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heartthrobin · 3 months ago

Text

the hate game (1)

oliver wood x female!reader

wc: 13.3k

warnings: enemies to lovers, so damn much pining, set in poa, timeline is a bit wonky, limited use of y/n, super grumpy!oliver, oliver's scottish accent (it's a warning in itself), alcohol consumption, super! duper! cheesy! (sorry not sorry)

an: just survived the worst two weeks of my life, but the fic is finally here! this fic was originally a full 50 chapter fic i had planned for wattpad like three years ago but i found my draft for it recently and decided it needed a revival. so enjoy it, and don't forget to comment and repost to support your favourite writers :)

summary: the only thing more grating than Oliver's foul moods and his permanent scowl, has to be the fact that he's so damn pretty. you fucking hate him for it.

part two/final part

Movies, as is their premise, glamourise plenty of things - high school, politics, tiny Greek islands - but none more than the classic sucker-punch.

The teeth-crunching, blood-spitting moment where skin meets skin in a satisfying thump that sends an unsuspecting victim to the floor. Music plays and the hero grins, grabbing the girl round the waist: dipping low to kiss her.

What’s consistently (conveniently) left out is how bloody painful it is to be on the sending end of that fist.

The first, and only, time you’d ever punched someone was in second year.

It had seemed like a great idea in the moment, quickly succeeded by the mind-numbing pain that shot up your arm where knuckle met face.

You’d aimed for his jaw, but as it turns out: in addition to painful, punching someone wasn’t a particularly accurate sport for a beginner and your slippery skin found a round-tipped nose instead.

A collective gasp and a month’s worth of detention waited for you on the other side of your act of rage.

And sure, while afternoons in Snape’s classroom every Friday sucked: it was all worth it.

Every purple knuckle that throbbed with the slightest brush, the points lost to Hufflepuff, the pages and pages of Hogwarts Does Not Condon Physical Violence you’d been forced to write was worth seeing the trickle of blood running down from Oliver Wood’s nose.

To see that smug fucking look wiped clean from his face. To watch how he doubled over in pain, grappling onto his friend for balance.

“Tyler fancying you? Any bloke would rather snog a goblin.”

His little comment had earned him a broken nose.

It had been the start of a five year long feud.

It’s the reason - now - why the ground is racing up to meet you, the nose of your broomstick pressed down towards it and wind whipping so hard against your face it draws tears. You knock into the ground, catching yourself on wobbly legs. A few feet away, Oliver Wood has done the same.

He’s marching towards you with the same ferocity that’s curdling in your chest:

“Tha’s blatching and you know it!” His accent is ringing, thick and blistering with heat like it always is when he talks to you. At you, rather.

The accusation is crystal clear, and loud despite the echoing din of the quidditch stands above. From the field where you're parked, you can hear the chatter and the cheers and the boos all conglomerating into a fuzzy uproar.

There’s still twelve brooms floating in the air, spewing irritated shouts from players in both yellow and red:

Just let it go, Wood!

Come on, Cap, can we just finish the match please!

You promptly ignore them. Oliver follows suit.

“What?” You scoff, face hot as a kettle on a lit stove. “As if Laurel and Hardy haven’t been elbowing my girls all game!”

It goes without saying that you’re referring to Gryffindor’s red-head twin-set of beaters.

“Bullshit.” He seethes, it’s purposefully quiet enough that McGonagall’s approaching figure doesn’t pick it up.

She, unlike yourself, is less patient and knobby vein-webbed hands come out to knock you both against your chests: widening the gap to a safe enough distance between the opposing captains.

“You two are exhausting.” And she sounds it too. Her glasses tremble at the edge of her nose, sun shining down on her aged face. "If one more match this season is interrupted because you two can't control your tempers, you will both be stripped of captainship and you will not fly until you graduate. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

But Oliver isn't looking at her. His eyes are focused on yours over her cloaked shoulder.

He's taking the predictable route of not replying first.

"Crystal clear, Professor." You resign to speaking first, skewing a grin at his anger-sewn face.

It’s another long boring moment before he cuts his gaze from yours, kicks up a patch of grass and grits through his teeth.

“Yes, professor.”

As can be imagined, things between you and Oliver Wood have been tense since the day he’d hobbled up to the hospital wing with a palm over his face and blood dripping down over his already red tie.

But with age, came ferocity, and what started as passing glares in the corridor melted into anger-drowned faces and sharp words flung with intent to scar.

Things got infinitely worse when you were elected captain of the Hufflepuff quidditch team in the same year Oliver was made captain for Gryffindor. It stoked the already sizzling embers that made moments around him warm and stuffy and hard to breathe.

The murky history swirled with what should be friendly competition, instead frothing into a bubbling pot of annoyed teammates and exasperated teachers and more sessions of detention than you would have ever had if you'd never met the son of a bitch that is Oliver Wood.

It's what puts you in situations like the ones you find yourself in the middle of before you even know how you got yourself there.

"You two," Professor Burbage had never held you in particularly high favour. It was just your luck that Oliver received the same courtesy. "One more word out of either of you and I will be seeing both of you this afternoon for detention in my classroom."

It was even unluckier that she'd sat you two barely three wizards away from one another and one fly-away comment had blown out into another heat-filled exchange. It always does.

"But professor--" you try.

"Right then. I'll see you both at five o' clock."

Oliver sighs, hands running up over his head between chestnut locks: "Fucking perfect. Thanks, big-mouth."

"Would you like to make it two days, Mr Wood?"

He huffs like an angry dog, tightening the grip on his writing-feather but says nothing else.

The end of the lesson doesn't come soon enough and when it does, Oliver is first out of his seat. You're grateful for it.

Cherry bumps you in the shoulder where she throws her bag over it. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

You grin, despite the sunken feeling hollowing your chest with the acknowledgment that you're gonna be spending yet another afternoon at the mercy of an under-paid staff member alongside the hothead that was the Gryffindor captain.

"Come on, that wasn't my fault and you know it."

Her tight red curls dance when she shakes her head. They match her blood red tie. "Somehow it never is."

To your dismay, but not surprise, Enzo shares Cherry's views when he waltzes into step beside you in the corridor between Muggle Studies and Divination. His arm drapes over your shoulders and his tall frame shakes when he laughs.

"You know," his voice is thick and gravelly. "You two are gonna have to fuck it out eventually."

You roll your eyes, shoving him off you with a chuckle. The sentiment isn't anything new. "Oh, shut up."

The day folds blurrily between classes and lunch and greenhouse visits that by the time you look up it's just about five o clock.

Burbage's office door stares down at you.

The corridor is ghostly all the way behind you and it's emptiness means it's easy to make out Oliver's heavy footsteps down the stone floor. They're not slow, in an arrogant strut, neither quick like he has somewhere to be.

He trudges. Like the weight of the world is strapping him to invisible pins in the floor. It's easy to figure that your existence doesn't lighten his load any.

You don't turn. He simply falls into place beside you, keeping a good foot distance between your tightened shoulders.

The door opens.

Charity Burbage is insufferable in the way that she forces you and Oliver to sit almost on top of each other behind a scratched up desk where she can watch you under the curtain of her ratty blond hair.

You inch the chair dramatically away from Oliver's.

She's set a stack of pages by him and a wet stamp. "Stamp these and sign the date."

Additionally, she's dropped a stack of envelopes under your nose. "Tuck and seal. When you're done, you can leave."

You eye the papers. There must be hundreds.

To Whom It May Concern,

Hogwarts would like to remind all parents and guardians that the third-years will require prior permission before being allowed to visit the nearby village of Hogsmeade--

You jump when Oliver's elbow knocks yours (more violently than what was really necessary). He holds the first page out to you silently, face dripping with impatience.

When you take the page, his thumb brushes yours.

The paper is delicate in your fingers where you fold it. You tuck and seal, and by the time you've set it aside Oliver is offering the next page to you again.

His thumb brushes yours for a second time.

You find that it does for every letter that's passed on.

It's hard not to watch him out the corner of your eye. Oliver has this dark brown, nearly black, hair that's thick and almost too long and untamed all over. It's matched by bushy eyebrows and speckled freckles over the bridge of his nose.

If you didn't hate him as much as you did, you might think he was pretty. You might think that anyway.

Time stretches until the sun is setting the classroom afire with golden light and it's boredom that causes it, or possibly a desire to hear his voice at such tight quarters, but you speak.

"You know," it's soft enough that Burbage doesn't look up from her Witch Weekly magazine. "Even if - in some act of God - Scotland qualifies for the semi-finals, Luxembourg is gonna flatten them. I mean, think about it unemotionally, Wood: they have Luca Schmit as seeker. It's really a no brainer--"

"Are y’really just stupid or are you purposefully trynna start another argument?" His gaze flickers up to eye Burbage's desk warily, she still doesn't react.

Maybe it's both. After all, the subject of the Quidditch World Cup had been what put you both there in the first place.

You shrug, unfazed by his scathing remark.

"I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Well don't."

His hand brushes yours again.

Every second Friday, generally at the tail-end of lunch, Hooch's grey barn owl swoops low over your head and drops a smaller-than-average white envelope right into your mashed potatoes. Cherry yelps in surprise every time.

Then you watch the bird drop the same over the Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables.

Good afternoon,

Reminder of Captain's meeting this afternoon in my office. Six o' clock, don't be late.

Regards,

Madam Hooch.

The letter says the same thing it has since you became captain and it's a wonder you still take the effort to break the seal on the envelope.

But come six o' clock, you're traipsing towards the west end of the castle. Lavender streaks caress the sky under the last impression of sunlight through the ornate stone arch of the corridor windows and an autumn chill creeps up your arms where your sweater isn't thick enough.

Hooch's office is in a quiet alcove, nearly impossible to find if you didn't know where to look, and the lamps are lit. Beyond the door, you can hear voices: you grin.

The door creaks noisily where you push it open. Inside it's cramped and cluttered with shelves of quidditch equipment - broken brooms, punctured quaffles and loose kits draping every open surface - but it's warm and smells like leather and is maybe your favourite little room in the whole castle.

The quidditch legend herself, Rolanda Hooch, has her legs kicked up on her desk and the boys are standing ahead of it locked in animated chatter.

She's laughing at something they said, and smiles when you enter.

"Sorry I'm late, coach."

It's nothing new and she waves you in with a smile. "Come in, poppet."

"Merlin," Marcus' shoulder finds yours and the force of the bump nearly sends you off your feet. "You'd be late to your own funeral hey, Puffers?"

You laugh, shoving him back with as much force as you can muster against the giant brute that is Slytherin captain Marcus Flint. It barely nudges him but he barks out a laugh, rough like tractor tires over crumbly concrete.

"I'm worth the wait." You quip back, leaning around Marcus to wink at Roger Davies. "Isn't that right, Rodger?"

He flirts back, "Always, sweetheart."

Roger is the antithesis of Marcus: all pale skin, blue eyes and short blonde hair. Easy on the eyes.

Oliver lingers just behind him, the tallest of the captains. You catch his eye, face slipping into something more serious, and nod. "Hey, Wood."

He nods in return, curt like how a ministry wizard's might be.

"Right," Hooch sits up straight in her high-back chair. "There are just a couple things we need to get through tonight, we won't be long."

The dynamic between the captains would be easy, if not for Oliver.

You're the only girl and that made for tough beginnings. Marcus is naturally brash and brutish, but - as you found - easy to impress with a couple showy tricks on the broom. A single promise to show him how to pull off a Woollongong Shimmy had him eating out your hand: the favour of a couple Slytherins was generally hard to buy and invaluable to a plushy Hufflepuff such as yourself.

Roger popped out the womb with a wink at the nurse. Impeccably charming and impossibly negotiable. Beyond being slightly dim, it was hard to say a bad thing about the Ravenclaw captain

On the other hand, Oliver was … well, Oliver.

Hooch tapped the sharp end of a writing feather rhythmically at a spot on her desk, eyes roving her clipboard.

"Next week we're doing a clean up of the supply room down by the pitch. I've set you each up on days, the whole team needs to be down to help unless they're excused by a teacher: I want a written letter."

She offers a piece of parchment without looking up.

"As you all know, it's the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw game next week."

You bump your elbow to Marcus'. He looks down and grins a mouthful of crooked teeth before turning to Roger. "Ready, pretty boy?"

Roger rolls crystal blue eyes, but he's smiling too. "Bring it on, tough-shit."

"Oy," Hooch interrupts them with a cool sigh, "The last thing, you all submitted your autumn practice requests for the pitch: Roger, Marcus, you have the days you want--"

They nod. Your shoulders stiffen.

"--Oliver, Y/n. You both want Wednesday afternoons. Monday afternoon is open, I'll let you two decide between each other who is gonna move their practice. I want a decision before tomorrow night."

Marcus is sniggering under his breath. The edges of your mouth sink into a frown, of course he wants the same day as me.

You can feel the heat of Oliver's eyes on the side of your face. You don't indulge him, keeping your gaze settled on Hooch's face.

"We'll figure it out, coach."

"Unlikely." Roger's quip is barely a whisper but you catch it.

"Alright." Hooch doesn't. "You're dismissed, go get some dinner kids."

The office door bounces back off the stone wall where Marcus tosses it carelessly open, echoing all the way down the empty corridor.

Frosty air chases over your face and the boys start down towards the Great Hall. Roger is complaining about a potions essay he hasn't started and Marcus is shrugging him off with a suggestion that includes something along the vein of blackmailing a sixth year into doing it for him but you can't focus long enough to follow.

"Oliver." Irritation is prickling at the surface of your skin. It flares into an almost rash when he stops walking, glancing over his shoulder with an unconcerned expression. "Who's giving Wednesday up?"

His arms fold against his chest. You're working extremely hard not to look down where his biceps stretch the seams on his Hogwarts jumper. "Well, you obviously."

Marcus barks another laugh, he calls down the corridor: "We'll see you kids at dinner."

"Yeah, don't kill each other! It's only practice!"

You huff in disbelief, unconcerned with the running commentary.

"Uh," you mirror Oliver by folding your own arms. "no it's not. Come on, we can negotiate like civil people can't we?"

Thick caterpillar eyebrows disappear beyond the overgrowth hiding his forehead. "Negotiate? I'm the one who wasted three hours of my life in detention last week thanks to your big fat mouth. Wednesday is mine."

"That was a joint effort, twat." You can feel where your throat is flush with rising anger. It wires your jaw tight. "Are you really so bloody difficult that we can't even come to a simple agreement?"

"Difficult?" His arms have shifted from his chest to perch against his hips. "Just because I'm not giving you what you want? Cry me a fucking river, darling. Sorry Puffers, but I'm not your precious Marcus or Roger. I'm not gonna fold just cause you bat yer pretty little eyelashes at me."

Pretty?

You blink in surprise. It's brushed quickly aside for more pressing matters. Your hands scrunch into fists at your side:

"Well. I'm not giving it up. I want Wednesday."

"Neither am I."

"Fuck you."

"In your dreams."

Oliver collapses loudly into the open spot at the Gryffindor dining table. His callousness knocks Archie's goblet of pumpkin juice across the shiny wooden surface between dishes of sausages and peas and roast potatoes.

"Bloody hell, what's got you in a mood?" He's patting down the table with a serviette, transforming it into a orange lump under his palm.

Shaking his head, as if it would joggle the thought of you loose, Oliver stabs a chicken drumstick from the top of a nearby pile with his fork. He doesn't respond.

"Wait, let me guess." Archie presses the elbows of his red jumper into the still wet surface beside his plate. "Something to do with your little Hufflepuff sweetheart?"

Oliver grunted around a mouthful, looking annoyed. "Not mine and not a sweetheart. A fucking brat."

Archie seems to find something funny, leaning back on the bench with a haughty laugh. "Right. What she do this time?"

"Wants the pitch the same day as me for practice." He's mumbling around a mouthful of chicken, tipping forward to shove a spoon teetering with peas alongside it. "Refuses to give in, despite the fact that she put me in detention last week with Burbage."

Shifting to the edge of his seat, Archie leans around Oliver's frame to find your figure across the Hall at the yellow-lined table. He nods, seemingly finding you. "Yeah, she don't look too happy either."

"I don't care."

Oliver is trying very hard not to give into the itch to look back.

"Whatever," Archie's gaze finds his again. "in better news ... I spoke to the twins just before dinner. They're still on for tomorrow."

He's twitching in his seat, eyebrows dancing and grinning around his words like a kid who's found a matchbox.

Right. The twins.

Specifically, Daisy and Delilah Dawson: two Ravenclaw sisters a year below Oliver.

They're peng, Archie had reasoned, you need a little fling to get your mind off quidditch. You're too strung up, mate.

And sure, they were, but Oliver had more important things to do than gallivant across Hogsmeade attached to the hip of some sixth year who just wants to earn her I Kissed The Quidditch Captain! badge.

He'd groaned and whined and glowered at the prospect. Was it petulant? Naturally, but spending five sickles on subpar hot chocolate and making false conversation with some Ravenclaw was a waste of precious time in Oliver's humble opinion.

His priorities are, as they've always been, crystal clear in his mind.

1. Win Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup 2. Refer to point (1)

There was little wiggle room for the introduction of girls into any spot on that list.

You're the only one who came almost close to the tight list. Only because if there had to be a third priority, "shove winning the cup in Hufflepuff's face" might just crack it. He thought about you significantly more than any other girl in the castle and maybe that might mean something if he thought about too long about it, but fortunately, he refused to.

Regardless, Archie was adamant and more than a little pathetic when he mentioned that Daisy only agreed to see him if he had a date for Delilah. It was all settled very quickly.

And it's in this show of loyalty to his dearest friend that Oliver finds himself walking the cobblestone path down into Hogsmeade on a crisp Saturday morning.

The little village is bustling with students - it normally is - and the crowd has him knocking shoulders with Delilah who's walking in step beside him.

He's uncomfortable to find that she's staring dreamily up at the underside of his jaw.

On Oliver's other side: Archie is talking Daisy's ear off, making another pitiful attempt at holding her hand. He doesn't quite manage it and Oliver can't tell whether it's because she genuinely doesn't notice or she just can't be arsed.

"So," Delilah's voice is light and sweet. Delicate. "You mentioned that you take Arithmancy? I've heard it's tough."

Oliver nods airily. "Yeah ... yeah, it's difficult."

He tightens his jacket closer over his frame. The wind is whipping between their bodies and he thinks that maybe she didn't hear him over it's howling if her confused expression is anything to go by. He finds he's not bothered enough to repeat it.

The entrance of Madam Puddifoot's comes into view at the end of the walkway.

Oliver’s relieved. It's freezing out here and maybe he'll be more in the mood for flirtatious conversation once he's gotten some food in his stomach (Archie had insisted they skip breakfast: we have to order something to eat, so we can sit longer).

There's a jingle of a bell overhead when Archie pushes the door open, standing awkwardly aside to let the ladies in first.

Inside the shop, it's more than busy: powdery blue walls barely visible beyond the sea of Hogwarts couples crammed around tiny circle tables and waiters in red uniform knocking the back of their chairs with wobbling trays.

There's music coming from ... somewhere, it sounds like The Weird Sisters and at the sound, Oliver can't imagine how this morning could possibly go any worse.

Oh wait, yes he can.

You could be sitting at a table right by the door across a too-small-table knocking knees with some Slytherin prick. Like you are right there right now.

Delilah tugs on his wrist, it's gentle and he almost doesn't feel where he's being lead between tables towards an open booth across the room. He falls unceremoniously down against the torn leather, eyes never leaving your table.

You haven't noticed his presence, he knows because your lips are stretching around a giggle he can't hear but can already imagine. You don't smile around him, that's for sure.

Oliver's stomach is frothing and bubbling and he's trying really hard to tune back in where Archie's knocking a menu into his hand.

Of course you're there. To ruin his mood and his day, because you're just bloody perfect at it.

"So, am I seeing you girls at the Quidditch match on Saturday?" Archie's voice carries somewhere over his head.

Delilah laughs. Or maybe it's Daisy, Oliver doesn't look.

"Maybe," she says, "Depends if Oliver's gonna be there. You're gonna be there, right?"

He feels a hand nudge at his forearm. Definitely Delilah.

His gaze floats back over the table to offer a fraction of eye contact, he nods. "Oh, uh ... yeah. Sure, definitely."

Archie saves him by speaking again and your table finds Oliver's attention just in time for him to watch the boy sitting across from you swipe away a smudge of hot chocolate over your cheek. You smile, looking bashful and a little bit flushed.

A suffocating, searing heat rushes from the soles of Oliver's feet up between his every organ and over every tendril of hair on his head. His jaw tightens.

Of course he recognises the pratt across you.

Ryo Yoshida.

Every girl in the castle's wet dream, if the rumours he's heard are anything to go by. With his fucking sleek black hair and his Japanese accent that had witches flocking to him in the dozens.

He doesn't wonder why you're here with him.

Oliver is a proud man, but even he could admit that you're beautiful. Albeit reluctantly.

With your wide wet eyes that make him a little sick in a way that turns his stomach warm and the way you do your hair and those fucking dangly earrings that clink when you loose your cool on him.

That's without even mentioning the sound of your laugh - the one he only ever overhears - and your legs in the school uniform skirt and the way you look when you're diving on your broom under the light of a sunny day.

Alright, maybe he couldn't admit to all of it ... but you were okay.

Okay enough to crack a date with Ryo Yoshida or any other schmuck in the castle if you wanted.

"Anything good to eat here, Oliver?"

He pretends he doesn't hear her at first, but the kick at his shin under the table is harder to ignore.

Archie is glaring at him across the table. Dude, don't fuck this up for me.

Oliver's eyes find Delilah. She's scooted up close under his elbow and, to be fair to the poor girl, she was pretty too. Red lipstick smeared across her smiling lips, painted nails edging closer to his arm and perfectly styled hair sitting over her shoulder.

He nods, reaching for the menu: "Yeah. Actually, last time I had the Merlin Meal and it was pretty good."

She perks up, cherry red smile widening at his reply. "Oh, I thought that looked good!"

Training his eyes on the menu, Oliver wills himself not to look back at you. You're already souring his mood and you haven't even said a bloody word.

It's just what you do. What you do to him: infuriating him with the threat of an argument around any and every corner.

The waiter comes by and Oliver finds himself generous enough to gift Delilah with an arm draped over the back of her seat. She giggles and he pretends he doesn't notice when she mouths something that looked suspiciously like 'he's so hot' to her sister across the table.

Archie seems pleased too. Daisy has granted him, finally, her hand and his arm bends at an awkward angle to maintain the grip in hers under the table. He's positively beaming.

But despite Oliver’s best efforts to stay engaged, he still catches himself - only when it's too late - and his eyes are already glued to watching the way your jeans are hugging your thighs where you shift in your seat.

Your table is sat by the door. The chime of the bell calls for his gaze every time it tolls and every time he finds you let off a violent shiver in your seat as the autumn crisp rolls over your shoulders.

The door shuts again and you still.

Oliver can feel where the tips of his ears are burning red and his bones are itching: Ryo’s black suede coat is hanging over the back of his chair.

You’re still talking - hands rubbing together, fighting for warmth - he’s leaned over with his chin in palm to listen and his jacket sits unused behind his shoulders while you fucking shiver in the breeze.

It’s pathetic, really. He’s not sure whether he’s referring to himself or you: but Oliver is still looking and you’re still shaking like a leaf and he’s halfway to flipping tables to get to you and just give you his own fucking coat so you’ll stop shaking and stop annoying him—

“Oliver was just telling me about wanting to join the Hogwarts Choir.” He turns again to find Archie waiting with an expectant face, it's laced in a little bit of smugness: caught you. "Weren't you, mate?"

When he looks back you’re gone.

There's a short pile of sickles abandoned on the table and he hopes that Ryo at least had the good sense to pay for your drink after forcing you to sit in the freezing cold.

He shakes the thought off. Who cares.

In fact, he hopes you catch a cold.

The day passes like swimming through molasses: slow and sticky and exhausting.

It's nearly seven when Oliver presses a sympathy kiss into Delilah's cheek - Daisy allows for no such thing from Archie - and the two sisters skip off down the west wing corridor with a wiggle of their fingers over their shoulders at the boys.

"I think that went well." Archie's grinning, hands on his hip and glasses edging down his brown nose.

It's the first thing that genuinely brings a jolt of life out of Oliver all day. He teeters back on his heels, hands gripping his stomach where he laughs. Laughs like a madman.

"I think you need to get yer fucking head checked, mate."

The tail end of his outburst is simmering down, now barely a breathy chuckle, when a voice washes over him from down the other end of the corridor. "Wood!"

He'd recognise that voice anywhere. From the dead of sleep or the depth of the ocean.

He's slow when he turns on his heel, the remnants of his smile dripping all the way off the edge of his jaw until he's nearly frowning.

You're jogging, scarf bouncing at your shoulder with the movement, and coming to a stop right under his chin.

"What?"

There's a sharp edge to his tone - there always is - but he really hopes you haven't noticed how the syllable wobbled at the end. Now that you're right beneath his frame and not across the room, it's harder to ignore the lashes kissing at the corner of your eyes. You're wearing lip gloss and he knows it's for Ryo.

His stomach is churning and your face is twisting into something he is struggling to recognise.

"I--" your hands wring, eyes flickering behind to where Archie's watching curiously (you wave awkwardly). "You ... you can have Wednesday."

It's not what Oliver is anticipating. He almost takes a full step back in surprise.

"Why?"

Your eyes roll in a comfortably familiar way, "Because Hooch wants an answer tonight and one of us had to be the bigger person."

His brow tightens, eyes roving down the stitching of your sweater. It's cute. He's quiet.

"You not gonna argue?" You throw your words quickly, snatching them back before he can answer: "Perfect. I'll send her an owl before bed."

You're marching back down the corridor before he has chance to say anything else and he's watching your retreating figure with the hope - that he’s not gonna address - you’re not going to cozy up somewhere in the Slytherin dorm room.

“Well.” Archie’s running a hand over his thick black curls. “That was unexpected.”

Oliver huffs. “It’s been a weird day.”

An uneasy air has settled over Hogwarts.

It came in like a storm front, drifting in on the wind that dropped the article at the door of the castle.

The same copy of The Daily Prophet has been doing the rounds between dormitories and class rooms all week: Sirius Black, Azkaban’s most infamous prisoner and recent escapee, has been sighted in Dufftown by an astute Muggle, The Daily Prophet reports.

Dufftown. A barely twenty minute ride by carriage from Hogwarts bridge.

It’s got the castle on edge, it’s got you on edge. Creeping around the castle like Sirius Black is gonna jump out from around any corner.

Dumbledore stationing dementors at the edges of the castle was the tipping point for the cold drip of trickling fear in your chest that's become easy to ignore in daylight - when Cherry and Enzo are flittering around you between classes - but in moments like these, like now, when you’re on the tail end of a quidditch practice, grow like a poisonous black vine up around every nerve in your body. A Monday night, the team’s kit weighing heavy in your arms - broomstick tucked precariously in the bend of one elbow - and following the siren call of the dormitory showers.

You’d promised the team you’d get them to the house elves before the upcoming match on Saturday. The match against Gryffindor.

But for tonight, they’re gonna live in a pile at the end of your bed.

You’re exhausted: calves burning, sweat sticking loose hairs to your forehead and probably smelling like wet socks and broomstick polish.

The touch of night is suffocating the flicker of the corridor lamps. It’s long past the recently set curfew and you know that if McGonagall finds you out you’re likely in deep enough trouble to get you off Saturday’s match roster.

Despite the prospect, you don’t dwell on it. You find you’re more worried about escaped Azkaban convicts: the echo of your own footsteps setting you further on edge.

You’ve craned your neck over your shoulder enough times to form a knot there. Each time you’re relieved to find that Sirius Black hasn’t crept up behind you.

Suddenly, the squeak of your boots against the stone floor are un-alone.

Someone is marching and right in your direction. Your heart bangs wildly on the inside of your ribcage - blood turning to an icy slurry in your veins, but you don’t move.

The corner is sharp when the figure turns into the corridor you stand and the scream is halfway out your throat when your eyes find his face.

Absent is the matted black hair and sunken eyes you’re anticipating. Instead, warm brown rings reflect the fire of the lit torches.

Your broomstick clutters to the floor, warm relief flooding down to your fingertips. “Fucking hell, Wood.”

He looks just as surprised as you. Only for a moment, though, before his gaze is tightening in annoyance again.

“I thought you were Sirius Black.“

“Well that’s stupid isn’t it.”

You huff, shifting the weight of the team’s robes precariously between your arms: squatting to try scoop up your broomstick off the floor again. You’re halfway successful when it clatters loudly back against the stone floor.

“What are you even doin’ out here so late? You know curfew is passed, don’t you?” His voice curls with something that might be mistaken for concern if you didn’t know who you were talking to.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

You’re reaching down again. A robe on the top of the pile slips off, landing beside the broomstick.

“Aye right. Whatever, goodnight.”

He’s brushing past you.

In a movement neither of you anticipated, driven by the fear shooting up your spine again, your hand finds his wrist. “Wait—“

Oliver freezes: eyes dropping to where you’re connected. You rip your hand back, as if scalded.

“I …” the words mash and wrestle at the back of your throat. “Could …”

You glance down the darkened corridor awaiting you in the journey back to your dorm before meeting his face again. It’s unreadable.

His brow scrunches. “Yes?"

"Could you want me to walk my common room?”

Embarrassment sears at your cheeks. On a normal day, you’d sooner go dancing naked under the Whomping Willow before asking Oliver Wood a favour but that was before the image of Sirius Black swum behind your eyes everywhere you looked.

Oliver would be fairly useless if faced with the criminal, naturally, but at least you wouldn’t die alone.

“Please?” Your voice is quiet and you think it’s the gentlest word you’ve ever said to him.

There’s a long stretch of quiet. His eyes flicker between your face and the broomstick on the floor. It’s quickly stretching past the blurring boundaries of an appropriate time for consideration.

You’re practically melting in embarrassment now, electing to make the decision for him.

“Never mind.” You squat again, successful this time in sticking the broomstick back under your arm. The dropped robe is more difficult but you manage to replace it. “Forget I asked.”

Oliver’s moving before you’re stood straight up again. He’s reaching for your broomstick, you instinctively yank it back but he sticks you with a firm look and his thumb is unexpectedly soft where it caresses over your knuckle wrapped around the handle.

Your grip loosens and he perches the broomstick over his shoulder with ease. He surprises you again by taking half the load of laundry in your arms into his own.

“C’mon, before someone catches us out here. I’m not doing any more detention because of you.”

He’s already three feet ahead when blood rushes down to your legs, prompting them to chase after his figure. The movement is easier, lightened by Oliver’s surprise act of kindness.

You fall into step beside him, half-tempted to comment on his willingness to share your burden, but knowing him, one wrong word and he’d dump it all back into your arms.

It’s quiet.

You don’t make a move to talk and Oliver doesn’t look your way. It dawns on you that Gryffindor dormitory is in the other direction and you’re still deciding whether to feel guilty or flattered over the fact when Oliver speaks.

“Why’re you out here alone?”

You look, met with the side of his face: it’s still like he hadn’t said anything at all. There’s a tugging instinct to snap at him.

Why do you care?

But his tone is perceptibly gentle enough that you think maybe, just this once, it won’t end in an argument. You test the tepid waters.

“Uh …” your head knocks sideways, tilted as you speak. “I let the team come up early while I sorted the quaffles in the sports closet by the pitch. Didn’t want them walking up in the dark.”

You’re tempted to mention that it was his team last week that left it in such a mess. You don��t.

"And now you’re walking in the dark yourself? Smart move, princess."

Your breath hitches.

It’s not the first time he’s called you that. Princess. A couple times over the years, usually in the heat of a spiraling argument, but never so benign. While still ungentle, the tone is soft enough that it rings in your ears.

You choose not to succumb to the antagonization of his reply. Humming, you shrug. "Rather me than them."

His eyes flicker, almost barely, to the high apple of your cheek. You notice in the corner of your eye how his jaw twitches, like he wants to say something.

He seemingly decides otherwise because he focuses his eyes ahead of him and stays silent.

The overhanging ceiling art is sloping down, air going sticky with the scents of the kitchen the further you go: it’s the trademark of the approaching Hufflepuff common room.

Another two turns and it will be the end of your little journey with Oliver Wood.

"‘M surprised Ryo didn’t walk you up."

You're more surprised than you've been since finding him, eyes widening in confusion. He grants you another look out the side of his eye.

"How do you know about that?"

Oliver shrugs, shifting your broomstick to the other shoulder.

"The whole world saw your little date down at Madam Puddifoot's the other day."

Of course. Word travels faster through seventh year than a new Firebolt.

"Yeah. Well." You hum. "That's not gonna be happening again anytime soon.”

It had all been good and well. The rush of having Ryo Yoshida, Hogwart's most eligible bachelor, ask you out and - to be fair - the date had been fine. Ryo was funny and made good conversation but nothing near thrilling enough to daydream over and you'd allowed yourself to brush over a couple red flags because of it, until Cherry came bursting into your dormitory less than a day after your date relaying how he'd caught her between classes to ask her out to the same spot.

"Why's that?"

You're confused now, why Oliver cares or how he'd become curious enough to actually ask. You're even more confused as to why you decide to answer him. You shrug, "He asked Cherry out the very next day. She said no, obviously, but that was enough to let the whole thing go."

You expect him to say something malicious, quip something spiteful about What you did you think would happen? You're nowhere near in his league.

He doesn't.

"He's an idiot."

Not for the first time in the last five minutes, you're not sure what to say. You think this is the longest a conversation has gone without an argument. You sigh, "Yeah."

The stack-up of barrels comes into view. You dig into you the deep pocket on the inside of your robe, emerging with your wand.

Oliver stops, eyes flickering between the barrels and his shining black boots.

You step ahead, tapping the barrels in the rhythm that's become second-nature and the entryway opens.

Turning to him, you offer out an arm and he sets the robes back into your hands. The awkwardness is stifling. He leans forward, tucking the broomstick under your arm, hand wavering to make sure it doesn't fall again. The gesture makes the hold in your knees wobbly.

He nods. "Right. Goodnight."

You nod back, so quickly that you hear your earrings jingle. "Yeah, g'night."

Oliver turns, marching back the way you came and you watch him: biting your bottom lip so hard you're half expecting to draw blood.

"Thank you!" It leaps from your mouth before you have you moment to let it marinate on your tongue. You wince immediately.

He pauses, turning halfway on his heel. He smiles, it's not wide enough for teeth, but definitely wide enough to have your heart falling through your stomach. He nods again and then he's gone.

Saturday arrives gloomy and dripping.

It makes for good quidditch conditions, but the chill in the air is still hard to ignore when you step out into mushy grass under stadium lights. The roar of the crowd nearly deafens you, but it'll only take a couple minutes in the air for it to burn down to a soft hum.

In the middle of the stadium floor: Hooch is standing with a whistle to her lips, her figure blurred by the drizzle. Oliver stands beside her, and behind you, your team is clambering onto their brooms and rising into the air with the freshly washed kit over their backs.

You go to walk, but the icy glance Oliver is sending your way convinces you into a jog. He's always impatient before a game, itchy, antsy.

"On time as usual." Hooch hums when you land beside her.

"Got the whole bloody school waiting on her." Oliver mutters but Hooch shrugs him off, pulling the game coin out from inside her robes.

"Perfect." She positions it so we can see, "Gryffindor?"

Oliver straightens out, chest swelling: "Heads."

Hooch nods and before you can suck in another breath, the coin is in the air. She catches it with a skilled hand, flipping and revealing it to the set of captains.

"Hufflepuff, first ball!" She shouts loud enough that the floating players can hear. They nod, some groaning.

The coach turns back on the captains, "I want a fair game kids, no fighting."

"Me and Ollie? Fight?" You smile, "Never, coach."

Oliver rolls his eyes. "Yes, coach."

Suddenly you're above the pitch, sucking in breaths of wet air and struck with that familiar feeling like you could conquer the world on just your broomstick.

The quaffle flies and you stoop to catch it, twisting around Alicia Spinnet to snatch the ball before she's even noticed you're there.

Rain pelts on heads and the game goes on.

Oliver is shouting like a madman from his place in front of the goals behind you - you’ve long learnt to drown it out. He does it half to annoy his own team and half to distract yours.

You're spinning, flying, swooping and - as you predicted - the crowd has become a distant call, a blurring sight of yellow and red.

An hour passes and the game is already halfway into the next when there's a rise in the crowd. It's not the normal yells and whoops and hollers, but you still don't look up: you're calling over to Jane and Wyatt, your beaters.

“Get between the twins, and stay there!”

Below, Harry Potter and your own seeker, Cedric Diggory, are flying in circles around each other. The call of Cedric's name is on the tip of your tongue when there’s another ripple of sound off the crowd and this one draws your eyes. It’s there for a second before you find the army of figures descending on the pitch.

Your breath catches in your throat, freezing solid so you can’t swallow.

The dementors are even more ghostly this close. You'd never seen so many.

A darkness is permeating the air, the sight of the supporters in the stand dissipating into black. They’re floating in from every corner, drifting at a pace that’s too fast for you to make a move in any direction.

There’s a scream and your gaze finds the body falling through the sky: it’s Harry.

The ground is racing up to meet him and adrenaline drives your hand to tip your broom, to chase after his quickly disappearing shape when a blurry figure blocks your way.

Someone yells your name but you don’t hear it.

You’d never imagined examining a dementor, much less this up close, but even if you had: nothing your imagination could conjure up would ever come close to the harrowing darkness of its empty eye-sockets.

Its silhouette spreads over every corner of your vision, black like night and blocking the view of the sky. Your nose is so close you could tip forward and meet it's silken cloak.

A cold washes over your body like you've never felt, like you're freezing over: ice creeping up your fingertips, shoulders and face.

Your brain looses all grip on thought, replaced with a seeping dread. It barely acknowledges where a scabbed, decomposing hand is reaching out to you.

Charcoal fingertips brush your cheek when you're tugged back, all the way off your broomstick.

There's not even a last coherent thought to panic when you're engulfed in a warm chest, a hand stabilising around your waist onto a new broomstick. It dips and the green grass is reaching up to you.

The new heat engulfs you through to your bones. You grasp blindly for the expanse of a thick veined neck, wrapping yourself around him.

Digging your face into his shoulder, it takes one glance at the scarlet robes to know who it is. Oliver's panting, one hand holding you against him while the other steers the broomstick down to the floor.

You're trembling, no thought occupying any space beyond Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, Oliver--

"What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

The voice is distant, said against your temple but echoing as if from the end of a long corridor. You don't register where hot tears are wetting your cheeks, erupting over your face without being called.

His words prompt you closer: a tight arm furling over his shoulders and wrapping around him like a vine around an old tree.

"O-Oliver ..."

The hand over your waist tightens. "Sh ... it's fine. You're fine."

The broomstick lands shakily, Oliver's boots squelching into muddy grass. You barely realise you're back on ground when another hand is tugging you off, but you cling tighter to the sweaty red neck: shaking your wet face against his well-pressed robes.

"C'mon, princess ..." His calloused hands pry you from him, gently like you're a piece of china sitting on the very edge of a high shelf. "It's Pomfrey, she's gonna look after you."

You think you feel a kiss press into your hairline before you're being scooped up into a new set of arms. Madam Pomfrey is warm too, smelling like antiseptic and maple syrup.

There's another swell of noise erupting from the supporters above and you're being lead away.

Oliver watches your figure, slumped against the school nurse until you've disappeared into the medical tent.

His heart is going wild, slamming against the walls of his ribcage. Beside him his hands are shaking and he's sucking in thick gulps of air, he finds it still isn't enough oxygen.

There's another splatter where Angelina has landed a few feet behind him. She's panting too, tugging on the edge of his robes and pointing up into the sky.

"Wood!" She's frantic, "They won, Cedric caught the snitch!"

His mouth is dry when he swallows. Rain catches in his eye when he looks up, half the Hufflepuff team is no longer in the sky and the Gryffindors are all on their way down.

"I ..." feeling is returning to his fingertips, "is ... where's Harry?"

Angelina points in the direction of the medical tent. Above, the pitch is engulfed in a bright white light and Oliver catches the wispy end of a shining phoenix chasing between disappearing Dementors. It's a patronus. Dumbledore's, Oliver figures somewhere in his muddy brain.

"Is everyone else okay?"

Angelina nods. Her eyes flicker to the medical tent then back at him. "Is she?"

The image returns to him: the mass of darkness engulfing your figure in the sky. The terror that ripped through him like he was being torn apart from the inside, the whistle of the wind that stung over his ears and how it blocked out his mutterings of please, please, please--

He shakes his head. "She's too tough for her own good. She'll ... she'll be fine."

But it comes out like he's trying to convince himself more than Angelina.

Oliver doesn't see you for a few days.

Two, to be exact, and his skin itches the entire time. A deep itch, like it's coming from his bones.

It's only on Monday evening at dinner, with the Hufflepuff table whooping, that you come strolling back into the light of his eyes.

Your head is down, flushed with all the attention, and when you sit, kids are rising from their seats to tackle you into side hugs. He can tell you're embarrassed but he can't gather himself enough to care: the warm rush of relief flooding his stomach so much so that if he dared open his mouth it would all come rushing out.

You look fine. All limbs attached and smiling, it settles him.

He doesn't snap at Archie when he knocks his shoulder with a "you're staring" and his dinner suddenly looks more appetising when he peels his eyes off your figure down to his plate. He finds that he doesn't care as much as he usually does where Enzo's lanky arm is strung over your shoulder.

The week passes in a flurry.

While you share several classes, Oliver doesn't share a single word with you. It's hard not to notice that you're working very hard not to interact with him.

In Muggle Studies, you arrive late and keep your nose tucked deep into the pages of a textbook he knows you couldn't care less about. You're up and out of the classroom before he's even zipped up his bag. It's the same in Potions and Arithmacy.

While going days without talking to each other is not unusual, this time he can tell it’s on purpose. He pretends that he doesn't care.

The rain has cleared and when Friday arrives the sunset is red and orange and purple, granting Oliver with a rare enchanting view out his bedroom window where it's setting behind the East tower.

It's in this quiet, peaceful moment that Archie comes bouncing in with some news of a party happening in the Ravenclaw dormitory.

He's indifferent but Archie is nothing if not convincing.

"Come on, dude. You're literally a hermit crab." He sighs, falling back against his own poster bed across Oliver's. "There will be girls."

"There's girls everywhere, Arch."

His eyebrows wiggle, "And alcohol."

It takes a bit more pestering and the Weasley twins rushing in after him with the same news (and a far less patient approach) to get him up off his bed.

He digs in his cupboard for the last pair of clean jeans and a somewhat suitable purple jumper, tugging them on with a grumble, before he's being dragged by both arms - a twin on each side - across the castle to the West tower wherein resides the Ravenclaw population.

The common room is bustling with seventh years, he recognises them from all houses, and a table set up to the side with some trays of food. He's barely made himself comfortable when Katie Bell is shoving a red solo cup into his hand:

"It's Angelina's brew." She informs him.

He can believe that. The liquid is strong, burning down his throat followed by the barely there after-taste of pumpkin juice. Oliver downs the whole thing in one go.

The music swells louder and he's three cups of Angelina's concoction deep when you come tumbling through the entrance portal.

You're drunk yourself, he can tell by the way you're giggling and half leaning on Cherry Stretton. Bumping through people, not passing without leaning back to apologise to them tipsily, you head straight into the arms of Angelina and Alicia Spinnet. They smile in surprise, engulfing you in their arms.

Despite his and your long-held rivalry, it had done nothing to stop the rest of his team from sweetening up to you. The twins called you their favourite yellow tie at regular intervals and the girls found you nothing less than endearing. Oliver could lie and say he hated it.

Instead, he wrestles his way to where Katie is situated with more to drink, filling his cup and downing it.

The room is twisting in a flurry of colours and faces and it's the lightest you've felt in almost a week. You giggle against Enzo, his dreads tucked safely back in a bun while Cedric sets a Dragon-Barrel Brandy shot on fire and hands it carefully over.

Enzo's head knocks back, slipping the burning liquid down his throat with a wince. There's a cheer at his accomplishment, and suddenly Cedric's knocking your elbow: "you're next, Cap!"

After the match-gone-wrong, Madam Pomfrey had held you down in the infirmary until Monday morning. You were fed copious amounts of chocolate - in the form of bars and drinks and cakes and ice creams. By Saturday night you were - surely a couple kilograms heavier - and feeling fine, but Pomfrey was nothing if not paranoid:

"That was no light ordeal you went through, dear. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I'm happy with you."

In all honesty, you'd prefer if the whole school forgot it ever happened.

If Pomfrey didn't fret and your friends didn't come by every meal time and your team stopped sending you get better! letters and nobody mentioned it ever again.

More than anyone, you wished Oliver would forget. The ordeal, or maybe just you as a person.

You'd made a stupid decision under the heat of stadium lights and the influence of racing adrenaline, trying to chase for Harry, and he'd made a stupider decision coming to save you from yourself.

When it got quiet in the infirmary past dusk and Harry's shadowy figure was long since snoring in the bed across yours, you could feel Oliver's touch. Could feel it's strong hold wrapped around your waist and the voice against you the back of your neck and the lips at your temple.

You never reminisced long: for with his touch came the writhing, scalding fear burrowing a hole in your chest.

He could tease you, he will tease you.

Oliver had saved you from the clutches of a dementor moments from your soul being sucked out your body and you'd cried in his chest the whole time, refused to let him go in front of the whole school. It was a mortification you would never live down. And if Oliver decided he was going to use it against you, even once, you were sure you'd melt into the floor in shame.

It's what's made the Firewhiskey and Lemon squash concoction Cherry had handed you back in her room so easy to toss back. It stung and steam rose out your mouth where you'd panted for air. There was another ... and another, they went down the same.

The walk across the castle to reach the Ravenclaw Tower had been wobbly and you'd laughed with your friends loud enough to wake up the whole castle you're sure, but it dissolved the fear that clung to your bones. The fear that he was here, lingering between the people in the crowded blue common room.

Now the liquor is fading. Numbing to a dull buzz and you decline Cedric's offer at a burning shot, thinking about how proud you'll be of yourself when you wake up tomorrow morning in bed rather than wrapped around a toilet seat and hauling up guts into the bowl.

The party, not unlike yourself, is dimming.

Students are crawling away into all corners, each with their own excuse. I have a potions essay to do or No, dude, I'm too drunk for this or Flint wants us down at the pitch for drills at eight tomorrow morning, I gotta head to bed.

The crowd, though thinning, is beginning to clump into respective circles across the room. You glance annoyed at the fireplace where the flames crack merrily. Even with your short skirt and thin satin top, the heat of the common room is stifling.

Enzo is on his fourth burning shot, it's lost it's appeal to the crowd but he seems undeterred, knocking Cedric in the shoulder with the empty shot glass motioning: another! You yawn, playing mindlessly with the ruffled sleeve of your shirt.

"Oh no," A harsh tug at your hand draws you from the lure of sleep that's fogging your mind. "The night is young, no yawning!"

Cherry has your wrist in her grip, Enzo's in the other. He blinks blearily down at his friends.

"Huh?"

"Come on," Cherry's brown eyes roll far back in her head. "Fred says they're starting Seven Minutes In Heaven. Let's go join--"

"Seven minutes--?" you laugh between words, "Cher, are you mad?"

She whines, pouting like a kicked dog. "It'll be fun. Besides, when last did you have a good fucking snog? Too long, I say!"

Somehow, you're not only convinced across the room into a spot onto the floor in a circle of a couple others, but a drink has ended up in your hand and its contents quickly down your gullet.

For the nerves, you assure yourself.

Before you know it, Angelina - who's conveniently settled beside you - is topping up your plastic cup with a nearly empty bottle of Daisyroot Draught. "This is the good stuff. Katie stashed it in, her sister works at a brewery."

You smile nervously, nod, and take a tentative sip. The pre-existing buzz in your head convinces you it's not so bad.

In the circle is a couple Gryffindors you recognise, some giggling Slytherin girls, a Ravenclaw you can't name and three members of your quidditch team. There's an open spot on the side you don't take note of.

That is until Archie Kumar is steering a grumpy, visibly drunk Oliver Wood into the open place and collapsing beside him.

Your breath catches in your throat, heart sinking into your stomach like a stone. You're halfway off the floor, suddenly desperate for the loo, when Cherry - on your left side - drags you back down to the floor.

Maybe it's Katie's sister's brew, but you tumble too easily back onto your bum.

"Relax. Just don't look at him, okay?"

You suck in another breath, eyes trained on the white moon outline sewn into the rug. "Yeah ... okay."

It doesn't hold long and when you find the Gryffindor captain again, his gaze is trained on your face. It's stone cold. You gasp quietly and look away.

"Right!" George Weasley is on his feet, setting an empty Firewhisky bottle into the centre. "Who's first?"

Alicia shuffles forward on her knees, the first of the group to move, and the bottle goes spinning. It lands on the Ravenclaw boy. He grins and she does too: Fred wolf-whistles when they stand.

The "heaven" in question is a tall oak cabinet leaning against the back wall of the common room. The pair disappear into its depths and conversation rises again as the circle waits.

You sip your drink in large gulps, trying to hold conversation with Angelina against Oliver's hot gaze that's burning a hole through the side of your face. It's difficult: the Gryffindor girl is so drunk that she's talking with her eyes closed.

Seven minutes later, there's a chorus of "time's up!", Alicia and the boy emerge another ten seconds later. They're rearranging their clothes and Alicia is as scarlet as her quidditch robes. The boy is grinning like the cat who caught the canary. You're suddenly struck with the violent urge to throw up.

The game goes on like that, round after round. Lee Jordan and Jane Emmet (your beater), Katie and Wyatt (your other beater), Cherry and a pretty Slytherin girl you don't know - she's especially chuffed when she returns, red lipstick smeared over her chin.

You're working very hard not to look at Oliver, much less think about him, but it's proving difficult. Every time the bottle takes its spin, your stomach churns.

It had occurred to you during the time that Alicia and that boy were in the closet that there was a very real chance that Oliver could be called up when one of those pretty Slytherins take their turn at the bottle. The thought had made you down the last of your drink and immediately want to vomit it all back up into your cup.

The image of their slender arms curling around his criminally wide-set shoulders, Oliver pushing them back against the inside wall of the grand closet. Would he make noise? Would he sigh or groan against their lips or whisper something about how beautiful they looked tonight in their ears--

"Ollie, you're up mate."

You can't remember who said it, but the words stripped your gaze off Angelina and straight into the pooling brown eyes you'd been avoiding all week long.

He sighed, grumbling under his breath and only with a less-than-gentle nudge from Archie, did he lean up on thighs that flexed unfairly -- bloody hell, stop it! -- and wrap his hand over the neck of the bottle: it went spinning.

The only sound you could hear was the twist of the glass against the woven rug and the hum of your own blood rushing past your ears. It stopped.

"No fucking ways." Enzo cracked from two people down.

A hand landed on your shoulder, shaking you half off your arse: Angelina. "You're up, babe! Go!"

The bottle was pointing irrefutably at your little spot in the circle.

Oliver's face was as white as you'd ever seen it when you dared look up.

"I-I'm not going in with him--" It was the first thing that came to your mind and went spluttering out your mouth.

George was laughing so hard that he'd fallen all the way onto his back. The roar of the group was ear-splitting.

"There's no ways I'm going in with her!"

"Let's end this feud once and for all," Katie bellowed over their heads. "Captain versus captain!"

You're being knocked from all sides, hands crawling under your arms and lifting you off the floor. Across the circle, Oliver is experiencing the same and before you know it: the wooden doors of the cabinet are creaking open.

"Go on!" Lee's finger is piercing your side.

Oliver is beside you but you won't look. You take one last look over your shoulder at Cherry back on the floor, she does nothing but offer a sympathetic shrug and mouths "sorry, dear".

Your hand reaches before Oliver's, flinging the door open with maybe a little too much force. It bangs against the wall behind it.

"Let's get this over with." You mumble, only half concerned that he heard you.

You slouch climbing in, the top is low and the space is even more cramped than what you assumed. To your surprise, Oliver is stepping in after you. He takes his turn at slamming the door, shutting it this time.

It's dark inside, but not enough that you can't see. Light is peaking in through the cracks and he's leaned back against the opposite wall to you.

In the narrow space, your legs are twisting around each other to stand: his one knee situated between yours. In the dimness, he folds his arms and you notice for the first time the jumper he's wearing. The purple one, you recognise it as the one he's had for years. Time has taken its toll where the jumper is clinging to life around his frame, Oliver having grown at least three times wider while the jumper has remained the same size.

"Go on, Wood, give her a kiss!"

The voice is unrecognisable but it knocks your tongue back into your mouth where you'd been ogling at his torso.

His arms are folded, proffering you with a glare that could cut through steel. He makes no visible sign that he'd heard the shout at all. You mirror him, folding your own arms.

"I'm not kissing you."

His head cocks. "Oh, so you're talking to me now?"

You suck in a sharp breath. It's not the response you're anticipating. "What?"

"So we're playing dumb?" He leans just a fraction closer. You can smell the linger of alcohol on his breath, but it doesn't work hard enough to drown out the smell of peppermint that follows him around. "Doesn't suit you, princess."

"I'm not playing anything. I don't know what you're talking about." You double down. It's probably not sustainable but the heat of his body almost against yours and the thrum of liquor in your blood makes the decision for you.

"Y've been avoiding me all week."

"I haven't"

"You're a bad liar."

You swallow hard. Embarrassment is rising again, making your head spin. Oliver's chest is puffed up in anger, you can tell because you've had five years to learn the look like the back of your hand. Except, now - as it has been for a longer time than you care to admit - it's harder to focus on the waves of fury reflecting off of him when his face is just so ... beautiful. Nose scrunched and lips pulled tight into a grimace.

It's what makes you change tactics, you think.

"So what if I was? Why does it matter?"

His arms unfold, eyes rolling so far that his head knocks back against the wood of the cupboard.

"Why?" you press, "Did you miss me, Wood?"

"Maybe I did."

He's looking at you again. For what feels like the hundredth time just tonight, your breath escapes you in a rush and your lungs struggle to grasp back at it. Your face softens without meaning to.

You blink at him.

"You did?" It's a whisper.

His arms are still folded but something clement passes like a shadow over his features.

"No."

His face betrays his words, eyes soft and lip daring to curl up at the edge.

The air in the tight space goes cold. Or maybe it's your blood. It's more likely the look on Oliver's face: like he hasn't just turned your organs to slush. You're all the way sober now.

"I'm not kissing you." You repeat dumbly, but it's gentle.

Merlin, you want to kiss him so fucking badly.

"You mentioned." He's almost, almost, smiling. It's gentle too.

The space between you falls quiet. You're suddenly overly focused on the brush of his knee between yours. His swirling brown eyes catch on the split of light creeping in past the hinge on the door.

It stays like that until your voice creeps nervously out. "I was embarrassed. Am, I am embarrassed."

A thick brow tightens in confusion. "Why?"

You huff, almost annoyed. Your eyes train on a dark spot by your intertwined feet. "Come on, Wood."

"What, about the match?" The alcohol thickens his accent.

Your silence seems to answer his question. The apples of your cheeks are warming again.

"What was I supposed to do, leave you to have you bloody soul sucked out yer body?" His voice is rising, "No, princess, I'm not apologising for that."

It's an outpour that you're not expecting. Oliver's clearly in the mood to shock and surprise tonight.

Your lips tighten around the words that are all fighting for the spot at the tip of your tongue. Silence reigns while they argue, he's still watching you with exasperation set into the lines of his face.

"Princess." You settle.

His expression twists again. "What?"

"You always call me that. Why?" It's a question that you buried long ago. But his proximity, in conjunction with the night you've had, unearths it.

It's his turn to look surprised. He grumbles some indiscernable Scottish blabber before-- "It's because y'are a princess. Spoilt and bratty. Always gets her way."

There's no malice to his response, you find. It draws a chuckle from the depths of your chest.

"Aye, right." You mimic his accent and his quip, one he's used many times at you.

He laughs. It's not a sound you hear often and it's setting your whole nervous system alight like a tangled bunch of christmas lights. His whole body's shaking with it, head resting back against the wood again, and you really do think you might grab him and kiss him -- when the door flies open again: seeping his whole body in yellow light.

Alicia's standing at the opening, grin wide as night is wide and clearly expectant on catching you with your tongues down each other's throats.

If she'd given you another three seconds she just might have.

"Oh." She slumps in disappointment, looking back over her shoulder and shaking her head to the expectant crowd. They groan collectively. "Well, love birds, your time is up."

You'd almost forgotten where you were. Oliver clears his throat, the ghost of his laugh impossible to find on his face, and clambers over your legs out into the common room again. He doesn't pass without brushing his hand over yours.

It's nearly three in the morning when Enzo finally lets up.

His long legs are sprawled across the midnight blue couch in the middle of the common room. Fiona, a lovely Ravenclaw girl you'd met just tonight, shrugs at you: "Don't stress it. He can crash here tonight."

The party is long since dead. Seven Minutes In Heaven had looped another three rounds before everyone had gotten their chance in the dusty cupboard and began to grumble in boredom.

You'd avoided Oliver's eyes the whole time again, sure that if you looked he'd be able to read the fondness on your face.

It wasn't long after that the last of the students dissolved in the direction of their respective bedrooms. With your dear friend in good hands with the Ravenclaws, you loop your arm with Cherry - knocking against her side towards the portal.

You've barely pushed it ajar when she breaks off you, "Hold on, I need to get my Transfig notes from Jacob!"

"Cher, it's three in the morning?"

Alcohol is directing her legs in the opposite direction clumsily, "I'll wake him. If I fail another quiz, Mcgee's gonna have my arse."

She's gone before she catches your call: "I'll find you outside!"

The portal creaks where you shove it open again. The corridor is dimly lit and colder than the common room and a shiver chases up your exposed legs.

"Bloody hell." You run a hand over your forearms.

It's quiet too, and empty besides the Gryffindor captain leaning against the stone wall closest to the entrance you've just emerged from.

"Merlin," your eyes find his. "Not you again."

The flush over your cheeks is warding off the chill.

Oliver shrugs. "Me again."

An awkward silence permeates. Against better judgement, you shuffle forward, leaning against the wall beside him. He doesn't react, arms folded and staring into the inky abyss of the corridor leading out to the rest of the castle.

"Why're you out here?" You ask, tucking your hands between your back and the wall.

"Archie." He huffs out, voice wrapped in annoyance. "He's in there with Penelope. I gave him ten minutes."

Ah, Penelope Clearwater. She'd joined the game in the last round. A good thing too because Oliver's friend was looking more crestfallen as the bottle spun again and again, surpassing him each time. Penelope had taken the last turn, ending up with her hair in every direction and Archie's spectacles leaning half off his face when they emerged from the cupboard.

"You?"

The eddy of average conversation is strange, but you find you like it.

"Cherry." You hum. "Something about quiz notes."

He drops his head back against the wall.

"That what they calling it now?"

It startles you, head tilting to stare up at the side of his face with a grin: "oh, Wood’s got jokes now? I didn’t know it was possible for you to make a joke."

His eyes flutter shut, a twinkle of laughter bubbling out of his frame. Tucking his head down to his chest, he shrugs against his own light chuckle. "I have them. I just don’t share them with you."

You giggle back at him. "Right. Well then you better stop smiling there, someone might walk past and think we’re friends."

He shakes his head, the sound of his snicker fading but leaving behind the imprint of a smile. "Nobody’s gonna think that."

You lean back again, eyes drifting over the low ceiling. Quiet falls again - not uncomfortable - and you let it linger for a moment. A thought tugs on a loose string in your mind, not a new one, but one you’ve carefully buried over time.

It comes falling out your mouth. "You ever think about how it might be ... if things were different?"

The question grants you a look out the side of his eye. "Different?"

"Y’know," you shrug, the very last remains of alcohol are ebbing and unsureness is replacing where it stood. "If we … we had—"

"If you hadn’t suckered me in the bloody nose?" His words are unexpectedly fond.

You laugh at him, "If you hadn’t deserved to be suckered in the bloody nose."

He draws in a long breath, not answering. It prompts you.

"We could have been friends." You whisper, more to your chest than to him really.

But he hears it. "We would never be friends."

It stings sharper than it should. Your shoulders go stiff and the corners of your eyes sting inexplicably, turning the corridor blurry. A dying fire revives in your chest, blistering the cave, reminding you why Oliver Wood has been nothing but a stake in your side since you were thirteen years old.

"Of course. How stupid of me, for a minute I forgot what an absolute arsehole you are." You push off the wall, intent in going to dig out Cherry from the depths of the Ravenclaw dormitory. "Goodnight, Wood."

An arm wraps around your waist, not unlike it'd done a week ago in the air of the quidditch pitch, lurching you into him until you're pressed back against the cool stone of the corridor wall.

Oliver looms over you, crouched so that your nose bumps against his. "Don't sulk, princess."

It all happens at once: his hands grab onto the fat of your hips, digging in there like he really does hate you, and lips crash against yours like maybe he doesn't at all.

He stays there, unmoving for a second that feels a year long.

Where the inside of your brain had been buzzing with runaway threads of thought, ribbons streaking out in all directions: they disappear in a sizzling light. Oliver Wood is kissing me.

You melt against him, tipping up onto your toes and latch onto muscled shoulders. He seemingly takes that as his cue, pressing you closer against his body with his arm - lifting you half off the wall.

He tastes like the remnants of Firewhisky and pumpkin juice, the flavour setting every nerve ending in your body on fire. Lips soft but persistent while his hands grip onto you like you'd dissolve into dust if he didn't.

It's aggressive, but familiar in that way. Oliver is nothing if not hot-blooded and his touch, darting between your hips and your face is turning you tipsy again.

"If you want a friend," It's muffled when he speaks, punctuating his words with hot wet kisses, "go be friends with Ryo."

It's only in this moment, with his desperation mirroring in the glimpses of sugar brown irises you catch where he's fluttering his eyes over your face, that it dawns on you.

"Jealous much?"

He growls lowly and it makes you giggle against him, your hands slithering up into the hairs at the base of his neck. Oliver shakes his head against you, still huffing in disbelief.

"Shut up." It's accent-heavy and bleeds a hole through the bottom of your stomach. "You're such a fucking brat."

"And you're a fucking prick."

He huffs lowly, you press harder to him: solidifying the sentiment. Somehow the bickering makes it all sweeter, like you're dissolving cotton candy against your tongue where his swoops over it.

You'd just about forgotten where you were when a creak echoes down the corridor. Halfway to ignoring it in favour of Oliver's touch, your situation dawns on you in the same moment it does him.

Like you'd both licked the end of a live wire, you and Oliver jolt back a foot, hands diving to your respective sides.

Cherry is standing against the light of the common room behind her, a lanky Archie parked beside her. Their eyes are wide and Cherry's hand is against her jaw in shock.

"Oh my god." She mumbles against it.

Blood is rushing to your face and out the corner of your eye, Oliver is running a hand over the hair that's sticking in all directions from the influence of your fingers.

Cherry is laughing breathily, eyes still wide and white in surprise. "Oh my god."

Archie's eyes are flickering between you and Oliver.

"Sorry to interrupt." He says, a smirk curling onto his features.

It jumpstarts your entire system. You step forward, grabbing Cherry by the arm.

"Well," you nod at Archie and at Oliver, not daring to meet his eyes, "goodnight then."

You march with fervour, half-dragging her in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room until your figure disappears behind the next corridor.

Oliver stands with his hands hanging at his side dumbly. He swipes a finger of his bottom lip, still tasting the strawberry lip gloss you'd left there.

"Can't say I didn't see this coming, mate." A hand claps over his shoulder.

He groans, running both hands over his face, and Archie shakes him lightly.

"So ... how was it?"

With another groan, Oliver shoves Archie's hand off of him. "Bloody hell, Arch."

Archie throws his head of curly black hair back, laughing so loud it bounces off the wall. "That good, huh?"

(part two/final part)

don't forget to comment and repost if you enjoyed :)

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neil-gaiman · 6 months ago

Note

This isn’t a question, but I want to thank you for your books and how they’ve impacted my life.

Over thirteen years ago, I read Neverwhere for the first time and it changed what kind of writer I wanted to be. I went on to read more of your books—my other two favourites were The Graveyard Book and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

About 11 or so years ago, I asked you on Twitter if I could read Stardust on a Twitch livestream, and you responded, “Fine by me”. It was one of my best streams, and while life got in the way of me doing more, I still remember it incredibly fondly.

Ten years ago I had a baby, and while he was an infant, I read him, Fortunately, the Milk, in an attempt to read him a book. He didn’t seem interested. I decided I’d try again some other time perhaps. But I did resolve to get him to read The Graveyard Book someday.

Nine years ago, when I was a mother of a one-year-old, I posted a status on Facebook simply saying, “We do not forget.”

Two years ago, I went on holiday, and I downloaded the audio book version of The Graveyard Book from our local library. My eight-year-old son listened to it as he fell asleep, though he ended up missing some parts, and we shelved it.

Last year, he read Coraline and didn’t like it. That isn’t your fault. He read Charlotte’s Web and didn’t like that either. He just didn’t quite have the understanding for them.

This year, he read Coraline and liked it. I told him it was from the same author as The Graveyard Book. He lamented that he never finished The Graveyard Book, and I said he could always download it from the library again.

Then about a month ago, he and I went through a tough time. I was really stressed about life, he wasn’t doing so well either, and our relationship got strained. I was angry with him all the time. I needed a break from him, or I thought I did. But one day when he was at his dad’s I realised that I wouldn’t get this time back. That I needed to fix it. So I asked him if he wanted me to read to him at bedtime. Just like when he was little. And we settled on The Graveyard Book.

On nights when he got to bed on time, I’d read a chapter. It often meant stretching past bedtime, but I could never stop halfway. It had been years since I’d read it too, and I found myself remembering things I’d forgotten. I’d watch his dark eyes widen whenever things got exciting, and I loved when he would interrupt me with an important revelation. “It’s Scarlett! His friend!” he’d say. “The dog! The grey dog!” “I know what Silas is!” He would tell me that I did the voices so well, that it seemed to match each character so perfectly.

We didn’t read every night, but it was a treat when we did. One night we had an argument and he told me he hated me. That he wished I was dead. And that he wanted to be with his dad. I told him to go take a shower, and that I’d ask his dad to come get him. His dad said no, but agreed to talk to him on the phone. After the shower, my son apologised for what he said. I said okay, and told him to call his dad to chat. After their call, he asked if we would still have story time. I asked if he preferred that or to have some space. He said he wanted both, but wanted story time more than space. So I read to him. It was the chapter when Bod and Silas argued, and then apologised to each other. Halfway through that chapter, my son asked for snuggles. I said, what happened to space? And he said, “I want snuggles more than space.”

We were sad when it ended. We finished it last weekend. I cried as I read it. But it was a beautiful sadness. We’ve talked about it a bit since then, to process it. He says he would like to read more about Silas and Bod’s adventures and asked if there was fan fiction about it. I told him to look, and to write some if there wasn’t. Perhaps I’ll write some too, just for him.

Last night he was at his dad’s and I was browsing Facebook and sent him a couple of his old pictures. Then I found an old post. From exactly nine years ago. And so I sent it to him.

It brought tears to my eyes. I did not remember making that post, and I’ve forgotten a great deal over the years, but I hope I do not forget these little moments with my son. But even if I do, I have them written down here to remind me again.

And thank you. For the words you’ve written and the impact you’ve had on our lives and hearts. I hope that your life holds the same amount of joy and love that you’ve given to others with your words.

That made me so happy. Thank you. I hope you and your son keep growing together.

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horrorhot-line · 2 months ago

Text

saiki's nsfw alphabet

➵ pairing: saiki x female!reader

➵ word count: 5.3k

➵ genre: nsfw

➵ warnings: minors dni. this post is pure smut, no plot here.

➵ summary: pretty self explanatory, the nsfw alphabet on your favourite boy.

➵ masterlist (requests are open)

notes: so from the recent poll i've learnt one thing, ya'll are horny for this man, and of course i shall provide, but in the meantime i thought i'd upload a nsfw alphabet (give you guys crumbs) since i've done it for the other fandom i write for, hopefully this satisfies you all until the next chapter of ftl is out <3333 @ne0n-s this one's for you since you called me daddy— this author doesn't shy away from child support.

credit to @the-coldest-goodbye for the template

edit: saiki kusuo by his own canon is not a minor, read this for more context <3

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

➵ a for aftercare (what is he like after sex?)

you come first, always. the moment saiki finally empties his balls inside you after pulling yet another orgasm from you, his thrusts shallow as he tries to make sure every drop ends up inside your cunt and post-nut clarity hits him. not in a bad way, in the way he immediately thinks about your comfort. his mind cleared of lust when his balls are empty, you'll be leaking hours later and he knows his work is done. with that, he picks you up softly, knowing from reading your thoughts that you can't walk, legs shaking as your spent form lays on the bed. he does quick work of cleaning you every time, before he brings you back to his bed, gently placing you down before he slips in next to you underneath the covers, waiting until your arms and leg find his, draping yourself over him like a blanket before you try and pick his mind about how the sex was, a routine for you since he never says it himself. he finds a way to deflect the question, most of the time."how do you have the energy to talk but not go to the bathroom?" "uh— no, you're not gonna change the subject this time. now, what did I do to make you horny?""good grief woman, let me sleep." "kusuo!""fine… you backed up on me when I was cuddling you. it was a natural bodily reaction." you don't listen though, too busy assuming (rightfully so) that he was an ass guy, taking your notes. not true, he definitely preferred your tits over your back.

➵ b for body part (his favourite body part of his and also his partner’s)

he likes his hair, more specifically he fucking loves likes when your arm reaches underneath his shoulder as he fucks into you from above, fingers gingerly trailing up his back before they find their way to the back of his neck and into his hair, pulling lightly at the locks as he slams his pelvis into yours. his expression won't change, but if you ever took the chance to put your hands on his chest for leverage, you'd know just from his heartbeat the kind of effect you have on him. now whether you pick up on it or not, he loves prefers your tits, it's the first part of your body his hands grab whenever he has the chance. he will never tell you, but he loves using them as handles for when he's fucking you, hand on your tits as he pulls your body to meet his thrusts, keeping you there for a second longer as he bottoms out, dick impossibly deep in your cunt, tip bullying rather than kissing your cervix. when your eyes roll to the back of your head, and he reads your thoughts, of how you can barely breathe, how you can feel him in your gut, he curses himself for nearly cumming. "your heart rate spiked, thinking about me using you again?" "…people will hear you if you don't stop whining, pull my hair if you can't take it— like you usually do."

➵ c for cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

when saiki is done, pulling out after he's sure he's emptied every last drop of his cum inside your pussy, he spends a moment watching your chest rise and fall, covered in slick and sweat and his eyes will trail down to where his cum starts leaking out of you, only to use his fingers to shove it right back in, not blinking an eye as you twitch and complain about sensitivity, too busy making sure you don't waste all of what he has to give. he won't admit it, but just the way you squirm, pawing at his hand as he fingers you slowly is enough for him to go another round. "…how tired are you?" "like on a scale? 9.5 buddy, and this pussy is off limits until that number goes below 5." the latter sentiment falling on deaf ears as saiki continues to finger you. "…can you go one more round?" "seriously— but we just—" you end up with another creampie, surprise, surprise.

➵ d for dirty secret (self-explanatory, a dirty secret of his)

it's not that he doesn't have a dirty secret, it's more the fact he has too many, but his biggest one is probably the fact that he tries to see how many times he can make you cum before he does. he enjoys watching you come undone, from his fingers to his tongue, to his dick. saiki's a lowkey sadist, and so he adores likes pushing you past your limits, especially since you look so damn good fucked out, pupils blown and the dirtiest thoughts and images running through your head, urging him to pick up the pace as he forces you to take him all over again. is it any surprise that he'll mentally set a number and he won't stop fucking your bruised pussy until he reaches it? no, no it isn't."don't lie, I know you can cum again, y/n, and I'm going to keep going— until you do."

➵ e for experience (how experienced is he? does he know what he’s doing?)

he has no experience, your body being the first he was ever comfortable to touch, that being said, it doesn't mean he's clueless. his telepathy comes in clutch, and your thoughts and desires, the ones you try so hard to control until he has you alone and you come undone under his gaze. they guide his hands as saiki squeezes your nipple between his thumb and index, watching as you writhe under his touch, overstimulated from how he's spent the better half of an hour teasing myou, making sure you're so far gone, that you practically sob when he finally pulls out his cock from the confines of his draws, he'll drag his length up and down your slit, tip catching on the hood of your clit, and when you slap a hand across your mouth to stop yourself from moaning too loud, he takes the chance to shove himself inside you in one go, and if you opened your eyes instead of squeezing them shut as you try and get used to the intrusion, you'd see the smirk twitching at the corner of his lips."tell me how you want it, y/n. use your words."

➵ f for favourite position (this goes without saying. will probably include a visual)

this is a hard one for him, but if he really had to choose it would be fucking you standing up. the first time he tried it was in a storage closet at school. your idea of fun had been to sit behind him in class all day, thinking of the most indecent things he could do to you if he just made a move. he knew you were trying to get him to crack and make the first move like he did the first time he fucked you in that very same classroom. sure he had popped a boner, but he wasn't about to let you phase him more than that, saiki had self-control after all. he didn't. when lunch rolled around, you found yourself in the boys changing room, his fingers wasting no time to pull your panties to the side and shove his middle finger until it was buried to the knuckle inside your already wet cunt. and when he heard the thoughts of a group of people heading for the same room you were both in, his hazy brain supplied the closet as a hiding place, which was located in the far corner of the room and had been cleared out, pulling you in after him. said students entered, gossiping about what not as they looked for their misplaced belongings, but saiki wasn't paying attention, he was preoccupied with the way you were trapped against the back of the closet and his chest, looking up at him with pleading eyes, and damn, that self-control of his was hanging on by a mere thread. one that snapped when your hand found his, leading them to your cunt yet again. he didn't waste any time after that, pulling up your leg with one hand, using his pants zipper as an opening to get his dick out and line up with you, pushing in ever so slowly so you don't make too much noise and alert the others in the room. for a moment saiki wasn't sure what came over him, to risk exposure like this wasn't something he'd allow normally, and yet when he felt how deep he'd managed to get inside you from that angle, hitting a spot you let him know telepathically that he's never hit before, and the way your pussy quivered around the base of his length, gave him the answer, his tone barely above a whisper as he lowered his head to your ear. "you got what you wanted— happy?"

➵ g for goofy (is he more serious in the moment, or is he humorous, etc)

he's serious in the moment, maybe too much sometimes, to the point where every so often you'll wonder if he actually feels anything since his expression doesn't change much, even when he's fucking you into the mattress, one hand on your hip pushing you against his length, the other rubbing your clit so you can cum on his dick again. then, when the thought does cross your mind, even if you don't bring it up, he'll go out of his way to show you just how much you affect him. eyebrows furrowed, sweat coating his body as he fucks into you, lips parted ever so slightly, and if you listen closely and hold back your moaning, you'll hear the way he groans against your skin as he tries to hold back from filling you up with his cum right then and there. then again, he's not always serious, since he likes to talk to fill the silence, more like he enjoys the way you clench around him since you love the sound of his voice."just like that. come on, y/n, cum for me."

➵ h for hair (how well groomed is he, does the carpet match the drapes)

he doesn't shave regularly, then again, he doesn't need to. you did ask him about it once since you swore you'd never seen him trim down there, and the monologue he went into breaking the fourth wall again as he explained how he used telekinesis to make sure he didn't develop a bush and halted the growth when it reached a certain length, truth be told you zoned out. you prefer him unshaven anyway, the happy trail of pink that goes past his sweatpants and makes your mind run wild when you catch sight of it every time his shirt lifts to show skin, the pink in general is such a pretty colour you can't imagine not seeing it every time he whips his dick out. of course, saiki knows this all too well with how he invades your mind with his telepathy, and it's the main reason he's opted to keep it.

➵ i for intimacy (how is he during the moment, romantic aspect…)

saiki isn't romantic with his words. ever heard of the saying, you don't have to say 'I love you', to say I love you? this man is the definition of show, don't tell, and even if the esper doesn't proclaim his love for you out loud from rooftops or skyscrapers, you see it clearly in the way he holds onto whatever part of you he can, pulling you impossibly close as he slowly grinds into you from on top, doing his best to drag out your pleasure, watching and listening for any signs of discomfort, and when he finds that one spot that has you seeing stars, he won't stop until your eyes roll to the back of your head and he's trailing kisses down your neck as you push against his hips with your palm to try and slow him down— and when you do, he'll grab your hand softly, intertwining your fingers and throwing it over your head before he's kissing you again and swallowing whatever sounds threaten to escape from your lips at his brutal pace. "shhh, I've got you. cum for me, y/n, just one more time. come on."

➵ j for jacking off (masturbation headcanon)

saiki doesn't really feel the need to masturbate, he's tried it before and realised that it only adds to his (horniness) frustrations. the only thing that really helps clear his mind is you, but that doesn't mean he doesn't jerk himself off. once in a blue moon when he's waiting for you to get back home and he can't wait, he'll sit in the dining room since the spot has the best angle of the front door, and he'll pull out his dick, stroking it slowly, tugging as he hisses under his breath. he'll let the burning in his stomach grow until it's all he can think about, barely noticing when you walk through the door only to trap you against the nearest wall, hands reaching under your clothes so you can feel what he's been struggling with until you showed up. once he's decided you're ready for him, he'll pull your pants down and panties to the side and fuck you like he can't think straight which he can't."what took so long, y/n? you took a shortcut— didn't you? even after I told you not to… the next time I catch you doing it again, I won't let you cum."

➵ k for kink (one or more of his kinks)

saiki doesn't have kinks he does, he reckons his are the same as yours, since whatever you're into, he is too. though he won't ever say, the most turned on he's ever been is when he's fucking his cum into you, dick still sensitive from stuffing you full of his load, but the idea that this creampie might be the one that gets you pregnant, might be the one that makes you his completely, drives him insane. the first time you suggested that there wasn't a point in using a condom or birth control because you both were old and secure enough to try for a baby, he almost fucked you unconscious. 9 rounds later and he still couldn't get his dick to go down, surmising that the only thing that would satiate him would be when you were expecting. in short, saiki has a huge breeding kink. "no more, kusuo, I can't— please." "no. you can, and you will. you wanted this, remember?"

➵ l for location (favourite places to do the do)

saiki claims he doesn't have a favourite place, your bedroom or his— he doesn't care so long as he can have his way with you. what he refuses to disclose is his favourite place was that one time his friends had a get-together at a karaoke bar, and teruhashi was on her usual shenanigans, trying to woo saiki even after she knew the two of you were official. he had picked up on your insecurities and the hint of jealousy that lay beneath it, and when you left to order dessert for him at the front, he left the group not too long after, catching you in the hallway as you tried to figure out where to go, pulling you into an empty room, locking the door and turning the music on with his telekinesis, the song playing doing wonders to drown out the noises that escaped past your lips as he fucked you from behind and covered your mouth with his free hand for extra measure. he'd never admit, but your frantic thoughts of wanting to enjoy how deep he was hitting and how teruhashi could walk in at any moment, only fuelled his momentum until he was sure that the sound of his hips snapping into you was louder than the speaker of the room. "they— they'll notice, kusuo." "not… if you keep quiet, they won't."

➵ m for motivation (what turns him on, gets him going)

saiki swears you've messed up his mind— made him weird. before, it was you thinking about sex and nothing else in his vicinity that would get his stomach burning until he was thinking about it too, and then he'd fuck you into the sheets until you were satisfied before he went back to whatever he was doing before he was balls deep inside you. now, a mere touch is enough to set him off. from you ghosting your fingers over his back and under his shirt when you're scrolling through the internet, to an innocent look shot his way from across the room when he's busy and you're checking in with him, anything is enough to set him off when he's with you. it was a setback, sure, and it hindered his life every now and then until he took care of the problem. except it's gotten to the point where saiki can't stand not touching you, or being in your immediate vicinity. so now, on your days off, saiki chooses to pull you onto his lap, keeping you there and shoving his dick inside you, multitasking until you decide you can't take it anymore and try and grind against him, only for him to hold your hips in place immediately, your cunt clenching around the base of his cock until the esper decides he'll give into your wants. in short, you make saiki horny and his solution for it is cockwarming.

➵ n for nicknames (what are his favourite pet names for you? what does he call you when you’re both alone?)

truth be told, he doesn't really use nicknames for you, he prefers your name, using it to command your attention when you're drunk on his dick and struggling to take what he gives. from time to time though, he'll let one slip past his lips, enjoying how you clench around him, so close to your release, only for him to shoot you a small smirk and pull out completely so he can admire the way you whine for him to put it back in, smug from how utterly pretty you look drooling over his cock.

"struggling? that's too bad, we're nowhere near finished— be a good girl and behave for me, and I might let you cum again."

➵ o for oral (preference in giving or receiving, skills, etc)

at first, saiki preferred sex by itself and didn't see the need to give or receive, until you asked if he could try eating you out. the first time he did, he thoroughly enjoyed every second, watching as you writhed under his tongue. thinking back to it, maybe it was the way you pulled on his pink locks every time he paid any attention to your clit, or the way you tried to push him away, only for him to grab your thighs and force you to ride out your high on his tongue until you came again. or maybe it was how quickly you came undone, struggling to form sentences. all he knows is when he has the time for it, he'll make you cum on his tongue before he plugs you up with his dick. "wake up, y/n— don't pass out just yet. we're nowhere near done."

➵ p for pace (is he fast or rough? slow or sensual?)

he's both, it's whatever the mood calls for and how mean he's feeling. but he's mostly fast and rough the first few rounds, setting a punishing pace as he holds your hands above your head, forcing you to take every inch, that way he can watch how your face contorts in pleasure at all he's giving you. then, when you've come however many times, he'll grind into you instead of snapping his hips into yours, enjoying how you squirm, only going back to his rough pace when you beg him to. "and here I thought you said you couldn't go another round. what happened, y/n?"

➵ q for quickies (his opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc)

saiki prefers real sex any day over quickies, but with how busy life gets, sometimes that's all he has time for. he loves fucking you whenever he can no matter where you two are, since he can always teleport you to his place to take you against whatever wall is closest, so the want he feels for you subsides at least a little until he can fuck you properly like you deserve. he won't ever tell you this, but sometimes he prefers quickies over real sex, if only to watch you struggle to do whatever menial task calls your attention as you struggle to walk around the house with him thrusting into you from behind, he goes out of his way to fuck you as hard as he can so your legs give out, only for him to lower himself onto the floor and fill you up again with his dick as you try to crawl away. "where do you think you're going? we're not finished."

➵ r for risk (is he game to experiment, does he take risks, etc)

you were the one who taught him what intimacy was, beyond what he learnt in sex ed, and his vast knowledge of pleasure is thanks to you being patient until he picked up things by himself. so in essence he's game for experimentation so long as it's not too weird. now, when it comes to risk, saiki would rather avoid it, public sex and so on, since he has an allergy to being the centre of attention— that doesn't mean he hasn't chosen to fuck you in the worst situations, using his powers like invisibility as a fail-safe. like the time he fucked you in an alley on the way to a date, he made the conscious decision mistake of ghosting his hand over your thigh, before stroking the skin softly until your mind was running wild on the train, only to beg him to do something because you couldn't handle going the rest of the day without him taking responsibility. and responsibility he took, pulling you into an alley behind a dumpster, using his power over invisibility to stop anyone from seeing how fucked out you were when he pulled your panties to the side, only to slide in with no resistance, pussy pulsing around his dick as he swallowed your moans by moving your face to the side so he could kiss you from behind. "they can't see, but they can hear you. unless you want me to stop y/n, I suggest you try and keep quiet."

➵ s for stamina (how many rounds can he go for, how long does he last)

the answer to this one isn't simple, since saiki has the libido of a horse. the highest number you can remember is 16, but then again, you stopped counting halfway through the night and then picked up with whatever number you left off at 7 in your mind, 11 in total. considering how high your sex drive has gotten since saiki made you his, you assumed you'd be able to handle it, and the esper would be the one struggling, yet it's the opposite and no matter how you try, it seems saiki is always insatiable. all because he can't get enough of you, and since saiki thinks it's your fault he's become like this to begin with, you pay for it."don't pass out just yet, I expected better y/n— with how you tried to tease me earlier."

➵ t for toy (does he own toys? does he use them? partner or himself?)

he doesn't own any toys, and the old vibrator you used before him is lost somewhere in storage since saiki knows he can please you better than any toy, and if he's not there, then you can wait until he comes back and finally fucks you. masturbating would be an option but saiki prefers you pent up so when the two of you get a moment alone you're so far gone he can have his way with you, teasing you for hours on end, and every time you whine or sob, he'll remind you that the wait is worth it as he shoves his cock back in, hissing at the way you clench around him before leaning down to kiss you and swallow your cries of relief when he fills you up— that, and saiki's fingers can double as a vibrator if you want them to so there's always that option."come on, don't cry now— cum for me one more time and I'll give you what you want."

➵ u for unfair (how much does he like to tease)

he's very unfair but your opinion may be biased, since everything he does even if it's innocent it's not, but you don't need to know that just adds to your frustrations. like when he's enjoying whatever dessert he's managed to get his hands on, he always licks the spoon after every bite, and truth be told it does things to you, especially when he picks up on your staring, and makes eye contact with you as he cleans his utensil. at least, it always ends with you getting your brains fucked. you can't really complain when you're draped over his thighs as he forces you to ride him, deciding you're too slow and taking over as he snaps his hips up into you until you swear you can feel him in your gut. all the while, he'll take his sweet time, teasing that one spot that has your eyes rolling back until he works up the pace to just fuck you until you can feel his tip slamming into your cervix. the cherry on top is how he acts like he doesn't know damn well why you're so horny for him. "i barely did anything and you're dripping all over the floor… why, y/n? care to enlighten me?"

➵ v for volume (how loud is he? what sounds does he make?)

he's not loud, he talks but you rarely hear him feeling good. that's what makes it better in your opinion, since when he does make even the slightest noise, it goes straight to your pussy and it's enough to push you over the edge. so the few times when he's fucking into you, hand over your mouth so no one else can hear how good you're feeling from his dick, the other holding your hip in place so he can push into you nice and slow. when you clench around him, and he buries his head in the crook of your neck, soft groans escaping him at how tight you are, you cum on the spot, the last string of your sanity snapping, and it only spurs him on, his volume increasing if only by a little, moaning quietly as he loses himself to the pleasure, his thrusts speeding up, not giving you a chance to come down from your high when you feel another orgasm building up. "that's it, just like that y/n. cum for me again."

➵ w for wildcard (random headcanon for him)

saiki always cleans you up first, whether it's tissues on hand or a wet cloth, he'll make sure to wipe you down first and clean up after you before he fixes his own image. you don't pick up on it straight away, mostly because of how fucked out you are after, but the one time you do, it melts your heart instantly. it's not a huge gesture but it still pulls at your heartstrings as you watch him carefully wipe away the cum from your thighs, ignoring how he raises his eyebrow at your epiphany, rolling his eyes afterwards. "it's not a big deal, stop giving me googly eyes." "wha— well, I never.""…you need to stop watching that bridgerton stuff and go out for once, hug a tree or something."

➵ x for x-ray (what’s going on in those pants of his)

he's not big, or small, to be honest, the first time you got a good look at saiki's dick, you were sure it was perfect, like the size and look. his dick is pale, like his skin but his tip is always an angry red when he's hard, and it manages to kiss your cervix every time he's fully buried inside you, and his size is big enough that you can see a slight bulge in your stomach when he's inside you. correction, his dick is perfect for you.

➵ y for yearning (how high is his sex drive)

yearning, well it's not exactly yearning for saiki. it's much more than that, it's wanting to swallow every sound that leaves your lips in fear someone else might hear. like his inability to voice how much you mean to him is let out in the way he zeroes in on every thought going through your head, the mental images spurring him on to kiss you, touch you, ruin you until all you can think of is how good you feel, holding back from filling you up right then and there because you need to be utterly gone for him to be satisfied.

it's definitely more like needing to feel you clenching around him, the desire the only thing he can focus on to the point where the voices of all those strangers he hears every second he's awake is dulled, like you've tuned out some radio until all that's left is the sounds you make as he fucks into you like he's finally snapped and thrown all sense out the window, drunk on your body (which to be fair, he is). more like wanting to pull you impossibly close, your warmth nearly scorching him and all it does is add to the pit of fire rising in his stomach with every thrust into your cunt. it's more like wanting so badly with every fibre of his being to explain what it is he feels for you, and it definitely can't be described with a simple term like yearning, because if he could describe it saiki is sure he burns for you.

his sex drive is very high. saiki has enough energy that even you struggle, and that's saying something with how horny he gets you just by existing. and yet, you're the first one to tap out, albeit after the 9th or 10th round of cum he fills you with, but still. you have to live with the fact that he can fuck you until you pass out and come to again, but you're not complaining. surprisingly, saiki is almost always unstable until you're completely ruined and all you can think about is his dick. the only time he'll ever stop is when he knows you can't take anymore, telepathy always comes in hand for that.

"one more round— just one more and you can go back to working."

➵ z for zzz (how quickly does he fall asleep afterwards)

after the lust subsides, when the haziness clears up and he's no longer pussy drunk, saiki is always ready to pass out. all he wants to do after he's emptied his balls into you, is to pull you close and shut his eyes until the next day. but if there are things he needs to take care of or you want to talk about whatever new thing you're hyper-fixated on, he'll stay awake until you're ready to go to bed. "don't you get tired of scrolling through tiktok and forcing me to react to those weird reddit stories?" "never!" "fine, but if I don't wake up tomorrow, you'll pay." "your empty threats would sound a lot more frightening if you weren't trying to bury your head in my tits."

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

2024 taglist:

@bre99 @mindless-rock @skylarmoon119 @sle3pyh3ad2 @mylovelysnowflake @alicekumori @imkumichan @lvvcian @hyejoolips @citrusequalsfrogs @tsukikoxo @thecaminator @heartsatoru @poisonapple24 @itsluvly @shirozukie2

#saiki x reader #saiki k #saiki k x reader #saiki kusuo x reader #saiki kusuo #the disastrous life of saiki k.#x reader #saiki smut #smut

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springtyme · 5 months ago

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🪐 Hi Sagie! I looove your baby fever fics with 141 and könig! I you have any hcs for them, like will they have more babies in the future? (I’m especially in love with the soap ones, you made the family scenario feel so real❤️)

I’m so happy to hear that you like those fics, they are some of my favourites I’ve written, and I’m especially happy to hear that you like the johnny one, cause I have actually thought about writing some for that specific version of him because I liked writing them so much. These are just some quick, random thoughts about how I think the future could look like for the guys and reader in the different scenarios. I might change it if I decide to write more about them in the future, though. But I had so much fun writing this, so thank you so much for the ask, dear anon! ♡

The fics this is based on: part one & part two

Ghost ♡

I don’t actually think that you and Simon will have more children after your daughter. She wasn’t planned, but she is so loved and cherished by both of you, and he is so extremely happy and grateful that it happened, being a family was something Simon never thought he would be allowed to experience, and he had always secretly wished for it, but he also has a lot of insecurities and anxieties about being a father. He wants to give your little girl all that he never had growing up. You and your daughter are absolutely everything to him, and the two of you have filled the hole that had been gnawing at his heart for so, so long. He doesn’t need more, he is complete now. One kid, one fur baby, and having found the love of his life is all he needs to be happy and content. I also think that he is also very aware about how demanding his job is and the fact that he often is gone and has to leave for weeks at a time, leaving you back home alone so only having one kid to look after when he is not there to help, makes things more manageable for you and I think that is something he would value highly, not wanting to leave you overwhelmed and stretched thin. And he is so, so grateful for you and all that you do for your family.

Price ♡

Again, I don’t think you and John are going to have more kids, just like Simon he is very aware of the demands of his job, despite the decision of retiring from fieldwork after you had your son, he is still often away on base and works long hours, plus he also isn’t as young as he has been anymore. He values the time he gets to spend with you and your son, and he loves the family dynamic you all have. He loves being present and active in your son’s life, and he wants to make sure he can give him all the love and attention he deserves. You and John have built a beautiful life together, and he is so grateful for everything you’ve given him, and he makes sure you’re always taking care of. John values quality time with you and your boy extremely highly, he never misses a single football game, school event, or milestone, and he cherishes every moment he gets to spend with the two of you.

Gaz ♡

So, you and Kyle will stay in your flat for the first three years of your son’s life until you move to something bigger, after finding out that you are expecting your second child. It is a lovely, little semi-detached house, with garden to three sides and here you welcome your second baby, a little girl this time. Kyle is absolutely over the moon with the idea of expanding your little family, and he can’t wait to give your son a sister to look out for. Kyle absolutely loves being a father and is so grateful for the life you have built together. He is so excited for this next chapter in your lives, it is something he has been excited for almost since he first met you. Kyle is a very hands-on dad, always eager to help out with the kids and make sure you have some time for yourself and he makes a big deal out of having quality time with both kids and making sure they both feel loved and cherished. He is so proud and grateful for the family you have created together.

Soap ♡

Okay, it all started out with a comment about how you and Johnny had to balance out all the boys in his family and you did. Johnny becomes the ultimate girl dad. You end up with three girls who are around three years apart from each other. He loves being surrounded by his girls and is so grateful for the special bond he has with each of them. He is always there to support and protect them, and he cherishes every moment he gets to spend with them. His family absolutely adores you all, and he is so thankful for the love and happiness you have brought into his life. (Your oldest daughter’s middle name is Teresa after Johnny’s mother, but when you had your second girl there was no doubt between you and Johnny about what hers was going to be; Maighread.)

König ♡

So, I kind of see two scenarios for this one.

The pregnancy with the twins was pretty hard on poor mama, having to carry an absolute unit of a man's children and all, so I could kind of see you not having more after that. It was always your plan to have 2-3 kids, so when the twins turned out to be a boy and a girl it kind of just seemed perfect and complete with a family of four.

But I could also see the twins being two boys though. Two chunky, happy babies who turn into a pair of cheeky, energetic toddlers, running around together, causing chaos and laughter wherever they go. And even though they are fraternal, they look a lot alike, both a spitting image of their father, despite having inherited your eyes, but their faces are still all König, from the way they scrunch their nose to the dimples on their cheeks when they smile. They are a handful and keep you on your toes, but they are also the sweetest and most loving little boys. It is a few months before the boy’s seventh birthday when you and König start to think about maybe expanding your family again. And it’s only a few weeks after their birthday that you find out that you are pregnant again. The pregnancy is much easier this time around, König still creating a chunk of a kid, but this time you’re only having one. And this time it is a little girl who instantly steals the hearts of her father and big brothers. The twins dote on her, constantly showering her with love and attention, always looking out for her and making sure she is safe. And König is absolutely wrapped around her tiny finger, and truly a sight for sore eyes to see the giant man doting over his little princess.

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cosmichorrorlesbians · 1 month ago

Text

These were the Silt Verses.

(closeups/design notes/rambling under the cut, because it took me over a month to make this so I'm going to be a little self-indulgent.)

spoilers for the whole podcast ahead!

Our protagonists! Notes:

Some of these came out more accurate to how I see them than others. Hayward in particular looks much less grimy and haggard than I imagine him. Carpenter, on the other hand, is perfect in my eyes. Shrue is (subconsciously) very much inspired by the wonderful @unbloodiedmartyr's rendition of them (thanks Sacha, your art goes insanely hard!)

Hayward and Paige face away, a nod to their final parting. Carpenter and Faulkner face one another, in deference to their final reunion.

Val and Shrue are both shown at the moment of their deaths.

Paige, the only character confirmed to survive the immediate finale, is the only one with closed eyes.

I'm a blond Faulkner truther. Sorry.

Someone left some really really insane tags on a Valpost I made like a month ago about how Val can alter her appearance as she pleases, but the Last Word can never convince her not to see the actual aftermath of her torture when she looks in the mirror, and it sent me a little crazy, so I was trying to capture that failing self-deceit here. She's meant to look absurdly young, but where the flames overlay her face, you can see the prayer marks and lacerations on her skin.

I had this out on my desk for days and every time a family member dropped by I had to frantically hide the fact I was drawing 'politician gets shot in the head' fanart. RIP.

These are the marks of the Many Below! They look Not Great enlarged, but hey ho. I wanted them to look hidden and incidental, separated in each corner as they are:

'Begin with a balbis on its side. Within the two spaces, a circle marked by a single dot.' Drawn in the silt of the White Gull River.

'Beneath this, a pair of concentric circles. Within the annulus, an ovoid with a slit - a staring eye.' Scrawled across the pug postcard Cross uses to write his idea to scapegoat Shrue.

'Under that, a lemniscate over a heptagram[...]' Made up of the ribbon that binds Mercer and Gage's rifles.

'[...]and three parallel lines beneath.' Faulkner's staff, broken into three pieces.

Interstitial illustrations. There are four sets of these, which (roughly) correspond to more stand-alone episodes & fan favourites. This is my favourite, for my beloved Chapter 36: All Lovers Part As Dust. I had a blast distilling recurring motifs of the episode into one little illustration, and I'm really proud of the result; I think it captures the match of sweet and bitter that the episode in question inspires. The clock points to the eleventh hour.

These are pretty self-explanatory: I couldn't pass up a chance to draw the inciting miracle of the series, and it made sense to pair it with the image of Paige and Hayward sailing downriver at the end of Season 2, an image which has always haunted me.

The hare and the owl are from Chapter 26, a symbol of the Wound Tree's emergence. The lobster and fish are intended as a nod to Faulkner and Rane, a character who I love but couldn't include more overtly. Lobsters are seen as a symbol of devotion and fidelity because, apocryphally, they mate for life, and yet the lobster here is without its pair. The fish was intended to be a remora, which swims beside sharks. (Yes, I'm aware remora are tropical sea-dwelling fish, and humbly beg any marine biologists reading this not to kill me on the spot).

The Killing And Violence Siblings!

These object illustrations were deliberately positioned as parallels and specifically reference Season 2, marking the point of the poem that is made up of that series' titles (an attention to the series chronology that roughly coheres throughout the piece. Very roughly.)

Mercer and Gage's rifles are twisted round with a red ribbon, which bleeds into the White Gull, binding them together and reflecting how they're rarely seen apart. The ribbon's also a deliberate parallel to the banner wrapping Carpenter and Faulkner's hands elsewhere in the art.

Carpenter's axe and Faulkner's sororicidal mirror shard are depicted alongside fish hooks, as though they're separated for much of the season, the Parish draws them back together in the end. Also an echo of Paige's line, 'Love is just a meat hook for you to catch me on.'

There's only blood on one of the rifles, in a nod to Mercer and Gage's uneven dynamic.

Bookend landscapes. The pages were intended to reference the Silt Verses as an in-story document, and represent the themes of truth, myth and record throughout.

The illumination!

It was always going to be a radio-- not a nod specifically to Sid Wright, but really to the use of broadcast, music and sound throughout the show. TSV's sound design is truly one of the things I admire most about it.

The radio is meant to be on Carpenter and Faulkner's dashboard, as they drive along the river in the very first episode, hence its positioning at the start of the poem.

I conceived this as the centre of the piece, and drew the rest around it.

aaaand that was a lot. I didn't cover everything, and I recommend clicking on the final piece to get full quality and see how the details interact with one another-- but if you've read through all these meanderings, thank you, sibling. I started this two weeks after the finale, and managed a full relisten while drawing. It's been a labour of love, and I now hate watercolours more than I have words for.

#IT'S DONE IT'S DONE FINALLY I CAN REST #my hand hurts so much...#the silt verses #the silt verses fanart #tsv #tsv fanart #tsv spoilers #the silt verses spoilers #I mean the spoilers are mostly subtle. aside from what's happening to Shrue and Val maybe?? but still.#my art #✨️

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 8 months ago

Text

Honey Girl. Chapter Eight.

chapter one. chapter two. chapter three. chapter four. chapter five. chapter six. chapter seven. chapter nine. chapter ten. series masterlist. the playlist.

Chapter Synopsis - Turns out, you’re not the only ones with a secret.

Pairing - Dadsbestfriend!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader - soulmate au

Warnings - cursing. mentions of hospitals/medical settings.

Word Count - 5k

Authors Note - I promise that the reveal was supposed to be in this part!! but I hit 5k words real quick and thought rather than rush it, I’d give it its full own chapter. guess what’s coming next ;). as always, thank you for your love and support and patience and encouragement and kindness. don’t know where I’d be without it <3

as always, if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging!! reblogs are the only way to circulate my writing, which generates more of it. feel free to send me a comment or an inbox, too!! thanks, my loves!! <3

Masterlist. Inbox.

The sun beams through the white linen curtains, salty ocean breeze drifting through the open window. The rays warm your skin as you kick off the sheets, stretching your arms above your head. You turn over, to find the space next to you empty.

Rubbing the sleepiness from your eyes, you yawn, inhaling the scent of breakfast. Throwing on Bucky’s soft blue button up, you pad out to the kitchen to find him at your stovetop, shirtless and sun kissed.

“I’m getting the full girlfriend experience, huh?”

He grins at the sound of your voice, entire body lighting up with it.

“Girlfriend,” he laughs. “This is the soulmate experience, baby. It’s even better.”

You shake your head, but you can’t fight the smile that etches itself on your face. He looks so at home here, so comfortable. He reaches up to grab a plate from your cupboard, and you feel the sudden urge to burst into tears.

He knows where everything is.

He’s learnt his way around the kitchen just like he’s learnt his way around your heart. Your soul. Your very existence.

“You okay?”

He turns off the burner and glides over to you, warm hands finding your hips like it’s second nature.

“What’s wrong? You like pancakes,” he teases, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead tenderly. “Oh no. Did you want waffles?”

You shake your head, swallowing down the lump in your throat.

“I’m fine,” you say, but your voice cracks instantly.

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

He says it so gently, so carefully. You feel like a precious flower, something to be taken care of, cherished, loved. No one has ever made you feel like this.

“I just realised you… fit, here. Like you were always supposed to. I can’t really remember what this apartment was like before it had you in it too.”

Bucky cradles your face in his hands, tilting your head up to look at him.

“Wherever you are. That’s where my home is.”

You surge forwards to press your lips to his, alive and buzzing with the electricity of being loved so wholly. He reciprocates instantly, wrapping his arms around your back to pull you closer, so you’re chest to chest.

“Your pancakes are going to burn,” you mumble, forehead resting on his.

“Let them.”

“No, don’t let them. I’m not calling the fire department today.”

He laughs, kissing you again chastely before returning to his original position. He plates up your breakfast - pancakes, fruit, granola and yoghurt, with fresh coffee in your favourite mug.

“I could get used to this.”

“And you will,” he flirts, kissing the crown of your head. “Every day for the rest of your life, baby. You’re gonna have to wake up to my face forever.”

You pretend to shudder, laughing when he pinches your side.

“Come on, trouble. Let’s eat breakfast on the balcony and pretend we’re on a tropical vacation somewhere.”

“Sounds perfect.”

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

“We’re really doing this.”

You look up at Bucky, the heavy weight of his arm around your shoulders acting as a grounding agent. Your plates are discarded on the table, cleared and finished, the two of you curled up in your loveseat. The sun is getting warmer, and it’s bringing out Bucky’s freckles, all boyish and glowy.

“We don’t have a choice.”

“Honey girl, there’s always a choice.”

“Not this time,” you sigh, shifting so you can face him properly. “I wanted to do this on our terms, and now I feel like I’ve been forced into it. It isn’t fair.”

“We can wait,” Bucky reassures, confident and understanding. “We don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”

“I am ready. I have been for a while. It just sucks that it feels like I’ve been pushed in a certain direction, you know?”

“I know,” he soothes, work rough fingertips tracing patterns on your bare legs. “But like you said, we were going to do it anyway. This is still our choice. These are still our terms.”

You press your lips onto his cheek, chuckling when his stubble tickles your skin. He retaliates by attacking you with kisses, planting them all over your face, wherever he can reach. You squeal, hands flying out to his bare chest to try and stop him.

“Your neighbours are going to think there’s a murder happening,” Bucky laughs, fingers sliding up your shirt to rest on your ribs.

“Oh no, they love you too much for that.”

He quirks his eyebrows in surprise.

“They do?”

“The lady that lives next door, Mrs Daniels - she’s like ninety, has that white cat you always see?”

Bucky nods in recognition, so you continue.

“She talks about how handsome you are every time I see her. Always asks when the ‘man that looks like a movie star’ is coming over next.”

He laughs, shaking his head as you tease him.

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious! She probably watches you come and go from her balcony. She’s gonna love it in the summer, when you turn up in your short shorts with no shirt on.”

Bucky chuckles, pulling you into him and leaning his head on top of yours.

“Don’t be jealous, baby. You’re the only one for me.”

“I better be,” you chide jokingly, pinching his thigh in warning.

“I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

There’s no humour, anymore. Just love. So much love.

“I’m here now,” you whisper. “And I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

Bucky leans in to press a kiss to your lips, gentle and filled with a lifetimes worth of promise.

“I love you, honey baby.”

“I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

You let the morning sun slip over you like silk sheets, warm and smooth and completely luxurious. Bucky’s steady breathing grounds you slowly as peace and contentment settle into your bones, weighted and calming. No matter what happens today, you know one thing for certain - you have the security of Bucky’s love to fall back on.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

You’ve been sat in Bucky’s truck for twenty five minutes.

It’s parked down the block from your parent’s house, just out of the way. You were pulling in to their street when you panicked, begging Bucky to stop the car so you could breathe for a second.

“Sweet girl, we’ll be fine.”

“I know. I know,” you exhale. Inhale again. “Why is this so hard?”

“Because we’ve been thinking about this moment ever since that first night.”

“It’s almost been a year.”

That seems to stop Bucky in his tracks for a second.

“It… it doesn’t feel that long. Feels like yesterday. But also, somehow, like I’ve loved you my whole life.”

You lean over the console to kiss him softly, trying to ignore the hummingbird fluttering of your heart in your chest.

“Honey, I can feel your anxiety, remember? If you don’t calm down a little, we’ll both collapse.”

“Sorry,” you laugh, taking a deep breath. “Sorry.”

Bucky intertwines his fingers with yours, thumb running over the backs of your knuckles. Soothing, like a field of lavender gently blowing in the breeze on the first day of spring.

“We have to do it sometime.”

“I know,” you nod, squeezing his hand once, twice, three times before pulling away and fixing your hair in the tiny mirror. “Let’s do this. Now or never.”

You pull up outside your childhood home, instantly relaxing a little at the sight of the colourful drapes and flowers in the windows.

“Shit, Buck. We haven’t even planned what we’re gonna say.”

“We don’t need to. Just speak from your heart, baby. I’ll follow your lead.”

When you walk up the driveway, you know there’s no turning back. You also know that the weight on your shoulders will feel a hell of a lot less heavy when you leave. It’s a double edged sword, but you’re ready to wield it, with love as your armour and Bucky as your shield.

You stand a foot apart and ring the doorbell, bouncing nervously on the soles of your feet.

“Hi, sweetheart. Oh - hey, Buck.”

“Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, Lori.”

“Didn’t expect to see you both today.”

You go to speak, but she continues quickly.

“I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk to you both about something. Come in, come in.”

You look at Bucky, realising suddenly that your chest is filled with a foreign anxiety. It’s his.

You squeeze his hand chastely as you walk past him to enter the house, kicking off your shoes in the hallway.

There’s something in the atmosphere when you walk into the living room. The sun is still shining, everything is in its rightful place… but it feels wrong. You know Bucky feels it too, judging by the way his muscles tense next to you.

“Is everything alright, Mama?”

You hate the way your voice sounds like a child’s, small and naive. Your Dad is sat on the couch waiting, always happy to see you. You press a kiss to his cheek before taking a seat across from him, Bucky sitting next to you. Your Mom joins your Dad, both of them looking at you with too much compassion for a normal day.

“What are you two doing here?” your Dad asks, voice still full of light.

Something inside of you is telling you to abort mission, postpone until further notice. You listen to it, wondering for a second if somehow you and Bucky can send messages to each other telepathically all of a sudden.

“Mama said you needed to talk to me. To us.”

He looks taken aback, only for a second. Something like sadness flashes in his eyes before he paints that familiar smile right back on his face.

“Yeah, we do. You sure you don’t wanna tell us why you’re here, first?”

“It can wait,” you reassure, catching Bucky’s minute nod from the corner of your eye.

“Okay,” your Mom begins. “First of all, I need to tell you not to panic, okay? It’s going to seem super scary, but it isn’t.”

Bucky slides closer to you by a millimetre, but you feel it like it’s a mile.

“I don’t really know how to tell you this, honey, so we’ll just start from the beginning. Jack?”

Your Dad nods before taking over the storytelling.

“It all started last year. I was doing some work in the backyard. One minute I was mowing the lawn, the next I was lying on the ground.”

All of the colour drains from your cheeks, and Bucky slides ever so slightly closer again.

“We thought maybe it was heat stroke, or dehydration. No cause for concern, and nothing your Mom’s iced tea couldn’t fix.”

She takes his hand in hers, both of them with their eyes fixed on you.

“But then it happened again. In the shower, this time. I didn’t hit my head, luckily, but I did whack my shoulder against the tiles, which hurt like hell.”

He laughs, and so does your Mom, but you’re not sure what’s funny. Anxiety is rolling off you in waves so strong, Bucky’s worried he might pass out.

Your Mom takes back the reigns, continuing.

“I was insistent that he saw a doctor, which he was reluctant about. Luckily, he agreed, finally,” she gives him a look, “and we got referred to a specialist.”

“What kind of specialist?” you choke out. It feels like someone is sitting on your chest, constricting your lungs with every passing minute.

“A cardiologist.”

It seems to be that word that unravels everything for you. All you can think is cardiologist heart attack cardiologist surgery cardiologist. Serious. Serious. Serious.

“Sweetheart?”

You grab Bucky’s hand, praying that the familiar touch will ground you back down to Earth. When it doesn’t, you feel like you’re falling, down and down and down with no end in sight.

“Honey, it’s okay. Hey, listen to me. You’re okay.”

Your Mom sits down on the other side of you as your Dad kneels down, forcing you to look at him.

“Sweetheart, don’t panic, okay? Everything’s going to be fine. I know it’s scary, but I’m okay.”

“For now,” you whisper, limp in your throat forming.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, and I know it’s probably not what you were expecting us to say. We thought we’d wait until we had answers to tell you… but it’s taking longer than expected. Which is why we’re telling you now. We don’t want you to feel like you’re in the dark.”

Bucky’s running his thumb over the lines on your palm, reassuring and steady. He knows exactly how to comfort you, like a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders. If you listen carefully enough, you can hear the drumming beat of his heart. You tune into it, letting the familiar rhythm calm you down.

“Sorry,” you murmur. “I’m being dramatic.”

“You’re not being dramatic,” your Mom responds, squeezing her hand over your knee. “It’s overwhelming. And we’ve just… thrown it at you, with no warning. It’s a lot to take in.”

You’re anxious and scared and completely lost. You’re also safe and home and completely surrounded by love from all sides.

“I’m okay,” you nod, taking a deep breath.

Your parents return to their couch across from you, but Bucky’s hand doesn’t let go of yours. If they think it’s strange, they don’t say anything. You have a feeling they’re a little preoccupied.

“Now what?”

“Your Dad is still undergoing tests to get to the root of the issue. Whatever they find, we know we’ll all be okay.”

“Your Mom’s right. I have an appointment this afternoon for an EKG. They’re trying to rule things out slowly. We’ll get to the bottom of it, sweetheart.”

“Are you okay?” you ask, suddenly realising you’ve accidentally made this about you.

“I’m fine,” he laughs. “Seriously. I know it’s scary, but I feel good in myself for the most part. The most annoying thing is that I can’t predict it - it just happens. Very inconvenient, if you ask me.”

Your parents laugh, and this time, you try to chuckle with them.

“You’ll keep us updated, won’t you?”

Bucky’s voice surprises you, somehow. His fingers are still intertwined with yours, but you’ve been so focused on your Dad, you almost forgot he was there.

“Of course, Buck.”

“And if you ever need a ride to an appointment or anything, all you gotta do is ask, alright?”

“You offering to take me on your motorcycle?”

“Sure,” Bucky laughs.

“Absolutely not,” your Mom says at the same time.

You chuckle for real, now. This feels like normality - the four of you, joking around. You have to remind yourself, sometimes, that Bucky knew your Dad before he ever knew you. You were away at culinary school when they met, but you were told stories instantly about this new guy in town who bought the old Garage and drives a cool truck. Your Mom, of course, didn’t fail to mention his big blue eyes and chocolate brown hair, or the way his shirt hugged his biceps. You thought she was exaggerating, when she said he was handsome.

Oh, how wrong you were.

You’re one hundred percent sure you’ve never met a more beautiful person. Maybe it’s your Tethering talking. Maybe it isn’t. You’re not unaware of the way people look at Bucky - he’s got this old school movie star thing going on, and people seem to eat it up. You get it. You get it more than anyone.

But it isn’t his pretty face that makes your heart skip a beat. It’s just him. Him, with his contagious smile and healing laugh and observant eyes. Him, with his confident demeanour but gentle touch, his mind reading abilities, his talent for making you feel like you’re the only person in the room. He’s a rarity, Bucky Barnes. A diamond in the rough. You remind yourself everyday how lucky you are.

He knocks his knee into yours, pulling you out of your daydream. He gives you a look that asks are you okay? to which you nod subtly in reply. A conversation, somehow both silent and loud.

“As much as I’d love to stay here all day, we should get ready to go. My appointment is soon.”

Your Dad strides over to you, wrapping you in his arms. You instantly feel like a little girl again, safe and protected no matter what. You bury your face into his chest a little more, inhaling the familiar scent of your home.

“Everything’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispers into your hair. “Promise.”

You nod against him, tightening your arms ever so slightly. He gives you a squeeze, letting you know he got the message.

As you’re putting your shoes on in the hallway, you can hear your Dad and Bucky chatting away about the baseball game from the previous night, routine easily resumed. Your Mom brushes your hair back from your face, looking at you carefully.

“I almost forgot why you came here in the first place, babygirl. What’s up? What did you want to tell us?”

Your heart skips a beat and Bucky feels it, glancing over to you with concern in his ocean blue eyes.

“It’s okay, Mama. It can wait.”

She raises her eyebrows in scepticism.

“Promise,” you reassure. “Another day.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but lets it go anyway, pressing a kiss to your cheek gently.

“We’ll call you after his appointment and let you know what they say. We love you. So much.”

You hug her fiercely, realising that you don’t do it often enough.

“Love you guys. More than anything.”

Bucky gives you a nod that tells you he’s ready to go, both of you leaving a little different than you entered.

“Call us as soon as you get out of that room, okay?”

“We will, Buck,” your Dad laughs, mock saluting his best friend.

Bucky chuckles, falling into step next to you as you walk down the driveway. You make your way down the street, out of your parents view, before your knees give out. He manages to catch you just in time, strong arms wrapped around your middle. You both sit on the kerbside, Bucky rubbing soft patterns into your back through your shirt.

“Baby, hey. You okay? Talk to me.”

You take a deep breath, looking at him with watery eyes.

“What if it’s bad, Buck?” you whisper. “I can’t do this without him. He’s the best Dad in the world.”

Bucky pulls you closer, fitting you into his side perfectly. Two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, made for each other.

“They don’t lie to you, honey. They’d tell you if it was really serious. All you can do is wait, and hope everything will be okay. Which it will.”

You rest your head on his shoulder, letting his warmth calm you down.

“My Mama knows something.”

“Like what?”

“About us. She didn’t say anything, but I could see it on her face. She didn’t push it any further, but she was definitely suspicious.”

“We’ll tell her soon. Give it a little more time.”

You nod, wrapping your arms around his bicep tightly. He presses a kiss into your hair, inhaling the scent of your shampoo as he does it.

“Let’s go home, hmm? We can sit in the sun for a while, chop up that pineapple we bought yesterday.”

“Sounds perfect,” you whisper, looking up at him.

The afternoon hits his face just right, all warm yellow light and soft angles on his cheeks. The intermittent salty breeze ruffles his hair, all fluffy and sea swept. He looks like an ancient statue, a work of art from the renaissance, a museum piece. The sun could burn out tomorrow, but you’ll have a life source forever. Your Soulmate.

Bucky takes your hands in his and helps you to your feet, heavy arm slung over your shoulders as you walk back to the truck.

Your light in the dark. Your water in the desert. You’ve never been more grateful for him.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

“Close your eyes.”

Bucky’s driving you home, the sound of the ocean waves hitting the shore a replacement for the radio.

“What?”

“Close your eyes, sugar. I want to show you something.”

“How are you gonna show me if my eyes are shut?”

He chuckles, pinching your thigh.

“Just shut up and close your eyes.”

You smile gently before doing as he says, covering your face with your hands for good measure.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. You’ll like it, I promise.”

You relax back into the seat, allowing the breeze from the open window to whip through your hair. Eventually you come to a stop, Bucky clicking off your seatbelt for you.

“Keep ‘em closed.”

Bucky sprints around to the passenger side, swinging open the door and wrapping his arms around you. He practically carries you out of the car, ensuring you don’t trip while you have no vision. He plants you on two feet, making sure you’re steady before he lets go of you.

“Okay. Open your eyes.”

You blink slowly, adjusting to the brightness of the afternoon.

You’re in the middle of nowhere. The two of you are stood on a huge, grassy plot of land, overlooking a small cove of the beach. You’re tucked completely out of the way, not a neighbour to be seen. All you can hear is the ocean, the birds, and the sound of your thumping heartbeat.

“Where are we, Buck? It’s pretty.”

He takes your hand, looking out towards the water.

“This is gonna be our house.”

Your head whips around in shock, confusion written all over your face.

“What?”

Your voice is barely above a whisper, but Bucky hears it, clear as day.

“I bought this land years ago, when I moved to town. I always knew I wanted to build a place of my own, but I could never get the plans off the ground. Something didn’t feel right. And then our Tethering happened…”

He squeezes your hand tightly, pulling you into his side.

“And everything fell into place. I was waiting for the right moment to show you, and it feels like you needed it today.”

You can’t speak. You’re completely lost for words, looking out at the perfect view. Turning to him, you throw your arms around his neck, burying your face in the crook of it and inhaling.

“Thank you,” you murmur into his skin. “It’s so perfect. You’re so perfect.”

“I’m so lucky,” he chuckles. “My God, you were worth the wait. I’d wait another ten lifetimes if I meant I got to love you again for one of them.”

You’re glad he’s holding onto you, or you’re convinced your legs would give out. You lean up to press a kiss to his lips, savouring the spearmint on his tongue.

“I love you,” you pray into his mouth. “I love you so much I can barely breathe.”

He kisses you back, harder, determined to show you exactly how he feels about you. Your fingers tangle into his hair, making him groan as you tug. His hands slide down to your ass, gripping harshly as he pulls you into his front. He wants every inch of you pressed together.

When you pull away, he rests his forehead against yours.

“You can have anything you want, you know.”

“Hmm?”

“With the house. I know we talked about it that night, at dinner in California. But if you think of anything else you’d like, all you gotta do is tell me.”

“One storey or two?”

“I was always thinking two.”

“Then I’d like a balcony, on the master bedroom. I love mine back at my apartment, especially in the summer.”

“Done,” he confirms, pecking your lips again.

“And a porch,” you whisper. “That we can sit on and watch the waves, when we’re old and grey.”

“I’ll be grey a lot sooner than you,” he jokes.

“You’re a lot more relaxed than me,” you laugh. “So I doubt that, actually.”

You rest your head on his warm chest, both of you swaying to the song of the ocean.

“We’ve got plenty of time, Buck.”

“All the time in the world, honey girl.”

The two of you stay wrapped in each other for a little while longer, enjoying the company of the one person you were destined for.

You can’t remember why you were ever so against soulmates. Loving Bucky is the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

The two of you spend the rest of the afternoon curled up on the balcony, letting the sun warm you from the outside in.

“Pineapple will always remind me of those margaritas,” Bucky smiles, throwing a piece into his mouth. “Our first date.”

“And last, apparently,” you laugh. “We haven’t been on one since.”

“I mean, we sort of date everyday, right?”

“Yeah, I guess we do. After we’ve told my parents, we don’t have to worry anymore. We can go out whenever we want, whenever we want.”

“Exactly,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss you tenderly. “Not long now.”

The sound of your phone ringing startles you both, your hand flying out to find it in the cushions of the loveseat.

“Hello?”

“Oh, thank God. I half thought you were dead.”

“Not dead, Lacie. Just busy.”

She laughs, and you realise suddenly how much you’ve missed that sound.

“You’re back in town, right?”

“Yeah, just for a few more days. Then I’m gonna go back to Cali and pack up my stuff for good.”

“Perfect! Me and you are doing dinner tomorrow night. I want you to meet Cameron.”

“Really? Finally! I’m so excited, Lace. Your place, or are we going out?”

“Come to mine. Cam is the best cook, seriously. I’ve gotta run, we’re picking out a couch today. A couch, babe! Can you believe it?”

“Happy couch shopping, you two,” you laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you, bestie! Bye!”

You can’t help but smile when you hang up the phone.

“She’s gonna love having you back home again, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yeah. I can’t wait to see her more. I know she’s been so busy with her soulmate and me with work and with you, but I miss her like crazy. We text all the time, but it isn’t the same.”

“She knows about us, right?”

“Yeah,” you giggle. “She was the first person I told.”

“Thought so,” he laughs, pulling you back into his side. “Knew you wouldn’t be able to keep it from her for long.”

“She can practically read my mind. It was easier to avoid the truth over the phone, but the minute I saw her in person, I crumbled. She gives me this look, and I’m done for.”

Bucky chuckles fondly, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“I can’t wait to get to know her properly.”

“Oh, she’s gonna love you.”

“I hope so.”

“She will, trust me. She used to talk about how hot you were all the time. Pre-Cameron, of course.”

“I’m glad you’re finally getting to meet him.”

“Me too. I feel guilty, you know. It was the biggest moment of her life, and all of a sudden I’m up and leaving across the country, barely keeping in touch through scattered text messages. I was so wrapped up in you and in work, that I wasn’t there for her like I should have been.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand if you say this to her, honey baby. You have to remember that her Tethering was a lot less complicated than ours. They just got on with things, as easy as can be.”

“I guess you’re right,” you murmur into his chest. “I’ll tell her all of this when I see her tomorrow.”

He wraps both arms around you, pulling you impossibly closer. You relax instantly, the warmth of his skin and familiarity of his touch soothing you like melted honey.

Your phone rings again.

“I bet it’s Lacie moving the plans around,” you chuckle. “She always underestimates how long it takes her to get everything ready.”

You find your phone from under the cushion and answer it.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Mama?”

“Where are you?”

The sun disappears behind a cloud, sending a shiver down your spine.

“I’m at home.”

“I need you to go and get Bucky, and come to the hospital.”

Your heart stops in your chest, and Bucky has to breathe for the both of you.

“Why?” you ask, barely above a whisper.

“I’ll explain when you get here, but it’s more serious than we thought.”

She sounds scared, which in turn terrifies you. She’s the bravest person you know, your Mom. If she’s afraid, you know it’s bad.

“Okay,” you choke out. “I’m leaving right now. I, uh, I’ll get Bucky, and - do you need anything? Does Dad? I can bring whatever… whatever you need, what do you need?”

“Nothing, baby girl. Just you guys, for now, okay?”

“Okay. Yeah, okay. I, uh, I- I- I’ll leave right now. Where is he?”

“Follow the signs for Cardiology when you get here. Room 4.”

“He’s in a room? In a bed? Mama, please. What’s happening?”

You’ve never heard your voice sound so weak. You’re kicking yourself internally - you have to be strong for her. You need to be.

“Baby, just get here as soon as you can, okay? Get Bucky to drive. I love you.”

“I love you too. So much.”

You try to hang up the phone, but your hands are shaking so much that you’re unable to press the red button. Bucky does it for you, intertwining your fingers with his.

He pulls you to your feet, smoothing your hair back from your face.

“It’s all going to be okay, honey. Put your shoes on and grab your purse. I’ll get my keys.”

He kisses your forehead gently, letting his lips linger for a second before pulling you inside and shutting the balcony door.

He doesn’t let go of your hand the entire time, even as you drive to the hospital.

You feel like you’re drowning. Repeatedly slipping beneath the surface of the water, lungs heaving, desperate to stay afloat.

Bucky feels it, too. All he can do is hold your hand and hope for the best.

All he can do is hold your hand and hope for the best.

tag list part one

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koiiiji · 6 months ago

Text

being in big deals from beginning with Sinu, but leaving with Samuel after

pairing ; samuel seo x reader x jake kim

tw ; polyamorous, mfm, possessive! samuel

author note ; my first time writing for lookism and for this two, also im on chapter 343 only, so if something not accurate enough im sorry!! ALSO celebrating 400 followers!! and even tho ask box is closed, i still want to do something nice for you, so if you want you can leave your requests for SHMOL sketches under, i will do it super short and put it in one post!! lookism and windbreaker💋✨💐🤸🏼‍♀️

author note 2 ; not proofed, i wrote it after work with one eye open, so i just throw it to chat gpt to check any mistakes, if you find any you know who you can judge😤🫸🏻

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈౨ৎ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

⋆𐙚₊˚ you have been with big deals even before Jake and Samuel joined, which means you were more close with Sinu, who was like a older brother figure for you

⋆𐙚₊˚ you always were good with calculating and make predictions so you literally was the reason why big deals didn’t have any debts to any other gangs or companies

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Jake and Samuel joined big deals they firstly didn't pay too much attention, just another girl spinning around Sinu, nothing new

⋆𐙚₊˚ but then they started to notice that you always appears at every meeting, even if it were just for big deal, not including girls who work on their street, always whispering something on Sinu ear and checking some papers

⋆𐙚₊˚ it was slow burn in beginning, they payed you more attention on meetings, started more small talks time to time, as soon as they caught that you are actual part of big deals. also, later they learned that you actually liked Sinu as older brother, and that was the moment when they start... acting…

⋆𐙚₊˚ of course you had your small moments together before. like you accidentally fall asleep on Jake’s shoulder when everybody celebrated another holiday, or when you asked both of them to show you some actions, - in case if you will be alone on the street, so you can protect yourself - and seemed that Samuel got a little carried away and pushed you too hard, but catching you by your wrist just moment before your head was about to hit the ground

⋆𐙚₊˚ there were always that moments between three of you

⋆𐙚₊˚ but first one who started to show off were Samuel

⋆𐙚₊˚ he already were jealous over the fact that Sinu choosed Jake as his favourite one, so he can’t let Jake to have yours attention as well. later it will be worse, when he will learn who Jake’s father was

⋆𐙚₊˚ Samuel would always flirt with you making it crystally clear that he likes you, and you wouldn't even notice it because of amount of work for big deals and of homework you still had in school

⋆𐙚₊˚ and when Samuel brutally flirts with you, trying to get your attention, Jake would snort, turning his eyes somewhere else, trying to ignore it and telling Jerry to "stop say stupid stuff like this" when he, once again tried to push his boss to admit his feelings towards you

⋆𐙚₊˚ for Jake it's complicating because he see how Samuel likes you, so he doesn’t want to ruin everything even tho he himself had so many feelings towards you

⋆𐙚₊˚ and Jake waited for too long...

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Samuel took leading position in big deals you were forced to stay by leader side to help him earn as much money as possible to pay to big four, but when Samuel left big deals for workers he asked you to go with him

⋆𐙚₊˚ Samuel was far from gentle man, but when his huge arms hugged your shoulders from behind, softly murmuring into your ear to come with him in new gang, to join him and stay by his side, offering you simply better life, where you won't need to calculate how to save more money until next month, where you will be able to buy expensive clothes, where you can offer yourself jut... more... it was hard to resist to Samuel espesially when you lived your whole life expecting how to safe money to the next month and economize as much as you can

⋆𐙚₊˚ so thats how you left big deals with Samuel, still with heavy heart for Sinu and big deals in general

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake was feral when Jerry told him that. in his head it was more like Samuel forced you. oh, Jake were fully aware that Samuel were able to use power over girls, and Jake blamed himself for the fact that you had to leave the big deals

⋆𐙚₊˚ when you and Samuel become part of workers, he won’t let you go far away from him. you would be his personal assistant and manager. everything but always by his side. you always. by his side. always. Samuel even went that far that he rent big apartments for both of you, of course with separate rooms, you still didn’t accept his feelings and were naive about what kind of emotion you rise in him

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake tried to contact you few times but, oh wow, what a surprise, Samuel always were the one to pick up the phone, telling him to leave you alone

⋆𐙚₊˚ to say less Jake felt terrible back then, things that happened to Sinu, Gun Park and his big four gangs, praises about money and the heir at his place, big deals, everything at one time…

⋆𐙚₊˚ and then prison… Jake felt like biggest loser on this planet

⋆𐙚₊˚ and he would never wish you to see all horrors of this place, but here you are sitting on the other side of safety glass, looking too beautiful to place like this, too pretty in your fitted white shirt and pleated skirt. Jerry probably yanked you right out of the office. another self note - to chastise Jerry next time for bringing you to place like this

⋆𐙚₊˚ “Jake… im sorry, i had no idea what happened to you” you murmured softly into the receiver of the phone connecting the two sides. “Samuel never said anything about that… I was shocked when Jerry just caught me near office and crammed me in the car”

⋆𐙚₊˚ after that day, you came to Jake more often, slipping away from Samuel under the pretext that you wanted to meet an old friend from school and he didn't need to attend girls' gatherings

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Jake finally got out of prison, one of the first things that he did was ask you to eat ramen together. you told him everything about your new life, that now you live with Samuel and he takes care about everything, starting with payments for apartments, finishing with fuel for car, as he always ready to ride you to any part of city

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake felt feral when you told him whole story.

⋆𐙚₊˚ not only that bastard not tell you what happened to Jake, but he also controlled the calls and forced you to live with him. Jake knew what Samuel's feelings were for you, even if you perceived his care and relationship as friendly or brotherly, Jake still guessed what was behind it. but he never imagined that his friend would get to the point where he would keep you with him 24/7 and secretly control your phone calls from anybody from big deals

⋆𐙚₊˚ after that meeting Jake knew that he can’t offer you to stay at his small room he rent, even if he really wanted you to stay more by his side. he didn't tell you about his guesses about Samuel, you don't have to worry, yet you were safer with him than with Jake now. the only thing he did before sending you home in a taxi was hug you so tightly - tightly, it seems that his hands were a little lower than he should have allowed himself, and his hot breath was a little off when his lips were too close to your neck.

⋆𐙚₊˚ in the end, Jake pushed your hair off your forehead, and pressed his lips firmly to your forehead, shut his eyes and quietly promised himself to deal with Samuel later

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈౨ৎ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

#[ ~ koi.talks🗣]#lookism #lookism imagines #lookism headcanons #lookism x reader #lookism webtoon #lookism manhwa #lookism thoughts #jake kim #samuel seo #jake kim x reader #jake kim x reader x samuel seo #samuel seo headcanons #lookism samuel #lookism jake #samuel seo x reader

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temis-de-leon · 8 months ago

Text

Replaced MC AU/AU - V.3 - P.1

Characters: demon brothers, Diavolo, Barbatos, male! MC and crushing! male! NES (MC x NES)

Main Masterlist

Replaced MC AU/AU Masterlist (check the other versions and learn more about the NESs!)

Intro (gn!reader) , Part 2

CW: Solomon is mentioned, jealous and mean brothers, black cat x golden retriever behavior i think, one single kiss, a bit ambiguous at the end, not very angsty really, NES x MC centered

A/N: my favourite version of NES and MC by far, I enjoyed writing this a lot. However, my pc came out as homophobic and decided not to connect to any WiFi for this chapter, so I won't be able to update the links nor the masterlist until next week. Also, some people aren't properly tagged once again because I can't find their blogs for some reason?? So so sorry for that, but I don't know what to do about it.

NES was… someone they didn't expect. Unknowingly infuriating, always distracted and too unbothered to care about any of his surroundings. He was a disaster that enjoyed living in disaster and, if they weren't threatened by his presence, Satan and Belphegor would love his insolence.

Barbatos remembered an occasion, one moment from the second week of NES's attendance at RAD, where Lucifer gave him an earful for his ‘impropriety and insulting attitude towards the uniform’. Mammon had been there too, shirt out of his pants and jacket nowhere near closed, backing his brother up.

NES’s pristine appearance lasted only two periods before MC saw him chocking under his tie and laughed at him in sympathy. After that, he'd only wear the uniform ‘the Lucifer way’ if MC was there to eventually mess up the outfit.

And how could the eldest brother object to that?

“They need to loosen up, Lucifer”

MC always had the last word.

Solomon found the situation hilarious. Witnessing the brothers competing against each other in search of MC's attention was one thing, but adding NES to the equation? Yes, Barbatos had to somewhat agree. It was funny.

Who had been cooking for hours in the kitchen if not NES trying to make a quick snack for his fellow human? And who was the first one to leave the House of Lamentation each morning, already waiting next to MC’s seat by the time everyone else arrived?

Mammon called him a simp. Asmo liked to call them both the kettle and the pot.

And while, yes, Lucifer was the one and only Avatar of Pride, none of the brothers were able to admit just how big of a deal NES was becoming.

When would it be too late?

The Demon Prince's birthday arrived and the mandatory celebration was as grandiose as one could expect. Everything was bright and full of laughter, the streets cramped with food stalls, demons and witches alike throwing mesmerizing magic tricks for the children, acrobats, costumes, music…

At one point MC considered handcuffing himself to NES. Even Luke was easier to manage!

Fortunately, Beel ended up finding him playing darts with a succubus and her partners. Unfortunately, MC seemed to be the only one who wanted to check if he was okay.

It was becoming… draining.

Not NES, of course. Sure, he was a handful, but none of his mistakes were intentional. Everything he did came from naiveness and ignorance, being new to the Devildom, and what he lacked in common sense he made up in enthusiasm.

At least he didn't steal his valuables and he’d never threatened to kill him or eat his heart, something MC still thought about frequently. The worst thing NES ever did to him was throw them both to the ground when he tried to slide on the floor at full speed. And he still apologized for that from time to time.

Did the brothers ever apologize for all the things they did or said? The way they used to look at him? He couldn't remember.

Now they were doing the exact same thing to NES. Treating him like an unwanted guest instead of the roommate they insisted on having, turning down every single one of his ideas, including the good ones, and very passively threatening him in a condescending tone, as if they could impress MC with that.

Maybe it was a demon thing? Or rather regular jealousy brought to a dangerous level?

Whatever the reason, MC didn't waste any time sitting them in the living room and chewing the hell out of them, something that enraged Lucifer and put a strain in their relationship, still making it difficult to make small talk, but of course none of them would back down. The rest of the brothers weren't so obvious showing their annoyance, but it was still there.

The good thing was that, as long as MC was there, NES wouldn't be the receiving end of any bullshit. The bad thing was that MC didn't know what was going on behind his back. And NES, bless his soul, was never willing to tell him if any of them made him uncomfortable.

It was draining and NES gave him a sense of peace, but the brothers missed him and they wanted to monopolize his time, but MC wanted to spend time with his new friend and that made the brothers angry and jealous, which made MC anxious, which made NES worry.

Every factor made the situation worse. The brothers were too much, NES was too good for the Devildom and MC was too done with everything.

However, the time passed surprisingly fast as they sang Happy Birthday to Diavolo, eating in the midst of it all, dancing with each other and talking like they used to do before the ridiculous ordeal, albeit with a subtle tension that limited their topics of conversation.

They even ignored NES! Which was better than any other option!

So, once the voices toned down and the guests divided themselves into small groups, MC forced himself to whisk Diavolo away for a moment and have a serious talk, Barbatos following close and listening with a curious glance.

That proved to be nothing but a waste of time.

“It's too soon to take conclusions, MC. I'm sure the brothers just need time. After all, remember your first year here!”

He did remember. That's why he was so worried.

And why did Diavolo talk to him like that? He was 100% sure Lucifer insulted NES to no end anytime he had more than one horn of Demonus. What did they call NES in the privacy of their office? What did they think while they talked to him and faked respect? What were they plotting when they looked MC in the eyes and promised him they wouldn't threaten NES anymore?

Too many lies.

“Alo?”

But then… NES smiled so easily… Like none of that bothered him. Luckily, MC didn't mind caring in his behalf. He wondered if being able to save someone from the fate he had last year was the root of all his actions.

“You look so worried, you're gonna get all wrinkly! Not like you'd look bad, but if you're going to have wrinkles, won't you rather have them in your eyes? Like, from smiling too much, you know?”

He did smile then, imitating NES’s caring expression.

“There you are, handsome! You're gonna be the envy of all in 90 years!”

“Do you really think I'm going to live that much?”

“God, I hope so”

They laughed softly, but it still sounded too loud. MC looked out for the brothers, checking their positions in the ballroom before grabbing NES’s hand and dragging him to one of the balconies. He preferred not having the moment tarnished.

“Good idea! Too hot in there…"

“Don't lie to me”

“Wha…?”

MC stared at him quite sternly, although trying not to look to much like Lucifer, but he needed an answer.

“Do they still bother you? Do they threaten you? Do they ignore you? What do they do?”

“Whoa, whoa, MC. Here comes the frown again…”

He raised his hands, caressing MC’s frown until it softened. His touch was warm and soft and it made MC lean towards him, not wanting it to end. When he opened his eyes again, unknowingly closing them before, NES stayed in that position.

There was silence for a few seconds, interrupted only by the violins, the harps, the pianos and other instruments serenading them under the moonlight. NES could only stare at MC’s lips for a fragment of a second before someone grabbed the scruff of their necks with poorly hidden aggressiveness and brought them back to the ballroom.

MC raised his gaze in fury, bending down to help NES get up again. He expected to see red eyes and black feathers, but, to his surprise, what stared back at him were purple eyes and a long bovine tail.

He wanted to scream at him, to ask what the actual fuck was wrong with him. Would he had acted the same if it was one of his brothers instead of NES? Would he had such hate in his eyes?

But people were staring, very obviously amused at the sight of two humans being put back in place.

MC would have to wait.

“NES! What happened?!”

MC watched as the boy waved at him, hanging upside down where Mammon usually spent countless hours. His arms were tied behind his back and the rope covered his body in a way that surely left no room for the blood to circulate properly. His head already looked dangerously red and MC knew he couldn't leave him there for too long unless he wanted him to have permanent damage.

“I think I failed my last test, but I don't really remember”

“What do you mean you don't remember?”

“Well, I'm very dizzy right now, but I'm sure it's okay. Lucifer will get me out of here soon enough”

Or he won't.

MC sighed, cursing in silence before studying the thick ropes and the tight knots. He knew he wouldn't be able to untie him by hand and he wouldn't be surprised if the kitchen suddenly lacked knives, no doubt the result of Lucifer's pettiness and sadism.

“Wait for me here, okay? I have to get something to cut the ropes…”

“Wait, wait! MC!”

He turned around, patiently staring at his loopy smile and cloudy eyes. He couldn't wait for too long, but maybe he could indulge a couple of minutes.

“What?”

NES briefly looked away, his embarrassment gaining MC’s attention. Now that was a rare sight.

“Have you seen Spiderman?”

His heart stopped for a second and he felt his cheeks getting hot. His hand, previously grasping his hip, fell to his side and made him lose balance.

“You can say no, of course. We can forget about this and I won't get offended. A little sad maybe, but I can manage. I like you too much to stop liking you for a kiss. Does that sound weird? You get me, right?”

His rambling gave MC the opportunity to go down a couple of steps in the staircase and align his face in front of NES’s. The position was weird and staring at his chin was an experience he didn't know he would get the chance to live, but he didn't care.

It wasn't until he finally kissed him mid-sentence that he noticed a figure peeking around the corner, eyes staring without blinking and jealousy ready to made itself known.

Accepting the challenge, MC closed his eyes and grasped NES’s hair, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.

Dinner that night would be fucking awkward.

Taglist: : @stfuchaase @k1-an @meggs-wonderland @kkeromenoo @va109 @marvelous-maniac @cruzerforce4256 @blarsh @marathedemonoverlord @junni-berry @arylleb @b-a-m-2006 @jonielunar @piercedddriver @cosmidaydreaming @bluegrey02 @anxious-chick

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midnightorchids · 6 months ago

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Hey babe- I wanted to know how you felt about booknerd!reader x Jason. Because it's been rotting my brain forever now and I need to know what someone as genius as yourself thinks about it. So like- We know Jason is a book girl. He's got huge floor to ceiling shelves in his apartment filled with non-fiction, historical fiction, classics, and maybe a few Si-Fi titles. I feel like he would love Toni Morison, Maya Angelou, Henrik Isben, Margret Atwood, and maybe even Harukai Murakami. He has this beautiful collection of leather bond additions of the Iliad Bruce gave him when he was 16. And when he finally invites you over, he cannot contain his excited smile as you start gushing over his home library. He makes you guys coffee and you spend hours talking about your fav genres, authors, online author drama - and after he's walking back to his apartment after dropping you off, he's smiling down at his phone at the message you sent. 'I had so much fun today! Ur library is so so so cool, was wondering if you would be ok going with me to Chapters next week? Wanted to pick up the new Skyward book' He's kicking his feet and hiding his face in his pillow. So deeply overjoyed that his crush shares in his immense love of literature. After you guys officially get together, he buys you so many fucking books. He fallows your goodreads wishlist religiously and surprises you almost every month with a new addition to your growing collection. He usually collects used paper backs, but for you, he splurges on the hardcover special additions. Of course it's because he loves you but it's also so that, maybe, you'll be more incentivised to move into a different apartment. One with floor-to-ceiling book shelves and a shared bed... just saying.. He branches out into more genres and authors he wouldn't usually read from just so he could talk about your favourite books with you. You do the same - your book collections getting mixed together in the process. Library dates, bookstore dates, used-bookstore dates. Your first couple of dates and realisations of love happened in and around books. You would always leave little messages inside the first page of the books you give him. So that if your every away or he's on a mission and he takes a book with him, he'll have one of your small messages of love as a reminder of something to return home to.

Hi hon!! I’m so sorry for the late response, I’ve been dying with uni and just life in general recently, but I’m back and ready to write again!! But I agree with pretty much everything that you said, like you’ve written it out so well and it’s just so cute! I was literally giggling and kicking my feet at the last one omg. I shall try to add more stuff!!

Jason’s go to present for his loved ones is annotated copies of his favourite books. He only does this when he feels comfortable with a person because sharing his thoughts feels raw and vulnerable sometimes.

Having a significant other who loves to read and appreciates these types of gifts would make him feel happy and very emotional. It’s not often he gets to share this side of himself with people.

When he gifts his copies to his friends or his partner, he feels like he’s leaving a piece of him with the person, so he only does this when he trusts you.

He leaves detailed little messages on the margins of his books. He draws little smiley faces on the cute parts and angry faces on the parts that made him upset.

In the books for his significant other, Jason leaves little notes around the quotes that remind him of you. He highlights them in a different colour and makes sure his notes look extra tidy.

He sucks at wrapping things, so sometimes you’ll get a very poorly wrapped, tape covered novel. You’ll look at the wrapping and laugh, you’d pinch his cheeks teasingly and tell him he did a good job. He’d turn his face away in embarrassment, which leads to you placing a gentle kiss on his cheek.

Then, there would be times where he doesn’t have the energy to deal with the horrible wrapping paper. So, you’ll be gifted a plain paper back with a sticky note on the front cover that reads ‘for you,’ in squiggly lines.

It’s honestly sweet and he gets very shy about it.

Also, Jason’s taste in books is very diverse, he reads anything from the classics to romance to gothic horror. He reads anything and everything and because of that, I think that it would be very easy for you to share your thoughts and recommendations with him.

Even if Jason hasn’t read the book, he listens intently with a huge smile on his face. He loves listening to you talk. If he doesn’t know the author or the book, he will try to familiarize himself with what you’re reading and branch into different genres.

There would be lots of reading and bookstore dates. You’d browse through the different aisles with his hand in yours, only letting go when a particular book catches your attention. He watches you in awe as you gush about the different series.

(Side note, my friends and I always go to bookstores and just point out the worst books we’ve read and I think Jason would do that too.)

As you search through the shelves to find your next read, he’ll come to you all excited, rambling about the book in his hand. From the looks of it, it seems like he loves the book. His hands are moving around, he’s smiling and giggling, but if you pay attention, he’s actually just cussing out the author.

This becomes a tradition in your relationship. You both bring up books that you hate instead of the ones that you really enjoy. You’d spend the next hour of your bookstore visit just giggling at the random passages that the author thought were good enough to share with the world.

I think this would also lead to a book club of reading awful books sometimes just for shits and giggles. There would be weeks where you would read amazing, well written stories together, but then there would be times when you guys would pick up something bad just to make fun of it.

Overall, Jason would love having a book nerd significant other because he finally has someone who he can geek out with.

#gn!reader #jason todd #red hood #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood imagine #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanon #batfam

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sundrop-writes · 6 months ago

Text

One Moment Per Episode With Dick Grayson

Season One, Episode One: "Titans"

Summary:

You and Dick haven't spoken since the Titans parted ways in San Francisco five years ago.

Even though you used to be as close as two people can be, both of you are doing just fine leading your own separate lives - until your psychic powers cause you to have a vision of the end of the world, and you have to turn to him for help. As much as Dick doesn't want to get involved, you know that him leading The Raven on the path she needs to travel is the only way to stop the terrible fate you saw.

He wants to deny it, and stay as far away from you as possible - but he can't avoid you or the truth that you have told him when he runs into that very Raven you speak of in an interrogation room later that night. He has to face a simple truth he has always known: you're always right.

Dick Grayson x Fem!Powered!Reader. Childhood Friends/Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Bantering/Humor. Set during Season 1, Episode 1.

Word Count: 2,300

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: the reader uses she/her pronouns (some people might accuse the reader character in this story of being more of an OC and I am okay with that - I try to make all the reader characters in my other stories as blank and open as possible and every now and then I let myself have a little bit of a treat) - but as usual with my stories, the majority of pronouns used in the fic are you/yours; other than clothing style and a scar that informs her backstory, the reader's looks are not described and are left vague (as far as race, body type, hair colour, etc. - those things are not described); the reader character does have powers - I might make a separate post detailing the reader's entire backstory and power set (or I might just let it be spelled out slowly through the chapters) - but for now, I will tell you that the reader character is psychic and can see glimpses of the future in dream-like visions; the reader and Dick are 'exes' - their relationship was never official (they never explicitly called each other boyfriend/girlfriend), but they used to have sex often (and they both have feelings for each other that they never openly spoke about), and they are childhood friends, so there is a lot of emotional history there; mentions of canon-typical violence; this fic does use Y/N; mentions of the reader being shot during a past undescribed incident; there is references to sex and discussions of sex, but no explicit smut (but there might be some later in the story? idk yet); emotionally constipated Dick Grayson; idk what else ? - pining, emotional angst, using humor to deflect emotional tension, banter. I just really like the vibes of this. there is not a lot of big content warnings for this fic (yet).

A/N: Honestly, I am really excited about this one. I have a lot of ideas for future episodes (especially the episode where Dick loses it emotionally and just gets followed around by a hallucination of Bruce for the entire episode - but that's not until Season 2, oop). Titans is one of my favourite series ever - if you couldn't tell - so getting to examine each episode closer and appreciate each individual episode as a unique piece of art while writing this instead of binging a whole season gives me a whole new appreciation for the show. I hope you guys enjoy these as they come out - especially because I do have an idea of where this fic is going, but I don't know where I want these characters to go in Season 4. (I kind of want to do a secret surprise reveal of two of the characters being related and being siblings, but... idk. Sometimes people don't like that.) But this is definitely a good opportunity to send me ideas of where you want this story to go/how you want it to end up. Anyway - please enjoy!!!

....

Dick needed some fucking air.

He could barely fucking handle today. He had to compose himself before he lost it and started breaking things. It was all such a shitshow - the department pushing a new partner on him, footage of Robin all over the news, every other half-cocked beat cop making comments about how Robin was just another masked psychopath who wasn’t that different from The Joker.

Fuck them.

If they only knew what Gotham was like - if only they had to deal with a department full of asshole’s on the Joker’s payroll. If only they had to watch criminals walk away because they made bail on the decision of a corrupt judge. If only they had to sit behind a desk and listen to a mother’s sobs as she begged for him to find her missing child - knowing how many people elbow to elbow with him would laugh at her tears rather than start looking.

If they only spent one night tending to civilians while the smell of burning flesh permeated the air, with the Joker’s screaming laugh stuck in their ears because he thought that bombing a low-income housing complex was just that funny.

Fuck all of them.

Dick clenched his fist tight - his knuckles aching as he resisted the urge to drive his arm right through the glass at the front of the precinct. He just - he really needed some air.

Dick walked out the front doors (rather than smashing the glass), and took a deep breath of the cool night air, trying his best to calm down. It was getting late, and things were relatively slow, even for it being a Tuesday. No influx of late-night chaos yet. He had some time to collect himself before-

“So - Robin’s in Detroit now, huh?”

That voice.

Dick felt the sting of familiarity pluck at his spine, and he whipped his head around at lightning speed, looking in the direction of the voice. Surely enough - you were the one standing there. It hadn’t been some kind of auditory hallucination on his part.

So much for time to calm himself down.

He was immediately met with a confliction - lust and annoyance bubbling up inside of him. He didn’t want to see you again, he didn’t want you to be here, especially not without warning. But you looked so damn good - it was a distraction from that fact.

That was always the thing about exes, wasn’t it?

(If Dick could even call you his ‘ex’ - the two of you had slept together more times than he could count, both metaphorically and literally, but the two of you had never put an official label on the relationship like he had with Dawn or Barbara. He cared for you like a friend, and like a lover in a way that he was never willing to admit - but did that make you his ex? Especially if he never stopped caring about you?)

That thing about exes being: they always look so fucking good when you see them after a long time of being apart. The universe dangling something in front of you that you’re not allowed to have and technically, should no longer want.

But oh - Dick found himself wanting so very badly. (And he tried his hardest to hide that fact as he continued to carefully stare you down.)

Because you looked so good.

You were wearing something of your usual style - an outfit of many confusing layers that somehow showed off the natural curves of your body and hid you all at the same time.

A long skirt with a ruffled hemline and bold, colorful pattern. A pair of boots that you had probably gotten from some vintage store that were likely older than both you and Dick, leathery and well worn in. Your jacket was much the same - a supple brown leather with a soft fur lining that made you look very warm and cozy.

Topped off with a pair of the largest, gaudiest dangling earrings that Dick had ever seen - the kind that would have gotten snagged on one of his nice shirts and gotten the two of you tangled up during one of your hook-ups. A pair of earrings that he would have scolded you for wearing - but he would have delighted in finding them on his bedroom floor after you left because it meant having a piece of you still with him. And it would mean having an excuse to visit you later because he had something of yours to return.

Those earrings glistened in the light of the street lamps, just as your eyes did while you stared him down with those inquisitive, knowing eyes. Looking at him with that same expression you always wore - the one that seemed to say you knew everything that he never would. It equally fascinated him and infuriated him.

He hated the fact that you had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, causing his heart to race - had you snuck up on him on purpose? Did you find it funny?

“Y/N,” Dick said your name curtly, still feeling a slight twinge of shock that you were standing in front of him at all. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

You let out a dry chuckle, and stepped closer to him, making his whole body stiff. His first instinct was to step backward - to gain more distance from you. But he didn’t want to seem like he was afraid of you - afraid of that closeness. So he forcefully locked his legs and stayed in place as you drifted closer, and you idly conversed back.

“Oh, Dickie.” You sighed in return, using his childhood nickname. “A warm welcome as always.”

Dick rolled his eyes at this. Did he really need to bother with manners and formalities? The two of you had known each other for so long, he guessed that you were both well over stuff like that.

“Do I need a reason to be here? Can’t I just visit an old friend?” You posed, a humorous tone still running through your voice.

He shoved his hands into his pockets as he took a more defensive stance. He quickly went from shock then to annoyance.

The two of you were old friends - you had known each other since you were in diapers together. The two of you had grown up together, raised by a unique circus family. And that meant that Dick knew you well enough to know that if you were here, you had a good reason to be.

(If you had wanted to chase him when he first left Gotham, you likely would have camped out in the trunk of his car, or you would have shown up at his new apartment the day after he moved in. You wouldn’t have waited this long to contact him.)

“Do us both a favor and cut the bullshit, please.” Dick replied sternly. “Why are you here?”

“Grumpy.” You sighed, sounding defeated.

He waited for a moment, and surely enough - you folded, now willing to directly explain your reason for showing up in Detroit so suddenly.

“I had a vision.” You explained. “A girl. The Raven. A lot of others consider her to be the eater of worlds, but she is the one who is going to save us all, Dick.”

He let out a harsh puff of air, reaching up and running fingers roughly over his temple. Yup, there it was - the headache had fully set in now. He really didn’t need this. Not tonight.

He had known about your visions for a long time. When he was younger, he had been shocked to find out that you had inherited your mother’s ‘gift’. He previously had no clue that her set-up as a sideshow fortune teller with Tarot cards and a large crystal ball wasn’t all psychology tricks and half-guesses she put on for tourists - but in fact, it was actually something informed by larger supernatural forces at play. And it was something you could do as well.

So he was inclined to believe you when you told him about this vague vision, but he also didn’t want to be involved. He had a lot on his plate right now - he didn’t need this.

“Look, I’m sure that whatever you saw was important, but-” He began.

You sighed and shook your head harshly at this ‘but’.

“Why don’t you just take it to New York instead? This kind of thing is way more Donna’s speed, anyway. I’m sure she can help you find this girl, and-”

“That won’t help.” You told him. “The girl is already on her way here.”

You spoke the words with such utter certainty, and it sent shivers up Dick’s spine. The calm, tranquil look on your face - the ominous wiseness you held: it reminded Dick so much of your mother. The other-worldly authority she held that had ultimately gotten her killed. It was strangely creepy.

“Just so you know, I hate it when you say ominous shit like that.” Dick told you, gesturing to your person with stiff offense in his body. “Just because your mother played the creepy voodoo witch for tourists doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I’m not playing.” You replied, exasperated.

You knew that Dick could be frightened of your powers at times. He was someone very logic-based - he built his beliefs around facts. So having you follow your visions and your ‘gut feelings’ when they were never concrete, changing on a dime - he hated the uncertainty and chaos that came with it all. But you had learned to trust yourself and your feelings over time, even if he didn’t.

“And you know, you’re involved in this whether you want to be or not.” You told him, trying to get the conversation back on track. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Robin made his first appearance in months last night.”

Dick became stiff at this, and quickly glanced around - as though waiting for someone to appear out of nowhere and point an accusing finger at him, screaming out that he was Robin and he had been caught.

“You can’t help it, Dick Grasyon.” You declared with intense certainty. “You need to save people, you need to feel like you’re making a difference, you-”

“So what, now you expect me to save the whole fucking world?” Dick snapped back.

“She does.” You corrected.

“Who?” He replied - confused and once again annoyed at your mysticism and bold confidence in your visions.

“The Raven.” You told him. “She needs you. And whether you like it or not, you need her.”

You shifted your stance then, waiting for him to tell you that you were right - which was how most of your arguments ended.

But then, as a sick reminder, the lapel of your jacket opened enough for Dick to get a glance at your chest. The neckline of your blouse was wide open, but his eyes weren’t drawn to your cleavage - instead, he became focused on a large scar that you had sitting over your heart. A place where a bullet had ripped through you, leaving you barely alive.

He still remembered the feeling of your blood warm under his hands while you looked up at him with tears in your eyes, begging him to save you. He remembered sitting at your bedside, believing that you would never wake up again.

He couldn’t help but to reach up and gently skim his thumb across the roughness of the scarred skin as he glared at it with a stiff jaw. The touch sent shivers through you - it was the first time he had touched you since that last night in Gotham, when you had woken up to an empty bed and absolutely no explanation as to where he had gone.

Dick felt rage boil inside of him.

How could you ask him to save the world when he had been responsible for this?

This - this was why he was no fucking savior.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He said, choking on the words slightly as he took his hand down, shoving it back into his pocket once again. He had to avoid the temptation of touching you any further.

If you weren’t safe around him, why would some little girl from your visions be?

“This isn’t about me.” You scoffed. “Or-”

‘Or us.’

You held back, knowing how dangerous it was to mention the royal Us around flighty Dick Grayson. For a bird without wings, he was absolutely capable of taking off in a quick moment when he wanted to.

“This is about something so much bigger.” You pressed. “She’ll be here soon.”

Dick let out another strained sigh at you using such ominous words again.

“Well, next time you’re gonna come here and be all ominous and creepy, you should at least bring some coffee.” He told you, sarcasm tight on his lips.

You made a mocking face in return.

“Well, you could be more polite.” You scoffed.

Before Dick could recommend that the two of you go and get a coffee in order to truly catch up, someone called out his name, drawing his attention away from you for a moment.

“Hey, Grayson!” Someone called, sticking their head out the front door. “Prentiss is looking for you!”

When he turned back, you were gone. He tried not to linger on it too much - how creepy it was. You were silent and quick like a ghost - he thought that your ominous jewelry might jingle like a house cat’s bell.

But - he would call you later. Hopefully you still had the same number.

…

Dick walked into the interrogation room, trying to clear his mind of the interaction with you. When he saw a small, scared girl, he thought it best to lighten the mood with a joke.

“Hi, I’m Detective Grayson.” He said, introducing himself. “I hear you like to play baseball with bricks and cop cars. You wanna tell me what happened?”

“You’re him.” She said, whimpering and tearful. “You’re the boy from the Circus.”

At first, Dick thought that everyone was simply being ominous and creepy today. But then he realized:

‘Oh fuck. You were right.’

...

A/N: Please do not ask me when this fic will be updated - this fic does not have a schedule.

While this is technically the first chapter in a 'series', each chapter is meant to be enjoyed on its own. The overarching plot of the series is still that of the original Titans show, and I won't be making any major changes to the canon of the show - I just intend to showcase smaller emotional moments between the reader character and the canon characters. This is something I want to work on casually in the background between working on other things. This fic is not my main focus, and I will not be rushing to update it or complete it.

Comments and reblogs are encouraged, and I am thankful for them - but please keep those comments focused on the actual content of the series (it's plot, the characters, their dynamics, etc.). Please do not spam me asking me to update this or asking me when I will update this - because I am not in a rush to do so. I have a lot of ideas for this series that I am excited about, but I want to work on it slowly and casually because I don't want to lose my enthusiasm for it and I know that rushing will take that enthusiasm away.

If you enjoyed this - great, thanks. But if you expect this to be updated weekly like a factory pumping out stuff on a clearly outlined schedule - then you are in the wrong place. If you are expecting constant updates of this fic and you will be disappointed if it doesn't get updated regularly - you should just block me now and pretend you didn't read it. But if you are a patient person - feel free to read and enjoy my other Titans works while I am working on updates for this (and working on other exciting things), and feel free to send me a message telling me what you thought of this fic or other fics in general.

Also - if you can't get Dick Grayson off your mind - my requests are open.

#sundrop writes #dc titans #titans fanfiction #dc titans fanfiction #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson #dick grayson x you #dick grayson x y/n #dick grayson x female!reader #titans x you #titans x reader #bat boys x reader

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bratbarzal · 4 months ago

Text

On Your Side (NH13) / Prologue

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 13k

Chapter Warnings: angst, miscommunication, ghosting? maybe, some cursing, mentions of OC having nephews (gross), being broken up with over a text, allusions to anxiety, my oc being argumentative and avoidant (she's me), and nico also being avoidant and a poor communicator (he's a man) (he's also a capricorn) (sorry capricorns)

Summary: Poppy Jensen’s job with the New Jersey Devils was supposed to be her first big step into adulthood - a way to prove to herself and her overbearing parents that she could make her own way in life. She was never supposed to become involved with any of the players. Becoming best friends with their captain was stupid. Getting her heart broken by him was tragic. Getting knocked up with his child was just plain messy.

Series Masterlist

A/N: is a 13k prologue excessive? probably. is the mixture of tenses in this part going to grind your gears? most definitely. am I going to do anything about it? no.

I've never actually published any writing before so go easy on the girl. if I need to tag any warnings just let me know. if you like the fic let me know. if you don't like the fic I beg you I'm having a bad month spare meeeeee.

TW for british english spellings because shock horror I am unfortunately british, get used to u's and s's where you least expect them, I will change my spell check settings for no one!! nico's facebook aunt shenanigans have lit a fire within me today and I was writing a later chapter for this fic and thinking if I don't actually put this out into the world I never will so here we are hi my name is maggie I hope you enjoy

Poppy

New Years has always been Poppy Jensen’s favourite holiday. The dwindling aftermath of Christmas - lights and decorations still hung throughout the city, everyone decked in the hats, scarves and ugly sweaters gifted by distant relatives over the Christmas period, and the six days of limbo usually spent drinking and eating copious amounts of leftovers before the new year, new me resolutions kick in - and experiencing it all in her hometown surrounded by the people she loves the most, there is no other time like it.

This year, she feels like the festive period has been one, long, strung-out horror show.

Self-inflicted, of course, like all the other tragedies of her life, she does know she only has herself to blame for how pathetic it has turned out.

She had prepared herself for Christmas to be a dud. The one time of the year that she and her family put aside their differences, and this year she had opted out - or, so her mother had dramatically concluded; she actually just had work commitments. But, this would be her first spent alone due to the fact her parents had decided to go and visit her older brother, Oliver, and his family in San Francisco.

They didn’t have to fly across the country - Oliver has more than enough money to book his clan on a flight back to his home state, but obviously as the golden child, the Jensen’s must bend to his every whim. Of course, Poppy had been invited. Her relationship with her brother wasn’t mutually acrimonious, but the aforementioned work commitments got her out of that bore-fest.

She does love her brother. Sometimes. Christmas, especially - he’s a great and expensive gift-giver. And she loves his wife, Kimberley, and their two sons - her nephews, James and Lucas - but spending the holidays with them would have been a lot. Her family is hard work on the best of days, and the only reason Christmas is ever bearable is because her mother hires help, and it’s impossible for the stress train to leave the station if Priscilla Jensen is given enough wine early enough in the day to dull her usual wicked demeanour.

Kimberley, God bless her soul, maintains a sober house, and Poppy, as much as she respects this, would not go anywhere near that train wreck if you paid her a million dollars.

There’s also the fact that the holidays were invented to unwind, and Poppy somehow always gets lumped on nephew duty. She had long grown out of her boys are gross phase, but lord, do those two try everything in their power to bring it back. She has lost count of the amount of their bodily fluids she has had wiped all over her best clothes over the years. If she had agreed to fly out, she no doubt would have ended up being the one to watch the kids while everyone else had their version of a good time, and so she’d successfully managed to avoid all that with a half-assed promise of visiting at Easter, instead.

Her brother hadn’t been too upset - one less place setting at the table for him to worry about - but her mother had been livid, and there was no chance Poppy would live it down without owing her.

God forbid she, as an adult, actually got to choose how to spend her time.

She hadn’t actually been completely alone on Christmas, not all day, at least. Her best friend Nia had invited her to eat with her and her dad, but they were hardly putting her in the festive spirit with their constant snipes at each other, and so she’d given herself stomach ache stuffing herself full of corn bread and roasted carrots and dipped out to make it home for the Giants game - because there’s no better tradition than watching your team lose on Christmas Day. At least she wasn’t there to watch her dad and brother yell at the TV and get all grumpy for hours after the fact.

She’d watched Love Actually with mulled wine in hand and fallen asleep on the couch - waking up in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of her neighbours screaming at each other through the walls.

Poppy had the 26th off, and spent the day preparing her apartment for New Years, knowing she wouldn’t have any other opportunity to get her big clean done. She’d cleared out half her wardrobe - done several loads of laundry so that she could donate clean clothes to the women’s shelter a few blocks over - rid her kitchen of all the outdated tinned foods in the backs of her cupboards, dusted every surface, vacuumed every floor, colour-coded her bookshelf to look more aesthetically pleasing and then within an hour put it back in alphabetical order - all in a day’s work.

By the time the 27th rolled around, and she had to return to work, she had tired herself out completely. She had been drained, and the worst part of it all, she didn’t even actually need to be there.

Sure, December was a crazy time to work in the NHL, their schedule unrelenting when the season got into full-swing, and the holiday events that Poppy’s team had to organise seemed never ending, but she had technically been given limbo-week off. Not that her mother had to know.

The Youth Foundation team had all wrapped up work for the year on the 23rd, and if Poppy was a truly good daughter/sibling/aunt, she would have booked herself on a red-eye after the home win that evening, but the second the opportunity to accept an actual real excuse not to change her plans arose, she took it with open arms. Her guilt of lying to her family diminished, along with her will to live at the fact she had - self-inflicted, as always - put herself down to work her favourite time of the year.

Her career with the New Jersey Devils had started with an internship in her final year of college. She had worked with the digital content department for her first year, quickly being sniped by the Foundation in the middle of her second year and working her way past content creation to helping co-ordinate and run some of the community events.

When her friend Jessica had approached Poppy and begged for her to cover her spot in the department they had started out together in for limbo-week, spending it with the team at their games, she had jumped at the bit. She knew no one else would agree to work last minute after having their time off approved, and was pleased to relay to her mom that she had to prove herself as a team player if she wanted more responsibility at work. It was all in the name of bumping up her performance and getting her name out there, and definitely not avoiding her family and that whole shit-show.

Poppy loves her job, and is more than happy with her career, but she could sing about it until the cows come home and her parents could not care less. They rarely ever acknowledged her successes because her life didn’t fit the mould they had set out for her - another reason she hadn’t wanted to spend this Christmas hounded with questions of why don’t you come work for your dad? Or why didn’t you accept the interview Ollie so kindly got for you? She doesn’t want a non-sensical, nothing job made up to keep her under her family’s influence. She has forged her own path, one that many dream of in one of the biggest industries in the country, and no matter how much she disappointed her parents in comparison to her lackey brother, she is content with where she is.

She had completely forgotten, however, that the devils played away on the 29th and 30th, and if she was going to be tagging along with the bare-bones limbo week media crew, there was no way in hell she was getting out of joining the team’s New Years celebrations.

She had done her fair share of dodging team events already this year, and despite the fact she could appease most of her friends within the organisation, there was one person who would not let her off so easy.

This year is Jack Hughes’ first year hosting the big Devils New Years party - he’d, in her opinion, stupidly volunteered pretty much last minute after the venue the team had booked flooded in November and cancelled their reservation - and he would not let Poppy get out of coming, even if that meant scuppering her own annual tradition of getting shit-faced with her girls in their perfectly planned New Jersey bar crawl.

She’d done her best work to convince him - had almost sold him on the dream - she and her best friend, Nia, always start at the bar below Nia’s apartment in Hoboken, and then dot to the bars closest to their other friends apartments until they end up by Poppy’s, which has the perfect little rooftop set up where they get to watch all the fireworks across the Hudson. It’s how she’s spent the holiday every year since she and all her girls turned 21, and it was her favourite day, her favourite way to ring in a new year with her best friends in her favourite place in the world.

Jack’s argument was that he also had a great view across the Hudson from his Jersey City apartment, and that she was less likely to catch hypothermia this year because his view came through floor to ceiling windows and the luxury of central heating.

She’d tried to argue that she had all intentions of meeting her future husband on her adventures through New Jersey, and he gave the quick rebuttal that he had plenty of single friends she was yet to meet.

There was no excuse she could give that he couldn’t counteract, and so she’d eventually given up with the resolution that when he is 3 drinks deep, Jack Hughes can barely remember his own name, let alone keep tabs on where Poppy is, or if she ever showed up in the first place. She can always just say she’s running late until he stops asking.

And then she’d somehow gotten roped into helping him set up.

Jack had cornered her on their flight home from Boston, where they had just lost to the Bruins and, all of a sudden, no one was in any kind of mood to party.

“I swear,” he had said, throwing himself down into the vacant seat beside her as she attempted to clear her inbox on the short journey, swiping away messages and storing others to review when work started back up in the next week, “If I mess up this party, and my name goes down in Devils history tied to the biggest depression session this team have ever seen, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“How the hell would that be my fault?” She had scoffed, kicking at his feet when he had tried to man-spread next to her and they had quite abruptly knocked knees. The staff seats toward the front of the plane weren’t quite as spacious as the player seats further back.

“You brought some serious negative energy with you on this trip,” he shrugged, reaching for the bag of skittles she had stashed in the pocket on the seat in front of her and stealing a handful, “And I can’t blame you for us losing, so I’m gonna blame you for constantly trying to abandon my event and making me feel so insecure about it that it turned into a complete bore-fest because I didn’t have my literal professional event planner friend to help me set it all up.”

Jack Hughes had joined the New Jersey Devils at the same time Poppy had started her internship. There had been some corny ice breaker session for everyone new to the organisation that season, and they’d bonded over their shared love for country music. He’d become dependent on her as a local to the area for recommendations for everything - food, sports bars, coffee, grocery shopping, running routes - and they’d quickly developed a friendship that had lasted them thus far. No fallouts, no drama, no issues. Being friends with Jack is easy.

Poppy is older by near enough 18 months, and considers him as close to a little brother as she will ever find - annoying, teasing, loud and somewhat of a know-it-all, but he cares deeply, and he’s loyal, honest and open with her, and she loves him for it.

“I’ve done my part even helping you plan the thing,” she had to snatch the bag back from him before he finished the skittles off, needing the sugar to keep her awake for the quick drive home when they landed. Jack had been on her back about this party since he had first put his name in the hat to host, and she had been gracious, helping him arrange food, drinks, decorations and DJ equipment in the hopes it would lessen the blow that she didn’t want to attend. “I didn’t bring negative energy.”

“Do I have to kidnap you when we deplane or are you gonna come around tomorrow morning and help me?”

“Kidnap me?” she couldn’t help but laugh, casting a quick measured glance over his figure. “Real cute, Jack, you’re nothing without your stick.”

“I could take you.” He attempted to throw a skittle up into the air and catch it in his mouth, not accounting for the fact they were on a moving, somewhat turbulent plane, and he barely had enough finesse to pull that off on the ground. The candy landed and bounced off his cheekbone, and he watched it fall to the floor with a child-like pout.

“It’s fighting talk like that that would lose you another tooth, Hughesy,” she had threatened in jest.

“I’m a middle child, I don’t start fights I can’t finish, Popcorn.” He also has a track record of giving Poppy the worst nicknames she has ever heard in her entire 24 years on this Earth. “Luke’s already said he’ll help me on the kidnapping front, we have a plan.”

“Your plan is nothing without incentive, Jack. You come at me with weak threats when you could just offer me something in return.”

“Like what?” His eyes narrowed toward her, shuffling in the seat until he was facing her fully.

“I want to bring Nia.” If she was going to be subjected to this, she was bringing back up - and she had thought this would be a good trade, knowing how protective the boys were of their private events, especially those thrown in their own homes.

Poppy hadn’t liked the way his lips curved up immediately, like she had fallen straight into his trap. “Done.” She should have known better. He stood up, edging back into the aisle and sending her a wink. “I’ll text you details on when and where I need you. Your hot friend is more than welcome to offer a hand, too.”

And that is how Poppy has ended up spending the day of New Years Eve, her favourite day of the year, rushing to set up Jack Hughes’ apartment.

Her first task had been to go round to Jack’s and accept the deliveries that came while he and Luke were out picking up the decks for the DJ. Drinks arrived by the crateful, the boxes of paper plates, cups and other table wears took her several trips up and down from Jack’s apartment to the building lobby until she broke out in a sweat, and she had done her best to hang all the decorations, her last call being to pick up the bigger decoration delivery from downstairs.

Poppy, with the help of Lionel, the building’s concierge, loads the elevator full of decor, ranging from golden helium balloons that spell out ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘2024’, a large roll that should hopefully unravel to reveal a backdrop for a makeshift photo-booth, as well as a deconstructed balloon arch that gave her PTSD from the amount of events at the Rock she’d had to put them together.

Lionel offers to come up with her to help unload everything upstairs, but the thought of cramming another person in there with all the stuff makes her feel claustrophobic, so she politely declines - though, when the elevator doors open and she bumps face first into a firm chest, her nose smushing against a khaki t-shirt she wishes she had someone else with her to buffer the tension that stiffens her spine.

A large, calloused hand wraps around her upper arm to steady her, and another reaches out to keep the doors of the elevator from closing in on where she stands. She looks up into eyes swirled with the colour of warm, melted chocolate, and her throat feels just the slightest bit drier than it had 5 seconds ago.

“Hey,” Nico Hischier’s voice is deep, scratchy like he’s just woken up - he probably has given how late the team got in last night - and trickles down in static currents from her ears to the base of Poppy’s back.

She takes a short, startled step back, and gulps down the dryness in her throat before she gives a quick, “Hey,” in response. “Sorry, I’ll just take a second to unload all of this then the elevator is yours.”

“I’ll help,” Nico doesn’t phrase it as a question, as if knowing she would immediately decline. Not, let me help, or do you need help? He’ll just do it. “You get everything out and I’ll take it inside?”

She nods, despite the voice in the back of her head telling her that he’s only helping to get the job done quicker, and be able to get downstairs. She makes a conscious mental effort to drown it out while the two of them work in a silent tandem, her lifting the decorations into the hallway and him towing them down and into Jack’s apartment.

She makes another conscious effort not to watch when he lifts things, the flex of his arms, the rippling muscles of his shoulders.

“Is that the last of it?” He asks, gesturing to the rolled up backdrop leaning on the side of the elevator and propping it open.

“Yeah, but I got it,” Poppy gives a tight smile, lifting the roll but staying in place so the doors don’t close behind her and she doesn’t get stuck any longer in Nico’s presence on her own. “Thanks for helping.”

There used to be a time she couldn’t get enough of being around Nico, but those days are long gone.There is a permanent frigidity between them now - it’s been there since the summer just gone - and she’s overstimulated enough having spent her morning being Jack’s lackey while he no doubt slacks off with his brother grabbing brunch out. Her patience is beyond wearing thin, and so the last thing she needs is prolonged contact with the Devils captain where she will no doubt end up blowing up and making everything worse.

No one wants to ring in the new year with an almighty fallout.

She can’t help the frown that befalls her features when he makes no effort to occupy the elevator. He makes no effort to do anything, only looking at Poppy with a pensive pout. “Jack said I should come help you out.”

Of course he did, she thinks.

For the past four months, Jack Hughes has been acting like it’s his greater purpose in life to bring Nico and Poppy back together - like the demise of their friendship was the greatest personal inconvenience he has ever faced in his life.

He has orchestrated one too many ‘accidental’ run-ins just like this one, and Poppy isn’t going to entertain his childish games any longer.

Nico doesn’t want to be her friend - she knows this for a fact - so Jack’s schemes are becoming a waste of everyone’s time.

“I’m alright, Nia’s on her way, you don’t have to hang around.”

Nia was due at Jack’s apartment two hours ago, but is no doubt still asleep after she was out last night for her pre-New Years celebrations. She’ll come over soon enough, though, and so Poppy doesn’t feel entirely deflated to turn down help she actually might currently need.

“I don’t mind waiting until she gets here.” Nico shrugs, again not giving her a natural opportunity to say no. He nods towards the apartment, gesturing for Poppy to start making her way over. “We both know she won’t take the stairs.”

Something about the way he so casually recalls information about her best friend plucks at her nerves, just a little, reflective of the part of their lives they had once shared with each other like it was nothing, but she shrugs it off, beginning to head towards the apartment with the roll tucked under her arm.

“I thought New Years was your favourite holiday?” He asks once they’re both inside, the sound of the door clicking shut behind him and somewhat trapping her in his presence echoing throughout the room. He doesn’t allow for any kind of prolonged silence between the two of them. If Nico Hischier is good at anything, it’s getting people to talk to him.

It’s not entirely that she doesn’t want to talk to him.

She does.

She’s wanted to talk to him every day for the past 4 months that they hadn’t talked - has been craving even mundane, casual conversation about the weather or traffic on the way into work, but now, as he yet again indifferently recollects such personal details about her as if they have remained close, she begins to feel uneasy.

“It is,” she gives a half-hearted, dismissive response.

“Then why are you all grumpy?”

“I’m not.” She frowns, eyebrows furrowing and arms crossing as she turns to face him, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue.

She’s not trying to be difficult. Or maybe she is. She is in a particularly bad mood, but she had thought she’d done a good job at masking it. He’d been around her all of 2 minutes and saw right through her.

“Jack said you’ve been off all morning.”

Like he cares, she thinks, her mood souring further at the fact he doesn’t see through her or even care at all, he’s here at the request of someone else. Following up on his duties as a captain and fulfilling a favour for one of his actual friends.

Embarrassment floods the pit of her stomach, and rears its ugly head in the form of her biting tone when she replies, “Jack’s been out all morning, how would he know?”

“He left you to do all this on your own?” Nico frowns, gesturing around to the half-way set up apartment. All that’s left to do aside from put up the decorations she’s just lugged up is set up the food and drinks, and Poppy figured she could leave that task to Jack so that it all remained fresher for longer.

“I do this kind of thing for a living, remember?”

She cringes inwardly at the venom in her voice, turning away from him with a huff and missing the way his posture deflates.

“You run events, Poppy, you’re not an assistant.” She can hear his heavy footsteps follow as she moves to set up the photo-booth area. “If I’d known he had you running after him all morning, I’d have-,”

“Called someone else to come help me so you could carry on avoiding me?”

She really is wound up now. Jack bailing on her to do God-knows what while she sets up his party had been one thing - there was a rational part of her brain that would tell her there would no doubt be hiccups in trying to source a bunch of DJ equipment in New Jersey on New Years Eve and he hadn’t actually bailed - and she could write off Nia’s disappearance due to the fact Poppy had sprung the plans on her last minute when she got home and called her last night, and she was bound to show up at some point. But Nico implying she is letting Jack walk all over her and needs anyone’s help to get through setting up a basic party is downright offensive. At least, in her stressed out state, it is - and so she can’t find it within herself to bite her tongue about their situation any longer.

If it drives him away and brings back her solitude to finish setting up without him occupying any precious mind space, so be it.

She almost forgets a key fact about the man before her. He doesn’t give up so easily.

“I’m not avoiding you.” He bites back, stepping into her space and helping her lift the backdrop roll to fit into the brackets she had set up earlier when the structure for the booth had arrived. “I would have come to help you, myself, Poppy.”

She wishes he would stop saying her name.

4 months of radio silence and he’s thrown it at her like a dagger twice in the span of 30 seconds, the way his it rolls of his tongue in a low, smooth rasp scratching an itch she didn’t know she had, and now she can’t shake it.

“I’m fine,” she huffs, reaching as far as she can and pressing until she hears the brackets click into place. At the brief noise, Nico catches on to what he needs to do at his side and manages to click it into place, barely lifting his arms. She moves into the middle of the structure, pulling at the velcro tab holding the roll together until it cascades to the floor and unveils the backdrop in its entirety.

“What else needs doing?” He asks, his tone gentler this time.

“Nothing,” she mutters, winding the velcro in between her fingers to occupy them, before moving to pass him and make her way to the next task on her list. It’s only small things now. Arranging the balloons, setting up the arch, clearing table space for the equipment when Jack finally arrives home. “You can go, I’ve got it.”

“Mohn,” Nico sighs lowly, warm hand clasping around her forearm as she attempts to pass, holding her in place beside him.

She really wishes he wouldn’t call her that.

If Jack is the prince of childish monikers that make her insides curl, Nico is the king of making her melt.

The nickname takes her straight back to the days before the waves of the summer break washed their friendship away. The times where he’d give her a ride home from the Prudential Center after work, whispering a, “Goodnight, Mohn,” in her ear as they hugged goodbye over the centre console in the front of his car. The times she’d meet up with the team to celebrate a win at their favourite bar, and he’d throw a never-casual, “Looking good, Mohn,” her way with an appreciative once-over.

And it takes her even further back to when they had met, and she’d first offered her name.

“I’ll be interning with the content team, my name is Poppy,” she had offered a bright smile, reaching her hand out for him to shake, and making sure to keep a firm grip, just like her father had taught her, when he places his hand in hers. As she had done since she was a child, it was instinctual to follow up with, “Like the flower.”

“Mohnblume,” he had uttered, a smile so deep his cheeks dimpled into deep valleys.

“Huh?” She had been only a little bit caught out by the way his eyes shone, forgetting her manners as her head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Poppy flower, that’s what it is in my language.”

“Oh,” she had exclaimed, furrowed brows raising, a soft flush warming her cheeks, “Pretty!”

“Very.”

She had convinced herself for a long time that it was just his way of remembering - an aid in blurring the lines between the two languages that, especially back then, he often found himself mixed up in. And then, after a while, using it seemed to bring a protected familiarity between them - like an inside joke - and he’d use it less in front of others and more in the times it was just the two of them.

Years down the line from hearing it for the first time, and months down the line from hearing it for the last, her heart still thumps the same erratic beat at the sound.

Nico’s eyes still shine the same way when he looks down at her, and she fights every fibre of her being not to think too much about it. Or not to think about the touch of his hand on her arm, still holding her in place, the two of them closer than they have been in a long time, now.

It’s painfully easy to forget the months of distance after only seconds in his immediate company - to wipe from her memory the reason for her reticence and to push down the stubborn desire to push him away.

Her lips part to speak, and she doesn’t know if she’s about to turn him down or take him in, because another voice fills the apartment before any words get the chance to spill out.

“I come bearing gifts!” A sing-song lull breaks the silence as her best friend makes her presence known, entering the apartment with a drinks carrier in one hand, and a to-go back over the other wrist.

Poppy steps away, shaking Nico’s grip from her arm, and turns to give Nia her full attention, hoping that she is either too hungover or too focused on herself to see or care about the obvious tension between her and the captain. She manages to bite her tongue from letting a Thank God slip out, and makes her way over to retrieve a much needed drink.

“They were out of chai so I got you an iced tea,” Nia holds out the drink to Poppy, and then the to go bag, “And half a cinnamon roll.”

“Half?”

“What? I was hungry too.” Nia scoffs, turning her attention to the brooding presence on the other side of the room. “Sorry, Nico, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Would you have only eaten a third if you did?” He trials a joke, and when Poppy sneaks a peak back toward him, he looks apprehensive - scratching at the nape of his neck as if anticipating a bad reaction to his attempt at lighthearted humour.

“I’m sure Poppy doesn’t mind sharing if you’re starving,” Nia makes her way to the bar set up by the kitchen, placing her own cup down and shrugging off her purse beside it.

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of half a cinnamon roll.” While his words are directed to her best friend, Nico looks at Poppy with a wistful smile, and she can practically see the memory of an old shared routine wash over his eyes.

A weekly ritual of meeting by the PATH station close to both of their apartments on a free morning for a run, and then catching breakfast to go and grab a juice or a smoothie for the walk home - abandoned just like all the other little traditions they once had together.

Nico and Poppy had been close, before. Closer than she is to Jack, now - closer than she’s been to anyone else on the team, ever. So close that Nico knows her best friend enough to joke around with a familiar ease; so close that they’d even hung out as a three before, back when the girls shared an apartment in Poppy’s first year with the Devils, and he had been the only person that Nia had ever been happy to share her childhood friend with.

And now, Poppy stands between them in a silence so uncomfortable she feels like the room is shaking.

She hasn’t talked to Nico in months, and hasn’t talked about him in just as long, but she knows Nia can read her like a book.

The girls had grown up together - been through everything side by side, pinky fingers intertwined with an eternal promise of friendship and understanding. The demise of relationships, friendship group implosions, familial hardships, Nia’s goth phase, the time Poppy wrecked her hair dying it a vibrant cherry-red because her high school crush said Ariana Grande was hot - she still shudders thinking of how her hair glowed red in any direct light for years in the aftermath. Through middle school, high school, college, and all the way up until now, the pair know each other inside out.

So Poppy knows that Nia knows something happened.

Nia knows that Poppy hadn’t been able to go a day without bringing up the Swiss Captain before the summer, and then all of a sudden, she didn’t mention him at all. But she also knows her friend well enough and loves her too much not to have pressed on an open wound.

“It looks insane in here, Pop,” Nia gawks at the set up around her, every corner of the open plan layout of Jack’s large apartment decked out with decor and party amenities. “Do you guys go this hard every year?”

“Depends who’s hosting,” Nico shrugs, knowing when it had been his turn the year before, his event had been much more lowkey. Poppy had seen the pictures, had been sent an abundance of wish you were here snapchats around midnight from the Captain himself. Jack has a thing about his reputation that won’t let him even consider doing anything lowkey. “I forgot this would be your first year coming.”

“Oh, we’re not coming.” Poppy covers her mouth as she speaks around a bite of her food, unable to wait until she’d finished her mouthful due to the immediate urge to shut him down once again.

“You’re not?” He almost sounds disappointed. She doesn’t dare check for the furrow of his thick eyebrows or the pout of his lips. “Jack said he’d convinced you.”

A flash of anxiety shoots across her chest at the thought of him considering her attendance. Had he asked Jack? Had he mentioned her specifically - pushed him to convince her? Or had Jack just brought it up in an offhanded comment?

“I just agreed to get him off my back about it.” Her choice of words is only slightly intended to hurt. She and Nico were no longer friends - she hadn’t been the one to make that decision. Despite that fact, she tries to suppress the guilt clawing at the base of her throat at the wash of understanding that passes over his features. A solemn nod, gaze bouncing to the floor, lips pressed together. “We have plans with our friends.”

“Actually,” Nia’s voice captures both their attention swiftly - Poppy’s head whipping around in subtle alarm and Nico’s in anticipation. “Blake’s flight back from Arizona got cancelled, and Kelsey bailed on me last night because she got Covid of all things over Christmas.”

“What about Emma?” Poppy asks, hoping and praying their hermit friend has all of a sudden grown some stellar social skills and agreed to carry on their tradition for the sake of Poppy’s sanity.

“She double booked with her boyfriend, and he’s a huge drip I don’t really wanna hang out with those two all night.” God damn Emma and her tool of a boyfriend, Poppy thinks. “At least if we come here, we’re still close enough to your place we can make it back for fireworks on the roof.”

“We get a great view of them from this building,” Nico makes his presence known again, attempting to offer a solution. “If you didn’t want to walk back home so late.”

“See, Pop,” Nia claps her hands together with a grin, “We get to come to a cool party, don’t have to worry about creeps following us around all night, and still get to hold on to tradition. Win, win, win if you ask me!”

“Right,” Poppy sighs, knowing now that Nia has her heart set on the plan, there’s nothing she can do about it. Any persistence on her part would be too obvious. “Fine.”

“Awesome! What’s left to do?”

Poppy eyes Nico, knowing she’d told him only a few minutes ago that there was nothing left. “Just need to clear a table for the equipment Jack’s getting,”

“Which one?” Nia asks, making her way over with her iced tea in hand once Poppy points toward the table in the corner by the wall-to-wall window. “Are you helping or just standing around looking pretty?”

Nico’s cheeks flush, a subtle warmth arising to his skin, and he gives a bashful chuckle.

Poppy feels a little nauseous, and it’s not from the sickly sweet half of a pastry she’s just forced down.

Nia’s eyes flicker between the two of them like she’s at a grand slam, and her lips twist to hide a smile.

“I actually need to head out,” he says, gaze darting quickly to Poppy before turning to her best friend, “I have some things I need to do before tonight. It was good to see you, though, Nia.”

Nia hums around the straw of her drink, giving a dismissive wave. “You too, see you later!”

Nico begins towards the door to the apartment, and just before he passes Poppy, he stops. He doesn’t reach for her this time, doesn’t step too close, but she can feel his presence regardless. And every hair on her body stands to attention like she’s been shocked by static when he says, lowly, “I’ll see you tonight, Mohn.”

She can only nod in response, not trusting her voice to speak, not trusting her eyes to look into his and be able to look away.

After he departs, there are a few minutes of an ear-piercing silence. Poppy can hear every movement Nia makes, from the slurp of her drink, to the manner in which she throws things around with little care for where they end up. And louder than anything, she hears the violent thud of her heartbeat in her own ears.

“So,” Nia drags out when Poppy joins her at the almost empty table. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” Poppy and Nia have known each other fifteen years, she doesn’t know why she hopelessly thought that would work.

“Don’t play dumb,” Nia scoffs, “You and Captain Sexy,”

“There is no me and Nico,”

“But you know who I’m asking about,” she scoffs like she’s caught her best friend out, and then adds, with a suggestive wiggle of her brows, “So you do think he’s sexy?”

“What are you, twelve?” Poppy rolls her eyes, “He’s the only captain we’ve been in a room with, pretty obvious who you were referring to.”

“Admit it, Poppy, I saw the two of you when I came in, you totally wanna jump his bones, you have for as long as you’ve known him.”

“We’re not having this conversation, Ni.”

“The hell we aren’t!” Nia grabs her best friend by the shoulders, “I’ve bitten my tongue for months, Pop, watching you mope around and get all glum whenever work is brought up. I couldn’t get you to shut up about the guy before, what the hell happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened!”

“It totally did!” Nia can spy the aversion Poppy is attempting from miles off. “Don’t tell me you two finally hooked up and you didn’t fill me in,”

“He has a girlfriend, Nia.”

The way Poppy says it is like a period to a sentence. End of conversation. End of speculation. It doesn’t matter what they had been before, or what they are now. It doesn’t matter what she feels. There is no her and Nico because he is someone else’s. That’s the crux of it.

“Since when?” Nia frowns.

“Since the summer just gone.”

And there it is. Understanding washes over the face of her best friend, and Poppy has to force herself to look away.

He’d maybe been with her before that, too, but Poppy doesn’t actually know the entire timeline of it.

All she does know is that he’d come back from Switzerland with a drop dead gorgeous model hanging off of his arm, and he no longer had a use for Poppy in his life.

She knows other little bits, that she’d sourced from parts of conversations with others, or potential social media sleuthing that she will never admit to even with a gun to her head.

Talia, a model from somewhere close to home back in Europe, and Nico had hit it off at some festival when he’d gone back to Switzerland for his break. He’d very quickly and very clearly become smitten with her. Poppy had seen as much with her plastered all over his private stories and even posted on his private instagram feed.

By the time he came back to New Jersey for pre-season training camp, she was tagging along to team gatherings, he’d take her on his morning runs, grabbing breakfast together, he’d pick her up every day after work so he could no longer drive Poppy home, not that he’d ever attempted to explain any of that to her. She was at every home game, was his plus one to every event, and Poppy and Nico’s friendship had fizzled out so much that she sometimes feels like the whole thing had been a fantasy, or a figment of her imagination. Something she’d misunderstood, miscalculating every interaction they had ever shared and assuming they meant the same to him as they did to her.

They didn’t.

She doesn’t think any of it would have hurt her so much if he’d have let her down easy. A sorry for bailing on you the first time she’d text him if he wanted to meet up for their weekly run and he’d left her on read would have lessened the blow. He could have been straight up with an I just want to focus on my relationship right now. That would have been the decent thing to do, but he’d just dropped her, instead. Didn’t come around her office for lunch, didn’t text her after training when one of the guys said something stupid and he thought it might make her laugh. He’d cut her off from the intimate parts of his life - ghosted her, even - and all she could find it in herself to do anymore was miss him.

She’d made attempts to bring him around, at first. Tried speaking to him at work, tried texting, but after a few weeks of staring at the delivered sign at the bottom of their message thread, she had given up. It still taunts her every time she opens it up to delete the entire thing and move on like he clearly has - erasing all the inside jokes and times they had confided in one another like they meant ever meant anything in the first place.

She can count on her hand the amount of times they had spoken since the summer. Work related, entirely. A good game here and a have you seen whoever? there. Today is the first indication in months that they had ever been anything more than two people who worked in the same organisation. Friends of friends, co-workers, barely acquaintances.

Not people who know each other’s favourite holidays and are chummy with each other’s friends.

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” Nia frowns, “I didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she shrugs, attempting nonchalance despite the stinging in the back of her throat. “Let’s finish here so we can go get ready.”

Nico

Nico Hischier isn’t the biggest fan of New Years Eve. He isn’t really a fan of the festive period, at all. He isn’t a scrooge by any means. He can appreciate the coming together of people and the celebration of the year just gone, and the one starting fresh - but ever since he moved from Switzerland and started his career in the NHL, the holiday period has felt unnecessarily long.

His schedule is jam packed - games up until the 23rd, starting again after Christmas on the 27th, and again after New Years on the 3rd - and there aren’t enough consecutive days together to celebrate in the way others get to do this time of year.

He knows he has to make do with the fact - a small price to pay for living his dream - and his teammates help, all sharing in their sacrifices and trying to make the best out of a bad deal. But he can’t help but feel a lack. A lack of tradition, a lack of family being around, a lack of normalcy.

He remembers the holidays as a child, spending time at home with his parents and his siblings, having two weeks at home for his winter break and getting to spend his days doing whatever he pleased. As someone who moved overseas at such a young age, he looks back on those times fondly.

But now, living at least 8 hours away from the rest of his family, this time of year only serves to remind him of the isolation that creeps up on him like a bad cold.

It starts at the beginning of the month, the sniffly nose period of the bug, when chatter starts around who’s doing what for Christmas. Decorations go up, parties are planned, names are passed around in a hat for Secret Santa, and discussions begin around who is managing to go where.

Next comes the tickle in his throat - the last game before Christmas, where the team all depart and separate with temporary goodbyes as those who have family nearby all get to go home - their parents arranging home cooked extravaganza meals, reuniting with their siblings, exchanging gifts - and Nico, for the 5th year running, feels like a bit part in someone else’s festivities as he and a few of the other European guys all bustle into the dining room of whoever is willing to accommodate them for the day.

Then comes the rest, the sneezing, the coughing, the lethargy, in the period between Christmas and New Years, when everyone is reeling off the back of their celebrations and looking forward to ringing in the next year with a big party.

Nico had thought this year might have been better. He had been in a relationship, there were parts of the holidays he could tweak and adopt into his circumstances - exchanging gifts with a loved one, bringing her along to Christmas dinner at Jesper and Nicole’s place, and not having to feel like a third wheel or like he had to shrink to fit at the kiddie’s table.

He’d even tried to start his own holiday traditions with Talia, his girlfriend. He’d booked an overnight stay at a fancy hotel on the Upper East Side in the middle in the month on one of the rare occasions he’d had two consecutive days with no game or other commitments - despite how hectic his schedule had been. He’d taken her Christmas shopping down Fifth Avenue like she’d talked so much about how she’d wanted to do ever since she came out to New Jersey with him after the summer. He’d taken her ice skating, away from the Rock so that it didn’t feel like work, they had bought and decorated the tree in his apartment together, he’d brought her along to every team holiday event.

And on the day of their home game against Anaheim on the 17th, just a few days after their trip into Manhattan, in the middle of the third period, she had unceremoniously dumped him with an I’m just not feeling this anymore. Over text. As she was already at the airport preparing to fly back to Munich to spend the holidays with her family. He had slumped into his locker after their brutal 5-1 defeat and couldn’t believe what he was reading.

Nico wanted to be angry. As he read the text, he could picture any other person throwing and smashing things. Calling her up and demanding an explanation - because it was clear she hadn’t been feeling it for longer than she let on, considering she was about to board a no doubt fully booked flight across the Atlantic in the eleventh hour.

But there was too large of a part of him that just felt relieved.

Talia was great.

He had met her properly in the summer when he had gone home to Switzerland, but they’d had mutual friends long before. He’d liked a couple of her instagram pictures here, she had responded to a few of his stories there, and then they had been formally introduced at a friend’s party.

Things with her were easy, at first. Nico wasn’t looking for anything serious, and she had ticked all of the right boxes. She was good company, always down to do whatever he was doing with whoever he wanted to do it with. She recognised that summer was the only time of the year he truly had to himself, and she let him take the reins on how he wanted to spend it.

She would go on hikes with him, would lounge around in the sun if wanted, go to parties, go to festivals, join him on little weekend trips to Ibiza or Mallorca. And she was a great release when his training had picked up. She would work around his schedule. He’d invite her round to his apartment and he had enjoyed spending time doing nothing with her after a long day at the gym or at the rink.

She had slotted so perfectly into that version of his life that he gave very little thought into inviting her into the rest of it.

She was beautiful, sociable, charismatic - and then she became hard work.

When summer was over, and he invited her to spend some time back in New Jersey, she didn’t quite grasp how much things would need to change. She constantly wanted to have plans. Wanted to go to parties, wanted to go out, be around other people, take little trips - and he had tried to accommodate her the best he could, but he didn’t have the time for himself, let alone for another person, to be doing things all the time. He had tried to tell her as much, and she said she was okay with it, said as long as he was present with her, she could settle for not doing the things they had in the summer, but she expected too much from him.

She wanted Nico’s attention at all hours of the day, weaving herself into every aspect of his routine. He wanted to run? She would go with him, could really use the fresh air. He wanted to do some solo training at the gym? She had been meaning to work on her lifting. He couldn’t go to the grocery store - could barely even go to work without her wanting to be there. His phone would blow up whenever they were apart, and if he didn’t text her back straight away, she’d become cold - making him feel guilty and grovel for her forgiveness.

Talia was fun, until she wasn’t. Until she was exhausting, and Nico couldn’t keep up with her any longer.

She didn’t give him the grace to have an off day. He was tired, he was struggling, and when the season kicked into full swing, and the team’s schedule was packed, he became unable to juggle it all.

His work was suffering, his star was dimming, his body ached and his performance dipped - both in his professional and personal life.

And so, after the detonation of their relationship, a break up text felt a little like a wake up call.

Talia had contributed so much to the deterioration of normalcy in his life, that Nico was still trying to piece back together his routine 2 weeks later.

His holiday period this year had been spent in a haze - and it wasn’t for the reason everyone thought. He had caught the pitiful glances sent his way over the dinner table at Christmas, had seen the way the couples in the room tried to spare him of their PDA whenever he was around, and he could have told them it was okay. He was okay. But there was a large part of him that was trying to figure that out, still.

He had known he wasn’t heartbroken. He wasn’t shooting off texts to Talia and begging for her to come back. He’d already boxed up what little belongings she had left behind and was going to ship them internationally after the New Year had passed. He had deleted, not archived, all their photos on his private socials, and had even deleted most of them from his phone. He wasn’t in pieces over the fact she had ended things.

But he knew something still wasn’t right.

At first, he had thought it was work related. Their worst week of the season had happened just before Christmas - 3 losses at home in the span of 5 days - and he thought that could be the reason for his slump. Then, they won against Detroit and he still felt off.

Then, he thought he had been anxious about Christmas - about showing up on his own, having to explain his breakup to everyone not quite caught up on the news yet, and he would have to wallow in that same old feeling of watching everyone else enjoy the holidays. But Jesper and Nicole had thrown together a pretty nice day for the guys. The food was great, the company was great, and he’d gone back to his apartment that night with a feeling of relief - like he’d been dreading something for so long only for him to have genuinely enjoyed himself.

And finally, as if being thrust into a freezing cold ice bath, realisation had washed over him on the morning of the team’s final home game of the year against Columbus.

He had been walking through the back offices of the Prudential Centre when he had stumbled upon a conversation, and had heard Poppy Jensen’s voice for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’m just kinda beat, to be honest, J,” she had said in response to a question Nico hadn’t caught. He had thought no one would be around, most of the Foundation staff having the week off, and hadn’t expected to come across anyone on his venture to the best vending machine in the building. The Foundation offices were often frequented by kids, and had an assortment of candies throughout their machines instead of the protein bars or rice cakes elsewhere in the staff areas. At the sound of her voice, he had come to an immediate halt, peaking around the corner where he could see into her office. She was moving some things into a box on her desk and Jack Hughes was reclining in the chair in front of it that once had been claimed by Nico as his own. “I’m all social interaction-ed out, the holidays have kinda beat me to a pulp, I don’t think I could keep up with you guys, I’m sorry.”

Nico watches as she swats at his feet when he tries to kick them up onto her desk, and can’t quite see the crease between her brows as she frowns at their mutual friend, but can remember how it used to form all the same. “You’re such a bullshitter,” Jack had scoffed, clearly pre-empting the stapler Poppy would throw at him, managing to catch it with ease.

“You can’t call me a bullshitter in my own office,” she gawked, “You don’t see me marching out onto the ice and calling you an attention whore.”

Jack had thrown the stapler straight back. She caught it all the same, and dropped it into the box.

“You haven’t hung out with us in forever!”

“We hung out at the Toy Drive like 2 weeks ago!” There had been two toy drive events organised by the Foundation in different parts of town, and, as he had long become accustomed to, Nico had been put on the one separate to the event Poppy was working. It had been fun, but when he’d checked the social posts the next day and seen the pictures posted of the other team - all smiles between them, a slightly blurry Poppy in the near background of all of Jack’s pictures to indicate how close they had been throughout the event - he had felt like he’d missed out on something.

“That was work, it doesn’t count, Popsicle.” Nico could hear the roll of Jack’s eyes.

“Yeah, well some of us don’t consider helping underprivileged children and spreading Christmas spirit ‘work’, Jack.” Poppy had used air quotes to emphasise her sarcasm, and a fond warmth had spread throughout Nico’s chest at hearing her hold her own against someone as brazenly wise as Jack Hughes. “I thought we were hanging out, having fun, improving our community together. You should really check your ego!”

“I sh-,” Jack had managed to cut himself off, no doubt realising how loud he had gotten. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding the whole team all year, ‘cause you’re hung up on-,”

The door to Poppy’s office had slammed closed before Nico had a chance to hear the end of his teammate’s sentence. Their voices had been muffled after that, and shame had started to creep up on Nico at the fact he’d been eavesdropping on a private conversation.

He’d foregone the snacks he originally snuck off in search of, and returned back to the locker room to get ready for his practice skate.

For the first time in a long time, when Jack arrived and threw himself down on the bench beside him, Nico had wanted him to bring her up.

In the months prior, he would freeze up at the mention of Poppy Jensen, not wanting to face the reality of his dwindling connection to someone who had once been such a huge part of his life. He had other focuses - namely, Talia - and reflecting on what had once been between the two of them did not serve any kind of good purpose. It opened him up to uncomfortable conversations that he wasn’t willing to have, uncomfortable realisations he couldn’t quite come to terms with, and he had been too comfortable avoiding any kind of confrontation around it.

But in the short time between witnessing the conversation between Jack and Poppy, and getting ready for the team��s morning practice, too many questions had been swirling around his mind, and he needed answers.

Why was Poppy packing up her desk?

Why was she avoiding hanging out with the team?

What was she so hung up on? Had something happened?

He’d spent so long avoiding even thinking about her, that he all of a sudden felt like he’d missed everything.

Luckily for him, Jack Hughes needed little to no prompting for his blabbermouth nature to prevail.

“You know, for someone who’s literal job it is to lead us as a Captain, you’ve done terribly at warning me just how stressful this whole New Years thing is,” Jack had huffed as he began changing into his practice gear.

“I did nothing but warn you,” Nico responded, “You called me Mr Grumpy Pants and told me I was just afraid your party was gonna be better than mine.”

“Yeah, well, you should have insisted, it’s stressing me out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nico scoffed, running a hand through the mess of his hair and leaning back into his locker. He watched Jack’s jittery movements as he shrugged on his pads, and felt the need to reassure his friend. “Everyone’s looking forward to it. As long as there’s plenty to drink and decent music, people will have a good time.”

“Not everyone,” Jack grumbled, “I can’t even get Poppy to come and she loves parties.”

So that’s what they had been talking about.

Poppy did love parties, but Nico couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her at one.

“Poppy has a New Years ritual, she didn’t come to mine, either, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.” Nico shrugged, despite the wave of a memory that washed over him of him doing exactly that when she hadn’t showed up last year. He’d had to restrain himself from leaving his own party - spent the night texting her updates on what everyone had been doing, snap-chatting her pictures in the hopes it would entice her the few blocks over from her apartment building. He’d only been consoled by the text he’d received just after the clock had struck midnight, settling for the pride in knowing he had been one of the first to get a Happy New Years message from her - knowing it wasn’t just a mass text she would have copy-and-pasted to everyone else, and had been personalised to him with a bunch of perfectly curated emojis and exclamation marks after his name.

Nico didn’t see Jack’s stiffened posture at the way he had so nonchalantly mentioned her for the first time in forever. Didn’t see the side eye, or the pensive twist of his mouth as he carefully considered his next words like he was about to step through a minefield.

“I’m gonna keep trying,” he had sat back down on the bench beside Nico to put on his skates, “I’m definitely her favourite, she’s been helping me organise the whole thing, I don’t think it will take much to convince her.”

Nico tried not to show any kind of reaction to Jack being Poppy’s favourite, or at the thought of how much time they must be spending together to organise such an event. A part of him knew he was only saying it to rattle him. “Cutting it a little fine, aren’t you? New Years is in a couple days, and the guys from the Foundation aren’t even around this week, are they?”

“She’s covering someone on content until January, I said I’d drive her home after the game and me and Lukey can double down on it. And if we can’t get it done tonight, she’s coming on the road with us at the end of the week. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh,” Nico was thankful for how Jack had leaned over to tie his skates up, because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d been able to mask whatever had flooded over him at the revelation that his teammate would be driving Poppy home.

That was his thing. He was pretty sure his passenger seat was still positioned to her liking despite how long it had been since she’d sat in it. He was still working his way through the stash of smiley face air fresheners she had stashed in his glove compartment. He still felt like he was forgetting something every time he left the parking lot and she wasn’t sat beside him, chatting his ear off about some of the kids she had worked with in the day.

“Maybe you should ask her?”

Nico’s eyes shot over to meet Jack’s in alarm. “Me?”

“Yeah, the more people that ask, the more she might feel like she’s missing out. Flash her those cute dimples, how could she possibly say no?”

“I think I’m the last person that’s gonna convince Poppy to come, Jack.” Nico had tried to be nonchalant about it, but he had come across so painfully uncomfortable that he could feel the hair on his arms stand, not liking the ache that spread through his chest at the statement.

There was once upon a time that cheering Poppy Jensen up had been a large part of his routine. Even small acts, like bringing her a coffee on a busy day, where he knew she wouldn’t take a break to go get one herself, and knew how much she disliked the stuff from the pot in her office. Sending her texts from across the room when there were big organisation meetings and he could see her chewing at her fingernails at the vast amounts of information being spewed about. Tagging her in cute animal videos he’d come across on TikTok when he was across the country on a roadie and on a different timezone - she’d wake up to them sometimes, and he’d wake up to her response.

“Right, I forgot you two aren’t friends anymore.”

“Is that what she said?” Nico had swallowed down the hurt at the thought of her coming to that conclusion - vocalising it to someone and finalising the decision before he had any chance to do anything about it.

He couldn’t really blame her, though - he’d had plenty of chances.

Nico could feel himself beginning to spiral, words swirling around his head like a tornado of realisation and guilt.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Avoiding the whole team all year.

Jack is driving her home.

He’s her favourite.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Shit.

He didn’t even take in Jack’s response to his question. As much as he wanted to know the answer, he couldn’t bear to hear it.

Nico couldn’t face up to what he had truly lost.

It wasn’t his girlfriend of five months, who had dumped him over text during the most wonderful time of the year. It wasn’t a few games, that, sure, it had sucked that they had been beat, but in retrospect, the team had had a pretty decent start to the season, and shouldn’t have had his back up that much.

Nico had lost someone who had, at one point, been the most important person in his life.

The person he would usually have gone to to help him through the other stuff - the breakups, the losses, the stress, the anxiety - the crushing weight that had been pressing down on his chest since he had left for Switzerland at the beginning of summer.

Nico and Poppy used to work around each other like a beautifully choreographed, well-rehearsed dance. She always knew when he was overwhelmed or exhausted, he always knew when she was stressed or upset, and they both knew how to pick the other back up.

They hadn’t even fallen out of sync when they’d stopped talking to each other, only this time, they were moving around each other. If Nico entered a room, Poppy would leave. If she knew he was going to be at a team party, she’d make up an excuse not to go. If someone mentioned Poppy in casual conversation, Nico would quickly change the subject. All of it had been subconscious, on his part, at least.

It had been so easy after such a prolonged distance between the two of them to move when she pushed, to watch when she ran, like he had grown into his part in their relationship akin to repelling magnets, always moving away from one another.

It had been so easy that he hadn’t even really realised what was happening - lost and handicapped by a thick fog clouding his thoughts and his judgement. He’d let their once blooming friendship wither and die, and for what?

As he had watched Jack waddle out of the locker room for their practice session, muttering a dismissive, “Whatever, I’ll figure it out,” to his Captain, it was like he had been awakened into full consciousness.

Nico had thought that his turmoil had started with the holiday period. Had thought the ache of homesickness had swirled in with the grief that came with the loss of his relationship, and the shame his poor performances on the ice had thrown upon him. But it had started long before that. He hadn’t been himself since he’d returned from his summer break. Before that, even.

Without realising that he had lost her, Nico had spent the last few months subconsciously mourning his friendship with Poppy - the crushing weight of that grief consuming him to a point that he felt lost with no way out, and had expressed it in a bunch of misguided ways.

He reached into his bag to retrieve where he had stashed his cellphone, scrolling through his Messages app until he stumbled across Poppy’s name. The last text had been sent in September, by her, and he had never responded - had never even opened it, the blue dot to the left of their message thread taunting him with chirps of how awful he had been to ignore it.

Poppy: Hey, can we talk? I miss you.

How late is too late to reply to a text like that? He could only hope she still felt the same way.

Turns out, 4 months might be too late.

Nico has drafted an embarrassing amount of messages to Poppy over the days since that conversation in the locker room.

His notes app has a whole folder dedicated to her. Bullet pointed lists, random memories that made him think of her, structured essays that laid out a timeline of their friendship, and all the mistakes he would need to beg for her forgiveness for.

He’d tried sending a message when he had got back to his apartment after the game against Columbus, feeling a rush of confidence from the adrenaline of their OT win, his high had soon dwindled when he was alone. He sat staring at all the different iterations of an apology he could offer, and had even chickened out of the final draft of a very simple but hopefully effective, ‘Hey.’

He knew he was overthinking it. A conversation starter would at the very least open the door for the apology, and all he needed to do was talk to her in some way - but that turned out to be easier said than done.

She wasn’t in her office when he’d gone to seek her out at work the next day, and when he realised she was probably in the content and media offices, he felt like he would be cornering her if he sought her out in front of anyone else. When the weight of how far removed they now were from each other’s lives dawned on him, a text felt too informal, and so the paragraphs sat untouched in his notes. The weather hadn’t been too great, so he couldn’t try and intercept her on the running route he knew all too well, and even attempting to orchestrate a seemingly random encounter outside of work seemed too creepy so stopping by the cafe around the corner from her apartment in the hopes she’d be there grabbing a latte was off the cards.

He’d seen her on the plane to Ottawa, having to pass her seat to get to the team section at the back, but he had a few people boarding behind him, and she had her eyes cast toward her cell, headphones on and typing intently to somebody, he couldn’t even offer her a friendly smile to try and warm her up to the possibility of a conversation.

Between their win against the Senators, and their loss against the Bruins the next day, there wasn’t much time, or energy, really, to seek her out, and so he’d had to press the breaks, but as they flew back to New Jersey from Boston, a panic had started to swirl within his chest.

Nico knew he couldn’t enter a new year without clearing the air, and so time was well and truly running out. He again had seen her on the plane, and when he had plucked up the courage to get up and go sit with her, Jack had beaten him to it. When the plane had landed, and the team bus had driven them all back to the Rock, the Hughes brothers had both walked her to her car to see her off for the evening.

For someone who had been not-so-subtly trying to initiate a reunion between Nico and Poppy for so long, Jack Hughes sure knew how to get in the way. But, he was easy to forgive - especially when Nico had woken up to his texts late this morning.

Jack: need ur help

Jack: urgently

Jack: wake up dude

Nico: I’m not driving anywhere for you

Jack: not asking u to

Jack: u will like this I promise 😌

Nico: what do you want?

Jack: need u to keep Poppy company

Jack: she’s in my apartment and she seemed off when she got here

Jack: been on her own for a few hours

Jack: so she’s grumpy 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 👹👹

Nico: doubt I can change the grumpy part

Nico: especially if you’ve left her alone for hours

Jack: don’t need to

Jack: ur a grump too

Jack: will cancel each other out 👍🏻👍🏻😇😇

Jack: u going down or no?

Nico: fine

Jack: I’ll be back in 1 hr :)

Jack: love u cap 😚

Nico: 🙄

And that was how Nico had found himself trudging down to Jack’s apartment, hopeful at the dream of a bridged gap between him and Poppy, and quickly disappointed by the reality.

She had been cold, rightfully so, and had made it clear as day she didn’t want anything to do with him. She had shrunk into herself, backing away from him any time he got too close, defecting to a state of avoidance - gaze dropping to the floor, declining his offers to help her, making assumptions she was in his way, as if the thought of him seeking her out had become an entirely alien concept.

He couldn’t blame her for how she was being with him. It had been his fault things had collapsed between them - he’d come to that conclusion with the vast amounts of evidence piled up in his phone storage the past couple of days, but it didn’t make it hurt any less to see her like this - or to feel an actual, tangible resistance when he had tried to insist on being around. She didn’t want him around, that much was obvious, and it was starting to feel like it was to late to fix what he had so royally screwed up between the two of them.

The once well-oiled machine that was their friendship was now clunky, clattering, dying a slow death with parts that were now obsolete.

But that didn’t change how much he wanted it to work. His parents had once told him when he was growing up that nothing was beyond repair, and if he wanted something fixed enough, he would figure out a way.

They had been talking about a model train he, his father and his brother had made when he was very young. The company that made the sets had gone bust, and they no longer sold the individual parts anymore - so when his sister had stumbled over something in the garage back home, knocked a box, and the once pristine collectable train had tumbled out and ended up cracked and chipped, he had been heartbroken. He and Nina had filled in the chips with wood filler, and touched it up with her nail polish, and it wasn’t the same but in a way it was better - a new sentiment attached with a memory of bonding with his sibling.

The same thing could apply to his friendship with Poppy. Maybe they couldn’t go back to what they were - maybe they could be better.

And, when Poppy had made one too many attempts to push him away - when he had taken a hold of her after she had tried to move past him, dismissing him and his desire to help her, once again - a fire reignited within him. A spark of hope flickered at the familiarity that had flashed across her face as he referred to her in an endearment he hadn’t let himself use in so long.

In that moment - hand wrapped around her arm, just above her elbow, the skin soft and warm, close enough to smell the all too familiar cloud of vanilla-coconut scent that followed her, and her eyes locked on his - he had seen a crack in her armour.

He had seen an element of want - wanting to reconcile, wanting to fix things, wanting him in her life in the way he had been those months ago - and in a mirror of his own emotions, he had seen trepidation.

They wanted the same things, had the same fears, had the same end goal.

And when the unforeseen interruption of her best friend arriving startled her back into her withdrawn persona, he had realised something else.

Nia’s contrasting attitude toward Nico - open, friendly, familiar - had opened his eyes to the fact that Poppy hadn’t told her best friend about the demise of her friendship with Nico.

And that, as much as it needed unpacking entirely, was Nico’s backdoor entry into the high security vault of Poppy’s good graces.

Thankfully for him, Nia’s obliviousness to their tension had worked entirely in his favour. He tried not to look too much into Poppy’s attempted avoidance of spending the evening in his presence, despite her other plans falling apart. Tried to shoulder the blows of her sly digs at them not being friends anymore. Tried to ignore the pang in his heart at Poppy’s best friend being the one to throw flirty jibes his way, and not her.

A determination had begun to brew within him - swirling, bubbling, steaming - and it was going to push him to finally bridge the gap he had forced between them.

His first success was her agreeing to come to the party, and he could easily build on that momentum.

Nico and Poppy were going to be friends again by midnight, he would figure out a way.

> Chapter One

#nico hischier #Nico Hischier x reader #Nico Hischier fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagines #Nico Hischier imagine #anyways #if you do by happenstance read all these tags #we need to have a conversation about people as colours #I would have ranted about this in my an but honestly I think I went on enough #nico is green I won't budge on this because I am also green and he is mine #like if your fav colour is green you know what I mean it becomes your entire existence #but also every time I write him in an outfit its like khaki olive vibes #he's just an earthy toned fella #no one can change my mind #I call this phenomenon hot guy synesthesia I'm writing a thesis on it you've just read it #anyways I'm gonna publish this and run for the hills #*writing #*oys

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spreadyovrwings · 3 months ago

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Honey, I Can Feel Your Pain

A late night heart-to-heart before the end of the world. Or, two idiots try to talk about their feelings but they’re both demons and not very good at it.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: my writing/me trying to navigate a complicated character, i cringe therefore i am

A/N: literally just ignore me lol i wanted to see if i could write Alastor well so this is something of a personal challenge and a warm up for me (and i’m obsessed with him) so hopefully i’ve done him justice. there’ll be a part two if anyone wants one!

Chapter One

The door to Alastor’s studio was always locked to everyone but you. You weren’t sure how he did it. He was a complete technophobe, so a hidden camera was out of the question. Perhaps he’d cast some sort of spell or could sense you coming. You weren’t sure. All you knew was that if you needed to see him, and Alastor permitted it, his door was always open.

That night, the radio tower was dark and still, the only sound a slow, jazzy number sent oozing over the city and into people’s homes.

You found Alastor at his sound desk, one long finger poised idly on a bakelite dial, as if debating whether to alter the sound his tower produced. His ever-present smile was fixed in place but his lips were closed, his deep red eyes focused.

You tapped your foot against the floor, once, twice, three times, announcing your presence as gently as you could so as not to disturb him too abruptly. It didn’t matter that Alastor had to let you in in the first place, it always seemed impolite to come barging in.

He didn’t look up as you approached but you could tell you had his attention, and when you put your hand on the back of the chair next to his, a question, he answered with a short nod.

“Are you alright?”

Alastor barely moved, his eyes fixed on the glowing buttons and dials in front of him.

“Fine, fine.”

He spoke faintly, airily, with no hint of static, as if he were lost in thought. You couldn’t help feeling like you’d interrupted a private moment.

“It’s just you’ve been locked away in your room for days now.”

“Hard at work! Nothing more.”

As if to prove a point, Alastor wrapped his long fingers around the dial and adjusted the volume, then slid his fingers along the desk to conjure up the next song.

This tune was a lot more uptempo. It wasn’t like Alastor to be so sloppy, you must really have caught him off-guard.

Alastor seemed to realise his mistake too. He turned to you, leaning back in his chair, exuding a confidence and poise that many envied and few saw through.

“Is there something I can help you with, my dear?”

His attention was yours. Too late to go back now.

“You’ve been quiet ever since Charlie came back from Heaven.”

“Well, I-”

“And you don’t go quiet,” you pressed on, refusing to let him chart the course of your conversion. “So what’s wrong?”

The two halves of his face told two different stories. Alastor’s eyes were fiery and guarded, he didn’t like being questioned but you’d cornered him. Below, his smile stretched his skin. You wondered if it hurt.

“I’ve been reviewing the situation,” he said after a thoughtful pause, every word considered and weighed.

“You’ve missed dinner four nights in a row for that? I made all your favourites to try and entice you down, you know.”

Alastor hummed. He wasn’t listening.

“Do you know, for almost one hundred years, I have lived here quite happily. I’ve carved out a nice little niche for myself. And then the princess started getting bright ideas…”

Alastor’s long fingers danced over the faders again but he didn’t move any of them. It seemed to be the habit of a lifetime. Two lifetimes.

“The angels… Unsettled me. And you’re quite right, I don’t get unsettled. It required meditation.”

“The angels unnerved you?”

“Unsettled. But I suppose there’s not much point arguing over semantics. Either way, the result n’est pas bon, cher.”

“What did they say that unsettled you?”

One of Alastor’s ears flicked in irritation. It was a rare thing for him to give away even that much. It was a particular kind of personal hell, for him to have a body that could betray him so visibly. He could rattle everyone with his big grin, he could even hide pain behind walled eyes, but the attributes given to him, gifted to him, shackled to him, when he fell, weren't so easy to control.

“It’s not quite that simple, my dear. The angels are all bluster and hollow virtues. I care very little about what they have to say, the self-righteous...”

He took a breath.

“But then they halved the time till the next Extermination. It’s of little consequence to me. They’re clever enough to leave me alone most of the time and if any angels do try their luck, well, they’re quietly done away with. Plus, it’s just plain old good sport to watch the show.”

You smiled.

“Might have to disagree with you there, handsome.”

Alastor laughed humourlessly, a dry, sharp sound like a bow pulled roughly against violin strings.

“That’s just it, I might too. The issue is… Now it’s only a few weeks away…”

The song changed. Low, smooth, like sand through an hourglass, a single trumpet groaned into life, filling the room before disintegrating and travelling along the airwaves. Was it a distraction? Was Alastor struggling to hold his focus? Who knew? Maybe not even him.

“Alastor,” You leaned forward in your chair, undeterred by his hesitancy. “What’s wrong?”

His gaze slowly slid to you. The close-mouthed smile was back. It was the closest he ever came, or ever could come, to relaxing his expression completely.

“It usually doesn’t bother me,” Alastor murmured, his words barely audible over crackling static.

You frowned.

“But this time it did?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Alastor’s nose wrinkled.

“Because before, I didn’t have you. It was easier. I’ve never relied on anyone or had anyone relying on me. Now there’s the hotel, its inhabitants…”

You remedied the sting with a vacant smile of your own.

“When you say ‘you’, you mean all our friends?”

Alastor shook his head.

“No. No, I was attempting to obfuscate.”

“Oh.”

Alastor stared at you. You stared back. Then, with a clang, the penny dropped.

“Oh!”

“Mm.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite.”

You smiled at his sour expression. Your own face was burning but you bravely ignored it.

Your relationship with Alastor had been a nebulous, vague sort of a thing. He was a terrifying colleague to have at the hotel, and at first, you couldn’t be sure why in Hell he was there. He liked to watch others struggle, suffer, and fail miserably, it was all just good entertainment for him. But that couldn’t be all there was behind his sudden interest.

As soon as you figured out that Alastor served himself and himself only, things became a lot clearer, and it was a lot easier to like him. You didn’t have to worry about trusting him, because you couldn’t. You didn’t have to question his motives, you knew they were ill-intentioned and that you were better off not knowing. He liked to pretend he was oh so mysterious, but Alastor was perhaps the most honest person in the hotel.

Mutual respect grew into friendship, into something more. You often went out with Alastor when he required assistance or just wanted some company, and you were always the first person he came to when he got home.

Slowly, incrementally, that trust bloomed. Alastor began to ask for your opinion. You would sit together in companionable silence, reading by the fire long into the night. He didn’t need to ensnare and trick and manipulate you, because you did things for him happily and without question, though within reason.

He was always honest with you, or at least, as honest as he could be without it endangering his own self-preservation. And you respected that. It was a harsh world, you had to look out for yourself, but slowly, so slowly that neither you nor your friends had noticed until it was too late, Alastor had bound his life to yours.

You hadn’t appreciated the depths of that connection. You’d always known you had a soft spot for him, ill-advised as it was, but never in all that remained of your afterlife could you have anticipated a requited affection.

Alastor interlocked his fingers and rested them in his lap, keeping his composure well considering the situation.

“It pains me to think of you in danger.”

You couldn’t help it, you laughed quietly.

“Steady now, Alastor. You sure know how to sweep someone off their feet.”

He’d never rolled his eyes at you, he was far too refined for that, but Alastor gave his equivalent, waving an airy hand at you and soldiering on.

“We have always been close, you and I. Right from the start.”

“That’s not how I remember it but…” You smiled. “I like to think of us as a little team.”

He brightened, his pained smile morphing into something a little more authentic.

“Exactly! A team! But what was once companionship and, admittedly, amusement-”

“Do you mean we have fun together or do you mean amusement at my expense?”

Alastor waved his hand again.

“A little of column A, a little of column B.”

“Wonderful.”

“What I mean to say is… My feelings have evolved somewhat.”

In all the time you’d spent with him, you’d never known Alastor to be so hesitant. In fact, you couldn’t remember a time when you’d seen him show any sign of apprehension. His stitched-on smile was still intact but his clawed fingers drummed against the sound desk and his gaze had been lost in safer ground, somewhere over your shoulder.

“Evolved into what?”

Though your heart was thudding in your ears, you didn’t hesitate to push him. You thought one of the reasons Alastor had grown to enjoy your company so much was that you liked to talk, as well as listen. He got bored so easily and he’d always been a chatterbox; you were one of the few people in his life who could match him in that without any sign of fear or an ulterior motive.

Alastor’s ear flicked again. This was a hard conversation for him.

“The Extermination meant nothing to me before. But now, the thought of it…”

You watched his eyes grow unfocused as his imagination consumed him. His fingers stopped drumming. The song on the radio rose by a few decibels.

“Alastor, it’s okay-”

“It frightens me. And it’s not about self-preservation this time. When I consider how our companions may fare…”

“They’ll be okay.”

“What if I can’t protect you?”

Sensing you might need to ease off, take a breath, anything, you leaned in closer, reaching out for him but never, ever touching him without asking first. Instead, you rested your hand beside his on the desk.

“I don’t need protection, Alastor.”

“Still, I want to keep you safe, my darling. There’s a… A sharp tug here…”

He pressed one clawed hand against his empty chest.

“And here…”

He dragged the same hand down to the pit of his lean stomach.

“When I think about you in any kind of danger.”

How did he always manage to be so charming, even when he didn’t mean to be?

You barely held back a pleased smile. Like Alastor’s, it tugged at the corners of your mouth, threatening to spill over into a stupid, happy grin.

He didn’t have the language for what he felt, that was fine. You and Alastor had always found a way to communicate, even without words. He’d told you more with one gesture than you ever could have expected him to say aloud.

But it wasn't just unexpected, it was completely astonishing. You couldn’t let him sense that though, it might make him retreat into himself. So instead, you turned it back around on him, letting Alastor choose how much he wanted to give away.

“What do you think that could be?”

“I have an idea. But I dread to think.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed slightly, and you knew you were on the same page.

It would be difficult for him, far more than it had been for you, to pin down and explore and accept the feelings you had for each other. You hadn’t been able to figure out a better word for whatever it was that fizzled between you, though, like Alastor, you had a sneaking suspicion and it terrified you.

Nothing sounded right. Logically, you knew there were some words that ought to fit, but acknowledging them felt like wearing someone else’s shoes.

You couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Alastor to come to terms with it all. So it surprised you when he slid his hand over yours.

It wasn’t the first time you’d touched, he was always holding out his arm for you, patting the top of your head, often even lifting your hand to his lips when he greeted you in the mornings or bade you goodnight. But this wasn’t a fleeting brush of his hand against yours, this was sustained, purposeful contact, and it meant something, to both of you.

Alastor’s gaze still couldn’t meet yours, so he stared at your hands, his close-mouthed smile back in place.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you,” he said quietly, and it was just his voice you could hear, no static, no sound effects, just Alastor.

You smiled.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you too, handsome. I get the same feeling.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, all the time.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring, at least.” Alastor finally met your eyes, his head tilted quizzically to one side. “Have you told anyone?”

“What, and admit I’m in love with the Radio Demon? No thanks, I’d never live it down.”

Feedback shot through the room, a grating, warped sound, like someone had held a microphone too close to a speaker. It was hard to tell if the sound emanated from the mixing desk or from Alastor himself, but his scarlet eyes were wide.

His hand tightened over yours, though it was more likely out of surprise than him trying to give you comfort. The tips and edges of his sharp claws dug into your skin, not enough to hurt, but it still made your jaw clench.

Alastor, to his credit, didn’t seem as put off by the admission than you might’ve expected. Maybe he wasn’t surprised by the actual sentiment, just that you’d finally said the words out loud.

You smiled.

With just a week or so left until an Extermination that would surely kill you all, there wasn’t much room left in your damned soul for shyness. It wasn’t an all-out ‘if this is my last chance to say it’ confession. You and Alastor had always appreciated candour, and with so little time left, why not say what you were both thinking?

“Have you spoken about it with anyone?”

Alastor shrugged.

“Well, yes, I’m doing it now.”

“No, I meant someone you can trust. Someone you can talk about your feelings with.”

Alastor watched you blankly.

A second penny dropped.

“Oh.”

You had to resist the urge to shiver under his heavy stare.

“You couldn’t talk to Rosie?”

“I considered it but, bless her heart, my old friend can be a sentimentalist. No, best just to get to the source of the problem.”

“Alastor…”

You huffed, pretending to be insulted, and Alastor’s smile once again looked a little more real. It met his eyes, open, unguarded and calm.

“So, what would you like to do about it?”

“Hmm,” Alastor raised the hand that had covered yours to tap one long finger against his chin. “Any chance you’d let me lock you away in a secret, impenetrable bunker?”

Your smile grew.

“Sorry, honey.”

Alastor tutted.

“I thought as much.”

“Do you have one of those?”

“Hm?”

“A secret, impenetrable bunker.”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, my dear. You’ll just have to be particularly careful. And perhaps this… Feeling will go away with time.”

You smiled, barely resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Perhaps it will.”

“When I’m right, I’m right, my darling.”

”That’s not the expression and you know it.”

Master List

#alastor #hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #alastor x you #alastor fic #hazbin hotel fic

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di-42 · 2 months ago

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Well, what a good month for reading August has been! A few days off can make such a difference!

As always I'll try and tag the writers whose Tumblr username I know, so they know they are loved!

If your fiction is on this recommendation list and you'd rather I take it off the list, or if you know a writer who's on this list would rather not be, please let me know and I'll remove their fiction immediately.

I have really enjoyed these fictions, including not one but two Christmas stories. In August. Because, why not? i hope you'll love them too!

August's Awesome Fictions

WIPs:

Wavelengths & Frequencies by imposterssyndrome @maaikeatthefullmoon and shades_of_eccles_cakes @shadesofecclescakes (rated E, chapters 5/?)

I'm absolutely loving this enemies-to-lovers human AU where Crowley and Aziraphale are radio DJs. They loathe each other. They also can't stop thinking about each other! Of course they end up working for the same media corporation. The humour in this story is sharp and clever, and the characterisation is excellent! It's updated every Monday and honestly the only problem I have with this story is that I receive the notification email on a Monday morning and need to wait until at least the end of the working day to dive in!

You're The Bad Guys by Nebz_AlphaCentauri @alphacentaurinebula(rated E, chapters 8/?)

Human AU set in the Cold War. Aziraphale is an MI6 agent, Crowley is a KGB agent. They're assigned to the same mission in Berlin by their respective head offices. This story is full of suspense! I love the characterisation of our heroes and each chapter leaves me wanting for more! Updated every Friday.

My own WIP And I Did (rated E, chapters 6/13)

A post season 2 fiction where Aziraphale is Supreme Archangel and Crowley is Grand Duke Of Hell.

In my not-a-summary I say that this is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. Which is true. But I have come to think of it also as my apology dance to Crowley. My headcanon about Aziraphale has always been clear and my first fiction was me sharing that headcanon basically. I wasn't as sure about what Crowley would do after the final 15 as I was about what Aziraphale’s motives were. I didn't see Crowley drinking himself oblivious or taking a road of self destruction. But I didn't know what he would do. So I skipped that part and started that fiction from after the failed second coming, but still I didn't think I did Crowley justice. Then it hit me, and that was when I started writing And I Did. I knew what Crowley would do. Crowley would do what Crowley does. And what does Crowley do best? This is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. I try to update every weekend, but I might not be as reliable as I’d like!

Complete stories:

The Truth About Plants & Queen by ShortInsomniac98 (rated E, 11353 words)

Human AU where Crowley hosts a night radio program and Aziraphale calls in. I love how their relationship develops in this story and I loved to see a friendly side of Gabriel! (And I mean Gabriel!)

The Anon Before Christmas by @foolishlovers (rated E, 66732 words)

Ah. Where to begin. Every now and then, you read a fiction that just makes you feel at home. Makes you feel like you’re in safe hands. Like you’re in for a real treat. This absolute gem has very quickly become my favourite human AU. For several reasons. The characterisation of the two main characters is absolutely spot on. I could hear Crowley talking in DT’s Crowley voice and see him moving in DT’s Crowley way, and I could hear Aziraphale talking in MS’s Aziraphale voice and see him moving in MS’s Aziraphale way. The pace of the development of their relationship from enemies to lovers is just perfect. It’s told from Crowley’s POV and you can see how his perspective changes as the story progresses, but the writer is so good that Aziraphale’s change of perspective shows perfectly through Crowley’s POV too. The array of side characters is so good that it actually pains me to call them side characters. I wrote in one of my comments to the fiction that I will forever adore this story’s Bee, and I meant it, but Newt and Ana are equally fantastic (and I loved the other cameos too!). Also, and this is especially important to me, this story is as much a love story between Crowley and Aziraphale as it is a story of true friendship among all the characters. They look after each other, they have each other’s back, they support each other. I am so lucky and privileged to be able to see myself represented in that aspect of the story. Last but not least, this fiction doesn't overstay its welcome one bit. You are happy about how everyone ended up, but still could read more. It’s like you are part of the gang and want to know what your friends are up to. Everything in this story was perfect. I realise I haven’t mentioned what the plot is about, but hopefully by now you might want to find out for yourself!

Planes, Trains & The Apocalypse by walking_contradiction42 (rated teen, 32382 words)

Human AU where Crowley and Aziraphale meet on a plane on their way to Tadfield (via London) for Christmas. Crowley can't stand Aziraphale and only wants as uneventful a journey home as possible. Ha!

I understand there’s a film with a similar title, you definitely don't need to have watched the film in order to enjoy this lovely fiction.

The Bookseller And The Garden by oceantears (rated teen, 13668 words)

Fluff, fluff, fluff! Canon divergent fiction where Crowley is a demon stationed on earth, Aziraphale is an angel stationed on earth, but they have never met until present day. There's no end of the world in sight, only an angel and a demon falling in love and not knowing how to break it to the other that they're not human. I laughed all the way through.

After The End (part one of Nice And Ominous: A Reluctant Eschatology Of The Second Attempt) by beardo @e-rated-beardo (rated teen, 26086 words)

Crowley learns to cope after Aziraphale goes to heaven, with a little help.from his friends. And from the Bentley. I love the writer’s humour and the conversations between Crowley and the Bentley are hilarious.

Series:

Aziraphale’s Diaries by azzfell, @fellshish

This series is hilarious, warm and fluffy. So far there are four stories, all consisting in, yes you guessed it, Aziraphale’s diary entries. In the first story, Empirical study on the principles of snake care (rated teen, 2048 words), Aziraphale suddenly realises he hasn’t paid enough attention to Crowley snake-y needs. He decides he wants to make up for it. Hilarity ensues. Put your cup of tea down before day 6, trust me. In Experiments of an angel who has read entirely too much fanfic (rated teen, 3064 words), Aziraphale discovers fanfiction shipping him and Crowley and decides he wants to test some of the tropes on the demon. Reading Crowley’s reactions through Aziraphale’s POV lens will make you feel warm inside. Drink down at day 10. In How to be a demon: a brief history of the Arrangement (rated teen, 2663 words), Aziraphale recounts some of the temptations he’d had to do during the years, to honour the arrangement with Crowley. The last entry will make you melt. In Adventures of a mystery shopper in the bookshop (rated teen, 3090 words), Aziraphale is worried that Crowley is getting bored, so he wants to help by giving him something to do. Peeps, for this one don’t even pick your drink up. You’ll end up spitting it all over your laptop/phone/tablet.

One shots:

Keep Digging by Appleseeds (rated teen7068 words)

Human AU. Crowley and Aziraphale work in the same office and Crowley is trying to gather the courage to ask Aziraphale out, only to get cold feet at the last moment. In order to try and save his face, he needs to do what the title says. I howled with laughter. Just put down whatever you’re doing and go read this right now. It’s unbelievably hilarious.

But It’s Pretty by Supergeek21 (rated E, 2544 words)

Aziraphale and Crowley have a conversation on why the Bentley is yellow and why the walls are yellow. Things get deliciously spicy.

You've Got Kudos by curtaincall (rated M, 4128 words)

Aziraphale and Crowley both write Good Omens fanfiction on Ao3. Crowley’s stories are sweet and romantic. Aziraphale’s stories are smutty and spicy. They love each other's stories without knowing who the writer is. This fiction was a treat!

The Corset by smitten_obviously @sabine-smitten-obviously (rated G, 1248 words)

A funny and sweet account of that time in the 17th century when Aziraphale decided to wear a corset. I really loved how sweet Crowley is here, without overdoing it a bit! A little gem.

My own little one shot, Angel! Angel! They're At It Again! (rated M, 5566 words)

It's the year 2030. The world never ended. Aziraphale and Crowley are living happily and safely together as a married couple. Everything would be well, if it wasn't that lately Aziraphale has been a bit busy. A bit distracted. Now, Crowley can't have that, can he? He seeks the advice of his girlfriends, who unwittingly give him an idea on how to liven up his marriage. A fluffy and hopefully funny way to the South Downs cottage.

Poems:

To Wish To Fall by ArchangelRemiel @sassysnakedemon

A lovely and sweet poem that explores different ways of falling.

The Devil's Red Hair by lickthecowhappy

I really loved this very emotional poem! Aziraphale has a little souvenir helping him cope in heaven.

#good omens fanfiction #good omens #good omens fic rec #good omens fanfic #good omens fic #good omens fanfiction recommendation #good omens fanfiction recs #good omens fiction #good omens fiction recs #this fandom is amazing #and incredibly talented

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hailthegodsong · 1 month ago

Text

LOVE IS OLD, LOVE IS NEW

One Shot Part 2 ~ Daniel Wagner / Female Reader 𓅪 Link to Part 1

AN: Part 2 is finally here! It is way longer than I intended, but oh well. This is also my first time ever writing smut so... hopefully it isn't terrible. Hope you like the story!!

Word Count: + 15.7k (sorry)

Content Warnings: tooth rotting fluff, anxiety, stress, catastrophising thoughts, mild drinking, pining, self doubt, insecurity, jealousy (if you squint), mentions of STD's, kissing, pushy ex, unwanted digital contact, arguing, profanities, yelling, threats, physical violence, SMUT 18+ INCLUDING: grinding, first time oral (f! receiving), hand job, blow job, fingering, unprotected p in v, cockwarming, slight hair pulling, nipple play, a little bit of pain, multiple orgasms, dirty talk, squirting, sensitivity/ overstimulation, hickeys/ neck kissing, plain old sex, use of the birth control pill, teasing, peeing with someone else there?, talk of money and financial situations, mentions of moving out/ in together, mentions of financial dependence, and of course: Danny being a sweetheart ♡

𓅪

As you stared into the circular mirror perched above Danny’s record player, your hands moved restlessly through your hair, fluffing and smoothing with a kind of desperation. No matter how many times your fingers combed through the strands, it wouldn’t settle, either lying limp and lifeless or rebelling with fluff and frizz.

A frustrated sigh escaped your lips as you stepped away, your reflection an unsatisfying blur of anxiety and imperfection. The room seemed to close in on you, the air thick with the tension that had been building ever since the evening plans were set. You wandered around Danny’s room, half-heartedly searching for a hair tie, as if taming your hair might somehow calm the chaos in your mind.

It had been three days since your world had flipped on its axis. Three days since Otis’s betrayal had cracked open a fault line in your heart, only for Danny to gently step in, filling the fissures with his tender love and care that had always been simmering just beneath the surface. Three days since your quiet friendship had shifted into something more, something that felt inevitable in hindsight. You and Danny had always been close, but the way you’d fallen into each other– how quickly the kisses and whispered “I love you’s” had come, felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Ignoring the pleading messages Otis had bombarded you with, you blocked him on every platform you could think of, eager to erase his existence from your life. Reluctantly, you made the dreaded visit to the doctor, fearing the absolute worst, at the prospect that the woman he had been sleeping with was a long-term partner and may have harboured STDs. To your immense relief, you were given the all-clear, completely clean.

With that chapter behind you, you returned to your new life with Danny, basking in the warmth of his loving presence. On the first day, he greeted you with flowers, and the next, it was coffee and pastries. Your favourites, of course, because Danny seemed to know absolutely everything about you, even when it came down to your flavour profiles. By the third day, it was the compliments. Genuine, thoughtful words that melted the remnants of insecurity you had left over from Otis.

Danny made everything feel different. He wasn’t trying to win you over with grand gestures; he was simply there, day in and day out, showing you what it meant to be cared for. It was the small things that got to you. The way he listened when you talked, the way he seemed to notice every little detail about your behaviour– he was perfect. He was everything you hadn’t known you needed. Attentive, patient, and a steady anchor when your own thoughts spiralled out of control.

He had this way of watching you, knowing exactly when to step in, when to hold you, when to simply let you breathe. His love was this soft, unspoken force, always there, always giving. Since that night, it was as though his entire world had shifted; the way he looked at you and touched you felt like you had become his new centre of gravity.

But tonight, the bubble of quiet intimacy you’d built was about to be burst. Sam’s birthday meant an evening at the bar with himself, Jake, Josh, and the rest of your close-knit circle of friends. It meant the privacy of your shared love was about to be exposed to your little world, and that thought filled you with a kind of nervous dread that clenched your stomach into knots.

You had known the boys for years, grown up with them practically, but now that things had changed, you were terrified of what they might think. What if they didn’t approve? What if they thought you were a poor match for Danny, that you weren’t good enough? He was, after all, a rockstar.

You knew that he had spent years on the road, meeting countless beautiful, glamorous women. Women who could capture his attention in ways you couldn’t. That insidious doubt gnawed at the edges of your mind, making your palms clammy and your heartbeat uneven.

It was as if you had already made up your mind. It had become definitive to you that Danny was going to leave you by the end of the night. You should’ve really been looking for a new place to stay instead of a silly hair tie.

Your search felt increasingly futile as you rifled through Danny’s drawers, met only with the sight of tangled cords, loose change, guitar picks, drum gels and other random trinkets. The anxiety built until you could hardly focus, your hands shaking slightly as they sifted through the clutter. You blew out a long, slow breath, trying to expel the nerves, but they clung to you, tight and suffocating.

Just as your frustration reached its peak, you felt a sudden warmth at your waist. Startled, you jumped, a gasp slipping from your lips and Danny’s hands quickly parted from your skin to give you space. Spinning around, you met his wide-eyed expression of surprise, concern etched into the soft lines of his face.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Danny said quietly, his voice a low murmur that wrapped around you like a balm. He stepped back slightly, though his hand remained hesitantly offering in the air for you to take, fingers curling and straightening in a wordless offer of support. He slowly reached forward to slide his hand into yours. His touch was warm, familiar. But tonight, even that wasn’t enough to quell the storm inside you.

“It’s fine,” you mumbled, a little too quickly, before taking your hand from his and turning away to continue your frantic search. Drawers opened and closed with sharp movements, your hands still trembling slightly as you tried and failed to focus on the task at hand. It wasn’t about the hair tie anymore. You knew that. This was about the weight of what tonight would mean.

“What’re you looking for?” Danny asked, his voice soft and steady. He watched you carefully, the crease between his brows deepening with every anxious movement you made. He could see the tension radiating from you, though you had been trying to hide it all day. Now, it seemed the walls were crumbling.

“A hair tie,” you muttered, running a hand through your hair again. “I can’t get my hair right. It’s just... bothering me. And I can’t go out with it like this.” The words spilled out in a rush, barely making sense, your frustration evident in every syllable. “Do you not have a single hair tie anywhere in this room?”

Danny blinked, momentarily thrown by your frazzled state. Then, without a word, he raised his wrist, revealing the brown hair tie wrapped beside his bracelets. “Here,” he offered quietly, slipping it off and motioning for you to spin around with a small, patient smile.

You sighed, feeling a mix of gratitude and exhaustion as you turned around. He stepped in close behind you, his presence warm and steadying as his hands moved gently, gathering your hair with practised ease. His fingers brushed softly against your scalp, and you found yourself melting slightly into his touch, the tension beginning to drain from your body as he smoothed away the stray strands.

“What’s really going on?” Danny’s voice was low, intimate, his breath warm against the back of your neck as he continued to gently pull your hair back. You could feel the tenderness in every movement, the way he seemed to know exactly how to calm you, even when words escaped you.

A soft sigh slipped from your lips, and you crossed your arms protectively over your chest, looking down at the floor. “I’m just… really nervous.”

“Nervous about tonight?” he asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it from you.

You nodded, biting your lip as you struggled to find the words. “Yeah, I don’t know... I’m– I guess I’m just scared that none of them will approve, or that they’ll think you deserve better. I mean, you’ve been all over the world, Danny. You’ve met so many people. So many women. I just... I don’t know how I can compare to any of them.”

He paused, the gentle tugging on your hair stopping as his fingers stilled. You could almost feel his frown. “Deserve better? Baby, what—”

You shook your head quickly, feeling the heat of embarrassment rise in your cheeks. “Just forget it. It’s stupid. Thanks for the hair tie.”

But before you could take a step away, Danny’s arms slipped around your waist again, pulling you back into the warmth of his embrace. His chest pressed against your back as he buried his face in your hair, his breath a soft, steady rhythm against your skin.

“No,” he murmured firmly, his voice laced with quiet determination. “That’s not how this works. You’re not just gonna bottle this up. Tell me what’s going on, and we’ll figure it out together. ‘Kay?”

Your heart swelled at his words, the gentle pressure of his arms around you grounding you in a way that nothing else could. You nodded like an idiot, and let Danny lead you over to the edge of the bed that you had been sharing for the past few nights.

You picked at a stray piece of wool that had escaped the hemline of your sweater as Danny's gaze burned into the side of your face.

He was the first to break the short silence, “Where is this coming from? You never doubt yourself like this.”

He was right. You, like probably every other person on the planet, had insecurities, yet you had an ability to never let them hold you back. It was something that Danny loved about you– the way that you could be unabashedly yourself, despite what others thought about it. That was until your douchebag of a boyfriend cheated on you with possibly the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen.

You hesitated, not wanting to come across as fragile or jealous. You shrugged one of your shoulders and nuzzled your cheek into the bone, “I dunno, I guess after Otis… I just– I,” you stumbled, trying to find the wording. Danny was patient with you, his arm stroking your back with ease and cation in silence as he gave you the time to spit the words out. “I’m worried it’ll all happen again. I mean, I know you would never do that. But next time on tour you might see or meet someone and I– what if I can’t be good enough for you?”

Your lips pressed into a tight line as you stared at your hands, revealing the underlying thoughts that had been pressing in on you for the past few days.

“I don’t think you truly understand how long I’ve waited for you. How much I love you. I don’t want all those other people, I want you. And as for the boys… they’ve known for quite some time about my feelings. If anything they’ll have a word with me about treating you right,” he chuckled and tucked one of my baby hairs away from my face, “Just watch, I’m sure they’ll embarrass the shit out of me tonight talking about how much of an idiot I’ve been all these years.”

You sighed, “Okay.” You knew he was right, he had done nothing to make you expect anything different, but it had been hard nonetheless to accept treatment different than to what you were used to.

His large fingers reached to your chin, almost engulfing it between his thumb and forefinger as he guided your gaze to his. He looked at you with such gentleness, such softness that you felt as if you were floating in his love. He leaned in and pressed his lips to yours lovingly.

You hummed into the kiss, your body gravitating to him as you succumbed to the familiarity of Danny. Whether you realised it or not, he had always safekept your heart, and only now was he able to show it off. He was proud to have you walk into the room on his arm, and had been nothing but excited at the prospect of showing you off.

But, as always, Danny cared about you more. Always put you first, and he didn’t want you to be forced into a situation that made you uncomfortable.

Danny pulled back only slightly, separating your lips but hovering still that you shared the same breath. “We can stay home tonight if you’re feeling anxious. I’d hate for you to feel forced to do something that you don’t want to do,” he offered.

You were quick to shake your head, and you brought your hand up to stroke his cheek, “No. I’m fine, just a bit nervous. I want to go out, promise,” you assured. “Plus, I’m feeling much better now,” you said with a flirtatious bat of tour eyelashes, bringing him in for another kiss.

You felt him smile into it, and one of his hands travelled from your back down to your hip, leaving a wave of vibrations in its wake.

You and Danny hadn’t been intimate yet, nothing apart from the innocent touches in your shared shower had occurred between the two of you. You were both teetering around the prospect on your tiptoes, never wanting to be the one to cross the line and make distance on such new territory.

And to be completely honest, you were absolutely terrified. You had only slept with a few others in your life, so it was safe to say that you were fairly inexperienced. Danny however, you were sure had slept around. You had seen firsthand the types of girls that left your shared apartment in the early hours of the mornings, and it petrified you.

You felt like a virgin all over again– what if you didn’t know what you were doing? What if you did something wrong? You would be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t worried about the physicalities of it all too. You had seen how… large he was and truly feared that things might not work out the way you’d hope. But worst of all, what if he didn't like your body? What if, after being sexually intimate, Danny realised that he didn’t like you so much after all?

It was silly, seeing as you'd shared a shower with him only days before; a shower where he fondled your breasts and touched you in ways more intimate than you'd ever been touched, yet the fear still crept into your mind like cancer.

“C’mon then, if we don’t leave soon we might actually be later than them,” Danny remarked and he pulled away from the kiss, simultaneously pulling you from your racing thoughts too.

Danny watched mostly silently from the edge of the bed as you gathered your things, seeing as he was already ready and you had wasted most of your time picking at your appearance.

“You look beautiful,” he complimented once you had finally packed your purse with essentials and deemed you looked good enough. He took your hand and walked you to the front door, and you leaned into him, smiling at his complement. “Like always,” he added, leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead.

You didn't have time to blush before he was rushing you out the front door, claiming you were going to ruin his punctual reputation with your record breaking slowness. You were hurried out in tufts of laughter as he expertly directed you from any impending thoughts that may sabotage this night from going well. And you were too blinded by his humour to even notice.

It was a beautiful night, you realised as you stepped out of the car after the short drive to the bar. There wasn't a cloud in the sky to obscure the gorgeous view of stars overhead, and although a cool breeze drifted by, the air was warm.

Danny extended his forearm and you wrapped your arms around it tightly, letting him anchor you amidst your floods of anxiety. He kissed the side of your hand and led you through the front door. You were stopped at the door briefly by the bouncer to provide ID, before you were engulfed in the loud atmosphere of your friend's favourite bar.

A live band was performing in the back corner, a small crowd circled around them as they swayed to the melody of the loud acoustics. The hum of the music was infectious, the energy almost tangible as it rippled through the room. You let Danny lead you into the bar, his hand wrapped tightly around yours, holding it in a way that made your heart flutter.

There was something so grounding about his touch, steady in the chaos of the thick mass of bodies. The smell of beer and perfume lingered in the air, mingling with the low murmur of conversations and the clinking of glasses.

“Here they are!” a voice as recognizably distinct as Josh’s yelled, somehow reaching volumes far higher than the music, causing a few heads to turn at the sound. You spotted him immediately, standing with the rest of the group who had all turned to watch your entrance.

Your heart gave a nervous kick, and you fought to keep your hand still in Danny’s as warmth flooded your cheeks. It wasn’t unusual for you two to show up places together, seeing as you shared an apartment. But holding hands? That was new. Unfamiliar. And definitely not something anyone had seen before tonight.

You reluctantly separated as you approached everyone individually, greeting your friends with hugs and hellos, the usual pleasantries exchanged with an underlying buzz of anticipation.

“Happy birthday, Sam!” you exclaimed when you reached him, your arms automatically wrapping around him in a familiar embrace. He hugged you back, squeezing you tightly like the old friend he was. Sam was nearly as close to you as Danny, the three of you forming an inseparable trio since middle school, your bond running deep from shared experiences through the awkward teen years into high school.

“Thank you, I’m glad you could make it… Danny told me about, you know, what happened.” He stuffed his hands into his front pockets, rocking back on his heels with a slightly awkward, sympathetic smile. There was a depth to his words, a weight behind the casual tone, and it caught you off guard.

Heat rushed to your face, embarrassment washing over you. You couldn’t help but feel a stab of betrayal that Danny had already told Sam about your new relationship. It wasn’t as if it were a secret, you were planning on telling everyone tonight anyway, but it still felt wrong, like something had been taken from you before you were ready.

“But don’t let it get you down, ‘kay? He’s an idiot. We always knew you could do better than him. What was his name again anyways? Otto?” Sam added.

Relief hit you like a wave, your body relaxing as you realised Danny hadn’t been telling everyone your business. Of course he hadn’t. He promised he wouldn’t, and Danny was nothing if not true to his word. Guilt bubbled up inside you for doubting him in the first place, and you offered a small, apologetic smile to Sam as you tucked a few stray hairs behind your ear.

“Otis. But yeah, I know, he was a dick…” Your voice trailed off as your thoughts wandered back to the night’s real purpose. When would be the best time to reveal your relationship? You mentally kicked yourself for not rehearsing this with Danny beforehand, feeling woefully unprepared.

“Hah! That’s one way to put it!” Sam was clearly a few drinks in already, his smile lazy and lopsided. He slung a heavy arm over your shoulders, pulling you into his side with a little too much force as he spun you both around until you were facing Danny, who was deep in conversation with Jake, a beer in hand.

Sam extended his arm, motioning toward where Danny stood. “Now, it’s been a while since Daniel’s gotten any, so I invited some of my lovely lady friends over there,” he said, nodding his head toward a group of four or five girls. Their hair was pin-straight, dresses tight and short, their eyes scanning the room as they chatted amongst themselves. “Josh and I have made bets on which one will be the lucky lady, what d’ya think?” He nudged you playfully, clearly unaware of the impact his words were having on you.

Your heart dropped, the weight of his words settling heavily in your chest as you watched one of the taller girls flip her hair over her sharp shoulders, her full and unnaturally large lips puckering slightly as she spoke to her friends. The knot in your stomach tightened, twisting uncomfortably.

“Oh, um, I don’t know,” you murmured, your voice small as you tried to mask the growing discomfort. You shifted uneasily under Sam’s arm, feeling the pressure of his intoxicated weight and the sting of his ignorance. It was becoming too much, too fast. You weren’t prepared for this level of emotional turbulence tonight.

“You alright?” Sam’s voice cut through your thoughts, concern lacing his words as he loosened his grip on you slightly. You nodded, but it wasn’t convincing. You could feel the heat rising to your cheeks, and you swallowed thickly, wishing more than anything that you had taken Danny’s offer to stay home. This was supposed to be a celebration, but the tension in your chest told you otherwise.

The sound of your name broke through the fog of your thoughts, and when you looked up, there was Danny, standing right in front of you, his presence like a balm to your nerves. Relief flooded through you as you met his eyes, those warm, steady eyes that always seemed to ground you when you needed it most.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed in concern as he took in your pale expression. “I was about to head to the bar, but didn’t know what you’d like to drink.”

Before you could respond, Sam butted in with his usual boisterous charm. “Daniel, brother! How are you?”

Danny offered a polite smile. “Good, good, Sam. Want me to grab you something from the bar too?”

Sam’s attention shifted momentarily as he waved a hand toward the group of girls again, his voice lowering conspiratorially. “No, thank you. But I think one of those lovely ladies over there would be delighted to get a drink…” He wiggled his eyebrows, the innuendo unmistakable.

Danny’s shoulders sagged slightly in understanding, his eyes darting to yours. You could see the apology written all over his face, the unspoken ‘I’m sorry this is happening’ lingering between you.

“No, Sam,” Danny said, stepping closer to you, his hand gently brushing against your back as he subtly unhooked Sam’s arm from your shoulders. His touch was protective but soft, like he always knew how to comfort you without making a scene. “I’m actually… not looking for anyone. I'm not single anymore,” there was a pause, “We’re not single anymore.”

Sam blinked, his drunken mind clearly struggling to keep up with the sudden shift in conversation. “No? Since when? Who’re you dating?”

You couldn’t help the small laugh that bubbled up, a mix of amusement and nervousness. Danny’s hand settled on your waist, pulling you closer to him as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head, his lips lingering just long enough to make the meaning clear.

Sam’s eyes went wide, realisation dawning on him in slow motion. “Oh my God! Finally! It’s finally happening!” he yelled, drawing even more attention from the nearby crowd. Before you had a chance to react, Sam had taken off, rushing through the bar to find Jake and Josh.

When he returned, both twins in tow, their faces a mixture of confusion and mild irritation, Sam was still buzzing with excitement. “Danny, tell them! Tell them!” His voice was loud, his enthusiasm infectious, and you couldn’t help but smile despite the chaos.

Neither of you had to say a word, though. The way Danny held you, his arm secure around your waist, told them everything they needed to know.

“It’s about fucking time,” Josh exclaimed, walking forward to pull you into a hug, which felt incredibly unnecessary. His embrace was strong, almost squeezing the breath out of you, but you could sense his genuine excitement through his tight grip. You let out a small laugh, feeling the warmth of the moment despite the slight awkwardness of the hug.

Jake whooped from the side, clearly several drinks in, his face flushed from both alcohol and excitement. It made you wonder how much he had been drinking with Sam before this.

“Well, who made the first move?” he asked, grinning mischievously as his voice rose over the noise of the party. He looked from you to Danny, eyes gleaming as he added, “We’ve placed bets on this, you see.”

You couldn't help but burst into laughter at that, the absurdity of them betting on something like this catching you off guard. When you looked up, you saw Danny blushing deeply, his face redder than you'd ever seen before. It was a rare sight to see him so flustered.

You decided to move to a nearby open booth to talk, grateful for a chance to settle your nerves a bit, and Danny’s hand, warm and steady against your back, was the only thing keeping you grounded.

For a brief moment, you’d almost forgotten about the girls who had been invited to keep Danny company, their presence now completely irrelevant.

“Well,” you started once you were all seated in the booth, the comfortable leather seats making everything feel much more intimate, “It all kind of came out three days ago, after… you know.” You shifted slightly, feeling the familiar unease at the memory of Otis. The weight of that situation still hung in the air, but Jake’s quick nod of understanding helped ease the tension. He then raised his brow expectantly, waiting for you to spill the details.

You looked up at Danny, silently asking him to take over. You trusted him to handle this, and as always, Danny seemed to read your mind. He gave you a small nod before speaking, his voice calm and reassuring. “Well, before we tell you, we’ve gotta hear the bets first.”

The boys laughed, all leaning back in their seats, their playful energy filling the booth. “Well, I always thought Danny was too much of a pussy to admit anything,” Josh said with a grin, throwing his arms lazily over the back of the booth chair. “Bet a hundred and fifty on it.” The casual way he tossed out the number surprised you, and you raised your brows at the high price. You heard Danny chuckle softly beside you, clearly amused.

“I agreed,” Sam chimed in, his voice carrying the same lightheartedness. “Danny’s been talking about you for so long, and I knew the longer he waited, the harder it’d be for him to actually say anything. Jake’s the only one who believed in him, it seems.”

You turned to look at Danny, raising a brow, silently acknowledging the truth in their words. As much as you loved Danny, you had to admit that the majority guessed right.

“Well? Who was it? Who made the first move?” Sam asked again, his eagerness even more evident now, eyes bright with anticipation.

You bit your lip nervously, feeling a flutter of nerves before you perked up in your seat a little. “Me.” Your voice came out stronger than you expected, but the truth felt freeing.

As you spoke, Danny’s hand rested on your thigh, his thumb gently rubbing smooth circles over the fabric of your jeans. The subtle, comforting motion grounded you, and you felt him give your thigh a small squeeze as if in recognition of how thankful he was that you did make that first move.

“Ha ha! Pay up, son of a bitch,” Josh crowed, swivelling in his seat to look at Jake, his face lit up with victory. Jake let out a laugh, but it was tinged with defeat. He lifted his hips slightly to retrieve his wallet from his back pocket, his expression exaggeratedly pained as he sifted through the bills before reluctantly handing over one hundred and fifty dollars to both Josh and Sam.

“I’m just happy it finally happened,” Jake said, shaking his head as he stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. “Danny’s talked our ears off enough about you.” His words were spoken with affection, and you felt the warmth of his teasing radiate through the group.

“Or is this just gonna make it worse?” Sam added, and the others groaned in unison, making it clear that Danny’s affection for you was something they’d all heard about more times than they could count.

You laughed along with them, a lightness settling over you, feeling utterly flattered. Knowing that Danny had been just as in love with you all this time, just as much as you had been with him, made you feel warm and bubbly inside.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Danny said, standing up from the booth with a mock groan. “You want anything from the bar, beautiful?” he asked, turning to you with a soft smile.

There was a collective ‘ooh’ at the casual use of the pet name and you bit your lip to hold back your laugh.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” you said with a smile. Danny leaned back in to press a kiss to your cheek before leaving to get you drinks from the bar. You sighed, leaning back in your chair and smiling lightly at what had happened. You weren't sure what had you doubting their reactions so much. You knew them, and they loved you and Danny both. Just as Danny had said, they were completely expecting it, even surprising you with the ridiculous bets they had made.

At one point in the night, Sam and Josh caught Danny giving you a rather chaste kiss as you waited for Josh to play his round of pool.

“Eugh! It’s like seeing your parents kiss,” Sam complained, raising his hands to try and block the sight. You both laughed, knowing that his jokes were all in good humour.

“Yeah, get a room!” Josh yelled drunkenly, waving his arms around dramatically.

The rest of the evening went by smoothly, all of you feeling a slight buzz from drinking, apart from Danny who had sworn off any more after his second drink as he was driving you both home.

As he expected, Jake, Josh and Sam had delved into stories and recollections of Danny's pining. Their words made you blush significantly, but nowhere near as much as Danny.

He would groan in embarrassment, begging them to stop, yet he truly wanted them to keep going, knowing that you’d feel more confident in the fact that Danny wanted you.

Sam and Jake became familiar with some of the girls who had been invited for Danny's sake, and you watched in amusement as they tried to charm them drunkenly. The rest of them branched off to the rest of the party, thankfully, leaving Danny and you alone completely to be at ease.

When the night came to an end, and you found yourself so exhausted that you felt like you could sleep on the bartop, Danny took it upon himself to call it a night. You bidded your goodbyes and a happy birthday to Sam, and wandered out of the bar to Danny's parked car. His forearm was offered to you at his side, and you slinked your arm over him, hugging your body as close to him as you could as you walked.

“Thank you for tonight, Danny,” you said, your words a mere whisper, but otherwise loud in the silence of the night.

“Thank you. How do you feel about everything?” he asked, hoping your nerves were diminished after the night's events.

You smiled up at him lazily, “So good, I don't know what I was so worried about. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

𓅪

The next day was spent at home. Danny and you meandered around aimlessly, doing your usual Sunday shores, and revelling in the domesticity that was the love you harboured for one another.

Whether it be the gentle touch of his fingers on your waist when he passed you in the hallway, or the fleeting kisses he left on your skin before you moved past, you felt like you were melting in his love.

Danny insisted on cooking you your favourite meal for dinner, spanish fideuà. It was something you didn't have often, but it reminded you of home, and Danny was more than eager to do whatever it took to make you smile.

He was absolutely shameless in his love for you now, despite you showing him in any and all ways how happy you were, he always went one step above, offering you help, complimenting you and anything else that came to his mind to float you higher and higher in the throws of his love.

“Danny, this is delicious,” you hummed, as you got the first taste of the seafood dish he had spent the last few hours preparing.

His eyes lit up at your words, “Really? I know it's nowhere near as good as your moms, but–”

“It’s amazing Danny, thank you,” you interrupted, unable to hear him doubt himself for another moment. You shuffled closer to him from your spot on the floor. You both regularly ate on the floor from the coffee table, being a casual and comfortable position that let you watch a movie while you ate.

You snuggled into his side, letting your body press into his and absorb most of his warmth, and his heart fluttered at the action.

“Alright, what movie are we gonna watch tonight?” you asked through a full mouth, setting your fork down on your bowl and reaching over Danny for the remote on the other side of the coffee table. Your phone buzzed too, so you picked it up with the remote and brought them both to your lap.

“Hmmm,” he hummed through his own full mouth, “I’m feeling like a classic tonight, maybe… The Notebook?”

You looked up at him with a smile, to see him smirking down at you, “Now, are you just saying that cause you know it’s my favourite?”

He looked up in faux thought, “Maybe… or maybe I’m just happy to watch anything, as long as it’s with you.”

You blushed and looked down, pursing your lips as you bit back a smile. He laughed at your response, and pulled you in impossibly closer by his arm.

Your phone buzzed again in your lap, and you reluctantly reached down to pick it up. You had three new messages from an unknown number. Frowning in confusion, you unlocked your phone and read the messages.

Your heart sunk when you read them. Despite blocking Otis after telling him to leave you alone, he was absolutely relentless.

The first message was just your name, alone in its own message bubble, and it made your stomach twist. The next message read, ‘You can’t just cut me out. You haven't even heard me out yet, I never meant to hurt you.’ You didn’t even let yourself read the last, clicking your phone off and shuffling uncomfortably as you sat up straight, pulling yourself away from Danny.

Danny called your name, but his voice sounded distant through the fog of panic that surrounded you. “Baby? Hey, what’s wrong?” he moved closer to you again, resting his hand softly on your back. You looked up at him and were welcomed by his soft expression of concern. You wordlessly handed him your phone to read himself.

He took the phone carefully, and as he read the messages his expression morphed into one unreadable. Angry, concerned, or annoyed? You weren't sure.

“Is this.. This is Otis right? I thought you blocked him.”

“I did, this is from an unknown number. I don't know, he must be using a friend's phone or something,” you mumbled weakly, feeling yourself shrink into yourself.

Danny shook his head, breathing a frustrated breath from his nose, “Look, you don't owe him anything. We’ll just block this one too, and he’ll get the hint.” He took your hand and squeezed tightly.

“I don’t know… he’s stubborn,” you explained.

“I can talk to him then,” Danny suggested.

You quickly turned to him, shaking your head quickly, “No, no don’t do that. It’ll only make things worse. I don't want to get you involved.” He looked at you with a deep frown on his face. “It’s fine, I’ll just tell him to leave me alone again,” you assured, though your tone sounded anything but.

Your stomach began to boil with anger rather than fear. How dare he interrupt you during your quiet movie night of dinner with Danny. How dare he think he had the right to speak with you after the way you had ended things.

With a sigh, you threw your phone to the other side of the coffee table and returned to your nook by Danny's body. He held you tightly, protectively, and it almost made you forget the messages existed at all. He lifted the remote and put on The Notebook, as he tried his hardest to get your mind off of Otis, tracing patterns into your skin by your hip with the blunt tip of his finger. You sighed as you sank deeper into him.

About halfway through the movie, once you had practically forgotten about everything apart from the characters on the screen and Danny's warmth beside you, there was a firm knock on the front door. You jumped, startled from the noise as you looked up at Danny questioningly.

With furrowed brows, he moved to get up, but you placed a hand on his chest, not wanting to worry him anymore after the busy hours he had spent in the kitchen for you.

“It’s alright, I got it,” you said, giving him a quick peck before climbing over him and walking to the front door, the only sound in the silence of the apartment being your bare feet padding against the floorboards.

Once you approached the door, you raised to your tiptoes to peer through the peephole, knowing better than to open the door to an unknown. Your heart sank when you saw Otis.

You sighed frustratedly and swung the door open. “What do you want?” you asked sternly, your tone coming across just as harsh as you intended.

His eyes shot to yours as he realised that you actually opened the door and said your name pleadingly, taking a step towards you. “I– we need to talk,” he pleaded, reaching a hand out to you.

You recoiled from his touch, “We don’t have anything to talk about. We aren’t together anymore, don’t come back,” you responded, stepping back and out of the way of the door as you swung it shut. Otis desperately launched forward and caught it before it closed completely.

Danny, who had been listening from the couch, stood. He had wanted to give you space to fight your own battles, but as soon as he saw Otis forcing the door open against your wishes, he knew that he needed to intervene.

“Let go,” you ordered, trying to pry him away from the door.

“Baby, you haven’t heard me out, please. It was a mistake and…” Otis trailed off, mouth agape as he searched for the words. His attention was caught when Danny's figure approached from behind you. You turned to look at him, eyes blown in frustration and conflict. “Oh,” Otis said, eyes narrowing and clearly taken aback. There was a moment of silence where he tried to articulate his next words, his face morphing from apologetic to distaste in a mere second. “So I didn’t actually do anything wrong? You just needed an excuse to fuck your roomate?” he spat.

Danny stepped forward, took your arm in his hand and pushed you behind him gently.

“Excuse me?” he seethed. You couldn't see his expression from behind him, yet you could only imagine the anger in his eyes. Danny was significantly taller than Otis, and loomed from what you could guess was about eight inches above him.

Otis, clearly caught off guard by the confrontation, fell back to insults to save his pride. “Don't worry man, you can have your slut,” he taunted and you flinched at the vulgarity of his words. Otis had never spoken to you like that.

Danny stepped forward, but you quickly grabbed his wrist. He looked back and down at you, the look on his face frightening, but softening slightly when he saw you, shaking your head.

Danny tuned back to Otis, “You better watch your fucking mouth. Now go, I don’t want to see you back here–”

“Or what?” Otis challenged, taking a step closer to Danny threateningly. You felt completely helpless, guilty that Danny was fighting your battles for you, but angry at Otis's awfulness.

You tried to diffuse the situation, frustration and aggression hanging heavily in the air, “Both of you, please can we jus–”

“I’m serious. Leave,” Danny seethed, his shoulders squaring as he stepped to the side, blocking your body from Otis completely. By this point, all you could see with the contracting muscles in Danny's back from beneath his shirt as he breathed deeply. You tried your best to peer over his shoulder to prevent whatever mess was to unfold, but it was to no avail.

“Fine,” you heard Otis say, “But you’ll get tired of her, just like I did. Call me if you’ve got any questions on how to get her to shut the fuck up,” he spat with a snicker.

In an instant, Danny lunged forward, grabbing Otis by the collar and slamming him against the wall beside your door. Otis’s head struck the surface with a dull thud, shock flashing across his face as he tried to regain his bearings.

The heels of your palms flew to your temples as you gasped, “Oh shit.”

“I told you to watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Danny shoved him further into the wall, teeth bared as anger fumed off of his skin like steam. Otis’s cocky demeanour was long gone, and now stood the image of an innocent and afraid victim.

Despite the chaos of the moment, you couldn’t help but be drawn to Danny. His muscles were taut as he held Otis firmly against the wall, and his eyes burned with fierce intensity. The way he stood up for you during your most difficult moments ignited a fire within you, making it almost impossible to ignore the rush of desire that surged at the sight of him.

“I’m– fuck I– I’m sorry, okay?!” Otis sputtered out, trying to rip Danny's hands off him.

“Danny,” you called worriedly, knowing that if he didnt let go now, he was going to have an assault charge on his hands. He didn't look your way, but his shoulders relaxed at the sound of your voice, and he reluctantly let go, watching as Otis’s body sagged against the wall.

Otis ran an antsy hand through his hair, “You’re fucking crazy man,” he then turned and looked at you, a crazed frustration in his eye, “Not worth the fuckin’ trouble anyways,” he muttered, before turning and storming down the hallway. Danny's head lifted at his words but you reached for him before he could make any irrational decisions, grabbing his arm, dragging him inside and slamming the door shut behind him.

You stood by the door, watching as Danny ran his hands through his hair, pacing on the spot with his eyes trained on the ground. He breathed deeply, trying his hardest to regulate his temper before he addressed you. Just as you were about to reach for him, take his hand in yours and tell him that everything would be okay, he moved towards you, eyes searching yours desperately for some kind of refuge.

“Baby, I– I’m so sorry, I got carried away, I just– he said all those things and…” Danny rushed, his hands searching your own, gripping tightly as if your strength would keep him from falling off the face of the earth. His head dropped down in shame, “I’m so sorry, honey. Please forgi–”

Unable to hear him apologise any longer, you crashed your lips against his. He was still for a moment, processing your movements in silent shock, until, like a switch, he moved his lips against your own hungrily. You separated your hands, letting your fingers roam upwards and grip his hair and jaw, as his own hands fell to your waist, running his palms up and down your curves and squeezing at the hip. The kiss became needy and rushed, and you let out a quiet moan when Danny's tongue slipped into your mouth. You gravitated backwards, Danny leading you until your back hit the wall.

Danny moved forward, the warmth of his body pressing against your own. Unknowing or not, his knee slotted between your legs, and your thoughts went hazy as you ground your hips against it. Danny groaned at the feeling, revelling in the knowledge that you were enjoying him as much as he was you.

His hot breath came out in huffs through his nose, drifting over your skin as his mouth explored yours desperately. Reluctantly, he pulled away, face flushed and panting heavily as his eyes searched yours.

“So, you aren’t mad?” he asked. You looked up at him through your lashes, an undeniable need flowing through your body. You took his hand in yours and shook your head earnestly, slipping away from the wall and walking him away from the livingroom and towards the hallway to your bedrooms.

Danny's brain short circuited when he realised what you were doing– where you were taking him. Nevertheless, he followed eagerly on your heels, blood rushing from his head and straight to his crotch as he tried to keep himself sane.

You walked into his dark bedroom, and Danny switched the light on by the door as he followed you to the bed. He clenched his jaw, trying his hardest to control himself and not explode from the anticipation. You turned around and kissed him again, this time shying slightly from the control. You were undoubtedly nervous, no matter how badly you wanted this, you couldn't shake the anxiety of doing something wrong from your head.

Always in tune with everything that was you, Danny took the lead, edging you closer and closer to the bed until the back of your knees made contact with the mattress. Dannys lips stayed connected to yours as you lowered yourself down, leading you further onto the bed, your hearts beating in rapid synchronicity.

Moments of pause to catch your breaths were quickly ended as you both searched for one another, hands wandering across your bodies while you brought forward the feelings that had always been there.

Soon, your back was flat on the bed, and Danny hovered over you, having crawled his way up on top in your crazed hypnosis. You shivered when the hand resting on your waist travelled up your ribs, his knuckles brushing the underside of your breast from beneath your tank top.

Danny broke from your lips and looked up at you, “Is this okay?” he asked, his knuckles dragging back and forth. He was a sight to see, lips plump and swollen, eyes blown out and cheeks red hot.

“Yes,” you whispered breathlessly with a frantic nod. You threaded one hand back into his curly hair to bring him back down to your lips, while the other rested on his side. At your permission, Danny's large hand cupped your right breast, and squeezed just tight enough that the soft skin morphed under his imprint. You moaned at the sensation, but before you had time to feel embarrassed, Danny groaned back, grinding his hips into yours.

Your mind went haywire as you felt the bulge pressing against you through his sweatpants, mixed with the feeling of him fondling your breasts.

Parting from you again, you realised Danny was panting now. He swallowed nervously, his nose brushing against yours as his hand reached for the strap of your tank top, “Can I take this off?” he asked, eyes boring into your own with such intensity.

“Please,” you responded pathetically. Your core had begun to ache, his groin only brushing against yours briefly now, and your skin was ablaze with the need of his touch. Danny smiled at your words, eyes drifting back down your top as his fingers nimbly took the hem of the top and slid it upward.

You sat up as he slipped it off your body, raising your arms to let him fully remove it. He discarded it with a toss somewhere behind him, and when his eyes returned to you, they were blown out and wide. He had seen your breasts already, but not like this. This was different, just as tender, but with lust heavy in the air.

Danny's lips found yours again as his hand reached up to cup your breast again, this time completely bare. The heat of his palm pressed into your nipple as he squeezed, your flesh pooling around his fingers. His sloppy kisses began to change pace, drifting from your mouth to your jaw. Down past your jaw to the tender skin of your neck.

The sensations were completely overwhelming, yet not nearly enough. The pad of his thumb flicked over your nipple, before pinching it against his pointer finger while he sucked into the tender spot beneath your ear. You breathed loudly, the hint of a moan breaking free at the feeling.

Once Danny felt satisfied with his work on your neck, his lips continued their assault downward, until they too met the crest of your breasts. Taking one in his mouth, he played with the bud of the other while he licked and sucked at the flesh, making you writhe beneath him, hips grinding upward for relief.

“Danny,” you whispered breathlessly, “Please.”

He looked up at you from his place on your chest. “Are you– are you sure? I don't want you to feel like you have to after what just happened. I need you to be sure.”

Your heart ached at his kind words and consideration, but your core ached more, “I promise, I’m sure.” You nodded frantically, reaching down to stroke his cheek, and he leaned into your touch.

Slowly, he dipped his head back to your chest, and he pressed a firm kiss to your sternum. The wet warmth of his lips travelled downward, the kisses turning sloppier the further he moved. Once his lips passed your belly button and were interrupted by the hem of your knitted lounge pants, his fingers traced the hemline as he looked back up at you again, asking for your silent permission with his needy eyes.

You nodded again, eagerly lifting your hips to help him as he hooked his thumbs under the waistband and pulled them down your legs and over your feet, discarding them somewhere on the floor near your top.

You tensed as his lips continued their descent, “Wait– what are you doing?” you asked, closing your legs and bending your knees slightly to give yourself space. Danny pulled away immediately, a soft hand coming down your thigh to stroke the skin gently.

His brows furrowed, “What do you mean?” You only stared at him, eyes wide and biting your lip. Nobody had even gone down on you before. Your friends and sometimes commented on it, making you feel slightly left out from the experience, but no partner you’d ever been with had gone there– had ever wanted to go there.

When Danny realised you weren't going to say anything, he stroked his hand down your thigh to your bent knee, “I want to touch you and… taste you, if you’ll let me.”

Your cheeks flamed at his words, and you became suddenly aware of the warm wetness that had accumulated below.

“I… nobody’s ever done that to me before,” you explained, picking at the edges of your nails nervously, sitting up slightly.

Danny frowned deeply, “What do you– nobody’s ever gone down on you before?” he asked incredulously. Your face flushed, all confidence completely gone as you regretted ever going this far with Danny at all. He probably thought you were a complete prude.

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed,” he ordered, “It’s just me.” He reached a hand up to cup your face, his body shifting slightly to bring himself closer to you and further from your lower half. “We don’t have to if you don't want to. But, I want to show you what it feels like, if you’d like that?”

Your stomach flipped, and you struggled to hold the burning eye contact Danny was staring at you with. “Okay.”

“Okay? You wanna try it?” he asked, hands rubbing against your bare sides comfortingly.

You nodded your head, “Yes.”

Danny smiled at you softly and slid his body back down so that his face was hovering over your public bone. “Okay, just tell me if you want me to stop.”

With that, he looked back at your centre, eyes zeroing in on the wet patch that had soaked through your panites by your entrance. His mouth parted and he breathed deeply at the sight, eyes only catching yours for another moment before he tenderly took the sides of your underwear and tugged them downward.

You lifted your hips for him to take them off, and as he slid them down your legs, you immediately regretted not shaving that morning. You weren't particularly ‘hairy’, having shaved one or two days ago, but there was a little stubble, and you worried Danny was going to change his mind at the sight of it. Your past partners wouldn't have gotten within an inch near your body if you weren't freshly shaved, claiming that it ‘wasn’t very sexy’. But Danny was about to put his mouth on it, and the idea scared you to bits.

Danny took no notice though, his own mind struggling to keep up with the reality of what was happening. If he could go back in time and tell himself at age fifteen what he was about to do, he was sure he would’ve had a stroke.

Eyes catching yours briefly, his hand reached for your core, the tip of his middle finger sliding through the slick by your entrance and spreading it up through your folds to your clit. You breathed shakily at the feeling, pleasure coursing through you at the light touch.

“So wet, sweet girl,” he mumbled, mostly to himself as he watched in awe as he coated you in your own arousal. His thumb joined soon after, rubbing slow, deliberate circles over the bud of your clit, and you clenched your stomach at the feeling, fighting the urge to buck your hips and arch your back. Your eyes squeezed shut as he stroked lazily over the sensitive spot, his other fingers probing gently at your entrance.

His thumb left momentarily, and just as you were about to open your eyes to see where it had gone, an unfamiliar warmth enveloped you, pulling a moan from your chest. Your eyes shot open to see Danny's mouth on you, lips wrapped around your centre, eyes shut in gentle enjoyment. You felt his warm, wet tongue reach out and flick against your clit and you cried out, the sound making him smile against you. He continued relentlessly, revelling in the way you writhed beneath him in the throes of pleasure. One of his hands reached up to grab your breast, squeezing the flesh tightly and drawing another breathless moan from you.

“Feel okay?” he asked, pulling away slightly, the breath of his words ghosting over your wetness.

“Ye– yes. So good,” you panted, struggling to maintain your composure. The cocky grin on his face only turned you on more, and when he brought his mouth back to you, mouth sucking on your clit tightly, you bucked your hips upward with a cry. Your hands flew to his hair, fingers threading through the curly locks. Through the haze of pleasure, you were briefly aware of his fingertips outlining your entrance. He broke away from you again, and you almost whined at the lack of contact.

“Can I?” he asked, his middle finger pressing lighting into you. You bit your lips and nodded frantically. He smiled at your eagerness, bringing his lips down to you again and working a steady rhythm with his tongue. His middle finger slowly slipped inside you, and you groaned at the feeling mixed with his tongue against your most sensitive part.

Slowly, he curled the same finger upward, pressing against your walls expertly, and you threw your head back in pleasure.

“Ohh fuck,” you moaned, blind in the ecstacy of the motions. He continued with the movements, and your knees bent up around his head as you fought back the urge to crush him with your thighs. “Please, I need more,” you begged, and Danny slipped another finger inside you, his thick fingers stretching you lightly.

You moaned as he began to set a constant pace, his fingers pressing into your g-spot with every curl and his tongue flicking over your clit. Your hands tightened their grasp on his hair, tugging at the roots as you revelled in the pleasure.

He soon became relentless, starting off slow and gentle and building up a harsh and unapologetic pace against you. It didn't take you long to feel the tension build in your lower belly, and your thighs pressed into the sides of his head as it approached.

Your stomach tightened, and your walls squeezed against his fingers.

“Shit, Danny– Danny I’m gonna cum,” you cried out, giving him warning to move away, fearing finishing against his mouth would put him off.

Despite your fears, Danny grunted hungrily, the low sound vibrating against you and bringing you further to the edge. He pushed his body further into yours, suffocating himself in everything that was you. He took your nipple between his fingers and squeezed tightly as his fingers and tongue continued the steady pace against you.

Eyes rolling back, your back arched off the bed as euphoria crashed over your body like a tidal wave. Your thighs locked against his head, keeping him in place as you ground your hips against his face, moaning loudly through your orgasm. Your fingers tugged at his hair, pressing him closer into you as all muscles in your body tensed, letting the magical feeling slip through your veins.

Danny watched from beneath you, eyes trained on your face as you threw it back in pleasure.

He held you through it, humming against you and jerking his fingers inside you despite the way your walls puslated and squeezed against him as you fell off the crest of the orgasm.

Slowly, as not to overstimulate you, he eased his movements, wanting to draw out the orgasm for as long as he could, yet still keep the feeling as enjoyable for you, being especially aware that it was your first time. As the way you pulsed around him began to slow, he did too– his tongue merely dragging over your clit as you shuddered and his fingers only pressing lightly against the pillowy flesh of your g-spot.

As your hands relaxed against his hair and your legs released him from their relentless grip, Danny took his mouth off you, and carefully slid his fingers out, leaving you feeling awfully empty.

Eyes still shut, and head still limp against the mattress, you relied on your senses as you felt Danny crawl up your body. His hands took your jaw gently, and you fluttered your eyes open at the feeling, seeing him hovering just above you. Wetness glistened off his chin to his nose, and you whimpered pathetically at the sight of him wiping it off with the black of his hand. You were panting heavily still, chest rising and falling dramatically beneath him as you tried to calm yourself down.

He leaned down and pressed a lingering, simple kiss to your lips. “How was that?”

You smiled lazily at him and hummed in approval, “So good, Danny.” You reached up and brought him into another kiss, deepening it as you traced your tongue along his lips. He opened his mouth to let you in, and hummed at your eagerness. Swiftly, you grabbed his shoulders and flipped him into the bed, keeping your lips still connected so that you were straddling his waist.

He made a sound of surprise at your movements, but you didn't stop kissing him. You ground your hips against his, feeling the bulge from beneath his sweatpants pressing into you, and you both groaned at the feeling.

Slowly, you reached your hand under his shirt, and stroked your fingers over the skin of his chest. He shivered under your touch, his own hands reaching down to steady your hips as you ground against him. You took the hem of his shirt, and he instantly sat, pushing you up with him as he pulled the shirt off his body quickly, his muscles contracting in the movement.

You reattached your lips to his as soon as you could, desire slapping you in the face as if you hadn’t already had an orgasm. Desperately, you reached your hand down to his sweatpants, feeling for him through the fabric.

He moaned into your mouth when you held him, slowly grinding him into the heel of your plan as you began to rub him up and down. He pulled away from the kiss, unable to hold back the noises that escaped him as you touched him. He whispered your name in a moan, and at the encouraging noises, you let go of his bulge and slipped your hand under his sweatpants, watching his face intently to ensure you weren’t crossing any boundaries.

He threw his head back when you touched him bare, taking a firm hold of his dick in your hand and stroking it lazily. He was huge, just as you’d seen days earlier while you showered with one another, but now that you held him, you understood his true size. You traced your thumb up the underside of his dick, until you reached the tip, which felt damp and swollen from strain and arousal.

He moaned and bucked at the sensitivity, biting his lip painfully as he watched you watch him. You let yourself take some time to feel him, running your thumb over the ridge of his head, and around its circumference, before drifting your hand back down his shaft to the base. You watched carefully for his reactions, taking note of the particular sensitivity he felt when you slid his head between your pointer and middle fingers.

Beads of precum had begun to trickle out of him, providing a slight amount of lubricant over the skin you rubbed against. But it wasn’t quite enough.

Breaking your eye-contact, you looked down to where you held him, his pink tip resting against his abdomen and peeking out of the hem of his sweatpants while you stroked at the base of his cock. Slowly, you slipped down his body, smoothing your hands over his soft skin as you travelled down, and you watched in amusement as his eyes blew out widely.

You took the hemline between your fingers and began pulling them down, but Danny's hand quickly rested on top of your own, halting your movements.

“You don’t have to– just because I did for you. This isn’t tit for tat,” he assured, cradling your face and stroking the apple of your cheek.

You looked up at him through your lashes, “I want to, promise.” You reached under and gave him a long, slow stroke again and he fought to keep his eyes open at the feeling. You let go and reached for his sweatpants again, but he kept his hips still, looking conflicted and slightly unsure as he peered down at you.

“Oh,” you faltered, “Unless you don��t want me to.” You reprimanded yourself for not asking him sooner, pulling away to sit upright and resting on his thighs.

“No, no, I want you to. Of course I do. I just– stop that,” he reached up to take your thumb away from your mouth as you began to anxiously bite the skin around it. You put both hands in your lap with a huff. “It just might be… a bit hard for you to do. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Though it sounded cocky, Danny was admittedly worried that you would push yourself for his own pleasure, and he knew that there was no way you could fit all of him in your mouth. He watched you carefully, taking note of the way you looked back down at him, hard and erect against his abdomen, before you made eye contact with him again.

“Please, I want to try,” you asked, and he nodded without any further hesitation, giving you the go ahead. This time, he lifted his hips when you tugged at his sweatpants, and he breathed out a moan when you took him in your hand again.

He watched you through hooded eyelids as, while maintaining eye contact, you leaned down to his cock and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip, a thin string of pre cum connecting to you for a moment as you pulled away. If you didn’t know otherwise, you'd think Danny was in pain by his expression, face taught with euphoria.

You stuck out your tongue for him to see, and brought it to the bottom of his cock before slowly dragging up to the tip. He whimpered when you then took the tip into your mouth, letting your lips squeeze gently against him while your tongue rubbed against his frenulum.

You knew your limits, and you knew you couldn't take all of him at once, not without gagging like an idiot, and you thought that activity would be best saved for another time. So instead, you wrapped your hand around the base of his cock, twisting slightly as you pumped him up and down. In synchronicity, you began to bob your head on his dick, bringing the head as deep into your mouth as you could reach before pulling back up again.

Unable to control himself, his hands flew your head, gathering your hair away from your face into a makeshift ponytail. He watched you intently, brows furrowed in concentration and ecstasy, and he began to fear that the pleasure he was feeling already would have him finishing in the first few minutes.

“Oh my– fuck,” he whimpered when you picked up your pace a little, getting more comfortable with the feeling of him in your mouth. You hummed in amusement as you felt him twitch against your tongue, his abdominal muscles spasming and hips shaking as not to thrust up into you, all while the pleasure completely overtook him. Danny didn’t care about being too loud, and his moans filled the silence of the room, eliciting a new wave of arousal to your core.

Subtly, while keeping your movements steady and mouth still attached to him, you repositioned your lower half, throwing on knee over his leg so that you were straddling his left thigh. You sighed as you ground down against it, his bare skin and thick, coarse hair rubbing against you a feeling like no other.

Danny popped his eyes open at the feeling of your wet warmth on his leg, and a deep groan fell from his mouth when he saw you rocking your hips back and forth against him, cock still in your mouth.

“Ba– baby,” Danny stuttered, hips rocking gently against you in sync to meet you.

“Hmm?” you hummed against him.

“Ah– fuck. I need to have you… and if you– fuck, if you keep this up I'm gonna– shit baby, I'm gonna cum.”

Reluctantly, you pulled your mouth away from him, not wanting the night to be over yet, and though Danny had been chasing the feeling of release, you could tell he wanted you to stop too.

Without warning, Danny grabbed your underarms and pulled you up his body, making you squeal. Once you were chest to chest, he wiped away the spit that had spread across your lips and coated your chin, before pulling you in for a hungry kiss.

He flipped you over quickly, your back making contact with the warm sheets beneath you, and you were briefly aware that it had been dampened with his sweat.

Danny kissed you again, but broke away soon this time, leaning over to reach for his nightstand. He pulled open the drawer and blindly shuffled around until he grabbed a box and pulled it out. He was still kneeled either side of your body, cock hanging in the air between the two of you as he took the box and sifted through with his fingers for a condom.

“Wait, Danny,” you said, hand coming to meet him where he held the condom. He froze immediately, fearing that he may be moving too far, too fast.

“What's wrong?” he asked, abandoning the box of condoms by his bedside table again, giving you his complete, undivided attention.

“I’m uh… I’m on the pill, and I’m clean. I wanna feel you… without the condom,” you admitted, cheeks flushing red as you spoke.

He blinked, brain clearly running a mile a minute, “Oh– Yeah, I– I’m clean too. Does that mean I can…?” he stammered, trailing off in caution.

You nodded, “You can finish inside.”

Danny's eyes nearly rolled back at the sound of your voice uttering those words, and he swallowed thickly, licking his lips before meeting your lips again.

“I love you,” he whispered against your mouth.

“I love you too.” You raised your hips slightly, making his tip brush against your lower belly, and he chuckled.

“So needy,” he teased, learning down further on his knees and taking himself in his hand, pleasuring himself momentarily with a few languid strokes.

Meeting your eyes again, he took your hip into his other hand, and brought his cock to your centre. He dragged his sensitive tip through your wetness, spreading it from your entrance to your clit, the stimulating feeling eliciting from you a moan.

He repeated the motion a few more times, helping you relax at the pleasurable feeling against you, while coating you both with your own lubricant. When he returned to the entrance this time, he pressed the tip in lightly, eyes jumping back to your face to make sure you were okay.

When he saw you were watching intently with your jaw hung slightly agape, he continued, pushing into you only slightly more. The stretch was overwhelming, but in the best way possible, and you spread your legs wider to give him space. He took his hand off your hip momentarily to use his fingers to spread you further, his cock slipping into you with much more ease.

You jumped with a hiss when the stretch was almost painful, a stinging sensation sparking inside you.

He froze immediately. “You okay?”

You nodded, “Yep, just…” you wiggled your hips, letting yourself get used to the sheer size of him before you continued, “Keep moving, I’m okay.”

With a quiet ‘okay’, he continued his push forward, watching your expression intently as he slipped further and further into you until he was finally completely bottomed out, his abdomen flush against your own. He sighed loudly at the sensation, leaning forward on his hands so that his head was hovering above your own.

“Fuck, you feel so good. So warm,” he groaned.

The sensation was indescribable. You felt so incredibly full, the feeling of him inside you like nothing you had experienced with anyone before. Though, you soon became too comfortable with the feeling, and were desperate for friction.

You began to slowly grind your hips, hoping he would get the hint to start moving, but his hand shot to the soft flesh of your hip, holding tightly to stop you from moving.

“Just… give me a minute, please. You’re so fucking tight,” he breathed, eyes rolling back with his mouth hung open widely.

You tried your hardest to relax for him, but the need for movement was overwhelming. You reached your hand down between your bodies and pressed your fingers against your clit, rubbing round in slow circles to give yourself some relief. Danny's eyes followed your hand and he huffed, neck straining as he saw what you were doing.

Very slowly, and with a deep, contented sigh, Danny pulled back, and you bit back a moan at the feeling of him sliding from you, until just the tip was left. In a swift movement, he pushed back in, the two of you moaning at the feeling together.

He repeated those movements a few more times, until he was used to the feeling, letting his movements gain more speed against you. You abandoned your clit when he began to speed things up, the feeling more than enough to throw you into the abyss of pleasure.

“Oh Danny, that feels–” you moaned, latching your hand under his arm to grip his back, nails digging into his skin lightly.

“How does it feel, pretty girl? Hm? Tell me,” he panted, hips now meeting yours quickly, the sound of your bodies slapping wetly mixing with your loud moans and pants.

“Feels s’ good, Danny. I– Ah!” He picked up the speed again, and you got dizzy at the feeling of his cock slamming into your g-spot relentlessly. With one arm keeping himself steady against his mattress beside your head, Danny reached his other hand to your hip, fingers pressing into the muscle firmly as he kept you steady, his thrusts now hitting you impossibly deeper than before.

Your moans sounded borderline pornographic, and when Danny leant down to attach his mouth to your nipple, you all but screamed. The familiar feeling of release crept up on you, and despite your efforts to push it away, it gripped you tightly, squeezing your core and making you shudder.

“Oh fuck, I can feel you, Baby,” he heaved, abandoning your tit and pressing his forehead to yours, “Squeesing me so tight. You gonna cum again for me?”

“Yes!” you squeaked out, and he chuckled at the sound. “Danny… Oh Jesus– fuck!” you exclaimed, succumbing to the overwhelming power of your orgasm. Your legs spasmed, flying up to lock around his behind, keeping him close as he fucked you through the orgasm.

Both of your arms threw around his back, one of them wrapping up to hold the back of his neck, nails digging in harshly as you fought to keep conscious through the orgasm.

“That's it, that’s– Oh God, there you go,” he cooed, talking you through the feeling as he slowed his thrusts in time with the rhythm of your fluttering walls. He came to a slow stop inside you, letting you come down from your high.

You were a sight to see, Danny thought. Hair sprawled out around your head like some kind of religious halo, although nothing about these past few moments had been even slightly faithful. A stark flush had settled on your cheeks, spreading down your neck to your chest, and Danny couldn't help but compare them to the wet marks he had left behind with his mouth. A sheer layer of sweat had sunk into your hairline, and if possible, Danny knew he would have grown harder at the sight if it were possible.

He stroked away some of the wet hairs that stuck to your temples, and you watched him intently as he did.

“Roll over,” you told him, and you giggled at the surprised expression she bore.

“Okay, bossy,” he teased, keeping you connected as he gripped your waist tightly, rolling onto his back so that you rested atop him. You leaned down and kissed him, threading your hands into his hair and he kissed you back with just as much passion, licking into your mouth and groaning.

When you pulled away, you sat up properly, getting a full view of Danny laying below you, body on display and face fucked out. You smiled devilishly at the sight and sighed when you put all of your weight on his lap, ensuring his dick was as deep in you as it could be.

His hands flew to your thighs, gripping tightly as he watched you. Not exactly knowing what to do with your hands, you placed them on his abdomen to stabilise you while you began to move, grinding your hips in agonisingly slow circles against him.

The feeling, for you, was magical, and the attention to your clit made your head drop forward, hair falling over your face.

Danny reached up and brushed the mass of your hair away from your face to look at you. He watched as you moved for a while, hands keeping your hips steady as he helped you roll them back and forth against him.

Hearing him call your name broke you from your trance. You opened your eyes to look down at him, seeing his expression needy and pained, “Ple– please move,” he begged. You realised how you had been neglecting him, leaving him sitting still inside you while you shamelessly pleasured yourself on the gruff hair over his pubic bone.

Maintaining eye contact, and your hands steady on his stomach, you rolled your hips forward, arching your back and letting him slip out through your folds, before you slammed back down with conviction.

You both yelped at the sensation, feeling one another deeper than you had all night. You repeated a few times, slowly pulling away from him, only to drop back onto him with weight and speed, until you got into a groove. You moaned as you slammed onto him, his cock pounding into your g-spot.

He reached his hand up to your face, slipping his thumb into your mouth. You took the digit into your mouth sloppily, unable to focus past the intoxicating way his hips bucked up into you. He slipped his thumb out of your mouth and dipped it below.

You yelped when you felt it press over your clit, rubbing wet circles into the sensitive bub, and making you double over in pleasure. Fatigue began to grace your movements, and as your hips slowed in exhaustion and laziness, Danny grabbed your ass with one hand, hooking under the thigh slightly for stability. He squeezed tightly so that his fingers dug into the fat, and held your body still above his.

He didn't give you time to complain at the lack of movement, before his hips slammed up into you. He was erratic and relentless, fucking into you so quickly, that all of your thoughts fell apart in your mind.

You chanted his name like a mantra, and when he began to lift and drop your hips to meet him halfway, your third orgasm of the night began to approach.

“Fuck! Danny I’m– it’s…” your sentence fell off with a moan.

He grunted into your ear, “Let go Baby, just feel it.”

Listening to him, you fell forward onto his chest completely, your breasts pressed up against him as he continued his assault. The feeling grew, burning hotter and hotter in your core, until a completely unfamiliar feeling joined it.

You jerked slightly at the sensation, a new kind of warmth travelling down your body, and rendering you completely limp in the pleasure.

“Oh my– fuck, Danny, I–”

He didn't give you any rest, driving you closer and closer to the release of this feeling that had you under its complete control. You moaned aimlessly into his chest, sweat sticking your skin together while you focused on the way his dick slammed into your walls rhythmically.

Finally, as if you had reached the crest of a mountain, you began your inevitable descent, pleasure coursing through you like a violent shock of electricity. You squeezed tightly around him while he continued to pump into you furiously, and at the feeling of his thumb still caressing your clit, that same new sensation took hold again.

You were briefly aware of warmth and wetness below, but the feeling shot through you too powerfully for you to notice much else. You wailed through the orgasm, never having felt anything as intense in your whole life, the release feeling like just that– a release.

“Oh shit,” Danny panted, his breath fanning across your ear as he continued to thrust into you. He flipped you over again, much less gently this time, so that your back was against the sheets and wrapped his body around yours tightly. His arms slipped under your back, letting him rest his head into the crook of your neck as he moaned. His legs hooked into yours, encircling your body like you gave him life, as he continued to thrust endlessly into you.

Your high began to wear off, though you were still hazy as he came apart on top of you, hugging you tightly. You wrapped your arms around him and raked your nails over his back, trying to keep yourself from squeezing him too hard at the overstimulation.

It was to no avail though, as even the slightest pulse from inside you was all he needed to completely unravel. Moaning loudly, you felt his hips stutter, grip tightening around your body as he chanted your name.

“I– I love you,” he cried out.

“I love you too,” you repeated, holding him tightly through the buildup to his orgasm. He seemed to falter even further at the sound of your words, his movements falling sloppier and moans crying louder.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered, muffled by the pillows along with the other profanities he repeated through clenched teeth. You moaned as you felt his hot release spill into you, his cock twitching inside you before it stilled, unmoving in the deepest part he could reach.

He thrusted slowly only a few more times, his breath shuddering at the after effects of the orgasm, until he went completely still.

You both lay there for the next few moments in complete silence, save for your desperate attempts to catch your breaths.

“That was incredible,” he breathed into your neck, planting a soft, lingering kiss to the skin.

“It was,” you agreed, unable to find the words through the haze that still fogged your mind. You shifted slightly, his dick still tucked into you but softening slightly.

“Wha– why is there so much…” you trailed off as you felt an unusual amount of wetness coat your legs and the skin on which he had his body pressed against.

“Hmm?” he questioned lazily. You bent your knee to try and get a closer look, struggling to see past Danny's huge body, but managing to see the clear wetness glinting from your thighs. They were absolutely soaked, and as you craned your neck up to investigate further, the sheets around you were darkened with saturation too.

“What is this?” you asked, sitting up slightly. Danny pulled his head from your neck reluctantly, slipping his arms from their tight grasp around your back to prop himself up against the mattress. He peered down at where you were both still connected, and smiled at the mess you had left behind.

“What’s what?” he asked.

You ran a hand through the slick that dripped off your stomach and onto the bed sheets. It wasn’t thick like cum, or like your arousal, and was almost like water. Danny smiled mischievously, placing his flat palm across his stomach to feel where the liquid coated his skin too.

He cleared his throat, “You… um, I think you squirted.”

You went red hot, embarrassment settling deep into your stomach, “What?”

He chuckled at your expense, “Don’t be shy, was fucking hot.”

You covered your face with your hands, groaning. “Oh my god, I’ve never done that before,” you admitted.

“Really?” he asked, relaxing his body back against you and using his hands to remove yours from your face. “Wanna see you,” he mumbled. You reluctantly opened your eyes, and saw the smuggest look on his face.

“What?” you asked, still slightly embarrassed.

He bit his lip, sticking out his tongue through his teeth, “I made you squirt.” His smile was huge, and you groaned in embarrassment.

“Ugh, stop,” you groaned, pushing his head away as if it would ease your embarrassment.

He chuckled. “Did it feel good?” he asked.

You hesitated for a moment, bringing your hand to his hair and tracing little patterns into his scalp, “Felt really different. But really good, I’ve never felt anything like it before,” you admitted, and you felt his smile against your shoulder.

“Hmmm, guess we’ll have to try it again then, won’t we?” he asked, bringing his hands to your waist and squeezing teasingly. You yelped at the ticklish feeling, laughing as you ripped his hands off your waist playfully.

Sighing, Danny reluctantly pushed himself off you, “Alright, let’s get cleaned up. You up for a shower or are you too tired?” he asked.

“I think I can handle a shower,” you giggled at him for thinking you would be too fucked out to last a five minute shower. Danny smiled, quickly leaning down to kiss your forehead before he pulled back again.

He reached down to where you were both still connected, holding himself gently as he slowly slipped out of you, causing both of you to sigh at the tender feeling.

He climbed off you, planting his feet onto the floor and taking your hands to help you sit up. You let him drag you from your spot to the edge of the bed, careful to not drip more liquid onto the sheets.

When he pulled you up to stand, your knees quite literally buckled beneath you. Danny quickly caught you with a ‘woah’, and sat you back onto the bed.

He raised his brow at you, “Okay Miss ‘I can handle a shower’, you stay here and I’ll go get something to clean you up,” he instructed. You bit your cheek in embarrassment not expecting yourself to be so weak.

You watched your shaky legs swing off the edge of the bed as Danny stepped out, heading to the bathroom. The room felt warm, quiet, and you couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly everything had fallen into place between you two. Despite having known each other for most of your lives, the shift had been sudden– unexpected but natural. You sat there, taking in the moment and realising that this was what it felt like to be truly cared for.

“Alright sweet thing, can you lean back for me?” he asked once he returned. You nodded and leaned back on your elbows, watching as Danny ran a warm, wet cloth over your legs and stomach, collecting your release from your skin and leaving you feeling clean and comfortable.

He was far more gentle when he ran the cloth over your sensitive centre, playing close attention to the way his own release dripped out of you slowly. You flinched at the sensitivity when the fabric grazed over your clit, and he muttered a quiet apology, smoothing his warm palm over your thigh.

Once you were clean, he returned to the bathroom, to wipe himself clean from yours and his release, and as he turned to leave the room, you caught sight of red scratch marks on his shoulders and neck.

When he returned to the bedroom, he smiled as he saw you, struggling to stay awake beside the mess you had made on the bed.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” you muttered, leaning forward to reach for his shoulders.

“What?” he asked, craning his neck to try and look at his back.

“You’re all scratched up,” you explained, feeling guilty for causing him any type of pain. But when a toothy grin spread across his face, you recognised an expression of pride on his face.

“Don’t apologise, I love it,” he said, and you stared at him incredulously.

“You’re an idiot,” you joked and he giggled.

His eyes drifted over to the damp sheets beside you and he smiled. “I think we should sleep in your bed tonight. I’ll clean these sheets tomorrow morning,” Danny offered, sitting on the edge of the bed and picking up your foot, kneading the muscles between his strong hands.

You hummed at the feeling, “Mmm you’re right. But ‘m too tired to move,” you complained dramatically, lifting and dropping a lazy arm for effect.

He chuckled, letting go of your foot to reach around your body. Standing up, he slid his arms under your upper back and the backs of your knees. You wrapped your arms around his neck instinctively when you understood what he was doing.

“Wait– Danny…” you started, worrying he wouldn’t be able to bear your weight. He ignored you, knowing exactly what you were about to say as he lifted you from the bed with ease. He leaned down to rub his nose against yours as he walked out of the bedroom.

“Light,” he said, nodding to the light switch by the side of the door. You reached up and switched it off before bringing your arms back around his neck, fiddling with the hairs as the nape of his neck.

“Wait Danny!” you exclaimed, “I forgot, I need to pee.”

“Oh shit, yeah,” Danny turned on his heel, taking you to the bathroom, kicking up the toilet lid and carefully sitting you on top of the seat. He casually stepped towards the sink, squirting toothpaste onto his toothbrush and running it under the tap. He put the brush into his mouth and leant against the counter as you sat there in disbelief.

“Are you just gonna stand there?” you asked, not sure if you had the confidence to pee in front of him yet.

“What? It's not like I wasn’t just inside you,” he joked, shooting you a foamy smile.

You huffed, but knew he was right. That, and you didn’t actually really care, as he had already seen every part of you by now. Danny got your toothbrush ready too and brought it to you, plopping it into your mouth for you. You were both quiet as you brushed your teeth and did your business, soaking up the experience that you had both shared moments before.

When you were both done, despite your protests, Danny lifted you back up and carried you down the hallway to your bedroom. He hovered by the door of your bedroom for you to turn on the main light again, and walked you to the bed, throwing you into the plush cushions with a grunt. You giggled as you bounced against the sheets.

Danny switched on the bedside light and quickly turned off the main light, before hopping over to the bed and joining you. Both of you were still very naked, but neither of you minded, swimming in the comfort of the closeness you could have to one another.

You searched for Danny's body in the dark, reaching for his warmth and wrapping yourself around him once you found him. You shifted closer, pressing your body against his, your head finding its place on his chest, right over his heartbeat. His hand traced gentle patterns along your back, while the other rested securely around your waist, pulling you even closer.

You draped a leg over his, tangling yourself in him as if you were meant to fit together that way. His warmth surrounded you, his steady breaths a calming rhythm that matched your own. With your arm across his chest, you could feel the rise and fall of his breathing, grounding you in the moment. His fingers moved to your hair, stroking through the strands in slow, soothing motions as he sighed into your hair contentedly.

“Danny?” you asked, breaking the soft silence between you.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

He shrugged you closer to him, “Of course, anything.”

You sighed, the question having weighed on you for the past few months, only coming to surface now that you were comfortable enough to ask him.

“How come you never moved out to get a better place?” The words hung heavy in the air, and you quickly regretted bringing it up. “I mean, Josh, Sam and Jake all bought those huge houses in the last year, and you’re still splitting the rent of some shitty flat with me,” you tried to explain.

Danny was quiet against you for a while– so long in fact, that you began to question if he had fallen asleep.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he finally spoke, “I want to live with you. I knew you couldn’t afford another place, and you’d never let me pay for you. Why would I want to move out when everything I want is right here?”

Everything I want. The words drifted over your skin and warmed your soul, melting into crevices of your heart that hadn’t even realised were so cold.

His fingers drifted along the length of your spine, and your heart exploded with love for him. “Do… do you want to move out? Get a new place together?” he added.

You pulled your head back to look at him in the dark, not expecting him to take the conversation that far. “Wha– Danny, I can’t afford anything more than this right now.”

He spoke quickly, “I’ll pay for it, all of it. I have enough, I promise,” he reassured, but your guilt held you back. You couldn't use his money like that.

“I don’t know…”

“Just… think about it. I’m happy to stay here with you, forever, if this is where you are. But I can give you a life better than this. We can have a house big enough for all of those cats you want. And it would have a thermostat that doesn't break every month,” he chuckled, and you laughed with him, melting against his words of affection and serious commitment to you. “It can be big or it can be small, it can be wherever you like. With a big garden for you to grow those pink flowers you like. Anything. I just… want you to be happy. And I want to be with you through it.”

You sighed, letting the love of his words envelope you just as tight as the arms wrapped around your body. You leaned in and pressed a kiss to his bare chest, keeping your lips there for a movement before nuzzling your face into the skin. You pocketed the conversation for another day, letting yourself feel him here and now, in the present with you.

“I love you, Danny,” you whispered.

He tucked your head under his chin, “I love you too, sweet girl.”

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