#wow! the thing I spent my entire summer making is finally out! its still hard to process which is why im promoting it four days late!

[paging-possum]

DID YOU KNOW! The superhero comic that I've been meaning to make for two years is FINALLY AVAILABLE through the Shortbox Comics Fair!? Now you do! Like the visual says, it's about two guys, their first date, and a lot of dinosaurs. It's very silly, and if you read it I'll fall deeply and madly in love with you forever <3

You can find it here: https://www.shortboxcomicsfair.com/shop/p/villaintines-by-nat-martinA

[your-daily-biaswrecking]

Hello! can you do a scenario with fem!reader and father's best friend!namjoon? I totally understand if this is a concept you're uncomfortable with. All the armys are going crazy with the dilf!bts concept so I need to have this 😭

Tbh that's a hard concept (like absolutely don't do this irl y'all plss it's not okay if it's not fiction– go in the notes to read my PSA pls) so I had to write a bit of plot at the beginning just because I wanted to make it as less weird as possible lol

Namjoon wasn't the type of family friend you got to see a lot growing up. He was, however, the type of friend you got to hear about a lot. Your dad had spent his high school years being in a band that never really had its break, and Namjoon had apparently been the youngest member and your father's favourite. He kept talking about how he "raised" him, meaning he helped him get his first kiss and taught him about girls. Then your dad got your mum pregnant right after graduating, and they both decided to move to the US to find a job and start their family. Your family. And so your dad lost touch with his best friend.

He talked about him quite often, and you knew he had even visited once when you were still too young to have a memory of it. You had only ever seen a couple of pictures of them together; Namjoon looked like a very cringy 13-year-old with a terrible haircut. Not that your dad as a teenager looked any better. But that's beside the point. It doesn't matter what he looked like back then, today you probably wouldn't be able to even recognize him even if he passed you on the street.

"Did I tell you? My best friend moved here from Korea! The band kids are back together!"

Namjoon came back into your father's life at around the same time as you left it– moved away for college. And you kept getting all these updates on how great it was that they found each other again, how many things they did together and in general how happy your dad was. When you visited home for Christmas, Namjoon was away so you didn't run into him. And almost a year after he had moved there, you would finally meet him during the summer. Your father invited him for dinner one hot evening in July.

You opened the door to find him standing outside, your mother just a step behind to greet him. “Joonie! So glad you could make it. Come on in, come on in... Ah! As you know, this is our daughter.”

The man was tall and handsome, nothing like the pictures you had seen. And familiar. His eyes met yours and he smiled, making your blood run cold— you had seen that man before. Not even a week ago, staring at you at the bar while sipping his whiskey until you decided he was too hot and couldn’t be older than 30, so you walked up to him and gave him a napkin with your number and a lipstick stain of a kiss on it. He never called.

“Wow,” Namjoon said without his tone matching his words. “She has grown up so much.” And he looked you up and down again, checking you out kind of like he had done that night. Your entire face was burning, turning on your heels to get away. What the fuck kind of luck was that? He was your dad's friend? You hoped– you begged that he didn't recognize you. He wasn't saying anything, though his eyes kept on stealing looks, and so you thought you might have had a close escape. Until you run into each other in the kitchen. Alone. "Come here, young lady," he said in a deep voice that sent shivers down your spine. You already felt like you were in trouble. "Does your father know you go around giving your number to men almost twice your age?"

He was so close, eyes travelling lazily down your form with a smirk on his lips. "No," you choked. "I– I don't– You were staring at me, that's why I thought..."

"I was staring at you because I was trying to figure out if you were my best friend's daughter."

Hearing him say the words made your cheeks burn. Defeat. He had a logical excuse and all you had was that he was a little too much your type. And he sounded like he was scolding you, reminding you of your place. You lowered your head, really wanting to get out. "Please don't tell him."

Don't tell him I hit on you. Don't tell him I wanted to fuck you.

Namjoon didn't reply right away, but late that night you got a text from an unknown number. "I won't tell him anything."

He won't tell him anything. Perhaps that could be applied to what had already happened, or what would happen in the future.

You didn't text frequently, but you did nonetheless. And even though you were sure both of you would say they were simple, innocent texts, how innocent could they really be when the man already knew how you felt about him? Maybe you were crazy, but you thought he might like you too. Maybe he liked the fact that you liked him. It wasn't evident in anything he did or say, just the vibes you got from him those days he visited your house, or the way he looked at you when you were left alone for a second. The summer passed by so fast when every other day you met your father's best friend in one way or another.

When it was time for you to move back to the city where you attended college, Namjoon just so happened to be going there for some work too. And your parents were grateful that you had someone to travel with. The car ride was long and mostly silent. You had never been left alone for so long and suddenly you realised how hard it was to keep a conversation going without talking about how horny he made you feel just by being in the same, tight space with you. But the farther away you got from home, the less you cared about keeping your good reputation up.

"Where will you sleep tonight?" you asked him after he helped drop off all your stuff at your apartment late that night and was already at the door, ready to leave.

"I'll find a hotel," he told you, hand still on the door handle.

"You can stay here if you want to."

"Don't–" His plea was soft-spoken, in contrast to the intense way his eyes were piercing yours.

"Don't what?" you acted dumb. "All I'm saying is I'm sure dad would rather you stay instead of paying for a room. You're like family, anyway."

You noticed how he took in a deep breath, grip around the knob getting harder. "Don't bring him into this."

Saying that you two shouldn't mention your father was like admitting what was going on right now was beyond innocent. And even though your stomach clenched at his harsh tone, you bowed your head and whispered. "I'm sorry."

"This is so wrong," you heard him call loudly all of a sudden, making you look back at him. He was chewing on his lip desperately. "I was there when your dad got your mom pregnant. Do you know what I said? Fuck, man, how are you gonna get out of this bullshit? I shouldn’t be…"

You blinked at him, waiting to hear the end of the sentence. "Shouldn't be what?" You weren't gonna let him slip away that easily. You would push him until he had to say what he wanted to say. It was your only chance, anyway.

Namjoon sighed. He pushed the door closed and walked up to you steadily all while he was staring straight into your eyes. "Why did you give me your number that night?"

Your breathing was already getting heavier. You wouldn't back away. What was the point? He knew already. "Because you were hot. And I wanted you to fuck me."

He chewed his lip for a few seconds, watching your face as he contemplated his next words. "Why do you want me to stay over tonight?"

You gulped. He was so close, closer than ever. "Because you're hot," you whispered. Glance down on his lips. "And I want you to fuck me."

He closed his eyes momentarily before he was exhaling loudly. "Fucking– hell!"

And he instantly moved forward, one hand grabbing the back of your head as he brought your face to crush on his, mouths smashing against each other after all the times you had dreamed about it. It was so much better than you could have imagined, lips full and soft parting yours for his tongue to slip in between, making you moan. And you were trying to get closer and closer, almost tripping as you walked blindly further into the apartment. His jacket was discarded on the floor before your shirt joined it, and Namjoon was growling before attacking your neck with his teeth.

"Daddy..." The word truly slipped out of you, and he was pausing for a moment, pulling away to look at you.

"Really? You're really gonna call me daddy?" Your eyes were wide and cheeks burning, squirming away from him before he grabbed your wrist to keep you close. "Shit," he grunted, not sounding mad at all. "Alright, baby. Show daddy where your room is, need to get you in bed right away."

And you mewled at his words. You were there in no time, pulling the rest of your clothes off as Namjoon undressed too. Big and thick, he was even hotter like that, making you press your legs together as you took the sight in. And when he removed his boxers too, you got to found out his dick matched the rest of his body perfectly, long and thick and so hot it made your mouth water.

"Daddy," you whined as he started crawling over you. "You're so big. You're gonna tear me apart."

His large hand grabbed your jaw. "That's what you get for playing with big boys." And he kissed you ruthlessly again. His other hand travelling down your form until he found your pussy, fingers playing with your folds and humming in satisfaction. "So wet. Is that all for me, baby?"

"Yes, daddy," you moaned, hips trying to grind on his hand for some more friction. "I've been wet for you since I first saw you."

"Fuck. I know, baby," he breathed into your ear, two fingers slipping slowly inside you and stretching you out. "I could tell. You weren't hiding it very well, baby. How much you wanted me to ruin you. Which is why daddy's been hard for you all this time, too." Your breath was hitching as he was moving his hands slowly, not even trying to fuck you like that, just trying to get you ready for his cock. And he stopped. "Are you gonna let daddy fuck you raw, baby?"

You almost screamed. "Fuck, yes, daddy, please! Fuck me open with your cock."

Namjoon was growling as he retrieved his fingers from inside you. "What a dirty mouth! Who taught you to speak like that, you dirty, little whore? I thought you were a good girl."

Your nails were scratching his back as you whined and squirmed underneath him. "Oh, daddy, please! I need you! I'll be good for you."

And you felt the tip of his dick press against your entrance as he shushed you. "Alright then. Be a good girl for daddy and take this big cock like the good, little slut you are." And he shoved himself in you.

"O–oh my god!" you yelped. Namjoon didn't go easy on you, didn't go slow or gentle, he started pounding you fast and hard right away, truly fucking you open like you had asked him to. You were squirming underneath him but his body was so big and strong, it was caging you completely. And just to shut you up he kissed you again, tongue so deep in your mouth he was choking you. Namjoon was fucking you so hard he brought tears to your eyes, and you felt euphoric being used by him like that.

"My dirty, little cunt," he rasped after he freed your mouth. "Like taking my cock like that?" You were nodding, mewling, unable to speak. "What a good girl. Letting daddy fuck her as hard as he wants." He leaned back, grabbing your arms until he had your wrists pinned above your head and the new position gave him the ability to piston his hips against yours even faster, diving even deeper.

"Fuck, daddy, I'm gonna cum," you cried, legs shaking as they fought against his abusing thrusts between them.

"So easy," Namjoon panted with a smirk. "So easy to please you. Gonna cum cuz you've never had dick like daddy's before, huh? No one's ever fucked you this good? Those little boys your age, I bet they don't know shit about pleasing a nasty girl like you." He spat on his free hand and brought it right down on your clit, pressing on it hard. And you were moaning even louder. "There you go, baby. You can cum on daddy's dick now."

"Namjoon–" you yelped, and you felt your orgasm pop, gushing all your juices over him as he kept fucking you through it. He slowed down a bit, coming down to kiss you sloppily as you continued to whine with each thrust against your sensitive, tight walls.

"That's my good girl," he whispered, kissing you almost lovingly. "Don't worry, baby. We're not nearly done yet." And his thrusts slowly got deeper and deeper. "You really shouldn't have let me fuck you, baby. Cuz now I don't ever plan on stopping."

Masterlist | Part 2

[gukyi]

in the frosty air | a jjk drabble

summary: two weeks ago you and your roommate slept together. which would be fine, if you knew you both felt the same about each other. but you don’t. and now it’s christmas, and jungkook is still gorgeous and gentle and wonderful and here, and and you don’t really know what to do about that.

{college!au, roommates!au}

pairing: jungkook x reader genre: this is just an angst train tbh, but it has a happy ending! word count: 1.6k warnings: mentions of past alcohol consumption, this centers around everyone’s favorite capitalist holiday, being sad in the wintertime a/n: OHHHHHHHHHH *internet breaks* anyway yeah i’m back baby!!! here’s a little drabble to celebrate because i can’t help myself when it comes to jungkook. love me or we both go down coming soon!

“This Christmas is pretty fucking lame, isn’t it?”

You whip around at the sound of his voice. “Oh, hey. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I figured,” Jungkook chuckles, bending his head down as he crawls through the open window to join you on the fire escape. The temperature is freezing and the wind is stinging your skin, but it didn’t really feel right to be spending tonight inside. “Saw the window open. Thought you might be here.”

“Yeah. I was probably gonna head inside soon, though.” In the hopes that you would be curled up in your bedroom before Jungkook even got home. Seeing him lately has been hard. “How did your final go?”

“It was alright.” You don’t have to keep looking at him to feel Jungkook taking a seat next to you, crossing his legs over each other as he stares out into the city below you. It snowed a few days ago, and the sidewalks are still covered in that dirty slush that always lingers, wet and cold and black from car tires. Just being beside you makes your heart race, makes your chest tighten. “I was pretty stressed out about it, but then I just sort of remembered that I did my best and that was all I could do, you know?”

“That’s good.” You wish you had that mindset. You spend days studying for an exam and once it’s over, you spend days dwelling on all the things you might have gotten wrong. It’s a philosophy you apply to most aspects of your life. Why you did the thing you did. Why doing the thing you did was the worst thing you could have done. How you will recover from it. If you even will. 

Jungkook sighs. You turn to look at him, just briefly, glance at his side figure, and notice he’s wearing nothing but a giant zip-up hoodie. Isn’t he cold? “It doesn’t really feel like Christmas.”

“Yeah.” You don’t have anything else to say to that. It doesn’t. Which is a damn shame, because you and Jungkook spent the entire beginning of this month turning your tiny, two-bedroom apartment into a winter wonderland. You got a tree to put up next to your TV and decorated with the weirdest ornaments you could find. You hung up those dangly white Christmas lights on the balcony of your fire escape, the ones meant to look like icicles dripping from the metal railing. The radio has been playing nothing but Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey. And yet.

It’s not hard to wonder why this Christmas is such shit. Your spring internship fell through a week ago. Your parents rented a lake house and assumed you wouldn’t be coming with. All of your other friends have gone home already. And Jungkook, perhaps the last person in this whole goddamn city you would have wanted to spend time with, you can’t even bear to look at. 

“How did your finals go?” Jungkook asks, trying to keep the conversation going. 

“They were fine.” At least that torture is over. But living with Jungkook, seeing him every day and knowing that what you have done you can never undo--it’s endless. 

There’s silence. It’s like the two of you simultaneously have no idea and know exactly what to say. Like the words are lingering on the tips of your tongues but your lips are sealed shut. Opening them won’t be like a can of worms. It will be a dam, a waterfall of I’m sorrys and What nows. One week ago, in the heat of the night and in the haze of drink after drink, you and Jungkook made the worst mistake two roommates could ever make. 

“Are you going home this break?” You blurt out the words before you can stop yourself. 

Jungkook sighs. “I’m not sure.”

“It’s okay if you want to.” I get it. I’m not sure if I’d want to hang around and see me either. 

He shrugs. “I just haven’t decided yet.”

He knows that you’re staying. The two of you were so looking forward to spending Christmas together. Now look at you. Jungkook was the perfect roommate. Then everything changed. 

“Okay.” He’s probably just trying to figure out a way to let you down easy. 

Next to you, Jungkook rustles a hand through his pocket. “By the way, uh--I just remembered. I got you something.”

You don’t even have time to object before Jungkook is placing a small fabric box into your open palm, resting on your lap. You look down at the item, at the way your hand seems to envelop it. 

“You didn’t have to--”

“I wanted to.” Jungkook is firm in his response. “Besides, I got it a while ago. Figured now is as good a time as any to give it to you.”

There’s not really anything else to do except open it. Carefully, with trembling fingers, you pull off the lid. Inside sits a dainty silver locket resting amongst a pile of folded tissue paper. You gasp, your breath coming out in smoke in the cold winter air. 

“Oh my God, I--”

“I overheard you talking on the phone saying you wanted one,” Jungkook admits sheepishly. “I wanted to give it to you before I forgot.”

Fingers shaking from the cold, you pull the locket from the box. It dangles from its chain, a delicate little thing, barely the size of a fingerprint. Even on this hazy winter evening, it still catches the light.

For the first time tonight, you look up at him. His eyes are a swirling brown, a deep chocolate. They are unreadable. He offers a small, guarded smile your way, lips pink in the chilly air. “Thank you,” you tell him honestly. This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for you. 

You can’t accept this without returning the favor. Wordlessly, you get up from the fire escape, rushing indoors for a moment as you grab your gift from your bedroom. It’s been sitting in there for at least two weeks now. You hold your hand behind your back as you make your way back to the fire escape, sitting down next to him once more. 

With a small flourish, you reveal your own present. They’re drumsticks. 

“For you,” you tell him, that same small grin on your face. “Since you’re always drumming on everything. Thought you could use something to do that with.”

Jungkook looks positively starstruck. He takes the sticks in his hands, feels the wood with his fingers, tracing over the logo at the bottom. You aren’t very well versed in the world of drum equipment, but your friend in the orchestra told you it was a good brand. 

“Wow, Y/N,” he says, mouth agape. “This is... this is the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever gotten me. Thank you.”

“Always.”

And that’s the truth, isn’t it? No matter what you do, no matter what you say, you will always be there to give Jungkook what he deserves. To make his life just the tiniest bit better. Doing thoughtful things for him has never required effort on your part. There is just a part of you that will do them, because he deserves it. Because he is so gentle, and loving, and kind, and wonderful. 

You sit there for a little while longer, relishing in the brief respite of your gift exchange. It’s softened the ice, warmed the air, broken the tension. Even if only a little. But it’s enough to keep you out here, sitting next to him. It’s enough to keep you from drifting away. 

“I don’t regret that night.”

The words feel like biting wind. 

“What?” You turn to him. 

“I don’t. I’d do it again. A thousand times over.” Jungkook is resolute. He looks at you, eyebrows furrowed in determination. 

“Jungkook, what happened that night--”

“Is something I’ll never forget,” he finishes. “Do you know how fucking long I had been waiting to do that? To hold you? Kiss you? To spend the night with you?”

Each syllable presses deeper into your chest, imprinting themselves on your heart. You stare back at him, too shocked to say anything at all. 

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” Jungkook adds on, quickly backtracking. “I sort of... got that message when I woke up that morning and you were gone. But I just wanted you to know that that night didn’t change anything about how I feel about you.”

Jungkook’s got it all wrong. You were the one who fucked up. You were the one whose feelings won’t change. “I thought you were the one who didn’t feel the same.”

Jungkook chuckles, this sad, forced cough. “Are you kidding? I’d do anything to relive that night. You’re my favorite person in this whole world, Y/N.”

If the weather were just a little bit warmer, if the wind wasn’t as dry, perhaps tears would fall. But instead, you blink back at him and it feels at once like your heart weighs a million pounds and nothing at all. “Me too,” you choke out. “I never want to be without you.”

Your fire escape is barely big enough for one person, let alone two, but that doesn’t stop Jungkook from reaching over and pulling you in, pressing a chilly kiss to your frozen lips, the heat of his mouth warming you up from the inside out. It’s cold tonight, yes. But Jungkook makes you feel like it’s summer all year long. 

You smile against his lips. They feel like home. They taste like peppermint lip balm and coffee and ice. 

“Do you want me to stay?” He asks. As if he was even thinking about going home anyway. 

“Yes,” you whisper back. 

It feels a lot more like Christmas now. 

“Then I’ll stay.”

↳ don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback! i missed you guys!

[hehebread]

[BKDK] Izuku keeps mentioning a Kacchan to reporters and they think that's his gf

this was a request on twt that i had way too much fun writing. warning for suggestive language!

--

“And is there…. a special person….or a group of people you would like to thank on air today? Anyone who inspired you? Anyone you would attribute your success to? An image of victory per say?”

Izuku’s eyes glimmer as the bright lights of the studio reflect on his irises. “Oh!” He jumps in his seat, his perfectly- coiffed curls bouncing as he nods frantically to the show’s host. “Yes! Yes!” Leaning forward with his hands on his leg, the camera zooms in on his face where the blush is painting his cheeks. “I wouldn’t be the hero I am today if it wasn’t for Kacchan!”

And it’s as if an earthquake alert dropped on the talk show. The host grows this devious grin on his face as he turns to the camera team and says, “Well, well, well, behind every great man is a woman after all.”

Izuku isn’t quite sure why the host is bringing his mother into this since the interview is reaching its end and he has already discussed her influence in detail very early on, but he doesn’t get a chance to ponder.

The host, Yamaguchi-san, leans into Izuku’s space with renowned interest and an interesting glint in his eyes. Izuku feels himself sweating in his oversized maroon-striped suit.

“So, Midoriya-san, Hero Deku, Rising Symbol of Equity and Hope, can you tell us more about … Kacchan?” His voice goes higher at the last syllable, almost sing songs, and Izuku is not sure if he should be worried or not, but he won’t pass an opportunity to gush about Kacchan!

“Ah, Kacchan is very … confident, hardworking, strong, and smart. Kacchan is a hero who knows how to lead a team and perform under pressure, an inspiration to both myself and our entire graduating class, and a”—Izuku can feel the heat rise in his face as he tries to hide in his colour— “a shining star who was closer to me than All Might!”

The host makes a loud ‘AWWW’ noise at the same time as the small audience in the studio. “My, my! Sounds like Kacchan is very important to Hero Deku! Don’t be shy! Tell us more! Is there a physical description to go with your precious person?”

“Ahm!” Izuku fiddles with his fingers as he avoids the gazes on him. There a long beat of silence before he manages to say, “Muscles….Blonde…..Sharp eyes….” With a vague gesture to his middle section, he mumbles, barely audible, “Big, ugh…..” Heart.

“OOOOOOOOOH!” The host goes wild and so does the audience. “So are we talking Hiromi Oshima type big or maybe Rio Natsume, or aaaah Aki Hoshino even ….?”

Izuku feels his ears ring in humiliation as he tries to process what they’re talking about. Something Kacchan has in common with all these beautiful women is his big successful career so Izuku nods. “Yes!” Then, a thought occurs and he rises in his chair. “Even bigger!”

After all, Kacchan’s net worth is higher than these ladies.

“BIGGER?”

“The biggest!”

“Oh my god!” The host is losing his mind now! “And is it … natural? Or did Kacchan get a little help from professionals?”

“No, no, no! Kacchan was a natural ever since we were in school together!” Izuku’s eyes shine with a fire to defend his childhood best friend, no longer trying to hide in his big suit. “No one helped Kacchan get this big!”

“That’s … amazing!” The host shakes his head in both awe and disbelief. “Now we want to see Kacchan in action! When the hero works around the city, defeating villains, does the size get in the way?”

Does Kacchan’s fame get in the way of his work? “Sometimes,” Izuku muses, “But Kacchan never lets the restless and perky nuisances stop him, y’know. With a little shake from his hands, and a few colourful words of wisdoms, nothing gets in the way!” Izuku laughs as he remembers Kacchan’s way of dismissing fans and reporters alike.

“Wow!”

“Of course, there are times where Kacchan’s big firm moulds become springy and hard to control, but I have yet to see an instance where that has been a major issue. ”

Kacchan is still having some adjustment problems with his new hero costume, particularly his grenade mould, but that’s as far as distractions go.

“Does Kacchan not use support?”

“Uhm, only when it’s a dire situation! Sometimes I’m even allowed to provide assistance!”

“You must be very lucky…”

“I am! It feels … exciting and … very special! Kacchan doesn’t trust just anyone, y’know! I can never quite get used to the trust we built together. We are one unit working together.”

“Do you use your hands…. Or something else?”

“Oh, hands! Yes! But anything works really! Whatever Kacchan is comfortable with and needs at the time. Black Whip, combo moves, an iron grip...”

The host furrow his brows and seems to be considering Izuku’s answer before he opens his mouth again. “Uhm, never mind.” He then turns to the camera, smile back on. “Our time is almost running out! Thank you, hero Deku for your time! We look forward to seeing you again in the big screen!”

--

The next day, Izuku wakes up to the headline: Hero Deku And His Mysterious Busty New Girlfriend: The Beautiful and Spunky Kacchan!

He’s doomed

--

He sees Kacchan early the next day.

Having spent the morning talking to tabloids and the host show agents about the misunderstanding and whether or not it was possible to take down the episode at least, Izuku slumps his head on his desk in defeat.

Oh, this is very bad.

He starts thumping his forehead on the wood in sync with the bleeps noises in the phone, already planning his funeral in his head.

Okay, so it seems the suspense around this girlfriend is raking up his popularity, but god, at what cost.

“Nerd, we need to talk.”

Izuku’s soul near flies to the roof at the sound of the door to his office slamming close. Fuckfuckfuck.

Kacchan stands before him with his hand on his hip, teeth snarled and looking ready to tear his flesh open. Oh, this is going to be fun!

After flashing a haughty glare at the glass door to scare away the nosy friends hanging about, Kacchan continues, “About the interview.”

Of course! Yes! His final hour is approaching. “Haahahaha, what about it?” Izuku feels his undershirt cling to his torso, sweat collecting on his face. He directs a shaky hand to a nearby chair. “Feel free to take a seat, Kacchan! You want me to get you anything? Water, tissues, uhm, a knife, a body sized bag, or uhhh, a shovel? I think I have some spare sheets of paper if you’d like to give me a chance to—“

“So…” Kacchan starts.

“PLEASE TELL MY MUM I LOVE HER!”

“…this Kacchan, huh?” Having completely ignored every single word Izuku just said, Kacchan crosses his arms and scowls. “Is she strong? How come I never heard about her before? Since when did you start dating this gravure idol and pro hero, huh?”

“Wha—?”

“So, you just go around giving everyone pretty nicknames now?” Kacchan snorts and his expression darkens before he slams his hands on Izuku’s desk. He looks at Izuku from under his chin, and Izuku swear he can see flames behind his eyes. He growls, “What’s her actual name?”

An alarm bell rings in Izuku’s ears and he stutters, “Ka— Ka— Kat— Katsuko! Bakugan Katsuko…….”

Kacchan’s expression doesn’t change and Izuku feels his heart leap to his throat. God, Kacchan is gonna call his bluff at any minute now. He’s going to reject him then he’s going to break his heart and his bones.

“What’s she like?”

Kacchan shifts forward slightly and Izuku is just know noticing the ample cleavage in clear view. Right there. In front of Izuku’s face. “Uhm. Ah, she’s very, ugh, im- pec— impeccable!! And strong! Muscl— mature!! Breasty too – I mean, pretty! PRETTY!” Izuku bites his tongue then swallows thickly. “Beautiful, actually!” Lifting his gaze to meet Kacchan, he whispers, “Gorgeous. Just the most amazing person in my life.”

Kacchan is staring intently with his sharp red eyes, and Izuku feels his chest swell with confidence he never had before. “Kacchan is my inspiration, and I just … love … Kacchan so much. I wish I had the courage to tell him— um, her that.”

“Are you two serious?” Kacchan asks, impassive but there is silent rage hiding behind his words.

Something flashes quickly through Kacchan’s eyes before he narrows them. It takes Izuku a second to recognise that it’s /hurt/ and then he realise what he has just done.

“No, no, no!” Izuku backtracks immediately. “I don’t even know her that well! In fact, she kinda smells and definitely has sweating problem.” Izuku needs to do damage control and come clean NOW. “You know what? I will call her and break up with her right now. Ha ha ha.”

What the hell is he saying? Who is he going to call?

Kacchan stands up while Izuku fumbles with his phone. “Don’t be a dick,” he says, before he heads to the door.

Izuku jumps from his chair and is ready to chase after him when Kacchan stops him. “How big?”

“Huh?”

“You said Bakugan was big.”

Ah, yes, he did. Tragically.

“Um, y’know just…” Izuku motions with his hands like he’s moulding two doughballs, palms up and fingers wiggling because he’s lost control of his life once he accepted his funeral date, but that’s not even happening anymore so what is he doing really.

He then makes am hourglass shape in the air and belatedly realises that he’s just outlining Kacchan’s shape in front of him. Izuku retreats his hands and puts them behind his back in shame.

Kacchan is looking at him funny. Like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Does she shoot aerial bomb or something? Is that a combat-style quirk?”

Izuku blinks.

Kacchan just sneers and turns around.

“Whatever. I’m doing a photoshoot this afternoon. The Sekushī clothing line is dropping a new summer set and they asked me to model.”

“Se- Sekushi?? You mean, like—” Izuku feels his face go impossibly red. “You’re saying that, you’re going to wear, like…..” his voice goes down to a whisper when he says “…..a b-b-b-b-b-bikini?”

“Swimwear,” Kacchan turns to say over his shoulder, “Among other things.”

The sexy smirk he sends Izuku’s way is doing very, very weird things to Izuku’s body and imagination, things too inappropriate to describe in a work setting.

Kacchan leaves but not without offering the most dangerous challenge to Izuku’s mental wellbeing. “Feel free to drop in.”

Oh, he absolutely will.

“Bring Bakugon.”

Oh, he absolutely will not.

Actually….

Maybe, he will.

Kacchan is going to ruin Izuku

[honeytea8]

“Mister Fix-it” - Josuke/gn!Reader

A/N: Something I posted a while back on AO3 and now I’m dumping it here, I edited it to be gender neutral, pls let me know if I missed anything, enjoy!

Word Count: 2.7K

Summary: When your brand new air conditioning system doesn’t live up to the hype, you’re left with no other choice but to call Josuke Higashikata, the neighborhood handy-man and Morioh’s local heartthrob. (Post-canon; Josuke is 19/Reader is 23ish)

There is not a single ‘moderate’ thing about the summers in Morioh Cho and you come to this shocking discovery during your very first year back in this crazy, noisy town.

One early morning, a wave of heat sweeps in like a thief in the night, creeping over your body and making your nightshirt cling to you like second skin. A relentless force of nature that saps any residual moisture in the air. Everything is left high and dry—you lament over your dying succulent.

You can’t count how many cups of ice water you’ve guzzled or how many cold showers you’ve taken just to end up sweaty again, but something’s got to give. The day after Kai Harada announces the possibility of record-breaking temperatures in the following weeks, you delve into your emergency savings for a solution only money can buy.

Two days later, a portly electrician comes and installs a new air conditioning system for your home. He’s yammering on about how it’s supposed to be the best on the market. State of the art and all that jazz. You don’t really care for the details; you just want to be comfortable in your own house lest you end up a melted pile of goo. Who the hell would take care of your vegetable garden then?

You inspect the newly installed system with subdued interest. Truthfully, it doesn’t look like anything but an eyesore that’s completely thrown off the ambiance of the entire living room. It’s practically hanging out of your window. However, the only thing keeping you from complaining about its appearance is the dusty fan overhead that’s been circulating the same muggy, warm air for over an hour now. You prefer functionality over appearance, screw feng shui, you needed this AC.

“So, you’re positive it'll cool down the entire house?” you question one final time.

As if to prove his point, the electrician flicks a switch and the machine attached to the wall comes to life. The droning hum is annoying and would take some getting used to but it’s blowing the coldest air you’ve felt in a while. Both you and the electrician remain standing in front of it for a few seconds, basking in wonder.

Like magic, the heat-induced stress and tension leave your body all at once.

“Well then,” you say with a smile, “It’ll do.”

One week. Seven days. A hundred-and-sixty-eight hours of pure, absolute, uninterrupted bliss. You are in heaven! Your plants are flourishing as usual, and you aren’t sweating profusely like a pig for slaughter. Life is oh so good.

Until you wake up on the eighth day at four am with the worst case of cotton-mouth you’ve ever experienced.

You tumble out of bed, delirious from the sudden onslaught of heat that has transformed your bedroom into a sauna. Loose cotton sheets tangle with your ankles and you hit the ground, chin scuffing against the floor in your haste. The adrenaline pumping through your veins keeps you from wincing, or even feeling the pain. All you can hear is the sound of your own two feet pounding on the polished wooden staircase.

“Please, no, no, no, no—“

You sweep into the living room only to find the new air system is completely silent and no amount of switch-flicking or button-punching is going to change that. Mouth screwing into a scowl, you glare at the overpriced piece of junk with unbridled disdain.

This has become personal.

A hard smack from the palm of your hand to the surface of the machine echoes through the room—still nothing, not even a stirring. 

Big fat tears well up in your eyes. Whatever hormones fueling your rage are now flooding you with sadness. Your hand and chin are throbbing from the pain. The money spent on this crap was gone and now you’d have to shell out another hefty amount just to get it fixed. You want to pull out your hair in frustration.

Glancing around the room, everything is so still and calm. It’s still quite early in the morning, a few hours before dawn and you are tired as hell. The heat is making you lethargic, so after drying your tears and chewing on some ice cubes, you curl up on your sofa and go back to a fitful sleep.

.

.

.

Later in the day, you’re hanging clothes out on the line when your neighbor comes out to greet you.

She’s a grandma who lives alone except for when her grand kids come to visit, and despite her penchant for being a nosy gossip, you kind of like her. She waves and meanders over to the edge of her fence. 

“This is some heat, I tell you.”

“Right! I didn’t realize Morioh could even get this hot,” you pick up another sheet and toss it over the wire. “Would you believe that I spent two paychecks on an air conditioner that doesn’t even work.”

Your neighbor gives you a look of pity. “Oh dear, such a shame.” You watch as she adjusts the chairs and tables around her patio.

“You know, I have a teacher-friend with a son who has a knack for fixing things. Had him take a look at my plumbing a few weeks ago and he had it working right as rain. I can ask him to come by and take a look at it for you.”

You shuffle the empty bamboo basket in your arms. “I...guess that could work. Have him drop by sometime.” 

What’s the worst that could happen?

Two days later, you’re tending to your many plants—because you’d be damned if another died because of this heat—when a Greek god falls from the sky and onto your doorstep.

“Hi! I’m Josuke Higashikata, your neighbor said you had a problem with your air conditioner.”

To say you’re surprised would be an understatement: the young man standing on your porch is a damn stunner. His pouty lips, broad shoulders, and slim waist are more than enough to fuel a wet dream or two. Your brain short-circuits for a solid minute. Is it hot in here or what?

(And for once, you aren’t talking about the actual weather.)

He shifts nervously from one foot to another when you don’t immediately respond, but all you can do is stare. You’re thirsty for more than just a drink of water right now.

“Um,” he looks down at the sticky note in his hand and mumbles to himself. “This is the address, right?”

That snaps you out of your stupor. You internally berate yourself for looking like a gaping idiot in front of this knockout.

“YES! Ahem—yeah, y-you’re at the right place.” you move aside and allow him in. And good Lord, he’s tall. You wouldn't mind climbing that beanstalk.

Josuke is dressed in a striped yellow tee and pair of boardshorts that fit just right, a real sight for sore eyes.

You try not to swoon and realize rather belatedly that your own attire isn’t hiding much from view. Since the air conditioner stopped working, you reverted back to wearing tank tops and shorts around the house. Josuke, for what it's worth, isn't ogling you but he’s obviously noticed if his reddened cheeks are anything to go by.

“Right over here.” You say breezily.

The sway in your hips is subtle enough that it doesn’t look intentional. You guide him over to where the AC is sitting in the wall like a heap of scrap metal. Josuke didn’t bring any tools with him, so you’re skeptical about how he plans on fixing it. Honestly, even if he can't, you plan on making the most out of this.

You enter the kitchen adjacent to the living room, allowing him to take a look at the thing without you hovering.

As you’re straightening out the dining table, you ask, “So, how old are you, Josuke? You look a little young to be a handy-man.”

There’s a pause in his movements. “I just turned nineteen!”

Your fantasy dies a swift death somewhere deep within the dredges of your subconscious. Of course he’s young, as if you hadn’t noticed. Dialing back on the flirtation, you hum out an ‘oh cool’. The last thing you want to be is a cradle robber!

You aren’t that much older than him...but it still feels a bit wrong? You’ve never been with a younger guy before.

A startling hum resounds throughout the house and you feel a gust of cool air coming from overhead. Josuke has managed to fix it! You rush back into the room just in time to catch him stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“All done!”

“That—That was really quick? What was wrong with it?”

Josuke only shrugged. “Not sure, but it seems to be working now.”

You stare uncomprehendingly.

“So...was there anything else you’d like me to fix?”

Blinking you look around for something but come up short. “No, not unless you can bring plants back to life.”

Now it’s Josuke’s turn to blink as he takes a look around with wide eyes. He hadn’t noticed all the plants in the various corners of your home, he had been too distracted by—

“Which ones?” He says before he can stop himself.

You point to the succulent perched on the coffee table, it’s dried up and brittle in some parts, but it’s not completely dead. He kneels down to its height, touches some of its chubby petals. Then he silently calls on Crazy Diamond and with a single touch, it’s restored back to its normal health.

A few years post-Yoshikage Kira, Josuke has gotten a lot better with his powers, utilizing his stand with ease. He turns and gives you a smile and has no idea he’s giving you heart palpitations just by looking like that.

“Woah! Josuke, what the hell was that?”

“Ahh, it’s hard to explain. Just know it’s something I’ve been able to do since I was a kid.”

“Wow, th-that’s some trick,” you glance at your plant in shock. It’s literally back to normal. You recall all the time spent nurturing it, along with your other plants. All the sweat doled out during back-breaking gardening. How could you ever repay him for making sure your hard work didn’t go down the drain?

Before you know it, you have his face in your hands and you don’t know what the hell you're doing but you're holding him and staring tearfully.

“Thank you times a million. Seriously.”

Josuke just gulps and nods. “Uh huh, not a problem.”

You really try to ignore the way he’s staring at your lips or the heavy blush on his cheeks because, again, you are not robbing the cradle. With more self-control than you knew you had, you let go of his face and step back.

“S-So would you like some tea, or lemonade or—“

“Lemonade,” he says as he stands to his full height. “Lemonade is fine.”

You nod with your bottom lip trapped between your teeth. He is so cute. You scamper off into the kitchen and pull out a full pitcher of homemade lemonade. Meanwhile, Josuke is left to take a look around your house.

There are plants everywhere, most are leafy, green, and healthy. The ones that aren’t, get a boost from his stand power.

Josuke wants to compare your home to a jungle or the Amazon, but that’s not quite an accurate comparison. Even though there’s clearly a lot going on, it’s not cluttered or disorganized at all. It’s just...really freaking amazing! There’s even a flourishing terrarium built in the walls near the staircase.

With your obvious love for nature, Josuke thinks you’d get along great with Mr. Jotaro, but for some reason he doesn’t feel too inclined to introduce you two.

When you finally return, you catch Josuke eyeing your little turtle tank with a weird look.

“That’s Kame, I just got him a month ago.”

Josuke laughs, “Kame, huh? That’s pretty clever.”

“I thought so too,” you hand him the cold drink and as he takes it, his fingers graze yours. “He doesn’t do much, so if you’re expecting him to do a trick, you’ll be waiting a while.”

“Oh nah, it wasn’t that. I’m just…kind of afraid of the little guy.”

Biting back the urge to say ‘awww’, you usher him over to the engawa overlooking your vegetable garden. “A fear of turtles is understandable. But would you believe that I used to be afraid of fish?”

“Fish? No, I can’t say I would. But I also wouldn’t judge.”

You smile at that because of course, he wouldn’t judge you. “Yup, had a bad experience when I was five. My father used to live in Morioh, near the coast. He was a fisherman,” you pause, momentarily distracted by the bob of his adam’s apple as he takes his first sip.

“H-He umm, took me fishing once... and it was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on a real fish. Needless to say, I screamed my head off.”

“No! Seriously?” Josuke chuckles and it’s so contagious and addicting. Soon you're laughing too.

“I swear, I cannot make this up!”

“So, what happened?”

“Okay, so I’m screaming like a mad person and running away. You know what my dad does? That asshole chases me with the thing still dangling from his fishing rod.” You shake your head at the memory. “I literally got sick and threw up that night, and boy did my mom chew him out for it.”

“That sounds so hilarious and yet so traumatic.” He laughs again. “That’s terrible!”

“Right! I could never look at a fish after that or even be around them. It took years before I finally got over it.” You sigh and shake your head again.

Silence ebbs between you for a moment before Josuke clears his throat. 

“So, this might seem a bit forward, but would you like to go on a date with me?”

The question doesn’t register in your head all at once, leaving you to stumble over your words until you can finally think coherently. “Josuke I...I’m a bit older than you. Shouldn’t you go for someone more closer to your age?”

“No, and I’ve never believed age should stop two consenting adults from getting to know each other better.”

“Josuke, I’m old enough to be your big sibling though.”

He quirks his brow at that like you’ve just said something weird. “Well, Mr. Joestar, was like ancient when he met my mom so that really doesn’t bother me.”

For some reason, that comment breaks the tension. You barely hold back a grin. “This Mr. Joestar guy is your father then?”

“Biologically speaking, yeah. He’s pretty old now and I never really knew him, but my mom still loves him with everything she has.”

Okay. Now you are really having heart palpitations.

Josuke is exhibiting a surprising amount of maturity right now, making you eat your words about him being too young for you. Why did he have to be so convincing on top of being cute?

“Give me a chance,” he says. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

After mulling over it for a moment, you finally acquiesce.

“Alright, Josuke. One date, and we’ll see from there.” and just to catch him off guard, you peck his cheek. “Okay?”

“Y-Yeah! Of course, it’ll be perfect!”

Taking the empty lemonade glass from him, you both re-enter your home with smiles on your faces. Josuke stays a little longer and you both chat for a while then make plans for your date. You get to learn about how much of a hopeless romantic he is and how he’s a firm believer in love. He makes it very clear that he doesn’t want a fling and that he’s looking for long-term. All of these things surprise you, as they aren’t what you’d expect from someone as gorgeous as him.

By the time the sun is setting, you know it’s time for you two to part ways. Josuke stands at your foyer with pursed lips and a blush on his cheeks. “Can I...kiss you?”

To answer his question, you lean up and press a soft kiss on his mouth. Josuke’s strong arms snake around your hips, drawing you closer into his sturdy frame. His plush lips are gentle and pliant against your own. 

When Josuke finally pulls back he is presented with the sight of your closed eyes and kiss-reddened lips and it’s the most enthralling two seconds ever. He thinks you're so freaking beautiful.

“Alright handy-man,” you say as you give him one last peck on the corner of his mouth. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, sure thing!”

Ironically enough, you have this nightmare of a heatwave to thank for your date with Morioh Cho’s favorite dreamboat.

[fukurodanni]

everything stays (but it still changes)

PART 1 || part 2 || part 3

pairing: tsukishima kei x photographer!reader summary: there are better people to see in the middle of a starbucks on a thursday afternoon - easier people. the man that broke your heart three years ago is definitely not one of them. word count: 2k note: a gift for @lonely-little-levi, who has a fondness for lemon tea and astronomy and karasuno’s beanpole of a middle blocker

It’s like a shitty romance novel.

Even so, you’re starting to think a romance novel would’ve been easier than this - frozen in the middle of a Starbucks in front of your highschool sweetheart, four years post-breakup.

Kei Tsukishima stands like an absolute lamppost at the counter, except he isn’t quite as lanky as he was then. He looks very dignified, you think, with an airpod in one ear and the tailored dress shirt that suggests he's just stepped out of a magazine. There’s nothing stopping you from saying hello except the mortifying ordeal that is confrontation, and the sudden, excruciating thumping in your sternum from seeing him after so long.

You'll only have to see him today, you think, so you watch him walk out without glancing in your direction. No biggie.

Except maybe it is a bit more of a biggie than you'd thought.

Tsukishima, apparently, plans on becoming a regular. And it’s like clockwork: Thursday and Friday afternoons, just as you're getting out of the car, the same mussed blond head of hair ducks out of the coffee shop and into his own car. He doesn't seem to notice you and it's only been long enough for you to notice the pattern - there is no eye contact, no acknowledgement.

It’s like high school all over again, and you sort of hate yourself for it but you know you’ll have to run in with him sooner or later - the familiarity of it all grips you by the collar and threatens to strangle you where you stand. One Thursday afternoon, though, after a blissful two weeks without an encounter, he spots you.

You freeze. The whole world freezes.

He stands not six feet away from you and his expression betrays nothing, which is immediately frustrating because you feel like your heart is going to force its way up your chest and you’re going to vomit the whole organ out onto his fancy leather shoes and then - and then he nods at you in acknowledgement.

And walks away.

Fucking Christ. That could have gone better. Despite your frantic pulse, relief washes over you at it not being an actual conversation - because at least he’s seen you now. Good. There isn’t anything else to be gained and the niggling regret of not having said anything isn’t large enough to concern you yet.

Surely you can handle the next one?

The afternoon after the first encounter, you’re sure you’ve jinxed it or something. You don’t see him there, don’t bother to look for his car, so you head in. It goes as mundane and routine as mundane routines go, and you’re very satisfied with the cup of tea warming your hands. You stand outside your car for a moment to check your phone - an email about a photoshoot next week - and nearly leap out of your skin.

“Are you here often?” His voice is low and smooth and washes over you like ice water.

Second time’s a charm. You turn to face him.

“Kei. You could afford to say hello, you know.” Your voice comes out a lot steadier than the rest of you feels.

“Hello,” he says blandly. “How come we haven't run into each other before?”

You can only shrug in response, tucking your phone back into your pocket. “Maybe you’re just blind,” you reply coolly. “you look good, though. How’ve you been?”

His brow raises slightly, the barest indication of surprise. “Alright.”

There are about a million words swimming between the two of you, things left unspoken from years ago suddenly bubbling to the surface. His stoicism frustrates you endlessly, but he’s opened his mouth twice as if readying to say something. You’re just about to bite the bullet and ask about it when he finally says -

“Are you free this weekend?”

And the only witty thing you can think to respond with is, “Wow. Didn’t peg you as the eager type.” Which obviously isn’t the right thing to say because a look of hurt passes over his face before he wipes it completely. You feel yourself wince a little.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says. Tsukishima’s face morphs back to apathetic and you almost wish you’d said something a little gentler until his mouth gives into that trademark smirk, “but I’m glad that’s the first thing you had in mind.”

“Oh, sorry,” you scoff, gripping the cup a little tighter. “I forget to mention how you occupy my every waking thought.”

Hostility is a comfort and you wrap yourself in it like a blanket in the dead of winter. Tsukishima lets the silence hang for a beat or two before deciding to explain himself.

“I meant to catch up,” he explains, and his voice is softer this time - it catches you off guard, itches at you with deja vu. It sounds like Friday nights after school huddled up under a knitted blanket watching shitty dramas and summer mornings after staying up well past dawn - but you stuff it all into the back of your mind because that’s all very unimportant and you still haven’t given him an answer. You glance at his mouth, watching the way it forms syllables. “I wonder about you.”

The latter statement comes out a little quieter. It makes you question whether or not he really meant to say it. “Okay,” you nod. “Sunday, then. Are you free Sunday?”

Tsukishima nods stiffly. He has the same tells, you realize, as you watch his thumb smooth over the knuckle of his index finger. He’s nervous. It fills you with an obsolete sort of pride, like maybe you shouldn’t have remembered.

“Good-” he stumbles on his words. “It’s good to see you.”

It isn’t until you’re halfway home that you nearly drop your head onto the steering wheel in sharp realization. You hadn’t asked for a time.

-

You hardly remember what it is that first drew you to Tsukishima - you were both so young. It was a class or two together, and a mutual friend through Yamaguchi, and then a study date. And then another, and another, until you’d found yourself completely captivated by him: the funny way he snickered, the way his eyes welled with pride when you finally understood a concept, the way his lips curved into a smile he’d reserved only for you. The way his arms felt like coming home; like comfort and calm and relief.

It came all at once: precious and tentative, in coffee dates and starry nights, in hesitant museum outings and evenings spent buried under thick blankets. You’d looked at him one night, pulse thrumming with a perfect kind of joy, and called it love.

Your euphoria stuck like glue to fingers, tacky and hard to remove. Years of high school passed in vignettes, hazy and rose colored - a bustling, intoxicating romance that spanned the entire night sky. He called you his sun, his stars; looked at you as if you’d woven each constellation by hand. And you loved him so fiercely, your moonlight, a force to turn tides and bring oceans to their knees.

Graduation came along with a tearful and stilted goodbye, though not without a special promise to stay in touch. You recall the lump of worry knotted at the bottom of your throat that first night in university, sick with uncertainty and asking yourself how long you could possibly go on before disaster struck and pulled you from him for good.

But then he’d called the next morning and the croak of his voice, barely awake, was the softest sunshine after a lifetime in darkness. It soothed every ache and smoothed over your edges and suddenly there was no doubt that you’d be okay.

It fell apart so gently; sweet, hazardous smoke that filled every gap between you until it consumed all your sunshine. It was daily calls becoming weekly and then barely any at all; shorter texts and stilted visits and tense silences. It grows and grows and you find your thoughts wandering, traitorously, to whether or not it should be fixed. Maybe it isn’t meant to be.

You hate yourself for it and hate that you even consider it in the first place.

When it happens, it isn’t intentional. Things like this usually never are, you think, but you can’t recall how it began. It must have been so insignificant.

You remember, vaguely, the warmth of sun on your skin. The feeling of waking up pressed against Tsukishima, tucked into him, his breaths like the gentlest morning metronome. The warmth of his fingertips tracing stars onto your shoulder and fond, mumbled conversation - a languid and picturesque morning, sodden with quiet affection.

It finally comes as he’s leaving again - he’d only come for a weekend trip, after all, because that’s all he had time for then. He’s pulling on a jacket because fall is approaching and so is the cold, and pulls on a blank expression to match. You watch his hand fidget, thumb over finger, you know he’s nervous.

And then he asks to end it. As if you hadn’t just spent the morning in his arms.

It escalates like calm before a storm and you’re so confused, even though you know it’s been a long time coming. But, god, it feels so good to succumb to anger because it’s something besides the past few months - numbness like stagnant water. It bursts through dams you didn’t know you’d built and rolls over your tongue. It tastes like knives.

“So what, is that it?” You scoff despite yourself, trying to clear the lump in your throat. “You’re done with me because of a few missed calls?”

It’s not a few. You think about all the calls you’ve let ring deliberately purely because you just weren’t in the mood, or because he’d been so snippy on the last one or because you just didn’t have the time. You shouldn’t be ripping into him for this.

“Done with you-!” he repeats, incredulous, and it’s the first time you’ve heard his voice shift into this tone - awkward and frustrated and trying his very best not to yell because he still loves you so much, but the words are like magma in his throat and all that’s coming out is ash.

It frustrates him. So he can’t help but yell in that pained, strangled voice and hope it all makes sense why you can’t be together anymore. It tugs at the very core of his chest, burning unpleasantly - it tastes like bile rising high in his throat except none of it refuses to go and he’s left standing there with no idea of what to do, so he lashes out because of all things, at least he knows how to do that.

He’s like a fucked up pinball machine - managing to hit every guilt at the back of your mind, and you can’t show him that you’re affected. Can’t let him hear the words that feel glued to the roof of your mouth - begging him to reconsider and trying to fix it all when you’d pretended it wasn’t all going bad, too. So you stand there, frozen still. He looks sort of strangled, like he’s physically restraining himself from saying things and explaining himself and you recognize it, faintly, as a defense mechanism. He’s hiding from you.

You wonder when he’d started to do that.

The room is so thick with tension that it feels you might lose yourself in the way your chest tightens and curls in on itself - if you could just open the proverbial window and make it all better - when you quite literally watch Tsukishima’s resolve shatter. Because suddenly, he would rather walk away than mend this ugly rift between you, wide and monstrous. You hardly remember the tears cooling on your cheeks; only the weeks spent out of contact, trying to pick up broken pieces and figure out what it was to breathe without needles filling your lungs. The weeks after home was stripped away from you, trying to rid yourself of guilt and doubt and blame.

PART 1 || part 2 || part 3

[scribbleb-red]

Neil is a lying liar who lies AU

A Morning AU - with a fab prompt from @djhedy

There’s a new boy in Andrew’s class and there’s something not quite right about him. He’s mouthy and sharp, the kinda kid that should end up in detention three times a week but never does.

They are seven years old, though the new kid looks five, with eyes like a wide open sky. 

He is very pretty - that’s why Andrew notices him first - he looks like a fairy prince. 

And it’s because Andrew is watching that he notices though: the kid is a big bad lying liar who lies. 

The day he joined, the kid said his name was ‘Stefan’ to Mrs Stewart and ‘Chris’ to Mr Brasenose. The next day he was just ‘Neil’ and was given a fond, exasperated warning to keep his make believe in the playground. 

 But the kid didn’t stop lying.

Some lies were big and others were small. 

On a Tuesday, Neil announced that he’d had a huge feast for breakfast - listing all the foods and making everyone’s mouth water with the descriptions. (But Andrew saw how he winced nd held his stomach like it was empty.)

On a Thursday, Neil said he grew up in England and proceeded to spend the next week speaking in a post English accent. (But he later admits at lunch it was just a couple months).

On a Friday, Neil whispers that his house is haunted and he’s scared to go home for the weekend. (There’s a little too much truth shining through those eyes as he talks about the ghost in his house. Andrew doesn’t doubt that he’s scared of something).

The following Monday, Neil explains his bruises by saying he spent the week learning to skateboard. 

“My cousin visited and let me use her skate board. It was pretty rad.” 

(Andrew eyes the split lip, it could be true. But then he sees the hand shape around Neil’s thin wrist and knows the truth: it’s a lie.)

Through it all, Andrew is very quiet and very alone. He knows how this goes - he’s seven years old with more cracks in his heart than a fifty year romantic - but he kinda enjoys Neil’s lies and how he gets away with them.

He particularly likes the outrageous ones: 

My father parachuted into Paris because he’s a spy. He died landing on the Eiffel Tower. I once wrestled a monster. I won but it stole all my mom’s apples. I’m telling the truth. My tongue goes green when I lie. I met Kevin Day.

Andrew won’t pretend he’s not intrigued. He thinks Neil is interesting and his lies are ones he can often hold in the dark, imagining over and over when he’s hurt and wishing to be anyone, anywhere but here.

Plus Neil is funny - he always snarks at the teachers and gets away with the most ridiculous things. Other kids always want to play with him because his games are brilliant - epic journeys, castles and wizards, magical tigers, patchwork villains made from the skin of children. 

Some of Neil’s tall tales are part fairytales, part nightmares.  And Andrew isn’t sure which part Neil actually belongs to. There are times where he’s the brightest, prettiest boy on the playground. And times where his eyes are haunted, mouth wicked cruel. And then there are times like today, where Neil is quiet and blank - a little too familiar to what Andrew sees in the mirror these days, looking like someone has scooped out his insides and left nothing but darkness behind in its wake. 

Andrew almost talks to him then. 

Almost.

But he doesn't. Not for another few weeks. Not until Neil's facing down Greg Doyle - the fight has the vibe of a hissing kitten against a rottweiler. 

 There's no way Neil can win. Greg is a third grader and big beside. 

But Neil doesn't look scared. He looks ferocious.

Not that appearances are going to help. Neil could have the sharpest claws of them all and he'd still weigh nothing against Greg. Neil dodges and ducks the first few blows. He snipes and snarks, that liar's mouth rattling off stories of how he took down a SWAT team once.

But dumb luck can’t do everything and finally Greg gets a thump in, straight across Neil’s jaw - hard enough to make him stagger. 

"So much for a SWAT team, fucking liar." 

There are gasps at the bad word from the growing first and second grade audience. 

"Tongue turns green," Neil says. He spits out blood.

Andrew's had enough when he sees the blood. 

Neil might be an idiot but Andrew knows that there's no way to win this one on alone He steps forward and puts himself between Neil and Greg. 

"Oooo who's this, your boyfriend?" 

Andrew would roll his eyes, but can't be bothered. He is the tallest kid in their year at nearly 4'5. He can look the nine year old Greg in the eye without trouble and he can see the bigger kid calculating his chances of taking Andrew on instead of the skinny little creature that was Neil "motor mouth" Josten.

"Back off," he says. He doesn't inflect. He watched a cartoon where a character spoke completely flat and it was really scary so he figures this might make Greg cower too. "Leave him alone."

Greg nearly steps into Andrew's space but someone has started a whisper: 

Andrew Doe is the kid who killed his parents. Andrew Doe is the kid that burned a house down. Andrew Doe is the kid who took on Bertie Becker from fifth grade and flushed his head down the loo.

It's the last one that gives away the source of these rumours - Neil has started a chain of Chinese whispers. And Greg hears them swirling from mouth to mouth, ear to ear, each more terrifying than the last. It makes Andrew want to grin, so he does. Greg actually whimpers.

The crowd laughs when Greg runs away - he can’t save face when he’s fleeing from a first grader. 

Andrew feels triumphant. 

 Especially when Neil steps up beside him, shy smile and summer sky eyes. “Thanks Andrew.” 

 Neil Josten knows his name, Andrew thinks. Wow wow wow.

Neil’s mouth is swollen but he’s still the prettiest boy in the playground so Andrew doesn’t say anything. 

“Want to play a game?” Neil says. 

 Andrew shrugs. 

 “Yes or no?” Neil says again. “I won’t force you but I’d like to play with you to if you’d like to play with me.”

Andrew thinks about it before saying yes. 

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

*

They start with games - make believe quests and imaginary journeys. They visit magical worlds in their heads and fall about laughing when one of them (mostly Andrew) doesn’t break character even for class.

They become inseparable - two boys with home lives full of ghosts but dreams that can take them anywhere. The lying liar is the better story teller but the stoic hero a better actor. And sometimes in games they hide their truths - violent families and horrifying pasts.

Neil shows Andrew his scars, “I sometimes say they’re from a shark or ninjas and stuff but...” 

“That’s from an iron.” 

“Yeah.”

In turn, Andrew tells Neil about his foster family. 

“We could poison him,” Neil says. “I heard we can make poison from apple cores. Applesenic or something.”

If only it were that simple.

It happens just before the end of the year - summer is nearly there and Andrew can only imagine how fun it'll be having a friend to adventure with for the first time. And then he finds out that his foster family is getting rid of him. He'll be packed off at the end of term.

"I think mom and I will move too," Neil admits. "We never hang around anywhere long." 

"Because of your dad?" 

"Yeah..." Neil plays with the hem of his t-shirt. "He's in prison but mom is still terrified. She moves us a lot." 

"Maybe you can move to the same place as me."

They pretend that the world isn't going to split them apart. 

They pretend that they're going to have the summer together. 

And the year after. 

That they'll start middle school together. 

And be best friends all the way to the end of high school.

And go to the same college.

"We could play exy together all the way through," Neil says. It's his new obsession. 

"I'm not going to play stickball. I prefer playing games with you." 

"We can play games on the court. You can be the fierce dragon and I'll be the knight that looks after you."

"You'd steal all my dragon gold." 

"Would not." 

Andrew raises one eyebrow. 

"Okay, yes I would. I'd be the knight trying to take your gold. But I'd be sneaky about it." Neil's laughter is high and bright. "Does that mean you'll play with me?" 

"Yeah okay," Andrew says.

But it doesn't work out that way. 

Neil vanishes like sun behind a mountain the day after term ends. 

Andrew's bags are packed. He's dumped in a new home near the beach. He hates the beach. He misses Neil the way his lungs miss oxygen when he's stuck in the swell of a wave.

He does play exy though. 

He does it because he figures one day he'll find Neil on a court too. 

He'll either face him down or by some miracle they'll be on the same team. 

He'll find Neil again. He will.  

He tells himself this every day. 

Even when it feels like a lie.

*

Something like an epilogue

Years pass before Andrew hears anything about the little boy who - for two semesters when he was seven - was his best friend. So many years that if it weren't for one polaroid from a cheeky arcade photo-booth, he might have let the idea of Neil go.

But he keeps the photo with him - through home after home, through Cass and Drake and juvie and Aaron and Nicky. He hides it in books, folds it into pockets. Makes sure to hold onto Neil and the memories of those few happy months.

He plays exy. Keeps track of other teams and their players. The sport does nothing for him - but sometimes he closes his eyes and imagines Neil with his flashing blue eyes mischievous smile and that long ago conversation. He remembers why he's doing this.

At 13, he asks Pig Higgins to do a search on Neil's name but the policeman refuses. 

At 14, he goes through the entire directory for California and when that's exhausted, he starts searching every state from West to East. 

He calls 362 Jostens across the USA. None are Neil.

When he turns 16, he uses a fake and has two small dragons outlined on the top of his left shoulder. 

When he's 17 he meets Riko and Kevin Day. He remembers Neil once saying he'd met Kevin and wonders if that was true or just one of Neil's many many lies. He turns the Ravens down.

He signs two weeks later with the Palmetto State Foxes - taking his brother and cousin with him. 

He watches as the lists of drafted players on other teams go up. There's no Chris or Stefan or Abram - not with the matching face Andrew wants. There's no sign of a Neil Josten.

Andrew smooths out the photo at night, slipping it between the pages of Whitman's Leaves of Grass every morning. 

Maybe it's time to put the memory of Neil to rest, but he can't. 

Neil is one of those beautiful ghosts that he can't help but hold onto. The one unspoilt thing in his memory.

Unspoilt, that is, until a Monday when Kevin Day announces he's recruiting a nobody from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere Arizona and the nobody's name is Neil.

"Neil what?" 

"Josten. Want to see his tape?" 

"Nope," Andrew says. But his heart is a thunderdrum, hope cutting through the medicated hyper mania easy as a knife through butter. "Actually yes, gimme the tapes little birdie." 

Kevin grimaces at his nickname but says nothing until they’re watching the tape. And then he can’t shut up about the player’s potential, his speed and natural flare on the Court. 

It's not Andrew’s Neil. 

But it is too. 

The striker on the court is a brunette with dark eyes but he runs like Neil. He's ferocious and plays like it's the last thing keeping him afloat. He has that little flick of his racquet before he goes to score, a telltale that would never get passed Andrew but no one else seemed to have noticed. 

Andrew says as much to Kevin. 

"Exactly," Kevin says. "That's why we have to have him."

So they go to Millport. 

And Andrew knows Neil well enough to anticipate that he'll run. 

Knows him well enough to trip him with a racquet and catch him as he falls. 

Neil hasn't grown much either - he's still small and sharp and far too pretty to be real.

"Stupid little liar, you should watch where you put your feet." Andrew wishes he were sober. Wishes he didn't have to greet Neil with this grin splitting his face. 

Wishes wishes wishes. 

But his one wish has already come true, Neil is here with him. Warm and lithe and alive.

"Drew?" Neil says, but the word is choked and breathless. Neil’s voice does something to Andrew’s insides and Andrew feels the muscles beneath his hands warring between flight and relief. 

"Neil," he replies. 

"Oh my god, Drew." 

And then Neil's arms are around Andrew's shoulders, and his face is turning into his neck and Andrew realises they're hugging and he shouldn't want to hug back but he does. He does because it's Neil. His friend. His pipe dream. The little boy with the pathological need to lie and an imagination that could create whole worlds from a handful of dust. 

He hugs Neil tight. 

Never wants to let go.

Kevin of course ruins the moment. 

But Neil isn't going to say no to the Foxes. Not now. 

And even though Andrew can recognise the lies slipping passed Neil's lips, he doesn't tell Wymack. Doesn't call out his idiot's new ouchies. Doesn't answer any questions when Kevin demands answers.

"Sign," he speaks only to Neil. He means, Stay with me. "We can play a game. Yes or no?" 

"Yes," Neil says and his smile is a little wild, a lot wonderful. "Let's play a game."

The End.

[deniigi]

Trope: Homeless Peter

Title: what is home if not a vehicle

Summary: Space-fish attack the Great State of New York, and in the mess, the Avengers lose the goddamn kid.

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

His knees shook when he finally peeled back the helmet and it was a monumental task—the towering, marble kind—to lift one foot and then the other out of the footwell of the suit stand.

But Tony managed it.

You know, like a fuckin’ superhero.

He had this.

He maybe had a head injury and couldn’t see through all the blood dripping down his right eye—but you know what?

A fuckin’ superhero.

That’s me.

Ahahaha—

“TONY.”

Why hello, adoring fan. What a coincidence to meet you on the floor like this.

“What are you doing?”

Having a little lay down, my dear.

“GET UP.”

Wow, that’s a tone to take with a guy who volunteered to be the can in a state-wide Alien Kick-the-Can tournament. A little appreciation would be nice.

“Tony,” Pepper emphasized. “You need to get up.”

Why? Was there another alien? Tony was having a merry time here on the floor. Only more superheroing could move him, and even that was on thin ice given the whole knobbly-knee, shaky-hands situation.

“Peter’s gone.”

Tony’s head shot up.

“He’s not gone,” he said. “He’s with Falcon.”

Pepper’s eyes were very blue and ringed by white on every side.

“No,” she said. “He’s gone. Get. Up.”

 --

Pepper’s hands came around and grabbed his face before he could get another good smash in for it on the desk in front of him.

May Parker was in tears. She had every right to be. Cap was consoling her, promising her that they would find Peter while she fanned her dripping mascara.

And Tony?

Tony was exhausted. And now he had that weird gut-gnawing, gurgling feeling in his stomach, which, combined with the head injury that he was turning slowly into an actual hole straight to his brain (if Pepper would let go, anyways), was paving the way for a future spent at the foot of the porcelain altar.

The kid. Had been. RIGHT. There.

Rhodey had confirmed this. He’d been RIGHT there. Tony had been keeping an eye on him and all that bouncy puppy energy. And when he could no longer do that (see: volunteering to be bait, also known as An Activity Not Appropriate for Minors to Witness), he’d handed him off to Sam.

He’d handed him off to Sam.

Sam was the second most level-headed person on the entire team. Rhodey was the first, and okay, he was mostly first because Tony was biased towards his best friend, but the point remained.

Sam had had the baby.

Sam said that he had had the baby, too. Until he couldn’t have the baby because A) the baby was very slippery and B) the baby apparently smelled like food to giant alien creatures with blue glowing tongues and drippy teeth, and so Sam had sent the baby far the fuck away from that action.

He’d told him to go give Bruce support in the north of the city.

Bruce had tears in his eyes when he said that he’d worked with Peter for a whole fifteen minutes before they’d gotten separated by a building collapsing nearly on top of them. The Hulk didn’t have time to babysit Spiders when that was happening. The Hulk just got angry and launched himself at the face of the fuckin’ space-kaiju that had caused it.

No one could fault him for this.

But that also meant that, two hours into a 48 hour melee, they’d lost the youngest team member.

May Parker was glued to her phone and the news, and Tony could hear the tinny voice of Peter’s voice message echoing out of her phone even from there, even through her hiccups and Steve’s soothing Captain America tones.

Steve said that Peter was a smart boy. He was a strong boy. He’d know that they were looking for him and he’d done way, way worse than two days of fighting before. He’d know when to find a safe place and stay put for long enough to regain his energy.

And more than that, he knew New York like the back of his hand. He’d come home, May.

He’d come home.

Tony was about to swear to this poor woman that he would personally deliver her child to her doorstep when the klaxons crashed through the building and sent Tony’s whole body into a state of temporary numbness with pain.

The room went red.

The room went red again

Everyone turned slowly towards the window and Tony barely saw Steve throwing up the shield and reaching for May Parker at the same time before he reacted.

Pepper went down under the desk.

The glass exploded.

And here we go again.

 ---

 Just for the record—just for the fucking record—Tony wanted it known that he hated Albany.

It was flat.

Its skyline was boring as hell.

And Tony was 99.9% sure that there a mass illness among the people of this city.

Rhodey informed him that he was only thinking that because his interactions with humanity at street level came from New Yorkers and Los Angeles folks, neither of whom could find it in their souls to give a shit about what other people shouted at them.

Rhodey further explained patiently that the reaction of most people in the continental US to a known superhero telling them to get the fuck out of the way was not, in fact, being told ‘no YOU move, motherfucker.’

Tony didn’t get it.

Steve laughed so hard he sort of collapsed onto Sam’s shoulder and started making this sound that reminded Tony of a sob.

They all needed sleep. It had been four days.

But then, like a champion of all 8-year-olds, a little girl piped up from somewhere in the crowd that had gathered around their Avengers team huddle, “Hey! Where’s Spiderman?”

And all bodies went from sobbing to swearing.

The damn kid.

 ---

 It had been a week. May Parker had filed Peter as missing. He still hadn’t come home and he wasn’t even close to getting home because Tony had just gotten a call from Wolver-fucking-ine himself asking if he knew Baby Webs.

“He downed a space-fish in Gloversville,” Wolverine said. “And Scott nearly swiped him up, but he ain’t moved fast enough, and Websy noticed him first. He went and hid in the sewer and kept hissing at us for hours. Tried to feed him, but he wants nothin’ to do with us.”

Peter.

Peter, no.

X-men are friends.

“Did you manage to grab him?” Tony asked, already resigned to the answer.

“He ran off.”

Fuck.

“Sorry about that.”

Fuck.

“He’s a bitty one, ain’t he?”

“He’s fifteen.”

“Jesus.”

“I know,” Tony said. “We’re trying to grab him. It’s been a week. His phone’s dead and his mom’s freaking out, and I swear, he’s never been that far out of a city.”

Wolverine made a contemplative sound.

“Alright, we’ll keep a better eye out,” he said. “He can’t have gone far. He ain’t swingin’ with that web shit.”

He must have run out of that, too.

Peter, honey. Just. Stand. Still.

Forget the space-fish. For like, two hours.

 ---

 May asked Pepper to ask Tony what felt like ages later if the X-men had any more information on her kid. Pepper said that she sounded defeated.

Tony wished that he had more to give her besides a handful of blood from the torn skin on his hip and the words that Scott Summers had passed along just the day previous.

“The kid followed the last fish out,” Summers said. “I’m sorry, Stark. I tried to nab him, but that thing was taking down trees and we all got buried.”

 ---

 Two weeks.

Two whole weeks the boy had been missing and only now were the space-fish starting to let up. Part of that had to do with the fact that Barton had figured out that if you went for the eyes, forsook any sense of self-preservation and decency, and climbed into the gaping hole you left there, you could smash the thing’s brain and take it down to earth like Cap nose-diving into the Atlantic.

Steve had passed through all the stages of grief into hysteria this last week.

No one could talk to him because he started laughing and then weeping in a span of 15 seconds.

Natasha and Sam were on it.

Barnes was out with Barton, laying waste to wading pool that was Rochester at the moment. And that finally gave Tony the time that he needed to go out and search for the kid.

Rhodey came with and they ended up in Horseheads of all places, asking people on the street if they’d seen a Spiderman approximately a half the size they expected him to be.

People in Horseheads said no, that was Buffalo that had had the Spiderchild flinging himself around in it.

So they headed for Buffalo, only to get a message halfway there from Barnes that he’d almost caught the little shit in Rochester. Barton was after him as they spoke.

On foot apparently.

“He looks like shit, Stark,” Barnes said, huffing while he ran. “Clint’s on his tail now though, but I think he thinks he’s in trouble, so he’s—WAIT NO. BARTON.”

And the line went off.

And Rhodey groaned for both of them.

 ----

 Rochester contained a very wet, very frustrated Hawkeye and zero Bucky Barneses.

Hawkeye said that they’d nearly had Peter. But then.

He gestured furiously out to the harbor which was full of wreckage from the ensuing battle on shore.

Tony asked him if they had it handled or if they needed backup, to which Hawkeye said that only God knew shit at this point. He was just a human football, being punted back and forth across the state of New York in a way that his soul truly deserved.

Barton perhaps needed both a nap and a meal or two in him.

Peter probably needed days of both of those things.

“Yeah, no. I asked around and people have seen him bopping around the pigeons and gulls,” Barton said. “Some lady told us that she saw him coming out of a park bathroom. Another gal said she saw him tucked up on a roof and lured him down. She said she thought he was some homeless teenager and was worried ‘cause he was up there without a coat. She was surprised as hell when he was the real thing and asked her for a map. Said his phone was busted and he was trying to find the train station.”

Kiddo.

“He’s makin’ it, Stark,” Barton said. “Not sure how. But he’s makin’ it.”

That wasn’t comforting.

 ---

 Chasing after Peter wasn’t working. He kept slipping through their fingers and getting startled by people chasing him.

He seemed a little paranoid. Although that was probably because folks had started to change tact and approach him out of their suits.

They’d skimmed right past the part where Peter didn’t really know most of them out of their suits. And then they’d skimmed right past the part where most of them, out of their suits, didn’t look anything like the pictures that the paps took of them.

JB’s hair was long as hell. Natasha wore little make up and didn’t both straightening her ginger mane. Sam’s fade was looking a little lopsided with the piece of glass that the docs had had to dig out of it, and so a hat was his primary mode of fashion at the moment. Steve’s out-of-suit fashion could be described as ‘Jock with Tats Wears Cardigan and Dock Martins. More at 11.’

They’d all gone too far into being people and Peter now thought that he was being pursued by undercover SHIELD agents.

And, like the genius child that he was, he’d realized that his reds were catching attention and, now that the space-fish were a less pressing issue, and now that he was up in colder climes, he’d swapped them for some street clothes. And now no one had seen Spiderman.

Including the other Avengers.

The fastest way to find him was through facial recognition software, but someone out there, infuriatingly, seemed to be teaching Peter how to live like this.

The features Tony put in everyone’s new chunky glasses only ever caught him just before he turned tail and started sprinting.

And goddamn, that kid was fast.

Tony himself had chased him through Nowheresville, Fuck This State, and even that seemed ineffective.

He didn’t understand.

Peter knew who he was. He knew his voice.

Right?

Why was he running? Why was he still running?

May thought that he must have gotten it into his head that everyone was furious with him. She said that Peter’s guilt complex was wide and deep and he often slunk home late and hid from her if he thought she was mad.

He wasn’t super great with confrontation outside of his red and blues.

But something was also going on with May. Tony wasn’t sure what it was until Barton came into his lab where Tony was bouncing between trying to find where Peter’s suit had last been and trying to pry the enormous scales off a space-fish head.

“Tony,” Barton said. “Mrs. Parker’s lost faith in us.”

Tony laid his head against the scaly mass in front of him and sighed.

“You know what? That’s fair,” he said.

If some of the world’s so-called finest couldn’t even catch a literal child after three weeks of trying, Tony would have said that they were a bunch of useless fucks, too.

“She came to me and asked me if I’d help her try something different,” Barton said. “So I’m gonna need you to trust me, man.”

Trust him?

Sure, why not?

At this point, nothing Tony or Rhodey or Natasha tried had worked. So why not Barton? He was the one who kept getting the closest to the kid.

He had his own little menace he was chasing around anyways. He knew this shit.

“Glad you think so,” Barton said. “But I need like, a written agreement that you ain’t gonna scream at me, okay?”

Written agreement. Pft. Okay.

 ---

 “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

Barton stared at Tony and pointed at Rhodey like a tattle-tell. Tony was exhausted.

“TONY.”

He was so tired, Rhodey.

“You cannot sanction this,” Rhodey said.

Tony wasn’t sanctioning anything. He was just letting the aunt take the reins.

“We are not sending the Punisher after a child,” Rhodey said.

“The jokes on you, bub,” Clint told him. “The Punisher is already keeping an eye out for the child and you know what? He’s got a bite.”

Silence flooded the meeting room. Sam Wilson turned around slowly in his chest and moved his icepack to the other hand.

“Say that again,” he said.

Barnes’s eyes went huge like a cat and Nat leaned her elbows onto his shoulders.

“I said,” Barton scoffed at them, “The Punisher’s still upstate. I sent him a text explaining shit. He’s got a soft spot for babies. You know, latent dad instincts and all that, and he’s been homeless for like, years now. So he said he’ll keep an eye out. He’s got an idea of a few places where kids around Peter’s age go when they’ve got nowhere else to.”

Tony stomped down on the urge to say that Peter wasn’t like those kids; he did have a place to go. He was just misunderstanding the situation. He was just fifteen and tired and not thinking logically. Translating people chasing him as anger instead of help.

Man, all those straight As really put that kid’s fear of abandonment into perspective now.

Tony didn’t even know how to approach him anymore.

He wasn’t a dad. No one on this team was a dad. They didn’t know how to talk to kids. Or if they did, not teenagers.

So you know what?

If the Punisher thought he could grab the kid, then he should.

 ----

 And the Punisher did.

Tony had never spoken directly to the man. The whole team went silent when Barton answered the call and then said, “hold on, let me put you on speaker.”

The Punisher’s voice was husky and hoarse with his whisper.

“Got him,” he said softly.

Tony covered his eyes in relief.

“He’s sleepin’,” The Punisher said. “Real adaptable. You weren’t kiddin’, Barton.”

“Thank god,” Steve said.

“He hurt?” Barton asked.

“Yeah,” the Punisher said. “He ain’t let me look ‘im over, but he’s got scabs all over. Cute kid. Once we were on the same page, he came willingly enough.”

What did that mean?

“Means I had to find some vegetarian shit from McDonalds,” the Punisher said like Tony was an idiot. “Kid’s hungry. Cold. Needs a bath. Found him tucked up with some others. They ain’t wanna come like him. But they’re good kids with good folks; they told him that if he had someone waiting on him, he should go.”

They’d done what?

The Punisher snorted.

“Homeless folks aren’t stupid, moneybags,” he said. “They got problems, but they aren’t stupid. And they ain’t want my help, so that’s that. You give ‘em some money and let ‘em do what they need to.”

What.

“I know, it’s almost like their lives ain’t your business,” the Punisher huffed.

He was kind of a dick.

“You headed back this way?” Barton asked.

“That’s a negative,” the Punisher said.

Rhodey went stiff.

“But don’t worry, I got someone to leave him with when I get to where I’m goin’,” the Punisher said. “He’ll bring him down your way.”

Barton sighed.

“Thanks, Frank,” he said. “We owe you one.”

“I don’t want your debt,” the Punisher said. He said nothing.

“I owe you one,” Barton corrected.

“Damn right, you do, Sparky.”

“Collect when you’re ready,” Barton said.

“Copy that.”

Barton hung up and stared with crystal eyes into Tony soul.

“Someone tell the kid’s aunt,” he said.

 ---

 The Punisher went up to Niagara Falls, whereupon he handed Peter off to Deadpool.

Tony almost had a stroke.

May Parker slapped a hand onto her chest and sighed in relief.

“Thank god,” she said.

Thank god?

More like, god have mercy, no?

“No, thank god,” May said.

May had Deadpool’s number in her goddamn phone. Tony was dumbfounded.

“Eyyyyyy,” Deadpool cheered when he answered May’s call. “Well, look who it is. Pete—heya babycakes, you—? Okay, no. Sorry, we had a big day at the falls. He’s tired.”

Deadpool cackled. May huffed out a chuckle and shook her head.

“Thank you, Wade,” she said tearfully. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Deadpool said cheerfully. “Little Scrappy’s just scrappier. He ain’t hurt bad. Just a little shaken. Got that good anxiety. Six kinds of paranoia, look at ‘im go. That’s healthy, that’s what that is.”

It was not, Mr. Pool.

“Who’s makin’ that racket in the background?” Deadpool asked.

May explained that she was in the company of the Avengers. She did not say that half of them were shocked stupid. She did not say that Rhodey was clawing his hands at the sky and lamenting a career in military service being useless compared to fuckin’ Deadpool’s sunny disposition.

“Ah,” Deadpool said. “Well, I’m just gonna not say shit to him about that.”

“That’s fine,” May said. “Tell him I love him and I’m not mad. I’ve just been worried. Where’s his phone?”

“Oh, honey. You should see it. Kid fished it out of the sea,” Deadpool said. “I found a fuckin’ barnacle in it. Pretty impressive how small them things get, you know what I mean?”

Somehow, May did. Even though Tony emphatically did not.

“How long?” she asked.

“Ehn. Well. I got a job . Then I’m meeting someone in Syracuse. But you know what’s good news?”

“What?” May asked.

“Red’s at a conference in Ithaca,” Deadpool said. “He said he can swipe Spiderkid up from the bus station.”

Red?

Who was Red?

“You serious right now, DP?” Barnes asked.

“Ohhhh, why hello there, Winter. Didn’t see you there,” Deadpool said. “I am indeed serious. I’ll put the kid on a bus to Cornell or where the fuck ever and our Hornheaded friend will grab him before he scurries off to the wind again. He’ll be fine. Car rides are lullabies to him.”

May seemed touched.

“I’ll wire you the money, Wade,” she said.

“Huh? Oh, no. Don’t worry about it. I’m puttin’ it in the favor box,” Deadpool said. “Barnesy, my boy. Red hates everything upstate and his boo-bear’s got family they’re gonna visit in Poughkeepsie. Can one of you darling blockheads meet him up there to take the kid, so he doesn’t ruin his one and only chance at marriage?”

What.

The fuck.

Was happening?

“Uuuuh, when? Tomorrow?” Barton asked.

“Two days from now,” Deadpool said. “If you can’t, don’t sweat it. I got a gal who’s willing to pick him up.”

“I can go as far as Paterson,” Barnes said out of nowhere. “If your gal can bring him down that far, that’d be good. I’ll bring the bike.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun,” Deadpool said. “Totally doable. I’ll give her a call and send you an address. Thanks a million, Winter.”

Barnes sniffed.

“It’s cool. Show him a picture of me so he ain’t bolt again,” he said.

“Copy that,” DP said. “I’ll let him know what you said, May. Bye for now.”

He hung up.

May Parker deflated into a puddle of relief.

Tony still didn’t know what was happening.

“Wilson’s gonna hand the kid off to Daredevil,” Barton explained. “And DD will take him with him to Poughkeepsie, where Wilson’s contact—the fuck is her name, Barnes?”

“Domino,” Barnes said.

“That’s the one,” Barton said. “She’ll pick him up, probably with Summers, and bring him down to Paterson and then Barnes’ll go grab him from there and bring him home.”

That—

Wh—

Why couldn’t they, the Avengers, have orchestrated this? This was not hard. This was advanced Connect Four.

“Sometimes, you can’t think like a hero,” Barton told him. “You gotta think like a vigilante.”

 ---

 Peter came home. Barnes swept him up from the station in Paterson and tossed him over a shoulder. And Tony came into the medical bay as soon as he got word of their arrival to find him sprawled out there still, asking Barnes a thousand questions about fuckin’ heroin.

God, lord, Jesus.

Someone spare Tony’s soul.

Peter noticed him and reacted by slipping off Barnes’s shoulder and hiding behind him as though he expected Tony to start shouting at any moment.

And for a moment, Tony almost felt like he should have.

But he wasn’t Peter’s dad. And Peter hadn’t done that shit on purpose. He’d just been scared and when he got scared, he’d decided to turn towards people he knew he could trust.

The other street level guys. People like him.

Tony couldn’t be angry with him for that.

So he came over and collapsed into the chair next to Peter’s assigned bed and held out his arms.

“Hugs for an old man?” he asked.

Peter peeked out from behind Barnes and lit up.

His hug was crushing. His clothes were rank and his wrists looked skinny and he was as pale as Tony had ever seen him, but he was here.

And he was chillin’.

“Next time, just stay in the city, alright?” Tony said. “We got the state. You got the city. At least until you’re old enough to have your own credit card, yeah?”

“Kay,” Peter hummed.

“You scared the shit out of us, kiddo.”

Peter pulled away from him and hopped back up on the bed.

“Is my aunt coming?” he asked.

Tony sighed.

She was.

“Cool, I missed her. My phone broke and maps are hard. I got like four of them. Folks kept givin’ theirs to me, even though I needed like, money.”

Tony leaned forward and held his face in his hands.

“Yeah?” he finally managed to say.

“Yeah,” Peter hummed. “It’s really hard to get a bus with no money. And they don’t even have buses in a lot of places, you know? Like, Uber isn’t even a thing out there. You’ve just gotta have a car or know someone who does.”

Bless.

“Wade says that I’m a city boy.”

That’s ‘cause you are, child.

“But I slept in a tree, so that’s camping.”

It’s not.

“And there was a raccoon. So that’s camping.”

It’s really, really not.

“I saw Cyclops and he tried to laser-eyes me, but, get this, I Lizard-ed him. Went into the sewers like Connors. I mean, he’s a jerk, but he’s definitely right to stick to the sewers. It’s warm down there. Can you imagine if the X-men X-manned me, though? Wade says that they do that to people.”

Tony was melting.

“They definitely do that to people,” Barnes said.

Vigilantes, man. The lies they spread.

“I made some friends in Buffalo,” Peter carried on. “They’re nice. They used to live in Rochester. They saw me fighting a space-fish, and they said that was cool as hell. And so they were tellin’ me about garbage plates and then Chelsea’s mom told me I needed to go home because May probably wasn’t mad and it was getting too cold. And then she made me promise not to do drugs. And when Mr. Castle showed up, she waved him down—I like her a lot. I gave them my money so that they could sleep in the shelter and I think Mr. Castle gave her more money, but he gave me and Chelsea McDonalds. And it was like, so good, Mr. Stark. I forgot how much I like McDonalds.”

Fuckin’ garbage plates.

“I’m gonna make one,” Peter hummed.

Someone come take these kid home already.

 ----------------------------------

Problems I have with the Trope:

So I don’t know the homeless Peter trope very well, but I don’t love it because in order to write it, you have to remove May from the picture, pretty much entirely. Folks either tend to kill her or make her abusive and that’s fucked up to do to, not only Peter’s remaining family member, but to a civilian female character.

I also don’t love this trope because I don’t love Irondad and the homeless Peter trope is pretty much designed for him to be saved by Tony.

The third reason I don’t enjoy this trope is because I don’t think enough people do their research on, not only what it takes to become homeless (especially for a minor), but how broad definitions of homelessness are. People who are homeless don’t just live on the street; they live in cars, they couch surf, they work hard to be clean, they have jobs.

And the last reason (for now), that I find this trope difficult is Peter’s age. Age is the hardest shit. A homeless 14-15 yo is kind of difficult to work with because there are layers of safety nets and, if you don’t kill May or make her abusive, it is next to impossible to work through her responsible nature and stability to put her and Pete out on the street plausibly (and I refused to compromise on this, which is how I ended up with this accidental loss). It would be much easier to write a homeless Peter as a college student.

[nakedmossy]

Depth Over Distance - Part Three [Rudy x Reader]

[A/N: I haven’t found a hometown Rudy fic yet soooo I wrote one. I have no idea where this story is going to go and I’m honestly finding it hard to get out of writing JJ and get into writing Rudy, but here we go anyways. I wanted to write something where the reader and Rudy were hometown friends before he moved to LA, and to explore the idea of how that would change/what it would look like when he comes back. Get ready for a S L O W. B U R N. my dudes. Peace and love, Mossy x]

There were very few people in the world that could make you smile at 7 in the morning when it was raining outside, but Rudy was one of them.

You forced yourself awake as your car wound around the dirt roads, swerving pot holes and washboards, the rain starting to patter lightly on your windshield again. You followed Rudy’s tail lights away from the beach parking lot, your hula girl bobbling on the dash board, and you smiled as you were instantly transported into a flashback of the first time you had followed him down this road. 

————

It was the day you bought your car, the week of your sixteenth birthday, and Rudy had asked you to meet him out at the beach alone in the afternoon before your party later that night. You had driven your car to the parking lot where his old beaten down and barely drivable Chevy was parked and pulled in beside him. He applauded graciously as you got out of the drivers seat and you took a deep bow, laughing.

“Look at this absolute TANK!” He said, taking his sunglasses off and walking around the car, inspecting it. It must have passed his inspection because he got up off the ground after looking under the wheel wells and wiping the dirt off his knees, beaming. “Its perfect”

“Isn’t it?” You gushed, unable to contain the smile plastered on your face. “I can’t believe its mine. It feels so weird.”

“Come on” Rudy bumped your arm with his and grabbed his pack out of the box of his truck. You followed him down the trail, jogging lightly to keep up with his long, comfortable stride. When you got to the beach, he laid a blanket out and patted for you to sit down beside him, you had been telling him about how the car drove and all its quirks you had noticed and how sticky the gear shift was, and didn’t notice when he pulled two beers out of his pack.

“Oh” You said quietly, stopping talking and staring at him. “Rudy, I can’t. I have to drive to my party after this.” 

Rudy smiled at you and chucked the beer underhand at you so you had to catch it. Your eyes wide, you looked around, checking to make sure nobody was watching.

“Relax, Y/N. I will drive in front of you...if anything happens ill get stopped first.” He winked at you, knowing that one beer wouldn’t get either of you in trouble but knowing how conscious you were, and cracked his can. You apprehensively cracked your own, some of the spray from it being shaken up landing on your bare legs. You clinked cans and smiled at each other. Rudy looked at you intently and dipped his head towards you.

“To you. My wonderful best friend. I hope you have the best night ever. Happy Birthday. Congrats on the car. Can’t wait to christen it-”

“RUDY!” You smacked his arm and laughed until your face was beat red. “Cheers”

He echoed you and you both lifted your cans, drinking a few gulps. It was hoppy and made your throat burn, you squinted and shook your head.

“-AND, and,” He tipped his can towards you. “I have a present for you.”

“No.” You looked at him, feigning anger. “You know the rules. We don’t do presents...”

He ignored you and smiled cheekily, lifting a box out of his pack. Unwrapped and the cardboard torn, you snorted as he passed it to you. You hoped he mistook your blushing for the beer making you flush. As you opened the box, you could feel your legs tingling and your chest pumping quicker. Rudy had never given you a gift before - you had agreed as kids that you weren’t going to be those friends. This felt weird and intimate. First you saw the black hair and the green skirt, then the lai and the bikini top. You looked up at him and raised your eyebrows before you started laughing.

“Oh really, Rudy. Really, you shouldn’t have. Thank you.” You mocked sincerity, putting a hand on your chest. “So thoughtful...I just...”

“Alright shut up” He laughed, tearing the box up and stuffing it back in his pack. 

You smiled genuinely at him, and held the dashboard hula girl gently in your hands. 

“Thank you” You said without laughing now, making Rudy wiggle his nose and shift his position on the blanket, scratching his hand through his hair nervously.

“Well. You know...no beater is complete without one.” He said with mock seriousness.

“Hey! She’s not a beater. She’s...just...very well loved.” You emphasized the last words, hoping to convey how loved you felt at that moment.

You smiled at each other now, then the smiles faded and you held each others gazes silently. You couldn’t tell if it was the beer or the sunset or Rudy’s cologne or the proximity of how close you sat on the blanket, but the air shifted between you and you felt your head loosen on your shoulders. It was as if Rudy was leaning towards you, but you felt wobbly so you couldn’t be sure. All you knew was that he was staring at you, your eyes, your lips, and your chest was pounding and you felt light headed. 

You swallowed and broke eye contact, looking at the water. 

“We should probably get going. Can’t be late to our own party.” You smiled at him, his eyes still lingered on your mouth then hazily looked back up at your eyes and returned the smile. 

“Yeah” He agreed, then stood quickly, offering you his hand to help you up. 

You white knuckled the steering wheel the entire drive from the beach to your house, the hula girl on the dash wiggling in between Rudy’s tail lights.

————

You blinked and looked at the road again, Rudy’s rental car tail lights disappearing around the corner onto his street. You looked at the hula girl and stretched your hands out on the steering wheel, your palms sweaty.

You pulled into his driveway behind his car as he emerged from the drivers seat, taking his sunglasses off and hanging them off the neck of his shirt. You shoved the gear stick into park and reefed on the e-brake (you couldn’t trust the brakes on flat land let alone a slight hill) as Rudy walked towards your car, waiting near the hood. He placed his hand on it and smiled, you watched as you took off your seatbelt and opened your door.

“What, did you miss her?” You asked sarcastically as he feigned shock and lifted his hand to his chest.

“Of course I did” He bumped your elbows together when you stepped in beside him and you both started towards his front door.

His house hadn’t changed a lick since you were there last - you stopped visiting a few months after Rudy left, even though his mom invited you over every single time she saw you. The gutters were still rusting and the front door looked like you could kick it in if you tried hard enough. You spent more time at this house than you did at your own in high school, and walking up to it was like muscle memory, you knew to sidestep the root in front of the first step, to skip to the third step because the second was rotten and your foot would go through it.

Rudy’s mom was already coming down the hall towards the front door, making all sorts of noises and probably crying, and you could hear the family dogs scuttling on the hardwood around her feet. 

“Good lord, my boy.” His mom stopped in the frame between the main door and the screen door, then she broke into hysterics, throwing the screen open and pulling him into a huge, very Rudy bear hug. He came by them honestly. He looked at you like he needed help before she turned her attention to you and did the same thing.

“Hi Mrs Pan-Hi, yep hello-“ She squeezed you so hard you felt your back crack. 

“Mom - you literally see her once a week, chill.”

Rudy was laughing but also courteously trying to pry his mother back inside the house. It was true - she did see you every week when she came into the bookstore to pick up her newspapers and magazine subscriptions, but it didn’t matter. She was like a second mother to you and always made you feel like it was the most exciting day in the world when you came to visit.

When you finally made it into the kitchen, you and Rudy sat down at the barstools as his mom flew back into whatever she was making, both of you knowing better than to get in her way when she was cooking. She started talking to Rudy about how the trip had been and how much of a ‘weiner that Alan was, messing up your schedule like that’. Rudy placed his phone on the counter and the screen lit up briefly - showing over 20 missed calls from someone who’s name started with an A. The screen went dark before you could read it. Wow - he really was famous. Or had a stalker.

You watched Rudy and his mom convalescing over their separation (his parents flew to LA to see him at Christmas every year since he had left, but still) and felt yourself relax into your seat, smiling. Watching her rolling dough and washing fresh berries, smelling the spices and being in the same seats you had spent numerous summer mornings in in high school, you actually felt somewhat hungry.

Rudy’s mom passed you a cup of fresh coffee and you nodded a thank you at her as you began to sip it, listening to their conversation shift from how the trip was to how his acting classes were going to how Anna was doing. Anna? The name jogged your brain and you realized that was who the missed calls had been from. Rudy’s face dropped and his eyes flitted to your briefly, you lowered your cup from your mouth and held his gaze, then he regained composure and smiled at you before looking back to his mom. 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah no she’s good. Actually I was gonna talk to you about that later.” His eyebrows rose and he smiled shortly at her, to which she made a confused expression and continued.

“But I thought-”

“Mom. Later.” He said finally, cutting her off. She nodded once and returned to her dough, continuing to talk to him about some of the things they had lined up while he was home. You barely heard a word she said, your gut was screaming at you that something was off about the way Rudy had reacted to her bringing up this Anna person and how odd it was he had so many missed calls from her. His body had gone completely rigid, and he had completely dodged the conversation, like he was keeping her a secret. You and Rudy had never kept secrets. Besides, if he had told his mom about a girl, it was serious. He hadn’t even told her about his high school girlfriend and they had dated for over 4 months. Why was he being shady now?

Then it hit you, and you felt like an ignorant little girl. It had been 4 years since he was home, he lived in LA and was a professional actor. He led an entirely different life that you knew nothing about now. It had been so easy, so comforting, to slip back into your old routine with him, being in his family home, visiting with his mom. But it wasn’t the same as it had been before, you were both different people now. Of course he had been with girls, was probably with girls right now, apparently her name was Anna, and who were you to him? His high school best friend? He didn’t owe you an explanation. But it did feel like a mistake coming here, expecting everything to just... be as it was. You felt silly.

As his mom brought plates of food to the table and motioned for you to sit with her, you grabbed your phone out of your pocket and checked the time. It was just after 8am. 

“Actually, Mrs Pankow, I would love to stay but I’m actually not super hungry and I have to help my dad get ready for this trip he has coming up this weekend...it was really nice to see you though.” You rushed your words and scurried towards her, forcing her into a hug and then separating and moving towards the door, walking backwards as you talked.

“Wait, but honey I made you a plate.” She stood, confused, looking at you while holding the tongs.

“I know I’m so sorry, I just didn’t realize the time. I’ll see you soon, though. Promise. Bye Rudy”

As you spoke you spoke only to her, avoiding Rudy’s eyes which were watching you intently as he rose from his seat. You put your back against the screen and apologized again before pushing through it and jogging back down the stairs, tripping on the root at the bottom and walking quickly towards your car. You heard the screen door slam as Rudy called your name from behind you.

“Hey, Y/N, woah woah woah.” He was behind you before you reached your car, his hand wrapped around your arm. “Where are you going?” He spun you to face him, his face full of concern. 

You smiled, tight-lipped, and nodded to your car.

“I lost track of time. I have to go.” You said curtly, waiting for him to let your arm go. 

“Look if its about the food...I mean, you don’t have to...” He looked down at your arm, that was so devoid of fat and muscle anymore that his hand could wrap fully around it, and frowned.

You let out a breath and looked around, pinching the bridge of your nose before speaking.

“Its not that, Rudy. I just...I need to go. I’m sorry.”  You backed away, tugging your arm free as you walked towards your car again, your face hot and feeling embarrassed. Of course he would think it was about you not wanting to eat. 

“Y/N wait” He said hurriedly, jogging to catch up to you and pressing your door closed as you began to open it. You looked up at him now, his eyes were intensely focused on you.

“What’s going on?” He was scanning your face, desperate. You felt yourself crumbling being this close to him and feeling him watching you so intensely. His expression faltered and his features relaxed. “Please talk to me” he said quietly.

You took a step back, away from your door, and let out a breath, swatting a mosquito away.

“I don’t know Rudy, I just....a lot has changed since you left. A lot. And I can’t just waltz around and pretend like we’re still in high school and nothing is different. We’re different...and...I mean if there are some parts of your life that you don’t want to share with me then that’s fine, but-“

“Hold on, what are you talking about?” His brow furrowed and he narrowed his eyes, taking a step towards you.

You raised your eyebrows at him and looked around, putting your hands in your pockets.

“You don’t have to...hide...stuff. From me. Of all people.” You said slowly, urging him to pick up on it so you wouldn’t have to say it. He looked stunned. “Anna?” You finally relented, taking half a step back.

His shoulders relaxed and a small smile crept onto his face, then a small laugh. 

“My agent?” He said in a half mocking tone. “Anna is my agent.”

“Oh. Oh...that’s...weird” You felt the gears in your head turning slowly, trying to think if you had ever heard her name before or maybe it was normal to fool around and date your agents in LA? “You’re seeing your agent?” You said sceptically, trying not to look too judgemental.

He let out a full belly laugh then. 

“No I’m not dating my agent, you loser. I just didn’t want to...talk about work yet. Its all my mom ever wants to talk about and I’m kinda trying to...have a few hours to relax first.” He said quietly, his eyebrows raised as he watched you, ready to laugh again at any moment.

You rolled your eyes and looked at your feet, nodding and pursing your lips.

“Yeah alright laugh it up. I don't know...you just seemed really on the spot when your mom brought her up. It was weird.”

He looked around and put his arms up, resting his hands on his head before his eyes settled back on you. He licked his lips and took a step towards you, dropping his hands to his sides.

“Look. There are some things about work I haven’t shared with my mom yet, and probably never will. And what I said on the beach this morning...about needing to come home for awhile. I meant that. Its...complicated. And trust me, please trust me when I say that I want to share that with you but....” His eyes were heavy on you then, he set his jaw and stepped towards you. “Y/N, please don’t go yet. I just got here.” He said firmly, his eyes locked on you.

You nodded once, scratching your forehead, and throwing your hands up dramatically.

“Fine. Alright.”

Rudy chewed his cheek and smiled, taking a deep breath and releasing it as his dad appeared on the porch behind him, the screen door squeaking.

“Hey! Kids! My breakfast is getting cold over here!” He shouted, smiling as Rudy turned around to wave at him. Rudy looked back at you once to make sure you were still coming, to which you nodded reassuringly, before he took off and hiked up the steps to greet his dad with a hug.

____________________________________________

Tag List: @bluebirdsbluebells​, @sunshinemadds​, @lovelymaybankk​, @poguestyleskye​, @alexa-playafricabytoto​, @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch​, @k-k0129​, @kimyeon-tae​, 

[hansoulo]

ain’t it a gentle sound (the rolling in the graves) - pt. 6

Pairing: Horacio Carrillo/f!Reader

Warnings: tiny mention of canon-typical violence, fluff!!!! wow imagine that

Word Count: 1.15k

Gif Credit: x by @bobafvtt who is an angel baby that feeds my carrillo addiction

A/N: the ending of this timeline!!! not to worry tho more shall come soon 🤡also ive had “i really like you” by carly rae jepsen stuck in my head since i started this stupid thing and now u all finally get to see why

series masterlist   carrd   playlist 

You looked beautiful when you slept. You always looked beautiful, it didn't really matter when or how or where, but here - in his bed under morning light - you were iridescent. He’d spend hours looking at you if you let him, mapping out every expanse of your skin until he was dizzy with it. With you. Everything with you is softer around the edges, backlight and glowing from the inside out until the entire world is tinged sunburst yellow. Before he had to leave and it was painted scarlet again.

Horacio didn’t want to think about that now, though. It was Saturday morning on a summer day and your arms were slung around his neck. Everything else could wait.

You moved your head from the pillow beside him to rest on his chest, eyes flirting with the idea of opening. Not yet, please. Let me look a little longer.

“What time is it?” you mumbled, slurring and quiet. Your eyelashes brushed his collarbones as you looked up, heavy-lidded and slow. His hands left your waist to cup at your cheeks, fingers skimming sandpaper-light as they smoothed away the furrow of your brow.

“It’s still early,” he assured you, tracing the shell of your ear. “Go back to sleep.” You nodded, your head a dead weight on your neck as you settled.

Your tone was humorous when you met him with a mock salute, whispered and apparently oblivious to the way he sucked in a breath through his teeth at the words. “Yes, sir.”

⫸ ——– ⫷

“Horacio” you spoke into the pillows, muffled by down and cotton. Turning to face him, you were met with the sight of his bare back, rising slowly as he slept. “Isabella’s crying.”

He made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat, the muscles in his shoulders rippling as he shifted. Snorting slightly at the sight of his bedhead, you contemplated the idea of grabbing a camera before getting up, your legs meeting the slight residual chill of morning air when you lifted the covers. The clock on his bedside table read just past six and you groaned, rubbing at your eyes with a sluggish hand as you walked towards the door. Twenty minutes later she was changed and sated, sleeping quietly again for what you hoped would be at least another two hours. Don’t jinx it.

Your bare feet met the cold tile of his kitchen floor as you stepped forward, mind still fogged over and molasses sticky. You could walk around his apartment with your eyes closed, though, so you weren’t too worried.

Coffee would be nice. Yes. Coffee. Motions slow and rehearsed, you opened the cabinet to bring out the mug with the chipped lip, white china smooth against your hands except for the single grained slope that had worn duller after years of rubbing touch. You leaned against the counter as you waited for the pot to fill, the rough granite pushing into your hip but doing little to wake you any further. The mug was filled shortly after and you forgoed any cream or milk, remembering how he only put in ungodly amounts of sugar. You took a hesitant sip, wincing at the heat and bitterness that stuck waxy to the roof of your mouth. You’d make another cup later. He could keep this one.

Setting the mug down on the small stand beside Horacio’s bed, you looked down at him. He looked handsome when he slept. Younger. Less stern, less hard and commanding the way you knew he could be but chose to quell. (Around you, anyway.) You brushed back the hair curling short on his forehead, biting down on your lip to resist the urge to grin like some love-sick teenager. It would be a little fitting, though. Love-sick. Drunk on it. A thing innocent but still shadowed, pressed down on all sides and smothering sweet. Like the faint trailing of a melody, echoing discordant on its reverb.

You lay back down, allowing yourself to be swallowed by the morning sun.

⫸ ——– ⫷

“Are we still just friends?” you teased, your fingers tracing mindless circles across his stomach. A kiss was placed at the crown of your head, slightly chapped.

“I don’t think we ever were just friends,” Horacio said with a small laugh, the words tickling and making you squirm. Humming quietly, you nodded.

“I guess not,” you agreed, shifting on the bed so you could turn and face him. “After all, I don’t think friends do this,” you said as your mouth scraped the stubble of his cheek, drawing out a small huff that fanned over your face. “Or this,” and you let it trail down to the curve of his jaw, the faint taste of salt sticking onto the dull grooves of your teeth.

You were gentle with it - with this broad, carved man that allowed your curiosities - light and saccharine to make up for all the time you had spent waiting, denying yourself of things readily given - a penance made all the more torturous by the cruelty of its beauty. But you were your own god now. “Or this,” you whispered as you finally reached his mouth.

Horacio’s chin dipped down, eyes tracing the swollen flesh of your lips as the pad of his thumb did the same.

You didn’t really believe in destiny but if it meant this, if it meant him, it was suddenly something more tangible. A body you could hold, arms that you knew would open, something that had somehow - slowly and without warning or notice - turned into someone.

“I like you,” you breathed.

“I like you, too.”

“No, I-,” you said a bit desperately, pleading. The words were hot honey in your mouth, dragged and longing for a thing you already had but were terrified of losing. “I really, really like you.” His small chuckle seeped through your hair, broad arms encircling your waist and pulling you in tighter. Lips met your temple, firm but still tender.

You pushed up from where you lay on the bed, hands splayed across his chest to steady yourself as you looked at the man beneath you. The words you had yet to say hung suspended in the air, enveloping the room in a hazy, gaseous thing that tasted bitter,  a bit like almonds and copper, in the back of your throat. You leaned down, gulping air with another press of your mouth against his, open and slotting easy. It was deeper this time - insistent and repeating all the things you both already took as gospel. I love you. I love you. I love you.

You pulled back, shared breaths falling in tandem between two beating chests. Your voice was quiet.

“I love you.”

“I know,” he smiled, a hand coming to cup the nape of your neck, guiding your head down until his lips ghosted across the bow of your mouth, heady smoke and sandalwood exhales prompting your eyes to close. “I love you, too.”

[theonceoverthinker]

Friday the Flirteenth (1/?)

Summary: Qrow likes to avoid others on Friday the Thirteenth. He claims he’s doing it for everyone else’s sake, and that they’re better off if he spends the day alone in his room. Clover’s not having any of his self-loathing bullshit -- not today, and not ever, if he has anything to say about it.

AO3

A/N: You ever come up with an AMAZING pun and then find a way to write a fic around that? Well, that’s happened here! I’ve wanted to release this for SO long, and finally, I can...at least release part 1! Yeah, illnesses have made this a hard fic to finish, but fortunately, I have enough here to release a respectable first chapter to what will hopefully be a respectable MC! I hope you enjoy it! Tagging @fair-game-week!

BIG thanks to my beta, @skybird13. Sky, you’re the best, and I hope you understand that. Coordinating with you with my works makes me feel so confident in them. I want you to know more than anything how much I value your help and support, not just in this fic, but in everything, and I hope we’re friends for a long time to come!!!!

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Chapter One: Fourteen Hours, and A Whole Lot of Peanuts

Qrow Branwen liked peanuts. 

They were cheap, could be found just about anywhere in Remnant, had a pleasantly salty taste, and served as the perfect snack on days where he had no intention of stepping so much as a toe outside of his room.

So, in anticipation for Friday the Thirteenth, Qrow bought a LOT of peanuts.

When one had a semblance like his, a day dedicated to the very concept of bad luck was one that couldn’t be dismissed without some burden on their conscience. In fact, Friday the Thirteenth more than most any other day put extra responsibilities upon Qrow’s shoulders -- a responsibility to not cause any more trouble than necessary, a responsibility to stay away from anyone who he might accidentally harm, and a responsibility to keep the other two responsibilities secret from all who might try to intervene on his behalf.

And, just as he usually did, Qrow accepted those responsibilities and kept himself at a distance from all.

Fourteen hours. He just had to stay in his room alone for fourteen hours. 

He’d lasted a lot longer on his own many times before.

It wasn’t that big of a problem, at least not in previous years. Thanks to a lifetime’s worth of practice, Qrow knew the most secluded spots in all of Remnant to hide in on occasions like this, and the fastest routes to get to them from pretty much anywhere. And with no one but enemies on his trail, there was little risk that the day provided to anyone, or at least, anyone who didn’t deserve it.

But things weren’t so simple this year.

This year, he had his nieces and a gaggle of kids as traveling companions.

This year, he resided in an Atlesian military base, one that restricted access to any type of real seclusion further than the privacy of his own room.

This year, he despised the man he had formerly dedicated his life to.

This year, things were complicated, and his semblance always loved running amok when things were complicated.

But, as he reminded himself, some of those complications ended up turning into triumphs.

Sure, it was the first year without the hope Ozpin provided. But it was also the first year where  Qrow had a different kind of hope to keep him going. It was a kind of hope that made itself tangible through his nieces’ determination, his own efforts to fight off the allure of alcohol, and as of late, an encouraging smile and a flirty wink from a kind man with a semblance that seemingly counteracted his own…

Clover…

Clover...

Well, in a life of complications, Clover stood out as one of the biggest he’d ever faced. His very presence complicated everything in Qrow’s headspace all over again.

Still, that wasn’t a bad thing.

At least, Qrow was pretty sure it wasn’t.

Clover...Clover was really something else…

If someone were to ask Qrow to describe Clover after their disastrous first meeting, he’d have more than a couple of choice words for them -- cocky, pedantic, narcissistic. But things changed once they started working together, and as he learned more about Clover, while all of those descriptors were still true, the words themselves took on an entirely new shape for Qrow. What was cockiness just days before was now self assuredness, what was pedantic was revealed to really be caution on behalf of those he worked with and for, and what was narcissistic was actually a confidence that he created for himself, a confidence based in real pride in who he was and how that pride amounted to far more than just his semblance.

Additionally, a new word came to mind, too -- warm. It was a genuine warmth that flowed through each and every one of Clover’s words, and accompanying that warmth was a trust in those fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of them. It was hard not to return that trust in kind with some of his own, and for the first time in a while, Qrow felt no need to resist doing just that. 

It surprised Qrow sometimes just how much he had already divulged to Clover. Part of the reason for that came out of a desire to put his best foot forward for their assigned partnership. Part of it was a warning in the interest of Clover’s safety. But some things couldn’t be explained away so easily, and could only be attributed to a real sense of trust.

Frankly, it was nice having something like that again with someone. 

And it wasn’t even just Clover’s personality that painted the portrait that was Clover Ebi. Looking at Clover was like looking at a cloudless sky on a spring day. He was bright, bold -- brilliant, even. His smile was caked in charm -- true charm -- and his brow was shaped with a resolve to keep promises Qrow knew he probably could, promises he likely made to himself, Ironwood, and his country. 

Maybe there was even a promise to Qrow somewhere in that mix. 

No -- there was no maybe. He was sure there was.

But there was a coolness in Clover’s being too, both in his demeanor and his personality. There was an untold story in his eyes, one uncared for by his teammates, and only allowed to exist through fleeting expressions here and there during moments where he let his guard fall down. And that same jaw that held his charm like a jug held water held tension there too, as if there was an entire book’s worth of things he wanted to say, but for whatever reason didn’t. It was enough to make anyone who saw those things pretty curious about what hidden depths might be underneath that veil of job-dictated professionalism.

Qrow spent far more time thinking about all that he had left to uncover about Clover than he would ever admit.

After all, there was a lot to ask about what went on in that man’s mind, especially when it led him to befriend him, of all people.

But that wink Clover gave him on their first mission together made Qrow wonder if befriending him was all Clover wanted to do.

And regardless of how he felt in return, Qrow had to wonder whether or not he should try to stop him before Clover jumped further down the rabbit hole that was his life.

Qrow was bad news.

Then again, just about everything having to do with Clover was good news, and perhaps the exact thing that rabbit hole of his could use in its life was a lucky rabbit’s foot to help fill it up.

Wow...that was sappy.

Even on his worst days, Clover seemed able to bring out a little bit of sappiness in him. Go figure.

But, whatever fate had in store for him and Clover could wait to be further unearthed until tomorrow. Hell, he might even have time to muse on what that might be today, because for the next fourteen hours, it would be just himself, his room, and an overabundance of peanuts fighting against the slowly whiling hours of time.

Jeez...greater good or not, even Qrow could admit just how sad that was...

Maybe his abandonment of his morning coffee would at least grant him a nap and make the day go by faster…

He’d certainly prefer it that way.

Before he could even attempt to take advantage of his coffee’s absence, two knocks hit his door.

Perhaps it was foolish to think no one would bother him today -- after all, in Atlas, there was always something going on -- but he had a day off of Huntsmen duties while most everyone else he knew didn’t. He’d hoped against hope that meant that he’d be left in peace for the day.

Apparently, it didn’t.

Just his luck…

“Hello?” Qrow called out, reluctantly standing up.

“Qrow?”

Immediately, he recognized the voice, the voice that had burned itself into his memory within a matter of weeks and now had a summer cottage nestled somewhere between his brain and heart.

And there he was, letting that sappiness invade his thoughts again…

Of course the one person responsible for inspiring it was the one visiting him on the absolute worst day to do so.

Qrow approached and opened the door.

Just as he suspected, it was Clover who stood on the other side, as chipper as ever. After willing himself to hold back a grimace at the unexpectedness of his or anyone’s visit, Qrow noticed two cups of coffee in his hands. 

“You missed your morning cup,” Clover stated, offering one of the ones in his hand to Qrow. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Despite himself and everything the day represented for him, Qrow let down his guard ever so slightly at the awkward way Clover explained himself. He wasn’t thrilled about someone showing up on his doorstep, but that’s not to say it wasn’t nice to see a friendly face at all, especially in the face of the rest of his sure-to-be lonely day.

“Thanks,” he said, accepting the cup with a light smile he allowed to surface.

“So,” Clover said, elongating the vowel for a few seconds as he expectantly stared at Qrow.

“So?” Qrow repeated, matching Clover’s delivery and adding in a bit of confusion. 

“IS everything okay?” 

“Yeah,” Qrow said, shrugging.

Clover quirked his brow. He didn’t look convinced, and unwilling to give Qrow so much as the chance to rectify that. 

“It’s not, though, is it?”

Qrow fought the urge to bit his cheek, but paid the cost of that with a tremor in his voice.

“W-what do you mean?”

“You not coming down for coffee is strange on its own,” Clover elaborated, “but you haven’t even left your room and it’s nearly ten. Usually, even on your lazy days, you’re out and about by half past eight, at the latest.”

“So I slept in a bit,” Qrow defended, shrugging in what he hoped would be a casual enough manner. “What’s the big deal?”

“It wouldn’t be a big deal at all if it wasn’t Friday the Thirteenth.”

Qrow blinked, flustered even more so than when Clover had started pressing him. Clover merely looked at him expectantly. 

How did he-?

Sure, Clover had a calendar, but why would he-?

Damnit, Clover...

“It’s a day for bad luck,” Qrow explained, his mood dark out of instinct more than malice. “Given my semblance --”

“It’s a day for superstitions,” Clover insisted.

“You seem to like yours just fine.” Qrow made a circle with his finger that encompassed the various lucky charms on Clover’s outfit.

Clover smiled as if he saw the rebuttal coming from a mile away.

“These are just here to make the uniform pop,” he said, laughter bubbling underneath him, as if Qrow had just walked into a trap. “And judging by how you clearly seemed to take notice of them, it looks like they’ve done their jobs quite nicely.” 

Just as he finished speaking, Clover winked right at Qrow, something that was very quickly becoming a habit of his when they were around each other. Fria must’ve imbued that wink with some of her magic or something because it always felt just a bit overpowering.

Qrow made a noise that would’ve sounded more at home in his bird form than the form that actually delivered it.

“Okay, but even still,” Qrow said, quickly pushing to make Clover forget about that sound, “you know what kind of things are out there in this world. Magic exists, fairy tale maidens and Grimm are running amok -- who's to say something like Friday the Thirteenth isn’t real, too? What reason do I have to trust that my semblance won’t go haywire on a day devoted to it?”

“If you stay in your room,” Clover countered, just as quickly as Qrow had with him, “you’re making things worse for yourself. Come on,” he said, his tone brightening alongside a fresh, new smile. “We can go get an early lunch. There’s a fantastic sushi restaurant just on the outskirts of the academy that you’ll love. Their rolls put the ‘ah’ in ‘tuna.’”

Now it was Qrow’s turn to quirk his brow. “And if I leave my room, I’ll risk making things worse for everyone else. I’m not leaving. Maybe we can go to that restaurant tomorrow.”

Qrow expected Clover to keep pushing back with yet another comment, but instead, he just took a patient, deep breath.

He then shrugged.

“And I was so excited to take you there, too,” Clover lamented. “But, oh well. Have it your way, then.”

Without giving Qrow so much as a second to respond, Clover gently pushed him to the side, walked inside his room, and sat down on one of the chairs across from his bed. Qrow was stuck somewhere between being utterly stunned by the action, and not at all. After all, this was pretty standard Clover Ebi behavior in that it was utterly unpredictable.

That’s not to say it was necessarily welcome -- or that Qrow would admit it even if it was.

And this morning, he was feeling particularly stubborn in his quest for solitude.

“That wasn’t an invitation to join me,” Qrow snipped.

Clover simply lounged back into the plush chair, easing his knees as his legs spread forward. “Well, if you won’t come out with me, then I’ll simply have to come in with you.” He then pulled something out of his pocket, something that instantly brought another grimace to Qrow’s face, all the while smiling. 

“Up for some cards?”

Qrow groaned.

He knew it when he woke up, and he was even more sure of it now: This was gonna be a long, long fourteen hours.

[emotionally-imbruised]

Sink or Swim

In which Harry and Y/N work together as lifeguards.

A/N: here’s (a little late but) day 17 for my bby  @always-jackedup’s 25 days of summer. Make sure to go check out the pieces by all the other authors if you want some fun summer things to read. Also wow, this turned out longer than I was expecting; you all can blame Sarah.

Word Count: 15.8k

As much as she wanted this summer to be one for the record books, just like it had been in recent years, Y/N didn’t have too high of expectations. It sucked a lot, but finally after three years of being away, she was spending her first summer back home in California and to say she wasn’t all that excited about it at all, would have been an understatement.

Once she graduated high school, Y/N stayed in San Jose with her family for a year and a half. She didn’t go to university because frankly, she didn’t know what she wanted to do in life so instead, she worked her ass off while taking a few online classes to save up some money and go see the world. Which is precisely what she did.

She spent the last three years traveling through different countries, gaining new experiences, meeting the greatest people, eating the best food, and working wherever she could to keep doing so. It was an incredible experience, and she’d do it all again if she could, but it did make her feel very alone times, so at the beginning of the year, Y/N started longing for something more permanent. Somewhere she could stay that would allow her to decide what it was she wanted to do, whether that included school or not. After considering all of her options, she decided on heading back to California with plans of moving to LA at the beginning of September and embark on some new journeys in the land of opportunity... Even though the thought of doing that terrified her.

In preparation for her move, Y/N applied to various summer jobs as a way to save up more money until she was able to find a stable job in Los Angeles; and much to her surprise, a lot of those places were very interested in hiring her as a seasonal employee. Amongst those places expressing interest in her was Oceanside Resort and Spa on the outskirts of Bodega Bay. This fancy, membership-only resort that had been in the middle of hiring their summer staff, needed someone to fill one of the open lifeguard positions. The resort provided all training that was required, as well as staff accommodations for the entire summer (which was needed, seeing how far it was from home) and after considering all of her other options, was the one Y/N ultimately decided on. She did all her preliminary training in the weeks leading up to the beginning weeks of summer, and before she knew it, her family was dropping her off at the shuttle bus station in San Francisco to start her new adventure.

Despite its name, Oceanside was not actually located beside the ocean. Yes it was close, and the coast was only a few short minutes away, but Y/N found it somewhat ironic and couldn’t help but chuckle at the pictures of the resort printed in her welcome pamphlet; none of which included snaps of the Pacific. She knew it was stupid to be amused by such a little thing, but as she read the overly extra and dramatic explanation of how great this place was, her laughing increased and wouldn’t stop as she continued reading it over.

Maybe it was because of how she thought whoever decided to make Oceanside’s slogan “A Shell Of A Good Time” should never be allowed to make a slogan ever again, or maybe it was due to the lack of sleep she had the night before. But regardless, Y/N’s laughing didn’t subside and started gaining attention from others on the bus with her.

“Are you done?” A voice hissed from the seat in front of her, causing Y/N to snap her gaze up to be met with Aimee, her best friend from high school, staring back at her. The two of them had kept in touch for the years Y/N was away and decided to apply for jobs together. Lucky for them, Aimee was hired at Oceanside too but as a bartender at the poolside cabana rather than being a lifeguard like Y/N. The two of them applied to be roommates in the cabin that would act as their home for the summer, and as if their luck couldn’t have gotten any better already, they were approved for that too. “We’re not even there yet, and you’re already going to start annoying the shit out of our coworkers.”

“Sorry,” Y/N replied sheepishly, lowering herself into her seat more as her chuckles reduced to snickering. “Ok, but for real... have you read this thing?”

“Yes, I have,” Aimee stated as she reached over to snatch the pamphlet from her best friends grasp, turning back around so Y/N wouldn’t see the broad grin plastered on her face as well. “And yes I know it all sounds ridiculous but, a job is a job.”

“Got that right. And this place seems to have its perks, won’t be the worst job ever.”

Aimee just nodded before turning around to face Y/N again and tossing the now crumpled up pamphlet between the ugly blue patterned seats at her head. “Exactly, and we’ll be together. It’ll be a summer to remember.”

“I don’t know about that,” Y/N grumbled with a shrug, not paying any attention to the skeptical look Aimee was giving her as she tried to uncrumple the piece of paper on her lap. “I’m not here to have fun, you know? Sure if it happens, great, but I really need this job Aims… or LA just won’t be happening. I need to do good here and not mess it up.”

“I know,” Aimee responded and waited for her friend to make eye contact again. “But you can’t be having that mindset, ok? Obviously, work hard and everything, but also let yourself have fun, Y/N. We’re adults now and won’t have many more chances to do things like this. May as well make it count.”

There was no point in arguing against Aimee’s statement because Y/N knew she was right. Although her main focus of the summer was to make as much money as she could and save it, that thought alone made her fear about wasting away one of her favorite times of the year; which was the last thing she wanted to do. She thought about how maybe she could put herself out there a little bit and see what would happen, but for the time being, she decided on just biting down on her lip and nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m right, you don’t gotta tell me.”

“Oh, whatever,” Y/N scoffed as Aimee laughed and faced forward again, preparing to put her headphones on and just zone out for the remainder of the drive. However, before she had the chance to do that in peace, Y/N leaned forward and lowered her voice just so that only Aimee could hear. “Hey Aims, do you know what we’re going to have?”

“Don’t say it.”

“A shell of a good time,” Y/N blurted out, trying so hard to keep a straight face. The audible groan that left Aimee’s mouth was enough to feed on Y/N’s ego and caused her to fall into another laughing fit. This went on for a few minutes, and as she was starting to recollect herself, Y/N noticed how Aimee was now slinging her duffle bag over her shoulder and standing up, all while giving her a pointed glare. “Come on, it was funny.”

“Sick of you already,” she mumbled in response before moving to sit in the seats a few rows behind Y/N in silence and remaining there for the rest of the trip.

Once they arrived at Oceanside, Y/N and Aimee were given a quick, half-assed tour of the resort before being shown where they’d be living for the summer. There was no need for them to get an entire lay of the land just yet seeing as their first day of work was still a few days away, and both girls were rather thankful they’d have the weekend off before diving right in.

Y/N took this time to really let it all sink in and appreciate how she actually got to call this place home for the next two and a half months. There was no doubting that Oceanside was absolutely stunning and genuinely seemed liked its own little private oasis. It had a very serene atmosphere and didn’t seem to be lacking in anything whatsoever. However, Y/N knew it may take her a little while to get used to everything.

The resort was huge. When the bus made way up the long winding driveway that starts at Oceanside’s gated entrance, the first thing that could be seen was the clubhouse; the place Y/N figured she’d probably be spending most of her time while clocked in for work when she wasn’t at the pool. The large cream-colored building was sat on top of a hill and stood out amongst the greenery surrounding it. Y/N was told this place was what made every other part of the resort accessible, and was the first stop on hers and Aimee’s little tour.

Once inside the sliding doors of the clubhouse, they found themselves standing in the middle of the lobby; the area that acted as the place everyone needed to go to first regardless of who they were. It was where the resort guests would check-in for their stay as well as to book any extra classes/activities they wanted to do, spa services, tee time on the golf course, or to simply get any information they needed. It was also where all the staff would have any meetings after hours and go to punch in and out for each of their shifts, seeing as it was connected to basically everything. The spa and gym were to the left of the front desk, the dining room where all the guests would eat their meals was to the right and had the kitchen attached to it at the back. The kitchen itself was unnecessarily large and staffed many people, but its size made sense seeing as there were apparently a lot of guests that came here throughout the summer.

To the back of the kitchen was a door that led to another large room, one that none of the guests had access to. It was not as fancy as the rest of the clubhouse by any means and was actually kind of run down, but to Y/N, it had the most character. To put it simply, it was a mess hall for all of the staff working at the resort. There were two long wooden tables with benches that took up most of the space in the room, matching very well with the old, cracked wooden flooring and beams that crossed above on the high ceiling. Sat at the tables were her new co-workers talking, laughing, gossiping, and eating with one another. Many of them sent friendly smiles Y/N’s way, but the odd person eyed her and Aimee up a little bit -- clearly aware of how the newbies have arrived.

Once Y/N and Aimee made it through the mess hall, they exited through a side door that entered out onto a beautiful stone and marble courtyard. There was a large fountain in the middle of it with four flower gardens that take up each corner of the space. Nothing covered it from above which left it to be filled entirely with natural light and just gave Y/N the best feeling. It was her favorite spot by far.

Just past the courtyard was the pool, and it exceeded all expectations as well. It too was quite large, having a shallow section for kids and a deeper end for adults only. There was little potted plants and succulents around the entire area and no shortage of lounge chairs whatsoever. One of the first things Y/N noticed was how two lifeguards were monitoring the pool as opposed to only one. There was one sitting on the lifeguard stand that was positioned on top of the natural-looking stone waterfall on the other side of the pool, while the additional lifeguard patrolled on the same side she was standing; watching for any out of the ordinary behavior with a rescue buoy in hand. She was quick in noting how her shifts would more than likely be with someone else and that alone gave her some peace of mind. After scoping out the rest of the pool area, the two girls made way to the poolside bar where Aimee would be working and alas, their tour ended.

Upon arrival to Oceanside, the first person, Y/N and Aimee, met was Mr. Andrew Slack, the manager of the resort and well, their boss. He was kind enough and was the one to give them the tour, however, he came across as a very busy man, and just as he was finishing showing them around, he got a phone call and had to leave the girls to fend for themselves. Andrew briefly explained where they had to go to get to where the staff housing was located, before muttering a quick goodbye and heading back towards the clubhouse and answered the phone. After a moment of silently watching him go, Y/N and Aimee glanced at each other and shrugged before heading down the path he pointed out to them so they could finally put their bags down and get settled in.

“Are you sure we’re even going the right way?” Aimee groaned from a few feet behind Y/N as they came to a fork in the road, looking at the various paths they could venture down. They were maybe two minutes from the clubhouse, the sounds of people chatting and splashing around in the pool could still be heard, but she was exhausted.

“Not particularly,” Y/N responded, letting one of her duffle bags fall to the ground as she approached a tall wooden sign that listed various places they could get to and which path they’d need to take, one of them labeled staff cabins. She looked down the trail to her left, and sure enough, more laughter and chatter could be heard from what she assumed was others moving in as well. “This way, I think.“

The two girls walked down the path Y/N suggested, and soon enough, they came into a large clearing where fifteen different cabins resided. Five of the cottages were a bit smaller than the others, which only allowed two people to stay in them rather than the four that would remain in any of the others. According to one of the people on the bus there, only returning staff were able to apply for the two-person cabins, but both Y/N and Aimee were already aware that they’d be sharing a living space with two other girls, so that fact didn’t really phase them. Not every staff member needed accommodations because many were locals to the area, but nonetheless, Y/N was thankful that she did indeed have a place to stay.

Aimee inched ahead in search of their cabin and didn’t realize Y/N had fallen back a bit while she was taking in their surroundings. With a small smirk forming on her lips, Aimee decided to snap her best friend out of the little daze she was in. “Watch out for that root.”

“What root-,” Y/N started and snapped her gaze to Aimee, before staggering a bit as she took a step forward and tripped over a thick tree root that was sticking up from the ground. She quickly regained her balance and played it off as if nothing had happened, earning a loud chuckle from Aimee. “Ah, that root.”

“And they want you to be a lifeguard? Those poor people.”

Y/N just glared at her friend instead of responding as they continued forward in search of cabin 4.

It didn’t take long for them to reach their new summer home and just upon the sight of the slightly rundown looking cabin, Aimee was full-on sprinting up the steps in hopes she could claim the first bed. Y/N trudged after her, slowly making her way up the rickety wooden steps, but halting when a loud crack and some shouting sounded from behind her.

“Oi! Now, look what you’ve done.”

She raised her eyebrow skeptically at the sudden commotion before gradually spinning around on her heel to see what the hell was going on. On the other side of the trail, at the cabin directly across from hers, Y/N observed as two boys stood outside of their tiny lodge that was almost identical to her own. One of them had his back to her, and she couldn’t help but stare as his body rippled with laughter, letting her eyes roam more than she intended. He wore a pair of dark pants and a simple white t-shirt. Multiple tattoos littered his left arm, while his right arm almost seemed bare. She couldn’t see much else but noticed how he had a pair of black sunglasses on is head as a way to keep his mob of brown, shaggy, curls away from his face. There was no way of knowing how long she stood there gawking at the man, but as soon as the guy he was with spoke up, she was brought back to reality.

“You know, the least you could do is help me.”

It was then Y/N noticed that the other boy was standing with one foot stuck in the staircase. Somehow one of the wooden planks snapped and resulted in him falling through the step. Y/N immediately thought about all the first aid training she’d endured just to be ready for this job and found herself dropping all of her things on the porch before rushing down the stairs and over to the two men.

She didn’t waste any time in brushing past the guy in the white shirt to get to his friend, because truthfully, he could have gotten really hurt and the other guy was not being any help. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Oh, just dandy,” the guy stuck in the stairs muttered before placing a hand on the railing and using it to keep himself balanced as he stepped out from the broken wood and up onto the deck. “Thanks for your concern, though. Nice to know someone’s watching out for me when my so-called friend isn’t.”

“Oh, get off it,” the other man spoke up from behind Y/N again, sparking her interest with how the words came from his mouth in with a distinctly British accent. Slowly, she turned around to actually get a look at them, and when she did, she felt as if the air had been knocked right out of her chest.

As soon as she locked eye contact with the man, his familiar green eyes widened in surprise as they both gawked at each other in complete and utter shock. He recognized her too.

“You-.”

“I know you!” His voice boomed and caused a blush to immediately burn across her cheeks. “We went to high school together, yeah?”

The man in front of her was none other than Harry Styles. A kind British lad who was two grades ahead of Y/N, all through high school. They had some mutual friends, and Y/N was aware of how Harry had moved from a small town in Cheshire to San Jose during her freshman year. The two were never really that close, but they knew of each other and had met a few times in passing, which left Y/N to be more than surprised at the fact that he’d even recognize her.

“It’s Y/N, innit?”

“Uh yeah,” she replied and shook her head free of any lurking thoughts, fully aware of how he’s aged very nicely over the years. “It is. And you’re Harry, right?”

“The one and only.”

“Pretty sure there’s other Harry’s in the world, dumbass,” the other guy spoke up from behind her again, causing Y/N to chuckle.

“You’re not funny, mate,” Harry snapped before making eye contact with Y/N and letting out a huff. “That there is my irrelevant and incompetent roommate, Nick. Guess he’s m’friend and all too, but that’s just a minor detail.”

“The greatest detail actually, seeing as I’m the only one that’ll put up with you.”

“Ok, anyway,” Harry cut his friend off with a glare, a small smile forming on his lips as he watched Y/N giggling at their antics. “What brings you to Oceanside?”

“I needed a summer job,” Y/N explained with a shrug, looking between the two boys as they nodded in understanding. “I went away for a while and am now trying to make ends meet. What better way to do that than being a lifeguard at some fancy resort? Man, I feel like I’m in High School Musical 2 just being here.”

“It gives me more Dirty Dancing vibes, but I can see why’d you think that,” Harry responded with a warm smile, causing a swarm of butterflies to form in the pit of Y/N’s stomach.

“Yeah we’re basically living in a cliche summer romance movie, aren’t we?” Nick piped up before nodding towards Harry. “But hey, at least now you know who the new lifeguard is.”

“You’re a lifeguard too?” Y/N asked surprised, feeling caught off guard by just how small the world was seeming to be.

“Yeah, s’my what, third summer working here now? That sounds about right.”

“Oh, wow,” Y/N replied, making no attempt in masking her shock. “Must be an alright job.”

“Pays the bills at least,” he told her with a shrug. “It’s a good way to make money when you’re not in school for the summer, m’assuming that’s what you’re doing .”

“Kind of. I uh, I didn’t go to university once I graduated high school and traveled instead. Reality caught up with me eventually, and now I need to work so I can start figuring what I’m going to do with my life. I’m moving to LA in September, so hopefully, I’ll figure something out there.”

“Weird, so is Harry,” Nick added.

“Really?”

“I am,” Harry answered. “Got an internship with a record label there, gonna try to amount to something I guess.”

Y/N watched as his gaze fell from hers to the ground, where he awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to another. He didn’t seem too confident talking about this specific subject, so Y/N took it as a hint to move on from it. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do great. Anyways, my roommate is probably wondering where I went, I uh, I’ll see you guys around. And maybe you should get someone to fix that step before someone actually does get hurt.”

The three of them laughed before Y/N slowly started backing away and headed towards her cabin. Nick waved her goodbye, but Harry didn’t say anything. It made her wonder if she had said something wrong, but regardless, she shook her head and made her way up the steps to gather her bags again and head inside; utterly oblivious to how Harry’s eyes didn’t leave her once as he watched her walk away.

The next four weeks went by rather quickly, and Y/N was already having much more fun than she had anticipated. In her short time working at Oceanside, she had already managed to develop quite a few friends from the people she’d met, and it made the whole experience better, just like Aimee had said. Her and Aimee both made fast friends with their two other roommates Dana and Maya, who were twin sisters but couldn’t be more different from one another. Dana worked as a waitress in the dining hall for the guests, while Maya worked out on the golf course providing beginner lessons to those who signed up for them. The two sisters butt heads a lot, so it was smart to not have them working together in Y/N’s opinion, but she really did enjoy spending time with both of them nonetheless.

Another person she clicked with really well, was Nick. When he wasn’t busy sassing Harry or organizing activities and events for the guests to do during their stay, Nick was Y/N’s go-to person (other than Aimee) for anything really. He was her helping hand when she needed it, and the best person to rant or gossip to when something had irked her. She was the same type of friend to him, and it didn’t take her long to realize he’d be one of the people she knew she’d miss the most come to the end of summer.

Every guest Y/N had encountered who stayed at the resort, was very kind, and treated her with respect. She was quick in figuring out who the regular families were, the ones that came to Oceanside every summer as their vacation and got the lowdown on how long each of them had been doing so from Mr. Slack (or Mr. Whack as Harry and Nick would call him behind his back.) Amongst those families was the Huntington family. Mr. Huntington, a successful business mogul, had brought his family to and donated a lot of money to this specific resort for about eight years now, or at least that was what Mrs. Huntington had told Y/N. They were a very reserved family, but actually very friendly. Mrs. Huntington was a regular to the Tuesday morning water workout classes Y/N would teach and was a joy to be around while her husband would poke fun of her from where he lounged on a chair nearby. They had a son, Tyler, who was assumedly Y/N’s age and had many friends from other families that stayed there as well. When he wasn’t with those friends, he was spending time with his family or striking up a conversation with Y/N when she had some downtime during her shifts.

Last, and certainly not least, the final and the arguably most significant relationship she had developed so far, was with Harry. The two of them had almost exact work schedules, which naturally led to them spending a lot of time together. He was the one to show her the ropes of lifeguarding in general, as well as what to do in certain situations and was always there to have her back if needed. When both working, Y/N usually sat on the lifeguard stand while Harry patrolled the edge of the pool. They’d tease each other from a distance, sticking their tongues out at each other when no one was looking, or mouthing the words “don’t slip” when they switched their spots so Y/N could teach some of her workout classes.

The first thing that really warmed them up to one another was actually on Y/N’s first day. She had cut through the kitchen to get to the lobby to punch in on time and almost ran directly into Harry. She hadn’t seen him since she moved in those few short days before, but the way he just stared at her and started chuckling struck something within her.

“Do you have a problem?” She asked and grew slightly aggravated when his laughing increased. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he said firmly and tried to regain his composure, but failed miserably. “It’s just that I didn’t know management was going for matching uniforms this year.”

Y/N scowled at him before slowly glancing down at her outfit to see what he was talking about, only to become even more confused. Her uniform was simple enough, just a red full-piece bathing suit that had to be paired with white shorts and if she so decided, the white terry cloth sweater she was given with Oceanside’s emblem on it. She paired the outfit with the metal whistle she had to wear, some sunglasses to keep her hair out of her face, and a pair of black Adidas slides because there was no way she was walking around the pool without proper footwear.

To her, there was nothing wrong with the outfit, but once she was finished taking in her own appearance, Y/N moved her gaze to Harry and finally realized what he was going on about. He too was wearing a pair of red swim trunks, with a kind of tight looking white tank top that also had the emblem stitched into it as well. His outfit was almost identical to her own, but what got her the most was how he too had a pair of sunglasses pushing his mob of curls back and a matching pair of Adidas sandals. The two of them looked ridiculous standing side by side.

“Oh god,” Y/N groaned, which only caused Harry to burst out into laughter again. She was about to make another comment, but before she could, her phone started buzzing with the reminder that her shift started in five minutes. “Crap, we should go.”

“Lead the way,” Harry responded and dramatically bowed as a way to tell her to go first. She shook her head and proceeded, only making it a few steps before he spoke up again. “Hey Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Hate to break it to you, love, but I wear it better.”

Y/N scoffed and froze, turning to send him a glare but couldn’t help but laugh too as he just chuckled again and rushed forward to avoid her wrath. Their shifts together after that were just the same harmless and fun routine, and it really didn’t take Y/N long to realize just how much she enjoyed being around Harry, and that feeling only grew as the weeks went on.

One Friday afternoon, when Y/N and Harry were both finishing up their shift together by folding towels in the clubhouse laundry room so the lifeguards on the evening shift would have less to do, Harry decided to throw Y/N off guard with a question.

It was one he’d meant to ask her all week but couldn’t figure out how to bring it up in conversation. As he stood there watching her fold each towel with as much focus and precision as the last, he knew their shift was coming to an end soon and how he may not get to ask her if he didn’t do it right then. So, with a deep breath and a subtle clearing of his throat, he asked her.

“Are you going to the staff party tonight?”

“Hmm?” She replied, surprised, having to take a second to process the unexpected question. “Like the one that is thrown in the mess hall every weekend?”

“That’d be the one.”

“I uh, I don’t know,” she murmured and set down the last towel she had just finished folding. “Aimee, Dana, and Maya have been telling me I need to go to at least one. Apparently, they’re fun.”

“They are. S’nice hanging out with everyone in a non-work setting,” he explained, but avoided eye contact; suddenly feeling as if he might get turned down even though he has not built up enough courage to actually ask her out just yet. They’d become rather close, and there was this certain spark he felt whenever she was around, but again, was too chicken to actually do anything about.

“Are you going’?”

This time it was her question that caught him off guard because realistically he was expecting her to simply just say no. “Yeah I am, promised Nick I’d go with him.”

“Oh well if Nick is going then maybe I’ll consider it,” Y/N teased, unsure if this was his attempted way in saying he’d like her to go or not -- completely oblivious to just how bad he wanted her to be there with how well he masked it. He just chuckled in response as Y/N felt a sudden wave awkwardness consume the comfortable feeling she usually had whenever he was around. She glanced at the clock to see their shift had ended and decided to use that as an excuse to remove herself from the situation. “Looks like we’re done for the day. Maybe I’ll see you around this weekend?”

“Oh, yeah, see yeh Y/N.”

And with that, he watched her leave yet again.

After her conversation with Harry, it didn’t take much for Y/N’s roommates to convince her into going to the part, even going to the extent of her letting them pick out her outfit for the night. They decided on a simple black dress that Dana owned, one that just so happened to hug Y/N’s body in all the right places. The outfit was paired with a few of Aimee’s accessories while Maya styled her hair and if Y/N didn’t know any better, she’d assume those three were plotting something with how much effort they put into her appearance that night.

Once they were all dressed up, the four girls left the cabin and made way to the mess hall.

Y/N didn’t really know what to expect from this party, but upon stepping foot into the hall, she couldn’t help but let her eyes widen in surprise as she took in the scene around her. The two long wooden tables that regularly took up most of the space in the room were pushed against the walls and made a makeshift space that acted like a dancefloor. Couples danced together to the music playing, grinding and holding onto each other like a bunch of horny teenagers, while others exited from the kitchen with drinks in hand. It all looked like a scene from a movie, and Y/N had to shake her head at it all. Harry was right, this place really was much more like Dirty Dancing than High School Musical.

As if on cue, a familiar voice sounded from her right, and Y/N was soon faced to face with Nick. He wasted no time engulfing her in a tight hug before he moved on to greet the other girls. Y/N said hi to the people that had come over with Nick before moving her gaze to meet with an oh so familiar pair of stunning green eyes and smiling.

Harry had a wide grin on his face as he stepped towards her and pulled her into his chest for a quick hug as well. The gesture surprised Y/N, but she also found a sense of genuine warmth in his embrace before slowly moving away to look up at him again.

“You made it!” He exclaimed and just couldn’t stop smiling at the fact of her being there.

The way he grinned at Y/N made the butterflies in her stomach swarm, and she found herself having to break eye contact with him before her blush got too noticeable. She took that time to give him a once over and couldn’t keep herself from feeling some type of way. He was wearing a simple grey buttoned-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, shamelessly displaying his arm tattoos that just so happened to capture Y/N’s attention more than usual as the strobe lights danced across them. His hair was messy, but a good kind of messy Y/N decided; the entire look was just very, Harry and that thought alone made her smile.

“You look great by the way,” his voice snapped Y/N from her trance as looked around to see all of her friends have scattered and it was just her and Harry now.

“Thanks,” she continued to blush. “You look good too.”

A moment of awkward silence washed over them as neither really knew what else to say. Harry knew he could just end the conversation right there, but that wasn’t really something he wanted to do, so he began racking his brain for ideas on how to keep the conversation going. As if someone had heard him trying to think up something, the song that was playing changed and the upbeat intro of Right Back by Khalid started booming from the nearby speakers; causing him to grin all over again.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Me?” Y/N squeaked and glanced around because surely he wasn’t talking to her.

“Yes, you,” he chuckled. “I mean, I could ask Nick but who knows where he went off to.”

Y/N bit down on her bottom lip nervously, her heart fluttering at what felt like a million miles a second as she slowly nodded her head. “I’d like that.”

If it wasn’t for the few drinks she downed with her friends while getting ready for this thing, Y/N was sure she would not have been in this situation whatsoever. But alas, the alcohol gave her the liquid courage she needed to let Harry grab her hand and lead her out to the middle of the dancefloor. When they came to a small clearing, Harry dramatically spun around to face her again, causing her to laugh out loud as he dorkily pointed at her with finger guns. He had a goofy smirk plastered on his mouth as he started moving to the music and Y/N soon found herself swaying her hips to the beat too. She glanced at the people around her dancing very close to one another for this particular song and suddenly felt very out of place. They were entirely surrounded by couples.

As if sensing Y/N’s sudden discomfort at their setting, Harry mindlessly moved towards her until there were only a few inches between them. She looked up at him with wide eyes, but with him merely just being there, she didn’t feel as anxious. The two of them remained like that for a moment, lost in each other before Harry went to wrap his right arm around her waist; but stopped himself before he could.

“Uh, would you mind if I-?”

Y/N smiled at how he became so flustered, and simply could not find it in her to deny him. “You don’t have to ask.”

Harry didn’t know what to expect Y/N’s answer to be, but a massive wave of relief washed over him as he returned her smile and continued his movements. He snaked his arms around her waist just as the chorus started playing again and pulled her close, before shifting to rest his hands on her waist as they started moving to the music together.

Hesitantly, Y/N placed her hands on his chest before slowly moving them up to wrap around the back of his neck. Harry loved witnessing her gradually become more comfortable with what they were doing because with how much time he’d spent with her so far this summer, he knew this whole thing wasn’t exactly her scene. She seemed to actually be having fun, though. Throughout the song, she had already let him in more than she had over the last month, looking so content and at peace. It was at that moment Harry realized how he was going to do whatever he could in his power to make her feel that way as often as possible.

Y/N liked being this close to Harry more than she wanted to admit. There was something about him that drew her in and made her want to stay. Sure she considered him to be a friend and all already, but tonight felt different, a good different. She would never dance or act like this with just anybody, but with Harry, it felt natural.

Harry slowly leaned his forehead against Y/N’s as she started twisting the smalls curls at the nape of his neck and felt himself fall into a state of contentment as well. They danced with each other for the remainder of the song, along with the next two before Harry slowly started moving away.

A look of confusion washed over Y/N’s features, but it soon faded as Harry linked his hand with hers and started leading them away from the dancefloor. “Follow me.”

Y/N had no idea where he was taking her, but she didn’t question it either as she let him guide them towards the side door that led them out into the courtyard. There was no one else out there, which was a pleasant change from the crowded area they were just in.

As they walked hand in hand together, the two remained silent, and Y/N tried to keep her breathing steady as Harry gently rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and lead them towards the fountain. They started off talking about the night’s festivities along with not really knowing where all of their friends had gone off to, however, that casual conversation quickly turned deep when they started asking questions about each other, but in a very gradual, comfortable way that surprised both of them.

Y/N was the first to open up. She wasn’t really one to layout her entire life story just for someone to judge it and point out where things could have been changed, but with Harry, she didn’t feel that way once. He expressed genuine interest in what she was saying and soon enough, she was telling him everything. She explained why she thought she needed to leave California for a while after high school and her experiences abroad. With that, she talked about how she felt that time could significantly change people and as much as it sucks to admit, there’s nothing anyone can really do about it either. Her primary example being how Aimee is the only person she kept in contact with from high school because she had grown apart from everyone else. Y/N even went on to explain how she wasn’t able to form very close bonds with people she met during her travels, due to her fear of letting people in just enough so that she’s comfortable before leaving her high and dry.

Harry hung on to her every word, providing a comforting squeeze to her hand when she’d bring up things that were a bit tougher to talk about, and just nodding as she went on to let her know that he really did want to be there, listening to what she had to say. Once she was done, he could tell how relieved she was by simply being able to share all of that with someone she trusted enough to know the things that made her, her. Harry knew how much Y/N appreciated him for letting her vent, and in return, let him know that she would do the same for him if he ever wanted to, and so he did.

The two talked for hours, although it only seemed like mere minutes to them. Once Harry finished his back story of everything that had happened since he graduated high school, he expressed his want to return to England soon and that his money from this job was going to allow him to do so. He went off about how excited he was for his move to LA and his dreams of making it big in the music industry one day, but for now, Harry was rather content with where he was (specifically in that moment with Y/N).

As the night went on, it was Y/N that noticed the party had died down, seeing as no music could be heard anymore and that it was getting rather late. 

Y/N was fully aware of how neither she or Harry worked the next day but still felt a little anxious at the thought of her friends giving her an earful for not having a clue as to where she had gone or who she was with. Luckily for her, the conversation she was having with Harry was much more lighthearted than it was before and she didn’t feel as bad for interrupting it.

“Hey, H?” She spoke up, smiling inwardly to herself at the little nickname she’d mindlessly decided to call him. “I think everyone’s gone back to the cabins, think we should go too?”

There was no doubting that Harry didn’t want the night to end just yet and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at the thought itself. So, being the quick thinker he was, he glanced around at their surroundings and tried to think of a way to keep her around; a mischievous grin dancing on his lips when his gaze falls on the pool and an idea sprang to his mind. “We could do that, or we could do something completely different. Something fun.”

“Oh, well, what did you have in mind?”

“Something that I’m going to do regardless of if you join or not, even though I’d much prefer if you did,” he smirked and observed as her eyebrows started to furrow.

“Harry…”

A tiny, heartfelt laugh left Harry’s mouth at the small pout that was forming on her lips as she spoke. She had no idea what he was planning, and it made him that much more excited to mess with her a little bit. He watched as she bit down on her lip in anticipation, and waited for him to say something and after a moment of keeping her on her toes, he leaned forward to whisper lowly in her ear.

“I’m going to go swimming.”

With that, Harry stood up from his spot on the edge of the fountain and jogged his way over to the pool. As much as Harry wished he could see the look of disapproval, he knew Y/N would be looking at him with, he didn’t stop to glance back at her. Instead, he approached the pool gate and glanced around to make sure no security guards were out on patrol, before quietly lifting the latch to unlock it and slowly pushing it open.

Once inside the gate, he walked over to one of the poolside lounge chairs and set his phone and wallet on it before unashamedly starting to strip down to his boxers. Just as he tossed his shirt on the chair and moved to begin unbuttoning his pants, he heard the pool gate creak open again and was already smiling at what was about to come.

“Are you insane?” Y/N’s voice hissed as she followed after him scowling. “Harry, you’re going to get us in so much trouble.”

“Can’t get in trouble if we don’t get caught,” he shrugged as he stepped out of his pants and set them on the chair too. Goosebumps raised on his torso as the cold night air came in contact with his newly exposed skin, but he ignored it as he turned around to face Y/N again. He could tell she was cold by the way she had her arms tightly wrapped her body as a breeze wisped her hair around, and decided to use that factor to his advantage. “The pool is heated.”

“I know it’s heated, I work here too, you know.”

“I do,” he responded smugly and tilted his head to the side. “Well, are you coming in or are you too chicken?”

There was a glint in her eyes that he recognized to be the competitive streak in her coming out. He’s managed to see this side of her a handful of times while he was pressing her buttons at work and seeing her look back at him that way made him think that he may have her convinced, however, the glint faltered as she nervously looked around to see if anyone was nearby. “I don’t know H-.”

Harry could tell that deep down she wanted to join him, she really did. However, he also knew damn well that doing anything that could possibly jeopardize her job here cause Y/N a lot of anxiety. But maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to crack through that wall she keeps putting up that prevents her from doing something fun and reckless for once.

Slowly, Harry walked towards her with a mission. As soon as he was close enough to do so, he reached out and linked their hands together; giving that little bit of reassurance she wanted so badly.

“I’m not going to make you do it if you don’t want to love, but if for whatever reason something did happen, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” He paused and watched as her features slowly softened, her hand squeezing his a little tighter all at the same time. “Do you trust me?”

“You already know I do,” she whispered and earned herself a small smile from Harry as she let go of his hand and stepped towards the pool. This time it was Y/N’s turn to shamelessly strip down to her underwear with her back turned to Harry.

Harry was surprised by her sudden burst of confidence as she casually kicked her shoes off and pulled the dress she was wearing up over her head -- letting it fall to the ground in such a simple, yet unknowingly sexy way that had Harry growing more frustrated with each passing second.

Y/N kept her back to him, not wanting him to see just how badly she was blushing. Once she was left in only her mismatched grey/black cotton bra and undies, she stepped towards the edge of the pool and waited for Harry. She smiled to herself as soon as he was standing beside her again and pondered her movements for a minute before making the executive decision to try and push Harry into the pool.

However, her plan backfired, seeing as she did not account for just how buff Harry was and that the likelihood of him actually falling in was slim to none. To make matters worse, Y/N stumbled slightly when she tried pushing him to which Harry instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist so that she wouldn’t fall in instead. Once she was steady, Y/N finally looked up to Harry and internally groaned.

“You just tried to push me in!” He exclaimed dramatically.

“And stupid me thought it’d actually work,” Y/N grumbled as she tried to squirm out of Harry’s grasp. She almost broke free, but before she knew it, Harry was pulling her back against his chest and began tickling her at her sides. She burst into laughter as she began squirming even more and tried to push him away. “H-Harry, stop!”

“You’re wrong if you thought I was letting you get away with that. I’m hurt, Y/N.”

“You’ll get over it,” she replied in a huff as she continued trying to escape Harry’s hold. This continued for another minute as Harry slowly but surely moved them back towards the pool’s edge, and Y/N’s wriggling intensified. She knew what he was about to do and without thinking,  blurted out the first thing that came to mind to prevent him from doing so. “No, don’t! I can’t swim!”

Harry’s movements halted as soon as those words left her mouth, leaving Y/N to cover her mouth to stifle another laugh. She hadn’t considered how ridiculous her statement was until after she said it, and couldn’t help but laugh at how far from the truth it actually was. Harry didn’t move his hands from her waist, and although she really didn’t want to turn to face him, she eventually did and prepared for his reaction.

He stayed silent for a split second before narrowing her eyes and tightening his grip on her waist. “You’re so full of shit.”

Before she could respond again, Harry was lifting her up and jumping into the pool with her in his hold; finally putting the entire argument to rest. As soon as she was surrounded by water, Y/N swam away from Harry and used her feet to push off the bottom of the pool so that she could get back up to the surface and catch her breath.

Harry resurfaced shortly after and they both broke into another laughing fit. The two of them stayed there, treading water for a few minutes before Harry decided to splash Y/N out of nowhere, causing her to gasp dramatically.

She splashed him back but gave up the fight when he returned the gesture with a much larger wave that crashed right into her face. “Ok, I guess I deserved that.”

“Damn right you did,” he replied sassily and treaded and little closer to her. They watched each other for a minute before Harry started lowering the bottom half of his head into the water, just enough that only his eyes were still above the water. Y/N watched him curiously and couldn't help but roll her eyes when he exhaled deeply out of his mouth so that a series of bubbles would rise to the surface and pop around him as he kept eye contact with Y/N.

“God, you are such a child!” She squealed and started swimming away from the shallow end of the pool.

“You love it,” he before shaking his wet, matted curls and swimming after her.

The next half an hour or so is spent with Y/N and Harry goofing off together, and really just having the time of their lives. They had a race to see who could swim from one end of the pool to the other and back the fastest, to which Harry won only by a little bit. However, he soon lost his title when Y/N challenged him to see who could remain in and underwater handstand the longest without falling over or having to swim up for air.

Neither of them had a care in the world, but that quickly changed when the sound of jingling keys and heavy footsteps could be heard in the distance but were undoubtedly getting closer to the pool area. Y/N froze in place, and her face went white, the previous panic she had before of getting caught returning and causing her to be on the verge of hyperventilation.

“Harry, what do we do?!” She asked in a hushed tone, knowing that if they were to just jump out of the pool and make a run for it, they would most definitely get caught. “Y-y-you said-.”

“I know Y/N,” Harry hissed as he stood up and looked towards the courtyard, only to see the beam of a flashlight coming their way. “Ok, ok, I need you to do as I say and not argue with me, alright?”

Y/N nodded frantically but kept her mouth shut as she let Harry gently push her against the side of the pool. His hands never left her body, and to be honest, it’d stress her out even more if he weren’t there. Harry was keeping her calm. She observed as he intently watched the direction the noises of the person approaching came from, not being able to keep her eyes from the way the elegant butterfly and sparrows tattooed on his stomach and chest moved with each breath. Part of her wanted to reach out and trach along with the ink, but she knew now wasn’t the time and kept her hands to herself while she waited for Harry to tell her what to do next.

“Ok, when I say, I want you to go under the water as quietly as you can and swim behind the waterfall. Stay low when you come back up, I don’t think security will see you that way.” His plan was simple enough and actually seemed as though it could work, so with a silent nod, Y/N got in position and waited for him to give her the ok to go. “Alright…. Now.”

Y/N did as Harry said and quietly went back under the water. She kicked off the wall and smoothly glided under the water and didn’t come back up until she reached the wall she knew was behind the waterfall and beneath where her lifeguard chair was resting up top. Once she came up for air, she pressed her back against the wall to remain unseen and waited patiently for Harry.

Before Y/N could really start getting worried, she was able to make out Harry’s figure swimming beneath the waterfall just as she watched a flashlight beam over the part of the pool that she and Harry had only been. She unknowingly pressed her back harder to the wall and held her breath, keeping her eyes closed as she waited for someone to demand that they come out from the waterfall.

A few agonizing moments go by as Y/N prepared for the worst, but the worst never happens. She peeked one eye open just as Harry disappeared under the water again and swam back out into the regular part of the pool. A portion of her wanted to wait for his confirmation, but when it took him a bit longer than she was expecting for him to come back, she knew the coast must’ve been clear; so she followed after him.

Sure enough, when she resurfaced again, there was no security standing at the edge of the pool, waiting to give them shit; but instead, it was just Harry standing with his back to her, with his muscles tense. Cautiously, she approached him.

“We should get going,” he finally spoke up when there was no longer too much of a space between them. He turned around to face Y/N, but couldn’t seem to actually look at her. “Tha’ was closer than I’d like it to be, and we may not have time before he’s back.”

“H-.”

“And you probably don’t want anything to do with me after putting you in a stressful situation like that, this is all my fault,” he continued to ramble as she kept approaching him.

“Harry…”

“God, I swear I didn’t think anyone would actually come by but-.” This time it was Y/N who cut Harry off as she made one final step towards him and placed a hand behind his neck. She pulled him towards her at the same time she stood up onto her tippy toes and waited for the sparks she knew would go off once their lips came in contact with one another.

To say it felt like magic would have been an understatement because how it felt for Y/N and Harry to be at that moment, after spending such a great night together was simply indescribable. They both really liked the feeling of being there, together, making out, even though it was in the pool they both were lifeguards for, and soon found themselves getting lost in the kiss.

Harry quickly pulled her closer to him, wanting to have as little space between them as possible as his hands tangled into her hair so that the kiss could deepen. Y/N reacted by moaning slightly into his mouth and parting her lips more so that she could allow him more access.

They continued making out as Harry placed his hands under Y/N’s thighs so that she could wrap her legs around his waist. They kept going at it when Y/N’s back gently collided with the pool wall again, and she placed her hands on either side of his face just so that she could keep him near. The only thing that was going to make them break away from one another was going to be the need for air, and even that took a few minutes to happen, but eventually, it did.

The two of them slowly pulled away from each other, lips swollen, and panting for air as Y/N glanced up at Harry and smiled lightly. “You were putting words into my mouth.”

“Clearly I need to do that more often,” he chuckled before leaning down and catching her lips in another quick, yet sweet, kiss. Once he was done, he leaned back away from her again, his thumbs twiddling with the material of her underwear as they made no indication of wanting to move from one another. Eventually, it was Harry that broke the silence again. “Think we should get out here?”

“Not the worst idea I don't think,” Y/N responded with a nod.

The two of them untangled themselves from one another and climbed out of the pool before gathering their things and heading back to the cabins.

Y/N stayed with Harry that night and into the early morning of the next day. She woke up tangled in his bedsheets alone but had no need to worry seeing as she could hear him humming along to a tune from the shower in the washroom nearby. A loud yawn left her mouth as she stretched and squinted at the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows and finally took in her surroundings.

Harry’s cabin was smaller than Y/N’s but was much more spacious because it was only him and Nick that stayed there. And luckily for Y/N, Nick was nowhere to be found. She did, however, have this nagging thought of how he could literally burst through the door and see her so obviously trying to keep her naked body covered beneath the sheets at any given moment. There was not a single part of her that wanted to deal with that, so she sat up in the bed and looked out the window for any sign of him coming before booking it into the washroom so that she could join Harry in the shower.

The two of them spent the entire day together. It was ridiculously convenient that Nick, Aimee, Dana, and Maya all had work today because they were able to postpone any of their friends bugging them. Seeing as Y/N only had the outfit she wore last night, she gave Harry her key so that he could run over to her empty cabin and grab some fresh clothes. Much to her dismay, he came back with only a pair of terrycloth shorts that belonged to Maya and some clean underwear (but no bra).

“Harry, do you expect me to walk around topless all day?” Y/N asked and quirked an eyebrow at him. It was evident that he didn’t intentionally forget to grab her a top by the way his eyes widened slightly at her question, but with Harry being Harry, he played it off with ease.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly be opposed to the idea…”

“Harry.”

“Kidding,” he groaned as he rolled off the bed again and made way to his dresser so that he could give her a shirt to wear. “But not really. Here.”

Y/N caught the shirt Harry tossed towards her with ease and quickly threw it on, knowing she’d gone without a top for long enough. After that, Harry climbed onto the bed again and stretched himself across the bed next to her. He was hesitant in doing so, but after getting stiff from leaning on his elbow for a few minutes, he laid down flat with his head resting softly on Y/N’s lap as she stayed sat up and leaned against the wall.

The two of them talked for hours on end, again. Not once getting bored of each other's company and loving hearing what they each had to say, Y/N started to think about how long it had been since she was this comfortable with someone. They talked about everything from their favorite foods, to their what genre of a story they liked best after Y/N had eyed up the stack of books that were on Harry’s bedside table. Harry started going off, and Y/N mindlessly pushed her hand through his curls as he reached over to grab one of them so that he could tell her some of his favorite lines in it.

As the late afternoon crept around, Harry proposed that they actually leave the cabin and go out to do something, to which Y/N agreed. So, they gathered up the laundry hamper they had tossed Harry’s dirty bedding into that morning and made way to the clubhouse to start washing them while they went off and did something else. As they made way to the laundry room, they had to come to a stop when someone started calling out after them. Sure enough, it was Aimee standing behind them with a bemused and knowing look. She didn’t give them a hard time though seeing as she was just finishing her break and needed to get back to work, but Y/N knew she would get an earful when she got home that night.

Once they loaded up one of the washing machines and convinced one of the older ladies working in the laundry room, folding up clean bedsheets for the guests, to put move their wash over to a dryer so that they wouldn’t have to come back as soon; they embarked on a little journey. After sending a quick text to Maya a quick text to make sure it was alright, Y/N led Harry to one of the many golf carts that weren’t being used to take on their own little excursion.

They drove around the resort’s perimeter, taking the whole place in as if they were the ones staying there rather than being employees. After they finished doing that, Y/N drove them back to the clubhouse and tried thinking of something else to do before Harry suggested they go on the hiking trails the resort had.

The two of them walked back down the path that led towards the cabins and took a different turn that led them down a winding trail and eventually to the base of a large hill. Other people were nearby putting the multiple trail options to good use, but Harry and Y/N couldn’t decide which one they wanted to go on. They settled on the longest trail, the one that took them up the hill to a supposed lookout spot that was there.

It took them roughly forty-five minutes to reach the top, mainly because Harry kept dramatically pausing, saying he needed a break although Y/N was totally aware of it being a facade so that she’d stay near him and not keep going too far ahead... but she didn’t mind as they continued going. 

Once they reached the end of the path, Y/N didn’t know what she was expecting to see, but she definitely wasn’t prepared to have her breath taken away

The top of the hill was a large clearing with the most incredible view. There was no one else up there so she didn’t waste any time walking around the entire area so she could take it all in. When she looked down the hill to the east, she had an incredible aerial view of the whole resort. The massive golf course seemed to go on forever, disappearing in the distance behind some trees and smaller hills, and everything else seemed so much smaller. She could see the entirety of the clubhouse letting her eyes move to the pool and then over to the trails behind it as well as all the big fancy lodges the resort guests rented out during their stay. Her gaze fell on the row of cabins, watching as her co-workers walked home after their shifts had come to an end; even seeing who she thought was Dana trudging her way up the steps of their shared cabin, and Nick making his way towards his and Harry’s.

Y/N then moved to look to the west, and that was when her jaw dropped open in awe. In the distance, she could see the coastline. Where the greenery from the trees ended, the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean started and seemed to go on forever; causing her to become quickly enraptured by its beauty. So this was why Oceanside was a fitting name.

“S’pretty, innit?” Harry’s voice asked from behind her. When she didn’t respond, he moved towards her so that they were standing side by side. It wasn’t his first time seeing the view, which Y/N knew, but what she didn’t realize was how with the way the sun was just beginning to set, everything stood out. The pink and purple sky surrounding them and the way the breeze wisped her hair around made it seem as though she was the center of the most beautiful painting. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of her, not that he’d want to anyway, and wanted to this exact image engraved into his memory forever. “Y/N?”

“Hmm?” She asked and glanced over at him briefly before looking back to the ocean. “The view? Yes, it’s incredible.”

“Not just the view,” Harry whispered to himself as he watched her. Silence fell over them for a few minutes after that, and neither made a move to change that. However, as the sun kept getting lower in the sky, Harry knew that this moment couldn’t last forever. “Think we should head back down there, it’s going to be dark soon.”

“Oh, yeah, not a bad idea. The laundry is probably done by now too.”

It didn’t take them as long to get down the hill as it was going up, so soon enough they were back at the clubhouse gathering Harry’s bedding and heading back to the cabins to call it a night. 

On their way there, they heard laughter and chatter coming from people walking down a different path. Neither Harry or Y/N thought anything of it as they started down the trail towards the cabins until someone was calling after Y/N.

“Hey Y/N, wait up!”

Slowly, both Y/N and Harry turned around to see Tyler Huntington approaching them with one of his friends.

“Hi Tyler, how’s it going?” Y/N greeted as Harry remained silent; not noticing the way he glared at the other boy.

“Good,” Tyler responded. “Just finished up a round of golf. Didn’t see you at the pool today.”

“Yeah, Harry and I have this weekend off so you won’t see me around there tomorrow either.”

“I see,” he replied and moved his gaze to Harry, sending him somewhat of a dirty look. “Styles. Well anyways Y/N, seeing as you have the day off tomorrow, Chris here’s parents went to San Francisco for the weekend, so a bunch of us are going to party in his family’s lodge. You should come.”

His invitation surprised her a little bit because frankly not once had she given the impression that she wanted to hang out with Tyler or his obnoxious friends apart from being around them during her shift. There was a fine line between employee and guest’s relationships being professional, and she did not want to cross it, so she politely turned him down.

“Thank you for the offer, but no thanks. I’m actually so exhausted and am ready to call it a night.”

“I see,” Tyler responded disappointedly. “Maybe another time then?”

“Maybe,” Y/N responded with a small nod and looked up to Harry. “Well, I guess we’ll be going then, have a good night guys.”

“Night,” Tyler and Chris responded in unison.

Y/N and Harry turned and started walking towards the cabin’s again, and Tyler watched with gritted teeth as Harry wrapped an arm around Y/N’s waist and pulled her close. Feeling the jealousy within him reach an all-time high as she leaned into Harry’s touch as they continued walking and eventually disappeared out of sight.

The next couple of weeks or so went on like usual. Y/N and Harry spent most of it together at work as usual but also spent a lot of evenings together as well. While at work together, the two of them would go on as they usually would -- teasing each other and making snarky comments, but this time around, there was a lot more subtle flirting. They always kept it professional around guests, but when they had any time that was just the two of them, they were all over each other.

One evening, after Y/N and Harry finished their shift together, they helped the kitchen staff set up tables in the dining room for a fancy gala dinner that was being put on for the resort guests. They stuck out like sore thumbs working alongside the servers who were dressed in their fancy uniforms in preparation for the dinner, to which their co-workers teased them about, but expressed appreciation for the help nonetheless.

Once they were done helping wherever they could, Dana told them her, and the rest of the team should be alright and that Y/N and Harry should get out of there before the guests started showing up. As they were headed towards the lobby, Harry snuck up behind Y/N and covered his hand over her mouth so that no one would hear her. A muffled yelp left her mouth as Harry pulled her behind one of the large planters and pillar so that he could gently push her up against the wall; a seductive grin tugging at his lips as he did so.

“Been waiting to have you to myself all day,” Harry said as he moved his hand from her mouth and replaced it with his lips. Y/N moaned against his mouth and responded by pulling him even closer than he already was so that the kiss would deepen. They stood there making out for at least a solid two minutes before footsteps and voices could be heard coming towards them.

Y/N and Harry quickly broke away from each other and tried to straighten out their appearances before stepping out from behind the pillar, coming face to face with the Huntington family. Both Mr. and Mrs. Huntington greeted the pair happily while Tyler stayed quiet; silently fuming as he took in Y/N’s swollen lips and Harry’s disheveled curls.

“Aren’t you kids done for the day? Get out of here already,” Mr. Huntington teased as he patted Harry on the back.

“We are,” Harry told him. “Just thought we’d help with setting everything up for you guys. It looks great in there, I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.”

“Anyways we should get going,” Y/N spoke up with a smile and looked to each member of the family, pausing when she locked eye contact with Mrs. Huntington. “They’ve got your favorite wine in there Carol, it should be a good night.”

“Oh, wonderful!” The older woman exclaimed and clapped her hands together, earning a groan from her husband. “You two have a good night as well, don’t get into too much trouble.”

“We won’t,” Y/N and Harry answered together before nodding goodbye and walking away from them. Both Mr. and Mrs. Huntington smiled and watched them go for a second before continuing on down the hallway, but Tyler stood there watching, no glaring at the two of them until they disappeared around the corner.

A few days later, when Y/N was in Harry’s cabin watching a movie with him and Nick, her phone buzzed with a new notification. She reached over to grab her phone, Harry shifting so that she’d have easier access to his bedside table, but not moving his arm from where it was wrapped lazily around her waist. As soon as she had the device, Y/N returned to her spot, nestled up against Harry and turned the screen on only to see she had an email from Mr. Slack. Assuming it was necessary, she unlocked her phone and opened the email; her eyebrows furrowing as she read through it.

“Everything alright?” Harry asked after a moment of seeing her just stare at the phone screen.

“Yeah, I guess,” she started. “It’s just that Mr. Slack changed my work schedule completely.”

“For next week?” Nick questioned and sat up, curiously from his bed across the room.

“No… for the rest of the summer.”

This caught Harry’s attention as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as well. “Mind if I see?”

“Not at all,” Y/N responded and handed him the phone.

Harry took the device and scrolled through the entire email, noting the changes in her schedule. “Our shifts are completely opposite now.”

“Really? All of them?”

“Yeah, all of them,” he replied and handed the phone back. “We don’t have any more days off together.”

“So they’re splitting us up and pairing us with different lifeguards for the next three weeks?” Y/N questioned, and Harry nodded. “Why now all of a sudden?”

“Whack caught on to you two messing around with each other, huh?” Nick asked and wriggled his eyebrows.

“I don’t think it was him actually,” Harry shrugged in response. “Think it was the Huntington kid.”

“Tyler?” Y/N asked and leaned onto her elbow so she could get a better look at Harry as he nodded. “What makes you think that?”

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed how pissed he gets whenever he sees us together. He’s jealous Y/N. Probably pulled some strings with management so that he could attempt to move in on you before the end of summer.”

His tone became rather hostile, and Y/N quickly decided that she did not like it one bit and started moving away from him. “I have noticed actually, but it’s wrong to assume someone could be so malicious. We can’t prove that he actually did do that, maybe Slack just wanted to switch up the lifeguard rotation.”

“Three weeks before the summer ends? Y/N, do you hear yourself right now? All the hints and clues of Tyler wanting to mess with us are right in front of you, but you’re too damn gullible and naive to open your eyes and see!”

Harry’s outburst surprised Y/N, and she made no effort to hide it. “That was uncalled for, Harry.”

“But true,” he finished and looked away, not noticing the hurt that flashed through her eyes.

The next thing Y/N knew, she was scrambling to get out of Harry’s grasp to get as far away from him as she possibly could. “You know what? I’m just gonna go.”

“What, no, Y/N, I didn’t mean that rudely,” Harry pleaded as he stood up too, realizing that he’d really upset her.

“How did you mean to say that I’m too gullible and naive for my own good in a nice way, Harry?” She snapped and brought her hand up to her chest when she saw him reaching out for it. “I’m sorry that I tend to see the good in people and not make rash assumptions about them just because I feel like it! You know, I thought you weren’t one to do that too actually, but I guess I was wrong.”

Harry couldn’t find it in himself to say anything else because just seeing how much his words had hurt her, crippled him. During one of their many talks, she told him how growing up she was told that her niceness would get her in trouble one day, that she was too accepting of everyone and it really rubbed her the wrong way. Y/N viewed her kindness towards others as a weakness because of that, and although it was one of her traits that Harry admired most, he still managed to make her feel bad about it. To make her feel weak.

Y/N gave him a second to respond, and although she was greatly disappointed when he didn’t, she just swallowed her pride and walked towards the door. Muttering a quick goodbye to Nick, she swung the screen door open and walked out, letting it slam shut as she rushed down the stairs and over to her cabin before the tears started streaming down her face.

There was an invisible weight resting on Harry’s chest as he watched her go, feeling absolutely terrible as Nick walked up beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You just royally fucked up my friend.”

A week went by, but Y/N and Harry had yet to speak to one another. She was upset, which he knew, but fucked, he missed her. He just wanted the chance to apologize, but even then, that opportunity never came because they never actually saw each other. The only time he’d get to see her was in passing when one of their shifts came to an end, and the other was there to take over.

On the nights he knew he didn’t work the next day, Harry would stay up late reading on his front porch, coming to a stop only when he’d hear someone dragging their feet on the gravel and watched as they trudged their way past his cabin on route to their own. One of those nights, over a week since he and Y/N, had last spoken outside of work, he heard two sets of footsteps walking down the path, so he set the book down to see if it was anyone he knew. As soon as he looked up, her gaze fell onto Y/N, but she wasn’t alone.

She had just finished the night shift at the pool and was yawning and rubbing at her eyes as she nodded to what Tyler was going on about besides her, clearly uninterested. When Y/N and Tyler reached the space between her and Harry’s cabins, she looked at Harry tiredly and sent him the smallest smile. Y/N then turned to Tyler and thanked him for walking her home and turned him down again for hanging out before saying goodbye and going up to her cabin stairs. Just as she reached the door, she paused and looked over to Harry, nodding towards him. “Night, Harry.”

And with that, she was gone.

The days after that, Harry observed how Tyler followed Y/N around like a lost puppy and started to become annoyed because he’d still not gotten the chance to apologize. One night, as they were going into the last week and a half of summer, Harry decided he was done sulking and knew that he needed to talk to Y/N because he’d gotten to the point where he just felt empty without her.

He first went over to her cabin to see if she was there. Knocking on the door, he felt his heart rate increase with each passing second until the door swung open to reveal Aimee.

“Get off my porch,” she spat. Harry took a deep breath, feeling even more nervous than before because if looks could kill, he’d be dead by now.

“I-is Y/N home?” He stammered and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

She continued glaring at him, exhaling deeply through her nose to express just how much him being there made her fume. “You’re right fucked if you think I’m letting you talk to her after what you did.”

“Aimee I-.”

“You messed up Harry, massively.” Aimee finished for him. “Do you know how hard it is for that girl to open up? To feel such a significant bond with someone that she can genuinely be herself without fear of being judged for it. You somehow managed to crack through that wall. She let you in, and you threw it in her face. So, like I said before, get the fuck off my porch.”

“I know I messed up ok?” Harry argued before she could slam the door shut, his voice cracking slightly. “I know that I gained her trust, became someone she was comfortable with, and then fucked everything up. I know you think I’m a terrible human being because of what I said, and honestly, I can agree with you. What I said was uncalled for and completely unnecessary, and I know that I’d take it all back if I could. I was jealous, fuck, I was jealous of Tyler Huntington because he kept moving in on her and to be honest, I was afraid. Not because she ever seemed interested, but because I knew that he could give her the world if she let him and that I can’t. I’m a lifeguard for fuck's sake, not the son of some rich businessman. I don’t know where I’m going from here, or what LA will hold, but I’d really like for her to be there for it, and I hate myself for possibly messing that up.”

Once his rant came to an end, and he finally decided to look up again, he half expected for Aimee to just proceed with slamming the door in his face but was actually surprised to see that he’d gained an audience. Both Dana and Maya were now standing behind Aimee shaking their heads.

“God, boys, they really are stupid,” Maya groaned.

“Y/N doesn’t care about any of that you dingus,” Dana stated.

“Honestly though,” Aimee agreed, her features softening. “Glad you can see how good of thing you almost lost there, Harry, because as much as I want to say you don’t deserve to even associate with my best friend… You’re an alright dude. She’s on the night shift at the pool, you may be able to catch her before she finishes up and comes home for the night. Just don’t mess it up again.”

“I won’t, thank you,” Harry replied as he turned around and bolted down the stairs and started off in the direction of the pool. He checked the time on his phone and sped up a little more as he knew Y/N would be getting ready to leave soon.

Y/N finished gathering the last of the pool towels left by guests and put them in the hamper for housekeeping to deal with tomorrow. She hated the night shift. Although the pool closed at 10pm, she was alone from 8pm on, but the pool was always dead by then and the time would just drag. She knew her shift was almost over, so she wandered back to the lifeguard stand and grabbed her belongings so she could go punch out.

Before she could get too far though, the pool gate creaked open, and someone walked in. She turned around to tell the person that the pool had closed, but stopped herself when she saw Tyler standing there. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey,” he responded and walked towards her. “Was wondering if you wanted some company for the walk home again.”

“Thanks, that’s really sweet of you, but I’m meeting up with Nick so I’ll be fine,” she told him honestly.

“I see,” he replied and looked down to his feet. “Well, I know that you have the day off tomorrow. Maybe I want to do something… with me?”

Y/N could tell he was a little nervous asking her this, but there was something he said that she was not expecting to hear. “How did you know I had tomorrow off?”

“I uh, you told me, remember?” Tyler stammered, internally cursing himself.

“No, I didn’t,” Y/N trailed off. “So how did you actually know?”

“Ok, you caught me,” he tried to play it off. “I asked Mr. Slack to tell me because I really wanted to ask you out, seeing as you turned me down all summer.”

“I turned you down because I’m not interested, Tyler.”

As the conversation started going down, Harry was nearing the pool gate. He heard what Y/N had just said, but stopped so that he wouldn’t interfere.

Y/N watched Tyler, watched as his eyes snapped to hers once the words left her mouth, and saw them darken. Y/N held her ground, though. She didn’t falter or let him intimidate her regardless of how part of her wanted too because deep down, she already knew this was going to tie into what she and Harry had fought about.

“See that’s the thing I don’t get,” Tyler started, chuckling slightly. “Why wouldn’t you be interested? I’ve got money, looks, charm-.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she cut him off, and Harry had to cover his mouth so that he didn’t laugh out loud.

“Right. Not like you’d notice it anyways with how busy you’ve been off fucking Styles every chance you got. Quite the slut move, Y/N.”

Harry was ready to throw hands at that point and was about to start going off, but Y/N beat him to it.

“You do not get to say that about me, or anyone for that matter,” she fumed. “And frankly, it is not your concern, or anyone else’s who I sleep with, so I’ll sum this up real quick. I like Harry, he is a kind and decent being, something you wouldn’t know, and is someone I will gladly admit to falling for and will continue falling for because he is actually worth my time.”

“Whatever-.”

“Oh, I’m not done yet. Harry is someone who holds more character in his pinky finger than you do in your entire body, and is also someone who would never, in a million years, pay money to try and interfere with someone’s life.” Tyler fell silent at that. “I know you paid Slack to change my work schedule around.”

“I, well, I-.”

“You aren’t worth it,” she finished and had no intention of speaking another word to him. Tyler stood there shocked as she brushed past him and started walking towards the gate.

“I can have you fired, you know?” He finally spoke up, noticing that Harry was standing nearby. “Both of you.”

“No, you can’t,” Y/N laughed, sending a quick glance to Harry before turning back around. “Slack already told me he wants both me and Harry to come back next summer with a pay raise. I think he was saying something about how he didn’t want to get rid of the guest's two favorite lifeguards, including your parents. So maybe I’ll see you next summer, Tyler, but for now, fuck you.”

The man was left speechless and couldn’t find any other words to say as he watched her walk out the gate and towards Harry.

Once the gate shut behind her, Y/N turned to face Harry and tried so hard to not just lunge herself towards him. “Did you hear that?”

“I did,” Harry said, and Y/N started stepping towards him.

“All of it?”

“Yes, all of it.”

“Ok, good,” she answered just as she reached him and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him in so she could crush her lips against his. The kiss was sweet but turned hungry as each of them realized how much they’d been craving to be near one another again. However, it didn’t last long until Y/N was pulling away to look back up at Harry. “I missed you, H.”

“God, and I missed you,” he replied, softly pecking her lips once again. “And I am so so sorry, Y/N. I’m sorry for being such a prick, and I don’t expect you to forgive me any time soon, but-.”

“I already have,” Y/N told him and moved to wrap her arms around his waist in a hug. “Besides, Nick told me how sulky you were because I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Of course he did,” Harry groaned and pulled away from the hug. He leaned down to kiss her once again before leaning his forehead against hers. “Let’s go home.”

Y/N’s last week at Oceanside was spent packing, working her final shifts, and saying goodbye to all the friends she had made throughout the summer. On her last day there, she gave her cabin one final look over to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and let out a sad sigh. Dana and Maya had left the day before, so it was just her in Aimee left. Once she was sure she had everything, she went outside to where Aimee and Nick were waiting, and the three of them started walking towards the clubhouse.

“You know you’re both going to have to Facetime me at least once a week, right?” Nick asked as they walked around to where the different buses were waiting to drive them home.

“I’d expect nothing less,” Y/N answered and let out a heavy breath once they reached their destination.

The three of them pulled each other into a group hug and muttered their teary goodbye’s. Eventually, Nick had to pull away so that he could board his bus and made sure to wave like crazy as it began pulling away.

“I can’t believe you’re going to LA already, I feel like I just got you back,” Aimee started as she loaded her luggage onto the bottom of the bus.

“I know,” Y/N told her as she helped with the large suitcase. “The summer flew by. Sorry that I'm sending you on the bus back to San Jose alone.”

“I’ll be fine, you’ll just have to make it up to me with drinks when I come to visit. Which will be very soon might I add.”

They both chuckled before slowly frowning, tears stinging at their eyes. In a split second, they were engulfing each other into a tight hug and trying not to cry.

“I’m going to miss you so much, Aims.”

“I’m going to miss you more,” Aimee replied and pulled away to wipe at the tears streaming down her face. “I’m so proud of you Y/N. You’re going out there and doing whatever it is you want to do, and I got to see you grow as a person so much this summer. God, I feel like a proud mom.”

“It’s because of you, you know,” Y/N responded as she reached up to wipe away some of her friend's tears. “If it weren’t for you sassing me, I would have been a hermit all summer. You gave me that extra push I didn’t know I needed.”

“Well, in that case, then I’m happy that I did.”

Y/N pulled her best friend in for another hug, staying like that until the bus driver called out for final boarding. “I guess that’s your cue to leave.”

“I guess it is,” Aimee sniffled as she moved from Y/N’s embrace and started walking to the bus. “You better call me the minute you get to LA.”

“You know I will,” Y/N answered with a smile.

Once Aimee was sat on the bus, the doors closed and she waved at Y/N as it drove away. Y/N didn’t leave her spot nor stop waving until the bus disappeared over the hill, and she let out another sigh. She then turned around and was met by her special someone standing there looking back at her with his goofy grin.

“Ready?” Harry asked as he lifted his right arm so that he could rest it on Y/N’s shoulders as they walked towards his car, waiting in the parking lot.

“More than ready,” Y/N answered before moving away from him so that she could climb into the passenger side; her luggage already packed in the trunk thanks to Harry going out of his way to put it there as she said goodbye to Aimee.

“Perfect.”

With one final glance around at the resort that had been their home for the last two and a half months, Y/N and Harry began their long drive to Los Angeles and their future, together.

[cherryeol04]

The Firsts

Summary: No one ever told him that living was going to be so difficult. That there would emotions get couldn’t label and distinguish. He’s just a young boy trying to navigate through life and its unexpected ups and downs.

Genre: Humor, Fluff, smut(?)

Pairings: Oc x Felix, Oc x Changbin, Changbin x Oc x Felix

Warnings: poly relationship, angst in some part, excessive fighting about the MCU.

Parts: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17

A/N: This story has a theme of Firsts. First love, first kiss and many other firsts. Each part can be read on their own and are meant to stand as oneshots. It’s basically a collection of oneshots (little snapshots into my Oc’s life. 😁)

Aiden eyed Changbin hard as the other fiddled with his laptop. The two boys sat in Changbin’s room on a particularly hot summer afternoon. It was the kind of hot that the simple thought of breathing exhausted them, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing had they been at Aiden’s house. His mother always insisted on running the air conditioning during the summertime to keep everyone sane - he sadly couldn’t say the same thing for Changbin’s mom, who insisted they just open the window and let the fresh air in. 

They had toyed with the idea of going somewhere to escape the heat, but anytime either of them thought about walking outside in the sweltering heat they decided against the idea. That’s when Changbin got an oh so great idea, one that Aiden was questioning the sanity of. “How do you even know what sites to go to? Did you like, google it?” He asked, eyes locked on the screen as Changbin pulled up a porn site. Images of naked men and women danced on the screen - most advertisements but the middle portion was dedicated strictly for the videos uploaded to the site. Aiden honestly wasn’t sure if he was turned on or repulsed by some of the lewd positions these men and women were in. 

“Yeah.” Changbin answered, startling Aiden out of his internal debate of if he was going to throw up or not at the site of a woman spread eagle in the thumbnail of a video while Changbin scrolled through. “Haven’t you watched porn before?” 

“I’m a good Christian boy.” Aiden huffed with a smirk, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t partake in them sins of the flesh.” The forced exhale of laughter from Changbin had Aiden pouting. 

“Right. This coming from the guy who is making it a habit of waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me about his sexual dreams with Felix. Yeah, good Christian boy my ass.” He retorted and sighed. 

“Shut up! Okay listen, I’ve never thought of doing that okay?” Aiden whined, cheeks flushing with embarrassment because really, he felt like he was a weird kid. He was sure there were plenty of young men who spent their time watching porn and getting off. It was natural, or at least he assumed. 

“Wait.” Changbin shifted beside Aiden on his spot on the bed, eyes staring intently at him and Aiden actually shivered under the gaze - eyes adverting away. “So how do you know you’re gay?” He asked. It was a stupid question, but Aiden would be lying if he said he hadn’t questioned himself about that before. He had researched “how do you know if you’re gay” with safe search on. Maybe that’s what has kept him from seeing porn until now. 

“I mean, I like Felix and I have dreams about him. Doesn’t that make me gay?” Aiden asked confused, though he still refused to look at Changbin. 

“Yeah, but have you ever touched a dick before?” Changbin grunted when Aiden smacked his arm, their eyes locking once more as Aiden frowned.  “I’ve never seen porn before, but I know how to  jack off, idiot.” 

“Yeah, but have you touched someone else’s dick before?” The question had Aiden falling silent as he contemplated if it really mattered if he had touched another guy’s dick or not. Weren’t they all the same? Wasn’t it all the same? Was jacking off not considered a sign of knowing if he was gay?

“No?” He hadn’t meant to sound so unsure because the answer was a definitive no, he had touched no other dicks but his own. And yet he couldn’t help but feel shy and embarrassed for having that answer, a similar feeling he got when he was called to answer a question in class and was wrong. “Have you?”

“No. But I’m not the gay one.” Changbin shot back and Aiden groaned, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. He looked towards the screen again and sighed. “So you’ve never watched porn and never touched another dick? Wow, you’re just an unconfirmed gay virgin.” Changbin teaser, a light laugh leaving him, but when Aiden didn’t laugh with him and avoided eye contact, he stopped and his smile fell. 

“Aiden? Hey, you know it’s okay right? I’m just teasing.”

“I know!” Aiden said quickly, but his insides were swimming with such a mixture of emotions that he wasn’t entirely sure what he felt most, embarrassment, self-pity, arousal even? It was very confusing for him. He jerked when he felt a hand touching his shoulder and he shyly lifted his gaze to meet Changbin’s. 

“Do you wanna, touch mine?” 

The question had Aiden sputtering in shock, eyes wide and cheeks now a darker shade of red than it had been before. “Do what? No! That would be so weird!” He exclaimed. “We’re like best friends.”

“Yeah, and best friends help each other out.” Changbin shrugged. “You know, gotta make sure you’re actually gay before your embarrass yourself in front of Felix.”  Aiden whined at that, but Changbin had a point. It couldn’t hurt, right? After all, Changbin was offering. 

“You’re sure it’s okay?” 

“Yeah, let me just find something that’ll get you off and -“

“What about you? I thought you weren’t gay?” Aiden questioned. 

“Hmmm.” Changbin hummed in thought. “I’m an equal opportunistic person. It’s fine.” He waved his hand at Aiden, his other hand gliding across the trackpad of the laptop to find the ‘gay’ section of the website. He scrolled for a bit after finding it and ended up choosing a video that looked pretty amateurish but the two guys were pretty young and twinkish. Given Aiden’s current crush, he figured these guys would be his type. 

Aiden wasn’t entirely too sure about this half baked plan, yet there was something exciting about it. He wasn’t sure what it was, but the idea of actually touching another dick was appealing if the surge of arousal that ran down his spine was anything to go by. Sitting back against the headboard, his eyes stared at the video that was slowly buffering while Changbin fought to close the six pop-ups about meeting hot singles in their area. 

Grumbling to himself, Changbin finally got the pop-ups closed and the video began playing - volume set low though he swore it was extremely loud. Perhaps it was because they were trying to watch porn in the middle of the day, and Changbin’s mother was out in the backyard tending to her garden. It was risky but thrilling and that alone had him half hard. But he was still hesitant, not sure if he should just whip his dick out now and start touching it. While he wasn’t a stranger to touching himself, it was different when someone else was in the room with him - almost embarrassing. 

Changbin settled next to him, his hand rested on his abdomen and looking so very comfortable and not at all fazed by this situation.  Aiden almost envied how calm and collected he seemed to be and decided that maybe he would just imitate the other; settling himself in the same position as Changbin, eyes moving to focus back on the laptop where the lewd, slurping sounds were spilling from. 

Five minutes or maybe it was 3 hours - Aiden couldn’t be sure - passed, and the video only seemed like it was halfway done. The two men had only recently just started fucking and by now Aiden knew of two different positions you could have sex in. He was learning a lot, but at some point, he had stopped analyzing and started feeling. Feeling how hard he was, how heady the moans from the strangers on the screen sent weird yet pleasant sparks of white-hot something through him. It was a sensation he hadn’t experienced before but he liked it, he liked it a lot. His hand slowly slipped from its resting place on his stomach and casually slid down to the front of his sweats - tented from his straining erection, a small wet spot forming. 

His pinkie was the first to graze it, touch light and airy. He inhaled harshly because fuck if that didn’t feel good. His cock twitched, throbbed and Aiden wanted nothing more than to wrap his hand around it and start stroking. But he stopped himself, unsure if he should because Changbin was still there. And even though he offered to let Aiden touch his dick, he hadn’t uttered a single word since the start of the video. Biting his lower lip, Aiden decided to take a quick peek at Changbin, eyes shifting to the other male and widening at the sight. 

“Hey! You said I could touch it.” He all but whined out, Changbin’s hand stilling over his hard member, head-turning to face him. His cheeks were flushed a bright red, lips parted as soft pants left them. 

“Sorry?” He muttered out breathlessly, a smirk playing across his lips. “You didn’t seem to be interested in doing much. You haven’t even touched yourself.” Changbin noticed and Aiden didn’t know what was hotter, how deep Changbin’s voice sounded when he was horny or the fact the other had actually been watching and waiting for him to start touching himself. Maybe both were equally hot? His cock seemed to think so as it gave another twitch at the thought, a reminder that it was still hard and needed attention. 

“Oh.” It was a pathetic response and Aiden lowered his head in slight shame. The laughter that Changbin let out only added to the shame and embarrassment that he felt and briefly he thought that maybe this was a mistake. He wasn’t given the chance to even suggest that maybe they should stop when he felt fingers close around his wrist with gentle pressure. The movement was hesitant, Changbin giving him the chance to pull his hand away. Aiden let his hand be guided, though, watching with a curious gaze and excitement building up inside him as his hand was placed over the straining erection of his best friend. It was instinct that his fingers curled and closed around it and Aiden marveled at the feeling. 

It was different. He couldn’t explain why or how, but feeling Changbin hot and heavy in his hand was so different than feeling himself in his hand. He really it. Aiden moved his hand, angle awkward as he did his best to stroke the other - going slow at first as he watched Changbin’s expression for confirmation of how he was feeling. His lips were parted, soft moans leaving him as his hand fell from Aiden’s wrist, letting the other do what he wanted. 

“I-Is this okay?” Soft, meek, Aiden would have been embarrassed for just how damn shy and unsure he sounded at that moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was more worried about making Changbin feel good.

“Harder.” Aiden’s hands faltered for a moment, brows furrowing at the words. He found Changbin’s hand resting over his, fingers pressing into Aiden’s to tighten his grip and - oh. “Fuck.”

Who would have figured such a simple word could cause such a burning desire to bubble up in Aiden’s chest, a moan tumbling from his lips. Shit, how embarrassing. Was he supposed to be getting off on the sounds of Changbin? Wasn’t that weird? There were so many questions racing through his mind, but he had to push them to the back and focus. Focus on the hot cock twitching in his hand, precum beading up at the slit. He thought about tasting it but decided against it. That would surely be too weird for friends to do. 

His hand worked over Changbin at a steady and even pace. On each upstroke, he would give a little squeeze just under the head, an action he found that Changbin seemed to like as his head fell back against the headboard with a loud thunk - more sinful moans falling filling the air. 

“Binnie,” he brought his bottom lip between his teeth once more as he watched the way Changbin’s back arched, hips jerking up into his hand, driving his cock faster into his fist. “Changbinnie~” he tried again, successfully getting the other’s attention this time.  Dark eyes clouded with lust locked with his and Aiden gasped sharply, lips pressing together to suppress a moan because fuck if that look wasn’t hot. 

“What is it?” Aiden stuttered, stumbling over his words as he tried to tell Changbin that he wanted to be touched too, but the words simply wouldn’t come out. The corner of Changbin’s lip curled upwards and Aiden pouted, whining in frustration. 

“Me too.” He sounded like a child, wanting to be included and Changbin could only chuckle as he shifted on the bed - weight resting more on his left side as he reached over and ghosted his fingers over Aiden’s crotch, pulling a loud gasp from the other. 

“I barely touched you.”

“Felt good anyway.” Aiden whispered, eyes closing and head-turning away from embarrassment. Changbin laughed lightly, head shaking at the comment. Aiden was truly something else. His hand cupped Aiden, fingers closing around him lightly, stroking slowly. Aiden’s hips jerked up at the touch, loud whimpers and moans leaving him. 

“Be quiet, don’t want my mom to hear.” Changbin scolded lightly, receiving a whine in protest, yet Aiden bit his bottom lip to try and stifle the noises that wanted to spill from him. The pleasure he felt was different. It was stronger, heightened and he could only imagine it was like that because someone else was touching him. It was exhilarating. 

“Binnie.” Aiden breathed, breath hitching as he jerked his hips up again, his cock sliding against the loose fist around his still covered cock. “Please.” He practically begged. Changbin grunted and tightened his grip, but his hand was slow - almost lazy - as he mimicked the pace Aiden had slowed to on his own dick. 

“This better?” 

“No.” It sounded almost like a growl, Aiden’s brows furrowed together in frustration because it certainly wasn’t better. Sure Changbin was stroking him but it wasn’t nearly as fast as Aiden wanted. It was like a small sizzle of fire just under his skin and he needed some winds to fan the flames and make him burn. 

“Maybe you should start moving your hand then.” Changbin quipped, smirk dancing on his lips as Aiden finally turned his head back and stared at Changbin. 

“You’re the worst.” He whispered with a pout and Changbin snorted. 

“Hey, I wanna get off too. So start stroking.” Aiden rolled his eyes, but his grip tightened around Changbin and he started stroking him once more. His mind was focused once more on how Changbin felt in his hand, and the lewd moans he was pulling from the other, so loud against his ear. And he was the one that supposed to be quiet? “Fuck, just like that.” Hot and heavy - breathless - the words were whispered, Changbin’s lips grazing against his ear as he shifted closer to him. The hand left him, and Aiden was close to sobbing and begging for more that it was actually humiliating. But he wanted it so badly. He needed Changbin’s hand on him. 

Thankfully, before any words could leave his lips, Changbin’s hand slipped under the hem of his sweatpants and underwear. The second skin met skin, Aiden could swear he saw heaven because fuck if that didn’t feel amazing. “Binnie.” Aiden whimpered pathetically, his voice nearly inaudible over the loud hiss Changbin let out as Aiden squeezed him just a little too hard. Panting harshly, Changbin gripped Aiden and stroked him quickly, chuckling as Aiden jerked and trembled under his touch. His thumb grazed over the head, smearing each bead of precum that bubbles up.

Aiden groaned as he lowered his head to rest on Changbin’s shoulder, eyes screwed shut as he basked in the pleasure the other was causing. Briefly, he released Changbin’s cock long enough to shift himself into a more comfortable position facing the other. Reaching back down, he grabbed Changbin again and started stroking him - mimicking the way Changbin’s fingers moved over his cock. His movements were quick and not nearly as clean as Changbin’s but it seemed to be enough. Breaths mixed and mingled, moans lingering in the silent room as the two boys worked to get each other off. 

It was embarrassing how quickly Aiden reached his end, the heat in his gut coiling tighter and tighter. “Changbin.” He breathed out, wiggling against the other to grip the other’s wrist with his free hand and failing. “Stop, gonna cum.” Even with the warning, Changbin didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping. It only seemed to spur him on more as he stroked his cock faster. He was twitching and leaking heavily in Changbin’s grasp. “Chang-“

“Cum.” The demand whispered so hotly in his ear had Aiden tensing, his body reacting on its own. Needy whines and choked gasps fell past parted lips as Aiden’s head fell back onto the pillows behind him as he came into Changbin’s hand. It was intense, an orgasm that Aiden didn’t think it was possible he could have. He certainly couldn’t get himself off this well. 

“Fuck, shit.” He gasped out, muscles slowly relaxing as the last wave of ecstasy washed over him. The soft hum from Changbin captured Aiden’s attention and he reminded of what he should have been doing. He started moving his still hand once more, finding the movement slicker and as he looked down he realized Changbin already came - his cock softening in his hand, so he released him. He was at a loss for words now, both of them quiet save for their pants as they rode down their highs. 

Silently, Changbin reached over Aiden and grabbed a few tissues from his bedside table. Cleaning up their messes took a bit of time and in the end, Aiden was sure there was probably some cum that got on the comforter. “So, have fun?” Changbin asked as he tossed the wads of tissues into the trash can.

“Yeah.” Aiden swallowed thickly, tongue swiping against his dry lips in an effort to revitalize them. “That was mind-blowing.” He said and laughed lightly. 

“You think that was mind-blowing? Wait till you actually have sex.” Changbin snorted as he settled back down in his bed, laptop long-forgotten near the end.  “You’ve had sex?” Aiden asked in shock, eyes wide. How could his best friend not tell him something that important?

“No, I’m just saying.” Changbin said quickly. “I hear it’s supposed to be really good.”

“Oh.” Aiden wasn’t at all convinced, but he would let it go for now. 

“So, can you say with 100% conviction that you’re gay?” Changbin asked, reminding Aiden of the whole point of them even jerking each other off. 

“Oh! Yeah.” He said, a goofy smile spreading over his lips. “Dicks are fucking amazing.”

“Are they now?” 

“Completely. I wonder if Felix has a nice dick?” Aiden contemplated, crying out when Changbin shoved him roughly off his bed. “Dude!”

“I just got you off and you’re talking about another man. Not in my bed!” 

Groaning, Aiden sat up and leaned against the side of the bed. He stuck his tongue out at Changbin, laughing. 

“Whatever. Wanna shower?” He asked and Changbin nodded. “Cool, but no butt stuff!” Aiden said as he climbed to his feet, grinning. 

“I swear to god, I’m going to drown you under the showerhead.” Changbin threatened halfheartedly, pulling another laugh from Aiden as the male walked naked from his room. 

“You know you love me!” 

Yeah, maybe he did.

[buffyversefanfiction]

Tristan Tormented

Fanfiction Series to “Buffy the vampire Slayer” series, “Angel” series and the Buffyverse continuation in the “Dark Horse Comics” series. Warning: I do not own the rights to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off series Angel, its dark horse comics continuation series, or any of the characters created by Joss Whedon and others in the Buffyverse. 15 years +, Mild to Strong Violence, Sexual References F/F, F/M, M/M, Other +

Volume 3 - Able Angel

Vampire Tristan Summers had a mission on his mind and he was not going to stop until he achieved said mission, the mission being destroying anyone who could remotely bring out the man inside his monster and although the list was not long it was still a hefty task after all he had almost died several times before when trying to take out some of them and did die with one of them.

Angel was never meant to be a father mostly due to his undead status so when he did father his first child Connor he found himself feeling an unconditional love like no other only to lose him to another world and although over the years they had made major progress their bond was still nowhere near as great as Angel hoped it would be and now he was facing all that pain again with Tristan Summers only this time it was worse because sooner or later Angel’s second son would have to be stopped and his biggest fear had become the idea that he might just have to be the one that does the stopping. “You have to forgive me someday Angel,” Faith told him as she walked through the front doors of the abandoned looking Hyperion Hotel, chasing after her vampire friend, pleading with him to forgive her for past mistakes. “This is not just some mistake Faith; you kept my son from me and then you stopped me from killing him so now he is out there killing people and that is on you!” Angel argued. “He was killing people long before he was a vamp and if we give up on him now, he will be long after.” Faith replied, eager to make Angel side with her on her quest to save Tristan’s soul. “He was coming off less evil not a lot less evil but still less and I just know if we get Willow to ram a soul down his throat or however that goes then you may finally get to have some kind of relationship with him.” “Do not think I do not want to be a father to him, of course I do but you and Buffy made it impossible and now the next time I see him I am going to have to kill him!” Angel admitted to the redeemed slayer. “He has no soul and even when he did, he was evil.” “We both took walks on the dark side and we had each other’s backs why can’t we have his too?” Faith asked him, reminding them both of their dark pasts. “It’s not as black and white as that.” Angel reluctantly replied, once again facing the fact he may have to kill his own child. “Then let us dive straight into the grey and save your son.” Faith responded, making her determination clear to Angel. “On this particularly rare occasion I happen to agree with Faith.” Giles announced as he walked through the front doors shocking both Angel and Faith by his presence. “After my failed attempt to rehabilitate him I have been working hard to find a way to make things right.” “Failed attempt?” Faith scoffed at the former watcher, “That is like me saying oops my stake slipped when I killed a guy, somehow I do not think that response would have went down that well, nor is yours.” “It would have been more believable than trying to pin the crime on Buffy.” Giles replied to the troubled slayer. “Look I am here to make things right!” “Trust me when I say your nowhere near the top of the list of people who need to make things right for me, even if you did almost kill my son, Dru actually did so she’s ahead of you in that department.” Angel explained to Giles, making it clear no ill will was held between the two of them. “Thank you, Angel,” Giles responded to the vampire with a soul before walking over to him and Faith. “I’ve been referring with some old friends about the impossibility of Tristan Summers as well as doing some digging on my own and the information I have found was…well rather astonishing really! The boy really is one of a kind.” “Something tells me this is going to be one big watcher talk when I would rather just be out there doing what needs done.” Faith chimed in, making it clear she wanted Giles to get his point across quickly. “I stumbled upon a prophecy of a human who was born of both vampire and slayer origins yet somehow remained human and as I continued to read the text in which is was written it only grew more fascinating. The prophecy spoke of the human becoming a slayer by his own means, then later a vampire by another’s hands and yes I know that already sums up what has happened but it was the next part that really blew my mind, so to speak.” Giles informed them both. “You see it said the boy would change before becoming a slayer in his own right but he would not change after becoming a vampire, it spoke of how all that was remained unlike any vampire before him and how it would lead to the beginning of the demonic slayer…a being possible of both great things and terrible evils but a being needed in an upcoming apocalypse nonetheless.” Angel and Faith remained stood in shock by Giles’ revelation that Tristan was still the man he was before a monster and while that idea did not surprise Faith entirely due to her strong belief in the rogue slayer turned vampire it did surprise her hearing it was possible for Tristan to do some good, as Angel remained shocked by every word, knowing Giles would not lie to them but not wanting to admit there was hope for his son until he saw it for himself, having lost his sons one too many times before.

After throwing his latest victim’s body to the ground, having drained the woman completely of her blood, a full vamp face Tristan wiped the blood off his face before return to his human form which was when he realized the alleyway he had found himself was very familiar to him being too hungry and focused on the hunt before too realise where he was going but now he was fed and his victim was dead he realized his hunt had taken him home. Memories of his beloved Dante began charging through his mind as he felt all the pain of losing him once more while continuing to walk down the alleyway until Tristan stopped outside of the boarded up building he and Dante once called their home, the deadly demonic dive bar where he had last experienced any kind of happiness with his now fully dusted vampire lover. Tristan could swear just by standing outside the building itself that he could smell Dante but he knew that was his mind playing tricks on him, wanting to undo what could not be undone but still feeling Dante once more was what he needed in that moment as he began tearing down the planks of wood boarding up the door to his home before kicking the door open and walking in. “Did he know about Drusilla?” He wondered about Dante as he stood in the middle of the barely standing demonic dive bar, once again taking in the ruins of what used to be. “Did he help kill my parents? No, he would not do that to me…he loved me…but he did not love me then.” He had never doubted Dante’s love for him for one second and felt bad for doubting it now he was gone but with Drusilla having lied to him all these years he couldn’t help but wonder if any of his time spent with Dante was true or was he playing a role just like his sire Drusilla. “Did anybody ever really love me?” He asked himself, fearing the answer was no. “Could anybody really love a monster like me?” Tristan quickly realized he was not alone to his thoughts when he heard footsteps coming from the front door and like a knee jerk reaction he quickly picked up a piece of broken wood from the ground ready to slay whoever dared come into his home only to be left completely stunned when none other than Spike walked in. “I guess you never got far from those woods, but I guess why would you when this place was your home.” Spike said as he held his hands up to show he had no weapons and had no plans to fight Tristan, “I only want to talk to you kid.” “Why would I want to talk to my mother’s pet?” Tristan asked his fellow vampire, while clutching the wooden stake in his hand tighter. “You see I do not feel like talking but I am always down for killing.” “I want to help you and I know somewhere in there you want to be helped.” Spike told him. “You really are desperate to get Buffy to look at you again.” Tristan laughed cruelly, amused by Spike’s words. “Hate to break it to you but me bad you good we do not talk we just fight to the death.” “The hatred you had for Drusilla remained after turning didn’t it? And that hatred comes from a place of love, the love you had for your adoptive parents, the love I am going to guess you still have for them?” Spike questioned the slayer turned vampire, already knowing he was right. “Wow, of all the pep talkers I did not take you for one but then again you are Buffy’s pet after all.” Tristan replied, eager to antagonize Spike. “I barely had feelings when I was alive and I sure as hell do not have any now.” “Would you stop with the bloody pet talk?” Spike groaned as he walked closer to Tristan. “If you stop calling me kid,” Tristan responded before throwing a right punch across Spike’s face. “because this kid has gone pro now!” Spike wasted no time in replying to Tristan’s violence with some more violence as he punched the former slayer across the face leading to Tristan headbutting Spike in the face before kicking him to the ground. “I guess the slayer strength stuck around after death.” Spike replied as he quickly rose back on his feet, before his face turned into full vamp mode and he charged towards Tristan ready for a brutal fight with the son of the woman he loved.

Meanwhile back in Los Angeles, Angel sat behind his desk within his office at the Hyperion Hotel reading from the books that Giles, fact checking what Giles had already informed of about his son Tristan, realizing that his son did somehow still have his soul despite becoming undead making Tristan more like his father than Angel ever expected him to be. He must have re-read the text within those ancient and mystical books a hundred times not believing the truth to what he was reading as he struggled to come to terms with not only his sons seemingly indestructible soul but the importance he would have in an upcoming apocalypse, not even wanting to think about the likelihood of Tristan being on the team of evil rather than good. “You know you can keep reading it forever and it is not going to change, trust me I read it about a million times before I even began to consider it being true.” Giles told Angel as he walked into the vampire’s office. “Then went the excruciating research, the endless pleading of former colleagues to decipher it differently or at the very least some definition of whether he was fighting for good or evil.” “I get the demonic part of being a slayer I mean I feel the demon inside of me every day but I do not understand how it is even possible for him to still have a soul.” Angel answered as he closed the books and stood up to stand face to face with Giles. “You are a vampire with a soul the very definition of impossible clearly your son takes after you in that sense. I cannot begin to try and explain how he is possible let alone how his soul is still intact, but I do believe this means there’s something inside of your son that is salvageable.” Giles attempted to explain, revealing his newfound optimism towards helping Tristan find redemption. “Why not go straight to Buffy?” Angel wondered, “I am glad you came to me with this but why not her?” “I am not exactly on speaking terms with Buffy or Willow for a matter of fact after almost killing your child, besides I truly believe if it comes past the point of redemption that you will do what you have to do…so would Buffy of course but I would rather spare her from that pain.” Giles admitted to the dark-haired vampire. “I guess this means it is time for a father son reunion.” Angel declared, terrified to how this intervention for his second child would end, hoping beyond hope it would not end in him having to kill his son. “Count me in!” Faith chimed in as she walked into the room, making it clear she was eavesdropping the entire time and she was more than eager to take part in another round of team twisted. Giles had convinced Angel that his claims were real and even convinced him to take part in his redemption rescue mission but one person who never needed any convincing was Faith who had been backing Tristan from the beginning despite his endless evil deeds. A part of Faith connected with Tristan or at least her former self anyway, a part of her that was still in there deep down but had been controlled for a long time now and she believed she could help the slayer turned vampire into controlling his dark side too. Faith Lehane was never the saving souls type until she found her own saved and although she did not make a case of going out on a limb for most if any people she was determined to get Tristan Summers on the right side, partly because of seeing herself in him, partly to do something good for Buffy to make up for all the bad and to make up for straining her relationship with Angel. The funny thing about the path to redemption is the person seeking it for themselves tend to pick up a lot of others along the way, believing deep down that if they can help as many people as possible down that path then they would ultimately be helping themselves too.

“Yeah funny thing about Tristan…let me just say I have him secured already!” Spike said down the phone to Faith while standing in Tristan’s former demonic bar, bloody and bruised from his fight with the demonic slayer which he had eventually grown the upper hand in as a passed out Tristan lay on the floor beneath Spike’s feet.

[agrestenoir]

what’s written in the stars

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Pairing: Adrien/Marinette Rating: M Summary: Marinette doesn’t know what deity she pissed off to be cursed to love a time traveler.

“I think we are one of those couples with a long story to tell when people ask how we found each other. Because I will see her every now and then, and maybe one year, she’ll be with a different me, and the next year, I’ll be with a different her. And it’s gonna take a long time, but then it’ll be perfect. I’m in no rush.”

*

When Marinette is twenty-years-old, she meets Adrien for the first time. 

He’s behind the counter at the coffee shop, an apron wrapped around his waist as he takes an order from the customer at the register, and looking younger than she’s ever seen him. Her mind draws a blank as she rushes forward, pushes to the front of the line, and grabs ahold of his wrist before he can pull away. 

“Hello,” she says with a bright smile. 

He stares at her in confusion, quirking an eyebrow high. “Hi?” 

There’s a moment of silence between them, the span of a handful of heartbeats, and then she’s leaning closer. “Do you… Do you know who I am?” 

“I’m sorry?” Adrien shakes his head and starts to pull away. “You have the wrong person.” 

“I love you,” she tells him suddenly, expression imploring. “Please don’t go.” 

“Oh?” A smile stretches across his face, and heavy-lidded eyes turn her inside out. “Tell me more.”

It’s nothing new, but it’s a face she recognizes from those years he was tentative and unsure, when Early Adrien had no idea how to talk to women. Even though it has the power to make her heart throb, bruised and bleeding in her chest, she knows there’s no truth behind it. Not here, not in this time. 

Adrien is eighteen and full of the charm and charisma that tears her apart, something that squirms under her skin like a live wire, and something she doesn’t miss. But it’s still Adrien, the person she loves with her whole being, and she’ll take him no matter what age. (Even if he’s still that rascal sort who thinks flirty eyes and sharp smirks are all girls want, and then they’ll leave him alone.) 

“Over coffee,” she says. “Preferably when you’re not working.” She thinks back to what he told her way back when, tries to remember what time he gets off again. “Tonight, maybe seven?”

He smiles, and Marinette’s heart picks up its pace. 

This is how it all starts.

  *

  It actually starts when Marinette is six and picking flowers in the park across the street, when an older man steps out from behind the old willow tree with an easy smile and kind eyes. He’s holding a pink lily, petals wet with morning dew, and offers it to her. 

“Someone told me this is your favorite flower,” he says when her little hand brushes his. “But I think blue poppies are better.”

Marinette manages an indignant huff. “Blue flowers are stupid.” 

The man merely chuckles, shaking his head. “Maybe, maybe.” He stretches out his hand for her to shake. “My name’s Adrien. Do you mind if I stay here for a little bit and look at flowers with you?”

Little Marinette hesitates for a moment, her parents’ voices echoing through her head about strangers and caution, but this man looks at her with that smile, and it’s like she’s known him for her entire life. A part of her recognizing him instantly.

“Sure. I’m Marinette,” she murmurs in response, and the rest, they say, is history.

  *

  “So you’re my girlfriend, and you know I time travel,”  Adrien says incredulously over the rim of his coffee cup, like he doesn’t know which concept is more unbelievable. “How long has this been going on exactly?” 

“You’ve been with me my whole life,” she tells him with a smile. Marinette reaches out and grabs his free hand in the center of the table, intertwining their fingers together. “You’ve come more frequently in the last five years though. I think it’s because it’s closer to when you first met me.”

“This is still a lot to take in.” Adrien shakes his head, still dumbfounded. “It’s not every day that some pretty stranger comes up to me at work and tells me that she knows my deepest secret, that we’re apparently dating, and that she knows all about my future.”

“Our future,” she corrects. “You’ve known mine my whole life, so I kind of like being on the other side of things.”

Adrien leans back in his chair and crosses his arms against his chest. “So you’re telling me that someday soon, I’m going to start traveling back in some random girl’s timeline?” 

“It’s not random,” Marinette presses and nudges his ankle with her toe. “It’s never been random.” 

“Trust me, it is, bugaboo, because I’d remember if I ever saw a pretty girl like you—” he begins, eyes lingering on the ladybug earrings she’s currently wearing, the nickname slipping out as easy as breathing.

She kicks him hard enough to make him choke. “It isn’t.” Anger burns low and hot in the pit of her stomach, and she remembers how stupid Early Adrien was, still learning how to function without the mask he portrays to random girls who accost him in coffee shops. 

“I just don’t understand how this is supposed to work,” he tells her honestly. 

“You once told me it’s like gravity: that big events pull you in.” She shrugs helplessly. “That’s how it is for me too. The more important something or someone is, the more I travel to them.” 

“Wait.” Adrien’s eyes flash wildly. “You time travel too?” 

A laugh falls from her lips and into the space between them. “You think I’m from this time?” Adrien tightens his grip on her hand as the truth crashes over him. “I travel too, but only to you.” 

“Why?” 

“What can I say?” Marinette smiles, eyes glimmering. “Big events pull me in, and you were mine.” 

  *

   “I don’t think we’ve ever been the same age,” Marinette tells him, when she is eighteen and he is eighteen. “It’s different.” 

“What’s the oldest you’ve seen me?” he asks as they amble down the snow-slick sidewalks towards the Italian café near Marinette’s university. Adrien is fresh from his spring semester while Marinette is in the middle of her fall, her workload already increasing as she prepares for her finals. He carries her bag over his shoulder while she buttons up her jacket.

Marinette bites her bottom lip in thought. “I think… twenty-eight maybe?” 

“That’s… a long time,” he muses. “I do this for over a decade?” 

“I’ve been doing it for longer,” she tells him with a sharp smirk. “Better catch up, darling.” 

Adrien laughs, shoulders shaking. “And how long have you been traveling?” 

“I started when I was ten.” 

“And you only go to my future?”

“Your future, a different reality, a parallel universe.” She sighs and buries her face in the worn knit scarf. “We’ve never really figured out what it is. Time travel or universe hopping or something else. Nothing really needed a label. We don’t even know if we’re in the same timeline.” 

Adrien thinks about that for a long while. “So I could be in my sixties when you’re born. Or you could be long dead right now.” 

“Or I could be in a completely different reality,” she says softly. “There’s an infinite number of them you know: ones that are completely different, others only slightly. One where we took a left instead of a right, where I studied forensics instead of fashion. You just never know.” 

Adrien whistles low. “Wow. You’ve thought a lot about this.” 

Marinette presses her lips into a thin line. “I’ve spent most of my life waiting for you. I’ve had time.”

  *

  Marinette is twenty-one and sitting with a twenty-three-year-old Adrien on a rooftop in the grassy hills of England somewhere. There’s a B&B belonging to a friend of his from London that he likes to visit a few times during the summer when he’s on break from school. 

“So you ever been here before?” he asks her as he takes a sip of the cinnamon whiskey he’s taken up to the roof with them. “Little bit different than New York, I presume.” 

She leans back on her hands, crosses her legs, and tosses her head back to stare up at the night sky. In the distance, the moon bobs above the waves. It’s definitely not like the city. 

“Once,” she tells him and thinks back to when she was twelve and walking down the hallway of her home, only to suddenly find herself in a meadow in England with Adrien laying on a picnic blanket. It’d only been for a moment, where she managed a short wave, and was thrust back into her own timeline. “But it was nothing like this.” 

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” He hands her the bottle of whiskey, and she takes a quick sip, wincing as the bitter taste burns her throat. “Don’t get a view like this back home.” 

Marinette’s eyes rest on him, trim and toned body laid out across the roof, all long legs and pale skin. “You definitely don’t,” she tells him, probably a little tipsy but far past caring. 

Adrien can feel her gaze on him and takes the bottle from her hands, tossing back a shot and choking it down to give himself an excuse for his burning cheeks. Shoulders shaking, Marinette laughs and leans forward to press a kiss to his cheek, to the tip of his nose, and then to his lips. 

He smiles into the kiss. “You’re the best view I’ve ever seen.” He pulls away and rests his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. “I wish I could see you every minute of every day.” 

Marinette sucks on her bottom lip and pushes Adrien backwards until she can lay across his chest. She can hear his heartbeat through the thin fabric of his shirt, the steady pitter-patter that reminds her that he’s real and he’s here. Sometimes she thinks she’ll wake up one day and this will all be a dream—time travel, Adrien, and their love—but then she jumps again, and he’s there, right where he should be. 

“I wish I could wake up next to you every day,” she tells him softly. He cards his fingers through her tangled-curls, and tears prickle in the corner of her eyes. “I love you so much.” 

She tries to quell the fears bubbling up inside her, her heart beating against her ribcage like a wild animal wanting to get out. What if this is all their life is—waking up alone with the ghost of the other in their bed—and they never get the chance to make something real out of it? What if the time traveling stops, and she never sees Adrien again after this moment? What if this is all they have?” 

“I graduate next week,” she says. “Can you come?” 

He looks at her sadly. “I’ll try,” he tells her and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “I always do.” 

Sometimes that’s all they can do.

  *

 Marinette can’t remember when she first fell in love with Adrien. 

He’s always been a part of her life—since the moment in the park to the last night they spent together in her apartment in the middle of New York. All she knows is that she’s loved him for as long as she’s known him, which is basically forever at this point. At twenty-four, you’d think she’d know better than to love a person she can never keep.

But that’s a lesson Marinette’s been trying to learn for nearly twenty years to no avail. 

“Do you ever wonder if this is the last time we’ll see each other?” Marinette asks him on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday in a mess of sheets and skin, wrapped in his arms as a storm brews outside. 

Adrien at twenty-seven simply shrugs like he has no care in the world and holds her tighter. “I don’t have time to worry. I’ve been traveling my whole life, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I have to value my time in the present.” 

“But is this my present or yours?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says and presses a kiss to her crown. “All that matters is that you’re here, and so am I, and that we’re together.”

  *

 One time, when she’s twenty-two and visiting home, she goes to London and tries to look for Adrien.

She doesn’t find anything and heads back to Paris, too broken-hearted to think.

  *

  “Can I kiss you?” Adrien asks while they stand in the pouring rain, when she’s seventeen and he’s nineteen. “Or is that too weird?”

There’s no proper response as Marinette throws her arms around his neck and pulls him close. She kisses him then, and it’s wet and messy, maybe from the rain, who really knows, but it’s wonderful and beautiful because it’s something they’ve both been waiting for. When they pull away, both are gasping for breath. 

Marinette laughs, giggles spilling into the space between them, as she rests her damp head against his soaked shirt. “God… I’ve been wanting to do that since I was fourteen.”

A shiver goes down his spine. “You’ve loved me for a long time.”

“You’ve just…” Her voice trails off as she struggles to find the words. “You’ve always been there. I don’t think… I ever had choice not to.” 

“Do you ever regret that?” he asks. 

Marinette shakes her head. “Never.”

  *

  Marinette doesn’t love Adrien just because the universe told her too, but rather because he’s ingrained himself in every part of her life. While the concept of him has always seemed impossible, he makes himself known in little ways that matter, sometimes just to prove he exists, and others just to make her happy. It’s these things that make her fall for him.

When she has her first fashion show, he’s standing in the crowd with a noise maker he’d snagged from the convenience store down the way, getting chased out by security when he uses the damn thing. When she’s drowning in finals during her freshman year at a university in New York, away from home for the first time, he comes with an energy drink and study guide to keep her company. During her graduation, he’s seated front row away from the rest of her family, blowing her a kiss and mouthing “I love you!” for her eyes alone. 

It’s every afternoon in the park pressing flowers between the pages of one of her father’s old dictionaries. It’s poking each other with foils between Adrien’s fencing matches when he’s sweaty and anxious and she’s there to calm him down. It’s hours spent over designs as she finalizes the pieces before the presentation for the spring collection. It’s her at fifteen teaching him at twenty to skip rocks on the Seine only for him to turn around at twenty-four and teach seven-year-old Marinette the same thing. 

It’s all these things and more—the way he comes to the big moments in her life, the way she makes things big moments in his. 

Marinette wonders sometimes how she got so lucky to have someone who’s always there, and even when he disappears, there’s the burning hope he’ll come back. How he always keeps his promises. How he’s her constant support. How he never fails to make her smile. How his kindness shines through in everything he does. How soft and tender he is when she’s a little girl. How much he loves her and fights for her in the present. 

Marinette may not know when she fell in love with Adrien, but she definitely knows why.

  *

  The first time Marinette time travels, she’s ten and afraid. 

She’s skipping down the street to head home from the park as the sun burns low on the horizon, and suddenly it’s daybreak and she’s in the middle of an auditorium full of loud voices, flashing lights, and lots of people. She doesn’t know when she is—let alone where—but before she can panic, there’s hands on her shoulders and a man kneeling in front of her. 

“Marinette?” Adrien whispers, green eyes like the trees, soft and kind. 

“W-Where am I?” she presses as tears trek down her cheeks. “I was going home, a-and then I—” She snaps her eyes shut as a sob bubbles up from her chest. “I w-want to go home.” 

Her gaze skitters to the people around her, wearing weird clothing and weird hair and weird shoes with weird voices and weird phones, and she doesn’t know if she’s thirty years in the past or thirty years in the future. It only makes her press closet to Adrien and wrap her arms around his neck, holding on tightly as her whole body shakes, because he has a habit of disappearing when she doesn’t want him to, and she won’t let him go now. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He rubs a hand down her back to comfort her. “You’re fine, you’re safe, I promise.” 

“What happened?” she whimpers. 

Adrien looks at her, twenty-one and quiet, and simply smiles. “You time traveled.”

  *

  Marinette is twenty-six when she travels onto a balcony in the middle of the city in Paris, attached to an unknown apartment in the uptown district. It’s a quaint complex with a sloping roof and white brick, maple trees bending gracefully over the street below. The late morning sunlight filters through the leaves and a spring breeze filters past. 

Cocking her head to the side, she ambles towards the window of the apartment, trying to make sense of where she is. In all her travels, she’s never been here before and Adrien has never told her about it.

She peers through a window with white-trim and catches sight of movement inside. Hesitation has never been her strong suite, especially when she’s traveling, as she never knows how much time she has to do what she needs to do. Usually Adrien is somewhere close, but something about this time feels different. 

The window shows a dining table where two people sit—a man with a red hat and thick-rimmed glasses and another woman with dark hair pulled into a high bun. They’re both sipping from coffee mugs and pondering over open catalogs strewn across the table in front of them. The man says something that causes the woman to shake with laughter as she scoots her chair back and makes a move to stand. 

As she turns to the side, Marinette lets a gasp fall from her lips. 

She recognizes the woman as herself—laugh lines etched into her face, hair piled into messy curls, and belly swollen with child. 

A single tear trails down her cheek as she continues to stare, speechless and shocked, at the older Marinette who’s happy and with a man other than Adrien. Her hands are shaking as they clench the fabric of her shirt in tight fists, heart thundering like it’s going to break through her ribs, the world tilting on its axis as reality crashes over her. 

She’s pregnant. He’s not Adrien. 

She doesn’t want this. She’s never wanted this. Her whole life—it’s only ever been Adrien. 

There’s a pull within her, the universe trying to take her back, but she fights it even as her world falls apart. She needs to see more, get her answers to questions she hasn’t even formed yet, has to learn how to change this future because she doesn’t want it. 

As everything begins to fade and she finds herself between one time and the next, the older Marinette turns around and stares out the window, catching her gaze before she can fully disappear. The Marinette inside only presses her lips into a thin smile and raises her hand in goodbye, the silver ring on her finger glinting under the kitchen light. 

“It’s okay,” she mouths to her. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  *

  Marinette doesn’t like to think about all this ending. 

If she has her way, they’ll keep jumping in and out of each other’s lives forever. It’s not much of a life together, but it’s theirs, and damn it, that matters to her. She’d spend the rest of her life being a ghost in his, the figure found in all his photographs, the voice on his answering machine when he’s out and she can’t bother him, the memory that he goes back for when he needs to. 

Marinette would do it all if it means she gets to keep him. 

She wonders what Adrien thinks. She knows he loves her, but the question is… is it enough? 

For her, it always has been.

  *

  “What’re you doing?” Adrien asks her at twenty-seven, breathless and smiling between her kisses.

She’s twenty-six and desperate, convinced she’s just seen the end, where she’s thirty-something with a family of her own and no Adrien in sight. It makes her hungry for what she has now, and she wants to lose herself in it just to hide from the bubble future and what it has in store for them. 

It’s funny, she thinks to herself. I’ve never been scared of the future before. 

Inside her bedroom, she pulls him down by the collar of his shirt and crushes her lips to his, wet and hard with teeth and spit. He tastes like vanilla chap stick and coffee as he’d travelled in the middle of his breakfast, and God… she just wants to savor this. He hefts her against the bedroom door, her legs wrapping around his waist as she pulls her blouse overhead, and he buries his face against her neck. 

“I missed you,” she tells him between harsh gasps, shoulders shaking. He only smiles and spins around, throwing her onto the bed before crawling atop her. 

More clothes start coming off, exposing miles of warm skin she’s never once taken for granted. He sighs as he pushes into her, breathes turning shaky, but his kisses turn more ferocious. Hips pumping, toes curling, bed rocking—her nails dig into his shoulder blades as she holds onto him for dear life. It makes tears prickle in the corners of her eyes at the thought that she could someday lose all of this. 

“I love you, you know that, right?” he says as he pulls away, staring down at her in awe. 

Marinette can’t even muster a response, only nudging him closer until she can capture his lips with hers, opening her mouth and licking inside. Adrien smiles into it and reaches between them with one hand, cupping her sex and pressing until the world turns white. They lose themselves in the ebb of the tide, the sheets turning sticky with sweat, until her thighs clench around his hips, back arching off the bed, and she comes hard. 

When Marinette comes back to herself, and the world seems to right itself, she curls up in Adrien’s arms and buries her face in the crook of his neck. “I want you,” she murmurs against his skin. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” 

Adrien is silent for a moment before he laughs. “Did… Did you just propose?” 

“Yes,” she says because she can’t imagine what else she’d rather do. 

“Isn’t that my line?” he teases in jest. 

Marinette snorts. 

(God, she loves him.)

  *

  The first morning after, when she’s twenty and full of hope, she stares at the twenty-two-year-old Adrien sleeping beside her, who’s hogging the blankets and drooling on the pillow, and can’t help but laugh. “I swear, I’m gonna love you forever,” she tells him, and it’s more than a promise or a far-fetched dream. 

It’s always been a fact.

  *

  Adrien is twenty-eight and tosses her a small black box when she collapses on the couch in her new apartment. Moving back to Paris was harder than she imagined, but at least her boyfriend knows how to time things perfectly. They’ve spent the past few hours moving the last of her things in, and the adventure of unpacking still awaits, but it’s been a long day and she doesn’t know how long Adrien has left. 

“What’s this?” She takes the box and turns it over, gears in her head turning slowly, because she’s twenty-seven and tired. “Was this packed somewhere?” 

“No,” he says with a soft smile and plucks it out of her fingers. Marinette lets out an indignant squawk, trying to yank it back, but he presses her back against the couch with a single finger to her forehead. “Just hold on a second.” 

“Is it mine?” Marinette bites her bottom lip, trying to picture where he’s swiped it from. She doesn’t recall the box among her jewelry when she packed it all up. 

“Well, it ought to be,” he tells her. “Just depends what your answer is.” 

The world shudders to a halt. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, and she draws a blank, unable to think of any words. 

Adrien slips off the couch and rocks back on his haunches, propping up on one knee in front of her. “Marinette, I feel like I’ve loved you since before I knew you.” He swallows, voice breaking. “Last year, you asked me a question, and I… I didn’t have an answer, and you didn’t do it correctly. I went to my father and asked for my mother’s rings because…”

A half-formed sob falls from his lips before he can choke it down. She’s still frozen.

“You didn’t—” Marinette starts to say, voice full of tears. 

“You asked last time, so I think now it’s my turn, so Marinette Dupain-Cheng, will you—” A smile stretches across his face, and there’s tears dripping down his cheeks, and there’s tears against her lips as she kisses him breathless. 

“Yes,” she tells him and can’t stop laughing or crying. “It’s always been yes.”

  *

  They can’t get married—both lost in time, neither sure where the other is. 

It doesn’t stop them from pretending though. Rings adjourn fingers, twenty-eight-year-old Adrien pressing kisses to twenty-eight-year-old Marinette’s lips, the “I do” and always” somewhere in the spaces between them. 

It’s been a decade since they were the same age.

  *

 Marinette often wonders if there’s a limit to how much you can love someone.  She wonders if there’s a limit to how long you can love someone. 

At thirty, Adrien’s mother’s wedding ring burns like silver fire on her finger wherever she goes, a constant reminder of who put it there. She thinks about Adrien, tries to picture her future where they don’t exist, but it’s impossible. 

Every time she thinks about the future, where she’s thirty-something and with another man, she can’t imagine what life without Adrien will be like. It’s like trying to imagine a world where the sun doesn’t shine and the sky isn’t blue, where the road to her parents’ bakery isn’t cracked with age, where the pink lilies on her porch don’t grow after the rain falls.

It’s impossible, so she tries not to think about it. 

She also tries not to think about the fact that it’s been six months since Adrien last traveled.

(She tries but fails every time.)

  *

  She’s thirty-one and married to a ghost. 

It’s been five months since she last traveled.

  *

  The last time she sees Adrien is when he’s twenty-two and in love with a girl who burst into his coffee shop one day just to tell him that she loved him. 

They go to brunch and then kiss goodbye on the sidewalk, and Adrien fingers her ring and promises to catch up. “I think this is the oldest I’ve ever seen you,” he notes, and she tries not to cry, tries to pretend that there’s so much more future between them, tries not to think about how she’s going to lose him. 

“You’ll see me older someday,” she says, and this time is a far-fetched dream because if there’s one thing she can’t promise him, it’s time. 

Adrien stares at her with those green eyes that glitter like stars. “You know,” he tells her. “I think this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you.” 

Marinette can’t even form a proper response, only huffs a soft laugh and presses her lips to her wedding ring.

  *

  Marinette is thirty-three and has started a new job as a fashion designer at a renowned business in Paris. Adrien’s mother’s wedding ring still sits on her finger because she made a promise when she was twenty and refuses to break it. She’s unpacking her desk supplies from a box and adjusts her new nameplate with a soft sigh, the golden metal glinting in the sunlight streaming from the window. 

There’s a knock against her door, pulling her from her morning musings. “Hey, I found this box outside your office, and I think you dropped… Marinette?”

The voice strikes her deep inside, bringing her heart stammering to a stop. She twists around on her heel and a bright smile overtakes her face. “Adrien!” she cries and wraps her arms around his neck, his own holding her tight against his chest. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!” 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he gushes to her, eyes wide and brimming with questions. “I haven’t traveled in three years, and the last time I saw you, you were seven at that park, and… and I thought I’d lost you!” 

“Wait, wait,” she says, pressing her hands to his shoulders to keep him still. “What do you mean you haven’t traveled?” 

“I don’t know,” Adrien tells her, running a hand through his hair, already messy to begin with. “It just stopped. Master Fu thinks it’s because the clock genes got shocked back into place or something, or maybe it just… I don’t know, but I am so happy you’re here, I was worried you weren’t traveling anymore—” 

“I haven’t traveled in two years,” she says. 

Just to check, she glances around her office. It’s still her nameplate, still her box, still the picture of her parents in the corner, still the pink lilies and blue poppies on the windowsill. 

“Then how are you here?” he asks her. 

“I don’t know,” she tells him. “But this is my timeline and my reality. I woke up and came to work. I’m here because I got a new job with Gabriel Fashions, and this is where I’m supposed to be.” 

Adrien bites his bottom lip and shakes his head. “Then if you didn’t travel, and I didn’t travel…” 

Then… 

Then… 

Marinette doesn’t waste her time thinking. She grabs him by the collar and pulls him forward, kissing him and kissing him, until he’s laughing and so is she, tears streaming down both of their faces. 

“H-How are you here?” she asks him, flabbergasted. “I looked, but I could never find you.” 

“Gabriel’s my father. He owns this whole building, and I help with the business… But God, Mari, you’re here, you’re here,” he whispers against her forehead. “You’re really here.” 

“I’ve always been here,” she tells him and intertwines their fingers together, the silver of their matching wedding bands glinting in the sunlight. 

Same timeline, same universe, same Adrien.

  *

  She’s thirty-five and sitting at the kitchen table of her and Adrien’s home a mile from the office. Her wedding ring sits on her finger, but soon she’ll have to switch to a necklace as her fingers swell from her pregnancy. Across from her, Nino, her husband’s best friend, smiles around the rim of his coffee mug and points to a picture in the catalog. 

“I think you should get this crib,” he tells her. “That’s what Alya and I got for the twins. It’s sturdy and does its job.” 

She pushes herself to her feet, eager for some more tea, still laughing. “It’s fire engine red, Nino.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with red,” he grumbles under his breath. 

Her giggles spill into the space between them as Adrien comments from the other side of the room, “How about blue? Or green?” 

“You already got the room painted blue,” she snipes back. “We don’t need it looking like the Cookie Monster threw up in there.” 

“Hey,” he says and peers around the cabinet, a wrench in hand. “There’s nothing wrong with blue. I—oh.” Adrien pauses, blue eyes softening as he stares out the window onto their balcony.

Marinette simply sighs and turns on her heel, already knowing well enough what she’ll find. Her own wet eyes stare back as the younger Marinette begins to fade away, hands clenched to her chest in despair. 

She smiles and waves goodbye, quietly telling her that it’s okay, because it is, it does work out. 

It’s not much, but the younger her has a lifetime to figure out what she means. 

Warm arms loop around her waist, lips pressing against the nape of her neck. “You weren’t kidding.” 

“I told you,” she says and leans back against Adrien’s shoulder. “She’s going to be very worried for a while.” 

“I’m sorry I worried you.” 

She turns around in his arms and kisses him—slow and soft. “It’s worth it,” she whispers. “You’ve always been worth it.”

And the rest, they say, is history.

[punninglyswift]

I could stay.

Every album has come at the perfect time in my life when I needed it most and because of that the albums make me remember those times, maybe just in flashes, but even if it’s a not so great flashback, I look back on it with happiness and that I genuinely believe is thanks to you, @taylorswift

Since I was a sophomore in high school when Red came out I think I really can explain what I said above for the past 3 albums more clearly...but it goes for debut through Speak Now as well. Let’s do each album, shall we?

Taylor Swift - the album had been released a bit by the time I heard songs from it. I was performing in my school’s talent show and this meant 2 performances because my very catholic elementary school made us audition to see if what we were doing was appropriate and to plan out the order I guess. I was playing classical piano, which I’ve done since I was 3. There was a girl named Carly who was 2 years older than me and she was auditioning with a song I’d never heard. It was called Our Song and it was catchy as HELL. (My fifth grade self knew what was UP) She sounded great too, so she got into the talent show but rumor had it they didn’t want the word “kiss” in a song that was to be performed (remember the “very catholic” part? Yup.) - so I heard another catchy as hell song but this time it was one where my mind AND my heart went, “wow....that’s how I feel about life” and it’s still accurate to the way I feel about that PERFECT song today: that song was A Place in this World. I was going into middle school. Middle school, high school...we can all agree we see their problems...bullying is unfortunately real. With your self titled debut album I finally had songs I discovered on my own, nothing against the music my brothers always played for me (Coldplay, Green Day, the Foo Fighters, The Lonely Island - yes I’m on a BOAT, motherf****** I’m sorry I get really into it) - I had anthems thanks to you, I also thought HARD about love cause even at that age I crushed on guys a lot but all in my head because boys are weird. Still are. Onto Fearless....

Fearless. Soon after the talent show, I mean a year or two, my mom got me Fearless after a piano jury. I flipped through the lyric booklet. It was like reading a prize winning book. (Ayyy Grammys foreshadowing) and the SONGS...I was in middle school. 7th grade I believe...and guys would play stupid but hurtful pranks on me and I had a great group of friends but the hurt definitely got to me...but I had an album telling me that yeah sure- “they might be bigger, but we’re faster and never scared..you can walk away, say we don’t need this; but something in your eyes says we can beat this”. I had an album that gave me a song my mom and i smile so big during cause without my mom and without our little mom & daughter trips downtown (dc) or to New York in the holidays, or just taking a walk or browsing in random stores, I don’t know where I’d be but I know my happiness wouldn’t exist. I again had anthems as well as slower songs that taught me about love. And little did I know Fifteen would be THAT song I needed for the high school journey that was growing closer and closer.

Speak Now. That powerful fairytale of an album written entirely only by you, Taylor. I was about to enter high school - an all girls high school. Also around this time I started watching SNL every week thanks to your time as host AND musical guest during the Fearless era and watching that show is a favorite Saturday night activity now. I used to (i still kinda do this) have to convince myself whatever feelings i felt re: mainly crushes were valid instead of just thinking they were. I always thought I was being irrational. I’d think up scenarios in my mind of spilling the feelings and having it go perfectly. Those scenarios never happened in real life. I guess I told myself I wasn’t good enough for whoever I liked to like me back. Unfortunately that mindset still exists...I tend to go, well this kind of guy would never...and it hurts. And I’m hurting myself by doing that. So Speak Now was the epitome of you, Taylor, being the person who can perfectly illustrate whatever feelings we all have, but using your own examples. I’d need TED talks on feelings and owning your heart and Speak Now was that 24/7 TED talk. Especially with Enchanted. “The words I held back” there are so many words I want to say to honestly every guy I’ve had an actual crush on. (I specify “actual” because one of the first crushes I had turned out to be a douchebag! Fun!!!) and then again with Mean, that helped me and still does when I encounter bullies. I encountered bullies (and cyberbullies! FUN!!) in middle & high school a LOT. But I did grow to be “big enough so they can’t hit me” - I’m still quite short, but you get my point. And Never Grow Up was again a reality check for me growing up, and the lyrics were so real that sometimes I couldn’t listen to it when it came on shuffle or on the CD because sometimes you can’t deal with that reality. But it’s a favorite song and I’m forever grateful it exists. Long Live is the song that is a full on letter to the friends and family members who have helped me grow and become who I am and weren’t temporary and didn’t make me feel bad about myself. They all have crowns in my opinion. (Lover - Out August 23) Speak Now was also the first TOUR of yours I attended and I remember being speechless seeing you rise out of the stage. And hearing your voice telling me “I don’t think you should wait, I think you should speak Now” - truly those words are the reason I have in the past several years told guys how I’ve felt. It’s never worked out but telling them lifted weights off my shoulders and it’s never been a negative experience. Seeing that tour live in all its theatrical, magical goodness made me the happiest person ever.

Red. I have a weirdly clear memory of driving to target with a friend after school let out in 2012 to buy a copy of Red before rehearsals started for Hairspray, the show we were doing that fall. I didn’t have a way to listen to it at school yet so I just kinda held it and stared at it. True story. To me, Red was the Speak Now that dealt with bullies and was better for it and came out stronger than ever. Red again was like wow does Taylor know exactly what I’m feeling? It wasn’t even a QUESTION. I Almost Do - again with the speaking now. And the line in Treacherous - “I can’t decide if it’s a choice, getting swept away” is everything I feel all the time SWEPT into a BEAUTIFUL SENTENCE. And with your words since the very first album I’ve felt like wow she seems like my best friend. And it’s beautiful.

1989. While it goes for every album, this was the first time I remember having a lightbulb moment of holy crap I needed this album at this moment as a 17 year old driving to college with my mom. At least..i heard Shake It Off while attempting to listen to the livestream on my phone. That’s kinda what college is, or what it can be - shaking it off, a new you but the same you. Literally though - you shaped that beautiful album around finding yourself when you didn’t have to necessarily in love in a big city. My city was Chicago, but the sentiments are the same. (Go ramblers!!!) It was tough, adapting to a big school and making all new friends - and I didn’t really have an actual group of friends until sophomore year. Now I can’t get rid of them and that’s the best thing, I love em with my whole heart. 1989 still helped me be like oh these feelings are valid, and like “god I’ve felt that way more than once...thank goodness for Taylor” - referencing specifically I Wish You Would - cause I didn’t have in depth conversations about anything like that with anyone. 1989 gave me dancy, positive, self confident vibes and I rode that positivity train through college.

reputation. Speaking of riding a positivity train through college...there were low points along that journey. reputation came in 2017, during my senior year of college. Going out into the “real world”. The year before was 2016 - a year that gave me unforgettable study abroad experiences and honestly helped me grow so much in happiness and in general - I actually spent that summer canvassing and phone banking for Hillary Clinton, I was so fired up. That fire went out for a brief, heartbreaking moment in November 2016. I cried all night, and then each night after that for 3 days; sometimes calling my mom and grandma, sometimes just remembering how hopeful I was. And how far it felt like we had to go. The fire came back, and I was angry but empowered. Cue senior year. I was taking all the classes I loved and writing kickass papers about political violence as well as the amazing book Gabriel by Georges Sand which challenges gender norms, and I felt ready but also not ready for whatever was next after graduation come May 2018. November 2017, réputation came into our lives. Like 1989, it was a well rounded story I needed to propel me through whatever came next, but different...I knew I needed to have more of a “take no shit” attitude and rep really helped me with that. Hell, I definitely credit listening to I Did Something Bad on my way to a morning class with helping me be brave enough to raise my hand because I KNEW what I had to say and I KNEW it was good enough and I just HAD TO be BRAVE enough to say it. “I’m doing better than I ever was...” = same way I felt and honestly that’s in a large part thanks to you.

So now I’m not in school anymore, I graduated in May 2018, and I’m still trying to find a place in this world. I live with some of my best friends in Chicago, I’m trying to work on a campaign soon, currently working retail at a crafty store, and when I don’t think I’m going anywhere I remember that I have to own who I am and embrace my creativity and my passions - and take the occasional break to help plan my friend’s 23rd birthday party which has themed everything so gotta get to work on that. And Lover? There’s NO doubt in my mind it will be any different in terms of coming at the perfect time in my life. And I know this: it’ll be magical. Thank you Taylor. Sorry this is an actual essay, I love you always.

- Isabelle

@taylorswift