin shrugged but you caught the mischievous glint in his eyes as a small smile tugs his lips. "Hyung got so worried and wanted us to make sure you got home safely."

"Even a thumbs up would be great but you ignored every text and call! Jin hyung panicked and sent us out, if you didn't come home, he would've had a huge manhunt for you." Taehyung chimed in, pulling away but keeping his hands on your shoulders as he stared deep into your eyes, as if trying to hypnotize you into believing them.

Jimin snickered. “Yoongi hyung was an hour away from declaring you missing so the good dongsaengs we are, we decided to camp outside your apartment.”

You would've accepted his explanation, it was logically sound yet the dark glint of mischief and something else in his eyes as his gaze bounced from you to Guwon told you a different story.

They've always had to interrupt your dates when it becomes sour but this was the first time they've confronted a potential partner outside the intentions of ruining a date because you wanted it to suck.

This was them laying their claim over their own, a silent statement. A declaration you try not to think so much about, fearing you'd dig yourself deep and fall to your death.

“These must be one of your kids?” Guwon asks from behind, reminding you of his presence and you turn to him with an apologetic look.

“Yeah, Taehyung and Jimin. I practically raised them.”

Jimin scoffs and your head snapped to him, widening your eyes in warning to which he ignored. “Just because you’re a year older, doesn’t mean you could say you raised us you know?”

“See what I deal with everyday?”

Guwon laughs lightheartedly before patting your head to get your attention. “Since your kids are here to protect you, I should get going now.”

“Drive safely.”

“See you soon?”

“Definitely.”

Then he placed a haste kiss on the edge of your lips, catching you off guard and you froze. Guwon was already in his car by the time you realized what happened and turned to chastise him. You couldn't even knock on the passenger window when the arms coiled around your shoulders tightened and tugged you close.

Letting Guwon kiss you in front of one of the men who confessed to you once was the first mistake, second was looking up at Taehyung whose hug is starting to hurt.

Gone were the usual giddiness and child-like enthusiasm that would pour from his eyes. It was replaced by a colder glare, almost blank and emotionless as it narrowed behind you and jaw locked tight. There was something primal in the way his hand behind your head was pushing you closer to him as if he was hounding over his game from another predator.

Goosebumps prickled your skin awake.

If butterflies exploded in your stomach and ignited a molten heat in your abdomen at that very moment, it's a secret you’d take to your grave.

“Tae?”

“Noona, I think we should head inside. It's getting cold.” Jimin’s sweet voice sounded forced and you resisted the urge to look at him.

While their reaction to being challenged is obvious, you couldn't, for the life of you, figure out why he should feel like that when he’s been seeing other people since his confession. From your past dates where he attended as one of your escape plans, he’s never expressed such an intense show of displeasure so you thought his fleeting crush had passed.

Until tonight.

When Taehyung pulled away, the traces of his hostility were gone and you had to double take at how vastly different he's appearing now. He has his lower lip pushed out into a pout, eyes wide with mirth as he reaches up to cup your cheeks, his warm palms heating your cold-nipped skin.

“Aigoo, you're so cold noona. Let's go in and binge that foreign show you've been following.”

With hands now intertwined, he leads you inside the building where Jimin was already standing inside and was holding the door open for you both. You were being tugged into your own home yet you couldn’t help but feel tense as Taehyung and Jimin welcomed you back in with the same dark look you saw earlier.

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