#so now it got me thinking like ??? do I just have anxiety or are you like having second thoughts about me bc like that’s fine too but just.

[moonstruckme]

Hello icon ✨Could we have a poly!wolfstar x reader where she thinks that they are mad at her for something (or they could actually be a bit miffed) and it just a bit of hurt comfort with cuddles and kisses at the end😔🙏🏻

Thank you for requesting <3

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 1.3k words

You’re being weird. 

The three of you are doing a puzzle, which usually captivates your attention but never Sirius’, which is how he’s so very aware of how little attention you’re actually paying to the puzzle. You keep glancing at Sirius, at Remus, like you’re nervous about something. You’ve been like this all day. It’s in and out, sometimes waning like you’ve forgotten to be anything but normal, but Sirius has a keen gauge for tension. He can sense it every time it ticks back up.

You’re pretending to look for sky pieces, though Sirius suspects you forgot what color the sky in your puzzle was a while ago. He feels like you’re building to something, and it makes his skin itch. Remus is too absorbed in his tree bark pieces to notice—the nerd—so it’s up to Sirius to get it out of you. Luckily, James has always said that Sirius is a master of tact. 

“What’s wrong with you?” 

You were halfway to sneaking another glance at him, and you react as though you’ve been struck, jumping a little where you sit on the rug by the coffee table. “What? Nothing.” 

“Well, that was very believable.” Sirius smiles to take some of the bite out of it. “Come on, you have me on the edge of my seat. What’s got you all worked up?” 

“I am not worked up,” you insist, though your expression says otherwise. 

Remus appears confused, but he notices your guilty eyes as well. “What’s happening?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you say again. 

“Clearly something,” Sirius counters. 

Your lips press together, corners downturnt. You’re not looking at either of them.

“Hey.” Sirius softens his voice. “What is it? You’re freaking me out, babe.”  

This only seems to distress you further. “I wanted you not to freak out,” you say.

“Sweetheart, about what?” Now Remus sounds worried too, though the look he gives you is more patient than anything Sirius could ever manage. He ducks his head to catch your gaze. 

After a moment of looking at him, your shoulders droop. “Okay.” Your voice has quieted. “Just a second.” 

Sirius’ anxiety ratchets as you stand, going down the hall towards your room. 

“Why does it feel like she’s going to bring us back a school report?” he murmurs to Remus. 

Remus shakes his head, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. “No idea.” 

When you return, it is with papers, though Sirius doesn’t at first know what they are. 

“This came this morning,” you say in that same resigned voice, laying them down on the coffee table as you sit back down next to Sirius.

With Sirius and Remus on opposite sides they can’t both read the text at once, and Remus picks them up first. Sirius spots you bringing your hand to your mouth and reaches for it silently, drawing it away before you can start chewing your fingernails. Your nervousness is making him nervous. He pushes his thumb up the lines of your palm. 

“Oh,” Remus hums. 

“Remus,” Sirius says, in a tone that clearly communicates if somebody doesn’t start talking I’m going to throw a wobbly. 

“It’s the gas bill,” says Remus. He’s making his old man face, where he leans away slightly and squints like he needs glasses. Ordinarily Sirius would tease him for it, but he’s not in the mood. “Bit high.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say in a small voice. 

Sirius looks at you. Frowning, your hand still trapped in his. “Why are you sorry?” 

“Is this…” One glance at Remus, and it’s clear Sirius is now the one lagging in understanding. “Is this because you left the oven on?” 

Your expression says enough. 

Oh, well. In fairness, Sirius had thrown a bit of a wobbly over that. 

It was weeks ago. You made cookies just before bed. They were warm, gooey, the perfect precursor to sleep and an excellent excuse, in Sirius’ opinion, to trade chocolate-flavored kisses until all three of you were snoozing on your pillows. It hadn’t been until he and Remus were making breakfast the next morning that Remus smelled the gas. You’d come out of the bedroom, confused, to find them throwing open windows and calling the fire department for advice. Your gas oven had been left on all night. 

You felt awful. Your boyfriends gave you an appropriate amount of shit for it, but it was only thoughtless, not malicious. Your apartment hadn’t blown up. The smell drifted away within a few minutes, and in all honesty Sirius was left feeling a bit bad that what began as you trying to make them all happy had resulted in you being so thoroughly chastised. But it had been let go. 

Until now, evidently. 

“I can pay it,” you offer meekly. “The difference, or all of it.” 

Remus sighs, rubbing his brow. “Dove…” 

“Let me see that.” Sirius reaches with the hand not holding yours. Remus gives it to him. He finds the total quickly. “This isn’t even that high.” 

Okay, it’s a bit high. But genuinely, Sirius was expecting worse. 

“It’s my fault,” you mumble. 

“Baby, is this what you’re all wound up about?” Sirius sets the papers down to gawk at you. “Really? I thought something happened.” 

You’re shrinking, your hand tense in his. “Something did happen.” 

“Yeah, a whole month ago!” 

“Sirius,” Remus murmurs, in a tone Sirius knows to mean you’re not helping. He asks you, “Did you think we would be angry with you?” 

Spiderweb cracks spread through your expression. Your mouth wobbles. 

“Oh, you absolute moron.” Sirius grabs for you with both hands, hauling you into his lap. 

“Pads.”

“You ridiculous, sweet idiot.” He kisses your head. Once, twice, three times. “Why’d you have to go and get all worked up? You got me worked up, silly thing.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say weakly. 

“Alright, that’s enough apologizing,” Remus says gently. Underneath the coffee table, a socked foot bumps into Sirius’ leg before presumably finding yours. Sirius grins. Remus is tactile in the oddest ways sometimes. Like a cat. 

He loves you both so very much. God, you really had him going. He feels liable to squeeze the life out of you. 

He satiates the urge by kissing you all over your face until you look significantly less upset. You look at Sirius with tentative relief, the beginnings of a smile curled up in the corner of your mouth. 

He’s about to ask you again how you could be so stupid, but Remus speaks first. Probably for the best. 

“It really won’t be so much more for each of us once we split it,” he says, looking again at the bill. 

That guilty look is back on your face. Sirius gives you a squeeze in hopes of banishing it. “I can get it,” you say. “It wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t been so…if I hadn’t left the oven on.” 

“You don’t need to punish yourself,” Remus tells you. “It’s all right.” 

You fidget. “I feel like you should probably be angrier with me.” 

“We already have been angry with you,” Sirius points out. “We got over it. Time to move on, babe.” 

“It was a mistake.” Remus’ gaze is steady. Knowing. “It was scary, but it happens. You shouldn’t be angry at yourself for us, lovely.” 

You look to be gnawing the inside of your lip. “Are you sure?” you ask. 

Sirius scoffs. “I can be angry without anyone’s help, thank you.” Then, at your wary look, “But I’m not angry about this.” 

Slowly, the tension Sirius has been sensing seeps out of you. You relax in a way you haven’t all day long. 

Remus notices, too. “Sweetheart,” he sighs, in a soft, fond voice. “Talk to us next time, okay?” 

“I know, sorry.” You give him a sheepish look. “I was going to. I just really thought you’d be upset.” 

“Yeah, well.” Sirius kisses your head, sharing an eye roll with Remus. “Shows what you know.”

[chronic-conjuring]

So I was just gunna keep my ranting in the tags but I actually think this is an important thing to say because I needed to hear it before I learned it the hard way.

This is only applicable to some situations and to ignore that can be very damaging. Not everyone is granted the kindness of being allowed to safely ask for what they want or need, and that it’s very often used in abusive relationships as leverage and for psychological abuse.

TW: Vague Descriptions of Psychological Abuse of a Romantic Partner

This is just to give examples and discuss how this was used against me. No graphic descriptions are included, but I hope it might help someone.

I spent a significant amount of time in two relationships that it was absolutely NOT safe for me to ask for what I wanted despite being consistently encouraged and asked to. I was told it was a safe place to do so and I believed them. Unfortunately it usually led to me being gaslit and manipulated, leaving me questioning my reality, and I believe that was the intended effect. I have yet to overcome it after being out of that place for almost a year as I’m writing this.

Oftentimes I’d ask for what I wanted or even needed from my partners and then I’d get deprived of those things whenever I upset them. Usually it felt like they used what little openness I could give about my wants and needs to punish me, playing cruel games where I’d be made to think I’d be prioritized for once. Only to then be overlooked in favor of someone else before I ever got the chance to even feel like a priority, let alone be treated like it. I’d have things I wanted promised to me, and then watched as they were freely given to my other partner while I was forgotten about, and then told I was being treated fairly because they also felt overlooked and unwanted, somehow. That they needed whatever they were getting too. It was often said to me like I was receiving the exact same treatment when I was very obviously not.

In essence, in my personal opinion, I was being trained to not ask for things, to become complacent in my own neglect and believe it was all my fault because I didn’t do enough to provide for their wants. I was made to feel like my anguish was a self inflicted burden, brought on by my own damaging behavior towards them despite doing everything I knew how to not do that. It was often pinned on my actually healthy relationship, using my girlfriend as a scapegoat for their inappropriate and deceitful behavior with each other and with me.

This was insanely damaging to me, especially since I have been struggling to even say what I want let alone ask for it for a long time. Even as I have the safest people to ask for things from now, I still struggle with it. Sometimes to the point of panic or genuine distress. My brain automatically wonders when I’ll have whatever I’ve asked for arbitrarily taken away for some perceived slight, and leaves me dealing with the anxiety that comes from waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite the fact that the people I ask for things from now have literally never done anything close to that and actually have a track record of consistently giving me those things if possible after I state the initial want.

TL/DR: Bottom line is this- using the phrase “the worst thing they can do is say no” only applies when anything else they would try to do doesn’t matter or negatively affect you in any significant way. It’s like saying “what are they gunna do? Fire me?” After putting in your two weeks notice at a shit job. There are many situations where asking for things can be dangerous, and many of us become scared of doing so because it was dangerous at some point in our lives. Often it starts when you’re still a kid and are subject to your parent’s whims.

Just something to think about

not very good at asking for things that I want

[writing-for-marvel]

Right Here, Waiting (2)

Roommate!Bucky Barnes x Curvy!Fem!Reader

< < PART 1

Summary: While out with Bucky’s friends for Sam’s birthday, someone makes a rude comment about your body, leading Bucky to prove just how beautiful he thinks you are.

Prompt: “Hey. Pick on someone your own size.” for @avengers-assemble-bingo’s 108th Birthday Celebration

Warnings: strictly 18+ due to the AU, TRIGGER WARNING internal monologue references reader having issues with weight & eating, a man commenting on readers appearance/body in a negative and unprovoked way, VERY insecure reader, slight angst with belief of unrequited love, idiots in love who finally stop being so oblivious!

Word count: 4.3k

A/N: so I was triple dared by @intrepidacious to write more for these two and who am I to break the sacred rules of triple dares? They do deserve their happy ending 🩵 banners by @vase-of-lilies

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You don’t want to be here. Not really.

Even though you’ve got Nat by your side and you’re essentially invisible as a group of Bucky’s mates celebrate his best friend’s birthday, there’s something about being in a new part of town, and with a group of people you don’t know that well, which makes you feel on edge.

But the reason you came tonight is staring at you with warm, sparkling blue eyes, and a smile that calms the raging nerves in your stomach.

“You having a good time?”

“I am now that you’re here.” You say playfully, and you hear Nat scoff lightly from beside you.

He looks heavenly, as if a statue of a Greek god was animated to life, donning a shirt which perfectly matches the colour of his irises, which shows off his bulging biceps, and just enough length to his perfectly styled hair which makes you want to run your fingers through it.

It really should be a crime to walk around looking so good that he draws the stare of every woman within a ten meter radius, head held high like he knows it too.

But while everyone else has their eyes on him, whispering about how gorgeous he is, Bucky’s looking at you, making your stomach somersault. And then the stunning smile he flashes just for you has you melting into a puddle.

Surely there’s no way he can’t see the effect he has on you, how you become a giggling fool in his presence. But that just serves as a reminder that after three months living together and him not making a move, he is very clearly not interested in you like that.

“I shouldn’t have taken so long to come find you then.” You know he’s only joking, but in reality you and Nat have barely had the time to wish Sam a happy birthday and set yourself up at one of the high top tables. Bucky hasn’t exactly wasted any time in coming to talk to you.

“Well it would have been rude of you not to say hello to the birthday boy first.”

“Ahh I see enough of that punk anyway.” He jests, as if he also doesn’t see you every single day at your shared apartment, but you don’t mention that to him.

You notice Nat walking over by to corner of the room in a group with the man of the hour, not even bothering to announce her departure unlike last weekend at your local bar with her attempt to push you and Bucky together.

Somehow being alone with him now, even though it’s a regular occurrence back in your apartment, fills your stomach with churning anxiety. Perhaps it’s the expectation that Nat believes something will happen between the two of you, even though you’re well aware that’s a physical impossibility.

“Thanks for coming tonight, I know you don’t know Sam all that well yet and would probably prefer to be snuggled under a blanket at home reading, but I want you to meet my friends. And I want them to meet the people who are important to me too.”

The implication that you are a prominent person in Bucky’s life gives life to butterflies in your tummy. Even though you’re sure the intention of his words are that you’ve become good friends while living together, it’s ammunition your mind can use to assemble a pipe dream that you serve a much more significant role in your roommate’s life.

“If they’re important to you, then they’re important to me too.” Silly boy doesn’t know you’d do absolutely anything for him, including facing your social anxiety of meeting new people if it means you get to see him happy.

“Well you’re the most important.”

It’s when he says things like this, accompanied with that earnestly affectionate smile, that hope builds brick by brick in your chest - you don’t say that to someone who’s just a friend, right?

But if he somehow did feel that way about you, ignoring all the reasons why someone as attractive and charming as him could do so much better than you, then why had he not made a move?

You come to the same conclusion you always do when Bucky comes out with these overly sweet statements - he’s referring to you as being very good friends. Roommates who would consider each other family.

Regardless, with this small sentence he’s rendered you utterly speechless, your mouth so dry and brings a ferocious heat to your cheeks that you couldn’t contribute to conversation even if you had to.

There’s a silence which passes between you, not awkward like either of you are waiting for the other to come up with some ridiculous small talk, but content, that even in a room packed with people to speak to you’re happy just being in each other's presence, words aren’t needed.

“Oh, how rude of me, you don’t have a drink - you want your usual?” You had never expected him to buy you a drink, but it warms your heart how considerate he is, that he takes the initiative to make it his priority even when it arguably doesn’t affect him.

“Yes please.” You manage to mutter out.

The cheeky wink he shoots you before heading up to the bar only further contributing to you melting into a puddle on the floor. He could do anything and have you in a trance, but when it’s small, doting actions reserved solely for you like this, that have your heart leaping out of your chest.

“So… when’s the wedding?” Nat comments, sidling up to you, however it doesn’t distract you from watching Bucky walk away, admiring his strapping, muscular back and his ass that looks divine.

It’s when you turn to look at your best friend, a brazen sparkle in her eye, do you miss the way Bucky longingly looks back at you from the bar.

That relentless hope you’re continually trying to shake returns, inflating in your chest when she talks in a way that your romance with Bucky is inevitable, when you spend every waking second actively pulling yourself back to reality on earth from dreaming on cloud nine.

“Nat you know he doesn’t like me like that.” You repeat for what feels like the millionth time.

“I beg to differ, you’d been here less than two minutes before he approached you.” The gleam in her eye has become a familiar one, that screams ‘told you so’, as if this was conclusive evidence.

“He knows we don’t know a lot of people here and just wanted to make sure we felt comfortable. That’s what friends do.” At least that’s what you are telling yourself to help suppress any irrational wish your brain could conjure at the reasoning why Bucky sought you out so quickly after your arrival.

“Well he only asked you didn’t he? It was like I was invisible to him.”

“He just knows me better, that's all, we do live together you know.” Is how you justify his behaviour, but you can tell Nat isn’t having a bar of it with the cynical look she shoots at you.

“You keep telling yourself that sweetie. That boy has it bad for you, but you silly kids will work it out eventually.” She says with a certainty that puzzles you, as if there is no question that you and Bucky are destined to end up together. She flashes a quick smile before affectionately patting your hand and making her way up to the bar.

There’s a moment where you’re left alone, pondering Nat’s words and if there is any truth to them - your best friend is honest to a fault, and isn’t the type to blatantly lie to you to spare your feelings. Perhaps there’s something she can see that you can’t, or won’t let yourself notice.

The buoyant hope you always try pushing down floats in your stomach and for once you revel in the small possibility that perhaps you’ve been wrong all along about Bucky. As unlikely as it is, maybe your feelings aren’t completely unrequited.

You feel someone next to you before you hear them speak, a voice that is unfamiliar and which sends a tense vexation shivering down your spine.

“That little redhead friend of yours is gorgeous, think you could introduce me?” It’s not the first time a stranger has approached you interested in Nat. She’s beautiful, slim and wears dresses that flaunt her toned figure, but it nevertheless causes an ache deep in your chest that you're never the person the man approaching you is attracted to.

Just once it would be nice to be the woman they notice, the one lusted after.

“She’s not interested.” You don’t even have to look at the man to know Nat wouldn’t be interested in someone who didn’t have the guts to approach her directly.

You hope that response is enough to send the man on his way, but your experience tells you men with an ego the size of a Mount Everest don’t give up so easily when they have a gorgeous woman in their sights.

“C’mon, don’t be butt hurt that no one’s interested in you. Attractive people deserve other attractive people.”

His words, laced with so much spite, feel like a kick to the teeth. Even though he’s a nobody, someone who will disappear into the masses that make up this enormous city, it’s just another reminder that not a single person in this populous metropolis wants you, in particular the one person who owns your heart and sleeps in the next room.

“You really think that’s gonna make me more likely to help you out?” You turn to finally look at the man, and as attractive as he is, there is a pretentious air to him, a conceited smirk you’d love to smack off his face. It’s a face of a man that has never been told ‘no’ before in his life. “Fuck off.”

“Don’t be a bitter bitch about it.”

Without you realising, Bucky had noticed you looking uncomfortable in conversation with this repulsive man, and stalked across the entire length of the room, forgetting about your drinks at the bar, to come to your aid.

“Hey mate, how about you pick on someone your own size huh?” Bucky looks dauntingly large as he steps up to face the man, at least a head taller than him with broad shoulders that make the other guy look like a lanky schoolboy in comparison.

In contrast to how intimidating Bucky looks, his touch is gentle as he herds you behind him protectively.

“Why? Because the whore is so much bigger than everyone else here.”

His mocking tone cuts through you like a sword, hollowing out your insides. You sense all eyes in the room turn to you, and you shrivel into yourself in juxtaposition to how Bucky shines when the centre of attention.

It feels like the air in the room has been suctioned out, your lungs and throat burning from the absence of oxygen, or maybe it’s just your lack of will to take a breath, wanting the world to engulf you and your existence to end right here.

It’s hard enough to live with the understanding of how much bigger you are than every other person in the room when it is etched into your frontal lobe so that you are reminded of it every passing second, but for someone else to actually express that notion aloud, for all the terrible thoughts you believe about yourself to be confirmed by a stranger who only needs to have seen you once in your life to recognise this about you, is enough for you to start decaying from the inside out.

It’s not just you who thinks that, now every single person in the bar is fully aware of how much physical space you’re taking up, how much weight you carry on your distinctly pudgy stomach, around your jawline which is soft unlike Bucky’s sharp mandible, how your thighs rub together when you walk, not having a gap between them as Nat does.

“What the fuck did you just say?” You barely recognise the voice as Bucky’s, he practically growls at the man, picking him up by the shirt front and slamming him into the wall behind you.

Bucky’s positive he’s never had rage flow through his veins like this before, never genuinely wanted to snap someone’s neck and step over their lifeless body until this very second. Anyone who hurts you deserves an even worse fate than that.

The bastard then has the gall to mumble out ‘it was just a joke’ as he raises his hands in defence, as if he wasn’t the piece of shit to provoke this entire confrontation.

“I dare you to say that again and see where it gets you.” Bucky longs to punch his fist through this man’s nose, the only reason currently stopping him is a potential assault charge, but then he hears you sniffling behind him and he wants to throw caution to the wind.

“Barnes, you need to go after her.” Natasha implores, interrupting the intense staring match between the two men and saving Bucky from spending the night in a jail cell. The mention of you is the only distraction which spares this man’s face from being rearranged.

Bucky practically throws the guy on the ground, searching for you in the sea of patrons staring at the commotion, before chasing after you as if his life depends on it - because it does, you are the reason his heart beats just that little bit quicker every morning at the prospect of seeing you curled up in your armchair, having fallen asleep reading one of your books and him needing to gently wake you from your slumber; you are the reason he stops off at the store on his way home from work and spends half an hour at the grocery store most days, to ensure the pantry is fully stocked with your favourite snacks; you are the reason he has not brought a single woman back to his apartment since moving in, no one on the face of this earth could could make him feel the way you do, turn him on naked in his bed how you do dancing around the kitchen in your pyjamas.

He loves you. And his whole world is crashing down around him knowing you’re in any type of pain.

“Sunrise, please.” You're not sure what he’s pleading for exactly, but he doesn’t ask again once you stop scurrying out of the bar. He reaches for you when the fresh air outside hits your face with a crispness that makes your tears sting more than they had inside, tugging on your shoulder for you to turn around and face him.

The completely shattered way you look back at him, with teary eyes that are usually so full of wonder and vivacity, shreds Bucky’s heart into so many pieces he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to put it back together again.

He’s going to kill that man for making you feel like a fragment of the beautiful person he has come to adore.

Unintelligible words fall from your lips but you don’t have the brain capacity to articulate yourself better when your mind is rerouting all your thoughts to one central nucleus - how disgustingly large you are.

Typically you’d be mortified about Bucky seeing you in such a distressed state, because not only are you huge, you must also look revoltingly unattractive with tears flowing down your cheeks, ruining your makeup, and snot dripping from your nose.

But you know Bucky’s arms, the embrace of the man you love, is also the only cure for the malignant disease which has now infected your mind, so you put up no defence to him pulling you in for a secure, reassuring hug.

Bucky’s chest, smelling strongly of cinnamon, is the safest place you’ve ever known. Even though you’re still consumed by what was said back inside the bar, Bucky holds you so tightly that you have no doubt that he will comfort you through the worst of it without him needing to say so.

It’s a blur of tears, head throbbing, chest aching and Bucky’s soft yet vigilant hands as you make your way home. He leads you into a cab, buckling your seatbelt for you, him taking the middle seat so you can rest your head on his shoulder, his calloused hand resting on your thigh, soothingly rubbing gentle circles with his thumb over your soft skin.

Not a single word is spoken on your journey, comfortable with the solace his presence brings you, and finally feeling secure being miles away from the environment that led you to feeling as giant as an elephant trapped in a zoo enclosure with mice.

Bucky’s fingers interlace with yours as he leads you up to your apartment, the feel of his large hand engulfing yours eases the feeling of taking up too much space in the world. Even though you’re much wider than him in size, there are parts of your tall roommate that somehow miraculously still make you feel smaller than him.

His keys get thrown on the hall table with a clang. The familiar environment brings you peace, even if Bucky holding your hand is a new sensation which has nervousness prickling your stomach.

He sits on your couch, the one you’ve sat on many a lonely night before you even knew Bucky, his arms outstretched in a way which asks you to curl up on him in a hug.

“No, Bucky I’ll crush you.”

His heart cleaves in two with just how defeated your small voice is. It physically hurts him that you think of yourself like that and not as the most beautiful, voluptuous goddess that he knows you are.

“You’re not gonna crush me. Now c’mere.” His voice is soft but his hands are unyielding as he practically picks you up and deposits you in his lap, not taking no for an answer.

His strong arms snake around you, large hands resting on a pocket of fat on your waist that has always plagued your insecurities, but Bucky holds you tenderly, almost lovingly, and the self doubt slips from your mind and all you can focus on is how close you are to him.

“You’re so beautiful.” He whispers with a kiss to your temple. It almost sounds like he actually believes it - but your mind simply cannot accept that as fact, especially not after the humiliation surging through you from the strangers taunt earlier.

“Bucky, you don’t have to lie.”

“Sunrise, I’m not lying.” He retorts almost instantly, not wanting to allow any time for doubt to creep into your mind.

“You’re my roommate, you can’t very well call me an ugly pig, which is exactly what I am.”

Bucky so badly wants you to be able to see yourself the way he sees you, how vibrant his life becomes when you so much as walk into a room, how all his anxieties fade to nonexistence when you smile at him.

How you are everything he has ever dreamed of.

You sleep one very thin wall away, and all he can ever think of as he falls asleep on his own every night is if you are in the next room thinking of him too, wishing that your dreams will be consumed by him as his are by you.

“Stop. Please stop putting yourself down. You are gorgeous, stunning, and so much more than just my roommate.” He says sincerely, wiping away a stray tear as it trickles over the apple of your cheek. “You are my Sunrise, the stunning star at the centre of my universe that lights up my entire life.”

Never in a million years did you imagine these words coming out of Bucky Barnes’ mouth. You stare at him, jaw slack in utter shock, waiting for the moment where he takes it all back or to clarify that you’ve misinterpreted the intention and in fact he really means that you’re good friends, just very good friends.

This must be your hopeful heart overreacting after such an upsetting day, because surely he cannot actually think of you as more than that.

“It hurts me that you can’t see how impossibly beautiful you are, how you’re the most stunning woman everywhere you go, how I can’t take my eyes off you even for a minute whether it’s lazing around here in your pyjamas or all dolled up for a night out. You will always be the most beautiful woman in any room to me.”

Your chest feels like it’s about to explode any second with how much warmth is ballooning in your lungs. This isn’t happening. Surely you bumped your head getting out of the cab and this is all just a dream your mind has concocted to heal from the anguish sustained earlier.

“You can’t possibly mean that.” You shake your head, attempting to pull yourself out of the hallucination your brain is composing.

Bucky's eyes flit down to your lips, slightly chapped and dehydrated from crying your eyes out, but when they return to your gaze again, there’s a palpable desperation which quivers in his pupils.

“My whole fucking world comes to a standstill when you enter a room and like a magnet I can’t help but be drawn to you. You make my heart beat out of my chest just by smiling at me. There is not a day where I don’t wish to be back home here with you, where it’s just the two of us and the world outside holds no consequence because you’re all I’ve ever needed, all I’ve ever wanted. Can you really not see how powerful the hold you have over me is?”

There should be no doubt, given his confession, how much significance you have in Bucky’s heart, and yet you’re in disbelief, utter shock, unable to truly comprehend why he cares for you in such a way, when there are so many other women who are hotter, skinnier, funnier than you.

If this was written in one of the thousands of romance novels you’ve read, you wouldn’t hesitate to believe how much love the protagonists have for one another, but because it’s happening to you, that you are the heroine of this story, your mind is conditioned to reject the premise altogether.

“Bucky…” You mumble, your mind is spinning too much to form a coherent thought, let alone articulating just how consequential your feelings for the man whose lap you're sitting in are.

“Even if you don’t feel the same way, I need you to know how beautiful you are to me.” And that’s when your brain kicks into gear - you cannot stand any insinuation that your feelings for your roommate are simply platonic, and not the all consuming, devoted love that fills your heart with as much sunshine as on a cloudless summer day.

Especially not after his admission.

“Not feel the same? Bucky, I’ve been in love with you since you mov-”

At the mention of the word ‘love’ Bucky pulls your face close with a hand on either side of your face, and kisses you so forcefully the rest of your sentence is muffled and completely forgotten about.

You haven’t kissed someone in such a long time, and your stomach prickles with nerves as you frantically try remembering the movements you’re meant to make with your lips, where your tongue should be, that you should close your eyes. But as long as it has been, you’re sure the sparks you feel as his warm lips caress yours is because it is James Barnes kissing you, and not just anyone.

He smells and tastes divine, like sweet honey and sharp cinnamon, his lips soft as pillows that move hungrily against yours, like he can’t get enough of you either, and when he moans into your mouth you swear you see the gates of heaven.

When his tongue slips into your mouth, the realisation hits you square in the chest that you’re kissing your Bucky, the man who sleeps in the adjacent room, who cooks you breakfast shirtless in your kitchen, who always thinks to bring home your favourite food after a long day at work where he could arguably only want to think about himself.

The man you love. And who reciprocates that ardent feeling.

The awareness that it’s him knocks all the breath from your lungs and you need to come up for air much sooner than you would have liked, but Bucky gazes up at you with that familiar warmth that you never would have believed was something more than just friendship, but now seems like it was the clue all along that the two of you were never just roommates.

“You love me, huh?” He says in such a playfully taunting tone that makes you smile.

“Yeah… but I’m your Sunrise aren’t I?”

“That you are. My beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. Sexy. Perfect Sunrise.” Bucky places sweet kisses to your lips between each adjective, each one lasting a little longer than the previous. “I love you too.”

Maybe you can’t understand why Bucky feels this way about you when there are far more attractive people in the world. But maybe that doesn’t matter.

Perhaps your love for him is part of what makes you the most beautiful person in the world in his eyes, the way his love for you is why you find him the most alluring man you have ever met. And that will forever be enough for you.

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[cacoetheswriting]

girl you have that really angsty Eddie fic where he gets hooked on things he shouldn't and it ruins his relationship with reader - please please please write some more Eddie angst, BEGGING

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader [modern day au] word count: 5k

summary: a weekend gateway to with your old high school friends? sounds like a dream! only it’s not really as it’s been three years since you last saw them. three years since you left hawkins without so much as a goodbye, and certain people tend to hold grudges.

content warnings: heavily unedited (sorry): angsty angst, mature themes & adult language, mentions & descriptions of underage alcohol consumption / substance abuse, anxiety / panic attacks, emotional hurt / no comfort, unrequited (sorta) love, some mutual pining, love triangle?, eddie is a bit of an asshole, also touches on topics of: divorce, death, grief — pls let me know if i missed any!

Parking your car at the desired destination, you glance out the half-opened window and note how the weather is far from ideal for the planned activities. 

It’s cold. Cold enough to make anyone's atoms shiver. Dark grey clouds cover every inch of the sky above, hiding the beautiful autumn sun. The air is brisk. It’s harsh against your skin as you eventually get out of the red Jeep and the unwelcoming breeze that follows makes you wish that you had packed warmer clothes for this weekend.

Jesus, you think, as if this trip wasn’t going to be hard enough.

When your feet hit the gravel below, you exhale, wondering whether it’s too late to change your mind about agreeing to come. Since the weather was seemingly against you, what’s to say the universe wasn’t going to continue ruining this weekend? But before you get a chance to decide what your next move is going to be, the door of the lake house swings open and Nancy runs out, arms spread wide as she squeals with excitement.

“I can’t believe you actually came!”

The hug she gives you is strong, almost full force. It takes you a second to register that one second she was running out of the house, and the next, her arms are wrapped tightly around you as if no time has passed between now and when you last saw her. Therefore, it takes you a second to hug her back, but when you do, a small smile circles your lips. Familiarity. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

“Of course I came,” you say as she draws back, “You know me, Nance, always down for a good time.”

Nancy laughs. “Oh, I remember.”

Then her smile falters just as fast as it appears and you know exactly which memory crosses her mind because your own thoughts wander back to that moment too, along with the people involved.

“Sorry, my joke was in poor taste. If you can even call that a joke.” You admit with a lighthearted huff.

“No, no.” Nancy shakes her head, but even with the years that have passed since you last saw each other in person, you know the look in her eye is one of concern.

You think to try and ease at least some of her worry since she did go through all the trouble to organise this weekend for your high school group to get together and the last thing you’d want is for her to second-guess ever inviting you.

“I- uh… I actually don’t really drink anymore.”

Her facial expression shifts to one of surprise, though she doesn’t say anything which would demonstrate that. Instead, she smiles again.

“Good for you,” the tone of her voice conveys pride and you’re grateful.

“Thanks, Nance.”

One day you’ll tell her about the road that led you to sobriety, but today’s not that day.

Today is about reintroducing yourself to the friends that have helped you get through four hellish years that were called ‘high school’. The people that were there for you through the good and the ugly; which got real fucking ugly sometimes. The group that most often than not was your literal lifeline. 

Nancy, your best friend. Robin, your sidekick. Jonathan, your unlicensed therapist. Steve, your partner in crime. And Eddie…

You haven’t seen any of them since graduation.

Three years of virtually no contact.

Sure, it made you wonder why you were even invited to this weekend getaway in the first place, but Nancy was always like a sister so you knew her motives were definitely not malicious.

“Let me help you with your bags,” the brunette girl offers and before you get a chance to decline, say you’ve got them on your own since you really didn’t bring much with you, she’s at the boot of your car.

While Nancy fills you in on the plans she’s made for everyone, the various activities she’s organised for the days ahead, the two of you gather your belongings before making your way towards the big house. 

Apparently everyone is already here.

Nancy, Jonathan, and someone called Argyle (a new addition to the group, undoubtedly a breath of fresh air following your departure), got here last night. Steve, Robin, and Eddie arrived this morning.

“But the boys went to the shop to get all the groceries we need for this weekend, so right now it’s just me and Robin.” Nancy explains, fingers wrapping around the door handle. It’s her way of saying not to be nervous, he wasn’t here right now, and with that your shoulders relax in relief.

The inside of the house is even more impressive than its exterior. High ceilings, all wooden floors, and decor that undoubtedly cost more than anything you own or could actually afford. In the living area, there’s paintings on the walls that depict the home during construction, then in its full glory, as it stands now. Various knick-knacks fill the shelving, and the bookcase at the back of the room is filled top to bottom with stories you’ve never even heard of.

You allow yourself to continue into the kitchen, which looks like a piece out of Architectural Digest. Modern touches to the original design, upgraded appliances that look like they’ve never been used. There’s a large dining table in the back of the space, already set for dinner. The windows behind it offer a perfect view of the lake and as you look at the water; peace. For a split-second, you let yourself really think that coming wasn’t a bad idea after all.

“Jesus, Nance, how the hell did you find this place?” You ask in awe once the girl stands beside you.

“Argyle has this aunt who’s an avid Airbnb user. Honestly, when he first showed me the pictures, I thought he was out of it, like he usually is, but here we are...”

You don’t get to tell her how beautiful you think it is ‘cause there’s a high-pitch screech that startles you, and within seconds, someone’s arms wrap around your frame, swaying you from side to side.

“When Wheeler told me you agreed to come, I swear I thought she was bluffing!”

Robin drops her arms, allowing you to turn in your spot and face her. The grin on her face is wide, complimenting her new haircut, which is about the only thing that’s changed in her physical appearance over the last three years.

She playfully smacks your arm. You do the same to her. It’s reminiscent of a handshake, an acknowledgment that despite the years of only sending and receiving generic birthday texts, you guys were still as close as ever.

“Long time no see, Buckley. Loving the new look.” You point to her long bleached locks.

“Yeah? I was going for that badass lesbian vibe. What Daenerys should’ve been.”

You chuckle. “Well, I’d say mission accomplished.”

“Thanks,” Robin smirks then takes the duffle out of your grasp and turns to Nancy, asking to lead the way to the room that’s been assigned to you.

Up the stairs and down the long hallway, the girls point to the shared bathroom, but Nancy says your room actually has an en-suite. Then she outlines which door leads to whose bedroom — Eddie’s is first up the stairs and you wonder whose choice it was to deliberately keep you two away — before stopping at the last door and pushing it open to reveal your safe space for this weekend.

First thought that crosses your mind is how this one bedroom is bigger than your entire apartment. The bed alone would probably not fit in your current home. Second thought is how you have the same view as in the kitchen, only higher up, and you thank Nancy for assigning you this room for that reason alone.

“It’s no big deal,” she replies with a shrug, “You had the longest trip out here, only fair you get the best room, so you can properly rewind.” 

“As the organiser, you should have the nicest room,” you counter, but Nance just waves her hand, dismissing what was going to be an offer to swap.

She proceeds to place the bag she was holding at the foot of the bed.

“Get settled in and we’ll start on food once the guys return.”

“You should have enough time to shower, if you want,” Robin chimes in, also dropping the duffel she carried up for you, “Knowing the four of them, they’re still trying to locate the gluten free sticker on the pasta Nance asked for.”

“Rob,” Nancy snorts.

The blonde shrugs. “You know it’s true! Those idiots can’t fucking read.”

They leave you shortly after, telling you to take your time to clean up and change into something more comfortable. 

When the door shuts with a soft thud, you exhale a breath you didn’t even realise you were holding. It’s all okay, it’s all okay, it’s all okay, you repeat to yourself silently, and although you feel a little calmer than when you first arrived, there is still tension in your neck. There’s only one reason for that. One that isn’t here right now, but is bound to arrive at any point in the next hour.

‘arrived safe & sound. still feeling a little nauseous about this whole thing, but I’m taking your advice.. keep positive.’ - The text to your mom sends with a whooshing sound as you throw your phone on the large bed.

You glance around the room again, taking in the decor as a distraction to the anxiety bubbling in your chest. The furnishings are similar to the rest of the house, classy with a modern twist. Peaceful colours that perfectly compliment the wooden fixtures, and the birds chirping melodically outside the open window only add to the serenity. It’s really one of the nicest places you’ve ever stayed in and you take a mental note to send Nancy a bouquet of flowers when you get home, as a thank you.

When you step under the shower, you’re even more grateful. 

Back in your own apartment, you’re not guaranteed warm water, having to often make a choice between rinsing off the hectic day or cleaning the dishes so there’s something to eat off. It’s the life you chose, so you really can’t complain, but standing here in silence as the hot droplets wash over your skin, you think maybe you chose wrong. Then you think how fucking selfish that is of you since there’s a clear list of reasons why, aside from the comfort of a scolding shower, the choices you made three years ago where far from good.

Leaving without saying goodbye to everyone, for one. No explanations, no notes.

Only Nancy knew of your plan. After all, she was the one that talked you into leaving. 

The final nail in the coffin — so to speak — was her opinion on the literal shitshow that the final months of your high school career had become. And when she sat you down, the afternoon before graduation, she made it clear how she was worried about you and perhaps it was for the best to get away from Hawkins. Leave everything and everyone behind, allowing yourself time to heal and get your head straight.

You had only planned to be gone that one summer. But things never go to plan, especially for you.

Three months turned into four, then six, and before you knew it, a year had passed since your departure. Some of the group had tried to reach out at various points during that time, but you didn’t engage — only replied to Nancy the odd time, and texted Robin the mentioned before birthday wishes. 

The one person you really wished checked in on you, was the only person that didn’t. Not like you could blame him. You broke his fucking heart.

It wasn’t entirely a secret that Eddie Munson had a big fat crush on you.

He wouldn’t call it love at first sight, but it was pretty damn close — as you later found out from Robin. Later. Too late. She then went on to say, when the rocker first laid eyes on you, standing at Nancy’s locker and laughing at something she’d said moments prior, Eddie’s heart skipped a beat. Then two. The metalhead thought you were perhaps the most gorgeous girl to ever walk down the halls of Hawkins High, although he never said it out loud. 

(Not to you anyway.)

Things changed however, when you started dating Billy Hargrove. 

That boy was a bad influence for sure, even more than Eddie’s wild antics, but at that point in your life, you saw the world through rose-coloured glasses and turned a blind eye to Billy’s shitty behaviour.

Your first drink was provided to you by the scruffy blonde.

The first time you blacked out was after his funeral.

Earth shattering, his sudden death. Having lost the first love you’ve ever had, you didn’t know what to do with yourself. You didn’t know how to cope. By the time your senior year came around, and Eddie’s third attempt at graduation, your life only continued to spiral out of control.

Your parents announced their divorce. It was apparently no one’s fault — irreconcilable differences — but their break up meant the house you’d grown up in was being put up for sale and you suddenly had to choose who you wanted to live with. 

Being an only child never brought with it any pressures, until now. Your father was moving cross country. Relocating with his job, who no longer needed him at their Indianapolis location, preferred he run the new branch in Las Vegas. Your mother was also venturing outside Hawkins, just not as far. She apparently found this cute place in Fort Wayne and was already in talks with a local school there for a part-time teaching position.

The Wheelers took you in following a conversation between Karen and your mom about how you shouldn’t be finishing your high school education someplace new, so this solved one problem.

But being away from your support system unfortunately made you feel increasingly isolated. Your parents had this “open door” policy that you didn’t realise you needed until it was no longer readily available. Phone calls and texts just weren’t the same.

This time in your life proved how difficult it was to pretend you were genuinely happy.

Eddie was the first to notice the subtle change in your attitude. He’d often ask what was bothering you, but you’d always tell him nothing, so he eventually learned to stop and simply tried to distract you with his usual antics.

You hated him for it. You hated how he just knew how you were feeling. How he could sense those deep and inner thoughts you were trying to hide. And you hated now he would try to make you feel better when all you really wanted was for the sad feelings to swallow you whole.

Without proper supervision, your after school activities also shifted into ones that would fill the emptiness you were constantly feeling. You were always quite outgoing, always the first one to say yes when someone mentioned a party, but the months between December and April unlocked a new version of you. One not many people in your friend group were particularly a fan of, though all too afraid of saying something.

It all came crashing down the night of Chrissy Cunningham’s farewell party. A few days before graduation, she invited the entire senior year to her parents’ lavish home for a get together that her dickhead boyfriend called: Project X 2.0. 

You asked Steve to come with you — much to Eddie’s dismay.

In the end, Carver got his wish. The party was indeed memorable for all the wrong reasons and the endless list of mistakes you made that night, in your inebriated state, was precisely why you left Hawkins in a hurry.

Las Vegas turned out to not be so bad.

There were a few bumps in the road upon your first arrival. A few too many drunken nights, drunken fights, and drunken one night stands. But once your dad acknowledged your reckless behaviour was becoming a serious problem, things got a little easier. Therapy helped. 

A year and a half later, there was only one thing that made you want to reach for a drink to flush the hard work down the drain: Eddie Munson and how you treated him at that party, what you put him through that night.

In retrospect, you should’ve been the one to reach out to him. At least a call to say I’m sorry for the things I did and said. No time just felt like the right time and then, when Chrissy posted a picture of herself sitting happily in Eddie’s lap, it seemed a little too late.

Did it hurt to see him move on from the crush he had on you? Yes. 

Again, you couldn’t blame him for doing so.

-

“How was your shower?” Nancy asks when you come back downstairs.

She’s sitting on one of the sofas, a cotton blanket covering her legs. Robin is next to her, fingers working the keyboard of her phone, and looks up following Nancy’s question.

“No offence, but you look a lot better than when you first arrived.” 

The comment earns Buckley a good nudge to the rib cage by the brunette beside her. 

“Ow! Jesus Christ, Nance—”

“We talked about this,” Nancy interrupts, narrowing her eyes at the girl.

“It was a simple observation,” Robin defends, “I’m sure she’s fucking nervous to be here, rightfully so—”

“Robin!”

“It’s okay,” you chime in and the girls simultaneously turn to look at you once again. “Buckley’s right. I am nervous.”

Both their expressions simultaneously turn to one of sympathy. You plaster on the best smile you can muster before making yourself comfortable in an armchair by the open window, feeling their gaze follow your every move. You want to tell them to stop, tell them that the nerves will pass so it’s no big deal, but they’d see right through you. The topic of you, Eddie, and that horrendous high school party will haunt this group like a ghost, lingering in the background even if it’s addressed — which you’re going to have to do very soon. That’s why you came.

“He asks about you all the time,” Nancy says after a long pause, “What’s she doing? Is she working, studying?”

“Is she seeing anyone?” Robin adds.

“Is she happy…”

The ache in your chest increases with every spoken word, fueled by the guilt you carried every single day for the last three years. Somehow knowing now that Eddie asked about you was worse than thinking he’s moved on because, selfishly, if he was happy, then it wasn’t all bad. If he was happy, then the harsh truths you drunkenly sputtered in his direction weren’t a cruel thing to do, they weren’t as vile as you remembered them to be. If he was happy, then what you did after wasn’t a complete betrayal.

“I-I never meant to hurt him,” you finally whisper, forcing down the tears that threaten to break. “I never meant to hurt any of you.”

The girls both offer you a smile.

“We know,” Nancy reassures, “That’s why we thought it’d be a good idea to invite you this weekend. What happened three years ago is so minor in terms of the rest of our lives, it’s time we all move past it.”

Nancy, the peacemaker.

“Plus I’m planning a trip to Vegas for my birthday and I need your help with organising,” Robin chips in, her smile shifting into a grin. “You wouldn’t have answered my call, but now there’s no escape.”

Robin, the girl that can always get you to laugh.

The chuckle that escapes your lips is genuine. For a split second, your nerves are eased and you’re transported back to the basement of your childhood home where the three of you spent hours planning your futures while flicking through trashy magazines in accompaniment to old hits blaring through the docking station your dad’s iPod was connected to. 

Back then, turning twenty-one seemed like a distant dream. 

So you proceed to reassure the blonde you are going to get her name on the list of some of the best clubs Vegas has and she squeals, jumping up to squeeze you with excitement, and telling you how Vickie, her girlfriend, was going to lose her shit over this, then she disappears into the kitchen, presumably to call Vickie with the news.

“You just made her day,” Nancy says, smiling kindly.

“I’m glad I could do at least that,” you reply, then add, “I’m happy to be here. Thank you for thinking of me, Nance.”

Whatever Nancy is about to say next is interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel. The engine is shut shortly after your head snaps in the direction of the entryway, a large gulp forming in the back of your throat.

The next few minutes pass at an agonisingly slow pace. You think you hear Nancy call out your name, but your focus is on the door alone, waiting for it to open, waiting for him to come inside. You’re anticipating his reaction to seeing you after all this time, wondering if he’d even acknowledge your presence or skip straight to the kitchen with the acquired groceries.

From a recent post on Instagram, you know what he looks like. Really good, if anybody asked. You were careful not to like it despite your finger hovering over the image for a few seconds too long. Then you were careful not to like any other picture as you scrolled through his profile until you reached the very end: a post of the two of you at a Halloween party your junior year, the night you finally talked him into creating an account. 

Thanks to the light stalking, you also know him and Chrissy broke up a few weeks ago. He seemingly deleted any trace of the preppy blonde from his profile, she did the same with him, and you couldn’t deny the stinge of satisfaction that cursed through your veins upon that revelation.

When the doorknob rattles, you hop on your feet.

There’s no going back now. You prepared yourself for this moment ever since you accepted Nancy’s invitation. Time to face the music.

Jonathan walks in first. He greets Nancy with a kiss before offloading the twelve-pack of beers onto the floor and turning his attention to you. His smile is big and you’re feeling a little less nervous when he pulls you into a silent hug. When he pulls back, he pats you on the shoulder, then picks up the box he’s after placing on the floor and walks in the direction of the kitchen.

The guy that introduces himself as Argyle is next. Heavy lidded, he’s holding an open bag of Doritos and jokes about how he’d also give you a hug but he doesn’t trust himself with the orange residue on his fingers.

“White t-shirts are the devil, man,” he draws out the last syllable and flops onto the couch next to Nancy, offering her a corn triangle. When she politely declines, he just shrugs and throws it in the air, only to not catch it with his mouth, the piece falling onto the wooden floor.

With your gaze now focused on the chip, a single step away from you, Nancy scolds Argyle to not do that again. In the midst of this small ordeal, you don’t hear your name being said. Only when a white Nike sneaker appears in your field of vision, stepping on the Dorito and smashing it to pieces, you look up at the person addressing you.

Steve’s expression is full of emotion, but he doesn’t move from the spot he’s found himself in. He doesn’t attempt to hug you or reach out for you like the others did, only staring into your eyes as if he was mesmerised by the fact you were actually here.

“Shit– I mean…”

“Yeah…”

That’s all that you can say right now because it’s not yet the time to address what also went down between the two of you at the infamous party. Steve seems to be on the same page as you, opting instead to finally take that step forward and hesitantly wrap his strong arms around your frame.

The hug is awkward at first, but when you nuzzle your head into the crook of his neck as if no time has passed, exhaling softly when your hands make home on his back, the boy relaxes and his grip on you tightens ever so slightly. He whispers, “I missed you, sweetheart.”, into your ear and you instantly return the sentiment because it’s true, you missed him terribly. More than you cared to admit to yourself before this very moment.

For a few seconds, you forget where you are. Inhaling the scent of Steve’s aftershave and revelling in the way his arms perfectly folded around you, making you feel safe. For a few seconds, you feel at peace. For a few simple seconds, you forget about the person you’re still to see. The person that most likely wouldn’t be as open to seeing you again, especially now that you were in Steve’s arms.

The door shuts with a tame bang, a distinctive sound of runners tapping against the wooden floor, Nancy says your name as Robin calls out for Steve, you think you hear Argyle murmuring “Ohhh shit, dude”, then someone clears their throat and you finally open your eyes, which seemingly have closed moments prior.

Your throat dries.

There, leaning against the archway with his hands hidden in the pockets of his dark denim jeans is the boy who was once your friend, if not more.

Unlike Steve, Eddie stares at you with a blank look in his eyes, devoid of any real emotion. The emptiness behind the mahogany sends a shiver down your spine and you’re suddenly hyper aware of the position he has once again found you in.

Freeing yourself from Steve’s grasp, you hold your arms close to your chest for protection. He places a hand on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, before motioning for Argyle to follow him out of the room, where Nancy and the rest of the group just disappeared — leaving you alone with Eddie.

Neither of you says anything for what feels like an eternity.

You’re afraid to blink, just in case he disappears during the brief second your eyes close. Truthfully, he has every right to do so. Rush upstairs and slam his bedroom door shut as you remain right where he left you, forever haunted by the choices you made three years ago.

No, no. 

There’s a reason you came and that’s to say you’re sorry.

Before you get a chance to break the silence, Eddie scoffs under his breath, dipping his head while running a hand through his brown locks. His hand remains at the back of his neck when he looks up at you again, a stupid smirk now plastered across his face.

“So, you and Harrington seem close as ever.”

Not the first words you expected to come out of his mouth, but given the situation he’s just encountered, they’re not surprising.

You nervously clear your throat, hugging yourself tighter.

“Uhm… No, we were just—”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts, his words cold yet the tone of his voice deceives him just a little. Also, if he actually didn’t care, then why make a sly comment in the first place?

But you don’t get to point that out, firstly ‘cause you’re still building up the courage to speak, and secondly because he’s quicker to continue with making his opinion known.

“Obviously you’ve always done whatever the fuck you wanted. Whoever you wanted.”

Ouch.

“Eddie, I-I…” you sigh quietly,  “We were just hugging. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Eddie scoffs. “Cute.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t be condescending.” You shake your head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“‘Cause I missed all of you, plus Nancy invited me and I-I wanted to take this trip to apologise. Explain myself.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“Well as far as I’m concerned, you can keep your apology,” he states sternly, standing up straight and taking a step in your direction. “Clearly the rest of them are right back to licking your ass, just like they did in high school. Entertaining your shitty behaviour, but I’m not interested.”

His words hurt. It feels like tiny nails are being hammered into your heart and you’re helpless to stop it.

“I don’t care for you and I don’t want to be around you. Since we’re stuck here, just refrain from jumping on Harrington at every chance you get. It’s fucking desperate behaviour.”

Tears burn down your cheeks slowly. They blur your vision and make you look like a giant fucking fool, even bigger than you already are. Eddie doesn’t owe you anything, you know that. Yet here you stand, silently crying over his animosity.

Nancy's words ring in your ears, “he asks about you, he asks if you’re happy.”. What a load of bullshit. He clearly doesn’t give a shit.

“I’ll make sure to stay out of your way then,” is all you manage to blurt out, wiping the wet droplets with the back of your hand.

Pushing past him, making a point to shove his shoulder with a little force, you hurry upstairs and into the confines of your bedroom. You make sure not to let the door shut with a bang, steering away from the dramatics Eddie undoubtedly wanted to provoke. Yes, he hurt your feelings, but you sure as hell weren’t going to let him ruin this weeknd for you and the rest of your mutual friends.

His reaction didn’t surprise you. In fact, you expected it. 

That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to digest.

Taking a few minutes to collect yourself, you check your phone and begin to open unseen notifications from various social media sites in an attempt to think about anything else than Eddie’s words.

“Deseperate fucking behaviour,” he’s said that to you before. The deja-vu hits harder than anticipated, making the nausea you thought you surpassed earlier spring right back up, stronger.

Yup. As you regain control of your breathing, you think for sure that coming here was definitely a mistake.

thank you for reading & please support your writers by reblogging <3

[cosmic-dust-poltergeist]

De-aged Danny shenanigans with an adult Damian taking after his father.

Danny, about 6: *drigging through the trash*

Damian, 26: Hello? Are you alright?

Danny, whips around to look at him with glowing green eyes: hissssss

Damian, blinks: Oh, dear....Are you hungry?

Danny, suspicious:... yeth

Damian, nods: If you come with me, we can either go to a batburger down the street or my apartment a block over. I have a washer and dryer I can run your clothes through while you bathe.

Danny: Are you trying to kidnap me?

Damian: If I was, I'd be a fool to say so

Danny: mm twue...why else would you want to help me though?

Damian: one. It would be irresponsible of me to level a toddler alone, in an alley, in Gotham.

Danny, pouting: I'm not a toddler

Damian: Two. I will never hear the end of it from my siblings whether or not I help you, but it'd be more teasing than lecturing if I do help you.

Danny: Why would they do dat?

Damian: If you don't have any place to go, I might just tell you. But only if I can make sure you don't tell the wrong person.

Danny: I'm good wif secrets!

Damian, amused: We shall see. And now third and final reason. Are you aware your eyes are glowing green?

Danny, gasps and slams his eyes shut: You're not supposed to see!

Damian, softly: It's okay. I understand what that means. One of my elder brothers' eyes glow the same way. It must have been very scary for you to die

Danny, sniffling: It was... does his eyes weally glow green?

Damian: They do. His usually glow when he gets angry, is it the same with you?

Danny, now blinking blue glowing eyes at Damian: mmm? No? Green is too much bad emotion

Damian: Bad emotion?

Danny: Mad, um, strezz? No, the bigger one!

Damian: Panic or anxiety?

Danny, points at him with a bounce: Yeah!!

Damian, amused and concerned: I see

Danny: mmm let's see, um, and scared?

Damian: Interesting. Jason's eyes are usually an indicator of angry, but I know he likes to cover his fear and concern with that same anger. I shall look into it. On that note. And what does glowing blue mean?

Danny, blinks: Blue?

Damian: Yes. Did you know your eyes are glowing blue now?

Danny, shocked: No! They didn't do that before!... At least I don't think they did?

Damian: Well, they're a very pretty shade of blue.

Danny: Maybe... Maybe that's how my parents noticed...

Damian, trying not to frown: What did your parents notice?

Danny, turning his big teary eyes on Damian: That I'm not fully human anymore. They didn't notice. They never noticed!

Damian, slowly reaching out to the kid to see if he'd accept a hug: Sounds like your parents didn't deserve you.

Danny, giving into his childish instincts and flinging himself into Damian's arms to sob his little heart out: They didn't even know I died! It's not fair! I'm not weally human and it's their fault! I hate their stupid po-po- THING! It shocked me and it hurt and now I'm dead and it's their fault!

Damian: *gently rocking Danny til he tires himself out*

Danny, sniffling: It's not fair...

Damian: Something I've found is, it never is. Every stray my father has housed has had an unbearably harsh life, and I, being his blood son, was no different. My mother and her father raised me for the first ten years of my life, and I've come to understand that my childhood was not a good one. It took me a long time and a lot of patience from my eldest brother to come to realize what I was missing.

Danny: Like, Jazzy?

Damian: mm? Who's Jazzy?

Danny: My big sister. She's a big know it all, but she tries...

Damian: Well, that's-

Danny, jolts in Damian's hold: Tried! *GASP* Jazzy doesn't know mom and dad didn't kill me!! *pause* um, kill me again?

Damian: Well, we'll have to tell her, won't we? You wouldn't happen to know her full name? I can ask my family to contact her while we get you cleaned up

Danny: Yeah! Her name is Jasmine Fenton! She goes to a big big school here! That's why I came here! I just... I got lost..

Damian: That won't do

Damian, pulls out his phone and calls Barbara while starting to walk to his apartment: Gordon. I have a request.

Barbara: Yeah? Whatcha got, baby bat?

Damian: Can you look up a Jasmine Fenton? I have something she will probably want back.

Barbara: Holy shit! Is that a child??

Damian, sighs: Yes, it's her little brother. He ran away from a bad situation with his parents and got lost trying to find his elder sister.

Barbara: Alright. I'll check out her entire life to make sure she's safe to- wait. Damian, is that kid's name Danny?

Damian, realizing he never asked: One moment.

Damian, looks down at a sleepy, but curious Danny: Is your name Danny?

Danny, beams: Yeah!!

Barbara: Caught that, but, uh, Damian, Danny is supposed to be 20, not...4? 5? Not a tiny child

Damian: umm... Danny did you used to be older?

Danny, shrinks into himself and his eyes turn green: Ye-yeah... I don't know why I'm little... mommy did something and it Huuurt and hurt til suddenly I was free and I ran and hid in a bus

Damian, soothingly petting his back: Okay, it's okay, we'll figure it out.

Barbara: Take care of him for the night, we'll contact his sister tomorrow at a reasonable time. I'm not finding anything too concerning on her yet so she's probably safe

Damian: Copy that. Goodnight, Gordon.

Barbara, teasing: Goodnight, mini-Bruce!

Damian, flushes, but doesn't deny it before hanging up and glancing towards Danny: That was Barbara Gordon. A family friend. She'll help us find your sister, but you'll be staying with me for tonight.

Danny, sleepy: Okay..

Damian, slipping into his apartment lobby and going straight up the stairs, ignoring the gaping attendants: Don't fall asleep just yet. You will be fed and bathed first

Danny, huffs, but straightens up: What food?

Damian: That depends, I only really have vegetarian food so I suppose we'll have to find something you'll eat

Danny: Sam is vegetarian! I eat vegetarian sometimes with her!

Damian: hm? Very good, then it should be easier for me to feed you

Damian and Danny have a wonderful time. Danny is fed, watered, and cleaned up before being set up with a quiet sound machine to sleep. Damian has a crisis over wanting to keep Danny and suddenly understands his father's adoption habit. He sets alarms to check on Danny throughout the night, but it's otherwise uneventful.

[spurbleu]

where the aster grows

neighbor!price x fem florist!reader

ch 2. impressions s. you threw a pail at your neighbor

You’ve got a good throw.

Perhaps not the first thing John should notice about the situation, given the fact he can feel the quiet familiarity of blood dripping down his temple, or the throb that follows its decent. But as you corner yourself by one of the labor tables, a road deer gasping for the air stolen by his entrance, it’s really the only thing he can think about.

“Who the hell are you?”

Guilt bubbles at the surface of his mouth, but it doesn’t take him long to remember himself. He’s no stranger to recoveries, and this entire first impression lacked any remnant of manners. But it’s never too late to find them.

He would also like to avoid meeting his end to a garden shovel, of all things.

John clears his throat, running a hand up the column of his neck.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you- my name is John Price; I live next door.” He’s got a voice for times like this- lowers it a half octave, baritone an inch slower than his usual cadence. Uses it for spooked civilians, or soldiers blinking back death. Wouldn’t call it comforting, but it’s close. Enough that after he uses it, your shoulders unhook themselves from the lobe of your ears.

He adds a slouch. A neutral position, drawing commonality between polar opposites. It’s as non-threatening as he’s able to look. “I’m Penny’s owner.”

Anxiety melts like molasses. Starts at your neck- stretching into a polite slouch. The aim of your arm dissolves by your side. Your breath slows, and for a moment so does time. Your eyes are blown wide, silting sunlight and the last bits of apprehension towards his stranger.

They are the brightest color in the room.

“P-Penny?”

He smiles. “The cat?”

As if on cue, a bolt of fur scampers to his boots- doing calculated twists between his ankles. He picks her up gently and scratches the spot behind her ear. “She lives part time in this store. With the owner when I’m gone. Must have snuck in here,” he holds her in front of his face with a stern expression, “been lookin’ for an hour. You devil.”

He steals a glance at you, past Penny’s head. The guilt swarms his throat for a second time, seeing your fear replaced with absolute mortification.  

“I- oh my god. You’re bleeding. I threw a pail at you.” Your face flushes. Cute. “I am so so sorry.”

John chuckles. “Don’t be. I made such a fuss opening the door I can imagine I scared you,” glad you have good aim sits on his tongue, but he bites it when he soothes his mouth into a gentle line. No need to soil the impression any further, now that he had just ironed out the broken silks.

“I don’t think I got your name...?”

A beat.

You offer it like its acid on your teeth. Spits it out with the last bits of terror, like a cavity that burns. But unlike the delivery, it’s soft. Curves along the line of your jaw, relaxes around your silhouette in a film that’s drunk on horizon’s champagne. Spills onto the white tiles of the floor by his feet.

Doesn’t even realize that he’s saying it back to you until he catches its last syllable on the back of his teeth. He blinks. “It’s…nice to meet you.”

John categorizes silence into two boxes.

Treasured. Costal nowhere. One in the morning. A city where all anyone does is sleep. The drag of his cigar. The pockets amid time and place that remain nameless. It gives a finite peace that John runs dry.

And then there’s this.

Stiff. Premeditates chaos. The quiet before a grenade, the cotton ears after. The hospital when someone dies, and the emptiness they leave behind. The death of conversation between a beautiful woman, and her impolite neighbor.

John will always put it out as quickly as possible.

“Well, I’ll get out of your h-“

“Let me help you.”

The silence fractures into small sounds. A wire snaps, wine cork pops, pin drops, among other fictions. The air that surrounds you beckons a peculiar clarity. Narrows when John sees you smile for the first time. What he did to earn it is beyond him. “Help me with what?”

You tap your temple. “Your head. I... You’re bleeding. I have an aid in the back,” the look he gives you must be telling, because then you say, “please.”

Christ.

“Alright.” Is all he can muster, albeit it comes out parched. You nod and scamper off to the back door.

Your absence allows him to soak the store in.

He’s been in plenty of times, so its layout isn’t alien. But he supposes that part of its charm is that it feels that way. Beyond familiarity. Every time he’s been in, he notices a new detail.

A freshly kilned pot. A corner section with seasonal flowers. You.

This time, he draws his focus to the carnations by the window. Red and alive, unfurls its buds with a grace he’s only ever seen in nature. He lets his hand come to lift the petals and smiles at himself.

He feels ridiculous, drawing so much depth from a flower, but its caretaker taught him the bizarre empathy.

The old woman would probably laugh at him.

“Uh…John, was it?”

He turns around, letting his hand fall back into his pocket. He doesn’t know why he feels caught, but the heat rises to his neck before he can stop it. “Yes.”

“Here,” You shove various gardening paraphernalia and metals from one of the work benches, push down to check its stability before stepping aside, “take a seat.”

The joke falls before he can stop it. “Aren’t we a little old to play doctor?”

Doesn’t regret it, because it makes you laugh. The hair on his neck rises, and he feels like a teen again, seeing a playboy for the first time. Since when did laughter have the same effect on him as cleavage?

Must have been sometime after 35.

He pulls himself onto the bench and grimaces when the oak whines. You snort. “Don’t worry. They hold anything.”

His eyes squint. “Didn’t you just check it?”

You bring your gaze down to grab an antiseptic wipe, a failed effort to hide your smile. “Nothing wrong with playing it safe.”

He hums. “Forgot I’m talking to the woman who throws pails at strangers.”

He flinches when you swipe chemicals across the cut. Undoubtedly to shut him up. “Maybe don’t break into your neighbors store.”

He rolls his eyes as you find a bandage. “I wouldn’t’ve if you weren’t holding my cat hostage.”

This gets you to step away. “Hostage? She was lounging in the window!”

“Clearly, she was trying to signal for help.”

A third, new silence bloats between you. He doesn’t have time to name it before it dissolves into eased laughter. You go back to applying the bandages while he vehemently ignores the soft feeling of your fingers against his face.

Kate’s words come back to him slowly. The same old song she’d been singing since she got married. Rhymes of settling down, making a home for himself, letting someone else take up the fight. He sees glimpses of these futilities every so often. Like he is now.

Niceties that fatten up the bones of his dreams and cushion the dull blow of walking into an empty home. Having someone there to wait for him. Normal. It bakes the room in a tenderness he can’t remember the last time he’s had.

But in the end, he knows none of this is real. Not in the ways Kate talks about.

Doesn’t stop him from noticing your barren ring finger, though.

“I think…I know why she got trapped.”

He glances at you as a response. Your shoulders have gotten noticeably heavy.

“My grandmother owned this place. She passed away last week.”

Oh.

“My dad must have closed up while she was in the hospital,” your voice breaks, before mending with a scoff, “he’s not very observant. Probably missed her,” she looks over her shoulder before scratching Penny’s cheek with a gentle somber, “glad there was an automatic feeder in the back.”

Despite being well acquainted with death, John Price never knows how to greet him.

Silence and wallowing are classics, but given the troughs under your eyes it would be both inappropriate and apathetic. He’d offer a cigar, but that’s only really been a hit with his soldiers, and he sincerely doubts you’d be the type grieve with tobacco.

So, he tries to picture your grandmother. A reflection of himself, 4 decades from now. Creased and warm. The way her cheeks folded around her smile. How her voice, too, was wrinkled. When she thanked him for lifting the new shipments or calling his cat Penny-girl. The subtle tremble of her hands, and youthful eyes that betrayed her age.

He sees the resemblance.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he internally scolds himself for the cliché, but you seem to appreciate it, “I feel very lucky to have known her.”

That makes you smile. “Yeah, most people do.”

You clear your throat, and John doesn’t miss how you swipe your cheek with the back of your hand. He opens his mouth to say something, before reminding himself that he is still a stranger. No outstretched hand or comforting words take up the space a loved one leaves behind.

He’s observed this truth dozens of times, in spouses, parents, children. News about his own failings as a captain to bring someone home. Although it’s unwarranted in the claustrophobic place he sits in now, that same guilt capsizes when he sees you sniffle.

“Anyway,” you start, “I thought you should know, given the fact you were neighbors and…” you pick up Penny, who purrs in your arms, “apparently shared custody of her.”

He enjoys the sight of his cat in your arms more than he cares to admit.

“Thank you, I’m sure Penny will miss her,” he lips quirk, “she always did spoil her rotten.”

You pull Penny out from your embrace, so she faces you. “Don’t worry, I’ll spoil her just as much as Ma did.”

John does not mask his surprise. “Will you be staying?”

You turn to him, a genuine smile playing on your lips.

“Yes, with the shop and the house,” somewhere behind him, a flower unfurls itself from the final folds of its petals when you stretch out your hand, “I’m your new neighbor.”

Spring begins when he shakes it, and John has never been more afraid of anything in his life.

[chaosartic]

A furry surprise | AA23

word count: roughly 1k

warning: fluff, pet names, slightly suggestive at like one point

summary: You’re finally able to give Alex his birthday present. But what do you give an F1 driver? Correct, a kitten.

a/n: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX ALBON! And I’m continuing with my small (full season) project. I finally redid my masterlist so now everything is sorted correctly.

You’re not panicking, why would you? It’s not like you were picking up your boyfriend from the airport today. But that’s not where the anxiety comes from. No, it’s because of something else. Due to your tight work schedule you weren’t able to be there during the race weekend and his birthday. You remember the look in his eyes when you told him the news. Yes, he was upset but it was ok, at least that’s what he told you. You’re already at the airport waiting for the plane to land, alongside Alex you are also picking up George. Since he helped you organize your boyfriend’s birthday present you offered to drive him to wherever he needs to be after the long flight.

You and Alex got together about six months ago so it was the first time that you have to get him a birthday present. When that realization fully settled in you started panicking. What does a Formula One driver need that he couldn’t get himself? For sure not a new watch or fancy clothes. He can just buy those himself whenever he needs. So you turned to his best friend for advice. After a lot of back-and-forth and thinking you finally found the perfect gift, at least that’s what you hope.

You know how much he loves his pets and how much he misses them whenever he leaves Monaco. Nowadays it wasn’t uncommon for him to stay at your place and since you don’t reside in Monaco or anywhere near there he sees them less than normally. Sure that wasn’t the long term idea but for now the long distance has to work. The birthday present idea, get him a pet that stays at your place. So whenever he visits you and work drags you away half the day he has some company to spend the time with.

“There you are!” the excited voice of your boyfriend rings through the almost empty airport. You are immediately pulled into his warm embrace, a small sigh leaving your lips having missed being in his arms. Your head is resting comfortably on his shoulder taking in the familiar scent that is just purely him. “Alright love birds leave that for later in the bedroom,” George jokes, “someone promised me a ride.” You reluctantly left Alex’s arms and gave George a quick hug, congratulating him to his podiums.

You dropped George off after a short ride. Before that he assured you again though that the gift was a good idea and that Alex would love it. However, the closer the two of you got to your apartment the anxiety started coming back. What if he thought it was too much? What if he didnt like her? Before you could overthink it too much Alex turns towards you, his hand resting comfortably on your thigh. It was unusual for you to drive but every now and then, especially after a long flight, he enjoys being a passenger princess. “So happy to see you again sweetheart,” he says, a permanent smile on his face.

“Baby you know that I love you, right?” you start carefully. “Of course I do,” he answers with a slight confusion visible. “Can you promise me not to be mad at your present? No matter what it is.” The request shocked him visibly. Why would you request that from him? What was this present? “Sweetheart of course,” he starts, “but now I want to know even more what you got me.” The anxiety in your stomach settles down a bit at his words. His hand is moving small circles on your thighs in hope to bring you comfort.

The car ride was over sooner than you probably want. Alex didn’t hesitate a second to lean over the center console and kiss you. His lips moving slowly against yours having missed this a lot. After you both pull away he gets his stuff out of the trunk. He takes your hand in his, guiding you to the apartment. He tries to hide it but his excitement is clear.

The apartment was dark when you entered it. Upon turning on the light both of you saw a little furry ball rushing around. “What was that?” His voice was high pitched. His eyes sparkling with excitement and love already. You don’t answer him, instead you walk after her. “Alex, meet May,” you introduce her. The little tuxedo kitten is now resting comfortably in your arms. Alex squealed a little before rushing over to the both of you. “Your birthday present,” you confirm even though he already guessed that in his head.

One of his hands is resting on your upper arm, the other stroking the kitten slowly. “But… but why?” he asks, still confused. “It’s stupid really. But I know how you miss yours whenever you’re here,” you start a blush now creeping up in your cheeks, “thought you might want one here too to keep you company when I work.” Now that you say it out loud it sounds like a stupid idea.

Before you can overthink it again his voice calms you down. “I love this and you and her.” His eyes are still sparkling with love and excitement. He carefully takes the kitten out of your arm and presses a small kiss on her tiny head. He put her down on the ground before pulling you into his arms. He kisses you full of passion again. “Thank you so much, I love you both so much.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

I hope you enjoy it! Any feedback is appreciated!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Cool for the Summer 6

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, power dynamics, cheating, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: After finishing your degree, you return home only to find things aren’t as you left them.

Characters: Bucky Barnes

Note: love u guys.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The night creeps by in ripples of moonlight and anxiety. You drift in and out of sleep, flinching at ever rustle of the tree outside, every creak in the house. You expect him to knock on your door. To open it. That’s why the dresser’s in front of it. 

Paranoid. You think so. But no, not really. Overreacting but not without reason. 

You’re so twisted up about the intruder in your house, in your family, that you barely think of your mom’s big news. A date? Technically your first real date. That movie night with that boy in high school was a celibate, silent penance. 

You hear your mom get ready for work. She said after, you’ll go out. You’re looking forward to it even if you don’t care much about the reason. Any chance to get away, you’ll take. 

The front door shuts and her car chirps as it unlocks. You listen in dread. You’re awake now. It’s four in the morning and you’re not going back to the sleep. You can’t. 

You wallow in the lull that overtakes the house. Your eyelids are heavy, your head full, but even your fatigue can’t override your fear. You can hear your breaths as they fill your chest to bursting and you force them out in slow draws. 

Then it begins. A low groan. At first, you think it’s nothing but the wind outside. Then it rises. Grunting peaking at the end of every prolonged sigh. Then your name. 

Bucky’s voice swirls down the hall as you can only imagine what he’s doing. To himself. 

“That’s it, baby girl. That’s... exactly... how I like it...” His voice gets clearer as his footfalls slap over the floor. You hold your breath and wrap the blanket around you, up to your chin.

“That’s how I want you--” He stomps up to your door and slaps his hand against the outside. “Be a good girl, open the door...” 

His harried huffs bluster just outside. He moans as the door shakes with his unseen efforts. But you hear it all. 

“I just need a little—help--” he snarls. “Oh, just... if you smile at me, I think--” he grunts and thumps on the door. The handle jolts and jiggles. The door hits the dresser but does not open. You squeal. “Ah, you got me, baby—girl—you---” 

His voice fizzles out and his palms drags buck up the door. The friction is like a jet engine in the stillness of the house. You whimper and tuck your head under the blanket. 

“You gone an made another mess, why don’t you come out and help clean it up?” He growls. 

You don’t move. You can’t breathe. Your tears trickle out and roll over your nose and round your temple. They plummet onto the blanket as you recede into yourself. 

Will you make it until your mom gets home? 

☀️

You relent to the day and sit up. You need to use the bathroom but you’re too afraid to go out. Bucky is bold in making his presence known. You hear him making his coffee, whistling in the hall, blaring the television. 

You hole up until noon, fractured by the rude awakening and the building pressure in your pelvis. You have to go so bad but moving the dresser would give you away. You stare at the window, wondering if you could sneak down the tree. Going on the lawn is a sane option in this insane situation. 

Your phone lights up and draws your attention. It’s your mom. You answer. You cough before you find your voice. 

“Mom?” You sputter. 

“Hey, sweetie,” she chimes. “You sound tired. You're not still sleeping, are you?” 

“No, I’m just... sorting out my room,” you lie. 

“Ah, okay, well, I have some bad news,” she sniffs. “They need me to stay tonight. We have clinical students coming this evening and it’s my job to oversee all training.” 

You hesitate. You nearly forgot about the date, let alone her proposed shopping trip. You really don’t need a new outfit. 

“Um, alright, well... I’m sure I have something--” 

“Oh, but sweetie, you should get something new,” she insists, “I talked to Bucky a few minutes ago. He said he’ll be happy to take you.” 

“Bucky?” You echo. 

“Oh, sure. It'll be good for you two to bond a bit more.” She trills. “He says you’ve been hiding all day. I don’t like that, sweetie.” 

“But-- tomorrow we could--” 

“The date’s tomorrow and I just don’t know if this will happen again,” she interrupts. “I’m so sorry but I’m so busy. I have to go. Bucky said he’ll take you. I can’t wait to see what you choose.” 

“Mom--” 

“Love you,” she talks over you and hangs up. 

You stare at the phone. Oh no. You should’ve at least tried to tell her. It’s your fault. If you said something, she would listen. But you didn’t and now it feels too late. 

A knock jolts the door. You hold back a yelp and look at the wood. You quiver and put your phone down. 

“Hey, Baby Girl, did your mom call?” He taps his fingers on the door. 

You get up and drag your feet across the room, “uh, yeah, she said we’ll go tomorrow.” 

He chuckles, “that’s not what she said to me.” 

“I... I’m not feeling well,” you argue. 

“Of course you don’t. You’ve been holed up inside all day. It’s nice out,” he turns the handle and pushes the door into the dresser. “Hey, baby girl, what’s going on? Something's wrong with your door.” 

You gulp and put your hands on the dresser. 

“I’m not ready.” 

“Well, I can wait,” he intones. “I have been, haven’t I?” 

You shiver. You know exactly what he means. 

“I’ll...I’ll meet you downstairs.” 

“Oh, sure, you probably need a coffee. How about I make you one? Be good for you, huh?” He shakes the door handle. “You know, I can be good, if I get a treat.” 

You brace the edge of the dresser. Your eyes round at the door. You close your dry mouth. You take a breath and peel your lips apart. 

“Fine,” you agree. 

“Alright, I’ll be waiting. Patiently,” he lets go of the handle. “Just don’t let the coffee get cold or I’ll have to come find you.” 

You don’t move until you hear him on the stairs. You slowly drag away the dresser and turn it to get into the drawers. You pull out a pair of jeans and a loose tee with Tweety Bird on it. It’s completely plain. 

You inch open the door and peer out. You watch for him or his shadow. You step out and your foot meets something sticky. You look at the floor and the splatter there; stringy with a few droplets. That’s not... 

You cringe and tiptoe down to the bathroom. You wipe off your foot with a wet wad of tissue. You use the toilet next, a painful clench before the release. Then you do your best to clean up. You grab a cloth and run it under the tap. You clean up the mess in front of your door. 

You bury the cloth down in the bathroom bin. As you come back out, you press yourself to the wall and shuffle to your room. You find a pair of sunglasses to hide behind.  

You go to the top of the stairs and peer down. As if sensing you, Bucky appears at the base. You flinch. He has a mug in his hands. It’s not a coincidence, he’s been listening. 

You descend, step by step. His eyes crawl up your body. His gaze makes you feel naked. How can he do that? The tee shirt is so baggy, you can barely tell there’s a body under it. 

“Here ya go,” he hands you the travel mug; porcelain with a silicone top. “Just for my baby girl.” 

You accept it and look past him. You say thanks but can’t hear your own voice. He touches your cheek and you wince. 

“Are we gonna find you something cute? Something sexy?” He purrs as he pets your chin. 

You shy away and try to step past him. He blocks you with his arm. He grips your chin more firmly and brings your head up. Your eyes flick to his. 

“You might be wearing it for that boy, but you’ll be taking it off for me,” he snarls. “Make mommy happy first, but you don’t wanna piss me off.” 

His grip makes you tremble. You whine and bat your lashes. He eases up and snickers as he strokes your cheek and rescinds his hand. 

“Baby girl, I just wanna treat you right,” he eases from his momentary lapse. That stone in his voice sticks in your skill. “You know he can’t do that. Not like I can.” 

You cradle the cup and stare at him. Your insides are on fire. You pout and his eyes fixate on your lip. His tongue pokes out. 

“Why...” you eke out. 

He grins. “Why not, baby girl? You deserve it. To be taken care of. You’re so wound up,” he drawls. “I can tell you need it.” 

“My mom--” 

He hisses and shushes you with a finger to your lips. He taps meanly and drops his hand. 

“Don’t,” he warns. “You say a word to her, if she believe you, you don’t want to see what happens.” He takes a breath. “And can you imagine how hurt she’d be? Everything was perfect til you got home.” 

You search his face. Your lashes flutter. He’s right. It wouldn’t look like his fault, would it? Especially after yesterday. 

“Can we go?” You croak. 

“I guess we should,” he sighs. “Even if I’d rather stay... get to know you, baby girl.” He slowly moves out of your way. You step down and he turns, brush your ass with his hand. “Think we’ll find something real nice... something to show this off.” 

☀️

As Bucky drives past the mall, your heart stutters. Where is he going? Your mom would only ever take you to Old Navy or some department store. 

What if he isn't taking you shopping? Why didn't you think of that before? Why are you going along with this? 

You latch onto your thighs with your sweaty hands and push back into the seat. He reaches over and you lean away. He taps the touchscreen to skip the song. 

"Not my favourite," he comments. 

You swallow dryly. You look at him. He doesn't seem to notice the shift. Or he doesn't let on. 

The grey hairs catch the light, the lines in his face add definition to his already sharp feature, and his blue eyes absorb all brightness. You face forward and your jaw locks. He wouldn't do anything. Your mom knows you're with him. 

"Got a friend, she recommended the place," he interrupts your panic. "If you're looking for something special... well, you don't wanna go to the mall." 

You sniff and nod. "Sure," you agree hoarsely. 

He clucks and drives on. Your eyes drift to his hands, thick knuckles, thick fingers. Strong hands. Strong enough to choke. 

He turns onto a street in the centre of town. You watch the storefronts, calmed by the number of witnesses, but not completely. He slides into a paralell spot and taps the button to quiet the engine. 

He gets out first. You follow reluctantly. 

He leads you to a store and opens the door ahead of you. You enter and look around at the expertly dressed mannequins. A feather red dress has you intimidated but the simple blue dress across from it isn't too bad. 

A shop associate approaches, "hello, how are you doing today? Anything you're looking for?" 

"Ummmm." You chew your lip as Bucky catches up to you. 

"Special day," he speaks for you as his hand settles on your lower back, "anniversary. I'm taking her out on the town." 

The woman looks between you. You choke in embarrassment as you read her name tag; Darcy. 

"Oh, wow, how long?" Her voice is crisp. 

"How long... two years now. I know, a bit much but you gotta celebrate the little things," he responds coolly. You almost believe him. "I'm not really a fashion guy, but you sell panties? Gotta plan for the whole night." 

Her brow twitches and her dimples deepen, "yes.... there's an intimate section near the back. Hun," she looks at you, "do you want to surprise him? I can show you around." 

"I think we can figure it out," Bucky insists with a bristle. "I know what looks best on her." 

She blinks and pushes her tongue into her cheek. You avert your gaze as you swelter. Bucky curls his hand around your hip. 

"Uh huh, well you just let me know if you need anything," she chirps sharply. 

"Alright, hun," Bucky hurls the epithet back at her before he guides you away. He scoffs as he takes you past a table of denim. "Cunt," he utters under his breath and reaches for a hanger with his other hand, "now, just remember," he pulls a red dress free, "you keep those legs together with that little punk." He holds the dress in front of you. "And I'll get them nice and loose when you get home." 

[al1x00]

Guess who's back🫣 HII KATY HOW ARE YOU MY LOVE?😚 ALSO A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AU?!?! HELL YEAH

Ngl I read the first lines before anything else and I was prepared for the worst LMAO glad that Yuri's so comprehensive tho (love her sm)

"After our trip to the beach, I know it's his" GIRL?🫣OOP🤭

"And as for the guitar, he put a sticker of your face right on the crack and the mortherfucker kisses it before every show for good luck" WAITT THAT'S SO CUTE :((

I feel like Hobie would for sure take the responsibility if an accidental pregnancy happened, he's not the type of person to leave it all behind. ALSO, I feel like he'd be a huge ass girl dad (and also a huge misandrist LMAO)

Damn James you got a great timing to go piss huh😒

HELPPP YURI AND NED DRINKING AWAY THE EXHASPERATION BYE I'M DEAD

They're like "pass me the wine, I need to get drunk and forget about this" HAHAHA

KATY HOW TF DID YOU MANAGE TO WRITE THE UNDEAD TO BE THAT TERRIFYING MY GODD I HAD CHILLS ALL OVER. That scene where the horde starts to get in the house is written SO WELL ISTG, I can picture it perfectly in my mind.

You can literally feel the anxiety, the chaos of it all, the ABSOLUTE HORROR OF IT KATY YOU'RE A GENIUS YOU OUTDO YOURSELF EVERY GODDAMN TIME

The fact that Hobie immediately thought of what to do if him and R got somehow separated:( He's too loving for his own good

The burning house is giving the start of TLOU ngl

NOOO NOT THE FUCKING TRUCK AND HORDE THEY GOT SEPARATED BWAJFJSKOFF MY BABIESSS😭😭😭

Okay so the infection is like- instant. Once you're bitten you become one of them, right?

TWO FUCKING MONTHS HAVE PASSED?! GOOD GOD THAT'S SO MUCH TIME.

THEY CAN'T EVEN DIE?? Imagine how scared Hobie was when he was just taking a bath and he feels a hand around his ankle- I'd never set foot in any body of water ever again, no matter the size of it.

The voicemails :( I'm not even halfway throught it and I'm already starting to sob KATY YOU OWE ME A THERAPIST

OH HELL NAH PLEASE TELL ME HOBIE IS OKAY AND HE DIDN'T TURN INTO A SEA CREATURE

"It feels like your heart is out of your body, missing somewhere else" I'M SOBBINGG THEY LONG FOR EACH OTHER SM😭😭😭

"Looks like you already took the load" JAMES😨- YOU LITTLE SHIT OMG

My heart literally jumped out of my chest when R almost jumped from the bridge- for a second you had me thinking she was about to die (but then I remembered it's a Katy Special tm)

"The PG version please" HELPP I'M CRYING

"Mudwood Manor" BDAS REFERENCE BDAS REFERENCE BDAS REFERENCEEEEE

AAAAAAA

HOBIE'S ALRIGHT THANK GODDD MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED

Aww poor Hobie :( the way the situation remembers him of when he was younger actually breaks him. That and how he's already acclimate with how dangerous and difficult the whole situation is. He deserves all the hugs in the world.

The way R for a second didn't even realise it could be Hobie on the other side of the door or how she thought she was just going crazy and imagining it all

NOOO JAMESS GODDAMN IT :((

NOT R CRADLING HIS HEAD IN HER LAP AND FIXING HIS HAIR KATYY STOP MAKING ME SOB.

UGHH THE ENDING IS SO BITTERSWEET I LOVE IT SM. The life among the death, the gore and the blood and Hobie's hug just makes me want to bawl my eyes out of their sockets I swear.

KATYY I MISSED READING YOUR FICS SM AND COMING BACK TO THIS WAS SUCH A NICE EXPERIENCE SO THANK YOU SM. I know I've said it before but I SWEAR I'll get around to read IPOB because I'm so damn curios abt it🤭🤭. But this was such a great read, it's got me in a chokehold now ngl.

End of Beginning

Pairing: Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 18.7k

Synopsis: When the world seems to come to an end, life starts. Death looms and a virus has taken over. Life as you know it has ended and all you ever want is to see him again.

Tags: Use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader (except for clothing), CW pregnancy, vomit mention, TW blood and gore, CW injury, TW violence, CW death, CW guns, suggestive content, zombie apocalypse AU, established relationship, hurt/comfort, angst.

Navigation

You stare intensely at the two little red lines on the plastic stick. Heart beating out of your body while the muffled sounds of the party rattles the locked bathroom door. Your breath hitches in your throat, mouth dry and hands shaking from the mere sight of the three pregnancy tests having the same result— positive. There's no doubt about it as the double lines are as clear as day.

“Fuck.” Yuri says the exact same word you have in mind.

“F–Fuck.” You breathlessly say, voice trembling while you haven't moved an inch from where you're standing in front of the sink.

“What're you gonna do?” Yuri asks beside you, hand placed right on your shoulder as you start wobbling in place, afraid that you might keel over on the harsh tiles. “Are you gonna tell him?”

“I–I’m not sure.” You roll the simple silver band around your pinky finger. One that was given to you by Hobie a long time ago.

Finally lifting up your eyes, you stare at yourself in front of the mirror. You look disheveled, hair a mess from the concert. Your clothes still smell faintly like bile and the floor of a pub. The eyeliner around your eyes is smudged, and lips bare from all the wiping you had to do after getting sick all over James’ parents’ bathroom. You feel like a bloody mess.

It was Yuri's idea to run to the chemist's and buy different packs of tests for you after she walked in on you heaving out your dinner. Damn Yuri and her smart ass.

“I thought it was food poisoning from the shawarma we ate.” You deflate, tears threatening to spill over as you sit on the toilet.

“That place near the post office?” Yuri sighs, leaning against the cold tiles as her voice echoes around the bathroom that's as big as your living room.

You rub your palms all over your face, elbows placed atop of your knees as your body folds over itself in an attempt to calm down. There's a rock in the pit of your stomach, face clammy and lips wobbling. The soles of your feet feel numb, ebbing up to your legs and further towards your chest until it reaches your shaking hands. Your leg keeps bouncing up and down, as if it has a life of its own. You don't hear your best friend calling your name as blood rushes in your ears.

“Hey,” she kneels down in front of you, bare knees freezing from the tiles but seemingly not caring for the sensation as her kind eyes stay on you. Her leather skirt pools around her, a blob of black framing under her. “You okay?”

“Y–yeah, it's that place near the post office.” a tear slides down your cheek, and you're quick to wipe it away.

Yuri holds onto your knee, stopping the bouncing of your legs as she cups it with her palm gently and looks into your eyes. “Please don't tell me it's James'”

You pause, staring straight at her with a glare. “Bitch.”

She laughs, the sound bouncing all over the walls. “Mate,” her hand grasps your own, fondly rubbing at your sweaty palm. “You and Hobie have been together since the dawn of time. trust me, after our trip to the beach, I know it's his.”

You crumple in place, a smile slowly appearing on your lips as you hide your face. “God, you'll never let us live that down.”

“Seriously, we had to wear our noise cancelling headphones.”

“Stop!” Chuckling, you feel a bit lighter from her teasing. Just a tiny bit.

Yuri mirrors your smile, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “What are you worried about, hm?”

You sigh, “you know what I'm worried about, Yuri.”

She shrugs and makes a face. “No, I don't, so don't waste both our time and just tell your best mate.”

Rubbing your eyes with your index finger, your entire body starts feeling the pin pricks all around you. “I just—” she patiently waits for you to gather your words. “What if he doesn't want it? That he'll leave me all because of…” you wildly gesture around your stomach.

“Are the hormones getting in your head already?” You give her a stern glare. “Babes, remember the time you accidentally broke his favourite vinyl?” You nod, wincing at the memory. “And that one time you dropped his guitar while attempting to clean it?”

“Please don't remind me, I have nightmares of breaking more shit.”

“Well, you might not remember that he never got mad at you.” Yuri smiles, taking your clenched hands and holding it in place. “He even placed the vinyl in a frame and made it look fucking cooler than before with its shattered pieces. And as for the guitar, he put a sticker of your face right on the crack and the motherfucker kisses it before every show for good luck.”

You chuckle, tears sticking to your lashes.

“All I'm saying is, he's not gonna fucking leave you because of this.” She beams at you, eyes shining from the bright light of the bathroom. “If he does, then I'm gonna help you raise that kid. But before that I have to bury him and you're gonna help me find a quiet and secluded place for him.”

You laugh, head falling down on Yuri's shoulder. “You really think so?” Your voice is small as she rubs your back.

“I know so, babes. Besides, this is his fault too.” You sniff and she holds onto you tighter. “And I know Hobie, he takes responsibility for shit he does. The one thing he truly loves in this world besides his guitar is you.” She whispers, love rolling off of her as she comforts you. “I've seen the way he looks at you, and that's not the look a man gives to someone he's ready to up and leave because of a baby.”

Your heart steadies in place as your mind flickers back to his face. Yuri's right, all those years of being in love with him, and the many years of being together would tell you that he won't bolt away from the product of all those years of loving each other. But there's that one thing you're worried about too.

“But—” you start and Yuri lifts your head up, scrunching your face in her hands.

“No buts!”

“Yuri,” you say, despite your squished lips and cheeks. “The band is just gaining traction, what if this—”

“I'm going to stop you right there.” She stands up, boots thumping on the tiles as she helps you stand up from the toilet and grabs a tissue to clean up your tear stained cheeks and messy mascara. “This won't stop us, and we'll learn to juggle it with you.” Gently patting your eyes, she smiles softly. “Don't forget, you're part of this band too.”

A smile manages to wiggle itself on your face with Yuri's bright encouragement. She does have a point, and you can't help but imagine Hobie kissing your baby's chubby cheeks, or the baby having his smile and his eyes. And the thought of him cradling them to sleep while the baby’s little lashes flutter close. He'll be a good dad, but at the same time you don't want to spring this huge news on him when his career is just starting to propel him and the band. You don't want to be the one to hold him back. Yes, you have options, but this is the product of your love, *years of that love. Maybe you'll be a good mother, for now, you have to be brave and tell him.

“I just manage the gigs, you guys can live without me.”

“Tell that to our lead guitarist.” Nudging your shoulder, she places you in front of the mirror. “We've got your back, alright? Do you think a baby will stop him from making music?”

“I don't know, Yuri. But thank you.” You nod appreciatively, swallowing thickly at the woman standing in the mirror. Will you still look like this in nine months? Will you be happy with your decision in nine months?

“Just tell him, or he'll be able to sniff it out like his surprise birthday party last year.” She gently shakes you in place, trying to get a smile out of you.

“I'll tell him, don't worry. He deserves to know.” You whisper as someone knocks on the bathroom door, their muffled words telling you to hurry up.

“Good, because it's his fault.” Yuri grabs another tissue and wraps all the tests and places it in your palm.

“Not entirely.” You chuckle out, and she makes a disgusted face.

“Augh, I swear you two are like fucking rabbits.”

You snort as you pocket the pregnancy tests. It feels vaguely heavy inside the front pocket of your jeans.

“You ready? Or do you need one more hug?” Yuri opens her arms, expecting for you to wave her away, but instead you step into her arms, embracing her. She hugs back wholeheartedly.

“Thank you, Yuri.”

“Anytime, lovely.” She kisses your temple, wiping away the kiss mark. “I can't wait to buy baby shit for whatever spawns out of you.”

“I can already tell you'll be a great aunt.” You say with a hint of sarcasm.

She scoffs, “of course I will be!” Wrenching the door open, you're met with James’ disgruntled face. “Jeez, do you need to pee that bad, Jameson?”

“Yes! Move!” He pushes Yuri out of the way and she shields you away from his elbow. “Why do girls always go to the loo together!”

The two of you shuffle away immediately before you get a sight of something that will surely make you hurl once again.

“Christ, it's because of all those beers he's been chugging.” Yuri walks next to you, eyes roaming around for the familiar punk’s back to bring you back to him.

“And to think that he has an army of groupies.” You find that your hand unconsciously meets with your stomach, protecting it from the rambunctious party goers.

The party is in full swing as you and Yuri go down the long winding stairs of James’ parents' mansion. Drinks are passed around, amber liquid sloshing out of the glasses and cans. Speakers play one of the band's songs, a loud punk anthem that adds fuel to the already on fire party. Expensive Arabian carpets now smell of beer and piss, crisps crunching down on your shoes, impossible to step around it when the place is packed with sweaty and dancing bodies. It's a miracle that nothing is broken or else James will never see the sun again after his parents see the aftermath of their million euro home.

“There's Ned!” Yuri guides you towards the makeshift bar which is actually the kitchen's island where bottles upon bottles of liquor sits on its previously pristine marble.

“Where the fuck have you two been? Hobie's practically going insane looking for you!” Ned exclaims as he pours you and Yuri a glass of gin.

You scrunch your face at the drink, stomach churning from the smell alone, and Yuri saves you by taking both glasses and chugging each of them without gagging or missing a beat.

“Whew!” The glasses clinks as she places it both down. “Thanks, Ned, I was getting thirsty!”

Ned blinks, and looks impressed at the feat. He sighs, ponting at you. “That was for her, I'll just pour you another one.”

“No!” You and Yuri collectively gasp.

“I mean—” you start, “I've been feeling sick lately, remember? I don't think drinking will help my stomach.” Yuri nods her head enthusiastically, agreeing with you.

“Right, I did tell Hobie that the shawarma place near the post office had a health violation last year.” Ned looks at something behind you, or someone.

A familiar arm loops over your shoulder, the comforting weight keeps your stomach from doing flips and hurling what's left of it onto the marble kitchen. His front is right behind you while his free hand has managed to wiggle itself into your backpocket.

“They said they're under new management, Ned.” Hobie chuckles out, warmth seeping through you.

You look over your shoulder, only to be met with his amber eyes that look almost golden under the light. He smells faintly of after concert musk and your own perfume that he keeps saying is his lucky charm. Smiling, he cups your chin with his palm, giving you a chaste kiss.

He scrunches his nose, smiling at you. “Did you brush your teeth?” His face then morphs into concern, brows furrowed and hands squeezing your side, fingers grazing your stomach. “We can go home if you feel too sick.”

“I did, don't worry I didn't use anyone's toothbrush, I just used my finger like a caveman. And please don't be a worry wart, it's nothing I can't handle, Hobs.” You lean against his shoulder, feeling infinitely better now that you're in his arms. Now that you're looking at him as he gazes at you with so much affection, you start to think that your worries feel silly.

“I don't think they had toothpaste back in the stone age, love.” He nuzzles your temple, nose tickling your hairline.

“Archeologists beg to differ.”

“Yeah? You an archaeologist now?” He flirts back, palm still cupping the back of your neck and thumb rubbing along your jaw. His rings are cold against your warm skin, comforting you further.

Yuri and Ned roll their eyes and tries to ignore the public display of affection while mixing in drinks and then downing it in one go. Like a couple of exasperated parents.

“I could be if I wasn't too busy being your manager.” You hold his hand as he kisses the tip of your nose. “And fluoride existed during the olden times, y’know.”

Hobie leans back, brows knitting together before a smile etches on his handsome face. “Really?” He says with a lilt in his tone. “This your way of sayin’ bye to the band?”

“Nope, someone's gonna miss me too much.” You whisper against his cheek, kissing him lovingly.

“I'm sure Ned will live.” Hobie laughs, embracing you as he sways you to the music.

“Don't bring me into this, bruv.” You and Hobie laugh at the look on Ned’s face.

Yuri stares at you and smiles, wordlessly telling you to tell Hobie the news. With a deep inhale, you twist around to cup Hobie's face and look at him with a serious expression. The glint of your ring urges you to continue.

“Can we go somewhere quiet? I need to tell you something, Hobie—”

“Oi, have the lot of you seen this?” James comes running in, flip phone in hand as he shoves the screen in each of your faces until Hobie takes it.

“That you finally washed your hands after taking a piss?” Yuri crosses her arms over her chest as she closes the distance and peeks over your shoulder.

A shaky and grimey video plays a scene of someone blowing out their birthday candles inside a restaurant. The celebrant claps while the guests cheer for them. It's all normal and happy at first then the camera zooms in on the background, right on the window where a man who looks like he's drunk, staggers and limps towards the restaurant window. Then a sound of an oncoming car skids to a halt but too late to stop in time. It hits the man dead on as he flips and flies over the car until his face meets and grinds on the asphalt, leaving a blood trail. Chaos ensues as the shaking of the camera moves towards the streets while onlookers yell and try to call for help.

“Fuckin’ hell, mate, what did I tell you about showing us these kinds of videos.” Ned groans then leaves to go tend to the makeshift bar again.

“No, no, just watch!” James pleads, shoving the screen in front of the band's faces but Ned just shakes his head. “It's bonkers!”

“C’mon, bruv, you can't jus’ show us shit like this.” Hobie moves the phone away from you, but you chase the screen with your eyes as you see the last bit of the video showing the man standing up like nothing happened.

Hobie tries to close the phone to save you from the sight but James snatches it and continues to show it to everyone else. Hobie tries to manoeuvre you away but with James' increasing insistence, Yuri takes one for the team and yanks it out of his hand and pockets it.

“No phone for you until you shut the fuck up about it!”

“Yuri! That's bullshit! That's mine.” James reaches for his phone but Yuri dodges him. “You're not my mum!”

“You tried to show us some live leak shit! No, absolutely not.” They fight like siblings while Yuri swats his roaming hands away.

“The bloke stood up like normal and his eyeball was hanging out of his sockets!” Their arguing falls into the background as Hobie leads you towards the corner of the kitchen.

“You alright, love? Not too queasy?” Hobie rubs your stomach, still unbeknownst to the growing life inside of you.

Taking his hand, you let it rest on your belly. “I'm fine, nothing I can't handle.”

He smiles, squeezing your hand and chuckling. “That's my girl, always so bloody tough, eh?”

“Yeah, that's me, tough as nails.” You nervously chuckle as if you weren't about to burst into tears a few minutes ago.

“Now, what were you about to tell me?”

“I—” you're suddenly out of words. “Can we go somewhere quiet first?” The raging bass of the music is starting to give you a headache, shaking through your skull.

“This serious then?” Worry flickers in his mind, and you know that he's trying to remember if he did something bad. “Did I do somethin'?” And you were right.

You shake your head, palms splayed over his chest whilst you lay down the lapels of his spiked denim jacket. “You didn't do anything wrong.” Your voice is gentle yet it wavers a bit from your own worries.

What if you don't do good for this kid? What if being a mother isn't for you? What if— your attention flits over to a staggering figure appearing from the hill. The shadow gets closer towards the house as you see them through the ceiling to floor windows of James' home, the glass is just situated behind Hobie. Everyone seems to not notice the person as it sprints on the grass. Their head dips back, as if the speed they're running at has their own head lolling backwards from the momentum.

“Is this because of me accidentally leavin' puddin’ on the table and having ants…”

Hobie's voice fades in your ears as your eyes stay on the figure that's coming towards you.

They're quickly gaining speed.

“Love?”

The party goers don't seem to notice the guy, continuing to dance and drink about all merrily. Your body freezes in place, mind going haywire, electricity running down your fingertips and stomach flipping upside down. It's as if your senses warn you of the figure, as if your innate fear response is acting upon itself.

Hobie cups your cheek gently just as the man gets closer, barefooted, shoulder bent at a harsh angle and blood dripping from his eyes.

Then more appear right on the hill, running like they've injured themselves, moon shining down behind them, bathing their shadows in silver light. They look like regular people, except for limbs that flail around, and mouths agape— the blood smeared all over them has your senses telling you to run.

Your breathing stops.

In a blink, there's a horde of them coming your way.

“Oi, you alright? You gonna be sick?”

“Run—!” As you say it, a loud smash can be heard as the first figure you saw comes crashing inside the house. People scream and dodge broken glass.

“Shit!” Hobie shields you away immediately, arms enveloping around you.

“What the fuck?!” James yells, trainers stepping on glass. “My parents are gonna kill me!”

Everyone looks at the body laying on the floor, around him lays plastic cups and crisps. He bleeds slowly into the marble floor, staining it with a puddle of warm crimson. You swear you saw smoke appear from within.

“Someone call an ambulance!” An acquaintance of the band yells as everyone else pauses to stare wide eyed at the still body.

“F–Fuck!” Yuri curses as she takes out her phone from her pocket, fumbling with it in a panic that causes the phone to slip from her grasp and onto the puddle of blood. “Shit.”

She takes a step closer to take it back, and you quickly yank her away. Everyone's attention is on the lone body, but yours are on the oncoming crowd that are running down the hill.

Yuri and Hobie follow your line of sight, gasping in place as they see a dozen or so figures running at breakneck speed.

The rest follows as the guttural groans get louder.

“What the fuck—!” Just as Ned says it, the lone body twitches on the floor and lifts his head up, revealing a grotesque slashed face with shards of glass embedded in his rotting flesh. Blood dribbles from his mouth, strings of drool and crimson leaving his cut lip. His veins pop out, black and blue. “What the fuck!”

You grab a knife from the bar, and you tug Hobie away. “Everyone, run!”

Glass smashes underfoot as everyone rushes to get to the exit.

Yuri holds onto your arm whilst Hobie takes the front. He holds onto your hand in a tight grip, shoulder smashing into the panicking crowd to get you out of there.

Bodies are packed into the doorway as people try to get out. Screams ring out behind you, screams that will haunt your dreams as tearing flesh accompanies the horrific sound.

“Fuckin’ move!” Hobie squeezes himself out in between panicking bodies, hand still grasping around yours. He yells your name, eyes set in a panic as blood splashes across the walls and expensive paintings.

You don't dare look back at the carnage as you manage to get out while your hand is around your stomach protectively.

“C’mon!” Hobie yanks you away, no time for gentleness as he leads you towards the car. “Fuck!”

The two of you run on the yard, the street filled with cries as people funnel out of the house. Neighbours come out of their houses, porch lights flickering on.

You notice the lack of hands around you as you look back at the house. “Yuri!”

Hobie pauses for a second, looking for the rest of his band in the midst of chaos and screams. Faces whizz by, but none of them look like them. With his heart plummeting down to his stomach, he continues to run and snatch you out of your worried stupor.

You stagger on your feet, the cold February air nipping at your cheeks. “What about the others?!” You cry out as Hobie unlocks the car and practically shoves you inside the passenger's side. Face unreadable. “Hobie!” He slams the door shut and goes around the hood to get inside.

He takes a breath for a second, hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, and eyes wild as he stares at the rearview mirror.

You grasp his hand, fingers trembling around his palm. “We need to wait for them.”

Swallowing thickly and with a shaking hand, he inserts the key in the ignition and starts the car.

“Hobie, we can't fucking leave them here!” You cry out, head turning towards the house where you see limping and bloodied bodies exit the place.

More and more come out, all covered in crimson, eyes eerily wide, and jaws permanently set ajar, mouths frothing and dripping with blood. They sniff the air as a few of them pick apart the stragglers left writhing on the grass.

“What—What the fuck are they?” Hobie watches as they rip and tear into bodies like they're wet paper. Limbs fly about, severed arms and legs fling out before landing on the former pristine grass.

“I—I don't know.” Your hand grips the knife tightly. “Do you see them?” You whisper, afraid of being heard by the creatures.

Hobie roams his eyes around, frantically looking for the band. He licks at his lips, sweat dribbling down the back of his neck. “...no, do you—?!” A fist bangs against the window, the face belonging to it seems familiar, whoever it was, they break his window with ease after a couple of punches. The tattered arm reaches inside, trying to grab at Hobie. “Fuck!”

You scream, and Hobie, in his panic, steps on the gas.

“Hobie!” The car speeds off into the suburban streets but whatever or whoever it was they still hold onto the side of the window, groaning, eyes bleeding and trying to bite at him with his golden teeth. “Fuck off!” You yell, holding onto the grab handles above to propel your legs over Hobie and kick them out of the car.

They fly away, body rag dolling, skidding into the asphalt and leaving a trail of blood.

You huff, heaving back into your seat as Hobie glances worriedly at you. “Are you okay?” You ask, adrenaline filtering through your veins.

He checks himself over, and finds nothing of note. “Yeah,” he reaches for you, palm cupping your cheek. “You?”

“I–I think so.” You look down at your shoes, finding specks of blood staining your trainers. The hula girl on the dashboard dances to the hum of the car, completely unbothered.

“What the fuck is happening?” Hobie asks as his attention turns back towards the road, carefully steering in through the neighborhood.

“I think what James showed us…” you try to catch your breath, hand placed on your stomach. “...is that— it's happening here too.”

“Love.” He exhales shakily, trying to even out his breathing and expel out the panic. “I think that was the pub owner.”

“What?” You look back, only to see the grand houses fading away. “Who?”

“The fuckin' guy who tried to grab me.” He gestures behind him.

Your face morphs into horror as realization flits over you. “What the fuck.” Looking back again, you only see the dark road. “That can't— he was at the party with us!”

“Do you think it's contagious?”

“What?”

“They looked like they were sick, like fuckin'— like rabies.” He waves his hand wildly.

“Rabies?”

“I don't know— all I know is that he was bloody fine the last I saw him.”

“If it is contagious, we need to know how you get it so we can avoid it.” You sit back down, hand still holding onto the small knife you grabbed from the bar. He nods, eyeing you from his peripheral.

The car grows quiet for a minute as you and Hobie ride towards the city.

“We left them there.” You say solemnly, eyes staring straight at the buildings in front of you.

“They're alright.” Hobie says matter-of-factly, hands clenching around the wheel.

“Hobie.” You say his name with tears in your eyes.

“I know they are.” He grabs your hand, squeezing it three times before letting go. Another minute passes in heavy silence. “If…” Hobie starts, heart heavy. “...If we get separated—”

“Hobie—”

“Jus’ in case, love.” He pats your thigh lovingly. “Jus’ in case, we meet back at the houseboat. And if that doesn't work or you can't get there…” he inhales shakily, afraid of losing you in the chaos. “D’you remember that cabin we rented out last year for our anniversary?” You nod, hand reaching for his elbow. “We'll meet there, right? Tell me you understand, love.”

“I understand.” You say with haste. The frantic look in his eyes has you reaching for him, hand placed in between the headrest and the back of his neck as he leans against your touch. “We'll be okay, Hobie.”

He swallows thickly, fists tightening around the steering wheel. “You come first, remember that, y–yeah?” His voice cracks as he runs a rough palm over his face. “Whatever happens, we stay together.”

Just as the words escape his lips, the car passes by a burning building on the side of the road. The embers flicker in and out, flames illuminating the darkened road in its yellow glow. The fire devours the whole place, warmth felt through the windshield, kissing your cheeks. You and Hobie share a heavy look, recognizing the place as the same diner you two had your first date together. It doesn't bode well, and it doesn't help with your churning stomach.

“Love.” He calls you softy, grasping at your hand that rests on your stomach.

You didn't even notice you were holding onto your belly until he touched you. “Yeah?”

“You alright?”

Hobie turns the car further into the highway as you two come across more cars than before, all leaving the city unlike you and Hobie.

“Y–Yeah.” You lie through your teeth, eyes watching as an ambulance whizzes past you towards the city. “What’s your plan?”

“We need to go home and then sail on the houseboat. I bet whatever those things were can't bloody swim.”

“Hobie, the houseboat can't handle waves from the sea.” You say as you instinctively knead at his nape.

“I know, love, we'll stay close to the rivers—” He abruptly stops talking, eyes following an empty bus stopped on the road. It looked normal at first, but when you stare into it longer, the bloody handprints on the windows make your skin rise. “We'll be fine.” His tone says that he's not just reassuring you but also himself.

A helicopter passes by above you, blades whirring and fading away as it goes out of the city. The familiar streets are filled with people, all lugging bags and their children carried on their backs as they try to leave the place. Your palm curls around your shirt, a pit in your stomach weighing heavily.

“I think we should turn back.”

“Back to where?” Hobie doesn't mean for his tone to be harsher than it was. “There's nowhere else.”

You almost jump in place when a jet plane whooses past, leaving behind a trail in the clouds. “Somewhere that isn't crowded.”

“We're in London, love, everywhere is crowded.” Hobie stops the car as you two hit traffic. “The world is endin’ and there's still fuckin' traffic.” He honks the horn in frustration, muscles straining under the harsh push.

The sound rings in your ears as you look around you. Pedestrians have a solemn look in their eyes, clutching at themselves. A few limp in place, ankle swollen or leg bleeding from the worst day in their lives. Your mind wanders back to Yuri and the others, wondering if they're alright, or if they're injured and limping like the strangers around you.

Hobie turns on the radio, flipping through the usual music channels to get to the news. The sound of the emergency broadcast has you and Hobie covering your ears from the shrill sound. He lowers the volume down from the last music jam you two had on your way to James'.

The radio cackles for a moment, signal fading in and out as static cackles. “Stay….home…danger…bite.”

“Useless piece of shit!” He punches the radio, suddenly, instead of the broadcaster's voice, an ear piercing boom can be heard from your right. The knick-knacks on the dashboard fall on the floor. “Fuck!” Hobie instinctively puts his arms around your head, shielding you.

The explosion reverberates, shockwave echoing through the city as it hits the car and breaks all the windows and windshields. Glass shatters around you whilst screams erupt all around the streets.

“What was that?!” Your ears ring, a piercing sound deep inside your ears. Hobie says something, mouth opening and closing but you don't hear him through the shrill deaf tone. “What?!”

He grasps at your face, pointing at the black smoke billowing from the distance. You follow his finger, seeing fire and brimstone, the heat from it searing your cheeks. “—we need to go!”

You stare back at him, eyes wide at an oncoming truck heading your way. It runs through cars like butter, flipping metal and ripping flesh. You don't have time to run, so you embrace him— The only way you know how to protect him.

—

Hobie wakes up with a flaring pain on his temple. Skin aflame as gashes and scratches mar his flesh. His vision fades in and out, and his throat dry as he swings upside down in his seat.

Panic sets in immediately, blood rushing to his head. The car is a mess, trinkets that were on the dashboard are now strewn across the car's ceiling. Glass shards littered around, and metal folded and creaking as he moves. He yells your name, throat stinging, chest heavy as he looks beside him.

He only sees a splash of crimson on the seat.

“Love!” He cries out, rough and bloodied hands trying to push away several metal rods piercing in between him and the passenger's seat, fencing him out. It almost split the car in half.

“F–Fuck! C’mon!” Looking through the cracks, he spots an opening before him and a trail of blood. That's probably where you must've gone.

His hand trembles as he feels through the seatbelt and releases it with a click. He falls down harshly, body folded against himself. Breath wheezing, he inhales through the pain.

The thought of you injured and alone was enough fuel for him to squeeze himself out of the window and into the street. Glass nicks his body, scraping against his skin. He bites his tongue, hands scruffed and bleeding.

Hobie falls knees first into the asphalt, body aching and various cuts bleeding on the cold grey ground.

With a deep inhale, he pushes himself up, palms splayed, and feet boosting himself up. His muscles scream in protest as blood dribbles from his brow down to his lashes. He finally makes it up, standing on unsteady feet.

Hobie goes back to the car, arms reaching towards the backseat where his guitar case lies. His fingertips brush along its rough leather until he manages to get a hold of it. He yanks it out of the back, a miracle that it's even intact after the crash. There's no care when he takes it out of the car, case smashing loudly against the broken shards of glass and banging on the metal door. As long as he has it back, he doesn't care about the damage.

There's a sudden animalistic groan in the distance.

On trembling legs, he turns around. His whole body freezes as he sees piles upon piles of cars littered around. Death lingers in the place, rotten flesh and drying blood wafting over his nose.

You have to be alive. You have to be.

As he starts to stagger around the car to climb over the debris and over to you— he falls back on the hood from the sharp pain stinging on his cranium; hip hitting hard on the metal. The sound bounces off the concrete street, and he hears the sudden shuffling of feet, then running footsteps.

Hobie lifts his head up, seeing a crowd— no, a horde sprinting towards him as they appear behind the flipped and broken down cars. All gnashing teeth and bloodied fingers trying to rip him apart.

Without a choice, he bolts away in the different direction you might've gone.

—

Warmth kisses your skin as you lay on the soft mattress. Face squished on the pillow as arms wrap around your body.

“Morning, Hobie.” It was all a bad dream then, nothing but a nightmare fuelled from watching a horror movie before bed. You run your knuckles over his cheek, he still doesn't stirr. “I know you're awake, Hobs.”

You take his cheek, palm resting along his jawline. He feels cold. “Hobie? You okay?” Sitting up, you try to shake him awake. “Hobie? Are you sick?”

His body immediately flings up, sheets flying off his body as his hands wrap tightly around your neck. The amber eyes you love are now a pair of bloodied rubies in his eye sockets. Blood drips from his lips, skin bubbling and melting off his skull. Blue and red veins snake along his flesh, curling around his eyes and lips.

“H–Hobie!” You claw at his hands, ripping away his skin, feeling it crust under your nails.

He chokes you firmly, and you gasp awake.

Your eyes meet with carnage, fire and smoke hitting your face as a breeze passes by. The once normal London streets look like a car junkyard. A throbbing ache spreads through you as you see the hula girl on the floor, crimson splashed on her ukelele.

“Holy shit, you're finally awake!” The least likely person you thought you'd meet up with taps your cheek. James' face is drenched in sweat and blood, shirt caked in drying blood as he shakes you awake once again.

“J–James? How?”

“I need to unclip you, okay? You're gonna fall.” Before you could say something or even wait for your mind to wake up fully, he cuts your seatbelt off with a knife and you fall headfirst into the car's ceiling. Pain blooms on the back of your neck as you feel aches and pains all over. “There, we need to fucking move, Y/N.”

“No, where's—!?” You twist in your seat, sitting up and weakly pushing him away as you turn towards the driver's side. Hobie is still strapped in his seat, sitting upside down, arms dangling from his sides. He's unconscious but breathing.

“Hobie.” You try to squeeze your hands in between the metal crammed in the car that divides your side from his. The beloved car has seen better days. “H–Hobie, fucking wake up!” The tips of your fingers brush along his shoulder, feeling his warmth against your skin. “Please!”

James yells your name, tugging you away. “We'll get him out! But we need to hurry, they're coming!”

“Who?” A low rumbling groan echoes out from the chaos. In your headache, you finally remember what happened.

“You need to get out of the car and I'll try to get him out. You won't go far with your leg.”

“My leg?” You look down, gasping as a large gash runs down your hind leg. Blood trickles from the wound as shards of sharp glass sticks out of it. “Oh f–fuck!” Immediately, pain shoots up. A blinding pain that has you grasping at James’ shoulders and biting down your lip.

“Yeah, I know, calm down.” James pats your back and brandishes the same knife you took from his house. “I'm going to jump over the cars and cut him loose, okay? Stay here.”

You nod, biting down your yelps of agony. Your hand wanders down to your stomach out of fear for the life inside.

James leaves your side, grunting and grasping at his bleeding arm. You watch him carefully as he tries to find a foothold on a side mirror attached to something that doesn't even look like a vehicle anymore with its crushed metal and shattered glass. Ageing blood drifts in the air, clotted and drying while screams and screeches echo all around the city. There's a low rumble of helicopter blades somewhere, and sirens fading in and out.

James still struggles to climb up over the pile of cars. You turn your head, glancing at Hobie in hopes of him waking up from his dreamless sleep. There's drying blood trickling on his temple, lips split and bloodied. Adrenaline makes your hand shake, his words echo in your mind— “you come first.” He'd want for you to not just sit there wait for him to wake up, so with a determination to survive in your eyes, you reach upwards to grab a scarf you know you've placed inside the console. Things tumble out as you open it, polaroids, keys, guitar picks and the blue scarf you've been looking for.

You hear James' grunts as you gingerly pick up a picture of you and Hobie on a random day at the beach. That day was freezing cold with the waters nipping at your skin, but you two didn't care as you chased each other on the frozen sand. With trembling fingers, you hide the picture inside your jacket pocket.

“F–Fuck.” You bite your tongue as you take out pieces of glass out of your leg. A tear slides down your cheek as you remove the last one that was buried deep inside your muscle. Inhaling, you flick your eyes towards James who's halfway up the pileup. “Okay.” Cinching the cloth tighter and tighter around your leg, you breathe in through your nose, mouth clamped shut to prevent a shrill cry from coming out. Tying it neatly, you finally take a deep exhale of air.

“Shit!” James yells, foot slipping off a bloodied hood of a car as he tumbles down on the hard ground. He groans, sitting up and cradling his behind.

“You okay?” You ask, swallowing down your fear as you quickly glance at Hobie, who's still unconscious. If you take too long to get him out, the blood rushing to his head won't be good. “James.”

“I'm good— fuck!” An arm suddenly reaches from within a crushed car, skin mangled, black blood oozing from the wounds. James crawls backwards into a car, the loud bump and his screech could wake up the whole city.

“James— shit!” You clamber out of the car, leg immediately shooting up a wave of pain that has you almost curling against yourself. With another look at Hobie, you limp towards James and help him up. “We need to get Hobie out!”

“Yeah—” his eyes turn wide at something behind you. “Fuck me.”

As you look over your shoulder, you see a wave of people clambering out of the destroyed cars and appearing from the side streets. The moon gazes behind them, a spotlight on their shambling bodies and shadows dancing on the pavement as their hands open and close, trying to grasp at you.

With your heart stuck in your throat, you grab a piece of metal laying at your feet. Its sharp edges sting your palms as the smell of the rusted iron meets with your nose. You look at Hobie, eyes tearing up at him sitting there alone and defenseless. You murmur an apology before smacking the metal against the hood of a car.

“Over here!” You scream, throat burning and legs inching towards an opening towards the alleyway.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” James tries to grab you, but you nudge him away.

“Getting them away from him!” You hammer away at the cars around you while you limp towards the alley. “James, come on!”

The rotting corpses follow you as you and James shimmy in between a downed car and a truck. Their running footsteps thud in tandem with your heart, metal pokes and scratch you but you carry on with gritted teeth.

You make it out of the pileup, immediately turning around to grab James by the collar before one of the shamblers takes a hold of him. Their fingers graze his back, almost ripping his shirt apart.

“Come on, you fuckers!” You yell, banging the metal rod around the walls whilst James guides you backwards.

The corpses struggle to get out of the small space, pushing at each other as bodies quickly pile up over the cars and spill over the cramped alleyway. A few hit the ground in a crunching noise, but the rest pay them no heed as they jump over their heads, stampeding over them while they desperately try to get to you.

“We need to run!” James grabs your arm, quickly looping it over his shoulder to help you bolt away. “I've got an idea!”

Before you could fully turn away, you see a glimpse of Hobie in between the piles of bodies and metal. He sits there, undisturbed and safe.

“Go!” With tears in your eyes, you sprint away despite the searing pain in your leg.

—

Hobie quickens his sprinting, wind whizzing past him as he almost tumbles towards the docks. Wood creaks under him, heavy boots thumping against the old wood and water logged planks.

It looks like he outran the corpses, but he can still hear them heaving out a throaty groan like they're in pain. He's not taking any chances as he quickly makes time and jumps over the side of his houseboat the second he sees its well loved façade.

“Shit, shit, shit.” His knees hit the deck and an almost blinding pain lights his joints on fire.

He grasps at his knees, body laying against the cold wood. Despite the pain, he unties the rope tether from the dock, using his muscle memory and ignoring the fear to quickly untie it. The ropes fall down into the waters, sinking down into the depths.

With a deep inhale, he crawls towards the welcome mat that he still remembers you got for him as a housewarming gift. That was before you were dating, but he already loved you back then— still does, a lot more now. Turning it over, he grabs the spare key and climbs back up, using the doorknob as leverage.

With his hands shaking, he opens the door in hopes of seeing you waiting for him patiently inside.

The door creaks open, and he's only met with dead air and darkness.

Hobie bites the inside of his cheek, trying to calm himself down as he makes his way upwards and towards the steering wheel. The framed pictures of you two and the band whizzes past him in the dark, all smiles and laughter etched in each photograph. He makes it up to the wheel, immediately inserting the key in the ignition as the whole boat lights up like a damn Christmas tree.

The bloodied and bloated corpses appear from the street, shrieking as they see him standing in the boat before racing towards him.

Hobie doesn't steer the boat just yet, eyes roaming around the docks, hoping, wishing that he would see you sprinting towards the houseboat you two shared.

But with every inch the dead comes close to him, he has no choice but to sail away without you.

He promises to find you, even if it kills him.

—

Your lungs burn from the running, feet sore and feeling like you're sprinting on hot coals. It's torture, pair it up with your nausea and your various wounds, you feel like you're better off as the dead’s meal. And yet, you still run with James leading you towards a pub.

His shoulder hits the double doors, bursting it open and pulling you through it and locking the doors with a propped up chair all in quick succession.

You stand in the middle of the room with a wild look in your eyes as you see a handful of people peeking out of the bar.

“Get out!” One whisper yells at you, and James finally joins your side.

“Absolutely not, mate.” He shakes his head, taking your hand, he leads you towards the back of the place. “I own this bloody place.”

You whip your head towards him with shock. “What?”

“Technically my dad does.” He whispers to you as he continues to lead you to an office while the survivors follow you with their heavy gaze.

“And here I thought JJJ only had that radio show.” You say as you close the door behind you to shut off the stares.

James rummages through the desk, trying to find something as you roam your eyes around the sparse room with a few accolades framed to the walls and its business permit. Behind the oak table lies a large cabinet with a lock on it. And to the other side of the wall is the back exit. There's not even a framed picture of his family in it, not even of James.

“One thing about my dad is that he loves yapping, drinking, and…” he grins, showing you a ring of keys. “Guns.”

“Guns? That's—”

“Hard to get here? Yeah, he had to pull some strings.” He immediately turns around, crouching down to unlock the cabinet. “The real deal is at our house, and you already know what happened there, this is just a small part of his collection.” A muffled curse escapes from his lips as he tries to find the right key in the dozen or so keys.

You look at the window from the office, seeing the survivors beginning to stand up and staring at you with curiosity. Without missing a beat, you close the blinds with a quick tug. You can't risk it, not when you've seen too many apocalypse movies with Hobie. Fuck, Hobie, your heart squeezes at the thought of him. You should get back to him using those guns, saving him like in the movies.

“How'd you find us, James— shit, have you seen Yuri and Ned?” You lean against the table as a wave of pain ebbs through you. Your hand grasps at your stomach, trying to calm yourself down.

His hands pauses, “...no, no I haven't. We got separated too. We all ran out towards another house to get help but when I looked back they were both gone. Then I jacked a car to get to the city— to my mum and dad, hopefully. That's when I saw the pileup and your car.” He clears his throat, sniffing and wiping his face with his sleeve. “I'm sure they're fine though, this is Yuri and Ned we're talking about.”

“Yeah, I hope so. I'm sure your parents are fine too.” That means Hobie is all alone out there. “James, we need to get back to Hobie.”

“I know, boss.” He says your nickname that he dubbed to you when you took on the mantle of being their manager. “No man left behind, I promise.” The cabinet finally unlocks, revealing a pump action shotgun and a pistol. “Thanks dad.” James grabs the backpack next to the gun, filling it up with as much ammo as he could put inside. “Help me with this.”

You nod, quickly kneeling down to shovel in ammo. Your leg hinders you to fold it, but despite the stabbing pain, you still crouch. “After we get Hobie, we'll hop onto the houseboat then we'll go out and find Yuri and Ned.” The boxes of bullets rattle as you shove it inside.

“Solid plan.” He takes the shotgun and loads it in with shells. You gawk at his expert movements. He shrugs, “of course he taught us how to use these things.”

“Perks of being friends with the royal family I guess?”

James makes a face, nose scrunched up. “Never went to their hunts, dad said I would've pointed it at them instead.”

You chuckle, “that's probably true.”

He smiles, handing you the pistol. “You know how to use it?”

“Uh, point and shoot?” You take the weighted gun in your hand.

James takes the gun and shows you the safety, “right means pew pew, left means no pew pew.” He then takes a cartridge and loads up the pistol and shows you how to load it yourself. “Just pull this back right after and you're good.”

“What if it jams?” You ask as he gives it back to you.

“Like in the movies, huh?” It's your turn to shrug. “That rarely happens with a gun like this. But if it does, you run like hell, okay?”

“Okay.” You inhale, letting your hand acclimate to the weight. “I never thought that there's this side of you, James.”

“I was really into watching doomsday preppers when I was younger. I guess the doom mongering kinda stuck with me.”

You chuckle, “we're kinda stuck together until we find them. How do you feel about that?”

“Fucking lucky that I got the fittest member in the band.” James jokes, nudging you as he puts on the backpack. He stands up, giving you a helping hand that you take.

“Not going to be fit for much longer.” You groan as your knees creak from under you.

“C’mon, you're not that old.”

“I don't mean it like that.” You inhale, “I'm pregnant, James.”

“Shit, is Yuri the father?”

You push him playfully. “Fucker.”

“Congrats? Shit timing though.”

You shake your head with a small smile. You feel lighter now that you've told someone else. “The worst fucking timing. I haven't told him yet— I was about to but then you know.”

“Yeah, the fucking dead rises again.” He walks over to the backdoor, unlocking it.

“Should we help them?” You gesture towards the window and the bar.

James sighs then nods. “Yeah, actually we should—!” The door opens and out comes a stumbling wall of decaying flesh. He immediately fires at it head on, blood and guts spraying at you and the walls as your ears ring from the loud shot.

You take James by the back of his collar, tugging him backwards into the bar as the loud shot has brought more visitors to funnel into the office.

You yell ‘run,’ but you can't hear your own voice.

James points the barrel behind you as more and more appear. You quickly open the pub entrance, flinging away the chair as chaos ensues inside.

Your hearing comes back just as the screams start.

James tries his best to help, shooting at anyone who comes close to the survivors but he can't protect himself and them at the same time. He's backed against a table as he reloads. Fountains of crimson splashes out of the bodies as the corpses rip and tear into their insides.

A few escape, pushing past you to get out into the streets. But most fall into the jaws of death.

Soon, the oaken floorboards and marble bar is covered in guts and bone.

“James, we need to go!”

James struggles to reload with his shaking fingers, with a deep inhale, you point and shoot at a corpse who came too close to him. He cradles his ear, wincing at the sound as he retreats towards you. The body staggers back, but your bullet missed the head, ear no longer there.

You take the opportunity to pull him out just in time as bodies pile up and spring over to you, you see a glimpse of one of the survivors with a huge chunk taken out of their face, twitching and writhing on the floor before they stand up and bite at the air with their bloodied teeth.

You don't have time to ponder what you saw as you and James run towards the docks.

Your leg aches but you carry on with the pain, you feel blood seeping through the measly bandage while you run. James holds onto your elbow, making sure you don't lag behind as you blindly shoot behind you.

James leads you back to where he found you and Hobie, his feet skids to a stop but when he looks inside the driver's side, Hobie's gone.

You almost cry at the sight. But you hold onto hope. “The docks!” James immediately understands as he lets you lead this time.

Muscle memory guides you towards the side streets where you and Hobie use as shortcuts to get home faster. Shoes thudding against the pavement, shots echoing in the dark as smoke and fire billows all over the city you call home.

The smell of the river has you running faster.

Muscles screaming to stop, you heave as you bolt over to the houseboat. Only to be met with nothing in its place.

“What the fuck?!” You scream, gun tightly around your hand. “Where—?!” Turning around, you roam your frantic eyes across the familiar dock, but the red paint of the houseboat is nowhere to be seen, only the rope that was tied around it is left floating on the water.

“Where is it?!” James yells, reloading his gun before making quick work of the corpses that fall down with a bloodied thud.

With a heavy heart, you pull James away and back into the streets. “It's not here!”

You're half relieved and afraid of what might've happened to him. Hobie might've woken up and went to the houseboat in hopes of meeting you there. But he had to leave, you know he wouldn't have any other choice in the matter if he chose that. But another half of you thinks that he perished along the way, that the houseboat is now floating along the Thames with its captain writhing and stumbling inside the very place you both cherished.

You shake the thought away, focusing on surviving for him and for the life inside you. He's alive, you know he is.

“Over here!” James pushes himself inside a broken metal fence, helping you squeeze inside as the horde catches up to you. You feel the heat of their bodies against your back as they desperately try to wrap their rotted fingers around you.

He pulls you, shooting at any stragglers as your destination gets near. A tall building stands before you with its shiny windows that reach high into the sky, and rotating doors that remind you of a fancy hotel.

“Keep running!” He yells, arm still holding onto you for dear life.

“Fuck, my leg!” You almost stumble, but James comes back to you and grabs your arm and places it around his shoulder.

“I'm sorry, we're almost there!” He yells, panicking as he bares half of your weight for you.

The two of you pass by a pub that's filled with screams of terror echoing out instead of the sound of music that you're used to. The windows are painted in crimson, splotches of blood marr the historical walls inside like spider lilies spread across the glass. There's still people in there, fighting for their lives as you see a flash of light and hear a loud bang that has your teeth rattling inside your mouth.

The horde splits off towards the sound, leaving you with a dozen corpses heading your way.

Your adrenaline filled heart flips as you see the name of the pub, and it's the same one you were in just mere hours ago with Hobie.

“In here!” James pulls you back into the present, pushing you towards the rotating doors and into the empty lobby.

You make it inside just in time before the dead get to you. James grabs the metal rod in your hand, using it to lock the rotating doors by placing it in-between the glass.

“It's not gonna hold on for long, we need to go up!” James grabs your hand, yanking you towards the stairs. “Seventh floor!”

You don't have enough time to gaze upon the expansive lobby with its marble floors and crystal chandelier. It seems as though the place lies untouched by the calamity outside.

Your mind goes on survival mode, running, dodging bared teeth, climbing up the stairs, shooting, kicking a corpse away from your ankle. And then sprinting upwards towards the winding stairs.

James couldn't risk it with the elevators, knowing that it could get stuck in between floors or worse, the dead lurk and wait inside.

The condo door is in sight, just when James trips and falls face first into the harsh ground. You look at the crawling corpse, who's rotting hand is wrapped around his ankle.

Without wasting time, you take your foot up, stomping down on their skull in a sickening crunch of brain matter and bone.

Eyeing down your deed, with its mess marked on the once pristine floors, James pulls you away and towards the door. Within a second, he inputs the code on the panel and the door clicks open. He pushes you inside and shuts the door with haste.

There's banging outside the door, and you're left standing in the hallway with James pushing a bookshelf towards it as a barricade.

You don't notice him calling your name as you stare at your bloodied shoe with brain matter sticking to its heel.

“Hey.” James grasps your arm, panting and eyes wide awake. “I need help with the door.”

With a firm nod, you take your mind off of what you have done, and whilst you push shelves against the door, you could only wish that Hobie's alright and he made it to the boat in one piece.

—

Hobie's stuck alone in his boat. With nothing but the waters and the fish to keep him company for two months, he sails towards the north where the cabin, the designated meeting place, lies. His hand tightens around the wheel, lips chapped, scruff scratching him, and bags dark under his brown eyes. He feels as if he's going sea crazy out here. Hundreds of worries have appeared in his mind, and most of it consists of you and your whereabouts.

Without the knowledge of you being alive and breathing, he keeps seeing you in his dreams. The last two months have been a nightmare for him. And it has gotten worse with every day that passes without you by his side. Now he knows why Yuri and the others always joke that they shouldn't separate the two of you lest the other won't function or go stir crazy. He only hopes that you're doing better than he is.

His eyes seem to circle around the sticker of your face on his guitar, right where you accidentally scruffed it. You two always talked about sailing the whole world on the houseboat, ignoring the fact that the boat can't withstand the harsh waves of the ocean. But it was a good dream nonetheless. If only you could be here with him, it's not sailing around the world, but the water at night would be a sight to behold for you.

The waters around the country have gone wilder by the week, he sticks to the beaches and the coast where he can control the houseboat better. Where the water isn't too rough around the old ship.

The boat isn't built for seafaring, or even long journeys. If the houseboat collapses against the rough waves before he could get to the small fishing town you two stayed in, his hope would dwindle, but he'll stay determined for you.

He can already feel your arms around him when the reunion happens. Or is that his mind playing tricks on him once again?

At least he has enough provisions to last him a few more weeks out in the open. But in time, he has to go dock the boat and scavenge for food. He doesn't need to load up with gasoline when the houseboat runs on solar. Thank fuck he built that before shit hit the fan.

The virus seems to have wrapped its teeth around the world. Marks of death lay waste to every city he sails by. Piles and piles of bodies, half burned by the very people who once knew them, afraid of the walking death that could savage them too. Cities now lay empty or crowded by snarling corpses. Some were lucky enough to build walls around a small commune, but it was obvious that they didn't want newcomers with the mounted guns and patrolling armed forces around it.

With every port and dock he passes, he looks for you and your familiar face. He hopes that with every wave and tide he conquers, you're getting closer to him. But whenever he passes by a coastal town, or a beach he once visited with you, he could only see the dead awaiting for him on the sand, like old friends waiting to be reunited with him. Their eyes are long gone, white scleras and crimson irises staring him down with their maws agape, biting at air and inhaling through their rotten lungs.

The shamblers, he calls it, or them, the former humans that were sadly infected, can't swim, but they also can't drown. So swimming in the water poses a risk of getting bitten by one of them that are treading the sea floor. Hobie doesn't risk getting into the sea after a limp hand wrapped around his ankle when he decided to take a quick dip.

In the past two months since then, he misses you, misses the way he would wake up to your face, arms wrapped around him and protecting him from the harsh morning cold. He misses the way you would smile and laugh. He misses the sound of your footsteps walking around the boat, sometimes he hears it at night when he's in between sleep and the waking world. Missing you was an understatement, he longs for you, longs for you to be alive and back beside him. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but no one told him that the ache would be unbearable.

Hobie once hated the mundanity of life. The way he plays his loud music in the speakers, now he can't even turn on the stereo when every sound could bring the dead to him. Even the radio that he has taken for granted, one that you would always turn on in the morning without fail, now only plays static. Or the repeating sounds of the emergency broadcast over and over again. He sometimes wants to chuck it out of the boat and into the depths, but he remembers how much you loved the old radio and how you would sway to the music. So now he lets it play static, the sound keeping him company throughout the night instead of you.

The information pamphlet that the government tossed from an airplane glares at him from where he taped it on the side of the controls. Hobie still remembers the whirr of the engine above while the papers drift down like snow.

The drawings remind him of the ones in airplanes where they tell you what to do in case of a plane crash or how to put on your seatbelt. He feels like he's in a never ending plane crash heading to nowhere. The words ‘body fluids,’ ‘infected,’ ‘bites,’ and ‘ten seconds’ are engraved in his mind.

He once tried to call your phone in hopes of you answering it but he only heard your voicemail. In the rocky waters and the solemn sky, your voice echoes and presence felt through the speakers. He kept calling you after that just to hear your voice again and again until cell services stopped working.

He's utterly alone.

With a sigh, he steers the houseboat towards an empty dock. The wood creaks as he steps out, bag slung over his shoulder and rope itching against his palms. After taking a quick look around for danger, he ties the rope around the dock, securing his home before grabbing his hammer from his belt.

He stretches his arms and legs as if he's about to run a marathon, he probably would be after he tried to restock for supplies a few days ago. He can still smell the stench of rotten flesh and blood in his nose when a horde chased after him.

Like always he tries to find the evacuation area where you might be, or where other people might be. He would steer away from other survivors, but if there's doctors and a lot of people around, he's sure that they can be trusted. A gathering of people in the apocalypse could spell danger, but it could also be hope.

He treks along the empty street, nothing left but dusty shops, and abandoned cars on the road. There's no stench of death that lingers around the place, or blood splattered along the shop walls. Hobie guesses this town was one of the lucky ones to be evacuated before the virus got to them.

His hypothesis seems to be right when he spots a military vehicle abandoned on the side of the road. Peeking behind it, he doesn't find anything, not even a shambler waiting to bite at him behind the tarpaulin. He wonders what happened to this place.

Every place he encounters has him asking the same question, could you be here?

As he enters the large stadium, it's evident that it's long been abandoned.

Scattered boxes and tents lay where its occupants last left it. Needles and bloodied bandages are strewn across the painted floor and on the court seats. Hobie stands where the general seats would be, right in the middle of everything and with him having a good vantage point of the whole place. A breeze passes by, and papers fly ahead of him.

It’s completely empty, even if he scavenge for supplies in here he won't find anything.

Just as he's about to leave, he hears a clunking sound from the middle of the stadium. His hands hold onto the railings as he narrows his eyes towards the movement from behind the tents.

There, a couple of black clad strangers emerge from within, all holding onto their own blades.

Hobie immediately ducks down, hiding behind the wall and railings.

“This place is shit, there's nothin’ left!” One says, voice echoing.

“Keep your bloody voice down unless you want to wake the dead.”

“How fucking poetic of you.”

Hobie has managed to avoid the dead and the living, the dead a lot easier, but people are harder to get away from. He hasn't killed or maimed anyone, unlike the apocalyptic movies he had watched with you and the band. He tries to avoid it, staying away from staining his hands with red. The shamblers used to be human too, under all the rotten flesh and dead eyes, they once had a life, a family, someone that cared for them. So as much as he can, he only stuns them.

He has never encountered other people before, on his ship, the only faces he has seen are the ones in photographs. He always wondered where everyone went, if there's a huge ship somewhere carrying the whole world behind its metal back. Finding the strangers is comforting in a way, a way that he wasn't left behind to rot and survive on his own. That there are still people out there, living and breathing ones.

But it's clear that you're not here.

With a thudding heart, he slowly crawls on the dusty floor, gloved hand and knees dirtied by the muck and grime.

Hobie tries to not make any noise above the whistling wind and rustling trees. He avoids fallen bottles, and scattered paper plates. The voices fade behind him, the doors where he came from just in his line of sight.

He shifts left and right, crawling as he adjusts his belt. Your voice telling him that he needed a new one rather than the barely holding on rope echoes in his ears. He curses himself for not listening as he keeps adjusting the falling thing.

His breath quickens, pulse palpitating as he makes it to the door. His palm reaches for the doorknob, still kneeling down. But as he stretches himself, the hammer hanging from his belt falls.

Hobie gasps, fingertips brushing along its handle, trying to catch it. It falls down loudly on the floor, metallic clanging sounding like a death knell.

“What was that?!”

“Fuck.” Hobie, without wasting time, grabs the hammer and runs for his life.

The door swings open, the warmth of the sun greeting him. His boots thump loudly on the pavement, leaving his pursuers in the dust.

“Get back here!” They gain speed as their footsteps get louder, a cacophony of breaths and blades unsheathing. “He has supplies, get him!”

Hobie turns a corner, his destination still too far from him to see. His legs are starting to ache, chest aflame as he navigates the town that he thought would be empty.

“Shit!” He makes the mistake of looking back, finding three people now running after him. Wait, three?

A shambler joins the chase, eyes bloodied, arms trying to grasp at the couple.

“Behind you!” Hobie tries to help as they're too focused on trying to catch him.

Just as the man wielding a fire axe turns to look behind him, the shambler catches up and grabs him by the neck, taking a chunk out of his face.

His screams of agony would bring Hobie nightmares, but the guttural yell of grief from his companion would be etched in his mind forever.

“Wilson, no!” He cries, trying to help the other as blood sprays the pavement below.

The dead doesn't let go, maw properly set into his skin.

His pursuer cranes his neck towards the frozen Hobie, eyes pleading with him for help.

Hobie should help, could help. His mind is in scrambles as screams echo around the small town, waking the dead that hides in the forgotten homes. He swallows thickly just as the sound of running footsteps roar from further within the town. So he turns around, running away from the scene as more and more join in, hearing the screams of terror ebb out like a dinner bell.

He doesn't sleep that night, the faces of those strangers are painted behind his eyelids, faces contorted into pure fear. And yet he left them, had to leave them or he might've been caught with them. Died with them, died with strangers who tried to take his things and perhaps his life.

Hobie doesn't want to die amongst strangers, nor be forgotten and lost within the numbers of the dead. To be left for dead is his greatest fear, losing you was the closest he got to feeling that fear. If It's his time, he wants it to be with people he knows, people he loves, not wasting as a husk of himself in a place he doesn't know.

He lays awake in the same bed you once shared, the pillows still smell like your shampoo, and the room has lingering scents of your perfume. His eyes are heavy and lashes sticking to one another. The chipping paint of the ceiling morphs into shapes, the pub he played at, the band's faces, and you, smiling at him like always.

Closing his eyes tightly, he wretches the vision from his mind. He needs to stay sane. As he stands up from the bed, mattress creaking from his weight, he wraps your cardigan around himself, clinging onto it like a child's toy.

The ship rocks back and forth to the calm waves. Stars dotted along the sky while the moonlight stretches across the shining waters. Hobie sits on the deck, where you two would usually drink morning tea at, and where you'd be sitting when you're waiting for him to come home from a gig.

Everything reminds him of you, there's no escaping it, even if he doesn't want to. He doesn't know if it’s the only thing keeping him sane all alone, or the thing that's slowly making him bonkers. Either way, the memory of you keeps him company in the end of the world.

He brings his knees to his chest, chin propped up on it as his eyes follow a dot in the horizon. The moonlight shines on it whilst it moves on the water.

Fear grips him as it continues to move closer to his boat. The shadow moves from side to side, at the mercy of the waves.

Hobie stands up, putting on your cardigan as he makes his way up to the wheel. He steers the boat away from its way, now seeing it as a large cruise ship that's aimlessly floating on the water.

There's no light nor voices coming from it, only the familiar scent of decomposing flesh, and the sound of low groans.

He steers clear of it as he sees a face peeking from the side, eyes unblinking, red almost shining in the light of the moon. He swears he saw it grin at him.

As he swivels the wheel, he lets the ship pass quietly, letting it carry the dead on its empty voyage.

Hobie decides to get back into bed then, eyes too heavy, body too tired. His head lands on the pillow, sleep taking him into its calm arms.

—

Hobie wakes up to your thumb brushing along his jaw. He cracks an eye open, and your smile beams at him.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey, me.” A smile spreads across his cheeks, your familiar warmth and scent felt through his bones. His eyes feel so heavy, and you're so warm that he could fall right back to sleep.

“You’re loopy today.” The pads of your fingertips graze along his stubble. “Are you tired, Hobie?”

“Yeah, love.” He breathlessly says, smile etched on his lips as the sun shines behind you, bathing you in warm light. “Where have you been?”

“I was waiting for you.” You tilt your head with a smile. “You sleep like the dead.”

He chuckles, hand grasping on your waist. “I was lookin’ for you in my dream.”

“Yeah?” You chuckle above the sound of wind chimes. “Did you find me in your dream?”

“I haven't, not yet.” He sniffs, and yet can't smell your shampoo or perfume.

“Maybe you should wake up then, continue your search?” You whisper, voice gentle as your hands cup his cheeks.

Hobie grins tiredly, eyes half lidded. “You're already in front of me, what is there left to find?”

“You have to wake up, Hobie.” Your fingers pinch his skin, nails digging into his cheeks as the sun is replaced by darkness. And the warmth in your eyes turn stark white.

“Ow, what?”

“Wake the fuck up!”

Hobie jumps off the bed, head hitting the hard wall of the houseboat as thunder rips through the wood while lightning flashes outside. He can still hear the last echoes of your scream in his ears.

“Fuck!” The whole boat shifts to the side, dangerously close to tipping. His things are knocked from their place, glass shattering and making a mess of the bedroom. If he doesn't get up to the wheel, the waves might break the boat in half.

He panics, grabbing his windbreaker, and boots in the other. As he climbs up the steps, he puts it on awkwardly over your cardigan and as best as he can with his shoelaces loose.

Rain battens down on the houseboat, wind howling outside. Hobie zips his jacket on, taking a breath before opening the door.

The water smacks him right on his face, sharp rain drops stinging his cheeks. He slams the door closed, bracing the wind as he shields himself with his arm.

“Shit!” The slippery floors made it hard for him to find a foothold while the waves shook and turn the boat all over like he's in a blender.

Hobie grips the side wall, trying to keep his balance to get up the steps to the controls. The waves splash and slap his body around, completely drenching him from inside and out.

The winds howl a dreaded tune, one that sailors would run away in fear. Dark waves loom overhead, sea salt on his lips, and seafoam spreading by his feet. All he could do is brace for impact.

—

The city in front of you is still burning. Skyscrapers that used to reach the heavens are now nothing but flaming metal and acrid dark smoke. James had warned you not to stay too long on the balcony when the air outside leaves less to be desired, especially in your condition. James has been pleasant company, but the life growing inside you has made it extra difficult to stay in a good mood. Especially when the one person you want to be next to you is missing.

It feels like your heart is out of your body, missing somewhere else.

Your eyes glance over to the Thames, the water is dark and glimmering under the embers of the city and the moonlight. Despite the crackling of fire and low groans of the dead in the streets, the city is quiet, dead quiet.

You long for the days when the sound of a guitar rips through the morning hours of sleep. Hobie would always apologize with a smile, but you know he has taken the position of your personal alarm clock whenever he would wake up earlier than you. Nowadays you would wake up to James trying to pick up a signal from a CB radio he found during his runs through the building. He said it's to contact the rest of the band, but you can always hear him trying to call for his parents when you're in bed and alone with only the polaroid of him, and your baby to keep you company.

It's been two months since you found out, two months without Hobie. You try not to worry too much, telling yourself that he's alright and probably faring better than you and James. But you only do it for the baby, you know all that worrying would bear down on them. Even the prenatal vitamins James found for you from one of his neighbours wouldn't help if you kept on crying through the night with your chest sore while mumbling Hobie's name.

According to the pregnancy book you found, something that was probably owned by James’ mother, your baby is as big as a raspberry now. You already feel bloated and you dread trying to run away from the dead when your belly gets bigger with time. It also said that in three months the baby will be the size of a lemon, the thought makes you realize how long it has been since you've held fresh produce.

James' parents' condo is big, too big for just two people. You've been stuck within the four walls for months now when you can't step out of the building without the city's horde lunging at you. James and you decided to wait out the dead after you read in the government pamphlet that they like to travel in hordes and they tend to leave when there’s no one left to infect or eat. You've seen that the infected are beginning to thin out, but not fast enough.

The place isn't uncomfortable at all; it's probably the best place you could wait it all out in. It's all pristine white walls and modern furniture that must've been worth more than your houseboat. You've taken the guest room with its king sized bed and hundred thread count sheets. It has its own bathroom, and a bathtub to boot. And yet your mind keeps going back to the houseboat where you and Hobie were happy and content. You hate the fact that he's been missing for two months of your life, two months of the pregnancy where you imagined you two would lean on each other. Not spending it all with James, he's kind and patient, but he's still not your Hobie.

You try not to gaze at the river again, but you keep failing each time. The hot chocolate you made sits abandoned on a small table beside you as the wind blows against your cheeks. The scenery doesn't change, it hasn't changed in two months, but you hope and wish that one day the familiar red paint of the houseboat would appear on the waters with Hobie on it.

With a tight grasp around the binoculars, you take a peek at the waters. Your eyes roam around the same docks where you last saw the houseboat, like before, there's nothing.

James thought that giving you the binoculars would help quell your anxieties, but whenever you look through it, you could only see the faces of the dead staring back at you. You could only hope that you don't— would never see a familiar face among the horde.

The sliding doors to the balcony opens, and out comes James' head peeking through it. He gives you soft smile, blond hair tousled in the wind, and a beard needing a trim. The light from inside the condo spills out into the balcony. You always thought that the city's electric grid would run out within a few weeks, but it's still going strong.

“Hey,” he sighs, gazing at how you grip onto the binoculars and down to your growing stomach. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” you inhale, lower back aching and stomach feeling heavier than yesterday. “Just sightseeing.”

He steps out, still wearing his dad's hunting vest, and his mum's silver bracelet. “Anything new?”

You shake your head. “I thought I heard a gunshot from somewhere, but I couldn't find where it came from.”

James sits down next to you with a groan, hand reaching for the binoculars. “Let me try.” You give it to him, hand subconsciously twirling the ring around your pinky. “Where do you think it came from?”

“West, just by the park.” You cradle your stomach, the growing belly still feels alien to you. But at least now the morning sickness is gone, but your feet look bloated inside your socks.

James hums, looking through the binoculars with intensity. He takes it off his eyes after a minute, shaking his head and giving it back to you. “Yeah, nothing, just a few of the infected.”

“Why are you still in your hunting vest? You already got us enough provisions to last us a couple of weeks.”

He looks down at his appearance, “sorry, I can't seem to just shrug it off.” You know what he meant by it, and it's not the vest he's talking about as he cleans off the grime under his fingernails with his thumb nail. “Does it bother you? I'll take it off.”

You stop him from taking the vest off. “No, it's fine, keep it on if you like.”

Nodding, James puts the beige vest back on. “Is your leg still hurting?” he glances at your leg that's perched on the railing.

“Just sore, is all.” You inhale, thumb drawing circles around your belly. “Putting it up helps.”

“If I just knew how to treat it properly before—”

“You did a good job, James.” You reach for him, palm resting on his arm. “If it was just me I would've thought of cutting it off or something.”

He smiles, patting the back of your hand. “How’s Hobie jr?”

“Fine, just like yesterday and the day before that.” You chuckle. “How are you holding up, James? I should be helping you out there.”

Scoffing, James flicks the back of your hand playfully. “You'd just hold me back, preggo.”

“Hey,” you say with a laugh. “All I'm saying is that you need someone to watch your back. Or at least help carry the load.”

He looks at your stomach then over to your face with a teasing glint in his eyes. “Looks like you already took the load.”

“You little shit!” Slapping his arm, he lets out a feigned yelp. “I'm serious, I could really help.”

“If something happens to you I wouldn't be able to live with myself, boss.” James looks at the distance, eyes darting over to the river. “Besides, I can handle it.” He flexes his arm, smacking his bicep.

You sigh, watching him with a strained smile and shining eyes. You blame the hormones. “Okay, but when you move up another floor again, I'm coming with.”

He shakes his head, chuckling and taking your mug of hot chocolate, taking a sip from the lukewarm drink. “Yeah, no.”

“James.” You say sternly, “come on, what if you get trapped up there alone? Ned would kill me if I get his best mate killed.”

“First of all, I'm nobody's best mate. Yuri is yours, and Ned is Hobie's. Second, I have a fucking gun and have been doing this alone for weeks now. I'll be fine.”

Your tone grows soft. “You're my best mate too, James. So is Hobie's, Yuri's and Ned’s. You're our friend, and if it was anybody else in your position, I would offer the same, and fight you just as hard.” You lean close, arms over the armrest as he stares at you. “I don't want you to fucking die in here alone. Especially when I can still do something to help. Because in a few months I won't be able to.”

“Do you think they're alright out there?”

“Don't change the fucking subject—”

“They have to be okay.” James licks his dry lips, swallowing down the lump in his throat. You've had this conversation before, and it always ends the same way.

You nod, chest heavy and hands shaking. “They are, I know they are. They're tough, our band will hold on.”

He swallows thickly, looking away at you and instead staring at the dark drink. The previous conversation wedges in his mind. “I just— I think I just want to be useful, you know? Because I know this stuff, shooting and shit. So I gotta use it to protect you and the baby because that's all I know.”

You feel tears prick at your lashes. “You've always been useful, James. You're our drummer, the music's shit without you.” He chuckles, sniffing as he gazes at the ruined city. “We're a band, we protect each other. And I've seen you do other shit with expertise, shooting is not all you know.”

He turns to you, smiling gently. “I do make a really good pot of stew.”

“The best.” You smile back, tugging at his hand and holding it fondly.

His face turns solemn, eyes downturned at your intertwined hands. “Can you promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Can— will you end me if I ever get bitten?”

“James—”

“I've seen them closely, Y/N, I know they're in pain. I don't want to end up like that.” His voice breaks at the end, thumb brushing along the back of your hand, staring down at it. “The pamphlet said you have ten seconds before you turn, that's plenty of time to reload.”

Your lips wobble, head shaking before you inhale deeply. “...Okay. If that's what you want.”

“Y–Yeah, I want that.”

“It won't get to that, I promise.” You don't know that, but you promise him anyway.

“Thank you, boss.”

“Can you promise the same thing for me too—?” Before you could finish your words, the lights shuts off, and you see the wave of darkness ebb through the city. “Shit.”

“I think we need to get to that cabin sooner rather than later.” James utters in the dark.

—

After weeks of waiting and preparing in the darkened condo, with some luck and a miracle, you and James manage to get outside of the condo and even get to ride in his parent's lexus.

You shut your door as quietly as you can, heaving and laden with sweat as you're covered from head to toe in thick winter clothes; so if an infected gets to you, their teeth won't be able to penetrate the cloth. Patting your stomach, the roundness of it is still unusual for you now that you can feel the baby move around.

James mirrors your befuddled look, sweat dripping off his brows and beard sticking to his chin in what could be an uncomfortable feeling. He nods at you, smiling as he grips the steering wheel. All the bags and guns are thrown in the backseat, together with a baby bag that James managed to find in one of the flats.

“We fucking made it.”

“God, I could fucking kiss you right now, James.” You joke, reaching over the center console to briefly hug him.

“I wouldn't say no to that.” He chuckles out, patting your back before turning on the ignition with a shaky hand. “To the cabin we go!”

The engine stirs up immediately, a thrumming sound of victory. James presses a button on a small remote, prompting the automatic garage door to whirr awake.

You laugh, but the sound of running footsteps behind you has your stomach sinking. Looking behind and over the seats, you see a whole horde of them gunning for you and James. It's the building’s residents.

“We need to go!”

“Seat belts!” James revs up the engine and without missing a beat, backs the car towards the bodies as blood sprays all over the windows.

Clicking on your seat belt, you hang on for dear life as James panics and turns the steering wheel around to face the garage doors.

“James!” You yell as more and more clamber their way to the sides. The car jolts, wheels squeaking but not moving as blood and guts fly about.

The sound of the garage door’s metallic clanking has more of the infected join in, the stragglers left by the rest of the city's horde. The sun peeks through the opening, shadows of the stumbling and running crowd managing to squeeze through.

“The wheel's fucking stuck!” James presses down on the pedals, but the car still doesn't move.

You yell when a banging sound erupts from the backseat. Right on the glass, bodies and faces are squished in between it, blood and ripped skin kissing the car's window.

“I need to get out and—” James panics, but before he could grab the shotgun from the backseat, you're already holding onto it. “What—?!”

The loud reverb of the shot stings your ears as the glass of the back window now lay shattered all over your things.

“What the fuck, Y/N?!” James yanks the gun away and you surprisingly let him.

You crawl towards the seats, ignoring the broken and bloodied glass, and quickly ripping the bag zipper open as you grab a molotov cocktail from the arsenal you and James prepared exactly for situations like this. You only have a few minutes before your opening closes and before the horde gets back up.

Without questioning you anymore, James helps you by fishing out his lighter, clicking it once until the cloth lit up the whole car.

Just like Hobie taught you, you toss it through the opening you made within a half second.

The bottle flies over the dead, their heads turn towards the heat and light as it lands directly at them with force, shattering the glass and spreading the fire.

The guttural screams would haunt your dreams, but when the car lurches and the infected gather around the warmth and leave the car be, you smile victoriously.

James drives off, car hitting the streets with a metallic slam and wheels smoking. He hoots and hollers, smacking your side ecstatically.

“You absolute beauty, you!” He laughs, fist slamming against the car's ceiling.

Buildings whizz by, grinning back at James. His smile flickers away as his eyes move down to your lap. You suddenly feel a stinging ache on your palms.

With bated breath, you look down, blood pooling all over his mother's mink coat.

“It's probably fine—”

“Stop the car!” You yell as the car skids to a stop near the bridge. Opening the door, you immediately bolt away from James and climb up the wall of the bridge, standing precariously on the ledge as you look down at the Thames.

The sound of the car door opening has you looking back at a concerned James, the gun in his hand means that you both have reached an understanding.

Big Ben looms over the distance, its clock face standing still just like the world has. Just like you have as you count down to ten.

Your laboured breaths rise above the sound of the rushing river below you. It's dark depths calling for you.

Five.

“It's okay, boss, I—I think you're fine.” James utters but the tears in his eyes says that he has the same worries as you. “Ten seconds have already passed.”

Four.

“T–The glass had their blood, James.” You show him your blood drenched palms. “It might take awhile.”

“It won't fucking take you. Get down from there please.”

Three.

“The pamphlet said it transfers through bodily fluids—”

“Get the fuck down.”

Two.

“I can't.”

James slowly inches towards you, gun holstered.

One.

Your breathing rises, blood dripping from your wounds. “I think—” James yanks you away by the coat’s hem, dragging you away from the ledge as you land against his chest. Your cries are muffled by his own coat.

He shushes you gently, holding you in place. “You're good, see? Still alive.”

“I'm sorry, t–that was pathetic.”

“Pathetic? Nah, just melodramatic.” He sighs in relief, leaning away as he holds you at arm's length. Patting your cheek, he sees your left eye twitching briefly before stabilizing. “Let's get the fuck away from here. We have bandages in the car, come on, boss.”

You wipe all your tears, nodding and trying to calm yourself down. “Okay, we have a reunion to go to.”

—

“So, tell me about this cabin?” James asks while a storm brews in the distance, dark clouds looming over the trees on your right. “We have four whole days of travelling, might as well tell me about it.”

“What?” You ask, head still not screwed on tight on your neck after what transpired a few hours ago. The bandage around your palms are rough against your thumbnail, incessantly picking at it anxiously. The ring around your pinky is stained in red, you should clean it later.

“The cabin, tell me about your time there with Hobie. The PG version please.” He chuckles, eyes straight on the road as he carries precious cargo.

Shaking your head, you look over to him while a pair of beaded bracelets dangle from the rearview mirror. “It was nice, we went there for our anniversary.”

“And?”

“And?” You scoff with a smile. “That's it, we spent time lounging around the place and in the morning we would go out to eat and sightsee.”

“You have a way with your words, boss.”

“What do you want from me, James?” You shift in your seat, arms wrapped around your growing belly. “A narration?”

James shakes his head with a growing grin, eyes flicking to you briefly. “No, I'm just making conversation to fucking get you out of there.”

“Out of my seat?”

“No, your fucking head, emo. You've been quiet this entire time.”

“Oh,” you sniff as thunder rumbles from a distance. “Well, thanks.” You can't tell him that his annoyance actually worked and kept you distracted for a little bit, or you'll never hear the end of it. “The cabin was just an hour away from the town. It was pretty, you know, in a cabin in a horror movie type of shit.”

He chuckles, finally victorious. “Why? Is there a permanent smell of carcass around the place, oh! Or like dolls hanging from the ceiling?”

“That’s fucked up!” You chortle, smacking his bicep playfully while he mirrors your smile. It's nice to be finally out of the damn building you've been stuck on for almost three months. “No, there was none of that, just a bunch of antique furniture that looks older than me and Hobie combined. I remember the guy who owns it described it as, ‘rustic’ and ‘remote.’”

“That place is definitely haunted. Like someone died in there or some fucked up ritual.”

“Oh, you think you can do better?” You jab his side, earning a guffaw from him as he flinches away, stomach ticklish.

“Uh, yeah!”

“Of course you can, rich boy.” You roll your eyes, legs folding to rest on the seat with you, arms wrapped around it as you perch your chin atop your knees. Thunder rolls around, grey clouds now looming over the highway that's littered with abandoned cars and luggage.

“We have a farm further north— a fucking rest house more like.” He sighs, eyes fond as he remembers a memory. “We used to go there every winter with the whole family, go sledding and shit. Until the whole drama happened between my dad and aunt.”

“I'm sorry, James.”

“Nah, don't be. I was a kid, barely remembered the whole tiff they had. I just miss my cousins is all.” He shrugs, clearing his throat as he continues to drive steadily. “There's a huge chance that they might be there, y’know the whole family and stuff.”

“You planning on going there?” You ask, voice turning soft.

“Yeah, I think so— well, after we meet up with Hobie and hopefully the others.”

You smile, hand reaching to grasp reassuringly at his bicep. “Sounds like a good plan, James. We'll come with you, as support and definitely not to test out the hundred rooms you guys probably have. What's the name of the place?”

“Mudwood manor.” You nod, taking note of the name. “Dad's gonna have a heart attack if he ever saw you lot. He's still not over what happened two years ago.” He chuckles, hand patting your own in appreciation. “Thanks, boss, for everything. I think I wouldn't have made it this far without you.”

You shake your head, tears making your vision blurry. You blame the hormones. “That should be my words, not yours.” James mirrors your expression, inhaling deeply to get rid of the lump in his throat. “If your parents ever saw you now, they'd be proud of you. I'm proud of you.”

He subtly wipes away at his eye. “You gonna name the kid after me now?”

Laughing, you pat his arm before letting go. “Maybe, I'm seriously considering it.”

“Shit, really?” He says with disbelief. “James Junior, wow.”

You wince, making a face. “Probably not with the Junior. Ew.”

The two of you laugh as rain now pours over the car, drenching the pavement. The sound reverberates through the metal, and the broken window doesn't help with tamping down the sound.

You look over your shoulder, finding that the tarpaulin that you hastily stuck on the hole is hanging on.

“Hey,” James pats your knee, eyes shining despite the dark clouds and pouring rain outside. “We’ll make it there.”

“I know.”

“Let me worry for the two of you, okay?” He glances at your stomach, your belly button is beginning to protrude through your shirt.

“Careful, you'll have worry lines.”

“Birds find worry lines fit, boss.”

With a roll of your eyes, you pinch his arm. “Focus on the damn road, Jameson.”

—

“Wake up, Hobie.”

Your voice yanks him from deep slumber, hard pebbled rocks digging into his skin as he rises from the coast.

He aches all over, arms throbbing, knees screaming in protest as he kneels down on the rough rocks. His heavy eyes roam around the beach, finding nothing but miles of the rocky coast with its boulders piled up high, edges smooth from years of waves lapping around it.

Rain bears down on him, ears ringing from the sound of rain hitting the hardened ground. His body shivers, eyes straining from the downpour.

A sound of knocking wood from behind takes his attention. Looking over his shoulder, he finds the remains of his houseboat, all shards of wood and glass, memories scattered and floating in the cold dark water.

A scream almost escapes out of him. Hand covering his mouth, as he keels over to the rocks, palm digging harshly into the beach.

It was his home and yours for almost ten years, and it was his only salvation, his safety while he was out treading the waters. And it was his one reminder of you. Everything in it had memories, both fond and somewhat awful, but they were his, and now it lays in the bottom of the sea. Picture frames floating with the seaweeds, shoes and clothes tangled around drifting wood.

But by some miracle, his guitar case floats in between two rocks, knocking against the other, in tune with the waves.

Hobie, with whatever's left of his energy, stands up on wobbly legs. There's scratches all over his skin, all searing pain that almost had him falling back down on his knees. And yet he continues on, legs weak, feet barely moving towards the guitar case.

Salty water hits his feet as he shivers, he treads on until the water reaches his waist. The cold and salt exacerbates his injuries, with clenched teeth and shuddered breath, he reaches for the only thing that's left of his home.

The thick leather brushes along his fingertips, hands wrapped around it as he tugs it closer to his chest. Hobie shakily hugs it, a sob pushing through his carefully built wall as he cries atop it like it's a casket that's about to be buried.

His head lays on top of it while rain pours overhead. And his tears are carried by the salty waves.

—

Hobie lugs around whatever's left of his houseboat. All shoved inside a tattered backpack that was once yours. Your charms still clink against the other, and pins still clinging on the fabric. His hand holds onto the guitar case, afraid of opening it and seeing the damage on his guitar. So he carries it around, a heavy weapon that contains his most precious memory. He can still see the sticker of your face on the guitar, he hopes that it's still intact.

He's drenched from head to toe as the storm persists on his back, as if fate is playing with him.

It's bad enough that he had to trek the rest of the way towards the cabin, but the storm keeps following him, as if it's pursuing him and hindering him from finding you. With each town he passes, he sees less and less of the dead. Some lay withered on the ground, chest cavity opened, guts spilled all over the pavement while they desperately tried to reach him with their skeletal hand.

They seem to be dying out, or the virus can no longer keep them upright, not when the host is already decomposing. And now it desperately seeks a new host, even when their jaws are barely holding on, skin blanched and bones bleached by the sun.

Hobie passes by countless evacuation centres just like the one he saw before, and they all sit there empty just like the others. Medical tents lay fallen on the ground, gurneys broken and beaten beside dirty syringes and bandages. Despite that, he checks all of them thoroughly for a sign from you, anything that would indicate that you passed through. But he has seen none.

He feels like the last man alive.

He scavenges and rests in empty houses, careful not to wake the dead that might be hiding within the deep crevices of the town. Every night, he lights a fire, small enough to warm him and not let out smoke that would signal other people that could hurt him for what little he has. Hobie knows how to survive, he went through it during his teenage years, and he never thought that he had to experience it all over again. The uncertainty of where your next meal would be, the dangers lurking around every corner; and not trusting other people to help you. His old self is rearing his head again, peeking through his flesh that you once affectionately held in your hands.

When he finds you, would you see the same person you loved? Would he see the same person in you again after everything?

Hobie's own mind is his enemy. Back on the boat he only worried about hallucinations or delusions that could plague him in the dark. But out here, where the dead lurk, everything and anything could kill him. Even his own head.

It's been a week of walking, through rain and the dead, he finally makes it to the same woods that he once shared with you.

The gates of the cabin squeak in the wind, metal gates swinging around as the breeze picks up, fluttering his lashes.

There's a walkway leading towards the house made out of pebbles, pebbles that remind him of the coast, the same grey shade as the clouds, all rounded around the edges. He roams his eyes over to the cabin, all oak and dark yellowed windows. A porch sits in front with a rocking chair that gently moves back and forth in the wind. The perfect place to rest at the end of the world.

A wind chime clinks from somewhere, and as he cranes his head to the left, there sits under a pile of strewn out branches and leaves, a car, one with a shattered window at the back and side mirrors ripped from the hinges. Bloodied specks dot around its silver paint, scratches and bullet holes mar what was once pristine.

Hobie swallows thickly as he opens the gate, there right above the squeaking metal, a loud shot can be heard from the inside. He jumps in place, hand tight around the rusty metal. Then a guttural cry, one that sends shivers down his spine.

He runs on the path, stones rolling down as he makes his way towards the cabin. His hand wraps around the doorknob, finding it unlocked.

Pushing it, there's resistance from the other side. And as he stares down, he sees a pool of blood slowly spreading over the floorboards.

Panic sets in, as he pushes hard on the door.

“Get the fuck away!” Another shot echoes around as birds fly away from their perches outside.

Hobie heaves and stares at the bullet hole on the door. It missed his head by a couple of inches.

With wide eyes, he stares through it, body frozen as he sees you in the dark with a gun pointed right at him. For a second he thought that he's dreaming again. But he wouldn't dream of something so horrible as he sees what's in your lap.

“Why won't you just die?!”

Hobie dodges before another shot takes out a chunk of the door. Flinging his body towards cover, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. “Love? It's me!” He can barely recognize his own voice.

“Oh god.” You cry, and a smacking sound can be heard. “I'm already going crazy.”

“No, you're not, it's me, love. It's Hobie.” He then calls your name, soft and filled with fondness that it has you dropping the gun on the floor, metal clanging on wood.

“Hobie?” But he can still recognize your voice.

“Yeah, don't shoot.” His whole body shakes with trepidation.

“Hobie!” Your sobs get louder as he opens the door, letting out the pungent smell of blood and letting in sparse sunlight that filters through the dark clouds. “Hobie?” He stands there, hand on the doorknob as he looks down at you and the body laying on your lap. Maybe you are going crazy. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Hobie looks down, staring eye to eye at a dead shambler with a hole right in his head that was blocking the door. Then he gazes back at you with James' head laying right on your lap, eyes closed, blood pooling down the bullet hole in his head and down your legs.

His hand trembles at the sight of his friend, eyes watering, painting you in water colours of blood and gore. Chest sore and stomach in knots, he closes the distance. His eyes land on you, bloodied yet alive. Then he looks down, the familiar ring around your pinky is murky and covered in red, and then he sees it.

“H–He asked me to. James, he— he saved me again.” You stare at him with wild bloodshot eyes, hands drenched in crimson as you tremble and fix the blond locks on his head. “He got bit. I'm so fucking sorry.” There's a huge chunk of his neck missing.

“Are you—?”

“No, it didn't get m–me.” You heave, barely getting your words out as you stare into his eyes.

He kneels down, hand reaching down and towards your stomach. “Are you pregnant?” His hand is warm, and he feels real. You feel real.

You nod, tears streaming down your face. “I tried to tell you before—”

His arms engulf you, holding you close, breathing you in, death and all.

A/N: thank you for reading! Please consider reblogging if you liked it ❤️

Support banner by @/cafekitsune

[reccyls]

Victor's Main Route: Chapter 2

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Liam: Alright, I think this is everything.

Alfons: Good grief, what a tedious mission this turned out to be.

Kate: Good work, you two.

Liam: You too, Kate!

It was a few days after I started assisting Victor with his work. Right now, I was accompanying Liam and Alfons on a mission.

Liam: I wouldn’t have expected that there were drugs inside candy this pretty.

He stared intently at the jewel-like pink-colored candy he was pinching in his fingers.

Alfons: And I didn’t expect that we’d have to round up everything that had already been scattered here and there. Alfons: If I’d known it was going to be such a pain, I should have asked to join the others in destroying the factory.

Alfons let out a deep sigh.

It was said that eating this candy would make all your stress and anxiety disappear. Such rumors originating from Soho, the entertainment district, had reached the ear of the Queen. However, the candies were found to contain illegal drugs, and so Crown was dispatched to deal with this issue. Victor: The factory manufacturing these candies is owned by a nobleman who also has investments in a pharmaceutical company. Victor: In addition to lacing the candies with illegal drugs, the factory uses exploitative contracts to keep its employees in line. Jude: Tch. The sound of Jude clicking his tongue was loud and clear. Victor: Jude and Ellis, you two head for the factory. And Liam and Alfons, as well as Kate… Victor: I’d like you to collect all the candy that has already been distributed. Alfons: Oh? Kate will be joining us? Ellis: It’ll probably be safer than where Jude and I are going. Jude: Like anything would be more dangerous than going with that walking affront to public decency. Alfons: Flattery will get you nowhere, you know. Jude: Wasn’t flattery.

(When we were assigned that mission, I didn’t think we’d spend all night running around Soho to gather all the candy…)

I’d never even been to Soho at night, much less stepped foot in illicit and seedy stores before.

(This was all possible thanks to Alfons being so familiar with the area.)

Alfons seemed to have acquaintances everywhere. And with a helping hand from his ability, he was easily able to gather information about where the candies were being sold. Once we got that intel, Liam used his ability to infiltrate the location where the transaction would take place and then steal the candies. After a few rounds of this, we were able to collect enough candy to fill a sack to the brim.

(Alfons can make someone see an illusion if he touches the nape of their neck.) (And Liam’s ability is to turn invisible.)

We let out a sigh of relief once the job was done, however…

Liam: We’re pretty much done here, but I wonder how the others are doing…

Alfons: Jude’s probably bought out the entire factory and dealt with the owner by now. I bet he’s happily pocketed all the profits too.

Liam: Hahaha, that sounds like him.

I turned away from the candy to watch them, intrigued at how in sync they were.

Kate: You two get along well.

Alfons: Of course. We’re playmates, after all. Alfons: Liam and I come to Soho to have fun all the time.

Liam laughed awkwardly at those words.

Liam: That’s probably why Victor picked us for this mission.

Alfons: Sometimes that man is just so spot on when choosing who to send on which mission that it disturbs me.

Kate: How so?

With a deliberately theatrical sigh, Alfons spread his arms wide.

Alfons: Well we’ve certainly never told him where we go to play, and yet he still knows all about it, doesn’t he?  Alfons: Why, one time, he knew the exact ramshackle, out-of-the-way pub that I’d been drinking at. Alfons: I’d never mentioned it to anyone. And I was hardly a regular, I’d only been there the once!

He wrapped his arms around himself and acted frightened.

Liam: You know, something like that happened to me too.

Kate: Has it?

Liam: I went out for a walk while everyone was asleep one night, and got back to the castle at dawn. Liam: And then that morning, Victor asked me, “Did you enjoy your walk?” Liam: I’m pretty sure no one was awake then, but he must have seen me.

Alfons: And what about you? Has something like that happened to you?

(Has there been anything?)

I tried to think back.

I don’t think he’s been observing me that closely.

Nothing comes to mind. (+4/+4)

Don’t tell me that time was–!!

Kate: Nothing comes to mind… Or maybe I just didn’t realize if it did happen?

Alfons: Alas, that is likely to be the case. Or perhaps he just hasn’t said anything to your face yet. Alfons: I suppose that it wouldn’t be difficult for Her Majesty’s aide to do some digging into our private lives. Alfons: I can’t say that I’m pleased at being so exposed, however.

Alfons picked up one of the candies and narrowed his eyes.

Alfons: Perhaps it’s not just limited to the things we’ve done while in Crown. Maybe he knows about things from my past that even I don’t. Alfons: I wouldn’t put it past him.

Liam: I didn’t really pay that much attention back then, but when I joined Crown he did a lot of research about me. Liam: I guess the only reason I’m here is because he did a whole background check on me. Liam: But it’s not like that’s a bad thing, right? It’d be bad for her Majesty if they just let any suspicious person join Crown.

Kate: You have a point.

As I mulled over their words, Liam’s expression suddenly brightened.

Liam: Oh by the way, Kate! I heard that you’ve been helping Victor with his work recently.

Kate: Yes, I am. But I’ve only been doing really simple things.

Liam: What kind of things?

Kate: Well…

I thought back over the last couple of days.

Victor: Kate, could you compile all of Crown’s reports next? Kate: Got it! … Kate: Okay, I’m done. And next? Victor: Thank you! Next, let’s take a break for tea time, shall we? And the next day– Victor: For today, I’d like your help in recording the expenses incurred during Crown’s missions. Kate: Sure, I’d be happy to… But is that all? Victor: That’s right. And let’s have a tea party after!

Kate: All I’ve been doing is having tea parties…

Victor did give me tasks related to Crown to help with. However, they were all simple, and there wasn’t much to do anyway. And we’d always have a break for tea time afterwards.

Alfons: Isn’t that just abusing his authority to have tea with a pretty young thing?

Kate: I don’t think that’s it.

Alfons grimaced as if he had just eaten something unpleasant, even sticking out his tongue.

Liam: Victor’s in his office an awful lot, isn’t he?

Liam blinked in surprise.

Kate: What about it?

Liam: Well, he’s the queen’s aide, right? I thought he’d be by Her Majesty’s side more. Liam: From what you’re saying, Victor basically never leaves his office.

Kate: That sounds right.

Every time I entered his office, Victor would already be seated at his desk. And he’d still be there even after I left.

Liam: See, it’s like we have no idea what Victor does normally outside of the office. Liam: He always shows up out of thin air and I’m not even sure if he sleeps.

(They’ve known him for longer than I have, and even they don’t know?) (It’d be natural for him to be very busy, since he’s Crown’s leader as well as the queen’s aide, but…)

Liam: Maybe he just wants to spend time with you.

As Liam spoke, a possibility floated to my mind.

(Maybe I’m not really helping him at all? Am I just being a nuisance?)

I thought that I was helping Victor. But was I forcing him to stay stuck in his office, when he had other things to do? Noticing my sudden uncertainty, a smirk crawled up Alfons’s face.

Alfons: Oh my, what’s gotten you so glum, Kate?

Kate: Do you think that maybe I’m actually just making more work for Victor, instead of helping him?

Liam: No way, you’re working really hard.

Kate: But he only ever gives me all this basic work that doesn’t take long to finish at all.

Alfons: I’m sure there’s all sorts of classified business going on that he can’t let you see. Nothing you can do about that, hm?

Kate: If not paperwork, I wouldn’t mind doing things like running errands or fetching things for him…

Alfons: Do you want to be his assistant or his dog?

Liam: I don’t think Victor would ask you to do unimportant things like that.

He clapped his hands as if to say, “Anyway!” and lifted the bag of candy.

Liam: Let’s head back since the mission is over.

-----

The next morning, I headed to Victor’s office as usual.

(I need to ask if I’m making more work for him.)

With a sense of resolve in my heart, I raised my hand to knock on the door. However…

???: –isn’t it?

Hearing a voice coming from beyond the door, I paused. Through a slight gap, I could see William standing inside.

William: And? How has our robin been as your assistant?

Victor: She’s very diligent and quick to complete her tasks. And she makes the whole room brighter whenever she’s here.

William: According to my sources, you’re only giving her trivial tasks and then spend the rest of the day having tea parties.

(Did Liam tell him?)

Victor laughed lightly.

Victor: I’ve been found out, it seems.

William: Shirking your work just to have tea parties. What a wicked man you are.

Victor: I only have the time because Kate helps me to finish my work faster. Victor: I’m hardly shirking, just making use of all that extra free time.

(So that’s how it is… I’m relieved I’m not being a bother.)

I was happy that I could help Victor free up some of his schedule. But…

(He doesn’t have to spend that time with me. He could use it on something else.)

It didn’t take a genius to tell that there was no shortage of things that Victor needed to do. I kept listening, hoping that I’d hear he didn’t mind spending his free time on having tea with me.

Victor: I could use the time spent on our tea parties to finish some other work, I suppose.  Victor: But I enjoy our tea time together. Victor: Perhaps to Kate all these tasks are too simple. But I can’t entrust any work that deals with Crown to anyone else. Victor: Whether it’s sorting paperwork or reporting expenses, I’m grateful for everything she does.

William: Hence treating her to tea parties?

Victor: I certainly can’t deny that I want to spoil our hardworking robin silly, but these tea parties are partially for my sake, too. Victor: Our tea breaks are relaxing for me as well.

(So that’s what he thinks.)

I had thought that he was just humoring me by giving me trivial, pointless tasks to do. But he wasn’t just giving me busywork. The knowledge that I was actually being helpful made warmth bloom in my chest.

William: I see. Well, it is true that taking breaks is a necessity for living. William: Particularly for you.

With a knowing smile, William reached for the door handle.

William: Eavesdropping is a bad habit, you know. You’re becoming quite the villain yourself, aren’t you, Kate?

Kate: Uh-

I met William’s gaze as he pulled the door open.

Victor: There you are, Kate.

As Victor turned his warm smile towards me, guilt raced through me. I ducked my head.

Kate: I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop!

William: For someone not meaning to eavesdrop, you were certainly standing there for quite some time.

Kate: …When did you realize I was there?

William: Since I asked about how your work was going.

Kate: So you knew the whole time!

I began to blush hard out of embarrassment and tried to hide my face behind my hands. The sound of both of them laughing filled the room.

Victor: Isn’t she adorable?

William: She is indeed. Adorable enough to make me want her for myself.

Victor: Absolutely not. Kate is my assistant.

I peeked at their smiling faces through my fingers. In contrast to William’s amusement, Victor’s expression was incredibly gentle. His smile was overflowing with warmth and tenderness.

Victor: It’s all right, I’m not angry. In fact, the thought of you standing there listening was very cute.

Kate: Please don’t say that, that just makes me more embarrassed…

Perhaps to Victor’s eyes, this was the same affection you’d pay to a child or a small animal. But regardless, hearing a grown man call me cute filled me with a sudden shyness.

Victor: It is a shame, but if it means that you won’t cover your face anymore, then I’ll stop saying it.

I slowly pried my hands off my face, and glanced up at Victor, who was looking straight at me.

Victor: Since you’ve overheard, you likely already know this. However… Victor: Because of everything you’re doing, I now have the free time to have tea parties. Victor: I’d be very happy if you continue to help me so we can keep having these breaks.

Kate: Of course. I’m always willing to help.

Satisfied with my response, Victor began gathering some papers with a wide smile.

Victor: So, Kate, what kind of sweets shall we have today?

I couldn’t help my grin as I took the papers from Victor.

Kate: I’d like scones topped with lots of cream!

[81pastrys]

Grid Flirt

Part 11 / 13

Summary— Races go by without any praise for the championship contention until Lando decides to talk with her again.

Warnings— more yelling ; angst? ; mentions of panic attacks ; rumors of sleeping around

A/N— Damn she’s really riling up Lando 😭

Series List

After our big fight we didn’t talk for weeks. In those weeks I got top 3 twice in the races held. My team gave me the silent treatment, Max talking to me on the side without them knowing. My dad was the only person I had.

After getting a 1-2 in Mexico, the interviews were dry my team still ignoring me. My dad walked up and gave me all his energy.

“Amazing job today mi flor!” He said. “It’s looking like you’re going to win.” He whispered.

“Thank you papi, I wouldn’t deserve it.” I scoff. “There’s still 4 races..”

“The way you’re winning, you have a chance.” He smiled at me.

After a long and stressful day at the paddock everyone heads back to the hotel. Although Lando hasn’t been talking to me, he’s been civil in the paddock and still shares a connecting door at hotels.

I took a shower, as I always do to clear my mind, but when I went back to my room-Lando was there. He was sitting on my bed, playing on his phone. He looked up at the sound of the door.

“Come to yell at me again?” I remark.

“No, no love.” He said. “I came to congratulate you.”

“Well I don’t deserve it.” I say, shrugging. “There’s no point.”

“You’re in the championship contention, you deserve to be congratulated.” He said. “If we’re going to be teammates, we need to get along.”

“I understand that Lando. The way I’ve been treated by this team makes me want to quit. I don’t care if I win anything anymore.” I say. “I’ll be a good teammate once the team I drive for actually acknowledges me.”

“McLaren will do that, it takes time.” He said. “You haven’t been yourself recently.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” I say sarcastic.

“Okay I don’t need the attitude.”

“Oh sorry, let me put on a fucking smile for you then.” I yell. “There’s no fucking point!”

“Let’s take a minute-“

“No! You don’t get to come in here at anytime and expect me to drop everything and be my happy cheery self when I’m racing for a team that gives no shits for me winning!” I scream at him, tears burning my face mid yell. He stays silent, so I keep going. “Yes I’m not myself, yes I’m winning races, yes I understand I’ve lost my spark! I’m losing everything here, can’t you tell? I have an anxiety attack every cooldown room, I stay in my car fearing the backlash I’ll get in the garage, this sport is a fucking joke!”

“Are you done?” He asked, still calmer than ever.

“No!” I sob exhausted from yelling. “My dad is the only person who cares for my results, he’s also the only person who doesn’t understand I’m slowly killing my self inside. You can only do so much before you feel like giving up and god damnit I’m fucking there Lando. I’m fucking there!” I scream. “I can’t distract myself either, what am I to do? Be a whore and sleep with the grid? Cry myself to sleep?!”

“Sleep with the grid?” He asked confused. “Where did that come from?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t heard.” I say.

“Heard what Diaz?” He crossed his arms.

“Horner claims he doesn’t want me on his team because I slept with the entire grid.” I explain.

“That’s not true.” He said. “You haven’t slept with me.”

“Exactly my point.” I say. “I didn’t, but the entire team hates me and what’s one more thing for them to nitpick at?”

“Rumors will be rumors, have you ever taken time to yourself?”

“How?” I ask. “If you mean to think, I don’t have to try hard. I can just go near my team and silence is a requirement.”

“You need to sit down, take a minute for yourself, and calm yourself down.” He said. “You’re yelling at me out of frustration and depression.”

“That doesn’t help, this is the way I am now.” I say shaking my head. “All I can think about is how I am driving that shit box around a track.”

“You’re supposed to like your job.” He said. “You need to assess what’s going on in a healthy way. Yelling at your future teammate is not a coping method.”

“I know that. You think I want to yell at you?” I ask, distraught. “I hate myself for yelling at you.”

“Don’t hate yourself over it, think about why you’re doing it and target that not me.” He said. “I don’t think you want to yell at me, but it’s the easier thing to do when you’re mad.”

“If these next few races go horribly I won’t make it to McLaren Lando.” I say a lot calmer than before. He realizes I know something.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“If I crash out, it won’t be by tapping the wall.” I say. “It will be a fatal life sentence of a crash.”

“I don’t think-“

“I’m not saying I am. I’m saying if I do it won’t be pretty and it will end the race entirely.”

What did she say?!

[1982grapejuiceblues]

The Mistake II

Series Masterlist | Part 1 here

Summary:

They weren’t supposed to see each other again. But when they do, everything they tried to walk away from is still there — unspoken, unresolved. This is what happens after the silence. When one person reaches out. When the other hesitates. And when two people try to move on from a moment that never really ended.

A/N: Thank you so much for all the love on part 1! I've wanted to post my little story for so long and I'm so glad that I'm finally doing it! I hope you guys love this one as much as the last. Be on the look out for more to come from these two! <3

Warnings:

• Emotional vulnerability and self-doubt

• Delayed communication / left-on-read anxiety

• Fear of rejection / avoidance of intimacy

• Mentions of overthinking, perfectionism, and emotional burnout

• A lot of yearning

• A lot of silence

• A lot of almosts

Word Count: 7.3k

────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────

12:06 p.m. — Milk & Honey Café

The door jingled.

Not in the casual, background way it usually did — not for either of them.

Y/N stepped in just as Harry stepped back, like the weight of her presence knocked the air out of him slightly. She wasn’t rushing this time. She wasn’t apologizing. And she wasn’t late.

He looked exactly the same.

Black jumper. Curls a bit messier than yesterday. Notebook in hand. Like he’d walked straight out of the memory.

She blinked. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed. His voice was lower than she remembered, like he hadn’t spoken yet today and she was the first word.

They stood in the entryway, just… looking at each other. Two people blinking at something that shouldn’t be happening, but is.

Then, without planning it, without even talking about it, they both turned and drifted toward the same booth.

Same seats. Same angle of sunlight. Same quiet hum of music in the background.

Like no time had passed. And somehow, like too much had.

12:08 p.m.

He sat first this time.

She set her bag down. Smoothed her sleeve. Glanced at the coffee cup already on the table and raised a brow.

“Back for round two?”

Harry shrugged, smiling gently. “Didn’t feel finished.”

She blinked. That one sentence landed harder than it should’ve.

“Did you…” she started, then hesitated. “Come here hoping I’d be here?”

He met her gaze evenly. “I came here hoping I’d want to stay, even if you weren’t.”

Y/N exhaled slowly. “That’s a very emotionally intelligent answer.”

“I’m a professional,” he said, mouth twitching into a smirk.

She laughed — short and genuine — and suddenly the air between them softened.

12:14 p.m.

“I thought about you,” she said, then immediately winced. “Sorry, that was blunt.”

“I’m glad,” Harry said, steady. “I thought about you too.”

There was something about the way he said it. Not eager. Not shy. Just honest. Like he wasn’t scared of the truth if she wasn’t.

Y/N fiddled with the edge of a napkin. “It felt weird, yesterday. How easy it was to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “It really did.”

They fell into a comfortable silence — the kind that stretched, not sagged. They weren’t rushing this. Maybe because it had already rushed them once, and now they wanted to take their time.

“I didn’t ask what you were doing here,” she said eventually.

“You didn’t,” he agreed.

She tilted her head. “So?”

“I write here sometimes,” he said. “Well — I procrastinate here. Scribble a sentence. Drink a flat white. Lie to myself about how productive I’m being.”

“You had me convinced.”

“That’s because you assumed I was a tortured genius.”

She smiled. “I assumed you were Brody.”

“And now you’ve met the real Brody.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

He grinned. “Still think I looked like him?”

“You’re much less pretentious.”

Harry raised a brow. “You said I looked broody.”

“Broody is fine. Pretentious is a red flag.”

“Duly noted.”

12:24 p.m.

The conversation drifted after that. They ordered coffee. She got a croissant she didn’t really want. He asked her about literary agents (“Is it actually like You’ve Got Mail, or have I romanticized your entire industry?”), and she asked him about speechwriting.

They talked about books. About weird client requests. About the time he had to ghostwrite a breakup text for a guy who wanted to end things “with grace but also dominance.”

They laughed. A lot.

But underneath all of it, something deeper simmered. A current neither of them acknowledged yet. The sense that they’d already skipped a few steps — and weren’t entirely sure what came next.

Y/N glanced at him as he stirred sugar into his second cup. “You’re good at this.”

“At what?”

“Making things feel like they’re supposed to happen.”

Harry looked at her for a long beat.

Then said, quietly, “You’re good at staying even when you want to bolt.”

She stared at him.

And for a second, something unspoken hovered in the air between them.

And neither of them moved to break it.

12:42 p.m.

Y/N tucked one leg beneath her in the booth and watched him trace the rim of his cup with his thumb.

She wasn’t sure when they’d stopped pretending this was casual.

Maybe it was somewhere between his second coffee and her third laugh. Maybe it was the way his eyes never drifted to his phone, or the way he kept asking her questions like he was cataloguing her for safekeeping.

Or maybe it was that moment — five minutes ago — when they both stopped talking for a beat too long, and didn’t fill the silence.

And still, it hadn’t felt awkward.

Just… full.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

He looked up. “You’ve been asking me things all morning.”

“This one’s more personal.”

He didn’t move. “Go ahead.”

Y/N hesitated, then leaned back a little, fingers still wrapped around her mug.

“Why didn’t you stay yesterday?”

Harry blinked.

She didn’t say it accusingly. It wasn’t a complaint. Just a quiet inquiry — like she was asking about a weather pattern. Something she couldn’t control but maybe understood.

He exhaled. “I don’t know.”

Y/N waited.

“I think…” he said slowly, “I told myself it was nothing. And that it was easier to leave nothing than risk it becoming something.”

Her eyes didn’t move from his.

“But then I walked away,” he added, “and it didn’t feel like nothing anymore.”

Y/N's lips parted slightly, like she wanted to say something. But she didn’t.

Just nodded once.

“I thought about coming back,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be wrong.”

“You weren’t.”

She looked at him.

He meant it.

He didn’t say it to be nice. Or clever. Or to score points.

He just meant it.

12:54 p.m.

Harry stared at the half-empty cup between them, then said, “I almost left before you sat down.”

“What?”

“That first morning. I was going to pack up and head out. I didn’t even want to be there. But I stayed. Just… couldn’t get myself to move.”

Y/N felt her throat tighten. “Why?”

He shrugged a little. “Couldn’t tell you. But if I had left, we never would’ve had this conversation.”

She gave a half-smile. “Sliding doors.”

“Sliding coffee shops.”

She laughed. He smiled at the sound.

Then, softer: “I keep thinking about how random it was. How weirdly easy it was to talk to you. Like we skipped the part where people pretend they’re not afraid of being seen.”

He said it so plainly. Like it wasn’t terrifying.

Y/N swallowed. “That’s a hard thing to come back from.”

Harry tilted his head. “Coming back’s the good part, isn’t it?”

1:08 p.m.

They sat with it — the kind of openness that usually came hours, days, weeks into knowing someone. But here it was. Laid out in front of them. All their almosts and maybes and unsaids, crowding the small space between their coffee cups.

“I’m scared,” she said suddenly, softly.

Harry didn’t flinch. “Of what?”

“That this feels like a beginning and I don’t know the rules.”

He considered that.

Then, with the smallest smile: “What if we don’t need any?”

She let out a shaky breath. “That’s worse.”

“Why?”

“Because it means we’re making them up as we go.”

Harry leaned forward slightly. “Maybe that’s the point.”

Their eyes locked.

Something clicked — not loudly, but firmly. Like a door closing gently behind them.

And neither of them moved.

1:17 p.m.

They didn’t leave.

They could have. The booth was getting uncomfortable. Their mugs were long empty. The lunch crowd was starting to creep in, soft chatter and clinking cutlery replacing the calm from earlier.

But they stayed.

Because the table between them wasn’t a table anymore.

It was a line.

Thin. Invisible. Teetering.

And neither of them wanted to be the first to cross it — but neither wanted to leave it untouched.

Y/N traced the edge of her saucer with a fingertip, eyes flicking up to find Harry already looking at her.

Again.

She smirked. “Do you always stare like that?”

He didn’t even pretend to look away. “Only when I’m trying to remember something.”

“Remember what?”

“What this felt like.”

Her throat went tight. Too tight. She blinked and looked down, heart thudding a little too hard.

“Don’t do that,” she murmured.

“Do what?”

“Say things that sound like lines when you probably mean them.”

Harry tilted his head. “Would it be better if I didn’t mean them?”

She looked up.

Their eyes locked.

Held.

Neither smiled.

1:24 p.m.

He didn’t mean to reach for her hand.

Not fully. Not directly.

He just shifted, and the back of his hand brushed hers — so lightly it could’ve been an accident, if they’d both decided to lie.

They didn’t.

Y/N stilled.

Harry froze.

But neither pulled away.

Instead, she slowly turned her hand over, and their fingers didn’t interlace, but hovered — barely touching. Close enough to feel the tremble. Far enough to pretend it didn’t mean anything.

It did.

This is dangerous,

she thought.

This is inevitable,

he thought.

1:32 p.m.

“Tell me something real,” she said.

Harry didn’t hesitate.

“I haven’t written anything for myself in over a year.”

She blinked. “You’re a writer.”

“I’m a ghostwriter. For weddings. Toasts. Breakups. Anniversaries. Apologies. Everyone else’s feelings.”

“And yours?”

“Buried.”

Her lips parted, breath caught between a response and a reaction.

“I tried,” he said. “I started something. But it never sounded like me.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Noise.”

Y/N exhaled. “You should try again.”

Harry looked at her. Really looked.

“You think I’d sound like myself now?”

She nodded. “You do when you’re with me.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy — it was reverent.

And somewhere inside it, they both understood that something had shifted.

1:46 p.m.

“I should get back soon,” she said, finally.

“Me too,” he replied, even though he had nowhere urgent to be.

But neither of them moved.

“I don’t want to lose this,” she said.

“You won’t.”

“That’s a risky promise.”

“I’m not making promises,” Harry said. “I’m asking for something.”

“What?”

“More.”

She swallowed. “More what?”

“Time. Space. Pages. Whatever this is.”

He held her gaze, unflinching.

“Okay,” she whispered. “More.”

And that was it.

The beginning that came after the almost.

The moment that wasn’t a mistake.

2:03 p.m. — Outside Milk & Honey

The door swung shut behind them with a familiar chime, but this time, it felt different.

Not final.

Not like last time.

This wasn’t an exit — it was an intermission.

They walked side by side without speaking at first. Not because there was nothing to say, but because the silence between them had changed. It had weight now. Warmth. Like it was doing its own kind of talking.

The city moved around them, ordinary and indifferent — buses rolling past, people on their phones, a teenager speed-walking while eating a wrap. But none of it touched the air between them.

Harry’s hands stayed in his pockets.

Y/N’s stayed tucked into her coat sleeves.

But their shoulders… stayed close.

Close enough to notice.

Close enough to feel the presence of something blooming.

“Are you going to write today?” she asked eventually.

He glanced over. “I already did.”

Her brows lifted. “What’d you write?”

“A sentence,” he said.

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “But it’s mine.”

She smiled. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s said to me all year.”

“Tragic,” he deadpanned.

“Deeply.”

They both laughed. But it faded slower this time. Left something tender in its place.

2:12 p.m. — The Corner Where They’ll Split

They stopped without saying it.

Y/N turned slightly, toeing the edge of the pavement, the next step already pulling her toward a different direction. She didn’t take it yet.

“This is where I pretend I wasn’t hoping you’d ask for my number yesterday,” she said.

Harry smiled, slow and sure. “This is where I pretend I haven’t already written your name in my notes five times.”

She bit her lip to stop herself from grinning.

He pulled out his phone. “Do you want mine first, or—”

She gently took it from his hand. Typed her number. Then added:

Y/N (the mistake you’re glad happened)

He blinked.

“You don’t have to save it like that,” she said quickly. “That was a joke.”

“I’m going to,” he said.

There was a pause.

The kind that asked if this was it. The kind that teetered on the edge of more.

“I’m really glad I sat at the wrong table,” she said softly.

“I’m really glad you stayed,” he said.

“I almost didn’t.”

“I almost left before you got there.”

They both smiled. Quiet, a little stunned by the timing.

She took a step back.

And so did he.

But neither turned around right away.

“See you soon?” she asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at her like she was a sentence he wanted to memorize.

Then said, “You will.”

Thursday — 5:02 p.m. — Y/N’s Office

The day after was normal.

Annoyingly normal.

Emails. Coffee. More emails. Brody had replied to her notes with a twelve-line rant about “editorial overreach” and a screenshot of a Tweet he liked that said “plot is a prison.” She hadn’t even opened it fully. She just sighed, closed the tab, and reached for her phone.

No new messages.

Not from Harry, anyway.

And that — that — was what threw her.

She didn’t want to be the kind of person who expected immediate follow-up. Who got spun out over someone not texting within 24 hours of an emotionally seismic coffee. But there was something… missing.

Or rather, not missing.

Present.

Lingering.

Every time her phone buzzed, her heart skipped before her logic caught up.

It was never him.

And that stung in a way she couldn’t name.

They’d shared something. They had.

So why did she feel like she was the only one still holding it?

5:18 p.m. — Harry's Flat

Harry hadn’t written back because he didn’t know what to say.

He’d saved her number. Immediately. He’d read her contact name — “the mistake you’re glad happened” — at least twelve times.

And he’d started a text. Four, actually.

But none of them said what he wanted.

Hey, want to meet up again?

Too casual.

Still thinking about yesterday.

Too intense.

Do you want to come with me to this gallery thing Saturday?

Too forward.

I don’t know what this is, but I want to keep finding out.

Too much.

So he didn’t send anything.

Which, ironically, said way more than any of those messages would have.

6:01 p.m.

She told herself not to care.

She’d had intense connections before. She’d felt things quickly, built them up too fast. Maybe that’s all this was.

A spark. A moment. An almost.

But it didn’t feel like almost when it was happening. It felt like something had cracked open — and now, the silence was echoing through the space it left behind.

Her phone buzzed.

She grabbed it.

Not him.

Of course.

She dropped it onto her desk with more force than necessary and muttered, “Coward.”

Then she picked it back up, opened her messages, and stared at the empty thread.

Just send something.

Make it simple. Make it light.

Don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking you’re waiting.

She typed:

Hey. Hope your ghostwriting’s going better than Brody’s editing.

Paused.

Deleted it.

Typed:

Coffee again soon?

Paused.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I keep replaying that moment where we almost held hands.

Paused.

Deleted it.

Threw her phone across the desk and buried her face in her hands.

6:29 p.m.

Harry opened her contact one more time and just stared at her name.

He hadn’t meant for it to get this loud in his head.

He thought giving it a day would help. Give them space. Give him time to figure out what he actually wanted to say.

But all it had done was make the silence louder.

He typed:

You’re still in my head.

Paused.

Backspaced.

Typed:

I can’t stop thinking about what you said. About skipping the pretending.

Paused.

Backspaced.

Typed:

Are you free this weekend?

He stared at it.

Didn’t send it.

Closed his phone.

Ran both hands down his face like that might shake it off.

It didn’t.

Friday — 8:07 a.m. — Y/N’s Flat

The second her alarm went off, she grabbed her phone.

Still nothing.

She stared at the screen in disbelief. Not anger. Not quite sadness.

Just… hollow confusion.

She wasn’t even sure what she wanted from him. A check-in? A joke? Something small and dumb that reminded her it wasn’t in her head?

Because that’s what she was afraid of most — that it was.

That all the energy in that booth, all the sparks and almost-touches and “more,” had only felt real on her side.

She opened Notes again.

Typed:

You asked for more.

Then you disappeared.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I don’t like silence when it comes from someone who made me feel seen.

Deleted it.

Typed:

I shouldn’t be the first to reach out.

Stared at that one.

Didn’t delete it.

But didn’t send it, either.

9:12 a.m. — Harry’s Flat

He’d stared at her number for ten minutes.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she looked at him right before she walked away — like she wanted to stay but didn’t know if she was allowed to.

He was afraid if he reached out now, it’d feel forced. Like too much time had passed.

But not reaching out felt worse.

So he opened the thread. Typed:

Morning. Hope your week wasn’t a complete disaster.

Paused.

Then added:

I’ve rewritten this message six times, so I’m just going to send it.

I keep thinking about that moment at the café.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

He stared at the message for five full seconds.

Then hit send.

Immediately regretted it.

Put his phone face down and left the room.

9:14 a.m. - Y/N's Office

She saw the message come in before the notification lit up her phone.

She didn’t open it.

Her breath hitched just from seeing his name.

She waited a minute — because she was stubborn, and scared, and still not sure what she wanted.

Then she unlocked her phone.

And read it.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

She stared at it for a long time.

Then did something she didn’t expect.

She closed the app.

And didn’t reply.

Not yet.

Because right now, she didn’t want to fall into something that might vanish again.

She needed him to mean it.

And she needed a minute.

Friday — 9:48 a.m.

Ten minutes.

Then fifteen.

Then thirty.

No reply.

Harry checked his phone more times than he was proud of. Each time, his chest pulled tighter.

Maybe she was busy.

Maybe she needed time.

Maybe she was playing it cool. Or maybe she didn’t feel it the same way.

He told himself it was fine. Told himself not everyone replies immediately. It’s not personal.

But it felt personal.

It felt like a conversation left hanging in mid-air.

And he didn’t know how to breathe through that.

10:31 a.m.

She reread the message six times.

Do you want to finish it?

God, she did.

But also?

She didn’t know what “it” was.

And she wasn’t ready to find out that maybe he didn’t either.

Something in her felt wobbly. Raw.

She wasn’t in the mood for almosts anymore.

And what if he wasn’t serious?

What if this was just another soft-spoken moment from a man who knew how to say the right thing but didn’t know how to follow through?

She’d been there before.

And she didn’t want to do it again.

Not with him.

Not when it had felt real.

So she waited.

Let the message sit there.

Didn’t reply.

Didn’t delete it.

Just… froze.

1:14 p.m.

He was pacing now.

Not a lot. Not fast. Just that quiet, agitated kind of pacing that looks like moving but feels like unraveling.

He’d sent one message.

That was it.

It wasn’t a declaration. Wasn’t a plea. Just a truth. A door half-open.

And she hadn’t walked through it.

It was fine.

It was fine.

But he’d opened something soft, and the silence was starting to bruise.

1:37 p.m.

She opened the message again.

Still no response from her.

Her own.

She typed:

I want to.

Paused.

Typed:

I’m not sure yet.

Paused.

Typed:

I don’t want to be something you forget when it’s inconvenient.

Stared.

Deleted it.

Locked her phone.

Rubbed her forehead with both hands.

Whispered to herself, “Get it together.”

But she couldn’t.

Not yet.

3:12 p.m.

Harry gave up checking his phone.

Not because he didn’t care — because he cared too much.

Because every time the screen lit up and it wasn’t her, it made his chest tighten.

And every time it didn’t light up at all, it felt worse.

He set it face down on the table, walked to the window, leaned his forehead against the cool glass.

He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t even disappointed.

He was… quiet. Inside.

Because something had shifted.

He’d put his heart in a sentence and hit send. And now it was floating out there, alone.

And that hurt more than he wanted to admit.

3:49 p.m.

She felt like a coward.

Not because she hadn’t responded — but because she didn’t know how to.

She wanted to reply. Desperately. But she wanted to be sure. Of him. Of herself. Of whatever this was trying to be.

And the more she sat with it, the more unsure she became.

It would be easier if he hadn’t said anything at all.

But he had.

And she’d asked for a man who could say what he meant.

And now she was… freezing.

She hated that.

She hated the tightness in her chest and the way the message just sat there like it was waiting for her to become braver.

She didn’t feel brave.

She just felt tired.

4:07 p.m. - Outside Harry's Flat

He went for a walk.

Not because he wanted to — but because the flat felt like it was closing in on him.

He didn’t go anywhere in particular. Just wandered. Hands deep in his pockets. Head low. Letting the afternoon stretch out ahead of him like a question with no ending.

I shouldn’t have sent it.

I should’ve waited.

I should’ve known better.

It looped in his head, quiet and cruel.

He walked past Milk & Honey.

Didn’t go in.

Didn’t even slow down.

He didn’t want to see the table empty again.

He didn’t want to hope.

4:33 p.m.

She finally opened the message again.

Reread it slowly.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

She closed her eyes.

Imagined what it would feel like to say yes.

To let it happen.

To go back to that booth and sit with him again and not be afraid.

She smiled.

Soft. Small. Sad.

Then whispered, “God, I wish I could.”

But she didn’t type it.

Didn’t send anything.

Not yet.

6:08 p.m. — Y/N’s Flat

She got home and didn’t even take off her coat.

Just dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and stood in the middle of the living room like she didn’t recognize her own space.

Everything looked the same.

But everything felt different.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, closed it again.

Sat on the couch.

Checked her phone.

Still him. Still there.

Still unread. Still waiting.

The silence now felt like a choice — hers.

And it was louder than anything she could’ve said.

6:39 p.m. — Harry’s Flat

He didn’t turn on the lights.

The flat was dark now, grey-blue with early dusk, but he sat on the floor beside his sofa, back pressed against it, phone in his lap.

He’d stopped opening the thread.

He already knew what it said.

He also knew what it didn’t.

No “yes.”

No “no.”

Just a space where a heartbeat used to be.

He rested his head back and whispered to no one, “I thought she felt it too.”

And the part that hurt was — she had.

7:21 p.m.

She lay on her side, staring at the wall. The phone buzzed once — a group chat. She ignored it.

She should say something.

Anything.

But now it had been almost twelve hours.

And every second that passed made it harder.

You waited too long.

He’s probably writing you off already.

Maybe you made it all up.

She flipped over and grabbed the pillow beside her.

Buried her face in it and exhaled hard.

“God, what am I doing?”

She didn’t have an answer.

Only the ache.

8:03 p.m.

He wrote a sentence in his notebook.

Then crossed it out.

Wrote another.

Crossed that one out too.

He wasn’t trying to write anymore. He was just trying to feel normal.

But nothing felt right when the thread sat open and silent. When the thing he almost believed in didn’t echo back.

He thought maybe he’d go out. Distract himself.

He didn’t.

He sat there.

And missed her.

Quietly.

Fully.

Without permission.

9:17 p.m. — Y/N’s Notes App

I think I messed it up.

I think I waited too long.

I think I wanted him to prove something.

And now I don’t know what there is left to say.

9:32 p.m.

She locked her phone.

Turned off the light.

Lay in bed and whispered:

“Please still mean it.”

But she didn’t send anything.

Not yet.

Saturday — 8:14 a.m. — Y/N’s Flat

She woke up with guilt in her throat.

Thick and bitter. Not the kind that made you cry — the kind that made you still.

It had been nearly 24 hours.

She should’ve answered.

She wanted to. But wanting wasn’t enough when you were afraid.

And now?

Now she wasn’t even sure if the door was still open.

She sat up. Reached for her phone.

It was still there.

The almost.

Do you want to finish it?

Her chest squeezed.

She tapped into the message.

She stared at it.

And then — slowly — she started typing.

I haven’t been fair.

I got scared.

I thought if I said yes, it would be real.

And if it was real, you could leave.

And if you left, I’d feel stupid for believing in something that started with a mistake.

She paused.

Then added:

But it didn’t feel like a mistake.

It felt like the first thing that made sense in a long time.

Her thumb hovered.

She shook her head.

Closed the app.

Opened it again.

Reread the message.

And this time?

She hit send.

8:17 a.m. — Harry’s Flat

His phone buzzed on the bedside table.

He didn’t look at it right away — didn’t want to get his hopes up again. But when he finally reached for it, groggy and resigned, the screen said one thing:

Y/N.

His heart stopped.

He opened it.

Read it once.

Then again.

Then sat up, the blanket falling off his shoulders as the words actually landed.

But it didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the first thing that made sense in a long time.

He didn’t smile.

He exhaled.

Hard.

Like something had been sitting on his chest for a day and finally lifted.

Then he typed:

Thank you for saying that.

I was scared too.

Still am.

But I’d rather be scared with you than wonder if we missed it.

He sent it before he could overthink it.

And for the first time in 24 hours, the ache eased.

Just a little.

Saturday — 10:02 a.m. — Milk & Honey

It wasn’t planned.

No set time. No “see you then.”

Just a message.

Then another.

Then:

Are you there now? Her.

Just sat down. Him.

Okay. On my way. Her.

And now they were sitting across from each other again — same booth. Same light.

But nothing felt the same.

Not because anything was wrong.

Because everything had changed.

They both looked at each other like they were seeing the other for the first time — not because they hadn’t before, but because now they knew what it meant.

The silence was comfortable.

Then Harry smiled, soft and a little tired. “Hi.”

Y/N let out a breath that sounded like relief. “Hi.”

It didn’t matter that they’d already said it.

It felt different now.

Like an apology and a beginning at the same time.

10:09 a.m.

She wrapped her hands around her cup, not drinking. Just holding.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“You don’t have to be.”

“I am, though.”

He nodded. Let the words settle.

“I got in my own head,” she added. “Told myself too many things before you had the chance to say anything at all.”

“I was afraid to follow up,” he admitted. “Didn’t want to come on too strong.”

“We’re a mess,” she said, almost smiling.

“A very self-aware mess,” he said.

She laughed then. A real one. It cracked the last of the tension.

“I’m glad you came,” he said.

“I almost didn’t.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad I did.”

They both sat with that — the weight of what didn’t happen and the miracle of what still could.

10:24 a.m.

“You said something in your message,” Harry said after a while, “about it feeling real.”

Y/N nodded.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

He looked down for a second. Then back at her.

“Do you think we’re writing the same story?”

She froze. In the best way.

Because she knew exactly what he meant.

They hadn’t even kissed.

Hadn’t crossed any physical line.

But this — this — felt like a page they were both holding from opposite ends.

She answered without flinching. “I hope so.”

He smiled. This time it reached his eyes.

“Then let’s not skip ahead.”

“No fast-forwards,” she agreed.

“Just… next lines.”

They didn’t rush the coffee.

Didn’t talk about the future.

Didn’t fill every silence.

But when she reached for the sugar, her fingers brushed his.

And this time?

They didn’t pull away.

10:37 a.m.

Y/N didn’t mean to stay.

She told herself she was just stopping by. Just answering the message. Just giving closure to something that had hung between them too long.

But then he looked at her like she’d come back from war.

Like she was something brave and beautiful and unrepeatable.

And she knew.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

They hadn’t touched — not really. Not beyond the brush of fingers and the echo of a maybe.

But she could feel it.

Underneath the quiet.

Beneath the coffee and soft laughter.

A current.

They were building something.

They were staying.

11:12 a.m.

Harry was the first to shift.

He pushed his mug aside, leaned forward, arms resting on the table, gaze soft but searching.

“Can I ask something?”

Y/N smiled, small. “You ask a lot of things.”

He tilted his head. “You keep answering.”

She gave a half shrug. “Fair.”

He looked down for a second, then back up.

“What would’ve happened if you sat at the right table that day?”

She blinked. “What?”

He kept his voice low. Steady. Like he wasn’t trying to shake her, just… hold something up to the light.

“If you hadn’t sat across from me,” he said, “what would your day have looked like?”

Y/N thought about it.

Really thought.

She pictured Brody’s frown, the rushed notes, the cold espresso, the tension headache. She pictured the way she would’ve walked home — alone, unaffected, unchanged.

Then she said, “I probably wouldn’t remember it.”

Harry nodded.

Then he said, “I think about that a lot.”

11:24 a.m.

They talked more. About small things.

Weird facts.

Favorite cities.

Songs they listened to on trains.

The last time they cried (her: at a commercial involving a dog and a deployed soldier, him: rereading the final page of A Little Life, again).

It wasn’t a first date.

It wasn’t a catch-up.

It wasn’t even anything definable.

It was… staying.

Choosing not to leave.

12:03 p.m. — Soft Shift

Y/N said, “I don’t usually do this.”

Harry said, “Me either.”

She said, “I mean it.”

He said, “I do too.”

She stared at her cup.

Then said, barely above a whisper, “I feel safe with you.”

Harry’s heart clenched.

He didn’t make it dramatic. Didn’t say anything flowery.

He just nodded and said:

“I’ve been waiting for that to matter to someone.”

12:44 p.m.

They ordered lunch without deciding to.

She moved her bag to the floor like she wasn’t going anywhere for a while. He peeled off his jumper like he was settling in. They shared a pastry. Argued about whether almond croissants were superior (they were, he insisted; she refused to concede).

And somewhere between that and a second refill, the tension shifted.

They weren’t circling anymore.

They were sitting inside it.

Comfortable. Unafraid.

1:26 p.m.

Harry said something funny — not even that funny — and Y/N laughed.

Not just politely.

Not softly.

Really, really laughed.

Head back, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut kind of laugh.

And when she looked up, he was already staring.

Not in a weird way.

In a ruined way.

Like, God help me, I’m already gone.

And she knew.

Because the feeling hit her back just as hard.

1:49 p.m.

The café was louder now.

No longer quiet and cozy. The lunch crowd had arrived — the kind of people who linger in scarves and say things like “I’ll just have the oat cortado” like it’s a spell.

But Harry and Y/N were still in the corner. Still in their booth. Still orbiting each other like the world hadn’t turned since they sat down.

Y/N pulled the sleeve of her jumper over her wrist. “It’s getting noisy.”

“Want to leave?” Harry asked, like it wasn’t the most loaded question of the day.

She looked up.

He held her gaze.

It wasn’t a throwaway offer.

Not just “let’s leave the café.”

It was:

Let’s not let this end here.

Let’s keep going.

Let’s see where this leads.

She swallowed. “Where would we go?”

He smiled — small, almost sheepish. “My place is close.”

She blinked.

Not because she didn’t trust him.

Not because she thought he meant something he didn’t.

But because of how gentle it was.

He wasn’t asking her to cross a line.

He was asking if she wanted to keep the conversation going without the noise. Without the crowd.

Just them.

Still them.

“Okay,” she said softly.

And that was it.

2:12 p.m. — Harry’s Flat

It was clean.

Not neat — lived in. Books stacked two deep on shelves and record sleeves leaning against the wall. A candle flickered faintly near the windowsill. Soft jazz hummed from a speaker in the corner.

It was warm in a way that felt like him.

She stepped inside, quiet at first.

Harry closed the door behind her, slow, careful. Like he didn’t want the sound to startle whatever they’d built between them.

“Shoes off?” she asked.

“If you want.”

She did.

She walked into his space like she’d been invited into something private — not just his flat, but his mind. His rhythm.

Harry watched her. Let her move without narrating.

It wasn’t awkward.

It was… unspoken understanding.

2:18 p.m.

They sat on the couch, side by side, still talking, still orbiting.

She pointed to a photo on his shelf — two kids holding a plastic trophy, one clearly him. “Is that a bowl cut?”

“Tragically, yes.”

“Please tell me there’s a matching yearbook photo.”

“There is,” he groaned. “And I will never show you.”

“You say that now.”

Harry grinned.

Their knees touched lightly.

Neither pulled away.

2:41 p.m.

They weren’t talking as much now.

But the silence wasn’t heavy. Just… warm. Easy. The kind that happened between two people who didn’t need to prove they belonged in the same room.

Y/N curled her legs beneath her. Harry stretched his arm along the back of the couch — not touching her, but close.

So close.

Her head tilted slightly toward his shoulder.

Not resting.

Just… near.

It was nothing.

It was everything.

3:03 p.m.

They were still on the couch.

The conversation had drifted. Now it was music. The soft kind — jazz, low and layered — the sort that fills a space without taking it over.

Y/N’s head had slowly, almost imperceptibly, leaned closer to Harry’s shoulder.

She hadn’t meant to.

She just… settled there.

And he didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe too hard.

Didn’t dare speak.

Because this — this exact second — was the most delicate thing he’d ever held.

And he wasn’t even touching her.

She could feel the heat of his arm beside hers.

Could feel the tension in the air.

Not anxious. Not unsure.

Just… alive.

Her hand rested lightly against her leg, fingers grazing the hem of her jeans.

His hand was just inches away.

If she moved even slightly, they’d touch.

She didn’t.

But she didn’t pull away either.

Harry turned his head slowly. Looked at her.

Y/N felt the gaze before she met it.

When she did — God.

Her breath caught.

He wasn’t smiling.

Wasn’t trying to charm her.

Just looking at her like she was the kind of sentence he didn’t want to rush through.

She felt it in her spine.

She turned slightly toward him.

Just a few degrees.

Their faces… closer now.

Not close enough to kiss.

But close enough to consider it.

His voice, when it came, was low. Careful.

“Y/N.”

She blinked. “Yeah?”

He hesitated.

Her eyes were wide. Her lips slightly parted. The moment hanging between them like a held breath.

Then he said, quietly:

“I’m not going to do anything unless you want me to.”

She didn’t move for a second.

Then:

“I know.”

Her voice was steady.

Small. But sure.

And still… neither of them moved.

3:19 p.m.

The moment passed.

Not with regret.

With reverence.

They pulled back just enough to breathe again, but stayed close. Still curled on opposite ends of the couch, knees almost touching, tension replaced with something even quieter.

Something like trust.

Y/N picked up a small, leather-bound notebook from the edge of the coffee table. “This yours?”

Harry blinked. “Yeah. Old one.”

She ran her fingers along the edges. “Can I—?”

He didn’t answer right away.

That book hadn’t been opened in months. Maybe longer. It wasn’t the kind of thing he usually shared — not with clients, not with friends, not with people who might ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

But he nodded.

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

She opened to a random page. Read silently.

He watched her — every flick of her eyes, every small inhale, every tilt of her head.

Then she said, voice soft, “This one’s about me.”

Harry didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

She looked up.

He held her gaze.

“You wrote this the first day,” she said.

He nodded.

“I hadn’t even left yet.”

“I know.”

Her lips parted. “You were already writing about me.”

“I couldn’t not.”

There was a silence after that. Heavy, but not uncomfortable.

She closed the book slowly and held it in her lap.

“I haven’t written anything in years,” she admitted.

Harry tilted his head. “You used to?”

“Poetry. Short stuff. Before I started working with other people’s stories all the time. Eventually I just… forgot how to listen to myself.”

“That’s not true,” he said, without hesitation.

She blinked. “You don’t even know what I used to sound like.”

“I know what you sound like now.”

Y/N’s throat tightened.

She didn’t have a response for that.

So she did the only thing that felt natural.

She reached out — not for his hand, not for his face — but for the notebook.

Opened to a blank page.

And handed it to him.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked.

“Always,” he said.

She looked down at her hands. Picked at the seam of her sleeve. Didn’t say anything for a beat.

Then:

“I’m used to being the person who listens. Not the one who talks.

Most people just… fill the silence and move on.

I think I forgot what it feels like to actually say something and have someone wait.

And today—

I don’t know.

It felt like there was space for me to be a person instead of a function.

And I didn’t realize how much I missed that until it happened.”

She exhaled through her nose.

Didn’t look up right away.

Harry didn’t rush to fill the space. He let it exist.

Then, gently:

“You’re allowed to take up space, Y/N.

Not just here. Everywhere.”

And she believed him.

Because he said it like he wasn’t trying to reassure her —

He said it like it was just a fact.

5:48 p.m.

They hadn’t moved much.

The day had slowed into honey — warm and viscous, stretching without asking for anything in return.

No big moments.

No kiss.

No grand declarations.

Just stillness. Shared space.

A kind of quiet neither of them had been able to find anywhere else.

Eventually, Y/N looked at the clock.

Her smile wilted slightly. “I should go.”

Harry nodded, like he���d already prepared for that truth. “Yeah.”

But he didn’t move.

Neither did she.

They stayed on the couch another few minutes — the kind of minutes that say: this mattered. This wasn’t nothing.

6:02 p.m. — The Walk Back

They walked together.

Not touching.

Just next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, their pace slow enough to mean something. The air was cooler now, the late-afternoon kind that feels like it could turn into evening if you blink too slowly.

“Thank you for today,” Y/N said.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do,” she said, glancing up at him. “You made space. For everything.”

Harry looked over.

“You filled it,” he said.

She exhaled — not like she was relieved. Like she was feeling something too big to name.

6:19 p.m. — Outside Her Building

They stopped at the edge of her steps.

The quiet wrapped around them like a held breath.

She turned to him, hands in her pockets. “I’ll text you.”

“You don’t have to wait this time,” he said.

She smiled. “I won’t.”

He nodded, looked down at the pavement, then back up.

“I know this is early. And fragile. And maybe too soon to say anything definitive.”

Y/N tilted her head.

Harry continued, slowly. “But I want to see what this turns into. I want to show up for it. For you. Even if we go slow.”

She stepped closer — not much. Just enough.

“You already are,” she said.

He didn’t ask to come up.

She didn’t ask him to stay.

But the pause before goodbye held more weight than a hundred promises.

When she opened her door, she looked back.

He was still there.

And when she stepped inside, she left the porch light on.

Not because it was dark.

But because she wanted him to find his way back.

[chrissleftshoe]

You know we got a real history

The argument was terrible. After I walked out the house I walked around, not really knowing what to do with all these bottled up emotions. Deep down inside I knew Chris was right, I do need to talk about my feelings instead of keeping quiet, but i don't wanna ruin what we have. Love is going to fuck it up and I'm not willing to take that risk.

I find myself seated at a small little donut shop. I only got an iced tea, I don't know felt it was necessary for the moment. I wanted to text Chris so bad, apologize, make up, just talking would be relieving, but I didn't.

I scroll through my contacts and land on "Anna" I call her, she's the only one I know.

The phone picks up. Hearing her voice across the line slightly calms me. "Hello" the sound of my saddened choked up voice comes out. "Anna" "y/n are you okay" "I fucked it up Anna, i-i didn't tell him." "Oh y/n." "and then I yelled at him because he told me it's okay to tell him about my feelings and-" "Okay, okay, slow down, just breathe for a moment" the hot tears down my face continue to stream as I try to take deep breaths. " There you go, inhale, exhale. You got it"

"I don't know if I should go back and apologize or just say nothing" "You know that what you did was probably wrong. Do what is right and make up for your wrong. And if it doesn't work out then that's okay, it won't be like that forever." "Thank you, I don't know what would I do without you." "I have no idea."

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER

Well I spilled everything to Nick. Surprisingly he took it well, he told me just ease into it and that "Even if Chris didn't feel the same way nothing would change between you two, he's not like that". And he's right, I think?

Hopefully

Having to share a bedroom with him was already enough anxiety for me, I mean now I HAVE to tell him. I feel kind of stupid, I should've just told him right there but I didnt. I need to stop overthinking and say it.

Say that I love him.

SORRY THIS IS SO SHORT I HAVE WRITERS BLOCK SO BAD, IM ALREADY WORKING ON THE NEXT PART SO IT WILL BE LONGER

[helluva-simper]

Red Apples And Roses

this is a Radioapple fanfic series I'm working on. Hope it turns out good chat *tism noises*

Items were harshly thrown around as the room was filled with loud static.

“Sorry, dearest friend but I see no amusement in settling down. I don't understand why you cant seem to respect my decision…” Alastor says, his voice becoming more dark as he finishes his sentence.

He swiftly dodges as Vox attempts to throw a punch at him. “DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! WE COULD RULE ALL OF HELL AND YOU'RE THROWING IT AWAY BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO ‘SETTLE’?!” Vox exclaims as he quickly balances himself, ready to strike again.

“Vox I wouldn't care to continue our friendship but this is just ridiculous. “ Alastor sighs before using his black tendrils to grab Vox and throw him across the room.

- - - - - -

They both fought tirelessly. The battle after a harsh punch to Vox’s screen. Alastor placed a foot to Vox's chest. “This… battle was entertaining enough but I…. I must make my leave….” Alastor said, throwing deep breaths before walking away.

He has to get away.

Now.

He forced his smile higher, his ears stood straight on his head. His fists clenched painfully as he continued walking through town trying to make it back to his tower or… somewhere no one could see him. Cannibal Town was too far and he didn't have enough energy- thanks to Vox- to teleport farther than a few feet.

To everyone else he seemed like his usual self: cruelty and egocentric wrapped together to take the form of a person. But the moment his vision blurred, he quickly looked around to see if anyone was around, which fortunately there wasn't, and dashed into a corner.

“Stupid… blasted… TV head….” Alastor mutters as he coughed holding his chest. He could feel that he didn't have any major injuries but that didn't defy the fact it hurt like a bitch.

He places his hand on his forehead. Think. He had to figure out how to get out lest he wanted to be caught. Until it happened.

- - - - - -

“Aright, Luci.” Lucifer says to himself as he throws on his shirt.

He was in his room. The room was covered in family pictures, golden ducks, intricate designs of apples. He walks to his windows to peek out a bit looking at the sinners that roamed the streets down in town.

“You got this. All you have to do is go down there, grab food, and get out. No interaction needed.” He confirmed. He grabbed his hat and pulled his coat on before snapping his fingers.

“Vin!” Lucifer calls out.

A short but tall for its species, imp appeared behind him. “VINCE!” Lucifer jumps, flinching away from the imp.

Vince was dressed in a white button up with an apple pin on his chest and the end of the shirt spiral designs on it. His pants were dark gray while his pure white hair was slicked back.

Lucifer straightens back up before glaring at Vince. “Yes, sire?” Vince asks as he clasps his hands behind his back. “Ehem… well… my favorite servant has gotten…. How do I put this lightly… the shit beat out of them and I don't trust anyone else to get my groceries since the…. incident¹.” (¹:The incident being when someone attempted to foolishly poison Lucifer. Like he may be depressed and have a bit of autism but that also has the bonus deal of anxiety. Who doesn't thoroughly check through every meal you have before eating it?)

Vince nods before asking, “So… what do you require of me?” Lucifer chuckles nervously. “Moral support?” He replies, his voice becoming squeaky. Vince looks at him with an expressionless face. Lucifer takes that as an okay before walking towards the door before the awkwardness gets thicker.

- - - - - -

Demons scattered as Lucifer walked through the streets. “Look intimidating. Look intimidating. Look intimidating.” Lucifer repeated In his mind as he continued.

Vince and Lucifer had finally finished the shopping spree and were walking home. Lucifer looked behind him to see Vince effortlessly holding about 5 grocery bags in both hands. Lucifer walks slower before bending down to him. “Is that all on the list?” Lucifer whispers. “Yes, my liege.”

Lucifer lets out a sigh of relief. “Stupid… blasted… TV head….” A static, raspy voice mutters loud enough for him to hear it. Lucifer pauses.

What in the world?

Lucifer walks faster to find the sound before pausing in front of an alleyway to see a disheveled, raggedy, ugly dressed man slumped against a wall.

“Who-” “The radio demon sir. The infamous Overlord known for his ruthlessness and cruelty.” Vince explained. Lucifer spews nonsense before ending it with “What, who?”

(this was not proof read yet)

[tamoscringecorner]

FiddleStan College AU Headcanons!! (Warning, they are idiots..)

-When Ford first introduced them they both were really awkward and looked like walking nerds and jock stereotypes

-When they met Stan still was denying his sexuality but did have a small crush on Fidds but brushed it off because it was still straight since he was a "pretty boy"

-Fidds loves to bake despite being bad at it, so when they first met, Fidds made him a Southern cherry pie as a greeting gift, but it was totally burnt…

-One time as a dare by Ford they got into an arm wrestling contest and Fidds beat him to this day Stan is salty about it

-One time when Stan was cooking he rolled up his sleeves showing off his various edgy tattoos from his teen years and much to his surprise Fidds sincerely thought they made him look "badass"-

-Fidds at the time also had a crush on Stan but hid it better, but to send "hints" and "signs" he would often bake for Stan but Stan

-Stan appreciates the gesture of Fidds baking for him despite finding it slightly off putting and one day asked Ford about it like "Hey why does your pal Fidds keep givin me so much baked goods?? Im already a fuckin fatass, Ford, what's the guy's big deal?! I think he's hidin somethin, do ya think its drugged or somethin..?!"

-At first Ford thought that their obvious crushes on eachother despite the other being oblivious to it was sweet but it got to the point where Ford was annoyed that they wouldn't just ask each other out already

-Stan insisted that Fidds cut his hair because he figured if he looked less "girly" with his long hair his stupid crush would wear off, in reality, it just made him look handsome now..and Stan's crush worse

-When Stan secretly had a crush on Fidds his search history was just "Am I gay" and "IF I SAY NO HOMO IS IT NO HOMO IF I LIKE A GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE GIRL"

-When Stan finally got the courage to ask out Fidds he tried to play it smooth and when they were outside smoking Stan handed him a cigarette with his number on it but Fidds honestly called it thinking it was a stop smoking hotline

-When Fidds finally realized Stan was asking him out he immediately hugged him and said yes causing Stan to blush heavily and mumble something like "i-its whatever, Nerd…"

-Their first date was on a cliff by a deep forest late at night, Stan got the idea from a cheesy old movie and figured that "Fidds loves cheesy old-fashioned crap like that!"

-Stan was so nervous on their date that his hand was shaking and he spilled wine all over himself when he tried being a "gentleman" when pouring wine for Fidds

-Fidds finds his clumsiness amusing and frankly charming in a silly way but non of the less always consoles him and tells him he did a wonderful job

-Fidds and Ford's opinions mean the most to Stan because they are the smartest people he knows

-Fidds always seems confident and put together when in reality he has pretty bad anxiety and craves approval for his talents and hardships

-If Fidds ever confessed his feelings of not being good enough and being "just a southern hick who don't know his left from his right…" Stan would take personal offense to this and ramble on for like 20 minutes about how great he was

-Ford despite being best friends with Fidds supported their relationship even though he took a while to come around to it

-Sometimes Bill would tease Ford saying stuff like "Ohh Sixer your brother can pull a girl! Or should I say guy, but you can't, next thing you know you'll be so desperate you'll ask ME out HAHA"

-Stan is a high school dropout who struggled a lot in school so sometimes Fidds helps him and teaches him

-Stan has a weak immune system and gets sick often so to help with this Fidds would always stay near him and take care of him by providing company and giving him hot cocoa

[goldensunset]

in my experience i didn’t get interested in kingdom hearts by watching or playing anything first. i got interested by watching people post about cute anime children murdering each other and i was like ‘fascinating. i wonder how this got past the disney censors. let’s find out’