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tightjeansjavi · 2 years ago

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𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐃𝐨 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐫.𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫?

Joel Miller x f!reader

NSFW🔞

A/N: this is a result of my post gym ✨horny✨ thoughts. I love to think that Joel can be a whimpering mess, every now and then. You’re welcome ♡ ♡ ♡

Summary: You get jealous seeing the women in Jackson throw themselves at Joel. You decide to give him a gentle reminder of who he belongs to.

~word count : 4.3k~

Warnings: smut with no plot, established relationship, sub! joel, feral/dark! joel, soft! joel,needy! joel, possessive joel! is going to tear you apart! joel, dom/brat reader, unprotected p in v (wrap it kids) oral receiving (male) fingering, light choking, knife play, teasing, edging, light bdsm, consent, consent, consent, nicknames, praise kink, cockwarming, cream pie, cum eating, cum play, uhhh yeah a whole lot of filth! Not much else to say! (+18) MINORS DNI SERIOUSLY THIS IS STRAIGHT UP PORN.

Songs used:

“Freak” by Doja Cat (just trust me on this one y’all)

“Tear You Apart” by She Wants Revenge

“…Ready For It?” By Taylor Swift

“No Good” by KALEO

“Dinner and Diatribes” by Hozier

You never considered yourself to be a naturally jealous person. You had no reason to be. The people of Jackson knew well enough that you were Joel’s lady, and he was your man. You never had to worry about getting hit on at the Jackson bar, or while on patrol, because no one dared to even look at what belonged to Joel. The women of Jackson? They were a little more ballsy than you thought.

You knew your man was handsome. Hell, he was fucking beautiful in your eyes. You’d see some of the single women, and even some of the happily taken women, fawn over your man.

Could you really blame them? He was definitely a sight for sore eyes. You’d watch them touch his arm, laugh at something he’d say and that’s when your jealousy began to bubble deep in your gut.

Didn’t these women know Joel belonged to you? Did he remember who he belonged to? Perhaps you needed to give him a gentle reminder.

Your man had arrived home late one night after being on patrol. You could hear his heavy boots from where you stood in the kitchen, you heard him mutter under his breath about his bad back as he hung his rifle up alongside yours. Joel was currently looking forward to a well deserved, hot shower and a good cuddle with you, his lady. He knew however that something was off because you never would leave the lights off. You kept them on usually on the nights you knew he would be getting home late.

He called out your name.

“Baby? You down here? Where are you, my sweet girl?”

He heard your soft footsteps padding from the kitchen and then your face appeared soon after. He wasted no time to grab you by the waist and pull you flush against his chest. “Hi honey, I was just waiting up for you.” You softly spoke while draping your arms around his neck. “How was it out there?”

“Mmm. Hi Sugar. Why were all the lights off? You usually keep ‘em on for me. S’alright out there. Long fuckin’ shift, and all I could think about was comin’ home to you darlin’.”

You gave him a sweet kiss, gently playing with the ends of his hair through your fingers. “Yeah, baby? I’m sorry it was a long shift. Are you tired? Here, how about you sit down? You’ve been on your feet all day.”

Joel kissed you back immediately while he tightened his grip around your waist, pulling you in as close as he physically could. “S’alright. Feet and back are fuckin’ killin’ me though, sweet girl. Is Ellie home?”

You slowly pulled away from the kiss, sliding your arms down from around his neck and brought your hands down his chest. “C’mon i’ll take care of you, okay? She’s at Dina’s. They’re watching a movie so we’ll have the place to ourselves all night.”

“You had me at we’re gonna have the place to ourselves all night darlin.’” a chuckle vibrated up his chest. “Did ya have somethin’ particular in mind baby?”

You unwrapped his arms from around your waist, grabbing his hands as you brought him into the dining room. “I knew you’d love the sound of that Joel. Go on, take a seat honey.”

He raised an eyebrow in your direction as he tried to gauge just exactly what it was that you were up to. When he took too long for your liking, you placed your hand on his chest and firmly coaxed him down into the chair.

“What’re—”

He was cut off when you had climbed into his lap, straddling his hips while you brought his arms behind the chair, holding his wrists together firmly.

“Shhh. You trust me, right baby? I just wanna take care of you. Treat you real well but first, I think you need a gentle reminder of who you belong to.”

Joel’s eyes had immediately widened when you ever so casually climbed into his lap. His own frustration began to bubble when you brought his arms around the back of the chair, preventing him from touching you. “Course I trust you honey. Whad’ya mean you need to remind me who I belong to? Baby, I belong to you. You and I both know that.”

“Do the Jackson women know that you belong to me? I see the way they fawn over you Joel. You think I don’t notice? They practically fall to their knees when you’re around.”

Joel chuckled, leaning his head back against the chair with a smirk on his lips. “Do I sense a bit of jealousy in ya? I see the way they act around me sugar. I don’t pay ‘em any attention. Don’t need to when I’ve got you. By far the prettiest girl in town. Can confidently say I am one fuckin’ lucky man.”

Joel was too focused on you in his lap to notice that you had pulled a strand of thick rope from your pocket. He barely felt you tie his wrists together behind the chair, till it was too late.

“Yeah, you are one fuckin’ lucky man, Miller and you better remember it.”

He let out a strained noise from his throat when he realized you had successfully tied him to the chair and his eyes narrowed in on you. “Fuckin’ minx. You really just go and tie me to the damn chair?” He let out a low growl.

You were the one smirking now as you leaned in close to his face, your lips nearly touching his. “I did baby, I told you I’m going to take care of you. Just trust me on this okay?” You spoke in a sickly sweet tone.

Your words traveled down his neck, past his thighs and settled beneath his jeans where his cock had twitched slightly. It didn’t take much to get your man going and you were pretty proud of that.

“So you tied me to the damn chair? You gonna punish me, sweet girl? You got it in you to do that to me baby?”

You brought your fingers around his throat, tipping his chin back slightly as you brushed your lips over his, taking his lower lip between your teeth, biting down on the soft flesh as you tugged it out. Your actions elicited a low groan from his chest.

“Oh, I think you and I both know I’ve got it in me baby. You gonna be a good boy for me, or are you gonna be difficult?”

You quite literally stole the air from this man’s lungs. All the blood was draining straight down to his cock. God, you were so filthy and he loved every second of it. “I’ll be a good boy for you darlin’, only if you promise to give me your worst.”

His pupils darkened as he looked up at you, desperately wishing he could fucking touch you as he pulled against his restraints on his wrists.

“I promise you I will, baby.” You cooed and his eyes nearly rolled back into his skull.

You dragged your fingertips along the thin skin of his throat as you leaned down over him, bringing your lips to the shell of his ear, kissing the skin right below. It was the spot that you knew drove him crazy. “You let me know if it’s too much and you wanna stop. Okay honey?”

He felt a shiver run down his spine from your lips along his neck. “I know darlin’. I got you, you got me.”

Your relationship with Joel had been built around trust, and consent. It was important to you both, and no matter what the situation was between you, consent was always at the forefront.

“Good boy.” You whispered against the shell of his ear as you reached into your pocket and pulled out a blindfold.

His jaw went slack as you tied the fabric around his head, covering his eyes from your view.

“You’re about to fuckin’ ruin me, aren’t you baby?” He rasped out, feeling his senses on overdrive now that he could no longer see you.

“Gonna do a lot more than just that, honey. You just sit back and relax. I got you.” You pressed another kiss to the spot below his ear before you slowly dragged your lips down his neck, nipping and biting at the thin skin as he hissed under his breath, turning his head to the side slightly so you would have better access.

You dragged your sinful tongue down the expanse of his throat, you could feel his pulse quicken as your fingers began to expertly undo the buttons on his flannel, exposing his skin to the warm air as you let your fingertips trace down his collarbones, brushing over his nipples as they descended down over his navel.

His stomach went taut under your soft, feather light touches. He had sucked in a harsh breath as his cock twitched in his jeans once more. “Baby, please. Don’t fuckin’ keep me on edge like this honey. Please, I’ll be a good boy, just like I promised.” Your man begged you.

You popped the button off his jeans and tugged the zipper down. Offering him a brief moment of relief as you tugged his jeans down over his broad thighs, listening to the fabric fall down his ankles, and settle above his boots.

His breath hitched in his throat when your fingers lightly brushed over his growing bulge in his boxers. He was so big, so thick, the fabric was straining and could barely hold him.

What you did next? Completely through your man for a loop. You had unsecured your knife from your holster, dragging the edge of the blade down his chest, over his navel. The coolness of the metal against his hot skin was a delicious combination.

He tugged on the restraints hard, the chair scraping on the old hardwood floor when the edge of your knife dragged across his covered bulge. Your man fucking whimpered.

“Darlin’, is that your knife baby? What’re you gonna do with that, huh?”

You kept the edge of your knife lightly pressed against his bulge. You could feel his thighs quiver beneath you, and his cock twitch once more as you leaned in, and whispered against his ear, “Who do you belong to, Mr. Miller?”

He let out a string of curses past his plush lips, stuttering over his words as he was already a whimpering mess beneath you and you had barely touched him. “Yours baby. I’m all fuckin’ yours. All yours.”

“Good boy.” You hummed as you removed the blade from his covered bulge, placing it down on the table before you wasted no time to free him from his constraints. Watching his cock spring up against his stomach. The tip was leaking with precum, all thanks to you and your filthy words. Your mouth was already salivating for a taste of him.

He could no longer feel the weight of your body on his lap. He heard the chair scrape slightly as you got down on your knees in front of him. He wanted to fucking see your pretty face, your irresistible eyes on him, but the fabric on his eyes, blinded him from experiencing that pleasure.

“Gonna have a taste of you now, okay baby? Dying to have one.”

“Fu—fuckin’ hell darlin’ you tryin’ to send me to an early grave talkin’ like that—“

He lost his voice the moment your pretty lips wrapped around his aching tip. You swirled your tongue against the veiny head, collecting his precum with ease.

You dragged your lips and tongue down his thick length, feeling him twitch again as he let his whimpers flow through his lips freely.

“You taste so sweet, honey. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue baby?”

Joel growled frustratingly as he gave the restraints another good tug but they wouldn’t budge and he was completely at your mercy.

“That’s my fuckin’ line darlin’” he groaned.

“Yeah?” You hummed against his length, letting your fingers grasp his balls, giving them a little squeeze. “Well, now it’s mine. Deal with it.”

“You little—”

You had wrapped your lips back around his tip, slowly sliding your wet, hot mouth down over him, as you slowly began to bob your head at a delicious pace.

“F-f-fuck—darlin’ that pretty little mouth of yours is gonna be the death of me. Not gonna fuckin’ last long like this.” He groaned while bucking his hips up slightly, desperately wanting more.

You brought your free hand, that wasn’t playing with his balls, around his thick thigh. You sank your nails into his skin, dragging them downwards as he let out a hiss, digging the heels of his boots into the floor.

You could feel every ridge, every vein against your tongue as you continued to suck him off, your teeth lightly scraped against his length as his tip hit the back of your throat. You knew how to take him well, but there were still tears pricking in the corner of your eyes. You fucking loved having his cock shoved down your throat like this. You loved the way he whimpered out your name, just from your mouth and tongue wrapped around him.

“Fuck—fuck baby you gotta stop soon, please! Fuck. I’m seein’ stars right now. Takin’ my cock so fuckin’ well in that pretty little mouth. S’pretty, just for me.”

Your throat tightened around him slightly as you held him there for a few moments, nearly gagging around him before you slowly lifted your head up, releasing him from your mouth with a pop. You had saliva dripping down your chin that he would have absolutely loved to see, along with your pretty swollen lips.

He heard your own jeans start to be taken off as he listened to the fabric hit the floor with a soft thud as he anticipated your next move on him.

“Where’d you go, darlin’? Can’t feel ya anymore..you better not be fuckin’ leaving me down here tied up like this—”

You had sank back down into his lap, your covered, aching cunt brushing against his swollen tip as you let out a low hiss from the friction. “Mmm. I’m right here baby. I wouldn’t be that cruel to leave you tied up like this..don’t give me any ideas though, okay? Not finished with you yet.”

He let a whine slip past his throat when he could feel your cunt rub against him, as you rolled your hips into his slowly, eliciting another frustrated groan from him, and an eager moan from you.

You reached your hand up, untying the fabric from his eyes and tossed it to the side, his eyes were immediately locked on yours, his jaw clenched so tightly, he could cut something with how sharp it was.

“You gonna fuckin’ let me touch you baby? Or not yet? Gonna keep me on the edge? Fuckin filthy little whore you are. M’so fuckin lucky.” He whimpered.

You brought your fingers through the back of his hair, gripping it tightly as you yanked his head back, rolling your hips into his once more. “Do you think you deserve to fuck me right now, baby? You think you deserve to fill me up with your cock? C’mon, answer me.” You demanded

Joel’s jaw went slack at your words as he swallowed hard. You were something fucking else entirely and he was at a loss for words.

“I’ve been a good boy, haven’t I baby? C’mon, sweet girl. Let me fill you to the fuckin’ brim. Please. Please. Please. Want to feel your warmth around me so fuckin’ bad. Give into me darlin.’ Take me however you fuckin’ want.” He rasped.

He watched as your hand slid down between your bodies, pulling your panties to the side, revealing your slick pussy to his greedy eyes as you dragged your fingers through your arousal. Swirling your fingers against your clit as you kept your eyes locked on his. “Bet you wish you were touching me right now, huh baby? I’m so fuckin’ wet for you. Don’t you wish you could have a taste? Mmm, your fingers do a much better job than mine.” You purred, wasting no time to slip two of your fingers inside, pumping them slowly on his lap. “I’m so fucking tight, Joel. Don’t you wanna feel me baby? Feel how fucking tight I am for you.”

Joel frankly had enough with your teasing. He nearly had drool dripping down his chin as he watched you with hooded eyes. He watched your fingers, slick with your own arousal, disappear inside your tight cunt. The squelching sounds of your wet pussy had his eyes rolling back as he kicked the side of the table with his boot, frustratingly.

“Goddamn you. Fuckin’ filthy. Look at you fuckin’ yourself on my lap. Fuckin’ should be my fingers filling you up right now. You little minx. Do I have to fuckin’ beg you? Your pretty little pussy is fuckin’ purring for me baby. You gotta let me out of these things, please baby. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please fuckin’ let me touch you.”

“No.” You spoke sweetly, between moans. “Keep fucking watching me Joel. Keep watching me fuck my pretty little pussy.”

“You are so goddamn lucky that you tied a fuckin’ good knot. Gonna fuckin’ ruin you when I get out of these baby. Just you fuckin’ wait.” He growled. He was unable to tear his gaze from your fingers fucking yourself, even if he tried. He was absolutely intoxicated with you.

You slipped your fingers out of your mouth slowly, they were dripping in your arousal as you brought them up to your lips, licking them clean right before his very eyes as he kicked the side of the table once more.

Your man was absolutely feral.

You grabbed the base of his cock then, dragging his tip against your slick folds, his arousal and yours mixing together. When you finally, sank down onto him, he let out the most delicious fucking sound you had ever heard. The mix between a groan, and a whimper as you sank down to the hilt, bringing your arms around his neck. “Filling me up so good already, baby. See what happens when you’re a good boy? You get rewarded.”

His breath hitched in his throat when you rolled your hips into his. He could feel every inch of you slide around his cock, and just as you started to get into a rhythm, rising and falling over his thick length as your walls gripped around him deliciously, the rope around his wrists snapped, falling to the floor.

His hands were on you before you even had the chance to open your mouth. You were positively fucked.

“Now, it’s my fuckin’ turn.” He had immediately grabbed ahold of your hips, roughly pulling your chest flushed against his as he fucked into you, his balls slapping against your ass while his nails dug into your hips harshly. “You fuckin’ like that baby? You naughty fuckin’ girl. Hope you enjoyed your fuckin’ little game while it lasted baby.”

His lips were attacking every inch of your skin, between your neck, collarbones and breasts, he was absolutely ruining you with his mouth. nipping, biting, sucking on your tender flesh as he fucked into you, drinking in your moans around him as you let him finally have control, not that you had much of a choice. You knew it was only a matter of time before the restraints would snap.

He had grabbed you from your ass, lifting you up onto the dining room table, while still buried deep inside of you. He brought your legs over his shoulders as he fucked into you, with your back firmly planted against the table.

When you had reached down to touch yourself, he smacked your hand away, grabbing both of your wrists and slammed them down above your head, holding them down with one hand. “No.” He growled.“You don’t get to fuckin’ do all of that to me and then think that you can touch yourself, baby. You’re mine now. You fuckin’ got that? All. Fucking. Mine”

“Joel—fuck! Please baby, I was only having a little fun! Please, are you going to let me cum?” You whimpered, tugging your lower lip between your teeth as you looked up at him with those eyes that would send any man’s knees buckling.

Joel let out a deep chuckle, using his free hand to close in around your throat, his thumb pressing against your windpipe as he leaned down, bringing his forehead against yours, drinking in your moans as his lips crashed into yours, your teeth and tongues clashing together. It was a rough, heated kiss. One that was absolutely scrambling your brain. “You think you fuckin’ deserve to cum? You think you deserve that?” He mumbled into your lips, holding you completely captive beneath him.

Your breath was caught in your throat as his thumb squeezed along your windpipe slightly, just enough for you to feel it. The pain, mixing with the pleasure, you fucking loved it.

“Please, Joel! Please let me cum, baby! Don’t you want me to coat your cock? You gotta let me cum otherwise I can’t—”

He slammed his hips into yours, knocking your back against the table, stealing the air from your lungs. “What was that? Sorry, sugar. Can’t hear you above the sounds of my cock tearing your pretty little pussy apart.”

You let out a choked sob when his tip had hit the spongy spot inside of you that had you seeing stars. Your body was beginning to tremble beneath him and you nearly cried when you finally felt his thumb working your clit to the very edge.

He had released your wrists just so you could wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, and sink your nails into his skin, he knew how much you loved that.

“So fucking close, Joel! So close! Thank you baby, thank you!” You praised him.

Both of your bodies were slick with sweat as his thrusts began to grow uncoordinated and sloppy but despite this, he was still working his thumb over you, stumbling over his words as he groaned out your name.

“That’s it, my pretty fuckin’ filthy girl. Gonna cum around my cock? Gonna coat me? Wanna see you leaking out on the fuckin table when I’m through with you. Think you can handle that honey? Wanna see my fuckin’ cum drippin’ out of that pretty little pussy.”

It didn’t take long for either of you to hit your impending high. It crashed around you, sending white hot pleasure up from your core and through your whole body, Joel shuddered above you, as your pussy milked him of every last fucking drop. He kissed all over your face, praising you for being such a good girl as he gave one last deep thrust, before collapsing on top of you.

This is how it always ended. Joel buried deep inside of you while he grew soft, yours and his cum leaking out of you, while you would cradle him against your chest, running your fingers through his sweat soaked hair.

The post orgasm calm was your favorite part undeniably. You loved the lazy, sex stained grin your man would give you. God, he always looked so pretty after a proper fuck. He’d kiss you slow, deep, letting his tongue slip into your mouth while your fingers would gently scrape against his beard.

“I wanna see more of that in the future.” He mumbled into your lips, kissing you languidly.

“Yeah? You liked that?”

“Fuckin’ loved havin’ you take control like that baby. Do it whenever you want, kay?”

You let out a soft giggle, pulling away from the kiss to get some air as he let out a small whine, he wasn’t ready to stop kissing you just yet. So instead, he let his lips kiss all over your face, your cheeks, chin, nose, your eyelids. He couldn’t get enough of you.

“I will definitely be taking control more often, baby. I can promise you that.”

“Good.” He hummed, pressing one more kiss to your nose, lightly nibbling on it before he slowly slipped out from your warmth.

“We made quite the mess together honey. Dripping all down the fuckin’ table.” He chuckled, dragging his finger through your cum mixed with his, before he licked his finger clean, shooting you a wink.

You sat up slowly, your heart beat had returned to normal as you watched your man with a small grin as he collapsed back into the chair, kicking his boots off along with his jeans before he gathered the pile of clothes up into his arms to take them to the laundry room.

“I fuckin’ love you, you know that?”

“I know you do, Joel. I love you too.”

He leaned down over you, kissing you sweetly once more. He left to drop the clothes off in the laundry room before he grabbed a towel. He was always big on after care so you laid there, waiting for him.

He gently wiped between your thighs, and then the table before he was scooping you up into his arms. He helped you wrap your legs around his hips as he carried you upstairs, smiling to himself when he could feel your thighs tremble, all thanks to him.

One well deserved hot shower later, and you and your man were curled up in bed together. You were the big spoon tonight because you know how much he loves to be held by you.

You were his lady, his girl. He was your man. Your fellow, your guy.

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jeankluv · 4 months ago

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The prophecy - Gojo Satoru [part. 2]

summary: Gojo Satoru knew he was the strongest, he perfectly knew. But that didn’t mean he didn’t cry and that night while everyone still preparing to fight Sukuna, he cried. He cried because he felt completely alone and only seen as a weapon

paring: Gojo Satoru x gn!reader

tags: angst, canon universe, manga spoilers chapters 236 & 261, Gojo centric, fluff, mutual feeling, no use of y/n, post canon events, theory themes like binging vows or go north

Notes: posting this today, bc I have a really bad feeling about chapter 263 and I need to post this before it comes out. Also thanks for the 500 followers ❤️

words: 2,2k

part 1 | Jujutsu Kaisen materialist

Satoru looked at the front, the airport only had 6 people, 7 if he included himself, but the sound of the planes were clear. His mind was a mess, he was wondering if that was a dream or if it was the afterlife.

Did he die?

He did

Sukuna cut him. He lost.

It was strange because he didn’t see his life flashing before his eyes, like they said it happened to everyone. He didn’t feel anything. He remembered Sukuna’s faint voice telling him that he was not going to forget him, but then he saw his old best friend, his other friends.

If that was the afterlife, he wondered what was happening back there. Did they take plan B? Did Yuta take over his body? Did Shoko have to go through the process of healing his dead body? Did anyone cried? Did you? You were probably angry right? He died, he didn’t keep his promise.

He chuckled silently. Why did he feel so much regret? He shouldn’t feel like that, he should leave with no regrets, so why was he feeling that knot in his stomach?

“Satoru, let’s go.” He looked up and saw Suguru standing in front, everyone was there too.

“Go?” He knew where but he was refusing to go.

“It’s time for us to leave, to rest.”

Everyone started to walk, he watched them, his feet weren’t able to move, he didn’t want to go that way. No. He wanted to go north. Yeah, north.

“You are not coming right?” Suguru smirked from afar.

Satoru shook his head. “It’s not my time. I don’t want it to be.”

“Then I hope you take your time to come this way.”

“I will see you Suguru.” He smiled and turned on his feet and started to walk north.

His feet started to rush, he wanted to reach the other side as soon as possible. He needed to go back, he wanted to go back.

˖✧˖°.✶₊ ⊹ ⋆˖✧˖°.✶₊ ⊹ ⋆

You tried to gain some breath back, you could barely stand up. You were with Yuji and Todo watching the domain where Sukuna and Yuta were.

Your heart had almost stopped when you had heard Satoru's voice saying “domain expansion”, but all hope had vanished when you saw the scar on his forehead. That wasn't Gojo Satoru.

For a brief moment you really thought Satoru was back, that he really did a binding vow and he came back, but you were just foolish.

He was gone and now all of you were on the edge of death.

“Sensei.” Yuji called you out.

“I’m okay Yuji.” You said, but you knew it was a lie, but you just couldn’t leave those two on their own here with Sukuna.

“Okkotsu only has 5 minutes, if after those five minutes the domain goes and Sukuna is still here…” Todo spoke and you swallowed.

“Did you both know?” Yuji asked and it hit you.

He didn’t know. He had no idea of the plan, Satoru didn’t want Yuji to know, he said he knew Yuji and this one wouldn’t agree with that plan. So everyone kept the plan from him and you felt bad, really bad. You could see his broken gaze. He probably thought Satoru was back only to find out he wasn’t.

“Yuji…” You whispered and biting your lip, you continued. “He was okay with it.”

He wasn’t. You wanted to scream, to let everyone know that Gojo Satoru didn’t like the idea, but he put everyone else before himself. But you were not going to do that. No there.

“Okay…” The boy whispered, clenching his fists.

Your gaze then focused on the domain, the five minutes we’re over. You could almost hear your heart beating in your ears.

Please

Let it be Yuta the one standing.

The domain started to fade away and you could feel how the three of you were holding up your breaths.

But a laugh took all your hopes away.

“Okkotsu Yuta really was something.” Sukuna smirked. “But I’m afraid none of you would be able to master Gojo Satoru’s technique and be able to kill me.”

You saw Satoru’s body on the floor. The five minutes were over, Yuta went back to his body. It was the end.

“Sukuna!!” You heard Yuji screaming and running towards Sukuna.

“Yuji!” You started to run trying to stop him when you saw Sukuna’s pose.

He was going to use another of his world cuts? How? He shouldn’t be able to do it. Not with just one arm. Did he use another binding vow?

Bitch.

“It’s over brat.” Sukuna smirked.

As the teacher you were, you took Yuji and positioned him behind you. You were going to try to use your technique, to try and reduce the impact, so at least Yuji could be saved.

You activated your technique and closed your eyes tightly, waiting for the impact, waiting to take your last breath.

But it never came. Was it because dying didn’t feel painful? Or because…?

“Oh Sukuna, you are such a bully.” A voice said and your eyes opened again. “Why don’t you leave them alone? And fight someone who is your equal? Or you fight those weaker than you to be satisfied with yourself?”

Gojo Satoru was there. He was standing behind Sukuna. He was smiling proudly and arrogantly.

Sukuna turned away from Yuji and you and laughed. “Not even hell could contain you Gojo Satoru?!”

Satoru chucked. “I told you Sukuna. I was going to win.”

“Gojo sensei!” Yuji said.

“Yuji.” Satoru spoke. “Did you figure it out what your technique might be?”

Yuji nodded. “I can reach Fushiguro!” You looked at him. “Just need…”

“Got it.” Satoru smiled. “I count on you Yuji.” Then he looked at you and smiled.

His lips moved but not a sound came from them but you knew what he was saying.

“I’m here.”

“I know…” You whispered.

“Todo!” Satoru said again. “Take them to Shoko.” He pointed at you.

“Wait! I still can…”

“Oh no sweetheart you can’t.” He said.

You were unable to say anything else because Todo dragged you away from the battlefield.

“Gojo Satoru!” You screamed. “Don’t you dare die again or else I’m going to kill you myself.”

You watched Satoru grinned and then turned to fight Sukuna once again. You prayed.

You prayed for Satoru. For Yuji. For Megumi. For everyone else to make it out alive. To go back home safely.

Todo carried you across Shinjuku but before meeting UiUi, to teleport you to Shoko, you passed out. Your wound was more serious than you thought and the pain was unbearable.

˖✧˖°.✶₊ ⊹ ⋆˖✧˖°.✶₊ ⊹ ⋆

Satoru pursed his lips as he looked at himself in the mirror. It was weird. He was without his glasses or the blindfold on him and he was… Good. He felt calm. His mind was not saturated with information of all kinds. He liked it. He turned around and walked through the hallways of the institute, it was extremely silent, so much that it was almost chilling.

Through the window he saw how some snowflakes began to fall. It was December 31st, a week had passed since the fight with Sukuna, a week since he had died and returned among the dead, a week since he had given up his powers in exchange for it.

The binding vow had worked, as soon as Sukuna died his technique was gone. But Satoru did not regret it, because thanks to the fight with Sukuna he was able to answer that question that Suguru once asked him.

He was the strongest because he was Gojo Satoru.

But now he had to learn to live without being the strongest. It was his turn to start living like Satoru and that excited him more than anything in the world.

Even though there was something else that also excited him.

His pace quickened and when he reached the door, he smiled and without knocking he flung it open.

“Gojo! You idiot, I told you to knock before entering.” A pillow hit his face.

Satoru rubbed his face and grabbed the pillow before looking at you. “Before you were complaining because I teleported me without warning and now because of this.” He said with a pout.

“Of course!” You said. “You need to knock, what if I was changing or something?” Satoru opened his mouth. “Don’t you dare answer that.”

Satoru grinned. “Anyways, how is your wound?” He approached you and without any hesitation or shame he lifted your shirt. “It looks like it’s healing.”

You stood back with your face burning from the embarrassment. “What? Why would you do that?”

“I was checking on you.” He shrugged. “Besides, why are you so shy? We slept together.”

You opened your mouth. “That was different! You were having a hard time and I was worried about you.”

“And you confessed.” Satoru tilted his head.

“Well… I…” You looked around feeling trapped.

“Today is the last day of the year.” Satoru said. “Let’s go out on a date.”

“A date?” You flushed. “As… couple?” You asked.

“Sure… I like you, you like me.” He shrugged.

“You can’t say it like that.”

Why was he being so calm about it?

He walked towards you and held your hands, whispering your name as you looked at him. “I like you, I have for quite some time, although I always thought you didn’t like me, not a bit.” You tried speaking but he was faster. “But that’s not the point, while I was… you know.” He made a dead gesture and you rolled your eyes at how childish he could be. “I realized that I did have some regrets and one of them was not having told you my feelings that day.” You fixed your gaze on his. “I know they were quite clear but I still wish I had said them out loud.” He caressed your cheek. “I like you, I like you a lot and I would love to take you on a romantic date today.”

You looked down and then up again. “Okay…” A smiled was drawn on your face. “I would love to go out on a date with you Satoru.”

Satoru smiled and brought his face closer to yours, you could feel how your breaths mixed. He was going to kiss you.

“Sensei.” A knock on the door made you step back in surprise.

“Oh… yes?” You walked to the door. “Oh Yuji! What are you doing here?”

The kid smiled wildly. “So everyone is going to spent the night near Mount Fuji, to see fireworks and everything. And I was looking for you to see if you were joining us too.”

“Oh… I…”

“We will go.” Satoru appeared behind you.

“Oh! Gojo sensei!” He smiled. “Megumi and Yuta were looking for you to ask you if you wanted to come too.”

“I will be there.” He smiled. “We could have a karaoke night!”

Yuji’s eyes shined like bright stars. “Yes! I will tell everyone that we are all going!”

“I thought we were going on a date.” You said watching Yuji disappear.

“Yes, but I want to see the kids enjoying and being happy.” He softly smiled.

“You are such a soft hearted Satoru.”

“Of course I am.” He pouted. “I’m a caring teacher you know?”

You laughed and nodded. “I can see.”

“So what were we doing before getting interrupted?” He approached you with a smirk.

“Satoru…”

“What? Now you are shy to kiss me?” He grabbed your face.

“No…”

“Then let me ki-”

You connected your lips together in a short but intense kiss. Before separating from him you bite his bottom lip and then smirked.

“I will go to talk with Shoko and the rest and see if they need anything for the trip.” You smiled at him and left the room.

Satoru stood there, with his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide open.

He chuckled and hide his face behind his hand.

“Oh god…”

He looked over to the window and smiled seeing how the snow was starting to accumulate on the floor.

“Gojo sensei.”

He turned to the voice and a huge smile appeared on his face. “Megumi~!” He went to him. “How are you feeling?” He patted his head.

Megumi shook his head. “Good. Don’t do that, I'm not a kid.”

“Oh Megumi, all of you are my kids.” He cried.

“Tsk don’t do that.” Megumi said with disgust.

Satoru laughed and started walking. “Let’s go with the rest.”

They both walked the hallway till they reached the place where everyone else was.

Satoru was glad to be there, to be back, to be alive. It didn’t matter that he wasn't the strongest anymore. Just being there was enough for him.

He just hoped those kids were able to enjoy the rest of their youth and the future sorcerer generations didn’t have to go through what he did.

And that if someday, someone else in his clan was born with the six eyes and the infinity didn’t have to carry all the weight of the world on it’s own because there were people who would be for them.

“Why do you look like you are about to cry?” You whispered.

Satoru shook his head. “I’m just happy.” He smiled. “I’m happy to be here, with you and with everyone.”

You nodded and held his hand, giving him the affection he needed.

You were glad he was there, that the Jujutsu society was starting to change and that he didn’t have to carry everything on it’s own again.

154 notes · View notes

wyattjohnston · 2 years ago

Text

until the light shines through - quinn hughes

summary: it didn’t take very long at all for laurel to realise that the world of hockey was well beyond what she could handle. there was just something about quinn that made it impossible to stay away.

note: this is set in the 2021-2022 season because i started it almost exactly 12 months ago. i’m eternally grateful to @hock-ee & @farbutnevergone for being the sounding board in the beginning of this fic, and as always to @matthewtkachuk & @laurenairay for coming in clutch and making me feel like it was worth finishing. shelb gets extra credit for reading it all multiple times and helping me fill in some gaps and catch the times my sentences ended halfway through.

word count: 17,690

playlist: good love - shawn hook | i know places - taylor swift | closer - sleeping with sirens | feel like shit - tate mcrae | you're in love - betty who

“Your Uber is here. Don’t make him wait too long or your rating will drop.”

Laurel lifted her head at the sound of the new voice and the tattoo gun being pulled away from her skin.

“The Uber driver should be a bit more patient, or his rating will drop,” Annie, the tattoo artist said, lifting her head. “You aren’t even the Uber I ordered.”

The man who had walked in shrugged, taking a seat at the front of the shop. Laurel looked between him and Annie, waiting for something more than a joke about Uber drivers. Before Annie even offered an explanation, she was telling Laurel that she was going to start the gun again—the machine, that was something Annie had stressed when they were setting up.

Laurel couldn’t help but track the movement of the machine as it got to the final parts of the black cat outline being tattooed on the inside of her wrist. It was her first tattoo and she’d always been interested in the process and despite the sting of the needle she knew exactly why people spoke about it being addictive.

“Where’d you park?” Annie asked as she was covering the finished tattoo, having already taken a photo of it to post to Instagram. Laurel watched it disappear beneath the black wrap.

“A couple streets away; parking is shit.”

“If you can wait for me to sterilise the machine and everything and lock up, we’ll walk you,” Annie offered. “Won’t we, Huggy Bear?”

Huggy Bear agreed, then trailed off grumbling about the Huggy nickname.

Even while Laurel was waiting to leave, Annie and Huggy were happily chatting away. Most of the conversation went far over her head, despite their efforts to include her or provide context, so she stood beside the counter at the front of the shop and checked her phone until it was time to leave.

She laughed politely when it was appropriate for the conversation, although she wasn’t quite sure what she was laughing at, but the least she could do was pretend to be interested when they were helping to keep her safe.

“Have a great weekend,” Annie said when they reached Laurel’s car. “Just hit me up on Insta if you forget the aftercare stuff or have any questions. I’ll post the photo tomorrow.”

“Thank you, I really do love it. And thank you both for walking me to my car.”

Huggy raised his hand awkwardly and said something that Laurel didn’t quite hear so she just waved back before getting into her car.

“He really keeps staring at us,” Karina said, her face contorting in discomfort after she did another subtle glance around the restaurant to see if said guy had stopped staring. The wave he’d given her earlier hadn’t done much to assuage their unease, though it had led to lengthy conversations about which one of them might have known who he was.

“I don’t know if it’d be better or worse if he actually came over,” Laurel said, frowning down at her empty plate. “I just want him to stop staring.”

Karina waved the waiter down to get the cheque, saying that they’d be out of there soon. Laurel huffed at the audacity of men who didn’t understand what common decency was. She didn’t look back over at him and his friend, though she desperately wanted to, because she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was interested and risk him following them out of the restaurant to their next stop.

Their next step was just a bar, nothing special or interesting, just a quiet-ish place they could continue their drinking. A few other people from work were meeting them; Friday night drinks to end the week were never something Laurel would pass up.

“That’s the guy from the restaurant, isn’t it?” Karina asked, not even being casual in how she was pointing him out.

Laurel sighed, finished her cocktail, and stood up in a rush, only regretting it slightly when she felt the alcohol had gone to her head. She didn’t say a single word to Karina, who tried to catch her arm before she could get too far away and walked directly over to the guy that had been staring at her all night.

He was sitting with the man he’d eaten dinner with, and it was incredibly stupid for Laurel to confront him by herself when he wasn’t alone but Laurel’s pride often got the best of her.

“You’ve been staring at me all night,” she said, not even waiting until they were looking at her. “What do you want?”

“I—uh—” the man stuttered. Laurel had to give him credit for maintaining eye contact even if he was sinking down into his seat.

“Can you stop? I have no idea who you are and it’s freaking me the fuck out.”

“We met—you were—Annie—the tattoo.”

“Oh, Teddy Bear,” Laurel said, amused by the memory, but mostly the nickname, as his face merged with the vague memory of the man who had shown up when she was getting the tattoo on her forearm.

The man sitting with him snorted.

“Huggy Bear but it’s just Quinn. Please call me Quinn,” he begged, sitting up a little straighter knowing that she at least had some recollection of him.

“Alright, Quinn, is there a reason you’ve been staring at me beyond recognising me?”

Quinn opened his mouth to answer, though nothing came out.

The man across the table, lanky and blond, stood up before Quinn could speak, and was already walking away when he announced, “I’m out of here before this gets awkward.”

Laurel watched him briefly as he left and when she turned back to Quinn his face was redder than before—though it wasn’t all that noticeable in the bar’s poor lighting.

He said, mumbled and incoherent, something that ended in pretty and Laurel had to fight the twinge that threatened to lift the corners of her mouth.

“You think I’m pretty?” she pressed, her hand resting on the back of the vacated chair so that she could lean forward just a little.

“Yeah, I—I wanted to send you a message on Insta after we met but I chickened out.”

It was reckless, probably, to say what she said next, but Laurel was a sucker for a compliment, “Would you like to buy me a drink, Quinn?”

He stood so suddenly that the table rocked, and Laurel had to catch it before the glasses toppled over. He took four steps towards the bar before hastily walking back to her to ask what she wanted to drink.

She followed him to the bar, too smart and too weary to let him just bring a drink back to her. She ordered a Tom Collins, Quinn ordered a beer, and as the bartender was making her cocktail, she leaned lightly against the bar and asked, “How did you know I was here? At the restaurant?”

Quinn’s eyes bugged and his shoulders squared, as he rushed to say, “I didn’t. I promise. I’m not stalking you—so many people would actually cut off my dick if I was.”

Laurel’s lip quirked up, wondering if it was the tattoo artist who made that threat. There was still a little part of her that didn’t trust that he hadn’t known where she was going to be but it was overridden by her interest in his awkward nature.

They weaved through the crowd of people back to their table, which was luckily still free despite their trip to the bar. Laurel sat down, leaning back in her seat and letting him lead the conversation wherever he saw fit while she enjoyed her drink.

“I’ve never had to try this hard to get a girl’s attention before,” he said, his hand running through his hair and messing up the careful mess it had already been.

Laurel tilted her head, saying, “That’s… a surprise to me.”

Quinn goes silent, instantly looking even more insecure than he already did. He coughed and said, “I suppose there are meaner ways to tell me I’m not attractive.”

“I actually thought you weren’t confident enough,” Laurel clarified, resting her elbows on the table so he knew how serious she was when she added, “I think you’re plenty attractive.”

The compliment did exactly what Laurel had been hoping it would, increasing his confidence tenfold. His chin lifting, his shoulders squaring and a smirk crossing his mouth. Laurel smirked back at him, making direct eye contact as she pulled her straw into her mouth.

Giving Quinn her phone number was an easy decision.

After waking up on a mattress comfier than she ever thought possible and smiling at Quinn who was already dressed and walking around the bedroom, Laurel enjoyed the water pressure in the walk-in shower.

When she’d walked into the apartment the night before (see: earlier that morning) she hadn’t paid any attention to where they were or what the apartment looked like. A long time had passed since she inspected apartments when she walked in; one too many had turned her off immediately and she’d rather not know until she’d had her fun. Quinn’s apartment however… she would not have had that problem based on his bathroom alone. The bathroom was always the worst.

She wrapped a towel around herself, delighted by its fluffiness, and walked back through Quinn’s bedroom so she could find him. The size baffled her, too, because the location was enough to cost a small fortune in rent each month—the thought of paying for multiple bedrooms, multiple bathrooms and a separate kitchen and dining area made her feel lightheaded. And he lived alone.

“Do you drink coffee?” Quinn asked when she found him in the kitchen.

“How often do you get a ‘no’ to that question?”

“It happens enough that I have to ask.”

Laurel’s lip twitched up in a smirk, waiting for Quinn to realise that he’d just admitted to bringing home women often enough that he had a decent sample size of those who drink coffee vs those who don’t—he was oblivious, though, just standing near the coffee machine awkwardly holding out an empty mug waiting for an answer.

She tightened the towel over her breasts and Quinn’s eyes flickered down before shooting right back up as if he hadn’t seen it all a matter of hours prior.

“I was hoping I could grab a shirt or something to wear first.”

He was startled by the question, taking a few seconds to put the mug down and nod at her. He led her to his bedroom and pulled out the second drawer in the chest.

“You can help yourself to whatever…” he said slowly. “Or anything else in here, I guess. I don’t know what you’d want.”

The twitching smirk was back, as Laurel pulled out what she expected to be a plain black shirt saying “Just a t-shirt is fine. Do you have something a bit less… colourful?”

The shirt she pulled out unfolded to show a black and yellow logo on it that very much looked like it belonged in the 80s.

“You don’t like the flying skate logo?” Quinn asked, taking it from her to stare at it in a way Laurel could only describe as longingly.

“The what now?”

“The flying skate?”

“Am I supposed to know what that is just because you’ve said it a second time?” she asked, bemused.

Quinn held the shirt to his chest, scandalised. “The Canucks logo? Hockey?”

“Oh, I’m from Florida,” Laurel revealed with a shake of her head. “I don’t know anything about hockey.”

She turned back to the chest of drawers and went about finding a plain black shirt. Hockey was something she heard about on a near daily basis but the people she spent time with regularly had long since stopped trying to convince her to give it a chance.

“I was born in Florida and I know a lot about hockey.”

Apparently, Quinn wasn’t going to let it go, though.

Laurel found a shirt, checked it for logos, and only moved back to the bed when she was certain it was in fact plain black so that she could drop the towel and go about putting on more clothes than just her underwear.

“Semantics are important here,” she said, trying to sort out of her bra on still slightly damp skin. “You were born in Florida, I’m from Florida. Where would you say you’re from?”

Quinn didn’t respond to her, just stared at her with his mouth not completely shut. Laurel cleared her throat because he was, much like when she’d walked into the kitchen, staring at her chest.

He cleared his own throat, focusing his eyes on her face, “Michigan, probably. Toronto, maybe.”

Laurel hummed as she pulled the shirt over her head, adding, when she could see him, “Both really into hockey, I thought.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Quinn twitched. “I could teach you about hockey. If you want.”

Laurel shrugged, tilting her head from side to side as she thought about it, before settling on saying, “I’ve never really been interested? Seems a bit barbaric.”

“It’s not,” Quinn said, firmly. He then hesitated and added, “Anymore.”

Laurel couldn’t help but smirk at his change of mind. She asked, partially because didn’t know but mostly because she didn’t believe him, “So, they don’t fight for the sake of fighting?”

“No,” he said, forcefully enough that Laurel’s mouth pulled shut, “there’s always a reason.”

“You’re, like, really invested in me liking hockey. Does this not go anywhere if I don’t?”

The beat of silence that followed probably only lasted three seconds but it was enough time that Laurel was working out how best to get her clothes and get out as quickly as possible. She was looking around for her top, aiming for surreptitious, when Quinn spoke.

“I play. For them. The Canucks. I’m on the team. My job is hockey.”

“Oh, no shit,” Laurel said, her laugh breathy and disbelieving. “And I just called it barbaric.”

“Does this not go anywhere because I play?”

Laurel rolled her eyes, closing the space between them. She cupped his cheeks, smiling up at him and shaking her head. She pressed up on her toes, touching her lips to his lightning fast.

“No. It doesn’t change that I was going to stay for breakfast and then give you my number.”

Karina would be so disappointed.

Christmas was finally over, another successful year of pretending it hadn’t happened, and Laurel was back to work after a lovely long weekend of ignoring the outside world. She hoped on Boxing Day that she could call Quinn for some fun, only to be told that he’d gone to Michigan to see his family.

And, honestly, what was the point in having each other’s numbers if he wasn’t going to be home?

Laurel wasn’t expecting to spend New Year’s Even with him either, she did have plans of her own, but she’d been hopeful she could leave just after midnight and be back in Quinn’s bed before the night was truly over.

He was in Seattle, apparently.

Two weeks after she left his apartment, Laurel was finally able to get back there.

“I thought, maybe, you were just really bad at ghosting,” she joked as she walked through his door, kissing him briefly and then leaning back in for a second one.

“My schedule has been kind of insane,” he said apologetically.

Laurel laughed as she shrugged off her coat, “Perils of being a professional athlete?”

“One of, I guess.”

“Did you win at least?” she asked, wrapping her arms around Quinn’s waist and looking up at him hopefully. She didn’t have any real interest in the games themselves, but she could get on board with being interested in their success at the very least.

They did win, he told her excitedly. 5-2 was the score; Laurel kept it to herself that she thought the score was quite low. She’d had a passing interest at most in basketball but that was her frame of reference for how high sports scores should be.

It was early enough in the evening that they organised dinner to be delivered and Laurel was eager to agree because she was on the second day of a New Years’ hangover and knew that bruschetta and pasta would do wonders to get her over what was lingering.

They sat down to eat at Quinn’s dining table—Laurel was positive that he’d not used it in months because of the things he had to move to clear space for them.

She was loudly enjoying her bruschetta when Quinn’s face twisted just enough that she knew he was going to say something but second guessing himself. She, not wanting to talk with her mouth full, raised an eyebrow and nodded so that he would speak.

“You’re really from Florida?”

“Orlando,” Laurel answered with a smile. “I’ve only been here since I started college in 2017.”

“I started college in 2017.”

Laurel perked up, “At UBC?”

“No, UMich. Michigan.”

“That’s why you’d say you’re from there?” she asked, thinking it was a tad odd that he’d say he was from there just because he’d been to college there. She wouldn’t say she was from Vancouver after four and a half years.

“One of the reasons, yeah. I moved to Michigan when I was 15.”

“So, you were born in Florida, you’ve lived in Toronto and also Michigan and now you’re in Vancouver?” She tried to track the movement around North America in her head. “Lot of moves for a kid.”

“Boston and New Hampshire, too. I don’t remember anything about Florida or Boston, only have a few memories of New Hampshire—mostly my brother being born and my other brother being really upset about it.”

“What are their names? Your brothers?”

“Jack is the middle child and Luke is the youngest. Two years between each of us.”

“I have a brother, Artie. He’s like 16 years older than me, though, so I don’t know him that well. Are you close with yours?”

“Yeah, real close.”

Laurel smiled at him, happy for him, even as she wondered what it would be like to have a close relationship with her family.

“Luke probably won’t be around any time soon, but we play Jack at some point—he plays hockey for New Jersey—so you might get to meet him soon. I think you’ll like him.”

A light panic threatened to break her smile but Laurel was able to keep the smile on her face well enough that Quinn didn’t react.

The tension in Laurel’s jaw was causing her a headache. It had been hours since it set in—the tension and the headache—and the only thing Laurel wanted was the cheap vodka in her apartment. Her job was stressful on a good day, and she’d known that it would be when she started her Social Work course years prior. There were some days, though, where the planets aligned and the patients were inconsolable, the families were assholes and the hospital was letting everybody down. They were the days she could do without.

She had barely stepped foot into her apartment when her phone rang and she had to resist the urge to throw her entire bag at the wall. After a few deep breaths and letting the phone ring out, Laurel took out her phone and dropped her bag onto the kitchen counter as she passed it.

It started ringing again in her hand; Laurel inhaled for a count of five and then exhaled for a count of five just to stop herself from following through on throwing it into the wall. That was a sure-fire way to get on Hayley’s shitlist and Laurel had been pretty solidly off it for long enough that she had no intentions of ruining that.

Quinn’s name was on the screen and conflict bloomed through her entire body. It wasn’t immediately clear in her mind whether she’d be calmed by talking to him or if she’d take out her anger on him. The call rang out before she could think it over.

It buzzed again, a text coming through, and she lifted her phone to read it.

From Quinn: Call me when you’re home. Come for dinner 😊

Telling him she was home and ready at any moment was easy and did relieve the tension in her jaw just a little.

Changing out of her clothes felt like far too much of an effort; she’d put enough effort into her outfit that morning anyway. It was Friday after all and there was always the possibility that Friday could turn into Friday night so she liked to look a little more put together.

From Quinn: Stay the night at mine?

And then there was that.

She’d stayed the night at Quinn’s before, though it had just been the night they met and most definitely not planned in advance. Being essentially asked to pack an overnight bag was more preparation than Laurel had been expecting this soon into their… whatever.

Hayley walked into the apartment as Laurel walked out, her eyes immediately drifting to the bag slung over Laurel’s shoulder.

“I don’t even know,” Laurel said as she hitched it further up her shoulder.

“Be safe. Call me if you need me.”

They parted with a nod at each other, their relationship with each other existing almost solely on Girl Code more so than friendship.

If it had been any other day, Laurel’s walk to Quinn’s would have been fraught with overthinking about why he was explicitly asking her to stay the night—her day had been awful enough that she was still thinking about the father of one of her patients who looked her in the eye and told her that he wasn’t ever going to take direction from a little girl.

The frigid breeze was glorious for clearing her mind.

Her headache still lingered despite the tension releasing in her jaw; it didn’t stop the big smile that grew on her face when Quinn opened the door to let her in. His smiled matched hers and she let herself be swept into a hug before she was corralled into his apartment.

The smell of food was permeating the apartment, eliciting another smile from Laurel and an expression of confused delight. Quinn bashfully led her towards the kitchen and pointed to the stove where there was a pot of Napoli sauce simmering away.

“You can cook?”

She stepped into his space, her arms around his waist as she looked up at him, surprise and awe filling her body, and Quinn was standing a little taller than normal. A little prouder.

“I have a couple things up my sleeve.”

Laurel kissed him swiftly before hoisting up the bag that was falling down her arm; Quinn wasted no time in taking it from her and disappearing into his bedroom with it. Standing in his kitchen, watching him take her bag with no weirdness or second thoughts, Laurel wondered again just what she was getting into.

They ate on the couch, Quinn switching away from the hockey game that was playing—it was unclear if that decision was made before or after her face screwed up in disinterest—and Laurel singing his praises for the pasta with Napoli sauce.

“I leave for a road trip on Monday,” Quinn said when they’d cleared the dishes and were back on the couch, sitting right next to each other. “Don’t get back until the 19th.”

“That’s a long one. Where are you going?”

Quinn opened his mouth—the only thing that came out was a long ‘uhhh’—and pulled out his phone to bring up the schedule. He said, shamelessly, “I only know when I have to be at the airport because they told us at practice today.”

Laurel cuddled up to him so that they could look at the schedule together, asking a few questions about the vagueness of going to teams named after the entire state—“You’re just going to Florida, Carolina and Washington? As if that makes sense?”

“There’s a few of them,” Quinn said, his body shaking against Laurel’s while he laughed at her incredulity. She scrutinised the list of teams he brought up and finished the conversation mostly curious about the Florida team existing in a state with a second hockey team.

“They couldn’t just call them the Miami Panthers?”

“Their arena’s in Sunrise.”

Laurel scoffed, her eyes rolling, “Of course it is. Posers.”

Quinn’s body began to shake again, his laughter so manic that he wasn’t making any noise. Laurel contorted her body to get a better look at Quinn and was enraptured by the joy on his face at her silly joke.

Kissing him is the easiest decision she’s ever made, caught with an overwhelming need to just be pressed against him. He didn’t put up any protests, not that she’d expected him to, and within seconds Laurel was in Quinn’s lap, straddling his thigh. Her skirt fanned out around their legs and she revelled in the pressure of his fingers as he pressed his fingers into the meat of her thighs. She wished she hadn’t worn tights just so she could feel his skin against hers.

Nothing felt as easy as leaning further into him, getting as close as she could physically manage and rolling her hips just to get that little bit closer. Hearing the eager noises leave his mouth—the ones mirroring those leaving hers—made Laurel even more desperate.

“Take me to bed, Q,” she breathed into his ear, rolling her hips again for good measure and gasping when his bucked up to meet them.

He did as he was told, herding her towards his bedroom with his body pressed close against hers, making her giggle as he nipped at the parts of her neck he could reach. He didn’t let up when they made it to his bed, touching parts of Laurel’s body that she couldn’t remember being touched, kissing her skin and setting every nerve on fire.

Laurel tried to return the favour, though she was distracted by the way her body was reacting to Quinn and his touches so the best she could hope for was that he was getting pleasure just by giving pleasure to her.

Her legs were weak after multiple orgasms but she was able to make her way into the bathroom, Quinn following her in soon after. He didn’t take as long as she did, happy to just rinse off, kiss her lazily, and disappear back to bed with half-lidded eyes.

All of her toiletries looked strange sitting on his counter, taking up more space than anything else on there, but she was too sated and too tired to think about it any further.

Laurel slipped under the covers, rolling her eyes a little at how quickly Quinn had started to fall asleep; he was laying on his back with his eyes closed and the duvet pulled up to his chest. Laurel lied beside him, facing him and taking him in.

“What made you ask me to stay over?”

“Long road trip,” Quinn said, mumbled and half asleep. “Was gonna miss you.”

She didn’t know whether that statement was surprising or not, or if it was the honesty it was said with that made her heart squeeze in her chest. Laurel wormed her way under Quinn’s arm and into his side, raising her head just enough to kiss the underside of his jaw before she snuggled into him.

“You can call me. While you’re gone.”

He squeezed her.

“I will."

Laurel walked from her place to Quinn’s straight from work. He’d called during her lunch break to ask if she wanted to have dinner with him—maybe even stay over again—and Laurel hadn’t been able to refuse. They’d talked through his road trip mostly via text except for a phone call when he was in Florida to confirm that he was in fact not in Miami.

None of it really made sense to Laurel. Never had she been the type of person to be in constant contact with her… with the person she was seeing, but Quinn seemed to have no concerns about taking things too quickly or seriously.

She’d asked Karina for help after the phone call, desperately trying to figure out what it all meant, whether she needed to be thinking further ahead than the next day if Quinn was going to keep things the way they were.

“You’re worrying that he likes you too much?” Karina had asked, her disbelief playful but prominent. “I wish I had that problem at your age—hell, even five years ago I would have killed for that problem.”

“It’s too serious for being twenty-two.”

Karina’s laugh shocked Laurel, who truly had not been expecting it. “Laurel, sweetheart, none of this has anything to do with age.”

That didn’t help her at all.

There was no surprise home cooking waiting for her when she arrived at his door which she was quick to tease him for mostly because he had a very nice kitchen that it definitely was being wasted with him being away so often.

“I was thinking burgers and I can’t make them half as nice as the place around the corner,” Quinn said, watching Laurel from the opposite side of the kitchen counter.

She placed both her hands on the cool marble and narrowed her eyes playfully, “Are we eating here or are you taking me out, Huggy Bear?”

“I thought you’d forgotten about that,” he said with an eyeroll, his cheeks turning a nice shade of red.

“I’ve been thinking about it since that night at the bar. I don’t—why?”

“Hughes, the first three letters. It’s actually one of the more unique nicknames in hockey.”

“Are they all surname based?”

“Mostly, yeah. I should probably be Hughesy or something.”

“Not Quinny?” she teased, leaning further across the table.

“So,” Quinn said, taking a deep breath. “Quinn is technically a nickname—it’s short for Quintin.”

Laurel’s eyes widened, her head tilting ever-so-slightly as the corner of her mouth tilted up, and she said, “Is that a family name?”

“Yes,” he said, also around a smile. He then added, walking back towards his front door, “We’re going out for dinner.”

He extended his hand and Laurel didn’t think twice before she took it and let Quinn lead her out onto the street. He didn’t let her hand go when they made it onto the street like Laurel expected. She couldn’t put into words why she expected him to let go, just flexed her fingers around his and delighted in the way he swung their hands back and forth a few times.

Quinn didn’t let go until he found them a seat inside the restaurant but they sat beside each other on a bench seat, their legs pressed together tightly from knee to hip.

“Did you declare a major?” Laurel asked, midway through a story Quinn was telling about his college experience, when she realised that she hadn’t ever asked.

“Sports Management.”

Laurel hummed, “What does that let you do?”

“Become an agent, mostly, but it’d get you on the path to managing a team, too.”

“That’s what you want to do?”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug, Laurel watched him curiously, waiting for him to elaborate. It took a while, a few fries being pushed into his mouth, before he finally answered, “I just want to play hockey.”

The conversation fell off there, Laurel just nodding even as her brain ticked over. Athletes and their short careers—their lack of preparation for life after sports—were a topic that fascinated her despite her general disinterest in sports. She recognised that if it was a conversation they were going to have, it needed to come much later in their relationship. Mostly for her own sanity.

Their otherwise quiet meal was interrupted by a birthday in the restaurant, and a raucous rendition of Happy Birthday was being sung to some poor man named Nathan who looked very much like he’d rather be anywhere else but sitting in front of a birthday cake.

“When’s your birthday?” Quinn asked when the noise settled.

“The third.”

A range of emotions crossed his face in a matter of seconds, and his voice was tighter than she’d heard it when he asked, “Of January?”

She smiled softly, placing her hand on his thigh reassuringly as she said, “Feb. It’s in like two weeks.”

The panic on Quinn’s face didn’t disappear, despite Laurel’s best efforts. “I don’t know if I’m going to be here.”

“I’m not worried about it. I don’t really do birthdays, so, if you aren’t here, it’s fine.”

Quinn checked his schedule, then, despite Laurel’s insistence that she didn’t care about her birthday, and radiated happiness and relief when it showed he’d be in Vancouver. She smiled at him, less sincerely than before, but at least happy that he was happy.

Quinn was home for her birthday.

It wasn’t something she’d given much thought to, really, because he’d been talking to her about plans for the Thursday evening—her actual birthday—and then for the weekend pretty consistently since he found out that her birthday was so soon.

It wasn’t until the week before her birthday, when he disappeared on a long road trip, that she realised that she was lucky he’d be around at all let alone be around for an entire weekend. If she had been born one week earlier, he would have been playing in Winnipeg.

When they’d spoken about it for the first time, Laurel had been telling the truth when she told him she wouldn’t have been bothered if he was away—that had changed when she realised that there was every possibility that he might have missed it. He’d made her excited for something she hadn’t cared about in years.

Laurel was dressed up nicely in her most expensive dress pants and a top that was probably too low cut—but it showed off the body chain she rarely got the chance to wear—and sitting on the bench in her building’s lobby as she waited for Quinn. Wherever they were headed to was within walking distance according to Quinn, but Laurel had no measure for how far he considered walking distance. She laid her winter coat over her lap and tapped her heels against the tiled floor.

Quinn waved at her through the glass door and she could see that his cheeks were slightly red from the cold despite the beanie on his head and the scarf around his neck.

“Happy birthday,” he said sweetly when she walked outside, and Laurel kissed him immediately, then tapped his nose because it was so cold against hers.

She tugged the scarf tighter around his neck, then lifted it up so it covered the bottom half of his face—resulting in a laugh as he spluttered bits of fluff—before she rushed to put her coat on before she lost all feeling in her upper body.

They started walking back in the direction Quinn came from, their hands linked, and Laurel bit back her comment about how she could have met him wherever they were going if he’d gone out his way, only because he’d insisted that it was a surprise.

And a surprise it was.

They arrived at Elisa and Laurel’s jaw dropped. Quinn noticed but only smiled at her as he led them inside.

It took a lot to make Laurel speechless, and Elisa could definitely be described as a lot. While it didn’t look overly fancy, not in the try hard way Laurel usually associated with fine dining, she still felt out of place as they were walked through the restaurant to a relatively secluded table.

“Have you ever been here before?” Quinn asked one they were seated and the waiter had disappeared to fetch a bottle of wine.

“No,” Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve never been here.”

Quinn was quite pleased with himself, judging by the way his lips turned upwards.

When the wine arrived, Laurel wished she had any appreciation for it. It was undoubtedly better—smoother, at least—than the various bottles she’d bought over the years, but she could see other people in the room swirling it in the glass before drinking it slowly. She took an inappropriately large mouthful and hoped nobody but Quinn saw.

Staring at the menu made her uncomfortable. The price tags next to them made her skin itch and her purse hurt at the thought of what the bill would be at the end of the night. Maybe Quinn would just let her pay for her meal and not expect her to split it evenly down the middle.

“Anything you like?” Quinn asked, his foot tapping the side of hers under the table to get her full attention.

“The cauliflower sounds nice,” Laurel said, trying to keep her voice steady but she was also trying to remember to breathe so it wasn’t very convincing.

“Are you a vegetarian?” Quinn asked, his eyes wide. “I should probably know that by now.”

“No, Quinn, we had burgers together the last time we saw each other.”

“Then you can be a bit more adventurous than a crispy cauliflower starter.”

“Quinn,” Laurel whispered, leaning forward so that nobody else would hear her, “this is the exact restaurant my college friends and I would joke about only being able to afford if we became sugar babies or gold diggers. I can’t afford anything else on this menu.”

“But I can,” he said, as if that wasn’t already abundantly clear to Laurel. “I’m not gonna make you pay for a date anyway, definitely not on your birthday.”

Still leaning forward, she frowned, “You’re just going to ignore the gold digger bit.”

“If you were with me for my money, I think I’d know it by now.”

Laurel wasn’t going to debate with him in the middle of Elise that six weeks was not enough time for him to know—it certainly wasn’t enough time for him to take her to Elise for her birthday. But they were there. It would be rude to walk out.

“Next time we go out we can get tacos or something,” Quinn suggested, sounding a little worried. “But I want you to order what you really want. Live your sugar daddy dream, or whatever.”

Relaxing back into her seat, she couldn’t help but laugh at Quinn’s statement, at the serious expression on his face as he said it. She clarified with him that he was sure that he could take back what he’d said up until she told the waiter her order. Quinn assured her that he wasn’t going to do such a thing, especially not on her birthday.

The weekend following Laurel’s birthday was the All-Star Game, and Laurel was resigned to watching more hockey than she ever had in her life. It wasn’t real hockey, Quinn explained, and she didn’t really watch but it was on in the background at Quinn’s place so it was unavoidable.

When it was finally over, they were cuddled on the couch watching Black Summer when Quinn’s phone interrupted them. Laurel pulled away from him enough to let him take it off the coffee table. At first it appeared that he was going to silence it, but as he leant back into the couch Laurel noticed the furrow of his brow when it became clear it was a FaceTime call.

“Can I—” he cut himself off and his brow got even tighter, the worry so evident on his face that Laurel felt worry well up inside her.

“Yeah, go ahead,” she said softly, pausing the show and putting her hand on his thigh and squeezing just to remind him that he was there.

He answered the call, holding his breath, and answered it with, “Should I be worried?”

The man on the other end was smiling, everything around him so loud that his greeting was barely intelligible. “I don’t know how to tell you this, bud, but I think Jack and Daisy are getting married.”

“They wouldn’t.”

The camera switched around on Quinn’s friend’s side, revealing what was undoubtedly a Vegas wedding chapel with a young couple standing at the altar staring into each other’s eyes so dreamily Laurel flinched. Jack and Daisy, presumably.

“You got any other ideas about what’s happening here?”

Quinn quickly started a screen recording, even if his fingers fumbled through it and accidentally turned low battery mode on and his flashlight in the control centre first.

“Did you know about this? Before today?”

“Yeah, I knew about it and didn’t even ask you if you were showing up for it. Of course, I didn’t fucking know,” Brady argued, only to promptly get shushed by someone sitting next to him.

Laurel reached over to mute Quinn’s microphone, so that she could say, “That’s Daisy? She’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah, she’s always been pretty,” Quinn agreed, readily. Easily. “Still don’t know how Jack managed to land her, let alone keep her, let alone marry her. Mom’s gonna actually murder him. I might.”

Laurel—who had never been close to her family and always imagined that one day she would just see her family again with a wedding ring and a spouse—didn’t totally understand why Quinn was so upset. She’d heard him talk about his family enough to know that they were incredibly important to him but she still couldn’t wrap her head around it.

They watched in silence as the ceremony continued. It was generic and, truthfully, lacklustre as far as weddings went until Jack admitted that it wasn’t real, just a joke, and then landed on one knee. Laurel couldn’t hear anything from the phone that wasn’t just loud noises and the video itself was a nauseating combination of colours and movement.

“Fucking little shit,” Quinn mumbled under his breath, clearly relieved.

“Did you know he was going to propose?” Laurel asked. “Obviously not right now.”

“He got the ring about a week ago. Started planning it before Christmas but only picked it up last week. He told me he didn’t know when he was going to propose.”

Laurel hummed, leaning back into the couch as Quinn turned his microphone back on just as Jack and Daisy very much looked like they were seconds away from a full-on sex show in front of all their friends.

“I’m gonna send this to my mom,” Quinn said—Laurel wasn’t sure he could even be heard over the insanity on the other end. “I’ll call you later.”

With the call ended and the video sent to his mother, Quinn sat on the couch and stared blankly at the frozen zombie on the television.

“Are you happy, sad or mad?” she asked tentatively, giving his thigh another squeeze.

“Don’t know. I always knew that they’d probably get there before I did but didn’t really think it’d be before Jack was even 21.”

Laurel moved closer to him, pressing herself closer to Quinn; she had no idea what to say about him, about Jack, about marriage in general.

She was truly out of her depth.

Laurel was halfway out the door when Hayley stepped out of the elevator. Laurel waited at the door, holding it open so that Hayley wouldn’t have to get her key out.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess,” Laurel laughed, noting the flowers Hayley was carrying.

Hayley’s eyes fell to the bag hanging from Laurel’s hand. She said, cold and emotionless, “You have to give me notice if you’re moving out. You can’t just stop paying rent.”

“Did the money not go through?” Laurel asked, immediately reaching into her pocket for her phone to check her bank account. “I swear I saw it worked.”

“It did—calm down,” Hayley said, sweeter than she’s been speaking before. “Just—you’ve been spending a lot of time at your boyfriend’s—”

Laurel, hyper aware that she was heading over to Quinn’s yet again, hastily denied the accusation. “We haven’t been together that long. We haven’t even had the exclusive talk yet.”

“Just give me some time to find someone to move in,” Hayley said, slowly, and Laurel knew for certain that she wasn’t believed.

“Yeah, of course,” Laurel said, just as slowly, but more concerned. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

With a simple nod, and an instruction to have fun, Hayley disappeared inside and Laurel was left to walk to Quinn’s—left to overthink the specifics of her relationship with him and the possibility of those specifics being defined when she arrived at his place.

The bouquet of roses lying on the kitchen counter shouldn’t have surprised her as much as they did.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, his smile proud.

Laurel picked up the bouquet as she passed it, her heart beating so rapidly and thunderously that she could hear it in her ears. She hadn’t expected anything at all—which she realised was silly after Quinn had gone all out for her birthday—after receiving nothing of the sort from any relationship she’d been in.

“Thank you, Quinn,” whispered, stepping into his arms with the bouquet carefully tucked between them. “Is it a stupid question if I ask if we’re exclusive?”

“I—” Quinn paused before he started laughing, the vibration running through Laurel. “I’ve been telling people you’re my girlfriend.”

“You forgot to tell me, though.” She added, a little petulantly but mostly in a longing whisper, “You didn’t even ask me.”

Quinn asked, with all the seriousness of a fifteen-year-old asking their crush to prom in front of their entire class, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

Warmth filled Laurel’s cheeks and she buried her face into his chest, unsure if she was embarrassed that she didn’t know or embarrassed by how giddy it made her feel.

It was late, much later than Laurel usually slept in even after a big night. She could tell it was late without even looking at her phone because her body always had a visceral reaction to waking any later than 8am.

Quinn was saying her name softly and Laurel hummed before her eyes opened—she was always instantly awake.

“You let me sleep in,” she mumbled unhappily.

“You need it,” he said softly. “I have to go to practice. You can stay here.”

“Practice?” Laurel asked, her eyes screwing shut in confusion. “It’s a Saturday.”

Quinn’s laugh was gentle and Laurel looked up to see his face soft; he didn’t have to say anything for her to know that she’d said something wrong.

“No weekends in hockey.”

“They should give you weekends.”

“I’ll give you the commissioner’s number and you can lodge a direct complaint.”

Laurel smiled at him, reeled him in by the hand and kissed him—he didn’t seem to have any complaints about morning breath but the hint of mint on his lips was a nice little zing to wake up to.

He left shortly after, unswayed by her attempts to lure him back into bed, and Laurel stared up at his ceiling wondering exactly how long he spent at practice.

She showered and then tried not to feel weird about raiding his kitchen while he wasn’t home; tried not to feel weird about being in his apartment while he wasn’t home.

Nothing in the apartment had been kept secret from her, so she didn’t think she’d get any major insight into Quinn’s life by snooping through the chest of drawers he’d been letting her pull shirts out of since the first day.

Laurel made a bagel with cream cheese, afraid to do much more lest she damage Quinn’s very nice kitchen and sat down in front of the television. As she ate, she opened her phone and noticed overnight she’d picked up a few more Instagram followers which she attributed to the photo of her birthday outfit.

Weirder were the random comments she’d gotten on a few of her older photos, all of which were the same person commenting on how chubby Laurel’s cheeks were. Prominent buccal fat ran in the family; there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Her attention was immediately drawn away, though, by a comment she saw on a new post of Daisy’s—Jack’s girlfriend who she’d followed after Quinn wouldn’t stop talking about her in stories from his life in Michigan.

She pondered it, forgot about it as she turned her attention to re-watching Desperate Housewives, and only remembered when Quinn walked through the door after practice, his hair still wet.

“Why is Elena Rubio commenting on Daisy’s Insta posts?” she asked, not even greeting Quinn properly. “Why are people acting like it’s normal? She’s really famous.”

Quinn leant down to kiss her, hovering above her where she was tucked up onto the couch.

He shrugged. “Jack played half a season with Elena’s boyfriend. She and Daisy kept in touch.”

Kneeling up on the couch cushion and leaning over the back of the couch, Laurel watched Quinn potter around for a few moments before her thoughts won out and she asked, “Do you know how insane that is? Elena Rubio has won Oscars. Plural.”

His head tilted. “Okay?”

“Is knowing famous people common? You don’t seem to think that’s a big deal.”

“Not really? People know people, and if they’re hockey fans then they’re easier to become friends with. Hockey players are sort of famous.”

“Well, yeah, in very specific circles but Elena Rubio is a household name worldwide. She’s like Angelina Jolie or Sandra Bullock.”

“Carrie Underwood married a guy who played in Nashville but I don’t pay attention to it—you could probably google it.”

Laurel did just that, sitting back down on the couch and opening her phone. The results were middling—Vanessa from the original incarnation of Gossip Girl was dating a player, there was something about a WWE Diva once being married to a player, a moderately famous model named Lola Faraday, and a bunch of other women who only loosely fit Laurel’s definition of ‘celebrity’.

The couch dipped beside her; Quinn peaked over her shoulder to see what she was looking at.

“What makes it so interesting?”

“I don’t know,” Laurel said truthfully. “You’re hot professional athletes in your physical prime, it wouldn’t have surprised me if there was a never ending list of players dating singers or models or actresses—the lists seem to be quite old, though, and filled with a bunch of celebrities I haven’t heard of.”

“Do you think I should go shoot my shot with a celebrity?” Quinn asked, tongue in cheek.

The panic that flared inside Laurel was unusual, a jealousy she couldn’t ever remember experiencing before. She hoped the panic wasn’t audible in her voice, “I can’t compete with a celebrity, so no.”

“You can compete.”

“Sure,” Laurel said with an unconvinced hum.

Quinn’s arm wrapped around her shoulder and he pulled her closer, kissing the side of her head instead of arguing against her. Laurel didn’t doubt that he believed what he was saying, even if she didn’t think it was the truth.

“Some people aren’t very nice to Daisy,” Laurel said, frowning as she scrolled deeper down the comments left on Daisy’s post. “They’re actually kind of awful. She’s not even remotely fat but they’re talking about her as if she’s literally a beached whale—that’s an actual whale emoji. Oh my god. She knows how to deal with this?”

“Uh,” Quinn hesitated. “Depends what day it is? Some days she fights back, other days she ignores it and Jack’s told me there are some days that are full of tears.”

“God, people are so awful,” Laurel sighed, turning off her phone and throwing it on the other couch so she would stop looking at it.

Settling into Quinn’s side was the only thing she could think to do, hung up on the idea of anyone going to the effort to be so unashamedly horrible.

“Do you want to come to a game next week?”

Laurel paused, putting down the knife in her hand, and turned to face Quinn. He looked as awkward as ever standing in her kitchen, his hands buried deep in his pockets and his shoulders up around his ears.

“Do you want me to come?” she asked carefully. “I’m not interested in hockey so if given the choice I will say no, but, if you want me there, I want to support you and I will go.”

Quinn’s face shuttered, his shoulders somehow raising even higher. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Quinn,” Laurel said firmly, “do you want me to watch you play hockey?”

“Well, yeah,” he said, resigned. “Course I do.”

With her most convincing nod and her kindest smile, despite her intense disinterest, Laurel assured him, “Tell me when and what I have to do and I’ll be there.”

It was enough to relax Quinn’s shoulders, bringing them back to their normal position. “It’s against Jack on the 15th; you can sit with my mom and Daisy.”

Laurel’s shoulders ended up around her ears, instead, any pleasure she’d gained from making Quinn happy disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. He was still watching her, no apprehension, completely unaware that his request was far outside of Laurel’s comfort zone.

“Your mom, Quinn?” She hesitated. “I don’t—do I have to?”

His discomfort returned, tenfold it looked like to Laurel though she didn’t have much time to read his expression before he was turning his back to her and walking towards his bedroom.

“I—I guess not,” he said, though it was muffled. With his back to her, she was only able to hear it because the otherwise silent apartment was suffocating. “I just thought it’d be nice.”

With careful footsteps, Laurel followed Quinn into the bedroom but stopped in the door and watched as he moved aimlessly. She couldn’t find a single intention to anything he was doing, just opening and closing drawers, moving things around on his nightstand and tidying the bed they’d already made.

“Quinn?” Laurel asked after a few minutes of stifling silence.

“Yeah?” He lifted his head; the false nonchalance he was projecting made her uncomfortable.

“I just think it’s a bit soon,” she explained in a whisper. “Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

There was no sign that it actually was okay just as there was no sign that he was going to engage in a conversation that might get it there, so Laurel sighed and left him to fiddle.

It was too early for her to head to work and she wanted some sort of resolution before she disappeared. There was a realisation that it might have been their first ‘fight’ but that didn’t concern her half as much as the thought that it might have been her first ever fight in a relationship—that, despite the short length of it, nothing had ever come close to what she had with Quinn. None of that was anything she wanted to deal with inside a hospital. The self-realisations and growth inside those walls were best left to the patients she was discharging.

Not that there was anything she could do about it when finishing up the fruit salad she’d been making for her lunch—she was already planning the conversation she would have with Karina while eating it.

Quinn didn’t reappear until the salad was packed away and the dishes were washed but he didn’t say a single word as he started moving around in the kitchen in much the same way he’d done in his bedroom.

“Are you going to be in a mood for the rest of the day?” Laurel asked, trying to keep the accusatory edge out of her voice. “I said I’d go to the game.”

“I don’t know any other guy who’s had to beg their girlfriend to come to a game.”

“You didn’t beg, you asked. You know I’m not into hockey.”

“And you won’t meet my mom.”

A burst of panic in her chest caused Laurel to freeze and she barely managed to ask, “Can I do one thing at a time?”

“I don’t know when she’s going to be back in town.”

“I’m not ready for that.”

“Okay,” Quinn said shortly.

His phone started to ring and he didn’t hesitate to leave her standing in the kitchen. He mumbled something along the lines of Jack’s got it so fucking easy as he retreated back to his bedroom.

Laurel, at a total loss and about two minutes away from just leaving for the day, decided to drop down onto the couch heavily and check the notification she’d gotten on her phone when she was starting her cooking. It was another random comment from someone she’d never heard of, who she couldn’t see had any followers in common—this one wasn’t an attack on her cheeks but on the birthday post that people seemed to be most drawn to, on the outfit she’d felt very good about.

The comment didn’t make her feel as good.

Quinn returned much more sombre than he had been when he left. Laurel had expected a frosty remainder of the morning with minimal communication and even less physical contact before she left for work, but he sat down right beside her on the couch.

“I’m happy you’re coming to a game,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

“Is everything alright?” Laurel asked, not even sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

He sighed, though it didn’t sound particularly sad, “Yeah. Everything’s fine. Just didn’t expect to hear from Jack today.”

Rogers Place was daunting and Laurel wasn’t prepared.

She was late, to start with, rushing from work and through a sea of people wearing Canucks jerseys, and incredibly flustered by the time she reached the security guard and had to scramble through her purse for her ID while he stared at her, just waiting for the moment he could tell her to turn around.

The crowd was raucous by the time she was standing outside the box she’d been led to—she’d shirked the security guard when they arrived, refusing to let him open the door before she was ready. That didn’t end up mattering, though, because as she was taking a deep breath and reaching forward to open the door, someone appeared beside her.

That someone she recognised as the woman who had tattooed the cat onto her forearm. Annie, who Quinn had told her would be waiting.

“Hey! Laurel, right? I didn’t think you’d make it,” Annie said, moving past Laurel to open the door and reveal the box, and the ice.

“Hi, yeah. Annie?” Laurel clarified, even though she’d be hard pressed to mistake the tattoos and lavender pixie cut. “I got held up at work.”

“Don’t worry about it; we’ve all been there. Come in and meet the gang.”

‘The gang’ was an assortment of partners whose names Laurel immediately forgot, and a few small children Laurel did her best to avoid. They were all very welcoming, at least, and yet she got the distinct feeling that they were putting on a show for her as the New WAG.

“Have you been to many hockey games?” Annie asked when they were sitting.

“No,” Laurel answered, probably too stiffly, and she forced her hands under her thighs. The wool tights she was wearing were too hot for the suite. “This is actually my first one. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Good first game to come to; you get to watch Quinn play against his brother,” said someone who wasn’t Annie—the captain’s wife, potentially. That as a name Laurel would definitely need to learn about later.

Annie added, “I even think Jack’s girlfriend is here.”

“Yeah,” Laurel said, focusing very hard on not sounding bitter. “She’s sitting with their mother.”

“You didn’t want to sit with them?”

The focus on trying not to sound bitter shifted to not gritting her teeth. The suite really was too hot, and the attention on her was only making it worse. Laurel wished that everyone would just turn around and watch the game that had started, but every eye was focused on her, waiting for an answer.

It bothered her enough that she rushed out her answer without really thinking about it, “It’s way too early to meet his mother, and I don’t quite know how to broach the topic of Daisy.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked, looking out over the ice presumably to where Daisy and Quinn’s mom might have been.

The captain’s wife was leaning in closer, too, as if it was something she would need to deal with—or something she would need to report back to the captain. Laurel didn’t know; she could assume, though.

“I don’t know,” Laurel sighed. The flood gates of her annoyance were opened. “Sometimes it just feels like there’s more than one Hughes brother who’s in love with her.”

Annie scoffed, loudly, in horror, “Quinn would never. She’s basically his little sister.”

“That’s what he says but sometimes it’s just… I don’t know.” Laurel tried to shrug, not only was it hindered by her hands being shoved under her legs but it was just weak in general, her attempt at playing it off falling flat.

“You have to ask him direct questions about it. Hockey players aren’t that bright.”

“That’s a gross overgeneralisation,” Laurel said, her annoyance swiftly moving on. She didn’t take her eyes off the game, even if she lost track of the puck every other second and had no idea where Quinn was or if he was even on the ice.

“They’re not; they’ll tell you that,” Annie said, laughter in her voice. “Too many hits to the head.”

“Quinn went to college and he’s not the only one.” Laurel finally looked at Annie and didn’t want to think about the fire in her own eyes. “You shouldn’t just label them all as dumb like that. It’s really harmful.”

“It’s just a joke,” Annie said slowly—the fire in Laurel’s eyes clearly worse than even she’d expected. “One that they’re in on.”

“I think they deserve more credit. I’m going to use the bathroom.”

Laurel stared at herself in the mirror and let the faucet run with cold water she wished she could splash on her face. It wasn’t the first impression she’d been hoping for. All she wanted was to meet a couple of people, learn one thing about hockey and leave without any other fuss—it had been nothing but optimistic.

In lieu of using the water to cool down her cheeks, Laurel ripped off some paper towel, held it under the faucet before ringing it out and pressing it to the back of her neck. Goosebumps ran down her arms but the relief was incredible.

The very last thing she wanted to do was re-enter the suite and if she hadn’t promised Quinn she’d stay until the end of the game she would have made her way home. As it were, she had made that promise so she put on her bravest face, opened the door and found a seat at the back from which she could still see the ice.

She remained in that same seat until the end of the third period, not even moving for the intermissions. The final buzzer went, though, and Laurel was on her feet and out the door. Navigating the crowd on the way out was worse than on the way in.

Quinn had given her a key to his apartment after Laurel reiterated that she was not ready to meet his mother and would under no circumstances be doing that outside the locker room after the game. The key felt out of place in her bag and it was a relief to leave it on the counter as she passed through the kitchen.

By the time he got home Laurel was showered, changed into her pyjamas and once again reading strange Instagram comments. He wasn’t acting any weirder than when she left for work that morning, so she assumed nobody had told him about her Ice Queen routine. Or the comment she made about him maybe being in love with Daisy.

She was more willing to share one than the other.

“How’d it go? We won for you.”

“I noticed.” That was a little heartwarming, she had to admit. “Thank you.”

In next to no time, Quinn was undressed and laying beside her. He was nothing but sincere as he asked, “How was it?”

“I don’t think I made many friends.” She stared up at the ceiling, her phone left to fall somewhere beside her.

“Why’s that?”

“Annie made a comment about hockey players being stupid and I told her she shouldn’t make sweeping generalisations.”

Entirely unexpectedly, Quinn laughed. “To be fair, we are pretty dumb.”

Laurel sat up, already feeling the annoyance of earlier that evening returning. Quinn watched her with wide, confused eyes.

“You went to college.”

“For two years. I didn’t even graduate.”

“Graduating isn’t the only metric of intelligence,” Laurel said pointedly. She turned her body so that she was directly facing him, not just craning her neck.

“Going to college isn’t either. I didn’t go to college because I was smart, I went because UMich has a great hockey program.”

He reached out for her, to take her hand across the duvet, but she moved away to hold it against her chest.

Her heart had no reason to be thumping as hard as it was, yet she couldn’t deny the stress in her voice when she asked,“So you’re just happy to let people think you’re stupid? No debating it?”

“What does it matter if a few people think I’m stupid?”

“Isn’t Annie your friend?” Laurel questioned, baffled. If any of her friends had taken to belittling her intelligence behind her back, whether it was true or not, reconsidering their friendship would be instantaneous.

“Why is it so important to you?” Quinn’s voice was filled with a simmering rage that she hadn’t heard since their fight about her going to the game. “It sounds like being smart is the only important thing in the world.”

“I’ve watched really bright kids be pushed to the side because their parents decided that all their kids were dumb,” Laurel pressed, her own voice strained, “maybe because the parents themselves aren’t very intelligent. Maybe none of them were ever given the opportunity. I’m not saying that everyone is or needs to be the smartest in the room; I’m saying it’s harmful to just say that all hockey players are dumb because guys aren’t even going to try.”

Quinn’s brows pulled together, what he said next clearly very obvious to him, “They don’t have to try. As long as they’re good at hockey.”

The ire in Laurel’s body collapsed into sadness—disappointment, maybe—and she tried to convey her desperation to him with just a look. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

“Quinn, you know that this has to end. Some players will be out of hockey before they’re twenty-five, right? If they truly think they’re stupid because that’s what they’ve been told their entire life then what hope do they have of being successful in anything else? All they’re good at is hockey, right? What’s Jack going to do?”

“I don’t—” Quinn sighed. “This isn’t a fight I want to have, Laurel.”

Laurel shuffled down the bed, turning her back to him and pulling herself to the edge of the mattress.

“Okay.”

Laurel had, in a fit of guilt, agreed to spend time with Daisy while Quinn took his mother to breakfast. Jack was well on his way to the next city and Laurel didn’t want to be the reason that Daisy spent the morning alone, so she said yes to cooking them breakfast.

It was the only time Laurel could remember being ungrateful for the extra days off afforded to her at work.

Quinn didn’t even stick around to wait for Daisy to arrive so he could introduce them—though Laurel did expect that if he had, Daisy would have arrived with Quinn’s mom and defeated the whole purpose of the separate breakfast.

So, Daisy arrived shortly after Quinn left, and Laurel just stood to one side in the kitchen as Daisy talked a mile a minute, introducing herself and depositing a grocery bag of pancake ingredients and topping onto the counter.

She beamed at Laurel when it was all out and neatly organised: “Pancakes?”

“Pancakes,” Laurel agreed, much more subdued.

“I know Quinn tried to get you to sit with us last night,” Daisy said as she opened some drawers to find bowls and measuring cups that Laurel didn’t even know Quinn owned. “He shouldn’t have tried to put you in the middle of all that.”

“All what? Do you and his mother not get along?” Laurel asked, stunned at how casual Daisy was. “I don’t mean to pry, sorry.”

Daisy shook her head, “We get along great, emotions have just been really high since I—oh wow, this still isn’t easy to talk about. The—you know. Planned Parenthood and all that.”

Laurel paused. “I didn’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Oh,” Daisy said, though it didn’t seem that her own pause was because she’d revealed something she hadn’t meant to. “Jack said you were together when they spoke last week so I figured.”

“No but I guess that explains why his mood shifted so suddenly that morning. Are you—are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just feel stupid that we let it happen in the first place.”

“That’s the word of the day apparently. It probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, but you aren’t stupid. Shit happens and sometimes it’s not fucking fun. You’ve just gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Thanks, Laurel,” Daisy said with a smile so sincere Laurel inwardly flinched. “It does mean a lot.”

Needing something to do with her hands and distract herself from the entirely unexpected seriousness of the conversation, grabbed at the lemons to cut them up and juice them.

Thankfully the conversation was kept light while they cooked—even lighter when the first pancake came out burnt in a phenomenon that upset them both because they agreed the test pancake is most definitely the best pancake.

Daisy was fine, Laurel decided. That did little to assuage her worries that Quinn was in love with Daisy, of course, but it was hardly Daisy’s fault if he was. The way she spoke about Jack made it clear that she wasn’t leaving him for anyone, though, which did ease some of the concerns.

They sat down at the dining table to eat, setting it with way too many toppings for the two of them, and Laurel got whiplash when Daisy jumped back into the heavy conversation without any preamble.

“Ellen doesn’t know yet—or she might now but she definitely didn’t last night. I just thought you didn’t want to sit with us in case you accidentally spilled the beans.”

“I’m not ready to meet his parents yet. We’ve only been official since Valentine’s Day—it’s been a month.” Laurel pushed a piece of pancake through the lemon juice on her plate without looking up.

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t really think about that. Jack and I were in high school, so parents were kind of unavoidable. I’ve never had to deal with it being too soon. They’re good people, Ellen and Jim. Helped me through a lot even when Jack and I were brand new.”

Laurel nodded, still not looking up from her plate. She didn’t have anything else to say; she couldn’t argue that they were bad people when she’d never met them. She also didn’t feel like spilling her life story to Daisy.

It wasn’t a problem Daisy had, though. She wasn’t at all bothered by Laurel’s silence, just filled it easily with the revelation that her mother had passed away when she was in elementary school. Until Ellen came along, Daisy said with the most well-adjusted ease Laurel had ever come across, she didn’t have a maternal figure to help her through the day-to-day aspects of growing up.

Laurel sat in place, stewing over her own mother being physically present but emotionally distant, and wondered, not for the first time, if it wouldn’t have been easier to run away to live with her father. Maybe his third wife would have been a better mother.

Things had calmed down quite considerably after Quinn was able to spend time with Ellen. Laurel decided that the pressure he’d put on her about them meeting stemmed more from him missing Ellen more than it did from being desperate for them to meet.

Laurel hadn’t been to any more games. Quinn didn’t put any pressure on her for the other games that week—taking her comments that she hadn’t made any friends in stride, saying that they could try again whenever Laurel wanted—and then he’d disappeared on a weeklong road trip.

She was really hating road trips, and not just because she had to return to the tiny apartment she shared with someone she only liked half the time.

Missing Quinn as much as she did hadn’t become normal yet, in fact it was getting worse every time he left.

She spent a lot of time on Instagram while he was gone—the influx in followers and comments was getting increasingly more aggressive, steadily rising each and every day. For someone who had never put too much stock into what other people did or said on social media, Laurel was taking them all very seriously.

Quinn caught on when he got home and his eyes had flickered to her screen more than a couple times. There was nothing for her to try and hide, so she hadn’t thought twice about him seeing what she was doing, or even telling him about the sudden uptick.

That was a mistake, though, she soon realised, when he immediately tensed up and said, “I’m calling Annie.”

“Why would you call Annie?” Laurel asked, turning off the screen and hiding the phone behind her leg as if he’d change his mind.

“Because they’ve found you and I don’t—I need—How long?”

Laurel hesitated to answer, and settled on a not-entirely-truthful, “It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Right. We’ll get them to stop.”

And so, Laurel ended up sitting in a very nice living of a very nice house, opposite Annie and her lavender hair, her tattoos and a resting bitch face that Laurel was actually quite jealous of. It was enough to put her on the back foot immediately.

“I know that I wasn’t the nicest or whatever, at the game. I’m sorry. I get preachy and a lot of people don’t like being preached at,” she conceded, her head hanging low.

“If it was a little less preachy,” Annie said, her voice much lighter than Laurel had expected, “we’d probably agree about most stuff.”

Laurel wasn’t actually sure if Quinn had briefed Annie on why he’d brought her over; he hadn’t said a whole lot while they were driving away from downtown and into the suburbs of Vancouver. The silence left her pondering exactly what Quinn had found so serious about it all, so serious that he couldn’t even tell her why he wanted her to talk to Annie.

“I kind of need help, though? If I’m not pushing my luck. I’m gaining Insta followers like crazy and I don’t know these people. They’re commenting on my photos and my stories and sending me messages. Quinn seems to think it’s a big deal.”

Annie bristled, her back straightening so immediately that Laurel flinched. Her question was filled with exasperation and defeat, “You have a public account?”

“Uh, yeah? Don’t most people?”

Annie sighed.

“First things first—make it private. Once it’s private, you block everybody you don’t know so that they unfollow you. The photos currently on the account are already out in the world but we can at least stop new ones from getting out.”

Laurel let the words sink in, trying to make sense of them as well as trying to make sense of how serious Annie looked—the resting bitch face had shifted to determined and a little frightened.

It frightened Laurel that she squeaked out, “Getting out?”

“Fuck, you really don’t get it. You’re a WAG now, so there’s a subset of fans who care about you and they care too much. Sometimes they’re just really nice and respect that you’re human and have feelings and then there’s the psychos who send you hate mail.”

As she was speaking, Annie opened up her own phone and Googled her name—the first results, predictably were related to her tattoo artist career but as she scrolled a little further she put her phone down on the table so that Laurel could see every link that followed that was slightly off-kilter.

It was all disjointed but exactly as Annie had said. Various photos of Annie were splashed across Twitter or Tumblr, with or without Brock, and the accompanying comments that moved between complimentary and taking cheap shots at how little Annie weighed, or the ever-changing colour of her hair, or the state of her tattoos.

It wasn’t dissimilar to some of the comments Laurel had seen on Daisy’s Instagram—or the one she’d seen on her own.

With her heart in her stomach, Laurel said, “They like to go for my cheeks.”

“Your cheeks?” Annie asked, her voice and face softening.

“They won’t shut up about how chubby they are, as if I don’t know exactly how much fat is sitting in my cheekbones.”

Annie laughed, humourlessly, “They always find the insecurity. They’re real fucking good at it.”

Together they went through the long process of clearing out Laurel’s followers, blocking them all one by one. The number had crept up a lot higher than she thought it had.

Rogers Arena was no less daunting the second time.

It was a very different daunting, though, despite Karina being by her side. She wasn’t making a beeline to the suites because nobody knew she was even at the game, but trying to get to their seats moments before the puck was set to drop was a stress Laurel didn’t need.

“You can teach me what’s going on, right?” Laurel turned to Karina in a panic while still halfway down the stairs

“Yes, Laurel,” Karina sighed, fond but exasperated, turning Laurel back around and guiding her to their seats. “Just like I told you I could when you asked me to come.”

“I know, I just—I want to surprise Quinn.”

Karina reminded her, again, that there was no way Laurel was going to learn all the ins and outs of hockey from one game—“definitely not when the Canucks are playing the Coyotes.”—as they sat down in their seats. The seats that cost far more money than Laurel had anticipated; good thing she was ready to fully commit to being a WAG who knew the sport.

Despite Karina’s insistence that the game was going to be lacklustre and nothing to learn from, the Canucks came out swinging.

Laurel knew enough from what Quinn had told her that multiple goal games weren’t all that common so seeing the Canucks score two goals in the first period was exciting enough. When they scored another four in the second, with only one minor interruption from the Coyotes she was ready to truly lose her mind.

The atmosphere was infectious. Not even her constant leaning in to check something with Karina was ruining her night—like when the Coyotes were penalised for ‘too many men on the ice’ or when Quinn was sent to the penalty box was ‘cross-checking’. Watching him on the box on the big screen above the ice was funny, Laurel couldn’t deny that even if the fans around her vehemently disagreed with the call.

“He definitely fucked up, right?” she clarified with Karina after the protesting had died down.

“Definitely. He’s just our guy, so obviously the refs are wrong.”

Laurel just hummed, bemused.

By the end of the game—when the Canucks had managed to score another goal for a 7-1 victory—Laurel had to admit that she was hooked. It would be different to sit down in front of a television and watch, even sitting in the suite wouldn’t cut it, because sitting amongst so many people who were utterly invested in the outcome was addictive.

Adrenaline was still coursing through every part of her body when she let herself into Quinn’s apartment. He wasn’t home, yet, and wouldn’t be for a little while longer she knew and had given her his spare key yet again. He knew she was spending the evening with Karina but, as had become increasingly common, wanted her to be there when he got home.

She wondered frequently when the key would be handed over for good.

With so much excitement in her veins, Laurel was still wide awake when he got home. Part of her wanted to reveal the secret right then and there, that she was at the game, that she saw him get numerous ‘assists’ and the two-minute penalty, but she managed to calm herself down just enough to keep it together.

Quinn stood in the doorway to his bedroom, his tie nowhere to be seen and a few buttons undone on his shirt. Laurel watched him closely from where she was sitting up against the headboard.

“I heard there was a big win,” she said, putting her phone down and letting the duvet covers pool in her lap.

Quinn smirked, the confidence rolling off his body not something Laurel saw everyday but it was definitely something she liked.

“Big, big win,” he agreed, stepping slowly closer.

Laurel’s heart rate picked up, not that she thought it possible, and she froze in anticipation while he walked closer.

“Jack’s boys lost, though.”

Truthfully, he may as well have thrown her into the Arctic Ocean with the speed his words ruined any sort of arousal.

She gathered the duvet and slowly slumped down into the mattress. She still tracked him as he walked around the room and changed out of his suit and mourned the mood he’d so sufficiently killed.

“That’s a shame.”

He continued to talk about Jack—about hockey, mostly, but sometimes veering into random pieces of their childhood that she tried to piece into what she’d been told previously. His family’s closeness would never cease to fascinate her.

She felt herself falling asleep, suddenly drained after the realisation that they weren’t heading towards orgasms of any kind and buried herself into the covers pulled up around her chin.

“We bought a house in Michigan so we can spend the summers together.”

Laurel blinked, taking a moment to determine that she’d heard him correctly. She asked, “the whole summer?”

“That’s the plan. It’ll be so good. We’ve got so many buddies from there or who spent enough time in Michigan that they can’t wait to go back—”

Nothing else he said mattered, not even to slot anything into his backstory, because all Laurel could think about was him spending the entire summer so far across the continent.

Any interest Laurel had in learning the game of hockey or the life that came with it disappeared with the knowledge that Quinn wasn’t wasting any time in leaving Vancouver when his season was over. And it would be over soon.

She didn’t know much but she did know that they weren’t making playoffs.

The plan as she knew it was for Quinn to fly to Michigan a week after their final game but she’d purposely been avoiding learning much about it because it only made her angry.

If Quinn had noticed the distance she was keeping, he hadn’t said anything.

Her visits to his place had been limited and it wasn’t even intentional. The final games of the season, some on the road, along with some team bonding meant that Quinn’s schedule didn’t have much time for Laurel.

That wasn’t helping matters.

Laurel stood outside his apartment buildings for a few moments, trying to compose herself before she buzzed the intercom to be let up. She had to talk to him about it because the internal speculation was driving her crazy, and she’d watched her mother ruin too many relationships due to lack of communication.

When she stepped into his apartment, it was clear Quinn felt the tension between them. He didn’t lean in to kiss like he normally would, just stood to the side and let her in; she moved far enough into the apartment to hover in the kitchen but didn’t go much further.

“Why are things weird?” he asked, so direct and abrupt that Laurel was caught off guard. “I haven’t seen you in like two weeks and you’re weird on the phone. What did I do?”

“I don’t know, Quinn,” Laurel said with a huff. “This feels like a really crucial time in our relationship and you’re just going to fuck off for the whole summer. More than the summer? Leave now and not come back until, what? September?”

The immediate attack was the wrong decision, it became immediately clear, when Quinn tensed up and his face closed off completely. It was the meanest she’d ever seen him.

“I was going to be back in about two weeks,” he said, devoid of any emotion. It made it hurt so much worse to hear the detachment in his voice when he added, “To see you.”

Laurel cowered, “Why are you going at all? Do you need a break from me?”

“It’s my brother’s 21st birthday, Laurel, and I’m not going to miss it. I was thinking about asking if you wanted to come but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“No,” Laurel agreed, clenching her fists at her sides, “I don’t think it is a good idea. I don’t think we’re a good idea.”

The tension defused ever so slightly, Quinn’s mask slipping just enough to show shock and a little bit of hurt before he recovered. His voice was still quiet as he asked, “Do you really mean that?”

Laurel deflated, too; every insecurity she had about relationships came to the forefront of her brain. “Yeah, I mean, what do we have in common, Quinn? We’re Americans living in Vancouver? I don’t get what you do for a living but it’s also not even just what you do for a living, is it? It’s your whole life.”

Quinn took half a step forward, then froze. Laurel wanted him to be closer but didn’t make any effort to close the gap.

“I have a life outside of hockey and I thought it included you.”

“You don’t exist without hockey, Quinn,” Laurel sighed, her voice small, “and you don’t even see it. You’re here from September to May because of the hockey season, but you’re also on the road a lot and not really here, and I’m expected to just… accept and understand that and wait for you all the time. And then when the season’s done, you want to disappear for like four months and you expected me to just follow you when you asked at the last minute. I don’t have the luxury, Quinn.”

“I know that.”

“Why did you only give me two weeks’ notice? Why didn’t you talk to me about it at all? I get that your mom dropped a hell of a lot for your dad’s work and then your hockey careers and Daisy seems to be doing the same for Jack, but I didn’t grow up in hockey or even sports—I don’t get any of this and you’ve never really explained it to me. The life, not whatever happens on the ice.”

“That’s why I wanted you to sit with my mom and Daisy—they can explain it all to you.”

“But it’s not their job, is it, Quinn?”

“Laurel, they know what it’s like to be a WAG. I have no fucking clue what it’s like. The best people to help you are the girls who live the life you know nothing about but you just refuse to talk to them.”

“I—I spoke to Annie,” Laurel countered, knowing that it was weak.

“Once. I have tried so hard to bring you into my world and you fight me at every turn.”

“What about my world?” Her question came with a renewed fire, thinking of all the parts of her life Quinn didn’t know about; all the things he hadn’t taken the time to learn.

“You won’t let me in there, either. So, I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Maybe he couldn’t learn without her teaching him. Maybe he hadn’t asked.

Laurel didn’t know. All she did know was that her heart was slowly crumbling in her chest as she tried to put on a brave face and pretend it was the outcome she’d wanted by showing up in the first place.

She ducked her head so she could walk past him, saying coolly that she was going to collect some things from his room. There was no way she’d be able to remove everything of hers in one trip when she hadn’t even brought her overnight bag but if she could at least grab her expensive skin care items and her favourite clothes that would be something.

Quinn followed her, his footsteps dull and heavy, and she felt his eyes watching her as she moved around. She didn’t snap at him, didn’t ask him what he was worried she’d steal, just focused on fitting what she could into her purse.

“I went to a game, you know?” she asked as she carefully took a shirt from one of the hangers she’d co-opted and folded it into her purse.

Quinn huffed a disbelieving laugh. “The one I begged you to come to.”

“The night up told me you were going back to Michigan, actually,” she corrected. “Sat in the crowd with Karina from work and she tried to teach me what was going on. I was going to surprise you by learning how the game worked without you having to teach me.”

“Too late for that, isn’t it? You’re the one who thinks we should break up.”

“I guess I am,” she said, a sad smile stretched across her face. “I don’t know how this is where it ended, Quinn.”

“I wish you’d told me two weeks ago that you were mad at me. Probably could have avoided this.”

Laurel shrugged, half-heartedly, “I don’t know. This shit’s always inevitable for me.”

“It doesn’t have to be, you know that.”

“Bye, Quinn.”

She left him standing in the doorway of his bedroom and didn’t turn back around once as she left, fearing that she’d beg him for anything that made it better.

There wasn’t anything that could make it better.

Laurel knew the minute she accepted that the date was a bad idea. The one piece of advice her mother gave her for getting over relationships was that “a week for every month you were together” was the proper timeframe for getting over someone.

If Laurel counted from the day she officially became Quinn’s girlfriend, three weeks was plenty of time. Half a week too long, even.

If only that had assuaged her guilt enough to not ruin the night out Brooke had organised for them. Even if the night was drinks and dancing at the same dive bar where she’d met Quinn.

Drinks and dancing were easier than any other alternative that wasn’t just sex; it was clearly just a prelude to sex, regardless, and not even a very vague one.

Laurel could handle the pretence, though, because Brooke was proving to be enough of a difference from what she’d realised was her ‘type’ that Laurel had no issues pressing up against her on the dance floor or sitting in her lap when they stopped for drinks.

By the time a lovely haze was settling over Laurel—Tom Collins had leant his name to a very nice drink—it all came crashing down.

“Why do the Vancouver Canucks keep staring at us?”

She hadn’t noticed them, had been far too wrapped up in getting Brooke to take her home, before they were pointed out to her but, sure enough, Quinn was standing across the room huddled with more than a few guys from the team.

“I dated one of them,” Laurel said with a sigh, averting her gaze before she could accidentally make eye contact with any of them. If Quinn caught her, she would die in the spot.

“Yeah?” Brooke pushed. “Recently enough that they’re still staring?”

17 days.

But she wasn’t counting.

“It wasn’t a great breakup.”

“Damn.” Brooke paused. “Does he know you also date women?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then I can do this—”

At first, Laurel melted into Brooke’s mouth—the softness was something she didn’t realise she’d missed and Brooke’s fingers had crept under her top and were applying just enough pressure to really curl the heat in Laurel’s stomach.

The beat that followed replaced the heat with led, and Laurel pushed herself out of Brooke’s lap. She had enough of a mind to fix her top and then no mind at all when she turned to where Quinn had been and made the eye contact she’d dreaded.

17 days wasn’t enough.

Quinn was moving, then, weaving his way through his teammates and towards the entrance to the bar; Laurel didn’t even feel Brooke’s hand on her wrist as she rushed to follow him.

Laurel hated dive bars and all the people in them, each and every one stepping in and out of her path as she desperately tried to stay on her feet.

A cool breeze hit her like a wall when she stepped onto Water Street, enough of a shock that she flinched and stopped in her tracks. Someone was following close enough behind her that she was forcibly moved onto the sidewalk.

She locked eyes on Quinn, standing at the gutter with his phone in his hand. He looked up from it, presumably hearing her shoes on the contact, and sighed so deeply she saw his shoulders rise and fall.

“Quinn—I—”

“It’s fine, Laurel,” he mumbled, looking away from her and down Water Street, “we’re broken up.”

“I didn’t want her to do that,” Laurel stressed, reaching out to touch his arm. Quinn took a tiny little step and her hand fell away. She whispered; then, “Especially not in front of you. I’m sorry.”

“We’re not together. You can do what you want. I’m getting out of here.”

A car pulled up in front of them; Quinn was quick to open the door.

She touched his arm again, her fingers digging into the jacket he was wearing so he couldn’t shake her off, and she pleaded, “I didn’t know you were coming back so soon.”

Laurel felt the ire pouring off him even though he barely looked at her over his shoulder, when he said, “You never let me tell you, so how could you?”

“Quinn—”

He shook his arm, forcibly dislodging Laurel’s hand. She teetered backwards as she stepped out of the way of the car door so it didn’t close on her—it really didn’t feel like that would have been a bad thing.

Instagram was a much quieter place after The Purge at Annie’s House and after months of not being with Quinn. The requests to follow her died down around July, she guessed because nobody could say they’d seen them together so she was no longer interesting.

Laurel couldn’t deny that she’d googled her own name a few times since Quinn left her on Water Street, curious to know what any of the ‘puck bunny' blogs had been saying about her—most updates post August were that she and Quinn were done. Quinn was officially back on the market.

Too many people were poking fun at her Instagram handle—‘looks like @l0nelylaurel is l0nelier than ever’ and it was all hitting too close to home.

Truth be told, 153 days was no easier than 17.

A lot of that could be contributed to the angst of waiting for Quinn to show any sign that he was even coming back to Vancouver. The season was ten days from officially starting and he hadn’t even re-signed with the Canucks.

He was still in Michigan.

Or that’s what she thought—what she expected—until his post appeared on her feed.

6 more years.

The newly christened hockey fan in her was ecstatic.

The pining ex-girlfriend was… desperate. Maybe.

To Quinn: is it too late to apologise and tell you i’ve been learning about hockey?

The lack of context bothered her and she sent a follow up text soon after.

To Quinn: congratulations on the contract. i’m proud of you

She didn’t think that context helped her case, either, but at least it was a reason to be texting him behind just missing him.

Laurel wasn’t expecting a text back with any speed. Returning to her job after a week of vacation time was hard enough; having to sign a whole new contract and join the team after they’d already been through the bulk of their training and bonding wasn’t something she could comprehend.

That was mostly because she’d heard from various Canucks fans at work about how damaging it was to the team for him and Petey to hold out so long.

She brought up YouTube to mindlessly watch something so that she didn’t dwell on her texts to Quinn, but she hadn’t even picked something when her phone buzzed and his name showed at the top of her screen.

From Quinn: Maybe there’s a table free at Elise. Heard about someone who’s big trophy wife fantasy was getting dinner there 🤔

Her heart sank.

It was a reasonable leap for him to make, she couldn’t fault him for it even if it made her want to claw at her skin and disappear into her couch for the rest of her life—but not before she made sure he knew it wasn’t like that.

To Quinn: it’s not about the contract. just didn’t know when you were back in town

From Quinn: Bad joke. Come over tomorrow after work?

The relief that overcame her was almost painful in how good it felt. Her heart was no longer sinking but instead racing faster and stronger than she knew how to deal with.

To Quinn: 💕

There was a pleasant, refreshing chill in the air as Laurel made the walk from her apartment to Quinn’s.

Haley had questioned where she was going for no other reason than Laurel didn’t change out of the clothes she’d worn to work—almost every time she’d left the house since May she’d changed into something more appropriate for a bar because, well, she was headed to a bar. They still weren’t friends but Haley worried enough that Laurel had to assure her it wasn’t self-destructive.

The bars had been pretty self-destructive. Seeing Quinn was the opposite.

She hoped, anyway.

He must have been sitting at the buzzer with how fast he let her into the building, and he was standing in his open door when she stepped out of the elevator.

“Welcome home?” she said, tilting it into a question when it crossed her mind that she didn’t actually know where he considered home. Maybe he’d just left home.

He smiled, “It’s good to be back. Come on, I pulled a few strings and have some food from Elise coming.

“Quinn…” Laurel trailed off, concerned that she’d been invited over as a joke.

“It’s really nice food and I know you like it. I really would have taken you there but I know my joke didn’t land.”

Laurel nodded, short and still uncertain. He carried on, though, guiding her into his apartment. He was acting like nothing had happened, like the last two times they’d seen each other hadn’t been disasters.

She washed her hands, taking a little extra time in the bathroom to recompose herself. He was being far nicer than he should have. She hadn’t expected him to be horrible to her—even if she’d been half concerned it was all an elaborately cruel joke—she just hadn’t expected him to welcome her in with open arms.

They ate peacefully, Laurel rather overwhelmed by how good the food was, by how Quinn had remembered what she’d ordered on her birthday. Quinn interspersed their eating with some stories from Michigan, so tentatively that he was obviously testing the waters.

She listened, grateful to have him back in front of her, delighted by the familiar awkwardness with which he carried himself.

She tried to fill him in on what she’d been up to while he was away, coming up short as she’d had no time off.

Quinn, seemingly realising she was floundering, turned the conversation in an entirely different direction on a hair pin.

“I didn’t do enough to help you get used to hockey and the life it comes with.”

Laurel blinked, stopping her wine glass as it was halfway to her mouth and putting it carefully back on the table. She said, measured, “You weren’t the problem, Quinn.”

“Maybe we share the blame but I—everyone I know goes from zero to sixty in like three weeks,” he explained, his hands twitching around his knife and fork. “Jack and Daisy have been virtually married since high school and I need to stop comparing my life to his but it’s a bit depressing when my go-to example of a relationship is my younger brother.”

“At least it’s a happy one. Mine are every relationship my mom ever blew up. I do a pretty good job replicating them.”

A sympathetic look crossed Quinn’s face, one Laurel didn’t feel entitled to, but he didn’t continue the conversation. He let go of his knife and reached his hand across the table to hold hers. He simply squeezed it comfortingly and smiled.

It lit up her entire body.

By the time they were washing up, Laurel was settling into his apartment as if she’d never left. Nothing changed since May, almost definitely because Quinn hadn’t been home, and she found her ice cream in the freezer where she’d left it and pulled two spoons from the drawer. Quinn followed her easily to the couch.

She turned sideways on the couch, crossing her legs so that she was facing him and he sat at the opposite end and also turned to face her. The ice cream container was settled onto the cushion between them, teetering precariously.

“Did you really go to a game without telling me?”

She startled, “You remember that?”

“Pretty sure I remember the entire convo word for word.”

It was a pretty quick way to bring down the mood, even if it looked like Quinn hadn’t intended it to be, the flinch that followed his words clue her into his regret.

“I did, yeah,” Laurel powered on. “You won and I had fun.”

He smiled and she smiled back, caught up in the immediate happiness that replaced the regret. Despite the happiness, he was hesitant when he asked, “Do you think you’ll want to go again?”

“I’d like to,” Laurel admitted, still smiling. “I should probably know the game, right?”

“The Devils are in town next month. Daisy might come. Mom won’t make it this time.”

“I can handle Daisy,” she assured him. “That’d be really great, Quinn. I don’t have the equivalent for social work in a hospital, but if we plan drinks any time soon I’ll make sure it’s a day you’re free. You can meet Haley if you want.”

She moved the ice-cream from between them and leant sideways to put it on the coffee table. The only thing keeping her from falling off the couch completely were Quinn’s quick reflexes and his hand shooting out to press against her rib cage.

She held her breath at the contact, at the easy way he helped her back onto the couch, and then at the sincerity in his voice as he said, “I’ll meet whoever you’ll let me meet, Laurel.”

“Letting people in is hard for me but I really want it to be you who changes that.”

He’d barely gotten out “Me, too” before Laurel was moving across the now empty space between them to capture his mouth in a kiss.

The morning after the game against the Devils—a 5-2 defeat that almost wished she hadn’t been present for—Laurel and Quinn squeezed in breakfast with Jack and Daisy before Jack got on a flight to Edmonton.

Jack was… Not what Laurel expected.

His arrival was so loud and energetic that she glanced sideways at Quinn to see how he was going to handle their breakfast being interrupted by a fan, and she took a couple of steps back just to be out of the way. Her confusion grew when Daisy walked in behind him, rolling her eyes as Jack launched himself at Quinn.

“They literally saw each other last night,” Daisy said, hugging Laurel. “It’s like this every time.”

“He’s not what I was expecting,” Laurel admitted. “Quinn’s so quiet and you are, too, that—”

“Daisy? Quiet? You pull your body double in for the game?” Jack asked, stepping away from Quinn. “I’m Jack—Daisy’s conned you.”

“I know how to read a room.”

“I’m Laurel.”

Given Jack’s entrance, the hug wasn’t entirely unexpected. She made eye contact with Quinn over Jack’s shoulder, saw the pleased smile on his face and knew that everything was really going to work out fine.

tag list: @fallinallincurls @spine-buster @2manytabsopen @xcicix @sorryjustafangirl @senditcolton @shinyfalcon4 @guesswhoispathetic @laurenairay @ripepeach @jarmorie @p1nkbarbi3

add yourself to the tag list

#quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes fic #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fic #homemade fic #fic: canucks #until the light shines through fic

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magickalsapphic · 2 months ago

Text

We were both young (when I first saw you)

A Victorian Romeo and Juliet Snowbaz AU ❀ Chapter 1 Posted (2351 words) ❀ horseback riding, farmerboy!Simon, aristocrat!Baz, Davy sucks, gay people 🙏 ❀ pls read it & rb, i will post the other chapters asap fr

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59023879

It was already unfortunate for Lord Basilton to find out his most agreeable suitor was being accompanied by his family rival's long lost heir. But realizing Lord Simon Snow Salisbury is the same boy he's obsessed over for years is something he could've never have anticipated. aka a Victorian Romeo and Juliet Snowbaz AU inspired by Love Story by Taylor Swift. Where neither the Victorian era, the Romeo and Juliet references OR the Love Story references are accurate. Hope you enjoy:)

Chapter 1: Horseshit and Ball

BAZ

“Baz, Baz, Baz,...” I hear a small, high-pitched voice behind my door exclaim. I’m not ready for this day to start, but it doesn’t seem to want to wait any longer. I stretch my arms above my bed frame and then move the silk bed sheets aside. The sun comes in harder through the large window and makes me doubt the true nature of this fateful day. I walk to my door barefoot knowing my seven-year-old sister is on the other side.

“Mordelia, I’ve told you you don’t need to yell, you can just knock.”

She opens the heavy door in a swift motion and starts visibly judging my surroundings as usual. It is the second largest room in the house, with long carpentry to match the burgundy walls and enough space to walk to the balcony. Mordelia always complains that the art easels cover the fountain’s view from outside and are uninviting to visitors. She stops at my tulips work in progress and I immediately know what she thinks.

“You should draw horsies instead of the same dull plants all the bloody time.”

“I’ll have you informed I enjoy painting this just fine,” I say while quickly picking up a small pillow from the floor and throwing it at her. She catches it, which is embarrassing, to say the least.

“Whatever. Father asked me to remind you of your extra duties today,” she says, referring to the activities he’s specifically made to keep me from running off today. “So thank you for… feeding the horses,” she says with a smirk.

“I’m not cleaning your horses’ shit, Mordelia.”

“You said it, not me.”

She leaves my room as my aunt Fiona enters, messing her hair as she walks past her. I try to ignore her presence by picking up the pillow I threw on the floor.

“Quit being rude, boy. I’m here with good news about tonight,” Fiona says.

I turn to her confused but she’s still resting her back on the door and crossing her arms.

“I’m helpless. What could you possibly have to say?”

“Well, a little bird told me you have a special girl coming to the ball tonight,”

I give her a look. I can’t possibly care who she’s referring to, I’m still not going to be attracted to her. It’s the same thing.

“Talking about Lady Agatha Wellbelove, of course.”

“And why ever is she so special?” I say turning my back on her again.

“Because she’s a nice girl. And extremely wealthy.”

“ We are extremely wealthy,” I say as if it wasn’t evident.

“Her father owns the West Watford slot.” Now this gets my attention. The Old families have been in a silent property rivalry for ages.

It started over a three hundred years ago when the Salisbury’s came from the north and bought two-thirds of the Watford main fields. This ended up messing with the entire economy and social status on my family’s, the Pitches, side, which used to be the richest in the area. My ancestors tried to settle this by dividing the terrains more and not letting one family get more than the other. I don’t know who had such high hopes that rich old men would settle something logically. Instead, the Pitches tried to buy the land from them and get them a nice place out of town. To which the Salisbury’s declined, and tried to buy the last free slot. Aware of the fighting of the two most powerful families in the city, the mayor decided it was for the best that the lot stayed part of the State, meaning that both the Pitches and the Salisbury’s kept owning about the same amount of terrain.

So, of course, over the years and different generations, we’ve kept this rivalry between us and have tried over and over to get the most land. Even though everyday workers and families living in them care just the same.

Agatha Wellbelove’s father, however, comes from a more nobel family, that has historically taken a bigger part in politics, which I assume explain their possession of the infamous West Watford slot.

“You’re saying that if I marry her, we would finally, officially be the most powerful family in this town.”

“Bingo. Your father won’t ask anything of you again. Pretty confident he wouldn’t even ask for heirs.”

No children. I don’t mind children that much but this does mean I wouldn’t have to have any means of an actual relationship with her. I guess… if I offer some kind of yearly sum and a lot of horses, Wellbelove is known to be fond of those, maybe we could make that work. It’s the least painful option. For me at least.

“That does sound appealing… Why are you telling me this?” Her eyes soften and she approaches me slowly, bringing her palm to my cheek.

“I couldn’t watch you walk into complete unhappiness and not do anything kiddo. Not what Natasha would’ve wanted.”

———

I realised I didn’t possess an attraction to girls and instead to boys when I was 13 years old. Though, from a young age I never thought I was like the other boys around me, always so heavily… unhygienic, and interested in the most atrocious activities. Like wrestling or getting into unnecessary trouble. I enjoyed picking out flowers with my mother. The best ones surrounded our pond, she used to say, we were lucky to have this astounding beauty all around us. This wasn’t the only activity I enjoyed with her, though. She encouraged me to devour all the books in our library by accompanying me and explaining concepts I didn’t understand or simply talking about them with me.

My father has been too busy with taking care of the farmlands and ordering people around ever since I remember. My mother would take care of financial issues with him, she would say, but when I came about… She stopped caring about the money. She stopped caring about anything other than me. And I think–I know–my father resents me for that. I was “too needy” and “too emotional”, but it was never a problem for her. She stayed with me through everything. She was my best friend. I don’t regret a thing. The best memories I have are until the age of 12 for a reason.

I don’t remember much from her funeral. I spent a lot of time to myself then and the months after. My father let me be and I let him be as well. I rarely even spoke to my cousin Dev or my friend Niall, even though they tried plenty of times. After a while, I started to go out with them but didn’t speak unless it was essential.

However, on the first anniversary of her death, I was vocal once again. Father wanted us to not make it a big deal but agreed we would go and leave her flowers. All I wanted was to give her her favourite flowers, lilies. We were already in my mother’s old home in Surrey, and when my father stepped out of the carriage, our servant handed him a bouquet of daisies. My father knew it had to be lilies and I didn’t care to hear why he couldn’t manage them this time. There was no excuse for this and I told him so. I didn’t set a foot in the door, instead ran past the servants, past the carriages, past the gates. Unknown destination. I just needed the flowers. I didn’t have any money with me so I went past the village as well. I didn’t want to be so far away from her, but I didn’t want to be near anyone. Anything.

All I could hear was quick cobblestone. Then grass and grass. I finally stepped into a beautiful field, where soft orange tinted primroses, foxgloves, red tulips, wheat and corn, a dozen goats, and… this boy.

We were both young when I first saw you

I close my eyes and the flashback starts

He was kneeling down beside a bush, picking up orchids. He had a cloud of bronze hair, blue eyes, and a frustrated look on his face. I might’ve stared a bit too long, as he said without looking away from his work, “Are you lost?”

When I didn’t reply he looked up and his eyes softened. “Are you okay?”, he asked. He must have noticed my puffy eyes.

“My… my mother loved lilies,” is all I managed before he went around the field and left me standing there.

He came back a few moments later with a handful of them, even set in a beautiful way and tied in the middle with a small red bow. The sun was setting and his hair was catching fire. His eyes, his freckles. I barely mumbled a thank you before he was back at his work and I was on my way back to my mother. I didn’t bother finding my father and went straight to her grave. I gasped as I saw the tearful eyes of my father kneeling in front of the tombstone, daisies scrunched up between his hands and the ground. In silence, I joined him.

He might have forgotten many things in the following years, but he never forgot lillies on that day again. And I never forgot the face of the boy who made things okay. Even for a moment.

And I mean that. I thought about him constantly for months after that incident. I turned to painting to try to salvage those curls and those eyes. I never crossed paths with him again, I couldn’t remember which way I went that day. Part of me is thankful for that since I wouldn’t have known what to do. What he did make me sure of was that I liked boys. I liked boys and only boys. And I would never be able to say that out loud.

———

I conclude my unfortunate responsibilities of the day rather early, but with the new motivation for tonight, I am glad to have enough time to get properly ready before the party. The Watford Ball is a yearly dance hosted by the Bunces in celebration of the Summer Solstice, also the most popular dance for courtship. Most families take this opportunity to passively-aggressively show each other who has the most power, usually showing off their heirs and silently betting on who will be oh so lucky to marry someone part of the most powerful families—those being mine, and the Salisbury’s, but there is no heir in that family. While gossip over the years has changed what happened over and over, from my understanding of these internal family feuds, Lady Salisbury’s daughter left her husband and the family at a young age. And while many presume it was adultery, I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt. Her husband was no other than Sir Davy Cadwallader. Sir James, Lady Salisbury’s son, never married, so they have counted days of their fortune if something doesn’t change. Cadwallader, however, has taken use of every centimetre to his missing wife's name, and he makes it known.

Vera, one of our servants, finishes buttoning my brown floral waistcoat. I slick back my hair and adjust the earth green bow. I stare in the mirror and curse myself for actually trying to look presentable. I simply can’t shake the thought of a mildly admissible future, and I won’t lose my chance.

As I walk down the stairs, my father calls to me.

“Basilton,” he stares at me and nods.

I nod back, “Father.”

“Thank you for making an effort. I’m positive you will find a lovely young lady that will catch your eye.” He walks away.

I really, truly hate that this is happening. No matter the promising possibilities. I close my eyes and wish for a miracle. A golden one.

At the party, I escort my aunt Fiona due to my lack of a partner. We walk down an overwhelmingly decorated set of stairs. A herald stopping us and naming every title we each have, before taking our final steps. I have always found these introductions quite silly, but they do make me feel seen. As seen as is possible.

The room is wide and I notice clusters of hats and thin waists, men and women hand in hand dancing, and a sharp smell of tobacco and bergamot. I wait near the orchestra for the sight of Wellbelove, watching as more and more young people fill the room. I take a glass of white wine from a table and sip on it slowly. I wait for my singular goal tonight. Enchant a girl. It can’t be so difficult, can it? I glance at my aunt from the other side of the room, where she’s talking with the Bunces. She mouths patience, Basil, as she notices me. I am being patient. I am just shit at waiting.

Too much time passes and I feel my lungs close off from the number of people that have arrived now. Everyone is talking and talking. I lean back against the wall and I still feel crowded. Wellbelove doesn’t seem to be getting here any time soon. I should start talking to other people, other girls. But every time someone approaches me I make the conversation as short as politely possible. I really am not in the mood for a party.

It’s way too late now. I notice all the Wellbelove’s are here except for Agatha. I walk over to them to ask where she bloody is, but I stop in the middle of my journey as I hear the herald speak loud and clear. “Lady Agatha Wellbelove, and her partner Lord Simon Snow Salisbury.”

I curse under my breath and I can’t believe my luck. I whip my head towards the entrance and every thought or action in my body disappears.

Blue eyes. Bronze curls.

“ Simon Snow ,” I mumble under my breath or lack thereof.

See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns

See you make your way through the crowd

#snowbaz #snowbaz fic #snowbaz fanfic #carry on #simon snow #baz pitch #peneleope bunce #ebb petty #fiona pitch #victorian AU #simon and baz #slowburn #watford #farmboy!simon #idk what else to tag #writing #my writing #fanfiction #uh pls read and share lol

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fritextramole · 8 months ago

Text

in their secondhand smoke

part 1 of an Eric van der Woodsen playlist - best heard in order

tracklist and quotes under the cut

If I Go, I’m Goin ~ Gregory Alan Isakov

This house, she's quite the talker She creaks and moans, she keeps me up And the photographs know I'm a liar

Sweet Hibiscus Tea ~ Penelope Scott

And I am not your protagonist, I'm not even my own

right where you left me ~ Taylor Swift

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies But I'm right where you left me

If You Know That I’m Lonely ~ FUR

Maybe it stays as it's always been Hazy and they see what we can't see Please let me know if you want me around And I'll try my hardest to be good

Matador ~ Minta & The Brook Trout

Go out of your way Or fake it through another day Everything is real Make your peace with whatever you feel The unwilling coalition of characters crowding your thoughts Make too much noise And way too little sense

Everybody Dies ~ Billie Eilish

Everybody dies, surprise, surprise We tell each other lies, sometimes, we try To make it feel like we might be right We might not be alone

feelings are fatal ~ mxmtoon

I'm always sad and I'm always lonely But I can't tell you that I'm breaking slowly Closed doors, locked in, no keys Keeping my feelings hidden, there is no ease I need it to stop and I want to be able to open up

6/10 ~ dodie

I know that you don't want me here I know that you don't want me here I know that you don't want me here I know that you don't want me here I know that you don't want me here Oh I'll just call a taxi (I know that you don't want me here)

Self Care ~ Penelope Scott

Do drugs, have sex, tell your deepest darkest secrets to your friends Post cringe, buy guns, are you done yet? Fuck, not enough, cry a river, smash a cup But it's never ever gonna be enough For the people in the back row, but you still choose to listen Knowing damn well it's really not their decision

Soda ~ Nothing But Thieves

I'm an exception It's hard to accept Because I try to be happy But then I forget

Goodbye Rocketship ~ Maya Hawke

I forgive you, and I thank you, you know all the reasons why I'm sorry and I love you, all we can do is try

Guiltless ~ dodie

You opened a door that a kid shouldn't walk through Oh, but I’m not bitter, I'm just tired No use getting angry at the way that you're wired

xanny ~ Billie Eilish

What is it about them? I must be missing something They just keep doing nothing Too intoxicated to be scared Better off without them They're nothing but unstable

Andromeda ~ Weyes Blood

Lift the heart from the depths it's fallen to We all want something new But can't seem to follow through Something's better than nothing Or so that I thought

Memories Can’t Wait ~ Talking Heads

There's a party up there all the time And they'll party 'til they drop

After Hours ~ The Velvet Underground

Dark party bars, shiny Cadillac cars And the people on subways and trains Looking gray in the rain as they stand disarrayed Oh, but people look well in the dark

They / Them / Theirs ~ Worriers

What if I don’t want something that applies to me? What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything, anything?

Gone for Good ~ Matt Berry

After a whole night of hell Could be night, who could tell? I realize no matter what I display It turns to shit and ends up just the same way

Shine ~ Collective Soul

Love is in the water, love is in the air Show me where to look, tell me, will love be there?

IDK You Yet ~ Alexander 23

How can you miss someone you've never met? 'Cause I need you now but I don't know you yet But can you find me soon because I'm in my head?

Dear Someone ~ Gillian Welch

Hurry and take me straight into the arms Of my dear someone

Comfort Crowd ~ Conan Gray

I just needed company now Yeah, I just needed someone around Yeah, I don't care what song that we play Or mess that we make Just company now

Home ~ Cavetown

Often, I am upset That I cannot fall in love, but I guess This avoids the stress of falling out of it

Storm Cellar Heart ~ Mutual Benefit

Taking shelter To wait out this inclement weather And when you hold me It's so much better

Soft Place to Land ~ Sam Beam, Jesca Hoop

If you're looking for a soft place to land The calm of a steady hand An unconditional friend If you need to take a moment to catch your breath Come in before you catch your death You don't have to pass a test to come home

#gg #ggplaylists #eric van der woodsen #gossip girl #source: senamarais #tw suicide #not explicitly but it's what we're talking about here

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iwanthermidnightz · 2 years ago

Note

(You don’t have to post this if you feel it might spark conflict or anything)

Idk. I don’t think JVN’s comment was anything for anyone feel slighted by (not to discredit anyone’s feelings or anything and not to attack the anon who brought this up).

It seemed like he was just saying she was being an ally in that she made a song/video that was supportive, inclusive and embracing of the gay community, knowing the kind of people who are in her fan base or who feel entitled to dictate this double standard of what she can or can’t speak about/support with her platform. Also knowing that she’s someone who can relate to her rights (as a woman) being under attack as well.

I mean, look how some people act over how her LGBTQIA fans personally connect her music to their own experience and tour visuals. Betty had to be changed to being from the perspective of a teenage boy, when James is a gender neutral name (as is the name Taylor) and can be a girl. They think she's only supposed to cater to one group of people only. It’s always “ended Gaylors” or they call them “weird” or they're “forcing their sexuality”. Or how they acted when Rolling Stone ran that Gaylor article. They constantly look for the smallest thing to try and use to belittle or justify their behavior, when the whole time, Taylor is the one putting this out there.

Which is (in my opinion) the learned behavior/mindset that had her thinking she couldn’t speak about a community she wasn’t a part of. Because she, Taylor Swift the person can speak about it, but Taylor Swift the brand could not. She has even said she was always told to never speak about politics and we saw her arguing with her Dad about needing to do so.

Like you said, IWHM—as we all know, you can be a part of a community and still be an ally/advocate for it. Plus, do they ever stop to think why she hy wouldn’t she support something that affects her directly?

Plus, just because JVN knows her doesn’t mean he knows her. It doesn’t she’s opened up that side of herself to him yet. It’s not like he’s on an Abigail level of friendship with her. If that makes sense.

Sorry this was so long and for taking up space on your page, IWHM, but it’s just frustrating at times.

Don’t apologize, I think this is very valid and should be brought up because this is how a lot of people feel, and you said it very well. I’m sorry, I feel bad that I don’t get into the details as much anymore because it does seem to spark conflict here where people cannot have a normal conversation without throwing insults around and I don’t want to deal with that. But I appreciate when we can have these discussions, and you can come to me to share your feelings!

I agree that it seemed like jvn was just saying that she was being an ally and she made a song/video that was supportive, inclusive and embracing of the gay community and that’s important.

One part of me wants to ignore these people that claim they’re fans who treat her lqbtqia fans so horrible. Another part of me has been made to feel guilty for wanting to call it out, for fear of “being too much”. The other part of me says screw that, they don’t get to tell queer people how to feel or tell us that we make things up to push a gay narrative. That’s called gaslighting. Taylor is the one that has been signaling for years putting things out that are blatantly queer. Queer people pick up on it. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s how we find each other. So people who act like *we* are the problem are unbearable.

Taylor sees this. It’s probably part of the reason she doesn’t want to explicitly say things even though she is basically out to people who want to see it. It makes me sad that she feels she has to do things a certain way to protect herself from certain people.

I keep thinking about the lines in dear reader where she says

Dear reader, you don't have to answer / Just cause they asked you / I prefer hiding in plain sight / You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking / If you knew where I was walking / You should find another guiding light

And in sweet nothing how she says

And the voices that implore, "You should be doing more" To you, I can admit that I'm just too soft for all of it

To us, she can admit that. And I know she is held to a certain standard because of who she is and her platform, but at the end of the day she’s also just a person. She’s walking a line that she’s comfortable with and as she said last night, it’s okay to give yourself permission to make decisions that work for you. And you only.

So to your point about the double standard of what she can or can’t speak about/support with her platform, I agree. I’m kind of in between on this. Do I wish she would speak out more forcefully? Yes. Do I think she must? No. I believe she has a long list of considerations to take into account, but I also feel like she’s spoken out on important issues before, she can do it again. I’m not going to hold it against her if she doesn’t.

Sorry if I’m rambling. Thank you for your perspective 🤍

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andiwriteordie · 2 years ago

Note

Okay I absolutely want to take turns and play a little ts st game so.. tag you're it.

(I am also obsessed with you, if that wasn't obvious)

THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE GAME YAY YAY YAY

i'm gonna go with one of my most favorite taylor swift songs (legit this has been in my top 3 songs on spotify since 2019 or 2020 lol): the archer. i constantly go back and forth between whether it feels more mike or will to me because it just... it feels so much like both of them.

(prepare yourself for a loooooooong analysis. bold = mike; italics = will; both)

Combat, I'm ready for combat

I say I don't want that, but what if I do?

Alright, breaking this down section by section, be prepared for a long post, my friend. I think about Mike so much with this lyric, simply because Mike has a more combative nature than Will does. He’s hot-headed, brash, and easily angered, and we see him escalate a lot of situations (not even just with Will) because of that. But it’s so interesting, because while Mike’s nature is to be more combative and feisty, I feel like this also then contradicts other parts of Mike’s personality. Mike wants to be needed. Mike wants to be loved. His biggest fear is losing people that he cares about. He fears being abandoned by the ones he loves so much. So, these two lines to me just capture that internal battle, especially in the context of Byler, where Mike jumps to these argumentative, harsh words with Will (see rain fight, see Rink-O-Mania fight), and yet, he doesn’t want that. We know he wants things to be normal with him and Will again, but he’s using his combative, argumentative mask to hide those true feelings.

'Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

Cruelty wins in the movies. Ouch. This just reminds me of how Mike is trying to put on a facade. He is trying to emulate what a traditional, masculine kind of guy is supposed to look like. Guys aren’t supposed to be sensitive. They’re not supposed to care as much, and they’re certainly not supposed to care about other guys that much, right? Mike wants to be like the men he sees on the screens and that he sees in real life too (see - how he tries to follow Lucas’s example of traditional masculinity). But then, we see again, this other side to Mike. Lettergate theory truthers rise up. Mike has so much he actually wants to say to Will. Words he’s too afraid to say out loud and that are lost on pages he’ll never send or hidden in the back of his mind, where nobody gets to see them. But he wants to say them. He really really does.

Easy they come, easy they go

I jump from the train, I ride off alone

I think I’m gonna talk about Mike’s side of the chorus first, then I’ll talk about Will’s side when the chorus comes back around. God, “easy they come, easy they go” KILLS ME. I just have the images of Mike standing outside of Will’s home as Will (and El) are driven away from him in both the S2 finale (when they’re going to save Will from the Mind Flayer and when El is going to close the gate) and when Will and El’s family move from Hawkins. People keep leaving Mike, and that’s his biggest fear. It’s not just Will and El either; it’s all of his friends. We see these fears spilling out when he’s angry at Lucas in S4 for the basketball thing.

I never grew up, it's getting so old

Help me hold onto you

This line is so freaking ironic to me, because Mike is just the opposite of that, right? He forces himself to try and grow up. He tries to push his childhood away in S3, and in doing so, he hurts Will and the rest of his friends too. He’s trying so hard to ignore all these confusing feelings and repress them, but in the end, it just hurts Mike more too. He feels like he has to grow up, but he doesn’t actually want to. That’s getting old, and Mike just wants to go back to when things were okay—back when he could still be close to Will, could hold on tight to Will, could do things that weren’t looked down on because they had the innocence of youth to hide behind. And so, I read these lyrics as almost like… Mike’s inner child quietly asking if he can go back to that, begging to return to how things used to be?

I've been the archer

I've been the prey

Who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

Again, going back to the theme of Mike’s fear of loss and abandonment. “I’ve been the archer” - Mike has hurt people with his harshness and the words he’s said. He’s hurt Will before. But God, don’t other people realize how much Mike has been hurt too? “Why am I the bad guy?” Mike literally asks Will, because God, doesn’t Will get that he’s hurt Mike too? That Will didn’t reach out and didn’t answer his calls? That Mike feels like he keeps getting left behind, that everyone else is moving on and moving forward, when he just feels stuck? When he keeps losing the people (the person) who means the most to him?

Dark side, I search for your dark side

But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?

Alright, moving on to some Will lyrics now! I can interpret this a couple different ways… But when I think about these lines, I just imagine Will in the aftermath of S3 and before S4, hurting and thinking about Mike. Because Mike has been his best friend for years now, and Mike did hurt him. Mike said harsh words and cruel things to Will, and maybe there’s a part of Will that is angry and hurt. That wants to leave their friendship behind, because Mike did it first, right? For what was probably the first time, Mike showed Will his “dark side” which is so shocking to Will, who has only ever been able to see Mike’s light and his love.

But that’s the thing that Will gets to learn about love and friendship—that you don’t just sign up to love the goodness someone has. You sign up for the good, the bad, and the ugly. And yeah, he’s seen the bad parts of Mike, but he’s also seen so much good. The bad does not discount all the years of love and friendship he and Mike have shared with each other, and Will wants to return to that friendship. He misses Mike. He’s not planning on leaving anytime soon.

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face

Then I hate my reflection for years and years

Okay I couldn’t decide who I wanted to analyze this set of lyrics more for, so I decided to do both. God, I love these lines so much, because when you think about that phrase “I cut off my nose just to spite my face” and its meaning that, “Hey, I’m going to do something that’ll hurt somebody else, but surprise? It hurt me just as much too,” I just think it’s so Byler. I don’t think either of them intentionally try to hurt each other, but when they do hurt each other, they end up hurting themselves just as much.

So, with both of them, I think about that time between S3 and S4. How neither of them really reached out all that much. How many they didn’t quite know how to be around each other anymore. How a little bit of resentment built up in their hearts, even if they didn’t want it to. How there were probably moments when Mike called Will and got no response, so he decided to be a little stubborn and not try again—until it just hurt too much not to try and reach out. How there were probably moments when Will saw letters coming in from Mike to El and how he thought about his own letters to Mike that he stubbornly decided not to send, because Mike couldn’t reach out first. How both of them wanted to reach out, but how both of them were hurt that the other wasn’t initiating. God. They’re so stupid, and I love them!

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is on fire, invisible smoke

And all of my heroes die all alone

WILL WILL WILL WILL WILL. Literally this section of lyrics is so Will coded, like? I can’t. I love this song so much, Abby. I love that it’s a discussion of anxiety/mental health issues and how that then affects the way we love people. Because now, with Will’s perspective, I just… I think about how much Will has gone through. How he’s suffered from PTSD and probably still struggles with nightmares, even years after his kidnapping and possession. How when we see him in S4, he’s still trying to hold onto his past and his friendship with Mike, because of how much stability and comfort Mike once brought him.

Rewinding a little bit because if I’m gonna talk about Will’s mental health, I’m gonna talk about S2 because I love S2 with my whole heart? Literally all of this just reminds me of Will’s struggle with adjusting after S1 and then how he was targeted by the Mind Flayer in S2. He knows he isn’t the same, and everyone keeps reminding him of that. “The room is on fire, invisible smoke” - just reminds me of Will seeing the Mind Flayer and feeling his presence, but being told by Owens that it’s probably just all in his head. “Invisible smoke” like he made it up… all in his mind. Not to mention, “All of my heroes die all alone” excuse me. Bob. Dying because of something that’s indirectly Will’s fault? Ouch.

Help me hold onto you

Look, this little line gets its own paragraph because I’m not done talking about S2/S4 parallels yet. Again, thinking about how in S2 Will was struggling so much with adjusting and with being stalked, and who was there for him? Mike. Mike was this steady, constant presence, and he was the one person who didn’t treat Will with kids gloves or like he was broken or different for what had happened. He gave Will the courage to keep fighting! So, now in S4, especially at the end, we just see that struggle of Will knowing his and Mike’s friendship isn’t what it used to be, but God, he’s back in Hawkins, and he can feel Vecna’s presence again, and when will this end? Is Will going to be alone in this, this time around? God, he hopes not, and maybe that’s part of why he’s trying so hard to stay close to Mike too. Mike is his best friend, but Mike is also the one who most helps Will keep fighting. And sure, Will “ripped the bandaid” off, but then sitting on the couch next to Mike and quietly telling him these things—that One is back, that he’s not going to stop, that they have to kill him? It all just reminds me of this simple, simple lyric, and how Will is trying to return to that S2 dynamic. “Help me hold onto you,” is what he feels, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

I've been the archer,

I've been the prey

Screaming, who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

I mean, come on. “I’ve been the archer” in the sense that Will has done things he regrets. He was used by the Mind Flayer/by One to hurt and to kill people. But then, at the same time, “I’ve been the prey” because Will was One’s first target. He was abused and had his autonomy and control ripped away from him. One used Will to then perpetuate more destruction and harm. And that’s terrifying to Will, especially knowing he can still feel One and still is connected to him. But then, it’s just so beautiful to me, because in all of that, who stays with Will? Mike does. And Will knows it. Through the worst parts of his life, Mike stayed. The year before that, Mike moved heaven and hell to try and find Will. So, now, as they’re moving into S5 and into the fight of their lives, it’s just that question of… will Mike stay with him this time? Can they go back to the people they were and the relationship they had?

(I see right through me, I see right through me)

'Cause they see right through me

They see right through me

They see right through

Can you see right through me?

They see right through

They see right through me

I see right through me

Obviously, a lot of repeated lyrics here, but I just like thinking about how both Mike and Will are hiding parts of themselves—their sexualities and their feelings for each other. For two people who have built a friendship on the idea that “friends don’t lie,” it’s heartbreaking that they now find themselves in a place where they have to keep secrets from each other. And I just imagine, as they stumble close to crossing that line, as the walls fall down ever so slightly, if they’re wondering if people can see through their lies. Surely, somebody sees through their lies—Jonathan did with Will’s van monologue. And Mike’s fear is someone seeing through his lie in the monologue he gave to El. Because they both are well aware that they lied in these moments; they can see through their own lies and I’m sure they regret it. So, is it only a matter of time before somebody else sees through the lie too?

All the king's horses, all the king's men

Couldn't put me together again

S2 Will right here. I think about Will, feeling lost and feeling different and feeling broken, after his experiences in the Upside Down. He’s always felt like a freak, but now, he can’t run away from it. And it’s getting worse. The doctors are trying, and he knows it. Owens is a nice enough man. But nothing is helping. Maybe Will can’t be fixed. Maybe he’ll always be different and always be the freak, and there’s no running away from that. And it sucks… but even in spite of all of that, he still has Mike. His best friend. And Mike’s not going anywhere.

'Cause all of my enemies started out friends

Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch, whatever you do don’t think about both Mike and Will feeling like the other one hates them now or is disgusted by them in the aftermath of their S3 fight. Nope, no, don’t do that. Mike feels so guilty; he’s hurt Will and said things that he regrets. And now Will isn’t reaching out to him. Will already feels different because of his sexuality and feelings for Mike, and now, he feels like Mike must know and must look at him differently. They used to be best friends, but now, they can barely even call themselves friends.

[Help me hold onto you

I've been the archer

I've been the prey

Who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

(I see right through me, I see right through me)

Who could stay?

Who could stay?]

Lots of repeated lyrics, which I think I covered already. :)

You could stay

You

Combat, I'm ready for combat

And this… this right here. I love this. Because after all of this, after this song is a massive confession of anxiety and of the worst parts of yourself, after the vulnerability of asking the person you love to please stay, please don’t leave again, I interpret this as a bit of a hopeful ending. Who could stay? … You. You could stay. So with Byler, I view this as just that moment of understanding that I hope they’ll get in S5, where they realize in spite of everything that has happened, in spite of what they’ve said to each other and the mistakes they’ve made, in spite of the negative ways they view themselves… Mike is choosing to stay there for Will. And Will is choosing to stay there for Mike. They’re not planning on leaving each other’s sides. They will face whatever comes next together, as a team. Neither one of them is going anywhere. It’s Mike and Will, up against the world.

#andi's asks #byler #st x ts #byler swifties #abby i am so sorry for this #i wrote a whole small book #also i love this and i love you ok #ok bye now #andi and abby analyze #new tag!!!!

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watermel123 · 5 months ago

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Hollywood's opinion on Palestine won't resolve the conflict... but it could help

Hollywood’s Opinion On Palestine Won’t Resolve The Conflict… But It Could Help

The mass genocide taking place in Gaza isn’t news to anyone. Everyday we’re seeing more and more devastation as it’s being broadcast to us in real-time, including babies being slaughtered before our very eyes. Homes torn down, hospitals bombed, and thousands murdered. We’re currently seeing the very worst that humanity has to offer, and it seems that all we can do is watch as the world burns.

Sure, we can share links on social media and spread the word amongst our circles, but the truth is, the efforts of us mere civilians pales in comparison to what those with much larger platforms can achieve, and we can often find ourselves feeling pretty hopeless. (That’s not to say that we should stop trying - every little helps).

However, the silence of those who do have the power to influence change is truly deafening.

So, why are some celebrities choosing not to speak out? Why is it that some of the most influential people in the world appear to be turning a blind eye to what’s happening in the Middle East? Are they complicit with what’s going on? Or do they simply not care because their fame and reputation is just that much more important?

I get it. Not everyone has a real understanding of politics or why the conflict is even taking place. But surely, in that case, it’s on you to educate yourself. And honestly, I’m not even buying that as an excuse for some people.

Let’s look at Amal Clooney, for example. She has received huge backlash due to her reluctance to speak out on the war in Gaza. A woman who is allegedly a human rights activist, who advocates for peace - or is that only the case for every war besides the one in Palestine? Mrs. Clooney was vocal about the Ukrainian war, and spoke out about the terrorist attacks in Paris, yet it’s only within the last couple of weeks that she has, in fact, broken her silence. Over half a year after the war started back on October 7, 2023.

The Gaza conflict is a subject that’s truly polarising, but it’s a topic that should no longer be up for debate. This is reality. And while we’re here picking sides, another innocent victim loses their life. While Taylor Swift is at the top of her game on a worldwide tour, another child is kidnapped or tortured or brutally killed. It’s crazy me to even think that while celebrities are sipping the finest champagne on one side of the world, all hell is breaking loose on the other. But ignorance is bliss, right?

The power of social media

Social media is one heck of a powerful tool, and it can be utilised to make really positive changes in the world. While it has its faults, it definitely has its benefits.

Celebs could actually utilise their social media platforms to encourage their followers to take action, make donations where possible, or simply raise awareness on important topics.

Out of fear of being ‘cancelled’ and losing their fans, a number of celebrities have decided to keep quiet on the matter. It’s almost as though they don’t realise what they can actually do to help. So many stars who have actually publicly called for a cease-fire or shown solidarity with Palestine through a simple social media post have reached millions of people around the world. This helps to educate people, keeps the conversation going, and puts pressure on our governments to help.

That’s all it takes sometimes. One post. But some can’t even do that.

Operation Blockout

The rise of the digital age has seen many social media movements take place over the years. More recently, after this year's Met Gala, there was huge backlash as many celebrities once again failed to say anything about the Gaza Conflict, and in failing to do so, emerged the Blockout 2024. An opportunity missed by so many influential people when all eyes were on them. But what they’re wearing is more important, I guess…

Completely devoid of any political statement, the Met Gala went on while blocks away protests were taking place.

Blockout, or Block Party, is a movement primarily on TikTok, that aims to compel any celeb who fails to acknowledge what’s happening in Gaza. This is done by denying these stars any attention. Additionally, many people are choosing to boycott companies and refuse to give them business because of their association with Israel.

Hollywood’s silence is not only sad to watch, but it’s plain embarrassing at this point. It has the power to change and influence so much - it’s almost like it doesn’t even realise. But of course it does, it’s just choosing to ignore it.

We shouldn’t be calling out celebrities because of their inability to stand for what’s right, it should go without saying. For instance, Ariana Granda shared a link to a donation page and helped raise £40,000 for humanitarian aid within a matter of hours. Money that can be spent to help those actually living through the devastation, as opposed to those in white towers looking down and seemingly allowing it to happen.

Exercise your right to speak freely

One of our most important rights is our freedom to speak. We can use our voices to speak out and help those that are denied theirs. It truly is a powerful thing, and Watermel recognises that. Watermel is a social media site that encourages you to speak openly about what you’re truly passionate about, in the hope of making a positive change in the world.

Download Watermel today and use your voice to speak out for those that are silenced. Our mantra is that if it feels uncomfortable to talk about - then it’s important that we say it.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.watermel.online

Ways that you can help

There are over 2 million people in Gaza currently suffering the devastating consequences of this ongoing war, and it doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon. The only humanitarian action that matters now is to call for an immediate and lasting cease fire. Here are some ways you can make your voice heard, according to Oxfam:

Sign the petition for a cease fire here

Sign the letter to stop the UK selling arms to Israel here

Show solidarity by displaying a cease fire poster

Make a donation here

Educate yourselves and others. There are many resources online that can teach you about what’s happening in Gaza, and why it’s important that we keep talking about it.

#free gaza #palestine #ceasefire

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officialtayley · 1 year ago

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Ash, you got a long ask earlier that bothered me when I read it. To the anon who wrote that, I am begging you to learn more about this occupation because calling it a “conflict” clearly means you’ve only consumed Western media’s coverage of it.

Saying “it's sooo fucking easy to keep tagging paramore saying that they totally should speak up while what does it ACTUALLY change?? nothing.” is just wrong cause it won’t be nothing.

paramore speaking up and amplifying Palestinian’s voice would not stop this genocide but it will create a much safer community in this fandom for our fellow muslim and Arab friends. There’s a reason why this fandom got more diverse over the years and that’s cause the band made it clear where they stand when talking about racial justice. You can’t deny that the majority of paramore fans get influenced by a lot of the stuff the band shares. I’ve seen fans attend shows from artists that the band recommends, I know fans who bought the same instruments as Taylor and zac and this is the fandom that tolerated and bought expensive ugly merch for a long time cause it had the paramore brand attached to it. Imagine if they share info on how to call congressmen to demand a ceasefire, you don’t think more fans would be more motivated to do it? Imagine if they share a donation link or team up with an organization like they have done in the past. You don’t think it will have an impact?

Saying “I’m so sick of this narrative that paramore created expectations of them ALWAYS speaking up in EVERY injustice or tragic, y'all created this expectation. every activism is a selective activism. they never pretended they were gonna to speak up about everything.” Is just tone-deaf anon, I’m sorry to be blunt but the wording on this is insensitive.

This is the biggest thing happening in the world right now and US citizens specifically are all complicit in this cause their tax dollars are funding the IDF that is massacring innocent civilians. No one is asking them to speak about everything but how are they just gonna ignore a genocide? When the Ukraine war started, they didn’t ignore it, they even wrote a song about it because the coverage was everywhere and you couldn’t ignore it and move on with your life. Now it’s happening again but at a larger scale, Israel has now killed more civilians in Gaza in 30 days than Russia has in its entire war in Ukraine, which began over 600 days ago (this is the number from an NPR article published on nov 6 2023). How are you just gonna ignore this, how’s the band gonna make speeches about taking care of each other when they have ignored Palestinians?

Out of all of the things Palestinians could have asked all of us, they just asked us to spread the word and share the things they posted because they know that the Western media are all on Israel's side. I’m not only mad at paramore, I’m mad at every single artist that was fine with calling out loud loud racist like Trump but now are silent when POTUS is hugging and offering billion of dollars of aid to a dictator and war criminal. Where’s billie eillish and taylor swift too? They were both proud at calling out politicians and now it’s silent too.

Maybe it’s cause I grew up in a colonized country and I see the effects it has on its people every day here and I’m more sensitive to it but how do you look at those numerous videos of Palestinians crying over dead family members and destroyed homes and lands and not have the urge to speak up about the injustice? How do people look at that and just move on

👏👏👏 this this this! thank you for picking it apart cause so much of it bothered me but i just didn't have the energy to go through it.

the last paragraph though, i feel like i'm sensitive to death, especially when it involves children and babies due to losing my baby sister in 2007. watching your own parents go through that pain and then also i was going through it myself, when i see those videos it's extremely heartbreaking because it's like no one cares. these families are losing each other, losing entire bloodlines, and people are somehow able to just keep scrolling without a word? it's different obviously if the content is triggering, but many of us are still able to share other things and use our voices, but outside of that, i have no idea how people can just move on with their day.

#anon #answered

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strapinandstraponyourstrapons · 2 years ago

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apologies in advance:

sooooooooooo this prompted me to go ahead and make a thiam playlist and an honest to god graph with each song and my headcanons about them, which i have un-graphed and put below. in my defence, i had other tasks i didnt want to do so my adhd/thiam brain rot went brrrrrrr

its not in any particular order except the first three songs. the first two are from thiam moments in the show and the third is from the fandom. the rest are just me projecting thiam onto a bunch of the songs i listen to regularly because i’m literally thinking about these two idiots all the time and it’s fine i’ll get therapy one day. also feel free to ignore, like, all of this. i know absolutely nobody cares except me but like i physically could not restrain myself from doing this.

unless anyone does care, in which case please tell me your thiam songs and headcanons because i love this shit sm!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/23lQqA3OtZen4Zsoxwq8vG?si=3e9830ed2f7b4999

Wildest Ones - Zayde Wolf

from the scene where theo reverses into the ghost rider :)

Nobody Knows (feat. WYNNE) - Autograf

that conversation in theo’s truck after the zoo. as far as i’m concerned this is THE thiam song.

The Great War - Taylor Swift

i have seen sooooooo many ts songs associated with thiam in this fandom bc… you’re all mentally well cisgendered straight people, obviously (sarcasm)

anyway have seen multiple posts about this particular song being thiam and i agree.

Blackened and Bruised - Nakhane

omg this song is so THEM to me i almost don’t have words i just… ugh. the first verse to me is like theo wanting at first to dismiss the things about liam that keep carving his heart open and leaving him vulnerable, but he can’t. he loves liam and his emotions that theo should find stupid and just a weakness to manipulate. he can’t help but want to protect liam from the dangers of the world, and from himself, so that he won’t end up like theo.

~i thought i said keep it far away from me, don’t get it closer, keep it far away from me. tell me your fears young man, so we can laugh at them, like me laughing at the growl of a raging pup~

and for liam, he’s surprised when he looks at theo and begins to see the boy that the dread doctors did their best to kill. the truly good boy they corrupted, that taught them how to do it with mason.

~i never thought i’d find what i found in you. amongst the warring crowds you saw me too. and now i know i love what they hated in you. we’ll get it back, what they took from you~

Chimera - HANA

other than bc of the name, this is one of my favourite songs ever and i had to include it. i feel like this song is about an enemy hurting liam and theo being like “honey, you’ve got a big storm comin :D”

~the things i could do, if you only knew, you’d pray that i cut you loose~

Play Destroy - Poppy and Grimes

listening to this song i got an image in my head of theo and liam going to the dread doctors’ old lab (i think they make their way around to all the places the dread doctors have ever been that theo knows about tbh) and just going bonkers with baseball bats and crowbars and their claws. the rest of the puppy pack probably comes sometimes too to let off steam and get to feel like stupid teenagers hanging out and destroying property. for liam it helps with the anger sometimes and for theo it’s one of the more lighthearted ways he can face some of his traumatic past

~this is how we play it, this is how we play destroy~

Getaway Ride - Ramona Lisa

partially due to airplanes and the way they freakin zoomed outta beacon hills (and later the motel in idaho) like they were being pursued, but also these boys’ love story has so much to do with that big blue compensation truck <3

~no talking, baby, just the slam of the doors of our getaway ride~

Slip Away - Perfume Genius

not only a song about gay love but about ignoring what everyone else has to say about it, which may be necessary when your boyfriend is a reformed murderer

~they’ll never break the shape we take~

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins

my headcanon is that theo sets the chorus as liam’s ringtone to be a little shit, and when liam finds out he protests that he is very much not a rat.

~despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage~

Wolves - Garbage

honestly we’re lucky i only snuck one garbage song on here. when i listen to this one i think of liam as the first verse and theo as the second, while they’re still at a stage where all they can do is take their anger out on each other, but tbh the entire thing could also be theo having the emotional range of a teaspoon

~i was busy picking up the pieces of my broken heart, i stand accused and maybe on reflection got a little cruel~

SELF-SABOTAGE - Waterparks

this is straight up just theo not knowing how to do feelings or let himself have anything nice

~i’ll destroy chances to be better than i was before you and me… what the fuck is wrong with me?~

Soft Universe - AURORA

couldn’t be a playlist of mine without several aurora songs. this one is about thiam hiding in their own safe, soft little world in each others’ company

~chaos came, we laid our head down on the feather cotton bed, you find a heart and catch your breath, let the universe go red~

Ocean of Tears - Caroline Polachek

it also couldn’t be a playlist of mine without several cp songs. i think this one is about knowing they’re going to fall in love, even though it will take time before it becomes easy for either of them

~this is gonna be torture, before it’s sublime, does that make it crazy?~

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears

they scream this in the truck with the windows down at some point. i don’t have a good reason why, this song just contains the serotonin and i need that in my life

~help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever~

Boys Do Cry - Piff Marti

this one kinda goes on the puppy pack playlist i made in tandem with this one but i fully know for a fact that mason holds the the aux in theo’s truck hostage to play this on multiple occasions and sends the link in their dms or the puppy pack chat whenever he feels it’s relevant, so much that theo just looks at the link and rolls his eyes bc he knows. i mean what are friends for if not to bully you into looking after yourself. like “your mental health is an actual joke fam go to therapy. ily, drink water” kinda thing.

~if you cry because you sad you ain’t no bitch, you a bitch if you let it eat you up til the point it get lethal and cause you let it build up you done took it out on your people, especially ones that treat you with love~

Awoken - Glaze

god this song is just classic reformed villain angst and i love it to death. there’s really nothing to be said except that this song is l i t e r a l l y theo. literally.

~i’ve stoked the fire, seen more pain than you can know, the tears of the broken have washed away my soul, pushed by desire to change the way my stream will flow, now i’ve awoken and i’m taking back control~

Weregild - Grimes

this song lyrically makes about as much sense as any early grimes songs and summed up is kinda just like “imma getchu” but look it mentions werewolves and i vibe with it. it makes me imagine theo teaching liam to full shift and them going on runs in the preserve at night.

~werewolves, werewolves, skies will brighten~

Bloom For Me - Pearly Drops

honestly this song is so euphoric i just want to bless more ppl with it but anyway this song is liam knowing when theo is covering up his emotions and liam being the only person theo can’t hide from or lie to

~there is a cord winding around your core, the more you fight the more that you will choke~

Billions - Caroline Polachek

BOOM i told you caroline would make another appearance (technically this is her third bc ramona lisa is a pseudonym but shhhhhhh). this song is just sexy and theo is definitely psycho, priceless, and good in a crisis.

~salty flavour, lies like a sailor, but he loves like a painter~

Gentle Earthquakes - AURORA

apparently this portion of the playlist is just “they fuck” but ummm look. anyway i only realised from hearing aurora talk about it explicitly that this song is literally about orgasms because its so gorgeous and sweet. it simply has to go here because i’ve read some truly wholesome smut scenes in this fandom when i never expected to. and i just think its neat :)

~twisted body parts moving synchronised, watching lightning strike in my lover’s eyes, all the flowers grow to a luscious field, all connecting love becomes a human shield~

Violence - Grimes, i_o

aaaand grimes is back, fight me about it. this song is about begging someone to do violence on you which like… nuff said.

~you wanna make me bad, pay me back, and i like it like that, said i like it like that~

does anyone have any thiam playlists/songs?

#thiam #theo raeken #liam dunbar #theo raeken x liam dunbar #liam dunbar x theo raeken #i dont know what else to tag this bc i used all my brain cells being thiam trash

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illicitlimerence-writes · 3 years ago

Text

close friends | t. holland

pairing: tom holland x fem!reader word count: 3.1k warnings: some language, some angst if u squint. otherwise it's just fluff and tom being tom. didn't proofread this. a/n: so tumblr decided to be a little bitch and deleted this t w i c e. so i had to write this t h r e e times. this came up in my head after i got like three notifications that tom posted something on his ig story, and then it turned out he deleted them. as always, english isn't my first language so i'm sorry if this gets confusing bye. also, i was listening to cardigan by taylor swift as i wrote this.

my masterlist

so we all know tom sucks at instagram. that's a surprise to literally no one. no matter how many times you tried to teach him he still doesn't get it, and it was only a matter of time before he finally posted something he shouldn't have.

it was just one of those days, you missed him like hell. he was away filming the third spiderman, and you had to stay behind because of work.

naturally, you relied on face time and texts to survive and fill the void he left behind. you loved talking to him, listening as he rambled on and on about his adventures on set. a love-struck look on your face as you tried your hardest to stay awake despite the urge to close your eyes.

eventually, sleep took over you, and you drifted off with the sound of his voice lulling you to sleep. he stopped talking abruptly when he didn't hear your soft chuckling in reply to the story he was telling.

instead, he saw your sleeping figure, long steady breaths moving your chest up and down. and he cursed himself for making you stay up so late for him. he took one last look at you, taking a screenshot of your sleeping form.

he quickly hung up the video call and opened instagram instead, uploading the screenshot to his story,

'missing my favorite girl, thank you so much for everything you do for me. x @yourusername'

the next morning you woke up to the sound of your phone buzzing. at first, thought someone had died as one notification after another filled your screen. most of them came from instagram, so you opened that app first.

thousands upon thousands of mentions, tags and new followers. you frowned, and suddenly a text from your friend popped up at the top of your screen.

'omg just saw his story. so happy for u both'

who's story? what was going on?

you refreshed your timeline, and tom's icon appeared, a colorful circle around it. an odd feeling sank in your stomach. you tapped his icon and suddenly your screen was full of... you.

a picture of you, sleeping. tom's smiling form in a small rectangle on the bottom right corner.

oh god. you read the words he wrote, over and over again. your heart pounding in your chest, and a sudden wave of fear ran through your body. but then you read his words once more, and all you could feel was love. pure, unconditional affection.

sure, your families and closest friends knew about you, but you hadn't talked about making your relationship public yet, but there was nothing you could do now.

you sighed, leaning back on your pillows. a small chuckle left your throat.

you grabbed your phone once again, quickly facetiming tom. you knew he had an early call today, and you hoped you could catch him while he was still in his hotel.

it ran once, twice, and then you saw him, hair all over the place, bare chest. hands rubbing sleep off of his face.

"mornin', darling." he said, his raspy morning voice making you smile.

"hi, baby. did i wake you?" you asked, sitting up and crossing your legs.

"yeah but it's fine, princess. i did keep you up last night so it's only fair."

"i'm sorry about falling asleep on you, that was a really nice picture you took last night," you lifted one eyebrow, and watched as he smiled at you sheepishly.

"i thought you looked really pretty, you always look pretty," he said, grabbing the water bottle on his nightstand and taking a swing.

"thanks, i hope the whole world thinks so, too," you declared. leaning your chin on your fist, watching him expectantly.

he did not react like you had expected him to.

his breath hitched as he sipped his water, and suddenly all you could see was the cream-colored ceiling, as you heard him spitting out and coughing.

"tom! oh, my god! are you okay?" you asked, getting on your knees and holding your phone up to your face, "tommy?" you repeated when he finally stopped coughing, you could now hear his heavy breaths.

at last, you saw his curls appear from the bottom of the screen.

"wh-what did you just say?" his voice was rough, his chest heaving.

"are you okay?" you asked again.

"ye-yeah i'm fine. babe, what did you mean by 'the whole world'? did something happen?" he asked, frowning. you echoed his expression, watching him for a second.

“you posted a picture to your story,” you repeated, and he nodded.

“yeah, i posted it to my close friends, i-” he stopped mid-sentence, eyes growing comically wide. “oh shit, did i-” he caught himself off as he threw the phone to one side, you heard him fumbling around for his laptop and you snorted. “shit, baby, don’t tell me i posted it… fuck!” you couldn’t keep it in any longer, you broke out laughing.

“of course this is how the world finds out about us!” you continued giggling until your stomach hurt.

“fuck, princess i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean to, i swear i- why are you laughing!?”

“tommy, tommy! it’s okay, baby, don’t worry. i’m not mad,” you stopped once you noticed his pouting. “it’s fine, my love, i don’t mind. sure it’s unexpected, and a little sudden but i wouldn’t have it any other way. i knew what i was getting into when we started dating,” you told him honestly, wishing you were there to give him a hug and kiss him all over.

“darling, i’m really, really sorry. i swear i thought i tapped the green button like you told me to” he continued his sulking, nervous eyes glancing back and forth from his laptop screen to you.

“i know, baby, i know this is not your forte, and i really appreciate the sweet gesture, honestly. i love you so much,” you told him as you bit your lip. folding your legs to your chest, wrapping one around them.

“god, i love you. i swear i’ll make it up to you,” he ran his hand through his hair, giving you a quick peek of his bare chest.

“i’ll hold you to it,” you chuckled, you glanced to the clock on your nightstand, sighing when you saw the time. “i’ve gotta go,” you said as you stood up and stretched. a wicked idea ran through you head. “i’ve got like five meetings today, so i’ll probably be busy most of the day. just in case i don’t reply or something,” you made up you lie quickly. grabbing your laptop and opening a new tab.

“oh, okay. i’ll be on set until like 1 am, so we’ll talk tomorrow?” he asked, eyes bright. you nodded, biting your lip.

“definitely. i love you,” you blew him a kiss. he smiled, and you felt your heart swelling.

“i love you, too. good luck today!” he said as you reluctantly hung up the call.

you immediately got to work, calling your assistant and telling her you were taking a few personal weeks, and to email you in case of emergencies. next, you texted harry, asking him to call you once tom was busy on set.

you waited for the page to load, and once you had bought your one-way ticket to atlanta you hurriedly threw some pre-planned outfits into two suitcases, just in case. your phone rang and harry’s face popped up on your screen. you quickly answered the call, and let him know of your out-of-the-blue plan. he agreed to meet you at the airport and drive you to set. and because of your recent and sudden rise to fame, he suggested you wear all black and a cap. you followed his advice, throwing on some sunglasses as well, as you had seen tom do many times before.

once you reached the airport and checked-in, you bought some coffee and breakfast, as well as some food for the flight. you opened instagram, seeing all the messages and comments. you had seen how the fans reacted when their favorite celebrities announced a relationship, and you knew to expect the meanest comments, and even death threats. for your own sake and peace of mind, you allowed yourself to scroll until you read three of those, and closed the app.

once the plane took off, you tried to catch some sleep, preparing for the inevitable jet lag, but your mind kept buzzing from one scenario to another. so you took out your book and tried to read some chapters, putting in your earbuds, music playing quietly.

when you finally, finally landed, you stretched your legs and grabbed your bags, putting on the cap and sunglasses again, you spotted a familiar head of wild curls. you quickly approached harry.

“what happened to all black and a cap to go unnoticed?” you asked as he took one of your bags in his hands.

“think about it, two kids wearing black, a cap and sunglasses? people would think we’re up to no good.” he gave you a tight hug, you’d missed him almost as much as you’d missed tom.

he caught you up on everything he and tom had been doing these past months, you shifted in your seat in excitement, the sleep that was slowly taking over you on the plane had now disappeared from your body.

in what was probably a 15 -but to you felt like five- minute drive, you got to the hotel to leave your bags and take a quick shower. harry left you alone in tom’s room, making his way to his own room next door. he said he’d order something for you to eat whilst you got ready to see tom.

you took the quickest shower ever known to humankind, and when you walked out of the bathroom after using tom’s shampoo and conditioner, -you’d missed his smell all over you. the few forgotten hoodies and shirts that were once drenched in the smell of his soap and cologne, were now very faint.- you wrapped a bathrobe around your body, rummaging through tom’s clothes until you found one of his shirts.

you pulled it close to your face, sighing at the familiar scent you’d missed so much. you got dressed quickly, grabbing your now fully-charged phone and the key to tom’s room that harry had left on a coffee table. you knocked on harry’s door and he let you in.

“i just texted tom, he says they’ve got like three hours left.” you sat next to him on the couch, the table in front of you filled with food waiting to be devoured.

“my poor baby, they overwork him,” you pouted, reaching for one of the plates.

“it was his idea, said he’ll do anything that helps finish filming sooner.” you stopped chewing your food.

“wait, really?” you asked in disbelief, you knew tom loved his job, and you found it odd that he wanted to cut his time on set short.

“yeah, it’s been rough for him. not having you around, i mean, after he spent months with you. he’s been pretty distracted lately. messing up lines, he’s been waking up late and missing early calls...” your heart sank at the words. you ate the rest of your food with a knot in your stomach, cursing yourself for not getting there sooner. soon enough, you were back in the car, your leg bouncing up and down. you fell asleep on your way to set, waking up when harry parked the car and nudged your shoulder.

you stepped out carefully, your head turning back every few steps you took, in fear that tom might catch you. once you reached the stage where tom was filming, you flashed the visitor badge harry had given you to the guard and he let you both in. you walked in as you leaned down, your forehead against harry’s back, shielding you from the curious stares. harry told you to hide behind a giant box where they kept some lights whilst he spoke to the director.

although the box was big and tall enough to cover you completely, you crouched down, straining your ears for nearing footsteps. you heard two sets of feet approaching, your heartbeat racing.

you were met with your accomplice, a friendly-looking man behind him. you stood up as they approached you.

“this the girl?” the man asked, and harry nodded, “nice to meetcha, i’m jon.” you shook his hand, “okay, so we’ve cleared tom’s schedule for one week, we’ll need him back fully recharged and ready to work like it’s his first day on set, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, if it means he’ll work better if you’re here you can stay until we're done. i really don’t mind, i just need my guy back.” you blinked at his words, nodding slowly. “we’ve got a couple hours left tonight, i’m all up for some cheesy reunion, but it’ll have to be when we’re finished, i can barely keep him focused as it is.”

with that he left, and harry led you to tom’s trailer, where you caught some sleep while you waited. like that morning, you woke up to your phone buzzing. you reached for it, sleep leaving your body as you read the text.

‘just finished filming for the night, i’m exhausted. miss u, love you. x.’

all rational thoughts left your head, you opened the door to tom’s trailer and sprinted out of there until you reached the set. your eyes finally, finally met his figure, and tears filled your eyes.

your legs moved on their own accord, you mumbled apologies as you crashed into people, but you didn’t care. tom had his back to you, and even though he wasn’t wearing the spiderman costume, you’d recognize that ass anywhere.

“tom!” you called out, stopping a few feet away from him. you saw him whipping his head around, eyes scanning the sea of people. you made your way up to him, “tommy!” you repeated, and he finally turned around.

his mouth wide opened in disbelief, arms twitching, feet running towards you as you did the same. you crashed into each other, your legs wrapping around him, arms around his neck, fingers curling on his soft hair. his hands running all over your back, your hair. pulling you as close as humanly possible.

whispers of ‘i love you’, ‘god, i missed you’, ‘never leave me again’, and ‘i promise’ were exchanged. you tightened your hold on his hair, pulling back to look at him.

“hi,” you whispered, your nose brushing his.

“hey,” he replied, burying his face on your neck again, pressing small kisses anywhere he could reach. his hands settled on the back of your thighs as he spun you two. you giggled, sniffling as a few tears escaped your eyes.

you could not care less about the people around you, all you could think about was the boy wrapped all over you, your favorite boy. tom led you back to his trailer, where you finally untangled yourself from him. he settled you down and you immediately wrapped your arms around his waist, pulling him close to you again.

you had been starved of his touch for so long, there was no way you were letting him go anytime soon.

after many kisses, touches, tears, promises and more kisses, you left for the hotel. harry had already left, getting a ride from another cast member to leave you two alone. at that moment you swore you’d make him godfather of your firstborn child.

as you waited for tom to step out of the shower -you would’ve joined him, but three showers in a day seemed kind of excessive-, you laid down on the bed, throwing the covers over your body, tom's scent engulfing you. you breathed in happily. you tapped on your phone, replying to some work emails when you received a text from harry.

‘i believe the ball is in your court. you’re welcome.’

next, you received a picture of you and tom. harry must’ve taken the picture when you and tom were too lost in each other to even notice anyone around you. in the picture, your legs are around tom, bodies pressed closed together, your noses touching as you stare lovingly into each other’s eyes. it was a beautiful picture. and the black and white filter harry had applied to it made it seem like one of those old pictures of wives reuniting with their spouses after the war.

you smiled, heart swelling with emotion as you contemplated your options. you hummed quietly, tapping the instagram logo and waiting for the app to load.

you quickly uploaded the picture harry sent you tagging both him and tom and adding a quick caption before you shut down your phone. you were drifting off to sleep when you felt familiar arms around you.

you leaned into tom’s touch, your back resting against his chest, legs tangling with his as he interlocked his fingers with your own.

“thank you so much for being here, my love. i love you,” tom whispered into your ear, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“i’ll be here whenever you need me. i’ll always come back to you.” you turned around, facing him. you kissed the corner of his lips, and he cupped your cheek, his lips meeting yours in a slow kiss, filled with emotion. your fingers played with his fingers as you moved to straddle his waist. “i love you,” you broke the kiss reluctantly. as much as you both wanted to make love that night, you’d made it your top priority that tom took his time off to rest as much as he could, and that included that first night.

you gave him one last kiss, going back to your previous position. the familiar and comfortable weight of his arms around you, the feeling of his lips on your neck, his chest rising and falling against your back, you couldn’t ask for anything better.

the peaceful environment you had created suddenly burst like a bubble as tom’s phone pinged over and over again. you heard him grunting, arms reluctantly leaving you.

tom chuckled, putting his phone on do-not-disturb and throwing it somewhere on the bed.

“you’re perfect for me, my favorite girl.” you smiled, leaning into his touch as he kissed you all over. sleep quickly taking over both of you.

tom swore his heart stopped when he’d seen the picture you posted. you’d never looked more beautiful than when you were staring up at him, your bottom lip between your teeth. the words you wrote as a caption were the last thing on his brain as he finally succumbed to sleep.

‘i said, “i bet you can’t keep this a secret for five months.” he said, “darling, i won’t make it past three.” @ tomholland2013 it’s been 10 months, who won?’

edit: i just saw henry cavill's ig post and omg what is my life. pls respect celebrities' privacy and relationships.

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #peter parker fic #peter parker fanfic #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #marvel #mcu #avengers imagine

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unwrittenlibrary · 3 years ago

Text

magnetic force of a man

summary // loving him in the summer is warmth and radiance.

or; three summers showcasing the growth of your relationship with bucky. [bucky barnes x fem!reader]

words // 4.5k

warnings // post-endgame bucky & softness & kind of corny

notes // inspired by taylor swift’s lover. somehow this just came out, i’m not sure how i feel about it.

my writing is free and it will stay free, but if you enjoy it and you have the resources, consider donating to my ko-fi!

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

| Summer of 2025 |

You meet Bucky at the Farmer’s Market in June when you both reach for a red delicious apple. It’s awkward laughs and friendly introductions.

You’ve heard of him before; Janet who runs the apple stand talks about him and how perfect of a match you would be. Unbeknownst to you, Eugene who runs the plum stand, says the same thing to him.

“You’re the man Janet won’t shut up about.�� You smile sweetly. Your eyes scan his small basket of fruits and vegetables. He’s got a lot of different things. He must cook, you think. “I’ve been told I would like you.”

Bucky laughs. His eyes scan your basket too, you wonder what he thinks of all your choices. “You must be the woman Eugene won’t stop talking about.” He leans towards you and in a mischievous tone whispers, “I think they’ve been trying to set us up.”

It makes you laugh. “You’ve got a beautiful laugh.” Bucky compliments. His smile is genuine and he’s got blue eyes that are filled with kindness. You can see why Janet had been trying for so long to get you to meet him.

“Thank you.” You step towards him when another man rushes past you. “I have to ask, what have you heard?”

Bucky shrugs. “Just that you’re beautiful and you make the best apple pie Eugene’s ever tasted.” Bucky leans towards you again. “So far, he’s spot on.” The implication makes heat rise to your cheeks and you smile down at your basket.

“Guess I’ll have to make you some pie so you can see if he’s two for two.” You look back up with a teasing smile. Bucky’s eyes light up in excitement.

He shakes his head in amusement. “I hope I’m not being too forward, can I have you number?” You’re already pulling your phone out of your pocket to hand over.

That’s the beginning of your story.

˚《

Your first date is the last week of June. After weeks of texting and even some phone calls, Bucky had finally asked you out.

He takes you to a drive in up in Warwick and you park in the middle row of the second screen to watch Grease. The sun is still out when you arrive, so there’s some time to get snacks and settle in.

“Did you know it was throwbacks weekend?” You ask as Bucky flips through his radio stations in search of the correct one.

He shakes his head. You can see his fingers shaking a little nervously as he looks up at you. “Is Grease okay? I’ve uh, I’ve never seen it. It looked cute.” He grimaces and it makes you smile.

“I love Grease.” You say softly, reaching your hand out for his. “Are you nervous?”

Bucky laughs awkwardly. “Am I that obvious?” Your eyes trail over his gloved hands, his left hand resting on his thigh as you hold his right.

“I think it’s sweet.” You reassure him. “You must be hot in these. It’s June.” You flip his hand so it’s palm up and trace your finger over it.

“I haven’t done this in awhile.” He admits. There’s a red tint to his cheeks, one that’s not from the summer heat, and it makes you giggle. He eyes meet yours and he smiles tensely. “I’m uh- I-“

“You don’t have to say it.” You pull the glove off hastily so his flesh hand is revealed to you. “I know who you are. You can keep them on if you want, but you don’t need to.” You place the glove back in his palm and wrap his fingers around it.

Bucky watches you for a moment. “You know who I am and still want to go one a date with me?” You frown at his self-depreciating tone.

“I know who you used to be. I don’t know you though. The real Bucky Barnes. That’s why I want to go on this date with you.” The radio begins reciting rules of the drive-in and you look at the screen. The sun is setting behind it quickly.

When you turn to look at Bucky again, he has a grin on his face as he watches you. “Come on! Let’s get snacks before the movie starts.” You turn to push open the car door and Bucky follows after you easily.

You don’t know it yet, but that’s the beginning of your pull over him. Bucky thinks he would follow you to the ends of the earth if you asked him to.

˚《

Your first kiss is two weeks later after watching a movie in central park. It was Dirty Dancing this time. You’ve been on five dates.

You’ve learned that Bucky likes going to these throwback playings and experiencing the movies he missed while under Hydra’s control. You’re happy to indulge him, truly.

You just wish he would do more than hold you hand. Which, okay, maybe that isn’t fair. Sometimes he’ll wrap an arm around your shoulder and you’ll lean your head against his chest. He’ll even give you a kiss on the cheek goodnight, but he still won’t kiss you on the lips and you’re starting to think he just doesn’t want to.

One date? Okay, he wants to be respectful and not move too fast. Two dates? A little weird, but he was from a different time. Three? Did they just not kiss back then? You can’t imagine a charming Bucky Barnes who didn’t steal a kiss from a pretty girl. Four had you on the edge of your seat waiting for the kiss that didn’t happen.

Now, as Bucky walks you home, you think of all the ways you can bring it up. You even think of just kissing him yourself, it was the twenty-first century and women can make the first move.

Except, you can’t help but think, what if he doesn’t want to kiss me?

“You alright?” Bucky’s hand gripping your elbow gently forces you out of your head. You look up at him with wide eyes and nod a little too hastily. “You sure? You’ve been silent for like, fifteen minutes.”

His eyes are concerned pools of blue as he stares down at you. The words just come tumbling out of your mouth, “Why don’t you want to kiss me?”

Bucky just stares at you in shock. You feel heat on the back of your neck and shift in uncomfortable embarrassment at your outburst. “I’m sorry!” You blurt out. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just want you to kiss me and if you don’t want to that’s fine!” You suck in a deep breath. Bucky is still watching you silently, so you continue on. “I would just rather know now if you don’t want to kiss me instead of finding out later.”

You finish quietly with Bucky still watching you. If you weren’t so panicked, you would probably recognize his look as him digesting the words. But the panicked feeling mixes with the sting of rejection and you begin to back away. “Well this was great. Hope to never-“

Bucky’s hand wraps your waist and he hauls you back into him. His lips meet yours harshly, but it’s not painful in any way. It’s somehow gentle and his lips are soft against yours. Your eyes close and one of your hands comes up to rest on his cheek while his hands hold steady onto your waist.

When you pull away it’s with a gasp of air. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since that day in the Farmer’s Market.” Bucky admits breathlessly.

“So why’d you never kiss me?” You ask curiously. Cars speed past you on the street and there’s a group of teenagers who all gag as they pass you, but none of it matters with Bucky in your arms like this.

Bucky smiles. “I told you. I haven’t done this in a long time.”

˚《

By August, you and Bucky are going steady. You go to the market together most weekends and Bucky calls you his girl to the people you’ve both become regulars of.

He’s even talked about introducing you to his friends and going out together one night when they’re all free.

It makes your heart race and your fingers twitch with excited nerves. You think you love him, which seems crazy when you think of how you’ve only been seeing each other since June, but you do.

Thinking of him makes your heart beat faster and your face warm. You want to spend as much time as can with him and hang onto every word he says.

It seems like he feels the same way too, but you’re just not sure. Fall is right around the corner though. That means schedules pick up again and the weather gets colder, so you’d like to know if Bucky feels the same way or if this was just a way to pass the time in the summer.

You just don’t know how to say it though. Every time you think of saying the words your nerves get the best of you and you blurt out something he finds endearingly awkward and doesn’t think anything of.

“I still can’t believe a show like this exists.” Bucky murmurs in awe from beside you on his couch. You’re not really pay attention to the random reality show you’ve put on though. You’re focused on the way his eyes shine curiously and how he smiles whenever the host makes a shitty joke.

Your feet are settled in his lap and he pinches your shin when he turns to look at you. “You’re not even watching the show.”

“I love you.” You blurt. That’s one way to do it, you think. You were afraid you would regret the words when you said them or even feel embarrassed, but you don’t. All you feel is lighter, like you’ve created a better world by letting Bucky know somebody loves him, even if he doesn’t feel the same. “I don’t know if you wanted this to be summer fling or-“

“Summer fling?” Bucky laughs. His hand moves up your leg. “I’m not going around calling you my girl to everyone who’ll listen because you’re some fling.”

The words make you laugh. “I love that laugh.” Bucky admits quietly. When your eyes meet his again, he smiles sweetly. “I love you too.”

When he leans towards you for a kiss, you meet him halfway happily.

| Summer 2026 |

Being with Bucky has made you far more confident in yourself. His reassurance and constant support pushed you to be better and you knew he felt the same, so you figured moving in with him was the next step.

You had the perfect plan on how to ask him too. You had recruited Sam, who had taken a liking to you immediately, and gotten an extra key to your apartment cut with the word home engraved onto it.

While you spent the day getting the key cut and making room for Bucky’s things in your space, Sam spent the day distracting him. By the time you hear Bucky knock on your door, you’re about to burst with excitement.

You smooth down the front of you skirt and suck in a deep breath. “Hey!” Bucky’s eyes trail over you in surprise.

“Hey. Did I forget a date?” He looks up nervously, but his shoulders relax when you shake your head with a bright smile. “What’s this then? Not that I don’t love you in this skirt.” His hands find your hips and trail up your sides.

You pull his hands off and pull him inside the apartment. “I have a surprise for you!” He follows you into the kitchen easily and you pull out the small box containing the key.

You rock back and forth on your heels excitedly as Bucky begins to slowly unwrap the box. He watches, completely bemused by your excitement, and moves even slower to tease you.

“Stop!” You laugh and he shakes his head before tearing the rest of the paper off. He inspects the box slowly before opening it.

When his eyes land on the key, he doesn’t say anything and your smile drops. You watch as he stares and your excitement diminishes by the millisecond.

“Do you… Do you not like it?” You ask, unable to handle the silence. Bucky swallows thickly before looking up at you. Your heart drops as the burn of his rejection settles beneath your skin. “You don’t.” It’s not a question.

He reaches for you, but you step out of his grasp. “It’s not that I don’t like it, I just… I’m…” He doesn’t know what to say or how to actually say no to you. It’s obvious.

“You mentioned your lease was up soon and that you didn’t want to resign. I thought…” You trail off. You feel like you can’t breathe. You and Bucky were so good together, this seemed like the logical next step.

Had you read everything wrong? “I meant… I was looking at places closer to you.” Bucky says like it’s supposed to make you feel better.

“But you don’t want to live with me?” Your back hits the counter and you flinch at the harsh feeling. Bucky raises a hand, as if to comfort you, but drops it at the last second. “I don’t… Understand? I guess?”

Bucky runs a hand over his face. “I’m just not ready to live together yet, sweets.” He says softly. His face is grimaced as if the words pain him.

Join the club, you think. “Can I ask why? It seems like the next step, you know? We’ve been together for a year. I figured we’d move in together, start talking about marriage. Our future.”

Bucky’s eyes flash to yours. You hadn’t even thought it was possible, but it feels like your heart drops even further. “Do you not want to get married?” You ask slowly.

“I don’t know.” Bucky answers hesitantly. “I never planned a life. I never thought I’d get all this.”

You know he’s trying to make you feel better about the situation, but his words only hurt you more. “So being with me hasn’t made you think about your future at all?” You question. You think those words are what breaks you. The tears come rushing to your eyes and your face is hot with a mixture of anger and hurt.

“That’s not what I meant.” Bucky’s getting upset too. He’s clenching and unclenching his fists, something you’ve learned he does when he’s stressed. “I just meant I’m not sure what I want.” A beat of silence. “Shit. I mean-“ He groans in frustration and you sigh.

“I know I want you. A future with you.” You say quietly. You move to the close the box, key still inside, before shoving it into one of your kitchen drawers. “So, I think you should figure it out. What you want. So I know whether or not I should move on.”

Bucky watches you with tears brimming his own eyes. “Sweets-“

“I think you should go home, Buck.” You cut him off in a gentle tone. “Think for a few days.” You begin to move towards your hallway, ready to fall into your bed.

“Like… Like a break?” He asks tightly making you pause. You look at him over your shoulder and shrug.

“If that’s what you want to call it. I think you just need some time to figure out what you want for yourself. If it’s not me, that’s okay, but you should know.” You look back down your hallway. “I deserve to know too.”

You wait until you hear your front door slam shut to fall into your bed. When you notice Bucky’s shirt draped over your vanity chair, the tears come.

Not how you imagined your summer starting.

˚《

The month of June goes by, blossoming into July and Bucky doesn’t reach out. You’re heartbroken over it. Though that doesn’t sound like the right term because it really feels like your heart has been torn from your chest, but there wasn’t really a word for that.

You know you were the one who had suggested the break, but you figured he would have cared for you enough to give you a formal break up. Had you really ever known Bucky? What had gone wrong?

“You weren’t with Bucky yesterday!” Janet gushes when you stop in front of her booth. Your heart cracks at his name. “He always has such sweet things to say about you! Why don’t you two come together anymore? Your work schedules mess you up?”

Your eyes flash to her in confusion. Had Bucky not told her? “Janet… We broke up.” You say quietly. You’ve mastered the art of sounding cold when explaining to your friends and neighbors Bucky wouldn’t be coming around anymore.

She shakes her head like you’re not telling her the truth. “He was just talking about how he was trying to learn his mama’s famous peach cobbler recipe to make for you.”

“Must be another girl.” You say in a heated tone. “I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.”

She frowns. “He said your name, darling. That I’m sure of. Called you his girl and everything, just like he always does.” She explains softly.

“He’s delusional then.” You hiss. You stomp away from her cart. You’ll apologize to her next week, but for now, Bucky has somehow managed to ruin your day.

˚《

There’s a knock on your door that night. Your heart almost stops when you recognize the pattern that Bucky always led with.

When you check the peephole and confirm it’s him you almost don’t open the door, until you notice the tin-foiled dish in his hands.

“What are you doing here?” You ask harshly before he can say a word to you. You lean against your door jam, effectively blocking him from setting foot into your apartment. “And what is that?”

“A poor attempt at peach cobbler.” Your pulse quickens. “And I’m here to apologize.” When you look up and see the sincerity in his eyes, you sigh.

“Come in.” You step aside and he smiles gratefully as he steps past you. He places the dish on your counter and turns to face you nervously.

You stand still across from him. You had never thought you would feel this awkward around Bucky. “I’m sorry for… for hurting you that night.” He starts off quietly. “And for not reaching out, but you were right, I did need to figure my shit out.”

“You could have told me that.” You say softly. “Hey, you’re right! Let’s take a break and figure stuff out. Going ghost on me? That broke my heart, Buck.” You cross your arms over your chest like they’re a shield.

“I know.” Bucky says in the same apologetic tone. “I just… I was embarrassed because I made a fool of myself. Because I wanted to say yes. You have no idea how badly I wanted to say yes, but I was too scared to.”

You shake your head. “Scared of what? It’s me, Buck. I love you. You know I love you.” You hadn’t imagined having this conversation with him and you can’t keep the emotion out of you voice.

“What if you see parts of me living together that you don’t see now that make you not want me?” His tone is resembling that of a broken man, one you’ve only heard stories of.

The Bucky Barnes you know is healing. He’s charming, soft and intimidating but full of life and happiness. Not this. It breaks your heart and against your better judgement, you reach out to cup his cheeks in your hands. “There isn’t a part of you I won’t love, Bucky.”

“I still get nightmares. So bad I wake up screaming and unable to breathe.” He says softly. “It takes forever to get out of them.”

“I’ll hold your hand and help you through them.” You say without hesitation. “Bucky. The point of a relationship is to grow together. I want to do that with you, do you want to do that with me?”

His hands reach up to grip yours. You almost sigh in relief at the feeling of his hands in yours after weeks without it. “I do.” He says steadily. “Can we… Can we not be on a break anymore? I miss you.” He admits quietly.

A part of you thinks you should pull back. He had hurt you and you were still upset. But another, larger part of you, missed him more than he had hurt you.

“Yeah.” You say after a moment. “No more break.” You pull him towards you. He meets you readily in a kiss.

˚《

By the end of August, Bucky’s got a drawer full of things in your bedroom and his books have started to overcrowd your coffee table.

You communicate better. He shares more about his nightmares with you. He talks about the future he sees with you, one with a family and dogs in the backyard of the house he hopes to build.

You’re still nervous to bring up moving in together again. In the end it doesn’t matter though, because Bucky is the one who brings it up.

“Can we…” He starts nervously one night as the two of you eat dinner. “Would you want to talk about moving in together again?”

You look up at him a little shocked by the question. “What do you mean?” You shake your head. You know what he means. “Do you?” You ask quickly.

He nods slowly. You can see his nervousness in his tense jaw and clenching and unclenching fists. “I would like to move in together.” He’s talking kind of robotically, like he’s been practicing the words so they came out perfectly.

It’s sweet, you think. The gesture makes you laugh softly. “I would like to move in together too.” You reach across the table and wrap a hand around Bucky’s wrist.

His shoulders drop and you move to unclench his fist. “Yeah? You would?” He asks, less robotic in tone and more excited.

“Yeah.” You nod in confirmation. Bucky gives you a bright smile that’s impossible to not return.

Come fall, Bucky’s given up his apartment and has got an entire bookshelf taking up room in yours.

| Summer 2027 |

It’s July again and Bucky wants to propose.

Over two years together and the Farmer’s Market feels like the perfect place to do it. It’s where you had met and had become a daily part of your guy’s routine.

The only issue is, he’s pretty sure you’re thinking the same thing. Not that you’re onto him, that you want to propose too.

And, okay, Bucky is all for what women have accomplished in the almost century he’s been alive, truly. But proposing is his thing, it just is.

You had been the first person the say I love you. You had been the one to originally ask him to move in together. He wanted nothing more than to be the one down on one knee with his mother’s ring that he had begged and begged some museum curator to give up.

Which ultimately means, he has to beat you to it. So his plans are a little rushed. He had originally wanted to do it at the end of summer, when fall was rounding the corner and leaves were turning brown, but July would work.

July was when you had gone on some of your first dates and was when you had shared your first kiss. July was meaningful and July would work.

“Are you okay?” You ask as you absentmindedly run your fingers over the apples in front of you. Bucky’s eyes shoot up to look at Janet behind the stand, who smiles at him knowingly. You turn to look at Bucky with raised eyebrows. “You’ve been fidgety all day.”

Bucky lets out a fake cough. “I just feel a little off.” He lies. It’s a poor lie and it makes your lips quark up at the corner.

“Want to go home?” You ask, already stepping away from the apple stand. “We ca-“

“No!” Bucky’s hands grip your shoulders and he forces your to stop. You smile at him in question and Bucky quickly drops his hands back to his side. “I mean, no. Probably just allergies.”

“Uh-huh.” You say in obvious disbelief. “The super soldier suddenly has allergies.”

Bucky sighs in defeat. “You know, don’t you?” He asks and you laugh softly. Your hand finds his and you interlock your fingers together.

“Only because you left the ring on the counter last night and I saw it when I went to get water.” You say apologetically. Bucky drops his head so his forehead rests against your shoulder and lets out a groan.

You press a kiss to his temple before nudging him away. “Ask me.” You urge softly. Bucky wants to say no, that he wants to do it right, but this seems almost fitting.

You were what pushed him to be better, so maybe it made sense for you to be the one who pushed him in this too. He wasn’t sure he would even be able to without it, honestly.

He sucks in a deep breath before dropping to one knee in front of you. There are gasps of people passing by, but Bucky keeps his eyes on you as he pulls out the ring. Resized and cleaned, ready for your finger.

“I have a speech so just, bear with me. Okay?” A smile spreads across your face as you nod. “This is the third summer I’ve spent completely in love with you. I didn’t know I could feel this way about someone. Sometimes I’m still shocked that you wake up everyday and choose to be with me. But I promise I don’t take it for granted. Not for one second because I love you so much and I wake up every morning ready to show you forever. And I… I um.” Bucky swallows. “I had more planned, but I’m so nervous and I just want to ask you already.”

“Ask me.” You whisper with a bright smile. A group has gathered around you two by now, everyone murmuring in excitement but you and Bucky can only stare at each other.

“Will you marry me?” Bucky asks softly. He can see his hand shaking as he holds out the ring to you even though there’s no doubt in his mind that you’ll say yes. “Please?” He tacks on for good measure.

You nod quickly, holding your left hand out to him. “Yes. Yes. Of course!” You cheer. Once he has slipped the the ring onto your finger, you pull him up by the collar of his shirt.

You kiss him without a care in the world. Bucky’s hand comes up to rest on the back of your neck as excited cheers resound from all around you two.

When you pull away you’re smiling brighter than he’s ever seen. Bucky can’t do anything but return it.

His eyes move around the crowd and find Eugene, the man who runs the plum stand. He smiles kindly at Bucky and mouths I told you so. Bucky laughs to himself before pressing a kiss to your head.

This Farmer’s Market was probably the best decision Bucky had ever made.

It had brought him you.

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

notes // what did i say about soft!bucky? that he was all i knew how to write!!

reblogs and replies are always appreciated, especially if you read and enjoyed this piece!

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes x fem!reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fluff #james bucky barnes x reader

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leahblackk · 3 years ago

Text

Twin Flames

Summary: Emily, Garcia, Spencer and Morgan finds a little journal/Diary from reader and decided to read it, but that lead them to find her obscure secret leaving Spencer Reid with a broken heart.

Little note; This is a universe where Maeve didn’t have a stalker and goes and visit Dr. Reid at wok and not being officially a couple, and this is also a world where JJ haven’t met Will yet.

Couple: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Type: Angst mostly.

Warnings: Just someone talking about their feelings so I guess not but if you find anything please let me know!

Hello! I’ve been having a really strong hit of inspiration and I own a diary/journal myself and the word by word we see in here might or might not be on my journal/diary word by word as well, but I’m just saying. Someone once told me that you have to use your own pain as a way to lead you to find the right path, as Taylor’s Swift songs, people have broke her heart and look at her, she’s the queen of my heart. So I’m gonna go for the same path as my queen hoping I honored the writers with broken hearts. This might or might not be two or more parts so have fun finding who reader is talking about! And thank you to my bestie for being the first one to read this @junoscorner also tagging someone who wanted me to tag them on my post @measure-in-pain

Also I’ll be tagging these people who tagged me on their writing and I want to do the same @samuel-de-champagne-problems and @ssa-m-187 hoping they keep tagging me! (I think they did or I just confused things lmao my brain is not that good after all)

The air softly entered the bullpen, moving all the way to the team's skin, touching and caressing them, moving strains of hair and some papers on desks. Emily and Morgan worked in front of each other, sometimes looking up to say something and then laugh about it, having a joking manner while their hands moved through their paperwork, wanting to finish it soon as possible so they can finally leave for their plans for the rest of the day, not having cases in that week, something rare but fortunate.

Spencer and Y/n, working next to each other on the other side of the room, Spencer sipping the coffee his dear lovely friend, Maeve Donovan, dropped earlier to make her matutine visit talking with Spencer in the process and making Y/n’s heart mashed a little because of their interaction.

Y/n didn't hate Maeve, she actually thought that she was a sweet and clever girl, and the team liked her, so why would she hate her? Of course, it was stupid to do, but that didn't mean she didn't feel something breaking inside her because of their little interactions. Besides, Y/n never met someone so perfect for Spencer than Maeve.

Y/n was about to finish her pile of paperwork, being tired of that day and being tired of life in general. It has been a really rough week, and she only wished to go home and watch Doctor Who without having to worry about her feelings towards a specific doctor.

For a while now, she had been in the team having a solid and beautiful friendship with Spencer, yet her heart insisted on making an appearance, making her develop feelings for him. Having her heart beat faster and faster until the oxygen in her lungs couldn't make their path and was hurtful and difficult to breathe.

The way her hands shake or sweat when he was around and the way she finds her staring at him more than once, hoping he didn't notice.

She tried to look at those little details no one noticed in him. The way his jawline is more prominent when he's distracted, how he slightly opens his mouth when he's reading or when he is concentrated. How he often bit or licks his lips, and the little nose scrunch he does.

His face was something she couldn't believe, it was soft, and he had moles around it, making it look like stars in the sky. His skin will glow in the sun even though he's sensitive to this one. The way he always has messy hair, Morgan making it massier with his little tease.

She finds Spencer Reid, without doubt, a masterpiece. And not in the way of beauty standards, but because of those little details he had that made him… Spencer Reid.

Her thoughts were shaking out, making her get out of her head when JJ made her way to Spencer's desk sitting on the edge and directing her gaze towards him, Y/n having a view of the back of her white blouse.

Spencer directed his eyes to meet JJs, smiling at her. Y/n looked down at her desk, wanting his eyes to be on her.

"Do you have plans for tonight, Spence?" JJ asked with a soft tone.

Spence.

Her heart ached at the thought of it. JJ brought that nickname for him, the way her tongue rolls to make the words out of her mouth all the way to Y/n's ears and then to her heart to be squeezed in a hurtful way, making her cut her breath which was making its peaceful way to her lungs to keep functioning.

But she didn't hate her either. JJ was the mother of the team, caring for Y/n as well, making sure she was okay, so no, she couldn't hate her.

But she was human, and it hurt.

"No, I do not. I guess I'll watch some documentaries today. I was reading about this new scientist experiment…" he started rambling about his new discovery of the week.

"Spence," JJ cut him off "Do you think you can change your plans and come with me tonight?"

Y/ns heart stopped.

"I-uh, I-I don't know, i'll think about it."

Why wouldn't he go with her?

JJ was definitely fun to be around, she was great company, and she was so beautiful, so perfect for him.

JJ kept talking about something Y/n didn't hear too well, the blood making echo in her ears making it hurt.

She closed the files and left them there, on her desk. She started putting everything in her bag. Then, with the files in hand, she got up and started walking towards Hotch's office, leaving the files on his desk in his empty office. He already finished his day wanting to spend more time with Jack after a week of just seeing him at bedtime.

She made her way back with JJ still on Spencer's desk, and she took her bag, putting the last things there. Morgan looked at her in confusion, "Are you already leaving, baby angel?"

She looked up at him and gave him a fake smile, nodding, "Yes, I already finished my job, so I can leave now," she said with counterfeit excitement.

"Do you have plans for tonight?" He asked in a flirting manner, moving his eyebrows up and down with a smirk on his face. Y/n heard Spencer cough but didn't look at him.

"Yup, I have my date," she took her bag and made her way out, "With Doctor Who so please do not interrupt me unless it is an emergency. Goodbye," she exited the building hearing some laughs from her coworkers.

Y/n needed to get out of there as soon as possible as her heart was hurting, and the tears of sadness and pain were making their way out and down on her cheeks.

…

Ten minutes after Y/n left, Spencer noticed a scarlet red book with black and brown in the corners, medium size and what seemed like a hardcover in Y/n's desk. His eyebrows almost touched each other when he frowned. Then, he got up and stretched his hand, taking the book in his hand, realizing his statement of the hardcover was correct.

His fingers traced the patterns with a soft touch feeling the fabric and the cold of the book. It didn't have a title on the cover, being just the colour and the pattern. His confusion was increasing now.

He delicately opened the book and looked at the first page full of golden glitter with Y/ns initials. He smiled at the slight touch. He knew that was something she did every time she got a new journal.

So his confusion fades away. That was her journal.

His curiosity begged him to keep reading, but his heart being faithful to her and her trust, didn't want to keep reading because he knew her journal was something personal, and he knew her that well to know that in the next page, there were threats to those who dared open her secret book, so he flipped the page and chuckled when he was right.

"Belongs to Y/n Y/L, and if you find this book either because of coincidence or because you figured where I hide it, I will let you take a minute to consider your well-being and your life and stop reading from here."

He flipped the page again, knowing what it was there.

"Seriously, stop being so nosy and stop reading. Consider your life and take a minute to breathe in. If you keep reading, it might be the last time you do something as simple as that without pain <3."

He laughed this time at her intentions of keeping her privacy and knowing her all too well. He closed the book and put it on his desk.

Y/n was his best friend, and he wouldn't read it because he knows it was her privacy, and if he wanted to know something about her, he would ask, and she trusts him so she would answer his questions, and he doesn't want that trust to fade away. Besides, he owns a journal/diary as well, Y/n introduced him to that world, and he wouldn't want someone reading his.

Even though neither Y/n nor Spencer writes really dark and deep secrets in their journals, knowing someone can read it and both having trust issues, they just write down their thoughts when the weight of them is too much, or maybe when they have an idea of something or to remember.

But Morgan didn't have those intentions when he walked where Spencer was, just the minute after he put the book down and tried to keep it for his best friend until he saw her again after leaving so fast today.

"What do you have there, pretty boy?" Morgan asked.

Spencer looked at him and tried to grab the book to keep it safe from Morgan's hands, but it was too late. "That's uh-t-that's something I've been reading this week," he lied. Derek looked at him in disbelief and smiled, shaking his head.

"Nuh-uh, let's see. Without a title, that's interesting," he looked at the cover and opened it looking at the page with glitter, "This definitely not a normal book, and it's not yours either."

"Just because it has glitter doesn't mean it's not mine," he answered, already annoyed by Morgan's behaviour.

Spencer got up and tried to grab the book, but Derek wouldn't let him. Emily and Penelope walked where the boys were with curiosity. "What are you two doing? I didn't know you could play freezbeewith a book," Garcia joked.

"Pretty boy here was hiding this incredibly interesting book from us."

"Naughty boy," Emily said with a smile.

"Alright, it's not mine. Is Y/ns but please do not open it or read it. It's her personal journal, and she left it here, and I don't think it's a good idea to read it."

"But you were reading it." "I-I wasn't. I was looking at the first pages to know if it was truly hers, and if you look at the following page, you would know she doesn't want anyone to read it."

Morgan looked at him in a joking manner. Then he opened the book and read the first pages. Those Spencer read minutes before, "Well, you weren't kidding with not wanting to read her diary part. Jeez," he said, amazed by the way she threatened them.

"It's not a diary, it is a journal, and if you don't mind, I would want her book back so I can return it to her," Spencer inclined to take the book out of Morgans hands, but he didn't let him bringing the book to his back and laughing at Spencer's face.

"Come on, pretty boy, are you gonna tell me you don't want to read pretty girls journal?" He said, emphasizing the "journal" part after being corrected by Spencer.

"No, I really don't. If I want to know something about her, I'd ask."

"There are secrets that can't be shared," Emily said, looking at Spencer, interfering in the conversation for the first time, with Garcia by her side looking quietly at the group.

"See? Emily agreed to read the journal."

"Uh, excuse me," The brunette said, standing from the edge of the desk where she was. "I never said that. I am only saying there are secrets people can't share, and I know for sure Y/n has them, but that doesn't mean it is a good thing to read her journal."

"Still, I'm curious, so I will read it, and if you three don't, then it is your problem. It is not like I want to know baby angels dirty secrets, but I do want to know what is in that head of hers because I am a good friend, and apparently, I am the only one who has been noticing how she's been acting all weird, and I want to help, and I know she won't say anything but here," he said shaking the book in spencers face. "Is the truth of her behaviour."

Spencer sighed, knowing he won't stop Derek from reading the book. He sat at the edge of his desk with guilt filling his bones, feeling like he was betraying his best friend's trust, even if he wasn't the one holding the book, wanting to know what was written on its pages.

Morgan opened the book and passed pages and pages with his large fingers, trying to look at something recently. He actually didn't want to read her journal and know everything inside of it, but he wanted to help her, and she was a stubborn person who wouldn't admit what was going inside her head.

His eye scanned the letters in her messy handwriting when he found the most recent pages when after those, everything was blank. He smiled to himself for finally finding what he was looking for. He cleared his throat as he was going to give an important speech, but in reality, he would regret reading the journal, making one of Y/ns fears reality; Exposing her heart to what was really in it.

Her messy handwriting said some things 1. She wrote it from her heart. 2. She was shaking when she wrote it as the letters got out of the lines. 3. She was crying when she wrote it. The little dry tears in the soft white paper said so.

Morgan began to read out loud,

"Today, I finally realized things, the ones I wanted to keep away and don't open the Pandora box. The things I wanted to keep believing like the romantic hopeless in love that I am. Because I love love but does love loves me?

Sometimes our hearts fall for the wrong people at the right time, I know people say they find the right person at the wrong time, but it's all the way around for me. I have found the wrong person at the right time, and don't get me wrong, with the wrong person, I do not mean he's bad or anything. He's everything but that. I like to say that men are bullshit, and romantic movies and novels have sold us a standard of men they can't reach. Like Mr Darcy, everyone knows Mr Darcy, right? And why is he perfect? Because he was created by a woman who knows what other women want, and they spend their entire life looking for their Darcy, and some of them have found them. Lucky them.

Why do I say he's the wrong person at the right time? Because he's Mr Darcy, but he's not my Mr Darcy. He's everything I have ever dreamed about someone, what I have wanted, what I have dreamt about and at the right moment? Because I have never wanted someone like him more in my life like these days when I feel alone and when I don't know what to do, he knows when I'm feeling bad, and he was the audacity to look too pretty, too cute, too perfect to remind me he's everything I ever wanted and everything every person have wanted on someone, as a partner for life. To share life with them because he has the best soul someone has ever seen.

But… he's soul is already attached to someone else, and spoiler alert! It's not mine. I have watched him fall in love with someone else so hopelessly that it reminds me of a certain someone. It's actually funny to see someone falling in love the way you have fallen in love with them but with another person… It hurts like hell too.

I have always loved the stories of soulmates and twin flames. I guess I have never believed someone would love me the way I am, so they have their soul connected to mine, and they don't have another way out… or maybe it is just the beauty of it. The beauty of finding someone so perfect for you… too perfect to be real.

I loved love, I have watched love, and I have fallen in love as well. I have made couples, and I have played the role of Eros, and when they didn't believe their soulmate was out there, I always told them that it was because I felt it, because I knew it, because my soul and heart told me so. I have fallen in love with someone I could never have, nor will I even if I tried to. I'm not gonna say the typical "he wouldn't be with me because for who I am," no, he wouldn't be with me because his soul loves somebody else, and I have to watch it every single day of my life, every single day I step in for the job I watch him hug her and laugh with her and looking at her the way I look at him, and it hurts, but I'm not selfish. God! I wish I were I fucking wish I could hate her and make an evil plan to take the man with me, but my heart knows he's happy with her, and I could never take that away from him because if someone in the world deserves to be happy it's him because he has been through so much and because he had helped people he has… he has helped me. So I know perfectly he deserves it, and her? God, she's the prettiest person, and casually, she's perfect for him.

I loved stories of soulmates and twin flames, wondering if someday mine would come and that someone would love me how the movies and novels talk about. The way the man will do and kill for them. But I realized that I don't have a soulmate. I do not have one. And I thought I would be sad about it. Why am I not sad about it? I don't feel anything at all.

And that doesn't mean I would not get married. I probably will, but not with my twin flame… that person who loves the way I love.

And I always encourage my friends when they doubt their soulmates, but I have never encouraged myself. I have made couples realize the love they hold so dearly for each other.

As the Eros curse has been on me. Eros cannot throw an arrow to himself, and neither can I.

Why do I have to watch the person I fell in love with being in love with someone else and all this pain? What do I do with the pain I'm feeling? Why do I feel this? How can I stop the pain from my heart?

I can't do anything about it. I just have to watch him fall in love with someone else, ignoring the screams my heart is giving because I fell in love with him too."

The bullpen and the four people who were in it fell into silence, those uncomfortable silences. The quiet almost ruled the place, but no, the true king in that situation was the tension. Once held with comfort, the tense air now squeezed them, taking the air out of their lungs.

But mostly Spencer Reid's air. He felt trapped, he felt fear, he was scared. Why was he scared? Why his heart decided to beat so fast like he runs to save his life as the main characters in horror movies?When death is behind them, chasing them, He loved the tension and fear in those movies, but he didn't love how it felt now.

His hands started trembling, so as his legs, he tried to grab the desk, hold onto something, and pretend he didn't hear the words his friend wrote from her heart directly to the paper once it was empty, and Spencer wished it stayed that way.

His heart dropped, feeling an awful pain like knives digging profoundly in his heart.

But mostly, he felt guilt. To know that secret, and because he didn't notice before.

He though… He thought she told him everything, because he does. Or that is what he tries to do. He wants her to be part of his life, but why didn't she let him in?

Why didn't she tell him what she was feeling? All that pain?

Spencer frowned at the thought of her going through that alone.

And mostly, who was the man?

Spencer's heart wanted to know so badly so he could kill him for hurting his... His best friend.

He got up from the desk, Morgan still shook and the girls as well. Not knowing what to do or say, is not like they could talk to her about it because she doesn't know what they have done.

Spencer took the book from Derek's hands, this time being successful. He grabbed his bag and started walking out of the building, ignoring Derek's calls.

He runs all the way to the metro. He wasn't a fan of driving, even if at that moment he want to. The ride to his best friend's house way too long and exhausting. He knew the path too well, counting the number of apartments before arriving at hers, and he used the stairs, wanting to calm down before confronting her. He read the pages in the journal, the ones Morgan read before, over and over again, the pain increasing with every letter or messing ink in the paper.

Finally, Spencer was in front of her dark brown wooden door with the number "13" above the peephole.

He knocked three times, waiting anxiously for her to appear. And she did.

The door opened painfully slowly, and there she was. With red puffy eyes, as well her cheeks and nose, she has been crying but also sleeping so people wouldn't know the truth behind those hurt eyes. Those eyes he found comfort in now were looking for comfort as well, and he wanted to give her that. He would kill for her to feel that, to feel him there, and he wouldn't leave her alone.

"Hey Spence," her voice broke his heart.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked straight to the point.

She frowned, confused at the word leaving his rosy lips.

"Tell you what?"

He didn't have the strain enough to confess his crimes, so he lifts the evidence looking at the panic filling her precious eyes. "Why-why did you? How did you-?" she murmured, not completing the sentence she wanted to give.

"You left it on your desk."

"And you decided it was a good idea to read it, Reid? What were you thinking? Just because you are my best friend doesn't mean you have the right to step on my privacy," she said, angry but not raising her voice, feeling way too tired of everything. She took the book out of his hands and brought it close to her chest, wanting to keep it close to her and impossibly trying to reverse what he had done, but the damage was already there, printed on its pages and the intrusive and unknown hands that had filled it like poison.

Reid.

She never called him that, not even in teasing because she had told him she felt weird doing so, and now he knows he had messed up so badly, but he won't tell their friend was the one who did the damage in the first place, "I-I know it wasn't right, but I wanted to know what was wrong with you in this week, and all weeks before. You have been acting weird, leaving work when you can, not hanging out with anyone—watching Doctor Who without me? I-I didn't know what to do," he explained. It was true he felt that way, but he also used Morgan's excuse.

"There's something that 's called communication. I don't know if you ever heard of it? Like asking and talking?" She asked with obvious sarcasm. Sarcasm was her weapon in that battle, and all battles when it comes to feelings, to her feelings.

"Like you would've told me, right?" And sarcasm was also his weapon. "If someone ever asks you what's wrong, even if it is me, you always turned the topic and didn't talk about it. Keeping your feelings in secret doesn't make it any better, and I thought you trusted me enough to say what's wrong and what you are feeling."

"Yeah, I trusted you until you decided to read my journal without permission."

His heart dropped.

Trusted.

"I know it wasn't right, and I'm not proud of it either, but it is not right to keep your feelings and not to talk about them as well."

"Yeah, because you are the best at talking, right?"

"At least I told you about it."

"Yeah, Spencer, but for some, it is not easy."

"Why? Why wasn't it easy to tell me you were in this pain and someone broke your heart in that way, and he is from work! My god Y/n. You would've told me," he looked at her with exasperation wanting to know why she didn't tell him.

"Because it is you, Spencer, alright? It's you the one who broke my heart, happy?"

He didn't thought his heart would break more than before.

Yes, his heart has broken because his best friend’s was. And because someone broke it, but to know you were the one who caused that pain? It wasn't something easy.

He always wanted her to be happy, and if someone breaks her heart, he will break his legs, but… He broke her heart.

His stomach dropped, and his legs turned into jelly. He looked at her with tears already forming in his eyes as well in hers. He broke her heart.

Those words were going to haunt him forever.

"W-What?" he said in disbelief, wanting so desperately not to be true. "Yes," she said. Her voice breaking. She didn't want to tell him because he deserved to be happy, and because she knew he wouldn't feel the same, she didn't want to ruin their friendship, but mostly because even if he didn't feel the same, breaking her heart was something he wouldn't forgive. "I hope you got the answers you were looking for," and with that, she turned around and closed the door, almost collapsing into the floor with all the pain her heart was feeling now.

Spencer stood there without knowing what to do.

He broke her heart.

#spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #spencer reid x y/n #spencer x y/n #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #spencer fic #spencer x you #spencer x reader #Angst #Doctor reid #reid

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littlemisslipbalm · 4 years ago

Text

I live in the neighbourhood

When Y/N moved to Hampstead she was unaware of the implications the decision would have on the course of the rest of her life.

Harry is Y/N’s eccentric neighbour who sweeps her up in the whirlwind that is his life

this gif bc its maybe my favorite clip of him EVER holy fuck - this is the harry of my dreams this is the harry of i live in the neighbourhood

HEY YALL it’s been a minute and I missed yall so much and I’m just about to be on break so maybe i’ll be back to posting writing regularly but with school its so hard and I think I’ve been working on this for months so yeah <3 lol PLS PLS PLS leave me feedback and reblogs and that stuff bc otherwise my writing just feels...empty and you have no idea the smile i get when even just the tags say like “god this was everything” it can be anything honestly but it keeps my passion up. Thank you again and hope you enjoy.

Word Count: ~10k | Warnings: swearing probably? no smut (yet), rich and famous harry - mentions of Taylor Swif

She considered herself an average young woman in her mid twenties. She liked screaming Taylor Swift and Megan Thee Stallion songs alone in her car and thrifting on weekends. She hated cable because of commercials and when doordash didn’t deliver all of her order. She had asthma when she worked out or the air quality was bad. She had dumb celebrity crushes that her friends and her still laughed over with every new instagram post. She had hopes and dreams she had yet to achieve and she had past trauma that many would never know about, especially at first glance.

Sure, she was successful. She would admit that. How else would she be able to afford even the modest little house she had found in Hampstead? She had studied international business in college and hopped on a plane to London the first chance she got. After a few years of a more than decent paycheck and an advantageous stimulus check from her kind parents, she was able to move out of her starter flat into the suburbs. The definitive push for the move was two-fold. Her parents wanted her to take her dog and her apartment complex was strict on no pets. Then her promotion at work - which included a pay raise - made it hard to wave off taking full ownership of her childhood ten-pound best friend.

So with life happening as it usually does, Y/N first found herself scouring Zillow, then touring homes in the area, and finally standing outside a three bedroom, two bath, two-story cream house in Hampstead. Her house.

The little moving truck she had rented sat beside her as she stared at her future. The realtor had told her they would be there in ten minutes. For the next ten minutes all Y/N had to do was keep herself from combusting, or worse, sobbing.

She felt overwhelmed already. Renting a flat in London was one way to describe herself as independent. Owning a home in Hampstead seemed like a whole new level of adulthood she wasn’t sure if she was prepared for.

After taking a few deep breaths to ground herself, Y/N walked up to the gate that kept her front yard narrowly separated from the sidewalk. She lifted one hand from beneath the box she clutched tightly to her chest to push past the iron-rod gateway. The garden was cute, a little bland, and she thought to herself that maybe she’d develop some gardening skills now that she had her own front yard. The thought made her smile a little, refraining from laughing aloud while on her lonesome, since she had never taken interest in gardening before. But this house. This house. It was a new beginning. It was a fucking unwritten journal. Blank film. Unknown territory. She could be anyone in this house.

She gently placed the cardboard box on the first step up to the front door. There was no porch, but she couldn’t complain. It was gorgeous and she was lucky to get it at the price she did. The house was cream with dark blue accents and a grey shingled roof. Lots of windows. It was classic and it was hers.

After the realtor came with her keys and made sure everything seemed alright, Y/N’s couple of friends, Amélie and Daniel, arrived with their cars filled with items she had needed picking up from various stores. They helped her move her stuff into the house. Thankfully it was already half furnished, meaning she didn’t have to go out and buy beds or couches or any of those big items that are both expensive and a hassle to deal with.

By the time the evening had rolled around, everything was in the house and it actually seemed semi put together. Y/N looked around, sweat apparent on her face and hands on her hips, proud of what she had accomplished. The nerves from earlier had been drowned by pride.

The next day, she woke up from her first night in the house. It felt like a dream even though she was sure she was awake.

She had to navigate her way to the airport today to pick up her dog from his long flight and then mainly settle into the house. Her house sat on Sherwood Avenue, one of the many streets in Hampstead. It’s neighboring houses were much larger. The ones directly next to and across from her weren’t drastically bigger but what she had yet to learn was that next to the house across from her there were two houses that had been joined together by their slightly eccentric owner. A man who would be the match that ignited the flame that was the rest of her life.

This unknown fact quickly became known after Y/N’s first few weeks in her new neighbourhood. The eccentric - more so absurdly rich - neighbor who conjoined the houses was Harry Styles.

The first time they crossed paths she wasn’t even aware of it. It was the day she moved in. He had been out for his usual morning run and was rounding the corner when she had pulled up in her moving van. Once inside his home, he snoopily watched on as his neighbour began to move in. He hadn’t taken note of much about her, just that she was new and that she had a nice pair of jeans on that day.

The second time, Y/N was convinced she needed to get her eyes checked because there was no way that she had just seen Harry Styles key himself into the house across the way from her. There was no way that she had moved into the same area as him, let alone the same street. It seemed far more plausible that she needed a psych evaluation or a strong glasses prescription.

But the third instance of them crossing paths, she was proven wrong. She was on her way back from the neighbourhood park when she saw a guy jogging towards her. With a yellow beanie and a black Columbia sweatshirt paired with running shorts and shoes, he was hard to ignore running straight towards her. The iconic curls, strong jawline, and soft green eyes were dead giveaways this time. After making brief eye contact as their paths literally crossed, she felt herself make a little face of odd interest. Her head quirked and her eyes narrowed, lips pursed with slight confusion. That was definitely him.

After that, she found herself seeing Harry around the neighbourhood a relatively good amount. She’d see him at the park, at the coffee shop, on their street, and more. They didn’t speak. She really didn’t think he would want to be bothered by his neighbours and she certainly wasn’t willing to test the theory. They sometimes gave a small smile of acknowledgement but nothing really friendly. Just ‘you exist and I know that’.

Fridays are Y/N’s favorite day. It’s the beginning of the weekend, she never has to go into work and it’s simply a nice day. People are happier, they smile brighter and it just seems like the world is a little better than usual.

Friday was especially amazing today because her childhood best friend, Cate, was arriving at London Heathrow in the evening. Y/N had begged Cate to fly out to see the new house in person and Cate had finally found the time to run away to England for a week.

She shut her front door carefully behind her and placed her headphones in her ears. Rori, that little terrier, who had made a similar flight to see Y/N’s place not too long ago, scampered out the door with her and jumped happily at her legs as she fiddled with her phone. Her coat ruffles around her disturbed from the morning air. It’s blanket-like fabric that consisted of a deep blue backdrop with felt giraffes sewn on it, kept her warm while she walked. With her mind racing with weekend plans and ideas for her and Cate to do both in Hampstead and the city, she crossed the street like usual and began to walk with her dog to the coffee shop for her morning tea.

Unlike usual, she fumbled just as she was putting her phone in her pocket and bumped into something large and definitely not sedentary.

“I’m so sorry!” She blushed and moved backwards from the man who had just been shutting his own front gate to head somewhere.

“S’alright. No harm, no foul.” He looks down at her and her dog. Rori seems excited by the stranger and sniffs him eagerly. A single paw prodding at the man’s long leg.

She grimaces, hearing the voice and stepping back allows her to fully recognize who she had just bumped into. Her neighbour. The runner. Harry Styles.

“Sorry.” She mutters again as Rori continues to prod at Harry’s leg.

She tries to coax Rori away, but Harry simply smiles and leans down to the small dog.

“Hi there buddy,” he coos and rubs the top of the fluffy dogs head, in between his pointy ears, “What’s your name?”

“Rori.” She states easily, Harry’s eyes flickering to her smoothly. Rori makes a smile babbling noise that sounds a bit like a tiny roar - hence the name - and Harry chuckles to himself.

“He’s really adorable,” he finally says and straightens up from his admiring of the dog.

The grimace becomes more of a smile on her face and she mumbles a “Thank You”.

As her neighbour - who hasn’t introduced himself (which wasn’t necessary, but still) or bothered to ask for her introduction - seems to be about to say something new when his phone begins to vibrate obnoxiously. He twitches, his large hands immediately going to his pockets for the important device. He checks the message and looks back at her face.

“Sorry, I have to run...um,” he’s not sure what to say. He really does have to go, but he doesn’t even know his neighbour’s name. He’ll have to make sure to get it at some point in the near future. Especially now that he’s acquainted with her dog.

“No worries,” she smiles completely this time, relieved for the whole interaction to be over. She felt like she was going to explode with each passing moment. In the presence of a legendary musician, c’mon, who wouldn’t be freaking out. All she could think about was how Harry Styles now knew her dog’s name. What the fuck!

Upon arriving at the airport, she waited patiently for Cate to walk out of the customs area.

When she did, the two young women began jumping up and down excitedly, Y/N squealing only slightly. They hugged and began chattering intensely, catching up on lost time that generally occurs when you live an ocean apart.

Finally, one comment rings through the constant back and forth and Cate stops.

“Wait, what did you just say,” she questions as they begin walking to catch an uber back to Hampstead.

“I think my house might be haunted?” Y/N’s voice raising because she’s unsure if that’s what Cate was talking about.

“No, no, the thing after that. I think I must’ve misheard you.”

“Harry Styles is my neighbour?” Y/N’s brows raise as she looks over at her best friend, curious to know what she will say.

“Yes! Explain. Now!”

“It’s not really a big deal. It’s a nice neighbourhood, it makes sense that celebrities of his caliber want to live there.”

“That is not explaining. You have to introduce us!”

As they climb into their uber and settle in for the short ride back to Hampstead, Y/N sighs and tells Cate everything she knows.

“We’ve only just spoken today and I’ve been here for a couple weeks. He lives across the street and down one, I guess. I just see him around, it’s not like he knows who I am. He didn’t even get my name today, just Rori’s.” She laughs lightly, still finding it funny that Harry knows her dog’s name.

Cate nods, leaning in slightly to her best friend, hardly able to contain her awestruckness from the story and baffledness at Y/N’s calmness. “So, like, when do I get to meet him?”

“Girl, I don’t fucking know. Never, if you’re going to act wild. I don’t want the neighbourhood to think I’m not chill.”

“Sometimes…” Cate starts and leans away from Y/N jokingly, “I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

They both smile, bumping elbows silently. The song on the radio fading in louder as their words die out.

The next day, Y/N took Cate to the local park. It was expansive and connected to the football fields that local teams would play at. The park section was a luscious green that was maintained with copious amounts of watering by the township.

She and Cate settled on a patch of grass near a slender tree that would offer some shade if the sun’s rays became too harsh. The quilt they sat on was something her grandmother had made her when she was maybe 8 years old, meaning it was torn in places and completely worn in a different shade of pink than it had been initially.

They set up their picnic and played music, enjoying the sunny day. Something rare and fleeting as the fall began to creep up on Hampstead.

They eat and catch up on life for about an hour. Basking in the sunlight, Y/N had laid on her back and was staring up at the clouds passing along the sky. Cate was carefully watching their surroundings, simply taking in her friend’s new home, but possibly for another reason too.

“Hey, isn’t that…” Cate trails off, trying to subtly nod in the direction of an approaching figure.

Y/N sits up, her hands holding her up from behind her. Her hair fails in front of her shoulders slightly and it’s a little disheveled from being mused in the grass. She looks discreetly in the direction of Cate’s nodding and then looks at her friend and rolls her eyes.

“Yes, but don’t say anything, he might not even notice me and I’m certainly not calling out to him.”

‘Illicit Affairs’ by Taylor Swift is playing off her speaker and as she’s about to change it, Cate turns it up slightly. They share a glare with one another before trying to act casual again, even though both of their eyes kept flickering to the man who seemed to be continuing closer and closer to their set up.

It became clear that Harry was approaching them after all and Y/N tried to carry on an unbothered conversation with Cate, which was hard with the constant nudging of Cate’s foot on her shin.

He stops a mere foot away from their blanket, beaming at the two young women lounging on the ground. He makes an attempt at a casual wave, his large hand splaying his fingers quickly, before opening his mouth to speak.

Cate beats him to the punch. “Hello there!”

“Erm, hi!” He says nicely to her and then looks at Y/N.

“No Rori today?” He inquires.

“No,” she smiles, slightly blushing at the fact that he remembered her and her dog. “He’s napping.”

“Ah, I see,” He pauses, “I feel like I need to apologize.” He continues.

“For what?” She questions and Cate watches on anxiously, mesmerized by Harry and dying to see what happens next.

“I ran off before I could even ask for your name or introduce myself. It was terribly rude.”

“Oh,” she can’t stop smiling, “It’s nothing to apologize for, I’m sure you’re busy. Besides I had to get my day started, otherwise I would’ve been late picking her up.” She points to Cate who smiles sheepishly, still internally screaming over the fact that her friend is able to talk so easily to a celebrity.

Harry nods and looks at Cate again, “Just visiting I take it then?”

She nods quickly, words escaping her. Y/N chuckles under her breath and swoops in to save her friend any embarrassment. “Cate’s my best friend and she’s been kind enough to take time out of her extremely busy life to come look at my new house.”

He hums, still standing a respectful distance from their set-up. “Nice to meet you, Cate,” he says very kindly. Then he laughs, but in a way that is like he’s beside himself. The two women both quirk their heads at him. Y/N squints her eyes slightly, trying to understand the guy she is talking to and connecting him with the man that is all over the news all of the time for his musical genius.

“Now I know your dog and best friend’s names but still not yours. At this point, I’m begging you to tell me.”

They all laugh and Y/N feels nervous for the first time since Harry had walked up.

“You first,” she smiles slyly.

His eyes widen slightly in surprise, but then go back to normal. Harry was very smart, she likely knew his name, but one, she was trying to be funny and two, she was also trying to be courteous. He preferred to introduce himself rather than just be told who he is, even if people already knew. It allowed him to maintain some normalcy.

“‘M Harry,” He says with a smile.

“Alright.” She says and then remains quiet.

Harry’s lips quirk up in a faint smile, amused at her expression.

“I thought it was a ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ type of situation or was I mistaken?” He finally asks when she remains silent still.

The two young women laugh and Y/N bites the inside of her cheek, both feeling flustered and completely in control at the same time.

“You weren’t mistaken, I was just thinking.” Then she pauses again and Cate thinks Harry is about to combust and Harry thinks he’s going to as well with all the anticipation that has been built up over his neighbor’s name, even though he was pretty sure he’d heard it in passing at one point or another but had forgotten quickly afterwards.

“It’s Y/N.”

Harry releases a facetious sigh of relief, “Oh thank god! Finally!” His words quickly turn into an infectious laugh that is paired with a shining smile and she feels like she’s swooning right then and there. The control has gone out the window and she’s taken with her neighbor. He’s wonderful in that moment and she forgets about Cate or the park or anything. It’s just Harry and how it seems like he’s smiling just for her.

“Now that I’ve gotten your name,” he smiles pointedly at her after his laughter has faded away. The smile doesn’t leave his face though, his eyes still crinkled, his dimples still showing.

She nods, encouraging him to continue. Cate feels like she’s watching a movie unfold in front of her and she wishes she could record the entire interaction.

“I can finally ask you, Y/N, where did you get that fabulous coat I saw you wearing yesterday?”

She twitches further upright, eyes bringing themselves directly inline with Harry’s gaze. “Oh,” she inhales, “The giraffe one, yeah?”

He nods.

“I got it from a Goodwill years ago. It’s some vintage company that used to only make sleepwear. I looked up the tag one time and it doesn’t exist anymore. Super cool, though. Wish I could buy more.”

“Yeah,” Harry says eagerly, even taking a step towards the women, “It was so intriguing. Maybe, if you didn’t mind of course -” he falters, losing his courage for a moment, “you could bring it over and my stylist could check it out. I would love something similar and I’m sure he could figure it out.”

She shrugs. It wasn’t crazy, especially not for Harry - she assumed. She was certain he often found things he liked but there was only one of them so he would just order his own. She couldn’t help the pride that was swelling inside her though it that moment. Harry Styles liking her jacket so much he asked where it was from and then wanting his stylist to look at it. She’d jump for joy when she was in the safety of her private home later tonight with Cate.

“One condition,” she says and Harry’s brows quirk amusedly at her.

“You are a very tit for tat person,” he muses.

“Fair’s fair,” she shrugs again and then looks around her quickly, “It’s simple so don’t get too worked up over it, buddy.”

He laughs slightly again and tries to figure out what she’s looking for. When she extends a scratched up, sticker-covered point and shoot film camera he smiles.

“Can you take a picture of Cate and I? It’s always just the two of us so we never have anyone to take pictures of us together.”

Harry grins at this and her sincere face. Cate is a little taken aback, because while it’s technically true, it’s not entirely factual. They have plenty of film pictures of them - maybe not recently though. And she wasn’t going to question Y/N right now. It seemed like she knew what she was doing.

Harry takes the camera and begins to look through the viewfinder. The women scoot closer together and Cate wraps her arm around Y/N’s shoulder. She leans in to press her cheek against her best friend. They smile up at the camera and Harry crouches slightly to get a better angle.

“Alright,” he mumbles, “Ready?...Cheese!”

Their smiles stay hung on their face as they listen for the click and when the faint sound befalls their ears, Cate laughs and Y/N pulls away. She reaches forward for the camera, her hand easily brushing Harry’s large one.

Their smiles meet each other and Cate can’t help but notice how they grow as the two of them look at one another.

“Thank you,” Y/N says sweetly and pulls back to retake her seat on the blanket.

Harry straightens up, his grin falling back into that signature smirk. “No problem.”

“So-” He begins but she cuts him off.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll see you around, yeah?”

He clears his throat, feeling thrown off. “Yeah, sure. I guess next time I see you we can talk about when a good time would be for your jacket to come over?”

His voice raises at the end of his question a little more than usual, he’s trying to get her to bite, but she doesn’t seem like someone who is easily thrown off. He is trying to read her and she’s been completely cool the entire time. It’s intriguing. Even more so than the jacket, even though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it, it wasn’t really his focus when he walked across the park to her and Cate.

“Yep! It was nice finally meeting you Harry.”

He feels the cue to walk off and says his farewells. As he walks off, back on course to his intended destination, his head is filled with questions. Most important of them being when he would see her again.

Cate and Y/N watch him walk towards the football fields. They see him meet with a group of men and it seems like they’re there to practice or play a game. Y/N couldn’t be sure.

“He likes you!” Cate finally bursts out.

Y/N rolls her eyes, “Stop trying to make me take the piss. That’s a fucking lie and you know it.”

“It’s not! He likes you and you obviously like him, I mean, but we been knew.”

“Having a crush on the famous Harry Styles when you’re 17 is different than me liking my neighbour Harry.”

“But you like him don’t you? He’s even better than he was when he was 19. Now he’s all grown up and established and more your style anyway.”

“Shut up! He could hear you.”

“He really couldn't, he's yards away, you’re just paranoid.” Cate continues to tease and ridicule her best friend over Harry and Y/N is just about ready to up and leave, but she also can’t help but laugh it off.

“I’m literally gonna kick you out if you keep talking,” Y/N says between laughs and the women feel like they’re back in high school losing their minds over the stupidest joke ever.

“Okay, fine. But all I have to say is I will hold this over you when you end up together.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, whatever. Just be prepared to wait forever because I can promise you Harry Styles and I are never ending up together.”

Two Weeks Later

Y/N walked to her door after hearing the doorbell ring and opened it to find her neighbour standing with his arm raised ready to knock.

“Hey, Harry,” She greeted easily, but not entirely sure why he was here.

They hadn’t really seen each other since their official meeting in the park. It hadn’t bothered her and it hadn’t really bothered Harry either. It seemed like they both had extremely busy lives that they didn’t plan on throwing out the window because they had said they would meet up at some point. She liked that.

Harry had come over because he finally had a break in his schedule and was hoping to talk about the jacket and anything else really. He was interested in getting to know her and he didn’t care to hide it.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go get a coffee or something?” He asked, leaning himself against her door frame now.

Her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen a little bit, not completely sure she heard him correctly.

“Right now?!” She asked incredulously.

She was wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt and black bike shorts that peaked out from underneath the sweatshirt hem. One of her socks was shoved around her ankle while the other was pulled up flat to touch the base of her calf. She didn’t think she was looking the most presentable at the moment. She had been basking in her day off by simply laying on the couch watching hours of Netflix.

He nods, his smile growing on his face. Her flustered expression only made him happier. She was always so nonchalant with him, he wanted to see her a little more antsy.

“Unless you’re busy,” he adds seriously, not wanting to bother her, just wanting to spend time with her.

“No, no. I’m not...I’m not busy. I just wasn’t expecting any plans where I would be required to go out in public. Let me just...um, come inside and then give me five minutes.”

“Sure,” Harry smiles again as he steps into her home.

Her smile is sheepish and much less genuine then the one Harry holds on his face as he takes in her abode. She tells him to make himself comfortable and then runs to her room to try and possibly fix her state in under five minutes.

She tears around her room, heaving off the frumpy sweatshirt and grabbing a long sleeve striped v-neck top she had hanging out half out of her hamper, a sign known to her that while it was clean enough to wear, if she happened to do laundry she should wash it. Slipping it over her head, she walks to her dresser and leans over to open the bottom drawer and unfolds a pair of dark wash oversized jeans. There’s no holes in them and she throws them on the bed so that she can slip out of her current pants. Next, onto the socks, she swaps out the current ones for a fresh black pair and finds her tortoise print boots to flick on. As she just about runs into her en suite bathroom, she zips the two boots up between steps. A quick comb through her hair, deodorant, two spritz of perfume, her eyelash curler and mascara and she’s running back to where Harry is waiting in her living room.

He blinks surprisedly at her promptness, usually giving people more time then what they say they need. She had indeed gotten ready in five minutes. He thought she looked breathtaking. And she felt like she was at a lack for breath in any case.

“It’s a bit cold out,” he glances to the window.

“Isn’t it always?” She smiles, finally catching her breath.

He chuckles and then nods, a smile appearing on his face as he feels a warmth in his chest at her wit.

“Ready?” He checks in.

She nods, grabbing a coat she kept hung by the door.

“Just the coffee shop down the way?” She inquires as they exit the house and she locks the door behind her.

Harry hums, waiting down a step for her to turn around and walk beside him. It was so strange to her, this felt all too normal with him. Like he was just a friend who had come to pick her up for coffee, her neighbor, nothing more.

“Did you hear the new season of the Crown is coming out soon?” Harry asks as they walk shoulder to shoulder (technically since her shoulder wasn’t in line with his).

“Really?” She looks at him, “I love that show!”

“Me too,” He looks at her and smiles happily.

“That’s amazing,” she breathes mostly to herself, half about the show and half about how Harry watches television and that he watches one of her favorite shows.

There’s silence. The brisk air pricking their cheeks as they walk down their street. Their puffs of breath create a slight mist of white ahead of them and then quickly dissipates.

Her eyes flit up to Harry’s chiseled jaw and face and she watches him as his eyes carefully and meaningfully take in his surroundings. Was it her turn to take a stab at conversation? It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence but she just wasn’t sure what was going on.

“You play football right?” She says finally as they turn onto the next street that would bring them closer to the café they both frequented.

She remembered seeing him there on several occasions. The tips he left were always overly generous, which she assumed you could do when you were exorbitantly rich. He always smiled when he ordered and knew the baristas by name. His order rarely differed and she hated to admit but she knew his two regulars. His actual “regular” was a 12 ounce black coffee, dark roast, no cream and no sugar. The other, his “I’ll actually have”, was a 16 ounce iced green tea, no cream and no sugar.

She couldn’t help that she was observant and that when ‘H’ was called at the bar she looked at what was pushed out, patiently waiting for him to come snatch it up with a smile and nod to the workers before he left. Sometimes he’d even smile at her over the lid of his drink as he exited the establishment. It was warm and inviting and she felt good about the twinkle in his eye that never seemed to waver no matter the day.

Now they were going there together and she’d have to pretend like she’d never noticed what he got as a drink.

He responds to her question with another glance at her and a simple “yes”. His hands shove into his pockets and one side of his pink lips quirk up. He continues, “I’m on a local team with some mates. We’re in a little competition with our league. The final match is coming up this Sunday actually...You should come.”

He says it so casually it almost doesn’t catch her off guard. Harry inviting her to his football game, maybe this was going to be her life now. Going to her neighbours football match. Going to Harry Styles’ football match.

“Sunday…” She sounds out, choosing to look out into the distance instead of at him. “What time?”

“Eight.”

“P.M. right?” She responds quickly, worried since she never wakes up that early and rarely before 10 a.m. on the weekends for that matter.

“Of course,” he chuckles.

They’ve come upon the café and he’s quick to grab the handle to open the door and let her go before him. She can’t stop the blush and smile that spread on her face as she ducks her head into the warm and cozy shop. Men had opened doors for her before and she really thought of herself as a strong woman who didn’t need a man for anything, but something about Harry’s action felt especially, and specifically, chivalrous. Why, she had no idea.

Neither of them stop to look at the menu. They were regulars and they both knew that about each other as well. He gestures for her to go first and she mutters her thanks before turning to the patiently waiting barista. She orders and is about to hand over her card when Harry suavely steps in and says, “Don’t worry about it. I invited you with me, I’ll pay.”

It was both completely unexpected and expected at the same time. Knowing she’d never win this fight, she thanked him again, glanced at the man taking her order and then stepped aside. Harry orders his own drink and then pays for both. Today he leaves double the amount he usually leaves for tip, she assumes since it’s two drinks he was paying for.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” She says quietly to him once they’re in a corner of the café waiting for their drinks.

He stands slightly slumped against the wall, closer to her height right now. He only shrugs, his good natured smile not once leaving his face since he entered this place.

“I wanted to,” he said simply right as the drinks were ready since it wasn’t particularly busy on this random Friday afternoon.

They glance outside and see that it’s begun to drizzle while they’ve been inside. She sighs, having hoped to walk around a little after being inside all day.

Instead, they sit at the corner table in the café, across from each other. She moves on from the paying thing, knowing it was simply how this guy probably operated most of his life.

He got a black coffee today, the cold and rain likely contributing to that choice.

As one pop song fades out, slightly under the sound of the coffee machines, she’s about to tell Harry she’s pretty sure she can make his final football match when ‘Cardigan’ fades in. It’s the second time a Taylor Swift song has been playing while she’s been in the presence of Harry and they were conversing. She tries to ignore one of her favorite songs at the moment. Harry doesn’t seem to pay much mind to it. His foot is tapping against his other, but it’s been tapping like that since they sat down.

“I think I could probably make it to your game,” she says finally after a pause and a sip of her own drink.

Harry grins at the response and launches into how great it will be if they win and how happy everyone will be. She smiles along and doesn’t notice the slight head swaying to the song that she’s begun.

“Fan of Taylor?” Harry inquires and Y/N’s face drops, eyes widening cartoonishly.

She stutters, a nervous laugh leaving her mouth before she can actually say something. How does she respond about liking Taylor Swift to a man who counts her as an ex. She’s at a loss.

“Yeah, uh,” she finally starts.

Harry watches her curiously, obviously noticing her discomfort as his question.

“I used to not really consider myself a fan. I don’t really follow her just because I don’t really follow...um...musicians,” she chokes out the last word realizing Harry fits that category. “But, after folklore, I don’t know, this album really spoke to me. I also really like Lover and...uh” she pauses again, sticking on 1989, an album she has argued with her friends about how it’s basically a tell all of the man before her and Taylor’s relationship.

He nods, hoping she’ll continue. He wanted to get to know her and he kind of liked seeing her squirm. “1989?” He finally supplies.

Her blush isn’t able to be covered this time. If her hair didn’t fall in front of her ears she was sure they’d be flushed with blood.

Then she draws out of her own self stress and looks at the smooth man before her and grows calm. He was amazing at winding her up and she didn’t want to seem like some young, impressionable fangirl to him. So, she squared her shoulders and straightened up in her chair.

“Yes, it was pop perfection as one of my college friends liked to say. I’d always listen to it at the gym.” Then she pauses, taking a measured breath, gaining her confidence back. Her eyes meet his, “Is there any songs off it that you particularly enjoy, Mr. Styles.”

He chuckles, mostly because of her emphasis on ‘Style’.

“Shake it off?” He asks.

“Oh fuck off!” She laughs and he joins in with her.

When they catch their breaths from laughing, they simultaneously take sips of their drinks and settle their eyes back on one another. Exes and songs written about oneself weren’t exactly the topics Harry had in mind for the coffee outing he had asked Y/N out on, but talks of exes had never been this funny with anyone else. He was grateful for her playfulness, her demeanor.

“Can I ask you something personal?” She asks quietly and seriously.

“I think we’re past that question, love,” he responds.

“Yeah, I guess,” she pauses and just about whispers, “Pretty much all of them are about you right?”

He shrugs again, his felt coat rustling around his seat. “We never really talked about every single song.”

She leans forward at the ‘we’ Harry is using about himself and Taylor Swift.

“But when I listen to the songs, I hear us in just about every one but a few.”

“Wow,” she breathes and sips her drink. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lived through something that intense and then someone commemorated in a masterpiece.”

“Do you have a favorite on that album?” He asks, moving on from her revelation.

“I love ‘I know places’, it has a cool sound. But I also really love ‘Wonderland’. They both have kind of dark sounds, yet it still is like what you have is so special that the bad bits are worth it. I don’t know, it just seems like a tv show. I don’t think my life could ever be that crazy or dramatic.” She doesn’t notice her use of ‘you’ because she had meant it as a form of analyzing the song theoretically as she had done hundreds of times with her friends, but this time the ‘you’ is literally the ‘you’ the song is talking about.

“Love can turn anyone’s life chaotic.” Harry muses.

The green eye’s that flashed at Taylor throughout that album look at Y/N from across the table and she feels a flip in her stomach at his tone.

Maybe he notices her mild discomfort, maybe that’s just who he is. But after a beat, Harry’s onto the next topic on his mind. He launches into how he’s just returned from Scotland for a shoot for something so undercover he can’t even divulge to her, much to his dismay. She’s taken aback since she didn’t consider her someone Harry would divulge any of his private matters to, but it seemed like he already considered her a confidant. Just not for that. He wants it to be a surprise.

She smiles and listens attentively. She wonders as he goes on about his interesting yet absurdly lavish life whether he even knows what regular life is like anymore. Or if he’d even enjoy it if he experienced it.

Sure, coffee and football were plenty part of regular life . But the football league was something novel to Harry. He had just gotten to do it and he was thrilled by its normalcy.

She regarded him carefully, unsure what the next step was in this budding friendship. Was it dangerous to get involved with someone’s life which seemed to be filled with whirlwind rigor and constant change.

She liked her chaos, don’t get her wrong. She felt like she often was the odd one out in life. Always thinking differently than the ones around her. She often was the one to suggest spontaneous late night trips around town or exploration of an abandoned building known for spooky stories. She liked inviting friends over for themed parties for no specific occasions and she liked taking film pictures of friends like they were models even though it was only for her and her memories. She thought of herself as silly and fun, but what Harry described as his chaotic fun actually was regimented tight schedules of constant travel and work. Interesting experiences came out of that constant travel and work, but didn’t seem like something she necessarily wanted to get herself wrapped up in.

After coffee, they leave the café and it’s pouring now. Instead of going home, Harry insists on walking her to her place. She relents, realizing, once again, that Harry wasn’t someone who took ‘no’ for an answer. She then invites him in because it’s the polite thing to do. And Harry being Harry accepts.

“Want a dry sweatshirt while you wait?” She asks as she slips off her wet shoes and jacket in the entryway. Harry follows suit, his knit sweater being pelted with rain for the last eight minutes left him feeling cold and shivery.

He nods as he toes off his shoes and ventures back to the living room she had him wait in a few hours ago.

“Here,” She says as she tosses a grey sweatshirt in his direction. She believes it's her one from earlier, an innocuous pullover with ‘London’ in collegiate lettering on the front. He catches it as she rounds the corner to turn up the heater.

Her mistake was being so careless to not look at the sweatshirt before handing it over to her neighbor. Anyone else, maybe they wouldn’t have questioned it. But Harry, how could he not.

“What’s this?”

“A sweatshirt,” she doesn’t spare him a glance on the coach as she fiddles with the thermostat.

“It’s one of my sweatshirts,” Harry says and she can hear the smile on his face.

“That’s impossible, I’ve never borrowed-” Her brows had raised at what he said but now her words fall short.

He didn’t mean one of his personal sweatshirts that she possibly borrowed if they were better friends. No. He meant his merchandise.

“It was a gift,” she sighs as she turns to face him. He’s now wearing the sweatshirt proudly and grinning up at her smugly.

She rolls her eyes when he gives her a knowing smile.

“I didn’t know that it was the one I was handing you. Honest!”

“I thought you didn’t “keep up” with musicians,” Harry says playfully, his fingers making quotes appropriately.

“I don’t.” Her tone is serious as she plops on the couch beside Harry.

“I enjoy your music from time to time. Is that a crime?!” She finally exclaims when she can’t handle Harry’s knowing smirk.

“No it’s not, you could have just told me you were a fan!” She tries to stop him and protest that she wouldn’t consider herself a fan, but he continues, “I still would have wanted to have been friends.You’re one of the liveliest neighbors I’ve got. Everyone else on the street is rather dull.”

She chuckles, remembering finding out quickly that the street wasn’t a lively bunch.

“I just wouldn’t say I’m a fan,” she presses and sits across from him.

He continues smiling like he knows the truth.

“I don’t think you’ve met an average person in awhile, Harry.” She finally says after they sat in silence for a few minutes because they were both too stubborn to be the first to talk.

“I would hardly call you average if that’s what you’re implying, Y/N.” He nods her way and he shifts on her plush couch, his legs adjusting themselves on their own accord. “And I know plenty of average people,” he adds huffily.

“I normally wouldn’t either, but compared to who you seem to surround yourself, I very much am. And that’s not meant to be a jab at anyone involved.”

His right hand sneaks up to his head to scratch at the base of a particularly perfect curl. His eyes squint a bit as his mind processes her claim.

“What are you trying to say exactly?”

“I’m just curious to see if you’d actually like me in your life. It seems like you want to be friends with me and that’s great, but realistically I don’t know how much I would fit into it.”

Harry scoffs, “That’s literally bullshit, just relax. I’m so chill you won’t even know what to do with me.”

Now it’s her turn to scoff. “Chill?!” She asks incredulously. Harry nods with a seriousness she hadn’t seen before.

“When’s the next time you’re flying off to another country for work?”

Harry pauses, “Um...the day after the final match. I’m beginning to film a movie, so I’ll be there for a month.”

“Busy bee,” she muses and they both chuckle.

There’s something about the somber look Harry is giving her. His eyes twinkled in the coffee shop and with playful winks she was excited to be in his presence. But after she mentions when his next trip is, he seems saddened. There’s skepticism behind his eyes and maybe he doesn’t like being challenged about who he is from other people, especially those who are new in his life.

But that’s who Y/N is, she’s straightforward and doesn’t lie to someone. If Harry was now her friend, she was going to tell it like it is to him. That personality trait she worried wouldn’t make her long for his world.

“So the cardigan? Do you have it here?” Harry changes the subject, clearly not wanting to actually consider a realistic friendship together instead just charging ahead with no hesitation. Whatever happened they would deal with it as it came. Maybe she should just go with the flow, let herself be swept up into his madness. Maybe it would be easier than fighting it.

“No.”

“Oh?”

“I do, I was joking. Where else would it be?” Her tone is light, trying to get back the shine she had seen Harry exhibit before it had vanished.

Maybe that was Harry’s effect on people. He was vibrant and like an Elton John song. You never wanted that shine to go away, never wanted the song to end. Never wanted him to stop shining his light on you. She felt this happening in just a few hours with him. When he was happy so was she and when he wasn’t entirely shining she wanted to do whatever she could to get it back.

A smile curls on his face and his green eyes narrow slightly. He’s trying to figure her out, know what she’s all about.

“Do you want to go and grab it?” His voice sweetening, almost like a tease. Maybe he means to bite his lip, maybe he doesn’t, but the effect on her is nonetheless earthshaking.

She pops up and smiles back, happy to have made him happy. As she walks out of the room to go get the cardigan that had started this all, her head tilts and she furrows her brow wondering why she felt such a sense of pride just for making him happy.

Would this man cause her to finally put someone else’s wishes ahead of hers?

“Are you on your way?”

She listens to Harry’s slightly worried voice crackle over the speaker of her phone as she shuts her door with the hand not holding her phone to her ear. His voice is raspy and muffled. She assumes it’s from the cold air of London at night and the scarf he is likely got wrapped around his neck.

“Yes! Jeez, I’m on my way. Walking over right now.”

It’s the final match for Harry’s football team and if they win the game then they get a trophy and it’s all Harry has been talking about since they got coffee and she handed over her cardigan.

Harry huffed an “alright” on the other side of the line and she called a “see you soon” before hanging up.

He was both eager for Y/N to come and possibly meet some of his teammates and a few of his close friends who he had invited and for her to arrive so that she wasn’t walking out late at night alone. He hadn’t known her for long, but he felt a certain protectiveness over her. She was relatively alone here, only two friends at work that she had mentioned and everyone else lived far away. She said she didn’t mind it, but Harry had a hard time understanding it since he surrounded himself with his friends as much as he could and was constantly either traveling or having them travel to see him.

He had even contemplated inviting her to come to Los Angeles with him for a month, but knew she would remind him of her ever important job that she couldn’t just randomly take a month off.

He’d have to ask her what exactly she did because every time he tried to remember, it always slipped his mind.

When her figure came into sight below the fluorescent lights, he breathed a sigh of relief. A grin spread on his face as she beamed at him and waved a bit. He didn’t understand how she couldn’t see how special she was. Every time he saw her he felt himself straighten up and feel a bubbling in his chest. Her smile was infectious and the way her eyes glittered when she looked away quickly and then returned eye contact made him want to stay in her presence forever.

“You made it!” Harry said and scooped her up in his arms, not realizing just how happy he was to see her, swinging her around in a half circle.

She laughs in surprise, but appreciates the warmth Harry’s hug offers her. She’s not quite sure they had ever touched each other before this moment beside shoulder brushes and hand touches. Nothing so...purposeful.

“I made it,” she confirms and pats him on his broad shoulders.

Questions in her mind raced as she questioned whether it was normal for friendships to happen like this. She knew in college friendships could happen this quickly. And that’s when it dawned on her, she really hadn’t made a new friend since college and that was why everything with Harry was so odd to her. She had forgotten what new friendship was. She needed to stop questioning everything and just live in the moment with a person she really liked being with.

Harry’s hands move from her waist and one stays to lead her forward so he can introduce her to some of his mates, as he had promised.

She felt at home in that moment. His hand on the small of her back, his heat radiating off of him and her hair swept behind her ears and her cheek pressed to his shoulder staring up at him sweetly.

She meets Charlotte, a member of Harry’s band who lives in London, her boyfriend, Mitch (who had just happened to find himself in Hampstead this weekend), Ben, and a few more people she couldn’t remember all the names of.

Harry’s team wins the game and Y/N’s not sure if she’s ever seen someone so happy to win an adult league football match. There wasn’t any official trophy except the one Harry had made himself and said he would even give to the other team if they won. It was engraved with the words “The World’s Greatest Football Team of Stars Ever. October 22, 2020”. It doesn’t even make sense but she’d been holding it for the entire night as he played.

He goes down the line of his friends who have been watching and gives them all jubilant kisses on the lips. When he reaches Y/N she holds out the trophy and he grins and gives her a kiss on the cheek. His lips are surprisingly soft and his scratchy stubble tickles her and she swiftly pulls back, a smile on her face and blush on her cheeks nonetheless.

Charlotte and Mitch share a look between the two of them and Ben’s eyes narrow slightly at the interaction. His eyes narrow just as they had when Harry had strutted over to the group with Y/N before the game. He had happily named everyone and she had shaken all of their hands with a warm smile on her lips. Ben had regarded her warily and she had shaken it off as the chill of the night air. But there it was again, not quite trusting of the neighbour girl Harry had just randomly befriended a few days ago.

The team and the friends of the team decide they deserve to celebrate this win, mostly at the request of Harry.

Y/N tries to find a time to leave, to return to her place so she can prepare for her day at work tomorrow. But no excuses will be heard from Harry and she has a hard time saying no to his sparkling eyes and gorgeous grin that she’s growing far too accustomed to.

She’s ushered down to the closest pub with the rest of them and finds herself chatting with Charlotte’s boyfriend. He’s the most...normal. She’s not sure how to explain it, but he doesn’t seem to be regarding her as different, unlike every other one of Harry’s friends. They were all perfectly nice and cordial with her, but she just felt like she wasn’t a part of their group, their world and she didn’t know how to explain it.

Charlotte and Mitch are rather nice too, but they’re more reserved with her. They’re musicians, like Harry, and they somewhat have that air of awareness around them that Harry sometimes gets. She thinks it’s from the fame, having to constantly be wary of who is around you, what everyone is doing, what is happening next. She doesn’t mind it, it’s just not something she’s used to.

She wishes she could just throw back some drinks and she could allow herself to be more...well just be more. More of a presence, more of herself, but she has a job she has to get to bright and early. Tomorrow was Monday and for her that meant work. So she sips a beer that Harry insisted be on his tab and she makes small talk with Charlotte’s boyfriend about how he’s been helping her produce her first EP. Charlotte occasionally pops in when she hears her name, but mostly is conversing with Mitch over something silly. Y/N knows because they keep laughing.

Harry is going around to just about everyone in the party and she watches as he happily talks with every one of his friends. He’s ecstatic and she wonders if she’s ever experienced happiness like he has.

At midnight she attempts to make a French exit, as her mother always called it, and slip away with little to no farewells, but Harry spots her before she can.

“You’re leaving already?” Harry asks loudly, the euphoria of winning his silly little game and drinking a fair amount of pints has him at his peak boisterity.

“I have work tomorrow,” she says warily, slumping slightly from the weight of Harry’s arm slinging around her shoulder.

He turns serious and straightens up slightly, his green eyes looking especially dark in the pubs dim lighting as they look her dead in the eye. “Let me walk you home.”

“I can get home by myself,” she laughs, shrugging off his hold. “Plus, the host can’t leave his own celebration.” She gestures to everyone else happily celebrating on a Sunday, somehow not bothered by the beginning of the average week.

He steps closer, his brow furrowing for the first time that night. One of his large hands raises to his tousled hair and he runs it through the tresses. He even nibbles at his lower lip as he contemplates his decision. Then quickly and suddenly, he makes up his mind,

“No, I’ll escort you. Can’t have my neighbour walk home this late alone. I’ll just leave my card with Mitch. He’ll settle up the tab.” He smiles at his perfect plan and she grimaces feeling slightly embarrassed that he would leave his friends to walk her home. “Won’t you Mitch?” Harry calls as he grabs his coat from the wall next to the door. Mitch simply nods and Harry yells his farewells, Y/N waves meekly.

“That was...interesting,” she mulls over her words as they walk through the cold night air outside of the pub.

“Amazing, right?” Harry speaks over her less enthusiastic voice.

“You have a lot of friends,” she mused, trying to sound less disheartened than she had in her last statement.

Harry only hums and shivers slightly from the cold. His breath comes clearly out in puffs in the cold night air. Y/N’s is muffled by her scarf wrapped tightly up to her chin. She’s tucked his face as far into it as possible but her nose won’t stop from freezing as they walk.

Her hand goes up to it and she rests her palm to the tip of it. The motion grabs Harry’s attention and he looks directly at her curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m freezing,” she muffles out, “This helps my cold nose not be so..cold.”

He chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulder and she easily folds into him, welcoming any warmth right now.

After another moment of silence and them enjoying each other’s warmth and slight smell of whatever perfumes they had chosen earlier that night as well as beer and wood of the pub, Harry nuzzles his head above hers and then asks her something.

“Was that overwhelming for you?”

She’s quiet, thankful his eyes can’t reach hers right now. He was too powerful with those things.

“I, um, a little. I just...I just realized today that I haven’t made a new friend since college outside of work and it was overwhelming just hanging out with you. So all of your friends as well, yeah, it was a bit much for me.”

Harry looks out at the empty street ahead of them and sighs in realization. In his excitement, he hadn’t accounted how she might have felt tonight until just now. He wanted to kick himself for not thinking of her feelings, but other’s feelings slipped his mind so easily sometimes.

They round their street corner and she nuzzles back into his side.

“I’m sorry, love.” He rubs at her outer arm, “I didn’t think about it like that. I was just so excited for my plan to come together. Maybe next time, it’ll just be a couple of them rather than so many?”

“Sure,” she says quickly, wanting to make him happy, knowing how much he cared about his friends. “I feel like we need to hang out more with just you before I osmos into your friend group though if I’m being honest.”

“Well that can definitely be arranged,” he says and reluctantly lets go of her body. They’ve arrived at her door.

“I also want to see the inside of your house at some point.” She tugs at one of his hands before it can disappear into his warm coat pocket. “Houses,” she corrects.

“That can also be arranged,” Harry smiles with his lips closed. Pink lips and rosy cheeks extra bright from the cold. He plays with her fingers as the two stand close to one another, happy for the alone time and chalking the proximity up to heat sharing.

“You leave tomorrow right?” She finally asks.

His head falls and he sighs.

“Yeah…”

“It’s just a month,” she smiles, trying to stop Harry from being so dramatic. Especially when there was no logical reason for him to be so upset over not seeing his neighbour - she keeps telling herself.

“Are you sure you can’t quit your job and just fly out with me?” He pleads.

She throws her head back in laughter and shifts closer to him, her front porch light illuminating and shadowing every perfect place on Harry’s gorgeous face.

“Not even a chance.”

“That is a shame,” he takes an experimental step closer and she feels his breath fan across her cheeks at his last word.

She wrinkles his nose at the smell of his last beer, even though coming from him it was endearing.

Just as she feels him being to shift his head closer, she steps forward and gives him a tight hug.

“Goodnight Harry,” she whispers into his ear, “Safe travels.”

Then she’s stepping back and swiftly unlocking her door. She moves it slowly so as to not wake Rori and then Harry’s left alone and dumbfounded on her doorstep.

He definitely preferred being with her alone, but now he didn’t even have that chance until next month. And nonetheless she had just sidestepped his kiss with such ease he’s not even sure if he meant to kiss her. It had felt right, but why? Because it was cold and picture perfect? Or because he was enchanted by her and liked her as more than a new friend?

She slumps in her kitchen and fixes an Emergen-C to stave off the chill of the night and any germs that might have been lurking around the pub. She hopes when she walks to her bedroom she can check the front porch and see that Harry has gone home because she would hate to turn the light off on him.

How could he have expected her to kiss him just then? They’ve only just met each other a few weeks ago? And he’s Harry Styles and she just lives in the neighbourhood. What the actual fuck had happened to her life?

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