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lattaeyongs · 3 years ago

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summer of love (ljn)

original gif

↳ pairing: lee jeno x reader

↳ word count: 15.2k

↳ genre: ‘90’s!au, brother’s best friend!au, summer!au, neighbor!au, slice of life(ish)!au, fluff, slowburn

↳ summary: The summer of 1997 was a weird time. As a person living in the modern era, you’d completely forgotten what it was like to live in the ‘90’s. In May 1997, you listened to the Backstreet Boys, flipped through TV Guide, and had an answering machine which seems so archaic now. But that isn’t the only reason why the summer of 1997 was weird. That summer was the time you fell for your brother’s best friend.

↳ warnings: minor cursing, making out

SUMMER 1997

Your second year of college is over. You’ve taken your last exam, and it’s finally time to ditch your dorm and lousy roommate to go back to your childhood home for the summer. It’s a three-hour drive with no rest stops from college to your home, but it took longer due to the gas station stops to get junky, sugary snacks and coffee. But eventually, you made it back home in one piece.

Your childhood home looks almost exactly the same as you left it: The old, green, flowery wallpaper that your parents keep forgetting the change still hangs in the kitchen, the brown carpet in the entry hallway with the weird stain is still there, and the pantry still has an endless supply of potato chips. The only thing missing are your parents.

“Y/N!” Renjun exclaims, coming to hug you. As your older brother's arms lock around you, you notice how different he feels despite last seeing him only two months ago; prickly stubble pokes at your skin, and he definitely has been working out.

He parts from you, moving to the answering machine sitting on the kitchen counter. “Where are mom and dad?” You ask.

“Out,” he says abruptly, playing the messages in the machine before clearing them out. “They’re shopping to make dinner. They thought you would come back later. And by the way,” he continues, “Jeno’s coming over.”

“Okay,” you respond back simply. At this point, you’re used to Lee Jeno; he’s practically your family, in that the Lees live only a few houses from yours. It is honestly a wonder how Renjun and Jeno have remained friends since they were five-year-olds running around the neighborhood grafitti-ing the sidewalks with colorful chalk designs without growing apart or finding people more apt to suit their developing selves as time passes. It seems that instead of growing apart because of the new scenes and sounds in their adult lives, they were growing together like two parallel vines despite the distance they had to combat in college. When you hear the doorbell a few moments later, you know it’s Lee Jeno.

He certainly looks different than what you remember with dark hair this time and a slight tan. You haven’t seen Lee Jeno since winter break when he was staying with his parents across the street. Just like you and Renjun, he’s back home from college after the school year, and you’ve seen him around a couple of times a year with all the school breaks.

“Y/N!” Jeno smiles in that very Jeno way that makes everyone’s heart melt. He leans down a bit to meet your eyes, taking his thumb and forefinger of his hand and squishing your cheek. You playfully bat his hand away.

“Quit doing that!” You giggle with a pout on your face. “I’m not a baby anymore! I go to college!” You say incredulously, a little bit of a whine in your tone.

“You’re always a baby to me,” he teases. You roll your eyes at this, moving over to let him in.

“Jeno!” Renjun yells, ditching the answering machine. He rushes over to hug the other boy. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too Jun,” Jeno replies. You smile at the sight.

“Let’s play pool,” Renjun says. Jeno agrees, nodding. Both boys go to the basement where your family’s famous pool table resides (your father having gotten it for free from some bar closing in the ‘70’s), and Jeno shuts the door loudly on his way out. You’re about to rain on Renjun’s parade and tell him to come back and clear the answering machine he left behind, but you think against it. You didn’t feel like interrupting a friendship that is so beautiful. So you sit on the chair that Renjun recently left, pressing the ‘listen’ button on the answering machine.

As you listen to the promotional spam calls from companies trying to sell you things that you didn’t need or couldn’t afford, you purse your lips. Seeing Renjun and Jeno together almost made you jealous; none of your high school friends were back from college, and through the few calls you all would have during the school year, they’re off doing bigger and better things than this sleepy town that you call home.

That night you were going to sleep in your bedroom filled with cassette tapes, posters and pink and yellow wallpaper that you picked out when you were seven. After satisfactorily wrapping yourself in your comfortable blankets that smelled of lavender detergent (your favorite scent), you stare at the ceiling. You couldn’t imagine not visiting this place.

So you have a secret. No, not of the deep dark kind, but something that would definitely earn you a lot of teasing if your friends and family found out about it. One of your biggest guilty pleasures is the movie series The Zygon Kingdom, a science fiction franchise about alien invasions. Stereotypically, people think this series is for losers, gamers, and nerds who live in their mom’s basement. When you’re in public, you try your best to refrain from comment or make fun of the series alongside others, but in private, you secretly anticipate the new movies, going to see it immediately when it comes to theaters.

And that’s what you’re planning on doing today. Today is the release of the fifth movie of the franchise, The Zygon Kingdom: A New World. Finally, you actually had plans; you were starting to look pathetic with how much TV you were watching; your parents were even joking that the most recent book that you’ve read is the TV Guide that was mailed a few days ago. On top of not having friends to hang out with this summer, Renjun, a fresh graduate from a pre-law program, has been running around town trying to find positions to start paying off his degree debts and to gain experience while also trying to study for the LEET exam to qualify for law school. All your friends and family being busy would be depressing to you on any normal day, this comes to your advantage today, for you don’t want to be seen.

“I’m going to see a friend. Love you.” You say quickly to your parents. With how immersed they are in Full House, their marked TV Guide beside them, you could have said that you wanted to get a tattoo, and your parents would probably not bat an eye.

“Okay, be safe honey,” your mother says dismissively.

Leaving through the basement, you go to your car outside, unlocking the door. Obviously, you’re carrying your big tote bag so you could sneak in snacks; you even went shopping at the convenience store to prepare. Once you’re finished with the ten minute drive from your home to the movie theater, you look in both directions before entering the line in the lobby of the theater to get a ticket. You’re going to pay in cash, not credit to make sure that this can’t be traced back to you, and you pull out a large flopping hat that you have saved in your car, placing it on your head the second you step out of the car. Yes, you were being completely paranoid, but the last thing you want is someone recognizing you as you go into the movie theater or your parents looking at your credit card statement to see that you went to the movie theaters to view The Zygon Kingdom.

The time you spent waiting in line is filled with you looking around in all directions, making sure to avoid gazes of anyone that went to high school with or parents whose kids you babysat. Gossip travels fast, and you didn’t feel like finding out how fast. This is a whole covert operation – you get in and you get out, hopefully with your reputation still intact.

“One ticket to the new Zygon movie,” you say quietly. The woman sitting at the counter almost doesn’t hear you because of how quiet you are or how loud the chatters are of high schoolers and adults coming to the movie theaters after a long week, but either way, she gives you your ticket.

“It’s in room B,” You’ve gone to this movie theater enough to know where everything is without needing a map or extra time to find your way around. Since you took into account Friday night traffic and the length of the line, you have about five minutes before the movie starts.

“Thank you,” you say, smiling quickly. Keeping your head low, you move your neck around as if your head is a moving surveillance camera, still trying to make sure that no one you know is seeing you walk into room B, which has a huge blue and yellow poster of The Zygon Kingdom: A New World right next to the door. Once the coast is clear, you head into the dark movie room, finding row sixteen, in the middle.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” you whisper to people who you had to cross to get to your seat. The room is at half capacity; a few advertisements are playing on the screen, for now you have three minutes before the movie starts (but it will probably be longer since ads play for at least ten minutes after the movie is supposed to start to give people extra time). You find a spot in the middle row, which is where the majority of those few people are because you can get a good view of the screen and the audio would be loud but not too loud.

Pushing down the foldable seat, you sit down. Bringing your purse to your lap, you pull out a bag of chips from your bag, opening it before the movie so that no one gets annoyed at you for opening it so loud. You adjust your sitting position, letting your left leg cross over your right one, and in the dark room, you accidentally kick the seat in front of you. It’s a loud sound, and you slightly grimace at the pain in your foot now. The person in front of you turns around, and you feel like you lost the air in your lungs.

“Jeno?”

“Y/N?”

After the movie incident, you and Jeno realize that you actually have more in common than you thought. Apparently, Jeno is in the same position as you when it comes to high school or local friends. Just graduated from college, his friends have found well-paying starting positions and internships, and except for a few people, he’s also been bored at home. Instead of finding a job immediately or stretching himself thin like Renjun, Jeno decided that it was best for him to take a break mentally after college, and then he would be on the job hunt. So now you two have been much more inclined to meet up.

This would have never happened a year ago. Sure, you would hang out with Jeno when Renjun invited you to hang out with them, and you would even have a good time, but by yourselves, you were a bit more than strangers. Now that doesn’t seem so.

“I still can’t believe that you like the Zygon Kingdom. Liking the Zygon Kingdom is so not you.” You say, grinning at Jeno. “I would never have pegged you as a fan,” You and Jeno are at an ice cream parlor, enjoying the shelter of this building better than the merciless afternoon sun outside. Lee Jeno, a college soccer star who gets all the girls liking a cheesy science fiction movie? That’s not something you learn every day. Picking at his chocolate ice cream, Jeno smiles at you too.

“I could say the same for you.” Taking a bite of your ice cream, you cross your legs under the table, a slightly pensive look on your face. Leaning forward, you put your elbows on the white table. “So what else do I not know about you?” You ask.

“Well,” Jeno tilts his head. “I like to dip my pizza in honey.”

“I know that,” you say. “Back when you and Renjun used to order pizza at the house, you would always ask me where the honey is.”

“You remember that?” Jeno asks, surprised. You shake your head, a disapproving frown on your face. “I only remember because you’re the only person in the history of humankind to dip your pizza in honey. Honestly, how do you even stomach that?”

“The same way you can eat that mint chocolate chip ice cream you have here,” he says, pointing to your cup. You gasp in mock offense, and he only continues. “That stuff tastes like toothpaste.”

“To make up for what you just said, you have to tell me something that I actually don’t know about you.” Jeno grunts and this, and you wait, tapping your foot against the tiles annoyingly.

“When I was a sophomore in high school, I went to one of Ten’s house parties,” he stops for a few seconds, and you look at him, your gaze willing for him to continue. “He brought in eight kegs of beer from God knows where, and I had a few drinks.”

“Shut up!” You say, pushing Jeno’s shoulder from across the table. You’re absolutely astonished. “You, Lee Jeno, student council representative for your entire high school career, got drunk while going to Ten’s parties?” You only know Ten through his reputation, specifically his outrageous house parties that he throws whenever his parents are out of town that almost always end with the cops coming to shut it down. They’re always the highlight of your high school class’s weekend in your sleepy little town, where the mall or the park are the most interesting places to go. You’ve never been to one of Ten’s parties yourself since in high school, you were never much of a partier (and you didn’t have the ‘contacts’ to get invited anyway), but you’ve heard that he’s the definition of a privileged rich kid with money to burn.

“Yes, that was me.” he laughs. “And, it gets better.” You lean farther forward, your cheek propped up by your fist. “I was so drunk that I couldn’t drive home, so I called Renjun at like midnight to pick me up. When I came into his car, it smelled like perfume, and he had lipstick all over his face. Yeri Kim was in the back of his car.”

Your eyes widened. “No way! Renjun told me he was studying for a history test!” You remember this day in-depth because it was the night of the freshman dance that you went to with your friends.

Jeno smiles at your astonished look before clearing his throat. “I told you something you didn’t know about me and something you didn’t know about Renjun, so you better tell me something good that I didn’t know about you.”

You sigh, tilting your head upwards. Pushing your tongue against your cheek, you’re deep in thought before you spring up in your chair again.

“Remember when you, me, and Mark would all volunteer at Taeyong’s animal shelter?” You ask. During your high school years, you were in desperate need of Honors Society hours to make you look better on your college applications, so you ended up signing up to take care of unadopted pets, either rescue or lost. Jeno, Renjun, and a few of his other friends had the same idea since it would be easy to carpool.

“Yeah?” Jeno responds. Bringing your palm against your mouth, you shelter some giggles before Jeno has a curious look on his face.

“Y/N? What is it?” You lick your lips before inhaling sharply.

“While getting in the parking lot with Renjun to get something from your car, do you remember getting hit by a bunch of water balloons?” Jeno squints for a few seconds as if trying to connect some invisible dots, and after a few moments, his eyes widen, his mouth in an “o” shape.

“That was you?” He says, astonished. “I blamed Chenle for that for an entire year!”

“Yup, it was me,” you say, giggling in between words.

“Why did you do it?” He asks.

“It was supposed to be for Renjun, but then you got in the way, and by that time, I already dropped the water balloons.” Jeno purses his lips, as if trying to picture you in the situation you described. This only leads you into another laughing fit.

“You should have seen your face, I will never forget how hilarious you looked and how you were like ‘Chenle if you’re working the dog walking on the ceiling, then I’m gonna kill you!’” You snicker, imitating Jeno’s voice by making it abnormally deep.

“I do not sound like that.”

“I do not sound like that,” you imitate again. Jeno crosses his arms, a brow quirked.

“Okay, I’ll actually stop this time,” you say, giggling.

After a few moments, Jeno laughs with you. The prospect of no friends in town seemed unfounded today, for there is a friend for you that has been sitting under your nose this whole time.

You’re sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor as you organize your colorful array of CDs, different albums you’ve collected through various birthday monies and Christmas gifts. Not only are there CDs, but your shelf is loaded with cassettes. By this point, no one used cassettes anymore, but it was the easiest way to record songs from the tape radio and have to listen. You would simply put the cassette in your tape radio and press the ‘record’ button when radio stations would have their two hours ad free music. A mini cassette of free music was perfect to put in Renjun’s old walkman as you took a jog around the neighborhood. You learned this method two years ago from your father, who used this way to get free music in the ‘80’s, but now, you have a huge collection of songs that have become a pain to oragnize. You’re not exactly good at putting things back in their place, tending to grab your CDs and cassettes, use them, and then discard them on top of the little shelf you have.

Point is, this is an arduous task. This is why when you hear the phone ring in the living room, you run out to get it. Plus, if you didn’t answer it now, it would be your task to clear out the answering machine at the end of the day. So, now you had one less message to listen and clear out.

When you hold the house phone to your ear, you only hear a monotonous dial tone, signalling that the person hung up. You feel a little suspicious, but think nothing of it; sometimes, neighborhood kids find it funny to dial random numbers and not answering when the person picks up – like virtual ding-dong-ditching.

But your suspicion proves right when you feel wetness on your head. On the floor of your living room is a deflated balloon, and in your hair, you’re pretty sure it’s water. There’s only one person you think could be behind this, and he slowly comes out from the space he’s hiding in your kitchen. He smirks as he shows you a small corded phone connected to the wall, shaped like a lip (probably Jeno’s sister’s that he stole from her room). Before you can grab him in your kitchen, Jeno is running out onto the street.

“Lee Jeno what the hell?” You screech to the boy running down the street. You don’t bother to take your shoes, only closing the front door to prevent any animals coming into your house to take shelter from this hot weather. The heated pavement sings the soles of your feet as you run, but the feeling doesn’t bother you: you’re on a hot (literally hot) pursuit of Lee Jeno, and in the distance, you can see him.

“Damn these short legs,” you mutter. You run and you run through the neighborhood. Lee Jeno has you taking sudden turns, trying to get you to break your tail on him, but it’s unsuccessful. Finally when you’re close enough, you spring forward onto Jeno’s back. He sways at the sudden weight, falling to the ground. Thankfully, you’re on grass, which is cooler to the pads of your feet and breaks Jeno’s fall.

“What was the meaning of this?” You ask, pointing to your dripping head.

“It’s a little something called payback.” He smirks.

“Hey, there’s a difference,” you start off, “Mine was on accident. It was supposed to hit Renjun. Your’s was on purpose.” You cross your arms, pouting.

“Well, then this was supposed to teach you not to be mean to your brother.”

“Siblings in the same age group act like this all the time,” you say. You then put your index to your chin. “At least if you’re like me and Renjun.” If Jeno pulled something like this on his older sister Jihyeon, who is six years older than him, he wouldn’t survive to tell the tale.

The boy in front of you sucks in a big breath. “Let’s settle this once and for all then,” Jeno says. He comes closer, his body only a few inches from yours. “A game.” He smiles. “I have some water balloons at home. If you win–”

“You have to give me 20,000 won.” You finish. Jeno raises his eyebrow. “There’s a new Backstreet Boys album I want,” you say.

“Alright, fine,” Jeno says. “But if you lose,” Jeno stops midway, trying to bite his lower lip in a way to shelter the huge smirk on his face. “You have to clean my car.”

“Too easy, all I’ll need is a hose,” you wave your hand.

“Not the outside.” Your eyes widen at this new development.

“You mean…”

“Yup. The inside.” You’ve never been in Jeno’s car yourself since mostly when you would hang out with Jeno, it would be with Renjun, which means that you’re using Renjun’s car. But Renjun has told you, pretty infamously, that his car is messy and smells like a giant foot.

“That’s cruel and unusual punishment!” You say. Let’s just say if Renjun thinks it’s smelly, it’s probably smelly. Renjun has been a teenage boy before, and many teenage boys are a species that usually cannot detect the lack of hygiene.

“Those are the parameters of the game,” Jeno says. “If you resign now, that’s considered a loss, which means you have to clean my car anyway.”

You flatten your lips. Damn, you’re in a deadlock now.

“Fine. Game on.”

Lee Jeno destroyed you. But honestly, what else did you expect? Lee Jeno, who has played soccer his whole life and has had plenty of experience with strategy and planning, completely and utterly destroyed you. It wasn’t the smartest idea to go guns-blazing with water balloons at Jeno, but you didn’t have many other choices. Your long-distance aim and contact skills weren’t that good, for you never played “sports,” sports as in competitive sports since you only danced for a couple of years. You did use your surroundings well, hiding behind trees and bushes so you can stalk your way to Jeno, but that only did so much.

So now you are wearing an old T-Shirt and some jeans shorts, opening the front door and performing the ‘walk of shame’ as you walk to Jeno’s house, where boxes of unopened trash bags, air freshener, sponges, and soapy water sit.

Jeno is only a few feet away from the cleaning materials he left out, sitting on a beach chair.

“Y/N,” Jeno says, waving to you in a friendly way. “Thank God you’re here. I was worried you might happen to forget about the deal. I really need you right now,” Jeno chuckles, “because my mom wanted me to clean my car last week. She said that if I don’t clean my car by tonight, then she’s really gonna give it to me.”

“Good,” you say, laughing a bit to yourself. “Somebody’s gotta tell you. Back in high school, I was afraid to get in this car, or else I would never be the same again.”

Scrunching your nose, you peek your head inside Jeno’s car. It’s an old 1984 Nissan 300zx, most likely used because if his parents are anything like your parents (which not so surprisingly, growing up around each other, they are), they would never give their teenage sons brand new cars. The people in your neighborhood certainly aren’t tearing at the seams with money.

Gulping harshly, you decide to throw whatever junk you find in the car away. You pulled out wrappers, chip bags, old water bottles, and random coins that you pocketed (Jeno let you since even he knows how bad cleaning his car is – which is why he held off on it for so long). Jeno kept you good company, and you found yourself chitchatting with him as you organized every piece of junk in his car in a trash bag.

“Are you liking college so far?” Jeno asks broadly when chatter between you both slowly dies. No response.

“What’s wrong?” Jeno asks. He knows he’s right to think that when it takes you a few minutes to respond, a few moments for your gaze to focus on him.

“College hasn’t been that fun,” you confess to Jeno, the words falling out of your mouth faster than it should. “I haven’t made a lot of friends despite finishing my sophomore year, and my roommate is a pain. Her entire side of the room is so messy and acts like I’m unreasonable. It’s a small space anyway, she should keep it clean!” You huff, scrubbing the cloth seats in Jeno’s car harder. It felt as though a huge weight has been lifted off of your shoulders.

You were surprised that you confessed this to Jeno of all people. When you told Renjun this freshman year, he advised that it would get better after the first semester, and your parents said the same thing, but nothing really changed. You’re going to university on a significant scholarship, and you didn’t want to give that up if you decided to transfer somewhere closer to home, closer to your support network of familiar places and people. Ever since then, you didn’t tell anyone how miserable you were in college.

“Can I make a confession?” Jeno asks suddenly. You were worried that you were being way too personal after Jeno didn’t say anything for a while; after all, Jeno is your brother’s friend and not yours.

“Shoot,” you say.

“I didn’t have many friends in college either. Why do you think I always hang out with Renjun every summer?” You’re piling all the trashbags together near the edge of the Lee property for the trash truck to come later today, but hearing this is enough for you to turn around and look at the raven-haired boy quizically.

“I don’t believe that,” you scoff. “You have teammates and a hundred girls who would tattoo your name on their chests immediately.”

“They’re just teammates and girls. I got along with my teammates, but I don’t talk to them on a regular basis after graduating college.” Jeno sighs. “And the girls who liked me in college liked me because I was ripped. None of them really wanted to know me personally.”

The silence between you both is deafening. You purse your lips, sympathy in your voice. “I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t,” Jeno says. “I try not to tell everyone this,” he says, a slight humorous lilt in his voice.

“Those girls missed out,” you say, a soft smile on your face. “You’re hilarious and great to be around.”

“It seems like I have that effect on the members of the Huang family,” Jeno smiles, any sign of melancholy gone from his face.

“Say,” you start off, bending down to reach the mat on the car floor. “if I find something I think is of value in this car, then can I keep it?”

Jeno nods. “Sure, I guess. I can’t imagine what could be of value.”

“Now I’m 20,000 won richer,”

Jeno’s back instantly becomes more rigid as he sees you wave a few crumpled bills in the air, almost unrecognizable due to the amount of dust and grime accumulated on it. A couple of coins here and there were tolerable for him to let you keep, but 20,000 won is a lot for loose change in the car. “I tend to find 20,000 won very valuable,” you smile.

Jeno curses under his breath. “Touche.”

“I guess we both won.” You shrug your shoulders, “You’re gonna have a clean car for your mom, and I have enough money to buy that Backstreet Boys album.”

Just the other day, you ran into Taeyong, the owner of the pet shelter you used to volunteer at. You were at the supermarket, picking up some groceries for your parents when you saw the man carefully weighing a bag of Roma tomatoes. Although he is almost five years older than you, it certainly doesn’t seem that way with how youthful his face looked, and when he noticed you putting bananas in your shopping cart, he was glad to see you. You both engaged in pleasant conversation about your lives since you volunteered at his pet shelter, and he mentioned to you that he was short of hands. Recently, a full-time employee quit, and he needed people more than ever. He offered you a job on the spot, and you gladly took it – you needed something to do this summer anyway, and your parents were starting to get a little restless with how much you were at home, revolving your life around TV Guide.

You had been working for a few days at the store and got to know the two other employees, one of which is Doyoung, who you already knew from your time volunteering at this shelter, and Sungchan, a boy around Jeno’s age who had been working for a year. Compared to the last time you saw this shelter as a senior in high school, not much has changed. The only thing that was different was that the walls were recently wallpapered.

Taeyong greeted you when you walked in, and you already started following a routine you set up for yourself; the good thing about hiring you was that he didn’t have to teach you much since as a volunteer, you would feed and wash animals a couple of hours a week, which as an employee, that was the same thing on a fuller time basis. In the mornings, you liked to start off walking dogs in the dog walking area on the roof before the sun would shine mercilessly in the afternoon. Carrying a light brown golden retriever puppy named Dasom, you head down the roof stairs back to the lobby, where Jeno is sitting on a hard, metal chair.

“Jeno?” You ask. “What are you doing here?” You don’t ever remember telling him that you would be here.

Jeno smiles at you. “Your mom told me I could find you here. And some other guy said you were walking a dog, so he told me to wait here.”

You nod. He must not have meant Doyoung since he would already know him from his time at the pet shelter in high school. “So you must have met Sungchan.”

Jeno shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, I guess. He said he was going to wash some of the new arrivals.” While speaking, Jeno’s lips curled into a small smile. “Remember when we used to do that?”

“God,” you say, shaking your head. “That was one of the worst jobs.” You said. If there was anything that dogs and cats hated was being in water. New arrivals, especially strays, haven’t been introduced to clean water in a long time and can get especially rowdy since they are also untrained.

“There was one dog that me, Renjun, and Chenle had to wash, and let’s just say that it looked like we took a bath too!” At this, you both laugh.

You lick your lips, looking at Jeno, good humor in your eyes. “I almost feel bad leaving Sungchan all by himself.” Crossing your arms and leaning your back against the wall, you look at Jeno, your head cocked.

“So what are you really doing here?”

Jeno looks fondly in the distance. “I think Bongshik needs a new playmate,” you smile at Jeno. For as long as you can remember, Jeno has always been a cat person, and after much convincing, his parents agreed to get him a cat seven years ago. They initially were only getting Jeno the cat to help teach him responsibility, because as a teenage boy, he had none, but slowly, Bongshik grew on them too. Ever since, the Lee family’s soft spot has been Bongshik.

“Do your parents know?” You ask.

Jeno smiles. “They were the ones who suggested the idea.” As Bongshik grew older, his energy hasn’t quelled, and for the lack of neighborhood cats, he follows the Lee family around everywhere in the house.

“What breed?” you ask.

“Maybe a Bengal. I’ve heard that they are energetic.”

“I think there are some Bengals. Let’s check the back.” You both go into the room adjoining the lobby, where the rescue and stray animals were stored. After a long night with Doyoung yesterday, the cages were cleaned, and all the animals looked happy that it was clean. You both are greeted with excited barks from the dog section of the room, and finally, you approach the cats in another room. Cats of various breeds occupied the segregated space, from Shorthairs to Bobtailed cats. Black, white, gray, and tabbies are all present, and they look at you and Jeno quizically.

Jeno also observes the felines intently. “Actually, Bongshik is full of energy, so maybe a bit of a quieter playmate to contrast,” Jeno taps his chin, thinking to himself. Some cats wave their tails at Jeno as if wanting his attention while some other cat mothers wrap their tails around their young, protecting them. There are two cats that seem to take his attention, two cats that are sitting together. They don’t appear to have any sort of genetic or familial relationship, for one cat is white with a few specks of black around the ears while the other is a gray tabby with a white chest; they both appear to be Shorthair crossbreeds, though.

“Can I hold that one?” Jeno says, pointing to the white one with the few black specks. You open the cage with the master key that you have in your pocket, and carefully, you take the cat out of the cage. Jeno has his arms open, so when you place the cat in his arms, he cradles the animal, the most adoring look on his face. The other cat seems to be annoyed and meows a lot, its gaze on the white cat, and the white cat starts meowing back.

You and Jeno both melt on sight.

“So cute,” Jeno murmurs, putting the tip of his nose on the crown of the white cat’s head. This cat does not seem to be bothered that it’s being held by Jeno (when most cats take some time getting used to a new human). It is as if they were both destined to meet. This cat does turn to face his companion still in the cage once in a while, still meowing.

“I think this one’s more concerned that its friend is not being held,” you jest. You stand on your tiptoes to grab the other, carefully cradling the tabby in your arms. It starts meowing for its companion, and you face Jeno.

“This one’s also so cute,” Jeno says longingly. He comes closer to you, bending a little, his face close to the tabby that you’re holding. His smile is wide, his eyes shaped like crescents. Carefully, he holds the white cat with one cradled arm, and with the other, he uses his index and middle finger to pet the other cat. The tabby meows happily.

As Jeno tries to stand upright again, his head almost bumps your face, but he stops before that, carefully meeting your gaze. For what feels like an eternity, you both stare. Jeno’s eyes are like brown pools, and you notice every detail on his face; how dark and pronounced his eyebrows are compared to his suntanned skin, how pretty his nose looks against his face, the fringe on his forehead that is so close to giving a lovetap to his eyes, how shapely his chin is, a small, stray mustache hair kissing his upper lip…

His lips. Pursed slightly as he drinks in the sight of the little details of your face as well. They look a little chapped –

“There you are Y/N! Is that you Jeno?” A familiar voice rings across the large room, and you notice it to be Doyoung. His gaze is focused on you both. You and Jeno immediately stop gazing at each other, as if Doyoung flipped a switch, and you both focus your attention on the raven-haired employee, his hair wet from a fresh shower. He usually comes to work at eleven or noon since he is not a morning person.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Jeno says, waving before repositioning his other hand to hold the white cat in his arms.

“Long time no see,” Doyoung remarks. “How’s college?” He asks.

“Graduated in the spring,” Jeno says. “I’m back with my parents now.” He says.

“Oh,” Doyoung says, nodding awkwardly. “Well, if you want a job, the door is always open here. Trust me, we need the help,” Doyoung says.

“Thanks,” Jeno says, smiling courteously at Doyoung. “I’m actually here to look for another cat. Maybe two,” Jeno looks at you, an eyebrow raised in anticipation. Suddenly, he sneezes.

“Jeno,” you chastise. “What about your cat allergy?” You suddenly remember. Jeno learned affirmatively after adopting Bongshik that he had a cat allergy, and his sister and parents tried to convince him to give Bongshik back to the shelter, but Jeno vehemently refused. After almost a month of bonding with the feline, he didn’t have the heart to give Bongshik back. Instead, he went to the drug store and got some anti-histamines to suppress his allergies and eventually got more personalized medicine from his doctor. At first, his doctor said the best (and cheapest) course of action would be to return Bongshik, but Jeno just took the prescription and has since then been refilling his prescription on a regular basis.

“What cat allergy?” Jeno asks, but he sneezes a few times. Cocking your head at the raven-haired boy, you snort.

“That cat allergy?” You say, leaning all your weight on one leg.

“It’s nothing,” Jeno says dismissively. “I’ll ask my doctor. I’ll probably just have to up my dose.”

It was Doyoung’s turn to snort. “Can you really be around three cats every day?” He asks. “The only reason your allergy didn’t get out of control while you were volunteering here was because I kept you with the reptiles.” You nod in agreement. The reptiles were kept in another room on the far side of this shelter, far away from all the cat hair floating around in this room. Jeno, though, still used to sneak a few minutes with the cats.

“I can be around three cats!” Jeno says defensively. By this time, the white cat is rubbing itself against Jeno’s T-shirt.

Feeling this, Jeno’s gaze softens, and he smiles at the kitten, whose brown eyes Jeno looks in to. “I am going to name you Seoli,” Jeno says in a soft tone and gazes at the cat in your arms. “And I’m going to name you Nali.”

“Did your parents agree to two new cats?”

“Well,” Jeno trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“Lee Jeno!” You say.

“My parents grew to like Bongshik. They’ll grow to like Seoli and Nali.” Jeno reasons.

You roll your eyes. Lee Jeno is the only person in the whole world you know who has a cat allergy and still wants three cats. “Lee Jeno, you’re crazy, you know that?”

Seoli and Nali instantly got along with Bongshik. The three of them would sleep together, eat together, and roam the house together, only being apart momentarily. Like Jeno predicted, his parents grew to like the addition of Seoli and Nali to the family.

Hearing about the new cats from you, Renjun would visit Jeno, and you would come along with them and play with all three cats. Renjun started joking that you two started being best friends without him and that you were leaving him in the dust.

Renjun started a new job as a paralegal and became busier than ever; he was working to save enough money to live in an apartment closer to the law firm he worked at, which is forty-five minutes away from your house. The commute itself was tiring and he was working extra hard to get along with his coworkers, going to events, and establishing contacts.

Like many weekends, this weekend Renjun was hanging out with a few coworkers at a party at one of their houses, and normally, you didn’t mind this, only joking to him that he only came home to eat and sleep.

In mid-July, without fail, you and Renjun would always go to the beach, ever since he was old enough to drive; it was valuable “sibling time” that your parents supported and even suggested; as teenagers, you didn’t always get along, and your parents wanted you both to establish a close relationship because sibling relationships were the only life-long relationships.

This weekend, Renjun was busy, and for the next few weekends, he would be catching up with old friends and would even go on a few dates, for his dating life was pretty sparse with how busy college was. You were hoping that Renjun could blow someone off and come with you and not break the tradition, but your hopes did nothing to change reality after Renjun told you about his plans and apologized that he wouldn’t be able to come to the beach with you.

So you decided, if you can’t bring your brother to the beach, bring your brother’s best friend.

At 7 AM on a Saturday, you knock on Jeno’s door, a few doors from your house, dressed in a casual T-Shirt and jeans shorts. You’re ready to go, without a doubt in your mind that Jeno won’t come.

Jeno answers the door, rubbing his eyes. From the looks of the dark house, Jeno’s parents aren’t awake. As a means to hold himself up, Jeno leans against the door. He’s dressed in long pajama bottoms and a black T-shirt (that is littered with Seoli’s white cat hair). The white, spotted cat follows Jeno to the door, sitting a few feet away from the living room couch.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” He asks, his voice heavy with drowsiness.

“We’re going to the beach, obviously,” you say matter-of-fact, in a voice that Jeno didn’t look like he wanted to argue with. He knew that you were hurting because Renjun couldn’t come with you to the beach any time soon, so he was ready to be called to go to the beach.

“Right now?”

“Yes right now. Don’t you remember that Renjun and I would leave early in the morning to get a head start to the beach?” The closest beach to your house is two hours away, and being landlocked during the college semester makes you restless for the yearly summer beach trip as well.

“Yeah I know but–”

“No ‘buts,’” you interrupt. “If we leave now, then we get the whole day at the beach. Be ready in thirty minutes.”

Jeno acknowledges with a sleepy grunt before closing the door, and you head back to your house to eat breakfast. If you left hungry, then you would be tempted to stop along the way for snacks, making the drive longer. So you ate a hearty bowl of oatmeal, a banana, and drank a glass of water before seeing Jeno standing at your door twenty-five minutes later with one of his sister’s peach-colored tote bags hanging on his shoulder, in casual shorts and a T-shirt, and a navy colored cap covering his black hair. You already had your things ready in a bag next to the dining room table, and you carry your bag and exit out the front door, saying a quick goodbye to your parents.

Out on the porch, you jog across the driveway to Jeno, and your parents wave to him. “Have fun guys,” they chorus, smiling. You roll your eyes.

“It’s like they’re leaving us on a playdate,” you say, and Jeno smiles, the tiredness in his eyes long gone.

“Want to ride in my car? After all, it’s clean now,” Jeno says. You sigh, but it’s not exasperated or tired.

“I should know,” you say.

Jeno’s Nissan sits in its usual place on the driveway, and Jeno takes his keys from his pocket, unlocking the car. As you both load your bags onto the back seat, you breathe in the air. “Minty fresh,” you smile, looking at the tree-shaped car freshener hanging on the rearview mirror. “You better keep this car clean because I am not cleaning it again,” you threaten, pointing your finger accusingly.

“I pinky promise,” Jeno says, he extends his hand, his pinky out, and you grasp it with your pinky, pinkies locking as well as your gazes.

Jeno’s hands are way softer than you expected.

The pinky promise lasts way longer than you expected, with you quickly pulling away and getting into the front passenger seat of the car. Jeno hops in the driver’s seat, and the car starts.

Jeno’s driving is smooth, and through the window, you admire the scenery. You pull out of your neighborhood, driving on local roads for a good few minutes, and you admire the beautiful scenery of houses, shrubs, and picket fences before getting on the highway. Now, cars are zooming past you both, of all sorts of shapes and colors, minivans to sport cars, black, white, gray, and silver.

“Turn on some music,” Jeno prompts. It’s easy to get distracted on the road, not by external forces such as a random bird flying by, but from the lull of the car when driving on the highway – when driving on the highway, the roads look the same, a cause for boredom and tiredness. The steady humming of Jeno’s car is particularly relaxing on this early morning.

“I thought you would never ask,” you say, in a voice that sounds mischievous. You twist your body to reach the back of the car, and you reach into your bag, fishing for something. When you pull it out, Jeno rolls his eyes.

“Seriously?” Jeno groans.

“What? You said you wanted music,” you say defensively.

“I didn’t mean the Backstreet Boys.”

You don’t listen to him and instead press the ‘CD media’ button on the front dashboard and insert your CD. The music is catchy, and you hum along to the songs that you’ve loved, namely ‘I’ll never break your heart’ and ‘Everybody.’

“I’ll never understand girls. I mean, what’s the appeal of boybands anyway?” Jeno says after some time.

“It’s the group dynamic, the interactions, the teamwork, and the songs are catchy as –” you stop yourself, cocking your head at Jeno. “Are you nodding along?”

“N-No,” Jeno stutters, purposely keeping his gaze fixed on the road so he doesn’t have to face you.

“Admit it,” you say, a smug look on your face. “You like it.”

“No, I don’t” Jeno argues.

“Yes, you do,” you argue back.

“No I don’t,” Jeno repeats.

You snort at this. “Look at us, we sound like two five-year-olds.”

“I think,” Jeno says with a joking lilt, “that we sound like an old married couple.”

“That too.” You look at the boy, an eyebrow arched.

After a few moments of silence, Jeno changes the topic. “I’m hungry,” he says. “Let’s get some instant ramen.”

“Where’s the microwave, genius?”

Jeno pouts. “Fast food?”

“We’re gonna be there in like fifteen minutes. I have some snacks in my bag.” Once again, you reach for the back of the car, fishing inside the tote bag for a bag of Cheetos.

“Here,” you say, holding the bag towards him.

“I’m driving, genius,” he says, emphasizing the last part in a mocking tone. You roll your eyes.

“I guess you’re gonna have to feed me,” Jeno says.

“Seriously?” You groan.

“Yes. If I could open the bag with my eyes and feed the Cheetos with some mad telekinesis, then I would.”

“Well, you would have to keep your eyes on the road, so you still couldn’t do that either.” Jeno grunts at your response, and you silently feel a small victory winning this conversation.

You open the bag and take a Cheeto in your left hand. Jeno opens his mouth, and you place the piece in his mouth. He crunches on it, and when you see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows the snack, you reach in and grab another piece. On and on this pattern goes until there are no Cheetos left in the bag, and at the final time you drop a piece of the snack in his mouth, he playfully clamps down on your fingers.

“Jeno!” You exclaim.

Jeno has a youthful, playful look on his face. “That’s what you get for forcing me to listen to this crap.”

“You like it too!”

Jeno rolls his eyes. “Here we go again.”

The rest of the car ride is filled with laughs, as though you were supposed to bring Jeno along to the beach this year instead of Renjun. The beach is filled with people wanting to soak up some sun, children playing games, and surfers swimming in the water. Luckily, there’s enough beach for everyone; the sands on this beach are well-maintained, and they go on for miles.

Suddenly, you grab the boy’s wrist, and Jeno looks surprised, a cute doe-like expression on his face (Jeno has the most beautiful, expressive eyes).

“Come on,” you say, a wide smile on your face. “I’ll show you a nice spot.”

Together, the two of you are lugging your tote bags across the beach, careful not to step on anyone being buried in sand or children playing games or other people sunbathing. It’s like the sand wants to absorb your feet, which is why your steps are labored, along with the load you are carrying.

The spot you take Jeno is more secluded, with sparse surfers coming about here and there. It’s next to a jagged, gray peak, perfect for divers. The small pieces of eroding rocks falling to the water make it less kid-friendly, but it’s still a good spot if you want to relax and get away from the noise. Right here is where you decide to set up, a few yards from the shore where the cold seawater can’t touch you.

Carefully, you unpack your tote bag, set up your beach towel, and place a book on the sand. The beach was always a way for you and Renjun to relax together, talk about updates in your lives, and strengthen your relationship. But sometimes you both liked to sit in silence, enjoying each other’s company while enjoying the words of an author, the introverts you both are.

Before sitting down, you also take off your T-shirt and shorts, revealing a navy, strappy bikini underneath. Picking up your book, you open it to the first page and sit down. Next to you, Jeno takes off his shirt, revealing toned abs. (What did you expect? He plays soccer). You don’t want to admit that your attention on your book is long gone.

When Jeno catches you staring, an immediate flare of heat hits your face, and you quickly try to bring your attention back to your book, starting at the first sentence. You’re unable to keep focus anymore, just re-reading the same sentence at least five times because your brain is too distracted to understand the sentence.

“You don’t have to look away,” Jeno teases. “Every girl wants a look at Jenabs.”

“That’s what you’re calling it? Jenabs?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?” Jeno asks.

“Obviously. It sounds so self-centered,” you huff.

“You’re just lashing out because I caught you red-handed.”

“Maybe you’ll get a red hand to your pretty face,” you challenge, a humorous look in your eyes.

“Ah,” Jeno says thoughtfully. “You think I’m pretty?”

Another hot flare hits your cheeks, with the heat of a thousand suns. “No,” you say.

“Yes,” Jeno counters.

“No,” you repeat, this time more confident. By this time, you both are gazing at each other intently in silence, until suddenly, you start laughing. Jeno does too. It was one of those times when the moment seemed so serious, but the argument was just so silly.

“Just admit that you think I’m attractive,” Jeno says simply.

“Every girl with a pulse thinks you’re hotter than a sidewalk in August.” You deadpan.

“I don’t care what they think,” Jeno says suddenly. You quirk an eyebrow at this statement. Quickly, Jeno recovers himself. “I care about what you think.” He smiles. “You’re the only person I’ve known that hasn’t ever brought up my looks.”

“Why should I?” You shrug your shoulders. “You know you’re hot.” At this you and Jeno laugh again together, but after a few moments, Jeno stops laughing.

“So you admit it?” Jeno asks curiously.

“Yes, I do.” You say sighing, hating that you’re giving him this victory. “Lee Jeno, you’re one of the most attractive men I’ve seen in my whole life,” you vow. “Now, can I get back to my book?” You ask.

“Fine.” Jeno obliges. He sits down on his towel laid out beside yours, lying down on his back as you read your book. His gaze changes from the ocean’s waves licking the sandy shores to the side of your face. You’re maybe a chapter in when Jeno interrupts your train of thought.

“Are you really gonna be reading the whole time?” Jeno whines. “I didn’t bring anything to do because I thought we were gonna go in the water.”

“Th-The water?” You ask. You look at Jeno as if he grew a second head.

“Yes, water. We’re at the beach per your request. Remember?” Jeno says slowly.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think–”

“You didn’t think about swimming at the beach?” Jeno asks incredulously.

“No,” you respond, your voice small.

“You’re literally wearing a swimsuit,” Jeno points out.

“Yeah, but that’s just to get a good tan,” you say. Now that you say it out loud, it does sound kind of ridiculous that you didn’t even make plans about getting in the water today. “And plus,” you say a bit awkwardly. “I don’t really know how to swim.”

It seems as though Jeno’s eyes are about to bulge out of his face. “You’ve been coming to this beach for years, and you don’t know how to swim?”

“I never really learned how. I mean, I did, but I wasn’t very good, and I’m super out of practice. I usually just come here to read or admire the scenery – Jeno!” You exclaim. Jeno snatches the book out of your hand and places it on the towel. He’s strong enough to hoist you up, and you’re left with no choice but to jog along with him to the edge of the shore, kicking up mounds of sand; you have a stinking suspicion about what he’s going to do.

“Today’s the day I’m gonna teach you how to swim.” He says.

“B-But,” you stutter, struggling for words. Jeno doesn’t look like he’ll take no for an answer.

“I promise I won’t let go of you, and we won’t go far from the shore.” He says, his gaze sincere. “Let’s start off with floating. Spread your arms out and kick your feet up. Act as though you want to lie down on the water like it’s sand. Like this.” Jeno demonstrates, going slightly away from the shore and deeper in the water, leaving you knee-deep, standing on the wet sand underfoot. Once Jeno has floated for a few seconds, he positions himself upright, everything except his neck and face submerged in water as he swims towards you, walking the last few steps to you.

“Now you try.” You look a little nervous but follow what Jeno says. You kick your feet up and try to treat the water like it’s the sand you rest your towel against; Jeno’s hand is on the small of your back as he holds you up. You’re not used to the feeling of water in your ears, and you’re struggling to stay afloat as you accidentally breathe in water. Hearing you cough, Jeno sets you upright, and you cough up the salty water.

“I don’t like,” you say between coughs. “The water in my ears. It keeps going in.”

“Trust me when I say that when you don’t want water to go in your ears and nose, it doesn’t. When you are thinking about water going into your ears and nose, it does. Now, let’s try again.”

“No,” you whine. “I don’t like swimming.”

“Please?” Jeno asks. “For me? After all, you did drag me out here so early.”

“Fine.” You relent.

“Like I said,” Jeno chides, “Kick up your feet and lie on the water like it’s sand. Don’t struggle too much right now. Unless you don’t think about the water around your ears and nose, it won’t go in.”

You repeat what you did earlier, kicking up your feet and lying on the water like it’s sand. This time you don’t move a muscle. You let the gentle low-tide waves of the water kiss your skin and wash over you again before it’s exposed to the refreshingly cool ocean breeze again. Jeno’s hand is against the small of your back as he leads you to deeper waters.

“What are you doing?” You ask.

“Floating is all the same. If you can float in knee-deep water, you can float in deeper water.” Jeno looks into your eyes. “Don’t worry, I still won’t let go.”

You don’t struggle against the water, and when you’re in the deeper water, Jeno helps bring you upright on the water. This time, your feet are unable to touch the ocean floor, and before the panic can settle in your eyes, Jeno is holding your waist.

“Upright floating works the same way. Don’t struggle. Hold your head up high.” You follow as Jeno says and observes how he does it. Jeno slowly takes his hands away from your waist and holds your arm instead. Slowly, he lets go, and here you are in front of him, swimming; you’re pretty amazed too.

“Oh my God, I’m doing it!” You say excitedly. Jeno shares your excitement.

“I know. To think you wanted to give up,” Jeno shakes his head.

Your bodies are close, so close that you can feel Jeno’s breath on your nose. Jeno looks almost angelic with the way the salty water glistens against his face as if his skin is made of diamonds. His jet-black hair is stuck to his forehead, and your hair is in thick, salty strands, but the moment still feels perfect; the shouting of children in the distance doesn’t bother either of you.

You almost want to ki–

Suddenly, you��re taken out of your thoughts when a splash of cold water hits your face. Jeno has already swum a few feet away, the culprit of the cold splash on your face.

“Tag! You’re it!” He says in between giggles.

“Jeno!” You exclaim, trying your best to swim and splash him.

He’s the most handsome, adorable dork you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Every summer, city council organized a summer concert series held at the local park. They mostly featured student bands, cover bands, and lots of vendors. But most importantly: they were free.

The one happening tonight was the last one of this year’s series, and there would be fireworks. You hadn’t been able to attend the last few summer concerts because of your growing responsibilities at the pet shelter; you were becoming pet manager, a position where you would inventory what animals were available to adopt, and the numbers were changing every day. Also, Doyoung had gone on vacation along with many of the volunteers, so you, Taeyong, and Sungchan were left to cover for them.

Tonight though, you were given the day off, so you decided to see if Jeno was free to go to the concert with you.

You tell your mother your intentions, and when you’re done talking, she gives you a sly look.

“You’ve been hanging out with Jeno a lot recently. Is there something I should know about?” She asked. She doesn’t ask this in a condescending, strict-parent tone, but of one as a friend. For the most part, your mother was always the woman you came clean to and got advice from; there were truely only minal secrets you kept from her.

“Yeah Y/N, is there something we should know about?” Renjun asks.

Renjun. For a while, you had completely forgotten about him. He had started getting suspicious recently that you were harboring feelings for his long-time best friend. After the beach trip, he started getting suspicious, but he had been too busy to do anything about it, only sulking in the corner thinking about it.

You had to admit that you had a little crush on Jeno, in that every time you thought about him, your heart started racing in an exhilarating way. Maybe when Renjun was around, you weren’t as slick as you thought you were. “No,” you say, a little quieter than you meant for it to be. You clear your throat, making your voice louder. “Nothing’s going on. Jeno’s always available to hang out, which is why I’m hanging out with him.”

Your mother doesn’t say anything, knowing Renjun is in the room. Most likely, Renjun was worried that if you and Jeno got into a relationship, it would mess up the long-time friendship they had, and if you broke up, it would be even worse. You understood his sentiment, but it’s not like Jeno likes you back…

Right?

The way he looked at you, the way that when you talked, he was fully attentive, his soft, expressive eyes reacting, listening to every word you say.

That’s just because you guys have become good friends, right?

(A part of you wishes that it isn’t).

You’re wearing your standard summer uniform of daisy dukes and a T-shirt when you walk up to Jeno’s house and the door opens before you knock. Jeno is standing at the entrance of his house, already dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, showing off his strong arms.

“Jeno,” you say. “Do you want to go to the summer concert together?” You ask.

“Actually,” Jeno says shyly. “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

“Great.” Jeno invites you in and asks if you want anything. You said you would just have some water. He pours you a glass before heading to his room to grab a towel and some bug spray. Stepping outside, you both spray yourselves, and when he goes back inside to put the bug spray away, he tells his parents that he’s going to be out and will be back before ten.

The park is a short drive from your neighborhood, and it is just as scenic as you remembered it to be. It’s about sixty-something acres filled with walking trails that loop around your city, which city council has tried hard to have more “green” city planning, rather than letting this place become a concrete jungle.

In this park, there is lots of green space for people to lay their towels across the grass and enjoy the music. Most of the people here are young parents with budding families, in which a family-friendly free concert with a packed picnic and fireworks is the perfect summer activity. There are also older people like you and Jeno, showing up to the concert today because they were bored. The beginning of August signaled to high schoolers the start of school, and to college people that they would be moving back to their dorms soon. Either way, the park is packed. Tonight isn’t as hot and stuffy as most nights, which also accounts for why there are so many people here tonight.

“What’s the theme for this concert?” You ask Jeno when you hop out of his car.

“‘70’s American rock,” he says.

“Fun,” you say. You weren’t an avid rocker, but you turn on the oldies radio station, you didn’t mind listening to a few rock songs. “It’s better than working at the pet shelter every single night.” Jeno laughs. You loved your job more than anything, but you wanted a semblance of work-life balance.

“Now I’m glad I didn’t take up Doyoung’s offer immediately,” Jeno says.

“It isn’t usually this bad,” you say. “It’s just that Taeyong and many volunteers are on vacation, and I’m being given more responsibilities.”

“Maybe I could come in and volunteer just to help you out,” Jeno says wistfully. “I’ll have to find time in my schedule,” he jokes.

You raise a brow at the boy. “In your schedule of doing nothing?” You snort.

“It’s not nothing,” Jeno counters. “I’m just relaxing before finding a job. Jobs are going to be there after I take a little break from college,” he says. Renjun wouldn’t ever be caught saying something like this. For him, it’s always one thing onto the next. Renjun is a restless man, and taking a break without a job would drive him crazy.

While Renjun is ridiculously Type A, Jeno is the opposite. He’s used to opportunities coming to him, believing that everything has a way of working out in the end. It’s crazy how the two have managed to be friends with such vastly different outlooks on life.

You drop the topic, opting to lay out the towel that Jeno brought. There’s enough space for both of you to fit… but tightly. Even though you’re wearing bug spray, the sharp, freshly cut grass makes your skin feel itchy.

“I guess we’re gonna have to sit like this,” you say a little awkwardly. Jeno turns to face you, his face only inches from yours; your arms brush Jeno’s biceps, and you feel your throat become dry.

“Yeah,” he says softly. No witty reply.

The silence between you is broken by the cheers of the audience. The performers are here.

“What’s up Neo City?” The head performer asks the audience. He’s a man in his mid to late twenties, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. Cheers are the response, filling the air.

“We’re Neo Culture Tech, and today we’re going to be performing some covers to end Neo City’s 1997 Summer Concert Series! We hope you enjoy the performance!” The man stops talking, and the park erupts with cheers.

The first note is played on the piano, followed by the addition of drums and electric guitar. The songs go on one by one, and Neo Culture Tech plays popular songs by the Eagles, ACDC, Fleetwood Mac, and Def Leopard. Parents are dancing with smaller children, singing along to the songs they listened to in grade school, while younger people sit on their towel and jam out to the songs less physically.

You and Jeno are bobbing your heads together to the music, stealing glances at one another. Jeno was able to sing along a little to ‘Shoot to Thrill’ and ‘Gold Dust Woman,’ while you were able to sing along to ‘Witchy Woman’ and ‘Hotel California’ after memorizing the lyrics so long ago. As the guy who was playing the guitar played the guitar solos for ‘Hotel California,’ people cheered.

“Before we start the fireworks show, I’d like to end off with a banger. Everyone stand up and find a partner to dance with!” the lead singer said. With that, the band started the chords for ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ by Def Leopard.

Jeno looks at you, a wry smile on his face. “Would you care to dance with me, partner?” He asks, holding out his elbow. You loop your arm in his.

“Of course.”

By this time, more of the younger people were standing up, dancing with their friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, or wives. You and Jeno were dancing, not caring how you looked, your hands clasping and unclasping as Jeno twirled you around to the rock song. You both sing along to the song, knowing the famous song.

When the song ends, you’re out of breath, your chest against Jeno’s, but Jeno doesn’t look very tired; there’s only a small drop of sweat pooling at his forehead, and he’s able to control his breathing. While the crowd screams, cheering for the band that just performed, you and Jeno are in your own world.

You feel like you know what Jeno’s thinking.

Slowly, you start leaning in, and Jeno follows your example. Before long, your lips land on his. You only want it to be a peck, but your body refuses to listen to your brain, so here you were, for what feels like centuries kissing Jeno. You weren’t going to struggle against your feelings anymore, you were going to float like you were at the beach.

Kissing your brother’s best friend.

Kissing the guy that all the girls in high school drooled over, the guy that got so many sports scholarship offers, the guy that many thought was infallible.

But he’s just Jeno, the adorable dork who’s stuck with your brother for almost their whole lives through thick and thin.

The adorable dork that you’ve helplessly fallen in love with.

Reluctantly, you both pull away, your breaths hitting each others’ noses. You’re almost to scared to look Jeno in the eye.

You just changed everything.

While you’re too busy not looking at Jeno, he takes your chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilts your gaze upward, to look at him.

When you look into his beautiful brown eyes, you realize that you didn’t change everything with one kiss. The feelings were always there. While you were slowly falling for Jeno, Jeno started slowly falling for you.

“I-I think I’m in love with you,” Jeno says, his voice unsure, lacking that cocky athlete tone that’s synonymous with Lee Jeno. While one hand remained holding your chin up to face him, the other hand was on your waist.

You didn’t think you ever wanted him to stop touching you.

“No,” he corrects himself, clearing his thoat. Seconds felt like hours, and your heart is racing like crazy.

“I know I’m in love with you.”

You think the loud beating sound is just your heart, but when you look up, the black sky is filled with color, expressive fireworks shining before dissipating. Red, orange, blue, and purple fill the sky before gray smoke settles and floats away. The park is oddly quiet while at least two hundred people enjoy the fireworks and are held by their boyfriends or girlfriends. You look up with Jeno in the same position you were, his arm still on your faces close. Your jaw is close to touching his collar bone, your nose almost touching his neck.

“I love you too.”

It’s probably one in the morning right now.

Ever since you and Jeno confessed your feelings, all you were doing was hiding your feelings around your family. You didn’t want Renjun finding out about your relationship just yet, and Jeno had the same idea. You and Jeno wouldn’t advertise to your families that you were hanging out, and most of the time, you met up at the pet shelter, where Doyoung was the only one who knew about the true nature of your relationship (after the unfortunate man walked in on you two making out in the janitor’s closet). You and Jeno forced him to promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone or even give any hints if he ran into your families; in small towns like yours, word travels fast.

Other than seeing Jeno at the animal shelter, you would sneak Jeno into your bedroom at night. A little part of you thrived from the danger you felt, doing something secret and slightly forebidden (nothing this exhilarating ever happened to you in high school or in college). You live in a one-story bungalow (like all the houses in your neighborhood), and your parents’ room is on the other side of your room, with the kitchen separating your rooms.

However, only a wall was separating you from Renjun’s room. You think you’re safe right now since through the paper-thin walls, you can hear Renjun soundly snoring to himself. The iceing on the cake was that Renjun is a light sleeper.

You hear a knock on your window, and you look to see that it’s Jeno. You’re in your pajamas, just a shirt with some pajama shorts, and you get off your bed, systematically opening the latch to your window. Pushing the window, it opens now, and Jeno opens it a little wider, enough for you to let him in.

He’s dressed in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and red, drugstore flipflops. He rubs his arm a little bit, a small scowl on his face.

“You should really trim that rose bush,” Jeno says softly, his gaze following to the rosebush that is near your window. Outside your window, you had a good view of the garden, and your mother took great pain to maintain that garden; your father often joked that it was her third child. For Jeno to get access to your window, he would have to wade through all the plants and flowers, careful not to step on anything because your mom would notice the next day. “I think it roughed me up pretty good.”

“Let me see,” you whisper, pulling his arm. In the minimal light that came from the almost full moon outside, you’re able to see clearly. It’s just a little scratch, that was slowly turning into a red line. No blood.

“You’ll live,” you say rolling you eyes. Sometimes Lee Jeno was the most dramatic guy that you’ve ever met.

Jeno pouts. “I think I would feel better if you kissed it,” he suggests.

You heave a sigh. “I swear to God,” you mutter. You lean foreward, pressing your lips against his arm. “That better?” You ask, crossing your arms and leaning your weight to one leg.

“How about one here?” He asks, pointing to his lips.

You laugh a little to yourself. “Greedy little–”

Jeno interrupts you. “Don’t act like you don’t want to.”

Standing on your toes, you lean in, your nose touching Jeno’s for a brief moment before your lips collide. Jeno’s hands gravitate towards your waist as he tries to push you against the nearest wall. He pushes you to the wall with the window he climbed into your room with. There’s only a narrow gap of space between the edge of the window and the bookshelf that houses all of your albums. He pushes you there, his knee finding its place between you legs. He grunts a little as his lips trail from your mouth to your chin to your neck. He slides you against the wall, your elbow hitting the edge of your bookshelf, and something goes flying off of the top of your bookshelf.

Immediately, you and Jeno jump apart at the noise when the object hits the floor. You’re thankful that the carpet muffles the sound, but it’s still audible since it hit the edge of the wooden door. You bend down to examine the fallen object, realizing that it’s just a snowglobe. You pick it up, putting it on your desk instead. No one stirs. Renjun is still in his room snoring.

“We’re supposed to be quiet!” You whisper loudly, putting your index finger to your lips.

“I’m sorry!” Jeno apologises.

“God, you lumber around my room like you haven’t been here before,” you joke. “How about let’s go into the bed where there’s less chance of making a noise.”

Jeno quickly agrees, and you both go into your bed, under the covers. Jeno’s arms find their place around you once more, and you put your head on Jeno’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. Jeno kisses the top of your head. After a few moments of lying like this in silence, your lips find Jeno’s again. You’re on top of him, him straddling your hips, but quickly, it turns into him on top of you. You both kiss each other with a new kind of fervor, but Jeno pulls away. “How long are we going to be doing this?” He asks. “I don’t know about you, but this whole sneaking around thing is getting kind of old. I just want to call you my girlfriend in front of people.”

You kiss him. “Just until I get the chance to tell Renjun.” You say. “I have a speech prepared.” You clear you throat, shifting your position in bed so you can face your boyfriend. In the dim light in which you can barely see Jeno, you can imagine his beautiful features, barely believing that you are his girlfriend. “I love Jeno, Jeno loves me, we want to be together, and you can’t do anything about it.” Jeno waits for more.

“That’s it?” He asks.

You shrug your shoulders. “What else am I supposed to say?”

Jeno smiles. He finds directness to be one of your most endearing qualities. You aren’t scared to say what’s on your mind, even if it’s controversial. He puts a hand on your cheek and brings you closer to him, kissing you again. His lips smack against your’s and you’re pretty sure you can hear audible popping sounds every time you both mutually pull away for air, only meaning to come back.

When he pulls away, Jeno says. “Y/N, you should at least be a bit more considerate to his feelings. This is going to be a big change for him.” Jeno reasons.

You seemed to like the exact opposite of what Jeno sees in you. You liked the way he considered everyone, and although it sometimes makes it seems like he is a people-pleaser, people who are the most considerate to others’ feelings when it doesn’t align with their own are the people who are the peacemakers, the role models, the people who rule the world.

While you were the fire, Jeno was the water, who made you see reason. And your directness teaches Jeno to stand up for himself.

“I know, but if Renjun can’t accept it, then he needs to grow up.”

“I don’t think Renjun wants to grow up.”

After you hear the new voice, the lights turn on, and you and Jeno immediately jump apart to opposite sides of your twin bed (but it’s not possible without your bodies still touching). This only gives the onlooker a better view of the two parties involved. When you and Jeno finally decide to face the onlooker, you realize that it’s Renjun in his pajamas. He wasn’t wearing his contacts, but he doesn’t need them to recognize the two most important people in his life. His arms are crossed as he examines both you and Jeno, and together, you both struggle for an explanation.

“Surprise?” You and Jeno chorus together.

PRESENT DAY

Eventually, Renjun got over it. Or else, he wouldn’t have been able to give such a wonderful best man speech.

That’s right. After years of dating which helped you realize that no one was more perfect for you than Jeno, you and Jeno decided to get married in 2003 after you both were settled in your careers. Jeno, after a few months of relaxation, got a job at a marketing firm, and he worked his way up to become a lead account manager. You, after earning your degree in accounting, worked at a firm for a few years before quitting and becoming the book keeper at Taeyong’s pet shelter, which now you owned. Taeyong moved to his mother’s paid-off house in Seoul to take care of his aging mother, so he stepped down and gave you ownership of his beloved pet shelter. He now worked at his mother’s supermarket and visited you often.

Sometimes, it amazed you how far society has gone since your childhood. You would never have dreamed of touch-screen cell phones with the power of a full-sized computer or your fridge making grocery lists for you. It was convenient and fascinating, but at other times, this new world scared you; only recently has it been confirmed that your phone is listening to you and people are selling your online data.

“Kids, dinner!” You shouted up the stairs. Just after you were married, you became pregnant with your daughter, and five years later, your son came along.

“Coming,” your daughter Yoona said.

“Yeah!” Your son Hyuckjae yelled from his room. That wasn’t really an answer, leaving you signing by the kitchen.

Jeno is already sitting at the table, eating the meal that you prepared. It wasn’t that complicated, just some fried rice with some vegetables and meat, as well as potato soup since you were tired after your long day at work. You sat at the table next to your husband, and you know you don’t have to call for your children again when you hear thundering down the stairs. Yoona’s phone is glued to her hands, while Hyunjae finds his position next to Jeno. The food is on the table, but only three of you are eating; Yoona’s food remains untouched as she sits down and keeps her attention only on her phone, not acknowledging the presence of her family.

“Yoona!” You say, snapping in front of her face. Only when you put your hand between her phone did she actually look at you.

“What do you want mom?” She says, exasperated.

“Aren’t you going to eat your food?”

“Yeah,” she replies, “In a little bit,” Almost immediately, she only looks back at your phone.

“Yoona, put the phone away.”

“That’s right honey,” a new voice interjects, and it’s Jeno. “Put your phone away. We want to have a conversation.” Jeno adds.

“About what?” Yoona asks. She finally puts her phone down and looks at you both. “Are you guys having a midlife crisis?”

“Midlife –” Jeno stops.

“We’re not even that old yet!” You exclaim.

“Yeah Yoona,” Hyuckjae adds.

“Shut up Hyuckjae,” Yoona says, her voice snarky. “Buttering up to Mom and Dad isn’t going to get you a phone.”

“Says who?” Hyuckjae argues back. “Mom and Dad didn’t say anything.”

“Hyuckjae, you’re not getting a phone,” you say stubbornly.

“Oh come on, Mom!” Hyunjae whines. “I’m the only eighth grader without a phone!” Hyuckjae counters.

“Me and your father didn’t have a phone at your age. You’ll live.”

“That’s because you guys lived in the stone ages.”

Jeno scoffs. “The ‘90’s weren’t even that long ago.”

Yoona cocks her head. “The ‘90’s are in history books now.”

You and Jeno both look at each other, but Yoona continues. “The ‘90’s were like thirty years ago.”

You knew that time had passed, but it never really occurred to you the quantifiable number of years; someone born in 1990 is in their thirties now. You vividly remember 1990, being a thirteen year old. Jeno was fifteen. You wonder how he’s feeling.

“That doesn’t change why you should have a phone, Hyuckjae,” you say.

“What about schoolwork? I’ll be in high school in the fall.”

“You can use the family computer.” Hyuckjae groans; the desktop in the computer room right off the entrance of your’s and Jeno’s suburban home (originally the formal dining room) is a Windows 8.1, and somewhat slow.

“Hyuckjae, we’ll get you a phone your first month of freshman year, just like your mom and I agreed on.” Jeno says cooly. “That’s when Yoona got her first phone.”

Hyunjae grunts. “But that’s so long from now.”

Noticing how the conversation mainly was between you, Jeno, and Hyunjae, Yoona gestures to pick up her phone when you point at her.

“Don’t even think about picking up that phone right now, young lady,” you say pointedly, and Yoona’s hands immediately back away.

“Right that conversation we’re going to have,” Jeno says, redirecting the topic. “How was everyone’s day?”

“That’s the conversation you want to have?” Yoona says.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” You ask, defending Jeno.

“Nothing…” Yoona trails away.

“I’ll start,” you say. “I had an overall good day. Taeyong gave me an extra 15% off groceries instead of 10%.” It was incredibly convenient that Taeyong’s mother’s supermarket was only eight miles from the pet shelter.

“Nice,” Jeno says, smiling in that same boyish eyesmile that you fell in love with all those years ago. “I had an average day. It would have been good, but the coffee machine in the cafeteria broke,” Jeno sighs.

You and Jeno both turn to look at Yoona. “I had a good day, I guess. I got a 100 on my calculus test.”

“Great job!” Jeno says. You reach over to rub Yoona’s shoulders.

“You see? I told you it would benefit to go to calculus tutoring,” you say.

“Hyuckjae? How was your day?” Jeno asks.

“Not good. You guys aren’t getting me a phone.”

“We just said we would!” You exclaim. “When you’re a freshman.”

Hyuckjae grunts at this and stands up, heading towards the sink to clear the remnants on his plate. You didn’t realize that Yoona and Hyukcjae had been eating particularly fast tonight, evident by their nearly empty dishes.

“I’m going to the computer room,” he says, not waiting for a response when he leaves. Shortly after, Yoona is done with her food. After rinsing her plate, she leaves it in the sink and snatches her phone off of the dining room table (as if you were going to take it and look at the texts on the notification bar).

“I’m going to my room,” she says. She waits for you to say a resigned ‘okay,’ and she heads up the stairs, sparing no time to look at her phone.

“What could be so important that she can barely stay a free moment without her phone?” You voice to your husband. You and Jeno are taking your time eating your meal at the table, now by yourselves.

“What isn’t so important at that age?” Jeno says before slurping the soup collected in his spoon. “When you’re a teenager, you see things with a different perspective than you would see if you were a mom, for example.”

You sigh at these words, the fresh perspective that your husband is giving you that you failed to see initially. Jeno is good at seeing all sides of the situation; that’s why Renjun always goes to him for advice.

“I guess,” you say, crossing your arms. “I can’t imagine being a kid right now.”

“I bet Yoona and Hyuckjae can’t imagine being a kid in the ‘90’s.”

You sigh. “Things really have changed, haven’t they?” When you and Jeno were younger, you weren’t trying to get the best gadgets to impress your friends, you didn’t have advanced TV’s and vacuum cleaners that were listening to you, you weren’t always on Instagram and Twitter, and the concept of a ‘social media influencer’ didn’t exist at all.

When you and Jeno were younger, you thought the future would resemble Back to the Future. Although there weren’t any hoverboards that actually hovered the ground in 2016, the actual future paralleled the movie in surprising ways with the fact that people were always so distracted with the screens in their hands.

“Don’t you ever just feel…” you start off. Jeno’s attention is on you while he eats.

“Don’t you ever feel that people are always in their own worlds?” You ask. “Always on their phones looking at the latest posts, listening to music, downloading photos? No one ever runs around the neighborhood and draws chalk or play with the neighborhood kids,” you sigh. It was like people preferred to type than to talk.

“Yeah. It wasn’t like that when we were kids,” Jeno says. You eat a couple of spoons of friend rice, the silence between you both evident.

“In a way,” Jeno says, “Things are still the same.”

“How?” You ask.

“Well, people still have the need to be social, whether it’s on social media or in person. And we are still trying to keep up with our friends,” he says. Without words, you know he’s talking about your son and how obsessed he was about getting a phone since his friends started to flash their iPhones and Samsungs.

“I still think life was simpler back in the ‘90’s,” you say stubbornly. “Even though we had to use TV Guide to find out what was on TV, it was still easier. I’m always looking over my shoulder these days,” you confess. “Every single second, so much data is being collected and sold, it makes me worried. On top of all that, social media isn’t good for young kids,” you say, redirecting the conversation back to Hyuckjae. You feel a little guilty seeing Hyuckjae so upset that he doesn’t have a phone, but it was the principle that mattered. You didn’t think phones were good for young kids, to be hooked up to the internet 24/7. Being fifteen and having a phone isn’t much better than being fourteen and having a phone, but you drew the line at high school. You couldn’t protect your son forever, no matter how much you desperately wanted to.

“There’s still something that remains simple, though,” Jeno says. When he gently squeezes your thigh, you think you have an idea.

“This,” he says. He leans over and kisses your lips, cupping your cheek. His lips are soft as they rub rhythmically against your lips. He pulls away, his voice soft. “I love you. We can be in 2092, teleporting to see our great-grandchildren, and I’ll be in love with you,” Jeno says.

You giggle. Nineteen years of marriage, and he still makes you feel like a young bride.

“We can be in 3092 with our brains connected to robots, and I’ll still be in love with you,” you counter, turning this into a competition.

“How about let’s think about right now,” Jeno says. He cups your cheeks in his hands and admires your eyes before he kisses you deeply, as if he isn’t going to kiss you ever again.

The world can change as much as it wants, as long as you have Lee Jeno by your side.

a/n: if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading :) since this is my first slowburn, let me know what you thought in the comments or by sending me an ask! thanks again!

#nct #jeno #lee jeno #nct fluff #nct scenarios #nct dream #jeno fluff #jeno scenarios #jeno imagines #nct imagines #nct reactions #nct dream fluff #nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #jeno smut

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mischas · 2 years ago

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pod thoughts/quotes

I swear this took me least two hours to actually watch fully from start/stopping for quotes and going back for context and then I had to pause for a few minutes while I made dinner. But that was incredibly cathartic, I must say. I feel like I’ll be ready to do a deeper dive on the podcast in the coming days but for now here are my thoughts as I watched.

07:30, re: “Whoever you want me to be” it’s interesting that Mischa says they shot her lines so many different ways to establish tone. As if Marissa really is so into her role as lead deb/social chair/etc when Sandy mentions the fashion show. Rereading the pilot script, I can see where this was changed in the direction once it came to shooting it.

16:42, “The thing about the sports or something” made me LAUGH re: hiatus because of baseball in 2003

@ ferris wheel scene, do they know this show is avail in hd? 🥴👀

24:15, re: 2x01 lawn chair scene “I was so frustrated with some of the character writing and not knowing how to play it at that point” omg “Didn’t know what to do with some of the writing”

What kind of vapid ppl are listening to this drivel if this scene was their #1

31:57, Mischa didn’t know there was an SNL skit based off Marissa shooting Trey. IF ONLY I WERE SO LUCKY

33:28, I swear to christ 😭 Mischa has no recollection of Marissa’s various traumas (re: almost r*pe). And I don’t blame her for this, I think she had to keep this show out of sight out of mind for so so long for her own sake, but I hope being reminded of these things will help her perception of Marissa as more than a strung out angsty teen with poor decision making. She seemed so shook being reminded by Melinda that Marissa was sexually assaulted.

35:40, MB seems to be saying something else behind her expression about shooting on the Mount St. Mary’s campus for 3x24. What do we think she meant by this? Just that she was uncomfortable being paraded around in that skimpy school uniform? Or something else? This location doubled for Harbor, right? She also acknowledged feeling uncomfortable in the explicit Volchok scenes.

37:54, 3x25 model home pool scene, “Oh my god her tattoo, I can’t” I really thought this was Mischa’s tattoo they wrote into the script! I’m truly surprised they even cared about continuity at this point.

38:33, same pool scene “It’s nice when you have days where you can just, like, do stuff that’s not quite so heavy” and Mischa/Marissa deserved this so much more!!!!

44:25, they’re watching the d**th scene, and I have always thought Mischa’s arms look so weird just dropped back like that. It’s probably more realistic than if they were tucked in, but it’s always taken me out of the scene

I haven’t seen this scene in years. literally

I’m tearing up but only a little. It’s too melodramatic for me this time. I know what I’m supposed to feel but it seems so detached from reality that I can easily act like Marissa survives this. There’s almost 40 min left of this pod ep what are they gonna talk about

ok going back real quick i’m supposed to believe this happened to Ryan RIGHT IN HIS LAP AND HE’S CAREFREE AND DATES SOMEONE ELSE NOT EVEN A FEW MONTHS LATER? LMFAO PLS THIS BOY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO EVEN SPEAK FOR LIKE A YEAR IF THIS RLY HAPPENED

“This is the culmination of their whole love story, it is” okay wait 🥺

“I don’t wanna see the part where he gets all emotional, I’m done now” real

49:31, Melinda: “Truth be told, there was a huuuuuge part of the audience that tuned in just for Marissa and the ratings did go down in season 4 because you weren’t there. I’m just putting that out there.” *elmo fire gif* 🫡

55:40, 1x10 Missoni dress “They got the dress and I was obsessed, like ‘she has to wear this dress.’ It’s beautiful, like my dream dress at the time. That’s the way I felt about it. It’s all sparkly in person and just very Missoni. You know, after the fact, I became quite good friends with the family but this was like my first introduction to a Missoni piece and I was like ‘Oh my god I’m obsessed with this dress’ to the point where I begged them. This was like one of the first things they let me wear off set and it was my first date dress with, like, one of my ex-boyfriends. I was so excited I got to wear it out. It was special. So that dress has a special place in my heart, that’s for sure.”

1:01:40, fan question, “What do you think is the biggest misconception about Marissa? What’s the one thing that you just wish people would understand about her?”

“That she’s a caring– a very sensitive person. That’s the main thing about her, she’s just this sensitive and– that she wants to care for people and help them. she has a big heart like that.” 🥹

1:05:36 “Originally, they wanted her to be more like Legally Blonde.”

Melinda, “Like bubbly?”

Mischa’s fucking face here lmao

1:06:00, to find Marissa’s character “They had me watch Kate Hudson in Almost Famous again and again, certain scenes.” Why is this actually making sense to me ljkhgf

1:07:04, Marissa at the party post-fashion show in the pilot was filmed many different ways drunk, “I remember I was asked to play that every way to Sunday. ‘Like now she should be fall down drunk, like she’s stumbling through the party’ and then there were takes where I was, like, completely composed. A little bit slurring my words. That was all find it as you go.”

1:08:10, “A lot of opposing types of direction” re: doug, mcg, josh

1:09:36, “Remember when they started shooting two episodes at a time and they would just hand me pages–I don’t know if you guys had as much of this– But they would be like ‘this is gonna be probably in the next episode and since we’re on this set we’re gonna give this scene a go so here’s a couple pages from what’s probably gonna happen’ and I’d be like ‘this is wild! what have you written for the next episode?’ You'd read it and be like ‘holy shit where are we going with this?’ so I remember a lot of that.” She mentioned this in the E! interview but hearing it again is super interesting.

1:10:27, fan question, “I wanted to ask you if there are any storylines you would’ve wanted to see more of for Marissa or if there’s anything you would’ve liked to have seen of Marissa explored.”

“Yeah, I feel like definitely the Alex storyline is what jumps to mind. I feel like that could’ve been explored more. Also there’s not a lot of her and her sister, really. You know? That could’ve been explored more.”

1:11:39, mentioning that the Alex storyline really was ‘her thing’ ie. something I’ve said in the past. The Alex storyline was the only one that was ever Marissa’s alone.

1:12:26, fan submission “Marissa was my favorite character. One of my favorite moments of her was midway through season 2 when Marissa shows up to the Cohen house with bagels and they take her in and comfort her.” real!!!! theeee sweetest scene of all time

1:17:20, Tacking on that fan question at the end about Marissa and mental health. Mischa has such an eloquent answer and to answer my own question from above I feel like this may change the discourse with which MB speaks about the character. At least I hope so. Love that caller for sending it in and honestly the pod for including it.

“Obviously she suffers from depression and anxiety and all sorts of things. That’s what I was saying about the overdose scene. I do not remember what we think she’s on or what we really think her biggest problem is. Ultimately it’s rooted in mental wellness, isn’t it? I mean, so much of anything is. Any kind of addiction, it’s not really about just one thing or vice that she has. It’s about being at that age and being so overwhelmed about the world around you and not really feeling like she had the tools to cope.”

MC: “The episode is called ‘The Escape’. So she’s escaping that pain that she’s living through that the parents are oblivious to.”

MB: “Right. There’s nobody. There’s never, like, a counselor there or a teacher there. It does feel like she’s always grasping in different directions. It’s not properly defined and I think, maybe in today’s terms, we would handle that differently. But I definitely think that she’s going through all of it and searching for herself.”

Whew, you guys. I need to decompress.

#oc bitches #mischa barton

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aquamarinescarlet · 4 years ago

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I’m glad I agreed to this! - Days 5 through 7

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Word count: ~7.2k

Warnings: so much fluff, and like two cuss words, maybe

Summary: Your feelings for Wanda are totally out of control and you still have three days stuck in this place, with nowhere to run to.

Author’s note: So, I might have created the most romantic scene ever, which just makes me want someone to recreate it with. This is pure fluff (what can I say, I’ve been in a fluffy mood lately). Also, this is longer than I expected but I think it turned out okay.

Tag list: @purplemeetsblue @madamevirgo @causeitswhatjesuswouldfreakingdo @helloalycia

Part 1 - Part 2

(GIF is not mine)

Day five came along and you were back to discreetly avoiding Wanda. You managed to do so throughout the morning, going for a hike and then spending some time at the stables, tending for the horses with Alan.

Lunch was served on the poolside bar this time, and it being an open area made it much easier to not look at Wanda.

After the meal you joined Nat and Carol in the arcade to play some pool. Carol was telling a story from one of her missions in an alien planet you couldn’t pronounce the name. It was going smoothly until Nat decided to bring up that delicate subject.

“So, Y/N, how’s the Wanda situation going?” Your eyes went wide with the sudden question.

“Uh... what Wanda situation?” Carol asked curiously.

“Y/N here is finally admitting she has a crush on Wanda,” she said, “I’m surprised none of you noticed how she drools over her anytime she’s around.”

“Nat!” You warned, hoping she’d stop.

“Oh, this is interesting, is that what the whole riding the same horse thing was about?” Carol pushed further.

“No, I was just trying to be nice.”

“Trying to get into her pants, that’s what.” Natasha mocked and you hit her in the arm.

“Natalia Alianovna Romanova!” You could feel your heart rate picking up at her insinuation.

The pool game was forgotten as Nat went on pointing out several situations she’d caught you crushing on Wanda, some even from before the trip. They both mocked you relentlessly about it, and you couldn’t blame them, you usually put on this nonchalant act when it came to feelings, that seeing you out of control was comic.

Eventually Steve called the three of you to play some soccer, both women accepted and, not having anything to do in the arcade, you followed after.

You were a decent sports player, but you weren’t in the mood right now, so you decided to just sit back, watch and cheer. Once you reached the soccer field you were faced with a problem: since almost everyone was playing, you’d have to hang out with the small group who wasn’t, Wanda being amongst them.

Weighing your options you concluded going back to your room wasn’t interesting, you came to spend time with each other not locked up, nor was spending at least an hour practically alone with Wanda. So soccer it was.

Nothing memorable happened during the game. You were in the same team as Nat, Peter and T’Challa, the four of you being the faster without having to use any powers gave you an easy win.

Nearing the end of the game, you were running towards the goal when Peter passed you the ball. Steve ran towards it, and he would’ve intercepted the ball successfully if it hadn’t moved again. Like it did during volleyball the day before. It sped up for a second, missing Steve’s feet. Someone was cheating, but you wouldn’t complain since it made you score one last point.

You decided not to dwell too much on who was doing that, making a mental note to bring it up later.

After a much needed shower and uneventful dinner, most people decided to go to bed early, getting a good night of sleep before Stark’s party the next night. A small group decided to stay up and talk for a while, but you weren’t amongst them. You chose to go to your room, not wanting to risk repeating the karaoke situation, although you wouldn’t mind having Wanda look at you like that again.

You played games on your phone, created fake scenarios in your head, overthought every single second in which Wanda was around you during the past 5 days. Tossed and turned but nothing seemed to get you to sleep.

It was almost 2 am when you gave up on trying and decided to go out for a walk. You threw a hoodie over your pajamas, making it look like you weren’t wearing any shorts and put on a pair of slippers.

The darkness of the night was filled with the sounds of crickets all around, creating a peaceful atmosphere. As you walked, a small fire dancing around your fingers to illuminate the way, you remembered about that balcony. Would it happen again? It was worth a try.

You made your way to that building when you saw a light still on in the main room. Thinking someone must’ve forgotten to turn it off you deflected from your original goal. Upon entering the room you saw Wanda sitting on the couch reading a book by herself.

You thought about making a run for it but she spotted you faster than your feet could move. She met your eyes and gave you a smile which you gladly returned.

“Couldn’t sleep?” You spoke before an uncomfortable silence could settle between you both.

“The story is just too good.” She said, raising her book.

You nodded looking down at your feet shyly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother, I just thought someone had forgotten the lights on so I came to turn them off.” You rambled a little.

“It’s okay, you’re no bother.” You smiled at the redness on her cheeks from the cold air of the night, wishing it was a blush you caused.

You were about to leave when you had yet another brilliant idea, surely this wouldn’t come back to bite you in the ass, right?

“Hey, do you want to see something really cool?” She looked puzzled, but curious.

“What?”

“Just come,” you instructed her to follow you and she did.

You led her to that smaller house, and back to the balcony, navigating through the dark. You chose not to turn the lights on this time, so the only source of illumination was the moon. Your heart was rapidly beating and breathing was becoming a challenging task due to being alone with Wanda, but you pushed through, focusing on what you were planning on doing in the first place.

“What are we doing here?” She questioned upon reaching the balcony, staring into the sea of darkness that spread ahead.

“You’ll see.” You took a stand beside her, evaluating what to do next.

You’ve only made that happen once and you weren’t sure how you did it. You tried to recall what had happened that night. You were whistling to a song and playing with your powers. It made no sense that the whistling would’ve caused that reaction so it must’ve been your powers.

Testing your theory you created a small fire on the tip of your fingers and started playing with it. And you were right, seconds later hundreds of small lights turned on, filling the darkness ahead.

“Fireflies.” Wanda exclaimed, amazed.

The little creatures were surrounding the view, countless of them turning on and off slowly. It felt like being in a fantasy land.

“How did you do that?”

“Uhm, I don’t know for sure,” you hesitated, “I guess the chemical reaction that turns my powers on is the same that makes their butts turn on, so they react to it.” You tried to come up with a reasonable explanation, not sure if you were even remotely correct.

She nodded in acknowledgement, unable to take her eyes off of the scenario. You just watched her, how beautiful she looked under the lights, like an angel. Your hands ached to touch her cheeks, to hug her body and tell her how amazing she is.

Your trance was broken when she started to shiver from the cold, her pajama being only shorts and a shirt. You, wanting her to be able to enjoy this place, took off your hoodie and offered it to her.

“Then you’ll be cold.” She argued, shaking her head. You made some flames grow around your hand, signalling that you could keep yourself warm with your powers. “Fair enough.” She chuckled, giving in and taking the hoodie from your hands.

You got lost on how great your piece of clothing looked on her. You’ve always liked your hoodies being huge, so it was bigger than her slim figure too, making her even cuter and softer, if that was even possible.

The hoodie obviously helped, but after a few minutes she was back to shivering slightly. You approached her from the back and started to run your hands up and down her arms, using your powers to transfer some heat to her.

She relaxed under your touch and as nervous as you were from the closeness, you kept your ground, concentrating on keeping her warm. That task became harder and harder as she started to lean closer to you, and your body unconsciously leaned closer to her too, until you were fully hugging her from behind, your arms around her waist and your chin resting on her shoulder.

The proximity was flooding all your senses, her sweet smell, her warm body, her cold hands, the rising and falling of her chest, the look of pure bliss in her eyes. If you could, you’d stay like this with her forever.

You were staring. You had been staring for too long. And you wouldn’t have noticed you were staring if she hadn’t started staring back. Her eyes bore into yours. The fireflies reflected beautifully on her iris. Your cheeks grew hot with embarrassment from being caught but you couldn’t look away. You didn’t want to look away.

Your gaze fell to her lips. Plump, pink and perfect lips. Your heart was beating so loud on your chest there’s no way she couldn’t feel it against her back. Your mind flooded with images of you kissing those lips. You were sure she could read your mind, it was impossibly loud for her not to listen.

Those thoughts were pushed aside when you leaned in and captured her lips with yours. She kissed back immediately, proving that she was in fact reading your mind, but it didn’t matter, not when her mouth was on yours, kissing you.

You moved your body back a bit, giving her space to turn around to fully face you, never breaking the kiss. Her hands cupped your cheeks while your’s settled on her waist, pulling her even closer.

You broke the kissing, against your will, in search for air. Your foreheads resting together as she played with your hair.

You opened your eyes only to meet her beautiful green ones, a smile tugging at her lips and you couldn’t help but give them a peck. The fireflies were still shining around you and the light reflected on her face so perfectly you melted at the sight.

“Well, this is the perfect setting for a first kiss.” She commented.

“It is.” You looked around appreciating the entirety of the scenario. “Let’s just pretend I actually planned all of this.” You joked, causing her to laugh. “But if I’m being honest,” you turned your attention back to her, “I’ve been wanting to do this for some time now.”

“Accidentally cause the most romantic scene ever?” Sarcasm dripped on her voice.

“Oh, c’mon, I’m trying to confess my feelings here.” You tried to sound serious but the smile you couldn’t brush off your lips gave it away.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just that… this is the most romantic scene ever.”

“Yeah, it seems that, this week, every good idea backfires at me.” She giggled at the confession.

“How so?”

“Well, y’know, the horse thing, by the end of it I could barely breathe with having you so close to me.” You reminisced on the memory. “Or the volleyball, cause you just looked so hot I couldn’t concentrate.” Her face grew redder with every item you listed. “There was also karaoke, and now this, since I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest not even 10 minutes ago.” You gave another quick peck on the lips. “Now it did.”

You both chuckled at your antics, recalling the memories from the past five days.

“Although, in retrospect, I’m really glad all those things happened. Cause now I’m here… and you’re here.”

“I am here.” She gave you another kiss. “And I’m really happy they happened too.”

You spend at least another hour on the balcony, enjoying each other’s presence and stealing kisses here and there.

You walked her back to her room, your heart bursting with too much joy to fall asleep now.

A constant, loud banging on your door caused you to wake up earlier than you’d like.

Clumsily shuffling out of bed, moving in a zombie-like state, you found Peter standing in the hall, Shuri right behind him.

“Damn girl, you can sleep.” The girl commented.

You let out a grunt and moved back inside, Shuri and Peter following suit. You fell onto the bed, eyes drifting close, peace lasting for about a second until the annoying spider-boy spoke up.

“What has gotten you so tired, huh?”

“It’s too early.” You responded, voice muffled by the pillow.

“No it’s not, it’s already past lunch time.” He continued.

“Whatever.” You just wanted to sleep.

“Oh c’mon, we only have two days left and you’ve already lost half of this one.” Damn, the boy was insistent. “What has gotten you so tired, did you stay up all night?”

“Come to think of it,” Shuri added mindlessly, “Wanda has also not woken up yet. Care to explain Y/N?”

Your eyes shot open at the mention of Wanda’s name, memories flooding right back. So it wasn’t a dream. Or was it? The fireflies made it look like a moment right out of a fairytale. But it felt so real. It would also explain your tiredness, and your sudden desperate need to see her, even though you’d usually feel a desperate need to avoid her as to refrain from embarrassing yourself in front of her.

“I kissed her.” You whispered, interrupting Peter and Shuri’s conversation.

“What?” They both shot back, you did sound rather surprised by that realization.

“I. Kissed. Her.” You managed to get out, louder this time.

“I’m sorry, did I miss something?” Shuri’s questioned sounded more rhetorical than honest. “For the past week you haven’t been able to even be in the same room as her and now you kissed her?”

“When? Why? How? When?” You chuckled at Peter’s confusion, a smile making its way into your face at the thought of the girl who’s been your dream and your nightmare for the past week.

“Last night, because I like her, I don’t think I should get into specifics about how kisses work and… last night.” You mocked. “Does that answer all your questions?”

“And she kissed you back?”

“Yes, P,” you closed your eyes, reminiscing on the memory, “she kissed me back.”

“What are you going to do now?” He had a point, you hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“I don’t know.”

“Who cares,” Shuri said excitedly, “Wanda likes you back, that’s a big step for someone who’s been drooling over her for months.”

“I haven’t been drooling.” They both laughed.

“Sure, Y/L/N. Now get dressed cause I’m starving and I won’t be able to stand Peter gushing about your kiss on my own.”

“Fine.” You got up. “But no one can know about this, okay?”

“Okay, okay, just go.” You made your way to the bathroom, but not before you overheard Shuri telling Peter, “they’ll have to know at some point, maybe we could do a big reveal or something.”

You chuckled at the comment, she was just joking around, although the whole ‘telling the team part was fairly intimidating. You brushed those thoughts aside, Wanda and you had shared a few kisses, nothing serious, telling the rest was a problem for the future. At that you got dressed and ready for lunch.

You were sitting in the bar by the pool, food was being served there due to the beautiful weather. Peter and Shuri had asked a lot of questions about what had happened last night, and after you begged them several times to keep it down they dropped the subject.

Now they were babbling about some new kind of technology Tony was working on, but you weren’t paying attention as your eyes scoured the place in search of the witch. You had been avoiding her so much during the week that all you want to do is see her, talk to her, despite the fact that you’d still have to be careful around the others, especially Nat, Bucky and Carol, who know about your crush.

After lunch everyone gathered around the pool area to chat and play some games, but you weren’t in the mood for socializing, your mind occupied entirely with Wanda, who still hadn’t shown up. So you decided to take a walk.

Your feet eventually led you towards the stables. With this being one of your last days, and you being sure that you’d be too tired tomorrow to actually do anything, you hung around. Alan was there, that was his job after all, and you two made small talk while you helped him tend for the horses.

Several minutes later he had to run to the barn to get some supplies while you just stayed to pet Mustang and look after the animals.

“Y’know, I haven’t thanked you yet,” you spoke to the horse, “for carrying me and Wanda that day. If you hadn’t done that then maybe I would still keep my feelings for her completely bottled up and we wouldn’t have kissed.”

He shook his head, and you interpreted that as him understanding you.

“Oh yes, we kissed, last night.” You chuckled. “She’s a great kisser by the way.”

“I could say the same for you too.” You jumped at the sudden voice behind.

“Jesus, Wanda.” You brought your hand to your chest, trying to calm down your breathing and your rapidly beating heart.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just thought I’d find you here.”

“How long have you been there?” You asked, calmer now.

“Long enough.”

You offered her a smile and she gave you one back, sending butterflies all over your stomach. She looked beautiful, so relaxed and happy you just wanted to go ahead and kiss her, but you held back.

“So you came up here willingly?”

“Yeah, why?” She asked, confused.

“‘Cause last time I checked you were terrified of horses.” You teased.

“I’m not that scared of them.” She retorted, feigning being offended.

“Really? That day we went for a ride you were clinging to me as if your life depended on it. Even your breath was uneven with nervousness.” You pointed out.

She averted her gaze from yours, staring at her feet while a blush creeped on her cheeks.

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t because of the…,” she trailed off.

“Oh,” you were surprised to say the least, that explained why she was so stiff, so nervous, blushing furiously the whole time.

To prove her point she approached Mustang cautiously and patted him on the head. You noticed some hesitation on her actions, but decided not to comment on it.

“If it helps I’ve been having a gay panic every time you’re around for the past week.” You confessed.

She looked at you curiously, raising an eyebrow to encourage you to keep going.

“Like, when we were playing volleyball I had to focus every cell in my body to not look at you all the time and cause us to lose the game.”

“But you lost.”

“It wasn’t my fault though.” She chuckled. “Seriously, I was watching the ball so fiercely.., by the way, did you know someone cheated? It happened again when we were playing soccer, it must’ve been someone who was in my team both times, since it happened twice.” She shot a playful smile.

“I’m surprised you only noticed it twice.” You looked at her shocked by the confession.

“It was you.” You stated. “Why?”

“Didn’t I make it obvious I like you?”

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to your lips, which you responded to immediately, melting at the touch.

“For the record, I like you too.” You said, breaking the kiss.

“Good.” You both giggled.

As the sound of footsteps grew louder, you both pulled apart. Alan appeared greeting Wanda before walking off to put away the stuff he was carrying.

“We should go back.” You suggested.

“Yeah, we should.”

You made your way to the main house, walking side by side in a comfortable silence. Your hand ached to hold her’s, but you kept it together, afraid someone would catch you. The simple fact that you two were walking together, alone, was suspicious enough.

Upon reaching the main house, you two went different ways. It was already 5:30pm, and Tony had announced the party would be starting at 7pm, so you went directly to your room to get ready.

You took a long shower, washing the smell of horse out of your hair. While you were drying it Shuri burst in without knocking.

“Dude, I could’ve been naked!”

“Good thing you’re not then.” She was wearing sweats and an old shirt, her arms full with her makeup bag and several different options of clothes.

You finished drying your hair only to find the girl sitting on the floor by the tall mirror in your room, her make up halfway done.

“Take a look at the clothes I brought, I need some help with what to wear.”

You looked around the pile now sitting on your bed, picking up a gorgeous black dress. The dark colour faded into sprinkles of gold by the base of the skirt.

“Definitely this one.” You held it up for her to see.

“Oh no, that’s the one you are going to use.”

“What now?”

“Well, you have to look good to impress your girl.” She stated obviously.

“Two things. One, I can’t pull this off. And two, she’s not my girl.”

“Yet.” A fuzzy feeling grew inside you at the idea of having her as your girl. “Now come here, let me do your makeup.”

You sighed at her enthusiasm.

“Just don’t do anything too dramatic.”

It turned out amazing, Shuri was great at this kind of stuff. It wasn’t too much, highlighting the best features on your face in a surprisingly natural way.

Getting ready took more time than anticipated. The dancing and singing to the music Shuri put as background distracted you both way too much. By the time you finished you were already an hour late.

Being the last ones to arrive, the party was already on full blast. Tony did an amazing job in such a small time frame, to no one’s surprise. There was music, colorful lights, and even a bar installed in one of the corners.

The dance floor was filled with drunk people dancing, or at least trying, and laughing. On the couches, the calmer members of the group, such as Banner and Steve, were sitting and chatting animatedly.

You were soon greeted by a not-so-sober Loki, leaning into your shoulder as to not fall flat on the ground.

“Hey, look who’s finally here!” He exclaimed and you laughed at how slurred the words sounded.

“The party’s been going on for one hour and you’re already this drunk?”

“Thor and I brought a little special something since your alcohol does nothing to Gods.” He whispered into your ear. He then moved to search in his pocket, pulling out a small bottle, nearly empty. “Would you like some?”

“And get this drunk?” You motioned to him, clinging to you since his legs seemed unable to keep him standing. “No thanks.”

“I’ve drank almost the whole bottle, you can just have a sip. Aren’t you curious about what it tastes like?”

“What does it taste like?”

“Whatever you want it to taste like.” He whispered again into your ear. “And, bonus, it will last for about 3 hours.” He held up three fingers excitedly.

You looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Or… you can just stick to plain old whiskey.” You looked towards the bar, where Nat and Pepper were talking and getting drinks.

“I hate whiskey, give me that.”

He smiled widely and handed you the bottle, you analized it before turning back to him.

“You sure this won’t kill me?”

“Noooooo… your powers should hold it pret-ty well.”

You unscrewed the cap and brought it to your mouth, taking less than a sip, just to be sure. Suddenly your taste buds were flooded with all kinds of flavours, bitter, sweet, sour, salty. It was like a party in your mouth and you desperately wanted more, but refrained yourself, not really sure the effect this could have on your human body.

“Amazing isn’t it?” By his tone you judged your eyes were wide with surprise, you surely did not expect that thing to actually do that to your mouth.

“What is this?”

“I have no idea. But it is great!” You looked at him curiously. “And you seem well enough.”

“Yeah,” you moved your hands in front of you, “how long for it to have an effect?”

“It should take less than seconds, maybe you just didn’t drink enough.” He pointed towards the bottle still in your hands, but you handed it back to him, not wanting to risk dying from this weird drink. “Suit yourself.” He shrugged, taking the drink and stumbling away.

You felt okay, your vision was fine, not fuzzy at all as you expected, your legs were fine and you took a few steps forward, confirming you still had perfect balance. Maybe you just were immune to it? It didn’t really matter, you were just happy you still had full control of yourself.

You noticed Natasha and Carol talking by the bar and made your way towards them.

“You’re not late at all.” Carol teased.

“I was having fun and lost track of time.” You retorted.

“Not the kind of fun you expected huh?” You shot Nat a questioning look and she chuckled. “Wanda has been here for a while now.” She explained, pointing towards the girl.

Your eyes landed on her for the first time since you arrived in the room and she looked so pretty. She was talking to Gamora and T’challa, her laugh, even if you couldn’t hear it from this distance, still brought a smile to your face. She looked happy and comfortable, despite parties not being her scenario, and you let your gaze stay on her for a few more seconds before you turned back to the conversation.

“You want her so bad.” Carol stated bluntly.

“Ugh, don’t be so dirty.” You hit her lightly on the arm.

“And don’t be such a prude, I think you need some alcohol.” She moved behind the counter, bringing up 3 shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. You took the lemon slice she offered you, and Carol did the same.

You three downed your shots and you quickly brought the fruit up to your mouth. Your face scrunched with the expectancy of the sour taste, but your buds could only pick up a sweet, fruity flavour. That wasn’t at all what you expected.

“Is this really a lemon?” You questioned the woman, analyzing the slice of fruit in your hand. You brought it to your mouth several times but it still tasted sweet.

“What else could it be?” Carol said rhetorically.

Was this a consequence of that thing Loki had given you? He said about the taste, but you thought it only applied to the drink itself, not to anything. To test your theory you moved behind the counter and filed your shot glass with vodka. You drank the content with ease, instead of that bitter taste of alcohol you felt like you were drinking plain old juice.

You tried it with whiskey, you’ve always hated whiskey, and came to the same conclusion. Once you were going for your, maybe, sixth, or seventh, shot of the night, Natasha pulled the bottle from your hand claiming you’ve had enough.

Carol pushed you towards the dance floor and you two started to move to the animated music that was playing.

Then you and Pietro were laying on the floor laughing at something you couldn’t quite remember.

You bumped into Loki again, you both leaned into each other to keep your balances.

“Well you lookappy, did it kicick in?” He blurted.

“What kicick in? Wow that’s a hard word to say.” You both chuckled.

“Kicick,” he repeated, “kicick.”

“Kicick.” You tried again and failed miserably, causing the both of you to start laughing loudly.

“Shit, I give up.”

“Yeah, it’s a stupid word anyways.”

When your laughter died down, you caught sight of Thor holding Mjolnir.

“Hey Thor,” you called him, “let me try and lift the hammer.”

And you were back at the bar, Shuri holding you up despite being barely able to hold herself up. She took a shot and you tried to take one, but she yanked the bottle claiming that you had enough. Why was everyone so keen on saying you’ve had enough? You were fine.

Then Steve gave you a shot glass filled with a clear liquid you quickly downed, that delicious sweet taste flooding your mouth.

“Really Steve? Look at her state.” You heard Shuri saying behind you, trying to look serious even though small giggles escaped her lips.

“Relax, it’s just water.” He answered and both eyes turned to you, you hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation so you were surprised by the sudden attention.

“Can I have more?” You questioned him and he nodded taking the glass from your hands to fill it up again.

You were dancing with Peter and Shuri in the middle of the dance floor, or at least trying, since none of you were able to stand up straight for long.

You found Wanda on the balcony, alone staring into the darkness ahead. The image reminded you of your first kiss and butterflies danced on your chest.

“Hi.” You approached her.

“Hi.” She turned to look at you.

“I haven’t seen you all night.” She laughed and you thought that it was the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

“You are really drunk.” She stated and you looked confused.

“What makes you think that?”

“You talked to me not even 10 minutes ago.” She looked at you mischievously.

“Okay, you got me there.”

You moved closer to her, but ended up tripping on your own feet, using her as support. Thankfully she was quick to bring her arms around your waist, keeping you from falling, and bringing you close to her chest.

Your breath caught at the closeness, your faces inches from each other. Without overthinking it, you lurched forward. It took her a second to respond, surprised by your suddenness, but when she did you melted at the feeling.

It was like kissing her for the first time all over again, her lips moving against yours in a slow kiss, her hands on your waist while yours’ cupped her cheeks. It felt as if the whole world had disappeared, the music and voices faded completely as your whole focus was on the girl in front of you.

The silence was growing highly suspicious, until it was suddenly broken.

“Fucking finally!” A very drunk Pietro screamed.

Turning your head towards the party, a blush crept up on your face as you stated everyone’s attention was on you. On both of you.

“Thank you,” the boy said directly to you, “I couldn’t handle ‘love sick puppy’ Wanda anymore.”

“WHAT?!” A chorus of voices externalized the question in your head. Peter and Shuri looked dumbfounded by that, sort of, revelation.

“Wanda has been drooling over Y/N for months, and the only one who doesn’t seem to notice is Y/N,” he gestured to you dramatically, and the shock kept you from reacting at all, “and, well, you two.” He gestured to Shuri and Peter.

“Y/N has been drooling over Wanda for months too.” Shuri stated.

“WHAT?!” Another chorus, this time almost all your Avengers team mates joined in.

“Is that true?” Tony asked you.

“How didn’t we notice?” Steve added before you could even respond.

Then you stopped paying attention. Your head spinning with all this new information: so Wanda liked you? For months? And everyone knew? So all the effort you put into keeping these feelings at bay was just keeping you from being with this beautiful girl? Damn, you’re stupid.

You had so many questions, you searched Wanda’s eyes for some answers, but only found her gaze on the floor. The rest of the people were caught up on a heated discussion regarding what you assumed were you and Wanda, and you had no interest in participating in that.

“Hey, wanna get out of here?” You whispered into her ear and your body felt lighter at the smile she sent your way.

You grabbed her hand, intertwining your fingers together, and pushed her away from the turmoil. Instead of going through the party you decided to go around it, walking about the woods that surrounded the building.

You’re not sure how you managed to dodge all the roots and bushes in the dark. You’re not even sure how you got to your room, or how you managed to keep yourself standing up all the way here. You just know that you’re standing in your doorway, arms wrapped around Wanda’s neck, eyes lost in a sea of green.

“You’re really pretty.” A proud smile painted your lips at the blush you just caused to grow on Wanda’s cheeks.

“You should go to bed,” she retorted a few moments later, not able to take off the smile from her face.

“Come with me?” You pleaded.

“You need rest.” She reasoned.

“Pleeeeeease.” You gave her your best puppy eyes and for a second she did give in, giving you a soft peck on the lips.

“When you’re not drunk.”

“Okay,” you tried to look mad, but you just couldn’t hold in all the joy you were feeling, your features quickly softening, “sleep well.” You pressed a kiss to her lips, which you never wanted to end.

You watched her walk down the hall, her eyes shifting backwards to you every so often.

You woke up on your bed, wearing just underwear, the consequences of the night hitting you right away: a massive headache, dizziness, weakness in all your limbs, and such a desperate need for water you were sure you could drink an entire ocean in one sitting.

Resting your head on your elbows, you felt like your stomach was in desperate need to throw up, but somehow you managed to keep it in. You washed your face and put on a comfortable change of clothes.

Since you had barely eaten anything before, or during, the party, you figured the weakness and exhaustion in your muscles was a consequence to that. Maybe some food might help with the dizziness too. So you made your way to the cafeteria, but not before chugging down a whole bottle of water, alcohol always made you dehydrated, and taking a pill for the headache.

As you opened the door you noticed it was still pitch black outside. Why were you even awake still? That wasn’t important, at least you weren’t drunk anymore, and you needed food, desperately.

The kitchen was, obviously, still closed. Yet, in your pursuit, you sneaked inside the empty room and into the pantry. You found lots of things, but settled on a blueberry muffin, walking by the refrigerator, you took a peek inside and grabbed an individual bottle of orange juice.

Before you decided what you were doing next, you took a bite off the muffin and once the food hit your stomach your body felt instantly better. By the time, it seemed like sunrise was just in a couple of minutes. You walked to the balcony attached to the building where the party was held last night, figuring it would have a spectacular view.

You weren’t wrong. The view was amazing and so relaxing. Once you had filled your stomach you felt much better, the headache had ceased and you felt much more disposed. You sat there peacefully, enjoying the silence, wondering how everybody was able to get back to their rooms instead of just crashing on the couches.

Roughly two hours later you decided to go back to your room for a quick shower, hoping it would help with the hangover. The sight of Tony, Shuri, Sam and Bucky in the corridor surprised you. As you approached them, you noticed they were crammed in front of Wanda’s door.

They hadn’t noticed your presence yet and you heard them muttering and shushing each other secretively.

“What are you guys doing?” The four jumped in surprise.

“Are you trying to kill us?” Sam dramatically held a hand up to his chest.

“Why are you here?” Shuri eyed you, confusion painting her face.

“Where else would I be?”

“In there.” She pointed to Wanda’s door and you raised a brow urging her to explain. “I went to your room this morning and you weren’t there, and then I remembered about last night and figured you would be with Wanda,” she clarified.

“That was your first conclusion?” You shot back.

“Well, yeah, what was I supposed to think?” You didn’t have time to answer when Bucky pitched in.

“Wait, where were you then?”

“Watching the sunrise.” You responded and the five of you just stood there in awkward silence. “Well, don’t you people have anything better to do?”

Shuri grabbed your arm and pushed you towards your room while Tony, Sam and Bucky went the opposite way.

“So… the whole team knows now.” She teased, closing the door.

“Seems like they all knew even before I did.” You joked. “I just hope they don’t make this weird.” You shrugged the thought of them being all over your relationship, not giving you space to figure this out first, maybe you shouldn’t drink around them anymore.

After the shower you and Shuri made your way to the cafeteria, talking and joking around, the Wanda subject long forgotten.

You served yourself some food and took a seat with Pietro and Peter, not missing the smirks they both shot you.

“Last night was interesting, wasn’t it Peter?” Pietro started with the teasing.

“Oh, it sure was, Piet.” The boy joined. “Don’t you think so Y/N?”

You rolled your eyes and they both laughed while Shuri joined the table.

“Wanda finally made a move, I’m happy for you both.” So Pietro doesn’t know the whole story, at least this once Peter was able to keep his mouth shut.

“There’s nothing to be happy about… yet.” As if on queue, Wanda walked into the cafeteria.

You watched as she made her way to your table, a pair of shorts and a loose shirt making her look so soft and cute. You were so dazed you missed how everyone’s eyes traveled from her to you, curious about what would happen.

She didn’t look at you until she was seated, beside you, making your heart pick up the pace a little from the closeness. Despite the moments you’ve shared, she still made you nervous.

“Hi.” You called her attention.

“Hey.” She locked eyes with you and you must have held her gaze for way too long when Pietro and Peter stood up.

“I need to pack, mind helping me?” Pietro called the spider boy, you picked up on the pathetic excuse he made, but chose not to comment on it.

Seconds after the guys disappeared, Shuri also got up, glancing between you and Wanda.

“Yeah, I’m not third wheeling,” she took her plate, “have fun.” She said as she made her way to her brother’s table, leaving you and Wanda alone.

You and Wanda exchanged looks, unable to hold back the giggles.

“They’re being dramatic.” You started, digging into your food.

“Are you surprised?”

“Can’t say I am.” The team does have a habit of making a big deal out of anything remotely romantic.

“I’m curious, though.” You shot her a confused look.

“About what?”

“How did I never notice you liked me? Sorry, scratch that. How did no one notice you liked me?” You shrugged. “Not even Natasha? She’s a trained spy.”

“Natasha has known for a while, although I just discovered this three days ago.” You explained. “I told Peter and Shuri once when I was drunk a long time ago. And Bucky and Carol figured it out during the trip since I’ve sucked to hide it since… y’know.”

She hummed in understanding.

“How did I not notice you liked me? You don’t seem to be as good at hiding it as I have been.” You poked her side with your elbow.

She lowered her head, covering her face with her hair, but not before you notice the smile and blush that crept around her face.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” She questioned after a few seconds of silence, changing the subject.

“In the beginning I didn’t want to admit I had those feelings, and when I did I became a complete mess whenever you were around.” You justified. “And I’m clearly terrible at reading people so I didn’t think you’d feel the same.”

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad at hiding it.” She protested.

“I can’t even fight you on that, since I didn’t notice.” You both laughed.

The conversation was interrupted by Tony entering the cafeteria and announcing you would be leaving right before lunch. You bid goodbye to Wanda, even though you just wanted to stay with her, and made your way to your room to pack. Maybe if you had kept your stuff organized you wouldn’t be having this problem now, but oh well, can’t change the past, right?

It took longer than expected to have everything ready due to the mess you and Shuri had made while getting ready for the party. Once you were packed you took all your luggage to the plane, settling down since you had just a few minutes before you left.

You wish you could say you were relaxed on your seat, but you weren’t. Your eyes waiting for the witch to show up. Soon you confirmed you weren’t the only one concerned about her when Pietro super sped into the plane.

“Has anyone seen Wanda? I looked for her everywhere.”

“Clearly not everywhere,” you mocked, making your way out of the plane, “let me give it a try.”

You knew exactly where to look. It surprises you Pietro didn’t think to look there.

And you were right. You watched the girl for a few seconds as she stared at the view from the balcony before approaching her.

“Do you plan on staying here forever?” You teased.

“I just wanted to see them one more time.” She answered.

You knew she meant the fireflies. If you’re being honest, you also wish you had had the chance to see them again too.

“We can come back.” You moved closer, hugging her from behind and intertwining your fingers together.

She didn’t answer, and although you couldn’t read minds, you knew she was thinking about that proposition.

It was minutes later that you realized why you had come here in the first place.

“We should go, everyone is waiting for us.” You untangled yourself from her, but she didn’t let you go far, grabbing your wrist and pulling you into a kiss.

“I’m really glad I agreed to come.” You said, breaking the kiss.

“Me too.” She answered, crashing your lips together once more.

You were definitely coming back.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #mcu #marvel #fluff #wanda is so cute #reader insert #wanda maximoff imagine

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leossmoonn · 4 years ago

Text

Lucky [Stefan Salvatore]

masterlist

pairing - stefan salvatore x fem, human!reader

type - fluff, light smut

note / request “okay i have one, how about stefan gets super drink and is making super suggestive jokes on the reader and is flirting w her and she has to take care of him?” since stefan is a vampire i figured the side affects of being drunk would be different for him. he’s not so much like tired and can’t-walk-straight drunk, he’s more i’m-very-horny-and-annoying type of drunk lol. also i apologise if this isn’t very good. i was really excited to write this but it didn’t come together like i hoped. anyways, enjoy!

summary - you take care of your boyfriend, stefan, when he gets drunk at a party

warnings / includes - language, mention of alcohol and anxiety, vomiting, very suggestive and flirty content, lots of kissing and making out, stefan being a cranky and cheeky little shit lol. this takes place after klaus has stefan become the rippahhh

————

*gif isn’t mine*

When Caroline called you, you didn’t think anything of it. You just thought that she was calling to try and convince you to come to the party at The Grill for the fifth time. When she started shouting at you about Stefan was when you started to get worried.

“What did you say, Care?” You asked. It was hard to hear her over the music in the background.

“One second!” Caroline exclaimed.

You waited a few moments before Caroline spoke again. There was no sound in the background this time.

“Sorry, I had to go outside,” she apologised. “It’s alright. Um, what’d you say about Stefan?” You asked.

“He’s drunk and he needs you to come and pick him up,” she explained.

“Oh,” you frowned. “Well, why can’t you drive him home?” “Trust me, we’ve tried, but…. but he only wants you.”

You couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across your face. “Oh, really?”

“Well, duh. You’re his girlfriend,” Caroline chuckled.

“Right, right,” you nodded. You got up from your kitchen table, shutting your textbooks and putting them away. “Well, I’ll be over soon.” “Okay, thank you. Also, brace yourself for when you see him. Drunk Stefan is fun, crazy Stefan,” Caroline warned.

You chuckled and went to put your shoes on. “I bet he’s not that bad.”

“Oh, you’ll be surprised. Anyways, I’ll see you soon,” Caroline said.

“See ya,” you hung up the call. You set your phone dying, tying your sneakers. You grabbed your jacket and car keys, about to make your way to your car, but your mom stopped you.

“You going to the party?” She asked. “Um, not exactly,” you started. “Stefan needs to be picked up.”

“Oh, why? Is he okay?” Your mom crossed her arms over her chest.

“Yeah, he’s just had a little too much to drink,” you explained.

“Hm, alright. Well, if you need any help, call me. I know how drunk, horny teenage boys can be,” she chuckled.

“He’s not like that, Mom,” you shook your head. “I know, I know, but you never know,” she tsked.

You gave her a small smile, “I’ll see you later.”

“Text me if you’re staying over at his place!” She reminded.

You nodded in reply and opened the garage door, stepping out and heading to your car. You drove to The Grill, your anxiety spiking as you thought of what Caroline meant. You had known Stefan for almost three years and had been dating him for five months, but you had never seen him drunk. Sure, you’ve seen him tipsy because all Damon and he did for fun was drink, but he always kept his ground. You hoped Caroline was just overreacting.

You parked in the parking lot of The Grill, hopping out of your car and entering the restaurant. You were met with eardrum-rupturing music and the scent of sweat and alcohol. You smiled and greeted a few friendly faces before looking for Stefan. As you walked through the ground, a hand grabbed your forearm. This caused you to jump and spin around your heel, holding up your fist in defense.

“Whoa, calm down. It’s just me,” Jeremy chuckled.

“Oh,” you chuckled and put your fist down, relaxing your body. “Sorry, you just never know.”

“No worries. I take it you’re here for Stefan?” Jeremy asked. “You are correct, Jer,” you nodded.

“He’s playing pool,” he said, leading you over to the back of the room where the rest of your friends were.

You furrowed your brows as Stefan looked pretty normal and relaxed. He actually looked like he was having fun for once. Just as you began to think Caroline was exaggerating, Stefan then drank three shots at once and jumped on top of the pool table.

“O-Oh,” you gasped, your eyes widening in surprise.

“Yep,” Jeremy sighed. He then went in front of you, giving you an encouraging, sarcastic smile. “Have fun!” Jeremy then fled the scene, walking over to a table of girls.

You rolled your eyes and looked back at Stefan, sucking in a breath as you saw Damon and Caroline struggling to get him off the table. You decided that you should go up and help them.

“Oh, thank God!” Caroline exclaimed as you walked over.

“Hey,” you smiled at them. You looked up at Stefan, giving him a soft, caring smile. “Hey, you.”

Stefan looked down, grinning from ear-to-ear once he saw you. “Y/n! You’re here!” He jumped down from the pool table, engulfing you in a tight hug.

You let out an ‘oof’ as you were pulled flush against him. You wrapped your arms round him nonetheless and hugged him back, burying your face into his neck. Your eyes fluttered close as you breathed in his scent. It masked the smell of the sweaty, intoxicated teens that surrounded you two. Stefan pulled away after a few moments, his eyes meeting yours.

“You look so pretty,” he muttered, his hands coming up to cup each sides of your face.

You smiled, “Thank you. Now, c’mon, I’m here to take you home.”

His head started to shake furiously. “No, no. Let’s stay. Let’s party. Let’s have fun.” As he said the last few words, one of his hands went from your face to your waist. He gripped your side, pulling you impossibly closer. As his hand stayed cupping your cheek, his head dove down to your neck where he started to kiss the area under your ear.

You gasped softly, your eyes fluttering close as him kissing your neck made your skin tingle. You put your hands on his chest, though, pushing him back slightly. You looked him straight in the eyes, letting him know that you didn’t come to play.

“We can have fun at home.”

“No, we’re just gonna go to bed,” he whined. “And would that be so bad?” You chuckled.

“Yes because you look so fuckable right now,” he growled. He hooked his fingers in your belt loops, pulling you close to him once again. Your hips met and you gasped as you felt his hard on through his jeans press just next to your core.

“Stefan,” you protested. He looked up at you with big, green, innocent eyes. “Something wrong, sweetheart?”

Heat rose up your neck and you felt like the whole room was watching you. You definitely knew all your friends were.

“We’re in public. We can’t do this,” you shook your head.

“Let’s go somewhere more private then,” he muttered.

Before you could speak, he took you in his arms and sped you out of the restaurant. Your back hit your car once you stopped.

“Sorry, did hurt you?” Stefan asked, concerned eyes looking over you.

“Not, but-” you started, but Stefan cut you ooff by kissing you.

You melted into him, kissing him back with the same amount of need and passion. Your hands went up to his hair, entangling your fingers in his soft locks. Meanwhile, Stefan’s hands roamed your body. His left hand went down to your ass as his right slid under your top, running the pads of his fingers across your skin. He gripped your ass as his fingers went up higher to your bra.

“U-Oh, Stefan,” you gasped in-between kisses.

“I missed you tonight,” he mumbled against your lips.

“I missed you, too, but you’re drunk. We can’t do this. Especially not against my car,” you sighed, pulling back from him once again.

He frowned, “But you’re so pretty. I just want to kiss all over your beautiful body.”

You let out a breathy laugh, trying to slow your racing heart. All the sweet talk and kissing made you very flustered. “Thank you, Stefan. I appreciate it, I really do, but you’re drunk.”

“I can smell your arousal though,” he stated, his fingers coming down your bra to your legs. He ran his fingers over the front of your jeans, pressing down just ever-so-slightly.

“A-Ah!” You squealed. Stefan gave you a satisfied smirk as he pressed down further. More wetness pooled between your legs as he was pressing down on your clit.

“See? Now, tell me you don’t want to do anything.”

You looked him in the eyes, your pupils dilated and full of lust. It took everything in you to shake your head. Because as good as it felt to have his hands on you, you knew that having drunk sex with him was not the best idea.

“I do, but,” you said sternly, “Not right now.”

Stefan hands fell to his side immediately. He stepped away from you, “Then what do you want to do right now?”

“Get you home and in bed,” you stated, reaching for your keys that was in your pocket.

“But that’s so boring! Can we at least, like, make out?” “Nope,” you shook your head.

“When did you ever get so mean,” he pouted. You rolled your eyes with a smile, “I am not mean. I’m being responsible.” “Being responsible is boring!” He objected. “That’s not what sober Stefan would say,” you remarked, turning to open the door.

“Yeah, sober me is boring.”

“And it’s my favourite you,” you smiled, opening the car door. Before Stefan would say anything, you shoved him inside.

“Rough, huh?” Stefan gave you a cheeky smile.

You gave him a long eye roll, shutting the door and walking over to the driver’s side. You stepped in and started your car, ignoring Stefan’s burning stare.

“Why are you ignoring me?” “Because I know you’re gonna try to butter me up and convince me to have sex in this car,” you explained.

Stefan scoffed, “Pfft, what! I would never ever do that.”

“Sure you wouldn’t, lover boy,” you retorted as you started up the car.

Stefan set his hand on your thigh as you started driving. You didn’t move it as this was something he did every car ride whether you were driving or he was, but once he started to inch his fingers up your leg was when you knew you had to say something.

“Stefan,” you wanted. “Yes, honey?” Stefan asked innocently, stopping his hand immediately.

You rolled your eyes with a small smile. You could not believe the games he was playing.

“Nothing,” you muttered, paying attention to the road as you turned into the gates of Stefan’s house.

Stefan grinned as he knew that you would let him get away with anything. As long as it wasn’t actual sex, of course. You both knew a little teasing never hurt anybody, and you both definitely knew you liked it, too. You parked at the entrance, getting out and walking to Stefan’s side. You opened the door, holding your arm out like chivalrous men did on dates.

“Here you are, m’lady,” you grinned. Stefan’s rolled his eyes, “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“Oh, I know.”

You held his hand as you walked to his door, unlocking it and stepping inside.

“I’m going to get some water for you and me, go upstairs and get changed,” you directed. “Yes, ma’am,” he smirked, slapping your ass as you walked by him.

You turned to him, scoffing and giving him a glare. He winked at you and made his way to the stairs. You shook your head with a flustered smile, going to the kitchen and getting a few water bottles. You got out your phone and texted your mom that you were staying the night. You then climbed up the stairs, entering his room and getting even more flustered once you saw him in his bed, the only clothing on him was grey sweats.

“Like what you see?” Stefan teased, putting his hands under his head so his biceps were flexed.

“Very much,” you nodded, walking over to him and setting the water bottles down on the nightstand that was next to his bed.

Stefan put his hand on your waist, pulling you to sit on the bed. You complied and sat down next to his legs, putting your hands on his chest and tracing patterns over his abs.

“You’re so beautiful,” Stefan marvelled at you. His hands went up to your cheek, his thumb running over your cheekbone. You smiled and nuzzled into his hand, looking at him through your lashes.

“And you seem to be a lot more sober now,” you commented.

“Yeah, well, vampires sober up fast,” he shrugged. “Oh, is that so?” You asked

“Yep,” he grinned proudly. “So you don’t have a headache or anything?” You wondered.

His smile faltered and he averted his gaze from you. You chuckled, “Thought so.” You grabbed a water bottle, opening it and putting it up to his lips.

“Here, drink this. I’ll get you some Tylenol,” you said, beginning to sit up.

“I’ll be fine,” he waved his headache off. “Stefan,” you frowned, “I know you’re immune to sickness and death and whatnot, but that doesn’t mean you’re immune to headaches.”

“I’m serious, I’ll be fine. Stop worrying so-” He stopped speaking, closing his mouth immediately. He made a sour face, his eyes widening.

“About to throw up?” You guessed. He nodded his head furiously, putting his hand up to cover his mouth.

“Let’s get you to the bathroom,” you pulled him up, walking him across the hall to the bathroom. You both dropped to your knees and Stefan immediately started to vomit.

You cringed, but rubbed his back nonetheless. “There you go. Get it all out.” Your hand went up to his hair and you twirled his hero hair in-between your fingers. You put your forehead against his temple, kissing his cheek to comfort him.

After a few minutes of him throwing his guts up, he threw his head back and groaned. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

“Don’t apologise. It’s all part of being drunk,” you kissed him on the cheek again. You then got up, pulling him up with you.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” You hummed, walking him to the sink.

“Yeah, okay,” he nodded.

You looked up at him, running your fingers through his hair. Throwing up had taken a lot of his energy, and now he was all worn-out. He went to grab his toothbrush, but missed by a few millimeters.

“Why don’t I do it for you,” you stated more than suggested.

“No, no. You’ve done enough tonight, take a break,” he shook his head.

You smiled, “It’s okay. I like taking care of you. It’s kind of my job as your girlfriend, after all.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess.”

You nodded and hummed in reply, turning him around so his back was against the sink. You took his toothbrush and and squirted toothpaste on it, stepping in front of Stefan and holding it up.

“Open wide,” you sang. Stefan followed your orders and your stuck the toothbrush in his mouth, beginning to circle over the left side of his mouth.

Stefan’s arm went around your waist, pulling you closer to him lazily. You smiled as your hips met his. You leaned into him, switching the sides of his mouth that you were brushing after a minute.

“Alright, time to spit,” you ordered.

Stefan turned around, spitting the out the foamy toothpaste. He hung his head low to get some water to swish in his mouth to get the remaining toothpaste out. He sat back up and you put his toothbrush back on the sink. You grabbed a towel and wet it to wipe off the excess toothpaste that was on the corners of Stefan’s mouth.

You straightened back up and went in front of Stefan, running the towel over his lips. You moved slowly, your eyes roaming his face. He looked so handsome, even when he was sweaty and slightly disoriented from just throwing up. Your eyes wandered up to his, his green eyes stared at yours back. The deep, unwavering eye contact both made you two flustered and nervous. Butterflies swarmed in your stomach while the tips of Stefan’s ears turned pink.

You lowered the towel, placing it back onto the sink counter. Your eyes never left Stefan’s as you did so. Shivers ran up your spine as Stefan’s hand snaked up to the small of your back. He pulled your chest closer to his, leaving little to no room between your lips and his.

“I thought you were all tired and tame,” you muttered, your eyes flickering down to his lips and back up to his eyes.

“I’m never tired and definitely never tame when I’m around you,” he whispered, leaning in.

You hummed in reply, fluttering your eyes close as you leaned up to kiss him. You wrapped your hands around his neck, taking a fist full of his hair and twirling it. You kissed him slowly and gently, each of you taking your time to savour the feeling and taste of the kiss.

You pulled away after a few moments, setting your forehead against his. You licked your lips, staring into Stefan’s green eyes.

“Let’s get you into bed,” you whispered.

Stefan shook his head, a coy smile playing on his lips. Before you could scold and protest, he lifted you up from your waist and ran over to the bed. He threw you down, climbing on top of you.

“Stefan!” You giggled. “What?” He asked.

“We have to go to bed,” you said. “We are in bed,” he gestured to the pillows.

You rolled your eyes, “Stop being a wise ass. You’re still drunk, whether you want to admit it or not.”

“I’m half-drunk,” he shrugged. “Really? That’s the best you could do?” You snorted.

“You know me, anything to be able to have sex with you,” he grinned.

“Mhm, well, nothing can sway me and you know it.” Stefan looked into your eyes, studying you for a little. He knew that no matter how much kissing, touching, sweet-talking he did, you wouldn’t give in. He decided to give up and cuddle, which was honestly what he needed after a long, tiring night. He got off of you, laying on his back.

“Seems like you’re learning,” you remarked.

“Well, I know that if I’m good, I’ll get a reward later,” he quipped.

You chuckled, turning around so now your face was met with his. You propped yourself on your elbow, putting a hand on his chest.

“You’re lucky, you know?” You said.

“Yeah,” he sighed with a smile, “I know.” “Yeah, well, so am I,” you smiled, moving closer to him. You gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and laid back down on your back.

Stefan rolled over and he laid his head on your chest, wrapping his arms around your middle. You smiled contently and ran your fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” Stefan mumbled.

“No problem. I love you,” you said.

“I love you, too,” he sighed, closing his eyes and falling asleep.

————

Like and Reblog!

taglist is open, lmk if you want to be on stefan’s!

@123cxcv @kaitieskidmore1 @stefanswhcre @fives-cup-of-coffee

#stefan salvatore #stefan salvatore imagine #stefan salvatore x reader #stefan salvatore smut #stefan salvatore fluff #stefan salvatore x reader smut #stefan salvatore x reader fluff #stefan salvatore imagine fluff #stefan salvatore imagine smut #tvd #the vampire diaires #tvd imagine

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tweedlydumbtweedlydoo · 4 years ago

Text

Live Stream Murderer (Part 2) | Spencer Reid x reader

Requested by @thatsonezesty13 / Summary: You’re kidnapped by the Live Stream Murderer, who is in search of his soulmate. He tortures the women for 36 hours and whoever lasts that long is in his eyes; his soulmate. Will you make it through the 36 hours of torture?

| Part 1 |

A/N: here is part 2! Thank you for all the attention on part 1! I love seeing all the likes, reblogs and comments, especially the ones asking to be tagged so they don’t miss the next part! <3 hopefully you all enjoy this one as much as part 1!! xx

*possible trigger warning and could spoil the ending of part 2 for you; blood, talks of death, description of a bloody and headless person

Tag list is at the end. Let me know if you want to be added xx

**MASTERLIST**

Requests: {OPEN} CLOSED

** Rules for Requesting **

** Who I Write For **

********************************************************************************************NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNERS

Your head was pounding, and you could feel your body was weak from the torture. How long had you been passed out? The last thing you remembered was a hot poker penetrating your side. There sitting in front of you was the man who would probably haunt your nightmares for forever.

He wore a sickening smile, “Hi.. I was wondering when you would wake up.” He stood up and held a red straw to your lips.

“Fuck you.” You whispered weakly. There was no telling what was in that drink and you weren’t about to find out.

He frowned, “But you’ve made it 28 hours.. only 8 more and you’ll be,” His fingers went to caress your cheek, but you revolted at his touch, “my soulmate.” He said the last word like he was in a loving haze.

You’d made it through 28 hours with this psychopath? You watched as the man went to the storage closet and pulled out multiple instruments and set them on the table next to you. He clicked a button on a remote and the camera in front of you flashed a red button. You figured it was live streaming now and there was a chance the whole world was watching this freak torture you; including Spencer.

Oh, Spencer. Your heart felt overwhelmed at the thought of him. He’d suffered the loss of Maeve and you worried he would never recover. This was probably bringing those terrible emotions back to the surface.

“I have to see if you can withstand more pain.” His voice was behind you and then a knife cutting the ties off your left arm. If you weren’t weak, you’d try to fight him with one hand, but with your injuries suffered so far and the knife still in your leg, there wasn’t much to do.

“I have to see if you’re my soulmate.” His fingers gripped your upper arm, “This might hurt.”

Your breathing increased as you wondered what was next. Your eyes fixated on the camera in front of you and you tried to focus on the one thing that made you happy. The one thing you loved most in this world. Spencer Reid.

It was a trick you’d been taught during your training. You were keeping your mind preoccupied by coming up with various scenes, happy scenes. Spencer’s face crossed your mind and suddenly you were transported to a library. You were sitting across Spencer, books in front of the both of you. You could see him peeking every once and a while to look at you. You knew because you were doing the same thing to him.

“If you keep staring at me, we aren’t ever going to get this finished.”

His fingers continued to dance across the page as he read and he gave a small smile, “I’m not staring at you.”

“Okay.” You shut your book, amused, “Tell me what you just read.”

His fingers stopped and he knew he’d been caught. He finally looked up at you, “I have no idea what I just read.”

You let out a laugh, “Spencer Reid!” You stood, “We have to finish this paper for Dr. Johnson’s class!” Grabbing the two books on the table, you headed toward a row of library books, “These don’t have what I need.”

In this imaginary world you and Spencer were young, college students. It was a normal life with no danger. No BAU. No cases. Just you and Spencer living a normal life.

“I’m sorry!” He chuckles, standing to follow you. He stops behind you as you put the two books back on the shelves, “how am I supposed to concentrate when I’m in front of the most beautiful girl in this universe?”

You turned around and faced him, “Spencer Reid.”

“y/n y/l/n.” He copied your tone, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear, “I love you.” Those three words. You wanted to hear it again.

“Say it again.” Your fingers wrapped around his wrist as he cupped your cheek.

His other hand cupped your other cheek and subconsciously caressed your cheek with his thumb, “I love you.”

You let out a scream as the man pulled on your arm, dislocating your shoulder from it’s socket. No no.. take me back. Take me back to standing there with Spencer in that library where you heard the words you’d wished he’d confess.

How much more of this could you take? How much more could anyone take? This was an insane amount of pain and all you wanted to do was sleep. You wanted to give up.

You sobbed, finally breaking, “Please stop.. just please.”

“I can’t.” He sighs, “36 hours.” He taps the watch on his wrist.

You were fading, or at least you wanted to fade away. You’d been strong during all this because you knew you’d get to see Spencer again. He’d been the one to keep you going during this, but right now you don’t know how much more you could take. You wanted to make it through this just to be able to tell him how you felt. Your thoughts slowed and the darkness consumed you.

As soon as the live stream was posted, Penelope began working her magic. However, it was still proven to be a challenge on pinpointing the location.

He had to watch as the man pulled your arm out of it’s socket and listen to your screams of agony. He’d kill him. He knew if he’d ever see this man he’d kill him with his own bare hands for harming you in this way, such a public way.

“Please.. please hang on just a bit longer.” He pleaded to the screen.

More disappointment as the live stream cut off when your eyes went closed. You’d passed out from the overwhelming amount of pain and exhaustion.

8 hours later there was another livestream, but this time there wasn’t anyone seated in the chair. You were gone and his mind went to worst. You’d lost the battle.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got the location!” Penelope yelled through the comms, the location immediately sent to everyone’s phone.

There wasn’t time to think as everyone rushed out the door and toward the known location. However, when they arrived, it was Hotch and JJ who went in first. As Spencer followed, Hotch immediately came back out stopping him at the door.

“You don’t need to go in there.”

Spencer was confused, “What? Why not?” He tried to push passed Hotch again and the look on JJ’s face told him everything he needed to know. “Let me see!”

Hotch lost the grip on the determination of Spencer and he passed through the door way. Spencer skitted to a stop at the sight before him. No no no.

His knees his the floor. This wasn’t happening again, please no. He silently begged. “No! No no!” He couldn’t help the sobs that overcame his body.

There in the middle of the room laying on a blanket where the chair had been was your headless body in a pool of blood.

Criminal Minds tag list: @thelovelydreamer17 , @la-vie-en-amour1 , @mrs-joel-pimentel-23-25 , @astra-inclinant-sed-non-obligant (possibly: @astra-x-inclinant) , @bluerose512 , @lolychu , @varsityalthete , @televisiondreamstomorrow , @harry-hollands , @lumineshawn , @lyss-xo , @rexorangecouny , @sassy-hades , @britishspidey , @ateez-star

***i’ve added all the ones asked to be tagged in this story to my criminal minds tag list because I only have taglists by the shows and/or character I write for instead of specific stories. In the future if you’d like to be taken off the list, just shoot me a message! xx

All my works tag list: @blossomreed , @mggstyles , @simonsbluee , @thewolf-and-thesheep , @obxrafejjwhore , @abbiesthings , @itstaskeen , @reniescarlett

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three--rings · 3 years ago

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Kinnporsche ep 13 liveblogging

Literally ONE LINE into the episode I had to stop and come here to go AAAAAHHHHHHH.

I’m fine, I’m fine.

It really does sorta hit different when you’re not expecting it and you get a line like that in English. VEGAS.

And the rest of that scene, my god. Vegas is GONE on Pete, holy crap. And Pete’s live in the moment, act by what you feel philosophy makes sense.

Did I think I was gonna ship these two at all? No. Am I losing my mind over them since last week? Fucking yes.

What did I miss? Why are they back? So we don’t get a scene where they left and we don’t get a scene when they come back, this is honestly super annoying.

OMG Vegas is cooking for him isn’t he? God that looks delicious.

Okay so I’ve had to watch these Vegaspete scenes twice. (up until the Tankhun interruption) So first I want to know what “I don’t like it” means or if that’s an accurate translation. And Pete, you did more than not say no. So okay, Pete’s having a hard time accepting that he enjoyed what they did. Especially in the circumstances, fair.

And as usual I get where Vegas is coming from. Pete is weakness and there’s no place for that in his life. Pete obviously cares but Vegas can’t stand to be pitied. Pete offers him an alternative but that’s going against Vegas’ entire life. So it makes sense he lashes out.

--HoOLY SHIT that scene with Vegas and Pete. Like fucking GOD. Both of them, bravo. Like...I’m still not 100% where Pete is coming from, like is this all just a result of everything he’s been through, which, fair. Or is this longer standing depressive/suicidal ideation. Wouldn’t be surprised and it would honestly make this pairing make even more sense.

I really kinda hoped Vegas was going to let Pete leave, but I think he was going to unlock him, he just begged him not to leave because he’s, yanno, broken. But it’s understandable for Pete to run. Although if he could have done that the whole time why not before now?

Anyway, yeah this is just all so compelling and complicated and interesting and yeah....also not what I was expecting, which is also good. I don’t want this show to stop surprising me.

I honestly can’t believe I’m only 20 minutes into this episode.

Sad bitches hours I see.

-Well, that was fast to get Porsche and Vegas working together. And Vegas and Pete are going to fucking kill me, my god.

Oh, I thought it was adorable when I thought it was Kinn introducing Porsche to his mom, but no, it’s Porsche’s parents and he wants to be introduced. God. OMG that kiss, fingers thing was so cute.

Ooo, here we go. I was spoiled that we’re getting the pool scene but in all this vegaspete angst I forgot. Hello side asss...

I freaking love the sex scenes in this show. At some point I’ll probably write an essay about it. And of course Porsche takes off, though I’m surprised he takes Porchay, though I’m guessing that’s for the Kim plot.

Naturally the uncle is killed.

So this makes Porsche and Kinn first cousins? Supposedly? I mean it’s better than brothers, which was kinda what they were implying before. Well, whatever, I’m not watching this for the plot.

It WOULD make sense why Korn brought Porsche in, though.

Okay off to enjoy gifs. This was an overall stronger episode than last week. Looking forward to more vegaspete, hopefully with another sex scene.

#kinnporsche #kinnporsche spoilers #threerings watches kinnporsche

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stormyoceans · 2 years ago

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ahhh i see what you mean, that happened to me with love mechanics but yinwar's chemistry was actually enough to make me overlook some... things lol but yeah seems like there are some tropes there that i can't be bothered to watch, also i just really trust your taste and views. but hey! at least pond and phuwin showed their potential and now we have this gem!

what was your favorite part of the first episode? mine was probably the pool scene, i feel like so much happened there, the intense eye contact x2 and the hand over hand moment...................... he didn't have to do that but he did it for all of us! they really are seeing each other like genuinely seeing each other i bet that scares them a lot. oh the pining oh the yearning pond does it so well! like the scene when they first met HIS FACEEEE it's gonna be so great just seeing them fall in love. oH IMAGINE THE ANGST IT'S GONNA HURT SOOOO GOOD AND NOT JUST UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW THEY FEEL BUT ALSO AFTER THAT BECAUSE THEY WILL WANT TO PROTECT EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME AND IT'S GONNA BE HARD TO BALANCE IT ALL the hype was RIGHT

ugh i wish i could have the will to wait and binge watch because i think i'm able to enjoy shows more when i can do that, and space the episodes how i want or just watch them all in a day, like it's a much more intense experience for me that way and even though it leaves less time to theorize and the fandom experience and all that i personally prefer it. but i cannot see all the pretty gifs and not go to youtube and watch the episode when they are right thereee i wanna join the fun! i actually binge watched vice versa (🥰) and i feel like i liked it so much because i did! i also binge watched love mechanics and i swear to god i would have given up if i was watching that show weekly, and i had to binge watch to my star 2 too cause that was actually hurting me lol this is so long already okay i'll shut up now 💌

fish upon the sky and love mechanics actually fall in the same category of 'shows i can't bring myself to like even if the actors have an insane chemistry' for me, but between the two i did enjoy love mechanics more, even if i cannot stand cheating, so i guess this says a lot about my feelings for FUTS ;;;;;;;;

BUT!!!!!! like you said, the most important thing is that pond and phuwin are now playing in a show with a more mature storyline that makes their chemistry shine and that i can thoroughly enjoy!!!!! and that makes me ridiculously happy!!!!! JUST LIKE THE FACT THAT YOU TRUST MY TASTES?????? THAT'S SUCH AN INCREDIBLE COMPLIMENT THANK YOU!!!!!! 🥺🤧

we must have pretty similar tastes, though, because THE POOL SCENE WAS MY FAVORITE ONE TOO!!!!!! like.. both the hallway and the sneaking out scenes are A LOT, but the pool one is on a whole other level!!!!! not only the tension is already off the charts, but i love how it also says a lot about palm and nueng as characters and perfectly sets up the journey for their relationship!!!! it's the way nueng asks "if i don't tell your dad, what will i get from you?" because that's what he has been taught his entire life, that no one does anything for free, and he got further confirmation of it earlier that day when his classmate made the others stop teasing him only to ask him a favor right after!!!! it's the way palm answers "i have nothing to give you. i have no money" because he sees no value in himself but eventually he is going to (willingly) give nueng exactly what he needs - friendship, care, trust, love - and in doing that he will learn his self worth and start to build his own future!!!!

AND GOD YEAH THE MOMENT THEIR HANDS TOUCHED!!!!! i will never have the words to properly explain the importance of hands in queer culture, but they're often used as objects of desire, as conduits for future intimacy, and once the hands touch that's it: there's no turning back, you can't ignore your want anymore, and the fact that it already happens the second time palm and nueng see each other casts such a sense of inevitability on their relationship!!!! since their first meeting all their interactions have just been so full of pining and yearning and tension and this magnetic pull that makes them so aware of each other and leaves the viewers breathless even if we already know they will end up together!!!! BUT LIKE YOU SAID IT ALSO WON'T END WHEN THEY GET TOGETHER BECAUSE THERE'S GONNA BE DUTY AND DESIRE AND ABOVE ALL THE WISH TO PROTECT THE OTHER AND GIVE THEM A BETTER CHANCE AT LIFE. ALSO WHEN PALM WILL CALL NUENG BY HIS NAME FOR THE FIRST TIME THEN WHAT!!!!!!!!

anyway..... please never apologize for sending me a long message because 1) I ABSOLUTELY LOVED READING IT, and 2) as you can see brevity is not one of my virtues ;;;;;;;; so please feel free to write as much as you want!!!! 💜

gonna end this by saying that idk if i personally prefer binge watching, but i definitely understand what you mean!!! i do tend to be more forgiving when i watch a series all in one go and it also helps me keep my emotions under control sfjkshdj i think it actually depends a lot on the show itself: some series i like to see week by week because i enjoy freaking out with everyone else, but other ones i NEED to binge watch to preserve my mental health (to my star 2 is a great example, because after seeing the first episode i also went NOPE and waited for all the episodes to be out before going back to it I DON'T DO WELL WITH THAT KIND OF ANGST)

#not only idk what brevity is but i also do not feel normal about nlmg so i apologize for how long this is ;;;;;;#ON ANOTHER NOTE IF YOU EVER FEEL LIKE SHARING YOUR VICE VERSA THOUGHTS I WOULD LOVE TO READ THEM #never let me go #never let me go the series #nlmg #m: ask

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mendespideys · 4 years ago

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in need of saving | e.y.

pairing: eren yeager x reader

warnings: mentions of fighting, swearing, blood, etc. it’s angsty

summary: eren’s emotions get the best of him and you’re his last hope. based on the line “you’ve been talking with your fists” from when you love someone by james tw.

a/n: this is my first ever drabble/fic/one-shot (whatever you wanna call it) of aot. my husband made me watch it, i became obsessed and now i am here putting my obsession into my writing lol. hope you guys like it. enjoy!

also, to the people following me for marvel/sm content - i’m sorry lol

gif credit

it was no secret that eren jaeger was slowly but surely losing it. maybe not losing it, but definitely losing his cool. and a lot more frequently than what everyone had deemed normal for him.

because it was also no secret that eren was known for losing it time and time again. everyone in the 104th cadet corps had seen the green-eyed boy pick a fight more than once - especially with jean. the two of them seemed to bubble with anger just at the sight of one another and no one really knew the real reason why.

whether it was jean using what was definitely eren’s least favorite nickname he had ever gotten (suicidal maniac) or eren making a comment about the redhead being a coward - the two of them could barely get along on a good day.

but, lately, everyone seemed to be getting on eren’s bad side. horse-face was no longer the only insult coming from him and it certainly was not the most cruel one that had slipped past his lips either. eren’s anger - or whatever it was - was no longer only focused jean. he seemed to be taking his feelings out on everyone. everyone except you.

even the captain and the commander had been getting their fair share of snarky comments and attitudes from the titan shifter. while they were undoubtedly unable to hold their ground, eren was definitely crossing lines he shouldn’t have.

and, so, you were forced into your current situation.

“tch,” captain levi pushed himself off the table he had been leaning on. “the brat is out of control. while i have no problem beating the living shit out of him, i doubt more fighting is what he needs.”

hange nodded. “it seems he’s either too tired to heal himself or he chooses not to. his injuries are taking longer and longer to disappear. we have to do something before it’s too late.”

before it’s too late.

you shuddered. the thought of something happening to eren sent a shiver down your spine. worrying about him was like second nature to you and the only one who appeared to understand you was mikasa.

“with all due respect, commander,” armin spoke up, his bright blue eyes studying the room before continuing. “we have all tried. he doesn’t want to listen to any of us. it’s pointless.”

a sigh fell from his lips, as a subconscious hand rubbed his bandaged shoulder. poor armin. even the innocent, genius best friend had been unlucky enough to experience eren’s wrath.

“everyone but y/n.”

your eyes darted toward the mention of your name and you met captain levi’s steady gaze. you cowered under his intense stare, feeling other eyes on you as well. you cleared your throat, feeling a weird sense of pressure in the pit of your stomach.

“i’ve tried, too,” you swallowed thickly, refusing to remember all the times you had tried to talk him. “i- he doesn’t want to listen.”

“you haven’t really tried,” levi remarked. “the brat’s picking fights left and right. every little thing seems to set him off and you are the only one who can get him to stop. y/n, we all see the way he looks at you. eren might be humanity’s last hope, but right now, you’re his.”

your heart was thumping in your chest. you had noticed the difference in eren’s actions toward you as well. the touches that lingered a little bit longer than normal, the longing stares he thought you never noticed, the way his anger practically melted away when his name left your lips...

but to hear someone else confirm it aloud felt weird. foreign. because you had pushed those observations to the back of your mind, desperate not to over-analyze any of them. the two of you were just friends.

a knock on the door startled you out of your messy web of thoughts. the door opened before either one of the superiors could give permission to do so, revealing a timid yet determined sasha. she addressed the whole room, but her brown eyes were on you.

“um, sir, sorry to interrupt, but eren and jean are back at it again and i’m afraid neither one of them is stopping, sir.”

no one seemed to notice the half-eaten potato clutched in her hand - or if they did, they chose not to mention it - as she saluted the captain and commander. you were already practically out of your seat before she could finish and the look from sasha that went unnoticed by everyone else certainly did not go unnoticed by you.

you followed hot on her heels, your gaze fixated on her bobbing ponytail as she scurried through the hallways but your mind totally elsewhere. there was an uneasy feeling bubbling deep inside you and no matter what you told yourself, you couldn’t shake it.

while eren did lack the ability to take control of his emotions and strategically plan out his next moves, his brute strength and impeccable hand-to-hand combat techniques made up for it. therefore, you were more worried about jean than eren, to say the least.

so, to say you were surprised when you entered the field and laid eyes on the two was an understatement. the sight you had imagined and prepared yourself for was nowhere to be seen. instead, the one eren was injuring was himself. by the look of it, there definitely had been a fight between him and jean, but the latter was merely watching connie’s attempts at stopping the brunette.

you came to a halt immediately, unsure of how to process the scene playing out in front of you. a trembling hand mutes a sob, which is now nothing more than a pained whimper as your eyes traveled up and down eren’s body, mentally assessing his injuries.

his nose was definitely bleeding. this wasn’t an unusual sight as it tended to happened a lot during his early experiment stages with hange. but you weren’t prepared for the bruising that was already forming and there was no doubt in your mind that his nose was broken.

his forehead was stained red as well, strands of his growing hair sticking to the sides of his face. it was impossible for you to appraise the extent of the damage as you were unable to determine the origin of the crimson liquid.

everything seemed to happen in slow motion and too fast all at once. at the sight of the your group, connie’s attempts were replaced by captain levi’s with mikasa not far behind. hange made a beeline for jean, who was muttering frustrated nothings while rubbing his jaw.

so eren had gotten a few hits in.

a gentle nudge brought you back, once again, from the dark chaos within your mind. you met armin’s blue orbs, attempting to ignore the pure worry swimming within them. his eyebrows arched as a silent plea and you followed his gaze to where eren was wildly trashing against the captain.

in any other situation, you would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. the captain’s height was a frequent talking point among your group and there was no denying how small he looked compared to eren’s towering frame. in any other situation, you also would not have bothered hiding how impressed you were with the captain’s ability to overpower the younger boy.

“y/n-” levi warned, voice strained, as the bloodied boy continued to attempt resisting him.

with a nod (to convince yourself or as a response to levi, you were unsure), your unsteady legs carried you toward the two of them. eren’s eyes were wild with determination, his nostrils flaring with anger. but you quickly realized when walking closer that there were a dozen other emotions pooling within his emerald orbs.

“eren,�� his name fell from your mouth with ease. skillfully, you maneuvered your hand around his flailing limbs, placing your palm on his swollen cheek. “eren, it’s okay. hey - stop, it’s okay, i’m here.”

it was as if a boulder had fallen off his shoulders. his actions halted immediately and his entire body relaxed at the sound of your voice. you wouldn’t have believed the effect you had on him if you hadn’t just witnessed it. levi reluctantly let go of eren, still on stand-by in case the boy would try anything.

“y/n,” your name fell from his lips just as easily, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

and just like that, he crumbled underneath your touch. you fell to the ground with him, ignoring the pain as your knees came in contact with the hardened dirt beneath you. bringing your other hand up as well, you trapped his face, forcing him to meet your gaze.

he didn’t try to look anywhere else. he couldn’t. the pained look he was giving you was almost too much and you resisted the urge to look away. his bottom lip was trembling, the slit in it leaking blood with every movement. you found yourself having to withstand the yearning to kiss the pain away.

“eren, what’s going on with you?” you tried to maintain a steady voice but there was no doubt that everybody could pick up on the worry behind every word. “this is- you can’t keep doing this. you have done nothing but talk with your fists and you need to stop. you can’t go picking fights with everybody over the smallest things.”

eren didn’t respond. the mixture of dirt and blood - both dried and fresh - and the threat of nightfall made it hard to see, but the violent jerks of his body made it obvious: he was crying. your own tears fell as well as sob after sob raked through his body.

“i can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” you swallowed down your own cries, your mind focused on nothing but helping the heartbroken boy in your arms. “eren, i need you to talk to me. please?”

“w-why? you shouldn’t- i’m a monster. a stupid good-for-nothing bastard. you- why do you want to help me?”

anger coursed through your veins. you wanted to beat the living shit out of whoever had made him feel this way about himself. they had absolutely no right. eren’s cries echoed in the twilight. you didn’t check if your comrades were still an audience. frankly, you didn’t care.

“you want to know why? because you’re human. because you have the abilities you have. because i truly believe you’re one of humanity’s last hopes. because you deserve to have someone believe in you the way you believe in saving all of us,” you inhaled deeply, overcome with emotion. “because i love you.”

eren’s sobs stopped just like that; as if they had an off button that you just pushed. the momentary silence - which felt way longer than you would ever admit - was broken by a sound somewhere between a shaky sigh and a surprised gasp coming from eren.

you couldn’t bring yourself to regret your confession. you didn’t feel an ounce of remorse and definitely not any embarrassment. maybe it was due to eren also showing vulnerability or maybe it was because you had practiced said confession more than once.

you didn’t care. he knew. he knew now and that was all that mattered.

his eyes searched your face. you weren’t sure for what, but you assumed for a sign of wether or not you were speaking the truth. your features held nothing but earnest as you returned his analyzing stare and it seemed to satisfy his silent investigation.

“i feel- it’s too much. too much pressure. i don’t know what i’m doing anymore. i’m not- there has to be someone else. i-i can’t do it... so many people. they’re all dead because of me. i’m not strong enough to-”

the last drops of self-control you had were eliminated by his proclamation. while it might have been difficult to comprehend for some, you had understood every word and with each broken sentence, your heart ached more and more.

eren’s disjointed admissions were halted by your lips on his. you didn’t know where your newfound confidence had come from but you were grateful for its presence. his lips molded against yours almost instantly - so effortlessly.

you ignored the taste of iron just as eren ignored the stinging from the cut on his lip. while the kiss was nowhere near being sexual, it was definitely more than just a peck. your lips moved together in pain and understand and love and relief.

unwillingly, you pulled away. suddenly aware that you more than likely still had an audience, the fresh evening air felt good against your flushed cheeks. the two of you remained silent, attempting to revert your breathing patterns back to normal.

eren rested his forehead against yours. you were sure sasha could practically hear the way your heart was stammering in your chest. and if not, eren definitely could. with each thump, your chest tightened and you were sure that if human bodies had not been designed with rib cages, your heart would have been long gone.

your thumb caressed his cheek, his fresh tears smearing with the dried crimson in the process. a gust of wind took ahold of the few pieces of hair framing your face. eren gingerly grabbed the loose strands, tucking them behind your ear. he had done so countless times before, but something just felt different this time around.

“i love you, too,” he whispered, the previous insecurities long gone from his voice. he had never spoken truer words.

you smiled. “let’s get you cleaned up, yeah? and i think you might owe someone an apology.”

eren’s limbs ached and although he didn’t want to admit to that, his body betrayed him. he had just barely stood back up when his trembling legs buckled. he prepared to meet the cold ground and the pain that would ensue, but a pair of hands caught him before it happened.

you were just as surprised as eren appeared to be as levi attempted to steady him. it seemed the captain hadn’t ventured far. hyper aware that he probably had heard every word shared between you and eren, you didn’t dare meet his eyes.

you sprung into action immediately, moving to eren’s other side. he winced as you navigated his arm around your shoulders, causing you to sputter out apologies while doing so. captain levi’s amusement didn’t go unnoticed by you or eren, but neither of you decided to comment on it.

with you and captain levi both being significantly shorter than eren, supporting his weight was easier said than done. after some trial and error, though, the three of you were able to move almost seamlessly.

eren’s strength was wavering by the second, you could tell, but he had enough left to come to a halt when you neared his most recent victim. you met jean’s eyes, hoping he could sense how apologetic you were. he confirmed with a nod then turned his attention to the boy who seemed to be getting heavier and heavier in your arms.

“i’m sorry, jean, i-i honestly don’t even know... i’m sorry.”

“what? no ‘horse-face’?” the redhead chuckled, almost sadly. you realized that they had already cleaned him up. “don’t worry about it, eren. you did more damage to yourself than me anyway.”

jean placed a hand on eren’s arm that was thrown over your shoulder. the interaction was brief but seemed to mean a lot to the both of them. then, they nodded and jean walked back toward the remainder of the group. sasha and connie were both saying words to him that you couldn't hear.

you could feel the distressed stares that armin and mikasa were both sending in your direction. you gave them a nod, promising that their childhood friend was okay. he would be, at least. you had already made it your mission to ensure it.

as you and captain levi hauled eren toward his dorm, the severity of the situation began feeling heavy on your shoulders. eren had definitely broken more than a few rules and you were sure captain levi would make sure he was punished for his insubordination.

you weren’t entirely sure you would be off the hook either. sure, you hadn’t broken rules or gone against direct orders, but you hadn’t exactly abided either. captain levi could easily find a reason for why you should receive punishment as well and no one would even question it.

captain levi’s steel eyes followed your every move as you opened the door to eren’s room, you could feel it. it didn’t feel like his typical burning glare but you couldn’t quite place your finger on the emotion behind the action either.

as if sensing your thoughts that were now moving a hundred miles a minute, a groan came from eren. you watched them both quietly as captain levi managed to plop eren down on the chair you had placed next to the bath. another groan escaped the green-eyed boy and you could tell he was exhausted and in pain.

“captain, i’m-”

“tch. save it, brat. we have all been there and if they haven’t, they will. i’m surprised it took you this long. you’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, kid,” levi interrupted, turning his attention toward you. “y/n, i trust you’ll take good care of humanity’s last hope. i’ll see the both of you at breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“i- yes, sir.”

captain levi left without another word, leaving you and eren alone for the first time all day. you suddenly felt hesitant, unsure of what to do next. eren’s grunts of frustration filled the silent room as he began - well, tried to anyway - removing his tunic.

you swatted his hands away gently, removing the article of clothing with ease. you had seen eren’s bare body before but you were still just as awestruck. this time, though, his skin was littered with scrapes, cuts and bruises of almost every color imaginable. you swallowed the urge to yell at him.

the silence continued as you washed his body ever-so-gently. once you had been able to get him into the tub, that is. more than once, you had to momentarily stop your actions to check if eren had either fallen asleep or passed out.

every time, his eyelids would flutter open instinctively, as if missing the warmth of your touch the second it disappeared. his green eyes would widen until they landed on you and he would relax, his lids falling shut once again.

the silence wasn’t uncomfortable; it was filled with unspoken words of gratitude and affection. the two of you enjoyed it to the fullest - maybe even a little too much. reluctantly, you stopped running your fingers through his brown locks that never seemed to stop growing.

eren didn’t protest when you told him it was time to get out despite how much he wanted to. he also didn’t protest and tried his best to help when you began putting a change of clothes on him. he didn’t protest when you whispered it was time for bed, either.

he did protest when you attempted to take your leave, however.

“stay,” it was a soft plea that pulled on your heartstrings. “please?”

and, so, you climbed into bed with him without hesitation. he nuzzled into the crook of your neck so quickly that it seemed like second-nature to him and was asleep within minutes, his soft snores the only sound within range.

well, you had definitely broken rules now. but you decided that eren sleeping next to you was more than worth whatever form of discipline captain levi could ever devise. you would handle whatever it was with pride if it meant you could stay like this forever.

/ / / / /

ok, um, this didn’t exactly go where i had envisioned it to but i’m not really mad? idk. i had to put some levi x eren in there bc i live for their mentor/mentee relationship. if you made it this far, please send me some asks and let me know what you thought 🥺

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wicked-mind · 4 years ago

Text

Remember Me: Chapter Eight

Summary: Y/N and Bucky were the unlikely match when it came to love, but they were inseparable since they met. After a fight, Y/N left to be a trauma surgeon in the military and returns without her memories. How will Bucky remind Y/N how she is the fire in his bones? Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: Swearing (I like swearing. Adds character and sounds pretty to me lol), car crash mentioned, miscarriage mentioned, angst?

Series Masterlist

All Writings Masterlist

Note: Song is Remember When by Avril Lavigne.

As always any likes, reblog, or comments are appreciated (: I love that shit.

*gifs not mine

Previously

Bucky’s frown deepened at her words as scenarios ran through his mind of what Y/N could be talking about, studying her features intently, “No we won’t. I told you that you are the love of my life, Y/N. Nothing is going to change that.” He told her, moving his position to take her face in his hand and forcing her to look at him, “Now talk to me.”

Y/N stared at Bucky for what felt like forever, studying his face. She wondered what would reflect back to her in his eyes when she told him. Right now his eyes were pooled with concern for her but once she would tell him, they knew that concern would leave, “The night we fought… May seventh right?” She watched him nod, “On May fourteenth I was driving and I was hit by a drunk driver. I was taken to a hospital in Queens where I was treated.” She watched the concern grow in his eyes at her words, “I didn’t know I was six weeks pregnant and I lost the baby… Our baby… I would’ve came back if I knew, never left… But after I couldn’t come back to you.”

Bucky’s mouth parted slightly at the words, his eyes moving across the features of her face watching the tears leak down her face. He hadn’t even noticed his own tears starting to fall at the news. Guilt raked through his body at the words he had said that made her leave, put her in that position to get hurt. It would have never happened if he would’ve swallowed his own fear and anger at her deployment. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug, “I’m so sorry, doll.” He said through his own shaky breathes, trying to control his breathing as he cried, “I’m sorry, Y/N. I did this, it’s my fault… I’m so sorry.”

Chapter eight - Runner

The song played on the radio, tears streaming down her cheeks as she drove through the darkness. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so hard until they were turning white and numb.

♫Remember when I cried

To you a thousand times?

I told you everything

You know my feelings

It never crossed my mind

That there would be a time

For us to say goodbye

What a big surprise

But I’m not lost

I’m not gone

I haven’t for-♫

With a sudden gasp leaving her mouth as the headlights now blinded her eyes, the radio died and the sounds of metal creaking and shredding filled her ears before her chest and face felt the impact of the airbag. Slowly the world started to come back to her as she opened her eyes, blinking until the blurred world focused. The ringing in her ears slowly stopped as she heard a man’s voice crying for help in a slurred fashion. She pushes the airbags away from her face and took her seatbelt off, stumbling out of the car after opening the door. She processed the scene around her. Her car’s front end was smashed to the point you wouldn’t have been able to tell what type of car it was. The other car was the same… but there was a figure halfway through the windshield crying in pain for help. She slowly stumbles over, “What’s your name?” She asks, focusing on helping the man.

“M-Mike…Help me…” He slurred out.

She could smell the alcohol on his breath but focused her best on his injuries. He was impaled through the windshield, must’ve not been wearing a seatbelt, “Hold on.” She mutters out softly before going back to her car and managed to pry the trunk open and grabbed her medical kit. As she made her way back over to Mike, she placed her hand on her stomach with a loud groan. Something was definitely wrong… She shook her head and made her way back over to Mike, “My name is Y/N, I'm a surgeon… It’s going to be okay…” She told him as she started to place gauze around any places she noticed bleeding. She couldn’t move him, there were risks of spinal injuries so she just did her best to pack his wounds before placing her hands on both sides of his neck, “I’m stabilizing your neck, Mike… Stay as still as you can…”

She stood there for what felt like hours though it couldn’t have been very long. The pain in her stomach was growing and slowly her own blood dripped down onto Mike from her own face and arms. She looks up as she saw headlights approaching, waiting until the person was out of the car, “Call 911… Put it on speaker and get over here…” She ordered and watched as the man did as she said. She leans closer to the phone and told them there had been a wreck and where before looking at the man, “I need you to hold Mike’s neck. Keep it stabilized just like I’m doing.” She breathed out.

The man places his hands where her’s were then looks at her, “What are you going to do?”

She looks at him before slowly slumping against the car, sliding down until she sat against it, “I’m going to pass out… Tell the paramedics I may have internal bleeding… Don’t call emergency contacts… Keep Mike’s neck stabi…” She trailed off as the world went dark around her.

“Baby, come back to me…” Bucky says as he held Y/N’s face in his hands, staring into her eyes. This had been a daily thing since they had brought her home from the hospital. He would find Y/N just sitting and staring, often after reading those damned journals. This time it had happened in the middle of the night. He woke up to find her sitting up on the edge of the bed and had moved around to kneel on the ground in front of her, trying to pull her back to reality. He smiled slightly as she blinked at him and looked into his eyes sadly, “Hey, there you are, pretty girl.” He whispers to her, moving his thumbs along her cheeks softly, “You okay?”

Y/N looked at him, tears slowly peaking at the brim of her eyes again, “No… Yeah… I don’t know.” She whispers back out, moving her hands to rest on his wrists, gently pulling his hands away from her face and looking down at the floor, “Sorry for waking you up again.” She let out a deep sigh, running her hand through her hair slowly, “Maybe you should go home and sleep… At least you’d be able to get more than a few hours.” She said as she stood up, walking over to the dresser and taking a drink from her water bottle.

Bucky frowned, standing and watching her move away from him. She had kept her distance from him lately, all but kicking him out of bed with her. She wouldn’t keep eye contact with him very long and she constantly had this sad, almost ashamed, look on her face. He walked over to her, looking down at her, “I’m not going anywhere, Y/N.” He told her as he took one of her hand in his and using his other hand to put her water bottle back down. He pulled her over to the bed until he sat down on the edge and pulled her into his lap, “You’re everything to me, doll. I’m not going anywhere.”

Y/N looked at him, slowly wrapping her arms around him with a small nod at his words. She stayed in his arms as he slowly scooted back on the bed until they were laying down again, listening as he whispered soothing things into her ear and rubbed her back. She felt broken. She didn’t have many memories but now all she could remember was from the night she left Bucky up to when she left the hospital. The events were on repeat constantly in her head and she couldn’t make them stop. Y/N could remember how she felt when Bucky said those words to her before she left, how heartbroken she was. She could remember how her heart broke impossibly more when she was told she miscarried from a pregnancy she didn’t even know about. She felt ashamed, like she didn’t deserve Bucky in her life but couldn’t let him go. Y/N didn’t know how Bucky was staying so loving towards her, so patient through what she was dealing with. If she was in his position, she was certain she wouldn’t be able to do the same. She was the one that left and put herself and unborn child in danger which ended in a catastrophe.

The next morning, Bucky woke up early and shimmied out of bed as to not disturb Y/N who seemed to sleeping as soundly as she had since they brought her home from the hospital. He placed a gentle kiss to her forehead before walking out of her room and shutting the door quietly behind him. He walked into the kitchen where he already found Peggy and Steve awake with fresh coffee, “Mornin.” He mumbled out with a small yawn before filling up a mug of coffee for himself.

Steve and Peggy had watched how Y/N had been doing but she mostly stayed in the comfort of her own room. The first few days she was home, Peggy would help her shower as it seemed like Y/N was in a state of shock to really focus for more than a few minutes. It had been tough of them feeling the loss of a niece or nephew as well as watching Y/N and Bucky go through this. Steve offered a small smile towards Bucky, “Morning.” He said softly, “How’s she doing?”

Bucky sighs, plopping down in one of the chairs at the dining table and running his hand over his face, “I don’t know…” He admitted with a deep sigh, “Everyday it’s a constant battle of her trying to push me away. Looking at me like she thinks I hate her no matter how many times I tell her that ain’t true.” He took a gulp of his coffee before looking at Steve, “She has that running look in her eyes. I’m worried she’s just gonna take off again. I have to go into work today but I’ll come back around lunch.”

Peggy, who sat at the dining table across from Bucky beside Steve, reached her hand across the table to give Bucky’s a soft squeeze, “I’m sorry, James. I know this must be hard for you as well. I’ll stick around with her today, all I have to do is go to the grocery store and the bank but I’ll wait until you’re headed home.”

Steve nodded at the plan before looking towards Bucky, “And how are you doing? Are you okay?” He asks curiously.

Bucky shook his head, staring into his coffee, “No. I’m not okay.” He said, not even having to think about the question. He felt like his heart was shattered due to the aftermath of what happened after Y/N left after what he had said to her. He looks over at Steve with a stern look, “But Y/N comes first.”

After giving Y/N a kiss goodbye, Bucky left for work letting her know he would be back for lunch and that Peggy would be around if she needed anything. Y/N eventually made her way to the shower before heading back to her bedroom and laying down, pulling out one of the journals and flipping through the pages until she found one she hadn’t read.

June 14, 2019

I always believed on facing problems head on- not running away from them. But here I am halfway across the world running from my problems. There’s something about being able to not having to focus on what happened and having bigger problems. I rather think about what is going to happen today, what type of traumas I’m going to be faced with than deal with my own trauma.

I’m pretty sure everybody here thinks I’m a raging bitch. I’ve heard their hushed tones saying I’m a robot or that it seems like I don’t have any emotions, feelings. If only they knew about the constant pain I carry around inside of me. Truth is, I don’t want to feel anymore. I wish what they say was true- that I couldn’t feel anything. It would make things so much easier.

Running is easier than dealing with this. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. Like I don’t have anywhere to run towards so I run away instead. I’m running away from Steve. From Peggy. From Bucky. I fear that if I tell them, face them, then they’ll see me the way I see myself. I feel guilty and I couldn’t stand the pity in their eyes when they look at me. And Bucky… I couldn’t stand to see the devastation in his eyes. He would blame himself for every bit of what happened and I can’t do that to him. It’s not his fault. They say running away makes you run further from the solution. But what if there is no solution to go towards?

Y/N took a deep breath and closed the journal. Her mind was in a mess. She already felt like running but the words in journal just made that feeling increase. She couldn’t stay in this house with the sad looks from her brother and his wife. And Bucky…. Oh, god, Bucky. She knew what she was doing to him. Keeping him up at night with her crying and then giving her that half smile with those sad, guilty eyes. It hurt her. She felt like he had nothing to feel guilty for. She was the one that ran away, put herself in the situation. And even if what running was what got her here in the first place, all she could think about was running again. Her head snapped up towards the door as a gentle knock came before she saw Peggy’s face in the doorway.

“I’m going to the bank then to get groceries. Is there anything you need from the store, honey?” Peggy asks with a small smile.

Y/N shook her head, “No, thank you though.” She replied softly, dropping her gaze to the closed journal in her lap.

Peggy nods, “Alright, James should be back any minute to have some lunch with you.” She informed before shutting the door.

Y/N listened for Peggy to walk out the front door and listened for the car to come to life and drive down the road. She stood up, tears streaming down her cheeks as she grabbed out her suitcase and started shoving changes of clothes inside and essentials inside of it.

Bucky passed Peggy down the street, waving slightly from his motorcycle before pulling up in the driveway. He killed his bike before making his way up the steps and into the house, “Y/N? Sweetheart, what you feeling like for lunch?” He asks, sliding his leather jacket off and placing it on one of the kitchen chairs. When he didn’t get a response for Y/N, he went and opened the door to her bedroom to find her frantically throwing clothes in a suitcase. His eyes widened slightly and his jaw dropped. Bucky quickly crosses the room, grabbing onto both her wrists with his hands to stop her, “Hey, what are you doing?”

Y/N hadn’t heard Bucky come in, lost in her head with what she needed to pack before she got out of here. When he grabbed her wrists, she froze and looked at him, “Nothing… I’m just-“

“You’re trying to leave again.” Bucky said, finishing her sentence with a deep frown, “You’re not running away. Not this time.” He said, watching as she pulled herself out of his grasp and walk around to throw more items from her dresser into the bag. Bucky quickly moved to pull her into his chest, his grip tightening as she tried to push him away and telling him to let her go between sobs, “No, Y/N! I’m not letting you go again!”

Y/N managed to push herself out of his grasp eventually, breathing deeply as tears ran down her face, “You think I don’t see how hurt you are?! How the three of you look at me with all that pity?!” She yells at him, “I remember very little but the one thing I do remember very well is haunting me! I remember the day you told me to leave and not come back! I remember driving back to the hotel listening to sad songs when I was in the accident! I remember sitting there in the hospital bed, feeling so guilty knowing that it was all my fault I lost our child… I remember how devastated it would make you when you found out…” Her yelling had slowly turned into soft sobs, “And it’s breaking me. I don’t know what else to do than run from this. To leave for you.”

Bucky shook his head at her words, pointing his finger at her, “That is such bullshit Y/N! And I know you know it!” He replied, “You’re not going to leave for me. You’re going to leave for you because you’re a runner! It’s what you do and it doesn’t solve anything! It doesn’t make anything better for you or me!” He yelled back at her before flinching at the sound of his own voice. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath, calming himself down.

Y/N watched him for a moment before looking down at the floor and shaking her head, “I’m sorry, Bucky.” She said softly, moving to grab the journals and tucking them into the suitcase, “But I have to go. I can’t sit here remembering the worst things and seeing the pain on everyone’s face anymore. It just makes me feel even more guilty for what I did.” She told him without looking at him, zipping up the suitcase and pulling it off her bed, starting to head for the door.

Bucky watched her, grabbing her arm as she tried to pass him headed to the door and pushed her up against the wall gently to pin her in place. He stared down at her, “I’m not losing you again, sweetheart.” He said, staring down into her eyes, “It wasn’t your fault. It was the fault of the drunk who decided to drive. If it hadn’t happened to you, it would’ve happened to someone else. I would never blame you for what happened because it wasn’t your fault.” He told her, tears starting to welt up in his eyes at the thought of Y/N leaving him again, “I can’t lose you. You think I’m in pain now? When you left, I tried calling you everyday to apologize. When you were deployed, I begged Steve everyday to give me your number so I could call you. Or at least an address that I could write you. I was shattered beyond repair! I drank myself into oblivion. I was reckless, tortured without you with me.” He paused, releasing her arms and bringing his hands up to rest on the cheeks of her face, staring deeply into her eyes as she remained with her back against the wall, “Let me be here for you. Stop pushing me away. I need you, sweetheart. You’re my sun and without you I’m lost in the dark. So let me help you- give me chance. I’ll do anything to help you remember the good things, okay? Things that’ll make you want to stay here with me.” He gently kissed her nose before leaning his forehead against her’s, “And if it doesn’t… I’ll run with you. We can forget this place and create all new memories. I’ll follow you anywhere, babydoll. You’re my girl.”

Y/N’s breath hitched in her throat as he pushed her against the wall, memories of the night she remembered the rose from his shoebox and he pushed her against the wall and kissed her. She stared into his eyes, listening to ever word he said. The words rolled off of his tongue like velvet with every ounce of honesty behind them. All she could do was nod slowly at him, “Okay.” She finally breathed out to him after a moment of silence. Y/N would try for him. He made her feel everything even in this dark moment. She could feel the honesty in his voice. The love he felt for her.

Bucky left out a sigh of relief, releasing his hands from her face and stepping back from her slowly, “Thank you.” He told her, “Now get some shoes on. We can grab some lunch on the way.”

Y/N looked at him curiously but did as he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her black converse on, “Where are we going?” She asks softly, watching him as he leaned against her dresser.

“You’re coming to work with me.” Bucky said, folding his arms, “You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna let you out of my sight now. Besides, everybody there has been excited to see you back there. You used to come visit me all the time.”

Y/N nods, standing once her shoes were tied securely to her feet, “Okay.” She said, walking towards him and taking his hand in her’s gently, “I am sorry, Bucky.” She murmurs out towards him, looking down at their intertwined fingers, “For putting you through this. I know you love me and I know it hurts to know what happened to keep me away from you. I just… didn’t want to tell you otherwise it’d be real. It felt like if I could just keep this secret from you then eventually it’d just fade away.”

Bucky watches her as she apologized, wishing that she would meet his gaze to see how much he had already forgiven her and to see that he didn’t blame her in the slightest. When she didn’t look up to him, he placed his index finger from his free hand under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him, “I’m here for you, sweetheart. You and I are in this together as we have always been and we will help each other get through it, okay? I love you.” He told her before pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

_____________________________________________________________

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weasleydream · 4 years ago

Text

Ad astra

This one is for @teheharrypotter‘s two weeks of angst, obviously I had to participate! My trope was dying in their arms. I wanted to add that the last scene is inspired by a very sad scene of the movie Christmas shoes (I made the gif to show the scene). If you haven’t already seen this movie, don’t watch it or you’ll cry. A lot. Anyway, as usual feel free to like, comment, reblog and enjoy!

Masterlist

(gif is mine)

There were so many things he loved about her.

The way she always closed her eyes when he kissed her, the way her sweet lips moved against his. The little groans she let out every morning when he woke her up. The warmth of her breathing in his neck, the way his heart always beat faster whenever he saw her.

He used to think that no one would ever take a place in his heart as important as the one she had taken.

That was before they met.

It was a nightmare. The most awful nightmare you could imagine, and it wasn’t even violent. There was no blood, no murderer, no monster chasing after me. I wasn’t locked up in a room, I wasn’t getting drowned or tortured, yet it was like all of this was happening to me at the same time. Everything felt more intense, more painful, and everything seemed to disappear. A fucking nightmare, and I wasn’t even asleep.

A sentence, it’s all it had taken for me to sink. A sentence pronounced by a hurried nurse who had left the room a few seconds later, leaving my world crashing around me. And in this damaged world was Charlie. He had always been my rock, the only one who had never given up on me, the only one who had always been able to look straight into my eyes to tell me “You’re wrong”. And now, he was unable to even look in my direction. All I could see was his back, his hunched posture and the nervous movement of his hands. He was pacing, getting to the window before sitting back on the chair, then getting up again and doing it all over again. And me? I was looking at him, my eyes fixed on his bright hair which colour had always been a synonym of peace and protection and love. I was biting my bottom lip to the blood, barely noticing the metallic taste. I was trembling, I was getting more and more terrified and numb at the same time. I was dying.

“We don’t know what it is. Nobody, muggle or wizard, seems to have heard of this disease. I’m sorry, miss Y/L/N.”

“Charlie…”

My voice was weaker than I had expected, so small that I knew even Charlie’s trained ear hadn’t heard me. But I didn’t know if I could trust my voice to be louder, my trembling had reached every single fiber of my body and my vocal chords were vibrating with the emotions I was trying to contain, and the rest of my body had already betrayed me. Given up on me, stopped fighting, it was letting me die.

“Charlie, please, don’t ignore me.”

I knew he had heard me as his pacing had abruptly stopped, but he still wasn’t looking at me. In a way, it was better like this; I didn’t know if I would be able to face him. I didn’t know what was going on his mind, and mine was hard enough to ignore.

“I’m not- It’s not you that I’m ignoring.” He stopped and I waited for him to continue. “It’s the fact that every time I look at you could be the last.”

“Does it really change anything?”

I was surprised, because I didn’t think opening my mouth without exploding in sobs was possible. It had been roughly five minutes, yet I was already accustomed to the feeling of pressure on my chest, and I already knew I wouldn’t bear it for long. But I also knew I couldn't let it overwhelm me because Charlie was needing me and I was going to give up on him, and I had to say something. Anything.

“Every day we’ve spent together could have been the last. It’s just- now, we know for sure it’s going to arrive.”

Then came the sobs. They began weak, silent, only betrayed by the shaking of my shoulders. And a first cry echoed in this creepy hospital room, and Charlie’s head turned toward me. I caught the movement, but everything was blurred by the pool of tears in my eyes. The damaged world around me was now nothing more than a dull white cloud in which this bright stain of ginger was getting closer and closer.

Charlie’s arms wrapped around me, strong and firm like I had always known them. His chest was vibrating against mine and his head was hidden on the crook of my neck. He was silent but I knew he was crying. His tears were soaking my blouse and mine were soaking his shirt. It had never happened before, the both of us crying in the other’s arms. We had always stayed strong when the other needed it the most, whether it was after a long and tiring night and Charlie was missing his family or when I was hurt by my parent’s remarks about my choices of life. But now, what was the point of staying strong? Things wouldn’t get better, the nurse had said it. Now, every day was another danger, a step that maybe would be too high for me and that would make me fall. As Charlie was tightening me against him, as I was tightening him against me, as we were holding each other like the last thing that counted on earth, I remembered how the unknown used to be exciting. All it was now was destructing.

_ _ _

The romanian sun was already high in the sky, and its light was piercing through the closed curtains. If I opened my eyes, I would certainly be able to walk to the door without tripping on Charlie’s mess which, trust me, was an exploit. An arm wrapped around my waist and I smiled to myself, savouring the warmth of my boyfriend’s touch. I wriggled to face him without waking him up and I was met with his freckled nose. I laid a gentle kiss on his lips and he didn’t even move, his snores barely stopping for a second before echoing again with a renewed vigour.

“Charlie, love, I need to go.” I murmured before trying to move his arm.

He only tightened his grip around me and mumbled something I didn’t understand.

“Charlie… Charlie, wake up!”

My voice was becoming more and more urgent as the odd feeling was invading my body. There was a time I didn’t know what was this impression stronger and stronger within the seconds. It was like a veil enveloping me, tightening me so hard that it was making me suffocate without depriving me from oxygen. It also felt like a weight on my lungs, as if someone was pressing my chest constantly to make sure I wasn’t breathing.

I didn’t know if it was my voice or my agitation, but Charlie woke up. He first opened an eye and muttered a few words before looking at me and opening both his eyes.

“Y/N, love, are you okay?”

There was a knowing glimpse in his eyes, and he tried his best not to frown. I shook my head and closed my eyes, the movement having caused strong nauseas.

“You should go back to sleep, you’re quite pale.”

Charlie put his hands on my shoulders and gently yet firmly pushed me back on the mattress. I barely nodded and curled up on a ball, letting him cover me with a blanket after a particularly bad shiver. He placed his hand on my forehead and his eyebrows furrowed.

“You don’t seem to have a fever. Sleep, you’ll be better.”

He couldn’t know it, of course. None of us could. Maybe it would be better, maybe it would get worse.

He laid a light kiss on my forehead and left the room, closing quietly the door so that I wouldn’t be bothered by the noise. It only took a few seconds for me to close my eyes and fall in an agitated sleep.

I opened them after what had felt like a minute. The feeling in my chest had disappeared, replaced by a headache particularly strong. Slowly, I sat on the bed and the mattress squeaked. The room was now dark, I couldn’t distinguish Charlie’s belongings on the floor anymore. I grabbed my wand which was on the nightstand.

“Lumos.”

I crossed the room, picking up a sweater on the floor before joining the kitchen. I glanced through the window - it was night. The sky was dark, for what I could see there were no clouds and the moon was missing. A cold air stream made me shiver. I put on Charlie’s sweater and pushed the front door wide open. Charlie was standing a few meters away. His dark silhouette was barely visible, but he seemed to be staying still in spite of the wind. I walked toward him, and he only moved when I stopped just behind him, extending an arm and wrapping it around my shoulders before pulling me against him.

“Aren’t you cold?” I whispered. Charlie was only wearing a shirt and I could feel his goosebumps against the skin on my neck.

“No I’m okay, don’t worry.”

I looked up to see his face turned to the sky, and his eyes resolutely fixed on the stars.

“It reminds me of the Astronomy tower.” I murmured a few minutes later. “When we would sneak out of the dorm and just go up there.”

“The good old days…” added Charlie. “Of course I remember. It was easier back then, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. Of course it was easier. Back then, we were teenagers in love and our only worries were to be caught by Filch in the corridors during night. Now, we were both afraid that whenever I closed my eyes I wouldn’t open them again. But the worst was that I knew it was easier for me than for Charlie. He would be the one to bury me, he would be the one to keep living with only our memories, and that was what I was the most afraid of, because I knew how much he put his heart in our relationship, I knew how deep was his love for me because it was as deep as mine for him, and I knew that if he had been the one to leave me, I would never have gotten over it. That would have broken me in the very same way as he was going to be broken.

“Charlie?” He hummed in response, not looking away from the stars. “I’m sorry.”

It was rare to see Charlie’s walls crumbling, and now was one of these moments. His jaw clenched as if to make sure nothing would escape his mouth. He opened and closed his eyes several times to blink the tears away and suddenly, he engulfed me in a strong hug with the vivacity given by years of working with dragons. His hands were on my back, his long fingers clenched against it in an almost painful way that even the sweater couldn’t ease. I didn’t say anything though, and I held him even tighter, because I understood.

“I love you so much…” he whispered in my hair, his voice shaky. “So much more than just to the moon and back… Y/N, I- please, don’t say you’re sorry. I know- I know you don’t want to leave me. I know it.”

His hands cupped my cheeks and I rested my forehead against his, breathing deeply because I didn’t want to disturb the bubble around us. It was terribly sad but it was also filled with a love more pure than what we had ever shared before. Slowly, I kissed him. Our lips were trembling, our movements too clumsy and our muscles too tensed, but it brought me and incredible comfort. It brought me peace, because it was one more memory of Charlie to bring with me when the time would come, and because it was one more memory for him to keep for when he would need it. It was just us under the stars, two lovers whose story was bound to turn to the tragedy but whose love was deeper than anything else.

It seemed like such a strong flame wasn’t meant to last.

_ _ _

It had all begun with a simple headache. Sometimes, after having read for too long or helped Charlie with a dragon, a sharp pain would appear in my head and it would only disappear with a potion and a good night of sleep. Then it began to get more and more regular. Charlie was the first to get worried, and I would always shrug it off, pretending it was because I had read in the dark, or because I was tired.

After a while came the nauseas. Every morning I would wake up because of this pain in my stomach and run to the bathroom. I began to worry too but not for the same reason: I was sure I was pregnant. And if there was one thing we didn’t want with Charlie, it was kids. I told him about it, we freaked out together and I eventually took a few tests. They all happened to be negative, and after the relief had disappeared, another question had popped up in our heads.

If it’s not a baby, then what is it?

But I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Maybe I was too scared, maybe deeply I knew something was wrong, fact is that when Charlie had asked me to go and see a doctor, his blue eyes full of worry, I had refused. Shrugged it off again. I had only accepted when it became harder and harder to breathe, always at random moments and for longer and longer moments. Charlie had brought me to the nearest hospital from the reserve and the diagnosis had come.

I was sick. I was going to die.

Things had quickly worsened and, a month after my first visit to the hospital, during the first hours of the day, Charlie had brought me back there again, my limp body in his trembling arms. I had lost consciousness. The same nurse as the first time had taken care of me. The results were clear: there was nothing we could do anymore.

“How are you feeling, love?”

Charlie’s voice was extremely quiet, and I could barely distinguish his silhouette in the darkness of the hospital room. It was late at night and the only light was coming from the streetlamps outside.

“Now that you ask, the pillow is a bit hard.”

I didn’t need to see it to know Charlie had rolled his eyes. What he thought was nonchalance was always getting a bit more on his nerves and, even though he had never told me so, it was making me feel even guiltier. But it was for the better, or at least that’s what I tried to say to myself. Asking him to be strong for the both of us would be selfish. I knew it was easier for me than for him, and I didn’t have the right to add to his pain.

“I can’t sleep.” I whispered, and Charlie’s hand immediately found mine.

It was closer to the truth. I was unable to close my eyes but not because I couldn’t… It was because I was terrified. Terrified because it could be the last time I closed them, because I wouldn’t have the time to say goodbye, because Charlie would be left alone and I didn’t want to do that to him. If there was one thing worse than wondering when you’re gonna die while on a hospital bed, it was thinking of the after.

The after for me, because what would happen when my eyes would definitely close? Was I going to wake up in a fabulous place, surrounded by white clouds and lost persons that were dear to my heart? Or would it be more like nothing, emptiness I wouldn’t even be aware of, an eternity of just not existing, where I would forget and be forgotten?

But the after for Charlie too, because what was he going to do? Would he cry or try to stay strong? Would he stay in our shared apartment or would he go back to his family?

“Do you need anything?”

“Is a night or two in this hotel in Alaska too much to ask?”

The corner of Charlie’s mouth moved into a faint smile when he thought of the memorable week we had spent in Juneau.

“I think I can manage this.”

I sighed and opened my arms, hoping he would understand the silent request. His face, previously quite relaxed, immediately gained back this anxiety that had never left him and he let go of my hand.

“I don’t think that’s reasonable…” he muttered.

“Fighting against three nurses to stay here day and night for a week wasn’t reasonable.” I corrected, a ghost of a smile on my lips. “Hugging me until I sleep is way more reasonable. Please.”

My hands still in the air as if to reach his, I suddenly hoped that, despite the darkness of the room, Charlie could see how desperate I was, how I needed his reassuring touch when the night was the most terrifying. Obviously, he understood, as he had always seemed to be reading my mind. He slowly got up, walked around the bed and slipped under the blanket behind me. His strong arms wrapped around me and he stuck his nose in my hair.

“I love you.” he whispered, and the sound of his voice reached straight to my heart, making it beat faster and faster. “I love you, and I want you to know that no matter- I chose you Y/N, and if I was given the chance I would do it all over again.”

I was glad we couldn’t see each other. I didn’t know if I would have been able to bear the sight of his blue eyes sparkling not with joy but with tears as I knew they were, and I didn’t want him to see my face getting more and more wet as salty drops were overflowing.

I wanted to answer him. I love you too. These four little words had always been so easy to say, so natural, but now it felt like a burn in my throat. It felt like a lie. How could these simple words said again and again possibly hold the immensity of my love for Charlie? It was like calling an ocean a drop of water, like calling a desert a grain of sand. What I felt for Charlie was so much more than love that calling it love was a lie. And despite everything I was leaving him, inexorably getting snatched from him and I didn’t even know what we had done to deserve that.

Instead of saying something that would feel like a lie, it was easier to sound asleep. I steadied my breath as much as I could with the sobs that were blocked in my throat. I didn’t move. And Charlie was doing the same so that I was sure he was sleeping. I don’t know how long we stayed like this, but decades could have passed and I still wouldn’t be able to sleep. My mind was too concerned, my heart too pained.

“You aren’t sleeping.”

Charlie’s breathing tickled my neck and I shivered. He misinterpreted and tightened his grip around me, pulling me closer to his torso.

“I still can’t.”

“You should get some rest, love. You’d feel better.”

“I know.”

Our voices were faint whispers that I was sure no one could hear even with their ear to the door.

“I was thinking.” began Charlie, still murmuring in my hair.

“Congratulations.” I smiled lightly when Charlie chuckled.

“There’s so much I still want to do with you…” he said with a strangled voice. “You know, we’ve never danced together.”

“I’m sure we’ve already shared a dance or two.”

I closed my eyes, thinking of a night that seemed so far from us. We had spent hours dancing like fools, reproducing shamelessly muggle dances we had only seen once or twice, and it was one of my best memories with Charlie.

It was in another life.

“Not like this. A slow dance during which I could hold you really close and…” He stopped and sighed, very lightly though, as if he didn’t want me to hear it. “Let’s dance.” he suddenly said.

It was my turn to sigh. I wanted it so bad, of course I wanted to be held in his arms, but I knew I wouldn’t have the strength. I couldn’t walk on my own anymore for days, now.

“Charlie, I-”

“Don’t think about it. Do you want to dance with me, love?”

“You know the answer.”

Charlie left the bed and my back suddenly felt cold. I didn’t move, still giving him my back; my eyes were closed, I was trying to imagine the next seconds. Charlie whispered a first spell which I didn’t understand as it was muttered underneath his breath. He said something else - a spell I understood but that I had never heard before - and music echoed in the room. Then, extremely precociously, as if I was a fragile porcelain doll, his arms slipped under my body, bringing with them a welcome warmth. He lifted me up effortlessly, giving the impression that I didn’t weigh more than a feather, and immediately pulled me close to him, the closest possible. I snuggled against his torso and wrapped my arms around his neck.

Suddenly, I wasn’t dying anymore, Charlie wasn’t grieving. I had never felt like this before. My heart was fast, so fast that in any other moment I would have worried. But I knew it wasn’t bad, it was the most fabulous feeling. It wasn’t euphoria that was flooding in my veins, it was something way softer that was soothing everything in me. Charlie’s body was firm against mine but his touch was like a caress, light, gentle. My face was hidden in the crook of his neck, and his head was bowed and resting on mine.

Charlie had never really known how to dance. He was a clumsy boy, not really the kind who went to girls during balls. However, tonight, he was perfect. Perfectly in rhythm with the music, perfectly steady as he waltzed in this dark hospital room, perfectly him when his lips kissed mine.

It felt like a second or a lifetime before he eventually stopped - more like a lifetime, because feeling so many things during a second was impossible. Charlie delicately lied me back in the bed and covered me tenderly with the blanket. Slowly, his hand found my cheek, cupped it, stroked it. He bent over me and kissed my forehead, and in the darkness the only thing I could see was a blue sparkle moving away from me when Charlie straightened.

“I love you so much, Y/N, so much…”

“So much more than just to the moon and back…”

When I closed my eyes, I realized it was time. It was my last night, my last seconds with Charlie. I wanted to fight, I wanted to keep my eyes open, but Charlie’s other hand cupped my other cheek. His face approached mine, and in his teary eyes I saw that he had realised too. His lips barely touched mine.

A tear rolled down his cheek, and I closed my eyes.

#nina's 2 weeks of angst #Harry Potter #harry potter imagines #harry potter imagine #charlie weasley #charlie weasley imagine #charlie weasley x reader #charlie weasley x yn #angst

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