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marvelwitchergilmore · 3 days ago

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Longing Looks to Something More

Summary: Tyler Owens x Fe!Reader -> You and Tyler have been friends for a long time, but one day things begin to change.

Disclaimer: Steamy moments, swearing, fluffy moments, oblivious idiots in love, love confessions (kinda), lots of pining. Not Proof Read.

You heard his boots scuffing the barn floor before he pulled out a chair next to your desk.

“Here.” Looking up, you found where he’d placed a fresh cup of tea beside you. “It’s too late for coffee, and Cathy said it’s good for sleep.”

“I don’t need sleep.” You lifted the mug. “But thank you.”

Tyler sat back in his chair, watching you as you went back to your work. You’d been sitting at that desk since four o’clock in the afternoon, and that hour was long gone.

“When was the last time you got some decent shut eye?” Tyler asked, picking up a folder you’d finished looking at so he could make the conversation feel less like an interrogation.

He smiled as he saw the small scribbled in the margins.

“Before college properly.”

He shut the document. “I’m being serious, Y/n.”

“So am I,” you said, holding in a laugh. But then he gave you the look.

Sighing, and relaxing your shoulders, you leaned to look at him. “I appreciate your concern, Ty, I really do. But I’m okay. I promise.”

He watched you for a moment before taking half of the scribbled notes from you and using the folder as something to lean on.

“What are you doing?” You asked, watching him.

“Helping.”

“Tyler-”

He looked at you. “You need sleep and I’m not leaving until you do. And that won’t be until you finish. Twice the people, half the work.”

You would have fought him on it, but in truth, you’d spent so much time looking at the calculations and data you thought you were starting to think in them, instead of words.

And he was right.

Whatever work you’d been distracting yourself with was as wrapped up as it could be until you gathered some more data. And by the looks of it, the tea was working. You’d been giving into your yawns rather than trying to fight them off.

Tyler had seen you do this for years. He was just glad they had Kate’s barn to work out of when chasing. You all finally had a home base now.

“Right, come on.”

Tyler practically hauled you from your seat.

“Bedtime.”

It was easier than previous nights to get you to move away from your work and head down to the farm house. There were three places to sleep on the farm. Inside the main house, which was where Kate stayed with Cathy and someone else would take the guest room. Then there was the guest house, with a couple different rooms which everybody had slept in at least once. Whoever fell asleep first, got the first pick of a room. Then there was the smaller guest house. It had one bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, a small sitting room and enough of a wooden stand in the back to be considered a porch.

That was where you and Tyler would be tonight since you were the last to go to bed.

“I brought your stuff down here earlier. I’m gonna brush my teeth.”

“Okay,” you yawned.

By the time you’d gotten dressed in your pyjamas, these days consisted of a random t-shirt which you were sure had belonged to one of the boys at some point, and cotton shorts. You joined Tyler in the bathroom, brushing your teeth whilst he washed his face.

Turning off the bath tap, he wrung out the face cloth before throwing it over the towel rail to dry.

“Come on.”

Finally rinsing out your mouth, you heard the clink of your toothbrush in the cup and wiped your mouth.

Tyler’s hand hovered by your hip as he led you out of the bathroom, turning the light off behind him, across the small living room and into the bedroom.

By that point, Tyler had practically wrangled and tucked you into bed before laying down beside you. For years, you’d shared a bed. You’d both shared a bed at least three times with each member of the crew. There was always a motel somewhere that didn’t have enough space.

So it didn’t freak you out to think you’d be sharing a bed with Tyler.

By the time the lights cut out, it wasn’t long before you were fast asleep.

When you woke up, you felt secure. Like you’d been wrapped in a weighted blanket. Only when you opened your eyes did you realise it was Tyler’s arms. With your back against his chest, his arms held you securely against him. He was fast asleep. His breathing even, soft snores coming from him as he held onto you for dear life.

It took you a minute but you eventually pulled yourself from his arms and headed for the bathroom. By the time you’d finished, you could hear him walking around the place before you heard the pans being moved around.

He was making breakfast.

“Hey.”

Tyler looked over his shoulder as he scrambled the eggs. “Hey, how’d you sleep?”

“Good. Better than college.”

Tyler smiled. “Good. Eggs’ll be done soon.”

“Thanks. Want some coffee?”

Tyler nodded and you started brewing it from the pot, grabbing two mugs and setting them beside each other.

After breakfast and coffee, Tyler headed for a shower and you got changed into some fresh clothes. You’d also found his inside one of the closets so, after pulling back the bed covers, you laid his clothes out at the foot of the bed.

“Hey, Ty? I’m gonna head up to-”

You’d been focusing on tying the bottom of your shirt up as you walked the short distance out of the bedroom and past the sofa, ready to call through the door to him. However, without looking up, you ran into something.

At first, you figured it was the door, but when the door suddenly grew arms, steadied you and spoke, you realised what had actually happened.

Stood, his waist wrapped in a towel, his hair still dripping a little from the water, Tyler had opened the door.

And there you stood, suddenly dumbfounded, in his arms, unsure of what to do.

“Uhh, sorry. I-I didn’t.” Your mind seemed to take a mental picture of the Tyler that stood in front of you in that moment, and for the life of you, you couldn’t understand why.

“You okay?”

Clearing your throat, you stepped back and out of his grasp. “Yea-yep. Yes. All good. I was just gonna…”

You forced yourself to look at his face before he thought you were checking him out.

“I was gonna head up to the barn. I’ve, uhh, I’ve left your stuff in..in the bedroom.”

You started to make a break for it towards the front door and Tyler remained in his position, watching you.

“Sure you’re okay?”

You nodded firmly. “Just peachy.”

Tyler couldn’t help but smile a little as he watched you leave after getting so flustered. But, shaking his head, he turned back towards the bedroom. He hadn’t meant for that to happen, but something inside of him was glad it did.

The rest of the day, you tried to keep your mind focused on your tasks rather than constantly replaying what had happened that morning. Tyler. His arms. His grip. His body. His eyes. His voice. Him.

None of that was helped when you saw him walking up the small hill towards the barn, his wranglers being filled in all the right places.

“Stop it.” You told yourself over and over and over again. Even more so when he leaned over you from behind your chair, asking about the data collection. How was it that a man could still smell so good hours after taking a shower? Immediately, your mind projected the towel-wrapped image of him from that morning.

“Stop it.”

Tyler hummed a response, not having heard you.

“Nothing,” you brushed it off. And he just shrugged.

However, you weren’t the only one confused by your sudden replay of the morning going over in your head.

“Stare at her any longer and somebody might think you’re in love.”

Tyler turned and looked back at Dexter. “What are you talking about?”

Dexter smiled. “I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at her. If you’re not looking around this barn for her, you’re looking at her.”

“No, I’m not.” Tyler tried to laugh it off. But then he found himself looking back at you. Your reaction to him coming out of the shower kept playing on his mind. As did the feeling of you being in his arms this morning before he woke up again.

Standing and leaning behind you as you sat at your desk allowed for your shampoo to fill his senses. And it took him right back to being in bed with you after ushering you to bed. He’d woken up just a little before the sun had come up. His arms were already around you, but he wouldn’t have moved in fear of waking you considering you were holding his arms to you.

Calming himself down, your shampoo filled his senses and imprinted the feeling and image of you in his mind. So, when he stood with you, that feeling came right back.

He must have fallen back to sleep, too, because when he woke up, he heard the sink running in the bathroom.

“Dex, can I ask you something?”

“Sure. So long as it’s not how to read Y/n’s handwriting. What does this even say?”

Leaning over him, Tyler read it. “Continued on page five.”

Dexter nodded, a little shocked. “What’s your question?”

“When…” He looked back at you for a moment before tearing his gaze away. “When do you know something is changing?”

“Is this about you and Y/n? Because I have to say, I think you might be the last to know.”

“What?”

Dexter started listing things off. “The way you look at her? The way she looks at you? The fact you’re the only one she’ll listen to, or you’re the only one who can read her handwriting?”

Tyler shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. But, I…”

“Did something happen?”

Tyler shook his head. “Technically, no.”

“But you wish it had?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know if I did or not. We’re friends. We’ve only ever been friends. Why would things start changing now?”

“Maybe now is the time.” Dexter said. “It’s like you say, a tornado is part science, part religion. Some things, or at least part of them, can’t always be explained. You and Y/n have a deep connection. You’re friends. Maybe now it’s time to explore things further.”

Taking one final look over at you, Tyler didn’t know what to do.

“Maybe.”

Tyler wrestled with the idea for a week or more. You’d both been friends for a long time. And, sure. Maybe he’d checked you out once or twice over the years. He wasn’t blind. You were beautiful. Why you were still single baffled him. And, yeah, maybe he’d felt a little jealous when someone from a bar would ask you to dance with them. But that didn’t mean he was catching feelings, did it?

Except, the longer time went on, the more he could feel them becoming more noticeable. He kept catching himself looking at you throughout the day, His heart and stomach kept doing a weird ‘hop, skip and jump’ thing every time he saw you. Except, it had started to be whenever he even thought about you. Whenever he saw you in one of the guy’s t-shirts that wasn’t his, he felt a pang in his chest, but when he saw you in his…he had to leave the room for fear of the extent of his emotions showing up in front of everyone.

And just when he thought he was getting better at hiding his feelings, Boone asked him a question.

“When are you gonna ask her out, dude?”

Tyler, who had been on the roof of his truck since you got back from another tornado chase, stopped what he was doing and looked down at Boone.

“What?”

Pausing where he was in the book you had given him only a few hours ago to keep him occupied, Boone looked at Tyler. “You’ve been watching her all day.”

Tyler looked back at his work, rather than back at you. You were a short way across the farm, helping haul some bags of feed from the truck and into the barn.

“No, I haven’t.”

Boone just laughed. “Come on, man. We all see it. Hell, I’ve seen it since you first met her. D’you know you get this funny look on your face when you look at her? Had it then, have it now. Just louder.”

Tyler just shook his head and mumbled; “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This time, Boone stood up. “You’re my brother, Tyler. So I’m gonna tell you straight. You’re in love with, Y/n. So rather than sitting here, thinking about her. Go over there and do something about it. Or else Me and Lily are gonna have to start watching Parent Trap to take some more notes.”

Tyler looked back at Boone. “More notes?”

Boone cleared his throat and shook his head, scuffing his feet on the ground. If Tyler or you knew the lengths they’d gone through to get either one of you this far…

“Dude, just ask her out.”

As he went and sat back down, he watched Tyler look back down the field towards you. Except, that was interrupted by Dani and Dexter heading up the road.

It was from their announcement that everyone found themselves getting dressed up to head to the local bar for a night of country dancing.

However, that caused one problem.

Tyler.

Smelling just as he did a few weeks ago when you ran into his freshly showered, towel-wrapped body.

Filling out his jeans in all the right places.

With a crisp white t-shirt.

And you caught him from the moment he’d taken his backwards cap off his head, throwing it onto his dash and pulling his cowboy hat out, fixing it onto his head.

And the way he was looking at you as you walked down the steps of the house, dressed in your only pair of denim shorts that didn’t need washing, a t-shirt you’d borrowed from Kate since the one you planned on wearing still had motor oil on from when you were helping Dani with the camper, and an oversized checked shirt, along with your cowboy boots; it was giving you more ideas than you needed in your head when it came to Tyler.

“Ready to go?”

Tyler had to look away from you, letting his gaze land on his feet as he nodded and opened up his passenger door for you. “Yep.”

For a moment, you could have sworn he looked nervous. But considering you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him any longer than a second and a half in fear he’d see exactly what you were thinking when you looked at him, you couldn’t be sure.

And when he grabbed your hand half way through the night to bring you onto the dance floor, holding you close to him as you both two-stepped across the old wooden floor, those feelings that had been bubbling inside you for weeks; you could feel them pouring over whatever container you tried to shove them into.

The feeling of his hand on your lower back, the feeling of his hand in yours, the feeling you got when he looked at you, and the way his voice sounded, so close to your ear.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s kinda personal.”

You were confused. “Okay?”

Now he just had to find the last shreds of courage to ask you. “Is something…has something…between you and me…is there…”

Each time he said a word, your head rushed around the million different things he was trying to ask you.

“Just spit it out, Tyler.”

“Do you like me?”

No. I love you.

“How’d you mean?” You asked.

Tyler had a few seconds to think how to phrase his question as he spun you out before pulling you back.

“Like, more than usual.”

Now he was starting to confuse himself. “I just…am I imagining things here, or is something…different? Between us, I mean.”

It was your chance to think. Had he been feeling it too? The way the room felt a lot more claustrophobic, in the good way, when it was just you two? Did he feel your touch as strongly in his bones as you did? Did he…did he love you the same way you did for him?

“It’s just…I feel like I woke up one morning and…I don’t know. You’re the person I’d talk to about this kinda stuff, so…I just thought I’d ask you about this, too. Is there…Is there something changing between us?”

The song slowed and you were completely against Tyler, standing in his space as he stood in yours. Looking up at him and meeting his green eyes, you told him the truth.

“I think it already has.”

From the table in the corner, the others watched you and Tyler slow down and just simply look at each other.

“Think he finally told her?” Lily asked, turning to the other hoping they saw what she did.

“I think she told him.” Dani said, grabbing a handful of chips.

“I think they’ve just told each other.”

Everyone looked at Dexter before turning to look back at you and Tyler on the dancefloor.

You watched as Tyler registered everything you said and after an eternity, he looked up and around the room. You didn’t know what or who he was looking for, but after another moment, he grabbed your hand.

“Come with me.”

You led you towards the back of the bar and out of the doors, the cold air hitting both of you all at once. The sound of the music and people drowned out as the door swung shut behind you both.

“Ty, where are we-”

Swinging you around, you felt Tyler stop you in your tracks before he looked at you. Really looked at you.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

From day one of meeting Tyler, you knew you could trust him. And you knew you always would.

Brushing the hair from your face, he seemed to finally breathe. And you slowly leaned into his touch. “Y/n…”

He swallowed nervously before asking the question that had been on his mind since the first time he’d woken up with you in his arms.

“Can I kiss you?”

Drawing his eyes from your lips, he looked into yours. You knew if you said no, he would walk away. He wouldn’t question you, he wouldn’t push.

But you wanted him to.

“Yes.”

“Are you su-”

You cut him off, standing a little higher on your toes, you took his face into your hands and pulled him in to kiss you. His hands held you steady at your hips before snaking around your body and holding you flush against him whilst your own arms did the same around his neck.

Parting for a breath, Tyler’s hands were quick to lift you up and you locked your ankles around his hips before your back was up against the cold brick wall.

A small moan left your lips which forced Tyler to pull his lips from yours for a moment.

“Are you okay?”

“Shut up and kiss me, Cowboy.”

Tyler smirked with a small chuckle. “Yes, ma’am.”

One hand holding you under your ass and another pushing through your hair, Tyler kissed you as if your life depended on it.

You died with his kiss, and he brought you back with the next. God, you never wanted it to end.

However, it was forced when you both heard the back door to the bar swing open and crash against the wall before a pair of drunk laughs getting closer.

Thankfully, it wasn’t anyone on the team. Otherwise you and Tyler would have been caught in a very compromising position considering you could feel all of Tyler against your body at that moment.

Looking back at you with a half drunk smile, which you were sure you owned the other half to, Tyler kissed you quickly once more. Before giving you another, and another and another as you slowly unhooked your legs from him and he lowered you to the ground.

“We better get back inside.”

You smiled. “I think the others already have an idea on what we’re doing out here.”

“Still. If we’re gonna go any further, I’d rather make love to you someplace that isn’t behind the back of a bar.”

You blushed. “Make love?”

Tucking a stray hair behind your ear, Tyler leaned down and kissed the shell.

“Would you prefer for me to fuck you? Because I can do that, too, Sweetheart.”

Tyler watched as your cheeks heated. He didn’t have to look at you to know what you were thinking about. Because he was thinking about it, too.

“Come on. We better get inside.”

Pressing a final kiss to your lips, Tyler took your hand and led you back into the bar. You were pretty sure after his question, your brain had been completely fried with thoughts of Tyler fucking you.

Not helped by the fact that when he walked you back inside, he pulled you to stand in front of him, his hands on your waist. “I’m gonna get a drink, you want one?”

You still couldn’t speak so just nodded.

Tyler smiled a little and kissed your temple. “You keep thinking about my question, Sweetheart.”

You felt his hand tap your ass lightly before he walked away and towards the bar and you were left to walk back to where the team had been sitting in the corner. Thankfully, most of them apart from Dexter were up dancing.

“You two finally talk?”

You felt yourself blush. You were glad most of the lights were directed onto the dancefloor or behind the bar. “A little more than that.”

Dexter smiled before taking a sip of his drink and handing you a small sketch.

“Dexter, you’re the only person I know that brings a pad and pencil to a bar.”

He smiled. “Never know when inspiration will strike. Plus, I think you’ll like this one.”

From his pad, he pulled a small piece of card, no bigger than a beer coaster. In the middle stood the outline of two people.

You and Tyler.

Just moments ago, when you were standing on the dancefloor together.

“Dex…”

He smiled. “You keep it. I’m gonna go to the gents.”

Standing up, Dexter walked away just as Tyler reached the table and handed you your drink before sitting beside you with his arm over your shoulders.

“Look at this.”

“It's us.”

You smiled as you watched Tyler take hold of it and examine it for a moment. You could hear the cogs turning in his head but you weren’t sure why. But then he removed his hat and fixed the picture in place on the inner band.

He fixed the hat back onto his head. “Well?”

You smiled. “You look handsome.”

Tyler smiled before leaning in to kiss you, and as he pressed his lips to yours, you both heard the hollering and whistles being blown by the rest of your team on the dancefloor.

You felt yourself blush and chuckle, Tyler doing the same except as you hid your head for a moment on his shoulder, he waved his hands at the other to get them to stop.

Looking back to you with a rested smile on his face, he leaned down and kissed you once more.

“Ready to go home?”

You nodded and went to stand.

“The offer still stands, Sweetheart.”

This time, as he remained seated, you turned back and pressed your knee into your chair, leaning over him as he looked up at you.

“I want both,” you told him. Then you leaned in closer. “But if you’re gonna fuck me, you better fuck me like you mean it.”

It was his turn to blush, but you didn’t get away with not for long because Tyler’s hand came to your hip holding you steady when you kissed him.

“Think you can take me, darlin’. Might need to get you ready first.”

You felt yourself smirk. “After those words and everything that happened outside, I’m already halfway there.”

Considering another tray of drinks made their way to the table in Dexter’s hands, Tyler told Tyler the others wouldn’t be leaving for a good while.

Tyler pressed one last kiss to your lips before he stood and took your hand in his, leading you back through the bar and towards his truck.

“We’ll have to see about that.”

#tyler owens #twisters #tyler owens x reader #tyler owens tornado wrangler #tyler owens x you #tyler owens cowboy scientist #fluff #pining #mutual pining #oblivious idiots #steamy moments #falling in love #glen powell #glen powell tyler owens #glen powell cowboy #cowboy #tyler owens x fe!reader #tyler owens x fem!reader

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willowsnook · 17 hours ago

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He isn't you

salami, swiss cheese, and white bread please <3

joe burrow x gf!reader

he isn't you

The easiest thing about dating Joe Burrow was that he wasn’t the possessive type. Some girls liked that in a partner, but you found it suffocating. You didn’t need him to mark his territory; your connection was clear without that.

This dynamic was perfect for your busy life as an ESPN reporter. Covering college football meant you were often on the road, but Joe was fully supportive. When you were both home, you made time for each other, and when you weren’t, you checked in often enough.

One quiet morning, you felt Joe wrap his arms around you from behind as you cooked scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he mumbled sleepily.

You turned to smile at him, giving him a quick kiss. “Hi, Joey.”

He grabbed coffee for both of you. “What’s on the agenda today?” he asked.

“We have a new guy filling in this week,” you explained. “So, a longer prep session.”

“Someone you know?”

“No, he’s from a smaller affiliate, so we haven’t crossed paths.”

After breakfast, you kissed Joe on the cheek, grabbed your coffee, and headed out the door to the ESPN office. There, you were set to meet the new colleague, Harrison.

Outside, you spotted a man with curly brown hair and green eyes waiting by the door. “Are you Harrison?” you asked, shaking his hand as he smiled warmly.

“Yes, nice to meet you!” he replied cheerfully.

The day flew by. Harrison was easygoing, and you enjoyed discovering you had mutual friends and had even attended rival high schools. That evening, you told Joe all about your day and your new colleague.

“...I’m looking forward to working with him this weekend,” you finished, noticing Joe’s slight frown as he poked at his food.

“Awesome,” he murmured, not meeting your eyes.

“Are you okay?” you asked, sensing his mood shift.

“Yeah, just tired.”

“Was practice hard today?” You asked, taking another bite of your dinner.

“A little,” he said, subconsciously digging into his shoulder muscle.

“Let me give you a massage after we clean up then,” you offered and he smirked. “Just to help you relax.”

“I can think of another way you can help me relax,” he flirted, and you rolled your eyes and laughed.

-----------------------------------------------

The next Monday, Joe was not happy as he scrolled through his Twitter feed, having been tagged in tons of tweets about you and your colleague Harrison.

“User1: Wow, the chemistry between Y/N and the new guy is unreal. Are we intruding?” “User2: Wonder how Joe Burrow feels watching his girlfriend get ‘rizzed’ on national TV.” “User3: Joe took two Ls this weekend: losing to the Eagles and seeing his girl flirting with her colleague on air.”

Joe knew you hadn’t meant anything by it, but watching those clips felt like a punch to the chest. He decided he’d stay out for the night, texting you that he was still with the team and might crash at Ja’Marr’s. You frowned, confused, knowing he’d been home just an hour earlier. His texts had been scarce all weekend, and his silence stung.

Y/N: Is something wrong? Are you mad at me? JB: It’s fine.

Something was definitely off, but he wasn’t ready to talk. Trying to shake off your worry, you settled in for the night alone.

-------------------------------------

The next morning, you buried yourself in work to distract from Joe’s cold shoulder. Harrison popped by your office, noticing your downcast expression.

“Everything okay?” he asked, taking a seat across from you.

“Joe’s mad at me, but he won’t say why,” you sighed, recounting the strange tension between you and Joe.

Just then, Joe appeared at your door, his eyes narrowing as they fell on Harrison. As you introduced them, Joe’s handshake was noticeably firm, and Harrison shot you a wide-eyed look.

You looked from him to Harrison, and it all was finally clicking in place, which instantly made you giggle.

You smiled sweetly at Joe. “Oh, I was just telling Harrison that it’d be nice to have him and his partner David over for dinner sometime.”

Joe’s hand went slack, his surprise evident. “Yeah... that’d be great,” he stammered, dropping Harrison’s hand, relief settling over him.

The tension dissolved, and you couldn’t help but chuckle as Joe’s jealousy melted away, leaving him sheepish.

After Harrison left, Joe lingered around you in the office, quieter than usual but clearly wanting to say something. You leaned against the desk, watching him nervously run a hand through his hair.

Finally, he sighed. “Look, I know it’s stupid, but seeing you with him… I couldn’t help it. Watching people online talk about how good you two looked together…” He trailed off, his expression softening as he took your hands in his.

“Joe,” you said gently, squeezing his hands, “I like Harrison as a colleague, and he’s a great guy, but he isn’t you. No one could be.”

He smiled then, a hint of his usual confidence returning as he finally seemed to believe it.

You stepped closer, wrapping your arms around him. “You’re the one I come home to,” you murmured. “The only one.”

He pulled you in tightly, his voice quiet as he admitted, “I know. I just… needed to hear it.”

With the last bit of tension fading away, you leaned up, pressing a reassuring kiss to his lips. He wasn’t possessive by nature, but every now and then, a reminder didn’t hurt. And maybe you didn’t mind giving him one.

#nfl imagines #joe burrow imagine #joe burrow

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onlyhereforthestories · 2 days ago

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Chica Medica - Part 5 (Alexia Putellas x Reader)

So its been a while (sorry!) You won't have to wait long for the final few parts of this I am half way through the next part. Thank you all who have stuck with me, this was one of the first things I wrote and I feel a little emotional that it is finally coming to an end. Anyway enough ramble enjoy part 5!

You had gone through your whole wardrobe by this point, and you still couldn’t find the right thing to wear. All your clothes were spread around your room in various states of crinkled from the constant changing you had been doing. Nothing was working together or, or you were not feeling confident in others.

You checked you phone to see you had exactly 23 minutes before Leila and Mapi were due to collect you, so you knew you needed to get a move on. Deciding the only way you were actually going to put anything on over the underwear you currently resided in was with some help, you dialled the number of the only person who could sort you out.

Ona picked up on the second ring, “Hola Hermana, what can I do for you?” her smile and voice had the wave of calm you needed right now to stop your mind from its current running all over the place.

“I need help. I have Christmas drinks with the Barca girls tonight and I don’t know what to wear, I have tried my whole wardrobe on and nothing is right. I need you to just tell me what to wear.” Ona could hear the frustration in your voice.

“I’m guessing you are only this stressed about what you look like because of a certain midfielder, you never care about what you look. I’ve literally been to the club with you in joggers before.” You rolled your eyes at the woman before giving her a pointed look through your phone. Now wasn’t the time for memories or teasing you about the fact that you were hyperaware of the brunette that would in fact see you in the clothes you picked tonight.

“Ona please.” You pulled out the puppy eyes and the bottom lip, both of which you knew would get Ona helping you in a couple seconds flat.

“Oh, you really want my help you’ve pulled out the big guns. Okay show me what I’m working with. Ooooo actually do you still have that black silk shirt? The one you wore to you knows party?” you knew exactly what shirt she meant, it was the only item you had not actually tried on tonight, you’d just chucked it to the side.

“I do yes. Is that not like bad luck or something to wear?” Could you really wear a shirt your ex loved on you so much to a party you were so worried about looking good for because of the new person you had feelings for.

“She didn’t buy it for you I did, and you look really, really hot in it so if you want Alexia to drool over you, I would definitely say wear it.” You found it in the pile of clothes and picked out some beige slacks with the help of Ona, you chatted with the Manchester United player while you got ready and only said goodbye when you heard the doorbell ring.

Getting to the hired club was fun, Mapi and Leila had both complimented your outfit and made comments about who you were trying to impress much to your annoyance. The best thing was they both promised to protect or help you if you needed it, something that you almost chocked up on thanking them for. You were very lucky to have such amazing friends around you.

When the three of you got in you could tell it was going to be a fun night, Pina came running over to you all with Patri hot on her heels both had beers in both hands, and you were all passed one. Apparently, a drink had to be drunk as soon as you got in to be allowed to join the big group at the table.

Not one to back down from any challenge, you smirked at the two younger women who gave you the drink as you held the beer up in a semi cheers to them and downed it in a very easy and quick time. When you wiped your upper lip, you couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Claudia’s face. The younger woman’s jaw was on the floor so to say, and she had a slight spark of awe in her eyes.

What you didn’t know was that Alexia had walked in with Jenni just as you raised your beer so got to watch you smoothly chug it. An action from you that she found very hot indeed and even voiced that accidently out loud which put her on the receiving end of a slap to the back of the head from her best friend.

Righting herself and sending a quick but not really meant sorry to the older woman, Alexia walked just behind the little group surrounding you to the table where she was greeted with her own drink to see off as quickly as she could. She took a lot longer and struggled a lot more than you did to do it.

As the night went on the drinks flowed more and more, you had had your fair share but had stopped once the pleasant buzz had fully kicked in. You really didn’t like the feeling of losing your senses anymore, so you knew when to switch to sodas. Alexia had noticed you do this and chose to do the same thing in order to hopefully talk with you when her confidence wasn’t on the floor.

Confidence or not her opportunity came when Leila dragged the people on your table up and to the dance floor and you waved them away, stating you needed to watch and see what moves they were doing before you could join in. An excuse for sure but Alexia wasn’t going to complain.

Taking a breath to calm her already racing heart she grabbed her drink and walked towards you. “Mind if I join you?”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to come over here once they left. You pleasantly surprised me with a little under a minute.” You faced her with a giggle, which turned into a full on laugh when you saw her cheeks heat up. “I am only messing with you, of course you can sit. In fact, I would really like it if you did.” It was your turn to blush now, the alcohol you had consumed earlier obviously making your lips a little looser then they would normally be.

“I haven’t got a chance to tell you how stunning you look. That shirt is incredible.” Alexia wasn’t hiding her obvious attraction to the outfit you were wearing, in fact you could see it swimming in her gaze.

“You look incredible yourself, I do have to admit that open back dress on you will always get to me.” You were again saying a lot, more than you ever had in fact. Your inner thoughts of tracing the tattoos on her back came to mind and you had to shake your head to clear your mind of that briefly.

You did manage to catch her ducking her head at what you said, and it boosted your confidence a little bit. Deciding that you needed another actual drink now that this situation was clearly happening you decided you were not going to do it alone. “Do you want to get a drink with me?”

“I’d love nothing else. Lead the way, but drinks are on me.” Alexia was standing next to where you were sitting in the booth with her hand held out to you, a hopeful look in her eyes. A hopefully look that turned into full blown joy the second you placed your hand in hers and made to stand up.

Alexia was quick to drag you with her to the bar where she got you both a shot and a normal drinking drink. Those were drunk at the bar, the both of you enjoying the time away from the bulk of the group and slightly further away from the music so you didn’t have to shout so much to hear one another.

Alexia had just downed the last of her drink while making direct eye contact with you, taking the obvious hint she was giving you, you downed the last bit of your own. As you put the glass down on the bar you found a hand placed on the small of your back and your body gently pulled in the direction Ale was moving. You ended up on the dance floor with the rest of the girls, you split of slightly from the woman that was always on your mind so you could join the girls that dragged you here.

You danced with them all for an unknown amount of time, you were having the best time, and it didn’t matter who you were with. Alexia would slide up behind you every so often and get you dancing with her before she let you go back to either Mapi or Leila depending on who was requesting your presence.

As the night progressed and you consumed your final drink, you cut yourself off as you knew this was your limit. You knew that if you drank anymore it would go from a fun slightly heavy night to a messy night. Apparently, Alexia was in agreement because about 30 minutes after that final drink she was heading towards the bar to get water, something that you were planning on doing too.

“Did you get water?” You didn’t realise how much you were pressed up to the woman, but she did. Alexia could feel the curve of you pressed up against her and it was sending her head spinning more than alcohol every could. She took a second to compose herself before glancing over her shoulder and answering you.

“Si.” You smiled before requesting that she made that two. With a water in each of her hands she nudged your shoulder to get you moving back in the direction of the booth you were in earlier.

As you and Alexia returned to the booth, drinks in hand, the atmosphere between you was charged with unspoken words and lingering glances. The club was still buzzing with energy. Laughter and music filled the air, but here in your little corner, everything seemed quieter, more intimate.

You settled in next to Alexia, close enough that your knees brushed under the table. It sent a spark through you, but you focused on your water, taking a long sip to calm the nerves that had been building all night.

"Did you enjoy the dancing?" Alexia asked, her voice just loud enough for you to hear over the music. She leaned in slightly, her breath warm against your ear, and you tried not to let it affect you too much.

"Yeah," you replied, looking at her with a playful smirk. "Especially when you kept sneaking up behind me."

Her cheeks flushed slightly, but she didn’t break eye contact. "I thought you liked that."

You raised an eyebrow. "I didn’t say I didn’t." The tension between you hung in the air like a charged wire, sparking every time you exchanged a glance or a touch.

For a while, you talked casually; about the team, about the night, both of you skirting around the real conversation neither of you seemed ready to have. But the underlying feeling of something more was undeniable, every small gesture, every laugh shared, seemed to pull you closer.

After a bit of quiet, you glanced over at the dance floor where Leila and Mapi were making a scene with some questionable dance moves. You shook your head, laughing softly. "I don’t know how they manage to be so ridiculous and so fun at the same time."

Alexia grinned. "That’s Mapi and Leila for you. But it looks like they’re having a good time. I think this was really needed for them." You always admired how much the woman cared for her teammates, it was one of the many things that made her such a wonderful captain.

You nodded in agreement but felt the weight of her gaze on you, the air between you growing heavier. The rest of the room faded into the background, and suddenly, sitting so close to her, the only thing you could focus on was the warmth radiating from her body and how easily her presence made your heart race.

Without thinking, you stood up, needing a moment to collect yourself. "I’m going to the bathroom," you said, your voice steadier than you felt. "I’ll be right back."

Alexia watched you go, her eyes following you as you made your way through the crowd. The moment you disappeared into the hallway leading to the bathrooms, she stood up, almost on instinct, and followed. She caught up with you just as you reached the door to the bathroom.

"Hey," she called softly, causing you to turn around. Her gaze was intense, her brown eyes darker under the dim club lights. "Wait a second."

You stopped, heart pounding in your chest. "What is it?"

For a moment, Alexia just looked at you, like she was weighing her next words, but instead of speaking, she closed the distance between you. The hallway was dimly lit, the noise from the club muffled, and the two of you stood close, the space between you shrinking with every passing second.

Her hand brushed yours, a light touch that sent a shiver up your spine. "I—" she began, but whatever words she’d been about to say faded into silence. Instead, she leaned in slowly, giving you a moment to pull away if you wanted to, but you didn’t. You couldn’t not with her.

Your heart raced as her lips met yours, the kiss slow and deliberate. It wasn’t the rushed, drunken kiss from before; this one was different. It was tender, purposeful, and full of the tension that had been building between you all night. This kiss was meant, you could feel it in the way you both eased into it and melted into one another.

You kissed her back, your hands instinctively moving to her waist, pulling her closer. The world around you disappeared, leaving just the feel of her lips against yours, soft but insistent, like she had been waiting for this moment just as much as you had.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were breathless, your foreheads resting against each other.

"I... I’ve been wanting to do that all night," Alexia admitted softly, her thumb brushing over your hand, still entwined with hers. You got slightly lost in the feeling of her warm breath running over your lips as she was still so close to you.

You let out a soft laugh, your heart still pounding in your chest. "I’m glad you did."

Before you could say more, you heard familiar voices approaching from the direction of the club. You glanced at Alexia, the tension still palpable between you.

"We should get back before they notice we’re both gone," you said, though a part of you wasn’t ready for this moment to end. A part of you knew that if you could you would stand here like this with Alexia for as long as she would allow.

Alexia nodded, but her fingers lingered on your hand for a second longer before letting go. "Right. Yes."

Just as you both started to head back to the booth, Leila and Mapi came around the corner, clearly on a mission to find you. "There you are!" Leila exclaimed with a mischievous grin. "We were wondering where our chica medica disappeared to."

Mapi’s eyes flicked between you and Alexia, a knowing smile spreading across her face. "Ohhhh, what did we miss?"

You laughed, trying to play it cool. "Nothing much. Just needed a break from all your terrible dancing."

Leila gasped dramatically, placing a hand over her heart. "Excuse me, my moves are iconic."

Alexia chuckled beside you, but you could still feel the tension simmering beneath the surface. You weren’t sure if Mapi and Leila could sense it, but you knew you couldn’t stay here much longer without risking more teasing or worse, revealing too much.

"I think I’m going to head home," you said suddenly, glancing at Alexia for a brief second before turning to your friends. "It’s been a long day."

Leila and Mapi exchanged a glance but didn’t push. "We’ll come with you," Leila offered, her tone softer now. "It’s getting late anyway."

"Yeah," Mapi added, clearly sensing there was more going on but choosing not to dig, for now at least. "Let’s get out of here."

As you all made your way out of the club, Alexia stayed close to you, her arm brushing against yours every so often. You didn’t speak much, but the kiss still lingered in the air between you, full of possibility and unanswered questions.

And though you weren’t quite sure what would happen next, for now, you were content knowing that something had shifted between you and Alexia, something that felt too real to ignore.

The final whistle echoed through the stadium, marking the end of the last game before Christmas. The team had secured a comfortable win, and the energy in the locker room was buzzing with excitement. You smiled, watching the others as they celebrated, but your mind was already elsewhere, on the gift you’d been planning for Alexia.

Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and you both had flights to catch you were heading home to your family, and Alexia was off to Dubai for a much-deserved break as well as the award ceremony she had to attend. Despite the unspoken tension between you, the connection had only grown deeper, especially after that night at the club. But there were still so many things left unsaid, and you wanted to give her something so that she knows you are thinking of her over the break.

The present you had picked wasn’t overly sentimental, but it was personal. Something that could remind her of your time together while not being overly obvious to anyone outside of the two of you. You had chosen a silver necklace with a pendant that had a small wave on it, echoing the tattoo she had on her arm. To you, the wave symbolized something constant and unyielding just like the ocean, always in motion but forever steady. It was your way of telling her that, no matter what storms or calm seas lay ahead, you would be there, quietly supporting her, just as the ocean never stops flowing. You remembered a conversation you had shared about her tattoo and how it made you feel, how it reminded you that even when things are chaotic, some things, like your care for her, would always remain steady.

Attached to the box that held the necklace was a simple note with "Open on Christmas" written across the top in your neat handwriting. You didn’t dare give it to her directly, it wasn’t a grand gesture, but the idea of watching her reaction made your stomach flutter nervously.

As the team headed for the showers, you saw your chance. While everyone was distracted, you slipped over to Alexia’s bag. Glancing around to make sure no one noticed, you carefully placed the small box deep inside, just under her change of clothes. The note, tucked on top of the box, would be the first thing she’d see when she unpacked the bag later.

Your heart raced a little as you zipped her bag back up, the nerves making your hands slightly shaky. You weren’t sure what Alexia would think, but you hoped she’d at the very least like the necklace, even if she didn’t appreciate the meaning.

Just as you finished, Mapi walked by, oblivious to what you’d just done. "Hey, you ready to head out?" she asked, a wide grin on her face.

"Yeah," you replied, forcing a calmness into your voice. "Just about."

As the rest of the team began to gather their things, you exchanged a few quick goodbyes. With the Christmas break upon you, you’d all be going your separate ways for the holidays. You lingered for a moment, watching Alexia as she packed up her own bag, a small smile playing on her lips as she laughed at something Jenni said. You wondered when she’d find the present, and a nervous excitement built in your chest. You just hoped shed find it before she left, the logical part of your brain knew she would. Alexia couldn’t not unpack and clean away her kit bag after every session, it was something she had told you at the start of your time together.

That evening Alexia did exactly as you thought she would, she was slightly distracted with thoughts of you, slightly annoyed at herself for not speaking to you before she left the grounds. As she unpacked her bag, Alexia pushed those thoughts aside, focusing on getting comfortable. She was just about to pull out her toiletries when her fingers brushed against something unexpected, something small and wrapped. Frowning, she pulled it out from the bottom of her bag, her breath catching when she saw the small box wrapped in simple paper with a note attached.

"Open on Christmas," it read in your familiar handwriting, the instructions clear.

A soft smile tugged at the corner of Alexia’s lips as she ran her thumb over the words. You had managed to sneak this into her bag without her noticing, and now, holding the gift in her hands, a warmth spread through her chest. It was thoughtful, quiet, just like you had always been when it came to her.

The next morning, Christmas Eve arrived, and the airport was packed with travellers rushing to get home or off on holiday. You were there early, having left for your flight to see your family. As you waited in line at security, you couldn’t stop thinking about the gift you’d left in Alexia’s bag. You pictured her finding it when she unpacked, seeing the note telling her to wait until Christmas to open it. You just hoped she listened to it and took it with her.

Part of you felt nervous, wondering if it was too much or maybe not enough. But you pushed the thoughts aside as your boarding group was called. You checked your phone one last time and saw a message from Mapi, teasing you about the quiet night in before you both left.

You responded with a quick laugh emoji, then turned off your phone as you headed through the gate.

Later that morning, Alexia was checking in for her flight to Dubai. She was looking forward to the break, but her mind kept drifting back to the past few weeks, and more specifically, to you. Things had felt different lately, not just because of the kiss, but because of how you seemed to understand her in a way not many people did.

She sighed softly, adjusting her carry-on bag as she walked through the airport. The team had celebrated last night, and now they were all headed in different directions. As she sat down in the waiting area for her flight, she thought back to the locker room, wondering if she’d missed her chance to say something to you before you left. But then again, you had both left so many things unsaid.

Her thoughts were interrupted by an announcement for boarding. She stood up, rolling her shoulders to relax, and joined the line for her flight. As she settled into her seat on the plane, she tucked her bag under the seat in front of her, the box with the note she discovered last night tucked neatly in a pocket inside the bag.

After a long flight from Barcelona, Alexia finally landed in Dubai, exhausted but relieved to be away from the whirlwind of the season for a few days. The city sparkled beneath the night sky as she made her way to the hotel, her thoughts wandering to the time off she would finally have to herself.

Once inside her hotel room, the silence felt both comforting and strange. The entire flight had been spent mulling over the last few weeks, her thoughts drifting to you more than she’d like to admit. She hadn’t been able to figure out where she stood with you, especially after that kiss, and the uncertainty had left her unsettled.

Her mind was also on the wrapped gift she now had put on the desk in her hotel room, she could see it from her place laying on the bed. She didn’t get you anything which wasn’t because she didn’t want to, she was just scared it wasn’t the right move. Apparently, you had the bigger balls of the two.

She got up and walked to where the gift was placed, she picked it up and re read the little note on top. Her mind involuntarily making her smile at the thought of you scribbling it. She turned it over a few times contemplating whether to open it now or not.

But it wasn’t Christmas yet, and despite the temptation to tear it open right then and there, Alexia placed the small box on the nightstand. She’d wait until midnight. It wasn’t long, and she wanted to do it properly.

As the evening passed, she showered, had a light dinner, and spent some time aimlessly scrolling through her phone. But her thoughts kept drifting back to the gift waiting for her. The curiosity of what you had chosen for her grew with each passing minute, and as the clock crept closer to midnight, the anticipation made her heart beat just a little faster.

Finally, when her phone’s clock ticked over to 12:00, Alexia got up and reached for the gift, her fingers carefully undoing the wrapping. She peeled away the paper slowly, savouring the moment, until she uncovered the small box underneath. Her breath hitched slightly as she lifted the lid, revealing a delicate silver necklace nestled inside, with a tiny, intricately engraved wave symbol on a pendant.

For a long moment, Alexia just stared at it, running her fingers gently over the pendant. The wave it was very similar to the one she forever has on her arm. She understood it immediately. The constant, steady flow of the ocean, like how you had been there for her, quietly supporting her through her physical recovery and beyond. It was personal, thoughtful, and most of all perfect.

Her eyes fell on the folded note tucked inside the box. She unfolded it carefully, her heart thudding in her chest as she read your words:

Ale,

For all the times you’ve been my steady wave, keeping me grounded even when you didn’t know it. Merry Christmas.

Y/N

Alexia’s breath caught in her throat as she read the message. She hadn’t expected to feel this much emotion over a simple gift, but the weight of your words settled deep in her chest. It wasn’t just the bracelet, it was everything. The way you had been there for her, listening to her, supporting her, even when she hadn’t been sure of her own feelings. The message was your feelings about her, but they very much reflected her own for you too.

She leaned back against the pillows, the necklace still resting in her palm as she stared at it, feeling the emotions swell up inside her. It wasn’t just a gift. It was a message, one that told her, in no uncertain terms, that you were thinking of her, that you cared. That you might well always care if she would let you.

For the first time in a long time, Alexia allowed herself to think about what might come next. You were more than just her physiotherapist. You had become someone important, someone she couldn’t stop thinking about.

As she slipped the necklace around her neck, she made a quiet promise to herself. When she returned to Barcelona, she’d talk to you. Really talk. She wasn’t going to let this connection slip away, not after everything that had happened between you.

She glanced at the clock again, the soft ticking of the seconds filling the quiet room. It was Christmas now, and despite the miles between you, Alexia felt closer to you than she had in weeks. Smiling softly, she ran her fingers over the pendant one more time before closing her eyes, your words still lingering in her mind.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas with your family had been exactly what you needed. It had been cozy, familiar, and full of the warmth you'd missed while away in Spain. You'd spent a few extra days with them, catching up on lost time and letting yourself fully relax before heading back to reality. But after a while, the pull to reconnect with old friends had you itching to get out of the house.

It was Ona, of course, who suggested you stay in England a little longer after Christmas. "Why rush back?" she had said over FaceTime, her face lighting up at the idea. "We don’t have training for another few days, and you deserve some downtime with your friends. Take it."

You’d agreed, and soon you found yourself planning a few nights out with some of your old friends from the England team. That included Leah. The tension between you and her had lessened, especially after you had decided that a proper conversation was long overdue. There were still things to be said, things you couldn’t quite walk away from until they were fully resolved.

So, it was then that you found yourself out with a mix of friends from your past clubs, including Leah, Beth, and a few others. It was a relaxed evening at a familiar bar, drinks flowing and laughter filling the air. You weren’t overly worried about how it might look, knowing that everything with Leah was firmly in the past. But the conversation needed to happen, and tonight felt like the right time.

You and Leah stepped away from the group for a moment, moving to a quieter corner where you could talk privately. The noise of the bar created a bubble of privacy around you both as you began to speak.

"I’ve been meaning to say this for a while," Leah started, her voice soft but steady. "I’m sorry for how things ended between us. I know I didn’t handle things well, and it hurt you more than I realized at the time."

You nodded, appreciating her honesty. It wasn’t easy to dig into the past, but this conversation felt necessary. "It wasn’t easy for either of us," you admitted. "But I’m glad we’re talking about it now. I think we both needed this. I think it’s time for us to both let go of the past and move on with our lives."

Leah smiled, the tension between you dissolving as the conversation continued. It was nothing more than an honest exchange, two people clearing the air. But what you didn’t know was that in the background, someone else had unknowingly captured the moment on their phone.

Beth Mead had been recording a playful story for Instagram, filming some of the team dancing and enjoying the night out. In the background, just out of focus, you and Leah were caught in a seemingly intimate conversation, standing close as you talked quietly. It was innocent, but without context, the image could easily be misinterpreted.

Thousands of miles away, in the luxury of her hotel in Dubai, Alexia scrolled through her phone after a long day. The trip had been relaxing so far, a much-needed break from the intensity of the season, but her thoughts kept drifting back to you. She hadn’t heard much from you since before Christmas, and the uncertainty of where you stood with each other was gnawing at her.

Her thumb paused over an Instagram story from Beth Mead, recognizing several familiar faces in the crowd. She smiled at the sight of you laughing with your friends, but as the story continued to play, her heart dropped. In the background of the video, you and Leah were standing together, heads close, deep in conversation. The image of the two of you, smiling and looking comfortable with each other, sent a pang of jealousy straight through her.

She stared at the screen for a long moment, her mind racing. Were you getting back together with Leah? Had she misread everything between the two of you?

Without thinking, she grabbed her phone and opened her messages, typing out a quick message to Ona.

Ale: Hey, I saw something. Is Y/N back with Leah? They were together at a bar, looked... close. Just want to know.

The message sent, and Alexia sat there, biting her lip as she waited for a reply. The logical part of her knew she shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but the image from the story kept replaying in her mind. What if you were moving on with Leah? What if she had missed her chance?

It wasn’t long before her phone buzzed with Ona’s response:

Ona: It’s not my place to say anything, Ale, but trust me it’s not what you’re thinking. Just... give her time to explain when she’s ready.

Alexia stared at the message, her heart still unsettled. Ona’s words were somewhat reassuring, but they weren’t enough to silence the nagging doubt in her mind. She didn’t want to overstep, but the thought of losing you to Leah, especially after everything you and Alexia had shared, was hard to swallow.

Back in England, you were unaware of the storm brewing. The night had ended on a positive note, with you and Leah parting on good terms, both of you agreeing that the past was where it belonged. You felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. You felt like you were finally in a place where you could move forward and you had in mind the person you wanted to do that with, hopefully.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when you checked your phone, that you noticed a missed call from Ona. Confused, you called her back immediately.

“Hey, what’s up?” you asked, leaning back against your bed, still feeling the contentment of last night’s resolution with Leah.

Ona’s voice was calm but cautious. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Alexia saw a video from last night of you and Leah. She asked if you were back together.”

Your stomach dropped. “What? No, we were just talking. Clearing the air.”

“I know,” Ona reassured you. “But the video doesn’t exactly show the context. You two were in the background, and I think Alexia got the wrong idea. Well actually I know she did.”

You groaned, running a hand through your hair. Of course, Alexia would see that. Of all the things to misinterpret... You could picture her in Dubai, overthinking everything, and the thought made your chest tighten.

“What should I do?” you asked, feeling the weight of the situation now settling over you.

“I didn’t tell her anything beyond that it wasn’t what she thought. But you might want to talk to her, explain things when you’re ready,” Ona suggested. "She’s over there worrying, Y/N. It’s not my business, but I can tell she’s thinking the worst, which I know isn’t fair to you. You both have baggage, and you haven’t worked this all out yet, you need to talk to each other. And properly Y/N."

You nodded, even though Ona couldn’t see you. “Yeah I know, I’m sorry I haven’t been great at doing that. I wanted to sort the Leah thing before I had that conversation with Ale but maybe I should have been a bit more open after the other night. I’ll talk to her. Thanks, Ona.”

After hanging up, you stared at your phone, a mix of emotions swirling inside you. You knew you needed to talk to Alexia, to clear up the misunderstanding. But a part of you also wondered, what did this mean for the two of you. If Alexia was bothered by you being seen with your ex that much surely that had to be a sign of something right. Before you let your head run too much with this, you got out of bed and joined you family for one of your final days before heading back to Barcelona.

Christmas Day passed quietly for Alexia, it was just her mother and sister with her in Dubai, which is all she really needed. It was a much-needed break from the whirlwind of her career, but her mind kept drifting back to you. The silver necklace with the wave pendant had become her constant companion since she found it in her bag and she hadn’t taken it off since she opened it mere minutes into Christmas Day.

She ran her fingers over the pendant absentmindedly as she prepared for the Globe Soccer Awards, where she would be picking up the Women’s Player of the Year award. It was an honour, something she had worked hard for, yet the excitement that usually accompanied such recognition felt muted by the unease sitting heavy in her chest.

Ever since she had seen that Instagram story of you and Leah, a knot of doubt had been tightening inside her. She kept replaying the image in her mind, how close you and Leah had seemed, how comfortable. It had been days since she’d seen it, but she hadn’t reached out to you. She wasn’t sure what to say. Ona’s message had reassured her slightly, but the doubt lingered. Especially as you also hadn’t reached out to her.

As she stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the elegant outfit she had chosen for the awards, Alexia glanced down at the necklace resting against her skin. The wave, a symbol you had described so thoughtfully, felt heavier now. She knew what it meant, how much care and thought had gone into your gift, but that only made the misunderstanding hurt more. If you and Leah were rekindling things, where did that leave you and her?

Later that night, under the glittering lights of the awards ceremony, Alexia was announced as the Women's Player of the Year. The room erupted in applause as she made her way to the stage, graciously accepting the award with a quiet smile. She gave a heartfelt speech, thanking her teammates, coaches, and family for their constant support, but even as she spoke, her thoughts were elsewhere, on you.

The night continued in a blur of congratulations and photographs, but Alexia’s mind remained clouded. By the time she returned to her hotel room, the weight of the day had caught up with her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, her phone buzzed with notifications, messages from friends, fans, and teammates congratulating her.

She opened Instagram, scrolling through the flood of posts from the ceremony. As she crafted her own post, thanking everyone for their support, she hesitated. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and almost instinctively, she glanced down at the wave pendant resting against her chest. Without thinking too much, she typed a line from your note into part of the caption.

And finally Merry Christmas. Sometimes in life you need your wave to keep you steady, even when you don’t realise it.

It was a subtle nod to you, one that no one else would pick up on, but she knew you would.

Alexia posted the picture: a candid shot of her holding the award, smiling at the camera with her necklace peeking just slightly into view. That along with the end of the caption she hoped would be enough to show you what the gift and you meant to her. Well at least until the conversation could be had, if you wanted it still after the Christmas break.

Back in England, you scrolled through Instagram while waiting for your flight back to Spain. It had been a whirlwind few days, catching up with friends, clearing the air with Leah and now, you were finally heading back home. As you mindlessly flicked through your feed, Alexia’s post popped up.

You stopped, your breath catching in your throat as you read the caption. It was your words, changed slightly, but still the meaning you had written in the note attached to the necklace. The same words that carried all the meaning behind your gift, now reflected back at you in a public post for the world to see.

Your heart raced as you stared at the screen, wondering what this meant. Did Alexia understand the depth of your message? Did she feel the same way? Or was this her way of saying goodbye before you’d even had a chance to explain?

Without thinking, you opened your messages and hesitated before typing a quick text to Ona.

Did Alexia say anything to you about that post?

Ona responded almost immediately, as if she had been waiting for you to reach out.

She didn’t mention it to me, but I know she’s been thinking about you. You should talk to her.

Your fingers hovered over your phone as you debated what to do next. The conversation with Leah had cleared the air, but now you were left with a different kind of uncertainty, one that involved Alexia and the feelings that had grown between you. And whether you were really ready for that again.

Taking a deep breath, you opened a new message to Alexia, your heart pounding as you typed.

Hey, I saw your post. I think we should talk when you get back.

The next few days passed slowly as Alexia remained in Dubai, the distance between you both growing heavier with every passing moment. The wave pendant rested against her chest, a constant reminder of you. And as Christmas turned into the new year, the tension between you both, fuelled by misunderstandings, unspoken feelings and lack of communication, remained unresolved, waiting for the moment when you could finally have the conversation that had been building for so long.

#woso x reader #woso imagines #woso imagine #alexia putellas imagines #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas x reader

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bomber-grl · 2 days ago

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Taking care of you when you’re sick 🤧

Pairing(s): Characters x Gn!sick!Reader (except for Reyna’s)

Character(s): Percy, Annabeth, Grover,Nico, Leo, Frank, Hazel, Jason, Piper, Reyna (platonic)

Me rn:

Percy Jackson

Honestly great at it and it’s honestly not expected but also sort of expected

Hard to explain

But it’s likely that he just brings you back to the apartment he lives in with sally, Paul, and ofc Estelle because even though he sort of doesn’t want to admit it, he needs help

So (imagining you’re super sick) even if you’re a stubborn one, it’s too embarrassing to act up in front of Sally

Someone who is so caring that she makes soup just for you, checks in on you, gives you extra blankets in case, honestly anything really

This transformed more into a Sally taking care of you than Percy but I’m getting there

One day Sally has to go out for an errand and takes Estelle with her, Paul went off to work or something

Leaving you two alone and you basically a burden/j

Also… free to complain all you want

Now if you’re stubborn and make it difficult for him he will fr mock you

Literally why are you being this way when Estelle behaves way better

And she’s a baby

Eventually though, cmon now

Just be willing and maybe he’ll kiss you

As if he isn’t doing so while you doze off on your meds

I’d give him a solid 6/10, not because he’s not my fav character or anything

Of course not

Annabeth Chase

Ideal in theory not in practice

She knows everything there is to know- hell, if she didn’t after years of being a demigod and suffering from injuries then strike me down

Well- no actually I take that back

Annabeth doesn’t actually know a lot aside from when she gets sick

Which happens rarely and goes away as quick as it comes

So now she’s here with you all bundled up-

Also, if you try to be stubborn and act like a big baby, she’s having none of it

You will rest and you will eat to consume your meds

End of story

I don’t make the rules 😭

She will, however, be pleased if you’re happy to comply and get you back to good asap

Although she does bumble a bit at the start- she eventually learns quickly

Which is to be expected

When she first started to struggle with what do to she’s too prideful to ask for help so she settles on asking you how to do well by you

Then she realizes how stupid (or unwise) it was to act that way and decides to just ask any of the Apollo kids she knows won’t tease her

Which is more than half

Only because she knew you’d get worse

I’d give her a solid 7/10

It’s not any longer because she gets to business and gets you healed pretty quick so 🤷

Grover Underwood

I’d say he’s pretty decent at taking care of you too

I mean he probably knows a lot about herbs and stuff that could help you alongside modern medicine that you’re likely taking

Plus when you can’t sleep for whatever reason (*cough*cough* congestion*cough*) he’ll obviously put that humidifier on but also play you a song

Either to help with sleep or just make you feel better

Really depends

Also we all know he’s a saytr

So he’s likely taking care of you despite needing to be elsewhere

And if that duty calls quickly? He feels SO bad 😭 I’m not even exaggerating

He’ll apologize ten times over and try to make up for it

Instead of getting your sleep and rest it just results in you spending that time reassuring Grover

Which, in your opinion, is a time well spent

But not to Grover

Anyways if you’re reluctant to let him take care of you then he’s constantly hassling you to stay resting

Literally got to the point where campers would just see you running by, and see Grover not too behind

Or it’d be you sitting somewhere and Grover trying to convince you why going back would be a good idea

Now, if you’re more than happy to rest and take your medicine?

Absolute angel in Grover’s eyes

Literally makes his life 10000x easier

Him being him, he just ends up helping you heal and recover faster than you normally would’ve otherwise

So honestly? You can try to be stubborn all you want but it’s only going to make you suffer 😭

Not much for him but that’s because besides his nervous energy, he’s probably the best here in terms of actually helping you become unsick

Nico Di Angelo

He’ll try his best to help you out 😭

Which he does a pretty decent job at, all he does is rely on books and what he’s heard from others

So it’s time for Nico to rawdog helping you out because frankly, he’s always been the opposite of a normal person

So, why would he ever get sick?

(Bluds body temperature is probably colder than the Antarctic)

He does the basics like making you drink medicine for your symptoms (e.g. cough, sore throat) and making you soup to the best of his capabilities

If you’re the type of person to be whiny and like to be cared after then he’d sort of tease you for it in his strange little way

Now, if you’re super stubborn and insist on him not helping you-

He takes it personally

Like I’m not even joking

He’ll just side eye you

You’re acting like you weren’t just dying of suffocation before he put the humidifier on a few seconds ago

And he lets that known

So, he asks why you’re being so stubborn and let him spoon feed you‼️

(Only because you ended up being bundled in a blanket burrito and Nico didn’t want to go through putting you in one again afterwards)

Too much hassle

Also applies if you’re being stubborn and he has to forcibly feed you)

He’s honestly getting annoyed at this point so you give him a proposition

You’ll let him take care of you if he gives you cuddles

Now, normally Nico would be so done but he couldn’t resist

So now here you both are underneath the covers

But then Nico ruins it

“Yknow I was gonna cuddle you regardless” (of it you complied or not)

6/10 just for that last comment

(Doing an actual story, will link HERE)

Leo Valdez

Someone please help him

Nah just kidding

Leo is definitely way better with machines than with humans

That’s a fact

But he knew his mom long enough to know the basics of everything

I don’t make the rules, that woman definitely taught him everything there is to know

So here you are on the bed of your room as you hear Leo’s racket going on in the kitchen

Emmie and Jo went out and took a few residents with them, including one of your favorite residents:

Georgina

The ones that stayed behind were either asleep or bundled away under the covers of their beds

(Ignoring those doing chores)

Especially since it was now winter, despite the waystations warmth, a chill seemed to have made it way inside.

Eventually Leo makes his way back up and set down a tray

It had a soup you learned to become familiar with

It was Caldo de Res

So obviously you gobbled that shit up like all the other Mexican foods Leo had made before

Eventually Leo makes you take your medicine because even though he’s all about playing around and stuff, he still likes to care for you

Now, because it’s likely snowing, Leo had to resist and refuse to let you out

You’re already sick, it could get so much worse

But you didn’t listen

Hence you running around like a maniac outside the station yelling as Leo chases you

Afterwards he scolds you but when you point out that fact that he was laughing when he was chasing after you- he shuts up real quick

Leo does realize how boring it probably is for you though so after going back inside he tries to be a source of entertainment for you

He tries to find board games and he luckily does

Which ends with you two moving to the living room (?) or common area

By the time emmie and the other residents return, the tower you built while playing Jenga was sky high and skinny asf

Then Leo crashed it and you both obviously yelled at it

Then Leo got told off for distracting you from resting (although it was done kindly)

Later after dinner, Leo snuck into your room at night and once again began to try to rid you of your boredom

you two began giggling and gossiping in the middle of the night

Then went to bed when someone knocked as kindly asked for you two to quiet down

Leo was embarrassed 💀

Frank Zhang

Surprisingly good at taking care of you

Only saying it’s surprising because I’ve never considered it before

He obviously takes care of your basic needs like meds and just covers you needing anything else like rest or water

If you’re stubborn to actually try to get better- then he’s definitely worried but also confused

Why are you acting this way and also, please just let him help you

Which is honestly sad because even if he’d like to stay by your side for more than a few hours- he really isn’t able to due to praetor duties

I mean it’s a surprise you got a pass on your chores/ duties depending on what your role is

Will definitely feel terrible for having to leave to go do his job but eventually finds someone trusted to look after you

Likely someone indebted to him

(He’d feel a bit sorry for whoever it is if you’re particularly resistful)

Let’s say you actually get sick and there’s no outside forces that can interfere

Frank is a pretty top notch- although a bit anxious - doctor

Likely learned a lot about the healing aspect of Apollo back when being his kid was what Frank wanted most

So he knows a lot from that and is really attentive

After giving you some medicine you had seemingly been knocked out cold so it was natural for Frank to turn down the lights

Before he left the room he decided to give you a kiss on the cheek

You were actually still awake and despite your boyfriends more than accommodating care-

You will be teasing him tomorrow using this instance

Overall I’d give Frank a 9/10

‘He is the worlds most perfect man’

Hazel Levesque

Have you seen her lead the other Roman’s as praetor and even before then ? Yea she’s getting you bundled up and fed

No ifs or buts

This is how she is overall but if you try being stubborn she genuinely doesn’t see why you would be

Like why wouldn’t you want to get better??

Also please don’t sneak out to the weaponry or something because she literally CANT give you special treatment 😭

Despite her seemingly tough demeanor, she really is a fool for you

Not actually- but miss girl is smitten with you

So she sort of takes it easy, occasionally finding her voice and scolding you as lightly as she can

She tries her best to treat you but eventually gets advice and help from others in camp who know more than she does

She ofc knows the basics: consume vitamin c, rest, drink medicine, etc

But she can’t be too sure

I also honestly think she’s way better than Nico, because I didn’t include it but he definitely got some wayward damned spirit to help him out

But not her

Not that that’s bad, but she’s definitely more capable

I do think she bumbled a bit

She had ordered some other campers who specialized in healing to help her out

Before then, she had been taking care of you herself

So when they get there and see her sort of make shift stuff- she’s a bit embarrassed

Yknow, if the blush on her cheeks are anything to go by

Because we’ve already established that she’s better than Nico, I’ll give her a 8/10

Because she’s really good at taking care of you, really caring overall

But 🤷

Jason Grace

Best way to say how he is at taking care of you is mediocre

He isn’t constantly attentive but just the right amount that you feel like it’s enough

Esprit he’s busy with the school he’s attending- then he’ll have to sneak out just to see you and take care of you

If school isn’t in session then he’s more than happy to go over and take care of things for you

Like doing chores, cooking food and actually taking care of you

Doesn’t mind all that much if you try to resist being treated because it’s likely that he’s encountered people who are WAY worse

Ik this is him supposed to be taking care of you but I think it’d be so funny that you’re just constantly in and out of consciousness that you only remember small snippets

In which Jason has to fill in for you and all you remember is Jason in the distance

Pretty out of place but the idea of it is so funny to me 😭

Imagine being so kind and your s/o not remembering any of it

You’d still believe him though, why should you?

Also I said it’s mid but like mid leaning good so I’ll give him a 6/10

Not that he was terrible or anything but just because I feel like it suits him

Idk 😭

Piper Mcclean

THE BEST IM NOT EXAGGERATING

The medicine- eating- cooking part is alright

It isn’t much different from the others averages and not much to take note of in all honesty

But what is really the cherry on top is when after having a mind splitting headache- you’ve finally managed to fall asleep

Being a demigod and all- you immediately hear when Piper enters the room

Each creak the floor board gives continued until Piper has reached the end of the bed

Not that it’s disturbing you in anyway

So there you are snuggled in bed and you feel a weight added next to you where the bed is pushing down

You feel hands massaging your scalp and Piper -knowing how you’ve suffered with head pain- starts to sing for you

It isn’t unknown or unheard of to sing for someone to heal (demigod or non demigod wise)

So when you immediately start to feel better you can feel your would ascending into the heavens

Not actually- because that’d be the opposite affect of the singing but you get what I’m going for

Anyway aside from that she’s really attentive and sweet but I just had that idea come to me strongly idk why

Overall id rate her a 7/10

That’s because her singing is divine but her caring aspect is mediocre

Reyna Ramírez-Arellano x F!Reader (for the first half)

Literally legendary at taking care of you

Although she is a bit of a dictator when it comes to you being slippery and running off- it’s still pretty great

She was praetor for how long now? Yea a while so she was bound to have learned some things and after joing the hunters it’s only more reason to

Which if you’re a hunter and sick (only confusing but let’s go with it) you need to get your health back up to be in optimal fighting condition so theres literally no room for being stubborn

You need to get well soon and that’s an order basically

So Reyna will bundle you up, (though seeing as you’re more than happy to be cooperative) its only done to make you warm

(Gn! Reader but still platonic)

Now if this is while Reyna is praetor then she’s still enforced this strict persona

And seeing as she’s here taking care of you-

That’s only more reason to

Unfortunately she won’t really have time (seeing that being praetor is really unsustainable long term with the loss of sleep and sleep schedule changes)

But when she does her presence is soothing and likely the only reason you were able to actually get well pretty fast

I don’t have much besides she knows what she’s doing (likely has gotten stupid colds form stress) and is really serious about it

Would give her a 9.5/10 but I’ll change it to a 10/10 because of how fast you recover

A/n: req was originally only asking for Nico but I said why not do the other 9

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 18 hours ago

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Imagine…Jensen Asking For A Puppy

Pairing: Jensen x reader

_______

Jensen had been strange all throughout dinner but you couldn’t put your finger on it. When you were halfway through dessert and one last drink he leaned over the table and you saw he had his puppy dog eyes on.

“Ackles. Tell me you did not take me out to my favorite restaurant to butter me up.”

“Me? I would never,” he said innocently, his cheeks soft, eyes big. “I’m just admiring your beauty.”

“Nah this ain’t cute as shit Jensen tonight. This is up to something Jensen. Spill or I’m not letting you past first base,” you said, eating a piece of cake.

“I just…was thinking…maybe…we could get a puppy and I already found this really cute one at the rescue yesterday and I put a hold on him and he’s so adorable and he’s a little dog but so fluffy and I figured we could adopt him cause I don’t like you being home alone and you don’t like being home alone and we’re supposed to pick him up at nine in the morning and then take him to the vet which I already have scheduled and here’s a picture cause he’s so cute.” He held a phone in front of your face as you blinked slowly, Jensen holding up a tiny dog with a big smile on his face. “How do you say no to that face?”

“Jensen. Did you adopt a dog without talking to me? At all?”

“Yes but I didn’t mean to. I just went to see how it all works and I looked at the dogs and he just…that’s my guy.” You rolled your eyes, Jensen tucking his phone away and back to giving you puppy dog eyes. “Please?”

“I thought you wanted to get me some big dog to defend me or something.”

“He’s small but he’ll protect you. Please? I know I should have talked to you first but-“

“Why that dog.”

“He’s my guy.”

“Jensen. Why. That. Dog. You were very adamant about wanting a big dog.”

“Well he was gonna get put down. He has anxiety and his past two owners didn’t like that. He’s been hard to adopt out but we can handle something like that. I know-“

“Shush. You’re an idiot. We’re adopting him. Just…let me join in next time you sweet ridiculous man. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, sitting back in his seat with a big smile. “Can do sweetie.”

__________

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saveyourblood · 2 days ago

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Pretty Boy - Ch 1 (Evan Buckley x Reader) (Eventual Evan Buckley x Eddie Diaz x Reader)

Summary: You can feel Buck staring. When your eyes meet his, you realize he’s staring at your hand, which is still on Eddie’s knee. You slowly retreat, which makes Buck turn his attention to your face. You smile softly. He just looks out the window. The one where you're an advanced paramedic, Buck and Eddie are firefighters, and you think you might be in love with both of them. Originally posted to AO3

A/N: This is such a niche story and I am desperate for validation, please tell me if you enjoyed reading! Word Count: 3.5k Warnings: Swearing (if that even counts).

You’re ending the first half of your 24-hour shift the same way you always do—dinner with the team. Well, at least that’s how you try to end the first half of your shift. Of course, that’s also assuming that both the fire and medical teams are actually at the station and not on a call.

All things considered, this probably only happens once a week, if that.

When it works out, though, it’s a good time. You already spend a lot of time in the rig with Hen and Chim, being an advanced paramedic and all. When it comes to the firefighters, though, you aren’t as well-versed, so it’s nice to have a weekly ‘getting to know you’ session. It seems like these days, it’s a 50/50 shot if they’ll make it to next month’s dinner.

The firefighting crew at the 118 is a revolving door of macho men. When you first started, it was Chim, Tommy, and Sal. Chim became a paramedic, so he didn’t exactly ‘leave.’ Sal got relieved of duty, so he didn’t really have a choice. Tommy left, but for something better. Maybe it isn’t so much the job that makes people leave; maybe being a firefighter at the 118 is a stepping stone for bigger and better things.

There is one firefighter that, if he left, you wouldn’t be heartbroken. In fact, it would probably make your shifts a whole lot better.

Evan Buckley, aka ‘Buck.’ God, even thinking his name makes you want to gag a little.

He’s a decent kid, but he’s just that: a kid. He’s a Probie; he’s only been on the job for about 4 months, and no one would assume otherwise. His heart is in the right place, but his brain hasn’t caught up yet. You’re starting to fear it never will.

“I know exactly what that polite, distant smile means: she’s bored,” Chim says as he leans over the counter, pulling you right out of your thoughts and back into reality. “This woman is so far out of my league, but she’s once-in-a-lifetime… I can’t let her go.”

“Lots of fish in the sea,” Bobby, your captain, chimes in. He leans over to pull something out of the oven.

“Not with the bait he’s using,” Hen remarks as she walks by. Her arms are full of dishes to set the table with.

“Amen, sister,” you agree, hot on her heels. She gives you a small smile and hands you the plates, which you accept with a smile of your own.

“Cruel, but true,” Chim sighs. “I met her on this new dating site, just for cops and firefighters, RomancingTheUniform.com. She’s an adrenaline junkie, so foreplay is me telling her stories about running into burning buildings and jumping into icy lakes and…”

“I’m sorry, wait,” Hen interrupts, “remind me: when was the last time you ran into or jumped over anything?”

“...I embellish a little.”

“Oh, noted.”

“So is she a cop or a firefighter?” You ask.

Chim gives you a look. “Why would she be?”

“Well, you said the website is for cops and firefighters,” you repeat. “Doesn’t that make her a cop or a firefighter?”

“Okay, it’s not just cops and firefighters,” Chim cedes, “it’s also for people that want to date cops and firefighters.”

“Ohhh,” you smile, “so cops, firefighters, and badge bunnies. What could possibly go wrong?”

“I’m telling you, the uniform is a major aphrodisiac,” Chim continues as he brings a salad to the table.

“Yeah, hence the term ‘badge bunny,’” you remark.

The conversation is interrupted by one of the engines backing into the station. You probably should have noticed it was gone, but frankly, as long as your rig is in the bay safe and sound, you don’t care what the meatheads are up to.

Speaking of meatheads…

“Oh good, PB is back,” you remark sarcastically.

‘PB’, aka ‘pretty boy,’ aka Buck. You started calling him Pretty Boy his first day, and over the months, you shortened it. He jogs his way up the stairs and dips a finger in the communal spaghetti bowl. You roll your eyes and take a sip of your coffee.

“Wash your hands!” Hen scolds as she pulls the bowl out of his reach.

“What if there’d been a call?” Bobby asks as he brings the last dishes to the table.

“I was in the neighborhood!” Buck defends himself. He takes one of the plates from Bobby’s grasp, but instead of passing it around like a normal person, he starts eating the food off the plate with his dirty hands. Sometimes, you wondered if he was raised by a pack of stray dogs.

Bobby starts lecturing Buck, and you smirk with a little satisfaction. Bobby’s going to write him up, and truthfully? It’s a long time coming.

“First infraction, two more, and you’re out,” Bobby says as he steals back the plate. “Wash your hands.”

“You know, you're not helping him by going easy on him,” Chim says once Buck is out of earshot.

“He just needs a little direction,” Bobby replies.

“I’ll remind you of that when he gets us killed,” you mumble.

The alarm bells start to sound through the station. Everyone groans, including yourself. So much for dinner.

Chim decided to catch a ride with the boys in the truck, so that leaves you and Hen in the rig.

“I’m sorry, dispatch,” you say into the radio, “118 RA responding: did you say the baby is in the wall?”

“10-4, 118,” the dispatcher responds. “Caller reports hearing a baby crying in his walls.”

“Copy that, 118 RA clear,” you say before hanging the radio back up. “Well, this will be fun.”

“You think you can play nice with Buck?” Hen asks, a smirk on her face.

“Hey, I’m always nice,” you reply.

“Not to him!” She laughs. “Don’t think I didn’t see you roll your eyes the second he got back to the station.”

“I can play nice and still think he’s a raging idiot,” you defend. “Besides, since when are you his biggest fan?”

“Trust me, I’m not,” Hen chuckles. “And I love you, but you don’t know how to play nice.”

“Why be the bigger person when you can be the bigger problem?”

That remark gets a full belly laugh out of Hen. “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

Hen parks the rig behind the engine in front. The boys come pouring out immediately, grabbing various tools and equipment. You make your way to the back of the ambulance, tossing Hen her med bag before picking up your own.

You follow the rest of the crew upstairs, and before you know it, the five of you are standing in some random guy’s apartment, listening for something that probably isn’t real.

“Look, I'm telling you, I heard a baby crying,” the man says. “Someone flushed a baby down the toilet.”

Hen picks up a bong off the counter and gives the man a look.

“I’m not high.”

You both raise your eyebrows.

“Okay, I’m pretty high, but it’s Sativa,” he says. “It makes you happy. It doesn’t make you hallucinate.”

“It could’ve been a rat,” Chim shrugs. “Sometimes rats get stuck in the walls.”

You frown. At the end of his sentence, you swore you heard a cooing sound.

“Shh,” you say to everyone, walking over to the bathroom. “Did you guys hear that?”

They're hot on your heels, watching as you take your stethoscope from around your neck and put it into your ears. You place the bell on the wall and wait. When you hear nothing, you begin rapping your knuckles on the tile until you do. Once again, it’s a faint cooing sound, not unlike a baby.

You then knock your knuckles on the wall until you hear a hollow sound. You take a marker from your pants pocket and mark an ‘x’ over it, knowing the space behind it is hollow. You take the stethoscope out from your ears.

“We need to open up this wall,” you say, pointing to the ‘x.’

“No, we’re being punked,” Chim disagrees. “It’s a tape recorder or something.”

“Maybe not,” Hen says, stepping forward. “Maybe a mother gives birth on the toilet and flushes it.”

“Okay, first of all, that's awful,” Chim says. “Second, do you know how pipes work?”

“If the baby is premature, its bones can bend and compress like sponges,” Bobby mentions. “We need to get in there.”

“Stand back, I got this!” Buck says, swinging his fire axe over his shoulder.

He runs up towards the wall with full intentions of swinging. Hen and Chim move out of the way and shout while Bobby tries to grab him. Ultimately, you’re the one to stop him, and you do it by placing both hands on the axe.

“Hey! Did you even stop to consider that you might hit a baby?!” You shout, adrenaline pumping through your bloodstream.

Buck just stares at you with wide eyes.

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” you spat, pushing the axe out of the way.

“Buck, go get the saw,” Bobby directs.

“Try to find some common sense while you’re down there,” you call after Buck as he walks out.

“Nice catch,” Bobby says, looking at you.

“How nice of me to save the baby from one of the LAFD’s finest first responders,” you reply bitterly.

You can’t help but look at Hen, who quickly looks away. Her avoidance gives you a small sense of victory because this? This shit right here? This is why you can’t play nice with Buck. His head is screwed on backward, and it can get people killed. Playing nice isn’t going to fix that.

Thankfully, Bobby takes the saw from Buck once he brings it up. He makes a few small cuts in the wall before he and the other boys are pulling at the drywall. They quickly expose a massive pipe running behind the toilet.

“That thing is huge,” you remark to Hen.

“It probably connects a bunch of the toilets in the units above this one,” Hen returned.

“So… even with the water turned off…” you start, a sense of dread filling your stomach.

“If someone above us flushes the toilet, it could drown the baby,” Hen finishes. Almost before she finishes the sentence, she’s running into the hall, yelling for people not to flush their toilets. The boys make a few cuts into the pipe, and in no time, they’re taking it to the floor.

“Guys, I can see the head,” you say, joining them on the floor.

They make a few more cuts until the pipe is one straight segment.

“Get the head out,” Chim instructs.

“Yeah, you gotta push from below,” Buck chimes in.

You try that, but the baby isn’t moving. You look to the corner, then at Buck.

“Bring me the defibrillator,” you instruct clearly.

Buck scrambles over, picking up the case.

“Just the lube, Buck,” you rephrase, but he’s already coming back with the whole thing.

“Take it, take it,” Buck says, passing it off to you.

You let out a frustrated sigh before grabbing the lube out and tossing the rest of it to the side. You pour some lube on the baby’s head, then down by its feet.

“Work that in,” you tell Chim.

You move your index finger around the circumference of the pipe, brushing the baby’s legs with lubricant as you do so. Then, you gently apply pressure to its feet, and slowly, you can feel it move forward.

“This is gonna be a scoop and run,” you mumble.

“Hen, get the ambulance ready,” Bobby tells her. You’re not sure when she got back, but when you look up again, she’s gone again.

Slowly, the baby’s head emerges from the pipe, and the rest of her body follows.

“She’s not breathing,” you quickly note, “starting CPR.”

You place your index and middle finger in the center of the baby’s chest and press down fast and hard. “Looks like her airway’s obstructed.”

“Buck, get the bulb syringe,” Chim demands. A few seconds pass. “Buck, come on!”

“I’m coming!” Buck barks back, clearly in a panic.

“Come on, pretty girl,” you say quietly as you continue compressions. “Come on, sweetheart.”

Buck returns with the bulb syringe and uses it, but it doesn’t help.

“Dammit,” you curse. “You’ll have to try a blind finger sweep.”

Buck looks at you, then Chimney, then the baby, then back at you. “Me?”

“You gotta learn somehow,” you remark. “It’s easy: just turn her head to the side, curl your pinkie, and see if you can scoop anything out.”

Buck is hesitant initially, but he eventually does as you tell him. It takes a few seconds, but he manages to clear the obstruction, and the baby begins crying. Everyone laughs with relief.

“Let’s get her wrapped up,” you say, reaching for a towel.

The four of you rush down the hall, you with the baby in your arms. The pit in your stomach returns.

“No one held the elevator?!” you yell.

“Dammit,” Chim curses.

“Give her to me,” Buck says, nodding to the stairs.

You stare at him.

“Come on, I’m twice as fast,” Buck pleads.

“Screw this up, and I’ll kill you,” you threaten before carefully handing her over.

Buck takes off down the stairs, but you follow after. There’s only so much that can happen in a few flights of stairs, but you aren’t willing to risk it.

“I got you,” Buck says to the baby, “you’ll be okay.”

A faint smile crosses your face. Maybe Buck isn’t so terrible after all.

“Come on, move it!” Buck shouts as you both make it out of the lobby and out to the rig.

You climb into the ambulance with him, but before either of you can even sit down, you hear someone yelling to wait. It’s not just anyone: it’s LAPD Sergeant Grant, or as you’ve heard Hen calls her, Athena.

“Wait, is that the mother?” Buck says, looking at the young woman with blood-stained pants in someone’s arms. “Yo, screw her! Look what she did!”

Never mind. Buck is still terrible.

“Sit down and shut up!” You yell at Buck. “This is not your call! She is a child, and she’s bleeding out!”

“Look what she did!” Buck repeated.

“Come on, let’s get her up here,” you say to Athena and the man carrying the young girl, disregarding Buck’s protests.

Bobby and Chim made it down, so they help haul the young girl up into the rig. Chim stays at the head while Bobby sits next to Buck, the spot you were about to sit in mere moments ago.

“If this baby dies, it’s on you,” Buck says, staring at Athena.

“Stop talking, Evan,” you snap as someone closes the ambulance doors.

Using his actual name seems to shut him up.

“What’s your name, honey?” You ask the baby’s mother as you cut away her shirt to place EKG leads.

“Marika,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you’re scared, Marika, but you just have to keep breathing for me, okay?” you say. “My friend Howie is going to start an IV so we can give you fluids and medication. You’re bleeding a lot, so I have to do what’s called a fundal exam, okay? I have to press on your stomach to make sure your uterus is contracting back down normally.”

She stares at you, eyes filled with tears, before eventually nodding.

Using one hand to stabilize over the pubis, you begin pressing down the other into Marika’s stomach, a few fingerbreadths below her belly button. She lets out a few whimpers. You don’t feel the fundus, or the top of the uterus, like you should.

“Marika, you’re bleeding a lot because your uterus isn’t contracting. I have to make it contract by doing a fundal massage. It won’t feel that good, but it could save your life.”

Once again, Marika looks at you before nodding. This time, she closes her eyes.

Using firm and consistent pressure, you push one hand down where the fundus should be and make small circles. Marika lets out a few more cries of pain. You notice that, after a few minutes, the bleeding starts to slow, and her uterus firms up beneath your hands.

“Hospital ETA 5 minutes, hang in,” Hen chimes in from the ambulance's cab.

“Something’s wrong,” Buck says, staring at the baby in his arms.

You quickly move over to him. “Put her in your lap so I can see.”

Buck listens, moving away the towel so you can look at the baby. She’s cyanosed around the lips. You flip open a compartment and pull out the neonatal ambu bag. You hand it to Bobby, and you don’t even have to tell him to start bagging.

“I’m so sorry,” Marika says. “Is she gonna be okay?”

Bobby squeezes the bag every other second, delivering a breath to the baby. Her color is starting to look better, but she isn’t very responsive.

“Here, let me try something,” you say.

You gently pick up the baby and set it on Marika’s bare chest. After a few moments, the baby begins to move and cry out.

“Oh my god, why did that work?” Marika asks, wrapping her hands around her baby.

“Skin-to-skin can help babies regulate bodily functions, like temperature and breathing,” you reply as you place a towel over them.

You look over to the men sitting next to you. Bobby gives you a nod, and Buck avoids eye contact, but you can tell that he’s pissed. Fuck him, he doesn’t know his head from his ass anyways.

Once the rig pulls into the ambulance bay, you and Chim help the ER staff get the gurney out of the ambulance. Bobby and Buck follow suit, only Buck tries to follow them into the hospital. Bobby stops him before he does.

Bobby gives Buck some lecture about how we did our jobs, and now it’s their turn; it’s the speech every overly excited first responder gets at least once at the start of their career.

A cop car pulls up, and Athena comes out. She clearly found the person she was looking for, because she starts yelling at Buck.

“You do not get to choose who lives and who dies,” she lectures.

“Really? Because I was under the impression that kind of was my job,” Buck retorts.

You could seriously slap him.

“That mother was no less of a child than her baby,” Athena continues yelling, pointing a finger at the hospital. “You’re gonna get someone killed.”

“Well, maybe, but not today,” Buck says with a cocky head tilt.

You laugh humorlessly. “You know what, Pretty Boy?” you say, turning to Buck.

Fuck it. Bobby won’t put him in his place, and Athena isn’t allowed to, so you take matters into your own hands, literally.

Before you even fully comprehend what you’re doing, you’re wrapping a hand around Buck’s throat and pushing him against the ambulance. You aren’t choking him, but you don’t move your hand because keeping it there is your only leverage.

“I’m getting real tired of this tough guy bullshit,” you growl, your face only an inch from his. He’s quite a bit taller than you, but when you bounced him off the rig, his footing faltered, so he’s crouched at your eye level. “You wanna get real, Evan? You didn’t do a goddamn thing today except get in the way. While we were busy saving lives, you were shitting your pants and dropping the ball, not exactly what a tough guy is supposed to do.”

“Okay, enough,” Bobby says, trying to break it up. You’re far from finished, though.

You move your hand from his neck, but only so you can point it in his face. “You aren’t a god — you don’t decide who lives! You didn’t even save a life today: we did, because you kept fucking up. And if you keep fucking up like you did today, you definitely will kill someone, and your little jokes and midday booty calls and your shitty little grin won’t change that!”

Bobby ends up physically pulling you away while Athena makes some room between the two of you.

“Aren’t you going to arrest her or something?” Buck says, rubbing his neck. “She assaulted me!”

“She didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Athena counters. “I promise you, Buckley, the next time you screw up? It’ll be your last.”

Athena casts Bobby a glance before she walks away.

“You,” Bobby says, looking at Buck, “in the truck. Now.”

You start to walk over to the passenger’s side of the cab when Bobby calls after you.

“I want you in my office the second we get back,” He orders.

You clench your jaw. “Yes Captain.”

#911 abc #evan buckley #evan buckley x reader #911 show #911 on abc #911 reader insert #evan buckley/reader #eddie diaz x reader #no use of y/n #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to soulmates

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lostintransist · 2 days ago

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Fallen Angel | Nosey Nancy's

Simon watched you from the table as you puttered around the kitchen. He had been asleep when you got home, you hadn’t woken him. Maybe that is why he felt the need to observe you today. He either felt extremely safe with you or you were nearly silent when shifting through the flat. You had just renewed the lease with him. How had it been a year of you sliding into the dynamic of the 141 without ever stepping foot on base?

An off-handed comment from Roach on one of their last missions had him wondering about some things. You didn’t push. Why did you never push?

“She will never ask for what she needs, I’m almost positive she had convinced herself she has no needs.”

Roach had always been observant, more so around you it seems. Simon wonders why that is. You showed no interest in any of the guys, not even him. Simon is aware women find his size attractive, something about all the muscles a woman explained to him once, but you never look at him like that. When you look at him it is with warm smiles and often a funny one-liner to combat his own. Thinking it over had he ever seen you look at anyone with anything other than warmth?

You accept and give kisses but never ask for them. Your eyes don’t track men or women lustfully. Were you handling your needs only while he was away? Had you even had sex before?

“Are you a virgin?”

The question popped out before he could fully process the implications of asking.

Squinting over your shoulder you look at him.

“Are you drunk?”

Simon couldn’t prevent the heat from flushing over his cheeks.

“No.”

Turning fully, you rounded the counter to stand in front of him.

“Hmm. Simon, not Ghost, okay,” resting the back of your hand on his forehead you wait.

“What are you checking for?” He glares up at you.

“A fever. You’re asking questions that are none of your damn business so you must be sick.”

He guffawed as he pushed your hand from his head.

Rolling your eyes you move back into the kitchen, finishing your breakfast.

Simon watches you again.

“If you’re staring at my ass I will throw something at you,” you say to the cabinets in front of you.

“Still thinking, not staring.”

With a defeated sigh you turn. Staring at him you take a bite of your toast before speaking.

“Alright. Out with it. What’s the question?”

“Why don’t you try to sleep with any of us?”

Chewing as you stare you let the question settle between you. Simon feels like a boy again, asking a question that he should know the answer to and preparing for a slap when he didn’t.

“Do you want me to try and sleep with any of you?” You ask with one brow cocked as you prepare for another bite of toast.

This question caught Simon on the back foot. Did he want that? He thought of you in the same way he thought of his team, as his. That didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to sleep with you though. Did he want you to sleep with any of his guys? It did give his heart a twinge but not enough to throw a fit over.

When Simon looks back to you half of your toast is gone.

“No.”

“Then why does it matter?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense.”

“Are you feeling insecure because I’m not trying to crawl into your bed except when I’m cold and even then, I actually fall asleep instead of pining over you?”

The needling is effective. Simon grinds his back teeth.

“I am asking, if you are not into men or not into myself and the guys, who are you into?”

“I’m not into anyone.” Dusting your hands over the sink you turn to leave.

Simon moves with speed honed from work, blocking the door with his frame.

“The hell does that mean?”

Heaving a sigh, you look at him with such a drab expression that he would have smiled if he hadn’t been so frustrated by this whole conversation.

“I’m asexual.”

“Which means what?” He glared down at you.

“That urge in your brain that says you need to stick your dick in someone? I don’t have that.”

“You don’t have a dick,” he quipped back.

“That you know of,” you deadpanned. “Do you have any other intrusive questions for me today?”

By way of answer, he steps back, letting you pass.

“Nosey Nancy's the lot of them,” drifts back to him as you shut your bedroom door behind you.

Fallen Angel Masterlist | Masterlist

#Fallen Angel COD #cod #fanfiction #cod x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #price x reader #soap x reader #soap mactavish #john soap mactavish #soap cod #roach x reader #gaz x reader #john price x reader

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ohbueckers · 6 hours ago

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HEART OF A WOMAN. you should call into work if that ain’t too much to ask, i could pour you up a drink and we could burn somethin’.

03, CHAPTER THREE. COME THROUGH.

ju speaks. late chapter again lol and this election fucked me uuup but thank God for writing as a distraction. you can expect another part between now and monday mayyybe… i have some free time. pairing. wnba!paige bueckers x fem!oc. warnings. same old + sexual innuendos (we’re very familiar with my edging game).

present day, may 2025.

paige: yo 6:23pm

wyd?

nailea text me back bro 6:29pm

nailea: hmmm

busy

paige: busy my ass

nailea disliked a message

nailea: i’ve been at work all day. some of us don’t get to just play basketball, madison 😓

paige: ohhh is that right?

i’ll have you know i work hard af ma

nailea: hard enough for a reward?

paige loved a message

paige: bring that ass over here nai

nailea: i’ve got emails to finish

paige: they’ll be there tomorrow

i’m here right now. waitin on you actually

nailea: maybe i have been thinking ab it 6:32pm

paige: mhm?

well you ain’t gotta think no more let’s just do

nailea laughed at a message

nailea: you’re really ridiculous

paige: come over and tell me that to my face

nailea: depends on what you got there

a girl needs incentives

read 6:35pm

paige: i got plenty

few drinks, maybe roll up too. thought that might get you

nailea: it’s a start

send the address, i’ll come through when i’m done

paige loved a message

i sink back into the couch, letting my head rest against the arm, my feet comfortably draped across paige’s lap. the last few days, i tried to keep myself busy, focus on work, ignore the way my phone would vibrate and my thoughts would jump straight to her. the same old game. she’d sent a few texts, nothing too serious, just little things to test the waters i guess, and when she called yesterday, talking about how much she missed me, i could already tell she was pulling me back in, trying to see if that thread between us would hold.

paige kept her word, though—i can give her that. i said i’d answer, and she made sure i’d have a reason to. she knew exactly what to say, and it’s a shame that she always does, really. it’s messed up, but it works. i can’t say i haven’t missed this, either. the way she can look at me and make me forget everything i swore i’d remember, every reason i should’ve walked away.

and now, here we are, the sun setting behind her window and casting everything, even her, in some warm, orange glow that only makes her look all the more attractive. it’s like the universe is playing along, trying to romanticize something i know i should be more careful with. there’s an old celtics game playing on the tv, but neither of us is really paying attention to it. i watch her more than the screen, notice the way her fingers brush absentmindedly over my leg, the way she insists that she should be the one to hold the joint to my lips.

paige leans back, and her hand has inched from my ankle to a casual spot on my bare thigh. we’re both too deep in drinks and hits to make sense of it, but i’m not sure i would’ve said anything even if i was sober. she’s wearing one of her uconn tees, which i guess you could call old now, the shirt hugging her arms a little tight. her hair’s falling over her shoulders, looking a little shriveled but still perfect, and every time she glances at me, she wears this smug little smirk.

“…feels like everything i knew it’d be. more work and pressure than it seems, but you know me,” paige says, her grin turning a little self-satisfied, like she’s relishing every second of her own success. we’ve been catching up—if that’s what you’d call it—for awhile now. i should probably leave soon, sober up and drive home. i’m not that far. but i don’t want to.

she drags her tongue slowly over her bottom lip, eyes hazily drifting back over to me. “what about you, huh?” she asks. “you got that insane move up. what’s that been like?”

i roll my eyes, tilting my head against the couch arm to look at her. “it’s not that insane.”

paige grins, shrugging and taking a sip of her lazy attempt at a cocktail. i’d offered to make them myself, honestly not trusting the blonde to not fuck it up, but she’d insisted, hostess duties or something.

“still sounds like a pretty big deal. you’re all professional and shit now,” she rambles, and i can’t help but chuckle at her choice of words.

i shake my head, hiking one of my legs up. “it’s not like i’m paige bueckers or anything,” i tease, a stupid, huge smile on my face. how is she able to bring out the worst and the best in me? “no one’s asking me to sign their shoes after a meeting.”

she laughs, eyes half-lidded and glassy, gaze intimidatingly lingering on me just a little too long. “bet you got your own version of that, though. people hangin’ on your every word, just tryna get a second of your time. don’t lie.”

i shrug, eyes shooting away from her. i don’t get how she does it. “i mean, it’s been good,” i admit. “long hours, but it’s nice to finally get involved the way i always wanted to, y’know?”

her hand shifts a little on my thigh, just enough to remind me it’s there, and i glance down. “coulda called that years ago,” she murmurs, barely louder than a whisper. then, it’s silent for a moment. just long enough for me to think of something else to ask her before she beats me to it. “you happy?”

i swallow, suddenly feeling a little hot in the face. “i am,” i reply after a pause, furrowing my eyebrows with a nod, almost like i’m trying to convince myself of it. “the dream, right?” i let out a breathy laugh, and paige smiles.

it’s silly to think that the both of us could recall that conversation like it was yesterday. but this wasn’t the dream. not the one we had when we were kids. just our own fucked up, adult version of it. and somehow, someway, we’re still here. somehow, someway, we still can’t let it go.

“and the people? they treat you right?” she sounds like she really cares, but is still trying not to press too hard.

“everyone’s good. most of them, anyway.” she can probably see through every word i say. pick up on the way i describe everything as good. i hesitate, looking back up at her. “never thought i’d be this close with a pro team after graduating, that’s for sure.”

“bro, ‘kea really don’t play ‘bout you,” paige laughs, but she’s serious. rickea’s one of the first people i got close with during my internship, contrary to belief. i was barely around the team then, too. “and maya’s been talking all kinds of good about you since cam’s party.”

i can feel my face flush, and i shift to sit up next to her, suddenly acutely aware of how close i am to paige, how tangled up i’ve let myself become. the mention of her name has clearly been a sore subject. i’m not sure why i feel so guilty, paige was mine first, but my mind flashes to her anyway, and then to paige, who’s probably hearing everything maya’s been saying about me, while i’m here, in the middle of all of it.

i don’t wanna ask what she’s been saying, and i surely don’t wanna press further into how deep paige and maya might be. ignorance is bliss, right? but shouldn’t it be my business? is paige still my business?

instead, i force a shrug. “i mean, it’s not like we’re on the same level,” i say, clearly selling myself a little short. maya’s been here longer, knows what she’s doing better than i do. credit never hurt.

paige doesn’t say anything. she inches just a little bit closer, and the sound of a sold out stadium of cheers from tatum’s three pointer is suddenly going in one ear and out the other. a small smirk tugs at her lips, and she tilts her head, eyes not sure what to focus on as she rubs up and down on my thigh, hand inching a little higher everytime. “i agree.”

i squint at her. “you do?” but it’s less of a question. my eyes flick to her lips, and i know she catches it because her smile widens, just a little.

“mhm,” she murmurs, her fingers twisting in, gripping my thigh until i’m squeezing my legs together. there’s a moment of silence, like she’s giving me a moment to breathe, to prepare, and she’s not done. “nobody’s fuckin’ with you, baby. believe that.”

i can feel my defenses slipping—not that they were ever really there anyway—as she presses closer, and i feel a warmth spreading through me, one that has nothing to do with the la heat. “what are we even doing, p?” i ask, and i don’t know where it came from. no part of me wanted to start an argument, or worse, hear the truth. i can’t look away.

she shifts, her expression softening as she glances down, then up again. she doesn’t know the answer either. “i dunno. what we always do.” she leans back a little, resting her head on the couch right near my chest, so close that her breath brushes against me with each exhale.

i tilt my head down, just enough to meet her blue hues, and the words come out before i even realize i’m saying them. “i’m supposed to be over this. over you.”

the second they’re out, i wish i could take them back. i didn’t wanna ruin the moment. the way her face changes, her jaw tightening and a flicker of something unreadable flashing in her eyes, tells me i’ve hit a nerve. a silence falls between us, an uncomfortable one if i’m honest, stretching longer than i mentally prepared myself for.

paige screws her eyes shut, letting out a low, frustrated breath as she sits up, running a hand over her face like she’s trying to gather herself. the loss of her touch makes me feel cold. “fuck, nai.”

i push myself up too, eyebrows are furrowed as i try to make sense of it. “what? i just asked a question.”

“you always gotta make shit so fuckin’ difficult,” she mutters, shaking her head like this whole thing is somehow my fault. like i’m the one complicating it.

i frown, glancing down, and she continues. “you’re just—God, nai, it’s like you can’t just let things be. you always gotta question it, question me.” she bites down on her lip. she’s actually upset, and the horrible part about it is that it’s so like her—so unmistakably paige—that somehow, i can’t even bring myself to be mad.

i want to laugh. “why does that piss you off?” i don’t want to say it, but the words slip out anyway. “you think you’ve given me any reason not to? especially now that you’re seeing maya?”

her head crooks to look at me, and her eyes narrow with it. “what the fuck does maya have to do with this?”

i can feel the heat in my face, the way everything inside me tightens, like i’ve been holding my breath for way too long. “what do you mean, what’s she got to do with it? you’re seeing her, paige. i’m not blind.”

her jaw clenches tighter than before, and she stands up, pacing a few steps before turning back to me. “we’re not—” she pauses, clearly trying to find her words, but i’m not giving her the time.

“that’s all i need to know,” i finish, forcing a tight-lipped grin. “you don’t have to lie. i’m quite sick of those from you, actually.” i chuckle, but it’s a hollow sound, one that doesn’t even make it past my throat. i reach for my shoes that i tossed to the side when i got here, pulling them onto my feet.

paige watches, hands on her hips, and i’m fine with her quiet. “i don’t want you to leave upset with me over somethin’ we coulda talked about,” she softens, but it doesn’t change the fact that i’m already over it.

“i’m not upset with you,” i bluff, and i tie the laces of my sneakers a little tighter than necessary.

she glances down, tongue swarming her mouth, and i don’t even have to look at her to know that she’s thinking of some way to stop me. “nai—“ she starts.

“i’m not upset,” i repeat, and i hope it was more firm this time. i force myself to look her in the eyes, not a single thought behind them. neither of us is willing to be the first to back down, but i’m too exhausted to care anymore. “i just need to go,” i finish, standing up and rounding the couch.

paige’s face drops, hesitation etched across her entire face. “you can’t leave. you had too much. just… stay, aight? we’ll figure it ou—”

i grab my jacket, ignoring her weak attempts. somehow, this all feels like that night again, and i feel that familiar nausea creep up. “i’ll call a fucking uber,” i snap, throwing the door open. and before she can stop me, i’m gone, my pulse racing as i step out into the hall, leaving behind the sound of her voice.

i don’t think i’m very good at pretending i’m not upset.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers x oc #paige bueckers fic #paige bueckers fanfiction #paige bueckers uconn #paige bueckers smut #paige bueckers x fem #paige bueckers blog #ju’s anons 🪅#wlw fanfic #wlw fiction #wlw yearning #wlw smut #wlw post #wlw blog #lgbtq fanfiction #lgbtqia

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lucedilunax · 3 days ago

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Thank you, I love you - C. Keller

pairing: Clayton Keller x girlfriend!reader

summary: Three times when she helped Clayton and one time when Clayton helped her

warning: NSFW, graphic sex (+18), swear words

words: 2.4k

note: ahh my first ever request work! i was so excited to write about clayton, enjoy it💕

masterlist

---

When Arizona’s franchise was suspended

In April, the big news hit that Coyotes won’t be in NHL. This was a shock for Clayton. He knew about the problems, but he was pushing away the thought that club, who drafted him and gave him a chance to play won’t be existing. His head was spiraling, he was uncertain about his future.

When Clayton got back home after coach told them about this, he hasn’t acknowledged his girlfriend sitting on a kitchen chair, waiting for him. Like always, she asked him questions about the training, but he haven’t heard anything. It was uncommon for him to ignore her. She started wondering if she has done something to piss him off.

She felt like the right call is to give Clayton space. When he went straight to the living room and turned on a movie, she went to their bedroom. As much as she wanted to confront him and ask him what’s going on, she preferred to stay out of it and wait for him to talk.

The evening came and she decided to leave the room and go to the kitchen to cook for both. She knew that Clayton can’t prepare any meals and probably haven't ate anything since he returned. She stepped into the kitchen, and he saw her. He immediately stood up and rushed to her.

“Hi love”. Clayton said and kissed her. “Sorry for earlier but I’ve got weird news and couldn’t place my mind in the right spot”. He hugged her and placed his head on her shoulder.

“Talk to me baby”. That’s all she said while running her hand down his back.

“Our franchise is suspended which means we’re not existing since next season”. He admitted to her. She felt the wet spot on her arm, but she didn't care about it. “I don’t even know if I’m gonna play hockey next season. Every club has good players on my position. I don’t want to retire in the age of 26, there’s still so many things I want to achieve”. She pushed herself from him to look at him. She grabbed Clayton’s face in her hand and kissed his lips.

“Baby, you’ll be playing next season. Stop doing this to yourself. You are great player, and you’ll find a new club. You won’t be in Arizona anymore, but you’ll stay in NHL. Trust me. This is all new and that’s why you feel this way but there’s gonna be club to take you under their wing”.

Clayton looked at her with love in his eyes. He knew she’s right. He’s good player and he’ll find a new club. He grabbed her waist and pulled her to another hug.

“Thank you. I needed this pep talk. I guess I just started overreacting after hearing the news”.

“That’s why I’m always here for you. Just try not to shut me off. I genuinely thought I did something to piss you off and that’s why you haven’t spoke to me since you got back home”. She laughed. He kissed her passionately.

“You, my love, could never do anything wrong”. He kissed her again. “Now, where are we going on dinner?” He asked.

“I planned to cook something. Why would you want to go out?” She asked confused.

“You deserve to be treated like a princess so we’re going out”. When they were going to the car, to lighten the mood, she joked.

“Besides, without Arizona there’s gonna be 31 clubs which is unpaired. They have to create a new team to make it even”. Clayton laughed when he heard that.

“You’re impossible”.

“Maybe, but you love me for that”. Before he opened her door, he grabbed her cheek and kissed her.

“You don’t even have a clue how much I love you”.

When they’ve moved to Utah (NSFW)

Whole summer, Clayton and his girlfriend spent on moving out from Arizona to Utah. It was stressful time for them because they needed to pack all their years of life into boxes. Both had fun finding out old things and getting all retrospections while looking at them. When the house was empty, they felt sad. All their relationship was moving on from the place where they fall in love.

Despite it, she and Clayton were excited for their new chapter. They started new adventure together in Utah. When they bought new house and stepped in, they sheer a tear. This was the place where they’re gonna be a family. She was the first one to look around. Clayton was going after her like a puppy. He saw how she’s gonna be taking care of her their kids in this place. He could already imagine that.

“So, what do you think?” He asked her.

“I love it. It’s beautiful. Can’t wait to start our new life here”. She said and placed her hands behind his neck. “What do you think?”

“It’s great. I’m so happy that you moved here with me”. He leans down and kissed her. “We need to celebrate this”. He kissed her again.

“Mhm, and what do you have in mind?” She asked knowing exactly what he has in mind.

“Let me show you”. Clayton grabbed her under her knees and took her in bridal style to the bedroom. He placed her on their new bed and started to kiss her.

“Wait”. She pulled out from him, and he looked confused. “We’re celebrating new life thanks to your transfer here so let me do the work”. He smiled at her words.

“And how are you gonna do it?”

“Let me ride you”. She blushed at her words. No matter how many times they had sex or even conversations about it, she was shy.

“Undressed love and I’ll do the same. Later, I’m all yours”. She obeyed his words. He undressed immediately. She took off her shirt and pants. but when she wanted to unclip her bra, he stopped her. He was standing naked in front on her when he reached for the bra clip to take if off. Later, he kneeled in front of her and took off her panties. He placed kisses on her lower stomach.

“Stop teasing babe, I really need your dick in me”. Clayton laughed at her words.

“Someone’s eager”. He kissed her lips and sat on the bed. “Then ride me like you wanted”.

She sat on his thighs and spit on her hand to run it over his dick.

“Now, you stop teasing me or I’ll get my way with you”. He said in serious tone. She grabbed his cock and placed her entry on his. Clayton grabbed her waist and helped her to fully sat on him.

“Fuck, you’re huge Clayton”. He smiled at her words. He hasn’t done anything. Just kept his hands on her waist and let her adjust to his length. When she was ready, she started jumping on him. He took off his hands from her waist and played with her tits. She was moaning his name. When she got little tired, he pulled her to his chest and grabbed her ass to helped her in the movements. She started to kiss his jawline until she moaned again from the new angle.

“Clayton… I’m close”. She said while making hickeys on his collarbone.

“Hold on, I’m almost there love”. He speeds up and soon after he could feel her coming all over his cock. He thrusted couple more times and cum in her pussy.

She fell on his chest tired. Clayton stayed in her and kissed her temple.

“I guess we just christened our new house”. She laughed at his words. He felt that she’s shivering from the cold. “C’mon, let’s take a bath and order some takeaway. The boxes can wait until tomorrow. I love you”. He picked her up and kissed her cheek.

When Clayton had been named a captain

Everything was going smoothly in Utah. Most of Clayton’s teammates were transferred there and he’d been hanging out with them. With his teammates, their partners also came here so she had friends here too. They started new life in new state, but they stayed in the same circle.

When Clayton started trainings with new team, there was still big unknown; who’s gonna be a captain in Utah Hockey Club. Everyone was wondering about it but all their focus was on preparation for upcoming season. Almost every preseason game, Utah played without captain. It changed a week before start of the season.

Day after game against Anaheim, the coach named a first-ever Utah captain. He decided that Clayton is the best option with his knowledge, help and understanding. He was over the moon, grateful for the trust and opportunity. In Arizona, he had been alternate captain but now, he was the leader of this ship.

When Clayton returned to their house, he saw her laying on the couch, watching a tv show. He dropped his luggage and laid on top of her.

“Get off me”. She said giggling at his affection. “What’s with you babe? Had a good trip?” She asked curious about what he’s gonna say to her.

“Two wins and two lost games but that’s not important”. He gets off her and stand up next to his girlfriend.

“Okay, now you’re scaring me”.

“I’ve been named a captain”. Clayton announced proudly to her. When she heard that, she screamed from joy and throw herself into his arms. He caught her trying not to fall at the coffee table behind them.

“I’m so fucking proud of you babe. Oh my gosh, this is huge. I… I don’t know what to say”. She looked into his eyes. He saw the tears coming down her cheeks, so he dried them off with his thumb.

“Thanks love but…” He looked at her with serious expression. “What if I fail them?”

“Stop. You’re the right person on the right place. You’ve already been a captain in Arizona, and you did great”.

“Alternate captain”. Clayton corrected her.

“Still a captain. Look, I get it that you’re scared that you might fail them, but you have coaches and team behind your back. You’re not alone in this. You’ve proved yourself in the past 8 years. You’re great player but most importantly you’re intelligent and you know what you’re doing. You know those guys very well and they trust you. You’re not gonna fail. Not on my watch”. She kissed him.

“Thank you. I needed those words. I don’t know what I would done without you”.

“That’s why I’m here, to help you and support you”.

“Oh, I love you”. He kissed her and hugged her like his life depended on it.

“I love you too captain”.

When she found out that she’s pregnant

She had been feeling sick when Clayton left on a roadie, but she didn’t wanted to bother him. She was certain that it was just food poisoning. When Utah was playing against New York Rangers, she invited other girlfriends to her and Clayton’s house to watch the game. Soon after, game was forgotten, and they had a girl’s night.

She refused to drink wine with them, and questions started floating about pregnancy. She explained that she feels sick and that’s why she doesn’t want to drink but other girls tried to convince her to take the test. At first, she was skeptical, but she knew she has nothing to waste. The next day, she went to the pharmacy to buy pregnancy test.

Sitting in the bathroom and looking at it, she got scared. She knew it’s a bad timing for them to have a kid. They just moved to their new house. She was searching for a new job and Clayton just became a captain. She took a deep breath and took the test.

The next three minutes went super slow. Her mind was floating around. When she grabbed the test, she saw that it’s positive. She started to cry but didn’t know if it’s from happiness or sadness.

She and Clayton always dreamt about having kids, but they wanted to wait until they’re married. They haven’t even been engaged. Will Clayton be happy? What if he leaves her? She started to have all the dark scenarios in her head. She didn’t want to break the news to him on the phone. She hasn’t even said to him that she’s sick because she was confident that he’s gonna freak out.

When Clayton returned from roadie, he immediately knew that something is off with his girlfriend. She haven't came to welcome him, and the house was dead silent. His steps lead him to their bedroom. When he opened the door, he saw her sitting in the middle of their bed biting her nails, habit she had, when she was nervous.

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay”. Clayton approached her, grabbing her hands and placing them down.

“No, it’s not okay”. By her voice, he knew she was crying.

“Tell me what’s wrong”. She took a deep breath.

“I’m pregnant”. She whispered. Her head was looking down, she hasn’t had the bravery to look into his eyes.

“Love, that’s a great news”. He grabbed her under the chin, so she was looking at him. “We wanted to have kids. Why are you sad about it?”

“It’s the timing. I don’t have a job; you are a captain. We just moved here. It’s all happening too fast”.

“Maybe fact that you don’t have a job is a good thing. You can stay at home and rest while you are growing new life. You know that money is not a problem. I know that this might look like a bad timing, but we can do it. Together. I’m not leaving you alone in this. We can handle it”. He said and hugged her. He was over the moon by the news, but her reaction scared him. “But if you don’t want to have a kid now, I’ll be fine with that. It’s your body so you’ll decide. Although, I’m willing to be part of this adventure with you”.

“I want this kid but… I don’t know. I guess I freaked out”.

“We’re a team love. I’m here for you”. He kissed her.

“We’re gonna be parents. This sounds insane”.

“True, but I’m excited for the new journey, especially with you by my side”.

“I love you Clayton”. She kissed him deeply.

“I love you too future mommy”. He joked and kissed her back.

---

Thanks for reading❤️

#clayton keller #clayton keller x reader #clayton keller fanfiction #clayton keller imagine #clayton keller oneshot #nhl #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #utah hockey club #v' work

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charmwasjess · 3 days ago

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My tiny mountain town is a blue dot swallowed up in a sea of red. Our statistically-irrelevant town went for Harris. The larger counties around us all went for Trump. Here’s what this election looked like in the southeastern Appalachian on the front lines of that cultural divide:

Outright unprosecuted voter intimidation: in the few blocks walk from my house to downtown, I can see a prop skeleton dressed as a Harris supporter hanging from a noose, and Harris yard signs slashed with a knife, others just ripped down to the cardboard.

Gerrymandering - years ago, these little-known poorer districts were redrawn around population centers in ways that give likely Republican strongholds more weight, particularly in rural areas like mine. Republican lawmakers literally have opened prisons in rural counties in my state to artificially inflate population numbers with people who can’t vote due to their felon status to tip the scales.

Of course, the Electoral college, where US votes are decided by weight of a state’s respective collective population and importance rather than just the counted individuals votes

I’m not making excuses. I echo the rest of the world’s collective disgust and horror about the outcome. I am literally sick with my country. People will die because of this. People who don’t live here, people who didn’t get a choice or stake in the US elections, and who probably wish they’d never heard of the place. And people in my own community.

Yet it is so easy to picture this election as the ultimate triumph of laziness and inattention, particularly in “ignorant hillbilly” places like where I live, which generally go for Trump without any fight - at least not one that shows up on an election night map. But the Republican right has been working for decades to put the legal, economic, and societal pressures that lead to this in place here.

We fought hard. Grassroots campaigners, our organizers of LGBTQIA+ groups, leaders in our communities who showed up despite the fact that it put a target on their backs if shit went bad. Teachers fighting Republican-led mandates of ignorance and racism to choke out any thinking that might interfere with their political goals for their ideal voter base. Librarians who get death threats for having kid’s books dealing with gender or queerness in the public libraries.

These are not imagined examples, these are things that happen to real people I know in my tiny blue community. And the violent, right-wing party, the party that promised to make this second Trump term one of revenge and retribution, knows who those people are too.

The Charlottesville “Ignite the Right” attack happened in my backyard. I had friends on that street when a self-described neo nazi drove into a crowd and killed Heather Heyer and injured 35 others. Trump was president when it happened; he called the alt-right who invaded Charlottesville with guns and armor and torches that day “good people.”

I have no faith in my party now. It feels like we’re still trying to play a game we lost years ago, while the other side is busy winning a new game, one where they get to make up all the rules.

I realize that there are greater global trends at play - incumbents being ousted, a swing to the right, post-pandemic economic scrambles - larger issues than the difficulties of voter suppression in my rural American communities. I'm not in a great mindset to consider them this week. I've been politically active since I was old enough to vote, and it feels like we always build so much momentum and then slam facefirst into this fucking invisible wall.

Honestly? I’m so tired and depressed and anxious, I feel like I can barely function right now. At the same time, I’m disgusted by my own despair and whining. What gives me the right to stop trying now, when so many people across the globe are facing the same anger and exhaustion? When so many people are in more active danger, with less options than I have?

Anyway, I wanted to write something out about the election, maybe just to let go of the words and get them out of me. I'm a queer politically active liberal in a Republican-dominated rural space. Next week, I'll read all the posts about hard work and hope and building support networks. This week, I just need a fucking minute on the floor.

#to be deleted #cw for depression and US election stuff I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about

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storiesfromafan · 2 days ago

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Mr Sandman - Benny Cross x Reader

A/N: another Benny Cross one-shot to go with, I guess, I am dubbing the music series? Or something as such, as I am using song lyric's before or in the one-shot haha.

Previous: Part One, Part Two

Friday, the end of the work week for you! The joy it brought you was relief, to know two days away from this lousy grocery store. And its shitty manager, who enjoys making shifts Hell. But it was Friday, his power ends after you bundy-off for the day!

Two hours and thirty-five minutes left, not that you were counting down. But you had past the clock as you walked from the back room, and brought out a box with different candy and gum to stock at the registers. While it wasn’t busy you thought you’d get a head on replenishment. And it would – hopefully – kill more time.

The stores radio was on a not so popular station, which played mostly 50s music, and you didn’t mind it. You quite enjoyed it really. Mr Sandman by The Chordettes had started playing. And, funny enough, you moved back to your register with smooth steps, almost gliding to the music. While humming along to the catchy tune. You smiled as you turned around, your dress swishing about.

“Mr Sandman, bring me a dream

Make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen

Give him two lips like roses and clover

Then tell him his lonesome nights are over

Sandman, I’m so alone-“

You had been singing, your back to the store and any customers. Though the store had been dead when you went out the back. In that time a customer had entered, moving around. They had came in for one reason, and unfortunately, that reason wasn’t in sight. Until you had come out from the back. They had taken a moment to notice how focused you were on the music playing, how you seemed to glide back to the registers. And began to sing. They found it all so amusing, and adorable.

Your singing died – and you wish you could have died on the spot – when you turned around, coming face to face with Benny Cross. You jumped, hand flying over your chest in fright, and a touch of mortification. Your cheeks heating up, eyes wide. After the diner incident a few days ago, you had been mindful to avoid Benny. But it looks like he wasn’t avoiding you.

Slowly your senses came back, and with it your brain function. “C-can I h-help you?” you stuttered, wishing to kick yourself. And moving back behind your register, trying to put distance between you as you awaited his reply.

Benny suddenly questioned why he had come in. Sure, he had noticed you working and finally wanted to talk to you. But what for? It was as if his body had acted before his brain could come up with a plan. So here he stood, before you, unsure of how to answer you. How could you help him?

His baby blues darted from you and around the register, before landing on a pack of gum. Reaching out, he grabbed a packet and placed it on the counter. “Gum" was his response. Which he cursed himself for.

Really? All you could say was gum!? He mentally chastised himself.

Slowly you nodded, hand shakily picking up the packet and running it through for him. Softly you told him what he owed, and Benny pocketed his hand in his jeans in a hurry. Fishing out the money, he placed it in your open palm. For the briefest of moments the rough pads on his finger tips touched your skin. The feel caused a chill to run down your spine, before you finished the transaction by putting the money in the register.

Benny picked up the gum, neither of you speaking. His eyes watching you, as you tried to remain calm. Which was hard to do under your crushes gaze. This was his moment, so what was happening? It was like he was a teenager again, and had trouble talking to a girl.

Benny cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologise for the guys the other day" he babbled out. “They shouldn’t have said that...”

You blinked, taking in his words. “A-ah, it’s f-fine. No real harm done...”

He nodded. “Ah...what’s ya name?”

Your eyes widened at Benny’s question. “I-I'm (Y/N)...” you replied softly.

Benny slowly nodded, a small smile on his full lips. “That’s a pretty name, it suits ya...”

You blushed, yet remained quiet. How do you reply to that? And without sounding like an idiot? You can’t, not for you anyways. You both stood there, watching the other while remaining quiet. Benny was having trouble coming up with something else to say, wanting to keep this interaction going. But he was dying, no words coming to mind. And in that moment the silence was broken, but not by either of you.

“Mr Cross" came an all too familiar stern voice, you both turned and saw an older woman you knew all too well.

“Mrs Martin” Benny stiffly greeted.

The old woman was actually a former high school teacher, which you both had encountered years prior. The old gargoyle looked to you, her gaze soft, before her stern gaze was back on Benny. She was known to be a hard ass, unless you had been a good and hard working students. Which you had been. As you can guess, Benny hadn’t been such a student. And that meant many of the teachers looked down their noses at him.

She huffed. “I hope you aren’t bothering this nice young woman" her voice was sharp, and had almost a warning to it.

Benny stood up tall, head held high. “Of course not Mrs Martin, just makin' a purchase and small talk".

Mrs Martin nod firmly, “good. Then you can move on".

Benny sighed, not wanting to cause a scene. “Yeah” – he turned to you with a lopsided grin and a wink – “see ya around (Y/N)”.

Benny then headed out, you watched him walk across the road to his bike via the window in the front of the shop. You stared at him, getting on his bike and starting it up, until you heard Mrs Martin clear her voice. Turning back to the old woman, who was giving you a pointed look, her basket sitting on the counter awaiting you. So you began to ring up her items and bag them, before taking her money and returning her change and receipt.

She collected her bags and was about to leave, before pausing. She looked to you with a concerned look. “Look (Y/N), a man like Benny Cross isn’t right for you. You’re a good girl, who deserves a good man. You understand?”

You didn’t like how she assumed Benny wasn’t a good man. Sure, he was a Vandal and they are questionable. But part of you believed there was good in the young Vandal, and saw it first hand when he stuck up for you. Benny was good in his own way. Plus, there’s good and bad in everyone.

Not trusting your tongue, you just nodded to her. And she seemed pleased, taking her leave. Yet that small interaction with your old teacher left a bad taste in your mouth. In your fantasies Benny was sweet and kind, but in reality, he wasn’t as such. You’d heard the gossip of what he gets up too or has done.

Then you realised you had spoken to Benny. He had come in to your work and spoken to you. Your face felt hot from the blush that washed over your face. No doubt your face was bright red. Placing your hands on your cheeks, you couldn’t help but smile a little. Than that voice in the back of your head came forth, putting doubt in your mind. Maybe he was just apologising and that was it. No way he would be interested in you...

#benny cross x reader #benny cross x y/n #benny cross x you #the bikeriders x reader #austin butler x reader #benny the bikeriders

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bloodyinkandquill · 18 hours ago

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Scythe x bird-hybrid Reader

immediately going to work on this, after i find my old glasses, i also need to eat the dinner i made it’s sort of just sitting there right now, oh there we go my head already feels better, ok let’s eat then work on this

eh actually im going to bed im tired, ill do this in the korning

- Let’s set one thing straight, she did not date you just because you’re a good get away since you can fly, that just so happened to be a bonus, that she takes heavy advantage of

- Scythe treats you very well, but due to your hybrid nature she gives you more specialized attention, she would never admit it but she spent multiple long nights researching bird behaviors and bird care so she could help you and show her love towards you in a way that you already are familiar with, so the first time she offered you help you preen you were hesitant but holy shit her claws work miracles on your wings

- On top of that she also does her best to mimic the bird sounds you make, since it makes your hybrid brain happy, for instance she does her best to mimic your trills and content coos, it isn’t perfect since her vocal cords aren’t made for it but it still does work great and you’re hybrid instincts are very happy

- She begrudgingly joins you in the nest, she prefers to work at night so she complains and says she has work to do but you just get all huffy and puffy till she either leaves or gives in and joins you, but if she does leave you have her clothes built into the nest so even if she’s not actually there it still smells like her, and her non uniform clothes are surprisingly soft and make great nest material!

- She makes sure Medkit does research on bird care, more specifically bird medical care so if you were to fall ill or get injured he could most effectively treat you, he learned things about birds he never wanted to and she’s happy knowing someone can effectively heal you up if something were to happen

- Speaking of since you make a really good get away from crimes in higher stakes kills or other crimes she’ll bring you with her but keep you hidden maybe on rooftops or in alleyways, that way when she does the signal, which is literally just whistling really loud, you can literally swoop in, grab her, and fly off, one two or three occasions Ban Hammer was near and summoned his wings to follow you, it was fucking terrifying but she switched her gear over to rifle mode and fired away at him

- You can’t tell wether it was supposed to be a gift or an insult but she got you a genuine gilded bird cage, you aren’t sure how to feel

june keeps licking the table and because of one of my sister’s girlfriends she might have eaten rocks, sorry if it’s a bit short, i’m waiting for my mom to return with grapes

#x reader #phighting x reader #phighting #phighting!#phighting scythe x reader #scythe x reader phighting #scythe phighting #phighting scythe #scythe x reader #scythe

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shirefantasies · 16 hours ago

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hi, feeling nervous to ask so I’m sending this anon

If you haven’t already, could you do a hurt/comfort imagine? Like YN is hurt, either from a fight, ptsd, poor health etc, and imagine the types of comfort?

thank youu 💜

Sure! Since no character was mentioned I chose one and went a mental health route, hope that's ok! A comfort character fr though 🥺

Safe Right Here- Faramir x F!Reader (Drabble)

Warnings: angst (with comfort), past emotional abuse, mentions of self-destructive thoughts

One word. One word was all it took sometimes. A single phrase could push one off the precipice of memory. A chasm dark and inescapable, deep as life and death and everything in between. Such was it that when you fell, you wondered why you had ever been alive in the first place. Why one who failed to earn love was cruelly thrust into a world she was so unfit for. Why being called a maker of twisted, idiotic mistakes felt so akin to being dubbed the mistake itself.

So many things seemed to come naturally for all but you. Behaviors and unspoken rules. You needed them spoken, and when they were it was often done mockingly or in annoyance. Perhaps they were right- you simply were a burden.

"What is wrong?"

"N-nothing," you stammered, realizing how foolish you must have looked with tears pouring down your reddened face, "Nothing that matters."

"It matters," Faramir replied, kneeling at your side, "If it is bothering you. It matters to you. And it matters to me.”

Something about his emphasis, the way Faramir could speak so firmly in confidence and yet so softly, broke you. Was it foolish to hear love in his words? Perhaps, and yet there you were collapsing into his arms.

“Why? Why am I so wrong?” You sobbed.

“Wrong?” Faramir tilted his head, stubble shifting along the top of your head with a light scratch. “Wrong about what?”

“About nothing. I am just wrong,” you breathed, chest heaving with each attempt to speak, “I have nothing to show for myself. No family, no work to take pride in. Nothing complete to my name and no understanding of it all. Everything is so difficult for me. Why was I even born?”

Warmth fell upon you. New warmth beyond the tight hold of Faramir’s arms, the smells of woods and smoke clinging to the fabric and leather that embraced you. Moisture. Tears tumbled from Faramir’s blue eyes, ephemeral diamonds adorning the crown of your head. Diamonds of pure sorrow. A fitting crown indeed.

“My heart shatters to even hear you speak these words, but I confess I have spoken them too. Whispered them into the darkness in many a solitary moment,” Faramir admitted, arms winding even tighter, “But to hear them like this, coming from the lips of one so sweet? I may not be able to convince you, but they are lies. Poisonous lies.”

“They feel so real.”

“Right up until they destroy you,” Faramir agreed, his head resting over yours, “I almost threw my life away because of them but I know it would be true forfeit to see you do the same. My brother would not have wished this life for me. For you. Those who love you would feel the pain of that loss every day of their remaining lives.”

“Who-”

“I love you,” he cut you off, offering a knowing smile as compensation.

“And I you,” you replied softly, nuzzling closer until his words sunk fully in, giving you pause, “Wait, you almost…?”

“Yes. For Gondor. And perhaps a bit for myself, too.”

“Anything to give them what they want and see if the tang of blood takes the poison from their mouths. But you are kind, you are wise. You are enough.”

Faramir nodded, lightly scratching your head again. Your heart warmed, spreading through your body even against the cold stone floor on which you sat.

“And here I thought I was comforting you,” Faramir chuckled, a deep sound reverberating against your joined chests.

“See how well you’ve done?” You half-chuckled, half-sobbed, giving your first tentative smile. “It is easier when you are here. The rest fades.”

Kissing the top of your head lightly, Faramir circled a hand over your back, faint pressure bringing tingles down your spine. Sensation that drowned out the buzzing cries of your head.

“You are safe with me. Safe right here,” he affirmed.

Exhaling more tension, you tightened your grip, fingers flexing against his doublet.

“Together we can find the power to make the world of our dreams one day at a time,” Faramir told you, “One day after another I will remind you you have a safe home in my arms. Let me be your shield.”

“And let me be your armor,” you murmured, finally relaxing fully into his embrace.

“Armor,” Faramir echoed with a smile, “Forged perfectly for each other. I like that. Perfect for one at least, for you suit me just as you are.”

This time he tilted your chin, lifting your teary gaze to meet his and your head to nod before he pulled you in for a gentle kiss upon your lips.

“Nothing more,” he whispered, “Nothing less.”

Taglist: @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart @kilibaggins @filiswingman @ibabblealot @stormchaser819 @pirate-lord-of-narnia @datglutengoblin @letmelickyoureyeballs @mossyskinn @wordbunch @tiny-and-witchy @th3-st4r-gur1 @fleurdemiel-145 @mistresskayla-blog1 @misabelle717 @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @evattude @kpopgirlbtssvt @rivendell-poet | Reply/Message/Ask to join 🖤

#lord of the rings #lotr #lotr imagines #lotr x reader #faramir #faramir x reader #faramir x female reader #female reader #hurt/comfort #ask #anon #requested

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dallasgallant · 2 days ago

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Time period post: 1960s Thanksgiving

Going to make some time period stuff for holidays as they pop up as it’s fun to look into and I knew a few people are like me time period wise and want to look into it. I also make posts like this on request so if there’s something you want to know about let me know! Anyways,

Homemade-

Now, while people did bake and cook their food largely from scratch back in the day it’d be dishonest not to point out that post ww2 saw a rise in premade. Not entirely but canned soups, box mixes, jello and ingredient stuffs etc. However, for the large part people did cook on their own at least certain recipes. Now Oklahoma is a sort of middle ground to where it’s “located” so …. Cornbread or rolls on the thanksgiving table? Answer me that lol.

I mentioned this in a food post before but a lot of new recipes were coming out during this time with the rise in product availability, surviving the war and well a lot of drugs. Some of it is stunt marketing or to look nice at parties, others become stables! Green bean casserole which is a staple on thanksgiving in a lot of homes would’ve still been a novelty, new and exciting as it’d only been made in 1955!

Tradition-

Thanksgiving is perhaps the most tradition heavy holiday, especially in the 1960s at its peak. Your family started doing it this way X years ago and it will stay that way.

Who carves the turkey (maybe with one of those new electronic serving knives), who does the wishbone, who’s helping mom and grandma in the kitchen?

Kids tables, arts and crafts, playing some pre dinner football, dinner at 3 etc.

Macys thanksgiving day parade! It’s been around since the 1920s but was first nationally televised in 1947.

Football games, if your teams playing.

Everyone’s different but I’m rattling off a few as they’re prevalent ones.

Home for the holidays-

Just figured this one out/was told it but the “holiday season” was more of a defined thing back in the day. Relatives visiting would sometimes go from Thanksgiving-new years — if someone was hosting all the way through anyway. As sometimes it’s split between houses.

A tradition that springs from this is Putting up the Christmas tree! This was surprising to learn about but back in the day (and some families today) you’d put it up after dinner, with the usual fanfare and family help as it’s a hectic time of year so having it up and family around is a good deal.

Formality-

Sort of a hold over from the 1940s where you’d dress up just to eat dinner(usually middle-upper class) you dress up nice for holidays even if you’re staying home with family all day. Not black tie or anything but you dress nice. This has begun to totally dissolve in the last 10 years or so.

Usually you’ll get the nice china and actual silverware, table decor is HUGE.

Dinner is usually both cooked all day but also eaten early usually 3-4 but like traditions it greatly depends on the family.

Going out and class-

I thought about this a bit as the gang are poor so I’d wanted to take that into consideration on how it could affect holidays. Sometimes I think they’d fully cook a meal, not nearly as massive as a soc or fancy placement and china (as Soc’s are rich rich.) but quaint and nice.

Sometimes I think they’d go out to eat such as:

(Seriously I cannot overemphasize how huge Howard Johnson’s were in the 60s and it could probably be a post itself)

Where you can get a nice ‘traditional’ holiday dinner for cheap that also works well when you have to work etc. There was also generally a trend of “resteraunting” (?) among more middle class families for thanksgiving, occasionally and it depends on who you are - most people would go the more traditional route.

Leftovers! Again time of ‘let’s try shit’ while new staples were being added to the thanksgiving meal so were how to deal with leftovers.

Story of thanksgiving-

Slight bit more of a focus on the Thanks giving part of the holiday, being thankful for friends, family, good fortune etc. Maybe you’d tell the myth of it to kids or have some sort of tradition of saying what you’re thankful for or do something symbolic.

Though I think in the 60s (even the decades prior) there was more of a shift towards it being the “food and football” holiday even then! As it’d already far secularized as a holiday and was just a nice warm, comforting time of year and time with family etc. you’d remember snuggling with grandpa on the couch for a nap far more than some old story told before you can eat, you know?

#the outsiders #outsiders #time period post #time period post : thanksgiving #thanksgiving #details #outsiders meta

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demigod-shenanigans · 13 hours ago

Text

Actual lengthy reply time finally (sorry this took me literally forever)

Yeah I did not want Leo to be alone right after this, and I didn’t want Piper to be alone with it either. Canon may refuse to let them go to Jason’s funeral, but I will let them grieve together, damn it!

The backstory/pre-plot part actually ended up being quite a bit more than just a prologue, it’s the first few chapters, but I hope it’ll still feel well-paced and fitting when we get around to the rest of them! I wanted to take the time to get into all the feelings and set up/resolve some stuff, plus sticking to the ToA timeline I had to get to the point where Apollo is back on Mount Olympus, which takes a minute. Most of it is relevant and will be back to haunt Leo later!

Responding to the bullet points by putting the relevant numbers in front (not sure why it apparently changed all of yours to 1. in this reblog, they’re correct if I look at your post?? Very strange)

2. Yep! Leo not feeling loved/worthy of love was a huge deal in HoO, and all canon did was put a girlfriend on it and pretend we’re good now, but we will not be doing that here! Leo will learn to recognize that he’s loved, and if it’s the last thing he does :)

4. This bugged me so much in HoO you have no idea. I actually kind of prefer HoO to pjo just because I adore all the characters, but plot wise it’s all over the place and we really miss out on a bunch of friendship stuff because it’s so focused on all the love triangles. I need more platonic Argo bonding!! Let them all be buddies!!

5. This is partially me being demiromantic but many if not all my favorite ships are characters that have strong platonic bonds first. Something something marrying your best friend. I also feel like Leo and Jason both took forever to realize they were into each other (Leo grumbling about Jason constantly being hot in his general vicinity being the reason why he doesn’t have a girlfriend will always crack me up, lol, and Jason spent so long doing what he thought he was supposed to/what was expected of him, including his relationship with Piper, that he didn’t really get to stop and properly have a sexuality crisis for ages) so I wanted to re-establish that for the fic, especially since valgrace fics are kind of split on whether they have jiper happen and break up like they did in canon or just never have them date at all

6. I couldn’t resist sneaking that one in. Insert lame Apollo dodgeball Leo Valdez joke LMAO

7. <3

That’s such a smart way to put it!! Leo is dealing with a lottt and we’re going to get into it a bit more in future chapters but yeah he’s definitely avoiding talking about some of it (in both the way that we the audience don’t see all of it and in him and Piper actively coping via distracting themselves and not talking about some of it)

Honest confession: I really struggle with Shel. I’m glad she exists, but she’s basically an OC when you try to work with her in fanon, because she really only exists to confirm Piper is sapphic and canon gives us absolutely no information on her. I know she’s Cherokee, I know she’s sapphic, I know she likes hiking and I think she has a piercing? That’s it. She’s just kind of a nothing character, which is fine in the books but makes it very hard to work with her in fanon content. Can we have at least a little additional input on her please? 🤲

Glad you think that works well!! Especially because I actually don’t find myself that funny? Though I think it probably helps that I’ve got a general tendency to get attached to traumatized joke coping characters, so I’m pretty familiar with it conceptually. The last book series I fixated on also did this a lot (intense explorations of grief briefly interrupted by memes LOL)

The audience knows stuff!! But Leo was not around for that! And he’s processing a lot at the moment but that just really makes it sink in how much he missed, both because he was gone for so long and also when he was there but so caught up in his own problems (and especially in seeing how “happy” Piper and Jason were apparently without him, because again Leo doesn’t feel worthy of love and has spent a lot of time in foster families who weren’t that great and made him feel like they’d eventually decide they didn’t want him anymore) that he didn’t see the cracks that Piper now tells him were there basically for the whole relationship. So yeah it’s a shock. On a lot of levels. But it’s a lot less earthshaking than the shock of Jason being gone, and therefore easier to focus on. The Piper related changes may or may not also hit him sometime in the near future ;)

Quotes section (please just in general know I’m delighted you did this it brings me suchhh joy to see what bits touched my readers the most):

-No spoilers, but I will say there’s a reason the fic starts out with memories of Esperanza. And yeah, the whole Jason situation is tearing open a lot of old wounds, specifically because of how similar it is: a situation Leo was unable to do anything to change that he feels responsible for (even though, realistically speaking, he isn’t). A loved one that got ripped away from him far too soon that he never got the chance to say goodbye to. A kind of desperate ache that nothing is ever going to fix.

I have a couple of grievances with ToA, and the way none of Jason’s loved ones are allowed to stay mad at Apollo is definitely one of them. Like, it’s established Jason died because of Apollo’s broken Styx prophecy! We’re told that’s the reason it happens!! Piper is the only one who gets to be mad at him at all, and even then she’s only upset for a single scene and has forgiven Apollo the next time they meet. Grief can be messy and nasty and people lash out sometimes! Not everyone needed to immediately be totally fine with the fact that Apollo got Jason killed!

-Glad you enjoyed that joke! I’m not super good with machinery so I worried I’d struggle with working that part into his narration but there’s some references to it I’m actually really happen with, and this is one of them :)

-Something something Leo is of the opinion that Piper should hate him how he hates himself! Also in this context, feeling a little evil about the fact that one of the reasons Leo doesn’t go to the Camp Jupiter funeral is that he thinks everyone would blame him for Jason’s death. The reality of it is that they wouldn’t! But when his mom died his aunt did blame him and so he automatically assumes that this time everyone will look at him and see that same blame written all over his face.

-English being my third language (technically second language going off of how well I actually speak it, I learnt French first but my French is shit lol), I’m really glad to hear it haha

-All of their lives are fucking weird, it’s a demigod thing, but Leo’s almost got everyone beat just based on the fact that the Queen of the Gods went out of her way to come babysit him. It’s even funnier because I’m pretty sure none of the others know this except for Piper and Jason. I wish we’d seen him tell Percy and Annabeth, I feel like that would have been a very funny interaction.

-There is something related to Leo in that box, which may or may not be something I’ve mentioned on this blog before ;)

-Unfortunately for Leo, there’s a bit more stuff he has to deal with before the Plot can start. For instance, the fact that he is (theoretically) in a relationship right now.

I’m so so glad you enjoyed this!! I’ve read and reread your comment a whole bunch of times now, and every time I do I get this huge grin on my face. This is the kind of comment i don’t get a lot but that when I do get it I’ll treasure literally forever. You made my whole month with this and it’s made me very excited to get back to the fic (which between exam phase and hospital stuff I haven’t gotten to work on nearly as much as I hoped lately)

The choiceless hope in grief

Summary: Leo Valdez has lived and died for the gods. Their war has shaped his life since he was a baby. With Gaia defeated, he sort of hopes he can finally rest. He has friends and some semblance of home to return to for the first time since he was eight years old. Just this once, he allows himself to hope the good things might stick.

But the gods aren’t done with them just yet, by the time Leo finds his way back, Jason is gone.

This time, Leo decides he’s done just taking the Fates’ bullshit lying down. If getting his best friend back means striking a deal with the gods and venturing into the Underworld… well, it’s probably not even the most reckless thing he’s ever done.

The caveat of said deal? He has to trust Jason will follow him, or his self-doubt will doom them both.

And after the life he’s lived, Leo is so intricately familiar with self-doubt that he could probably trademark the word.

Or: The only possible way for Orpheus to succeed is if he learns to think of himself as a person worth loving.

Word Count for chapter 1: ~5k

Rating: Teen and Up

So! *claps hands together* I’ve been threatening you guys with my Orpheus Eurydice valgrace fic for a while! Technically I wanted to wait to post this until I’m completely done writing the fic, and I mostly intend to stick to that! I’m only posting this now because I have a minor surgery tomorrow and I’d rather be anxious about fic related things than about the surgery in question. So, take this chapter as a preview of sorts, more to come soon-ish but probably not immediately!

A couple of important notes before we start:

-TW for suicidal ideation. It’s less Leo actually wanting to die and more his canon behavior of “I’m doing something extremely reckless that might succeed but if it doesn’t, my death is an acceptable consequence”, paired with general grief related self-loathing, but if you think you’re not in the right headspace to read about that, come back when you are or at least tread carefully. This fic pics up at the end of The Burning Maze, so especially the beginning is pretty heavy on the grief stuff.

-Since ToA is vaguely canon to this fic, Leo and Calypso are technically dating in the beginning, but they don’t really interact positively as a couple (honestly they don’t interact that much in general) and break up pretty early on. Just be aware in advance that they’re still together for a little bit.

-Fic title is from Talk by Hozier which is maybe a painfully obvious pick but it was too perfect for me not to use it.

Chapter 1: Leo and Piper have an extended sleepover

It wasn’t a discussion between Leo and Piper whether or not to go to Jason’s funeral. They came to the decision that they wouldn’t silently—or as silently as one could come to an agreement when all parties involved were sobbing.

Maybe it should have been a discussion. There was a part of Leo that worried he’d regret this later—his refusal to take this chance to say goodbye and let himself grieve.

But Leo remembered his mother’s funeral. Remembered the way his aunt Rosa had looked at him like she knew his mother’s death had been his fault. Leo couldn’t stand the thought of people looking at him like that again.

He also didn’t remember his mother’s funeral bringing him any sense of closure or comfort. He’d stood at her grave, afterwards, just as desperate and afraid and utterly inconsolable as he’d been before the funeral, except it had suddenly felt sickeningly final. The wound it had torn in his soul had kept bleeding for years, and the scars would stay forever. He didn’t need any of Apollo’s shitty oracles to know Jason’s death would be exactly the same.

At this point, Leo was pretty sure his sanity was being held together by a combination of jokes and a truly questionable amount of duct tape.

Beyond all that, though, Camp Jupiter was a battlefield right now. It would continue to be a battlefield for the foreseeable future.

Leo wasn’t a coward. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go back and help. But one of his best friends was already in a box, and there was no way in hell he’d risk the other.

With how tightly Piper was clinging to him, maybe she was thinking the same thing.

For all his big talk about dragon escorts, Festus did most of the actual escorting on his own, occasionally torching what Leo hoped were monsters and not random public monuments. Leo, for his part, spent most of the journey crammed into the backseat of the car next to Piper, sandwiched between her and a bunch of moving boxes that seemed determined to flatten him into a Leo-shaped pancake whenever they took a sharp turn.

He’d spent so long thinking about seeing her and Jason again.

He’d talked Calypso’s ear off about them the whole journey, to the point where it had clearly started to annoy her. He’d thought about various ridiculous entrances he could make, and the fact that he’d probably get yelled at, but he’d also thought about sitting together by the campfire, sharing nachos. He’d thought about Jason hugging him so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe, and Piper cussing him out while she held him, making him promise never to do anything that reckless again.

Now Piper was actually holding him, and Leo couldn’t feel anything. There was a numbness in his chest. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to ever feel happiness again. Hell, even if he did, what was the fucking point? Every time anything even remotely good happened in his life, it got ripped away from him again.

They didn’t talk a whole lot for most of the drive. They cried until it felt like they couldn’t anymore, clinging to each other like desperate children.

Even if they’d wanted to talk about what had happened, Piper’s dad was right there, and despite the Mist usually working overtime for them, having him overhear seemed like a gamble. Or, well, maybe that was what Leo told himself. Maybe he just wasn't sure he was ready to hear it all. He still felt like he couldn’t think. He was overwhelmed to hell and couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Several hours into the trip, his stomach started grumbling. Piper dug through the bag at her feet and offered him one of her PB&J sandwiches, but Leo couldn’t eat. He hadn’t skipped a meal in forever—he’d been homeless and unsure when he’d even get access to the next meal enough times that it had been all but tattooed into his skull that he couldn’t afford to—but he couldn’t even think about eating without feeling sick. He thought about Jason. He thought about the state he’d left Camp Jupiter in and the fact that they hadn’t even been able to give the dead their proper funeral rites.

Had Leo’s help made any difference at all? Had anything he’d done in his life changed things even slightly?

Leo knew the Fates had intended for it to be fire that fell—for him to burn in a bright, hot blaze and turn himself to charcoal. But he’d refused to stay dead like a good little pawn, and now Jason was gone, and it was all his fault.

He wasn’t sure how Piper could even look at him right now, but he was beyond grateful that she was holding onto him as tightly as she did. It was the only reason he didn’t fall to pieces completely. The cog at the heart of Leo’s machine had broken in a way that made it utterly beyond repair, and now it felt like a matter of time before the whole thing came apart. Piper holding him was the only reason his remaining pieces were still functioning.

It should have been impossible for Leo to fall asleep under these circumstances, but he’d been traveling for hours and fighting before then and he’d cried out his remaining energy, so eventually, the world started to fade around him, reduced to just the sound of Piper’s breaths, until finally, those went, too.

~~~~

It would have been kinder, maybe, if Leo had dreamed up some shitty visions promising violent death and/or the end of the world. That would have been business as usual.

Instead, he dreamed of his time on the Argo II—of one of those early nights when the different groups were still getting to know each other, having a brief moment to breathe between their ridiculous tasks and saving the world.

It had seemed reasonable to catch each other up on what had happened on their end. Percy, Hazel and Frank had talked about rescuing Thanatos, and Piper, Jason and Leo had told them what had happened with Hera in turn.

This would have been a boring intel conversation at best, seeing as Leo had been there for all of their part, but they’d grabbed snacks and sat on cushions on the floor and made it a whole bonding activity. Jason had been wedged between Piper and Leo, and they’d taken turns storytelling.

And Jason had bragged. So much. But he hadn’t even had the decency to brag about himself like a normal human being. Instead, he’d talked about how capable Piper and Leo had been, somehow managing to make Leo sound like the coolest person he’d ever met. Which was ridiculous, considering he’d met everyone else on their team.

And sure, Leo made it sound like he thought he was amazing all the time, but he was exaggerating, which everyone, himself included, knew.

Jason didn’t seem to have gotten the memo, though. He had one arm wrapped around Leo the whole evening, and he got all starry-eyed when he talked.

“Leo took on three Cyclopes by himself. Three!”

“Dude, stop!” Leo had laughed, shaking his head. “I know I’m incredible and you’re blessed to be friends with me and stuff, but you weren’t even conscious for that part.”

“Still happened, though.” Jason had beamed at him. “You’re amazing, dude. I would have died about fifteen times on that mission if it hadn’t been for you. You guys should’ve seen him.”

It would have been easier if Leo had thought Jason was just trying to talk him up to the others to make them more willing to trust him after how badly he’d messed up in New Rome, but Jason wasn’t the type. He’d looked like he honestly believed every single word he was saying.

So, of course, Leo had refused to seriously deal with any of the things that made him feel.

“Sorry, Pipes, but I’m pretty sure your boyfriend is in love with me. It’s the fire powers, I’m afraid. I’m just too hot to resist,” Leo had joked instead, and Piper had untangled herself from Jason’s other side to throw Doritos at Leo, and everything had been right in the universe.

~~~~

Waking up from that, blearily blinking himself awake in the car full of moving boxes and remembering… that was a worse punch in the gut than waking up from most nightmares had been. And Leo should know. He’d had so many of those over the years that he was basically a certified nightmare expert at this point.

Leo wanted to go back in time and spend forever in that one evening, living it over and over and over again until the Fates or a temporal paradox or something eventually killed him. He wanted to hold on to what they’d been back then—the three of them together and happy and whole,back before they’d realized what the prophecy really meant.

He wanted to stay wrapped in Jason’s arm and hear him laugh at whatever stupid joke Leo came up with while he and Piper threw snacks at each other like ten year olds. He wanted to believe he could actually be the person Jason was bragging about—this invincible hero that could do just about anything and saved people’s lives.

But Leo had never been that hero. Even his sacrifice had been the selfish decision of a coward who wasn’t ready to die just yet. Jason had been their Superman. The guy who could fly and threw lightning and saved people from falling to their deaths. Jason had been the hero. And ultimately, that had been what killed him.

Leo wasn’t exactly sure what he planned to do once they got to Oklahoma. He should have been heading back to the Waystation, to give Calypso the normal life he’d promised. But he wasn’t thinking about Calypso, or the Waystation, and the thought of a normal life had gone out of the window the second he’d seen the coffin. Besides, the Waystation would mean people asking questions, wanting to know about his mission and asking him to talk about his feelings, and he didn’t want that.

The only thing Leo really wanted to do right now was not think.

By the time they got to the house, it was so late that cross-country dragon flight seemed inadvisable for visibility reasons alone, so Leo agreed to stay the night. Festus nuzzled him for a bit, got a fuel snack from the canister Leo had brought and then folded down into his million pound suitcase form for the night.

It took a little under two hours to carry all the boxes inside, which was an annoying amount of time to be carrying boxes but seemed like an absurdly short amount to move the contents of an entire life.

They spent some time in search of the necessities that needed to be unpacked, but the house was still furnished and also had running water and electricity as of a few days ago, so it wasn’t that bad.

While Piper went in search of some ancient camping gear so Leo wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor—this seemed silly to him, the floor was far from the worst place he’d ever slept—Leo asked Piper’s dad if he could help with dinner.

Tristan looked relieved at his offer, actually. He’d been staring at the assorted vegetables with a slightly lost expression, trying to hack at one of the zucchinis with a butter knife. It seemed like he was trying to remember how cooking worked and had just discovered he had absolutely no idea.

Considering how long he’d been an insanely rich guy with a personal cook, Leo guessed that actually might have been a pretty accurate read on the situation.

“You might want to try a sharper knife,” Leo suggested, which made Piper’s dad look absolutely mortified. “Try not to chop off any of your fingers, though. I think Piper’s been traumatized enough for one week.”

The words were out of his mouth before Leo could think to stop them. Tristan didn’t laugh, but at least it didn’t seem like he’d be tossing Leo out of the house over this. Maybe he realized people sometimes said stupid shit when they were grieving. Maybe Piper had just warned him in advance that Leo was like this sometimes.

Tristan just went to find a different knife, which would have maybe been concerning if he hadn’t gone back to hacking at the vegetables a moment later.

“Well, at least this one is actually cutting through the zucchinis. That’s already an improvement.”

“Yeah, I’m basically a cooking expert,” Leo said with a grin, only half-joking. He went to peel and chop up the carrots, and was done with those and about half the mushrooms by the time the poor zucchini had been hacked to bits.

“You and Piper went to school together, right?” Tristan asked after a while of them quietly chopping vegetables for the casserole, trying to make sense of things with information he didn’t have and that, judging from past evidence, probably would have made his skull crack. “You and her and Jason.”

“Yeah. We went to Wilderness school together.” Leo winced, trying not to think too hard of Jason while also trying to remember the lies they’d already told Piper’s dad. At this rate, he was pretty worried his own skull would crack, too. “Then all three of us switched to a different school. Then I was gone for a while.”

Tristan nodded like this made perfect sense, though he mostly seemed lost in thought. That was a little rude, in Leo’s opinion. If he went through all that effort to remember their elaborate setup of lies, the least Piper’s dad could do was appreciate it!

“I’m glad you’re here now, with everything that’s happened. Piper was really upset when you left,” Tristan said, still with that faraway look in his eyes. “The last few months were hard for her. Between the move and the breakup, she really could have used a friend.”

Leo promptly lost all rights to make fun of Piper’s dad and his vegetable chopping skills because at the word ‘breakup’, the knife slipped and he nearly sliced off two of his fingers.

“Fuck! Ow!” he said eloquently, trying to avoid bleeding all over the cutting board in his attempt to get to the sink. “Jason and Piper broke up?”

The question sounded absurd even to his own ears. Why would Jason and Piper break up? They’d been happy together.

Surely, Piper’s dad had to be talking about something else.

To Leo’s shock, Tristan nodded.

“A while ago, yes,” he said, but he didn’t go into details—possibly because Leo was bleeding all over the sink. “We should bandage that. Do you think you need stitches?”

“No, the cuts aren’t that deep,” Leo decided, turning on the faucet and holding his bleeding hand under the stream of cold water. Maybe he should have been more concerned about the injury, but his mind was still whirring at the thought of his best friends breaking up. Unfortunately, the cold water stung like hell. He hissed with pain. “Sorry for making your kitchen look like a crime scene right after moving in. Usually, I at least have the decency to wait a day or two.”

Because the house was a small, cozy place and Leo had not had the decency to curse quietly, Piper appeared in the doorway a moment later, an alarmed expression on her face.

“What happened?”

“I’ve been bested by a stupid potato,” Leo cursed, holding up his bleeding hand and wiggling his fingers for emphasis. He figured out immediately that this was a mistake. “Ow.”

“Stop that, dumbass!” Piper cursed, moving to stand beside him. “Sink was the right call, but you need to use soap or the cuts could get infected. Dad, any chance we have gauze lying around somewhere?”

Tristan didn’t seem to question why his daughter had immediately jumped into emergency medical treatment mode. He just abandoned the cutting board and headed for the front door.

“Not exactly sure what box our regular medical supplies are in, but I’ll get the first aid kit from the car. I’ll be right back.”

“Do we have to do the soap?” Leo whined, because fuck, that stung, but Piper nodded with a scary expression on her face, so he complied. “How do you even know this stuff? Are we sure you’re not secretly an Apollo kid?”

“I know this stuff because I’m friends with a bunch of morons who have zero sense of self-preservation,” Piper cursed, gritting her teeth. “You shouldn’t be around knives when you’re this distracted.”

“I can usually cook just fine when I’m distracted. Your dad was the one who told me you and Jason broke up in the middle of this stupid potato,” Leo said defensively. “Is that the Mist messing with him?”

That was the only explanation his mind had supplied so far that made any sense to him.

Piper shook her head. “We really did break up. That was a few months ago.”

Leo felt his jaw hit the floor.

“What the hell happened? You were together for ages. I thought- you always seemed so happy.”

“I know, but-” Piper broke off abruptly when her dad came back inside with the first aid kit. Demigod stuff, then?

Leo’s mind was racing. The breakup was a completely stupid thing to focus on, considering everything that had happened in the last few days. He knew that.

But it was easier to try and make sense of this than it was to try and make sense of the fact that Jason was gone and he’d never get to see him again.

“Is it alright if we do this somewhere else?” Piper asked her dad, taking the first aid kit from him.

“Of course. It might be easier to patch him up when you’re both sitting down, anyway.” He turned towards Leo. “Thank you for your help, but I think I can take it from here.”

Leo sent a silent prayer to whichever deity was responsible for protecting vegetables—Demeter, probably?—and gave what he hoped was an encouraging thumbs up with his uninjured hand before he followed Piper into the hallway to presumably be reprimanded some more.

~~~~ They ended up sitting on an old bed that looked like it had lived a long, miserable life and was excited for retirement, but the wooden frame thankfully didn’t break down under the weight of the new mattress or the additional weight of them sitting on said mattress. Piper explained that this had been her dad’s room when he’d lived here as a child, and that it would probably become her room now. Then she went very quiet and focused on bandaging his hand, clearly avoiding looking at him.

“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” Leo asked. The thought made him feel ill. “Please tell me it wasn’t something like, I don’t know, you two being unable to stand being around each other after what happened to me. I think I’d actually have to blow myself up again if it was.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t feel like one at all. The thought that he'd managed to ruin his best friends’ relationship on top of everything else made it hard to breathe.

When Piper shook her head, it felt like a whole boulder was lifted off his shoulders.

“I actually think we would have broken up sooner if you hadn’t gone missing. We leaned on each other a lot after you disappeared. It wasn’t until we realized we wouldn’t find you and things started to settle down a little that I had time to think. And when I did…” Her voice went very quiet, and she still didn’t look up at him. “I realized I wasn’t happy in the relationship. I don’t think I ever was.”

“How did I not know that?” Leo wondered quietly. “I just… you two seemed happy to me. What kind of garbage best friend am I?”

Piper shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. I was telling myself I was happy for a long time. It’s almost- sometimes I wonder if I was charmspeaking myself. That maybe I kept saying I was in love with Jason until I convinced myself I actually was. And with Hera and my mom setting it up… I love-” her voice caught in her throat, and Leo felt like maybe he needed to throw up, “-loved Jason, but not like that.”

“Pipes, I’m really sorry.” Leo squeezed her shoulder. “That sounds like it was super hard for both of you.” Leo felt awful about the fact that he hadn’t even been around to comfort either of them, but it wasn’t like he could fix it now. It was just another item on Leo’s unending list of epic screwups he’d never be able to make up for.

“Jason was… well, he took it exactly like I expected him to. He was surprised, but he didn’t get angry or anything. He mostly seemed okay. Part of me wonders if maybe…” But whatever Piper had been thinking about, she seemed to decide it wasn’t important. “It was hard to get a proper read on him, and as nice as he was about it, things were still super awkward after. I'm terrified he died thinking I didn’t care about him.”

And then she was tearing up again, and Leo thought he would shatter if she cried.

“He knew you cared,” he said as earnestly as he could manage, pulling Piper to his chest again. “You love way too annoyingly for him not to have known. Hell, even I know you love me, and we both know I’m a fucking nightmare when it comes to this stuff.”

“I missed you so much,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his back like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Oh, I’m about to make you regret saying that,” Leo said, forcing himself to smile. “I’ll bring it up each and every time you say you find something I do annoying.”

“You’re annoying as hell, but you’re still my best friend.” He could feel her tears dripping onto his shoulder, and he knew that would make him start up again too. “I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”

And well, passing away from dehydration after crying too much would be a really lame way to die the second time, but everything was just too much right now, so if that was how he went, Leo wasn’t sure anyone could blame him.

~~~~

For the next couple of weeks, Leo stayed.

Helping Piper and her dad unpack was the perfect way to keep himself occupied and not have to think. Usually, a mundane task like this probably would have driven Leo nuts. But right now, it was a bit of a godsend—if not literally, at least figuratively. Being productive was always so much easier when it was done in order to avoid something you wanted to do even less. There was a reason his spaces in the foster homes had only ever been tidy when he had exams coming up.

He helped cook, too, and Piper’s dad became increasingly less garbage at it the longer this went on—like muscle memory was finally kicking in after years of disuse.

It was mostly good—listening to Piper reminisce about trips she’d taken with her dad and where she’d gotten the weird variety of items she kept in her room. When they weren’t unpacking, Leo and Piper played video games or watched movies or explored the area. Twice, during the night, they took Festus on a little flight to a nearby fast food place. Finding a parking spot was a bit of a nightmare, unfortunately. Leo would submit a complaint about their inability to accommodate celestial bronze dragons the first chance he got.

The first time they tried hiking—Leo didn’t even like hiking, he’d spent enough time outside for several lifetimes, why did he do this to himself—they got hopelessly lost in the woods, and of course, due to demigod bullshit, neither of them had brought a phone, so Google Maps wasn’t an option. It was probably for the better. The last thing that situation needed on top of them being lost was a monster attack.

They were already jokingly planning out their new life in the woods when, thankfully, a girl their age came to their rescue.

“A human being! Thank the gods. The squirrels weren’t talking to us,” Leo greeted her, which had Piper shout “Please ignore Leo!” loudly from the branches of the tree she’d been climbing.

The girl lifted her head, spotted Piper and promptly burst out laughing.

“What in the world are you doing up there?”

“Trying to get a better vantage point,” Piper sighed, making her way back down the tree. “We’re hopelessly lost.”

“Well, nice to meet you, hopelessly lost. I’m Shel,” the girl said, still grinning. Leo decided immediately that he liked her.

Piper had almost made it back down when she somehow missed a branch and fell the rest of the way. In comedic movie fashion, Shel moved before Leo had the chance to and caught her mid-tumble. “That was a bit of a dramatic way to get my attention, but you’re cute, so I’ll allow it.”

“Oh yeah, Piper’s got a bit of a thing with falling for people that way,” Leo commented, and Piper gave him her most murderous look while she got back on her feet.

“You guys need help getting back?”

“Please, yes,” Piper said immediately. “It turns out we’re both garbage with maps.”

“Maybe you just need a tour guide next time,” Shel suggested, winking at Piper, whose face turned scarlet. Leo wasn’t even mad about being the third wheel for once. He’d give her so much shit about this later.

And he did. And then Piper properly came out to him—no label or anything, mostly as extremely confused but sure she liked girls, which also made a few additional pieces click into place regarding her breakup with Jason. She ended her anxiety-riddled explanation by thanking Leo for being so normal and annoying about all this.

Which was how Leo realized he’d apparently never told Piper he was bi.

Or maybe he had, and it had gotten lost along with their other memories of Wilderness. Stupid memory-stealing babysitters.

Well, at least they got to hug about it now.

~~~~

It was strange how normal some days felt when nothing would ever truly be normal again. When in every moment Leo and Piper spent together, the gaping hole that had been ripped into their trio was so blatantly obvious.

The benefit and problem of this friendship was that Leo and Piper were both experts at not talking about things they were struggling with.

This wasn’t exactly news. From what little Leo did remember of Wilderness School, they’d spent months not talking about his mom, or about the fact that Piper’s dad kept canceling their weekend plans. They’d both known there were things left unsaid, but as long as they’d been able to cheer each other up, that hadn’t really mattered. It made sense, honestly. Put two people who hadn’t had a shoulder to cry on for ages in a room together and see what happens!

Right now, this meant they were expertly ignoring the box of belongings Piper had picked up from Jason’s school. It had been pushed so far under the bed during that first night that it was no longer visible, and neither of them made any effort to move it out of its new home since. They ignored the topic of Jason, period, until it inevitably hit them in the face again.

It was mostly dumb shit that set them off. Piper automatically reaching for vanilla ice cream at the grocery store because it was Jason’s favorite—seriously, who in their right mind even liked vanilla ice cream?

Sometimes, Leo would make a joke and burst into tears instead of laughing because he knew it would have cracked Jason up. They found old photos unpacking. One time, Piper’s dad suggested they make tacos and they started simultaneously bawling their eyes out.

Leo had spent a long time exactly like this—pretending everything was normal and okay when it wasn’t either of those things until he inevitably broke down. Then he’d started to actually feel sort of okay whenever he was with Jason and Piper. Now, he was sure he would spend the rest of his life pretending.

His appetite was too used to being stuck in survival mode for him to bow to nausea for long, so he went back to eating properly after a few days. He still cried himself to sleep most nights. He kept dreaming about Jason. The memories wrapped themselves around him like a safety blanket that he knew would get ripped away again in the morning. He always woke up feeling empty. Sometimes, he wished he could just go to sleep and never wake up again.

But other than that, it was mostly good.

Then demigod communications went back up, and everything went to hell.

———

Chapter notes:

Fun fact! I originally planned for this chapter (as well as the next few chapters) to just be backstory in my head and for me to maybe do a flashback or two. Unfortunately for me, Piper McLean waltzed into the room and refused to leave.

I do actually think the fic works better this way, but it will take a second to get to the plot! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the whole journey :)

I may not be able to have Leo and Piper go to Jason’s funeral without seriously messing with the plot of Tyrant’s Tomb, but I could at least pick the most evil reason possible for them not to go!

Side note: I sort of forgot that Hedge and Mellie were supposed to be here according to TBM, but by the time I remembered I already had this chapter written out and, as someone who cannot be bothered to figure out how to write them, I decided to just leave it. ToA is vaguely canon to this universe, but only for the most part. Some details are inaccurate, and I think that’s okay.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs super, super appreciated as always!!

List of people that at some point asked to be tagged when I post this: @poppitron360 @ginnyluna @keefessketchbook (feel free to comment if you want to get taken off or be put on the tag list for future chapters!)

#tchig

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