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witchofhimring · 7 days

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Loyalty Chapter 13

Synopsis: Synopsis: A Battle rages over Harrenhal and your path is not just dark, its destroyed.

Pairings: Aemond Targaryen x Tyrell Reader

Aemond Targaryen x Ellyn Baratheon

Alys Rivers x Aemond Targaryen

Jaecerion Targaryen x Reader

Jason Lannister x Reader (minor)

(more to come!)

Y/n Tyrells Profiles

Warnings: Angst, heartbreak, childbirth, emotional turmoil, death, unrequited love?, humiliation by Ellyn Baratheon, marital abuse, marital consummation, misogamy (internalized as well as external), brief depictions of smut, moontea/abortions, suicide, mentions of rape (not to the reader), Plot twist at the end!

The first memory of Lady Jenna was at the funeral your father. Back then she was dressed in a deep green that reminded you of the deep tonics your father took. Towering over you she was more than intimidating. Years later and you still felt at similar sinking sensation. "Y/n. It has been some time." She smiled, warm and friendly. That was what Lady Jenna attempted to project. However as Lady Jenna pulled you into a hug there was a tension. When the two of you broke apart you noticed something steely in her eyes. "Follow me." The greeting was quick and Lady Jenna lead the way inside. Up the stairs you went, attempting to remember everything. The entrance hall was lined with portraits of Highgarden's past lords and ladies. The images of your ancestors looked down at the newcomers. The second last one displayed your parents, Lord Owen Tyrell and Lady Amelia Tarley. This was the first time you had laid eyes on a decent image presenting their likeness in years. The little locket which held miniature portraits was miniscule in detail. You recognized your eyes in Lady Amelia Tarley.

"We best hurry." Lady Jenna sounded slightly impatient. With a hasty apology you caught up. Jaecerion took hold of your elbow. "You're trembling." Suddenly you became aware the your breathing had become erratic. With a beating heart you felt sweat collecting on the brow. You took his hand and whispered "Just hold me, please."

Lady Jenna welcomed everyone into her solar. The scent of pine greeted you. Trying to remember, memories of a time before Lady Jenna surged. When Lady Amelia had owned these rooms they had smelt the same. There was a perfume scent in the air that you could not quite names. Green curtains had hung in a similar fashion, showing the garden bellow. Lady Jenna sat in a great oak chair and beckoned for everyone else to sit. Immediately servants came in and started serving refreshments. A few of them cast you looks, Lady Jenna was quick to shoo them away. "I hope the journey was not a hard one." You were ready to reply when Jaecerion stepped in. "Unfortunately as we were not provided with a sufficient guard the journey was quite perilous." There was an edge to his voice. Lady Jenna sent him a thin smile. Looking at her closely you noticed a muscle in her jaw spasm. Then you looked to Jaecerion. What was with the sudden hostility? A sudden tension had risen and it put you on edge.

Lady Jenna then turned her attention to Lady Mara. "Lady Mara, it has been some time. I hope you are well." Your lady gave her a bright smile. Or at least it would have passed as such to the eyes of most. Lady Mara had always been somewhat closed up when it came to emotions. But you had spent enough time around Lady Mara to see it was forced. And could you blame her? The horror's of war and Rhaenyra's tyranny had left their marks on all.

"I am well. And I hope the same can be said of you too." Lady Jenna nodded. "Wonderful. All of you must be tired, I will have my servants show all of you to your quarters." It had been so abrupt that you had not even considered the fact that Lady Jenna had yet to properly converse with you. After all, you had been her eyes and ears, a member of her house. As a servant lead you away, you decided that once settled in you would speak with her. Not rudely of course, she was the head of House Tyrell. But the topic needed to be breeched.

Your room was high up in a tower overlooking Highgarden. From this height you could see all three walls and beyond. "This is where I was born." You held baby Owen so that he could look out. Even if he could not fully comprehend the scene before him you wanted Owen to see. This is where his family, or at least in the maternal line, dwelled. Since the Andals sowed their roots long ago his and your ancestors ruled. In time, Gods willing, so would he.

You're room was circular in shape and had a four poster bed, a writing table and a dresser. Yet something about this room felt empty. There were tapestries, but the ones in this room were a plain brown. The curtains hanging around your bed were also plain. Hardly a residence worthy of the former Lady of Casterly Rock. Even during your tenure as the Dowager Queens' lady-in-waiting, the rooms had been more sumptuous. And would it be enough when Lady Mari moved in? Speaking of Lady Mari, where was she? Walking over to the door you pushed it open. Instead of swinging open it hit metal. Alarmed you jumped back and the knight in front jerked forward. He turned around as you apologized. "Quite alright My Lady. Lady Jenna will be up soon." You thanked him and closed the door.

True to his word, Lady Jenna entered, alone. "My dear Y/n. It must have been a long journey." She gave you a hug and then looked down at Owen. "He is a very handsome boy. You named him after your father?" "Yes, My Lady." A door opened and a maid entered holding a tray. She placed it on the writing desk and departed. Lady Jenna waited till she left before telling out to sit. "It is good to see you after so long. And you have been a wonderful source of information." This felt more than slightly demeaning. You felt no more than a prop used by Lady Jenna. In return for all your service she had situated you here. "When will I have my ladies?" Lady Jenna took a sip of wine. "I will have Lady Cerilla attend you." She might as well have poured a bucket of cold water over your head. 'P....pardon my Lady Jenna. Lady Cerilla." You prayed that it was a mistake, perhaps there was another Lady Cerilla. But that hope was quickly dashed when a familiar red headed girl slunk in, a sneer upon her pale face.

You were quick to summon Lady Mari up. Even if you had to endure Cerilla's presence you might at least have company. Not for one moment would Cerilla have unfiltered access to you without witnesses. Cerilla seemed slightly disappointed to not have you alone. Normally you would be quite happy to rebuke he. Especially since you greatly outranked her. Unfortunately this was Lady Jenna's domain and woe to those who disobeyed her. When you had been very little a maid had disobeyed an order. You could not recall the crime but only a bloody result. As the bloody maid was dragged away Lady Jenna had come up behind you. "Remember Y/n, loyalty to your house."

Once Cerilla was gone, following orders to ask a maid when dinner was, you could finally breath. Closing the door a sigh of relief was let loose. "I had no idea she was sent here." Lady Mari stared at the door. "Me neither. Perhaps we should have expected it." Someone knocked at the door. If it was Cerilla you would jump out the window. When Jaecerion entered you felt relived. His silver head was still hidden under a hood. Walking towards him you hugged Jaecerion. You would miss him greatly. During the past few weeks you had forgotten what life was like without him. "Lady Mari, could you give us space?" Lady Mari curtsied and left. Now it was just you and Jaecerion. "I will have to leave tomorrow. A pang thundered against your heart. Trying to hide the tears you looked up at him. "I will miss you. Jaecerion." His face was close to your. Saphire eyes lingered on every inch of your face. He took hold hands in his and pressed a delicate kiss to the fingertips.

You were shaking. Once Jaecerion left you and Owen would be alone. Lady Mari and Lady Dara would remain. But they were no substitute for those who had been near and dear since childhood. "When the battle is over I promise we will met again." You brought his hands into a close grasp. "But you will come back?" Jaecerion let go of your hands and placed them on your waist. Bringing you close, Jaecerion's lips were inches from yours. Hands went to Jaecerions shoulders. Looking into Jaecerion's eyes you noticed his eyes were black. He was looking deep into yours, taking in every inch of you. His pink lips were not far from yours. If either of you chose to lean forward then they would met. Jaecerion's grip tightened and his breath became shallow. Warmth spread down your back, over your chest and to every orifice of your body. Never before than you felt such deep emotions of this nature. Even towards your lawful husband. Jaecerion had always loved you, or at least for a long time. You wanted him, you needed him. Making up your mind, you leaned in close.

Cerilla stepped in, a creaking door announcing her entrance. Neither you nor Jaecerion moved. Both of you stared at a stunned Cerilla. She looked ready to say something, and she would have, if Jaecerion had not been there. "My Prince." All Cerilla did was curtsy and come back out the way she came. You watched her retreating form with mounting fury. No doubt this was an action born out of her hatred of you. Cerilla must have been under the impression that just because her sister was married to the heir that it was appropriate to show such disrespect. "I will show her different." You thought. If Cerilla thought she was getting away with anything you would be more than happy to dispel the fantasy. At this time she was no more than your servant. And just as how Ellyn treated you with scorn, so would Cerilla know how it felt.

Jaecerion too watched her retreat with dislike. "Is that the little bitch that followed you in Kings Landing?" You laughed at him calling Cerilla a bitch. Well, it was true. "Yes that is too. And it seems Cerillas' dismissal at Harrenhal has done nothing to temper." "What, she was dismissed?" Jaecerion looked at you in surprise. "Yes. It was actually your brother who did." Your grip on Jaecerion increased and you looked up at him. His lips were so close to yours. If only you could....

The chance was lost when once more the door was opened. Your luggage came in carried by those who had spirited you here. "My Prince, everything is ready." One of the knights bowed. "You are leaving now?" Looking up at Jaecerion your eyes were near tears. Seeing this, Jaecerion's thumb gently caressed your cheek. "Not for long. I am needed but call and I shall come." Jaecerion bent down and pressed his warm lips to your hand. He bid you farewell and you watched as he and the others left. The last thing you saw of Jaecerion, for now, was the tips of his silver hair disappearing through the door. Something sickeningly heavy was pressing against your chests. There was something so final about this meeting. A tear rolled down your cheek, and your shadow changed into a hooded figure.

That night dinner was brought up to you. Normally a woman of your station would dine in the great hall. But you were under cover and therefore had to remain hidden. Your ladies had not come back yet. It was no surprise that Lady Dara was not yet back. But Lady Mari was another matter. Anxiously you waited by the window, wrapped in a green shawl. A goblet of wine was in hand. Little Owen was fast asleep in his colt. You were not just waiting for Lady Mari, but Lady Jenna. Hence why you were still dressed in your day clothes'.

Your eyes were feeling very heavy. "I shouldn't have drank." But you were so comfortable in this chair. Time wore on by and slowly you drifted away from the working the world. The last thing you remembered the cold feeling in your wrists.

The forest was dead. All the leaves lay like corpses on the ground, lifeless. There was no wind. You watched through the forest, footsteps not making a sound. Your green dress, tighter than it was in the waking world, constricted you uncomfortably. There was no goal in mind, just the notion that you had to keep on walking. The shadows stretched out like boney fingers. Faces stared out at you from the Weirwood. This had ceased to frighten you like it used to. These dreams had a normalcy to them. That was not to say there was no unease. The unexpected could still happen. Blood spirting from the ground. A corpse grabbing you. Any of these things could happen.

And something did happen. A sudden sting appeared on your wrists. Blood stained the green dying it red. Shaking, you held them up to eye level. Blood ran down your arms like thin rivers. What was the meaning to this? The ground before you started to tremble. Just barely were you able to avoid falling over. A hooded figure like that of the Seven rose up to greet you. Opening its arms, the creature smiled showing two rows of sharp teeth.

A horrid jolt brought you back. Owen had started to fuss and someone was climbing the stairs. You could not hear anything, but rather you sensed it. On instinct you went for Owen. Scooping him up you held him securely. Owen was starting to calm down, only slightly. Lady Jenna, dressed in a magnificent emerald dress and a sweeping headdress glided in. Carefully you curtsied. "Y/n." She smiled and took you in her arms. Despite being forty years of age Lady Jenna maintained her youth. Only slight lines could be found if one looked close enough. Thin lips touched your cheek in a gesture of welcome. Thin hands then grasped your elbows. "I trust your accommodations are comfortable." You placed on a smile. "I thank you for the consideration." Lady Jenna lead you over to the chair. "Your son is beautiful. I heard you named him after your father." One of Lady Jenna's fingers stroked his thin hairs. Owen's eyes opened and surveyed the newcomer.

Nervously you tried to find the words. Lady Jenna could hardly be here simply for idle chit chat. There was something she wanted. Was it information you had been unable to pen? Your thoughts went to Cerilla and you wondered if Lady Jenna was angry. After all, they were in-laws, Lady Jenna's son being married to Cerilla's elder sister. "I heard that my husbands uncle wishes to confirm my sons rights." Seeing Lady Jenna's face you were quick to add "None of Owen's family have seen him." Lady Jenna, thank the Gods, was not angry. "Do not worry. They are ready to see you tomorrow. However I believe you need to rest. I apologize for not speaking with you alone earlier." "Of course, we are all busy. These are dark times." You replied. Lady Jenna smiled.

"There is something I wish to bring up." Lady Jenna stood to her full height. She looked down at you with her imperious gaze. Lady Jenna had sharp bright green eyes. They focused on an object, predator like, and struck. It was always best to avoid her displeasure. "Cerilla Swann will serve you. I hear you dismissed her at Harrenhal." The nausea swirling in your belly was almost unbearable. Throwing up was not out of the option. Trying to make yourself feel small, you spoke. "I never meant any offence. Lady Cerilla was spreading rumors which could impact our house." Lady Jenna's eyesbrows furrowed. "Lady Cerilla has put our houses honour to wuestion." You knew you had Cerilla at that moment. She may be Lady Jenna's in-law, but no threat towards house Tyrell would be tolerated. Not even by her.

"I will speak to Lady Cerilla. In the mean time I expect everyone to be on their best behavior. You will be expected to remain here, under the best care, of course. If you desire anything you need only ask." She shot you a dazzling smile and swept out of the room. Relief swept through you. Slumped over, cast under a sudden spell of exhaustion, you felt like sleeping. You blew out the candle casting your surrounding into darkness. Owen seemed just as sleepy as you. For the first time since being married you went into bed without one of your ladies. Owen sniffed and nuzzled in closer. A smile appeared on your face.

"Its okay. We will be alright." You drifted into a quiet sleep.

Days passed in a sleepy lull. Stuck in your room there was not a whole lot to do. It nearly felt like a prison, though in all fairness the room was not uncomfortable. Thankfully Lady Mari and Dara could join you. Less thankfully was the presence of Cerilla. You took great pleasure in sending her out on long errands. There was nothing she could do about it really. Her pale face would turn bright red every time, followed by storming off. There was the added benefit of not seeing her face as often. Days were spent reading, sewing and taking care of Owen. Your son was growing at a rapid rate and thankfully healthy.

On the fourth day of your stay routine was broken when Lady Jenna summoned you to her study. A group of lords including your deceased husbands uncle was also in attendance. "My Lady. It is good to see you again." Lord Tynar Lannister bend forward and kissed your hand. "Likewise my lord." Then the attention was given over to your son, their future lord. Proudly you showed him off to the men present. Once greetings were over everyone sat down. "My Lords, Lady Y/n. We are here to discuss Lord Owen succession to the head of House Lannister." It felt odd to hear your son referred to as "Lord Owen". "Lady Y/n will take on the title Dowager Lady Paramount of the West. We will ask that you return with us to Casterly Rock at the earliest convenience. Here you will remain for now. Once the false Queen Rhaenyra is overthrown you will be take your rightful place." Lord Tynar pulled out a piece of paper and set it out. "Normally the Lord Paramount will sign this himself. Given Lord Owen's age we will ask that you as his mother sign. It is just as legal and binding. In these situations the Lord Paramount will sign when he is older. But in the mean time this contact is just as binding."

You looked over the paper. Everything seemed to be in order. You could go back to Casterly Rock and rule from there. Naturally you would need help. The thought of being of charge of such a large wealthy region was terrifying and thrilling in equal measure. You would wield more power as regent than wife.

You signed your name.

Lord Tynar clapped his hands together. "Wonderful. That is everything in order." Lady Jenna raised a hand, cutting him off. She turned to you. There was a shrewd look in her eyes. What had you done? Hands clutched together you waited for it to fall. "Your son is heir to Casterly Rock. My sons' daughter is the same age. I suggest a marriage between our houses. It will unite two of the greatest houses in Westeros." Thank the gods she was not angry at you. You were so relived that you immediately said yes. And anyways, it was not a bad match. It would likely have happened anyway.

"Pardon me Lady Jenna. But this is rather sudden. Should we not all talk about it." Lady Jenna quickly spoke over you. "It is a perfectly fine match. Do you object?" Lord Tynar looked between Lay Jenna and yourself. He seemed to make up his mind.

You were stumbling around in the darkness. The forest was gone, hand been for some time. You would have preferred that over this impenetrable darkness. Somehow you were walking despite there being nothing under your feet. Yet you were able to move forward and back. Supposedly you could walk wherever. Not that this was any help. Everything was dark.

"You had a choice." The booming voice reverberated through you. Curling in on yourself it took everything to to faint from pure fear. Horrified you were rooted to the stop. Rocking back and for you wanted to be anywhere but here. Always you had hated these dreams. "You had a choice. Farwell." And then you were falling. As you fell the faces of nameless gods peered down at you. Everything was falling away. A figure reached forward and her eyes were upon you.

Something hand fell towards your face. Having just woken up you could do nothing to stop it. "Ouch!" Jerking out of sleepiness you now feel a burning on your nose. "What in the Seven." You realized the guilty culprit was a hand. Your hand. Sitting up you were still shaking. The dream was like a brand on your mind. It hurt something deep inside and instilled fear. It took you a bit to realized Cerilla was looking at you. "What." You snapped. She sneered and flounced out of the room. Now all alone you looked around for Owen with a feeling for dread. Thankfully he was safe and sleep in his crib. Reaching over you pick Owen up. He coos and opens his eyes. "Good morning." You kissed his nose. Owen smiled and you gently touched his ingrowing hair. It pained you that breast feeding was out of the question. Calling a wet nurse over you reluctantly handed him over. Once done you immediately took him back.

Afterwards you were able to walk along the battlements overlooking a courtyard. A slight wind brushed your hair, causing it to catch the light. Owen was bundled up in a blue blanket, his eyes looking around. Today had a serenity to them, the weather in perfect harmony. A guard was leading and Lady Dara brought up the rear.

The day was cloudy and slightly cool. "Do you think winter will come soon?" Lady Dara asked. "I suppose so. The maesters say it will." At your words Lady Dara looked up. "They might be wrong." She said hopefully. You doubted it. One could see an outline of the sun, obscured by clouds. A few were practicing in the courtyard. Yet it seemed that they were young, boys really. You guessed most of the able bodied young men were gone. "Most likely dead." A voice in your head said. The green cloak you wore felt heavy, the velvet pressed against skin. Other than that there was an eerie quiet that settled over Highgarden. Not even a bird in the sky. Despite the wind you had the sensation of someone holding their breath. You likened it to a scenario several years back. A tournament had been held in honour of the King and Queen. Two knights, you forgot their names, were jousting. They came at each other with great force and one of them flew off. You remembered Flora seizing you arm, and the vice grip seizing your stomach. For those few moments you held your breath, waiting in anticipation. Moments later it was pronounced he was dead. Your stomach had sank and the anticipation turned into dread. You were having the same feeling for reasons unknown.

"Is anyone else cold?" Lady Dara had an anxious look upon her face. "Are you alright?' You noticed she possessed a slight grey heugh. She looked as anxious as you felt. "Have you overheard anything?" You questioned Lady Dara. She fell into step beside you, leaning in. "They are saying Daemon Targaryen is looking for Prince Aemond." Chilled, you remembered the man. He had always off set you. "Has he found Aemond?" You asked. "I do not think so." Aemond had left Harrenhal and the place was currently deserted. Now only ghosts were the inhabitants. Was Alys there right now? It would feel appropriate, given she was a witch. You wondered how she was doing? Alys must be terribly angry at you. In her position you would. Trying to press down the guilt you continued to probe Lady Dara for information.

"They say Daemon has taken a mistress." Shocked, you stared at her. "This is only gossip, I do not know the truth. But its some little thing of a girl, only skin and bones I hear. No great but either and of no noble blood. Would you think it of him." Pondering, you wondered how Rhaenyra would take it. "Does she know?" You inquired. Lady Dara shrugged. "Who knows. If she's smart she will keep her mouth shut. You know they say he killed his first wife." Everyone had heard of Daemon Targaryen's infamous temper. A Targaryen trait if there ever was one.

If Prince Aemond and Daemon met, what would happen. Aemond held Vhaegar. You tried to convince yourself that the old she dragon would be enough. But Daemon, despite his age, was a veteran of many wars. Even before his birth the prince had been laying armies to waste. Apparently when waging war on the Triarchy he had cut their leader clean in two. If the two came to blows Daemon stood a good chance at winning. Perhaps his age would give Aemond a chance, though many said he was unchanged in physical prowess.

A great black cloud passed over the sky. "Look!" Lady Dara pointed up and the scene was almost unnatural. This cloud was not just dark, it was black. A pure oily black that put out the sun. Everything was plunged into dark, light was snuffed out. And that was when the sensation of holding your breath was replaced with the aftermath. An unexplainable feeling of dread. The wait was over and now a horrible feeling had crept in. The worst part was that you did not know what it was. Everyone continued to look up until the cloud passed. Even when the light came through nothing changed. The feeling did not go away.

Sleepiness crept upon you. Feeling sluggish you leaned back and allowed yourself to relax. You had spent the rest of the day bearing this dreadful feeling. Now at night you were too tired to feel anything but exhaustion. The bed was so warm and you were so comfortable. Owen was already asleep. A full moon made it easy to see outside. Large, it peered down from up on high. Somehow it offered a sort of comfort. Not thinking much about it you dozed off into sleep.

"Y/n." Your eyes shoot open. But when you tried to move, nothing. Your body was completely immobilized. Panic starting to set in you tried to move. Still no luck. You became aware of a presence on your left hand side. Where Owen was. Struggling you tried to break whatever this was. "Do not be afraid." The voice was low, but not deep. It was a woman's, low, slow and melodic. A figure rose up. She was dressed in white, hair hanging to her waist. You recognized her from portraits. Your mother was a shadow to you. She had died twenty years ago yet you hardly knew her. Such a non entity she had been that never once had you tried to figure anything about her.

The bed dipped when she sat down. You would have though this was a dream. But you knew it was not. The past few months had taught you that.

Lady Amelia gently brushed the hair off your head. Silently she took in every feature. Her fingers traced your cheekbones and lightly touched hair. A tear rolled down her cheek. "It is not too late. Go to the hidden gave by the Rose Door. It will appear for you and only you." And then she was gone in a wisp of smoke.

"Are you well My Lady?" Gazing out the window you watched the sun rise. Slowly is rose. The night was slowly retreating giving way to light. "Can you hear the birds?" Early morning dew wafted from the gardens bellow. It had been so long since you had walked in a garden. Somberly you watch the morning unfold.

"I would like to be alone." Silently Lady Mari left. All alone you were left to battle your misery. What a beautiful morning. It was so sad that it brought sadness. When was the last time you had truly been happy? Likely when Owen was born. Yet the grief you carried eclipsed all else. Closing your eyes a tear rolled down. You were so, so tired of everything. The past two years were hell. Not even the Seven Hells compared. There was no balm that covered these wounds. No satisfaction that soothed the anger. Fear was your constant ally. There was no way to pry it from you. Soon more tears joined and soon they all came together in a waterfall. Silently you stood there, taking it as you always did. Those small victories meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. This morning would only bring greater pain.

You did not know why this was. It was a sixth tense tugging at your very soul. Whatever was going to happen would rip your very soul apart.

The door opened and still you did not turn. No one would see you cry. Especially if it was Cerilla. "Lady Y/n, there is a messenger. He carries a letter from Prince Jaecerion." Panic overrides your pride. In a panic you seized Lady Mari by the shoulders. "Is he alright." Alarmed Lady Mari nearly jumped back. "Y...yes My Lady." Behind her stood Cerilla holding a message. Snatching it you order them from the room. Now left alone you ripped the seal off.

My Dearest Y/n,

I regret to inform you that Aemond has died. He fought Daemon Targaryen over Harrenhal and both fell with their dragons. I know this news will bring you anguish. I am so incredibly sorry for your loss. I know you loved him. His mistress Alys Rivers and bastard have disappeared. They say she is a witch.

We will bear Aemond's body back to Kings Landing when we take the capital back.

I want you to know that I am eternally your servant.

Love, Jaecerys

There are pains too great to put into words. You did not scream, or cry. Like a wounded beast you hunched over. Cold stones met your hands. Like a child hurt you doubled over onto the floor. You had your fair face of agony, both physical and mental. Humiliation and a loss of self had been heaped upon you. It all paled to this. He might have been a stranger during these past two years, but Aemond still held your heart. You remembered the young boy, and your last day with Aemond down at the alcove. How you smelt the water on his skin, and his silver hair in the wind. It all faded before you. Aemond was gone from this world.

He was gone from you.

Notes: I'm back! School had me very busy and I needed to rest. This chapter was hard to write which is the other reason this chapter took so long to write. For now updates will be more frequent. This story is close to wrapping up (at least part one).

Some of you might ask why the reader is so subservient when it comes to Lady Jenna. Despite the reader having backbones there are several reasons for his. Firstly, the reader has been taught to respect authority, sense why she allows her life to be used by others around her. Lady Jenna is the family matriarch and the reader has seen her word as law since she was a child. Two, she has little choice. A war is going on and Lady Jenna is far more powerful than her.

I want to thank everyone for their patients!

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noramoons · 2 years

Text

seasons (waiting on you).

pairing: yeonjun x reader, (eventual) taehyun x reader

genre: college au, angst, slight fluff at the end

rating: T/13+

word count: 16.5k (i am so sorry)

warnings: explicit language, one (1) mention of alcohol, descriptions of a breakup, depression and anxiety depictions, mentions of harmful behaviors and thoughts, just so many post-breakup emotions being described for way too long BUT angst with a happy ending :)

summary: when your high school sweetheart choi yeonjun is off to grad school, you aren’t too worried about how your relationship will last—but your favorite coworker, kang taehyun, is.

OR:

a study in the seasons of loving and losing choi yeonjun—and how you put yourself back together afterwards.

playlist: telepath - conan grey, let you break my heart again - laufey, back 2 u (A.M. 01:27) - nct 127, i don’t know you anymore - eric nam, drive - ashton irwin, seasons (waiting on you) - future islands

I. PROLOGUE.

Loving Yeonjun was like watching a meteor shower cross the sky. It was beautiful, and you considered yourself blessed to have been able to see it with your own eyes—but like everything else in life, it was inevitable that it had to end.

And it ended too soon.

You still remember the day he transferred to your high school—everyone had practically stared as he walked down the hallway, beaming politely at the people at he passed on his way to his first class. He was like a celebrity almost instantly, and not just because he was a transfer student—Choi Yeonjun was beautiful, and jaw-droppingly so, at that.

You ended up having two classes with him, to the mostly-pretend envy of your friends. They did all say that they would be far too nervous to even try to talk to someone like Choi Yeonjun, but you didn't feel that way. He was stunningly handsome, certainly—but he was still just a high schooler like you. You didn't feel intimidated by him in the same way that your friends clearly did.

So one day you offered to help him with Mrs. Jung's pre-calculus homework—she was a notoriously difficult math teacher, but this was the second year you'd had her. You knew what to expect with her by that point. You didn't, however, know what to expect with your offer towards Yeonjun—it was just a passing remark you made at the end of class that you would be more than happy to give him some pointers on how to pass her quizzes if he ever needed them. Nothing too serious.

But he'd looked up at you. Blinked. And then smiled, meeting your gaze with those soft bright eyes that practically made you melt right then and there in that classroom. "Thank you," he'd said, as genuine a thank you as you'd ever heard. "I'd love that. Could I ask you for another favor, actually?"

You weren't entirely sure what he was going to say next, but you nodded anyway, despite your gut telling you no.

"Can you tell me some good places to eat here? My family just moved—you know that, obviously, but I'm getting kind of tired of takeout every single night. So if you have any recommendations that, um...aren't chain restaurants, I'd appreciate it a lot." He had laughed slightly nervously after that.

Something fluttered within your chest. Oh. Choi Yeonjun, for all his good looks and charming attitude, was kind of awkward, too.

It just made you melt even more.

You did end up telling him the best local places to eat in your city, surprising yourself with your own bravery when you told him you wouldn't mind showing them to him yourself sometime—and he replied with that reassuring smile once again. "I'd love that, too," he'd said.

You'd exchanged numbers, but you didn't really think anything would come of it—it was always possible that Yeonjun had just been polite, after all. He surprised you once again, though, with a text that weekend asking to meet him at the breakfast bar you had recommended.

Just me? you'd asked.

Yeonjun had responded within minutes. Just you.

On Saturday, you stressed for nearly an hour over what to wear, trying on combination after combination of outfits. Everything you had was too old (there's a difference between vintage and gross). Too new (trying too hard, much?). Too short (what will he think of you?). Not short enough (did you time-travel in from the 1800s?). But eventually, you settled on something that was just slightly above casual wear and made your way to the restaurant to be ten minutes early.

Yeonjun was there before you, giving you a small wave when you pushed open the door to the restaurant. You'd thought someone as cool in appearance like him wouldn't be the kind of person to get somewhere super early, even earlier than you—bur Choi Yeonjun seemed to be the kind of person who just kept surprising you. His outward appearance that made nearly everyone you knew practically fall at his feet clearly wasn't all there was to him.

You learned quite a bit more about Yeonjun that day, and you'd continue to learn more when he asked you to meet him for lunch again later that week. He wanted a dog, but the apartment he was living in with his family wouldn't allow it. He listened to just about every kind of music you'd ever heard. He was a good, genuine kind of listener, hanging on your every word whenever it was your turn to speak. It was a little detail, but you would've been lying if you said it hadn't made your heart beat faster every time you noticed it.

It wasn't until the third outing that you finally gathered up the courage to ask him what had been on your mind since that very first invitation. "Yeonjun?" you asked, almost stuttering on his name as it passed your lips. Get it together.

He looked up from his bowl of noodles. "Mmm-hmm?"

"Is this, um...is this a date?"

He only hesitated for an instant. "Is that okay? I mean," he had started, trying to hold your gaze, "would you want it to be?"

You nodded, maybe too quickly. "I would."

The grin that instantly tugged the corners of his lips immediately melted any insecurities you'd had away. That was always what being around Yeonjun was like—he just set you at ease.

You felt that same way a month later, when you'd agreed to meet him at an art museum downtown that you'd mentioned wanting to go to. He'd led you through the halls, warm hand in yours, gazing at the different paintings hung on the walls together—different expressions of love and hate and sorrow and every expression that man could expel into a paintbrush.

Well—you had been staring at the medley of colors and brush strokes on the painting directly in front of you. Yeonjun, unbeknownst to you, hadn't taken his eyes off you since you'd walked into this particular room. "I have something to tell you," he'd said. "I...I don't like beating around the bush with these kinds of things."

You turned to face him at the sudden declaration. Your heart was pounding against your chest loud enough that you wondered if Yeonjun could hear it, but you swallowed down your nervousness and nodded.

He took your silent reply as confirmation to keep going. "I like you," he said, never looking away from your eyes for an instant. "I want to keep going out with you, if that's something you want."

You remember thinking that Yeonjun had to have been able to hear how loud your heart was from inside your chest—you'd never felt that kind of nervous excitement before in your life. Still, you managed to nod again, smiling softly at his words. "I'd really like that too, Yeonjun. Because I like you too."

He'd beamed at you, looking at you like you were the only thing in the room, as if you were a piece of art to be marveled at despite the awe-inspiring works surrounding both of you—and you returned that grin as much as you could.

And now you're here, years away from that day where you and Yeonjun had both confessed. It's like everything has fallen into place just like it was meant to.

It's the longest relationship you've ever been in, not to mention the first long-term relationship you've ever had, and you've been fascinated by the way it has evolved. Seeing Yeonjun when you walk into a room doesn't fill you with nervous excitement anymore; rather, it calms you down, simply grounding you with his presence. You don't feel nervous about bringing your concerns to him, worried about what he might think about you when you overanalyze the conversation afterwards—instead, you take comfort in the fact that he brings his concerns to you, too. He loves you. And you love him.

You'd spent a year apart when he had graduated high school before you, but you'd promised with teary eyes as you helped him move into his college dormitory that you'd keep this going if that was what he wanted. "Don't, um...don't forget about me while you're having fun at college," you'd quipped in the parking lot right before you left. It was a joke (mostly), but Yeonjun had heard the worry in your voice. He'd smiled at you then, just like he had all those years ago.

"Of course," he'd said, holding you tightly to his chest in an attempt to not betray any of his own worries about the next year. "You'll have to try a little harder to get rid of me, I hope you know."

You did know—there was never any doubt in your mind that he loved you just as much as you loved him. Yeonjun had always kept his promises, and that year apart didn't change a thing. He made sure the two of you FaceTimed at least once a week, even during his exam seasons, and both of you always sent a goodnight, i love you text every day, even if it was the only thing you said to each other that day. You'd surprise him occasionally, making a trip up to his university to visit and spoil him all weekend, taking him wherever he wanted to eat, and he'd do the same to you on weekends he could come home.

You had been so proud of both of you for keeping that relationship alive for the year you were apart, and Yeonjun was overjoyed when you told him you'd gotten into the university he was currently attending. It wasn't long before you were side-by-side every day once again, just like you'd been in high school, and you were still just as in love as you were back then.

Yeonjun is remarkably smart—but you knew that already, knew it even when you offered to help him with pre-calculus back in high school. That's why it doesn't surprise you when he's able to graduate college early, on top of getting multiple grad school offers for his Master's degree. He takes you with him to tour the schools he's looking at, even though he knows you won't be there for a while—you're as much a part of his decision-making-process as he is. You'd waited for him in that interval before you'd gone to college—you can wait for him here, too.

Being with Yeonjun was like a dream, all of it.

You suppose you had to wake up eventually.

II. FALL

It surprises you when those seeds of doubt begin to sow themselves in your mind. It's been three months since Yeonjun has left for grad school across the country, but you can count the number of times he's called to check on you on both hands. You know you aren't the same lovesick teenagers you were when he had gone off for college and left you for a year in high school, but you had thought that it wouldn't be that different.

But a good relationship is nothing without communication—you and Yeonjun haven't made it work this long without reminding each other occasionally to keep in touch. So you send him a quick text.

< everything going okay? miss u <33

You don't have time to wait around for his reply, though—your shift at the university library starts in just under thirty minutes, so you decide you'd better go ahead and head that way.

Your coworkers are all lounging against the front desk when you clock in, clipping your nametag underneath your collar. "What's so funny?" you ask, tilting your head at their sudden giggling.

Taehyun points towards the study corrals. "Kai's drooling."

"I am not," Kai interrupts, frowning. "I..."

He trails off as a girl walks out of one of the study corrals, pulling her headphones out of her tote bag before placing them delicately over her ears, smiling softly as her music starts before she heads for the doors.

You share a knowing glance with Taehyun, who smirks at you. He's been a close comfort as you've started university—you feel blessed to get along with all your coworkers, but Taehyun is someone you've meshed with practically right from the start. Your majors are in the same department, so you've had quite a bit of overlap with your required classes—you and Taehyun have already spent many a day off together back in the library, comparing notes and cramming for quizzes together. He's a much better note-taker than you, which is slightly aggravating, but your memory is better than his, so you usually remember class material better than he does. It's an unusual equivalent exchange between the two of you, but you're both pleased with how well it's worked so far. Not to mention how easy he is to spend time with—you swear your study sessions with Taehyun almost always feel like minutes instead of hours. It reminds you, sometimes, of how your first few dates with Yeonjun had gone (this, of course, is a thought you squash the moment it appears).

"Oh, my God," Kai says, practically groaning even as you and Taehyun giggle at him. "She's so cute. What am I going to do?"

Taehyun turns to you, smirking. "What do you think? Think he's got a chance?"

You raise both your hands in mock self-defense. "Hey, this is all between Kai and that girl. Besides, I'd never date a coworker. Just gets too messy, you know?"

Beomgyu pokes his head out from organizing the storage closet behind you. "Aren't you literally dating Yeonjun?"

You scoff. "I'll have you know I was dating Yeonjun long before he worked here. Or before I worked here, either." Yeonjun had only worked at the university library his first year, but he'd gotten along really well with Soobin, one of the managers, and putting in a good word for you certainly didn't hurt when you had told him you were looking for a job at the start of the school year.

Beomgyu makes a face. "Well. Shady application or not—you're reshelving the architecture textbooks upstairs since you're almost late."

You aren't late, actually—you've clocked in five minutes early, but you don't quite have the energy for getting into a mostly-pretend argument with Beomgyu today. So you offer him a wink before grabbing a handful of architecture textbooks from the desk and heading upstairs to the art section.

You pass several couples studying together on your way up to the third floor. Only a few are really studying, though—most have notebooks and laptops spread out, sure, but just about every other couple on a study date of their own is putting much more emphasis on the date part, rather than the study part.

Not that you blame them at all—you and Yeonjun used to do the same thing. You remember plenty of study sessions where you'd gaze up from your computer to find Yeonjun taking a silly candid photo of you before you'd scoff, playfully begging him to delete it (which he would never do—you look too cute so focused like that, he'd say). But you always saw them later when he made them the lockscreen on his phone.

You wonder what his lockscreen is now, you think absentmindedly as you haul several books onto one shelf. It's been months since you saw him or his phone. At that thought, you glance down at your own phone tucked into your jeans pocket to see if he's sent you any kind of response to your message earlier—but your notification screen is just as empty as it was the last time you checked.

Those seeds of worry dig themselves deeper.

But you tell yourself again not to worry. There's no point—you and Yeonjun have been through plenty together. You know you have no idea how busy and stressful graduate school must be, but you're sure you'll hear all about it the next time you see Yeonjun.

It's the same thing you tell yourself when you get in your car to go back to your apartment once your shift ends, checking your phone once again to see an empty screen.

And again tomorrow morning, when your notification screen is still blank (aside from the outdated memes Soobin is spamming your work groupchat with) on your way to class.

There's no doubt about it now. Those seeds are planted. You're worried.

But, as it turns out, only for a few hours—because you do finally, finally receive a reply from Yeonjun halfway through your shift at the library, your heart nearly pounding out of your chest in a way it hasn't in years when you finally see his name pop up at the top of your notifications.

> hey!

> can you talk soon?

You look around the library. It's a Friday night—hardly anyone on campus is studying, but Soobin has still scheduled you, Taehyun, and Kai for tonight—you're practically over-staffed, so you're sure he won't mind if you step outside for a quick moment.

You make your way towards the chemistry section, where Soobin is currently organizing some kind of midterms display. "Hi," you say, sweetly.

He turns his head to face you, suspicion tugging at the corners of his eyes. "Hi," he repeats, slowly. "What's up?"

"Mind if I step outside really quick? I have to make a call."

Soobin narrows his eyes, and you know he's onto you. But he still gestures towards the door with his head before tapping on his wristwatch. "Just make it quick, alright?"

You nod way too quickly. "You got it," you say, beaming at him before practically dashing for the doors, pulling up Yeonjun's contact information on your phone and calling him immediately.

He picks up on the third ring. "Hey," he starts.

"Hi," you respond, trying not to sound too terribly excited to hear his voice. "How's school going?"

He hums. "It's alright, I guess. You?" God, he sounds tired—you'll have to come up with something really nice to surprise him with the next time you see him. You're not sure what his favorite restaurants are in his new city, but you can ask around with his friends—you're sure he has plenty already. He's always been that way—that charm of his had certainly worked on you too, after all.

So you make a similar hum of agreement. "It's okay so far. I really miss you, Jjun."

There's a strange pause after those words—as if you and Yeonjun had a script for your conversations, and he had lost his. You had fully expected him to return the sentiment, just like he always had before. Instead, you hear him take a breath. "Do you have time to talk, Y/N?"

The seeds of worry are back, digging themselves deeper and insisting on growing roots within your head. "Um...sure," you manage to get out, trying to ignore the sudden panic clawing at the bottom of your stomach.

He sighs, and there's a long space of time before he continues. "...I really wish I could see you. You deserve this in person at least, you know? But...fuck, there's no easy way to do it, I guess. I—I don't think we should do this anymore. Us, I mean—I think we need to be done."

You aren't sure if you heard him right. There's no, no way your Yeonjun just said...that. "...What?" you say, laughing nervously. "I'm sorry—are you saying we need a break?"

Yeonjun clears his throat. "No," he says. "Not a break. I don't think that would be fair to either of us. I think we need to be done."

Blindsided doesn't even begin to cover how you feel. You feel like Yeonjun has just dumped a bucket of ice water over your head through the phone. "Yeonjun—you're breaking up with me?"

He takes a moment to reply. "Yeah, Y/N. I am. And I'm so, so sorry, I—"

"Over the phone?" you sputter, indignant tears blooming at the corners of your eyes. "You're ending a four and a half year relationship...over a phone call?"

You can't see him, but you know the wince he's making, judging by the sound of the sigh that leaves his mouth. "I told you, I would've had to fly out to come see you—and I figured you probably wouldn't have let me stay the rest of the weekend at your place afterwards," he says, laughing awkwardly. "I'm too broke as it is these days anyway."

You just can't believe what you're hearing. This is a nightmare. It has to be. "So...what?" you choke out, brushing back tears threatening to fall from the corners of your eyes. "Did I...do something?"

"Oh, God, no," Yeonjun says hurriedly, and the concern in his voice is genuine. You know what that sounds like, at least. "Honestly. You didn't do anything, Y/N—it's my fault. I let this relationship grow static, and I let myself fall into a routine—and I just sort of stopped feeling the way I had before. I should have done this before, but I was too much of a coward, and I'm so, so sorry—I know it's a lot to ask of you, but I hope you can forgive me. Maybe we can be friends, one day."

A long time passes before you answer. "One day," you repeat. "But not now."

He lets out a short laugh. "I didn't think you'd want to be friends now."

"I...fuck, Yeonjun," you say, nervous and shocked laughter escaping your throat. "I don't want this to be over at all. There's...there's no way this just came out of nowhere."

He hums apprehensively. "I don't know what else I can say. It's the truth—I just let myself become bored with the relationship, and that's my fault. I should have tried harder a long time ago, and for that, I...I really am sorry."

"I—I guess I just don't see why it isn't too late to try now," you stammer. "Why?"

"...Y/N, I don't want to try now, anymore," he whispers, and it's only then that you really get what he's been trying to tell you all along. He's done with you—whatever he felt for you all those years ago when you whispered your mutual confessions in that quiet art gallery, is gone.

Yeonjun does not love you anymore. How you feel about him doesn't matter.

It takes several uncomfortable beats of silence before you speak again. "Okay," you say, voice shaking. "Okay. I get it. G...goodbye, Yeonjun."

He lets out a shaky sigh of his own. "Goodbye, Y/N. I'm so—"

But you hang up before he can say anything else. You don't want to hear another word from him now. You're trembling as you end the call, sliding your phone back into your back pocket. You're going home—there's no fucking way you can make it through the rest of your shift after this. You walk back inside as calmly as you can, sliding your nametag off your collar and placing it on the desk.

Taehyun hasn't quite turned around to see you when you do so. "Oh, Y/N, you won't believe what Kai just sent—huh?" He frowns, finally noticing your nametag on the front counter.

"Can you, um...can you tell Soobin when he gets back that I'm going home? I'll come early on Saturday, I'll do whatever he needs me to do to make up for this time, but I really need to go home." You absolutely cannot, under any circumstance, let them see you like this—especially not Taehyun, your favorite coworker. You don't think he'd ever let you hear the end of it.

His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," you say, way, way too quickly to be nothing. "I'm sick. I...I-I'll see you guys on Saturday, okay?" You turn around and walk towards the library doors as fast as you can, practically making a beeline for the doors—but you aren't fast enough to not hear the familiar sound of Taehyun unclipping his own nametag and slamming it on the desk behind you.

"Kai, tell Soobin I'm feeling sick, too. I'll call Beomgyu to come cover for me for the rest of this shift."

"You...what?" Kai practically splutters, leaning over the front counter to call after the both of you. "What the hell's wrong with you two?"

You have to make it to the car. You can have the breakdown you so desperately need in there, but you are not going to sob your eyes out right outside the university library.

Taehyun, however, apparently isn't going to let you do either. "Y/N," he says behind you once the two of you are outside, grabbing hold of your bicep. "What's going on? What's wrong? Please—just talk to me."

You shake your head. "Taehyun, please, I just need to go home. I'm going to have a fucking meltdown right on the street if you don't at least let me get to my car," you sputter, voice trembling as you try to keep the tears at bay.

But Taehyun shakes his head too. "No. We can go in my car. You said you parked in the guest lot today because you were almost late. Remember?"

You do remember—and at this point, you don't care enough to argue with him. So you nod in agreement, following him into the lot in a walk that has to be the longest minute and a half of your life. Once you're in Taehyun's car, though, shutting the passenger door behind you, you can't fight the tears prickling at your eyes anymore.

"Hey—hey, talk to me, Y/N. Please. What's going on?"

You shake your head, burying your head in your hands to try to muffle your sobs. "He broke up with me, Tae," you manage to choke out, even though the verbal confirmation of what just happened just makes you cry harder.

"He—what? The fuck? Yeonjun?"

"Who else?" you snap back, voice shaking. "He said we've...grown apart since he moved away. That he doesn't love me anymore. But I still love him, Taehyun," you sniff, tears tracking down your face and slipping into your open mouth in what must be an absolute mess to behold. "What am I supposed to do?"

If Taehyun thinks you look a mess, though, he doesn't tell you. "Fuck...Y/N, I'm so, so sorry," he starts, gently. "I know that doesn't mean anything—but I really am."

You shake your head. "No. It does mean something."

He gestures towards his backseat. "If you want to beat up my backseats, go for it. I've done that after a few shitty shifts before—it can be pretty cathartic."

But you just shake your head again, sniffling. "I just want to go home, Taehyun. Please."

He just nods, turning the keys in the ignition before reaching into the center console in his car to grab an envelope of tissues, taking several and handing them to you. "In case you need these."

You sniff again. "Thank you," you say, even though you know you're nowhere near done crying about this.

You don't live too far from the university, so Taehyun's pulling into the parking lot of your apartment building before you know it. Your apartment is only on the second floor, and there's a set of stairs outside, so Taehyun is able to park almost right below your apartment. He turns to face you again. "This is you, right?"

You nod. "Yes. Thank you, Tae."

He glances for a moment at your door before looking back at you, worry etched on his features. "You want some time to yourself? I can come back tomorrow if you want me to check on you."

Normally, you think, you'd say yes. You'd want to go finish crying by yourself and getting it all out of your system right before you force yourself to fall asleep—but you think about your apartment. You think about the hoodies in your closet, the pictures adorning your shelves, the stuffed animals on your bed—Yeonjun is everywhere in your apartment. You can't face these remainders of him alone.

So you shake your head. "No, I...um, can you come inside, please? You don't have to stay, I just don't know if I can—"

But Taehyun doesn't let you finish, turning off the car's ignition and opening his door, immediately walking around to open yours. Normally, you'd make some quip here about chivalry not being dead, but you can't find the energy within yourself to make anything of the sort.

You make your way up the stairs before unlocking your door and making your way to your bedroom, trying to avoid the onslaught of photos of you and Yeonjun in the living room before collapsing onto your bed, covering your face in your pillows and sobbing the way you wanted to earlier. You hardly even notice Taehyun beside you, rubbing small circles on your back while you soak the pillowcase below you, chest heaving with hiccups in between sobs.

You don't turn around to face him until you feel like you've emptied every tear in your eyes, now red and puffy as you catch your breath.

Taehyun frowns at the state of you, finally moving his hand away from the small of your back. "Where are your washcloths?" he asks.

What? "Um...o-on the rack beside the shower," you say, gesturing towards the bathroom in the hallway.

You're perplexed when he leaves, even more so when you hear the sound of the sink running, but he's back in an instant with a wet cloth, sitting back down beside you on your bed. He hesitates for an instant. "For your cheeks," he says, tapping his own. "It'll feel better."

Oh. "Thanks," you say, somewhat lamely, before taking the washcloth from his hands. It's warm, you realize, and he's right—it does feel nice on your tear-stained cheeks, especially under your now-puffy eyes—a gentle contrast to the sobs that had racked your entire body minutes ago.

You set the washcloth down, looking back up at Taehyun, who offers you a reassuring smile—one you've seen plenty of times at the library, when one of you has messed up on organizing a section and had to endure a lecture from Soobin. It's not a bad expression to be on the receiving end of. "Come here," he says, opening his arms, and you let him pull you into his chest without a second thought. It's the first time you've hugged Taehyun, you think absentmindedly—but you suppose that doesn't matter. You're grateful to have him here with you now—you can't imagine how much worse you'd feel alone in your room now.

He lets you hold onto him for as long as you need, only pulling away when you do. "Did you eat before work?" he asks softly.

You shake your head. You'd planned on making something from your pantry after your shift, but the thought of getting up and being productive right now feels like a Herculean task.

Taehyun must be able to see the exhaustion on your face, because he just nods. "That's okay," he says. "I'll order in."

And he does. You spend the rest of the evening eating takeout from the Thai place down the street on your bed with Taehyun, who stays beside you and makes sure you have a nearly-full glass on your nightstand at all times, to make up for how you'd practically dehydrated yourself sobbing. And you do cry again in the middle of eating dinner, but Taehyun doesn't flinch—he just nestles you in his sturdy arms again until you don't have any tears left to cry.

He does make a comment about leaving if you'd prefer sometime past midnight, but one look from you causes the rest of the sentence to die on his tongue, and he doesn't say another word about it.

You wake up in the morning just before noon, and you feel only a single instant pang of panic before you see Taehyun's outstretched limbs on the couch in the living room, chest rising and falling evenly in sleep. You aren't sure when he got up to let you sleep on your own—you hardly even remember falling asleep, but the sight of him causes your heartbeat to even back out for a moment.

That doesn't last long, though—it's only an instant before your barely-awake mind remembers what had caused him to spend the night in the first place, and you immediately feel that now-familiar twinge of sorrow in your chest.

And it doesn't go away—no, that feeling hangs heavy in your chest. You know, then and there, that it's going to be a weight you'll carry around for a long time.

III. WINTER.

You're right on all accounts.

You never flat out tell the rest of your coworkers what happened between you and Yeonjun, but they must be able to read between the lines—all of them tiptoe around you for weeks. Even Soobin never teases you at work anymore, which you almost miss. You aren't a piece of glass, after all—but with the way that everyone treats you at work, you'd think you were.

But maybe there's some truth to their treatment. Not a day goes by that you don't think about Yeonjun's words—that he'd basically just gotten bored with you. You know he'd said you hadn't done anything, but you had to have done something for that to occur, right? It didn't make any sense otherwise.

You are proud of yourself when your track record for "crying over Yeonjun" goes from every day to once a week, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt. Just like the love you'd known from him had been something beautiful like you'd never experienced, you've never known anything as painful as this.

So much of your identity before had been being Yeonjun's partner. For Christ's sake, he was the whole reason you'd been able to get this job at the library in the first place—and now you have to distance yourself from that. You have to. You don't have another choice.

At one point, Beomgyu does suggest going out for drinks after work with Soobin. "Everyone's going," he adds gently, as if that will somehow be the thing to convince you to pull yourself out of your mental wallowing. "Won't be as fun without you, though."

You force a smile across your lips. You do still remember how to do that, right? Smile? "I, um...I'll have to catch you guys next time. I'm busy that night."

Beomgyu's eyes narrow. "I haven't told you what day we're going out yet, Y/N."

You wince. "Beomgyu, I—I'm sorry. I really appreciate you trying, but I just don't think I'm there yet. I'm sorry."

He rolls his eyes a little at that. "I think this is exactly what you need right now, personally. We'll make sure you have fun, I promise. So much fun that you won't even think about old what's-his-name the entire night."

You know good and well that Beomgyu remembers Yeonjun's name, and that he's practically putting on a show to convince you to go get drunk with him and Soobin and God knows who else—but you can't. Not yet. So you turn him down again, and this time he finally relents, taking the hint and leaving to sort through the returned books bin. Going out and getting drunk enough to forget Yeonjun probably is what you need right now—but you know you aren't there yet (Even admitting the 'yet'—the knowledge that you eventually will be at that point, whether you like it or not—is painful). Wanting to forget Yeonjun is accepting that what the two of you had is over, and truth be told, you aren't ready to do that. You're fully in denial—and you know it.

But that doesn't mean you're in the right state of mind to do anything about it. For God's sake, you haven't even been able to go through the photo album of you and Yeonjun on your phone yet and delete a single photo. The scraps of sanity that still call out to you occasionally within your mind tell you that you need to delete those photos of the two of you, that seeing them later will just make you feel worse—but you can't. Any act of cementing the end of the relationship is still just nothing short of unthinkable to you.

You're very much a prisoner of your own mind for the rest of the semester, whether or not you're willing to admit it, as you continue replaying Yeonjun's last words to you in your head, over and over. And over. And over. And over again. It's unhealthy—you know that. But you don't stop. You can't stop thinking about what you should have done differently to prevent this. Sure, he'd said you hadn't done anything, but that must have been a polite lie. Something must have happened. Had you been overbearing? Annoying? Had you changed, somehow? Had he?

Your friends and coworkers all tread lightly around you for the first month or so after the breakup, checking on you occasionally and reminding you that everything will be alright eventually (a lie, you know). Beomgyu gives you the notes from your morning class whenever you skip. Kai covers for you when you call out of work. Soobin looks the other way when you take fifteen minute bathroom breaks (which usually end up with you crying in the stall) and doesn't say a word when you come back, eyes puffier than before.

But that's exhausting to keep up with—you know that. Everyone becomes less forgiving around the middle of the semester—you still haven't gotten over that guy? What's wrong with you? You're still missing class and falling behind on assignments? Why can't you get a grip? No one says this out loud to you, of course, but you can pick up on the subtext—the implications between a shared glance between Beomgyu and Kai at work when you're almost late, between your friends when you tell them you have to finish an essay that was due yesterday—looks that pierce like a dagger to your stomach. Everyone is sick and tired of you.

Well—almost everyone. Kang Taehyun is a different story altogether.

You fully expected him to behave like everyone else—why wouldn't he? The two of you were friends, and good friends, at that, before your life as you'd known it had imploded in on itself, but you wouldn't have considered him to be a best friend by any means. Maybe you had missed some kind of memo, though—because if the way he's treated you since Yeonjun broke up with you is any indicator, his feelings towards your friendship are not at all what you'd thought they were.

Not a day goes by that you don't eat at least two meals a day, and that's because Taehyun is checking on you daily to make sure you've eaten. More than once, he's driven over to your house with food from his pantry to ensure there is something in your apartment to eat. He helps you stay on top of your schoolwork, too—hell, the only reason you even remember to do that essay at all is because Taehyun reminds you. And yet, these reminders never feel like a scolding, or like he's judging or chastising you—rather, it just feels like he's looking out for you. He's the only person looking out for you, you think—maybe even more so than yourself.

Which is why it surprises you, one cold, melancholy November evening as the two of you walk home from class, when Taehyun suggests talking to Yeonjun again.

Your eyes widen. "What?"

Taehyun nods, shifting his shoulders as he adjusts his backpack. "Sure. I...I think it would be good for you to get more closure from the whole thing. That's what's keeping you so upset, isn't it? That you don't really get why he did it?"

You suppose there's an element of truth to that. You certainly don't understand Yeonjun's actions—but the truth of the matter is that you aren't ready to let him go. You weren't three months ago when he called you, and you still aren't now. The ache in your chest that you've felt for so long hasn't subsided in the least—like a knife that only digs deeper every time you remember it's there.

But you nod anyway. "Yeah, I...I guess that's part of it. But—I can't just text him, Taehyun. What the hell am I supposed to say? 'Hi Yeonjun! Miss you, hope you haven't been feeling the same soul-crushing loneliness that I have for the past three months?'"

Taehyun winces at that before turning to face forward again, gazing at the sidewalk ahead of you with a sigh. "Maybe not quite like that. But...I don't know. He said he wanted to be friends, right? I don't see why you couldn't at least try."

But you don't want to be friends with Yeonjun—that's been the problem. Not just friends. You want to let yourself love him again, to feel that kind of tenderness and contentment and perfect warmth like you've never felt from another person before.

But that clearly is no longer an option on the table for you. What Taehyun is suggesting, however, might be. Maybe he's right. Something would be better than nothing with Yeonjun. Wouldn't it?

This conversation is how you find yourself later that night with your phone on your bed in front of you, fingers shaking slightly over the keypad from the nervous weight you feel at the bottom of your stomach. You've already typed out the entire message. You should just send it.

< hey, did you mean what you said about being friends?

God, why are you so nervous? It's not like you don't know the man—for Christ's sake, you spent over four years of your life convinced that you knew just about everything there was to know about Yeonjun. You knew about his favorite flowers, the piercings he wanted to get, how comically tremendous his appetite could sometimes be and how he'd always compliment your cooking, regardless of how you felt about it—but maybe none of that had mattered. You hadn't known that he'd felt bored with the relationship. You'd let that knowledge slip past you, somehow.

You press send on the message before you can talk yourself out of it, turning your phone over and stepping into the bathroom to take a shower, hoping you can think about something, anything else to hide the bubbles of anxiety floating upwards into your chest at the thought that Yeonjun may have responded already.

You practically leap out of the shower when you're finished, hair still dripping beads of water down your back as you wrap a towel around yourself, making your way back into your bedroom and grabbing for your phone.

Your eyes widen.

> yeah, i did.

> would you be okay with that?

The anxiety within your chest dissipates like hot water under the sun, if only for a moment. Your Yeonjun, and the effect he still has on you.

< yeah, i would.

His reply comes only a few minutes later.

> okay. cool :)

> i actually thought about sending this to you the other day. reminded me of you

[link]

Attached is a link to a YouTube video—a piano rendition of a song you'd listened to all the time (and probably forced Yeonjun to listen to in the process) when you'd first begun dating. It sounds beautiful on piano, the melody a bright cascade of hopeful and energetic sounding chords, and you feel your chest tighten with warmth as the video keeps playing.

It had made him think of you.

The warmth you'd felt in your chest before suddenly shifts to a suffocating cold. This is probably a bad idea. Yeonjun saying he wants to be friends probably means just that—that he wants to be friends. Nothing else. You, of course, don't feel that way at all, if the way your heart had soared when you saw his message is any indicator. You're just going to get attached again to someone you know doesn't feel the same way about you. You're only setting yourself up for more heartbreak—part of you knows that.

But you don't stop yourself from playing the video again, butterflies rushing through your stomach.

~~~

The weeks leading up to winter break are infinitely better than the beginning of the semester. You're comfortably caught up and staying on top of all your assignments. When Soobin assigns you more hours at the library, you don't utter a word of protest. One of your professors even comments on how much better you've done on this last essay than your first of the semester.

Taehyun seems pleased to see you in better spirits too. He still checks on you just about every day, but there seems to be less urgency in his messages. He's not as concerned as he was a few weeks ago, and you almost feel a twinge of...something at that thought, not quite regret but not quite disappointment, either—but you brush it away just as quickly.

Thoughts like those are easy to push away now that you're speaking to Yeonjun again.

If it was one of your other friends in your situation, you think, you'd probably be concerned with how fast they turned around on their ex-boyfriend, going from being completely, utterly heartbroken to gushing over a cute TikTok he'd sent—but you ignore those thoughts when they come, too. Maybe you are making a bad decision by trying to be friends with Yeonjun, but you can't find it in yourself to care enough to stop. This momentary happiness is worlds away from the unbearable heartbreak you'd felt before, even if it is likely temporary. Besides, there haven't been any repercussions of this choice yet, anyway.

Yet being the key word.

A few days before fall break, Soobin approaches you, Taehyun, and Kai in the middle of your shared shift, the three of you definitely doing the work he'd assigned to you and definitely not talking behind the counter about a movie you're making plans to go see after your shifts end.

Soobin clears his throat, and the three of you jump, turning to face him. He lets out a sigh. "Are all three of you going home for break?"

You all shake your heads no.

He perks up a bit at that. "Oh. Okay. Good! The library isn't going to be open all week, but we're still doing limited hours. Would any of you be open to working over the break? It'll be time-and-a-half pay."

Kai suddenly grabs for his phone in his back pocket, even though you don't think you heard it buzz. "Huh—look at that. My mom just texted and said she actually does want me to come home for the break now. Sorry!"

Soobin makes an exasperated frown, but he doesn't say anything else to Kai, turning to you instead. "Y/N?"

You shrug. "Sure, I can work. I'll be here anyway."

Taehyun suddenly shifts, standing up a little taller beside you. "Me too. I don't mind."

Soobin nods. "Okay, great. Thanks, you guys. I'll be here the first day, but the other four days it'll be just you two here. So..." he takes in a slow breath. "Don't do anything stupid. Okay?"

You can practically feel Taehyun fighting back a grin beside you out of the corner of your eye, and you have to bite your tongue to keep a laugh of your own from escaping you at Soobin's remark. "Okay, boss," you say, bringing a hand to your forehead in an overly enthusiastic salute. "We won't."

Taehyun and Kai both snort at your words, but Soobin just crosses his arms. "I mean it. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay? Or...anything I wouldn't let either of you do. You know what I mean." He narrows his eyes.

But you just laugh. "I promise, Soobin. We'll be fine. It's just limited hours, like you said, right? And it'll be over the break. We'll probably be the only ones in the library the whole week. What could go wrong?"

His frown only deepens at that. "...I don't even think I want to imagine that," he says before walking away, and the three of you only let out giggles once he's out of earshot. Truthfully, as much as you enjoy teasing Soobin with your other coworkers, you really don't think working over the break will be bad at all.

And in truth, it isn't the working part that ends up being the problem. It's what happens when you're at work.

To absolutely no one's surprise, the library is completely, utterly dead over the break. You can count on both hands the number of people that walk in for the first three days as you and Taehyun stand behind the counter, chatting quietly until you run out of things to talk about. By noon on Thursday, the two of you are the only people in the library, scrolling on your phones aimlessly with your shoes propped up against the help desk as the soft scratch of classical music plays over the speakers above you.

You smile when you see you've gotten a message from Yeonjun, opening your messages to see what he's sent now. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Taehyun giving you a knowing smirk in response to the grin tugging at the corners of your mouth—but you can't hide it. You wouldn't dare, you think.

It's a video of Yeonjun talking, telling you about a baby that kept waving to him on the plane back from his university. His fall break is the same week as yours, so he's going home today to spend the rest of the weekend with his family.

You take a quick response video, teasing him about his and the baby's apparent shared brain cells before going back to your mindless scrolling.

Or—you try to, at least. The moment your Instagram feed refreshes, you find yourself staring, unblinking at the first post on your page.

It's from Yeonjun's account. It's a picture of him at the airport. And he isn't alone. Standing beside him, arms wrapped around his middle with his around their neck, eyes closed and lips turned upward in a practically radiant smile, is a girl. She looks like she's been caught off guard by Yeonjun, but she's not disappointed about it by any means, if the candid joy radiating from her expression is anything to go by. You glance down at his caption.

thankful for you.

There's only one comment so far, which you're assuming is from her.

SO happy to spend this week with u <3

He might as well have put up a neon sign, you think. You know you can't know for sure, but you almost feel like this was directed at you—the caption, at the very least. Yeonjun has a girlfriend. He's moved on from you, in every sense of the phrase.

Taehyun must have noticed your suddenly expressionless face, because you see him frown across from you out of the corner of your eye. "Everything alright over there?"

You extend your arm towards him, showing him your phone screen wordlessly. His eyes widen. "Is that...no fucking way. He has a girlfriend?"

You nod, that all-too-familiar lump in your throat making its presence known once again. "Yeah," you reply, avoiding his stunned gaze. "I guess so."

Taehyun doesn't look away from you, even after you draw your arm back into your lap. "Y/N," he starts, quietly. Speaking to you the way you'd speak to a wounded animal—gently, but as if you could practically explode at any moment. It almost makes you feel worse. "Are you..." he stops, trailing off before he can even finish the thought before shaking his head. "Do you want to take a break for a minute?" He gestures with his head towards the punch clock on the wall behind the two of you.

But you shake your head. "No, I...I don't think so," you say. As strange as it seems, you don't feel nearly as upset as you did when Yeonjun had called to break up with you. Seeing that he's already moved on feels like ripping a metaphorical band-aid off. In a way, you sort of needed to see that he's moved on—that your hopes that the two of you could get back together, somehow, were foolish. Maybe this neon sign of an Instagram post is exactly what you needed.

Taehyun, however, doesn't seem entirely convinced, frown only deepening at your words. "Are you sure? We can get out of here, you know. It's just us in here right now."

You shake your head again. "No. We've still got nearly another hour—I don't think Soobin would be very happy if he found out we closed the library early just because I flipped out over Yeonjun again," you say, laughing weakly.

He snaps his fingers at you. "So you admit it! You are flipping out!"

You roll your eyes, crossing your arms across your chest. "That is not what I—"

But Taehyun is already taking off his nametag, placing it under the counter and grabbing the keys for the front door. He turns around once he's within a few feet of the front door, gazing at you expectantly. "Well? Come on."

You gesture with your arm at the library before you. "Taehyun, you've got to be joking. We cannot just get up and leave. What if someone needs to come study?"

He raises an eyebrow at you. "You think someone's going to need to come study? Over fall break? The day of the holiday? Not a chance."

"How are we going to punch out then, smart guy?" you ask indignantly.

But Taehyun just shrugs. "I'll just tell Soobin tomorrow that we both forgot, and he'll have to enter our punch-out times manually. Shouldn't be a big deal."

But you narrow your eyes at him. "'Shouldn't be a big deal?' You seriously think Soobin won't find it a bit suspicious that we both just happened to forget to punch out as we were leaving?"

"Not really. Look..." he says, starting softer this time. "If something happens, I'll take the fall for it. Alright? You need to get out of here."

You take another glance at the empty, quiet library. It's only an hour early. Maybe Soobin won't find out, somehow, by some miraculous stroke of luck that you know you don't exactly tend to have—but that lump in your throat hasn't gone away since you saw the picture of Yeonjun. So you nod. "Okay," you say, pulling your nametag off and sliding it under the desk beside Taehyun's, an action that wins you a growing smile on the man's face. "Let's get out of here, then."

You follow him out of the library, watching him lock the door and swallowing the momentary twinge of guilt at his actions.

Taehyun seems to read your mind, though. He looks up at you once the doors are locked. "Don't chicken out on me now. Okay? I promise. We'll be okay."

You nod wordlessly. "Let's just get out of here, then."

He smiles at you—that big ear-to-ear grin that causes nearly all of your worries to dissipate at just the sight. "That's the spirit. Come on. Are you up for going for a drive?"

"Sure," you say, nodding. Anywhere is better than being here, slowly falling into the trap of your own thoughts that you thought you'd narrowly escaped a month ago.

So you get in Taehyun's car once again, gazing out the window at the sun slowly lowering against the horizon, oranges and pinks spreading across the sky as if they were deliberate brush strokes from some invisible hands—just as beautiful as those paintings you and Yeonjun had gazed at that day you both whispered your mutual confessions to each other.

You shove that thought away just as Taehyun parks the car, and you look out the windshield to see where you are. You're at the top of a tall hill, trees around you on all sides as you gaze down at the college town before you. It looks so small from this distance, you think.

"I've never been here before," you say, turning to look at Taehyun. "I didn't even know this place existed."

He nods, still looking at the city below the two of you. "Beomgyu took me here once after a really bad shift. Got yelled at by some grad student for not having an extra copy of a textbook for them to loan when they had an exam tomorrow—you know the drill. It's a good spot to clear your head, I think."

You find that you'd have to agree the longer you stare down at the city, thinking about the perspective it affords you.

"We don't live in a huge college town, compared to some others, but there's still so, so many people down there. You know?" Taehyun says, as if he's reading your thoughts. Again. How is he so good at that? "I don't want you to ever think one person is the only person you could ever be with. That he's the only chance you'll ever get at love—that just can't be possible."

You know what he means. You even think it's true—you know it is, logically. But that doesn't mean this lingering heartbreak aching in your chest, in your lungs, in your veins, hurts any less. "Damn you, Kang Taehyun," you say quietly. "You make too much sense."

He laughs at that, finally tearing his gaze away from the city before him and turning to face you.

But you aren't finished, taking a deep breath before you continue. "I should've never let myself care about someone this much. This—this whole thing," you say, waving your arm in front of you in a vague gesture, "is just so stupid."

He frowns at that. "No," Taehyun says, shaking his head. "This isn't stupid. You're not stupid."

You shake your head right back. "I let being Yeonjun's partner be my most important trait. It was all I cared about—he was all I cared about. I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have put him on such a pedestal like that."

Taehyun mulls your words over for a moment. "Maybe," he says. "But I don't think you should be mad at yourself for loving him. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think you've learned and grown through the relationship—you'll probably be a better partner in the next one you're in, too."

That thought still stings—of another relationship, of giving up completely on Yeonjun. Even though he's obviously given up on you. "I just don't know what I did wrong. I have to have done something—a relationship doesn't just end like that. Does it?" Yeonjun had been so many of your firsts—and now, he was the first person to ever break up with you. You'd always been the one in charge of that in the brief relationships you'd had before him, the ones that hadn't left nearly the kind of impact Yeonjun had had on you.

Taehyun shrugs lightly. "I don't have that much experience, but I can tell you that sometimes that is exactly what happens. People really can fall out of love—of course, that's because of their own feelings. Not usually anything to do with the other person," he adds quickly. "If anything, it says how much more equipped you are to handle a long-term, long-distance relationship than he is. You're the mature one. He's not."

"Clearly not," you scoff. "I'm still the one crying over him, and he's already moved on. Sounds like he's more mature than I am."

"That I disagree with," Taehyun counters immediately. "The fact that it's still upsetting you means that the relationship meant something different to you than it did to him—he must not have taken it as seriously as you. And that's his fault."

You're quiet for a moment after that. The sun has almost completely set now, dusk enveloping the college town before you as the city lights begin to twinkle in the dark. But you still find yourself ruminating. The hollowness you feel now is almost scarier than the heartbreak—you aren't even that sad anymore. Just empty. And you tell Taehyun this. "It still scares me—feeling like I don't know who I am now. I feel like I built up an entire imaginary future with him—and now I don't know what to expect of anything anymore."

Taehyun takes a breath as he nods. "I know," he says gently. "But the future is always like that. You know? Nothing's ever guaranteed, no matter how much we cling to the things we care about. Still—I want you to know that you're so, so much more than being someone's partner. I think you're incredibly clever, and funny, and smart, and beautiful—don't you dare look at me like that, Y/N," he says, only somewhat teasingly as you raise your eyebrows at that last addition. "I'm serious. It's okay to care about someone, but I want you to know that you are still worth so, so much as your own person. Regardless of whether you're with someone or not."

You wish you had better words to say to Taehyun—poetic, soft words to thank him in the same way that he's comforting you. Instead, you let the silence speak for you, losing yourself to the soft hum of Taehyun's radio and the glittering stars that have finally come out in the sky. It's a comfortable silence, though—and you feel those knots of worry and heartbreak at the pit of your stomach slowly start to untangle themselves. Just a little—but they do nonetheless.

It's long past nightfall when Taehyun finally drives you home, telling you goodnight and looking like there's more that he wants to say, even as he drives away—but you find yourself content in the moment anyway, even when you get ready for bed and slip under your covers.

But that doesn't mean the pain has gone away entirely.

Taehyun had told you to call him if you started feeling down about the whole situation, but when you wake up in the morning and feel that familiar heavy sorrow in your chest, you don't tell Taehyun a thing. Instead, you let yourself lie on your side and bring your knees up to your chest and weep, burying your face in the pillowcase until it's practically soaked through from your tears. You let yourself cry for yourself—for the version of you who has died, for the Yeonjun you had loved for so long and with such intensity, and for you now who will never again be the person you were before.

It would be different if the two of you had ended things dramatically, you think—if Yeonjun had cheated on you, or if you had been an unsupportive partner—but none of those things happened. It just ended. And he has already moved on, the way you imagine a normal person does.

Somehow, you think, that still makes it worse.

But you think back on what Taehyun had said to you last night, even as you brush away the tears staining your cheeks. Choi Yeonjun is not the only person in the world—it doesn't make sense to think of him as the only person who could ever love you. Yes, your relationship coming to an end still hurts like nothing you've ever experienced before—but already you can feel that ache subsiding, even if those moments are few and far between. Yeonjun had fully severed what was left of the two of you, but it now feels to you like it was necessary. Like it was something you needed—the beginning of a new path for you.

~~~

The rest of the semester goes by in a blur after fall break. You're so caught up in the mess of finals and work that you barely have time to think about anything else, let alone what's left of your feelings towards Yeonjun.

If Soobin knows about you and Taehyun closing early and conveniently forgetting to punch out, he never says a word—but you do work considerably more hours than usual in the weeks leading up to your final exams. Soobin says it's the busiest time of the year for the library, so he needs all hands on deck to help all the students coming in and out. Which you do believe—but you still have a sneaky feeling that you and Taehyun are working more than Beomgyu and Kai.

You wonder if your professors are all in some kind of secret conspiracy to make their students suffer as much as possible, since all five of your exams are stacked over the course of three days. You survive, even after pulling an all-nighter to prepare, which does mean that you should be able to relax at the end of the week while your other coworkers are still cramming. On Friday, though Beomgyu and Kai still have one last final, which is why you and Taehyun both find yourselves working a double to cover for them while they take their exams. It's a long shift, full of snappy students and an exhausted Soobin—by the time 10 p.m. finally rolls around, you feel yourself on the verge of collapsing as you clock out with Taehyun.

Your favorite coworker raises an eyebrow at your exhausted state. "You alright?" he asks, tapping at his shirt collar before extending a hand to you.

Your nametag. Christ, you'd almost forgotten. You sigh, nodding as you slip your nametag off of your shirt before placing it in Taehyun's waiting palm, who then moves to slide it under the front counter with his and your other coworkers' tags. "You mean you don't feel like you're about to pass out after that? I thought today would never end."

He laughs a little as the two of you walk towards the front door. "Sure I do. But you saw what Kai sent in the work chat, right? He and Beomgyu are going out later tonight now that they're done with finals. Of course, I'm not sure if that means they feel like they did good or bad, to be honest—but I guess we'll know when we get there. I told them I'd meet them once we were done with work."

You laugh too, pulling your car keys out of your pocket now that you're only a few feet from your respective vehicles. "Yeah, I saw it. But you guys can go ahead—I think I need to turn in early tonight. I'll see you all after the break, okay?"

The look on Taehyun's face fades a little, and he stops walking right in front of your cars. "Are you sure? It might be fun—you know how funny Beomgyu gets."

You stop walking too, standing beside him. The thought of tipsy Beomgyu does bring back fond memories of work parties past—the occasion where he tried to convince everyone to jump into a pool, fully clothed, at the house party where you all barely knew the owner was a particularly fun one—but you don't feel up for it tonight. So you shake your head. "No—I'm too tired, Taehyun. But you all have fun, seriously. Just be safe, alright?" You wink at him teasingly.

But he doesn't return the gesture. Rather, an unusual look washes over his face—an expression of determination that you aren't sure you've ever seen from him before. "You're going home tomorrow, right?" he asks suddenly.

You nod. "Yeah, I'm spending the break with my parents. Why?"

Taehyun visibly swallows before he opens his mouth again to speak. You feel a sudden uneasiness develop in the pit of your stomach just before you hear him say "I'm telling you now, then. I like you, Y/N." Suddenly. Just the way Yeonjun had in that art museum all those years ago.

The two of you are outside, but you suddenly feel like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the parking lot you're standing in. You blink. "What?"

He nods, gaze unwavering from yours. "I like you."

He's joking. He has to be. Either that, or you really did pass out in the library earlier, and this is all some kind of dream. "...You like me," you repeat, slowly. A short laugh escapes you before you can stop yourself. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said," he says. "I know this is a pretty terrible time to tell you this, but—"

"Yes," you say, practically unable to believe what you're hearing. "Yes, Taehyun, this is a terrible time to tell me—God, why would you tell me this?"

"Because it's true," he replies almost instantly. "And I'm not telling you because I want you to say the same thing. You don't have to say anything, actually, I...I just wanted you to know."

Your heart sinks to your chest at that. "So, you...you'd confess to someone who you know won't reciprocate? Why?"

Taehyun shakes his head. "I'm not telling you because I want anything to happen. Not right now, anyway—I'm not that stupid. I think." He tries to laugh, but the sound doesn't quite come out right. "I just want you to know, in case you ever feel the same way."

In case you ever feel the same way. He doesn't think you like him back. Hell—do you? The thought of romance has been so banned from your mind for the last several months that you haven't even entertained the notion, whether it was Taehyun or anyone else in the world—but you think about that. You think about the way those feelings of tight anxiety in your chest loosen when you see that you're scheduled to work with him, how your heart beats faster when you get a notification on your phone from him—not to mention that evening you'd spent in his car on the hilltop overlooking the city. Those feelings of warmth that ignite within you every time you'd looked over at him that night probably were feelings of attraction. You just haven't been able to even entertain this thought, of liking someone else, in ages. You almost can't ever remember when—and that frightens you. "I...I think I do feel that way, though," you say. "I care about you, Taehyun. So, so much. You've been the only person I could depend on for the last three months, but...but I think you deserve better than this. God, you should know better than anyone that I'm nowhere near being over Yeonjun. That I'm in no state to even think about dating someone right now." You laugh, tone dripping with self-deprecation. "I'm a mess. I barely even remember what those feelings are even like. You have to know that anything I do in this mental state now would just be a rebound, even if I didn't want it to be, and I...I don't want to do that to you."

Taehyun nods quickly, taking a step closer. "You're not a mess. But I do know how you feel—which is why I wanted to tell you. You don't have to do anything about it now if you don't want to," he says again. "I just wanted you to know."

You shake your head, surprised to feel sudden tears of frustration brimming at the corners of your eyes. "God...Taehyun, please don't do this to me," you whisper, holding back a sniff. He's close enough to you that he can hear, even at this volume. "I don't want to lose you too." Things will never be the same between the two of you—you know this as well as you know your own name. No matter how much the two of you try to awkwardly dance around each other from now on, you'll never forget that you had this conversation. You can never go back to just being friends.

But Taehyun shakes his head fervently. "You won't lose me," he says, voice unwavering before he makes a slight move to reach for your hand out of instinct before stopping himself. "Not if you don't want to. I'll stick around for as long as you want me to."

You grab his hand anyway, even as he looks up at you in shock. "So...what? You'd wait for me?" you say, laughing quietly. "I can't ask that of you. That isn't fair to you."

He just shakes his head again. "If you want me to, I will. I'll wait as long as you need me to—I'm telling you, I don't mind."

You scoff a little at that before you can stop yourself. "You say that now, but I...I have no idea when I'll feel ready to think about being with anyone again. I'm sorry, Taehyun—but I don't know how long this could take. You know? I mean, I'd hope it wouldn't be years," you say, laughing hollowly, "but I just have no idea. And I just don't understand why you would do this—wait for me. I mean...look at you," you say, laughing nervously as you gesture vaguely towards his figure. You haven't thought about him in that way before—or maybe you haven't let yourself think of him in that way, you realize now—but you can't ignore the sharp lines of his jaw, the clearly defined strength beneath his sweater—Taehyun is beautiful. There could never be any denying it. "You're perfect, Taehyun. You could have anyone you wanted—certainly someone less fucked up than me. Someone you wouldn't have to wait to be with, I—"

But he just shakes his head. "I most certainly am not perfect—but I just want to see you happy," he replies, voice as calm and steady as ever. You wonder if this is how he imagined this conversation going. "Whether that's with me, or someone else, or on your own—that's okay. And I...you know now. I'd like for it to be with me, if that's possible," he adds, laughing a little, "but if it's not, that's okay too. You just deserve to be happy, and I want to see that happen for you."

You let his words hang in the air between the two of you for a long, long time. The only sound in the entire parking lot is the occasional soft jangling of your keys when a gust of wind passes by.

He'd wait for you.

"...I really don't know how long it will be until I can think about this," you say again, breaking the momentary silence.

But Taehyun just nods, gently squeezing your hand. You'd almost forgotten your fingers were still interlaced with his. "I'm telling you, that's okay. I'll wait as long as you want until you want to talk about this again—and if you don't want it to go any further, it doesn't have to. I just...just wanted you to know how I felt, regardless."

You nod. Before you can say anything else, though, Taehyun's phone rings from his back pocket, loudly interrupting the two of you in the otherwise empty parking lot.

He turns slightly to glance down at it, and makes a face when he sees who it's from. "It’s Kai," he says softly. "They must be wondering where I am."

"Go ahead," you say just as quietly, gesturing with your free hand towards his car. "It's okay. I...I need to think, anyway."

Taehyun keeps his gaze on you for a moment, mind clearly racing through a thousand different responses as he sets his mouth in a worried line—but eventually he nods. "Okay," he says, finally letting go of your hand. "I...I'll see you after break, then."

You nod wordlessly.

His words still echo in your mind, even as he gets in his car and offers a small wave your way.

He'd wait for you. It's more than you could ever ask for. At the same time, however, you realize that it's an admission to yourself—admitting that getting over Yeonjun is still going to be a long, difficult path to walk.

And when you're finally left in the parking lot by yourself, you find that you feel more alone than you have in a long, long time.

~~~

The winter holidays go by at a snail's pace. All you want to do is sleep off the fresh heartache your conversation with Taehyun has caused and do practically nothing all break—but you find yourself hilariously bored on your fourth day of doing "nothing."

Your parents are uncharacteristically lenient of your behavior—they used to never let you sleep in this late, especially if you were home from school after not seeing you for so long—but you know they know about you and Yeonjun breaking up. Your mother had been particularly fond of him, too. Maybe that's why she doesn't say a word when you go to bed early every night.

It's ridiculously hard to keep your mind off of Yeonjun over the holidays—couples are everywhere. Nearly every holiday movie seems to revolve around a romance, not to mention all the ones in real life that you can't stop seeing. Your friends post about spending the week with their partner's families, about seeing the other's hometown for the first time, of a surprise and sudden engagement from one of your cousins and their long-time girlfriend—it's enough to make you sick. You know that's a horrible thing to think at such happy occasions for the people you know, but the thought forms itself anyway.

Every time you feel like you've taken a step forward towards healing, towards finally, finally getting over him—you see something that sends you reeling back into that heartache and sorrow, sending you ten steps back from where you'd been. It's a vicious cycle, and as much as you beg for it to end—it doesn't. Not yet.

Because Yeonjun haunts you in your home, too. It's hard to set up decorations with your parents without thinking about how you did this last year with him—how he had held onto your waist as he reached around you into the box of tinsel, how your mother had beamed at him as he'd helped her cook, how angelic he had looked as the two of you walked around your neighborhood looking at the different lights each house had set up. They were such beautiful memories, at the time—had only made you feel more confident and cemented in your relationship with Yeonjun as each one passed. You'd hadn't ever imagined a future without him. And now you can't help but wonder if he had already felt dissatisfied with you in each of those moments.

But as unrelenting as those memories are, so is the passing of time—because you survive the winter holiday season, somehow, even with your shattered heart. Your plan is to move back into school right after the new year, which is how you end up at home on New Year's Eve. Your parents have already gone to their rooms to sleep by the time eleven o'clock strikes on the clock, and as hard as you try, you can't help but think about the fact that this is your first New Year's Eve in years that you'll be alone for.

Or so you think, anyway. The instant you see your phone screen display 12:01 A.M., it buzzes. It's a message from Taehyun.

> happy new year, y/n

The new year.

Everything has hurt so badly for months—like a wound that refuses to form a scab, because you won't let it. You're the one who won't put the bandage over the cut, who keeps digging the blade into the metaphorical wound that was you and Yeonjun every time you think about him.

But what's the alternative? Moving on? Accepting that your relationship with Yeonjun is over? That what had been the happiest years of your life up until now are through? It's unthinkable. It's unfair to that version of you who had loved him with all of your heart to just throw them away—to just lock the door and never look back.

But it's what you have to do, you realize. You won't ever feel any better until you can accept that you and Yeonjun are done, for good—and Taehyun is offering you a way out. This is the ending of what you've known up until now—but a chance to finally, finally start anew. To put the past behind you and try again.

< happy new year, taehyun.

IV. SPRING.

The spring semester hardly gives you a moment to breathe.

You vaguely remember signing up for classes right before fall break—but those weeks were such a blur that you neglected to realize this spring would be your first semester in upper division courses. In other words—you're drowning in schoolwork with scarcely an instant to yourself, let alone to sort out your lingering feelings.

And in the moments that you do have time to breathe, Yeonjun always seems to find a way to sneak to the forefront of your mind. But these recollections aren't always as painful as they were before. In one instance, you feel a wave of relief wash over you—but only for the single instant that it provides you comfort—when you remember turning down Yeonjun's offer to buy each other promise rings before he'd first left for college.

He'd pointed at them in a jewelry store the two of you had wandered into while walking downtown together. "What do you think?" he'd asked, winking.

You'd laughed. "Yeah, right. I hear getting engaged right after high school never ends up going badly for anyone."

But he'd shaken his head immediately. "Not engaged," he'd corrected gently. "They're promise rings. It's a promise to you, from me. And from you to me—that we'll wait for each other, and only each other, until we're both ready. No matter what happens."

Your heart had fluttered at the sudden declaration, cheeks flushing pink before you could stop them—but you had thought even then that it seemed like an awfully rash thing to commit to for a relationship of barely over a year. "That's...unbelievably romantic, Jjun," you'd admitted. "Even for you. Have you done something?" you'd teased, narrowing your eyes at him.

He'd gasped, putting his hands above his head in mock surrender. "I most certainly have not. Can't I just be a hopeless romantic every once in a while?"

You'd pretended to mull it over. "Hmm. Maybe on special occasions. We'll have to see if we can work out a schedule for your hopeless romantic tendencies in the future."

Yeonjun had then made a show of wiping pretend sweat from his brow. "Thank goodness."

You'd giggled, despite yourself. "I'm serious, though. It's a beautiful thought, but...do you think it's something we could come back to? At a later time?"

Ever the gentleman, your Yeonjun had nodded sweetly at you. "Of course," he'd said, taking your hand in his before leading the two of you back out of the store. "We can talk about the future whenever you're ready. I'm just as happy in our present right now, anyway."

That had certainly changed somewhere along the way, you think bitterly to yourself. But pushing past this memory still feels like a small victory, in a way. You hadn't wasted money on committing to a promise that Yeonjun had broken.

There are countless more memories that resurface in this way—but by the time they pass, you no longer taste that metaphorical blood in your mouth anymore at their recollection, no longer feel your heart yearning for them to stay the way you would have a few months ago. They just pass, and you don't think about them again after they go.

Yeonjun only texts you once. You haven't sent him a single message since his Instagram post before fall break—and of course, you imagine he knows why. You may not have expected him to break up with you when he did, but you did know him ridiculously well at one point, seemingly both inside and out—you know that he knows you well enough, too, to understand why you've suddenly gone radio silent. But he does text you once, right as the first week of your semester finishes.

> hey. is everything okay? do you want to talk?

Months ago, you think, you would have leapt at the opportunity—jumped through the screen and across space and time, practically, to have a chance to talk to him for an extended period of time, for a possible chance to win him back. Now you just feel embarrassment towards yourself for ever having felt that way.

You never respond.

Taehyun's presence in your life is different now, too. You still work together, of course, but you have several shared classes again—so you find yourself studying and comparing essays at either his apartment or yours nearly three or four times each week. It's challenging, all of it, but in between, it does make you remember why you became friends with Taehyun in the first place—because he's not like anyone else you've ever known before. Every time you want to throw in the towel on a particularly lengthy assignment, he has some witty comment that gives you just enough energy to keep going. Every time you come by his apartment, the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles upon seeing you sends a surge of warmth through you. If you have felt trapped in frigid ice since this breakup, Taehyun has been your sun, ever so gradually melting that ice away whenever you let him.

And you do let him. One night, you're leaving his apartment after exchanging study guides for one of your midterms. You walk by his side, car keys swinging softly in between your fingers.

"How are you feeling?" Taehyun asks right before you open your car door. He doesn't elaborate, but you know what he's talking about.

So you turn to him. "I, um...I don't know if this will get better," you admit quietly. It's a fear you've harbored from the start—that you'll never get over Yeonjun, your first and last—that he will have created your perception of love, molded and shaped it to his design and his alone before shattering it, leaving you to pick up the pieces for the rest of your life.

But Taehyun lets out a scoff at that. "It will. I promise, Y/N. It does get better."

You narrow your eyes at him. "How do you know that? Hmm? Are you some secret fortune teller that I don't know about? Is that how you've been able to afford such a nice apartment here?"

He laughs at you. "No. I'm not a fortune teller. But I know this much—it'll get better. I can't tell you when, because I don't know that. It's something you'll have to figure out, I think. But one day, soon, you'll wake up one morning, and it'll hurt less. And then, a little later, it won't hurt at all. It'll feel like it was a bad dream. You'll get involved in other things, other interests, other people, and then you won't think of this when you wake up in the morning at all."

You nod, slowly. "I want to believe you, Taehyun. I do. I just don't know how long that will take."

But he just shrugs again. Damn him for being so easygoing. "That's okay. You know where I'll be, regardless."

You do know where he'll be—right by your side, just like he's been for the last six months. In truth, you had expected him to fall back on his promise to wait—you would have been sad, sure, but you wouldn't have blamed him. Putting up with you moving on from a relationship over the course of half a year, now, can't have been an easy task. But you've never heard a word of complaint from him. He isn't that kind of person—you know this now. He really will stick by you for as long as you'll allow him to—a kind of affection you haven't felt from anyone in a long, long time.

But right beside you isn't the only place Taehyun seems to be. Your subconscious seems to have taken a liking to him, too—because that night, you see him in your dreams. You'd tossed and turned earlier, unable to fall asleep, throwing the sheets off the bed before you curl up into a ball and squeeze your eyes shut. When you finally find yourself lured back into sleep, you find Taehyun—strong and sweet and caring and beautiful Taehyun. He wraps his arms around you in the dream, hands grabbing hold of your waist before he presses his lips to yours in a heated kiss—as if he never wants to let you go. As if there isn't anyone else in the world that matters except for the two of you.

You wake up in the morning and weep.

Later in the day, you find tears brimming at the corners of your eyes again when you finally find the courage to delete the photo album on your phone of you and Yeonjun—but they never fall past your lashes, even when you hit the red delete button.

Perhaps you've run out of tears for him, because none fall when you package away everything else of his in your apartment—every framed photo of the two of you, every stuffed animal he'd bought, every hoodie of his you'd once promised to give back all fit neatly in a single cardboard box, sealed and never to be seen again.

Without the remnants of Yeonjun scattered throughout your apartment, you find yourself thinking of him less with each day that passes. The ghost who had once haunted every fiber of your being now seems like little more than a bad dream you've suddenly woken up from. This realization hurts you, just like the ones before it—but the hurt doesn't linger. It, too, grows faint before long, dissipated and fading away just like the rest of your relationship.

The end of the semester doesn't sneak up on you this spring. You have a lengthy presentation for your hardest class, an argumentative speech that you've practically spent all semester preparing for. You and Taehyun practice for each other for weeks beforehand, critiquing and encouraging and teasing each other the whole way through—but it's still over before you know it.

The morning after your final presentation, you don't wake up until the sun has risen high in the sky, peeking through the blinds over your window and finally raising you from sleep. You stretch as you walk over to the window, opening the blinds and peering out into the street below you. There's a couple walking on the sidewalk—and you recognize the girl as a regular from the library, the one with strawberry-colored hair whom Kai had been practically obsessed with back in the fall.

She tugs at the sleeve of the man walking beside her, pulling him into a sudden kiss, and you instantly turn away from the window, giving them a moment of privacy despite their actions being in public anyway.

Well—she obviously hadn't known about Kai's existence, but she'd still clearly been able to find some kind of happiness. The thought soothes you, in a way, and you think about how the scene below you would have made you feel six months ago. You would've been jealous, probably, and upset that you'd never experience anything like that again—but now the only thing it fills you with is longing. It makes you happy to see others experience something that you know feels like a gift. You want to experience that again too, you realize.

The instant that thought forms in your head, another memory materializes.

That's okay. You know where I'll be, regardless.

You feel your heart soar at the recollection.

Yes, Taehyun. I do.

V. SUMMER.

Taehyun texts you the very first day summer break begins.

> how'd your last final go?

> omg i meant to tell you after work yesterday but kai's parents said he could stay in the beach house this weekend

> like a very early birthday thing i think lol. it'll be a few ppl but you're more than welcome to come tomorrow if you haven't gone back home yet

The invite sends a flurry of both excitement and nervousness through you. You haven't gone back home yet—your parents aren't coming until early next week to help you move out for the summer, not to mention the fact that you haven't see Taehyun or any of your other coworkers since the end of finals week. Excited doesn't even begin to cover it, you think.

< i'll be there!

Kai, thankfully, is a relatively easy person to shop for—you have no trouble at all picking up a wristwatch you remember him talking about a few times at work. And in truth, his birthday isn't for another two months, but you imagine he needed some excuse to convince his parents to let him throw an end-of-the-school-year party—so you don't mind the expense at all.

Kai is overjoyed to see you when you arrive at the beach house, thanks to Taehyun sending you the address, and even more so when he sees the gift bag in your hands.

"You did not have to get me anything!" he exclaims, pouting, but you still see that glint of anticipation in his eyes despite his words.

You beam at him, throwing your arms around him in a quick hug. You've missed this—being with your friends and not feeling like you were putting them through hell with you. Seeing them happy with you feels right in a way that nothing else has in months. "Happy birthday, Kai," you say, pulling back so he can tear into his present (which he does almost immediately).

Taehyun is waving at you from the shallow end of the pool. "Did you bring a swimsuit?" you hear him call over Kai's shouts of excitement.

You nod, biting back a grin as you pull your shirt over your head and tug your shorts off as quickly as possible, revealing the bathing suit that you'd worn on your way over underneath. You immediately run to jump in the deep end, splashing both Taehyun and Beomgyu, if the yells and laughs you hear when you resurface are any indicator.

Beomgyu makes some excuse about needing to find the birthday cake, hauling himself up and out from the side of the pool when you start to swim over towards Taehyun.

He doesn't budge, grinning at you as you make your way towards the shallow end. "Nice of you to make an appearance," he says, winking.

"Well, I had to let you know I was here somehow, you know," you reply instantly, grinning right back.

Taehyun's smirk widens. "Of course. And I'm glad you're here, Y/N. How'd you end up doing for your finals?"

You shrug. "A’s and B’s. I'm still pretty satisfied with how that presentation for Dr. Lee went, though—how about you?"

He pushes your shoulder playfully. "Look at you! I told you you'd kill that speech. I knew you could do it."

You feel the ghost of his hand on your skin even after it's gone, shivers rippling down your spine at the thought—and that does it. You can't keep up the small talk any longer. "I have something for you," you announce, as stone-faced as you can manage. "Close your eyes."

Something flickers in his eyes—surprise? delight, even?—but it's gone just as soon as you notice it. "For me?" He laughs. "But it's Kai's birthday party."

You nod. "I know," you say. "I already gave him his present. You get one too."

Taehyun's eyes narrow. "Am I getting the same thing as Kai?"

You can't bite back the grin that tugs at your lips. "Not even close."

He seems satisfied with that, finally, so he closes his eyes. You know you'll only get one chance to do this, to do it right with the element of surprise—so you lean in as quickly as you can, before the logical side of your brain can catch up with the rest of you, and press your lips to the side of his cheek.

Taehyun looks at you, eyes wide open with surprise, until—"You missed."

You frown. "I what?"

He nods, as if that should have been obvious. "Mmm-hmm. You missed." There's only a split second for you to realize what he means before he's taken hold of your chin with two of his fingers and brought your lips to his. He's kissing you.

Taehyun is kissing you.

There are no fireworks or cannons shooting above your head, no angel floating down from the heavens to confirm that this moment has been the peak of your entire life—but kissing Taehyun is soft. Gentle. It's all the comfort he always makes you feel, has always made you feel—nothing feels more right than being pressed up against him here, with one hand cradling your chin and one settled securely on your hip as his lips move against yours.

There still aren't fireworks or cannons shooting off behind you—but what you do hear are loud whoops and cheers from your coworkers (and maybe a few fake retching noises). Taehyun pulls back a little once he hears those, dark eyes scanning your face for any signs of discomfort—but there are none. Instead, you laugh, and Taehyun does too, breath skating across your jaw as you feel more right than you have in an achingly long time. When he presses his lips to yours again, still smiling against the kiss, you feel that sensation of right, of warmth, of comfort practically coursing through your veins as you slide your arms around his neck. This, right here, is where you're supposed to be.

“You waited,” you manage to breathe out in between kisses, holding tighter to Taehyun’s shoulders above the water to steady yourself.

He smiles at you, beaming brighter and warmer than the summer sun above the two of you. “Yes, Y/N,” he whispers softly, moving his hand to cup your cheek in his palm. “And I’d do it again if it meant we would still end up right here.”

It's not the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another—life is hardly ever that smooth. It just is.

You don't know the kind of partner Taehyun is yet. You don't know that he'll almost always keep a hand on your thigh when you sit together, that he'll write a list in the notes app of his phone of your orders at each of your favorite restaurants, that he'll love to take candid photos of you to show you later, that one day the two of you will be in a very similar position to the way you are now while a small black box holds a hefty weight in his back pocket—but you don't have to know any of that yet.

You're here with Taehyun, now, your arms around him as his wrap around you, and that's what matters. The rest you can figure out together.

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strayed-quokka · 2 years

Text

sex is overrated || ji changmin

» summary: you knew what you liked in the bedroom but men never seemed to take a hint. maybe it was your fault. or maybe they were just really fucking vanilla. nevertheless, your best friend is determined to prove to you that he knows exactly how to make a girl come, and you're no exception.

» pairing: ji changmin x female reader

» rating: NC-17 minors please do not interact with this work

» genre: best friends to lovers, ruin the friendship, smut, porn with some plot, a little fluff

» warnings: where to begin... dom changmin, sub reader, changmin is massive, fingering, oral (f & m), rough sex, face sitting, deep throating, squirting, spanking, spitting, unprotected sex, chocking, restraints (pink handcuffs hello whisper), face fucking, hair pulling, slight dacryphilia if you squint (?), degradation, a nude photo, marking, biting, scratching, mild bruising, creampie, changmin is an aftercare king though... i think i got it all but will double check.

» words: 5,051

» a/n: whisper. that’s it. also probably the filthiest thing i've ever written so i'm going to pour some holy water now and pg-13 my eyes a little... feedback and comments are greatly appreciated x

Sex was always exaggerated pleasure.

At least sex was never any good. Not good enough to justify laying naked in a stranger's bed before leaving early in the morning to go home. You weren’t sure if maybe there was something wrong with you, but they just all seemed to be so pathetically vanilla.

“You look fucking miserable, jesus christ,” your best friend since a particularly terrible high school party a few years ago, Changmin, scowls at you, his hair unbrushed on his head and his eyes still tired. It’s surprising that he’s even awake.

“I am miserable, Minnie,” he grimaces, grabbing another mug from the endless ones you both have (it may have something to do with your need to buy a disney themed one every time you see one), pouring you an extra large cup of black coffee.

“I’m sorry angel,” he pouts, and you gratefully take the scolding beverage from him before adding some milk.

“Why are men so shit in bed? Why is sex so overrated?” the platinum blond young man seems unfazed at first, given that you’ve probably asked him this at least once every two weeks for the past year. He was used to it, and every time he could only offer the same few solutions. Tell them what they want, and trial and error it. It was never a one size fits all.

You knew that, but you were also impatient and in your sexual prime, and no one was satisfying you. You couldn’t remember when you’d last had an orgasm that you didn’t bring on yourself. Anyway, here you sit against the kitchen island with disappointment pulling all your features down, and your best friend sighs, “go shower. We can talk about it after.”

You listen to him. Changmin was probably the only man on this entire planet that you rarely if ever argued with. He just understood you, sometimes it made you even wonder if he read your journal, because how the hell did he just get it?

“Minnie, can I ask you a question?” you ask, brushing through your wet hair as the man looks at you when you come back into the room refreshed. You’re wearing his shirt again, legs bare, and he wishes he wasn’t so perfectly willing to give them all to you as if they belonged in your wardrobe more than in his.

“Sure,” you put the brush down, thinking the question over in your mind before deciding to ask it anyway.

“Do you think you’re good in bed?”

It was probably the worst moment in time for Changmin to take a sip of his coffee, for now he was left choking and coughing horrifically while you reached around to pat his back. He was trying to remember in his mind if you’d ever asked him a question quite like this, but quickly determined that this may’ve been the boldest thing he’d ever been asked by you.

It’s not that Changmin necessarily kept his sex life a secret from you, nor did you keep yours hidden, but you’d never directly asked him if he actually thought he was any good.

“Are you asking me in hopes I say yes so you don’t entirely give up on your sexcapades?”

You huff, crossing your arms as you lean against the counter across from him, “at least tell me you know how to make a girl come. That’s enough for me.”

He doesn’t know if the temperature in the room has risen or if he’s just warmer, but the vulgarity in which you ask makes him feel weaker. That being said, he liked to believe that he could confidently tell you that he could, and that it wouldn’t be a lie, “Are you telling me you’ve never once heard me had sex?”

Now it’s your turn to blush, turning your head away from him to stare at the wall ahead, “I mean… I wasn’t going to say it and embarrass you.”

He likes this push and pull, the teasing nature that your question brought, and there’s something about you becoming more shy that makes him more confident, “you tell me then.”

He got you there. Not only had you heard some of the girls he’d been with, but they’d been more than vocal. Honestly, you couldn’t imagine ever being that loud, but then again, no one ever did anything that made you feel the need to scream.

“I have another question,” you start, and he nods as his lips turn upward into a grin, his deep dimples on full display for you. He’s nothing short of charming and sweet.

“You’re full of those today, aren’t you?”

“You sure they never faked it?”

Changmin can remember the few times he’s been rendered speechless, but none even came close to the way he falters now. He guesses there wasn’t ever a way of truly knowing, but it had been a long time since he felt like a girl wasn’t genuine with him. Honestly, the last time was probably back when he was still incredibly inexperienced.

“Want to find out for yourself?” it’s an invitation that he doesn’t quite realise he’s given before it’s already too late, but he’s grateful that his voice always holds a hint of teasing so that if you completely turned away in disgust, he could somehow get away with it being a joke.

Both of you stand there silently, and Changmin is close to apologising for maybe crossing a line with you, but you cut him off first.

“Okay,” he thinks he’s going crazy, like he’s hallucinating and losing his mind, but you don’t seem to back down, “but we should lay some ground rules first.”

Changmin didn’t know what he’d done in his life that resulted in him sat across from you at the dinner table with a notebook in front of him and a blue pen in hand writing down a list of what the two of you should be in agreement with before you’d have sex.

It sounded ridiculous, but he guessed this is how most friendships fell apart. There was always a risk involved.

“Alright, let me see it,” he turns the notebook around towards you, and you read it all outloud one by one, pausing in-between to see if he has any objections or anything to add.

“If one of us feels uncomfortable we stop, no questions asked. If one of us catches feelings, we stop with no ill will and we won’t talk about it unless the person is okay with it. Traffic light system if ever necessary with tapping system if…” you pause, swallowing, “if traffic system can’t be used.”

Honestly, it makes you wonder what the hell you two may get up to, and it definitely makes you wonder if you should really be doing this. Changmin seems to see it too, the way you hesitate, “we don’t have to-”

“I know,” but you want to, “Minnie?”

“Hmm?”

“You remember what I like, right?”

“I mean… I know what you complain about when you come home unsatisfied, if that’s what you’re on about,” you nod, looking at the way his face illuminates with the dimmed light in the room. He’s beautiful. You've always thought it, but never had it been more than surface level admiration.

“Alright so…” this doesn’t feel natural. Maybe you need alcohol, but you also don’t want it to intoxicate your mind and hinder coherent thoughts. You just don’t know how to go about this.

Changmin stands up, his chair dragging along the wooden floor when he does, “I mean… you’re free now, right?”

It makes you laugh, getting up to briefly put your long empty mug in the sink before you jump up on the counter. His shirt rises with your movements and he moves closer to you instantly, already asking the next question, “can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” he waits an agonisingly long time before his eyes flutter closed and his lips fall onto yours, but it’s enough to make you wonder why the hell you both took so long to do this. He’s good at kissing you, quick with changing pace so that you don’t get bored and rough with his hands on your body. It’s exactly what you’d want, and you wonder if maybe Changmin paid even more attention to the things you’d carelessly said in the past than you thought.

You moan against his lips, and he slips his tongue into your mouth and roughly tugs at your hair, pulling you closer to the edge of the counter as your legs part for him to stand between. It drives you wild, and you feel just a little pathetic with how good you feel from something as simple as a kiss.

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” he pants against your lips, pushing the fabric you’re wearing up above your hips, your lace black panties in full view for him and the man nearly falls to his knees for you then. There’s something about you that works similarly to a drug, and he can’t wait another second before he strips your (well, his), shirt off and throws it to the floor.

“Fuck,” he’s eyeing you hungrily, and normally such a gaze at your bare body may leave you wanting to cover up. But the way Changmin looks at you is so desperate and hungry that you blurt out the next words before you’ve thought of it.

“Take a picture,” he can’t believe his luck, nor does he know what galaxy he saved in another life, but he’s practically tearing his phone from his pocket and fumbling to unlock it, nearly dropping it in the process.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Changmin. I’m sure,” it’s all the reassurance he needs, and the image he takes is enough to make his cock hard and strain against his sweatpants painfully. He throws his phone to the side, pulling his own shirt over his head and your mouth nearly waters at the sight you’re met with.

“Minnie…” you drag his name out in a whine, and he’s pulling you to your feet and practically shoving you down onto your knees in an instant before him.

“Yes, angel?” it’s a mocking tone, but the very way he speaks to you causes your pussy to clench and your underwear to cling to your folds. The fabric teases your clit when you move and the stimulation makes you quiver.

“Look at you, are you that weak?” you whine, licking the prominent v-line along his muscular stomach, before dipping your tongue beneath the fabric of his sweats. The blissful curses that leave his mouth and the grip he has on the back of your head is enough for you to pull the grey offending trousers down, his cock springing free.

“F-fuck,” maybe you were slowly starting to understand why girls were so loud with him. His cock was easily the biggest you’d ever seen, even to the point where you maybe thought that it was too much. Not only was the length impressive, but it was thick, enough that you struggled to wrap your hand around the base.

“Are you dumb off seeing my cock already? Haven’t even fucked you yet,” it was degrading maybe, to have him insult you, but you wanted him to. His words turned you on, and you stick your tongue out and place the head of his cock in your mouth.

You feel him grip a handful of hair, creating a makeshift ponytail as he steadies your head, your tongue lapping up his pre-cum and circling around the tip before you slowly try to ease him further into your mouth.

“Angel, you’re pathetic if that’s all you can take,” honestly, you’re inclined to agree. You’re barely halfway and your jaw already feels tense and your mouth feels full, but you try to relax and angle yourself slightly so that his cock pushes into your throat, “good girl.”

You cough, choking on your own spit and his cock but he keeps your head locked in place as tears spring to your eyes. It’s almost too much, but Changmin isn’t that cruel. He knows it and releases your head from his grip right after, allowing you to breathe.

“I want you to fuck my mouth,” he’s stunned into silence at first. Truly, he’d never met a girl so eager to have his cock in her mouth, but who is he to say no?

“Oh… was that not too much for you… hmm?”

“I’ll tap you three times if it is,” a pause, and then you look up at him, “I promise.”

He knows you’ll hold yourself to it. Even if he’d never experienced you sexually, he knows that you don’t go above your limits, so he trusts that you’ll let him know if you can’t take it.

“Open your mouth,” you obey eagerly, knees pushing further apart, and he’s pulling your hair and yanking your head back so you look up at him before he spits in your mouth.

Fuck, he even remembered that.

He guides your mouth back to his cock, and you angle yourself again to push him deeper down your throat. You stop when you gag, and he only pulls back just enough to stop you from choking. He’s still at first, as if studying your reaction, before he starts to move.

Changmin is relentless. Once he decides a certain pace, then that’s the way he’s going. He fucks your throat completely dry, and you only manage to get air for the second he spends pulling out of you before his cock stuffs you full again. Tears fall from your eyes and you moan, causing vibrations to hit his cock that only urge him on while you claw at his skin by his hips, trying to hold on to anything so you don’t fall over, scratching him until red angry marks taint his otherwise perfect skin.

“You’re gonna swallow all of my cum, aren’t you baby?” you whimper, feeling his cock twitch before he stills, holding your head in place as his cum shoots down your throat. You savour every drop, falling into his arms as he pulls you up to your feet and then up onto his waist, “you good?”

“Y-yes,” you clear your throat, letting him carry you over to his bedroom before he sits down on the edge, shuffling around with you on top of him. Your clothed pussy rubs against him and it makes you shake, even more when you realise that he’s pushing your body further up, “do you need a break?”

“No,” he nods, resting his head on a pillow whilst you straddle his chest. You think you have a minute to breathe, but then his hands grip your ass and forcefully drag you up until your clothed cunt is hovering right over his mouth.

“Min-”

“Hmm?” he kisses your thigh, and you nearly debate telling him that he doesn’t have to make you come. That you believe him when he says he knows exactly how to pleasure someone. Yet you’re convinced you’ll never get the mental image of him between your thighs out of your mind any time soon, and you’ll be damned if you let this go.

“Fuck, I didn’t know you were so wet,” he chuckles, kneading your ass as he leans up and kisses your clothed folds. Your entire body trembles, and you wonder if you may have an orgasm right then, “all because of my cock in your mouth, hmm?”

“Y-yes,” he pushes the fabric to the side, licking up your juices like he’s starved off the taste of you, and you feel your wetness drip onto his lips. You’re a moaning mess above him, only made louder when he spanks your ass.

“You’re such a slut, hmm?” you want to agree, but just as you’re about to, his tongue finds your clit and you lose it, pushing down enough to wonder if you’re suffocating him between your legs. If you are, Changmin doesn’t mind, for he keeps the rigorous pace and only occasionally stops when the fabric of your underwear slips back into place.

He growls, dissatisfied, and eventually he grips both ends of the flimsy fabric and tears it in half. Every movement he makes feels so messy and hungry, but you know everything is perfectly calculated.

His ring finger teases your entrance while his tongue is still teasing your clit, lightly sucking the flesh, and you definitely know he’s calculating everything when he pushes his finger into you just as he lightly bites down on the bundle of nerves.

“Changmin!” it’s rare, almost never, that you use his full name. Usually it’s when you’re angry, but in this case, it’s because you’ve lost most ability to think and say the first thing that comes to your mind.

“God, look how you clench around my finger,” he swears he sees stars with how tight you are, pushing another finger inside you to slowly open you up enough for his cock, his rings cooling against your heat. A string of curses fall from his lips, knowing it’ll likely require some patience if you’re already clenching around something so small.

“F-fuck,” you rock your hips against him, and he uses his free hand to press your thighs down, holding them in place as he laps his tongue back over your folds to where his fingers scissor you open, before running up to your clit. There’s a familiar coil in your stomach, but it grows all too quickly and without any warning while you desperately struggle against his harsh grip on your legs and his eagerness to taste you, “Chan- ahh.”

You briefly wonder if you may pass out, your entire body rising up though he moves with you, not once letting his fingers move even an inch out of you as he feels you convulse and shake above him.

It takes him another second to realise that you’ve squirted on his chest and up along his collarbone and neck when you rose up, and your cheeks go incredibly crimson when you realise that you’ve left him a complete mess. But to him, he’s never felt more accomplished in his life, “fuck, you’re doing that again.”

His fingers slip out of you, and he’s incredibly gentle when he lets you lay there to recollect your breathing and become aware of your surroundings again. You could safely say that not only could he make a girl come, but he’d given you the most intense orgasm of your life.

“Can I restrain you?”

The question catches you by surprise at first, and it takes pathetically long for you to react at first, “what for?”

“When I fuck you,” your eyes open, and there he is, sweating, still glistening slightly from your own orgasm, cock fully erect and dimples showing as he smiles.

He looks ethereal.

“Unless you’d rather stop for today? If it’s too much-”

“No! No, please don’t stop,” he chuckles, amusement dancing in his eyes while he reaches over and kneads your ass cheeks again, occasionally offering a light spank that causes your body to ripple against the mattress, moans leaving your lips.

You may lose your voice at this rate.

“So… can I?” You think about it for a second, before ultimately nodding and deciding it’s something you’d like to try.

“How do you want me?”

“God, you can’t just say that. I might die,” you laugh, at least happy to know that you affect him just as much as he affects you.

“But to answer the question…” he comes up behind you, chest pressing into your back as his cock grazes against your ass, making you subconsciously push against him, “I’d like you just like this.”

He adjusts the pillow, ensuring that your head is well rested if your hands are going to be bound against your back, limiting the amount of support you can give yourself. What shocks you the most is how the handcuffs he’d fished from his nightstand are not only a bright pink, but shaped like a heart, “didn’t take you as someone who’d have that.”

“Chanhee bought it as a joke. Don’t think he’d assume I’d actually use it,” you chuckle, briefly thinking of your friend who really probably didn’t think much of it (or maybe he did know), whilst Changmin restrains your wrists and tightens the metal, “too much?”

“No… but not tighter, please?” Changmin obeys, doesn’t push where he feels like he shouldn’t and instead pushes your knees apart, your pussy coated in your juices and now in full view for him as he’d stripped you off your last item of clothing.

An item that you could honestly throw away.

“Just tell me if you want me to free you,” but you don’t think you’ll want him to. Something about giving him complete control over you whilst he fucks you from behind makes you question your sanity, because you feel like you’ve never wanted anything else more.

The tip of his bare cock teases your entrance and you whimper, especially when he stills “can I fuck you raw?”

“Yes,” you'd expected an internal debate in your mind that never comes. You always used condoms. Hell, you couldn’t remember when you last didn’t, but you wanted to feel every inch of his cock inside you and suddenly that internal thought process didn’t matter. You were on birth control anyway.

“You’re going to kill me,” he slowly pushes his cock inside your sopping cunt, groaning at how tight you feel. He was going to have to take it inch by inch, quite literally, and the very thought was agonising to him.

“F-fuck… you don’t fit,” you’re laughing, and at least knowing that you’re amused has him relaxing from the thought of thinking he was causing you pain. He laughs with you, but it’s quickly lost as he pushes himself deeper inside you, the sound strangled in his throat, “oh my god.”

“You still have a bit more than half, you know?”

“Shut up, there’s no w- mhmm,” he shuts you up with a rather deep push of his hips, splitting you open around his shaft, “now it’s about half.”

He’s teasing you again, but it’s so incredibly hot that you don’t care. You’re convinced that Changmin is the sexiest man in the world with the way he’s set on fucking you stupid.

It’s never taken you this long to adjust to someone’s length and girth, but it’s a good few more minutes of Changmin pushing a little more every time until your ass finally meets his hips, “god, look at you. You’re drooling.”

He chuckles, and you realise he’s right, moaning as you feel yourself clench around him unintentionally. He really has you forget all coherent thought, completely unaware of your own reactions “you can move.”

The platinum blond does not need to be told more than once. He’s been waiting to move, been desperate to, as he moves in slow and languid thrusts, like he needs you to feel every inch of his cock inside you, “mhmm, more.”

“Already? Can you take it?” You nod, feeling him hold your head down against the pillow, his other hand gripping your hip hard enough to bruise as he quickens his pace. You cry out his name almost instantly, screaming it over and over from the pleasure you feel, though it’s partially muffled.

“How good you take my cock.”

“Y-yes,” you stutter, feeling a sharp sting to your ass, but before you have time to respond, he’s taken the same hand he used to pull you up by the handcuffs that bind your wrists, your back twisted while he grips your hair and pulls you back into his shoulder, “h-harder.”

“Still?” he groans, obliging as he quickened his pace, his other free hand going around your waist and to your stomach, and he swears he can feel his cock inside you with every thrust, “mhmm fuck… I can feel my cock inside you.”

“Fuck... oh fuck, C-Changmin!” you wish your hands were free so you could touch him, but instead you have to rely on him to hold you up as he roughly pounds into you with no remorse. The pleasure becomes overbearing, but it’s brought to its peak when he dares test the waters with something you’d only mentioned once as something you wanted to try.

His hand that had been gripping your hair snakes around your throat, and at first he only squeezes lightly to see how you respond, if he should stop or keep going.

“C-Changmin! G-god. Please,” you whimper, tears falling from your eyes once again from the pleasure and he grins, biting down on your shoulder.

“Whore,” he groans, tightening the hand he has around your neck just slightly as he breathes into your ear, his grip enough to cause the oxygen in your brain to short circuit but not enough to make you feel in pain or like you’re in danger.

If your hands were free, you honestly think you’d make him grip you harder, and you know you’re about to fall over the edge.

It’s your inability to freely move and the way he holds you in place exactly the way he wants you with his cock deep inside you that makes you scream his name one more time, so loud that you'd be more surprised if the neighbours didn't hear it, your entire body shaking and clenching on his cock as you mess the sheets with your orgasm.

It’s the stimulation around his cock and the tightness that makes him lose control, and a mangled cry of your name leaves his lips when his cum spills into you, coating your walls and leaving you to collapse as he loses his strength to hold you, pleasured groans falling from his chapped lips.

You fall onto the bed, hands still bound behind your back with Changmin falling right next to you. Neither of you say anything, but both your heavy breaths are loud in the room as you try to collect yourself.

“We should shower,” you whine as a response, because you honestly don’t think you can move. Changmin doesn’t think he can either, but there’s no way he’s letting you lay in the mess you made with his cum still spilling out of you.

As absolutely feral and possessive as that makes him.

Your best friend unbinds the pink cuffs keeping your wrists together, wincing slightly as he sees how harshly you tugged at it even with the room he’d left. He brings them both to his lips, kissing the faint bruising as an apology falls from his mouth, but you don’t want him to be sorry.

“Please, if you dare apologise for the best sex of my life, I’ll kill you,” he chuckles, and you reach out lazily to poke his dimples, smiling when he squirms.

“I’ll get you ice at least,” he finally gets up, and while the muscles in his body scream at him, he lifts you up into his arms and into the bathroom, setting you down in the tiled shower whilst adjusting the temperature of the water.

“Wait here,” you nod, sat on the tiled floor in the shower as the water falls onto you, though you find it quite comfortable. Changmin comes back not long after, a few ice cubes wrapped around a towel that he holds to your wrist, kissing your forehead softly while brushing through your knotted hair. He’s completely different now, caring for you, and your heart swells in affection for him.

“Can I wash you?” you nod, and you sit there with him whilst he rubs your body wash over your skin and then his own, making sure you’re both clean and taking his time as he does. He winces at the faint bruising on your hip and around your shoulder where he’d bitten your skin, but you glare at him, reminding him not to think about it.

“Don’t pout about it,” you remind him, and he nods as he slowly begins to massage your scalp with your conditioner.

He cares for you so much, and you’ve never felt it more than now, still trying to recollect your thoughts while he ensures you’re okay even when his own exhaustion is threatening to have him pass out on you.

He even makes the bed for you both while you just sit and wait, fluffing the pillows for him, dressed in a new shirt of his while he's just adorning a pair of black boxers, and when he reaches for you to fall into his arms, you’re more than happy to.

You think with how you’re spent, you’d fall asleep in an instant, but instead you lazily brush Changmin’s hair from his forehead and kiss his shoulder. He lets you do whatever you want, watching you with a deep adoration and love, but it doesn’t scare you.

It doesn’t scare you, because you know when you look at him, it wasn’t just you who’d failed at keeping your feelings away.

“I love you,” he’s surprised to hear you say it first, but the warmth in his chest and the smile that threatens to slip just make you want to say it again and again.

“I love you too,” you nestle into his shoulder, still lazily playing with his hair while one of his hands hovers over your thigh, the other behind your back, and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so content.

“Also… next time, I’ll be the one leaving bruises,” Changmin laughs, and it’s a sound that brings you complete peace.

“I’m holding you to that but..." he pushes the fabric of his boxers down past his hipbone, revealing aggressive red marks that you barely remember leaving. There's a silence first, before you lean close and kiss the broken skin, "oh, please don't do that. I'll want to ruin you again."

You oblige. As desirable as the thought is, you're both tired, and you lay there silently for a few more minutes until he breaks it to ask you a question that's been on his mind since your first orgasm, "still think sex is overrated?"

You throw a pillow right onto his smug face as your answer.

well... i wrote that... i actually can't believe the ideas in my brain sometimes. also the resitance to switch it to another member because i'm weak for them??? guess we writing more boyz ✌️🥵

#the boyz smut #changmin smut #q smut #ji changmin #the boyz changmin #changmin x reader #the boyz q #smut #the boyz #the boyz changmin smut #q x reader #tbz x reader #tbz #whisper made me do it #tbz fluff #fluff if you swuint #changmin fluff #q fluff

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bottlesofrouge · 2 months

Text

on one condition.

harry styles x original character

part one.

word count: 6.9K

warning: their home lives kind of suck but that's it! (i think)

1 JUNE 2018

in the month of june, the sun rises around 5:25 am every morning in new york. sometimes it rises a few minutes earlier, and sometimes it rises a few minutes later, but lynn knew as soon as the first ray peaked its way through the blinds, her mother would be fully dressed, standing in the kitchen, and tapping her way through work emails that had mysteriously piled up overnight. growing up, lynn found this routine comforting because it never changed, weekends and holidays included. if she woke up and it was light outside, she knew her mom would be standing behind the breakfast bar with a stack of blueberry pancakes (made by her very wonderful au pair, elena) planted in front of her. she would sit on the stool across from her, and talk her mom's ear off. little lynn thought her mom's lack of responses was due to the fact that she was so tired from waking up so early every morning, but now-lynn realizes she just didn't really care that much.

her fingertips brush across the back of the stool sitting next to her, and it's almost like she can see a seven-year-old lynn sitting next to her. the slight glow of the numbers on the oven clock illuminating her features as she tells her mom about her chorus concert that was taking place in the evening. her grin widens as kathleen tells her she'll be there after she finishes work. although, elena will be the only familiar face she sees in the audience, and now-lynn knows it will always be like this. elena's familiar face amongst the crowd with her mother nowhere in sight.

the oven clock reads 5:13 am, and lynn decides to go over to the kitchen sink to splash some water on her face, trying to wash away any indication that might suggest she had not moved from the stool since she sat down nearly five hours prior. because that would be crazy, but also entirely true.

"you're up early," her mom's voice flows from the bottom of the staircase as soon as the first ray bounces off the granite kitchen counter, illuminating the room a bit more with its glow.

"i am," she reaches for the stool that she just got up from as her mom places a fresh cup of coffee in front of her.

kathleen says nothing else. instead, she reaches for her macbook that has been charging on the counter overnight, and lynn assumes she's immediately opening outlook. that's how it usually went the mornings after she'd spent the night. she'd stare at the wall for a few hours, trying not to let the sounds of her mother slamming the keys of the keyboard annoy her too much.

honestly, lynn didn't know what her mom did for work. she tried to explain it to her on a few occasions, but the only thing she understood was that it was extremely time-consuming. kathleen once said she was the only one in her office that had children, and she thought that maybe her mom should've followed in their footsteps.

"you'll be ready by 11, right? and you'll help me make sure the girls are ready?" kathleen says. she doesn't look at lynn until a few moments pass with no response. they make eye contact and her mom raises her brow. "the barbecue, lynn. remember?"

"right. i've got it. don't worry."

"your coffee's getting cold," her mom points out.

lynn tips the mug around before taking a sip. it's definitely cold, but she denies it and takes another sip before telling her mom she's wrong. there's really no reason to. it's only a cup of coffee, but she thinks she'll do just about anything to spite her.

her dad walks in and the entire atmosphere changes. he kisses kathleen's forehead and lynn can't help but cringe inside. it's absolutely sickening and she can't understand why her mom would ever take someone like him back. she had said lynn would understand when she was older, but it's been fifteen years and she still can't wrap her mind around it.

"good morning," he says as he pours himself a cup of coffee. "are the girls up?"

tuning out whatever her garbage father has to say is the only gift that lynn is thankful for. as soon as he opens his mouth, her ears magically turn off. it's something she'll be eternally grateful for because she thinks hearing peter's voice for more than four seconds would send her into a spiral.

growing up without a dad was a lot less horrific than some people may think. lynn didn't feel like she was missing out, and she didn't think her life was doomed to be a failure because of his absence. she honestly never thought much of her dad. that all changed when she was eleven though, and she walked in the door from school to see her parents moving all of her dad's belongings back into the same house he had moved out of eleven years prior (after having an affair with her first au pair before she had even turned one). needless to say, the sight of peter's face is enough to make now-lynn physically ill.

"are you going to be in such a sour mood all day, lynn?" she rolls her eyes at the words and makes no move to respond. it's silent once again, and the only sound that can be heard is kathleen's occasionally slurping.

it's nearing ten when her sisters finally wake up. jane is the first one down the steps. she's got the blanket she's had since she was born clenched in her fist as her other hand is holding the railing to make sure she doesn't tumble down the staircase. the little girl wordlessly makes her way to the kitchen, where she finds lynn making her blueberry pancakes covered in maple syrup.

"lynn," she yawns, fist rubbing her eyes. "you're back already?"

"m'only here for the barbecue mom insisted i go to."

"aw, man," the girl stabs a piece of her pancake and rests her head in her hand, a sigh pushing past her lips.

"i know. i miss you, too, jane." her fingers brush the other's hair away from her face as she eats. "i'll visit you a lot, and you know you and amelia are always invited over. all you have to do is ask."

jane only hums in response to her sister and puts all of her energy back to eating her pancakes. it's not long until amelia comes down the stairs. she looks almost as disheveled as their youngest sister. her hair is in a messy knot on top of her head, and she's still sporting last night's pajamas. lynn can't help but wonder where her mom went off to, and she feels a little queasy when amelia says she already knew lynn was visiting. simply because the kitchen smelled of food.

she makes sure jane's hair and teeth are brushed before finding her a little summer dress that screamed neighborhood barbecue, and then she braids amelia's hair away from her face before getting herself ready. there were only ten minutes before they had to leave, so lynn opts for a pink two-piece set she ordered from a random website online that probably specializes in drop shipping, and retouches her leftover makeup from yesterday before joining the two girls in the living room where they were watching some new disney movie that jane probably asked to be put on. it would be an understatement to say she was tired. her eyes felt heavy and she could barely hold her head up. she thinks that if she fell asleep now she could get out of this whole thing, but kathleen comes walking down the staircase, crushing her dreams of an afternoon nap.

"really lynn? that's what you're wearing?" and the girl should be upset at her mother's words. she really should, but after spending twenty-seven years hearing them, she's gotten used to them. "there's someone there i want you to meet."

lynn rolls her eyes as she walks to the foyer, "i'm not the next contestant on the bachelorette," she slips her shoe on. "and i'm definitely not dressing up for one of your friend's sons."

surprisingly, her mom drops it. lynn would be lying if she had said that she didn't find it the slightest bit alarming. her mom would've spent the entire two-minute-long drive trying to sell her on this mystery boy, but instead she reminds the girls that dance camp starts on monday... and then she asks lynn to take them.

when lynn gets out of the car, she can only focus on one thing, and that was how hot it was outside. it wasn't just a little uncomfortable. no, it was absolutely sweat-running-down-your-back roasting. she decides on pulling her hair up off of her neck which earns another comment from her mother. honestly, she tuned this one out, but she thinks she said something about lynn's masculine features becoming more prominent when her hair was tied back.

it's not long before kathleen starts introducing the girls to all of her friends. a woman asks if jane and amelia were her grandkids, and when her mom says no, she said that she couldn't believe how similar the girls looked to their nanny while nodding over at lynn.

there was honestly nothing she found more repulsing than this damn neighborhood barbecue. she hated it when she was seven, and she hates it now, twenty years later. it was hot and the air felt thick and humid. all she wanted was a nice long nap. she could picture it now. fresh, crisp, cool sheets and-

"lynn adams," kathleen's snapping her fingers in front of the girl's face, and it takes everything in her not to swat her mom's hand away. "don't be rude. this is my friend from yoga, marianne. she has a son-" and she doesn't know what else her mother says because as soon as the words leave her mouth, kathleen's voice sounds something similar to the bland tones of the parents in any charlie brown special, and before she knows it, marianne from yoga is hugging her and leading her towards a boy who looks like a young, unshowered, mick jagger cosplayer.

✮✮✮

harry's parents invited him over for lunch, and he really couldn't say no. he missed his mom's home-cooked meals, and honestly, he really never cooks actual meals for himself. he's found that cheap vodka and whatever mixer he could find in his cabinets worked as a great substitute. he'd never admit it, but he was excited to see his parents. sure, he lives only twenty minutes away, but he doesn't really ever have time to make a visit. failing all of his classes and frequenting the town's bar really took all of his energy.

when harry gets to his parents, he sees his sister's car in the driveway, and he thinks it's going to be a nice little family meal, something he hasn't had since he started going to college. but it's not. and really, he should've known better. no one wants to be around him.

when he stepped inside, his family and family friends were waiting for him in the living room. they sat in a circle and they all held folded pieces of paper in their hands. it took them a minute to realize that they were hosting their own intervention.

the entire event was so uncomfortable, and it made harry hate himself more than he already had. he knew he had a problem, and he also knew that he could stop whenever he wanted to. he did, in fact. he only started drinking again because he was craving validation. it doesn't really make sense to anyone but him, but he found it was easier to get someone to go home with him after he had been drinking. it gave him the confidence he needed, simple as that.

when his mom started reading her note, she was sobbing, and it made harry cry, too. it wasn't because what she was saying moved something deep inside of him. it was because he couldn't understand why they felt the need to embarrass him in front of so many people he wasn't really comfortable with. a phone call asking harry if he was okay would've worked just as well, but they never called unless it was to tell him just how disappointed they were in him.

so now he was at this stupid event for a neighborhood he hasn't lived in since he turned 18. his mom had asked him to come, and he felt like he couldn't say no. he was scared he'd push her into holding a second intervention, and honestly, he didn't think he'd be able to handle that.

it was hot and noisy, and there were kids everywhere. harry hated kids. they were gross and dirty, and they always found a way to piss him off. they were part of the reason that harry was so big on safe sex. he would literally have to change his name and move continents if he were to get anyone pregnant.

he's sitting at one of the picnic tables alone. his dad was lucky enough to skip the whole thing, and gemma claimed she was busy. his mom didn't mind though, and harry couldn't help but wonder why she was so adamant about him going. originally, he had thought that maybe she had wanted to spend some quality time with him, but nearly an hour had passed and marianne was still talking to her book club mom friends, not really showing interest in introducing them to her son. harry wasn't too surprised, though. his mom never really introduced him to her friends anymore.

marianne loves him. harry knows that. she only ever wants what's best for him, but she always goes about it the wrong way. maybe some kids needed an hour-long phone call lecture about how they'll never amount to anything if they don't finish their degrees. his sister was one of those kids. he remembers sitting at the kitchen table while his mom scolded her on the phone, and her dad did in person. john had driven the six hours to gemma's college town to bail her out of the county jail after a crazy night during her freshman year. needless to say, after that phone call, it never happened again. what his parents failed to realize was that harry wasn't gemma, and maybe he just needed someone to hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay.

he notices marianne moving away from her book club group and towards a family. there was an older couple, a girl that looked about his age, and two younger children. harry couldn't help but wonder what that family dynamic was. perhaps she was the girls' nanny, or maybe she was even a third in the parents' relationship. if it was the latter, it would definitely be a little harder to get her to sleep with him, but he always liked a good challenge.

"harry," his mom pulls him from his thoughts. he blinks and suddenly his mom and the nanny (slash possible unicorn) were standing in front of him at the other side of the table. "this is lynn, kathleen's daughter."

"who's kathleen?" he takes a drink from his cup (which held nothing but ice cubes and water) before wiping the wetness off of his mouth with the back of his hand.

marianne's face turns red, "kathleen from yoga." she says it slowly like it should ring a bell, but harry's not too familiar with the attendees of the 'Yoga Over 40' class. "kathleen and i thought you guys should talk. maybe get to know each other today," and before harry can open his mouth to say no thank you, marianne is pulling a chair out for the girl and then walks away.

"i'm lynn," she says like marianne didn't introduce her thirty seconds ago. she holds out her hand, but harry's already in a foul mood and he senses lynn (he thinks that is a terrible name) would be an easy target to humiliate.

so instead of shaking her hand like a decent human being, he looks at her over the top of his sunglasses and pops the spearmint gum he's been chewing since he got here. "not interested."

"don't flatter yourself," she rolls her eyes and leans forward, resting her forehead on the palms of her hands before crossing her arms in front of her.

"so you're telling me you weren't just begging my mom to introduce us?" his eyebrow quirks and he has a small smile forming on his lips. "'cause it looked an awful lot like that."

she smiles at him, white teeth and all, "trust me when i say i would rather act as a speed bump at the entrance of this neighborhood, waiting to be taken out of my misery by an unsuspecting hybrid toyota prius."

"weirdly specific," he takes another drink. "is that some sort of kink of yours?"

"maybe," her eyes bore into his. the look on her face is so bland, harry can't quite get a read on her. she looked the opposite of him. lynn had blonde hair and blue eyes. the only thing the two had in common was their curly hair, and so harry was obligated to think that it wasn't totally unattractive. "is yours watching mommy pick up girls at the neighborhood picnic for you?"

"ha. ha," harry's voice is emotionless. "tell me, lynn. have you ever considered going into comedy?"

"no, but i'm certain that everyone in the local comedy crowd would love my work. i'm thinking i could enter a piece titled 'desperate mom tries to pawn off loser son'. what do you think? i could credit you if you'd like." she smiles at him again, and he can tell by her eyes that her smile is fake. harry thinks if she were wearing sunglasses he might think she was trying to make a joke rather than a dig at him.

"kathleen thought we should talk," he reminds her. "i wouldn't be climbing on your high horse just yet."

the silence that followed hung around them like a cloud, and it was quite awkward. lynn didn't seem to mind though. she was off in her own world, daydreaming about god knows what. if harry were to take a guess, he'd bet that she was thinking of fairies and rainbows, or whatever else children under the age of eight think about during their free time.

"do you want to get out of here?" harry's popping the gum in his mouth again. "we could have sex. i will say you're not my usual type, but i can always appreciate a good body.

"gross," she leans back in her chair, her face showing disgust almost as if his words could contaminate her. "what's your usual type? wait let me guess," she taps her finger on her chin for a moment. "brown hair and pretty green eyes. i assume it's the closest thing you'll get to fulfilling the fantasy you have of fucking yourself."

"you think my eyes are pretty," he says, completely disregarding whatever else she said.

"i can appreciate nice eyes when i see them," she says. "don't fall in love with me yet."

lynn's wearing her hair pulled away from her face, and harry thinks it suits her. she has some sort of matching outfit on. it's shorts and a button-up top, made out of the same soft material. it's baby pink, like her lips, and she's dainty?? harry doesn't know if that's the right word, but she looks small and soft. like if she were in an arm wrestling competition with a fly, the fly would win. the tiniest smile, really it was barely a smile, makes its way to his face because... well, he thinks she's pretty.

"got something on my face?" she asks, and harry's waiting for a snide remark to follow, but she's serious. lynn has no idea that he just spent the last five minutes shamelessly checking her out. the fact that he was caught makes his cheeks burn a little, and harry shakes his head.

"you know, maybe we should get out of here after all," her fingertips brush over the back of his hand as she speaks.

"you want me to rock your world, huh blondie?"

she nods and sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. harry feels his whole body growing hot as she leans towards him again. "you wanna know what would really rock my world, harry?"

"hmm?" he hums, leaning forward to meet her in the middle of the table. honestly, this whole thing was wildly inappropriate for the high point hills annual family barbecue, but he didn't really care.

"you taking me back to yours," she leans even closer and harry can feel her words against his ear. "and letting me have the longest, most-mind blowing nap i've ever had."

"you're sick, lynn," he pulls away from her to see one of her fake smiles across her face. "but, i never leave a woman unsatisfied. let's go."

"really?"

"your prius wet dream sounds hotter with every second that passes here," he stretches his arms above his head when he stands up. "and not having to hear your voice is a huge plus."

"has anyone ever told you how charming you are, harry?" she accidentally bumps him with her hip as they walk towards his car together.

"your mom has multiple times actually. she tells me after every night we spend together," and he bumps her back, maybe a little too hard because she almost loses her balance when their hips collide.

12 JUNE 2018

throughout grade school, lynn could always count the number of friends she had on a singular hand at any given time. it wasn't that she was disliked or anything like that. she was just rather quiet and didn't feel the urge to talk to anyone unless she was being spoken to. her senior year friend group only took up four out of her five fingers, and it consisted of jacqueline, luke, silas, and violet. they met in their mathletes club at the beginning of her and silas's senior year. both luke and violet were juniors, and jackie was only a sophomore. the five of them parted ways, each going to a different college in various different states. luke ended up being the closest to her when she was in college, and even then he was four states away.

however, the distance didn't keep them apart. it was a tradition that they all met at least once a year, usually in their hometown. they would go out, maybe grab a drink, or go to the local bowling alley, but this year, jackie was in her final semester, taking the three condensed summer courses she needed to graduate when everyone was in town. having never skipped a year in nearly a decade, the five of them decided to have dinner on jackie's campus in between two of her night classes. that's how lynn found herself sitting around boxes and boxes of take out and drinking cheap wine out of hydroflask surrounded by her best friends.

"how's ren, silas?" jackie's voice pulls her back into the conversation. "i thought you'd bring them."

silas takes lynn's hydroflask from her hands, and swallows a huge gulp before clearing his throat. "i asked them to marry me," he hands the drink back to lynn. "and they said no. i guess they weren't really the marriage type."

"dude," luke shoves him. "why didn't you tell any of us?"

"it was something i needed to figure out on my own. i loved ren, you all know that, but i really want the whole thing. marriage, kids, all of it. in a way, i was the one who left them, but.. ren's engaged. i found out last night, and i don't really know how to feel about it."

"i'm sorry, si," lynn rests her head on her friend's shoulder. "you deserve better than that."

"when did you guys break up?" everyone turns to glare at violet, but silas offers her a smile.

"six months ago. i think it's a valid time frame, but we were together for four years so," he shrugs. "i don't want to think too far into it. as long as ren's happy.. that's what matters to me."

"why can't all men be like you?" jackie says. "when i broke up with chad, he stalked me for a week before sending me a $500 venmo request for wasting his time."

"his name's chad, jackie," luke laughs. "i'm not sure what you were expecting."

luke's eyes catch lynn's and he smiles at her so warmly she can't help but smile back. the two dated briefly when they were in college, keeping their romance strictly between them. but every time luke smiles at her like that, it reminds her of the many times she'd open her dorm door to find him sitting on her bed, grinning at her like... actually, there was really nothing to compare it to. she called it his sunshine smile because it was warm and bright, and it was all hers.

and then one day it wasn't. lynn remembers sitting at their yearly hangout, luke's new girlfriend glued to his side. clara yawned, he gave her that smile, and then took her home early. lynn wanted to rip that smile off his face and put it in her pocket to be hers to keep forever. and when luke showed up at her door the next morning asking if she was sure—if them not being together was really what she wanted. she said yes, and the dream of ever getting that sunshine smile back was crushed.

so now she settles for the close-lipped, warm smiles luke offers. she takes them in and tries so hard to lock them up in her memory. the way luke made her feel is something she never wants to forget, and she can't believe she threw it all away for some dick that lived across the hall.

sometimes when she can't sleep at night she thinks of luke's drunk phone call. he was a blubbering mess, but she managed to make out when he asked if lynn had cheated on him, and when lynn said 'no, but we should break up', he cried. she couldn't bring herself to hang up, so she sat there for nearly ten minutes listening to luke's heart break. she wonders if luke remembers that phone call, too.

his sunshine smiles are still reserved for clara (til death do them part), and the only other people he shares them with are their children, a toddler named thomas and a baby named ivy, and every time she sees them she can't help but wonder if they were supposed to be hers. it's not that she was still in love with luke or anything like that. she loved him in the most platonic way possible, but she deeply missed what they shared because it was good. he was good.

"earth to lynn," silas waving his hand in front of her face is what brings her back. "come back to us, darling."

"sorry, she sits up, no longer leaning on her friend. "i don't know where i went."

"are you still not sleeping?" violet's voice is so full of concern and it makes lynn's cold, grinch-like heart grow a few sizes.

"i sleep during the day," she stuffs a spoonful of the cake silas had brought. "it works. i'm okay."

"you know we love you," luke says. "you can always stay with clara and i."

"don't know if you'd want that. i'd probably steal ivy," she takes another bite. "god, she is one cute baby."

the group laughs, and lynn disappears in her own head for the next hour. she doesn't come back until jackie stands up, declaring she'll be late for her next lecture, and the rest of the group follows. luke leaves a few minutes later when clara sends a picture of ivy in her pajamas, and lynn thinks that she should never take him up on his offer because she would definitely make national news for kidnapping the girl. violet leaves with him because they parked next to each other, and she doesn't remember where that was exactly.

"thank you," silas says. "for not telling them about ren." lynn had known since the night of the doomed proposal. silas had called her from the comfort of his beaten-up honda civic and cried to her for hours.

she nodded, "of course. you asked me not to."

"yeah," he leans back on the blanket, and lynn follows him. the sun was just setting and she thought the sky was gorgeous. "i know." his voice breaks off, and she knows he's crying.

"silas?"

"hm?"

"did you know luke and i were together?"

"what?" he sits up, wide-eye staring at the girl.

"when?"

"a few years ago. when we were both in college."

"it was bad?"

"it was good," lynn says around a yawn. "so good, actually. sometimes i'm scared i won't have anything on that level again."

silas runs a hand through his hair, and furrows his brows. "what happened?"

"i left him for you know who," her hands grip his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "and silas, please don't tell anyone this, but i regretted it for so long."

"you don't anymore?"

"no," she shakes her head and her hands fall to her lap. "seeing him with his family, silas. he's so happy, and that's worth every second of pain i caused. that's why i'm telling you this. if ren is really happy, it'll be worth it. i promise. it'll all feel okay."

silas pulls lynn into his chest, and she can feel his tears wetting her hair. "im so grateful for you, el. so incredibly grateful for you."

"you know i feel the same about you."

when he pulls away, he's looking at her with misty eyes and saying he needs to go catch his flight. they say their goodbyes and lynn even lets a tear of her own fall because he was the person she felt the closest to out of the entire group. they were the same age, and there was something a little trauma bonding about going to college alone, hundreds of miles away from home.

lynn lays back on the blanket, everything from their dinner still left behind. she's overly tired and feels like the world would explode if she had to move another inch. a quick nap under the stars is calling her name. her eyelids are growing heavy, and-

"i could steal your purse right now," the voice startles her awake. "it's sitting so far away from you and you seem to have quite the chunk of cash hanging out."

she turns her head to see harry sitting next to her and groans. "don't you have like, i don't know, a mick jagger cosplay convention to go to."

"i'll take that as a compliment, lynn." he looks down at her. "i was just making sure you weren't dead."

"how thoughtful," she sits up and leans back on her arms. "you should've just left me for the vultures, though. being picked apart by them sounds much more appealing than having a nice little chitchat with you."

"always flattering yourself, aren't you, blondie?" he gives her a lopsided smile. "couldn't have anyone finding your dead body on my campus after i took you home with me a week ago. it's too suspicious. plus, my mom doesn't really have the time to be making #freeharry posters and organizing rallies."

"i, in ghost form, would learn to speak to children just so i could tell my sisters you're guilty."

"that's who you were with at the barbecue?" he leans back on his arms to match lynn. "your sisters?"

"yeah," her finger pulls the collar of her shirt away from her neck. "i'd prefer not to talk about them right now."

"okay," he drops his head to the side, and he looks at her. it was so unfair that such pretty were wasted on someone like him.

"what? you don't have a list of questions ready to rapid fire at me? that seems unlike you."

"of course i do," he says. "but you said you didn't want to talk about it." eyes now narrowed, he licks his lips before finishing. "and you don't know me, lynn. not at all."

harry was right, and it made her feel a little guilty. when he took her home with her, the two didn't speak at all once they got to the car. the ride was quiet and she rested her head against the cool window and let her eyes fall shut. he showed her the guest room, and that was that. she immediately fell asleep, and when she did finally wake up, it was around midnight. harry was already sleeping, but he left her a note (which said he would take her home in the morning) and a plate of whatever he made for dinner (its important to note that harry made the entire meal free of the big 8 allergens) (because he didn't know if lynn had any food allergies). she ordered an uber instead, and miles drove her the whopping fifteen minutes to her parents' house in exchange for five stars and a three dollar tip.

"thank you," she offers him the slightest smile. really, it's so small harry would probably need a telescope to see the way the corners of her mouth were upturned. "for the other night."

"you're not the first girl to thank me for bringing them home," the words make lynn's eyes roll, and whatever guilt she felt in the very bottom of her stomach for judging harry is long gone. "im only pushing your buttons, blondie. lighten up," he nudges her with his shoulder and that is the tipping point for lynn.

"because women being sexualized by disgusting men is so funny, harry," she watches as his eyes grow wide. almost like he's shocked. like no one's ever told him differently.

"lynn, i didn't-"

she holds her hand up. "you should go."

and he does, not before giving her a pained look which only made her want to roll her eyes harder. lynn watches him leave and pretends not to notice the way his shoulders are slouched over more than they were the first time and the way he drags his feet like he's a thousand pounds heavier. her eyes focus back on the squirrel that's still running around the tree once he's out of sight. why were college campus squirrels always so large?

the next thing she knows, jackie is poking her side and pressing her palm against lynn's chest almost as if she was checking if her heart was still beating. a sigh falls from the girl's lips when she realizes that lynn is alive, and she can see a line in between the girls brows through her half closed eyelids. she notices jackie's chest heaving, almost like she was trying to steady her breathing. the heavy, hot ball of guilt finds it's way back into her stomach. she hates having her friends worry about her.

"sorry, jackie. i fell asleep," she yawns and reaches above her head to stretch out her back.

"are you okay, lynn?" jackie's staring at her with such intensity, she thinks this is probably what it feels like to be in an interrogation room after your life-long enemy mysteriously disappeared. "like genuinely, are you doing alright?"

"im tired," she offers her a big smile. "that's all. im fine."

jackie narrows her eyes and tilts her head skeptically, and lynn is doing her very best to not burst into tears because there's no reason for her to be crying. her friend's face softens, and she stands up, reaching her hand down to lynn.

"c'mon. let's clean up. you're staying the night at mine." lynn doesn't argue because she really does want to stay with her friend. it's been so long since she's slept at jackie's despite her only living an hour away from the girl's school. "and i usually take the bus, so you're driving."

lynn smiles at her as she helps pick up the dinner mess that the group had left, and she can't help but wonder how she was lucky eough to have such great friends. they've known each other for nearly a decade, and still care for each other the same way they did back in high school. she knows that if she were to tell jackie how she moved out months ago and still hasn't slept through the night at her own place, silas's flight would be missed and violet would drive the six hours back just to be with her.

deep down, lynn knows she can't sleep because of something a little bigger than an uncomfortable bed, but she chooses to ignore it because her therapist had said she was doing very well, or whatever that meant. it was like her doctor just marked her with a stamp, big red lettering reading 'HEALED' across her forehead, and that was supposed to make everything feel okay forever. her friends and family were so proud of this milestone, lynn didn't know if she would ever be able to tell them that maybe the big red stamp was wrong. and that was the thing, it didn't always feel wrong. only during those long sleepless nights and cloudy, rainy days.

she feels lied to, really. everyone said healing wasn't something that just happened overnight, and of course, she knew that. (who didn't know that?) they pushed this idea that lots of therapy and sometimes a few medications would help her get better. and that's the thing. she did feel better. with each hour spent on her therapist's couch came the slightest bit of feeling better.

what she didn't realize was that feeling better and feeling yourself again weren't mutually exclusive. she feels a thousand times better and yet she's never felt farther from who she used to be. honestly, that version of her might be dead, and that is something she never wants to face.

"i've lost you again, lynn," jackie's leaning over the center console to rest her head on her friend's shoulder. "that brain of yours must be pretty nice for you to be spending so much time in there."

"i just got the biggest feeling of deja vu," lynn brushes off her worries as she parks in the designated parking spot. "this is new, right? i haven't visited you here before?"

the two girls meet at the front of the car, lynn helping the other with her huge course textbooks that probably cost more than her rent.

"don't think so. luke and clara brought the babies to visit once, but i don't remember if you were there."

lynn shakes her head. it wasn't that she avoided luke and clara, but she tried to spend minimal time around them.

jackie lives on the fourth floor of her complex. each staircase has approximately thirty-two (she counted) stairs, and by the time they get to the top, lynn is completely out of breath. she leans on the wall outside of the girl's apartment door as she fumbles through her tote bag full of god knows what.

"i was in such a rush this morning," she gives her a sympathetic smile. "i just tossed my keys in here."

lynn holds back a groan as jackie piles whatever else she's holding on top of the stack of books in her hands and then kneels on the ground, dumping out the contents of her bag as she searches for her keys that look to be nowhere in sight. she hears an elevator ding and lynn wants to do nothing more than roughly shove her friend over with her foot because why did they walk all the way up ninety-six stairs when there was a perfectly functioning elevator mere feet away?

"why didn't we take the elevator, ja-"

the most obscene kissing sounds fall out of the elevator as soon as the door opens. it sounds like someone is slowly pulling one hundred suction cups painfully slow off of the walls in there and lynn wonders if it's some kind of swingers group because there's no way two people could be kissing that aggressively.

"found them," jackie stands up, brushes off her pants, and looks towards the elevator.

"m'neighbor... has someone over every night."

she's proven wrong when a girl walks out, her arms draped around a boy's neck. he's kissing her and walking her back so she's pressed against the wall, and lynn can't look away. not even when the two turn, and she realizes its harry. not even when harry's eyes catch her stare. and not even when the girl starts sucking on any exposed skin her mouth could reach (harry was still looking at lynn) (and she was still looking at him) (and his lips looked nearly bruised) (not that it matters).

jackie steps between them, and by the time she grabs all of her things, harry and the girl are in his apartment. she can't help the small laugh that escapes when she realizes the girl had brown hair and pretty green eyes.

✰✰✰✰

a/n: all of this is getting reposted because the format is driving me absolutely craaaazy :(

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles x oc #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #dadrry #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #artist!harry #fine line #harry styles smut #harry styles au #harry styles writing #harry styles fic rec #harry's house

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admirxation · 1 year

Text

I’ve missed this

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x Fem Reader

Summary: The reader and Leon are in a relationship, appreciating each other's company after his recent mission to save “baby eagle”. The reader is heartbroken with how little time you guys have together, but Leon reassures her with kisses and cuddles which eventually turns into NSFW 18+ content (fluff at the start and smut in the middle and end).

Warnings: NSFW 18+ (no minors!), smut, unsafe sex, degrading, hair pulling, spanking, mentions of bruises and injuries, nipple pinching and sucking, hickies, dominance and submission.

Word Count: 1.6k

Authors note: Hey, this is my first Leon Kennedy one-shot that I have written and posted, I used to write fanfiction when I was 13-15 but stopped. But now I am a 20 year old, English Literature university student, craving to write more fanfiction because ugh I have an obsession with fictional men lmao. I hope you like this, any feedback is appreciated (be nice though haha), and you can request anything you would like or drop a message if you ever want to.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon with the remnants of the sun shining through the gaps in the curtains, you and Leon were lounging on the sofa, watching TV— enjoying each other’s company. A day to just cuddle with him was rare, and you treasured every moment you had when he was around; just being in his arms and presence made you feel safe, with every trouble and stress easing its way out of your mind’s focal point when you felt the warmth of his body against yours. While you knew the demands of his job, it was always hard to see him go and come back hurt and beaten up; you wished he could just stay with you so your lazy afternoons wouldn’t be a rare treasure. Every time you saw the cuts, bruises, or any injury you found when gazing upon his body— it just left you in pain—just imagining how close he had been to death and the living nightmares he had to endure.

Leon had recently returned from saving “baby eagle”, and when he came back, he told you about the people and events he encountered, mainly about the objective of protecting Ashley and how tiring it was. Every time he came back, there was a mixture of feelings, moving from being proud of him to having your imagination fall into the darkness where you pictured the possible fate of the mission being unsuccessful—it taking Leon’s life—the thought of it led to your heart sinking, no matter your current reality. The injuries, seeing him exhausted, and the nightmares he experienced every night—triggered your mind to dive into the abyss of dark thoughts. Of course, he had to be the hero and save the day, but still, you always yearned for him to stay every time you had to say goodbye—afraid it was your last. While these thoughts circled in your mind, you consciously tried to battle against them and focus on the afternoon you and Leon were experiencing. You tried to enjoy the moment; you didn’t know how long you had with him until he was gone again.

You nuzzled into his chest, breathing in that scent you missed; you no longer had to cuddle into the pillow and hoodies he left to remember his smell. He had his arms around you, and you were in your safe place.

“I’ve missed this,” Leon uttered, breaking the room's comfortable silence.

“Same; you know I always count the days until your return,” you answered him, giving an innocent smile to him as you cuddled into his chest more.

Leon already knew how much you anticipated his arrival; you loved him more than anything and would cross off days in the calendar and jump in his arms when you saw him again. How could your thoughts not be preoccupied with hoping for his safe return? But even though you were talking about your happiness, Leon noticed a trace of sadness lingering in your words, knowing that you were holding back some thoughts. He lifted your chin, moving your face closer to his, telling you in a soft tone: “I’m sorry I can’t be here more often. You know if it were up to me, I’d be around more,” he looked into your eyes to reassure you. You tilted your head and smiled at him, loving how cute he was with you. Leon then placed his hand on your cheek and pulled you closer to kiss you; melting into the kiss, you couldn’t think of anything else but how much you loved him.

“I always forget how much of a great kisser you are,” you giggled, “it’s always a nice surprise to enjoy everything when you get back,” you said softly and gently.

“I know you do, baby; you make it quite obvious,” he laughed.

“Wow, look at me trying to be nice, and this is what I get,” you faked a little gasp as you nudged him a little. Leon laughed with you and shook his head a little at how sweet you were being.

“Just come here. I wanna cuddle you more,” you blushed at Leon’s request, shifted your weight, and moved your leg over him, positioning yourself to straddle him. You knew Leon loved this as much as you. His eyes then wandered up and down your body: “You know what I missed (Y/N)?”

“What, Leon?”

“This. Feeling you on top of me...” you saw the smirk on his face after his flirtatious comment, and you knew what he wanted to do to you, “and what happens when you get on top.”

You locked eye contact with him, taking the hints he was giving, beginning to grind your hips down into his, circling them as his hands travelled over your body.

“This feels so good... you know exactly what I like,” Leon said under his breath as you grinded on him; he admired your beauty by looking at you up and down and biting his lip when you pushed your hips further down—you felt yourself getting wetter as you felt his cock twitch with excitement.

As Leon released heavy breaths, grabbing your hips to move further into his lap, his hands traced upwards. Holding your hair, his fingers tangled in it and pulled you closer—kissing you passionately. You melted into the kiss, it growing more passionate with continuous grinding. With his spare hand, it wandered to your ass, squeezing it until you gasped between kisses. As your kisses became wetter, he couldn’t deal with you being fully clothed anymore and needed to see what belonged to him. He tugged at the bottom of your shirt and pulled it off, throwing it across the room, slowly moving to your bra and unclasping it—admiring you as it fell and exposed you.

“Fuck, (Y/N), you’re so sexy,” he looked at you, thinking about how lucky he was.

He moved closer to your breasts, starting to suck on one of your nipples and twirled his tongue around it, pinching the other and getting harder as he felt your soft moans at his touch.

“Fuck, Fuck Leon... mmh. Keep going. Please don’t stop,” you managed to say as your bodies intertwined in intimacy, and you felt how hard he was under you, “Leon. Just fuck me already, I-I need you.”

Leon smirked at you, “Anything you want, princess.” He grabbed you, pushed you to the sofa and hovered over you, leaning in for another kiss which moved to your neck to provide a hickey—to show who you belonged to.

He pulled away, leading you to whimper for his touch again, looking at you beg for him as he grabbed your underwear and slowly dragged them down your legs—revealing your wet pussy. He traced his finger down, softly grazing over your clit. You shivered as you felt him tease you and begged for more.

“How much do you want me (Y/N)?” dominance lingering in his words.

“I-I need you, Leon, please.” He loved seeing you submit.

He positioned his cock towards your wet entrance, rubbing against it to tease you. As he did, he whispered: “you’re so wet for me, baby, fuck,” wanting to just ram and fuck the shit out of you, there and then, but not wanting to surrender to his urges—yet—he wanted to see you squirm with anticipation more.

When you were about to beg again, he leaned his cock inside you melding your bodies together. You both gasped at the entrance. Your moans became continuous as Leon started to push back and forth, whispering into your ear how sexy you were: “You’re so beautiful (Y/N). I love your b-body, mmm, god! I missed this so much.” After efforts to fragment a coherent sentence from being interrupted with pleasure, he quickened the pace. He was lifting his body as he did, positioning himself upright as he held and dug his nails into your thighs, looking at you while you were screaming his name. You were lost in each other, having the room filled with moans, having your eyes roll back as you went crazy under Leon’s control.

“Whose my dirty wore?” He looked at you and demanded an answer; he loved degrading and putting you in your place.

“Me, I, I’m your dirty whore, Leon!”

Leon looked at you and noticed how close you were to cumming. Since he loved to tease you, he pulled out, to which you pulled a disappointed face as he did.

“I’m not letting you cum yet. Turn around... Now!” you submitted to his request. You turned to all fours, arching your back and waiting for Leon to begin fucking you silly again. As you were about to look back, he rammed his cock inside, and you gasped as he did.

Leon was the type to have you cum first, but he still liked to be in control when he could. He wanted a bit of fun to see you want more, getting a kick from seeing the desperation in your eyes.

His hands grabbed your hips, spanking you often until your ass was red, fucking you at a quick pace leading to your wetness stream down your inner thighs. As he pulled your hair and squeezed your ass harder, Leon felt your pussy clenching around his cock, eventually releasing hot ropes of cum into you—meeting your release as you squeezed your eyes shut with tears brimming in the corners as you orgasmed.

As Leon pulled out, you were both breathless; both lost in ecstasy as you experienced a mutual release. Your legs were shaking, and your pussy was sore, exhaustion plastered over your face. Once you caught your breath, you told him: “You’re so good... I love having sex with you when you get back.”

“I love it too, baby,” he smiled at you, “Come on, let’s go get ourselves cleaned up, then I’ll give you some aftercare,” he gave you a little spank as he walked closer to the bathroom.

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youngpeachenthusiast · 2 months

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this is going to be a post about my experience with my gender identity and there's definitely going to be some (a lot of) oversharing so uh... more under the cut??

sometimes i find myself reflecting on how my identity came to be, and the more i think about it, the more i think my mom is very wrong when she says there were "absolutely no signs".

while throughout my childhood i did present very femininely, i remember that ever since i was a little boy i secretly was convinced that one day i would literally just grow a penis. i understood that there was some kind of difference between the genitalia of boys and my own, but i thought it was simply a matter of time and my very own penis would grow in its own time. i started puberty very early on and when my clitoris started enlarging i thought "this is it, it's finally happening".

needless to say it didn't happen. and when a few months later we got our very first sex ed and i learned that i was inevitably going to become a young lady, well... i was devastated. i remember crying on multiple occasions to my mother because i desperately didn't want to go through puberty. having real proper panic attacks about it. i remember the first time a friend commented on my breasts coming in. i remember trying to bind with a headband only to be caught and punished by my mother. i remember getting my first period and doing everything in my power to hide it from her, because as long as she didn't know i could still close my eyes and cover my ears and pray that it would just go away.

even not taking the relationship with my body into account, i was changing my name multiple times a month because mine didn't fit, and i just couldn't figure out what was going on.

all of this long before i even knew that something such as being transgender existed.

i was 13 when i first met a transgender person. as soon as i saw them and i learned who they were, i knew the answer. that was me. that had always been me, indubitably.

it took some time before i actually accepted that in no way i could ever stay alive and be a woman at the same time. when i finally did, that's when my life started getting better. years and years of self hatred found their answer in something so trivial as being a man.

so i think of my mother, who argues that "there were no signs" and still refuses to refer to me by my name and pronouns because she's convinced i'll change my mind (after five years of very much not changing my mind), and i do not know how to feel.

there were so, so many signs. i'm not sure i would even call them signs, it was just me existing after all.

and sure, early signs don't matter and i can still be trans even if nothing pointed to it in the slightest in the past. but also. the signs were there, and i'm very tired of pretending they were not.

i don't know why i'm here posting about all of this. discussing my early view of genitalia and all. i suppose i'm just looking for someone like me, who will make me feel less alone. the "girly girl" who always kept so much of his discomfort to himself.

i am honestly amazed that human beings can experience this kind of feelings over their body and social constructs and... everything, really. it does hurt like hell, sure. but it is incredible how deep of an experience i can have with something as simple as an organ of my body.

anyway. thanks for reading my oversharing. or whatever. goodnight!

#elliot talks #transgender man #transgender #trans man #trans people #gender identity #gender dysphoria #dysphoria #queer #queerness #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbtqia community #transblr #trans

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garrothfanpage · 2 months

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A/N: this is my first fic ever, and I haven’t written a story since I was 13 so please bear with me 💀

I couldn’t really come up with a good plan on how to start this so it’s probably gonna be a little janky at first but I’m mostly just doing this for fun anyway so here goes!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Warnings: Fem!reader, bad grammar, amnesia trope, sloooooow burn

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Garroth x Reader fic

Prologue:

“Try again.”

“Garroth, it’s been ten years and this has only worked once…”

“I’m not giving up.”

“Well I have. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got better things to remember. I’m happy with now, I don’t need those memories back.”

“Do you really mean that, or are you just trying to keep from being a burden?”

“Garroth, I……”

“Just tell me what you remember.”

A huff escapes me, closing my eyes I allow the sound of the waves to ground me, and attempt to think back….back to the woods, back to the woman, the fighting, meeting Zenix, and obviously Garroth… a part of me doesn’t want to know. There’s something big hiding in my mind, I can feel it.. like a serpent waiting to strike. I’m happy, sure there are a few things I’d maybe like to be different but nothing as drastic as I know this would be. Besides, I know who I am now, I don’t want to have to wrestle with who I was.

“The woman. Start with her.”

“Garroth, we’ve been-“

“Just humor me..please”

The huff is definitely more aggressive this time but hearing Garroth chuckle almost made the annoyance worth it. “All I remember is that we were close. She was wise. She basically raised me. She told me I’d make my father proud…and then she was gone.”

“Then what?”

“Then there was fighting, or something..I’m not sure. But probably fighting.” That chuckle again.. “I passed out and then woke up to your stupid helmet staring down at me, and Zenix having a temper tantrum.”

Garroth stays quiet.

“That’s all I remember. No new details this time I promise.”

“….”

“…we were out picking berries. I remember that. But it doesn’t really seem too important” I failed to mention that I remembered the woman’s face, and the people I saw chasing after Zenix. It’s not gonna make a difference.. I think.

This time the huff comes from Garroth. “Do you remember after that?”

A smirk forced its way onto my face and glanced at the sand beneath me. “You turned into a worry wart and insisted of rescuing two strays out of the woods cause you have a hero complex?”

“I do not have a hero complex”

“You’re literally sitting here trying to interrogate my old memories out of me cause you think it’ll help”

He stands up and begins to brush the sand off his cape, still looking down at me. I can feel his annoyed glare despite the helm. “I’m trying to help you. You always seem to forget that when I brought you back you practically begged me to help you remember.”

“Ten years ago.. Garroth, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me but I’m tired” I stand and stare up at him. “If I was going to remember I would have by now. I just wanna focus on living from here on out. Please. I promise I’ve given it a lot of thought and I think this is for the best.”

I can almost see his shoulders sag for a moment. He hates giving up. I hate seeing him think he’s let me down.. I place a hand on his forearm and stare into what I can only assume are his eyes. “It’s not your fault. You’ve done everything you can, but it’s time to move on. It’s not like I’m some lost princess, I don’t need to know where I came from to know who I am. Please.” I gently stick out my pinky.

He remains quiet, save for the gentle creaks of his armor as he wraps his pinky around mine, followed by a mildly offended “I don’t have a hero complex.”

I chuckle and begin to walk back to the guard tower where Dale and Zenix are no doubt NOT waiting for us with too much concern. I’m only a stand in guard, available when someone really needs a day off or something (I enjoy being more crafty and artsy than full fledged guard duty would allow for, but I can wield a sword better than anyone in town, other than Garroth) but since Zenix and I basically decided we were siblings, and there isn’t exactly enough houses for everyone in the village, Garroth approved me to stay in one of the spare guard rooms until they needed it for another guard (they haven’t).

The common area was fairly spacious although the kitchen and armory were included in that space. The unusual serenity of the room is cut short by an all too familiar *hic*. Dale is strewn lazily across the couch. “Theeeerrrrreeee you guy*hic*s are..! I was mvaiting…f*hic*or…yyy…” he’s back out before we can even figure out what he was saying.

We make our way up the stairs and stand comfortably at my door as he gives me the rundown of tomorrow’s schedule. “-and Zenix and I will be investigating the entrance-“

“There’s no walls…everywhere is an entrance”

“Would you just-“ he sighs and even tho his smirk isn’t visible, it’s definitely audible. “We’ve gotten reports of suspicious people wandering around. I’ll be taking Zenix with me to investigate. Could you cover his usual patrol?”

My eyes widen “woah woah woah what?! You didn’t tell me about this. What if I already had plans???”

“Well I didn’t say you HAD to…do you have plans??”

“…no not yet…I was gonna ask Donna if she wanted to have a girls day but that was more of a spontaneous thing..”

“You don’t have to.”

“…fine. But you owe me Ro’M-“

“Yes. Yes I do.”

As if second nature he lifts his helmet just enough to kneel down and kiss my knuckles, a sweet little tradition we’ve developed over our years of friendship.

I enter my room and quietly shut the door behind me. ‘Friendship…’ a beautiful word. Its incredible how someone can be willing to go through so much pain just to ensure they don’t loose it. I take a deep breath in an attempt to slow my heart rate before getting ready for bed. This has become my own personal addition to our little tradition.

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A/n: aaaahhhhhh!!! Prologue done!!! Next chapter will be Aphmau’s introduction! We’ll see how that goes lol!! Thank you for reading!!!! Love ya!!! 🫶🫶🫶

#aphmau mcd #garroth ro'meave #minecraft #minecraft diaries #aphmau #aphmau garroth #mcd #mcd garroth #mcd x reader #minecraft diaries garroth #mcd gene #mcd zenix

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bluejaysandblackbats · 4 months

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Five Little Ducks

Fandom: DC Comics, Batman

Summary: Bruce finds a magically de-aged Jason.

Chapters: 5/13

Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Zatanna Zatara

Additional Tags: De-Aged Jason Todd, Magic, Babysitting, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, POV Third Person, Bruce Wayne is Not Okay, Bruce Wayne Tries, Jason Todd Has Issues, Childhood Trauma

Chapter Five: Borda

Jason knocked on Bruce's door at two in the morning. Bruce groaned, forgetting Jason was seven years old, and he answered the door. He was so exhausted he never thought to look down. "Mr. Wayne," Jason whispered, "I did a bad thing."

"Oh? What did you do?" Bruce questioned, still not opening his eyes.

"I threw up," Jason mumbled. Bruce blinked hard and looked down at Jason. Jason had a greenish pallor, and his eyes were red and puffy.

"You threw up... That's alright. Are you done?" Bruce questioned. He was still half-asleep.

"I threw up on the rug," Jason mumbled. Bruce reached for Jason's hand, and Jason flinched.

"I'm not gonna hit you. Do you wanna be picked up?" Bruce questioned. Jason rubbed his eyes and nodded. Bruce scooped him up and rubbed his back. "I'm sorry that you got sick."

"I can clean it up... I was just-. I-. I got scared that I'd get lost," Jason stammered.

"You don't have to do that," Bruce whispered. Bruce imagined Jason's eyes were puffy because he probably fretted over the mess, crying out of fear of punishment. "Accidents happen, Jason... Okay?" Jason hid his face in Bruce's shoulder as they entered the room. Bruce turned the light on to assess the situation, and he nodded. Sure, enough, there was a little clear puddle in the center of the rug.

"I'm sorry," Jason whimpered. Bruce held the back of Jason's head in his palm and put some bounce in his step as he walked to the hall closet to grab the cleaning supplies.

"It's alright... It's nothing little baking soda and seltzer can't fix," Bruce whispered, "Jason, I've gotta put you down now-."

"Just a little bit longer... Please," Jason whispered. Bruce nodded and bounced from one side to the other. It was so hard to remember that Jason wasn't a baby. He was so small and easy to hold onto. Easy to hold onto. Jason hadn't been easy to hold onto in years. For years they'd been caught up in a violent struggle of push and pull. It felt good just this once to be needed. "Nobody picks me up anymore..."

"Well, I'll pick you up anytime you want," Bruce promised, "I don't care how big you get... I'll always try-." His voice broke. Bruce was bombarded with images from Jason's death. He took a steadying breath, and after a few moments, Jason pulled away.

"You can put me down if you want... I'm tired now," Jason whispered. Bruce nodded and tucked Jason into bed. Then, he tended to the mess on the rug. Jason lay on his side, staring at Bruce. "Mr. Wayne... I really am sorry," Jason apologized again.

"It's alright... Do you feel better?" Bruce questioned. Jason nodded. "That's all that matters..."

"Is Dick your son too?" Jason asked. Bruce nodded. "Why did he go away?"

"He had to go home... He doesn't live here anymore," Bruce explained. Jason blinked hard.

"You live all by yourself?" Jason questioned. Bruce nodded. "Aren't you lonely?"

"Sometimes," Bruce answered as he finished cleaning up. "I'll be right back." He put everything where it belonged and returned to Jason's room.

Jason waved at Bruce. "My dad told me a scary story the other night because he was mad at me... He said his dad told him the same story," Jason whispered.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bruce questioned. Jason nodded.

"My mommy says if something's scary, sometimes you have to tell the story to someone else so that it won't worry me anymore," Jason explained.

"Alright," Bruce replied.

"Can you turn the light on first?" Jason asked. Bruce nodded and turned on the lamp with a remote. "If it's foggy, I'm not supposed to walk to school unless he's with me... But I went anyway because it was library day. So, when he got home from work, I wasn't there. He grabbed and shook me, and I wanted to cry, but I didn't." Bruce nodded.

"Did he take you to school?" Bruce asked. Jason shook his head.

"He told me kids shouldn't go out in the fog without their mommies and daddies because of the Borda. Do you know what that is?" Jason questioned. Bruce shook his head. "She's a scary witch with a blindfold that kills kids with ropes for going where they're not supposed to." Bruce nodded.

"Were you upset when he told you that?" Bruce questioned. Jason nodded.

"But he didn't stay mad... I told him I was sorry, and he took me home. We played the lock game, and he got his money back from our neighbor," Jason replied.

"What's the lock game?" Bruce asked.

"We played it in our building... Sometimes he'd forget things in people's apartments, so he showed me how to unlock doors with different stuff, so we don't have to bother anybody," Jason explained, "I can unlock a door in less than a minute."

It took everything in Bruce's power to hold a straight face. He was furious. How could Willis trick a child as sweet and innocent as that into breaking and entering into apartments? And Jason was none the wiser. "What's the matter?" Jason questioned. Bruce shook his head. He knew Jason had to learn to steal from someone, but he had no idea this was how it all started.

"Did you play any other games with Willis?" Bruce replied.

"Um... The police game. Mommy didn't like that one," Jason replied, "I had to sit in the car when he'd go shopping and honk the horn when I saw police. I have to smile and wave at the police, and if they stop and wave at me, I win."

Bruce swallowed hard. "You don't play checkers or anything like that with him?" Bruce questioned.

"Oh," Jason yawned, "Sometimes he'd play the drums on my stomach while dinner cooked... I like that one. It's my favorite."

Bruce made a soft noise as Jason closed his eyes. "Any other games?" Bruce asked.

"It wasn't a game, but when he reads-. When he used to read the paper, he would let me hold one side while he held the other... I liked it because he always gave me a kiss instead of telling me to turn the page," Jason replied. Bruce kissed Jason's forehead.

"Thank you for sharing your stories with me," Bruce whispered.

"Thank you for holding me," Jason mumbled. Bruce tried not to seem sad, but he couldn't help but feel pain in the pit of his stomach. Willis's love for Jason was there, but it was selfish. Jason accepted that as it was. Jason accepted scraps of love when he deserved much more. Jason deserved the world, and even Bruce failed to give that to him.

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redhead-writes · 2 years

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Hollywolf as Bob’s guardians

PART 2

So Wolfman sees this kid, maybe around 12 or 13, in a mall arcade locking the target and shooting all the targets close to perfectly. His interest is piqued. He is still in his uniform so it would not look weird that he is approaching a child. When Leonard approaches him, he recognizes the grandson of their neighbor, an old lovely lady but could give people a run for their money.

Hollywood played poker with her when he was back from missions. The old lady has saved their arses on more occasions than one. DADT still in place there had been loads of rumors even in their secluded community. Mrs. Floyd heard about it and in a few days rumors died out.

Neither Hollywood or Wolfman knew what she did but they were forever grateful to her. Also she always had the best cookies for after long deployment and care packages coming to their ships.

Recently an old lady was joined by her grandson Robert, Wolfman remembered. He seemed to keep to himself and Mrs. Floyd let him be, not telling even her neighbors why he was here.

Kid strikes the last of his target and Wolfman says: “Amazing eye to hand cordination. Have you ever thought about going to be WSO?” Kid jumped a bit and turned around to come face to face with Leonard. He was scrawny, clothes seemed baggy on him and dark circles under eyes like he hasn’t slept normally in a while. Hollywood would say Robert was not cut for it but Wolfman saw something in this kid.

“No, sir…Mr. Wolfe, I haven’t.” “Well…you should, Robert. We would be losing an amazing asset if you don’t consider that.” Kid smiled at him and fixed his glasses that also seemed too big for him. Something in Wolf wanted to take care of this child, teach him all he knows.

“How about we eat some pizza and then I take you back home?”

“I am not really hungry, sir.” Robert looked down on the floor. Leonard saw his hands starting to shake. He had seen similar things in his fellow pilots after a rough mission. What the hell this kid had gone through?

“I am! You can order whatever you want. It is on me. I will tell you funny stories about my deployment.” Wolfman suggested, not wanting to pressure kiddo into anything, but gosh he needed to put on some weight. Robert just nodded following Leonard to the food court. They had a good time and Robert even ate one slice of pizza. That Wolfman took as an absolute success.

He drove them back home where Mrs. Floyd was already waiting for her grandson on the porch. Robert thanked the Wolfman, hugged his grandma and walked into the house. Old woman made her way to him. Just looking at him. Her look could rival Iceman's unnerving one.

“Found your grandson in an arcade shooting targets down, he is good at it. Also Robert ate a slice of pizza and had a milkshake.” he felt the need to count down what they did to her. She cracked a smile, her eyes glistening and started speaking: “It is his first proper lunch since his parents died in the 9/11 attacks. Thank you, Leonard!”

That explained a lot about how Robert acted, how he looked. His want to protect the kid grew with each passing minute. He also wanted to go and kiss Hollywood as a reminder that he still is there.

“I will be around here for a few months and Hollywood, too. We could take him on weekends.”

“Having two best pilots next door already is helping him, but if you both don’t feel bothered, I think it would do Bobby good, having you two around.”

As Wolfman predicted Hollywood didn’t see what he saw in Robert. One of the best WSO’s in the making but with time Rick started to see it. So he took on training Robert, starting with stretches and morning runs before Robert’s therapy sessions that left him anxious before and tired after. Then followed yoga and meditation, all three of them did because the kid had tripped in going into the therapy too. Not only were they helping Robert but he was helping them. That made Hollywood realize what Wolfman had seen from the start.

Robert was 14 when he lost his grandma and both Hollywood and Wolfman another dear friend. Mrs. Floyd had written in her will that custody over Robert was split between Rick and Leonard till Robert Floyd turns 18. Mrs. Floyd called them only by their given name and so the three carried on that tradition. It helped with keeping work outside the home. Their psychologist also approved of it.

Both of them were called to San Diego and they took that chance for a new start for all three of them. Hollywood as a joke put a sticker on their car back window saying Baby on board. That is how Robert got his call sign B.o.B. Wolfman and Hollywood teased him softly over it because he always will be their baby on board. Robert simply needed something that reminded him of these two men who helped raise him in WSO he is now. Sense of them with him in that plane.

In San Diego Robert met Ron “Slider” Kaner who owned a private plane company that had special training planes for pilots. Both Rick and Leonard had taken Bob flying before but this was next level. Robert passed it with flying colors, getting out of the plane laughing with Ron. The other two pilots were happy to see their kid happy like that again. He was meant to be in the air. Somehow Robert or how Ron had started to call him Bobby tripped Slider into therapy, too, but he drew a line at yoga and meditation, but Hollywood teasing him about Slider not being limber enough did the trick.

Somehow Hollywood and Wolfman had kept Iceman and Maverick out of Bobbies life. It wasn’t like they kept him hidden away. Simply the other two men had a lot going on in their life. Then Bradley upped and left without another word. Wolfman had gotten an absolute mess of Maverick calling him. Ron had canceled the last of Robert's flying training sessions. Bobby knew they all were hiding something.

That somehow brought in both hurricane and unmovable objects in Robert's life that were Pete and Tom when he was 15. Bobby was alone at home, doing his homework and looking through some of Hollywood's paperwork. Both of his guardians are still at Top Gun base, training running late. When loud banging made him jump in his seat, Robert hid Rick’s papers and took a baseball bat for self preservation reasons. He was dialing Leonard.

“Bobby? Is everything alright?”

“I don’t know. Someone is banging on our house door.”

“HOLLYWOOD, WOLFMAN, LET ME IN! I KNOW YOU ARE HOME, I CAN SEE THE LIGHT.”

“Oh fuck!” cursed Leonard. “That is Maverick. We will be back as soon as possible. We will call his husband.”

“Leo, I think I should let him in before neighbors call the cops.”“Yeah, do that.”

Bob opens the door to have Maverick just fall face first on the carpet in the halfway. The older man groans. Bob closes the doors and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of the water for the man. Maverick, as Wolfman had called him, had sat up and just looked at Robert with glassy eyes.

“Drink this! You will thank me when you wake up tomorrow.”

“Who are you?”

“Robert, Rick and Leonard are my guardians. You must be Pete?”

“Yeah, but everyone calls me Maverick.”

“We don’t use callsigns under this roof. Only given names. Makes you realize you are not your callsign but human, too.”

“Then yeah, I am Pete. Where are your guardians?”

“Coming! They called your husband, too.” To what Pete groaned, hanging his head low but he kept sipping on the water.

“Maybe you want to move to the kitchen. It must not be good for your knees. Let me help you!”

They sat in silence in the kitchen till four men walked into the kitchen. Robert got up and told Hollywood: “I fixed your paperwork. It is under the couch cushions. I am off to bed. We still on for a run at 6AM?”

“Thanks! Yeah, kiddo, we are.”

He could hear a new voice joining the conversation when he left the kitchen: “What do you mean this 15 year old kid is going through your paperwork?”

“Hey! That is our Bobby and he does some paperwork shit for my company, too.” piped in Slider. “He is really smart. We are raising the best WSO while you failed at raising not angry punk pilot. No surprise Mav pulled his papers. You can’t fly with such mental health.”

“Slider, this is not helping right now.” “No callsigns under this roof, only given names.” said both of his guardians at the same time, confusing Pete and Tom even more.

They really haven’t been around a lot. Iceman becoming Admiral and Maverick trying to piss off as many higher ranking officers as he could while trying to raise a kid. It was no easy job. Wolfman and Hollywood knew that hand first but Bradley’s reaction to this was uncalled for.

“Pete, look at me. We will give Tom numbers of really respectable psychological health center. It is really private but it is time you deal with it all. You can’t go again in spiel over another Bradshaw. Me and Hollywood have a kid that had gone through similar shit and we are not putting him in any kind of danger for his progress to drop. Also our own progress to drop. You call them when you feel like it is time but Pete never ever again come to this house door drunk like this. I will call Ron and he will be happy to finally whoop your arse.” ranted off Leonard. These two men could be his lifelong friends but he would not put himself or his family in any kind of bad situation. Maverick just nodded while Iceman was standing close to him with hand on his shoulder. “You did a better job than me and Ic…I meant Tom.”

“You will get used to it. We had help. Our house doors are open to you. We have family dinner each Friday.” said Rick, helping their guests out of their house. When everyone was gone, he slid near his Wolfman and whispered: “That gives me a hard on.” To which Leonard answered: “Don’t tease me.” Order was mixed but that was how it started. Rick really felt turned on by Leonard’s rant.

Ron is in for a ride and when Bob turns 18, he will become his partner because that kid had saved some thousand dollars for Slider with his amazing reading skills that take notice of smallest details.

Also Bob will choose to do his engineering degree before going to pilot school. He wants to spend more time with Leo and Rick and Ron. Now Pete and Tom, too, before he goes off to become WSO.

When Ice gots sick, Robert cuts his deployment and is there for his uncle Tom because he knows the man. He will act though while he suffers. So Bob pauses his life a bit to help Pete and other Uncles to take care of Tom while Pete is away. They all learn ASL to be able to talk with Tom because no one gets left behind in this family. Tom is Admiral and gets Robert spot on Top Guns engineering team but in the end Bob ends up to be Admirals Kazansky right hand. Writing papers, taking calls and etc. "NOW LOOK WHO ALLOWS BOBBY TO DO HIS PAPERS." *pointed fingers and all*AT LEAST HE DOESN'T HAVE A CHICKEN SHIT HAND WRITING RONNIE it's what Ice totally signs back to Slider. (thank you @pollyna for this one.)

Ice gets better and Bob is sent on deployment to keep his skills sharp. Still he feels bad for leaving his family but all of them say he should go. Penny told him she will keep an eye on those trouble makers. Uncle Pete and Tom will wait with their wedding when he gets back because Hollywood and Wolfman married straight up few hours after DADT was lifted. Bobby was ring bearer. It was a small ceremony in their house's backyard with closest people. It was simple but heartwarming like those two.

On carrier Bob kept getting care packages that he shared with other people on his squadron. They didn't question it, enjoying tasty stuff that was in those. Bob was happy to share the love he gets from his family.

In one of the runs of the plane, Bob didn't like the sound of the plane. Uncle Pete and Ron always have told him to listen to planes. He told his pilot that something was wrong and they got to go back to the carrier but he dismissed it, telling Bob not to sweat it. The pilot was sweating it when their plane was going down fast. They ejected and then Robert's body hit the water's surface. He was just floating in the water thinking about his parents and grandma. Will he join them now? No, no, he had reason to live. There was a big family waiting for him to come home. He felt so tired and his head hurt. He could hear Wolfman screaming in his head to stay awake. He did try, oh God, he did try. Robert hoped that his parents and grandma would protect him at this moment and he could float back home safely somehow.

Bob woke up to the clean smell that always came with hospitals. He was used to it after picking Tom up after his chemo. But why was he here? He tried to move and all his muscles just screamed in pain.

"Hey, hey, Bobby, don't move. You are bruised everywhere."

Bob squeezed his eyes because that sounded like Uncle Pete. He was deployed on a ship nearby.

"Uncle Pete?"

"Yeah, that is me." Whispered the older man, squeezing Roberts hand. "I know you are confused how I am here but our carrier got a mayday signal and I flew out. While in the air they told us more details. I thoug....I thought I will need to tell Rick and Leonard that their son died."

"Brought back bad memories?"

"Yes, kiddo. Still working on them with a therapist. Kinda hard to get through something you burried down in 1986. Then I noticed you in the ocean and called the boat to get you from my carrier." Bob just hummed, finally opening eyes to see Mavericks green eyes looking at him.

"Is the pilot okay?"

"That is our Bobby we know. Always worrying about others. He is back on your carrier. He won't be after your dads get to him. Not to count Iceman calling, too. He is flying out with Ron." Bob groaned. He was not dying. He will be okay. At the same time it warmed him over to know his family got his back.

"Someone needs to keep uncle Ron in check."

"Don't worry! Let us take care of you for once. He shouldn't fear Ron but Tom. To ignore what their WSO says and especially one that had been Admirals right hand. Really dumb. Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"We flew up in the air and the plane didn't sound right. Something was not right even if I checked on it before flight but my pilot distracted me before I could get to the engines. I told the pilot it and he ignored it. After 3 minutes we are falling into the ocean because our engine is on fire. Then my body hit the water and I passed out."

"Bobby, you know that real pilots don't do that. No one gets left behind."

"I know, uncle Pete. I will go back to sleeping. Wake me up when worrywarts get here."

After this incident Robert ends up being deployed in Lemoore and he could go home on weekends without trouble. Then uncle Pete goes missing because he pushed the Darkstar too far. Of course, he comes back to them as Maverick does. Then comes the next punch in the gut. Tom was doing his routine check ups and they told him cancer was back. Bobby was there with him because Maverick had to come back from his bruising. He could see that uncle Tom took it as a death sentence.

"No, uncle Tom. You are stronger than this. We are going to a different clinic."

"No use." Wrote to Tom on his phone.

"No, I am not giving up on you and you are neither. You hear me. You have every reason to live. I will call uncle Ron if you don't follow me to this other clinic."

"Okay!"

"Great."

It took three long days for the blood test results to come back. Robert and Tom were visiting doctor in this new clinic. Keeping it all under wraps to not worry their closest. Doctor told them that there must have been some mistake in testing because it looked all good in this blood test but to be 100% they would need Iceman to check in each week. The relief both men felt.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, all the markers are clear."

After such a miracle they both knew it was time to bring Bradley back and there was only one way to do it. The suicide mission. His dads won't be happy but they will get it. Especially with uncle Pete being the teacher.

There was the first training session with him, Phoenix and Hangman as a team. The blonde man teased him, hitting the target with Baby on board. But Robert could give back as well as he got it. Seresin left them to die which would not roll with uncle Pete or him. So after training, he cornered Hangman.

"What do you need, Bob?"

"Never leave your wingman behind. You may be the best pilot here but you can't do this mission alone. And we can keep up with you, if you don't think with your ego. Also yes, Bob stands for Baby on board. My dads gave me my callsign." With that Robert left with a gaping Hangman behind him. Javy got out of shower, piping up: "You know he is right, Jake. You can't do it alone."

"Damn that stealth pilot."

But after that uncle Pete was not keen on putting Jake with Bob in the same group. Then all hell broke loose when Jake reminded two men about Bradley's dad. Robert knew Jake was right.

Somehow Robert has ended up as friends with Bradley. He saw both of his uncles in the man and two people he had heard only stories about. Phoenix seemed to trust Rooster but Bob could not shake the feeling of his instincts that Bradley is not ready for it. Jake's words resounding in his mind. Bob had all the reasons to come back alive from this mission. The day on the beach was what they needed. They finally felt like the team. After they went back to the Hard deck. Somehow it ended up only him and Jake left from his squad.

“It seems Hangman had been left hanging?"

"You are funny, baby on board." Slurred Jake.

"Do you need a drive home?"

"I don't have a home. Just leave me be."

"No, in this family no one gets left behind. You should have learned that after my first rant. You can stay at my place for tonight."

"Okay."

Next morning Robert woke up later than usual to come down and see Jake being sat at end of table. His eyes jumping from his dads to uncles.

"Hey, Robert! Why didn't you say your family is made up from Top Gun class '86 best pilots?"

It seems Rick and Leonard had drilled their one house rule in Jake.

"You didn't ask, Jake. Also people start to treat you differently when you explain it. Did they already integorate you?"

"Bobby, you wound us. We were on our best behavior here." Answered uncle Ron.

"I will believe that when ostrich's will start to fly. I know you wanted to talk with him since first training."

"Yeah, yeah, Bobby. He is a good kid."

"Reminds you of you, Ron?" Asked Rick who was making waffles. It made both Ron and Jake choke on their coffees. Uncle Tom didn't take his eyes off Jake that made him twitch anxiously.

"He is just angry that you hurt his husband. He will get over it in a few days. Uncle Tom knows you are right about Rooster. Maybe, possibly, uncle Tom could talk uncle Pete into giving our trio another chance to fly together."

"I will think about it." Tom signed back. Jake seemed to relax also.

Bob again was in hospital. This time after the bird strike. He knew someone was there but when he opened his eyes all was blurry. Someone helped to put his glasses back on. Those were his spares because it was flurry before his eyes could focus. In a chair tiny for him sat Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw.

"Hey! How are you?"

"Like I just ejected from the plane." answered Robert, something not nicely scrapping in his chest. Those guilty looks Bradley kept sending him did make the feeling get worse.

"What did you do?" No movement from the Rooster. "What did you tell Maverick?" Bullseye. Bradley looked at Bob so quickly he could hear the man's neck crack.

"I will ask one more time what the fuck did you tell Maverick?"

"He told me how you were taken to hospital. How when you work in this field for long you're gonna lose someone. I exploded at him and told him no one will mourn him if he burns in."

Robert felt like someone had slapped him. He started to push the call nurse button. The middle aged woman ran in his room and he rumbled down: "Man with panic attack at top gun base. Where did you leave him?"

"In common room."

"Please, call Admiral Kazansky - Mitchell straight away." She nodded and left the room. Bob has had enough of this idiot ruining his family. Uncle Ron once said that everyone was coddling Bradley and now he got to see the consequences of this coddling. This ends now. "You are a selfish prick, Bradley Bradshaw. Thinking only - me, me. Did you ever think who was powerful enough in both yours and commanders life to ask to pull your papers?"

"Mom." Bradley breathed out.

"Woohoo! You have won back one brain cell. While you ran away and didn't look back, I was there. I had to look at them while going through losing you. I was there when uncle Tom fell ill with cancer. It had to be you who was there not me. He helped you when your mom was ill but you were not there." Bradley was opening his mouth to retort something. "Don't you dare to say they could call you. We all tried but you blocked all of us and then changed your number. You kept on running from them but they kept an eye on you. Right now I have no idea why. They love you so much and you simply gave it up. You gave up people who love you unconditionally. If something happens to uncle Pete and he can't teach us anymore, I will punch you so hard you will fall in tomorrow. You are selfish, Bradley, and a hazard to my family. So I would love to ask you to go check on Phoenix before my family is here because I won't stop uncle Ron this time. Get help, Bradshaw, than maybe one day you can come back to them and be part of this family."

Rooster got up and silently left the room. Bob was right; he really did hurt his only living family. It was time to talk with Phoenix. She always had good advice.

They were on carrier and waiting for captain Mitchell to call his team's names. All that was left was uncle Pete's wingman. Bob already knew who he gonna choose but he couldn't stop muttering under his breath: "Not Rooster, not Rooster."

It was too late now. Robert looked at Bradley with one look saying: "You better bring him back in one piece."

It seemed to be going good so far and then uncle Pete was down because he saved Bradley and then Bradley too was down. Bob felt all his strength leave him but they had to get back to carrier. Also that it was his uncle Pete and Pete's kid. If there is anyone who can come back from this, than it is those two. There was signal on the radar from Rooster and small relief went trough Bob. Soon enough they were back on carrier. Bob made his way to his uncle. He hugged him as hard as he could. Then he turned to Bradley.

"You kept your promise?"

"I did. I want to be part of this family again. Thank you for kicking my arse."

"Happy to help, Bradley, but if you would excuse me, I need to give something to your savior."

"Go get him, Bob." laughed Bradley. Robert found Jake hiding from the huge crowd.

"I thought you would be basking in the lights of your success?"

"Not really feeling it."

"I wanted to thank you for saving my family memebers." said Bob, pressing his lips to side of Jakes cheek when the other man turned his head and their lips connected. Bob doesn't know how long they just stood there making out. "Good to know that I already had shovel talk from members of your family."