#also because I have to start packing for a cousin’s wedding | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imagine-that-100 · 2 years ago

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Menswear

Description: You’re off to Manchester for your Aunt and Uncle’s wedding and nothing is ever simple when you and Matty are involved. With your history something is always bound to happen, whether that is subtle teasing touches, secret flirting, or something more. And after everything, you can’t carry on ignoring it because your heart’s not immune to his effect and just how happy he makes you.

Word Count: 16.2k

Warnings: Smut (enjoy)

A/N: Hey besties, i’m backkkk. So, if you’ve read @nriacc, you have read this before. I wanted to put this out as it’s own oneshot because I understand not everyone wants to commit to a large fic but I think this part at least deserves to be it’s own thing. I originally released this back in July 2021 and there’s been an oddly similar fic since with very similar characters and with not even a tag it feels like common crisis has been ripped off, so I want to give nriacc that little bit more exposure too because it’s the og. The only context you need going into this is Alex is one of the OC’s best mates, Matty’s nickname for this OC is Wheels (hence why I call her that), and Wheels is Adam’s cousin. Really hope you enjoy if you’ve not read it before or if you’re having a reread. Thanks a million for reading x

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Whilst unpacking all of his boxes into his new flat, Alex finds a book which he was going to send to you a month ago. It’s the last one he read and annotated before his break-up and move back to the UK but he never got a chance to send it over to you before it was thrown into a box to bring back home. And Alex gets a little emotional at the thought of giving it to you.

Alex debates whether he should even give it to you or not but in the long run he knows he’d regret not gifting it to you. So that was what brought him over to your flat again a few days later despite him knowing that you were going over to Manchester today.

So around noon, Alex heads over to your flat to give you your last book he’d yet to give you. He just hopes you’re still around.

He lets himself into the building as he still had his own keys because after moving out you just told him to keep them. But Alex decided to knock on your door before he let himself in with that set of keys, just so he didn’t scare you.

Just as he knocks, Alex realised that your door is already open as you must have left it on the latch. And just as he starts to push the door open, he hears you call out that, “It’s open!”

He walks in, closing the door behind him, leaving it on the latch for you like you wanted it as he walks down the short hallway into your lounge. He looks around for you as he calls out, “Hey Angel.”

“Al?” You call out from your room confused and you poke your head out seeing the singer standing in your lounge.

“You okay Y/N/N?” Alex says walking towards you to meet you in your doorway.

You meet in the middle and you hug each other as you tell him, “I’m good, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great thanks,” Alex says as he lets you escape from the hug.

You both head into your room then as you ask your best friend, “You know I’m going away today, right?”

“I do, it's why I'm here actually,” Alex tells you as he watches you start to last minute pack stuff into your suitcase.

Alex chuckles to himself. The suitcase is the size of something he would take away with him on tour for months on end, not something you’d take for a week in Manchester.

You raise your eyebrows, curious for him to continue and Alex does, “I came to say bye, but also to give you this.”

Alex holds the novel out to you then and you abandon your case to collect it from him. As you take it, you ask, “What’s this?”

“It was your last in the book club, but I didn't have the chance to send it over and I found it again when I was unpacking,” Alex tells you as you inspect the cover and he sees your smile grow as he tells you about it.

“Thank you so much,” You tell him before you give him another big hug.

Alex smiles as he hugs you back, “You’re welcome, sorry you’re getting it months behind schedule.”

You tell him to not be silly, it’s thoughtful of him to actually give it to you instead of just keeping it to go on his new bookshelves. “I’ll give it a read when I finish the one I’m on now, although I’m reading Stephen King’s IT and it’s fucking huge so it might take me a while.”

Alex chuckles at that as he watches you find a space for it on the end of your bookshelf, “Don't worry, there’s no rush.”

You slot it neatly at the end of the very bottom shelf and just as you’re about to ask Alex another question about it, you hear the door go again. You head back out of your bedroom door and shout, “It’s open” again before leaving your bedroom.

Alex follows you out and you turn back to tell him, “It’ll be Matty.”

And you aren’t wrong because a second later the curly haired brunette wraps his arms around you and has picked you up to spin you around. Alex watches as you giggle in Matty’s arms and your own arms circled around his neck to ensure you don't fall to the ground.

The both of you exchange pleasantries in the hall before you usher him inside, telling him that you just had a few more things to pack before you’re ready to go. Matty assures you that it’s fine before he tells you, “You look good today.”

You’re dressed in blue skinny jeans, your hightops, and a long-sleeved black top that you have tucked into your jeans. You turn around and thank him before you usher Matty into the lounge.

In there you find Alex perching on the back of your loveseat, obviously wanting to be polite and say hello. You smile at Alex as you walk back into the lounge before you tell the both of them, “I’m just gunna pack up a few more things, I won't be long.”

Alex smiles at Matty when he makes eye contact with him and Matty smiles realising that he was here.

“You alright Alex?” Matty asks politely.

Alex nods, “Yeah good mate, how are you?”

“Yeah good thanks... Believe you’ve got a flat in the city now?” Matty asks curiously, filtering information back to him that you’d told him on the phone not so long ago.

“Yeah,” Alex nods, “Just thought I'd come and say bye because I'm headed back over to LA to record the next album in a week and I wouldn’t have a chance to say bye otherwise.”

Something which was true. You did know he was jetting off again and you were pleased that it was because of a new album and not a new tour straight away. At least you’d get him back for Christmas and a few months after that before a tour.

“That’s fair enough,” Matty says before curiously asking, “Got anything written yet?”

Alex nods, “Yeah I've got most of it done, just need to get it recorded with the rest of the lads.”

“That’s good,” Matty smiles and both blokes share a smile then.

At least you weren't the only thing they could bond over.

“Curly,” You pull both lads out of their chat and Matty smiles at you to continue when you come back out of your bedroom door with your suitcase, “Did they want me to bring anything?”

“Other than whatever you're actually wearing to the wedding, I don’t think they care,” Matty grins and you laugh.

Alex chuckles a bit at that too but can’t help himself but say, “Still can’t believe they’re getting married mid October.”

“Same,” You and Matty nod in agreement. You add though, “It’s given out surprisingly good weather for Friday though so we’ll be lucky.”

Matty nods, thinking to himself that he’ll believe it when he sees it.

“What are you wearing anyway?” Alex asks you curiously, “Pant suit?”

You shake your head smiling, but you correct him, “I’m wearing a dress.”

“You’re wearing a dress?” Alex asks you, completely shocked, like he just didn’t hear you properly.

You nod looking at both of the boys who are staring back at you dumbfounded.

“You?” Alex has to check again.

“Yes Alex,” You say, giving him a pointed look.

He just shakes his head at you though, “But Y/N/N, you don't wear dresses.”

You tut, a little offended but Matty defends Alex straight away.

“Don't look like that, he's right,” Matty says, “The last time I saw you in anything near a dress was the skirt you wore at your Eighteenth.” and now you’re 24. It’s been a long while.

You ask a little wide eyed, “Why do you remember that?”

“Fifteen year old me imprinted it into my mind,” Matty grins at you a little suggestively.

You shake your head, trying not to laugh, “I hate you.”

“Love you too,” Matty grins, but then he asks you, “What dress are you wearing?”

You tell him, “A red one to match the bridesmaids, but a short one because I’m not officially a bridesmaid.”

The only bridesmaids were your Mum and your Aunt’s best friend. You were the chosen flower girl which you thought was pretty cute.

“I think, and I'm sure Matty thinks too, that you should go put it on,” Alex suggests trying but failing to hide his grin at the thought of you in a dress.

You shake your head, automatically saying, “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't want to ruin it before Friday,” You tell your best friend like he’s stupid.

“Oh come on Y/N/N, I’m not going to get to see it and I've not seen you in a dress for years,” Alex tries to guilt trip you.

You counter argue, “You'll see pictures.”

Alex looks at you completely hurt then and pleads, “Oh come on Angel,” But then he uses your friend for back up. “Matty, you wanna see it too, right?”

Without hesitation Matty agrees, nodding, “Yeah.”

“I hate you both,” You say, clearly not impressed.

“We love you too, now go and get changed,” Alex instructs, waving you back off to your room.

You sigh then looking from the shaggy haired boy to the curly haired one, “Have we even got time?”

Matty grins, “All the time in the world if I get to see you in a dress, Wheels.”

You groan in annoyance then and grab the handle of your suitcase knowing you weren’t going to win this. You try one more time though and ask, “Alex, can’t you settle for a picture?”

“No,” He shakes his head and folds his arms.

You pout and whine, “But I don't wanna get changed.”

“We don't always get what we want,” Alex tells you before nodding towards your bedroom door, “Go on.”

“Fine,” You sigh, but then you give both of them a pointed look when you turn back to say, “But I'm leaving the door open so I can still talk to yous, so don't come over here.”

Matty sake scoffs then, saying, “Don't flatter yourself, we don't wanna see you getting undressed.”

“Okay,” You dryly laugh, “I’ll believe that when we start searching for planes in the sea.” You roll your eyes before you venture into your bedroom.

“So your new album…” Matty asks Alex, “What’s this one called?”

“Suck It And See.”

“Ah right,” Matty grins at what that was alluding to, “Sounds fun.”

Alex laughs, “Yeah it’s an innuendo to us but the politically correct answer to why its called that is that its essentially a ‘fuck you, we arent giving you an album cover, you’ve got to listen to it yourself to judge it.’”

“Ah right,” Matty nods in appreciation, “So I’m assuming the album cover is just gunna say Suck It And See?”

“Yeah,” Alex nods, and he proudly tells him about your input. “She’s already made it.”

“Ah,” Matty smiles, “She’s a gooden.”

Alex nods in agreement before letting that subject drop and revert the questions to his music this time.

“Your shows are getting bigger, right? Got a manager and everything now I hear.” Alex smiles.

Matty nods, “Yeah, got quite a lot coming in the venues back home now.”

“That's good mate,” Alex smiles, “Happy for you.”

“Thanks Pal.”

Alex remembers something else that makes him chuckle a bit as he asks Matty, “I believe your name’s changed again?”

Matty sighs but nods. He then asks your best friend, “She been moaning about it?”

“Oh just a little,” Alex smirks, remembering you seething when you got off the phone with Matty a month or two ago about it before proceeding to rant to Alex about it for an hour that night and over the next few days after that.

Matty knew that was a bigger unstatement than the title of his first puppets album. You’d gone berserk on the phone to him one night when Adam had forced him to call you to tell you.

Or you had until you were told the new name.

“What you called now?” Alex asks, not quite remembering.

“The 1975.”

“Oh right,” Alex nods appreciating the randomness of it.

“It’s good, don’t you think?” You shout out to Alex as you try and awkwardly zip your dress up by yourself.

“Strange enough that it’s different, but memorable like the Monkeys,” You shout a second later.

Alex shouts back to you, “Yeah it’s certainly different,” but then he turns back to Matty and at a normal volume he asks him, “Where’d you come up with that one?”

“Oh I was going on holiday with my family after Christmas and I went to a charity shop to try and find a book to take. I saw a copy of my favourite book in there and opened it up and I saw that someone had dated the book June first the 1975. Sort of fell in love with it,” Matty explains.

You shout out to him, “Well as long as you don’t change it again, I’ll be in love with it, too.”

“Oh don’t worry it’s not changing now,” Matty shouts back but he looks at Alex when he says it.

Matty pulls his sleeve up and shows Alex his forearm that had the year 1975 tattooed onto it.

“Well I really hope you don’t change your mind now,” Alex chuckles.

Matty chuckles a little too but shakes his head, “No I won’t. Can’t. Got the tattoo so I wouldn’t be able to.”

“You got it tattooed?” You gasp quickly, slipping your last heel on and doing the small buckle.

Matty shouts back, “Yeah.”

“What, where?” You ask as you leave your bedroom.

When you walk out into your lounge though, both men feel their whole body freeze. The only thing they can do is move their eyes to try and take in all of your beauty.

You’re in your dress that was a beautiful shade of blood red. It has spaghetti straps meaning that you’re braless, but that’s okay because the material is thick enough to make sure you’re kept reserved enough for a wedding.

The red dress also had a V neck line meaning that you also got to show off a healthy amount of cleavage. The dress then pinches in at your waist before the skirt comes out a bit and flows down to your mid thigh.

You feel really pretty wearing it and you love the red heels that you have on to match. But the dress isn’t of your concern right now.

You’d walked out of your room to see Matty's tattoo. You walk towards both of the lads and take a hold of Matty’s arm to inspect the new tattoo.

It’s nice. It resides under his Mortal Kombat tattoo and it’s there for anyone and everyone to see.

You like the font that it’s in and the fact it’s a little uneven. But knowing Matty, that would have been how he wanted it.

But you’re staring at his tattoo whilst he and Alex are staring at you.

“I like it, it’s very you,” You smile at him.

But Matty’s just blankly staring at you. He looks as if he’s had a massive shock to his system.

Alex is the first one to actually come out of the silence that had fallen amongst them. He clears his throat before saying in a soft voice, his eyes still taking all your beauty in, “You look stunning, Angel.”

The compliment seems to take Matty out of his daze too and he compliments, “He’s right, you really do, Sweetheart.”

“Oh,” You smile between them, “Thank you.”

You do a little spin then feeling the need to and both boys get a look at your box tattoo on your shoulder blade as your long hair moves from it as you spin. You smile at the both of them when you settle back in your spot to stand normally again, and you say, “Couldn’t really turn up to my Aunt’s wedding looking like a slob, could I?”

“I mean I lived with you for two months and I never thought you were a slob,” Alex says which makes you laugh and you engage them both in conversation for a few minutes.

You’re all laughing and joking but both men can’t take their eyes off of you, your natural beauty just shines through as you’re wearing this stunning dress. And both men silently agree to themselves that your natural long hair pulls even more attention towards you.

Matty was certain he’d be fighting people away from you on Friday.

You just look so fucking stunning it’s unreal.

So much so that Alex can’t let you get changed without getting a picture of you as you are. As you’re about to head back to your bedroom to change, Alex moves himself across the lounge to your shelf and picks up your polaroid camera and quickly flicks it on.

And before you make it near your bedroom Alex manages to get you to turn back around as he’s able to tell you a shit joke to make you laugh. And as soon as he hears the amazing sound that is your laughter, he quickly snaps the picture.

“Alex,” You scorn him, not being ready for a picture at all.

Alex half heartedly apologises, “Sorry, but you need to remember how pretty you look.”

“I’m going to have pictures done at the wedding,” You tell him.

Alex shrugs not really caring as he starts wafting the polaroid of you before leaving it on the side to develop, “Yeah well one now won’t hurt.”

“Go on,” Matty nods at Alex towards you, “Get in one with her.”

“You not want one?” Alex offers first.

“I’ll get plenty on Friday,” Matty smiles before taking the camera off Alex.

Alex shreds off his leather jacket to reveal a black button up which goes nicely with his blue jeans. You tell him that he looks nice as he stands beside you and he smiles a thank you at you before his arm goes around your waist so the both of you can smile for the picture.

Matty takes that one and when Alex claims it as his own you make him get in another one with you. You end up doing a sillier one this time where you’re both smiling but you’ve both thrown the peace signs up too.

Matty chuckles as he takes it and as soon as it's popped out, he takes it and goes to inspect the other ones on the side that should already be developed. As he does that though you head back to your room, but in your doorway you quickly get Alex’s attention again and get him to unzip your dress.

His breath catches in his throat when he sees your bare skin come into his view, but when the zip stops at the small of your back Alex composes himself when you turn back around towards him to thank him. He gives you another smile and quietly tells you once again that you're beautiful in a way that always makes your heart beat faster.

You smile gratefully at him before you retreat to change once more. You let the two men chat amongst themselves as you elect to change into your comfy clothes this time.

Once ready, you step back into the room with your white dress bag over your shoulder and your suitcase in your other hand. You decided that you wanted to pack the clothes you wanted to wear earlier.

You’re just in your joggers and an old hoodie now.

“You baffle me,” Alex says when he looks at you and Matty is thinking the exact same thing.

You look at them both confused as you stop walking just in front of them. Matty decides to inform you what they’re both thinking.

“How can you still be just as pretty when you change into that?” Matty asks and he sees you go all shy on him which makes him grin.

And if you’re reacting like that to him, Matty knows exactly what that means.

So instantly Matty knows that seeing you dressed like you just were all day was going to be difficult.

Friday was going to be a very long day for him, probably a very hard one too.

~*~*~*~

The week you were back in Manchester you felt like you didn’t get any time with your cousin or his friends. Your Mum and your Aunt were preoccupying you all the time and by Thursday you’d had enough of it.

All you wanted to do was go out with your mates to the skatepark to try and warm yourself up in the cold weather and then come home and order a takeout whilst snuggled up under a blanket.

But no.

You were being pampered left, right, and centre and you hated it. In the week leading up to the wedding, you, your mum, your aunt and her best friend were out being dolled up the entire week.

And they made a full day of each single thing that you had to which you were certain you could have managed to squeeze it all into one day. But no.

Monday, you had your hair trimmed and practice styled. Tuesday, you had to go and get your practice makeup done. Wednesday, you all went and got your nails done, so there was definitely no skateboarding in the picture now. And Thursday, you and the bridesmaids pampered your aunt all day.

So whilst you loved being in Manchester, you did miss your usual activities as all you wanted to do was sit down with Adam, Matty, George, and Ross and watch a film. But no, after your days filled with gossiping with your family you came home to them and practically fell asleep within five minutes of resting.

You intended to stay at Matty’s one night just to catch up with him, not to pursue anything sexual, but as soon as you sat down on the settee back at Adam’s you fell asleep. You woke up the following morning in your bedroom with a text from Matty saying:

Get some more sleep Sweetheart x I’ll see you tomorrow xx

And another from about ten minutes before you woke up saying,

Let me know when you’re up and I’ll sneak you out so we can go and get a Maccies breakfast xx

Matty informed you in the car on the way to McDonald's that after sitting next to him on the settee your head had slowly fallen to his shoulder where you passed out completely and Matty wasn’t one to deprive you of anything, especially your sleep. He knew how grouchy you could be if you didn’t get enough of it.

George had apparently carried you up to bed and Matty stuck around for a few hours just in case you woke up, but you were out like a light. Waking up to those texts was really cute though and you really enjoyed your secret breakfast with him.

When Friday came around you were actually quite excited because you knew you’d actually get to spend most of the day with some of your closest friends. You loved your Mum and Aunt to death but it had been overkill the past week.

Getting your nails done for the wedding you admit was fun whilst it was being done and for about a day afterwards but after a while the red acrylics started to get on your nerves. You found it more difficult to hold a pencil or your paintbrush so when you tried to be creative you had to hold back from adding the finer details of your work. The last thing you’d want is to ruin it.

But, it's your Aunt and Uncle's wedding. They are practically your adopted Mum and Dad so you can let this one slide. You’re not meant to be focussing on anything but the wedding anyway.

When Friday finally hits, you get yourself up ridiculously early to prepare yourself for the day. After waking up at 5:30 the first thing you did was shave your legs, making sure you didn’t miss a spot the day they were going to be on show.

It’s been cold and rainy a lot this summer and you didn’t have a boyfriend so you just thought fuck it and you hadn’t shaved them in a long while. It was a miracle you’d shaved them the night before Alex and Matty made you try the dress on last week and you’d only done that because you wanted to make sure it still fit you and you wanted to feel good whilst you were in it.

By 6 you’d eaten your breakfast and prepared everyone else's. You girls had your Aunt and Uncle's house to yourselves last night, as you’d all shipped the lads somewhere else for the night.

Thankfully though, you’re getting your makeup and hair done first because you're going to be the first out of the house. You're the flower girl so you should have been going with the bridal party but your Aunt didn’t trust her soon to be husband or her son to get there on time to see guests in so she was sending you to them to make sure they left on time.

So as soon as all the girls were ready and the photographer got pictures of you with your Aunt and your Mum, you were on your way. It's a little chilly outside but it’s nothing you can’t handle and it's still fairly early so the sun hasn't fully risen yet.

You get a taxi to meet the boys and you're pleasantly surprised to find everyone there and pretty much ready to go. Your Uncle is in his suit, his best mate (and best man) seems to have taken control and got everyone ready.

Your Uncle looks amazing in his dapper suit. It’s a black suit with a white shirt and black waistcoat and there’s a red rose pinned to his blazer obviously to match the wedding flowers and colours of the bridesmaids.

The best man's suit is fairly similar and so is Adam’s as the page boy. Your Uncle tells you that you look fantastic and he quietly says that he wishes your dad could see how beautiful you are today, something which makes your heart a little heavy but you keep yourself smiling and you give him a hug.

After making sure the adults are all good and ready to go, you move along to your friends. Your Aunt and Uncle had obviously invited the other three boys to their wedding because they practically lived in the Hann Household.

The day just wouldn’t be the same without them.

You go into the back room and find them all sitting there. Adam in his black suit with a white shirt, Ross in a navy suit and white shirt, George in a black suit and a black shirt, and your Curly is dressed in a grey suit and a black shirt.

Except his hair isn’t curly today which makes you pout. He’s gelled it back so it’s smooth and completely out of his face.

“Where’s your hair gone?” You ask, looking at Matty when you walk into the room a little more.

That‘s when everyone notices you, and just like the first time Matty saw you in that dress, he finds himself lost for words again today. You look absolutely stunning.

Your hair is down and loosely curled and it falls to just under your boobs, which also look really nice today. Your long legs are once again on show today and they somehow look better than they did the other day.

Your makeup has been done professionally today though and Matty thinks it just adds to you looking gorgeous. You have a slight winged eyeliner that’s smoked out at the end, but you have a shimmer on your lids that Matty can see whenever you blink.

And holy fuck. Your lipstick.

It’s a matte blood red that matches your dress perfectly. It draws Matty’s gaze to you and it’s almost hypnotic.

He never wants to look away. It’s as if you’ve made a television with your mouth that’s playing a film that had been perfectly created to Matty’s liking. He’d watch your lips like he was watching True Romance, his favourite film to watch with you.

“Fuck me Y/N, you look fit as fuck,” George says with his jaw practically agape, causing you to let out a loud laugh, which brings Matty out of his daze.

“You look very handsome Georgie,” You say before taking the seat between him and Matty.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress before,” Ross says and you nod.

You chuckle a little, “You and me both.”

“Think you should wear them more often,” Matty says, sending you a cheeky glance whilst eyeing the end of the material that lies a little higher up your thigh when you’re sat down, showing off more of your gorgeous skin.

“Ha, you would,” You giggle, shaking your head a little.

“Bro,” You say, getting Adam’s attention and he looks round at you with raised eyebrows. “Where’s your rose?”

“Shit,” Adam says, getting up, “Left it upstairs, thanks B.”

You shake your head, feeling like a mother and you double check that the lads have everything with them like their wallets and car keys so you can all get to the church and then to the outskirts of Cheshire, where the hotel is located for the reception.

After another ten minutes, you’re getting conscious of the time and you feel the need to start getting everyone moving, knowing everyone would get a flap on soon and start rushing around. But today, you just want everything to be perfect and getting there early is definitely going to be the way to ease those nerves for you.

“Right, come on everyone. Time to go to the church,” You clap your hands twice as you stand up and you usher everyone up.

After five minutes of everyone scattering, you’d get the groom and the best man in the car and they’re off to the church. The boys lag behind a little but they have cars to take themselves so it isn’t that big of a deal.

But soon enough it’s you locking up the best man’s house and Matty standing in the hall waiting for you as the others are waiting in the car. Matty obviously keeps the front door closed as it’s October and still chilly despite the weather forecast saying it was going to be getting warmer later in the day.

You double check the guys haven’t missed anything and you’re pleased to see they haven't, so you made your way to the front door.

Matty’s watching you and he can tell straight away that you’re living in your head. As if you’re talking to yourself, silently running through a checklist like the organised person you are.

But knowing you, you’d scorn yourself for not enjoying the day like you’re meant to. So Matty elects to bring you out of your head.

He calls, “Wheels.”

You look up at him then and it seems to snap you out of your thoughts. Matty is about to tell you to relax but you seem to have diverted your thoughts before he has a chance too.

“Hey, we match,” You grin, looking down at Matty’s tie.

You walk to him and run your fingers over the blood red material. You smile seeing it’s literally the exact same shade as your lipstick and your dress.

“We do,” Matty smiles at the feeling of your hand on his chest. But he can't bring himself to look at it as he’s still mesmerised by your pretty face, “Got to love a coincidence.”

“We love a happy accident,” You grin looking into his brown eyes.

Matty chuckles and pulls you into a hug saying, “Alright Bob Ross.”

You hug him back as you giggle at his joke. You’d made the guys watch Bob Ross with you many times and ‘happy accident’ was one of the phrases he liked to use and the guys liked to make fun of.

“You look stunning, Sweetheart,” Matty half whispers as if it’s a secret that he only wants you to know.

He’d happily scream it from the rooftops though.

“Thank you,” You grin, tucking your hair behind your ear as you tell him, “You look very dapper yourself, even with your hair gelled back.”

Matty laughs a little before saying, “Thanks gorgeous.”

“Come on,” You pat his chest. “We’ve gotta go.”

Matty nods then and the both of you make sure the latch is on the door, ensuring it’d lock behind the both of you. After setting the alarm, you both get outside and see that all the cars except for Matty’s Mums (that he was borrowing to get him to the church today) are all gone.

It seems that you’d both been taking too long and the other boys went in Adam’s car.

“Oh,” You say, looking at the practically empty drive. You turn to Matty and grin, “Well, I guess I'm going with you.”

~*~*~*~

Thankfully everything goes very smoothly when you get to the church. You babysit your Uncle and the best man at the door whilst they play very good hosts to the guests starting to filter in.

You also keep an eye on the boys sitting in the front of the church and make sure they aren’t messing around. You know what they’re like, but thankfully they are keeping on their best behaviour.

However, the cheekier lot of the bunch is doing everything in his power to tease you. After you walk down the aisle, dropping petals to the floor just before the beautiful bride herself walks down, you sit yourself down next to Adam, in front of the other boys who are sitting behind you.

You’re on the end of the row near the wall and you know Matty is directly behind you. Your hair must have fallen over the back of the wooden bench when you sat down because you can feel him twisting it around his fingers. It’s nice at first once you realise what’s happening and that it isn’t a spider crawling on you.

But during the boring bits of the ceremony you can feel him doing things like halfheartedly plaiting your hair, before then tugging the strands free so they aren’t in a plait anymore. The only time he stops is when you turn to stand up to sing the hymn and you turn around and give him a knowing look.

Matty just playfully grins at you and you can tell he’s biting his tongue, trying not to laugh. But when you turn, you see that the other lads next to him must have been watching him too as the boys are also on the verge of bursting out laughing.

You want to laugh at that point then too but you just need to make it though the wedding itself and the rest of the day can be spent messing about. So when you sit back down after the song, you bring your hair over your shoulder so it all falls on one side of your chest.

You think he would have stopped with his teasing but apparently not. Matty instead must have been sitting forwards because you can feel his hot breath on the back of your neck.

And the sensation drives you insane.

You can feel him on you yet you never actually feel him. You know he’s right there but not doing anything and that’s somehow worse.

This being because you aren’t sure he knows what he’s doing. He used to linger behind your neck before pressing a kiss to it.

So this is torture for you. And to make it worse, the other lads won’t even know he’s doing it.

After all, he’s just breathing.

But you know it’s not just breathing. He’s teasing you, and he’ll know you like it.

The teasing doesn’t end after the ceremony either as you all end up in the back of Adam’s car after Matty drops his back off at his house. The five of you are going to be entitled to the free bar tonight which is lovely of your Aunt and Uncle to offer, so Tim had offered to pick up the lads who aren’t staying at the hotel.

George has the excuse of being in the passenger seat of Adam’s car because he’s the tallest. So that means that you, Ross and Matty have to squeeze into the back of Adam’s tiny Vauxhall Corsa.

Matty being the skinny bastard he is, goes in the middle with you and Ross on either side of him. It’s still a tight squeeze for the three of you but you make it work.

That didn’t stop Matty from being a little tease though. If anything, the close proximity adds to it.

Because he doesn’t have any arm room, he elects to rest the arm that’s closest to you down on your knee. And whilst you think nothing of it, as it’s more soothing to you than anything, it still makes you feel hyper aware that he’s there.

At one point during the journey, you get really uncomfortable so you turn towards Matty a little letting your knee rest over his and you put your head down on his shoulder too. You’re essentially curled up against him and you want to rest your eyes for the rest of the drive.

This obviously causes your dress to rise up your leg an inch or two more so you truly aren’t that surprised when Matty places his hand on your thigh after about five minutes. However, there was no way you’re getting to sleep with his fingertips slowly moving up and down your leg.

And Matty continues to have you on edge when you all get to the hotel. He stands with you whilst waiting for pictures and whilst you all get drinks, but his arm is around your waist with his hand resting a little lower on your back than it should be.

The pictures that you get together and with the rest of the family are so cute, and you like that Matty keeps you close at all times. You all make full use of the photographer and get pictures of the five of you.

You and Adam get one, as instructed to by your Mum and your Aunt. But Matty requests one with just you and you end up getting a few together.

One of you standing with your arms around each other, one of the both of you being silly and posing doing the peace sign, and another of you both laughing.

He doesn’t even let up his flirting when you all sit down for the meal. You’re sitting at a round table that’s opposite the bride and groom’s long table and you’re sitting between Matty and Adam.

Ross is next to Adam while George is next to Matty and your Mum is sat opposite you.

Matty flirts with you throughout the whole meal, sending you knowing looks, feeding you some of his food, and telling loads of jokes making both you and your Mum laugh. He’s a proper sweet talker, you can tell that your Mum loves him already.

You’d all been giggling along throughout the meal with your Mum telling her stories. She’d even told some of your childhood stories that you silently scorn her for.

Especially when she tells a story about how you’d had a childhood crush when you were about seven on one of your neighbours kids. Apparently he was about 19 and he had brown curly hair which Matty seems to find particularly hilarious.

Matty even slides his chair over to yours some more so he can tease you by taking the piss that you’d gone for him, saying you’ve had a type all along. Matty even goes as far to say that he’s your dream guy.

Of course you play back and shoot him down, not wanting his ego to get too big. You like seeing if he can take what he’s giving, and you’re pleased to see his cheeks go red when you give him some back.

The meal goes smoothly and before you know it the desserts are being served. You’d ordered chocolate cake and ice cream and you’re so excited for it, you haven’t stopped going on about looking forward to your dessert for the entire meal.

And when it arrives, you definitely seem to be enjoying it, despite claiming to be full from your main not too long ago.

Matty finishes his cheesecake within a few minutes; He then sheds off his grey waistcoat before reaching around to his blazer that’s hanging off the back of his chair and he pulls out his phone.

He’s on his phone for a few minutes until George takes his attention once more. Adam’s already got up after finishing his dessert and headed to his parents who were shouting him over.

Matty puts his phone down just between the two of you as he partakes in George and Ross’ conversation whilst your Mum is scorning you for struggling to finish your dessert. Matty silently laughs though, watching you power through the dessert, not letting it defeat you.

When Matty’s conversation with his friends turns into a loud spell of laughter, Matty turns back towards you a little. But as the brunette does that, his elbow knocks his phone to the floor.

After apologising to you, making sure it didn’t hit you as it bounced under the table, Matty ducks himself under the table to retrieve the device. He spots it not too far from your feet and he reaches for it.

But when he brings his hand back, Matty brushes the smooth skin on your leg when he pulls his phone back up from the floor. Matty notes that he’s made you jump so he genuinely apologises, “Sorry Wheels.”

You remove the spoon from your mouth and swallow the ice cream before saying, “It’s alright.”

But the way you said it made Matty second guess everything. It sounded encouraging, which he didn’t get because he didn’t set out to touch you.

Matty then read between the lines then and came to the conclusion that you were ‘alright’ with it because you wanted his hands on you. So he takes his chance a minute later and touches your leg again.

And you don’t jump at all this time when Matty’s little finger brushes the side of your leg, and because of that Matty gives you one more attempt to shy away from him when he lets his hand linger beside your leg. You surprise Matty after that though because you actually nudge your leg against his hand.

So Matty then doesn’t hesitate to rest his hand on your thigh and you don't hesitate to move slightly closer to him despite you still eating your dessert. Matty sneaks a glance at you then and he notices that your lips are now back to their normal colour as the food you’d eaten must have played a part in your lipstick coming off, along with the napkin you’d been using.

But in this moment your beautiful lips show your slight amusement at the situation you’re in. You’re sitting with Matty’s hand trailing the inside of your thigh in the back of the room and you feel like you’re on fire.

Especially when after a minute, he starts moving his hand up.

Your dress goes higher up your leg with every movement of his hand. And the thoughts of your dessert that’s still in front of you, become more distant.

You didn’t want to give into his teasing though. You want to eat your chocolate cake in peace, and then he can do whatever.

But you also want him to carry on. You like his adventurous, bordering on dangerous, nature.

You’ve never done anything as risky as this especially in such a formal setting. So you let him have his fun as you're trying to eat, even giving him more access to tease you.

Upon reaching the last piece of cake, you can’t bring yourself to eat it because Matty’s hand is brushing over your underwear and it makes your stomach drop. You know no one can see you because the circular table is in the corner of the room just opposite the bride and groom's.

Adam wasn’t at risk from seeing anything because his Mum and Dad had called him over to talk to them. George and Ross are too focused on their conversation, and Matty joins in every now and again, so no one suspects anything.

“Are you okay Y/N?” Your Mum pulls you out of your haze of thoughts about Matty’s fingers ever so slightly teasing you.

You’ve gone hot and you can feel it as you glance up from your cake that you’ve apparently been staring at for god knows how long. But you can’t look at Matty or your act would go straight out of the window.

“I don’t feel very good,” You say, swallowing down the feelings Matty was instilling in your body as he teases you over the thin material.

“I told you not to eat all the cake if you couldn’t handle it,” Your Mum chuckles over the table, “You never can.”

You give her a halfhearted smile, and chuckle, “Yeah.”

“You need a drink or anything Y/N? Some water?” Matty offers you in an innocent manner.

You look and can see the mischief in his eyes as he keeps the smirk off his face though. His fingers add a little more pressure as he teases you over the lacy material. He likes seeing your eyes go wide and he’s the cause of it.

You rest your hand over his, trying to get him to stop moving his fingers which he thankfully slows them as you speak to your Mum. That didn’t stop him from moving his fingertips ever so slightly every ten seconds though.

Matty knows you didn’t want him to stop. You could have easily pushed his hand away in the position that you were in. But you didn’t.

You wanted him there. Teasing you.

He knows you want him just as much as he wants you. He can see it in your eyes.

“I’m good, thank you Matty,” You say a little shakily, but only your usually curly haired brunette picks up on that.

After another few minutes of torture, you can’t take it anymore. Your Mum keeps talking to you and you can’t deal with that whilst Matty’s hand is there.

“I’m going to be sick,” You lie to your mother across the table.

You push Matty’s hand away but cling to his shoulder when you stand, giving it a prominent squeeze as you get up silently telling him to follow you.

You rush out and your Mum looks at you with worried eyes. She goes to stand up but Matty quickly does so instead.

“I’ll make sure she’s okay, don’t worry. You see to your sister,” Matty tells your Mum as he puts his napkin down on the table, nodding towards your Aunt trying to get her sister's attention.

“Thank you Matty,” She smiles gratefully, “You’re a lifesaver.”

Unsuspecting to your Mum though, Matty aims to make sure you’re okay in an entirely different way.

Instead of holding your hair back in the toilet you brought him into, Matty is pulling on it to keep you trapped in a kiss. You feel like it has been forever since your tongue has met his.

So you’re savouring every moment with him. Matty excites you like no other person ever has done.

You can’t imagine letting any other person do to you what Matty had just done at the table. He’s cheeky and almost too confident for his own good and you love that about him.

Both of you know exactly where this is going at this point because as soon as you’re both in the posh empty bathroom, Matty locks the door behind him. He ushers you against the sink where you can sit and you don’t hesitate in doing so.

The cold surface underneath you probably would’ve made you jump if Matty wasn’t taking up all of your attention like he so easily does every time you’re in his presence. His lips are on yours, his hands roaming everywhere like he owns you.

And in this moment he practically does.

After a minute of getting off with him, Matty’s lips start trailing down your jaw and neck where he starts sucking and nipping on your skin. You give yourself a few seconds to enjoy that sensation again while your fingers are laced in Matty’s hair but you can’t let him continue.

“No,” You breath heavily pulling on the back of his hair. “No marks on my neck or my chest. No.”

Yes, you love it but you can’t deal with trying to hide them today. Especially when you’ve already been pictured without them.

If you were found with them later, you’d never live it down.

“Okay,” Matty says, kissing his way down your chest before he drops to his knees so he's at the perfect height to go down on you.

You breathe out a, “Matty,” but it sounds to him as more of a scorn than it did a pleasured moan. He’s kissing up your legs when you protest again but he has an answer for everything.

“No one but me is going to see the inside of your thighs, Sweetheart,” Matty says before his head completely disappears under the skirt of your dress.

As he kisses your thighs he also tugs on your underwear which Matty can see is lacy and red. Once you lift yourself up a little for him to pry them off easily, you watch as he pockets them as you feel his lips get closer and closer to where you want them.

“Matty,” He hears you moan quietly, obviously trying to encourage him but also control your volume.

He really wants to carry on teasing you, but again, who’s he to deny you whatever you desire?

You have to bite your tongue to stop the loud moans you want to let out as Matty starts going down on you. Your fingers are pulling tightly on his gelled hair as he does so, needing something to hold onto whilst he doesn’t let up on the pleasure he’s building inside you.

You soon realise that you aren’t after the foreplay today though. He’s works you up enough by being a tease all fucking day.

“Matty, I need you now,” You tell him and you're thankful that a few seconds later he gets up off his knees.

Your hands immediately go to his shirt, pulling it out of his pants as his lips attack yours once again. You both can’t help but moan against the others lips and Matty’s get a little louder when you make quick work of the clothes on the lower half of his body.

Before you know it, Matty’s pants are around his ankles and he’s tearing open a condom with his teeth that he quickly retrieved from his wallet. You tease him a little, your hand working him up as if he wasn’t already hard.

It seems like you both aren’t in the mood for teasing today though because as soon as the condom’s on, no more time is wasted. You want him inside you as much as he wants to be there.

An effort is made for you to both keep as quiet as you can. So it’s just the sound of your skin hitting together that fills your ears in the posh bathroom. Filthy sounds really, but it just turns the both of you on even more.

Your lips rarely part so you both feel each other's moans on your tongues as you kiss. Although, sometimes this is hard because the pace had been set pretty fast and Matty isn’t messing about.

Your dress is bunched up high around your waist with Matty holding it at the back, making sure it doesn’t go in the sink behind you. Your legs are locked around him meaning that each thrust he gives you is sharp and deep, so it hits that spot inside you over and over again.

The porcelain basin behind you is pressing into your back harder with each thrust of Matty’s and somehow that adds to it because you’re pressed against him. You truly feel like you’re just made for each other, he just feels so good and everything about him in general just makes you feel like you never have before.

Each thrust from him is feeling better than the last, meaning that you don’t give a fuck about the porcelain digging into your lower back. You confirm in your mind that it’s definitely adding to the whole thing because you couldn’t move backwards, especially with your legs wrapped around him too.

When you reach your orgasm, you’re thankful that you have Matty’s lips on your own to muffle the moan that spills from your lips. Your lips also contain his groan upon feeling you clench around him until he finds his own release.

Your legs are still shaking around Matty’s waist when he finally stops thrusting. You cling to him to try and get your mind to come back around to you. It'd been a long time since an orgasm left you like that.

He’s actually mind blowing, because all you can do is rest your forehead against his shoulder as you return back to a normal headspace.

“Sweetheart, breathe,” Matty says softly, kissing the side of your head.

You hadn’t realised you’d stopped doing so. When you lift your head back up to look at the brunette you see that he looks just as fucked as you probably do.

Only when you stop shaking does Matty pull out of you. You sit on the side for a moment longer, your skirt falling back down covering you, as you watch Matty dispose of the condom and make himself presentable again.

After a few seconds, Matty comes back over to you and takes your hand, encouraging you to get to find your feet once more. Thankfully you’re steady on them when you do, or you are when you’re not moving in these heels.

“Fuck Sweetheart, you look so fucking good right now,” Matty grins taking a step back looking at you, your gaze still a bit fucked out and Matty likes knowing he’s the cause of it.

Your gaze runs down his body and you find him so sexy in today's attire that you don’t even hesitate to say, “So do you.”

You step into his arms again and get another kiss. A little sigh falls from Matty’s lips at you being in his arms one again and he feels you hum against his lips.

When you pull away, you stay close to him and ask, “Are you going to stop teasing me now?”

Matty smirks, “You don’t want me to do that.”

He knows you far too well.

“No I don’t,” You grin, telling him what you know he wants to hear.

However, you get a little serious when you say, “But you can’t do everything again because we can’t do this again today.”

Your instructions are a little somber as your hands run through his hair, sorting out the mess you'd made. You smooth back all his hair and Matty savours the feeling of you being so close.

“I know,” Matty gives you a sad little smile but you were both painfully aware of where you are.

Escaping for a quickie in the bathroom was only possible because you made a good actress and could lie like it was second nature. You knew you’d have to act when you went back out as well, but you weren’t thinking about that right now.

You’re thinking about the once again mindblowing sex you’d just had with the boy that made your heart beat faster. The boy that looks at you like you’re the only girl in the world and the warm feeling that fills your chest is like something you’ve not experienced in a long time.

“How are you so good every time?” You ask a little breathlessly as you wrap your arms around his neck, wanting him close.

Matty chuckles a little at your confession before suggesting, “I think it’s just how we work, Sweetheart. You blow my mind.”

Matty’s lips find yours once again and he kisses you sweetly. It's soft and simple and serves the purpose as you both smile into it.

You pull away from him for a minute knowing you need to head back out to everyone else soon though. And when you tell him that, Matty takes your hand and tries to lead you towards the door.

You pull him back to you though.

“Are you okay?” Matty asks as he turns back to you, holding you a little tighter seeing you shakily take the step towards him to stop him from leaving.

“I’m trying to walk in heels about a minute after an orgasm, Matty,” You tell him. “I can barely stand up straight.”

He grins at you then, “You need me to stay and escort you out?”

“No,” You shake your head, “I need you to give me my underwear back.”

“You’re no fun, Sweetheart,” Matty shakes his head a little, trying to suppress his smile.

You scoff a little then, stating, “We just fucked in the toilets at my Aunt's wedding. If that doesn’t class as fun, I don’t know what does.”

Matty grins at you then before reaching into his pocket and retrieving the red lace.

“Thank you,” You say, taking them from him before you turn to head to the closest of the empty cubicles.

“I’ll wait outside for you,” Matty tells you and you smile showing your gratitude.

At least him waiting outside would help persuade people that you are actually ill. Or to anyone who didn’t know you were ‘sick’ anyway, it wouldn’t look suspicious.

After making yourself presentable again, you make your way out to Matty. You find him not too far from the doors and he lets you link his arm as you walk back towards the function room door.

“Are you sure you can walk?” Matty teases.

“Matty, I’m fine,” You chuckle, “Now watch me win an Oscar.”

Going back inside Matty thinks you play the role very well. If he hadn't just been with you, he’d have believed you’d just been sick as well.

You’re really good at acting. You even went as far as to ask your Mum for yours and Adam’s room key so you could brush your teeth. (Yes your annoying family had made you share a room with your cousin, that was the reason you didn’t fuck Matty upstairs).

You disappear out of the room for about ten minutes when you go to ‘brush your teeth’ and the way your Mum and Aunt fawn over you when you come back makes Matty chuckle. You have to nudge him at one point to make him stop.

But soon enough, the lies cease and the day moves on. It’s time for the speeches.

Yours and Adam’s Grandad start the speeches off as he’s of course the father of the bride. He tells a lot of funny and embarrassing stories about your mum and your aunt growing up and they make you laugh as you don’t know some of them yourself.

Even when your grandma steals the microphone for a minute to wish her daughter all the luck in the world, it makes you giggle. As if your Aunt hadn’t been with your Uncle since way before they had Adam 21 years ago.

The speeches then move along to the grooms and your Uncle is doing an excellent job of making everyone laugh, as he’s a really funny guy. Your Uncle is one of your favourite people on the planet, you hope he’d walk you down your own aisle one day as he had been the father figure for most of your life.

Your Uncle has made everyone laugh, he embarrassed your Aunt which was really funny to see. She was always the cool one and doing the same to him, so he was definitely getting his own back now.

The only thing left to do was make people cry. And he was succeeding.

“There’s unfortunately a couple of important people missing here today,” Your Uncle says and you know what’s about to come, and you aren't entirely sure you’re ready for it.

“And those people are the ones who should be here the most,” Your Uncle smiles down at his wife and she takes his hand and you see her thumb caress his skin which seems to help him carry on.

“I know me and my lovely wife would love nothing more than our brother-in-law to be here with us today... He was truly one of the best... The best friend I could have ever asked for and he was taken from all of us, especially his lovely wife and daughter, far too soon,” Your uncle continues and a ball quickly forms in your throat.

You smile at your Uncle and then glance to your Mum and see that her eyes have welled up which subsequently makes yours do the same. As you offer your Mum a smile, which she returns, you feel someone take your hand.

And when you follow the action, your hand lies in a certain curly haired brunette's, and he offers you the warmest smile which you didn’t know you needed until right now.

When you reached your early teens, you finally understood what experiences you’d missed out on because your dad had passed away when you were five. You’d learned to get your emotions out when you needed to and you learned to keep them at bay for your Mum’s sake.

So, it wasn’t often anymore that you thought about your Dad and got emotional, but when you did think of him and you’re surrounded by family, it did upset you.

You always felt like there was a missing piece, and today was one of those days. So when Matty offered you that support you took it and squeezed his hand back.

When you glance back at your Uncle he smiles at you and you blow him a kiss which he seems to appreciate. He continues to talk about your dad a little bit, saying he was in the room with everyone now and your Uncle says some really lovely things about him missing out being able to dance with you looking beautiful today, which makes you tear up but you promised your Uncle that he could dance with you.

You do have to wipe away a few stray tears after that moment, all while Matty is there to comfort you and you also feel Adam’s hand on your shoulder letting you know he’s there for you too. You really appreciated everything that your Uncle has said about your Dad and whilst he was speaking you lace your fingers with Matty for that extra comfort that you crave.

The speech moves on past the section that involved your Dad and you listen to your Uncle's anecdotes about when he met your Aunt and your Mum. The stories are really funny and the speech is amazing.

Matty’s hand never leaves yours throughout it all, unlike Adam’s eventually left your back, which you’re thankful to Matty for. He keeps his thumb moving across your skin and you’re so grateful for that.

Every so often he gives your hand a squeeze which you know is a silent ‘are you okay?’ and each time you give him a longer squeeze back confirming that you are.

By the end of the speech, your hand is in his lap and Matty’s other hand is on top of your clasped ones, again tracing soothing patterns onto your skin. When the time comes to clap you don’t let go of his hand either.

Both you and Matty elect to clap one handed on your thighs and during the clap your Uncle smiles at you and you stop clapping to blow him a kiss.

Before Matty can ask if you’re okay the Best Man’s speech starts which is actually hilarious. However, your heart feels heavy so your hand stays in Matty’s until that speech finishes too.

“You okay?” Matty asks in a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” You smile, giving his hand a squeeze, “Thank you.”

Matty just smiles at you then before his other hand comes up to your face and he tells you to look up which you do. His hand is on your cheek as his thumb runs underneath your eye.

Your suspicions of what he was doing were confirmed when he explains, “Your mascara smudged a little.”

You chuckle then just thinking he’s the cutest person in the entire world. You quickly cup his face in your other hand and pull him in for a quick kiss which Matty returns with a little smile on his lips.

“Thank you,” You say, giving his hand another squeeze before you both have to stand up and head out of the room.

The herd of people head out of the room so the staff can clear up and set the room up for the evening’s festivities.

You’re then whisked away from your new safety harness and roped into more photos with your family. After about half an hour of having pictures and waiting for them to need you, you finally escape back to your boys.

Matty makes sure you’re okay again and he gets you another amaretto like you’d been drinking all afternoon. You thank him and you stick with your boys until the room is prepared for the evening party and you are all called back in.

You all watch as the bride and groom dance along to a cheesy love song that you know your Aunt loves and you think she looked gorgeous dressed in white. She’s truly so beautiful and you can see a lot of your Mum in her.

It makes you think how beautiful your Mum and Dad would have been on their wedding day. Of course you’d seen pictures of the occasion, but this moment you were witnessing now just makes you think of how your Mum and Dad would have danced.

You wish you were there to see it but that wasn’t the case. You came along almost exactly nine months later.

There is dancing for a little while that you don’t really want to take part in so you sit down and joke around with your boys for a good hour before George suggests heading outside to the grand patio area that the hotel had and getting high.

Of course, no one objected to this. In fact, you’re the first up.

Adam gets lost in the crowd on the way out but when he shows back up again, not too long later he’s pleading with Matty to save some because apparently your Aunt caught you all through the window and drunkenly wants some for herself. This revelation makes you giggle as you don’t really believe it.

You just think Adam wants some for himself.

However it turns out to be true because Adam comes back after a minute, saying that you can’t not save some because his Mum is threatening him to cry on her wedding day.

Matty still doesn’t seem to believe him though as the both of you are just sharing it.

But your cousin doesn’t stop going on about it for the next five minutes and it gets to the point were Matty snaps, “Hann fuck off... I only brought three and me and Wheels are having one. George stole one, and me and Wheels are having the other one later.”

The death stare your cousin sends him then is a little scary, even for your standards.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Matty doesn’t back down, taking another drag, “I didn’t expect your Mum to wanna get high on her wedding day.”

Adam throws back, “Well you don’t have to be selfish and have two.”

You try not to laugh as you take the spliff from Matty and bring it to your lips once more. You like the way it makes you relax and you’re slightly happy Matty is defending your other one for later.

“Hann,” Matty says, trying to bite back his annoyed tone, “We’re gunna have to ask about, considering I’m the only one who thought to bring the weed.”

You leave the squabbling boys to themselves though when you spot your Aunt wondering outside through the door a bit further down from the one you. You call her over to you and you walk towards the table not too far from the boys to sit with her.

“Hey,” You giggle, watching her take a seat, “Did you want to just have a drag or get super high?”

“Just a drag,” Your Aunt giggles up at you. “Takes me back to when your Mum used to bring some home with her and we’d sneak it away from your Grandma and get high in the car.”

You let out a loud laugh at that knowing that is what Adam and the boys do a lot of the time. You let her have a drag of the spliff as you turn to your cousin and giggle, “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree Hann.”

The bride offers you the spliff back and once it’s trapped between your fingers you think it through, knowing there’s only about two drags left. You don't want fights about it but you also want to be generous to your Aunt.

“You can have the end of this,” You say to your Aunt, bringing the spliff closer to your lips, but your grin at Matty as you say it, despite him standing a few meters away from you.

Looking back at your Aunt you tell her, “I’ll share my last drag,” before taking it and holding your breath, before handing it over.

She grins up at you and quietly scorns, “Will you just get with the poor boy already? His eyes haven’t left you all day.”

If only she knew.

You just grin at her and shake your head warningly, silently telling her to ‘shut up’. You love your Aunt to pieces but you don’t want or feel the need to overthink things like that when you are around Matty.

You make your way over to him and grin. You point to your mouth so he knows what you're up to and when his lips move down to yours he takes his shotgun kiss.

Soon enough though it just turns into a real kiss as his hands rest on your hips, pulling you into him a little more and your hands are resting on his chest. You should be surprised when he tries to deepen it, but you aren’t.

In fact, you encourage it until you remember that you reapplied your lipstick when you went upstairs earlier.

You pull back when he gets a little too into it, warning him, “Watch my lipstick.”

“So many rules, Sweetheart,” Matty grins, shaking his head a little.

But he doesn’t seem to care that much because he just pulls you further into him and kisses your lips once more. Matty savours the feeling, as he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get enough of you. When he pulls away, he makes you laugh.

“How do you still taste like chocolate when we’ve had a spliff?” Matty questions completely baffled by you.

It was all he could taste earlier when you were both in the bathroom.

Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate.

And now that taste was confusing him with the smell of the weed too. It was sort of morphing into the same thing.

You just giggle, ignore the question and attach your lips to his once more.

~*~*~*~

“Dance with me?” Matty asks you when you’re both standing in the room with the dancefloor watching the couples, including your Aunt and Uncle, slow dancing.

Your eyes go a little wide at Matty’s question, “I don’t know how to dance.”

“Neither do I, but we’ll figure it out,” Matty grins, grabbing your hand and pulling you to him.

He moves you onto the dancefloor and he holds your hip and your hand like a ballroom dancer and rests your other hand on his shoulder.

You slowly dance to the acoustic version of James Blunt’s 1973 which you find quite cute because of how close the year is to his band name. But maybe you just find that amusing because of how many drinks you’d had.

You definitely wouldn’t have agreed to dance with anyone sober. But you’re entitled to the free bar and so was Matty.

It’s past 9 p.m. now and he’d split more of your amaretto than you would ever usually allow when you were paying for your own drinks. But you’d definitely drunk a lot more than he’d spilled, meaning that you would’ve been very easily persuaded to dance, even if it wasn’t the boy who you may or may not have had a crush on who asked you.

You dance close to each other, to the point where there is no room between you. You’re just clutching each other, loving the intimate moment and you don’t even feel the need to speak as the song plays.

You just sway together and you try to remember every little second of this. You like dancing in Matty’s arms. You like him holding you close like you’re his.

Truthfully you don’t want the moment to end. You like feeling the little kisses he places on your neck and you find that your whole body tingles when he compliments you.

“You look stunning,” He whispers in your ear.

You can't contain your grin so you’re thankful that your cheek is pressed against his and he can’t see it. You compliment him back, “You look really good too.”

And he truly does. His black shirt had long been untucked from his grey pants now and the loose red tie with the buttons undone just makes him even more attractive to you. The hair starting to fall a little even does it for you too.

“But you honestly just look... Wow,” Matty says, not being able to find a better word.

You grin and whisper a, “Thank you,” as the song fades and a familiar one comes on.

You can’t help but ask your Curly a question then as it’s your favourite song.

I’m Yours by Jason Mraz.

“Did you ask for this song to be put on?” You grin, looking at him as you both start swaying a little bit faster to the new beat.

Matty grins back saying, “Maybe.”

“Did you learn it for me?” You ask curiously.

About two months ago, you asked him on the phone if he would learn it and play it for you at some point. This time you’d been in Manchester you hadn’t had any alone time so you weren’t sure if he had learnt it or not.

But of course, your Curly comes though, “I did.”

You can't hide the smile on your face at that point. You just dance and both softly sing along to the song. And every so often Matty kisses your neck before he carries on singing into your ear.

Yeah, the song is an older one, but you rediscovered it at the beginning of the year and you just love it so much. So for months, you’d been playing it on repeat in your headphones endlessly whilst you painted or created some other form of art.

As the post chorus comes along you feel Matty's lips on your neck again and you smile at the feeling as you carry on moving together to your favourite song.

The post chorus is your favourite bit because it feels like an intimate sort of moment that you were intruding on. So after the little skat that Mraz sings you can’t help but continue to sing just as loud.

“And I will nibble your ear,” You sing along with Jason Mraz, but as you do, you feel Matty do exactly that to you.

The giggle you let out then can’t be contained and Matty chuckles when he hears that beautiful sound. But at the end of the song, you’re both just swaying in a circle and singing the lyrics into the other’s ear.

It’s a beautiful moment. And what better way for it to end than with a kiss?

When Matty’s lips connect to yours, you both savour it until the next song starts. You’re about to begin swaying along to the new tune but your Uncle taps Matty on the shoulder asking if he could steal you away for a song.

Of course Matty agrees and he lets your Uncle dance with you. But every time you turn around, you catch Matty watching you dance with your Uncle, and you feel your cheeks go hot under his gaze.

God, you really were embodying the song that had just been on. All it took was for him to look at you and smile and your usual chilled out self became so hot that you thought you'd melt right through the cracks.

You really needed to get your grip back.

~*~*~*~

As the night gets later, you get drunker, which means that when the second spliff you and Matty are sharing is depleted, you start sharing your thoughts.

Your back is against the brick wall behind you and you have Matty’s blazer on keeping you warm. Matty is standing about a foot in front of you and he’s just caught you looking up at his hair.

“I prefer your hair curly,” You tell him as you watch him take the last drag, stubbing the rest out.

Matty grins, “Yeah?”

You nod, “Yeah... I miss my Curly.”

“I’ve not gone anywhere, Sweetheart,” Matty chuckles, stepping closer to you and pulling your body into his.

“No,” You shake your head, “I mean in general.”

You can tell he’s confused then but your drunk self elaborates and clears it up for him.

“I miss our summers,” You start. “I miss coming to Manchester... I miss you showing me how to do tricks on my skateboard.”

Everything you’re saying is making his heart swell. But even more so when you finish off with, “I miss you flirting with me and calling me Wheels... I miss you a lot Matty.”

“You’ve got no idea how much I miss you Sweetheart,” Matty tells you, pulling you firmly against him and you just stand there gazing into each other's eyes.

Matty breaks the moment's silence by suggesting, “You should come back over and see us soon.”

“I want to,” You nod, “I’ll try and come up properly again next summer.”

“We could do so much,” Matty grins, nudging your nose playfully with his.

“Wanna do it all,” You giggle, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Matty asks with raised eyebrows, “You come to all of our gigs?”

“Of course,” You giggle, “Got to see The 1975 for the first time, haven’t I?”

“You do,” Matty says before pecking your lips once.

“Did you keep any songs for this one?” You ask, knowing with every new band name they never kept any of the songs they made in that era and brought it to the next.

“We’re keeping Girls and Sex,” Matty tells you.

You feel blood rush to your cheeks then knowing the latter is about you. Matty grins seeing you look to the ground after that, as he never made it a secret that the song is about you. If anything he wanted you to know.

“Hey Y/N/N,” Your Mum calls from round the corner.

You and Matty separate from each other's embrace then, and you make your way to your Mum who is bound to introduce you to one of her new friends again. Unsurprisingly she does but at least this time her friend has a son who looks around your age that has come along to the event.

You’re pleasant with the guy and Matty watches in amusement with George, Ross, and Adam at you trying your best to make conversation. Your body language tells those who knew you best that you’re tired and you really can’t be arsed with the conversation.

And it just gets worse when both you and your Mum are encouraged to get in a picture with her friend and her son. The boys watch as you put on the worst fake smile they’ve ever seen but Matty takes note of the lad whose arm goes around you as politely moves closer to you for the picture.

The guy is smitten with you. Anyone could see it.

Especially Matty though. And he hates it.

Even more so when the guy pulls you to the bar and you get a drink with him. Matty hates you talking to him, hates seeing you genuinely smiling at the lad. Matty hates you clinking your glass with him, hates you doing a shot with him, and hates seeing you rest your hand on his arm when you genuinely laughed at whatever he’s saying.

But Matty’s just thankful that a few minutes later you come back over to him and his friends. Matty traps you against him, his arms snaking around your waist.

“How's your new friend?” George asks you teasingly.

You frown at him and ask, “Why are you saying it like that?”

“He was giving you the lips, Wheels,” Matty tells you as he kisses your neck a few times.

You pull a disgusted face then, definitely not wanting that boy to ‘give you the lips’. You lean back into Matty a little, taking a drag of the cigarette you just lit and relax into him.

“I’m good thanks,” You cringe. “His curls and his height are as good as he gets.”

Matty hadn’t missed that the guy was literally just a 6’ 3” version of himself. But a lot less good looking, if Matty did say so himself.

“I reckon you could knock him out if he came too close,” Matty whispers into your ear which causes you to let out a giggle.

The night draws on and you and Matty spend the majority of the night in each other's company. Not always at each other's sides but you both never stray too far away.

Matty had given you his blazer when it started going dark, which was around 7 p.m. as he didnt want you getting cold when you all went out for a smoke. You thought it was very cute of him and you liked his aftershave that seemed to linger on the material.

You like his smell. It reminds you of your second home, as you spent most of your time in his company the last few times you come to Manchester.

All too soon though, the evening begins to draw to a close. And that starts when you feel a buzzing in the blazer that you had on.

You find Matty’s phone to be the culprit and when you pull it out you see Dad flash up on his phone, along with the time of 02:43.

“Hi Tim,” You answer it knowing Matty won’t mind.

You love Tim and you haven’t spoken to him for ages. You really miss Matty's whole family though, especially Louis.

“Y/N, is that you?” Tim asks you and you smile hearing his jolly voice.

You tell him, “It is, Matty lent me his blazer and it had his phone in it.”

“Ah he’s a gooden, isn't he?” Tim chuckles down the line. After you agree with him, Tim asks, “How’s the tie change gone down?”

You're confused at that question, and you assume it’s just your drunken mind needing the question simplified, “What do you mean?”

“The red tie?” Tim tells you and you glance at Matty who’s in conversation with George just across the patio. “He had a grey one to match his suit originally but he’s not stopped all week about me needing to help him find a tie in a particular shade of red.”

“Oh,” You say, a little shocked by the information. A smile also makes its way to your face, remembering your conversation from this morning, when you mentioned that he matched you.

The thought that he’d done it intentionally makes your heart beat faster.

Matty turns around laughing at something George had said then and his eyes connect with yours, which in that moment makes your heart flutter and butterflies come to your stomach. You glance down at his tie that is now loose around the collar of his black shirt and you press your lips together before telling Tim, “Yeah, the tie looks really good.”

“Ah, that's good then,” Tim says in his geordie accent as your eyes connect with Matty’s once more and you smile at each other.

“Are you alright to tell him I’m going to set off now to pick them up? I’ll be about half an hour,” Tim asks you.

“Yeah, of course,” You nod, even though he couldn’t see you. “Do you want to speak to him?”

You start walking over to Matty then, a little slower than your usual pace because of the amount of alcohol you’d consumed and because your heels were beginning to hurt a little. Tim says down the phone, “Yeah alright, if he’s not too busy?”

“No, don’t worry,” You grin, “He’s right here.”

Matty tilts his head to the side a little then, seeing you approach him on the phone with a look in your eyes he can’t quite pinpoint. “I’ll see you soon Tim,” You smile and Matty understands it’s his dad then.

You say a final goodbye before you hand Matty his phone over and whilst he takes that from you, you trade it for his cigarette and listen to his end of the conversation whilst chatting a little to George.

Matty’s answers to his Dad are generic, nothing revealing about them, so there’s really no need to listen in. It sounds like he’s just thankful that his Dad is coming to pick him and the other boys up.

“Thanks Dad, see you later,” Matty says, “Bye.”

Matty hangs up the phone then and pulls you into his body, maybe craving the warmth as you’d stolen his blazer, or maybe craving you. Either way, you’re happy in the embrace you’re trapped in and you can’t really stop yourself from smiling as you finish chatting to George about his job.

You lean back into Matty’s chest whilst you’re finishing off his cigarette. After a second, his hands come around your waist and he pulls your blazer open a bit so he can put his phone back in the inside pocket.

You stay like that for a little while until your cousin is shouting you inside for some more pictures.

You roll your eyes knowing it’s getting closer to 3 a.m. now and you really don’t want to be having pictures taken at this time. However, this day is not about you, so you get up and leave Matty and George alone once again.

When the photos are finished you glance at the clock seeing that it’s 3 a.m. and you’re genuinely so tired. Both you and Adam head back outside to your friends then and see a group of all the youths of tonight around your age had formed where you left Matty and George earlier.

As the both of you walk over though, you see that the group had basically formed a small circle. You and Adam slot yourself in next to George, Matty is opposite you next to some guy he’d apparently not seen in years that he’d pointed out earlier.

Ross was only a couple of people away from him, still looking dapper like before but you can’t take your eyes away from Matty. Partly because he just looked amazing in that black shirt and his red tie with his hair now falling in his face a little bit.

But mostly because he so easily captured everyone’s attention with his mouth that never stops running. It was like he asked if anyone minded if he gave a speech, because everyone gives him their attention.

And right now he’s talking to an old friend of his about their ex.

“Nah mate, honestly I never really got on with your bird the first time I met her. She was dressed in nout when we were all out and she was telling everybody that she was shagging about,” Matty told the guy and you had to hand it to him, he had some balls saying that to someone he barely knew.

“But she turned out to be alright. Actually one of the more laidback lot of the bunch,” Matty finishes up with and the guy just laughs and you’re just glad you didn’t have to drag Matty away from a fist fight.

But a minute later something happens that you aren’t expecting. You watch a really pretty girl with red hair, that you’d noticed earlier in the day, subtly tuck herself under Matty’s arm.

You don't think anyone else noticed it because she was standing next to him anyway, but your eyes had rarely strayed away from Matty today so you noticed instantly. Even more so when his arm goes around her shoulder.

A pit forms in the bottom of your stomach then and you aren’t too sure why. But looking at the girl next to Matty stings in a way it never had before seeing him with someone else.

You didn’t even feel like this the first time you’d seen him with Lucy. It’s a strange feeling and you didn’t really like it so you just didn’t look towards them hoping the sensation would leave.

But the feeling didn’t go away, mostly because you can’t really take your eyes off them. You want to see exactly where her hands are on him, and the fact she’s clutching to his shirt makes you jealous.

You don’t want her touching him at all.

Jealousy really is a dirty feeling, you don’t like it, and the fact you’re feeling it this intensely makes you want to head up to bed so you don’t get more wound up. The girl who has the most stunning red hair keeps giggling and leaning herself into Matty and Matty chuckles along with her to the guy's jokes.

You didn’t even hear the joke because you’re just so concentrated on her. Her hair stands out against her black dress which just draws people in to look at her.

Her dress is also riskily short which obviously brings her a lot of attention but the fact that she’d drawn Matty’s hurt your heart a little. But he wasn’t yours, so you had to suck it up and deal with it.

After another minute, you look back and the girl and Matty are looking at each other and you know exactly what you’re about to witness. She wanted him, you can just tell.

You don’t know why you carry on looking when she goes for the kiss, but you do. There’s a little tug on your heart that you try to pretend that you don’t feel when her lips are about to connect to his.

But all of a sudden Matty does something you truly didn’t expect.

“Oh,” Matty says, pulling his head back from the girl about to kiss him, “Best not, I’ll probably yosh in your mouth.”

The girl pouts at him with her gorgeous face full of make up and asks him as if she's a doting girlfriend, “You not feeling well?”

Matty shakes his head and you hear him say as he detacts himself from her, putting a hand on his stomach, “Nah… It’s like five past three, I can hardly see, and I'm on the verge of passing out.”

“I’m going getting some water,” Matty tells the girl before he heads inside and you avert your gaze quickly before you’re caught looking.

You see the girl's disappointed face and you can’t help the smile that forms on your lips. You don’t think you’d been this pettily happy for a long time.

A few minutes later Matty shouts from the door, “Hann, my Dad’s here.”

Your little group parts ways from the others, knowing that it’s time to say bye. You and Adam are staying in the hotel with your parents and they had annoyingly put you and Adam in a twin room, but the rest of the lads were heading back into Wilmslow.

You all meet Matty at the door and after the boys say bye to your family, you and Adam head outside. As the lads say goodbye to Adam, you politely say hello to Tim and ask how the family is doing.

You also tell him that you can’t wait for the next season of Benidorm as you find the programme hilarious and the fact he’s in it makes it even better.

Soon enough though, Adam takes your spot with Tim and you say goodbye to your boys then. You savour their hugs, knowing you wouldn’t see them until Christmas again now.

George is the first you hug, and then Ross, leaving Matty till last. You shrug off his blazer and playfully help him get it back on before he traps you in a hug.

You bury your head into his neck, shamelessly inhaling his scent and you’re sure you get more drunk off that. After a long and tight squeeze goodbye you part from him, but Matty doesn’t let you get too far from him.

His arms stay around your waist and your brunette cheekily glances at your lips when he says, “Need one for the road Sweetheart.”

And just from the look on his face you could tell he wants another kiss. And you’re not getting out of this until he gets one.

“Thought you felt sick?” You ask him, not particularing wanting to kiss him if he’s going to throw up into your mouth.

You aren’t Alex, you can’t cope with that shit.

“No, not in the slightest,“ Matty shakes his head, smiling a little.

That confuses you.

You frown a little, “But the girl…You didn’t ki-“

“The girl wasn’t you,” Matty interrupts sincerely, tucking your hair behind your ear.

Your heart warms at him saying that and his beautiful brown eyes show he’s being completely serious. The way he’s looking at you makes your heart flutter.

The next second you're captured by his kiss. Your heart rate once again increases feeling his lips against yours and even more when his tongue finds yours.

Your hands travel up his body, one resting on his neck and the other lacing into his hair. Matty hums a little feeling your nails against his scalp before your fingers curl around his locks and pull on it.

Matty’s hand that’s resting on your hip goes completely around your back and pulls your body closer to his. His other still cupping your cheek, guiding you through the kiss.

Not that you need the guidance at this point. You’re sure you knew pretty much everything about him, especially that tongue of his.

That was one thing you definitely had in common.

You try to savour the feeling of him against you and his lips against yours because you don’t know when you’d feel it again. You’re a little worried you never would.

You don’t want to go back over to Manchester and find that he has a surprise girlfriend again. That may be selfish of you, but you really don’t.

When you both part from the kiss, you keep close to each other. Your faces are barely two inches apart.

“Please come and see us more often Sweetheart,” Matty pleads, not wanting to let go of your body.

Every time you’re standing in his arms he feels whole. Like you are made to be there.

“I will,” You nod in confirmation.

You really want to. You miss spending him in their company. In Matty’s company.

“Good,” Matty grins, with his thumb still caressing your cheek, “Because I’ll be coming over to Sheffield if you don’t.”

You grin up at him and lean into his palm a little, “I promise I'll ask the bride tomorrow if I can come and stay again next summer.”

Matty grins at you and pulls you in for a quick peck, and after he says, “I'll see you soon, Wheels.”

“See you soon, Curly.” You say before you kiss him once more.

This time you don’t care about your lipstick. You just need a kiss that’d satisfy you until you see him again.

And you really hope that would be sooner rather than later.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N: Really hope you enjoyed this! And if you fancy reading the full story that is a love triangle between Matty and Alex, the fic is Nothing Revealed In A Common Crisis and you can find it here and @nriacc! Thanks a million for reading, please let me know if you enjoyed it x

Taglist: @alovesreading @hazskillerqueen @multifandom-of-madness @conanbeshifting @thereisaplaceintheheart @jasmine06blog @kennedy-brooke @blancastans @luvrattyhealy @wendyspotatopeeler

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pbandjesse · 10 months ago

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We are at the wedding!! Waiting for it to start. Today has been a pretty nice day. Right now they are speaking to us in what I think is Ugandan and now they are switching to English. I am so excited for Sam and Paul.

He started with "You are very welcome." And I do feel so welcomed. That is the number one thing I have felt from the people here.

There is still a little time before the ceremony so they are going to have someone sing for us. This is very cool.

Today has been a lot of hurry up and wait. But honestly I needed that. I slept okay last night. And we actually slept in until 8. When we got up we washed our faces and put on casual clothes and went to breakfast. I still wasn't tasting much of anything so I didn't enjoy it as much but that was okay. James went to find me a breakfast soda (unsuccessful) and I ordered them a coffee so it would be there when they got back.

I did not feel like myself though. I desperately needed some source of caffeine. And thankfully I considered that and had brought my crystal light packs and would have one after breakfast. It is funny though, in all my research I did not consider that there is no diet coke in all of Uganda. So I was very sleepy and kind of quiet and stuck in my head.

When we got back to the room James took a shower and read for a bit before heading to Paul's room to get ready with the guys.

I would doze. The original plan was we were supposed to be at the lobby at 12. But then the guys didn't leave until 1145. So we had some extra time.

I would woke up at 1030 and finished drinking my caffeine tea. And discovered that James had taken my key card to the room so I couldn't turn the lights on. Annoying. I texted them but they were taking pictures so they didn't get back to me and return the card until 1130. So I did my makeup by sunlight best I could. And honestly I felt beautiful. I feel really beautiful today. It's great.

James would come up and give me a last smooch when they returned my card. I finished getting dressed. And I absolutely love my dress. This is the first time I've worn it and I am just so proud of the dye job I did. I will be telling everyone.

I took pictures outside and felt so good. And then went down to the lobby. Except the groomsmen were all still there. Ugh oh. So we would be minimum 45 minutes behind.

They would leave them though and I would chill in the atrium until Aelianna came down. She looks magical. She is ridiculously beautiful and she keeps telling me how pretty I am so you know that feels nice.

She invited me to go sit at the bar with her because she needed to eat something. She ordered us water and she got samosas. And we just talked. I was half vaccinated and could tell because I just become so stupidly talkative. I was telling her all kinds of stories. About moving to Baltimore, and meeting James, and being married and in love. She was a very good active listener.

She also told me about last night. A bunch of them went to a club. Me and James were invited but it isn't our scene and we knew sleep was going to be really important for us. But apparently some stuff went wrong. Someone didn't pay someone when they should have and they got trapped in an alley for 15 minutes in a really scary situation. And she got her phone (and wallet phone case) stolen. And that has to be terrifying. She had her work phone still but it has to feel so violating and scary. She is being really brave about it and the hotel is trying to help track it. I hope she can get everything situated soon. But today is the wedding! And we are all just going to try and focus on that.

The bus still wasn't there at 1240. So I went outside to find Paul's mom and dad and aunts and uncles and some cousins. And I was very caffeinated at this point and I was in full yapping mode. And we had such nice talks. About work and travel and the pandemic and community and how people have reacted to me here. And I loved talking to them. They are all so lovely and I am so so happy for them on this wedding day!! Their baby is getting married! Their family is expanding!! Love multiples!!

At 115 the bus finally came! But then Sydney and Devin were missing. Paul's dad had to ask the hotel to call their room. And at 120 they came down and finally were on our way!

It was not a bad drive. It was so nice seeing all of the nature and stuff here at the compound. As we had not seen that yet.

We had parked down the road so we all walked over here. And everyone is so beautiful and I love love love everyone's different outfits. It's a mix of American and African clothing. And I am just so happy to be here.

The ceremony is starting!

That was beautiful. I liked how much it it was in Ugandan. And I for sure cried. When Sam came in she was just so beautiful. Today everyone was wearing their American style formal wear. And they all just looked so sharp. The groomsmen came in first, with sunglasses on looking like secret service. Followed by Paul. Then the bridesmaids in all their colors. And then Sam! And it was so great.

The minister struggled to say "Samantha" and kept saying "Mantha" which was a little funny. But he would get it by the end. The structure was more religious then I'm used to. And the MC seemed a little more talkative then I expected. But it was still really nice. And they have live saxophone and violin. Which sounds great. There was multiple prayers. And that was nice. I cried during the vows.

After the vows they exchanged rings and I thought it would be kiss and then done. But there was more prayers. And then the ushers handed out water for everyone. And then weirdly they handed Paul the torn up box that water has come in?? And the minister asked for donations, we assume for the church, and Paul and Sam seemed a little confused. They would at least cover the torn up box with a cloth so it didn't look so rough but they could have gotten a better box. And no one was sure what to do but the Ugandan people started going up to make donations and then the Americans. But it was a little unclear.

But then they were married and we were happy and clapping.

And now we are heading to the reception site!

We had to go down the road and up a little hill. Armed guards at the front. But the tent and space is beautiful. Sam's parents did such a good job.

It was a little chaotic at first to figure out seats. But I took charge and got our group at 2 tables. And I seriously picked such a good spot. We are right next to the band! And I have loved there performances.

Once everyone was here they handed out drinks the show started. And I was obsessed. First of all they are beautiful. Their costumes are beautiful. And I loved the music. I was dancing in my seat with them it was wonderful.

And each little set was long! And they kept those smiles going, it was so impressive. For like 10+ minutes!

It was fun watching them but it was even more exciting when the bridal party finally came. The dancers danced in a line and the grooms men and bridesmaids came in and it was so lovely. So much dancing. I loved it.

And the dancing would continue. And it was great. I was so happy. I was tip tapping on my chair and one of the people in the band noticed and gave me an instrument!! It was a shaker of some kind with what I think are nuts or small gords. And I was enjoying copying the man who handed it to me and I think I did a good job! It was a little exhausting because it was 10 minutes of shaking and keeping time but I was having a great time and everyone was enjoying it, I think people thought it was funny and objectively it was! I was having a blast.

There were speeches and more dances and soon it was time for food.

While we had been laying attention to the shows people from the village outside of the compound had started sitting on the wall. And it was funny to see the group grow. But I think eventually the staff shooed them away. But eventually it seems that some of them would sneak in and join the buffet line. Honestly the more the merrier. I am glad they got some food too.

And the food was good. There was all kinds. I liked the pasta salad and coleslaw and three different kinds of rice. There was also some different meats but I did not have that. I would go back for fruits and a little bit of sponge cake. Which was bright red but just tasted like vanilla. I was having a lot of fun though. I got to try sugar cane juice. And I also had a sprite. And I am just having a blast.

James would come give me a smooch. And I would wander around to the other side of the tent where the groomsmen table is and hung out with James for a bit. And they introduced me to a little league world champion (2015) who one of the guys knew. He was nice.

And then me and James went to take pictures on the cliff overlooking the lake. It is truly just so beautiful here. James is just a little tipsy and so sweet.

I would head back to my table. Stopping to take talk to my favorite of the dancers. I told her how beautiful she was and she was like "no you!!". I am loving meeting people so much.

Now they are cutting the cake and it is very sweet. They also played the show game. And I hope we dance more soon.

They would have a mother son dance and a daddy daughter dance. Sam's dad was briefly missing so her uncle stepped in but the moment her dad came back and stepped in the waterworks started and I was crying she looked so relieved and just cried in happiness. And I was so happy for her.

We danced hardcore. I love love loved watched James dance their heart out. And as soon as we were invited to I joined them I was right over there.

And I had such a a wonderful night. I danced and danced. I drank water and crystal light. And had plenty of wired energy for dancing and chatting.

And chat I did. I made a bunch of friends. I danced with a bunch of people. I would wander off to the cliff edge a bit. To enjoy the breeze. And once the sun went down it was a lot nicer. I don't think I got burned. I was careful about sunscreen. And someone lent me their big spray. So I don't even think I got bit.

I really did love dancing. I am not terrible at it and it was just so nice feeling like I wasn't weird. I was having fun. I was happy.

I would get handed a baby named Skyler and we danced for a long while. I was just having a blast.

I would eventually catch a Sphinx moth. And danced with that in my hand and made all the aunties laugh in horror. But it opened the conversation and I was able to show them photos of our trip to the conservatory and the Nile and they wanted to know how I felt about Uganda. And I could really genuinely tell them how much I have loved their country.

I would accidentally upset James and I felt like I took the wind out of the sails and it made me feel like a monster. We would recover but the energy took some time to come back. But we would dance together and kiss and laugh and it was just a wonderful night.

While I was showing the aunties the pictures on my phone they started playing Ugandan music. And that got so many of the guests out of their seats and dancing traditional dances. And they showed us how to as well!! Me and James would learn three different dances and the young women were so excited to share and were high fiving and saying thank you for engaging with their culture and I was just like. Oh my God I am so grateful that they shared with me. The girls would take a selfie with me at the very end of the night and everyone seemed very concerned they were going to try and pickpocket me but I didn't have anything available and my phone was in my hands or in the front of my dress all evening.

I also had a few people give me their phone numbers to send them pictures. I have no idea if it will actually get to them. But I got the numbers and sent them along. It was so sweet. I was so happy. Both for Paul and Sam and just that we got to experience this amazing trip.

We would gather up at 11. And after getting a bunch of hugs and goodbyes we loaded up the bus. And that's where we are now.

Some kids were saying hello through the window. And we are all chatting and excited still. I am excited to get clean. And then tomorrow they have canceled the brunch in favor of dinner. Which I think is for the best. So we will try and swim and who knows what else. Just some last things before we start the journey home.

I feel so lucky. And so happy. I hope you all have a great night. Sleep well everyone. I love you all.

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gobblegloop · 1 year ago

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I am destroyed.

It was his cousins wedding. October 7th. We had spent 9+ hrs driving from NJ to Canada with his sister. The road trip was fun. Really fun going to Canada, but as soon as we started hanging out with his family, I was left for the wolves.

Day 1 - Mehendi

His mom and dad were there for the mehendi and I mainly hung out with his sister. When it came to introducing me to his other family members, he was no where to be found. He left me to myself and didn’t introduce me to anyone unless someone forced him to have a stink about it. Luckily his mom and dad were there. At least I could talk to them and his sister and they were kind enough to introduce me to them.

Day 2 - Hindu Ceremony

He still isn’tintroducing me to anyone. I kept to myself and still wondered why. Is he embarrassed to be seen with me? His mom and dad is still introducing me to everyone. I am sad. He doesn’t notice. His Canadian friend that has family in NJ walks in. We are both happy to see her, but instead he starts introducing her to everyone. Not me. Her. What is this? This is so insulting. Why do I have to beg to be seen or noticed? I am hurt. I am forgotten about.

Day 3 - All is fine - I meet his mom’s side of the family. I like them the most.

Day 4 - me him and his sister drive back to NJ with little to no sleep. We made I back safely

Punta Cana

Day 1, Tuesday - We travel to Punta Cana. We had a good nights rest the night before. This trip to Punta Cana is a big deal for me because I’ve never travelled outside of the US and Canada. It’s also the first time we travel together out of the country together. This should be so special. I can’t wait! His friends Alex and Aleeza are there. I love that they are there. Idk what I would have done without them. The flight is great. We make it there safely and I had a great time on the flight. The dinner mixer is fine. We notice the shower head isn’t working properly at night time. I don’t feel comfortable showering there but I do it anyways. I call maintenance to take a look at the shower head. While I’m handling business, he leaves in the room to explore on his own. Day one in another country by myself. He leaves me by myself. Great. Just my luck. I text him to tell him I’ll be there. He finds Sarah and Khateja. They are exploring while I’m stuck by myself. He gets to have fun. I have to be the responsible one. I’m always the responsible one. He gets to go to the casino. The casino is our thing. I am hurt. I am hurt. I am sad. I do the dirty work to complain to our butler. I finally meet up with them. Idk what else happens that night. We sleep. Why can’t he take initiative? It’s not fair. He doesn’t check on me either. I don’t feel noticed. I feel like I’m bothering him. It’s only day 1. Shove your feeling down. It will get better Amy. I had to. He knows how important it is for you. He knows.

Day 2, Wednesday

I message our butler around 8 am. She says she can move us. 11am still nothing. The butler says we won’t move until around 2pm. The whole day is pretty much gone. He’s getting restless so I say he should hangout with his family. He doesn’t even say no I’ll stay, we should do this together. Gone. He is gone. I’m left by myself to pack up his things all by myself. The butler helps me move everything. I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s my fault. I guess. I would have liked him to at least tell me no, I’ll do it with you. But no, he doesn’t. I am disappointed. I am exhausted. I take a shower and get dressed to hang out with everyone. I end up at the beach. the beach was fun. He’s with family but by himself. We go into the water together. That was fun. He helped me get comfortable with the water. I don’t feel as bad. I feel like I can let go of the other things that happened. It’s fine. We also went to a French restaurant. Maybe the room switch was all that I needed. Things will get better.

Day 3 , Thursday- 12am hits. It’s His Birthday. He doesn’t want anything but to be with his family. I tell his cousin. She agrees they should all meet up at her place. The day is a blur for me. We sing him happy birthday and drink it’s fun. I hope he likes it.

I asked the butler to do something nice for his birthday. I tip her. The room looks great. The jacuzzi is too hot! We can’t enjoy it. It sucks. I don’t want to do it again. Maybe a different place. Definitely not here. I can’t remember if I had mamajuana today. Probably but I know we had amazing sex. It was probably the day before. I can’t remember. I think it was today. Either way it felt like the first time we had sex. I felt connected to him. I felt free. I thought things were good. i think we also did the beach this day. at somepoint i leave because its getting to hot for me. i end up spending a couple hours in the room by myself because i need a break from interacting and i want to take a lonnnggggggg shower. i do that. a lot of hours go by. we dont talk to each other until later. im glad hes haningout with everyone and i can freshen up.

Day 4, Friday - reception. It’s fine. We look beautiful. I spend most of the afternoon getting ready. Idk what he’s doing. Most likely at the pool. Idk. He doesn’t check on me either. The After party was lit. I enjoy myself.

Day 5, Saturday /Sunday HELL

saturday roughly 9am-2pm we go to the spa. I really liked the spa. It was fun. We spent morning there. I can’t tell if he’s having a good time. He doesn’t really say anything to me unless I ask. He teaches me to float. Woohoo!

The rest is a blur. i think i go to the beach with everyone.

Saturday we go to the club in the evening. It’s a bust. I try to dance. Everyone tries. But they’re all tired from the day before. Alex and Aleeza are leaving the next day so they don’t hangout as much. We end up at the bar.

Everything was fine until I see Anand randomly poke kahteja in the stomach. It’s weird to me because he normally keeps his hands to himself. I’ve never seen him do that with anyone else. Idk why he did it. I’m not used to it. I pretend like nothing happened just to suppress my feelings. I had already been feeling disconnected at some point. I probably should have caused a scene then. Maybe I would have gotten some sleep.

the night continues, it’s about 2am. Pretty much everyone is tired and leaving. But Sarah Katejah and mikey don’t want to leave. Neither does Anand. Ii would have left too but him poking her really upset me and now I have to stay there so he doesn’t do anything further. The night continues he still doesn’t want to leave. He’s pretty drunk and now banging on the chairs. These two white guys join and now they’re all jamming to songs idk. Idk what’s going on. I’ve never played this game with Anand. I’m too tired to think but i have to stay here because I’m scared he might do something further.

I have to stay alert at this point it’s 4am now they’re suggesting let’s stay up longer to watch the sunrise. A reasonable person would have gone to sleep, and then woken up at 6am to see the sunrise. Now that I’m apart of team no sleep and now these two creepy white guys are following us, I can’t leave Sarah and Katejah alone. Sarah was fighting with her boyfriend pretty much the whole night and I felt she was in a no fucks given mode and wanted everyone else to stay with her. Katejah is depressed and also didn’t want to go to sleep. Why doesn’t anyone want to go to sleep????!!! No I have to keep my cool. I can do this. Anand wants to be here. I have to be cool because he won’t like me anymore and will think I’m no fun. If it were my choice, we would have gone to sleep at 2am and woke up at 6am. I should have just left and went to sleep and if he did end up doing something then clearly he’s not meant for me. And I should learn to accept that. I can’t control him. I can only control myself. I guess the reason I’m upset is because we’re on this trip together. I don’t think it means as much to him as it does to me. I see that now. And now I feel he’s investing most of his time being the star of the party. He had to impress everyone. I don’t get it. Why does he feel the need to be center of attention? Why does he need to impress these girls so much? Maybe he’s not thinking it this way. Maybe this is who he is and always been? Maybe it’s just me overthinking. I guess I’m overthinking because my level of attention isn’t being met. But how much attention do I need? Now I’m watching will he touch me? Will he poke me? I don’t sense anything from him. I feel lousey and disconnected. Why is everyone else in this group able to have so much fun and not me? He says he’s here to hangout with family. But these girls aren’t family. They’re Reshma’s friends. all the family have gone to sleep. I am so confused.

The sun finally rises, we take pictures. That was nice. Now it’s at least 6:30am on Sunday. I’ve bit my tongue the whole night. STILL no one wants to sleep. It’s chaos. The white guys are swimming. And now they’re trying to peer pressure Anand to do it. We don’t leave until i FINALLY say I’m being over stimulated. Why do I need to start acting angry to be noticed. Why does this need to be the person I have to be in order to be seen? I don’t want to be this person.

We don’t sleep until around 7am-12pm. we miss breakfast. The only meal I enjoy at the resort. I’m awake at 11am. We should go get breakfast. Now he’s tired and wants to be left alone. I feel shoved to the side. I feel insulted. He’s getting snippy with me so I get snippy right back. We’re getting ready to leave the room but he says something rude to me and I can’t hold in my feelings any longer. He’s wondering why I’m acting this way but I want to know why he’s being such a jerk? Is it because I wanted to sleep and took him away from the fun? I don’t understand him nor do I think he understands me.

the day progresses. I end up hanging out with Reshma’s and Amrit from about 1pm-4pm. I’m really upset. Feeling alone. Drinking drinking drinking. I haven’t eaten anything. I feel very drunk. I need help. I ask Anand for help. He thinks I’m annoying him. I leave. I’m alone. I have to take care of myself because no one is going to take care of me. I asked for help. No one noticed. I am outcast. I don’t fit in. I am alone. I am sad.

I shove me feelings again because if I show any sign of emotion then I’m the problem. He’s teaching me to kill a part of myself that I’ve worked so hard to have. Courage. The courage to speak. He wants me to me to be complacent. I cannot for the life of me, go back to being someone’s agreeable personality. A part of me will die each day if I continue to neglect my emotions.

it’s now dinner time, I try to talk to him about how I felt today but he gets snippy with me again so I drop the conversation. I die inside.

Day 7, Monday -well, it’s the last day here. Finally. Maybe I can enjoy breakfast and forget about everything. I can’t. But I’m going unheard and unnoticed buy him. It’s fine. Shove your feeling down. You’re not allowed to be expressive here. How dare you have any emotions. You are too emotional for these people. They don’t understand you. No one does. As they’ve shown you yesterday right? You are alone. You have no one.

We are home. we made it home safely. The airport was fun. Just the two of us. Eating chicken and fries. We are both sick. Just my fucking luck.

Tuesday- he then tells me about how much fun he had. I should have said something again, but what the point? So I agree like a good little girl.

Wednesday- he asks me if it’s inappropriate for him to massage people. I ask who was there and what kind of massage it was. The one I taught him. He shared that with others. HA he must have been doing it to Sarah and Katejah. Yup, he confirms. LOL as soon as I left after I needed help from drinking, he chose to help them by massaging them. Got it. I am furious. But nah girl he doesn’t see you. Shove your emotions down again. Tell him yeah it’s fine. You massage ppl all the time. Like reshma had to explain to everyone, yep Anand is like this. He loves to give massages. Sure.

what am I feeling? I feel again left out, and alone. I feel suspicious because of what happened the other day and this morning. I can’t catch a break. It’s one thing after another hitting me.

Thursday. The blow up. I can’t hold it in any longer. We go to the chiropractor. He asks how was the trip. I lie and say it was great. I lie to myself yet again.

I can’t hold it anymore I’m in the car and I try to tell Anand I didn’t have a good time. And here’s why… he doesn’t get it still. Idk if he ever will. Now I’m all emotional. The one thing I feared would happen. Hes defensive and then he does the ultimate thing to destroy me. He posted our argument on tumblr. After he knows I don’t like things being posted. Idk how to forgive him. I don’t know who I am anymore. I am alone. I am unheard. I am misunderstood. I am unnoticed.

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carouselcometh · 1 year ago

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I’m a hater and here’s a long winded example. My cousin who I never really liked, had her wedding seven years ago on my birthday, at a barn. There’s not even animals at this barn to go pet or anything, it was a barn made just to have weddings in. And this barn was in the middle of the woods that everyone who was invited to the wedding had to take these special buses she arranged, because the barn didn’t have parking. The bus I was scheduled to go on was late, and packed and crowded. It also got stuck in traffic for like forty-five minutes. It starts raining as soon as I get off the bus, and the wedding starts. It’s outside. She’s having the wedding outside in the rain, which I admit sucks for her. But her wedding is at a barn, and all the dirt turns to mud. My suede heels are ruined. The floors inside the barn are this strange concrete that is very slippery, people are slipping and almost falling. The bathrooms at the barn are an outhouse. I have to stay longer than I wanted to because the buses are only coming to let people leave at 11:30 pm and 3:30 am. I get on the bus at 11:30 pm, and there is an immensely drunk man on the ground of the bus who threw up all over the floor. I fell asleep watching Fargo in the hotel room after and didn’t even get to see my favorite part

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queenofthursday6599-blog · 2 months ago

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Suggestions for what to put in a Time Capsule?

So my family is making a time capsule to bury this year, to be buried on new years day, and then dug up 25 years from now, at the start of the year 2050.

My grandma lead the family in making one and keeping track of it way back at the tail end of 1999 (the year I was born), and it was opened back when she died in 2014.

My family is only doing another one now because a cousin of mine has inherited a plot of land in which to bury it on, because with my grandma dead there was no one to be trusted to keep track of it and not open it before it's due date (hence why the old time capsule was opened upon her death, even though it was supposed to be opened in 2020).

Burying it solves the issue, because getting to it before we're supposed to open it will be a hassle, and also everyone would know.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas of what we should put in it?

My mom is thinking a news paper from the end of this year, because news papers hold a lot of general information about the state of the world. [Also something my grandma put in her time capsule.]

I want to put in a silver eagle dated for this year (because of the chance that the design will probably change in 25 years time, considering they'd updated the design on both the obverse and reverse sides just back in 2021 to commemorate I think it was 30 years of the coin being minted, so I bet they'll change it for the 50 year anniversary), along with a pack of unopened pokemon cards (which I've collected off an on since I was 6, so about 20 years now), and an unopened pack of sports collector cards (because my dad collects those).

I brought up the idea of putting in an ID of anyone who recently had their ID's renewed this year.

I know my mom had hers renewed this year, even though her old ID wasn't due to expire for a couple more years, because this year was an election year and she'd moved since the last election. So she had to get her ID renewed for voter registration reasons.

My mom is thinking putting in a few lower denomination dollar bills minted this year into the time capsule, because the Mint updates those designs pretty frequently to try and stay ahead of forgery attempts.

I'm putting in a piece of art I made over the holiday season, a water color of a snow man. I made it at one of the family parties I went to because other adults were drinking and I'm not into that.

One of my cousins got married this year, so I've asked my mom if she was going to put a copy of one of her wedding photos in. We don't know because we haven't asked her yet.

My mom wants to put movie ticket stubs in, because that was one of the things my grandma put in her time capsule, but no one in my family has gone to the movies recently and kept their ticket stubs from what we know.

I think we should take guesses on how tall the various children currently in my family are going to be as adults. Along with putting in a recent family photo of everyone burying the capsule.

I briefly thought about putting in a bet about if my sister would break a bone between now and then, but her 7 years curse seems to have passed upon her reaching adulthood, considering she didn't break one at all while being 21, and still hasn't in the years since being 21. And it'd suck to speak that back into existence and ruin her streak with how shit american healthcare is.

I thought about maybe looking for like a trendy piece of clothing that we could fold up and put in, to show the difference between the popular fashion of now and 25 years from now.

But we're in micro trend hell, and I don't even know if the fast fashion garbage that's pumped out currently wouldn't just rot away to shreds in the time capsule. Considering just how cheaply anything trendy is made now.

#time capsule #anyone got ideas on what to put in a time capsule #I have a few other ideas floating around #like putting in a copy of the recipes me and my mom baked for the first time this year

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the-single-element · 11 months ago

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Gospel means “good news”.

And there’s all sorts of good news packed into it.

But if there’s “the” good news, it's the good news of this morning:

That as painful as death is, as sorrowful as death is... ...death is not the end.

Not as a special one-off favor of a faraway God.

Death is never the end. Death is never the last word. Not anymore.

How do we know?

John’s telling of the Good News talks over and over about testimony.

The reason we know that death is not the end is not just that we heard it from someone - it’s that, when Jesus came back, he went and visited dozens of people.

It’s the testimony of that crowd of people - their testimony that, “no, really, I saw him, we talked, we ate lunch together, no it was definitely him, he still had the wounds, just somehow with all the pain and danger gone...” that allowed the good news to spread in the first place.

But Jesus is divine. Death obviously wouldn’t have been the end for a god. How do we know the logic that raised him from the dead applies to us? How do we know that death is never the end?

Well... what did Jesus teach us were the most important commandments?

Love God.

Love each other.

What did he urge us most frequently?

Share with the needy.

Welcome the outcasts.

What did he warn us against most urgently?

Hoarding.

Judgment.

Love is the core of his message.

Paul goes further, and says: love is eternal; love remains even when everything else has passed away.

John (the one who wrote letters) goes further still, and says this: God is love.

But “love” is a ridiculously broad word in English. And even if we look into the original Greek or Aramaic – even if we start talking about “חֶסֶד” or “ἀγάπη” instead – it still doesn't become entirely clear. When we say all these things about “love”, what are we really referring to?

...instead of using single words for such a subtle matter – instead of trying to sum everything up by finding a word in our language to fit this concept from another dimension – perhaps we should use parables, like Jesus did.

We could say that we're talking about what that Samaritan felt when he passed a Jewish mugging victim lying half-dead on the side of the road.

Or that we mean what Jesus felt when, hot on the heels of his cousin John's death, he nonetheless fed the five thousand instead of hiding up a mountain.

Or his defeated laugh in Tyre, when a Caananite woman reminded him why he had come to Earth at all.

This is the mysterious motion of the heart that lies at exactly the foundation of the Kingdom of God.

And it's also why Jesus's resurrection serves as both evidence for us that death is not the end, and a direct argument as to how and why.

Because if God is “love”,

and if God is forever,

then the part of us that loves like God – not conditionally or transactionally, as this world would have it, but as an intrinsic outpouring of action for others' intrinsic worthiness of love – that part of us is also forever. The part of us that can love like they love in the Kingdom of God, is already living in that kingdom, where the power of death has been broken forever, and the wedding feast does not end.

Jesus came to Earth to prove it, and to set it as a precedent that cannot be overturned.

Out of that kind of love for us, he gave up his life. And so the seed which fell to earth sprouted. And so he is alive, and will never die again.

And we all have the capacity for that love, no matter how inexperienced at it we might be.

So let’s train it. Let’s increase it. Let’s practice it, in every sense of “practice”.

Let’s love more and more, so that more and more people can come to understand how precious they are to us! So that, filled with that love, they may have the freedom to love too!

(“I have come to light a fire on the Earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!”)

Today, my dear friends, I hope you can know how beloved you are.

Best wishes and blessings to you and yours.

Happy Easter.

#happy easter

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indefinitelyjaded · 1 year ago

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Super Sim: Get Hitched ✓

Well, I did it. Stella married Dexter after all.

But first, she had to invite Dexter and his wife (Jane) over to her house and tell Dexter he should get a divorce, then act surprised as he breaks up with his wife right in front of her. (I tried trash-talking each of them to the other, but neither wanted to end it. I then tried having Stella tell Dexter privately that he should divorce his wife, and he said he would do it "tonight," and then didn't freaking do it. The only way to succeed was to have both parties on the same lot - and it didn't seem right to barge into their house, in front of their child, you know?)

The best -- and by "best," I mean weirdest, most welcome-to-the-Sims -- part about the situation is that Jane is still good friends with Stella. In fact, she just got a new job in the Astronaut career, thanks to Stella's advice.

Anyway, Dexter moved in with Stella immediately, and I got to thinking that a new house was going to be needed soon, because I've finally completed all the base game aspirations except the family ones. And the Paranormal Stuff Pack house Stella was living in (alone and briefly with her friend, Aoi) wasn't really conducive to raising a family. So when Dexter left for work one day, I bulldozed it and placed a lovely build from the Gallery called "New Orleans Home" on our existing lot in Newcrest. I nearly completely redecorated it; there is one room upstairs that's completely empty, since I don't need it right now.

And then it was time to get hitched.

Here's a not-great screenshot of the wedding cake Stella made in her brand-new kitchen. I think the Winter Cake is so pretty, and one of the fancier cakes one can make without My Wedding Stories.

Some time ago, took the building from the Magnolia Blossom Park in Willow Creek and made it into a very small wedding venue in Magnolia Promenade (lol).

It was the perfect location for this ceremony - just Stella and Dexter, Aoi and Nick (don't worry, I made sure to ask him to just be friends first, so he wouldn't be mad/sobbing at the wedding!), cousin India, and Dexter's daughter, Emma (who, somehow, escaped all of the pictures).

I haven't taken any pictures since the wedding, so all I'll say is, I've already gotten started on the family aspiration(s) - Stella and Dexter now have a son, Cade Townsend.

(I will also say, I'm going to do the Parenthood aspiration now, too; I'm not having any more children in this game than I absolutely have to (hello, Vampires, anyone? I have to train FIVE offspring??)).

To update my career progress, Stella is currently level 6 in the Athlete career (Professional Athlete branch, and she hasn't done the Bodybuilder branch yet). The remaining careers are: Secret Agent, Barista, and Manual Labor. She has completed all the base game skills (a whiiiile ago), and is currently level 7 Parenting (since I'm doing that Aspiration now, too). Getting there!

I'm looking forward to finishing the base game stuff, so I can move on to more "interesting" jobs and skills!

#sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #sims4 #sims 4 super sim #super sim challenge #ts4 simblr #sims 4 simblr #simblr #sims 4 screenshots

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steamishot · 2 years ago

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mid-week

to follow up with my last post, i’m less emotionally distressed. i hate having some kind of unresolved conflict while being cross country with matt. i automatically felt better once he landed in LA on tuesday. i haven’t seen him in person yet; our new thing is to take things more “chill” (or as much as they can be), have more alone time, and not jam pack our schedules.

the last time we came back to LA (and I came back first), matt went to the ER. this time around i felt on edge and worried about him given what happened last time. thank god we are learning healthier patterns, and thank god for gabbie his therapist that he really benefits from.

upcoming plans: very late movie night tonight at 10:45pm in pasadena with matt, his bro and his dad to watch flash to celebrate his brother’s birthday. my family dinner to celebrate my cousin’s elementary school grad and my other cousin’s birthday at my aunt’s house tmr, wedding on sunday, dimsum with work friends on juneteenth, and delayed father’s day celebration on tuesday.

the gods may have heard me, because a few good things happened since. matt had two interviews yesterday (one was spontaneous) and they seem like pretty good opportunities that are mostly in line with what he’s seeking. other places are also starting to respond to his inquiries.

also, my director finally informed me that the new position is now posted. i worked on my resume late tuesday and submitted my application yesterday. i still don’t know how this process is going to work as it seems they can’t explicitly say “i’ll hand you the job”. the JD seems like it’s written for me because it includes the work they have asked me to pick up in the past year. my director said the process depends on if there are other applicants. the range for this position is very wide: $67-155k. considering the other promotions i’ve seen recently in our department, i would be content to be bumped up to $80k.

my bro and SIL are facing different problems than matt and i - we are opposite ends of the spectrum. my dad is guiding my SIL into buying a donut shop business. her track record shows she’s not very hardworking and prefers not to do any hard labor (i.e. work in store). she’s more about being an owner and having others work in place of her. they also spent the earnings from previous years and do not have enough assets currently to secure the business loan, as my brother is also unemployed and there are no income streams. my dad will have to sign as a guarantor. today he had a long (one sided) convo with my bro explaining that they need to get their act together financially, that they can’t rely on parents for survival and that they both need to start working immediately. my parents are happy to babysit for them if both are working.

matt and i are very hardworking (matt moreso) in comparison, but we also absorb more stress/pressure and our mental health is suffering. financially, we are great. day-to-day peace and being able to “chill”, not so much. it did make me feel bad these years to have such a stark contrast, that our unit is working very hard to support ourselves and to create better opportunities for the future, and to compare our sacrifices to my bro & SIL who are mostly chilling and reliant on my parents for help financially and otherwise. i’m excited for the months to come, to see both of them being employed and for us to have more equilibrium.

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micksslut · 2 years ago

Text

the bride and the driver

charles leclerc x fem reader

summary: the story of how the jilted bride and the unlucky driver ended up comforting each other on a lonely night.

word count: 3.2k

warnings/mood: angst (?, fluff, sad charles, sad reader, reader is jilted by her fiancé, mentions of monaco 22 gp, charles is the cutest human, reader doesn't eat well for a while. this is a google translator shit, that's a real warning, so please don't hesitate to tell me if there are mistakes of any kind in the one shot 😭 (i think that's all, but tell me if I forgot something pls!).

notes: hI, this is my first one shot on tumblr, and i must mention that it's also the first of my writings that i publish in english, bc i speak spanish. so please i ask you for a little patience. 😭

i hope you like it, please don't be a ghost reader!!!!

The calm sound of the waves, the dark night and the full moon in front of you, were not able to eliminate the memory of what you had experienced a few hours ago.

The only thing you could remember was that church aisle you had entered where there was no groom waiting for you.

The looks of pity from your so-called friends, from the priest and from your parents and his was something you would never forget.

The way your smile transformed, the way you turned and ran for your life and refused to look back.

It was like a dagger that stabbed into your heart over and over and over again, but it wasn't enough to kill you, like he were just hitting you in the hope that you would die alive alone, slowly and agonizingly.

How dare he take everything you've ever dreamed of from you? Your dream life, your dream wedding, your future dream family. Everything you've dreamed of since you were a little girl.

He was the perfect man, and yet he dared not only stand you up at church, but destroy your life as well. You had loved him so much until it had started to hurt you, until you knew you would do anything for him and he had only to ask for it, perhaps not even ask for it, you would guess it and bring it to him as a subject bearing royalties to his king.

And the funny thing was that you hadn't shed any tears until you had reached the beach. Instead, you took a single gardenia from your bridal bouquet and dropped the rest along with the long skirt of your beautiful wedding dress down a random lonely street in Monaco and kept the short skirt, the one you were meant to wear to the ballroom dance with your husband. You took the bottle of wine and the bottle of tequila that were going to be served at your wedding reception (the same ones that you had been told were the best in Monaco, so you didn't want to leave either of them to anyone else) and you went straight to buy a pack of cigarettes and headed to the loneliest beach to be found in the beautiful little country.

You took another drag on your cigarette, hot tears running down your cheeks and staining your face. A shuddering sigh left your lips as you hugged your legs.

You sobbed, thinking that under different circumstances, you would be at your best friend's apartment with her getting drunk next to you and telling you what an idiot your now ex was.

But that was the thing. You didn't really have any friends. You knew nothing beyond him. For almost four years, all you knew was him.

Your so-called friends were part of your guests, but you couldn't go to any of them because you knew they were their friends too; You had met them through him, and despite the many times he had told you that over time they had become more your friends than his, you knew that was not true. Actually, you were now considering that maybe they knew about your ex fiancé's plans to leave you...

And your family? Well, they weren't that supportive either. Starting with your cousin with whom your ex fiancé had cheated on you and for whom he had left you. And continuing with your parents... Because of them you met him in the first place, so surely if you went to them the first thing they would say would be "What did you do to make him leave you?" And as much as you tried to explain, they would see you as the culprit and tell you to beg him to come back to you.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" a boy's voice startled you.

"No, go ahead" you immediately sniffled and wiped your face as best you could.

You looked at him, he was wearing a black sweatshirt and blue jeans, with his head covered by its hood.

He sat on the sand in the same position as you resting his arms on his knees and when he noticed your gaze on him he smiled gently at you, he was very handsome.

"I'm Charles, by the way" he extended his right hand to you and you accepted it after a few seconds, because when you looked at him and the dim yellow light of the lanterns illuminated him, you realized it was that Formula 1 driver: Charles Leclerc. But you weren't going to say anything to him, you didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

Then you introduced yourself and you both fell into a comfortable silence, for although you were sitting on a beach and their eyes were on the blue sea, their minds were elsewhere.

"You're probably wondering why I have a veil and a wedding dress and smeared makeup," you suddenly commented, making Charles look at you.

"Actually yes, but it would be impolite to ask when I don't know you" he admitted and you laughed without humor, taking another drag of your cigarette.

"Well, i was abandoned in the church" you rushed to say and he was silent for a few seconds, trying to process what you had said, not because of the fact that you had revealed to him that you had been abandoned, in fact he already imagined it from your appearance, but because of the fact that you had been abandoned.

He couldn't help but wonder, how could someone abandon a woman like you? He didn't even know you but he knew you were the most beautiful woman his eyes had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

"I don't know if it's any consolation to you but I'm so sorry" he mentally slammed himself at how stupid it sounded.

"It doesn't really work for me, but thanks," he laughed awkwardly at your frankness.

"What an idiot" Charles commented, not knowing what to say.

"Yes, right? I mean, we had the perfect life guaranteed, financial stability, emotional stability, children, a happy family…" your voice came out at the end like a whisper, unable to continue. "And he just... He just left me, and he left me for my cousin, that's the worst" you laughed almost maniacally taking a shot of the tequila in your hand.

"I don't even like tequila, I swear. But I need it like shit. I need tequila as much now as I needed him."

He fell silent. Any word had been caught in his throat when he heard your broken voice and how broken you were.

What were you supposed to say to a bride who had just been dumped at her wedding in front of so many people?

He would hug you, but Charles didn't want you to think he was a nut who went through life hugging sad strangers.

You pressed your cigarette against the tequila bottle, putting it out and leaving the bottle in the sand.

"I…" he was about to say when you suddenly stood up, making him think you were going to leave, but instead you asked him a question.

"Do you like my dress?" You smiled at him without any happiness on your face.

He got confused and it was obvious, so when he didn't answer you repeated the question.

"Do you like my dress?" this time you didn't allow him to answer because you spoke again "I said if you like my dress" you started to get upset "I said if you like my dress" you repeated it once and twice and Charles had his heart broken "I said if you like my…" your voice cracked again and the boy immediately stood up wrapping you in a hug, he didn't care when you hit him lightly on his chest with your hands in an attempt to get him let you go, Charles knew you needed that.

You finally let yourself sob into his chest, wrapping your arms around his torso, finding comfort in his arms, in the hug that you had desperately and silently needed since you had left that damned church.

"It's beautiful, and you too" he told you in a whisper.

"You're lying, I look gross" you answered with your choked voice and you felt him shake his head.

"No. You're beautiful and he was an idiot to leave a woman like you" Leclerc was sincere and you almost smile.

"I just don't get it, Charles. I swear I've dedicated myself to him and our relationship for the last few years, I've done everything possible for him" you remembered how you left your friends when he asked you to, how you didn't wear the clothes you liked because he didn't like it, how you didn't listen to the music you liked because he didn't like it "I don't understand what I did wrong. I loved him so much" your voice sounded hoarse from the hours you had spent crying and his heart squeezed to hear you like that.

"You didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't your fault" he assured.

"Damn, I was going to be a very pretty wife, even..." you sighed between tears at the memory that made you feel more and more ridiculous "We were even going to dance with Lover by Taylor Swift. It's what I've always wanted since that fuckin album came out" you laughed, but there really wasn't a hint of amusement in your voice.

"I am sure that one day you will be an excellent wife, and you will have your dance with Taylor Swift in the background with the person you love and who loves you in the same way or more" you finally smiled a little.

"But now I'm here... venting on the first stranger who was nice to me. I'm sorry. You're so cute, you must think I'm terribly pathetic" you lamented, and the fact that he might think you were pathetic made you want to cry all over again.

"Don't say that. I don't think that. But if it makes you feel any easier, I'm hugging a stranger in a wedding dress, so…" you let out a laugh and the Monegasque's heart sped up.

"You know, I didn't choose this dress, or the veil, or even the damn bouquet of flowers. My ex mother in law chose it..." you said more calmly after a few seconds, but still with a broken voice thinking about how weird it was to call her like that "I thought that's how all mothers in law were, but she... I starved myself for a week to get into this damn dress" you shed another tear, thinking about how insecure that woman made you feel about your body, and the times she asked the designer to adjust the dress to make you look slimmer.

"God, that's not fair. It was your wedding…" Charles muttered. He was surprised at himself for how angry he could be with people he didn't even know. Hearing how excited you were about your wedding and having it ruined for you like that was horrible. "How can someone be so cruel?"

"I don't know, I wonder the same thing" you closed your eyes tightly while trying not to continue crying.

"Hey, hey. Calm down, okay?" Charles separated from you taking you gently by the cheeks and wiping your tears with his thumbs while you looked at him. "I know it's not going to be like the perfect wedding you wanted, but…" he licked his lips nervously and you looked at him confused, releasing him, missing his touch as he reached into his front pants pockets to pull out his phone.

You were going to ask what he was doing while browsing on his phone, but your words got stuck in your throat when you heard the melody you knew very well playing on his phone.

Your heart skipped a beat when the intro of Lover by Taylor Swift played on his phone and a smile spread across your lips. You closed your eyes shedding a couple more tears, but neither of you knew if its were from sadness or happiness.

"I have no idea how to dance it, but if you teach me... You can still dance Lover tonight, even if it's with a stranger."

You nodded several times, unable to say anything. He wiped away your tears once more and linked your right hand with his.

"Can I?" he asked you, referring to if he could hold you by the waist, looking at you with those puppy dog eyes that you were now sure you adored.

"Of course" you smiled softly, and Charles was sure he would do anything to see you smile again.

Your breath caught for a moment when he ran his hand around your waist. His too.

You weren't going to deny it, he was probably the most handsome boy you'd ever seen, and he was also the only person who had been nice to you in the last few days. He just won your heart. And you his.

You started teaching him the basic steps, inevitably laughing when he messed up, delighted to hear his laugh too.

You had rehearsed the dance so many times that you knew it backwards and forwards, but now you were sure that with the man you were going to marry it would not have turned out as well as it did with Charles.

The song ended with laughter, and you two fell lying down into the sand with bright smiles on your faces.

You turned your head to look at the boy.

"And why were you here? I don't seem to be the only one who cried tonight" you mentioned.

He sighed looking away. "I'm a professional driver. Today was my home race and... everything went to shit" You wouldn't lie, you were surprised by his honesty about his profession. You always thought that famous athletes preferred to stay in line with that; but you had just told him that you had been stood up in church about to getting married, so the fact stopped surprising you almost immediately.

It was funny that you had so much confidence in a boy you had just met, and that he had you. But it felt cute.

"The home races are very special for you drivers, right?" you asked.

"They are. I'm the only driver from Monaco on the grid, and it seems like every year I just manage to disappoint everyone." Leclerc pursed his lips into a fine line, and you saw the defeat in his eyes, and also the way in which it crystallized.

"I don't think you will. I don't think everyone always has perfect races, there are things that just can't go right sometimes, and that's not great, but that's what there is" you knew you weren't the best at consoling, but you made an effort.

"But not every year, and not at home races" Charles complained.

"And why was it shit?" you asked and he sighed again.

"My team made a terrible stop to change the tires" he answered, without going into technicalities of the sport, he didn't know if you had any idea what he was talking about.

"So why do you think they're disappointed in you? It wasn't your fault, Charles." you repeated the words that the Monegasque had said to you earlier.

"It just seems like I'll never be able to give them a good run in my own country. They even call it 'The Curse of Monaco.'" He sat back in his previous position, bringing his hands to his face to cover it in frustration.

You sat up too, and your hand reached behind his back, stopping before you touch him, not quite sure whether to hug him or just give him a shoulder squeeze.

"And did you talk to your team?" You finally decided to bring your right hand to his right shoulder and give him a gentle squeeze.

"Yes, but I can't be too hard on them..." he cleared his throat as his voice cracked slightly at the end of the sentence.

"Because you know these things can happen" you guessed.

"Something like that"

"Then why, if you're not so hard on them, why are you so hard on yourself?" you asked, and Charles seemed to have been given the hardest question on some math test.

"I... don't know." you two looked at the waves of the sea rising.

"How about we don't try to say any more words of consolation tonight? Let's pretend we've known each other for years, and let's just be two old friends catching up on each other's lives" He looked at you pleadingly and you nodded.

"That's great because I think I can do a better job making you forget this than giving you words of comfort. So what do you think about going to buy two liters of chocolate ice cream and eat it until we can no longer?" you rested your chin on his left shoulder and Charles glanced at you as a smile formed on his lips.

"I think my coach is going to kill me if he finds out, but it will be worth it" it was your turn to smile and you moved away from him to take the gardenia from your bridal bouquet and you put the flower behind his ear while he looked at you as if you were one of the stars that shone in the sky; maybe that's what you were for him.

"Gardenias look better on you than on me" you smiled at Charles and you took the bottle of tequila again, taking a sip and offering him a drink which he gladly accepted.

"I'm afraid I'm going to miss him forever, Charles," you admitted, while now leaning your cheek on his shoulder, looking at the full moon.

"Maybe you'll miss him for a while, and that's not bad, you were with him for a long time. But you won't miss him forever" he assured you, and you knew from the way he said it, that he was speaking by experience "Things happen for a reason. And I'm sure you'll soon realize that not marrying him was the best thing that could have happened to you."

"Well, you're really good at comforting people, I already felt threatened by your talent, so we better go get that ice cream before it gets too late" he burst out laughing and you stood up doing the same, taking your white sneakers and offering him a hand.

"Does this unlucky driver want to spend the night with this jilted bride?"

"He wants" he smiled at you and took your hand as he stood up, and Charles looked at the bottle of wine stuck in the sand.

"Won't you take it?"

"Oh shit. Right. Take it, we'll open it there. My ex sister in law bought it, she said it was the best wine in Monaco" you laughed as he bent down to inspect it, nodding "So I didn't want to leave it to them."

The driver smiled at you. Lord, maybe he could already be falling in love with you, wasn't that amazing?

You gave him a squeeze, so that they would leave there and nodded, being sure that from now on he would follow you to the end of the world if you asked him to.

And that's how the story of the jilted bride and the unlucky driver began.

what do you think??? 🦋💘

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc one shot #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #f1 imagines #f1 x y/n #f1 x reader #f1 one shot #f1 imagine #f1 fluff

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sea-owl · 2 years ago

Text

So I'm thinking ABO true mates polin and philoise, with childhood friends Phillip and Penelope, and some "I made up a fake suitor but turns out he's real and now we're planning a wedding. Oops" As always, I'm on mobile so I'm sorry for the long post.

So, the Featheringtons are a family of betas, they haven't had an alpha or an omega born into it for generations, until Penelope. Portia who has no idea how to even raise an omega daughter sends Penelope off to live with their cousins the Thompson in Gloucestershire who also have an omega daughter, Marina. Penelope grows up with Marina and the Crane boys, Phillip being her best friend. At some point she starts a pen pal relationship with Eloise.

By the time Penelope is sixteen there has been talks about arranging a marriage between her and Phillip. As much as Penelope loves the passive alpha both of them cringe at the thought of being mates. It doesn't help Marina and George also seemed keen on the idea.

"Oh Penelope why not? We could be sisters," Marina said. The two omegas were cuddling in Marina's nest. Marina's heat was due soon and it always helped if another unmated omega was there before and after the heat.

Because Phillip and I only see each other as pack mates, Penelope thought. Because I would rather write my novels and Phillip wants to study his plants. Because it would be the most awkward marriage ever.

Penelope couldn't say that though. Her cousins didn't even know she was the novel writer Lady Whistledown, it wasn't something a proper omega did.

But her romantic cousin did believe in true mates.

Penelope leaned in closer to whisper to Marina. "I believe I have found my true mate."

"Penelope," Marina gasped. "Who is it? Have I met him?"

Penelope shook her head. "Do you remember my pen pal Elosie?"

"Ms. Bridgerton?" Marina asked.

Penelope nodded. "Yes, one of her brothers caught my scent from a letter I sent her. He sent me a letter with Eloise's and oh Marina. I just know he is my mate."

"Which brother?"

Penelope ran through a list of names in her head, trying to remember Elosie's actual brothers' names so she didn't choose one of them. How many did she say she had again? Three? Yes, that sounds about right, two older and one younger. The Bridgertons were so well known, even out here, for their being many in their pack and for all looking so alike that half the time most don't know which one is which from a distance. Surly no would notice if she added one more, and Eloise would help surely help her if she knew Penelope was doing to avoid marriage.

A name, she needed to pick a name.

"Colin. His name is Colin Bridgerton."

Later that night Penelope wrote two letters. One to Eloise, and one to the mate she made up.

Dear Eloise,

My cousins are once again trying to push me and Phillip to court, no matter how many times we tell them we see each other no more than as pack mates. I may have fibbed and told them I have recently started a long-distanced courtship with one of your brothers. Colin is the first name that came to mind. If you could please help me I greatly appreciate it.

with great thanks,

Penelope Featherington

The letter she wrote to the made-up brother was shorter, adding in a few details she remembers Eloise said about one of her actual brothers.

Dear Mr. Bridgerton,

Thank you kindly for your first letter. You will have to write to me while on your tour around the Mediterranean. I have heard you could find really good tomato plants there.

yours truly,

Penelope Featherington

On the back of her stationary, she added some musings she had once written on new love when Marina and George first started courting.

Two weeks later Penelope found herself having a picnic with Marina and the Cranes. Phillip and Penelope were sent to keep an eye on the engaged couple. She had also received two letters. One smelled of Eloise's warm scent of honeysuckle, the smell becoming more potent as she opened the envelope.

"I still can't believe you made up a fake mate," Phillip whispered.

"If I had not your father," Penelope spat the word, " and my guardians would certainly have us engaged to be married."

Penelope pulled out the letter. Eloise had written that she would certainly help Penelope, after all who else was she going to be spinsters with? No one in London that's for sure.

Penelope smiled. "Oh, this is wonderful Phillip, now you can continue your studies at Cambridge and . . .Phillip?"

Phillip sat next to Penelope in a daze, his body shaking, and his unfocused eyes staring at the letter in her hands. "Lonicera," he muttered, breathing in deeply.

"Phillip!" Penelope yelled.

Whatever scattered her friend's mind stopped it's control. Phillip blinked a few times before coming back to himself. "I'm sorry Penelope. I'm not sure what happened."

"You're not about to go into a rut are you?" Penelope asked.

Phillip shook his head. "No, I'm not due for a while."

Penelope stared at her friend for a few moments before turning back to her other letter. This one didn't contain Eloise's scent; she must have sprayed some sort of perfume on it. The perfume gave off a scent of an ocean breeze with hints of citrus. It was the most wonderful scent Penelope has ever smelled. She must remember to ask Eloise what perfumed she sprayed it with.

Over the next few years Penelope kept sending letters to her Mr. Bridgerton. She must really commend Eloise for her dedication to keep up the charade, even if she still hasn't told Penelope what perfume she sprays the letters with. If Penelope was not the one to make up Mr. Colin Bridgerton she would have sworn he was real. Eloise put so many details in of a young man traveling to different parts of the world that Penelope wonders where she learned them. She even pretended to send gifts from those travels. Penelope busted out laughing when the first one of tomato plant seeds came in with a note.

You were right Pen, there are good tomato plants here.

yours,

Colin

Penelope wished things went as smoothly with the rest of her life. When she was 17, George had went to battle and died, leaving behind an unmarried and unbitten pregnant mate. Phillip was dragged home by his father who had died two weeks after George. Now the lord of Romney Hall Phillip tried to honor his brother and look after Marina and her unborn child. They had married when Marina was three months along, but never mated. No one dared spoke about how Sir Crane and Lady Crane had no mating marks.

Marina was never the same. During the last months of her pregnancy, she had become snappy with Phillip, and almost always demanded that Penelope not leave her side. Phillip and Penelope had hoped that once Marina gave birth she would calm, but no such luck. After the twins were born Marina had become despondent. She never left her rooms and allowed very few to enter. For two years she lived like that before the sickness took hold of her and she allowed it to take her.

Phillip and Penelope were reading over condolence letters when she got the rare letter from her mother.

Penelope,

I am sorry to tell you this but your father has passed. Come next season when we go into half mourning, I will need you in London. It is time for you to be serious about your suitor.

Penelope stopped reading. Her father was dead. She supposes as her offical pack leader and sire she should mourn his loss. She's sure her sisters in London are.

Penelope read over the letter once more. Still she felt like she was reading about the death of an unnamed character in one of her novels.

Penelope puts down her mother's letter and picks up the one from her fake suitor.

My darling Pen,

I cannot begin to imagine the pain you are going through right now. It is never easy to lose one menber of your pack, much less two. I hear you are to come to London next season. I shall be waiting for you here. Mayhaps we shall finally see if we suit for marriage.

Eagerly waiting,

Colin

"My mother expects me to return to London next season. I am to join the marriage mart," Penelope said.

Phillip nodded. "I will accompany you. We will both be in half mourning and be able to begin courting others."

Penelope looked up, her confusion leaking into her scent. "You will come to London with me?"

Phillip smiled. Penelope could smell his smugness at shocking her in his pine scent. "I figured we would both like someone we would know there when taking on the marriage mart. I need to find the children a new mother."

"You should find yourself a mate," Penelope muttered under her breath.

Penelope was 20 when she stepped back into London for the first time since her mother decided she could not raise an omega. Her dress was lavender and her gloves black.

Phillip stepped out of the carriage beside her with his black gloves and coat.

They are greeted in the Featherington drawing room by Penelope's mother and three sisters, along with two unknown alphas and an unknown omega.

That familiar smell of ocean and citrus hits Penelope so hard she's thankful Phillip has given her his arm to escort her in. She's not sure she would be standing if he didn't.

"Penelope, Sir Crane" Portia said. "This is Viscount Anthony Bridgerton, Lady Violet Bridgerton, and Mr. Colin Bridgerton."

Phillip shot Penelope a look. I thought you made him up.

Penelope shot Phillip a look back. So did I.

#let the insanity begin #true mates au #polin #slight philoise #for the moment at least #abo verse #alpha beta omega #omegaverse #besties phillip and penelope #alpha phillip crane #omega penelope featherington #bridgerton #penelope featherington #phillip crane #long post

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 3 years ago

Text

Inner City Blues

Syverson x Fem!Reader

vignette: Ethan Syverson was a country boy through and through. But maybe there's one woman who can finally convince him to give the city life a chance.

words: 6,500+

a/n: once again, shoutout to @just-chirpin for her help.

masterlist

Syverson didn’t know what had come over him.

The only thing he understood was that he missed her.

God, he fucking missed her so much.

It had been just over a month since Y/N had left.

And Syverson’s life had gone to shit. He hadn’t slept a full night since. He was in such a foul mood, that his workers on the farm tiptoed around him. His friends didn’t tease him when he drank twice as much when they went out. Other women were practically invisible to him. He ate the same meals every day because it all tasted bland to him anyway.

Now Syverson stood at LaGuardia airport, waiting in line for a cab.

He had to ask Layla for Y/N’s address in New York City. And to his surprise, she didn’t say a word or ask a single question, just gave him a sympathetic look as she wrote it down and handed it to him.

It was a Saturday morning. Traffic wasn’t great. As soon as Sy’s cab pulled away from the airport, he was met with pollution and noise.

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath in until he saw the city’s skyline and he let out a giant exhale.

In that moment, he understood. He understood what drew people here, that other places couldn’t give them. Hell, there wasn’t anything even remotely similar in Texas – not even in the major cities.

When the cab pulled over, Sy handed the driver a wad of cash and tried not to think about how much a 20-minute ride cost.

Sy looked up at a sixth-floor walk up. He knew Y/N lived on the third floor, and Layla gave him the apartment number.

Fuck. What if she hated that he came?

Why hadn’t he thought of that before making such a ridiculous, spur-of-the-moment decision?

That wasn’t like him. Sy thought through everything. It was what he was trained to do and what had been conditioned into his already prepared personality.

But he was also trained to ignore his fear, to fight through it.

Sy buzzed 3C.

There was no answer.

Maybe she wasn’t home.

Sy decided pretty quickly that he was just going to wait.

So he sat on her stoop, laying his duffle bag at his feet.

He told himself he’d give it an hour. Any longer, and he would feel like a creep.

Y/N was her own woman. She didn’t owe him anything. It’s not like he told her he was coming. He was about to thrust this surprise onto her.

As he waited, Sy thought about the last time he’d seen Y/N.

He’d gotten too used to saying goodbye to people. But saying goodbye to her had been the hardest one in his life.

——

Y/N had felt sick since she’d woken up.

She was leaving.

How could a year go by so quickly?

Layla sat on Y/N’s bed as she packed up.

“You know, you can stay another year,” Layla frowned. She was taking this even harder than Y/N was. “You can stay forever!”

Y/N smiled at her cousin’s ridiculousness. “I really can’t. My sublet moved out two weeks ago. I’m gonna have to start paying rent again.” She sighed. “And you’re gonna have to start planning a wedding soon.”

“Exactly!” Layla argued. “I need your help!”

“No, you don’t.”

Layla sighed in disappointment.

And then she decided she wanted to talk about something else. “Have you two talked?”

“Who?”

“Don’t you play dumb. You and Sy.”

“He’s driving me to the airport, isn’t he?”

Layla glared at her cousin. “Y/N.” Her voice was stern and serious.

Y/N threw up her hands in frustration. “What is there to say, Layla?”

“I don’t know,” she sassed back. “Maybe how you feel about him? Or maybe what ya’ll are gon’ do now?”

“There’s nothing to do,” Y/N sighed in annoyance.

To her surprise, Layla didn’t respond.

It made Y/N look up at her cousin.

“It ain’t a sin to admit the truth, Y/N.” Layla sounded sad.

Maybe it was hard for people to believe, but Layla was really rooting for Y/N and Syverson. She wasn’t just trying to stir the pot and give herself entertainment. She saw the way Y/N looked at him and she had never seen Y/N act that way around a man before. And Layla had known Sy almost as long as her cousin. And he had never seemed happier. The two made sense – despite their now geographical struggles.

Y/N cleared her throat, stopping her emotions from coming through. “I can’t. OK.”

Layla give her a sympathetic look and just nodded.

“Can we stop talking about it now?” Y/N begged.

Layla nodded again.

“I really loved having you here,” she told her instead. “I feel like everything’s ‘bout to change.”

Y/N looked at her with concern. “What do you mean?”

“I’m about to get married. My life is about to change. You ain’t gonna wanna hang out with me after that.”

“What?!” Y/N laughed. “What are you talking about? You and Aiden are practically married already. What could possibly change? Of course I’ll want to hang out with you!”

“It’s strange,” Layla mumbled as she looked around at her house. “I’ll never live alone again. I won’t be a single girl. I’ll be somebody’s wife. Eventually I’ll start popping out babies. And I’ll look back at this time as if I was a different person.”

“Do you not want those things?” Y/N asked carefully.

“Of course I do. I want everything with Aiden. But sometimes I hate that I can’t have both, ya know?”

“I think I do, yeah.”

They heard the front door jiggle open.

“That’s Aiden,” Layla told her. “He’s here for damage control once you leave.”

“Dramatic,” Y/N laughed.

“Hey! At least I ain’t scared of my feelings!”

Aiden knocked on the door frame as he appeared. “You ladies saying your goodbyes?”

Layla practically wailed. “Don’t remind me!” And threw her face into a pillow.

Aiden tried not to laugh at his fiancé and switched his gaze to Y/N. “Sy takin’ you to the airport?”

Y/N just nodded.

The time to leave came far too quickly.

Layla was a puddle of tears by the time Sy got there.

When the bear of man got out of his truck, he was his usual stoic self.

Y/N didn’t know what else she had expected.

“Those ready to go?” He asked her as he pointed to the bags at her feet.

Y/N nodded.

Sy just nodded back and silently started loading them onto the back of his truck.

Obviously he was trying to give her space and privacy to say her goodbyes.

“Come back whenever you want. I mean it. Even if it’s just for a week,” Layla managed to tell her through her tears.

Y/N gave her hug, trying to soothe her cousin.

“And that offer still stands once she’s at my place,” Aiden added with a shy smile.

Y/N gave him a grateful smile and gave him a hug next.

Sy had been watching from a distance, leaning against his truck with his arms crossed.

Y/N slowly walked over to him, tears already drying on her cheeks.

“Ready to go?” He asked her gently.

She just sniffed and wiped from of her tears away.

Then Y/N felt her backpack being removed from her shoulder.

That damn man. He couldn’t even let her carry a backpack.

When Y/N got into the passenger seat, Aiden had his arms wrapped around Layla on the porch as she cried and waved at them.

Just as they pulled out of the driveway, Sy turned to Y/N and said, “Darlin’, I ain’t afraid of your tears. Don’t gotta go and hide ‘em from me.”

There was no middle console in Sy’s pickup. So Y/N slid all the way over to his side and wrapped her grip around his right arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. When she first settled there, Sy kissed the top of her head, silently telling her that he had no issue with it.

They didn’t talk, just drove in silence, awaiting the end of it all.

To Y/N surprise, Sy didn’t pull up to the departures ramp, instead going down to the parking lot. Figured the man wouldn’t just drop her off and go. He wanted every last minute he could with her, even if it cost him overpriced airport parking.

Sy only let Y/N carry her backup and carried the rest of her stuff to baggage claim.

As soon as all her luggage was checked, Y/N felt the weight of their inevitable goodbye.

Sy walked her to the security line, but she didn’t join it yet.

All of the sudden, Y/N was crying.

He instantly responded by pulling her into his arms. He didn’t tell her to stop crying or that everything would be OK. He just held her and rubbed her back, allowing her the safety of his arms as her emotions escaped.

Eventually Y/N had to pull away, even though her heart was screaming at her not to.

The two of them looked into each other’s eyes.

‘I love you': It was hovering over them, taunting them and pressuring someone to finally say the words aloud.

But they both couldn’t do it.

“Thank you for driving me,” Y/N said instead.

He sighed, “Don’t gotta thank me.” Then he pushed some hair off her face and wiped a few of her tears away.

“Can you do me a favor?” Sy asked seriously.

She nodded.

“Call me once you get back to your apartment,” he requested. “Just wanna make sure you get back safely and there ain’t any issues with your place.”

Her heart quivered with the request, but she nodded again as she tried not to burst into tears once again.

“Go on, now.” Sy nodded towards the security line. “You got a plane to catch.”

Y/N looked at the line and then back at him, almost as if she were scared.

And before she could change her mind, Y/N leaned up and kissed Syverson.

It was their last kiss – and it felt like it.

“I hate this,” Y/N whispered into his lips after they pulled away.

“I know, darlin’.”

Then, to her horror, he gave her a quick kiss to her head and started walking backwards, separating himself from her.

“Go on,” he nodded to security.

‘Go after him. Stay,’ a voice was screaming at her.

But Y/N couldn’t do it.

So, she took a deep breath and headed towards security.

—

The skyline was the only comfort waiting for Y/N back in New York.

It felt like no time had passed, the city was the same.

It took Y/N a moment to realize that she was the one who had changed.

Y/N waited for that typical wave of comfort and relief when you walk back into your home after a long trip.

But it never came.

It didn’t smell like her anymore. Her subletter’s perfume or candles or overall pheromones had erased Y/N from the apartment.

She sighed, nearly falling onto the edge of her bed and looked around.

“Home sweet home,” Y/N mumbled to herself.

Then she remembered her promise to Syverson.

She grabbed her phone and pressed his contact.

“Hey, darlin’.” He greeted on the second ring.

The pet name almost felt wrong now. Like it had expired – or like she wasn’t deserving of it now that she’d left.

“Hi,” she said slowly.

Y/N hadn’t expected that just hearing his voice would make her feel so terrible. Fuck. She already missed him and it hadn’t even been 12 hours.

“Feel good to be home?”

Y/N hesitated before simply humming, “Mhmm.”

She knew if he tried to actually speak, she would burst into tears.

And what good would that do?

“You alright?” He asked her.

God, she was so selfish. All he did was worry about her. It’s not like this was any easier for him. But all he worried about was her.

“I don’t know how to do this, Sy.”

She heard him let out a heavy sigh.

“Y/N, I don’t have to disappear from your life.”

“It’s just…fuck…I miss you already.”

“You once told me you can get any food you want at any time of day

“Yeah,” she sniffed.

“So hows about you order something you’ve been craving for the last year? I think we both know that would make you feel better.”

The food didn't make her feel any better. Neither did the bottle of wine she drank by herself.

———

15 minutes after Sy sat down on Y/N’s stoop, he saw her.

She had chunky headphones on and had two canvas bags hanging off each shoulder, nearly overflowing with groceries. He could tell they were heavy and digging into her shoulders.

Y/N was zoned out, only walking quickly to reach her apartment faster and to be done with such an annoying errand.

It wasn’t until she’d crossed the street in a jaywalk that she noticed Syverson.

Y/N stopped dead in her tracks, clearly in shock.

Was she imagining this? Had she completely lost it?

All Sy said was, “Hey, darlin’,” and she was snapped out of her trance.

Y/N dropped her groceries to the ground and ran to him.

Sy chuckled as he lifted her into his arms and spun her around.

“What are you doing here?” She finally managed to ask, almost in a whimper.

“I just…” Syverson suddenly realized he hadn’t come prepared with an answer for this question. “I missed you,” he admitted.

Her face softened, and she hugged him again.

“I missed you, too.”

She mumbled it in his chest and it was as if she was releasing a tension in her body that she’d had since leaving Texas.

“Listen, I know this was all a surprise. You weren’t expecting me. And you got a life,” he began explaining. “I have a military buddy who lives in Queens. Said I could stay with him no problem.”

Y/N laughed at him. “Sy, shut up. You can stay at my place. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” He tilted his head to the side.

“I did,” she giggled. “Welcome to New York, Ethan Syverson.”

Then she started walking towards her discarded groceries.

“I got ‘em,” Sy came out of nowhere and picked up the two reusable bags, as well as his duffle bag.

She gave him a playful glare.

“Ain’t gotta give me that look,” Sy sighed. Then he nudged his head towards the doorway. “You gon’ let us up or what?”

Y/N shook her head at his southern manners and walked past him, up the stoop.

Just as she opened the door to the building, she hesitated and turned to him nervously.

“It’s…ummm…not much. My place, I mean. It’s really small.”

“Y/N, it don’t matter to me,” he told her gently.

Was she expecting him to make a rude comment about it? Did other people from out of town do that?

Sy would never. Not that he even cared, but it was rude above all else.

Three floors up and Y/N opened the apartment door, walking in first and quickly turning on lights.

It was a studio apartment. And she was right: it was very small. But most New Yorkers would consider her lucky.

“Home sweet home,” Y/N sighed with a nervous laugh.

Sy could tell that she liked her place – and it was so…her.

He was so used to seeing her in Layla’s home, that he didn’t realize he’d never been lucky enough to see the intimate and personal side of Y/N’s life: her home, her oasis, her escape from the world.

“Cozy,” he answered. “I like it.”

Y/N stared at him for a second as he carefully laid her groceries on the kitchen counter.

Sy noticed her watching him. “…What?”

“Nothing,” she laughed softly. “You just…You look so much bigger in my apartment. Or my apartment looks so much smaller with you in it. Can’t decide which one it is.”

“Pretty sure it’s me,” Sy joked as he smirked at her.

“You must be starving. What do you want to eat?” Y/N asked, clearly wanting to keep their conversations light. Her eyes lit up. “We’ve got every type of cuisine in the world at our fingertips. Anything that you’ve always wanted to try?”

“You pick.”

“Nooo!” She whined. “Come on! You have to be craving something.”

“Ummm,” he rubbed his beard. “A burger sounds nice.”

Y/N’s disappointment was evident.

New York had Ethiopian, Indian, French, Romanian – literally anything anyone could ever want.

“Burger it is,” she sighed, trying not hide her disappointment now.

But she quickly changed the subject.

“Listen, I have a friend's birthday thing tonight. It’s super casual and just at a dive bar. Would you come with me? We can grab dinner before and head there after.”

“I ain’t trying to impose,” he scratched the back of his neck and shifted his weight. “Guess I didn’t think this whole thing through, huh?”

“Hey,” she stepped close to him. “You’re not imposing. It was a good surprise. The best, actually.”

“Sure I won’t be intruding if I come?”

“I promise. My friends know about you,” Y/N didn’t meet his gaze as she admitted that. “They’ll probably interrogate you once they realize who you are.”

“Think I can handle a bit of interrogation,” he chuckled.

Sy tried not to dwell on the fact that all her friends knew about him.

What had she told them? Would he agree with all the facts she gave them? Or would he be upset with Y/N’s retelling of their story?

“I’m gonna shower real quick. Feel free to make yourself at home. TV has pretty much every streaming service.”

He just nodded.

Since the studio had no walls besides the bathroom, it left little room for privacy.

Sy noticed that Y/N had tried to subtly grab clothes to change into and bring them to the bathroom with her.

He had seen her naked more times than he could count. But it was like they had moved backwards. There was an awkward uncertainty between them now.

Had all that trust and vulnerability, that Syverson had slowly earned, vanished already?

When Y/N emerged from the bathroom, she was fully dressed.

And Sy couldn’t help but notice that her clothes were not the ones he had grown used to over the past year.

He quickly realized that he was seeing the New York version of Y/N. And she looked much different than the girl he met, who desperately tried to fit into the new and strange environment of Texas.

Sy tried not to stare as she did her hair and makeup. But that was a bit of a challenge.

Y/N seemed tense and nervous.

‘Was this a mistake?’ Sy wondered. ‘Was he making her uncomfortable and she was just too polite to tell him?’

“Ready?” Y/N finally asked as she shoved some things into a small purse.

He stood up from the couch.

“You look very pretty,” he commented lightly.

Y/N blinked at the compliment and looked down at her outfit. “Really?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” He asked with a bit of a smirk.

“I-I don’t know. Just caught me off guard, I guess…”

“Come on, darlin’. Let’s get something to eat.”

As they walked to the subway, Y/N gave her survival tips to Syverson. “Treat the sidewalk like you would a highway. Don’t slow down for no reason. Don’t stop out of nowhere. Stay on the right. And walk fast.”

Sy grinned as he watched Y/N walk with such purpose, swerving past the crowded Manhattan sidewalks.

Y/N smiled back at Sy when she caught him watching her.

“Come on, handsome.” She teased before grabbing onto his hand, weaving their fingers.

He expected her to let go once they were through a crowded area, but she didn’t. And her grip was firm, making it clear that she wanted to hold his hand.

“There’s no such thing as personal space with public transport. Just gotta shove your way in,” Y/N tried to warn him as the subway doors opened.

And Sy hated it instantly.

But he didn’t mind that Y/N leaned close to him as she held the bar above her, their torsos practically attached. He could smell her perfume, and it was a relief to know that at least that felt familiar.

They were only two stops away when a man shoved his way past them to get out. He knocked Y/N’s shoulder so hard that she actually stumbled a bit, causing Sy to quickly grip her waist to steady her.

Y/N didn’t even seem to notice or care.

But she looked up to see Sy’s jaw clenching and him glaring at the back of the man’s retreating figure. And she realized what had upset him.

Y/N placed a hand on his chest soothingly and looked into his eyes, silently telling him that it was OK and he could relax. She added a quiet laugh as if to make light of the incident.

Once they got to the restaurant, Syverson seemed to finally relax a bit. He felt more in his element. The restaurant drowned out the overwhelming sounds of the city.

Sy noticed how no one paid them any mind as they walked in. There wasn’t the nosey gawking that happened everywhere in Texas, because you were bound to run into someone you knew.

But not here. No one knew who he was and no on seemed to care.

It was oddly refreshing.

And it finally seemed like Y/N and him had returned to their old selves.

Y/N asked a million questions about his friends in Texas, the farm, the construction zone Layla had turned his house into.

And in return, Sy asked her about work, being back in New York, and all her friends there that he had managed to remember from her telling stories in the past.

There was a lull in conversation – but not awkward.

Y/N leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She seemed to be studying him from across the table.

“Got somethin’ to share, darlin’?” He teased.

She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re here. In New York.”

He just cleared his throat and took a sip of his whiskey, not really sure what he was supposed to say to that.

She let him stay quiet.

“Ready to head out?” She asked.

“Plannin’ on dinin' and dashin’?” He looked around for their waiter so they could get the check.

“Oh, I already paid,” Y/N smiled mischievously as she stood up. “I snuck my card to the waiter when I went to the bathroom.”

Syverson gave her a glare.

Y/N leaned up to whisper in his ear, “You’re in New York now, baby.”

And she kissed him on the cheek.

As she started practically skipping away in victory, Sy managed to subtly reach just beneath her skirt and pinch her ass.

Y/N couldn’t stop the yelp that escaped.

But still no one in the restaurant looked at them.

It wasn’t until they were back outside that Y/N smacked his chest and cried out, “You ass!”

But it was all through a smile.

Sy just chuckled and put his arm around her shoulder.

Maybe he didn’t mind the invisibility that New York offered.

When they got to the bar, Y/N was holding Sy’s hand once again.

Instead of making him feel out of place and awkward, she instantly introduced Syverson and everyone seemed to be so excited that he was visiting.

But in her efforts to wish her friend a happy birthday and say hello to her other friends, Y/N had accidentally left Sy on his own.

He should be able to handle it. Really, he should.

Y/N didn’t have issues with it when she was in Texas.

But Sy realized, he had nothing to talk about with these people. The only connection was their love for Y/N – and that could only take a conversation so far.

And the setting didn’t exactly make it any easier for Sy.

The music was loud. Everyone was dressed to make a statement. The drinks were expensive. The bar was tiny and overcrowded.

Sy’s accent got commented on at least a dozen times. And while it’s not exactly rude, he quickly became sick of it. There was a subtle teasing underneath it all.

There are a few other guys there and they don’t seem to have any interest in talking to him either. Y/N must’ve mentioned in passing that he used to be in the military, because they seemed to be intimidated by him.

Or maybe they were waiting for Sy to pick a fight and show his true colors?

It didn't help that the men in New York were just…smaller. And because of that, Syverson stood out even more. Not only because of his height, but how broad he was, too.

Despite just wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and boots, there was just something about Syverson that screamed he wasn’t a city boy.

The situation was even worse when Sy had quickly observed that one of Y/N’s male “friends” clearly had a thing for her. Sy caught him checking Y/N out every time she was focused in a conversation. His entire body tensed when he saw the guy put his hand on her lower back at one point. But Sy relaxed when Y/N stepped away from it – whether it was intentional or not, Sy didn’t know.

His distance and silence doesn’t go past Y/N after awhile.

She tried to check in on him every once in awhile. But when she asked how he was doing, he would just brush it off and say he was fine.

Eventually, it became clear to Y/N that Sy wasn’t having any fun. Luckily, her friends didn’t seem to notice. All they told her was how polite and quiet he was.

“I’m gonna get a car. Ready to go?” She asked evenly.

“No subway?” He asked, not that he really cared.

“No. They don’t run as frequently after midnight – and the express trains stop, too. It would take twice as long. And it looks like cars are cheap right now.”

Sy just nodded. “I can pay for it.”

“You don’t even have any of the apps,” she argued.

He just sighed, not wanting to turn this into an argument.

They said their goodbyes and got into the car Y/N had requested.

Sy had used car services before – usually while traveling – but they always felt weird to him. He would rather drive himself around.

“That boy’s in love with you,” Sy muttered a few minutes into the drive.

Y/N didn’t miss that he referred to him as a ‘boy,’ and not a ‘man.’

“Who? Colin?”

“Fuck if I know his name…”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “He’s not in love with me. Maybe he has a crush on me. But it’s not like it matters. I have zero interest.”

Sy didn’t respond.

“Is that why you’re being a grump?” She challenged.

He looked at her and then at their driver, silently telling her he didn’t want to talk when they had an audience.

The rest of the 20 minute ride was dead quiet. And that silence continued as the two walked up the stairs to Y/N’s apartment.

“You know what I don’t understand?” Y/N began, as she took off her heels, letting them hit the floor loudly. “Why is it that I can have a conversation with any of your friends? But you can’t do the same in return?”

Sy rubbed his face. But he didn’t even know what to say.

How pathetic was it to say that he felt out of place? That he was overwhelmed and unsure of himself?

“I thought maybe you would want to see my life. But clearly not,” she mumbled.

“I did,” he sighed. “I mean, I do.”

She threw up her hands. “So what’s the problem, Sy?”

“I don’t…I don’t fit in here.”

Y/N stopped moving around the world to look at him. “Why did you come here?”

Sy crossed his arms and looked at the ground. “I needed you.”

“That’s not all. And you know it.”

“Y/N, I love you." He finally lifted his head. "I shoulda told you before you left. I should’ve told you every day since I figured it out.”

“Fucking hell,” Y/N hissed. “Don’t tell me that.”

“Why not?”

And with that, Y/N finally exploded and yelled, “Because we can’t be together!”

“Says who?” He challenged, taking a step towards her.

“Ethan, what world are you living in!?” Y/N cried out desperately. “Don’t you get it? There is no winning for us!” Her fingers ran through her hair. “You hate it here. You can pretend not to all you want, but I can see it. I can’t ask you to move here.”

“You never asked,” Sy interrupted.

She paused. “W-What?”

He crossed his arms. “You never asked me to move here.”

Y/N studied his face for a moment before quietly telling him, “Because I didn’t want to hear you say no.”

Sy frowned, almost as if he was offended. “Why are you so convinced I’d say no?”

“Are you kidding?” She gasped. “You’ve been here for less than 24 hours and it’s so obvious that you fucking hate it.”

Sy wanted to fight her on it, but she didn’t deserve to be lied to.

Y/N was right: the city life wasn’t for him. No amount of time or effort would change that. Ethan Syverson was a country boy through and through.

“Long distance,” he finally stated as he put his hands on his hips.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she argued.

“I don’t? It’s not exactly unfamiliar territory, darlin’.”

Y/N scoffed. “You’re not in the military anymore, Ethan. And I’m no military wife.”

“So that’s it then?” He sounded angry now. “You won’t even try.”

“I don’t…” Y/N had to stop as her bottom lip trembled and she started to tear up. “I don’t want to spend more time missing you than loving you, Ethan.”

The tears couldn’t be stopped anymore.

And Sy could never stand the sight of her crying.

Without asking for permission, he pulled her into his arms.

And Y/N cried into his chest.

“You never asked me to stay,” she whispered, still holding onto him.

“What?” He looked down at her.

“You never asked me to stay with you. Just like I didn’t ask you to move here.”

“I couldn’t do it,” he sighed and pulled away, but still held her face. “You ain’t wrong, I did want to see your life here. But now I know that I can’t offer you the same things your life here can.”

Y/N didn’t tell him differently.

“If I asked you to move to Texas," he continued, "and you did…sooner or later, you’d miss your life here. And eventually… you’d resent me.”

Y/N couldn’t deny or confirm his theory. It was all built on hypothetical futures. But there was something inside her saying that he was right.

Yeah, Y/N enjoyed her time in Texas. But it was a fixed amount of time. She wasn’t meant to stay there forever.

There were things about it that she would always have problems with: the conservative bigotry, the religiousness, the government’s blatant attack against women, the racism, the sexism. People could say “ma’am” and “miss” all they wanted, but that didn’t make up for all the issues with the state’s regressive beliefs.

“You’re going to find a woman who can give you the life you want,” Y/N finally whispered. “I’m sorry I ever got in the way of that in the first place.”

“You ain’t in the way of nothing,” he corrected her. His thumb lifted her chin. “Who’s sayin’ you can’t give me the life I want, huh?”

“Sy…” she breathed in frustration.

“Do you love me?”

“Stop.”

“No. I ain’t lettin’ you hide from it any longer. Do you love me or not, Y/N?”

“Yes! OK?!” She gasped. “I love you.”

Sy couldn’t keep his hands to himself any longer. He grabbed her face and pulled it to him. It was rougher than usual, and he couldn’t help it.

They were both desperate. It was no clear what 30+ days apart had done to them.

The entire day had been them trying to figure out how to move through the world together again. And it had been awkward and confusing.

But now? Now they had no issue being connected.

Syverson finally pulled away from her lips so they could breathe.

Their faces were still so close.

“Us loving each other isn’t enough,” Y/N gasped as they both tried to catch their breath.

“It’s enough for tonight, darlin’.”

————

Y/N couldn’t remember the last time she had a man sleep over at her apartment.

She also couldn’t remember if there was ever a time when Syverson was still in bed when she woke up.

That man required half the amount of sleep a normal human being did.

When she slept at his place – which had been quite often – he was always already up doing work on the farm.

So Y/N was shocked that Sy was still asleep beneath her, as she woke up against his bare chest.

That didn’t last long. Because as soon as she started stirring, he was up.

“You feeling OK?” She teased.

“What?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wake up before.”

He pinched her sides to pay her back for the teasing.

“Kept waking up,” Sy mumbled. “Felt like a damn siren went by every 30 minutes.”

When he was in the military, Syverson had slept in conditions that were far from ideal. Sometimes they used rocks for beds. Sometimes they were in a freezing desert.

But he was also conditioned to wake up at the smallest sounds. So the city soundscape was not something his ears or body could ignore.

Y/N laughed, “You get used to it.”

She watched him for a moment.

“What?” Sy asked. “I makin’ your bed look small now?”

She laughed. “Something like that, yeah.”

Holding up the sheet to cover her naked body, Y/N leaned down to kiss him.

Last night was a bad idea. Both of them understood that to a degree.

Because their situation hadn’t changed, but they had still acted on their feelings.

“Wanna be a tourist today?” Y/N asked with a teasing smile.

Syverson wanted to tell her no, that he wanted to just spend all day in bed with her.

But he saw the sparkle in her eyes. She wanted to show him New York. Maybe she was hoping that she could change the way he felt about the city life.

So, instead, Syverson rubbed up and down the side of her ribcage and answered, “You take me wherever you want, darlin.”

“I gotta shower real quick,” she told him with a peck to his lips.

“Guess I have no choice but to join you,” Sy laughed.

But Y/N cringed. “Sy, my shower is a so tiny. There’s no way we can both fit.”

Sy laughed and shook his head. New York problems.

“Alright then,” Syverson sighed as he put an arm behind his head. “I’ll just watch you walk around naked from bed then.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at him and hurried to the bathroom.

Syverson couldn’t remember the last time he walked around so much. Yeah, he worked on his farm. But it wasn’t spread out like the boroughs of New York City – not to mention, he rode a horse a lot of the time, too.

Y/N dragged him to her favorite cafe, to an art museum, to the best neighborhood for vintage shopping, to the river front, and finally to a brewery.

It took Syverson a moment to realize that she was trying to distract the both of them from their next goodbye.

He had seen Y/N’s face drop a bit when he told her he had bought a return flight for early Monday morning. But he had no idea what he was walking into, so he figured the shorter the trip, the better.

“Who’s taking care of the farm while you’re gone?” Y/N asked at the brewery.

“I paid the farm hands overtime to look after the place for the weekend.”

Y/N nodded.

But it was clear her mind was racing.

Sy leaned forward on the table to get closer to her. “You worried about my farm, darlin?”

“It’s your home and it’s how you make your living,” Y/N mumbled, playing with the handle of her beer mug to avoid looking at him.

Sy leaned back as he realized what Y/N was thinking: In a magical and perfect world where he lived in New York, what the hell would he even do for work here?

“You can’t exactly stay away for long periods of time,” she finally thought aloud.

“No, sure can’t,” he admitted in a gruff voice.

Then Sy cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject so this conversation didn’t lead to a fight – or worse, with Y/N crying.

“So what do you want to do tonight?” He asked.

“Would you want to just – I don’t know – order takeout and relax at my apartment?”

He gave her a grin. “That sounds like a mighty fine idea.”

Their night was quiet and cozy.

The two of them both seemed utterly disinterested in talking.

What more was there to say?

They hadn’t found a solution to their problem. And Y/N had made it clear that she couldn’t do the long-distance, scared that it would end up breaking both their hearts.

And it was hard for Syverson to defend it. Especially when he remembered all his military buddies that had them: almost half of them ended in breakup or infidelity – or both.

So they just held each other, savoring every last minute they had together.

The night ended with them in bed together, both of them knowing being with each other like this would only make the morning harder. But them silently agreeing that they didn’t care.

–––––––

So that's the last vignette I had planned. Let me know if ya'll want more – and be specific. 😏

#syverson vignettes #syverson x reader #captain syverson x reader #captain syverson reader insert #sand castle captain syverson #sand castle henry cavill #henry cavill fic #henry cavill x reader #syverson reader insert #captain syverson henry cavill

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