#rebel girl for real

[shuffledtrickcards]

posting this here for people who care.. idk .. dee edit !!

[strongtowerluxuryapartments]

figueroth and sandra lynn faeth; daughter and mother // dimension 20: fantasy high

fantasy high: junior year - a very merry moonar yulenear // lady bird, 2017 // ijeoma umebinyuo - questions for ada // alexuma // wych elm - susan smith // joan tierney - the elektra complex // fantasy high: sophomore year - hellbound // imma_slytherin - fig the unfaithable and the summer sads // nora kasten // honeytuesday // fantasy high: junior year - untapped rage // ethel cain - family tree (intro) // lynn emanuel - single girl. one room flat.

[felixcatton]

lorelai gilmore and logan huntzberger are the same character in different fonts and once you realize that, you also realize that logan is indeed not the luke to rory's lorelai, but instead, logan is the lorelai to rory's luke. in this essay i will

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Okay what if... Nicky got ordained... So that Sparrow and Rebecca could get married in secret... Because Henry and Mercedes didn't approve of a teenage wedding with a centrist... And Rebecca's parents had similar issues with Sparrow and his family's hippie and decidedly non-centrist ways... Romeo and Juliette style!

[puhpandas]

What's an average conversation between Evan and Gregory like?

(also inspired by an instagram prompt about a flashlight duo sickfic)

Burrow-Nest-Fort

(2,922 words)

Gregory gets sick overnight, and Evan, who stayed over, gets sick as well. They hang out in their little quarantine together with no worries whatsoever.

Gregory groans, long and miserable as Evan takes the thermostat he found in the bathroom out of his mouth. "100.4." Evan says.

"Whyyyy..." Gregory asks aloud, bags under his eyes and completion pale as he sprawls out under his comforter. "I didn't even do anything."

"Nobody gets sick on purpose." Evan smiles a bit, putting the thermostat down.

"You slept right next to me like, all night." Gregory points out. "Do you feel sick at all?"

Now that Evan's thinking about it, he does feel that little prickle in the back of his throat that's the universal sign of an incoming sickness. "...Yeah."

He'd spent the night after coming home with Gregory after school on a Friday like he usually does. Throughout the night, he and Gregory had shared his bed, and Gregory had woken up this morning sick as a dog with no fanfare whatsoever.

Gregory groans again, the roughness in his throat accentuated by the dragged out line. "Great." He frowns, and the stuff clogging up his nose is evidently heard in his voice. "I get sick for no reason and now I make you have to deal with it too."

"Its okay." Evan says genuinely. "Its not like you wanted me to get sick. It's my fault for needing to get in bed with you when I'm too much of a baby anyway."

Gregory just narrows his eyes at Evan at that, his already sunkissed tan cheeks redder from the fever. He just sighs, letting his head fall back against his pillow. "I'm not even responding to that. You know what I'd say anyway."

Yeah. He does. The same thing Gregory's been telling him the past multiple months every time Evan feels sorry for himself. Evan himself sighs, feeling sorry for, well... feeling sorry for himself. "Yeah."

Theres a short spurt of silence after that, but its broken by Gregory. "Whatever." He sucks in through his nose, trying to breathe through the gunk. "Hey, since you're already gonna be a prisoner like me, come here."

Evan raises a brow. "Why?"

Gregory reaches at the foot of his bed to grab his laptop that has ten-thousand stickers on the back. He opens the lid, patting the empty space on the bed next to him. "Let's watch TV, or something. If I don't do something other than lieing here I'm gonna explode."

Evan giggles. "You look like it, too." He says, looking at Gregory's extremely red face from the undoubtedly harsh fever. "You better stop talking until you get a drink or your throat will feel awful later."

Gregory let's his head tilt back against the pillow as he shifts to get more comfortable. "Is my Dad home?"

He takes a look outside the window and sees the white van in the driveway. "Yeah?"

"Go tell him about our predicament." Gregory tells him. "I'd rather get the smothering over with before we get in the middle of an episode."

Evan smiles instinctively at that. "Okay." He replies. "But I'm about to be sick too, okay? It's almost my time to be bedridden too." He says on the way out of Gregory's room.

"Then hoard the snacks while you're down there!" Gregory calls at him, his voice sounding like death.

Evan only says the keywords 'Gregory' and 'sick' before Freddy is thundering up the stairs with Evan struggling to keep up with an armful of junk food.

He only gets to the door seconds after Freddy, but he's already doing said smothering. Somehow, three new throw blankets and a few pillows have appeared out of thin air, and are being tucked around Gregory like a nest of fluff and plush.

"What happened?" Freddy asks, ever worried. "Did something cause this?"

Evan watches Gregory shrug from his bed as he walks around the other side of Freddy, dumping the snacks onto his bedside table. "I dont know." He says, sniffling. "I just woke up sick. And he probably will be too."

Evan knows Gregory must have pointed at him because Freddy is smothering him the next time his brain catches up. "Do you feel alright, Evan?" Freddy asks him, crouching down and feeling his forehead and his temples. "Or should I quarantine the both of you."

Evan laughs slightly, and cringes at how the prickling is steadily getting worse. His head begins to feel a little warm. "Quarantine, I guess." He smiles. "I feel it coming."

"I am sorry." Freddy looks apologetic, despite him doing nothing. He pats Evan on the arm, and hes at the door in an instant. "Get comfortable, you two. I will make you both some soup and orange juice and get you some medicine later."

"Thank you!" Evan calls out half-hazardously as Freddy leaves the room. Gregory pats the little empty space in the next Freddy built for him and hoists his laptop on his knees. "We gotta pick something to watch."

When Evan finally sits down and gets settled with at least two blankets wrapped around his shoulders, he checks the laptop screen to see Gregory browsing an array of TV shows on some streaming service.

Gregory wrestles a hand out from underneath the blankets to point at one. "That one okay?"

Evan laughs at bit, making a miserable noise when his nose begins to clog up. "Yeah. Watching a baking show when your aunt isnt home and we cant get out of bed to make anything is a great idea."

Gregory huffs, and Evan cant see his face, but he imagines he's making one. "No I wont." He says. "My aunts cupcakes are better than any of these people could make."

Evan wiggles a bit, letting his body relax fully into the bed. Gregory's shoulder is pressed against his, and a bit of his hair is touching his forehead. "Stop." He laughs. "You're gonna make me want some."

Gregory laughs, pressing play and clicking on the first episode of a random season. When the episode starts playing and introducing contestants, he makes grabby hands at Evan. Evan just pulls his arm out of the blanket cocoon hes wrapped in and hands him a bag of chips, grabbing crackers for himself.

"This is a Halloween show." Evan points out. "Its January."

"This one is funny though." Gregory replies on the other side of the pillow, sniffling. "They have to carve stuff out of big pumpkins for like, a setting for their food."

Evan's brows raise. "Oh."

Theres this girl that says shes in the show because shes alone and wants to win the prize money for herself and to show everyone that she can do it. Shes one of the only people in the roster who doesnt have a partner or kids at home. Evan thinks hes rooting for her. Theres another guy who looks like hes fresh out of school and says he wants the prize money to start his career and open his own location.

"I'm rooting for him." Gregory says after munching on a handful of Lays. "I want to see how far he gets."

"You just pick the ones that look like theyll struggle so you can feel bad for them." Evan points out.

"I pick the ones who might struggle to watch how they fare against everyone else." Gregory corrects. "Its fun. The skill of watching reality TV is one you havent yet learned, Evan."

Evan scoffs a bit, laughing, and Gregory shifts next to him. "You'll learn as you watch." Gregory tells him. "Trust me."

So after that, Evan just stays quiet and watches. Gregory makes comments now and then, and then later complains about how his throat feels like sandpaper. Evan watches people rush around the kitchen and sketch elaborate sets for their food to be showcased in and carve faces and bodies and animals into pumpkins.

The judges are harsh and kind at the same time. A team's food gets burnt. Some come out perfect. A team gets pounded by the judges and the team the the guy Gregory is rooting for is on is the same the girl Evan's rooting for is. Their team wins the challenge and gets an advantage.

By the end of the first episode, Evan thinks he understands why Gregory watches so much. "Wow." He says just above a whisper, the prickling throat having finally set in all the way. Having nothing to focus on and away from how crap he feels makes him groan in misery, and Gregory isnt far behind him to follow.

"Anthony needs to step it up to impress the judges." Gregory manages in-between sipping at the bottle of water by his bed. "He almost screwed up the decoration."

Evan rolls his eyes, and thinks about how proud winning a challenge made the girl he's rooting for proud of herself. It makes him happy.

"I just want to see what happens next." Evan says, smiling. "I've never watched a lot of TV like this."

"You're missing out." Gregory replies. "Its fine. We can catch you up during our little quarantine."

Their little quarantine. Evan smiles outwardly. That sounds fun. Even if being sick sucks.

Its right before the second episode that Freddy returns to Gregory's room, a big piping bowl of chicken noodle soup in his hands with about two entire hand towels wrapped around the bottom and two spoons stuck in the bowl. He puts a tall glasse of orange juice on the bedside table next to Evan, and the other on the window sill next to Gregory.

Evan unwraps his sore limbs from the cocoon and sits up on the bed, pushing his head with a pillow as he and Gregory use their legs as a table. "Thank you..." Evan says to Freddy, grateful but not without the layer of guilt underneath. "I appreciate it."

"Its no problem, Evan." Freddy smiles in that kind, genuine way of his that's never ever made Evan feel on edge or nervous. Evan grins when Freddy pats him on the head, and Gregory smiles when he does the same to him. "Now I'm sorry, you two," Freddy trails off, pulling a bottle of cough syrup out of an invisible pocket. "But medicine before food, please."

He and Gregory both make ick noises at that, making faces. Freddy laughs at them while he pours the medicine into individual spoons for the two of them, and Evan watches with a twisted lip. "It will make you feel better."

"It better if it tastes like that." Gregory sticks his tongue out. "They're trying to kill us."

"Quite the opposite." Freddy shakes his head, holding out the spoon for Gregory to take first. "Its better to just get it over with, Superstar."

Evan watches as Gregory twists his face into the most dreadful expression hes ever seen, and he cant help but smile in amusement when he makes a show at swallowing it down and making disgusted noises.

Evan takes his with much less more fuss, but his eyes water at the awful fake quote unquote 'grape taste'. He cant help the way his face scrunches up, and both Gregory and Freddy laugh at him.

"Evan," Freddy begins suddenly after capping the medicine and taking the spoons back. His voice sounds more serious, and Evan "I'm going to have to tell your family something about why you aren't home."

Immediately, Evan's stomach drops to his feet.

He must have reacted outwardly, because Freddy frowns. "I know." He says. "But it will be alright. I'll tell them exactly why you're staying over, and--" He cuts himself off, and Evan dares to acknowledge the faint clench in Freddys jaw. "Surely if anything they would not care more than they would be upset."

And Evan finds that Freddys right. He's so used to Michael being in his face all the time that he forgets that his Father is at best neglectful and at worst barely present in his life. If his Father were to react in any way other than a quick 'alright' to the call, it would be a thanks that Evan is out of his hair for at least a few days.

The thought alone tends tears to his eyes. He ducks his head, squeezing his eyes shut when the tears make his nose that much more clogged and his face from the fever that much more unpleasantly hot. "Just tell them that I'm staying the night instead of being sick."

Better to not say he's sick in case his Father suddenly catches onto the maybe lie and thinks more than Evan wants him to. Besides, he could deal without the extra attention from Michael.

Freddy looks like he wants to say something about that, but he doesnt. When Evan peeks up through his home-cut accidental bangs, Freddy just nods, choosing not to linger.

"Alright, Evan." He smiles reassuringly. "Do not worry about it, okay? I'll tell them exactly what you told me to. Just let me handle it."

Just let me handle it. Something about that lingers to him, and it sticks to the walls of his mind.

He's never had anyone to handle it for him before. He's never had someone to take the reigns in regard to his dad and brother to the point where Evan isnt involved. Where he went have to worry about it.

He nods after a few moments, and Evan almost tears up again at the patience. "Okay." He says simply, his voice cracking and rough. He swallows, and ignores the gravelly feeling. "Yes, I would... I would appreciate that. A lot."

Nobody says anything after that, but the silence in comfortable. Freddy just grabs the back of Evan's head and holds it to his chest in a hug, and does the same to Gregory. Gregory snakes an arm around Evan's back and holds him close.

They stay that way for another minute until they break apart, and Freddy smiles that comforting smile at him that's like a weight taken off of his shoulders. "I will handle it." Freddy says again, jerking his head towards the soup. "Now finish your soup, boys. It'll be good for your throat."

Then he shuts the door, and the room is silent. The only sound is Gregorys table fan he always has running and the faint sound of cars outside. The heater kicks on in the house, and the sunlight spills through the open window and casts onto their little bed nest as the only source of light.

Gregory leans back into the bed and gets comfortable, dragging Evan back with him when all he's doing is picking at a roque thread in the hem of his shirt. When Evan looks up, Gregory is smiling with dry, cracked lips, and despite looking like death, its warm.

He doesnt mention anything that just happened. He doesnt try to guess what Evan's deal is and try to help him like he usually does, and Evan's thankful. Gregory seems to understand that now isnt one of the times to do that.

So Evan let's it go. And when Gregory gestures the the soup and nudges Evan's spoon closer to him, Evan just starts eating.

They're back to commentating the show in now time. The soup is only warm instead of hot now, but it still soothes their throat, and the steam clears up their sinuses some. Gregory keeps cracking jokes about the contestants and making fun of the corny host, and Evan laughs along with him, drinking orange juice when his throat prickles.

They marathon the season until the sun passes over the house and all that's left is the dim white sky of winter. The team with both of their favorites makes it to the finale.

The two teams fight over the biggest pumpkin. One of them is uncoordinated and theres a heated argument. Their pumpkin falls and breaks. The other splits up and finishes the pumpkin set in record time and completes their concept with no forks.

By the end, the team they both ended up rooting for wins, and Evan watches as the guy Gregory was rooting for gets his career started, and the girl he was rooting for talks about how she'll open her own bakery and she has friends for life now.

The soup is gone and the orange juice drained by the time the season is over. Gregory says theres eleven more available to watch.

Gregory puts on another season, and Evan burrows further into his little burrito and this time picks a contestant after the team's are decided to be against Gregory.

They watch a whole nother one, and halfway through, the sky outside darkens early like it does in winter, but despite the exhaustion from being sick, Evan wants to go another few hours.

Eventually, right near the finale, Evan and Gregory are forced to leave their blanket armor because Chica apparently came over at some point and baked them cupcakes as a suprise. She brings hot chocolate with her with peppermint sticks in them for their throats, and they eat through them like beavers with wood.

They dont move all day. They only get up to go to the bathroom at the end of the second season (Evan's team won, by the way) to brush their teeth, then they're back in their burrow-nest-fort without asking Freddy to get the air mattress.

Evan still feels like crap when he smushes his face into Gregory's pillow, but it's alright because they're in their little quarantine, and he's out like a light either way, looking forward to another season tomorrow.

ao3 link

[jrwiyuri]

Hate that I can remember what posts on here piss me off.. like Cmon I don’t need to think about that man

[zevranunderstander]

A thing ive been thinking about for years and years and years is. The Selection (you know those really mid hunger games ripoff books that everyone keeps joking about) has a core premise that is actually quite different and unique from hunger games and you could have gone off the hinges with this if you weren't an absolute centrist coward, with milquetoast, unreflected politics. but now I can't write this book that I am seeing in this story because I can't just rip off the premise of the book, you know??

[llimerrence]

gdi now i cant help but just imagine thomasin and a group of other teen girls all working on their sewing or fixing and all of them just keep picking on Tia, but you know Tia eventually gives in

the girls start squealing and giggling as Tia says something like "I'm not saying that it's true, but a man's skin does feel different." because that's how she would talk to them. just. implications even if they aren't true because she's trying to show off and the other girls just egg her on all the time.

they all know that tia is the most outspoken and most-likely-to-be-condemned. But that's why they love gossiping with her. but the second an adult or a boy walks by all of them instantly act all proper and like nothing happened. Full on discussing the proper techniques for hemming pants or some bull. like thomasin was the best at hiding her true nature, but teenage girls are teenage girls no matter the time period and they all go through rebellious periods and love to gossip and talk about boys

[ghostfacd]

MR. AND MS. SNOW | TOM BLYTH

PAIRING. tom blyth x fem!actress!reader

SUMMARY. where you’re one of the main characters for the ballad of songbirds and snakes and fans ship you with your co-star, tom blyth!

part two ~ part three

ynuser snow would be so boygenius cottage girl core if he wasn’t crazy!

tagged @/tomblyth, @/rachelzegler

view all comments

tomblyth boygenius what now?

user1 YES QUEEN INTRODUCE HIM TO BOYGENIUS

user2 she’s so unserious i love her hello

rachelzegler if only he wasn’t crazy 😔

iloveyn miss girl saying this as if she wasn’t his literal girlfriend and as crazy as him in the movie

➥ ynuser afraid you ate me up with that one 💔

➥ iloveyn OMG HI

tomblyth thanksgiving

view all comments

ynuser 🦃🦃

user3 hi bae

user4 are those.. yn’s hands.. in 3rd pic

➥ user5 WAIIIIT CAUSE…

yndaily miss yn in her new video with vogue! here are all the times yn mentioned tom blyth (you’re welcome) 🤭

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user6 girly was mentioning tom like 100 times in this video

user7 imma be sick

user8 if they’re not inlove i dont even know what they are

user9 they’re INLOVE YOUR HONOR

iloveyn HIM CALLING HER? HER TELLING US THAT HE TRIED CHEERING HER UP AFTER SEEING HER IN TEARS?

user10 yn avocot try not to mention tom blyth challenge failed

ilovetomblyth they never beating the dating allegations

ynsboyfriendreal who is this white man of the month and why is he with my gf

➥ iloveyn LMAOO REALL

tomblyth well, the jig is up! mr and ms. snow. dating this beautiful girl not only in the ballad of the songbirds and snakes but also irl (p.s yes, it was me calling her during the interview! sorry love!)

tagged @/ynuser

view all comments

user11 “love” im crying

user12 siri remind me to book a therapy appointment

user13 time to listen to phoebe bridgers and cry. a LOT.

ynuser “jig is up” you old man

➥ tomblyth well u love this old man

➥ user14 OH MY GOD???

rachelzegler finally! no more secrets!

user16 everyone going insane over this is so real

user17 casually drops bomb like rebels did at arena

➥ user18 SICKKK😭😭😭

[helenanell]

A Breath of Life || Challengers

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Part Two

Pairing(s) : Reader x Patrick – Reader x Art – Reader x Tashi (sort of.) 

CW: MDNI - 18+ : smut, rough / manhandling. Infidelity. Angst. A lot of yearning. (They all want each other, badly.) Manipulative behaviour. Minor spoilers for the film.

Notes: Female Reader (AFAB Reader) - Absolutely no use of y/n, (because I despise it, sorry)

Wordcount: 9.7K

Summary: You met Tashi in your final year of high school and were more than happy to have lost a tennis match against her. Afterwards, the two of you become inseparable and you find yourself feeling for her in a way that you don’t quite understand.And then things get even more complicated when Patrick and Art burst into your lives. As the years pass, desire, love and hatred all get tangled together...and so do the four of you.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

The idea of meeting Tashi Duncan had been much more intimidating than the actual event itself. It was an odd thing, to idolise someone who was the exact same age as you—a girl not yet out of high school and still so chronically unsure of herself and the world—but it was impossible not to. 

You had watched every single match of hers that you could, staring for so long at the way she moved, that you were left with the afterimage of her burned into your eyes: She was in your thoughts constantly and always waiting behind your eyes when you closed them hoping for sleep. 

You were brilliant at tennis, you knew that you were. But Tashi played like it was the only way she could take oxygen into her lungs; each serve and shot an inhalation and exhalation. You understood, because you felt something similar.

For a long time, you had been ignored or dismissed in every aspect of your life, by everyone. But then you had found tennis, and you were really fucking great at it. 

 Tennis saved your life by making you undeniably tangible. Your existence could not be disputed when someone had to react to your movements, to receive something you had offered. 

It was no wonder then, that for as long a match lasted you were unhealthily obsessed with whoever it was that you were playing against. They made you real. 

But then you played Tashi. You had lost, of course, but it had been a close match, neither of you dominating for long before the other gained the upper hand once more. The gasps from the crowd had been the swelling of some great tide, breaking against your flesh and reinvigorating you like freezing water. 

Once it was over, you felt bereft of something vital. You felt as though you had slipped back into non-existence, only this time it was worse than ever, because your connection to Tashi Duncan was gone. 

But your body remembered. It ached and throbbed, rebelling at all you had put it through- no. All Tashi had put it through. You were desperate to feel it again. 

And your prayer was answered. 

She appeared before you like an angel.

Tashi jogged over to you as you gathered your things after the match, flushed and with beads of sweat glistening on her skin like crystals. And her eyes…they had been wide and dark and enrapturing. And then she had said the words that would change the trajectory of your life: 

“So, when can I play you again?”

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Ruah is the Hebrew word that means God’s spirit, but it is also breath or air and is widely understood to be God’s presence in the world. 

You couldn’t remember when you had learnt the word, but you knew that in the Bible, God had created Adam by breathing life into him. Which was why, when anyone joked about Tashi Duncan being some kind of deity, you could not dispute it, because that is what she had done to you. 

Tashi had breathed life into you.

 Her presence in your life has allowed you to come alive even off the court: you finally felt like a real person. Thanks to her, you knew that when you put your racket down, you did not simply disappear. 

Tashi saw you, on and off the court, and you loved her for it.

But, by the time you were both accepted into Stanford, over a year after you’d first met, you still wouldn’t let yourself delve into that love, and work out the ways in which you felt it. Not only because, you’d only ever been drawn to guys in any romantic or sexual way, but also because you felt undeserving of her.

 How pathetic would it be for you, who crawled at your best friend’s feet, to look up and whimper out words of desire to her?

 You were blessed to have her in your life, let alone to be as close with her as you were. Love was so many disparate things; you could love her as a friend, and hold that carnal aspect deep down. Just having her in your life was more than enough. She was enough.

Or so you thought. 

At the party celebrating Tashi, the two of you had not yet left each other’s side. You were dancing together, close enough that you could feel the ecstasy of victory buzzing beneath her skin as she held your hands and pulled you close. Her hair was silken and flowing down her back and as you were tangled up with her, it tickled against your own exposed skin. 

“They’re still staring.” You whisper into her ear, laughing as she answers by twirling you around and then pulling you back in. 

You practically fall into one another, having to steady yourself by placing your hands on her hips, the beaded fabric of her dark blue dress digging into the palms of your hands. 

“Good.” Tashi answers, wrapping her arms around your shoulders.

She turns you enough that with your chin resting on her shoulder, you are looking right at the two boys who had been gawking all night. One dark haired with confidence coming off him in waves, the other more reserved, a different kind of potency bubbling beneath the surface.

The blonde’s eyes meet yours and he tilts his head, offering a delicate but untethering smile. 

“You’re going to have to talk to them.” You offer, still held in Tashi’s arms. “Otherwise they’re going to follow you around like lost puppies all night.”

You gasp and squirm away as your friend playfully pinches your side.

 “Do you really think they’re just looking at me?” Tashi questions incredulously.

You laugh at her shock. “Of course they are.” You say, gesturing up and down her form as she continues to sway to the music. 

“Oh my God!” Tashi exclaims, grabbing your hand and pulling you close again. “You’re such a fucking idiot! They’re looking at you, too!” 

You roll your eyes, but can’t help feeling a little buoyed at the prospect of being desired. “Yeah, right.”

Tashi shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re so oblivious, I like having you all to myself!”

Heat floods every part of you, acutely aware of the sweat trickling down the back of your neck, your skin uncomfortably warm. 

Only when the two of you have stopped dancing do they come over. 

Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig saunter needfully into your life and had you known then all that would ensue, you still would have welcomed their approach. 

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

The four of you had wandered down to the beach. 

Art and Patrick were sitting on deck chairs that sat side by side, their legs stretched out and their gazes lustful, both of them looking at Tashi who was perched on a rock opposite them. In that moment, the moon seemed made only for her, the silver light lining her form. 

You sit on the sand near her, your legs pulled up to your chest. The waves softly hit the beach behind you, lulling you into an even more incorporeal mindset. All that exists to you, is Tashi and the two boys who so clearly want her. 

Despite how desperately you want to engage in their conversation, you’re exhausted and distracted by the knowledge that your parents will already be looking for you. 

You’ve rested your chin on your knees, your eyes drooping shut, when a voice calls out to you. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

 Art is crouching beside you, his hand on your back, his knees sinking into the sand, shifting the surface beneath you. You jolt at the contact, scrambling to your feet as Tashi chuckles.

 Patrick’s gaze flits between you and Art and then over to your best friend, his cheeks dimpled with a smirk. 

“I’m fine.” You reassure with a shaky smile, brushing sand off the back of your dress. “I should go though, my parents will be waiting.” 

“You can’t leave!” Patrick protests playfully, placing a hand to his chest. “You’ll break my heart.”

You grin, spurred on by his own smile and shrug. “And why should I care about that?”

Patrick’s mouth drops open in feigned hurt as Art chuckles, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from you. 

You turn to Tashi, meaning to say goodbye, but she’s already up and hugging you. She often kisses your cheek as a form of goodbye, but this time she gets so close that her lips tease the corner of your mouth as hers make contact. You are electrified by it.

You know that she isn’t doing it for you, which is confirmed when she pulls away with her eyes flitting giddily between Art and Patrick who have both gone utterly still as they watched the display. 

 Despite the jealous ache that blooms, you play into it, because another part of you is excited at the thought of working the two boys up. You pull Tashi back into a hug, your hands resting dangerously low on her back as you squeeze her. She giggles into your ear. 

“You already have them wrapped around your little finger.” You say it quietly, but loud enough that you know the boys will hear. 

Over Tashi’s shoulder, you see Patrick smirk again and Art runs his thumb over his his bottom lip with a small smile on his face.

When you do finally pull away, Tashi smacks you on the ass. 

“It was great to meet to you!” Art shouts after you. 

“I miss you already!” Is Patrick’s shouted offering.

You just shake your head and continue on your path away from the beach.

Unbeknownst to you, three sets of eyes follow you until you’ve disappeared from view.

When you get home, you still feel the touch of Tashi all over you. But when your hand dips under the covers, something has changed. Because when you close your eyes, it’s not just Tashi you see. Instead, multiple people are fighting for dominance in your midnight fantasy:

You see Patrick’s licentious smirk.

You see Art’s coy smile. 

They’ve both invaded your mind, corrupted your thoughts that for a year had been so gloriously void of anything but Tashi.

And from that moment, you know part of you will always hate them. For so long, even knowing you can’t have her, all you’ve needed to sate yourself are thoughts of Tashi. But they’ve changed that.

You hate Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson because they’ve made you want more. You want….one of them. You don't know why and you also don’t know which one of them it is. 

But what is clear to you, is that a new itch has arisen within you, and it comes with panic, because unlike with Tashi, you’re certain there’s a possibility that one of them might actually want to scratch the itch for you.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Had he known how furious you were going to be with him when you arrived, you doubted Art would have been so eager to invite you to have lunch with him in the cafeteria. 

Even when you slam your tray down and drop into the seat opposite him, he still looks happy to see you. He always did. It was infuriating.

“What are you playing at, Art?” You struggle to keep your volume down. You hadn’t wanted to yell at someone in a long time, but he had managed it.

Concern flashes in his eyes, but his lips press together in a way that tells you he knows exactly what you’re referring to. And yet he still asks:

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re fucking with Tashi’s head.”

“I would never do that.”

You scoff, stabbing the flimsy plastic fork into your salad. “Except you are, and I know that you’re doing it on purpose.”

Art pushes his own tray to the side and settles his elbow onto the table, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah, how’d you figure?”

“Why else would you tell her that Patrick doesn’t love her?”

“Because I don’t think he does. Do you?”

You ignore his question, instead opting to pick up your apple and throw it at his head, hard. He catches it, that damnable little smile still on his face. 

“For fuck sake, Art!” You erupt. “She needs to keep her head on straight. Don’t upset her just because you want her for yourself!”

He tilts his head, blue eyes sparkling as he takes a large bite out of the apple. He chews for a bit before holding it back out to you, speaking through a mouthful:

 “You should have the rest of this, you haven’t been eating enough.”

“Fuck you!” You snatch it from his hand and shift in your seat, easily throwing it and landing it right in a nearby trashcan.

“Well that was a waste of perfectly good fruit.” Art licks some residue off his thumb and then leans across the table. 

You fail to snatch your wrist away before he grabs it. He’s gentle but firm, and as his thumb rubs along your pulse point, you feel the residual moisture from his own mouth he’d left behind, transferring to your skin.

“You don’t have to fight this hard to protect her,” Art presses. “She’s a grown woman.”

“She’s my best friend and I don’t want you to hurt her.” 

Art’s thumb stills, but he tugs your wrist a little closer. “Do you really think I could?” 

You scowl, pulling free of his hold. “You know, the way you and Patrick worship her isn’t the compliment that you both seem to think it is. You’re putting her up on a pedestal, practically deifying her, but she’s not invulnerable. She feels more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known and tennis is her life. If you get in her head and fuck up her game, It will break her and then I will break your fucking hands.”

This time when he’s smiles, it’s rife with fondness for you and it makes you want to punch him for the fluttering it causes in your stomach.

“You didn’t answer my question.” He says simply.

“What?”

“Do you think Patrick loves her?” Art repeats patiently. 

“Do you love her, Art?” 

“Can you please just answer my question?”

“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I’m not even sure I would know love if I saw it. All I do know, is that you both lust after her and definitely for each other too, even if you’ll never admit it. You’re all totally fucked.”

Art’s jaw clenches, the muscles ticking, but instead of irritation or anger at your outburst, his gaze softens. When he speaks, it is soft and achingly tender:

“You do know love. Because you love Tashi.” 

You let out an embittered laugh. “Of course I do. I tell her all the time.”

“But she doesn’t love you, not in the same way.”

You really didn’t know if he intended for that to sting, especially not with how gently he’d said it, but if he had, he’d failed. You came to accept that fact a long while ago, and while you would always want Tashi in some respect, it was not the all consuming desire it had been. The lust was gone. She was important to you. She was your best friend and you wanted to protect her. 

Unfortunately, the two men you wanted to protect her from, were the ones who had usurped her as objects of desire in your mind.

“Are you trying to find yourself a catchphrase before you go pro?” You sneer at Art. “I’m not sure how great that would look on a billboard for Adidas.”

“You deserve to be loved.” 

You had picked up your cup to take a drink of water, but upon hearing his words, you slam it down again and rise to your feet. He tracks your every move, as calm as ever.

 “I can’t talk to you right now, Art. You’re being cruel.”

You storm away from the table, only making it a few steps before you hear the scrape of his chair against the floor as he rushes to follow you.

 You’ve only just pushed open the door when he crowds up behind you. 

Art’s hand lands on your back as he guides you outside, his other hand rests on your arm and even after he turns you to face him, his touch remains.

 His hand is wrapped lightly around your arm, the other keeping you close- his palm pressed against your lower back. Anyone watching would think he was drawing you into an embrace. You almost shudder at the contact.

 Patrick has always been handsy, touching and caressing you under the guise of teasing, but Art has always moved around you as though you’ll disintegrate at the lightest touch. The way he’d held your wrist back in the dining hall and how he cradles you now, is the most he’s ever touched you.

 Your chest heaves as your flesh tingles.

Art’s head drops, his eyes on his own hand on your arm, as if he can’t understand why he’s holding you. His voice is strained:

“Patrick isn’t good for her.”

And just like that, you’re slammed mercilessly back down to earth. 

Art wasn’t touching you with tenderness or affection, you were just someone he was holding in place so that you had to hear him out. So you had to hear how much he wanted Tashi. 

“Oh, but I deserve to be thrown at him as a distraction so that you can have her?” You snap at him, more hurt than you’ll ever admit.

“You deserve whatever it is that you actually want.” 

Art sounds frustrated now, not at you…but perhaps at what he knows you won’t say. You do want Patrick. But you also want him. You had just never considered that he knew that.

But that’s not what you say. Instead you say–

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Do you want to know why he isn’t good for her?” Art presses, entirely unaffected by your fury.

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

The hand on your back pulls you a little closer, one errant blonde curl falls down from his forehead and brushes your temple. His breath is hot against your cheek. 

“Patrick’s not good for her-“ Art begins, his tone becoming embittered. “Because he wants you. He always has.” 

You rip free from Art’s grip with such force that the friction of it burns, his fingerprints leaving red marks on your arm. “You are unbelievable!” 

“I’m not lying. You know I wouldn’t, not to you.”

“You will say anything to have her won’t you?” You laugh nastily. ���What’s the plan, Art? Do you think that I’ll try and seduce Patrick away from her now, leaving a space open for you to swoop in?” 

“Ask me how I know.”

“No.” You spit back at him. 

But you don’t move. 

Your body waits for words that your mind doesn’t think it can handle hearing. Something feels so close to breaking and you can’t help but feel like it’s to do with whatever force binds the four of you together. 

Art steps forward, closing the distance again, he raises his hands and rests them on either side of your neck, his thumbs pressing onto where your pulse is ratcheting beneath your fragile skin. 

“I know he wants you, because the night after he won our match- when he won Tashi’s number- he told me that I should fuck you.”

“Art.” You warn, frustrated tears bringing horrible pressure behind your eyes.

A small group comes out of the dining hall and have to split down the middle, because neither of you move a muscle. Art’s hold tightens, like he’s trying to leave a permanent imprint behind without it hurting you. 

He whispers now. “Patrick told me to fuck you. And I know him. He said that because when he couldn't have you, it excited him to think that I would. That I'd tell him about sleeping with you.”

“That was such a long time ago.” You say shakily, coming completely unmoored.

But Art won’t let it go.

“He still looks at you the same way, and that’s not fair to Tashi. You want to protect her, right? Well what will it do her when she finally notices the way her boyfriend is constantly eye-fucking her best friend?”

You hit out against his chest with a closed fist. The shock more than the force makes him stagger back. 

“You are so fucked in the head! You and Patrick are both pathetic little leeches who want the same girl, but can’t cope with the way it’s made them realise that they also want each other. You know what? I actually think so much would be solved, if you and Patrick just fucked each other!”

You start to back away and Art darts forward, trying to grab you again, but you smack his hand away and turn your back.

“Leave me alone, Art! And leave me out of your shit!”

He calls out your name with ragged desperation, but he does not follow. And even though he’s truly made your skin crawl, something about that makes you even more furious. 

Why won’t he follow you? 

Why do you still want him to?

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You hadn’t spoken to any of them since your argument with Art. 

You couldn’t cope with the realisation that if any of them ever did feel any desire for you, it was only because they saw you as some sort of vessel through which they could access parts of the person that they truly wanted.  

You couldn’t even be said to exist in Tashi’s shadow anymore, you had simply been subsumed by it. Those two men, who you both despised and wanted desperately, would never see you, not really. To them, you were just part of her. But you would not let them ruin your friendship with Tashi. You just wouldn’t.

You knew when you arrived to watch her match that something wasn’t right. She was upset. You could see it in all the minutiae of her: in the way she took off her hoodie, in the way she picked up her racket. Something was really wrong. 

You walk through the stands until you come across Art. 

There are two free spaces to the right of him, so you sit down on the one furthest away, leaving a gap in the middle for Patrick to take up when he arrives. But then time passes and the match approaches and he still hasn’t materialised. 

You feel Art staring long before he makes his move. The air shifts as he shuffles over into the seat directly beside you.

“That seat is taken.” You intone harshly. Your eyes are fixed on Tashi as she prepares. 

“If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to sit in it.” 

“Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don’t want you anywhere near me, so I want Patrick to sit there instead of you.”

Your name is a tentative as he speaks it. “Will you please look at me? I can’t handle you not looking at me.”

Your gaze remains set on Tashi, she looks up and finds you in the crowd. The furious divot between her brow eases for a moment before her eyes snag on the way that Art is leaning into you. She turns her back on the entire crowd, but you know the gesture is meant for you alone. 

Fuck. What the hell had happened overnight? If it was Art’s meddling, you’d kill him. 

“The match is about to start.” You say coldly. 

 Art’s hand lands on your knee, but when you flinch, he immediately pulls it away. 

“I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. I- I need you to forgive me.”

You grit your teeth at his audacity. “Why do you need me to, Art?”

“Because I can’t stand the thought of you not being in my li-“

The match begins and Art never gets to finish his sentence. 

In fact, you don’t speak to him properly for almost a decade after that. Because Tashi gets hurt. Her sporting career ends in the blink of an eye and takes your friendship with it.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Both you and Art had sprinted down onto the court, your heart breaking in your chest as you fell to your knees beside your best friend, tears gathering in her eyes as she whimpered in pain. 

What had hurt the most though, was the way Tashi had shoved your hand away when you had tried to comfort her.

“Don’t touch me!” She had barked on a ragged breath. “Get away from me. Get away!” 

The hatred had dripped from her words and landed on you like a corrosive liquid. And as it had burned down to the bone, you had looked at Art and the apologetic agony with which he’d regarded you—even as he’d cradled Tashi’s head in his hands—told you what he’d done.  

He’d not only told you about Patrick’s supposed lust for you, but he’d also told Tashi. He had told her that even after her now boyfriend had won her number, he’d apparently been thinking about fucking you. Art had also definitely shared his little insight that Patrick didn’t love her either, which you quickly worked out had contributed to his absence.

So Art got what he wanted: he finally had his hands on Tashi and he’d done it by carving you and Patrick away. 

Art Donaldson was an attentive, gentle, even needy man, but you had been so stupid to think that meant he couldn’t also be calculated and cruel. Because of course he was. What else could win the heart of Tashi Duncan but brutal passion? It was part of what she loved about tennis: the unforgiving force of hits that once you met them, somehow felt like affection.

When Patrick had tracked an injured Tashi down, still waiting to be taken to hospital, he had been ordered away by both her and Art.

You knew that because he’d just told you. It was the first thing he’d said to you when you’d let him into your room fifteen minutes earlier.

Now, you were both sitting on the scratchy carpet of your dorm, passing a bottle of vodka between the two of you. 

You felt bereft. Your body wracked with sympathetic pain for the grief in your mind. You’d lost Tashi today, you knew that. And the man that had caused it, was a man you’d spent years yearning for. 

Art hadn’t only taken Tashi from you, but he’d violently ripped himself away too.

“Art wasn’t lying.” Patrick grumbles after taking another hearty gulp of vodka. 

“Please, don’t.” You beg wearily, taking the vodka from his outstretched hand and pressing it to your lips. Not even the burn of the spirit going down your throat registers.

“I wanted- want, both of you. You and Tashi.” 

He isn’t drunk, only tipsy, but he’s getting there, and his words are sluggish, laced with fury. 

“Shut up, Patrick.”

You fall down onto your back, resting the vodka bottle on your stomach, holding it by the neck as you stare up at the ceiling. 

Patrick has been sitting opposite you, but he moves languidly forward, crawling up over your body. He braces one knee beside your hip as the other slots between your legs. 

You blink up at him as one of his hands rests beside your head and the other falls over your own where it still holds the vodka bottle. You let him take it from you, placing it beside your body before the hand then moves to rest on the other side of your head. 

You’re now trapped beneath him, his lithe body hovering just above yours.

When he leans in, his alcoholic breath almost sears your skin as his lips brushed the shell of your ear. 

“Sometimes, when we were fucking I would imagine that you were with us.” Patrick’s teeth nip at your ear. “I asked her once, you know, and she slapped me. Called me a pig. I think she was just mad because she liked having you to herself. You were such a devoted acolyte, kissing the ground she walked on—“

Fury bursts within you like a solar flare, red-hot and ruinous. He was talking about her in the past tense, as if she was dead to both of you already.

Art groans in pain when you knee him in the balls. You use the chance to shove him off you and he falls to the side, knocking the bottle of vodka over. 

As you stand up, you feel the alcohol seeping into the carpet at your feet. 

“You are a pig.” You hiss down at him.

 It’s your room, but you find yourself storming towards the door. 

You don’t get far before Patrick recovers, clambering to his feet and easily closing the distance with his long legs. 

You groan in frustration as he presses you into the door, one hand above your head and the other wrapping around your torso, his fingers dangerously close to brushing your breasts over your tank top. 

“If I’m a pig, why did you let me in?” He pressed his face into your neck and breathes you in.

 Some of the vodka has evidently soaked into his shirt, because the scent seizes you with the same violence with which he had. It’s a secondary intoxication. 

You words come out weakly, and you hate that it’s because you’re using so much energy fighting the urge to press back into him:

“I felt sorry for you.”

Patrick laughs. 

The smug bastard actually laughs right into your skin, the vibrations travelling all the way down to where your body has begun to ache the most. 

“Oh, sure.” He coos patronisingly. “It definitely wasn’t because you’ve wanted to fuck me for years.”

You should fight him, but you don’t want to. 

You should protest when the hand that he has pressed to the door moves to pull down one of the straps of your tank top. But you simply don’t want to.  You want him. 

Art had been right about both of you.

No sooner has the thin strip of fabric been removed from your shoulder, than Patrick is clamping his teeth down on the exposed flesh. You yelp in surprise, the pain a burst of sordid pleasure. 

Patrick laughs again, the hand he has pressed to your stomach pulling you flush against him. You can feel his need for you pressing into your backside, but in case you had somehow missed it, he bucks his hips up into you. 

You gasp and he laughs again, his tongue now running over the aggravated skin where his teeth have left a dent.

“We both know what this is.” He goads.

“And what is it?” You ask teasingly, your head now thrown back and resting against his chest. He groans into your neck as you grind yourself back onto him. 

“Inevitable.”

“Are you just doing this to get back at them?” You ask, not daring to speak their names. 

An angry grumble you can’t quite make sense of tears out of Patrick’s throat just before he is forcefully spinning you around. 

You get barely a glimpse of his feral smirk before he is easily picking you up again and throwing you over his shoulder. The slap he delivers to your ass is punishing and stings furiously as he practically throws you down onto the carpet.

The bed is right next to you, but the asshole apparently wants you on the scratchy carpet and with a wet patch where the vodka has soaked in.

“I’m doing this, because I have wanted to fuck you, from the moment I saw you dancing at that party.”

 You’ve barely got your breath back after being thrown about, when he is grabbing your calf and yanking you down so that you’re laying completely flat beneath him. 

“But you only ever pursued Tash-“ 

He cuts you off from saying her name by leaning down and pressing his mouth to your still clothed breast. His tongue swirls over the fabric, your nipple growing pert. 

When his knee presses up between your legs, parting them forcefully, your head falls back, strands of your hair wetted by the spilt alcohol. 

When Patrick bites down on your chest far too hard, your hand instinctively comes up to slap the side of his head.

 You’re so shocked by your own burst of violence that you go still at exactly the same time as Patrick, both of you breathing furiously. When he does peer up at you, his dark curls slick against his increasingly sweaty forehead, menace dances in his eyes. 

“Do that again.” 

You wish you could have feigned confusion or indignation for even a moment, but your blood is pumping to all the right places to urge you to make terrible, delightful decisions.

 Your second slap connects cleanly with his cheek, your palm tingling with the force as his head spins to the side. 

Your handprint is already a pink mark on his skin when he wraps his arms around your torso, lifting you up just enough so that he can pull your tank top off and throw it to the side. Your chest is left bare to him and he wastes no time before peppering kisses to your sternum, to your breasts and your neck, his arms still wrapped around you, his nails digging into your back. 

The throbbing ache between your legs becomes far too much to bear, so you curl your fingers into his hair and forcefully tug him away from your chest- a bead of saliva stretching between your flushed skin to his swollen lips. 

You lean your head forward, taking his bottom lip between your teeth and biting, pulling at it until he groans pathetically. You let him go, beyond pleased when you don’t have to tell him what you want next. 

You don’t want to wait any longer. You haven’t slept with anyone since you met him and Art. 

Art.

 Is it wrong that as Patrick pushes your back into the carpet and pulls down your sweatpants and underwear in one clean tug, that you close your eyes and briefly imagine that it’s Art instead?

You might have found an answer if you had more time, but when you open your eyes, Patrick is over you, his shorts and boxers already discarded alongside your clothes. His shirt is still on, but neither of you have the patience for the second or so it would take to get it off him. 

Patrick smirks down at you before pressing two of his fingers into your mouth, you open gladly, your eyes locked onto each other as he swirls them around. When he’s satisfied, he pulls his fingers out, and then licks his own hand, mixing himself with you. 

He swipes his wet hand over your already slick core a few times before he’s pressing himself inside of you. Your arms curl around his neck as you wrap your legs around his waist. 

“Fuck.” He groans, his tongue licking up the side of your neck as his hips begin to move. 

“Patrick.” You plead, your fingers digging into the nape of his neck. 

He knows what you want, nipping at your neck before he is driving into you with bruising force. 

In that moment, as you’re joined in the way you’ve wanted since the moment you’ve set eyes on him, you realise thar Tashi isn’t the only person that can make you feel real. 

As Patrick drives into you–his lips and teeth leaving marks on your flesh that will be wine-dark by morning, and the horrible fabric beneath you leaving carpet burn on your back– you finally know more than tennis can make you feel alive. 

The sex is forceful and punishing, but fuelled by a genuine passion. Nothing but your intermingled breaths and the sound of your joined bodies fills the room. 

If the two of you hadn’t been so lost to your pleasure, you might have heard Art knocking on your door. But you didn’t. 

He did however hear the two of you, so he walked away. 

You wouldn’t speak to him or Tashi again for over ten years.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You weren’t in New Rochelle to compete. You didn’t need to. You were on the top of your game, ranked the third best female player in the world. 

No, you were in New York because despite your better judgement-- and the many years that had passed since you’d last seen him--when Patrick Zweig had called you, you’d answered. 

You hadn’t heard his voice since you had told him that for your own sanity, you couldn’t see him anymore.

For the two years you had been together after Tashi had banished you both from her life, you had let Patrick consume you. And you had never played tennis so poorly in your life. 

You hated what that said about you, that you had willingly discarded someone you had genuinely cared for to improve your ability to hit a ball. But hitting that ball was what kept you alive, not him. 

Not only that, it hadn’t taken you long to realise that you didn’t love Patrick enough to let him affect your career.

And yet when he had called, you’d answered. And when he’d told you that Art Donaldson had entered the Challenger as a wildcard, you both knew that you would come. 

From the moment you had booked the flight, to the first step you’d taken into the hotel, you had lied to yourself that you were only coming for the closure that you hadn’t received as a twenty year old. 

But when you stepped into the hotel lobby and saw Tashi disappearing into the nearby elevator, your self-deception shattered. 

You were here because still, after all the time that had passed, you ached for the way that you had felt when she had been in your life. You missed her. And you had missed Art. 

It was a sickening truth of your life, that while no one had fucked with your head or upset you as much as Art had ended up doing, no one else had ever been so attentive to you either. 

Art had watched you—watched out for you—even when you weren’t playing tennis. In fact, in moments of utter stillness, when you had been doing nothing even remotely remarkable, was when you had always caught him staring. He never shied away, or broke his gaze when he was caught, he’d just smiled as if he wanted you to know he would never feel shame for being found looking at you. 

And that had not changed.

You have been sitting at the hotel bar for ten minutes, feeling sorry for yourself and nursing the same glass of gin and tonic, when you feel someone looking at you. 

You turn your head cautiously, your shoulders sagging as your eyes meet Art’s. He’s sitting on one of the small leather couches tucked into the far corner of the darkened room. 

It had been an inevitability, but things would have been so much easier if you never came across him. 

You know you shouldn’t move- part of you had come for closure and you could get that just by watching him compete tomorrow, so you don’t need to talk to him. 

But then Art tilts his head and smiles at you like no time has passed and pats his hand on the unoccupied space beside him on the couch. 

You get down off the barstool.

 As you approach, he watches unflinchingly.

The last time you had heard Art’s voice, was when Tashi had suffered her injury and he’d been permitted to stay by her side when she had ordered you away.

And yet even after so much time, when he greets you with a quiet ‘hello’, the pathetic girl who had pined after him returns.

You don’t respond as you come to a stop right in front of him, the tips of your heels right against the toes of his shoes, but you make no move to sit down. 

It’s of course not the first time you’ve seen him since college, or been at the same event, or even in the same room- you’re both highly successful tennis players, you couldn’t help but overlap sometimes. But neither of you have ever allowed yourselves to get close, or to even speak. 

It has been over ten years of your eyes connecting through crowds and across rooms that felt much larger than they were, simply because there was distance between the two of you within them. 

Art sits forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He’s fiddling with his wedding ring and you can’t bear to look at the familiar way his fingers carry out the gesture. 

When he looks up at you, it's so open and wanting that you almost turn right back around. But then you hear his voice again.

“Can I ask you to sit with me?” 

“I don’t know Art, can you?” 

He smiles, sighing softly as he runs his hand through his hair. It’s short- much shorter than the curls he’d had at college. You like it. It suits him. 

You shift on your feet, crossing your arms across your chest to cover up your nerves. Perhaps you can protect yourself if you look like you’re closed off from him and from…whatever this interaction is about to be. 

Art doesn’t say anything else, but he surprises you by rising to his feet. You stagger back, but his hand reaches out and lands on your side to steady.

His touch lingers for a moment too long, but he does eventually pull it away.

 But he’s still close, too close.

Your hands have fallen to your sides, so it is too easy for Art to reach out and brush his fingers against yours. He doesn’t intertwine them, but he’s doing enough to let you know that it’s what he wants to do. 

He whispers your name. “Will you please sit with me?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Art.” 

“When have you ever known me to have one of those?” 

You smile ruefully, but take a step back. His hand chases you, his fingers brushing against yours again as he tries to take your hand. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve known anything about you.” You say, hating how sad it sounds. 

You should be angry at least. His meddling and his desire for Tashi is what ripped you all apart. And he has her now. They have a daughter together.

He doesn't get to ask you for anything, not even if it’s just to sit with him. 

You can’t trust yourself to sit next to him. 

“You do know me. Time can’t change that.” He insists, quietly but firmly. 

You scoff nastily. “I knew Art Donaldson when he was in college. The world famous tennis player who does AD campaigns for sports cars with his wife, is a stranger to me.” 

“Yeah.” Art laughs darkly. “He’s a stranger to me too.” 

You frown at him, growing angry. He seems exhausted and down-trodden. He’s clearly hurting and you hate that you know that—you hate that you‘d been able to tell that even from across the bar—because it means that he’s right: you do still know him. 

“It’s late, Art. You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

You turn away from him and while he doesn’t reach for you this time, he does call out. You keep you back to him as he asks his question. 

“Who do you want to win, me or Patrick?” 

“Tennis can’t decide a victor between the two of you, Art. It’s never been able to.”

When you walk to the elevator, you feel a physical strain as you stop yourself from looking back at him.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You were right, tennis couldn’t decide on a winner: it was as fickle and incomprehensible as the human heart. Which was fitting, seeing as Tashi had always described tennis as a relationship. 

You had sat only two places away from her during Patrick and Art’s match, and you know she had seen you. But there had been no reaction, her face had been impassive and set on the court, her eyes hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses. 

Now, the match was long over and a result had been given. And yet there hadn’t been a victory for anyone. Just like you knew there wouldn’t be.

Something had happened on that court between the two men, some silent, inexplicable exchange that had altered the very fabric of them.

This time, when Art knocks on your door, not only do you hear it, but you answer. 

You feel almost shocked when you pull open the door to reveal him, dressed in a grey t-shirt and flannel pyjama trousers. You’re surprised at the sight as if you hadn’t known he was coming- as if you hadn’t readily offered up your room number when he had messaged and asked for it.

You’re also somehow certain that Patrick had given him your number, but you didn’t want to dwell on what sort of exchange had led to him handing it over.

Without a word, you step away from the door, self-consciously tightening the cord that holds the silk robe around your body. You stop and face the windows.

The curtains are drawn, by you stare forward as though the whole skyline is on display to you. 

The door to your room clicks shut.

You hear Art take off his shoes before his feet are padding towards you. 

When his arms wrap around your waist, you close your eyes and savour the sensation. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, so you lift a hand and rest it on the side of his head. 

“I want to retire at the end of this year.” He says and you can feel his exhaustion in the slow breaths that coast over your neck. 

“So retire.” You answer softly, your eyes still on the curtains. “You’re tired.”

You know you don’t need to clarify. Thanks to the grateful press of his lips against your neck, you know he understands what you mean. 

Art is weary of all that he has to be when he’s playing tennis; he’s tired of the effort it takes to play the sport for not just him, but for Tashi too. His wife has been living vicariously through him. He’s been living for two people, taking the strain of two professional athletes combined. 

You know there had never been any point in competing with Art or Patrick, because Tashi would always love tennis the most. 

A shiver wracks your body as Art’s hand reaches for the bow that’s keeping your otherwise bare body concealed from him.

 “Can I?” His request is whined into your hair as he presses his face into the back of your head. 

Instead of answering verbally, you nudge his hand away and untie the robe yourself. Then, you take hold of both of his wrists and guide his hands onto your skin. You let out a sigh of relief when Art finally touches you the way you want him to. 

Your hands are still on him as his fingers move to cup your breasts, but he is the one guiding his movements now. He squeezes, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. 

“Art.” You rasp, pressing back into him wantonly. 

“Can I have you?” He asks, pressing open mouthed, hot kisses to your neck as he palms your breasts. “Please, let me have you.” 

“Stop fucking asking me and just do it.” 

You feel him grin against your neck just before he backs away, pulling back your robe and tugging it from your body.

The fabric has barely had time to pool at your feet when he’s grabbing you by the hips, his fingers digging in as he turns you. 

When Art’s lips finally claim yours, you moan unashamedly. His kiss is gentle but assured, you struggle for breath as he refuses to release you. Then, his hands are cupping your ass and he’s lifting you up. 

With his lips still moving hungrily against yours, Art settles you onto the edge of the bed. When he draws back, your lips chase after him and he smiles, grasping your face in his hands and giving you one more brief but searing kiss before he’s dropping to the ground.

 His hands press into your knees, forcing them apart as he begins to kiss and lick up your inner thighs. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching where his mouth ravenously meets your flesh, tracing his path as he works his way closer to where you want him most.

When he reaches the top of your thigh, Art peers up at you through his long eyelashes, already looking drunk on you as he presses another kiss to your burning skin. 

“Lay back.” He instructs gently. 

But you’re too transfixed to listen- too desperate to see the moment his lips land on your core to look away.

He smiles at the realisation, delighting in your shudder as his tongue darts out and licks a line up your centre. 

“Oh my- fuck!” Your head falls back, already lost in the feeling of his mouth's devoted ministrations. 

As Art pleasures you, one of his hands skates up your stomach and gently presses down, asking rather than forcing you to lay back. This time you oblige, your eyes closed as your hands fist in the sheets. 

“You deserve so much more than I can give you.” 

You smile to yourself. Only Art could grovel as he gives so much pleasure.

Tightness begins to coil in your lower belly, but the moment he adds a teasing finger to his tongue’s movements, you realise you can’t wait. 

“Art- stop.” You gasp out, sitting up and resting your hands on his head. 

He halts immediately but doesn’t remove himself from between your legs. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, his hands rubbing soothingly along your thighs. 

“It’s not enough.” You say, tugging on his hair, trying to get him to come to you. “I need you.” 

Art doesn’t have to be asked twice, but he also doesn’t rush. He presses one last kiss to your now very sensitive folds before he’s climbing over you. 

You shuffle back, settling yourself onto the middle of the bed and even as Art takes off his clothes, he watches you. It’s as if he’s afraid that you’ll disappear if he so much as blinks. 

Now completely naked, he lays himself over you, his arms braced beside your head. He positions himself so carefully thar it’s almost as though he’s trying to fit himself to the shape of you- every divot and curve perfectly aligned sp that you’ll be fused together forever. 

As Art sweeps hair out from your face, his blue eyes bore down into you with an adoring intensity. 

You smile up at him and he rewards you by cradling your face in his hands, he lowers his head, his nose brushing yours as he gently takes your lower lip between his teeth.

Only when you understand what he wants and you open your mouth, does he kiss you again, his tongue delving in deeply.

As he seeks to consume you, your hands run down his back, squeezing his sides with your thighs. 

Art’s still kissing you as one of your hands reaches the curve of his arse, you dig your nails in and he jolts, his mouth moving away from yours and travelling down your neck. 

Tentatively, you move one hand around and down between his legs and when your hand wraps around him, he falters, his kisses stopping. 

“Is this alright?” 

Art moves again, licking the sweat slick expanse of skin between your breasts.

“Anything you do will be alright.” He assures, his lips brushing a nipple and making your back arch. 

“Do you want to have sex, Art?” You ask, barely restraining yourself.

His breaths are hot against your sensitive breasts when he answers. “Please.”

It is a joint effort as he slides inside of you. You gasp, arms wrapping around his neck as he presses kisses into yours.

Art groans as he begins to move achingly slowly, his hips rolling over yours with precision. 

You're happy like that for a few minutes, both of you revelling in your closeness after years subjected to absent desire for one another. But eventually, you want more.

You yearn for more force and luckily as you buck up into him, Art gets the message.

 As one of his hands moves behind your head, cradling it so that he can keep kissing you, the other wraps around your thigh, and pulls your leg higher over his hip, allowing himself to get even deeper. 

“You’re so beautiful.” He says in-between sloppy kisses, moving rapidly as you moan and whine. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”

Even with him inside you, making you feel more desired than anyone ever has, your mind drifts to that first night you had met him. The first night you had met Patrick. 

“You stared at Tashi.” You say.

You aren’t accusatory or upset, if anything the acknowledgement if it turns you on more. All four of you have always had a desire for the other, and it feels powerful to finally acknowledge it.

“-That night on the beach, you couldn't take your eyes off her. Neither of you could.” 

“I wanted you.” Art asserts with a particularly powerful thrust. “I- I wanted you so badly, but you went home.”

You nod, pulling him in for another kiss as you meet his thrusts. 

You understand his thinking. You’d often wondered how things might have changed had you not gone home early that night. If you’d stayed on the beach and then gone to their hotel room along with Tashi. 

Entirely content with just moving as one, you both fall silent and somehow Art curls over you even more tightly, like he wants his whole body to hide yours from the world. 

After you’ve both found your release he takes you into the shower and cleans himself off of your sensitive skin, each swipe of the washcloth accompanied by a kiss.

It ends up being time wasted though, because when you return to the bed, he takes you twice more.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You wake up with Art’s head resting on your bare chest. He’s laying on his side, one arm stretched out on the pillow above your head and his other hand resting on your hip. 

You’re sore in the most pleasant of ways as you sit up. You try to move slowly but Art stirs anyway, his head turning to press open mouthed kisses to your sternum. 

You rest your hand on his cheek, meaning to guide him away, but he moves so that he can kiss the palm of your hand instead. 

It’s only when you sigh into his touch, his eyes still closed as his other hand delves between your legs, that you realise why you had woken up int he first place. 

Someone was knocking on your door. 

And then you hear her voice. 

Tashi is calling out your name, sounding almost panicked.

 “Please, open the door, I know you’re in there.”

This time when you push Patrick away, he obliges, but far less quickly than you would have liked.

 In the time it takes for you to throw on your silk robe and gather up all of his clothes from the floor, he has barely got himself to stand up. He’s naked and blinking sleepily at you. 

When you shove the bundle of his clothes into his arms, he rushes to press a passionate kiss to your lips, holding the back of your head with his free hand.

You aren’t sure you want to know whether he’s truly still half asleep and genuinely hasn’t realised what is happening, or if he just doesn’t care that his wife is outside the door.

Flushed but furious at his casual demeanour, you push Art into the bathroom and close the door, just as Tashi knocks again.

 The repeated request for you to come to the door tumbles from her lips like a prayer.

You brace your hand against the door as you draw in a fortifying breath and smooth out your hair. You swear you can feel her through the door. 

The moment you open the door, Tashi is bursting in and closing it behind her. You step back, waiting for her to make the first move, for her to shout of attack or go charging into the bathroom. But she does none of those things. 

Instead, Tashi pulls you into a crushing hug. You go still, shocked but healed by it at the same time.

She pulls back, taking your face in her hands.

 “You’re a phenomenal tennis player.” Tashi says it rapturously. 

If you weren’t burning up at the feel of her hands on you, you might have laughed at how ridiculously perfect it was that those were her first words to you after over a decade. 

Tashi communicated and connected through tennis. She loved through tennis.

All you can muster is a very sincere: “Thank you.”

Tashi brushes your hair out of your face, tucking a stray piece behind your ear. You find your hands lifting, resting atop hers where they hold your cheeks.

“You need to let me coach you.” Tashi demands almost possessively.

“I have a coach.”

“They’re not me.”

“No, they’re not.”

And just like that, you were snared again. 

You had gone years without any of them, and with one word, you had allowed all three of them back into your life.

 Only this time, you know it might actually kill you if any of them leave. And perhaps it would kill them too. 

Only time would tell.

[cherienymphe]

A Caged Bird (Coriolanus Snow x Reader)

WARNINGS: NON-CON, blackmail, stalking, abuse of power, hints of dacryphilia, slightly spoiler-esque

summary: Birds are best kept in a cage where one can see them...and where you know where they are at all times.

~

You thought that it was over when you won.

That’s what winning The Hunger Games meant, right? The psychological torture, the grueling conditions, and the fear that wouldn’t leave you until you finally left the arena was supposed to be over. You made it out through blood, sweat, and tears, and so your reward was to go home and reunite with your family and try your best to put the memories behind you.

Try your best to put him behind you.

So, why were you still being tormented?

When you first locked eyes with Coriolanus Snow, your first thought was how strikingly blue his were. Almost as if they weren’t real and had been specially manufactured in The Capitol for him, somehow. His hair, too, was just so much blonder than anything you’d seen in District 12, and again, you noted how so much about him seemed…artificial.

…but then he spoke…and the effect his voice had on you was very real.

“You don’t seem like you’re supposed to be here,” you’d said to him after stepping off of that train.

His response was expected, a charming chuckle leaving his pink lips, blond curls the perfect addition to his features.

“I’m not,” he slowly admitted.

The intensity behind his gaze whenever he so much as glanced at you was enough to make any girl’s heart race, and despite what you wished, you weren’t immune. He was beautiful—gorgeous as some of the other tributes and mentors liked to call him—and despite the initial intimidation, there was something about him that made you want to let your guard down.

…but he was your mentor…and a capitol citizen…and you were nothing more than his ticket to notoriety.

“Don’t you know who his dad was?” another tribute, one from one of the better districts, had said to you in a tone like you were stupid.

That was all the confirmation you needed, really.

…but he’d hopped onto the truck with you and gotten into that cage with you and brought you and your district mate food. He gave you poison to use against the other tributes. He wanted you to appeal to the audience so he’d have the funds to send you supplies. It was hard to decipher what was purely for show and what was just because he wanted you—and him by extension—to win. Perhaps, they were one in the same though, and it was impossible to have one without the other. Maybe it didn’t matter his reasons behind his desire to have his tribute win.

Maybe all that mattered was that you’d win.

…but that was when you thought winning meant you’d be free.

Coriolanus Snow was your best chance at winning, and so when the rebels rigged the arena, you didn’t hesitate to stay behind and save him. It wasn’t even a question in your mind because mentor or not, he was hurt, and you had to believe that that one fluke was not your only fighting chance. You couldn’t allow yourself to believe that in saving him, you’d allowed freedom to pass you by.

“You saved me,” he told you, a gentle brush of his handkerchief under your eye to catch your tears. “You saved me, and I am going to get you out of here.”

You had no idea then that he meant out of the games…and to him.

It was that flickering moment of doubt where you wondered if you could actually win, and you recalled what you’d said to him earlier about believing you could, how much you needed him to actually believe it. Now, you were the one doubting, and he could see it, blue gaze flicking over your face and soaking in the fear and uncertainty, because if you couldn’t win…

You’d die.

A lingering gaze and a tense atmosphere, and you felt yourself pulling back, realization hitting you as to just what you were about to let happen. It was hard to decipher who overstepped first, but you couldn’t allow yourself to get wrapped up in something that was only ever meant to be strictly professional. Coriolanus was your mentor, and you were his tribute.

That was all.

You didn’t know then the full lengths he went to just to ensure your victory. How could you? You were too busy trying to survive, trying to fight off rabid tributes and teenagers driven mad with the sole desire to just live. It was all so unfair and angering, and you were sure that with less focus, you might’ve gone insane too. You didn’t have the luxury to worry about your eerily handsome mentor and whatever ulterior motives he might’ve had to see you beat this thing.

So, when you did win, all you could feel was relief. All you could focus on was your family and their faces when you’d ultimately reunite with them. All you could even entertain were thoughts of pushing this very real nightmare to the back of your mind for as long as you possibly could. Initially, you didn’t even notice that you weren’t immediately reunited with your mentor when they crowned you as the winner and got you out of there.

At least, not until you came face to face with him in your own district.

“I thought they’d killed you. I didn’t know if my actions had come back on you too,” Coriolanus told you in a secluded corner, the loud music drowning out his words and the cover of darkness hiding your faces.

Those beautiful pale curls were gone, and any thought that so much of his beauty relied on his golden locks was gone too with one drink of him. He was still the same handsome boy that mentored you, the same one who’d garnered the nickname ‘gorgeous’ among the other tributes. Up on that stage, you’d been thrown to meet a familiar gaze, your harmonious tune pausing for half a second as he met your shocked stare with an expression of his own you couldn’t place, pink lips curved upwards ever so slightly.

Any question of how and why he was here had disappeared as you registered his words. Confusion filled you as you stared at him, a slight frown between your brows as you wracked your brain for how that could possibly make sense.

“Why would they kill me…?” you slowly asked him, and you and the shadows were all that was privy to his confession.

The water bottles, the handkerchief, and the snakes—even the poison. Coriolanus had cheated to secure your victory, broken rules that plucked him out of The Capitol and dropped him here in your very own district as a Peacekeeper. The shock you felt that your victory was far from a fair one warred with the confusion you felt as to why he’d risk everything just for you to win.

If you’d lost fair and square—as you probably should have—there was no doubt in your mind that he’d be safely tucked away in the lavishness of The Capitol instead of lingering about in some rundown excuse for a bar in lowly District 12. If he knew what awaited him should his treachery be discovered…then why chance it? Nothing about your brief tutelage with him could justify what he’d risked and ultimately lost.

You wanted to ask him why, but something in you was afraid of the answer.

That almost kiss—a kiss you hadn’t thought about in months—suddenly came to mind, and even though you didn’t ask him why, something in you knew why even if you wanted to deny it. It was there in the dim lighting and rowdy atmosphere of some rundown building that every minor interaction didn’t start to feel so minor.

Every brush of his hand against yours as he reached for you, the unsettling way he seemed to watch you in that short time that you’d simply written off as concern for his tribute, and the ruthless desire to see you out on the other side of the arena. The kiss that never was only seemed like a lapse in judgement to you then, but in this moment, you had suspicions that it was very much intentional.

You swallowed, realizing that in that brief internal introspection, Coriolanus hadn’t taken his eyes off of you once.

“Did they send you to District 12?” you finally asked him.

You didn’t know what gave you away. Perhaps your tone, maybe your face, or maybe your eyes weren’t as secretive as you’d like to believe. Either way, something about your visage and demeanor gave the blond man pause, head tilting just a tad as those baby blues glinted with something you didn’t recognize but you know you didn’t like. He studied your face before coming up with the answer he probably thought you wanted.

“Of course.”

You didn’t know if you believed him.

…and Coriolanus could tell.

You’d played enough cat and mouse games in the arena—you never thought you’d have to play them in your own home too.

Starving off the affections of some boy in your district wasn’t hard or uncharted territory. Even spurning the forbidden advances of a Peacekeeper or two wasn’t unheard of, but Coriolanus was different. He wasn’t some average Joe turned cop. He was born and raised in The Capitol with a powerful father, and even though the man had been taken before his time, your former mentor still had been brought up with the kind of influence and reach and mindset that surpassed the average Peacekeeper.

They were followers—controlled by The Capitol and tasked with maintaining order. Most were no more than dumb brutes, mindlessly following orders without question, simple enough to be bribed and swayed. If Coriolanus’ actions had shown you anything, it was that he was not a follower. He did what he wanted and played by his own rules, and it was how you found yourself hunted by a gaze you thought you’d left behind in the arena.

Since the discovery of your former mentor’s presence in your district, you never felt alone.

Every walk to trade for food felt shadowed, every footstep home was accompanied with an echo, and a sweep of your eye over the crowd as you played an instrument or sang a tune was rewarded with a familiar blue one that made your heart freeze. You were forced to ignore it no longer when a single rose was left for you on the doorstep, your ma’s gaze questioning as she held it out to you.

You didn’t know where or how he got it, but you only cared about giving it back.

“I can’t accept this,” you told him, gaze steady but fingers trembling as you held it out to him.

It was raining, and the cover over your heads sheltered you from the downpour, but it did little to drown out the sound of it. Coriolanus simply stared at the flower for what felt like too long, making no moves to take it from you, and you swallowed. His blue gaze zeroed in on the action before it lifted to your face.

“…and why not?”

“Because I think it means something different to you than it does to me.”

Your response was swift, and you watched him sigh, eventually reaching out to finger the flower like he did that day before he’d proceeded to put it behind your ear. He finally took it, and just like that day before the games, it found its way behind your ear once again. The only change this time was the shudder that traveled down your spine, and the apprehension you felt when his gaze met yours.

For the longest time, the only sound was that of the rain, a few stray drops making it’s way onto your face and clothes due to the wind. If the man before you still had the locks you’d met him with, they would’ve been rustling with the breeze, right now. Both of you were very still, or maybe it was just you—nervous and fearful of how he’d respond. He briefly looked past you, eyes glinting briefly before they hardened once again, his pink lips pressed together as he regarded you.

“…and if it does?”

He continued when you frowned.

“Mean something different to me than it does to you,” he elaborated, and you blinked.

Taking a deep breath, you tried to gather your thoughts.

“I know…that I’m only standing here, now, because of you,” you slowly started, watching him push his shoulders back. “I won because of you, I know that, but-.”

“Exactly,” he cut you off, making your lips part. “You won because of me…and everything I sacrificed was to make sure you won.”

“…but I didn’t ask you to do that!”

You felt…cornered, somehow, because on the one hand, yes. You did owe so much to the man before you, but at the same time, what did you owe specifically? Your attention? Your affection? Whatever he deemed an appropriate compensation? When you saved his life in the arena that day, and he vowed to save yours in return, you didn’t understand the full ramifications of the deal you were agreeing to.

“I saved your life, and you saved mine, and I’m sorry for the things you felt the need to risk, but that’s where it ends.”

The cold from the rain didn’t faze you nearly as much as the heat from his gaze boring into your back.

You wanted to believe that your lack of confrontation was what led you to the predicament you found yourself in. After all, things between you two had held too many ‘what ifs’ and lingering feelings and questions. You liked to hope that telling the man in no uncertain terms that your relationship should never and would never progress beyond anything professional would fix things.

You never would’ve guessed that your bout of confidence would only prove to make things worse.

“My ma doesn’t even know any rebels, and you know that.”

You’d whispered the words so quietly, throat too choked up to speak any louder as you tearfully stared Coriolanus down, your words only intended for the two of you. Your back was pressed to the doorway as he stood before you, a foot or two of space between you as other Peacekeepers did their duty to search your house as thoroughly as possible. The reason you’d been given was suspicion of treason—to the shock of your ma—but both you and the handsome man before you knew the truth.

“One can never be too sure. It’s always those you least expect.”

His cool response only made you look away, a few tears escaping.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You won, you were free, so why did it still feel like you were in the game…except a much more dangerous one this time? You could feel his eyes on you as you watched man after man rifle through you and your ma’s things, your younger sister not home to witness this. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him take a step towards you—just one, but one was enough to make you flinch.

You still didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him though.

“Unbearable,” he quietly said. “…not able to be endured…or tolerated.”

You swallowed.

“Not to be confused with hard—requiring a great deal of endurance or effort.”

Another step towards you.

“To find something unbearable means that you quite literally cannot stomach it any longer. It forces a change to come, forces something to…give,” he whispered.

Your gaze was still focused ahead, but his words made you blink, made your heart sink, and you swore that he knew that.

“I can make things incredibly unbearable for you…and your family.”

You straightened at that, finally looking at him with a venomous gaze and a heaving chest. Coriolanus reached up to pick at your shirt, removing a piece of grass from it, and you watched him inspect it before turning his blue eyes back onto you. They lingered on your own eyes before lowering to your lips, his own twitching so subtly you might’ve missed it if you were anyone else.

“Or I can make sure you’ll be taken care of, looked after as if you were my own…” his gaze met yours again. “It’s entirely your choice.”

You two stared at one another for an infuriating amount of time before he let out a sharp whistle, telling the other men that nothing seemed to be here and to move on. His wording was not lost on you, and you crossed your arms over your chest. Coriolanus was the last to walk out, and despite the feel of his heavy gaze, you didn’t look his way the entire time.

Your ma commented on the strangeness of the whole ordeal, but nothing about it was strange to you. It was all very calculating and sinister actually, and while you grew up hearing countless talk of running away and living off the grid, you were never more tempted than in this moment…but you were not alone. Your ma was sickly, and your sister was too young.

…and if you left, you could only guess what you’d be leaving your family susceptible to.

Your future seemed inevitable no matter how much you tried to find a way out of the path set for you.

The first night you slept with Coriolanus Snow, it was storming just like that day you’d attempted to give him back his flower. You’d cried for a good three hours before, feeling helpless in the aftermath of another so-called inspection from Peacekeepers—this one much more destructive. The only light that night came from the brief flashes of lightning, and the sound of the rain drowned out the reluctant gasps to leave your lips.

Hands much softer than you ever expected trailed down your frame, curving over your hips and dipping underneath your thighs. The blond man’s lips rarely left your skin, kissing whatever part of you that came to mind, nose gently grazing you as he did and pulling shudders from your frame. It was a foreign feeling to be so heated and afraid at the same time.

Under the cover of darkness, his fingers intertwined with your own and his hips were flush with yours. The feel of him inside of you was much more jarring than you thought it would be, choked deep breaths leaving your parted lips as he pressed his face into the crook of your neck. His thrusts were slow, the complete opposite of what you expected, and you didn’t know if you liked that better or worse.

Every kiss felt wrong, like you were betraying yourself, but in the same manner, they also reminded you of that first day you met. You thought about when you stepped off of that train, and that smooth voice escaped those pink lips, and your stomach flipped no matter how much you pretended it didn’t. The person you were that day wanted to throw your head back and welcome the little nips he left along your skin.

The person you were, now, wanted to crawl inside of your skin.

This man had stalked you to the highest degree, following you all the way from The Capitol just to collect on the young woman whose survival he ensured. The things he’d risked and ultimately lost, he placed the weight of on your shoulders as if you were responsible to compensate for that somehow. As if it was your duty to make his sacrifices worth it.

When he pulled you into his lap, resting on him with arms circled around your waist, it was your turn to press your face into the area where his neck and shoulder met. His fingers dancing along your skin made you shudder, and that just made the tears collect more because you didn’t want to enjoy this, but your body and your brain didn’t seem to be in alignment.

When you were forced to come around him, you saw stars, and you were positive your nails left marks on his back.

You didn’t really think that no more trouble from Peacekeepers was worth the figurative collar around your neck. The abundance of food and supplies might have been, if only to just see the smiles on your ma and sister’s faces, but even then, when you found your back pressed to Coriolanus’ chest as he drove his cock up into you, you wondered if it was actually worth it.

Your ma would say no, that you knew for sure, but you supposed it wasn’t her call to make.

After all, the alternative was psychological torment and worst-case scenarios you didn’t even want to entertain.

“Would you have had her arrested?” you quietly wondered one night.

The sheet was clutched to your chest, and you were facing the wall, still unable to look him in the eye directly afterwards. You’d never been able to, feeling used and low and indefensible. You tried not to dwell on the feel of his fingertips tracing patterns into your shoulder, his cool breath hitting your skin as he exhaled.

“I mean…would you have…framed her somehow? Found some justification for it?”

You didn’t know why you were asking, certain you wouldn’t like the answer, and as you predicted, you felt your throat tighten the longer the silence stretched. Against your will—like many things you’d been doing as of late—a few tears escaped, and even before he answered, you knew what you were going to hear.

“Yes,” he confessed, just as quietly.

You squeezed your eyes shut, subtly wiping your face.

“I sacrificed so much for you to win, and not just because your win was my win…but because I wanted to see you win,” he murmured, placing a kiss to your back. “…because I wanted you.”

You knew that, but having it confirmed so plainly was disturbing.

“…and when I eventually make my way back to The Capitol, as we both know I will, I’ll still want you.”

Your stomach sank at that, and for the first time, you turned to look at him while still trembling in the aftermath of what had quickly become a nightly occurrence. His gaze was still focused on where your back had been, and when his eyes flitted up to connect with yours, you didn’t have the words to convey how you felt about what he was insinuating.

“In The Capitol, you’ll have access to things you could never even imagine…and you could send those same things back to your family,” he told you, reaching up to touch your face.

When you moved to sit up, he stopped you, a firm grip on your arm. Coryo—as he liked for you to call him—fixed you with a look that you knew all too well. It was the look he gave you when you tried to come up with any excuse as to why you couldn’t meet with him. It was the look you received when you briefly forgot the power dynamics here, turning away from him and attempting to push him away.

It was a look that told you not to fight the inevitable.

“I want you there with me.”

His tone left no room for argument, and there was so much conviction in his voice that the thought of arguing seemed legitimately draining. You simply stared at him, eyes glassy, and he stared back, waiting for verbal confirmation of what you both knew was going to happen, anyway. You had no choice in the matter, you never did, and for a brief horrifying moment, you almost wished you were a lone orphan who didn’t have to look out for anybody but yourself.

That thought did make tears spill over.

It was a horrible thing to think, but your loved ones were being used against you, and you knew that your ma—and your sister if she were old enough to comprehend these things—would never want this for you. Coryo sat up with you, a hand resting on your cheek as he gazed at you, a thumb brushing the tears away. It wasn’t meant to be comforting.

Nothing he did was ever meant to be comforting.

“I want you there with me,” he repeated.

You wondered what someone like you would possibly do in The Capitol.

“I don’t belong there,” you whispered, a poor attempt to get him to change his mind.

His response was swift and clipped.

“You belong with me.”

When he pressed his lips to yours, it was expected that you would kiss him back. His thumb brushed along your skin as you did, a low hum sounding in the back of his throat that quickly escalated into a groan. His free arm snaked around you, and your last attempt at resisting proved futile, so you let him lay you down.

Sex with Coriolanus was a maddening experience.

You didn’t want it, and your brain didn’t want it, but it was as if your body was its own separate entity running on hormones and animal instinct.

When he rested his full weight on top of you, you shuddered for a multitude of reasons—one of which you didn’t want to acknowledge. When he slid his hand between your breasts and down to your stomach, your back arched, chest pressing up and into his. When he pushed into you all torturously slow as he always did, you involuntarily held your breath, shaking at the feel of his hips connecting with yours, the length of him fully sheathed in your warmth.

You were terrified of him, so that was why you opened up for him like those budding roses he used to carry around, but in doing so, you made yourself vulnerable beneath him. You made yourself more susceptible to his kisses and his touch and that maddening voice that knew just how to get its way. He wasn’t a very talkative man when he was inside of you, much more content with letting his actions speak for themselves, but tonight was different.

“Look at me,” he whispered, curving his hips into yours. “Look right at me.”

You did, and while you didn’t know the specifics of the psychology behind this, you knew that looking into the eyes of your tormentor while in the act couldn’t be good.

“Keep your eyes on me,” he breathlessly told you, nose brushing against yours with every thrust.

You could hear that it was starting to rain again, and you pressed your hands into the small of his back, trying to ground yourself in some way—trying to have control over something, anything. Tears kissed your eyes, and you swore—you swore—that something in those blues of his twinkled. It sparked something in his gaze, and in his psyche, his thrusts becoming more powerful and making you gasp, nails pressing into his skin.

He only looked especially satisfied when the tears spilled over.

When he came inside of you, and you around him, you swore you saw stars.

You even thought you saw snow.

[theostrophywife]

le coup de foudre.

pairing: regulus black x reader.

song inspiration: my love mine all mine by mitski.

author's note: this was a result of me binging dune and call me by your name. whoever fancasted timothee chalamet as regulus deserves a forehead kith cause look at him. he's so boyfriend coded it makes me sick.

Regulus Black did not believe in love at first sight. 

It was a foolish notion. One that contradicted his pragmatic beliefs. At his core, Regulus was a realist. In his world, love was not a luxury one could afford. Regulus was raised with the expectation to marry according to class, wealth, and most importantly, blood status. The noble and most ancient house of Black only took the purest of the pure. 

After all, toujours pur, always pure, has been his family’s motto for centuries. There has never been any doubt in his mind that he’d marry another member of the sacred twenty eight. It wasn’t a matter of if, only a question of when. 

During his sixth year, his mother made her intentions very clear. Walburga Black was adamant that he begin his search for a suitable bride. Leave it to his mother to compose a list of ladies she deemed suitable to become the future Mrs. Black. Regulus was to adhere to the carefully curated roster. They were names that he’d seen a million times before. Greengrass, Prewett, Rosier. Girls he’d grown up with and inadvertently had absolutely no interest in. 

Still, his mother was insistent so Regulus complied. He took the girls out on dates. The formula was rather simple: dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town followed by a walk around the city square in which he offered to buy his date a dessert like the proper gentleman his mother raised him to be. Despite the fact that Regulus had the entire process down to a science, the dates were always unsatisfactory. 

He was polite, of course. Opened the door, pulled out their chair, asked the appropriate level of questions to get to know his counterpart, but by the time the appetizers arrived, Regulus was on the verge of stabbing himself with the butter knife just to rouse himself from boredom. 

Regulus placed no blame on the girls. They were only doing what their families had raised them to do. Sit pretty, chew gracefully, agree with his opinions. All while wearing breakneck heels and a smile to boot. It was all terribly fucked up, but this was the world they lived in. 

The more he went on these dates, the more he realized that he didn’t want some pretty, docile wife. What he truly needed was someone who was willing to challenge him, to call him out on his bullshit, to argue with him when his own stubbornness prevented him from seeing reason. Regulus came to the horrible, earth-shattering realization that he probably wouldn’t find a woman like that on his mother’s list. 

As he walked back from another mind numbing date, Regulus grappled with this newfound dilemma. He didn’t want to endure another one of these disastrous dates. He didn’t want to sit through an entire meal making small talk. He definitely didn’t want to disappoint another girl by not kissing them at the end of the night. 

It wasn’t like any of them liked him anyways. Though they loved the idea of Regulus Black, he was quite certain that they wouldn’t afford the same affections to Reggie—the real and true version of himself. The one that Sirius often said Regulus kept in a neatly locked cage.

He wished he could be more like his brother. Sirius had always been the brave one. It was that infamous Gryffindor boldness that prompted his older brother to rebel against his family’s expectations. Instead of heeding to their mother’s ridiculous list, Sirius chose to date Remus in open defiance to Walburga’s orders. It resulted in him getting kicked out of 12 Grimmauld Place and burned off the family portrait, but Sirius didn’t seem to mind one bit.  

In a lot of ways, Regulus envied his brother. Sirius had the guts to stand up for himself. He wasn’t burdened by the crippling pressure of pleasing their mother. In all honesty, Reggie wondered if such a thing was even achievable. As he brooded, Regulus found himself on the shores of the Black Lake. His body had taken him here on autopilot. It was his only place of refuge in the castle. 

Regulus paced the rickety wooden dock. His mind was working so fast, so many thoughts spinning in his head, that it felt like he might work himself up to a fit. This has always been his problem. Sirius often said that he lived in his head too much. He frowned, trying and failing to get ahold of himself. For once, he wished he could just shut his brain off entirely.

Just then, Regulus felt a drop of water hit his head. He looked up and found dark, gray clouds hovering over the horizon. The stormcloud broke open and unleashed torrential rain all around him. Fucking fantastic. The world truly couldn’t give him a bloody break, could it? 

With a sigh, Regulus began making his way back. The ground was sodden underneath his feet, his boots sinking into the sand and dragging behind his black coat. The waves lapped violently across the shore as the wind lashed against the murky waters. Regulus was almost at the edge of the beach when he spotted you. 

A flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Regulus stopped dead in his tracks. There, at the mouth of the Black Lake, in the middle of the pouring rain, stood a girl with the most breathtaking smile he had ever seen. 

Regulus was fairly certain that you had History of Magic together. He sat behind you in class, passed by you in the halls, even reached for the same book in the forbidden section of the library once, but Reggie had never once seen that smile. The gravity of it threatened to knock the very breath from his lungs. 

There was something carefree about you. The way you spread your arms, tilted your head back, and laughed in the midst of the rain and thunder. Almost like you were welcoming the storm. 

It was only when your eyes locked that Regulus realized he was staring. You cocked your head at him, trailing your gaze from the curls plastered against his cheek to the nice button down and freshly pressed trousers that were now soaked from the rain, down to the shiny leather boots that were now digging into the sand. You seemed amused at the sight of him.

Ever the perfect gentleman, Regulus snapped out of his daze and jogged over to you. Without hesitation, he raised his coat over your head to shield you from the rain even though you were already both drenched. 

“What are you doing out in the rain?” Regulus asked, his voice full of genuine concern. “You’ll catch a cold.” 

You stepped out of the refuge of his expensive looking coat and held your hand out, catching droplets in your palm. “I don’t mind. I just…I just needed to feel the rain on my skin, that’s all.”

You supposed it must’ve seemed strange to him, but the rain always made you feel better. Lately, life had been just a little too overwhelming. There was so much pressure to do well in classes, to hang out with friends while balancing your clubs and sports, as well as making time to write back to your parents. When it all became a bit too much, you tended to come to the Black Lake for some sort of refuge. The rain was just an added bonus. 

If Regulus found your behavior bizarre, he didn’t say. Instead, he just smiled softly. “Well, you got your wish. It’s soaked out here.” 

“I know,” you responded with an enthusiastic nod. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” 

“Standing out in the pouring rain? On a beach where lightning can strike me down at any second? Yes, it’s absolutely splendid.”

Your mouth quirked in amusement. “No one’s telling you to stay out here.” You nodded towards the castle. “You’re more than welcome to take your brooding inside where it’s warm and dry. Not to mention, free of the dangers of lightning strikes, which are extremely rare by the way.” 

“With my luck, I might be the poor one in a million git who gets torched while getting insulted by a pretty girl.” 

“Did I insult you?’ you quipped back. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You accused me of brooding.” 

“I didn’t accuse, I stated. Even the Wizengamot would have to rule that you were, in fact, brooding.” 

Regulus raised a brow. “What happened to innocent before proven guilty?” 

“Unfortunately, the evidence is overwhelming and the verdict is set. You, Regulus Black, have been sentenced for glaring at the Black Lake so menacingly that even the giant squid refuses to come to shore. Off to Azkaban you go.” 

“Do you promise to write me letters? Update me of how the world’s progressed without my dazzling presence?” 

“It would be my genuine pleasure.” 

Regulus chuckled at your dry humor. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d bantered like this with anyone, much less with a strange not-so-stranger. You sat down on the wet sand and patted the spot beside you with a grin.

“Why don’t you take a seat and tell me all about your troubles.” 

Beyond the bleak horizon, the spires of the castle peeked through the gray clouds. Regulus thought of the common room where his housemates would no doubt be gathered around the ornate fireplace for warmth. Knowing his friends, they’d probably be indulging in spiked hot chocolate and playing some childish drinking game. A few minutes ago, nothing appealed to him more, but now Regulus found himself choosing the violent rain and soggy sand. All because of you, his mystery girl.

You leaned back on your elbows and cocked your head at him. “What ails you, Mr. Black?” 

“That depends. How much do you bill per hour?” 

“Fortunately for you, I’m in a generous mood so I’ll throw in a free session. Consider it my pro-bono work.” 

“How kind of you,” Regulus said with a serious expression. “My brother’s been nagging me to see a mind healer for years. All that childhood trauma, you know.” 

A small smile tugged at your lips, revealing a set of dimples that he found rather charming. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.” 

“My brother is Sirius. I’m Regulus, remember?” 

You snorted in a very unladylike manner, which only made Regulus grin. There was something so unapologetically you in your laugh that was absolutely endearing to him. Regulus smiled and knocked his shoulder against yours. 

You mimicked the action and smiled back at him. “All sarcasm aside, I was being genuine. If you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.” 

"Do you often offer therapy sessions to complete strangers?"

"Only to surly Slytherins with sad eyes and pretty curls," you quipped back. "And we're not strangers. I sit behind you in potions. We're practically best mates."

"You think my curls are pretty?"

"Like a little cherub's. Are you quite sure you haven't escaped from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? You look like one of Michelangelo's angels. Except with way more scowling." Regulus grinned. He got the feeling that you always said whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. It was refreshing. "There's a smile. See? Our session is already progressing."

"I think you might get more than you bargained for with me, I'm afraid."

You met the challenge in his words head on. "Try me."

“You were right. I’m definitely guilty of brooding.” 

“What happened?” 

Regulus hesitated for a moment. He had never been the type of person to be candid with his feelings, especially not with someone he barely knew. Usually, he just kept his thoughts to himself and ruminated on them in the privacy of his dorm until he drove himself mad by overthinking, but your presence brought him an unexplainable ease. For once in his life, Regulus chose not to question it. 

“I’ve had a long night,” he said, tucking his knees up to his chest. “I just got back from a date.” 

“It didn’t go well?” 

“It was…fine. It’s always fine. But it’s the same thing over and over again, just with a different girl.” 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a playboy, Regulus Black.”

Regulus chuckled. “I’m not some unscrupulous rake, I assure you.” 

“Yes, that much is obvious from your use of the word unscrupulous.” You tucked your legs underneath you. “So why go on all of these dates if you find them so tedious?” 

“It’s my mother,” Regulus explained. “She has this list.” 

“A list?” 

“Yes, a list of girls that I’m to court. Noble, pureblooded, proper ladies of society that my mother has deemed worthy of marriage.” 

“You’re seventeen years old. Shouldn’t you be worrying about quidditch games and potions exams?” 

Regulus nodded. “Yes, one would think. But my family has always been different. Since my brother left, my parents have been obsessed with grooming me into becoming the perfect heir.” 

“How do you feel about that?” 

He sighed. “Stifled. Exhausted. Smothered. I can feel the weight of their expectations weighing me down every second of every day.” 

“I’m sorry, Regulus. That’s a terrible burden to carry.” 

Regulus shrugged. “Others have it worse.” 

“It doesn’t mean that your problem is any less heavy.” 

To Regulus, the acknowledgement felt oddly validating. Even though you knew nothing of his circumstance, there was wisdom in your words and you delivered it delicately, like you actually cared to hear his troubles. You were devoid of the judgment he'd grown accustomed to and he found that rather freeing.

“It’s just…sometimes I think that I’ll never be the perfect son. My brother, he’s always been the brave one. Classic Gryffindor,” he said with an eye roll. You chuckled, but stayed silent. It was obvious that Regulus had a myriad of thoughts to unpack tonight and you were more than happy to just listen. “Sirius has never cared what anyone thought about him, least of all our parents. I admire that about him, but I just don’t think I’m wired that way. I care too much.” 

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” you said softly. “Apathy is so common nowadays, finding someone who can admit that they care is refreshing. Though, I think it’s not without limits. You can’t please everyone. No matter what you do, someone is going to have something to complain about. You might as well be yourself.” 

“That’s exactly the problem,” Regulus pondered. “All of these girls on my mother's list, I think they like the idea of Regulus Black, but he’s an illusion. It isn’t the real me.” 

“Then who is the real you?” 

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’m just Reggie. I like playing quidditch and reading depressing literature and memorizing obscure history facts. I hate messy rooms and orange juice and anything that crawls.”  

You smiled. “And what kind of girl does Reggie like?” 

“Someone witty. Someone funny. Someone who’ll argue with me. Someone who doesn’t just nod and agree with everything I say."

"So what you're saying is that you don't want a nice girl?"

Regulus shook his head. "No, I think I need someone who challenges me. Who sees me for who I am rather than what I represent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the girls on my mother’s list are lovely, but I don’t think they’d actually like me if they knew who I really am.” 

“I don’t know, Reggie seems like a great guy. That Regulus bloke, on the other hand…” you scrunched your nose in disapproval. 

“Hey!” Regulus chided, “I’m pouring my heart out to you. That took a lot of courage, you know.” 

“You’re very brave, Reggie,” you said with a grin. “But you know what would be even braver?” 

Regulus squinted in the rain as you stood to your feet. Lightning crackled over the horizon, illuminating you with an ethereal silver glow. You held out your hand to him. “Come dance with me.” 

“Deathly afraid of being struck by lightning, remember?” 

“Sorry, what?” You asked as you shimmied around him. It wasn’t graceful by any means. It was the goofiest thing he’d ever seen and yet he’d never been so enthralled. You danced without a care in the world and it made him genuinely laugh. “I can’t hear you over all the fun I’m having.” 

"This is ridiculous," he said over the roaring thunder.

You shrugged. "Perhaps. But everyone's allowed to be a little ridiculous sometimes. Besides, I was asking Reggie not Regulus."

“Are you really trying to peer pressure me into dancing with you?” 

“That depends,” you replied with a cheeky smile. “Is it working?” 

Regulus conceded with a sigh and leapt to his feet. The youngest Black brother bowed like a proper gentleman. “May I have this dance, my lady?"

“You may, good sir.” 

You grinned up at him as he took you by the waist and waltzed with you across the sand. Surprisingly, Regulus let you take the lead. He chuckled when you stepped on his toes and laughed even harder when you tried to twirl him. Towering a good foot over you, Regulus had to fully crouch for the maneuver to work. 

Finally, you gave up the formality and just spun around in dizzying circles. There was absolutely no rhyme or rhythm to it. Just two idiots dancing in the rain with the biggest smiles on their faces. 

Your coordination, or lack thereof, caused you to almost faceplant into the sand. Regulus yelped as you took him down with you. By the time you recovered from the laughing fit, the two of you were red-faced, out of breath, and laying side by side along the shore. He turned over to you and brushed a stray strand of hair behind your ear. 

“That was the most fun I’ve had in years.” 

“See? There’s more to life than just being moody and melancholic.” 

“So this mystery girl of mine keeps reminding me,” Regulus said with a smile. “You never told me your name, by the way.” 

“Wow, you don’t even know my name? I’m offended, Reggie. We’ve only been in classes together since fifth year.” 

“I—we’ve never been introduced—” 

You broke out into a smile and giggled. You thought it was cute that Reggie was so easily flustered. “I’m just kidding, Reggie.” 

He sighed in relief as you stuck out your hand. “Y/N. My name is Y/N.” 

Regulus slipped his hand into yours. He cocked his head, studying your eyes and your smile and those cute little dimples. 

Y/N. The last name on his mother’s list. The one he saved for last because he didn’t know who she was. 

The French had a saying—le coup de foudre. The infamous phrase translated to a bolt of lightning or love at first sight. Regulus had long dismissed it as flowery prose, but thanks to his mystery girl, he started to think that maybe the Parisians were onto something because meeting you tonight felt preordained. A date with fate. Like a bolt of lightning streaking through his dark, endless skies.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.” 

You grinned. “It’s nice to meet you, Reggie.” 

Regulus smiled and laced your fingers together. He was frozen, it was raining, and he was fairly certain that you were both probably going to catch a cold, but he didn’t care. In that moment, as he stared up at the sky, blinking back the rain, and intertwining his fingers with yours, Regulus had never felt more content. 

So no, Regulus did not believe in love at first sight, but love at second, third, and even fourth glance? He smiled a little as he gazed back at you, letting his gaze linger as he drank in that infectious laugh and sunny grin. 

You made him think that maybe, just maybe, a girl like you could convert a skeptic like him into a devout believer.

[sheepwavehdg]

some HDG story recs out that aren't the most super popular stories you'll easily find by asking anyone or easily find via metric ranking. all are on the shorter end, and readable in a day if not a single sitting! a great list for some hidden gems.

Reading the Leaves by Kanagen: a tea shop romance story about a mostly mute protaganist trying to make the perfect cup for an affini she is down bad for.

Behind the Veil by shitpostleft: IMO, the hottest oneshot in the entire setting. It follows rebecca trying to talk to her affini boyfriend about why he put a notice of intent to domesticate on her.

A Beast At Bay by Raeisteria: Affini beat each other up! this one starts as a shonen battle arc and then changes. you should read it, and do so blinndly, you will not regret it (but you will probably cry)

Strawberry and Willow by immaterial_vivi: the typical HDG rebel capture scenario is turned on its head, in the sense that the story is mostly from the affini's perspective.

Core Carving by Stimulacrum: a second person affini POV story about coming home and letting your floret be the one to take care of you for a bit.

A Part of Who I am my MoonFloret: its hdg romance, but transmasc yaoi instead of transfem yuri! it rules!

Last Man Standing by Tsunmene: the single funniest HDG story I have ever read, about a seed desperate to get forcefemmed who keeps barely missing getting captured by the affini no matter how hard they try.

Force Majeure by ashinbloom: the most devastating gut punch of a story ever put to the page in HDG, about a very autistic girl and the woman who wishes she could take care of her like she wishes. this one hurts real good.

Florets of a Feather by Promilie: a biology student who was forcibly drafted into the navy gets domesticated and must learn to live with her connivent, a feathered catlike xeno called a khetari. has illustrations in many chapters! (Promilie is one of the settings absolute best visual artists.)

A Date with Miss Laburnia by PyxxieStyxx: a bratty terran goes on a date with an affini in chastity and things escalate.

Mistress's Imperative by mirrorgare: submissive affini/dommy floret vignette series

Growing Periwinkle by belenen: a depressed terran volunteers for domestication and becomes part of a very kinky social circle.

Pencil by sheepwave(me): a comedy-hypnoerotica adaptation of the "mistress can you turn me into a pencil" meme into a full oneshot its my list i can include one of mine

Thought I'd See You Again by fluxom: an escaped floret has been on the run for a year, but now an affini just won't leave her alone...

Puppy Paws by Moonchild: actual petplay! in hdg! i know, its crazy. also this story is insanely hot.

The Place Where We Can Stop Running by Dame Harmony: ok I lied about them all being short. this one is long, but its so good. you need to read it, you need to read it blind, knowing nothing, and you will not regret it. it's one of the best stories in the entire setting.

[balteringanatidae]

As Beautiful as Poetry

pairing: spencer reid x english teacher!reader word count: 2.38k contents: first time fic writer!! mutual pining, spence and reader are oblivious, smoochin’, reader is described vaguely (feminine and eccentric)

Lately, Spencer had been spending more time at the library. Not to pick up any new books—these days, he’d been dwelling on past books he hadn’t checked out in a while—but to catch even a fleeting glimpse of you.

Of course, he wasn’t a stalker; he was an admirer. Plus, he didn’t just gawk at you from afar; he’d spoken with you a few times, and that was when he found out that you had the most precious voice ever.

The both of you had spoken enough to know each other’s names and what you did for work. You were astonished when you discovered he was an FBI agent. You weren’t one to make assumptions, but with Spencer, you did, and it was far off.

He hadn’t been too surprised to find out you were an English teacher. You taught gifted high school students—essentially; you were the teacher Spencer wished he had when he was twelve.

With your deep literature knowledge, you could give him recommendations of a few poets he’d never heard of, and in return, he recommended a few science fiction novels. Which opted for conversations the following weeks. The both of you exchanged reflections on the suggestions.

Weeks of conversing—eight weeks, Spencer counted—led nowhere. In chronological order, each conversation consisted of a greeting, small talk, book talk, accidental flirting, and, finally, an excuse to part ways. Spencer always left as a blushing mess, as if he hadn’t been like that in the beginning. And you left giggling to yourself; Spencer’s coyness made you feel warm inside. Did he only act like that around you?

Neither of you would call it a friendship yet, no matter how badly the both of you wanted to. Fleeting glances, brief greetings, and exchanged smiles weren’t a friendship. Neither of you could figure out how to initiate a closer connection without seeming desperate. Spencer was desperate.

Your eccentricity all but enchanted Spencer. You weren't a rebel or a rule breaker; you were simply you, and it was gorgeous. Gorgeous, you lit up each book you grazed, as if the most alluring aura followed you. It was inexplicable why idiosyncrasy was so attractive to him—your idiosyncrasy, perhaps.

He could never get enough of your outfits, which, oddly enough, reminded him of the fourth doctor, but that did nothing but encapsulate him more. His favorite doctor, and you, with the potential to be his favorite girl? He was in love with the mere idea. He could practically infer that is where you got your fashion inspiration from.

You were the perfect girl most contemporary authors wrote about, but real—oh, you were so real. You weren't designed to be loved by some protagonist who was the contrary to you. You were created to dote on those archaic poetry books you devoted time to—the ones you were just as beautiful as.

He could nearly smell a perfectly bloomed bouquet of flowers when you entered the library. He adored how you glided across the library floor gracefully, skimming through every shelf with precision. With each step, you seemed to move along to a silent cadence. Each click of the heel of your auburn boots—matching your recently dyed hair and portions of your multicolored scarf—graced his ears; he just knew you were around.

He stood in the informational text passage, picking out two physics books. He scanned through the first swiftly; he was familiar with most of the information in the text. He simply wanted an excuse to stay around longer, hopefully to bump into you.

He’d returned the first book to its fitting slot on the shelf, expecting someone else would learn as much as he did on his foremost read. He was now solely retaining the book he was certain he hadn't read yet.

As he strolled past the various aisles, spotting you in the ‘Poetry’ section, as per usual. You turned to him as his steps halted; a radiant smile graced your face, and you gave him a brief wave.

Smiling, you're smiling at Spencer.

He involuntarily smiled back; of course, he meant to, but his lips curled up before he tried to smile. He didn't even wave back; he was just moonstruck and stared at you as you turned back to the poems, picking one from a familiar name: Sir Walter Scott.

Spencer shortly came to his senses, and his smile sprinted away from his face. He watched you analyze the poem for a few moments before he tore his gaze away from you.

He’d see your pretty face another time.

He traveled to the back of the library, a space reserved for reading. A few old-timey chairs in a row and a lengthy, velvet sofa. He took a seat near the armrest; no one should sit near him, and he left more than enough space.

His book became a simple prop in his hands as he heard you start to read under your breath. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. This was nothing short of revolutionary to him. Your delicate voice reading each line, and he didn't recall them sounding so precious—not until you read it and he hung onto every word.

You were merely a foot away from him on the comfortable couch, and he could feel your aura from his own spot. That’s when his head spun to you, hardly discreet at all, but he’d presume you were too ensnared in the words before you.

Not stumbling over a word, you had been reading for ten minutes, in blissful ignorance of the man adoring you from a foot away. He yearned for nothing but to pick at that brain of yours. He’d already had a queue of queries on his mind:

Why did you choose that scarf?

Why did you choose that butterfly hair clip?

Why did you choose that poem?

Why did you choose to sit near him? Have you noticed how he looks at you?

You felt his gaze burning into the side of your head, and you felt as if he were scrutinizing you until your eyes met his.

Adoration. That’s all you could see; it's all you could feel. He practically had heart eyes for you right now. He knew he was caught, so he didn't even attempt to break his stare.

“I—” Spencer sheepishly chuckled, rubbing his bare forearm. “I was... lost in thought. I didn't mean to stare,” he lied.

You let out a barbed sound of understanding, and a small grin crept onto your face. You could see right through his lie, and it was almost endearing. “What were you thinking about?” You quickly placed your book to the side, giving Spencer your undivided attention.

He cleared his throat; the truth was in his mind, and suddenly he didn't feel worried about admitting it. “You,” he finally said. He closed the book, positioning it in his lap.

“I don't know you too well, and I want to change that… if you're on the same page,” he suggested, his gaze fleeting from yours as he fixed his glasses’ position.

You were silent, with your eyes wide, lips parted, and ready to speak. You wanted to scream ‘yes’ a million times as if he just proposed to you.

“If you're not, I entirely understand, and I don’t want to pressure you into—“ He began to ramble, but you prevented him.

“Spencer, I really like you, and I, too, want to get to know you better.” You offered him a bright smile, which caused him to reciprocate. You thought his smile was lovely.

“It is safe to say you're on the same page?” His voice teasing, but he couldn't lie that he needed more assurance. It was difficult to accept that you liked him.

“Absolutely,” you confirmed with a gentle touch to his shoulder, which he surprisingly enjoyed.

For the subsequent sixteen weeks, you and Spencer had established days you would meet at the library, typically on weekends when you were both free. It was seldom, but it was something, something more than what you had before.

Neither of you dubbed these rendezvous as ‘dates,’ but they entirely were. Spencer would wear cologne that Morgan gifted him a birthday ago, and you would wear more modest makeup that accentuated your natural beauty. The both of you yearned to impress each other.

Each time, you would feel that Spencer looked better than the previous time you two met. Spencer would believe that an angel touched you or that the gods had favorites, and you were one.

Occasionally, the dates would leave the library and follow into a coffee shop, where he would buy you pastries and a warm mug of coffee to subside the sensations of the frigid D.C. air. You would sigh in consolation as the warmth enveloped you like a thick blanket. Spencer would giggle at the precious view.

Soon, Spencer finally mustered up the intrepidity to invite you to his apartment. He insisted that it wasn’t a proposition, but you didn’t presume that initially. You knew what kind of man Spencer was—a gentleman.

“I’m sorry for the mess,” he murmured, there was a single cloth on the floor, “I held off on cleaning my apartment for a week, so I did it all today.”

You looked around; you deeply relished the atmosphere. It was amiable, and it nearly felt like home. Then you spotted his vast bookcase, and you wondered why he even visited the library. “It looks great in here, Spence.”

Spence. That was the first time you called him that.

“Thanks,” he attempted to sound nonchalant. “I really wanted to impress you, if it’s not obvious.” He stepped back, allowing you further into his living space.

“It is obvious,” you affirmed with a quiet giggle. You loved it. You loved how hard he tried to impress you, no matter how many times you told him it was unnecessary.

You walked around the flat, noticing a bowl of fresh fruit on the remote dining room table in front of the vase filled with your favorite flowers. Was it a coincidence? Candles encircled the vase, illuminating the puny space.

“This is too much, isn't it?” Spencer stepped beside you as you ate a sweet strawberry from the bowl, painting your lips a faint red. You shook your head; you thought it was perfect.

“I thought we were only gonna watch some movies or something of the sort, but I like this too!” You comforted him with a smile. You took another glance at the table, the fire of the candles shining in your eyes.

“I just wanted this moment to… be, uh, special.” He cleared his throat, trying not to stammer over his words again.

You wanted to save him the trouble and tell him you wanted to be his girlfriend right in that moment, but he tailored this moment just for the two of you. You wouldn't ruin it.

You turned to face him, taking his hands in yours as you sensed his nervousness. All he could do was nervously smile at you before he gathered up his courage.

“It’s been 112 days since our first ‘date,’ and I really like you,” he confessed, his voice anxious. “I would like for us to be exclusive, and I really want to call you mine.” He sighed; he’d already begun bracing for rejection when he set the dining table.

You gaped into his glossy hazel eyes, watching as they fluttered shut every few moments. You caught the way he nervously licked his lips as he waited for an answer.

“I’d really like it if you called me yours, Spence.”

He tilted his head to the side narrowly, quirking up an eyebrow at you. He was nearly confused by the fact that you didn't reject him.

“Really? I mean, that's not how I planned for this to go. Are you serious?” A smile crept onto his lips, hoping this wasn't a huge bit to break his heart.

“You expected me to reject you?” You practically pouted as he nodded. You rubbed your thumbs against his knuckles. “Spencer, I’ve been dropping hints for a while now, and I’m surprised it took this long for you to ask.”

He chuckled breathlessly, finally breaking eye contact as he shook his head. “Yeah, I noticed, but I thought that maybe I was perceiving it wrongly.”

You wished Spencer would look at you again; you needed to see your reflection in his glasses and how his pupils turned to hearts. His cheeks were painted a faint red; he wasn’t good at hiding his feelings. Of course, you loved his transparency.

“I’m just glad we could have this moment and that you didn’t reject me.” Spencer pulled his hands away from yours, his arms enveloping your waist hesitantly. He was frequently fearful you would be opposed to anything he did.

“If I rejected you, I think I'd regret that for the rest of my life,” you murmured fondly, your arms swathed around his neck. His eyes met yours nervously, his gaze examining each of your facial details.

“I’m gonna kiss you, okay?” You spoke up; Spencer was already looking at your lips; he simply nodded and leaned in with you. His eyes flapped shut a few moments after you closed yours, and your noses bumped, spewing faint giggles from both of your lips.

Your lips adjoined with his for the first time, and neither of you wanted it to be the last. Your lips tasted like the strawberry you ate before; his lips curled into a smile at the flavor. He tasted like vanilla chapstick. You could devour his lips, but you had decency, at least for now.

You didn't count the seconds; you were too lost in his lips, but Spencer did. His mental stopwatch halted as soon as his lips parted from yours. Twelve seconds—a few nanoseconds away from thirteen—you two spent kissing.

His forehead pressed against yours, both of your breaths mingling as your eyes slowly opened. The sight was practically lethal. His eyebrows furrowed and lips were moist. Your stares met as his eyes eventually opened.

“Is it a good time to say I love you?”

“I don't think there's a bad time. I love you too.”

[forwhomthewordsflow]

Stars In My Eyes

(a part two to this fic!)

modern music teacher!eddie munson x art teacher fem!reader

18+ ONLY MDNI!!!

warnings: fluff, so fluffy, first dates, first kisses, some anxiety/stress, a little dash of coach!steve harrington, suggestiveness

author's note: i feel like this took me ages to write! so sorry for the wait...i do sort of love how this turned out :) writing a first kiss scene is hard!!!

please let me know what your thoughts are on this series!

word count: 7.7k

Eddie Munson couldn’t believe his luck.

Like, sure he’s gotten lucky a few times before.  There was that one time an officer let him off with a warning after he rolled through a stop sign, he’d played the “I’m a teacher during finals week” card and it had seemed to work out pretty well for him.  There were also a few times when a stranger in front of him at the Starbucks drive thru had paid for his morning coffee, only for him to turn around and see there was no one behind him to pay it forward to.  

And then, there was that time back during his final senior year where Stacy Cowell was going through a “rebel phase” and decided to give Eddie a string of random blowjobs over the course of a week and a half to make herself feel like she was living on “the wild side.”  She quickly transitioned out of that phase when Eddie had asked her out on a date, he figured they should probably make an effort to learn a little about each other if she was going to be deepthroating him in the back of his van every other day after school.  She turned him down with a disgusted sneer, leaving Eddie a little heartbroken by the fact that a girl could be so offended at the idea of a date with him.  

But none of that even mattered to Eddie anymore.  All of those situations touched by a bit of luck have been reduced down to mere coincidences now that he has you in his life.  Even though it was only one IKEA date trip that the two of you went on last weekend, Eddie couldn’t stop himself from imagining a long, happy future with you because of how fucking perfect it all went.

- 

You don’t think you’ve ever been so nervously giddy over anything in your entire life.  There had never really been any boys that you were crazy for when you were younger.  Sure, you’d been in love a couple times before, but nothing was ever…”wow.” 

 You’d never felt any real sparks, never met anyone truly special enough to change your life like all of the women you’d seen in movies or read about in books.  

But Eddie…he was very much wow.

After you’d worked out the details for your IKEA trip that afternoon in your classroom, you found it hard to stop blushing for the remainder of the week.  The both of you decided that you’d go on Saturday morning, and Eddie had insisted on picking you up and driving there together.  He bowed his head and lightly pressed his lips to your hand in a dramatic and silly fashion before leaving your classroom.  Your knees felt weak and a bright red blush bloomed on your face as Eddie stood back up to his full height to face you. 

“You know,” he started, still holding your hand, "you're really cute when you blush like that.”

A tiny squeak is all that comes out of your mouth when you open it to respond.  

You struggle to put together a coherent sentence and settle for the smile and girlish giggle that bubbled its way out of your chest.  

“I’ll see you later.”

Eddie started to walk backwards, keeping your hand in his grasp until he was too far away and then turning around to exit your classroom.  There wasn’t much else you could do except stare at the hand that had just been held by him, while holding your other over your mouth in shock.  

Eddie waited the appropriate five seconds after being out of your line of sight before erupting into a silent “fist-punching-head-banging-fuck yeah!” celebration in the hallway.  He couldn’t believe he kissed your hand.  The thought to kiss your hand had barely graced his mind before his body had made the decision to go through with it.  Eddie was terrified that his nerdy qualities would cause you to run for the hills, or that you’d think he was weird or stupid.

But instead, you’d blushed bright red and blessed his ears with a giggle, and all of Eddie’s worries and fears were banished from his mind at the sound of it.  

Eddie decided he was going to really enjoy taking every opportunity to make you blush.  

-

There were only two days until your IKEA trip with Eddie, and somehow you kept missing each other in the hallways at school.  On the rare occasion that Eddie had a spare moment, you were at some kind of art teacher workshop.  Whenever you could pull yourself away from decorating your classroom and lesson-planning, Eddie was leaving early for the day to go look at different types of Tubano drums for his classroom.  

There were a couple of staff meetings that everyone had to attend, but the two of you never ended up sitting next to each other.  Instead, you would indulge in a game of eye tag, making yourself feel like you were in high school all over again with a big fat crush.  

While you were really looking forward to your day out with Eddie, a tiny part of you was glad that you weren’t running into him constantly.  You found yourself overpouring your coffee in the morning because of the way the deep brown shade of the coffee matched the color of Eddie’s eyes.  You accidentally took a sip out of your paint water cup instead of your drinking cup because you were staring off at the lamps in your room, wondering which one had been Eddie’s favorite.  Two days was just what you needed to collect yourself enough to act like a normal human being before you saw Eddie again.  You weren’t even allowing yourself the time to think about being in a car with him for the hour that it took to get to IKEA.  All of the workshops, lesson plans and other preparation for the start of school kept you calm and collected.

Eddie, on the other hand, was reduced to a pile of chunky silver rings and nerves.  He couldn’t stop thinking about everything he had to get done before your trip…date?  Was it a date?  Did you say the word date when you asked him?  Is it even a date when the girl asks the guy-

Eddie’s frantic pacing is interrupted by a shark knock on his propped open classroom door.

“Yo, Munson.  How’s the…” Steve trailed off as he took in Eddie’s disheveled state.  “Dude.”

“I know, I know, man.” Eddie responds, plopping down in a chair that was meant for one of his students.  He puts his head in his hands, tugging on the roots to try and get a grip.

“What’s goin’ on, Ed?  I haven’t seen you this distraught since One Direction broke up.”  Steve sits on top of a desk next to Eddie, jabbing him softly in the shoulder after his lame attempt at getting a smile out of Eddie.  

Eddie chuckles and shakes his head at the stupid joke.  He looks up at Steve with a deep sigh, then stands up and grabs him by the shoulders.

“If I tell you, it stays between us.”  Eddie fixes Steve with a hard look and raised eyebrows, not any different from the look he gives his students when they’re getting up to no good.  “I’m so dead serious.”

Steve’s eyes widen at the sudden seriousness, making a cross over his chest with his finger.  “Yeah man, cross my heart and all that.”

Eddie lets go of Steve, slumping back into the chair with a huff.  

“How do you know that a date is a date, and not just a friend thing?”

Steve smiles cockily and leans forward, always interested in Eddie’s love life…or lack thereof.

“Well, I don’t know…I think I might have to hear a little more about this special lady in order for me to provide some of my good ol’ Harrington Love Advice.”  Steve wiggles his eyebrows at Eddie, throwing in a wink for the sake of being annoying.

Eddie rolls his eyes, he knew it was a mistake to bring up girls around this guy.  Steve was always giving Eddie pointers on how to get chicks the way he did, but Eddie was in no way similar to Steve when it came to relationships.  Steve never had nothing to do on the weekends, always with a new girl, sometimes even the single moms at school.  He’d meet them out at a bar, woo them, take them to dinner and then even sometimes back to his place.  Despite his fuck-boy tendencies, Eddie knows it’s never that meaningful for either party.  Steve’s been pining after one of the English teachers for years, and these flings are only serving as a way to satiate his intensely flirtatious side.  

As annoying as he may be, it would be nice to rant about all of his pent up loverboy feelings for you to Steve.  Eddie knows he’s just giving him a hard time, it’s one of the many love languages they share as best friends.

“I-it’s just…she’s so beautiful man, like…holy fuck.”  Eddie shakes his head in disbelief, looking off into the distance as he rambles on about you.  “I mean just…she looks like some kind of Elven princess-angel-goddess-fairy–”

“Dude, Ed.  None of that nerd shit please, say it to me in English.”

Eddie chuckles and shakes his head with a sigh.  

“Okay.  I really like her.  I haven’t felt this way in years, maybe ever.  We met officially yesterday and just…clicked.”

Steve smiles at Eddie as he talks about you, happy to see his friend so excited about someone.

“We made plans to go to IKEA this weekend, but I don’t know what to make of it?  Is it a date?  Should I bring her flowers?  What if I do bring her flowers and she gets weirded out because it was actually never a date at all?”

Steve holds his hands up like he’s trying to calm down an animal.  

“Woah there, buddy.  No need to get all freaked out about it.”  Steve can’t help but to laugh a little at the helpless look on his friend’s face.  “Let’s just start with the details, okay?  Who asked who?”

“She asked me.  I said I liked her lamps and then she said she got them at IKEA and then I said that I needed some for my room and then she said that we should go to IKEAandshopforsometogether-”

“Okay, okay man.  Take a deep breath.”  Steve motions for Eddie to inhale for a couple seconds.  

“Then let it all out.”  Eddie expels the breath from his lips in a hard huff, looking a little calmer.  “Alright.  So, she asked you?”

Eddie nods.

“That’s good, it means she’s interested!  Not a lot of women are making the first move these days, it means that she definitely wants a slice of Munson.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at Steve, but still waits for him to go on.

“Are you picking her up for the trip to IKEA?”

“Yeah, I offered to pick her up and drive us both there since it’s about an hour away.”

Steve scratches his five o’clock stubble.

“Hmm…okay.  Did she like…jump at the chance for you to drive her or was there some hesitation before she agreed?”

Eddie thinks back to that moment.  How the two of you were standing slightly too close for new friends, the way your eyes seemed to sparkle as you looked up at him, how he was surprised you couldn’t hear his heart beating out of his chest.  

He remembers offering to drive the both of you to the store, surprising himself by saying it way calmer than he was feeling.  Your face lit up a little, like you were shocked that he’d even offer to pick you up and drive you there.  You smiled and nodded your head sweetly before agreeing out loud.

Eddie feels himself smiling at the tiny memory.

“It wasn’t like she immediately answered…but she definitely was smiling when she agreed.  She didn’t seem nervous about it or anything, it was more like she was excited or something.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up as a smirk emerges on his face.

“So let me see if I’m getting this straight.  She asked you to go to IKEA, probably knowing it was a long drive, and then she happily agreed to let you pick her up and drive the two of you there?  For a whole two hours there and back?”

Eddie nods, anxiously awaiting Steve’s opinion on all of this.

“I mean, it’ll probably be a good four or five hours that you spend together driving and shopping.”

Steve fixes Eddie with a look that says ‘c’mon man, it’s obvious.’

Eddie’s had enough of his edging.  “Will you just get to the fucking point please for the love of god?”

Steve sighs and claps a hand on Eddie's shoulder. 

“Ed, it’s a date.”

Eddie barks out a triumphant laugh and Steve does the same.  The two men high five and Steve wraps a beefy arm around Eddie’s shoulder to pat him on the chest.  Eddie can’t help but to let out a big sigh of relief now that he can stop worrying about how to act on this trip date.

-

On Friday, you could’ve sworn you went slightly neurotic.  

Since Tuesday you’d been considering your day with Eddie as a date, but it suddenly hit you that maybe he didn’t feel the same way.  What if you’d been doing all this worrying and freaking out for no reason?  What if he ends up calling you ‘dude’ the entire day?  What if he has a girlfriend already, and he just agreed to take you to IKEA so that you wouldn’t get your feelings hurt?

You’d been running circles in your head trying to prepare yourself for any and all possible outcomes that Saturday could hold for you, but none of it seemed to be doing you any good.

So, you did what you always did whenever you found yourself flipping out over something new.

You made a to-do list. 

Pick out an outfit.  Dress! too fancy…jeans?  Dress, definitely dress. not too fancy though…

Drink wine 

Watch movie

Clean house…again

Drink more wine

Possibly reconsider outfit…

After all was said and done, you plopped down on your worn-in couch, sufficiently drunk with a clean house and an outfit neatly hung up outside of your closet.  You decide to pour your third and final glass of wine for the evening, and to surrender your anxiety to the gods of love.  You hope and pray that they like you enough to let you have this one. 

-

It was finally Saturday.  Eddie stands in front of his closet furiously, wondering why in the fuck he can’t find a single thing to wear for his date with you today.  He’s got enough clothes to fill his entire closet, dresser, and a $20 clothing rack he picked up at Target years ago.  Steve said to just go with what felt the most like ‘Eddie’, but he’s suddenly unable to remember what his style even looks like.  

He wants to punch himself in the nuts for not taking the time last night to plan this all out like a normal person.  

He ends up settling for a fitted white tee, a pair of trusty black jeans, and black boots.  On a FaceTime call with Steve (so he could approve Eddie’s choice), Steve mentioned that the outfit was casual, but still fairly nice, and that the white shirt showed off his tattoos and muscles.

“Chicks dig the muscles and white tee combo, man.  Trust.”

Eddie chuckles at his friend’s ‘frat boy’ lingo, but the comment makes him feel better about his appearance anyways.  Last year, Steve had managed to convince Eddie to start going to the gym with him after school during the week, and it pains him to admit that he sort of really likes it now.  He likes how much stronger he feels, he likes sweating out all of his frustrations, and most of all he likes the way he fills out his t-shirts now.

After hanging up the call with Steve, Eddie flexes a little in his mirror before leaving to go pick you up.  He decides to do a few last minute push ups and to moisturize the tattoos on his arms so that he looks extra good for you.

-

Perhaps being slightly neurotic about this date was a good idea.

Thanks to all of your meticulous planning, you managed to get completely ready with a half hour to spare.  You decided against sitting on your couch until Eddie arrived since the nervous butterflies in your stomach made you want to throw up, so you opted to wander around your house for the remainder of the time.

You pass by your mirror, doing a final check and making sure your outfit and makeup are up to par.  You’d decided on a simple white dress, with a denim button up thrown over it and your pair of black chelsea boots that had yet to let you down.  You smile at your reflection, happy that you’d managed to choose a comfy and cute outfit that felt like you.

There’d been too many dates before this one where you’d gone out and spent insane amounts of money on brand new outfits that you weren’t even sure you really liked, all in the name of impressing your date and hoping he likes you enough to ask you out on a second one.  When prepping for those dates, you spent hours upon hours running around like a mad woman.  Shaving, plucking, tweezing, waxing.  Making sure your hair curled just right and that your eyeliner was sexy, but not slutty.

You couldn’t figure out why Eddie felt so different to you.  Even though the nerves of a first date had really freaked you out the night before, this morning was fairly calm.  Sure, you took plenty of time in the shower and doing your hair and makeup, but it didn’t feel like you were trying to morph into a different version of yourself to please a man. 

It felt more like you were trying your best to look like your favorite version of yourself. 

You want Eddie to know who you are inside and outside of work, and you really hope that he likes what he finds. 

-

Eddie stays parked outside of your house for a minute or two to try and settle his nerves.  

You lived in a small, red brick house in a family neighborhood.  There were flowers planted in the beds under your windows, and your front door was painted a deep turquoise color.  Eddie sucks in a breath when he sees your figure moving around through the gauzy white curtains covering your windows.  

How can a hazy silhouette still be so beautiful?

Looking into his rearview mirror, Eddie takes a deep breath.

“You got this man.  Be cool.”

He turns his car off and makes his way to your front door, knocking three times and then taking a step back to wait for you.

It takes all of two seconds for your front door to swing open, revealing you on the other side.

Eddie immediately feels weak in the knees.  You looked so cute in your little boots, and he couldn’t help but to let his eyes trail up the smooth skin of your legs.  He gulped a bit at the short hem of your dress, and then realized he should probably say something.

“Hey you.”

“Hi,” You smile up at him bashfully as he looks you up and down.  You take the opportunity to look him over as well, and damn.  You already knew he was sexy, but his tight tee shirt and pulled back hair made you want to drag him into your house and do things to him…

You only notice that he’s been holding a hand behind his back when he brings it out in front of him, revealing a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  

“These are for you.  I didn’t know which was your favorite, so I just asked the lady to throw together a bunch of different kinds and to make it look pretty.”  Eddie holds the colorful bouquet out to you and smiles sheepishly.  

Your mouth hangs open as you reach out to take them, being so careful for no real reason.  You look up at Eddie with those big, sparkling eyes.

“Thank you so much, Eddie.  These are so incredibly beautiful,” he watches you looking down at the flowers, gently brushing your fingers against their petals.  “Let me run inside and find a vase for them real quick.  Come on in!”

You wave him in behind you and hurry inside.

Eddie tries to suppress the excitement he feels at being invited into your home.  He felt like he already got a good glimpse at who you are and how you express yourself when he was inside your classroom, but he’s now getting to see where you spend the majority of your time, where you live.  As he steps over the threshold and into your house, he readies his brain to take mental pictures of everything he sets his eyes on, just in case he never sees it again.

Instantly, he’s hit with a sense of “home.”  The inside of your house is the perfect temperature and it smells so good and womanly, like your perfume and also like you’ve been baking something but somehow also like flowers…Eddie loves it already.

You scurry off into the kitchen, trying not to think about the fact that Eddie Munson is looking around your house right now.

Where in the hell have all of your vases run off to?

Eddie walks around cooly with his hands clasped behind his back, taking in everything about your space.  Much like your classroom, Eddie is able to spot at least four different sized lamps and light fixtures placed around your entryway and living room.  There were warm white Christmas lights hung up along the ceiling, multiple green-leaved plants in different corners, and Eddie even thinks he spotted a black cat sprinting under your soft looking white sectional.

Overall, he’d give your interior design skills an 11/10. 

He’s just starting to miss you a little when you come out from your kitchen holding your flowers in a sparkly glass vase.  

It’s an odd feeling, seeing Eddie in your house.  His ‘edgier’ look seems like it wouldn’t fit with your overall aesthetic, but to your surprise he looks like he belongs here.  You walk up to him almost in a daze, admiring the silver hoop earrings he’s wearing, the smile on his lips, and the way some of his hair has made its way out of his low bun to frame his face.  

The two of you stand there for a moment looking at each other, with you holding your flowers in between your bodies.  You engage in a staring match for almost a second too long before you break the silence.

“No one’s ever gotten me flowers before,” you sheepishly admit, looking down at them instead of at him.  Eddie grins at the blush that blooms onto your cheeks after your prolonged eye contact.

Eddie scoffs before he can stop himself.

“Seriously?  That’s a damn shame, sweetheart.”

You look up at him again and try not to faint at how easily the word fell from his perfect lips.  Unable to take another second of his eyes on yours, you retreat into your living room to find the perfect place for your new flowers.  You decide to put them on your coffee table, then turn around to find that Eddie had followed you in.  

He offers his arm out to you, “Shall we?”

This time, you can’t fight the smile.

You take his arm and swipe your purse from the coat hanger next to your front door on your way out.

-

Eddie was the perfect gentleman for the entire duration of the car ride to IKEA.  He had opened the car door for you, he let you pick the music, and he definitely did not sneak a glimpse at your bare, voluminous thighs when your dress shifted as you sat down.  The sweet smell of your perfume spread throughout the interior of his truck, he hopes that smell never fades away.

He couldn’t help glancing over at you every other minute, looking so beautiful in his passenger seat while you bobbed your head to whatever song you had queued up on his phone. 

“Would it be a total invasion of privacy if I played your On Repeat playlist?  I’m dying to know what the music teacher’s favorite music is right now.”  Eddie turned to see that you were smiling pleadingly at him, and how could he say no to that face?

“I suppose,” Eddie sighs dramatically.  “But, you are not allowed to judge me for whatever pops up.”  He playfully points a finger at you while keeping his eyes on the road.  You giggle girlishly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

You hit ‘shuffle’ on Eddie’s playlist and aren’t surprised when the first song that plays through the speakers is ‘The Unforgiven ll’ by Metallica.  You already knew Eddie was a fan of the band thanks to the music he always has playing a tad too loudly whenever you pass by his classroom.

“Oh, I know this song!”

Eddie’s face whips towards you sporting a shocked ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me’ expression.  He was definitely expecting you to be the ‘indie music’ type.  Your eyebrows furrow adorably angrily at the look on his face.  

“What?  A girl can’t like Metallica?” You fix him with a look that tells Eddie he should think twice about his response.

“W-well…I just didn’t expect you to be into them…that’s all.”  You roll your eyes playfully at him and cross your arms.  “But!  I’m very pleasantly surprised that you are!  Girls rule, alright?  Men like…totally suck and stuff.”

You chuckle at his frantic attempt at avoiding a lecture on gender inequality and feminism while settling back into your seat.  And because you actually do know and love this song, you start mouthing the words, which eventually evolves into singing them under your breath.

When Eddie thought he spotted you mouthing the words out of the corner of his eye, he was sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him.  But just barely hearing you singing the words to his favorite Metallica song just further confirmed a fact that he already knew.

Eddie Munson was totally going to fall in love with you.

The rest of the car ride consisted of sharing music, talking about work and life, childhood memories, and other random topics.  Eddie discovered that you love thunderstorms, your cat’s name is Pascal (after the chameleon from Tangled), and that you moved here at the beginning of summer from Chicago.

Eddie swears there’s never been a conversation in history that flowed as well as yours and his.  He felt like he’s known you for years, and he hopes you’re feeling the same way.

You totally are.

-

Once the two of you made it to IKEA and inside the giant store, Eddie quickly realized that he never really put any thought into what he actually wanted to buy for his classroom.  You swiftly came to his rescue and pulled out your phone to open up Pinterest.

Together, you found a couple pictures that matched the general vibe of Eddie’s classroom.  He grabbed a map of the store and a cart, and set off into the maze of furniture.  

You were back to being shy again, now that you were out in the wild with Eddie.  He found that making jokes about all of the funny names got you giggling, and so he didn’t miss an opportunity.

He made you laugh the hardest next to the Koppang drawers.

You bumped your shoulder into his around the Baggebo bookcases.

His hand brushed yours next to a Tornviken kitchen island. 

And Eddie finally worked up the courage to hold your hand next to a Klippan loveseat.

You gasped a little when you felt his warm hand slide into yours, interlocking your fingers together.  A red hot blush worked its way up your neck as you snuck a glance over at him, only to find that he was already looking at you with a smirk.  He knows exactly what this hand holding is doing to you.

He chuckles smugly as the two of you arrive at the lights section of the store.  As he pushes the cart through the aisles, you’re enamored by the twinkling lights that are draped overhead.  You’re lucky he’s holding your hand, or else you probably would’ve fallen flat on your face.  Eddie can’t help but to stare at you as you stare up at all the different light fixtures.  The different colors and hues of light shine beautifully onto your face, and the soft smile on your lips makes Eddie wish he could just grab you and kiss you right here in the aisle.  But, he figures that would cause you to explode after your reaction to his hand-holding.

He watches as you look further down the aisle at the lamps that are on display there, your face lighting up in recognition.

“Oh!  That’s one that I’ve got in my room!”  You point at an orange, donut shaped light called a Varmblixt.  Eddie recognizes it, you do indeed have one hanging on the wall behind your desk.

“I must have it,” Eddie says with a flourish ,”Never have I seen a more extraordinary donut lamp.”

You giggle and go to grab one to place in the cart, but the box proves to be way heavier than you remember.  Eddie notices as soon as you inhale to exert more effort, and he steps in immediately. 

 No fair maiden such as you should be forced to exert any effort whatsoever in his presence.

“I’ve got it, sweetheart.”

You try not to let the name affect you but once again, you fail.  You’re left blushing and biting your lip, speechless.  You stare unashamed at Eddie as he picks up the heavy box and goes to place it in the cart with ease.  The overhead lights were really doing him favors, every ridge and contour of his body was lit to perfection.  You could see the delicious bulge of his biceps, the ripple of his forearm muscles, and the outline of his chest in his shirt….why is your mouth watering?

Eddie easily places the box in the cart, turning to face you again.  He finds you blushing up at him with wide eyes, and is unable to contain the smug smirk on his face.  The sudden lack of distance between the two of you did not go unnoticed by him, he hoped you couldn’t hear his heart pounding in his chest.

The ‘normal you’ would’ve noticed that you were obviously in Eddie’s personal bubble, and you would’ve taken a step back like the respectable adult that you are.  But the ‘normal you’ was long gone in Eddie’s presence.  This version of you was not unlike the version that existed when you were an awkward teenager who was on the brink of passing out anytime a boy even breathed in your direction. 

While you were busy ogling Eddie’s physique, you’d failed to notice the close proximity between the two of you, which led you to your current situation.  

You and him were so close together, you could feel the warm puffs of air from between his parted lips gently hitting your face.  His gaze trailed down from your eyes to your lips, but you wouldn’t have noticed anyways because you were one step ahead of him.

His lips looked so pillowy and soft, you wondered how they’d feel pressed against yours.  Would he kiss you slowly, gently holding your face in his big hands and brushing his thumbs along the apples of your cheeks?  Or would he be rougher than that, grabbing you by the waist and tugging you into him, kissing you with fire and passion?

Eddie’s eyebrows furrow as he watches you suck your bottom lip into your mouth to bite it.  You’re so goddamn beautiful, and you looked like an angel in this aisle of lights.  A lamp from behind you lights up the silhouette of your hair like a halo, and he can see the lights above his head reflected in your eyes like stars.  

Eddie knows he shouldn’t kiss you right now, not in the middle of IKEA where he can hear kids whining to their parents and couples arguing over which shade of beige would match their living room better.  He knows this, but he can’t stop himself from reaching his hand up to gently grasp your jaw.  His thumb slides from your chin to your bottom lip, tugging it free from your teeth.

His hand snakes down to the side of your neck, and you can feel the slight tremor in his hand.  You’re glad that the situation is affecting him too, because you are freaking out.  

Is he going to kiss you right now?  

In IKEA?

On your first date? 

Is this even a date?  

Do you even want him to kiss you?  Idiot, of course you want him to.

Eddie’s eyebrows lift slightly, almost questioning you.  Asking you, ‘Do you want this? Is this okay?’

You answer him with a soft smile, and you feel his hand move behind your neck to pull you in.

It is at this moment that a baby starts to wail one aisle over, effectively ruining any sort of moment you and Eddie had been sharing.

He lets out a frustrated huff, and touches his forehead to yours with closed eyes.  

“Of course,” he groans.

You’re secretly giddy at the fact that he so obviously wanted to kiss you badly.  You bring your hand up to his arm that’s still resting on your neck to give it a reassuring squeeze, and in a surprising burst of confidence, you rise up on your toes to peck him on the cheek.

Eddie’s eyes shoot open at the feeling of your soft lips on his cheek.  He pulls back to stare down at you as his face turns red.

You giggle at him, then turn around to walk down the aisle.

“C’mon, I think I saw another one of my lamps down this way!”

Eddie snaps himself out of his daze with a shake of his head, he’s sure that he’s got hearts in his eyes as he watches you walk away from him.  Grabbing the cart with one hand, he holds his other gently to his cheek, touching the spot that’s still warm from your lips.

-

Eddie ends up purchasing five lamps from IKEA after an hour and a half of wandering through the aisles with you.  

He can’t help but to act like the loverboy he is when he’s looking at furniture with you.  He fantasizes about a life with you, imagining that the two of you are actually here to pick out items to furnish your shared house.  

He wonders which kind of wood floors you’d pick out and which backsplash you’d want in the kitchen.  You’d probably want to decorate with colorful rugs and throw pillows, and Eddie wouldn’t complain.  Not as long as you’re happy.   He’d live in a pink house decorated with bows and lace trim as long as he was living in it with you.  

Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself, it’s only your first date together right?

If only he knew you were having similar thoughts as you strolled up and down the aisles, hand in hand.  You thought about what kind of decorating he did in his house, you figured it was styled in some way considering the amount of effort he puts into making his classroom look as cool as it does.  Does he have shelves full of records or different posters framed and hung up on his wall?  Which side of the bed does he sleep on?  You hope he likes plants, there’s no way you could part with your beloved greenery if the two of you were to live together.

You’re quick to silence the random thoughts buzzing around in your head, it’s silly to think about these things on your very first date…you don’t even know his middle name yet!

You and Eddie both seem to snap out of your stupors at the same time, sighing simultaneously.  You both turn to look at each other and then begin to laugh, unsure on whether or not the ‘jinx’ rules apply in a sighing situation.  

-

Eddie pays for the lights, and soon enough you’re both back in his truck.  

It dawns on you that your date is almost over, but you’re quickly redirected when you hear the starting notes to the next song that starts playing when Eddie’s phone connects to his radio.

Is that…Taylor Swift?

You turn to him slowly, confused at why a Taylor Swift song is on his ‘On Repeat’ Spotify playlist.

Eddie’s already staring at you mortified.  He holds a hand up, pausing any words that might’ve come out of your mouth.

“Before you say anything,” he begins ,”I really admire her lyricism.  Girl’s a wizard with words.”

The two of you sit in a charged silence for a moment before you can’t hold in your reaction any longer.  A laugh breaks free from your chest, and Eddie can’t  help but to laugh along with you.

You’re wiping tears from your eyes as your laughter dies down, and Eddie just grins at you.

“I can’t believe it.  The rock and roll music teacher listens to enough Taylor Swift for it to end up on his ‘On Repeat’ playlist.”  You shake your head at him with a wide smile on your face that Eddie wants to take a picture of and frame.  

“Yeah, yeah…laugh it up.  As a music teacher, it’s my duty to appreciate all types of music.”

You nod along to his explanation, “Yes, of course.  How else are you supposed to connect with the teenage girls these days?”

“Right! Yes!”  Eddie exclaims.  “I do this lesson on lyrics and Taylor’s music is a great example of what storytelling in music can look like.  I respect her, hard.”

You stifle another laugh at his emotional Taylor Swift themed outburst.

“This stays between you and I alright?” Eddie points a finger at you playfully.  “If Harrington gets word of this I’ll never live it down.”

“Of course, my lips are sealed.”  You mime zipping your lips shut and throwing away the key.

Eddie settles back into his seat with a huff, boyishly smiling over at you.

“I have a very important question for you Eddie.”

He leans in, intrigued by your seriousness. 

“Which era are you in right now?”

Eddie scoffs, throwing his head back with a groan.  This sends you into another laughing fit, Eddie can’t help but to join in again.  He’s coming to find out that your joy is such an infectious thing.

“Hmm let’s see…,” he muses.  He turns to look at you with one hand on the wheel and a smirk on his face as he puts his keys in the ignition.  

“Right now…I’d have to go with ‘Lover,’” he says with a wink.

Your laughter is cut off abruptly as you gasp and bite your lip, attempting to subdue the cheesy grin that’s surely made its way onto your face by now.  

You stare unashamed as Eddie puts his right hand over the back of your seat to turn around and look through the rear window as he reverses the car out of its parking spot.  You can smell the cologne he must’ve sprayed on this morning, which immediately awakens the butterflies in your stomach.

As soon as Eddie is set on the route back to your house, he holds out his hand expectantly over his center console.  You look at it, then at him, then back at his hand before shyly placing your hand in his.  He’s quick to lace his fingers through yours, holding on tight and running his thumb back and forth.

You’re both thinking that you could get used to this.

-

Eddie (reluctantly) only lets go of your hand in order to rush around the front of his truck to open your car door for you after he’s pulled into your driveway.  He’s quiet as he walks you to your front door, wondering which way is the best way to ask you out on another date.  

You stop when you reach your door, looking down at your hand in his.  The silence begins to feel just a tad awkward as you both search for something to fill it.

“Thank you,” you start quietly ,”for today.  I had a wonderful time.”

Eddie lets out a relieved breath and grins widely down at you.

“I did too,” he begins, readying himself for his next question.  “Would you…I mean–would you like to…uh…shit, would you want to maybe do it again sometime?”

You know what he means, but it’s still so tempting to tease him when he’s blushing like this.

“Would I want to go to IKEA with you again?”

“N-no!  I mean, if you wanted to we could I guess…b-but I was thinking something more along the lines of dinner?”

You find it adorable how nervous he is to ask you out on a second date, as if you wouldn’t agree to go out to dinner with him tonight.

“I’d love that.”

Eddie’s face lights up with a triumphant smile as he lets out the anxious breath he’d been holding in.  

“Good, that’s really good.”  The way you’re smiling up at him right now is causing him to lose his train of thought.  “Um…how’s tomorrow night?  Around 7?”

“Tomorrow night is perfect.”

“Awesome.  Great, yeah I’ll just…I’ll pick you up, okay?”

You’re beaming as you nod your head, much too ecstatic at the idea of going out with Eddie again to form a coherent sentence.

Eddie finds himself smiling and nodding with you, you’re just too adorable. 

“Hey could I uh…c-could I get your number?” Eddie stammers the question out like he’s a prepubescent teenager, mentally face palming the whole time.

He’s relieved when you chuckle and hold your hand out for him to place his phone in.  He fumbles around trying to give you his phone as quickly as possible, he can’t believe how nervous he feels right now. 

He finally somehow manages to pass over his phone with a new contact page pulled up and ready for you.  You type in your number and name, making sure to add the artist’s palette emoji afterwards.  Eddie laughs through his nose when he sees it, then pockets his phone again.  

There’s a weird tension in the air that can only be brought upon by two people who so obviously want to kiss each other, but are too nervous to make the first move.  Eddie wracks his brain for a way to ask you if it’d be okay for him to kiss you without looking like a total idiot.  It’s really unfortunate that the way you bite your lip causes his mind to completely shut off and switch to autopilot.  

“I really wanna kiss you right now,” he blurts out.

You look up at him, shocked at his bluntness.  Eddie’s even more shocked than you are.

“Y-you probably should then,” you bashfully admit.

Eddie can’t believe that worked.

He steps towards you and softly places one hand on your cheek, the other going to gently grasp the side of your neck similarly to the way he had in IKEA during your almost-kiss.

Your eyes flutter closed as you feel his lips graze yours for the first time.  The feeling is electrifying, and you can’t help but to venture forward for more.  

Your lips were just as soft, if not softer, than Eddie imagined. 

You plunge forward to press your lips against his, instantly deepening the kiss.  Eddie found himself instantly addicted to the feel of your lips and the way you sigh into the kiss.  It’s a shy kiss at first, where the two of you slowly begin to figure out your shared rhythm.  But it wasn’t long before you sank into a synchronized dance, mirroring each other’s movements in a way that crafted the most perfect, earth shattering first kiss.  

You let Eddie Munson kiss you at your front door in a way that you had longed to be kissed for your entire life.  This was how the women you saw in movies or read about in books were kissed.  You’d read about magic and sparks flying, and you think you’re finally starting to believe in all of it.  

Eddie moves his hand from your cheek to your waist, gripping it and pulling you closer to him.  The gasp you let out gave him the sweet opportunity to run his tongue against your bottom lip, asking, pleading for an entrance which you of course granted.  You tasted like autumn and felt like home, he decided he could kiss you for hours on end.

You both stood there for a good five minutes at your front door, making out like giddy teenagers and feeling like them too.  Eddie finally pulls away from your lips, pleased to find you subtly chasing his mouth with your own.  You open your eyes and come out of your kiss-induced haze to find him smiling adoringly down at you with both hands now circling your waist.  

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss you once more. 

“Actually, I’m gonna call you tonight.”  He kisses you again.  “Is that okay?”  Another peck.

You're giggling as he places a final kiss on your forehead, “Yes, please.”

“Good.”

Eddie steps back, grabbing your hand to kiss it like he did on Tuesday.  He pulls you back in with that same hand to plant one last kiss on your lips, then jogs back to his truck.  He waves and quickly honks his horn twice as he pulls away.  

You’re left standing at your front door, watching his truck disappear down your street and reliving every moment of your first kiss with Eddie Munson.

When you finally make your way inside, you make sure to smell your brand new beautiful flowers before scurrying off to your bedroom to pick out an outfit for your second date with Eddie tomorrow night.  

TAGLIST:

@josephquinnsfreckles @the-fairy-anon @anukulee @littlebebebunny @meetmeatyourworst @lalalala-melmosworld @someantics @lokis-army-77 @loserboysandlithium @strangerstilinski @mystra-midnight @lesservillain @queenimmadolla @luveline @munson-blurbs @fairyysoup @urhoneycombwitch @oneforthemunny @rebelfell @taintedcigs @wroteclassicaly @eiightysixbaby @bettyfrommars @loveshotzz @lovebugism @carolmunson @rustedhearts @lonelysatellites

[nadvs]

out of bounds (part one)

pairing zach maclaren and soccerplayer! female reader

rating mature 18+ for smut

summary zach has never been the type to rebel, but when he meets you at a soccer camp where you’re both working as counselors, which has a strict policy against dating between staff, he’s tempted to break the rules for the first time.

note i know most of my readers follow me for rafe fics so i hope y’all can bear with me indulging in a fluffy and angsty (and eventually spicy) summer romance with the sunshine character that is zach 🙂‍↕️ all my love to @juniebugg who inspired me to write about him ilysm 💘

» masterlist

Once you’re finally sitting down in the main lodge, a massive wooden cabin nestled in the center of the campground, you feel like you can take your first real breath since you arrived.

The morning was chaos. You made it to check-in just in time and met your cabin-mate Ami, who you learned is also new to the job.

Then, you quickly changed into your new bright orange staff t-shirt, which is so bright orange that it hurts to look at, and chatted with her as you rushed over for orientation.

Now, you’re settled on one of twelve wooden chairs facing the grand fireplace, set in front of floor-to-ceiling windows, which boast a cobalt blue lake under a cloudless sky.

Campers are set to arrive tomorrow morning and today is dedicated to preparation. You’ve already done countless training modules online before arriving, so today will be all about learning what’s left.

You hope you get a chance to explore the place before it starts teeming with preteens, because the photos on the camp website don’t do the grounds justice.

Your interviews were over video call and today is the first time you’re seeing the stunning campground in person. It’s stretched out on a wide expanse of greener-than-green pine trees, rustic buildings, and pristine soccer fields.

This job is your best case scenario for the summer. You can’t wait to spend seven weeks in one of the prettiest places you’ve ever seen and gain confidence in your athletic skills while coaching kids in your favorite sport.

As a center back on your college’s girls’ soccer team, you feel your best when you’re out on the pitch, but the pressure of the past school year was hard to navigate. You hope that teaching kids excited about soccer will remind you of why you like it so much.

As Zach sits in the front row, he notices the smell of this place never changes. It’s woodsy and brisk. It smells like comfort. But he’s pretty sure he’s biased. Camp Summit is sort of a haven to him and has been since he was a kid.

The chatter in the lodge has grown louder as more and more counselors settle into their seats, but once the camp directors walk up to the front, the noise wavers.

Tom and Ruby offer a kind welcome and then, like they do every year, quickly jump into training.

After two hours of going over the how-to’s on welcoming campers, facilitating activities, walkie-talkie etiquitte, and establishing rules, they announce that everyone can head to the dining hall for lunch.

“We won’t force you through any awkward icebreakers,” Tom says to the group, “so, we encourage you to get to know each other over lunch. We have a good mix of vets and newbies this year. We want you to be friends with your coworkers. But before you go…”

He looks over the room.

“We should mention,” the director continues, “that we have a strict policy against anything more. It can get unprofessional and inappropriate when counselors date each other.”

“Is that legal?” Ami whispers to you. “They can’t, like fire us for that, right?”

“You like someone already?” you amusedly ask your new friend.

“I might,” she says with a smile, her eyes on a dark-haired guy sitting ahead of you. You quietly laugh, glad you’re already so comfortable with the girl you’ll be bunking with.

“Aren’t you guys married to each other?” a girl behind you calls out.

The way that Tom and Ruby laugh tells you that they are, and that the counselor who shouted that must be a vet, already familiar enough with them to make comments like that.

“Yeah, but directors can do whatever they want,” Ruby jokes with a lighthearted shrug. You look down at their hands to see wedding rings. “In all seriousness, we hate having to enforce it, but please, no dating.”

Once counselors slowly rise out of their seats to go to lunch, your eyes land on a tall, messy-haired stranger standing at the front, who starts a conversation with the directors.

Maybe you shouldn’t tease your cabin-mate, because when you see his charming smile, you think you might have a crush of your own.

Tables are arranged in a neat grid in the dining hall, with a big buffet table prepared at the far wall.

You line up, noticing Ami a few people ahead, already striking conversation with the guy she pointed out to you.

You slowly inch forward with the line as counselors start to load their plates. You realize just how many people were in front of you when you get to the table and see one fork left.

You pick it up and turn to see only one person behind you. It’s the guy you noticed back at the lodge. His blue eyes sweep over your face. He’s even cuter up close.

“There’s only one left,” you say, holding out the fork with a small frown.

Zach stills when you look at him. You’re so pretty that it’s like he’s buffering. That’s the only way he can think to describe it.

You’re in the same orange shirt every other counselor is wearing and such a harsh color shouldn’t look this good on anyone, but it does on you. He reads your name-tag.

And then he realizes you said something. He completely missed it because he was too busy staring.

“What?” he asks.

Your eyes flit down to his name-tag hanging on his lanyard. Zach, in black marker, punctuated with a smiley face. His tag is worn and scratched up, a hard contrast to how new and shiny yours is.

“There’s only one fork left,” you clarify, a soft laugh in your tone. He looks dazed, a gentle crease between his brows, almost like he wasn’t expecting to see you even though you were standing directly ahead of him.

“Oh,” he says. He looks past you to the table, his lips screwing up. “It’s cool. You can have it.”

Zach gazes at you again, a smile on his face now that he’s feeling a bit more grounded.

“I’ll find one. I…” He crosses his arms, feigning pompousness. “I have connections around here.”

“Yeah?” you play along.

“Oh, yeah. I was a camper until I aged out,” Zach tells you. “And I’ve been working here since I was 16, so I have friends in high places.”

You laugh again. That explains why he seemed so comfortable with the directors back at the lodge. He’s clearly been here for quite a few summers.

“I can tell you’ve been here a while by the state of that name-tag,” you tease. He looks down to tilt up the worn out plastic rectangle hanging over his stomach, his bottom lip jutting out.

“Poke fun all you want, but you don’t know how impressive it is that I never lost this,” Zach replies. “Name-tags go missing all the time. I bet you’ll lose yours.”

“I thought staff were supposed to be friends,” you say. “You’re already betting against me?”

“You want some advice?” He leans just a little closer, his tone fake-serious. “It’s actually very cutthroat here.”

“So, the be friends with your coworkers stuff, that was all talk?” you say with a gasp, mirroring his playfulness.

“All talk,” he echoes with a smirk.

“Wow,” you half-whisper. “Thanks for the advice.”

You share another smile with him, already sure your crush on him isn’t going away. He’s friendly and kind of goofy and probably has all the girls after him. You wonder how seriously he takes the no dating rule.

Then, you turn back towards the table, surprised at how quickly your mind is running away from you.

After you load your plate with food, Ami calls you over to a table with a few other counselors. You get to know a decent amount of other staff, including Malcolm, the guy your cabin-mate is openly flirting with. He seems to be just as into her.

It’s a long afternoon of training and once you step out of the lodge, you feel like you can breathe again. It was a lot of information at once and the thought of wrangling nine campers on your own feels a bit overwhelming.

But at least for every activity for the first two weeks, newbies will be paired with vets. That gives you some relief.

The sounds of birds chirping and wind blowing through the trees fill your ears as you walk towards the staff cabins hidden behind the dining hall. Your shoes dig into the dirt and you breathe in the smell of pine and earth, feeling a sense of peace settle into the bones.

Despite the tinges of anxiety, you feel grounded here, like you’re right where you’re supposed to be.

As you finish unpacking with Ami, a coworker comes by to tell you that the counselors are going to have a bonfire after sunset. You set up your room and both head towards the lake once the sky starts darkening.

Zach is arranging logs in the fire-pit, kneeling on the ground while Malcolm leans close by. No other counselors have joined yet, and he’s glad because it’s taking embarrassingly long to set up the fire.

“Just let me know when you need the lighter,” Malcolm says.

”I could use some help on lining the kindling up,” Zach tells him.

“I think you’re doing great on your own.”

Zach snorts a chuckle. His cabin-mate and best friend of two years always tries to get away with doing the least amount of work.

“Is this the party?” Ami calls.

Zach turns to see you walking towards the pit. It gives him a chance to drink you in completely, the sight of your figure making his cheeks burn.

“Just getting it started,” Malcolm says. “This place would fall apart without us.”

You and Ami chuckle, settling on one of the logs.

“Us? It looks like Zach’s the only one doing any work,” you say.

“Thank you!” he says with a sarcastic sigh, looking up to smile at you. Your gazes hold a bit longer than they need to.

“Want any help?” you ask.

“All good,” he says. “I’m used to carrying the team.”

“Cold,” Malcolm says. “Strikers and their egos.”

“You’re a striker?” you ask Zach. It tracks. Strikers tend to be on the taller side, and you practically had to crane your neck to meet his eyes when you spoke to him before lunch.

“Yeah, you?” Zach asks.

“Center back,” you reply.

“Most important position,” Malcolm adds.

“Jeez, I wonder what you are,” Ami says with a laugh. “What was that you said about egos?”

The fire starts to slowly blaze and Zach stands up, exhales tiredly and scratches his forehead. It causes his shirt to ride up and expose an inch of his stomach.

Even under the dark blue sky, the flames only offering dull, flickering light, you can’t help but notice the v lines carved into his skin.

You look away. You feel like you’re practically thirsting over him at this point. You’re convinced that the fact that fraternizing between staff is forbidden is what’s making you even more tempted to stare at him.

The four of you continue to make small-talk as more counselors start to join. You learn that Zach and Malcolm share a cabin and that they play together on their college’s team, a school only an hour away from yours.

You also notice Malcolm jokingly calls Zach a nepo baby at one point, but before you can ask why, the conversation stirs in a different direction.

Soon after, a few counselors rough-house dangerously close to the fire. It’s only for a moment, but Zach perks up.

“Be careful around there, alright?” Zach says.

“Relax, dad,” one of the vets says. “We will.”

This is the only place in the world where people tell Zach to relax. He feels a sense of responsibility here. He’s sort of an unofficial babysitter, keeping everyone in check.

You notice his dimples dip into his cheeks. He’s obviously used to being teased for being the dad of the group.

You find it a good time to privately ask him about his other nickname, the staff chatter and wood crackling loud enough so only he can hear you.

“Why’d Malcolm call you a nepo baby?” you ask.

“Oh,” Zach says with a chuckle. “Ruby and Tom are my aunt and uncle. I’m not really a nepo baby, though. I don’t get any special privileges. The opposite, actually.”

“Opposite?” you ask, amused.

“They feel way more comfortable getting mad at me than any of the other staff,” he admits lightheartedly.

“Who would get mad at you?” you joke.

“I know, right? I’m adorable.”

It’s way too easy to flirt with him. This is going to be hard.

As the night goes on, you notice Ami and Malcolm slowly drift closer towards each other, laughing and talking. Eventually, they rush away into the dark.

Admittedly, the thought of sneaking off in the night with a cute guy is kind of exciting. You look over to see Zach noticed them leave, too.

“I think our cabin-mates are about to hook up,” you say quietly.

“On the first night, too.” He shakes his head, pretending to be disappointed. “It happens every year.”

“Do they actually fire people for dating?”

“I’ve seen them get close,” Zach says. “But people hide it well for the most part. Honestly, I think most do it just because it’s against the rules.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” you say with a laugh. “It’s the whole forbidden part of it. Tell people they’re not allowed to do something, and guess what they want to do?”

“Something,” he says, earning another laugh from you.

You wonder if he ever has broken this particular rule, but it’d be too forward to ask.

“I wouldn’t risk it,” he offers, looking at the fire. You’re pretty sure he’s just giving you advice, but you take it as an opening, the curiosity killing you.

“So, you never have?” you ask.

“Nope.”

Over his many summers working here, Zach’s had crushes on other counselors, and he definitely has one on you, but a fling isn’t worth losing his job and letting down his family.

He owes a lot to his aunt and uncle. He wouldn’t disrespect their rules, no matter how pretty the new girl is.

When he looks over at you again, at the way the flames are casting shadows over your features, he corrects himself. Pretty is an understatement; beautiful is more fitting.

He almost suggests you don’t take the risk of dating either, but it’d be purely selfish. He doesn’t like the idea of seeing you in a summer romance with another guy.

And he feels insane for already feeling hypothetical jealousy, but he’s never clicked with a girl this quickly before. You’re sweet and interesting and you get his humor, and he feels like he couldn’t not like you if he tried.

“So, what brought you here?” he asks.

“Interview answer or real answer?”

“Real answer,” he says with a smile. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Playing at the college level is a lot more pressure than I expected,” you admit. “I want the experience and obviously the pay with this job, but mostly, I just want to be reminded of why I like soccer so much. Honestly, I lost my confidence in my skills this past year and I’d like to get it back.”

You’re surprised at how open you’re being, but something about him makes you want to be. He gives you a sense of safety. You can tell he’s kind-hearted.

“One of the best parts of working here is that you get enough downtime to practice,” he tells you. “I’d be happy to help you on your defense if you want.”

Your stomach numbs imagining it. It’s such a sweet gesture, especially because you’d just learned that he’s on a full-ride athletic scholarship. You know he’s good.

“Thank you,” you say. “I’ll take you up on that.”

“If you’re looking for a reminder of why you like soccer, you came to the right camp,” he replies, his smile bright and sincere.

“You really like it here, huh?” you ask, kind of in awe of him.

“I owe a lot to this place,” he says.

You make a note to yourself to ask him to elaborate on that later, as another counselor takes his attention with a question about tomorrow before you can reply.

You look back at the fire and you promise yourself that you’ll just be Zach’s coworker. At most, his friend.

You won’t risk getting even close to dating. You don’t want to lose your job. And you certainly don’t want Zach to lose his, especially because it seems important to him to follow the rules.

Besides, maybe he has a girlfriend already. You can’t imagine a guy like him being single. And maybe he’s not even into you like that. He could just be very friendly.

As the fire dwindles and counselors start to retire to their cabins, Zach leaves and returns with a bucket of water to extinguish the remaining flames.

You’re not sure why, but watching him be so hands-on with no expectations to be thanked for it makes you like him even more.

“Which cabin are you in?” he asks you, looking over his shoulder. You hope he didn’t catch you staring.

“Four,” you answer.

“We’re neighbors,” he says. “I’m in five. I can walk you back, newbie.”

There’s a chance he’s just being nice, but even though it’s against the rules, you hope it’s more.

You check your phone to see it’s just past ten o’clock. The moonlight is bright as you and Zach walk towards the staff cabins.

You’re chatting about how beautiful the campground is and he grins as he looks down at his feet. He loves this place and hearing someone else appreciate it feels nice.

When he looks up, he stops in his tracks. You follow his eye-line. There’s a shirt hanging on his cabin’s doorknob.

“Oh, man,” he whispers.

“Does the shirt on the knob mean what I think it means?” you ask.

“If you think it means walking in there would make me see something I can’t ever unsee, you’re right,” Zach answers.

You chuckle. You’re definitely going to ask Ami about the details of her hook-up with Malcolm later. And you feel an obligation to also remind her that the no-dating rule is serious.

“I’ll give them ten minutes, then I’m knocking,” he says. “You don’t have to wait with me.”

You know you should go to bed and get rested before the craziness of tomorrow. But being around Zach makes you not want to.

“I can keep you company,” you offer. “I’m pretty wired anyway.”

“Thanks,” he says with a sincere smile. It makes your heart flutter that he seems just as happy to spend more time with you.

“So, what’s there to do around here at ten o’clock?” you ask.

Zach rakes his hair back, gazing out at a soccer field in the distance as crickets loudly chirp around you.

“If you’re looking to burn energy, we can do some of that practice we were talking about,” he suggests. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

“You sure you’re not too tired?” you ask.

“Nah. Let’s go,” he says. “But be warned, when I coach, I’m ruthless.”

You laugh, already well aware of how far from the truth that must be.

“Consider me warned,” you joke. “Lead the way.”

(part two)

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