#also I just loved what I did for the Manchester apartment so I did it again for the London one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

caitlinbueckers · 6 months ago

Text

take care.

caitlin clark x reader type beat PART 2!!!!!!!!

6.2k (what the fuck)

ok. Listen!!!!!! This is long time coming and also is a disgusting amount of words and dialogue and like weird subtextual angst masked with smut honestly it’s pure delusion on a page also ending only slightly abrupt bc it was unfathomably long sorry

wasn’t gonna make the sequel so in depth like ??? How’d this one shot turn into a fic 😐 no Clue but all i know is that insecure sort of self deprecative caitlin clark with this soft dominance of a reader combined with two bitches who won’t admit their feelings is my crack!!!! let me know if a part 3 is even needed or if yall even care teehee

no beta simply just vibes

ANYWAYYZZZZZ love u guys sorry that i suck!!!

two weeks.

it had been two weeks since you’d texted that number with your name, a simple contact, and she’d liked the message, and that was it.

it wasn’t like things immediately changed— you still, somehow, made your flight despite the throbbing headache that reverberated in your skull, and you still were able to make sure you didn’t leave a toothbrush or a stray apple watch charger in the hotel room but, miraculously, you find a way to not mention a single thing about your one night stand until you touch down at home; manchester, connecticut.

you tell your friends all about it— probably missing some implied understanding about nda’s— and pretend like it isn’t that big of a deal that one of the biggest basketball players for women’s college wasn’t knuckles deep inside of you only the night before.

but it’s a big deal. and you know it is.

like her breath, fierce and rampant with each spellbinding curl of her fingers, wasn’t startlingly still replaying in your mind, her mouth soaking in each warm, huff of air that you expelled in the form of a moan. like she hadn’t watched as she fucked you, dark eyes somehow impossibly darker as her biceps flexed, the line of thick, corded veins that traveled her muscular arms somehow jumping with each pump of her fingers inside of you.

that the same, somehow blushing girl that stood in the elevator had regarded you like something to be challenged, like something she could fight for. something she could win.

you didn’t forget a single thing. not in the way she leaned down over you as her fingers quickened their pace, the force of it eliciting grunts from caitlin’s mouth as she tore you apart, piece by piece, licking the remains as her teeth grazed over a nipple, the sensitive jut of your collarbone.

“so pretty,” she’d murmured against your skin, almost absently, like she didn’t even realize she’d said it. “you like that?” obviously, it went without saying that you did (very much), but really, you’d learned that she wanted to hear you say it. it was in the same way that - as she’d recounted to you drunkenly in a hotel bar that night - she needed to hear the audience cheer. that the fans hollering and shouting was when she felt like she was on fire. it was the external validation that urged her forth, amped her up, kept her alight.

somehow, you could see exactly how it applied to her then, her eyes quick to scan over your face— your lips, to kiss them, before she’d ask again, urgently, “you like how i fuck you? huh? tell me.”

you’d nodded furiously, words tumbling past your trembling lips, “y-es, fuck, yes—“ god, it would’ve been impossible to pull more than a few words from you with how wrought you are, body unrelentingly tense, shaking and weak until she’d coaxed another orgasm out of you, her name sounding broken on your tongue as her fingers slow, the unrelenting grind from the heel of her hand finally relaxing to ride you through it.

she was unforgivingly good with her fucking hands, you’d come to realize.

and yet, beyond all of that, much to your friends dismay, you don’t call her.

no, in fact, you mute her name on twitter and block the IOWA womens basketball page because it becomes suddenly like a frenzy. she’s everywhere, more than usual, like some sick sign from the universe and as much as it seems almost the complete opposite of how you really feel, you decide that you can never see her again.

it’s not like the sex wasn’t phenomenal, or that when it’s late and your hand sneaks into your pants, your imagination doesn’t always seems to conjure up tall, pretty girls with brown hair and green eyes, or that she didn’t completely captivate you from the moment she’d looked at you, dumbfounded and sheepish in an elevator with a blush staining her cheeks.

it wasn’t that. in fact, it was the complete opposite.

it was because the moment you’d seen a picture of her online after the fact, looking tougher than you knew she was, you’d realized that the last place you’d seen her was from between your legs, and it felt like a fucking soul crush.

because she was beautiful, and smiling, and playing up that celebrity, all-star mentality that you knew she could back up, but that you realized wasn’t her in the slightest. because now, you knew her— sort of— and saw her in ways that nobody else had— that you knew of. more so, that she’d learned your body in the span of a night and then just left, and somehow that just wasn’t fucking fair.

there was a shroud of mystery that surrounded her, even if she belonged to the world, to her supposed boyfriend, to everyone, really— way more than she ever belonged to you, even if just for a night.

so you go on about your life, and you pretend you don’t notice the draft is coming, or that soon, the already well known athlete was gonna be world renowned, taking her biggest leap to play professional, and you’d be nothing to her, nothing but the girl she’d screwed in a hotel room when she’d gotten too drunk after the final four.

and sure, you find solace in it. but there’s also this lingering, nagging feeling of being unfinished, like there’s still more. there has to be more.

so, no, you don’t call her.

but, somehow, you find last-minute tickets for the draft— which, in the grand scheme of things isn’t completely selfish. the moment you’d seen nika muhl and aaliyah edwards up for the league, you’d known that you were going to try for tickets. you just, probably, maybe, weren’t actually expecting to hookup with the projected top number one draft pick, either.

but you did, so, you buy them anyway.

you let your friends tease you for picking a dress that’s sorta slutty and for spending more time than you should doing your makeup at whatever hotel you picked in boston, only a few blocks from the draft.

all in all, it goes exactly how you expect. caitlin gets number one draft, which only slightly makes you antsy in your seat, thinking about the fact that she doesn’t know you’re there, that she doesn’t know you saw her win big and that she possibly could’ve been thinking about anyone fucking else. your favorites, nika muhl and aaliyah edwards, get teams that you’re more than happy to celebrate, and watch paige bueckers and azzi fudd get shoutout after shoutout. it’s good, it’s fun— but fuck it.

you think you miss her. maybe just her fingers, or her mouth, but you realize in a weird swell of recognition as the guests are ushered out, your head spinning back every few moments to see if you can catch a glimpse of her, that you do.

you miss the cait you’d met— you just didn’t know the one that sat in the room now.

then, it’s all sorta funny, in a way, considering the situation you find yourself in once everyone begins to disperse, limos and SUV’s pulled up and parked outside of the venue, crowds of fans standing around the barricades to sit for their favorite athletes to pile out of the doors, to go to some super elite, exclusive party that you knew you had no place at.

you don’t expect any special treatment, and you don’t expect a text or a call— which is good, because they don’t come.

no, actually, they don’t come until later.

later, after you’d spent the rest of the night in a nearby bar with a couple of girls you’d met leaving the draft. they’re funny and they’re nice, gushing about the picks, talking miles a minute about all their favorites and making you pretend that the tequila doesn’t burn just a tiny bit more when they mention caitlin’s name.

it doesn’t come until you’re showered, dressed in sweats and pleasantly drunk, scrolling through the shitty channels when your phone buzzes once, then twice, then three times and it almost makes you click the lock button, shove it over in assumption of your friends bothering you about an unsuccessful night to woo a pro athlete— but then it happens again.

you can’t really decipher what makes you look at the random assortment of numbers and it suddenly click. maybe it was because you’d spent the past few weeks in a complete back and forth, scanning over a crumpled napkin with the name ‘cait’ and these specific numbers beside it.

you know who it is, and despite yourself, your heart catches in your throat.

“hello?”

“you made it.” her voice is deeper than you remember, and it doesn’t fail to make your cheeks burn almost immediately. fuck.

“huh?” you play dumb, mostly because it’s more embarassing to admit that you’d came all this way for this, for the slim possibility that she’d fucking notice.

“tonight, i mean. you- i didn’t know— i didn’t know you were coming.” you stay silent, because what else is there to say? had she seen you?

but she continues, “you should’ve told me.” and then, “i, uh— i would’ve liked to see you.”

she’s pathetic, and so are you. a hand comes up to shove back your hair from your face, breath increasing only slightly. “i have a hotel, like, smack in the middle of boston if you’re… like, if this is an offer.”

now, she’s silent. there’s a shuffle on the other end, a murmur of a voice that you don’t recognize, before she’s back, her voice closer, softer. “yeah. yeah, i’d, uh, i’d like that.”

you open your mouth to say something, probably alcohol fueled and embarassed, but she’s speaking now, a bit quicker, “just text me, yeah?”

then the phone clicks, and for half a second, you stare at the home screen as if this couldn’t possibly be fucking real.

but it is, miraculously, and god, it makes you kind of fucking horny to think that she’s willing to see you at half past three in the morning, so your fingers fly over the keyboard in record time— a pin being dropped through imessage with a confirmed ping.

it’s fucking go time after that.

you find the lacy, practically nonexistent underwear you’d brought, forgo a bra entirely, and try to find something a little less boring than your sweatsuit, before you realize with a sickening realization that the revealing dress you’d worn for the draft was the outfit you’d expected to see her in, and as much as you cared, you kinda fucking didn’t— she’d been inside of you, by now. clothing didn’t seem as pressingly urgent as it would otherwise.

it’s only about twenty minutes before she texts you, a simple ‘here’. you send a brief message, just the number of your hotel room, and pretend like your heart doesn’t practically pound out of your chest for each passing moment, eyes flickering from the door, to the window outside, the city bustling even at a time like this.

she knocks only twice, and it startles you enough that it takes your breath away.

the moment the door swings open, it’s like a wave of calm washes over you, a weird sense of solace that you hadn’t realized she could offer, mostly due to the fact that before you stood the caitlin you’d remembered from all those weeks ago, after final four. not the exquisitely dressed, superstar you’d seen earlier that night, in shades and clothing that you could never afford with an attitude you didn’t recognize.

instead, she stands before you at her startling height, in sneakers, sweats and a windbreaker, a hood over her head and her hands tucked into her pockets. once again, looking impossibly small for someone of her stature and it takes all that’s within you to not kiss her right there.

“you got here quick.” you mention, still only slightly breathless as she offers a smile that resembles more of a smirk than anything else.

“i was scared you’d fall asleep,” and it sounds as sheepish as it makes you feel.

you step back, let her walk in and inhabit the space, only slightly making your palms sweat to have her here, in front of you again.

you decide to take the initiative to plop onto the bed, looking up at her as you toy with a stray string from your hoodie, “i wasn’t gonna fall asleep,” you retort, looking up at her, catching a glance that you don’t break, “congrats on top draft pick.”

now, she’s blushing, shaking her head and pursing her lips, “still feels unreal, dude.” she murmurs, looking down at her feet before slowly, her movements unsure, she sinks onto the bed next to you. “you’re unreal.” you say quietly, smirking at her, because you know how she’d cringe at it, scrunches her face before shaking her head. “god, not by a long shot.”

you open your mouth to say something else, maybe tease her about it, but she clears her throat quietly, “but i don’t, uh- wanna talk about that right now?” she offers a mirthless laugh, “is that stupid?”

she turns to look at you, and it happens to only be a couple centimeters from your face once you look up, shake your head “then we don’t have to.” you agree quietly, and it’s impossible to miss the way her eyes flicker down at your lips, back up to your face, and it’s equally as impossible to ignore the flip you get in your stomach before you surge forward to kiss her.

she kisses the same, tastes like what you remember, if not marked by whatever cocktails she must’ve had, whatever liquor still sat on your own breath, and it washes over you greedily that you do fucking want her— more than whatever you tried to convince yourself of during the past two weeks, more than what you’d downplayed to your friends.

“been thinking about you,” it comes out rushed, murmured against caitlin’s lips, shakily from your own mouth as she lets out a slow, wanton breath. you turn to crawl up on your knees, swinging over her hips to push her back against the bed.

she makes a noise like it stems from disbelief, almost like denial, but doesn’t pull away, not even once as her hands, fingers long and palms wide, spread beneath your sweatshirt, span across the expanse of your back and grasp.

“i did,” you insist between breathless kisses, foreheads pressed together hard as her hand races up the front now, over your stomach, palm your breasts and elicit a pitchy gasp from the immediate contact of her cold hands to your sensitive nipples, “every fucking day.”

“shut up,” she denies it again, which only slightly irks you because as cliche as it felt to say during a makeout, it’s not like you would lie about how much you’ve craved this— or more specifically, her.

you try to really expand on the thought, but it becomes almost impossible when her lips attach to your jaw, suckling until her teeth are teasing the sensitive, thin skin beneath your ear, and you make a noise too embarrassing to recount before you can gather your words. “…missed you.”

caitlin makes a noise in her own throat, something between a growl and a groan as she arches her hips up slightly to press against you, before she shakes her head, pulling back only to look up at you from your position on her lap with this sick, almost torturous gaze. her eyes are lidded and feverbright, cheeks pink, and lips glossy, kiss-bitten.

“you shouldn’t think about me.” it comes out quick with her breath, her thumbs still slow in the circles they rubbed around your nipples, making your head arch back with a whimper before you swallow hard, her words almost too quiet to hear, “not worth it to think about.”

the admission surprises you, “fuck off, clark.” you snort, the words fall lazily out of your mouth, “so humble, huh?”

she gets hot at that, and you can tell from the way her face is pressed into your neck, the way a heat radiates from her cheeks right at that moment that makes your stomach swirl, your own hands coming up to tangle into her hair.

“…i‘m serious.” she insists, still mouthing against the same area of skin that you knew would be bruised, and pretend like her totally incognito, self deprecative words weren’t somewhat confusing and worrying you.

she was fucking perfect, didn’t she realize that? how could she not when practically everyone else in the world thought the same? maybe you were being dramatic or maybe you were just horny, but it felt achingly real in the moment that she knew that, even if she wouldn't listen, even if you'd have to show her instead.

“cait, i’m fucking serious.” you counter now, using the hands in her hair to tug, exploring the reaction that it elicits, which is something that apparently caitlin enjoys by the soft whine that jumps from her throat, the way her breath quickens, the wide eyed look she gives you.

it makes your head spin, your thighs clench involuntarily. she seems so fucking innocent, and yet, all knowing at the same time.

“is that… bad?” you continue, your own head ducking to latch your lips against her neck, feeling her pulse jump beneath your teeth, “that i… touched myself and thought of you?” maybe it was the cocktails or the fact that this could be the last fucking time you see her, but it’s like word vomit— every thought and emotion that comes to you is spoken without hesitation, and apart of you wonders where you’d gotten such newfound bravery.

caitlin must be wondering too.

“not bad,” it comes out of her weak, weaker than she is right now, melting under your mouth and the tight grasp you have on her dark hair, the way each strand twines around your fingers to where even the most minuscule move of your fingers elicit a huff or a sigh, “it’s… fucking hot, what the fuck.”

it fuels you, in some way, to hear her validation. for some reason, you don’t try to hold off much longer— your own sweatshirt is being pulled off in record time, tangled in your arms momentarily and flung across the room as you go to reach for hers, “off?” you hum in the midst of the movement, to which she nods, quickly, obedient and yet, so unruly.

she was a dichotomy of everything she stood for. a shy girl pretending to be a superstar, and yet, even in moments like this, quiet and intimate, it felt like a superstar pretending to be shy. you knew just how easily she could unload, dominate the situation— pin you down by your wrists and eat you out within an inch of your life, because she had.

but now, she’s relenting, and it makes something within you burn, strengthening wildly to try and tame that beast that you knew sat fervent beneath her skin, to try and prove that caitlin didn’t always have to be caitlin clark, she could just be this.

just a pretty girl you wanted to fuck.

besides, maybe you were making up for lost time, returning favors you’d been too drunk and blissed out to give the first time around when she’d finished you off with fucking ease.

as soon as she’s exposed, her black sports bra yanked off with little effort to reveal her breasts beneath, pale and dotted with freckles, a red line from the band of it standing starkly against it, you find your mouth lowering to suckle on a spot near her nipple, teasing against the bud and licking gently at the skin until you hear her breath increase, breaking only slightly into a whine that makes you swallow hard.

you pull away, just to look at her— dark eyebrows furrowed, focused in a concentration that you can only discern as someone fighting for the need to control, to dictate, to display the same use of her strategic authority that she’s used time and time again on the court.

you decide in that moment, that you won’t let her.

“let me take care of you?” it comes out softer than you mean it to, and you can see the trust building within her, slow to register as safe— and you don’t blame her.

you both are practically strangers, knowing nothing of each other than drunken conversation that had turned too deep, nothing but the sound the other made when they came, the faces they made. it was intimately unfamiliar, and perhaps that’s where caitlin had found the solace.

maybe she knew that at this point in her career she wouldn’t have normalcy. it was practically impossible for any person knowledgeable in sports to not know her, or even just of her. to a further degree, even most, with the exception of being well versed in women’s sports, had at least heard of her, and that was simply a piece of herself that had been taken, one she’d never be able to retrieve.

but this, this might be the one standing, single piece of lucidity and realness that was hers— locked away in a hotel room in a city unfamiliar to the both of you, and it’s enough.

it’s enough for now.

“you wouldn’t even text me back.” she counters, but it’s clear in her tone, regardless of how ragged, that it’s to prod at you, and it works.

“shut up.” you murmur as you press your hands to her shoulders, push her back against the bed to straddle her fully as you brush your thumb over her abused nipple, reddened and too easy to bruise. she moans when you press on it, and it elicits a smirk to your face that’s impossible to hide. “you’re here now, aren’t you?”

for some reason, it causes a sad sort of smirk to her face that’s impossible to miss, regardless of how quickly she covers it with an exhale of want, one that you know isn’t feigned, “where else would i be?”

there’s a million answers to that. press, interviews, sleeping, with her fucking boyfriend, but you settle for a small smile, “good point.”

you hope it centers her a little when the bruising press of your fingers translate into something gentler, more of a caress against her chest that you trail up to her face, and it almost twists something inside of you to see the way her face relaxes, leans against it as if it was some type of treatment or medicine to some ailment you weren’t aware of.

you go to pull away, to begin working at the ties on her sweatpants to unwravel her even more, lost in the softness of the moment and yet still blinded by the hazy lust until she speaks, quiet and barely there.

“did you really think about me?”

it stuns you for half a second, because the simple confession hadn’t registered to you as something she’d recall, something she’d look to expand upon.

but you’d always been honest, brutally so.

“yeah,” you say it as if it was obvious, when truly it wasn’t, and more so, probably wasn’t reciprocated, “i had fun,” a gross understatement, a weak replacement for all that you really wanted to say. then, if not a bit more revealing of your inner voice, “didn’t you?”

caitlin makes a noise that resembles a huff, but it’s not impatient, it’s honest. you wonder how often she gets to do that. “you know i did.” it comes out like an admission of guilt, under her breath, yet her eyes are unrelenting as they are sincere and it makes your eyebrows lift.

it makes your breath halt slightly, “is… not having fun in your contract or something?” you lace it with a quiet chuckle, mostly because you don’t want to make it too deep, too revealing to ask, but part of you thinks it’s expanded beyond that already, had been since she'd called you at three in the morning, just to say that she'd seen you, that she wanted to see you again.

her hands rise from her sides to rest against your thighs, and the touch is welcome, one that you relax into before she manages a half smile, “might as well be.”

but then, you see that surge of confidence again, something in her eyes glimmering as she squeezes at the skin of your thighs, hard, but your eyes remain fixed, even as hers drop, almost shy in her show of strength. “it’s why… i’ve thought about you like, everyday since... final four?”

that certainly makes your breath halt, invoking a reaction in your stomach and between your legs that you choose to ignore as you swallow, thumb still slow in its brush against her cheek.

“yeah?” it comes out of you rough, and she grants you with a nod as a response, then, after only a moment, she whispers, an echo to your words from before. “so... is it bad that i missed you too?”

“god, shut up.” you repeat again, as if somehow that was a valid response to being told such a thing by a girl you’d only had met twice, by a girl you knew nothing about.

you wanna ask her a million questions, know anything and everything: ask her if she’s actually into girls, if she’s actually into her boyfriend. mainly, if she’s actually into this pedestal that she’d been thrust into, if the fame was too much, maybe if it was never enough.

but you settle for shutting her up for now, because you can see the way her chest rises and falls rapidly, can hear the strain that it took to admit, and you realize, selflessly, that maybe you won’t let yourself ask for more.

not now, anyway.

instead, you lean up, uncharacteristically tender as you slide your lips against hers, feels the way she relents against you, slow and subservient.

“can i show you how bad i missed you?” your fingers tease the edge of her sweatpants, and she lets out a creaking groan, head tilting back and eyes closing as if in exasperation, before she nods. “please.”

you get right to work.

it takes only a little bit of adjustment to get her pants off of her long legs, to reveal the simple pair of black boy shorts that she wore, before you can finally tease a finger against the soaked fabric, reveling in the wetness that you knew matched your own.

her hips jump up, caged in only by your legs as you arch your middle finger, riding the knuckle against her heat, watching the way her face twists only slightly, lips parted in silent noises that you wish you could beckon out of her.

it is fun, you realize in the back of your mind, to pull her apart like this. without the inebriation clouding your mind from the last time, you feel almost startlingly cognizant of your own movements, of her reactions.

when you finally pump your middle finger into her, you notice the way her stomach and abs flex involuntarily, the way her voice pitches up and almost keens in her throat, catching with every stuttered inhale.

when you lean down to press your lips against the slickness of her cunt, press the pad of your tongue to her clit, she says your name— loud. it’s something mixed between a whine and a plead, long, dexterous fingers tangling into your hair and holding on tight.

you devour her, tongue slow to slide against her slick folds, to feel the surge of wetness spill out around your fingers, mixed with your own saliva. you drink her in like she’s a potion, or an elixir, something that you swear you can find and savor if you just go deeper, harder.

it isn’t until you feel her thighs tense, clamping around your head as she lets out a sound close to a gasping breath, marked with a moan that makes your head spin— she sounds so fucking desperate, and you’re bound and determined to give her exactly what she wants. what she deserves, really.

she comes on your fingers, in your mouth, and you relish every bit of it, quick to clean up the excess with fervor. she’s sensitive still, her breath huffing out whenever you breach too close to her clit, but you’re gentle. that’s what this was all about, right?

it’s quiet after the storm, your wrist sore and mouth wet as you sit up a bit, eyes careful to observe how hard her chest rises and falls. the way her hair, having fallen from its loose bun, sat in messy waves around her face, nothing like the impeccably straightened strands you’d seen at the draft, and it sort of makes you smile in an off handed way that you can’t explain, especially not when she opens her eyes finally to look at you.

“quit.” she says, and there’s a smile, tired and breathless, teasing at her own mouth as the hand that had fisted your tangled locks finally released, dragging down the side of your head to push your chin away lightly,

you can’t help but snicker, raising a brow, “what?” she rolls her eyes, and you repeat yourself, this time with a snort, “sorry, you’re just— you just look pretty like this.”

it’s hard to pretend that something inside of you doesn’t wince when her smile drops slightly, and you pretend like it isn’t uncommon to compliment the stranger you just ate out with such sincerity and honesty.

she’s slow when she says it, “...you always look pretty.” and it sounds wistful, murmured in a way that you can’t help but flush a bit at, as you roll your eyes now as if to return the favor, “you’ve only seen me twice, drunk, in sweats.”

but for some reason, that makes her smile return and for half a second, you let yourself pretend.

that maybe, this random series of hookups between you two weren’t fueled by some weird attraction slash escapism slash secret infidelity that had to be shared between you, or tucked away from the world. for half a second, she wasn’t caitlin clark, women’s basketball superstar, future member of the indiana fever.

she was cait, a girl you’d met at a bar that you’d hooked up with who just happened to see you again, and maybe, if you were a little dumber, and maybe a bit drunker, you’d admit to yourself that there’s a part of you that likes her, and each time you’d thought about her in the past few weeks, it had become achingly apparent.

but, you’re smarter than that, and definitely not drunk enough, so you pretend that her next words don’t make your heart skip multiple beats, as if it doesn’t cause a flutter in your chest.

“still,” she scoffs, and she’s sitting up a little, her hand having laid lazily against her stomach, reaches over to grasp your wrist, almost absently, “plus, i saw you earlier tonight, in that dress?”

it shouldn’t make you almost stunned into silence, but it fucking does.

“sorry— not to like, be weird and say i was looking for you but, i dunno, i just— i remember you saying something about UCONN, so i just assumed you'd be ther—“

you’re kissing her before even you can register what she’s saying, or why she says it all in this shy, almost sheepish tone that fills you with a flood of endorphins, butterflies being set alight inside of you.

“god, you’re so…” you’re not sure where you’re going with it, but you can’t help the way your hand comes up to hold the side of her face, dip your thumb against her bottom lip as if to make her taste herself, all as your eyes watched, lidded and fixed.

then, you exhale, only a whisper, “i’m gonna get you in trouble.” you manage to say, despite the very obvious fact that watching her suck on your finger is doing unspeakable things to you, before you drag the wet digit out, her bottom lip pulling only slightly.

“with who?” she says it almost as if you both know the answer, both thinking about the multitude of bigger names and bigger people who had long since been the determinant in caitlin’s career— at least from the little that you knew— and it lapses you both in a measured silence.

until she speaks, and it’s quiet, and sincere. “you’re just like… the only thing in my life right now that has nothing to do with basketball.”

it's a compliment, wrapped up in something a lot more sad, a lot more sincere. it shouldn’t make you want to hug her, but it does, so, you do.

your arms twine around her neck slowly, your face lowering to bury against her neck, just beneath her chin, and you can feel her chest vibrate slightly with a chuckle or a laugh, before her arms are around you, squeezing you tight, “don’t go all sappy on me, dude.” she murmurs, but it’s present in the way she doesn’t pull from it, or really, the way she fucking clutches onto you, almost desperately, that you pretend once again that this doesn’t mean anything. that this is traditional, hookup behavior, and that once she leaves this hotel room, everything will shift right back into place.

a place where caitlin clark gets to be caitlin clark and you get to be you, and there’s no overlap.

except, that doesn’t happen.

no, instead, once you pull away from the hug she kisses you again, hungrier this time, her hands sliding from your back to your hips so she can hook fingers in the edge of your panties, urging you to sit up on your knees so she can pull them down.

instead, she lets you ride her thigh— both hands firm and strong, her own biceps lfexing to keep you glued to her thick, muscle corded thigh, your cunt unforgivably wet as she dragged your hips down, over and over.

your head tips forward to press to her forehead, and she kisses you through each desperate cry that escapes your lips, the friction and slide becoming wetter, slicker by the moment, drawing these high pitched noises from your throat that you know caitlin is drinking in, all while she murmurs to you in this soft little voice, “show me good it feels, lemme hear you.”

in the end, you both pass out there, somewhat in a laying position as caitlin lays on her back, arms loosely wrapped around you, who’s laying stomach down atop of her, a thigh lazily hiked up to hang against her hip, your face pressed into her neck.

it’s fucking bizarre when you think about it.

how you both had talked more than you ever had before, and when you look back on it in the morning, nothing but a ghostly reminder of her presence by the sheets that lay strewn about, the undeniable smell of sex and sweat that still hung in the air, you pretend like you don’t realize just how little you still knew about her, and just how much that you wished you knew.

you also pretend like you don’t miss her, or that when you’re gathering your clothes to check out, a soreness in your body unlike one you’ve really ever felt, you’re practically stunned to see her faded, gray, IOWA shirt, thrown lazily over the desk chair that makes you wonder just how accidental it was for her to leave it.

you wear it anyway,

it isn’t until you make it back to connecticut, making up some excuse for your friends as to how you hadn’t been able to meet up with caitlin, how she’d been too busy anyway and you’d spent the night drinking at a bar, that maybe, just maybe, there was a part of you that wanted to keep her protected, confidential.

maybe it was the post-sex fueled lust that wanted you to keep it close to your chest, a dirty secret only for you to enjoy, or maybe it came from somewhere softer, somewhere that remembered how caitlin had such little privacy, that it almost hits you like a pang just how much you wanted her to still have that, even if it was at the expense of not seeing your friends faces when you told them that you guys had hooked up, again. even if she'd never know that you didn't say a word.

fuck it. it’s the least you could do.

you try not to think about her for days really, not until you’re doing laundry and come across the grey t-shirt, deciding only then that you’d pull up your goddamn bootstraps and finally send a message.

it’s cheeky, the wrinkled t-shirt thrown on over your underwear, leaving your thighs on display and the peek of a hip that you know is intentional before you snap a picture, sending it with little hesitation, and subsequently throwing your phone afterwards at the bed.

“you left something”

cc loved your message, “you left something”

“i know”

“guess i’ll have to come get it back”

it’s stupid, you know it is, but it makes you smile, typing with an urgency only known when texting back the pretty girl you like, before you send it, bottom lip teased between your teeth.

“how close are you to connecticut?”

#caitlin clark x reader #caitlin clark smut #wcbb x reader #guys is this gonna become a series #im scared #caitlin clark

736 notes · View notes

taexual · 9 months ago

Text

sleepwalking ● 19 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, ANGST & FLUFF (i mean it, watch out), SLOW BURN

words: 14.5k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 19 ► so dig two graves, ‘cause when you die, i swear i’ll be leaving by your side

When the tour bus arrived in Glasgow, you realised that you had slept perhaps a quarter of an hour in total tonight. Discomfort and Regret had become unwelcome companions that kept you up.

Last night, you had planned to talk to Jungkook, but he flipped the script and did all the talking instead. And if you had to describe your choices from then on, you’d have to accept that, essentially, you had run away without saying anything.

You realised now, through tossing and turning in your bunk the whole bus journey, that this was your recurring pattern.

When you and Jungkook first broke up, you’d barricaded yourself in your apartment and only ventured outside when it was unavoidable, like to go to work. Or when your friends forced you out of bed. They tolerated your need for silence in moderation—a few days of self-imposed isolation were okay. But two consecutive weeks was a little excessive.

In Stockholm, the impulse to run away had gripped you right after your conversation on the bridge sank abruptly in the waters below. In Oslo, you had actually run away after you’d almost kissed. You could still feel the shivers on your skin from the cold night air on the rooftop terrace. And, of course, you’d also planned to avoid him when you arrived in Manchester.

It was a pattern that was doomed to end in failure every time, yet you stubbornly refused to give it up.

You wanted to escape the feelings that frightened you, but they only ran faster. They chased after you like daunting shadows. They caught up with you. They engulfed you.

This perpetual cycle wasn’t just futile, it was also unfair—to you and to Jungkook. And to Rated Riot, too.

It had gone on for too long.

You were determined to redeem that today.

While Jungkook and the boys were doing an interview on a local radio station after the soundcheck, you chose to stay at the venue to work. Initially, you only intended to answer internal company emails and update the label executives, but unsurprisingly, that morphed into more tasks that needed your immediate attention.

Seated at your laptop in the band’s dressing room, you spent a good couple of hours finalising Rated Riot’s schedule for the rest of the week, emailing back journalists and verifying their credentials before issuing backstage passes for upcoming interviews, and humming along to a tune playing in your headphones.

It was then—during the chorus of an old Bad Omens song that was loud and messy enough to keep your mind alert and focused—that Seokjin decided to tap you on the back.

You jumped up as high as it was humanly possible and pushed your laptop away as if to protect it from intruders—which was what your mind assumed Seokjin to be, apparently. He took a step back, shocked and very entertained by your violent startle.

“Shit, sorry,” he said, attempting to suppress a smile. “You’ve been—you’ve been working here by yourself for hours. I’m taking a coffee break. Want to join me?”

With one hand pressed to your chest, you slid your headphones off and checked the time on the corner of your laptop screen. “Uh, sure. Coffee sounds nice.”

The two of you found a quaint café a few blocks from Barrowland where Rated Riot would be playing later that evening. But despite the cosy setting, you chose to grab your coffee to-go. It was a warm, sunny day outside. Seokjin thought you could use some fresh air.

“So,” he said eagerly, as soon as the café bell tinkled, announcing your exit, “what’s on your mind?”

You met his question with surprise. “What do you mean?”

He maintained an air of nonchalance, sipping his Americano and observing casually, “your pupils are massive. You look like you’re planning a revolution. Or a massacre.”

You took a sip of your drink and regretted not stirring the caramel in better. You wondered what it would be by the end of tonight: revolution or massacre.

“I was—well, it’s nothing much,” you said. “I was just thinking that things might be different when we got home.”

“How so?”

The two of you crossed the street towards a small, vibrant green space—not quite a park—with a tree-lined pathway in the middle and an old blue police box nearby, reminiscent of Doctor Who.

“Well,” you said, “I hear Brazil is really nice that time of year.”

“You’re thinking of going on holiday?” Seokjin asked, surprised. He’s known you since you joined the company, even before you started to manage Rated Riot, and he was well aware of your lack of holidays. The HR department, however, remained blissfully ignorant about it.

You shrugged. “For starters.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll see.”

The ambiguity in your response wasn’t worrying in itself, but combined with your reluctance to meet his gaze and the intense concentration on your coffee—even though you winced every time you took a sip—it was certainly alarming.

“You’re not… going to quit, are you?” he asked hesitantly. “I’ve heard about Reconnaissance.”

Of course, he’d heard. At this point, enough people knew about it for the news to have a ripple effect and circulate backstage.

“No,” you said, trying to dispel the tension with an airy laugh. “Of course not.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“I’d find a replacement first.”

Seokjin’s casual stride came to an abrupt halt. A few steps ahead, you realised he’d stopped and turned around.

“No,” he said.

His firm declaration made you stutter. “Th-that—that wasn’t a question.”

“And that’s not an option,” he argued. “You can’t quit.”

“I’m not saying I’m leaving for sure. I’m just saying that if I did leave, you wouldn’t even notice the difference,” you said. “I’m a very good teacher.”

With that, you started to walk away, leaving him little choice but to catch up.

“And I love all of you guys,” you continued while Seokjin grunted next to you. “I wouldn’t leave you with someone I didn’t personally trust to take care of you and the band.”

He shook his head, his determination unwavering. If he had known about the band members’ conviction that no one would blame you if you left Rated Riot due to the alluring offer from Reconnaissance, Seokjin might have been tempted to express his disagreement with his fists.

Of course, people would blame you—Seokjin was the people in question.

You belonged here. You were an essential part of the team.

He was convinced of this, and he was going to be annoying about it.

“Okay, I appreciate that,” he said, his tone tinged with incredulity. “Except, what the fuck are you thinking? Of course, we’d notice the difference! You’re you. We love you.”

“That means a lot—”

“But not enough?”

You hesitated, caught off guard by the intensity of his anger. “No, it’s—”

“Alright, look.” He stopped walking again, the paper cup of coffee in his hand more of an accessory than a beverage. “Is this about Jungkook?”

An unexpected heat surged through you and a cascade of excuses immediately raced through your mind. You scanned the pathway, reading the names of the bands imprinted into the pavement with colourful stripes—artists who’d performed at Barrowland before, you assumed—so you wouldn’t have to look at him.

But this was Seokjin. If there was anyone who knew everything that was going on in the band, it was him. You didn’t want to give him pretend reasons.

“In part,” you admitted.

“Well, if that’s the case, then it’s an even more definite no,” he asserted, his resolve unyielding.

You sighed and attempted to smile, but there was a hint of awkwardness in your expression. “I’m not taking votes, Jin. I’ll talk to Jungkook about this, and—”

“You can talk to anyone you like. All the gods you can find, even,” he interrupted. “But you’re not leaving.”

“Jin—”

“Look, when you accepted this job, the fact that you and Jungkook used to know each other didn’t matter,” he stated, tactfully omitting the word ‘relationship’—a nuance you appreciated. “What difference does it make now?”

As you bit your lip and lowered your eyes, Seokjin sensed that there was a difference, after all. It occurred to him that perhaps he wasn’t entirely up to speed on everything that was happening on the tour, after all.

“Okay, you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m not asking you to,” he said, his words gentle, but his tone strict. “What I’m saying is that nobody cares. You can date, you can break up, you can—I don’t know. You can pretty much do anything as long as you don’t kill each other. No one cares.”

“The label cares,” you blurted, the words unpolished and agitated. “I care.”

He waved his free hand dismissively. “The label cares about profit. We’re making a profit from you both. Maybe even more when you’re together because you’re both less annoying that way.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “How are we annoying?”

“Are you kidding? All mopey and sulky?” He stuck his tongue out and pretended to gag. “You make me sick and miserable.”

You snickered softly at the dramatic display. “Fair. Sorry. But fact is, it’s still a good opportunity.”

“Well, sure,” he conceded. “But is that really the reason you want to leave? Or is it because you think that what you’re doing with Jungkook is wrong? You think others will disapprove or think less of you. You think this is highly unprofessional, and it would make more sense to work elsewhere.”

It felt oddly incongruous to hear him articulate—so easily, without a moment’s hesitation—everything that you had been thinking.

“Well, that’s a factor, too, of course…” you said, your voice faltering.

“I think that’s the main factor.”

Taking a sip of your coffee, you mumbled, “I think you think too much.”

“I think you don’t think enough,” he countered. “You can’t leave, not even for Reconnaissance. You’re part of the team, our team. We all are.”

You looked at him, and he raised his eyebrows expectantly—waiting, clearly, for you to admit defeat.

While you didn’t technically need his consent to quit, the sheer determination in his stance made you feel as though his approval was, indeed, a prerequisite for anyone choosing to leave.

“Now you’re making me feel guilty,” you said.

“As you should!” he said—nearly bellowing in his frustration. “But you should feel guilty about mistakenly thinking that you should leave. Not about being in love with him.”

His words struck a deep chord and your heart began to rattle violently in your chest. “I’m—right. Yeah. I need to talk to him about—about everything.”

His tone softened at your reaction.

“I think you should sit down for ten minutes and gather your thoughts before you do that,” he advised. “You should sit and accept that we don’t care if you go out with Jungkook. Whatever you decide, we’re all cool with it. As long as you are, too.”

Afraid that your eyes would betray your thoughts, you shifted your gaze to the silver barks of the graceful birch trees around you. “Do you know about the bet?”

Seokjin took a slow sip of his coffee to allow more time between these overlapping conversations.

“Yeah,” he said. “Is that... uh, have you two worked it out?”

“We’ve—I think we have. I think the bet wasn’t even the main issue, actually, it just—it sort of highlighted all our problems,” you admitted. “We—we’ll have to work through the rest.”

“Right. Okay,” he said. The sun rolled out from behind the buildings, casting a golden glow on the trees and the empty path ahead of you. He squinted and took a sip of his coffee before speaking. “Well, then I can safely tell you that everyone backstage knows about it.”

The disappointment on your face was absolute. “Oh. That—that’s lovely.”

He smiled sympathetically as the two of you continued down the faintly coloured path. Despite the sunshine, the cool breeze toyed relentlessly with the edges of your jackets.

“Don’t worry about it too much, though,” he said. “It’s nothing more than a silly joke backstage. We’re not judging either of you.”

You did worry about it. “What… do you mean by ‘silly joke,’ exactly?”

The two of you arrived at a large sycamore tree with leaves that glimmered in emerald hues under the sun, and Seokjin stopped, grateful for the shade.

“One of the roadies started it,” he explained. “It was just a game. A bet, actually! Funny.” He chuckled at the irony, but stopped himself when he noticed your stoic expression. “Anyway. Someone suggested that Jungkook’s friends were trying to sabotage your relationship by making this bet with him. So, we bet on Jungkook fighting his friends for you. Which—that cost me money, actually. When he showed up at the airport in Cologne with a black eye, I lost fifty euros.”

It took you a minute to process this, and you felt so uncomfortable that your fists itched with an urge to fight someone, too.

“You—so, you bet that he wouldn’t fight his friends?” you clarified, almost hopeful.

“No. I bet that he would,” he said. “But I got too big-headed and bragged about how he wouldn’t miss a single punch. So, everyone claimed that I lost and took my money. Really, I thought he knew how to fight. And he was doing it for a noble cause.” A dramatic pause ensued, and then Seokjin smirked. “I mean you, by the way.”

“No, yeah, I got that,” you said bitterly. “But you didn’t even know the actual—everyone just assumed he had a black eye because of me?”

He pulled his lips together to stifle a chuckle as he moved his cup of coffee away.

“Can you blame us?” he asked with a leisurely shrug. “He’s in love with you, and his friends are complete idiots. And then he shows up with a black eye! The dots connected themselves. Although, personally, I thought Luna or Maggie could have socked him in the eye, too. You three are very protective of each other.”

You tilted your head, your posture a warning. “I see. So, we’re a telenovela to you. Did you bet that I would knock someone out if I found out what you were up to?”

“Not yet,” he said, clearly delighted by the prospect of this happening in the future.

“Did you get your money back at least?”

“Yeah. But then I lost it again.”

The leaves of the sycamore tree rustled impatiently as you groaned. “How?”

“Another bet,” he said. “Some people—including Jimin, by the way—thought that Jungkook’s friends would never come to another Rated Riot show. In the UK specifically. We were very specific about the details in this bet.”

“Right, of course.”

He smirked, unapologetic about the amusement he derived from this. There were all sorts of games happening backstage at any given point in the tour; nearly everything became a joke here. And Seokjin hoped to show you that yes, people did know about you and Jungkook. But unless they could find ways to make it funny, they didn’t care.

He could tell that the more he talked to you about this, the more you started to recognise the absurdity of it all, too.

“Right. Well, Jimin won that round. I actually—I thought Jungkook would change his mind and bring his friends back,” Seokjin confessed. “Serves me right. I should have trusted him more.”

You raised your cup in his direction.

“Yeah,” you said. “Serves you right for making bets about this. He blacklisted Sid.”

“He—oh!” Seokjin seemed very pleased to hear this. “Well, that was worth my money, then.”

“Hmm.”

He grinned, the mischief still lingering in his eyes.

“We have another bet going on,” he said.

“Anoth—well, of course.” Your teeth dug into the coffee lid as you tried to take a sip, but reconsidered. “So, what? Who’s getting a black eye this time?”

“It’s whether you’ll get back together.”

Your irritation wavered in surprise. A rustling stirred inside you as though you had swallowed the wind and carried it within.

“Well,” you said. “Where’d you place your bets?”

“Drink your coffee,” he said. You did. It had cooled and turned unpleasantly sweet as the caramel settled. “I haven’t bet on that yet. But if you told me if you’re considering going back to him, I could win my money back.”

You made sure to swallow before looking up.

“That’s not solely up to me, though,” you said, sensing an obvious defensive undertone in your own voice. You didn’t make much effort to conceal it; he would have read right through you anyway. “A relationship typically involves two people. I can’t force him to be in it.”

Seokjin offered a patient smile.

“Please,” he said. “Everyone knows he’d burn down half of Europe for you.”

You swallowed again.

It was just you. The only one still fighting it.

“Well, in any case—” Seokjin said, distracted, suddenly, by a particularly cheeky pigeon that kept flying up to your ankles, then to your knees. “That bird is going to steal your coffee.”

You glanced down, and the shift in your position frightened the pigeon into flying a few metres away. Seokjin nodded in approval.

“Anyway,” he said. “What I meant to say is that I don’t know how much my opinion is worth, but if the only reason you’re considering quitting is because of this, then that’s nothing. You sit down, you work through your problems, you get back together, and you’re good to go. Well, good to stay. It’s up to you. No one else cares.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Everyone’s talking. They’re making bets about us. We—we’re a joke backstage. And yet you think we should get back together?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Give us something else to bet on.”

Exasperation flashed across your face. “I’m thinking I’d like to sic that pigeon on you a little bit.”

“Oh, but what would you do without me?” He was grinning in a manner so endearing and genuine that you felt your lips stretch into a defeated smile as well. “You know we’re family. That is what we do. And you said it yourself – everyone’s already talking. And no one’s truly bothered by it. You might as well do what you want.”

You took a big gulp of your coffee to finish it.

Some of the humour faded from his eyes while he watched you. He looked around—to make sure the pigeon hadn’t returned and to gather his thoughts.

“Just think about it, okay?” he said. “You know how they say ‘measure twice, cut once’? Why don’t you measure three times? Four, even. Five. Or, I don’t know, as many times as it takes until you realise that there’s no need to cut anything. Everything’s great as it is.”

Your face felt warm. “That’s very profound.”

“It is.” He nodded, his exaggerated confidence faltering a little when he saw the gratitude in your eyes and suddenly found himself timid. “I’ve also got a few carpentry jokes if you’re in the mood for those.”

Laughing finally, you shook your head. “Maybe later. But thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “And notice how I’m not saying ‘anytime’? Because there can’t be another time that this happens. In fact, the next time I see you, it’ll be as if we never had this conversation.”

Still smiling despite his threatening tone, you put your palm to your forehead and extended your fingers in a salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

He nodded, content with your response.

“Now go back to that café and bring me a scone,” he ordered, his expression bright again. “I got distracted by your misery and forgot to buy one.”

You snorted and nodded—you did owe him a scone, at the very least. Seokjin stepped deeper into the shade by the tree and waited while you jogged back towards the café. He looked up to see your lighthearted expression reflected in the window across the street and felt himself exhale in relief.

He’d done his job—you knew everyone needed you here.

You returned to the venue with enough scones for the whole staff, and as you passed them out, almost everyone on the team regarded you with a mix of curiosity and anticipation. It was a nice change from their earlier concerns about your health, but you still felt uncomfortable.

There was an obvious reason you enjoyed working backstage: here, you successfully evaded the spotlight. You did your work quietly and got to spend time with your friends.

But lately, you’d been feeling everyone’s eyes on you and, naturally, your instinctive reaction was to flee. Really, this had to be inherent; you wondered if your brother shared a similar flight-or-flight-never-fight response when confronted with an uncomfortable situation.

And still, you forced yourself to wait.

Following your conversation with Seokjin, you decided on the key points that you needed to discuss with Jungkook. And they were simple: share your thoughts with him and make a decision together.

You’ve never really tried this with him before; open communication was a recent development for the two of you. But you meant what you told Seokjin: a relationship involved two people. And regardless of what -ship you and Jungkook were currently in, your decisions still influenced his, and his influenced yours.

You had hoped to speak to him after he returned from his interview, but it was almost funny how time worked against you today.

After the band returned, you went to help Jungkook with his bandages, and the company executives decided to respond to your email with a phone call. And so, you were forced to stay on the phone with the label the whole time before Rated Riot went on stage.

That was okay. You figured you would talk to Jungkook later.

But later just wouldn’t come.

After the concert, you waited for the band to finish taking pictures with their fans before you took them to another interview with several more radio hosts. And when you returned to the bus, the curtains on Jungkook’s bunk were drawn. You didn’t want to wake him in case he was asleep.

The only time you finally had direct contact with Jungkook was on the plane to London. He surprised you by approaching you from behind and casually lifting your carry-on to the overhead compartment. Then, as though he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, he turned around to return to his seat.

“Wait,” you called out. “Can I—can we talk? Yoongi said he’d switch seats with me.”

Jungkook stopped, his stomach sinking. He was the undefeated champion of misinterpreting situations—he hadn’t forgotten how your conversation had ended last night, but he still thought this was about Sid.

Because while you were beating yourself up about your avoidant tendencies, Jungkook was grappling with a different problem.

Since this morning, he had been bombarded with incessant text messages from an unknown number that ranged from vaguely bothersome (“UR SO DUMB LMSAO”) to genuinely threatening (“DNOT THINK THS IS OVER YOU FUCKVING CUNT”). All texts contained a certain distinctiveness: full capitalisation, typos, and a disturbing scent of wounded ego.

It was Sid, Jungkook was absolutely sure of it.

He seemed to be in a white powder induced frenzy, which wasn’t particularly unusual—Jungkook didn’t think he could remember the last time Sid had been completely sober—but the frequency of the texts was a little unsettling. Jungkook thought the bet was over now, even if Sid wasn’t satisfied. But clearly, Sid was craving something more.

Jungkook wasn’t sure how you would know about this or why you would bring it up now, but he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket again, and he thought this had to be the reason why.

“Sure,” he said, trying to mask his apprehension. He turned on airplane mode on his phone and looked up. “What’s, uh—what’s going on?”

You gestured at his seat. He sat down with bated breath—as if his life was about to change and he needed to brace for it—and waited for you to settle beside him.

“I wanted to, uh, explain myself,” you began as the plane filled. The rhythmic sound of people shuffling across the aisle was oddly soothing. Jungkook, however, appeared perplexed. “And to thank you, actually. For being there when I—well, when all of that happened. I’m sorry I caused—”

“You’ve already thanked me,” he interjected. “And you better not tell me that you’re apologising for fainting right now.”

“I’m—well, I’m just saying, you were right,” you said, disheartened by the disbelief in his eyes. You placed your water bottle on the fold-out tray and shifted in your seat. “I should have known better. Rested more. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sorry I didn’t listen, and it all led to... that.”

He sighed. This wasn’t about Sid; this was about something worse.

“That’s who you are, though,” he said. He should have known this would be something you would blame yourself for once you recovered. “You always have to get everything done, or you—you can’t sleep. You need to, uh, work on that, but you don’t need to apologise for it.”

You looked down, tracing a shaky finger over the armrest between your seats.

“And,” he added before you could speak, “to be fair, a lot of things that happened on tour were actually out of your control. You had no choice but to put in extra time and effort, I guess. The stage constructions collapsed, the venue was flooded—”

“Right, but these—well, anyway,” you cut yourself off, reverting to your original train of thought. “I’m sorry you had to drop everything a-and worry about me. Well, not just you; the whole thing ended up being a big scene that disrupted everyone. But I—I wanted to say this to you, first of all.”

He observed you for a long moment. Between the truce you’ve decided on in your hotel room, the conversation he’d overheard about your meeting with Nick, and the disturbing messages from an unknown number, Jungkook was having a hard time comprehending what he’d done to warrant an apology from you right now.

Then, a troubling thought occurred to him: what if this was your way of saying goodbye?

He had let you go last night. What if you had decided to leave, and this was the prelude to the end of your time together?

“I’m—I didn’t have to do it,” he said. “I did it because I—well, I mean, you were passed out. Of course, I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He leaned forward in his seat. “It kind of sounds like you’re forgetting that you’re not just the manager here. You’re also my—uh, y-you’re our friend. We all would have acted the same way if it had been anyone else. It’s an ‘all for one, and one for all’ situation with us. You know that.”

He was right; your team had grown so close that none of you would have hesitated to help each other. Your unease simply stemmed from the fact that you were the one receiving help this time.

You swallowed. You thought you owed him an explanation about everything, but you haven’t even really gotten to it yet.

“Thank you,” you said. “For what you said and—and for what you did. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He gave you a hesitant smile. “Was I really so terrible at taking care of you that it made you change your workaholic ways?”

You raised your eyebrows, surprised by the gentle teasing in his words.

“No, you di—you were great. Except for the fact that you didn’t need to do that,” you said, shooting him a look that he promptly rolled his eyes at. You added, “I say that with gratitude, of course. But, um, I felt very uncomfortable just lying there while everyone else—well, can’t let that happen again. Anyway, this isn’t—”

“I hope it won’t happen again,” he interrupted. “But it’s—well, you’ve spent your whole life taking care of... everything. Your brother, your mum, uh, e-even me. It’s second nature to you, I don’t know how else to—you can’t help but actively try to fix things. So, I-I don’t mind being the person who reminds you to take it easy sometimes. I just want you to listen.”

He’d said something very similar to you last night and you dug your teeth into your lower lip so you wouldn’t argue.

You thought you weren’t doing a very good job of fixing things—nevermind that you’ve subconsciously turned absolutely everything around you into your personal responsibility, and it was simply unrealistic to take care of it all.

“Thank you,” you chose to say. “I just, um—I don’t want you to think I’m talking to you so you’d make me feel better. You don’t need to do that. And it’s my turn to expla—”

He whipped his head to look at you so suddenly—an almost offended expression on his face—that the rest of your sentence got caught in your throat.

“Wh—why do you always think that?” he asked. “That I do something for you because I feel like I have to?”

“I don’t—I know you’re not—ah.” Leaning back in your seat, you attempted to rearrange your thoughts as if you were shuffling stubborn cards in a deck—trying to find the one you needed to win a game against yourself. “That’s not even the main thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” he said, a little worried. “What is the main thing?”

It took you a moment to find your breath.

“The conversation that we had last night—well, not just last night, actually, it’s been happening for a while. But, uh, last night specifically—it wasn’t supposed to end like that,” you said. He lowered his eyes. “That’s what I wanted to, um—to bring up. Because we’re not talking again, you know? I mean—okay. That’s not true. You are talking. But I’m not. I-I think it’s still new to me that we’re—that we’re actually talking about things. About everything. I’m sorry I haven’t said much to you in return.”

You exhaled when you finished speaking—finished stammering, really—but you didn’t feel relieved. There was a lot more you had to say.

Jungkook, on the other hand, felt his thoughts drift back to Amsterdam once again, when he had entered your hotel room to apologise, and you told him you forgave him and apologised in return. He remembered the pained, laboured beating of his heart as he listened to you—thinking, all the while, that he had no right to want you all for himself.

Now, he had some additional time to think about how to respond, because the flight attendant started the safety demonstration at the front of the plane, preparing for take-off.

He fastened his seatbelt, relieved by the silence on his phone—but the quiet pause between you as the plane lifted off the runway felt very loud in his head.

“You know,” he said after a few minutes, “you find the weirdest things to feel guilty about.”

You furrowed your brows while Jungkook idly twirled the onyx signet ring on his index finger.

“You’re never obligated to respond to what I tell you,” he said. “I didn’t say any of those things to you in Manchester in exchange for your immediate forgiveness, or for some similar stories, or for—anything, really. You don’t owe me anything. I just wanted to tell you everything, and that’s it.”

“I-I get that,” you shifted in your seat, restricted by the seatbelt, “but I’m your manager. And I-I left you in a confusing, stressful situation by yourself when I refused to talk to you right away. That was—it was unprofessional at best, and cruel at—”

“You’re more than that to me, though,” he cut in. You gripped the armrest tighter. “You know that. And you didn’t… leave me in that situation as my manager. You left me there as my ex-girlfriend. You have that right. You were confused and stressed, too.”

Your gaze slid over his black and grey flannel and the t-shirt with a Rated Riot logo underneath. The plane cruised at the designated altitude, but you still felt pushed into your seat like you had during take-off.

“I don’t—I’m not sure those two roles can be separated any longer,” you admitted.

Oh, whispered an alarmed pang of his heart. And, oh? echoed the multitude of shivers rippling underneath his skin.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

You drew in a breath. You didn’t want to start from the beginning because you had a feeling that he might not let you get to the end, so you decided to start from the explanation—the one that you’d come here to give him, but kept getting sidetracked as he responded to you in ways you weren’t anticipating.

“People on tour,” you began, “are very invested in our, uh—situation.”

Jungkook arched an eyebrow. “They’re invested?”

“Apparently, we’re a popular topic backstage.”

Quickly enough, he thought he figured out your implication: if he hadn’t played along with Sid, the staff on this tour might have been having very different conversations.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, that’s not—well, it’s not just your fault,” you replied. “It takes two, right?”

“Right, but I was the one who made the bet.”

“You—okay. But this isn’t about the bet—” you paused. Reconsidered. “Well, alright, the bet sort of kick-started a lot of things, but it’s not—that’s not the problem from my point of view right now.”

Oh, once more. And then, ah.

You were talking, he realised, about the things you didn’t want to talk about in your hotel room in Manchester. The things you’ve affectionately labelled as “a confusing, stressful situation.” The things you were supposed to discuss later, when the time was right. Except he had succumbed to the terminal case of nothing-matters-anymore-if-you’re-leaving-the-band and got drunk instead.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s… fine with me.”

“Alright,” you said. “So, here’s our problem: I’m your manager.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows and pulled his chin back.

“If that’s our only problem,” he said, “we are very lucky people.”

A brief smile flickered on your face.

“It’s our biggest problem,” you clarified. “But we definitely are lucky.”

Encouraged by the amusement in your eyes, he grinned. “Because we have each other?”

Your smile grew and even the plane itself seemed to shake a little when his heart rate accelerated at the sight of it.

“Because we can solve this problem,” you said.

His face fell. He thought he could guess where you were going with this.

“How do you mean?” he still asked, his voice a low murmur.

You thought you could have used some of the whiskey that Jungkook had sought out last night.

With a measured breath, you said, “I leave the band, and—”

“Wait,” he cut you off. “Is that supposed to be—”

“Hear me out first—”

“No, listen—if the problem is that you’re my manager,” he said, “then you leaving Rated Riot is not the solution.”

Jungkook sounded a little like Seokjin had earlier—a stark contrast from the way he’d spoken to you last night by the bus.

“Are you suggesting that because people are talking about us backstage?” he pressed.

You turned away. “It’s not just that. I mean, they’re already talking and that’s—well, it’s not great. But we can’t stop the wheel from turning now, or however that saying goes. What we can do, however, is stop it before it gets worse. And by that I mean, you know—we need to decide what the hell we’re doing.”

That was what he wanted, he thought. But now he was confused.

You seemed to want to make a decision about your relationship together. Yet you also seemed to believe that leaving Rated Riot was the best option. He failed to see how both of these things were possible at the same time.

“So, you’ve made up your mind, then?” he asked. “About leaving?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” you said. “I don’t want to leave the band, but—”

“Well, that’s the thing, then,” he said sharply, unfastening his seatbelt. Turning to face you, he stumbled over his own confusion, “I’m—I don’t want to hold you back. I told you. But I thought you—I thought it would be—I thought you wanted to leave. I thought—but you want to stay. So, stay.”

Stay.

It was very simple, really, very concise. But it carried a lot more weight than his words last night when he had caught you off guard. When he had let you go.

You wanted to stay. You just didn’t think you should.

Your response wasn’t particularly verbal. “Hmm.”

“Is it me?” Jungkook asked. “Am I the only reason you’re thinking of leaving?”

He didn’t sound accusatory, even though you were prepared for it. He sounded apologetic instead—almost guilty—and you were completely unprepared for that as a million tiny needles pricked at your heart.

“You’re not the only reason,” you replied. “You’re part of it. And I don’t—look, I-I don’t want to leave. But that sounds reasonable when you look at where we are right now.”

He heard nothing of what you’d said.

“That’s not reasonable in the slightest,” he insisted.

“Jungkook—”

“You have to stay. If you—”

“But if that’s the choice that would make more sense for us,” you interjected, exasperated, “then I don’t mind leaving. If—if we weren’t working together anymore, then maybe we could try to finally figure our shit out.”

Now he heard it.

He had a vague awareness that the other passengers behind you had turned off their screens and removed their headphones, choosing to listen to your conversation instead. But he was too stunned by the look in your eyes to care.

So, that was what you were trying to say: you were prepared to leave Rated Riot to fix your relationship.

He opened his mouth to speak, but it took another minute for coherent words to come to him.

“We can—we can figure our shit out while working together,” he said. “Why do you have to leave?”

“It’s—you have to understand,” you said, “that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m pretty sure neither do you, but that’s how you usually function.” Jungkook sobered up enough to offer a noncommittal shrug. You continued, “but for me—this is freaking me out. I don’t—I don’t know what’s going to happen and what we should do, and—leaving the band sounds—it seems reasonable. It seems safe. Smart. And that’s what I’m clinging to.”

He swallowed, not trusting himself to move. “But that’s—”

“Please, it’s—this is what I wanted to say to you—what I should have said to you last night.” There was a pleading tone in your voice. He nodded, quiet while you continued. “If I stay with Rated Riot, and we try to solve our problems… there are only two ways that can go, right? We both know as much. Either we get back together, or we don’t.”

Jungkook was mesmerised by how glaringly simple this was, in principle: either you used a label on your relationship, or you didn’t.

He knew he was going to love you either way, but he couldn’t breathe, suddenly, at the thought of this other choice in this dilemma—the choice where you didn’t get back together, and he spent the rest of his life deliberately going crazy, so he could return—at least in his mind—to that day seven years ago when he first met you.

“Well, uh, yeah,” he managed to say. “That’s pretty much the choices that we’ve got.”

You reclined in your seat, lifting your gaze to the light control buttons overhead.

“If we get back together…” you began, exhaling. “Then, we might have to face a lot of problems from the label. But we might be alright in the end. I don’t know.”

Jungkook tightened his jaw. He attempted to formulate a response that would be logical and appropriate in this situation. But really, his head felt too small for his thoughts and his tongue too big for his mouth.

“That’s… that’s good to know,” he eventually said.

“Mhmm,” you replied distractedly. “But see, what if we don’t get back together? Or we do, but it doesn’t work out?”

That was what worried him, too—but for different reasons.

He knew that you were looking at this from a pragmatic perspective. A logical, what-would-make-more-sense perspective.

He didn’t think he’d ever looked at it this way. For him, this was simple: he loved you and wanted to be with you. He didn’t care how inconvenient and illogical it might seem to those around him, and he refused to think about what would happen if this love didn’t work out. It would have to. How could it not?

But he recognised his privileges; he knew he didn’t have as many responsibilities as you did. And, alright, fine, he thought about it—realistically, if you broke up again, he’d probably drink until he turned into a puddle of whiskey, while you’d flee across the globe to get away from it all.

And yet—was that all there was to this? Just rationality and calculated decisions?

Jungkook cleared his throat and asked the question that he believed really mattered here.

“Do you love me?”

Someone on the plane gulped audibly and held their breath. He wondered if it was him.

The colour of your eyes deepened, then blurred. “I-I—that’s—that’s not—”

“Answer me,” he whispered.

You tried, but no words came out. This moment resembled the nightmares that haunted you lately: you opened your mouth to scream, but silence stifled every sound you tried to make.

“T-that’s—” you began and stopped yourself before you could stutter any further. You took a breath. “That’s not important right now—”

“How can it not be—”

“Because I do love you,” you said quickly—the words slurred into one desperate Idoloveyou, a hopeless Idoloveyou, a how-can-you-possibly-expect-me-not-to Idoloveyou. “But I don’t think I should. I don’t think you should, either. We’re a—we’re a fucking mess.”

Visibly frozen, Jungkook found himself thinking that if this was the sixteenth century, and the two of you just happened to have this conversation in some public square, the townsfolk would have surely accused you of witchcraft.

It was uncanny, the way you cast a spell on him with just four words—all four of which he heard with perfect clarity: I do love you. Granted, he wasn’t sure if he heard the rest. He felt like he was already burning in your place.

“Right,” he thought he said. He couldn’t feel his face. “But we’ve always—”

“I’m—I have to—I do owe you,” you said. He watched you, his expression oscillating between mild confusion and outright bewilderment. “You said I don’t, but I do. I could have told you what was going on in my head like you told me. Honestly, all this time, whenever I talked to people, they all told me to speak to you. To talk it out. And I closed up in my head instead. If I don’t talk about it, I don’t have to deal with it. You know?”

He blinked, finally. “That’s—”

“I’ll explain it, though, okay?” you said. “Please?”

You gave him too much power—as if he could ever say no to you. As if he could stop listening. As if every fibre of his being didn’t ache to stay close to you.

Warm—so unbearably warm that it felt like he was in the middle of exploring the landscapes Dante depicted in Inferno—Jungkook wiped off the sweat from his palms on his dark jeans.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”

“It won’t take long,” you assured. “Really, I don’t even have much to say. I’m fucking scared. That’s all there is to it.”

Jungkook seemed to be practising the lost art of swallowing his tongue. He wanted you to continue and you were biting your lip in a way that suggested that this was not all there was to it. You only wished it was.

You took a trembling breath, and your lungs followed—quivering, it seemed, as they tried to provide you with the oxygen necessary for all that you were about to say.

“I spent the first fifteen years of my life watching my parents break up and get back together again,” you began. “And do you know what I felt every single time they broke up? Actual rage.” You laughed wryly here like this reaction was absurd. “But when they got back together, I was fucking—I was hopeful. I refused to speak to them, of course—I was a teenager—but I was… Inside, just like my mum, I also hoped that this would work. That this time would be the one.”

You swallowed and lapsed into a silence so long and heavy that Jungkook worried you might never speak again.

Fifteen years, he thought. And all this time, he’d assumed that your dad left for the final time when you were twelve. That was already bad enough, of course, but Jungkook hadn’t realised that the back-and-forth between your parents that you’d mentioned back in Tilburg had taken place after that. He hadn’t realised that you and your brother had gone through three years of almost having a father—and your mum through almost having a partner.

“I knew they were a tragedy together,” you continued. Jungkook didn’t know how to raise his eyes to look at you. “It was obvious that it wouldn’t last. I always knew it, and I always said that to my mum. But deep down, I still fucking hoped that they’d get together and it would work.”

You shook your head with a cold, unforgiving smile.

“How fucking stupid,” you concluded. “All hope does is bring misery and disappointment.”

“You were a child,” he said, his brows drawn together—sad and a little scared for your younger self. “You just wanted your parents to be together. You wanted a family.”

“Yeah,” you said with a sigh. Then again, “yeah.”

A minute passed without either of you speaking. Flight attendants crossed the aisles, offering complimentary snacks, but missing you—either by mistake or because there was no one in your seats on the plane. The two of you were somewhere else.

“I think,” you said once the commotion around you quieted, “that I wasn’t just angry at my mum for trying again and again, even though it never worked. Or for never losing hope that maybe they could be happy together. I think I was also angry at myself. Because I never truly lost hope, either.”

Jungkook hung his head, his lips tight in silent contemplation.

“So that’s what I’m afraid of,” you said. “I’m scared that this—us—will turn out to be like that. I’m scared that we’ll let wishful thinking take over, and we’ll get back together even though we shouldn’t. Even though it’s obvious that we won’t last.”

Right away, he wanted to insist that you would defy those odds. That there was nothing obvious about the two of you whatsoever. He wanted to promise all that and more, but it wasn’t right—not after you endured fifteen years of broken promises between two of the most important people in your life.

“You, um—” he started to say and coughed suddenly, caught off guard by his dry throat, “—you told me before that you admired your mum’s courage. F-for trying again.”

You handed him the overpriced airport water bottle that you had bought earlier. Jungkook nodded in gratitude.

“I did,” you confirmed. “And I do admire that about her. But I don’t have any of her courage.” You brought a shaky finger over your forehead, not quite scratching it. “I always say that I don’t believe in second chances, but the truth is, I think I do believe in them. I’m just debilitated by my fear that these second chances might not work out.”

Jungkook lowered the bottle. He’d emptied almost half of it in a single gulp, but an anxious undercurrent inside of him had absorbed it before he could feel any relief.

“Is that, um,” he tried to ask, “is that something you feel in general or—or because it’s us?”

You thought about that for half a second and shook your head.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where a second chance held so much significance,” you said. “This isn’t a mistake that you can fix. It’s not a human error. It’s you and me. And it’s so—it’s final. There won’t be another chance for us, it’s now or never. And what if it’s never?”

You lowered your gaze, your fingers restless as they toyed with the sleeves of your black shirt. Every now and then, you’d lift your hand to your bare neck—you still hadn’t found any of your necklaces—as if seeking a distraction from the weight of the moment.

“Y-you are—you’re my—” you tried and couldn’t. Finally, you looked at him, and the words you couldn’t voice were right there, shimmering uncertainly in his dark eyes. “You’re my first thought in the morning and the last one at night. I don’t think my heart could take it if I started to have hope for us again, but we didn’t work out in the end.”

Jungkook felt his heart trip over several beats—

Stumble down his ribs—

Crash into his stomach—

Roll around the hollow cavities somewhere at the very bottom—

Rise suddenly, all the way back to his chest—

Expand—

And explode, it seemed. In a flash of light so vivid and intense that for a minute or two, his blood stopped running and he survived on nothing but the words you’d just said.

“And so that’s what I meant,” you finished, and he struggled to hear your next words over the loud pounding in his chest. “If I stay here and we don’t get back together—or we do, but not for long—then what? We see each other every day, we try to act like nothing’s wrong, we learn how to go back to being professional, and then four years later, you make another bet?”

Jungkook found the end of your sentence so utterly unexpected that he wasn’t sure if he had even heard you correctly. His response was half of a gasp and a fractured “I—” before you cut him off.

“I’m joking,” you said with a gentle smile—one that managed to feel both, very fitting and completely out of place in this situation. “That’s—well, that is why I think it’d be more reasonable for me to leave. That way, I think, we could figure it out without some dramatic, tragic consequences in case it, uh—in case something goes wrong.”

“R-right,” he said. A warm haze settled on his face in a delicate shade of pink. It appeared almost soft to the touch. “I… I understand. I-I don’t—I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that would take that away. All of your fear.”

You swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. There might not be anything to say at all.”

Jungkook hurriedly ran his tongue over his lips. He wasn’t thinking about you leaving right now. He was thinking about you staying and fighting through it.

He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t think he could mend these particular wounds in your heart. They ran deeper than his love could reach.

It wasn’t him that you should have talked to about this. It wasn’t him that could help you reach an agreement—or, at least, an understanding—with your own self.

“You should talk to your mum,” he said.

You looked up from the floor of the plane, surprised. “What?”

“Talk to her,” he repeated. “Just to hear what she thinks about everything. To hear her reasoning. To understand why she made the choices that she did. I think that would be good for you both.”

Your surprise deepened and gained an edge. You looked alarmed, as if the notion that a caregiver could ease your hurt rather than deepen it was new and foreign.

“I’ve—we’ve never—my mum and I have only talked about her relationship with my dad maybe once in our whole lives,” you said. “I have never even talked to her about my own relationship. You know I haven’t.”

He nodded solemnly. “I have, though.”

“What?” you asked. There was a ringing in your ears. “You have—you’ve talked to—to my mum? About—”

“I’m sure she’ll tell you everything.”

For a good minute, you watched him with an expression that held more questions than possible ways of asking them.

“I—I’m very confused right now,” you managed.

He nodded again, understanding, but still not offering any explanations.

He’d told you most of everything, really—he’d called those bits of the story “Haunting” and “Cursed.” But the rest of it had to be something you pieced together on your own.

For a long time, he had imagined this to be something that would hit you years later, perhaps when you would accidentally hear an old Rated Riot song. You’d think no, it can’t be, and you’d rush home. You’d pull out the albums, the track lists, and the lyrics.

And you’d know.

These conversations with your mum were his far side of the moon—invisible, but still present, still heavy.

These conversations were his thoughts and hopes and countless fears.

They were everything he brought to Rated Riot and everything he expressed in the recording booth, in Namjoon’s studio, and on stage.

They were his past and his present, and someone else’s future.

They were him without you, but still searching for you every morning when he woke up.

They were you, you, you.

Everything he’d ever talked to your mum about had been his songs. And all his songs had always been a tale about you—in every banal, every impossible narrative he could find within himself.

They were about seeing you and growing wings.

About kissing you and coming home.

About losing you and bleeding out.

About forever and five minutes that don’t mean anything once they’re over.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not capable of much else. “I needed her help with something. I didn’t really tell her anything, uh, directly, so to speak. But she—she knows. She’ll tell you everything. It’s just, um—you have to talk to her, too. You have to tell her what you told me.”

Airplanes, you realised suddenly, made it very easy to force yourself to stop running away. There was nowhere to escape—you could see the clouds reflected in his eyes and you were already falling in them anyway.

“I’ll talk to her,” you said.

Jungkook gave you a small nod and scratched his knee absentmindedly.

“I want you to stay,” he stated. “With the band. It’s—it’s selfish, but it’s the truth. I’ve always tried to encourage you to stop thinking so much a-and just do what you wanted, and this—this is what you want, despite your fear. You want to stay.”

You looked at him with a forlorn expression and he felt his hands twitch at his sides.

“But what will we do?” you asked.

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised. “I mean, we’ve gotten this far, right? So, give us a chance. We’re not completely hopeless. We can... talk our way through it all, step by step.”

You’ve talked your way through a lot and you have gotten this far, that was true. Even if the journey hadn’t been pleasant.

Seokjin had told you earlier today that as long as you stayed with the band, no one would care about what happened next. And, really, no matter how you looked at it, this was what it all boiled down to: it was just you.

Only you—afraid of what others will say, afraid of getting hurt and hurting him again, afraid of doing too much, and afraid of not doing enough.

“I’m—” you tried, “w-we don’t know what will happen. That’s why I’m—”

“I know,” he said. “And you’re right. We don’t know what will happen. That’s fucking terrifying. I’m scared, too.”

He did look a little scared, but he licked his lips and successfully collected himself.

The two of you were so close to meeting in the middle and taking that first step together—just a little more strain between your shaking, outstretched hands.

“And I-I know that the bet is another thing that—that might make it harder for you to believe that we can—that we can work it out,” he added, spinning his ring around his finger twice more. “But I want you to know that it—the bet was a fucked up thing to do. But it gave me a reason to talk to you about everything that I already wanted to talk to you about. I’m—even without the bet, I would have approached you, eventually. It just—I was fucking scared, so it might have taken me longer.”

It wasn’t just you.

Fear was in the epicentre of everything you were saying to each other. It was like the wind in every city you visited on this tour—inescapable, uncontrollable, persistent.

He was afraid, too—of trying and failing. Afraid of getting his heart broken and breaking yours. Afraid of never finding the forever that he desperately wanted with you.

“My point is,” Jungkook finished, “I think this is inevitable, because—well, let’s be honest,” he chuckled softly, trying to lessen the gravity of his confession, “all I’d ever wanted in my entire fucked-up life was you.”

Your breath trembled.

Something very deep inside of you wanted you to believe that inevitability was meant for the two of you, too.

“It’s been four years, though,” you said with a faint shake of your head. “What if it takes us another four to find a way to make this work?”

“It—well, I don’t really care how long it takes, to be honest,” he said. “I’m going to die yours.”

He said that and your heart stopped beating for a moment to listen.

To wait.

To make one thing very clear for you: you would never survive losing him again.

And you were scared—completely petrified—to find yourself in a situation where losing him was possible. Where it was likely.

Jungkook saw it on your face. He saw everything—the anguish, the pain, the doubt, the fear.

But he felt a little exhilarated to find the fight in your eyes, too. This fight was the reason you were talking to him about things that you’ve never talked about. It was the reason you were here.

“We’ll decide everything else when the idea of—of trying again doesn’t scare you so much anymore,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “When you hear your mum’s point of view, and you can make a, uh—an informed decision.”

He noted that there was something softer in your eyes when you looked at him again, but he could still discern the lingering edges of doubt.

“You think that’ll help me make an informed decision?” you asked, touched by his choice of words.

“I hope it will,” he replied. “But we can work it all out, either way. I just think you need to talk to her. It’s been so long.”

“Right. It has been.” You clasped your hands around your neck and tucked your chin between your palms. “It—it probably won’t be an easy conversation, though.”

“Nor will it be short, I imagine.”

“Hmm. Probably not.”

He sensed the growing distance between you as your eyes ran over the back of the seat in front of you. He knew you well enough to understand what you were doing: you were mapping out the rest of your story in your head.

He didn’t like that. Your stories rarely had happy endings.

“You don’t—don’t start planning it ahead, though,” he said hastily—before you reached the unhappily ever after in your mind. “It’ll be late when we land in London. You need to sleep. Talk to her after that. When you—when you’re not working. We can wait. We have time.”

Finally, you allowed your gazes to meet again—and to linger a little longer this time.

You took a moment to note that, despite knowing Jungkook for so long, every time you looked at him, you still needed a minute to will yourself to keep breathing. You remembered thinking, after your first few dates, if that would ever go away—logically, it should have.

But you watched him now, seven years since you’ve met, and the beating of your heart still felt backwards.

I’m going to die yours

I’m going to die—

“Okay,” you finally said. “I’ll call her as soon as possible.”

He nodded twice and closed his eyes for a brief respite—but hesitated, suddenly, before opening them again.

He wondered, for a suspended moment, what it would mean for you—this ‘as soon as possible.’

Then he looked at you and decided to tell you what he wanted it to mean.

“Before that happens, though—before you talk to her, I mean—I-I want to still be able to see you,” he said and did so assertively, using the phrase I want, but really meaning, I must. “I don’t want to not talk to you.”

You felt your frosty expression crumble effortlessly into a soft smile.

“We’ve agreed to a truce, right?” you said easily. Lightly.

His heart soared.

He was smiling, too, but with caution—his lips were pressed together as he bit into his lip ring to contain his smile to a level that he thought appropriate.

His shining eyes gave him away, however, and you wondered—the thought sudden and overwhelming—if there was a point in your life when you weren’t in love with him when he smiled.

“Let’s try a friendship,” he proposed.

“Oh—” Your smile abruptly turned into laughter as you remembered trying this once before. It had lasted for about two days. “You know we can’t be friends. We don’t know how.”

The gentle cadence of your laughter made him weightless.

“What are you talking about?” he teased—so high that he was certain the flight attendants were going to ask him to take it down a notch because it was dangerous to float on the ceiling in the middle of a flight. “We can be whatever the fuck we want to be.”

Your laughter grew bolder, strengthened by the relief that you’ve had this conversation, that you’ve decided on your next steps, however uncertain they were—and his smile spread.

You could see him beaming through your half-closed eyes, and there was absolutely nothing—no matter how big or small, significant or not at all—that you wouldn’t have done for him when he looked like that, and no amount of fear could have stopped you.

He'd burn down half of Europe for you, Seokjin had said.

You were worried you’d burn all of it for him.

“Honestly,” you said, “we’re such a mess that I have nothing else to say. Sure. Let’s try being friends again. Why not?”

“For the time being?” Jungkook asked. There was a tentative glint in his eyes. “Until we figure out if—until we decide what we’re going to do with us?”

It was very considerate of him to say ‘we’ here, when you knew that you were the one who needed to get it together in the end.

“For the time being,” you confirmed.

“And you’ll stay?” he asked once more. “With Rated Riot?”

Last night, he had told you he was letting you go, and you needed to hear it—not just to see how much he’s grown, but to fully understand yourself. To stop jumping from possibility to possibility. To accept that it was okay to do what you wanted sometimes.

The past few days were like flipping a coin and realising, while it was mid-air, which side you were hoping it would land on.

“I’ll stay.”

Jungkook thought that this flight was going to be the most thrilling part of his day. But a miracle happened as soon as the plane touched down in London.

His grandmother called him.

It wasn’t an accident like he had initially assumed when he saw her name on his phone. She called because she missed her favourite grandson and wanted to wish him good luck at his concert (and chastise him a little for not wearing “enough clothing” on stage).

Jungkook wasn’t sure if the tears in his eyes were because she’d remembered who he was, remembered what he did for a living, because she’d called, or because she’d confirmed his long-held suspicion that he was her favourite grandson.

Perhaps, and most likely, it was all of these things.

He was so excited that he stared at his phone even after the call had ended, ignoring the influx of more unintelligible, frantic messages from the same unknown number. He probably would have spent the rest of the night fixated on the screen if his battery hadn’t run out by the time everyone settled in the hotel.

At that point, there was nothing Jungkook wanted more than to tell you about the fifteen-minute phone call. However, he couldn’t call or text with his phone off—and waiting for ten minutes until he found the charger in his suitcase seemed like half of an eternity.

Unaware of the lateness of the hour, he lingered outside the hotel, thinking of a plan.

In the end, he decided he didn’t want to draw more attention to your friendship—he hiccupped on the word even in his thoughts—and approached the decorative garden at the front entrance. Ficus plants (artificial, as it turned out) rested in a bed of pebbles (real, for some reason) and Jungkook grabbed a handful of those before heading back to the south wing of the hotel.

He counted down the windows until he identified yours, then took half a dozen steps back from the wall and tossed a pebble at your window. It hit the glass with a gentle thud and dropped onto the grass four floors below.

Jungkook waited for a minute—or what felt like a minute—and tossed another one, making this one bounce against your windowsill before it slipped into your room through the crack of the open window.

He waited again and, finally, your curtains fluttered. A moment later, he saw your puzzled face as you opened the window and covered your squinting eyes with your hand, peering down into the darkness.

“Jungkook?” you called out. “What—what the fuck are you doing?”

“Trying to get your attention!” he shouted with an elated lilt in his voice.

You picked up the pebble from the windowsill and lifted it. He couldn’t see it very well from the ground, but he could see your confused expression.

“By throwing rocks at my window?”

“Yeah!”

“How—are you—for what—”

You stopped. There wasn’t a singular question you wanted to ask, because nothing about what he was doing made any sense whatsoever.

You leaned over the windowsill to get a better look at him, but it didn’t help much. The light from your hotel room made it difficult to discern his expression in the pitch-black night. And the garden lights adorning the exterior of the hotel only highlighted his white sneakers.

“I’m sure there were a lot of steps you could have taken before you had to resort to this,” you shouted into the night. “Most people text. Or knock on the door.”

“My phone’s dead,” he explained, lifting a black block that you assumed was the dead phone. “And I didn’t want anyone to see me going into your room. Can you come down here?”

“Wh—hold on a second.” You retreated into the room to put on a robe over the t-shirt you had worn to bed. The night wind felt a little less frigid when you leaned out of the window again. “Can you just come up here? It’s nearly six in the morning, no one will see—”

“Come on, we finally have a few days off!” he shouted, implying, clearly, that you’d have time to catch up on sleep later. After days of him forcing you to rest, this was very unusual—but, really, quite welcome.

You realised that something important must have happened for him to do this. However, his buoyant voice—and this whole situation in general—also made you wonder if he was drunk.

“I meant that it’s cold outside,” you said. “Wouldn’t it be warmer to—”

“I can—it’s not that bad,” he ended up saying after quickly surmising that his offer to warm you might lead to you throwing that same pebble right at his forehead. “Please?”

You were well aware that this could go on for a while, and it probably wouldn’t be long before your Romeo-and-Juliet-esque conversation attracted the attention of the hotel staff, who would politely ask you to find a different accommodation. The manager already didn’t seem especially pleased when he found out that a rock band would be staying at his hotel.

“Alright. I’m coming down,” you said. “Put the rocks back where you found them.”

He snickered and watched you close the window, disappearing inside of your room.

By the time he returned the remaining pebbles back to the garden, the sky was already beginning to paint itself red. The clouds obscured the rising sun, but Jungkook turned his head just in time to see you walk through the hotel door, and he felt like it was the middle of the day already.

“What’s going on?” you asked, a little concerned about the size of the grin on his face.

“My grandma called me,” he said. “She’s having a good day. She remembered me.”

“Oh, my God!” you gasped. All of your irritation about leaving your warm hotel room at this hour vanished in an instant. “That’s great news! Did you talk to her?”

“Yeah!” He nodded, nearly laughing in pure, beautiful euphoria. “The whole call, she was okay. Even scolded me for breaking the glass on her favourite picture frame when I came to say goodbye to her on the last night before the tour.”

You laughed, infected with his bright mood. “Jungkook, that’s—that’s fantastic. I’m so—”

Instinctively, he pulled you to him by wrapping his arms around your waist. For just a moment, he tightened his embrace and lifted you up slightly, laughing breathlessly when you gasped in surprise.

“I know,” he murmured into your neck as he lowered you to the ground. “I still can’t believe she really called.”

He held you close to him with one hand around your waist, and another one on the back of your neck—and you were stunned for a split-second. Then finally, muscle memory roused you, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, resting the side of your head against his.

“I’m—I’m so happy to hear that,” you whispered, feeling his breath on your shoulder and the goosebumps that rose on your skin as a result.

“I am, too.” He slowly pulled his head back to look at you, and the sight of the smile on his face was enough to pierce your heart with something that you could never remove. “You’re the first person I wanted to tell this to.”

Wordlessly, you pulled him back into a hug. You could feel the stretch of his cheeks against yours as his smile widened, and you realised you’d never want to run away from this. You’d always want to stay.

You were going to stay.

No. That wasn’t right.

You wouldn’t just stay with Rated Riot, determined to destroy every ounce of your fear for him. You’d have mopped up whole oceans for him. Captured shooting stars and stuffed them into jars. Flooded the entire world with an endless sea.

You’d have done anything to have him here like this: smiling so much that he could barely speak while his chest thud-thud-thudded against yours.

You felt so much of it—this vast love that refused to die no matter how much it was beaten—that you didn’t know what to do with it all.

A minute later, you pulled back slightly—a little dizzy from the intense whirlwinds inside your chest.

“T-thank you,” you stammered. “For telling me. I’m really—I’m so happy for you.”

His hands lingered on your waist, extending the moment to the very end.

“Thank you,” he replied, taking a reluctant step back. “She, um—she asked me to say hi to you. You know, from her.”

You were surprised that she remembered you—and brought you up!—and your smile returned, encouraged by the bashful look in his eyes when he said this.

“Give her my best the next time you talk to her,” you said.

“I will.” He nodded eagerly, then slowed down. “Although, I, uh—well—I don’t know when that’ll be.”

“That’s okay,” you replied quickly, not wanting to lose the lightness of the moment so soon. “The important thing is that she’s having a good day today. And she called you!”

You raised your voice at the end of the sentence, and it was enough to rekindle his excitement.

“She did!” he sang. “She said I was her favourite grandson, by the way. So I was right.”

“Oh—hmm.” You remembered pretending to argue with him about this in Stockholm and couldn’t help yourself. “Well, alright. I guess that makes sense. Remember that stray orange cat that she used to feed every night? Reginald?”

“Reggie,” he said, grinning. The cat was one of the first things his grandmother mentioned when she called tonight; it had stopped coming to see her, but continued to take up a large place in her heart. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“Well, I mean, she loved him so much, even though he scratched her every time she got too close,” you explained. “Clearly, she always had a soft spot for troublemakers.”

“Okay, now,”—he clicked his tongue—“my grandma did actually love that cat a lot, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

You snickered and he laughed, too, and for a moment, he thought his chest might have exploded if he felt any happier than he did right now.

Then he noticed you clutching your robe closer to your body. Whatever you’d worn underneath wasn’t enough to keep you warm now that the initial excitement slowly began to fade.

“Do you, uh… want to go back inside?” he asked, gesturing at the exposed skin of your wrists. “You’re shivering.”

You looked down at your hands. “I’m okay. But maybe we could sit?”

You turned to look around. There was a bench right at the edge of the garden, next to a bronze-coloured flowerpot that was placed in the pebbles Jungkook had used to “get your attention”.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

You shivered all over again when he sat down next to you, and the bench turned out to be smaller than it had appeared. You could feel every bounce of his restless legs.

“So,” you said, “what did you two talk about?”

He brightened at your question, and suddenly, you didn’t think he was anywhere near close enough.

“Oh, so many things,” he said. “She told me she’d like to see us perform. Can we make that happen when we go back?”

“Absolutely,” you promised.

“Yeah?” His smile widened and his bouncing increased. “She’ll probably hate it. Mosh pits aren’t her thing.”

“We’ll put her in the balcony seats,” you suggested. This conversation felt so ordinary that it was hard to imagine you could be talking to him about anything else. “She’ll love every second of watching you on stage.”

“She said she saw pictures from the tour,” he added, giddy. “My cousins showed her Maggie’s Instagram profile.”

“Did she see your pirate cosplay?”

Jungkook displayed a remarkable resilience to the pirate jokes after that first concert—you and Jimin suspected that the response from the audience played a big part in his newfound immunity—and he chuckled at it now.

“She did,” he said. “She said I reminded her of Kurt Russell in Escape from New York.”

You pulled back a little to get a better look at him, even though he no longer needed to wear the eye patch. Most of the discolouration around his eye had already faded and you’d managed to cover up the scratches with a few smaller, skin-coloured adhesive pads.

“Well, shit,” you said. “Maybe I do kind of see the resemblance. You’ve got the hair.”

“I don’t know who that is,” he admitted.

You widened your eyes. “Jungkook. You don’t know Snake Plissken?”

“No, but my grandma said all her friends had a crush on him after the film came out,” he said. “Except for my grandma, of course. She insists she only ever had eyes for my grandpa.”

You both chuckled at this with a childlike glee—the thought of a love that spanned decades felt exhilarating and very possible as the sky awakened above you.

“My mum liked Kurt Russell, too, after the film,” you said. “And she was nine at the time. She snuck into the theatre with her brother and his friends.”

Jungkook inclined his head thoughtfully. “Maybe that guy’s not so bad, then.”

“He’s a classic,” you corrected. “But your taste in films isn’t.”

“That’s actually exactly what my grandma said,” he remembered. “She told me not to come home until I watched it.”

You could hear his grandmother saying this exact thing to him and felt yourself smile again.

“I think you’d love it if you watched it,” you said. “So, it’s not much of a threat.”

“Really?” He looked at you, but only for a fraction of a moment. “Would you—I mean, it’d be cool if we could—”

You knew what he was asking. And your response—like most of everything else tonight—came as a reflex. “I’m sure we can rent it on Amazon.”

“Okay,” he said, his shoulders slumping against yours in visible relief. “That—I’d like that.”

Unwelcome, the raw breeze of the late hour caught up with you, and you felt your body shudder involuntarily once more. Determined to ignore the chill, you opened your mouth to continue the conversation, but Jungkook suddenly leaned forwards.

“Here,” he said, slipping out of his dark flannel. “Put this on. It’s not much, but—”

“No, no—” you tried, but he drew closer to drape the flannel over your shoulders. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, pulling back. To further reduce the significance of the gesture, he added, “it’s what friends do. And I’m warm anyway.”

You clutched the collar of the flannel tighter to prevent it from sliding off. Or just to have something to do with your hands. “Well—thanks, friend.”

A powerful waft of his cologne permeated your senses, and you closed your eyes, preserving the refreshing blend of woody and citrus notes that already took up a significant amount of space in your memory.

Every time you inhaled, his scent mixed with a different moment from your life—and it all flooded your mind in an unstoppable sequence.

Meeting Jungkook—

Kissing him for the first time on that rainy night in the park—

Hugging him hello every morning before class—

Borrowing his clothes when you stayed at his dorm—

Losing your mind when you found yourself alone and his scent returned to you, uninvited.

Jungkook appeared to be sharing your memories in real time as he inhaled sharply and tapped his fingers against his shaky thighs.

“Friends,” he said, swallowing, “probably don’t kiss each other.”

His words ignited a fire in the pit of your stomach without any matches.

You glanced at him from the corner of your eye. “Yeah, uh—t-they probably don’t.”

“Hmm. Right.”

“As your friend,” you said, sitting up straighter and letting his flannel settle around your shoulders while you lowered your hands to the wooden bench underneath you, “I’m pointing out that you’re on a high because your grandma called. That’s why you’re thinking about—”

“I’m on a high because I’m with you,” he stated. “My friend.”

The fire inside you spread rapidly, wildly, uncontrollably.

The way you were starting to lose feeling in your fingers from gripping the bench so tightly, yet you refused to let go of it, should have probably been studied scientifically.

“Well, then,” you said, “let’s look at it this way: have you ever kissed friends before? Sid maybe?”

Jungkook snorted. “God forbid.”

“Minjun, then?”

“No,” he said. “Do you think I should?”

You snickered. “No. But if we’re friends, too, then we probably shouldn’t do that, either.”

He looked at you, his lips puckered in thought. Unconsciously, you had started to scrape at the dark paint of the bench.

You hadn’t meant a word of what you’d said. He suspected as much.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But we’re such a mess, though, right?”

The echo of your own words on the plane brought a smile to your face again—a reaction more rooted in easing the sudden surge of anticipation rather than genuine amusement.

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “We’re such a mess.”

Jungkook felt a little afraid, which was something that he always felt when the world around him blurred, and he found himself incapable of looking away from your lips.

It was dangerous, this tunnel vision. This singular focus. This impossible, magnetic pull that defied all reason, that made the whole universe tremble with a silent—

He leaned closer.

For a fleeting moment, the space between you was filled with nothing but your echoing heartbeats and silent memories.

For a fleeting moment, time itself held its breath.

You remembered Oslo and the way Jungkook had pulled away. You remembered how worried you were, how horrified—he was drunk, and he’d pulled away. He’d done the rational thing.

Funny thing, rationality.

You thought you were perfectly rational when you closed the remaining distance and your lips brushed against his—hesitant, uncertain, tender. A permission, a question, and his unequivocal death, all in one.

Jungkook inhaled—as if checking if he was alive or just pretending to be—and reached up to touch your cheek. He pulled you closer and stole the remnants of your breath with his kiss.

It was fair, he thought. You had stolen his entire soul.

The touch of your lips lasted for less than a minute—not nearly enough time for the trees around you to exhale in clandestine relief—but the softness of his mouth, the slow, intoxicating smacking of your lips against his, and the faint notes of mint on his tongue did irreparable damage to your pulse.

He stole that too, he supposed, because when he pulled away, his heart seemed to beat with enough strength to support the lives of half the population.

“Do friends discuss what it means if they kiss?” he asked, winded. His chest touched yours every time it rose in an attempt to recover.

Your laughter was breathless, too. “I’m thinking no.”

“I like what you’re thinking.”

Something very tranquil and very happy was inscribed into the contours of your features.

Soft red feathers spread across the sky above you as the city slowly stirred awake.

For the first time in a long time, everything felt like it was supposed to.

“I have a free day tomorrow,” you said. “Well, today.”

Jungkook was a bit puzzled by the shift in conversation but went along with it nonetheless. “Yeah?”

“Mhmm. The girls and I made plans, but I’m, uh—I’m going to call my mum before I go. I set an alarm for it and everything,” you said with a self-conscious chuckle. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“Oh.” He was shaking a little, he realised. He hoped you wouldn’t notice it and decide to give him his flannel back. “Well, that—that’s good. You should do that.”

You nodded, lowering your gaze to the grass and the pebbles below. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to kiss you again,” he decided. “For good luck.”

Your surprised smile overshadowed everything else he wanted to tell you.

“Oh,” you said. “Is that what friends do?”

“Yes,” he replied. “You didn’t know? It can’t be just one kiss, that’s bad luck.”

“Actually, I heard even numbers are bad luck.”

He gasped theatrically. “Oh, but that’s terrible! I’ll have to kiss you three times, then. To be safe.”

You smiled and shook your head. He died a little then, because everything was here, just like in his worst nightmares and his favourite daydreams: your scent, your eyes, your smile. All of you.

“You’re always such an idiot,” you said with so much affection that the wind crept away miserably, defeated by the warmth in Jungkook’s gaze when he looked at you. When he felt your hand on the side of his face—gentle and careful so as not to touch the healing bruises on his cheek.

“Hmm.” He wasn’t sure if he’d ever remember how to breathe again. “You said you love me, though.”

“I do,” you said, beaming, as you ran the tips of your fingers over the edges of his wolf cut. “It’s a burden I have to live with.”

He shivered from your touch and leaned in—impatient, all of a sudden. His lips met yours with a soft, rehearsed touch, and he thought he died all over again when you pulled him closer.

Your heart brought back the memories of sensations that you’ve tried to bury; it revived them and set them loose in your chest when you kissed him back and felt the smile on his lips.

Your heart threatened to quit it, to burst into flames and take you down with it when you felt his tongue slowly glide over your lower lip.

Your heart settled right against his when you parted your lips. When you felt his warm breath mingle with yours. When you held onto him with everything you were feeling, and he held onto you.

He kissed you in every way that a friend wasn’t supposed to, and groaned softly when he touched the back of your neck and felt the relentless roughness of goosebumps under his fingertips. Your body reflected everything he was feeling.

Every time your lips met—gentle and feverish—every time he pulled you closer—frantic and heated—every time you inhaled when he exhaled—sharp and eager—you were setting fire to something that once was and building something new in its place.

There seemed to be small fragments of a foreign nature inside of you both—fragments that had danced with each other long before your first kiss and would continue the lively, eternal swaying for years and years after your last.

Maybe it was dust from two neighbouring stars, drawn together by a force stronger than them, but forced to crash somewhere on earth and settle and quiver and wake up inside of you both.

Or maybe it was something less grand. Maybe it was just luck. Just coincidence.

“See,” you whispered, pulling back. “I told you we don’t know how to be friends.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, kissing the corner of your lips. The sparks inside him were fierce and relentless when you smiled in response. “I think friends can decide what sort of friends they want to be.”

“What sort of friends are we going to be, then?”

“This sort.”

You could see the northern lights and the tails of comets in his eyes before he leaned in to kiss you again. You could taste the longing for the Milky Way and the whispers of timeless meteors on his tongue.

And it all solidified this for you: the two of you were not luck and not coincidence.

You were something much more.

chapter title credits: bring me the horizon, “follow you”

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light-yaers · 2 months ago

Text

Take Care: Chapter Fourteen

Fic Masterpost | AO3 | Chapter List

Warnings: swearing, eventual smut, emotional themes.

A/N: YEEE FUCKING HAW WE'RE BACK AND LONGER THAN EVER. FEAST, MY PRETTIES.

Word count: 10k+

Chapter Fourteen:

Well, Arlo. It seems the Greyhounds have actually… done something right?

I know, Chris. If you’d told me they’d be in this position, not even in the Premier League, yet through to the FA Cup final, then well! I’d have eaten my hat!

But Arlo, you don’t own any hats.

There’s lots that you don’t know about me, Chris.

Oh. Well, I’d like to find out more one day, Arlo.

Maybe one day, Chris. Maybe one day… But, moving forward– it seems AFC Richmond’s new coach, badboy Roy Kent, has well and truly shared the fabled ‘Roy Kent Effect’ once more.

That’s certainly true, Arlo! Kent and his teammates have never worked so well, even when he was on the pitch next to them. I think this is the start of a blossoming season for the Greyhounds.

I agree, Chris. So, you heard it here, folks. AFC Richmond are off to Wembley!

A few weeks after Roy’s return, you found yourself feeling the love. When you came to, you were screaming your head off. Everything was a giant blur of those familiar reds and blues, so you knew you were home. The locker room still looked the same as always, but the players within were so drastically separate from how they were a week ago that you could hardly fucking believe it.

AFC Richmond were going to Wembley for the FA Cup final. The only downside– they were against Manchester fucking City. You weren’t about to dampen their joy, though. You suspected they all knew exactly what was at stake, but they deserved this. They deserved to feel like winners.

Sam bound over to you as soon as he could. His embrace brought you back down to earth, and you hugged him back so tightly that it was a miracle neither of you passed out. “God, I am so proud of you,” you whispered into his shoulder.

He reciprocated by squeezing you once more, before you tugged apart. “You still bring us good luck. You are part of the reason we have come this far.” He spoke so earnestly that you couldn’t stop your throat from drying up.

You swallowed painfully, utterly overwhelmed. Sam went one step further, however, when he stepped onto one of the benches. “Hey, guys! Guys!” he yelled, bringing the sound in the room right down. Every player, and coach alike, turned to him and listened intently. “We wouldn’t have gotten to this position without the help of every single person in this room.” Sam looked down at you then, smiling like the golden sun. “Thank you, everyone! We’re Richmond till we die!”

The room erupted into roars that no jungle could replicate. You soaked up their cheers, their happiness, their togetherness, and as you did you sensed someone close by: Roy.

He stood in the doorway of the manager’s office, wearing a tracksuit that donned Richmond’s logo. He’d fallen into his coach position as if he’d always been here– assertively, strongly, respectfully. When you glanced around the room and saw him, you had to stop just for a moment to take him in. You smiled at him, even though he wasn’t looking at you. When he eventually caught your eye, you quickly looked beyond him, acting as if you hadn’t been eyeing him up for the better half of a minute.

Roy liked it when you looked like this– happy, content, in the middle of a bustling and buzzing room yet perfectly fine with just existing and not speaking. You were good like that, good at listening and observing. You were also good at talking when you got to it, but Roy’s initial annoyance whenever you opened your mouth had quickly disappeared after a few weeks into your placement at the club. That sentiment had only grown over the past year and a half.

Jesus– eighteen months. It’d really gone fast, hadn’t it? Eighteen months, and you’d grown into your talent and only increased your work ethic (even if you secretly hated your current position). Eighteen months, and Roy had played his last game of football ever, but coached his first professional game since.

Roy leaned on the doorframe of the manager’s office and crossed his arms. Dani had his hands wrapped around your neck lovingly from behind. The two of you swayed back and forth as the team continued rejoicing. Slowly, you latched your fingers onto Dani’s forearms and held them tightly. Roy knew what that felt like, having you close. He’d been there with you once, when it was impossible to keep your hands off each other in a crowded room like this.

There was another thing that hadn’t happened in eighteen months. You and Roy. Roy and you. In truth, you’d thought about things more than he had. This was amongst one of the first times he’d allowed himself to think of you together, properly, and what it could have been like.

He thought back to November, almost six months ago now, when he’d told you that he had no intention of fucking things up. To do that, you and Roy couldn’t happen– wouldn’t happen.

Roy frowned when he thought about how awful he’d been, not even during that conversation, but afterwards. He hadn’t put up any boundaries, had continued acting the same as he always was around you. It wasn’t kind; he knew that as soon as he’d seen your face on Boxing Day, practically scrambling to get the fuck out of his house.

The bad thing was, however, that Roy didn’t want to stop. Sure, he’d said things would never happen, and you’d graciously accepted that fate and tried to move forward over these past few months like any respectful and decent person would. But, he hadn’t. He’d said the words, but not followed them.

Roy huffed to himself, only now realising– he was a fucking idiot.

This was Roy’s more prominent disease, it seemed: delayed on-set realisation of selfishness. DOROS for short. Maybe he’d always known, but had pushed it all away in favour of keeping you close. Maybe he’d always known, but innately knew that he had never wanted to cut things off with you, so simply acted like he’d never fucking said a thing.

Mentally, Roy added a new to-do box to his list.

Fix things with you.

He would. Oh, he would.

“Roy!” Ted’s familiar accent called from behind him. Roy turned around and looked down at his fellow coach, sat before him with his feet on his desk. Beard was the same, and the two of them looked like peas in a pod. “How’re your first few weeks going?”

Roy balled his fists instinctually. “Good. I think.”

“Well, you gosh darn thunk correctly!” Ted burst, jumping out of his chair in excitement. “And now, I need your help once again. This match next week, the big one.” He stopped directly in front of Roy, chin to chin. “How do we keep the guys like this?”

This meaning the ruckus behind him. Joyful, strong, ready to fight with all they’ve got even if the outcome isn’t in their favour. Roy knew that feeling well, having felt it too many times to count.

He sighed. “It’ll be tough. Come tomorrow, they’ll all start to spiral.”

“How so?”

Roy shrugged. “It’s the hope that kills you.”

Ted’s face soured immediately. “I don’t like your sayings over here.”

“Yeah, well…” Roy turned around to look at the guys. “It’s easier than being fucking disappointed.”

“Screw that!” Ted suddenly exploded. He grabbed Roy’s shoulders and urged him to look in his eyes. “We’re stopping that today. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you look at those guys right there, acting like that?” Ted asked.

Roy swivelled his head back around to look at them. “I… I dunno?” he said.

Ted squeezed his shoulders abruptly. “Yes, you do! Say it. Say it!”

“All-fucking-right!” Roy yelled. “Her!” He pointed at you without hesitating.

As if on cue, you laughed. You scrunched your eyes shut in happiness, giggling as Dani placed his chin atop your head. He squeezed you tighter, and you giggled even harder, gripping his arms stronger than before. Sam and Colin laughed opposite them, still overcome with the buzzing adrenaline of the win. They all were. You perpetuated that feeling, made the guys want it even more so you could join them at times like this.

Ted moved next to Roy, looking at the same scene. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Ted whispered. “You’ve never been more right in your life.”

You had to suck in a deep breath as your laughter dissipated. Your lungs were empty of all reserves, but you’d never felt better about it. Dani gently removed himself from you to head towards Richard and Zoreaux. As he did, the most unexpected thing happened.

Someone tapped you on the shoulder, and when you turned to greet them with a glowing smile, you stopped short. Jamie Tartt stood before you. “Hey,” he said.

You kept things light as you perked your brow at him quizzically. “Hi.” You smiled. “Congratulations.”

Jamie laughed awkwardly, bringing a hand to the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. Thanks very much.” You’d never tire of his accent, secretly. You were fond of Mancunian. “Listen, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Oh– sure.”

“Privately,” he added.

You glanced around the locker room quickly, before nodding once. Jamie led you out to the corridor and beyond. He opened the door to the kit room and held it for you as you entered, then followed you inside and shut the door behind him.

You didn’t know where to place yourself. Stood in the centre of the room, overwhelmed by the scent of soggy feet, you turned to the striker and waited. Jamie stood opposite you with the same feeling of being utterly out of place.

“What can I do for you, Jamie?” you started, getting the ball rolling.

“I know we’re not really… er, close.” He clutched his hands together awkwardly, almost unable to meet your eye. “But I know how much you mean to the club and that.”

You huffed amusedly. “Sure,” you agreed.

“Which is why I know you won’t laugh at me when I ask you this.” Tartt finally met your eye, and you were taken aback. Whatever was on his mind you now knew was a big deal. I mean, it had to be for him to approach you like this, surely?

“Okay,” you said sturdily. “Lay it on me.”

“It’s Roy.” You held your breath as he said it. Never in your wildest dreams did you think that Jamie would come to you about a Roy problem, yet here he was. “He won’t coach me. Not like the others, you know. I know I was a dick in the past, for lack of a better word, and that Roy was on the receiving end sometimes–”

“All the time,” you said, matter of factly. Jamie subtly exploded.

“Okay, fine– all the fucking time– but I’m back now, and I need a fucking coach. I want him to teach me the same way he teaches Sam and Isaac and the rest.”

“But, you don’t know how to ask him,” you said your thoughts out loud.

Jamie nodded quickly, agreeing with you tenfold. “I know he’d tell me to fuck off.”

“Well, of course he’s going to do that.” You almost chuckled from how right he was in saying so. “But, I see where you’re coming from.” Your mind spiralled down different routes, unknowing of where you came into this equation. You could tell Jamie what to say, but you knew what Roy would reply simply because it was Tartt, not you. “Why come to me, though?”

Jamie’s face squished questioningly, like he couldn’t understand why you hadn’t put two and two together just yet. “Roy fucking listens to you.”

You couldn’t help but laugh now. “Oh, please. Yeah, he listens. But whether or not he decides to do what I say is a completely different ball game.”

Jamie reached out to you suddenly and gripped your shoulders in desperation. “Please. I know I’m making up for lost time and bad behaviour and whatever else I did to the guys, or Lasso, or Roy, but I need to be useful here. I want to be useful here.”

You regarded him thoughtfully then. It was hard not to take him into account when he was like this, bearing his soul to a person who had never connected with him beforehand. Reaching out to you was a shot in the dark for him, but he’d done it anyway because he wanted to succeed. It was commendable, when you put it all into perspective.

You decided upon a middle ground. “I’ll plant the seed in his head to let you in, alright?”

Jamie let out a clear sigh of relief when you agreed. “Well, fuck– thank you.”

“But!” you continued. “You need to go to him yourself. You need to apologise, and tell him exactly what you said to me. It’s Roy, so he’ll make it a fucking nightmare and will probably be childish and petty and whatever fucking else that grown man is capable of…” As you rambled, the cogs in Jamie’s brain finally understood the whole story– you liked him, didn’t you? “...but he’ll do it eventually. He has to. He’s a coach now, and if you’re here, you deserve to be coached properly.”

Jamie squealed and smiled at the same time, his eyes ablaze with boyish resemblance. He squeezed your shoulders affectionately. “I knew coming to you would work out. I just knew it.”

You scoffed in amusement. “Don’t make it a regular thing,” you joked. “There are only so many strings I can pull with Roy.”

Jamie raised his brows assumptively. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“What do you mean by that?” All your amusement reluctantly trailed off alongside your words.

“Well,” Jamie started. His grin dropped instantly. “I mean– don’t make me fucking say it. You already know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” you pressed.

“That Roy, y’know. That Roy–” Jamie flailed his arms around like a flapping seagull. “He– y’know…”

You squinted at him. “Are you speaking some kind of secret footballer language that common people like me don’t fucking understand?”

“He likes you!” Jamie finally let out.

“Oh.” You stepped back. Jamie’s arms dropped to his sides. “Stop fucking talking now.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t see it?” Jamie looked you dead in the eye, but all you were capable of doing was looking away from embarrassment. “Well, you’re more stupid than I fucking took you for.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed. “There’s no need for that shit when I’m digging you out of the mess you fucking made last season.”

He raised his arms up in understanding. “Alright, alright. Sorry, my bad.” You let out your own sigh of relief when you realised the conversation was over.

You and Jamie headed back to the locker room soon after. As he made his way towards the guys, you stuck to the outer limits of the cinder block walls. Roy was still in the manager's office, his back turned as he spoke to Ted and Beard. You didn’t want to intrude, so you made the decision to cut back into the corridor once more; not to leave, but to wait until the guys were ready for a pint.

You slowly trudged down the familiar corridor that you used to traverse every fucking day. Past the locker room, you approached the gym. Beyond that, your old office still sat. Keeley had recently upgraded to a larger room deeper underneath the Dogtrack, however, so the usual array of pink pillows and her cheetah statue were nowhere to be seen.

You entered through the half open door and walked straight into darkness. The walls were the same, just pinker. The desk was the same, just empty. Whenever you visited this office space after time away you felt the same pull to return. You didn’t care if it had no windows; you’d managed to make it home for nearly a year without any hiccups.

God, you wanted to be back here. Everyone knew it, even Rebecca, but you daren’t take favours. You would never.

A small knock sounded from the door, and you turned back quickly. “Ready to g–? Oh!” you exclaimed. You’d been expecting Sam or Roy, but were met with the still slightly unfamiliar face of Nate. “Sorry, Nate. I thought you were someone else.”

“That’s alright,” he said, smiling. “May I come in?”

“Oh,” you spluttered. “Yes, of course. This isn’t my office anymore.”

He stepped inside. “No, no, it’s not, is it?” he said, and the tone of his voice was erring on patronising. You opted to ignore it, knowing that he wouldn’t have meant it that way. Surely?

The silent pause that flittered between you was very awkward, there was no denying it. It wasn’t that you’d meant to not really know him, but your circle at the club had seemed to travel in one certain direction that you hadn’t been able to control. The guys, Ted, Roy, Rebecca. Not Beard, not Nate. You didn’t mean anything by it innately.

If anything, you were happy that Nate was making himself known to you. You’d love to get to know him more– or more than what you barely knew of him from your time at the club.

“What a great game today, wasn’t it?” you started.

“Oh yes, fantastic game,” said Nate.

“And that thing–” You mimed what had happened on the pitch earlier, which happened to be a middle finger of all things. “That all four of you did to Jamie. Classic, really fucking brilliant.”

“Oh yes, the good old middle finger.” Nate copied you in miming what he’d done less than an hour ago. All four coaches had signalled to Tartt what needed to be done, and that signal happened to be swearing at him full-frontally. Four middle fingers had stood up on end, and Tottenham didn’t know what had hit them when Tartt managed to make a goal from just beyond the halfway line.

“You were all absolutely brilliant!” you exclaimed. “I’ve been seeing you in the paper as well, you know? The whole Wonderkid thing.”

Nate smiled forcefully. “I definitely said Wunderkind.”

“Either way, it’s fantastic you’re getting that recognition.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Nate said, taking your compliment graciously; or so you thought. “So, here’s the thing.” He plunged right into his words like he’d had them on standby the entire time.

“Go on,” you urged him happily.

“You can’t come to Wembley.”

“What?” you asked, not fully absorbing his words.

Nate stopped smiling. He looked at you sternly, or like you were akin to dirt on his shoe, or whatever else. Your smile turned to a frown instantly.

“You can’t come to Wembley,” Nate repeated.

Those five words hit you like a tonne of bricks. You didn’t understand what he was saying, or what he meant. For a second, you thought he’d got his words mixed up, maybe, but even if they were un-muddled they wouldn’t make sense at all.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” you said smally, feeling multiple degrees of hurt even though you had no explanation.

“Okay,” Nate replied. “I’ll spell it out for you.” He raised his chin and sucked in a deep and confident breath, “You cannot come to Wembley for the FA Cup final.”

You still didn’t understand, but you understood Nate’s words fully. Why he was saying them, though, you had no idea. Perhaps you hadn’t misinterpreted his patronising tone upon entering the room, but had picked it up perfectly. You didn’t know Nate enough to get mad– properly mad– but your blood boiled as you looked at him.

“Why not?” you asked, swallowing sullenly to try and keep the butterflies in your gut at bay.

Nate smiled. You hated that he smiled. It felt grimy and wrong. “Roy, Ted and Beard seem to think that you keep the team happy, and maybe you do. But, this is the fucking FA Cup final. They can’t afford any distractions, and you.” He looked you up and down like a blight. You’d never been looked at like that before in your life. “You are a distraction. You may think you’re helping, but the guys need clear minds and ready heads. You’re a distraction towards all of that.”

You laughed abruptly, at a loss for words. Nate’s smile turned to something much more condescending. Gently, he reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder. You froze on the spot.

“It’s just better if you sit this one out, alright? Don’t worry, the guys won’t miss you too much.”

You opened your mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was air. Your lungs collapsed beneath your chest, your heart pumped blood uncomfortably and incredibly fast into your limbs, your organs, your gut. It hurt. It really hurt.

Nate squeezed your shoulder. You stiffened further. “Good talk. Let’s catch up after the final.” He removed his hand from you and left promptly, leaving you in the darkned seclusion of your old office.

Realisation hit you like a double-decker bus. Nate had always been like this a bit, hadn’t he? Not before he became a coach, but afterwards, certainly. A shift had cemented within him as soon as he’d donned the Richmond jacket and owned a desk spot next to Ted and Beard. The whistle around his neck clung to him like a trophy of his authority.

Nathan Shelley was not a nice coach. Good, smart, intelligent, but not nice.

You wondered if Ted knew. You wondered if Beard knew. You wondered if Roy knew. If they did, you knew they’d do something about it, so perhaps not. Innately, despite the weak way your chest scraped air through your crippled lungs, you hoped it was just you that he had gripes with. You hoped he wasn’t like this to any of the guys themselves. Just the thought alone made you angry beyond belief.

No one on the team deserved to be treated the way that Nate had just treated you.

You sucked in a sharp breath quickly, feeling the beginnings and endings of tears behind your eyes. You wouldn’t cry, not for this. If you twisted this entire ordeal on its head then it was borderline comical. Not to toot your own horn, but you knew that if any of the guys in the locker room next door found out about this, then they’d take your side.

That was exactly why you couldn’t tell them. You weren’t about to be the reason that AFC Richmond’s managerial team broke apart. They’d come so far already after relegation. You couldn’t– wouldn’t– fuck that all up.

Quietly, you swallowed away your pride and your feelings and left your old office. Silently, you headed back to the locker room and entered timidly.

“There she is,” Roy muttered to Sam as you entered. As you approached him, you realised he’d picked up your bag and slung it over his shoulder to save you holding it yourself. “Ready to go?” he asked, face to face.

Your eyes hit his. You struggled to keep everything at bay, but brushed it off as best as you possibly could. “Yeah,” you breathed. “Here.” You gestured to your bag on his shoulder, but Roy twisted himself away from you.

“I’ve got it.” Roy frowned slowly, a sour feeling sprouted in his gut. “You alright?”

You waved him off. “I’m fine. I just don’t feel all that good, if I’m being honest.”

“Hm.” He reached out confidently and laid his knuckles against your forehead. Roy had done this to you many times. You were used to it, but still allowed yourself to silently indulge in his touch. Besides, you needed this. He didn’t know, but you needed him right now. “You do feel a bit hot, actually,” he said lowly. “Wanna skip the pub and go home?”

Gently, you nodded. Roy’s hand dropped to your shoulder, the same one that Nate had held just minutes before. Quickly, you placed your hand over his. “Yes, please.”

Roy stayed still. Something was wrong, he knew it. There was this look in your eye that coincided with you not feeling well, but that wasn’t all. The way you were standing; slumped, arms wrapped around yourself, as if you were desperately trying to make yourself smaller, invisible. The hand that rested atop his own didn’t feel strong. This wasn’t you, the real you.

Roy nodded at you in understanding. “Okay,” he whispered. Roy turned to the rest of the room and addressed the team. “You’ll have to catch us next week for drinks, boys.”

The collective groan that descended across the room made you feel awful, but there was nothing you could do about it.

Roy sensed your unease. “Hey!” he yelled. “That’s fucking enough of that. Get some sleep after your well-deserved booze break, and I’ll see you all bright and early for practice on Monday!”

“Yes, coach!”

You and Roy drove home in silence. Not the uncomfortable kind, but Roy could tell something was on your mind. It was rare that either of you evaded the weird sixth sense you had about the other now. Roy could read you as clear as he’d read your article about him.

He stopped his Jeep outside your apartment building and killed the engine. You gathered your belongings and shot him a quick smile. “Thanks.” You went to leave.

“Wait.” In one click, Roy had locked your door from the driver’s side door. “Tell me what’s wrong or I’m not letting you out.”

You huffed, slumping back into your chair in acceptance. “Really?”

“Really,” Roy repeated.

“This is childish, Roy.”

“I don’t fucking care. One moment you were happy as a daisy, and the next you look like you’ve landed on death’s fucking door.”

You sighed in exasperation. “Oh, for fucks sake.”

Roy twisted himself to face you more head on. He crossed his arms and waited patiently. “Go on.”

You rolled your eyes, wishing this to be over. “I’m on my period.”

Roy pointed at you quickly. “Don’t try and catch me out with a feminine problem that you assume men don’t want to hear about. I have a fucking sister, and I know all about how crazy her cycle made her. This isn’t that.”

“Fuck!” you exclaimed, raising your voice slightly. Your stress levels had grown exponentionally in the last minute and a half. You could feel your rapid heartbeat beneath your chest. “It doesn’t fucking matter, alright. If I wanted to talk about it then I would have told you by now.”

Roy perked his brow at you. “Is this about something football related, or something life related?”

“God!” you exploded finally. You wouldn’t mention Nate, but Roy’s incessant poking meant you had to say something real. Maybe this really was something you should have told him a while ago. “You really wanna know?” You turned towards him, eyes crazy and breathing erratic. “I hate my fucking job, okay. And everytime I go to the stadium for a game I’m reminded of everything I left behind and everything I continue to leave behind. The guys, Ted, Beard, you.”

For the first tme since the car stopped, Roy shut his mouth and listened.

“I– I wonder how much longer I can fucking do it. The commute every morning, the staleness of my work colleagues, the giant stack of papers and assignments that are always waiting on my desk to get done because no one else will fucking touch them. I don’t sleep at night properly, and I can’t even cook meals anymore. I feel like–” You sucked in a deep breath and finally looked Roy in the eye. “I feel like, even despite all of you including me in everything, I’m running on the spot behind you and will never be able to catch up. Like I’ll never be part of that world anymore. And it’s, it’s– breaking me.”

Roy leant towards you instinctually.

“Rebecca and Keeley know I hate it, but every time Rebecca talks about getting me a position at the club I freeze. It makes me feel sick that she’d so easily and without question hand me something because I don’t feel like I deserve it. And–!” Roy flicked his eyes over your face, at a loss of what to say. You laughed from a lack of what else to fucking do. “The game last weekend, when you showed up and finally realised your worth as a coach, I almost missed it because I couldn’t take being back there without thinking how much I fucking miss it all. I’m pathetic–”

“No, you’re not,” Roy interjected hoarsely.

You laughed again, on the brink of tears. “Yes, I am. Who does that? Who cries before a fucking game because they can’t handle being there? Me. I do that now, apparently.”

Silence descended inside the Jeep. You finally took a breath, and when you did you realised what you’d done. You leaned back in your seat and faced the windshield, utterly embarrassed that you’d burst at the seams.

“So,” you said smally. “That’s that.” You turned towards Roy again. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

Roy stayed as quiet as a mouse. That wasn’t his style. Glued to his spot, Roy kept his gaze on you thoughtfully. He regarded the look on your face and noticed the subtle embarrassment on your brow; you hadn’t expected to cave so easily when questioned about what was wrong.

He looked down at your hands in your lap. Your fingers shook subtly as they brushed across your knuckles in worry. Roy hated that you were worrying after being honest about something in your life. It was only him, he thought. Surely you should know that you could tell him anything and he’d listen.

“Sorry,” you blurted out.

Roy huffed, speechless. “What the fuck are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fucking–” Roy moved closer to you. “Come here.”

His arms were around you in no time. You stayed stuck in place, stunned, for just a second, until you found yourself hugging him back so fiercely that you couldn’t have thougth of anything you needed more. It was funny. You could count on one hand how many times you and Roy had hugged, and none of them had been like this.

You’d been close before, sure, in proximity and in more. You were close even now, despite counting the conversation you’d both had in November. Everyone on the outside seemed to think of Roy as someone who wasn’t hands-on. He liked his space, he didn’t like to pry or poke, yet here you were– the air being squeezed from your lungs because he’d made you open up for your own good– because he couldn’t think of anything better to show that he cared than to embrace you.

Roy Kent cared so much that it was a wonder he had energy to do anything else.

When the two of you parted, you couldn’t help but laugh. You stayed close, foreheads almost touching. Roy smiled at you genuinely, fully, thoughtfully.

“No wonder you’re going mental,” he said lowly. “That’s a lot to hold onto without letting it out.”

That’s not even the half of it. You wanted to say, but you didn’t.

“You’re not running in place behind us,” Roy continued. “You’re what keeps us all together. You’re the reason I went back to Richmond.” You didn’t say anything, just took in his words. “I didn’t go back just for the game, or the guys– I went back because I knew you’d be in the box, looking down at me on the pitch again.”

Your throat closed slightly, as the urge to cry hit you. You swallowed it away, not wanting to burst again in such a short amount of time. “Well,” you whispered. “I’m glad.”

For a fraction of a second, Roy’s eyes dropped to your lips.

You’d been here before, you thought. You’d been here with him like this so many times that you couldn’t even count them off the top of your head. If you had time, a few minutes maybe, you’d be able to pinpoint every occasion where the word almost screeched within your mind.

Almost there. Almost on you.

Perhaps you’d never get beyond the proverbial almost, but this time felt different. Something had shifted recently. You felt it. Roy’s stares lingered for just a tad too long. Electricity buzzed between you even when you weren’t touching. The joy you’d felt when he’d arrived at the Dogtrack and finally caved in had been second to none. In hindsight, maybe jumping the wall of the home box and running down the steps in the stands to him had been too much.

Roy didn’t think so. He’d relished you being close. His stomach had somersaulted as soon as you’d yelled his name. Secretly, he’d hoped you’d react the exact way you did. He’d done it for you, had he not? He’d come back to Richmond for you.

Without realising, you and Roy had inched closer to each other so much that you both hovered over the centre console of his Jeep. Foreheads almost touching. Hearts almost caving.

You’d been here before so many times.

Roy swallowed without moving a muscle, ready to speak. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Instantly, you crashed back down to earth. You sucked in a deep breath and straightened yourself, leaning back towards the passenger side window. You thought the worst. Was this an ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this’? It had to be, surely.

“Oh,” you let out, flustered. “Don’t apologise, don’t wo–”

“No,” Roy cut you off strongly, unexpectedly leaning closer. “I’m sorry for being a fucking idiot.”

Time stilled. That word– that almost– lingered in the air like dust in the desert. Heavy, dry, suffocatingly warm.

Roy’s expression grew to frustration as quickly as you’d both fallen to silence. “I thought I was doing the right fucking thing, stopping–” He gestured between you both, not able to find words. “I thought it would be better for you, to not get you mixed up in all my shit.”

The penny dropped. You squished your face into a hurt smile involuntarily. “It’s okay, Roy,” you said softly.

“And worse yet,” he continued. “I’ve been a… a fucking arse. Not changing how I acted around you, or what I said, or what I did. I must have made everything ten times fucking worse for you.”

You shook your head immediately. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Roy replied instantly. “It does matter. I never wanted to play with your fucking feelings or make what I did more difficult for you, but that’s exactly what I did.”

“It’s okay,” you said. “It’s okay,” you repeated, just for good measure.

Roy fell silent for a pause, taking in your words as if he really needed to hear them. In fact, you thought he really did need to hear them, straight from your mouth and no one elses.

“You’re sure?” he asked, checked, wanted to make extra fucking sure.

You nodded quickly. “I’m sure.” You smiled, trying desperately not to let the cropped up hurt on your face show through. That wasn’t on him; he hadn’t intended to damage you this way.

“Okay.” Roy breathed out deeply, leaning back into the driver’s seat like the weight of the world had just been taken off his shoulders. “Thank fuck,” he whispered, before meeting your eye again. He smiled, accepting the silliness that one felt after being so vulnerable with someone else. “I really fucking need you, you know?”

You laughed first, wanting to say so do I. Instead, you differed your response. “Of course, you fucking do. Who else is going to tell you what to do with your life?”

Roy’s smile lit up all over his face. You remembered a time where you used to count how many times he looked at you like this; honest. Now, it was everyday.

“Exactly,” he said. Gently, he stuck his hand out and laid it upon your cheek. “Fucking exactly.” His thumb swiped across your face warmly. You shivered immensely, but tried desperately to hide it.

You glanced at the radio clock. Time ticked by, and you knew you had to leave this conversation soon. Innately, Roy knew it, too.

“My mum’s coming to Richmond tomorrow morning,” you said softly. Roy’s hand stayed put. You didn’t mind. “I need to go and clean my flat, or she’ll start washing up mugs against my will.”

Roy’s eyes flicked between your own. Affection seeped from within them, so far removed from when you’d first met. Slowly, he removed his hand from your cheek. His fingers skimmed your skin on the way back to his lap. “Okay,” he whispered; acceptance.

Almost would stay the same. Almost had gone the furthest it had ever been.

You slung your bag over your shoulder. Roy unlocked the passenger side door with one button click. You gripped the handle strongly, but paused before you left for good.

“Thank you for listening to me,” you said simply. “I mean– really listening to me.”

Roy stayed still, not leaving your gaze for a second. “Always,” he said lowly.

When the door to your building shut behind you, Roy was still reluctant to drive away. He watched as the light turned on from the window of your ground floor flat, saw your silhouette enter the living room– the room where he’d stood before a few times– and drop your bag to the floor in exhaustion.

Roy drove away when your silhouette disappeared, the feeling of you still present on his fingertips.

You didn’t tell anyone about Nate. You didn’t tell anyone that he’d warded you off or spoke ill of you supporting the team. Instead, you went to work. You encompassed yourself in your job, taking on extra responsibilities despite that being the one reason you felt spread thin.

By Thursday, you were ready to crash. Your bed had been calling you every day, as soon as you disembarked from the train at Richmond tube station. Intentionally, you ignored texts from Rebecca and Keeley about times to rendezvous at Wembley Stadium. If they ever asked, you’d blame it on having too much of a heavy work week. That would be your out.

Logically, you knew you wouldn’t be able to completely miss Richmond playing at Wembley. People would be expecting you there. The guys would be expecting you there. But, despite their cries and pleads for you to be present, you were prepared to keep them at arms length– for Nate’s sake.

When Saturday came, you knew it would be hard for you to avoid everyone at the club. By ten o’clock in the morning, Keeley had already called you twice. By half past the hour, Rebecca had called you three times.

On the fourth time she rang, you knew you had to pick up.

“Darling,” she said quickly. “What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry,” you said (you lied), secluded in your flat. “This week has been insane. I haven’t been able to focus on anything that isn’t Pluto Press related.”

Rebecca made a guttural sound in her throat. “Bollocks!” she exclaimed. “I’ll send a car. It can be there in twenty minutes if need be.”

“It’s okay. I can get the tube. Don’t worry–”

“Oh,” Rebecca cut you off. Her tone switched instantly. “Actually, don’t worry about a car. I think someone is waiting for you out front.”

As if on cue, the horn from Roy’s Jeep sounded from your living room window.

Quickly, you ran to the window. Between your sheer curtains, Roy’s obsidian black Jeep was stationed on the road by your front door. You couldn’t curse on your call with Rebecca, but by God– you wanted to.

“Is that the cavalry coming for me?” you said down the phone, peeved.

“Yes, it is,” Rebecca said smugly. “See you in an hour, darling.” She hung up the phone fast, so quick that you couldn’t give any excuse to get out of this match.

Quickly, you gathered a bag of belongings and left your flat. Reluctantly, you descended the steps of your building and pulled the handle of the passenger side door of Roy’s Jeep. You settled quickly, without fuss, but words dangled in the air as soon as silence descended within the car.

“Ready to go?” Roy said from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” you breathed out. Roy didn’t push you, but he did push upon the accelerator and toward Wembley Stadium.

Roy parked in the car park beneath the stadium, only for players or coaches, and killed the engine.

You grabbed your bag quickly and left his Jeep, knowing what happens when you’re trapped inside with nowhere to go. The two of you made your way through the back entrance of the stadium. It was a miracle that Roy hadn’t asked what was wrong– you were being quiet and subdued, that was enough of a trigger for him to know something was up.

You wondered if Nate had eyes on you. You wondered if he was watching you traverse the inner sections of Wembley, if he saw you freak out when going past the locker room, if he saw you retreat into yourself past the press rooms.

Roy didn’t wonder. He kept his eyes on you through it all.

Silence hung in the air uncomfortably as you passed office after office. These were the inner workings of a stadium; a world that you knew well, but nothing like that of the Dogtrack.

You finally broke the air. “I should really get to Rebecca and Keeley,” you said.

“And you will,” Roy said. “There’s just one stop we have to take first.”

Your heart stilled as soon as he turned to the right, entering into the final office on the long corridor you’d traversed. You were hit with the nervous gazes of Ted and Beard immediately, but you didn’t care for the way their expressions faltered softly—

You cared for the way Nate’s eyes bored into you with no remorse. At the back of the room, he glared at you ten times worse than he’d done the week before at the Dogtrack.

“Writer!” Ted exclaimed, filling the tension in the air with his enthusiasm. “Oh, thank God,” he added in a whisper.

“Hi,” you said smally, accepting a hug from him suddenly.

You hated this. As you removed yourself from Ted’s grasp, you could feel the steely eyes of one Nathan Shelley staring you down, like a child did to an ant before he crushed it with his shoe.

After you left Ted’s embrace, you stepped back so quickly that you almost tripped over Roy’s feet. He steadied you instantly, keeping his hand at your lower back.

“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Ted said, gaining some colour back on his face.

You laughed nervously. “I should really go and find Rebecca and Keeley. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Poppycock!” Ted exclaimed. “You’re exactly what we needed. The guys are in the locker room just down there, why don’t you go and say—,”

“No!” you burst suddenly.

The room went quiet instantly. Beard looked at Ted quizzically. You could feel Roy’s stare on the back of your neck.

“They need to focus,” you stuttered. “I should just go and find my seat.”

Nate stepped forward a few paces, coming between Ted and Beard silently. “I think that’s a good idea. Let her go and find her girlfriends.”

You hated the way words fell from his mouth. You knew he had you exactly where he wanted you— uncomfortable, vulnerable, everything in between— but you were in no situation to open this can of worms with Ted, Beard and Roy.

You gripped your bag on your arm tightly and turned to Roy. “I’ll see you on the pitch,” you said timidly. Quickly, and without thinking, you pressed a chaste kiss on Roy’s cheek, and left promptly.

You had no idea where you were going, but knew that you couldn’t stop as you made your way down the inner corridors of Wembley.

All you knew was that you needed to be where Nate Shelley was not, as soon as humanly possible.

“Have a glass of wine,” Rebecca said sternly from the internal bar by the VIPs box.

“I’m okay,” you said, keeping yourself contained.

Her smile turned to a frown. Oh, she knew you far too well for you to get out of this one.

“Take the fucking wine glass, darling.”

“Okay.” You took the glass of wine instantly and downed one, two, three gulps. You breathed out. “Oh, that’s better.”

“Mhm,” she hummed, satisfied.

“Sorry,” you said between gulps and sips. “It’s just been a long week.”

“I can see that,” she said, looking you up and down. “Are you sure that’s all it is? Your job?”

Shit. She knew something else was up. They all fucking did, and it drove you insane. Innately, you cursed yourself out for being so well-known, so well-loved. You were surrounded by the people who knew you most in this world, but also by the people that didn’t want you around. It was a double-edged sword of inescapable proportions, and you were tired.

“That’s all it is,” you said, trying to adopt as much sincerity as you possibly could.

Rebecca’s frown stayed put as her eyes roamed your face. Gently, she reached out her hand and ran her expensively manicured nails through your hair softly.

“You’d let us know, wouldn’t you?” she said, and you froze with your wine glass to your lips. “You’d let us know if it was something else, too?”

Keeley shoved a mini sausage roll in her mouth and approached you both quickly. “It’s Roy, isn’t it.”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s not Roy,” you groaned.

“Then what is it!” Keeley exclaimed, launching pastry crumbs across the bar.

Before you could respond, applause broke out from the crowd immensely. You gulped down the rest of your wine quickly and dropped the empty glass on a side table by the door to the stands.

“That’s kick off,” you said, already on your way to take a seat.

The conversation went unfinished, as Rebecca and Keeley followed you out of the door towards the pitch. They didn’t attempt to pry during the game, too caught up in the song and dance of yelling chants for Richmond, of being present, of supporting.

You knew you’d dodged a bullet, as you screamed your lungs out from the stands. But, you knew your silence was on a time limit. If anyone would get something out of you, it was Rebecca and Keeley.

And you knew it would only be a matter of time before they broke your silence (for the better).

When the full-time whistle blew, you felt helpless. You could only imagine how the guys were feeling, knowing that they’d lost so spectacularly against none other than Manchester City.

The person who your heart went out to the most, however, was not normal. It wasn’t Roy, it wasn’t Ted, it wasn’t even Sam or Isaac or Colin— it was Jamie Tartt.

You knew he’d be hurting the most from this immense defeat. His old team, his past life, and at Wembley fucking stadium no less. He’d be in bits.

“Well,” Rebecca said, standing up and wrapping her scarf around her neck. “That’s that, then.”

“The guys will be crushed,” Keeley said sadly.

“Jamie will be crushed.” The pair of them looked at you as you spoke. Their sombre faces were enough for you to know that they agreed wholeheartedly.

“Come on.” Rebecca passed you and stepped out of the stands. “Let’s go and commiserate with them.”

You tensed instantly, watching silently as Keeley stood up and followed Rebecca. The two of them waited for you at the end of the row.

“I should really head home,” you said finally, trying to keep your expression neutral.

“What?” Keeley.

“Why on Earth do you need to leave now?” Rebecca.

“It’s just— I don’t want to crowd them, you know?” The pitch of your voice had risen. You sounded like a mouse, a lying, cheating mouse.

The two of them stared at you like you were mental. Neither said anything, their expressions spoke a thousand words for them— what the hell is up with you?

You faltered first. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Oh no, we absolutely will look at you like this,” Rebecca said threateningly. “What’s got your knickers in a twist? You look like a labrador that’s shit all over the carpet!”

“I really hope you haven’t shat on someone’s carpet, but if you have, you can tell us.” Keeley leaned down and laid a gentle hand on your shoulder.

“I haven’t shat on a fucking carpet!”

“Then come on!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Your team needs you.” Her words stung you internally. “They need you.”

Rebecca’s commanding nature jumped out tenfold. You were stuck at an impasse, between a rock and a hard place, whatever other metaphor you could use for being trapped. One side of your brain projected a sad picture of the guys in the locker room, begging for a friendly face to come and lift them up; and the other— Nate was glaring at you like you’d just done something terribly wrong.

God, you hated this. No one knew the way he’d talked to you, or what he’d said. And the worst part was that you couldn’t tell them— wouldn’t— from how much drama it would create.

Football was supposed to be your safe space. Watching matches with your girls, cheering or crying in the locker room with the guys, urging Ted, Beard and Roy on whenever you could.

Nate had taken that all away after one simple conversation.

You didn’t know how to tell them no. If it was up to you, you would have sprung out of your seat and ran down to the locker rooms without any hesitation.

But, it wasn’t up to you. Nate’s words rattled around your mind like beads in a maraca.

Rebecca sucked in a deep breath. She leant down and grabbed your hand swiftly, warmly. “We’re here with you. Whatever you need, we’re always here. But, those boys need us the most right now. You know them better than I do—,”

“And me! You know them better than me, too!” Keeley joined in supportively.

“They don’t want us without you, and that’s a fact.”

You let out a shaking breath, then nodded quickly. Nate would have to move to the fucking side.

“Okay.” You nodded again, strongly. “Okay— let’s go see our boys.” You stood up quickly, not letting go of Rebecca’s hand.

“Your boys,” Rebecca said sternly. “They’re all yours.”

Navigating the lower levels of Wembley was nerve wracking, you couldn’t lie. Scenarios raced through your head of things going terribly wrong; Nate stopping you in the corridor; Nate forbidding you from entering the locker room; Nate this, Nate that.

Fuck this shit.

Rebecca was right. They were your boys, your team. You knew them on levels that didn’t revolve around football, you knew them as people. And by God, they needed that. This time, they needed someone to make them feel something other than defeated.

The corridors were clear when the three of you turned the corner to the locker rooms. Only a security guard stood at the door of Richmond, and he very easily let you all in when you approached.

You held your breath when you finally entered. The guys sat in their respective cubby holes sullenly, elbows on knees, heads in their hands.

You’d seen this before at Roy’s last game. Silence even deeper than when you both sat in the Dogtrack locker room alone littered the air at Wembley. You could only imagine what the guys were feeling, like history was repeating itself on so many levels for the team.

You caught eyes with Jamie first. He looked broken.

Rebecca and Keeley headed towards the coaches, but you felt stuck in place by the door, frozen by the sad atmosphere in the room.

Roy saw you before you saw him. He strolled over slowly and reached out to grab your forearm. “Hey,” he said softly.

You flashed back to reality and gazed up at him. “Hey.” Quickly, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders tightly. He clutched you back strongly, and you knew that he’d been needing a hug with the same fervour as yours.

You didn’t need to say you were sorry. He’d probably heard it enough already. He knew you felt the sting of a loss this big just as much as he did.

When you went to pull away, he squeezed you tighter. Evidently, he wasn’t done just yet.

“Well, guys,” Ted said to the room. Roy finally tugged away, but he kept a firm grasp around your waist as the two of you turned to listen to Ted’s address. “We lost. You don’t need me or anyone else to say it, because the look on your faces says it all.” Ted’s southern drawl felt like therapy. Within seconds, the team felt acknowledged, and that was all that mattered. “We all knew this was going to be tough, and for just a moment I want you all to forget the score, forget the goals and whatever else, and just think of how you all played like a proper team.”

Ted had a way with words that you knew was the main reason his career was so vast. You didn’t know a thing about American football, but you knew that Ted was a stellar coach whether it was football or soccer in his eyes.

“You played as a team today,” Ted continued. “And sure, you’re allowed to be sad about the outcome, I’m not about to tell you you can’t feel that sting, but—.” Roy squeezed your waist. You wondered if he was doing it subconsciously. “But you all need to know that you were a unit today. One that has got us up through these ranks and back on the radar of the Premier League, even if the FA Cup wasn’t ours this time around.”

His words settled over the room and brought back a sense of self to all the players. Next to you, Roy breathed out softly and in understanding. You could feel the tension within him dissipate ever so slightly.

And then, that all went away.

“Knock knock!” a voice sounded from the door to the locker room. A second later, a face you didn’t recognise turned the corner and into the room. “Awh no, sorry for the loss, lads,” he said, as your eyes darted quickly around the room, trying to find any semblance of familiarity. You found it in Jamie’s eyes instantly. “Though, not fully sorry. Because Man City fuckin’ won!” His Mancunian accent reverberated throughout the room.

You understood immediately, as you watched Jamie’s hands ball into fists. The rest of the team stayed back, as if glued to their cubbies. This was Jamie’s father. It had to be.

Jamie’s dad pottered further into the room, towards his son. Jamie stood up as he did, sucking a deep breath into his tired lungs. “My boy, my boy. You bottled it didn’t ya?”

Your entire body tensed as everyone observed, not saying a word. Jamie’s dad only kept coming, not paying any mind to the other players in the room. Roy’s grip on your waist tightened suddenly, as if he could feel your anxiety rising. You could feel the same from him; every muscle in his body tried desperately to hold back.

Jamie’s father lunged towards his son’s face, so close that Jamie couldn’t look anywhere else. “You hear me, boy? You fuckin’ bottled it, didn’t ya?” he repeated.

“Don’t speak to me that way,” Jamie said quickly, seething.

“Wha?” his father faked not hearing him, getting even closer.

“Do not speak to me that way,” Jamie repeated. His father looked up to his face, catching his eye lethally.

Your gut lurched as his father kept going, kept repeating wha?, kept getting closer and closer to his boy’s face. This was vile, and you could hardly believe no one was doing anything.

“Wanna say that to me again, boy?”

Jamie stood his ground, puffing out his chest to be bigger, straightening out his spine to be taller, and better, and whatever else he hadn’t learned from his shit-bag of a father.

“Huh?” he said again, louder. “Huh!” he exclaimed. Alongside his voice, his hands bombarded into Jamie’s chest– hard.

Something within you snapped. Your chest compressed, your intestines warped, and your legs started moving. Roy’s grip disappeared from around your waist as you rushed forward, not giving a shit about the audience, or about the guys, or about Nate. Nate, who was standing behind Ted and Beard, saying and doing nothing.

Inside, you stopped caring. You didn’t give a fuck if he hated you being around, you didn’t give a fuck if you’d get in trouble from this outburst, but you had to do something– anything. Jamie Tartt was being publicly abused by his father in front of your eyes, and you couldn’t fucking stand it.

Maybe this is what Roy meant. You were the glue. You kept everyone together, you brought Roy back to the team. Maybe this is what you’d always been meant to do– protect these boys from whatever you fucking could, when they weren’t able to for themselves.

As Jamie recovered, ready to strike, you were already one step ahead. In a fraction of a second, you were already beside his father, fist raised. When your knuckles hit his skin, you finally came back into the room. There were two crashes; one from the impact of your fist on his father’s cheekbone; the second from him hitting the floor unceremoniously.

Quickly, Beard approached you and hoisted Jamie’s dad up by his armpits. The two of them backed out of the door, clambering over stray shoes and shirts and whatever else that lay on the floor. Without any warning, two large arms wrapped around you from behind and pulled you off the ground. You knew it was Roy as soon as you smelled his cologne. You smiled inappropriately, and then you chuckled to yourself deviously.

You’d just punched Jamie’s piece of shit dad in the fucking face.

And it felt fantastic.

Clatters sounded from the outside corridor. Beard breathed heavily as he made his way back into the locker room, and the door slammed loudly behind him. The air felt heavy as eyes darted around the room. The guys looked at each other, then to Beard, then to you. Roy still held you tightly, dangling you above the ground as you tried your damned hardest not to burst into laughter.

You couldn’t feel your hand. Your knuckles were red when you dropped your gaze to look. Your hand shook, finger bones stuck in place as they contemplated what their owner had just done– thrown a punch for the first time in her fucking life, and very haphazardly at that.

When Jamie looked over to you, Roy finally dropped you to the floor. He leaned in close to your face, surveying your eyes suddenly. This was a look you’d never seen from him; fear. Roy Kent wasn’t one to be afraid, but the way his eyes poured into your own had your chest crumpling beneath your skin. He was worried– he was frightened– for you.

“You ok?” he whispered.

You nodded quickly. “I’m not the one you need to be asking that to.” Your gaze moved over to Jamie in a heartbeat.

Roy stood up straight once more, puffing out his chest as he inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. He started walking without warning, fists balled, towards the Richmond striker. Everyone held their breath, knowing that him and Jamie together were not a good combination. You, however, smiled to yourself without question.

When Roy reached Jamie, he wrapped his arms around him immediately. Coach and player hugged in silence, as the gravity of what Jamie’s father had just done stuck to every wall in the room. He needed this– hands on help, a real show of love and affection.

You were happy that Roy was the one to breach contact. That’s exactly what Jamie had needed.

“You ok?” Roy asked him, pulling away from the embrace.

Jamie breathed out slowly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“It’s not me you should be thanking,” Roy muttered.

Both men turned back to face you. You held your wrist with care, not wanting to jolt your now fucked up hand. You smiled at the two of them knowingly, as everything settled back into place.

Behind you, Nathan Shelley grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. On the way out of the locker room, he rushed past you harshly. You yelped to yourself as he pushed into you, jolting your wrist painfully. He stopped before you for just a second; he smiled. Your heart skipped a beat.

“Watch yourself there,” he said, in some kind of fake honey-toned pitch. Then, he turned on his heels and left the locker room as fast as he’d bumped into you.

Another threat. What a fucking joke.

Your face soured immediately, you couldn’t help it. Inside your head, you imagined a world where you’d told Roy all that Nate had put you through recently. You could see it clearly– his whole body would tense, his fists would ball, his nostrils would flare, and he’d yell I’ll show that little fucker!

Deeper within the indulgent part of your mind, he kissed you passionately before he went to confront Nate on your behalf. You swallowed quickly, trying to pat away those thoughts from the unexplored crevices of your mind. It was futile. Besides, you knew you still couldn’t tell Roy about Nate’s behaviour, for the sake of the team.

One day, rest assured, you would. When Nate left Richmond, or something else happened to change things around here, that’s when you’d lay it all out for him.

You were counting down the days.

“Hey,” Roy said, alerting you back into the room once more. Stood before you, he looked down at your hand. His brows furrowed. “Hm,” he growled gently.

“It’s fine,” you lied.

Softly, Roy laid his fingers atop your red knuckles. A sharp pain bombarded through your flesh instantly, forcing you to suck in a gasp. The pain spread to the rest of your hand, down your fingers, and twinged into your wrist. You couldn’t help it– you had to scream. “Motherfucker!”

“Just as I thought,” Roy said. “You’ve fractured the shit out of your hand.”

You squirmed on the spot, trying desperately to alleviate the pain you felt. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you rattled off, purely as a way to expel what you felt.

“Come on.” Roy bent down to the floor and picked up your bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s go to the physio.” You hardly heard him, too focused on your hand. Roy gently wrapped his arm around your shoulders, leading you out of the room. “See you in a bit, lads!” he exclaimed to the room.

The two of you turned into the empty corridor ay Wembley, walking slowly as you tried to hold onto the last of your composure.

“God,” you hissed. “Why the fuck did I punch Jamie’s dad?”

“Because someone had to,” Roy replied. “And besides.” He glanced at you unknowingly, as you remained preoccupied on your self-inflicted injury. “It was fucking hot.”

You groaned immensely, dropping your head onto Roy’s shoulder. “It doesn’t fucking feel like it,” you whined. Roy couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh, believe me,” he said lowly, indulging in you being this close to him. “It was.”

Roy held you all the way to the physio. Secretly, he’d never been happier that you’d decided to be so reckless. Perhaps, he thought, he was rubbing off on you just as much as you’d changed him for the better.

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reminiscingtonight · 3 months ago

Text

Promises

Alessia Russo x Reader

Word Count: 555

A/N: Song of the day -- Suffocate by Hayd

[WOSO Masterlist]

“I’ll be back.”

Three words burned so deeply into your brain you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to.

Three words holding onto a promise that seemed to be slipping away as each day went by.

Three words that are all you have left to remember Alessia by.

---

North Carolina was only ever a moment in time for her.

You knew exactly what you were getting into when the two of you got involved.

Young love, fueled by constant contact and close proximity. A love that only blossomed as her time at UNC went on.

It was a good couple years. You won trophies together. You won championships. Your relationship off the field flourished as your on pitch relationship soared.

College was good to you both.

College was good to you until it wasn’t.

School shuts down and Alessia makes the decision to leave for Manchester.

It’s the most logical decision. With everything coming to a stop in the states, she’d also get more eyes from national team scouts if she was playing for a professional club.

“What if I tried finding a club in England too?”

It was a last ditch effort to keep you together. You both knew it.

And as much as Alessia wanted to say yes, it was something she would never make you do. Your family was your rock, and as much as you loved her, leaving your family behind would kill you.

“You should stay.” Her crystal blue eyes shimmered with tears when she kissed you one last time. Her duffle packed with clothes mixed with yours and hers was already sitting by your door, ready to be brought on the long flight overseas.

Your arms tighten around her, wishing this moment could last forever.

“I’ll be back. I promise.”

Alessia leaves for England and she takes your heart with her.

In the beginning the effort is there. Phone calls, video dates, care packages galore. You stay up late talking to one another, wake early to catch each other’s games. You love Alessia and Alessia loves you so you make it work.

But then as the reality of becoming professional footballers actually starts sinking in, everything teeters off until it just… ends.

Calls are left unanswered. Texts left unread.

You’re not sure what happened. What you did wrong.

And so the seasons change and you grow older apart. Flowers wither and fall and bloom over and over again, and yet you wait.

Though calls became sporadic and few in between, you never give up hope that she’ll return.

---

Three years after Alessia leaves it finally happens.

Manchester announces the departure of their star striker.

You sit by the phone, waiting for the call to come. Waiting to hear her tell you she’s coming home to you.

Alessia signs for Arsenal.

---

The seasons change but you stay the same.

Always waiting patiently by the phone.

Always hoping Alessia will make good of her promise.

“I’ll be back.”

It’s what she said when she left you.

It’s what you choose to still believe.

And so you stay.

And you wait.

And every day Alessia doesn’t call, every day she doesn’t come back, every day she moves even further away from those promises she made, you can feel yourself growing colder, air thinning out until there’s nothing left to do but suffocate.

#alessia russo x reader #alessia russo imagine #woso x reader #woso imagine #Ace writes

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pixiesfz · 5 months ago

Text

part 2 of this

moving on j.r x reader

plot: you are an adult now and move to Manchester

warnings: in this jill never played at Arsenal and also this has some heavy themes of SA and toxic relationships

Years later you had gotten out of your family home, earning enough money to fly out to Manchester and own your apartment, leaving your family behind.

You had healed.

You were openly out and had made many friends in the city. You sometimes went out to watch the soccer, men's or women’s. It gave you the comfort that reminded you of Jill.

You had seen her Instagram, your finger hovering over the follow button for far too long.

Career-wise your life had been doing amazing, all your singing writing as a teenager had paid off as you sold your songs off to famous singers and heard them sing them on stages.

You had recently finally settled into your apartment, just adding in a small detail here and there.

Your favourite part of owning your own home was the control you had, picking which sheets you used, choosing what paint color you would paint your bedroom walls, and finally choosing who you let in.

You never told your parents where exactly you were moving, you just said Europe and left.

You didn’t want them trying to control you in your own home.

It was about your fifth week in Manchester when you met Ellie, you were walking from a local furniture store with a rugged stool in your hand, you thought it wouldn’t be a hassle to walk but when he offered you two for the price of one you took it.

And now you couldn’t see where you were going.

Ellie was walking nearby and noticed your struggle immediately, walking over and offering to help you.

“I’m Ellie” she introduced herself once she placed the stool in front of your door

“Y/N” you smiled before looking at the door and then back to the older girl “Would you like to come in?” you asked, a blush roaming over your cheeks.

Ellie nodded “Yeah I would like that”, you nodded back before opening the door for both of you as you placed the stools down nearby.

You had swapped numbers that night, an obvious connection being created as you saw each other more.

You had created some friends in your workplace, sharing fun ideas with each other and sharing stories.

“You and Ellie are so perfect it’s like a movie” Olivia gushed as you told her how she brought you flowers last night. “I know, she’s amazing” you laughed, placing your papers down.

“It’s good being able to love in person, not behind a door” you told her and she nodded, already knowing about your past life when you lived with your parents.

“I’m happy for you”.

You had been so infatuated with Ellie that you never heard of the news of Jill’s move to Manchester City from Wolfsburg. Personally you were following Manchester United but Ellie was big on City so when she dragged you to a Manchester derby you were a tad bit excited.

You had also invited Olivia and her husband to come with you as you all sat down in the stands. The game was starting soon as you cheered for the girls in red, you knew they would most likely lose from how good you heard City were doing but you still had hope.

Jill had walked out onto the field, shaking her hands to rid of her nerves, she craned her neck round after before shaking her legs, a small ritual she did as she walked onto the ground.

There wasn’t a big crowd today, due to the earlier game time but she didn’t mind, usually, when she played in small games she was more aware of all her options.

You were watching the united girls warm up in front of you, joining into chants here and there, your girlfriend refusing to sing the chants with you.

“Oh C’mon babe just one” you whined, pulling out your finger to represent the number “You sing a city one then” she shot back and you shook your head “Only if you sing united”

“Ok what about Roord, she’s my favourite player” your girlfriend said and your skin went pale.

“Roord?” you question and your girlfriend smiled “yeah Jill, she plays for your international team, I’ll teach you all about soccer babe it’s fine”

You reached your head around to see the City girls and there she was.

She was taller, her hair was blonder and she was still as gorgeous as ever, Jill.

Your Jill.

You choked on your water, throwing a thumbs up when Olivia’s husband asked if you were okay.

When the game started you couldn’t keep your eyes off of her, fortunately, Ellie was too into the game to notice your very obvious stare at the Dutch player.

When the game ended 2-0 City’s way you watched as your girlfriend ran back to the stands to grab a pen.

Jill had started her lap around the oval, deciding to go do it herself instead of with Kerstin because she didn’t want to stand through another lovey-dovey conversation between her and her girlfriend.

You had been talking to someone behind you when she heard a Dutch accent, being intrigued to find a Dutch person at a game but when she looked up to you she was frozen, ignoring the fans calling her name.

“Y/N?”

You turned around from the sound of your name only to be met with the eyes that you fell in love with years ago.

“Y/N?” another voice popped up and you turned your head to your girlfriend who had knocked her head in the direction of Jill.

“Oh, Ellie uhm- “

“Do you want that signed?” Jill asked, directing her hand to the City jersey Ellie held in her hands before she nodded

“How do you know my girlfriend?” Ellie asked before you looked at her weirdly, Jill also looking up with shock

“We went to the same school” Jill smiled dryly before passing back the shirt “Uh it was nice to see you,” Jill said to you before walking straight to the tunnel, skipping the rest of the fans.

You shared weird looks with all of your friends. Ellie’s eyes looking down at you. “Why did you never tell me you knew one of my favourite soccer players?”

You shrugged a fake laugh escaping your lips “I guess it just never came up.”

The car ride home was silent, Olivia and her husband left in an Uber from the game to go to her parents house, which left you and Ellie in the car alone.

Usually, this wouldn’t matter to you. You and Ellie are in the car together all the time.

This felt different. She hadn’t looked at you since you got in and her knuckles were turning white at the steering wheel.

“Ellie-“ “When you told me your parents found you with a girl once was it Jill?”

You were taken back from the question “Why does it matter?” you ask and she rolled her eyes “Was it?”

You scoffed “I don’t see how it’s any of your business but yes, yes it was”

You saw her knuckles turn even whiter as she turned into her apartment. A pit forms in your stomach “Can you drop me home to mine?” you ask and she turns to you “It’s late y/n, you know I don’t like driving at night”

You pursed your lips nodding “alright” you said and got out of the car.

You decided to shed some light on the situation as you went in “Do you want to watch some Netflix, you can pick a show and I’ll make popcorn” You smiled and Ellie nodded, a slight smile on her lips as she kissed your cheek and made her way into her bedroom.

“That’s not the living room!” you joke but you hear no reply.

Once you finally finished the popcorn you walked into the living room to see no Ellie “Ellie c’mon housewives is on!” You yell out to your girlfriend who finally comes back in with black trousers on, she looks a bit blushed but you ignore it.

“hey” she smiled at you before sitting next to you “What were you doing in your room for so long?” you asked softly and she shrugged “Got distracted on my phone I guess” she shrugged and you nodded

Minutes later your fatigue started to take control of you as you rolled to the pillow next to you, Ellie watching with a smirk.

“I have a surprise for you” she whispered and you hummed “What is it?” you asked and she smiled up against your ear before kissing your neck gently “Here”.

You pushed away when she pressed her body against your back and you felt it. She must have put it on whilst she was in her room.

You just wanted to have a rest on the couch “Not tonight El” you told her, taking her hand and kissing it gently.

But Ellie didn’t seem to like that idea because she pressed harder against you “please I just want you so bad”

You shook your head “I’m not that into it tonight” You shrugged and tried to sit up but your girlfriend's arms pushed you back down before she hovered over you.

You panicked “What are you doing?”

“I want you,” she said and started kissing your neck as you tried to push her away but instead, she grabbed your hands and pulled them above you “Stop fighting it you wanted it last week”

“Get off me,” you told her, now using your legs but they were no use as she sat on your lap “Ellie stop-“

You were silenced as her palm hit your face “Shut up”

“I’m going to fuck you and you are going to like it”.

#woso #woso soccer #woso community #woso x reader #jill roord x reader #jill roord imagine #jill roord #manchester city #mancity

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mj0702 · 5 months ago

Text

For this anon... I try to get a follow up with the camp... any favored players? 😊♥️

“Fuck Lucy...” Keira moaned when Lucy lightly bit her neck

“Mhm” the older player murmured against her lovers skin smirking

“Fuck I...” the blonde groaned and scratched Lucys back “... this long distance is killing meeee... JESUS”

“I'll make up for it, Ging... all night long” Lucy mumbled softly as she kissed her way further down on her girlfriends naked body

The first time in six weeks they had the evening to themselves. No games this weekend so Lucy decided to book the next flight from Lyon back to Manchester to spend the weekend with her girlfriend. She surprised Keira with a bouquet of flowers and a cheesy “I love you” - Teddy Bear from the airport smiling happily when the blonde opened the door in her Pjs barefoot her hair a little touloused like she just woke up from a nap on the couch

“Luce?” Keira whispered like she couldn't believe her girlfriend was really standing in front of her

“Hey Love” the brown haired woman smiled softly “... thought I pop around for the weekend – hope you didn't text your affair”

“But you...” the blonde looked at her girlfriend still confused “.. you have a game”

“No... I said I need a break” Lucy smiled “... may I.... come in?”

“Yes of course” Keira said quickly stepping aside “... it's your house... Lucy!” she squealed as Lucy picked her smaller frame up laying Keira over her shoulder

“My house, my rules” the dark haired said smugly as she walked through the hallway towards the living room

“Also my house” the blonde laughed hanging over her girlfriends shoulder “... shoes off”

Lucy quickly flipped her shoes off sending them flying down the hallway before she entered the living room deposing a laughing Keira on the couch

“No welcome home kiss?” Lucy grinned while she already leaned down

“Didn't get any chance now did I?” the blonde whispered as she pulled Lucy down by the hem of her shirt connecting their lips in a soft, loving kiss

“Fuck I really missed you” Lucy murmured against her girlfriends neck hovering above her their clothes scatter around the house “I love you Kei”

“Love you too..” the blonde panted out her hips acting on their own as she tried to get Lucy to finally give her what she so desperately needs “... but for the love of god”

“Getting there Love” the older one murmured kissing her lovers breast “Let me enjoy this”

“Get there faster” Keira whined spreading her a little apart hinting her girlfriend how much she needs that sweet release and touch

“A minute...” Lucy mumbled licking over Keiras hardened nipple

“Scoot over...” you mumbled sleepy already crawling on Keiras bed

“JESUS!!” your sister exclaimed shocked holding down the blanket that's covering Keira and herself “Bubs... what are you...”

“Ssshh Lucy... tired” you mumbled face planting into the pillow next to the two already dead asleep again

“What the....” Lucy whisper yelled looking between you and her girlfriend back and forth

“She has problems sleeping since you left...” Keira said “... she comes over three, four times a week now...”

“I so looked forward to us having some... alone time” your sister grumbled as she moved off her naked girlfriend

“I didn't know she would be here tonight” the blonde said apologetic and pressed herself against her girlfriends side

“Why didn't you tell me?” Lucy asked her voice lowly pulling Keira closer into her side “That she has nightmares again”

“She didn't want me to say something to you... and they're not nightmares per se... she misses you Luce...” Keira mumbled as she pressed her nose into Lucys necks

“I miss you too... both of you” your sister sighed holding her girlfriend tightly

“Can you two shut up already... I'm trying sleepy here” you mumbled but Lucy immediately heard you were basically dead to the world

“Sorry your Highness...” your sister chuckled pulling you into her other side her naked body still covered by the light blanket while you laid on top of it

“You are forgiven” you mumbled into the pillow which made Lucy and Keira laugh quietly

#lucy bronze x reader #keira walsh x reader #woso image

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maxsimagination · 10 months ago

Text

𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁 - 𝗼.𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗹𝗹𝗲

summary: yn is a well known tattoo artist, and mapi happens to be her most frequent customer and avid gossiper.

𖦹 masterlist

"𝗠𝗔𝗣𝗜! 𝗠𝗬 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 living canvas!" i yell out to my favourite customer as she walks into the studio.

"yn! my favourite tattoo artist!" i laugh at her antics. "mapi, i'm you're only tattoo artist. you don't let anyone else near your skin." she poked her tongue out at me and sat in the chair.

"so what are we doing?" mapi pulled her phone out and showed me a sketch that i knew she'd been wanting for a while. while i was getting my products out and cleaning everything, mapi was talking about the latest news with her team, barcelona. "we signed a new player, she's from manchester united."

i knew what mapi was talking about already and i knew the player that had transferred. it was my girlfriend, ona batlle. i was over the moon when she'd told me she was moving clubs to come over to barcelona. owning a tattoo studio doesn't require me to travel a lot so it was mostly long distance, but we made it work.

we face timed and called when we could and texted often. i knew most of her now-teammates through my work, especially mapi. she was my most frequent customer and probably one of my closest friends.

her girlfriend, ingrid, would come along to some of her sessions sometimes and we'd chat while mapi was practically half asleep in the chair. i had also done work with players like alexia putellas, patri guijarro and of course, ona but they didn't know that.

"we played our most recent game with her and she's actually pretty good." mapi was still talking about ona and i sat with a smile while i worked, glad to hear praise for my girlfriend's soccer skills. "i hear she has a girlfriend." that bit caught my attention. "how do you know?" a grin was plastered on my face at her words.

"she has a vibe, a feeling that she's happy with life. i don't know, i just hear things from the girls." it was comical really, how right they were, but i definitely wasn't going to say anything.

we spend about two hours there, me working on mapi's tattoo and mapi talking my ear off about anything and everything. when i'm done, i clean off the excess ink and spread some gel on it before mapi is up and bounding over to the mirror to see her latest artwork.

we finished up and mapi handed me the cash she'd gotten for today. i thanked her and she was on her way. when i closed up for the day i called ona, something we do regularly now that she's in barcelona with me. "hola mi cariño." (hello my darling.)

"hola mi amor. how was training?" (hello my love.)

"bien, (okay) it was just the normal. although the girls kept talking about how they think i have a girlfriend." i laughed at that, it was the same thing mapi had told me about when she was with me. before she went to training.

"they aren't wrong." i laughed. "mapi told me about that today. she said there's rumours your dating someone." we just laugh together at that. it's not like we are trying to hide our relationship from our friends, they just haven't figured it out yet. and when ona was at manchester i would fly over to her, so it wasn't as obvious.

"did you want to go out after? we can go to your favourite cafe?" ona offered.

"por favor, amor. i need to spend time with just you." (please, love.)

we agreed and ona said she'd pick me up from mine in an hour. i lived by myself in an apartment not too far away from the studio. ona tended to hop between living with me and one of her teammates since she's been in barça. i was honestly surprised that none of them have caught on when she wasn't living with them.

as promised, ona picks me up and we drive out to the cafe. it was small and slightly secluded with some tables scattered through the front and down the side.

it was such a pretty place and had the best food i'd ever tasted, i loved it so much. we enjoyed our time together and shared some food before we had to head out. what i didn't expect when we walked out was mapi, waiting, with a semi-tired ingrid in tow.

"i knew it! i knew she was dating someone!" she was almost yelling and had completely shocked both ona and i.

"maria leon! what are you doing?" i used her real name, that got her attention. "lo siento, (sorry) i knew you knew something when i told you during our tattoo session. normally you are all over gossip with the girls, but today you seemed like you already knew about it. it just made me think-" i smiled at how mapi was rambling about how she knew about us. i looked down at ona and she was already grinning at our friend. "-about how happy ona seemed and how you are and-"

"mapi, it's okay. we don't care if people find out about us." mapi stopped talking and looked at us before breaking into a grin. "sorry, thankyou. i think you guys are cute."

we all ended up laughing together, even ingrid who looked like she needed a nap. after we'd caught up mapi and ingrid left to go to their place, while ona went to mine with me. "i guess the rumours were true, onita." i grinned over at her from the passenger seat. she was grinning back at me before responding.

"shut up, amor." (love.) then; "i want you to tattoo me again."

#woso #woso x reader #woso community #ona batlle #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle imagine

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i-may-be-an-emu · 25 days ago

Note

TELL ME ABOUT THE MEN!!!!!!

HELLO!!!

GLADLY :DD

THE MEN. :)

They’re called shoot from the hip (sfth) and are @shootimpro on youtube, tiktok, instagram, facebook, x/twitter, as well as on linktree, patreon and ko-fi.

They’re London based but have done shows outside london like in Scotland (Edinburgh Fringe) and even to Spain. They want to hopefully go to other countries in the future too!!

From left to right they’re Sam, Tom, AJ and Luke :)))

(this will probably be LONG so putting a read more lol)

Ok so they do improvised comedy and their shows have two halves (generally with a break in the middle) they play lots of short drama games in the first half and then improvise 20-30 minute (on average) plays in the second half, sometimes with another game at the end.

The plays are so much fun (they’ve got 38 of them up on youtube so far!!) and they’ve also released two full specials (full shows) which you can find on their channel :)

(just a note that for a few of the older ones (apart from the first one) they were filming on an iphone and just projecting their voices, the the audio and image quality can be hard to deal with)

they have SO MUCH CONTENT because during covid they did zoom-style improv shows with eachother and you can watch them as a patreon

they also have SO MANY VIDEOS that are just the regular public ones!!!! They upload short ones of the games and some 5-10min ones of the games too, as well as the long forms (plays)

Now some info about the guys :D

Samuel Thomas Russell-Holmes:

Birthday 21st July 1989 (35)

Married this year and expecting a baby!!! :)

wears a red flannel a LOT (less recently, but still a LOT, it’s his Thing)

he says some very risky things sometimes but also has the audacity to look shocked when the others do it lol

Fav colour is green

he’s 5”10

brown eyes

currently producing a radio show for the bbc called wing it (available in December!)

if he were a Disney Princess he said he’d be Rapunzel

VERY GOOD AT ANIMAL (specifically goat/sheep) NOISES

kisses Luke a lot lol (kisses all of them a lot, but specifically Luke- I counted like the madman that I am lol)

great at talking in Spanish gibberish, often paired with opening his shirt buttons

loves fantasy things

wrote an audiobook called “Evergreen”

his mother and grandfather are/were successful actors

Has a drama degree

Low spice tolerance

has eaten raw egg live on camera

can be a tad egotistical but we love him

Thomas Mayo-Woodman/Hodgson-Mayo:

HES SO TALL (this man is almost 2m tall- he’s 6”5.5 :0)

brown eyes

his birthday is 10th July 1989 (35)

Married to a drag king (@pipdream on insta, tiktok, youtube, ect.) who’s pronouns are they/them

Wrote a graphic novel (it’s called Future it’s about space lesbians)

literally one of the sweetest and kindest souls on this planet I’ve never met him but every time he says anything it’s like WOW OK YOURE SO NICE AND KIND AND WONDERFUL (everything I’ve heard from people who’ve met him is SO NICE)

SO GOOD AT IMPROVISING (specifically Shakespearian-style) MONOLOGUES

his favourite colour is red

has two english degrees (very good with grammar and words)

has adhd

makes a garbled choking noise very well (you have to hear it to get what I mean I guess lol)

has eaten a teabag live on camera

He’s the “dad” of the group

Very hard to make him laugh on stage (but he’s been laughing more, recently!!) and each one is treasured

so kind did I mention he is kind

lovingly called a squid or squidboi by the fandom because of one time he like stuck his hands in his sleeves and was like “I’m a squid”

does a lot of admin work for sfth and handles the finances (at least he did, they might have someone for that now I’m not sure) and takes care of the patreon

Alexander Thomas Jeremy (AJ):

Birthday on 4th November 1991 (32)

CONFUSION KING /aff (he gets confused easily but we love him for it)

He’s bald and gets made fun of for it RELENTLESSLY (again, lovingly)

Absolutely ANGELIC singing voice

Blue eyes

born in Manchester(UK) but grew up in France (fluent in French)

makes movies/short films on youtube!! He’s working on a new one now and you can find them @atjeremy on youtube (that’s also his insta and you can see stuff about his films there too!)

does a lot of the editing for sfth and has a lot of input into which longforms to upload apparently (all of them decide tho I think)

he’s such a himbo (/aff)

fav colour is blue

He’s 6 foot tall

On their covid livestreams would always forget to get costuming ready

his rapping is BEAUTIFUL (words that barely rhyme at all and make NO sense 😌)

can deliver GREAT one liners

so good at playing children it’s crazy

can do magnificent cartwheels and loves to jump on the others with no warning

lots of muscles but lost an arm wrestle against Tom

Thinks he can’t do an Irish accent but I think it’s pretty good

also has a drama degree

Luke Christopher Manning

Birthday is the 23rd October 1989 (currently 34 about to be 35)

Hazel eyes

hes not short but he’s the short-EST, 5”7.5

gets made fun of for his height a LOT (lovingly!!)

SO good at accents

so good at playing women

also so good at playing children

such a good actor overall

says THE MOST UNHINGED THINGS

people think he’s innocent (somehow) but he’s SO unhinged

took his pants off live on stage (wearing underwear but still lol) (AND it’s on youtube hahaha)

lives in Spain with his long term girlfriend (fluent in Spanish)

so much attitude in such a small guy (/aff)

often compared to Macaulay Caulkin looks-wise

plays bass guitar in a band

Teaches acting (to kids??) in Spain

also has adhd

also has a drama degree

His favourite film is back to the future I believe

So confident in himself (this is a very good thing)

people say he “doesn’t age” and looks really young but I personally think he does look his age

sometimes called “Luke Womanning” as a play on his last name because of how amazing all his female characters are

They’re all really close friends and met at uni and started doing improv around 13 years ago together! Started gaining popularity 2022 and are gaining more and more fans every day!

Um. Whoops I wrote a lot lol. (It totally hasn’t been an hour of me just writing this hahahaha)

anyway I love them so much :)))) (as you can probably tell)

anyway!

THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON THIS ASK MEANS SO MUCH TO ME :DDDDD

#shoot from the hip #Sfth asks #Shootimpro #thank you for the ask!#AAAAAAAA :)))))))#This is so nice #theres probably more I could say but tumblr almost killed this post three times cause it couldn’t handle the sheer power of my autism lol #so I’ll leave it be for now :)#Thank you so much anon #sfthposting #sam russell #tom mayo #alexander jeremy #luke manning #:))))))#long post

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inuyashaluver · 10 months ago

Note

Okay I think I need more MLT fics because that was too cute for me to handle at 7 AM

nail day - maya le tissier

maya le tissier x reader

description: in which you and your girlfriend have your monthly nail session, resulting in silly arguments and timers being set

warnings: nothing i think, fluffy!!

a/n: your wish is my command, lovely! IM FEEDING EVERYONE MAYA CONTENT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, I LOVE HER ❤️

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you and your girlfriend, maya find it hard to be apart from each other. the familiarity of one another’s presence was considered a necessity at this point.

a main contributor to your major codependency is the fact that you both play for england and manchester united. there wasn’t really an option to be separated and that was the way you liked it.

—

you and maya originally started dating when you both signed for brighton & hove in 2018, you were the same age and just stuck together like glue, your friendship short lived until you both started flirting shamelessly with each other.

through endless pining and yearning over numerous dates, you began to date when maya made the first move.

it was a cold day and maya had texted you that chilly morning that she had a little surprise for you. when she came to pick you up for training, she stood at your front door with a warm drink in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.

“what’s all this for?” you smile, hugging the girl tightly, taking the items quickly before ushering her inside your flat.

“oh just because, look how they spelt your name on the cup” she giggles nervously, fiddling with her hands as she avoids eye contact with you.

your eyebrows furrow but you look at the cup nonetheless, you look down to see maya’s handwriting on the cup.

‘girlfriend ♡’ followed by a little ‘please x’ written under it. the smile on your face was something maya would never forget, it made her heart beat so fast, honestly feeling like a panic attack.

you put your cup down with a big smile and immediately jump on the girl, she catches you by your thighs and laughs brightly when you kiss her cheek repeatedly.

“i’d love to be your girlfriend! you’re so cute” you coo, she smiles up at you and wraps her arms around your waist to give you a tight hug. “you’re the cutest” she mumbles into your shoulder, pressing a gentle kiss there while she holds you to her.

everything felt right in that moment, like a missing piece of you was finally complete. both of you knew, this was special.

—

when you and maya signed to manchester united, you moved in together in a brand new flat, creating a home of your own together. a perfect reflection of the two of you in every nook and cranny.

one thing you and maya agreed on wholeheartedly was that spending time together outside of football related activities was incredibly important to your relationship.

whether it was enjoying a night in or just going out for a stroll, you both loved that quality time of just being together without a care in the world.

one of your favourite activities to do with each other was to get your nails done. every single one of your teammates at united as well as england knew how important nail day was to you and maya.

it was a time for both of you to just sit and chat with a little pampering, you would both make an effort to match in some way. whether it was the same colour or same little design, both of you would be walking out of that nail salon with matching smiles and nails.

did you get teased for it? oh god, like no tomorrow but you and maya loved it more than anything. a subtle yet extremely loud ode to your relationship.

something else you and maya also loved about nail day was your nightly back scratching session. sure it sounds weird but you and maya literally couldn’t get enough of it, becoming part of your night routing no matter where you were.

so much so, it blended into your everyday lives, the gentle scratch of nails offering a comfort the both of you couldn’t explain, it was familiar, it was home.

—

you and maya finally had a free weekend, both of you excited for nail day. the previous day in training, some of the girls were asking what you’re matching set will be this time, something maya took great pride in and asked for opinions to everyone that was willing.

“do you think red or white?” maya ponders to ella and millie, the girls look at your girlfriend with amused smiles as she slings an arm over your shoulder.

“hm, red goes with the kit” ella points out, millie nods along with the girls words. maya thinks about it for a moment, “true, but england camp is in a couple days and we won’t have time to change it so if it’s white then it’s universal” maya explains, at your girlfriend’s seriousness, you begin to giggle.

maya immediately looks down at you with a smile before she realises you’re mocking her, “baby, this isn’t a joke” maya huffs, “i know, lovey” you nod with a sympathetic pout before kissing her cheek affectionately, causing the girl to melt into your touch with pink cheeks.

“but if we’re wearing the away kit, you could also get blue as well” millie informs, this conversation was genuinely so serious and it was so endearing.

maya sighs, she’s frustrated. “shit, you’re right,” she tucks you closer into her side as you all conversed.

“we’ll figure it out, maya baby, don’t stress” you chuckle, reaching up to graze your nails on the back of her hand to ease her worries, maya looks at you and nods before giving you a quick kiss on your lips.

—

you both ended up getting both blue and white nails, maya gives you a satisfied smile when you both interlock hands after walking out of the salon. you both had the time of your life just chatting and enjoying each other’s company while getting your nails done.

when you both got back to your house, you both binge watched a bunch of movies while packing your bags for camp, which was coming up the next day.

giggling and getting distracted by maya wanting your attention. managing to tug you in her lap to lazily make out, you give into her for a couple minutes before you realise what she was doing.

“maya” you scold, she smirks at you while she squeezes your hips, “yes, beautiful?” she kisses your lips sweetly and you physically have to push her away when she keeps chasing your lips for more contact.

“the bags” you point out with a smile, she groans and rests her forehead against your collarbone, nuzzling into you while you remind her what she needed to pack, she tended to be quite forgetful when it came to packing her bag. (you think she does it on purpose to make you do it - spoiler, she does)

“you’re not listening, are you?” you huff, feeling the girl kiss your neck gently, “you sound very pretty” she mumbles into your skin, moving to kiss your jaw and giving you a teasing kiss on the corner of your mouth.

you shake your head at her amusingly, “you’re impossible” you whisper against her lips, kissing her quickly before hopping off her, receiving numerous complaints as you packed the girl’s bag for her. she gave you a big, dizzying kiss as a thank you so you weren’t complaining.

that night as soon as you got to bed, maya gives you a devious grin and you already knew what she wanted. she pushed you to lie flat on the bed while she peeled your shirt slightly upwards.

you let out a sigh of relief when the girl gently rakes her nails over the skin of your back. she kisses your cheek as she scratches your back, smiling at the way you completely melted under her touch. it was incredibly intimate for the both of you, something that you both considered your love language for each other.

after about five minutes, you and maya swap, she hums happily as your nails graze her warm skin. “i love you” she exhales, you kiss her back quickly, “i love you” you giggle at her progressively getting sleepier by the second.

you take your hand off her for a second and she immediately springs up to look at you with an offended expression. “hey! that was way shorter than what i did for you!” maya accuses, throwing you a half-hearted scowl as you look at her with wide eyes.

“it was the same amount!” you laugh, she shakes her head instantly, sitting up to face you in the bed. “no, baby, sorry but you’re wrong,” maya tutts, crossing her arms over her chest as you giggle at her.

“don’t laugh, it’s not funny!” she whines, you nod and place a hand on her thigh, your nails gently scraping the skin there.

you watch her visibly soften for a second before she points an accusatory finger at you, “don’t try and weasel your way out of this, missy” she scoffs, you laugh brightly at her and you can see her fight a smile.

“i’m not laughing” maya grits and rolls her eyes, you can see the corners of her mouth twitching as you laugh at her. “hm, i think you’re smiling though” you grin, moving closer to her and poking her cheek, she moves her head to bite your finger and you yelp as she almost catches it between her teeth.

“nope, that’s it’, we’re setting a timer” maya hurriedly grabs her phone from her bedside table and puts on a five minute timer, looking at you expectantly when she lays back down. “fine” you groan, watching your girlfriend become a puddle under your touch.

after the timer went off, she reset it and you immediately protest. “maya! no, it’s my turn!” you whine, the girl looks at you in mock confusion, “what, no? it’s still mine, look” she shows you her screen and you can see she reset the timer.

you narrow your eyes at her but give in easily, you both would do anything for each other and you both knew it.

“the deal is that you scratch your girlfriend’s back, (y/n/n), be serious!” maya exclaims after scratching your back after her 3 turns, moving to tackle you to the bed, you both lay on your sides giggling and smiling as you just look at each other. the amount of love you held in your eyes told you both everything and more.

she grins lazily at you when you push some stray hairs out of her face, she pulls you closer to her and instinctively scratches your back.

you smile and kiss her sweetly, returning the gesture and falling asleep easily that night.

—

when you both arrive to camp, you’re immediately asked about the results of nail day, maya boasts immediately and shows off to everyone. even showing the media team which has shown to be a new tradition in the arrival videos.

long story short, nail day is essential for both of you and everyone knows it.

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you know the drill - pretend it’s you! ily lessiiii

liked by ellatoone and 44,232 others

mayaletissier: don’t let your girlfriend take advantage of you just because she’s cute and pretty, kids

view all comments

yourname: you don’t scratch someone’s back for two seconds and suddenly you’re taking advantage of them

↳ mayaletissier: i still love you

↳ yourname: i’m a saint because i love you more

yourname: you got way more scratches then i did!

↳ mayaletisser: i did not!

↳ yourname: 30 minutes worth!?

↳ mayaletissier: have i ever told you how beautiful you are

↳ yourname: minx

lionesses: these nails were a definite favourite!!

#woso #woso community #woso fanfics #woso x reader #woso one shot #woso imagine #maya le tissier #maya le tissier x reader

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magics-neptunes-things · 8 months ago

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One Love (2)

Hello everyone!

After several requests for Luna, here again. The requests can be found here, here and here. I know I haven’t answered all the suggestions you’ve made, but it gives me more ideas for other stories/chapters so it’s pretty cool right?

Also, I have absolutely not reread what I wrote, apologies if there are mistakes.

Enjoy!

(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8)

______________________________________________________________

Lucy was looking at her girlfriend with pride. She was gutted when she learned that her team wasn’t qualified to play the Olympics Games, which was quite understandable. But now in her WAG era, she can’t be anything except proud of her girlfriend. She just has to shoot a glance at Lia to know that she’s proud of her own girlfriend too. Her friendship with her was unexpected to be honest. But when Ona mentioned that she could assist the final of the UEFA National League with the Swiss Woman, Lucy didn’t refuse. She didn’t know personally Lia, but some of her friends did and she always heard good things about her.

And since they had a great time together at Sevilla, Lucy proposed at Lia to watch the game together. They weren’t in the family section, but Lucy is wearing a Spanish jersey with the number 2 and O. Batlle written on the back. She couldn’t be more obvious than that. Lia chooses to be more subtle and was wearing a bracelet with Spanish color and Mariona’s number writing in white.

“She’s looking for you” Lia says to Lucy.

Ona was actually in the pitch, her eyes scanning the crowd. Lucy told her where she will be sat, but it’s difficult to see when the stadium is full like today. Laia Aleixandri came to hug Ona and exchange a few words with her, before starting to look at the crowd too.

“They are so bad at this” Lucy laughs.

“Mario didn’t find me either” Lia smiles.

But it doesn’t really matter, both know that they will find their girlfriends later for the celebration. Ona is disturbed in her research by Aitana, coming to jump on her back and taking her to go to the ceremony and be cover with her gold medals. Another one to add to the Spanish collection.

With a pout on her face, Ona let Aitana take her by the arm, leading her where they’re supposed to be. But Ona turns her head one last time and that’s when she saw her. Her face light up in an almost funny way and Lucy just wave at her. Ona wave back, making a heart with her hands before following Aitana, her heart lighter now.

***

Almost two hours later, Ona can finally go to the room where their family and friends are. She just out of the shower and her hair are still wet from it, but she just wants to see her girlfriend. She thought that now that they both live in Barcelona being away from her will be less difficult. How was she wrong. Being apart from Lucy is harder everyday and she can’t remember how she survived the long-distance relationship at first. Her being in Manchester and Lucy in Barcelona, they were way more apart than together. Even if they managed to have quality time, like the day when Lucy went to see her play, it was hard. And she was missing Lucy a lot.

Lucy’s smiling when she saw Ona and the younger one can’t resist and almost jump in her arms. She saw an edit of her almost crashing in Lucy’s arms at each beginning of games and Lucy teased her a lot about it.

This time, the English woman pick her and squeeze her hard in her arms, lifting her feet off the ground a few centimeters. Ona laughs and put a kiss in her neck, before being putting on the ground again.

“You were amazing. Like always. I’m so proud of you Ona, I swear” mumbles Lucy, stroking Ona’s cheek.

The brunette blushes, unable to keep looking at her girlfriend. Her smile is wide anyway and Lucy has to work on herself not to kiss her like crazy right now. She knows those kinds of kisses will come later, in their hotel room. Or Ona’s hotel room, in which Lucy intends to impose herself tonight.

“I love you” whispers Lucy in Ona’s hear after taking her against her one more time.

Ona looks at her this time, still with her big smile on her face.

“I love you too, Luce. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for one million. Plus, I have my new bestie now.”

Ona follows Lucy gaze on Lia and Mariona, standing a few meters from them, and chuckle lightly. And, because she’s still in her girlfriend’s arms, she lets herself go a little more against Lucy. The dark hair woman kiss her hair softly before releasing her.

“Go say hi to your family, your brother is here and I think he misses you. I’ll try those margaritas. I see you later superstar.”

Ona pouts but let Lucy push her in the right direction. To be honest, she missed her brother, her sister-in-law and her parents too. She went for them under Lucy’s gaze, before the English woman went to the bar.

Lucy let Ona enjoy her night with her teammates and family, even if she knows a lot of them. She’s happy for the Spanish team, a lot of them are her friends too after all. She talks with Jenni with whom she hasn’t had much exchange since her departure for Mexico, but which she is happy to meet again.

She talked with Mariona too, Cata and Aitana. It’s only when she’s talking to Alexia about the new restaurant in their neighborhood that she feels a twist in her stomach.

“You’re not watching your girl, Bronzey?” asks Jenni with a smirk, cutting their conversation.

Frowning, Lucy immediately looks for Ona’s figure in the crowd. She spots her quickly in a corner of the room, talking with someone. Well Lucy wouldn’t have a problem with Ona talking to someone, but this someone having their hand on her girlfriend, it’s something else.

“Who’s this?” she asks Alexia.

The blonde looks in the same direction before answering. She frowns too and it piques Lucy’s curiosity. Usually, Alexia knows everyone, even from afar. No matter who this girl is, she still has a hand on Ona’s shoulder and holds her hand with the second.

The English girl feels her blood bubbling in her veins. She was never jealous before Ona, she was more the kind of girl who can let her girlfriend for a two weeks journey without her. She can’t even imagine this kind of things with Ona. It’s not that she didn’t trust her girlfriend, she knows Ona would never do anything like that. But she didn’t trust the world, who doesn’t seem to be able to resist Ona’s charm.

Lucy’s jaw is tightened when Ona looks up in her direction. But Lucy realizes immediately the look of distress from Ona. She didn’t need more, putting her glass in Jenni’s hands before crossing the room to take her girlfriend back.

“Hola” Lucy says when she’s next to Ona.

She heard them talking in Catalan and thanks to Ona, her Catalan is way better than it was before. Next to her, Ona seems to be relaxing and it’s only now that she’s by her side that Lucy realizes how uncomfortable her girlfriend was.

“Hola mi Vida” Ona smiles, before turning at Lucy’s opponent “Lucy, this is Maria. Maria, you know Lucy?”

Lucy can’t say if it’s because of her burning look, but the named Maria release Ona almost immediately, to their relief. Still keeping her eyes on Maria, Lucy takes Ona by her waist, dragging her against her body. But Ona let her do it, knowing how much Lucy can struggle with her jealousy sometimes.

Lucy learns that this Maria is here because she’s a great friend from Atheana and as Ona and Maria talked, she didn’t let Ona go. Ona’s hand finds their way to Lucy’s back pocket, the English woman smirking at the movement.

Atheana finally comes to take her friend back and If Ona says goodbye, Lucy only responds with a vague gesture of the head. Ona let a sigh of relief go, sticking against Lucy.

“Thanks for coming for me” Ona whispers.

But Lucy only grumbles, still looking at Maria who is now talking to Teresa. She only takes her eyes away from her when Ona kisses her jaw.

“Who was this bitch touching you?”

Ona flinches a little at the question, dragging Lucy’s attention once again. She doesn’t want to hide anything to her though, so she answers with all her sincerity.

“Maria. We… Well, we had a thing, some years ago” Ona confesses, looking carefully at Lucy’s face.

Lucy knows she doesn’t have the right to be jealous, Ona had a life before her, and she knows it. But still. Having her brain picturing her girlfriend with someone else is always something very disturbing for her.

“And why your ex thinks it’s ok to touch you the way she did?” Lucy groans

“I don’t know. I try to escape her grip but when I took a step back, she moved forward by two.” Ona answers, still looking deeply at Lucy, before asking. “Do you maybe want some fresh air?”

“Yes please”

Without waiting a little more, Ona takes Lucy’s hand to drag her outside. It was cold now that the night is well advanced and Ona shivers almost immediately. Lucy sees it, of course, and opens her arms in invitation for her girlfriend. The younger one doesn’t hesitate to stick to Lucy, who then tightens her arms around her, locking her with her in her jacket.

Rocking themselves lightly, Lucy let her lips slide along Ona’s temple. The Spaniard has her face against Lucy neck and really thinks she can fall asleep just like that. She can smell and feel Lucy everywhere and it’s her favorite place to be.

“When was it?” Lucy asks suddenly.

“What?” Ona mumbles almost sleepily, pulling her face out of Lucy’s neck.

“You and this… Maria”

“Oh. It was way before you.”

“Well, I hope so. I’d have to kill her otherwise.”

Ona giggles lightly, kissing her girlfriend softly on her lips. She missed this feeling too, Lucy’s lips are way softer than she expects at first. And she loves it.

“It was before Feli. In like 2018, 2019 I think” answers Ona after the kiss, playing with Lucy’s baby hair on her neck.

“And why didn’t it work with her?”

Her tone was less aggressive now, Lucy being genuinely intrigued by the answer. Ona almost never talks about her past relationships; Lucy isn’t even sure that she can name all of Ona’s exes.

“I don’t really know” Ona answers “We were young and the long-distance relationship wasn’t really for us. At the end we were just fighting for everything, anytime. It was really tiring honestly. She was the one who broke up, but it was definitely better this way.”

Lucy hums, looking at her girlfriend with a thoughtful gaze. Ona didn’t take hers away, her arms still around her neck. But then Lucy seems to come back to herself and tighten her arms around Ona’s waist.

“Well, she had her chance. Now you’re mine.”

********

Hours later, Lucy’s watching Ona came back to reality under her, a smirk on her face. They had their personal celebration after the official, Lucy following Ona in her hotel room. They didn’t really ask the permission to be honest, but as soon as the door was close behind them, nothing mattered.

Letting Ona catch her breath again, Lucy kisses slowly her cheeks, her nose, her neck and every part of her face. Soon after she can feel Ona smiling under her lips and that’s the moment when she kisses her lips.

“You okay Princesa?” she whispers against her lips.

“Couldn’t be better” Ona mumbles. “You?”

“More than that” Lucy assures her.

Ona smiles but doesn’t let Lucy gets up from the bed when the English woman try to, wrapping her hands around Lucy’s body. Even under the explanation that she was just going to get them a bottle of water, Ona doesn’t release her.

“I had to live almost a month without you. Don’t hope to take a step without me being less than fifty centimeters from you.”

Lucy laughs, lying again with the Spaniard in her bed. She lets Ona’s hand stroke her body, with much more tenderness and much less eagerness and almost despair than some minutes ago.

They look at each other, each of them in her own head. Ona is thinking about their time together from the beginning, the first time they really talked at Lucy Stanisford’s wedding. How she blushed when she cross Lucy’s eyes an awful number of times during the night, before Lucy came to talk to her. They immediately click together, like to part of the same orange. Lucy was everything she always wished for and she never has been so happy in her life before her.

In Lucy’s head, however…

“I’m going to marry you, one day.”

“What?”

In fact, Ona perfectly understood the words that have just passed Lucy’s lips.

“I’m going to marry you, one day.”

Lucy does not hesitate to repeat herself, without leaving Ona’s face. It’s not a question, rather an information she gives to Ona. The brunette didn’t answer at first, before biting her lips.

“Don’t say that” she whispers.

“Why?” Lucy says, a little louder than Ona “I thought you wanted to get married?”

They had this conversation some weeks ago and Ona confessed her desire to get married with Lucy and having a family with her too. It was something Lucy wanted to too, so Ona’s reaction is a little hard to understand for her at this moment.

“I do” the Spaniard answers, taking one of Lucy’s hands in hers to play with her fingers. “But my abuela always said not to talk about the things we want too often because it attracts the evil eye or bad luck. And what you just said... there’s nothing I want more than that."

Lucy holds back from rolling eyes in front of so much superstition, content to deposit a delicate kiss on the lips of her girlfriend.

"There is no evil eye, no bad luck, no one who will stop us. Don’t worry about that."

It’s hard for Ona not to believe what Lucy just said. Although the words were whispered, there is such a strength of conviction in each of them that Ona cannot doubt it.

"I love you, Ona. I love you so much and I swear I will fight for us every day of my life if I have to. You are my everything, no one will ever take that away from you."

Ona’s crying now, overwhelmed by so much love. She takes Lucy’s face between her hands and kiss her with all the love, the affection and the passion she has for her. She’s not sure that it proves almost the half of all her feelings, but she try.

And she will try maybe a lot of time more this same night.

#woso imagine #ona batlle #woso fanfics #ona batlle imagine #ona batlle x lucy bronze #lucy bronze x ona batlle #lucy bronze #lucy bronze imagine

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clarisse0o · 3 months ago

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Camp Wiegman-Part 30

Lucy Bronze x Ona Batlle

Alternate Universe : Military School

Words : 5k

TW: Toxic Relationship

Masterlist

———————————————————————

Sunday, January 3rd; 6:45 PM - Manchester Restaurant.

Today was really strange. Leah and Alessia parents were supposed to return in the afternoon, so most of us left their house around noon after a much-needed cleanup. Our boozy evening and the two days that followed had left quite the mess, as we all stayed over to sleep. Luckily, nothing was broken.

Everyone went their separate ways in the afternoon. The Alba, Patri, Caudia and Leah decided to stay and have a geek day in Leah's room. Alessia, Maya and Ella opted for a trip around town and a visit to the park on this last day of freedom. As for Alexia, Mapi, and me, we decided to grab a bite somewhere before taking Mapi to the airport.

Mapi didn’t really want to leave. She loved her short stay here, even though she complained a lot about the weather. She adored the city and enjoyed the time spent with my friends. We spent most of our time with Alexia, with whom she quickly became friends. Saying goodbye was hard for everyone when it was time for her flight.

Afterward, Alexia perfectly organized the rest of our day. She made plans to see Jenni one last time before school resumed. I offered to join the girls and leave her alone with him, but she insisted I stay. According to her, it would have led to a bunch of questions she wasn't ready to answer. Knowing she was right, I resigned myself to stay.

I wasn’t thrilled at first, but she reassured me by saying that Jenni had invited Ingird and Lucy to join us. I also learned that Alexia had just discovered their names on New Year’s, which really surprised me. After all, they are her girlfriend’s friends, but according to Alexia, it wasn’t up to her. It seems Lucy wanted it that way. She hadn’t taken Jenni's departure well and, as a result, had kept her distance from any connection between them.

It must have been tough for Alexia, knowing Lucy is her girlfriend’s best friend. Lucy remained very cold toward her, which intimidated Alexia a lot. I now understand better why Alexia reacted the way she did when Lucy visited our room. She had every reason to be afraid of my supervisor. However, it seems like things are finally starting to improve.

Alexia confessed that this was the first time she’d seen our instructors outside of school. This afternoon was the second time. Lucy had agreed to come. Ingird, however, already had plans. So, after Mapi's flight took off, we took a taxi and joined them at Jenni’s place, where we spent the rest of the afternoon at her apartment.

Now, here we are at the restaurant, where I’m sitting next to Alexia and across from Lucy. We didn’t leave too late since we have to be back at school by nine. Lucy kept reminding us, so we couldn’t forget. It’s still a very strange situation to end the holidays. I’ve spent most of my time with Lucy, as the two lovebirds haven’t let go of each other all afternoon.

“Have you heard from Mapi?” Alexia asks me.

“No, but I should soon. I told her to take the morning flight, but she didn’t listen.”

“Why should she have taken the morning one?” Jenni asks.

“She’ll land late tonight. She’s bound to be exhausted for her first day back tomorrow.”

“Well, she really didn’t want to leave,” Alexia chuckles. “She picked the latest flight possible.”

“Let’s hope her return to reality isn’t too harsh.”

“Is she not doing well?” Lucy asks. “She seemed fine at New Year’s.”

“Mapi isn’t the kind of person who shows her struggles in front of others,” I reply honestly.

“I know someone else like that,” she murmurs, sipping her drink.

I know she’s talking about me. I’m not someone who expresses myself in front of others either. When I do, it’s only in front of one person, and that’s very rare. Lucy was an exception, which is still hard for me to understand. I had never cried in front of her like I did.

“What happened?” Alexia asks curiously, to my relief.

“Well… Her girlfriend cheated on her with my ex,” I admit. “So, let’s just say their relationship didn’t end well.”

Alexia doesn’t have time to react because Lucy chokes on her drink. She sets her glass down hard, looking at me with wide eyes. It reminds me that I hadn’t actually told her the reasons for their sudden breakup.

“The ex I’m thinking of?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“That’s why the other night… Well…”

I shake my head, understanding what she means. She’s referring to the night I called her in tears. It had nothing to do with that, but now she has a reason to be curious. Our friends look at us with a mix of curiosity and confusion as they watch our exchange.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Lucy says, noticing our friends’ reactions.

There’s not much more to say, but I agree to avoid continuing this private conversation here.

“So, anyway,” Jenni interjects before the mood around the table can cool down. “Why did you come to school, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“My mom gave me the choice between school or kicking me out without a place to live,” I say with a shrug.

An “ouch” louder than I intended escapes my lips as I get kicked under the table. I glare at Lucy, realizing she’s the one who kicked me. I calm down when I see she’s giving me the same look.

“You didn’t tell me that either,” she grumbles. “I thought your mom knew Wiegman, and that’s why you got a spot?”

“That’s true. At least, I suppose so,” I reply with another shrug. “Don’t I have the right to have secrets, Commander?” I tease her.

“No, not about things like that. Especially if you can talk about it so openly with a stranger.”

Her reaction surprises me a bit. She had never before complained that I didn’t tell her something.

“Well, you never asked,” I retort.

“Come on. We both know I’ve always let you talk to me at your own pace about why you came to Camp Wiegman.”

“You’re not telling me you’re upset, are you?” I joke.

“Yes, completely,” she says, crossing her arms.

I lose my smile when I realize she really is, judging by the look on her face. Is she seriously upset over something so minor? Why does it matter to her if I talk to someone else? I was ready to say anything to make her stop sulking, but I understand her game when a tiny smirk on her lips betrays her. I smile too, much more relieved than I should be, realizing she’s not really mad at me.

“You shouldn’t be.”

“And why not?” she counters.

“Because you know things even Mapi doesn’t. And Mapi is the person who knows me best.”

My words are sincere, and they seem to have an effect on Lucy, who looks at me in a strange way. The tense atmosphere eases suddenly, as if she realizes what this means to me. She doesn’t seem to grasp how much influence she has over me—or maybe she does and enjoys it. Either way, all I know is that I feel good talking to her. I feel listened to, and she has this way of making me want to confide in her and no one else. She genuinely seems interested in my problems, which is very important to me.

“Lately, you’re the first person I turn to when something important happens in my life. It’s… I don’t know. It’s become automatic, I guess.”

Her eyes soften at this new revelation. She seems to appreciate it. In any case, I’ve never been this honest in my life.

“Alright… Thank you, then. That’s what I want you to do. Well, not necessarily being the first… Although it means a lot to me that I am, but what’s important is that I know.”

My cheeks warm up as I realize my words didn’t fall on deaf ears. I force a smile, which she returns with a touch of amusement. Then I turn my eyes to the couple sitting with us. Alexia is looking at me strangely, making me feel a bit more uncomfortable. She’s seen us interact before, but never like this. No one knows the extent of our relationship. We don’t even know ourselves. I wish I could talk to someone about it to clarify things, but I doubt Lucy would appreciate it. The problem is, I’m afraid to bring it up with her, too, in case she gets angry. Maybe she won’t anymore, now that she declared us friends a few days ago... I should try again sometime.

The meal continues peacefully after the waiter brings our food. Jenni keeps asking me questions to get to know me better. I enjoy answering her. In return, I learn things about her, like how close she is to my supervisor or that she’s been dating Alexia for almost a year. She explained how Alexia wouldn’t leave her alone and how hard it was for her to resist when she noticed her from day one. Lucy doesn’t participate much in this conversation. She seems almost bored. Her behavior around this whole thing is really strange. I’ll be sure to ask her why when I get the chance. To avoid bothering her any longer, I steer the conversation toward Jenni’s personal life. I learn that she works at a gym since being laid off from the school and that she’s also developing a project with Lucy. I was curious about that, so I wanted to ask more questions, but Lucy doesn’t seem to agree, as she abruptly ends our evening.

“It’s after eight. We should go if we don’t want to be late.”

“You’re taking them then?” Jenni asks.

“Well, yeah, I’m not going to leave them here.”

“What a shame,” I comment.

“You can say that to anyone but me,” she smiles.

I bite my lip, mentally cursing her for knowing me so well. I’ve calmed down lately, and I’m starting to enjoy this school. Camp Wiegman has become my home. It was hard to admit, but it’s the truth. It gives me the stability I was missing in Barcelona. I hope that after I leave, I’ll have found a career path that will keep me from sitting at home with nothing to do.

Under Lucy’s pressure, we decide to head to the register to pay our bill. I’m the first to finish. I wait off to the side after paying. I was lost in thought while waiting for my friends when my phone starts vibrating in my pocket. I frown as an unknown number appears on the screen. I decide to ignore it, thinking if it’s important, they’ll call back. And they do. I immediately think of Mapi, who must have landed by now. I sigh, glancing at Lucy as she joins me.

“Someone’s trying to call me. I’ll step outside to take it.”

“Alright. Don’t stray too far, please.”

I nod before heading for the exit. I take the third call and bring the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Ona?” the voice on the other end surprises me. “Oh my God, I finally got through to you…”

The voice on the other end freezes me the moment I recognize it. I can’t believe it. How did she get my number after all this time? I even changed it to get away from her!

“Ona, I just want to talk to you.”

“Leave me alone, Feli, damn it! How did you get my number?!”

"It doesn't matter. Just let me talk to you! I've changed! How many times do I have to tell you? I promise I won't hurt you anymore... I miss you, and I know you miss me too. What do I have to do to convince you to come back to me?"

I jump when a hand touches my shoulder. I relax when I see it's Lucy. I was so upset that I didn't hear her join me. I close my eyes for a moment to gather my thoughts. Feli keeps on with her spiel on the other end. I should answer her to get her off my back once and for all, but I don't have the strength to do it. The only thing I can do is hang up on her. Lucy seems to notice.

"Is there a problem?"

I hide my screen when I see her looking at it. I hope she didn't see anything. I don't particularly want to drag her into this.

"No, it's settled," I say, blocking the number.

"Alright... If you say so. Let's go then."

I glance at my phone one last time to make sure it's really over before following her to her car, where the couple is already waiting for us. It was more practical to take hers since we loaded it with our suitcases. I sit in the back with Alexia, and Jenni sits in the front with Lucy. We have to make a small detour to drop Jenni off at her apartment.

"I'm sitting in front!" I shout as soon as Lucy stops the car.

I'm the first to get out of the car. The others also get out to say goodbye to Jenni. Alexia goes last, taking her time to kiss her. While they finish, Lucy leans against the car next to me. She might not approve of their relationship, but she’s at least considerate enough to let them say goodbye. I sigh as I feel my phone vibrating again. Deep down, I hope it’s really Mapi this time, but I quickly realize it’s not when I see another unknown number. Knowing her, she probably got another phone. She doesn't even give me ten seconds to breathe before starting again. Over and over. The fifth time was the last straw. An inexplicable rage fills me, and before I realize what I'm doing, my phone bounces off the asphalt from the force of my throw before landing flat on its screen several meters in front of us.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Lucy scolds, surprised.

"Damn it," I mutter, realizing what I've just done.

I immediately rush over to check the damage, squatting down to examine my phone. I grimace when I see the screen shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Let me see."

I bite my lip as I look at Lucy, who has knelt down next to me. I hand it to her to examine for herself. I groan when I realize she can't get it to turn back on. Damn it, I've really messed up this time. I’ve always taken care to make sure nothing happened to it, and now it’s unusable in a split second.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" Lucy snaps.

"Not here... Please."

"Fine. We’ll talk when we get to school then, and that’s non-negotiable."

She stands up first, preventing me from saying anything else. I sigh as I head back to the car. I briefly glance at Alexia, who silently asks me what just happened. I shake my head in response before getting back into the car. The girls quickly join me, and the drive is eerily quiet. Thankfully, there's music to fill the silence. I feel like Lucy is angry with me without knowing why. I keep glancing at her and notice her hands are clenched tightly around the steering wheel.

"Stop looking at me," she growls.

I sigh and decide to look away for the rest of the drive. It was the longest trip of my life. Engen was at the reception when we arrived. She lets us through and notes our arrival on a piece of paper. Lucy leads us to the back parking lot. When we get out, she opens the trunk, where Alexia retrieves her suitcase. I wanted to get mine, but Lucy stops me.

"Later. We need to talk first."

"Can I at least drop my things off in my room first?" I try to negotiate. "No...? Okay..." I add quietly when I see her stern face. "Fine..." I resign.

Alexia leaves without me when she realizes I’m not allowed to follow. As for us, we head toward the gym. A countless number of solutions run through my mind. She’s not going to punish me again, is she? I relax when she leads us to an office and not a sports hall as I expected.

"Why are we here?"

"To be more discreet. Unlike my office in the other building, the lights from the administration can’t be seen here."

I nod in understanding. It will certainly save her from answering questions the next day. She turns on the light before we sit down on the two visitor chairs in front of the desk. I would have preferred if she sat across from me. It’s much more intimidating to have her so close. She turns her chair so she can face me with her arms crossed. That’s not a good sign if she’s in that position. She must be irritated by something, but what? Not knowing why makes me even more nervous.

"Talk."

I take a deep breath, realizing she’s letting me speak. Damn, this is a really delicate situation. My fingers start fidgeting to distract myself.

"I don't know where to start," I admit.

"The beginning, and don't beat around the bush, please."

"Okay... Well... I think Feli is harassing me..."

My voice was just a barely understandable whisper at the end. I’m not even sure I understood myself. I don’t understand why I’m reacting like this. It’s not like I did anything wrong. Lucy frowns.

"What’s that mumble supposed to mean if you speak up and talk clearly?"

I sigh, looking away. I don’t like it when she makes me feel this uncomfortable.

"Hey, look at me," she orders, and I do so, albeit reluctantly. "I don't want to bother you by doing this, but it’s important to me to know what’s wrong in your life."

"It's ridiculous... I can handle it on my own..."

"Don’t let your lack of self-confidence speak for you," she scolds. "I’m here to help you, remember? And I will if I can do something about your problem. You won’t get into any trouble if that’s what you’re thinking."

Her words had the desired effect on me. My muscles relax, as if I’m laying down arms in a battle. I don’t like fighting with her because it reminds me of my early days here. I feel like I’m not doing what it takes to become who I was before. Telling her what’s happening can’t hurt, right...? I linger on her hand, which has just rested on my knee. I close my eyes tightly, fighting against myself.

"You're making progress, right?"

"Yes..." I exhale.

"Do you want to go back to how things were? Because that’s what you’re doing. You opened up to me and freed yourself from a burden. I know because otherwise you wouldn’t trust me. So why are you hesitating?"

I open my eyes to see her hand pressing on my knee. She’s pushing me toward relief.

"We both know you need someone to vent to. If I’m not the right person for you, then do it with someone else who can help. What’s most important to me is that you talk without feeling uncomfortable. Locking yourself up like this, without seeking a solution, is cowardly and will undo all the progress you’ve made so far."

Her words touch me so much that I’m on the verge of expressing everything through tears. I hold back, however, preferring to stay strong. I feel ridiculous. She just wants to help me, and in return, I still hesitate to trust her judgment. She’s proven time and time again that she’s a reliable person. I think what scares me the most is her reaction. I can already sense she’s irritated, and I don’t know how she’ll take the news.

"If it’s a trust issue or—"

"No," I interrupt her. "Please don’t think that because it’s not the case."

My interruption must have surprised her because she immediately fell silent. She nods softly.

"I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m always afraid of crossing one of your boundaries," she confesses.

"You’ve never had anything to apologize for, Lucy... It’s just that before being here, I never had anyone but Mapi by my side. She helped me, but she was far from having the same reactions as you. Yours scare me because I can never anticipate them, and I don’t know what you’re thinking."

"Alright..." she sighs. "You feel nervous because you sense I’m upset, is that it?"

"Yeah..." I reply after a slight hesitation, finally looking up. "I don’t like it when we argue, and that’s what will happen if we don’t agree."

"I’m angry because I feel this is important and you don’t realize it. If you did, you would have already told me when we spoke on the phone last week."

"What I told you that night has nothing to do with what I think now. I didn’t expect her to start again."

She frowns as I bite my lip. I can’t turn back now that I’ve started.

"If it’s what I think it is, I’m afraid it’s something more serious than you realize. I really want you to talk to me so I can be sure."

"Alright... I’ll talk..."

I take a deep breath to muster the courage. I can no longer look Lucy in the eyes. Deep down, I know she’s right, and I’m starting to fear her reaction. Knowing her, it will probably be drastic, and that’s scary.

"Explain it to me."

Her encouraging voice is soft, unexpectedly. It seems my behavior has calmed her. I nod gently and begin.

"W-when I went back home, Feli was desperate..."

My voice is trembling, and I can’t control it.

"No one ever knew I still had some contact with her... I was a junkie, but Feli was like another kind of drug for me... S-she made me dependent on her. S-she kept telling me I was nothing without her, that I would never achieve anything. T-that she was the only person who understood me..."

Tears well up in my eyes. Talking about it out loud brings me back to years ago.

"That’s not true. You know that now... Don’t you?" she asks, making me nod with difficulty.

"I-I had a hard time believing it... B-but yes, I know now..."

"She’s the one who destroyed your self-confidence," she sighs. "Believe me, you deserve much better than someone like her."

She reassures me, wiping away the tears that slipped down my cheek without my consent. I nod, trembling slightly. I pull myself together before continuing my explanation.

"Mapi found out one night when I was in the shower. She noticed the numerous messages she was sending me, and she immediately reported it to my mother. I was angry at her at first, even though I knew she just didn’t want to lose me again... I eventually realized she was messing with my head and that what she was doing was harassment... S-she didn’t stop. I had to block him on all my social media and change my number so she couldn’t contact me anymore..."

"And you’re saying she’s doing it again...? Is that why she drugged you? She wanted you to come back to her?"

« Y-yes... I-I thought telling her I didn't want anything to do with her anymore would be enough, but it seems like that's not the case..."

"How many times have you seen her recently?"

"T-twice. Once at that party where she drugged me, and the second time last week, the night I called you... Every time, she kept saying she missed me and wanted a second chance..."

"She hasn't tried to see you since then?" she asks.

I shake my head. I dare to look at her and see her running a hand through her hair. She looks even more irritated than before. I feel ashamed for having kept something like this from her.

"You should have told me about this a long time ago," she scolds me harshly. "This is serious stuff that shouldn't be taken lightly."

"I-I know, I'm sorry," I say sincerely. "Mapi thinks she's looking for me at parties. She goes to a lot of the ones she's at. I-I'd even bet she slept with Mapi's girlfriend on purpose just to hurt her. I didn't have the heart to tell her because I was afraid of hurting her, but I think she suspects it deep down."

"What happened that night that made you break your phone?"

"She somehow found my number, I don't know how, and started harassing me from multiple numbers within a quarter of an hour... I-I'm sorry, I just lost it. I-I didn't expect her to start up again..."

Lucy sighs in frustration while gently stroking my knee. Her touch is soft, in contrast to her deep voice that resonates in the room.

"That's clearly harassment, Ona. This is very serious. You should press charges against her before she goes too far."

"No! I don't want it to go that far. All I want is for her to leave me alone."

"I don't know your ex, but trust me, that might be the only way to get her to stop."

"I don't want to."

"Ona..." she sighs.

"I said no!" I persist.

For some reason, I just can't do that to Feli. Her past has never been great, but I'm not ready to send her to jail. Even after everything she's done to me, she was there for me for a long time. Maybe one day I'll be able to, but not now.

"Fine, but I won't let you set foot in Barcelona again."

My lips part at her unexpected decision. I don't even need to ask if she's joking, judging by the look on her face. Is she blackmailing me? I know her position as an instructor doesn't give her the right to forbid me from doing this, but she has influence over my weekend outings. She might even lie to keep me here.

"You're so wrapped up in your own world that you don't realize how serious this situation is. I won't let you go back home unless I know you're safe."

"Please, Luce, I've always come back, and there's never been any trouble."

"That was different. I would have thought twice if I'd known all of this. My decision is non-negotiable, and if you keep pushing, I'll be forced to talk to Wiegman."

"No, you can't do that!" I cry out. "I trust you!"

"This has nothing to do with trust, Ona ! To me, this girl is a dangerous psychopath. If you're not ready to take action against her, then I'll take action on your behalf, that's all."

I groan in frustration as I sink into the chair. I knew I wouldn't like her reaction, but forbidding me from going home? That's totally unexpected. I thought she'd be angry, but I didn't expect things to get so dramatic. Filing a complaint is still beyond me. My mom wanted me to do it back then, and I didn't. I hate to admit it, but I still care about her.

"Take your time to think about it. In the meantime, you won't be going home."

"This really isn't fair."

"If you keep complaining, you'll stay here alone instead of going back with me."

"Going back with you...?" I ask, confused.

I finally dare to look at her again and see her smiling softly at me.

"This situation isn't your fault... I said I wouldn't let you go home. But I didn't say you couldn't leave school... Since I promised to show you around the city, this could be a good opportunity."

"Oh... I thought you wouldn't do it."

"I will, but only if you get permission and I think you deserve it."

"So I won't be allowed to complain in that case...?"

"No," she smiles. "You'll have to be extra nice to me," she teases.

"I'll try," I say, rolling my eyes with amusement. "I really want that tour."

"I figured... Well, it's getting late. We should head back to our rooms."

"Yeah..."

Our conversation completely changed in a split second. I know she won't forget what she said, and she's only stopping because of the time. We put the chairs back in place, and she turns off the lights as we leave. We head back to her car, where we retrieve our things from the trunk. I remember at that moment that I have something that belongs to her.

"Wait."

"What?"

I put my suitcase on the ground to open it without spilling everything. Silly me, I put it at the bottom. Now I have to dig around to find it.

"What are you doing now?" she sighs.

"I didn't think it through," I chuckle. "Wait a minute."

I pull out her Christmas gift, trying not to mess up my suitcase. It's a bit tricky, but as long as I can close it again, I don't care.

"Well, I had to maneuver it a bit to fit it in the suitcase, but I managed. Mapi had a good laugh at me."

"What is it?" she frowns.

"Your Christmas gift, of course! Sorry, I ran out of wrapping paper and had to protect it somehow, so... here," I say, handing it to her.

I smile at her surprise. I watch as she takes the frame out of the bubble wrap. She frowns, not understanding my gift. I chuckle and come to her aid, unfolding the three square canvases I had fixed together with hinges to reveal the painting. It was supposed to be on a single vertical canvas, but I wouldn't have been able to transport it to Manchester that way. She smiles as she realizes what it is.

"It's the drawing from your sketchbook that I said I liked, right?"

"Yeah, but an improved version," I laugh.

I bought black canvases to paint a large dreamcatcher. In my sketchbook, it was done in pencil, but here I made it in rainbow colors, using mostly pale colors for the overall design and bright colors for the finishing touches. I finished it off with a white border and, of course, signed it with my name.

"You really didn't have to. It's beautiful. Thank you! You have such incredible talent. I'll hang it up when I get home," she smiles.

"It's nothing. It's all handmade."

She puts the painting back in her suitcase after wrapping it back in the bubble wrap. At least I was sure it wouldn't get damaged during the trip. I frown as she hands me a small box covered in wrapping paper.

"Since you gave me yours, it's time I give you mine."

"Really? I-I wasn't expecting anything..."

"Neither was I," she chuckles. "It's a Christmas gift, but also for your progress and because I really appreciate you, both as a student and as a friend."

My first instinct is to hug her. She laughs and returns the embrace. She then hands me my gift, and I take my time opening it. I feel like a little girl. The only gift I've received is the pendant from Mapi. My grandparents and my mom preferred to give me money since they don't necessarily know what I need. They'd rather I buy something I like than waste their money on something I might not use. I'm stunned when I see the ring. Not just any ring... the one I was looking at in the jewelry store. I don't even know how she knew it was the one. The price wasn't too steep compared to what a ring can cost, but still. She didn't hesitate to get it.

"You're crazy... How did you know it was the one?"

"You stared at it," she shrugs with a small smile. "Try it on to see if I got the right size. Otherwise, we'll have to go back together."

I slip it onto my right ring finger. I smile broadly as I extend my hand to admire my new ring, which fits perfectly. I play with it a bit to get used to it since I haven't worn one before. I move closer to Lucy to give her another hug, this time a thank-you hug.

"Thank you, really! I love it!"

"You're welcome. But it's getting late," she says, breaking the hug. "I don't want to make you miss curfew by staying here. We'll see each other tomorrow morning anyway."

"Will you check on us?"

"Of course, let's not break our habits."

"How long will you be my supervisor? I mean, I've calmed down, haven't I?"

I ask her as she closes the trunk. She locks her car before answering.

« Wiegman still thinks you're rebellious in class, and your frequent tardiness and poor grades haven't helped you much. I'll probably stay your supervisor for a little longer, maybe a month, or maybe less. It depends on how things go."

"So I should cause trouble to keep you as my supervisor?"

"I forbid you from doing that," she frowns. "You'll always have to deal with me, no matter what."

"Yeah, but others will be allowed to intervene."

"They know you're only going to listen to me, so don't worry about that."

I laugh, remembering the day Bright tried to deal with me. I had brushed her off without remorse, saying it wasn't her place. Sh was furious. I was lucky Lucy came along in time; otherwise, the situation would have escalated. We stop when we reach the spot between the two dormitories.

"Keep behaving well. You have your class council this week, and it's important. The comments count just as much as the grades for your wishes."

"I'm in deep trouble."

"Don't be so pessimistic, everything will be fine. Now go to bed, we'll meet tomorrow."

"Thanks for everything, Luce..." I say, playing with my ring. "Good night..."

"Good night, Ona."

I smile when she ruffles my hair before heading to her dorm. I watch her go inside before circling the building to reach the main entrance. I quickly make my way to my room, where Amexia is already in bed. At least I won't have to answer her questions. I grab some pajamas from my suitcase and head to the shower. I'll unpack tomorrow, given the late hour. When I finish showering, I go straight to bed. I'm so exhausted from the past few days that I fall asleep with no trouble at all.

#woso #lucy bronze #woso community #barca femeni #ona batlle #woso soccer #lionesses #sefutbol fem #ona batlle x lucy bronze #alexia putellas

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captain-mj · 2 years ago

Text

The Vampire AU

The au no one asked for but by God will I deliver

Soap laid on the luxurious bed, the robe around him fluttering and exposing most of his body. It shimmered, a dark red color, and across from him was Ghost. His Ghost. The Ghost.

The skull mask made it hard to see his expression, but Soap could read the hunger in his eyes without a problem. A desperation that would make a lesser man nervous. But Soap could never be nervous. Not of Ghost.

He crossed the floor quickly, the air around him bending slightly. It made him glow. And then he was on Soap, touching him with his gloves and feeling him up. His large hips pressed between his thighs, forcing his legs further apart.

Pulling the mask up enough to expose his fangs, Ghost sank his teeth into his throat and ripped it out, blood spraying everywhere.

Soap’s alarm clock broke him from the dream and he buried his face in the pillows and screamed for a few minutes.

Interviewer: So, what exactly do you like about your…

Soap: The technical term is Master, but everyone keeps insisting I just call him Ghost.

Interviewer: Got you. So your Ghos-

Soap: Well, he’s not really mine. I’m his but he’s not really mine. I just kinda work for the guy.

Interviewer: And in exchange he…

Soap: Will turn me into a vampire!

Interviewer: So how long have you been working here?

Soap: Six years.

Interviewer: Uh huh. And what do you like about Ghost?

Soap: Oh, he’s perfect. Tall, dark, mysterious. Never actually seen his face, but I’m sure he’s handsome. Never takes the mask off unless he’s feeding. He could kill me easily. He has a very sexy voice. His accent is from modern day Manchester instead of being centuries old! Apparently he changes it every few decades. I wonder what his original voice sounded like and-

The Interviewer stopped taking notes and tried to politely withstand the next thirty minutes of Soap gushing about anything and everything he could think of about Ghost. They decided not to ask about the whole “could kill me easily” part. That was this guy’s prerogative.

Interviewer: So, what’s Ghost like?

Rodolfo: He’s a fucking loser.

Interviewer: Really? His familiar-

Rodolfo: Is lovely and all, but he has terrible taste in men. I’ve seen Ghost lay on the ceiling for six hours straight, during the night no less, because he was pouting.

Interviewer: And why was he pouting?

Rodolfo: Soap was doing laundry. The laundry Ghost ordered him to do. So Soap couldn’t hang around him. Then, he wasted what time he could’ve spent with Soap on the ceiling.

Interviewer: oh…

Rodolfo: Like I said. Fucking loser. You’re not allowed to call him that though. Only me.

Interviewer: Yeah… Okay.

Soap did like he was told and ignored that there was a person watching him. He woke up a few hours before sunrise and dusted just like every other morning. He also put out an ad online pretending to be a single woman looking to lose her virginity. Usually the men that came would be sleazebags so it both cleaned up the streets and meant easy meals for the vampires.

Gaz would always say hi to him when he left for some party. Sometimes, he’d try to stop him and get a rise out of him, but Soap had long since learned how to put a pause on his feelings. If Gaz fed from him, Ghost would get all weird. Talking about nutritional value and that Soap smelled funny.

Soap had taken four showers the first time it happened but eventually he put it together.

Then, he woke up Ghost. Well, wake up was a loose term. Half of the time, Ghost would already be up. He more went to Ghost. His room had blackout curtains so if he got up during the day time, he didn’t have to risk scorching himself. It was also the plainest. Rodolfo and Alejandro’s room was gorgeous, full of rich colors and soft fabrics. Gaz had strobe lights and neons. Tons of weird furniture too. He insisted none of them were a sex thing, but Soap didn’t believe him.

Really, really, did not believe him.

But Ghost kept his plain and usually only had candles. For once, he was still in his coffin when Soap came to get him at sundown.

Soap gently knocked before he lifted the large lid.

Ghost was… large. Very, very large. Besides being 6’4, he was broad. Big arms, big shoulders. Just… big. It definitely did not influence any of Soap’s decisions. Nope. Not at all.

Thick black fabric covered every inch of his body, besides leather gloves on his hands and a ski mask on his face. Soap silently thanked God he had managed to get him away from the loose fitting balaclava he wore originally. It looked…

Anyway, the sky mask was an improvement. It had a skull design on it, though there were fangs added.

Soap only snapped back into himself when he noticed Ghost’s eyes were open.

“Johnny. Are you just going to keep staring? You’re blocking my way out.”

“Oh, of course, sir.” Soap stepped back and offered Ghost his hand. Sometimes he took it, sometimes he didn’t. Really depended on the day.

Today was one of the good days where he did. Even through the leather, Soap could feel just how cold Ghost’s skin was. It was borderline frigid and he wondered, not for the first time and definitely not the last, if it would hold heat or simply give him frostbite if they pressed against each other.

Ghost’s hand left his once he was on the floor. Sometimes, Soap wondered why he walked the way he did. There was something stiff, like a general, about his posture but he had a certain amount of grace that didn’t match how the other vampires walked. All vampires were graceful. Cat like. But Ghost always seemed like he was floating. Feet barely touching the ground.

Soap helped him out of the thick robe he slept in. It felt soft and he assumed it was used a bit like a blanket. Ghost pulled on his jacket but his eyes followed Soap.

“Did yo-”

“Laundry is done. Place is dusted. And I’m currently setting up a virgin guy to come visit.”

As if something heard him, his phone dinged. Someone responded to the ad, asking how soon he could come over.

What a fucking loser.

He was using photos of a girl from only fans (with her permission, she made him pay a small fee, but when he explained it was a “To catch a predator” type thing, she thought it was cool), so it was a hot woman, but still.

Soap checked it and responded to the message, saying the sooner the better.

Ghost reached over and slowly patted Soap’s head, making him beam. It was the closest thing he got to praise from the guy.

“So, what would you like to do, sir?” Soap smiled at him.

Ghost hummed, looking away. There was a large mirror and while his clothes could be seen, nothing else could. Soap couldn’t see his mouth, but he knew he was just about to speak when someone knocked at the front door.

“Go answer.” Ghost ordered.

Soap nodded quickly and went downstairs, noticing Alejandro and Rodolfo when he passed their room, in various states of undress, he decided to just ignore that. So no one they were expecting.

He opened the door and had to look slightly up at the man in front of him.

The man had a fishing hat, a shirt that said “Fish fear me, women love me” and a pair of military fatigues. He stared into Soap and there was a brief pause.

“Hello, sir.” Soap noticed his ears. They had a large point and when he glanced at his hands, he noticed the dark claws.

Interviewer: So what do those features mean?

Soap: Means he’s an older vampire. As I’m sure you noticed, my vampires look mostly human, besides their fashion. But once they start getting older, they look less and less human. So the less human they are, the more respect you’re supposed to show.

Interviewer: Oh. Got it.

“Price.” The man responded before just simply staring at him.

Soap winced and looked back. “Uh… Master? Alejandro? Rodolfo?” He half shouted. “We have a visitor!”

“Uh. Little familiar. Invite me.” Price didn’t sound rude, maybe a tad impatient, but not quite rude.

“My name is Soap.”

Price tilted his head. “Uh… Okay. Anyway, is Simon here?”

“No?” Soap frowned. He ran through everyone in the house. “Yeah, no. We don’t have a Simon here.”

Alejandro shoved Soap out of the way. “John! I didn’t know you’d be visiting! Come in.” Now that he had been welcomed, Price quickly stepped in the door.

“Ale. Very, very nice to see you. How have you been?” Price smiled. His fangs flashed, wicked sharp and a pearly white, just like all the other vampires in the house.

Soap quickly stepped back to let them talk, but he didn’t leave, pretending to be doing anything besides eavesdropping, which is exactly what he was doing.

“I haven’t seen you since they invented lightbulbs.” Alejandro grinned. His clothing was a little more old fashioned. Closer to what was expecting for a vampire at least. Soap thought it was funny that the youngest of the three vampires (not including Gaz, but Soap felt he didn’t really count), was the only one that still wore clothes from his own era. Alejandro was still up there in age, almost two centuries, but with Rodolfo being over three centuries and Ghost being around eight, well… it didn’t seem that old.

Soap couldn’t really talk that much, because he was 26, but semantics.

The two of them babbled on about the changes in technology and how hard it was to keep up and how touch screens were so unreliable because they only picked things up half of the time.

“They have gloves.” Soap interrupted, not thinking much of it until Alejandro glared at him.

“Gloves?” Price frowned.

“Yeah, they have stuff in the finger tips to let you use a phone. It’s because when humans wear the gloves, they can’t use the touch screen either. Gh- My master uses them.”

Price hummed. “Might have to get me a pair. Phones look so fun! I see why you keep him around, Alejandro. He’s not as dumb as most humans.”

Soap decided not to take offense to that, as a human.

“Oh, he’s not mine. He’s Simon’s.” Alejandro put his hands behind his back, altering his stance a bit.

“Nevermind. I guess he is a little stupid. He said there was no Simon here.”

Soap felt like he was short circuiting. “You mean Ghost?”

Alejandro snapped his fingers. “Oh! That’s right! We never told you his name. He doesn’t exactly need to know it, ya know?”

Price hummed. “And he never asked?”

“I did ask!”

“No, never thought to ask us.”

“But I did! You told me familiars don’t get to know!!!”

“Wow. Humans.”

Soap got the distinct feeling he was being fucked with.

Then Ghost appeared. Or more accurately, came out of his room. The world shifted, Soap’s focus, like always, being on him. Ghost quickly made his way down the stairs. His boots hugged his legs, going all the way up to his knees. He had chosen one of his longer coats so it fluttered around him.

Soap quickly wiped his mouth and tried to focus on something besides how devastatingly hot Ghost looked at all times.

“My little batling!”

BATLING

LITTLE

BATLING

Soap choked and half expected Ghost to kill Price where he stood, vampire or not. Alejandro wheezed a little.

Instead, Ghost visibly shrank down. “Sire… I am not a fledgeling anymore.” There was an accent there, and not his usual Manchester one. It was almost lyrical. Soap wished he’d use it more. “I’m also almost a millennia old.”

“Yeah, but you’re still the spunky soldier I turned! Still wear the mask I see.” Price’s disappointment was palpable, but Ghost, Simon, just shrugged it off.

“Yeah. Well. Don’t like my face being seen.”

Alejandro chipped in. “Awe, are you anxious, little batling?”

Ghost hit him so hard Alejandro’s head popped off and Soap let out a small scream.

“Suppose it’s better than when you first turned.” Price completely ignored that Ghost just fucking killed him.

Rodolfo fluttered down the stairs. “Hello John! You look lovely!” Price smiled immediately.

“And you look just as lovely as the last time I saw you.”

Soap was shocked. They were married for decades!!! And he just moves on?

“Get your nasty mitts off my husband!” Alejandro’s decapitated fucking head started to yell.

Rodolfo rushed over. “Mi noche! Mi pobre amor!” He scooped up his head and kissed his cheek before reattaching it.

Soap tried not to gag.

Alejandro’s limbs quickly started to work again and he kissed Rodolfo several times.

Ghost was already pulling his sire far away from him, the two of them falling into line like old friends.

“Do you have anything to eat? Your familiar looks delicious but I know how hard good help can be to find.”

Soap flushed and it only got worse when Ghost gave him a passing glance. “Didn’t you say someone would be coming over soon?”

“Yes, around 10. It’s 9:30 now, so shouldn’t be too long, sir.” He beamed at Ghost and Ghost just shrugged him off to keep walking. Soap tried to not let that get to him. He never liked when Ghost was in his moods like this and this new guy seemed to trigger them.

Price and Ghost disappeared and Soap was left standing there awkwardly. Alejandro had wandered off, probably back to Rodolfo.

He sighed and started to tidy up. If he knew a guest was coming, he would’ve prepared more. Probably tried ot get multiple guys to come. Or ladies if that was more this guy’s taste. Luring women in was a lot harder, but he could’ve tried! He still had a tinder set up that he could’ve used.

Soap fiddled with his hands, not sure what to do with himself. By this time of night, usually he hung out with Ghost, keeping him entertained. Without him, he didn’t really have anything to do. He already cleaned the place up before he went to bed the morning before.

Soap sighed and sat down, trying to lure more people to the house.

Around midnight, after all the people who came in were dragged downstairs and eaten with Soap not having to lift a finger, the vampires decided to have a night out. Ghost grabbed on to Soap’s arm and tugged him along, clearly wanting him to come too. He pulled away from him just long enough to change, ignoring that his foot kept tapping and his growing impatience that Soap wasn’t willing to go out in what was basically pajamas. Soap also ignored that Ghost didn’t leave the room, but he clearly wasn’t looking at him undressed.

When he was done, Ghost yanked him along and Soap had to jog to keep up. They fell in line with the other three and went to a nearby nightclub. Soap noticed it was for humans, not one of the vampire focused ones they usually went to, but just brushed it off.

Ghost quickly scouted the darkest corner table and went to hide there, Soap followed along. He sat next to Ghost. Rodolfo went to sit with them and Alejandro quickly grabbed him and yanked him to the dance floor, immediately grabbing a handful of his ass. The two of them were dressed like people from the 1800’s and Soap tried to pretend he didn’t know them because it was honestly a little embarrassing.

Rodolfo’s tongue ended up down Alejandro’s throat.

Embarrassing.

Alejandro said something that was clearly horrid in Spanish. The bartender looked positively horrified.

Very embarrassing.

Very fucking embarrassing.

Soap looked at Ghost, suddenly making eye contact with him. Ghost must’ve been staring at him. He tried not to let that thought get to him.

“Can I get you anything, master?”

Ghost clearly grimaced. “Ghost or sir, Johnny. Master thing feels weird.”

“Need anything, sir?”

“Unless you’re willing to drink bourbon and let me suck you dry later.”

Soap choked on the scotch he had. “What?”

“I’d have to kill you though. To really get a good taste.” Ghost said it so matter of fact that Soap was pretty sure the sexual way it sounded wasn’t on purpose. “And that would be a shame.”

Soap quickly drank his scotch. “How do you even know what bourbon taste like?”

“There was a similar drink when I was alive. Also, for a couple of years, I lived near a bar that only served bourbon. Once your blood has enough alcohol in it, I can taste it.”

“Can it get you drunk?”

“Yeah. Don’t like getting drunk though that’s when bad stuff happens.” Ghost moved away. “You should enjoy yourself. Go talk to people.”

“And leave you alone?”

“Yes. Leave me alone.”

Oh.

Soap watery smiled at him and nodded, quickly leaving. He went to the bar and ordered another drink.

Price glanced at him, but already a woman was trying to flirt with him and Soap didn’t want to interrupt the two. Instead, he just took the drink he ordered and downed it.

Soap made sure not to get more than tipsy. Even if his vampires didn’t get drunk, unlikely, he wanted to be alert in case he was needed.

Someone moved closer about an hour after his little exile. Handsome guy. Tall, built. If he looked a bit like Ghost, that was between Soap and God. He talked and it was clear he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the shed, but Soap didn’t care about that. As long as he was a good lay, that would work. And if he could make it quick. Maybe they could just go to an alleyway.

The man, Craig? Greg? Caleb?, went pale and looked up right as Soap felt Ghost’s hand on the back of his neck, grabbing him like a puppy he was scruffing. The cold leather pressed tight against his skin, making him shiver.

“Ghost?”

“Johnny.” He said it with an exhale. “Wait outside.”

“What?”

“Wait outside for me.” Ghost forced him up and away, unnatural strength and where he grabbed him combining so Soap couldn’t exactly fight back. He frowned at him but did go outside after deciding to just not question it.

Soap sighed and leaned against the wall near the door and lit a cigarette. He had been trying to quit, but it was hard. He took a deep puff and watched the smoke then drift to the sky.

Soap started to count down the minutes before breaking and getting his phone out. The thick concrete walls around the nightclub kept it pretty much sound proof. It was so the music wouldn’t bother everyone on the street.

Ghost didn’t usually ask these things of him. He didn’t like it.

Soap got on tinder and wanted for someone to be rude to him or condescending. He scheduled dates in areas that were secluded enough the vampires could snatch the victim but not so secluded as to ring alarm bells.

Rodolfo stepped out, Soap could tell by the sound his shoes made. He grabbed him and Soap flushed. “Maybe we should have you for dessert huh?”

Soap shivered in his grasp. “Don’t think Ghost would be too happy about that.” He turned around and had to resist the urge to flinch back.

Rodolfo was soaked in blood. He must’ve realized the state he was in because he let go. His hands had left bloody prints on Soap’s clothing. “Thought it’d be fun to clear the place out.”

“Ah… That why Ghost told me to wait outside?”

“Told him he shouldn’t bother, but he wasn’t sure if we’d recognize you if you got scared. Would you have gotten scared?” Rodolfo smiled at him. “I don’t think so. I mean last time I ate in front of yo-”

Soap got flustered and grabbed his cross necklace through his shirt. “Rodolfo!” He kept it on for the exact scenario Rodolfo mentioned. If one of them ever had too much bloodlust, ever didn’t realize it was him, he could pull it out. Never had to use it before, luckily. But it was always there. A weight on his chest.

“The sex we had was phenomenal.” Rodolfo assured, as if that was why Soap interrupted him. Maybe to him, that’s what it seemed like. They were so… shameless when it came to sex. Soap was almost jealous of it. Catholic guilt and the devastating fact he was human kept him from ever having that. “I can see why Ghost keeps you around.”

“Oh, Ghost and i have never…”

“NEVER???” Rodolfo laughed. “Seriously?? Huh. Guess it makes sense.”

Ghost came out with Alejandro hanging all over him, the two of them carrying each other basically. “I think that last guy… had more than just alcohol.” Ghost said while Alejandro made a motion to his nose to show it was likely cocaine.

Rodolfo laughed. “I told you two he smelled funny. Where’s Price?”

Alejandro opened his jacket to show where a bat was hanging on the inside of it. “Got tired and decided to take a name.”

“Old fucking man.” Ghost grinned, mask still pulled up. Soap took in what he could. Even bloody, he could make out more features than he could before.

Soap followed slightly behind and Rodolfo led them. Alejandro started singing some old drinking song in Spanish and Ghost hummed along, stumbling a little. Without thinking, Soap put his hand on his back to right him, only realizing when he felt Ghost stiffen beneath his hands. Before he could pull away and apologize for touching him without warning, Ghost’s arm was around his shoulder, yanking him closer. He used Soap to help balance himself and Alejandro.

“Ghost, if I turn into a bat can you carry both of us?”

“No.”

“What if we all turn into bats and Soap carries us?”

Ghost paused and looked at Soap, as if asking permission.

“Oh… Uh… Sure?” Soap had a hoodie on but he managed to fit Price and Alejandro in his hoodie pocket. Ghost wiggled directly into his hoodie before he could offer to let him ride on his shoulder, instead poking his head out of the neck of it, right under Soap’s head. Rodolfo, not one to walk if it could be avoided, hid in the hoodie.

Soap decided not to point out they could just, ya know, fly home. Instead, he gently carried his family back to the house. He thought about a few things and wondered briefly if Price would be his grandsire when Ghost turned him.

Would they do things like this with him? He also wondered what Gaz was doing. For good reasons, they didn’t go to the club he was at, probably not wanting to mess with him feeding, but he kinda wished he was there. Gaz probably would’ve waited outside with him.

Ghost suddenly moved and Soap put an arm on him through his hoodie to support him. He felt him get cozier in the hoodie before stilling again.

Once home, they all disappeared to their respective rooms. Sunrise was a lot closer than he realized and he suddenly felt sick for not rushing home faster, even if none of them cared.

Fuck, he’d probably have to burn the hoodie. It was disgusting. All of them had so much blood on them and it was now all over all his clothes.

He grumbled as he shoved his clothes and all of the vampires’ clothing, after they so graciously gave them to him to clean, into the bathtub and dumped a bunch of hydrogen peroxide and cold water.

Gaz came home and had brought coffee for both of them. Must’ve been a great night because he was glowing and didn’t even try to steal a bite from Soap, which he was grateful for. Soap started to clean and Gaz watched him.

Interviewer: Oh, we didn’t talk much earlier.

Gaz: Yeah we did.

Interviewer: I don’t…

They notice they have notes from them discussing how Gaz is an energy vampire that feeds off excitement and happiness. And how after those feedings, memories can get fuzzy about them.

Gaz: So yeah.

Interviewer: So why did you bring Soap coffee?

Gaz: The happier he is, the better the house vibe. Plus, his happiness and gratitude is delicious. Not for a meal, too sweet, but he’s a nice little snack.

Interviewer: Huh.

Note to self, they’re all kinda selfish assholes.

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