#it's all coming together (winter break) (the end of the school semester)

[reminiscentrainclouds]

Ohh Shin Tsukimi, we're really in it now (the holiday spirit)

[sapphire-writes]

Pretty Little Thing

summary: After finding yourself at a holiday party you hadn't wanted to attend in the first place, Aemond Targaryen makes it worth while.

pairing: modern!Aemond x Reader

warnings: 18+/NSFW/MDNI - smut, oral fem receiving, fingering, spanking, praise, slight dirty talk, overstim, kissing, love bites, hand over mouth, titty play, allusions to Aegon being a creeper, alcohol, smoking, langauge

word count: 7.2k

note: im back! grad school didn't kill me! hope you enjoy!

link to other stories from me!

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—

Be there soon.

Alysanne had texted you nearly an hour ago, and with each passing minute you became more doubtful she’d be making an appearance at all.

You hadn’t even wanted to come. It’d been her idea and now she was blowing you off.

“We’re just exchanging the last of our things,” she’d promised on the phone several hours earlier, “You go on without me and I’ll meet you there.”

Yeah. Because it takes three hours to give your ex-boyfriend his stuff back. Totally.

Alysanne and Cregan Stark had been on and off again since you’d known her; this time was no exception. You knew from her first running later than I thought text that the night wasn’t going to go as you’d hoped. 

You decide to like her most recent message instead of replying, unable to stop the wave of annoyance cresting inside of you. 

You hadn’t even wanted to come.

An end-of-semester holiday party. Thrown by the elder Lannister siblings; twins Jason and Tyland. The kings of Casterly Rock are well known for their extravagant get-togethers and the unimaginable generational wealth that funds all their exploits. 

They’d long graduated from King’s Landing University, but you and Alysanne scored an invite courtesy of Cerelle Lannister, their younger sister, whom you’d been trying to avoid since you arrived. If Cerelle didn’t see you, perhaps you could escape the party unscathed.

That hope proves too good to be true as your name is called from across the room. You slide your phone back into your pocket as Cerelle approaches you. Her blonde hair hangs in effortless curls down her back, the emerald green top she wears accentuating its golden hues, along with her bright green eyes. 

You’re not exactly close with Cerelle, though she appears to enjoy your friendship, at least on a surface level. She’s part of the weekly book club you attend. Her grin widens as she reaches you, eyes drinking you in. 

“Darling!” she muses, pressing a kiss against your cheek.

“You wore it!” she says, fingers ghosting across the cashmere cardigan you’d chosen to wear that evening. Cerelle had bought it for you a few weeks ago, though you’d begged her not to; the price was more than you made in a paycheck.

Alysanne once referred to you as Cerelle’s Polly Pocket.

“She pulls you out of her pocket and plays dress up. It’s fucking weird,” she’d said. 

Cerelle’s lips curve upwards in a Cheshire cat grin as she slings an arm around your shoulder, bringing her glossed lips next to your ear.

“Stop moping in the corner like some dreary wallflower,” she purrs, brushing some hair behind your ear, “Have some fun! It’s winter break!”

Goosebumps break out on your skin at her affections. You laugh breathlessly shrugging away from her touch causing her to frown. 

“You haven’t had enough to drink,” she insists, reaching for another glass, “You’re much too antsy.”

“Alysanne was supposed to be here,” you tell her and she nods understanding, looping her arm through yours and giving your forearm a comforting pat. 

“Fashionably late as always, I suppose,” Cerelle drolls, pointing across the room, “There are lots of fascinating characters here who’ll distract you. Shall I spin a bottle to decide?”

“Hilarious,” you tell her, shaking your head.

“I never joke about a good shag,” Cerelle argues, gaze flickering about the room, “From the looks of it you could use it.” She turns back to you, matching your pout. “Don’t frown, you look too lovely.” She places her hands on your cheeks, thumbs tugging the corner of your lips upwards.

“Much better,” she praises as you hold the smile she’s decorated your face with, “Come on let's find you someone…don’t look at me like that! Someone to flirt with, that’s all. A bit of harmless fun.” 

You roll your eyes earning a pitch on the arm and you swat Cerelle’s hand away.

“There’s no one here I want to flirt with,” you insist, following her gaze around the room, “Let alone shag.”

“You’re too picky,” she muses, tapping a manicured nail against her chin as she scans the room, “What about Greyjoy?”

A shiver rolls through you, “No thank you.”

“Heard he’s good in the sack.”

You’d heard a lot of things about Dalton Greyjoy. None of which made you want to spend an extended period of alone time with him. You glance at Cerelle giving her a firm look. She sighs, returning to her mission.

“You need someone,” Cerelle insists after you shoot down several more options, “You haven’t been with anyone since—what was it again?”

His face flashes through your mind before you can help it. 

“Unimportant,” you quip, “Cerelle, I just want to—” Your words die as two new guests bound up the stairs into the main hallway. 

Suddenly, it’s as if all the air has been sucked from the room, your heartbeat echoing in your ears the only sound you can hear. You tug Cerelle closer, eyes wide.

“You invited them?” you hiss, as Cerelle frowns, following your gaze.

“Not me. Jason must have,” she answers, “It’s not a party without Aegon. Jay swears he has the best coke on this side of the Keep.”

Aegon Targaryen is relatively harmless as long as you keep your drink close. You’re more concerned with the tall figure who lurks closely behind him. Though the younger, Aemond Targaryen towers over his brother; his presence makes the room feel smaller, colder than it was moments ago. He’s dressed in all black, as he usually is, the silver chain around his neck the only other color. His long snow-white hair is braided down his back, an eyepatch securely covering his left eye.

He never takes it off.

Aegon pushes by his brother making a beeline for the kitchen where most of the chaos is localized. You can tell a new drinking game has begun by the sound of cheers and the echo of glasses clinking together. Aegon’s eyes lit up as he disappeared down the hall, eager to join the miscellaneous fun.

Aegon loves a good party.

Aemond watches his brother but lingers behind in the living room leaning against a wall. He extends a long arm to the bookshelf retrieving one with his long fingers. He flicks open a few pages, lips pursing. He glances up, violet eye meeting yours for the briefest moment. 

Your lips part and you look away, warmth flooding your cheeks. You had shared a couple of classes with Aemond, nothing more nothing less. He was quite mysterious. 

“Anyway,” Cerelle says, her attention wavering with each passing second, “Back to you drinking. I’ll get you another glass. Loosen up, pet.” 

—

You try to, you really do. No matter what her intentions are, Cerelle has been nothing but nice to you, so you allow her antics. An hour has ticked by and Alysanne has yet to respond to your latest text message. Squeezed between Cerelle and Sabitha Frey during another round of quarters you decide to plan your escape. 

“I’m going to get some air,” you tell her, rising from the couch. Cerelle rolls her eyes, “I’m not leaving, I swear!”

“You better not!” she says, perfectly sculpted eyebrows knitting together, “I’ll come to fetch you if you’re gone too long—you know I will.”

She’s telling the truth. 

“Five minutes,” you insist, forcing a smile.

Cerelle’s nose twitches but she lets it go and nods, returning her attention to the game.

Weaving through the sea of people you make your way outside letting the door shut behind you as you walk down a few steps of the front stoop. It’s colder than you expected, you can see your breath in front of you. 

You stand shivering, trying to decide what to do next. Reaching into your pocket, you check your phone for the time. You could leave, make your escape down the steps, and catch the last bus back to Maegor’s Holdfast. 

If you stay any longer, you’ll be forced to spend the night or dip into your savings to splurge on an Uber. It’s always crazy expensive on this side of town as if the drivers know the neighborhood is full of rich kids. 

The door opens and noise from the party fills the cool night until it slams shut once more. You roll your eyes expecting Cerelle as you turn your head. 

Only it isn’t her.

Aemond Targaryen lingers on the top step, reaching into his jacket pocket and placing a cigarette between his teeth. He finds a lighter a moment later, a nice expensive one, flicking it open with a sharp click. Fire blooms in the palm of his hand and you can just make out the three-headed dragon branded on the side of the silver lighter before it disappears into his pocket again.

He releases a cloud of smoke into the air, mimicking the one your breath makes. You turn away as he walks down a few steps, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. 

“You were in my class,” he says suddenly, his head tilting to the side, “History of The First Men, right?” 

You force your lips together. “Mhmm,” you answer, surprised he recognized you.

Aemond Targaryen didn’t seem the type to remember a random girl in his class. Smart as hells, he focused solely on his grades, paying little attention to the rest of the student body. He seemed to be the antithesis of his elder brother. Though incredibly different, supposedly they had similar lustful appetites. 

One for pleasures of the flesh, the other for academic validation.

Aegon Targaryen was a known party boy and ran in multiple social circles. He didn’t care about class or popularity; if there was sex, liquor, and drugs around, Aegon Targaryen would be there. 

However, there were stories about Aemond too that made their way around campus. 

“You alright?” he pressed, the silence laying heavy between you. 

“I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now,” you breathe, chuckling slightly as you rub your arms as the frigid air bites into your exposed flesh. 

Aemond quirks a brow at that, taking another drag of his cigarette. “Why’s that?”

“You’re sort of a banned topic at book club,” you admit, causing his lips to curl into a small smirk. 

“Am I?”

“Mhmm.”

Another moment of silence goes by before his curiosity gets the better of him. “Because?”

“Maris runs it,” you tell him, and he clicks his tongue, nodding to himself before taking another drag of his cigarette.

Maris Baratheon, the elder of a pair of Irish twins. Floris Baratheon, once the object of Aemond’s affection for about a half second, was royally screwed over when he left her for none other than Alys Rivers. Adjunct Professor. It was quite the scandal at the time.

You’re not exactly friends with Floris; closer to Maris if you had to choose. But it's the principle of things—girl code. 

“Floris and I were never exclusive,” Aemond comments.

“Yikes.”

So maybe Aemond Targaryen is just like every other guy. Though, you’re mostly sure he’s telling the truth. The story you’d heard was that he ghosted her. 

“She shouldn’t have assumed,” he continues, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

You roll your eyes, blood boiling at his statement as annoyance begins to quicken in your belly. Aemond Targaryen seems more like his elder with every word that leaves his curved lips. 

“Right, of course not, how dare she,” is your sarcastic reply. 

Aemond tilts his head toward the sky, speaking around the cigarette. 

“You seem rather upset,” he accuses, “Funny, Floris never mentioned you.”

You turn to face him fully and he glances at you out of the corner of his eye. Folding your arms across your chest you jut your hip out. “We’re not friends. It’s the principle of it all. I don’t like assholes.”

His perfect lips curl slightly. “I’m an asshole?”

“Mhmm. At least Aegon owns up to his behavior, he doesn’t pretend he’s some suave guy doing nothing wrong.”

You swear a smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he plucks the cigarette from between them.

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Sure seems like it.”

Aemond takes a step closer then. You have to tilt your head to look him in the eye. Something about being this close to him is almost unnerving, your stomach drops slightly as you focus on his prominent cheekbones. 

“It’s not my problem if a girl gets her hopes up after getting fucked properly,” he counters.

Your breath hitches in your throat and you back up, slightly slipping against the icy railing. Aemond reaches out, his hand curling around your bicep to steady you. It’s warm, almost hot; the heat seeps through your thin sweater in the shape of his fingers. 

There’s a tension between you as he holds your arm for a second too long, before the door opens and several partygoers stumble down the steps, forcing you to break apart. Aemond takes another drag of his cigarette from across the stairs as they laugh tumbling into the street. You’re grateful for the distraction, taking a moment to slow the frantic beating of your heart, and the slight flutter in your stomach. 

“So,” you begin, trying to break the awkward silence the partygoers left behind with their departure, “How do you know Cerelle?”

Aemond looks at you quizzically.

“How do I know Cerelle?”

You jerk your chin up in a hasty nod. Aemond chuckles, shaking his head and taking another drag.

“Family friend,” he answers, “Old money likes to stick together.”

You nod again, unsure of how to answer as he observes you. 

“Surely you’ve heard of the Westerosi Seven?” he asks.

You haven’t.

“The what?” 

“The seven families,” Aemond says, his tone indicating that this is somewhat common knowledge, “Generational wealth that can be traced back to medieval times. The higher lords and ladies. Near royalty.” He takes another drag.

“And you’re one of them?” you ask, crossing your arms. 

“My family, yes,” he answers, “And Cerelle’s. The Baratheon girls. Stark. They’re all quite close.”

“Interesting,” you tell him, glancing down the street again, “You sound like the mafia.”

Aemond holds your gaze, not denying your allegation. You release a breathless laugh, but unease settles in your gut. 

The door opens as if on cue, and Cerelle pops her head out. 

“Darling! Come back inside you’ll catch your death,” she calls, waving you forward. She spots Aemond out of the corner of her eye, and you don’t miss the look of interest that gathers in her green eyes as they flicker between the pair of you, “Targaryen.”

“CeCe,” he politely greets, choosing to use the nickname Cerelle often kept reserved for her family only. She doesn’t comment on Aemond’s choice. 

“Hope you’re being nice to my girl,” she says, the words clipped.

“Of course,” Aemond comments and you can’t help but feel like you aren’t there. 

Cerelle glances back at you, a smile decorating her face once more. 

“Come on, pet! In the kitchen.”

Her blonde hair disappears in the door. Aemond walks down the remainder of the steps tossing his cigarette to the ground and stomping it beneath his heel. 

“Best run along,” he muses, not turning to face you, “She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Annoyance prickles under your skin.

“She’s my friend—”

“You have got a very generous friend,” Aemond comments, turning to face you. He motions at your sweater. “Myrish, isn’t it?”

You cross your hands over your chest. 

“Mhmm,” Aemond hums glancing up at you from the bottom step, “I’d just be careful if I were you. Accepting gifts from rich strangers is a lot like Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds.” 

You scoff at the implication before turning away and heading back into the townhouse. Aemond does not follow; you don’t hear the door open as you hurry back up the stairs. 

The party has since moved completely to the kitchen, sans a couple making out on the living room couch. You enter the crowded space and crane your neck to see what everyone is cheering at.

It’s something happening on the marble island, but you don’t see what—that is until Cerelle sits up, her blonde curls cascading around her face, a lime between her pearly white teeth like a cat with a mouse. 

She smiles curling her finger, beckoning Aegon Targaryen forward. He leans against her, bringing his mouth to hers and stealing the lime. The juice flows down his chin before he lets it fall, pressing a sloppy kiss to Cerelle’s lips, earning several cheers. 

As she breaks away she notices you, eyes lighting up as she slips off the counter. 

“Good, you didn’t leave!” she says giggling, “It’s your turn.”

“My turn?” you ask, heart dropping into your stomach. 

“Mhmm,” she says, dragging you forward, “Up now!” 

“Cerelle, I don’t—”

“Hush! Qyle Martell is doing it,” she says biting her lip suggestively, “Let the sexy Dornishman take a shot off you, alright?”

Your cheeks darken as he appears before you, arms wrapping around your waist and lifting you onto the counter like a lamb for slaughter. The crowd cheers and your eyes widen as you meet Qyle’s warm brown eyes. 

“Your sweater,” he says, motioning to it with his hand that clutches a bottle of tequila. 

You glance at Cerelle and she nods encouragingly. Over her head and in the doorway you spot Aemond. He didn’t leave after all. Instead, he leans against the doorframe, observing the chaos with a curled lip, as if the entire thing is beneath him.

Qyle whistles, drawing your attention back to him. He motions to your sweater yet again.

“Oh,” you tell him, moving to unbutton it. 

Thank goodness you wore a tank top underneath. Your fingers slip with nerves as you struggle to unbutton it. You’re the center of attention, peers cheering and chanting around you as you struggle with the bottoms. 

Quite the sacrificial lamb you are. 

“Here, can I help?” Qyle asks, reaching toward you, his fingers bumping against your own. The bottle of tequila sloshes. 

“No—no I’ve got it—oh!”

You’d moved wrong, done something wrong—or perhaps someone pushed him you’re not sure. Your head is buzzing with the noise of the room and suddenly the front of your sweater is doused in tequila. Qyle’s eyes are wide as Cerelle pushes him to the side as the smell of alcohol fills your nose. 

The room quiets momentarily until Cerelle’s bell-like laugh pierces through the silence. 

“Qyle you idiot,” Cerelle sneers, nose wrinkling with playful distaste, “You’re supposed to wait till she’s laying down—”

“It was an accident!”

“—and her sweater!” Cerelle growls in annoyance, “Go upstairs, pet, my room. Pick anything you like.”

You slide off of the counter, hurrying from the room, leaving the sound of music and chanting behind as you move deeper into the labyrinth of the Lannister home. 

—

Cerelle’s room lacks color and warmth. 

You’d spent the night once here before, crawling into the white feather bed after too much mulled wine. Cerelle had stroked your hair until you’d fallen asleep, only to awake the next morning with a severe headache and a churning belly. 

Popping the rest of the buttons, you peel the soaked sweater from your body and throw it in the hamper. You then walk over to Cerelle’s closet—double doors—and open it. Expensive. Perfumed. You’ve already ruined one pretty thing. Though Cerelle could hardly care about the expense, you do. You sigh, gently pushing through the soft fabric.

“Playing dress up?” a voice calls, and you turn to Aemond at the door. 

You close the closet door. You’ll just have to survive in your thin top. Aemond holds a glass of whiskey between his long fingers.

“Well, I suppose that was a given,” you answer him, sitting down on the bed.

Aemond watches you from the doorway, his arm raised above his head, fingers tapping nonsensically against the frame. 

“D’you want to see how you’re supposed to do it?” he suddenly asks.

“Do what?” you question, tilting your head to the side. 

“What Qyle was going to do,” he answers, and you understand his meaning. 

Aemond walks over to you, the ice rattling against the glass he lazily grips between his fingers, coming to stand in front of your legs. You’re not sure why he’s asking, what interest he has in you. But something in your belly tightens the closer he gets.

“Alright,” you give him a quiet answer, the word barely slipping past your lips. 

Aemond purses his lips, glancing down at your legs. 

“Spread them,” he says softly, motioning with the cup. Warmth creeps up the back of your neck and blooms on the apples of your cheeks. You lock eyes with him, focusing on the ring of violet that surrounds his pupil. You do as you’re told, knees parting; his gaze hypnotizing. “Wider.” 

Your skirt tightens against your thighs as you do so, but you spread your legs wide enough for him to stand between them. He takes a step forward and you’re forced to look up at him.

“Lean back,” he instructs. You’re beginning to notice how easily he slips into the domineering role. Again you follow his instructions, cheeks burning as you lean back, propping yourself on your elbows. 

You’re much more exposed without your sweater, the tops of your breasts visible in the thin top you wear. Aemond steps closer, looming over you, heat radiating from his tall form.

He reaches out, fingers caressing your cheek. You hope he can’t feel how warm they’ve become, feel your pulse fluttering against his fingers as they trail underneath your jaw and down your neck until they reach your collarbone.

“You’re to put salt here,” he murmurs, pressing against the dip of your collarbone for emphasis, “That’s first.” He leans down then, fingers trailing over your shoulder and down your arm leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. “Though we’re without.”

You swallow as his fingers continue to trace your collarbone. His violet eye watches you carefully before he pulls his hand away. He brings them lower, ghosting down your ribs until they reach your waist.

“May I?” he asks, fingers at the hem of your shirt. You give him a wordless nod, not able to trust your voice. Aemond pushes the fabric up slightly, revealing your navel. He holds the glass above your stomach; a drop of condensation falls causing you to flinch at the cool sensation.

Aemond flicks a brow at the constriction of your abdomen, “You’re quite sensitive.”

“It’s cold.”

“Mhmm,” he agrees, turning the glass so more condensation falls; little raindrops begin to adorn your skin, “The liquor goes here.” His fingers ruin the pattern he’s created, rough fingertips swirling the dew drops around your navel, “Tequila.”

“We haven’t got any,” you breathlessly tell him, his touch leaving a scorched trail across your belly. 

Aemond brings his glass closer, pressing the edge against the beginning of your belly button, letting some whiskey pool there. Your hands clenched into fists as the cold liquid fills you up; you watch as it shakes slightly, overflowing. Aemond leans forward, catching the spill with his mouth causing a gasp that sounds more like a moan to leave your mouth. His mouth covers your navel and you can feel his tongue swirl around, collecting the liquid he poured there with hot, calculated strokes. 

His violet eye peers up at you from behind silver lashes, half-lidded as he hollows his cheeks sucking harshly. He reaches toward the side table, mouth never leaving you, to place his glass on the edge freeing his hand. You can feel his tongue circling your navel, gently probing the sensitive skin. You can’t help the giggle that escapes you at the ticklish sensation. Aemond presses his hands against your obliques before releasing you with a pop, his chin and lips shining. 

“That’s how it's supposed to be,” he murmurs, not moving from the spot between your legs. Some of his silver hair has fallen across his brow, and on instinct you reach forward, brushing it from his eyes. 

“There’s one more part,” you tell him, fingers grazing the beginning of the scar that mares his left brow before disappearing behind the patch.

“What’s that?” he asks, his gaze revealing he knows the answer. 

He just wants to hear you say it, you realize. 

Your lips part, fingers still somewhat tangled in his hair; the strands soft as silk between your fingers. 

“There was a lime,” you tell him, “The person….holds it in their mouth.”

Aemond pushes up then, his hands sliding up your sides until they’re pressed into the bed on either side of you, his face inches from your own. 

“Have you got a lime on you?” he asks, his breath warm on your face, the scent of whiskey strong between you.

“No,” you murmur, not knowing where to look. He’s so close you can see the flecks of blue and gold in the lilac iris of his eye, count his silver lashes, and notice the small indentation on the tip of his prominent nose.

He hums again, his eye dropping to your lips.

“Pity,” he says, lips down turning into a pout.

Your heart is nearly beating out of your chest with the way it's pounding incessantly against your ribcage. He’s so close your chests are practically touching; your nipples straining against the fabric of your top. His chain peeks out from under the collar of his shirt and your resolve crumbles. Your eyes flicker to his lips, tongue darting out to wet your own and he leans forward, capturing your lips in a heated kiss.

Your hands wrap around his neck as he kisses you; his lips so soft and firm against your own, skilled tongue parting them with ease to deepen the kiss. A moan doesn’t make it out of your throat as his hand cradles your jaw, the sound of soft kisses is the only thing you can hear besides the muffled hum of the music playing downstairs. 

Aemond pulls away then, the look is his eye ravenous as he lowers himself between your legs once more. For a minute you think he may grab his glass and do the party trick all over again, the kiss just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Instead, he pushes your skirt up, fingers digging into the flesh of your inner thighs. You realize a moment too late what he’s doing.

Riiiip!

“Aemond!” you squeak, as he rips the seam of your tights, “These were a new pair!”

“I can buy you another,” he says, pressing a kiss against the smooth newly exposed flesh, “Or perhaps CeCe can. You’re her favorite plaything, aren’t you?” 

Your cheeks burn at the statement, your mouth pressing together in a tight line. Aemond grins, nimble fingers undoing the zipper of your skirt and wiggling it down your legs along with your ruined tights.

“Oh she doesn’t like that,” he says, clicking his tongue, “But it’s true, isn’t it?” His hands are roaming higher now, grazing against your clothed center. You’re certain he feels the evidence of your arousal but he stays quiet about it. “That’s what you are, aren’t you? A pretty little plaything.”

“Fuck you,” you hiss, humiliation seeping into your veins, though it does little to quell the desire pooling in your belly. 

“No shame in that,” he says, shaking his head, “I understand Cerelle, entirely.” His fingers tug your panties down your bare legs, exposing your wet center. Aemond’s eye locks on it, lips quirking upward. “I like pretty things as well.”

“So I’ve heard,” you quip as Aemond’s second-hand joins the first. He swirls a finger low against your entrance and you clench as he drags it upwards.

“Have you?” he muses, circling your clit with minimal pressure, “And what have you heard?”

“That you’re as insatiable as your brother,” you manage to choke out as his thumb continues to tease your clit, “You just hide it better.” 

Aemond cocks his head to the side in silent agreement before pressing his face against you. A sharp cry leaves your lips as his tongue explores from your entrance up to your clit, the tip circling the sensitive button. 

Eyes rolling back in your head, Aemond nuzzles his face against you, tongue slipping down and pressing into your clenching hole. He hums in approval as you make another desperate noise as his tongue curves upwards inside of you. 

Seven hells, how is anyone’s tongue long enough to do what Aemond’s is doing? Your toes curl as his tongue hooks upwards against the front of your pelvic bone, thrusting against the sensitive patch of nerves that resides there.

“Oh gods—fuck—fuck!” you cry as he continues the repetitive movement of his tongue, waves of pleasure lapping up your spine, sending shivers through your whole body. “Hells Aemond…”

His nose presses against your slippery clit, rubbing against it in a way that stokes the pleasurable fire burning in your belly. His hands hold your thighs open and you throw your head back against the bed as the pressure inside you builds and builds and builds. Your back arches and your thighs tremble in his bruising grasp.

You lean up on your forearms to watch him, his violet eye intently watching your face, studying your reaction. You can tell he’s smug at the effect he’s having on you. He would often get that same look in his eye in class after he proved someone wrong or made a more intelligent point. How you must look to him now; all spread out before him, flushed and slack-jawed, dewy-eyed and pretty. 

You’re a pretty toy to play with. Just want he wanted. 

His tongue leaves your fluttering pussy and you whine at the loss of contact. He mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like needy before two fingers sink inside your warmth to replace what he took away. 

Aemond’s tongue returns to its place around your clit as his fingers curve upwards replaying the motion from before. The stimulation now is much harsher, the pads of his fingers dragging effortlessly against your spongy walls, curling with brutal intention; relentlessly pressing against the swelling spot inside of you. 

His warm, wet tongue against your clit only hastens the tightly winding ball of pleasure in your gut and you feel your walls swelling around his fingers as your release knocks the wind out of you. 

You come with a strangled cry, hands gripping the bed sheets as your abdominal muscles contract to the point of pain, all your muscles going taut as warm waves of euphoria rush through you. 

Aemond releases a choked chuckle of appreciation as he feels you tighten around his fingers. He fucks you through it, stretching out the wave of your orgasm until your legs are trembling and the overstimulation causes you to hiss at him.

“Stop, stop, please.”

“Alright…shhh,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of your mound and gently pulling his fingers from your fluttering walls, “There you go, that’s a good girl. You did so well for me.”

You can’t help but warm at his praise, the ringing in your ears fading as your chest swells. Aemond is on you once more, lips pressed to yours the mingled taste of whiskey and you hot on his tongue. 

“Are you going to let me fuck you?” he murmurs between sticky kisses, “Hmm?”

“Aemond…” you breathe into his mouth, hoping that is enough for him.

You can feel him smirk against your lips and know instantly it's not. He tuts disapprovingly, pushing you back against the mattress, his face dipping into the crook of your neck.

“What would Floris say?” he teases, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to your neck. Your hands wind around his neck, fingers digging into his scalp. His braid is all but ruined. “I thought you said something earlier,” he continues, nipping and sucking at different spots on your neck, humming with pleasure when he locates a spot that has your back arching. 

“I don’t—”

“Loyalty, I recall,” he purrs, his hand snaking down your side, gripping the meat of your thigh and hoisting it around his waist, “Something like that.”

“Aemond,” you whimper helplessly as he grinds against you, the feeling of his hard cock concealed by his trousers driving you close to madness, “Aemond please.”

“You’re going to have to say it,” he insists, kissing your cheek, “Come on, say it.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you tell him, “Please Aemond—gods.” 

“They can’t hear you,” he taunts, capturing your lips in a bruising kiss, “You’re all mine.”

You frantically nod, nose bumping against his as his lips curl into a greedy smile. He removes his shirt with one hand before he rolls off of you and onto his back, motioning to you with his hands. 

“Go on then,” he says, “Take what you want.”

With shaky hands, you undo his belt above the sizable tent in his pants before dragging the zipper down and releasing his cock. He’s bigger than you expected, both in length and girth, the reddened tip already weeping in anticipation. You stroke his velvety shaft once before he grabs your wrist, pulling you toward him. 

His hands pull your shirt from your body as you straddle him, his cock nudging at your folds. Aemond’s hands slide up your back, undoing your bra and freeing your breasts. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he murmurs, hands cupping the sizable mounds, “Gods, you’re so lovely.”

Your face burns at his praise as you raise your hips before gripping him in your hand and guiding him inside of you; gently letting yourself slide down his length, inner walls fluttering around him at the new sensation. Shuddering on top of him you whine at the stretch. “Gods—”

“You can take it,” he murmurs, squeezing you softly in encouragement, “Come on baby, that’s it, just like that.”

Slowly you let him bottom out in your warmth, happily seated on his cock feeling incredibly full. You brace your hands on his chest as he pinches both of your nipples, your jaw slacking in response. Aemond lifts his hips slightly, gauging your reaction as your eyes screw shut.

“That feel good?” he asks, his voice a rough whisper.

“Yes,” you breathe, slowly starting to ride him, hips lifting and returning to his with a soft smack. 

“There she goes,” he murmurs, hands dropping to your hips, squeezing, “Take what you need, gevie.”

A breathless moan escapes you as you ride him, his hands guiding you through the movements. The hum from the music downstairs matches the ringing in your ears. 

Aemond drops his hand from your waist bringing it to the apex of your thighs. His lips part as he watches you rise and fall on his cock, his length coated with your arousal. 

“That’s it,” he coos, his tone bordering on one of condensation, “Just like that—there’s a good girl.” His thumb brushes against your clit as he says it, a broken moan leaving your lips as pleasure ignites your veins. 

His movements are soft, tantalizing, and brutally calculated as he circles the sensitive button; his other hand clings to your waist, hard enough to bruise. Surely they’ll be memories of his touch when you wake; dark purple petals blossoming on your soft flesh at first light. He guides your movements as they become sloppier the closer you get to your release. 

It sends tingles up your spine, your chest and neck growing warmth as you edge closer to the precipice of pleasure.

No other man has made you finish before.

“Are you close?” Aemond murmurs, never stopping his attention to your clit, the subtle movement of his hips thrusting up into you, “I know you are—can feel you clenching around me.”

Your head falls back, mind foggy as you desperately grind against him, trying to ignore the burn in your hamstrings. Aemond’s hand leaves your hip crashing down against your ass with a loud smack. You yelp in surprise, head jerking forward, nails clawing into the hardened muscles of his chest. Aemond’s hand remains where he’d spanked you, fingers curling into the meat of your ass as he releases a breathless laugh; his eye flickers to where your nails dig against his pale flesh, leaving a trail of red behind as they scrape down his chest.

“Answer me,” he demands, and you quickly nod earning another stinging slap, “With your words gevie. Use those pretty lips.”

“Yes,” you practically gasp, “Yes, Aemond I’m close—”

“And you want to cum, don’t you?” he murmurs, lips curling into a smirk, “Do you want me to make you cum?”

“Yes, Aemond please—” the sentence dies with a moan as he plants both feet on the mattress, bucking his hips up against yours at an inhumane pace. Your eyes screw shut, mouth hanging open in ecstasy as all the muscles in your body tense followed by a sudden burst of euphoria pulsing through you. 

Aemond hums in satisfaction as you ride your high, blood rushing in your ears as you shake on top of him, clenching around his thick length. He’s careful to pull his thumb away from your sensitive clit as your eyes flutter open, eyebrows scrunched together at the overstimulation. But his compassion is short-lived as he hooks his arm around your waist, flipping you onto your back and slotting his body on top of yours. 

His cock is removed for merely a moment at the switch of positions before it’s stretching into your once more earning a sharp gasp. Aemond’s hand covers your mouth in an instant, his face buried in the crook of your neck once more. 

“Shhh,” he coos, placing a kiss under your ear, “Hear that?” he asks, thrusting gently into your warmth causing your eyes to roll back in your head. “Listen.”

His hips continue their gentle roll against yours, slowly stoking the pleasurable fire that is reigniting in your belly. Limbs still tingling from your previous orgasm, you blink rapidly trying to focus on what he’s asking. 

The music downstairs has died.

“Everyone’s going home,” he murmurs, through another kiss, “We’d best be quick. Would hate for lovely Cerelle to find her pet in such a position.”

Embarrassment burns your cheeks and he chuckles, keeping his hand over your mouth as he slings your leg over his shoulder, deepening the angle of his thrusts. The head of his cock bullies against your sweet spot almost lovingly as he drags his cock in and out.

“Keep quiet,” he murmurs, the sound of silence deafening with the lack of music, “Can you do that?” He’s rather cruel with his question, delivering a particularly harsh thrust as he asks, then clicking his tongue in disapproval at your muffled moan. “Thought not.”

So his hand remains as he plows into you, the sounds of your pleasure muffled but still desperate as you claw at his shoulders. 

“That’s it,” he encourages, “Cum for me again, just like that.” His pelvis grazes against your clit, the friction only aiding in his efforts of making you reach your release once more. His violet eye scans your face before he dips to your collarbone, nipping the sensitive flesh with his teeth and you cum with a desperate cry against his hand. 

“There you go,” he coos, the words breathy and broken his hips faltering as your walls clamp down around him, “Squeezing me so fucking tight—fuck.” He regains his pace with renewed enthusiasm as your walls continue to flutter around him. Aemond removes his hand from your mouth pressing it into the mattress beside your head. 

Nerves raw from the continued stimulation a tear rolls down your cheek as he chases his own release. Aemond leans forward, hot tongue darting out to catch the salty stream as he hums in satisfaction. 

“We’ll have more time next time,” he whispers the promise against your cheek, “I want to explore what other pretty noises you make.” His lips capture yours then, swallowing the whimper you release. 

“I’m very curious,” he murmurs against your lips, slinging your other leg over his shoulder, pushing your knees back beside your ears. “And I’m very thorough.” A silent scream leaves you as he slams back into you, toes curling as you cum again, vision going white with the force of it. 

Aemond’s hips meet yours a few more times and then you feel his cock pulsate inside of you before the warmth of his release fills you to the brim. You’ll need to make a trip to the pharmacy, but you’ll think about that later. He stays like that for a moment, buried to the hilt inside of you as you both try to regulate your breathing. 

Aemond lowers your legs gently from around his shoulders and brushes some sweat-soaked hair from your forehead. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, and you nod as he kisses you sweetly.

“Just fucked out,” you assure him, a pleasurable ache radiating down your thighs. Aemond hums, carefully pulling his softening cock from your warmth.

The emptiness takes your breath away as he stands. “Wait here,” he orders, walking towards Cerelle’s bathroom. He returns a moment later, washcloth in hand. You push yourself onto shaky forearms as he carefully cleans the mess between your thighs.

“Thank you,” you tell him, face burning from his attention.

“No need for thanks,” he insists, “It’s the bare minimum.”

“For you maybe.”

Aemond flicks a brow toward his hairline, his violet eye meeting yours. His expression is curious, but you sense he’s not going to push you to elaborate. You hold his gaze. 

Not tonight.

“Are you staying here?” he asks, standing when he’s done, handing you pieces of your clothes.

“I think I have to,” you answer, putting your skirt back on and glancing at the clock, “The last bus is long gone.”

Aemond frowns, reaching for his phone.

“I’ll have my driver take you,” he says, unlocking his screen.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s no trouble,” he insists, placing the phone against his ear, “Cole. Ten minutes. Thank you.” He hangs up quickly leaving no time to argue.

“Thanks,” you mutter awkwardly while finishing dressing. You walk to Cerelle’s large mirror and attempt to fix your sex hair. Your eyes widen in horror as you tilt your head to the side, leaning closer to get a better look. 

“Aemond,” you hiss, fingers pressing against the three red marks sure to bruise, “I look like I’ve been mauled by a bear.”

Aemond walks up behind you dragging his fingers down the curve of your neck and over your collarbone. Goosebumps appear in their wake. Three more red marks lead a path down to the top of your right breast. Several sizable mouth-shaped love bites. 

Aemond rests his chin on your shoulder, meeting your eyes in the mirror.

“Think of them as a gift,” he tells you, the curve of his lips pressed against the skin of your neck.

His hand curves around your waist, the other slinking up to turn your face towards him. He hums appreciatively, kissing your lips, then your cheek. Down your neck to your shoulder. You glance in the mirror once more, catching his eye. 

There’s something new there. Almost possessive. 

His grip on your waist tightens and he presses his teeth into the soft flesh of your shoulder.

Outside, snow begins to fall.

[sunnie-angel]

Part 9: The Bargain

part 8 | series masterlist | ao3 link

jason todd x fem!reader

summary: unsettling news upsets the careful balance of your friendship with jason todd

tags: mention of offscreen violence, angst, misunderstandings, kissing, fingering, p in v sex

rated explicit (mdni) | wc: 3.1k

a/n: wrote most of this while i was sick and a little loopy from medication, so if this is tonally a little different from the rest of the series that's why

Time seems to melt together, like the snow that covers the Gotham University campus. Jason looks devastating with wind chapped cheeks and snow dusted curls, red rising high across his cheekbones. Maybe you won’t ever get to tell him how beautiful he looks with snowflakes collecting on his lashes or how your heart had soared when he complimented you on finally getting one of his recipes right. It’s fine, or that’s what you tell yourself. You can have this much of him at least. As much as you wish it would, the strange tension never really dissipates between you, only fading to a low thrum in the background of your mind that your learn to live with. Eventually exams consume your life and you have very little time left to nurse wounds that never seem to heal quite right.

Winter break – when it finally, blessedly arrives – is not exactly the reprieve you had hoped for. Aside from a few random emails from the school warning of increased muggings near campus (which, when supervillains exist, ranks high on your list of problems why exactly?) you could almost forget that one Fall night. Almost. But Danika keeps inviting everyone over to celebrate the end of the last first semester and Lina won’t stop sending you and Jason considering looks every time you so much as breathe in his direction. You can tell she wants to ask but it won’t be Jason she comes looking for and so you don’t give her the opportunity to corner you alone.

On one memorable occasion you had physically dragged Jason in front of you as a human shield, spilling hot chocolate onto your glove and onto the snow covered ground. The hot liquid had melted into the snow immediately, carving out uneven abstract patterns. Jason hadn’t seemed to catch on as to why exactly you were so determined to attach yourself to his side, but had endured your proximity with what you might almost call joy if you didn’t know better. There wasn’t the resistance you expected, though the cavern between you doesn’t fully dissipate. It was...nice to feel his arm tucked under yours, a solid weight against your side. Maybe the little scraps of affection you could stomach weren’t so bad after all. Maybe one day the two of you could return to the time before you destroyed the closeness between you. Now if only you could get Danika to stop trying to set you up with someone, maybe you could find your footing again.

All of your best intentions go to hell only two days before you’re meant to be back for the final semester. There was a temporary skating rink in the public park, courtesy of Mr. Freeze’s latest foiled plot, one that would only last a few days before melting on its own. Like any true Gothamite, Danika had seized the opportunity with both hands and dragged you all out skating with her. It had been fun to watch Rei windmill his arms, red faced and struggling to keep his balance on his rented skates. Lina had been more than happy to offer him a steadying arm and flirtatious grin. Oddly even Will had decided to participate, the gleeful joy infectious. Jason, of course, had been a natural, gliding across the icy surface and dodging other people with an ease you envied. It had been a lovely afternoon, meant to end with laughter and chafed noses, maybe even a snowball thrown or two.

A choreographed ping of notifications to all of your phones puts an end to that. Digging with numb fingers through your thick pockets, you manage to pull out your phone and swipe through to your notifications. An email from the Gotham U, odd for this late in the day. 

An NYU student visiting home killed near GU campus, screams the subject line. It goes on to talk about measures the school is taking to keep students safe but you can’t help but click on the embedded news link. A funhouse mirror stares back, smiling. Sweat prickles at the nape of your neck. She looks like me..., you think dazedly. The texture of her hair, the colour of her eyes, even the sweep of her nose all echo yours. Dead in an alley, disfigured, torn to pieces, the news greedily crows. Violated. A hand falling heavy on your shoulder causes you to flinch, breaks the trance it has on you. With wild eyes you stare back up at Jason as he steadies you before you can fall on your ass on the ice. Wordlessly you look at your gathered friends and their bloodless faces. 

“She looks like me,” you croak, needing to have someone – anyone – tell you that you’re seeing things. 

“A little bit," Rei hedges, eyes darting to Lina for support.

“A little,” Will snorts, “try a lot."

“Hey–” Jason cuts in, glaring at Will over your head, “–not helpful.” He turns back to you, eyes still focused somewhere on your shoulder, neatly sliding himself between you and Will’s gaze. “What happened to her is a tragedy, yeah? But she’s not you, you’re right here with us and you’re safe.” 

His voice – his presence – steadies you but it’s not enough to erase the mental image of the girl with your face dead in an alley you probably know. The dead girl you might have been if Jason hadn’t stopped that mugger. Your hand tightens around your phone until the edges cut into your palm and you shiver, but not from the cold. 

“Sorry I don’t– I don’t really feel like having fun anymore.” You smile apologetically up at them over Jason’s shoulder.  Your phone pings again, your mother texting for the first time in weeks asking if you’d seen the news. The smile on your face turns brittle. “I think I just want to go home for a bit.”

“Sure, but text when you get back and let us know if you need anything,” Danika tells you gently, throwing a withering look in Will’s direction and smacking his mostly healed arm. You bite your lip and nod, skating slowly over to a nearby bench to wrestle with your skates.

Large hands shoo your shivering fingers away and you look up to see the top of Jason’s curly head as he kneels in front of you. He props your skate up on one broad thigh and untangles the knot in silence. Gently, he sets one foot down and starts working on the other.

“Look I’ll walk you back so you don’t have to worry, yeah?" he says as he sets your foot back down, still not looking at you. You can’t do anything but nod and accept his help as you change back into your boots, cold air still biting through your thick socks.

The bus ride home is fairly silent between the two of you. Jason manages to snag a recently vacated seat and ushers you into it, leans against the hand rail and shields you from the world. Unable to spend the 20 minutes or so just staring at his belt buckle, torturing yourself with the clink it makes as it comes undone, you lean your head against the window glass and watch the world melt past. It starts to snow again, fat flurries gently skimming through the streets. A quiet, still cocoon has built around the two of you and not even the bus coming to a screeching halt at your stop breaks it. Dreamlike and hazy, your body pilots you back to your front door, Jason holding your bag as you fumble for your keys.

He turns to leave you at your doorstep then hesitates, fingers running through his snow dusted curls. “Would it– would it be fine if I took a look around?” he mutters nervously. “Just, I noticed the other day that there’s some potential security issues and I’d feel better if I took a look and maybe you’d too?” His voice rises on the last syllable.

You stare at him for a second, baffled by his questions. He shifts his weight from foot to foot as you continue to stare.

“...yeah that’s fine,” you finally say. Looking for your phone to let Danika know you’re back, unthinkingly you add, “You already know your way around.” Facing away from him, you freeze, cursing yourself out mentally for the reminder of the last time he had entered your apartment. He clears his throat awkwardly.

“I’ll just be quick, yeah?”

Jason pads through your apartment quickly and surprisingly quietly for man his side as you unwind your scarf from around your shoulders and brush the half melted snow from your coat. Your sweater goes over the back of a chair to dry, leaving you standing in the kitchen in just your thin thermal undershirt. Jason chooses just that moment to walk back in.

“–should probably be fine, might want to change the lock on the fire escape window but– hey. C’mere.” He moves to hug you – he moves first! – and you fall into him, arms wrapping tight around his waist under his jacket. He freezes up at first as you nuzzle into him, the warmth of his chest cutting through the icy fingers that had grown around your spine at the sight of the dead girl that wasn’t quite you but could have been. Jason’s arms come around you, hold you tight to him like you’re actually something precious to him. A hand comes up to cradle the back of your skull and he sighs, body relaxing into yours.

“Probably just a bad coincidence, but I’ll look into it,” he whispers into the crown of his head. You can feel the zipper of his jacket pressing into you through the thin material of your thermal. “Don’t gotta worry about this at all, yeah?” His voice rumbles through your chest.

“You’re a good friend,” you mumble into his shirt. Slowly you lean back into his hand until you can look him in the eyes, nowhere for him to escape your searching gaze. He’s still tall, but there’s a half inch less of a difference between you without his boots on. Your hand slips from its python grip around his waist and tentatively winds itself around the nape of his neck. Finally, after what feels like months of yearning and waiting but had only been a few keenly felt weeks, Jason Todd looks you in the eyes.

There’s something unreadable there, some dark possessive emotion you can’t quite set your finger on. It’s too late. It’s everything you’d ever wanted from him. Makes the small part of yourself you’d tried so hard to bury over the last few weeks come clawing out of the shallow grave you’d dug for it. Vindication and bitterness go to war in your belly. Slowly you bring a hand up to trace over the sharp point of his cheekbone. His eyes close and he inhales sharply through his nose, full body shuddering as you move to tuck his hair behind his ear.

“S’all I want to be–” his eyes open wide, pupils rapidly eating up the blue of them “–your friend.”

“We are,” you reassure him. Tentatively you let the hand at his neck drift through his curls. Carefully note the way he relaxes into your grip. “Good friends.”

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips and Jason tracks the movement with predatory hunger. His own lips part in response and you’re so close you can almost feel his breath on your skin. Tension spools out into the space between you, so thick you could almost reach out and grip the knotted mess of it with your bare hands. You hardly dare to breathe know that you’ve finally got Jason’s attention, a physical, tangible thing that traces the swell of your cheeks and the curve of your lower lip. He swallows and you press the full length of your body against him.

“We can stay good friends, can’t we?” you breath out. Inch by inch you draw yourself closer to him, attuned to him in case he draws back, before gently drawing the tip of your cold nose from the hinge of his jaw to the sharp jut of his chin. Inhale the warm scent of him under the lingering smell of the cold outdoors. “We understand each other,” you say, almost directly into his mouth. “So well, because we’re friends, right?” His hold on you tightens. “So well, that we don’t even have to talk about this part, right?” you plead, desperate for him to let you have this.

Jason’s lips crash onto yours and delirious laughter bubbles up into your chest. Easy, so easy. All you had to do was amputate your sense of dignity. His fingers tighten in your hair as he pulls back, breathing ragged and rough.

“We’re just– just friends,” he pants, and the sight of him so out of control makes you giddy. “But so long as we don’ talk about it we can have this too.” 

You answer him by kissing him again, the soft, sweet touch of your lips turned into something filthier as he invades your mouth. His hand slides down from your waist to palm your ass as he walks you back into the bedroom, still familiar from the last time he was there. Efficiently, both of your clothes come off, his jacket and belt hitting the floor with heavy thuds. He takes his time looking at you, and you drink up the sensation. It’s been so long since he’s truly, properly looked at you and you want to enjoy it while it lasts.

Because it won’t. He’ll retreat again or get tired of you, or both. It’s temporary, this complicated, burning thing between you, or at least it is on his part. You won’t ever have his heart, no that’s something so far beyond your grasp it’s laughable to even think about, but you can have this. His desire. His attention. His base need to fuck someone wet and willing. You can have just this much of him and no more.

There’s no air of urgency this time as he explores your body this time, palms smoothing over the length of your ribs. You shiver as he trails still cool fingers across your hips, across the fat and muscle cradling your womb. Hiss as he parts your slick folds with them, his fingers freezing against the burning heat of your core. Jason grins at your reaction before pressing a finger in in in, causing you to arch off the bed and clench down at the intrusion. He laughs as your thighs tremble at the stretch in your cunt when he adds another finger. Peppers kisses down your neck until he can bite and lave at the bud of your breast, working his fingers in and out of you the whole while.

Jason draws back and you moan at the loss, try and chase after him but he pushes you back down onto the bed.

“M’coming back, just need the condom outta my wallet. Need you to be patient, yeah?”

You nod but whine anyway when he pulls his fingers out of your tight heat, already bereft by the loss of him. He rolls the condom on and you want to hide from embarrassment when you see just how shiny with your slick his hands are. Carefully he adjusts your limbs to where he wants them, hooks your thighs over his hips and threads one hand through yours as he slowly starts to press in.

And it’s not– it’s not tender, but it’s kind, the way he slowly feeds every inch of his cock into you. Kisses you as you hiccup and squirm your way through accepting the fat weight of his dick in your guts, tensing and unclenching as he tears you in two only to stitch you back together. Finally, finally his hips hit yours and your eyes close as you sigh in relief at having taken him all. With a sticky hand Jason brushes the side of your face, places a kiss to where your furrowed brows meet. He waits until you relax under him, nod and let him know that you’re ready, before he starts to move, both of his hands tangled up in yours.

It’s such a relief to feel the heavy drag of him inside of you again, where he belongs your traitorous mind whispers. Immobilized, spread out, and pinned down beneath him like this you can do nothing but eagerly accept what he chooses to give you. He swallows the gasps and sighs of pleasure directly from the source as he plunders your mouth. Kisses down your jaw and nibbles at your throat. He bites down at the cords of your throat in a cruel mark of ownership you know he doesn’t mean just as he thrusts into the soft gummy part of your cunt that has you seeing stars.

You can’t help the whine of “Oh please, Jay,” as it is torn out of you, but you feel the exact moment his strong body stops rocking into yours and you realize your mistake. “M’sorry, m’sorry. Know you don’t like– didn’t mean to say it. M’sorry,” you babble, mortified by your error and wanting to bury your face in the pillows to disappear because he’d told you.

“Shhh shh shh,” he soothes, running the pad of his thumb across the outer corner of your eye, collecting the tears of frustration gathering there. You’re cursing yourself, terrified he’s going to take even this away from you because you couldn’t keep your big mouth shut and not let the name he hates slip from your tongue. “It’s okay, s’okay. You can call me Jay, okay, but only here. Just for you, just here, yeah?”

You nod, keening your agreement as he punctuates his words with a slow thrust back into you. His pace increases, no longer leisurely but controlled. Sharp thrusts in accompanied filthy, slow drags out. Your’s so full you can practically feel him at the base of your throat, carving out any claim to your body that isn’t his. Pleasure crawls up your veins, burns deep in your belly as Jason fucks you. The wet squelch of you around his cock makes your cunt flutter and he groans into the side of your throat at the sensation. Sweat beads at the base of your spine as the too much too good feeling winches you up higher, muscles curling tight. It only takes Jason growling into your skin, cock curving up at just the right angle, to shove you off that final ledge.

Sightless and weightless, stretched thin around him, you scrabble at his solid weight, desperate for something to anchor you to the present.

“ ‘ank you. Thank you. Please, god. Jay. JayJayJay,” you sob, words slurring together as he fucks your brains out, fucks you through it. He comes to the feel of you rippling around his cock and his name on your lips.

Jason’s still there in the morning, warm and whole in the bed next to you. Your heart isn’t so lucky.

part 10

[astraariel]

lemon meringue pie

pairing: sanji x fem!reader

summary: Sanji makes a dumb decision to accept a dare of asking you out, but he ends up falling in love with you. Then you find out.

word count: 2.6K

warnings: cursing

tags: modern!au; college!au; bets; fluff; slight angst; lying; friends to lovers

author's note: this is a tad ooc for sanji bc I believe he would NEVER do this bc he's a sweetheart but I like angst and sanji so I decided to combine the two. just take this as if he's a dumb little college boy lol, excuse the grammar mistakes ♡

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You had always noticed him. 

He sat in front of you in your statistics class that you had taken last semester, he always paid attention to the professor and always was attentive to the lecture. He kept to himself but would occasionally talk to who you presumed was his friend who sat beside him in class. 

He had caught your eye one week before promptly turning around and asking you if you had any idea what was going on in class that day. You had laughed and nodded. 

“Yeah, I kinda do, but I had to teach myself for 3 hours yesterday.”

“Ahh, you any good of a tutor?”

You had found out his name was Sanji and that he originally wanted to go to culinary school to become a chef, hence why he was terrible at statistics. His father didn’t agree with his dream but had made a compromise with him that if he got a business degree, he could then attend culinary school.

From then on your relationship began flourishing. You two had become really good friends and quickly started to get more involved with each other. He would always offer to cook for you over at your apartment, said he enjoyed making you happy with his food. 

You had fallen for him from the beginning. Sanji was a very flirty man, you had come to realize. You originally never knew if he was genuinely flirting with you or if that was just in his nature. You also had a difficult time allowing yourself to truly fall in love with him due to past insecurities that you later would tell him.

He was truly the man of your dreams, he had the kindest heart, and he loved to rile you up with all the compliments he showered you in. 

Before you knew it, you had fallen hard.

He had asked you out in the following weeks after meeting you for the first time. Your first date was a simple picnic he had put together. Various desserts and foods filled your mouth as you exchanged shy smiles with him that day.

Your first kiss had been when he had taken you ice skating during the winter break, you had leaned in to kiss him after an embarrassing fall he helped you up from. He gave you one of those signature smiles of his and kissed you back. 

Before you had said anything, he was the one that had actually said “I love you.” But as soon as he said it and you reciprocated it back, you mentioned how you had honestly fallen for him from the beginning when you first met, he tackled you on your bed and kissed you all over before settling down later and whispering sweet nothings to each other while you threaded your fingers through his hair. 

Any chance he got he would turn to you and lovingly tell you how you were his entire world. Sanji loved pet names, “darling” and “angel” were his favorites but when he was feeling extremely flirty than normal, he’d call you absurd names simply to see you blush. You’d half-heartedly slap his shoulder insisting that he should stop talking. 

In the past few months of your relationship with Sanji, you had been over the moon and would dreamily swoon over him at night whenever he wasn’t staying over.

But, you knew it was too good to be true.

You were in your World History class when you noticed that Sanji had texted you

Wanna meet up for coffee after your class? I made you a lemon meringue pie and I brought you a slice xoxo

You bit your lip to keep yourself from grinning like a fool. 

of course!! It’s a date <3

You heard your professor begin to wrap up and reminded everyone that the homework was due Sunday before you gathered your stuff quickly and walked out of the room. You stepped out of the building your class was in when you pulled out your phone to call Sanji as you continued to walk aimlessly. 

You were about to press the “call” button when you heard your name. You looked around before you made eye contact with a group of guys walking toward you. You recognized them as Sanji’s friends he occasionally would hang out with. You weren’t really acquainted with them well because Sanji never wanted to introduce them to you. You never said anything to him because frankly, they didn’t look the nicest, and you honestly didn’t know why your boyfriend was friends with them.

“Hi?” Your voice flowed through the air with a questioning tone.

“Your Sanji’s girl aren’t you?” you nodded cautiously, “Why haven’t we met you?” The taller one in the middle asked you.

You chuckled nervously, “I’m not sure, you should ask him. Look, uh-I gotta-” you began to walk away, hoping to get some space far away from them as fast as you could but the guy who had been in your and Sanji’s statistics class cuts you off. 

“How are you and Mr. Prince Charming doing? You forgive him?” He looks at his friends and they snicker at each other. 

You weren’t sure what he was going on about and you were honestly getting restless with the conversation. You tilted your head slightly and let out a slight scoff. “What do you mean?” 

“Ya know, ‘cause it was a dare.” he pauses, “Wait…has he not told you? Oops,” he sucked his teeth, “I don't think I was supposed to tell you.” 

You furrowed your eyebrows at them, about to ask what the fuck they meant when you heard Sanji’s voice calling your name. 

“Hey, what are you doing, I thought we were gonna go get coffee?” He looked at you briefly before his eyes darted toward his friends. He laughed nervously, “you really shouldn’t talk to them, they say all sorts of dumb shit.” He tried to guide you away when one of the other guys spoke up.

“Ah come on, Sanji, look you can give up the act, you won. You proved to us that you are truly the king of pussy, man, you win.” One of them slaps Sanji’s shoulder in mock congratulations. 

He just stood there looking at you, holding the slice of pie in his hand that he had intended to bring you.

You looked at Sanji. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me they’re lying, Sanji.” Your eye’s were beginning to gloss over, tears threatening to fall at any second; no, you couldn’t give those assholes whom he called friends the satisfaction they desired. 

“Darling…” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. As if he was the one who had just received this new information. 

As if he was the one who was being humiliated.

You whispered, “For once, stop lying.” you were numb. You honestly didn’t care that you were in the middle of your school campus, the murmurs from spectators at your school were the last thing on your mind. 

“I…” he closed his eyes, “Yes, it’s true. It started off as some dumb joke, a stupid dare, that I had accepted. But,” he said your name, “I fell in love with you. That was real - it IS real. I love you.” He attempted to reach out and grab your hand. 

You stepped back, repulsed. 

By him or by yourself, you weren’t sure yet. 

Your eyes hardened, “I’m so glad I was able to entertain you.” 

You didn’t have to look at his friends to know that they were smiling at the scene that unfolded in front of them. You turned around quickly, walking to the parking lot as fast as you could before Sanji could try to say anything. There was only so much you could take. 

You began to run once you saw the cars start to appear in your view, you needed to get out here. 

Once you reached your car, you began digging in your bag hastily, attempting to locate your keys so you could drive away from this nightmare. 

The footsteps behind you were approaching you rapidly. “I’m sorry, please,” Sanji was slightly out of breath, as he said your name. “I love you, I don’t deserve you at all, especially after what I did, but please know I wasn’t lying to you about that.”

You were tired of pretending. You turned to him swiftly, the tears were falling freely now, on full display for him to see the pain he caused. The sun’s rays bounced against his disheveled blonde hair that had gotten slightly tussled by the wind from his run toward you. His eyes were filled with tears, they looked broken. The streaks of tear trails on his face glistened in the sunlight. 

He looked beautiful. 

You hated yourself for loving him, you hated yourself for truly believing that he would ever love you. You had fooled yourself entirely. 

“You lied to me. I opened myself up to you, I let you in. And what did I get in return? Lies.” you sounded hysterical. You probably looked it as well with you jabbing your fingers at him. “What was the dare?”

He looks down. The asshole couldn’t even look you in the eyes. “That I could get you to fall in love with me in a month.”

You just look at him. Were you that easy?

His lips were quivering, “I know-”

“You don’t, no, you don’t know. You broke my trust. I trusted you. I-” You gasped for air, “You know, about the boys in my school who would ask me out as a joke. I told you that growing up I was the punchline of every joke, how they would mock me; laugh in my face at the idea of ever being in love with me. I confided in you.” 

“I fucked up -”

“You went and spit in my face.” you weren’t crying anymore. There were no more tears left, you had used them all on him. “You know what’s funny, Sanji? It’s the fact that I’m not even entirely upset over the dare. I’m used to that.” you laugh deliriously, “I’m upset that you didn’t tell me personally and instead, I find out months after, from your douchebag group of friends. You didn’t even have the balls to tell me yourself.” you look at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t.

You scoff, “Were you ever going to tell me?” 

He just looks at you, “I’m sorry.”

You jeer at him, “I thought you were different.” 

“I am,” he strained out pathetically.

You shook your head, “You are exactly like those guys in my school.” 

And with that, you quickly get in your car and pull out of the parking lot as fast as you can. You don’t bother to look in the rearview mirror at Sanji. 

You didn’t see him crumble to his knees, sobbing in his hands with the lemon pie forgotten on the ground.

♡‧₊˚

Your apartment was silent other than the low conversations that could be heard from the television that you had turned on to fill for background noise. The center table was filled with takeaway boxes from the last couple of days. 

It had been a week since you had been humiliated and embarrassed by Sanji. After giving into your body’s plea for food 3 days into your sorrow-filled life, you indulged in the luxuries of online food delivery and gorged yourself on Chinese food. 

You hadn't had the heart to block Sanji, you would punish yourself by listening to the voicemails he would leave, but you would never answer or call back. You weren’t sure exactly why you even bothered. 

You hadn’t been attending your classes either, a quick email was sent to your professors stating that you had to go out of town for a funeral, and you hoped that they accepted that excuse seeing as you never checked for any of their responses, too upset to care. 

Your phone rang from your room, you didn’t need to check who it was you already knew. You simply let it continue ringing as you grabbed a bottle of water and turned your computer on to order your dinner for the night. You weren’t sure if you wanted pizza or Mexican today. 

Oh, how you missed his cooking. No, why were you thinking of him? Shaking your head, you walked over to the couch, wrapping yourself in your blanket while you waited for your food to arrive. 

You had been flipping through Netflix, trying to settle on a movie but every time you would choose one, you would change your mind as soon as something reminded you remotely of Sanji. 

Your attention was brought back when you heard a few knocks on at your door. Assuming that it was the delivery person, you grabbed your wallet from the counter and walked quickly so that you could get this human interaction over with and send the delivery guy off with a tight-lipped smile and a quiet thanks. 

You swing the door open and you were met with the sight of Sanji holding your food with a nervous smile. “I bumped into the delivery guy on the way up, I already paid for it.” He said while gesturing towards the food. 

You just looked at him with a blank stare on your face. He was wearing a loose-fitted white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up that showed his forearms. His wavy blonde hair was askew, he had probably been running his hands through it before knocking at your door. His eyes were rimmed red as if he had been crying just a couple of minutes ago. 

“Please, can I explain myself?” He said when you didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Great, he was already begging. 

You nodded slightly and retreated back into your apartment, you could hear him let out a sigh of relief before shutting the door quietly. You stood in the living room, waiting for him to begin. 

He took a deep breath, “I am sorry. I will forever be sorry and I understand if you never forgive me, because I don’t deserve it. I am an asshole for going through with the dare.”

“Yes, you are.”

“But I just wanted you to know that I love you so much, angel,” you let the pet name pass, “Every time I would say that I loved you, I meant it. That was real. That was the truth. Those late-night calls, when I would cook you dinner because you didn’t feel like making anything, all those moments I got to enjoy because I was with you. I got to know you. I was able to find out how beautiful and how stunning you are. I was given the chance to correct my mistake when I fell in love with you.” Sanji confessed. 

He sounded genuine. His eyes were giving you a pleading look but still held that sparkle he always had when he looked at you like you had hung the moon. 

He had betrayed your trust. But god did you miss him. 

“I can’t say that I forgive you,” you watched his face fall slightly, “yet.” He looked at you with a hopeful expression.

You didn’t say anything else. Your eyes drifted to his side and noticed that he was still holding the food in his left hand. He noticed your attention had shifted to the food, and he quickly set it on the counter. “I’ll go now, enjoy your food.” 

“Wait, Sanji.” You looked away, “I…I-uh ordered too much, you can stay and have some,” you cleared your throat briefly, “If you want.” you added. You glanced back at him and noticed that he was smiling slightly. Oh, how you missed him. 

“Of course, I’d love to.” He offered a small smile to which you returned back.

[confusionmeisss]

𝐢 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 - 𝐜. 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨

🫧 frat-bro!chris sturniolo x fem!reader

🫧 in which you unfortunately learn you weren’t as special to chris as you were made to believe.

🫧 angst. hurt/no comfort.

🫧 602 words.

🫧 hello lovelies! this is inspired by tate mcraes i still say goodnight , it’s one of my favorite songs of hers. its heartbreakingly beautiful, i recommend giving it a listen. anyway i hope u enjoy n’ much love!! <3 masterlist

The first sign was when he stopped saying goodnight. A little thing, but you knew then that he was letting go, but still you held on tight and ignored it.

Then he stopped looking at you the same way he did; like you were the only thing that mattered in the entire universe. Instead he looked at you like you were getting old; like he was sick of you.

He always did have ridiculous expectations when it came to your relationship. Like, if you both went to the same party, you weren’t allowed to show up together or really interact too publicly. And his validations were few and far between. You always dressed up nice, it was just something you’ve always liked to do for yourself, but you always did like the extra validations you’d get from others. It felt nice. But he rarely ever gave them out, and it started to make you a little insecure.

At some point, during a frat party that was being held for the end of the first semester, you overheard Chris complimenting a random girl on her outfit, and it made you leave the party early. It just wasn’t fucking fair, how she got the compliment you should’ve gotten. How all these girls always seemed to get the compliments from Chris that you should’ve gotten.

You remember the breaking point. The thing that made you call off your entire relationship with Chris. It was the day before everyone was leaving for winter break. You’d gone to visit him at his frat house to say goodbye.

You knocked on the bedroom door you knew was Chris’, waiting patiently for it to open up and reveal the boy.

The door soon opened to reveal an anxious looking Chris.

“What are you doing here, Y/N? I told you not to come.”

“I know,” You said nervously. “But I just wanted to say goodbye before we all leave is all.”

“Okay. Bye then,” Chris said, going to close the door.

“Wait!” You said, putting a hand on the door to stop him. “Are you alright? You seem a little out of it.”

“I’m fine,” Chris said, glancing behind him.

“Are you sure?”

He looked you straight in the eyes. He had that look in his blue eyes that you’d come to learn meant you were going to be hearing a lie exit his lips.

“Yup. Everything’s fucking dandy. Thanks for stopping by, but you can go now.”

At that response you hadn’t been able to say much. Chris had never spoken to you that way before. And being so distracted by the new feeling swarming your chest and trying not to cry, you’d simply nodded your head and left the frat house.

After the first week of winter break and talking with your cousin, Lizzie, about your entire situation with Chris, you came to the conclusion that you just couldn’t keep that up when the next semester started.

When you got back to school for the second semester, you avoided Chris at all costs. You stopped going to parties, knowing he’d be there. You stopped going to places you knew he’d be at, really. It’s not like he really noticed the newfound lack of your presence in his life anyway. You really weren’t as special as you’d been made out to be. You should’ve known he was simply scared of being alone.

Which is why you felt so fucking stupid because every night before you go to bed, you whisper out a quiet goodnight chris, because you loved him the way he never even planned on loving you.

[hugshughes]

Pretend C. Loveland

Cole Loveland x fem!reader

synopsis - You're right there next to him when Cole wins the big one, and he realizes he can't pretend with you anymore.

wc - 4k

contains - based off this request! barely edited sorry. it starts on like January 3rd, not like cause it's exact just after the rose bowl and before the champs. cursing, kissing, makin out, hugging, touching, allusions/talks of sex but no smut, fwb relationship (for part of it), nothing else??? L WORD.

an - this one is pretty long, and all over the place, but it's cute and i love Colston so. so happy someone requested him. he's so cute and hot. i LOVED this request. i read it the night i got it (night of the cfp champs) and thought about it all night. I LOVED WRITING THIS.

-

Your phone rang from its place on the couch. You were sat on the floor of your childhood living room, watching some college basketball game, Miami was beating Clemson by 7. You grabbed your phone, seeing Colston's name across your screen.

"Who is it?"

Your brother's voice sounded from across the living room, where he laid on the worn recliner, your cat in his lap. Your mother and father's eyes were now on you, expecting an answer. You were home for winter break, and they were nosy as ever.

"It's Cole, give me a minute."

You stood up rounding the corner into the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, sliding the answer button.

"Hi Coley, what's up?"

Colston smiled on his end of the call, he'd missed your voice, missed you saying his name. Although, you two had called two nights before, after they'd won the Rose Bowl.

"Hey sweetheart, I have a question for you. It's kinda big."

Your eyebrows furrowed, though your heart clenched at the endearment.

The situation with you and Cole was a little messy. You were friends with benefits. You two were very good friends, but one night in the first semester of freshman year, when you were both a few drinks in, you decided to sleep together. It was good, the best you'd ever had. It was kind of unspoken, you guys went home together, slept in each other's beds, but were still only friends. You knew that Colston had a lot going on in his life, with football on top of school, he was busy. He'd never told you that, you'd just assumed he wasn't looking for anything other than someone he could call when he needed to.

You couldn't lie and say you didn't have more intimate feelings for Colston, but you would never tell him that. Not when you assumed they were definitely unrequited. You'd been in the same situation with each other for over a year now, why risk it?

"Yeah? What is it?"

Colston took a deep breath, he didn't want to be embarrassed if you said no to him.

"Do you want to come down to Houston and watch us play on Monday?"

Woah. You weren't expecting that at all. Colston wanted you to come watch his game? Like you specifically, over anyone else? You were speechless for a few seconds, and Colston got nervous and filled the silence.

"Like it's all covered, you wouldn't pay for any of it obviously. I've got another ticket like where all the families are and I just would like if you were there. But obviously like you don't have to-"

"Colston, you're the sweetest. I really would love to. Are you sure, though? There's no one else you'd pick over me?"

You said it jokingly, but you seriously wanted him to be sure that you were the person he felt deserved it. You filled with nerves though, thinking about sitting with his family, thinking about sitting with other player's families.

"Of course. You're the first person I thought of. It's Monday and classes don't start till Wednesday so everything's fine there. So you really wanna go?"

Colston was giddy. You're the first girl he'd ever been giddy over. You seriously were the first person he thought of when he realized he had an extra ticket. He wanted you there, so badly.

"Yeah of course, Colston. What girl doesn't want to go support her best friend in the biggest game ever?"

Best friend. Colston's smile faltered for just a second, he knew that's all you two were, but God, did he want to be more. He quickly snapped out of his haze of disappointment, his smile returning.

"Perfect. I'll send you the stuff for your flight and ticket, okay? You'll be sitting with my parents, they're excited to meet you."

He'd already told his parents about you? That made your heart glow in warmth.

"Yeah that's perfect Coley. I know we'll talk sooner but I'll see you on Monday, okay?"

He said another sentence and then you two said goodbye. You giggled to yourself, extremely excited to go watch Colston play.

You walked back into the living room with a small smile, one that your mother immediately recognized.

"What'd Colston say that has you smiling like that?"

You blushed immensely, your eyes widening at your mother's bold question. She could tell you had a crush on him, even if you swore up and down you didn't.

"Oh well um, I'm going to Houston for the game on Monday now? Cole just invited me."

Even saying it out loud was surprising, you don't even belive it yourself. Your whole family gasped, passing shocked looks to each other.

"What?! You get to go to the college football playoff championship for free just because you like the tight end!"

Your brother shouted from across the room. You immediately threw a pillow at him, telling his to shut his mouth. Your mom giggled, giving your dad a knowing look.

-

You'd just landed in Houston, it was Monday morning and you could tell by the airport crowds that the city would be crazy. Everywhere you looked you could spot someone in either Michigan or Washington merchandise. You personally, were wearing your Michigan football sweatshirt that had LOVELAND and 18 splayed across the back.

You got an Uber to the hotel Colston had sent you the address of. Apparently, it was the same one the team was staying at, so you knew it would be ballistic. You had to fly out extra early so that you could get to the hotel before the send off for the boys, so Colston could try to see you before the game.

You reached the hotel just after 9am and the lobby was already filling up with Michigan fans. You checked in quickly, filing into a packed elevator and calling Colston as you scanned your key card for your room, opening the door.

"Hey Colst, I just walked into my room."

Colston excitedly sat up on his bed where he'd been laying for the past little bit. The guys had to head to the lobby a little before 10 so they could leave to the stadium. His roommate for the night, AJ Barner was in Donovan and Blake's room currently.

"That's perfect. You should come hang in my room for a while before I gotta go."

You agreed, talking for a few minutes before hanging up the call. You quickly made sure your hair looked good and you didn't look like you just woke up before you left your room, entering the elevator and going up two floors to Colston's. You walked down the hallway, knocking on the door he'd told you to.

The door opened quickly, Colston immediately pulling you towards him, wrapping you up in his arms. He smelled familiar, warm and strong hands around your hips. Your arms squeezed around his shoulders, savoring this feeling.

"Hey sweetheart."

"Hi Colston."

You both giggled as you pulled away. Colston closing the door behind you and guiding you through the front hall of his hotel room, his hand on the small of your back. His eyes made contact with the 18 on your back, his hand coming up to move your hair over, his eyes darkening when he saw his name. It was so fuckin' hot to see you proudly wearing his name.

"Nice sweatshirt."

You giggled, turning around and making a joke about it, before sitting on the bed that you could tell was his, since the other one was covered in AJ's stuff. You kicked your Uggs off as you scooted back onto his bed, leaning against his headboard. Colston looked down at you from his place standing at the end of his bed. He'd missed you a lot. He threw himself onto the bed next to you, using his tattooed hand to grab your legs and pull them over his. His love language was physical touch.

You two sat there for about thirty minutes, talking about the couple weeks since you'd been home for break and he'd been busy with football. You check your phone, seeing it was 9:50.

"Cole you gotta get downstairs."

He sighed, agreeing with you. You both got up, Colston grabbing everything he needed before you both exited his hotel room, seeing a couple other players out in the hall as well. You greeted the guys, getting in the elevator. The elevator stopped on your floor, so you grabbed Colston's hand giving it a quick squeeze before saying bye and wishing all the guys good luck.

The other players in the elevator all looked at Colston with smirks, making comments on how down bad he was.

"Bro, you need to make a move. You are in love, boy."

"You guys need to get together already."

He quieted them down, insisting there was nothing more than being friends in the books for you two. None of the guys believed it, they all saw the way you two looked at each other. You were like the sun, and Colston was the moon, the moon only glows when the sun shines on it. You made Colston the happiest he ever was, his mood significantly increased whenever he saw you, and everyone saw it. His mom hadn't met you yet, but she already loved you, because she saw how happy Colston got when he talked about you.

You reentered your room, laying down on your bed. You had to leave for the game at 5:45, so you took a nap. You woke up around 4, getting up so you could get ready. You pulled your outfit out, laying it on your bed. Your favorite jeans and your navy Colston Loveland jersey. He'd gotten it for you as a joke for your birthday, but you loved it.

You headed into the bathroom, fixing your hair up, doing a half up half down with a little maize ribbon bow. You did your makeup and then checked the time. It's was just a little after four, so you had a good amount of time still.

You changed into your outfit, slipping on your navy sambas to match your jersey. You sat in your room until 5:35, before heading downstairs. You were immediately recognized by Colston's mom, whom he had shown multiple pictures of you to.

"Hey honey!"

You turned and saw a smiling woman, wearing a maize Michigan top and a navy hat that had 18 embroidered onto it.

"Hi! Are you Mrs. Loveland?"

She nodded, grinning at you. She hugged you introducing herself and her husband and insisting you call her Rachel. You spoke with them for a couple minutes before they led you to the car that was waiting to escort you three to the game. When you pulled up to the stadium, Mrs. Loveland gave you a lanyard game pass, telling you to put it on.

You guys go through security, showing your passes to get into the stadium. When you sat down, it was 6:40. You talked to Colston's mom for a long time, she wanted to get to know the girl who had her son so enamored. She told you about life in Idaho, Colston's career in rodeo, all of it.

"Colston would hate me for asking this, but are you two dating? He doesn't like telling me too much about his love life."

You blushed, even his mom was wondering if you were together. You laughed, shaking your head.

"No ma'am, we are not. Colston is insanely sweet, though."

She gave you a look you knew all too well. It's a look that was given to you almost everyday at this point. A look you received whenever you were with Colston, or he was the topic of conversation. Everyone knew, everyone except for him of course.

The conversation between you two fizzled out, comfortable silence taking over before a girl a few years older than you, sitting on the other side of you, started talking to you. She was one of the D-Line's sister and she was super sweet.

You spoke more with the people all around you as the game proceeded, standing up sometime in the second quarter and never sitting back down.

The score was 13-20, and there was 9:15 left in the fourth quarter, we needed something big this drive, at least a field goal. You stood, hands on your hips as you drummed your fingers back and forth in stress. You closed your eyes and crossed your fingers, taking a deep breath before opening your eyes again.

The ball was snapped to JJ, and your eyes latched onto Colston as he sprinted out, cutting across the field as JJ sent the ball soaring down the field. Colston jumped up catching the ball perfectly. You jumped up and down, shouting his name as stumbled a little before he took off down the field.

You hugged the sister next to you as she gave you the look. Colston's catch had gotten them deep into Washington territory, the drive ending in a touchdown!

You hugged everyone around you as you watched the final seconds run out. You chanted and clapped with the Michigan fans one last time as some began to leave. All the family members stayed for a while longer. You watched as the boys ran onto the field, smiles on each and every one of their faces. You watched them put their hats on, holding the trophy, hugging each other.

Your focus on Colston was interrupted when his mom grabbed your attention to tell you it was time to go so all of you could get down onto the field. You followed behind his mom as you were led back into NRG then through a hallway that led to the tunnel. You walked down the tunnel, staying right behind the Lovelands.

As the three of you descended into the crowd of boys, coaches, reporters, and more, you made sure to keep your eyes on the back of Mr. Loveland's head, so you didn't lose them.

They found Colston rather quickly, burying him in a tight hug. They laughed and teared up as their son hugged them, you couldn't help but take a couple candids of them. When Colston lifted his head from his dad's shoulder and his eyes caught on you, he practically lunged at you, wrapping you up in his arms and lifting you up swiftly, laughing.

Your arms wrapped tightly around his neck, squealing as you were no longer on solid ground.

"Colston! Oh my God babe! You did it, you played so good!"

"Well, you were here! You're seriously my good luck charm."

You shook your head, denying it. But if anyone ever cared to look at the stats, Colston always played better at the games you attended. He was on an adrenaline rush, his head going at a thousand miles a minute. He pulled away just slightly, so he could see your face. You both smiled brightly, you were so proud.

Colston saw something different in your eyes, something he hadn't ever seen before. His breath still lightly heaved form the activity of the games but his heart rate increased as you looked at him. He had to, he had to.

He put you back down, not letting go of you. His bright smile changed into something much more serious, worrying you.

"I know the title of whatever we are has always been weird, and iffy, and whatever but I just- Like I can't keep pretending with you."

He looked anywhere but your eyes, you had no clue what he could say next. You cupped his face, forcing him to look into your eyes.

"What, Colst? You can't pretend what?"

"That I'm not in love with you. That I haven't been in love with you since we first starting bein' whatever it is we are. I really love you. And I understand-"

You smashed your lips onto his. Colston immediately responded, pulling you closer, tightening his grip on your waist. You pulled away from him when you needed air, but he just tried to chase your lips. You put a hand on his chest, laughing as you stopped him.

"And you had me sitting here for the last four hours trying to convince all these people we were just friends?"

"Well you're the one who kissed me, so."

He cut off your next sassy remark with his lips, kissing you again. Your hands ran through his sweaty hair as his warm body engulfed you. You again were the one pulling away from him when you realized exactly where you were again. You blushed insanely, catching sight of his mom, who just smiled knowingly, sending you a wink.

Colston laughed as he followed your line of sight, turning back to you. Before he could let a word slide through his smirking lips, you pulled him down by his jersey, kissing him one more time. You both smiled into the kiss, laughing like 15 year olds who'd just kissed for the first time ever.

Soon it was time for everyone to get off the field, the guys had to head back to the locker room. You walked back up the field to the tunnel, while Colston held your hand the whole way up, until you two had to part ways.

"Wait for me, okay? We should be back by like midnight. I'll come to your room."

You nodded, smiling up at him, urging him to go. Colston couldn't resist tugging you into him by your connected hands, crashing his lips onto your once more. When you pulled away, the air between you two was filled with nothing but love.

"I'm so proud of you, Colst. You're so talented, and hot, and good at football. I love you."

"I love you."

"Now go! Go celebrate, and have fun, and smoke a cigar but don't come to my room smelling like one."

He pulled you closer again, your attempts to urge him towards the locker room failing.

"I wanna celebrate with you later."

His hand slipped down to the curve of your ass, his fingers rubbing back and forth. You quickly slapped his hand, your face inflamed as you looked around, making sure no one saw or heard him. Thankfully no one had.

You pushed him towards the locker rooms, and he finally went. Not without blowing you an exaggeration kiss, which you "caught", and pressed against your heart.

You made your way over to Mr. & Mrs. Loveland, who were talking with other parents. When they noticed you come up, they both smiled. Colston's mom asked if you were ready to go, to which you nodded with a grin.

You were back in your room around 11, surprisingly. You showered and dried your hair, putting on pajamas that consisted of one of Colston's football tees and shorts too short to see under it. You laid in your bed, looking through the TV. You smiled to yourself as you seemed to flip to the ESPN channel at the perfect time, a clip of Colston's catch being discussed. You kept flipping until you stopped on a channel playing a movie you knew nothing about, but knew Colston liked.

It was a while after midnight when you heard a knock on your door. You giddily jumped up, running over to the door. You opened the door with a smile, seeing a smiling and clean Colston.

"Hi Coley, come on in."

You grabbed his hand as he laughed greeting you and shutting your door behind him. He took his backpack off and slipped off his shoes.

"Are you sleeping over? Shouldn't you be in bed with AJ right now?"

He threw his sweatshirt he had been pulling over his head at you. He was now shirtless, and you stared at his toned body.

"Shut up, we do not share beds. And also this'll be our secret. You don't snore as loud as AJ does."

He tried to give you a cute and innocent smile as he finished his sentence, to not act like he was about to burst out laughing. You tossed his sweatshirt onto his backpack, giving him a middle finger.

Colston covered the few feet between you two in no time, pinching the material of "your" shirt with his fingers.

"Nice shirt, wonder where you got it?"

"Some hot guy, don't remeber his name."

Colston laughed as you turned around letting in an amused 'oh yeah?' as you climbed into your bed, signaling for him to do the same. He climbed over you, pulling the covers up to his torso. You quickly scooted over to him, turned into him and sitting on his lap.

Your hands wandered his now bare chest before finding their way to his hair, the ends were still a little damp from his shower. You tug his hair lightly as you plant your lips on his. He quickly deepened the kiss, sliding his hands onto your hips.

You'd made out with Colston many times before, but this time it was so different. This time it was more than just making out, because you wanted to. It was you making out with the boy that was finally yours. When you pulled away, Colston smiled at you, his eyes glazed over in love.

"Can I be your boyfriend?"

Hearts swarmed in your eyes, you smiled at Colston, nodding gladly.

"It's almost like I've waited over a year for you to ask that."

Colston rolled his eyes sassily, and you giggled as he pulled you into a kiss. This kiss was sweet and chaste, full of love and nothing else. He pulled away from you, leaning his head back, the biggest smile on his face. He tilted his head to the side, looking at you.

"Hi girlfriend."

You giggled, leaning forward to hug him, burying your face in the crook of his neck.

"Hi boyfriend."

It was muffled into his shoulder, but didn't fail to make Colston incredibly happy. You were finally his, fucking finally. You didn't have to pretend with each other anymore, you were proudly and openly in love.

"I love you, Colston."

"I love you more."

[haruhey]

Wish I Never Met You

check out my masterlist!

Word count: 4k

Fluff | Angst | Thank you @weretheones and @normanplusdaryl for betaing <3

You’re part of Daryl’s past, but you could also be his future.

or

A bad day leads the two of you to each other.

or

Whoever said it’s better to love and lose Never loved and lost you

Daryl barely made it through sophomore year.

In all honesty, he was impressed he even got to junior year. When Merle left at the tail end of spring, he - in all of his younger brother naïveté - thought he would come back before the semester ended, taking him from the dump they called a house and from that asshole they had the unfortunate pleasure of calling their old man.

But July came and went, then August, and by the time the new school year rolled around, Daryl stopped waiting for him - just shouldered his backpack and went to school because where the fuck else was he supposed to go?

He gave the whole school thing two weeks. It was enough time to mark off attendance - to lay low before he traded his backpack for his crossbow and started hunting for that weird butcher shop three blocks down to make some money - and he had intended on following it.

Intended, being the right word, because the plan went to shit the second Mr. American History started pairing people up for those dumb, mandatory, biweekly collaborative projects.

Intended, because it just had to be you he was paired with, didn't it? His stupid classroom crush he tried so hard to stop thinking about?

He remembers seeing you for the first time in some math class in sophomore year, and he’d, in his hormone-ruled, bored-out-of-his-mind teenage brain, spent the better half of the period just looking at you. He never worked up the courage to say anything about it to anyone, but you were the prettiest thing he’d seen in his 16 years on Earth, and he hated the way you made his hands all clammy.

Even years later, he looks back on the months he spent being your friend, and he still feels that crushingly familiar clench of his chest.

Maybe it wormed its way almost permanently into him those weeks he first sat next to you in American History. It was a compulory course and both you and he hated it. The teacher - Durand, but Daryl took to calling him Dickhead and Deranged just to see which would make you roll your eyes the hardest - was a notorious douchebag, round glasses over a nose that was entirely too big to stay on his face and three strands of gray hair that seemed to be holding onto his head by spite alone.

He never seemed to take Daryl seriously, even though Daryl knew more than double the amount of history you did. You could pick his brain for hours about the pirates and the Sumerians and the Cherokee and their legends, and he’d let you, despite the glare that marked over his face for anyone else.

In exchange, you let him pick your brain, too. Over the piece of apple pie the two of you would share on the rare occasion you’d both scraped together enough to figure it would be worth buying, he asked about your future. He tried picturing himself with you through it all despite knowing there was nothing for him outside of this shithole town, and he listened to you talk.

He could listen to you talk for hours.

You had big dreams, considering you came from the same place he did, but he had faith you could do it. He knew you could, and even looped his pinky with yours, your thumb pressed up against his while he promised to make it to graduation. He had to watch you toss your cap and flip the bird at 4 years of hell, didn’t he?

But then winter came, and with the Christmas break rounding the corner, Merle came back too, peeling into the dirt road in front of the Dixon dump and taking Daryl along with him. You remember coming back when the second semester started, the same room that had once been used for History now a Government class, and you had hoped to suffer through it together.

You made it through one school week until you’d started asking around.

Nobody got themselves involved with the Dixons - with their surly tempers and their permanent scowls, but you’d gotten into the habit of ignoring those words when you were with Daryl - so when no answers turned up, you weren’t really surprised.

You figured he must have finally gotten his out from his old man.

It was only at graduation that you’d found out what happened to him, overhearing one of the principals talking about how both of Will Dixon’s sons had run away from home and how he’d drunkenly bragged about finally beating sense into them, and, though you knew it was selfish, as the ceremony ticked on, you still hoped Daryl would come back in time to watch your cap toss.

He never did.

When he finally did come back to Georgia, it was a little over a full year later. The old lady that ran the diner the two of you hung around after school had told him that you got a scholarship offer in May - some bigshot school out west - and that you’d packed your bags and left in August.

You weren’t set to come back until the year ended in April, and he wasn’t planning on staying.

He wasn’t planning on making staying anywhere a habit, and, in the blink of an eye, twenty years passed.

A second blink and the world fell.

Everything changed so quickly that it truly did feel like an instant as minuscule as a blink - the dinosaurs had the meteor, and life before them had the ice age - and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just a breath before a new age flooded in.

It seems like everything he thought about was about the future. Some of it he would have considered trivial before - when the next meal would come, when the next time he’s going to fill his canteen is and where the next source of freshwater is - but, in this blip of time, he hesitates to call it that.

Sometimes, when he went out on his bike or shouldered his crossbow and slipped his knives into his holsters, he thought about how Li’l Asskicker and Carl would grow up - how they would never really get to be kids in the same way Rick probably wanted them to be - and almost nothing he did felt trivial anymore.

It scared him, he guesses - how much he cared about those kids and how much everyone else did, too.

He wished someone cared about him like that when he was younger.

It was good, though, this pressure. Daryl was never really one to half-ass anything in the first place, but with the intake of Woodbury and the Council’s decision to start bringing people in, there was a new drive to care. It rippled through the prison, and he liked it, being a part of something bigger than himself.

He felt like someone new.

Someone that mattered - that did good - instead of being some asshole with a bigger asshole for a brother.

At least, he did until he saw you.

Two weeks after taking in the people of Woodbury - with one week spent out recruiting and another spent in the infirmary because they’d met some less than friendly people who definitely did not fit the recruitment criteria - he saw you from around the corner, an all too familiar face helping Carol with meal prep in the courtyard.

He didn’t eat lunch that day, and to say he avoided you was an understatement.

There was something about you that brought back feelings he would have rather left in the past. You reminded him of when he was a teenager, stuck in his shitty hometown with his piece of shit old man and no way out. But at the same time, you reminded him of those nights spent down at the creek, skipping stones and staring at the stars, that comforting lack of second-guessing because he knew he was, for the first time in his life, in the company of someone who actually wanted to spend time with him.

You reminded him of that diner with the warm apple pie, and he never could forget the first time his heart ever beat against his ribs like it was too big for his chest.

But, most of all, you reminded him of first love and his broken promise - of a future he could never have had.

Daryl hated it, being confronted with his past like that.

So yeah, maybe he did revert back to his old ways of hiding and just trying not to think about his problems, and yeah, maybe he did take one too many runs back to back so he wouldn’t have to keep fighting the urge to look for you despite simultaneously being scared shitless at the thought of talking to you, but it was successful in staying away from you, and that’s all he cared about.

Or, well, he thought it was.

Because, though it’s been nearly two decades since you’d thought about high school - with it long since becoming college, and college into adulthood - it’s crossed your mind more than you’d liked to admit lately. It’s an odd feeling, an ill-fitting nostalgia creeping through the holes of your blanket-covered cell bars, but it was oddly comforting. You never thought you’d ever think of that place as comforting, but maybe it wasn’t high school that you found yourself chasing in the dead of night.

It was him.

Daryl never really knew how popular he was - here, and back then, when those minutes before and after gym class divulged into shushed remarks about his looks and half-serious confessions of crushes muttered to the secrecy of the changeroom’s four walls - but you did. You were always on the other side of it, silent in your agreement.

Woodbury - or, well, ex-Woodbury - was no different.

He’s a far cry from that scrawny little kid you split your lunch with all those years ago, but there's still the linger of boyish handsomeness to him that made your cheeks heat when you thought about him too long. There was no mistaking him for anyone else, but that subdued, ultraviolet warmth you’d grown familiar with was gone from his eyes.

He’s not seventeen anymore, flipping his uncut hair from his face as he taught you how to skip stones and catch fireflies, but you wanted to talk to him all the same. There’s not much left from the old world - let alone much that you could have considered good, or wanted to remember - but he’s one of the few things you’d cared enough about to keep safe from the pulling tide that faded your memories.

He made that shitty town more bearable, even if it was for those few months. Gritting your teeth and enduring had become tiring until he’d grimaced at that first History Inquiry project and made you laugh with the annoyed upturn of his lip. 

You’d planned on thanking him at graduation, but he’d left months before then. 

You’d planned on a lot of things to be frank, but there’s no reason to linger in the past when now is a shell of what then was.

There’s even less of a reason when now feels heavier than then ever was.

Today would have marked ten days without incident, a first foray into the monumental double digits until the sun had set behind the return of the run crew’s RV and Beth was forced to flip the number back to zero.

It’s been four hours since they came back - a quarter of the group gone from the unfriendlies they’d met, another dealing with the aftermaths of the encounter and one more made up from those the crew’s recruited - and it’s the first time in those four hours that you’ve left the dingy wing of the infirmary.

You didn’t hate it in there. Far from it, actually, with Hershel and the others being half-decent company and seeing the work you did benefiting people, but the infirmary, especially on days when the crews rounded back, meant the stinging smell of blood and death lingered no matter how much you scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. It stuck to every crevice on your body, and it permeated. Guilted you for not trying hard enough and not knowing enough.

On days like this, everywhere you went seemed too small and too unforgiving, and you���re not sure if you can stand tossing and turning in your bunk. The night sky is a friendlier sight than your ceiling, and the view from the abandoned watchtower is a hell of a lot better than the tiny, barred-up window at the corner of your cell.

If you’re lucky enough, maybe sleep will steal you for a couple of hours before the sun comes up. At least enough to make it through the next day.

You have faith it will - you can already feel the first wave of exhaustion pull at your bones.

Taking a breath, you press your hands into your pockets after pushing the door to the Prison open and slipping out. Autumn is beginning to seep through the cracks of summer and the nights are starting to get colder, but your jacket should be enough until you climb up and find sanctuary in the sleeping bag you’d left there three days ago.

It doesn’t take long to reach the door - if you jig the knob to the right before twisting and skip the third step from the top, the trek upwards is close to silent - but when you open it, the creak yields, at first, an expletive before the annoyed voice tears through the quiet.

“I already told ya I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout-”

The volume of him makes you take a step back, the sound of a man making your body lock up for just a second before you recognize the mess of hair atop his head and the wings stitched on the back of his vest, and you make quick work getting to him, crossing the platform in a single stride.

“Daryl?”

And he’s quick to realize the person speaking to him isn’t Carol like he’d thought. Though he really really really hopes it’s not you, the familiarity of your voice leaves little room for speculation, even before he turns his head and - for the first time in a long time - really, really looks at you.

“Oh.”

His heart beats in his ears and locks his throat before he can muster up anything else to say, and for a second, you wonder if you should introduce yourself to him. 

“Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t expectin’ no one to be here.”

But the knowing upturn of his eyebrows - his apology, and the way he scoots himself over to make room for you the same way he did in those library reading nooks - tells you you don’t need to, and your shoes slide against the concrete as you drop down to a sit.

He remembers you, too, the sweat of his hands too obvious with the fact, even though he wishes he didn’t.

He wishes there wasn’t a familiarity in the way you sidle your body against his, swinging your legs underneath the railing and over the balcony, and he wishes he couldn’t feel the heat coming off of you.

He wishes it didn’t wrap him up like the warm rays of sun, and he fights down a smile at the fact that you always were so bright. He wishes he didn’t remember you like that - glossed over in a blinding, yellow hue.

Daryl wishes he never remembered you like sunshine - he wishes he didn’t still.

Picking up the glass next to him - just to occupy himself and bide the time until his nervousness hopefully washes away into general apathy - he takes a sip before setting it down and taking a pull of the cigarette in his other hand.

The smoke is slow to fill his lungs, but he welcomes it anyways, holding it there as the nicotine-drawn buzz settles in his brain, and then he breathes it out, angling his head up and away from you.

You never liked it, the Malboros he’d swiped from his old man that he’d keep tucked in the smallest pocket of his worn-down backpack, but you’d told him one night, not unlike the one you’re both trying to find solace in right now, that you were scared of what his father might do if he found out.

Then you slipped in the obviousness of his health, just to break the tension of vulnerability, but it hit Daryl like a truck, the fact that he’d never had someone think about him like that before - like they actually cared.

“Heard your brain cells can rot if you do that.”

He raises an eyebrow at you only to be met with a small smile playing at your lips and the slightest bit of a sparkle in your eye, and the taste still lingering on his tongue reminds him of what he’s been doing. The glass is half full with the room-temperature whiskey he’d tried to make himself feel better with after stitching up his own wounds, and there’s ash from his smoking gathered beside one of the railing's poles, and despite the knowing you’re probably right, he sighs, waving your concern away.

“Ain’t worried. Don’t got a lotta them anyways.”

The cigarette between his fingers is lit still, and he takes another drag before the grayed end of it crumbles to the floor, fighting the upward tug of his cheeks at the sound of your amused huff and your quick response.

“That’s why you gotta take care of the ones you still have, Daryl.”

Scoffing, he tilts the edge of the glass towards you, holding it out for you until you take it from him, and he tries not to think about how the tips of his fingers burn when they brush up against yours. It’s not as sweet, the innocence of a teenage crush long since faded into the dull pang of expired love and loss, but it rushes through him all the same.

He would have offered you a cigarette, too, but you’ve never been one to pick up habits that bad.

A comfortable silence falls over the two of you then, the sky offering a serenity the two of you are less than strangers to, and you wince from the liquor when you finally take a sip. It’s nothing like the moonshine he’d smuggled from his dad’s stash - it went down a hell of a lot smoother than you remember that shit going - but your tolerance has taken a nosedive since weekends unwinding and inter-departmental parties had ended.

Besides, the only places you could get alcohol back in Woodbury were way above your paygrade.

Placing the cup back onto the concrete, you steal a glance at Daryl, spending just a second studying the curve of his nose and the jut of his cheekbone. He’s more handsome than he’s ever been, and you can feel the heat rush up your neck before you blink away the thought.

Get a hold of yourself.

But you can’t, not when he’s so close, and you’re not sure if it’s wholly unselfish, what makes you drop your eyes down from his face, but you do, and you realize why he was so on edge when he heard the door open.

He’s fidgeting. Ever since he put out his cigarette, he’s restless and can’t quite figure out what to do with his hands in the same way he was when you’d asked him why he never wanted to go home back in the school library, and it sends you back, too, a familiar pit growing in your stomach. It’s like he’s that kid again, scared of telling you - or, well, people - things that hurt because his stupid brother and dad drilled into him that he’s less of a man for even feeling hurt in the first place, and it’s equal parts infuriating and concerning.

You can tell that the gears are turning in your head as you try to piece him together; a run crew came back just today, and you haven't seen him in a little while. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection - especially with everyone’s propensity to talk about how Daryl brought them in - and though you might regret it, you decide to pry.

Not pry, just ask.

Conversation used to flow so easily between the two of you. Were you naïve to hope it would again?

“Bad day?”

It’s small, your voice, teetering in the air with its uncertainty, but Daryl doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glances down at the space between you, wrapping his fingers around the highball before meeting your gaze, and he bites the inside of his cheek, weighing the option of telling you or not.

“Jus’ tired is all.”

And though he hesitates those first few words, your eyes are so kind - so genuinely caring - that he can’t stop himself from saying more.

That was what he was scared of.

Why hasn’t he let you go? 

“Sick’a fuckin’ losin’ people.”

The frustration when he speaks is palpable, and you’re not sure if it’s bravery or stupidity that makes you move - maybe it’s both, culminating in your own desire that someone would finally see through your crippling bravado and offer you a hug or something - but your hand snakes out to grab his before you even think, shaking it slightly in the strength of your squeeze.

Then he freezes, and for a second, you think you must have overstepped - that he’s going to push you away and yell at you and leave - but he doesn’t. He just takes a breath, the heft of it rising his shoulders then dropping it as he squeezes your hand back harder, a silent thank you in the press of his fingers against yours.

But still, he lets go, afraid the warmth in his chest might make him do something he regrets, and you chew at the dried skin of your lip, thinking about the right thing to say.

Fuck, you could never navigate things like this - it got better as you got older, sure, but words always seemed to fall short when it came to you and him - and when you finally settle on something, half of you wonders if it was just because you thought it better than nothing.

“I feel you.”

Because what else are you supposed to say? That it’s going to be alright and that he shouldn’t blame himself because it's so blatant he is? It’s thin ice you’re walking on, the fear of sounding patronizing drowning out the spark of hope you want to light him with, because you remember the man he was. He’s never had anyone fighting in his corner, and you’re not callow enough to think he thinks of you as something - someone - different.

But he does. He does think of you as someone different, and he wants to say more, but he doesn't know where he stands with you, or with himself. If he says what he’s thinking - that he feels like it is his fault and that he’s not sure if he could ever stop feeling like that. That he’s scared shitless and like it’s some big joke that people actually look up to him for things - wouldn’t that make it feel too real?

So he doesn’t. He just tips the lip of the glass against his and takes another sip to make sure his mouth is occupied, staring down at the bottom ridge of it until you speak again, and he’s helpless to do anything but look at you.

“At least it’s beautiful out tonight.”

He’s sent back to twenty years ago then - the scrawny redneck you’d somehow deemed good enough to be your friend forcing his old habits back to the him of the present - and he can’t help the squeaked little noise of a response. Words have always been hard for him, too. They’re hard for him to think of and even harder for him to form, and it’s made worse by the fact it’s almost like he’s back at 16, convinced that you’re too pretty to talk to.

“Yeah.”

And though you hear his hum of agreement, he never looks away from you, admiring the curve of your familiar smile and the rise of your cheekbones.

The lurch of his heart comes back then - the same beat against his ribs that he hated all those decades ago - and it’s stark then, the realization you’ve never really left him.

“Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

Pressing his lip to the edge of the glass once more, he welcomes the burn of whiskey when you smile at the moonlit horizon, and he watches as you lean your chin against your arms.

You’re beautiful - more beautiful than all the colours in the star-speckled sky - and he could stare for hours.

[littlestarbigsky]

*deep breath, steps up onto dead dad soapbox*

okay so i lost my dad unexpectedly when i was 18. i was a freshman in college and my little brother was a freshman in high school (darry/soda age gap sibs :p ) and i *literally* can not express just how different our experience was with it. soooo it’s time to project !! this turned into a whole thinkpiece i really didn’t expect to write this much lol

grieving curtis brothers in school under the cut ;)

for argument’s sake, i’m just gonna go with darry took a gap year after hs and was a freshman when his parents died. they died right around his 20th birthday, and given the timing of it he was most likely still on winter break. pony would have been a freshman and soda would have been a junior and hadn’t dropped out yet (this isn’t meant to be divisive or questioning the canon timing i’m just throwing this in to establish the timeline i’m going with here).

oh darry,, bro is not having a good time

going through a loss in college is such a lonely experience. darry was sort of established with some people at school and he definitely had friends but at the end of the day, most east side type families couldn’t afford to send their kids to college so most of his friends don’t really know his family or much about his background. the social conditioning he went through with paul and co. was enough to get him into crowds just like the kids from the west side instead of scholarship kids, but once a greaser, always a greaser.

darry went through a lot of heartache leaving school. obviously he would do it again in a heartbeat, his brothers meant more to him than anything in the world. the thing is, he didn’t fully grasp everything he was giving up when he got custody. any hope of he had of going to college on an athletic scholarship or with the safety net of his parents was gone. he was the sole provider for two teenagers. and he just had to learn to be okay with that, whether or not he regretted giving up on college or not.

he tries to go to his dad’s boss to see if he can take over his position since it was open and they were family friends, but it’s a tenure position and the best he can do is offer darry a job with the roofing division of the company.

he can hardly look soda in the eye when he asks him to come along to help him pack up his dorm room. he’d left most of his things there, thinking it would be waiting for him for another semester. he calls his building and asks to get in before everyone comes back so he doesn’t have to see anyone and tell them about what happened. he leaves a note for his roommate explaining that he dropped out for ‘personal reasons.’ soda pretends not to notice the tears falling down darry’s cheeks while they drive back home.

he doesn’t really have anyone but the gang. his friends from high school are out of the picture, and his friends from college wouldn’t understand, at least not enough to really be of any help. he doesn’t really get to lean on his brothers because he’s too busy trying to keep them together. he just… really doesn’t get the support that he needs.

as for the little bros..

pony and soda are both out of school for a week after the accident, a few times one of them said they wanted to go to school to get out of the house but tbh darry wouldn’t let them out of his sight or get in a vehicle if it wasn’t with him. but when they finally do get back, their teachers don’t really give them much of a break aside from giving their condolences. i like to think some of their teachers let soda visit pony in some of his classes or turned a blind eye when one of them would fall asleep in class, but beyond that, they don’t get much leeway workload-wise.

the social transition is also pretty intense. i think this was much more of a ponyboy problem bc soda keeps his circle pretty tight, but it’s so easy to lose friends when something like that happens because people don’t know what to say to you and eventually just stop reaching out. all of a sudden, his only identification in school is his dead parents, and shockingly, he doesn’t want to talk about that. he wants to just carry on with his life bc he’s still a person despite what happened to them. quite honestly the only people who don’t treat pony and soda differently after the accident are the gang (and sandy prob but idk when they got together).

pony doesn’t have too hard of a time getting back into the swing of school and getting himself caught up, but he’s like a child genius anyways soo he’s fine. soda though, god bless this poor boy, the week that he missed is probably the reason he ended up dropping out :( he already had a hard enough time missing one day let alone a whole week, and he was so far behind in some of his classes that it felt like they were speaking a different language. the worst part is he tries SO hard, too. he asks his teachers for help but they don’t know how to get through to him, cut to darry trying so hard not to lose his damn mind at the kitchen table trying to get soda to understand his english homework.

[smusherina]

the intricacies of werewolfism (and other afflictions) - chapter 1 (wenclair)

fandom: Wednesday (2022), Addams Family (all media)

pairing: (romantic) Wednesday Addams x Enid Sinclair (platonic) OFC/Reader x Wenclair

summary: You'd been keeping an eye out for Enid Sinclair since freshman year. There'd been a silent camaraderie between you, both sitting in the very back of the room during Furs specific classes. Things changed, though, after Wednesday Addams came around. For one, Enid shifted.

additional clarification: Wednesday and Enid have an established relationship. Story follows the POV of an outsider.

It wasn't like you were angry at her. No, you could only be happy that not only had they (whoever they were, that was never clarified to you) saved the school from, uh, genocide, but Enid had shifted for the first time. That was a pivotal moment in any young werewolf's life, especially for Enid since she'd been latent.

You were angry at everything that would change. You'd been different and she'd been different, so you'd sort of banded together, y'know? Now, she was no longer that while you still were. You were alone. Again. You couldn't bring yourself to not be bitter about that.

Then again, it wasn't like you were really friends. You didn't talk, ever. You just sat next to one another in Werewolf Studies class. Your bond was totally one-sided, with you having latched onto any kindness shown to you by a peer. Because just sitting next to you was a kindness. Gosh, you sounded pathetic.

You'd liked her and wanted to be her friend so bad, but had never gathered the courage. You'd spent your evenings alone in your room, wondering what it'd be like being a friend of Enid Sinclair's.

You sounded so creepy and stalkerish. Maybe you were. You didn't actively follow her around or anything, or fantasize about her, or do anything like that. That was gross and violating. You just... You were lonely.

You had some time to get used to the idea. The fall semester ended early due to the normie teacher turning out to be a scheming bitch and resurrecting an evil pilgrim, apparently, so you'd have plenty of time to digest your new predicament.

Usually, for long holidays like summer vacation, you'd travel back to whence you came, but you hadn't had time to make arrangements amid everything. You knew your usual hosts wouldn't be pleased to take you in on such short notice.

You'd been given special permission from Weems to stay in school during winter break the previous years, which was shorter than summer vacation but longer than any of the other mid-season breaks, but considering she was dead you didn't quite know what to do. Was that permission still valid? Your roommate packed her bags as did everybody else. You watched from the balcony as everybody got in their parents' cars or boarded the bus. You packed up your essentials just in case they had some last-minute arrangements for you.

You expected to have a teacher come talk to you at some point. Tell you where you'd be going or if you were going to be staying. Pick-up day passed. The teachers and staff lingered for a bit longer. The cleaners left, then the cooks. A sinking feeling manifested in your belly as you realized there'd be no daily meals. Eventually, the others left too. You were alone at Nevermore.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fine. It was fine. Everything was fine. You got yourself into this mess. You should've opened your mouth and said something instead of assuming the teachers would check in on everybody. They didn't have that sort of time. In between hiring a new botany teacher and a new principal, buffing the sheriff's efforts to launch an investigation on the school, and assuring Jericho residents of their safety, obviously, they would forget about you.

Despite all your efforts to rationalize it in your mind, it did sting. But you made do. Once the initial panic wore off, you were able to make some plans.

You used the kitchen to make your own meals. You'd been cooking for yourself for a long time, so it was no biggie. There was plenty of stuff with a long shelf life stored away, so you didn't even have to go shopping that much. You made it a point to stay away from town as much as possible, only getting the essentials at odd, not-busy hours of the day. You were pretty invisible and unnoticeable, but you could appear only so many times out of nowhere before people began to wonder where that teenager lived if not in town.

It was actually pretty chill. A whole school to yourself. Sometimes, you pranced around, pretending like you owned the place. That was fun. Honestly, it wasn't that different from how you spent your days at school, except with less studying.

One key difference, though, was how you spent the full moon. For a wolf like you, it was vital to shift as often as possible in order to maintain a steady grip on reality during the full moon. Even so, due to your type being prone to feral behaviour, you were used to being locked up every full moon. You couldn't properly secure the cage from the inside.

You tried to do it the first time but woke up in the woods the next morning. Tough luck. Usually, you were able to maintain some lucidity during the shift, but you suspected that was due to the magical influence of the cage. Outside of it, your power was untapped and thus, you'd blacked out.

You'd probably attacked a mountain lion or something, maybe a bear, considering you were covered in blood and gashes. You were quite sure most of it was not yours. A lot of it was around your mouth. You felt it in your tummy, the large meal still roiling around.

Werewolf healing came in handy. The scratches healed in no time, though did take longer than usual. The predator must've gotten you good.

You didn't bother with the cages the next time around. You'd broken the one you'd escaped from and those things couldn't be cheap.

Every day, you'd wake up in the morning and do your routine. Pee, brush teeth, put on deodorant, go down for breakfast. Go for a run, first in human form then wolf form, shower, snack. Study, read a topical book, snack break, study some more, nap. Chores, like laundry or dishes, make dinner and eat it, go patrol the grounds, sleep. On nights of the full moon, you'd finish your day with the patrol and only go to sleep in the morning when you found yourself naked in the woods.

You weren't really Christian in the sense that you'd ever gone to church, but your family had celebrated Christmas. You treated yourself to a big slab of ham that you wolfed down. Ha.

New Year's was much the same. A slightly better dinner than usual. Then you went back to your room to play video games.

It was all pretty boring. A nice vacation, all in all, but nothing too thrilling. A little modern survivalist. Your roommate came back along with the rest of the student body. She scowled at you in greeting as always. It was quite jarring, going from the echoing, empty hallways to every corner being packed. It was loud.

Something you hadn't expected, though, was that your stay was cause for concern. You probably should've come clean immediately to avoid all this. They took stock of the kitchen and found things missing as well as some unaccounted-for fresh ingredients. God forbid you wanted to eat vegetables. The broken werewolf cage caused a stir, which you could understand. The common consensus was that those things were unbreakable.

People thought that somebody, an outsider, had broken in and lived in the school. There were rumours that they were still at Nevermore, lurking, watching. Some speculated it was Tyler, the Hyde.

That theory was disproven soon enough, as Sheriff Galpin came to the school to give a public announcement. His son had been missing for quite some time, as he had escaped the vehicle transporting him, but had recently been found. Or, rather, his remains had been found.

The sheriff implied that the person who'd invaded Nevermore might have likely been his son's killer. To the public, the case was made out to be as if Tyler had somehow slipped away from the cops transporting him to juvie, gotten lost in the woods, and been victim to an animal attack. Everybody knew what animal attack really meant.

If anybody knew anything, they were to come to him at once. Nobody stepped up. Not even you, especially not you. You were sweating bullets, antsy and sick to your stomach. Had you attacked him? Eaten him? Were you a cannibal now? Oh no, what if you got that brain disease from this? Oh no, you had probably eaten a person.

You should've said something. You should've given yourself in. The teachers would've made you go back to your carers despite them being labelled as unfit in your file, but that was just how things were. You should've been able to stomach that. You did so every summer. If you'd told the truth to the teachers or the sheriff, you'd have been arrested for murder, probably. It would mean proving every presumption about you and your kind right, and ruining your life forever. You didn't want that. Wasn't that what you deserved, though?

Weeks passed. School started up again. The snow was slow to melt, the frigid temperatures clinging to the stone walls of Nevermore, causing a permanent chill to permeate the halls. Adding to the dreary atmosphere was the sad reality of the principal not being a tall woman clad in all white at all times, but the frumpy vice principal Frankenfroot, and the unease created by the mysterious invader.

Amidst the all-around grey atmosphere, stood out one girl. Enid Sinclair. You hadn't been paying as much attention to her as before, with all this mystery bullcrap stressing you out beyond belief.

She'd skipped the first couple of Werewolf Studies classes, so it took you a while to be near her. You assumed she'd been given some private lessons to make up for the years she was unable to participate in the practical aspects of the class.

You hadn't seen much of her during or immediately after the whole ordeal last year, so the changes to her were very stark to you. The scars, now only slightly more pink than the rest of her skin, stood out. As far as scars went, they were pretty fortunately placed and fairly clean. No jagged lines or disfigurement. Aesthetically pleasing scars. And even if she hadn't had such luck, you bet she would've rocked them just the same. They looked nice. Was that okay to say about scars? How could you be a foot-in-mouth in your own head?

Also, she smelled different. More wolfy, less perfumy. You liked it. The musky earth smell definitely added to her usual floral notes.

"Um, hey, so..." Enid said as she packed her books into her bag. "Excuse me, uh, what's your name?" You tapped your finger on your chin, trying to put yourself in her shoes. You had plenty of scars. None on your face, though, There was a pretty gnarly one going from your collarbone to the back of your ear, though.

"Hey," Enid's voice came alarmingly close to you. You turned your head. She was looking right at you. Why was she looking at you?

"Are you ignoring me?" She asked, bag on her shoulder and a slightly offended look on her face.

"What?" You blurted out, looking around. The classroom had emptied. "Are you talking to me?"

"Who else?" She sassed. You supposed that should've been obvious.

"Sorry. Sorry! Um. What were you saying?" Trying to be as normal as possible, you got up to pack your own things. You hoped she couldn't see your knees wobbling.

"I was just wondering if you wanted to form a pack with me." She seemed to relax, maybe getting the vibe you weren't trying to agitate her on purpose.

"Huh?" Your hands shook. You held onto your backpack with white knuckles. "Aren't you gonna join the school pack?"

There was the school pack, which was led by the professor during full moon runs, but there was also the option of forming your own pack. Some of the seniors did that, mostly pack-leaders-to-be getting in some practice before the real deal.

You'd spent a good chunk of the break working to accept that Enid was going to be leaving you for the school pack. You'd been so prepared, so ready, to be ditched that now that she wasn't doing that, you had no idea how to act.

"I don't wanna be around them. They didn't give a fuck about me until I shifted, and when I finally did suddenly they wanna be all buddy-buddy!" She huffed and gestured with her arms. She was so animated. "I just feel like that's fake AF. That's not how you care about a person, y'know?"

"Totally." You whispered, sounding a little too reverent. "Um, I would love to, I really would, but I'm a lycanthrope."

You waited for her to grimace, recoil, make some sort of remark. None came. Only her confused face.

"Uh... I know. We're both werewolves."

"No, I mean, yes, we are, but..." You wondered how you could explain this in a sensitive but also appropriately informative way. "You've never heard of lycans, have you?"

"I thought werewolves and lycans were the same thing." She said. Oh boy. Not an uncommon misconception, but one that could cost dearly.

"Nope. Uh, the bare bones are the same but some relevant details are totally different." You chewed on your lips a bit. "I've read ahead a bit in the textbook, so I know we're gonna cover it this year. I'm kinda like an experience-specialist! Haha. Um, so, if you don't care that's totally understandable and no worries, so I could give you a brief rundown if you want, but-" You took a deep breath. "I could explain it more. In depth, I mean. Like, a slide show, or something."

You sounded like an idiot. Who the frick offered a private slide show to an almost complete stranger? You'd humiliated yourself. Utterly humiliated yourself and your bloodline.

"Oh my gosh! I would love that!" She said, probably just not showing how she felt bad for you. "Can I bring my girlfriend?"

You didn't know they'd begun dating. You would've expected to hear those news circulating around the school, but apparently not. Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

"Wednesday? Oh, yeah, she can come." You thought about that for a moment. "I think she'd find lycans very interesting."

"That..." Enid pursed her lips and tilted her head. "Huh. I see. Are lycans like, more bloodthirsty or something like that?"

"Kinda," That was sort of a disparaging stereotype, but it was rooted in some truth. The reality was much more convoluted.

"When and where?" She pulled out her phone. Probably making a note. You were important enough for a note?

"Um, my roommate doesn't spend a lot of time in our room so we could do it over the weekend at mine? I'm in Juliet Hall." Your hands trembled as you dug your phone out of your pocket. "I- I could add you. If you wanted."

"Yeah! What's your user?" You said it. "Got it. I added you, add me back!" You did as she asked, vision blurring with the intensity you were staring at the screen. "Fab! I'll text you details later tonight, yeah?" At your nod, she whirled around. "Gotta dash! Bu-bye!"

"Bu-bye..." You murmured after her.

Notes: A new series! This time Wenclair. Or, a platonic OC/Enid with a side of Wenclair. I've been ruminating on this concept for a long time, so I wanted to put it out there as soon as I finished my last series. I totally get if this isn't people's cup of tea, the focus is off the main attraction after all, but y'know. It's here. Do what you will.

This whole thing was borne of me wanting Enid to have a werewolf friend. She deserves a buddy to be dogs with! Also, world-building with werewolves is so fun! Fun fact about me, I'm a seasoned omegaverse writer :) We'll see if I get to do any of that in my later series teehee.

If you wish to be on the taglist, comment so on this post!

[hwashotcheeto]

𝑩𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑭𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅'𝒔 𝑴𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓

Best Friend's Mother Masterlist

Chapter: Prologue/Teaser

Milf!Park Seonghwa X gn!reader

Summary: Winter Break is fast approaching. With nothing else to do, you ask your best friend, Wooyoung, if you can go home with him and meet his family.

WC: 982

CW: Nothing, just the set up for what's to come

AN: AAH, my first series! I'm so excited for this one! I'm putting a lot into this, as this is an idea I've had since this photoshoot came out (Park Seonghwa, you'll be the death of me-)

Tag List (Please ask if you wanna be added!): @hyunjinsjeans

It was the end of November in your third year of college, sitting by the windows in your study hall period. You were lucky enough to get one for your first semester, so you used it to relax before your final class of the day. 

The large room was filled with light chatter of other students, collaborating or spending the period as a social hour. You kept mostly to yourself, not knowing any of the other people and not wanting to talk to them anyways. 

That was, until a familiar face stumbled through the doorway ten minutes after the bell rang. You looked up and smiled at your best friend, Wooyoung, who smiled back at you. He was about to make his way over to you when the professor cleared his throat, motioning for Wooyoung to come talk to him. Wooyoung held up a finger, as if to say “one moment” before he went to his desk. You couldn’t help but laugh softly. 

Wooyoung eventually made his way over to your table and sat next to you. “I got moved here because they realized they put me in the wrong class,” he said loudly. Wooyoung never cared about his volume, he just liked to talk. 

“And why did you stay in the wrong class for-” You counted the months since the beginning of the school year “-Four months?”

“Because I didn’t say anything.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because I wanted to see how long it would take them.” 

Your eyes went wide as Wooyoung giggled at himself. Ever the brat, he was. 

“What class was it?” 

“One I took last year.” 

You choked and coughed, making Wooyoung laugh harder. His laugh was turning into his high pitched witch cackle that could’ve been trademarked as his. There was no other witch cackle like his. 

Once you recovered, you looked at him incredulously, to which he laughed silently in a wheeze, smacking his hands on the table as he leaned over it. The sound made a few people turn their heads, including the professor. 

“You sat in a class you already took for four months just to see if the professor would notice?!” You couldn’t believe what you were saying, it was so ridiculous. Then again, this is Jung Wooyoung. 

Wooyoung, through gasps and fits of laughter, tried to explain himself, but he devolved into giggles every time. And eventually, it made you start laughing too, until you both were trying to hold back from dying laughing like hyenas. 

A few of your classmates looked over in disdain, and the professor looked at you two over his glasses disapprovingly, but you two couldn’t care less. You’d really lucked out finding Wooyoung, and you didn’t want to lose him. 

You’d gotten put in one of your general classes together in your first semester of your first year. He came over, introduced himself, and the rest is history. The two of you hit it off, and you’ve been inseparable ever since. 

Wooyoung introduced you to his other friends as well, Yeosang and Jongho, and his “definitely not boyfriend” San. The four of you all got along well, you all hung out together when you could, went out, took each other to parties, your average college friend group. 

But you and Wooyoung had a special bond, and you were so grateful to have him.

You and Wooyoung were on the phone later that night, and eventually, you got on the topic of what you were doing for Winter Break which was coming up soon. 

“Are you going to your mom’s or your dad’s for break?” You asked him, laying on your bed, looking at your ceiling. The stupid little popcorns stared back. 

“My-” Wooyoung paused, as if he had to think about it. You looked at your phone and was about to ask him if he disappeared when he continued. “My dad’s.” 

“Did you not know?” 

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I’d rather go home with my dad. He took better care of me than my mom did anyway.” 

Wooyoung had talked about his childhood sparingly, and usually didn’t talk about either of his parents. You didn’t push, in case it was a sensitive topic, and let him open up or tell you what he wanted to. Therefore, you knew virtually nothing about either of his parents or his home life. 

You hadn’t told Wooyoung much about your childhood either. You’d cut contact with both your parents after you went to college. You still talked to a few of your cousins and some of your aunts or uncles, but you didn’t want anything to do with your parents. You hadn’t gone home for any of your breaks, the most you did was hang out with some of your cousins for a few of them. 

And as all of that came back to you, you realized you dreaded the idea of spending another break alone when all your friends went back home, and you were left by yourself. Your own family was busy this year, so there was no hanging out with them either. 

So you desperately threw out an idea, hoping it would land. 

“Hey, I know this is out of nowhere, but do you think your dad would mind if I went with you?”

And at first, there was silence. It made you start rethinking, regretting such an awful decision to ask. How could you intrude on another family like that? You opened your mouth to take it back, but Wooyoung piped up. 

“I have to ask him, but I don’t think he’d be against it.” 

You sighed heavily in relief and smiled. “Thank you, thank you so much.” 

“Hey, I still have to ask.” 

“The fact that you’re asking at all means a lot, Wooyoung.” 

“Don’t mention it. It’s what family does, right?” 

Of course. Family. That felt good to hear. 

Thank you for reading! Please reblog if you enjoyed! 💜

This is a work of fiction written by me. This does not represent the idol(s) in any way. Any re-upload is not allowed and will be reported.

[blackbutlerfandomnerddomain]

“Did you hear? Housewarden Rosehearts is dating someone in school!” “What?! There’s no way! Him!?” “I bet whoever is dating that guy is just as stressed and high strung like him.”

The halls of Night Raven were buzzing with rumors and gossip of the biggest juicy story to come from the end of Winter Break: Riddle Rosehearts of Heartslabyul is in a relationship. With a boy! He was a son of a very well off family with lots of status and wealth alongside strong magic within his blood and sweat, like a very tough and well bred horse for racing and showing off if you will. Many would assume if he were to ever have a school love it would be one of the many beautiful and rich girls in a girl academy either nearby or in his hometown. So for him to come out and admit he has a boyfriend was a shock.

While students hurry and whisper among themselves of this gossip like giggling hags over soaking laundry on a hot afternoon, away high up in one of the higher floors tucked away in a classroom stand two young men who stay close to one another as their lips remain locked. Ace Trappola, a fresh 2nd year student and future-Vice Dorm Leader of the house Heartslabyul, reaches up and holds the small waist of his lover Riddle Rosehearts, a fresh 3rd year student and Dorm Head of Heartslabyul, who eagerly scoots even closer. The pair have begun their special connection a total of six months ago, after some hilarious hijinks that no one could imagine that made the polar opposites grow closer each second of each minute of every hour of a day.

Yes, polar opposites is the correct term…

Riddle was like a cup of tea; Easily a boiling hot level of rage over someone’s bad grammar, with a scream to match to boot, and can be a sweet and much needed calming dose in one’s life. Ace on the other hand was like coffee; One bitter bitter soul that only grows sweet and less burning to the touch if you coax him enough with cream and sugar.

Yet somehow against all odds the pair are willing to consume the sugar overdoses and tongue burns of their lover’s warm comfort and sweetness of their caffeine addictions.

“Why were you two studying in an empty classroom though??”

Ace hid his snort as curious red eyes stared up at him from the sofa, fighting his urge to laugh more when Riddle elbows his ribs. Currently, the pair are helping host a large sleepover in their home, a sweet cozy two story cottage in town covered in fine red bricks and even some ivy that overgrows across the surface in the sweet countryside of the Queendom of Roses, the ones focused on the sleepover is their dear little princess Rosealynn Trappola, though simply called Rose by everyone else, and her group of best friends to celebrate their upcoming school semesters the next day. Riddle steps forward to answer instead of his giggling husband to the group of teens, “It’s easier to study in the quiet than in the public loudness. Then we lived happily ever after. Now get ready to sleep, we all have a busy traveling day tomorrow.” The teen girl giggles and flops back on the sofa between a black haired girl and a blond lad, her freckled face a happy glow with a natural flush. Ace kisses her red hair before he and Riddle left the room to leave the friend group to chat. “Geez, it feels like yesterday she was in preschool…” “I know how you feel.”

This is my first submission to the @ridoaceweek for this year! I know it's shorter than my dramas last year with these two getting together but it'll be better, I promise!

Also, since I introduced her last year, here's Rose!

More information is here!

She attends Night Raven Collage since in this AU I view the mangas and books (which I got the first volume YAY) as canon and in canon we had a female student/maybe more thanks to Yuu so after the whole thing Crowley did something RSA would never and that is to make NRC a coed school. She's a Heartslabyul student too!

[snowviolettwhite]

Several Sentence Sunday

Tagged By the lovelies @anewkindofme and @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad

(Reworking the first chapter of don’t have to be sorry for leaving and growing up) Not finished with it yet but here is a sneak peak. Name from Harry Style song Matilda.

9-1-1 early 2010s Alternative Universe Fan-Fiction.

Where Buck, Eddie, Shannon and baby Christopher runaway from home to California. Buck and Eddie join the fire academy and soon after the 118, Shannon is studying to be a therapist and they are all roommates barely, adults at eighteen years old and raising Christopher and coming into adulthood together.

Eddie and Shannon were born towards the end of 1992 so they graduate in 2011.

Buck was born in summer of 1992 so he graduated in 2010.

----

It is January of 2011. Public schools across the nation of The United States Of America are still out for winter break from Hershey, Pennsylvania to El Paso, Texas.

Evan Buckley, Buck is the blonde and blue-eyed rascal. It has been nearly a year since he graduated high school and still does not know what he wants from life. He has tried college is dropping out and not returning for the spring semester. He mostly did it to get his parent off his back and away from them.

He has some money saved from over the years from doing chores, birthdays, mowing lawns and gardening around town, shoveling snow, yard sales, lemonade stands and many more little odd jobs.

He is always getting himself hurt and in trouble. He was on the football team. He made a lot of friends but never got close enough to let his walls down. He is the baby of the family but the only person who ever pays attention to him is his big sister Madeline, Maddie Buckley. She is nine years older than him. He does not know what he wants concretely. But he knows that he wants to help people and make the world a better place and just wants to be happy and be loved and find his passion and have stability.

Edmundo Diaz, Eddie is the young teenage dad to be who got his best friend turned girlfriend pregnant. Eddie just turned eighteen in November and Shannon only turned eighteen in October. They are not even eighteen and half years old. He is the middle child and is the only boy in his family. He was the sanest compared to his sisters which, pulled away the attention of the fact he struggled a lot in school. He excelled in other areas like sports and the arts and other hands-on-activities until this past year.

He wanted to be nurse when he grew up but saw the pain it was to get into college and financial aid and everything with his older sister, Adrianna. He needs to figure out how he is going to support the baby and Shannon and himself. He just wants to be left alone in peace with his best friend and baby boy and to have fun, at least for now.

“Edmundo Diaz, young man you will listen to me right now. How could you let this happen?! You and Shannon are still kids in the school. You cannot even take care of yourselves. The last time you tried cooking dinner you nearly set the kitchen on fire. You cannot be trusted to drive by yourself and still need help with your homework You cannot act like a man, you still act like a child. How are you supposed to take care of a baby?”

Shannon Macdonald is the young teenage mom to be. She wants to be therapist when she grows up. She wants to start a new life away from all this chaos and stress and hang out with her best friend and baby and make new friends and find new interests.

She is the best friend of Eddie Diaz.

They say if you want to be treated like an adult act like an adult. How are you supposed to act like an adult when you are still being treated and spoken to like a child. You are barely an adult at eighteen years old just graduated in high school or still in it, being dragged home by the cops and being scolded at the front door or being at by your parents yelled in your childhood bedroom to the point of tears and clutching your clutching your worn-out stuffed animal or getting into screaming contest with two middle aged adults to the point your voice gives out and wanting your mom to make it better.

“You’re too soft! You need to grow up!”

“You’re too soft! You need to grow up!”

“You’re too soft! You need to grow up!”

“I hate you!”

“I hate you!”

“I hate you!”

---

Tagging But No Pressure: @the-flaming-nightmare. @aroeddiediaz. @babygirl-diaz @lochnesswriter @missmagooglie. @tommykinard6

[chaosduckies]

Restoration (Chapter 8)

A bunch of scenes because why not? On another note, it is extremely hard to write a scene in winter when it’s the middle of April. I hope you enjoy anyhow! Because now I’m really getting into the plot.

Word Count: 5.9k

CW: Death, crying, vague thoughts of suicide, severe trauma, (anything else idk??)

8-Ryker

It was Thanksgiving break. The first official break from school until Christmas. Words could not describe how grateful I was for the week-long break. There was no reason to have so much work piled up a couple weeks before the end of first semester. 

I was laying in my bed on my phone. It was about to turn six, which meant I should probably get started on dinner, but I just couldn’t bring myself to climb out of bed. I was physically and mentally tired of keeping up with everyone and whatever plans they had with their friends, taking care of Isabelle and Angela since they were still little, and on top of that keep up with the chores around the house. 

I grabbed my phone off the charger, stretched out my arms and legs from laying down, and opened my door to get started on dinner. The living room was oddly quiet, with Dylan and Lucky playing a game. Isabelle playing a game with Angela on the carpet that consisted of a bunch of stuffed animals and blankets. I smiled to myself. 

“What do you guys feel like eating for dinner?” I leaned against the kitchen island, waiting for an answer. 

“Spaghetti!” Isabelle and Angela answered at the time, giggling at one another. I think I could do that. I don’t know if Lucky can though. It was the first weekend of the break and I’d probably need to go grocery shopping tomorrow anyways. 

I looked in Dylan’s direction, making them pause whatever they were playing together. He just shrugged his shoulders, “Whatever’s easier for you.” Always with the same response. 

“Ummm, I can go check what we have.” Lucky told me, getting Dylan to let him onto the floor. All I could do was wait now. Jasmine was staying over at her friends today and tomorrow. I just told her to text me if she goes anywhere far and if she needed anything. Weird, right? Usually the parent handles these kinds of things, but in the situation my siblings and I are in it’s literally impossible. 

Lucky came back, shaking his head, “We don’t have the things for spaghetti,” He laid down on the arm rest of the couch and grabbed his remote, “You should call Nathan to come over. He hasn’t been here in a while. Plus, he’s so much better at cooking than I am. Right, Angela?” 

“Yeah!” 

I bit the side of my cheek. I don’t know about that. Just asking Nathan to come over to cook and then ask him to leave? That was wrong. Plus, he told me before the break that he’ll be pretty busy. Or… texted me. Either way, I shouldn’t bother him. Maybe he actually has a meal with his family for Thanksgiving and they were all getting ready for it already. On the other hand, Lucky makes something else for him and Angela, Angela doesn’t eat, and then everything goes downhill from there. 

Looking at my phone, I picked it up, opening the messages app, and clicked on Nathan’s name. The last time he came here, Jasmine did kind of freak him out. I remember him not being able to leave anyone’s side if she was in the room. I wonder if he’d even want to come over after that. At school the next day he was a little nervous, but otherwise fine afterward, but I’m sure whatever Jasmine told him is still stuck in his mind. Ugh. This was such a bad idea. 

Ryker: I have a huge favor to ask you 

I waited for a response, watching Dylan and Lucky play a fighting game against one another. I had no idea who was winning, but I’m pretty sure it was Lucky. Actually… it was kind of weird how Lucky seemed to want Nathan around more often. Like, really weird. Especially when every time Nathan came, he would practically ditch him with me. I honestly don’t mind, I liked having Nathan come over, but still. I had wondered why, but I wasn’t going to ask. 

Nathan: Yeah?

Ryker: Do you mind coming over to help Lucky cook something? 

Ryker: You don’t have to 

Well, if he says no Lucky will have to make whatever he can and I’d have to break the news to Angela. If you didn’t know, four year olds can be a little hard to deal with sometimes. So, this might just turn out to be a very, very bad day. 

Nathan: Sure! 

Nathan: Anything specific?

I stared at his text, relief washing over me. Dylan let out a cheer from winning against Lucky. Wow. Perfect timing. I was just so grateful right now. Nathan was literally the greatest friend ever. Now I have to think of someway to thank him. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? 

Ryker: They wanted spaghetti

Ryker: And thank you  

Nathan: No problem :)

Ryker: I guess I’ll be at the bus stop in about twenty minutes? 

Nathan: Okay 

I stuffed my phone in my pocket, “Okay, I’ll be right back, just text me if something happens.” I told Dylan, who nodded his head. And with that, I walked out the door and into the cold air. 

———Nathan———

Winters in the city were bad. But not as bad as when we were still help captive. Now those days were terrible. Horrifying even. It was still freakishly cold here. Not something I enjoy. For several reasons really. One being that I already get cold really easily. Two, I just hated being cold and sick. And the most important reason being that it was during this kind of weather when my dad had died. Actually, in three days it’s officially been nine years since my dad died. November 24. A long time, right? 

It hurts. The memories. Not just of him but how they brutally murdered him in front of his own child. I shuddered at the sight pictured in my mind. Nope. Can’t think about that. Right now I should probably be getting ready to head over to the bus stop. I already had packed a tiny bag with the things I needed to cook. Weird enough, it was kind of a therapy for me at this point. To be cooking I mean. I guess that’s why my mom always gets worried when I’m baking for no reason. Because she knows. 

I sighed, giving my mom a quick text that I was heading over to Ryker’s for a little while. The last time I went, I thought everything was going great before Jasmine talked to me alone. everyone had left to go looking for something and it was just her and I. I was scared of course. We’ve never, ever talked before and from what I’ve gathered she’s really intimidating. 

Her exact words to me were: “If you hurt my brother in any way I will personally murder you.” and that was was it took for me to have an entire mental breakdown for nearly two weeks. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared if someone’s sibling threatened you like that? So, the week before the break, I might have been acting a little weird around Ryker, afraid that I might actually do something wrong or hurt him in any way, which I don’t really see how I could. 

Otherwise, I haven’t really been doing anything. I told Ryker that I would be busy during the break, but really I wasn’t. Only because I do actually have something to do on November 24, and I was already feeling the depression spikes as the day came closer and closer. As for Thanksgiving itself, my mom and I never do anything. Last year we were barely getting used to being in the mental hospital so we didn’t really do anything. This year she’s working so it’ll just be me. Nothing new. 

I made my way down the icy streets, the sun setting faster and faster. It was only getting colder, and I didn’t really have a winter jacket. Just some to wear in the classroom like when it’s freezing in there. So, yeah, I was basically freezing my face off. Not to mention that my mom told me it might snow later tonight since it was already under twenty degrees outside. I wasn’t used to cold weather. 

Once I made it to the bus stop, I snuggled up with my bag on the bench, trying to have some kind of warmth. Also because there were several people (giants) who were going back home from stores or getting off of work. The bus stop was actually used for both humans and giants. The human was a little ways from the huge one that was practically as tall as a skyscraper. Maybe taller. 

My hands were shaky from the cold, but it was only another five minutes before Ryker would come and hopefully I wouldn’t be as cold. Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know what today has in store for me. All I knew was that I just wanted to wrap myself in a blanket with some hot chocolate and binge watch something on tv. 

Ryker came a few minutes later, smiling and giving a thanks before offering a hand. I threw the bag on first before struggling to get on. It was hard when the ground underneath you was starting to freeze over, but I figured it out after trying for a good minute. 

“You’re freezing.” Ryker told me, cupping his hand just a little. Sure, it was scary to have his fingers closer to me, but still, it was warm. How could I deny something that was practically calling me? 

  “That good?” He smiled, for some reason making sure I was comfortable. But I was not about to complain. I was desperate at this point. I nodded my head, bringing my knees closer to my chest to keep some of my body warmth with me. And yet another reason I hate winter. 

“Thanks again. Sorry for bothering you.” 

I continuously shook my head, hoping he would get the message that it was fine. Plus, I liked going over. Everyone was nice (Besides Jasmine I’m pretty sure she hates me) and never really tried to do anything too crazy with me. It was great. I’m not as afraid anymore, which was a miracle given I thought I could never trust anyone ever again, and I’ve actually made some friends. 

Ryker opened the door to his house, where we found them all watching a movie together. Everyone turned their heads as soon as the door closed behind Ryker. I jumped slightly, but relaxed after a while. Nothing to be afraid of. Dylan’s eyes landed on me, giving a smile and a two fingered wave. I waved back, but I doubt he could see it. 

I was set down on the ground, not entirely expecting to be in a tight hug the second I balanced myself. Lucky bursted out laughing, letting me go, “You are literally the best, Nathan.” I laughed with him, following Lucky into the room. 

——————

I didn’t eat anything. I wasn’t hungry. Of course Ryker tried to convince me to eat something, but I always answered no. Otherwise, dinner was okay. They had Lucky, Angela and I on the coffee table, which wasn’t really too big of a deal. I’m pretty sure Ryker and Dylan just didn’t want to handle any humans while they were eating, and hey, I was not about to say anything about it. There are just some things that will never leave my mind. 

After everyone ate, Dylan and Lucky started playing a game on the tv while Isabelle and Angela were playing hide and seek I’m pretty sure. I just hoped that no one would get hurt, but Ryker quickly reassured me that they would never harm one another. I just had to believe him. Most of his siblings are stuck together like glue. Which is a good thing. 

“It’s supposed to start snowing in a little bit.” Ryker announced, earning cheers from the other room where I was guessing Angela and Isabelle were. I was sitting on the arm rest of the couch by Ryker. I kind of wished that their house was a little warmer, because I was still annoyingly cold, but beggars can’t be choosers. I should have asked to grab a blanket. 

“Nice. Are we gonna go out?” Dylan asked, eyes glued to the screen. I had no idea who was winning, but I think it was him. 

“If you want to.” 

Ryker threw his phone on the other side of the couch, turning his head to the screen. I don’t want to go outside, but I’ll go if that makes things easier. I just don’t want to be in the snow. Reasons. Remember? 

It was about ten minutes later that it did actually start snowing. Angela and Isabelle were begging Ryker to let them outside, which he just laughed to and told them to get jackets on and to bring their hats. Dylan paused their game to go get on a jacket, and Ryker left to go help Isabelle. So I was alone in the living room while everyone was busy to go have some fun. I hated winter. In just three days. I reminded myself. 

What would happen? Would someone else be claimed victim? Something bad always happens during this time. I don’t know if it was just me. It probably was. Everyone else was smiling while I was crying in the corner. It’s how it was in the hospital. They all went outside if they could, and I stayed in my room, under the blankets and shove my face into my pillow to drown out my tears. I couldn’t do that now though. Not when so many people had their eyes on me. Not when a trip back to the hospital was a very viable option for me. I didn’t want to go back. Not because of something… traumatic that happened nine years ago. I should be over it, right? But I’m not. 

There goes one of my depression spells. Great. Just great. At a time like this? I sucked in a deep breath, calming myself down before anyone notices. This was embarrassing. 

Ryker came back into the room, eyes landing on me with an unsure look on his face. He walked up to me, holding a hand out. Was he not going to wear any gloves? He wouldn’t be cold? I stood up, keeping my balance on the soft surface underneath me and walking to climb onto his hand. 

“You don’t mind if I just keep you in my hand, right? I don’t want you to be freezing.” He asked. I shook my head, sitting down in the middle of his palm. That was actually what I preferred. I did not plan whatsoever to go into the snow anyways. 

Once everyone was outside, Ryker sat down on the stairs, cupping his hand and keeping me close. A little uneasy about it, but there was really no reason to be. It’s just instinct. And everything in me right now is saying to get the hell inside. But I wasn’t going to say that. Mostly because I don’t want to be alone.  

They were all screaming and laughing. It was snowing pretty hard too, already covering most of the frosted grass just after ten minutes. Other people were also sitting outside. Their kids playing around with the snow. I tried not to focus on that. Instead, I found myself scooting back slowly, almost to where I couldn’t see the heavy fall of the white flakes. 

My body was still freezing. It was so much colder than before. Was this how dad felt? The cold pricking at his skin I mean. 

“Nathan?” My thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice above me. I groaned, body shaking and stuffing my hands in my pockets to preserve some of my body heat. I shuddered a breath, trembling. It’s so cold… How could they even be having fun like this? I looked ahead, seeing Dylan helping Isabelle make a small snowman with both Angela and Lucky stuffed in his scarf. This was just another one of my depression spells. 

“Still cold?” Ryker asked me. I took a deep breath, “Y-Yeah…” It came out more like a quiet mumble, and I was surprised that he even heard me. Did he want to help them make a snowman? He probably did. I should just tell him to leave me inside. It would make things a million times easier for everyone. 

Ryker moved his hand a bit, making me worried about what he was trying to do, but he just kept it the same. I wondered why he was going through all this trouble just for me. There was really no point. There was only a couple more months until graduation and then we’d go our separate ways. That’s how it always goes. I’d be alone again, figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. That’s how my story goes. 

“Better?” 

I nodded my head, getting to a comfortable position and decided to just watch what they were all doing. Finishing up the head of the snowman. It was comfy even though I was kind of scared from being in someone’s hand. At least now that is. Currently I was just afraid of falling into the deep snow. I’m pretty sure if I fell I’d sink into it. Not something I would like to see or imagine. 

“You okay?” Ryker asked, softly smiling above me. There was no other response other than to nod. I couldn’t just say no. That wouldn’t do any good. But.. maybe if he notices that these next few days would be hard for me. Maybe. Just maybe. I doubt it though. I don’t plan on being here all of the time anyways. I couldn’t. 

Isabelle finished the snowman, grabbing some loose twigs for arms as they stepped back. It was still snowing, just not as much. Was dad watching me right now? Was he shocked just as much as I was? I never thought I’d ever be able to be around another giant for as long as I had lived, and here I am, sitting in one of their hands. Would he think I was crazy? Delusional? Psycho? Happy like my mom even? I would never know, but even I think I was crazy. 

Actually… why did I even trust Ryker? Or really anyone. They’re all so nice of course, but about four months ago I was so sure that every giant would only hurt me, and it almost became true with that lunch incident that felt like forever ago. So why did I trust these people with my life? In the back of my mind I keep thinking that this was all just a sick joke being played on me. But… I don’t think these people are lying about anything. They don’t have a reason to. And Ryker’s been nothing but patient, and kind, and… understanding. No one would go through all that trouble just to fool someone as gullible as me. 

I sighed, snuggling up closer to Ryker’s thumb and watching Isabelle throw snowballs at Dylan who was shielding Lucky and Angela from the crossfire. Was it scary being there? In the midst of everything? Having to trust someone at least fifty times your size to keep you safe? I sucked in a shaky breath, just watching. It wasn’t so bad really. 

———Ryker———

Today was November 24. Thanksgiving was here, and everything was a complete mess. I never learned how to make a turkey like the tradition, so usually I just made something that all of us had liked. Along with that, I had to make sure no one did anything too crazy while I was busy in the kitchen. Jasmine and Dylan were helping out cooking while I ordered something for Lucky and Angela. They both agreed on pizza (Because what else does a fourteen year-old and a four year-old want) so now I was busy with that. That part was mostly because Angela didn’t like when Lucky cooks something different. 

It was just pure chaos now. Everyone was running around the house, and at that point I had to ask Jasmine to keep an eye on Angela to make sure she didn’t wander off where we couldn’t find her. I wasn’t too worried about Lucky since he’s almost always with Dylan, plus he’s smart enough to stay off the floor when it’s something like this. 

I took out the lasagna, letting it cool down before making separate plates. Yeah, I know, super weird, but I can’t do anything better. I only know the basics thanks to my parents, and that was all I needed to know. 

There was a knock on the door, and I asked Dylan to open it. It was just the pizza. I washed whatever dishes I had and called everyone that dinner was ready. It’s days like this where I wished that my parents never left. I feel like I can never be like them even though I was the oldest. I mean, was I just supposed to let CPS split us all apart? I couldn’t do that. My siblings would never forgive me. I like to think that they’re all happy, but I doubt it. Sometimes I feel like I can’t do anything to help any of them. Like I’m doing this “parenting” thing all wrong. Of course I was. I was seventeen in my last year of high school taking care of five kids on my own while also juggling a job and trying to do fun things with them so we can forget about what happened a little over a year ago. There was no reason for one person to be doing all of this. 

It was snowing outside again. Not really surprising when you’ve lived here for your entire life. It was really nice though. I loved the cold. Weird, because most people don’t, but I do. I remember my parents freaking out when I would just be outside making a snowman in just a short sleeve and sweatpants when I was a kid. Of course it was so cold it burned, but I guess I kind of liked it? It was hard to explain. Or sometimes we’d stay inside and watch movies or play a game. I missed it really. 

“Ry.” Jasmine snapped her fingers in front of me to get my attention. I blinked a couple times before giving a clueless look. She groaned, “I asked if I could go shopping tomorrow, I have work the next three days so I just wanna go do something.”

“Oh, um, sure.” 

The tv was playing in the background, but I wasn’t paying attention. Come to think of it, I don’t think I was paying attention to anything. Dylan, Jasmine, and Lucky were all laughing about something. What were they laughing about again? Something about going back to school? I don’t even want to think about that right now. I needed a break anyways. Most of my classes love giving me piles and piles of work anyways. 

I sighed, pushing away my plate that I had barely eaten. The sun has already set, everyone was done eating, Angela asked Jasmine if she could go outside in the snow. She said yes, and so Isabelle followed. Dylan and Lucky were helping me wash the remaining dishes. Honestly I already felt so tired. It was only 8 p.m but my eyes threatened to close at any moment. 

“You okay, Ry?” Dylan asked, putting a plate up in the cabinet. 

“Yeah.” I replied, handing him another to dry. Lucky shook his head while continuously saying “no” over and over again. At some point Dylan grew tired of it and pressed the pad of his thumb into Lucky’s entire upper half of his body. 

“He’s not wrong. You’re always like this on holidays.” 

“I am?” I sighed, not really knowing how to get out of this one. These two have always been vigilant anyways. They would have noticed at some point. 

“Yeah.” 

“I don’t know. I just feel really tired today.”  

“That’s it?” 

“Mhm.” 

Dylan gave me a skeptical look before putting in another plate. He doesn’t believe me. I don’t think he ever will about these kinds of things. 

“Why don’t you call Nathan? You always seem happier around him.” 

I stopped only for a second, then continued to scrub off something on the pan I used. No. I won’t call him. Not this time. No matter how many times he’s actually made me feel better just by being here. I’ve noticed I was happier around him too, but it’s only short lived since he always goes back at the end of the day. Do I know why I was happier? Not really. I’ve thought of a few reasons. Because he’s the only friend I’ve made since middle school. He listens to me ramble on and on about the most useless information. Best of all he’s really nice. Doesn’t really seem like he’s tricking me either. Not that I think he could even if he wanted to. He was too sweet. 

“No.” I sighed. Cleaning out the sink and handing off the last dish. 

“Why not?” Dylan asked leaning against the counter. 

“Cause I’m tired. No point in calling if I’m just going to fall asleep,” I countered, drying my hands and heading to my room, “Make sure Isabelle and Angela are asleep by 10? Please?”  

Dylan nodded his head, I closed the door behind me and buried myself under the covers of my bed. I can’t keep on relying on Nathan to come fix every problem I have. He’s probably off dealing with whatever he’s doing right now anyways. But still, my hand reached for my phone, grabbing it and opening the messages app. I’m just gambling with myself at this point. If he answers in the next ten minutes I’ll ask to call, if he doesn’t, I’ll head to sleep. Either way it’s really a win-win. And here it goes. 

———Nathan———

I was laying on my bed, under the covers. No lights, no sounds, just nothing. I had cried earlier this morning when I visited his grave. My eyes were dry now. Red and puffy. I just sat curling in on myself while clutching the same teddy bear he gave me when I was still just a kid. It was childish, but if it’s all I have left of him then I’m taking advantage of that. 

Ironic, huh? How this holiday was supposed to bring family together. It was actually the opposite for me. Even though he didn’t actually die on this holiday, it’s just ironic how it happened this year. When we’re finally free and live like a “normal” family now. Was he watching me now? Sad and lonely in my bed? I hope he wasn’t. He’d scold me. 

My phone went off, but I didn’t feel like looking at it. It’s not like I wanted to be alone. Usually my mom would cheer me up by taking my mind off of it. Whether it was playing some makeshift game or just doing something I liked with me. What else was there to say? This year was the year I was completely alone. 

I sucked in a deep breath, picking up my phone with sore arms. I spent most of the day digging out the old flowers on his grave and replacing them with new ones. It was hard to do when a thin sheet of snow was covering most of the dirt and grass, but it was worth it to see the bright a beautiful colors. His favorites were lilacs. I remember mom telling me that. 

My eyes shot up when I saw who texted me. Ryker? I mean it was already night, so I doubt he was going to ask if I wanted to go over. But… I was kind of curious now. 

Ryker: Hey

Ryker: How was your day? 

Ryker: You’re probably doing something right now but I’d just thought I’d check what you were doing 

Sent five minutes ago. Why did he want to know what I was doing? It seemed weird to me, but maybe he was just bored. Did they celebrate? I hope they did. They seem to be happy with each other. 

Nathan: It was okay :) 

Nathan: And yours? 

Ryker: Chaotic

Nathan: Oh 

I wasn’t technically lying. My day was okay despite crying for most of it. 

Ryker: Yeahhh 

Ryker: Do you feel like calling? 

Ryker: You don’t have to of course 

I thought about it. It wouldn’t be that bad. Might keep my mind occupied.

  Nathan: Sure 

And so he called. 

“Hello?” His voice sounded tired and sad, like he just woke up or something. I couldn’t find my voice. It’s become rasp from sobbing anyways. It’d be embarrassing for it to sound like that over the phone. So hopefully it’ll get better in the morning. 

“Oh, right,” He sighed, “Sorry. I just felt like talking and usually you listen. You can just hang up if you don’t want to though.” He sounded nervous, but I didn’t want to hang up. Not only because it was the wrong thing to do, but because I always loved listening to what he was saying. No matter how irrelevant it was. It distracted my mind from everything wrong with me. And he seemed to like it when I did. 

Nathan: I’m listening 

I heard him let out a little chuckle before talking. I could hear at some points it sounded like he was going to cry, and some he sounded like he was so hurt, and sometimes he’d laugh. He changed the subject multiple times, but I kind of liked it. I just wished I could help in some other way. It sounded to me like he was stressed out and just wanted someone to be there, and I’m surprised none of his siblings were. Or maybe they were, but he just doesn’t want to put all of this on them. It seemed like something he would do. 

By the time he was done, it was an hour before midnight. Funny thing was, I wasn’t tired anymore. I was putting together pieces in my mind still about everything he had talked about. How he was mentally tired of juggling five things around at once. I would be too if I were him. How he’s been more and more exhausted by the end of the day. How his parents usually did all of these kinds of things. I was going to ask what happened to them, but I feel like that was a touchy subject. Especially when he just vented to me. I don’t mind though. Not at all. 

“Oh crap. Sorry for keeping you up.” Ryker apologized, saying sorry about five times before I texted him that it was okay. I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. 

“Thanks. Y’know. For listening.” I heard him yawn on the other side. He was the one tired. I silently laughed to myself, hugging the bear closer to my chest. If only he could see me now… this was embarrassing. He’d probably make fun of me for it. I wouldn’t care. 

“You’re too nice, you know that?” I heard shuffling on the other side of the phone. Probably Ryker getting ready to go to sleep. And I know this was selfish, but I didn’t want him to hang up. I didn’t want my mind to realize that I was alone again. Was is it really selfish then? To me, yes. It feels like I was making him do something he didn’t want to. 

“Hey, um, remember when you tried hugging me that one time? Why’d you do it?” He had asked, and I could practically see his face. Confused and happy at the same time. He was talking about when I had to stay overnight. I knew that would come up eventually, just not so soon. 

Nathan: Nobody’s ever been so nice to me before. Besides my mom of course 

Nathan: But I was kind of shocked you agreed without complaining 

Nathan: Are you mad about it?

“Mad? Nononono. Um, the complete opposite really,” He laughed quietly, “I was shocked, yeah, but happy too.” 

That gets rid of the guilt. I swear I thought I ruined everything between us, but now I know what he really thought. He wasn’t mad at me for anything. 

“What about the other day? When it was snowing. You looked comfortable. Like you were about to sleep.” My cheeks started blushing from embarrassment. I had hoped he didn’t see me snuggling closer into his palm to stay warm, but apparently he did. So embarrassing. I groaned quietly to myself, tightly hugging the bear closer. 

Nathan: Sorry 

Nathan: I was cold 

Nathan: You were warm 

Nathan: Sorry again 

It was silent for a second. 

“Why do you apologize for things like that?” 

I didn’t know the answer to that question. Usually my mind just takes over and then I spiral into the worst possible scenarios. So I have no idea why I do. Maybe because my brain thinks I’ll get hurt if I don’t? My body was scared of getting another broken bone or something getting hurt? 

Nathan: I don’t know 

It was silent again. 

“Do… do you like being around me? I-I mean most people stop talking to me as soon as they get what they want. So, I was just wondering.” His voice sounded hurt. Obviously this ha sharpened once or twice to him. And it hurt to hear that these things have happened to someone so amazing. I could never do that to Ryker. It’d hurt me more than it’d hurt him. 

“Y-yes.” I almost immediately replied, my voice a little raspy. It hurt to speak, but it was fine. It’ll get better in time. 

I heard him let out a sigh of relief, and I smiled. I was finally doing the right thing for once in my life. I’m kind of glad this was how the day ended. 

“I would give you a hug if you were here… and if you were comfortable enough with it,” We both laughed quietly, “I’ll let you go to sleep. I’ve kept you up long enough.” 

I shook my head, forgetting that he wasn’t here to see it. I didn’t want him to go. Then again he sounded exhausted. Then I would be the one keeping him up. Or he doesn’t even have to stay awake. Just the knowledge that I knew he was just on the other side of the phone was enough to make me feel like I wasn’t alone. 

“U-Um you d-don’t have to s-stay up b-but could we stay… stay on call? P-Please.” I waited for an answer, biting my tongue for stuttering so much. My body was shaky for no reason. I was nervous. He was going to say no. He was going to say no. He was going to- 

“I would love that.” 

I wish he could see the smile I had on my face. How fast my heart was beating. I laid down under the covers, getting comfortable and staring at my phone that read: Ryker: 3:14. Three hours and fourteen minutes. Another seven won’t hurt. 

“Thank you.” 

I fell asleep a couple minutes after he did. No nightmares haunted me tonight.

—————————————

My heart is meltinggggggg

By the way, this was not the great scene I was talking about. This was just one of many to make the one I actually want to write make sense.

Anywayssss I told you guys it would be a little plot heavy for a while! I loved how this chapter came out though.

Hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading! Love you guys!

[richincolor]

New Releases

A whole slew of new books coming out this week and I see some I want to add to my TBR pile. How about you?

Something Like Right by H. D. Hunter Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

A contemporary young adult novel about one life-altering year of a biracial Black and white teen boy, showing a raw glimpse into the systemic inequality in racialized communities.

Zay’s ma always said his mouth would get him in trouble. Sure enough, it got him into his first and only fight in his junior year of high school. Expelled from his district, Zay’s only hope for redemption is to transfer to Broadlawn Alternative School and complete the year.

Zay isn’t thrilled about the disgusting school lunch and classroom trailers at Broadlawn, and boarding with his aunt Mel and her live-in boyfriend isn’t the greatest. But he’d rather be there than in the city dealing with his estranged father, his overbearing mother, and the fallout from his fight. Besides, Broadlawn has Feven, the beautiful new student Zay is starting to get to know—and fall for.

Still, first love is rarely a fairy tale, and as Zay’s time in Broadlawn comes to an end, he learns that shaping yourself within a new place is a lot harder than letting it shape you.

A tender contemplation of first love, broken families, and healing generational trauma by an incredible voice in young adult fiction.

Drown Me with Dreams (Sing Me to Sleep #2) by Gabi Burton Bloomsbury YA

In the second book in this dark and seductive YA fantasy duology, a siren must decide if saving her kingdom is worth betraying the boy she loves.

Saoirse Sorkova is on the run. Accused of several murders, her siren identity compromised, even the newly crowned King Hayes can’t protect her if she’s caught. The only way to save her life is to send her on a dangerous mission across the magical barrier that surrounds the kingdom.

Forced to travel with Carrick – once her best friend, now her greatest betrayer – she begins to unravel multiple plots that threaten the safety of her family, the livelihood of the entire kingdom, and her future with Hayes. And the more time she spends with Carrick, the harder it is to keep hating him . . .

Soon, Saoirse is forced to what if Hayes isn’t the right ruler for the kingdom? And if he’s not, is she willing to betray her king – and her heart?

Featuring an all Black and Brown cast, a forbidden romance, and a compulsively dark plot full of twists, this thrilling YA fantasy series is perfect for fans of A Song Below Water and To Kill a Kingdom.

Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters Viking Books for Young Readers

Young Royals meets Red, White, and Royal Blue in this heart-pumping romance by award-winning author Julian Winters!

When roguish Prince Jadon of Îles de la Rêverie is left in America to clean up his image after a horribly public break-up gone viral, romance is not on the table. Carefully planned photo ops with puppies? Yes. Scheduled appearances with the Santa Monica elite Absolutely. Rendezvous with a pink-haired, film-obsessed hottie from the private school where he’s currently enrolled? Uhhhh . . .

Together with his entourage—a bitingly witty royal guard, Rêverie’s future queen (and Jadon’s brilliant older sister), and a quirky royal liaison—Jadon’s on a mission to turn things around and show his parents, and his country, that he’s more than just a royal screw-up. If he doesn’t prove that he’s the prince Rêverie deserves? Well, he may not be allowed home . . .

But falling for a not-so-royal American boy has Jadon redefining what it means to be a leader. If he can be someone’s Prince Charming just by being himself, maybe that’s all it takes to win over a nation. Or at least a prince can dream .

A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks

In this sweet sapphic romance about two foodies in love, Vivi meets Lan while studying abroad in Vietnam and they spend the semester unraveling their families’ histories—and eating all the street food in Sài Gòn.

In Sài Gòn, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father but has stopped updating since his passing.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh, has never been to Việt Nam. Her parents rarely talk about the homeland that clearly haunts them. So Vivi secretly goes to Vietnam for a study abroad program her freshman year of college. She’s determined to figure out why her parents left, and to try everything she’s seen on her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì for Two.

When Vivi and Lan meet in Sài Gòn, they strike a deal. Lan will show Vivi around the city, helping her piece together her mother’s story through crumbling photographs and old memories. Vivi will help Lan start writing again so she can enter a food blogging contest. And slowly, as they explore the city and their pasts, Vivi and Lan fall in love.

Codex Black (Book Two): Bird of Ill Omen by Camilo Moncada Lozano IDW Publishing

Best friends Donají and Itzcacalotl stumble into dangerous political intrigue in this follow-up to the young adult epic Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds!

In 15th-century Mesoamerica, Donají and Itzcacalotl travel to the Oracle of Lyobaa in the hopes of learning the secret behind Donají’s missing father. But instead of receiving information, they find themselves roped into a quest to stop the assassination of the great Emperor Ahuizotl! This is easier said than done when faced with a mysterious group of black-clad killers who want nothing more than to send the known world tumbling into chaos.

Along the way, the two will have to navigate new friends, old enemies, and corn people as they try to save the emperor…before it’s too late!

Helga by Catherine Yu Page Street YA

Helga is not the obedient science experiment her father intended. And though she has only just awoken, he leaves her in the care of his lab assistant Penny to go on a business trip.

Bursting with curiosity, Helga quickly escapes from the well-meaning Penny and heads into Amaris City. There Helga finds she is as untamable as the invasive blackberry vines overtaking the island. And because of the misdeeds of her father’s scientific community, the natural world grows more volatile.

Helga soon discovers the night market, rowdy clubs, delicious food, and cute boys. Enamored with city life, she’ll do anything to find love―but she has only two weeks until her father gets back, and besides there are ominous rumblings from the volcanic island that could put her dating schemes, and even her own life, in grave peril.

We Are the Medicine (Surviving the City #3) written by Tasha Spillett & illustrated by Natasha Donovan HighWater Press

Miikwan and Dez are in their final year of high school. Poised at the edge of the rest of their lives, they have a lot to decide on. Miikwan and her boyfriend, Riel, are preparing for university, but Dez isn’t sure if that’s what they want for their future.

Grief and anger take precedence over their plans after the remains of 215 children are found at a former residential school in British Columbia. The teens struggle with feelings of helplessness in the face of injustice. Can they find the strength to channel their frustration into action towards a more hopeful future?

“We Are the Medicine” is the moving final volume of the best-selling Surviving the City series.

Love Requires Chocolate by Ravynn K. Stringfield Joy Revolution

Whitney Curry is primed to have an epic semester abroad. She’s created the perfectitinerary and many, many to-do lists after collecting every detail possible about Paris, France. Thus, she anticipates a grand adventure filled with vintage boutiques, her idol Josephine Baker’s old stomping grounds, and endless plays sure to inspire the ones she writes and—ahem—directs!

But all is not as she imagined when she’s dropped off at her prestigious new Parisian lycée. A fish out of water, Whitney struggles to juggle schoolwork, homesickness, and mastering the French language. Luckily, she lives for the drama. Literally.

Cue French tutor Thierry Magnon, a grumpy yet très handsome soccer star, who’s determined to show Whitney the real Paris. Is this type-A theater nerd ready to see how lessons on the City of Lights can turn into lessons on love?

[vxntagedior]

hii i have three requests, but totally up to you if you wanna tweak them or something. they're all steve harrington x fem!reader, sfw, angst with hea. thank youu <33

1. reader receives gifts or poems or little trinkets with the sender giving hints about his identity and feelings. the thing is, they're from steve - who is reader's best friend. she asks for his help to find out who this mystery sender is and he agrees. but what if there's like a mistaken identity and she thinks they're from billy (and like who isn't attracted to bad guys and stuff) and steve just goes all pouty (loljk i dunno but something along those lines)

2. king steve era where he makes reader fall in love with him as a dare and she finds out about it breaking her trust and all that. but like i also kinda want it to happen when steve knows about the upside down already and reader will be in danger (near death for more angst haha)

3. reader confesses to steve, but he says he doesn't like her. then reader's all 'okay fine, i'm gonna move on' and when she actually does that, steve is 🥺

moving along

summary | after pining after steve for years, and finally getting the courage, steve doesn't reciprocate your feelings

pairing | steve harrington x fem!reader (one-sided), ??? x fem!reader

warning | i did choose the 3rd one, each were amazing but i just love the third one, angst, fluff ending (for reader), king!steve era, bully!steve, mean!steve

word count | 1.3k

It had to be freshman year of high school when you really saw Steve. Though having known him since elementary school, neither of you were close. It wasn’t until you had trouble opening your locker on the first day of school when your locker neighbor, Steve offered to help you.

Not having any classes with him during freshman year, the two of you talked and catched up during passing periods when you were switching out books.

You liked that Steve, you grew to love that Steve.

But King Steve, hanging around Tommy and Carol, you didn’t like him. 

“Excuse me.” Your voice was barely loud enough for Carol to hear. Rolling her eyes, she turned her head to you. 

“What?” She spat.

It was now junior year, you and Steve were no longer friends anymore, your friendship had ended towards the end of the first semester of sophomore year, when he met Tommy and Carol and started to gain more popularity. 

“You’re in front of my locker.” You sighed, it was a daily occurrence at this point. Usually Carol would come up with something to say to you but she just scooted closer to Tommy, turning back to the conversation. 

Turning to look at the group, you saw for a split second Steve’s eyes on you before he quickly casted them back to Tommy. 

Being as quick as you could you just grabbed your stuff, and walked into math. 

Walking into your usual seat, you smiled over at Nancy, the two of you good friends. “Did you hear about the Winter Formal?”

“I did.” Nancy nodded, “My mom wants to take me dress shopping this weekend.”

“Going with anyone?” You asked. You hoped that this would be the perfect time for you to ask Steve to dance with you, and finally confess your feelings for him. 

“No, no one has asked me and I am not going to ask anyone.” Nancy shrugged, “It doesn’t matter to me.”

You wished you had the carefree attitude she had about it, you were stressed out, worried about everything. Would Steve say yes, would your dress fit, would you and Steve be a couple afterwards. 

Coming home that afternoon, you made up the plan that you were going to ask Steve to Winter Formal the next day. Coming up with ideas in your head, you went to bed that night, dreaming of the two of you together. 

Your outfit was more put together than usual, a nicer blouse and a maxi skirt, that covered your legs, tights covering your legs from the freezing weather in Hawkins. Wiping off the nonexistent dust of you, you saw Steve at his locker, alone for once. 

Taking a deep breath, you made your way towards your own locker. 

Hearing the clicks of your shoes, Steve turned to see you coming up to your own locker, looking down, taking in your outfit.

“Hi Steve.” You said sweetly, turning towards him.

“Hey.” He just nodded. The old Steve would have probably loved talking to you but this new Steve, he didn’t know what to think. 

“So uh, winter formal is coming up.” You didn’t know why you were so nervous, you had pumped yourself up all last night and now you were stressing. “And I was wondering if-”

“Wait.” Steve interrupted you, your eyes now lowering to your feet. Feeling your heart starting to break, you already knew where it was going to end. “I think you’re great, but I’m planning to ask someone else.”

“Okay.” You swallowed, just nodding your head, “See you.”

Holding back your tears, you let out a shaky sigh, going into class. The rest of the day went by a blur, now walking out of school, making your way towards your car. 

Opening up the driver's door, throwing your bag into the passenger seat, you rested your hands on the steering wheel. 

Turning your keys, you heard the engine sputter, cursing under your breath. Turning off the car, you tried again, hearing the same sound.

“Are you kidding me!”

“Need a ride?”

Turning around, you saw your neighbor, Billy, leaning against his own car. Billy and his family had moved in towards the end of summer, you heard of his reputation and left him be. 

“It’s fine.” You sighed, “I’ll just go to the office, call a tow truck.”

“Like hell.” He opened your passenger door, grabbing your bag and bringing it towards his car. You had no other choice now, locking up your car and following Billy.

The ride home was quiet, his music filling the silence.

“Thank you.” You whispered, playing with a string on your bag. 

“It’s the neighborly thing.” He smirked, looking over at you. There was another beat of silence before he spoke again. “Saw you with Harrington this morning.”

“It was nothing.” You brushed it off. “I asked him to winter formal, he said no, that was it.”

Billy could tell there was more just by the sound of your voice but said nothing. Pulling into your driveway, you bid Billy a goodbye. 

“Y/n!” You turned, seeing Billy calling out your name, “If it’s worth anything, Harrington doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

You just smiled, and walked inside. 

-

No one had ever asked you to winter formal and hearing through the grapevine, Steve had asked Nancy, who gladly said yes.

After some self reflection, you were over Steve, if he couldn’t see how you felt and ignored it, you didn’t need him.

Staring at your dress in your closet, you sat at the end of your bed just sighing. Your group of friends had invited you to go with them and all their dates and you couldn’t be the only one without a date. 

The doorbell had brought you out of your daydream, blinking a few times before going down the stairs.

Opening the door, you were met with a sight. Billy stood on your porch, all dressed, slacks, button up and a jacket, his hair freshly done and a corsage in his hand. 

“Billy.” You murmured, “You look handsome.”

“Thank you.” It was probably the first time you truly ever saw him smile. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

“I don’t know if I’m going.” You shrugged, letting him come inside, “Your date must be lucky.”

“Well, she isn’t dressed yet, and I’m here to persuade her into coming.” He smirked.

Catching his drift, your eyes widened in shock, “You want to go with me?”

“If you let me.” He said, “I know we haven’t been that close, but Harrington shouldn’t stop you from going.”

You just stayed silent, smiling softly, excusing yourself, running upstairs.

Getting dressed and doing your makeup in under thirty minutes, something that surprised you, you slid on your heels and made your way back downstairs.

“You look beautiful.” He said in awe, seeing you in your dress. Opening up the box that held your corsage, Billy nudged it towards your wrist.

Giving you his arm, Billy delicately tied the corsage around you, squeezing your hand before pulling away. 

“You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Walking into the gymnasium, one transformed into a winter wonderland, you looked around everywhere smiling softly. The dance had started less than an hour ago, the room starting to fill up.

You let Billy bring you to the dance floor, offering you his hand. Smiling, you accepted, letting him wrap his arms around your waist. 

In your own worlds, neither of you noticed Steve looking towards your way. Steve had noticed you the minute you entered the room. And seeing Billy next to you, made him jealous.

After rejecting you, Steve had felt horrible and wanted to apologize but he had let Tommy get into his head saying that he needed someone better.

But that night, Steve came to realize, there wasn’t anyone better than you.

fin.

[shock]

feeling so sappy today. one of my students had a profoundly impactful life experience and hasn't been at school for weeks. ive been supporting the family, who don't usually trust anyone, since that event. today i took that student to the library and together we caught up on work, made it make sense, and helped them get the courage to come back on Monday. i got them a milkshake and took them home, awed at the trust I've been given.

yesterday a kid who's mother died last year was triggered in class and came to me. we invented hand signals so teachers could help. the day before I got a student who was just outside our bus coverage a coat and gloves and I got to watch them walk home warm. on Monday i brought a student's favorite candy because it was their birthday. I got two of them and told them that if they want, they can share one, but one was just for them to enjoy because it was their special day. I told all their favorite past and present teachers, and they each had special individual moments with them. their mom died two months ago and when i asked what they improved on this semester, they said "showing up even when its hard".

one of my students found out their uncle was in critical condition and i was who they told. They update me every day, and when i sat with them at the end of friday and told them to promise that they'll do something this weekend to make themself happy, they smiled and said they would.

one of my students' mother was killed over winter break. I was able to make them laugh before they went home. The last thing that happened before I left for the weekend was a parent telling my thank you, I appreciate you, I appreciate everything you do.

None of this is about me or a pat on my own back, this is me in pure awe of the strength im privileged to witness in people every day. I pursued this field because I wanted to replace the spaces filled by people who looked at me like I was a problem and not a person. it's an unbelievably joyous, complicated, feeling to stand in front of all of these amazing human beings and be allowed to witness their strength. I see moments so similar to my own life playing out in front of me, different because I was there. Different because a kid had an adult that told them they deserve better. my inner child isn't healed by expecting that anyone in front of me needs the solution I never got, my inner child is healed by being invited to participate in the lives of kids who will grow up and be more confident than I was that they deserve respect, love, kindness, with a higher bar for what they're willing to accept in their relationships, from authority, from friends, with a voice they know they can use, with evidence in an adult looking out for them with proper boundaries that are explained.

I've learned so much more from the kids Ive worked with for two years than what was beaten and shamed into me my whole life by the people who claimed to help me. I spend more time with these kids than many of their parents do. It's an incredible feeling to know that every year there will be more kids growing up in my community who know that they aren't a problem to be fixed or solved or silenced, and that I get to have the greatest honor of growing older in my community, getting to be recognized as mentor and friend and family by the people who grow up around me. the longer I do this the bigger my community gets. its a beautiful, indescribable feeling to go to the gas station, the grocery store, a walk, and never feel alone. home is other people.