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broadstbroskis · 4 years ago

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take my hand, wreck my plans | william nylander

a/n: if you’ve been around this blog for a while, you’ve probably seen me talking about “willy fake dating fic” for quite a bit now...well here she is! settle in for a long read (the longest i’ve posted in one go before) and i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it! so so so much love to literally every single person who cheered me on while writing this, but extra special thanks to @denis-scorianov and @danglesnipecelly for all your love and support

also shoutout to my girl tswift for the title, evermore still slaps

word count: 21.5k

It’s right in the middle of the busiest hours of the day when Steph’s text comes in, which means Aubrey barely even reads the message. She sees the words dinner and Friday and responds that she’ll be there, and then goes back to trying to fix the clusterfuck of code that one of her coworkers messed up earlier in the morning before her project has to get sent off to a client at the end of the week.

By the time Friday comes around, she’s only just managed to fix the code but the project is finished enough to send off as a first draft, so Aubrey races over to Steph and Mitch’s place after work, knowing she looks frazzled as hell from the look on her best friend’s face the minute she enters their kitchen. “Sweetie.” Steph says, then bites her lip.

The feeling is mutual to Aubrey, because she’s giving Steph the same once over that Steph’s giving her. She’d arrived from the office, which took casual Friday to the extreme, in her favorite leggings, denim jacket, and converse- still enjoying the last bit of summer before Toronto turned to fall. Meanwhile Steph was dressed up for the evening in jeans and a flowy top. Her hair was done, her makeup looked beautiful; nothing about her screamed casual dinner at home. Certainly not like the messy ponytail Aubrey was rocking, after running over from work.

“Wine?” Mitch offers, breaking the silence, and Aubrey nods immediately, forgetting entirely about...whatever is going on here in favor of the alcohol she’s been needing since she arrived at the office today.

Mitch pours a glass and offers it out, but honestly, fuck that; Aubrey reaches for the bottle instead and takes a sip. “Nope, listen, these motherfuckers-” And then, she cuts herself off abruptly as she catches sight of the single most beautiful man she has ever had the pleasure of even having in her field of vision, leaning against the counter.

“No, go ahead.” Blondie grins, and fuck that, of course, he’s got the most beautiful smile too. “These motherfuckers, what?”

“Fucked up a huge project at work this week.” Aubrey finishes, pretty lamely, compared to how heated she’d started that sentence.

“Gonna start throwing that at Matts.” Blondie grins again. “Anytime he fucks up a pass to me. This motherfucker.”

“Heh.” She laughs, lifting the wine bottle in a cheers-esque manner, and then, not knowing what else to do, she takes another large sip.

Blondie is still grinning when Aubrey brings her bottle back down and Mitch is doing a very poor job of hiding a laugh, but it’s not hard to see that Steph’s making murder eyes that Aubrey pointedly ignores, so Steph turns her attention away with a sigh. “What’s up, Will?”

“Oh, uh, Matts and Alison nominated me to see if there was anything we could do to help.” Will says smoothly.

“We?” Mitch raises an eyebrow, at the distinct lack of we that arrived with Will.

“Well.” Will shrugs, like that should explain everything, and maybe it does, because Mitch only snorts.

“We’re okay.” Steph jumps in. “We’ll all be out soon.”

Will nods, and leaves Aubrey with one last grin, before he turns and heads out towards their back patio, which must be where dinner is taking place, but as soon as the door shuts behind him, Aubrey turns to round on Steph and Mitch. “What the fuck?”

“Me, what the fuck?” Steph, her best friend since grade school, knows exactly what she’s talking about. “You, what the fuck?”

“This was a setup?”

“You didn’t know?” Mitch cries, turning immediately to his girlfriend and looking incredibly offended.

“Yes she did!” Steph defends. “I literally texted you: Mitch has a single friend we think you’d get along with if you’re interested. Are you free friday for dinner? We were thinking of having you all over. And you said: sounds good I’ll be there.”

“Well, in my defense, work was a dumpster fire this week and I really only skim-read that text.”

“Well now I know why you showed up like that.”

“Rude, Stephanie.” Aubrey sticks her tongue out at her best friend, grinning immediately afterwards, because Steph’s her best friend and she’s the only one she would let talk to her this way. “Just for that I’m not using a glass the entire night.”

“Not like your first impression could get any worse.” Steph deadpans.

“Meh.” Mitch shrugs. “It’s Willy. He’s done way worse.”

Steph sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose, and then looks over. “Could you use your one free hand then to take a second bottle of wine out then please? For the rest of us who’d like some, to share?”

Aubrey grins. “Gladly.”

That this was meant to be a setup couldn’t be more clear to her as the three of them make their way out to the porch with more drinks and some snacks. Mitch and Steph have dragged some of their comfier patio furniture around the firepit; there’s a couple curled into each other on one of the couches, an empty one with Mitch’s favorite type of beer on the table next to it, and one seat open on the couch that’s occupied by Will.

Aubrey shoots Steph a look as Steph practically leaps back onto the empty couch, and then she slips herself into the empty seat next to Will. That level of distinct lack of chill is really her thing, thanks Steph.

Steph merely grins back, formally introducing her to everyone around them. And okay, their friends are cool- like Aubrey knows they are; she’s met more than a few of Mitch’s hockey friends before. She’s many-a-time fifth-wheeled dinner with Mitch and Steph and Matt and Syd. She, Mitch, and Steph still had a group chat going with a bunch of Mitch’s old teammates from the Knights. Hell, Strome and McDavid had joined Mitch in playing with her and Steph on their families’ summer softball team last summer.

But she just can’t seem to understand what they see in Will that they think he’d be good for her. Like sure he’s nice enough, and obviously good looking, and like, yeah she has a good time while she’s there, but like, sparks? Nothing.

Regardless of the lack of sparks between them, it is a fun night, and she curls up in one of the guest rooms in Steph and Mitch’s that night, fully planning on laughing at them the next morning.

Except, the next morning, Mitch is already gone for practice and Steph’s first question is, “So when are you going to see Will again?”

Aubrey frowns. “Uhh I don’t know. Probably whenever you have us both over for dinner again?”

Steph frowns back. “What?”

“What what?”

“You didn’t, like, give him your number? Make plans? Anything?”

“Why would we?”

“Because he’s perfect for you?”

Aubrey gives her a look. Was Steph even at the same dinner that she was? They, like, barely interacted; Will chatting more with Auston and what’s-her-name or Mitch and Auston, and her with Steph pretty much the entire night. “Perfect for me? Seriously? That’s the guy you think is perfect for me?”

She huffs. If Aubrey didn’t know her best friend better she’d think she was offended, but, well, she does. “Yes!”

“No!”

“I mean, at least give it a shot!” Steph needles.

Aubrey pulls a face. “Why? So we can break up and make things super awkward at anything you and Mitch throw for the rest of your lives? No thanks.”

“I’m telling you.” Steph says. “Perfect match.” But she drops it after that, suggesting brunch, an offer that Aubrey immediately agrees to.

-----

It’s a quick stop for Aubrey to pop home to change and pick up her roommate, Erin, before the three girls head over to what’s long been a favorite brunch spot, laughing as Aubrey and Erin watch Steph fire off a series of snapchats to Mitch featuring her bottomless mimosas- her favorite way of asking to be picked up on his way home from practice.

Erin laughs so hard she almost snorts mimosa out her nose as Aubrey and Steph recap dinner from the previous night, but once she recovers, she hits Steph with a look. “I am begging you to invite me to this next time, solely so I can watch the two of them interact.”

Aubrey gasps as Steph laughs. “Rude!”

Erin giggles, beginning to recount the date she’d gone on last night-her fourth with this guy from the gym she belongs to-and Aubrey finds herself nodding along with Steph in all the right places, as friends should, happy that Erin’s happy, especially after her shitty last boyfriend, and eager to meet this guy for more than the five minutes he’d shown up at their door.

Her story is interrupted-for Aubrey, at least-by the vibration of her phone, and she checks the text from an unfamiliar number, rolling her eyes when she sees the message.

hey this is will, followed by an amount of emojis that could only actually be from Mitch.

hi mitch. She sends back.

lol. Comes the response. sorry.

you don’t have to apologize for mitch. i’m familiar

Will reacts to that with a haha and then it’s a while before she checks her phone again, enjoying brunch with her girls and laughing at the look on Mitch’s face as he comes to pick Steph up and realizes he’ll be driving her and Erin back as well.

he’s really found his place between annoying and relentless. Will’s texted, when she checks again a little later, at home on the couch and pleasantly tipsy, deciding what to Netflix with Erin.

that’s his sweet spot. Aubrey sends, and then points halfheartedly at The Office on the screen, well on her way to a post-brunch nap.

-----

Aubrey knows Mitch and Steph well enough to know that’s not the end of it, and sure enough, the subtle (and not so subtle) hints keep coming. But luckily, training camp is about to begin, and so even if they do keep coming, Mitch, and by extension, Will, are both too busy for Mitch and Steph to push anything too crazy on her and Will.

Until suddenly the season begins, and even though things are still crazy for them, suddenly they’ve got days off or afternoons free and she finds that the subtleness of the hints becomes gradually less subtle.

jesus fuck. Will sends one afternoon and she laughs at it immediately, even as he continues typing. tell steph i’m sorry but mitch had to go.

She laughs loudly, which earns her a look from her nearest coworkers. right there with you.

considering just lying and telling him i already took you out last week to just get him off my back jfc.

tried that already. knew i was lying right away. Aubrey sends back. She appreciates him trying, but come on. That was like, the first thing she tried.

well, Will sends, and then those annoying three dots appear and disappear about four times, before he finally finishes. let’s just go somewhere then and get them off our backs.

time and fucking place. She replies.

-----

Aubrey meets Will at a bar that’s close to her work, a couple days after that text exchange, just in time for the end of happy hour. He’s got a drink in front of him already, that he quickly finishes when the waiter comes to take her order, so he can order another one while she orders one of her favorite cocktails, before it becomes full price again at the start of the next hour.

“You know, I thought Mitchy would have been more…” Will trails off, looking thoughtful, but then continues after a moment. “Smug, when I told him we were going out tonight. What’d Steph say?”

“Oh don’t get me wrong. They’ll be smug to each other.” Aubrey tells him, confident that the two of them are at home right now boasting about the fact that they were right. “But if they think we’re actually on the same page now and they say anything that I hear, that would be the end. Downward tailspin, cut my hair six inches, new tattoo, you name it.”

Will laughs. “So it’s like that?”

She nods. “A little lacking in some impulse control.” She holds her thumb and index finger up to him, with about 10cm of space between them, to show him just how poor it is, and Will laughs again.

“Guess I’ll just have to wait for a nice, big I told you so tomorrow.” He says.

Aubrey snickers. “One a day for the next few weeks more like.”

Will shrugs. “Meh, I’ll figure something out to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

“We should.” Aubrey nods absentmindedly, as a comment she’d made to Steph right after the initial dinner comes back to her.

“Should what?” Will frowns.

“Give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“Where are you going with this?” Will asks curiously.

Aubrey grins, as the idea starts to form. “A tragic break up to make things so awkward for the two of them that they’ll regret setting us up in the first place.”

Will pauses for a long moment, but then he grins and leans toward her. “I’m listening.”

-----

Steph is bouncing when Aubrey walks into their weekly Thursday barre class. She’s sure she knows why, but Aubrey gives her a strange look anyway when she slides in next to her. “What?”

“What?” Steph repeats. “Seriously?”

Aubrey laughs. “Use your words, Stephanie.”

“Bitch, you know what I want.” Steph says, which makes the woman in front of them turn and give them a scandalized look.

Aubrey giggles. She’d really just wanted to annoy Steph a little but that was totally worth it all. “Yeah I know. It was good. Like whatever.”

“I hate you so much.”

“I’m going to see him again!”Aubrey protests. “What more do you want from me? I’m not going to like, profess my undying love for him after one date. I’m not Mitch.”

“It was like, our fifth date, and he didn’t profess his undying love for me! He just said he loved me!” Steph huffs as Aubrey snickers. She laughs about it now, they all do, a thing she teases both of her friends about, but she vividly remembers the panic Steph had been in coming home from that date.

“Well.” She says, grinning. “I guess I’ve got four dates to go then. Or maybe Will does.”

“Will’s too chill to do anything like that.” Steph decides, just as their usual instructor enters. “Ridiculous shit is definitely more your move.”

Aub thinks back to her date with Will the other night, where they’d carefully crafted an entire narrative to start this fake relationship, and fights back a grin, because she’s pretty sure Will can be just as ridiculous. He just does a better job at hiding it.

-----

Just after noon one day, a few weeks into her arrangement with Will, Aubrey’s phone buzzes and she more than welcomes the interruption from the current project she’s working on.

need a favor. Will’s sent, followed immediately by, please.

sure, what’s up?

His name pops up on her screen next and Aubrey frowns, swiping to accept the call. “Hey.”

“I’m downstairs.” Will says and she frowns, both at the skipped greeting, and at his words.

“Of my office?” She blurts.

“Yeah.” Will says, like it’s the most casual thing in the world, and Aubrey pushes her chair back abruptly.

“Uh ok. I’ll be right down.” She’s already pushing the button for the elevator, waving off the coworker calling after her, asking if everything’s okay.

Will’s waiting outside, with two cups of coffee in hand, and even though he’d said that he was, Aubrey’s still kind of surprised to see him. He passes her one of the cups in his hand and she takes it, thanking him as she does. “So what’s up?”

“I need a favor.” Will says, starting to walk, and Aubrey follows easily, sipping on the latte he’d brought her.

She laughs. “You said. What do you need?”

“The team’s got this thing on Friday.” Aubrey gives him a look, because she knows what the thing the team has on Friday is, Steph’s been talking about it for a few weeks now, and it is not as casual as Will is throwing it out to her right now. “And I think I need you to come with me.”

“Do you though?” Aubrey says. “Do you really?”

“I tried for you not to.” Will admits, shooting her a grin, which she appreciates. “But, well, it’s a thing I would have brought any other girlfriend to and then Mitchy opened his mouth too…” He trails off.

“So find a dress.” Aubrey sums up.

Will nods. “Please. I’ll pay for it.” He adds, but she brushes it off.

“If we’re still stuck in this for Blue and White, you can buy me a dress then.” She grins, and Will returns the grin.

“Deal.”

-----

Fixing her curls one last time in the mirror by the door, Aubrey grabs her clutch and runs downstairs to meet her Uber. She’s late, not like super late, but more so than she’d hoped to be, even after texting Will that she was running behind with work and that she’d have to meet him at the venue probably, if he didn’t want to be late.

She shoots off a text to him when she gets in the car, letting him know she’s on her way, and makes polite chatter for a few minutes with her driver, leg bouncing anxiously until he pulls up to where she needs to be.

Will’s standing outside the door when she pulls up, like he’s waiting for her as if this was an actual date, looking at something on his phone in the meantime, which gives Aubrey a minute to take a peek at his suit. He looks good; she might not have any desire to actually date Will, but she can absolutely admit to both herself and anyone (including Steph) that he’s probably the most objectively attractive human she’s ever met, and the suit only ramps that up. It’s custom made, perfectly fitted, a navy blue that brings out his eyes, and maybe a little more casual than some others she’s seen but in a good way.

His choice in suits makes her feel better about what she’s wearing. Aubrey’d been trying to work off what Steph was wearing, while making sure that what she'd picked out wasn’t overly fancy for the evening or too similar to what Steph had already chosen, ending up in a knee length dress with a sheer high neckline.

“Hey!” She smiles, catching his attention, mildly disappointed that he doesn’t even flinch in surprise, only looks up as smooth as can be and returns her smile.

“Hey.” He slips his phone in his pocket, reaching out for her hand.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Aubrey says immediately, that terrible feeling of letting anyone down instantly relieved when Will waves her off.

“You haven’t even missed the entire cocktail hour.” He says and she feels her eyes widen as he nods solemnly. “Yeah, it’s like that.”

“Our first stop better be to get me a glass of wine.”

Will laughs, pressing the button for the elevator. “Wouldn’t dream of it being anywhere else.”

Will refreshes his own drink as well, and selects a red wine for her after Aub hems and haws over the options for a minute, a choice that she almost can’t bring herself to take a sip of once the glass is in her hand, for fear that she’ll never be able to drink another Malbec again, guessing this one is well out of her price range based on name and bottle appearance alone. (She takes a sip anyway, it’s as delicious as she’d expected).

Will’s smiling, as if waiting for her reaction, like there’s not a wine she doesn’t like (well, chardonnay, but like, even that she’ll drink if it’s all that available). “Should we do this?” Aubrey asks him, ready to watch him be roasted by teammates for the evening, and he nods, hand moving to the small of her back, leading her deep into the crowd.

But for all the shit he claims to have taken recently about her, they must be on their best behavior, out in public. Everyone he introduces her to is nothing but friendly; the few people she’s met before this event greet her with smiles and open arms, welcoming her into the fold.

“Are you sure these are the same teammates you warned me about?” She asks Will, when they have a minute to themselves, just finishing up a long and very nice conversation with Justin Holl, Jake Muzzin and their wives, and thinking of the series of texts he’d sent her this morning about “all these assholes.”

“They’re being nice, just for you.” He insists. His arm is still at her waist; it’s barely left there all night.

“Ugh, so I grew up with seven siblings and I’m not even going to be able to use the skills I got from that to throw down?” She jokes. “What was the point?”

Will actually stops walking for a second, drawing her into him quickly when she stumbles, not expecting the abrupt stop in walking. “You have seven siblings?”

Aubrey nods, wondering if she should bother getting into her family dynamics right now, and settles for a short version. “On my mom’s side, yeah. My parents divorced when I was a baby, and they both remarried. My brother and I have more siblings from both of them; it’s just like a whole thing with my dad.” She winces.

Will’s grinning again, though, like he didn’t even catch it, and he points to himself. “One of six.”

“Oh my god!” She blurts out excitedly, before she can help herself. There’s not many people she knows with sibling counts even close to hers, step and half siblings including, let alone a family like Will’s. “See, you get it!”

“Get what?” She hadn’t even realized that Mitch and Steph had approached them, until Mitch pokes in nosily.

“That younger siblings are actual monsters.”

“You talk to your sisters everyday!” Mitch frowns, because he doesn’t get it; he never has.

“Yeah, your point?” Aubrey gives him a look as the others laugh around them. “That’s literally what having younger siblings is, and you just don’t know it because you are one.”

“Shots fired.” Steph nudges him.

“You’re the younger sibling too!” he nudges her back.

“Mmm, traditionally, Aub and I count all our siblings together, soo.” She trails off, laughing at the look on Mitch’s face.

Aubrey’s nodding; their families had grown up so close that it wasn’t uncommon to see Steph and her sister hanging around with Aubrey and her brothers, from the time they were children, all the way until today. “That’s why when Cam starts driving me crazy when she’s here next weekend, I’m just dropping her at your place. Basically the same thing.”

“Ohh, so she’s definitely coming?” Steph asks, eyes wide.

Aubrey nods. “Confirmed it with my mom today, I’m going to meet her halfway.” She pauses for the briefest of seconds. “Want to come?”

“Yes! Coffee on the way?”

“Obviously!”

“Yeah, Will and I are definitely going to sit this one out.” Mitch nods firmly.

“You weren’t actually invited, but okay.” Steph pats his shoulder mock-comfortingly. “But we should all do dinner when we get back!”

It takes everything in Aubrey not to show the internal panic on her face. She’s insanely close with her sisters, despite the age gap- she’s close with all her siblings, the brothers that she’d grown up probably terrorizing their parents together and the younger ones that terrorize them all now. It was probably unrealistic to think she could make it through “dating” Will without him meeting any of them, especially knowing how close Steph is with them too. “Yeah, that would be fun.”

She feels Will squeeze her side gently, almost comfortingly, but before they can get much further with this conversation, someone’s coming around and asking them to find their seats for dinner, so they split off to their tables, with promises to make plans for the following Friday over the next few days.

-----

Will’s quiet on the drive home after dinner, in his very expensive car, which is fine because Aubrey spends that time marveling over it. Like, she knew he was boujie, but, wow.

“Is your sister staying all next weekend?” Will asks, abruptly interrupting Aubrey’s caress of the soft leather of the seat beneath her legs.

“Hm? Oh yeah.” She nods. “Cam’s been a super pain since Kayls started high school this year since she’s still back in junior high, but worse since Kayls just got invited to her first high school party and it’s next weekend.” She sees Will’s wince out of the corner of her eye and laughs. “Oh my god, you don’t even know the half of it! When I texted Cam to invite her up next weekend, she was like why would I want to come hang out with a bunch of old people like you anyway?”

Will’s laughing and Aubrey’s jaw drops until he shares, “When I was home last summer, my youngest sister made me drop her off at a friend’s house three doors away because I wasn’t cool enough to be seen with.”

She actually laughs at that- if Will, an actual professional hockey player, isn’t cool enough to be seen with, then who is?- but the attitude is so familiar. “They’re super close, Kayls and Cam, and like I kinda get why Cam’s being super annoying about a lot of shit. Like, I know she feels like she’s being left behind. But god, does she have to take it out on the rest of us?” She shakes her head, clearing both the thoughts and a piece of hair out of her face. “It’s just the age, my mom and I talk about it all the time. They’ll be nice again in a few years.”

Will glances over at her briefly with a look of panic on his face, before flicking his eyes back to the road. “That’s not really a comforting statement. As someone with three younger sisters,” He clarifies. “Not someone meeting yours this weekend.” Aubrey giggles. “But actually, I was wondering what your plans were with her on Saturday night? If you wanted tickets to the game for you guys?”

“Oh!” Aubrey blinks in surprise. “That would...that would actually be really nice. She’d like that.”

“Yeah?” She can hear the smile in Will’s voice.

“Well, she’d like the flex on all her friends on Monday.” Aub admits, knowing that her sister could probably care less about actually seeing a Leafs game. “And on the boys, they’d be super jealous.” At his glance, she clarifies. “Cam’s a triplet.”

He mutters something under his breath and she giggles again; she’s pretty sure that was Swedish and she can guess what it was. “But they’re not coming?”

“Not this weekend.” She confirms. She is definitely not hosting all three of Cam, Tyler, and Danny for the entire weekend. No way, no how. “But once they find out you’re offering tickets? I’m sure my phone will be ringing.”

“You know where to find me.” Will shrugs, pulling up in front of her building. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

Aubrey grins at him. “Fooled Steph and Mitch no problems.”

It feels like it takes a second for the comment to register with Will, but when it does, he returns the grin. “Yeah, no problems.”

-----

Steph waits until they are well on the road to meet her mom and both sisters (because in a surprise twist that everyone saw coming, a high schooler got grounded and a party was cancelled) sitting in stop and go traffic, before bringing up what Aubrey knows she’s been dying to ask. “So how’s Will?”

“Fine?” She responds, before she remembers that she’s supposed to know these things and hastens to finish. “It’s been a busy week with like, work and this shit, but like, he’s good.”

Steph makes a noise, like she’s unsatisfied with that answer and Aubrey gives her a look after she’s braked with the masses, waiting for it to pick up again. “But, like, how are the two of you?”

Ah. Ok. So that’s what this is about. “We’re good.” She assures Steph, absolutely certain her best friend is going to see right through her. “Just like, figuring shit out, you know? It’s still new.”

Steph’s nodding. “I mean, it wouldn’t be if you’d just gone out when Mitch and I first brought you to dinner…”

“Stephanie.” Aubrey says warningly, picking up speed, probably with too much hope that the traffic has cleared.

“Fine!” Steph laughs. “I know, I can’t say I told you so to you or you’re going to panic and break up with him and probably dye your hair and get bangs or something, but like. I’m super happy for you guys. You were so cute last week.”

“What?” Aub says blankly, because she really doesn’t have much else to say, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because Steph’s on a roll now.

“Like, Will couldn’t take his eyes off you the entire night.” She continues. “It was super cute; he kept, like reaching for you, you kept finding him.” She taps Aubrey’s leg excitedly. “Ok, I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’m too fucking excited and I knew you’d be perfect for each other, I knew it.”

“Oh, look! There’s a tattoo place right at the next light.” Aub says loudly, even though she has no intention of getting a tattoo right now- all four of her tattoos were impulsive decisions and the three threats she’s made since she’s gotten in the car feel like far too much thought, not to mention the time crunch they’re on to get back for dinner-but it does serve as the threat she intends. Steph clearly has no desire to try and talk her out of getting one today and switches the topic to something she just saw on the Insta of one of their friends, which lasts them until they pull into the parking lot that’s serving as the meeting point.

“Aub!” For all that Cameron pretends she’s too cool for everything, just like every 14 year old Aubrey can remember, she throws herself at Aubrey the second that Aub and Steph get out of the car.

Aub squeezes her back, wondering when she got so tall. “Hey Cammie.” Cam swats at her as she pulls back. She hates that nickname, the one that Aub and her three older brothers have called her basically her entire life, but they’ve never stopped, no matter how much their youngest sibling had begged. “Where’s Kayls?”

“Here!” Kaylee huffs from next to their mom, who’s chatting with Steph, has been since she hugged her the minute she got out of the car.

Aubrey’s eyes narrow, taking in the sibling who looks most like her. “Is that my sweater?”

“No.” Kaylee says too quickly to be true. “Are we ready? We have dinner plans, right?”

“Meeting Aubrey's new boyyyyfriend.” Cam sings, and Aubrey shoves her hand in her sister's face.

“Not if you’re going to act like that, we don’t.”

“Girls.” Their mom pauses, mid-reach for Aubrey, to give her youngest two daughters a full-on mom look. “Be nice.”

Aubrey laughs at the looks on their faces, before clutching at her mom. “Hi momma. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Her mom squeezes. “Thanks for this gift.” She whispers and winks because Aub knows that her mom loves all eight of them dearly, but these two in particular are driving her nuts right now. “See you Sunday, at Luke’s.”

“Bye, I’m sure I’ll call you ten times before tomorrow!” Aubrey waves at her mom as she gets in her car, sliding back into the driver’s seat of her own, where Steph, Kaylee, and Cam are chattering to each other as they buckle their seatbelts.

It’s just as she’s pulling back onto the road that Kayls gasps. “Aub, I think I forgot to pack toothpaste.”

“Ohh, me too!” Cam realizes.

Aubrey exchanges a look with Steph quickly. It’s not looking promising that she won’t be making a call to her mom, to talk her off the ledge.

-----

“What do you mean, you didn’t bring pants?” Aubrey rubs her temples as she stares at her sister.

Kaylee shrugs. “I forgot to pack them.”

“I forgot shirts.” Cam calls from the bathroom, where she’d just showered. “Can I borrow one?”

“Did you bring anything?” Aubrey asks wearily. “Toothbrush? Underwear?”

“Of course I brought underwear.” Kaylee huffs, sounding legit offended, like she didn’t forget to pack pants on a weekend trip away.

“Well excuse me for thinking you might not have, since you didn’t bring anything else!”

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand again; it’s got to be the third or fourth time, but she’s honestly been so caught up in her sisters that she hasn’t had time to check. “Just, like, grab whatever from the closet. We’re already late.”

Sure enough, it’s Will texting, letting her know he’s downstairs. be down in a few, She responds, not bothering to go into the whole pants story. “Girls! Three minutes!” She grins at their shrieks, packing a couple things into her purse and laughing to herself as she listens to them get ready. “Kayls! Cam!”

“We’re ready!” They rush out together, Kayls dressed in a pair of her favorite jeans and Cam in one of her favorite sweaters-how they always manage to find her favorites is ridiculous-but they don’t have time for her to make them change.

“Ugh.” Aubrey just says instead, ushering them out and locking it behind her. “Come on, Will’s been waiting.”

“Will’s here?”

“Yes?” She frowns at the two of them. “Where else would he be?” But Kaylee and Cam are already giggling to each other, enough for her to roll her eyes to herself as she leads them out to Will’s car, knowing it’s definitely too much to expect them to just be cool.

“Hey.” Will greets, as she slips into the passenger seat.

“Hi.” She returns, smiling at him.

“Uh, hi?” Cam says impatiently from the backseat. Will laughs, but Aub gives her a look.

“It’s been literally two seconds. Could you, like, chill?”

“Nope!”

Aub side-eyes her again, but turns back to Will. “These are my sisters, Cam and Kaylee.” They greet him eagerly, a sentiment he returns, and then spends the entire car ride to the restaurant where they’re meeting Steph and Mitch at answering every question they ask with absurd patience.

“Oh, I smell garlic.” Kaylee says, once Will has dropped his car off with valet.

“It smells delicious.” Aub corrects, because it’s definitely heavy on the garlic, but it smells heavenly.

Will smiles over at both of them, though Aub’s not sure if he means it more for Kaylee or her. “This is one of my favorite restaurants.”

“Really?” She blurts out, before she can stop herself, and he nods, reaching for her hand.

“Great food.” He confirms. “Come on; Mitch and Steph are already here.”

That certainly serves to get her sisters moving-all her younger siblings have stopped being impressed by Mitch but they still love seeing him just as much as they love seeing Steph- and they push their way into through the doors quickly enough that Aubrey rushes to catch up to them, not trusting them alone, and tugging Will along with her.

Cam and Kaylee have already found Mitch and Steph, already chatting away with the two of them, like they didn’t just see Steph two hours ago in the car, and Aubrey and Will slip into the last two seats at the table.

“You good?” Will nudges her as they sit.

Aubrey nods. “Yeah. Pretty good.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Pretty good.”

“Well, Frick and Frack may legitimately drive me crazy this weekend but.” She shrugs. “We’ll see.”

“What happened to dropping them off with Steph if they drove you too crazy?”

She laughs. “God, if only, Will. If only.”

“Will!” Kaylee interrupts, looking up briefly from her menu. “What’s good here?”

“Will! What’s this mean?” Cam adds and Aubrey takes a deep breath, even as Will looks like it’s his absolute pleasure to walk them through the names of some of the different dishes on the menu.

“Wine, please.” Aubrey requests from the waiter, the second he arrives at the table. “Literally, anything you’ve got.”

But Will waves that off, ordering a bottle of red for the table, in perfect French. “Show off.” She grumbles at him quietly and he grins at her from over the top of Cam’s menu, before he goes back to helping her out.

From her other side, Steph’s hiding her own smile, or rather, doing a very poor job at hiding one. “What?” Aubrey presses.

“Nothing.” Steph says. “Just happy to be having dinner all together.”

“Well that’s bullshit.” Aubrey calls her out, at the very blatant lie; Mitch snorts into his hand to cover his laugh. “But always happy to be having dinner with you too.”

Steph beams, clinking her wine glass with Aubrey’s the second the waiter fills them both. “Again, tomorrow, pregame?”

Aub looks over at her sisters, who have moved away from asking Will menu questions and are, instead, asking him questions about the bun in his hair. “Assuming you aren’t bailing me out of jail instead? Sure.”

-----

Aubrey Dupont: we’re going to do apps with steph pregame but want to say thanks again for tix tonight! want to do dinner again with us after if you’re free?

Will Nylander: i’m free dinner sounds good 😁 it’ll be late though once I get out

Aubrey Dupont: that’s fine! Id say breakfast but we’ve got to leave pretty early tomorrow to get to my brothers to knock a wall down!

Will Nylander: ….holy shit cam was serious

Aubrey Dupont: 😂😂lollll yeah they’re opening up the dining room and living room! We’re all going out to take the wall down, we’re supposed to meet Steph and Mitch and then head out

Will Nylander: lol does mitch know? he booked us a tee time Sunday

Aubrey Dupont: stfu he did not😂 lol he probably just doesn’t want to get iced that early

Will Nylander: haha what??

Aubrey Dupont: hahaha the first time steph brought him home to meet our families, it was my parents Christmas Eve party, my brothers iced him like three times in the first hour. He was so trashed he couldn’t even walk back next door to Steph’s house.

It’s just like a thing we do, all our siblings and he was not prepared for it at all 😂

Will Nylander: sooo if I left one in his locker this week, how much trouble would you be in?

Aubrey Dupont: lol a lot but it’d be worth it, you should 100% do that

Mitch Marner: we’re knocking down a wall tomorrow wtf why didn’t you tell me? I’ll brave a Smirnoff to knock down a fucking wall. What time are you and Will picking us up?

Will Nylander: i fucked up, sorry

-----

“That’s really cute!” Zach Hyman’s wife smiles as she hands Kaylee her phone back.

“Thank you.” Aubrey mouths to her, as Cam and Kayls flock to the phone to check out the pictures she’s taken of them, and Alannah smiles at her knowingly. Aub’s sure she’s got sisters of her own.

“I’ll see you soon.” Alannah promises. “We should do dinner soon, the three of us, next time the boys are out of town.” And then she’s pushing her way toward Zach before Aub can respond to anything.

“Not a word.” Aubrey says warningly to her sisters, as Steph snickers, thinking of how picky the two of them are about pictures almost always.

“These are actually really cute though.” Cam says, like she even means it.

“Yeah, she did good.” Kayls adds, sliding her phone back into her purse.

“So happy they meet your standards.” Steph says dryly.

“They are the ones to meet.” Kayls flips her hair and it’s all Aubrey can do to fight back a laugh. She honest to god forgets how funny they are sometimes, when they’re driving her as crazy as they are now.

“You’re too much.” Aubrey tells her and Kaylee grins, looping her arms around Aub’s shoulders and squeezing tightly. “Okay, now you’re really too much. You’re suffocating me; get off! Look,” She nudges Kaylee away, noticing quickly that Mitch has appeared recently- without Will, but with Auston-and tries to draw her attention there instead. “Mitch is here, bother him instead.”

Kaylee peers over. “Honestly, who even cares about Mitch? I’d rather bother Will instead.”

Mitch’s jaw drops as Steph and Auston laugh, but Aubrey feels the tension immediately in her shoulders. “Jesus Christ, could you just say thank you to Will so he doesn’t think you’re a literal monster like the rest of the world does?”

“Thanks, Will!” Kaylee and Cam chorus, and she glares at them right up until she feels a presence at her side and realizes he’s actually right there.

“It was great to have you guys here this weekend.” Will smiles at them, sounding absolutely sincere, not a hint of sarcasm.

“We had so much fun.” Kayls is already gushing before Aub can even turn her death glare to her.

“What’d you guys do today?” Will asks her and again, it’s the sincerity that gets Aub, like he actually cares to listen to her sisters tell him about the brunch place that she and Steph took them to this morning, the stores they hit afterwards, a few of their favorite spots, before they had to go home and get ready for the game.

He’s sweet and attentive, asking all the questions that he should and nodding in all the right places. “You guys still want dinner?” He asks, probably as soon as he can find a time to interrupt. He’s got to be absolutely starving after that game.

“Yes.” Aubrey answers for them all; she doesn’t really care what her sisters actually have to say on the matter. If Will’s hungry, they’ll eat right now whether they want to or not.

“Can we go back to that bakery we went to earlier, first?” Cam asks, and Aubrey straight up glares at her, but before she can even say no, Cam’s already whining to her. “Oh my, god, seriously? Stop, Aubrey!”

“Ryan, like, swears you’re fun; I just don’t see it.” Kaylee adds, about their brother, the one just younger than Aub.

And like, Aubrey knows they’re just trying to get under her skin, but like, Jesus Christ. “That’s because Ryan’s an actual adult and whenever you two come up here I have to be your literal mom, because you forget to bring toothbrushes and pants and use manners!”

“Take like four deep breaths.” Will says, in that chill way he is about basically everything, and immediately Aubrey feels her glare swing over toward him. That’s basically being told to calm down and there’s literally nothing fucking worse than that, doesn’t he know that?

Probably not. He’s probably never been told to calm down in his life. Jesus, what was it again that made Steph think he was perfect for her?

Mitch, probably recognizing that Aubrey’s about to lose it, pulls Cam into his side for a one-armed hug, mentioning that he’s starving, which at least cues Kaylee into the fact that Will might be too. “Yeah, dinner does actually sound good.” Her eyes flicker over to Will first, before landing on Aubrey, and only when Aub sees the flicker of remorse in them does she actually take that breath that Will had mentioned.

“What time are we meeting in the morning?’ Steph asks, and Aub knows she’s looking to smooth over any potential blow up.

“9:22.” She deadpans, laughing at Mitch’s face.

“It’s supposed to be a nice day!” He protests. “I wouldn’t have made a tee time if you two had told me we were knocking down a wall! I had to hear it from Willy! What’s this shit?”

“Kicked out of the group chat again.” Aub shrugs, even though she knows well and truly that he hasn’t been- and won’t be again until sometime early spring, when someone does it symbolically for a day as they do every year.

“I’ll kick you out of the group chat.” Mitch says childishly, as Steph tries to collect him, Auston already ready to leave, and promising Aub that they’ll make plans later that night about the next morning.

“Will, where do you want to take us tonight for food?” Kayls asks, as they part ways in the lot.

Will looks a little startled. “Oh! Uh, what-where do you guys want to go?”

“We want to go where you like to eat.” Cam says. “We’ll eat anything.”

Will looks at her for confirmation and Aubrey nods; none of them are picky eaters. “Sushi?” He suggests and both girls nod excitedly, racing off towards Will’s car. “See?” He nudges her as they walk to catch up. “They’re fine.”

She glares up at him; he bumps her again and then again, repeatedly until she smiles. “They’re not awful.” She agrees, especially now that they’ve reminded her just how nice they can really be, at times.

Will’s grinning, matching her own smile. “I know you love them.”

“Don’t call me out like that, William.” He mimes zipping his lips and she laughs. “Ugh, you dork. Let’s go eat.”

-----

Kayls and Cam are in peak hurricane form, only barely dressed and nowhere near packed and ready to go, when Will texts to announce that he’s arrived to pick them up in the morning, so Aub just responds with her apartment number and tells him to come up.

He arrives at her door a minute or two later, with a guest in tow. “Mitchy invited him.” Will explains sheepishly, as he and Auston make themselves at home at the breakfast bar in her kitchen.

“Sorry to just, like, crash.” Auston adds.

Aubrey blinks at them. She feels like Will, of all people, should know better. “There’s legit eight of us; we adopt strays all the time.” He cracks up at that; they both do actually, and she smiles, just as Kayls shouts something about Cam stealing her leggings, from where they’re still in her room gathering her stuff.

“They’re not even yours!” Cam shouts. “Aubrey, tell her I got them first.”

“Well I was planning on wearing them!”

“Well you didn’t say that!”

“It’s just like being at home.” Auston says, smiling fondly enough that Aub laughs. “Make sure you check the straightener before you leave or they’ll fight about who forgot to turn it off in the car.” And then she straight up cackles; that’s a fight she knows well.

Auston and Will are both laughing as well, even as she hears her sisters shout for her. She ignores it, running her hands over her temples and turns towards the cabinet. “Coffee?” She asks them, and they both laugh as a muffled shout can be heard.

“Please.” Will says and Auston agrees so she pours mugs for them both, making idle chit chat, interrupted occasionally as they wait for her sisters to finally appear and be ready to leave.

They do, eventually, far later than Aubrey would have liked, and late enough that she’s grinding her teeth about it, loud enough that Will nudges her gently when she passes him to get her coat. He’s right though, it’s not like they’re in a rush to get out to her brother's house, but she’s anxious enough by that point to get moving that she doesn’t even realize what Kayls has taken from her closet to wear until they’re all climbing into Will’s backseat. “Oh my god, what are you wearing?”

“They’re literally yours!” Kayls snaps back and that’s not a lie, but it’s not what Aub’s got issue with either. It’s the absurdly clashing patterns in her leggings and oversized long-sleeve.

“I never wear them together.”

“That’s because your fashion sense is basic a-f.” Kayls pronounces each letter individually and Aub knows, she knows that Will and Auston are laughing at the look of disbelief on her face, even if she can’t see them. “You should take some tips from Will; his is on point.”

“Thanks, Kayls!” Will beams at her through the rearview mirror.

Aubrey ignores him. “Will’s homeless, that’s why he dresses like that.” She deadpans, which he protests immediately even as Auston cracks up.

“You’re not homeless.” Cam says to her, and it’s the fake innocent thing that does it for Aub. “Will could live with you.”

Aub pulls a face even as Auston just laughs even harder and Cam stares at her like she’s waiting for an actual answer. “Walked right into that one.” She mutters to herself, as Will meets her eyes in the mirror. He’s fighting back a grin; she can see the laughter in his eyes. “Will, coffee at the next Tim’s, please?” She’s going to need one to get through this.

Will’s full on grinning now, but he pulls off at the next exit in search of coffee and hands over his credit card before she can even object. The rest of the ride to her brother’s house feels like it passes in a flash, Kayls and Cam tumbling out of the car to greet Luke practically before Will’s even put it in park.

The only thing that stops Aubrey from having a complete heart attack is the immediate sense of calm she feels from no longer calling herself in charge. Luke’s here; he can deal with this shit now.

She feels Will laughing at her as they exit the car. “I thought you’d be more nervous.” He says, as they walk toward her brother, side by side, with Auston.

She snickers. “For what?” And then leans herself into Luke for a hug. “Hi!”

“Jesus, what’d you give them before you brought them here?” Luke returns the hug.

“Literally anything that would shut them up.” She says, dead serious, and then introduces Will, and Auston, almost as an afterthought.

Luke is friendly and welcoming, like she knew he would be. They’ve never had the overprotective sibling relationship she hears about from people. They’re too close in age, only a year apart in school; or too close in general, sharing too much as they grew up shuffled to their dad and stepmom’s every other weekend for their court-mandated time. She’s never doubted that he has her back, but he lets her live her life, no matter how stupid the decisions she might make (though he’s certainly not shy about telling her when he thinks she making one).

“Fitz and Steph and Mitch here yet?” She wonders, as they walk inside, the chatter between her sisters and sister-in-law already evident.

“Running late.” Luke says. “But Ryan’s upstairs sleeping. He stayed last night.”

She grins at him, contemplating running up to wake him, but in the end decides against it, settling for following the sound of her sisters’ voices into the kitchen. Rachel’s standing at the counter, setting out snacks and listening patiently as Kayls and Cam detail their entire weekend to her.

“-Will got us tickets for Saturday’s game-”

“-we ate at this amazing sushi place-”

“Rach!” Aubrey interrupts, tugging her sister-in-law away from Kayls and Cam, who are talking over each other. “Come meet Will.”

Rachel sends her a grateful look and immediately turns her bright smile at Will and Auston, introducing herself to them both and offering them drinks. By the time that she, Luke, and Aub finish getting drinks for everyone, Ryan’s coming downstairs, rubbing a hand over his face sleepily, and the introductions begin all over again.

Then Aubrey and Steph’s parents come in with her two youngest brothers, which cues another round of that, and then finally, Steph, Mitch, and Fitz roll in, which has Aubrey cackling when Auston leans over and whispers. “You didn’t tell us your brother is Little Fred?”

“What the fuck are you on?” She frowns at him, but Will’s got the same look on his face.

Will nods over at Fitz, the stepbrother who’d been in the same grade as her growing up and one of her best friends for about as long as she could remember. Said brother is currently trying to mess up Cam’s hair with one hand, while fighting one of her triplets, Tye, for the last danish. “He’s come out with us a few times, I guess with Mitch? He looks like Fred.” She gives the two of them a look. Literally the only thing her brother and their goalie have in common is red hair. Will shrugs. “Little Fred.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” She declares. “The bar is so low.”

“Must be.” Ryan nudges her side. She hadn’t even heard him come up beside her. “Dating you and all.”

She flips him off and he grins; Ryan’s actually the sibling closest in age to her, with the way all their birthdays work out, but from Luke to Ryan, all four of them are close and when Steph and her sister were added in there as well…well, the group chat gets chaotic.

“Hey!” Her mom snaps her fingers at them. “I don’t want to see any of that today.” And Aub can feel it in her face, the look she’s giving back to her mom, like certain that she’s not serious, because, honestly, has she met any of them? She peeks over at Ryan; he’s fighting back a laugh and that’s all it takes for her mom to lose it, the seriousness on her face quickly turning into a laugh.

It’s enough to get them all moving though, toward the wall they’re going to be tackling today, where they’re divided into teams by her stepdad and Steph’s dad, the only two who competently know what they’re doing.

“Ohhh!” Cam says immediately drifting towards the power saw. “Can I use this?”

Will pulls it away from her hands before she has the chance to even touch it and Aubrey’s calling out to her stepdad. “Mike! Are we stuck with these people all day?”

“Yes.” Her stepdad calls back; he’s already showing Tye and Danny how to demo their end of the wall.

Aub looks at Will and immediately mouths, “I’m sorry,” but he’s already loudly laughing at her. She kinda hates that he’s laughing at her, but she hates even more how contagious his laughter is.

-----

It’s a little past dinner time and Aubrey’s exhausted, too tired even to take her empty pizza plate to the kitchen trash can from where she’s sitting on the family room floor.

Around her, the rest of her family is in a similar state. Ryan’s actually asleep on one end of the couch, and on the other end, Auston’s half-heartedly grumbling at Derek Carr and the Raiders, while Steph’s lying across Mitch’s lap on the other side of the room. It’s about as quiet as they’ve all ever been, even Mitch and her sisters, which is how she knows they’re all exhausted.

Next to her, Will’s been quietly munching on a plate of fries since he finished his pizza a while ago. Aubrey reaches over and steals one from him. “Hey!” He protests.

“You’ve had the whole plate!” She thought she ate a lot; she honestly doesn’t know where he puts it all. “I just wanted a couple!”

“A couple?” Will repeats and Aubrey nods with a grin, reaching out and swiping another one from the plate. “Keep this up and we’re going to have to stop for second dinner on the way home.”

“I could probably eat again by then.” She rationalizes, stealing another.

Will laughs, sliding the plate over a few inches toward her, and Aubrey grins triumphantly. It’s quiet for a minute, or mostly quiet, the only sound for the next minute Auston moaning about a fumble, and Kaylee and Cam asking a question about it and then giggling to each other about it before they even get a full answer to it.

It’s Auston’s perplexed face that reminds her and she nudges Will as she goes in for another fry. “Hey.” She bumps him again, grabbing his attention. “Thanks.”

Will hums, sounding almost confused, and glances over at her. Every time Aubrey thinks it’s impossible for him to be more good looking, he proves her wrong; and always doing the most innocent things. He’s just looking at her, with this tiny little smile, but the light’s catching his eyes and they look impossibly blue and gentle, so soft like the rest of him does right now, in a way he almost never publicly is. “For what?”

“For putting up with my sisters all weekend and their increasingly ridiculous comments.”

Will laughs and he’s so close that she can feel the vibration. He’s leaning back against the wall again, but his head’s tilted a little, just barely leaning against hers, and Aub leans into it a little as he starts to talk. “My two youngest sisters play this game, every time we go to the airport, yeah? After we’ve said goodbye and everything. It’s like this competition between them, for who gets the last touch. And they’ll like chase me down as far as they can until I get to security, back and forth between the two of them…”

Aubrey’s already giggling, picturing the scene. “Same shit, different day,” She summarizes the weekend.

He flicks his finger across her nose and she giggles again. “Bingo.”

-----

It’s only when they’re back in the car and on the highway back toward Toronto after stopping for sushi for a second dinner that Auston says, sounding entirely too casual to actually be casual, “So, like, what’s really going on here with you two?”

Aub feels her stomach drop and it takes everything in her not to look at Will, who of fucking course, plays it enitrely cool. “What do you mean?”

Auston leans forward, from the middle seat in the back, which he’d generously offered to take so that she could sit up with Will even though she’d insisted he’d want the leg room up front; she’s starting to wonder if there was more to it than that. He gestures between the two of them. “It’s just, like, not how you usually are with girls.”

Will’s head whips back to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He demands.

“Will!” Aubrey hisses. “Eyes on the road.”

Auston’s cackling as Will turns his attention back to driving, but continues to eye him up through the rearview mirror. Aubrey twists in her seat; she can still stare him down. “So anyway,” He continues. “There’s that. And then, I mean, I was in the car with him when you literally texted him your apartment number. That was pretty sketch.”

Aub swings her gaze over to Will. “It came over Bluetooth.” He defends.

She pats his thigh. “Stick with hockey, kay?”

He laughs, and when she looks back at Auston, he’s laughing too, but he’s also got this thoughtful look on his face. “So anyway, what’s going on?” He presses.

“Steph and Mitch.” She says finally, after exchanging another look with Will.

“Ah.”

“That’s it?” She frowns at him. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Well, I mean, I’m sure there’s more to it, but like, I have met them before.” Auston grins when she and Will both laugh. “So what’d they do now?”

“Do you have an hour?” Will drawls.

“I have beer upstairs.” Auston offers, since they’re basically pulling up to his apartment, and since Will looks over at her for confirmation, Aub barely even takes a second before agreeing.

“Any wine?”

-----

It’s actually kind of crazy how relieving it is for someone else to know about her and Will, outside of the two of them. Aubrey hadn’t even realized how much it was weighing on her until it’s not, until the three of them had spent three hours laughing about it, recapping the entire thing and then just laughing about nothing.

She notices right away that it's equally relieving to Will, that the two of them will drift over to Auston when the team does something together, or that she’ll get a snapchat from one of them from the road that features Will and Auston off doing something ridiculous.

Steph calls her out on it one day, when the two of them are at a game one night. “I did not introduce you to Will for the two of you to spend time with Auston.”

“You ditched me last night!” Aubrey protests, but really, Steph’s not wrong. That was one time, because Mitch’s brother wanted to introduce his new girlfriend to them, and she’s been out here avoiding invites like it’s her job.

Steph continues like she didn’t hear a thing. “I introduced you to Will so that we could have great couples’ friends and hang out all the time, so why aren’t we?”

“I thought you introduced me to Will because we’d be perfect together?” Aubrey bitches and Steph gives her a look, so Aubrey promises that she and Will will do dinner with her and Mitch again soon.

Dinner soon, to Steph, apparently means that weekend, and Aubrey finds herself in Will’s car again, with a bottle of wine and a plate of dessert, driving out to Etobicoke on Friday night. “I like that I’ve claimed this seat now.”

Will laughs. “What?”

“It’s always set where I want it to be!” She grins. “Perfect leg room!”

Her phone buzzes as Will laughs again, but it only takes a quick glance at the screen to click back out of it. “You okay?” Will asks.

“Huh?”

“You just got real quiet, real quick.” He says, turning onto Steph and Mitch’s street. “Everything alright?”

Aubrey huffs out an aggravated breath, trying to decide what, if anything, she wants to say. “My other dad is being...my other dad.”

“Oh?” Will parks in their driveway and she huffs out another annoyed sigh as her phone buzzes in her pocket, knowing it’s just her half-brother again with more shit about their dad.

“He’s like…” She gathers her stuff and tries to find the words as they walk inside. “I don’t even know. Everybody’s been freaking out since some lady tagged him in a bunch of pictures on Facebook last week but my siblings are at dinner with him right now and they asked him about it and he told them he’s not seeing anyone.”

“Wait, seriously?” It’s the first thing Steph says to her; Aub’s been bitching to her about the whole thing for a week now and she’s more than familiar with her issues with her dad.

“Yes!” She cries. “My sister asked if he was seeing anyone, he said no. I guess one of the boys asked if he’d taken any trips lately, because of the pictures, and he said no. So he’s just straight up lying and I don’t know why!”

“Maybe,” Will says. “He’s not actually lying.”

Aubrey pats his arms gently. “You’re new here, so I’ll let that terrible thought pass.”

Will looks taken aback but she can barely spare a thought for that as Mitch says, “Maybe he got secret-married again and is just waiting until you’re all there to tell you-OW!” Steph elbows him hard and he grins anyway. “What? I’m just saying!”

“I already went to therapy once this week, Mitchy.” Aub mock-glares at him. “I cried for three hours and only didn’t dye my hair blue because Steph came to pick me up for the game. I don’t need to go again. Keep that shit to yourself and get me some wine.”

Mitch laughs; he’s equally familiar with her post-therapy routine and her feelings for her dad. “Alright fine.” He says, but there must still be something on her face because Will’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder right after that and he rubs it gently for a minute before he comes to sit next to her.

Conversation turns lighter after that- to Mitch’s brother’s new girlfriend, who Steph liked and Mitch thought was only okay and then to Will’s sister’s new boyfriend, who he hates-before they’re all more focused on food and a game later in the evening.

It’s easy to ignore her phone buzzing when Aubrey and Mitch are dominating Steph and Will at Codenames (or calling cheaters, because Will and Steph most definitely are), but much harder to ignore in the car when she and Will are alone again, and Aub barely even notices when Will doesn’t make the turn for her place, instead just driving straight to his place.

“Oh.” She says quietly when he finally parks and they’re in the garage, instead of just pulling up out front of her building, like he has been recently.

“Didn’t want you to dye your hair blue tonight.” Will deadpans and Aubrey laughs, surprised that it’s kind of watery.

“Fair, it was definitely a risk.”

Will smiles at her gently. “I’ve been told my guest room is supremely comfortable.”

Aubrey raises her eyebrows; she can siphon out the source of that one. “I hear your brother has pretty shitty taste.” She says and he laughs, that loud one he’s got that she can’t help but smile at because it sounds so ridiculous, but Aubrey’s already getting out of the car, ready to follow him up before he can see.

Will’s condo is pretty much everything she expected- a lot of modern pieces, a lot of white, very Scandanavian- but there’s plenty of Will in it as well. A lot of family pictures. Some hockey stuff-both Leafs and Team Sweden-but not an overwhelming amount.

She’s still looking at some of the pictures (he looks so much like his mom) when he returns with a couple glasses of wine, and she accepts hers with a gracious smile. “Thank you.”

“We’ve been at this long enough for me to know that wine’s your thing.” He jokes and she laughs.

“I meant for bringing me here.” She shoves at his shoulder; annoyingly enough he doesn’t even move. “I definitely would have done something stupid.”

“What are friends for?” Will smiles and there’s that annoyed feeling again, maybe even more so than just a minute ago, tugging at her stomach, for really no reason. They are friends now, in pretty much every sense of the word. They hang out, they text, they do all kinds of things. It’ll actually probably be hard for her, to not be friends with him, or at least pretend to be, when they have to “break up” for a bit to annoy Steph and Mitch.

“Yeah.” Aubrey says and it just sounds off so she takes a sip of her wine right away so he can’t see whatever her face is doing. “If you were really my friend, you’d let me borrow some sweats to sleep in. You know. Since you kidnapped me to bring me here.”

“Ohh, I don’t know if we’re that close.” Will says, but he’s laughing as he walks toward his room so she knows he’s kidding.

It’s a pretty quiet night between the two of them once they make themselves comfortable, just chilling on the couch and watching Netflix, and Will’s not stingy with his pours so Aubrey pours herself into his guest room a little tipsy, and maybe that’s why she texts him from bed. You were right, your guest bed is pretty comfortable.

*Supremely* comfortable. Told you so 😜

-----

Aub’s still in Will’s absurdly comfortable guest bed when her daily FaceTime call with her sisters comes in and she answers it without thinking. “Hey.”

“Where are you?” Kaylee asks immediately. “That’s not your room-oh my god, are you at Will’s?” She blurts and Aubrey wants to smack herself.

“That’s Leafs stuff!” Cam exclaims, popping her head into the frame. “You never wear Leafs stuff! Oh my god, do you live there now?”

“Back up, calm the crazy.” She’s cutting off this spiral before they’ve got the story of her and Will eloping spread to her entire family.

Kayls pouts. “You never let us have any fun.”

“I do not want a call from Grandma this afternoon asking me why I got married to the blond hippie from the Leafs because you two can’t keep your mouths shut and she saw one bad picture.”

Cam’s jaw drops in outrage. “That’s so rude, we would at least send a good picture out! Like she’d know how hot he really is; there’d be no need to google and accidentally come across a picture of him in a Sugo hat.”

That’s it. She’s up for good now. Aubrey throws the blankets off herself and sits up off the edge of the bed, rubbing her temples in hopes it’ll make her tiny hangover headache go away. Limited success. “You googled him?”

“Of course we googled him!” Kayls says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Aub, oh my god, he’s got-”

“I’m leaving this room right now.” Aubrey warns; she’s already at the door. “Stop talking about him like he’s not here.”

Cam immediately launches into a story about a couple of the girls on her field hockey team and something that had happened at practice after school yesterday, a story that she’s still detailing when Aubrey walks into the kitchen to find Will also looking into his phone with a fond look on his face as a loud jumble of voices shout back to him in what she can only assume is Swedish.

“Coffee’s back there.” He points, greeting her with a smile. “And mugs above it.”

“Thank you.” She’s pretty sure, from the expression on his face, that he knows how much of a lifeline that’s about to be for her.

“Hi Will!” Kayls calls and Aub glares at her, but Will calls back a greeting in return before returning to Swedish, but definitely in an argumentative tone.

It’s a couple more minutes of that-listening to Will speaking in Swedish and going through her usual morning nonsense with her sisters-before Will lets out the smallest groan and then looks at her. “My sisters want to say hi.”

“Oh.” Aubrey says, surprised more than anything.

And before she can really say anything, Cam adds. “Yes! Then we can talk with Will!” Which is how she finds herself sitting next to Will with his dog curled in her lap, both their phones in front of them, speaking with her sisters and two of Will’s sisters.

It’s pretty much maximal chaos, but when they both end their calls a few minutes later, Aubrey’s still smiling as she runs her hand through the dog’s fur and Will’s laughing to himself. “Mmm, good luck to you.” Aub nudges him, easy enough to do since she’s still sitting flush up next to him. “When they’re in town next month. They’ve probably all followed each other on Instagram by now already. Best friends in no time.”

“Gonna be busy with games.” Will says weakly. “Practices, media things. Think it’s gonna be your problem.”

“Like hell.” She laughs, shaking her head when he joins in and doesn’t stop. “Oh my god, that was not that funny!”

“Just thinking of all the ways they’re going to torture us when they’re all together after they’ve spent the last month talking shit about us in a group chat.” Will says, somehow still laughing about that, because he’s literally the most chill person on the planet. Like of course he’s not even bothered by that.

“I don’t have enough food in me to deal with that thought.” Aubrey declares, laughing decidedly less at the thought of actually meeting Will’s family. In person. Where they’ll have to actually see her and see what a farce this is. “Feed me.”

Will shrugs. “Let me change and we’ll grab brunch.”

Aub looks down at the very large sweats she’s borrowed to sleep in. “We’ll stop first, yeah?”

“Depends on how hangry you are.” Will calls back, already walking away.

She pulls a face at his back at that one. She’s actually pretty hungry, but like, she’s not dumb enough to go out to brunch with him in a walk of shame. Not when there’s already a group chat forming about her on Instagram. She doesn’t need Leafs Twitter coming for her too.

-----

It’s easy to settle in a routine from there; meeting Mitch and Steph for dinner a few times, joining Steph for games and then leaving with Will for a second dinner after, and easily splitting off to spend time with her own family and friends or catching up with them when Will is off on road trips.

It’s so easy to settle into a routine like that, a relationship routine, that she lets herself get lulled into a false sense of security, the message from her dad catching her off guard completely one day.

“What’s wrong?” Will asks, when they’re at dinner after a game. It’s their thing now; pick a restaurant and grab some food right afterwards before he drops her off at home. It’s a nice way to wind down actually; she usually looks forward to it.

Tonight though, Aub has been uncharacteristically quiet since they met up and she was a downright bitch earlier when she and Steph were fighting about something. Like, she knows they’ll forget all about it tomorrow, but still. She owes her best friend coffee at the least. “Hmm?” She looks up at him, barely hearing his question.

“What’s wrong?” He repeats, giving her a look before she can fight him against answering.

She pushes her food around a little-very uncharacteristic for her, and she can tell even Will’s picked up on that. “My dad wants to meet us all for dinner this week, which means he probably did get secret-married again.”

“Oh.” Will makes a face and Aubrey returns it, laughing when he contorts his even worse. “And that’s-I mean-again?” He finally settles on and she nods, ready to drop this bomb.

“It’ll be wife number six, but secret wedding number three.” She says, delighting in the way his jaw drops. “This is just, like, what he does; he just announces he wants to have dinner with us and then shows up and is like and here’s my new wife, like it’s super casual, and then we all wonder why I need therapy when he’s out here hiding wives and families like it’s a fulltime job.” She finishes, only realizing how heated she is about it when she looks up to find Will staring at her with wide eyes.

“Um.” Will starts.

“Sorry.” Aub hastens, flushing.

“No!” Will says. “No, don’t apologize at all, you can, like, share whatever you want. I just...I got like half of what you just said.” He gives her an apologetic look. “Missing a big chunk of this story.”

“Right.” Aub nods, pretty proud of how calm she sounds. Dr. Seth is going to be so impressed with her next week. “Sorry. We haven’t talked about the two secret families he was hiding when I was growing up. Ok, I’ll back up.”

“He what?” Will cries, but Aub waves him off, diving into the whole history of her dad, her half-siblings, and her step-moms...as well as their various divorces.

“...and that brings us to now.” She takes a sip of her wine thoughtfully; Will has long since drained his and refilled. She’s pretty sure she didn’t miss anything. “And dinner that’s going to be an absolute disaster.”

“Do you want me to come?” Will offers.

“No!” She says immediately. That’s like-god, that’s the worst idea ever. They do not need to get her greedy father involved in this, who’d take one look at Will and see dollar bills. She’s accepted that she can’t change the way her dad treats her (after many years of therapy); she’s got another dad who loves her and it’s not fine the way her dad doesn’t remember her birthday or what she does for work or pretty much anything important about her, but it is what it is. But like, she’s not going to subject Will to it. “It’ll be-fine.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You think so?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “But thanks anyway.”

Will purses his lips. It’s clear that he doesn’t love that answer, but he doesn’t say anything more on the subject, asking her instead if she wants to split a dessert, as if he doesn’t already know the answer to that question, and Aub, grateful for the change in topic, even agrees to let him pick this time.

It’s a rare gift.

-----

Aubrey knows she had a little too much to drink at dinner with her dad, but she’s not so drunk that she can’t recognize that this is Will’s door she’s standing in front of, knocking loudly and repeatedly.

She has only a moment to contemplate that-that it’s here she chose to come to after yet another disaster dinner, instead of Steph’s or her brother’s or back home to her own place-before Will’s opening the door, the confusion passing quickly over his face when he realizes it’s her.

“Hey.” He beams and steps back, silently inviting her in, but Aub doesn’t want him to go further away from her. That’s why she came here. “Whoa, hey!” Will says, as Aub steps in the condo and presses herself against him. “Are you-” He lets out a strangled choke as she tiptoes up and loops her arms around the back of his neck. “-okay?”

“Peachy.” She says, pulling him down to kiss her.

It’s not really a great kiss; Will’s kissing her back for a moment, and then pulling back. “Wait-”

“No.” She whines, leaning in for another, and he does it again, caught up for a moment in kissing her, but then it’s like his thoughts catch up to him and he breaks it.

“Aub, we shouldn’t- we aren’t-”

And like why shouldn’t they? They’ve been doing this fake relationship for a while now and not able to hook up with anyone else because of it. He’s objectively the hottest person she’s ever seen. There’s no reason that’s coming to her right now that says she shouldn’t. “We’re friends now!” Aubrey says, running her palms over his shoulders. God, why weren’t they doing this the entire time? “Right?” And Will nods, slowly, but it’s a nod, “It’s fine, friends hook up all the time.”

“You really want this?” His thumb brushes her cheek as she nods and only then does he pull her back in for a kiss.

-----

If Aubrey thought Will’s guest bed was comfortable, it’s really got nothing on his actual bed. She rolls over, curling into the pillow a little more and opens her eyes to see the sliver of sunlight coming through catch the edge of Will’s face, that one piece of hair that’s sticking up that should be unattractive, but is totally not.

It’s really just unfair.

The sound comes from behind her and Aub jumps when she realizes it’s Will’s alarm going off. It seems like it barely even fazes him; he just reaches across her and silences it; his arm falling across her when he drags himself back.

“Hi.” She smiles.

“Hi.” Will laughs and it lights up his whole face; she can’t help the hand that comes up to trace over his features. “Come on, that’s not fair.

“What’s not fair?” Aubrey asks innocently, trailing her nails down his chest.

He groans. “I have to go. Skate.”

“You don’t have to go.” She pouts and he groans again.

“You’re making it really hard to have to.”

“Good.” Aubrey giggles, only stopping when Will shuts her up with a kiss.

“Really hard.” He repeats as she rolls her hips into his.

“Fine.” She sighs, flopping onto her back, and she knows the move does exactly as she’d intended when his eyes go right to her chest. “I guess I’ll just have to stay here in bed until you get back.”

“Please do.” He insists, leaning over to kiss her again. “Fastest skate ever.” Will promises.

“You can’t control that.” Aubrey reasons, even as Will’s shaking his head at her while he climbs out of bed.

“Fastest skate ever.” He repeats.

She can’t really confirm or deny that it is; but when he does return, pulling her out of a doze by jumping on top of her, there’s coffee on the table for her too. It’s cold by the time she gets to it.

-----

“You guys are being weird.” Steph comments one night, as Aub’s cheering after Will scores a tie-breaking goal.

“What?” Aubrey gives her a look. “What do you mean?”

“You and Will.” Steph says, like it should be obvious. “You’re like-” She breaks off, making a noise of frustration.

“You’re in the honeymoon phase.” Alannah supplies helpfully and Steph lights up.

“Yes!” She cries and Aubrey glares over at Alannah but she merely smiles back. “But it’s like, you’re back in it? Like, you weren’t for a while and now...you can’t take your hands off each other again!”

Aubrey doesn’t really know what to say to that. She’s not denying that she and Will have been all over each other ever since that first night they slept together. She can’t even remember the last time she went to her apartment for anything more than to pack clothes and she’s lost track of the number of times she’s reached out for him only to find Will already reaching for her.

But before? She can’t think of any moment where they were ever like they are now. Like there’s too much space between them even when she’s right next to him. Or this pull that brings her toward him no matter where he’s at.

But she doesn’t...she doesn’t know what to say about that. Because it’s not like anything has changed between them. They’re still friends; they still laugh and joke as usual, still gossip about their friends together, are still just waiting to drop a big break up on Mitch and Steph.

Nothing’s changed, even if maybe, she thinks, something has.

So she shrugs at Steph and says, “We’re just happy. Is that so bad?”

Steph beams and leans her head against Aubrey’s shoulder, and like, Aub knows that’s exactly what she’d been hoping for since she introduced her to Will, but Aubrey still feels like something wasn’t right about what she said.

-----

Aubrey tugs on the Nylander jersey that drapes over her frame as she and Will walk into the hospital conference room. “Are you sure about this?”

“It’s tradition.” He grins. “Stop playing with it.”

“That’s what she said.” She says as dryly as she can, managing to keep the face until he laughs, and then she cracks up with him.

That’s how the two of them walk into the conference room where the team is meeting; laughing so loudly that everyone stops what they’re doing to turn and look, but she and Will only get a bunch of fond smiles before everyone turns back to their own conversations.

Steph gives her a knowing look when they approach hand in hand, which Aubrey ignores pointedly. “You didn’t warn me we’d have to actually go things wearing this dumb jersey when you plotted to get us together.”

“Oh I didn’t?” Steph says innocently as Mitch and Will sputter in protest. “Must have slipped my mind.”

“Dumb jersey?” Will nudges her.

Aub shrugs, looking up at him with a cheeky grin. “It’s a little big. Might have some trouble getting out of this thing.”

Will grins. “I’m sure some help can be arranged.”

Mitch feigns gagging. “There are children around.”

Wills hand drags up her side briefly-too briefly- as he grins at Mitch. “Where, Mitchell?” But he backs off and Aub does too, both of them catching up with teammates and wives and girlfriends around them.

Or they back off a little, but Aub still finds herself drawn int0 his orbit, especially once they start splitting off into groups to move through the hospital to go see the kids. His hand will brush against hers as they move between rooms; she’s bumping her shoulder against his arm comfortingly as they talk with parents.

It’s not very subtle, but they don’t need to be. Except…

“What is going on?” Auston hisses at her, in passing, as he’s about to step inside the room Will’s just about leaving.

“Nothing.” Aub says innocently, but Will reaches for her hand when he leaves, opting for a fist bump with Auston instead, and Auston’s eyes widen, but Aubrey tugs Will along before he can say anything. “Come on, let’s grab some water real quick!”

The diversion doesn’t last long; Auston catches up to her only two rooms later while Will’s in talking hockey with a little girl and she’s waiting outside, leaning against the wall. He joins her, looking in as well for a moment, before looking over at her. “This is a terrible idea.” Auston says flatly.

“You were on board with it!” Aubrey hisses, trying to keep a smile on her face.

“That was before I realized you guys were sleeping together. Now it’s going to backfire and go to shit.”

Aubrey frowns. “Why?”

“Why?” Auston repeats, like he can’t even help himself. “Oh my god, you don’t even-” He stops abruptly.

“Don’t even what?” She prompts, when it’s clear he’s not going to continue.

But he doesn’t continue. He just rubs his temples for a minute and mutters under his breath. “Fuck me, how do I have to be the smart one here?”

“Hey!” Aubrey protests, offended. “I am always the smart one.”

“Not right now.” He says cryptically. “And it’s hard to tell who’s being dumber: you or Willy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Aubrey frowns, but Auston’s already walking away. “Auston!” He ignores her. “Auston!”

“Hey.” Will’s reaching for her arm gently. “What’s wrong?”

Auston’s out of sight now anyway. “Nothing.” She shakes her head, clearing her thoughts and then looks up at him. “Next room?”

-----

“What are you doing Friday?” Aubrey looks up from scrolling through her family’s group chat; Will’s peering at her from across the island.

“Nothing.” She says, after thinking about it for a minute. “What’s up?”

“We play my brother on Saturday.” He says and the shoe doesn’t drop until he adds, “So my parents and sisters are coming in for a bit. Watch the game. Do early Christmas. Hang out a bit.”

“Oh.” She bites her lip. It shouldn’t-it shouldn't be weird. He survived a whole weekend with her sisters, he’s met her entire family; they’ve gone out a few times with varying numbers of her brothers since then. It just...feels weird now.

Will eyes her carefully for a second but continues. “They come in early Friday morning and I made dinner reservations for that night, if you want to come with us.”

He says it super casually, the way he is about pretty much everything, but she knows him well enough now. There’s a little hopeful tone at the end of it, almost like a question even though it’s not phrased as one. “Yeah.” She says, and even though she’s already nervous about this dinner that’s literally days away, it’s worth it to see the smile grow across his face. “I’d love to come with you guys.”

“They’ll be excited.” Will says, which really undersells just how excited his sisters actually are when they do roll into town later in the week.

Daniella throws herself at Aubrey the second she walks in the door, chattering excitedly about meeting her, and spending the weekend together, and dinner that night, all before Aubrey can even put her purse down. She doesn’t know what her face is doing but whatever it is is bad enough that Will says something to his sister in Swedish and follows it up with a glare when she giggles something back to him.

It works though; Daniella detaches herself, but she does stay close, almost bouncing along next to Aubrey as she steps further inside. “Come on.” Will nods toward the kitchen. “My parents are in here.”

Fuck, his parents. She takes a deep breath. “Cool.”

He grins. The panic must definitely be showing on her face, but his sister just keeps talking through it- Aubrey can relate- or Daniella just doesn’t notice it in her excitement. But Will does, still grinning at her, and she brushes against him purposefully with her shoulder as she goes to follow Daniella, only for him to grab her hand as she passes.

“You don’t have to be nervous.” He squeezes her hand and the only thing that stops her from frowning is his sister. It’s kind of a harsh reminder of the circumstances that she is meeting his family under, the details behind what’s happening here, and that someday-probably soon even- they’ll go back to...well, she hopes that they’ll at least still be friends.

Even if they stop hooking up.

Danielle goes right up to Stephanie in the kitchen, the two of them whispering to each other in a way that immediately reminds Aub of Kaylee and Cam, enough that she has to fight back a laugh. But it’s Will’s parents that really draw her attention. Michael and Camilla are exactly how she’d pictured from every story Will’s ever told her, full attention on her as soon as she and Will enter the kitchen.

“This is Aubrey.” Will introduces.

“Hi!” She smiles, hoping it’s bright and warm enough to hide her nerves.

And it works- or more likely, Will’s parents are as perceptive as he is- because they jump right into chatting easily with her.

She loves them immediately.

They’re warm and friendly, like they’re welcoming her, even though they’re the ones who spent hours on a plane recently. Will’s mom- Camilla, she insists- draws her into a conversation about her family right away- “William told me you have many siblings as well.” “Mum!” “Mum, they’re the best!”- which keeps them going for a while until Michael reminds them they have a reservation to keep.

“You can keep talking at the restaurant.” He teases Camilla, who’s glaring at him. “Some of us are hungry!”

She rolls her eyes at him- a look that is so similar to one Aubrey’s seen Will make a thousand times- but it serves to get all of them moving. They do keep talking at the restaurant, Camilla shoving her own son out of the way to pull Aubrey in the seat next to her, and Daniella sliding in the seat on her other side before Will can grab it, only for him to mutter something to her in Swedish, sending her quickly sliding over to the next one.

Dinner seems to fly by but it’s actually a few hours later that they’re returning home, pulling out a bottle of wine for a night cap. Aubrey’s just about preparing to go home to her own place before Will’s mom stands up and kisses the top of her head, right in line with all her own kids, promising to see her in the morning, and then the night wraps up and Will’s pulling her into his room, like it’s any normal night.

“Are you-” She trails off abruptly as Will walks right to the closet, like no strange thing. But, what did she even want to ask? Are you sure you want me to stay? It’s not going to be weird if I do?

“What’s up?” Will pops his head out of the closet.

“Nothing.” Aubrey shakes her head, moving to brush her teeth. She’s not even sure she knows where that question was going; she can’t explain why tonight feels weirder than any other night that she’s climbed into his bed before.

It does though, and that’s made even more evident by the way she tosses and turns once they climb into bed and turn the lights off, settling in on what’s become her side of the bed, right after she brushes her teeth and runs through her nightly skin routine.

It feels like it shouldn’t be so hard to sleep- it’s been a long day, following a long week, preparing for Will’s family to arrive, but she can’t seem to get comfortable and her thoughts are racing.

She rolls over again, facing Will this time, only to find him looking at her with amusement. “You okay?”

“Can’t sleep.” She admit, biting her lip

Will grins, pulling her close. “I can fix that.”

“I’m not having sex with you while you’re parents are here!” Aubrey hisses.

“No?” Her breath hitches as his fingers dance lower down her stomach and then-

“Will!” She laughs, as he gently pinches a ticklish spot.

“Shh!” He’s grinning, she hates him so much. “My parents are-”

“Don’t say it.” She says, surging up to kiss him so he can’t finish that sentence. God, she hopes his walls are thick.

-----

“Stop.” Aubrey hears Will right outside the door. “Go away.”

She can hear one of his sister’s respond, but the actual words get lost in the chaos of her own sisters’ FaceTime, which she’s wrapping up as she lies in bed. It’s loud enough outside that she knows Will’s family is awake already, bright enough that she probably should get up, but she’s too comfortable to make herself move.

“Daniella!” She hears, followed by something in Swedish just as the door opens and a blonde head pokes in.

“See! She is awake!” And that’s all the warning she gets before Daniella is jumping up right next to her.

“Daniella!” Will snaps again, but Aubrey’s already sliding over to make room for her.

“She’s fine.” She assures him, wrapping her arm around Daniella’s shoulders as she cuddles in close.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Daniella says to her brother, not bothering to pull herself away from Aubrey’s iPhone screen, where she’d barely wasted a minute before jumping into chatting with Kayls and Cam.

Will’s leaning against the dresser and shaking his head in amusement, watching as Aubrey manages to finish up her call (a task much harder with Daniella in her ear, calling just as much nonsense back as her sisters do), but there’s a soft smile on his face that Aubrey almost can’t bring herself to look at, so she starts twirling her hand through the ends of Daniella’s hair.

“I can’t believe you two.” Daniella huffs, and she’s so much like Will, just loving her hair played with; Aubrey tries to hide her grin because she knows he’d fight her on it if she had to say it out loud right now. “Not even inviting your sisters here for the weekend.”

“Why would we invite ourselves into that kind of roast?” Will says dryly. “The two of you are bad enough.”

“Like you’re not going to talk about us anyway,” Aubrey adds. “I’ve seen the receipts.” She teases. “I know you talk about us on instagram.”

“You talk about us on instagram?” Will demands immediately.

“No.” Daniella says, unconvincingly.

“They talk with my sisters every day.” Aubrey whispers to him and laughs when he turns his outraged face toward his sister, who avoids his gaze completely.

“Seriously?” Will cries.

Daniella shrugs. “We have a lot to say.”

“I’ll give you a lot to say.” Will says, mock-threateningly, before throwing himself on the bed on her other side and poking his finger in her side until she’s laughing so hard that she’s begging for him to stop. He does, after one last poke, which Daniella returns with a pout. “Go get dressed.” Will nudges her. “Or Aubrey’s going to go to brunch without you.”

“Aubrey wouldn’t do that.” Daniella says confidently, standing to leave. “She’s nicer than you.”

Will barks out a laugh. “Is she?”

Both Nylanders turn to look at her, just as she’s swinging her legs out of bed and Aubrey shrugs. “I wouldn’t leave your sister behind.” She says, grinning when Will laughs and Daniella’s got her phone out of her pocket before she even leaves the room.

-----

Will and Alex are close. Aubrey knows this. She knows they talk pretty much everyday whether it’s texting, Facetiming, or even actual phone calls. They’re brothers, sure, but more than that; they’re best friends.

And maybe that’s why it’s hard not to shrink under Alex’s gaze the second they meet. It’s not that he’s not friendly when Will introduces them, returning the smile she gives him.

It’s just that his gaze feels piercing in a way that none of the rest of his family did. It feels like Alex sees through all of her but more than that; he’s studying all of her and doesn’t like what he sees.

God, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do if Alex doesn’t like her.

She tries to be bubbly and bright, more listening than contributing to this conversation that’s mostly just brothers catching up. She knows that dinner later, and at their early Christmas celebration tomorrow, will really be when she gets to make her big impression on him.

“Willy!” John Tavares calls, looking apologetic about the interruption.

“Be right back.” Willy pats her arm gently before jogging down the hall and now Alex’s full attention is on her. Now she can’t help but shift her weight from foot to foot, even as Alex smiles at her. “So, Aubrey, huh?”

She fights back the urge to bite her lip. “Yup.”

“It’s exciting to finally meet you.” He grins and Aubrey’s jaw drops a little. “Will talks about you all the time.”

“He-he does?” She asks quietly. It’s about the most unexpected thing Alex could have said to her.

Alex bursts into laughter. “Uh yeah.” He says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but before she can press anything further, Will’s back, slinging his arm around her shoulders and squeezing her into his side tightly.

“Ready for second dinner?” Will presses a kiss to her temple.

“Always.” Aubrey leans into him, ignoring the knowing look that Alex is sporting currently and the feeling in her stomach that doesn’t quite feel like butterflies.

-----

Aubrey tries to give it a few days after the Nylander’s leave town, hoping the feeling in her stomach will calm itself, but when it’s been a week and it hasn’t settled, she’s forced to admit that she’s going to need outside help.

Can you let me in? She sends, when she’s sure she’s outside the right door.

Open. Come in.

She frowns at the response, opening the door. “I don’t love that!” She calls as she walks deeper in the condo. “You should really-” She stops abruptly, as a blonde whips her head around to glare at her and Auston stares at her wide-eyed. “Oh!”

“Oh?” The blonde repeats, kind of mockingly, but also seething, and Aubrey doesn’t really know what to do, so she looks over at Auston, who’s pointedly avoiding both of their eyes. “Unbelievable.” She shakes her head, shoving past Aubrey and only when the front door slams does she hear Auston breathe.

“What the fuck?” She asks him immediately, “You could have just said no, it wasn’t a good time to come over!”

“I wanted her to leave!” He protests. “I tried everything! She even volunteered to come take Felix on a walk with me!”

Aubrey cackles, barely managing to compose herself at Auston’s glare. “Well, go and get his leash. We can walk and talk.”

She gets quickly distracted by Felix’s excitement for a walk, snapping like twenty pictures on her phone, before Auston finally prods her about the reason she even wanted to meet today. “So what’s up?”

She takes a deep breath. “Am I in love with Will?”

“Are you in love with...are you fucking kidding me?” Auston responds immediately, looking at her like he had that day they were at Sick Kids- like she’s completely missing something that everyone else knows.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes.” She says reasonably.

“Oh my fucking god.” He says, sounding distressed. “Don’t you have, like, a therapist for this shit? How did I get drafted for this?”

“I mean, yes, I do, but I haven’t gone into the details of it with Dr. Seth before this and I don’t think an hour would cover it.” She says; she’s thought about that already. Auston rubs his temples. “Stop that.” Aubrey chides. “Your hairline is bad enough.”

“Well you’re not helping!” Auston cries. “Jesus Christ, am I in love with Willy? Where the fuck have you been?”

“Egypt, I guess.” She says and he stares at her flatly until she explains. “Denial?”

“Fuck off, I hate you so much. Oh my god.” He groans. “Willy would have laughed so hard at that, fuck you.”

The worst thing is that she knows he would have. He’d have laughed and laughed and laughed, his eyes crinkling and his smile bright and warm, so loud that she couldn’t help but join in.

“Holy shit.” Auston says quietly, watching the smile on her face. “You’re really in deep.”

“Ugh, yes.” Aubrey groans, covering her face. “I hate it. I hate these feelings. I hate not knowing. I hate-”

Auston cuts her off, choking out a laugh. “Not knowing? Not knowing what?” And then he chokes again, once he looks over at her. “Not knowing if Will-” He stops abruptly looking like he’s got a secret that he shouldn’t be telling. “Come on, you aren’t this dumb.”

“You’re being serious?” She says quietly, looking over at Auston hopefully.

He avoids her eyes, bending down for a minute to pet his dog, but Felix absolutely betrays him by trying to run towards a new smell on a nearby bush, giving him absolutely nothing to look at instead of her. “I mean, come on.” Auston gives her a look. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Did he say it?”

“No.” Auston shakes his head, tugging gently on Felix’s leash to turn around. “But Aub, really? He brought you to meet his whole family.”

“He met mine too.” She reminds him. “And so did you!”

Auston shakes his head. “You...you just don’t see how he looks at you.”

Aubrey bites her lip, but she can’t resist asking. “How does he look at me?”

Auston doesn’t even have to think before he responds. “Like the rest of us aren’t even in the room.”

“Oh.” She says quietly, looking down at the ground. Felix is just trotting away happily, like Aubrey’s entire world hasn’t been flipped on its axis.

Auston, at least, seems to recognize the effect of what he’s said. “Look, even if you’re not ready to talk with him, just, like, look at the guy. You’re not in this alone.”

She’s definitely not ready to say anything, but, well, she could give that a try. Just try and see what Auston sees.What everyone sees apparently. “Alright.” She agrees.

“I won’t say anything.” Auston adds. “You two can figure this mess out on your own.”

“You’re the best.” Aubrey declares, leaning up to kiss his cheek.

“I know.” Auston smirks, pulling Felix’s leash out from under her feet.

“Jerk.” Aubrey laughs, shoving his shoulder gently. “If you didn’t have the second best dog in the world right here, I’d push you harder.” She crouches down to scratch Felix’s ears, only for Auston to pull him out of her reach.

“Second best?” He cries, outraged. “Nuh-uh. You don’t get to pet my dog after that kind of disrespect.”

“I just ranked your dog above Zeus!” She protests. “But Pablo’s my boy.”

Auston releases his hold on the leash a little and Felix trots over toward her arms as he teases, “I thought we just agreed Willy was your boy.”

“Yeah, well,” Aubrey scratches behind Felix’s ears, smiling as his tongue lolls out. “Man’s best friend.”

-----

Will’s acting funny when Aubrey sees him the next day.

She only catches him for a few minutes before the game, when they briefly cross paths at his place when she goes to pick up a jacket she left there, and she doesn’t know how to explain it, but something just seems...off.

It’s like...he barely looks at her when she’s in there digging around what’s become her side of the bed and then he brushes past her, muttering something about how he needs to go and for her to just lock up whenever she’s done, which would be fine, except he usually waits for her if she’s around when he leaves so they can walk out together.

Something’s just off.

“Are you sure you didn’t fight about anything?” Steph frowns at her, later that night. “Even like a small, stupid thing that maybe you brushed off? Because you do that.”

“No!” Aubrey swears. “At first I thought he was just annoyed about the book, because the book I’m reading right now takes place in Sweden, so like every few pages I ask him if it’s real? Or what it’s like?”

“God, you must be the most annoying girlfriend.” Steph giggles.

“Don’t even, I know everything about you and Mitch.” Aubrey pokes her and Steph giggles again, admitting defeat. “But no! He wouldn’t even look at me! Something’s up!”

Steph purses her lips. “That is weird.” She admits. “It’s very...not Will.”

“No!” Aubrey cries. “Will doesn’t sit and let things stew! He doesn’t care enough about what people think about him for that.”

“So why is he acting like this then?” Steph asks and Aubrey blows out a frustrated breath.

“I don’t know!” She says. “And I just want him to tell me what’s going on.”

The rest of the game is fairly uneventful for the two of them, slipping quietly out of their seats after the win and chatting between themselves and a few other friends as they all wait. One by one, the boys all make their way out of the locker room, and Aubrey frowns as even Auston and John walk out, stopping briefly to chat with her, before even they go, until finally, finally, Will steps out, his face flickering when he sees her.

“Hi?” She says, a little annoyed.

“Hi.” Will says, like nothing’s just happened, like he didn’t just do a double take of the worst kind at her mere presence.

“What’s wrong?” She frowns, reaching out for him and gently sliding her hand on his forearm.

“Nothing.” There’s no other word for it; Will flinches.

“Will.” Aubrey breathes as he shrugs off her arm.

“It’s nothing.” He repeats. “I’m just tired.” Which is so clearly a lie and she frowns, ready to call him out, but he reaches for her hand and says, “Let’s go eat,” with such finality that she doesn’t really know how she’d bring it up.

All she knows is that his hand feels cold in a way it never has before and the silence they sit in at dinner is like nothing she’s ever felt with him, even before they started sleeping together.

-----

“Merry Christmas!” Cam throws open the front door dramatically before Aubrey, Will, Steph, and Mitch have barely even shut their car doors. “Come on, you’re late!”

“Oh boy.” Aubrey mutters and she hears Steph and Mitch laugh.

Will, however, is as quiet as he’s been all drive up to her parents for their annual Christmas Eve party- as quiet as he’s been all week, as he’s been since whatever happened- and it makes her wonder why he even came. She’d told him he didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to; he’d just given her this tiny smile and asked her what time they had to pick up Mitch and Steph.

“How are we late?” Steph asks, as all four of them start yanking off coats and scarves the second they walk in the door. “None of the neighbors are even here yet!”

Cam huffs at that bit of logic and turns on her heel, walking away from them as they laugh, which cues Aubrey’s brothers into their arrival. Tye and Danny poke their heads around the corner of the wall, calling for Mitch immediately to show them how to do something on a new video game, but right away they’re thwarted by their mom. “Later.” Mitch whispers to them, as Tye and Danny grin, following the four of them into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, they find Aubrey and Steph’s moms working in tandem- the way they always have on Christmas Eve- to finish the appetizers and set food out. They stop only briefly to greet their daughters and their daughters’ boyfriends, and to direct them on where to put the desserts they brought, before they’re shooing them all right back out.

“Dads in the basement?” Steph asks, like they all don’t know the answer already, and Danny nods, leading the way down the stairs, where Fitz and Ryan have already started a beer pong game against Mike and Tom.

“Shotty next.” Mitch calls, while he waits for Aubrey and Steph to say hi to their dads.

“You gonna be able to walk back next door?” Fitz snorts out a laugh.

“That was one time!” Mitch protests. “Nobody warned me how much drinking there was on Christmas Eve!”

“It’s like we hadn’t spent the last four months together before that.” Aubrey deadpans, focusing more on watching Will greet her stepdad with the same enthusiasm as he had her mom, and her brothers, and Cam.

But then, he comes back to her side, and when she goes to tangle their fingers together, his hand stays limp, just kind of letting her do what she wants, not returning the gesture at all, instead of pulling her closer like he used to.

“Guess I thought you two were the anomaly.” Mitch teases. “Then I learned I’d have to bring my A game all the time.”

“Yeah buddy.” Tom says, looking over at his daughter’s boyfriend right after he sinks Fitz and Ryan’s last cup. “Who’s with you?”

-----

By the time Mitch and Will get demolished in beer pong, Aubrey and Steph are fighting back a laugh at their dads’ light buzz already going and the neighbors have started to arrive, which brings a temporary pause to pong play for more introductions.

The neighbors all love Will, which, of course they do. Aubrey’s not surprised at all. He’s funny and charming and personable, just has this air that draws people in, and every one of her mom’s friends finds her at some point after they meet Will to gush about how wonderful he is.

“Yeah.” Aubrey says, almost helplessly to Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Morris, as she watches Will with Kayls and Cam across the room. “He’s pretty great.” They smile knowingly at her, Mrs. Jones winking as she passes, leaving Aubrey to watch them with a fond smile on her face.

It’s Will who notices her staring first, because of course it is. Kayls and Cam are oblivious to everything around them. He catches her eye, still laughing about whatever they’re talking about, and there’s a second where his smile grows when he sees her, a second Aubrey feels a grin growing across her own face.

And then it all stops abruptly as something flashes over Will’s face, and as quick as the grin was there, it’s gone.

Aubrey frowns and watches as Will returns to talking with Kayls and Cam again, but notices the smile on his face seems forced now. She wants...well, she doesn’t know exactly what she wants, but she’s tired of not knowing what’s going on with him.

“Hey.” Fitz nudges her shoulder. “It’s too early for you to be sad about going to your dad’s tomorrow. Come take a shot with me.”

“I-” It’s not that. She starts to say, but stops herself. Today’s not the day to try and tease out whatever’s going on with Will. Whatever it is could wait until after Christmas. “Yeah, sure.”

Fitz grins, leading her over to the makeshift bar, corralling a few friends as they go, but by the time he starts pouring, the crowd around them has gotten bigger. Will’s standing next to her, but the space he’s left between them feels so purposeful, and it only makes Aubrey frown as she listens to Fitz’s Christmas toast, as he cheers to a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, to good friends and great family. “And a way too cool future brother-in-law.” He jokes. “Don’t fuck this up, Aub!”

“Yo!” Mitch protests loudly as Aubrey feels the breath get stuck in her chest.

She can’t even look at Will, so tense she can hardly bring her shot glass up to her mouth. The alcohol barely even burns and she knows it’s not because she’s too drunk to taste it; the numbness of her brother’s comment still stinging, and it’s well after she’s deposited her shot glass on the counter that she realizes, “Where’s Will?”

Mitch frowns, looking behind them. “He was right here, wasn’t he?”

Aubrey nods slowly, trying to stand on her toes and search for him. “Can you just-” She starts.

Steph’s right on her wavelength. “You look up here; we’ll check downstairs.”

Will is nowhere to be found on the main floor, so she heads upstairs and finally finds him in the room they’d thrown their bags in earlier. “Hey.” She breathes out a sigh of relief. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” Will says quietly. He’s in front of the taller dresser, looking at the bulletin board covered in pictures from high school and college- one of the few relics left in the room from when it was hers before her mom refashioned it into a guest room.

“I’m sorry about Fitz!” She blurts. “He didn’t mean any-”

“We should be wrapping up soon, right?” Will says abruptly, interrupting her.

“What?” Aubrey frowns, shocked. That is...not at all what she thought he’d say.

“This?” He gestures between the two of them. “Like, Mitch and Steph definitely think we're a thing. Can call this off soon?”

“Um.” Aubrey tries to breathe but something’s definitely restricting that ability. “We…what?”

“We can stop this pretending.” Will says, like it’s obvious, and Aubrey feels her stomach drop. This...this was all pretend to him. “Do that break up that’s going to crush them. The whole reason we did this.”

“Right.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “Uh yeah, we can do that.”

Will shrugs. “Cool.” He says, and then turns and walks away, leaving Aubrey standing there wondering where exactly she went wrong.

-----

“Ok.” Steph snaps her fingers and only then does Aubrey look up from the Leafs vs. Calgary game that her best friend invited her over to watch that she’s paying absolutely no attention to- and hasn’t actually been able to focus on all night. Her best friend is standing in front of her, holding a new bottle of wine, and looking concerned. “I’ve asked for your glass like four times now. What’s going on?”

Aubrey bites her lip and holds her glass out. If she’s going to do this, they’re both going to need refills. “I have to tell you something.”

Steph frowns immediately but fills Aubrey’s glass and then her own. “Uhh, ok? What’s up.”

Aubrey doesn’t know whether she needs a deep breath or a sip of wine to settle her nerves. She goes for both. “Will and I aren’t together.”

And maybe...maybe that was the wrong way to phrase it, because Steph’s face just falls. “I’m so sorry, babe.” She says, reaching out and rubbing Aubrey’s arm. “I really thought-” She shakes her head and Aubrey’s still trying to figure out what she said wrong, what she can say to make her see what she really means. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Aubrey says and Steph looks like she wants to reach for the wine bottle and pull her in for a hug at the same time, until she continues. “No, I mean; Will and I aren’t together now because we were never really together at all and no, I’m not okay either, actually, now that you mention it.”

Now Steph frowns uncertainly, like she doesn’t know what to say. And that look? The one on her face right there? If it didn’t feel like her heart was already breaking, she’d be cherishing that look.

Now she can’t even enjoy it.

“You’re going to have to explain this one to me.” Steph says, her voice carefully neutrally.

So Aubrey does- beginning with the night that Mitch and Steph had had them over and her and Will’s plan to get them to stop nagging, to when they’d started sleeping together, to how it felt like they were together for real and on the same page, right up until they weren’t.

“I wanna be so mad at you right now.” Steph says, after a long silence.

“You should be.” Aubrey admits. “I would be.

“Well, you’re making it really hard looking so sad.” Steph glares. “And being so dumb.” Aubrey’s jaw drops, even if the callout is probably well deserved. “Will looks at you like you are the center of the universe. He looks like his entire day has gotten better every time you walk into the room. For God’s sake, he willingly met your dad on Christmas last week! You cannot honestly tell me you think he doesn’t really want to be with you!”

“He told me he wanted to stop!” Aubrey cries. “He was the one who said we should do the breakup!”

“Well if you don’t want to, then tell him!” Steph dares.

“Stephanie.” Aubrey frowns.

“What?”

“I can’t do that!” Aubrey hisses.

“Why not?” Steph pours another glass of wine for herself and then passes the bottle over. Aubrey accepts eagerly. “Did Will tell you why he wanted to stop this...dating thing?”

“...no.” Aubrey sighs. It’s another thing that’s been driving her crazy.

“So ask him.” Steph says plainly. “And tell him you don’t want to stop.”

Aubrey bites her lip nervously. “But what if he says no?”

“Honestly the worst thing that happens here is that you still break up.” Steph says gently. “But this really just sounds like a matter of you two actually needing to talk about where you stand. Will’s not a mind-reader, Aub; he can’t have known you didn’t want to stop things, especially if this was all your idea in the first place.”

Ugh, she’s right. “I hate everything about this.” Aubrey sing-songs. “Including the fact that you even introduced us.”

Now Steph grins. “You do not hate that we introduced you. You just hate feeling vulnerable.”

That’s too accurate to address, so Aubrey flips her off and reaches for the wine again.

-----

Will picks her up for the Leafs annual New Year’s Eve party and it’s unfair because no one should look that good dressed in black pants and a sweater, but there’s Will waiting by the car with a beanie on his head and a pea coat left open, for maximal torture is the only reason Aubrey can think of.

“Hi.” She breathes, running across the street to him as best she can in her heels.

It takes him a second to respond. “Hi.” He says finally, opening the door for her. “You uh, planning on blinding us all tonight?” He teases, once he slides into the backseat of the uber with her.

Aubrey giggles at the lame joke as she looks down at her glittery skirt. It’s such a lame joke but she’s just so relieved he even made it. That they still have dumb things to laugh over. “Hmm, over-under on how many of us are wearing something sparkly tonight. 10?”

“Over.” Will answers immediately and she giggles again.

The ride doesn’t take long so it’s only a few minutes before they’re pulling up to the club, where they run into Travis Dermott and his girlfriend exiting their uber at the same time. “Nine more.” Will whispers in her ear, as Kat turns to greet them, and they both catch sight of a sparkly tank under her jacket.

“Hush.” Aubrey bites back a laugh, but only barely, before she pulls Kat in for a hug. Inside is about as loud as she’d expected but once they all step upstairs into the VIP section roped off for them, it’s easier to hear, easier to think, and easier to breathe.

Or at least, it is for a moment. She can feel Will’s eyes on her from across the room, where he’s at the bar ordering drinks for the two of them, and she and Kat have gone to say hi to more people.

“So, uh.” Steph says, in lieu of hello. “I don’t think Will’s being weird anymore.”

When Aubrey turns and follows Steph’s eyes, Will’s still looking at her, unashamed in his gaze or getting caught. He winks back at her, grinning when she smiles at him. “No.” She says slowly. “I guess not.” Steph just grins at that, kind of smugly, and Aubrey huffs at that, turning away to greet Morgan and Tessa behind her.

It’s not long before Will returns with drinks, still grinning as he pulls her immediately to the dance floor. He pulls out some of his most ridiculous moves and Aubrey laughs, harder and harder the more she drinks, and then finally falling against him after he and Mitch attempt the Toosie Slide together.

“Why are you laughing?” Will demands, wrapping an arm around her waist and taking her hand, leading her into some weird kind of slow dance, even as the song changes into something by The Chainsmokers.

“I just like seeing you like this.” She grins.

His brow furrows. “Like what?”

“Just-” She doesn’t know how to explain it. How open he is right now, how loose and easy and warm he looks because he’s just able to be himself, and how happy she feels to be with him, especially when he’s like this. “Just happy, I guess.”

Will grins again and presses a loud kiss to her temple, that she barely has time to giggle at, because he says, “Always happy to be with you,” like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

And Aubrey gasps in shock, but she doesn’t think Will even notices, because he’s dipping her back over his arm right after that and then she’s too busy laughing again.

-----

Steph flops down on the remaining couch seat and ignores the look that Auston sends her in favor of fanning herself with her hand. “Sure.” He says dryly. “I’ll move over a little.”

“Would you? Thanks.” She snickers and he shakes his head fondly at her.

“How about you?” He looks over at Aubrey. “Gonna squish me in the corner even more?”

Aubrey’s already settled herself on his other side, on the edge of the couch. “Nah, I’m good here.” She bumps her shoulder against his.

“Is it even possible to squish you in the corner?” Steph muses.

“Why are you squished in the corner?” Aubrey asks, confused. “What, you couldn’t find a date for New Year’s?”

“I make it a point to not bring dates to holiday parties.” Auston says and Aubrey’s jaw drops.

Steph’s snickering into her palm though, so it’s clear this particular brand of assholery isn’t unfamiliar. “Holidays and events.” She cackles. “Keep those expectations low.”

“Although now that I know that all it takes to make a girl leave is to just have you walk in my house the next morning…” Auston trails off thoughtfully.

Aubrey shoves at his head, ruffling his hair on purpose, but she can’t help but laugh along with him. “Don’t you fucking dare. I’ve got better things to do than that.”

“Like what?” Steph says, too innocently to be real. “Will?”

“I’m leaving.” Aubrey stands, as Steph and Auston both laugh. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Is noon good tomorrow?” She hears Auston call after her, while Steph cackles next to him. “How about 12:30?” She flips him off over her shoulder, without looking back, instead pushing her way around Fred and his new girl, to find Will where she’d left him at the bar with Mitch.

But at the bar, she finds only Mitch, who’s looking a little confused. “Where’s Will?” She asks.

“Um.” Is all Mitch says and Aubrey frowns immediately.

“Mitch, what happened?” Aubrey says flatly and Mitch caves right away.

“I don’t know!” He says. “We were just ordering drinks, watching you guys, everything seemed fine, and next thing I know, he was walking away!”

“Well where did he go?” She asks impatiently, barely waiting for Mitch to point before she’s shoving her way through the crowd.

It feels like she circles the entire building before she finally finds Will, and it’s more like she happens to run into him than she actually finds him, which just annoys her even more, enough that she grabs his hand and pulls him outside to a spot far enough away that it’s quiet enough to talk.

It’s not quiet- it’s still New Year’s Eve and there’s people all around them going up and down the street- but it’s far enough from the door that they can’t feel the music anymore, at least.

Will’s staring at their hands, still linked, but he’s not saying anything, and even though she’s the one who dragged them out into the cold, he’s the one who started acting weird in the first place, and she feels her annoyance grow. “I thought we were having a really good time tonight?”

Will sighs. “We were.” He pauses. “I was, at least.”

“Ok, I was too.” Aubrey says slowly. “So, what happened?”

Will sighs again. “Look, it’s fine, like this was never supposed to be a thing with us, yeah? I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me. I’ll get over it.”

She’s so confused. “Get over what? Why are you mad?”

“I saw you,” Will says. “Coming out of Auston’s one morning. I was driving past, after practice on my way home.” He shrugs, almost casually, but she can see in his face how hurt he is. “And like, we were never supposed to be a thing.” He repeats and she frowns. Why does he keep saying that? “So I’m not mad at you and I can’t even be mad at him. But I saw you and Matts together and I knew I liked you more than you liked me.” He shrugs again, trying to play off his words as light as casual, but Aubrey’s trying to put the pieces together of what he said. “I know you’d rather be here with him tonight, but that’s why I can’t do this anymore.”

“Oh my god.” She breathes. “You’re so dumb.”

“Hey!” Will protests.

“We’re so dumb.” She corrects, because, really, it’s the truth. “I was at Auston’s that day because he was the only one who knew about us at the time and I needed to talk to someone about if I’m in love with you!”

Will doesn’t move for a second, the longest second of Aubrey’s entire life. “Where, uh, where’d you land on that one?” He asks, like he’s kind of nervous for the answer.

And Aubrey can relate; there are butterflies in her stomach, even though she’s positive she knows how this is going to end now. “Pretty strongly in favor for.” She says and Will beams, that bright smile that lights up his entire face. “I didn’t get to tell you earlier, but I’m always happy to be with you, too.”

“That’s good.” Will says mildly, and Aubrey grins, waiting for the rest. “Because I really love seeing you smile like that.”

Her jaw drops a little. She’s not upset about what he said at all; it’s just so not what she expected him to say. And in that moment of silence, Will grins down at her once more, before leaning down to kiss her.

-----

It’s late the next morning by the time Aubrey tumbles out of bed, yanking a t-shirt of Will’s over her head. Will’s been up for at least an hour already, and she kisses his cheek as she passes, giggling as he lightly pats her ass in return.

“Coffee’s still warm.” He says.

“I still love you.” She teases. “That’s not changing just because you kept the pot warm.” Will flips her off and returns back to the game he’s playing on his Switch. “Have you seen my phone?”

“Near the front door.”

Most of her stuff is still by the front door, thrown hastily down when they’d come in late last night. Her phone’s still got a little battery left, filled with messages from late last night and earlier this morning, but one in particular catches her eye.

Steph LaChance: i told you so 😉

#william nylander #william nylander fan fic #william nylander fanfiction #william nylander imagine #Hockey Fanfiction #hockey fanfic #nhl fanfiction #nhl fanfic #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #my hockey fics

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cdroloisms · 3 years ago

Note

Do you consider a possibility that c!Punz never betrayed c!Dream in the first place and whole "I'm sorry, Dream -- but you should have paid me more" thing was a facade and undercover for Punz? Like Dream said that Punz should not associated with him, so it was intentional-

staged disc finale theory my beloved !!! :D it’s definitely one of my favorite theories, though i’m still holding out (for now) as for believing super firmly in one direction or another (tho the staged finale is definitely the one i prefer for Many reasons, haha.) c!punz is so so fun no matter if the betrayal was intentional or not, but oh boyyyy if it was something planned ,,, man .

*c!dream voice, after quackity starts visiting*: the risk i took was calculated, but man am i bad at math.

anyway c!punz and c!dream interactions make me soft as heck so have this !!

tw: implied torture, abuse, violence, blood, injuries, emotional distress, panicking, dehumanization, unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy mindsets, illness, trauma, flashbacks, starvation mention, suicide mention, death mentions, dark content, dark imagery, prison arc/pandora’s vault themes, c!quackity critical/dark portrayal of c!quackity

Dream comes to in vague moments and flashes.

There’s a hand brushing over his forehead, too gentle to be Quackity or the Warden, not Techno because Techno is Gone and he has Left and won’t come again, running through the sweat-soaked locks and pulling them back out of his forehead. He’s unbearably hot, shifting around on the ground, only barely registering it moving beneath him. Water, cool and clear, is tipped in between his lips, quenching his thirst and easing the dryness of his mouth. Someone speaks, voice low and rumbling, and even though he’s unable to make out the words, there’s something about the cadence of them and the specific rhythm in which they move and rise and dip that is bone-achingly familiar, enough to lull him into a fitful sleep. Through it all, there is always something, someone, lingering in the edges of his vision, a shadow standing near and watching over him; part of him remembers Quackity, remembers the Warden, and recoils in fright; another part of him remembers Techno, remembers the barest flashes of a life before obsidian and lava and pain and hell, and wants nothing more than to get closer.

When the fog in his head finally clears away enough to think, the first coherent thought he has is oh fuck, I need to piss.

Which, out of all possible things to think, is probably up there as one of the worst, and he’s sure that when his head feels a little less like it’s trying to actively kill him (ha, let it- it’s far from the first to try) the panic will settle in as it always does. As it is, he’s exhausted, and hungry, and he really really needs to pee- so he forces his eyes open to move away from where he’s probably still stuck in a puddle of dried blood in the middle of his cell.

The second coherent thought he has is this: this isn’t Pandora.

The realization has him thoroughly awake, eyes snapping open out of his previous fatigue to take in his surroundings, feet kicking out to the weight on top of them that he hadn’t even noticed was there, panicking against his restraints that end up not being restraints at all, giving way easily under his thrashing and resolving to what appears to be a thick blanket when he has the mind to look. With the covers gone off of whatever he’s lying on (a bed?) he’s suddenly, unbearably cold - the prison has always been hot, the lava baking into him and leaving his skin sticky with sweat, and he thinks that the room he’s in is probably not meant to feel like a fucking freezer, but after months of being one wrong step away from heatstroke, anything cooler than the goddamn Nether feels like literal ice against his skin. The room is wooden and cozy and oddly familiar, an open door leading to what appears to be a bathroom and a closed one going who knows where, window panes built into the opposite wall to let the sunlight in. It’s a nice room, all things considered, and Dream fucking hates it.

He pulls himself to his feet, cursing at the wobbly edge to his stance when he finally manages to stand, his vision wavering dangerously in time to the spinning of his head. His eyes flick between the two doors - he still needs to go to the bathroom, and using it now will lessen the amount of things to get in the way of his escape in the future - but at the same time, there's no knowing when people will come to (hurt him, beat him, starve him, punish him, leaving him bruised and bleeding and half-dead on the floor just as he deserves) him and he needs all the time he can get to get the hell away. In the end, he slinks into the bathroom, ignoring the thudding in his chest as he does so - at the very least, the cabinets in the thing might provide him with some manner of a weapon.

He’s only just past the door on the way out - a fucking broomstick in his hand because it’s all he could find - when his ears catch on the sound of metal clicking against each other and his eyes fall on the knob of the other door shaking as someone makes their way in. All at once, panic slams into him - goddammit, he should’ve just run when he had the chance - and he directs quick, desperate glances at the window. Maybe, if he’s fast enough, he can book it out of there and disappear into the trees; it’ll hurt, but it’ll be better than getting caught. Anything would be better than getting caught-

“Dream?”

Dream blinks. All at once, the same feeling of getting the air punched out of him returns, but combined with something warm and floaty wrapping around his chest, something almost a little like relief - and hell, if that isn’t something he’s not felt for a while.

“Punz?”

Punz is standing in the doorway, hoodie rumpled, expression more than a little frazzled; Dream’s breath hitches at the sight of the sword strapped to his side, but their face holds none of the harsh edges and cold-dark-hard hatred that had characterized the Warden and Quackity’s visits, mouth slightly parted and eyes shining with nothing but what appears to be shock and concern. The sight of them, again, nearly has Dream dizzy, a swell of tangled, unexplainable emotion rising to the back of his throat as he sways on his feet. He hadn’t thought that he would see Punz again, he realizes, had never thought he’d see his stupid gold chain and his stupid outfit he never bothered changing, ever, or that same lopsided smirk and pale blue eyes- the last time he’d seen them, it was in that vault, their mouth twisted up in the act the two of them had decided on and eyes shimmering with unease and regret; as far as goodbyes went, it wasn’t the worst, not when Punz was one of the few to never leave him, not really, not when something ached in their expression other than the hatred that had colored all of the other expressionless faces watching him die. Months later, alone in Pandora, he must’ve grown resigned, or something, the repeated reminders that he would die alone and afraid and it would be nothing more than he deserved settling into his skin and against his bones; Punz’s expression twists, visible even across the room, and- oh.

They must’ve thought the same thing, too.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Punz asks, finally, and Dream decides not to point out the way his voice cracks harshly in the middle, especially when the other man strides forward and starts to awkwardly herd him back in the direction of the bed - covers still thrown to the floor - in the middle of the room. Dream lets them, not replying because he doesn’t really know where to even begin describing the tangled knot of panic and shock that had strung his muscles tense when he woke up in a room he didn’t recognize, not knowing if he can really describe it all at all, trying his best not to flinch at the hands flitting in the corners of his vision as he falls back into a sitting position onto the bed. His fingers settle into the mattress, pressing into the bedsheets cautiously and marveling when they fall away under the pressure. Punz watches him, expression odd, gathers the blankets from the ground and presses them over and around him in a way that’s entirely awkward but does leave him warmer than he’d been before, before walking back on his heels with an odd expression that makes Dream’s insides twist.

“You,” Punz says after a long second, voice wavering, “are a fucking idiot,” and it’s all the warning Dream gets before a white-and-black blur is rushing towards him, arms wrapping around his chest and his vision whites out in alarm and panic. When the pain doesn’t come, he comes back to his senses enough to realize that Punz’s arms are still wrapped around him, shoulders shaking as he holds him close but not painfully, careful not to pull too much against the places on his ribs and back that leave him gasping with small shocks of pain, head pressed against the crook of Dream’s neck and hair tickling his face. Dream can feel his heart hammering in his chest, but as the panic dies something warm and long-neglected stirs in the middle of his chest, and he melts forward with a quiet hum. This is- nice. Really, really nice.

“What were you thinking?” Punz mutters, too quiet to really be directed at him, hands curling tighter into the folds of the hoodie - oh, he’s wearing one of those, not the same stiff, bloodstained material of the prison uniform that had chafed against his skin, another constant source of pain and discomfort of thousands in the hell that had been Pandora’s Vault - on him, and Dream doesn’t really know what to do except sit there and blink dumbly, listening to the heartbeat of the person leaning against him rumbling against his ears. It’s oddly calming, has the pressure on his chest lightening enough to take a full breath, and then another, the warmth of someone leaning against him almost too much but not enough at the same time - his eyes burn, and he ignores them.

“I-” he doesn’t really think that Punz was really asking a question, but just ignoring his question seems rude, too, and even despite the fuzzy warmth settling into his skin and into his bones from the pressure of Punz’s arms around his body and their head against his shoulder, he’s still unable to shake the anxiety of leaving a query unanswered, a constant murmur to listen obey do as you’re told or you’re going to regret it put on a damn good show or suffer the consequences remaining no matter how hard he tries to push it away. He wets his lips when his mouth feels too dry to keep speaking, eyes fluttering closed as he leans forward further, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You-” Punz cuts themselves off with a wet, incredulous-sounding laugh that has Dream jerking back despite himself, meeting their ice-cold eyes when they pull themselves back to look at him. He doesn’t really recognize the expression he wears, Dream realizes with a jolt, the way his lips are pressed together and the churning in his eyes, and his lungs seize in his chest.

“Sir-”

If anything, Punz’s expression only seems to harden, and the warmth disappears as Dream looks into their eyes - cold, two polished shards of ice, frosted over pools of water in the middle of the tundra, flinty and sharp and brilliant blue. His hands shake as he pulls them back to his chest, trembling from the chill that’s made its home in his muscles and frozen them in place - sir sorry sir please don’t hurt me im sorry please I didn’t mean to

“Fuck, Dream,” he shakes his head, and only then does Dream see the slight wobble to their bottom lip, the waver to their words like they’re struggling to keep themselves together, “why didn’t you say anything?”

What?

You almost died, you know,” he keeps going, not meeting his eyes as they direct their gaze out the window, “Several times, honestly. Fucking hell- when Techno brought you out- I didn’t think you would survive. I didn’t think anyone could survive that.”

Dream swallows. He doesn’t remember getting out, doesn’t really remember much at all if he’s being honest; there was the black of the cell, the heat of the lava, Techno promising to get him out before disappearing in a flash of purple, Quackity throwing him against the wall (Where the fuck did Techno go? You better have a fuckin’ answer, pal, if you want your death to be anything resemblin’ quick-) then nothing. Everything. His heart hammering in his chest and blood slick against his skin and the press of metal against his windpipe and pain, the only constant within it all, the only thing that made any goddamn sense when the room seemed to flip and turn and twist and his feelings knotted and frayed between anger-betrayal-distress-sadness-fear-grief, when reality swirled into a dizzying blur of colors and feelings and sounds carving themselves into the inside of his skull- then here. Dream flexes his hand experimentally, marveling at the feeling - the pain is almost gone.

He’d forgotten how it felt, really, to live and not hurt.

“Dream,” Punz calls again, voice low and worried, and Dream can’t help the way his head snaps up to meet their eyes and can’t help the flinch that twists his neck back when their frown deepens. It’d been a show, at least he tells himself, because Quackity would stop earlier if he screamed more, but- his hands tremble at his sides, twisted into the sheets of the bed, a near-constant litany of reminders and rules beating like they have a heart of their own in the back of his head. It was a show- he feels himself almost buckle, give in under the force of the stare leveled at him, and hates himself for how weak he feels, pinned under the eyes trained on his own. He’s not sure how much of a show it is anymore.

“Dream,” Punz repeats, words even softer, and the ugly feeling of shame and anger twists inside Dream’s chest again. Punz- ever unflappable, deadly with almost any weapon and never letting anyone see him as anything but deliberately apathetic - is watching him with an expression so uncharacteristically and unbearably gentle that it makes his breath catch in his throat. “You could’ve died,” he says once again, and the look that paints his face is so terribly vulnerable, feelings pouring over like a cup overfilled, bubbling forward and bleeding from every corner, and Dream- can’t. He doesn’t know what to do in the face of such stark emotion, doesn’t know how how to handle the way his eyes burn and his heart throbs like an exposed nerve, the way everything yawns wide in the middle of his chest into void and emptiness and pain so deeply carved in the space within his ribs that he half-thinks he’s been hollowed out entirely.

“But I didn’t.”

Punz pulls back, but Dream isn’t looking at him, is staring at the scarred surfaces of the backs of his hands and the knobs of his knuckles sticking out against the thinned-out skin and the yellowed nails he’s pushing against the blanket, the fourth and fifth ones of his right hand missing. They shake, no matter how long he looks at them and how hard he tries to make them stay still, and he can feel a voice whispering in the back of his mind, tone too familiar to ignore. Weak.

“I didn’t die,” he says when Punz doesn’t reply, looking at his scarred hands, weak hands, broken hands. “So it’s okay. We can keep- we can keep going.”

“Dream-” their voice is a blade scraping against an anvil, nails scraping over his ribs, his hands clamping over his ears before he’s realized he’s moved and his brain screaming at him for doing so once he realizes that he has, “-what the fuck are you talking about?”

Still, he hadn’t survived months of Quackity’s visits by bending over the second he was pushed, so he forces his tongue to move from where it’s fallen to the bottom of his mouth like lead, feels his eyes go steely even from under the way his vision has already begun to wobble.

“It’s not over yet,” he continues, trying to keep his words even, “‘cause I didn’t die, so we’re not done. I gotta- we have to reevaluate, of course,” he can’t stop, because the second he stops talking is the second he falls apart, so he ignores the way that Punz stiffens and stills and doesn’t let anything stop the flow of words spilling out of his mouth, “because the vault and the prison- um, obviously didn’t go as planned, but it’s fine. Just a minor- um, minor inconvenience. A setback- but it’s not- it’s not unsalvageable- we just have to-”

“Are you kidding me?” Punz cuts him off with a sharp laugh, disbelieving and just on the wrong side of desperate, and the air in Dream’s lungs freezes into a solid block of ice in the middle of his chest, “you- you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Punz?”

Dream’s voice comes out small, himself shrinking back into the bed, keenly aware, suddenly, of how there is nowhere he can go to run - Punz doesn’t seem to notice that he’s spoken at all, one of his hands moving up to tug through his hair, which is - now that Dream is looking - fluffier and messier than he remembers, sticking up in all directions like they didn’t bother to smooth it down.

“You think this is fine? You think that because you didn’t fucking die, that this is all okay?” Punz’s voice rises in volume slowly, not loud enough to be a shout but enough to go hard and unyielding like a threat, and with each word every remnant of the vault comes crawling, clawing back up to the front of his head, a pounding reminder to play his role, put on a show, behave behave behave-

“Goddammit, Dream,” Punz startles him out of his own thoughts, looking straight into his eyes with their ice-blue ones, “have you seen yourself?”

Have you seen yourself? Lying down in your own goddamn filth like a fucking mutt- prime, you disgust me.

“Your ribs were basically shattered. Your legs had fractures on both sides, and your back was so fucking torn up that it looked like more blood than skin. You’ve been starved- enough for me to see every goddamn bone in your body, it feels like. Your throat was bruised to hell- I wasn’t sure if you were gonna be able to speak again, fuck, and like a day after we got here you got fucking pneumonia.” Punz’s breath hitches, “Your skin was a literal fucking oven- I thought you’d bake yourself from the inside out. You could’ve died- you should’ve died.”

You should’ve died a hell of a long time ago, pal- should’ve saved us all the fucking trouble and offed yourself like Wilbur fucking Soot.

He flinches, and this, Punz seems to notice, eyes widening a fraction before they pitch their voce lower, clearly taking a few breaths to calm down and reaching forward to take one of Dream’s hands loosely in his own, thumb smoothing over the bumps of his knuckles.

“You’re not fine,” he says after a long while, shaking his head. “Hell- I’m not fine. But we’re not doing anything like- like the vault or the prison again, dude. I told you they were shit ideas- fuck. We never should’ve done that.”

“It was worth it,” Dream butts in, because he can’t imagine a world where it wasn’t, can’t imagine a world where all of that was for nothing, “it was worth it-”

“No it fucking wasn’t, are you out of your mind?” Punz replies immediately, voice overlapping over Dream’s own, “have you listened to a single thing I’ve said? You- look at you! How was that worth it?”

Dream shakes his head stubbornly, already feeling the way his jaw is trembling around the words he forces himself to speak. “The server- it was all for the server-”

“Fuck the server!”

Punz seems startled by their own shout, drawing back at the same time Dream does, breathing ragged. He takes a few seconds to compose himself, bringing his hand to his face as Dream sits stock still, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe.

“Fuck the fucking server, okay?” Punz says, finally, voice cracking in the middle, “You lost two damn lives for this server. You got fucking tortured for fucking months for this shitstain of a server. Just- fuck them. I’m not watching you tear yourself to fucking shreds for this- not again. I can’t sit around and watch you fucking die again, Dream, I can’t drag you out bleeding out in my fucking arms again- fuck-” Punz shakes their head, and oh. They’re crying.

“No more. Fuck the server. I’m done, Dream- we’re done with them.”

Dream blinks, so thoroughly surprised that he thinks the shock knocked him straight out of the building panic attack, leaving nothing but a slight thrumming of anxiety still simmering beneath his skin. Almost instinctually, in a motion he doesn’t really remember but still has the muscle memory for, he opens his arms- and in a similar, near-unconscious response, Punz tumbles into his arms.

He blinks, not moving his arms to curl around the other, feeling the weight of another person against his again and the sound of their breathing and relearning them both. This is- new, for both of them. Dream was never emotional, not before the prison, not that he wanted to be after it either- but Quackity always had a particular affinity for tearing him apart, shard by shard. And Punz- he’d never been like this, even back in the day, when things were easier and they didn’t bear the constant burden of netherite against their backs. They’d always been stoic, sharp, sarcastic, cool and dry in a way that chafed against Sapnap’s fire and always led to Dream laughing at them sooner or later. He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, feeling the heat behind his eyes finally sear too hot and boil over, tears squeezing through his closed eyes and falling down his face.

“Okay,” he says, finally, and there’s nothing easy about the acquiescence, not when he had poured blood and sweat and the better half of himself into this place, salted the earth with his tears until no more would come and nothing else would grow. He thinks that he will have more to think and more to say and more to protest come the next days, that the binds between him and his goals have been weaved too deep with the fibers of his soul for him to tear them free without sacrificing what broken pieces of himself he has left, but all he can think right now is how fucking tired he is. He remembers Techno’s voice, going through myth after myth to pass time in the prison, and thinks with something like humor and something like grief - let someone else be Atlas for a day. The sky is too heavy right now. Punz’s arms tighten around his body, enough to remind him that they’re there but not enough to press at his still-healing ribs, and he thinks that they might understand. “Okay.”

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pareokey · 3 years ago

Text

flowing maple leaves

pairing: aether x reader

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ reader info: fem!reader

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ set: college au

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ summary: he always sees her around campus and in class, even though they haven't interacted. he knew he had feelings for her. that is until autumn came by.

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ words: 1.2k

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ warning(s): none, just fluff (о´∀`о)

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ notes: this is my first time writing a fanfic, please be nice and wait for me to improve! i had this idea for a few days already but now i finally decided to take a big L and write a fanfic (´；ω；`)

★ masterlist ★

it was during the summer when everything changed.

aether was walking through the campus hall, doing nothing except listening to music on his earphones. class starts in 30 minutes, so he had a few minutes to spare. nearly every student was in the hallway but then...

one blob of (H/C) caught his eyes. stopping in his track, he put his focus on the blob. it was getting clearer by the seconds, that is when he realized that it was one of his homeroom classmates, (Y/N). she walk passed him, talking to her friends.

aether's eyes followed her, he had been fancied by her since the first day of the semester.

classes started 20 minutes ago. sitting at one of the back rows, he was already dreading for this class to end. suddenly the door was slam opened, in came a girl trying to catch her breath.

" s-sorry for being late! " she said, " i may or may not have woken up late and got distracted by a pet store on the way here, haha... "

" ah, ms. (L/N) is it? " the professor smiled, " do not worry, please find a seat and sit down. " nodding rapidly, she went and sat down three rows before him.

as the class resumed, aether can't help but kept his eyes on the girl, already making conversations with the person beside her.

it had already been months since that day and he still remember it clear as the sky. now there were falling orange leaves everywhere, it is truly a peaceful day. the (H/C) blob was already gone from his eyesight. sighing, aether decided to return to class.

the day ended, he thought that it would be nice to take a stroll at the park. entering the park, the scenery was calm and refreshing. nearing the big lake until he saw the same blob from this afternoon.

「 (Y/N).. 」 he thought, the said girl is standing a few steps away from him, one hand holding a drink another her phone.

her skirt was flowing with the wind, staring into the distance. with the perfect setting, aether can't help but steal a picture of her. just as he looked up, she was walking away, another quick glance and he saw a ribbon falling out from her bag.

he continued his track and picked up the ribbon. realizing that she could be far away already, he hurried to give it back.

there was a tap on her shoulder, she turned around and was shocked to see the warm blonde-haired boy with a braided ponytail that she had been crushing on ever since she saw him in the hallways.

" ah..haha, hey! " he said, " uhh...you dropped this. "

she took it and quickly said, " oh! thank you, aether.. "

he was surprised that she knew his name but smiled nonetheless.

there was an awkward tension surrounding them, as (Y/N) was trying to think of something to say, aether started " um.. y'know, I know this is the first time we literally ever talked but do you want to hang out someday? " as she was processing his words, (Y/N) stuttered out

" s-sure! yes, yes i would love to! " nodding rapidly, the same motion she did on the first day.

he giggles, " alright, here's my number. talk to you later! "

awed by the sound of his giggles, she only nodded and watched him walk away when he was out of ear-shot. she started squealing and did a little dance.

after their little interaction, both of them quickly became closer than ever. some even thought that they were a couple but they quickly denied it.

today was the day that they decided to hang out at a small and cozy café. walking in the café, arms linked together with smiles on their faces, looking like a perfect, cute couple. but are they really a couple? no, they're not.. not yet

after ordering their food, they went to sit at a table by the window. " so, how are your studies going? " aether started, " uuunghh.. can we not talk about school? let's talk about ourselves instead! " (Y/N) replied.

he laughed, " sure sure, what do you want to know? "

" well.... i noticed that you're always walking back home with your sister, lumine! and.. i was wondering- "

" haha, i thought we were going to talk about ourselves. not about my sister. " he cut her off. " she's related to you! it's the same thing! "

he deadpanned at her. " fine, fine! " she scoffs " if we're going to talk about ourselves then... "

aether titled his head a little bit in question.

founding the little action adorable, she can't help but let a bit of red appear across her cheeks. she coughs " uhh.. do you have anyone that you're crushing on?! " when he heard that question, it was as if his brain stopped working.

"uh.. uhh.. i... i..." aether stuttered, " you..? "

" of course! i-i mean.. maybe? probably? i do like them but i'm not sure if they also reciprocate my feelings.. " he smiled sadly, " oh, oh! well, that person is very lucky to be liked by you! i hope they return your feelings! " she said, a little too quickly.

" i do hope so. what about you though? "

" me! ... right, me. umm, i don't think i like anyone for me but there's.. there's this boy.. " his heart dropped, " he's really cute! and nice, like! like, he's really nice to everyone and i like that about him. when he was walking through the halls with his earphones on too, i really can't get any confidence to talk to him though.. " aether was listening to his crush talking about another boy.

" that's.. he sounds like an amazing guy! " she nodded quickly as to agree with him, " well, i hope you talk to him because he is really a lucky guy to have you. " he smiled. " i will, i will talk to him. thanks, aether! "

" your welcome. "

as they left the café, they both had agreed to walk around the park.

there was a comfortable silence between them, each thinking about their own crush. stopping under a maple tree..

" (Y/N). " he began, " yes, aether? "

the sound of his name rolling out of her mouth made him melt inside.

staring directly in her eyes lovingly, " i really want you to know that, i.. i really like you. do you want to go on.. a date! with me? " the expression she made as she was comprehending his words shouldn't have a lot of effects on him. finally, she started

" you..! me? you like me?! oh my god, i.. yes, yes i do want to go on a date with you! " he smiled sweetly as he watched her blush redden.

wrapping one of his hands around her waist, another resting on her cheek. " can i..? ", she looked up and nodded.

as they kissed under a maple tree.

˚꒰ ෆ◞˚ notes: thanks for reading! i hope you enjoy it jskajdjakda, i reread it multiple times but i still think it sucks :( omg im embarrassed

#aether x reader #aether x you #aether x y/n #aether imagines #aether #genshin impact #genshin impact fluff #genshin fanfic #genshin impact x reader #genshin fluff #genshin x y/n #aether fluff #genshin impact imagines #🍣— pareokey

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slightlymore · 4 years ago

Text

for sure

yuta x fem reader

genre: smut, sprinkle of fluff, sprinkle of angst (? not really, yuta being deep for no reason in one scene, blame his triple scorpio making him emotional)

warnings: +18, esplicit sexual content (teasing, fingering, spanking, oral both, raw, multiple orgasms, cum play, overstimulation, use of a butt plug haha, rough but yuta is kind of a soft dom, brat taming, praising, manhandling), alcohol, swearing, description of yuta’s navel piercing, talks about tattoos and nipple piercings

words: 5.7k

requested: you're a babysitter and the little girl's hot brother is making your life difficult

_____ You woke up in a man's bed that morning.

The ceiling above you was a little spinning when you opened your eyes. His scent was everywhere, engulfing all of your senses.

It was the first thing your brain registered about Yuta as you played with the little girl you were babysitting: like a swoosh of air that almost physically grated at your skin when he entered the house.

Then his voice, loud but warm, announcing that he was home.

The girl's eyes got bright at the sound, and as you were both sitting on the living room floor, she was quick to rise and run towards her brother’s arms. You turned around with a newly bloomed smile and watched, a little out of place.

And then you actually saw him.

Perfect face, perfect teeth, sexy eyes, black ruffled hair, more piercings than you had brain cells.

Red lights screaming at you D A N G E R while your breath went missing.

You just couldn’t look away. And it turned you on so fucking much.

They were both laughing as the young man made the girl fly for a few moments then groaned, saying that he was starving.

Then he also saw you.

"Hi," you blinked fast when you felt his gaze on you, and you got up, walking a few steps and lifting one hand in an awkward greeting.

The man looked at you from head to toe and imperceptibly furrowed his eyebrows.

"Oh, hello," he extended his hand too and you shook it quickly.

"I'm Y/N. I'm taking care of your sister," you explained and he opened his mouth to speak. Perhaps about to say that he wasn’t aware.

"Y/N, look!" the little girl interrupted, grabbing his hand and shoving it into your face. "See? Nailpolish! Like you!"

You smiled and nodded at her. "Yes, it's very pretty,” you admired Yuta’s black nails.

The girl looked elated and proceeded to grab your hand too and shove it into the man's face this time.

"She has red. She told me she'll do red on me too!"

"Ohh!" the other played along and sustained your palm in front of himself. His skin was warm and soft. "You'd also look as beautiful as her with red nails," he then ruffled the girl's hair and whistling he turned around before you could think of what to say to that compliment.

"Right!" his head peeked behind the corridor corner and you relaxed your face in another smile.

"You're going away in half an hour?" he asked.

"Yes. I'm here until 7."

"Okay."

Okay.

You felt yourself be tugged down and you sighed resuming colouring, trying to ignore the little tingle on your hand skin.

_____

It's not like you expected him to say more. You just felt weird to be a little upside down after the encounter while you didn't leave an impression on him at all.

How did you know?

Because every time you were searching for him around the house you’d get caught staring and not once you caught him back.

The first time, he curiously tilted his head to the side but you looked away too quickly to see his full reaction.

The second time he smiled and you blinked back, your lips automatically imitating his before realizing what you were doing.

The third time he was fumbling in the kitchen and you could see his shoulders from the angle you were in, comfortably sitting on the soft couch in the living room. Your eyes caressed his spine and when you eyed the ass, he turned around and before you could look away he winked at you.

Fuck.

He wouldn't come home around 6 as that first day all the time. Sometimes he wouldn't come at all, even when you had to prepare dinner and clock out later than other days. Each day was agony, not knowing if you'd see him or not. And each day you were anxious to hear from the Parents that they didn’t need you anymore. Or that Yuta said he hated you and they thought about getting another babysitter instead.

But then when you'd least expect it, his scent would impress the air after the sound of the entrance door opening, making your mouth dry and heart jump. You'd look down at your clothes, trying to check on your appearance, every day putting in more and more effort to catch his attention.

"Hi, Y/N. I hope this little monster didn't make your life difficult today," he'd joke, making his sister puff her cheeks.

You'd giggle at them taking their tongue out at each other then you'd watch him go inside his room just like any other evenings where he got home early. No talking and no interaction. What was inside that room that was more interesting than being with you?

_____

"What does your brother like to do?" you asked the Little Girl once, smoothly making conversation after she told you what her favourite activities were at school.

The girl pouted as if thinking, eyes glued on the Legos she was assembling.

"Kissing his friends," she mumbled and you choked on your own spit. "And listening to loud music. He draws with me too,” she added, not noticing your expression.

"He's good at drawing?" you asked, impressed, Yuta and kissing in the same sentence making you feel some type of way you tried to conceal.

"Yes. He wants to draw on people."

"Oh, so he wants to be a tattooist. That's very cool."

"Dad thinks it's stupid. He didn't like his belly earring either."

You choked on your spit for the second time and before you could process the new piece of information making your head spin, his chuckle caressed your ears like a sinful melody. But also made you jump like a scared cat.

"He won't like the nipples either but that's life.”

You looked behind your shoulder to see him walking towards you in a rare stroll through the house.

"You pretty ladies talking about me?"

You lifted your head to look at him and smiled as he crouched between you and his sister, lazily sipping from a coca-cola can.

"Y/N likes talking about you," The Girl mumbled again.

You inhaled sharply and looked her way, mouth open in a flustered way to add something. Yuta smirked with his head tilted to the side as he’d usually do. It reminded you of a black bird making him cute but intimidating at the same time.

"Is that so?" he asked.

"Oh it's just--,” you chuckled once, “I don't see you around often so I was just a little bit curious."

"Hmm,” he nodded thoughtfully. “So you want to see me more often?"

You swallowed even if your mouth felt dry. He was so close, gaze piercing, staring into your soul and fuck, his cologne impregnating the air on top of everything.

"You want to see his belly earring?"

Your eyes darted towards The Little Girl again and Yuta smiled even wider. He let his body weight down on his knees and his hand was quick to lift his shirt, exposing his abs.

"When I'm older, I’ll get one too,” the sister commented.

The little puff of air escaping your lips could have been taken as a compliment when you eyed his navel and the piercing adorning it. Hopefully not for a sudden burst of horniness. Then you eyed the vein dancing deliciously underneath it, going down and down and down and d-When Yuta suddenly let his shirt fall down, you inhaled and looked away.

"I like it too," you grabbed the Legos again, trying to sound as uninterested but not as rude as possible.

"Bet you do," Yuta chuckled and lifting himself up he lazily strolled back to his room, the look you exchanged as he caught you staring while turning the corner making you want to dig a hole and hide in it.

_____

The following dasy you tried to ignore Yuta as much as possible. The thought of him finding you out making you embarrassed out of your mind. It hasn’t been that hard though, since he barely was around anyways.

That night, the Parents were out of town and you had to take care of the girl until Yuta came home.

"If he comes home at all," Mother sighed amusedly. "We never know."

"It's not a problem for me to stay the night," you assured them and you could see how grateful they were to hear you say that.

And there you were, looking around the empty house, baby put to bed and tummy full.

You eyed the TV and considered turning it on before your eyes inevitably rolled towards the corridor.

A single sigh left your mouth and, clearing your throat as if putting on a show for your imaginary audience, you walked towards it slowly, fighting the urge to start humming and showing that you'd only nonchalantly peep into the master room. It was boring and you closed the door very quickly.

Okay. Yes. Who were you trying to fool? You wanted to see Yuta's room.

Fuck.

You didn't care about the other rooms.

You were just dying from curiosity to see his one.

Deep breaths and slow limbs you analyzed the white door in front of you after looking behind your shoulder.

Was it a criminal offence to peep into people's rooms? You were home alone though. And you had no interest in stealing anything. You just wanted to give a very quick look.

You gulped and stopped your hand in mid-air before reaching the knob.

Invasion of privacy.

You were invading Yuta's privacy.

Shit.

You crossed your arms on your chest and let one of your legs tremble.

Excuse. You needed an excuse. Think.

Your brain almost hurt as your leg kept dangling from anxiety.

Windows? Windows! You hit your palm with one fist, eyes suddenly bright with relief.

The Parents told you to make sure all the windows were closed before going to bed. You checked on all of them except Yuta's one. What if he smoked before going to class that morning and forgot to close the window? A dry carpet is more important.

The excuse felt great so the door swung open and you were inside in a second.

No open windows. Alright.

Now you had to go.

Your hand gripped the knob harder.

Okay, leave.

But you were already there, weren’t you? Just a brief look. You won't touch anything, you promised to your conscience.

Timid feet, you took a little stroll around his unmade bed, a little heat washing over your body, looking at the stuff on the floor, discarded clothes near the open dresser, his knick-knacks on the shelves. An ordinary boy room.

Then you eyed his cologne and you stopped in place.

It was standing on the desk near his computer, almost begging you to just give it a sniff.

Okay. You'd only touch his cologne. Only that.

The glass bottle felt cold in your hand when you opened the cap and closed your eyes as you brought it to your nose.

You inhaled deeply and bit your lower lip. It was just a good scent, right?

Objectively.

It's not like you liked it because it was Yuta's or anything.

Right?

It was calming and made you feel weirdly safe. Fumbling with it a little, you quickly put some on your neck before realizing what you've just done. Shit.

Blinking fast, you put the cap back on and placed it in his spot then fast as the light you exited before you could do any other damage.

"What were you doing in my room?"

The voice behind you made your knees buckle in surprise.

"Oh my God!" you almost squealed. The corridor was dark and you could barely see Yuta's face when you turned around.

"You scared me!"

He looked unimpressed as he took a step towards you.

You took a step back.

He raised one eyebrow.

You didn't answer my question, it was saying.

"I was just checking whether the window was closed or not," you explained with a trembling voice. "When did you get home?"

Yuta leaned in suddenly and inhaled around your neck.

You paralyzed in place feeling his hair tickle your skin.

"You played with my stuff?"

You shook your head and took another step behind. You would have taken more if the door wasn't pressing into your back.

"Why do you smell like me then?"

His whispering voice, so close and so deep made your head spin.

"I just-- really like your cologne. I am so sorry I touched it-" you blabbed.

"What else did you touch?"

"Nothing! I swear. You can check."

You could barely see his eyes in the darkness but you saw his white straight teeth when he smiled.

"Then what else did you want to touch? Me if I were in there?"

"Huh?"

His sudden change in demeanour confused you.

Yuta kept on grinning and you felt his hand dance around your waist. You gulped and felt like panting. Then a single click made you jolt and he walked past you entering the room.

Finally, alone, you exhaled, closing your eyes for a moment to gather your shit.

"It has a different smell on your skin," you heard him talk so you turned around, watching him take off his jacket. "If you want to smell like me, you'd probably need to have sex with me," his smile was bright but you barely saw it as it got hidden by the hoodie he was taking off. The black t-shirt underneath it clung to his body and paired with his last sentence it made you speechless.

What? Flirt? You should flirt. This is why you didn't leave an impression on him before. Because you were boring. Get your shit together and flirt. But what does one say to something like this? Oh my God.

"I'd- like that."

No. No No No.

Yuta chuckled once and you fought the urge to run away.

"Okay."

You thought you were hearing things.

"Okay?"

He nodded. "Next time? I had a few drinks and I want to fuck you sober," he explained and with a smile, he walked past you again towards the bathroom.

Want to fuck you sober.

Want to fuck you.

He was crazy. He was completely crazy. And damn, it made you feel things you didn't know you could feel.

Trembling fingers and boiling blood, you grabbed your bag and waited for Yuta to exit the bathroom and to announce that you were leaving.

"What are you doing?"

His dark hair was wet and pressed on his forehead before his hand could push it back. But you didn't notice it at all, so concentrated on his naked body only wrapped in a towel. And said towel only around his hips.

"Your parents said that they needed me to stay only until you came home," you explained, gulping down a little whine, already wearing your coat in the middle of the living room.

"Don't be ridiculous," he walked the distance and grabbed the coat, pulling it towards him once before starting to unbutton it for you.

Paralyzed you just let him do that unable to crack a single word. Your eyes didn’t know where to land so you just watched his hands move, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the way your chest moved fast as lightning.

"It's too late. Besides, I told you that I'm drunk. We need a responsible adult inside this house for the night."

His smirk made you smile a little as a reflex.

"You don't look drunk at all."

"I'm a Scorpio," he explained as if you could understand what that meant. You nodded slowly and looked up at his hidden expression under the wet strands of hair. Was he babysitting you?

But then he pressed his palms on your chest right above the swell of your breasts and slid it underneath to coat, in an attempt of taking it off your shoulders.

You shivered and turned around as Yuta helped your arms out of it too.

"How long have you been crushing on me?"

His voice was low and amused in the silence of the house.

You felt like a little mouse in the grip of a humorous cat that liked to play with its food first.

I don't have a crush on you! you wanted to reply but you bit your lip instead.

You opened your mouth to at least make a single sound but whatever you wanted to say died in your throat when you felt his hand palm your ass.

"Did you wear this short skirt for me?"

You jolted, not expecting his voice and breath to be this close to your ear.

He giggled a little at your reaction and kissed your shoulder skin where little goosebumps formed.

"You said you would not fuck me tonight," you whispered.

"No. But I can play a little, can't I?" he dragged his hand down your ass until reaching the hem of the skirt and slipping his fingers underneath it.

Your eyelids fluttered when he gently cupped one cheek and squeezed, his tongue barely tingling on your neck.

"Yu--ta," you inhaled sharply.

"Yeah? Is this how you moan my name when you bury those pretty fingers inside of you?"

And when he bit and sucked on the softness of your neck, he took your breath away.

You lifted yourself on the tiptoes, hands reaching back to touch his head, finally tangling your fingers into his luscious hair.

"Am sure it doesn't feel nearly as good as this-," he let go the skin he was biting to whisper while his hand under your skin slowly slid your soaked panties to the side and dragged the fingertips along your clit, showing you what this meant.

The whine you emitted made him chuckle but he was quick to shut you up by pressing his mouth on yours. You arched your back, throwing your ass towards his hand as hard as you could, one hand cupping his jaw, trying to get as much of his tongue as possible.

Divine, you thought. Absolutely intoxicating.

And when you felt his middle finger inside of you, your body shuddered in his hold.

"Hmm, you're so needy," he rubbed his nose alongside your face and neck as you broke the kiss to pant. "Would you have been able to sleep well tonight? Knowing I was just one wall away?"

You shook your head.

"I should have let you suffer a little bit more. Just like I've been doing all of this time."

"So you knew?"

"Yeah. I wanted to break you, but tonight, seeing your little pout dying to suck my cock made me lose it. So here I am."

His last words got accompanied by his scissoring fingers and when he added his other hand to the clit, rubbing it mercilessly your knees buckled and you had to hold onto his forearm.

You were actually getting fingerfucked by the dude you’ve been crushing on for weeks.

"Let me hear that pretty voice. Show me how good I'm making you feel," his order made your inaudible panting transform into broken whimpers.

"Cumming--cumming!

Yuta hummed, acknowledging your sudden shaking body and when you dug your nails into his skin and let yourself fall into his arms, he wrapped your waist and stilled his hand inside of you.

You tried to open your eyes while panting, clenching around his fingers still deep buried between your throbbing walls, but failing. And when he slipped them out slowly you've never felt as empty as in that moment.

"Such a good girl," he kissed your jaw and you turned towards him, placing your hands on his bare chest and kissed him.

Yuta hummed into it amused before grabbing your face with one hand, stopping you. "Slow down, and no," he interrupted himself when you pouted, "don't give me those fuck me eyes. I said next time. This was just a little treat."

"I don't believe you don't want to fuck me right now."

"Oh, I'd break you in half."

"Do it."

He tsk-ed. "Not tonight. Whine a little more for me, cutie."

And just like that he turned around and slithered away with a smirk, leaving you burnt but still on fire in the middle of the living room.

_____

Head under the covers of the guest room, you were wondering if Yuta was touching himself at that moment or not.

Stubborn like he was, he probably went to sleep with a stiffy.

But what if he didn't?

What if he fucked his fist all of those nights thinking of you? The thought made you squeeze your thighs together.

"I'm just cold. I promise I won't do anything."

Yuta looked at you standing in the frame of his door and chuckled once before resting his head down again.

"Okay, but if you try something your ass will go back to your room. Also, you won't need a pillow."

You hesitated for a moment and placed the pillow you were holding on his dresser before timidly approaching his bed.

He scooted to the side and when you slowly sat down he just huffed impatiently and wrapped your body with his arms, pressing you on his chest.

He was right. Head resting on his bicep and face buried into his torso, you didn't need any pillow.

"Wait," you paralyzed as you tried to extend your legs and brushed his in the meantime. "Are you naked?"

Yuta hummed positively. "Got tired after the nut and didn't bother."

Your breath hitched and you shifted imperceptibly. Shit. You should have probably just stayed in your room and rubbed yourself instead of being pressed against his body and not being able to do anything about it.

"You could have just fucked me instead."

Your whisper made him chuckle. Then he breathed in once as the silence made it possible for you to hear your own heartbeat.

"Are you going to stop wanting me after I fuck you?" His voice was low and raspy.

Your hand, resting on his chest, twitched.

"Would you care?"

Yuta inhaled and exhaled, warming your forehead. And he didn't reply.

You bit your lower lip. "I'm sure I'll want you again if you fuck me good enough," your tone tried to lift up the vibe but Yuta didn’t follow you there.

"And if you don't?"

You lifted your face to look at his expression and he returned the gaze behind half-opened lids.

"You tell me. If I don't?"

His pupils looked at yours alternatively. "Let's sleep."

"I am--,” you stopped to gather courage, “-extremely wet right now. And I'm dying for you to finger me again. Although you've already done it once. So I’m pretty sure I'll feel the same after your dick too. If this is what’s making you hesitant.”

Your whisper made him open his eyes again and when he smiled a little you silently exhaled relieved.

"Extremely wet, you say? Won't believe it until I see for myself."

His tone opened your legs before his hand could and when he reached your panties under the pyjama bottoms you jolted.

"Hmm, fuck. Yes, you are. And for what? For being in my mere presence?"

You bit your lower lip as he slowly circled your clit.

"Don't get cocky."

"Can't help it with the cock I got."

"Won't believe it until I see for myself," you smiled, one hand already palming his stomach, feeling his piercing, loving the way things were rolling all of a sudden.

Yuta's muscles twitched under your touch and when you let your fingers drag on his length before wrapping it with your hand he whimpered.

You loved that sound and got even more eager, pressing your thumb on his slit and increasing the movement of your fist.

Yuta rutted his hips into your hand a few times before grabbing your wrist and pinning your arm above your head.

You hissed and tried to liberate yourself making Yuta just press more.

"Where's the good girl from before? A reminder that I can still refuse to bury it inside of your needy pussy as you so much desire," he spoke mere centimetres away from your mouth.

"Fuck me so hard that she comes back. How about that?"

"How about I fuck that little bratty mouth of yours until you can't speak back anymore?" He asked, retrieving his wet fingers from inside of you to drag them on your lips.

You squirmed under his touch and took out your tongue to lick them but he wrapped your throat to keep you down instead.

"But I said, not tonight. Go back to your room.”

_____

Yuta was like a snake that could poison you. Not letting you go but not wanting to kill you in a second either. He preferred to let his venom slowly enter your system until you couldn’t breathe properly anymore.

One touch here as you walked the corridor towards the bathroom, a little slap on the ass when no one was looking, a full-on kiss as he’d pull you inside his room for a moment, making you lose your mind at the rhythm of his tongue before whispering to you to go back.

As days passed you started to wonder if he forgot his promise.

And when you finally got the “tonight 9m” text your naive mind didn’t think much of it.

You were sure that the Parents took the Girl on a vacation that weekend so you didn’t have to go, but given the last missed assignments and forgotten deadlines, you didn't trust your memory anymore.

So when you rang the bell and saw Yuta opening the door you looked behind him as if expecting everyone but him.

“Yuta?”

“Yes?” He raised one eyebrow, amused at your surprise.

“Nothing. Are you going out on a weekday?” you stepped inside and took off your shoes.

If the Parents needed you, they probably knew Yuta wasn’t going to be home that night.

Yuta didn’t reply and you groaned trying to look at his expression while also trying to free yourself of the boots. If his little smirk threw you off then the way he pressed himself on you in a single movement made your brain straight up buzz with white noise.

“No short skirt tonight. How disappointing,” he murmured just a few centimetres away from your lips. Just that managed to transform you in a panting mess and when you felt his palms on your sides you shivered.

“I had no idea I’d be seeing you tonight,” you admitted, brain already running at the fullest of speed, connecting all the dots.

Yuta hummed.

“No worries. I want you naked anyway.”

And when Yuta wants something, you discovered, he gets it fairly quickly.

Almost stumbling on your own feet, mouth occupied and hands grating at his shoulders, you felt every single piece of clothing leave your body, on the couch, on the floor, thrown across the room.

And you got thrown around just like that.

Firstly with his head buried between your thighs, ass rubbing on the couch material, watching his palms grab your flesh and mould it to his pleasure. The gasps on your lips got pushed aside by his name that you kept calling as fast as his tongue on your clit before it would dip inside and make you push your hips into his face for more. His twinkly eyes were the only thing keeping you grounded but his mouth was pushing you off the edge instead. Fighting between the two forces it didn’t take you long to cum, making him chuckle lightly at your reaction.

“Sorry, it took me so long, babe. I need an empty house when I want to fuck,” he murmured against your stomach, going up until meeting the swell of your breasts, biting on the underside of them and sucking the skin inside his mouth.

"You could have come over to my house," you breathed out.

"You're right. I just wanted to tease you some more."

His smirk made you want to roll your eyes when he leaned in to kiss you, his arms caging you in, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. But you wanted to taste him too. So when you pulled him towards you by the waist, making him kneel on the couch he sighed amused and cupped your head as you dipped down.

His hands were quick to brush your hair out of your face, eyes hungry to see your expression as you took his cock inside your mouth.

“Shit-” he hissed when after a few good sucks you let him out, lips softly pressing on his balls instead. “You’ve been training much to be this good, haven’t you?”

“Just want to make you feel good,” you whispered, tongue already licking a stripe up the underside of his length before playing with the slit. “You could have had this much earlier if you weren't so stubborn.”

His hold on your nape tightened and he hummed.

"Not liking this bratty behaviour much. What did I say about this? Oh yeah. That I'd fuck your mouth," he finished the phrase right when you felt his fluid stroke on your tongue.

You relaxed your jaw and looked up, the image of you at his mercy making him exhale shakily.

"Fuck," his grunts increased just like his pace and when you finally choked, a string of saliva falling on your chin he rubbed his thumb on your cheek, waiting for you to catch your breath again.

"Your mouth was made for this," he murmured his praises and you whimpered, the pool of wetness between your legs getting larger with each thrust of Yuta’s hips between your tight lips.

Hovering over you, his black hair falling messily on his sweaty forehead, biceps flexing to keep your head in place and his lower lip, plump and almost red from the biting, made him look like the most erotic picture you’ve ever seen in your whole life. And when he pulled out and gritted his teeth, fist quickly to pump his hard cock in front of your face, you took your tongue out to catch the hot spurts of cum spilling from it, falling on your lips then breasts, slowly coating your nipples until you licked the last drops, swallowing it slowly for him to see.

He smirked, thumb caressing your throat as it moved and unannounced, as you were losing yourself in his eyes, you suddenly found yourself pushed on your back. You saw the ceiling then a second after the couch again as he flipped you on your stomach instead.

“Fuck, you’re stunning,” his rough voice accompanied his hands, palming your legs to open them up to his pleasing, squeezing your ass and spanking it once.

“Thoughts on butt plugs?” he then asked, thumb delicately brushing between your cheeks.

You shivered at the thought and turned your head to see him. He leaned down, his pelvis pushing against you while his mouth opened to welcome your tongue.

“Willing to try it out,” you whispered against his lips and he visibly inhaled so deeply to make you squirm.

You had no idea when Yuta disappeared and then suddenly materialized again behind you, a small plug warming in his hand while the other spread his saliva on you, gently nudging at your entrance.

“Tell me if you can’t take it,” his words made you smile and you hissed, pushing your ass towards his hand.

“Just push it inside already, you coward.”

Yuta raised one eyebrow at you and you inhaled, already savouring the way he’d try to fuck the attitude out of you. And when you felt the plug stretch you out you exhaled deeply, definitely not expecting the harsh slap to your cheeks and not expecting to like the experience that much.

Full, was the only thing you could think of when Yuta finally slid inside of your wet core and you told him, so full, Yuta, moaning his name again and again and again until your voice got broken by his intense pace.

So far in and so quick it was honestly a matter of moments before you could feel the build-up in your lower stomach expanding in your limbs, making you dig your nails into the couch material as your chest rubbed on it.

“Cummingcummingcumming-” you announced but Yuta didn’t care, his hold on you never getting loose as he kept fucking your spasming body through the orgasm.

"You can take another one, love. You've been so needy for this cock all of this time. I'm just being considerate."

His panting grunts were amused as a string of profanities left your mouth.

“So-- good-” you managed to form, not once have been fucked by someone with such high stamina before.

“Yeah? Are you going to beg me for more?”

Your erratic nods made him chuckle and he grabbed your chin, lifting your head up to reach your mouth. It would have been almost intimate if his fingers didn’t pull out the plug to push it inside, again and again, making you bite on his lower lip.

And when you saw his fluttering eyes it was your turn to grab his chin and keep him close.

“I want to see you cum too,” you whispered and he groaned.

“You first,” he ordered and like a spell, you actually came undone with a loud cry, his hips moving faster and faster until he stilled inside of you as well.

A deep sigh escaped his throat and you listened to his fast-paced breath as you tried to catch your own.

“Shit. Your pussy is damn good,” his voice buzzed on your back and you smiled.

“Let’s take this to the bedroom now, shall we?”

His breath was hot on your nape and you whined, too tired to actually say a single word.

“Finally going into round one,” he added amusedly.

“Round one? I thought that this was round three,” you blinked as you felt his forearm lifting you from the underside of your thighs.

“What do you mean? This was foreplay.”

You woke up in Yuta's bed that morning. The ceiling above you was spinning because you didn't get a single second of sleep the whole night.

#yuta #yuta smut #neosmutcollective #nct-writers #nct smut #nct #yuta imagines #yuta scenarios #yuta one shot #nct imagines #nct scenarios #yuta fanfiction #nct fanfiction

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castiel-left-his-mark-on-me · 3 years ago

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Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖

#omg #I don't even know if this makes sense #this took way too long to write #j2 #cockles #long post #spn family #so glad you see you back again my dear #welcome to hell #it's hotter now

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blueteller · 3 years ago

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“Trash of the Count’s Family” Review Series: Chapter 4

Trash of the Count’s Family Manhwa: Chapter 4

We start off with a shot of the dark hole at the bottom of the "man-eating tree". Cale remarks that he'll probably need another 10 bags of bread. He's startled by a sudden sound coming from the tree and thinks that it's a bit scary. (I don't want to keep complaining about this, but seriously – it would have been more effective if the tree itself looked scary, you know!!) He decides to come back the next day.

Next, we see the adorable silver and red haired siblings happily munching on the bread Cale has given them. Cale starts thinking that it would be bad if the children went to the tree and stuck their hands down the hole for bread. He makes an excuse that he's concerned for himself, of course, but I think most of us doesn't buy that at all by this point. It's obvious he's just concerned for the kids and doesn't want them to get hurt. He tells them that if they want to get more bread tomorrow, they should stay quiet about this. Since he doesn't actually have a single thought about them spilling secrets, clearly he's lying. He's going to feed the kids to help them and keep them safe – not actually to keep them quiet. Siiiiigh, Cale you little tsundere, you...

He see him back at "the Fragrance of Tea with Poetry" place (I guess it's a book club of sorts? A library? Combined with a tea shop, maybe? I am not completely sure, to be honest...) speaking with Billos as he's heading out. (We get a "no-eyes" shot from Billos but it's not very terrible-looking as he's standing far away – let's give it a 1/5 awkwardness rating.) The image where Cale walks down the stairs looks frankly fabulous, and I adore how much detail was given to Cale's outfit. The author must really enjoy dressing him up, haha!

Cale compliments Billos' tea and says that the book was interesting. He casually comments that he liked how the main character's abilities are recognized as he grows (foreshadowing, anyone?? 🤔), and I get a feeling that Cale said that to Billos – the unappreciated bastard son of a powerful family – on purpose, setting up a tone for their interactions in the future. Cale asks Billos to reserve that book for him to read whenever he comes by, implying he will be visiting more often. Billos eagerly agrees. Cale says nonchalantly "sure, whatever" and leaves, like the true tsundere that he is.

I like how Billos is drawn. Although he's not ugly – he's kinda cute, even – you can tell why Cale compared him to a piggy bank. I really like his design.

Slightly later, Cale arrives at a bar. The owner greets him in an exaggerated manner, making it obvious to Cale that he's terrified. Apparently OG Cale had a habit of breaking things whenever he drank, as shown by the image of a broken bottle. Cale throws him a golden coin, asking for a bottle of "his usual" – smart move, as he doesn't know what exactly OG Cale usually drank. He also orders some roasted chicken, but tells him not to salt it.

Interesting detail on the part of the author of the novel: salt is actually harmful to cats, especially in large doses. We have no idea whether that applies in a fantasy setting. However, the fact that Cale/Kim Rok Soo remembers it and asks for no salt just in case speaks volumes of his attentiveness and care, as he's planning to feed the chicken to some cats and doesn't want to harm them by doing so. He is such a caring guy, he really has no idea ❤️

The owner asks Cale if he wants a seat. Cale doesn't respond. The owner anxiously hurries to fulfill Cale's order, and we're shown that other people in the bar are nervous as well – even some really buff guy!! OG Cale's reputation really is no joke! Cale notices how the gangsters and scammers are all avoiding his gaze, and starts thinking about OG Cale once more.

Usually, a "wealthy trash" such as OG Cale would have gotten along with such types of people. However, OG Cale was not one of them: in fact, he despised them and beat them up. The more we learn about OG Cale, the more suspicious his behaviour seems.

Cale takes his order and leaves, while everybody stares after him, as the bottle he bought is likely to be the most expensive alcohol in the shop. Cale drinks some as he walks down the street and can feel it warming him up. It isn't explained here, but in the novel we told that Cale's body has a high alcohol tolerance and only flushes easily due to his pale skin, making people believe that he's a lightweight. Which only serves to make all of OG Cale's wild drunk antics more suspicious.

Cale searches for something near the city gate. He comes across two kittens: smaller red one and bigger silver one. Thus, he knows that he found the scene described in "the Birth of a Hero", where Choi Han was said to twist his ankle while avoiding landing on one of the kittens. Cale comments how this is a world where coincidences play a big role, kind of breaking the 4th wall by telling the audience the same: pay attention to everything, as every detail WILL be important later on. Then he sees Choi Han, sitting nearby, leaning on the wall.

Choi Han's position looks suitably gloomy and dramatic, I'm not gonna lie; a fitting introduction for the "original" protagonist of the story. Cale sees his dark gaze and gets nervous. He's glad he drunk some alcohol before to calm his nerves. He really wants to make a good first impression on the OP protag who might beat him up. (Haha, Cale you cutie, why are you so adorable??) To do so, he feeds the young kittens with chicken, knowing about Choi Han's compassion towards small, harmless creatures. The silver kitten hisses at him, mistrustful. Cale pets it and tells it to eat to get better.

Acting casual, Cale adresses Choi Han, asking him if he's got anywhere to stay at, and if he's hungry. The scene is a bit shortened in the manhwa, as in the novel Choi Han also shows distrust at first, just like the kittens (making it clear that Choi Han at this point is in a similar position as the homeless kittens, the poor guy...). Here, we skip right to Cale walking over and saying his famous line: "Hey. Follow me. I'll feed you." As according to Cale, the best first impressions are made by providing delicious food. (As a food lover, I completely agree; food-included introductions are the best.)

The two shots of Cale and Choi Han at the end look very nice and dramatic, with the full moon in the background and sparks flying in the air – and NO, this is not BL thank you, I checked, yes I checked, for goodness' sake! There's no romance in this story, I SwEaR! 😂😂😂 Get your mind out of the gutter! Why can't we have a nice-looking bromance moment? This scene is basically Cale adopting 3 cats instead of 2. Or, more accurately, 2 cats and 1 puppy. Sorry, is that considered a spoiler? ...Eh, I don't care. We're introduced to my 4th favorite character, folks! Cale is the 1st, obviously. The other 2 are yet to be introduced.

So that is the end of the chapter, and oh boy, this one was great! Choi Han is here, folks, it's time for the story to truly begin! I surely am excited. This chapter was awesome to read.

Feel free to leave comments!

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#tcf #trash of the count's family #lcf #lout of count's family #tcf manhwa #review #manhwa review #tcf manhwa review series #tcf manhwa chapter 4

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hazzasgayvodka · 4 years ago

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Panty Thief - Harry Styles

So this is kind of a trial run for this fic, I’m inclined to make this a series but I’m not sure how the response to it will be. I have lots of ideas for more parts to this but only if it’s what the people want haha. Here is my belated Valentine’s Day gift to all you lovelies I hope you enjoy this heavy daddy kink/dom harry fic I’ve been working on for ages!

p.s. everyone say thank you Nathan for giving me lots of smut inspiration this is literally based on him sorta

pairing: daddy!harry x oc

warning: sexual content, smut, daddy kink/dom vibes so if you’re not here for that this is not for you

word count: 5k

In which Harry is a new student at Harley’s university and he seems to just keep popping up everywhere. The tension between them is palpable and she can’t get away from him, especially when he happens to knock on her door with a pair of her favorite red lace panties she left in the laundromat dangling from his finger.

I roll my eyes as the lady in front of me in line takes out yet another handful of coupons from her purse at the checkout counter. The cashier looks almost as annoyed as I am, but still sporting a smile despite the absolute exasperation rampant in her eyes. She takes the handful of coupons and starts scanning them begrudgingly as the woman digs around in her purse for anymore and I hardly even notice my foot tapping as my eyes instinctively roll once again. I just came to get toilet roll, ice cream, and a bottle of prosecco and the universe decides today is the day coupon Karen ends up at the checkout line five minutes before I do.

“I like your hair.” A voice speaks up behind me.

I know they must be talking to me, I don’t believe any other boring college blonde in this line warrants a compliment like that but the bright purple curls I sport tend to elicit quite the reaction from bystanders, especially the uninteresting conservatives of Publix.

“How do you uh, get it that color?”

I finally turn my head over my shoulder to face the voice, a tall guy with tousled brown hair and quite the shit eating grin on his face. He’s obviously very pleased with himself finally getting me to turn around but I can’t be bothered to entertain this excited puppy of a man with more than a word.

“Dye.”

I’ve barely even gotten the word out of my mouth before I turn back to face the cashier with an uninterested eyeroll. He scoffs behind me, clearly not giving up that easily.

“Wow,” He chuckles, “At least you’re straightforward.”

I turn back around without thinking to face him once again, “Hair dye, idiot.”

“Oh, well I could have guessed that much.”

I turn away from him again just as coupon lady finally pushes her rattling cart towards the exit doors and the cashier gestures for me to come up to the checkout. I drop my basket on the conveyor belt with a thud and she rings it up quickly, sensing my impatience and clearly wanting to get me the hell out of here as quickly as she can. I pay and grab my bags to head for the door and just before I’m home free the voice is suddenly behind me yet again.

“So, are you really not going to tell me?” He asks, catching up to me outside, “It’s going to keep me up tonight, I’m waiting with bated breath over here.”

“Tell you what exactly?” I huff, finally turning to face him.

“How you get your hair that color, of course.”

I roll my eyes, surely, he’s not keeping this bit up for the sake of hitting on me in the fucking supermarket, “Do you want something from me?”

He chuckles a bit, and I’m glad to see my utter frustration is amusing to him, “I mean,” He starts, rubbing the back of his neck, “Maybe your name would be cool.”

“No thanks.”

“Well, I’m Harry-“

I turn and walk away before he’s barely got the sentence out of his mouth. What was he even in line to buy? He wasn’t carrying any bags.

Mental note: always wear headphones to the grocery store.

***

“You’re late.”

I collapse in the seat next to my friend Danielle with a huff. She gives me a certain look that says something like you’ve been late the past three times too, but honestly at this point she should know to expect it.

“I’m always late,” I groan, attempting to lean back in the incredibly uncomfortable library chair, “So, why are we at the library?”

“We have a math test tomorrow, or did you forget about that?” She asks, scolding me over the top of her math book.

“Of course I remembered,” I say sarcastically, “Math is my absolute favorite subject how could I ever forget we had a test?”

She rolls her eyes, turning her book to the right page to start taking notes and I try my best to follow along, “So do you have a legitimate reason for the lateness or just regular Harley excuses?”

“Actually, I do,” I say matter-of-factly, sitting back up straight in my chair, “There was a freak at the grocery store, dude would not leave me alone.”

“What was he doing?” She asks, suddenly interested.

“Just talking? I guess? He like wanted to have a whole conversation waiting to check out.”

“So, a nice guy just struck up some conversation with you at the store and that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes,” I huff, closing the book once again, “I was just there to get groceries I didn’t need the extra human interaction.”

She opens her mouth to reply but she’s cut off as a group of guys walk in the front door of the library talking at full volume. I can feel almost every person in the room turn in the direction of the loud noise at the front and suddenly my eyes land on him. There’s no fucking way.

“Dani,” I whisper, sliding down in my seat so I can go unseen, “Dani that’s the guy, the guy from earlier.”

“What?” She whispers harshly, trying not to stare as the boys get scolded by the librarian at the front, “You mean grocery store guy?”

“Yes!” I huff, electing to sit in my chair backwards so my back is to him.

“No way Harley, it just looks like him-”

“No Dani, it’s him,” I whisper, “Tall one with the curly hair in the black hoodie.”

“That’s him?” She asks, “You had a problem with that talking to you?”

“Shh!” I huff, “God he’s going to hear you, are they still at the front?”

“They um, yeah,” She stutters, her eyes diverting to her book again, “They’re still up there, at a table now.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, sensing the discomfort in her voice and turning around myself.

My eyes immediately lock onto his and I look away quickly, shielding my face from him with my hand and turning back towards Danielle.

“He’s staring right at you.” She says, trying not to be too obvious.

“Yep.”

“Are you gonna go over there?”

“Why would I do that exactly?” I ask, my eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“Because a hot boy is staring you down across the fucking library!” She whispers harshly, reaching over to smack me in the arm.

“More like a fucking psychopa-”

“Hey there,” I hear his voice cut in and my whole body cringes in on itself without my volition, “Fancy meeting you here.”

I turn around in my chair, forcing myself to face him while my whole face heats and I’m sure I’m the color of a rather ripe tomato. Something about the way he says hey there in that fucking accent makes my entire body tense up.

“Hey there,” I mimic, “Long time no see.”

I feel Danielle’s eyes on me as the words come out of my mouth, her gaze flickering between the two of us and watching the horrifically awkward exchange play out in front of her.

He laughs, electing to lean on the table, “What are you doing after this?”

“She’s doing absolutely nothing.” Danielle answers for me and I kick her under the table, making her wince.

“Glad to hear it,” He grins, his eyes zeroing in on me once again.

“I’m very busy actually,” I cut in, closing my textbook and throwing it in my bag, “We both are, but um, I’ll see you around.”

Danielle is looking at me with eyes the size of dinner plates as she frantically packs up her stuff, shoving it in her bag to follow suit. I stand up from my chair, slinging my bag over my shoulder and he rounds the table to stand right in front of me, the only thing between me and the front door.

“Can I at least get your name?” He asks, his voice incredibly deep clearly for only me to hear.

“Harley,” I quip, side stepping around him, “See you later uh, Harold is it?”

He gives me a very particular look as I walk away from him, taking steps backward and relishing in the smirk on his face. He knows what I’m doing. I feel Dani’s hand grab my arm and I finally turn around to face the door, walking through it, but even as I’m outside and carrying my feet down the steps I feel his eyes on me, drilling into the back of my head.

“The hell was that?” Danielle asks, “He was so cute and you just, you just blow it like that?”

“Harmless flirting.”

“You call that flirting?”

“Oh Dani,” I sigh, taking out a cigarette and lighting it between my lips, “I call that winning.”

***

I’m woken up with a start when I hear the loud roar of music start from Dani’s room. She always blasts music in the morning while getting ready for class. I look over my shoulder to check the time, at least she waited until 10 to start with the noise. My head is pounding ever so slightly, and I realize why when my eyes land on the empty bottle of pink Moscato on my bedside table.

I drag myself out of bed and into the tiny common space between our two rooms, “Good morning sleeping beauty,” Danielle teases, “I noticed the bottle of wine went missing from the fridge.”

“That’s bizarre,” I joke, “Must be a wine thief in the dorms. I’ll get on that mystery right away.”

She shakes her head at me, rolling her eyes as I grab my basket of laundry from my room. I slide on a pair of slippers electing to go put it in the wash, so I hopefully have a single clean pair of jeans for class tonight. I call to Dani letting her know I’ll be right back and as soon as I open the door to the hall I’m staring at him.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” I groan.

He stops dead in his tracks, taking a glance over his shoulder to see me standing in my doorway. He’s dressed in only a towel, holding it closed while it hangs low on his hips. His hair is wet, clearly making his way back to his room from the showers and his chest and arms are rippling with muscles under his damp skin.

God those arms could crush me like a grape.

“Morning neighbor,” He grins, clearly getting a kick out of this, “Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”

“You’re in this building?”

“You bet, room 7C down the hall.”

“Well, neighbor, for future reference, most people in this building take their clothes to the shower with them.”

“You Americans,” He chuckles, starting to walk away from my doorway, “So prude, have a nice day Harley.”

He disappears down the hall and then behind his door and my mind gets to work on picturing what he looks like without the towel. You can nearly feel the tension between us in the air, it was palpable. I could even feel his eyes on me, looking me up and down and lingering on my lips. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to clear my head as I take a deep breath and start on my way to the laundry room downstairs.

I put a load in the wash, briefly tuning into the dramatic soap playing on the tiny TV hung on the wall. I decide to head back to my now empty room since Danielle left for class and end up wasting most of my day away on a bad Netflix original movie, only pausing half way through to go move my clothes to the dryer.

I order a pizza for dinner before my night class and go back downstairs to grab my laundry out of the dryer. Just as I’m opening the dryer and emptying my clothes back into my basket I get a text that the pizza guy is downstairs waiting for me.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I huff under my breath, quickly shoving all my clothes in my basket and slamming the dryer shut behind me.

I rush back to my dorm, chucking the basket of clean clothes inside before heading to the stairwell and nearly sprinting down them to get to the ground floor. I meet the rather impatient pizza guy downstairs before bringing the food back up to my room. I’ve just barely finished the first slice half way through a Criminal Minds episode when there’s a knock at the door. I groan, dragging myself from the couch and tossing the blanket off.

I open the door, rolling my eyes, “Dani, you have got to start remembering your key when you-” I’m cut off as I come face to face with him rather than Dani, “Oh, um, hi?”

“Hi,” He repeats, now dressed in a pair of grey joggers and a plain black t-shirt, “I believe you dropped something in the laundry room earlier.”

He reveals his arm from behind his back, holding out his hand with my bright red lacy thong dangling from his pointer finger. I can feel my entire face heat to match the shade of my panties, but I won’t let him get the satisfaction. I go to snatch them from his hand, but he stops me, gripping them in his fist instead and using them as leverage to pull me a bit closer to him.

“Probably want to be a bit more careful where you leave your panties lying around, darling,” He smirks, “Unless you want to leave them on my bedroom floor of course.”

It’s the final straw, those few words spoken in his deliciously deep voice absolutely dripping with that amazing accented tone, on top of the way he’s dressed, every muscle visible beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. I don’t know what I’m doing until I’m pulling him to me by my own grip on the lacy underwear between us, my mouth meeting his and his teeth instantly biting my bottom lip between them.

“Yours or mine?” He breathes out, pulling away from me just long enough to get the words out.

“Where’s your roommate?” I ask breathlessly.

“Vacation,” He says, “Till Wednesday.”

“Yours,” I laugh, pressing my lips back to his, “Definitely yours.”

He walks me backwards down the hall to his dorm room, shoving me up against the wall as he unlocks the door, his lips working down my neck. As soon as the door is open he walks me through it, bending down to grab the backs of my thighs and hoisting me into the air. He kicks the door closed with his foot and I laugh against his mouth as he carries me past his bedroom doorway, slamming that behind us as well.

He lays me out on the bed, nearly tossing me right on top of the mattress, my lacy red underwear still gripped in his hand.

“Any chance you got something this cute under there?” He chuckles, holding them up in both hands to really show them off.

“Why don’t you come find out?” I tease.

He rolls his eyes, finally kneeling onto the edge of the bed and crawling over to me. He starts to lean over me, but I shove his shoulder, forcing him to lay against the mattress before swinging my leg over him. I can feel him underneath me immediately and it makes my legs clench together on either side of him.

“Hi,” I breathe, planting my hands on his chest and meeting his eyes.

“Hi,” He repeats back to me, that bright smile of his making my stomach flip, “You gonna come down here or...?”

“Oh, shut up,” I laugh finally leaning down and connecting our lips once again.

His lips are ridiculously soft against mine while the feeling of his muscles under his t-shirt are quite the opposite. He reaches up to cup my face with both hands, trying to somehow pull me closer as if we aren’t close enough as it is. I can’t figure out exactly where I want to put my hands; his shoulders, his biceps, god, in that amazing curly hair.

My hips start to move against him without my volition and he groans into my mouth, a deliciously deep reverberation that makes me grind my hips into him even more. He grunts against my lips, finally pulling away and resting his forehead against mine instead, breathing heavily.

“You alright there tiger?” I tease him, threading my fingers through his hair, “Need a breather already?”

“Shut your mouth,” He chuckles, grabbing me around the waist and trying to flip us over so he’s on top.

He greatly underestimates the size of his twin dorm bed when he does so, both of us rolling off the edge and tumbling to the shag carpeted floor beneath us. I expect the mood to be ruined, for him to get up and usher me right out the door because how awkward is this, right? I’m beyond surprised when he starts laughing, both of us splayed flat on our backs and heaves out a sigh as he rolls over to face me again.

“That was pretty smooth of me, eh?” He jokes, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I shake my head, chuckling too, “No I’m okay, just gonna have a massive bruise on my ass most likely.”

He laughs again, finally pulling himself to his feet and offering me a hand to help me up. I’m not sure what I expect past that, maybe a hug to send me on my way now that the atmosphere has completely changed but that tension is still between us, the same tension that’s been building since the moment he said a single word in the supermarket.

The second I’m back on my feet he shoves me onto the bed and I can’t even begin to hide the shock in my features. He’s back on top of me in seconds, his lips pressed to mine and I’m sure the surprised whimper that leaves my mouth fuels his ego to the gods.

“You alright there tiger?” He mocks, and I resist the urge to reach up and slap him.

“Careful.” I quip, pulling away from him to meet his eyes.

“Careful?” He asks, quirking up his eyebrow at me, “I’m sorry are you telling me what to do sweetheart?”

I gulp, the smooth but stern voice he’s using making my thighs quiver. He seems to notice, his eyes darting down between us and a small chuckle escaping his lips. He looks back up at me, his eyes dark and brooding, before they flicker to my hands at my sides. He grabs my left wrist roughly, holding it above my head against the mattress before doing the same to my right arm as well. I’m nearly squirming underneath him, my entire body steaming to the touch as his eyes bore into mine.

“Something wrong, love?” He asks, the condescending tone to his voice making my whole body shake.

“Course not,” I pant, my breath coming out heavier than I anticipated, “Just fuckin peachy over here.”

He chuckles a bit, his grip on my wrists growing tighter, “You’re not very patient, you know that?”

I’m not sure what it is that’s making me writhe the way I am; perhaps it’s the countless months I’ve gone without sex since my last messy breakup, or maybe it’s the way in which this all panned out with a stranger over some fucking underwear, or fuck, maybe it’s just him and the way that cocky smirk on his face makes my insides twist.

“Patience is a virtue,” I say carefully, making sure to keep my tone even, “I’m more about vices.”

His left hand releases my wrist and I prepare myself for his hand reaching where I need him most, sucking in a breath between my teeth and letting my eyes flutter closed but it never comes. My eyes peel back open to see his hand hovering over my neck instead. He meets my eyes before his fingers finally grace the skin of my throat, applying just the slightest bit of pressure almost as if to test the waters.

I’m nearly dizzy as he does so, the temperature in this room suddenly a million degrees. He removes his hand again, the pressure around my throat leaving me and I whimper in distaste, making him chuckle again.

“Poor thing,” He chastises, my legs clenching together on either side of him, “I can’t do it all though, if only there was a way I could hold down both your wrists and choke that pretty neck.”

I watch his hand dig into the pocket of his joggers and once again pull out the thin red lacy fabric of my panties, holding them between us.

“Mind if I use these?” He asks, clearly knowing the answer but wanting to get a reaction out of me anyways.

“Yes, god,” I gulp, “Please.”

He grabs my hands, moving them completely above my head before wrapping the panties around them a few times, tying them together. He tugs on them a bit to make sure they’re pretty secure before looking back down at me, his eyes completely blown out in lust, his pupil swallowing his surrounding iris.

His lips are back on mine in seconds, his now free hands roaming my body before one hand rests on my neck, gripping the sides and applying a bit more pressure than the last time. I whimper into this mouth and curse myself for doing so as soon as my eyes flutter open to see that cocky smirk on his face once again.

“Eager, sweetheart?” He teases, and my hand reaches up to smack him before I remember I’m bound in a pair of my own underwear, “Ah, ah, be a good girl and stay still.”

Hearing the words good girl come out of his mouth makes my entire body squirm and he grins again, that lopsided condescending grin and I know he’s getting off on this, making me writhe underneath him. He leans down to kiss my stomach, hiking my shirt up as he goes before working his way down and tugging my pants down my legs. I hold my breath in anticipation but when I look down the bed to meet his eyes he simply kisses the inside of my thighs, ghosting his mouth over the thin fabric of my panties.

“Fucking please,” I beg, my breath coming out in heaves, “Is this some kind of joke to you?”

“Please what, princess?” He asks, my legs threatening to squeeze his head between them, “Tell me what you want, hm?”

“You cocky bastard,” I huff, my mind getting fuzzier by the second the closer he gets to my center, “You know what I want.”

He stops abruptly, sitting back up from his small assault on my inner thighs, “What did you say, love? Care to repeat that? Couldn’t quite here you down here.”

There’s an edge to his voice, like glass, it cuts right through me and makes my thighs quiver, “N-no,” I stutter, “Didn’t say anything.”

“That’s what I thought,” He grins, leaning back down between my legs, “Now be a good girl and tell me what you want me to do to you.”

I suck in a breath sharply, but I won’t let him know how his words affect me, “Oh daddy,” I mock, rolling my eyes, “Need you so bad.”

He grabs me by the ankles, flipping me onto my stomach and sends an echoing smack to my ass, the stinging sensation that radiates afterwards making my toes curl. He flips me back onto my back, his dangerously dark eyes meeting mine as he spreads my legs apart once again, holding my thighs down against the mattress.

“Want to try that again, princess?”

“Fuck,” I gasp, the edge to his voice making the whispered swear fall from my mouth involuntarily, “Um, yes.”

“Yes what?” He growls, leaning down to hold my jaw in his hand, his eyes drilling into mine waiting for a response.

“Yes daddy.”

“Now you’re getting it, good girl,” He grins, his hand that was gripping my jaw moving to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, “Now open up,” I oblige, slowly opening my mouth and he pushes his middle and ring finger past my lips. It catches me a bit off guard, but he only nods his head, “Get them nice and wet for me love, don’t want to hurt you.”

He pulls them from my mouth, a small string of saliva connecting them to my lips. He chuckles a bit, clearly getting a kick out of how worked up I am for him before finally pushing my panties to the side and pressing his fingers into me. I instantly turn my head to the side, muffling the moan that escapes my mouth into my pillow. As soon as he realizes what I’m doing he grabs me by the hair, holding my head straight.

“None of that,” He says sternly, “Wanna hear your pretty sounds, babygirl.”

I’m dangerously close to the edge just from the words pouring from his mouth in that accented tone that makes my entire body shiver. That condescending smirk finds its way back to his lips and I know that he can tell I’m close, just teetering on the edge already.

“Needy little thing, are we?” He teases, “Already gonna cum and daddy’s barely touched you yet.”

His words are almost just enough to push me over the edge, but I hold off as much as I can, straining away from his touch as much as I can with my hands bound above my head and his weight on top of me. I feel the particular twist in my stomach, that burning sensation in the very pit of my abdomen just as my eyes squeeze shut and my vision goes white. His fingers work me through it, his mouth finally hovering over where I need him most, sucking my sensitive bud into his mouth and making me shake.

I feel his fingers withdraw from me and suddenly he’s pushing them past my lips once again, but this time I taste myself on them, swirling my tongue around each one to suck them clean. I meet his eyes as he pulls them from my mouth and my hips involuntarily buck up to meet the bulge prominent in his pants.

“Still needy, are we?” He chuckles.

“Please shut up and take your pants off already.” I beg, my hips bucking up to meet him again.

“You see I would but,” He starts, sitting back on his heels, “It seems I don’t have a condom, would you happen to have one?”

“Would I, no, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” I stutter breathlessly, my blood starting to boil in disbelief, “What kind of guy doesn’t keep a pack of rubbers around you idiot?”

“Careful,” He warns, his voice dropping into that deep calculated tone that makes me shiver, “And perhaps a guy that just moved in this week and hasn’t necessarily had buying rubbers on the mind,” He says, “That is until he met a spunky purple haired girl in the supermarket.”

His words make my stomach do a few somersaults, but I don’t let it extinguish the pissed off fire burning in my stomach knowing that I won’t be getting the relief I desperately need right now.

“You’re serious?” I ask, “You don’t have any?”

“Serious, darling,” He chuckles, “But instead of moping about it, you’re going to take what I give you and say thank you daddy when I’m done, understand?”

I nod my head vigorously, despite wanting to do the exact opposite. What kind of hold does that goddamn accent have on me?

“Good,” He smiles, clearly pleased with my response, “And maybe if you’re a good girl next time daddy will remember to hit the store.”

“Next time?” I ask, not filtering the shock from my voice.

He laughs a bit, reaching up to finally untie my hands, “Yes, next time, did you want this to just be a one-time thing, princess?”

I can’t form the words I want to say as I sit up a bit, rubbing my wrists only slightly from the rough fabric of the lace wrapped around them, “I um, I don’t-”

“That’s what I thought,” He smirks, standing from the bed and holding out a hand to me, “Now come on, didn’t you get pizza?”

I smile, taking his hand and starting to stand to my feet, my legs a bit wobbly and I’m thankful for the stability of his arm to lean on.

“Do you have anything to uh,” I start, cringing when I feel the wetness in between my thighs, “Clean up with?”

“Nope,” He says cheerfully, “You keep that pretty mess I made between those thighs, babygirl.”

My knees nearly buckle, and I’m cursing him for his lack of condoms and the ache between my legs as I pull my pants back on, following him to the door to the hall. He stops abruptly just inside the doorway, turning back to meet my eyes.

“What’s my name?” He asks cheekily.

“Harry,” I say confidently, “Why? Are you worried I forgot already?”

He grabs my ass in his hand tightly, squeezing the skin, his voice calculated, “I said, what’s my name?”

I gulp, leaning into his grip on me a bit more as my knees wobble, “Daddy.”

He releases his grip on my ass, giving it a quick smack, “’Atta girl, let’s get some pizza in you so you’re ready for round two,” He grins, throwing his arm around my shoulder and tucking me into his side as we walk down the hall to my room instead, “Maybe after we can hit the store, I seemed to have forgotten to pick something up last time I went.”

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