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hockeywhy · 3 years

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4 times you faked a relationship + 1 time you didn’t; m.tkachuk

WARNINGS: language. WORD COUNT: 17.2k. A/N: So, I didn’t want my effort for this fic to go to waste and I’ve decided to re-write it for Matty because he and the fake dating trope work so well together. I had to, so here it is.

one.

“I’d only be asking Matthew if I had no other options and needed a last resort,” you said. “Until then, I’m not even contemplating it.”

“Kind of sounds like you’ve just about reached the bottom of your list, right around where you’re keeping Matthew, Y/N,” your friend, Anna, responded and though her tone said sympathy, the look on her face reflected anything but sheer elation.

The invitation landed on your tabletop with a loud slap while you deposited yourself in a nearby chair unceremoniously, glaring at the decorative paper as if it offended you. Actually, scratch that. It did offend you. Greatly so. Honestly, it may as well have come in the form of one of those boxing gloves that sprung out of a box immediately upon opening and decked you square in the face. That’s how much it offended you.

The golden letters inked on the thick paper warmly requested the pleasure of your company to witness the love of Josh Reynolds to Louise Jones six weeks from now. The location stated was a hotel you knew only through word of mouth: one of those fancy establishments that served ridiculously priced plates that were more canapes than actual meals.

You doubted there would be much pleasure from your company.

You and Josh called it quits just over a year ago after a relationship that became increasing rockier, significantly more emotionally exhausting. The two of you started dating in high school and if the relationship started off with nothing but the sort of blinding fiery passion only teens could be capable of, well someone missed the memo on giving you the message that all fires eventually fizzle out. Gradually, it was the only way you could see your relationship heading and it seemed that Josh felt it too. It made the breakup easier: it was neat and mutual. Still, that couldn’t be considered an incentive for either of you to invite each other to such grand, deeply personal events. You couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that he found someone he wanted to tie the knot with so quickly but in retrospect, Josh had always wanted that while you were content as you were. That seemed to be the fork in your road with him.

On the one hand, you were angry at Josh for even considering jotting your name down on the list of attendees and on the other, you were angry at yourself for being angry about that. One moment you were dead set on declining the invite and the next, you considering that doing that would simply show you were bitter and unable to be civil about it. Besides, surely it was noted somewhere in the Rulebook of Ex’s that you just couldn’t do stuff like that. That seemed to just about do it. Like hell you’d given anyone the satisfaction of one-upping you.

You needed a plus one. Desperately.

“Ask your brother then. Pretty sure that’s bound to impress anyone there. It’s not often many will get to say they brushed shoulders with an up-and-coming professional athlete.”

“I don’t need that sort of plus one. If I did, I would’ve asked you—”

“Thanks,” Anna mumbled.”

“—but what I need,” you ploughed on ahead, “is, well, something that can come off a bit more serious looking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Saying the word boyfriend won’t jinx you into permanent silence, you know. You need a boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend for a day,” you agreed contemplatively.

She picked up the invitation to look through it carefully and after concluding her inspection, she slapped the papers back down on the table, grinning. “Matthew it will be then!”

Your younger brother, Jake, recently signed his entry-level contract with the Calgary Flames, in a way carrying forward the family tradition of starting a career in professional sports with them. Your grandfather did, your father did and now, here you were watching your little brother take on the mantle. Your family’s involvement in sport and, specifically, the team meant that you were somewhat familiar with the organization whether that meant attending home games or a few events arranged by the team. You couldn’t say you were the best of friends with them, certainly nowhere near the level your brother was, but generally speaking you were fond of the C of Red.

That couldn’t also be said about Matthew, however.

It seemed that from the get-go, there was a personality clash between you. At first, you thought it was just Matthew picking on you, joking around as he disagreed with virtually anything you’d say but progressively, you were pretty sure the two of you didn’t even have the compatibility to keep things civil. Matthew had a way with pushing your buttons and it bothered you he could do that with so much ease, though the more you thought of it, the more it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you: you were all too familiar with his on-ice shenanigans, after all. Whenever you knew you had to be under the same roof as him, you’d tell yourself to not let him get under your skin but that resolve would last for all of ten minutes. Fifteen if you had a particularly good day.

Much to your chagrin, it seemed your brother was closest to Matthew. Though you offered the spare room in your apartment, your brother was so warmly welcomed by Matthew. It was no doubt even Jake found your annoyance with his teammate entertaining.

The thought alone was frustrating enough. If one day, by chance, you caught sight of a white strand of hair on your head, you were dead set on blaming Matthew for it. Matthew and his smarmy attitude; Matthew and his smartass retorts; Matthew and the smirks he threw your way whenever your brother took his side, outnumbering you.

You clenched your teeth, glaring at the invite. From the corner of your eye, you saw Anna’s outstretched hand holding your phone out to you. A groan formed in your throat and you wished you kept in contact with the handful of guys you tried dating after Josh. None really stayed. Or better said, none managed to draw you in. It was as if Josh had put a jinx on you. If that was the case, you hoped that this whammy would disappear if it meant watching him watch someone else walk down the aisle towards him.

Anna waved the device at you insistently. “Do it. Come on. Even you know nothing says fuck you like turning up there with Matthew. Scrappy when he wants to be and he’s not bad to look at either. You know it.”

You arched an eyebrow up at her. “More than Johnny?”

She flushed visibly. Johnny and Anna were still a relatively new thing, dancing around their relationship carefully as if they were both doing this rodeo for the first time. It was pretty cute. “Don’t change the subject.” She placed the device down on the table in front of you then patted your shoulder. “I have a feeling you won’t regret it. If he gets on your nerves too much, well…it can’t be worse than watching your ex get married, right?”

“Ouch,” you winced, but chuckled, knowing you were defeated. Matthew was the last resort, and you knew you were at the bottom of your list before you even started going through it. “You do realize if he declines, I’ll probably make a start on packing my bags and moving to Montana, right? The only time you’ll hear from me is when my handwritten letter goes through the nine circles of hell that is our postal service.”

Anna fixed you with a stare that could only read as ‘do it’. “I wouldn’t be so insistent on this if I knew Matthew would say no. I have a feeling he’ll surprise you.”

With a heavy sigh, you unlocked your phone and scrolled through your list of contacts, thumb hovering over his name when it came up. Anna wasn’t wrong: Matthew wasn’t bad to look at all, that much you could admit. But god, if he turned you down…. you knew you wouldn’t be able to ever show your face in front of him or the rest of the team ever again.

“I think I’ve had enough surprises from him to last a lifetime,” you mumbled but tapped the call symbol anyway.

He answered on the third ring. “Hel—

You didn’t let him finish. “I need your help,” you ground out, eyes closing while you rubbed at your forehead with the tips of your fingers.

There was silence on the other end of the line that had you biting your lip in anxiousness. You shouldn’t have done this. You really shouldn’t have done this. All it would take would be just hitting the ‘resume my account’ link on one of the dating apps you signed up for a while ago. Someone was bound to be attracted not only to you but the promise of an open bar—

“Music to my ears,” Matthew’s response came through. You could practically hear the smile in his voice and knew you’d regret it; you could easily tell from the tone of his voice.

You sighed quietly, leaning forward to rest your elbows on the table, eyes glued to the invitation. Fuck it, you could get someone else; easily, no doubt. The world of online dating was vast and there would always be takers.

“Uh, yeah actually, never mind—”

“No, no. Come on, Y/N. Pretty sure this is the first time you’re calling me first so can we take a moment to just let that sink in?” Silence again, then a chuckle. “Okay, now that we did. How can I help you?”

It wasn’t as if Josh had put you in the position to ask Matthew for a favor but still: fuck Josh, anyway. In a split second of sheer pettiness, you considered aiming to host the most extravagant, unforgettable weddings when your turn would come just to show him who does it better.

“Are you free the third weekend in June?” you asked tiredly.

“Don’t know. Depends what for and who you’re asking for.”

You should’ve asked him face-to-face. At least then, he would’ve had the chance to see you roll your eyes, turn on your heel and walk away. “I’m obviously asking for myself. Could you just be straightforward for once and answer yes or no? You’re making me hold the line for longer than I anticipated and I’m happy to ask someone else,” you lied.

“Let me get this right—” Here comes, you thought exhausted. “You’re calling me for the first time since you have my number to ask me if I’m free the third weekend in June? As a favor for yourself.”

“Matthew, I didn’t stutter—”

“What’s happening in June?”

You don’t know what it was about his words that downed you. It was nothing but a simple question yet the only thing you could think of was: the first boy I’ve dated and so far, the only one, seems to have moved on quicker than I anticipated and while I’m still trying to build myself back up, I’m sitting in my kitchen looking at a wedding invitation and wallowing in self-pity because regardless of how hard I try, of how much I’ve amended my standards, no one seems to do it so what if this is it for me? What if this is just the way it’ll be from now on? And now, I’m resorting to lying just to make myself feel better but also put a façade in front of someone who I know no longer cares about me like that. And really, nor do I about him but here we are. So, nothing much is happening in June, Matthew. Hopefully we get a lot more sunshine though!

What you responded with instead was, “just an old friend of mine getting married and I need a plus one. Nothing serious. Just go there for an hour or two, say some hellos and leave. It’s a quick in-and-out thing.”

More silence on the other end of the line other than the muffled shuffle of what sounded like bedsheets. “Why not ask your brother then?”

“Asked him already, said he’s got something lined up already. So, are you free or not?” you lied, quickly pressing on even if you knew that sounded a lot like desperation.

“For you, at a price.” He was smirking. You knew he was and more than ever, you wished 2021 was the year you could just reach through the phone and shake the person on the other end.

“Uh-huh. Right. No, just forget it. Forget I even—”

You were going to end the call when Matthew laughed, quickly calling out a “no, no! Nothing weird, I promise. Just owe me a favor in return, is all.”

“Do I get a choice?” you mumbled, more to yourself than towards him.

“I think we both know that you don’t. Text me the time and place,” he instructed and then, just as you were really about to end the call, he added, “hey, send me a photo of what you’re wearing also. I’ll match my tie to your dress, free of charge.”

“Can you maybe ditch the jacket while you’re at it? Just want to make sure your tie’s within reach so I can strangle you with it.”

Even after you cut the call, Matthew’s laughter rang in your ears.

Matthew matched his tie to your red dress. The color of the silk around his neck was so striking, you would swear it was made from the same material as your outfit. You sent him a photo of the material of the dress, more as a joke than having any expectations attached to it so you were pleasantly surprised to see he made the effort. For a moment, you allowed yourself to bask in sheer joy knowing that to any eye, the two of you could easily pass as a couple. At least, from looks alone if not from attitude. You were a proud person; fiercely so. Knowing you were now in debt to Matthew however he saw fit dealt a pretty impressive blow to your ego. You don’t let yourself linger too much on that thought, though. It was already difficult enough to loosen up and relax your stance as you climbed into Matthew’s car as soon as he texted you of his arrival.

“You look good,” he commented after you fixed the seatbelt on. He turned in his seat as much as space would allow so he could look at you properly and in return, you arched an eyebrow, refusing to give way to his stare. “Are you trying to one-up the bride?”

“Ha, ha. Funny. You didn’t even see the bride. I didn’t even see the bride.”

“Didn’t see her but I’m seeing you, so,” he shrugged, by way of explanation before correcting his position.

If asked, you wouldn’t deny that Matthew also looked good. Very good. But only if asked. It was impossible that someone with a face like that didn’t know they turned heads easily wherever they went. Matthew’s suit fit him as if it was sown on him. If the two of you had a better relationship, you would even dare ask him what it was he was putting in that hair of his that made it so shiny and gave those curls so much definition, taming them almost perfectly when he really put his mind to it. Whatever it was, you had a feeling he didn’t strain as much as you had earlier that morning to tame your hair and though you could give yourself credit for how well it turned out, your arms weren’t thanking you for it.

Thankfully, much of the drive was pleasant. Though you hated small talk, you decided to make an effort if only to ease your nerves as the navigation system indicated you were drawing closer and closer to that glitzy hotel. You learned that although the season was over, Matthew, Brady and the rest of the family would spend a few weeks in Canada before heading back home to St. Louis. In turn, you told him that some of the days off you booked from work would be spent somewhere just as sunny and warm but with more beaches. It was safe ground. That, you could do although progressively, you were becoming more and more distracted, and less focused on the conversation the two of you managed to keep.

“Want me to pull over?” Matthew asked suddenly.

“What,” you mumbled, turning your attention from the road ahead to Matthew who seemed amused by the situation. “Why would I want you to do that?”

“I’d want you to do that. You look pretty pale and honestly, I’ve just had the interior cleaned so—”

“Fuck you, Tkachuk, keep driving. I’m just a little…cold. How high do you have the AC on?”

He fixed you with a stare while waiting for the lights ahead to turn green, eyebrow arched. “It’s June, Y/N, and uncomfortably warm. If it makes you feel better, though, I could turn it off and we can roll down the windows instead?”

“No, sorry—you’re right. It’s fine. Just leave the AC as it is.”

The laugh he gave was nothing short of incredulous. “Repeat that back for me. Actually—hold on, do that when I can press record on my phone so I can have that on repeat. Did you admit I’m right?”

“God, you’re making me regret inviting you,” you muttered though without heat.

An uncomfortable silence slipped between the two of you or maybe, it was just your perspective on it. Matthew seemed perfectly at ease minding the road, only occasionally throwing a cursory glance towards the car’s navigation system whenever it announced a turn. Doing this seemed more and more like a bad idea. A terrible one. No one would’ve held it against you if you denied the invitation. In fact, you thought that was more expected than accepting it and turning up to the party as if you were seeing an old friend, not an ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t too late though. Matthew could still turn the car around.

“Listen, Matt—”

“You have now reached your destination. Your destination is on the right.”

You released a breath you weren’t even aware of holding, then threw a quick look towards the main entrance of the hotel. Already, a few guests whom you recognized were crossing into the lobby.

“You really don’t look okay at all,” Matthew repeated and there was less humor in his voice and more concern this time around. Even you weren’t ignorant to how much your mood kept fluctuating over the course of the drive: often, engaged in conversation but occasionally, withdrawn, barely just catching on to whatever it was Matthew was saying. Sure, he probably didn’t know you well enough to read you, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out something was amiss. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I felt like there’s more to this thing than you’re telling me. You could’ve asked your brother, yet you didn’t—”

Damn it. You made him swear to play along. You made a quick mental note to get back at him about it whenever you felt energized enough to do so.

“Matthew,” you said, your voice suddenly clear, tone neutral. You didn’t dare look him in the eyes so instead, you kept your stare fixed on the revolving doors ahead. “I’m only going to say this once and I hope that you won’t make me repeat it now or ever again. I’d prefer that you don’t mention it to anyone either. The person getting married today is my ex-boyfriend. Up until last year, we’ve been together since we were teenagers. I loved him. Since we broke up, I kept trying to look for parts of him in others, but I couldn’t find even a trace of who he was. I feel as I’ve been jinxed, and I felt that maybe if I come today, maybe if I see him with someone else, I can confidently say I’m fine with that. It hurt my pride when I received the invitation, so my first thought was to lie. If, for just a few hours, I can pretend I’ve also moved on and I’m not stuck in this…fucking weird limbo, then maybe it becomes true. A fucked up self-prophecy. So.” You pause, clearing your throat. Your mouth suddenly felt dry from your speech, yet you couldn’t feel a pang of regret in your chest or heat behind your eyes. “So. If you want out, that’s fine. After all, I’m asking you to pretend to be my date out of spite, I guess. And embarrassment. It’s childish and unfair and ridiculous but—”

You came to a halt when you felt a finger under your chin, and a gentle upward push forced you to raise your head up a little more. When you turned towards Matthew, you looked at him with a look of confusion on your face.

“Keep your head up. We have a wedding to go to.”

His encouragement sunk in faster than expected and as your expression relaxed, a smile formed on your face.

Yeah. The two of you had a wedding to go to.

The event hall was decorated minimally yet tastefully. It made everything seem even more personal and you received that impression from every detail: from the flower arrangements to the music, everything was a testament to a life united by love. Maybe your emotional outburst earlier accounted for it, but you felt lighter even as you watched the newlyweds glide along the floor for their first dance. Sure, you felt a desperate pang of want but it was distant. Muffled.

Despite your initial thoughts, having Matthew at your side felt very much like a safety cushion. It surprised you to watch him settle into his role with so much ease that eventually, even you didn’t have to remind yourself to not withdraw whenever his arm wrapped around your waist: sometimes loosely, sometimes a little tighter, reeling you in closer.

Fish, here is your bait, you thought wildly as you stood tucked at his side while he accepted flatteries from one of the guests who swore had been a fan of the Calgary Flames since before he could even talk.

“You must be so proud,” the man turned towards you. “Your family’s truly one of a kind to have all played for the team and now—” He gestures towards Matthew as if to say all of this. “Must be something about those Flames!”

You laughed tightly, just as Matthew squeezed your side. By that move alone, you could tell he was eating this up.

“Yeah, just can’t get enough of them,” you concluded, pitching your voice just a little higher towards the end. To the man, it was as genuine as could be, but Matthew cautioned you silently with the slightest narrowing of his eyes, effectively warning you to be more realistic. “Hey, I’ll get us some refills? Try to be a little more inconspicuous in the meantime. Remember this isn’t your day,” you joked.

“Only practicing for when our turn comes,” Matthew responded without missing a beat and released the hold he had on you.

Once at the bar, you allowed yourself some extra moments to catch your breath. Even off ice, Matthew was a force to be reckoned with. He struck conversation with others easily, drew their attention with seemingly little effort and easily set the mood for whatever situation or person the two of you would run into. A part of you thought his profession had a lot to do with his mannerism, but a bigger part knew different: mostly, it was really just Matthew.

He had a way with words and with people that you haven’t been witness to before and couldn’t help but wonder if it was all show. He was, after all, a face for the public: familiar with interviews, familiar with the attention, apparently not overwhelmed even by less conventional questions. Watching him play this role was fascinating to say the least. It certainly took your mind off the circumstances so credit where credit was due.

“Hey, it’s good to see you here.”

You turned from the bar and came face to face with Josh. His jacket was off, and his sleeves were neatly rolled up past his elbows; behind the knot of his tie, you could see he’d undone the top button of the collar. You’d seen him make countless rounds across the entire floor, greeting guests and ensuring everything was running smoothly. Occasionally, you watched him dance either with his wife, or family members, or even guests you recognized as work colleagues.

You smiled. “Thanks for the invite. It was a bit weird to receive it, I can’t lie about that, but I’m glad you sent it.” It surprised you to learn you weren’t even lying about that. Through the course of the evening, it dawned on you that maybe, it was more the thought of being here that made you anxious; the event itself, however, proved just how right you were. It felt…fine. You felt fine.

“Yeah—uh, I wasn’t… I wasn’t really sure but, well, before…” He trailed off into a sigh.

You chuckled softly. “Would you like to buy a vowel?”

That made him laugh. Truly, genuinely laugh. “Sorry. I guess it’s a bit weird for me also. But, well, before you and I were, well, you-and-I, we were friends. I would’ve hoped we’d still be friends even after…” He waved a hand in the air by way of explanation but that was sufficient for you.

“Won’t hurt to be friends. Whatever happened between us—well. Thing of the past. Build bridges and get over them, right?”

“Right. Function of a bridge and all.”

“Hey. Congratulations, by the way! I’m happy for you. Really. I wish the two of you all the best. She seems really great.”

“She is,” he agreed and cast a glance towards the room, eyes undoubtedly searching for her. “Are you—”

“Here you are.”

Saved by the bell. A weight fell around your waist that, by now, was warm and familiar. Unconsciously, you leaned into Matthew, flashing a wide smile at Josh. At first, he seemed surprised by the sudden appearance but then his features settled into something more comfortable; something so much like relief that for a moment, you wished you could just come clean about it. You and Matthew were less than meets the eye.

Before you could even introduce them, a kiss was pressed to your cheek, knocking all air from your lungs and almost making you choke because of it.

What the hell.

“You were gone for some time, so I thought to check on you,” Matthew informed you, all matter of fact. To Josh, he said, “congratulations on the wedding. Must be pretty great to finally get to this point. You two look great together.”

“Oh? Yeah. Yeah, thanks man. So glad you could come along today.” Josh turned to you, an eyebrow perked in interest. “I didn’t know you two were together.”

“Oh we’re just—”

You began but were promptly interrupted by Matthew. “We like to keep it lowkey. It hasn’t been that long for us but that’s not much of a problem when your gut tells you this is it. You know it well, right?”

You were entirely caught off guard. Instead of responding immediately, you bought yourself some time by taking a sip from your glass of—whatever it was. Strong though. Just perfect for the situation you suddenly found yourself in: ex-boyfriend ahead, fake boyfriend to the side, promising sweet nothings that you knew would come back to haunt you at some ungodly hour. You wished you could step on his shoe; pull on those shiny curls of his real quick, knock some sense back into him. There was a difference between play a role well and clearly, playing it too well.

Matthew pushed ahead. “It’s pretty good timing for us though. We could take some notes for when our turn comes, right babe?”

“I’ll let the two of you to it, then. Thanks again for coming.” Josh made a move to step away but before he did, he turned to you and caught your eyes. “I’m really happy for you, Y/N. You look good together. Just make sure you don’t take too many notes.”

“Wouldn’t dream to,” Matthew responded, and you could read the slight bite in his words. When Josh was out of earshot, he looked down at you. “You dated him? Just him?”

“Hey, what’d I say about not bringing that up again? And save your dick measuring contests for the locker room, Tkachuk. Now’s not the time nor place.”

“Now’s definitely the time and place,” he countered, making you roll your eyes but there was a smile on your face you couldn’t quite wipe off. “Come on. Let’s continue taking leaves out of their book.” In one swift motion, he took the glass from your hand and set it on the bar while above, the LED lights dimmed, and the playlist switched to a slower song.

You threw him a cautious look, easily reading where that was going. “I’m not dancing.”

“Sure, you are. You want to give the impression of being happily in love? You need to start pulling your weight in this thing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Atlas. Do your shoulders hurt from carrying the burden of our relationship?” you mocked, yet still allowed him to lead you towards the dance floor. Right in the center of it given the bride and groom appeared to sit this one out; you expected nothing less from him. You weren’t even surprised when he made an entire show out of it, forcing you to do a pirouette when the two of you claimed your spot.

“You can’t even imagine the pain you put me through,” he sighed near your ear as the two of you began swaying to the music.

“Well, you’re still standing so clearly it can’t be that bad.”

“Baby, it’s torture.”

You were grateful the two of you weren’t exactly face to face or you were sure Matthew would never have let you live down the flush you felt rising to your cheeks. Sure, he didn’t use the pet name in a genuine manner, but just hearing it roll off his tongue like that… You stopped that thought before it grew into a whole new different monster.

After a few moments of silence passed, Matthew lowered his head closer to yours, his warm breath colliding with the skin on your throat. “Do you think now’s the right time to kiss? Are enough people watching?”

You stepped on his foot. Not hard, but just with the right amount of pressure to draw a wince from him. Satisfied, you leaned back just a little to look at him properly. “Don’t even think about it, Tkachuk—”

“Thought about it already.”

Through clenched teeth, you hissed, “you. Are. Incorrigible.”

He raised his eyebrows, surprised. “If only you could meet yourself.”

You snickered quietly then leaned back against him. “Thanks for doing this. I know it’s not the most convenient of things… and it wasn’t fair to tell you the full truth of it right on the day of. But—well, thanks.”

“That sounds like it was pretty difficult to let out. It’s very…. heartfelt.”

“Just fucking accept it as I gave it to you, Tkachuk,” you complained, more amused than annoyed.

More silence followed, filled in only by the general buzz of the room and the slow melody. “And now?” Matthew questioned a short while later. You allowed an extended silence to fill in for your confusion. He picked up on it within seconds. “Do you still feel jinxed? Stuck in the same place while he goes on ahead in life?”

You took some time to think through your answer, time during which the song faded into yet another slow one. Matthew didn’t give an indication of wanting to move away from the dancefloor, so you saw no purpose in you doing that.

“Not really,” you concluded. “Just seems like we’re both following different trajectories. Doesn’t mean I’m left behind if I’ve not yet met someone to settle down with like he did. Maybe I just need to be here to come to terms with it. Good for him though. I’m genuinely happy for him and his wife. I think lots of people imagine going through this very same moment.” You ended with a shrug but then, to lighten up the moment, you added, “don’t mock me for it. Between the two of us, I’m the one with the pointy shoes.”

Matthew laughed, a low, pleasant laugh right by your ear. “I’ll give you a free pass for what’s left of today.”

“Your generosity astounds me. Please could you also sign my jersey?”

“Is it my jersey?”

“Why would it be your jersey when I have my last name printed out on one at the expense of my brother being roughed up a little?”

“Don’t tempt me. That favor you now owe me? I might just use it to have you get my jersey so I can sign it since you so generously asked.”

“Your call,” you shrugged. “Just know it’s going straight in the wash right after you scribble on it.”

Matthew took a few small steps back, only to pull you back towards him. You played along and spun as you landed into his hold once again.

“You say that now, but when you’ll see yourself with it—”

“I’ll auction it on eBay.”

The laugh you got out of Matthew stayed with you through the rest of the night and like never before, his good disposition easily transferred to you.

two.

When the elevator doors slid open, your brother and Johnny weren’t the only ones to step into the hotel lobby. Matthew accompanied them, flashing a smug smile as the trio approached and his eyes landed on you. You cast a quizzical glance from your brother, to Johnny, to Matthew and then looked towards Anna as if to ask are you seeing this? She only shrugged at you in silent response, though she was grinning from ear to ear. At least someone was certainly enjoying this.

“Last I remember, there were only two of you,” you commented.

“Was that before or after your third drink?” your brother chirped back.

Instead of humoring him, you shift your gaze to Matthew. “What gives, Tkachuk? Can’t be left at home unsupervised during family vacations?”

“My house training has only gone so far,” he responded smartly, then nodded his head towards Anna and Johnny who were caught in a half-hug, apparently entertaining by watching you and Matthew bicker as if watching a tennis match. “They’re not family.”

Anna feigned a gasp on your behalf. “Y/N and I are part and parcel, Matt. Thought you’d know that by now.”

“Well, the three of us are part and parcel also, Anna. Thought you’d definitely know that by now,” he responded but you were already leading the way out of the hotel lobby and towards the busy square outside.

It was a hub of activity: from street vendors to dance and music performers, there was something to see regardless of which way you looked. Although you arrived at your holiday destination the previous day, the flight south coupled with the warm, sticky evening made you want to steer away from the busier parts of the town. Instead, you opted to lounge by the pool with Anna, having perhaps one too many cocktails to kickstart your vacation. Perhaps you missed Matthew’s arrival at some point then, though for the life of you, you couldn’t remember anyone mentioning he’d come along also. Not that it bothered you greatly.

Since the time you asked him to be your plus one some few weeks ago, the relationship between the two of you warmed slightly. Sure, he still knew which buttons to press to get a reaction out of you, but you saw it as being less ill-intended and more good-natured fun. You kept up with him easily and whenever it felt as if he was cornering you, you conceded with a roll of your eyes but never admitted defeat. You didn’t consider the two of you friends, but something changed on the day of the wedding right around the time you had spilled out your feelings about the entire deal to him. Looking back on it, you found it strange just how easily you did that, no second thoughts, no wishing for takebacks. You knew you owed him the truth given the position you put him in without plenty of heads-up, but you could’ve easily just simplified the entire thing.

It wasn’t difficult to stick together as a group but eventually, you wandered off towards a few stalls on your own that have caught your eye. Though you wanted some more time to have Anna to yourself, it was technically her first vacation with Johnny. You could catch up with her later in the room; surely, she’d have even more swooning to do over him by then. Not that you blamed her. Johnny was an incredible guy.

First, you stopped at a stall selling a range of baked goods that you simply couldn’t turn away from. And for good reason: the sour cherry churro you settled for was a dream come true. From there, you strolled towards a few small stores selling a range of products ranging from colorful graphic tees to earrings made from vibrant, colorful gemstones. You held a blue pair next to your ear, turning one way then another to watch as the light reflected off the gleaming gem.

“Those suit your complexion,” the attendant commented and when you looked towards him, he smiled bashfully.

A gentle heat crept up your neck, unable to keep the grin off your face but you couldn’t look away from him: his skin was lightly tanned, and a dusting of freckles covered the bridge of his nose and upper cheeks. His blond hair was messy in a way you could easily tell was styled to appear as such. He was cute in a sort of conventional way, but you liked the way he smiled at you, all shy but certainly genuine.

“Funny you say that. I always had a feeling blue was my color,” you responded, and his smile widened.

“Here for vacation?” he asked.

You nodded. “Yeah, I just got here yesterday, and I’ll be around for a few days,” you added, a little hopeful.

Hey, if you could score some good company while in the area, then you weren’t going to turn down the opportunity to flirt a little and make good with someone more local.

“Good. That’s really good to know.” He regarded you for a moment and you were certain that caused your blush to deepen though at the same time, it made you feel a little…exposed. “Hey, are you free—”

“The red ones are nicer.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, frustration quickly replacing the feeling of near euphoria. You could recognize that voice anywhere. Of all times he could have run into you, the universe fixed it so he popped up when you least needed that to happen.

“I prefer the blue,” you countered, then held them up against your ear again though you knew you didn’t need to double check if they suited you.

“No, trust me with the red,” Matthew insisted, and you saw him appear behind you in the small circular mirror you were looking into. He was so close. “Goes well with that little number I got you the other day.”

You sputtered. “W-what?! Stop messing—”

In the mirror Matthew’s eyes flicked from you to the attendant. “Yeah, you know the one. I left the box on the bed in our room, thought to surprise—”

“Tkachuk, just shut up. There isn’t an our room—”

This was so painfully uncomfortable. So frustratingly annoying, you felt the blood warm in your veins, that familiar wave of anger coursing through your body.

“I’ll ring those up for you,” the attendant said, his voice carefully polite while he accepted the red earrings from Matthew’s outstretched hand.

You hated him. Passionately hated him. It was easy for Matthew to play games like those because he could easily get just about anyone, but you? It wasn’t quite as easy to not be a pro-athlete who had pretty much everything lined up and going for them. You tried catching the store attendant’s eyes again but he was busy accepting the cash from Matthew after packing away the earrings in a small paper bag. You knew he wouldn’t catch sight of it, but it didn’t stop you from casting a longing, apologetic glance towards him before leaving the store.

It felt as if for every two steps you took, Matthew only needed one and despite the crowds, he caught up with you easily, holding out the bag towards you while you powered ahead.

“Come on, don’t be mad. The red ones are definitely better than the blue ones,” Matthew tried to reason with you while holding the hand stretched out to you, insistent on his offer. When you didn’t respond and instead, tried to rush further ahead, Matthew pressed on. Him managing to keep up with your pace only added fuel to the fire. “Don’t tell me you’re upset over Ron Jon back there.”

You came to a halt, turning to glare up at him. “I am, Matthew. You didn’t need to do what you did back there. There was no reason for it. It was shitty of you, and I need you to back off while I try to enjoy the rest of my night.” You clenched your jaw, trying to suppress the overwhelming feeling of anger that normally resulted in tears. “You could at least pretend to be sorry about it.”

With that, you turned on your heel and squeezed your way through the crowds, ignoring Matthew’s calls to stop and come back and that he was only joking.

Too late for that, you thought bitterly, making a turn towards a street popular for its dining and bar venues.

The part of the archipelago more popular with tourists was truly a sight to behold as the sun went down, coloring the sky in some of the warmest, most calming shades of orange, red and yellow you ever saw. It seemed as if everyone gathered on the promenade, phones at the ready while taking photos of the sky, selfies and group shots. Even you couldn’t resist it and after taking a few well-centered selfies, a passing couple offered to take your photo which you immediately posed for.

Later, once the sight sunk in, you moved towards a nearby bar, first attracted by the pink, purple and blue neon lights and then, the music. A good cocktail, good music and a gorgeous sunset were all it took for you to feel more relaxed, leaving behind the event from earlier. He wouldn’t be the first cute guy you’d see, nor the last and indeed, it was easy for you to settle in the more crowded area of the locale where people were dancing either solo, with a partner or as part of a group.

Not long after you weaved your way onto the dancefloor, you felt a pair of hands settle on your hips, drawing you in. You went easily, accepting the embrace, accepting the way you were being led into the dance, swaying your hips along with his. You didn’t even miss a beat when he spun you around, but you kept your hands pressed against his shoulders, rather than wrapping your arms around his neck. You were tipsy, no doubt, and admittedly felt touch-starved but you weren’t quite in the mood for anything more. You even dodged his mouth when he tipped his head down to your lips so instead, he landed a kiss on your cheek. Still, he was pretty relentless. The dance took a turn that was significantly more sensual, crossing a line into discomfort, and you felt that was your cue to try and remove yourself from him. It was easy initially. You threw him a small smile and when he caught hold of your hand, you simply motioned you were only going to get a drink, hoping that would keep him where he was with the knowledge you would return.

When you finally pulled away, you made a bee line towards the exit of the venue but again, you were a step too slow. The guy caught you just at the door.

“Where are you running off to, pretty?” he slurred, his voice louder above the thumping of the music.

“Oh—Um, just getting a breath of fresh air, is all,” you said quickly and immediately wished you didn’t venture off in a place like this alone. It was as if you suddenly forgot everything that was common sense, pushed towards it by earlier frustration.

“Doesn’t look like it to me.” He frowned, but there was no clarity in his eyes. He was entirely out of it and his fingers squeezed painfully around your wrist. You flinched visibly, squirming under his touch and even if you tried pulling your arm away, it was useless. He overpowered you even through the drunken haze. “Wanna go? Fine, then let’s go together.”

“No—uh, I’m actually here with my friends. I’ve just—I saw them so I’m going to catch up with them. They must be looking for—”

“Then we can go to them together, sweetheart. Here, point them out to me.”

“No, really. I’m going to them alone,” you emphasized and put all your force into trying to free your hand. It may have taken him by surprise that led to his loosened grip, but as soon as you turned on your heel, you found out there was more to it than just that.

You almost faceplanted right into Matthew’s chest when you tried making a run for it. He stood there, eyes flicking between you and the guy with an unreadable expression on his face. Your heart was hammering wildly in your chest and instinctively, you almost glued yourself to his side. It wasn’t the first time someone tried to force a move on you, but it was the first time it was done so in such a thoughtless, drunken manner. Perhaps your fear was also enhanced by being alone in an unfamiliar place. To see Matthew this time felt like a blessing.

“Babe,” Matthew said by way of greeting, pulling you to him when he wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

You didn’t realize you were trembling until you stood so close to him, legs suddenly feeling like jelly in front of your salvation. Matthew could easily overpower the guy; even if they were roughly the same height, there was a big difference between the body of an athlete and the swaying one of a drunk guy. Still, it didn’t mean you wanted Matthew to get caught up in anything he’d later regret or would affect him in any way, so you pressed a hand to his chest trying to put some pressure into guiding him away from the scene.

“She yours?” the drunk guy slurred, head tilting back, chin pointing towards your general direction.

“Yeah. So, guess that makes the situation even worse for you,” Matthew responded. His tone was light, seemingly non-threatening to someone who didn’t know him but you did. You knew him and you could read him crystal clear in this moment.

“Matthew, please,” you muttered, looking at him almost desperately while trying to put all your body weight into guiding him away.

The guy scoffed. “You’ve gotta do better than that, buddy.” He snickered. “You’ve gotta keep ‘em on a tighter leash unless you want them to go—”

Matthew made a move towards him, but you quickly stepped in front of him, essentially forcing him to halt. “Matt, please. Let’s go, okay? Please. I really want to leave. Right now.”

He glared at the guy for a moment longer but the hard look in his eyes softened as soon as his gaze fell on you. You took the liberty of placing most of your weight against Matthew, allowing him to remove both of you from the situation and towards a less crowded area. That was easy to find: with the sun having long set, most of the crowds cleared away from the promenade so there was plenty of space for you to collect yourself in peace.

He didn’t pry into the situation, didn’t even make any smartass comments. Instead, he let you slip away from under the safety of his arm while you pace around a small area, trying to work off the anxiety as much as you could. You had to count your breaths, remind yourself to breathe in then out slowly. You were okay. You were far from that guy, and he couldn’t hurt you. At least, no more than he already did. Your wrist felt a bit sore, but you’d take that over anything worse.

“You okay?” Matthew asked at last, tone careful. “I can go back there and pull him out, you know, get him to apologize.”

“No!” you said loudly, desperately, then cleared your throat and lowered your voice. “No, don’t go. Please. I just need a moment, that’s all. Just a little. Could you not leave? I’ll be fine in a moment. Just—just need to catch my breath—"

“Hey, hey—relax. It’s over. He can’t put a hand down on you now, or ever.” Matthew took a few steps closer to you as if apprehensive to approach you in the first place. You knew what you must’ve looked like: pale, still shaken by what happened. He held a hand towards you, palm up. “Can I touch you?”

You looked from it to his face, then said, “don’t get any funny ideas,” but it lacked your usual punch. You took his hand though, letting yourself be drawn to him. Matthew smelled like the sea. You couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he’d gone down to the beach earlier to take a dip. You wished you did that rather than try and drink your frustration over missing out on a random guy. God, you could sleep right here if sleeping while standing was a thing. “I’m sorry for reacting the way I did before—with, uh—what did you call him?”

Matthew chuckled, a low, deep chuckle. “Ron Jon.”

“You’re awful, Tkachuk.”

“And you have a funny way of expressing gratitude.”

“Sorry—”

He laughed louder. “I’m messing with you.” A pause, and then, “I’m sorry I rained on your parade earlier with the guy back then. If you really liked him…” He trailed off, as if to let you fill in the sentence for him.

You laughed weakly, waving a hand dismissively. “Thanks. Again. Seems like nowadays, I just keep having to thank you for one thing or the other.”

You felt him shrug. “Fine by me. You keep adding to these favors you owe me.”

“It’s only one. Well. Two if you want to be a dick and count this one too.”

You took a step back, detaching yourself from him to run both hands through your hair. You felt exhausted, drained of energy yet relieved. Who would’ve thought you’d be pleased to see Matthew pull another one of his appearing out of the blue acts?

“You give me no other choice but to be one,” he joked. “Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. Everyone’s wondering where you were, so you kind of lost your right to vote on dinner for tonight.”

You sighed heavily. “Let me guess: you all ganged up on me in my absence and settled on lobster?”

Matthew grinned. “Can’t vacation in a seaside town and skip out on that.”

“Ugh. Sea critters.” You pulled a face, drawing yet another laugh from Matthew. It made you feel oddly accomplished but you cut that train of thought there, forcing it to derail elsewhere, to place more familiar to you, more comfortable. “Matthew, I mean it when I said thank you. That was—it was scary,” you admitted as the two of you started walking back towards the hotel. You pulled your wrist into your hand, rubbing at the skin gently. Focused on the road ahead, you missed Matthew frowning down at the gesture. “I don’t know how that happened. It’s just—it’s not my thing to do. Go out alone, especially in a place like that. Good instincts by the way,” you tried to joke but it fell flat.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, voice tight. “I don’t want to think about it again if I can help it.”

You cast a confused stare in his direction but by then, it was his turn to look ahead, a frown marring his features. You didn’t push any further though.

Later that night, after you and Anna decided to call it a day and switch off the lights, you lay in bed glancing a look up at the ceiling above. You didn’t think back on the evening’s events but rather, thought back to how a familiar small brown paper bag was taped to your room’s door before dinner. Anna had fixed you with a knowing stare as you plucked it off the door, tipping its contents into the palm of your hand.

Then, you thought how during dinner, Matthew had claimed the seat next to yours and complimented the earrings you wore, remarking how awfully familiar they seemed though he could swear he didn’t know where from. For the first time, you had an inside joke to share with him and neither of you bothered to offer any clarifications to everyone else around the table as they tried to press for details.

three.

The Flames’ first game of the season was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas and with a few days left of vacation, you couldn’t skip on the opportunity to return to the city you were inexplicably fond of, as well as watching your brother play on the third line. The night promised to be unforgettable, and you wouldn’t miss it for the world. Although there were plenty of things to keep you busy throughout the day, your eyes would occasionally wander down to your watch, counting down the hours until the start of the game. It seemed like most of the city was doing the same.

Often, you’d spot handfuls of people donning Knights jerseys and occasionally, there would be a few Flames fans wandering the streets and locales. You’d only spotted one person wearing your brother’s jersey but that was more than enough for you – he was a fairly new face in the professional league, but he certainly pulled his weight during every shift he had on ice whenever given the opportunity. Luckily, you managed to take a quick photo of their back before they disappeared into the crowds, sending it to your brother along with a thumbs-up emoji.

He didn’t respond immediately, nor did you expect him to. You could only imagine how quickly he racked up pre-game nerves and he had a pretty strict routine, which included avoiding his phone until after the game. You couldn’t really make sense of superstitions even if each member of your family who played, whether professionally or otherwise, had their own. Naturally, you were surprised when your phone pinged, indicating a new message almost half an hour later. Except, it wasn’t quite who you were expecting.

Matthew is that your way of saying good luck?

You frowned, but all it took was a little more attention on your part to notice you hadn’t sent the message to your brother but rather, to Matthew. Lately, he was one of your top contacts for frequent messaging.

You wrong number

You good luck to you too though, i guess :/

Matthew busy?

You don’t you have practice to get to?

Matthew [attachment: photo of an ice rink where a few players were captured in motion]

Matthew [attachment: photo of his skates, taken from the players’ bench]

Matthew on break, where are you?

You hanging around

Matthew what are you wearing?

You [emoji: middle finger]

Matthew ice cold

Matthew nice, i can handle ice cold

You then go handle ice cold so you don’t get handled tonight

Matthew wish me luck too

You i already did

Matthew i need it twice, it’s my superstition

You that’s a bullshit superstition

Matthew if we lose tonight, it’s on you

You [emoji: angry face]

You good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Matthew :)

You dropped your phone on the table with a low groan, slouching in your chair. From across the table, Anna shot you a confused stare which quickly morphed into understanding when you rolled your eyes, shooting your phone a look of frustration as if the device itself was to blame.

“Anything interesting?” she asked in a singsong tone.

“If you count Matthew being his usual self interesting, then that’s what’s up. Otherwise, nothing new.”

“By his usual self, do you mean engaging? Funny? Witty? So good with his words that he yet again takes your attention and keeps it while the rest of us, mere mortals, struggle to do that for longer than a few minutes tops?”

You arched an eyebrow, somewhat amused. “All that – just empty words.”

Anna leaned back in her seat, taking her glass with her while twirling the straw, looking ahead somewhat thoughtfully. “You know what the two of you remind me of? Those two kids in the playground who think love can only be expressed through pulling hair and making snide remarks.”

“First of all, that’s a shitty way of trying to get someone to realize you have feelings for them and second of all, love is a pretty big word. You managing to carry it okay?”

“Okay, maybe not love. But like? It has to be like. Say what you want to say but it looks different from the outside.”

“Okay, you keep staying out there and let me know what you’re seeing. I like your imagination. Very vivid,” you commented but there was no bite to your words and Anna threw her head back with laughter.

You didn’t think much of your exchange with Matthew throughout the rest of the day, nor did you try to linger too long on Anna’s interpretation of your relationship with Matthew. You let it wash over you, knowing it’d give her too much satisfaction if you fretted too much over it and anyway, many of your thoughts seemed to fly towards the evening’s game.

By the time the two of you made your way to the arena, however, you moved from anxiety to excitement within the space of mere moments, apparently. Even if this wasn’t your first rodeo and you’d been to countless games before, there was nothing quite like the thrill of an opening game. You and Anna had spaces reserved in the upper stands along with other family members and significant others but both of you chose to watch the warm-ups close-up, so you hung around by the glass at ice level.

The Vegas Knights and the Flames stepped on the ice to a combination of cheers and the thump of a loud electronic mix. You spotted your brother almost instantly. He did a quick lap around the team’s half of the ice before pulling a puck towards him with his stick, sliding it this way and that before shooting it over towards the net. Once sufficiently warmed up, he cast a searching look around the rink and you quickly waved both arms up in the air to try and get his attention. You knew he’d spotted you, but he made an entire show out of looking over you until you smacked a hand against the panel. You knew the sound wouldn’t be heard over the general noise of the arena, but he still laughed. When he skated over, you held your phone up, giving it a quick shake and mouthing “selfie?”.

He flashed a thumbs up and you quickly turned around to take the photo, but it wasn’t until you inspected it afterwards that you noticed you were photobombed by Matthew himself. You had every intention to look up from the screen and somehow try and get his attention only to glare at him, but he was a step ahead. You almost jumped out of your skin when you noticed Matthew standing right there by the glass, smirking at you.

“Asshole,” you mouthed, not daring to voice it out given you were surrounded by kids.

Matthew winked, skated to collect a stray puck then threw it up over the boards towards one of the kids standing right next to you. The kid was clearly thrilled by the gesture, bouncing up and down with the puck held over his head as if it were a trophy. You couldn’t help it: your heart melted at the sight, so you simply nodded once at Matthew, apparently just in time as the warm-up countdown reached zero.

You weren’t surprised the home team were putting on such a show for the opening night. There was a little bit of Vegas in every opening act: from the fireworks set off outside the arena to the showgirls and mind-blowing animations projected down on the ice, it felt more of a Stanley Cup playoff game than the start of a regular season game. This was Vegas and no one did it quite like Vegas did, you had to give that to them.

Both teams were almost evenly balanced throughout the first period but stepping out of intermissions and into the second, the Flames started powering ahead. It was as if something had clicked together even better and they functioned as a well-oiled machine, both in offence and defense. By the end of that period, they were leading the Knights 3-2 and you were more than elated your brother had earned himself an assist. Like all games, tensions formed quickly, and the third period saw both teams play aggressively. On several occasions, you caught sight of players clearly chirping each other even while heading towards their respective benches after the end of a shift. Once, Matthew seemed to be involved in a seemingly endless yelling match with a player on the opposing team. There were more checks against the panels, an impressive number of penalties drawn by both teams, and it felt as if the atmosphere was just tethering towards a fight.

It happened right after the Flames scored the fourth goal with just two minutes left of the game.

The moment the puck was dropped at center ice, you watched as Matthew charged ahead towards one of the Knights players who didn’t hesitate to drop the gloves. Between them, Matthew had the faster instinct, and he landed the first punch, effectively forcing both players to fall to the ice while the referees scrambled to try and split them apart. They were there a moment too late, just mere seconds after you caught sight of knuckles scraping along Matthew’s mouth on the big screens above. At first, it seemed to be nothing more than a graze but once he was separated and made his way towards the Flames bench, you noticed several spots of blood on his jersey on the screens above that made you almost jump out of your seat.

Sure, this was a familiar sight, but it didn’t alleviate the sheer shock and restlessness. Whatever had happened between them must’ve been a pretty big deal to set Matthew off the way it did. There was no way of sugarcoating it: the fight was vicious. More than ever, you wanted the period countdown to reach zero so you could go down to the lockers. It wasn’t just a few nagging feelings towards Matthew that led you to react the way you did. He was a friend, after all, so worrying for him was simply natural. An expected way of responding to a situation like that.

“He had it worse before, remember?” Anna reminded you as you followed the small stream of relatives and friends down towards the players’ rooms.

“Still looked pretty bad to me,” you responded, briefly pulling your lower lip between your teeth. Before she could continue being the voice of reason, you added in a light tone, “I just want to see if he had any teeth knocked out of his mouth this time around.”

It took some time before the players filed out and as you watched them come out one by one, you almost wished you saved this for somewhere less…well, public. Sure, you were just a friend checking on a friend, but you wished you could do that without an audience.

Your brother emerged first, beaming, no doubt pleased with the win, and you hugged him tightly, easily sharing his joy.

“He’s just getting ready to come out now,” he informed you, heading nodding back towards the locker.

You blinked. “What? Oh—no, I’m just. I was waiting for you to say congratulations. What are you even talking about,” you mumbled but inevitably, your eyes were drawn towards the locker room as the door swung open and Matthew stepped out.

His hair was still damp but already curling again. He was dressed in the same suit he probably arrived in, a simple light grey number that fit him perfectly. He had his backpack on also and in one hand, he carried an apparently ice-cold bottle of water while the other was pressing an ice pack to the corner of his mouth. When you made eye contact, he frowned lightly and for a moment, seemed almost hesitant to approach you. This time, you were a step ahead and cornered him before he decided to walk away.

You nodded your head once, indicating in his general direction. “What? You’re trying to add to the family’s hefty dentist bill by getting a few teeth knocked out already?”

Matthew shrugged. “It’s not hockey without a few scraps now and then.”

“For a guy who got a goal and an assist, you sure don’t look too pleased with that.”

At that comment, Matthew’s expression shifted, lightening up considerably. “Are you keeping track of my stats now?”

“What? No, Tkachuk. I was doing what everyone else in that arena was doing: paying attention generally speaking.”

Suddenly, his entire face scrunched up in pain and he almost doubled over as he groaned. Instinctively, you reached out for him, eyes widening a little when bending down a little to try and look at his face.

“Oh my god—Matthew. Are you okay? Do you need me to get a medic to check—”

You frowned as soon as you felt his shoulders tremble under your touch. Slowly, it dawned on you he was laughing. Laughing. You slapped his shoulder lightly, the gesture more a tap than anything else and you started walking down the corridor quickly, trying to catch up with everyone else as they filed out of the arena.

“Hey, hey, wait, Y/N! Come on, don’t be mad,” he called out after you and you heard him jog to catch up with you. When he did, he took a couple more steps ahead then stepped in your path, walking backwards to match your pace. “I was only messing around. I couldn’t not do that. You should’ve seen your face, honestly.”

“My face? Hope you’ve seen yours. I’m not mad. Me being mad would basically mean you managed to get to me which you really didn’t, so don’t give yourself any credit, Tkachuk,” you responded. “You just reminded me you’re still a dick so thanks for that.”

“Give me a free pass. I’m injured.”

“If you’re searching for sympathy, you’re looking for it in the wrong place,” you informed him, side stepping him so that he resumed walking at your side instead. After a few moments of silence, you conceded with a sigh. “Seriously speaking. How’s your mouth?”

“Don’t think I’ll need fillers, let’s just say.” He removed his hand from his mouth, and you looked over.

Thankfully, it seemed that putting ice on it quickly was paying off. The area was somewhat red, but no significant damage seemed to be visible to the untrained eye. He was certainly miles better than he was just months ago.

“Looks okay, I guess,” you shrugged. “What happened? Honestly, it looked pretty intense from the outside.”

Matthew didn’t respond and you didn’t press him for details even after you stepped out into the balmy Vegas night. If he chose to not share with you, then you guessed it must’ve been either pretty personal or pretty stupid. You leaned more towards the former. You didn’t even complain when he followed you to the car you hired, claiming the passenger seat. Before you also stepped inside, a message pinged in from Anna informed you she had taken off with Johnny for dinner but promised to be back in the room in a few to catch up.

You didn’t start the engine when you fixed your seatbelt and instead, leaned your head back against the rest, watching a few other vehicles pull out of the car park. In his seat, Matthew was looking out of the window to his left, heading resting against a loosely formed fist propped up against the door.

“He was talking shit about you,” he said at last, but didn’t turn to you when he spoke.

“Who was?”

“The guy on the other team. He made a comment about you towards your brother at the end of the shift. Something about… I don’t know, something crude, vulgar. Don’t really remember it.”

You didn’t quite believe him on the last part, but you allowed it anyway. “Okay… Well, I don’t know the guy anyway, so it didn’t matter, Matthew. You should have let it slip by or left my brother to deal with it.” Then, out of curiosity, you asked, “why didn’t you?”

More silence. Occasionally, the muffled sound of a passing car would cut through it but it, too, would be gone in seconds.

“Because I couldn’t.”

You pursed your lips and your fingers clenched then unclenched in your lap. You placed your hands on the steering wheel, then dropped them away before settling them back on it after starting the engine.

“Thanks, I guess. You just keep making me owe you favors.”

“You don’t owe me—”

“So, I’ll clear that now with dinner. Just please don’t tell me you’re going to need to be on a smoothie diet. I’ll feel bad eating something really good while you’re there with a strawberry and banana drink. Not that I’d stop eating though, just so you know. But it’s the thought that counts,” you said and finally, finally he chuckled quietly.

“No smoothie diets this time.”

You sighed dramatically. “Maybe no smoothie diets ever?”

Matthew shrugged. He was still not meeting your eyes but that was okay. “Can’t promise that. Kind of comes with the job. Just in case though, I like the sweeter stuff more. Triple chocolate, Oreo pieces, peanut butter.”

“Thanks, Matthew. I’ll file that under information I don’t care to know about.”

“I’m injured. Show some sympathy,” he demanded without heat, finally turning to you.

You cooed then reached out with one of your hands to pat his cheek lightly. “Aw, really searching for it in the wrong place.”

“I’ll make do with what I can get,” he allowed, and you could swear he leaned into your touch, but you tore your hand away before either of you got too comfortable.

four.

Matthew called in his favor after a few of his teammates agreed where to host their Halloween party.

“Kind of sounds like you’re the one asking for a favor,” you commented, planting yourself at your kitchen table while securing the phone between your ear and shoulder.

Matthew sighed on the other end. “Sort of. Who does a themed Halloween party anyway? The theme itself is Halloween.”

“You’re not wrong about that. Could be fun though, a bit more unique. So, what’s the theme for this year?”

“Couple outfits,” Matthew replied without hesitation.

You stilled and were grateful he wasn’t in the same room as you. It took you a great deal more energy over the course of the past few months to convince yourself that Matthew didn’t attract you in one way or another. His looks aside, it was rare you came across someone who could easily keep up with your snide remarks and the more you got to know him, the more you realized that there was more to Matthew than just being a typical athlete with his share of well-deserved fame. He was funny, dedicated and undoubtedly, caring. You had some first-hand experience with the latter. After all, he didn’t owe you anything to make him obligated to jump into whatever weird situation you found yourself in.

You warmed to him little by little. If you found him attractive, well that was for you alone to know though it made everything just that more difficult. Thankfully, Matthew seemed pretty oblivious to it or at least, he was doing a good job at pretending he didn’t catch you staring at him on several occasions or the few times you took a discrete step back if it felt like you were too close to him. Knowing he was asking you to go together as a couple (pretend couple, you corrected yourself) only added to the difficulty of coming to terms with your…crush.

Puppy love, you assured yourself. It’ll go as quickly as it came.

“Y/N?”

“Sorry, still here. Guess it sucks another year will go by without the opportunity to bring out your Fortnite costume.”

“Oh, come on. I wouldn’t dress like a game character!”

“Matthew,” you warned.

There was a pause, then, “okay, fine. Maybe I would. So, can you come?”

You shrugged, then remembered he couldn’t see it. “I owe it to you, don’t I?”

“Great! Hey, choose something good for us. There’s going to be a prize for best dressed and I have my eyes on it.”

“I think we can both agree my creativity will not let us down. I’ll text you my idea. You just make sure you actually stick to it, so I don’t end up looking stupid.”

“Don’t worry,” he started, “I won’t dump you on Halloween.”

“Good to know I won’t end up traumatized and have my favorite holiday ruined,” you said, by way of goodbye.

“Hey, spin around for me once. You look good. Blonde’s not bad on you.”

“No color’s bad on me,” you responded but refused to entertain Matthew by complying with his request. Instead, you rang the bell to Noah’s apartment after the door didn’t budge when Matthew tried the handle.

“Come on, just a spin,” Matthew insisted, nudging his elbow into your own then pressed the doorbell himself once again – hard, as if that would make it ring louder.

“Only if you dance for me and do the entire Greased Lightning choreography without missing a step.”

Matthew feigned a groan and you shot him an amused look. Before you could even comment on that, the door opened, and Noah stood at the threshold. The ruckus from inside spilled out into the corridor and from what you could see beyond him, it was a full house of all sorts of characters.

“Wow! Sandy and Danny! Finally, someone with really good taste,” Noah said by way of greeting and he looked towards you pointedly.

You flashed him a grin. “Always a pleasure to exceed expectations,” you responded and stepped into his open arms, a clear invitation for an embrace that was shortly broken apart by Matthew.

“Hey, none of that man,” he said, pulling you back and easily holding most of your weight as you broke into a laugh that had you stumbling into his side. “I didn’t even get to tell her she’s the one that I want.”

“Yeah, well, you better shape up ‘cause I need a man,” you responded, without missing a beat though you couldn’t help but replay his words in your mind. They sounded a lot like a broken record that you desperately wished to stop immediately before this…thing went way too far and spun out of control.

You were both led towards a photo wall and if you had any nerves about striking good poses without at least some liquid courage first, all that vanished. To your surprise, Matthew easily took the lead initially, falling to his knees in front of you in an attempt to recreate the part where a smitten Danny fell before Sandy, completely and utterly overwhelmed by her presence. Despite it being difficult to control your laughter, you played along with ease. At first, you were simply grinning down at him but you couldn’t let all his in-character effort go to waste, so you turned, casting a glance down towards him over your shoulder. To your side, Noah’s flash was going off every few seconds as he tried to capture the two of you from the best angle, together with cheers of encouragement. For your second pose, you rested your arms on Matthew’s shoulders once he rose back to his full height and his hands held on to either side of your torso. Again, the flash went off and again, the two of you changed pose into something more casual: him, standing behind you with his palms on your hips while you place a hand on his face, grinning at the camera. The flash went off again and he whooped loudly.

“I’m never inviting both of you to a party with this theme again,” Noah muttered, feigning disgruntlement. “You can’t come into my home and kill it like that.”

“Blame the one who came up with this idea in the first place,” Matthew defended, holding both hands up in the air in a gesture of innocence.

It was true. The idea to dress as Danny and Sandy from Grease came to you fairly quickly. You knew the two were a popular go-to, but you enjoyed the movie greatly. Plus, it was a great opportunity for you to pull out a pair of red heels you invested a hefty sum of money into. And, well, admittedly there was something about Matthew that made you think he’d suit the role just fine. When you shared your idea with him, he was on board from the start without complaining or suggesting alternatives. You were grateful for that: when Matthew picked you up earlier, dressed in an all-black outfit, leather jacket and hair styled to rival John Travolta’s, you gave yourself a mental pat on your shoulder. If any photos would go up on the internet, you were pretty sure Instagram would be grateful to you. Certainly, you knew Chantal and Keith would get a kick out of it for sure.

“Guilty as charged,” you acknowledged. “I’m going to look for Anna. Catch you later.” You gave a wave to the both of them before making your way towards the hub of activity where couple costumes ranged from peanut butter and jelly to superheroes.

She was fairly easy to locate, in part because she told you she and Johnny would dress as Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. The red, blue and gold of her outfit were unmissable even in a sea of costumes. As soon as she spotted you approaching, she made a beeline and wrapped an arm around yours.

“Tell me you and Matthew will recreate the entire You’re the One That I Want scene,” she pleaded. “Please tell me that at some point this evening, you’ll tell us to clear the dancefloor so the two of you can have your moment.”

You rolled your eyes, dragging her along towards a table hosting drinks and small bites. “There’s no moment we’re going to be having.”

“Because you don’t want to or because you want to so badly that you don’t know how to ask him? I’m pretty sure he’ll say yes.”

“Neither,” you muttered but even you’d be able to hear the lack of conviction in your tone from a mile away.

To take your mind off it, you poured yourself a glass of red wine, taking a tentative sip from it. Across the room, Matthew had deposited his black leather jacket away and started making rounds around the room. You took a longer sip from your wine and looked away.

Anna fixed you with a knowing stare which you refused to acknowledge, but she knew you like the back of her hand. “It’s okay to say you like him, you know,” she advised, and you hated the soothing tone she tried to take when saying that. It felt more pitying than anything, as if you hadn’t already had your share of disappointments in love—or, relationships better said.

“Who said anything about liking him? He’s not bad to look at I’ll admit, but that’s where it stops.” You frowned, looking out of the nearest nearby window that gave a broad view of the city below. “That’s where I want it to stop,” you admitted, this time quieter.

You were well aware that you were occasionally trying to look for a narrative that was most convenient for late night thoughts when you had the peace and privacy to think of him as you wished. The reality couldn’t be more different, though, and you knew that. Matthew was helpful to you before because he was good friends with your brother and eventually, you realized that it was just part of his nature. Beyond being successful, beyond his fame and recognition, Matthew was kind and funny and respectful. It was just that you didn’t give him the chance to before and now that you got to know him better, you suddenly realized that…what? You’d like the first man who gives you a helping hand? If that were the case, you should’ve gotten the memo sooner: it would’ve been easier liking the tech guy from work who once debugged your laptop.

It wasn’t doing you any good to try and look for a ‘but’ in every situation: Matthew is helpful because he’s good friends with my brother but it’s not like that should force him to act as if we’re romantically involved not once or twice or thrice but now, four times. Regardless of how you looked at it, that reeked of desperation. You were in that weird period in your life where it felt as if everyone around you was in a relationship, so maybe that mood translated to you.

That’s right, you settled. That’s what was possibly behind these thoughts of yours. You found Matthew attractive – and what? So did plenty of other people. You saw him surrounded by girls after practice, after matches, while out. What you felt was nothing special. It felt easier to think of it that way, even if for a few hours to truly enjoy the party without having that lurking at the back of your mind.

You mingled easily, danced with Anna, danced with other players’ girlfriends and wives, danced with your brother, even attempted a few traditional Russian dances taught by Nikita, Artyom and a few of their friends, that left you breathless by their rapid pace and intricate footwork.

“I’m done!” you declared, breathless and almost swaying on your feet when another Russian folk song came to an end but thankfully, you managed to hold steady before you could catch a ride on the hot mess express. “Absolutely wasted. Knocked out.” You stepped away, tired but euphoric and dropped rather unceremoniously on one of the available couches pushed against a wall.

“Having fun?” Matthew asked and there was a light flush on his cheeks you knew wasn’t from dancing. There was even just a slight slur to his speech.

“The most,” you replied, breathless, and accepted the drink he held out to you. You took a sip without questioning him what was in the glass, only to find out for yourself he was settling for harder stuff tonight. “But never let it be said that anyone can keep up with Russians because let me tell you,” you whistled quietly, “we’re a couple of steps behind. Plenty of steps behind, actually.”

Matthew flashed a lazy smile and you briefly spared a moment to envy him for how kept together he remained despite being evidently buzzed. “’s okay. At least we’re the better dressed ones so we lose in style.”

You took another sip from his glass, holding it out to him with a smirk. “Tell me about it, stud,” you said in what you hoped was a low, alluring tone of voice but no sooner did you think that, and you were reduced to embarrassed laughter. “Forget about that! Forget it, forget it! Where’s the delete button?”

“I didn’t come equipped with that,” he declared proudly, finishing off what was left of his drink. “C’mere, you can show me a couple of those steps you learned.”

He stood, a little unsteadily initially then held a hand to you. You knew he wouldn’t have the strength to pull you up properly, so you stood easily fully intent to actually lead him through some of the steps. Except, Matthew was definitely swaying more than you thought he would. There was something inexplicably amusing about the situation and instead of directing him towards the center of the room, you steered him away from it and towards a small bathroom you were shown to earlier that night when you needed some time to re-touch your makeup.

“Where’re we going?” he asked curiously, looking over his shoulder towards the living room with a look that could only be read as longing.

“To cool down a little and then you can learn as many folk dances as you want. Believe me, you need to be alert for them. Can’t miss a step,” you advised, trying to steady him by wrapping an arm around him though the difference in weight between the two of you couldn’t compare. Still, you managed to get him into the bathroom safely without either of you making a mess of yourselves or the room.

“Are you gonna cool down too?” he questioned.

“Sure thing, definitely need it.”

“Good, we’ll cool down together.” With that, he made a move to open the glass partition for the shower cubicle but thankfully, you were significantly more alert than he was and managed to prevent him from doing anything more than that.

“Not that sort of cool down. Here, sit here,” you encouraged, lowering the lid on the toilet so Matthew could drop down. You doubted you’d be able to hold much of his strength above the sink if you were to help him splash some cold water on his face.

“But I want that sort of cool down,” he slurred. “With you. Us two. You said you want to cool down too. Could be a couple activity.” He grinned, as if proud of himself.

Thankfully, Matthew was buzzed enough to miss the flush on your face, the slight shake of your hand as you arranged a towel around his neck to prevent too much overspill before turning the tap on.

“Can’t do that, Matthew. Here, this will be much better, I promise.”

“Wanna try though,” he mumbled but was still compliant as you pressed a wet, cool palm against his forehead, then either of his cheeks. “Not cool enough.” His complaint was accompanied by a frown which only morphed into a lazy smirk when he leaned back, trying to pull you with him. “C’mon, Y/N. It’s a couple’s Halloween night.”

“Matthew, we’re not a couple,” you said gently, pushing your palms against his shoulders in an attempt to free yourself from his hold. Before it was too late. Before you allowed yourself to get drawn into a drunk man’s ramblings.

“But I wanna be. A couple, with you.”

You put all your strength into breaking away from his hold and thankfully, managed to do so. Your heart was hammering in your chest as if desperately trying to release itself from the cage of your ribs.

“Matthew, you’re drunk. Here, splash some cold water on your face so you can come back to your senses.”

“But I’m not drunk,” he insisted and as if to demonstrate, he stood up quickly. He swayed on the spot, stretching out his arms a little and once he found his footing, he looked towards you with an expression that mixed pride with hopefulness. “See? Definitely okay—”

You frowned, feeling a little caged in. You should’ve left the door open at least. “Okay, then let’s go back out there, yeah? I can get an Uber and I’ll take you home if you prefer that?”

“Yes,” he said, then leaned back against the door. “Only if you come with me.”

You exhaled, suddenly tired as if the exchange was working every ounce of energy out of you. “I’ll come to make sure you’re okay and can make it to your bed okay.”

“I can though. I can definitely make it there even on my own and you know why? Because I’m not drunk,” Matthew insisted and when you shot him a look of disbelief, he peeled himself away from the door. “Look, look I can prove it to you I’m not drunk.”

Before you could even ask him to walk a straight line without stumbling his steps, Matthew’s arm wrapped around your waist while his other hand pressed on the back of your head, bringing you closer until your lips met. Kissing Matthew was like everything you imagined and more. He even did that with the same passion with which he skated on ice, chasing puck after puck. It left you breathless how well he worked his lips against your own as if all along, he knew how to do that in such way that it’d leave your legs feeling like jelly. Beyond that though, it felt comfortable. Not forceful despite him having not asked if he could do it in the first place, yet it still felt right. You tasted sweetness on his mouth and the sharp tang of whiskey. Vaguely, you knew nothing else could compare. It was that thought that made you push away from him with as much force as you could muster, ducking under his arm and towards the door.

“I’ll ask someone to take you home,” you said without even looking his way before leaving dashing out of the bathroom.

“You okay?” Anna asked you when you ran into her. Quite literally.

“Uh—yeah. No, actually. I think I feel a bit unwell so I’m going to head home, okay?”

You made a move to leave but her arm stopped you. “Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Above her shoulder, you saw Matthew emerge from the bathroom, a little dazzled, eyes searching the room. Before he could even spot you, you quickly freed yourself from her hold and nodded. “Will be. I’ll text you when I get home. Don’t rush back, okay? Tell Alex I said thanks for the invite.”

You didn’t stumble a step in your heels as you jogged towards the door, making a swift exit before you attracted even more attention.

+ one.

Matthew left no calls and no messages, but that was fine. You didn’t spend time trying to build your expectations of anything like that happening because drunk words weren’t always sober thoughts. The event was just something you had to deal with and if you had to do it alone, then so be it. Reasonably speaking, you and Matthew went from nothing to friends and if you caught feelings along the way, then that was your mistake for letting yourself slip like that. You were left broken hearted once, you really didn’t want to go through that again especially over someone that wasn’t even really and truly yours to begin with.

So, the next morning, you woke up at a reasonably early hour despite the late night but felt energized enough to sweep through your apartment and collect the garments you tossed carelessly on your way to bed after arriving at home. You said a heartfelt goodbye to Sandy, apologizing that in this scenario, her and Danny didn’t end up driving off in a red convertible. After that, you showered and changed in a fresh set of clothes even if the day would most likely be spent indoors. It was a fitting conclusion to the Halloween weekend, and you could do with some downtime, really.

Anna must’ve stayed with Johnny because regardless of how much noise you made, she didn’t emerge from the room and after fixing a quick breakfast and brewing coffee to continued silence, you knew you were right. It didn’t bother you. You’d make full use of the couch and stretch out on it properly as you flicked through your Netflix account and for the sake of sticking to weekend morning traditions, you selected a lighthearted sitcom. You were halfway through the third episode when your doorbell rang. You could’ve sworn Anna had a spare key of her own unless she misplaced it or forgot it home. Not entirely out of question.

Except, it wasn’t Anna who greeted you when you opened the door.

“Oh.” You coughed lightly, crossing your arms then unfolding them, then leaning one against the doorway before dropping it to your side. “Hey—uh. Hey Tkachuk, isn’t it a bit early for you to be out and about? You were smashed the last time I saw you.”

Matthew looked over your shoulder into the apartment, as if checking to see if you were alone. “Can I come in?”

Defeated, you stepped to the side and cleared the way for him to step inside before pushing the door closed. Part of you wished you’d dressed up as if you were ready to head off somewhere. You weren’t quite ready nor willing to face whatever music Matthew had in mind for you.

In the aftermath of the party, out of the flashiness of the costume, Matthew seemed to be perfectly clear-headed despite the state you’d left him in. The curls atop his head seemed soft despite the natural frizz and as he passed by, you caught a whiff of sharp cologne and fresh bodywash.

“Is Anna here?”

“Are we playing twenty-one questions?”

“No?”

“Kind of sounds like it, though?” You laughed quietly, trying to lighten the mood. It was bad enough the weather outside was gloomy, autumn settling in full force. Now, you had to deal with a Matthew who looked as if he wasn’t sure he came to the right place. “Coffee?” you asked, already leading the way towards the kitchen. You heard him follow behind you just moments later. While you poured a full cup for him, he hovered by the table, making you frown at him. “What’s wrong with you? You need an invite to sit down and relax? Seriously, Matthew, you look like you should be in bed.”

“You left last night without saying anything,” he said instead.

“Uh—yeah. I was kind of tired and I wanted it to call it a night early so—”

“Was it because of what I said or what I did?”

You almost dropped the coffee cup, but fortunately only startled enough for the liquid to slosh over the rim and down the back of your hand, causing you to hiss in pain. You cursed quietly and, in an instant, Matthew crossed over the room and took the cup from you, setting it down on the table before leading you towards the sink. As if used to this, he placed your hand under ice cold water and once the sharp pain numbed, you pushed his hand away, taking a step to the side in an attempt to put more distance between you.

“It’s fine, I’ve got this,” you mumbled, holding your hand still under the jet for a few more seconds before closing it.

It was hardly worth the fuss, but it gave you a reason to make yourself busy with something other than freaking out. It couldn’t be that he remembered anything. It couldn’t be that he was standing in your kitchen, thinking that it was a good idea to just open up that subject when you were so ready to take a shovel to it and bury it six feet under.

“Didn’t you get tired of it at all?” he tried again.

“Tired of what?”

“Of pretending. Of only acting like we’re together for one reason or the other—”

“Matthew, I asked you only once and you know why. I apologized then but if it helps you sleep better at night, I’ll apologize again for dragging you into my mess. I don’t know what the point is of this discussion—”

“The point,” he said, raising his voice but only to cut through your speech. “The point is that I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having to be by your side and pretend. It got to a stage where I don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t, and I feel as if the only time I’ll know that for sure will be when you find someone, so you no longer need to turn to me to pretend.”

“Matthew, I’m not using you, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re coming at me with this out of the blue and I don’t even understand what this is all about,” you argued, waving a hand between the two of you.

Matthew clenched his jaw. You watched as he flexed it and his eyebrows furrowed. “Do you need me to spell it out for you again? I thought I was pretty straightforward about what I want last night.”

“You were drunk last night, is what you were. You could hardly put a foot in front of the other.”

“You know that’s not true,” he retorts, lifting his arms then dropping them back down to his sides. “I was sober enough to know damn well what I said and why I said it. If you want to keep pretending even now, even at this point, then you go ahead and do that but let me be clear with you again and you take what you want from it: I don’t want to pretend with you anymore. I want to be with you. You want to know what that feels like? It feels a lot like being so close to something you want, literally having that thing dangled right in front of you only to have it snatched just when you think it’s yours. Me kissing you last night? I’m sorry I forced it on you, I could’ve gone about doing it differently but I’m not sorry for what I feel. That was all me and not the alcohol. So, you take this and do what you want with it.”

You stared at him, disbelieving your ears. It wouldn’t surprise you if that was the case: you did wake up surprisingly refreshed even after an emotionally charged night, so for all you knew, you could be dreaming this.

“Matthew, what are you—That’s, you’re kidding me with this right? You can’t. You can’t possibly think that.”

“And why not?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense. Are you even hearing yourself talk?”

“Why doesn’t it make sense? Want me to go about it differently? If you let me pull your hair, I’ll let you push me in the sandbox.”

You were suffering from a strange, ill-timed case of déjà vu. Part of you wanted to laugh at the situation but the bigger part of you triumphed, thankfully. You released a breath you had been holding, bringing both hands up to cover your face, taking some moments to yourself. Or perhaps, you’d lost track of time because eventually, you heard Matthew sigh and felt his fingers wrap around each wrist though he didn’t put pressure to tug your hands down from your face.

“Sorry. I’m just—I’m not doing this the right way. I don’t want it to seem like I’m forcing my feelings on you and that you should accept them. If I misread us—you at any point, then fine. Just, we can drop it here and I’ll deal with it but—”

You shook your head slowly. “No, I just need a moment. Sorry. You really caught me by surprise. I didn’t… I thought everything you said last night…what you did… I thought that was just, well, just the alcohol. So, I did the best thing I knew to do and, uh, left.”

“Drunk words, sober thoughts,” he reminded you quietly and this time, you dropped your hands away from your face so you could look up at him.

He was so handsome. Ridiculously handsome in his casual clothes. Briefly, you thought back to the time you first found safety in his arms and wondered if maybe… Well, why not. You closed the distance between the two of you, wrapping your arms around him, fingers clinging to the thick material of his hoodie while you faceplanted against his chest and breathed him in.

You liked Matthew. You liked Matthew so much that the admission overwhelmed you so much that you squeezed him to you, trying desperately to bring him closer. The gesture seemed to prompt him into action, and he returned the hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head and then to the base of your throat once he’d lowered his head there.

“Me too. I want to be with you too. Really be with you. No more of this pretend stuff,” you told him, your voice muffled against his body, but you knew he caught every word.

He chuckled, the sound low and deep, sending shivers down your spine. “We won Noah’s competition last night.”

“Bet he did it because of your long face,” you commented, unable to help yourself. “What did we win?”

Matthew made a move to step back, but you clung to him, much to your embarrassment. It seemed as if your body acted out of sync with your mind, but who could blame it when Matthew stood right there, right before you. Turned out he only took a step back to lift you off your feet and instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his hips, arms resting loosely around his neck. You leaned in and pressed a fleeting kiss to his mouth as he stumbled away from the kitchen while you stole another kiss. And then, just because you could, a third.

“A voucher to a seafood restaurant,” he informed you, breaking into a laugh when you groaned, throwing your head back in sheer frustration even if you had a strong feeling he was only messing with you.

“Remind me to never put so much effort if that’s what the stake are.”

“Noted. Next time, I’ll tell you we could just stay home for Halloween and play by our rules. Outfits optional. Probably not recommended.”

“That’s…really not what I said.”

“I’m reading between the lines. See? We know each other so well.”

You laughed as he carried you all the way into your room without even as much as breaking a sweat. That was definitely some food for thought at a later point.

#matthew tkachuk #matthew tkachuk fic #matthew tkachuk imagine #nhl fic #nhl fanfic #nhl imagine #*

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justice-for-shayla · 5 years

Text

Take a Joke

A/N: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Word Count: 2501

Warnings: Alcohol mention? I think that’s about it but let me know if you need something tagged.

Pairing: Josh Washington x Reader

Summary: After weeks of flirting with Josh on set, you’re convinced he’s just messing with you, but he takes the joke a step too far when he tries to help out after your ex ambushes you at a party.

Tag List: @fluidsentiment, @earlgraythnx, @karla-s-main, @asexua

Parties like this were your hell. They were part of the job, and you loved your job, but you could only barely stand the boring small talk in well lit, overly decorated rooms, rented for occasions no one could remember the real purpose of.

But you sat through them with your co-stars, brightening up a space full of rich white tools because that was part of the job too, and you couldn’t do the fun parts if you did do this shit.

At least Josh was here. He was always good for a laugh, even though if you looked at him on paper he’d be just like the rest of the rich tools that occupied the room. He was rich, circling around the film industry because his dad had been a staple of it for decades, though you didn’t think he’d ever really worked in it. He just showed up on set some days, ostensibly to discuss things with his father, but all he usually did was flirt with whatever women he found while he was there.

Including you sometimes.

It would have been rude of you to ignore him, and he was the most interesting person here by far, so you and every other gorgeous woman gravitated towards him like moths to a flame.

You laughed a little at the fitting metaphor. Josh would probably burn you, but it would be hot as hell while it lasted.

“Good to see you, Y/N,” He said, flicking you a careless smile.

You flushed, trying to pretend you weren’t flattered that he’d singled you out of all the women here. “You too, Josh. It’s been a while.”

“Too long.” Like all his smooth lines, it sounded just a bit rehearsed, a little forced around the edges. It was a good thing Josh wasn’t trying to make it as an actor. Still, it was nice to see a smile on his face, you played along.

“How’ve you been?”

“Good. Can I get you a drink?”

You shake your head. “Nah, I probably shouldn’t tonight.”

“Always so responsible,” He said, teasing you, almost challenging you.

You just shrug, pretending you don’t desperately want to rise to his challenge. “They usually use bottom shelf stuff at these things, it gives me headaches.”

He nodded, taking another sip of his drink, other women were trying to edge into your space, infiltrating your conversation, but he didn’t seem to notice them. “This peasant shit isn’t nearly good enough for you.”

You know he’s only flirting with you as a joke-- he always does this-- but it still makes your heart skip a beat, just a little one. He’s the kind of guy you would have had a crush on in grade school, the class clown, the big talker, but it can’t be more than that. Josh isn’t the kind of guy that dates people, he just flirts and talks big, and if you offered he’d go to bed with you, but you won’t offer because you’d only want more and be disappointed.

Flirting back was too much fun to resist though. “My standards are impossibly high for all things.”

His smile quirks up into something even more genuine. “Even men?”

“Especially men,” You reply drily, which makes him laugh.

“What’s the joke?” One of your friends from set, Lara late as usual, finally arrived and joined your conversation. You’re a both miffed and relieved; too much time alone with Josh is fun but dangerous.

“Y/N is too good for shitty alcohol.”

Lara snorted. “Hardly. You should have seen her last Thursday when--”

“That story is NOT relevant to the current circumstances,” You snapped at her, attempting to sound prim but only managing to confirm your defensiveness.

Josh leaned in towards Lara, smiling. “You’ll have to tell me that story sometime, Lar.”

Lar? It shouldn’t have bothered you that Josh apparently had a nickname for Lara-- a name that hardly needed a nickname to begin with--but it kind of did. But only a little.

He’s like this with everyone, You reminded yourself. Everyone. You’re not special.

It wasn’t a nice thought, but it was a helpful one as you shoved the crush you’d been denying for weeks deeper and deeper, visualizing it going down through your feet and into the ground where it would dissipate harmlessly.

It was better this way.

You tried to join in on their easy banter, even managing to get in a few good jabs against Josh. At the back of your mind, you knew you were analyzing every word he said, every glance. Was he looking at Lara more? Was he laughing harder at your jokes?

You were about to duck away, angry at yourself for ruining your own evening for no reason. Josh was perfectly fine as a friend-- probably better, even-- and you were ruining that with an idiotic crush.

Lara grabbed your arm abruptly, her grip gentle but serious. “Don’t look.” Her eyes were wide, fixed over your shoulder at the door.

“Oh, god,” You said, “How bad is it?” You knew from her face that someone you disliked had come in, but you couldn’t guess who.

Lara chewed her lip. “Honestly? I think it’s as bad as it could be.”

“Fuck.” It had to be Tom. You ex. Another actor who was exactly popular enough that his betrayal had been sudden and public, mortifying in every possible way.

Josh knew the story, but looked completely at a loss for what to say, which was a relief; one of his jokes would have only made things worse.

“Has he seen me? Maybe I can just--”

“You can’t run from him,” Josh insisted, surprising you.

“Too late anyway,” Lara said, before you could protest that you weren’t running. “He’s heading over here, looking right at you.”

“Fuck,” You muttered, urgently patting down your hair and praying you could smile through whatever misery you were about to face. You turned to Josh, gesturing to his drink. “Can I borrow that?”

He nodded dumbly and you took it from him, downing it in one go and barely blinking at the sting.

Josh’s eyes darted to your ex and then returned to you, watching your panic and anger. Tom was steps away; you were barely holding yourself together. “Do you trust me?” He hissed.

You didn’t have time to answer before Tom had painted on his charming smile and stepped up to you.

And Josh looped his arm around your waist.

It was such a casual gesture, like he’d done it so many times that he knew exactly where his arm fit best. The ease of it wouldn’t have escaped Tom’s notice, and you felt a thrill of satisfaction when his eyes darted down before returning to your face.

“Y/N, it’s so good to see you again. It’s been too long.”

“Tom,” You replied coolly, allowing your tone to convey that it had not been long enough for your taste. “I didn’t realize you were coming tonight.”

“I was in the area,” He said. “How are you?”

“I’m well.” It had been so long since you’d seen him, your disdain caught you by surprise, but it was easier to handle than the panic or the confusion, or the hundreds of tiny, heart-lurching emotions that happened when you thought about Josh’s arm around your waist.

“She’s being modest,” Josh said with a level of affection that heated your cheeks. “She just finished filming, and she carried the damn thing. It was amazing to watch.”

Lara laughed lightly. “I’ll try not to be offended, Josh.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Lar, it’s just, well I guess I’m allowed to be biased aren’t I?” With that he leaned in and kissed your cheek.

“Josh!” You glanced at him, suddenly way too warm and panicking for reasons that had nothing to do with your name.

If he noticed your distress, he didn’t let it show. “Sorry, I know you want to keep it quiet, but can you blame me for wanting to tell everyone?” He squeezed you a little closer.

Tom watched all of this with badly concealed disgust and more than a little anger. “Y/N… I wouldn’t have thought he was your type.”

It was true that Josh was nothing like Tom. Tom was the picture of refinement, a smooth talker and very good at convincing people that he was the perfect gentleman. Josh didn’t act like anyone’s typical gentleman; he liked to tell dumb and often inappropriate jokes, liked to flirt with everyone, and rarely bothered with anything other than exaggerated, smarmy charm.

And yet he was always polite to people who worked on set. He had stopped flirting with one of the stunt doubles when she’d told him it bothered her. Other stories of his random good deeds and clumsy but well-intentioned efforts to support people had been what started your crush.

Josh was a massive dork, and bit of an asshole, but he was one of the best people you’d met since you started working in Hollywood.

“He is my type,” You said, more honestly than you would have liked to. “I’m happy.”

Tom forced a smile, though his eyes remained cool. “I’m glad to hear that. I was hoping… Well I’d like to talk to you.” He eyed Josh. “Alone, if possible. There are some things we need to clear up.”

You leaned a little closer into Josh, smiling up at him before you turned an even glare back at Tom. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Y/N--”

“I mean that.” After a long moment of enduring your stare, Tom sighed and turned away, defeated.

You rounded on Josh. “What the hell was that?” You kept your voice low enough that Tom wouldn’t be able to hear, and hopefully no one else at the party would, but you couldn’t completely contain your anger.

“What?” Of course Josh was confused. You realized that you probably weren’t being reasonable, but anger was easier than anything else. “I was trying to help, I thought--”

“What? That I needed you to protect me?” You eyed Josh in a dramatically skeptical way. “Not likely.”

It was hurtful, and from the way he flinched away from you, you could tell that your words had hit even harder than you’d meant them, grazing against a wound you didn’t know he had.

You didn’t linger to see any residual damage, storming out of the room either to escape him or yourself.

Thankfully, there was a quiet little room off of the ballroom. It was some kind of lounge, not very well lit and a little too crowded with furniture, but it was empty which was all you really needed. To keep yourself from crying, you paced, weaving around furniture and trying not to tug at your uncomfortable clothes.

“Y/N?”

Fuck. Of course he’d come after you. Why did he have to be so decent? Why couldn’t he just be a dick? It was what you deserved after your little show.

“Go away, Josh.”

He stepped into the room anyway. “What the hell was that? Look, I’m sorry I stepped in with your ex, that wasn’t my place. Clearly you handled it just fine without my help. I know how bad he hurt you and I guess… I just didn’t want you to have to deal with him alone.”

“I didn’t need help,” You insisted, even though you were sure that Tom would have pushed the matter further if Josh hadn’t been there pretending you were his.

“I know. And I get that you hate him and everything, and you’re mad that he’s here, but I honestly was just trying to help you. He made you--”

“It’s not about him!” You snapped, hoping you could blame the whiskey you’d stolen from him for he sudden onset of honesty. “I wasn’t mad because of him; I don’t give a fuck about him! Can’t you see, Josh?”

He stared like an idiot, his eyes wide and concerned and sweet and that stupid, pretty, impossible color that shouldn’t be distracting at a time like this. “What?”

It was the dumbest, worst answer he could have given, and yet so impossibly, innocently him that you just burst out crying. “It has nothing to do with him, Josh, it’s because it was you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you utter dumbass, you!” You swiped at your tears roughly, frustrated with your own emotions. “I don’t want to be some… I don’t know, joke person you’ll swoop in to save but never really think about.”

“I do think about you,” He said. “Y/N… I think about you a lot.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s not what I meant; you’re being literal. I meant… nevermind.” It was stupid anyway.

“Please tell me,” He said slowly.

“You’re funny, Josh, and we flirt and it’s fun but… I’m sick of it being a joke or a thing you do to save me from whoever I’m about to embarrass myself in front of. Just… stop fucking with me.” You’d regained enough of your composure that the words came out well, and you managed to end your speech with a little bit of dignity.

He dragged his hand through his hair, searching the room with his eyes as though he might find something to say written on the walls. “Y/N…”

“It’s fine, Josh, seriously. I should go.” You tried to push past him, suddenly needing to be in your cozy apartment with your sweatpants and a dumb youtube video more than anything else.

“Wait! Y/N, just wait, okay, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize--”

“No, really, I’m sorry,” Josh repeated. He stepped closer. “God, I’ve been so stupid. What I did earlier was dumb, the flirting with everyone, treating it like a joke, it’s all dumb. When I saw him looking at you earlier, walking up to you with this look like he owned you… it just pissed me off, so I did something stupid, and I’m sorry.”

He paused, and you wondered if you should say something, though you had no idea how the hell to respond to that.

“Honestly, Y/N, I’m just sorry I didn’t do this sooner.” He pulled you into a kiss.

Josh pulled away before you could respond to him, though you certainly would have if you’d been given enough time.

“Joshua Washington if you’re fucking with me right now, I’ll kill you,” You breathed, before leaning in to kiss him again.

After a long moment, he pulled away again, smiling. “What do you say we get out of here, go grab a drink somewhere decent?”

Everyone would wonder where you’d gone, Tom would think he’d scared you off, Lara would guess what had happened and start to spread rumors. Somehow, all of that didn’t matter when Josh opened the window and gestured at you to climb out first.

It was always a fucking joke with him, but you were glad to be in on it, just this once.

#Josh Washington #josh Washington x reader #Josh Washington Imagine #Josh Washington Headcanon #Rami Malek x Reader #Rami Malek Imagine

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hvrtlings · 5 years

Text

“ no matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first “

* ╰ lorenzo zurzolo ; 18 ; he/his —— wow, lachlan hawthorn sure has changed. i guess he is feeling isolated from the other gryffindor members. guess you can’t really blame him. i still remember him being so curious & adaptable now he just seems frustrated & evasive guess being a halfblood isn’t helping matters much either. i’m hopeful though. they’ll be just fine. ( zoe ; cst ; 21 ; she/her )

WARNINGS: infidelity, murder, car crashes, mention of war & hospitals & general bigotry ADDITIONAL MATERIALS: lachlan’s stats page, playlist, & pinterest board ADDITIONAL NOTES: this is fully a few thousand words longer than either nate’s or alecto’s intros and i should edit it down but i also need it to not be in my drafts. really sorry about that. if you want a tldr version please hmu!! or if you just want to plot!!!

when lachlan’s biological parents married, rumors abounded. plenty of couples from their class got married right out of hogwarts --- but none of those other couples were such a puzzling case to their peers. no one knew what sweet serena alessandri saw in declan glynne. sometimes, even serena wasn’t quite sure what it was about him; he was a dark beauty, something she could only call him in her head. he was the sort of boy who’d bristle at such a feminine compliment as beautiful; never mind that it was true. but for all his good looks, no other girl had been interested in him. maybe because he wasn’t a sweet guy --- just a guy who was sweet to her.

sweet serena alessandri: deposed princess of a new money pureblood family, she hailed from italy and had lived her whole life in clueless luxury. right up until her new money family found themselves newly penniless, and escaped to england to hide their shame.

the girls and boys she’d grown up with, gone to school with --- they turned on her and her family the moment they lacked the funds to support the frivolous life italian purebloods led.

oh, but they were mean. they rubbed her family’s new poverty in her face with well calculated cruelty. they were the reasons she vowed to keep her head down when she transferred to hogwarts. she was wary of befriending muggles and muggleborns, but wary of hating them, too. haughtiness got you nothing; she knew this well.

serena was hurt and young and foolish --- not to mention ever fearful of seeming those things. declan never acted like she was; maybe that’s all there was to her love. a sense of safety, if only from ridicule.

surly declan glynne: why, he hardly warranted a full backstory. he was an angry pureblood boy from a long line of angry pureblood boys who’d never had enough money to back up their feelings of superiority.

he was almost militant in his hatred of muggleborns and muggles; he hated muggles with a quiet passion, but muggleborns were the real problem. muggleborns infected his everyday life, stole opportunities directly from him.

hardly a radical feeling, but still --- his bigotry and working-class roots didn’t make for a winning combination. swimming in friends and admirers, he was not.

so the unlikely hogwarts sweethearts settled down months after graduating, and bets were made among their peers on how long they’d actually last.

everybody who bet that the answer was ‘ not long ‘ had plenty of evidence to support their stance --- namely, that while declan scrounged up a job in the magical maintenance department at the ministry, serena went to muggle university ( excelled there, in that world of finite answers and figures, like she never could in the magical theory and feeling and pronunciation at hogwarts ) and ended up working at a muggle accounting firm.

that while serena was making more money than the highest ranking official in declan’s department, declan stewed in his anger.

his resentment bled into the relationship. they’d never had too much in common; when the sweetness declan used to treat her with left, serena was so confused. but she hated asking questions --- fearful as ever of seeming young and hurt and foolish, wary as ever of showing a chink in her armor to people far better equipped for cruelty. just as she learned that the purebloods of her childhood were crueler than her, she knew without needing the lesson that her husband was crueler, too.

serena’s muggle coworkers and classmates had always liked her.

she’d always told a version of the truth, to explain why some simple things confused her so much — after all, it wasn’t a lie that she was grew up in a rich italian family who lost the fortune when she was in her teens and left her kind of adrift.

her confusion at taxis and ball point pens could be laughed off as a sign of her former rich-girl ways.

as could her need to be liked. they all knew she attended a string of elite boarding schools but ended up having to pay her own way through university --- knew that she worked hard and wanted people to see that about her.

so, yes: they’d always liked her. she was kind.

her coworkers noticed the seemingly sudden shift in her mood, and one brave man she’d worked on a few projects with took that notice a step further --- friendly and concerned about her, just as kind as serena had always been to him, andrew reynolds asked her out to lunch one day. and there, he asked why serena was feeling so low.

the sweetness and the kindness from him was enough to open the floodgates. maybe, she could admit, she’d felt a little starved for those two things. declan’s moods had only ever gotten worse. she answered andrew’s questions with all the honesty the ministry allowed.

she revealed that her husband wasn’t sweet to her anymore, that he was actually kind of cold. she revealed she was hurt and unsure of what she did wrong. andrew paid for her meal and told her that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

that one lunch, where he said he’d be there for her, devolved into many lunches, and then late-running meetings, and finally time spent out of the office. they fell in love — and she became pregnant.

she hid it from declan for a while; they hadn’t been having sex all that frequently, with his sudden ire at her putting a dent in romance. but she hurried to initiate it as often as she felt was ‘ normal ’ for a happy marriage, after she found out she was pregnant.

she wasn’t happy being married to him, but the idea of separating was alien to her — so she needed him to think that the baby was his.

she only got more unhappy with him, when she figured enough time had passed that she could reveal the pregnancy without suspicion. serena wasn’t sure how she’d have felt if declan had been pleased to hear they were having a baby — if any excitement or warmth would have won her back to him, if a return of love would’ve erased all her hurt. but the news only seemed to make him more miserable; so serena never had to find out.

fast forward: lachlan is born, the staff at st. mungo’s hurrying as best they can to get out of a room so tense where it should be joyous. declan named the baby, and serena let him. a pang of something wrong rang through her but she ignored it in favor of plastering on a warm smile.

then the trio returned home.

apparently declan ( who’d never been all that smart, whose suspicions never seemed to touch his wife, for all his anger at her and the world at large ) had wondered at serena’s change in mood before the pregnancy. he hadn’t really noticed she’d started feeling small and hurt and lost at home until she was happy again. and when she was happier, he got suspicious. he followed her physically when he could, spied on her magically when he could, and never got proof of an all-out affair --- but declan glynne had been born suspicious. he could wait.

here’s the thing: all babies kind of look the same. lachlan’s looks weren’t a shocking departure from declan’s and serena’s. andrew reynolds had been white, too, so it wasn’t like baby lachlan’s skin tone was super different. but declan had just made a deal with himself, like — serena and I both have light hair; if this baby’s hair isn’t almost transparent, I’ll know.

baby lachlan was born with a shock of honeyed-brown curls. so that was that.

declan was, all records would show, an anti-muggle wackjob. and he was beyond furious that serena ( his wife. he may not have loved her any longer, but she was his ) thought to pass off some ‘ muggle’s bastard ‘ as his son.

they lived in a little wizarding neighborhood a small ways away from godric’s hollow; some might say, kindly, it was more quaint than godric’s hollow. others, honestly, might point out it was a way cheaper godric’s hollow. a neighbor saw and understood what the flash of green light in the glynnes’ windows meant, and alerted the aurors.

baby lachlan was left generally parent-less, as serena was dead and declan ended up in prison. he might have ended up dead himself, had the aurors not arrived on time. godric bless nosy neighbors, and all that.

declan wasn’t a smart or wealthy enough pureblood guy to get away literally murdering his wife over an affair.

some people probably sympathized with him ( serena cheated on him with a muggle. when that saucy story hit the news, that fact was hammered in and plenty of people got where he was coming from ) but it wasn’t enough to keep him out of prison.

lachlan definitely did have a still living parent who would’ve jumped at the chance to take care of him — but the wizarding authorities never even considered andrew reynolds for any real length of time.

a peek into the auror office’s thought process: if we give him the baby we have to explain how and why and that serena’s dead. and it’s just easier to not do that.

a peek into the world of wizarding adoptions: even smarmy, blood purist wizarding society is all about preserving magical blood. so magical orphans aren’t long left without homes; magical orphanages aren’t a thing. wizarding families are often huge. so orphaned wizards are shopped around to even distant relatives and then, if that doesn’t work out, given to other families.

scandalous, family-less, little baby lachlan wasn’t long alone.

meet the hawthorn family --- edmund hawthorn was born edmund shafiq and was quietly exiled from his sacred twenty-eight family when he came out. which was fine, because his husband travis hawthorn came from a sprawlingly big and welcoming half-blood family and they took edmund in right away.

edmund still wrote to his parents, and they wrote back; they hadn’t disowned him out of bad blood. he knew his parents still loved him. they just loved the family’s image more, and needed to give him the boot in order to name his brother orlando the heir ... since he could give them more heirs.

travis, conversely, had a lovely relationship with his family.

both edmund and travis were pretty high ranking ministry workers. edmund worked in the office for the department of magical law enforcement — not an auror, but someone who puts together files and goes over paperwork and traces patterns. travis was a liaison minister with the department of international magical cooperation. they’re good guys with good reputations and the ministry was honestly relieved when they offered to adopt lachlan.

lachlan grew up with two sisters: della, who was five years older, and laurel, who was just ten months older. he loved them with all his heart.

people tended to think he and laurel were twins, especially growing up — the dads cut her hair a little short because she was always getting into a mess, and it was easier to clean mud and neon paint out of shorter curls than long ones — but with their matching hair and their alliterative names, their propensity to always cause trouble as a team ... they just seemed like twins.

him and laurel seeming like blood related siblings to the outside eye made it easier for the world to forget that the hawthorn’s son was the baby that caused that big scandal.

edmund and travis never lied to the two of them and said they were blood related twins or siblings, outright. but they did let the world outside their family assume that. they figured life would be easier for lachlan if that was the readily accepted truth.

lachlan wasn’t all that adventurous on his own, but found himself dragged into his sisters’ adventures; he could vouch from experience that mud and neon paint were a pain to wash out as it was, and couldn’t imagine adding more hair into the equation.

his sisters might’ve been better at getting into messes, but lachlan made up for it by being a mess. he was always having a crisis as a kid — his stuffed dinosaurs were just ravaging the block city, dad, but what about the finger puppet people in that apartment building? do they even sell dinosaur insurance?? why didn’t I think of the implications here ...

he and laurel played knights a lot, with toy swords and helmets modeled after the suits of armor in hogwarts ( travis asked edmund if that wasn’t a little much, when they bought them; they were a few years out from school, after all, they didn’t care that the helmets were accurate — ) and lachlan always wondered about the ramifications of two knights fighting each other. laurel always took the ensuing soliloquy of hypothetical questions as opportunity to knock him flat backwards.

he was a needy kid — he always had questions at his lips, a thousand moral quandaries to discuss. he had an active imagination and a tendency to let situations snowball into situations.

he was often hilarious, and rarely on purpose, and very easy to like. anyone who knew his birth mother would’ve been surprised to see lachlan — he truly was nothing like serena. he was bright and sweet and openly curious about everything. he loved storytelling and art and music; a perfect case to show that nurture always won out over nature.

when it was time for him to go to hogwarts, he wasn’t at all sure what house he’d get sorted into — it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever been hung up on thinking about, for all that he’d wondered about every other part of the hogwarts experience. his dads had both been in different houses, and he had no way of knowing what houses his birth parents belonged to. the sorting hat cried out GRYFFINDOR a scant few moments after touching down on his unruly curls, and lachlan decided that felt right.

he loved hogwarts.

lachlan made friends easily and often — he’d grown up in the constant companionship of his sisters and knew well how to start conversations and shift them from uncomfortable topics, was skilled at asking questions that made people feel good and liked.

he was a little overzealous in class, but most of his professors liked him well enough. lachlan was still a curious guy, and seemed to genuinely care about each subject — something that went a long way towards endearing him to hogwarts’ staff.

though, some of the staff might’ve been endeared to him even if he wasn’t generally endearing.

his interesting past wasn’t a secret from most of the professors; travis and edmund had done well enough redirecting people’s memories around their son, but then most people had already forgotten about serena and declan, or else had never really known them in the first place. but many hogwarts professors recalled teaching the couple, recalled the shock their ending gave them, when the news hit.

lachlan’s ‘ story ‘ wasn’t something his dads had shared with him just yet, so lachlan himself didn’t know. it was a little maddening walking around the castle, when it felt like all the adults looked like they knew something he didn’t.

dumbledore, being dumbledore, took it upon himself to tell lachlan the whole sordid tale himself, when lachlan was just starting his fourth year. it was a shock ( it majorly pissed off travis and edmund, who never found out why the old man did such a thing ) but the next time he went home for the holidays his dads sat him down and explained that, no they weren’t hiding it from him and yes, they’d had plans set to tell him when he was seventeen and of age.

wizarding authorities could have hunted down andrew reynolds and told him he had a son, but they didn’t. travis and edmund, however, wanted to find andrew just in case lachlan ever wanted to meet him. so lo and behold — once lachlan knew, his dad’s set up a meeting for the four of them in muggle london. it went well; kinda full of shock and crying, even without breaking the ‘ wizard ’ of it all to andrew, but still well.

lachlan was perfectly happy with his sisters and his dads; for all that he’d always known he was adopted and for all that he’d always been curious as hell, he’d never really pushed his dads about his birth parents. his dads just were his dads. end of story — no need for questions.

which was part of why it was easy for him to go fourteen years before learning about his past. lachlan could not be paid to stop the flow of his curiosity, but there were somethings that seemed so solidly true he never thought to question them.

so while it was kind of cool meeting andrew, it was also kind of weird. knowing about andrew at all was weird — because it meant knowing that his mother had died days after giving birth to him, alone and scared and unhappy. and that her husband had been a bigot and a murderer; that declan glynne was still alive in prison somewhere. it was a suckerpunch to the gut knowing that lachlan had come close to being killed himself, if a neighbor hadn’t called the aurors on their house just in time to save the baby he used to be.

listen, he’d never wanted to know where he came from.

but he knew he’d feel, like, kind of bad if he just never saw andrew again. so with his dads’ permission ( and encouragement; edmund and travis thought this would be good for lachlan, like getting to know his Muggle Heritage from his Muggle Birth Father ) he hung out with him on occasion, during holidays and school breaks.

even though the professors clearly knew about his past, and his dads did, and his sisters did once he decided he wanted to tell them ... lachlan kept it all under wraps around his friends at school. he liked to think he was an open book, before. but learning where he came from made him want to play his cards a little closer to his chest. he couldn’t put his finger on why — he knew it worried his dads, he knew it did, and figured he’d get over it in due time, once he settled into the truth.

it just didn’t seem like the truth wanted to settle around him.

declan glynne had family. he was a middle son from a whole gaggle of bigoted, disillusioned glynne brothers. the ministry just never considered them when they were trying to figure out who would take lachlan on. they looked at serena’s family and saw no options, but declan was not lachlan’s father and, like andrew, was never even considered.

ian glynne had a bone to pick with this — had a bone to pick with lachlan’s whole existence, too, had a problem with that almost more than being overlooked.

( he thought that if serena had just kept her legs shut she’d never have gotten herself pregnant and gotten herself dead and gotten her husband sent to prison. more than that, he thought if she hadn’t gotten the idea of a muggle career into her head and made his brother upset, what with her math and her decent paycheck, she really would’ve staved all this off. but serena was dead — so it was easier to blame the baby, who wasn’t. )

he was a fan of simmering in his anger and hatred and kept up with the news about lachlan, at least enough to know who he ended up being adopted by.

and from there he got an idea; the hawthorns were good people — a compliment that would’ve come out as a sneer if ian voiced it, the judgement and sarcasm inherent in every syllable. he figured at some point, they’d tell lachlan who his birth parents were, maybe even introduce him to that homewrecking muggle. and if they did, and if ian kept a low profile, kept observing … they’d lead ian right to the muggle at the root of his brother’s injustice.

he wasn’t always watching lachlan, just keeping an eye on him by keeping an eye on his dads. he’d never been all that smart or ambitious — the glynnes were a family that thrived in their self-righteousness and self-importance and didn’t feel like they should have to act on those things to get what they deserved.

but his anger, his half baked plot, was enough to spur ian to action for the first time in his life. he rose through the ranks of the ministry through pure determination and will and ended up working in the same office in the department of magical law enforcement as edmund. they almost became friends; not earnestly, not honestly — not on ian’s part. but they did. friendly enough for ian to ask after edmund’s kids and get answers, friendly enough to hear about the trip into muggle london to visit someone edmund described as one of the kids’ ‘ distant relatives. ‘

he followed them.

and he didn’t do anything that time lachlan and the muggle were in the same place, but he started to plan.

it would’ve been too hard to keep magical surveillance over lachlan and the hawthorns, so he hadn’t, not ever. just kept an eye on them the old fashioned way, through word of mouth and casual water-cooler conversation. but andrew reynolds had no means of catching ian glynne in the act of spying. so, spy he did.

muggle police would later rule it a tragic car accident — shaking their heads at the carnage as they carted lachlan off to the muggle hospital while he clung with bloody hands to consciousness. it took hours for the dads to find him there and by the time his family reached him he decided he wouldn’t tell them any of the truth of what happened; told the official from the auror department once he got relocated to st. mungo’s, but only because he had to.

he never asked if that official told his dads. none of the hawthorns talked about the situation anymore than they had to, after that.

here was the situation:

ian glynne tailed lachlan and andrew all day — a saturday during easter hols during lachlan’s fifth year wherein andrew showed lachlan around muggle london. the pair had lunch together, looked in a few shops, and were set to drive out to andrew’s home outside of the city, where edmund and travis and lachlan’s sisters would meet them later for tea.

ian glynne got them on a secluded section of road just far enough away from both the city proper and andrew’s home to cause immediate alarm.

he came out in front of the car and andrew made to swerve around the man, but ian cast some defensive spell lachlan had yet to learn at the hood. it exploded — felt like they crashed into another vehicle even though they were the only car on the road.

lachlan and andrew both slammed into the windshield, but neither crashed through it. ian came ‘round to andrew’s side of the car and started screaming questions at him about serena and declan; then he shot him with a muggle handgun, something lachlan had surely never laid eyes on before.

andrew did not die from that initial gunshot — ian was a terrible shot, and was half out of his mind besides. the bullet just grazed him, and he inelegantly dragged andrew out of the car after.

lachlan made his way out of the vehicle too, bleeding and hurt, all cut up and bruised from the crash and the glass he had to wade through. he thought, maybe, he was in shock. he was certainly in shock once he finally bambi-legged his way out of the demolished vehicle and saw ian cast a cruciatus on his biological father.

and, still in shock when he saw ian whammy andrew with a killing curse after that.

ian did not attempt to turn his wand on lachlan — this was the second time in his short life that a glynne brother forgot to kill him once done with a more satisfying target. ian took for the bare april greenery lining the road and lachlan ( curious, trauamtized dumbass that he was ) ran after him. found a gun pointed at him for a terrifying moment before the muggle police sirens cut the air and sent ian apparating on out of there.

he fought to go back to hogwarts right away; it was only the first saturday of the holiday that all this went down, so lachlan felt, since he spent the whole rest of it in hospitals and bed, surely he was fine. the dads disagreed, and his sisters disagreed, and the auror working on ian’s case disagreed. he’d just become, in a way, an orphan. and it felt like no one around him cared to see him recover in the way he wanted to.

lachlan managed to bargain that he’d get to return to school as soon as ian was sent to join his brother in prison — none of the world any wiser that he’d been there when the newest glynne family crime was committed.

laurel decreed that it’d look less strange if both of them stayed home until then, and that was that. the dads wouldn’t begrudge lachlan the company of his sister, if he couldn’t return to full normalcy just yet.

della was graduated at this point, technically an adult working a fancy job at some boutique robe shop, but she came home every day from work and glued herself to her younger siblings’ sides. lachlan recovered his new, strange orphan-hood with his not-twin and big sister at his side, dads hovering around as much as their jobs allowed.

the hawthorns were tight knit and loosely configured all at once — always brimming with love and independence in spades, care expressed tenderly and roughly, like no one was sure how to be earnest. edmund and travis had always expressed affection like that: through arguing and debating and ribbing more than any big displays.

the kids worked the same way. family dinners used to be more running jokes and teasing than anything, raucous like none of them knew the definition of serious.

the five hawthorns weren’t really sure if that old normal was still achievable; lachlan’s brush with near-death met the daunting news lurking on the edge of their world. the whispers of war.

things became very real for the carefree family — the fact of edmund’s disownment, and travis’ famous half-bloodedness.

that all three kids were adopted with far-from-simple origin stories ( even if lachlan’s was the loudest, neither laurel nor della came from a closet free of skeletons ), that the dads were gay and the kids were open in their opposition to anti-muggle and anti-muggleborn sentiment

ian glynne might not’ve gone after lachlan for any of that, not really. but the possibility started to hit with dizzying closeness.

two weeks after the holiday officially ended, laurel and lachlan returned to hogwarts. if lachlan had seemed new and different upon receiving the news of his biological parentage, then he seemed really different following his brush with death and new witness to murder. it was the kind of different that was hard to put your finger on. he smoked now, and drank more; he was liable to fall into fits of melancholy.

cynicism did not come easy to him, but he found that wariness did, that secrecy did. it was shocking.

he finished his fifth year chomping at the bit to do something, anything, about the awful ways in which his world was changing. the next year only held more tragedy --- attacks and deaths and disappearances. no one knew what happened to him unless he chose to tell them ( and in truth, there was almost no one he chose to tell ) but he couldn’t help but feel a kinship with everyone newly hurt by this world. he’d been hurt by it, too, after all.

there was a small degree of safety offered within hogwarts’ walls, but he couldn’t help but want to be free of them. to be out there, doing something. lachlan would wait for now, ask questions and notice things and store them away the way he always had. but it started to feel like he was just biding his time until he had something to do with every new thing he learned.

#incantareintro #( ⊱ ━━ 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒈𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒔𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒍𝒚┊intro. )

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menzosarres · 6 years

Text

And I Am Not Resigned

Fandom: Grace and Frankie

Pairing: See Fandom

Length: 5k (for now)

Rating: T (for now)

Summary: "[SPOILERS]" is one heck of a conversation starter. Grace is focused on the "but" she can't figure out how to say. Frankie is focused on semantics. Or maybe they're focused on the same thing.

AKA a post-s5 fix-it of some sort of another, and possibly just a start.

A/N: Sometime my queue dies because I’m busy with work. Other times my queue dies because the end of a season wrecks me so completely I start writing fic for a fandom I’ve never even said “Hi” to and don’t come out all day.

[AO3]

...but now I think that might have been a huge mistake.

The all-night thought. The should’ve-been-a-honeymoon thought. Pete Repeat on a loop from the minute she came out here to the minute after she said the first half of the words to right now, while Frankie is sinking down in the sand beside her while she’s not saying anything more than I married Nick last night even when there’s so much more to be said.

I married Nick last night. I married a man I love. Without any kind of show. No performance. No bitterness, no rubbing-it-in, no patching over old wounds. Just me, and him, and a few legal necessities and one simple gold band on my finger (which feels very cold out here, now that I’m holding it up between us. It’s overcast. It’s the breeze, you know. The spray.)

I married Nick last night.

But there’s a but. There’s always a but. And sometimes she says it and sometimes she doesn’t, because somewhere down the line there was a smarmy boss with heavy white eyebrows over swampy, wandering eyes who told her he’d started hearing her say “but there’s just one more thing” in his dreams at night but hey, at least it had taken over from nightmares about his ex-mother-in-law. Except she never liked the thought of her “buts” staring in anyone’s dreams. She’s not going to be anyone’s naysaying nightmare. Not even nightmare improvement. Especially not for men like that, who made it clear that he didn’t like her “buts” because “but” is awful close to “no,” and “no” ruins the kinds of dreams he’d rather be having about her.

It’s been a lot of years since she has had to put up with a boss like that. Since men have thought of her like that, says a smaller voice. Because sometimes, despite herself, she’s taken those kinds of things to heart. The less you admit there’s a “but,” the faster you can get right to fixing things without admitting anything ever went wrong.

But she wants to say it this time. She wants to say “but.”

I married Nick last night, but.

But I didn’t tell you.

But I didn’t talk to you.

But I left here angry with you and angry with myself for being angry with you and angry with myself for dismissing you and here I went and did it all over again.

...but now I think that might have been a huge mistake.

We all know the kind of choices I make when I’m angry.

Bad ones, she wants Frankie to say. And she wants Frankie to call her out on it, to bring up the fact that she slept in the woods three hallucinations deep into both kinds of moonshine rather than face up to one more bunk-bedded night of Frankie’s appalling attempt at a girl’s trip. She wants them to laugh about her terrible choices, and talk about whether this one is, that. Terrible. A huge mistake.

But she can’t even get out the “but” that’s been on repeat for hours, let alone any of the ones that might be an apology. They’re stuck somewhere between the fact that her huge mistakes are usually someone else’s nightmares and the fact that Frankie can’t even look at her.

Her hip hurts. She sat on that rock too long. She stood up too fast. Tried to run too fast in the loose sand. It’s going to hurt more, getting down beside her, but she does it anyway. Gets as far as the good knee before she has to stall, brace herself, and it doesn’t not strike her where she is, down on one knee in the sand beside Frankie Bergstein, but even though she stalls, several seconds past the ache in her thigh, Frankie doesn’t so much as glance her way, so down she goes. Knees in someone’s sandy footprints. Ass on her heels. Sweater wrapped tight against the wind.

And they’re sitting, and she isn’t saying “but,” and Frankie isn’t saying “bad one, Grace,” And it’s cold. The sand is cold. The spray is cold. Her hands are so, so cold. And back in Casa de Nick, her side of a bed that he said—very gently, very romantically, whispered in her ear as they crossed through the doorway with his hands around her waist—is “all ours, now” must be just as cold, considering how long she’s been out here. Cold and empty. He heard her get up. She’s not capable of that kind of quiet anymore. He didn’t say anything, though. Did that make it worse?

Frankie’s nodding.

That definitely makes it worse. It’s an “I should’ve known” kind of nod. A nod like she expects nothing but this kind of disappointment after any kind of apology from Grace Hanson. Like she agrees: her one-more-things are a nightmare.

Frankie stops nodding. “Partner’s a mean word.”

That’s it? she wants to say. Wants to laugh. The uncomfortable, tension-breaking laugh. Wants to demand worse name-calling than 'mean.' Wants to offer to fetch a seafood tray. Shower me in shrimp and pelt me with the platter. Tell me to wake the fuck up or get the fuck out.

“Who came up with it anyway,” Frankie’s saying instead, because there are few things which can shut up Grace Hanson, but there’s nothing that can shut up Frankie Bergstein. “Partner. Was it the cowboys? I blame the cowboys. I never did trust their hats. Or their guns.”

Oof.

She rocks sideways even though it hurts more, her hip right in the sand, knees protesting the extra inch of sheer.

“But you know who ruined it?”

Frankie’s actually waiting, she realizes after several seconds of silence. Still not looking at her, but she’s demanding words. Maybe she’ll even get to the ones she’s thinking. It’s got to start somewhere.

“Who?” she asks. Is that her voice? It’s so… wobbly. She sounds scared. She sounds old.

“The millennials. They’re the ones. They’re the ones who decided even stupid cowboy words can mean fifteen different things, even really, really important ones, and you know what?”

“What, Frankie.” Now she just sounds tired. And dismissive to boot.

“That ruined it. Doesn’t mean anything anymore. How’re you supposed to know, hm? Howdy, partner. Partner in crime. Grace Hanson, my most Vybrant business partner. Deal me in, partner. You gonna hit that birdie, partner, or are you just gonna let it hit you in the face?”

“Are we talking about badminton?”

“No, Grace, we’re not.”

“Because it suddenly feels like you’re talking about the time you served me a black eye.”

“That’s only because you were checking your phone in the middle of the court during a very intensive rematch with Kay Dee and DJ Ken.”

“I shouldn’t have had to watch where my partner was serving.”

Frankie holds up a hand in her general direction. “Uh! Nuh-uh. There’s a ban on that now.”

“There’s a what now?”

“You know exactly what.”

“No I don’t, Frankie!” She’s graduated from old to dismissive to shrill in under five minutes and the sun’s still only half up. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, well, who’s fault is that.”

Usually, she’d say, “yours,” but it’s not that kind of morning.

“I’ll tell you who.”

“Thank god,” she mutters.

“The millennials.”

She doesn’t feel particularly illuminated. “Not the cowboys?”

Frankie frowns. “Them too.” In silhouette, it’s all in one downturned corner of her lips.

She’s noticed that before. The laugh lines don’t change. Her eyes are always smiling, just a little, too many years of genuine appreciation of life to erase with even three years frowning at Grace. It’s something she’s wished, now and then, she could paint onto her own face as easily as she does her illusion of lingering youth. But what Frankie has is something she never will. No one has figured out how to bottle up genuine optimism for her to buy at Violet Gray or how to charge her up with some good old fashioned battery-operated faith in the good of the world. The closest thing she’ll ever find, she suspects, is sitting beside her in a blue dress that looks like a bathrobe.

“But don’t try to change the subject,” adds the bathrobe-clad joy that still won’t look at her.

“I don’t know what the subject is,” she admits.

“You’re married.”

“Oh.” That subject.

Frankie looks just like she felt, thinking about anything that wasn’t this, the two of them. On this beach. Together. And yeah, there was more to what she was gonna say even without the but. This was supposed to be a “you were right” kind of conversation. An “I kept underestimating you” conversation. A “you don’t need me, I’m a nag and a failure at sticky-note pictionary and I should probably just get out of your way” conversation. But she’s not saying any of that, either.

“I’m all out of congratulations. You know it takes me at least two days after a wedding to recharge my chi.”

“Me too.” She leans forward. Tucks her hands into the crease behind her knees. It should be getting warmer by now, shouldn’t it?

“Then why’d you do it, Grace?”

It’s not her angry Grace. It’s her resigned one.

“Well, I— He asked. He asked, and I—” She shakes her head. “I love him.” It’s the part of the Pete Repeat answer with the least number of syllables.

“I know that.” Frankie’s plucking at her dress-robe. “Doesn’t mean you marry the guy, I mean. Come on. That word’s exactly the same way!”

This should be one of the times she gets it, shouldn’t it? She feels like this loop Frankie’s in about words matters, so she should be making the superhuman effort it takes to follow it down whatever rabbit hole and along every tangent she’s taking it on, but she’s sleepless and a little bit convinced some part of her subconscious rattled loose last night and decided to haunt her with the ghost of face-lifts yet to come, so she can’t. “What word?” she asks, more harshly than she wants to. “The same as what?”

“Love!” Frankie’s hands go up in the air. “And cowboys!” She frowns. “No, you’re the one who got me hung up on cowboys. I just mean. You can say that word a hundred times to a hundred people and it doesn’t mean you have to move out.”

“Who said anything about moving out?” she splutters.

“Well he’s sure as hell not moving in.”

“He’s not moving into the beach house, Frankie.”

“Exactly. Because you’re moving out.”

She untucks her hands. They aren’t getting warmer there anyway. Her fingers are just going to sleep. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course not.” Frankie’s hands rise an inch off her lap and thump back down again. “But I’m not the one who went out and got myself a husband.”

“You got yourself a man and a yurt like a month ago.”

“Yeah, and I moved into it with him. Because that’s what people do when they get men. I wasn’t gonna make him sleep on the couch.”

“Now we both sound like we’re talking about dogs.”

Frankie doesn’t even smile.

“Besides, living on the patio does not count as moving out.”

“Yeah, well. Not all of us buy our men from the breeders. Big business of man’s best friend. Bunch of corporate fluff- murderers. Some of us foster strays. With a yurt. Not some... pedigree penthouse and a half-private island.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. She manages a strangled laugh. Feels like she has to. It was her bad joke that started this, after all.

Frankie just keeps frowning. “This is all wrong.”

She huffs through her nose. “Tell me about it.”

“No, you stop doing that.”

Frankie almost, almost turns her head while she says it. It was almost eye-contact. She realizes she’s leaning in, her hand heavy on her knee, like if she were a few inches closer, Frankie would be forced to look at her already, or she’d at least be able to make out what’s happening in her head through her eyes. “Stop doing what?”

“I’m supposed to be angry. How come you were allowed to be mad about the yurt, but I can’t be mad about this?”

“You can be. I mean, you have every right to be.”

Frankie frowns at the ocean again. “Yeah, well. It does’t work if you aren’t giving me any guff. Where’s my pushback, Grace Hanson. You don’t want my congratulations and you let me call your new hubby a puppy killer. A puppy-killer puppy. A dopey, pedigree pomeranian. A lapdog of society, capitalism’s favorite canine, a—”

“—point taken, and metaphor officially taken too far.”

“Speak for yourself.”

They’re both very still for a while.

With each passing second, the waves seem closer, louder. Ready to drown out whatever she manages to say next. It’s her turn to stare out at the water. She’s hit some words she doesn’t think she can say to even the side of Frankie’s face. Talk to the waves; it's not like the face wants to listen.

“You’re right, you know. I think I came here for you to yell at me.”

“And when do I ever do that.”

“Every time the ad for selecting the new special flavor of Mountain Dew comes on in the car.”

“Well that’s just sacrilege! Nobody can improve on Mountain Dew, and especially not a radio-voter democracy. Those people can’t be trusted.”

This time, she just waits it out.

“But that’s just yelling.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees it. Frankie’s curls blowing back over her shoulder. Frankie’s chin turning her way. She’s afraid to make any sudden move, to look back at her, to even blink, though the salty wind is going to ruin that any second now. It's already making her eyes water.

“That’s not yelling at you.”

“You do that too,” she says, throat uncomfortably thick. “Literally any time I’m not in the same room where you’re looking for me, but that’s… That’s not really the point, is it. What I meant was, I came here for you to be mad at me, alright?”

“Well that’s silly.”

“No, no it’s not. Well, maybe it is, a little, but—” She’s looking. She didn’t make the conscious decision to turn back towards Frankie but she did it, and finally, they’re talking to each other instead of the sand and the sea. “—I thought… I didn’t think you’d let me say sorry, for one. I thought… maybe you’d yell at me, maybe you’d hate me for going behind your back again, and maybe that’d be… better. Than how we left things. That you’d agree. We did it. We made it out. Hell and back and we’re stronger and more ‘fuck it’ than ever. So strong we don’t need…”

Her hand settles into the sand by her side, scooping up aimless grains and bits of broken shells and dried up kelp and letting them sift through her fingers.

“Or maybe you’d help me figure out…”

It doesn’t make any sound, falling. Only when she’s digging in, getting little bits of their grassless backyard stuck beneath what's left of her pre-vacation manicure.

Frankie’s hand comes down on the back of hers, pressing down hard, stilling her restless movement. There’s some real weight in it, harsh and constrictive, but it’s also the warmest thing she’s felt all day.

“Figure out what, Grace. Spit it out. Remember, I’m all chi-ed in for the day, so I’m gonna be a godawful guiding star. An angry one at that.”

“Guiding star? What happened to good old-fashioned guru?”

“Leo may have suggested I was being appropriative, calling myself that when I’m not in touch with my own inner light.”

“Hmph. I have never met anyone more in touch with her own inner light. In fact, sometimes I think that’s all you’re in touch with.”

“And sometimes it gets really obvious when you’re stalling.” Frankie pats the back of her hand twice, the way someone might while saying “there, there” to a crying stranger at a funeral.

“Right,” she hears herself whisper. “Um. Right. You, yelling at me or. Or helping me figure out… what I want.”

“Seems like you figured that one out all by yourself.”

Frankie pulls her hand away. She can feel her eyes on the ring. It’s warmer than before Frankie touched it, but the air and the sand feel even colder, now.

“No, no I didn’t. I just said ‘yes.’” The wave of relief at saying that much swamps her, twice as loud and cold as the sea. It’s like being shocked awake, like she can hear her own voice again. “It felt like I’d spent all day saying ‘no.’ To you. To your whiteboard. To the kids. To the fucking sea lions.”

“The sea lions were not fucking, Grace. Do you really think I’d have stayed in the tent and missed another glorious act of nature like that?”

“For your son’s wedding? Yes.”

Frankie’s eyes go wide, and for a second, she wonders if she’s having some kind of epiphany, something that will get her out of the rest of this conversation and into an answer that will make her gut stop feeling heavier than after her first and only Del Taco burrito.

“They were fucking! The sea lions were fucking and you didn’t tell me! Again!”

That’s the last straw. She starts laughing, pained, raw laughter that makes her feel like she’s going to start choking on it. She finally got it, Frankie’s finally yelling at her, and it’s over the fucking sea lions. “No, Frankie, for christ’s sake. This isn’t about the seal lions.”

“Then why are you talking about the sea lions!”

Her lungs ache. She tastes salt deep in the back of her throat. She’s still wheezing out the last of this awful laughter.

“Hey! Cut that out. That’s no laughing matter. That’s a real serious crime you committed, you repeat sea lion offender. I could have you fined for just the false alarm.”

Oh, oh thank god, Frankie’s almost smiling at her.

“If I ever see them doing… that… again, I will call you immediately and ask that you kindly bring me the bleach for my eyeballs. Deal?”

“Shake on it?”

Rolling her eyes, she holds out her hand. They shake.

“Deal, then,” Frankie agrees. “But you aren’t allowed to use it till you’re back at the sink. Bleach is very disruptive to—”

“—this conversation, it seems.”

At her tone, Frankie shifts. For the first time, it really occurs to her that, as uncomfortable as she is right now, Frankie isn’t faring much better. For... not the first time... she’s equal parts grateful and concerned that both of them react to discomfort like this, that they can needle each other until it’s like an itch instead of a pain, and they can laugh. Yeah, sometimes that makes it hard to talk about the real stuff, but she never used to laugh like this. Ever. At any pre-Frankie point in her whole eighty years of life.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That I keep talking around this. And getting upset when you let me.”

“Hey. Don’t apologize for that. You were finally almost getting us to mutually assured anger.”

“I don’t want mutually assured anger.”

“Well I do! This hurts, Grace!”

Her hand is yanked up from the sand and waved in front of her own face before she realizes what’s happening.

“This is huge!”

“I know.”

“Massive!”

“Well, it’s actually pretty small compared to…”

...this nightmare scenario I was daydreaming where everything was bigger and badder but otherwise kinda looked an awful lot like a what happened when I came back from the vacation I actually did go on where I guess I decided, stupidly, we were better off without each other.

It’s a good thing she ran out of breath before she even started trying to explain that one.

“I’m not talking about the ring and you know it, Grace.” Frankie lets go. Her hand just kind of hangs there for a minute. “We’re supposed to be partners. Partners may mean a hundred and fifty different things but none of them mean you go behind my back when you get married.”

“I know.” She shakes her head and buries her hands behind her knees again. “And that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. That that’s not what I wanted. What I want. That I said yes because all day I’d been telling you ‘no’ and you’d been doing it anyway and you were right! Every time! So I walked out and sat around thinking… Gee. Frankie’s doing so well. I left and Frankie’s doing better than ever. Hell, we both are. So… why not. Why not make this the new… us. A less… us us.”

“Yeah, why not.” Frankie starts to get her feet under her. She can hear the start of the storm-off in her voice alone. “If I’m not dying, why would you even want me around. This is some apology, Grace.”

“Frankie, no.” She reaches out, catches her hand before she get further than a crouch. “The point is, I was wrong. I’m not doing better. I’m the one who’s not doing better. I’m the one you don’t want around.” Her voice catches. “But I’m selfish. I don’t want to not be around.” Frankie’s still not looking at her, still looks a second from pulling away for good. So she digs for Frankie’s words instead, says them as softly and genuinely as she can. “I don’t want to be my own beaches.”

She knows it works when Frankie stiffens. Lets out a huff. “Sure.” She shakes off her hand, but sits back down. “You want to be Nick’s beaches.”

“I still don’t know what that means, but I definitely don’t want that either.”

That earns her an eye roll. “You need to stop saying things you don’t mean, cowboy.” Frankie stretches her legs out in front of her, wiggles her toes to flex a cramp out of her calf.

“I know. That’s how I wound up married. Twice.”

“Or how I spend decades thinking we’re both fabulous forties gals when you were born 1939. That’s the proof right there. This was always gonna go south. If I'd known, I'd've never agreed to live with you in the first place. Nothing good ever came out of the thirties.” She leans back on her elbows and frowns. “Unless you count Sister Rosetta Tharpe inventing rock ‘n’ roll, and people never do count Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”

“Frankie, I’m not following.”

“She was a queer black woman and a musical visionary and history owes her!”

“Alright, I’m sure you’re gonna single-handedly make sure it pays up, but I don’t know where you’re going with this and I’d really like to get there.” The ache in her hip is telling her to lean to the other side, but her knees are telling her if she does that, they’ll riot. “I’ve had a cold morning and a long night.”

“Of marital bliss.”

“Of mediocre sex,” she grouses instead, then claps a hand over her mouth.

Frankie stares at her. Oh, she does not want Frankie staring at her right now. An underwhelming honeymoon is something they could joke about if it were about, you know, Robert. Or Sol. If it were fifty years ago. Not the morning after. Not in the middle of this.

“You married Mr. Tall Dark and Free Enterprise for mediocre sex? ”

She can feel how red her cheeks are from here. “Well, I— People don’t get married just for— And, you know, we’ve talked about this, how, at our age… Look, Frankie, that’s not the point.”

“Oh yes it is.” She’s leaning forward, finger up and shaking an inch from Grace’s nose. “I know what’s happening here.”

“Buyer’s remorse?” she mutters.

“Self-flagellation!” Her hand falls again. The intensity in her stare doesn’t change, but her tone does. “You, married to some mediocre sex? I can’t believe I’m seeing it. I can’t believe, after, after, yeah! After all the times we’ve talked about this! Don’t ‘our age’ me. Don’t you do that. Not now, not then, not ever, and especially not after you went out and married…” Frankie’s head is shaking again, and her voice is getting softer and softer, and it’s doing something to her, something that’s dragging up the weight in the pit of her stomach and making it cling and dig in nails right behind her ribs. “But I guess that means... you really mean it.”

What do I really mean, she wants to say. Please, please tell me, because I don’t think I know. But she doesn’t. The claws are in her throat, too.

“You actually came here because you didn’t know how to fix this,” Frankie says like it’s the least believable thing in the world.

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along!” she gasps out. “What did you think I was doing?”

“Humoring me,” Frankie says, and her voice is still soft, but this time there’s hurt in it, and the claws all throughout her chest are suddenly pinching so hard they bring tears to the corners of her eyes. “I thought this was just another one of those ‘I’ve made a decision you aren’t going to like, Frankie, so I’m going to pretend to be torn up about it so you won’t make me feel guilty’ conversations you love. ”

“I do love those,” she admits. Her voice is so choked that Frankie’s less-than-flattering impression sounded more like herself than she does.

“I know,” Frankie says. “Just like I know you know being eighty doesn’t mean settling for mediocre sex.”

She sighs. “Can we not focus on that right now. Yes, you’re right, and yes, I’m the idiot who blurted that out, and yes, I know how weird this is gonna sound, but in this case, I really don’t care that much about the sex. I didn’t come here to talk about that. And I didn’t come here to humor you, either. I came here to apologize, to tell you I fucked up, then apologize again. Then, maybe, figure out what happens next.”

“Well, you call it off, obviously.”

“I got married, Frankie. Not engaged. We’re past the stage where I leave him at the altar.”

“So what? You didn’t want to get married, you call it off!”

“Who says I didn’t want to?”

“Oh, come on! Ms. Wound Up Married. Or do I have to say ‘Mrs.’ now? Puh-lease. You never wanted to get married again. You want to know how to fix this? You rewind—” Frankie makes the arm gesture, the one like she’s yanking on a tug-of-war rope and like no kind of rewinding she’s ever heard of. “—say ‘Just kidding, Madam Justice of the Peace! My hand slipped!’ Happens all the when you’re old. Blame a hand tremor.”

“I am not telling Nick I meant to put that ring on his thumb and slipped because I had a hand tremor.”

“Ooh, that’s good. Use that.”

“No, Frankie.”

“C’mon, why not?”

“Because I love him, Frankie! Have you not been listening to me?”

“Course I have,” she says in a huff. “You’re not listening to me. Love, marriage— Not the same deal. The first one’s about a lot of things. Remember the cowboys? No? Whatever. Anyway, the point is the other one’s about tying your whole lives together, and you don’t want to do that with Nick or you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Says who?” Oof, she sounds pouty. Defensive. She hates when she sounds like this.

“Says you! When you said you’re not moving out! And he’s not moving in!”

“Maybe I’m just… Maybe we’ll just take a lot of vacations, did you ever think about that?”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?” She doesn’t like this either, this new determination in Frankie’s voice. This exact same rightness she gets when…

When she’s right. And I’m wrong.

“Because! Because you said you need me! We’re partners.” Frankie’s hand points back and forth between them. She’s wearing two bracelets on the same wrist that clink together each time she does it and that’s almost too much for her, that’s almost all she can hear. “I am listening to you. I always listen to you. Even when you’re saying stupid things about synergy that make my bullshit detector go so far off the charts it breaks I listen to you—and I just listened to you say you married Nick because you thought we’d had our run and were ready to move on with our own lives and you know what? No way. You coming here and asking me to tell you what you want? There’s your proof, Grace. We’re not moving anywhere, let alone on.” She says it like it’s mythical, fingers waggling, hands waving in the air. “Fuck being married. Love? Whatever. You love me and you wouldn’t marry me in a million years.”

For the first time in several seconds, Frankie’s mouth closes. Her eyebrows pull together. “You wouldn’t, right?”

A breath she’s been sucking in through each line of Frankie’s bulldozer rebuttal slams back out of her throat like she’s been punched. Before she can even get her lungs working again, Frankie is full steam ahead.

“Right. Because the point is, if you wanted your life tied up with his, you’d still be there. Wherever that is.” The frown deepens. “Do I know where that is? Where do you go for sleepovers, anyway. Oh god, is it his office? Tell me it’s his office. Is his whole bedroom just full of those little waiting room couches? Is that why you can’t have good sex…”

The knowing tone, the leading question, that “ah-ha!” look in Frankie’s eyes, the one she gets when she’s finally solved an impossible mystery in the least likely way, all comes together to finally get her lungs going again. It’s a spluttered laugh, three hard bursts of air, but it feels… okay.

“No? Hm. Well, that’s not the end of that conversation, but unless you’re really planning to fly back off to the Mongolias with him this morning—and lemme tell you, my bullshit detector is still broken from last time but it would be beeping up a storm over that if it could—I think my point has been made.”

“It’s the Maldives, Frankie.”

“Beep, beep, beep, beep—”

“Alright!” She holds up a hand. “Alright. Point taken.”

But her hand is up in front of her eyes again, and there it is. She curls her fingers into her palm. She can’t see it over her knuckles, then, but she can still feel it. “Christ, he doesn’t deserve this. I’ve been blowing hot and cold since we met. I never used to be this indecisive.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you don’t just say yes to things and actually have to figure out what you want.”

What she wants. Eighty years old and just getting started. What do I want.

“I… I still don’t know.”

“Yeah, well—” Frankie’s up again with a huff, sand raining down from the creases of the robe-dress and blowing in her face. “—I do. And it starts right there.” She points towards the house, then holds out her hand. “Home. With breakfast.”

She takes the help up. Her hip screams, there��s sand stuck to her mouth, but what else is new. “Breakfast… sounds great,” she admits.

“Good, because you’re making it.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” Frankie cajoles, squeezing her hand. She tugs her closer, sneaks an arm around her waist beneath the sweater and starts to steer them up towards the path. It’s warm, it’s right. It’s simple. It’s something she wants. “Because I am going to be very busy at the whiteboard, brainstorming up better excuses than a hand tremor for why you’re getting that thing off your finger.”

She groans. “Oh no, not the whiteboard.” She’s smiling, though.

A few steps later, she leans over, presses a kiss to Frankie’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Frankie's stride falters. Against her hip, she feels a faint tremble run through Frankie's fingers.

She shakes her head and keeps them moving. "Thank me with waffles."

#grace and frankie spoilers #grace and frankie #grace x frankie #i dont go here except i guess now i do #FOR THE RECORD I LOVED THAT WHOLE SEASON AND ACTUALLY CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT COMES NEXT I JUST ALSO COULDNT GET THEIR VOICES OUT OF MY HEAD #this is technically a chapter one #but it also functions as a s5 fix-it one-shot #just in case this sudden inspiration to finally write again dies immediately after i hit post #as it so often does #fanfic #im putting the whole thing under the cut because i think now that actually works and doesnt force people to scroll through it on mobile #but please yell at me if im wrong #this also emerged from my brain in that fully-formed post season way that rarely works the way its supposed to #but which feels so FUN and RIGHT while you're doing it #didn't trust myself to still want to hit Go if i read over it much so as always forgive the non-existent self-editor #i keep her locked up in a dark corner somewhere and should really let her out sometimes but also ... why

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