#I’m not an angst writer I swear these things just keep happening

[imaginespazzi]

Part 4: The Art of Letting Go

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

Only know you love her when (she lets you) go

(In which a still very sadistic writer make things a lot worse but only so they can get a little bit better)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Angst, Pining, Hurt with very little comfort

Words: 7.9K

TW: Car Accidents, Panic Attacks, Swearing

A/N: Hello my lovelies <3 I know I'm very, very late with this and I love you all for being so patient. I don't really know how I feel about this chapter but it is what it is. Logistical details are probably a little off but I need things to work for the plot, so try and ignore that. Per usual I did edit (very loosely and I'll probably go back over it later), there are probably typos anyways. And as always, let me know what you liked, what you didn't, and what you'd like to see in the future. Happy reading lovelies and let's get a W this weekend. <3

December 2023

A week or so after they get back from the Cayman Islands, Azzi feels like she’s been sleep-walking through life, everything around her hazy and dull. She religiously sticks to a routine of eat-study-practice-sleep. Except well, sleep isn’t really sleeping. It’s her brain conjuring images of blonde hair and blue eyes and Azzi forcing herself to wake-up from a nightmare that used to be her favourite dream. 

She doesn’t tell anyone what happened, lying to herself it’s because it would be embarrassing and not because it would mean having to face the truth. Still, it doesn’t mean that her teammates can’t piece together little bits. There must be something quite sinister about the air around her, because none of her normally nosy and eager-to-help sisters try to weasel any information out of Azzi. They act like they always have, only sharing worried looks behind her back when the façade of i’m doing fine slips momentarily when she thinks no one’s watching. 

And then that façade goes to hell over the span of a couple of hours. 

It starts with the inevitable breakup with Zoe. At first Azzi avoids it, making up excuses as to why she can’t see her girlfriend. Selfishly, there’s a part of her that wants to keep Zoe, keep a girl who would never leave, never make her feel anything less than (or more than) just content. But it’s not fair, Azzi knows that, and it’s why she practises her it’s not you, it’s me speech to perfection in front of the mirror. When she goes to message Zoe that she's coming over, the text chain causes a pinch of guilt in her heart at the contrast between her girlfriend’s hopeful tone versus her own nonchalant one. And Azzi thinks that Zoe will never really understand just how similar the two of them are, stuck at wanting someone who would always let them down. Only, Azzi will let Zoe free but when it comes to her herself, she’s pretty sure she’s destined to be trapped forever. 

It’s embarrassing to admit that Azzi remembers the apartment in Storrs that she’d visited barely a handful of times a lot more than she remembers the apartment she’s currently in, the one that belongs to her girlfriend. Zoe sits rigidly on the couch with the same reserved, guarded expression she’s had since she’d opened the door, clearly aware of what was about to happen. Her foot taps incessantly as the silence between them drags on.

“You deserve better,” Azzi says finally, keeping her eyes firmly locked on the floor. 

“No,” Zoe’s voice is cold, “don’t say shit like that. It’s a cop out. It’s the shit people say to make themselves feel better-”

“Zoe-”

“Don’t be a fucking coward Azzi. Look me in the eye and say it, say exactly what you’re here to.”

Azzi doesn’t want to do any of that. She wants to crumble to the ground and let it swallow her until she’s buried so far away from the mess she’s created. But she owes Zoe this. When she does look at Zoe, there’s this look in the other girl’s eyes that Azzi had never thought herself capable of evoking in anyone and she has to swallow away the bile that rises in her throat, disgusted by her own self. 

“I’m breaking up with you,” Azzi whispers. Her words linger in the air, like shrapnel after an explosion. Zoe flinches, a single tear trickling down her face. 

“There it is,” the Californian says quietly, the ghost of an ironic smile playing on her lips, “I knew it was coming but damn- there it is.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“For what-” Zoe cuts herself, “no actually don’t- don’t answer that. I think I know.”

Azzi draws in a deep breath, ready to confess, “I need to tell-”

“Please-”

“Z-”

“Please,” Zoe sobs, “please don’t tell me. I don’t wanna hear it okay? I don’t- I don’t want to hate you Azzi. It’s too much and I don’t- I just- I’m so tired of feeling so much for you when you don’t- when you feel so little for me.”

“That’s not true,” Azzi counters helplessly, her words ringing hollow to her own ears. 

“Fucking hell you just ended it Azzi, you don’t have to pretend anymore. And it’s okay because I get it. You can’t feel any more than what little you do for me because- because you’ve already given the rest of it away. And it’s not- it’s not like I didn’t know you know? I only ever met you because you were crying over her. You only let me into your life because you missed her. And now you have her,” Zoe says wistfully. 

It’s terrible the way everything else becomes white noise as Azzi’s ear latches on the last sentence, a sentence that couldn’t be any further away from the truth. She was prepared for the accusations, for Zoe to hurl every curse word in the book at her, but this, the unintended reminder that she was giving up on soft, sweet, gentle Zoe for something that she didn’t have, hurts far more than any words could. 

“This isn’t about-” 

Zoe’s quick to cut Azzi off, pushing herself off the couch they had been sharing, trying to put even more space in between them, “please do not insult my intelligence by finishing that sentence. I deserve that much at least.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are because I know- I know who you are Azzi and I know you’re a good person and that’s why- that’s why I don’t wanna know okay? Whatever you did- whatever happened- just let me- just let me have this. Let me remember you as someone good- someone great,” Zoe pleads.

“If that’s what you want Zo,” Azzi answers weakly, the guilty clawing at her heart. She doesn’t think she deserves to be remembered like that, doesn’t think she’s worthy of being thought of with fondness, not anymore. 

Zoe doesn’t make any acknowledgement of Azzi having spoken as she starts to pace, “I should have known. You know the day I met her this summer, I got it- the appeal- I got it immediately. She has this aura, this charm. She just- she just fucking glows you know? And she’s just- she’s this huge entity and so are you and I’m just,” she lets out a hollow laugh as she shrugs,  “I’m just a girl from Stockton, California.”

“And you’re amazing,” Azzi puts up a hand when Zoe tries to cut her off again, “you are. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you for what you did for me last year. You could have walked away that day and maybe- maybe one day you’ll think you should have. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Zoe. You do deserve better. It’s not a cop out. It’s the truth.”

Since she was younger, Azzi’s always hated endings. This time is no different. The bitter truth is that she probably won’t miss her girlfriend, but she will miss the friend that had gotten her through one of the toughest years of her life. Slowly, Azzi picks herself off of the couch and walks over to a still Zoe, squeezing her left hand once before heading towards the door. 

“Azzi,” Zoe calls out, just as Azzi has one foot out the door, “I hope it works out for the two of you. You and Paige always did just seem inevitable.”

***

She blames the fact she’s currently stuck in the terrible LA traffic, with the word inevitable ringing in her ears, for the way her fingers continuously flicker over the green call button under Paige’s name. Zoe saying her name had been the first time in a week that Azzi had even let herself, in consciousness at least, think of the blonde properly. And now that it had been unleashed, whispers of Paige, Paige, Paige echo through every crevice of skull. The pain and anger that she’d been trying to shield herself from, come barraging into her heart as she’s held captive once again by thoughts of her best friend. 

It would be a lie to say that Azzi hadn’t been hoping for a call or a text to come through. She’d waited two days with bated breath for a friendly quip that would lead them back to their safe haven of just pretend. Instead it was as if they were back to being who they had been before summer of 2022 all over again. Back to being nothing. But this time Azzi had been adamant that if Paige was going to cut her off again, she wouldn’t fight it, not this time. Apparently that resolve was never meant to last and Azzi feels a little pathetic with how desperately she needs to hear Paige’s voice, how desperately she wants to try again. 

The traffic clears just as she presses call and maybe that should have been a sign. Azzi’s not a bad driver per say, but as her dad always said, no one’s a good driver when they’re distracted. The phone rings for too long and she should take that as her next sign and accept it as Paige not wanting to talk, but she lets it continue to ring anyway, as she turns onto a more secluded road. And then-

“Hello,” the voice is unfamiliar and Azzi doesn’t really know Paige’s teammates, beyond Caroline, that well but she’s pretty certain this one doesn’t belong to any of them. 

“Hi uh- who is this?” she manages to get out as her grip tightens on the steering wheel.

“Oh um- this is Rose, Paige’s friend” comes the reply, the word friend said with a sultry lilt and Azzi feels her skin prickle. Hang up. 

“Why are you answering Paige’s phone?” her tone is far more accusatory than she’d like it to be. 

“She’s in the bathroom but she told me to,” Rose answers defensively. 

Azzi hesitates, she doesn’t need to know more except, “does she know who called?”

Because surely if she did, if Paige knew it was Azzi on the other line, she wouldn’t let one of her likely random hookups answer the phone, surely Paige would know what it would do, how it would make her feel. 

“Uh yeah- I told her Azzi called and she seemed pretty sure she wanted me to pick up.”

Maybe Paige does know what it would do, does know how it would make Azzi feel, maybe that’s the whole fucking point. Through the phone she can hear quiet footsteps walking closer, towards Rose. When Paige is close enough that Azzi can make out the sound of her breathing, can almost picture the way her chest is heaving, that’s when the tears finally fall, blurring her vision. 

She doesn’t see the blinking headlights rushing towards her until it’s too late and then she’s swerving. The world around her erupts in motion and light and noise, everything spinning and spinning and spinning. For one moment, as she loses complete control of her car, Azzi thinks maybe this is it. And the most terrifying part of it, is that for a second, she’s not all that opposed to the idea of this being the end. It’s a singular image of her parents in her brain that has her regaining her senses and hitting the brakes as hard as she can. Her tires screech as her car barrels into a tree and her entire body jerks around in her car, her seatbelt leaving burn scars against her neck. Azzi feels her heartbeat going haywire, as everything comes to a halt. 

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Rose’s panicked voice echoes. 

“What?” and there’s Paige and even in this wreckage, Azzi’s heart stutters at the sound of her best friend. 

“I think she crashed-”

“WHAT?” there’s frantic shuffling until, “Azzi? Azzi? Hello? Are you there? Fuck. Azzi are you okay? Please say something. C’mon Az. I know you’re there. Can you hear me? Please be okay. Azzi? Fuck, fuck, fuck. Azzi?”

Azzi opens and closes her mouth, trying to answer to the call of her name, but nothing comes out. She feels hot and cold all over at the same and she swears there’s a hand curled around her neck because she can’t fucking breathe. 

“Azzi,” Paige says again desperately, “please say something.”

“P-Paige,” Azzi finally manages to stutter, her chest heaving as she gasps for air. There’s blood rushing to her ears and everything around her feels hazy. 

“Azzi,” and that one syllable is wrapped in so much emotion, “I’m here okay, are you okay?”

No, Azzi thinks, I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. 

“I c-can’t breathe. I think” she grasps at her neck, “I th-think I’m having a panic attack.”

Paige curses under her breath, “okay, okay alright listen to me breathe okay? And try to match it okay?”

“O-okay,” Azzi whispers, pressing her head to her steering wheel as she tries to mimic Paige’s exaggerated deep breaths on the other end of the line. 

“Good girl, you’re doing so well for me Azzi, just keep breathing okay,” Paige’s voice is far calmer than she probably is in reality, “just keep breathing with me okay.”

Azzi closes her eyes as she feels her chest slowly start to loosen up and lets herself be immersed by Paige’s soothing words of comfort. And for a second, it almost feels as if her best friend is right there with her. For a second, Azzi imagines that they’re on a whole other planet, just them in their little world, like it always should have been, like she’d once been so sure it would be. It’s a beautiful dream that reality is quick to gatecrash. 

“Babe, is she okay?” Rose asks, and Azzi’s eyes fly open at the term of endearment. She’s not on a different planet. She’s alone. And Paige isn’t. 

“I’m fine,” Azzi breathes out and then more firmly, “I’m fine.”

“Thank God,” Paige lets out a sigh of relief before her tone turns sour “what the actual fuck Azzi?”

Azzi winces at the loudness, pretty sure she might have a concussion from the way her head had crashed back into her headrest as she’d crashed into the tree in front of her. 

“I’m fine,” she repeats assertedly, as everything around her slowly starts to make sense again. It’s not a lie really, at least not physically. There’s the potential concussion, and the litany of bruises she’s starting to feel all over her body but she’s pretty sure there’s nothing wrong internally. Well except for her stupid fucking heart but it wasn’t the accident that had fucked that organ up. 

“You just crashed your fucking car, no you’re not fucking fine,” Paige yells, voice thick with tears. 

“What the fuck do you care?” Azzi bites back, “sorry I interrupted your fucking night Paige. I swear it won’t happen again.”

She hangs up before Paige can say anything else, sitting deathly still for a second. And then she lets herself completely break apart. 

***

74 missed calls from Paige

did u go to the hospital 

pick up ur fucking phone 

dude

azzi

this is not the time for this stubborn bullshit 

PICK UP UR FUCKING PHONE 

AZZI 

just say ur ok at least

please 

called ur mom 

said u had a concussion and some bruising 

thats not too bad 

ur so fucking stupid 

it could be so much worse 

please pick up 

AZZI FUCKING FUDD PICK UP UR PHONE 

so u can call carol and not me ok 

thats just fucking perfect

dude i feel like an accident > stupid fights 

so maybe just pick up 

or call me back

u wanna play this stupid game fine 

ignore me for now

but i’mma be in dc for christmas

ur gonna have to talk to me 

i know where u live 

***

The box in Azzi’s arm feels freakishly heavy, like she’s holding the whole world inside of it. In a way, maybe she is. The walk up Paige’s dad’s driveway feels longer than it ever has and she’s fighting the urge to turn back with every step. As soon as she’d seen the vaguely threatening text message, Azzi had decided she would beat Paige to it. The night of the accident had put several things into perspective and Azzi was determined to finally grasp control of her own life. 

It hasn’t been that long since the Cayman Island and so it hasn’t been that long since Azzi’s seen Paige. But when the door opens and she’s face to face with her best friend, despite the dread and anxiety that’s drowning her heart, Azzi still feels that beat of it’s cold but you always make me feel warm flutter in her chest. Paige smiles and Azzi’s arms wobble, drawing the blonde’s attention to the box in her arms. 

“Still a couple of days till Christmas Az, a little early to give me my present,” Paige smirks lightly and Azzi feels a river of hot anger slide around her veins. After everything she’d put her through in the last couple of weeks, the fact that Paige could act so frivolous, as if they were still fine, makes Azzi see red. 

Her voice is icier than the sheet of frost on the ground when she replies, “it’s not a Christmas present.”

Paige’s eyebrows knit together questioningly, “then-”

“It’s all your stuff I had lying around,” Azzi cuts in, trying to keep her voice confident and stable. 

The smile disappears from Paige’s face as she studies Azzi's face, looking for some semblance of emotion beyond the blank stare. 

“What?”

“All the things you’ve left at my house over the years, a couple of t-shirts, a hat, a book and a couple other things, they’re in this box,” Azzi says pointedly. She tries to hand it over but Paige is quick to move away from it, staring at the offending object as if it’s a ticking time bomb. 

“What the actual fuck is going on Azzi?”

“I might have missed some things. Let me know if I have and I’ll mail them to you in the future,” Azzi recites clinically, keeping her demeanour stoic as possible “and of course I would like my things back as well. Not right now of course. You can mail them to me whenever it suits you.”

“Mail back your things? What? What the fuck are you going on about?” Paige asks, a bewildered expression taking on her face. She reaches out as if she wants to shake Azzi but seems to think better of it. 

Azzi doesn’t say anything, as she sidesteps Paige into the house, putting in the utmost effort to make sure no part of herself brushes up against the older girl, knowing the inevitable burst of electricity when they touch would be enough to break her resolve. She places the box of Paige’s stuff on the coffee table in the living room, before turning back to Paige. 

“I’m giving you your stuff back,” Azzi repeats, “I’m giving you what you want.”

“What I want? When did I ask for my stuff back?”

Azzi draws in a deep breath, fighting desperately against the screams of you don’t want this in her own head, “I’m giving you a clean break Paige. I’m letting you go.”

Saying those words feels a lot like free-falling. Her stomach lurches at the way Paige’s features scrunch up in pain and she’d never meant to do that, but Azzi’s so tired. She’s so tired of this push and pull, the way they seem to hurt each other every fucking time, the way things get so close to going right and then go wrong any way. The bitter truth of life, Azzi has forced herself to admit, is that it doesn’t matter how hard you fight, sometimes the darkness wins out anyway. 

“You think-,” Paige stutters, clutching at her chest, “you think this is what I want?”

“Well isn’t it?” 

“Of course n-”

“If I hadn’t called you that night would you have called me first Paige?  If I hadn’t gotten into that stupid accident, would you even have texted me ever again?”

Paige’s silence is an answer in itself . And although Azzi had known it, she can’t deny that there’s a part of her that had posed the question hoping against hope that Paige would have answered it with a resounding yes of course. She thinks maybe she should be used to the singe of disappointment that burns her skin by now but she’s never been immune to Paige’s fire. 

“That’s what I thought,” Azzi says quietly, “I’m tired of running after you Paige. I thought I was done after the Cayman Islands but then I- I don’t know- I don’t know why I called you that night when you- you clearly didn’t want that.”

“Azzi c’mon-”

“It’s my fault really. Because you've always been clear about it and I- for some reason- I just don’t listen. You were clear with it when you told me to go to UCLA and get out of your life. You were clear when you didn’t want me to come into your air BnB. You were clear when you told me to get out of the bathroom last summer. And when you left that night-,” Azzi pauses as Paige’s eyes widen, the words catching in her throat, “when you were gone that morning- every time you didn’t call- every time you didn’t text- you were always clear about it Paige and I- I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

“You’re being really fucking unfair right now,” Paige accuses, “you’re mad because I didn’t want to be your fucking side whore? I’m so sorry I had more self-respect than that Azzi.”

Azzi blinks rapidly, her face still completely neutral, “excuse me?”

“You wanna blame me for those first two things, fine. But you have a whole ass girlfriend and you wanted me to be what? Just a girl you can fuck occasionally because you feel like it? Who the fuck do you think I am? I deserve so much better than that.”

“I don’t-”

“You wanna know why I left that morning?” Paige asks icily, “I woke up and the first thing I saw is your girlfriend’s fucking i miss you text. All that shit you said to me when I kissed you in LA about not wanting to be one of my groupies or whatever but what did you want me to be Azzi?”

When they were young and naive, the largest fight they’d ever had was about whether or not one of them had cheated in a game of horse. The allegations of cheater from a 15 year old Paige had seemed massive back then, but they pale in front of the accusations of cheater from a 22 year old Paige. It’s not that Azzi thinks she’s some prime example of a good samaritan and she can deal with people thinking she’s not all that, but it’s different when it’s Paige, it’s different to know that Paige could ever think so low of her. 

“You really think I’d do that you? That I’d make you my sidepiece or whatever?”

“What else am I supposed to think about you fucking me while you have a girlfriend?” Paige asks exasperatedly and Azzi flinches at the repeated use of the profanity. 

“Had.”

“What?”

Azzi grips the hem of her shirt, trying to focus her eyes anywhere but Paige, “I had a girlfriend. Past tense.”

“You- you broke up with Zoe?” Paige’s expression morphs from anger to confusion before finally settling on realisation. 

“I never wanted you to be a side piece. You think I don’t know you deserve better than that?” Azzi rubs her temple, as she tries to keep herself steady on her feet, “I know seeing that text hurt you but it’s not like you didn’t know I had a girlfriend. But- but if you’d just waited for me to wake up, god if you’d just talked to me once instead of jumping to conclusions then-”

“Then what?” Paige breathes out and Azzi doesn’t miss the little spurt of hope that’s taken birth on the older girl's face. 

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Azzi shakes her head, “that’s also past tense now.”

The thing with Paige is that anger is her protective mechanism. When she gets a little close to losing control of her emotions, or feeling too much, it’s what she falls back on so it’s not surprising that her tone is harsh when she speaks again. 

“How the fuck was I supposed to guess you were gonna break up with your girlfriend Az c’mon,” Paige takes a step towards her, “I’m not a fucking mind reader.”

“I never asked you to read my mind. I just- all I’ve ever wanted- is for you to just have a little faith in me- in us,” Azzi’s voice breaks on the last word. 

“That’s not fair. I was really fucking  hurt Azzi-” Paige begins, her voice pleading.

“And then you tried to hurt me back on purpose,” Azzi spits out as the façade of neutrality completely slips off, “you knew it was me calling and you had that girl pick up any way knowing exactly how it would make me feel.”

“Azzi,” baby blue eyes sparkle with tears and Azzi has to force herself to look away, because no matter how much she’s convinced that this is what needs to happen, seeing Paige break, will drown Azzi and she’s barely floating as it is. 

“I don’t enjoy hurting you Paige,” Azzi says softly, “and I don’t think you enjoy hurting me but for the last couple of years, I feel like that’s all we’ve been doing and I- I can’t do it anymore.”

It’s not something she’d ever admitted out loud, or even to herself, but once upon a time Azzi used to think her and Paige would have one of those stories, one of those soft, sappy fairytale-esque stories that had no chance of an ending that wasn’t happily ever after. And she hopes that maybe in another universe, maybe they did have that. Maybe in a universe where she chose UConn and things never went wrong in the first place. Maybe in that universe, they’re happy. But in this universe, they seem to be destined for misery. And Azzi thinks the saddest tragedy of it all, is that it feels like she’s ending a story that never even really got the chance to start. 

“So that’s it then, you’re walking away- you’re just- you’re fucking giving up?” Paige says bitterly, crossing her arms protectively over her chest and Azzi feels a flicker of annoyance light up against her ribcage. 

“Isn’t that what you did?” she accuses, “Is that not what you do? You walk away every. single. time. because you can’t deal with things getting just a little too fucking hard. And what? I’m just supposed to wait until you come back? Or chase after you like a pathetic little puppy?”

Paige flinches at the hardness in Azzi’s tone, mouth opening and closing but nothing escaping. 

“I’m so fucking tired of always being the one calling, the one showing up, the one trying. I’m so fucking tired of fighting for us when it feels like you’re fighting against me,” Azzi pauses,trying to blink away the tears she’d tried so hard to keep locked behind her eyelids, “if you wanna call that me giving up then okay, but I don’t think you realize just how fucking hard I want to hold on.”

Azzi’s not sure if it’s the way her voice cracks, or the absolute misery behind every word she says, but Paige's hard and cold expression is gone so fast it gives her whiplash. And then her Paige, the girl with the warm eyes and soft heart is back, looking at Azzi in a way that makes her want to believe in them all over again. Arms outstretched, Paige takes a step forwards and there’s nothing more Azzi wants then melt into them. It takes everything in her to step away instead. For a moment there’s nothing but them staring at each other in silence, a moment where Azzi tries to memorise everything about Paige just in case this is the last time. And then-

“What if,” Paige begins softly, “what if I entered the draft?”

Azzi looks at her in confusion, “what does that have to do with anything?”

“The Sparks have the second pick, it’s where I’m projected to go,” Paige bites at her lips, peering at Azzi through her eyelashes. 

The Sparks. The Los Angeles Sparks. 

“Is that what you want?” Azzi asks quietly, trying to prevent her brain from already coming up with dreams of stupid picnic dates at the park during sunset. 

Paige hesitates. And it’s enough for those dreams to crumble, because Azzi knows Paige just a little too well, knows exactly what that little bit of hesitation means. 

“I haven’t decided yet but if- if there was a reason that I should-”

“There isn’t,” Azzi says firmly, “it’s not what you want.”

“I don’t even fucking know what I want,” Paige argues and that doesn’t make it any better. 

“Then figure it out,” Azzi yells, frustratedly rubbing her hands over her face, “I won’t deal with you fucking resenting me and running away again in a couple of years- hell in a couple of months- because you regret your fucking decision.”

“I wouldn’t-”

“Please just stop. It's done. I’ve made up my mind” Azzi begs, exhaustion flooding into her body, “just- just let this go please.”

Paige meets her eyes with a stubborn fire, “I don’t fucking want to.”

“Well tough luck because I do.”

“Azzi,” Paige pleads desperately, trying to block Azzi as she beelines for the door, but the younger girl is quick to push past her. 

“Goodbye Paige.”

***

December 2024 

azzi please just let me in 

ur parent are saying u dont wanna see me 

and i get it 

but i can fix this i swear 

i know u know im here

please fucking let me in 

i fucked up 

i know 

im so fucking sorry

but dude we can fix this

just 

can u just fucking let me in

i really wanna see u 

i really wanna talk 

can we just fucking talk 

please 

merry christmas az

u know what fuck u actually 

didnt mean that sorry 

i was just mad 

u make me really fucking mad 

christmas breaks almost over 

i have to go back soon and ik u do too

we should talk before that 

ur so fucking stubborn 

but so am i

im not giving up 

i won’t 

January 2024

hi 

i miss you

ur really fucking annoying

not texting me back

but its fine

i’ll just fucking spam 

i had an ok day today 

practice was kinda ass 

not me tho

i was great

as always 

bet i made more threes than you did 

bro im watching ur game

and

what the fuck kinda airball did u just throw up 

get in the gym az jfc 

oh that was a good pullup

not better than mine

but decent 

been a fucking month azzi 

just fucking call me back 

or text me idk 

i miss u 

sooooooooooo

hows ur day

good? good.

hows mine?

oh kinda shit 

lets see

we lost in front of all these uconn legends

to their fucking rival 

everyones saying uconn fucking sucks 

some people are saying i suck

they might not be completely wrong 

now would be a good time to reply az 

like maybe make me feel better

fuck u actually 

what the fuck am i doing 

idk if u even read these 

February 2024

idk maybe i should stop 

like maybe only fucking psychos do this 

but idk bro 

i feel like ur gonna text me back eventually 

well sc was a shit show 

i mean we knew it but holy shit 

i really wanna talk to you about it

it’d mainly just be me fucking yelling 

and u giggling 

fuck i miss ur laugh

i miss you

idk if u just ignore these

so idk if ur gonna even see this 

but 

i wanted to tell you first 

before u saw it from somewhere else 

im staying at uconn 

u were right

i didnt want to leave yet 

i want my 4 years

but 

just dont think it means i didnt mean what i said

that i dont wanna be in la with u

i do

its not about that

i just need to do whats best for me

and thats staying here 

fuck

i get what u meant now

u didnt pick ucla over me

fuck fuck fuck 

im sorry az

is this how u felt 

when i didn’t text u back 

because it’s actually fucking hell 

i miss you so fucking much dude

i’m so sorry 

i’m really fucking sorry azzi 

for all of it

please just call me back

March 2024

last pac-12 tournament mvp!!

dude i’m so proud of you

we also won 

idk if u heard 

it wasnt easy either 

everything just always fucking goes wrong 

fucking pisses me off 

but oh well 

u know i dont even like texting 

idk how many messages ive sent u 

its gotta be hundreds atp 

insane shit on my part 

tf is wrong with me 

did u see the bracket

see u in the final 4 azzi 

April 2024 

i fucking told u 

i told you id see u in the final four

fucking meant it

fuck 

gonna kick yalls ass

revenge szn

we’re built different in march

cleveland here we fucking go 

but also

cant avoid me anymore 

i cant fucking wait to see you az  

***

UConn 87     UCLA 84 

There’s six seconds left to go and UCLA has control of the ball. The game today had been completely different from the on down in the Cayman Islands. That one had featured a UCLA team that had dominated from start to finish versus a UConn team still reeling from multiple injuries. This time around, UCLA seemed to have lost some of their shine and UConn had been on a tear. She would never give Paige the satisfaction of knowing it but her stupid goading, her incessant smirking because UConn seemed poised to win handedly, had gotten in Azzi’s head for most of the game. The fourth quarter had seen UConn enter with a 11 point lead that had held study until the last two and a half minutes when something had finally clicked for Azzi. 

“Told you, you should have fucking come to UConn,” Paige had sneered while casually dribbling the ball and that had been enough to break Azzi out of whatever funk she’d been in. All of her anger and frustration at Paige seemed to culminate into that one moment as she’d swiped the ball straight from Paige’s hands, narrowly avoiding a foul. An easy steal-and-score layup was followed by two signature three pointers, created by her team’s defence, and suddenly the lead had been cut down to three. On the other side, Muhl had been called for an offensive foul and immediately Coach Close had called for a timeout to advance the ball. 

When both teams get back on the court, Azzi, with her competitive streak in full control of her emotions, relishes in the way Paige’s face is contorted up in frustration. But it isn’t just this game that has Azzi irritated. Paige had been relentless since both teams had landed in Cleveland in trying to corner Azzi. She’d known it was gonna happen since she’d read the text but still Azzi had hoped that maybe the blonde would just let it go, would understand just how much Azzi didn’t want to have to deal with this. Because seeing Paige hurts. All the missing and yearning of the past few months seemed to have blended into this ball of tight hot pain that had burst the minute Paige had smiled at Azzi. She knows Paige means well, and it’s taking everything in her to ignore the part of her that’s secretly enamoured by how hard the point guard is trying finally, but Azzi just can’t do it again. She can’t let Paige in again and then spend every other second scared that Paige will run away again. 

The whistle blows and Charisma gets ready to inbound the ball. The play call had been to just get it to Azzi but it’s clearly one that UConn had anticipated, because she finds herself swarmed with Paige and Muhl both trying to make sure she doesn’t get the ball. Instead, it’s Kiki who gets the ball and the countdown starts, as Azzi fights to get herself free, running off of screens, to get herself open on the three point line. It takes too much time and they don’t have any more timeouts left. Kiki throws it inside to Lauren who misses the layup but gets her own rebound and somehow the ball finally finds its way into Azzi’s hands. And with barely a second left to go, and Paige’s hand firmly in her face, Azzi throws up a prayer. The arena goes deathly silent as the ball hits the back and then circles every inch of the rim before spilling over the edge and falling straight into Edwards’ hands. 

The crowd erupts in deafening cheers as the UConn bench rushes to the court, jubilantly hugging each other with Paige in the middle. Azzi blinks rapidly, refusing to be caught shedding a single tear on camera. Her teammates look distraught and Azzi feels disappointment curling into every crevice of her skin she’d almost had it. In the grand scheme of things she knows that, that shot would have only guaranteed overtime and not a win but still, it wouldn’t have meant a loss. And she knows this one isn’t completely on her either but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel the burden of it on her shoulders any way. 

But despite it all, seeing Paige’s bright smile stretch all over her beaming face as she celebrates with her team, soothes the sting of the loss just a little bit. Azzi still remembers late night calls and Paige’s broken voice too well, her brain imprinted with the misery of a girl who had just wanted to play the sport she loved and couldn’t. And even if everything between them resembles the remnants of an earthquake, Azzi can’t help but be just a little bit happy for Paige. 

The handshake line is better this time around with no one being unnecessarily hostile. One team is too happy to care and when Muhl briefly hugs her, Azzi can’t help but be a little shocked by the affection. Her team is too despondent to be mad, and Angela briefly nods at Paige when shaking her hand, and gets a reassuring grin in return. Azzi has to force herself not to run away, if only for decorum’s sake, once she and Paige finally get to each other. Trying to keep herself steady, she reaches out her hand to counter Paige’s outstretched arms. The smile falls a little bit from Paige’s face as a more resigned expression takes its place. 

“Good game Bueckers,” Azzi manages to muster out. 

The last name stings but Paige does her best to not let it show, “good game Az.”

***

When there’s a knock on the door to her hotel room a little bit after 10pm, Azzi knows exactly who it is. The look that Charisma gives her as she goes to open it, suggests that she does too. 

“Oh thank fucking god, I thought maybe y’all left already,” and there it is, Paige voice echoing through her room and from where she’s perched on the edge of bed, her feet dangling over the side, Azzi catches a brief glimpse of the UConn point guard. 

“Had a little bit of a transportation issue. We’re not leaving til tomorrow morning,” Charisma explains, “what are you doing here Paige?”

Paige shuffles her feet nervously at the doorway, peering over Charisma’s frame in the doorway to catch sight of Azzi, “can I talk to Azzi?”

“First you kick my ass in the final four, and now you wanna kick me out of my own room?” Charisma asks, voice light but there’s an edge of seriousness to it. 

“I-uh-” 

“Az,” Charisma turns to Azzi with a questioning look, and Azzi sighs at having all the attention on her, “you wanna talk to her?”

Say no. Say yes. Her head fights with itself. And for the last few months, Azzi’s done well with listening to the logical part of her brain, diligently sticking to letting go. But that had only been easy to do because Paige hadn’t actually been there. Now that she is, with bright hopeful eyes fixed on Azzi, well, this time the emotional side wins out. She nods her head in yes at Charisma and Paige seems to glow all over. 

“You’re lucky it’s me and not Angela or Kiki or any of the other girls,” Charisma warns, “but I swear to god Bueckers if I come back and there’s a single tear-”

“Then you have my permission to fucking murder me,” Paige vows, her face a paragon of sincerity. 

Charisma nods once, stepping aside to let Paige in. The Bruin’s point guard looks at Azzi once more for confirmation and then, satisfied by the small smile Azzi shoots at her, she leaves the room, letting the door shut behind her. And then it’s just Paige and Azzi and the myriad of unspoken thoughts that seem to always linger between them. 

“Hi,” Paige says softly. 

Azzi stares up at her with tired eyes, “shouldn’t you be celebrating or something?”

“Still one more game to go. Gotta lock in for that first.”

“Then go do that. What are you doing here?”

Paige flinches at the harsh tone and Azzi feels a wave of guilt come over her. She doesn’t mean to be so hostile but she’s scared that if she gives in just a little, all of her will go tumbling down. 

“Sunday is the most important game of my life,” Paige says quietly. 

“I know- I know it means a lot to you.”

“It does,” Paige nods, as she takes a step forward, hesitating for a second, before she drags a foot stool over, so she can sit right in front of Azzi, “will you stay for it?”

“That’s not-,” Azzi sucks in a deep breath, her senses muddle by having Paige so close to her again, “I thought I was clear about- about us.’

“You were but I thought I was clear with my texts,” Paige counters. 

“Paige please.”

“I just-,” Paige pauses, leaning forward and staring intently at Azzi, “I don’t know how the national championship is gonna go. I don’t know if we’re gonna win or lose but I just- I know that no matter what happens, I want you there. Because if I’m gonna end up fucking crying, then I want it to be on your shoulder. And if I’m gonna end up celebrating, I want it to be in your arms. I just- I just want you there. With me. Always.”

Everything else floats away and for a moment, all Azzi knows is Paige, and the warmth that reverberates through her body at the earnestness in those words. If she could, she’d capture that feeling in a bottle and keep it forever. Because moments are fleeting. And when her brain catches up to her heart, and that voice in her head is back to echoing it won’t last, Azzi feels cold all over again. 

“You don’t believe me,” disappointment echoes in Paige’s voice; she’s always been a little too perceptive of Azzi’s emotions, “you think I don’t mean it?”

“I think you mean it now. I don’t think you’ll mean it forever,” Azzi shrugs. 

Paige is quiet, nerves on full display, as she cautiously reaches for Azzi’s hands with both of her own, an audible sigh of relief floating out of her lips when Azzi lets her. 

“I know I fucked up,” she begins quietly, thumb caressing Azzi’s palms, each trace sending jolts of electricy through the younger girl’s body, “like really fucked up and I get why you think that. I get why- why you’re so scared to believe me. And I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

A teardrop rolls down Paige’s cheek, falling onto their intertwined hands, and Azzi feels herself flinch, her own eyes beginning to glisten. 

“If I could go back in time, I’d change so many fucking things. I’d go back to the beginning- back to your room the night before you went to LA and- and I’d tell myself to shut the fuck up. I’d tell you that I supported you- that I understood that you weren’t choosing UCLA over me- and I’d- I’d tell you that it didn’t matter how many fucking miles away from me you were- we’d survive it. But I can’t- I can’t change the past. I can’t change that we fought. I can’t change that- that I was a fucking idiot for ignoring you for a year. I can’t change that I was a dumbass for leaving that morning.”

Tears are freely streaming from both of their eyes now as they grip each other’s hands tightly. There’s something cathartic about finally being able to cry, about finally being able to mourn the loss of what could have been together.And it feels a little bit like healing. 

Paige looks up at Azzi through watery eyelashes as she continues to speak, her voice wrecked with emotion, “and I’m not gonna make promises about how I’ll never do shit to hurt you again because god knows I can be really fucking stupid.”

They let out simultaneous giggles at that and Azzi can feel something in herself unravelling. 

“But what I can promise is that if you let me, every day- every fucking day that I live- I will try. To not hurt you. To make it up to you. To fix this. To fix us. And I can promise, that I will never ever fucking run away from you again. I know- I know it’s gonna be hard but I swear- I fucking swear- that I will stay right here and face it with you.”

“Paige,” Azzi whispers helplessly. It’s everything she’s wanted to hear and it’s too much. The voices in her head are too loud again, screams of she’ll hurt you, she always does, let her go colliding with shouts of it’s Paige, it’s your Paige, hold on to her. 

“You said- you said you were tired of fighting alone but you never- you never have to do that again because- because I’m here now. Fuck- Azzi I’m here. And I know- I know there’s so much we have to talk about and so much we still have to fucking deal with. But we can do that- we can- we can deal with anything. Because it’s us. Paige and Azzi. We can do anything. Together.”

Paige presses her forehead to Azzi’s, pulling their interlocked hands to her chest. They’re breathing in sync and Azzi can feel the thrum of Paige’s heart beat against her fingertips. Azzi’s eyes close of their own accord, as Paige’s lips brush over hers, her next words coming out in a breathless whisper. 

“Believe in me- believe in us just one more time, please.”

[hockeyboysimagines]

Love so sweet

Pairings: Arber Xhekaj x OC(Tabitha Hawkins)

Warnings: Sex, mentions of sex, angst, toxicity, language.

I know I said I wasn’t posting anything new but I have such bad writers block that this was all I could do💁🏼‍♀️ Hope you guys enjoy it🤍

“Well you can either come get your shit or I can light it on fire. Up to you.”

Arber was laughing on the other end of the phone “I’ll come get it later.”

“I’ll leave it on the porch.” She hit the red hang up button before he could answer and chucked her phone on the couch with a loud angry “UGH!”

This was their 100th breakup or something and it got worse and more difficult each time. She had this masochistic complex apparently that made her put herself through this over and over.

When things were good, they were great. When things were bad?

Yikes.

War was more peaceful.

She put the box on the porch and slammed the door, making her way angrily through the house.

She threw herself down on her bed, a bed they’d just been in the day before yesterday and closed her eyes. She could still smell his cologne on her sheets and she wondered how long it would take for it to fade. The breakups never lasted long enough for it to go away before he was back in it, and sometimes she wondered if it would be easier to stay broken up if she wasn’t reminded of him every night they weren’t together. The longest stretch of time, a week a half, hadn’t been enough to get rid of it even with two washes. She didn’t really want it to fade. It was the only thing that got her through the few days she spent without him.

As crazy as it sounded though, if she had known things would be this way with him she would still go home with him that first night every single time. She loved him, maybe too much, and she would sacrifice her peace if it meant she got to keep him. Not because she didn’t want anyone else to have him, but because she loved Arber more than anything and losing him would be like cutting her own heart out. Messy and painful.

She glanced over at her walls that were full of pictures of her and Arber and she felt hot tears prick at her eyes. Why they couldn’t be like they were in the pictures all the time was beyond her. It wasn’t fair. Things had been going so well lately she supposed she should have seen this coming. She’d heard down the line that Arber had been out at the bar flirting with some girl. It had made her so angry she called him, cursed him out and the blocked his phone number for several hours. When she’d calmed down enough to tell him to come get his things she hasn’t even let him explain himself before she ripped into him again. Whatever he had to say wouldn’t change how she was feeling. She hadn’t even asked him if it was true. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t, but it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it and she was starting to believe it. It was hard, the position she was in with him. Guys before him were just guys. But Arber had an elevated status, especially here in Montreal. Everyone knew him, girls threw themselves at him, and while he never indulged them, it still filled her with anxiety and paranoia every time he went out with the guys and she didn’t go. But when she was there and it happened it enraged her to the point where she wanted to commit a crime. It was a no win situation for everyone but especially her. His teammates, who she knew loved her, assured her till they turned blue that he never even looked at girls and he hadn’t since they met. They told her she was being silly and that they would be truthful with her if he was. She believed them mostly, but it had gotten so bad at one point that Cole and Kirby had showed up at her house and say he’s down to talk with her.

“Tabitha.” Cole said leaning forward “I’m telling you whatever you heard is a lie. I swear on my mother.”

“Yeah I swear on his mother too.” Kirby said bumping her shoulder.

She laughed and wiped under her eyes as Cole continued with a small smile “Arber isn’t fucking any girls and if he was, you can be sure I’d tell you and then beat him up.”

“You’d beat him up PLEASE.” Kirby said rolling his eyes “We’d find someone to beat him up.”

It had made things better for a while but the rumors killed her. She spent more time crying over fake news than she didn’t and she tried to keep most of it to herself but it bubbled over a lot and Arber usually suffered for it. She knew that she was the problem most of the time but it was out of her control now. Arber loved her and she knew it, but she always felt she was on the brink of losing him. But when things were good, she almost forgot the bad. Being with Arber was a gift. He was so wonderful to her and made her feel like the prettiest girl in the world. She only wished that she believed it like he did.

She felt nauseous, mad, and mentally exhausted. Then, she remembered she hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon and the anxiety of the breakup was churning the acid in her stomach like a spoon in coffee, bubbling occasionally to remind her that it could turn into vomit at any minute.

But the idea of getting up and walking to the kitchen made her wanna cry so she stayed put, swallowing down the nausea and closing her eyes. Her weight sank down into her mattress the longer she was there and her stomach began to settle. She was so tired and her eyes slipped closed as she took deep even breaths.

Much better she thought to herself as she felt her nerves begin to die down and she fell back into normal Tabitha, sending Tabitha the raging bitch back to wherever she came from. What a relief. A heavy feeling came over her and she wondered for a second if she would fall asleep. Every time she had one her episodes she got so tired and hoped this time she’d actually fall asleep so she could miss him coming for his things all together.

No such luck of course.

She wasn’t sure how long she was laying there but she heard his truck pull up, and then the sound of a key in the lock so she got up. Was he kidding? She had clearly said his things were on the porch.

She came around the corner and found Arber in the doorway and frowned at him, arms across her chest. “What are you doing? I put your stuff on the porch.” It came out meaner than she meant for it to, and she winced at her own harshness. She was always mad until she saw him and then all her anger went out the window. More than anything she had hoped he would leave and not come in at all so she could be mad and cry in peace.

Of course he didn’t.

He rolled his eyes and tossed the her house key on the table “Returning this.”

Ouch

“Great. Thanks. Bye.” She snapped.

He chuckled “That’s all I get? Okay then. Here’s your stuff.” He pushed a box at her with his foot “I think I got it all. If anything’s missing just text me I guess.”

“Sure.” She said with a shrug knowing she would end up texting him because she was stupid.

The air in her house was awkward and heavy as they stared at each other before he cleared his throat “Well see you. I have somewhere to be.”

“What?”

“I’m going out with the guys.”

Her stomach tightened and she looked at him surprised. It wasn’t unlike Arber to say he was doing stuff with the guys and then not actually do anything. It also wasn’t unlike Arber to say he was doing stuff with the guys and then leave early. Both of those things usually coincided with a breakup, and filled Tabitha with anxiety. Though she’d accused him of it on more than one occasion without any real evidence, Arber wasn’t a cheater.

She cleared her throat “Oh? Already. Well I hope you have a good time…where?” She didn’t know why she even asked, because as this was a breakup, she shouldn’t have cared. But not knowing where he was going would fill her with anxiety for the rest of the night.

“Why do you care Tabitha?” He asked holding one hand out.

She shrugged “Just wondering-“

“You broke up with me remember? Why does it matter what I’m doing.” He was frowning at her, eyebrows furrowed, but his eyes didn’t show he was angry. He looked sad. She hated making him sad and she found herself doing it more often than not.

“It doesn’t. Can you just get out now.” She crossed her arms and motioned to the door with her chin. All the rage she’d swallowed down earlier was beginning to bubble back up and she wanted him to leave before she exploded. She hated yelling at him, and always felt like a psycho when it was over. He never called her that, but Tabitha hated the way he looked at her when she was flipping out.

“Absolutely. Don’t call me.” He said with a nod and a step towards the door.

“Ha. I don’t plan on ever calling you again. Enjoy single life.”

“You know I don’t get you.” He stopped and shook his head “You break up with me, tell me to get my stuff and then pick a fight with me.”

“I’m not picking a fight with you. I could care less what you do. Go ruin some other girls life.”

The minute the words left her she regretted them, covering her mouth, and felt even worse when she saw hurt cloud his face. Even though they were broken up, the last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. Especially when they were both hurting enough.

He nodded slowly “So I ruined your life yeah? Okay.” He braced a hand on the door handle and turned it.

“That’s not-Arber. That’s not what I meant to say I-“

“Save it. You’ve said enough for me.” He looked upset, not angry and turned away from her but she crossed the floor and stopped him, bracing a hand on the frame to block his way. Realistically he could have moved her arm with a finger and left but he stopped and that gave her hope. Maybe he didn’t want to leave. Or maybe he was going to turn to her and finally tell her he’d had enough of the fighting and wanted to end things for good. That would be her absolute worst nightmare come to life. She wasn’t even sure what she would do if that ever happened.

“I didn’t mean that.” She said looking up at him.

He looked at the wall above her head frowning “But you said it.” He said quietly before he looked down at her “Do you really feel like I ruined your life?”

“No of course I don’t I just said it cuz I was angry and I’m all mixed up and I don’t know why I get like this. I’m sorry I just-I’m just sorry.” She looked at her feet swiping at a tear that had spilled down her cheek and sniffled. She heard him sigh and then his arms wrapped around her.

“Don’t cry.” He rested his chin on the top of her head and they stood that way for a few moments “Hey please don’t cry.”

She looked up as tears slipped over her waterline and trickled down her cheeks “I didn’t mean that.”

She didn’t mean that. Arber had made her life better from the minute he came into it. Though the fighting was hard, it was worth it to have him around. She hated that those words had come out of her mouth. Hurting Arbers feelings wasn’t easy and she remembered every single time she had. It left a lasting impression on her and she always said she would never do it again and yet here she was.

He looked down at her “I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

Her eyes bounced between his and his mouth several times before he couldn’t take it anymore and leaned in.

A tale as old as time with them.

Like a lit match on gasoline they stumbled back to her bedroom, and Arber one hand tossed her on the mattress, yanking his shirt over his head with the other one in one fluid movement. She pulled at her shirt and threw it across the room and it landed on the lampshade, engulfing the room in semi darkness. She sat up, pulling him towards her by the waistband of his jeans and sprung the button and the zipper off them. He stepped out and nodded for her to move up the bed so he could pull hers off. His rough and calloused fingers moved down the skin of her legs as he slid her jeans over her feet, leaving her in a pair of pink panties and a matching bra. Though Tabitha and Arber had a lot of sex, she always felt exposed in front of him. Like each time was the first time. She felt a redness come to her cheeks as he reached a hand forward and ghosted a finger down her neck before splaying his hand across her chest to push her backwards, moving over top of her.

“You know I love you right?” Arber said against her neck, tongue sliding over her skin.

“Yes.” She gasped out, nails digging into his skin.

“Good. Because I’m about to fuck you like I don’t.”

Tabitha relaxed under him eyes closing, as he reached down, pushing one leg wider, and bringing the other one up into an arch. He ran a hand gently down her face, before it traveled down and closed on her throat. Her whole body was shaking, goosebumps blooming across her skin, heart pounding out of her chest.

He gripped the skin of her legs tightly as he eased in agonizingly slow and bottomed out, letting out a long low noise before he pulled out again. Tabitha sucked in a breath and locked her back up, fingers gripping the sheets as he pushed back in more firmly, and locked her leg around his hip. His hand squeezed her neck gently as he moved finding a rhythm. Tabitha was overwhelmed for a minute, the high of the sex and the fight was almost too much. She closed her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her, lips moving slowly against hers and then down her neck.

“Look at me.” He said hand moving from her neck to her jaw and holding it in place.

Her right leg was bent at an uncomfortable angle and the sheet was bunched under her back painfully but he was giving it to her so good she wanted to scream out in pleasure, but because she was still mad at him she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. She gripped the skin of his lower back and drug her nails across it hard. She heard him let out a hiss of pain and before she could even smile he bit down on her collarbone hard.

“Ow Arber!” She reached a hand up and slapped him, missing his cheek and hitting him in the jaw.

He smiled “You know what I like.” He he whispered as he let his head fall into her neck, hair tickling her skin. He moved his lips across her jaw to her mouth, tongue sweeping across her lower lip as he kissed her deeply, weight pressing down on top of her.

Damn him she thought as she felt tension build in her stomach. It would have been so much easier to stay mad at him if he was ugly or a bad fuck but he was neither and she couldn’t even think straight as she surged closer to her orgasm, sweat sheening across her stomach and chest. Arber tangled his fingers in her hair, and pushed deeper than he had before, his signature move and she felt that all too familiar feeling of falling off the ledge and closed her eyes. Pleasure washed over her in waves as she fell into euphoria underneath him. His body grew heavy on top of hers, and after a moment he pulled out slowly, and laid down next to her.

She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her.

She sat up, arms holding the sheet tightly across her chest. She had the beginnings of a hickey on her collarbone and her hair was a mess. She scooted away from him.

“You okay?” He asked awkwardly glancing at her.

She stared at him for another second and rolled away from him wordlessly. He hated this part. After sex for them when things were good was great. But when they were arguing it almost always meant she gave him the cold shoulder. He usually hung around for a while till she decided she wasn’t mad at him anymore.

Though sometimes that lasted for hours.

He laid there a second looking at her back and shook his head disappointed with himself for giving it up so easy. His mom had always said he was stubborn but with Tabitha he had no resolve. He just couldn’t say no to her, or stay away from her. Even though she had broken up with him this time, there had been other times where he ended it and he still found himself at her apartment or finding some way to get in contact with her. At this point in their relationship they were so entangle he wasn’t sure he could get away from her even if he wanted to.

Not that he did of course.

She drove him every way except up, but to be in her presence was to be completely intoxicated by her.

Tabitha had peaked his interest the second he saw her. Tall and willowy in build, long shiny hair, big white teeth, and an attitude that made Satan look like a house pet.

She’d picked him up in a bar with a big smile and a few hair flips and nearly a year later they were here. She was both the best and the worst woman he’d ever met.

There was two Tabitha’s and he felt pretty fortunate to know both of them. Under all the attitude, she could be real sweet when it was just them. There was no feeling quite like the one he got when she smiled at him, or reached for his hand, or pushed her face into his neck right before she fell asleep. Though she had the tendency to get under his skin, she didn’t really have any major flaws.

The worst part about her was her friends. They were awful, and they hated him, and truly they never gave him a chance to begin with. They decided after that first breakup that he was a sleazebag and there was nothing he could do to rehab his image no matter how hard he tried so he gave up. He avoided them like the plague, making sure to never be around when they were if he didn’t have to be. His friends were a little more forgiving thankfully. His teammates he sometimes thought would take her side over his if one of their breakups ever became permanent. His parents loved her even more than the team did, and she’d fit right into his life in Hamilton when she’d made the trip home with him last spring. She was blunt, funny and charming and magnetic enough to draw people in and make them wanna stay, him included. No one was perfect, but to him she came pretty close.

And as much stress as the back and forth the relationship brought to him, he couldn’t let her go. The idea of her with someone other than him made him wanna throw up and rage, so instead he put up with the fights and breakups. It sounded bad but it was all true. He really did love Tabitha. In fact he loved her too much, and he wanted to spend forever with her. He didn’t love fighting with her, but he would deal with it till he died if it meant she wasn’t with anyone else.

It felt a little selfish if he was honest. He wondered sometimes if someone else could make her happier than he could. Maybe he was the problem and it would be best to let her be with someone who could do for her what he obviously couldn’t. He’d even suggested it to her once and it had made her cry for nearly 10 minutes and he felt so bad he never suggested it again.

He reached a hand out and ran it through the hair behind her ear, wondering if she was really sleeping or faking so he’d leave her alone, when he heard his phone buzz twice.

Are you coming out?

He read Cole’s message and bit his lip thinking for a minute No probably not. Not feeling it. Going to stay in tonight.

Okay tell Tabitha I said hi haha

Fuck off.

He set his phone down right as she began to stir.

She half turned “I thought you said you were going out with the guys.” She looked relieved to find him still next to her in bed and rolled over to face him fully.

He shrugged and reached a hand out to run it down her shoulder “I was going to but…I figured I can just go out with them when we break up next week.”

She grinned and made a face “Ha ha.”

“Kidding. I’d prefer we not break up next week or anymore at all maybe? I’m getting tired of fighting with you like this.”

She nodded and reached a finger forward to trace the scar on his collarbone “Me too. Sorry.”

He shrugged “It’s okay.

It was silent for a few moments as she stared at him before she leaned her head down to peer at him “And you are sorry as well?”

He leaned back “Me? Sorry for what? You broke up with me, I returned your things, and now here we are.”

Tabitha sat up, eyebrows knitting together over her eyes and let out a breath “I broke up with you because of something you did. So yes you should be sorry.”

He frowned “What did I do? Whatever you heard from whoever you heard it from is a complete lie, like it usually is. Stop listening to other people.” He said annunciating each word with a small smack from one hand to another “I don’t understand why you can’t just ask me about something you hear instead of freaking out about stuff. I mean Jesus Christ Tabitha why are you trusting other people instead of me.”

“Because-“

“No I’ll tell you why.” He said cutting her off and sitting up “Because you let whatever insecurity this is eat you alive until you can’t take it anymore and you blow up on me for nothing.”

“So it’s all my fault?” She said pointing at herself.

“I didn’t say that. It’s me too, but this time I didn’t do anything. Let me ask you this. Do you really think that if I didn’t love you or didn’t want to be here that I would be? I could go out and pick some girl up right now and yet here I am. Fighting with you. Again.” He said throwing his hands up and shaking his head.

“Well since your so confident in your abilities then there’s the door.” She reached down and picked up his pants, shirt and boxers and heaved them at him, narrowly missing his head and yanked the blanket off him to wrap it around herself “Thanks for coming have a nice night. Out.” She pointed at the doorway.

“Whatever. Fuck this.” He pulled his clothing on and then shoes, slamming the door as he left. He got into his truck and gripped the wheel, resisting the urge to punch it and breathed several breaths through his nose.

This relationship was going to be the death of him.

[bxtchycaprisun]

obstinate (3) | a. anderson

summary: you’re a new medic in the WLF base. you’re young, hardworking, and the thing that abby anderson hated the most, stubborn.

notes: fem!reader, medic!reader, protective!abby, soldier!abby, angst, i swear they’ll get along eventually, abby’s just digging herself a deeper hole, size kink if you squint, but no smut (yet 🫡)

taglist: @caitlinisfruity @shaemonyou @mattm1964 @vigelvictoria @liabadoobee @shady-lemur (lmk in the comments if you want to be tagged)

an: i’m sorry to keep you guys waiting for so long! writers block hit me hard.

MDNI!!

for the three dreadfully long hours that remained in your shift that night, the only thing that rang in your mind were those words that abby had left you with.

“you’re not going on that fucking patrol.”

what the hell did that even mean? what exactly was she planning on doing to make that happen? you knew that she had already tried to talk to Isaac once, and that didn’t work. was she really desperate enough to try it again?

and why was she so desperate? you had been independent since before you could even spell the word. you weren’t used to people going out of their own way to ensure your safety. and even then, everyone knew the risks of being a part of the WLF. soldiers put their lives on the line out in the field every day. how was it any different when you did it?

you supposed that her dislike for you was just that strong.

but despite all of those questions, and despite all the confusion, the main thing that really drove you crazy was the fact that abby saw you as utterly helpless, when you were anything but.

you tried to swallow down the awful feeling in your throat as you left your shift that night, and as you slept the following day away, nothing happened.

you checked the schedule posted in the cafeteria regularly, you waited anxiously for a knock on your door with bad news, and you every time a supervisor was nearby, you’d brace yourself for some sort of scolding. but nothing ever happened.

maybe abby was just bluffing.

. . .

it was a tuesday, and you had only one more day to go before you were in the clear for your patrol. you were in a good mood, mainly because your shift was during the day, and the hours didn’t go into the double digits.

and as you finally said your goodbyes to the other medics around 4 pm, you were thankful nothing had ruined your day. that was, until, you heard your name being called from your coworker.

“looks like there’s a note here for you” she says, holding it out to you with raised eyebrows, “says that you need to report to Isaac’s office when you get off.”

shit. shit. shit.

“did ya get in trouble?” she asks with a small smirk. you sigh and drop your head, taking the note in defeat.

“i sure as hell hope not,” you mumble as you begin to walk away, the familiar feeling of dread settling into your stomach.

. . .

the wait outside of isaacs office was long and dreadful. a constant ring in your ear made your eyebrows furrow as you sat stiffly beside his door. the room behind you was silent, and seemingly empty.

every sliver of hope you had that this spontaneous meeting wasn’t about abby was destroyed when you heard a familiar stomp down the hall. you turn your eyes up nervously to meet with your new companion.

the blue hue that typically filled abby’s irises was gone. her eyes were now dark and cold. you clench your jaw as her figure approaches, and instantly stand up to your feet.

“you’re fucking crazy, you know that?” you seethe as she bangs on the door with urgency.

“you really shouldn’t talk to your superior like that,” abby responds quietly, not even looking in your direction. you roll your eyes, feeling your frustration reach an all time peak. before you can open your mouth to unleash another jab, the door swings open, revealing an unamused isaac.

“abby” he begins, “i’d like to speak to you alone first.”

she shoots you a cocky smirk as she steps through the doorway. isaac closes the door behind her, leaving you in the hall with a gaping mouth.

“what the fuck,” you mumble, shocked at how you were just brushed off. you frown and eye your previous seat, deciding against sitting down, and instead opting to press your ear against the door.

it was difficult to make out any words, but the intensity of the argument was clear. “she’s only just got here” you manage to hear. “already low on medics” and “why take the risk?” follow closely behind.

you didn’t hear a word from Isaac during the pauses. either he had nothing to say, or abby was purposely being extra loud, knowing you would hear. it was likely the latter.

you sigh as you press your ear closer to the wood. truth be told, you really didn’t give a damn about the patrol. whether you were working in the infirmary or out on the field, it didn’t make a difference to you.

but now abby changed that. you didn’t want to let her have her way, didn’t want her to win. you wanted her to see just how wrong she was about you, to see how irrational she was being.

footsteps echoed closer to the door, and you stumble back just fast enough to gain your composure. isaac pulls the door open and mutters a short “come in” as he steps back.

you enter the room in slow steps, watching as abby stands stiffly by the window. you narrow your eyes as isaac gestures for you to sit. you lower yourself slowly, struggling to keep your breathing under control.

“abby has..” isaac begins, “expressed some concerns.. about your abilities on patrol.”

“so i’ve heard,” you respond through your teeth, and abby shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “and what exactly do her complaints pertain to? i feel like i’ve proven that i can handle myself on the field.”

abby scoffs loudly and steps closer. “you most certainly have not,” she exclaims, and isaac pinches his nose disapprovingly. “isaac, she was injured on patrol and she hid it. can’t you see how reckless that is? she is not the kind of person that should be out there.”

isaac remains silent for a moment, before turning to you. “well, how many soldiers did you treat while you were injured?”

you’re a bit taken aback by the question, but respond quickly. “four. i treated four.”

“were any of the injuries life threatening?”

“no sir, but neither was mine.”

“bullshit,” abby raises her voice, looking between you and isaac with desperation. “it was an arrow to the back, isaac, she just ripped it out like it was nothing! she could’ve bled out.”

“but i didn’t.” you snap back.

“no. no you didn’t” she steps towards you warningly, “thanks to me.”

“oh please,” you roll your eyes. “who’s the medic here again? hm? last i checked it wasn’t you.” the response may have been childish, but you didn’t care.

“alright, that’s enough.” isaac steps into the conversation, his signature frown creasing his eyes. his hand gestures to you.

“listen, you’ve been really helpful on our patrols. your supervisor at the infirmary says that you’ve prevented at least a dozen infections so far, three of them being life threatening.” he trails off for a moment, and you can sense the let down approaching.

“but?” you ask, unable to hide your look of defeat.

isaac sighs, looking over to abby, who’s expression is unreadable. “but, abby is my best soldier. if she doesn’t think you’re fit for the field, than i’m not comfortable putting you out there.”

you look over to her with a scowl, as if to say, happy now? she, however, wasn’t feeling as accomplished as she thought she would.

“so until you can prove to her that you are capable of patrolling, you won’t be scheduled.”

you throw your head back, pinching your eyes as you try not to make this situation worse for yourself. “isaac. if you’ll just let me-”

“you’re both dismissed.” he cuts you off, his tone firm.

you sigh, keeping your head down as you stand up, at least until you were out of his office. abby shakes her head as she walks out in front of you, bee lining to the nearest exit. the door swings shut behind you, and you stumble to catch up.

“would you hold on for a second?” you follow behind her, staring at her tensed back. she doesn’t stop, nor does she respond.

“abby, slow down” you call out, shuffling your feet faster as you try to reach her. when she ignores you for the second time, you just about scream.

“god damn it abby, would you stop and just talk to me?” you yell, but she brushes you off once again. you stare at her, looking absolutely dumbfounded as she continues her storm out the room. you shake your head, breaking into a jog to catch up with her.

you put your hand on her shoulder and grab her slightly, pulling her torso to face you. she jumps back from your touch, and whips her face to meet yours.

“you heard the man,” she spits out. “no okay from me, no patrol. there’s nothing more for you to say.” she attempts to shake you off, but you grab her arm.

“oh there is a lot more for me to say.” you respond hastily, and her eyes flicker between your face and your hand. “tell me abby,” you demand, “how many other medics are you having private meetings with isaac about? or is it just me?” you ask rhetorically, glaring up at her.

she scoffs and throws her head back, moving her hands to her hips. “jesus, you’re so fucking difficult,” she mutters.

“no tell me, abby. why is it that you only try to control me?” you demand.

she watches you with a lip curled in frustration. “you know why” she says, more quietly than she had been before.

and as she stared into your eyes, your pupils filled with both anger and desperation, her brows furrow in confusion. what kind of question was that? she asked herself. were you really going to make her say it?

“no i really don’t,” you reply with a harshness to your voice, but there was a clear hurt laced in it. “i don’t understand what i’ve done to make you despise me so much!”

she blinks for a moment, the disbelief settling in. “wh- what?” she asks blankly.

“you heard me,” you await her answer with raised eyebrows.

“i…” she takes a breath, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

what the hell are you…

her eyes widen, and she looks astonished at your words.

“you’ve got it all wrong,” she shakes her head, putting her hand out and stepping towards you. you instinctively step back.

“i’m not doing this because i dislike you, i-”

“you what then?” you demand, throwing your arms up. “you and i both know this isn’t about my abilities on patrol. you know that i can handle myself out there, i know you do.”

all urges to try to convince you that she does in fact like you quickly fade away at your words. that wasn’t something she was going to agree to.

she says your name cautiously, her tone becoming more stern once again. “you can not be trying to have this conversation again. you are not built for that kind of work, whether you think you are or not.”

“i am!” you exclaim. “i know i got hurt when you saw me on that patrol, and i know it was stupid to hide it.” you begin to ramble, “but i’ve had successful patrols before that one, ones where i’ve been a great asset!”

your words go in through one ear and out the other, and abby just lowers her head disapprovingly. “i don’t care about your other patrols.”

“oh come on,” you groan. “you act like you’ve never been injured on the field.”

her eyes meet yours in an instant, as if you’ve just opened a new door. “oh i have.” she says slowly, and her tone makes you gulp. “but i’ve never been stupid enough to hide it. and i really don’t think you want to go down that road with me, i haven’t been hit or shot in over a year.”

as much as you know you shouldn’t root for her to be injured seriously, that last part bothered you. it certainly didn’t help your case. you pause for a moment, taking a deep breath.

“i admit that i made some dumb mistakes,” you say carefully, and you struggle to keep your composure when you see abby nod arrogantly. “but i am capable. i’m good in combat. i’m good with a gun. i can defend myself.”

abby’s eyes don’t leave yours, and your impressed by your own faux calmness.

“prove it then” her words are simple, but her tone is icy.

“prove it how?”

she stays silent for a few seconds, and you see her tongue roll on the inside of her cheek. she seems to make up her mind about what to say, and nods her head sharply.

“come at me then,” she takes a step back, gesturing her hands for you to follow. “take me out. if you really want to prove how capable you are.”

you stare at her as if she’s crazy. there’s no way she’s actually suggesting that.

“what?” you ask in disbelief. “no way.”

“oh come on,” she whines a bit mockingly. “if you’re so tough, then take me out.”

you tilt your face away from her a bit, thinking she might actually be crazy.

“you said your good with combat,” she hums, “pretend i’m a scar. what’re you going to do?”

you were confident in your abilities, you always had been. you’d trained yourself well in self defense, you were always a natural shot. but this was different. an enemy like abby was one you’d simply pray never to come by. and she knew it.

you step away, shaking your head. “forget it,” you mumble, and she grins, leaning towards you.

“not so confident now, are you?”

before you can say another word, you yelp at a sharp pressure on your wrists. abby leaps in your direction, grabbing your arms with one hand and instantly pinning them above you . your back hits the cold brick wall, and you feel her free hand on the back of your scalp, softening the impact.

“abby!” you yelp, immediately squirming in her grip, “what the hell-”

“well go on then,” she urges, leaning her face close to yours, “break free. since your so capable.”

“get the hell off of me,” you kick your legs at her upper shins, but she doesn’t budge.

“y’know,” abby coos dangerously, “there are about thirty different ways a scar could kill you right now. that i could kill you.”

a frustrated groan escapes your lips as you thrash under her grip. her free hand travels down to your throat, her fingertips just brazing your neck.

“you could be choked,” she whispers. her hands go to your stomach, and she pinches you roughly on your ribs, causing you to yelp. “stabbed… shot.. hell some of those scars are pretty big, they could even beat you to death.”

abby wasn’t sure why she was continuing, knowing she made her point, but she was too riled up to stop.

tears well in your eyes as she continues her taunting, and you kick her leg even harder, causing her grip on your wrists to falter. the instant it does, you shove her off of you with all your strength.

she moves back about two inches, before she’s got your waist in her calloused hands, and your tumbling onto the ground.

her knee digs into your thigh, pinning your leg down as she glares at you from above. each of your hands are in hers, sprawled out above your head. she brings her lips close to your ear.

“nice try sweetheart,” she whispers sharply. her breath is cool against your neck, and her nose brushes against your jaw.

“get the fuck off,” your voice is shaky and uncertain, and your face is bright red. how dare she taunt me like this? manhandle me like a child?

how dare she make me like it?

your chest heaves with your panicked breaths, the straps to your flimsy tank hanging loosely off of your shoulders.

abby’s face grows hot as she removes her knee from your upper thigh. sweat glistens on your chest and collarbones, and she makes a point to keep her eyes off of it.

she quickly regains her composure, and controls her breathing. you watch silently as she removes her hand from your wrist. she slowly grabs the thin strap of your camisole, pulling it gently back to its designated place on your shoulder. her thumb brushes your skin when she pulls back her hand.

she climbs off of you, and you quickly sit up. you run your fingers desperately through your hair as you avoid her piercing gaze.

a sharp sigh escapes her lips, and you stare at the ground with wide eyes.

“i think i proved my point,” her voice is low and sultry. you don’t say anything in response.

abby rises to her feet, the muscles in her back tensed. she stared down at you for a moment, and you bring your eyes to hers, your lips parted in both anger and shock.

she steps away from you, and walks down the hall, the sound of her heart beat too loud to hear anything you call out to her. that is, if you said anything at all.

her hands are clenched into fists, glued to her sides as she takes her leave.

as she opens the door to the cool seattle air, she quickly shuts it behind her and lets out a guttural “fuck”. she rubs her temples, trying to clear her clouded mind.

you, on the other hand, remained sat on the tile floor, staring down the now empty hall.

you were furious at how far she took things. furious that she had embarrassed you in front of isaac once again. furious that she had such an unwarranted hatred towards you, and furious that she would use her physical strength to humiliate you.

but you were especially furious at the familiar heat that gathered between your legs when she had held you down, when her fingers brushed against your warm skin.

it was that same heat that built up in your body the night at the bar, when she had flashed you that toothy smile, asking for your name.

her name rang through your mind with a thick anger, but also a certain want that you could no longer ignore.

and your name rang in hers, all the same.

abby abby abby abby

[weareapackofstrays]

A New Kind of Love: Chapter V (Final)

Genre: Non-Idol college au, fwb to lovers, angst, romance, drama

Pairing: Minho x F!Reader

Warnings: Oral Sex, Unprotected sex, Cussing. Let me know if I forgot anything! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

Word Count: 6,519

Summary: Now in your second year of college, you move into the basement apartment of a house full of college boys. Inevitably crossing paths with one of them, Minho quickly gets under your skin in more ways than one. Despite your differences, you can't stay away from him.

Chapter V: About Time Prev

Charlotte: I'm stuck. Does it get easier? Bob: No...Yes, it gets easier. Charlotte: Oh yeah? Look at you. Bob: Thanks...The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you. Charlotte: Yeah...I just don't know what I'm supposed to be. You know? I tried being a writer, but I hate what I write and I tried taking pictures, but they’re so mediocre, you know? Every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, like horses? You know? Take, uh, dumb pictures of your feet. Bob: You'll figure that out. I’m not worried about you. Keep writing.

The apartment felt extra lonely tonight. You were huddled on your couch surrounded by comfort snacks and wearing cozy pajamas. It should have been a relaxing evening, but when one of your favorite movies couldn’t help distract you from the past few days, you grew restless. Eventually you turn it off and throw your face into your hands. All you could think about was your earlier exchange with Minho. His words and behavior replaying in your mind on a loop. You keep hurting him, but you don’t mean to. You punch the pillow next to you out of frustration. Why are you like this? There is a burning feeling in your chest that you can’t identify. You try to drink water to wash it away, but nothing works. Your phone buzzes beside you. Momo is calling, but you ignore it. Instead, you grab a sweater and head upstairs to talk to Minho.

You're about to knock on the door, but your hand hesitates and hovers in place. Your feet suddenly feel like sandbags. Chris happens to be walking by the entryway when he sees a figure looming at the door. He opens it to greet you. You stare up at him like a deer caught in the headlights before recovering your composure. 

“Hey, Y/n,” the oldest greets you with a warm smile.

“Hey, Chris,” you respond meekly. “I was just wondering if-”

“Do I hear Y/n?” Jisung and Felix pop their heads out from the kitchen.

Jisung runs over and pulls you into a tight hug. “Hey, neighbor! How are you?” 

“Fine, really, I’m fine.” 

Felix hugs you next and takes hold of your hands. “I swear we didn’t know you and Daniel had history, let alone, that kind of history.” His tone is apologetic. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Daniel was honestly the last thing on your mind right now. 

“I’m baking some special chocolate chip cookies. Should be ready shortly. Want one?”

“Y-yeah, I'll grab one in a moment. Just need to talk to Minho.” Jisung and Felix exchange a look that you can’t quite read. 

“Minho isn’t home right now,” Jisung says, a hint of hesitance in his voice. 

“Oh. Where is he?” 

Chris clears his throat and you turn to look at him. “He’s still at dance practice. Probably won’t be home for a while,” Chris explains. You nod your head, disappointed. The four of you fall into silence, but are thankfully interrupted by the oven timer going off. 

“My cookies!” Felix runs back into the kitchen to take them out. Jisung watches as you do everything to avoid eye contact with him and Chris, shuffling on your feet. The air in the room suddenly feels thick and it’s hard to breathe. 

“Y/n?” Jisung puts a hand on your shoulder. “You okay?” Your heart thrums loudly in your ears. The burning in your chest starts to spread across your body. 

“Sorry, I need to go. I’ll, um…bye.” You leave the boys standing stunned in the entryway. A familiar image.

Felix walks into the room with a plate full of cookies. “Y/n, here are your-” He looks around and sees you’ve left already. He snaps his finger. “Dammit, why does she keep running out on us every time I offer her baked goods?”

Chris puts an arm around Felix’s shoulder and grabs a cookie. “Maybe she doesn’t like sweets?” Chris says with a mouthful of cookie.

“Nah, I’ve seen her scarf down a bowl full of jelly beans in minutes.” All three boys quickly turn to find Seungmin sitting in the living room, completely surprised by his presence. “She probably just doesn’t like your baking.” Felix gasps. 

“How long have you been there?” Chris asks as he chokes back the dessert. 

“Long enough.”

Jisung places his hand on Felix, rubbing soothing circles on his back. “Ignore him. He’s probably still salty about last week’s pancake debacle. Your baked goods are amazing.” Felix beams at Jisung’s compliment.

“I told you, it wasn’t my fault!” Seungmin shouts from the couch.

“Keep telling yourself that, babe!” Jisung and Felix walk back into the kitchen while Seungmin stomps off upstairs to pout. Momo rubs her eyes as she passes Seungmin on her way down the stairs.

“Do I smell cookies?” she lets out a yawn. 

Chris pulls her into his side and kisses her temple. “Hey, sleepyhead. There’s some in the kitchen. You just missed, Y/n, by the way.” 

“What? She was here just now?”

“Yeah. She seemed…off. Thought you should know.” Momo pulls out her phone to check if you called her back or texted her, but doesn’t see anything. 

“I’ll try to check on her later. Thanks, Channie.” Momo gives Chris a kiss before joining the boys in the kitchen.

“Hey, Momo!” Jisung greets her cheerily. 

“Chris mentioned there were cookies?” she asks innocently. 

“Yeah!” Felix hands her the plate of goodies and she happily takes one. 

Jisung watches Momo as he considers asking some questions that have been on his mind. “Hey, Momo…Can I ask you something?” he says with hesitance in his voice. She turns her attention to the doe eyed boy. “Do you know anything about what’s going on between Y/n and Minho?”

Momo takes a bite of her cookie and chews on it for a moment. Eventually she shakes her head. “I don’t really know the details. I think we all know by now they are sleeping together, but outside of that…” Momo shrugs. “I believe they have feelings for each other whether they know it or not though.”

“Exactly! That’s what we said. So why do they constantly fight it? I love Y/n, but I think she’s really hurting our boy. I know he seems tough, but inside he’s pretty soft.”

“Y/n doesn’t like to talk about this stuff anymore. Honestly, I think she’s still hurt and doesn’t want to open herself up again. She wasn’t like this before.”

“Before what?” Felix asks curiously.

“Before Daniel cheated.”

“Right…” Felix and Jisung nod, simultaneously understanding.

“I also think her parent’s divorce was really hard on her.” Momo continues. “I’ve never asked about it. Always seemed too painful to, but maybe I should have. I can tell it affects her.” Momo knows she probably shouldn’t divulge your past without your consent, but she feels she needs to explain some of your character. Chris walks into the kitchen to pull Momo away, leaving the two boys to consider her words and what to do. 

-

Minho gets home late that night and immediately takes a shower. Practice was shit and all he wants to do is forget about it. He tries to fall asleep, but instead he spends the night tossing and turning. Minho can’t stand that the two of you have once again gotten into a disagreement.

Eventually, he looks at his phone and sees that it’s almost 4 in the morning. Groaning out of frustration, he forces himself to get up. Minho starts to pace his room, wondering if he should text you or not, but ultimately decides against it. Plus, it’s the middle of the night, he reasons. Minho lays back down in bed and passes out without realizing. He suddenly jolts awake and immediately grabs his phone. It’s already after 8am. He scrolls through his phone and reads over your limited text conversations searching for answers he knows he wont find. Giving up, he decides to go to the gym to sweat out his frustrations. After walking out of the house, he passes by your door on the way to his car. His feet stop as he considers what to do for a moment. Fuck it, he says to himself. He doesn't want to fight anymore. He's too tired. All Minho wants is to hold you until the ice encased around your heart finally melts. Why can't you just let him in? 

You awake to hurried knocks. Stumbling out of bed, you throw a sweater on and make your way to the door. “Minho?” You ask groggily, surprised to see him standing there. You look over at your stove and it reads 9:15am. “Why are you here so early?” Instead of answering he pulls you into his arms and hoists your legs around his waist. He shuts the door behind him and walks the two of you into the kitchen. “Minho, what is going on?”

He places you on the counter and kisses you deeply. All animosity between the two of you melting away. What he doesn’t say is how he couldn’t sleep, too busy being kept awake thinking of you. He couldn’t admit that he fought it as long as he could until he grew impatient and had to see you. Minho removes his lips and leans his forehead against yours. He lets out a shaky sigh before speaking. Eyes closed he says, “나는 너를 좋아해” in Korean, but you don’t understand. 

“What?” you whisper against his lips as you run your fingers through his soft hair. Instead of answering, he slots himself between your legs pushing his hardened cock into your core. You think he’s going in for a kiss, but instead he hugs you tightly to his chest and rests his face in the crook of your neck. He inhales your scent and leaves a trail of feather light kisses. Chills explode across your skin. He slowly moves his way up your neck to your jawline before hovering above your mouth. Minho finally presses his lips to yours and all questions escape your train of thought. You could ask them another time. You didn’t want to think about the answers anyways. You just wanted to feel his skin on yours. His hands move from your hips and slowly climb up your sides, gently grazing his thumbs over your hardened nipples. You push into his touch as his kiss swallows your sighs.

“Fuck me, Minho,” you beg.

“Not yet.” Minho slips his fingers beneath your panties. “Let me make you feel good,” he whispers into your ear as he circles your clit. You shiver at the way his voice tickles you. He peppers your neck with gentle kisses while his free hand rubs your thigh slowly, squeezing every so often. So many sensations it’s making you dizzy. 

“Minho…” you take hold of his wrist to push him inside of you. He starts to pump slowly, curling his fingers with each push. Your other hand grips the back of his neck.

“Does it feel good, baby?”

“Y-yes.” Your breathing picks up as his pace increases. 

“Good. I love the way you feel on my fingers. I love knowing how close you are. It’s so hot the way you look when you come apart just from my touch.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, princess. I think you might be close right now. Hmm?” Your walls start to enclose on him as your orgasm rises within you. You nod your head vigorously as moans spill out your lips.

“I’m gonna…Minho, I’m gonna come!” You pull him closer to your body, arching yourself to make sure his fingers can reach as far as they can and you start grinding against them. 

“Let go, baby. I’ve got you. Come for me, my princess.”

You scream his name as you finally release. He continues to push his fingers in and out until you finish. When he slides out of you he looks at his soaked hand and tastes you.  “Mmm,” he purrs. Your cheeks turn a deep shade of pink and you cover your face feeling shy for some reason. He pulls your hands down to meet your eyes. The two of you just smile.

Minho lifts you from the counter and carries you into your bedroom. He lays you out on the mattress and climbs over you. When his lips meet yours you get a subtle taste of yourself in his kiss and it makes your middle tighten with need again. Minho pushes his tongue in and licks against yours. It’s not hungry, but slow this time. He’s in no rush. Even as you try to take the usual approach with him, he shushes you soothingly. “Let me take my time with you.” He looks into your eyes pleading and you nod. Minho kisses the tip of your nose then goes back to your lips, intertwining your tongues together. You widen your legs to allow him to fit between you. He slowly grinds into you and you let out quiet moans into his mouth. He’s making you feel so good, so wanted. So lov-…no, you won’t say that word.

Minho pulls away briefly to take his shirt off. You trace the lines on his stomach up to his chest before taking one of his nipples into your mouth. He lets out a heavy sigh, enjoying the sensation of your tongue twirling around him. You gently bite down and he can’t help the way his eyes roll into the back of his head. You bring your lips down his chest and kiss his scar a few times before you look back up at him. He takes hold of your chin. “What baby?” He asks.

“Get on your back. I want to suck you off.” He does as you ask and lays down on your bed. You climb over him and pull off his shorts and boxers. His cock springs up and you take him into your hand. He shivers as you place gentle kisses down his shaft while massaging his perineum. 

“Suck on me, baby.” Minho instructs. You grip his base and take him into your mouth. He moans at the sensation and places a firm grip in your hair. You bob up and down his cock enjoying the way his balls tighten under your grip as you pleasure him. “Just like that, baby!” Minho starts to fuck into your mouth, making you gag with each repeated hit to the back of your throat. “You take daddy’s cock so well!” Preening at his compliment, you increase your speed. 

Needing a breather, you remove him from your mouth and kittenlick his tip. Minho growls with impatience. “Don’t tease me, princess.” You roll your eyes and continue. “Do that again and see what happens.” His tone is dark and serious, sending a flood of arousal through you. You try to ignore him.

“Wanna make you come, Min,” you say while batting your lashes. 

“Not yet. I want to be inside you first.” You squeeze your thighs together at the thought and nod. 

“Okay.”

“Sit up.” Minho peels your clothes off and throws them onto the floor, leaving you completely naked before him. He sits back on his ankles and takes a moment to admire you. You look away feeling nervous again under his gaze.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/n.” 

“Minho…” 

“You are.” The two of you stare at each other for a moment and you almost feel like crying. “Come here, baby.” Minho lays you back on the bed as he kisses down your body, inching closer to where you need him most. Pleasure rolls through you from the connection and you start to whine.

“Minho, please, I can’t take it.”

“What do you need, princess? I’ll give you anything you want.”

“I need you inside me.”

“Okay.” He takes his cock in his hand and positions himself above you. Minho slowly pushes in savoring the way your walls envelop him. You watch as his face contorts and his head leans back. You're making him feel good and it turns you on so much. 

“Minho,” you whisper. He faces you again. 

“Yes, princess?”

“Kiss me.” He leans in for a passionate kiss as he bottoms out inside of you. Minho slowly rolls his hips into you allowing for a gradual climb in pleasure. Your body gives in and you hug him close to you, erasing all space between you. Minho’s thrusts start to quicken as he feels your walls flutter around him. “I’m gonna, come, baby!” You shout. 

“Me too. Come with me.” Minho takes hold of your chin to face him. You look into his eyes as you feel yourself start to unravel beneath him, unable to help it when they flutter shut. “Don’t.” Minho begs. “Keep looking at me, princess.” You nod and force your eyes open. Watching each other’s faces shift in euphoria brings you both to the edge and you come together. Minho calls out your name and pulls you into his body. He holds you close as he continues to rock his hips into you until you’re shaking. 

“Fuck, I can’t. Minho, it’s too much.”

“Just a little longer, baby.” Minho is still hard and needs to release himself again. The overstimulation starts to shift into pleasure and you feel yourself about to come again.

“Minho!” an unfamiliar high pitched scream leaves your mouth. “I can’t. I can’t hold on much longer.” 

Minho growls as he fucks you harder. The slapping of skin growing louder as he pushes you closer to the edge. “Fuck! Y/n. I’m gonna come again.” 

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” You repeat as your orgasm hits you more intensely than the first. Minho looks down at where you're both connected and sees your release cover his pubic hair. The sight is enough for him and he comes again inside of you. His second release trickles down your body and onto the sheets. You're both sweating and panting heavily. You wrap your legs around Minho’s waist, not ready for him to pull out so he latches onto your neck while he catches his breath. 

“Y/n, I lo-”

You cut him off. “That was amazing.” He smiles and gives you a quick peck, before unwrapping your legs from his waist. He grunts as he pulls out of you and you can feel even more of his sticky come sliding down your body. He lies on his back, resting a hand on your inner thigh. 

The two of you lie in your bed basking in the afterglow. As your high deflates you start to think about how different the sex was. It wasn’t the usual hungry romp, it felt like…it felt like he made love to you. This thought shoots your heart into your throat. You sit up suddenly at the revelation, unsure of how you feel. Minho sits up on his elbows, as you look around your room for coverage. You feel completely bare and vulnerable. He watches you nervously.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just need to shower.” You turn to leave, but his hand catches your wrist. You look back at him. 

“Get dinner with me tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

“What?”

“You know, food?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand? It’s just dinner.”

“I know, sorry, it’s just we don’t normally do that.”

“Come on, Y/n.” Minho chuckles. He tries to pull you in to hold you. “Get dinner with me tonight, please.” There is a hint of desperation in his tone. His eyes search yours as he silently pleads. Now he feels vulnerable. 

You remove your wrist from his grasp and stand back. “Why are you pushing this, Minho?”

He watches you throw your t-shirt over your head and scoffs. “Why are you making this such a big deal, Y/n?”

��Why are you?” You shoot him a glare. Minho crosses his arms and the two of you stare at each other. He finally gives up and rolls his eyes.

“Forget it.” He bends down and starts to get dressed. You can feel your heart race as he finishes. “When you want to stop acting like a child, come find me.”  

“You came to my apartment, Minho.” 

“Yeah, what a mistake.” He walks past you and your hand reaches out for his arm. 

“Minho, wait-“ he ignores you as he heads for your front door. You want to follow after him, but you don’t. You can’t. What is wrong with you? You curse at yourself, not understanding your feelings. He slams the door shut and you realize tears are falling down your cheeks. You angrily wipe your face as you grab a towel and head for the shower. Hopefully, the water will wash these feelings away. 

-

A few hours later you receive a text from Minho asking to meet up for coffee. The message is simple and you can’t help but feel it lacks all emotion. Nerves start to spread through you as you head out to meet with him. When you finally arrive, you find Minho in the back of the cafe looking solemn. He is staring into his coffee mug. You immediately sense something is wrong and your instinct tells you to run, but you push forward.

“Hey,” you whisper, pulling Minho from the depths of his thoughts. 

“Hey,” he says back. He gestures for you to sit so you take the seat in front of him. 

The two of you sit in silence and you can’t take it anymore so you finally ask, “Is everything okay?” Minho doesn’t answer immediately and you can feel your hands start to shake so you place them in your lap to hide them. Minho closes his eyes and exhales, before he finally faces you. He decides to cut to the chase while he still has the confidence.

“Y/n, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“This sleeping around thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just, it’s not enough for me.”

Furrowing your brows, you try to process what he’s saying. You look down at the table, unable to hold his gaze. “Is there…someone else?” You weren’t expecting that question to make your heart hurt, but it did as the words left your mouth. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “No, nothing like that.” Relief washes over you. 

“Then why?” you hear a hint of panic in your voice. 

Minho reaches across the table and takes hold of your hands in his. He gently squeezes, beckoning you to face him. “Y/n, I like you. No, actually, I think I love you.” He releases your hands and sits back. “I don’t want it to be just sex anymore. I want more than that. I want to date you.” Butterflies flutter around in your chest. You were never expecting a confession from Lee Minho. It takes you aback and you are unsure why you cannot think of a response to him. All you do is stare, wide eyed. “If you don’t feel the same…it’s fine, but it would maybe be best if we don’t see each other for a little while.”

“How long is a little while?” You ask immediately. 

Minho scratches the back of his head and thinks for a moment before answering. “I guess as long as it takes for me to get over my feelings for you.” He shrugs. While you still struggle to give him an answer, he gets up from the table. “Just let me know, Y/n.” He drops a few dollars for a tip and heads for the door before you can say anything. Within seconds, he’s gone from your sight. You consider chasing after him, but once again you find you can’t. Instead, you just sit there, frozen, staring at his empty chair and repeating his words in your head. I think I love you.

-

Feeling like he is carrying the weight of the world inside of his chest, Minho drags his feet as he makes his way back home. Finally in the safety of his room, he turns off all his lights and crawls under the covers. Maybe if he just lays still he will become one with his mattress and disappear like Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street, albeit less bloody. Unfortunately for him, though fortunately, his friends would not be letting this happen. A few minutes after Minho had resigned to his fate, he hears footsteps enter the room.

“토끼?” It’s Chris’s voice. Minho doesn’t respond. He feels the bed dip as someone sits. A hand finds his calf and gently squeezes.

“Hyung?” Now Jisung’s voice.

“I don’t want to talk.”

Chris stands beside Minho’s bed near where he assumes his head is. He leans against the wall. “You don’t have to right now. But I do think you need to talk to her.” 

“I already did. I broke things off.” Chris and Jisung look at each other in surprise. 

“Okay…because she doesn’t like you or?” the eldest asks.

“She didn’t really say anything when I told her.”

“Oh.”

Jisung chimes in, “But she likes you too. I know she does!”

Minho sighs beneath the covers. “I’m not so sure.”

Felix appears out of thin air startling everyone. “Her heart’s been broken. She’s like a stray cat, you need to be patient with her.”

“How much more time can she possibly need? At this point, she either likes me or she doesn’t.” 

Jeongin and Seungmin suddenly crowd the doorway “What’s with the party?” Seungmin interrupts. 

“Not now, boys.” Chris says sternly, but kindly.

Minho sits up and pulls the covers from his face. “Why is everyone in my room? Can’t a guy sulk in peace?” 

“We’re not leaving until you join us downstairs for a movie night.” Chris says.

“Movie night?” Jeongin asks excitedly. 

Felix turns to the youngest and nods. “You get to pick the movie this time.”

“Wait, why does he get to pick? I'm the one that’s sad?” Minho shouts.

“Who’s sad?” Changbin now appears behind Jeongin and Seungmin pushing them further into the room. 

“Minho hyung is sad.” Seungmin says and Minho groans, throwing the covers over him again.

“What's hyung sad about?” Binnie asks innocently.

“Someone is sad?” Hyunjin appears now wrapping an arm around Binnie’s strong shoulders.

“Y/n doesn’t like Minho so he’s crying alone in his room.”

“Sure, tell everyone my business, Seungmin.” The Minho-shaped lump speaks again.

“Um, I thought I just did.” The young boy shrugs matter of factly. Minho removes the sheets from his face again to shoot a death glare at the boy, but Seungmin ignores it. 

“Who’s Y/n?” Hyunjin asks, picking some lint off his sweater.

“Jesus Christ, Hyunjin. Really?” Minho throws his arms up in frustration. 

Chris turns to Hyunjin, “Girl downstairs. You’ve met her a few times.”

“Ahhh basement girl that hyung is in love with. Okay, got it. I’m caught up now.” 

“Minho hyung is in love with Y/n?” Innie asks. A teasing smile spreads across his face.

Minho places his fingers on the bridge of nose and squeezes. “End me, please.”

Seungmin starts to say something, but Chris anticipates his move and throws him a threatening look. Seungmin retreats behind Binnie for protection while Jeongin snickers. 

Chris turns back to look at his oldest kid. “Alright, Minho, you’re getting up and coming downstairs and don’t think we won’t drag you.” He faces the rest of the boys and points. “Seungmin, Changbin. Go grab some snacks from the convenience store.” They both race for the exit pushing each other playfully fighting. Chris turns to the youngest. “Jeongin, go pick a movie.” The maknae heads out of Minho’s room with a skip in his step. Chris shouts out to him before he can get too far, “And not Detective Pikachu again.” 

They hear a whine. “Fine! Then it's You've got Mail!” Jeongin calls out from the stairwell.

Chris turns back to Felix. “Are your brownies almost ready?” 

“Should be, I’ll go check on them.”

“Jisung, go help Felix.” The boy stands with a salute and heads to leave.

“And what about me?” Hyunjin is still standing near the doorway. 

Jisung puts his hand on the tall boy's shoulder. “You just keep looking beautiful, baby.” Hyunjin smiles his famous dumpling smile and follows after Hannie. 

Chris holds out his hand to Minho and waits. Minho looks at his friend’s hand for a moment then closes his eyes in pain. “Hyung, I think I actually am in love with her.”

“I know.” 

“I didn't mean to catch feelings.”

“We never do, man.” Chris pats his friend on the back. 

“She’s so infuriating. We are total opposites and we constantly get under each other’s skin and yet-”

“And yet the moment you saw her, there was no choice.”

“Yeah…”

“Look, you’re going to get it sorted, I know you will. But tonight we’re not going to worry about that. Instead we’re going to go downstairs, cuddle puddle on the couch, and cry over Tom Hanks stalking Meg Ryan.”

“Who’s going to cry?” Minho mimes looking around. “Not me!” 

Chris rolls his eyes as he pulls his moody cat to his feet. “You cried at the end of Sleepless in Seattle.”

“The boy waited at the top of the Empire State Building all day for Annie! He was alone! Who wouldn’t cry?!”

“가자” the oldest shoves Minho out of his room and together they make their way downstairs to enjoy movie night. 

Meanwhile across campus, you sob into your red vines as the credits of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ends. Yuqi and Momo stare at you with equally concerned looks.

“Um, are you good, babe?” Momo asks. Yuqi sits up from the couch and grabs the remote to change it to something else.

You sniffle as you shove another red vine in your mouth. “I’m fine.”

“So you’re not good.” Momo shakes her head. 

Yuqi gets on the floor and places an arm over your shoulder. “You need to allow yourself to be vulnerable again, babe. You’re allowed to love someone again.” 

“Love? You think I love Minho?”

“Is the Nile a river?”

“Yes?” 

“Then yes. If you don’t tell him how you feel you’re going to regret it.”

“But it was just sex.”

“It’s never just sex.” Momo says as she rolls her eyes. 

“It was supposed to be…”

Yuqi takes hold of your shoulders to face her. “And now you’re both madly in love with each other so what are you going to do about it? Keep pushing him away or love him back for as long as he’ll have you?”

“I’m scared.”

“News flash, we all are.”

“You and Jisung don’t seem scared.” 

“Of course I’m scared! I think I may have found the love of my life, but we’re both young, in college and I know not all relationships last after graduation. But I’m also not going to sit and dwell on the potential hurt I may have to endure in the future. I’d rather put my energy into loving him and being with him.” You place your chin on your knees and ponder her words. She wipes a few stray tears from your cheeks. “I’m going to pop some more popcorn and you’re going to put a sickeningly cheesy happy movie on because I cannot sit through this depressing shit again.” You sniffle and nod. Clicking through the options, you finally land on You’ve got Mail. 

Yuqi returns from the kitchen and sees your choice for the next movie. “Oh, I love this one!” She excitedly sits next to Momo, looping the girl’s arm with hers. Momo groans and tries to pull away.

Click.

-

It had been a week since Minho confessed his feelings for you. Unable to give him an answer, Minho takes your silence to mean one thing: Rejection. And not what it really was: Cowardice. After Minho asked for you to keep your distance from him, you took the easy way out and did your best to steer clear. Though it was a little challenging to completely avoid Minho with him living above you and all. However, after another week things start to fall back to how they were before you became friends with your neighbors and everyone was too busy focusing on finals anyway. Whenever you ran into the boys, you often asked them how Minho was, but not wanting to betray him they wouldn't say much. It’s not that the boys were mad at you, they just didn’t really know what to say anymore when they saw you. Outside of Jisung and Felix who still remained friendly, the rest were just polite.

Once finals had concluded, you could feel the levity in the air. The campus buzzed with students leaving their last class of the semester. You knew everyone would be heading home soon for the summer and bile began to rise in your throat as you realized it was now or never if you didn’t want to lose Minho for good. There was a chance the boy wouldn’t forgive you considering you hadn’t spoken in weeks, but you missed him. You missed him so much that you found yourself struggling to make it through each day . You missed feeling the warmth of his arms around you and the heaviness of his gaze on your face. You had grown accustomed to his presence and you knew you had fallen in deep. Finally coming to a decision, you put your metaphorical big girl pants on and dart back to the house. When you arrive, you run into Jisung on the porch.

“Y/n! Hey! Happy end of spring semester.” He flashes his gummy smile.

“Hi, Ji. Is Minho here?”

“Oh…no. He actually just left.”

“Left? Left for where?”

“Home.”

“Home?! Like home, home?”

“Yes?”

You look around in frustration. “How long ago did he leave?”

“Um maybe 15-20 minutes ago for the airport? Y/n, is everything okay?” 

“Ji, I have to go.” You leave Jisung in a state of confusion as you head for your car. 

“Y/n, he's just leaving for summer break?” Too late, you're already taking off for the parking lot behind the house and don’t hear Jisung calling after you. You punch in the directions to the airport and whip out of the lot like your life depends on it. 

The airport is small. Only one flight to the main city and back so luckily it doesn’t take you long to get to the gate, but you run anyway, completely ignoring the stares. 

You finally spot him in line for the flight to Philadelphia and shout his name “LEE MIN HO!” Everyone within earshot turns around and looks at you along with the boy you have fallen for. He tilts his head, eyes widening in complete shock and confusion. You run over to him, your chest rising and falling rapidly. 

Minho pulls you aside and away from the onlookers. “Y/n, what are you doing here?” He can feel his ears redden. 

“You were just going to leave without saying anything?” You say breathlessly, realizing you should probably start working out again. 

“Y/n. I’m just going home to visit my parents for the summer.” 

Right… Before you lose any courage you blurt out “I like you!”

“Oh…”

“I didn’t want to. I tried so hard not to like you, but I failed.”

Minho drops his hands from your shoulders.  “I’m sorry to have been such a nuisance?” 

“No, dummy, I’m trying to confess my feelings for you.” Minho makes an “o” face as he comprehends. “You’re doing great, princess. Keep going.” He smirks and signals for you to continue. You throw him a threatening look as he bites his lip to hold back his smile.

You clear your throat as you try to refocus. “I hurt you, Minho. I didn't mean to, but I let my fears get the better of me instead of just trusting you. I know we’re young. I know this could end in tears, but I am going to be brave and not focus on the scary things. I…I want…” Minho looks at you encouragingly as your words catch in your throat. You squeeze your eyes shut trying to swallow back your cowardice. 

“Y/n?”

Your eyes fly open and you nearly shout, “I want to date you too!” Minho stifles a giggle at your outburst. “That’s what I should have said back at the cafe. That’s what I wanted to say, but I just couldn’t.”

“It’s okay.” He pulls you into his arms.

“I’m sorry for being so foolish.”

“We were both fools.” 

You let out a sigh and wrap your arms around him. “But I have to warn you, once I hold on to someone I don’t let go, so yeah, I guess you’re basically stuck with me.”

“Sounds like a dream,” he says, patting your head. 

“Til death do us part then.” 

His eyes fly open. “Jesus, Y/n. Why does that sound like a threat?” You laugh teasingly. 

He shakes his head and places his forehead on yours. “You’re crazy.” 

“You’re normal.” 

Minho smiles and whispers into your lips, “I like you.”

“사랑해요” You finally admit to him. 

You try to pull Minho into a kiss, but he interrupts the moment. “Sorry, but did you really just run through this tiny airport to confess to me like we’re in a Nora Ephron movie or something?”

“Yes.”

“Ew, that is so lame.” You punch his arm. “Ouch!” He laughs while he holds his arm.

“I take it back.” You turn to leave, but he grabs your hand whipping you back around and into his arms again. He kisses you tenderly and you smile into his mouth as the warmth of his lips close in on you. Minho looks into your eyes seriously this time. “I love you too, princess.” He kisses the tip of your nose and you smile as tears start to pool. 

A female voice blasts over the intercom, Last call for flight to Philadelphia. Minho looks over at the attendant checking people in then looks back at you. “That’s my cue.” The two of you embrace one more time before he grabs his bag to leave. You watch as he shows his boarding pass and walks through the gate. Your heart tightens in your chest as the warmth from his touch dissipates.

“Y/n!” Minho shouts suddenly into the crowd. You stand on your tippy toes as his fellow passengers start to block your view. “You complete me!” He makes a heart above his head and laughs.

“Oh my god, shut up!” Your face heats up. 

“I love you,” he shouts one last time before disappearing into the tunnel to board his flight. Sitting on the bench, you watch as Minho’s flight eventually takes off. You do your best to stifle the tears threatening to fall. Once the plane is no bigger than an ant in the sky you decide it’s time to head home. 

-

You park your car and climb out to head inside the house. Minho sent you a text just before take off promising to message you once he landed in Philly and eventually in Seoul. Clutching your phone to your chest in anticipation, you make your way to your apartment. Jisung spots you from the window and pops out onto the back deck to call out to you. “Did you get him?”

You give him the biggest smile and nod. “Yeah, I got him.” 

“About time.” Jisung rolls his eyes affectionately before giving you a wink and disappearing back into the house. While you have no idea what's going to happen between you and Minho, for once, you are no longer afraid.

FIN.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who read my first fic/fic series. I know I have a lot of room for improvement, but I really enjoyed this. Maybe it feels out of left field, but I decided to make the ending cheesy because I had it in my head that the boys are really big rom com fans and our main character is not. Since our MC had been emotionally stunted from her parent’s divorce and previous relationship, I wanted her to make a ridiculous grand gesture because 1. she knows the boys are cheesy romantics and 2. to also finally put her trauma aside and allow herself to love Minho. Slightly going to miss them, even though Y/n was a pain in the ass at times.

MASTERLIST

-------------------------------------------------------------

Tag List: @linocz @queenmea604 @felixs-voice-makes-me-wanna @ana-marais98 @aller-geese @stayandot8 @flowersun @jisuperboard @jisunglyricist

xx

[nvvacanesworld]

..••°°°°••..GREAT BLUE °°••....••°°

What if sirens were real and had the ability to make captains crash/sink their boats and their crew? Write from the perspective of a young sailor who survives a crash and interacts with one of the sirens

credit to @writers-potion for the prompt☼

♡pairing -Sailor!Gojo x Siren! Fem Reader!

♡content warning- Angst/No comfort, death, manipulation, starvation, satoru being stranded. she/her pronouns used Comment if i missed any please

♡word count-2,174

an- this took so long i’m sorry if it’s not perfect i haven’t proof read but i will later. Likes and reblogs and comments are appreciated, and if you like this feel free to follow me i’m trying to reach a goal of 100 followers :) or don’t it’s okay. I also like getting feedback just please be nice to me as i am a new writer ☮︎

it’s been seven days. seven days i’ve been stuck on this island. Seven days sense those things attacked me and my men. I don’t know how it happened. It’s like i was in a trance, she was pulling me towards her with her eyes. Oh those eyes, those beautiful ey- No Satoru Stop! Get your self together. I started slapping my face to wake up and get myself to stop thinking about her. Before i flipped the ship, i heard her, i swear i heard her whispering in my ear. She promised me power and riches if i would just jerk the wheel.

“Oh Satoru, listen to me brave sailor, riches beyond imagination await you. I can give you what you want, i just need you to trust me. Trust me Satoru”

Trust her? I looked forward and saw the most beautiful women i’ve ever seen looking at me. I didn’t care where she came from, I just wanted to see more of her.

“Yes my brave sailor, treasures only the bold can claim can all be yours”

“Tell me more please” I was so eager to know how i could attain this treasures. Looking out at the sea, the sun hitting my skin started to fade away making the once clear sky dark and gloomy, The once calm waters became more aggressive crashing into the side of my ship, but i hardly noticed, to focused on what this women, with her soft enchanting voice could possible mean, it’s like i couldn’t control myself. That’s was the only thing on my mind.

“Ancient jewels that shine brighter than the stars, Scales of the mightiest creatures that have ever lived, stronger than any metal or wood, The crown of the ruler of the sea Queen Asherah, with this crown you will gain the ability to breathe under water, we can see each other that way Satoru, i want you to see me, i want to see you”

Without a second thought i spoke

“I want to see you too, tell me how i can see you” I gripped the wheel tighter eager to know what i could do to attain these things that only are spoken of in folktales, things you hear about from your comrades while you watch the star in the sky dreaming about what you want to be.

Her voice sounded eldritch the next time she spoke, more sinister, different than the soft voice i had grown accustomed too

“Crash your ship”

What? My eye go wide but before i could think my mind goes back to the promise of hidden treasures, things that could make me the most powerful man to sail these dangerous waters, making me remembered for generations. Ignoring the warnings the waves gave me, I start to steer my ship closer to the sound of her voice. Where are you, how can i find you

As the ship goes deeper into the perilous waters, it feels like the water has an iron grip on my ship, making me and all my men shake with it.

“Captain what’s going on what are you doing?” One of my men shout at me, but i ignore him continuing on my path.

No matter what you do or how hard you fight you fight nature will always win

My ship flips succumbing to the oceans furry.

The last thing i remember is the screams of my men, begging for mercy, begging to live. And the scene of that same women and others attacking them as they struggled to keep themselves up, in that oh so unforgiving sea. And that soul wrenching song luring me to sleep.

I woke up in a sweat, jumping up from my position. How was i alive?

I’ve been stuck here for seven days waiting for anyone to notice that we never reached the port. Wandering around with no certain direction in mind. But the thing that irked me the most is i still wanted to see her. I don’t know what i would do if i happened to see her again. Maybe try to kill her to be honest. For what she made me do, or maybe she wasn’t even real and i did it myself.

My mind has been spiraling ever sense. As i kept walking i reached shore again. Great i went in a circle.

Falling onto the sand i felt the grains against my back prickling my skin. I was starving and hungry, only surviving off of the fruit that hung off the trees around me. I could feel myself slipping in and out of consciousness. This was it, i was going to die here. Right when my eyes were about close and my mind was about to fade into darkness. I heard her again.

“Oh Satoru, you look so hurt” she murmured in my ear. Her voice was so calming, oh so soothing i almost forgot how much i loathed her.

I got the toughness of steal and forced my body up and finally i saw her smiling at me.

“You…” I said with a strain in my voice glaring at her. She had so much nerve to smile in my face after that fucking mind control spell she cast on me. How could she be so confident? Standing so close to me in my reach like i won’t snap her neck and make her suffer the same fate as the men of mine she killed.

Without too much thinking i gather all the strength i can muster and lunge at her.

But she..she evaded me so gracefully, like she was dancing she twirled out my grasp, and i fell face first into the sand right in front of her like an idiot. I heard her laughing at me.

As i lay there defeated in the sand, she continued to laugh at me. That haunting melody that echoed in my ears caused my face to turn red. I couldn’t understand how she seemed so exquisite and untouched and calm by the chaos that she had caused. The tragedy she had caused. Struggling to my feet, my anger added fuel to the fiery flames that ignited in me at the sound of her mocking laugh.

“Why did you make me do it?”I growled not even bothering to wipe the sand sticking to my damp clothes “What even are you?”

Her laughter died out and she looked at me almost childlike her eyes looked so doll like.

“I am a Siren, Satoru. A creature of the sea, drawn to the deepest desires of men like yourself. Satoru your heart desired and sought after the most beautiful treasures, all the glory and for your name to be remembered for generations. I merely offered you what your heart desired”

Anger surged within me. “And at what cost? Where is all that now? After my crew is gone my ship has sunk, What do you even gain from all of this destruction?”

“Oh Satoru” There she goes again saying my name like that. “The sea demands its sacrifice, the sea doesn’t kneel for anybody, In return i bestow upon you the opportunity to come with me, Embraces the depths with you Satoru and wield the treasures your heart desires”

I hesitated, why did i hesitate, i was torn between the desires for revenge and the lingering allure of her vow. The lines between hatred and captivation started to blur. “Join you? After what you’ve done?”I croaked out my voice strained

Her expression softened, almost like she pitied me. I hated that. But the more i looked it almost looked like understanding “You may despise me now, but the sea has changed lots of peoples perspectives it has a way of doing that to people. Embrace the change and power i offer and you shall become something greater than you can imagine”

The conflict raged within me as i heard the waves crash, further echoing the turmoil in my mind. I yearned for vengeance, while another part of me felt drawn to her seductive promises she whispered. The siren extended her hand to me, an invitation to a destiny entwined with the depths of the sea.

“Do you choose the surface, where you will be stuck here forever wandering this very here beach because no one will come to save you Satoru i’m the only one who is here for you” Her voice got darker as she spoke it seemed she was getting angry but she quickly covered it up again “Or will you come with me, We can be together Satoru, i will make all your dreams come true” She was calm again looking at me with a glint in her eyes awaiting my answer. Why was she so bent on taking me with her, was she once like me ? Who are you?

A starange calm settled within me, the rage giving way to curios acceptance. I found myself reaching for her hand that she offered me. The decision made against the backdrop of the now calm sea. It’s like nature was playing into her hands. Our hands met, a surge of entertainment courses through me.

The world around us started to shift, and the island transformed into an otherworldly paradise. Vivid hues danced in the air, and the haunting melody of the sirens song resonated with a newfound lucidness. When i looked around me i felt a connection to the depths, an understanding that surpassed my former human limitations.

“You are now more than a mere sailor Satoru” she whispered from behind me. Her eyes gleaming with a mix of triumph and compassion. “You are now part of the oceans songs, it’s powers”

As i embraced my transition and transformation. The memory’s of what now was my past life started to fade like distant echos. I didn’t harbor resentment for the shipwreck, or the loss of my crew. Instead a symbiotic relationship with the sea and with the siren unfolded before me.

In the depths i discovered the wonders that were promised to me. The ancient jewels that shimmered like the stars. Scales of mighty creatures that pulsed with raw strength, and the beautiful crown of the Queen Asherah. With the crown on my head the ability to breathe underwater became second nature. And the ocean unveiled is secrets to me. This is what power felt like.

The siren, whose named i learned was y/n, and i began to roam the depths together. She became more than the seductive creature who led me astray, she became my mentor, my friend, my lover. Our connection transcended the surfaces desires that once bounded us.

As time passed i lost track of how long i had been apart of this aquatic realm. But i embraced it with open arms leaving behind the limitations my once mortal existence gave me.

The sea, once a relentless force, had became my ally, my truth. And with the Siren by my side i embraced the desires of the sea and the destiny that awaited in the endless expanse of the great blue.

—

Years have passed and whispers of the mysterious island reached the years of adventurous souls who wished to see if these folk tales were true. A group of explorers, drawn by tales of lost treasures, set sails toward their destination.

As their ship anchored near the sand of the island, the explorers set foot on the sandy shore. The air carried an eerie feeling, and the wind seemed to whisper untold secrets. Among the group was a seasoned archaeologist named Dr.William was leading the group.

Their footsteps echoed through the abandoned remains of a shipwreck that looked like it was washed up on shore, a haunting reminder of a past that was long forgotten. They explored further, discovering footprints deeply etched into the sand, evidence of what once was someone’s existence.

Deeper into the sand they discovered a figure lying motionless on the beach. A gasp swept through the group as they walked towards the body.

“Is that Satoru?”

“Who is that?”

“He was that famous caption who sailed the seven seas, but when he was on his way back home, it was said his ship crashed and he was never found”

The group gasped shocked by the news of the incident.

His body was intact but lifeless.

Dr. William explained the scene “Starvation” She uttered. A somber realization. “He must have been stranded here for days and took his last breathe when he laidback on the sand”

The once vibrant and ambitious man laid there as mere shell his dreams and desires extinguished by the unforgiving nature of the island.

As the explorers gathered around his body they prayed and paid their respects, but right as they were getting ready to leave the heard a haunting melody and out of the corner of there eyes they could’ve sworn they had seen something, or rather someone, rise from the sea ready to confront the crew. The last thing they heard before they passed out was

“Oh Satoru, my brave sailor”

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO NVVACANESWORLD DO NOT STEAL MY WORK OR COPY MY WORK!!!

please and thank you :)

♡tag-list- :) @getosbabymomma @seeingivy

[jwirecs]

RECOMMENDED SEVENTEEN FICS OF JULY 2023💖

hello, hello! here are my recs for seventeen for july! hopefully these beautiful stories get more recognition as well as the writers 💝

** anything in parentheses and bolded are my thoughts that can be disregarded if needed **

🔞smut || 💔angst || 💕fluff || ✅completed || 🔄ongoing || 💯favorite

Admire Me (Like I Do For You) || @wheeboo💕✅

↳ in which seungcheol shows you his tattoos. 

Dimple || @icyminghao💕✅

↳ you can’t sleep, so you try touching seungcheol’s dimple just for the fun of it (spoiler: he loves it)

Shave || @yikesmary💕✅💯

↳ with your boyfriend’s comeback approaching, mingyu asks you to help with shaving.

The Stars And You || @wheeboo💕✅

↳ in which you bring the stars to your boyfriend for his birthday. (to this author, i am so sorry, but 90% of the fics that i have read from you so far, most of them are on this list. keep doing what youre doing please. i love them)

Try Me || @cheolhub🔞✅

↳ you push your sweet boyfriend a little too far when you threaten to fuck his business partner at dinner. he decides to show both you and mingyu who you belong to. (oh lord, heaven have mercy.)

Ukiyo || @wheeboo💕💔✅

↳ in which you and minghao spend the day together.

Wonwoo's Tasty Cereal (And Milk) || @twogyuu💕✅

↳ You've been eating cereal wrong your entire life. Wonwoo and your niece are going to fix that.

Fake Dating Roommates || @yikesmary💕🔄💯💯

↳ in which choi seungcheol becomes your roommate and fake boyfriend in one fell swoop. and you still don't know how it happened.

Seventeen As Fake Dating Scenarios || @bluehoodiewoozi💕✅

↳ (title says it all and i am out here fulfilling my delulu side of my brain. doing great out here im telling you)

Baby, All I Really Want Is Your Attention || @viastro💕✅

↳ you and mingyu have been academic rivals since the beginning of your high school career. having always aimed for the #1 spot, mingyu would beat you without even needing to study. now dedicating all your time into studying at the local library, you find yourself wondering who keeps neatly packing your things and waking you up each time you fall asleep while studying. (hes so soft, i cant)

Catnaps || @wheeboo💕✅

↳ in which you volunteer at the local cat shelter with your crush.

Dating Seventeen (Hyung Line) || @wqnwoos💕✅

↳ (out here filling my delulu brain. also seungcheol does radiate sugar daddy tho, ngl)

Fix You || @smileysuh🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ “As a member of 53V3NT33N, I have two different states of mind coded into me, aggression and admiration. To love something, to admire it, is to feel aggressive when it’s questioned, to want to control it, if even for a little while- it’s the need to consume it, endlessly, as my fans consume and control me as an automaton. Even though I’m a member of a group, there’s a distance. Automatons can never truly motivate each other because our motivations are based on external human needs, it’s built into us- We can see when humans need us, and we do what we can to fix that need… I know you need me, the way I’ve needed you since I got here.” (god, yall dont even know how much i freaking love their fics. like bro, ily)

Gamers Do it Better || @sluttyminghao🔞✅💯

↳ (listen, just hear me out. tag teamed by the two lord saviors of svt's hhu. i really need like a threesome au/tag or something i swear.)

Hits Different || @hellohannie💕💔✅

↳ it was no secret that you had dated many people in your past. when you were with them, you believed you loved them and they loved you. when you broke up, you realized that they didn't truly love you. but you still believed that love was real. then, you met lee chan. when he broke up with you, you started to question if love truly did exist after all. (i need me some more dino fics cause i barely come across any)

Loving Him Was Red || @boowanie💕💔✅💯

↳ After the café you were part-timing at suddenly closes, you were left unemployed and broke as you tried your best to look for a new job. But when your best friend suggests an alternative way of earning money, you suddenly find yourself falling for a certain Jeon Wonwoo.

Pup Code || @beefboyandbabygirl🔞💕✅💯💯💯

↳ mingyu doesn't have crushes. he likes avril lavigne and sometimes he fucks pretty girls. but you seem to stir something in him that no one else can. without the trusty girl code, mingyu makes his own code to help you fall in love with him. (yall need to read this one. like read it cause i lowkey can imagine him making up his own code ngl. man has no self control sometimes)

Crossing Boundaries || @wonusite🔞💕✅

↳ Seungcheol has always demanded that all of his employees keep professional boundaries, but it frustrates him that his son’s nanny is a little too good at keeping things professional. 

Happy (First) Fathers' Day || @icyminghao💕✅

↳ it’s fathers’ day, but you seem to be more fixated on an event for your newborn daughter, much to mingyu’s dismay.

Made With Love || @icyminghao💕✅

↳ joshua wakes up to quite the commotion, and you’re not by his side.

The Cake In the Back || @toruro🔞💕✅

↳ cheol is a regular at your bakery, and it's all because his son loves the banana bread you make—at least that's what he tells himself. it also doesn't hurt that you're cute. and polite. and totally someone he'd like to fuck.

Roommates With Benefits || @shuaflix🔞💕✅

↳ initially, wonwoo doesn’t think much about your incessant requests to play on his xbox. however, when what was supposed to be a two-hour visit to his place stretches out for two weeks, he starts to think you’re overstaying your welcome.

The Secrets Kept From Roommates || @cheolism🔞💕✅

↳ you are hiding a secret from mingyu. little do you know that he's hiding one from you too.

Broken Pieces || @bluehoodiewoozi💕💔✅💯💯💯

↳ Your friend broke your soulmate's heart, leaving you to pick up the pieces of both his and your own heart. (stop my heart, i cant)

Right? Right. || @bluehoodiewoozi💕💔✅

↳ Your soulmate mark might be broken, but at least he will always be there for you.

Do check out all of the other seventeen fics that i have reblogged as well!!

** if there is any fics that you guys would like to recommend, please do! i am slowly running out of fics to read **

[pedrigavi]

a night to regret pt. 2

pablo gavi x reader

part 1 here

wc: 566

warnings: angst, bad dialogue (im not a writer im sorry im trying my best), swearing but not too much

pictures of last night kept blowing up your phone. your boyfriend pablo with a girl you didn’t recognize, pretty sure he had not met her before last night, but that didn’t stop him from having her in his lap.

you had spent all your tears crying at pedri’s house, feeling guilty because of a fight with pablo that you couldn’t even remember this morning. you know gavi had called you, you heard pedri talking to him on the phone while you were trying not to fall asleep once again on his couch, tired and feeling a headache come from all the crying. 

you went home as soon as pedri hung up, just wanting to find your boyfriend in your bed and wanting to leave every piece of anger behind. your relationship felt more important than that. 

except when you came home, pablo wasn’t there, he wasn’t in bed, nor on the couch, nowhere to be seen. you didn’t call him, maybe that was your mistake. 

now you knew where he was, in the club, too close to someone else for him to think about missing you, maybe that was his mistake. 

you didn’t know what to feel, betrayed, angry, mostly just hurt. how could he do this? 

while you were trying to gather your thoughts, you heard the keys turn in the door.

pablo. 

“hey”

“hey? you are pictured with another girl in your lap and all you can say is hey?”

“i’m sorry” he pleaded “i can explain, you were with pedri, and i was angry, and i love you but i don’t know how to-”

you cut him off. “i was with pedri because you left me alone, i didn’t leave you, i didn’t turn away from you” you tried to stop the tears but it was too late. 

after a moment of silence, he sighed and said “i know”. and that he did, he knew, he knew he had to hold you, no, he needed to hold you, to feel you close, as if he could never hold his girlfriend after this, as this was his last chance.

“did you kiss her?” you asked scared. 

“i was mad, but i would never do that to you, you have to believe me, please” he looked sincere, you thought, his eyes could never lie to you, you knew them all too well. you had spent too many hours studying his face, all the colors in his eyes, and counting his eyelashes. 

you had nothing left to say, so you just kissed him, he wasn’t forgiven, pablo knew that, but he didn’t care. he would do anything to keep having the privilege to kiss you, 

“last night won’t ever happen again, or you will never hear from me again, understood?”

pablo smiled softly and nodded. he understood. still too scared to talk and fuck it up. 

so he did the next best thing he could think of, picked you up, carried you both to your shared bed, and held you until you fell asleep. 

pablo didn’t feel like sleeping, so he just admired how the light hit your face, and cursed himself for almost forgetting what seeing your face did to him. 

he regretted the previous night, and even if he couldn’t erase it from both of your brains, he knew he could make every next night you’d both share from now on much more memorable.

[mummybear]

My Brother's Best Friend - Chapter Four - Not Yet

Words: 4032

Warnings: Swearing, Angst, Possessive Stiles, Protective Stiles, Smut, Dirty Talk, Shower Lovin', Protective Scott... Think that's it!

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Reader/Sadie McCall, Liam Dunbar

Pairing: Stiles Stilinski and Reader

A/N: Hey guys! Another chapter is out, I really hope you guys like this one I know the chapters are a little spaced out, sorry really trying to work on that but the writers block keeps hitting hard when I actually have the time to write! So hope this is okay! Enjoy!

P.S If anyone would like a tag for the series please let me know! :)

Chapter 4 - Not Yet

You watch him closely, fighting off a nervous giggle as you slowly back up towards your bed. Extremely conscious of the fact he’s continuing to advance on you, showing no signs of stopping. Then before you fully process what’s happening he’s standing directly in front of you. You suck in a sharp breath as your bed bumps into the backs of your legs. You reach for him slowly, almost worried that he might disappear if you move too fast, just like a dream. You just barely hold back from pinching yourself. Instead you reach out, your hands moving slowly up over his chest, enjoying the feeling of his pecs tensing under your touch. 

You press your body against his tightly and wrap your arms around his neck. Stiles’ fingers tickle as they trace over your skin, the feeling causes tingles to erupt all over your skin. 

“Fuck it feels good to touch your skin finally, you’re so soft. I swear it’s all I’ve thought about,” he whispers reverently, dropping his hands to your hips. He moves his forehead to yours, and looks into your eyes, the purple that you see there no longer scares you. Instead it gives you more of a heady rush, drawing you in like a moth to a flame. 

“I promise you here and now Sadie, I will do my best to deserve you.” 

The look he gives you is so full of sincerity that you lose yourself in his touch, in his eyes.

“Kiss me, please.” Your whispered plea is answered without further question, his lips insistently claiming your own, even as you feel a tear slip down your cheek.

Stiles groans deeply as his hands drop to your ass, pressing his hips closer to your own, and you can’t help but gasp into his mouth as his thick cock pushes tightly up against your stomach. Stiles picks you up with ease, and you savour the feeling of being held in his strong arms. 

His lips only leave yours when he tosses you onto your bed. You look up at him, with a look that is no doubt full of the lust you feel as you slide back against the pillows. 

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” Stiles whispers as his eyes run heatedly across your body, your chest heaving as you stare up at him. You can’t speak, because you’re hoping the very same thing yourself. 

Your eyes drop to his hand when you feel the bed dip slightly, and you’re finally pulled from your trance when he lowers himself onto your bed. Leaning on his hands and knees, as he begins to crawl towards you. You lick your dry lips and try not to swallow your tongue, as your eyes trail heatedly over his body. Unable to comprehend when all of this happened, you notice the way his arms bulge and tense with every movement, like he’s holding himself back from pouncing on you.

Clearly neither of you want to rush this, so you lay as still as possible. You let Stiles take the lead, until his lips are hovering over your own. Your fingers move slowly over his tensed biceps, as he lowers himself just a little, so he can just barely brush his lips over yours. Moving himself onto his forearms he gets a little closer to you. 

Having him so close, you can’t keep your hands to yourself anymore, you push your fingers through his hair like you had always wanted.

“I want you so damn bad right now,” he whispers softly as he cups your cheek, but you can see there’s something that he’s holding back. 

You gently press against his chest and Stiles rolls onto his back, moving to lay beside you, his head tilted back against the headboard, doing his best not to look at you. With a sigh you sit up and climb into his lap, not wanting to lose the closeness you’d had a moment ago. He finally looks at you and you’re sure that the concern you feel is written on your face.

“Talk to me, Stiles. I can practically see you thinking at this point. Have you changed your mind about us?”

Stiles wraps his arms around your body as a low growl fills his chest, “No. Never that.” 

“Okay, fine. If it’s not that, then talk to me, please. Something is clearly bothering you.” 

“Look, as much as I want to throw you down on this bed and fuck you, I can’t do it. Not yet. It’s… It’s too soon. You’ve only just found out about everything, I feel like I’m taking advantage of you, Sadie.”

Shaking your head you smile at him, “I mean you’re not. But I get why you think that. So if you’re not comfortable yet then we wait, until we’re both ready for that step. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything at all.” You smirk as you roll your hips in his lap, feeling his cock beginning to thicken between your thighs once again. You feel Stiles’ chest puff up under you, almost as if his wolf is pushing to the surface.

“Fuck, Minx. Just like that,” he grunts, hands dropping to your ass, long fingers squeezing the cheeks harshly. 

You lean in and press kisses up the side of his neck enjoying the noises of his clear satisfaction. You slowly drag your teeth across his earlobe, before whispering in his ear, “Do you need to really fuck me before you mark me?”

Your panties are soaked and you can’t stop yourself from rocking against his thickness, “No. Not technically.” Stiles growls in reply, his sharp reply gives you a little thrill and a shiver races up your spine. 

“Don’t you want to mark me then? Make me all yours… officially?” Your giggle turns into a drawn out moan when Stiles smacks your ass before gripping tightly once more. 

“Stop fucking teasing me,” he rasps, as a hand leaves your ass to smack it once more, before he wraps your hair around his fist. He tugs at it harshly causing you to bare your neck to him.

You whimper as he licks up your throat, “I could fucking take you right here, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me, doesn’t that scare you?” 

You shake your head as best as you can, and your hips haven’t stopped moving almost like your body is possessed.

“No. I trust you. Besides, I want your mark on me,” you answer breathlessly, feeling your pussy clench around nothing.

Stiles’ chuckle is dangerous as he drags his teeth softly over the skin at the base of your throat.

“You want this cock too don’t you? My needy little mate. God, you’re so wet.” Stiles releases your hair when all you can do is moan in agreement, your forehead drops against his as he plucks the clasp of your bra, swearing when he doesn’t get it open right away. You’re both laughing, until he finally gets it undone, then your eyes move to his.  

“I hate those damn things,” he sighs in irritation, pressing a gentle kiss to your jaw as he pulls your bra away.

Goosebumps erupt across every inch of your skin as you lean back a little, the cool air against your heated skin feels so good. Stiles leans forward and runs his tongue around your slowly hardening nipples in turn, while his hands continue to encourage you to keep rocking your hips. You push your fingers through his thick hair and hold him against you tighter.

He growls against your skin, eyes closed as he drags his teeth over your nipple with a little more force. Softly nipping at every bit of skin that he can get to, like he’s marking you in his own way. Stiles pulls away suddenly and meets your eyes, and a grin forms across his plump lips. 

“You’re so close, aren’t you, Minx? I can practically taste it,” Stiles grinds out, his voice more animalistic than before, the purple in his eyes becomes darker and the throbbing between your thighs is more insistent.

“Stop looking at me like that. I told you not yet.”

“But I want it, baby, wanna be yours.” You whimper as you feel the impending orgasm right on the edge.

“No. Not until we’re ready.” He states firmly, his voice holding no room for argument. He presses his nose against yours and you can’t fight the full body shiver that seizes you.

“Now, be a good girl and cum for me. Sadie,” he demands as he wraps your hair around his fist again and pulls you into a fierce kiss.

As if he controls your body you feel the band in your stomach finally snap, and a powerful orgasm grips your body, “oh, God. Stiles!” you cry out helplessly, gripping onto his shoulders in an attempt to ground yourself.

“Fuck yes, Mini, just like that.”

Stiles lays back on the bed and grips your hips harshly and you open your eyes to stare down at him, unable to look away as he thrusts up against you, chasing his own release.

“Please, Stiles. Please. I need you to cum for me. Don’t you dare stop.”

Stiles moves his hands, quickly gripping the sides of your bed, and you watch in fascination as his claws sink into your mattress, the fur begins to appear on his face and his eyes glow that deep dark purple once more. Stiles gnashes his teeth together, revealing his fangs, as he tries to fight against what you’re sure is the urge to sink his teeth into you when he finally cums. Stiles gives a few final rolls of his hips, until he shudders, your name spilling from his parted lips as he grabs at you to pull you close.

You finally let yourself fall forward and collapse against his chest. Both of you are breathing heavily, finding it hard to catch your breath. But when you concentrate it seems as though both your breathing and your heartbeat are in sync with one another. 

The two of you lay there for a few minutes, until Stiles wraps his arms around you and holds you closer before rolling you both on your sides. You press closer still and allow your eyes to slip closed, as your breathing evens out, before you know it you’ve fallen asleep.

SUNRISE

You let out a scream when your door slams open against the wall, you don’t have time to react but as it turns out you don’t need to have any need to panic, not really. Before you can even wrap your head around what’s happening though, Stiles carefully rolls you both across your bed, until your body is safely hidden behind his back. You peek over Stiles’ shoulder and you’re sure that your face is already bright red, seeing Liam standing at your door with your brother who looks beyond pissed.

“Morning.” Liam smirks at the pair of you, a slight teasing lift to his eyebrows. As he grabs your brother’s arm almost on instinct, at the same time as you grab the tense man in front of you. You don’t dare look at your brother right now, too scared of what you might see.

Especially when you fail to hide your laugh at Liam, who looks way too smug for words. You turn and keep yourself low as you reach for Stiles’ shirt, which is on the floor along with the rest of both of your clothes. You do your best to quickly and subtly slip it on, while your brother and Stiles continue to glare at one another.

Scott is first to break. “I told you to stay away from her. Especially last night. What the hell were you thinking, Stiles?!” Scott challenges your mate, ripping his arm free of Liam's hold as his Alpha eyes glow dark red.

Stiles sighs as he stands from the bed, in no hurry as he pulls the covers over your body. Taking a moment to appreciate you wearing his shirt, he can’t hide the way his eyes devour you, or the beginnings of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. You bite your lip as you look up at him, almost forgetting about the others in your doorway, as Stiles bends over to pull on his jeans. You cringe a little, sure those boxers must be uncomfortable, considering the fact that he’d cum in them less than a few hours prior.

“I was thinking that I didn’t want to wait to explain everything to my mate. Not if she was willing to hear me out. If she had kicked me out last night, then I would’ve left. But she didn’t. She knows the most important stuff now. I respect you Scott, both as my Alpha and my best friend, but Sadie comes first. She needed to know, simple as that. You can kick my ass if you want to. Hell, I probably would if I were you, but you should know I’d do it again, it was her choice to make, not yours and not mine.”

You slip from the bed and press yourself against Stiles’ back, slipping your hand into his, trying to let him know you appreciate what he did and you’re here for him.

“Are you okay?” Scott asks you, some of the anger seemingly deflated from him.

“I’m great, Scotty.” 

“I don’t like what you’re implying, Scott,” Stiles huffs, anger beginning to slip into his words.

“Hey big guy. He’s just checking, he didn’t mean anything by it,” you assure him as you squeeze his hand gently. 

Stiles grunts in acknowledgement and rolls his shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension that’s still lingering there, “you’re right, sorry. Guess I’m still a little on edge.” 

“Maybe you should’ve marked me then, tough guy,” you giggle, feeling his body stiffen against you. 

You’d only meant it as a joke to try and lighten the mood, evidently that had backfired.

“Wait. You haven’t marked her? How the hell did you hold back? We all saw how you were around her last night.” Scott questions, almost bewildered by the thought.

“No, he hasn’t. He wants us to wait,” you answer for him, feeling a little guilty for bringing it up, given you’ve probably just made everything harder for Stiles in more than one way. You remember how much it turned him on talking about it, during everything that had happened last night, it was one of the things that set him off.

“Wow man, I’m sorry. I guess I just assumed-” Scott sighs, cutting himself off, clear embarrassment on his face as he runs a hand through his hair.

“I wouldn’t ever do that to her, she just found out, Scott. I’m not some monster, I’m still me. I thought that you, of all people, would understand that.”

Stiles turns and gives you a quick kiss on the lips, “I need to go for a run. I’ll be back soon.” He pulls the sheet from your bed and wraps it around your waist, before he shrugs on his plaid shirt and climbs out of your bedroom window without another word.

“Stiles wait!” Scott shouts, racing out of your window to follow after his best friend.

You look at Liam still standing there and he gives you a friendly smile, “pancakes downstairs if you’re interested?” he offers nodding at your clothes, or lack thereof, “I’ll uhh… leave you to get changed.” 

He closes the door behind himself as he leaves, leaving you alone with your thoughts. This certainly wasn’t how you’d expected to start this morning, not since you’d had the best night of your life last night. At the very least you’d expected sleepy morning cuddles, anything to convince you that last night hadn’t been a dream, it still felt too good to be true.

Now you’re stuck here by yourself, and the insecurities are already beginning to creep in, but you won’t let them, not this time. You tug off Stiles' shirt and your dirty underwear, heading for your bathroom. Turning on your shower you glance at yourself in the full length mirror while you wait for it to heat up, admiring all the small bruises at your hips and waist, the just visible bite marks that litter your chest and neck.

You must be standing there longer than you think because the room is filled with steam.

“Wow, this is crazy,” you whisper to yourself, tracing the small marks with awe.

“I was thinking the same thing. Your ass looks even better than it felt.” 

You gasp in surprise spinning around to face the intruder as the door clicks closed behind him, and he slides the lock closed.

“You scared the shit out of me! Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. We can talk later, we should really get cleaned up.” Stiles grins, stripping himself completely naked. If it were possible for your jaw to physically hit the floor right now, then you’re almost certain it would. 

He wraps his hand around his cock and pumps it a few times as his eyes take their time to explore your body, not that you can deny you’re doing exactly the same. Your mouth runs dry as he steps closer, “don’t worry. I meant what I said, still taking it slow. I’m just taking the edge off a little.” 

“Where’s Scott?” 

“Left him in the woods somewhere, I had much more interesting things to do.” 

Struggling not to swallow your tongue you slowly and wordlessly step back into the shower, your eyes locked on Stiles as he advances on you. You can feel the moisture soaking between your thighs, even before the water touches you. 

“Stiles, I need-” you cut yourself off unsure what you need, especially since you know he won’t give you what you want right now.

“You trust me?” he asks softly, backing you against the shower wall, his hands bracketing either side of your head. His cock presses against your stomach as he leans in closely.

“Always,” you answer softly, sliding your hands up his abs, over his chest, before finally gripping his strong shoulders tightly, he looks even better than you could ever have imagined. The fact that he’s wet is only making everything that much better. 

Stiles leans in slowly, so you can feel his warm breath ghosting over your ear, even before he speaks you can feel yourself beginning to shiver.

“So sensitive,” he whispers, slowly trailing his fingers down your sides.

“Stiles, please. I need something. Anything.” You’re aware just how desperate you sound, but you’re so far beyond caring right now. 

“Just relax, we need to be quick, baby.” 

One of his hands moves between your bodies to grip his cock firmly, you whimper feeling him slide himself between your clenched thighs, when you spread your legs for him he groans against your neck. 

“Fuck, don’t do that,” he laughs, gently easing your thighs back together, “your pussy smells so damn good.”

“Sorry, I’m really trying, I just want you so bad.”

Stiles lets out a shuddered sigh as he slowly starts to rock his hips. You whimper as his cock continues to nudge your clit with every pass over you. Your slick is dripping all over his cock with every movement, and you know it would be so easy for him to slip inside you right now. Your nails dig into his shoulders, already feeling your orgasm close to the surface.

“Such a good girl.” 

“All yours, Stiles. Can’t wait to feel your cock inside me.”

“You were made for me, Minx.” Stiles grunts, his thrusts speeding up and you have to hold onto him, so that your shaking legs don’t cause you to collapse into a puddle at his feet.

It feels like time ceases to exist as your orgasm hits, like an explosion from nowhere. Stiles has his lips pressed against your ear as whispers to you, telling you how good you feel. His grip is possessive and consuming, while he continues to move between your thighs, making you shiver against him. You start to feel the overstimulation taking effect, and your whimpered begging becomes louder, Stiles rests his forehead against yours looking deep into your eyes, before he kisses you, hard.

His tongue explores your mouth as he grunts into your mouth, hips shuddering against your own, you pull him close as his body begins to sag against yours. Wrapped up in each other you let the water wash away the evidence of your hot tryst. Both of you pant heavily as he pries his lips from your own, “that was unexpected,” you giggle breathlessly, running your fingers through his soft hair as the water begins to cool.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I just can’t get enough of you.” Stiles replies sheepishly, a blush covering his cheeks as you separate to quickly clean yourselves properly.

“Don’t worry, I’m not complaining. Neither of us know how this stuff works, but maybe you not giving in fully is part of the problem?” you wonder aloud as you move out from under the shower spray to let stiles rise off the suds.

A small smile plays on his lips as you shut off the shower and he shakes his head at you, and grabs for a towel, handing one to you before he takes his own.

“Sadie, listen to me. I don’t care how much pain this causes me, I won’t bind you to me for the rest of our lives. Not without you being one hundred percent sure that it’s what you want too. You need time to consider your options. All of them.” 

It’s hard to miss the amount of emphasis he puts on those last three words. You both dress in companionable silence as you mull over his words.

“I know you’re convinced that I need this time, Stiles, but I don’t. I already know what I want.”

Stiles sighs and you can feel the annoyance wafting off of him in waves, which isn’t something that you totally understand. He finishes dressing before he gives you all of his attention, and for the first time in a long time, you don’t like the way he looks at you.

“I’m not Scott, Sadie. I’ll act differently, how he does things isn't the same as the way I might do them. I might be a wolf too, but we’re different people. Honestly there’s shit about me that nobody knows about yet! What if I’m a danger to you? I might be some fucked up version of Scott. So If I’m being honest, If I had a choice, then you’d never be in this situation in the first place!” He all but shouts the last part as his breathing becomes more laboured.

While common sense tells you that he isn’t rejecting you in any way, and that he’s trying to protect you, you can’t fight that small part of you that winces at his words. And you throw your walls up faster than even you realise.

“If you would have found out about us on your own, and nobody else knew, would you have ever told me I was your mate? That you were a wolf?”

Even as the words pass your lips you know the answer. 

Stiles stares back at you, his fists clenched at his sides.

“I-I…” Swallowing hard he meets your eyes, “Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that, but it doesn’t matter now b-” 

You cut him off, holding up your hand, reigning in your emotions like you’d been doing for years you meet his eyes, doing your best to keep your steely expression.

“Perfectly clear, I hear you. I’ll speak to Deaton, make sure I have my options. We should head down, everyone is waiting.”

The words hurt to say, especially when you don’t mean any of them, but maybe he’s right because even if you won’t change your mind, you can’t be certain that he won’t change his. He’s always been your what if guy, but until last night you’d only ever been his best friend's little sister.

Tags:

@julzdec @lettersofwrittencollective @mogaruke @lilulo-12fanfiction @charmed-asylum @defenderrosetyler @emilyshurley @foxyjwls007 @mylovelydame21 @akshi8278 @peaches0007 @stylesismyhubs @peachyyybabyy @fantasy-myth1 @death-unbecomes-you @coffeebooksandfandom @magssteenkamp @screamxqueenx94 @brien-odylan @riseandshinelittleblossom @ceceliaking-18 @mrs-mitch-rapp93 @missindecision @deans-number-one-fan @onethirstyunicorn @amberboo329 @chewie-redbird @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone

[graysparrowao3]

WIP Whatever!

Holy shit. Hell yeah! We've got so many WIP snippets incoming, let's goooo all my incredible writer friends! Thank you @darkurgetrash for the beautifully heart-breaking teaser for Lead Me Through the Dark and the tag! As well as all the others that have shared! BG3 fic writing hype!

Who needs a tag? Who doesn't have a tag and wants one? (No seriously, let me know I would love to tag you in). Would any of youuuuu like a tag? Consider it a welcome invitation! @benicemurphy @ashprince-of-bel-air @rinwellisathing @winged-monkey @sorceresssundries

Not sure if anyone is interested in the Rolan, Cal, and Lia stuff, I know it's all so miserable right now, but it's going to look up in the next chapter.

I was working on it today then I remembered I'm a liar and fucking out of control and started some light-hearted banter for the totally-not-going-to-exist next instalment of Rugan x Aradin series as well. (It's all @lizziemajestic's fault, who helped inspire the scene).

So...

Both under the cut? ...Both under the cut.

Rugan x Aradin totally-nonexistent-next-installment banter WIP

Rugan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Think assassination is reserved for folks of some standing. Nothing but plain old murder for you.”

“Oh well,” Aradin replied, enjoyably thick with sarcasm, “in that case I don’t fancy it at all. Besides, we both know you’d botch it.”

“You still on about that?”

“Let’s have it then,” Aradin asked as he busied himself pulling his gauntlets off. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just came to ask for your hand, didn’t I? Throw you over my shoulder and take you back with me.” The younger man’s amused gaze flickered over from where he was unlacing out of his heavy footwear, and a flash of alarm petrified Rugan’s face. “Please tell me you didn’t take that serious.”

Aradin puckered his face up dramatically. “Best cancel the flowers. And they would’ve gone so nice with my eyes.”

“Oh aye,” Rugan snorted. “Would’ve really highlighted the pubescent angst you turned into a personality.”

Aradin pulled the chair back and relaxed into it, swinging his legs up and resting his feet on the table, one foot crossed over the other. “Reckon I’d look good in a dress, big slit in the side so you can see the boots. Get the feelin’ formal wear isn’t really your thing. Bet you scrub up nice, though.”

“Swear to Gods,” Rugan let his face fall into his hands and forcefully rubbed his eyelids.

“You’re so easy to wind up mate,” Aradin clasped his hands behind his head and grinned.

Rolan, Cal, & Lia next chapter WIP - I swear they've hit the bottom and after this next bit of sad discussion in the next chapter they're finally going to have a win and things will start looking up.

Rolan put his elbows on his knees and slid his hands in his hair.

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault, Rolan,” Cal said, rubbing his temples. He was so tired, perhaps even tired of making that response.

“I thought that…” Rolan waved vaguely, hoping his pathetic gesture would do the talking for him. “I thought I'd finally figured our way out. But I stalled. Waited around like it was going to come to me. If I’d have acted sooner, if I’d have written the letter when I first thought of the idea. If I hadn’t wasted so long doubting it was even possible we might have left for Baldur’s Gate a great many tenday before this all happened. It could hardly be worse, reputation notwithstanding. The resources such an accomplished wizard would have access to - we’d be long gone and basking in the upper classes of the Gate before Elturel even thought of taking an extended holiday to the Nine Hells. Not to mention the earnings potential.”

“If I can’t eat it, he can keep his gold,” Cal muttered.

“I should’ve thought of it sooner,” Rolan voice clipped harsh with regret.

“Did think of it,” Lia said forcefully, an honest attempt at reconciliation. “Hells, even got accepted. That’s not nothing, Rolan. That one lady seemed impressed.”

“Not sure if impressed would be the word I used,” he mused. “Though it certainly helped us throw our weight around.” He paused, reflecting on that day that they had first entered the basement. He thought about that woman and her vile judgment. Then her child, and that insufferable ball. And then… Rolan shook the recollection away. They had always avoided looking through the remains of that room.

[myseungsunglove]

Unexpected | Ksm

Pairing: Seungmin x Reader

Warnings: fluffy angst adjacent

Word Count: 1k

𖠫Summary: MC finds herself writing a letter to her boyfriend Kim Seungmin to tell him all of the seemingly small and insightful ways and not so small ways she has felt loved by him when she never expected to feel truly loved by anyone.

Thoughts: This is another odd one. It comes from a very personal place, and it just kind of manifested without me meaning for it to. Hopefully it will reach someone who feels all of these things too.

✎WIP✎: working on a few Han pieces and Seungmin as well that are a bit more fluffy than my most recent pieces.

◠ ◡ ◠᭚ιαᵕ̈

「© July 25, 2023 by mysweethannie」

I’ve never been one to love hard and trust fast. I judge hard and trust slow. It takes a lot for someone to break down my walls, or for me to hand them the key to my seemingly impenetrable heart. I don’t think there’s anyone who really knows me.

Until I met you, Kim Seungmin.

I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, but there is something about you that makes me feel safe. Makes me feel like I don’t have to keep up the walls that I’ve so expertly built around myself. I can be me and you’ll be you and everything‘s okay. Everything is more than okay.

Before you, I had told myself that I was content with the dull loneliness that had become my constant companion in life. I was sure I wasn’t capable of giving love to anyone. This was something I was told each time a relationship inevitably crumbled. And because I loved so differently from other people, it made me unlovable. I somehow convinced myself that I was actually happy with this kind of life, not being loved, and that I couldn’t really find any kind of joy in a relationship because of my inability to love someone like they wanted or deserved. I really believed it to be true.

You changed all of that, Kim Seungmin.

I hate it when people say that love finds you when you least expect it. I hate it so much because that’s exactly what happened with you. I never expected to find you. I certainly wasn’t looking. I guess it was a good thing you were literally right in front of me. Sometimes I swear my life is one big romantic comedy where the writer forgot to give me the script, so I’m not sure when to laugh at how ridiculous my life seems sometimes.

I didn’t expect for you to be the only thing I think about on the dark nights that I don’t see you when our schedules don’t align or I don’t get to fall asleep in your arms. That’s so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in love before. When I really think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually experienced love before you.

I never knew love could be so all consuming, at least not for someone like me. Not for someone who appears physically cold and distant at times and doesn’t know how to connect with people on a physical level. I was certain for a long time that I must be broken because I’ve never felt the things that other people had talked about when they talked about love. I’m still not always sure I convey my love for you adequately but you tell me you love me. Those three words are words you don’t use frequently or utter lightly so I know you must feel some kind of love from me or you wouldn’t risk the vulnerability of telling me you love me. It’s ironic how learning about you and how you love actually helps me learn about myself.

Funnily enough, the love we share, it’s still somehow different from the love I see between other people around me. You love me quietly in your own way yet I’ve never felt more loved, more seen, more known. You don’t have to say those three words every day for me to understand how deeply you feel about me.

I didn’t expect to feel loved when you give me a knowing side eye from the corner of the room when I’m stuck in a conversation with Chan or Changbin.

I didn’t expect to feel loved when you sit down beside me, your thighs pressing close to mine, your hand running soothingly along my back as I work on lyrics for a new song.

I didn’t expect to feel loved, and maybe I should have, when your fingers intertwined with mine, your thumb rubbing gently against my skin the first time I had a panic attack while I’m with you in public.

I didn’t expect to feel loved when you wrote and sang a song just for me. Your voice feels like the safest place on earth, and I know I don’t tell you that enough so this is me telling you.

I didn’t expect to feel loved the first time our lips met. This one may blow people away, but I’d never felt it before so why should I have thought this time would be any different? I guess my first clue should have been that everything was different with you, but somehow I still managed to be surprised.

Finally, and maybe this one is the saddest, but I didn’t expect to feel so loved the first time we made love or even every time after that. My connection with people is always emotional first, and that doesn’t always translate to physical attraction or deep connection. In fact, it very rarely does. Even when it does, my body doesn’t keep up with what my mind wants if that even makes sense. With you, every time you touch me intimately, my body is alight in a way I have never experienced before with anyone and honestly I had no idea it was even possible. No one has ever made me feel every emotion imaginable all at once, but Seungmin when you press closely to me, your long arms wrapping around me safely, my brain fires in a way I’m not sure it even learned to until you. It’s like you were a missing piece my brain needed to finally be whole.

I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, Kim Seungmin, but I'm certain I couldn’t do life without you now.

[daydreamingfuel]

Freak Like Me

Chapter 6

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

AO3 // previous // next

Y/N has just moved to Hawkins from England with her parents and is starting at the high school in the final term of her senior year. Eddie immediately takes a liking to her and they become fast friends, deciding to take her under his wing and falling to her charms. This is Hawkins however and things are never quite as they seem...

WHOLE FIC TAGS & WARNINGS: gratuitous use of Y/N (I'm not sorry), friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual smut, semi-fix-it-fic, angst, injury, canon dialogue and events used, canon graphic violence, no main character death :)

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Y/N's backstory - illusions to SA and drugging but no graphic detail, trauma flashbacks, Eddie and reader have a heart-to-heart-bonding moment, Patrick gets vecna'd in the lake, mass amounts of swearing and sexual innuendo and tension, two idiots in love in hiding, insecurity, anxiety, reader has baggage, Eddie is protective.

Chapter Word Count - 6.1k

A/N - I had writer's block for a while, so another 2-month gap in uploads, sorry. apologies in advance, this chapter is incredibly dark, and you may need tissues. I had my best friend proofread the trauma flashbacks to ensure that it wasn't too much to read emotionally but still, Heavy Trigger Warning for mentions of SA.

“Wait!” Eddie stopped her before she could launch into her story, “Let’s get you off the floor first.”

Slowly and shakily rising from the floor, Eddie managed to get a still out-of-it Y/N back to the boat, carefully sitting her down. Frantic eyes checked over her constantly, looking for any signs of another attack. Her red raw bottom lip was pulled between her teeth, hands fidgeting in her lap which was bouncing rhythmically.  “Eddie, what I’m about to tell you…it’s really dark, I just…I don’t want you to think any less of me…”

“Sweetheart, there are very few things on this earth that could make me think less of you, I can handle it.” His voice had a slightly playful lilt to it, wrapping her hands in his ring-clad ones.

Y/N took a deep breath, eyes fluttering as she tried to keep her thoughts in check, “Before we moved to Hawkins - before my dad got this new job - there was an incident at my old school.” Eddie nodded as she paused, silently encouraging her to continue, letting her fiddle with his rings as she continued to speak, “I didn’t use to look or act like this…I was a preppie. I thought I had to be to survive, and I promised myself that when I started at Hawkins High, I would be myself, completely, and I’m so happy that I did because I found you and I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin but…what happened, it still haunts me.”

Y/N’s perfectly manicured nails tapped against the desk absentmindedly to the song in their head as the teacher at the front of the classroom talked the classroom through the imagery in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. A note slid itself onto the wooden surface from beside her. She smirked to herself before even opening the note, knowing that it came from her boyfriend sitting beside her.

‘You still up for Saturday? Haven’t stopped thinking about what I’m gonna do to you, baby.’

Theo stifled a laugh as Y/N blanched at the words before quickly scribbling a response and passing the note back, readjusting her posture as he read the note.

‘Of course, I’m up for Saturday, but you can keep those thoughts in your head.’

‘Come on! It’ll be a laugh, I’ll be gentle.’

‘You know I want to, I really want to, but I do not want my first time to be at a party where anyone could overhear us or walk in.’

‘But that’s part of the fun baby, come on I wanna make you scream for the whole house to hear.’

‘Drop it or I’m not coming at all. You can have me all to yourself another night.’

‘Alright, jeez, loosen up a bit baby, I was just teasing.’

By Saturday night, 3 days later, unbeknownst to Y/N, Theo had told his friends all about his plans for the evening whilst not bringing it up again to her at all, acting the perfect gentleman. The party hosted by a member of the school’s popular boys, a friend of Theo’s, was in full swing by the time Y/N arrived, flouncy baby pink dress skirting her thighs sweetly. She mingled and danced and laughed, Theo’s arm slung around her shoulder, hand slowly getting closer and closer to her chest with every hour.

As the night went on, Y/N started to feel time moving slower and slower, despite having not drunk too much of anything and mostly sticking to non-alcoholic beverages. Most nights like this, she chose to be able to remember what had happened and hated the headaches that followed when she didn’t.

“Theo, can you take me somewhere to lie down? I feel dizzy…” Y/N slurred slightly, leaning on him, and feeling the rumble of his laugh in his chest. Not hearing his response, she let out a small yelp of surprise as she was suddenly guided to an upstairs bedroom, “Thank you…you’re so good to me…”

Y/N took a shaky breath before letting out a bitter laugh, “‘You’re so good to me’. What bullshit…”

Eddie was silently fuming in his seat, hating every word that spilt out of Y/N’s mouth with eyes like thunder, as she continued the story.

Waking up the next morning, Y/N blinked harshly and groaned as the sunlight hit her face. The more awake she becomes the more horrifically aware of her surroundings and exposed state of being she becomes. Memories of the previous night came flooding back to her in a daze of blurry images and incoherent phrases, making her sick to her stomach. Theo waltzed into the room wearing only sweats and a smug smirk, eyeing the powdery pastel pink of her dress discarded in a corner along with her underwear and shoes.

“Morning baby, sleep well?” The implication dripping from his voice twisted at her insides, despite the seemingly sweet words. All she could do was sit there, clutching the duvet to her exposed chest, staring at him in complete and utter betrayal and hatred.

Breathing growing heavier with rage, Y/N managed to control her emotions enough to speak somewhat calmly, “What happened last night, Theo?”

The boy in question sauntered over to the bed and perched next to Y/N on the bed, making her shuffle away in disgust. “Don’t be like that. You were practically begging me to get you in bed last night,” Everything about his being made her skin crawl, instantly feeling an intense need to scrub every trace of him off her.

“No…I wanted to sleep, I was dizzy…I don’t even know why, I barely drank,” Y/N urged, the door looking miles away from where he had caged her in on the bed.

His laugh, cocky and victorious rang in her ears, “Oh, baby…you were being so fucking uptight, I just wanted to help you relax a little,” The world around her blacked out. “God, you were so clingy, it was almost too easy. ‘Oh, Theo, you’re so good to me…make me feel so good…’”

“I- I didn’t- what did you- you didn’t, please tell me you didn’t.” Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

Theo groaned in frustration and rolled his eyes. “Are you really crying right now? I’ve been nothing but good to you. And I remember all those nights we talked and talked on the phone as you told me every single one of your dirty little fantasies, you’re a little freak. I know you wanted this. You asked for this.”

Y/N rocked herself back and forth slightly, her grip on Eddie’s hands vice-like; Eddie looked as though he was about to commit homicide. His mind raced with all the different ways he could hurt the person who hurt her without a single care. Breathing heavily, Eddie gulped down the growing lump in his throat, knowing that despite his rage, all his energy should be focused on the girl in front of him. He calmed his racing mind to take in her state, and almost crumbled. She was a wreck. Their eyes were frantic as she relived that memory in her mind, tears streaming freely down her face, still shaken from the panic attack and more so from the vicious words circling her head.

“I got out of there pretty fast after that.” Y/N sniffled, pushing away the painful memory, “On Monday, back at school, I tried to avoid him, but it was impossible, we shared so many classes and I ended up walking straight into him. I tried to walk away but he pulled me back, he- he told me that if I tried to tell anyone, nobody would believe me. He’d told his friends and they’d told basically the entire school, not that they needed to. Half the school had already seen me all over him at the party and jumped to their own conclusions about what happened when we disappeared. Everyone thought that I’d, like, begged him to-” She took a deep breath to calm herself, “It was torture, none of my friends would look at me the same after, and so many people talked about what they thought happened, I couldn’t escape it, so I became a recluse. Stopped talking to everyone, just went to school, did my work, tried to ignore what everyone was saying and got the hell out of there without saying goodbye when dad got offered his job here.”

“He should be in fucking jail for doing that to you. Actually, no, fuck that, he should be six feet under.” Eddie furrowed his brows, mystified by the sad tale, and wondering why or how anyone would be capable of hurting her in such a violent manner, “Why did you think that I would think any less of you?”

Y/N laughed in hysterical relief at his protectiveness and understanding, gazing at him with such adoration that he thought he might explode, before it faded into anxiety all over again, “Ever since that day, there’s been this voice in my head telling me that I deserved it. That I ruined everything, and that I’m going to keep ruining things, because I’m just some horny bitch who couldn’t keep her legs closed and made everyone hate me…” her voice came out as barely a whisper, “that I, fundamentally, don’t…deserve to be loved. That everyone is just going to use me and leave me.”

Eddie pulled her into the tightest, safest, embrace. She breathed in his scent, stronger from being in hiding but still very much Eddie, and allowed her eyes to fall shut as she nuzzled into the juncture of his neck. One of his ringed hands cradled her head as his other arm locked itself around the small of her back, his head resting on hers once more, the curtain of his hair falling over her face. Trembling hands held tightly onto him as he let her cry into his neck. Whilst his mind spun with the new information, his heart ached – wanting nothing more than to make sure that nothing like that ever happened to her again, and knowing that his own actions hadn’t made it any easier.

“After it all happened,” mumbling into Eddie’s neck, just loud enough for him to hear, she tried to further explain herself, “I didn’t report it, I was too scared, but my parents knew. They’d heard from other parents when it had circulated the school and sat me down to talk about it. Mum was pensive, but I could see on her face that she was in pain for me, despite not saying anything about it. My dad…well, our relationship has never quite been the same…I think he partially blames me for what happened, thinks I was too reckless, that I should’ve never got involved with him in the first place…he always hated Theo.”

“Anyone that could even somewhat blame you for that is just as much a douchebag as he is,” Eddie stated defensively, hands flexing as he barely stifled his temper, bumping her dad up his mental list of people he hated.

She pulled herself off his chest to look him in the eye, “You really believe that?”

Eddie stared down at her in disbelief, “Of course I do.” She smiled softly, leaning back into his touch.

Their surroundings started to phase back into reality, and quite quickly became all too aware of her own skin and the things touching it, snapping her out of her self-pity. With a sigh, she pulled herself up, and started rummaging through her backpack, stuffing a clean pair of underwear in a pocket, having packed them earlier in case a ‘you-never-know’ situation occurred, “Does Rick’s house have a shower we could use? I’d quite like to get this grime off me.”

“Uh- Y-yeah, follow me.”

Sneaking out of the shed, for fear of lurking townies, they made their way up to the house, Eddie pulling a key out of his jacket pocket. The house had a lingering herbal scent, as though it had seeped into the walls and taken up permanent residency, that made Y/N snicker slightly. Eddie strolled pretty casually through the house, knowing the floor plan with his eyes shut, and led her through to a back room where the den was, overlooking the lake, attached to a small bathroom. Opening the door for her, Eddie guided her into the small, tiled room. It wasn’t particularly new or fancy looking but it was clean enough, and towels were stacked in a tall wooden cabinet near the door that she could use.

“I’ll be quick…don’t want to be here long enough for anyone in the area to notice,” Y/N thought out loud and Eddie hummed in agreement, saying that he’d knock if they needed to make a quick escape back to the boathouse. Deciding that it’d be quicker to not wash their hair, Y/N scrubbed at her body with the generic-looking soap in the shower whilst keeping her hair as dry as possible. The warm water wasn’t quite hot enough, but got the job done and she was out of the shower in under 10 minutes, despite having spent the first few figuring out how the shower worked, trying to make it hotter and then having a little cry before actually washing.

Eddie paced the length of the den as she showered, keeping an ear out for any signs of movement around the house from potential townies. Despite the horrific things he’d seen happen to Chrissy and being in hiding for her presumed murder, the story Y/N had told him about her past was all he could think about. Why anyone, how anyone, could do that to another person? How he wished he could punch the asshole in the face, repeatedly, with iron knuckles.  How utterly terrifying it must’ve been. His head couldn’t help but also go back through every one of their conversations and encounters, searching for any sign that he had made her feel uncomfortable in any way, for any sign that she didn’t want what he wanted. But when she appeared back in front of him, skin flushed from the steam, clothes clinging to her slightly differently from the precipitation, any thoughts of doubt fled his mind. She looked at him with utmost care and respect, her body pulling itself into his personal space like gravity. 

“In different circumstances, we’d be sat on these sofas, probably high as kites, watching some stupid movie that Rick has in his collection, right now.” Y/N sighed wistfully at the thought of doing functionally nothing with him, curled up in peace and safety.

Eddie smiled, moving impossibly closer to wipe a stray water droplet from her hairline running down towards her temple, “Wouldn’t that just be perfect, considering our last movie night got ruined by this mess.”

Y/N laughed dryly. Everything she had planned for that night, flew out the window pretty fast and had been flying just out of reach ever since, feeling more and more like a pipe dream with every day that passed. “We technically have all the time in the world right now, to talk about everything but…God, it just-!” She cut herself off, frustrated with the world. “Every fibre of my being is still so confused and tired and angry about this whole fucked up situation, but all I can think about when I’m with you is you. It would be so much easier if you didn’t take up so much of my goddamn brain space.”

She collapsed face-first onto one of the old, blanket-draped, sofas and let out a muffled noise of frustration. He cautiously sat next to her, thigh by her head and arm hanging off the back of the sofa above her. “Do I really take up that much space in that pretty little head of yours?” His voice was slightly cocky and teasing but with that underlying sincerity and insecurity that had made her so infatuated so quickly, and eased her frustration somewhat.

“Yes.” She answered into the sofa, making him chuckle. She lifted her face up and out of the fabric, “Don’t laugh.”

Eddie grinned at her cheekily before it faltered, “Sweetheart, I’m honoured, truly. I don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up, yes you do Eds. If I didn’t think you deserved that time or energy I wouldn’t be here. Dumbass.” Annoyance dripped off every word, but he knew that it wasn’t malicious.

“Someone’s cranky,” She flipped him off, which he returned, a smile trying to force its way onto her face, but being stubbornly repressed. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Grim and still anxious, but better having showered,” she sighed pulled herself up to sit, legs touching his, right as her stomach grumbled loudly, “We should probably eat something. I brought all our favourite snacks but there’s also some leftovers from Mum in my backpack-”

Eddie’s face lit up, not saying a single word before pulling her up and dragging her back to the boathouse where her bag was. If there was one thing that Eddie had grown extremely fond of from having Y/N in his life, apart from Y/N themselves and everything they did together, it was her mum's cooking. No matter what she made, he was almost guaranteed to love it. Even the things he wasn’t so sure about he ended up loving. “I don’t know how she does it, she must have magic in some capacity to make vegetables taste good,” he had said one night after she made a veg-packed pasta dish that he knows he would’ve hated if anyone else had made it.

“Eds, ease up, you’re gonna pull my arm out the socket,” Y/N whined as she was pulled behind the man on a mission. They sat in the boathouse sharing the tub of leftovers, that were somehow still good even cold, in comfortable silence, too hungry to talk between mouthfuls. Once devoured, Y/N stuffed the empty box and cutlery back in her bag and collapsed against Eddie, trying to find a comfortable position to get some rest. Ultimately, they found themselves in an all too familiar position, her head on his chest, one of his arms curled around her back and the other behind his head, their legs tangled. Though intimate, the position was comforting and lulled them into a false sense of security. Any other time they had cuddled like this, it was in the safety of one of their rooms after a long night of studying, food, and D&D prep, whilst they listened to music and talked until it was time for the other to leave for the evening. Sometimes, they cuddled up like that under her smoking tree, stargazing deep into the night. But snuggled up in the boathouse in hiding, it meant something different to them both.

“Weirdly enough, the rocking of the boat in the water is oddly soothing…is this how babies feel in the crib?” Eddie broke their comfortable silence.

The question made her scoff into his shirt, shaking her head slightly. “You know, you come out with some right odd shit? But yeah, probably.”

He hums in acknowledgement, before asking another question, “Are you scared?”

“Terrified. You?”

He paused, deliberating how honest he should be. Of course, he was scared. The whole situation was mortifying, and what was scaring him just as much, was how much danger he had put her in. The thought of losing her, of what happened to Chrissy happening to her, made his blood run cold. She could be at home with her mother, peacefully unaware of any of this, safe and out of harm’s way. If only she had chosen another lunch table. If only she hadn’t joined Hellfire. If only she hadn’t taken over every waking thought he had. They wouldn’t be in this mess. But…

But then he would be alone in hiding, alone in his fear. With only Dustin to keep him in check and safe, from a distance. A long and very silent distance. Banished though he may be, at least he wasn’t banished alone. And there was no one he would rather be banished with than her. It was selfish of him but in that moment with her safe in his arms, being on the run wasn’t too bad.

“Not as scared as I could be right now.” His eyes closed, heartbeat picking up as the words fell from his mouth. With her head to his chest, she could feel the skip of his heart and smiled a little. Not another word was said as they drifted off to uneasy sleep.

Waking up every few hours, as noises from the woods made it hard to sleep, eventually, Y/N felt as though she had rested enough and woke up a final time to sunlight pouring in through the arch and windows. Eddie had been awake for a while, having been woken up by sounds of movement in the trees and, though nothing came of it, he couldn’t get back to sleep for much longer after that. His body ached from the wood of the boat, and the tarp hadn’t done much to help keep him warm in the early hours of the morning, but the warmth from Y/N’s body and the sound of her soft snores, as she dozed, helped to take the edge off. Pulling her closer as her eyes finally fluttered open, he gazed down at her, sunlight kissing her sleepily pouted face.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” Eddie murmured huskily, what little sleep he had caught in his throat.

She closed her eyes again and buried her face into his chest, one hand gripping the fabric as the other played with a near curl of his hair, “Mornin’, honey.”

“Killing me here,” He groaned at the softness of her early morning state, “If this is what it’s like to wake up with you, I never want to wake up alone again.”

She laughed lightly before sitting up and feeling just how stiff she was, letting out long whines and groans as she stretched as much as she could without leaving the boat. As she stood to stretch out her legs and back properly, she thought out loud to herself “Need to pee…” before wandering to the door of the boathouse.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Eddie questioned, tilting his head with a raised eyebrow. He had propped himself up with his arms behind him slightly, watching as she moved to the door.

She looked back at him in bewilderment, “The bathroom? Gotta go.”

“Be quick, okay? Then back here, it’s early but we can’t be too careful.”

The day was going to be long, and though they were in hiding, they still needed to be human. Luckily, she had food covered and Eddie had found a hiding spot with access to plumbing. She scampered up to the house and back as fast as she could, the adrenaline of potentially being caught had her moving inherently faster. Trying to find ways to pass the time, they spent the day slowly snacking on the supplies Y/N had brought, talking about ideas for the next campaign, discussing theories for what the others were doing – “Knowing Dustin, he’ll have gone full detective, you know, like how he is whilst trying to figure out the next move in D&D?” Y/N had suggested, causing Eddie to laugh with a strange fondness at the thought of the freshmen - and coming up with silly games to keep them occupied, deigning to go to the house only when absolutely necessary, and rarely alone. The conversation didn’t dare breach anything too heavy, already anxious enough and clinging on to any sense of normalcy between them, though the reality was creeping back in with every hour. Sleep that night was more uncomfortable from the lack of any real food, Eddie promised to check Rick's cupboards the next day before drifting off to sleep. Sounds of their stomachs grumbling pulled the pair from their slumber. Y/N reached for her nearly empty bottle of water and took a sip, savouring it before passing it to Eddie who finished it off.

“How many of these do we have left?” He asked, playing with the bottle as he watched Y/N rummage through the bags and rationing out what food was left.

She pulled out another large bottle of water from one of the bags and put it down on the workbench, “This is the last one. God, I hope the others are okay, I thought they’d at least check in to see if we’re still alive or needed more food.”

“They left a walkie for us.” The black device stood on the workbench, taunting them, “I’ll try to get a hold of them in a bit, right now I’m too hungry to care about trying.”

Digging into their breakfast of slightly stale toaster waffles, both of their minds raced, feeling as though their luck was running out. They spent most of the day like they had spent the last, only more on edge. It was past noon before they decided to venture back up to the house, needing some hot food no matter how gross it might be. Rick’s kitchen seemed to have been abandoned long before his arrest, with dust on the counters and shelves and a mostly empty fridge. Y/N jumped up to sit on the counter as Eddie rummaged through the cupboards. Watching him riffle through the abandoned kitchen made a warm domestic bubble settle in her stomach, knowing inherently that it was something she would never be tired of, holding dear all the mundane life moments she had with him, whilst she still could.

With each drawer and cupboard he opened, he muttered a small ‘nope’ to himself before finally opening the cupboard above the oven and inspecting a can, “Yeah,” he snorted, “You’ll do.”

“What are we having, chef?” Y/N watched as he pulled a saucepan from a cupboard and turned on the stove.

When the contents of the can were slowly heating, he turned to her, “A nutritious meal of spaghetti hoops. It was all I could find that wasn’t a potential biohazard.”

Once the hoops were sufficiently hot, they wandered into the living room passing the pan and spoon between them, neglecting to properly plate up the food in sheer hunger. Eddie’s agitation wasn’t fully squashed by the meal, however, “Throw me the walkie…I’ll try to get a hold of Henderson…” He fiddled with the knobs as Y/N collapsed onto the sofa with the hoops, wrapping themselves in a blanket thrown haphazardly onto the backrest. Eventually, he got it to the right channel, holding down a button to talk, “Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?”

Static. Silence.

“Dustin, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Dustin?” He tried again, getting more impatient, “Earth to Dustin.”

“Hey, it's Nancy.”

Y/N recognised the voice of Nancy Wheeler, Mike’s older sister. They had only briefly met a handful of times when it was her turn to pick up Mike from Hellfire, she never stayed for long. Only once had she actually gotten out of the car to greet Mike, and that was when he was stalling and talking to Eddie about the campaign for a little too long for her liking, practically dragging him back to the car with a silent nod at Eddie and Y/N as she went.

“Wheeler! Hey.” Eddie sighed in relief of finally getting a response, Y/N jumping up to stand with him by the door, saucepan in hand, “Um, we’re gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want us going out into the world.”

“No.” an immediate response from Nancy, “No, no, no. Don't do that. Stay where you are, and we'll be there as soon as we can.”

“Thanks, Nancy, we were starting to get a little worried,” Y/N took the walkie, “How is everything?”

There was an almost palpable silence before they heard Nancy’s voice again, “We’ll tell you when we see you.”

The pair locked eyes, “Well that’s never a good sign.” Y/N mused, deciding not to hold down the walkie button so Nancy couldn't hear.

“Listen, um…” Eddie pinched back the radio, “Can you pick me up a six-pack?”

Y/N stared at him in exasperation for a few seconds before walking away and eating more of the now slightly cold spaghetti, flopping down on the sofa.

“I know, it's stupid as shit, drinking right now,” He said pointedly, not taking his eyes off Y/N as she stared back at him over a spoonful of hoops, “but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves.”

“Hey, I'm gonna have to call you back.” Nancy ignored the request, seemingly distracted by something, and they were once again met with silence.

Eddie panicked, “No, don't you da-- Wheeler? Wheeler?”

But she was gone. Eddie cursed to himself before collapsing into the space next to Y/N, and taking the saucepan from her to finish off the rest himself. “Was the beer request necessary, Eds?”

“Look, if we’re gonna be stuck here for longer than a week, I’d kinda like to spend at least some of it not sober,” Eddie grumbled into his pasta, knee bouncing. With a sigh, she slid her hand onto his restless leg to soothe him a little, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder lightly. “Although…”

“Fuck off, Munson.” She denied him, the smile ever present in her voice, making him snort a laugh.

Once back in the boat house, with the empty can of spaghetti Eddie had brought back with them, the pair resided themselves to setting up camp for the rest of the day, settling back into their hideaway routine. From the sound of things with the others, or lack thereof, Y/N slowly let it settle in her head that they might be stuck for longer than she first imagined. It had already been an exhausting couple of days, and they were both getting antsy, waiting for the shoe drop.

Sometime in the afternoon, Eddie started a little game for himself, throwing things he could find into the empty spaghetti can from increasing distances. At first, Y/N just ignored the rattling sound of the can before it became too much, and she resigned herself to join him instead. They took turns trying to beat each other at the shot, nudging the other to make them miss, bickering as they did and keeping score.

Eddie was beating her 4-2 when tires on the path to the house made them immediately stop and duck down from the window above the bench they were sitting on. Eddie, slowly peering over the edge, looked out to see if it was just Steve in the Beemer but immediately crouched back down, “I don’t think it’s Harrington.”

Shaking slightly, Y/N peeked out through the window just as a familiar unfriendly face came into view getting out of the car, and ducked back down to whisper to Eddie, “It’s Jason. And I think he brought friends.”

“Shit…shit.” As Y/N took a few deep breaths, Eddie checked on the group outside, “They’re going into the house, we might have to make a break for it.”

Y/N nodded quickly before scrambling to collect anything important as Eddie tried in a desperate attempt to contact the others, “Hey, Dustin. You there?” He took frantic glances out of the window as he spoke, “It's Eddie. You remember me, right?” His eyes locked with Y/N’s as she came to stand by him once more, essentials in pockets in case they needed to run. “Hey, if anyone's there, I really think we might be in a bit of trouble here. Okay? Wheeler?” He hit the radio hard against his hand, as he sunk back down to crouch beneath the window, “Anybody?!”

“Eds, we’ve gotta try to stay calm, too much noise and they’ll come down here,” Y/N implored and reached for his hands. He put the walkie down, brushing her hands away before pulling her into him. She whispered into his chest just loud enough for him to hear, “They might give up after searching the house and realise we’re not there…”

“Let’s hope so,” Eddie whispered back, closing his eyes, and trying to focus his panicked breathing, his arms wrapped tight around her.

The sun set as Jason and his friends searched the house, the night growing darker and colder as Eddie and Y/N huddled ever closer. Eventually, when the moon was high in the sky, his curiosity got the best of him again. Eddie peered back through the window for any more signs of movement, the glow from the lights in the house alerting him to the townies ever-persisting search. Gripping the walkie tightly, he tried the others again, the desperation and fear fuelling him, “Dustin? Please. Are… Are you there?” After being met with yet more silence, only the sounds of the water against the boat to listen to, he gave up, “Never mind.” Placing the walkie down on a bench in the wooden vessel they had been sleeping in, he rounded it and called Y/N over softly, helping her into it before clambering in himself.

Trusting him implicitly, and not wanting to leave his side, Y/N followed his lead and silently helped him unhook the boat from its mount and started to paddle out onto the lake. They barely got 30 feet into the water before they heard a call from the bank, “Hey, Freaks!” Jason had finally found them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Fuck.” Y/N could feel her heartbeat pick up more, as Eddie scrambled to reach the engine, cursing to himself. Faintly, Y/N could hear bodies in the water, swimming over to them, as she tried to tune them out and focus on her feeble attempts to row the boat solo as Eddie argued with the boat engine, which had obviously been attached and installed by Rick himself.

No longer caring about being heard now they had been seen, Eddie tried emphatically to get it to work, emphasising each word with a pull of the starting cord, “Just come on, you piece of shit.” Weakly, the engine spluttered in response but did not roar to life the way they wanted it to, “Come on. Gotta help me out here, man. Come on. Come on, you piece of shit!” He tried harder to bring it to life, but nothing worked, “Come on! Goddamn it!” He hit the engine in defeat as Jason and his friends swam ever closer, “Nope? Okay. All right. Okay.”

Scrambling back over to the bench to help Y/N, and almost falling over in the process, he picked up an oar and joined her in rowing away from the two boys in the water, gaining on them. Together, they managed to keep distance between themselves and Jason in the water, but it didn’t stop Eddie from shouting at him to ‘stay back’ and threatening to hit him with the oar if he did start coming too close for comfort, standing up to get more leverage to swing at him.

“Come on. We almost have them,” Jason called out behind him but stopped swimming when there was no response, looking back over his shoulder, “Hey, Patrick. Patrick!”

Y/N stopped rowing and turned around to see what the kerfuffle was about, just in time to see Patrick be pulled under the dark water of the lake, seemingly by nothing. With only the moon's reflection on the lake to illuminate the water, the group could only just see each other without straining, let alone movement below the water. Gripping the oar in one hand and the leather of Eddie's jacket in the other, Y/N scanned the gentle waves of the water frantically for any sign of Patrick beneath the soft currant. But found nothing. “Eddie, it’s happening again,” Y/N curled into herself as a cold chill ran down her spine as the air grew thick with apprehension.

Jason continued to call out for his friend, getting increasingly more terrified, until suddenly Patrick's body lifted 10 feet into the air above the lake. Dropping the oar and staring up in horror at the boy’s body suspended in mid-air above them, illuminated in the moonlight, Y/N let out a terrified scream before she registered Eddie’s shouts and then a loud splash as he fell backwards into the water from the shock. “Eddie!” Y/N shouted and, in complete disregard for her safety, dove in after him. She managed to grab his arm and keep a hold of him as he flailed to try to keep afloat.

Kicking for the surface, Y/N gasped for breath, as Eddie coughed to dispel the water from his lungs nearby. As Patrick's bones started to snap, they lurched backwards in their fear and found themselves clinging to each other in the cold water. Jason cried out for his friend, as he watched in disbelief as his body contorted, suspended in mid-air above him. Patrick's body buckled and bent out of shape limb by limb as his eyes were gouged out from behind his skull, his jaw finally dislocating before her was dropped mercilessly back into the lake, with a loud splash. Dead.

previous // next

[liumoonlight]

It’s Me You Love

Pairing: Niki x fem!reader

Genre: College AU, Fluff, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Light Comedy

WC: 10k

Warnings: Mentions of drinking, Mentions of Arguing, Swearing, Mentions of kissing, Playful Fighting between Karina and Sunoo

Featuring: Karina, Winter, and Ning Ning from Aespa, Taeil from NCT-127, Sunoo and Lee Heesung from Enhypen. Mentions Jisoo from BLACKPINK. Mentions Yeonjun from TxT. Mentions Ryujin from Itzy

Synopsis: You were in the best relationship you could ever ask for. Lee Heesung was everything to you, but so was yours and his childhood friend Riki Nishimura. You hid you were in love from him for a long time, but you didn’t want to keep it a secret anymore. You decided that now is the time, but it comes at a cost: lose the best thing to ever happen to you or choose the one you’ve been in love with since you were a kid.

A/N: My first 10k fic 😩. Through the amounts of writers block, brain farts, and stress I finally finished this. Without a doubt I was really happy with this fic from top to bottom. I hope you enjoy!

We’re Just Friends

“Babe where are you?” you said to yourself while waiting in the school halls for class. You sat by your locker patiently waiting for your lover to show up. It had been almost an hour since he last texted you, and being late was never really his style. As you continued to wait, you swiped open your phone and scrolled through pictures of you and your boyfriend. “Heesung you make me so happy.” “Well I’m glad that I can make you happy.” You were so deep into your own space, you were unaware you were thinking out loud. You were also unaware that Heesung had slowly popped up behind you.

“Baby! Hi! Where were you?” you said as you hugged him. “Sorry ran a little behind schedule thanks to this guy.” You looked to see that Niki was also standing beside him. “Niki… did that really happen?” you said with a smile. “Of course not y/n. He’s the one that almost overslept again! Honestly what would you do if you didn’t have me Heesung? You’d probably drop out of college.” “Ahh whatever.” Heesung said playfully while messing up Niki hair. “Ahhh cut it out.” Niki said while straightening his hair. You laughed at the two of them as they played around until you looked down at your phone to check the time. “Shit I’m gonna be late. Bye baby I’ll see you later at lunch.” With a quick kiss, you turned and headed for your first class of the day.

“Hey y/n! Almost late again huh?” You turned to see your two friends and classmates Sunoo and Karina heading towards you. “And I see you two are walking together again.” you said as you let out a sly grin. “As if I would ever give Sunny here a chance. He has a better chance with Winter.” Karina said in snarky voice while trying to avoid looking in Sunoo’s direction. “And you have no chance of passing chemistry without me so I’d choose my words wisely missy.” “Ouch!” You laughed as you watched the two of them go back and forth. “Karina just give in. The way you two go back and forth all day with each other makes it seem like your already a couple. Besides Sunoo is head over heels for you” As you said that you could see Sunoo face turn from pale pale white to red instantly. “Hold on for one second y/n. Don’t try shipping us.” All you could do is laugh in response to Sunoo’s reply. “Did you finally confess Sunoo? About time.” “Karina you be nice to him.” You continued to laugh as your other friends and classmates, Winter and Ning-Ning walked up. “Oh my god you guys! Stop it!” Karina said while trying to hide her blushing face. “No way! He likes you and you like him! Besides he’s a sweetheart.” “I’m going inside the class.” Sunoo said as he paced away to his table. “I hope class goes fast today. I’m starving.” you said as you and the rest of your classmates walked into class. “It’s 9:00 in the morning. Do you ever stop eating y/n?” Winter said while taking her seat right behind you. “Of course not. All Heesung ever does is feed her and spoil her.” Karina said as she and Ning-Ning took there seats in front of you. All you could is smile in response.

Time slowly paced by as you sat in class. You tried to focus, and write notes as the teacher went on explaining the lesson, but even that wasn’t enough to stop you from thinking about Heesung. You sat reminiscing on all of your memories together. You had known him since the two of you were kids. He grew up two house down from you, and would often spend a lot of time at the park playing along side you and Niki. Some days, it would be just you two spending time with one another. You would ride bikes, eat ice cream, and watch movies together. You were only nine at the time these things happened, but you were sure you were in love with Heesung, even if you didn’t fully understand what it meant to be in love. Over time your bond with both Heesung and Niki grew making you inseparable, but as you got older, it was Heesung that you spent most of your time with making the feelings that you had for him even stronger. While he occasionally dated other girls that you knew, it would make you jealous in a way, but it never stopped the feelings you had for him. It wasn’t until senior year of high school that you both confessed how you felt for one another. From that moment in life, you had finally gotten the one person you wanted to be with. You felt you had the perfect life and the perfect boyfriend. Even now in your senior year of college you felt the same way you felt for all those years.

“Y/N!” You snapped out of your thoughts as Winter, Karina, and Ning-Ning stood in front of your table. You were unaware that the bell had rang for class to end.“You were daydreaming about Heesung again I bet.” Ning-Ning said smiling while looking you dead in the eyes. You were face was such a bright red that you couldn’t deny what she had just said. “So are you pleading the fifth on that?” Karina said while playfully waving your phone around. “Give me my phone. Why don’t you go and talk to your boyfriend he’s right over there.” You said smiling while pointing in Sunoo’s direction. “Really y/n?” Sunoo said while looking in disgust at Karina. “Well she’s not denying it right now. She hasn’t said anything.” Winter said while smiling at Karina. “Anyone hungry?” Karina said while trying to dodge the question you had asked. “Me! Let’s go!” You said with an excitement in your voice. “Your paying this time right Karina.” You said while walking towards the door. “Let me check my account. Baby are you paying this time?” Karina said with a pouty face looking at Sunoo. “Oh my god. Fine…” Sunoo said while shaking his head and heading for the door.

As you and your friends walked towards you pulled out your phone. You checked your notifications and then scrolled to your messages to see if Heesung had texted you. “Hmmm.” you said in pouty voice. “What is it y/n?” Sunoo said while trying to look into your phone before being hit on the shoulder by Karina. “Ouch! Karina what the hell?” Sunoo said with a slightly annoyed voice. Karina looked at Sunoo with an equally annoyed face. “Since when is it cool to ever look into someone else’s phone?” Karina said with a disgusted voice. “Since when is it cool for me to be paying for your lunch again?” Sunoo said with the same amount of disgust in voice before turning back to you. “Anyways what’s wrong y/n?” “Hubby can’t make it to lunch.” you said as you continued to pout. “Awww poor baby? Is it really that bad?” Ning-Ning said while scrolling through her phone. “Yes!” You said in an instance.

You were so bummed in the moment that you didn’t feel an arm wrap itself around your shoulders. “He stood you up? Don’t worry miss I’ll be your date.” Niki said while smiling and walking. Seeing Niki made you smile while also prompting you keep going along with what he had just said. “Date? Who said this was a date?” “I did. It’s on me.” Niki said whispering in your ear in a attracting voice causing you both to laugh. “Well hello there Niki.” Karina said in a similarly attractive voice. “Save that for Sunoo.” “Oh great you too Niki?” Sunoo said while putting his hand over his face. “It’s pretty clear she likes you. Take the chance.” “For the love of g-“ Karina said while pacing off towards the doors of the dining hall.

Your friends went in different directions once you entered the dining hall, while you and Niki went and grabbed food from the same area. “So did he say where he was and why he couldn’t make it?” You nodded your head no in response to Niki’s question “He’s probably studying or something.” You said prompting Niki to laugh in response. “Well I hope that’s going well.” Niki said in a sarcastic voice. “Cut it out Niki. It’s okay. He’s busy I can understand that.” “Yeah you’re right. Everything is okay. You got me. You always will.” Niki said smiling at you. “Okay?” You said smiling a bit awkwardly and not sure of how to respond to what he had just said. “Hey you two! What’s taking so long?” You both had turn to see Karina and Winter signaling for you. “Oh right forgot we have to pay!” You said as you trailed off behind Winter and Karina. You approached the register with your wallet in had ready to pay before Niki grabbed your wallet from your hand. “Niki you don’t really have to pay for me. I can pay for myself.” “I told you it’s on me.” Niki said smiling before inserting his card into the card reader. You tried to hide your smile but you could feel Winter and Karina looking and smiling right at you.

Just as you and Niki headed towards the table where the rest of your friends were sitting, Karina pulled you to the side. “I’m so jealous of you.” Karina said giving you a sly grin. “What are you talking about?” You said with a bit of confusion. “You not only have a hot boyfriend, but a hot best friend who I can obviously tell really likes you.” “Karina stop it. Me and Niki have been friends since we were kids. Its never been that way between the two of us.” “So you’re telling me that not once have you ever felt differently about him?” Karina said smiling. “No of course not!” You said while trying to keep your voice down. “Say what you want but I know he likes. True enough you have Heesung, but I feel something between the two you. He genuinely loves you.” “Okay love doctor. While your so concerned with me and my best friend, why can’t you put this much energy into telling Sunoo how you feel about him?” You reply was enough to make her walk away towards the table as you followed behind her laughing. “So what were you two talking about?” Sunoo said before taking a sip of his drink. “Karina wants to ask you out.” You said laughing before taking a seat with your plate. “Y/N really!?” Karina said before throwing a piece of fruit at you. “Real funny y/n.” Sunoo said before turning away from Karina.

After eating lunch, you and your friends walked the courtyard of the school. “I’m so bummed I got a test for my next class.” Karina said pouting. “You did study right?” Sunoo said while staring directly at Karina. “Yes?” “Great. I’ll see you at the library in an hour.” Sunoo said sarcastically while shaking his head and walking away. “I just remembered I have literature class so I’ll catch you all later.” Ning Ning said before heading towards the literature hall. “Y/N do you have any other classes today?” Niki said while continuing to walk. “No chemistry was the only class I had. So I guess I’m going to head back to my room.” “Lucky.” Winter said while scrolling through her phone. “Yeah I know right.” Karina said while continuing to pout. “Do you want me to walk you back to your room?” As Niki said that, your face turned bright red causing Winter and Karina to both look at you with smile. “No it’s okay Niki. I can make it by myself.” “What she means is yes I would love for you to walk me to my room Niki! Please!” Karina said in a playful sarcastic voice. “Karina!” You said while hiding your red face. “Seriously I’m okay Niki.” “Okay I understand. I’ll catch up with you later. Bye y/n.”

As Niki walked away you let out a sigh of relief only for Winter and Karina to walk side by side of you with smiles on their faces. “So are you sure you don’t feel the same about him?” Karina said while laughing slightly. “Yes Karina! For the last time we are friends and nothing more.” You said feeling slightly annoyed. “I wish my friend walked me to my room. Your lucky. He’s super sweet!” Winter said while wrapping her arm around your arm. “Not you too Winter. Seriously?” “I know Mr. Perfect is your boyfriend, but seriously honey Niki and you are a perfect fit for each other.” Winter said while walking ahead of you. “Heesung is all I need. Besides I doubt Niki has any feelings for me. He’s known me his entire life.” “I don’t know about that.” Karina said while still smiling. “Oh my god!” Winter said out loud. “What is it?” you said before stopping. “Taeil from my astronomy class just asked to meet up with me!” “Taeil?” Karina said looking disgusted. “You mean the cute one that’s like super nerdy?” “Yes him! And what’s wrong with nerdy?” Winter said feeling slightly offended. “Nerds are just not my type.” Karina said while continuing to look disgusted. “Will you come with me Karina?” “Why me?” Karina said while sighing. “Please. I don’t wanna go alone.” Winter said while pouting. “Fine I guess.” Karina said reluctantly. “Have fun Winter.” You said laughing softly. “Bye y/n!” Winter said while pulling Karina by the arm and walking away.

After ten minutes, you finally reached your dormitory. You approached your room door after exiting the elevator, sticking the key in and opening the door. You closed the door behind as you walked in, sliding your shoes to the side and laying down in your bed. You opened your laptop to a picture of you, Niki, and Heesung from your high school senior trip to the States. “We’re just friends and nothing more.” you thought to yourself as you continued to smile and look at the picture. Your focus shifted to Niki in the photo completely. You knew that there was some truth to what Karina had said earlier. Niki was your best friend, and you were very aware of how he felt about you when you were kids. You recalled having a small crush on him when you were younger, but you thought nothing more of it. It was always you and Niki until Heesung entered your life. “What if it was you Niki? How would we be as a couple?” You thought quietly to yourself as you laughed. Back then it was so easy for you to tell how Niki was feeling. He was like an open book to you being He would tell you everything no matter what it was. Years later during high school, and even now in college, he began to get a bit quiet in regards to how he felt about anything. He went from being an open book to more or less a closed off person that just went with the flow, but even with that you both continued to have an amazing friendship and bond.

“Im thankful for you Niki.” You said as you slowly drifted asleep.

The Confession?

You were awaken by knocks on your door. You looked drowsy eyed at your phone to see it was 7:00 p.m. Slowly you pulled yourself out of bed and made your way to the door. Still somewhat half asleep you unlocked the door not bothering to ask who was there. “Baby! Hi!” you said excitedly realizing it was Heesung and Niki. “Hey there sleepy head. Did you miss me?” Heesung said while running his fingers down the side of your face. You nodded and smiled in response as you slowly moved in to hug him. “Oh I’m sorry! Hi Niki!” Niki waved in response from down the hall slightly smiling. “How was your day?” Heesung said while smiling at you. “Better now that I see you.” You said in response while continuing to hug him. You let go of Heesung, inviting both he and Niki in.

“You slept almost all day.” Niki said while walking towards your laptop desk. You felt something was wrong with Niki but thought nothing of it as you focused on Heesung again. “So what brings you to my domain good sir?” You said to Heesung while playfully running your hand through his hair.” “Well I missed you.” “And Karina and Winter invited us over to their place for a game night.” Niki said as he looked in to you and Heesung’s direction. “Oh great she’s having another game night? Why didn’t she say anything about this earlier?” You said while turning to your closet. You knew that a game night at Karina’s was anything but a normal night. She and Winter lived off campus in apartment together, so school rules were pretty much nonexistent. You knew pretty much every game she played from top to bottom, and you also knew that she pretty big on drinking games. “You know Karina and Winter plan stuff last minute. So you can just about imagine how the night is gonna end.” Niki said while turning pages in one of your notebooks. “You wanna go?” Heesung said while grabbing you and pulling you closer. You smiled in response and kissed him while Niki shook his head in disgust and continued going through your notebooks.

You grabbed a hoodie and the three of you made your way out the door and into the elevator. You and Heesung held hands and talked playfully before you noticed Niki walking ahead of you both as if he didn’t want to be bothered. “I wonder what’s wrong?” You thought to yourself as continued to walk. As the three of you approached Karina and Winter’s door you could tell something was visibly bothering Niki. “Niki are y-“ “Y/N, Niki, Heesung! Welcome! Come on in” Before you could say anything, Karina and Winter opened the door greeting and inviting the three of you inside.

Once you entered, you were met with music playing, and a few people that you were familiar with sitting around on the floor. You knew Taeil from last semester thanks to having one class together, and because he was the one Winter was interested in. You saw Sunoo talking with Jisoo, Ryujin, and Yeonjun from chemistry class. You turned to see Heesung talking with Karina, while Niki was sitting off in a chair in front of the television. Before you could walk over in Niki’s direction you were cut off by Winter handing you a glass with a dark red liquid in it. “Enjoy that.” Winter said while smiling and singing the words to the song that was playing. “Mmm.” You said as you took a sip from the glass. You were familiar with the taste of Sangria as it was one of your favorite wines. “How much have you two had tonight?” You said while turning towards Winter. “Surprisingly none. I’m trying to loosen him up first.” You looked as she pointed in Taeil’s direction who you could see had a smaller cup in his hand. “He looks nervous.” “Yeah drinking and gatherings aren’t exactly his cup of tea, but I really wanted him to come.” Winter said while smiling and winking her eye as Taeil looked from across the room.”

“Hey Karina mind if I play your switch?” Niki said sitting in front of the television. “Sure go ahead.” Karina said before pouring a glass of pink wine for herself. “So you bought both of them I see.” Winter said smiling before taking a sip of wine from your glass. You had coughed from swallowing the wine in response to her question. “It’s the other way around. He was the one who told me about this. He’s also been acting a bit distant tonight.” “Maybe you should try talking to him. I want you both to have a both to have a good time. Besides your amongst all of your friends.” You nodded and smiled before taking another sip from the glass. “Winter?” “Yeah?” Winter said before turning to walk away. “So there is something I have to talk to you about.” As you said that, Winter walked in closer. “So I-“ “Hey baby. Hey Winter.” Before you could say anything you were cut off by Heesung wrapping his arms around you. “Hey there Mr. Perfect. Came to snatch my woman from me?” Winter said jokingly. “Just for a few mins. I’ll bring her back I promise.” Heesung said while smiling at you. “Very well. We’ll talk later y/n. You two have fun now!” Winter said before walking off.

“You okay?” Heesung said while looking at you. You nodded your head yes in response, but truthfully you weren’t. You were concerned about Niki. He hadn’t said one word to you since you all left your room. You kept wondering if you had said something or did something that may have upset him. “I’m okay. I promise. Are you enjoying yourself?” “I am. I hate I can’t stay though.” “Why?” You said with a pouty face. “I’m meeting up with a few of my classmates to do some late night studying.” “This late though?” You said while still pouting. “I’ll make it up to you I promise y/n” Heesung said before kissing you softly on the lips. “Okay fine, but just so we are clear that’s twice today. You owe me lunch.” You said while smiling. “Done. I’ll deliver it to your door.” Heesung said while trailing his fingers down the side of your face. With another kiss, you watched as Heesung walked out the door.

You then averted your attention to Niki, who was focused on the video game. You walked in his direction wondering if he would actually tell you what was wrong, or would he just tell you he’s okay? “Hey Niki.” You said before sitting in a chair next to him. “Hey.” “Is something bothering you? You haven’t said too much of anything since we got here.” “I’m fine y/n.” Niki said dryly while continuing to focus on the game. “You would tell me if there was something wrong right Niki?” As you said that Niki paused the game while slowly turning in your direction. “You know I would y/n. I’d tell you in an instant.” “Do you promise?” You said while holding your arms open for a hug. “Yes I promise.” Niki said while softly patting and rubbing your head before turning back to the television screen. You couldn’t help but smile as you walked off. All the worrying about Niki was washed away like a wave of water crashing down on a beach.

You continued enjoying yourself as the night went on. You sat on the couch, eventually falling asleep. “Y/N! Y/N!” You were slowly awaken by what sounded like distorted voices. “Ugh… keep it down. My head is pounding.” “You are a total light weight you know?” Karina said giggling at you while continuing to clean up. “Shut up…” you said slightly slurring your words. You tried to move to your body to get off the couch, but your body felt like a ton of weights. The most you could do is move your head to the right of you to see Karina and Winter cleaning while Niki was wrapping up trash bags and carrying them out the door. “Heesung…” you said out loud. You pouted for a few minutes before realizing both Karina and Winter looking at you slightly confused. “What?” You said while placing your hands over your face. “Your definitely intoxicated” Winter said while laughing. Intoxicated was not the word you would use to describe yourself in this moment, but your body would disagree with you. You felt as if you were floating in an ethereal space trying to think of what to do to get your body to move off the couch, but nothing worked as you continued to lay in the same spot. “Alright that was the last of the trash. How is she doing?” You turned your head to see Niki walking towards you. “Very much intoxicated. Can you get her home Niki?” Karina said before taking a seat right next to you. “Anyone ever tell you that you and Sunoo would so cute together?” You let out a snicker, prompting Karina to look at you in disgust as a response. “Okay come on let’s go before Karina kicks both of us out. Literally.” Karina continued to look at both you and Niki while contemplating the idea of kicking you both out with her boot literally. “Alright come on my light weight.” Niki said as he slowly bent down to mount you on his back. You continued to shout and laugh as Niki carried you out of the door, not really thinking much of what you were saying.

You found yourself gazing out at the night sky as Niki carried you on his back. You always found the starry night skies beautiful as a child. As you stared, you started to reminisce on those nights you and Niki would play outside way past your curfew. “Those were good times in life.” Niki said while continuing to walk. “Hmm?” “All those nights where we played around at the park, and grab snacks from the 7/11 store knowing we weren’t supposed to be anywhere near downtown with out my mom.” You laughed quietly to yourself as Niki continued on with the story. “Are you reading my mind or something honey?” You said before laying your head down on his shoulder. You could see Niki smiling before eventually coming to a stop.

“Awww why are we stopping?”

“Look ahead!” Niki said with excitement. You looked up to see a 7/11 mart ahead of you. Your face lit up with excitement as Niki ran carrying you his back. “I can’t believe as much as I have walked this neighborhood I never seen this.” You said before jumping off his back. Niki smiled, nodding in agreement with you before opening the door. “After you my lady.” “Aww your such a charmer.” You said before walking in. You felt like a kid in a candy store as you look around at the shelves. They had candies and chips that reminded you of your childhood. “So do you know what you want?” “I want noodles and dumplings” you said pouting. Niki smiled as he walked to back to grab noodles and dumplings for the both of you. You watched Niki as he put the noodles in the microwave to warm. There was a feeling that made your heart race for a second. You knew Niki was your friend, but from his actions, and the way you interacted made it feel like more than that. You were so thankful for him being in your life.

“Oh could I have a melon milk tea please?” You said as you grabbed the drink from the freezer. “Make it two.” Niki said while smiling at you. “Yay!” You felt giddily as you walked towards him with the drinks. “Ahh done.” Niki said as he pulled out the noodles. “Oh my god! They look amazing.” You said with a happy voice. Niki smiled and walked away towards the register to pay for the items you bought as you set the table for the both of you. Niki made his way back to the table sitting across from you. You both grab the chopsticks and high five one another just before chowing down.

“Hey Niki?” “Yeah?”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

You could see Niki almost choke as you asked that question. “Wait what?” Niki said as if he didn’t hear you. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? We’ve been around each other all of our life and I have never seen you so much as show an interest in someone. I mean there’s gotta be at least one person you’ve shown interest right?” “Let’s change the topic.” Niki said while avoiding your question. “Ooooh! So there is someone? Tell me about her.” “No because there is no one.” You could tell he was lying, and you could also tell he wanted to avoid your question by any means possible. The two of you were always honest with one another growing up and even now that never changed. You had never seen Niki interested in anyone other than you when you were kids, let alone he never talked much about being in love or any type of feelings that related to that topic. It was such a gray part of his life, but you could tell by his reaction that there was something he wasn’t telling you.

“So there’s literally no one you have ever had any feelings for at all.” You said while looking him directly in the eyes. “Just one.” Niki said while averting his eyes from your direction. You sat up excitedly waiting for him to continue.

“So tell me about her.” Niki let out a sigh and took a sip of his drink before continuing on. “So there is one person I’ve had feelings. In fact I’ve had feelings for a while.” “Is she pretty?” You said jokingly. “She’s beautiful.” Niki said while smiling. “She’s an amazing person to be around. She’s the highlight of my day. Being in her presence makes everything better. We have a lot in common.” As he said that, you began to think about who this person could possibly be. It definitely wasn’t anyone from your group of friends, but you didn’t rule it out either. You snapped out of your thoughts before asking another question. “So have you told her how you feel?” You could feel his energy change as you asked that question. His smile suddenly disappeared and suddenly his voice became a bit more serious. “Well… that’s the problem. I can’t bring myself to tell her how I feel.” “Why not?” You questioned.

“Because I’m afraid. Not just afraid of rejection, but also losing this person. When I’m around her I can barely form the words to tell her how I feel about her. I don’t know if she feels the same about me, and honestly that’s the scariest part.” You could tell whoever this person was meant a lot to him. You hearing him speak his feelings aloud made you smile, but it still made you question who it may have been. You slowly grabbed his hands and held them up hoping it would comfort him. “Niki. You are one the sweetest people I know. Anyone who gets to know you is extremely lucky because you are amazing. I don’t know who the person is, but it sounds like you don’t just like her. It sounds and feels like you are in love with her.” You could see Niki’s smiling again as you said that. It made you even happier to know that your words could comfort him. “If I ever meet her and she doesn’t feel the same way about you, I’m definitely going to tell her to look in the mirror and realize that she’s missing out on something that’s truly amazing.

“Some advice you should take for yourself.” Niki said before letting go and walking towards the door. You wondered what he meant by that, but you didn’t think much on it. “You can’t just get up and leave your trash.” You said jokingly. “I bought the food. That’s your way of paying me back.” Niki said before running out the door. You trailed behind him after throwing away the trash.

For the rest of the walk it was quiet. You kept thinking back to what Niki said earlier. You tried not to dwell on it, but you found yourself constantly thinking about who it could’ve been that Niki was talking about. Was it you? As much as you wanted to shoot down the possibility of it being you, it seemed as if the person he talked about sounded a lot like you. You loved Heesung, but you also loved Niki. True enough you got over your crush you had on him as a kid, but what you felt for him was still there. He was afraid of rejection just like you were afraid of him rejecting you when you were younger. “Why couldn’t I just bring myself to tell him back then.” You thought to yourself. You knew the answer. You had chosen Heesung, and as much as you wanted to tell Niki what you were feeling, you knew telling him everything now would only make things more complex between the two of you.

You continued walking eventually reaching your room. “Well we are here.” Niki said while smiling at you. “Yeah.” “I’ll see you tomorrow?” You nodded in response to his question. “Goodnight y/n.”

“Niki wait!” “Took you long enough.” Niki turned only to kiss you softly. The warm feeling from kissing his lips were enough to make everything you were thinking disappear. You felt like you were in a dream scenario as you kissed Niki again, but a dream was all it would ever be as you slowly snapped out of your thoughts. “You okay y/n?” “Niki I-“

“I love you.” You tried to retract your words as you realized what you said. You just told your best friend that you loved him. Unsure of how he would respond, you braced yourself. “I love you too. Good night y/n. You felt your heart drop for a second as Niki. As you walked inside your room, you were unsure of what just happened and what to feel. Your mind and heart were telling you two different different things in the moment. Your heart was fixated on the fact that you confessed unknowingly to your best friend that you were in love with him, while your mind was telling that the two of you only love each other as friends, and nothing more. You tried to forget about it as you laid in bed, but nothing worked as you continued to think of Niki.

“I really do love you Niki. I meant that.”

Your thoughts from the night before combined with no sleep whatsoever poured into the following day. You sat quietly in class even your friends are wondering what was wrong. You couldn’t focus one bit. You could feel your phone vibrating from the amounts of notifications you were receiving but not even that was enough to avert your thought. Niki was the only thing on your mind.

As you walked out of your lab class for the day, you realized Heesung was standing right in front of the door way. “Hi baby.” You wrapped your arms around him tightly as he did the same in return before you slowly pulled away. “That’s all I get? First no morning meet up and now no kissies from you. You could tell he was joking but you couldn’t form a sentence to reply. Instead you kissed him but not with the excitement and feeling that you always felt. “You okay?” You honestly wanted to tell him what was going on in your head and what your heart was feeling, but instead you opted to lie. “Yes I’m okay just kind of cram studying for my next exams have me tired. Are you okay?” “I’m even better now than I have you in my arms.” You smiled faintly but it was gone in an instant as you thought of Niki again. “Oh shoot. I gotta go baby. We should get lunch later. Sound good?” You nodded as he kissed your lips and walked off in the other direction.

“So what was that all about?” You were so out of it that you didn’t hear or notice Karina walking up. “Long story.” “Let’s walk and talk.”

“So what’s going on?” You could feel your heart racing as you were asked that question. “So I- I told Niki I loved him last night.” You could see Karina smiling from excitement. “How did he take it?” As happy as you wanted to seem, the thoughts plus mixed feelings about the entire situation still bothered you. “Well… he said he love me too but…” You and Karina both came to a stop as you paused your sentence. “I don’t think he meant it the way I meant it last night. I think he meant it purely from a friend standpoint, and honestly it stings a bit. I don’t even understand why I’m feeling the way I am right now. I haven’t been able to focus or sleep. I acted like Heesung didn’t even exist today. I feel so stupid.” You and Karina took a seat at a near by bench. She tried to comfort you as much as she could, but was unsure of what to do. Truthfully it did sting. You felt like your heart was rip out and stomped, but your conflicted emotions also made it hard to understand whether these feelings were right or wrong.

“You’re in love.” Karina said while hugging you. “I love Heesung. What do I do? I could never hurt Heesung like that.” “I’ll be honest y/n, I don’t know.” Karina tried to come up with any possible answer she could hoping it would help feel better about the situation but it didn’t help. “Winter is better at this kind of thing than I am. I have complications myself.” “Like what?” You sat up at full attention as Karina grabbed her bag ready to walk off. Karina let out a sigh before saying anything. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think I do like Sunoo.” You tried to hide your laughter as much you could but Karina had already caught you. “Why did you let this happen?” “Don’t look at me. We already knew it was going to happen.” You said while continuing to laugh. You and Karina continued to walk before she had to leave for another class. For a few minutes you were smiling before finding yourself in your thoughts again.

“Why can I just forget about this?”

The rest of your day consisted of stress, confusion, and not being to focus on anything. The day felt torture more than anything else. You made it back to your room hoping a nap would help make you feel better, but even that didn’t help you. “Being in love is so complicated. What the hell do I about this?” You threw your face into your pillow, letting out a long sigh before sitting back up thanks to your phone ringing. Not caring to see who it was, you slipped in one of your headphones and answered the call. “Hello?” “That’s a kind of dry way to say hey to your best friend.” Not being able to focus on anything today was one problem, and now the person that was responsible for you feeling the way you felt is on the the other end of the phone. Things were definitely going wrong today. “Hey Niki.” “You don’t sound okay. Is something wrong?” If only he knew the shit day that you had all thanks to him being on your mind. That would’ve been enough to end the conversation right there, but you couldn’t let him know that. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Classes drained me out today.”

“Aww man I’m sorry to hear that.” “Anyways what’s up?” You both went quiet for a second before Niki responded. “I wanted to grab lunch for us. I wanted to go back to that 7/11 from last night if you were interested?” As much as you wanted to say yes, you didn’t wanna make the situation anymore complicated than what it already was, and you had already made plans with Heesung. “I’m sorry Niki. I told Heesung that I’d have lunch with him today.” “It’s okay I understand.” You could tell he was a a bit disappointed by the sound of his voice. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. There’s alway next time.” Niki said trying to a positive attitude. “Yeah sure.” You tried to keep yourself together while also feeling that Niki was completely bummed out at your response. “I’ll talk to you later y/n.” “Bye Niki.” You said before hanging up. After hanging up, you felt worse than before. You felt like the most terrible person alive for turning down Niki in exchange for Heesung, but at the same time with the way today went you honestly just wanted to be alone. A few minutes later while trying to get your head together, there was a knock at your door.

“Hey baby.” You opened the door to see Heesung standing with bags of food. “Delivered as promised.” You smiled as you let him in thanking him for the food. “Maybe I can try and forget about it just for a minute. Please give me a break.” You said to yourself before closing the door.

It’s More Complicated Than I Thought

“Not gonna lie, girl this is a lot to take in even for me.” You laid your head down on the library table in defeat. You explained everything that had been going on lately to Winter expecting a different answer, but not even she knew what to do. “So you’re saying I’m fucked and that there’s no clear cut way to fix this.” You said as you threw your hands up covering your face. “No honey I’m not saying that. What this is all comes down to is what are you going to do?” Winter said as she grabs your hands. “I don’t know Winter. I have million thoughts of Niki running through my mind every second. I can’t even begin to tell you the shit show of a day I had yesterday.” “Have you talked to Heesung?” You sighed out of disappointment. “He bought me lunch yesterday and he stayed with me for a bit but even with that I could barely say two words because I was so deep in my head.” As you covered your face, Winter hugged you, hoping it would bring you some comfort. “So any progress while I was gone? Both you and Winter nodded no as Karina approached the table with drinks in her hand. “Here this is for you honey.” Karina said as she handed you a strawberry milk tea. “Thank you.” “I know you’re confused right now but we’re going to figure it out.” Karina’s word made you feel a lot better. The three of you spent the next hour studying while also making conversation before Winter and Karina left for their classes for the day.

You walked campus for the rest of your morning. Bored of just walking, you decided to walk back to your room and just kill time. “Hi y/n!” You were joined by Ning Ning as you walked back to your room. “Hey Ning. How are you?” “Packing my brains for my last classes before we leave out for break.” “Break?” You said as you were confused. “Spring break?” “Oh yeah. I forgot that even existed.” You and Ning Ning laughed as you continued to walk across campus. The more you talked, the better your day was getting. You didn’t think about the situation that was going on in the moment. For once you had a piece of mind. You had finally made it to your dormitory after walking for what felt like forever. You and Ning Ning both stayed on the same floor so you both decided to take the elevator instead of you taking the stairs like you usually do. As you waited for the elevator to stopped, you pondered should you talk to Ning Ning about your situation. You had talked to your other friends, but you got no answer that would help comfort you. Ning Ning wasn’t the biggest on relationships but she always gave you the best advice out of all your friends. “Well I’ll see you later y/n.” “Wait Ning I-…” You grabbed Ning Ning by the arm as the elevator doors opens. Ning Ning could tell by your expression something was definitely wrong.

“I need some advice.”

“Of course honey.” You both stepped off the elevator going to Ning Ning room instead of yours. Ning Ning unlocked and opened the door to her room letting you in. You had been to Ning Ning’s room before but not long enough to truly appreciate how aesthetically pleasing her room was compared to yours. You felt like it was a safe haven. You took a seat at her computer desk and began to explain the entire situation from the top to bottom. “So yeah that’s the entire story.” “Honey from what you’re telling me sounds like you’re in love with Niki.” Ning Ning said while smiling. “I’m confused Ning. Like I don’t even know how to act around him anymore. I’ve blocked out my feelings for Niki for so long, and now I don’t know how to even tell him that.”

Ning Ning continued to comfort you as you talked. “You should start by really asking yourself. Are you happy with Heesung? Do you really love him?” What kind of question was that? You loved Heesung. He would never do anything to hurt you. “I gotta go Ning. I’ll catch you later on.” “You’ll figure this out y/n. If there’s one thing I know is that you will know what to do in the end.” You smiled and hugged Ning Ning as you walked out the door. For the rest of the day you thought back on your conversation with Ning Ning earlier. You tried everything to come up with a solution to handle your problem, but nothing worked or made sense. Your thoughts were interrupted by knocks at your door. Not sure who it could be and why, you slowly made your way to the door to unlock it.

“Hi y/n…”

To your surprise it was the one person you were hoping it wouldn’t be. “Niki. What are you doing here?” You could tell from his face something was wrong. “I need to talk you. Can I come in?” You nodded letting him in as you had a feeling of how this conversation was about to go. You closed the door offering him a seat on your bed as mentally prepared yourself for what was about to come.

Niki sat in silence as well as yourself. You could tell he was nervous to say anything as he began fidgeting his fingers. “Y/n I-…” “Niki… kiss me.” You were both taken aback by what you just said. “Did you mean that y/n…?” You covered your face to hide the red that flushed over your checks. “Im sorry Niki I didn’t mean t-.” Before you could finish your sentence, Niki pulled you in softly kissing your lips. As much as your mind told you to pull away, your heart was saying to make this moment last as you lost all strength to his warm soft lips. As he began to pull away, you pulled him closer kissing him slowly climbing on top of him as he wrapped his arms around you. You couldn’t stop yourself as this was all you had thought about since the other night. You wanted this moment to last forever as you continued to kiss him.

“What the hell!?” You both looked up to see Heesung in shocked as to what he just saw. Your heart stopped as you tried to find the words to explain what you had just done but before you could say anything Heesung walked away causing you to chase after him as Niki laid in shock. “Heesung wait! Wait please! It’s not what you think.” You could see the hurt in his face as you continued to try and get him to hear you out. “Please let me explain Heesung.” “What is there to explain? Tell me y/n. Please explain how I just saw you kissing Niki so that it can make sense.” You tried to find the words to explain your actions, but you knew there was no explaining your way out of this. You felt the tears falling down your face as Heesung walked past you and into the elevator. You were met by Niki standing in your doorway as you walked back with tears falling from your face. “Y/n I-.” “Niki I need you to go.” You said walking past Niki into the room. “Y/n what we just did… I-…” “Niki I really don’t wanna talk right now. Please just go. Leave me alone.”

“What we just did… that meant something. You can’t tell me it didn’t.” “Go away please!” You cried out as you covered your face to hide your tears. You heard your door close as Niki walked out. You planted your face into your pillow, hoping it would stop the the tears flowing down your face, but nothing worked. You couldn’t stop your mind from racing with what had just occurred. You felt terrible for what you had just done, but you couldn’t blame anyone but yourself.

The following days afterwards, were a lot more gray than usual. You sat in your room, shutting yourself off from your friends and even missing class. You didn’t bother to check your phone, being you didn’t wanna talk to anyone. You had lost motivation to do anything that would make you happy. Hell even smiling seemed impossible in this moment as all you thought about was making the biggest mistake you could’ve ever made. You missed Heesung, and you missed Niki. All you could think about was fixing your error, but you knew that the damage you caused Heesung was irreparable at this point. You felt like nothing would ever be okay for you ever again as you laid in silence in your room.

You were drawn back to reality as you heard knocks on your door. You ran as fast as you could to open the door hoping it would be the one person you had wanted to see so badly. “Baby I-. Oh…” You opened the door expecting it to be Heesung waiting on the other end with open arms, but instead it was Karina. “Come here honey. I know you need one more than ever right now.” Karina said as she held her arms out. You hugged her tightly as you cried. After letting her in you made your way back to your bed as she followed behind you. “So you made your decision I see.” Karina said while sitting beside you on the bed. You nodded your head in agreement to what she had said, but you knew that it didn’t make you happy to admit. “I’m the worse person ever… I kissed Niki and lost both my boyfriend and best friend in the same moment…” “Honey you’re not the worse. Don’t even talk like that.” Karina said trying to console you. “Have you seen Niki?” “He’s honestly in worse shape than you. He looks like he’s drained of all of his energy. He’s only been around Sunoo but even then he only comes to class and afterwards he just disappears.”

“Yo y/n. Knock knock.” “Speaking of which. Hey Sunoo.” Karina said while shooting Sunoo a look of disgust. “I’m here for y/n.” Sunoo walked over to you giving you a hug. “Thanks Sunoo. So… how is he?” “Honestly… he’s a wreck. He’s been blaming himself for whatever went down between you two. He looks exhausted.” Hearing that made you feel bad. You couldn’t point fingers at anyone but yourself. “You two need to talk to one another. I hate to see you two like this.” Sunoo said before walking out the door. You nodded before telling him bye. “I honestly don’t know what to do.” You threw yourself back on the pillow before letting out a long sigh. You knew the longer you ignored the situation it would never be fixed. You wanted to make everything right but you didn’t have an answer for how to. “Whatever you decide, you’ll know in your heart it’s what you wanted. You’ll have your answer eventually.” Karina gave you one last hug before walking out the door. “Oh and by the way. Don’t make me have to come back over here. I expect to see you bright and early tomorrow. Lunch and then dinner afterwards. Got it.” “You got it.” You said before smiling.

It Was Meant To Be

The following day was pretty normal. You felt a bit better than the last few days. Your friends made sure to check in on you through out the day. You got through your classes thinking less about the situation as you went on through the day. You knew you would eventually have to deal with it, but you wanted to enjoy the relief that you were feeling even if it was just for today. After lunch you and your friends talked for a bit before leaving for the rest of the day. You spent your day mainly walking campus and listening to music occasionally. You walked until you came to a stop, taking a seat on a bench in the courtyard area of school. You sat with your music playing in your ears while gazing out at the few people you saw walking by.

“Hi y/n.”

You didn’t notice that Heesung had taken a seat next to you until you looked in his direction causing your heart to stop for a minute. “Heesung I-… hi.” For a few minutes the two of you sat in silence. You couldn’t find the words to explain your actions from the other night. You could tell he was hurting while also trying to gather the words to say something to you. “You have every right to not ever want to speak to me again.” You said breaking the ice. “I’m not upset. True enough I’m hurt but I’m not upset at you. Truth is… I kind of had a feeling for a while that eventually it would happen.” Hearing that made you cry. You tried to wipe your tears to where he wouldn’t see you crying but before you could he pulled you in giving you the most comforting hug. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay y/n.” Heesung continued to comfort you until you stopped crying.

“I love you y/n. I always will. No one will ever replace the love you gave me. You’ve given me the best moments in life I could ever ask for. I’m thankful for everything. I will always be apart of your life. Always.” You smiled as Heesung wiped the tears from your face. “I’ll never forget you Heesung. I love you.” You gave one final big hug before he got up to walk off. You knew the pain he was feeling still lingered. “You should tell him. Tell him the truth y/n. There’s nothing holding you back.” You watched as Heesung walked off. It was a bittersweet moment, that you had honestly wish didn’t happen but you knew that you would be okay and so would he.

You made your way back to your room reflecting on all that had happened today. A part of you felt happy while the other part of you felt empty. You kept thinking back to what Heesung said earlier. You knew what you had to do, but didn’t have a clue as to how to do it. You were interrupted by your phone ringing. You didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway.

“Hello?” “Hi y/n!” You recognized that it was Ning Ning. “Ning Ning? Did you get a new phone?” “Sorry. I would’ve used mines but it’s dead. Had to borrow a friend’s. But anyways. I need you to do me a favor.” “Okay?” You said sounding a bit confused. “7:00 p.m. Meet us a-.” The phone started to break up as you tried to make out what Ning Ning was saying. “You want me to what?” “Meet up at the courtyard fountain tonight at 7.” “What for?”

“You’ll see.” “Okay I’ll see you there.” You ended the call completely confused as to why or what was so important about later tonight, but you thought less and less about it as you scrolled through your phone.

Night fall had approached as you made your way to the courtyard. As you walked you wondered what could your friends have a planned at such an odd hour on a school night. “You could’ve at least gotten dressed y/n.” You turned to see Karina and Winter walking up towards you. “Well no one told me to get dressed. Besides this is comfortable for me.” As you pointed to your long sleeve and jeans. “Come on.” Winter said while giggling. The three of you made your way to the courtyard fountain. Before you got any closer Karina and Winter threw their hands over your eyes acting as a blindfold. “Karina? Winter? What are you doing?” “Just keep walking.” Winter said as she grabbed your hand. “No seriously what the hell? You said feeling more nervous than comfortable. The three of you came to a stop. You could hear the water flowing from the fountain meaning you were pretty close. “Okay keep your eyes closed, and hold your hands out.” Karina said as she and Winter moved their hands from over your eyes. “Okay.” You said while still trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly you felt your hands being grabbed. Whoever it was the feeling was warm. It made you feel comfortable enough to smile. “Hello stranger. Not sure what my friends are doing but don’t be surprised if I jerk away.” You said while keeping your eyes closed.

“I won’t let that happen.”

You immediately opened your eyes as you recognized Niki’s voice. You hugged him as a flood of emotions came over the both of you. You had missed his touch and you could tell that he missed yours as well. “Niki I-…” “I love you y/n. It’s been you since the beginning. I been in love with you since we were kids. I hate that I wasn’t able to tell you in the beginning but I was afraid because I thought you would never see as more than your friend. Even to this day my feelings for you haven’t changed one bit. I know I’m not Heesung. I’m not perfect by any means, but all asking for is a chance.” You were over come with tears of happiness as Niki confessed his feelings for you. You were so confused in the beginning being that you had Heesung, but you knew the answer all along. It was Niki you were in love with. Even through all the uncertainty and confusion you put yourself through you knew it was Niki. Wasting no more time you wrapped your arms around Niki pulling him in kissing him.

“You don’t have to be anyone but you. I love you Niki.” The two of you embraced one another as you kissed each other again. Your friends watched from the sides happily as they saw the two of you finally together. You had never been happier. You knew this was where you wanted to be. You no longer felt the pain you felt from days earlier. You knew that this moment was yours. You two were meant for one another and you would never let go of one another. You were meant to be.

©️liumoonlight 2023,

[losersimonriley]

twenty questions for fic writers

Thank ya @femalefemur <333

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

31

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

98,041

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Just the modern warfare reboot at the moment, but I’ve got fics from a few different fandoms

4. top five fics by kudos

First Light (ghost/soap)

Keep going (ghost/soap)

Completely, Selfishly (connor/gavin)

Every way that matters (ghost/soap)

Headshot Holidays (ghost/soap)

5. do you respond to comments?

I try! I really, really appreciate anyone who takes the time to leave comments, especially with fanfic being treated more and more like ~ quick to consume content~ I try to respond to every comment because the least I can say is thank you <3 But I got way behind on replies so there are a lot just sitting in my inbox waiting right now 💀 Swear I’m gonna get to em eventually

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

How it’s supposed to be (connor/gavin) bc it’s just both of them fucking dying lmao

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is a hard one bc I’m very much an angst with a happy ending writer, so most of my stories end on at least a hopeful note. I’ll say Every way that matters bc they are both just so sickly sweet in this one

8. do you get hate on fics?

Not bad enough that I remember. I used to have older works up before I regrettably purged them from existence that I remember getting rude comments on but wouldn’t necessarily categorise as hate

9. do you write smut?

Hellll yeahhh brotherrrr

10. craziest crossover:

I don’t have any crossovers per say but I’d really like to do a twister inspired tf 141 fic

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of 👀

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

No but I’m ok with it

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but I think it would be fun with someone I’m comfortable enough with! *looks at Camus with big sickly green eyes*

14. all time favorite ship?

Destiel owns me until I die, they were part of my life for so long and there is just so many years and so much between them. But god do I love ghoap

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am going to finish all my wips even if they end up sucking ass

16. what are your writing strengths?

Dialogue maybe? I’ve been told I have good dialogue

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Aghhh descriptions. I hate describing things. I just want the things to Happen. And pacing lmao. This is one reason why I’ve always struggled with long fics

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I know a lot of people find it unnecessary and jarring but I love it. Especially because it can encourage people to become interested in a new language

19. first fandom you wrote in?

I can’t remember if it was doctor who or my chemical romance but I’m pretty sure it was one of the two?

20. favorite fic you've written?

Oh it’s definitely gonna be Sundowning when I finish it. But so far my fav posted one is probably headshot holidays (ghost/soap) or music of the night (newt/hermann)

I’ll tag uhhhh @solivagantingrebel @lokibus @tumbleweedtech @forestshadow-wolf and anyone else who wants to do it! (sorry if y’all have already been tagged in this, I haven’t been very active on here the past few days so 🫡)

[quillyfied]

Today’s tiny OFMD AU brought to you by the Pirates of the Caribbean-induced brain rot I’ve had since age 11 (and specifically by a certain scene in Dead Man’s Chest):

Let’s say it’s still firmly breakup-era, but Stede and Ed have been circling each other—helping each other out on raids, some light cat and mouse shenanigans, one or two emotionally fraught and darkly flirtations sword fights. Let’s say one night a dinghy pulls up to the Revenge, and it’s Captain Hornigold, Ed’s old captain, here to check in on how his protege is doing and be a general ominous cloud of veiled violence and danger. He doesn’t overstep Ed’s authority as captain, exactly, but it’s clear his reputation and age have weight with the crew and it’s absolute hell on Ed to keep his feet under him as his old captain insinuates himself into Ed’s life and chain of command. Even Izzy is nervous with Hornigold around, and Ed is having a bit of a crisis about it.

Let’s say Stede chooses this time to try and take back the Revenge—it’s happened a couple of times before, it’s the closest to flirting he and Ed get these days so might as well give it a go. It’ll piss Izzy off, anyway. He doesn’t know about Hornigold.

Stede’s half-hearted little raid goes about as well as anyone expected, only it’s different this time, Ed is visibly on edge, trying to get Stede and whoever he brought with him out of there before anyone else sees—but Hornigold sees, of course, old sea dog never seems to sleep, and he praises Ed for putting down such a worthless attempt at a takeover. The Gentleman Pirate, Hornigold presumes, looking Stede over, eyes glittering as he turns to Ed. You know what the punishment is for daring to step up to a better pirate and failing, don’t you, boy? If gutting him is too much for Ed’s weak stomach?

Ed finds himself with a lash in one hand and the smooth expanse of Stede Bonnet’s back, the shirt ripped in half off of it, before him, and a sick sense of nausea in what Hornigold expects him to do. And if Ed won’t do it, Hornigold chuckles, well, Ed’s old captain is more than happy to take charge.

Ed raises the lash.

[thatredheadwriter]

On the Mat

Marc Spector x reader

You’re Marc and Steven’s ‘guy in the chair’ for lack of a better term, helping them with all things techy. When you get injured trying to help on a mission, Marc decides you need to learn how to take care of yourself so it doesn’t happen again. Gym training with Marc turns into something else entirely.

(A/N: Y’all, I actually BLUSHED while writing some of the dirty talk. Personally, I think it’s pretty steamy. Let me know what you think with a comment or a reblog!)

This is an NSFW oneshot for female reader with Marc Spector of the show Moon Knight. This work contains smut and mature language and should not be read by those under 18 (or the age of majority in your locale). As a writer, I will attempt to make accurate warnings for each of my fics, however I cannot guarantee that I will identify each and every sensitive topic. My works regularly contain swearing, allusions to/mentions of sex, and canon level violence.

Warnings Include (but are not limited to):

Swearing

Injury to reader (canon-level, nothing too bad)

Mild angst

Stitches

Marc is a cocky asshole

combat/fight training

Teasing/degradation (it’s not supposed to be sexual at first, but it is)

Oops, my Praise Kink is showing

DIRTY TALK

Fingering

Oral (female receiving)

P in V penetrative sex (protected)

Choking

Hair pulling

Please read at your own discretion and consume your fanfiction responsibly.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you slapped at Marc’s hands that prodded your eyebrow.

“You’re not fine, (y/n), you need stitches,” he slapped your own hand away and continued examining the wound. The blood had stopped, mostly, and was beginning to dry down the side of your face.

“So then stitch me up, I’ve seen you do your own a million times.”

He shook his head, “I should take you to a hospital.”

“God, no, I hate hospitals, Marc. I’d rather die. Please, can you do it?” you begged, pouting a bit. Although he pretended to dislike you, you knew it was a facade.

“I don’t have any anesthetic, and the scar won’t be pretty,” he warned, gathering his first aid supplies and straddling a chair across from you.

“Fine, then I’ll look like a mysterious badass. You pull it off well enough,” you smirked.

“You know, this isn’t funny. He nearly took your eye out.”

You hissed as he dabbed at the cut with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, “The bad guy got a lucky shot in is all.”

“He would have killed you if I hadn’t shown up. There’s nothing lucky about that,” his gaze was focused on your eyebrow, but the intensity of it made you want to squirm.

“I disagree. I’m very lucky to have you to save my ass all the time.”

“Can you please stop joking? You almost died today, very stupidly I might add.”

You rolled your eyes, but Marc placed a hand on top of your head to keep you still as he raised the threaded needle.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. A sharp pain pricked at your temple and you fought the urge to wince, instead just shutting your eyes and trying to breathe. The two of you stopped fighting as he worked, carefully sewing in eight stitches from your left temple to the top of your eyebrow.

“You did the impossible today, you know,” he said as he dabbed at the now-sealed cut on your face with more alcohol.

“What’s that?”

“You got me and Steven to actually agree on something.”

You giggled at that, “And how did I do that?”

“He’s been saying for a while now that it’s too dangerous for you to be in the field, and after today, I have to agree.”

“Oh, please, like you could have stopped me from being on that roof.”

He tossed the used supplies in the trash. “I know. Which is why tomorrow, we start your training.”

“Training?”

“I’m going to teach you how to fight since you’re no good at staying out of them.”

“Why not start now?” you asked, hopping up from your seat.

“No, you need to rest now. And don’t think I’m gonna go easy on you, cause I’m not.”

“Ok, Mr. Badass Mercenary, whatever.”

Oof

The breath left your body as Marc slammed you into the mat once again before standing up and offering you a  hand. You took it but glared at him angrily.

“Is this fun for you? It seems fun for you,” you frowned, dusting off your ass once more as Marc circled you.

“I told you I wouldn’t go easy on you, and neither will the bad guys. So really I’m doing you a favor,” he smirked, enjoying having you inside his area of expertise now.

“Oh fuck you, Spector,” you sneered, making your way to the side of the mat where you’d set your water bottle. “Try telling that to my tailbone.”

“You’ll be fine,” he scoffed. “Ready to go again?”

“No, I’m not! Because you keep fucking just attacking me and saying very cryptic, unhelpful shit. This sucks and I’m not learning at all. You’re an awful teacher and I hate training,” you huffed.

“Ok, ok,” Marc threw his hands up. “Let’s go over to the heavy bag, I’ll teach you a few things.”

You sighed heavily and trudged over to the corner where Marc had fixed the second hand gym equipment. You had a feeling not all of the new equipment he’d obtained was exactly for sale when he got it. 

“So what, I just hit it right?” you hit the bag lazily.

“Not like that.”

“Okay, then, Mr. Moon Knight, how do you want me to hit the bag?”

“Actually, Steven’s Mr. Knight, I’m Moon- Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Look, you’ve got to set your stance, frame your arms, hit with a locked wrist, and follow through. Think you can do that?”

You rolled your eyes, “I think I’ll manage.”

You ran through the checklist in your head, and struck out at the bag hard, but it barely seemed to shudder.

“Here, watch me,” Marc move you aside and took his stance next to the bag and hit it several times in rapid succession, sending it swinging back and forth on its chains.

“Show off.”

“Here, let me show you the form,” he beckoned you over. What you did not expect was for him to place his hands on your bare waist.

His foot kicked at your right ankle, nudging it forward and out a bit, before moving your left one back.

Marc’s hands slid up your body and up to your shoulders, setting them in position before moving down each of your arms and putting your hands in a proper defensive position in front of you.

“You want to hit with your knuckles, make contact with the first two here,” he tapped over your wrapped hands, indicating the places he was talking about.  “Lock your wrist and deliver the energy straight through. Imagine your target is behind the bag.”

You took a deep breath, and punched the bag again. It felt better, but you nearly fell over and lost your balance. You likely would have ended up in the floor if it wasn’t for Marc’s hands flying to your waist and steadying your center of gravity.

“Better, but you’ve gotta stay loose. Put your weight on the balls of your feet and bend your knees a little. Yeah, that’s good,” his hands left you once again, but he stayed close as you followed his instructions. “Tighten your core. Yep, good. Now you’re going to hit again, but this time, engage every muscle in your body. Imagine the power coming all the way down from your thighs.”

This time you looked at the bag and imagined the face of the asshole who nearly killed you yesterday and hit hard.

“Good girl,” Marc praised, sending a shiver down your spine. “You learn fast.”

“Thanks,” you said meekly, hoping he wouldn’t notice how flustered you’d become.

“Now that you really know how to punch let’s go back to the mat, see if you can actually manage to hit me,” he taunted.

You were determined now more than ever to finally land a blow on Marc Spector. Of course, you didn’t actually want to hurt him. But if you could trade blows with him, knock him down or stun him even a little, you’d finally feel like you could do something to protect yourself.

The problem was he was a slippery bastard.

He moved faster than you could plan for, so as soon as you struck out at where he was, he was somewhere else, wearing a shit eating grin and taunting you to continue.

“Come on, (y/n),” he’d say, after dancing away from another nowhere-near miss. “Can’t you even hit me once.”

“Aw, can’t you do it?”

“And I’m your friend, I imagine your enemies will have an easy enough time taking you out.”

“You’re pathetic, it’s been thirty minutes and you’re not even close.”

Finally you let out a scream, lunging at him and missing again, only to land on the mat hard.

Tears pricked in the corner of your eyes as you swallowed the lump in your throat and rolled onto your ass. Marc was laughing at your feeble attempt to tackle him. You pulled your knees to your chest and rested your chin on top of them, staring at the floor.

“Alright, you’ve had your rest. Come on, we’re not done until you’ve tagged me at least once. And by the looks of it, we may be here all night.”

You couldn’t take it anymore.

“God! Why are you so fucking mean, Marc?” you yelled, shocking your trainer whose teasing smile quickly faded from his face. A few stray tears made their way down your face as you sniffled and pushed yourself up off the ground.

“(y/n), I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help,” he tried to close some distance, but you backed away.

“How? By making me feel like shit, huh? Telling me that I suck, making me feel like a failure?” you cried.

Marc ran a hand down his face, “God, no. I was just trying to motivate you. I didn’t realize…I wanted you to want to hurt me.”

“Well, jokes on you, asshole. It didn’t work,” your lower lip trembled as you spoke and you couldn’t help but feel like an idiot.

“I see that, and I’m sorry. Please, (y/n), forgive me?”

You looked at him and rolled your eyes. He was too handsome to stay mad at for long and he knew it.

“Fine, but you have to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Well, I guess your shitty ass motivation kinda did work because now I really do want to hit you.”

He furrowed his brow, not following. “Okay, so-”

“Okay, so I’m going to punch you. And you’re going to stand still and let me.”

Marc scoffed, “And if I don’t?”

“I guess maybe I won’t be feeling so forgiving. Maybe I’ll just wipe every electronic device you have and replace all of the files with that one song you hate so much.”

“You wouldn’t.”

You smirked evilly, “All your files, replaced with ‘What Does the Fox Say?’ or you let me hit you once and we call it a night, yeah?”

Marc swore under his breath before moving to the center of the mat. His arms dropped by his sides and he sighed, “Ok, come get it.”

You were far too giddy as you moved into position and adopted your stance in front of him, giggling at the bored expression on his face.

You weren’t expecting the thud that came with punching a person with all your might. Your fist hit him square in the chest and you seemed to do a pretty good job knocking the wind out of him. But you didn’t get much time to celebrate.

He grabbed your wrist and flipped you. In a flash you were pinned to the ground, Marc’s hands holding each of your wrists by your head and his body perched comfortably atop yours. His chain had fallen outside his shirt and now dangled in front of you.

“Good girl, that was a solid hit,” he praised, tossing his head to get a loose curl out of his face. “But you’ve gotta be ready for the next attack.”

“Thought you were going to let me hit you,” you whispered, unable to manage anything else in such close proximity to the man whom you’d secretly lusted after for months.

“I said you could hit me, I never said I wouldn’t retaliate,” he said growled.

You couldn’t help but whimper at the sound, and you squirmed underneath him. His grip on your wrists tightened harshly. Your hips bucked up against him and he growled once more.

“You better stop doing that, princess,” he warned. You looked down to where his body trapped yours and gasped when you saw a bulge forming in his gray training pants. Your head snapped back to meet his eyes once again, and although his face was still hard, his eyes had softened.

“If you don’t want to do this, tell me now,” he urged. “Tell me now and I’ll stop and we can pretend this never happened.”

Instead of answering with words, you decided to let your body do the talking. You used the little bit of space you had to roll your hips up against him.  A deep groan emanated from his chest and his eyes rolled back a bit. Nibbling on your bottom lip, you looked up at him innocently through your eyelashes.

“Fuck.”

You half-absorbed the curse as his lips crashed down on yours. He was urgent, on a mission. The kiss was sloppy and needy and hot. Your teeth clashed and your tongues fought for dominance. It was a short fight, you conceded quickly, allowing him to explore your mouth freely. 

While he distracted you with his tongue, he was working your body, maneuvering you just to his liking. When he finally pulled away and allowed you to catch your breath through swollen lips, you realized your hands were now above your head, wrists pinned in one of Marc’s large hands.

His position above you had changed as well. Instead of straddling your waist, he now sat over one of your thighs, knee in between your legs. You gasped as he shifted it up a bit, pressing it against your clothed center. Your body reacted instantly, grinding against it and searching for any form of friction it could find.

“You’re a needy little thing, aren’t you,” he teased, watching you squirm.

“Please, Marc,” you begged, pouting a bit for emphasis.

“Please what, baby? Gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“Just please touch me, or let me touch you, or…fuck I don’t know. I need more!” you whined.

Marc raised an eyebrow at that, “That wasn’t a very nice way to say that, was it babygirl?”

You shook your head no.

“I bet a pretty girl like you can find lots of nice words to use for me. That is unless the mere thought of me fucking you senseless has got you so cockdrunk you can’t even think straight,” he cocked his head, waiting for your answer.

“Please, Marc. Please, I need to feel you. I’ll be good, just please touch me,” you pleaded, locking eyes with him.

“Yeah, you will. Gonna be my good fucking girl,” he smiled, releasing your wrists.

Your hands flew to his shoulders and dug into the cloth and flesh there as he pulled you in for another bruising kiss. With his hands now unoccupied, one held him up from crushing you while the other mapped your body.

He roughly squeezed your breast through the fabric of your sports bra and identified the nipple underneath, pinching and rolling it in his large fingers. You moaned into his mouth.

Soon his hand was traversing lower, eventually coming to cup your sex over the spandex shorts you wore. He could feel the heat building there and it made his cock throb.

“You want me to take these off?”

You nodded, but he only shook his head and chuckled.

“You’re going to have to use your words, baby girl,” he teased, running his hand up and down the inside of your thigh.

“Please,” you whimpered.

“Please what?”

“Take ‘em off, please,” you urged, bucking your hips up against his hands. He grinned at your eagerness.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he hooked his fingers in the waistband of your shorts and pulled them down your legs, along with your panties, with you lifting your hips just enough to help him get them down around your ass. He tossed the fabric to the side somewhere and worked his way down your body so he was eye-level with your glistening cunt.

“Is all this for me, baby?”

You sat up on your elbows so you could see his face as he took his index finger and ran it up over your hole and up to your clit, making you sigh loudly. Your noises seemed to really do it for Marc, as he quickly abandoned his teasing approach and dove in head first, literally.

One finger plunged deep into your cunt while his tongue lapped at the arousal that had gathered between your folds. Your hands clenched into fists and you swore if it weren’t for the hand wraps, your palms would have been bleeding. It was only the taste of copper that made you realize you were biting down on your lip, although it wasn’t doing much to stifle the pitiful whimpers and squeaks coming from your chest.

But then he pulled away, making you whine.

“Was close,” you whimpered pitifully. He mocked your pouty face as he sat up and pulled his t-shirt over his head, revealing his stunning torso.

You didn’t get long to admire it before Marc was on you again, kissing your neck and marking you with his teeth. His hands ran up your sides and slipped up under the fabric of your bra. You sat up all the way, with some effort, given that he was pressing you down,  and raised your arms over your head, allowing him to pull off the restrictive fabric and toss it aside to join your discarded shorts and panties.

“I’ve dreamed about these tits, you know. Did you think I didn’t notice when you started wearing those fucking low-cut tops? I nearly came in my pants the first time I saw you in a bra.”

His rough hands came down to palm your breasts, squeezing and kneading the sensitive flesh there before pinching and rolling your nipples hard, pulling them up and away from your chest. Animalistic grunts and groans tumbled out of your lips as he worked, worshipping your chest.

“Please, no more teasing. Need your cock,” you whined, your hips rutting up into the air and searching for some friction.

“Yeah, you’re sure? You’re sure you need it?”

“Please,” you pouted, hands reaching down to palm his bulge through his pants. He hissed in response, making you grin.

Marc didn’t need any more convincing. One hand reached into his pants and freed his cock, which sprang against his hard abdomen in excitement. The tip was flushed and swollen and a bead of precum was springing free at the tip.

“Fuck,” you groaned. He was big, bigger than you expected. But it made sense, you supposed, given how perfect the rest of him was.

Marc reached over as far as he could, his hand disappearing into the pocket of his gym bag, and coming out holding a distinctive shiny wrapper. You watched, entranced, as he tore open the foil packet and rolled the condom down his impressive length. You couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that he was prepared for something like this.

“You’re sure you want this?” Marc asked, pumping himself a couple of times before lining up with your entrance.

“Yes, I really, really do. What about…what about Steven? I mean he’s kinda along for the ride, isn’t he? Is he okay with this?”

Marc surprised you, barking a laugh. “Steven? He’s more than okay with this. He stares at your ass even more than I do.”

The thought made your face flame, but was it really so embarrassing given that you were laid out in front of him, getting ready to be split apart on his cock?

Marc leaned over you pressing a kiss to your collarbone. “If you want me to stop, tell me.”

You nodded quickly, and then your eyes were squeezed shut as he entered you for the first time. Once he was fully sheathed inside you, touching parts you didn’t know you had, he stopped for a second. The room was silent except for the sounds of your breathing.

“Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight,” he swore.

“Just shut up and fuck me, Marc,” you groaned, your hands scrambling to grab whatever bit of him you could, eventually settling around his neck, tangling in the short hair there.

He laughed as he pulled almost all the way out before slamming back in, hard. Marc set an unforgiving pace, leaving you fucked out and speechless almost instantly.

“There are those ugly words again sweetheart,” he tutted. One of his hands trailed up from your breast to grab your chin before slipping two fingers past your swollen lips. His heavy fingers pressed down on your tongue and forced open your jaw,

Never in a million years had you imagined you’d be lying bare in a gym being fucked silly by Marc Spector with his fingers in your mouth. It was so filthy and carnal and the mental image of it made your cunt clench.

“God,” he swore, “You like that? Like having my fingers in your mouth?”

You nodded as much as your current position would allow, not that you could have even formed words if you wanted to. Every drag of his cock along your sensitive walls had you seeing stars.

“Are you going to cum for me?” he asked, pulling his hand from your mouth and going back to torturing your nipple.

“Please…need…” you panted, trying to tell him, but your mind was already so far gone.

But Marc knew.

“Need me to rub your clit, pretty girl?”

You nodded furiously and one of his hands moved to rest over your hip. His thumb reached down and worked rapid, hard circles on your clit.

“Come on, cum for me, baby,” he urged.

Your hands flew to his wrist and tugged, pulling it upwards. He was close to his own release, but he slowed a bit as his brow furrowed.

“What do you need?”

“Choke me,” you breathed.

His eyes widened almost comically and if you hadn’t been seconds away from cumming, you would have laughed. He watched in fascination as he let you guide his hand up to your throat, his large hand easily fitting around it.

Marc had choked partners before, but to do it with you was something else. He looked deep into your eyes as he applied just the right amount of pressure to the sides of your neck, effectively reducing blood flow to your brain.

All the sensations combined in an explosion of ecstasy as your orgasm hit you like a freight train. Your hands tightened around Marc’s forearm and your fingernails left tiny crescents in the flesh.

A high, broken sob was the only thing that punctuated the wet sounds of skin on skin. Marc released his hold on your throat, but left his hand in place while the hand that had been pleasuring your clit now gripped your hip harshly. He was fucking into you with all he had, low grunts and curses falling from his lips like prayers.

As you lay there in complete bliss, your hands returned to his dark curls once more and fisted them hard. Your tired cunt clenched around him one last time and his head dropped to your chest as he filled the condom with his release. His hips stuttered as he worked through his high and finally he came to a rest deep inside you.

“You did so good for me,” he praised, lifting his sweaty forehead from your skin, reaching a thumb up to wipe a tear away you hadn’t even realized had slipped out. “My pretty girl,” he praised.

“Yeah?” you asked, leaning into his touch.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “M’sorry for earlier. I just worry about my girl, you know?”

You nodded sleepily.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? Come on,” he pulled away from you, making you whine at the loss of contact. Your folds were sensitive as he slipped out,

“Hey, Marc?” you asked as he helped you up and started leading you towards the bathroom.

“Yeah?”

“You know how I said I hate training?”

He grinned, “Mm-hmm.”

“If that’s how training’s going to end, I so don’t hate training.”

thatredheadwriter’s Masterlist

[aequlinks]

genshin x reader smaus i recommend <3

i think it’s about time i did this in case anyone asked me about smaus i am interested in or if you are looking for something to read:] i will be listing their titles, summary, and what i like! these are just the ones i’ve seen (or remembered).

good 4 u by @ilkuni — a xiao smau

lesson learned! never challenge hu tao when you’re drunk bc you’ll just lose and now you have to post a thread of all your exes as songs from olivia rodrigo’s hit debut album sour … or: “yn desperate much!” “yn still loves xiao? yikes! doesnt he already have someone new?” “stop ruining my relationship u bitch!”

i’m sure we all know this one by now HAHA rosie is one of the genshin smau writers i have seen that’s been here as long as me by now

i actually was really interested in this one because it was an exes to lovers, and you all know how it’s one of my favorite tropes hehe

it was very interesting because there was foreshadowing here and there and the plot kept progressing without being confusing

10 things i hate about you by @x-xxiaos — a xiao smau

after breaking up with his since-high school-girlfriend, xiao made a long list of things he should and hated her for, so he won’t fall for her again in case name tries to enter his life once again. for five long years, xiao did a great job at keeping name off of his mind, but what would he do if she suddenly shows up at his door, asking him to work with her?

i’ve actually never watched our beloved summer where this is based off of, i first thought it was the movie because i remember there was one like that

this is also an exes to lover so i really loved it HAHAHA eyn update when /lh

i like how xiao kept deflecting it and yn kept going but this is for my job i don’t like you anymore, the dynamic was fun

i think he knows by @daixuki — a xiao smau

you’ve liked him since the first time you saw him perform in your school’s battle of the bands. so you do what any normal girl with a crush does: send him cheesy pick-up lines through a dummy account. he never replies. until now.

funny how angel told me she wanted to write a smau bc of me and my anons and now she’s writing one t_t so YAY

this is the first one here that’s not an exes to lovers but a my friend likes you but you don’t know so i’m going to help her secretly

it also gives space for angst because dayum what if xiao is conflicted i love it

someone you like by @rrinsluvr — a xiao smau

even after two years, she still hasn’t moved on. all hope was lost until he sent her a text.

this one is during the pandemic so it makes sense why it’s a smau right HAHA unlike mine where they literally meet each other and still text t__t nothing i just found it adorable that way

the way there’s a kazuha leading man vibes here too makes me ueue because i love kaed

i think xiao is on point here or it’s just me but i really love the way he’s portrayed here

still have my heart by @luvinelysia — a kazuha smau

IN WHICH, kazuha’s friend gets into a fight with one of your friends OR IN WHICH, two exes meet due to being involved in a fight with their friends

right off the bat, yessss bc i have a cameo HAHA but my title won for this so you guys should check this out because there’s conflict here OH and this is an exes to lovers

also ely shows us salty kazuha here so if you like that then feel free to read this one because i actually like salty kaed

and that there’s a side of a xiao x reader here so <3 ok i forgot this was a kazuha smau ely really needs to make xiao stop flirting with me

21 days by @v3nicee — a childe smau

after being busy with their priorities, ajax and [y/n]’s relationship went downhill. 4 years after that incident happened their path crossed again, and now ajax pleaded for 21 days to win her back.

exes to lovers world domination because this is an exes to lovers smau HAHAHA one of the best tropes i swear

i like how childe is portrayed in this one and that he actually makes time for yn instead of being an ass and not trying to win her back

oh and the whole aether as the second lead part makes me cry because i am weak i love my twins yall i hope that we don’t keep friendzoning him..

lowkey by @ilkuni — an ayato smau

it was only recently you found out kamisato ayaka was, in fact, not an only child after all! seeing ayato for the first time gave you the severest case of the butterflies but according to ayaka, he’s off limits, especially to you as her most treasured friend. well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt, right?

when rosie dropped this i was excited because i have never seen anyone attempting to make an ayato smau, partially me as well with a long fic because i’m not sure i’ll be able to play him out

the plot sounded good because i love those lowkey secret relationships IN FICS not irl i can’t do that sorry i’m loud irl i’d blabber my mouth

not the way i was caught in a chokehold with the recent updates of chapters 20 and beyond because of the arranged marriage

raised the bar by @skaramush — a scaramouche smau

yn thought she finally escaped the perpetual doom of placing 2nd after she graduated high school. but alas! the leaderboard has her name printed under another’s! a name she thought she’d never get to see again. better luck next time, i guess.

i haven't actually caught up with the updates in a while but i like the academic rivals to lovers trope

one of the lines i liked was when kuni found out yn was studying for a long time?

i alike that kuni isn't too offputting or too mean which many portray him to be as

f#cking bastard by @scarahours — a scramouche smau

getting off wasted at a party wouldn’t hurt right? that’s what college life is for - you study, eat, sleep and repeat. probably do something batshit once or twice. but who would ever know, it wouldn’t hurt right? so why do you suddenly find the social reject’s lips pressed against yours?

i don't think i've caught up with this one in a while but i like that diluc is portrayed as the ex because i haven't seen that yet

i like that the plot is unpredictable because i really didn't expect kuni knows yn

oh i also like that even if diluc chased after yn, she didn't agree HAHA

i think that's really all there is to this post! i might add in a few more smaus should i ever find some more:]