#she's just here to ornate the text.

[mask131]

I am re-reading the Silmarillion, and something strikes me. The women of Tolkien's world have been talked about TO DEATH especially with all the recurring debates surrounding the Rings of Power series.

As we all know, Tolkien was not a "feminist" in the modern sense of the word. He had a very male-centric point of view and appreciation of the world, he had male-driven and male-centered stories, and actual women characters were sparse and rare. There are only five really big female characters in "The Lord of the Rings" - the quintet of Galadriel, Eowyn, Goldberry, Lobelia and Shelob. [No, don't talk to me about Arwen, she only really was a character in the movies, in the book she's just there in the appendix and she was literaly an afterthought of Tolkien to act as Eowyn's romantic double...]

Consider this. Galadriel, Eowyn, Goldberry, Lobelia and Shelob. This tells you everything you need to know about Tolkien's women, in good and bad.

The Silmarillion has the same motif of having a lot of female characters, only for most of them to be just footnotes, secondary characters with no lines, under-developped one-liners... with in a contrast a handful of super-cool, super-badass, complex and developed heroines at the center of the plot.

Aka, on the bad side, when listing the Valar, while Tolkien gives an interesting personality, great domains and cool attributes to all the male ones, half of the female ones are just... there. And do one stuff. And never appear again. I mean come on... Vana and Nessa? Estë and Vairë were done dirty... That's the actual type of "non-feminism" Tolkien has. It isn't about him hating women or trying to be offensive in his depictions - it is about him just, not putting as much thought, effort and care into his female characters as his male ones, a bit the same way he creates the vast expanses of the East and South of Middle-Earth and then never bothers actually developing more of it or seeking to tell tales of it - but that's for another discussion about Tolkien's "racism". Here we talk about women.

But here's the thing, aka the good side... When Tolkien does find the time and care to develop and flesh out a female character, by Iluvatar he goes all out! Again, we are back on what I said earlier: the women of Lord of the Rings can be counted on one hand... but these fingers are Galadriel, Eowyn and Shelob, so you can't claim he isnt writing powerful, important or uninterestng female characters. Which leads me to my original remark - as usual I get driven away in digressions of all sorts and kinds.

Have you ever noticed that Melkor's greatest enemies, the ones he fears the most, and his most effective foes... are women? Tolkien might not like to put them front and center of his tales, and he might have been a man of the early 20th century England in culture and mind, but boy does he has something to say about how women are actually the first enemies of the literal embodiment of evil and destruction! I mean think about it. Varda of the Stars, and Yavanna of the trees. Nienna has her ambiguous relationship to him - her tears work against him, and yet without her plea for him he likely would not have been released from the dungeons of Mandos. You have Melian with her Girdle, and Luthien with her Hound. And of course most of all Arien, guardian of the Sun, not only one of the rare fire spirits that Melkor couldn't corrupt (despite him basically ruling over all fire), but that frightens him so much he keeps hiding away and doesn't even dare to attack her... [I also reblogged some times ago a post praising the brilliance of Tolkien keeping the old European sun-moon motifs but switching the genders. The weaker, inconsistant, lustful, whimsical, disorderly, untrustworthy Moon is now a male principle, while the steady, dangerous, strong, powerful and beautiful Sun is a woman.]

It is actually REALLY easy to do a feminist retelling of Tolkien's work. Melkor doesn't fear Manwë as much as Varda. Aulë's works and servants get corrupted by Melkor, while Yavanna's do not. Melian and Luthien actively works against him. He friggin' pisses himself when the Woman of the Sun shows up. Sure, there are some evil female characters that serve him down the line and are relegated to the "obscure footnotes and undescribed secondary characters" zone - Thuringwethil the vampire or queen Beruthiel. I coul also dropped deleted characters from early drafts, like the ogress Fluithuin. But among them stands Ungoliant... THE only true female big bad on the dark side of Arda. THE badass, nightmarish, creepy eldritch abomination. And who ends up double-crossing Melkor, almost KILLING him, and again making him basically shit in his pants - as Varda and Arien do.

The first enemies of Morgoth are not the Valar, or the Maiar, or the Elves... It's women.

[purinfelix]

can i request hot cocoa + let you break my heart again + franco colapinto

perhaps the both of them are at some kind of gala/event/party for f1 with a mix of yearning maybe some mutual pining 🙈

one day ⊹ ࣪ ˖ - franco colapinto

w/c: 800 a/n: UGH this idea was just sooo scrumptious i loved writing it sm (and maybe got a bit carried away since this was supposed to be a blurb) BUT thanks bff hope u like <3333

this is part of my 1k event - check out the rules here!!

Stuffy formal events were something you thought you'd escaped by choosing a career in motorsport.

Little did you know, becoming an F1 driver meant signing up for a lifetime of them - a fact you were sourly reminded of when the annual gala rolled around, and despite it being your first, proved awful every step of the way. Somewhere in between the pretentiously tiny portion sizes and long, boring speeches, you found yourself growing more restless, desperate for an escape.

That's how you ended up here - leaving the toilet cubicle that had been your safe haven for the last half an hour, following a less-than-kind text from your pr manager demanding your return. As you washed your hands, your eyes glazed over your reflection in the ornate bathroom mirror. A small smile perked at the side of your mouth, satisfied with the job your stylist had done - even if the outfit she had chosen was suffocatingly tight and only added to your long list of nightly grievances.

Leaving the bathroom, you took in a deep breath, mentally preparing to sit through several more insufferable hours of this event.

"I was wondering where you went," came a voice from the other side of the hall, emerging from the men's bathroom. Looking up you locked onto a pair of green eyes, a coy expression on his face.

"Didn't think you'd notice in between all your flirting, Franco," you spat, though you couldn't stop yourself from offering a sly smile. You feel his eyes run over you, trying to maintain your composure as you feel your cheeks heat up under the weight of his gaze.

"You look good," he lets out, a little softly, almost like a confession. You're tempted to reply back with something snappy, though you stop yourself.

"You too." And you're not lying. In a black suit, cleanly pressed and fitted, he looks almost unrecognisable from the normal race weekend outfit. Though his deep brown curls, which you can tell his stylist has tried their best to tame, still fall carefreely onto his forehead.

He brushes a couple away as he lets out a shy laugh. "Well, it seemed a good time to clean up, hm?"

There's a moment of silence that seems to indicate that the two of you should return back to the event - but you don't. Neither of you move, just standing there looking at each other, almost daring the other to say something else. It's unlike the two of you since usually any space between you is filled with snarky comments and quick insults - the result of being two rookies from opposite teams, fighting to make a name for yourselves.

But sometimes you wish it weren't. Sometimes, in between the snide remarks and menacing stares, you think about how maybe if fate had favoured you just a little more, Franco might've been your teammate. And maybe, just maybe, you might've gotten along.

Though being 'rivals' meant being similar, even if you refused to admit it, and knowing each other deeply - on a level that being friends wouldn't come close to.

He reminds you of this fact when he pipes up again, hands shoved in the pockets of his dress pants. "I really don't want to go back in there," he confesses.

"Me neither," you sigh in agreeance, relieved he feels the same.

"It's just so-"

"Stuffy."

"Yes, exactly!" he replies, a thankful smile on his face, "plus, I feel like this tie is trying to strangle me."

"But I guess we have to go back, my media manager is going to be looking for me."

"Right," he says, looking down, "unless."

You quirk an eyebrow, intrigued at what he's implying. "Surely not."

"What are the chances of us actually being needed tonight, we're two rookies, it's not like they're going to give us any awards."

"You really haven't been listening in those media training lessons of yours, hm?"

"Oh, because you care so much about my image," he laughs, "c'mon let's get out of here, do something else, something that isn't so mind-numbingly boring." As he speaks, he brings a hand to his neck, loosening his tie, and you suck in a sharp breath as you watch him.

"Franco," you say softly, almost begging him not to make you make this decision.

"Fine, if you want to head back in there, be my guest, but I'm going." He turns around, giving you one last look, almost daring you to follow him with one eyebrow raised and the corner of his lips quirked up.

As he does you're struck by the feeling that maybe one day the two of you won't be posed as rivals, that maybe you might truly get along.

That maybe one day he won't have such a strong effect on you, that the way he looks at you won't make your heart flutter and brain stop as much as it does now.

But today isn't that day.

"Franco, wait," you call out, jogging up to him and letting out a defeated sigh, "where should we go?"

"Anywhere you want," he replies, looking at you with a smug yet endeared smile - almost as if he knew you'd join him all along.

taglist: @spreadyourwings-my-smiling-angel @alelo23 @scill-a @multifan-idk @presleycaudle

[milfjuulpod]

five times melissa is possessive

content warnings: mentions of alcohol

I.

   “You get locked out of your computer again?” You asked with a smile as you entered Melissa’s classroom. She had texted you that she needed help with something, so here you were within a minute. “No, I can't find the worksheets I downloaded and I don’t even know what to search for. I’m so frustrated I wanna rip the computer off the desk and chuck it out the window,” The older teacher responded, getting out of her chair to make room for you and leaning against the desk she threatened to do damage to. 

   Sitting down, you began combing through her files in her downloads folder. You found them immediately, but didn’t wanna bruise her ego by telling her straight away. You leaned back, and a small but ornate picture frame caught your eye. Inside, it held a photo of you and Melissa, standing outside of a restaurant downtown. 

   You remembered that day like it was yesterday. It was the first time you had hung out with the redhead outside of work, the two of you arrived together meeting everyone to watch a game. 

“C’mon hon, I’ll drive you home.”

“Wait! I need a picture, of us.”

Melissa’s laugh was like music to your ears, a symphony of happiness and warmth. “A picture? For what? Proof that I didn’t kidnap ya?”

“No silly, proof that we hung out and had a good time. You know, for the memories.”

She chuckled but accepted, wrapping her arm around your waist as she pulled you in and leaned in close for the picture. 

“Perfect. I’ll send it to you.”

   “Whatcha lookin’ at over there?” Melissa’s voice pulled you from the memory. “This picture of us, cute that you have it up here,” You told her, tracing your fingers over the details on the frame. She smiled before responding, “Yeah, I like to look at it throughout the day, it reminds me that I still have good things in the world.”

II. 

     The gym was full of bustling bodies getting ready to hear the announcement Abbott’s fun-loving principal had prepared for the day. Of course right next to each other were Melissa and Barbara, but Melissa’s purse held the seat to her right. Countless times she denied teachers and staff the chair, despite how full the room was getting. She was running out of excuses at this point, even Barbara had to ask. “Who are you holding that seat for?”

     As if on cue, you finally came through the double doors. Janine waved you over to her, somehow she saved and scored seats close enough to the front, but a low voice stopped you from continuing in that direction. 

     “Hey, kid,” Melissa hollered for you and motioned you towards her. Silently, you stood for a second, torn between the better seat and Melissa. Not to mention if you ignored Janine, you’d have to spend the next week making up for it. Upsetting Melissa, you’d have to spend the next...

     Quickly you made up your mind and walked towards the redhead, and she moved her purse just in time for you to sit down. You mouthed an apology to your other friend just in time.

     “Finally, what took you so long?” Melissa asked you quietly, as Ava could now be seen on stage. 

     “Sorry, I was trying to finish up the last batch of test grading for the week.” You answered, honestly. Trying to keep your voices down, Melissa and you scooted closer together, leaning into each other’s spaces. Although, you noticed the older woman had stuck her heeled boot around the leg of your chair and you realized you couldn’t move it if you tried. 

      Despite Ava starting her announcement, Melissa kept talking to you. “It’s okay, hon. I just had to fight off a couple of vultures to keep this seat for ya.” You blushed at the idea of Melissa shooing people away from the chair you currently occupied. 

      “You didn’t have to do that, y’know. Save the seat for me and all. I’m sure I would’ve found space somewhere. But thank you.” Melissa huffed at your response and tried (barely) to not roll her eyes. “I know, but I like sitting here. I always sit here.”

      You squinted at her for a moment, trying to connect the dots between your statement and hers. What did it matter that she liked sitting here? Nonetheless, you started paying attention to whatever the principal was talking about now, in hopes that it had been enough time for her beginning rambles to have subsided. 

      As the presentation came to an end, slowly everyone shuffled out of the gym and to their respective rooms, and quietly the three of you waited in your chairs for the masses to leave. While people-watching the room, you picked up on the conversation to your left. 

     “I should’ve known,” Barbara muttered to her friend. You assumed Melissa gave her a confused look, because Barbara not-so-subtly gestured to you and your seat. Melissa just rolled her eyes once again, but turned her attention to you. Her green eyes made you feel a rush of emotions as they met your own. “Hi,” she said quietly, as if she was worried about scaring you off. “Hi,” you replied. “Ready to go?” She asked, grabbing both of your bags off the floor as the two of you stood up. 

      The walk back to everyone’s classrooms was quiet, but you didn’t miss the look Barbara gave her friend again as she made her way into her own room. “Here’s your bag, hon. I’ll see you at lunch?” Melissa asked, handing you your belongings as she leaned against the doorframe of your classroom. “Yes you will, and thank you.” You replied, trying to hide the blush with your hair as you took your bag from Melissa and finally found peace inside your own classroom. 

III. 

      You walked with your favorite redhead up and down the aisles of the grocery store, picking up ingredients for dinner tonight. After having a rough day, Melissa offered to make you dinner. You agreed, but only if she’d let you be there for every part, including the store. Usually the Italian liked keeping every part of cooking to herself, but she found herself enjoying sharing it with you. Even the mundane aspects like the grocery store were turned into such a lovely time between the two of you. 

      “I’ll go pick out the onions for the sauce, last time I left the job to someone else I regretted it. Would you mind picking out the wine hon? I’ll meet ya over there and then we can check out.” Melissa asked before leaving the aisle the two of you were in. 

      “Sure, see you over there,” You replied, and the two of you split ways momentarily. Taking your time, you slowly went down the first aisle of wines, reading each label carefully. Even though Melissa always trusted you with the wine, you were nervous every time. Down the second aisle, a gentleman approached you. 

      “Need help finding anything ma’am?” He asked. You took a step back from the wines before replying. 

      “Oh, no, thank you. My friend will be here in just a moment.” You went back to scanning the bottles, but the employee continued talking.                   

      “I see you’re looking at our Bogle merlot! You know there’s a great winery with a merlot that has a very similar palette.” 

      “That’s nice, is it close by?” You asked to be nice, but didn’t bother looking at the man. 

       “It is, I know this area very well. Grew up here my whole life.” He replied. A couple minutes passed like this, him grasping at straws to continue the conversation and you completely disinterested. Finally, you grabbed a bottle and started walking away. 

       “Y’know if that’s all you’re getting I can check you out over here!” He offered. Before you could deny him yourself, a familiar voice spoke up from behind the two of you. 

        “She’s with me actually, we were just leaving,” Melissa announced her presence and began walking towards the two of you. You hoped the employee couldn’t read her as well as you could, but based on his wide eyes, your hope fell flat. It was clear the redhead was annoyed, and annoyed at him no less. She refused to break eye contact with him, glaring the entire time. When she caught up to you, she didn’t bother slowing down as she looped her arm with yours and continued to the checkout line. 

       “Took long enough Mel,” You teased, hoping to calm her down. Her lack of response told you it didn’t work. “I’m excited for dinner tonight, and I hope you liked the wine I picked out.”

        “I’m sure I will, and I hope that guy loses his job here so he can stop preying on pretty girls that come by to get wine for their dinner plans,” She spat, but not at you. She was good at never making it at you. 

        “Oh calm down, babe. He was just doing his job,” You lied. You knew he was being a little too nice to you, but Melissa didn’t need to know those details. 

         “Well he was doing it too well for my liking.”

          “I’ll make sure to never leave your side at the grocery store again, that way if another too good employee comes by you can stop them for me,” You joked. Melissa smiled again, and it was a beautiful sight to see. 

         “Good, I don’t like getting mean in front of ya.”

           “Yes, you do!” You laughed. Melissa loved getting an attitude in front of you. She knew you liked it just as much as she did. 

          “Yeah, I guess I do.”

IV. 

     Melissa knew she had a jealous streak, and when it came to you, a possessive streak as well. Most of the time neither of you minded, it made you feel special and the redhead feel wanted. Occasionally, Melissa had a hard time containing her emotions, especially the feelings she has towards you. She hated when those came to the surface. 

      So she sat, filled with jealousy and self-pity, as she watched you ignore her existence throughout the entire lunch period. Usually, you sat right next to her, she could talk about her morning and you would listen, occasionally offer advice. She loved getting to hear your version of your morning, since it was usually very dramatic and made her giggle, always. 

     Not today, though. Today, you were too occupied with the new librarian. Instead of listening to Melissa rambling, you were listening to him. She knew you didn’t like men very much, but it didn’t matter. The fact that you didn’t even greet her and there was only ten minutes left of lunch was enough to ruin her mood. Before the bell rang, Melissa sighed and packed up her things as quickly as she could. She said goodbye to Barbara, but not to you. If you weren’t going to say hello, she wasn’t going to say goodbye. She did, however, give you a dirty look at the last second before the door shut behind her. 

     You froze, it had been a long, long time since Melissa has given you a look like that one. Usually it was reserved for serious issues or people she didn’t care for too much, so you started going over the day in your head wondering what was going on with her. This morning you hadn’t seen her, and you hadn’t stopped by to chat with her for lunch yet, so-

     There it was. With a sigh of relief you ended your conversations and made your way to the feisty redhead’s classroom. Instead of knocking, you slowly opened the door and allowed yourself in. 

     “Hi lovely, how was your lunch? I didn’t get a chance to talk to you so I wanted to stop by before grabbing the kiddos,” You announced your presence to the other woman, which went almost ignored. It wasn’t until you made it all the way to her desk that she spoke to you. 

    “Lunch was fine, I noticed you were busy with the fresh new hire so I kept my distance. Seemed like you needed it,” She responded shortly. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted your attention desperately, even if it was negative. 

    “Melissa...” You started, waiting for her to meet your gaze before continuing. She looked at you with anger, but you knew her, you knew that look. The only other time it happened was when you ditched your plans with her for an impromptu tinder date that went poorly. (She never let you live that mistake down, by the way). She was hurt, her feelings were hurt and she didn’t want to tell you. 

    “Why are you yelling at me? Is it because I didn’t talk to you all day?” You asked with a hint of teasing in your voice, enough to let Melissa know you were serious but not upset with her. She nodded, still having trouble admitting exactly what was going on inside the beautiful mind of hers. 

    “You know just because I’m friends with other people doesn’t mean I love you any less. And if you wanted to talk to me, you could’ve done so.”

   Melissa sat there for a moment, digesting your words slowly. She looked away before responding. “I know, I just-It’s hard. I want your attention but I don’t want to ask for it. If you’re not giving it to me then I just think you don’t want to anymore.”

   “Mel, no, no.” You stepped closer into her bubble and leaned against her desk. “I’ll stop anything I’m doing for you. Just ask, if I’m not showering you with enough love and affection already.” She smiled at that, thankful to realize you weren’t that mad at her. 

   “Okay, sorry for snapping at you hon. I won’t do it again,” Melissa looked up at you through her eyelashes and pouted out her bottom lip. You knew it would probably happen again, but you didn’t care. After a few months of nonstop flirting and teasing, you figured out Melissa returned some sort of feelings for you. However, it was just as clear that she was scared of whatever this was. Every time the two of you got close to having that conversation, she backed away. You could practically see the words falling off her lips before she would swallow them again. So you remained patient with her, she was worth waiting for. That much you knew. 

    “It’s okay my love, just save the glare for the other guy next time, yeah?” You playfully shoved her shoulder to punctuate your sentence, which got you an eye roll from the Italian. “Yeah, yeah, you’re fine.” You gave her one more sincere smile and hopped off the desk to go back to your own classroom. 

“Hon?” Melissa’s voice stopped you at the door. 

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”

V.

     It had been a few weeks since Melissa’s last “outburst,” if you would even call it that. But the “days since last incident” counter was about to go down to zero. 

     Melissa sat at the bar, waiting for your drink and hers, as she watched you float between your friends. She let her green eyes roam over your figure, the way your dress hugged your skin so tightly, she wished it was her own hands. The way you so effortlessly swayed your hips to the music, like you didn’t even realize it was happening. The older woman was so mesmerized, she almost missed the bartender setting down the two drinks beside her. As soon as she got sight though, she grabbed them and made her way over to you. 

      Out of the corner of your eye, there she was, beautiful as ever. It didn’t matter if it was the alcohol or Melissa, but you felt incredible. 

      “Thank you beautiful, what do I owe ya?” You asked as you grabbed your drink from your friend’s hand. 

       “How about a dance?” She answered your question with a question. Melissa let you take a couple sips before taking the drink back and dropping them off with your friends. As she turned around, the woman was about as red as her hair when she saw a man coming up behind you getting ready to try and dance. 

      You don’t know whose hands were on you first, but very quickly you were behind Melissa as she was staring down a much taller man. 

      “Can we help you?” She yelled more than she asked, keeping an arm over your side as she kept you behind her. You knew what was about to happen, the stranger was going to say something sly, Melissa would say something worse, and you’d calm her down before getting her on the dance floor again. Something in you decided to change that routine though, usually you stayed quiet when she got this way, stayed clear from the path of Schemmenti rage and watched thoroughly entertained. 

    Instead of staying out of her way this time and waiting for her, you leaned into it. How could you not when Melissa was getting ready to fight someone over you? You placed your hand gently over hers and rested your chin on her shoulder, immediately noticing her eyes flash over to you. Her grip tightened around your thigh in response. 

      “I was just trying to dance with a pretty girl, didn’t know that was a problem,” The stranger spoke and took a few steps back, throwing his hands up in false surrender. 

      “It is.” Melissa said, about to take a step forward, unwilling to let him get away. You felt her body shift against you and quickly wrapped your left arm around her, holding her against you. 

       “Baby, should we step outside for a second?” You asked Melissa, making a point to let her feel your breath linger for a second. She might get onto you for making her so flustered later, but that would be better than getting kicked out for a bar fight. 

       Without answering, she took your hand in hers and led you to the back exit, ignoring the questioning looks from your friends behind you. The cold wind felt sobering against your hot skin, although your hand was kept warm by Melissa’s. She was gripping it so tightly still, you wondered why she was still so frustrated. 

      “Mel? Are you okay?” You asked. Letting go of her hand you stood in front of her, gently brushing a few stray hairs behind her ear. Her cheeks were still so red, hands clammy, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen her look at you so wide-eyed before. 

     “I...” She started. Melissa looked at your lips for a moment before returning to your gaze. “He can’t touch you like that.”

    “I don’t even think he got a chance before you were back over there. Besides, why can’t he?” You challenged her. It was risky, hopefully with a reward. 

    She tightened her grip on your hand and pulled you close so your bodies were flush together. Sure, you knew a couple tricks to make Melissa blush or get flustered, but she was exceptionally good at it. Her fingers against your lower back started moving back and forth, sending chills up your spine. Her other hand let go of yours and found itself getting tangled in your hair. 

      “Because dolcezza, can he touch you like this? Hm? Would you be this needy for anyone else? You’re mine, you know you are.” The older woman’s words sent heat through your body. 

     “Prove it then.”

      As quickly as the words were out of your mouth, Melissa’s lips were on yours. She was gentle at first, giving you an opportunity to stop if you want. When your own hands found themselves reaching to touch her more, she knew she got you. Her hand in your hair tugged a bit, and when you moaned in response Melissa took the opportunity to taste you. Feeling her groans against you, because of you, was a new high you would forever be chasing. Her grip on you was tight, she was unrelenting, not wanting to let you out of her sight again. 

      It was like the past few weeks of Melissa keeping her mouth shut had built up inside of her, she needed you, and she needed you to know that. Feeling herself getting too worked up, she gave you a few more kisses before pulling away. You couldn’t help but whine when she did so, missing her lips already. 

     “Yknow, I might keep letting people flirt with me if it means you kiss me like that every time,” You softly spoke. Melissa couldn’t help but laugh at that, even though the both of you knew she would not put up with that. Certainly not anymore. You were finally hers. 

[luciferlightbringer]

Love In a Hopeless Place

Chapter 2

Here we are with chapter 2! Lucifer and reader meet, enjoy! xoxo, Dany :)

Chapter 1|Chapter 2|Chapter 3|Updated through Chapter 12 Lucifer x prostitute fem!reader

Word Count:5.2k (I'm so sorry, lol) CW: Trauma, panic, flashbacks, Smut(ish/mostly lead up), angst, comfort, sub/dom dynamics, prostitution, anxiety, depression

Lucifer was in his study working on another one of his many rubber duck creations when his phone started to buzz on the desk with a text message. He jumped a little with a small 'Ah!' at the vibration, and the duck flew out of his hands and into one of the many piles of ducks that filled the room.

"Shit, welp... not finding that one anytime soon", he said running his fingers through his hair while looking out at the sea of ducks, before turning his attention to his phone.

The preview of the text from his driver on the front screen read, "On our way back with our guest." Lucifer stared at the text, and his stomach immediately tightened with... excitement? Anxiety? Was he going to throw up- no he was fine... Right? Yes. No? Fuck. Why did this feel so scary?

Lucifer did not know what he we feeling, he just knew he only had a few minutes before his guest for the evening would arrive... and he had no idea what he was doing. Lucifer started pacing and pulling a little at his own hair, starting to stress and talk to himself.

"Should I have been preparing something? Maybe I should clean! No... wait I have people for that... M-maybe I should pick up some of the ducks? Why would I need to pick up the ducks? Maybe she would want to see the ducks? Lucifer, why would a prostitute want to see your stupid rubber ducks?!" Lucifer said as he paced back and forth on want little open floor space their was in the room, before he stopped, took a breath, and smoothed back his hair and tried to breathe.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm cool. I'm fine." he said as he rolled his shoulders and straightened his bowtie as he walks out of his study and back down the hall to his room. "I'm the King of Hell, and I'm the customer. Who cares? I'm sure girls all over Hell would be dying for the chance to take care of and service me. She is the lucky one here that I even get to grace her presence!" He stopped in front of the mirror in his room, popping on his hat and grabbing his cane before posing in the mirror and flashing a toothy grin at himself.

Lucifer looks over his own reflection in the mirror, and the longer he stared, the more his smile faded and his shoulders slumped. He wrapped his arms around himself in a half self-hug, "So then... why do I feel like... such a loser?"

______________________________________________________________

The car soon pulls up to a big beautiful manor and parks, the driver gets out and comes to open your door, offering you a hand to help you out.

"Thank you," you say with a sweet and flirty smile as you grab the man's hand and step out of the car. You try hard to hold your confident expression and stifle your surprise as you get out and see your new surroundings, looking around admiring the beauty. Your normal cantor you use with most clients suddenly feels like it might be inappropriate here, so you hold your tongue.

Internally, though, your thought process runs wild, 'Whoa, wait, what the fuck? I've worked for some high rollers before, but this... this feels like its on an entirely different level.... Who the fuck is this guy?'

The driver breaks your slight panic as he gestures for you to follow him. You are escorted up the front steps and into the front entry way past the giant ornate front doors. In the front room off to one side were a few red chairs and a couch with gold trim, all centered around a white marble coffee table. The driver gestures towards the seating, "Please, have a seat while I inform your host that you have arrived."

You curtsy in respond because you were starting to feel like that was the right response for this type of place, and watch as the man turned and started to walk down the hallway. You go to sit on one end of the red couch, damn it was a nice couch, and you start to look at the room around you. You're inner voice continuing with the general track of 'What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? How is this place even bigger and nicer on the inside?!' playing in your head.

Who could this be? This guy is crazy well off, seems to like red, white, and gold, it was everywhere in the decorations. Also he... had good taste in decorations. It looked way nicer here than anywhere else you had ever seen in hell. Not just because of the amount of money in the place, but also because of how the design felt. It almost felt like a slightly edgier version of what you would expect buildings to look like in heaven. Lots of little details and motifs in the crowning on the walls and art around the manor. Lots of stuff like apples, snakes, little things that looked like angel wings-

Your thought process freezes as the puzzles start to fall together into an answer.

Wait.

Apples?

Snakes?!

ANGEL WINGS?!

You start to shake a little and fidget with your dress a little. You may have not been in hell long, but there were some things you pick up on quickly, even in new places. 'There is noooo way. That's impossible. Right? Where were other people who are known for that symbology... right... Who else in hell...? Maybe it's someone you just don't know? Uhhhh.... Oh! Wasn't he married? Well... that doesn't mean anything half of the time, you've fucked married guys. More importantly, if this is who I think it is... what would the LITERAL KING OF HELL, need a call girl for? No, there is no way it could be him, that would be stupid...'

Then, you hear a cane start to tap down the hallway, and time feels like it slows down. You turn to look in the direction of the sound, and down the long manor hallway, you can make out the unmistakable features of Lucifer, the fallen angel, the King of Hell himself, followed by his driver. You feel your skin grow hot and your heart rate pick up as you swallow hard, watching him approach.

He was... much softer looking than you expected. Many of the angelic features were still present, pale near-white skin, golden blonde hair, soft facial features, and they mixed in well with his more demonic features, red and gold eyes, sharp grin, and dark ashy claws that held his signature apple cane. You'd seen his face on magazines and maybe once on tv, but now upon seeing him in the flesh, you realize that pure imagines didn't seen do him any justice.

You realize you have less than a few seconds to calm yourself and get ready to make a first impression. You take a deep breath, let it out, straighten yourself in your seat and think, 'He's just another client, that's all I need to focus on. My goal is to fulfill his wishes'.

As he gets a few feet closer you stand, and curtsy with a confident smile on your face. "Your majesty, what an unexpected surprise this is. Oh, I apologize, I mean... Lance."

Lucifer responds with a hearty chuckle before putting up a hand, "No need for formalities or code names here. Just Lucifer is fine. You must be (y/n)?" he says as he starts to examine the woman in front of him up and down.

You straighten up from your curtsy and place a hand on a slightly popped hip as you look at Lucifer, "I am, and I am honored to be serving you tonight."

The driver comes up and asks for your coat. You slip it off as elegantly as you can, fully aware that your show for Lucifer had already begun, and handed it to the driver. He tells you where he will be when you and the master have concluded your visit for the evening, puts up your coat in a nearby closet, and walks into another room close to the main door, and closes the door behind him.

Lucifer watched the sultry way you slipped off your jacket, and the alluring dress that was revealed from beneath it. Simple, black, sleeveless, a v shaped neck line that showed the perfect amount of cleavage, hugged your body in all the right places, and also allowed for a long slit that showed off plenty of the soft skin of your leg. The woman before him was beautiful, but in a way he didn't expect. Not in a "porn star, big boobs, stereotypical bimbo" kind of way, but in a soft... normal kind of way. It made him feel a little calmer in a way. A couple new emotions started to join the mixture that swirled in his stomach, curiosity, amusement... lust... Nothing had even happened yet, and Lucifer could already start to feel heat start to rise around his collar.

You and Lucifer where now completely alone in the main area of the manor.

You turn back to see Lucifer eyeing you. You smile.

"You like what you see, Lucifer?" you purr as you take a few steps towards him.

Lucifer shifts a little as he stands as his cheeks tint pink, feeling almost guilty for being caught staring, before remembering he was allowed to, "Oh uh... y-yes. Yes, I do." He says, returning to his curated confident grin.

You giggle, stepping closer and offering your right hand to him, which he takes with his right hand, "I am yours for the night to use as you see fit" you say with a sly flirty smile.

'Fuck, I hope this is coming off ok', you think to yourself.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,' Lucifer thinks, trying to will his cheeks into not turning a darker shade of pink, 'Oh she is VERY good, and I am very out of practice.'

Lucifer returns the sly smile, "Oh I intend to." he says looking you up and down again as he kisses your hand.

'Fuck, he is good', you think at the same time.

Lucifer continues to hold your hand as he turns in closer to your right side, looping your hand under his left arm so that you and now holding it, and he looks at you with a "Shall we then?" before he starts to escort you further into the manor.

As you start to walk through the manor with Lucifer, this is when you really notice how he was a bit shorter than you expected, especially with the heels you were wearing. Nothing wrong with that, just not something you expected. He was a cutie, and you were excited that you were going to be able to help make him feel good that night. Honored even.

Lucifer felt transfixed by every inch of sensory that came from being in contact with you, the way your hand held onto the sleeve of his jacket, the way you would shift against him as you walked, the smell of your perfume, it was borderline intoxicating. His brain was running a million miles a minute between your touch, smell, what he would say next, what would happen when you both got to his room, how he wanted to keep himself from turning into the room and immediately pouncing on you. He felt like he might lose his mind.

All you could see of Lucifer was a sly grin and a confident walk towards his room.

The two of you entered Lucifer's large bedroom and you let go of his arm so that he could go to close the door behind you. He put down his cane, and started to undo the clasps of his suit jacket. You walked up behind Lucifer as he finished the clasps, slid your hands over his shoulders, hooking your fingers under the collar.

"May I?" you cooed softly in his ear.

He gulped and nodded as you glided it off his shoulders and down his arms, trying as best you can you make sure your fingers made contact with his arms as much as possible.

Lucifer had to fight a soft moan from escaping his throat at your touch. You deviously smiled to yourself behind Lucifer at the sound of his stifled moan as you took the jacket and carefully hung the jacket off the side of his mirror. You turned back around to see Lucifer taking off his hat and setting it down on a nearby surface, trying hard tame the hunger in his eyes as he looked at you, a visible bulge starting to form in his pants.

Seeing the King of Hell's eyes hunger for you gave you a devious idea to try. 'I wonder what role he likes to play?' you think to yourself.

You chuckle, and start to walk a circle around Lucifer, eyeing him back as if he was your prey, which makes Lucifer swallow hard again and make him lose a little of his edge, less of a dominant energy and leaning more submissive as he watched you circle him.

'Interesting', you think.

"Tell me. Do you prefer to lead, or follow?" you ask with a coy smile.

Lucifer thought for a moment, what did he usually do with Lili- errr... in the past? He liked not having to think. Not having to lead would be really fucking nice actually.

"Follow", Lucifer said in a soft tone. This didn't surprise you, most powerful men wanted a break from it in the bedroom, from your experience. Getting to order Lucifer around was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it got you excited just thinking about it.

You gave Lucifer a wicked smile before slinking up to him, softly grabbing his chin, getting your face very close to his before whispering, "Boots off. On the bed. Now."

Lucifer's heart beat started to pound in his ears as he took a moment as he processed the words, a shiver of pleasure jolting through his body, before quickly moving to throw off his boots and crawl onto his bed. He knew nothing in the moment beyond following your command. Lucifer got into place and then looked over at you, waiting for your next order for him.

'Fuck that was hot' he thought as he felt the heat spread across his chest.

You look towards Lucifer, turning you body to face him in his new position on the bed. You smirk and start to slowly slink towards him, making sure to roll your hips with every step to emphasize your curves, staring at him with your own hunger eyes.

Lucifer sat, transfixed by the way your hips swayed from side to side, the way your eyes felt like they were burning into his soul, his cheeks burning read. No thoughts existed in his head at that moment besides the thought of your curves coming towards him and the way that his cock throbbed for you in his pants.

You sat yourself on the end of his bed and kicked up your right leg over the other to unbuckle the clasp on one of your heels, making sure to position yourself so that Lucifer could see more of your leg through the slit in your dress and so that you cleavage showed more prominently from the V-neckline. You look up at him through your eyelashes to see him tremble a little, his breathing starting to labor. Oh lord, you could see just how much he needed this, and that excited you even more.

You finished unclipping your heel and you let it drop to the floor with a light clatter. You straightened up and looked over your shoulder at Lucifer, "Does my good boy want to help me with my other shoe?"

Lucifer gave a little whimper and bit his lip a little as he gave you an enthusiastic nod. He was so cute and desperate, if his tail was out it would probably be wagging.

You move a little closer and kicked your left leg up onto his lap and propped yourself up to watch his work, giving him a quick cheeky look of 'Well? Get to it!'

Lucifer took a few moments to look at the red heel that was connected to the gorgeous leg that now sat in his lap. Lucifer took a breath, and then with trembling hands worked to try undoing the clasp of the shoe. It took a little longer than it took you, but he eventually got the clasp undone and let the shoe slide off the bed to the ground. Lucifer took the opportunity to slowly slide one of his hands up your leg, up to the hem of your dress, and back down in admiration. Holy hell, her skin was so soft and beautiful.

You closed your eyes and hummed softly as you soaked in the sensation of his touch on your skin, "What a good boy you are, Lucifer." You cooed, removing your leg away from his reach. He looked sad for a moment, but it would not be for long. You hooked a leg over his body and got up onto the bed, now straddling his thighs.

A surprised breathy moan escaped Lucifer's lips as you moved onto his lap and he started to dig his claws into his sheets on either side of his body.

You chuckle again before you look down at him from your new position. You had never felt more power than you did right at that moment, and it was beautiful. Seeing the King of Hell under you, desperate for your next command or touch... now that was dangerous.

As Lucifer laid under you, defenseless and breathing heavily, he released his claws from the sheets and lightly picked up the edge of the skirt of your dress on either side of you and held them softly in his hands.

"M-may I?" he asked with pleading eyes, lifting the skirt up a little to show his intensions to remove your dress.

You cross your arms and put a finger up to your cheek in an action pretending to think about, making Lucifer wait.

"P-please?" he said after several seconds, sense of urgency in his voice.

You dropped the act and smirked down at him with a pleased smile and nodded. Lucifer excitedly, but carefully worked to pull the dress off of you and tossed it onto the ground to join your shoes. Lucifer now looked at you and you saw his eyes turn from soft desperation back into a deep animalistic hunger as they raked lustfully down the new view of your body.

You sat proud of yourself as you sat straddled across Lucifer's thighs wearing a deep sapphire blue lacy bra and a matching blue thong that, frankly, served no purpose other than to be something to be ripped off of you.

Lucifer softly ran his claws up your thighs, up your hips, across your abdomen, over your breasts, up your collar bone, other your shoulders, down your arms, and down you your hands, taking in every inch of your body that he could see in that moment. You tip your head back and allow long moan to escape you as his hands glide across your body, soft but electric and hot.

You tip your head back down to look at Lucifer, his hands in yours. You release his hands and start to slide you hands up his chest to his bowtie.

"Alright, baby, your turn," you coo, starting to undo his bowtie. Lucifer began to shake and breath heavily under your touch. You toss the bowtie to the ground, slowly undoing the first few buttons of his shirt, exposing his soft pale neck. You nuzzle your face into his neck and plant your first soft kiss on his neck.

Lucifer responds to the contact with a deep and long moan, he almost couldn't take any more of this torturous, slow teasing. And yet he also felt like he couldn't get enough of it. He felt energetic and alive for the first time in what felt like forever, it was pure bliss. He never wanted it to stop.

You giggle again at his response, and continue to unbutton the remaining buttons down his shirt. You lean down to look into Lucifer's eyes and say "Now Lucifer, I want you to tell me something."

He looks up at you with shiny, lust filled eyes, "Yes?"

"Tell me... what is it that you truly desire?" you say with a smirk, as you continue work on his buttons.

Lucifer thinks for a few seconds, thinking about all of the sexy, blissful ideas he wants to tell you and then... for some reason... he turns his head to the side of his bed... her side of the bed... all of the sound goes quiet, the room starts to go blurry, everything starts to shake, and then...

It all goes dark.

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He no longer feels like he is in his bedroom, its just him... and Lilith... looking at him with her bright smile, before the smile fades, and she turns to walk away into the darkness. Then it's Charlie... happily giggling on his lap, small, clapping at his stories, before Lilith picks her up off his lap and walks out of the room with her. It's his old workshop in heaven full of his wonderful dreams and creations, now a dark red room full of endless piles of ducks. It's giving the apple to Eve, then standing in an arena of the Heavenly Council, and then the deep long fall into hell, watching his hands pale hands turn to claws, watching the white feathers of his transform to turn a deep crimson, his halo shatter into space and long red horns grow in its place on his head before he crashes to the surface of a newly created Hell.

What does he desire? What does he TRULY DESIRE?! He wants back everything he has ever lost! He wants to know why everyone has cast him away and abandon him. He wants to know why everyone had to think his dreams were so fucking dangerous. He wants to remember what it was like to not hate himself so much!

Lucifer pulled at his hair and screamed into the void of his mind as he fell to his knees and cried.

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From your perspective, you ask your question, Lucifer's eyes go from full of life and lust to empty, his head tips to the side, and they start to fill with panic as he start to hyperventilate.

You drop your current persona and start to assess the situation. You quickly move off of Lucifer and go to his side instead.

"Lucifer?" No response. "Lucifer? Talk to me, what do you need?"

Something in your voice makes Lucifer snap back from his dissociative nightmare land, but he continues to hyperventilate.

'Fuck! Think! Didn't you learn something about this on earth? '

You think for a minute, shaking your hands as you look around the room, at him, trying to think. You softly take his hand and start gently rubbing the back of it with your thumb. Lucifer snaps to look at you, so quickly, it almost startles you.

"Hey," you say with the calmest and warmest smile you can muster, "I'm here, you are ok. You are safe here with me." Lucifer continues to look at you with panic in his eyes, but with recognition there too.

"I'm a friend, you are at your house, in your bed... in... hell. Uhh... you are in the Pride ring... Nothing is going to hurt you here, you are safe," you continue to say as you continue to rub the back of his had. If you had said half of that sentence back on Earth, it would have probably made things worse, but here... hopefully it would be more grounding.

Slowly, Lucifer breathing slows its pace and he looks around the room more. You look around the room and see a cup on a nearby table.

After waiting a few more minute, you ask, "Do you want any water?" Lucifer thinks for a briefly about your question, and nods his head.

You squeeze his hand and say "I will be right back." You set down his hand, go to grab the cup, and run to the bathroom to fill it with water. You come back to Lucifer's side and give him the cup, Lucifer slowly starts to drink some water as his breathing continues to slow down to a normal rate.

After a few more minutes, he shakes his head.

"Hey," he says in a defeated tone.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" you say in a gentle voice, giving him your full and concerned attention.

He sighs, "Not great..." He was so scared, sad, angry, disappointed, full of guilt, shame.

You tip your head down in shame, "I... I'm so sorry." Lucifer looks over at you with a confused look. "I was reckless and I hurt you. Can you ever forgive me, your Highness?" Now it was you that was starting to shake a little.

Lucifer sighs, the guilt coming to the front the most out of all his current emotions. How could he explain to you just how wrong you were? But he could understand why you would think that. In his current state, he could only partly process how differently you now tended to him, how you looked at him. Almost like, you cared? That you were worried about him?

He gently put a hand on your head "Please, Lucifer is still fine, and this was not your fault, it.... it's complicated. I... thought I was ready for something like this, I was hoping I was. A small baby-step to moving forward, but no..." Lucifer tightened his left hand. "I'm not"

You looked up and his tightened hand, and for to first time noticed the gold band on his ring finger. This was not the anger and sadness of a happily married man, or even an unhappily married man, this was something... much more complicated.

You sat with Lucifer in mournful silence for what felt little forever, but it was probably not more than a few minutes.

Eventually, Lucifer sighed and broke the silence, "You should go..."

You looked up at Lucifer, whose head still hung in shame, his hand gripped tightly.

"Are you sure?" you ask softly.

Lucifer shrugged, "I'm not going to be much fun now, I don't think I'm cut out for this. Not yet anyway. Its me not you, trust me. You were amazing... it was fun while it lasted" He looked up at you with a weak smile, "You should try to enjoy the rest of your night while you can. No use letting and old sod like ruin your night."

You look down at your dress and shoes still on the floor, you sigh, pick up your dress and put it back on. You pick up your shoes and start to head to the door. You put your hand on the doorknob, prepared to open it, wish the King goodbye, and walk away... but you don't. You stand there for a second.. thinking.

Lucifer noticed you pause, and looks up at you. You turn back to meet his gaze, his face decorated in a look of half confusion, half sadness.

"May I offer one last thought?" you ask with calm confidence.

Lucifer tips his head in curiosity, "What is it?"

You take a couple step back towards him, "I wonder... I think... you had the right idea with searching for intimacy, connection, but maybe we started in the wrong direction."

Lucifer cocks an eyebrow, giving you a puzzled look, "I'm... not sure I follow."

You search again for the right words, "I mean like... uhhh... well... ok, when was the last time you just got a hug, not like a quick one, like one that made you feel cared about?"

Lucifer's body stiffened, then looked down and curled his legs close to his body, "It... its been... a long time."

You smile, and take another step towards Lucifer, and you open up your arms to him with a soft smile.

Lucifer looked up at you and perked up for a minute. Was she serious? Why did she continue to try? Why didn't she leave him to his own misery? She didn't need to care about his feelings right now... and yet... she did.

Lucifer slowly started to slide out of his bed, shirt still most of the way unbuttoned, hair all a mess, and started to walk over to you. When there was only a few feet left between the two of you, Lucifer paused, and then practically ran the rest of the way into your arms and wrapped himself around your waist, as you return the embrace.

You stand there, hugging him for a minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and after the first few minutes, you feel Lucifer start to shake in your arms as he started to cry. Lucifer tightened his embrace around you the harder he cried, burying his face in your shoulder. At one point he tries to wail out an apology, but you just shush him and let him continue to cry as you rubbed his back.

After about a half hour of him crying in your embrace, you ask him if he wants to continue standing there or if he wants to sit down. In response, Lucifer releases his arms from you waist and reaches up to wrap his arms around you neck instead. You adjust and decide to just go for it and pick him up, carrying him over to his bed. You sit in his bed with him hugging you around your neck as you hold him in your lap.

Lucifer could not stop the tears that flowed from his face, he didn't remember the last time he had cried this much, cried this hard. And for some reason, in your arms, he didn't care. The tears felt good. Liberating.

You don't know how much time passes, but slowly his crying starts to get quieter and quieter, turning to sniffles, until you realize that the King of Hell had just fallen asleep in your arms.

You carefully move to get up at set him down in his bed without waking him up, and you tuck him into his bed. Before you leave the room, you quickly find a piece of paper and pen, and write out a quick note. You leave the note on his side table before grabbing your shoes, turning off the light, and giving him one last look before closing the door.

You make your way back down the long manor hallway, back to where the driver said he would be, and you let him know your visit was over. You grab your coat, put on your shoes, took one last look at the beautiful inside of the manor, and walked out to the car with the driver.

Who knows if you would be back here again, but it sure was interesting while it lasted.

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Chapter 3 is in the works! Let me know if you want added to a tag list <3

[hedghost]

alessia russo | make you my problem

sick of her family's endless questions about her dating life, alessia invents a fake girlfriend to get them off her back. unfortunately, now she has to deal with the consequences, which means dealing with you.

(fake dating fic inspired by business by catfish and the bottlemen)

word count: 13.5k

alessia stared down at the card in her hand. her eyes flicked over the perfectly printed calligraphy for the hundredth time that day. it was the first time she'd got it out since it had been delivered three months ago, when she'd promptly piled it beneath a stack of bills on the countertop, and tried to ignore it. unfortunately, the solution hadn't magically appeared as she'd hoped it would, and the wedding was fast approaching.

she read the words again, her expression burning lasers into the paper.

formally invited... et cetera et cetera... the wedding of luca russo... so on and so forth... invites alessia russo... and there was the kicker... plus one.

to really rub salt in the wound, her brother luca had scribbled a sharpie winky face next to the last bit, obscuring the ornate lettering with a scruffy, mocking squiggle.

let it be clear, alessia enjoyed her life the way it was. she enjoyed not being tied down by the constraints of someone else, she enjoyed her own space, her independence. she'd curated her own little routines, her own little preferences, and now she was free to bask in the luxuries of single life. but still, her heart tugged a little at the card - and its implications.

when luca had asked if she'd wanted a plus one to the wedding, months ago, she'd been tempted to answer truthfully, and decline. it was the look on his face however, that teasing smirk that was always so prevalent between siblings, that changed her mind. if she said no, she'd be subject to the usual smug commentary from her brothers, both of whom were happily partnered off, and the unbearably not-so-subtle questions from her parents about her dating life. and so she did her best impression of nonchalance, waved him off with a non-committal smile, and said yes.

she had braced herself for the comments, let it wash off her back when her mum asked her if she had 'finally found someone', or when her other brother gio gave her a vastly sceptical look, like he couldn't believe she'd ever bring a date. it was fine. she was used to this.

as much as alessia loved single life, it would be a lie to say it didn't sting when she turned up to every family gathering alone, watching everyone else with their partners. it would be a lie to say the ribbing and teasing from her brothers didn't hurt a little, that it didn't play on some deep-rooted insecurity she'd tried so hard to stamp out. she told herself it was better this way, but year by year, she watched from the side-lines as all her friends seemed to find their other halves, and yet here she remained, as luca had once said; a 'lone wolf'.

so she'd said yes, when the wedding had been months away, and she had all the time in the world to find a date. now, the wedding was a week away, and here she was. glaring daggers into a wedding invite, very much dateless.

her phone vibrated against the counter, where she'd dropped it unceremoniously after coming in from her match. it was undoubtedly luca again, who had been trying to call her all day. she knew exactly why he was calling. alessia considered declining the call, but she knew her brother would be persistent.

"hey luca," she sighed into the phone, leaning her head against the cupboard.

"less, hi! great game today!"

"thanks," she murmured. her head was beginning to hurt, and she was unsure if it was from the bone-deep exhaustion she felt, or the looming threat of showing up alone to the wedding.

"hey listen, i just wanted to ask you about the-"

"-the wedding, yeah i know," alessia racked her brain for a way out of this conversation, but came up short.

"okay cool, just because you never responded to my texts about your date, and i need to know if you're actually bringing one," luca paused, a muffled noise coming from the other end of the line. alessia assumed he was talking to his fiancée. luca spoke again, voice slightly softer, but still a little harried. "if you aren't that's alright, we just need to know like, right now. if it were anyone else i'd say it's too late to change stuff but since it's you, i'll let you off,"

alessia hesitated. she could tell him the truth. she really should tell him the truth. luca had just given her an out, perfectly plated up for her.

and yet, irritation stirred inside her. luca seemed so sure, so certain that she didn't have a date. she couldn't bear the thought of proving him right. she could already hear gio's remarks, see his smug smile. her mum's overly sympathetic expression flashed in her mind, not for the first time.

alessia loved her brothers, really she did. but that's not to say that, like most siblings, they couldn't be really, fucking annoying. honestly, most things alessia did in life were to spite them. even football, which at first had been her way of joining in with her cool, older brothers, soon became a way to show them up, to prove that anything they could do, she could wipe the floor with them at. alessia made her decision.

"no, it's fine, i'm bringing someone,"

"wait, what?" luca's shock was evident in his voice. alessia gritted her teeth.

"i'm dating someone,"

"seriously?" luca now seemed to be scrambling for what to say, clearly having not expected this answer. "oh, yeah, cool, well, in that case, we need to know his name for the seating charts and stuff,"

alessia cringed. both at luca's assumption of gender, and at the trap she'd just laid for herself. this was a very stupid idea.

"her name," she corrected, on instinct.

god, what was wrong with her? why couldn't she stop talking?

"oh! right sorry- good for you less. we need her name then,"

fuck. what was she doing? alessia had dug herself into a hole of epic proportions, and she really hadn't thought this far ahead. in all honestly, she hadn't really thought at all.

she couldn't back out now though. alessia racked her brain for potential fake suitors, someone she could convince to accompany her for the evening, someone who would raise very little questions. she considered ella, but alessia's family all knew she had a boyfriend. millie, maybe? god knows millie had a thing for dating footballers, but alessia also knew she was awful at keeping her mouth shut. she could try katie, but her brothers had met her on many occasions, they wouldn't believe it for a second. no, it needed to be someone her brothers didn't know well, someone who it would be very easy to erase from her family's memory once the night was over.

alessia felt her mouth move before she had the time to process what she was even saying. the regret was instant, but the words were out before she could swallow them.

"y/n,"

"wait, from united? y/n y/l/n?"

shit. shit, this was bad. of all the players, why had she unconsciously said your name. alessia swallowed hard, closing her eyes and wincing as she nodded to herself.

"yes,"

"oh shit, i didn't even know you guys were close,"

exactly, cursed alessia to herself, we aren't.

"its pretty recent," alessia said instead. god, this was bad. this was so, so bad.

"okay, does she have any food allergies or anything?"

as if alessia had any idea. she'd had maybe five conversations with you in total, and every single one had been utterly infuriating. why she'd said your name was a mystery, and one she was majorly regretting already.

"uh, i don't think so, i'll double check tomorrow," alessia winced as she spoke, very glad this conversation was not face to face.

"well, can you text her now?"

no, alessia thought, i cannot. she didn't even have your number.

"sure," alessia needed to end the call before she said something else she'd regret, "okay luca, i have to go, i'll speak to you later okay?"

"what less no! you just dropped a bomb that you're finally seeing someone, and you're just going to hang up without telling me a thing?"

"yes, i am. goodnight luca,"

after hanging up, alessia borderline threw her phone across the room. she collapsed into a chair, dragging her hands over her face.

"what the fuck have i just done?"

---

alessia woke up the next day, feeling entirely unrefreshed, and unresolved. she'd hoped to sleep on her options after her disastrous claims to luca last night, but the stress of it all meant she barely slept full stop.

at least she had the day off from training. the thought of facing you right now was honestly sickening. not for the first time, alessia cursed herself for saying your name. why she hadn't chosen someone she was actually friends with - someone who would actually go along with her ridiculous lie - was beyond her.

it wasn't that alessia didn't like you, per se, but the two of you had just never seemed to click. since your transfer at the start of the season, you'd become fast friends with pretty much all of the girls, except alessia. honestly, it had killed her at first. alessia prided herself on being likeable, on being able to get on with most people, but for some reason, it was like there was an invisible barrier between the two of you. okay, yeah maybe alessia just didn't like you.

alessia had tried to initiate conversations, but you'd respond with a standoffish comment, or a blunt joke that just didn't seem to land with her. everyone else would laugh, but alessia would find herself awkwardly drawing a blank on what to do or say. the few times you did speak, alessia just found herself getting irritated with you, with the way you seemed to constantly be mocking or teasing her for something, the way you always left her feeling frustrated, and flustered. she assumed you had some sort of vendetta agaisnt her, although she could never quite pinpoint what, or why.

she'd never really had to try to get people to like her before, never really had to force conversation, and for once in her life she hadn't known how to interact with someone.

and so, rather than try, she'd kind of just accepted it. if you didn't like her, if you had some sort of problem with her, then she'd just leave you alone. and so she had. you interacted in a purely surface level manner, as teammates - and no one could deny you were an attacking double act to be reckoned with on the pitch - but that was about as far as it went.

her musing was interrupted by a rather heavy pounding on the door of her flat. she dragged herself out of bed, expecting the postman, but instead was greeted by a very excited ella.

"why didn't you tell me?" ella said immediately, barging past alessia into the flat with the force of a bull on steroids. her eyes widened and she began to look around frantically. "oh my god, is she here?" alessia rubbed the sleep from her eyes. she was not awake enough for whatever this was.

"el, i- what?"

"y/n? is she here?" ella turned to look at alessia, honest-to-god beaming at her. "i can't believe you didn't tell me!"

finally, alessia's brain caught up with ella's tirade. right, y/n.

"you spoke to luca," it wasn't a question. ella didn't seem to notice alessia's sour mood, instead moving to look in alessia's bedroom, as if for some damned reason you'd be in there, god forbid.

alessia weighed her options carefully. on the one hand, she couldn't lie to ella. she'd be found out almost immediately. plus, once ella was involved, that meant the whole team was. it was one thing to lie to her family for one evening, but to lie to the whole team, who she spent hours each day in close contact with, was a whole other kettle of fish. of course, this was all assuming alessia actually spoke to you, and by some miracle, convinced you to keep up the lie. this of course would never happen, since alessia was still pretty sure you hated her.

alternatively, and probably the best idea, she could tell ella the truth. ella might even be able to help her out, set her up with a date or something. it crossed her mind that you were friends with ella, and maybe she'd be able to get you to help alessia out. she dismissed that idea pretty quickly.

"ella, listen-" she began, but ella cut her off immediately.

"oh, less i'm so happy for you guys, i knew you would be so great together!"

alessia was a little taken aback. the thought that ella had seen her interact with you, and somehow come to that conclusion, was honestly baffling. in alessia's shock, ella continued on, " i never understood why you never seemed to get on with her, because you know, she's literally the best, but now it all makes sense!"

"it...does?" alessia didn't really know what to say. she absolutely hadn't expected this reaction.

"you were being shy because you had a crush!" ella exclaimed, as though she'd come to an obvious conclusion. "fuck's sake less, you should've just told me you liked her, i could have set you guys up so much sooner-" alessia barely knew how to respond, she just knew she had to stop this before ella went any further.

"no, that's not-"

"aw less, this is so cute! i can't wait to tell everyone else!" that snapped alessia back to reality.

"no! i mean, please don't,"

"why not?" ella looked at alessia, eyes questioning. she needed to confess, to tell ella the truth before it spiralled. this was already getting out of hand and alessia needed to put it to bed, right now.

"we-uh- we aren't telling people yet. its pretty recent,"

oops.

"oh right, yeah totally less," ella nodded solemnly, and gave alessia a reassuring smile. she tried to return it, but she couldn't muster much more than a grimace, "okay, well, i only stopped by to ask you about it, but i'll see you tomorrow yeah?"

alessia only nodded, watching helplessly after ella as she disappeared down the corridor. she'd really gone and fucked it now.

---

she spent the rest of the day contemplating her options, but unsurprisingly, found no easy way out. she refused point blank to admit to luca it was a lie, espescially now that ella was involved, which meant only one thing. she had to ask for your help. alessia felt honestly ill at just the thought of speaking to you, but she resigned herself to it - it was the only option. it was one night, a single wedding. all she had to do was get on her knees and beg, put up with one night of your infuriating company, then endure a lifetime of embarassment from you. super easy.

ella's earlier words remained in the forefront of her mind. alessia knew that it would only be a matter of time before the whole team discovered the 'news', which meant she had to get to you before they did. she considered messaging you on instagram, but her finger hovered over the button, unable to move.

no, she thought, after opening your profile for the hundredth time. this was the kind of conversation you had face-to-face. although not that alessia had ever had to have this ridiculous conversation before. besides, surely it was best to leave no paper trail.

----

alessia had virtually no sleep for the second night in a row, sleeping though her alarm and therefore ensuing on a mad rush to get to the training ground in time. by the time she arrived, she was practically vibrating; a combination of nervous energy and the coffee she'd downed as she ran out her door.

alessia arrived at the ground in time for the morning meeting, which she listened to approximately none of, hyper-aware of your presence on the other side of the room. finally marc finished speaking, and she stood to try and catch you.

"y/n?" she called, voice borderline desperate. you turned to look at her, as did ona and aoife, who you'd been mid-conversation with. you didn't say anything, just looked into alessia's eyes expectantly. realising she had the attention of a quarter of the room, it occurred to her that now was not the best time to do this. alessia's voice trailed off, and she took a step back.

"uh, nothing," alessia mumbled, and you smirked a little. she gritted her teeth in annoyance, and walked in the opposite direction, just desperate to be anywhere but here, caught like a deer in your headlights. she decided to give it an hour, then catch you alone.

alessia lasted all of 15 minutes before the anxiety got too much, and she took off in search of you. she was so preoccupied that she didn't even see ella coming the other way. she barely even registered the collision, just questioning her on your whereabouts immediately.

"hey, have you seen y/n?"

ella raised her eyebrow, a shit-eating grin plastered onto her face within seconds. alessia rolled her eyes impatiently, knowing exactly where ella's mind had gone. god this was unbearable.

"not for that, i need to speak to her," alessia was getting anxious now, just desperate for this whole thing to be over, and ella's suggestive looks weren't helping in the least. ella seemed to notice when her breath picked up.

"you good, less?"

"can you please just tell me where y/n is?"

"i think she went towards the gym," ella calmed down, sensing alessia was in some distress. alessia took off without a second glance, trying her best to calm her shaking hands. this was fine. she just had to kindly explain, and then beg for you to help. maybe even offer you a hefty bribe or something, and just pray you didn't bite her head off.

alessia was so lost in her head as she marched towards the gym that she didn't notice you waiting for her in the corridor. she wasn't proud of the surprised yelp she let out when you grabbed her hand and pulled her, rather unceremoniously, into a storage cupboard.

"why have i just had someone tell me we're dating?"

fuck, thought alessia. this was not how this conversation was meant to go. she tried to speak, to explain, but, as usual when she was around you, she couldn't seem to get the words out. she blushed, stuttering around excuses.

"hello?" you smirked, clearly amused at alessia's panic. she looked up, meeting those dark eyes to find a hint of laughter. alessia blinked, her breath catching. the amusement in your eyes seemed to fade a little, and if alessia didn't know better, she might have recognised the faint concern laced underneath. "you good?"

"fuck, its my fault - i, i'm so sorry, i-"

"woah, alright, calm down," you reached out a lithe hand, hesitantly placing it on her shoulder.

alessia felt her face heating up, wishing desperately the ground would swallow her whole. it was now or never. she could feel your eyes boring into her, waiting for an explanation. she steeled herself, and let everything fall out in one mortified breath.

"i told my brother i had a girlfriend so he'd get off my back about my date to his wedding, only then he started asking questions so i panicked and said your name," the explanation is rushed, and you have to lean in to decipher exactly what alessia is muttering. she pauses, humiliation halting the next part.

"and then he told ella, who told everyone, so now the whole team thinks we're together, and also my family are expecting me to bring you to the wedding on sunday," her voice trails off.

you let out a laugh, a little taken aback by the comedy of the whole situation. alessia looked down at her feet, playing with the fingers nervously. you could feel the embarrassment practically radiating form her in waves. you felt a little bad. alessia stood in front of you, clearly stressed about this wedding for some reason, so much so she's caught herself up in a lie. a lie involving you, no less, who she seemed to hate, for some reason unbeknownst to you.

fuck it, you thought. you shrugged a little.

"alright," you said simply. alessia snapped her head up so fast you were surprised she didn't get whiplash.

"what?"

"alright. i'll help you out,"

"you- you'll what?"

"i'll help," you shrugged again, keeping your replies deliberately blasé, just to make alessia squirm a little. she was surprisingly easy to stress out, and it was fairly entertaining. "i don't have plans on sunday anyway,"

"you'll come to the wedding?" you nodded, "as my date?" you nodded again. alessia sounded confused, and a little sceptical. she was wary, you realised, expecting a trap, or some sort of condition. "seriously? i'll do anything you want,"

you smirked a little at the tail end of her statement. you were telling the truth; you were free on sunday, and honestly you'd been looking for a chance to break through to alessia for a while now, since she seemed to want absolutely nothing to do with you. you honestly would've done it just to be nice, but her words gave you an idea.

"anything i want?" you could tell alessia instantly regretted saying that. you'd caught her in a very desperate position. she nodded hesitantly. "okay, two conditions," alessia's eyes snapped back to yours, immediately on edge, "one, you give me some shooting practice," alessia interrupted you.

"what?"

"you heard me." you said simply, shrugging again, "i need to work on my shooting, you're our best striker. i want you to help me,"

it was true. you'd admired alessia as a player for a while now, and had hoped that coming to manchester would allow you to learn from her. you were an excellent midfielder, known for your creative play and chance creation, but despite all your ball control and technical skills, you had only scored a handful of times in your career.

despite your hopes however, alessia had never really let you in. while you made fast friends with everyone else, she had clammed up whenever you tried to talk to her. a few times she'd initiated conversation, and as soon as you'd give her a trademark witty comment back, she'd end the interaction, leaving you wondering what the hell you'd done to offend her. it'd been a disappointment, but you'd gotten over it, settling in with the rest of the team and ignoring alessia's subtle glares in your direction. now however, it was you in a position of leverage. maybe you could get something out of this too.

"okay, sure," she nodded, "what's the second thing?"

"stop acting so weird around me,"

alessia spluttered. her earlier embarrassment paved way for only pure indignation.

"i act weird? the fuck does that mean? you're the one who's always either brushing me off, or being a dick whenever i try and speak to you!"

"when have i ever brushed you off? i try to talk to you and you just forget how to speak or something, and then you walk off with a stick up your arse," you smirked, watching as alessia got increasingly frustrated.

"yeah, because you say stuff that doesn't make any sense, like how am i meant to respond to half the shit you say? or you say stuff just to piss me off! that's a pretty clear sign that someone doesn't like you, y/n!"

"i've never once acted like i didn't like you - it's called making a joke, alessia," you said, purposefully emphasising her name, "no one else has a problem with it, i'm just trying to make conversation with you,"

"why do you have to be so frustrating? it's like you have to win every conversation!" alessia cried indignantly. you took a small step forward, meeting her eyes with yours. alessia unconsciously stepped back, but she was already pressed up against the shelves of the small storage cupboard.

"maybe you're just very easy to frustrate, alessia," you said softly, lowering your voice, "maybe you should work on that,"

alessia had no response, only clenching her jaw and rolling her eyes. you stepped back, noticing how her shoulders dropped ever so slightly. you placed a hand on the handle to leave, but before you opened it, you turned back to alessia, meeting her eyes with a smirk.

"send me your address - i'm coming over later," when alessia opened her mouth to protest, you cut her off, "unless you don't want my help after all?" you raised a single eyebrow and alessia sighed.

"yeah, okay. fine,"

"bye," you turned and stalked out the cupboard, stopping at the door once more to look alessia dead in the eye, shit-eating grin plastered on your face, "babe,"

----

"so what exactly was your plan if i didn't say yes?"

"well technically i never asked for your help," alessia grumbled.

"you would've. i was just putting you out of your misery by offering first,"

"you don't know that. anyway, my plan was to maybe run away to mexico,"

"maybe you'd meet a date there,"

alessia huffed from her position on her sofa. god you were infuriating. it had only been a few hours of this charade, and you were already getting under her skin. alessia was starting to think that public humiliation courtesy of her brothers would have been the better option.

"at least then i wouldn't have to deal with you," alessia mumbled.

"oh but you were just starting to like me! look, you're using full sentences when you speak to me and everything!"

"get fucked," alessia said. you were right; at least now she was capable of holding a conversation with you. unfortunately, this graduation meant alessia now had to deal with a lot more of your infuriating personality.

you'd shown up at her flat almost immediately after training, leaving alessia to scramble to try and make the place presentable. now here you were, reclining lazily in her living room, an invasive species taking root in her safe space, and giving very unhelpful suggestions about how to fake a relationship.

"i'm thinking we say you fell madly in love with me at first sight and then-"

"we don't need to say anything!"

"no one is going to believe we're together if we don't even have a backstory, alessia!" you were enjoying this far too much, she could tell. "that might work for your uncles or something, but if you think the girls won't want every juicy detail you are sorely mistaken,"

alessia buried her face in her hands, not for the first time that evening. she felt the familiar rising of panic in her chest, tried to drown out your constant talking, and calm down. this was becoming way too much.

"what the fuck am i doing?" she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut. you paused, and alessia braced herself for another round of teasing from you.

instead, she jumped when she felt your hand on her shoulder. your touch was firm, but grounding, and not at all what alessia had been expecting.

"you alright?"

alessia shook her head, trying to control her breathing and prevent the oncoming spiral. she felt you move to sit next to her, jolting a little as she felt the brush of your thigh against hers. it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't been this close to, well, anyone, in a very long time. she didn't dare look up.

"this was so stupid, i never should have gotten you involved," her voice was small, embarrassed, "i'm sorry, you don't have to stay,"

"can i ask you something?," you said, and alessia nodded hesitantly.

"why do you care so much? why lie at all?"

alessia sighed. normally, she would have her guard straight back up, but she'd done an awful lot of lying recently, and she was getting very tired.

"i just- i like being single, i honestly do, but, i'm just sick of people going on about it. every single time, its all 'when are you getting a boyfriend, alessia' or 'less, let me set you up with my friend'. it's my mum giving me these pitying looks when my brothers are with their girlfriends and i'm on my own, again,"

she was rambling now, gesticulating wildly as everything that had been building up inside her came out in a rant of emotion. you placed your hand gently on her thigh, and alessia jumped, but continued on, "it's my brothers constantly taking the piss, like they can't believe i could ever find someone. you should have heard how shocked luca was when i said i was seeing someone! and i'm fine on my own, really i am, but when i hear that, it just pisses me off and so i just said it to prove him wrong. even though he isn't wrong, at all,"

alessia stopped, breathing a little hard. she felt a tear prick at the corner of her eye, and willed herself to calm down. she'd already said far too much to you, didn't want to give you any more ammunition than she already had. she winced in anticipation of your teasing remarks, but none came.

"that makes sense. that would get to me too," you didn't move your hand. alessia shook her head.

"i'm sorry for dragging you into this, we should just forget this ever happened,"

"if you really want me to go, i will," you said, "but i want to help,"

"i can't ask you to do this, it's so dumb,"

"you didn't ask remember? i offered," you nudged her shoulder, and she let out a choked laugh despite herself.

"come on," you nudged her again, "i'm not really that bad, am i?,"

alessia shook her head, her gaze fixed on where your hand still rested on her thigh, your fingers absentmindedly stroking her leg. begrudgingly, she had to agree. maybe she'd underestimated you.

"okay," she nodded, finally looking up at you, "let's fake date,"

you smiled, and moved away slightly. alessia felt an unfamiliar twinge at the loss of contact.

"by the way, you're going to have to stop blushing every time i touch you,"

alessia almost choked, her face heating up even more, "i'm not!"

you just shrugged, that familiar teasing smirk returning.

"whatever you say, babygirl,"

alessia just rolled her eyes.

"okay, so what's the plan?" you said, making your way over to the kitchen. you began to root through alessia's cupboards, "why have you not got any real food in here?"

"i have real food-"

"no, this is just like, oats and stuff,"

"it's ingredients. stop going through my cupboards,"

"fine, i'll order food. what do you want?"

alessia just stared at you, utterly baffled. why you were acting as though this was a perfectly normal occurrence, for you to be stood in her kitchen as though it was your own, for you to be ordering her dinner, she had no clue. you stared back, clearly waiting for an answer.

"um, whatever you like," alessia gave in, still looking at you incredulously. you just hummed, and reached in her cupboard for a glass. alessia could only wonder how you even knew where the glasses were.

---

you'd agreed that the best course of action would be to take it slow, ease people into the idea of your relationship. admittedly, no one had ever seen you interact at training, so they were unlikely to believe a sudden 180 in behaviour. the both of you were fairly private people, so it wasn't like the others would be expecting you to launch out the pda immediately. a few gentle touches here and there, a couple whispered conversations, that was all you needed.

alessia didn't walk out to training with you, but the two of you made sure to stand next to each other where possible. you placed a hand on the small of her back when you saw ella eyeing the two of you suspiciously, only removing it when you saw her start whispering to millie. job done.

while you seemed to be playing your part with ease, alessia thrummed with nerves. she flinched when she felt you touch her back, and she swallowed at the spike of electricity it sent down her spine. alessia waited for you to remove it, but you only let it rest there. she breathed into the touch, relaxing enough to remember the plan. she gave you a performative smile, trying to school her features into those of a loving girlfriend, and you grinned.

“try it without looking like you’re in pain next time,” you whispered with a smirk, before running off to receive the ball. alessia stared after you, clenching her jaw in annoyance. this was going to be a long few days.

alessia turned her attention back to the drill, managing a successful twenty minutes without any you-shaped irritation. then the coaches called for you to partner up, and her luck ran out. she sighed as you came bounding over to her, grinning ear to ear like a love-sick puppy.

the two of you queued up, listening intently to the instructions. or rather, you listened. alessia could only focus on your hand, which had snaked its way around her waist and was tracing light shapes into her hipbone.

she was brought back to earth by the shout of her name. you laughed and nudged her,

“it’s your turn,” you smirked. alessia swallowed, realising she had no clue what she was meant to be doing.

“alessia! were you not paying attention?” the coach yelled from the sidelines. ella chose that moment to chime in.

“she was paying attention to someone else coach!”

millie wolf-whistled in response. alessia buried her head in her hands, feeling her face heat up. sensing her panic, you quickly pointed out what she was meant to be doing. alessia muttered a quick apology, running to take her turn.

she rounded on you as soon as training finished.

“what the fuck was that?”

“i should be asking you that!” you laughed. “careful alessia, anyone would think you were actually into me,”

the icy glare she sent your way could’ve frozen fire, but you just smirked.

“it’s not funny, you fucked up my whole training session,”

“i’m sorry! i didn’t realise little old me would distract you so much,”

“just don’t pull that shit tomorrow, alright?” alessia borderline spat, before turning on her heel and stalking away. you chased her down with a shout.

“hey, where are you going? you said you’d help with the shooting!”

fuck, you’d had alessia so riled up, she had entirely forgotten. she knew she needed to keep her promise, or risk losing your help, but the thought of spending another moment in your vicinity drove her insane. she needed to go home and calm down.

“after that stunt you pulled? we'll see about it tomorrow, alright?”

you thought about arguing, but seeing how hot and bothered alessia was, you decided not to risk annoying her anymore. you honestly didn’t know what her problem was - she’d asked for your help, hadn’t she? you nodded begrudgingly, watching after her as she walked to her car.

clearly, alessia was stressed, whether about the wedding or something deeper, you weren’t sure. as much as you enjoyed teasing her, you felt a little guilty about her reaction. you really hadn’t intended to distract her, but you’d seen how some of the girls were shooting sceptical glances at the two of you, and knew you needed to keep alessia’s cover. you resolved to be a little nicer tomorrow, hoping it might make alessia warm up to you somewhat.

back in her flat, alessia stared down at the invitation once again. there was no way all this was worth it, and she ran a hand raggedly down her face.

there was something about you, that was just so infuriating. the more you two were speaking, alessia just found herself increasingly frustrated. she’d previously pinned the emotion down to annoyance and irritation, but the longer it went on, she was starting to feel more flustered than anything. you always seemed to have the upper hand, and alessia was left stuttering to keep up. it was as if her brain just stopped functioning every time you so much as looked at her, or brushed her arm. it was extremely annoying.

alessia allowed herself a few moments to air her grievances, before dragging herself into the shower. she turned the temperature to cool, and tried to forget the sensation of your hand around her waist.

—-

the next day, training ran without a hitch. you made sure to fasten yourself to alessia’s side occasionally, but kept the touches and teasing to a minimum.

expecting a repeat of your antics from the previous day, alessia had showed up to training on edge. it seemed, however, that you were intent on keeping your word. it was an adjustment, getting used to your constant presence, but alessia found that without the constant teasing, she didn't mind too much. eventually, she relaxed into the familiarity of usual training, feeling more herself than she had all week.

without alessia to annoy, you'd turned your attention to light-hearted jokes at the other girls' expense. now that she was out from your spotlight, alessia found herself laughing along with the team. begrudgingly, she could see the funny side. maybe she was starting to see why everyone else liked you.

training finished, and alessia made her way over to where you stood chatting to the others. gaining a bolt of confidence, she snaked her arm around your waist. you jolted a bit at the unexpected contact. ever quick to recover, you flashed her a winning smile. she pressed herself deeper into your side.

"ready to go babe?" you asked, slinging a lazy arm around her shoulders. you didn't want to annoy alessia, not after you'd kept yourself in her good books all day, but you were increasingly aware of everyone else's eyes fastened on the two of you. alessia turned to look at you, all big blue eyes and smiling dimples. you wondered if she'd taken acting lessons since yesterday.

"i thought we could stay for some shooting practice?" she said sweetly. your eyes widened a little, pleasantly surprised she was going to hold up her end of the deal after all. you nodded, losing your words for a second. it was a little hard to think when she was looking at you like that.

"oh, uh, yeah- sounds good,"

alessia waved bye to the others, before she practically sauntered over to the goal. you watched, a little dumbfounded. clearly she was pleased with herself for having caught you off guard. after a beat, you said your goodbyes and jogged to catch her up, chuckling a little.

"so where do we start?"

"well, why don't we just run a few shots and we'll see where we go from there?"

you nodded and turned to grab a ball from the ball bag. it wasn't not unusual for players to stay after training, so most of the equipment had been left out. you glanced up to say something, but found alessia had disappeared.

"wh-?" you cut yourself off with a laugh when you spotted her grappling with a training mannequin on the far side of the field. as you watched her try to drag it over, she somehow managed to rather ungracefully trip over her own feet.

alessia swore, but looked up when she heard your bright laugh.

"oh shut up! just help me put this in the goal," she grumbled. you hoped you hadn't mistaken the hint of a smile in her voice.

"how are you so fucking clumsy?" you teased, lifting up the mannequin with ease. alessia followed as you walked to the goal, choosing not to answer. you placed it down. "here okay?"

alessia stepped back to judge the positioning. you couldn't deny she looked a little cute; hands on hips, head tilted, nose scrunched up in thought. you were broken from your musing as she stepped forward, dragging the mannequin a little to the left.

"hmm, a little more this way,"

"don't fall over it this time,"

"oh fuck off. so annoying," she mumbled, although the smile that appeared on her face betrayed her lack of annoyance. small wins, you thought.

the two of you began taking shots, alessia feeding them in as you whacked them into the net from distance. although you could often find the back of the net, your accuracy wasn't the best. you groaned after you failed to hit the top right for the third time.

"right, okay, i think i know what you're doing wrong," alessia said, as she fished the balls out the net. "you just need to position your body a little differently. here watch me,"

you fed a perfect pass into her - at least you had no problem with assists - and she struck the ball perfectly into the top corner.

"like this?" you said, trying to mimic the way she leant over the ball. alessia frowned.

"hmm, no, like-" she paused, clearly hesitating on her next move. the pause didn't last long though, as she planted her hands on your waist and physically manoeuvred you.

"so you want to move away from the defender like this," she swivelled your hips slightly, "and then, when you hit the ball, you want to sort of do this," she kept one hand on your waist, moving the other to your torso and guiding you through the motion. you tried to take in her words, but you could only focus on her body as it pressed up against yours. you nodded, suddenly a little flustered, but alessia didn't take her hands away.

alessia wasn't really thinking when she decided to touch you, but as she positioned your body, her thoughts drifted. your torso was firm underneath her hand, she noted, and her fingers slotted so neatly into the curve of your waist. her words trailed off, hands lingering a second too long.

alessia jolted as she realised where she was. she let go quickly, a little flustered. god, what was going on with her.

"um, yeah, try that," she said, taking another step back. she felt her face flush, but thankfully, you didn't turn to look at her.

trying to ignore alessia's lingering touch, and its subsequent quick departure, you geared up to take the shot. you tried to mimic what she'd done, and you grinned as the ball found its target.

"yes! that was it!" called alessia from where she stood, "now, let's run about a hundred more,"

when you finally walked off the training pitch together, you were pleasantly surprised by your progress. alessia was a good coach, now that she was actually acknowledging you. you looked over at her as she walked beside you.

the sun was setting by now, casting alessia in a warm orange glow. a piece of her hair had come loose from her braid. you wanted to thank her, but found you didn't want to break the comfortable silence engulfing the two of you.

alessia kept step beside you, contemplating her own sudden change of heart. now that she knew you a little better, the teasing remarks no longer spun her off kilter, and she found she was more amused than annoyed.

"i was thinking maybe i could come over tomorrow after training? to sort out plans for sunday and that?" she asked, turning to look at you.

"yeah sure, what time?" you said absentmindedly, lifting your shirt a little to wipe your face. despite the cool summer evening air, you'd managed to work up a sweat. alessia couldn't help the way her eyes drifted down to your exposed torso. she swallowed.

"alessia?" you prompted, turning to look at her when she didn't answer. she averted her eyes back to your face, before quickly looking away again when she made eye contact.

"oh, um, 7?"

"sounds good, i can make dinner?"

"should i be worried?" alessia smirked, recovering herself a little. jesus, she was all over the place lately. she tried to reassure herself it was just the stress of the impending wedding, pushing down the voice at the back of her head.

"fuck you, i'm a great cook,"

"i'll be the judge of that,"

---

alessia rocked band and forth on her heels as she waited outside your building. she contemplated checking the address yet again, but settled on messaging a simple i'm outside. luckily, it turned out you lived pretty close to her, so she had walked, the weather only a light summer drizzle.

training had run smoothly once again, with the two of you settling into the act comfortably. the nature of your job meant you were at liberty to keep it lowkey and professional, only having to share the occasional sly touch or whispered comment to maintain the facade. some of the others had finally given in to temptation and pressed you both for details. alessia had momentarily faltered, but was saved by you stepping in to proudly regale your concocted story. all she'd had to do was nod and smile in all the right places, content to sit back and eat her lunch while you took the reins. after everyone had left, you'd flashed her a smirk, and whispered "hook, line and sinker". then you'd ruined the moment by mocking her outfit, but she could forgive you for that.

alessia's careful musing on the day was interrupted by you bounding down the staircase. you threw the door open and beckoned her in.

"lift's broken so we have to take the stairs," you said, already making your way up, "try not to fall down them,"

"i'm not that clumsy,"

"could've fooled me," you shrugged.

thankfully alessia managed to keep her footing on all four flights, only nearly dropping her keys once. she hoped you didn't see that.

"okay, so i was thinking, for the wedding, we ne-"

"jesus, straight to the point, huh?"

"well, i was just-"

"you've literally just come through the door, we'll talk about it over tea,"

"stop interrupting me," alessia huffed, placing her bag down on the coffee table, "but fine,"

you made your way back to the kitchen area, and alessia took the chance to take in your open-plan flat. it was nice, she conceded, spacious but homely, decorated eclectically but well. she wasn't sure why she was shocked, as though she'd been expecting you to live in a cave or something.

she turned to join you in the kitchen, where you seemed to be plating up dinner already. alessia offered to help, but you waved her off, telling her to sit down.

"i didn't know you could cook," alessia said as the two of you ate. you hummed, shrugging slightly.

"you don't really know anything about me," you replied simply. for the first time, alessia felt a pang of guilt at not giving you a chance sooner. it was true - she could tell you any number of facts about the rest of the team, but she wouldn't even know where to start with you.

"well no but, i can learn," she said. you looked a little shocked by her words. alessia felt another stab of guilt.

"so, the wedding?" you prompted, eager to change the subject, "what's the plan?"

alessia began to run you through the itinerary, rambling a little. in her stress over the whole thing, she had managed to commit every little detail to memory. she wanted the day to run pefect for luca and his fiancee of course, but she also now had to contemplate bringing you into the midst.

"to be honest, you don't have to come to the ceremony if you don't want to," she added, noticing your wide eyes as you tried to take it all in.

"well, are your family expecting me to be there?"

"um, well yeah, but-" alessia trailed off. her earlier guilt at not being close to you had now morphed into an all encompassing guilt for dragging you into this whole thing.

"do you want me to be there?"

alessia faltered. despite all her planning, she hadn't really considered that. if you'd asked her at the start of the week, it would have been a resounding no, but as she mulled it over, she found that, actually, just maybe, she potentially did.

"um, yeah, i think i do actually,"

"cool, then i'll be there," you shrugged, and alessia nodded.

"so, i'm meant to be getting ready with my mum, but then we can pick you up on the way to the church?"

"i can meet you there if that's easier? less hassle for you guys, plus it might save us any awkward questions from your mum?"

"i mean, its a good idea, but to be honest i think you'll get questions no matter what. it's not a problem - you're on our way anyway," alessia said, and you nodded.

it was a nice change, seeing you like this. the way you seemed genuinely eager to help, making thoughtful suggestions rather than immature ones. the two of you sat at the table long after you'd finished eating, discussing the plan and making sure your story was airtight.

"personally i still think we should tell everyone you pined after me for months," just like that, your teasing suggestions were back, but alessia no longer found herself bothered by them.

"we're absolutely not saying that,"

"oh come on, you know you're obsessed with me,"

"so obsessed it hurts," alessia mimed an arrow to the chest, and you grinned. she felt a small sense of pride at making you laugh. it was a little unnerving. she turned her attention to more pressing matters.

"you do have something to wear right? i can lend you a dress,"

"a dress? absolutely not," you smirked, "don't worry, i've got it covered - what colour is yours?"

"why?"

"so we don't clash, duh,"

"oh," alessia still felt wary, "its like a navy blue, here i'll show you," she pulled out her phone to find the dress. you gave an appreciative look.

"yeah, i've got a suit that will go well with that,"

"i feel like you're going to show up in something stupid - should i be worried? i am worried,"

you stood up to clear the plates, whacking her shoulder playfully.

"do you need to be going?" you asked over your shoulder as you washed up, "i know it's a late kick off tomorrow, but don't feel obliged to stay if you want to get home,"

in all honesty, alessia didn't want to go just yet. she wasn't too worried about the match, it being an evening home game they were tipped to win, and she still wanted to iron out a few more things for sunday. besides, it was nice to not spend yet another evening alone in her flat.

"i don't, unless you want me to go?" the hesitance that crept into her tone was unbidden.

"nah i'm good. stay," you walked to the fridge and pulled it open, searching for something, "normally i'd offer you wine, but maybe not the best idea before a match," you held out a can of pepsi triumphantly, before collapsing onto the sofa beside alessia.

"only the best for my fake girlfriend,"

alessia took it gratefully, then realised she didn't quite know what to do with herself with you sat in such close proximity. she adjusted her position awkwardly, but it was only a small sofa.

"so, tell me about your family," you said as you switched the tv on, "any weird uncles i need to avoid?"

alessia laughed and began to give you a rundown on all the people you would need to know. she found herself relaxing as she spoke, her earlier awkwardness dissipating. you listened intently. your eyes didn't leave her face as she talked, but alessia didn't notice.

the topic soon moved with ease towards your own family, then you in general, and alessia sank into the comfortable flow of conversation. the two of you chatted for hours before alessia realised the time.

"oh shit, it's pretty late, i should probably be going,"

you yawned and nodded, "oh damn yeah, who knew you could talk so much?" alessia blushed, and began to mutter an apology, but you cut her off, "its cool, makes a nice change," you winked, "you could stay, if you like? it's chucking it down out there, plus it's dark, and you shouldn't walk back alone,"

alessia could get an uber - she had planned to get an uber. logically she should go home, make sure she got a good night's sleep before the game. despite this, she hesistated.

"is that alright?" she asked. you nodded.

"yeah of course, as long as you don't mind sharing the bed. i can drive you back in the morning before the match," you walked off, going to get her some clothes to sleep in, and alessia followed.

you fell asleep pretty much straight away, but alessia found herself unable to do the same. she stared at the ceiling, listening to your even breaths and trying to ignore the way your legs brushed up against hers.

she wasn't sure why she agreed to stay, to sleep in a bed with you no less, but, alessia realised, something had changed this week. she enjoyed your company, enjoyed you. she'd even maybe go as far as calling you a friend. for the first time, alessia found herself wondering what would happen after the wedding. she'd been so focused on keeping up the lie, she hadn't even considered it. the two of you had planned to keep up the lie a little longer, then stage a mutual and unexplosive breakup, but now, alessia wondered if you'd even remain close. what if your actions towards her were simply another part of the act, and once you got your shooting practice in return, would it go back to the way it was? alessia realised, with a very strong conviction, that she didn't want that at all.

---

alessia woke before you the next morning. the rain had cleared up, and the sun cast soft rays through your thin curtains. at some point in the night the two of you had shifted to face each other. alessia realised her arm was hanging loosely over your waist, and she pulled it back quickly.

she wasn't sure how long she'd laid there last night, thoughts racing as sleep evaded her. she lay there now, remarking on how much softer your features looked in sleep. your hair hung loosely over your eyes, and alessia had a sudden urge to brush it aside.

the thought registered with a jolt, and alessia extricated herself from the bed as quickly as possible. she tried to push down the feeling in her chest, point-blank refusing to acknowledge it.

this was bad - what was she doing? she couldn't be thinking like this. she needed to go. getting dressed quickly, alessia collected her things and slipped out of your building without a second thought. it was only when she was halfway down the street that the guilt settled in- she should have left a note or something. alessia settled for a text.

left to get ready for the game - thanks so much for letting me stay, see you later x

---

alessia was already there when you showed up at the stadium for the game. you gave her a wave, then moved to sit by your things. waking up alone had stung a little, and you wondered if you'd done something wrong. you'd thought the two of you had maybe crossed a bridge this week - that maybe you were actual friends now, rather than just accomplices caught up in the same lie. maybe you'd been wrong.

it shouldn't have surprised you. you knew alessia hadn't liked you before, although you were still clueless as to why, and maybe it was naïve to think that could've changed.

of course, the text she'd sent hadn't indicated any problem, it was an entirely reasonable thing to do, and she'd seemed perfectly comfortable in your company last night, but still, a girl leaving your bed at the crack of dawn was never a good sign. you knew with some certainty that, after all this was done, you didn't want to go back to how things were, but you had no clue if alessia felt the same. this could have just been all part of the lie for her.

that didn't matter now though, you had to focus on the game.

---

the first half was electric. alessia played well, if she did say so herself, and in all honesty, it was down to you. while before you'd had great link-up play as an attacking duo, now, the two of you were dynamite. you each ran circles around the defence, anticipating the other's moves with ease. so naturally, when alessia volleyed the ball into the back of the net, it was from a cross you'd rocketed into the box.

she ran to hug you, and you did the same, jumping into her arms and wrapping your legs around her waist. alessia had been wondering if she'd upset you by leaving early, and trying very hard not to think about certain other things, but that was long forgotten. she simply let herself breathe you in, holding you tight as she spun you around.

the game continued much in a similar way, the two of you cleaving through defenders like water. you were 3-0 up at 80 minutes, and still you pressed for more.

alessia took on a defender with ease, pressing into space. she could've attempted the shot herself, but she saw your run into the box. she passed the ball to you, and watched as you put into practice exactly what she'd showed you.

it was a perfect strike. you pumped your fists and made a beeline for alessia, squeezing her tight.

"fuck yes! that was all you lessi, all you," you yelled into her ear. alessia's eyes shone with pride, but the warm feeling that engulfed her was far, far more than that. suddenly, alessia couldn't breathe, her heart beating far more erratically than it should've been. she buried her face in your neck and held you tight. oh this was bad. this was so, so bad. if alessia thought the situation was complicated before, she'd definitely made it a whole lot worse now.

she let go, clapping you on the shoulder as she beamed, choking down the pounding in her chest.

"no y/n, all you,"

---

you were still riding the high of the win, and the goal, as you got yourself ready for the wedding the next day. you'd gone home feeling much better than you had before; alessia's reactions on the pitch seemed to confirm to you that there was no bad blood between the two of you. your heart fluttered slightly at the memory of how she'd looked at you - all beaming smiles and bright eyes.

a knock on your door shook you out of your reverie, and you tried to forget the memory. you couldn't be thinking like that. she was a friend - and just barely. you smoothed down your suit and pulled the door open.

"hey- oh. wow, you look-" alessia stumbled over her words as she took you in.

"told you i had it covered," you grinned, posing a little, "you scrub up alright yourself," you couldn't deny she looked absolutely stunning - it was taking every ounce of your effort not to stare, to keep your breathing relatively normal as you took her in.

"right- um yeah- are you ready to go?"

you nodded and followed her out, steeling your nerves to meet alessia's mum. you ran over the story once again in your mind, and from alessia's expression, you imagined she was doing the same. you reached out to grab her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"calm down, you're breathing like you've just ran a marathon," you muttered as you approached the taxi.

"ah, wow, thats such a helpful thing to say, thank you," alessia's voice dripped with sarcasm, and she didn't even look at you.

"we've got this okay? i'm great at lying," she nodded, but you could still see the tension practically radiating off her shoulders.

"i'm not," she mumbled.

"hey, it'll be fine, i promise. just let me know if you need anything - i just want you to enjoy your brother's wedding, alright?"

alessia nodded again, before you reached the car. you waved through the window at her mum, before sliding into the back of the taxi with alessia.

"mum, this is y/n, my girlfriend," alessia spoke confidently, but you'd spent enough time with her this week to hear the faint waver in her voice. you put on your best meet-the-parents voice as you chimed in - you had promised alessia you'd be on your best behaviour today.

"hi, it's so great to finally meet you! alessia's told me so much about you,"

"you too, sweetheart! we're so glad she's finally found someone to look after her," her mum replied, turning from the passenger seat to smile at you. you could see where alessia got it from.

"well, i do my best," you smile back, "she deserves it,"

alessia groaned next to you, face a little flushed.

"mum..."

"well it's true, honey! you know we worry about you getting lonely up here on your own," you were tempted to slide alessia a teasing smirk at that, but thought better of it. god knows she didn't need you adding to the stress.

"yeah, alright, alright," alessia mumbled, still firmly averting her eyes from yours, "how's luca doing?"

"he's doing well, he's with gio and your dad at the church now,"

alessia nodded and smiled, taking a deep breath in. in a brief moment of daring, you reached for her hand and squeezed. she squeezed back with a small smile. the car fell into a comfortable silence, and you turned to look at the window, watching the cars pass by, and trying to ignore the fluttering in your chest.

with alessia being the sister of the groom, she was swept up into wedding business as soon as you entered the church. you'd agreed it would be best to save the introductions for the reception, so you slid into a pew a few rows behind and watched on as alessia greeted her family. you smirked a little as you watched alessia's mum point you out to her brothers, who clapped alessia on the back in apparent congratulations. you sent them a little wave, then for good measure, blew alessia a kiss. she sent you a death glare in return.

the ceremony was beautiful, even as a total stranger. your eyes kept drifitng back to alessia, watching as she beamed with pride, tears shining in her eyes. it warmed your heart to see her like this; you knew she was close with her family, but it was nice to witness it in full. she caught your eye in the crowd, soft smile growing when you grinned back at her.

alessia beckoned you over to her side as the crowd gathered to watch luca and his wife leave the church in the wedding car. you slung an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into you.

"happy?"

"very," she nodded, "thank you for coming,"

"anytime,"

you were interrupted by gio clapping both of you on the back.

"not going to introduce me less?" he grinned. alessia rolled her eyes.

"gio this is y/n. y/n, gio," you stuck out a hand, and he shook it before pulling you in for a hug.

"pleasure to meet you, y/n," he grinned, before turning to alessia, "where've you been hiding this one, lessi? took you long enough,"

"fuck off gio,"

"i'm joking, i'm really happy for you," he turned back to you, face suddenly serious, "if you hurt my baby sister i will kill you, understood?"

"loud and clear," you grinned, and he laughed.

"yeah, i like her less, good job," gio walked off, presumably to greet someone else, and you turned to alessia.

"that went well,"

"shut up please,"

alessia was dragged off for photos pretty soon after, so you spent your time milling around the reception area, and taking advantage of cocktail hour. you had a few run-ins with some cousins and family friends, word apparently having travelled fast, but you put on your best loved-up smile, and spent about an hour gushing about alessia. you tried not to think about how easy it was.

alessia returned after a while, making a beeline for you. or rather, for the drink you held in your hand, which she took without a word and downed rather hastily.

"having fun?"

"all anyone wants to talk to me about is you," she muttered, "even luca! you'd think it was our fucking wedding, not his! i need another drink,"

"on it," you said, walking to the bar with a small laugh. you returned with two cocktails, placing one into alessia's hand. she smiled in thanks.

"just one evening, less, you got this," she nodded, already halfway through her cocktail.

"oh there she is- alessia!" alessia groaned as she heard her mum's voice.

"god, here we go," she grumbled, before plastering a smile to her face and turning around. you waved as her parents approached, swiftly followed by luca and his wife.

"this is y/n," alessia said. you shook her dad's hand, greeting him with a smile.

"it's great to meet you," you turned to luca, "and congratulations! its a beautiful wedding, thank you so much for having me here,"

"yeah thank you," he beamed, clearly caught up in wedding ecstasy, "and of course! you're part of the family too now," you nodded, a small pang of guilt at your lies hitting you squarely in the chest, "plus, as if we were going to let less get away with not bringing you,"

"luca-" alessia attempted, but he waved her off.

"she never brings anyone to anything, honestly i don't even know if she's ever dated anyone seriously, we were all so relieved when she said she was finally bringing a date,"

you didn't miss the way alessia's fingers tightened around her glass, or the way her jaw muscles clenched.

"i mean, seriously, we were starting to get like, worried, you know? like we get you're busy with football less, but come on!"

you were concerned alessia was going to break the glass if she gripped it any tighter. you snaked an arm around her waist, rubbing your thumb slightly over her hipbone.

"well, nothing to worry about anymore," you joked good-naturedly, "i'm just lucky she got there in the end," you flashed her a smile, and her eyes betrayed her thanks. she relaxed into you a little, nodding.

"i'm glad, treat her right, yeah?" luca said, and you nodded. you were getting used to these shovel talks by now, "anyway, you guys should probably get in your seats- speeches soon!" he turned with a wave.

being alessia's date, you of course found yourself on the family table, nestled between your fake girlfriend and her brother. luckily, the attention of the group had finally switched back to the wedding at hand, and you gave yourself a moment to relax. all this lying, this play-acting at being alessia's girl, hadn't felt too difficult in the moment, but now that you weren't under the scrutiny of prying eyes, you realised how much it had taken out of you. you tried to focus on the speeches, taking the moment to collect yourself.

try as you might though, your attention never drifted too far from alessia. you snuck a sideways glance at her, watching as she listened intently. her eyes shone with tears as her dad spoke, and so, emboldened by the copious amount of champagne, you placed a hand gently on her thigh. her eyes never moved from her dad, but her hand moved to rest on top of yours. you felt a little giddy at the intimacy of it all, her fingers tracing a pattern against yours. you told yourself it was just the alcohol making you feel this way, but this small private gesture implied otherwise. it wasn't like anyone could see - there was no one to keep up the pretence for.

gio swept you up into conversation pretty quickly once the speeches ended and the food arrived, seeming genuinely interested in you and your life. his plus one, his girlfriend of a few years, joined in, and you spent most of the meal chatting to the two of them. alessia was uncharacteristically quiet, sharing only the occasional exchange with her parents. you longed to know what was going through her mind, but despite the charade, you knew it wasn't the time to ask. it probably wasn't even for you to ask at all. all you could do was watch as she subdued herself, only moving to refill her champagne yet again.

by the time the first dance was done, and the party began in full, you were already feeling the effects of the alcohol. from her more relaxed manner, you guessed alessia was too. the two of you had been left alone at your table, and you took the opportunity to check in with her.

"you good?" there was nobody in your close vicinity, with everyone dispersing onto the dance floor, but you kept your voice low regardless.

alessia nodded and hummed, closing her eyes a little.

"are you pissed?" you laughed. she snapped her eyes open at that, looking at you indignantly.

"no, are you?" you chose to ignore her defensive tone, instead slipping into a wide laugh.

"yep, hammered,"

that got a laugh out of alessia, and she smirked.

"yeah, me too- let's go dance,"

you nodded and let her pull you towards the throng of people. the two of you danced for a while, just enjoying the atmosphere. alessia's parents soon materialised, the two of them grinning from ear to ear. you laughed as alessia's dad brought out the full set of dance moves, glad that alessia seemed to have eased up as well. it didn't last long however, as the four of you soon sank into chairs and began to chat.

"we're thrilled you're here y/n," alessia's dad began, his wife tucked under his arm. you could see why alessia had high standards for relationships. "lessi's always so busy, we never get to see her relaxed like this,"

you almost choked on your drink. you were pretty sure alessia had never been less relaxed in her life.

"i'm sure you'll look after her, we've been waiting for her to find someone who makes her this happy," alessia sipped at her own drink, not even looking up.

"all our children finally growing up and starting their own families, it makes us so happy," her mum nodded, chiming in. at the mention of a family, alessia finished her glass, and turned to you. it only took one look to see the frustration in her eyes. you went to say something, but were cut off by the arrival of a group of people you hadn't met.

"oh my god, hi! you're alessia's girlfriend right? i'm her cousin, everyone's been talking about how she finally brought a date, we had to come meet you! took her long enough!"

you nodded and introduced yourself, shifting your chair a fraction closer to alessia. before you could say anymore, however, alessia cut you off.

"y/n, could you go get me another drink?" you hesitated - the last thing you wanted to do was leave alessia alone in the lion's den. the desperate glint in her eye, the slight quiver in her lip, told you exactly how you she was feeling though, so you nodded and stood, waving a quick goodbye to what now seemed to be the entire russo family.

standing at the bar, you kept your gaze on alessia, who now appeared to be being bombarded by questions. you tapped your fingers impatiently on the counter, eager to get back to her and mitigate the damage. it was becoming increasingly apparent that, although she may have avoided the questions of why she was alone, your presence here had just opened up a whole new can of worms. lost in your thoughts, you didn't notice the girl who sidled up next to you until she spoke.

"bride or groom?"

you turned to her, a little taken aback. your identity as alessia's girlfriend had mostly preceded introductions up until now.

"oh, uh, groom,"

"that explains why i didn't recognise you - i'm the bride's sister,"

"oh cool," you smiled politely. the girl's suggestive tone gave you a clear indication of her intentions. normally, you would have flirted back- you couldn't deny she was attractive - but you only wanted to get back to alessia. you glanced back over to the table, but her chair was now empty.

the bartender placed your drinks in front of you, and you took them quickly.

"uh, sorry, i should get back, but nice to meet you," you muttered, before practically jogging back.

"where did less go?" you said, putting the drinks down, and turning to her mum with a smile that you hoped didn't betray your concern.

"oh just to the bathroom love," she replied. you nodded. it was probably nothing, but you had a strong urge to go and check on her.

"oh, i might go as well, could you watch our drinks?" you barely gave her time to answer before you dodged your way through the crowd.

"alessia? you in here?" there was no reply. a quick check determined all the cubicles were empty, save for one very drunk bridesmaid who you had to practically extract yourself from.

you came back out, racking your brain for where she could have gone. catching sight of a door slightly ajar, you stepped outside.

"hey," you began hesitantly. alessia sat with her head in her hands, her breathing shallow. she didn't look up. "you okay?"

you contemplated sitting down on the bench next to her, but the moment felt suddenly very private. it was quite possible that you were the last person she wanted to be around.

alessia mumbled something, but her voice was too muffled to understand. you stepped a little closer.

"what was that?" you kept your voice low and your movements cautious, as though she were an animal you didn't want to spook. she looked up, and your heart broke a little as you took in her red eyes and tear-tracked cheeks.

"why do you care? you're not actually my girlfriend," her voice was tired, resigned almost.

you couldn't deny it stung a little, but you weren't going to let that deter you. you weren't leaving her like this.

"well no, but i'm your friend," at your own words you faltered a little -were you? you knew how your position on the matter had switched from before, but you still held some doubt that she had ever changed her mind about you. your voice was hesitant as you spoke again, "are we not friends, alessia?"

"we are but," she sniffled and shook her head "it's none of your business,"

"i respect that, and if you want me to go i will, but you're upset, and i care about you, and i want to help. i want it to be my business less,"

she looked up at you, properly this time, before burying her head in her hands again.

"it's just- too much," she whispered, a small sob escaping her. you rushed to sit next to her, placing an arm around her shoulders immediately.

"what is?"

"all of it," she exhaled, finally letting the dam break and her words spill out, "i thought you being here would help, that they would finally get off my back, but now they've all just made it even more clear that they were just waiting for me to find someone, yet they're all so shocked that i finally have, like, did they all just think i was fucking lonely and desperate this whole time?"

she paused to take a shaky breath.

"and i was happy on my own, i really was, but they say shit like that and suddenly i'm an insecure teenager all over again- like if my own family expect me to be alone then surely i'm not good enough for anyone to want me, and i didn't know what to say, or do, and i just feel really, really shitty, you know?"

you nodded, stroking her back as encouragement to continue.

"and they all just started bombarding me, and i didn't know what to say without you there, and i just-" she swiped furiously at her face. "and then i wanted to go find you, but that girl was flirting with you, and then i just felt so guilty for dragging you here when you could be out with other girls who aren't a fucking mess like i am, and now you're being so nice and tolerating me when i'm drunk and crying, when i'm literally not your problem and i just-"

"less, you don't get it - i want to be here. i want to tolerate drunk you. i want you to be my problem,"

alessia shook her head frantically, tears still flowing as she continued her rant.

"i'm just so sorry - i've been so stressed all day, everyone has been all over me and i should've been thinking about the wedding, but all i can think about is you, because i know you were faking it today but i just couldn't stop wishing you weren't, and i-"

she stopped suddenly, realising what she'd confessed. you tried to look at her, but she kept her eyes glued to the floor. your heart pounded as you deciphered her words, unsure if you'd mistaken their meaning. you bit your lip, wanting so desperately to say the words that, you realised with some certainty, had been begging to be let out for a while. fuck it.

"i haven't been able to keep my eyes off you all day, alessia," you murmured. she risked a hesitant look up at you. nothing in her expression told you to stop, so you kept talking.

"i know you're happy on your own. i know you don't need anyone to 'complete you' or any of that other cliché crap. and i don't either. but i've got to see the complete you this week, and she's amazing. i haven't faked a second of today. and if i'm barking up the wrong tree here you can tell me to fuck off - you can go back to hating me like before and i won't say another word, but alessia, i don't want to just be your fake girlfriend anymore, i want the real thing,"

alessia smiled, and your breath caught at the sight. your hands shook as you awaited her reaction.

alessia leaned forward, inching closer to press her forehead against yours. her hand found your cheek, her touch as soft as satin. her breath ghosted against your lips as she spoke.

"so do i,"

you closed the gap. her lips were softer than you could've anticipated. they pressed into yours, slowly at first, then with a deep urgency. the kiss was messy; tear-stained and drunken, but the feel was electric. the dam broke on all the tension that had built between the two of you, and every ounce flooded out as pure desire. you wanted her, needed her, with a desperation you hadn't realised you could possess. your bodies curved into each other; the aftermath of every faked smile, every pretend touch, culminating in the most real feeling you'd ever had.

you broke away at some point, hazy and grinning. alessia's breathing was heavy, her eyes shining.

"we should go back. you probably shouldn't miss your brother's wedding,"

"right, yeah, of course," she smiled, wiping at her cheeks to try and fix the tear-stains as she stood. you reached out to help, then pulled back to take her in. you smirked.

"were you jealous of that girl?"

she smacked your shoulder, but there was no bite in it. she leant in for another kiss.

"so fucking annoying," she muttered, smiling widely against your lips.

me saying i'm writing a short fic then posting the shittiest fucking slowburn you've ever read.

anyway, hope you enjoyed! love, hedge xx

[ihearthes]

Abbey Road Studios:

A Harry Styles Meet Cute

Author: @ihearthes

Pairing: Harry x Original Unnamed Female Character

Rating: Fluffy Meet Cute

Word Count: 3439

“You’re shitting me?” I gaped at my manager. “THE Abbey Road Studios? How did you…? When am I…? What the actual fuck?” 

Her grin across the desk was wider than a grand piano. “When I talked to the publishers about the audiobook, I assured them that being in the quintessential studio where the Beatles recorded The End would lead to a more inspired audiobook recording of your book The End.” 

Leaping out of my chair, I rushed around her desk and hugged her tighter than a guitar string nearing its breaking point. Her laughter was rich, the hearty kind that could be served with both a spoon and a fork. Maybe even a knife thrown in for good measure. 

“I’ll make you proud,” I vowed before releasing her and returning to the other side of the sparse wooden desk with its ornate carvings on each of the four legs.

“You already have,” she grinned. “After all, you have the most popular music podcast in the world.” Her statement was a major overstatement. Although my 2 year old podcast Time Machine Tunes was growing, it was barely in the top 100 music podcasts. Maggie was convinced the book would drive more listeners my way. “This book is going to be the icing on the cake of your popularity. You’re going places, kid.” 

While I could have managed without the ‘kid’ tacked onto every sentence the 72-year-old American dynamo spoke about me, I was keenly aware that I still had a long way to go in establishing my career as a historical music writer. Without Maggie fighting on my behalf, I would still be shopping my manuscript to publishers. Meticulously researched despite the subjects not honouring me with an interview, my book was garnering buzz from the musical world before the final manuscript was even sent to the publisher. 

“If you’ve heard the author’s podcast, you’ll understand her fascination with the greatest band of all time. You’ve heard the stories of how they ended, but this book delves more deeply into the stories surrounding their breakup,” read the promotional blurb written by Cameron Crowe. 

Maggie never would tell me how she managed to convince the great Cameron Crowe to write a blurb for my book, but I suspect it had something to do with the past she never mentions, likely involving a stint as a groupie in the late sixties. 

Days later, the popular zebra crossing was laid out before me with a steady stream of fans lined up to record their personal rendition of the most famous band photograph ever taken. I took a deep breath. In one tote bag, I carried my favourite teas, biscuits, and a bag of fresh fruit. The other tote bag held a copy of my bound manuscript with notes written in the margins of how I want to sound when I read certain parts of the text aloud. Places to pause were marked in pink highlighter. Sentences to be spoken with more emphasis were underlined. The usual. 

This is how I prepare for my podcast, so I shouldn't have felt as strange as I did. At the bottom steps of the studio, I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and whispering to myself, “Just act normal.” 

My fingers pressed on the wooden door, and it surprisingly opened at my touch. Inside was a reception desk with a stony-faced twenty-something female sitting behind it, tapping lightly on the keyboard keys, and a security guard wearing a uniform that must have weighed double the young man wearing it. 

“No tours. The shop is next door, Miss,” the receptionist politely used her pen to point the way. 

Gulping air, I nodded, then spoke in a rush. “I’m here to record. I mean, I have an appointment. I mean I’ve – my manager, really – has reserved a studio for me.” 

So much for acting normal. 

“Which studio?” 

“The Front Room?” I ventured. 

She tapped her pen on the book in front of her before shrewdly surveying me from head to toe. “Oh yes. Hand over your ID please so we can verify your identity.” 

I fumbled my way through my pocketbook, seeking the one item that always seemed to fall to the bottom, no matter how large or small my bag might be. Just as I felt the leather of the small wallet touch my fingers, it slipped away again until I finally had to set the bag on her desk to more effectively dig through it. In triumph, I finally withdrew the offending item, raising it above my head. 

The security guard simply stared at me until I freed my licence from its card slot, handing it over with a flourish. With a brusque nod, he took it from me with two fingers, exiting the room to another office. 

“Should I – follow him?” I inquired, my voice a combination of shaky and firm. 

“No.” Her reply was curt. 

Minutes later, he emerged, handing me back my licence before directing me to another door. “That’s the Front Room. The team is waiting for you.” 

My insides quivered like a bowl of elderflower jelly as I took the steps necessary to walk to the identified door. 

“Ta!” I waved to the front office team before opening the studio door and stepping inside. Closing the door behind me, I slumped against it, eyes closed, and whispered, “You daft git.” Because of course I would see them again. Soon probably. And every day for the week while I would be recording. 

“Excuse me?” The voice caused me to stand up straight. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean you.” My eyes took in the slight man standing before me in blue jeans and a cosy oversized jumper. His curls were ringlets that reached his shoulders, and his beard was neat and trim. 

“Who did you mean?” 

Wincing, I frowned, my face cycling through about five different expressions before settling on a smile that, I hoped, lit up my whole face. “Me. I meant me. I’m —” Freezing, I held out my hand to this man, briefly forgetting my name. 

“I know who you are. I’m Sean, your engineer.” 

“Oh! It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for helping me.” 

Sheepishly, he shuffled his feet. “Don’t thank me too profusely. This is my first time doing this on my own.” 

“Congratulations!” My voice squeaked out a little too loudly. “This is my first time recording in a real studio. My podcast is normally recorded in a tiny room at home that I’ve converted into a studio.” 

“I’ve heard your podcast,” Sean reveals. “My partner and I never miss an episode.” 

Grasping my hands together, I hold them over my heart. “Really? Thank you so much. It’s my baby.” 

“One of these days you’re going to need a producer, you know. You can’t keep doing it all on your own. Not if you want to get bigger. And you’ll need a recordist. And an engineer too.” 

“Oh.” My voice was tiny. His words felt like a scolding and a dismissal of my teensy podcast and my dream to grow it into something larger. 

“No, no. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He was quick to correct my assumptions. “You’ll continue to expand your audience, and more people will want to be part of your team. It’s the natural evolution of recording. Unless you’re not any good – which I’ve already said you are.” 

Choosing to take him at his encouraging word, I set my totes on the sofa in the control room. “Sean, I’m confident we’re going to get along just fine this week.” 

“I’m sorry that you’ve just got me. It’s usually a bigger team here for the Front Room, but…” His voice trailed off, and I focused on his face. 

“But?” 

“It’s nothing.” He mindlessly picked some lint off of the immaculate sound board. “Some of the rest of the team thought it was sacrilegious for you to come into Abbey Road Studios to share your book about how THEY ended.” 

The emphasis on the pronoun made it clear who he meant. “Ah, I see. They refused to work with me even though they had no idea what the book actually says or how much research I did?”

His shoulders raised and lowered, and his eyes roamed the floor. “Like I said, I’m sorry.” 

The reluctance of the rest of the team set like a stone in my stomach, but I shook off the negativity. Oh well. Fuck them. 

“Their loss,” I grinned. 

He smiled back at me. “Agreed. Let’s do this.” Sean gestured around the space, pointing out everything I needed to know, and I unpacked my totes in preparation for the day. “Nice selection of teas,” he commented. 

“My throat gets dry sometimes.” 

As if he needed my explanation. He had worked with loads of people who probably needed tea to lubricate their throats, so it couldn’t be unusual. Why I felt like I needed to justify every bit of my practice was beyond me. I was a professional after all. 

A professional who had no idea what she was doing in a fancy studio like this. 

Apparently I was feeling a twinge of imposter syndrome. 

“Shall I heat some water now?” Sean asked as I unpacked the manuscript with all of its sticky notes resembling the jagged cliffs of Dover. It was really sweet of him to offer, so I agreed. The control room wasn’t very big; other than the sofa, it housed a couple of plants and, of course, the prominent sound board. Sean flicked the switch on the electric kettle to the left of his console and turned back to where I was standing, my manuscript tucked to my chest as though it contained a pirate’s treasure. 

“Let’s get you into the booth,” he said, leading me through the only other door in the small studio. “We mostly do music here, as I’m sure you know. But I think I’ve got things set up well for an audiobook. I brought in this small desk and a chair. If you don’t like the chair, I can find another one. Oh, and I found this.” He directed my attention to a book stand. Sheepishly, he smiled. “I was worried a music stand would be too flimsy.” 

His simple preparations were touching, and my gratitude was boundless. 

My arse settled into the chair, and I sighed at how luxurious it felt on my bum. “Perfect!” I proclaimed, placing the first chapter of the manuscript on the book holder. 

“Great! Let’s try some different microphones and test your voice.” 

An hour plus a few minutes later, we had finalised the microphone choice as well as the calibration of the sound board controls with my voice. My cup of tea was to my right and my coloured pencils were to my left so I could easily grab them to indicate changes to my delivery. 

To record, Sean closed the door between the control room and the booth, but I could see him through the full sized soundproof glass inset on the door between us. During the first couple of hours, he would encouragingly nod to me at times. Or he would grimace, and I would know I had to read a section differently. Or louder. Or softer. Or with more expression. 

“Uh, this first chapter will probably take a long time to record,” Sean shuffled his feet as we finished our morning tea. “Don’t panic. Once we get into a groove, the rest of the book will go much faster. It’s just that we have to, you know…” 

“I understand,” I commented, nodding graciously. “It’s fine. As long as we get finished with the book by the end of the week…” 

“Oh, that won’t be hard.” He flapped his hand at me. “We might even have time on the last day to record a few of your upcoming podcasts.” 

“Really?” I was intrigued at the thought.

“But only if we don’t get too distracted.” 

Ha! What could possibly distract me from my work? 

I found out the answer to that question that very afternoon. 

Sean and I were finally recording chapter two, our bellies full of the lunch he’d convinced a studio runner to take away from a nearby Indian restaurant. The remnants, half-full boxes of rice and curry with naan bread, covered the top of the coffee table by the sofa. 

We had switched out the comfy chair for a wooden stool so that I could sit upright, practise my best posture and, most importantly, not fall asleep after the heavy meal. Sean played the roles of engineer, recordist, and director with joy and a skill that I came to both appreciate and disparage as the early afternoon flew by. 

 When I looked up from the script in front of me as we were in the middle of chapter three, I was surprised to find Sean turned towards the main studio door, his lips moving as though he were talking to someone. 

“Hey!” My voice expressed my gentle offence in his headphones. “I thought we were a team, but you’re not even listening!” 

He shook his head, removing his headphones and punching the button for his microphone. 

“Take five. There are a couple of fans of yours out here who want to meet you. I think you might recognize one of them.” 

Ugh. Fine. 

Standing from the stool, I stretched my arms over my head, my vintage Beatles t-shirt rising and revealing my belly button. Through the large window between the booth and control room, I watched as Sean stood, his head bobbing up and down and a grin on his face. 

When I could stall no more, I opened the door, leaning against the door jamb as I examined the two men standing by the studio door.

“Hi,” said one. 

My jaw dropped as the other man’s face came into focus. Holy shit. How was he here? Had Sean joked about him being a fan? He must have been because there was no way… 

“Jeff Azoff,” I breathed, attempting to speak coherently. “You’re Jeff Fucking Azoff.”

“Yes” was his smooth answer. “And I’m sure you know who this is…” He gestured to the man with him, and I shifted my gaze briefly to him. While extremely handsome, his face didn’t ring any bells, but I decided I’d better be polite and go along with the implication that I should know him by sight. 

“Nice to meet you,” I muttered, quickly turning back to THE Jeff Azoff. “How did you…? I mean, holy shit. The number of times your father’s name has appeared in my research is staggering. Did you grow up surrounded by all of those musicians? REO Speedwagon? Dan Fogelberg? The fucking Eagles?” 

“Yes,” he nodded. 

Man of few words. 

“What was it like? Oh wow. What I would give to pick your brain. Did I hear Sean correctly? You’re a fan? You listen to my pod?” 

Once more, he bobbed his head in answer to my multiple questions. And then he tried to hoist me off on his friend again. 

“Harry has worked with some other great artists,” Jeff began, nodding towards his companion. 

Dismissively, I waved my hand in the direction of the handsome man who simply grinned, an extraordinary dimple appearing. 

“YOU know my podcast?” I demanded of Mr. Azoff.

“Yes.” 

Holy shit. Confident I would need to pry any future responses out of him, I placed my hands on my hips. 

“You’ve heard my series about the Eagles then?” 

“Indeed.” 

“And? What did you think? Are you going to tell me everything I got wrong?” 

“No, but I really think you might want to talk to Harry about…” 

I interrupted. Whoever this Harry was, I was much more curious about this man’s take on my podcast. “Has your father heard my podcast?” My voice may have squeaked a little when I asked the question. 

A nod was the only reply I got before he turned back to the bloke with him. 

“Is this weird for you?” 

“No.” The handsome man appeared to be amused as his lips twitched to the side, and his eye crinkles magically appeared. “Unique, but not weird.” 

Narrowing my focus on the handsome one, I squinted. “You’re a musician recording here?” 

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he grinned. “I’m Harry.” When my face still showed no signs of recognition, he added in a smooth voice with a northern accent, “You might have heard of me. My music has won a few awards. Harry Styles.” 

The blood drained from my face. I had been freaking out over Jeff Azoff when the muse to Stevie Nicks was standing in front of me? It was Harry who grasped my elbow when I started to fall over from a lack of oxygen, gently guiding me to the sofa. 

“Maybe some water?” he asked Sean who rushed into the booth to grab my water bottle, handing it to Harry quickly. 

“Sip it slowly,” the Grammy winner said, and I ignored his instructions, nearly choking as I sucked water into my lungs. “Hey, hey. Easy there.” Glancing at Azoff, Harry laughed, “This feels more normal.” 

“You –” I choked, coughing between words. “You – know – Stevie – Fucking – Nicks.” 

Curiosity furrowed his brow. “That’s why you nearly passed out? Because I know Stevie?” 

“You not only know her.” My voice was filled with incredulity and awe. “You’re her muse. You’ve performed with her – and with Fleetwood Mac. And you were the one who inducted her. Holy fuck. You must have done something right in life.” Stopping, I swallowed. “Holy fuck. I must have done something right in my life.” 

He had settled on the sofa next to me, his face a mass of confusion. His head was tilted, and his lips were pursed as he scratched at his head. 

But I didn’t have time to wait for him to catch up. “You can introduce me! Fleetwood Mac is my next podcast series, and if this book does well, I might write a full book about them. I’ve been engaged in a deep dive of reading about their time as a band. I’ve read everything I can find – official or not. In fact, there is a stack of books on my nightstand about Stevie and Mick and the rest. You have to introduce me. It would mean the world to me.” 

My pleading must have broken through his confusion, and he cleared his throat. “You want me to vouch for you to Stevie? I don't really know anything about you.” 

“But you listen to my podcast, right?” My head swivelled between Harry and Jeff. “Oh! You could read my book. See what my style is. I swear I would do right by Stevie. I’m so disappointed that I didn’t get to meet Christine before she… Anyway, I’ll do anything for an introduction. What do you need from me?” 

“Anything?” Harry humoured me. 

“Yes.” Swallowing, I nodded eagerly. 

“You’re saying I could read your book? The one that’s not yet published? The one you’re recording now?” 

My head bobbed like a cormorant. 

“The one that’s about The End? That book?” 

I hadn’t stopped my silly affirming as my head continued to move in the same up and down pattern. 

“And maybe Jeff could read it too? And my friend Paul?” 

My head froze, mid-bob. “Paul? Sir Paul? Sir Paul Fucking McCartney?” 

Harry laughed, a delightful tinkling sound, his head rearing back with his joy. “Does everyone in your world have the same middle name?” 

“Huh?” 

“Fucking. Jeff Fucking Azoff. Harry Fucking Styles. Stevie Fucking Nicks. Sir Paul Fucking McCartney.” 

Slapping my hand over my eyes and forehead, I groaned. “Please don’t tease me or joke with me. I’ve been trying to get Sir Paul to talk to me and read the manuscript since I started writing it. Not a single response to my queries.” 

“Hmmm…” Harry murmured, tilting his head to one side. “So if you would do anything to meet Stevie, what would you be willing to do to meet Paul?” 

“Name your price.” I was hoping he wouldn’t ask for much. All I had was the flat I shared with a friend from uni and a wardrobe of vintage clothing I’d carefully culled from a variety of charity shops.

“I get to be there when you meet them.” My head whipped up so that our eyes connected. “Plus five dinner dates with me.” 

My eyes narrowed, “In addition to any meals we share with Stevie or Paul?” 

Nervously, he licked his lips and glanced at Azoff who shrugged, seemingly disinterested. 

“Yes.” 

Author's Note: This really is just an introduction to these characters as part of a series on Meet Cutes. Who hasn't dreamed of meeting Harry Styles somewhere? Live vicariously through these women who randomly run into Harry Styles as part of their normal lives. How might one chance meeting change their lives forever?

[dckweed]

NEXT THING YOU KNOW, gator tillman

in which gator tillman and his arranged bride figure out life and each other and what a real relationship means to them.

warnings: mentions and depictions of abuse, mentions of bruises, arranged marriages, romance, humor, dead parents, slow burn relationship (not completely but not not), basically we know the tillman men are asswipes so i 100% see Roy forcing gator into this kind of situation for money for his militia, eventual smut with kinks such as thigh riding, gun play, choking, spanking, lots of marking and possible spit play.

series masterlist here, series playlist here.

special mention to my girly @xxbookdrunkdemigodxx for listening to my rambles and helping me out with the playlist!

PART TWO: the ride

True to his word, Gator had become your friend. The first couple days of the week passed with the two of you holed up in the house together, pretending to work on the wedding planning even though neither of you knew what the hell you were doing. You kept to the upstairs living room, wanting to stay as far away from Boyd as you possibly could, still angry at him for the whole situation and not wanting to cross paths with him again for as long as you could, your stomach still hurting under the fabric of your shirt from the lashing you had been given from Boyd’s belt as soon as the Tillman’s had left the morning of their first visit. Three times he had hit you, the leather of the belt welting your skin through the thin fabric of the dress you had been wearing. That was typical Boyd, always harsh and quick, and always on parts of your body that were easily hidden by clothes. It had been that way since your mother had married him, though you had kept it a secret from her due to the fear he had built in your brain about what he would do to her if you told her. You didn’t dare tell Gator either, not sure if you really trusted him with that secret quite yet, and definitely not sure of what would happen if Boyd found out. You didn’t want anymore drama than there already was in this god forsaken house. 

You liked Gator well enough, he was easy conversation, a little dense in some areas but what he lacked in that he made up for in humor and the willingness to at least listen to you explain. The two of you talked about plenty of things but mostly school and whether or not either of you had been seeing anyone before you had been forced into your godawful situation. You weren’t sure if you were reading his face right, but for some reason you thought that he looked rather pleased when you said that you hadn’t ever exclusively dated anyone, strictly forbidden by Boyd. You learned that he had only ever had one serious girlfriend in his life, in the last years of highschool, though she had taken off to some fancy school on the east coast when they had graduated and he never heard from her again. You could see the swirl of emotions in his big brown eyes, and the way his mouth tensed as he spoke. He shook his head and changed the topic a moment later, picking up one of the magazines laid out on the ornate coffee table in front of the two you and asking what the hell the difference between Ivory and White was and why did it matter so much which shade your dress was. 

Those first two days were rather pleasant, you found yourself awfully comfortable in his presence, relaxed even, and the next day when he didn’t show up just after breakfast, you had to admit you were a little disappointed, but you got about your business none the less, trying not to dwell on it. He’s a Sheriff’s Deputy, you reminded yourself, he wont have time to talk to you twenty four seven..and then you kicked yourself for even feeling upset about not having his attention for the day. You’d known him for four whole days, what the hell was wrong with you? 

He texted you around lunch time. 

Gator: sorry for not being able to help today, even though i know im not much help to begin with..i’m on duty for 24hrs

You were slightly giddy and that made you slightly disgusted with yourself, you barely knew this dude and you were being essentially coerced into marrying him, what the hell is wrong with you?

You: you wont miss much, promise! Be safe out there..

You felt like that was the stupidest response you could have possibly sent, but oh well. You weren’t wrong though, he wouldn’t miss much. The day was mostly spent in the upstairs living room, sprawled on the couch as you called the bakery in town to schedule a tasting for next weekend, and the local bridal boutique to schedule a showing for this weekend..afterwards you spent the next few hours sorting through different styles of wedding dresses you thought you would like, sparing no expense on designers because if you were being forced to do this damn thing, then Boyd was certainly going to pay the fucking price one way or another. And then after you had spent as long as you could doing that, you begrudgingly made your way down the stairs, you had dragged your feet long enough on the girls’ dresses for the wedding, and if you picked them out without their fathers input, you feared you would face another lashing. 

You hesitated outside of his office door, taking a deep breath before raising your fist, knocking once, twice, before he gave you the okay to come in. He’s seated at his annoyingly large desk and just barely glances up at you from whatever paperwork he’s doing as you step into the room, closing the door behind you like he liked. “Ah, i was just about to send for you,” He says, setting down his pen as you step closer and closer to his desk, your magazines heavy in your hands. “Sheriff Tillman has requested that the ride with you be moved up to tomorrow morning, his wife has to go out of town this weekend and he’s decided to go with her.” You hum in acknowledgement and he notices your laden arms. “Whatever do you have there?” 

How could he speak to you so calmly? As if you weren’t sporting the markings of his rage on your skin? “I’m going to the bridal boutique this weekend, and I want to get the girls' dresses while I'm there, I thought maybe you’d like to help pick them out..” You say gingerly, he seemed to be in a good mood but you could never be too sure with him. 

He nods once, pushing whatever he was working on to the side. “Alright, let's see it.” 

You give a small smile, slightly relieved as you start setting some of the magazines in front of him. “These are some that I liked, but there’s a few more that I wasn’t sure about. Gator and I decided on a purple and green theme, pastel, summer colors..” You prattel nervously, leaning over to show him the styles that you particularly thought were pretty. He hums, glancing up at you over the rim of his glasses as you settle the magazines in front of them. 

“And how are things going with the boy?” He asks, inspecting the pages you had dog eared. 

You were rather taken aback by the question, you hadn’t really known him long enough to know how things were going, let alone marry the poor dude, but yet, here you were, planning a wedding. “They’re okay..he’s funny..” You shrug, not quite sure how to proceed. “He’s working today, but he was here the past couple of days to help..” You weren’t sure why you were telling the man, it's not like he didn’t already know who came and went in his house. 

Boyd hums and the office falls silent for nearly an hour. You’re about to excuse yourself, let him look at them alone so you can get the hell out of there and go eat some lunch or tack up Bubbles for a ride when he speaks up. ���I like these ones best, i’m sure the girls will look lovely..” He says, handing you one of the first magazines you had handed him. You have a quiet breath of relief, but roll your eyes subconsciously, annoyed that he had taken that long. You start grabbing things as quickly as you can, itching to get away from him. “I’ll open up the limit on your credit card, spare no expense.” Are the last words he says, you hum in response and walk out of the office quickly, leaning against the door as you close it behind you. 

You’re up before the sun the following morning, your alarm clock bleating around four. You were awake well before it though, your thoughts on a never ending loop. You honestly weren’t even sure if you slept and sighed in annoyance when you trudged your way to your bathroom and noticed the dark bags under your eyes. How were you supposed to sleep? Your life was about to be tethered to someone else’s in a few short weeks, two months wasn’t that much time and you didn’t know this boy for shit. Sure, you guys were on friendly terms at the very least but..marriage? Why had you signed those damned papers? Why did you let him talk you into it? 

Shaking the thought from your head you turn the handle on your sink, letting the water run as you went about your skincare business. You’re dressed in less than half an hour, spending a few minutes at your vanity table to swipe some makeup under your eyes, an old habit you had picked up when you lived here full time before boarding school. You figured it wouldn’t take long before the sleepless nights would start again, and you couldn’t help but to wonder if they would be any better when you were with Gator. 

Gator..

He had never texted you again yesterday, though you had sent him a few messages throughout the day, and even late in the night just to keep your own sanity. Telling him how much Boyd irritated you, telling him that he needed the next weekend free for cake tasting because you didn’t want to choose something he didn’t like, telling him you were bored..sending him a pouty faced selfie when you noticed he had opened but not responded to any of your messages (that he had also opened and never responded to). 

You realized your fiance was a horrible texter and you were going to have to fix that, if you were going to be friends then he needed to at least respond to one of your messages, even if they were annoying. 

By four-forty-five you’ve pulled out of the driveway and are off down the main entrance of Boyd’s ranch, your jeep pulling the horse trailer with Bubbles inside of it with ease. Thankfully one of the ranch hands had woken up earlier than you (he had always been friendly towards you, and it was deeply appreciated because most of Boyds employees treated you like shit too) and attached the trailer to your car and loaded up your horde for you. You even found your saddle and other things in the back of the Jeep when you peeked in to look, surprised that your horse had even been loaded for you. 

You made a mental note to thank the man when you got home. 

The drive to the Tillman Ranch isn’t too long, hell, they were practically your fucking neighbors. You were so focused on survival when you were on the ranch that you had never paid attention to lands that surrounded you. When you arrive at the gate, your headlights shining on the metal and the dirt beyond it, two ranch hands are already there, pulling open the heavy iron for you. 

“Thank you!” You half shout, rolling down your window. The one on your drivers side nods once, tipping his hat at you and proceeds to tell you to follow the road towards the house and barn, he would be right behind you to help you unload. You’re surprised when the Sheriff is already waiting for you when you pull up near the barn. You see him on the porch of his house, arms crossed over his chest and hat perched low on his head and your stomach tightens, your hands shake. If you’re late and he tells Boyd, you’re done for, is all you can think as you slide your key out of the ignition and hop down from your seat, your boots kicking up dust.  

“Mornin’ Miss Augastine!” His voice carries out from the porch, the sun is only just now starting to rise, a dark glow low in the horizon. You breathe in and walk around your car, up to the porch. “Wasn’t expecting you for another hour or so..” You breathe out. “Interest you in some coffee? Breakfast? Karen just put away my breakfast but I’m sure she’d be more than happy to get something going for you.” 

You paint the smile on your face, your morning having been ruined by your brief panic attack. “No, Sir..thank you for the offer, but I was thinking I would go get breakfast with Gator this morning, or an early lunch..” You knew he was probably on his way home by now, and you had the sense that he would probably only sleep for a few hours. 

He hums as he meets you at the foot of the porch, staring down at you from the bottom step. Your cheeks flush and you look anywhere but at him as his eyes rake over your body. You hear him mutter something akin to ‘pretty little thing’ under his breath, but you knew you weren’t supposed to hear it so you pretend not to. You were dressed for a casual ride, blue jeans that fit tight in all the right places but loose on your legs, draped over your brown and pink leather boots, and you wore a pink short sleeved polo shirt, the buttons undone enough to show just the hint of cleavage that was sexy enough to keep men entertained but innocent enough to not get you in trouble. You had your own cowboy hat pulled down over your hair, resting comfortably on your head. 

“He’s not home yet.” Is all he says when you mention his son, his tone cool and slightly unfriendly. You furrow your brow, wondering why there was the sudden change in demeanor when it came to his boy. “That your show horse?” He steps down off the porch, and you look up to him still, the man being much taller than you even on even ground. 

“She’s for more than just show, Sir..” You say playfully, a smile on your face as you happily lead him over to the trailer. He helps you lead her out of the trailer, admiring her with you and then leads you on a slow walk to the barn. 

He seems kind, but you know its more for show than anything. You soak it up though, letting him open the barn doors for you even though you’re more than capable of doing it yourself, and you let him lead you into a stall near the back of the barn so you can leave Bubbles and go get the rest of your stuff to tack up. After a few more minutes of talking the two of you separate, you going off to your jeep, and he going off towards his horse to tack up. 

As you step out of the barn the sun has risen just a little bit more, and you hear a car pulling up next to yours. “What are you doin’ here?” His voice holds a tinge of familiar nervousness to it, and you can’t help but to soften up for it. He’d gotten out of his squad car before he’d even turned the damn thing off, the radio still on. Your breath caught as your eyes took in his uniform, he sure is somethin to fuckin’ look at, you said to yourself, swallowing back wicked thoughts. “Thought you weren’t doin’ this til the weekend?” 

“Plans changed.” You shrug, not really sure what else to say. You figured he of all people would have known that his dad was going out of town this weekend. “He’s in the barn.” Brown eyes dart behind you and then back to you, looking you over. “Want to go get lunch or somethin’ later?” 

He sighs, running  a hand down his face, shoulders relaxing. “Yeah..yeah lets get lunch later..”He says, turning on his heel. You shake your head, going to grab your saddle out of your car, just as you’re stepping around the front of it you hear him again. “I got it, Pearlie..” You sigh, but not from annoyance as he lifts it out of your grasp. You liked the way your name sounded when he said it, like it meant something and nothing all at the same time. You shake your head, feeling silly for the thought and follow him. 

Roy is headed out of the other side of the barn just as you follow Gator in. “Mornin’ dad.” He says, voice a hard and cold tone. 

The older man already mounted in his saddle merely tips his hat at his son, but gives you a friendly smile. “Miss Pearl, I’ll be outside when you’re ready.” He says as if there’s no rush, but you know from his sons body language that there most likely is. 

Gator’s shoulders are tense and you know it’s not from the weight of the heavy leather saddle he’s carrying. You rush in front of him to open the stall door, trying to be helpful, and you can see the pinched look on his face, the coldness in his big brown eyes. He lifts the saddle up and sets over Bubbles, who stands perfectly for him. He turns his hat backwards and you just about melt into the hay strewn floor, who knew that stupid things like a man you’re engaged to turning his hat backwards could be so damn hot? He doesn’t say a word as he starts fastening the gear in place, like he’s done it a thousand times before. 

It only hits you just then that he probably has done it a thousand times before, his father clearly loved the animals, why wouldn’t he teach his son how to tack up and mount? 

“You didn’t have to do that for me, Gator..” You say softly as he finishes. He only shrugs and straightens up, patting Bubbles on the belly gently as he does. “Thank you..” You whisper as you walk past him, grabbing the horn of her saddle so you could pull yourself up. 

Just as you’re about to put a boot in the stirrups you feel his chest against your back, the smell of whatever it is he smokes encompassing you as he grabs your hips firmly and lifts with ease. “Good?” He asks, watching you settle into the saddle. You nod once, hoping your hair and hat are doing a good enough job of hiding the flush on your cheeks and neck, not having expected such a display of obvious strength. “Good..off you go then..” He holds the stall open for you and you ease Bubbles out of it, just as you start to walk past him you feel his hand on your calf. He’s looking up at you with an expression you’re not familiar with on his face, and it makes you worry. “Be careful with him.” It comes out as more of a statement, but you can hear the pleading behind it, and it makes you worry even more, a slurry of questions forming in your mind. “..please?” 

“Okay..” You say. He lets you go and you don’t question farther, spurring Bubbles to follow out the way you had seen Roy going with his own horse. “Hey Gator?” You look over your shoulder at him, he has his hands on his hips. “Go take a nap the bags under your eyes are bigger than the ones in my closet!” You laugh as you leave him behind you, and you swear you can hear him chuckling too. 

The ride starts off in silence, you and Roy side by side as he took you on the scenic route through the ranch. You had to say that you really didn’t know much about the Tillman’s, you wouldn’t know how to start off the conversation even if you had wanted to, and you truly didn’t want to, not with Gator’s pleading words lingering in the back of your mind. 

The ranch really is beautiful, especially in the early starts of the summer, the rolling hills are green, and you can see where they have more cattle off in the distance. It’s a calming atmosphere, more relaxed than life was on the Augastine ranch. 

“How’s my son been?” His voice is deep and rough, startles you for a moment. You turn to look at him, adjusting your hat in the glare of the sun. “He bein’ nice?” Nice didn’t sound like a word that was normally in Sheriff Tillman’s vocabulary, you wanted to point it out, the smart mouthed bitch in you raring at the thought but you thought of what Gator had said, and then you thought of Boyd and your still aching ribs and thought better of it. 

“He’s been sweet.” You say, offering a small smile, the warmth of the sun hitting the skin of your face. “Real helpful with the wedding plans..he’s taking me to lunch after this too..” You say, rambling nervously. “Oh, before I forget, did he ever ask you about the twins being in the wedding?” 

Roy shakes his head at you, pursing his lips. “I don’t recall a conversation..Karen would have mentioned it to me i’m sure..” You notice his hands tighten on his reins and you furrow your brows at it. 

“Oh, he probably just forgot is all.” You chuckle, wanting it to stay light hearted. Truly, you had never even asked him to ask anything about the girls and you hoped you weren’t about to get him in trouble because of your small fib..you just wanted to change the topic to something more neutral. “I’m going to the bridal shop this weekend to look for my dress, and I already have dresses picked out for my sisters but I was wondering if you’d like me to pick out dresses for the twins as well? I would absolutely love to have them in the ceremony..they could be my flower girls, or hold my train…” Your sisters were already taking the spots as your bridesmaids, you didn’t have a choice in that matter. Gator had three of his best friends stepping in as groomsmen and you only had one friend coming to the wedding, and she was going to be your maid of honor. 

“I think that’s a lovely idea, Miss Pearl.” He says and for a moment, everything is silent again as he hums a tune you’re not familiar. “Matter of fact..” You glance over at him again. “Karen and I are leaving to go out of town tonight, we’ll be gone through the weekend..we were planning to take the girls with us, but I’m wondering if you want to take them with to the Bridal shop if you want them fitted for dresses? Karen and I would love the alone time, of course if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on them with Gator for the weekend?” You wanted to protest, but, you realized that it was probably a good excuse to get yourself out of Boyd’s house for a few days, and just the thought sounded heavenly, even if it meant carting around your fiance’s sisters and playing house with him. 

“You know what, Sheriff Tillman,” You say, giving him your dazzling, people pleasing smile, the kind that had man many a guy weak in the knees back at boarding school. “That sounds like a fantastic weekend, i’d love to get to know my new little sisters better, you and Karen go have fun on your little trip! Me and Gator can handle things!” 

He gives you an easy smile in return. “Well alright then.” He says, and then nudges you with his knee from his horse. “And please, little lady, call me Roy.” He gives you a wink that sends unpleasant shivers down your spine and you giggle politely in return. 

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[da-rulah]

The Mayor's Daughter - Mary Goore x f!Reader [Part 2]

Summary: Mary has something of yours from your last encounter. You have something of his. In a standoff, Mary suggests you meet to make the trade off, so you can pay your ransom.

Little does he know, you have a secret weapon up your sleeve... or rather, his sleeve...

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Word Count: 9k

Warnings: Teasing, lingerie, nipple play, choking, biting, cunnilingus, oral sex (f receiving), being gagged, squirting, manhandling, contraception mentioned but raw p in v sex still, angst, hurt 

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8

ALSO AVAILABLE ON AO3

A/N: SO listen, this was supposed to be a silly little series of smut one shots with Mary that was low priority and something to do between other fics. Then... I started plotting. And now, the plot is plotted. So here you go, heathens - more Mary filth, except now we got storyline... Huge thank you to @her-satanic-wiles & @angellayercake again for beta reading!

Oh, and I now have a ko-fi if you fancy leaving me a little tip, but no pressure. Love ya!

You stared at your phone, the unread notification on your screen lighting up with each time you hit the side button. You hadn’t opened the message, only able to see the preview but it was enough.   

After two weeks of radio silence from Mary Goore, he’d finally text you late this afternoon.  

R u willing 2 pay ur ransom yet doll?  

You’d maybe stared at it for a few minutes, thinking of ways you might be able to sneak Mary in, or you could sneak out yourself. You knew your parents were home this evening; they’d invited your father’s deputy and his wife for dinner. You were not invited.   

“Just business, darling,” your father had told you. “Not for children.”  

That had pissed you off beyond belief. You weren’t a fucking child anymore; hadn’t been for a long time. But that’s daddy for you... Treating you like the same pigtailed little girl in the photo frame on your dresser, sat on her father’s shoulders at a Fourth of July parade. She looked happy, innocent.   

But that was well over a decade ago.   

And so, still simmering with a hint of anger and a flame stoked in your rebellious little soul, you decided you were indeed ready to pay your ransom.  

You were ready for round two with Mary fucking Goore.  

I have what you need. 8:30pm. I’ll leave my window open. Be quiet, daddy’s downstairs. No funny business, Goore. I’ll have my secret weapon ready if you try anything stupid.  

A few minutes went by, when the ‘sent’ turned to ‘read 5:43pm’, and the three little dots popped up on his side.  

Wouldn’t dream of it. C u l8r doll.   

You smirked at your screen, a thrill rushing through you at the thought of another night with Mary Goore...  

Mary sat in his old black van across the street from your house, staring at the only light that was on upstairs. He’d been here early, around 8pm, and seen a couple pull up in a fancy car through the ornate gates that shut your house off from the rest of the street. Your father had greeted them with a firm handshake and a cheek kiss at the porch. Some kind of work thing, he assumed, scoffing at the nature of the situation he found himself in.  

Climbing through your window in the darkness of night to fool around with the Mayor’s daughter while he conducted a formal business meal downstairs. How cliché...  

As he’d watched, he bit at his thumb nail, plotting his route to get to the window. He could climb up the trellis panels along the edge of your garage, shuffle his way along the guttering and climb in that way... First, he’d have to climb over the tall iron railings without impaling himself on the spikes around the back of the house and away from the security cameras along the porch.   

He checked the clock on his dashboard, hissing a quick ‘fuck’ realising he was out of time; it was 8:27pm. It was now or never.   

Mary scrambled his way over the fence of the back yard, carefully dodging the view of cameras and the French doors that he could see your father through, sat at the dining table with his guests. Miraculously, he hadn’t impaled himself on the railings, though he did manage to snag his already ripped jeans, but that was no real loss to him.   

Climbing up the trellis should have been easier than it was, but he hadn’t accounted for the thorns on the roses that were growing up them. He quickly learned his lesson after blindly grabbing and piercing his palm in multiple places, almost stumbling and falling a few feet off the ground.   

But eventually, Mary made it up on the garage, and shuffled his way along the guttering to your open window. With a less than graceful forward roll and a clatter of trinkets falling to the ground from the desk he’d knocked them from beside the window, Mary was in.   

“Could’a told me I’d be pulling some Top Gun shit to get up here, doll...” he grumbled, dusting himself off and sucking at the puncture wounds on his palm as he turned around to find...  

An empty room.   

“Doll?” he asked, looking around to see if he’d missed you, but you were nowhere to be found. Mary’s shoulders slumped, huffing in annoyance as he found himself in a room that frankly was the exact opposite of his personal taste.   

Patterned wallpaper from decades long since passed coated your walls, covered in pretty pink peonies. Pretty pink and white bedding draped over a large bed in the middle of the room, frills and lace neatly assembled with a well-kept collection of stuffed animals and scatter cushions against the headboard. Sparkly trinkets and polished ornaments sat on most surfaces he could see with the naked eye, clearly collected over the course of your childhood.   

It looked like a kid’s bedroom... A little princess’ dream room. Not the bedroom of a young woman of your age, and certainly not the kind to fuck a guy like him in the stall of the men’s bathroom at a dive bar.   

In your absence, Mary took the time to look closely at some of the trinkets lining your dresser; a necklace rack with pretty little pendants hanging neatly in different metals; a little gold tray filled with pretty stones and crystals you’d collected; a tiny little ornament of a pink kitten; a white half-burned candle that smelled faintly of roses.   

You really were the cliché Mary thought you were, huh? Mary was little more than a touch of excitement and rebellion in an otherwise pristine little life – he could live with that, he supposed. He too had felt a thrill in claiming you as his two weeks ago in that bar, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about doing it again ever since.   

As Mary looked around your room, flicking at the necklaces, inspecting the trinkets, he came across the photo frame of tiny little you. He picked it up, smiling to himself at the goofy grin on the little girl’s face, the pigtails tied up with pretty red ribbons that matches the dungarees she wore. He shook his head with a little laugh, noting the Mayor in the photo and how much younger he looked. Office had aged him, that was for sure.   

How he’d come to find himself in this predicament, he had no idea. How ironic that the daughter of the Mayor to the very town that loathed him had become his booty call.   

Well, you would be if he could fucking find you.  

Putting the photo frame back in its place, Mary looked around one more time, noting there were two doors in the room. He figured he’d try his luck – if he were quiet enough, he wouldn’t be caught. Your parents had no reason to be upstairs with guests over, and maybe you were in a second living room or something? This house was definitely big enough to have two.   

Mary crept over to the door closest to him, reaching for the handle. He’d just grasped it in his palm, when he heard a click behind him.   

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” your pretty little voice warned, more stern than he’d heard it before. Mary froze, a smirk playing on his lips.   

“I think you just lost, doll...” he teased, standing up straighter yet still facing the door.   

“Lost what, Goore?” you enquired, leaning up against the doorframe of the bathroom you’d just been in, hiding from him as you applied the final touches to your make up. Mary began to turn towards the sound of your voice, then.  

“Your little game of hide and see-” He stopped in his tracks, the last syllable getting caught in his throat as his eyes fell on you.   

There you were, this pristine little daddy’s girl, leaning up against the doorframe with cherry red lips so ridiculously enticing, scantily clad in pretty red lace. The matching set you’d prepared came with a garter belt, only attached to strips of elastic around your upper thigh. The straps of the bralette contoured the curve of your breasts, similar straps of elastic sitting high on your hips. The lace only covered what it needed to, the straps themselves doing most of the enticing.   

But what really got him, was the leather jacket you wore over the top of it, covered in spikes, badges, patches and chains.  

His leather jacket.  

You smirked at Mary’s silence, watching his eyes drink you in as you showed off more than he’d got to see that night at the bar... This wasn’t rushed, this wasn’t on a whim. This had been planned, specifically to scramble his brain the second he saw you. And if the way he readjusted his jeans and his jaw dragged across the floor was anything to go by, you’d succeeded.  

Mary scraped his jaw back from the floor, collecting himself and settling his gaze on your eyes, feigning a look of deviance and irritation.  

“So, this is your secret weapon, huh?” he asked, gesturing towards your outfit – or lack thereof. “I told you I wanted that back,” he said, his voice deep and vaguely threatening.   

“I propose a trade. Do you have them?” you asked, holding your open hand out towards him.   

Mary patted at his chest as if looking for something, hands travelling down to his front pockets of his jeans, then to his back, where he let out an “ah-ha!” and pulled the familiar white lace of your panties from your last encounter from one of the pockets. “You’ll see they’re completely unharmed...” he dangled them out towards you.   

“Put them on the bed and step away...” you warned, keeping up the facade of a ransom exchange just a little longer. Mary did as you asked, slowly stepping towards the end of your bed and gently laying your panties on the edge, before holding his hands up in surrender and stepping back a few paces.   

You walked to the bed, picking them up and inspecting them for any damage at all. Mary watched you from afar, amused and shoving his hands into his pockets. With a satisfied hum, you balled the panties up and threw them back down onto the end of your bed, turning on your heels to look at him.   

“See, doll? Completely unharmed. Now... your turn,” he smirked, his eyes drifting back over your body, enjoying every inch of skin he could see beneath his jacket.   

“Can’t I keep it just a little longer...? It suits me, don’t you think?” you asked innocently, twirling around for him to catch a good glimpse of your ass peeking from beneath the leather.  

Mary pinched at his chin, unashamedly watching your ass as you modelled his jacket for him. “Hmm,” he hummed, “I suppose... it does have a kind of charm on you, doll.”  

You giggled, the sound momentarily scrambling the frequencies in his brain again before he shook his head and refocussed. You stepped towards him, biting your sultry red lip as you looked him up and down with the same hunger he had shown you.  

“So... do I get to wear it a little longer?”   

“Maybe just a little, doll...” he shrugged, waiting as you slowly approached him.   

“Just a little?” you pouted, coming to stand in front of him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He kept his hands to himself, tucked back into his pockets. “Why just a little longer?”  

“Because, doll... I ain’t gonna be able to stop myself ripping it off ya pretty fuckin’ soon,” he threatened. You grinned, pulling your body to rest against him, breasts pushed into his chest and hips grazing his half-hard length in his tight jeans.  

“Enough talk, Mare... You came here to fuck me, so fuck me,” you told him, hovering your lips close to his.   

But Mary just laughed, throwing his head back. “Oh, doll... Nuh-uh... You think I’m gonna rush this?” he asked, stepping either side of your feet and pushing you a step backwards simply with the force of his chest against yours. “Last time, we were in danger of gettin’ caught. Had to be quick, hm?” He took another step, forcing you back again. “But I reckon we got some time while daddy shmoozes his guests downstairs... I ain’t rushin’ this time, doll...”   

He backs you up until you can feel the frills of your bedding on the bare backs of your knees, tickling the exposed skin but he stops you there, not yet pushing you down onto the mattress. Instead, he lifts one of his hands from his pocket, pressing his thumb to your bottom lip and lightly pulling it down.  

“You wear this shade just for me, baby?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. From this close, you could see the details in his make up, the dark circles he painted on with pale skin, the fake blood dripping from his hairline. The fringe of his spiked hair tickled your nose where it came to a point, and you shivered from the tickle and his light grasp on your lip.   

“Uh-huh,” you confirmed, Mary smirking in triumph.  

“I like it... Wonder how it’d look on me,” he teased. “Let’s find out...”  

In less than a heartbeat he dropped your lip, his hand reaching for the lapel of his jacket draped over your body and pulling you to him, pressing his lips to yours. You whimpered at the contact, your mind blanking with the sensation of being able to finally kiss him again after a painful two weeks.   

Mary stayed true to his word, taking his time to mould his lips with yours, tilting his head in order to make you more pliant in his grasp. He tasted as he did the last time you met, with the exception of the beer you had pounded together that evening; the lingering taste of cigarette smoke and a vague sweetness from whatever he used as fake blood to drip down his face.   

Your fingers wound their way into the shorter hair at the back of his head, tugging at the roots while your arms tightened around his neck. Mary’s grip on his jacket fell to your hips, pulling at the elastic of the garter belt around your waist. He could feel your bare skin beneath it, driving him utterly insane with want. But no, he said he wouldn’t rush this. He wouldn’t. He wanted to savour every touch, every taste, every noise he could from you.   

But he also couldn’t bring himself to deny you when you ran your tongue along his bottom lip, a clear indication you needed to taste more of him, directly from the source. And so, he allowed you to invade, tongue meeting in a slow and deliberate show of sensuality.   

Somehow, despite being so much slower in his movements this time around, it felt all the more filthy than your encounter in the bathroom stall. Your little mewls of pleasure and his dark little chuckles and groans added something to the moment, a familiar sense of desperation for each other.  

Eventually, Mary pushed you to sit at the edge of your bed, tapping the steel toecap of his boots at your inner ankles to spread your knees for him to stand in the space you created. You did so without a fight, looking up at him through half-lidded eyes and curving your back to give him a nice view of your ass over your shoulder. He pinched your chin between his thumb and forefinger, smirking down at you with a smudge of red across his lips.  

“Well...? How does your lipstick look on me, doll?” he asked, pouting for added effect.   

“Suits you...” you giggled, “but I’m wondering...” You reached for his belt, unbuckling the leather from the oversized skull buckle, “how it’d look smothered along your cock...”   

“Fuck, you’re filthy, doll...” he praised, but he gripped your wrists and paused your movements. “But as my memory serves me, you’ve taken my cock in that pretty mouth before, hm? And as fucking good as that was, I wanna try something new tonight. That alright with you?” he asked, a genuine tenderness in his eyes that let you know it was alright to tell him no, that you could back out any second if you wanted.   

But the sparkle that said Mary had a plan was still very much prevalent, and you let your curiosity get the better of you. You wanted whatever he planned. You wanted anything Mary was willing to give.  

“Whatever you want, Mare,” you smirked, fluttering your eyelashes up at him as you loosened your grip on his belt.   

Mary whistled with a smirk and a shake of his head, “Careful sweetheart... That’s a real dangerous door to open.”  

Before you could think of a witty response, his hand wrapped itself around your exposed neck, the cool feel of his silver rings contrasting with the heat of arousal that emanated from your skin. With his thumb, he titled your chin up a little more, before he dipped his head to attach his teeth to the space under your ear, nibbling, suckling, licking over the skin as he travelled down your neck, holding you in place while he bent over you.  

Because he was stood between your thighs, you couldn’t help but widen them to accommodate him, his body slotting itself in and crowded your senses. You could smell a cologne on him – not one he’d worn last time... was he try to impress you? - that was musky and woody, only complimented by the faint smell of cigarette smoke.   

Mary made his way down your neck, holding you tightly as he moved to your chest, paying close attention to the sounds of your laboured breaths and little whimpers as he got closer to the curve of your breasts. To aid his descent, Mary got down onto one knee, his free hand gripping your thigh for stability just as tightly as he held your neck. To your disappointment, he moved back just as he was getting close to the red elastic that sat above the cup of your bra, still holding you in place.  

“Look at me, doll...” he commanded, and you did so without question – a little difficult, with the way he was holding your chin higher than it naturally sat. But he held eye contact with you, even as he moved in to lick a wide stripe between your breasts from your sternum, right up to where his hand grasped your neck. Your hips bucked just a little in arousal, but he noticed. Mary didn’t miss a trick.   

“Fuckin’ needy little thing, you are. What, you want me to touch you?” His hand on your neck slid up to cup your jaw, two of his fingertips forcing their way past your lips and holding you tight. “Want my tongue? My fingers? My cock?”   

You couldn’t answer if you tried, his hand locked in place, keeping you silent save for the pleading whine you let out. Mary laughed, reattaching his lips to your chest and trailing open mouthed kisses down to the curve of your breast, finally mouthing at flesh instead of skin and bone. He bit down on you, digging his nails into your thigh as he did to spread the light pain further across your body. You couldn’t help the gasp you let out, hips rolling on the bed in search of something more.   

“Undo this bra for me, doll. My hands are busy,” he told you. You did as you were told, reaching behind you and unclasping the hooks, letting it fall loose on your shoulders underneath Mary’s jacket. With the tension removed from the elastic, he could move the flimsy cups out of the way, nudging them with that delectable nose of his to finally reach the nipples that had hardened for him long ago.   

His tongue laved over the bud, heavy breaths flooding from his nose while his mouth was preoccupied with your tits. By the noise he was making, Mary seemed to be enjoying himself, fingertips digging into your thigh against, his rings imprinting on your flesh.   

With Mary distracted, you shimmied out of his jacket, wanting to take the bra off completely. When you’d thrown the thin little thing to the side, Mary’s eyes looked up at you with a darkness, a hint of distaste in them.   

“Put that fucking jacket back on,” he growled against your breast. “Ain’t nothin’ prettier than tits and leather.” You giggled around the fingers in your mouth and reached for the jacket that lay around you, shuffling until you had it back on. “Good girl,” he mumbled against your breast again, suckling at your nipple while he slid the hand from your mouth down to cup the other breast, pinching in time with his teeth nipping at the other.   

Your hands found his hair again, messing with the way he’d styled it and scratching at his scalp as you pulled his head closer to you. You rolled your hips again where you sat, trying desperately to grind against his chest but you simply couldn’t reach from here, and you whimpered at the lack of contact to where you really needed him.  

With a popping sound, Mary pulled back from your breast and levelled his face with yours, demanding eye contact.  

“Needy little girl wants me to touch her cunt, huh?” he asked, no hint of shame or shyness to him at all. It made your core burn for him.   

“Please, Mare...” you whined.   

“Said I was gonna take my time, doll. You gettin’ impatient?” He arched an eyebrow, testing you. You were in no mood to hide your lust.  

“Mhm...”  

“You want my cock that badly?” he asked, a cocky smile playing on his lips. You nodded, giving him your best pathetically needy puppy-dog eyes. He just laughed.   

“Tough shit, doll. I’m sure you’re used to gettin’ what you want, but I wanna enjoy this. And frankly, baby, I’m thirsty. I’ve been here all this time, and you haven’t even offered your guest a drink?” he accused, acting insulted. “Just rude, that. Guess I’ll have to get my own...”  

A swell of panic rose in your chest, your eyes widening as your eyes darted towards the door to the hallway. He couldn’t... Your father would go nuts, throw Mary out by the collar of his band shirt and ground you for the rest of eternity – even if you were a fucking adult.  

Mary followed your gaze and laughed. “Not from there, doll. I got what I need right here.”  

Without warning, Mary pulled the feeble lace of your panties to one side, exposing your dripping centre to him and launching himself between your thighs. His lips encircled your clit and with a loud slurp, and he took enough of your arousal onto his tongue to coat the appendage completely. You couldn’t help the loud gasp that forced its way up your throat, Mary’s hand slapping over your open mouth to cut it off.   

Now silenced, you allowed the moans to spill freely against his palm as he dove into your core, lapping at your clit, your lips and your entrance like he already knew what you liked, where you needed him. True to his word, Mary drank from you every drop of arousal you produced as if he hadn’t hydrated in days. His make up smeared all over you, a mixture of fake blood and whatever black and white paints he’d used for his dull skull make up. You could see the pink tinge of your lipstick still around his lips, getting messier by the second.   

As he focussed on your clit, you howled against his palm, prompting him to remove himself from your core and shush you just inches from your face, warning you with darkened eyes to keep quiet, or he’d stop everything. You may have a big house, but Mary was still very aware of the dinner going on downstairs; he was not about to get thrown out of your house with a raging boner and smeared pussy juice all over his fucking face.   

“Seems I can’t keep you quiet, doll... How do I shut you up, hm?” he asked, pressing his hand harder against your lips as he looked around your room for something to aid him. His eyes landed on the white lace beside you, draped over the corner of your bed, and his eyes glimmered with mischief.   

With his free hand, he grabbed at your used panties, balling them up and stuffing them into your mouth until he was sure he’d plugged up the source of the noise.  

“There. Now do me a favour, pretty girl...” he leaned in to whisper in your ear, the faint scent of your juices hitting your nose from the mess over his mouth and chin, “ shut the fuck up...”   

You moaned into the lace in your mouth, muffled well enough that only Mary would be able to hear. The way he spoke to you, took command and degraded you made you so damn weak for him; because you had a weird feeling you were safe with Mary.   

Absolutely, he was a son of a bitch, a fucking asshole, a total whore and the filthiest guy you had yet to meet but there was always an air of safety with him, of comfort and a mutual respect you didn’t seem to get with any of the assholes you’d fooled around with in the past. Mary wasn’t exactly your usual type – unwillingly a cliché, you only seemed to fool around with jocks or preppy guys – but that was because you had always, always lived up to daddy’s expectations. You fooled around with the guys your father would approve of, in the hope that someday he may approve of you in the same way.   

Mary was the opposite of that and truthfully, the first guy you’d slept with that made you feel anything other than a dull buzz. For starters, he knew where the clit was and what to fucking do with it – but there was an electricity there, the spark of a passion you’d not yet felt with anyone else. Mary knew what buttons to press, how far he could go; he was running off pure instinct, listening to you, feeling you, understanding you.   

He dove back between your legs, the jolt of pleasure as his tongue swept over your clit forcing your legs to clamp down around his head. His hands gripped onto your thighs, nails digging into the flesh as if encouraging you, taunting you to try and squeeze until you crushed him. Your moans were caught by the lace in your mouth, muffled but still as desperate as they had always been under Mary’s spell.  

You had always thought there was no way a man could make you cum with just his tongue, but you thought the same thing of men in general, having been left unsatisfied without your own intervention during every sexual encounter with a man previously. But Mary had already proved you wrong when he’d made you squirt on his cock – you hadn’t even realised you could do that.  

He was determined to make you do the same again, still feeling particularly thirsty for you. He persevered, swiping his tongue over your most sensitive of nerves, winding the coil in your abdomen tighter and tighter... The only warning you gave him was your hands gripping the roots of his hair, your hips shoving themselves against his face right before you squealed against the lace, biting down and once again, squirting as you came from Mary’s ministrations.   

Mary growled with hunger as he caught as much as he could, drinking every drop he could reach, rutting against the tightness in his jeans for some kind of friction for himself, now too turned on to hold back. He didn’t stop for air, never pulled away from you until you were physically pushing at his head, overstimulated and in need of a reprieve.   

Mary fell back, his hands catching himself on your carpet as he gasped for air, your cum dripping from his chin mixed with fake blood, white paints and your smeared lipsticks. You fell back against the mattress, pressing your fingertips into your eyes in a hope it might ground you as you came down. You made no move to remove the lace from your mouth; it served to still silence the whimpers of aftershocks that rippled through you, your limbs convulsing every few seconds after brief pauses of stillness.  

You missed the smugness on Mary’s face as he licked what he could reach from around his mouth, smearing the rest on the back of his palm. Slowly, he crawled back to his knees, slinking his way over your chest and hovering above you like a serpent ready to wrap himself around you and squeeze your life essence from your body. His eyes looked predatory, and your heart rate that had begun to stabilise shot through the roof again.   

Mary wasn’t finished.  

“Think that’s my thirst quenched, doll...” he smirked, running his thumb along your stained bottom lip, noting how the red had transferred to the white lace gag. “Fuckin’ love that you can do that for me.”  

You did your best to smile around the intrusion in your mouth, your eyes doing most of the emoting.  

“But y’know what?” he teased, pressing kisses under your ear lobe as his hands travelled down to your breasts again, lightly tracing around your nipple and back up to your throat. “I’m fuckin’ hungry, now.”  

With a strength you didn’t know he possessed judging by his scrawny little frame, he gripped the edges of his open leather jacket in one fist, lifted it with enough force that he could throw you backwards, back hitting the piles of stuffed animals and pillows. You yelped, again muffled by the cotton lace.  

Mary just laughed. He stood up at the end of the bed, reaching to the back collar of his cut-off band tee and dragging it over his head until it fell to the ground.   

“You want my cock, didn’t you doll?” he asked, keeping his voice relatively low so as not to raise suspicion from downstairs. You may have been gagged, but he wasn’t. He had to still be careful. But you nodded at him frantically, squeezing your thighs together in anticipation.   

His hands worked the button and fly of his skinny jeans, shoving the tight material down his thighs until he could stand on them to pull one leg out, then the other. He whipped his briefs off pretty quickly too, freeing himself completely. You watched in delight as he fisted his length a couple of times – this was the first time you’d seen him bared to you like this, and frankly, you couldn’t seem to get enough...   

His subtle definition over his skinny form had you drooling, eyes following the trail of hair from his stomach to his well-kept pubic hair. You whimpered at the sight of his cock, completely free from confinement, and his thighs that tensed as his fist squeezed at the head of his cock.   

Without another word, Mary knelt on the bed, pulling your ankles apart to give him space to shuffle between them. He wanted unrestricted access to your core, and so began pulling the garter belt from your waist along with the garters themselves, so he would finally make progress and get to the waistband of your panties underneath.   

This pretty red shade was gonna haunt him at night, he just knew it. He couldn’t get away with keeping it this time; his memory would have to do.  

Now fully undressed, Mary had you right where he wanted you – naked and beneath him, with only his leather jacket on. You were the sexiest god damned thing he’d ever fucking seen.  

He hovered above you, trailing his fingertips from your neck, down over your breasts and to your thigh, where he hooked his hand under your knee and hiked it up to his hip. He lowered himself, his bare cock sliding against the mess between your legs. His eyes locked with yours, and for a moment he seemed to falter, as if looking for some kind of anomaly in your irises. Suddenly, Mary was pulling the panties from your mouth and instead, pushing his lips to yours for another engulfing kiss.  

You held his head in place, raising from the pillows to meet him and move so effortlessly with him. You could taste yourself faintly on his lips, and eagerly you swiped your tongue over his for more of it.   

Mary pressed his forehead to yours as he let the kiss fade out, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself as he lined the head of his cock up with your dripping centre. He hadn’t prepped you at all, and so he knew that first push he had to go slowly, he had to be careful – but he also knew you’d be tighter than last time, his fingers not yet working you open.   

“Tell me you want me, baby...” he whispered to you, nuzzling his nose against yours, lost in bliss.  

“I want you, Mare...” You didn’t even hesitate, whispering back. “Please...”   

Mary kissed you again, using your lips to try and distract him from the squeeze of his cock pushing into you, slowly filling you so deliciously, so completely... With the strain of keeping his composure, his lips pressed harder against yours. Your fingernails dug into his head as you held him in place, whimpering into your kiss.   

When he’d completely filled you, his hips flush against yours, he stilled for a moment and parted his lips from yours.  

“You good, doll?” he asked, searching your face for any signs of discomfort. He found none, but he needed confirmation. This felt different to last time, more intimate than the bathroom encounter. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by your childhood bedroom and very aware of how vulnerable that made you to him. Maybe it was because he was able to actually see you this time. Maybe it was because he was pressed up against you, held by you in such a way that he hadn’t had in quite some time, his usual encounters with women fleeting and rushed.  

But like Mary had said in the beginning; tonight, he wasn’t rushing.   

“I’m good, Mare. Please, move,” you begged, rolling your hips beneath him for the slightest friction.  

He obliged without hesitation now he had the green light, slowly rolling his hips to drag his length back through your sopping heat until he could push himself back in with a more deliberate and angled thrust. You gasped beneath him, his hand once again coming to slap over your lips to silence you.  

“Careful, baby. Don’t make me gag you again, hm?” You nodded from underneath his palm as he found his pace, filling you over and over and deliciously hitting that same pressure point he’d found last time. “Good girl... You know I love the pretty noises you make for me, but they’re just for me, you hear?” he warned. You nodded again, slamming your head back down into the pillows beneath you, your hands running down to his shoulders to hold onto him.   

His hand drifted from your mouth, instead finding purchase on your hip bone to hold you down against the mattress while he drove his cock deep inside you over and over again. Although a struggle, you managed to contain your moans for the time being, biting down on your bottom lip and squeezing his shoulders.   

Mary, too, was struggling to keep quiet. He wanted nothing more than to roar in his bliss, to grunt and growl and lose his fucking mind between your legs but he held back, gritting his teeth around the noises he let escape. You saw his struggle, and figured now was as good a time as any to mess with him...  

“You feel so good, Mare...” you whispered breathlessly. His brow visibly creased, his eyes boring into yours. “Filling me so perfectly. C-can feel you... in my fucking... stomach,” your sentence broke apart as his thrusts got harder and harder with each of your words, spurred on by your filth.  

“ Fuck , baby girl... You tryna make me lose it, huh?” You just giggled beneath him, riling him up further.   

“C’mon Mare, fuck me... Gag me if you gotta, but fuck, just lose it. Fuck me, Goore...” You begged.   

Mary buried himself in your neck and growled against it, biting at the flesh and ramming his hips into you harder and harder. Your own whimpers slipped from within, and again, Mary had to cover your mouth with his hand to stop them getting any louder, drawing attention to you both.   

Between his hand on your mouth and jaw and the other pinning your hips to the bed, you were stuck beneath him, unable to writhe and move much at all below the unforgiving Mary, who – like you had told him to – had lost it. The sight of him was maddening, intoxicating. It had you clenching your walls around him, earning muffled groans and huffs from above you.   

“Fuckin’ love the way this pussy grips me, baby. Like you never wanna let me go...” he chuckled, gritting his teeth.   

You were so close, that familiar tingle growing desperately by the second, heat pooling and spreading from your core through every limb, like magma spilling from a crater and coating everything in its path.   

“M-Mary...” you whispered, nails digging into his back and dragging across the pale skin, leaving red scrapes in their path. He fucking loved that shit.  

“What is it, baby? You gonna cum again for me? I get two outta you, this time?” he teased. “Go ahead, cream on my cock. I got you,” he promised; and you believed him.   

Even with the grip on your body he had, Mary couldn’t stop you from curling in on yourself, that coil inside you seeming to wind you up like a clockwork toy until you eventually broke, pulling Mary against your chest and ripping his hand from your lips so you could kiss him, releasing all of your energy into a scream that was swallowed by his lips and tongue.   

Mary’s hips never faltered, but he felt the way your pussy gripped him, the drag of each thrust so much harder between that and your hands pulling his body taught against your own. His resolve crumbled quickly, hips frantically smacking into yours until he could feel himself on the edge.   

Mary hadn’t cum inside last time, and in the absence of a condom, he wasn’t sure you’d allow him. He’d understand, but with your lips trapping his from asking permission, he was beginning to panic, his end rushing towards him like a freight train.   

He held off, somehow managing to keep himself from climaxing until your climax had dulled enough for him to pry you from his lips, smacking his forehead to yours as he grunted and took a breath.  

“Doll, g-gonna cum... W-where?” he could barely ask a full sentence in the state he was in, but you understood despite the haze of a ridiculously powerful second orgasm.   

“On... the pill...” you’d said between breathless gasps, still reeling from more aftershocks and surrounded by the suffocating heat of both your bodies entwined in each other. “Inside, Mare. Fill me,” you told him.  

That was the spark to a puddle of gasoline... it ignited him instantly, barrelling headfirst into an orgasm he felt in every single nerve in his body.   

You held him, arms wrapped tight around his shoulders as his forehead bruisingly pressed into yours, his jaw dropping as a loud moan began to rip from his chest. This time, it was you stuffing your white panties into his mouth, just in time to stop the noise reverberating on the walls and causing one hell of a scene for your parents to rush in on.   

He didn’t still his hips, rather slowed them to savour the feeling of his spend filling you up, warming both your insides and his shaft. His cock was so damn sensitive now, every slow drag through his mess inside you having him jolt against you in overstimulation until finally, he’d calmed himself enough to be able to pull out and collapse into your chest, his leather jacket sticking to the both of you.   

For a while, you lay like that; catching your breath and laying in the afterglow of a damn good fuck. It wasn’t until Mary rolled onto his side next to you and spat your panties out that you felt the relief of a cool breeze caused by his movement.  

“I got no idea where you got that mouth of yours, darlin’, but it’s gonna get me in a lot of trouble...” he chuckled, running his fingers through his sweat-damp hair, pushing it from his forehead.   

“Oh, my mouth? Seems to me, you’re the talker of the two of us, Goore,” you prodded an accusatory finger into his peck. Mary made a “meh” noise, falling into his back and rubbing his hands over his face, only to look at them and notice the mess of colours that transferred to his palms.   

“Shit, was that a bathroom you popped out from earlier? I uh... could do with a hose down.” You laughed at him, nodding as you sat up.   

“Me first, though. Heard a girl should always pee after sex,” you shrugged. “Helps... something? Whatever.” You stood, clenching your thighs together when you felt the mess that threatened to drip from you. Ah, that’s why.  

Mary just chuckled at the way you waddled into your little en suite and waited patiently for his turn to spruce himself up in your shower, teasing you when he’d seen you emerge in a towel with your hair thrown up and out of the way.   

Truthfully, he’d hoped maybe you’d have joined him – but perhaps you felt like that was a little too intimate. He had to remember his place, after all. Just a booty call, and booty calls don’t wash each other’s bodies and shampoo each other’s hair.   

Now clean, Mary emerged in a towel with his hair still dripping. You hadn’t seen him without his signature face paint since he’d dropped out of school at 15, and he seemed somewhat vulnerable without it; like he’d stripped himself of a protective layer between him and the rest of the world.   

Nevertheless, Mary dressed himself again and sat down at the edge of your bed, where you’d sat waiting for him in a fresh pair of sweatpants and a cami top – topped off, of course, by his leather jacket. Mary laughed at the sight.  

“Am I not gonna get that back, doll?” he asked, nodding at the jacket as he buckled his belt back up.  

“Not yet... Gonna need it, it’s cold out tonight,” you shrugged.  

“Oh? We goin’ somewhere?” he asked, arching an eyebrow as he dug into his back pocket for his pack of cigarettes, pulling one from the box and shoving it between his teeth.  

You stood and took a step towards him, plucking the cigarette from his teeth and instead pushing it between your lips. “Can’t smoke inside, daddy will smell it.”  

Mary’s lips curled into a wicked smile. You really were the hottest little minx he’d had the pleasure of fucking.   

You strode over to the open window Mary had climbed in through, climbing out onto the roof and heading for the edge of the apex, climbing down it to the flat platform of the garage roof, safely tucked to the side of the house. Up there sat a little flowerpot filled with sand that you’d put there over two years ago – a makeshift ashtray for your little sneaky smokes.   

Mary followed you, both of you taking a seat to the back of the garage roof, overlooking the street shrouded in dim streetlights.  

“Little more rebellious than I thought, huh?” he joked, tapping the flowerpot with his foot. He reached over and took the cigarette from your lips, plucking another fresh one from his pack and pushing them both between his teeth. With a zippo lighter engraved with a bat, he lit them both and passed one to you.   

“Thanks,” you smiled, taking your first lungful of nicotine. You sighed, content and relaxed.  

“Ain’t nothin’ like a cigarette after an orgasm, is there?” Mary chuckled, the cigarette bobbing between his lips as he spoke around it.   

“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’ for dramatic effect.   

As you took another drag, you caught sight from the corner of your eye your parents shaking the hands and kissing the cheeks of his deputy mayor and wife. Their meal must be over, the goodbye pleasantries exchanged as your parents wave off the car pulling out of your driveway. You watch quietly as they turn and head back to the porch beneath you, out of sight from where you sat.   

But Mary isn’t watching them. He’s watching you , with a creased brow and a million questions swarming around his mind. It’s not until you turn to look back at him that you notice, and you feel like you’ve somehow been caught doing something you shouldn’t.  

“Alright, I gotta ask ‘cause this is killin’ me,” he said, taking another drag of his cigarette and mulling over how to word this without causing any kind of offense – something Mary usually got wrong. “What is it about me that you seem so attracted to?”  

His question caught you off guard, your brow creasing in confusion. “What do you mean?”  

“Well... I assume that in order to sleep with me – twice – you'd have to be somewhat attracted to me, right?” he shrugged. You nodded, urging him to continue, as if you still didn’t understand his question. “So, I guess what I’m asking is... what does a girl like you see in a guy like me?”  

Your expression darkened, an anger and defensiveness bubbling away inside you. This was exactly the kind of shit you expected; Mary had stereotyped you, just like the rest of them. You thought he might be different, that as an outcast himself who was stereotyped by the entire fucking town he might have given you the same leeway you had him. But no, here he was, putting you back in your neat little box.  

“What do you mean... a girl like me?”  

Mary noticed the change in your demeanour, but he was just being honest. He didn’t want to upset you, why would he? But he was overcurious, and perhaps, just a little too honest.  

“Oh, come on, doll... First night I met you, you were wearing that pretty little sundress and out with your ‘girlfriends’. Then tonight, I climb in through your window like some shitty high school movie and find your bedroom is covered in lace and frills and pink. You’ve got the trinkets and the pretty little ornaments... and your bed is covered in stuffed animals, like you’ve had that collection since you were a kid. You and I ain’t the same, we’re so polar opposite so logically, it doesn’t make sense,” he rambled. All the while, your blood boiled hotter and hotter, anger turning to rage.  

“I mean, you’re daddy’s little girl, so sweet and pretty and the town loves you. You’re too damn good for a ‘shit for brains’, ‘punk-ass kid’ like me.” Those had been direct quotes from a couple of cops who’d gotten to know Mary’s face over the years.   

“I am not ‘ daddy’s little girl’,” you seethed, “And you don’t know a fucking thing about me, Goore. You’re just like all of them, treating me like some fucking kid who can’t think for herself.”  

“I never said that, I just don’t understand why-” he started, but you cut him off.  

“No that’s just it, you don’t understand. That’s all people see of me, being his daughter...” you stood, shoving the cigarette between your teeth and walking to the edge of the roof, sitting there and dangling your feet over the edge. Mary stayed put for a second, bewildered and letting you cool off for a moment. Clearly, he’d struck a nerve. Guilt wracks through him, and he awkwardly rubs the back of his head, his hair still damp but now chilled in the night air.   

With a sigh, he holds his cigarette between his teeth and gets up, coming to sit down beside you without a word. He notes your scowl, and the way you avert your eyes from him.   

“So, go on... what’s the deal with your dad, then?” he asked, looking out ahead of him as he took another drag. He watches you fold your arms over your chest, the leather of his jacket squeaking as it rubs over itself.   

“Treats me like a kid, like I’m not a grown-ass woman with her own brain,” you sighed, looking down at your feet swinging over the edge of the garage. “I gotta be this perfect girl all the time, because that’s the image he created for me; the all-American, perfect family. It’s just part of his fucking political career. I don’t get a say, I never have.”  

Mary’s nose wrinkles as he thinks to himself, not quite understanding. Surely you were old enough to have your own mind, or at the very least, to redecorate.  

“Well, if you think that’s not you, why do you go along with it? You play the part very well...” he says, watching you from beside you.   

Your head snaps to look at him, a fresh anger brewing again, like someone had turned the heat right up on the stove.   

“You think so? Gee, thanks, Goore,” you mocked him in your best girl-ish, high-pitched bimbo voice.  

“I just meant-”   

“You don’t get it. Whatever. Why would you? I never asked you to give a fuck about my shit anyway.”  

Now Mary was getting pissed off, his mind working its way into overdrive as he looked at you and your little temper tantrum, thought about your life of privilege – something he’d never had. You had money, a big house, nice clothes, fucking bodyguards at the drop of a hat. And he’d had an alcoholic mother, a deadbeat father and a lifetime of people hating him for his love of metal and macabre. Your lives were total fucking parallels, and he couldn’t understand why you got so angry at your life when you had it all.  

So, he scoffed at you. “’Your shit’, huh? Sure, your struggle sound real tough, Barbie.”  

“Barbie?!” you shrieked, uncaring if someone had heard. “I’m fucking Barbie, now?”  

“Just seems to me like you don’t know privilege when you see it, doll. Even when it’s right under your nose.” He could hear it in his voice; he was being an asshole, he had no idea what your life was truly like, but he was so defensive of his own upbringing, his own issues that he wasn’t willing to see that you had any. To him, your life was perfect, and you were just being a brat.  

“Fuck you, Goore,” you spat through gritted teeth. Mary smacked his lips, nodding in anger.   

“Yep,” he said, shoving his cigarette between his teeth again, now burnt over halfway down. “Y’know what? I’m gonna go. This was fun, Barbie, but this Ken’s gotta split.” He slapped his hands against his thighs before swinging his legs up to the rooftop and standing, dusting himself off.   

“Yeah, maybe you should. Don’t think we’re exactly compatible...” you scowled, pulling your knees up to your chest as you smoked, refusing to look at him.   

He waits a moment, chewing over whether he should say anything else, try and fix this animosity and maybe even apologise. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words... Not when he didn’t see what he’d done wrong. Instead, he crouched down beside you, holding his hand out. You turned to stare at it for a moment, wondering what on earth he wanted you to do. Did he expect you to hold it? To say sorry? To go with him?  

No, none of those.  

“My jacket, Barbie,” he deadpanned, curling his fingers in a ‘gimme’ motion.   

You didn’t speak, instead holding your cigarette between your teeth and pulling the leather from your body. The chill hit your skin immediately, but your stubbornness refused to let it show. Instead, you slammed the jacket back in his hand, and turned away from him.   

“There, we both got our shit back. Now you’ve got no reason to come back,” you told him.   

Mary shook his head, smacking his lips one more time before he headed over to the trellis he’d climbed up, and made his way back down, avoiding the windows and making sure he wouldn’t be caught when he climbed back over the fence.   

Just as he got to his van, he turned back around to see you climbing back through your window, shoving the frame closed and storming off into your room where he couldn’t see you. Mary shook his head with an eye roll, yanking his van door open and throwing his jacket into the passenger side before he climbed in and settled into his seat. He was about to turn the key in the ignition, to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible, but he stopped himself.  

Instead, he slammed his palm against the steering wheel, cursing himself out.  

“Fucking idiot, man...” he chastised, throwing his head back against the battered headrest of his seat. He sat there for a while, replaying your conversation in his head. He thought of every single way that could have gone differently, how he could have handled that better rather than resorting to his usual defensive self.   

After about ten minutes of self-reflection – and frankly, self-loathing – he turned to look back at the bedroom window he’d climbed through that night, just in time to see your light switch off.  

What he didn’t know, was that you were still watching him from the darkness of your bedroom... or, at least, his van; parked where it had been all evening. He hadn’t even made a move to turn on his engine, sitting in the street in silence.   

But now, seeing your light switch off, Mary sighed to himself and found his keys to switch on the ignition. His engine roared to life, as did his stereo that was tuned to some kind of heavy metal. His headlights switched on, and you watched from your window as his van drove off into the night. Tears streaked down your face, and you became overwhelmed by that suffocating feeling of your only morsel of freedom running away from you, after you’d managed to push him away.   

You’d never felt more trapped in your all-American dream-life than you did now.  

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8

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[stayycalm]

i have a Request! could you write a little short about Hyunjin and Fem Reader? maybe something where Reader is in paris and taking picture of the beautiful scenery and ends up taking a picture of Hyunjin? but like they dont notice till they are back at their hotel? and then they are admiring the beautiful stranger and they cant sleep so they go out on their balcony to look at the beautiful lights but little do they know a wandering Hyunjin is outside looking for inspiration for drawing/paintng and when he sees a mysterious figure on a balcony hes enthralled by their silhouette? he hurries back to his room and begins to sketch right away and he wonders who the beauty was, and then they end up meeting? sorry this is long but i really want to know how you'd write this!!

ok, first of all, I want to deeply apologize, anon, because I'm just now finding this ask??? it's been in my inbox for a year?? so please accept my deepest apology and enjoy this! 😭

Drawn to You by stayycalm

The streets of Paris hum with life as I sling my trusty Canon Rebel T7 over my shoulder, ready to conquer my ambitious agenda. Two weeks here, and yet, the city’s allure hasn’t dulled a bit. Every street corner, every café, every wrought-iron balcony layered with Gothic spires or curving Art Nouveau façades feels like a treasure to an aspiring architect like me.

On this second-to-last day, I’m determined to make the most of it. The itinerary, planned by a finance teacher who wouldn’t know a flying buttress from a baguette, has been criminally devoid of exploration. I mutter under my breath, “How can anyone come here and not explore?”

I pause at Pont Alexandre III, lifting my camera to capture the graceful curve of a bridge flanked by its gilded statues, glowing in the soft morning light. Click. I take another, angling for the perfect shot of a bride crossing with her billowing white train, the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance.

As the day unfolds, I let my instincts guide me. From the serene paths of the Tuileries Gardens to ornate windows with their curved frames, I capture it all. Then, just as the sun begins to dip low, its golden light casting long shadows across the city, I find myself facing the Eiffel Tower. Its iron lattice glows with a warmth that takes my breath away. I can’t help but do a little happy dance as I check the shot in my viewfinder, triumphant.

A text buzzes from my phone, snapping me out of my euphoria. It’s my roommate, letting me know she’s heading back to the hotel. Sighing, I tuck my phone away and begin the trek back.

Later, I sit at the desk in our room, my hair wrapped in a towel from a much-needed shower. My laptop hums softly as I transfer the day’s photos. One by one, they fill the screen, and my excitement grows with every frame. I start editing, erasing stray tourists and clutter from the pristine geometry of my shots, until I reach the final picture.

My fingers hover over the trackpad as I zoom in on a figure in the background. He’s leaning casually against the bridge railing near the Eiffel Tower, his silhouette partially lit by the fading sunlight. His dark hair falls just past his shoulders, and his profile—what little I can see—is striking.

“Wow…” The word escapes me, barely a whisper.

“What are you oooh-ing over?” My roommate’s voice startles me. She emerges from the steamy bathroom, her towel-turbaned head tilting as she raises an eyebrow at me.

I jolt, fumbling to close the photo. “Oh, you know… buildings.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “Only you could get off to a building.”

I snort, but the heat rises to my cheeks. Turning back to the laptop, I save my edits and close it, needing an escape. “I’m stepping out for a sec,” I announce, grabbing a cardigan and slipping out to the balcony.

The air is cool, and the city stretches before me, a sea of glittering lights. With the sun gone, Paris seems transformed into a constellation fallen to earth, each light twinkling like a star. I lean against the stone railing, letting the sight fill me.

It’s moments like these that make Paris feel like a dream—a city so alive, yet timeless. A city of romance, indeed.

Hyunjin's POV

The sharp click of my shoes against the marble echoed through the Versace store as I stepped out, the heavy glass doors swinging open. A wave of flashing lights greeted me, relentless and blinding, a cacophony of voices calling out my name—professional photographers and STAY alike. It was always surreal, this paradoxical familiarity. I didn’t know a single face in that sea of people, yet they all knew me, or at least the version of me they thought they knew.

My lips curled into a smile, practiced but genuine in its intent. The sunglasses resting on the bridge of my nose shielded my eyes, but they couldn’t hide my gratitude. I raised a hand, waving to the crowd before blowing a kiss into the air. The gesture elicited a cheer, a ripple of excitement that followed me until I ducked into the sleek black car waiting at the curb.

Inside the car, the energy of the crowd faded, replaced by the hum of the engine and the muted bustle of Paris beyond the tinted windows. When we pulled up to the hotel, I took a moment to shed the Versace image. Gone were the statement pieces; in their place, a plain hoodie, jeans, and sneakers.

Tonight, I wasn’t Hyunjin, the idol, the "Versace prince." Tonight, I was just Hyunjin—an artist looking for inspiration in the heart of Paris.

The city’s streets welcomed me with their usual charm: cobblestone paths, golden streetlights, and the murmur of life flowing seamlessly between its residents and visitors. It should’ve been easy—a city as alive as Paris practically begged to be captured in art. Yet, as I wandered through alleyways, past street performers and cafés spilling over with laughter, nothing reached out to me. The fire I sought remained elusive, a spark I couldn’t ignite.

The Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance, its iron frame bathed in the amber glow of the setting sun. I found myself on a bridge, leaning against the railing as I stared out over the Seine. The water reflected the dying light in shimmering streaks, and the Tower cast a long shadow over the city.

“Where are you?” I muttered under my breath, the question aimed at no one in particular. A sigh escaped me as I pushed off the railing, shaking my head. Inspiration had never been this difficult to find before.

By the time the sun had dipped completely below the horizon, Paris transformed into a city of light. Neon signs buzzed, music drifted from open windows, and the streets teemed with energy. But even in the midst of all this vibrancy, I felt disconnected. My steps slowed as I glanced around one last time, taking in the tourist shops and the occasional artist sketching caricatures on the sidewalk. Still, nothing.

Frustration prickled at my skin. I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and ran a hand through my hair, exhaling sharply. When I opened my eyes again, I froze mid-step.

She stood on a balcony a few stories above me, her silhouette framed by the soft glow of the room behind her. Her head was tilted upward, as if catching the glimmer of the city’s lights on her skin. Her hair moved with the breeze, framing a face so serene it made my chest tighten. The faint flush on her cheeks, the way her lips curved ever so slightly—it was as if she belonged to this moment, this city, more than anyone I’d ever seen.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. I drank in the sight of her, committing every detail to memory. Then, a voice called her from inside, and she turned, disappearing into the room. I waited, hoping she’d reappear, but the balcony remained empty.

Shaking my head, I forced myself to move. My steps were quicker now, my heart racing with something I couldn’t quite name. By the time I returned to my hotel room, the feeling had morphed into a need—a compulsion. I rolled up my sleeves, grabbed my charcoal pencils, and approached the easel I’d set up by the window.

The lines came easily, flowing from memory to paper as if she’d etched herself into my mind. The curve of her lips, the slope of her nose, the way her hair had danced in the wind—each stroke brought her closer to life. I worked with a fervor I hadn’t felt in weeks, adjusting, refining, until the figure on the page mirrored the one that had captivated me.

I stepped back, studying the sketch. She was there, but she wasn’t. I’d captured her image but not the essence—not yet. The fire was back, though, and I felt alive for the first time. In what felt like forever.

rubbed my eye, trying to wipe away the sleepiness threatening to overtake me as I leaned against the wall with the rest of my group. Whoever decided that 4 a.m. was a good time to fly needs to be smacked. Hard. My eyelids started to get heavy, and I began to nod off when a voice called over the loudspeaker announcing that first class for our flight could begin boarding.

I groaned and smacked my head against the wall, wincing at the dull throb that now pulsed in my temple.

"What's wrong with you?" my roommate asked, poking my side from the chair she sat in.

"I didn’t get much sleep last night," I grumbled, swatting her hand away and rubbing the sore spot on my forehead. In reality, I didn’t sleep at all. My mind kept thinking about the beautiful stranger in that photo. Was he a tourist? What was his name? Was he that beautiful up close? These were the questions that kept me awake until we had to head to the airport, where I now stood miserably as the wealthy boarded the plane first.

"Screw the rich..." I muttered under my breath, running both hands down my face. Once it was our turn to board, my group got in line. I handed the stewardess my boarding pass. She scanned it, frowned slightly, then scanned it again, her brows furrowing. A pit grew in my stomach.

"Oh no," I thought as her eyes darted over the words on her screen. She turned her gaze to me and spoke. "I’m sorry, miss, but it seems we double-booked your seat..."

I felt like I was going to throw up. My face must have turned even paler as she continued typing on her keyboard.

"But it looks like I can bump you up to business class, if that’s alright with you," she said.

My sleep-deprived brain barely processed her words. I just stared at her for a moment as she added, "Free of charge, of course, for the trouble."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded, unable to form words. She printed a new boarding pass, handed it to me, and waved me through. I found our professor and gave him the update. He gave me a thumbs-up before pulling on his headphones and lowering his eye mask.

I made my way to the business class section, searching for my seat. It was in the middle row, meaning I had another seat next to mine. But when I saw the amount of space I had, I didn’t care—as long as my neighbor didn’t mind if I snored a little. I plopped down into my seat after putting away my carry-on. Letting out a sigh, I pulled the provided blanket over myself, turned to one side, and drifted off to sleep before we even took off.

I woke up to the hostess asking if I needed anything to eat or drink. Blinking my eyes, I regained consciousness and asked for water and a snack. Once I had both, I sat up a little and took in the seat I was in. It was almost like a mini cubicle with a small folding table and a TV screen. To my left was the divider between me and my neighbor, who was busy drawing something on a sketchpad. I couldn’t see his face clearly because of the mask, hat, and headphones he wore.

My attention shifted back to my snacks as I pulled out my laptop to get started on more editing. At some point, I fell asleep again but woke up before they came around to deliver more food.

"Thank you," I whispered to the steward, who smiled and nodded before moving on.

"That’s a beautiful picture," an accented voice said behind me. I whipped around to see my neighbor looking at my laptop.

"Oh, thank you," I said shyly, setting my food down. I tried to ignore the flutter in my chest from his compliment as I continued to work. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him shuffle and take off his headphones and hat, but I averted my eyes before he caught me peeking. To distract myself, I clicked on the picture of the stranger and zoomed in slightly.

My neighbor made a choked sound. When I looked back at him, his wide eyes were glued to my screen.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He looked at me, then back at the screen.

"That’s me," he said, pointing to the photo.

My gaze darted to the picture and then back to him, my eyes narrowing. "What are you—" But before I finished, he took off his mask, and the words died in my throat.

Here, next to me on this very plane, was the reason I couldn’t sleep last night. I sat there, mouth open in shock, as he looked at me with an odd expression.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

He nodded. "Why do you have my picture?"

"I wasn’t taking YOUR picture." I clicked to expand the photo. "I was taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower."

His eyes widened, and his cheeks flushed red. "Oh..." His voice was soft as he apologized.

I nodded, and we sat in awkward silence for a moment.

"What are you drawing?" I asked, trying to ease the tension, pointing at his sketchpad.

He blushed more, tilting the pad toward me. "It’s just a sketch of a woman I saw last night," he muttered, avoiding my gaze. The whole time we’d talked, he hadn’t fully looked at me. I wondered if there was something wrong with my face. But when my eyes roamed over the drawing, I tilted my head in confusion.

"She looks an awful lot like me," I chuckled, knowing that wasn’t possible. But his eyes snapped to me, then back to his drawing. His mouth opened in wonder.

"Were you staying at Hotel de la Tour Eiffel?" he asked.

My laughter died. "Yeah... How did you—" My eyes widened as we both looked at his drawing. It was me.

"Holy crap," I muttered as he shook his head in disbelief. We looked at each other again.

"I can’t believe I found you," we said in unison.

We spent the rest of the flight chatting quietly about everything and anything. Soon, we were landing, and a wave of sadness hit me. I’d never see him again. Once it was our row’s turn to exit, I grabbed my things and turned to him.

"It was nice to meet you, Hyunjin," I said with a soft smile before slowly making my way down the ramp and into the terminal. As I stood off to the side waiting for my group, I heard my name being called. I looked around to see Hyunjin waving at me.

When he reached me, he blushed, clearly embarrassed. "Sorry about that. I just..." He took a deep breath. "Can I have your number?"

I gave him a shy smile and nodded. The smile he gave me made butterflies flutter in my stomach, and I thought to myself, I might have brought home something better than pictures.

[antiquepearlss]

What Truly Lay Beyond The Doors Of The Eternal Library

Betrayed and heartbroken, Varian’s quest is complete and he can finally open the doors to the long sought out Eternal Library. Only, nothing could have ever prepared him for what truly laid beyond the doors he so desperately wanted to open. (small ficlet)

Varian would be the first to admit, he was a cryer. As a child he often burst into tears if he skinned his knee or a fellow playmate had hurt his feelings. Unfortunately his faucet eyes carried onto adulthood. It was something Hugo had always made fun of him for.

But Hugo wasn’t making fun of him now. In fact, it seemed as if he too were on the verge of tears. 

“Goggles please just listen-“

“Don’t fucking call me that!” Varian screamed. “Don’t fucking talk to me.” His voice cracked, the words barely legible, thick with emotion.

“Hugo, you were working for Donella this whole time?” Nuru asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it one more time- needing to know whether or not one of the few friends she had, had truly betrayed her. Overcome with emotion, she raised her voice. “You were going to sabotage us this whole time!?”

Hugo swallowed, and looked away. “Not the whole time, please just listen I never wanted-“

Hugo was again cut off by Yong yelling “liar!”

Yong, Hugo’s innocent friend who was too young for such a betrayal, didn’t even trust him anymore.

The blonde risked another look at Varian. He had never seen his face so twisted with hatred. His normally loving and forgiving friend, his friend whom he had lied to and betrayed. 

The one person he truly loved.

Hugo walked over and reached out “Varian-“

Varian turned away. 

Varian turned towards the doors of the Eternal Library. A year of work, a year of love and laughter, a year of bonding and learning, a year all led to this moment- to these doors.

A year led to what lay behind the doors. 

Eternal knowledge.

Varian’s mother.

Varian began to push the doors open.

He didn’t care about the others, he didn’t care about Hugo, he didn’t care about why they had all become so hesitant to fulfill the end of their quest. He was going to the Eternal Library.

“Kid don’t! I’m warning you! You don’t want to know what’s behind there!” Donella warned.

Varian merely turned his head and glared “says the woman who took my mother away from me.” 

Donella shook her head, somewhat sadly. “Varian, that's not your mother in there.”

Varian gave her a long, confused look; before his emotions got the better of him.

He had worked so hard, and sacrificed so much for this moment. He was going to see the Eternal Library, no matter the warnings he was given.

Strong arms pushed the heavy, ornate, magical doors open. A flood of light overcame Varian, bright white and blinding. 

Varian almost immediately felt a comforting joy envelop him. His work, and his mothers life’s work, hadn't all been for naught. He had finally opened the doors to the Eternal Library. 

The doors slammed shut behind him, but he didn’t care. He took in the rows and rows of shelves, lined with books of all varieties. Small seating arrangements scattered around, along with windows seemingly leading to nowhere.

Before he could get far into the library, the smell of chemicals and what he recognized as smoke overtook him.

Caught off guard, Varian curiously followed the smell to behind a bookshelf lined with chemistry texts, giddy with excitement.

Despite traveling and learning all kinds of things for a year, nothing could prepare Varian for what he witnessed. 

“Mi mi mi mi mi mimimimi mi mi”

“Oh hello there, sorry for all the smoke. See, my assistant and I were just passing through and we found this lovely library. And I just had to try out some of the experiments in this lovely book here.”

Varian came face to face with- felt. Two felt creatures that could talk. One of them an olive green, almost human looking creature in a lab coat, with glasses where his eyes would normally lay. And the other, which seemed incapable of normal speech, and had likely previously been on fire due the soot covering him; was a tubed orange creature with spiky red hair and anxious eyes.

“Mi mi mi mi.” 

Varian stared. 

“I’m Dr Bunsen Honeydew, and this is my assistant Beaker.” The Olive felt creature stated, gesturing to the bright red felt creature next to him.

“What the fuuuuuuuuckkk?” Varian whispered under his breath.

The human slowly made his way out of the library- thoroughly disturbed and forgetting the previous heartache he had felt outside the doors.

He quickly opened the large ornate doors, and rushed out into the darkened room he had previously been in.

“You were right Donella, I never should have gone in there.”

[chiara-fiore]

"Mon amour..."

Chiara looked at her husband, Sebastien, from one end of the marble hallway of their once-shared Paris penthouse, her face void of the same sweet sentiment found in his voice.

"There you are," Sebastien crooned, walking in a somewhat disheveled suit and smelling strongly of liquor. "You look..." In his inebriated state, he struggled to come up with a compliment he has not yet used in his countless emails, texts and voicemails asking for her back.

"Don't bother rubbing your last two brain cells together," she said, deadpan. "You're going to need it later." Chiara then stood up to her full height, her black Valentino gown rustling ever so softly as she moved. "I'm here to make sure I leave with that," she said, pointing at the large manila envelope sitting atop the ornate table next to him. "Signed."

Sebastien's eyebrows furrowed, reaching for the envelope. But he did not open it. Instead, he continued to protest as if she'd eventually break if he did it long enough.

"Baby, you're overreacting," he implored, trying to sway Chiara with his charm. Though it may have worked before in previous fights, Sebastien had crossed the line. There was no going back from stealing all her hard-earned money, the money she'd worked days and nights for since she was eighteen years old. "How about we just open our favourite win, get you out of that, and talk things through, eh? I mean, as stunning as you look, you look even better without," he smirked.

Chiara remained unfazed.

"Sign. It." Each word was spoken in his mother tongue with each syllable enunciated to ensure there was no room for misunderstandings.

"I'm not going to sign it." Sebastien stood his ground. "This is our house, this is where we live," he proclaimed, steadily getting more and more irritated. "Actually, you know what? This is my house!" he had the audacity to say. "This whole fuckin' place has been in my family for almost a century!"

"Until I bought it from you ten years ago," Chiara countered simply. "Remember? To save your parents from ruin?"

Sebastien gritted his teeth, anger flashing in his eyes.

"Besides, that's not what the envelope is for."

A change flickered in his bright blue eyes. "What?"

"The papers," Chiara mentioned, gesturing to the envelope in his hand. "They're divorce papers. And I need you to sign them. Preferably in..." She checked her phone for the time, "two minutes."

Sebastien looked more confused than ever.

"I have a gala to go to, and you know I don't like to be late," Chiara said in response to a question he was probably about to ask, to which Sebastien just stared at his wife before smirking.

"No." Shaking his head, he ripped the papers in his hands and threw them in the air. "No, Chiara. No!"

Chiara took a deep breath and calmly exhaled through her nose. Then, without another word, she closed the gap between them, unafraid to look him in the eye.

"Have your tantrum," she warned him, "but I'm not giving up. I'm not going to let you charm me back into your life so you can suck me dry of everything I've worked so hard for." Taking her purse, she stepped around him but stopped by the door. "I will get those papers signed, Sebastien, even if it's the last thing I do."

* All conversations are in French.

[jeremy-king]

Per an invite they received via text message and email, the King family gathered together at one of their estates located just outside of Manchester. Jeremy, as usual, arrived last and was fifteen minutes late. He walked casually into one of the many sitting rooms the home had, being ushered hurriedly by one of the house's staff. "Ah, finally. Now we can begin," He heard his mother announce as he took a seat in one of the rigid, overly ornate armchairs. 

Jeremy glanced around the room. It was only him, his mother and father, his older brothers, Jamie and Julien, and his sister, Reina. Julien and Reina's spouses weren't in attendance. Neither was the extended half of the family -- his aunt and uncle, and his cousins, Conor, Miles, Elle. Clearly, none of them received an invite to this little meeting. Interesting, he thought.

"Your father and I are getting divorced." His mother made the statement with her manicured, polished hands folded neatly in her lap, and her shoulders squared back and down. 

He heard Julien murmur, "You seriously had us come all the way up for this?", then Jamie barked over his brother, "This could've been in an email, mother. We're busy people." All Reina did was let out a sigh. 

"Hey, Jamie has a good divorce attorney, mum," Jeremy said, grinning from ear to ear as he watched his eldest brother glare over at him before turning his attention back to their parents.

"You aren't getting divorced," Jamie spat back. "Just be separated. Leave the financial hell and public scrutiny we'll all endure out of it. Live on opposite sides of the country for all I care." 

Finally, their father spoke. "Your mother had an affair."

Jeremy let out a laugh and immediately tossed back, "Well, she saw you have so many over the years, she probably thought she'd try it out. You know, give it a go."

"She believes she's in love," Their father continued, his jaw held tight, as if forcing himself to keep his composure. 

Jeremy saw Reina's features fall, and she looked to her mother. Always the empath, Jeremy thought of his sister and let out a small sigh. 

There was a moment of silence before Jamie pushed himself from the wall and uncrossed his arms from his chest. He looked around at his siblings, then back to his parents. "Ok? And? I'm sorry, what am I missing? Have you two lost the ability to think logically in your old age?" 

Julien chimed in next in an attempt to diffuse his brother's increasing temper. "I agree with Jamie."

Of course you do, Jeremy thought. 

"The legal divorce shouldn't happen." Julien then stood, looked to his siblings, then looked to his parents. "I'm going home, now." His brother leaned over and pressed a kiss to his mother's cheek, then left without another word. 

Reina was next. "I agree with Jamie and Julien. It's what is best for the family. The legal divorce -- you both know it's not necessary, and there’d be such a fuss over it all… You're both just... Angry right now..." Reina kept her voice soft, as if she were speaking to children. She then placed a kiss on both her mother and father's cheeks, then shot a warning look to Jamie as she turned to leave, as if telling him to watch it. Jeremy could see Jamie let out a large exhale before he stepped forward. 

“You just got a divorce, didn’t you? That was you, right?” Jeremy called out right as Jamie had opened his mouth to speak to their parents again. 

Jamie half-turned to face him. Jeremy smiled over at him from his seated position. “Why are you even here? You’re a fucking idiot, so I don’t even feel the need to reply to this bait.” 

“You kind of just did, though,” Jeremy replied with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“Enough,” Their mother said, standing. “Enough,” She repeated, sighing as she did. “Jamie, we will speak with you on this matter later. We simply wanted to make the formal announcement to you all.” 

“The formal announcement of separation,” Jamie replied, and gave a stern nod of his head. “Fine. Great.” He gave both his parents a look, then turned to leave. “Set up a meeting with my assistant, mum.” He called over his shoulder before the door shut behind him. 

There was a comfortable silence for a moment, then Jeremy’s father slowly stood. He walked by Jeremy, gently tousling his hair as he went, and left without a word. Jeremy’s mother took a seat in the armchair next to him. 

“And you? You agree with your siblings?”

Jeremy huffed. “My opinion matters?” 

His mother’s brows furrowed and she reached for his hand. “You are the only one who invalidates your opinion. Jamie is just…. Jamie. You know that,” and she gave him a small smile then stood to leave. 

“I do agree with them,” Jeremy told her just before she left the room. “Like Reina said, it’s what’s best for the family. We all make sacrifices, mum.” 

Another moment of silence. Then, “I understand,” was all she replied, then left. 

Finally alone, Jeremy let out a breath and let himself sink into the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever sat in. 

“Fucking dumb chair,” He murmured to himself. 

[linkemon]

Mayhem (Noctis Lucis Caelum x Reader) [Soulmate AU]

Friendly reminder that English is not my first language. You can check my Masterlists both in English and Polish here. Consider supporting me on Ko-fi. You can also check out my commissions if you’re interested.

Other oneshots can be found here.

"ꜱʜᴇ ᴡᴀꜱɴ'ᴛ ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴘᴀʀʀɪɴɢ ʀᴇꜱᴜʟᴛ ʙᴜᴛ ꜱʜᴇ ᴋᴇᴘᴛ ʜᴇʀ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ. ꜱʜᴇ ʀᴏʟʟᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ʜᴇʀ ꜱʟᴇᴇᴠᴇ, ʀᴇᴠᴇᴀʟɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀᴛᴛᴏᴏ ᴏɴ ʜᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀᴇᴀʀᴍ. ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ʟɪɴᴇ ꜰᴏʀᴍᴇᴅ ᴀɴ ᴏʀɴᴀᴛᴇʟʏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ 'ꜰᴀʀᴇᴡᴇʟʟ'."

ᴀᴅᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: 1. ᴍᴀᴊᴏʀ ꜱᴘᴏɪʟᴇʀꜱ ʀᴇɢᴀʀᴅɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴠᴇɴᴛꜱ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀᴍᴇ. 2. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ꜱᴏᴜʟᴍᴀᴛᴇ ᴀᴜ, ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ (ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜ ɴᴏᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ) ᴀʀᴇ ɢɪꜰᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ꜱᴏᴜʟᴍᴀᴛᴇ.

— You lost! Show it! — Gladio shouted right next to [Reader's] ear.

— You cheated — she gasped, clutching the wooden sword.

— All's fair in love and war!

— We're not at war, we're just doing training exercises — the little girl replied.

She wasn't happy with the sparring result but she kept her promise. She rolled up her sleeve, revealing the tattoo on her forearm. The black line formed an ornately written "Farewell"

— I was hoping for something better.

— Do not get smart up. You don't have the skill yourself yet.

— It won't be easy to find a soulmate with something like that. I hope my skill will be better.

The girl didn't want to admit it but she was thinking exactly the same thing. Many people were given simpler instructions. She has always dreamed of a timer or a red thread. They didn't require much attention. Meanwhile, she was given a word that anyone could have said to her.

— Maybe I'll hear my soulmate say goodbye to someone? Or will this be a slogan describing our entire relationship? You know... we'll be such a nice couple that we won't want to be apart?

***

[Reader] stared at the three friends who had come to the training ground. She was glad Noctis wasn't with them.

She thought no one would come here in the middle of the night. She had been able to avoid meetings over the past few days but it seemed like that wasn't the case this time.

— I don't want to talk to you.

She swung her sword, practicing the sequence.

— Listen, you can just sit here for me but he doesn't want to go anywhere without you...

Gladiolus didn't finish his sentence because Prompto kicked him in the ankle with all his might.

— How can you say such things to a girl? — Prompto was outraged. — Sorry, I have to send a text message quickly. — He took out his phone.

Ignis looked at the other two and sighed. He adjusted his glasses. He felt the need to do this whenever he got irritated.

— Why are you avoiding the prince?

— Damn it! We all know why. We are not making idiots of ourselves.

King's Shield was tired. He wanted to put the whole trip behind him. Altissia was far from Insomnia. They had a long journey ahead of them and he felt like he was babysitting Noctis instead of preparing for it.

The prince insisted that he wanted to see [Reader] at his wedding to Lunafreya. He proposed it to her and she awkwardly excused herself and they haven't seen each other since.

— Wait... so we know why she's avoiding him? — Prompto frowned in concentration.

It took him a few seconds to understand what Gladiolus was talking about.

— Aaah... That's what you mean... — He tapped his forehead lightly.

— Let's end this circus. You're coming with us. Even the king said it was a great idea.

— He didn't give me an order.

[Reader] knew she was arguing like a little child but she had a hard time hiding her reluctance.

— Stop being so selfish! — Gladio knocked the training sword out of her hand.

He did it easily. He surpassed her in terms of physical strength. Not to mention his skills were next level.

He froze the moment he saw her face. The moonlight helped him see tears in the corners of his eyes. She turned her head to wipe them gently.

He felt guilty.

They had been friends since childhood.

— Damn it! — He pinched the bridge of his nose. — I'm sorry, okay? I'm just... fed up with it.

Ignis didn't say anything. He looked at him reprimandingly and Gladio realized that he was in for a good sermon. Ignis took an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to the girl. She accepted it gratefully.

— It's not your fault... none of you... Let's be honest, neither is it Noctis's fault. But so what? Should I be a bridesmaid at a wedding I don't want to see? Watch someone I've been in love with for so many years get married? Congratulate my rival with whom I never stood a chance? I want Noctis to be happy but... that doesn't mean I have to watch it all.

The girl felt all the emotions she had been carrying since the announcement of the engagement slipping away. Grief gripped her heart and the words stuck in her throat. Her fingers tightened around Ignis's handkerchief. There was a deafening silence, broken only by the night chirping of crickets.

The friends looked towards the entrance. She followed their gaze.

He stood there.

— We'll leave you two alone — Prompto suggested.

He hoped [Reader] wouldn't find out that he was the one who notified Noctis via text message. Otherwise he would be in big trouble.

— I think we need to talk — said the prince.

— You didn't overhear everything? — she asked bitterly.

Blue eyes stared at her intensely.

— I want you to tell me about it properly now.

— NO. — She sat down on the stone wall. — Do you know why? Because it doesn't make sense. I won't change anything.

— You know...

— I know! You are responsible for Lucis... And you will be king one day... And you love Lunafreya... And we need this marriage...

Noctis looked at the brightly shining moon above his head.

It was as if in its light he could no longer hide anything.

He felt he had failed as a friend.

He knew for a long time. He just never wanted to let that thought come to the fore. It was easier to push it to the bottom of his mind and tell himself it was just a delusion. He was afraid to face a feeling he didn't reciprocate.

— [Reader], if you had told me earlier...

She felt a pang in her chest. He had no soulmate skill. Fate didn't decide for him. He chose Luna of his own free will.

— I wouldn't change anything. You love each other and I want you to be happy but please — she took a deep breath — don't make me go there. My heart can't bear it.

In her imagination she saw a beautiful bride. Blond curls were tied up in a high bun and the white dress rustled with every step. The Oracle held a bouquet of her favorite blue flowers as she looked for her fiancé.

Her fingers gripped the stone tightly.

He could give an order if he wanted.

— Then stay... but promise me our friendship won't end like this.

The prince felt that the thread that had connected them for a long time was breaking. He wanted desperately to save it, even though he felt it was over. All the years they spent together were gone.

— I promise that I will come after the wedding, together with your father, when I get myself together a bit. — She headed towards the exit.

— Farewell — he said with a slight smile.

She glanced briefly at the tattoo that had been with her for many years.

She didn't answer him.

***

— What is it about? — Noctis asked.

Ignis entered the room with a newspaper in his hand.

— Read it.

The Fall of Insomnia , said the headline. Gladiolus read it aloud, feeling growing anxiety.

— Is this some joke?

The prince wanted to tear out the newspaper and make sure he had heard correctly.

— There was an attack. The Imperial army has occupied the capital — Gladio continued. — The Treaty Room flashed brightly. Explosions were also heard. When the smoke cleared, the king was found... dead. — Gladio looked up.

— No... But... Wedding... Altissia...

— I know. That was the plan but... all the headlines in town can't be wrong.

Ignis looked at Noctis with regret. There was no way there could be a mistake.

The boy felt his heart beating fast and a cold sweat break out on him.

— Liars! — he shouted. — We have to check that.

— Shall we turn back? — Prompto assured.

— Yes.

***

— Betrayal! Protect His Majesty!

[Reader] managed to kill three opponents before she fell to the ground. Lights flashed all around and a loud explosion deprived her of hearing.

She put her fingers to her chest in surprise. A red, sticky liquid flowed from the deep wound. She tried to make a sound but was interrupted by darkness.

***

— Maybe these will be the last words you hear from him? He'll see you and decide it's time to say goodbye or something — he laughed.

— Gladio, I'm going to kill you!

— I'd like to see you try — said the new, short, dark-haired boy.

He poked his head out from behind one of the pillars and curiously walked to the middle of the training ground.

— I think it's time for me to introduce you to the spoiled prince. Noctis Lucis Caelum and his titles that I don't feel like listing...

[kiiwiigii]

The Red-Eyed Boy pt. ii

Pt. One | Three | Outtake

Alec x Swan!Fem!Reader

Summary: Your relationship with Alec was going smoothly, until Victoria's army comes for your sister.

Warnings:

Mild language

I'm a sucker for angst

Word Count: 1,798

A/N: Part 1 was originally just supposed to be a oneshot, but here I am. Enjoy! Pssst @rosedpetal and @badass-daisy-22 your wish is my command. ;)

He was laying on his bed, dressed more casually than I had ever seen him, in a simple white t-shirt and pajama bottoms, a book in hand. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the book was on ancient Greek myths, something that I was quite interested in and even planned to study in college.

His dark chocolate colored hair was splayed out across his pillow and I itched to touch it. Well, I really itched to touch all of him, but that was neither here nor there. I had a weird obsession with his hair. And his face. In particular his eyes and especially his lips. I grinned to myself, content just to watch with my being so far away.

Visions like this were rare, few and far in between.

I supposed it was kind of creepy, but in my defense I didn't really have control of these visions, especially since they happened while I was sleeping.

I could already feel the nudge of wakefulness pulling at me. I tried my best to burrow down deeper into sleep, but resistance was futile, and I found myself opening my eyes to see the ceiling of my bedroom back home in Forks, Washington.

I rolled over with a deep sigh. I would give anything to be in Volterra with Alec. Sadly I had a little bit longer to wait. Reaching for my phone I checked my messages and grinned to see a text from him.

'Missing you.'

Alec wasn't one for talking on the phone, he preferred to text, and almost always left me a good morning message to wake up to. Most days it was the highlight of my day.

I pressed the call button and he picked up before the second ring even made a sound.

"Good morning, tesoro."

"Good morning, love." I smiled, burrowing deeper into my covers.

I really just needed to hear his voice this morning.

"Y/N?"

It was Bella, her arm wrapped around my shoulders.

"Hey, sis." I gave her a hug, resting my forehead against her.

"Everything's gonna be ok."

"I know." I sighed. "Let's just get today over with. Grab that diploma and skedaddle."

Bella would definitely have to repeat high school at some point and I counted my lucky stars that I was not in her shoes in that regard. Or any other regard. My sister was a fucking danger magnet and the whole Victoria shit was just a big red neon sign that proved it.

There was a knock at the door and Bella opened it to see Alice. The vampire was bouncing on the tips of her toes already, and the gleam in her eyes scared me. Maybe if I let Bella go first then I could make my escape-

"I'd take Y/N first. She's planning on making a run for it."

Edward you twat. Where did you come from??

Edward just shot me a crooked grin as I glared at him from over my shoulder, Alice already dragging me up the stairs. With a sigh I sat on my bed like a good girl and let Alice do her thing. Thankfully I had already done my makeup, and Alice was content to give me some red lipstick for a pop of color.

"Alec will like it, promise." She gave me a wink and I swear I turned at least fifty shades of red.

"He's not even supposed to be here today. Do you know something I don't?" I eyed her skeptically, but the little bit of hope I was feeling was obvious.

She smiled at me sadly. "Sorry, Y/N. But speaking of lover-boy."

Alice turned to her bag and brought out a small ornate box, handing it to me with all the care in the world. From Alec?

I let my fingers curl around the box, admiring the designs carved into the dark colored wood. It was old, which was quite obvious, and while I had an inkling that it was a piece of jewelry, I was in no way prepared for when I opened the box. It was a small ruby pendant, about the size of my pinky nail, dangling from a golden chain. It had with a rough rectangular cut that rounded out a little at the bottom. I was immediately mesmerized, stroking the pendant in wonder.

It reminded me not just of blood, but of something else that I couldn't quite remember. It was then that I saw the note wedged into the top of the box. I unfolded it with shaking hands, overwhelmed and giddy.

For my Persephone. Congratulations. -A

My mouth popped open. Oh. Oh this boy was clever.

The ruby wasn't supposed to be blood, it was supposed to be a pomegranate seed. Like one of the seeds that Hades offered to Persephone. In the end, eating the pomegranate seeds forced her to return to the underworld to live half the year there with Hades. It was my favorite Greek myth, and I couldn't help but draw parallels between her story and my own. They were rather crooked parallels, but I wasn't too bothered by that.

I could feel the tears start to well up. I don't think I've ever received a gift that was so thoughtful.

"Oh hun. No. No." Alice was there beside me in a heartbeat, wiping the tears before they could fall.

"They're happy tears, Alice." I said with a small smile.

Well, not completely happy, I wished he was here of course. But I would be seeing him soon enough.

"I know. We don't wanna ruin your makeup. Let me help you put it on and we'll take a good portrait to send him, yeah?"

"Thanks, Alice. You're the best ever."

I only wished I had realized just how soon we would be seeing each other.

'I am in so much trouble.'

My anxiety, paired with the adrenaline rush, was practically so high I was pretty sure it was orbiting the moon. Jasper was by my side, doing his best to soothe not just me, but poor little Bree Tanner.

"How bad is it gonna be, Alice?" I whispered to her, wringing my hands together and bouncing on the tips of my toes. "How much trouble am I in?"

"Relax." She soothed.

"So pretty fucking bad. Do I have time to run?"

I was this close to hyperventilating.

I wasn't even supposed to be here. Bella almost had my head when she saw me on the back Jacob's wolf form, poised and ready to help. With what I wasn’t entirely sure in that moment. I had come up with the harebrained scheme to help muddle Bella's scent with my own by switching the matching jackets we had received for Christmas years ago. Emmet had made the comment a while ago that our scents were pretty similar, so I just kind of ran with the idea. It had worked so well that even Edward hadn't seemed to notice when Bella had slipped on my jacket instead of her own. It had helped split the army at least. Having two humans with similar scents had sent them all mixed signals, so it had kind of worked.

Or so I was telling myself.

So here I was, exactly in a place where I wasn't supposed to be, and the Volturi would be arriving any minute. More specifically Alec and the other elite guards from what Alice had said. None of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting yet. Including his sister. This was like… meeting your significant other's family for the first time.

Well, this was gonna be one hell of a hello.

"They're coming." Alice's panicked voice did nothing to calm me down.

Jasper put a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to help. "Try to relax, Y/N. It's not you he's going to angry with."

I simply nodded and fiddled with my necklace, the ruby seed feeling cold and smooth beneath my fingers. That helped a little as they appeared from the fog, and I found myself catching my breath when I saw Alec's silhouette emerge. He removed his hood and nearly froze when he caught sight of me. I gave him a small smile and a wave.

He let out a snarl that almost sent me hiding behind Jasper.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

"Y/N is safe." Carlisle soothed. "We never would have let anything happen to her."

"This is the second time your coven has dragged her into something dangerous." He hissed, voice low and deadly.

'Well, if we're gonna get technical about it Alec, we never would have met had it not been for that first time.'

Edward shot me a look.

What? It's not like I had said it out loud.

Wringing my hands, I stepped forward slightly before finally gathering the courage to approach him. He met me half way, gathering me into his arms. I let out a deep sigh of contentment as I buried my face in his jacket.

"I know you're angry." I whispered. "But I couldn't let something happen to Bella. They weren't even aware of what I was doing until it was too late. I'm sorry. For scaring you."

Alec said nothing for a long minute and I could feel the tension practically eating me alive.

"Alec." The red-eyed girl spoke, watching and taking us in.

Jane. His sister.

He simply nodded and left me standing there before returning to his position by her side. My heart dropped. He hadn't even bothered to say anything. I turned swiftly, blinking back tears. While I was sorry for scaring him, I refused to be sorry for my actions. Bella was my sister, and I would do what I could to help her. I stood a little behind Alice, staring at nothing and trying my best to turn off my emotions.

Jane spoke again. "Impressive. I have never seen a coven escape an assault of this magnitude intact."

"We were lucky." Carlisle answered.

"I doubt that."

I couldn't help the way my eyebrows shot up. Then I had to remind myself that this was Jane, and she had always proved exceptionally brutal in my visions. And this was no different, although it was Felix who did the dirty work this time. Bree was gone.

I didn't even blink at the end of it. I simply stood there, like a zombie when they finally disappeared. And Alec hadn't even said a word. The dam holding back the flood of tears finally broke.

'There goes my red-eyed boy.'

NEXT

{Masterlist}

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[behindthesemasks]

20

Chapter 19

Gabe is on a mission...and he has one destination...

It seemed to take Gabe an hour to drive from the original hotel to the one that Mel and the others had now holed up in. After circling a few different blocks, he found a parking garage without surveillance to leave the SUV in and texted Mel that he was on the way up. That was when he turned his phone off and headed down to the street below, to walk the remaining way to the hotel. No doubt Ambrose would be making sure that the GPS trackers on the SUVs were being watched and trying to triangulate their locations by their phones.  While he would be able to find the SUV Gabe had driven, where he’d gone when he’d left the garage would be something that would take him longer to figure out.  The fact that all the others with Melania had also turned off their phones indicated that they too had thought of this.  

It was after 2 AM and there were no other people or vehicles in the area.  The area appeared deserted, although he could see lights behind curtains on the floors above street level.  Even if there were surveillance cameras in some of the shops and buildings he was passing, Gabe had turned up his collar to make it hard to see his face. One more step in making it harder for Ambrose to track them down.  There were only four blocks he had to navigate, but he was hoping to keep to the shadows and make the trek as quickly as possible.  He had been trusted not to give away their location.

Fifteen minutes after he’d stepped onto the street, he walked into the hotel lobby. It was bright and filled with old-world elegance. Marble floors, ornate furniture, and live flowers on every table; this was not your budget hotel. Bypassing the front desk, much to the interest of the desk clerk, Gabe headed straight for the elevators. He knew the room number and wanted to waste no time hanging out in areas where he could attract attention. Now he knew he had been on camera, but there was no way that the others could have made it up to the room without being recorded as well. Hopefully, there wasn’t a way to back door into the hotel’s security system.  He knew the type of men Ambrose hired, and if there was, they’d do it.

When he’d finally made it up to the room, he could hear laughing inside. Obviously, even if Mel had been tired, she hadn’t fallen asleep just yet. He knocked on the door and found himself yanked inside when the door cracked open. Facing him were Mel, Alexander, and Cade all sitting on the couch with bottles of wine, gin, whiskey, and scotch on the table in front of them. Judging from their demeanor, they had all enjoyed some while waiting for him.

“Feeling more relaxed?” Gabe asked with a bemused smirk as Dez headed back over to the chair he’d been sitting in.

Mel was on her feet and on the way over to him before he could finish asking the question. “I am now, you finally made it!” Her arms wrapped around him and her face was buried in his chest.

Instinctively his arms went around her and he held her in close. Only now did he notice the slight tremor in her body. His eyes looked questioningly at Alexander and Cade. What the hell was going on?

“She tried to sleep; needless to say some things cause horrible nightmares,” Alexander answered the silent question that hung in the air. “So, we decided to drown her in booze.” His hand gestured to all of the bottles on the table.

“Did you know she has five fake identities in her purse? They’re complete with driver’s licenses, passports, and credit cards. FIVE. Do you think the boss will let us keep her?” Dez had obviously had too much whiskey, but he did get a half-chuckle out of Gabe.

“She’s not a fucking pet asshole. And no, I doubt Ambrose would allow us to take her on missions. Although you would have been proud Gabe, the girl intimidated the ever-loving hell outta the front desk clerk that was here when we got in. I think he may have wet himself.” Alexander chuckled as he poured himself some more scotch. 

Cade moved over to one of the chairs, stretching his long legs out to rest atop the coffee table, as Mel and Gabe moved to sit on the couch. Mel was still all but trembling and Alexander put his arm around her shoulders when she sat down. He looked over at Gabe with an expression that said he was worried about her, but that it wasn’t the time or place to say anything. Gabe nodded, this wasn’t a great situation.

“If you guys want to go back to the other hotel, I’ll understand.” Mel’s voice was soft and quiet, hardly the woman any of them had seen earlier in the day at the hotel. 

“I don’t know about the other boys, but I was hired to keep your ass safe while you were here. I don’t see how I’d be doing that if I left you here. If Ambrose decides to take the money back…I’m not worried.” Cade was the first to answer. There was no hesitation or doubt in his voice as he looked over at her with a slight cocky smirk on his face, and then gave her a wink.

“I think my boy said it well enough. If I was doubting, I wouldn’t have shown up beautiful.” Gabe used two fingers under her chin to turn her face towards him, then kissed her forehead.

“I was never here just because of a job from Ambrose,” Alexander added, causing Mel to look over at him with affection. He really was like a big brother, and just as protective. 

“Fuck, if I wanted to go back, I wouldn’t have driven that damned SUV all the way out to the airport and had to take a cab back.” Dez laughed, winking over at her. 

“If your money is taken back, I’ll still pay you,” Mel said softly, even as she knew that didn’t seem to be a concern for any of them. When Cade started to object, since he was the one who had mentioned money, she added, “I’m worth more than Nic now that my parents are dead. And it means nothing to me.” Cade reached over and squeezed her fingers. Damn, the girl was stronger than she looked, both inside and outside.

“That reminds me, how the hell did you guys get here from the coffee shop? It’s quite a hike.” Gabe asked as his hand took Mel’s to keep hers from shaking. “And did you leave all the weapons out at the airport? Really?” He looked over at Dez.

“She has a Porsche SUV bro. A FUCKING PORSCHE.” Cade laughed. “And all the weapons are in the back safely in their cases. Well, except for the two cases that have the tracking devices in them. They’re at the airport along with the SUV, just no weapons in them.” He laughed. They had swept everything that they transferred between vehicles. There had been no tracing devices in any of it. All of them, knowing Nic and Ambrose, didn’t want to take any chances. 

Gabe nodded as he saw Mel’s head starting to nod. “I think it’s bedtime for you before you fall asleep on Alexander and me, then we’re pinned to the couch all night.” She laughed as he helped her up and to the bedroom on the right side of the small living room that had two beds in it. There was a bedroom on the other side that had two beds in it as well. He helped Mel off with her hiking boots and up onto the bed. Exhaustion, emotions, and the liquor were starting to have a strong effect on her. 

Alexander came in behind them, kicking off his shoes and flopping on the other bed in the room. “I’m taking this one, Dez snores when he’s drunk. You can have one of the beds in the room across the living room. Cade is going to take the first watch for the next few hours.” His words were slightly slurred as he was obviously drifting off to sleep.

Gabe looked down at Mel who was starting to drift off. He leaned over to place a kiss on her forehead. How could Klaus have been such an idiot as to not listen and just hang up on her? Furthermore, how was Erik an even bigger idiot for what he’d done? She was a woman who proved she wasn’t afraid and could be just as fierce as they could. Shaking his head, he began to back up.

Gorgeous blue eyes cracked open and looked up at him. “Don’t go yet, just sit here till I fall asleep? Please?” The look in her tired eyes tore at him. Damn it if he wasn’t a sucker for a damsel in distress. He saw Alexander chuckle as he rolled over, giving him a thumbs up as he did. Sitting down on the bed next to where she was lying, he took her hand in his and leaned back against the headboard. He prayed the next day wouldn’t be nearly as long or as sideways as the previous 24 hours had been. 

Soon Gabe felt his head starting to drop. He started to move off of the bed but looked down at his fingers intertwined with hers and changed his mind. Instead, he slipped down to lay flat on his back next to her. A soft smile formed on his lips as he felt her move closer to him and he drifted off to sleep. Fuck what any of the rest of them thought, Klaus may have promised to keep her safe but he was actually going to do it.

Just over three hours later, the soft click of the lock on the door to the suite signaled that someone was coming in. A lone figure slipped through the barely cracked door, carefully closing it behind him. The feel of a gun barrel at his temple told him instantly that his entry had not gone undetected. As he waited to find out who it was that had gotten guard duty, a slow smirk crossed his lips.

“You’d better have one damn good excuse for being in here asshole, because if you don’t you’re going to wish you had never opened that door.” The end of the barrel pressed more firmly into his skull as he heard Cade’s voice low and growling.

“Seeing as my grandfather is paying your fucking ass, I think I have a good enough excuse to come in if I want. Although how the fuck you all got here is something I’ve got to hear.” Nic’s quiet voice held amusement. It had taken him what seemed like forever to even find a clue where any of them had gone.

“Shit bro, you’re lucky I asked questions first. How the fuck did you find us?” Cade holstered his weapon and moved closer to Nic so that they’re voices wouldn’t wake the other four up.

“Gabe parked his SUV four blocks away. When he stopped answering his phone, I went hunting.” Nic shook his head. “Y’all were fucking hard as hell to find. One female with three bodyguards does make an impression on a desk clerk though.” He chuckled. “Two rooms? Who’s where?”

“Dez is over there. The door is closed because his snoring was about to drive me insane. Alexander, Mel, and Gabe are all over there.” Cade gestured as he talked. He had sobered up an hour or so before and was now annoyingly clear-headed and awake, albeit with a massive headache.

“You know how she got out? And how did you end up here with your SUV at the airport?” Nic looked over at Cade as he leaned his back against the wall.

“Window in your grandfather’s office in the suite, along the ledge to the fire escape that was one room over, then down to the alleyway. Then she just walked until she got to a coffee shop. From there she rented the car and got ahold of Gabe. Gabe texted us. We met up with her at the coffee shop. When she got tired, Dez took the SUV to the airport and got a cab back here with the cash she gave him. We had already transferred all the weapons into the back of her SUV, so it was safe for him to leave it. Then she drove us here. She was the lead the whole time bro, organized the whole damn thing. Did you know she has five false identities?” Cade almost laughed as he talked.

“More than five, and yes I did. Although apparently, grandfather’s men have made some new ones because I couldn’t find a trace of the old ones. I only got the key up here because I scared the desk clerk more than the rest of you did.” Nic answered, pausing for a moment. “I wasn’t here. Understand? Tell none of them. She’s safe, you’re all alive. That’s all I cared about. I’ll keep grandfather off your asses, but you’re going to have to show up eventually. Let me know when you are and I’ll buffer the reception.”

Cade looked over at Nic with a newfound respect. He had expected to get dressed down for going off grid and helping Mel, not that he cared, but he hadn’t expected Nic to cover for their asses. Not that he was going to turn it down. “Never saw ya bro. I gotta ask though….how insane have Ambrose and Klaus gone?” 

“Grandfather is convinced one or more of you are with Mel. This Oglesby though, he’s a major player and violent and vicious. He’d kill Mel if it gave him a tactical advantage with grandfather and Alexander, so I wouldn’t say he’s exactly calm.” Nic looked over in the dim light of the room, the expression on his face clear to Cade. Nic was worried. Ambrose was worried. The main thing was not to let this asshole know that Alexander and Mel were in the same place.

“Klaus is a mess. I don’t know if Gabe told you but he damn near shattered Erik’s jaw. Grandfather had to fly in a medic to at least set it enough for the moment so that he wasn’t in so much pain he couldn’t think. He also broke his cheekbone and gave him a concussion. The doc thinks Erik may have a couple of broken ribs too. That was from less than a half-dozen punches. I think that Erik’s lucky that the blow to the throat didn’t crush his windpipe. Erik is having to use the laptop to type out his answers to questions at the moment. Although threats of letting Klaus back in the room are more effective than anything in getting his cooperation.” He saw Cade’s eyes go wide in the gloom and nodded. “So I think that tells you how he’s doing. He’s no less upset now than he was when he about knocked me and grandfather over to get to Erik. We’ve had to keep Klaus separated from grandfather, they do nothing but butt heads because Klaus is being kept in the hotel and not out looking for Mel. They’re going to end up shooting one another if they’re left alone too long.” Nic sighed. “ That she hasn’t called or contacted him is driving him out of his mind. He’s like a caged lion. So yeah.” Nic shook his head lightly. He felt for the other man, truly he did. There was just nothing that could be done at the moment to make the situation better without pissing off his cousin. Klaus had made his own bed when he hung up on her, he’d just have to lie in it a bit longer.

“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full bro. But hey, you think in the future we could get the short chick to come with us on missions?” Cade tried to lighten the mood. “She’s good; I mean she’s damn good. She put the fear of God in Andreas, she slipped out of a locked room and had you chasing your tail, and she can pull off a cover identity as well as any of us. We could use her.” 

“I take it you want to have Ambrose committed to the lunatic asylum. He would go all kinds of batshit crazy.” Nic laughed. He had to admit, she might have picked up too much over the years from being around him and their grandfather. “Now, before any of them wake up, or I’m out of contact for too long and they start checking up on me…I’m getting my ass out of here. You need anything…ANYTHING…you call ME, no one else.”

“Got it, bro. Be careful, if there could be a target on Mel’s back from this Oglesby, there could be one on yours too. We’ll keep her safe, don’t worry.” Cade nodded once toward Nic. They were friends, more like brothers, and as much as he would guard Mel’s ass, he’d guard Nic’s back as well.

With that Nic slipped out of the room as almost silently as he slipped in. Now he knew that his cousin was safe, it was time to hunt Oglesby.

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[smallgodseries]

[image description: An ornate teacup with painted details around a lovely face floats above its saucer, which in turn floats above a dawn (or is it twilight?) landscape. Stars twinkle in the sky and the light of the golden hour illuminates the background. Rays of light emanate from the cup and light the banderole that spirals up from it. Text reads, “258, Ooh Long Long, the small god of the Perfect Cup of Tea”]

• • • • •

No one truly knows where she began.  China, absolutely.  That part is not contested.  But was she called into life by a healer adding dried leaves to hot water as a medicinal tonic?  Did a brisk wind blow fallen flowers into someone’s water, where they steeped unnoticed for hours?  Was it an accident or an intentional creation?  Whatever her origins, she was a discovery which has shaped human history, uplifted cultures and enabled atrocities.  She’s sorry about that last part.  She always knew she was delicious.  She never expected to be so delicious that people would cross a world to steal her from the places where she rightfully belonged, would use her as the backbone of empire whether she agreed or no.

But she is eternal and immortal, as enduring as the human need for peace and comfort, as familiar as a loved one’s hand, as calming as a childhood lullaby.  She stirs hearts and soothes stomachs, and she is a source of endless arguments, for everyone defines her differently.  Is she plain, water and vegetation and perfect?  Is she made with cream and sugar, or with spices, or using a special pot?  Is she steaming hot or room temperature or pleasantly chilled?

Some people use her as a base for other drinks, hot cocoa made with a base of tea, or as notes in perfume, and she loves those people too.  She is here to enhance lives, to be perfect, to be loved, and she’ll take that love in whatever form it comes.

But she’d really like it if people didn’t try that empire thing again.  That was awful.  Just drink your tea and enjoy the moment, and let the world be.

She’ll be there to hold your hand.