#do you think ppl like me have libraries or bookstores in the middle of a river based town? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

enaraism · 3 years ago

Text

winter wonderland

summary: a certain bookstore clerk helps peter come to a conclusion about winter.

a/n: bye i cant believe i finally wrote something hhfhffb Dying rn. my writing's a little Crusty so please bear with me!! and this is my first ever fic so i'd appreciate reblogs and comments! ^_^

content: bookstore!au, she/they pronouns used, fluff, mutual pining, friends to lovers?? kinda?? poc!reader (it's only mentioned briefly and can cater to all poc, but white ppl can also read it), third person and no y/n used bc i cant get myself to write it that way. cliché?

word count: 1.3k

(also i added the peter parker x black!reader tag bc i think this fic caters to all poc, but let me know if i was wrong for doing that and i'll remove it, thanks!)

masterlist navigation

»»————-　　 ♡︎ ————-««

peter parker had never really liked winter. sure, the snow was pretty. but that's really where the pros of winter ended and gave way to the countless amount of cons — like weaving hurriedly through the busy streets of new york with the cold, biting, wind thrashing against him, with bits of snow stuck sporadically in his dishevelled hair, and with a nose so red that he could easily be mistaken for one of those cartoon-ish reindeer — but none of that mattered. none of that could dull the fuzzy, fluttery, warmth in his chest that bubbled just from the thought of seeing her.

the bell above the door of his favourite bookstore (the only bookstore he goes to, really) chimed and welcomed him in, but not more than the smile that lit up her face when she spotted him. and suddenly he was smiling too, his lips curling up in a lopsided grin and cheeks heating up even more.

"there you are! i was beginning to wonder when my favourite customer would show up." they beamed, and leaned on the counter with both of their hands. peter found himself rendered momentarily speechless by the way her hair framed her face angelically, some strands sticking up messily due to long hours spent working on the minimum wage job that being a bookstore clerk is, and by the way their honeyed skin seemed to almost glow gold under the warm-toned lighting of the homely store, and oh shit, he's been silent for too lon—

"favourite customer?" he managed to let out breathlessly at the last second when he finally registered her words, a warm blush coating his cheeks at the thought of him taking up enough space in her heart to be her favourite customer. her favourite customer??? lord help him before he falls over.

and he thought he couldn't possibly be more affected by them than he already was, but of course he was proven wrong when he suddenly felt weak at the knees at her giggle (because he was red and wide-eyed just because they had called him their favourite customer and it was so fucking adorable she felt as though she might just combust), because holy shit --he's so whipped. he hasn't felt this way since gwen, and though normally the thought of her name would have him choking on a sob, this time he just felt giddy at the prospect of feeling that way again — at feeling love again.

"what can i say? you have quite the effect on me, parker, if i do say so myself," she winked teasingly, and he couldn't help the loud laugh that escaped his throat at the phrase she always managed to use for comical effect.

and he had the perfect reply to that, which he knew would make her laugh yet again so he could marvel at the way the corners of their eyes crinkled, but god decided he had gotten enough luck for today and sent in the devil himself (a nice enough middle-aged man who just wanted to buy his chosen books and make his merry way home) to cockblock him.

he smiled and shrugged in response to the apologetic look she sent his way before beginning to address the customer, and peter decided to walk around the library looking for, and successfully finding, the thing he came for in the first place.

the six of crows book. bingo.

he grabbed it excitedly, flicking through the pages and reading the summary at the back of the cover, not really caring about the contents of the book but wanting to know enough to not look like an absolute buffoon infront of them.

he waited for a minute or two after he heard the chime of the door bell again, announcing Satan's departure, and then casually made his way back to the counter.

"hi!" he said a little too excitedly, cringing internally at himself because god, he was such a sap.

"hi." she replied, the corners of her mouth tilting up again which made him forget all about his inner turmoil, because their lips were covered in the prettiest gloss and all he wanted to do was kiss her until all of it was smudged and he had his fair share of lipgloss on his lips, too.

he remembered suddenly from the expentant raise of her brows that he wasn't here to just stand and gape at them, and awkwardly stumbled on his words.

"oh- uh, i wanted to buy this," he set the book on the counter in between them and watched as their eyes widened.

"six of crows!" she started excitedly and he almost crooned at her reaction because even if he had expected it, it still caught him off-guard — because his imagination could never do justice to the way her eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store.

"that's my favourite book—" he knew, he was guilty of using his spidey senses to overhear a conversation between her and her friend about it, that's why he chose to buy it in the first place — "dude, oh my god, it's so good. i finished it in 3 days. and like, the plot is amazing in itself but when you add an angsty, mutual pining romance to it? it's literal art."

"angsty, mutual-pining romance?" he inquired, not just because he wanted to hear her ramble on animatedly, but also because he was genuinely interested in what she had to say. how could he not? she had this way of making even the most boring of subjects seem interesting with their mannerisms.

"oh god, please don't ask me about kanej. i won't be able to stop talking." they chuckled and scrunched up their face, and peter thought he might just die from the sheer intensity of the way that pulled on his heartstrings.

"well, i am a very good listener, if i do say so myself," he echoed her previous quip, which was more of an inside joke between them now, and watched as she bursted out in a loud laugh which turned even louder when he bowed theatrically for dramatic effect.

"okay, no, for realsies, if i start talking about kanej then i'll most definitely end up giving you many spoilers and i don't want to ruin it for you," she paused, uncertainty and hesitance creeping up on her and peter was confused as to why before they continued on, "but... i can give you my number and you can text me when you're done so we can talk?"

...

oh.

OH.

HOLY SHIT???;);!

"orr not! sorry, i didn't mean to make you uncomforta-"

"no, no! you could never make me uncomfortable! i don't think i've ever felt more comfortable around anyone else, actually. and i'd love to get your number! to talk to you — i mean. uh. about the book." he finished sheepishly, the initial burst of energy he got from knowing that she wanted to give him her number slowly dying down as he realised how much he had rambled on.

"okay," she said after trying to bite back a smile and nodding, and held out her hand expectantly. after a little fumbling around, peter got a hold of his phone and handed it to her, watching as she typed down her number and called herself from his phone (her ringtone was the cutest song?? he had to search up the lyrics after he went back home) so that she now had his number, too.

and he'd be lying if he said his heart didn't skip a beat when their fingers brushed together as they returned his phone to him, the touch feeling exactly like the prickling sense of electricity and more, which only intensified when he heard how fast her heart was beating (thank you, spidey senses) because my fucking god, she might like him too.

she waved him goodbye as he stepped back out into the icy january cold, the door bell chiming once again behind him, albeit cheerfully this time, almost as if it were congratulating him.

peter parker had never really liked winter, but he concluded that as long as he had her to warm him up, he might just learn to tolerate it.

210 notes · View notes

ninja-muse · 5 years ago

Text

My Decade in Books

The rules: respond to the prompt “my decade in books” however you want, & then tag some ppl! I chose a book or series to define each year of the decade, some w/a little description. You can do that, or make up your own response

Tagged by @brightbeautifulthings, @lizziethereader, and @magnetarmaddaboutbooks. Thank you!

2009 - My first full year of bookstore work! My second year of having very little self-control about book purchases! And yet somehow I don’t seem to have very many books logged as having been read this year, which I can kind of put down to not having much of a commute and spending more down-time writing, but I suspect I just plain forgot to log stuff too. In any case, this is the year I first read Austen (because P&P&Zombies had just come out and it looked horrible-awesome but I had to read the original first), and the year I discovered Seanan McGuire, and wow, it’s been 10 years since I read Ender’s Game, I could’ve sworn…. Apart from that, it doesn’t look like it was a great reading year. Lots of bad books on the list. (32 books for the year.)

2010 - The year of Jane Eyre and The Book Thief and Jonathan Strange (also, wow, that long?), so a good reading year overall even though I also had a lot of “this was fine” reads. This was also the first year I read a Connie Willis novel. I’m also fairly sure this is the year a coworker moved and sold me his bookcase for $20. (60 books for the year.)

2011 - Read this year: Ben Aaronovitch for the first time, Cloud Atlas. This was clearly near the height of my urban fantasy phase and also the year I was “nearly finished” The Trunk Novel because I was also reading lots of superhero stuff for comparisons. (60 books for the year.)

2012 - The year I seriously ODed on British settings/steampunk and resolved never to read so much of the same stuff back to back again. (Fifteen books.) I also burned through Blackout/All Clear and the Hunger Games novels (movie out!) and Amanda Hocking’s Trylle books, and reread LOTR, and went to England which did not help my OD problem whatsoever. This is the year of Howl’s Moving Castle and The Iliad and the year I really got into graphic novels, and also the year where the store I was working at closed and I moved locations, which means I obviously had to buy all the discount books I’d stashed in the staff room. I still hadn’t read a lot of those. Also I scored two bookcases for $20 during the store close. (68 books for the year.)

2013 - Read: The Years of Rice and Salt, A Canticle for Leibowitz, London Falling, Vanished KIngdoms, Saga Vol. 1, Fangirl, Sandman Vol. 1, my first cozy mystery. Nothing else really stands out as a highlight of the year, though by now I know I’d pretty much scrapped The Trunk Novel. Might be the year I gave my writing-brain a rest? I think this was the last year I was involved in book-Twitter and it was seriously getting me down. (71 books for the year.)

2014 - Hild, The Girl with All the Gifts, binged the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books, and ooh, yep, this is the year I got inspired for The Novel and started reading folklore and stuff for research. Also the year where I was going off urban fantasy in a big way, which is somewhat related to why I got inspired for writing again. (Also the year I said, “no more Thursday Next boos, they’re annoying you, stop.”) I went back to England for a longer visit, got an email from work about a David Mitchell meet-and-greet, and bought a copy of The Bone Clocks at a Waterstones in order to get it signed back in Canada. Mark Oshiro started his read-through of Discworld and I joined in, sort of, by counting his live readings as rereads. (80 books for the year.)

2015 - Lots of high ratings this year! The Martian! The Watchmaker of Filigree Street! A Darker Shade of Magic! The Golem and the Jinni! Leviathan Wakes! All the Light We Cannot See! Uprooted! Ms. Marvel! I waded through The Travels of Marco Polo for research purposes, and read a good handful of books that looked great but wound up disappointing. I joined Tumblr/booklr in November. (101 books for the year.)

2016 - Read The Canterbury Tales in Middle English and fell in love with it all over again! Also The Dark Lord of Derkholm and A Time of Gifts on my dad’s recommendation and POSSESSION and Yiddish for Pirates and The Untold Tale, which I discovered here on booklr. I also seem to have binged on a reread of the Vorkosigan Saga. And I found, bought, and read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats because I hadn’t read it since I was a kid and had a plot bunny related to it. Also had a lot of disappointing reads, by the looks of it. (88 books for the year; wrap-up post.)

2017 - Discovered Curtis Craddock and Alice Oseman and Bob Proehl and S.A. Chakraborty and Eden Robinson, who I read as a possible comp-title. Read A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and If We Were Villains (both from Tumblr.) Lots of rereads and a decent reading year all round, because I have a lot of 3-stars and higher. Some major disappointments too, though, like The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (96 books for the year; wrap-up post.)

2018 - Discovered my local library no longer seems to have the complete Chaucer that I’d borrowed for The Canterbury Tales read, because I really wanted to finish all his lesser poems and prose. I discovered Vivian Shaw and R.E. Stearns and Shaun Bythell and Rebecca Roanhorse, and true crime in the form of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. This was the year of ace rep and YA! Had to do some major library rearranging and bought three IKEA bookcases which a friend helped me assemble. (91 books for the year; wrap-up post)

2019 - Alyssa Cole! Ruth Goodman! Sarah Waters! The Wolf in the Whale! Middlegame! A good chunk of which I read waiting for a Mumford and Sons concert to start. Reread Gulliver’s Travels and The Secret Garden and Good Omens (and then watched the show and got a bit back into the fandom). Also reread a bunch of Seanan McGuire and Ben Aaronovitch stuff. This was clearly a year of rereads and light reading in general, but that balanced out the true crime (5) and some really heavy, dense books. (96 books for the year; wrap-up post)

No idea who’s done this and who hasn’t, so if you want to do it, you’re tagged!

#decade in books #booklr #about me #tag memes

17 notes · View notes