#i wrote this entirely on my phone so apologies for any errors
Text
A lovely commission from @vallleyoflilllies, Error being a silly tsundere and not knowing how to deal with his crush on a human <3 absolutely CLASS idea
---
He was back again.
You could always tell when he was back- you’d come home from work and hear the sounds of a random dramatic soap opera drifting from the TV. He liked those... he would binge-watch entire series’ in one sitting.
... You shook some of the droplets off your coat, then hung it up to let it drip-dry for a bit. The weather was pretty grim outside. You headed to your room first, changing into pyjamas and picking up your project... you didn’t have any other outings planned today. Sitting with him on the couch sounded really nice.
You made your way to the sofa, flopping down beside him unceremoniously. He didn’t look at you. He wasn’t watching a soap opera today, though- he was watching some cooking show you’d never seen before, based in Italy.
“This is new.” You commented. “Why’re you watching an old people cooking show? You never cook. All you do is eat my food.”
“i put-t-t it on for you, actually. since your cook-k-king is gross.” He said, still not looking at you. You knew him well enough to know his words had no real venom to them. “take notes, glitch.”
You snickered. “Doesn’t stop you from coming back. Weirdo.”
You liked when he was here.
Error... he had a habit of appearing out of nowhere. Literally- he’d appear out of thin air. Disappearing for days, then showing up again, acting like no time passed. Your first encounter with him had been him shaking you awake in the middle of the night; he was visibly upset and berated you for leaving your stove on by accident, informing you you could’ve had a fire if he wasn’t there to turn it off. You were so tired, and so perplexed by what was occurring, that you just sheepishly apologised- convinced you were dreaming. Apparently somewhat mollified by your apology, he proceeded to... vanish like a mirage.
...
Well. You obviously wrote that off as the strangest episode of sleep hallucination you’d ever had.
The next occurrence was when you left a cupboard door open, and almost stood up into the opened door. You would’ve whacked your head pretty hard. But a firm, large hand on your head stopped you from standing up fully- you heard the sound of a closing cupboard and a glitched “st-t-upid human, you’re going to hurt yoursel-l-lf.”. You were absolutely shocked to look up and see that the monster from your ‘dream’ the other night was real, and glaring down at you.
... He then disappeared. Again. Like he wasn’t even there. You didn’t have time to process it.
It happened with further and further frequency, and for lesser and lesser reasons. At first, it was things of genuine concern, he would make sure you weren’t leaving your oven on, he’d replace the battery in your carbon monoxide alarm. Then stuff of slightly less importance... shutting off a tap you left running. Plugging in your phone overnight when you’d forgotten. And it wasn’t long before it was stuff of absolutely zero concern- turning off the TV when you weren’t in the room, tidying up your shoes when you left them at an askew angle by the door, washing up plates you’d abandoned on the counter.
Oddly, it felt like in certain ways, he had completely slipped under your radar. Of course you were concerned that a large glitching skeleton monster somehow possessed the ability to instantly get in and out of your home. Of course you were worried about your privacy, your safety, his intentions. He would sometimes look at you for several seconds, unbroken, yellow eyelights blank despite your nervous queries- other times, he would say confusing jittering things to you or himself, about ‘universes’ and ‘alternates’. ‘Mistakes’ he had to ‘eradicate’.
... But... also...
... You weren’t worried at all.
Error was funny. Both intentionally, and unintentionally. He tried to act all tough, speaking with barbs and calling you a ‘glitch’- but to you, he was so clearly all bark and no bite. You shot right back, calling him a broken record player and a weird homeless guy... he took it in stride. He obviously delighted in having someone to play off. To banter with.
... He clearly liked you. He kept coming back, again and again. And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like him too.
Did you still have questions? Sure. But in the end, it wasn’t really worth driving yourself crazy over stuff like his secret backstory. He could obviously go in and out of your home completely at will, he could rob you blind or murder you if he so pleased. All he did was do a few menial chores, and occasionally eat some of your food.
He clearly just... needed someone.
At this point in your... ‘relationship’... Error seemed to have given up on the excuse of doing chores in order to be in your home. He still did them, sure, but sometimes he’d just stay anyway. Once he seemed to clock that you tolerated him, whether or not he was unexpectedly picking up your dry cleaning, he began sticking around all day. He would hover nearby you, drifting in and out of whatever room you were in, watching you like a curious cat. If you acknowledged his existence in any manner, like with a question about his day, he’d visibly brighten and start chattering. He’d sit on the couch with you. Listen while you rambled about work, family, friends, anything... making snide remarks and staring with those bright yellow eyelights.
He was more akin to a helpful, close friend/roommate than anything else. You’d grown to kinda just accept that Error was part of your life now.
... He was very easy to accept.
///---///
Error let a slow breath escape him. His temper had been, only moments earlier, absolutely foul. Foul enough that the multiverse would’ve done well to fear him.
... You had no idea that before you arrived, he’d been seething on your couch, glitches overtaking his vision- literally blinding him with anger. Twitching, burning, infuriated by his difficulty with simple tasks while angry. It had been an awful few days, so awful not even the TV could distract him.
... Then he’d heard your front door open. He heard you sigh to yourself, shake off your raincoat, kick off your shoes.
... His vision had cleared. His Soul had thumped. Finally- the only thing that could distract him.
Your home was the only place where he felt warm. It felt like the only place he could come back to, that welcomed him, with familiar smells and sounds and trinkets that brought him back to reality. Even better when you were physically in the space with him, like you were now, nestled beside him on the couch. Unlike the anti void, a vast expanse of white nothingness where he had only himself to talk to, he liked how your home was full of things that had meaning to you. Your Soul’s energy had soaked into every item in the home- as had your scent.
... He glanced at you, then back to the TV again. Did you know you were the only creature in the multiverse he wanted closer?
(He had one of your shirts, in the anti void. You didn’t know. He figured he probably should return it soon... but it kept him company, when he couldn’t directly be with you.)
It was odd. You calling him a weirdo had made him feel so calm- affirmation that you still didn’t know what he’d done, that you still liked him. Still wanted him in your home. He sometimes asked himself what he, the destroyer of universes, was doing hanging around in a tiny backwater AU with a nobody human... but like most things in his life, he found that if he asked too many questions, the pain in his head became too intense.
At the end of the day, you being close to him and talking to him made him feel good. That was all he needed to know.
Even just watching you had calmed him down; back before he realised you were happy to let him in.
You had settled in, your breathing was slower. Someone, relaxed around him... it felt good. Though he desperately wanted to stare at you, and talk to you, he also didn’t want to seem clingy. He tried to act like he didn’t care, pretending he was watching the Italian cooking show.
...
He didn’t manage long.
“there are aus with m-m-much better looking-g-g mediterraneans than that.” He said, yellow mouth pulled into a sneer.
... You gave him a customary ‘mhm’.
You had no clue what an AU was. But you humoured him; he liked that. You didn’t really know what most of the things he talked about were, you’d just give him some nods and hums, maybe you’d tease him. You probably just thought he was nuts.
He finally glanced over at you. You were leaning on the side of the couch... something in hand.
...
He felt his Soul skip.
“a-a-are you crocheting?”
...
... You looked up at him, you seemed surprised to hear him comment on what you were doing. Your eyes on him made his magic all but purr. He was looking at your ‘project’- a few terrible tangled messes, a ball of brown yarn, and a crochet hook pinched between your thumb and forefinger.
(You were in pyjamas. He liked when you were in pyjamas... he liked when you were comfortable. Comfortable around him.)
“... Oh. Uh... well, I’m trying to crochet.” Your voice soothed his glitches. Everything about you was a balm to his angry, spiteful, troubled Soul. “I’ve only just started. I can’t really work it out.”
He tilted his skull. “what are you-u maki-i-ing?”
Were your cheeks getting pinker? “... Nothing in particular, maybe a scarf? I just wanted to get into crocheting.”
He stared. “what don’t y-y-you understand?”
“Making the knot at the beginning. I dunno where to put everything.” Your brow furrowed. “You know how to crochet?”
“of course.” He said, sitting up. The TV was now purely background noise. “why do you seem surp-p-prised?”
You gave him a look, and a teasing smile that made him feel fidgety and hot.
“... You’re so right. How could I have been so blind. You scream ‘guy who likes to crochet’.”
Error shifted. “how can you not know how to make a slipknot? they’re easy. there’s a lot of method-d-ds.”
“There are? Course you'd know, grandma.”
“maybe try a pret-t-zel method.” He pointed to your yarn, sitting forward even further. “make a pretzel sh-shape with the yarn. then catch the inside loop.”
You made a loop over your finger.
... Then kinda just paused, unsure.
“n-n-no, a pretzel.” He narrowed his sockets. “don’t you kn-kn-know how to make a p-p-pretzel?”
“No.” You said, honestly. Then you glared at him. “But also, you’re shit at explaining.”
He loved when you sassed him. He leaned in. “maybe the cross method is easier for your t-t-tiny human brain. loop the thread twice ov-v-ver your fingers so it’s an x shape. then tuck the loose end under the x and catch that. eas-s-sy.”
... You looped the yarn over your finger twice.
...
“But like. Where do I tuck the end of it?” You said.
“under the x. you... ugh.” He grunted. “c’mere. gimme the-the-the end of the thread.”
...
You flushed. But you shuffled, sitting up, passing him the yarn.
Error leant over- he took your hands in his.
...
He took your hands. In his.
He froze, for a split second. Your hands were in his. He stared down at them; tiny, soft, warm, shrouded in his blackened bones. He had expected contact with you to feel like lightning, but it didn't, your hands were just... nice. Everything he’d dreamed of.
... 'fuck' was the only thought running through his head. Repeating over and over. He didn’t mean to take your hands, he didn't realise what he was doing until he’d already done it- he was just so accustomed to instinctively hating the idea of touching anyone, he had no idea how to stop himself from doing it when the urge overcame him. He was just so comfortable with you, so warm- he hadn’t thought twice. In that moment, the thought to recoil from you hadn’t even occurred to him.
He hadn’t thought twice about touching you.
... It wasn’t until this very moment, your hands warming his bones, that he realised he was indulging an urge he’d had since the moment he first saw you.
...
Error couldn’t allow himself to acknowledge how deeply he’d been taken off guard. And equally, he couldn’t allow you to see it. So he forced himself to continue.
He didn’t want to let go of your hands.
“it-t-t’s a basic slipknot. i don’t get where you’re conf-fused.” He said, defaulting to insults, as he did when he felt any kind of gentle emotion. He hoped his glitches would hide the nervous stutter.
He moved your fingers in his claws, precisely, holding up the end of the yarn. Your hands felt tiny in his.
“do it lik-k-ke this. you want the end to be about this long. not too sh-short.” With the eye of someone who had done it a thousand times, he looped it over your first two fingers. “make an x, over your fingers, like that-t. you see? then you tuck the tail under here. but not-t-t all the way through.”
...
... His eyelights moved from the thread, to your face. He caught you looking at him. He was very close, his mouth only a few inches from your face. Close enough to literally feel the warmth coming off you.
... Just like that, he found it was difficult to swallow.
You flinched, seemingly flustered at getting caught staring- you forced yourself to look back down at the crochet hooks. You bit your lip, apparently in embarrassment.
Your mouth.
...
It took him a few long, difficult moments to draw his eyelights away from your soft, soft lips.
“... pinch the tail so you dont lose it.” His claws continuously brushed yours as he circled the thread over your own fingers. He took your left hand. “put your other finger through the loop. like... that. then slide the hook through and catch it. there you go, a slipknot.”
... He could hear your heartbeat. It was faster.
“make sure not to tighten it too much. the knot doesn’t count as a stitch. if you were knitting, it would count. but it doesn’t count in cr-crocheting.”
...
He felt like he’d reached the end of his list of excuses to keep holding your hands.
... He let go. And... he sat back against the couch, refusing to look at you, worried about what he might do if he did. He could feel the energy in his cheekbones, they were probably bright blue.
His hands balled in his lap.
...
“Thanks.” You said, gently. Genuinely.
...
Error didn’t know how to process what he was currently feeling. He wasn't sure if he'd ever know how. So he just kept his sockets glued to the TV.
“... s-s-sure." He said. "whatever.”
#commissions#i like my tsunderes not too sharp#u know what i say#the softer the better#i say that all the time#what do u mean i dont say that#yes i do
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I love u like I’ll get on my knees 😍😍😍😍 CAN U PLEASEEEE PLEASEEEE do TFAWS!Bucky x Latina reader?? maybe more specifically Brazilian?? we need some rep 🥺🥺 HAHA actually though like reader is good friends with Sam and Sam introduces them? Please, and thank u the dead love of my life
AHAHHAAHWH MY FIRST REQUEST!!!! thank you so much love!!
Okay okay so here’s a little Drabble for ya! I feel like this could be a full one shot?? Maybe after my follower celebration that starts on Friday! Also I wrote this on my phone so I apologize if there are any spelling/grammar errors.
Anjo -Portuguese for “angel”
mãe - Portuguese for “mom”
Warnings: cursing
Word count: 1.2k (this was only meant to be 500ish words…)
disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on google/Pinterest
“Please tell me that you didn’t text him,” My coworker asks with an edge of dread and disgust in her voice. For the last two hours of our shift, Lilly has been on me about the guy who left me his number yesterday.
It had been a slow day with only regulars really coming in so a decent looking young guy walking in felt like Christmas. Lils was on it and immediately put on her best flirt, fluttering her big eyes and matching lashes at him when he ordered. I wanted to laugh at the scene but that died when he flashed a smile my way and handed me his number. It was quickly followed by some passing comment about how he hates it when girls throw themselves at him. I had half a mind to throw his coffee on him but I knew my boss would have my head. I settled for plastering a fake smile on my face and saying “Vai pro caralho.” Of course the ignorant asshole thought I was being nice and winked at me. It took all of my strength to not shutter in disgust.
“You should know me better than that,” I throw back at her, “from that 2 minute interaction alone, I can already tell that he would talk about himself the entire date before saying something borderline foul like how Latinas girls are his favorite and he can’t stand white girls .”
Lils snorts as she takes a sip of her coffee, nearly choking and sending the hot liquid flying over the freshly cleaned counter. I arch a dark brow at her which makes her laugh even harder.
“What? Am I wrong? You can’t tell me that he wouldn’t have pulled out that high school Spanish to impress me.”
“No, no,” she stutters, wiping the coffee up, “it just caught me off guard is all. Wait, didn’t you say something to him in Spanish before he left? What did you say?”
I narrow my eyes at her, “Vai pro caralho? Babes you should know better.”
She looks at me in horror, “oh my god it was Portuguese, wasn’t it?”
I nod as she profusely apologizes, “I am so sorry, Y/N. Oh my god I’m not better than that asshat. Ugh, what does that mean though?”
The front door opens before I have the chance to speak and the little bells above alerts us to the one regular that never fails to put a smile on my face. Sam had been coming in since before I started working at Brewed Awakenings but after that first interaction, he came pretty much daily. He even got Sarah his sister to start coming in and within a matter of a few weeks, I was invited over for Sunday dinner.
“It means Go fuck yourself,” I tell Lils as I round the counter with a bright smile and wide arms. Sam matches me and wraps me into a tight hug.
“Good morn, Anjo. How are you?” He asks as he squeezes me into this chest.
I pull back and give him my best angry mãe look we I demand to know where he’s been for the last few weeks.
He holds his hands up in defense as he says, “put those eyes away, Anjo. Im sorry okay? I was on official business and I didn’t have time to swing by to let you know but I’m back.”
I don’t let up my expression at first and lecture him some more, “You better be. You were gone for like…”
I pause for dramatic effect to pretend to count the time while walking back around the counter, “6 weeks. I was about to send out a search and rescue team to find you. Ridiculous.”
Sam chuckles while shaking his head at me. He steps to the side to reveal a man that’s been standing behind him and one that I hadn’t noticed before.
A damn attractive man.
Albeit a bit judgmental given the looks he’s throwing at the both of us.
“I wasn’t gone that long,” Sam tries but stops when I shot him another mãe look. He quickly changes the subject, clapping his hand on his companion’s shoulder and introducing him, “well this is Bucky. He’s the reason I was gone so if you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at him.”
Bucky.
He looks familiar but I can’t quite figure out why. The massive resting bitch face forced me I stop the search before offering him a bright smile as I repeat his name.
This seems to…irritate him? I honestly can’t tell with the stone wall of moodiness and brooding that lives on his drop dead gorgeous face.
“Well welcome in Bucky, I’m Lilly but everyone calls me Lils and this is y/n,” Lils jumps in with an equally wide smile. His dark eyes flicker between us but hover half a second longer on me. He utters a low “thank you” and looks up to the menu.
Sam rolls his eyes at his short answer but his ever present smile never fades as he orders his usual, a large hot mocha with soy milk. I’ve tried to get him to switch to coconut or even hemp milk but he refuses. He always gives me the whole speech about how “soy is the closest to real milk and if I’m going to drink alternative milk, it has to be close to the real thing.”
“And for you?” I turn my attention to Bucky while Lils starts on Sam’s order. He looks me with slightly wide eyes, a little startled it seems that I’m still talking to and looking at him.
He freezes for a moment, “uh…um a large house coffee.”
“Of course,” Lils jumps in once again and slides a cup across the counter to him. The loud volume of her voice causes him to flinch and Sam instinctively steps in front of him. He takes the cup without another word and fills it while Sam pays and throws a shamelessly flirty smile to Lils. She mocks faintly in a fit of giggles and winks at him.
Sam turns his attention to him and subtlety jerks his chin towards the door, wordlessly asking me if I’ll walk them out. Lils caught it too and rolls her eyes before shooing us out the door.
“She means no harm. She’s just…cheery,” I tell Bucky when the door closes behind us and we step onto the side walk, “I can tell her to tone it back for when you come in next.”
Sam chuckles under his breath and tries to hide a smile behind his cup but fails miserably. Bucky shots him another one of those bored looks and rolls his beautiful eyes at him.
“You don’t have to do that,” he finally says to me and actually makes eye contact with me, “Y/N.”
I offer him another wide smile and stick my hand for him to shake. He glances down at my watch and rings before taking my hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Bucky. Don’t let Sam fill your head with too many tales and I hope to see you soon.”
The man in question basically squawks in protests as I hug him goodbye and disappear back into the coffee shop.
About an hour after I get home, I get a text from Sam saying something along the lines of “Robo cop liked you and asked for your number.”
Moments later a D.C. number sends me a text and I quickly save it under “Bucky (aka Robo Cop according to Sam)”
That’s when it clicks who he is; Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Solider and the most attractive man I’ve ever met.
#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes fic#marvel imagine#bucky barnes fanfic#brazil#Brazilian! reader#Brazilian!reader x Bucky#latina reader x bucky#bucky x latina reader#latina!reader x bucky#bucky x latina!reader#latina reader#request#tfatws#tfatws Bucky#bucky barnes reader insert#marvel
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i had a funny thought the other day. google but with reader who can’t spell worth their life hcs? (inspired by me and my own google searches. take your time as it’s just a silly little prompt <3) -☀️
Google just staring at my search history like a parent who just walked in on their child watching porn
I'm writing this on my phone so I apologize for any formatting issues
(I also wrote "gluff" while writing the tags 💀)
--
- you're just like typin away
- and google of course is curious
- (he hangs around under the guise of "studying the human race to better understand and destroy them")
- but oh my god
- your google doc is full of red underlines and he's just like
- babe
- what the fuck
- he has to just watch in abject horror
- you delete an entire sentence to correct a pronoun
- AND THEN YOU RETYPE THE SENTENCE
- he is BAFFLED
- you misspelled "a"
- HOW DO YOU MISSPELL "A"???
- at some point (after you try very enthusiastically to spell "Renaissance"), he just has to take over
- he pushes you chair away or steals your laptop, even your phone if he has to
- it doesn't matter what you're working on he just HAS to fix this
- then he meticulously goes through and corrects every single word, tense and pronoun until he is satisfied
- if you write in all lowercase when writing like a story or an essay or whatever, he will die inside
- when he hands it back, he almost warns you to be more aware of your spelling errors, but you look so baffled and grateful for what he's just done that he just grunts and walks away
- he's also definitely the kind of person to stare over your shoulder and correct you as you write
- god forbid you ever text him
- "You used the incorrect 'your' in your sentence. It should have been 'You're coming over later, right?'"
".... YOU'RE uninvited"
- please someone save this animatronic man
#☀️ anon#request#requests#headcanon#headcanons#markiplier#markiplier egos#markiplier egos x reader#Markiplier egos headcanons#googleplier#googleplier x reader#googleplier headcanons#fluff#googleplier fluff#gender neutral reader#gn reader#x gn reader
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Honey, am I crazy? Our favourite man TG just turned 60 and I feel like there’s been very minimal notice of the fact on any socials or by the fandom. Is it just me? (Also I’m so obsessed with your latest chapter of The Way Home!… him unexpectedly coming out of the shower? Your writing just grips me!)🤤🔥
Ok first of all, thank you so much!!! I’m so so glad you’re enjoying The Way Home.
And…babe you are so so right. So right. So I’ve fixed it.
Here’s a little drabble for you about Aaron lamenting getting older, and Emily assuring him that he’s just getting hotter.
(I wrote this entirely on my phone whilst waiting to see the guy who builds my prosthetic, so apologies for any errors)
Words: 700
Warnings: none!
He hated it.
The salt and pepper flashes that had started just with the odd hair, but was now painfully obvious across his temples. Dave had mentioned it, a smirk on his face as he made a comment about Aaron getting older, a wink thrown at him as he asked if he could still keep up with Emily.
It was her reaction he was most unsure of. Occasionally he’d catch her just staring at him, her eyes fixed on his hairline, and he hated it. Was sure she was looking on with disgust, wondering if she should have married someone younger, the 7 years between them never feeling so obvious.
It’s how he found himself on his 60th birthday, just an hour before the party his wife had talked him into, always able to convince him of anything when she was naked, standing in front of the mirror in their en-suite bathroom, a bottle of hair dye in his hand.
He’d watched her do hers before, covering the grey hairs that would appear in her roots every few weeks, so he was sure he could do it.
“Honey? We should get going soon.” Emily calls out, appearing at the bathroom door. “What are you doing?”
He turns to look at her, blown away by how beautiful she was as always. The years they had spent together doing nothing to dull the awe he would feel when he looked at her, when he’d think about the fact she was his. She was wearing a red dress, his favourite colour on her, skin tight and ending at the knee.
“Are you…dying your hair?” She asks, her eyebrow raised as she walks towards him, turning her nose up at the scent of the dye in the room.
“Just my temples,” he replies, turning back to look at the mirror, “it won’t take long.”
She places her hand on his arm, stopping him. “Why?”
Aaron creases his brow and looks at her in the mirror. “Because I look old.”
“You look hot, baby. Not old.” She replies, encouraging him to put down the bottle, stepping closer to him. “So, so hot.”
He frowns at her, his hand falling to her waist. “I thought you hated it.”
Emily laughs at him, bright and bold and beautiful, only stopping when she sees he’s serious.
“Are you kidding? Have you looked at yourself?”
“But…you kept staring.” He replies, his confusion clear.
“Yeah,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck, smiling as his arms automatically wrap around her too, pulling her closer without thought, “because I was trying to think of all the ways I could jump you at work without the others noticing.”
His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Really?
She hums her response. “Really, in fact,” she says, smirking as she leans in to kiss him quickly, “I insist you don’t dye it, otherwise I’ll have no choice but to divorce you.”
Aaron laughs, feeling something ease in his chest as he kisses her quickly. “Ok, sweetheart, I won’t dye it.”
“Good,” she says, kissing his cheek before she pulls away, “now hurry up, if we’re late Dave will tell everyone it’s because we’re having sex.”
He shakes his head at her as he follows her into their bedroom, grabbing his shirt from where he’d left it on the bed. A thought occurs to him as he watches her put a necklace on, moving her hair out of the way.
“Hang on, you dye your hair.”
She turns to look at him, her eyebrow raised at him, a half smile on her face that reveals one of her dimples.
“Yes I do, but sadly we don’t have time to dismantle the patriarchy before your birthday party.”
Aaron is smart enough to know there wasn’t a way for him to reply to that without being in trouble, so he nods, pulling his tie on.
Once he’s done Emily walks over and plays with his tie, straightening it unnecessarily.
“When we get back later,” she says, a familiar spark in her eye, “and we have birthday sex, can you wear your reading glasses?”
He feels something spark in his gut, a pull that she could create without trying. He kisses her, unable to stop himself as she pulls him closer, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt.
“Happy birthday to me.”
#hotchniss#aaron hotchner x emily prentiss#emily prentiss#aaron hotchner#hotchniss fanfiction#hotchniss fanfic#emily prentiss fanfiction#aaron hotchner fanfiction#hotchniss fan fic#Thomas Gibson#thanks for giving me something to do whilst I wait haha
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HAII!! if it hasnt been done yet, could you do revali x reader with basorexia? maybe reader really wants to give him a kiss but she really cant since,, yknow she has lips and he has a fuckin beak so she just decides to give him a lil smooch on the cheek? idk that was just an idea i had in mind, u dont have to write it!
22. basorexia - the overwhelming desire to kiss.
pairing: revali x reader
summary: revali spirits you away to enjoy the new years eve festivities.
In the darkness of your room, you awoke to the sound of a soft tapping on your window. Twisting in the mess of blankets and pillows, you pushed aside the papers and textbooks that had accumulated at the foot of the bed, noticing only then that the candle at your desk had long since extinguished.
Head pounding, you rubbed at your tired eyes, feeling heavy. How long had you been asleep?
The tapping grew more insistent, forcing you to get up. Grumbling, you allowed yourself a second to stretch, ignoring how your room felt like water sloshing in a glass.
"Yeah, yeah. Hold on!" You said, hobbling to the window. Brushing the mess of hair from your eyes, you pulled the curtains away and roughly pushed it open.
The culprit hovered outside, eyes bright and smug. Revali looked very much at home though he was floating at a dizzying distance away from the ground. In the sleepy haze, he looked like a painting of some myth you had read before, with the late night sky as his backdrop and the outline of your window as his frame.
"Took you long enough."
"Apologies. I thought some tree branches were hitting the glass."
The Rito made a show of turning in the air. "Funny, I don't see any nearby trees."
"I know," you sighed, disappointed.
Revali rolled his eyes and poked his head through the window, feathers brushing past your cheek as he ignored your personal space in favour of scoping out your room. The stiff turn of his neck as he looked around reminded you of the curious and confused little birds that landed on the sill from time to time.
"Quite a dreary home you have here." Gesturing to the overall darkness, he pointed to your stack of scattered papers. "You shouldn't study without proper lighting, it's bad for your eyes."
"I was asleep."
"Why, I'm surprised. And here I thought you were one of the festive many who choose to stay awake at an ungodly hour in order to count down the remaining seconds of the year."
"Well," you shrugged, not wanting to meet his eyes. "Not like it's anything special. New year, same shit. What difference would a countdown do?"
Biting down on your tongue, you stopped yourself from saying anymore. The cold breeze sifted past the light shirt you were wearing, making you shiver.
He was right, normally you were one of those people who stayed up, excitedly watching the hands of the clocktower tick til they reached midnight. You enjoyed the energy of being in a collective crowd, waiting with bated breath for the first inhale and exhale you would take into the brand new year.
The final month on the Hylian calendar brought a sense of relief and a hope for new beginnings. Usually today of all days you were at your happiest, jumping at the prospect of celebrating along with the rest of the kingdom and yet…
That sinking weight clawed at your chest again, forcing you to clamp down on it once more.
You grimaced. There it was; that bitter feeling. Hylia. How annoying. It twisted in your brain like an angry snake, pulling down your mood and enthusiasm along with it.
Last year you wanted to cheer and dance until the morning light. Now all you felt like was staring at the wall. Or falling asleep.
You blinked, turning back to the window to see Revali patiently waiting for you to continue. Feeling your face warm, you hustled your brain to get a move on. A coherent thought would be great right about…now!
"Hey have you ever wondered why they don't grow trees on this side of the castle? It's not fair the more expensive quarters get all the pretty greenery. I mean, non-noble guests still need that sweet oxygen everyone keeps raving about, you get me?" Shut up brain, that's enough. I said a coherent thought. C o h e r e n t.
Stars in his wings, Revali shook his head but answered anyway. "I agree, it's hardly fair. Also go change into something warm, we need to get you outside."
"What? Why?"
Something in the Rito's expression clued you in to the fact that he wasn't in the mood to play stupid. You've been sitting in the dark for the past few days and it didn't take a private investigator to know it was playing tricks with your head. "Fine, but when I say we go back--we go back, got it?"
He huffed, turning around to give you some privacy. "I promise on my honour."
The brightly lit lanterns of the town square made you squint as you shuffled closer to your guide, the sound of the city loud in your ears.
Though less prominent, the twisting feeling in your gut continued, making you more hyper-alert than usual to the world around you. Adjusting the sleeves of your coat, you followed Revali past the streets, the Rito expertly navigating through the sea of people.
Somewhere along the way he had taken your hand, and you told yourself it was a good way for you both to stick together. Wouldn't want you getting lost and spending the final minutes of the year playing an elaborate game of hide and seek after all. He was a great friend like that. Nevermind that everytime you would hold his wing a little tighter to remind yourself that he was there, he would always squeeze back.
You needed a distraction.
Just focus on everything that's not him.
The night was alive with the sound of music. It didn't matter if you partied with an alcoholic drink in hand, or a glass of milk, everyone in Hyrule was filled with an addictive buzz that came with an event that only happened once a year. Vendors with bright smiles called out from their stalls, the smell of freshly baked sweets or the sizzle of a barbecue beckoning you to take a closer look. To your left, a group of friends raised their hands in the air, loudly welcoming a Goron that had turned up late but regardless had finally arrived.
The archer followed your line of sight, guessing the question bouncing in your head. "Daruk is in Eldin, probably rattling Death Mountain with that story again about the Moblin camp and the barrel of explosives."
"I love that story."
"Of course you would."
"Sorry about your feathers though."
"Whatever, they grew back."
"How about the one's on your--"
"Anyway," he interjected quickly, playfully nudging you to the side and glowering at your laughter. "We've been told to 'take a break'. The other Champions have chosen to spend this day with their families and loved ones. We are planning to regroup and continue preparations in the days following."
"How about you?"
"I already said it."
Your cheeks coloured at the implications of his words, mind replaying the previous sentence. Families and loved ones. Families and loved ones. He didn't even hesitate. You both were not related. So that left you with...
"Woah!" Digging your heels into the dirt, you abruptly paused your brisk walk and saved yourself from colliding with the archer's back.
Stopping at one of the stalls, Revali held two fingers up. You glanced up at him questioningly but he refused to give anything away, expression relaxed. The vendor returned quickly, the Rito thanking them quietly and placing the payment on the bright yellow table cloth along with a large tip in their jar.
He turned around, dropping a square shaped pastry into your hands. It was some kind of rice cake, with a fluffy exterior and a golden baked surface that smelled of butter and felt warm like the sun.
Taking a bite, you smiled at the hints of coconut that were hidden in its sweet flavour. The sticky treat was familiar somehow. "Is this so luck sticks to you in the new year?"
Revali scoffed, though failed to hide his own smile behind the cake held in his wing. "You said the same thing when we first met. You need new material."
"Says the baron of bird puns."
"I am the king." He punctuated the statement by biting into his own rice cake. Offering his wing, he gently took your hand once more, turning back to step again into the busy promenade.
Following him, you noticed that the crowds ever so slowly began to thin. A lantern lit hill was coming up. The grassy expanse was dotted with a few people, though it was blessingly not as populous as the town square. "I should be the one that's surprised. Thought you hated crowds unless their attentions were all on you."
"It's tolerable so long as I am with good company."
The both of you walked up the hill with an unspoken agreement to make it to the top. Taking a seat on the grass, you allowed yourself to breathe, chest heaving from the small burst of exercise after days of being sedentary.
The twinkling lights of Castle Town stretched out before you. Gazing at it, you could imagine all the untold stories hidden in the glowing little pockets of the alleys and in the hushed whispers behind closed doors. Funny how in a city so full of people, one can feel so alone.
Revali was the first to speak, breaking you from your thoughts. "I think I can understand now. Looking at it from this distance, it really can feel like nothing much has changed."
You continued to stare at the lights, trying to focus on a certain string in an attempt to ground yourself. "Yeah. Sometimes it feels like though the world continues to spin, I'm remaining completely still. Just stagnant."
Frowning, you ran your hands through the grass, feeling the dirt shift under your fingers. You could feel your frustrations building, bubbling up to the surface with no way of dragging them back down.
"And the challenges just get worse every year. How am I going to face those old problems and these new ones if I'm still the same lost person I was back then?"
Your voice echoed at the last sentence, making you hide your head in embarrassment. That was loud.
Some strangers relaxing on the hill turned around to flash you an annoyed glare, before quickly returning to their picnics after spotting the Great Eagle Bow on your friend's back.
"I'm so sorry." You wanted more than anything then to dig a hole and hibernate preferrably for the next hundred years or so. "I'm yelling, that isn't like me. I'm so so--"
"There's nothing to be sorry about. You needed to say it." He glanced at you from the corner of his eye. There was a serious element to it that made it a little hard to breathe. "There is one part of that I don't agree with, however."
"What is it?"
"That entire section about you, how did you put it, stagnanting." He twisted a wing in the air, thinking on his words before pointing a feather directly at your face. "You're fully capable of enacting the change you want to see in yourself."
You felt a little dizzy now. But another kind of dizzy, one very different from the vertigo you felt waking up in the darkness of your room.
"And who said you were exactly the same as you were back then? You've changed. In a good way. You're stronger and more capable of things I'm sure the person you were two years ago or even less couldn't even fathom doing."
Turning to face you, Revali gave you his full attention, compelling you to do the same as the cadence of his speech joined the steady rhythm of your own beating heart. From the back of your mind, you could barely register the sound of people gathering together, their voices floating into the cold night air.
'Ten!'
"It's difficult to see your own progress from a distance."
'Nine!'
"So take my advice and start looking at yourself up close for once."
'Eight!'
He had that expression on his face, one that said he was thinking too hard about something. It was like watching him try to pull the planets together with just a piece of string. His brows were furrowed so deep that your fingers wished to run over his feathers and smoothe the worried creases.
'Seven!'
You slowly reached out to him, giving him enough time to back away. Revali stilled as your hands traced up the nape of his neck, leaning in as his pulse thrummed underneath the soft pads of your fingertips.
'Six!'
He opened his beak the moment you reached his face. You paused, half expecting him to tell you to let go and pretend like it never happened.
Instead, he called out your name.
'Five!'
He said your name again, though quieter now. It was enough to tug at the invisible force drawing you two together. Enough so that the polite distance nervously enforced by the both of you gradually began to dissipate, trailing away like a ribbon of smoke as you both leaned in closer.
'Four!'
"May I--," He cleared his throat, eyes darting away for a second before they were back on you again. Bright green in the lantern light. Emeralds in the desert sand.
'Three!'
"May I kiss you?"
"Yes."
'Two!'
"Your way or mine?" You couldn't help but joke. Revali smiled, exhaling a soft joyful laugh before pressing his forehead to yours.
'One!'
'Happy New Year!'
An earth-shaking boom rattled your ears, but all you could think of in that moment was Revali and the feel of his feathers against your skin; the utter elation of being so close to someone you deeply cared for and that cared just as deeply for you.
In the dazzling light you lifted your head from his, both your eyes meeting for a brief moment. Hands moving, you gently angled his face with a steady hand, feeling then the soft, butterfly light brush of his wings on your waist.
Closing your eyes again, you leaned in to press your lips against his beak, the blush on your face warmer than any fever or furnace. The Rito's soft sigh was barely audible as you trailed your kisses upwards, stopping at the red circle on his cheek.
Revali laughed again as you turned his face to press a kiss to the identical red mark on the other side. "You're very thorough."
"You deserve it." You beamed. "And this is just the beginning, just you wait at the end of the countdown I'll--"
"Actually my dear," he grinned, pointing to the sky.
"Huh?"
Above you were the vibrant colours of the firework display. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring, but a confirmation that you were definitely minutes in to the new year.
"Oh," you said, before shaking your head with a smile. "It's fine, we got 12 more months to prepare ourselves for the next one."
Revali nodded, pulling you closer so he could press your foreheads together again.
"Indeed," he grinned. "Now will you finish your sentence? What exactly were you going to do at the end of the countdown?"
fin.
#revali x reader#revali#botw#revali botw#prompt fic#more taggs later#i wrote this entirely on my phone so apologies for any errors#been thinking about this for a long time#also very late but happy new years#paella writes
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When they find out you don’t love them anymore
(Heyyy, so there might be a few grammar errors, but this one is pretty long so hold on) Also do you want the good endings to these? Idk just asking
It started when you didn’t hang out as much with him
You’d make up excuses, ignore, or even give small lies
But he didn’t really take it in any way other than it was you having a hard time with school and stress
So he let you distance yourself
But when you started getting further, and started purposely giving out of the box reasons to not be around him
His gut started to churn
So each day he’d tried to get some way to get your attention
Monday
“Hey dumbass, let’s cook breakfast for the rest of the idiots today, just you and me.”
But when he went to get you up you just turned the other way. He rolled his eyes, a small smile making its way onto his face. The ash-blonde propped a knee up onto the edge of your bed, his hands caging you between them. Yet you barely reacted and instead you mumbled “Go away Bakugo, aren’t you supposed to cook with someone else today?” A hurt expression washed over his face in an instant, though he just thought it was just you being groggy. He started tickling you, a devilish smirk on his features, but you suddenly push his face back forcefully.
“I said get the hell out Bakugo! If it was you you’d be fuming when I try to wake you up so just go!”
You pulled the cover back up, and that was it. It hurt Bakugo even more when you didn’t even look back. But he just snarled and pent it up.
Breakfast didn’t taste as good as usual.
.
Tuesday
You were laughing with Todoroki when Bakugo entered the classroom. And he already didn’t like it as soon as he saw your hand on his shoulder, your leg brushed up against him. He immediately went over and snatched you back into his chest. You scoff “Bakugo- The hell?” You smack his hand off of you. You glare at him before nodding to Todoroki, not sparing Bakugo a glance as you walked back to your seat, starting conversation with Jirou as if that didn’t just happen. Bakugo stared wide eyed at your back then to a smirking Todoroki. He stood frozen. “Just lay off my s/o half n’ half.” He mumbleds as he went to his seat. ‘Was I....was I the wrong one?’ Bakugo jerked his head to the side to get rid of the thought. ‘Like hell I’m wrong.’
But he felt a pit in his stomach remembering your hand on Todoroki’s shoulder.
.
Wednesday
Bakugo wanted to take you hiking with him since you guys had been doing what you’ve wanted to do for the past few months.
But he didn’t expect you to be so upset.
“Really Bakugo? We always have to do some lame shit when you want to go somewhere, do you really like hiking anyway?”
He furrowed his eyebrows in annoyed confusion because you even asked that question.
“No shit, I’ve told you how many times I go hiking, do you not fucking listen? Last time I checked you ain’t deaf, so I thought you’d know by now.”
You quirked your brow up and rolled your eyes, walking off. Bakugo grabs your arm dragging you back, your faces so close your noses are touching.
“The fuck is your problem today? For the past few days you been bitching off, the hell is up with-“
“You, you’re my problem.”
And you pushed him back, opening your phone as you started to text someone and turn the corner in the hall.
Bakugo didn’t want to acknowledge the tears that streamed down his face as he walked to his dorm.
.
Thursday
Bakugo won the challenge in today’s lesson overall, yet he couldn’t help but look over and see your eyes on Todoroki the whole time. Even when he pushed himself, blew the biggest explosions, even won the damn thing. He couldn’t even get an ounce of his own s/o’s attention.
Bakugou huffs as he stormed to where and Todoroki were. He wrapped a arm around your waist. But he didn’t pay attention on the unimpressed expression on your face. But he did hear when you called back to Todoroki, “You did your best out there! See you tomorrow!”
And just like that you got of his arms and walked back to the locker rooms. But he grabbed your hand pulling you back almost instantaneously. “The fuck? You’re not gonna say anything to me? Is this a fucking joke?” A perplexed and pained expression on his face. But he was tempted to really do something when you sighed and started to walk off. “Yeah good job Bakugo, not like you need a boost in your ego though.”
For some reason hanging out with Kirishima at the arcade was the most amount of happiness Bakugo has had all week.
But as soon as he got back to the dorms the same depressing feeling washed over him.
Friday
“But why? Why don’t you love me anymore damn it!”
It was raining hard, the droplets kept mixing with the harsh rain as you both stood over the now soiled picnic food. He tried, he tried everything to get you to listen to him. But now you both just stood silently in the rain.
“I’m sorry Bakugo...it’s just I’m not really interested anymore. It not like I hate you or anything-“
“BULLSHIT!”
Bakugo was seething, rain starting to evaporate on his hands as they flared up.
“This past week...no,fuck, MONTH! You just cast me to the side like I’m a piece of fucking scum! I try...I try so fucking hard, and I’ve never even been in a damn relationship before! So I know I’m not perfect, I FUCKING KNOW. I KNOW I’m not like a prince like fucking half n half, but damn don’t you see I’m trying to work it out? I haven’t felt this much for anyone before Y/N! WHY... WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH? WHAT DID I DO SO WRONG? FUCK Y/N I’LL EVEN CHANGE! JUST.. Bakugo went quiet as a sob wracked his body, leaving him speechless for a moment. His voice cracks, “..don’t leave me alone Y/N, I don’t want to feel alone again after all this time.”
Yet even after Bakugo crouched to the ground, head in hands. He hears a disappointed sigh, his head almost gets whiplash from how fast he shot his head up. You looked at him with cold eyes and looked down at him with no interest.
“Listen Bakugo, I tried being nice about it but, I don’t love you anymore. I thought you were stronger than this, I guess not. What a shame. You brought me out here to say all of that? I’m cold, and I’m heading back to the dorms, but I did clean up the picnic during your tantrum. Sorry, Bakugo.”
Yet the apology was so cold it just felt like blurred lines of sentences came from your mouth to him. The rain drowning out any emotions other than the hurt and pain his heart felt. Bakugo sat in the muddy grass, his eyes blown as he reached pitifully at your form trudging farther and farther through the mud.
Aftermath
He just wasn’t the same.
Bakugo was even more aggressive but most times he’d take it out on the people that got too close to him.
But when he’s not angry, he’s just silent
Dozing off the all of a sudden at random times in class you’d look over to see his desk charred and he doesn’t even realize it
He’d had constant stress from the piling work on his desk as he sat in bed and stared at it with no motivation
Even though he got back on track, and a bit better, it still gnawed at the back of his head everyday of what he should’ve done instead what he did
During Hero Training when he’d hear you cheer for Todoroki, he knew he was never going to get a sincere apology
He knew he was never going to hear you cheer like you cheered Todoroki on
He knew he was never going to get the attention he wanted when he saw your arms linked with your group of friends during graduation as you walked off.
He knew he was going to never fill the void he thought he long forgot even after how many years of highschool he graduated, and how many years of hero work
Nothing and no one could make him feel the way you used to.
He noticed when you leaned out of his touch
Or the small unimpressed looks you’d have when you guys would kiss
And when he would ask you’d wave it off like it was nothing
Even when you surprisingly pushed him off of you as the class was doing movie nights, sitting with space in between
Midoriya noticed every single little thing
Yet when he confronted you about it you waved it off again and left before he could even ask you anything more
So, he decided to do a few things for you just in case he did something wrong and wanted to make it up
Monday
He placed a small gift on your desk. It was a small cat-version of all might in a box. At first you smiled, but then checked the signed name tag, he nearly screamed when you scoffed at it and just tossed it into your bag. He felt his heart clench but payed it no mind. He planned the right time to come in and walked right over to you.
“H-Hey Y/N! Did you like the little gift I bought?”
He could see the clearly fake smile on your face when you nod you head, but quickly dismiss him as you see Kirishima enter the room and walking over to him. Excitedly greeting him. Like he just gave you the gift instead.
Midoriya whimpered and gripped his bag straps. Ignoring how his stomach felt like it flipped.
Tuesday
Midoriya’s almost broke down when he went in to hug you in front of Kirishima and instead you went over and gave the redhead a ‘friendly’ hug.
“Hey Y/N! Are you and Midoryia busy or something?”You shook your head and went on in conversation, blatantly ignoring Midoryia, making him kind of want to throw up lunch. He frowned because, didn’t you guys plan something? Why did you lie?
The only person who actually paid attention was Bakugo, and even he felt a little bad. So he grabbed Kirishima’s collar and pulled Kirishima with him, locking eyes with Midoryia with an unknown expression. Then rolling his eyes and looking off. But Midoryia knew for sure he owed him a favor. He tried grabbing your hand but you pulled away.
“Sorry Izu, I uh...I have to go out for a bit.”
“But weren’t we going to go to the cafe today?”
“I know Izuku but...my friend texted me and there was a change in plans. I’ll see you later though!”
Yet he didn’t see you for the entire evening. He wrote down your conversation in a notebook. Analyzing what he could’ve said wrong. He didn’t even realize frustrated tears smearing the words.
Wednesday
People started to notice the nervous tics Midoryia did when you’d start talking to Kirishima.
“Are you okay Midoryia? Your hand is bleeding. Do you need to head to the nurse?”
“Ah! I-it’s okay Todoroki! It’s nothing, really!”
He didn’t want to leave the room right now, especially with the weird feeiling in his gut when he saw you lean in a little too close to Kirishima made his hand feel numb.
Thursday
Midoriya noticed your small lingering touches and stares on Kirishima during training. He even noticed you were quieter when cheering for him than you were Kirishima.
He noticed you smiled more at his jokes than his
He noted you suddenly liked the things you said you always hated when Kirishima said was into it.
And he kept in mind that evening you barely looked his way. He frowned at the thought and decided to walk over to you. But instead he wanted bawl his eyes out when you made eye contact, and instead of greeting him you started walking forward with Kirishima.
Friday
“I can’t find a single note on what I did so wrong to make you hate me so much.”
You couldn’t even realize the boy in front of you. Blind rage all over his face, fists clenched, and shaking body. All because of you.
You honestly wanted to cry because you were so used to the loving looks he’d always give you to the cold and angry one he had on now. But you knew you didn’t deserve to feel this way. You knew what you did was wrong yet, you can’t get rid of the guilt washing over yourself as you finally locked eyes with him.
“I...I give you so much time and attention. Love...appreciation, patience. So much fucking patientce Y/N. Yet, yet you just throw it away.”
The dead grass crunched under his weight as his knees slightly buckled. The snot and tears now covering a majority of his face as he cried. His sobs sounding louder and louder in the silent evening. He bit his lip as he clenched the part of his shirt over his heart.
“It..it hurts so much, why, why don’t you love me like I love you?”
He clenched his teeth before repeatly beating the same spot on his chest. You looked in horror, then rushed over to get him to stop. He grabs you hand just as you were about to stop him.
He looks at you with such a broken gaze. Puffy eyes, and tears still streaming down his face as his scarred hand holds onto yours. Quivering lip and clenched fist.
“Was I just never enough?”
Your eyes started to fill with tears as you covered your mouth. Shaking your head repeatedly, as words couldn’t leave your mouth.
“I’ve written so many lines of the possibilities of what I could’ve said wrong. Or what I gave you. How I kissed you, how I touched you, Y/N, I-...”
“It’s not that you did anything Izuku! It’s just...I fell in love with someone else and I didn’t know how to end it.”
You looked down in guilt.
“Haha...my prediction was right. I was just never lived up to what you wanted.”
“Izuku I-“
“It’s getting late L/N, let’s go.”
It was a quiet walk back to the dorms.
Aftermath
He just kind of went airplane mode
He wasn’t the same mumble-awkward teen he usually was
But instead he’d mostly stare out the window
Or endlessly write notes
He became engrossed in his studies
Rarely going out, barely talking to anyone, and even not eating cause he felt like it would interrupt his studying
When out on his patrols he’ll try to save anyone and everyone he can by himself.
And when he fails it sends him into a complete spiral
It makes him feel the same way he did that day when you two separated
Like he didn’t do enough so it was all his fault that it ended in this way
Regular panic/anxiety attacks
Bakugo actually leaving him alone and instead checking up on him and making sure he eats (forcibly)
Todoroki, Uraraka, and Iida routinely make sure he was actually going to sleep on time, or getting any at all
It did take him a while to actually get over it
And it totally affected how he looked at future relationships
When he does get with someone everytime he just suffocates them with attention, gifts, and anything he feels he isn’t doing right he’ll do it 110%
So a majority of his early adulthood he spent single- or in short-term relationships
Eventually he stayed single for awhile since he’d always compare them to you
Though he does have days where wish it was different
Wishes it was you next to him when he woke up
Wishes that you would hold his hand when he has a bad day at work
But when he has the bad days where the anxiety, hero work, and pressure gets to him.
He just thinks of the way you used to smile at him.
Eyyy so it was originally gonna be 3 but I realized I made it a little too long. I basically had really shit wifi so that was a part of the small hiatus. But also I was originally gonna be MHA boyos x Twitch Streamer Reader. Buuut Tumblr was cracked and deleted it so. 🧍Also do you want a part 2? Cause if not I’ll make my first fluff HCS for Valentine’s. Requests are open! So go wild
#bnha x reader#angst#mha headcanons#mha imagines#mha izuku#bnha x gn!reader#bnha x female reader#bnha x male reader#bnha x gender neutral reader#bnha x poc!reader#bnha hcs#mha x female reader#mha x male reader#mha oneshot#mha scenarios#mha x gender neutral reader#mha x gn!reader#izuku midoria x reader#midoriya x reader#midoriya x y/n#midoriya angst#bakugou angst#bakugou x reader#katsuki x y/n#bakugou headcanons#katsuki bakugō#mha#bnha#bnha angst
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Spiked - Minho
Part of @clandestine-lixie ‘s Smutmas Collab and a great excuse to get some more Minho on my page!
Summary: It’s pretty much tradition at this point that Changbin spikes the eggnog at the annual Christmas party. What happens though when secrets slip through drunk lips and aren’t forgotten the next morning? At least not forgotten by the very person you confessed to.
Pairing: Minho x F! Reader
Warnings: Drinking (not drunk when having sex), drunken confessions?, cursing, some angst in the beginning, smut, lovemaking, unprotected sex (stay safe kids), oral (f! receiving), lots of petnames, moments where Minho is kinda smug, lots of praise, it’s sugary sweet, mild sir kink for a moment, fingering, some playful teasing.
I sincerely apologize but I haven’t had time to edit this yet, so...please excuse any errors and stuff I’ll be getting to those when I have some time. I wrote over half of this today with a migraine so we’re working on fumes here. Also if something seems off I apologize, I’ve never celebrated the holidays before so I honestly don’t know what Christmas is like....sorry.
Word Count: 4,992
“Awe don’t tell me you’re already finished taking bets? I haven’t even got mine in on how long before Changbin tries to get us all drunk.” You tease the rambunctious group in the living room as you remove your shoes by the door. Christopher joining you a moment later to help you with your coat, hanging it up for you as he often did.
“Hey, don’t look so glum. Felix was just getting to the interesting wagers now anyways. Bets of any kind are in Minho’s care this evening. Gifts for tomorrow morning under the tree as always.” Chris caught you up with where the ever excitable boys had already impatiently gotten up to, before stepping away with your coat so you could join the others.
“So what did I just miss then? You know the topic that had you all in a giggle fit?” You raise a brow as you claim a spot in their circle, between Minho and Hyunjin.
“Oh we were just discussing the last bet. Not that you’d be able to participate anyways seeing how it was about you.” Jisung smirks wickedly until you match his gaze with your own that was just as devious, making him fold in an instant, or so you think, “Just betting on whether we thought you’d stay the night or not this year.”
“That’s not interesting though, I stay practically every year cause I’m too drunk to go home alone and none of you will take me.” You chuckle shaking you head, “ A better bet would be who will get drunk the fastest, my money’s on Hyunjin.”
Minho took your bet money counting it out before the other boys made their wagers too, writing them all down as more and more bets danced through your group. Both those typical for the Christmas party and those unique to this year for whatever reason. Debates starting up over a few of them as they always did.
“No I’m telling you Y/N will be the first one to admit it. She always gets loose lipped when she drinks.” Jisung teases despite the validity of his statement, something you’ve proven true to them at more than just the previous Christmas parties.
“Still who she likes is the secret she guards more than anything else, she’d have to be so shitfaced for that to come out it would be ridiculous!” Changbin counters, “ My money is on Felix, he was practically giving it away unprompted last year. It wouldn’t be too hard to get it out of him if we really tried.”
“Maybe that’s just cause Y/N doesn’t trust some of you to keep your mouths shut.” Christopher shrugs as he takes a seat, though all eyes are on him not because of the motion, but because of his words. Giving away that you had already confessed your crush to at least one person in the room.
“Wait. So you told him, but you didn’t tell me? What do we even gossip for? Let I’m lowkey offended right now.” Hyunjin whines used to being your partner in crime when it came to exchanging secrets about your group, even the things you’d never tell anyone else. Trusting the other to lock it down tighter than even their own secrets, even if you exploited that information at times. Like when Hyunjin conveniently ended up paired with his crush for every game of the spring break party.
“In my defense I was distraught and looking for you when it slipped. Chris was just the only one around, so he’s the one who got that information.” You counter knowing there wasn’t any taking it back at this point anyways, Hyunjin barely accepting your answer with a grumble. You were somewhat glad that it was the case though, he’d surely exploit the information tonight if he had it. In this case you should be safe, or so you thought before you noticed the subtle smirk on Christopher’s face before he glanced between you and the very crush you’d revealed to him....Minho.
“Hey, the boys sent me to see if you needed any help.” Minho steps into the kitchen watching as you moved to pull something out of the oven. Most of the food had already been prepped before you arrived so you offered to be the one to actually cook it. This being the fourth time in an hour and a half that Minho had been sent to check on you, each time he showed up besides you though he announced himself with those same words....the boys sent me. Them digging a little deeper into your heart whenever you’d hear them again. It implying that that he never actually chose to come to you of his own will, only coming to you since the boys told him to.
“I’m fine Minho. You can go back to the others.” Your words were sharper than you intended and it nearly made you wince, even if he didn’t return your feelings he was still your friend and you shouldn’t be so harsh to him. Sometimes your feelings managed to rear their ugly head before you could stop them though, something you’d feel regret for later
“Rose....your thorns are showing again.” Minho’s gentle voice says the familiar phrase as he moves to stand at your side. His nickname for you with a subtle announcement of the fact that your emotions were slipping out quicker than you often registered, something he always managed to stay calm through no matter how snappy you sometimes got, “I don’t know what riled you up, and I don’t have to. You should go take a minute to calm down though. I’ll watch the food.”
The way he spoke to you was enough to calm you down enough to regain your composure, but not wanting to be so close to him and unintentionally get worked up again you conceded. Slipping outside into the frigid air for a few moments to collect yourself before finding the others in the living room again, sitting besides Christopher now.
“The eggnog spiked yet?” You question with a soft sigh as you lean against his shoulder, causing him to chuckle and nod, “Good, cause I’m going to need a drink to make it through the night.”
“You drunk yet Y/N?” Changbin teases as he pours you another glass. Internally cursing him out, he knew damn well he put something stronger in the eggnog this year without any warning. Knowing that you and Felix at least would try to keep up with everyone else despite being two of the light weights of the group. The others in that category smart enough to stop before they could make a fool out of themselves, even accidentally.
“Not drunk enough to lose to Felix or spill any secrets yet, if that’s what you’re asking.” You call him out, brow quirking as if to challenge him to tease you again. The alcohol buzzing through your system making you more confident in challenging them, even if it slowed your wit slightly.
“Nah just wondering if you’re drunk enough to at least confess you’re spending the night? Well officially anyways. We thought of a way to determine who you’re going to stay with tonight.” Changbin brings his own glass to his lips, hiding his smirk knowing that Christopher had come to him and Hyunjin with a plan to rig it so that you’d end up with Minho.
“Fine, I’ll confess to that.” You chuckle not catching onto their schemes, “So how are we figuring it out then? What’s your big, genius plan?”
The sarcastic way you’re carrying yourself makes Hyunjin snicker, leaning towards Christopher, “Oh if only she knew...” He shakes his head slightly before shaping up, to hide any suspicious acts from you, “Simple, you’re just drawing the name out of a hat. You know the deal though, you only get to pick once and that’s who you’re stuck with.”
“Yeah, I know the deal.” You sit up further waiting for them to bring the hat over, the liquid courage running through you making you feel really good about your odds. It was only a 1 in 8 chance that you’d end up picking Minho, you were most likely safe from your crush. Well the possibility of embarrassing yourself while alone with him anyways. Or so you thought until you managed to pull his name out of the hat.
“Well.....I guess I’m rooming with Minho tonight....”
"Alright I think that's enough for one night." Minho takes the glass from you before you can get it refilled yet again. You'd lost count three drinks ago, hoping you'd get passed out drunk instead of having to face him. Luck wasn't on your side this evening though as Minho still had his wits about him and he refused to let you do something dangerous to your health.
"But Minho, if I'm not drinking what am I going to do?" Your whine is only added to by the small subconscious pout adorning your drunk face.
"We've both had enough and are going to bed now. It's 4 fucking 37 in the morning and you know someone's gonna be waking is up too goddamn early hangover or not. So if you wanna drink something it'll be water on the way to bed." Minho insists moving to help your inebriated form up from your seat on the floor and towards his upstairs bedroom.
"You can use the bathroom, I put some clothes in their for you so you can sleep comfortably." Minho sits on th edge of his bed, pulling out his phone to scroll through seeming almost entirely disinterested as you wobble off to the bathroom. Not getting far though before you have to pull the door open with a blush, your shirt wedged half on with only one arm successfully out.
"M-Minho I got stuck, c-can you help me?" Your words held no room for any hidden implications, especially not when panicked tears started to well in your eyes.
"Hey, it'll be okay. I'm gonna help you and you'll be just fine." Minho coos trying to reassure you, not knowing your panic was partly due to having to face him like this. His warm hands gently in the way they helped untangle you from the shirt you'd somehow managed to get trapped in.
"There you go, all better. Now go get those warm clothes on and get in bed before the cold settles in too much." He insists gently wiping away the last of your tears before you returned to the bathroom.
Silence filled the space when you returned, saying nothing as you switched places with Minho. Sliding into the bed while he was in the bathroom. It wasn't like you'd never slept there before, staying with the boys frequently meant that you'd slept in all their beds at some point but never since your feelings for Minho had developed so much had you stayed in his. Never after you'd felt like you'd embarrassed yourself beyond repair in one evening either. Not realizing you were sniffling with a fresh batch of tears until Minho returned.
"Hey what's wrong rose? You've been upset all day. Please talk to me, we don't like when you're upset." Minho's brow furrows as he uses the paw of his sweater to gently wipe away the tears again.
"I-It's just so hard Minho. I don't know if I keep doing this." You feel exhausted from the alcohol, the excitement throughout the evening, and now an emotional breakdown too and yet you needed to get this off your chest or even that might not be enough to let you get rest tonight.
"What is? What's hard? What can't you do?" Minho asks feeling his heart bleed at your distress even if he was able to stay as calm as he was.
"L-Loving you...."
You had passed out nearly the moment those words had left your lips, but Minho couldn’t, not after your confession. It had been the last thing he’d seen coming after trying not to look desperate to you all day. Yet you’d confessed to him of all people and it weighed too heavily on his mind for the next two hours to even consider getting any sleep. Only getting maybe two hours in before an excited Jeongin bound in to try and wake you both up so everyone could come downstairs for Christmas. Though Minho ensured he never got to you before he shoved him out with hushing sound. Slipping down behind him to grab some water, coffee, and pain meds for when you’d wake up. Telling the boys you’d had a rough night, probably drank too much, and should be left alone to sleep as long as you needed. Not expecting you to already be shifting awake when he returned to the room.
“Hey, you can sleep more if you want. It’s alright.” Minho gently brushes the hair out of your face as your eyes slowly blink open, leaning into the warmth of his touch without realizing, “I brought you meds and coffee if you’re felling hungover.”
You accept his help to sit up and take the meds, willing your fuzzy mind to clear enough to recall what happened the night before, “Minho...d-did I do anything last night? I-I can’t remember.”
Minho froze debating how he should answer that, he wanted to be honest with you, but after seeing how upset you were the night before he didn’t want to embarrass you at all, “W-Well, umm....”
“I-I said something didn’t I?” You could read his face for once, the calm demeanor gone and it telling you something had happened. The way his eyes widened at your question was enough to confirm what you thought as panic bubbled up and made your throat feel tight, “W-Whatever I said I didn’t-”
Minho cut you off by pressing his lips to yours quickly, feeling his own panic, “P-Please don’t say that you didn’t mean it. I think I would die if I lost the hope that you actually loved me back.”
The panic stopped almost instantly, feeling it dissipate as you processed his words, “L-Love you back?....Y-You mean you love me too? B-But you were acting like I was such a bother yesterday.”
Minho sits on the bed, pulling you into his arms before you could cry again, “I didn’t mean for it to come off that way. I-I just didn’t want to look desperate when I couldn’t think of a reason for you to love me too.”
“You’re an idiot, I was literally like so obvious.” You whine softly and he chuckles though his focus seems to shift as his gaze falls to your lips, “You can kiss me again you know....a-after all we both just confessed so it would make sense to...”
Minho’s eyes flick back up to yours as a smirk forms on his face, but he makes no smart comment as he gives in to what both of you are wanting. Leaning in to kiss you again, less panicked this time as his lips softly meld with yours. Though the both of you were pouring too much emotion into it for it to become anything less than desperate. Now that you had each other you needed that more than air itself, it remaining sweet despite the way you both chased after each other as if afraid this would all disappear if you separated for any real stretch of time. You feel the faintest trail as Minho’s hands move from holding you against his chest to cradling your head as he lays you back onto the bed.
“If you want to take things slower then just say so. I-I just don’t want to let you go.” Minho’s voice comes out so light you wonder how you hear it over the beating of your own heart, especially with how it races when his lips press a fleeting trail down your jaw between his words.
“Y-You don’t ever have to slow down Minho, I’ve wanted this.....wanted you for too long to do that now.” You insist with a low moan as his lips press a little firmer against a sweet spot on your neck.
Minho hums against your skin too caught up in you to care about words when he could show you how he felt better anyways. His hands gripping at your sides, thumbs rubbing soft circles as if he’s afraid he’ll break you by being too firm. So you decide to make a larger move, reaching to grip the hem of his sweater and pull it off him, letting your hands and eyes roam his newly exposed skin. The feel of his warm skin beneath your fingertips heating you up inside, the flame of desire flaring up faster than you would have thought possible if the person before you had been anyone other than Minho. Minho’s hands gripping yours before looking up at you for permission, hesitating even as you nod.
“You sure you won’t be too cold?” Minho’s fingers peak under the hem to rub gently at your skin beneath it.
“Well if I am then I guess you’ll just have to warm me up.” Your words seem to light the same fire in Minho as he doesn’t hesitate a second longer to his sweater off you. Hands running over your stomach to squeeze your breasts through the bra, leaning down to kiss you again.
“Guess I will.” Minho speaks against your lips, tone deepening as he lowers again moving to rid you of your bra as his lips trail towards your chest. You nipples pebbling slightly from the frigid air and his advances, but noticing the unpleasant chill that runs through you he presses against you more, letting his warmth radiate onto you. His warm mouth closing around your one nipple as his hand toys with and warms the other, switching between them with a new path of kisses to make sure they get equal attention. Until he gets impatient to show his affections elsewhere and his mouth lowers while adding soft nips between kisses to reach the hem of the sweatpants he gave you to wear. His fingers nimble as they work on the tie, though he doesn’t do more than that until he has permission from you to pull them down and leave you in only your panties.
“Oh the thoughts I had while helping you get untangled from your shirt last night my flower, and to think now a few of them are becoming reality.” Minho places a kiss to your hip, as his hands gently spread your legs, loving the way he’s able to fluster you so easily, “I’ve been dying for a taste and you’re not making it any easier for me. May I?”
The way he drags his thumb over the wet patch of your panties makes it hard to respond when you’re moaning and focused on that surge of pleasure, but the thought of getting something more urges you to form words, “Y-Yes please, I’ve been wanting to feel your mouth.”
“All you had to do was ask precious.” Minho gently blows against the wet patch making you squirm before kissing your thigh and slipping off your panties and lowering himself between your legs, placing the gentlest of kisses to your clit. The way you whine impatiently makes him chuckle against your core only making you squirm, his thumbs rubbing softly against your plush thighs as he grips them firmly to keep them open instead of impeding his work. He has no intent on tormenting you with teasing, not this morning anyways, but he still wants to savor the moment. The way he licks through your folds slow yet firm enough to spark delicious waves of pleasure through you, enough so that you can’t complain too much about his pace. Minho’s tongue and lips working everywhere to get every last drop of you that he can, while also focusing on your reactions to find what makes you feel the best. Knowing that his own patience will wear thin soon enough and he wants to know how to throw you over that sweet edge with more intensity than you thought possible, wanting to make all of you feel as amazing as his heart did upon hearing your confession.
“M-Minho please, I want to feel all of you.” Desperation bleeds into your words and actions as you squirm against his grip, hips trying to roll against his mouth and it has his eyes darkening with a new surge of lust. Nearly giving into you pleas, but you’re his first priority and it has him pulling away slightly making you whimper.
“Shh pretty girl, shh.” Minho coos softly, grip loosening as he runs his hands over your thighs and hips trying to get you to relax some, “Calm down, don’t get so worked up. I’ll give you what you want, I promise. You just need to calm down so that I can get you ready for me. We’ve waited a long time I know, but you can be good and wait just a little longer can’t you?”
This time a simple nod isn’t enough for him as he’s a little firmer with you in this moment, pinching your thigh lightly as he demands your words, “Y-Yes sir, I can be good for you.”
Minho has to take a deep, shuttering breath when he hears the word sir fall from your lips so perfectly, now was not the time to lose control, not when he wanted to show you every emotion he’d had trapped inside for so long. Not when he knew there’d be plenty of time for that later. Yet, it does have him snap a little as he dives between your legs again with more purpose. Lips suckling and kissing your clit like his survival depended on it, eyes locked on your face as he feels your fingers weave into his hair. The soft tug you give has him moaning against your clit, only adding to that pleasure as he eases a finger in, though it’s not long before he’s able to add another. Curling them with each thrust in search of the spot that would have you trembling against him, thriving off the pleasure he’d able to feed you right now, nothing else in the world mattering more than your cries for him and the way you lose yourself to the sensations. He knows he’s found that spot, when you’re clenching around him, practically sucking his fingers in, thighs shaking as your edge hovers so close and yet just barely out of reach.
“Minho, please I’m close. Please make me cum or give me your cock, I-I don’t know how much longer I can wait.” Your pleas sound magical to Minho, it being enough for him to give you what you want, speeding up his fingers as his tongue flicks against your clit as he brings it between his lips again. Willing to throw your over the edge for the first time, so that he can have you losing his own patience as your nails drag lightly over his shoulders. The was you fall apart beneath him is like a work of art, the most beautiful Minho has ever seen as he slips his fingers from your spasming core to gently lick over you and ride you through the pleasure until you come back to him. Kissing you briefly before licking his fingers clean while keeping his eyes locked on yours.
“You’re sweeter than I ever could have imagined my flower.” Minho hums in approval, his smirk almost showing more in his eyes than on his lips. You’re quick to respond though not wanting him to drag it out any longer.
“I bet we’d taste sweeter together, but there’s only one way to find that out now isn’t there?” You purr back as your fingers work to untie his sweatpants, gripping both them and his undergarments to impatiently push both down at once. Freeing his beautiful, hardened length to you finally. Not giving him to to ask for your permission before you rub his tip through your folds, leg locking around his waist to urge his hips closer. Your actions seem to be enough as he places his hands on either side of you, slowly pushing in and leaning in as he gives you a moment to adjust to him.
“You were awfully loud earlier flower, if you don’t quiet down then all the boys will know what we’ve been up to. Do you want that?” Minho’s question is somewhat serious, but it also holds a teasing to it as he’s proud of the fact that he can make you feel good enough to be so loud. You getting him back by rolling your hips against him and earning a groan from him. Hands slipping around his neck to tug him down and tease his lips with your own.
“Why don’t you shut me up then?” Your words are almost daring and they have him crashing his lips messily against yours as his own hips start to move against you. The patience between you both is gone as he finds a quick pace and yet he’s not manhandling or overly rough in his treatment, the erotic scene still one of passionate lovers. Baring their emotions to each other in the most desperate of ways despite not being able to handle a slow pace any longer. It being everything you could have asked for and more, right now you didn’t need the soft, slow lovemaking. You need this the desperate lovemaking, the kind that showed that Minho had been longing for you just as much as you’d been longing for him. The kind that showed that you were his now and that he would show you that in every way possible for as long as you would ask it of him. Where every move he made was to find what made you feel best, because you were what he most cared for in this world and where it was so much better than he could have imagined that he wasn’t sure if he could hold off. Though he was intent on your pleasure coming first as he angled himself to perfectly hit the spots he found brought you the most pleasure with each drag of his cock, thumb rubbing quick circles into your clit as his other hand tangled into your hair to keep your lips pressed against his. Taking in all of your moans as your pleasure explodes once more, the feeling of you cumming on his cock enough to send him spiraling into his own high as he moans into your mouth in response. Slowing his thrusts as he rides you both through your highs. Hands gently tracing shapes over your heated flesh, finding you glowing in the aftermath of your climax.
“Come on my flower, I’ll help you shower before we join the others.” Minho kisses your forehead softly before scooping you up to take you to the bathroom. Getting you in the steaming shower as quickly as he can so that you won’t have to face the cold while bare for too long and so that you two can be quick enough to be able to get some food in before the others ate everything. Not that he wouldn’t cook you up a good breakfast if it came down to it. Willing to shower you in all affections imaginable after what you both had just done. Though before long Minho had you both cleaned up and in warm fresh clothes, going down the stairs to join the others.
“Weren’t you wearing something different this morning?” Jisung questions Minho slyly as if they hadn’t all heard what you two had been up to earlier. Minho knew what he meant, but still didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Yeah well I took a shower, so I put on something else.” Minho shrugs pulling out a seat for you, before taking his own so you two could eat breakfast as well.
“Oh did Y/N shower too? Her hair is all damp still.” Jisung innocently inquires taking a bite of his pancake trying to hide his smug expression. Minho gently moving your damp hair away from your bare skin so that it wouldn’t get too chilled.
“Well then you obviously know the answer.” Minho rolls his eyes adding his portion of whipped cream and other sweet toppings to your plate instead of his own.
“Hm I just find that interesting considering we only heard one shower running.” Jisung smirks at you both as the others snicker and chuckle, teasing you all through breakfast while exchanging knowing looks.
The teasing had died down some later as you all gathered around to exchange gifts. Feeling your heart stutter as you hold Minho’s in your hands, the man seeming flustered as you go to open it. Finding a small necklace inside one that looked like a lifeline with a heart at the end, flipping it over to find his initials on the back besides yours.
“So if things had been different this would have been when I confessed.” He admits in a soft whisper into your ear, a blush adorning his cheeks so beautifully as you laugh softly.
“It’s alright I liked the way things turned out much better anyways.” Minho admits before the guys pretend to gag and whine at all the pda they were witnessing.
“Alright enough of the mushy stuff, you have to open mine next.” Hyunjin dramatically insists shoving his gift in front of you, a pretty envelope sitting on top and beckoning you to open the card first. Your attention immediately drawn to a special little note at the bottom...
PS. Minho’s name was the only one in that hat.
“Well guess I ruined your little plan huh?” You tease, flustering along with him as he presses a soft kiss to your cheek in front of everyone.
#stray kids#stray kids smut#minho#minho smut#lee know#lee know smut#lee minho#lee minho smut#smutmas
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Wake Up With You (Ask You How You Feel)
a/n: i took my ritalin for the first time in weeks and instead of cleaning my apartment, i wrote a Very Fluffy songfic. enjoy <3. i only read this a couple times so forgive any errors. all feedback appreciated!
calex fluff, song is "Go Outside" by Ratboys.
I wanna go outside again
I wanna sit back with the windows down and breathe it all in
I wanna go outside again
It's quiet outside the pub when Alex decides to go for it. The air is crisp and everything glitters underneath the streetlights. She'd gone with Casey who'd gone with Amanda who'd gone with Nick to get some fresh air, which really meant have a cigarette. Amanda and Nick had ended up in a cab very quickly, still attempting to seem like they weren't going to the same home.
Despite her aversion to sidewalks outside of bars at night, when Casey asked her to stay, Alex did, feeling safe. They keep moving closer, and Alex lets the overwhelming need to feel Casey win her over. She feels far more intoxicated than the one vodka soda she'd had would've made her.
Casey's hands are soft, but her lips are softer when Alex asks the question of a kiss. She thanks whatever forces there are that the clear answer is yes. Casey pulls her closer, tugging on her coat, but keeps the kiss delicate, like she's trying not to break anything. She pulls away-- Alex has to close her eyes, terrified that she's made a mistake and thrown away what chance she ever had.
"This is," Casey says, her voice giving away her smile, "I've wanted you to do that for so long." Alex feels her chest get warm at the admission. "Please tell me you want to do it again."
Alex nods, this time doing the pulling, a firmer kiss. "I want to do that as many times as I possibly can."
I wanna lay down in the sand
I wanna show up at the shoreline and drink Lake Michigan
I wanna lay down in the sand
"Why are you in Indiana again?" Alex's frustrated but happy voice comes crackly through the phone, almost the same frequency as the short waves. Casey's pockets are full of sand and her arms are coming up in goosebumps, but no part of her wants to go inside.
"Convention on torture methods," she says, pleased with the laughter she hears back, "Or the Novak family reunion."
"Mm. Well, I think you should come home."
"Oh yeah? Feeling clingy, Cabot?"
"I miss you."
"I wish you would come here instead." Casey snaps a wide-angle photo of the beach to Alex, doing her best to get the dunes and the lake in the same frame.
Alex gasps. "Is that Indiana?"
Casey laughs until there are tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. "A very small part of Northern Indiana, yes. The Midwest isn't all bad."
"Better when you're there."
And I wanna walk down my main street
I wanna listen for the birds who might be talkin' to me
I wanna walk down my street
They can be together and silent now. Alex is grateful for this fact because she can hardly speak. Laryngitis-- Dr. Warner had explained to her that it probably started as a minor infection and was made worse with all the talking and bad sleep. A round of antibiotics and steroids plus lots of fluids should make it better before the weekend is over.
They don't need to talk. Casey is idly playing with her hair, Alex's head in her lap, dozing off in the afternoon sunlight. Casey's reading a book, Alex listens to the pages turn.
"Do you hear that?" Casey asks.
Alex hums, before regretting making any vocal movement. She screws her eyes shut in pain.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, love," Casey says, rubbing her hand soothingly down Alex's arms, completely naturally using that word they haven't said yet. "I didn't mean to wake you. It was just a pretty bird."
Alex takes a moment to decide if the pain is worth replying. "Don't apologize for pretty things," she whispers, her eyes still shut, "And I love you too."
I wanna be eloquent
I wanna take all of my best friends and show them where I live
Oh, I wanna be so eloquent
"It'll be fine, Case," Alex says quietly, holding her waist before their guests arrive. Today's the day she meets the friends, which, Casey thinks, with no in-laws to meet, is making her justifiably nervous. "Neither of them is going to bite you."
"Why do I doubt that," Casey says, only half-joking. "You know us, lawyers, sharks..."
"And how different am I out of the courtroom? Or Katie, or Adrian, or Anna, or Jesse,"
"You gonna list my whole graduating class?" Casey traces her fingers along the little gold necklace with the square pendant Alex has taken to wearing around her neck.
"If it calms you down," Alex says. "If you're really too nervous I can tell Abbie and Serena to keep the takeout and we can go to bed early," she says, tucking Casey's hair behind her ear. "But they're really more like manatees," she says, finally eliciting a smile.
The buzzer buzzes, and a brief flash of panic passes through Casey. She leans in, kissing Alex.
"If they love you, I'm sure we'll get along."
And I wanna make myself a meal
I wanna wake up with you next to me and ask you how you feel
I wanna make us both a meal
If she keeps doing things like this, Alex thinks all the love will make her explode. Today it's coming home to Casey, dancing in the kitchen, the apartment smelling like garlic and oregano, the sounds of an old country album mixing with the sizzling of oil in a pan. With her resolve growing thinner and thinner every day, Alex can't help but wrap her arms around her waist, burying her entire self into her hair, strong shoulders, soft hips. Casey jumps, and this earns Alex a snap on the wrist from the handle of her mixing spoon.
"Baby, do you want to get burned?" She says, laughing into the words, relaxing into her touch. She holds Alex's hand, stepping them away from the stove. She guides her through the rest of the song, never once complaining about Alex's two left feet and frankly dangerous elbows.
Casey stirs the sauce, then tastes it, pursing her lips, blowing to cool it down first. She holds the spoon up to Alex with a raise of her eyebrow, watching her look of satisfaction at the taste with pride. "Going to surprise me next time?" She asks.
"Yeah," Alex says, pointing her gaze over her glasses, "it's worth it."
And I wanna love you 'til the end
I wanna float off with the angels and pick a fight and win
I wanna love you 'til
'Til thе end
As Alex keeps reminding her, they have no need for a piece of paper to know they're in love. The wedding dresses she has saved on pinterest tell a different story.
The ring has been patiently waiting in the closet since two weeks after Alex kissed her.
"Baby?" Alex's voice comes from their living room while Casey fiddled with the ring box, practicing how she would ask.
"Yes?" Casey says, still dreamy, taking the ring box in one hand and popping it behind her back.
"Come sit with me." Alex says.
They don't need to get married, she doesn't need to propose, and they don't need the ring, not to know they're in love, not to prove anything, not to follow the common path.
But when Casey had come home that day, Alex had looked so comfortable and secure sitting on the couch. It's everything: her hair in a bun, her thick-rimmed glasses, her tank top and cozy pants, the novel she was reading, the way she stretched over the couch, twisting to see her come in through the door. And, what had finally melted Casey, made her absolutely certain: the completely natural smile she has whenever Casey comes home, her eyes wide and wrinkling at the edges, her tongue slightly poking out between her teeth. She has to see that one, every day.
She walks out of the bedroom, having changed into her sweatpants, still hiding the ring behind her back as she slides onto the couch. The same smile greets her when she gets to Alex.
"Sorry, I got distracted."
Alex sits up on her knees, furrowing her brow. "Is everything OK?"
"More than," Casey says, pressing the same kind of gentle kiss as the first onto Alex's lips. Suddenly, everything she was going to say, all the long, grand, rehearsed speeches she'd had for this very moment feel all kinds of wrong. Instead, she slides herself just off the couch, kneeling, opening the box.
Alex gasps, a wide open smile, beginning to say "Yes" before Casey gets any words out.
"Will you marry me?"
---
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#calex#calex fluff#your honor they're engaged#help this is so sappy#and it's a songfix#i don't even care#alex cabot#casey novak#casey x alex#alex x casey#svu#svu fanfiction#This story brought to you by my affection for Lake Michigan and my horrible ordeal with tonsillitis in January 2021
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I Thought We Said No Yelling At 3 AM? || jjk
~I wrote this because I’m crying over Jungkook right now, thought I’d share with everyone ;-;
Genre: FLUFF
Warnings: None, I think there’s literally like one cuss word in here
Word Count: 2.5k
Pairing: Roommate!Jungkook x CollegeStudent!Reader
Info: Friends to Lovers :,) Jungkook is such a CUTIE PIE istg I love him so much, reader is sleepy and just wants to go mimi’s but Jungkook loves playing overwatch so much he has to SCREAM ABOUT IT
~Hope you enjoy, sorry if there are any errors, it’s literally three in the morning for me and I’m D Y I N G
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She needed to pay rent. That’s what Y/N kept repeating in her head as she listened to her roommate Jungkook roar with laughter as he played Overwatch with his friends in his bedroom.
Y/N was a foreign exchange student from America studying abroad in Korea. The language had always sparked her interest, so when she was given the opportunity to actually learn not just the language, but about the culture? She packed her bags and her flight as fast as she could and got on the next flight thirteen hours away and over the ocean from her home.
She rubbed her tired eyes and looked down at her phone to check the time. 3:49 in the damn morning. The worst part of this whole endeavor was she couldn’t even get mad at Jungkook if she tried. Not only was he the nicest boy she’d ever met in her life, but his looks seemed to make it harder on her.
With one look around her room, Y/N realized she wasn’t going to be getting any sleep until Jungkook got off his computer. Normally, she wouldn’t even care. What’s weird is that she’s actually a really heavy sleeper. She could sleep through hurricane Katrina if it meant she could sleep for a second longer.
“I JUST NO-SCOPED REAPER!” Jungkook shouted happily.
Y/N giggled slightly, rolling her tired eyes as she pulled herself out of bed. She headed into the kitchen, her slippers lightly dragging against the tile floor of their dorm lazily. The bright light of the fridge made her wince as she pulled out two containers of banana milk, poking a straw through one of them to sip on. The other was for Jungkook.
When they both moved in together, they decided to lay down some ground rules. They weren’t really rules per se, just obvious things that needed to get set. They were allowed to have friends as long as they weren’t too loud, anything in the fridge was theirs unless the container was labeled with their name on it, don’t make a mess, or if you do just clean it up. But one that they both agreed on right away? ‘No yelling at 3 in the morning, especially during exam season.’ Yet here Y/N was, sleepily sipping on banana milk while on her way to Jungkook’s room.
She swallowed the sweet milk and closed her eyes before knocking on his door. The sound of his soft voice almost lulled her to sleep had he not opened the door.
In all his glory, there he was. Headsets hanging around his neck, hair messy but still fluffy and floppy against his forehead, and those doe-like orbs that she just couldn’t get enough of. She almost audibly sighed at the sight of him, especially since he was wearing those grey sweatpants that almost made her risk it all during one of their movie nights.
“C-can I come in?” Y/N spoke up quietly, her voice hoarse with sleep deprivation.
“Of-of course!”
Y/N walked into Jungkook’s bedroom, the sound of his door shutting behind her making her shoulders slump. She looked at his computer and saw the game still going on. She figured she’d watch and see what the hype was about. Especially since Jungkook had been shouting at it since he got back from class.
He flopped back into his gaming chair in front of his desk, but he didn’t pull his headsets over his ears. Instead, he turned around to look at Y/N. His eyes looked guilty and she could hear her heart whine at how cute he looked.
“I-I didn’t keep you awake did I?” He pouted. “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time and I didn’t even know that I was being that loud,”
She giggled and held her hand up in front of him. He stopped talking and he smiled softly at the gesture. Well, at least she wasn’t mad at him.
“I got you some banana milk, do you want it?” Y/N offered, shoving the carton into his hands before he could even agree.
“I was literally just about to get some,” He chuckled. “Get out of my head dude,”
The girl giggled and got comfortable on his bed, looking at the screen behind his head. It was a loading screen, he was probably waiting for another match to start. Her eyes scanned over the bright colors on his screen, reading each of the words to see what was so fun about the game or even try to make sense of it.
“So what’s the point of the game?” Y/N began. “Is it like Call Of Duty?”
Before Jungkook could answer, Y/N heard the sounds of his friends on his headsets roaring through the speakers at her comment. She smiled and craned her neck forward to try and hear what they had to say about it.
“Ask her if she plays video games, Kook!”
Jungkook looked up at her knowing that she’d heard the question. The way he was looking at her nearly made her forget what was being asked. After realizing she had been staring at him a bit too long, she shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts.
“Yeah, I play! I’m not the best at everything I play like you are, but I’d say I’m a pretty decent player!” She admitted as honestly as possible.
“Maybe I’ll teach you how to play sometime then,” Jungkook suggested with a smile. “It’s basically a first-person shooter game, but it’s so much fun!”
The match started and Jungkook excused himself, throwing his headsets on to talk with his friends again while Y/N watched from behind. To say that Jungkook was good would be an understatement. He could play for an E-sports team if he really wanted to. His character was moving so fast and the way he was quick scoping everyone just screamed how good of a player he was. She couldn’t help but get lost in how fast his aim was and how precise his shots were.
As the game went on, Jungkook could feel Y/N’s gaze on the screen and he couldn’t help but smile stupidly the entire time she watched him. His feelings for her had been bad, but the second she mentioned she played video games too? He was ready to get on his knee and propose right then and there.
The room was quiet. Jungkook could hear Y/N move on his bed, and then her feet hit the floor. He figured she was going to head to her room and try and fall back asleep again. But she didn’t.
Y/N’s head found itself in Jungkook’s lap, watching the screen and waiting with him for the next round to start. He felt her yawn against his left thigh and he didn’t want to make any sudden movements. She was getting comfortable and he couldn’t help but dream about how she would feel in his arms. His head was spinning and his brain went cloudy at the feeling of the girl of his dreams resting her head in his lap.
“Hey guys, it’s late,” Jungkook began. “I’m gonna log off for tonight, but I’ll get back on tomorrow, sound good?”
Little by little, his friends started to agree, and soon enough, Jungkook was taking his headsets off and shutting his PC down. Y/N looked up with puppy-dog eyes, wanting to watch more game-play despite how droopy her eyelids were.
“You look really sleepy, don’t you wanna go to bed?” Jungkook inquired, his voice soft and clear in the air.
She stood up and stretched her limbs out, eliciting another yawn from her throat. She felt like she could sleep on a pile of bricks comfortably at this point and Jungkook could tell.
“I-I’M NOT TIRED,” Y/N shouted slightly, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t ready to pass out on the floor.
Jungkook jumped slightly at her sudden change in tone and started laughing, ruffling her hair slightly to tell her to calm down. She pouted at him and his heart soared.
“Hey, I thought we agreed on no yelling at three in the morning, hm?”
Y/N rolled her eyes and listened to him chuckle before protesting. “Says the one who was screaming since he came back from class and kept me up all night,”
She yawned again and felt her eyelids slowly start to lose the will to stay open any longer than they needed to.
“You’re lucky you’re so cute, or I would’ve raised hell,”
Her eyes were wide open now. She slapped her palm over her mouth and took a step back to register what she just said. Meanwhile, Jungkook’s heart was doing flips and his stomach was filled with butterflies from wall to wall. He smiled brightly, barely able to believe what just came out of his roommate’s mouth.
“I-I’m so sorry, that was inappropriate, oh my god I can’t believe I just said that,” She apologized. “I-I’m just gonna go to my room,”
He couldn’t let her slip away after that. So, he did what he thought was best.
Jungkook grabbed Y/N by her wrist, pulling her into his chest and holding her so she couldn’t escape his grasp. And before he knew it, he was stooping down to her height to press his lips against hers. Her lips tasted like the vanilla bean chapstick she always carried around with her. The sweetness of it all was nothing compared to how soft her lips felt against his. He swore he was in heaven the second he felt her kiss him back.
Her hands flew to the back of his neck, her digits twirling strands of his wavy hair. His hands slowly moved down to her hips, his fingers gripping them with such ferocity she was sure that he was going to bruise them into her skin. He was holding onto her like she was going to escape if he didn’t pull her closer to him, but somehow she found comfort in feeling this way. So vulnerable in front of him and falling for every trick he pulled from the book. He felt amazing. It felt so right.
When they both pulled away to breathe, Y/N couldn’t help but stare into his eyes, seeing a whole galaxy of stars just waiting for her to dive into. The way they shone even in the darkness of his bedroom made her swoon and she felt drunk off of how good he was treating her. How touch starved she used to be and how he so easily took all of that away and showed her what it felt like to be loved.
“I am so glad I moved in with you,” Jungkook admitted breathlessly. “From the first day we met, I thought you were the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen in my life, other than IU of course,”
She giggled and shook her head playfully.
“You really love IU, don’t you Googie?”
He sighed at the pet name she’d given him since they first moved in, shaking his head with a chuckle before rubbing his large, chocolate orbs.
“Let’s go to bed now, how does that sound?” He offered, pulling back the comforter on his bed and patting the mattress for her to lie down.
“That sounds amazing,” She sighed dreamily, closing her eyes the second her head hit his pillow.
Jungkook crawled in right next to her, throwing his hoodie over his head and snuggling close to her. His skin felt warm, his body was just radiating heat and she felt like a moth drawn to a flame. He wrapped his arms around her and she couldn’t have felt safer anywhere else other than in his arms.
All of the dreaming he’d done, the imagining of how perfect she’d feel curled up next to him never could have prepared him for this moment in time. He thought all of the cliche bullshit about fitting together like puzzle pieces in their lover’s arms was so stupid, but there was no other way to describe it than just that, and he didn’t hate it at all. Not one bit.
“Googie,” Y/N began, the rumble of his soft hum against his chest making her heart grow in size. “What does this mean for us?”
He sighed and pulled her closer.
“It means that I finally have the girl of my dreams right where I want her,”
He paused.
“And that we need to cross out ‘No yelling at three AM’ on our list of rules,”
#kpop#kpopxreader#bts#btsfanfic#btsxreader#jungkook#jeonjungkook#jungkookxreader#jjk fluff#jeon jungkook#kpop fanfic#kpop fluff#jungkook smut#kim namjoon#kim seokjin#min yoongi#jung hoseok#park jimin#kim taehyung#jeon jeongguk#bangtan sonyeondan#btsarmy#army#bts reactions#bts preferences#bts fanfiction#bts fluff#bts soft psd#bts smut
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WOO CONGRATS ON THE TEET YEET!!! also also, your poetry is beautiful. can i ask how you got started?
thank u!!! apologies for how long this answer got i’m waffling
so i feel like the start of my answer is kind of unhelpful because i really just. started writing? no one encouraged me or helped me or anything i really just ran with it on my own. a lot of how i write is really just how i think - the metaphors and similes and weird comparisons come very naturally to me. i have no idea if this is how other writers feel?? but i can’t give any advice on how to develop that beyond just. writing a lot.
i’ve find poetry to be really good emotional outlet, so a lot of what i write about is very repetitive in terms of themes - a lot of mentions of my dad and my stepdad, compulsions, teeth and while i don’t think any of what i wrote back then was very good or worth sharing it did give me a lot of practice in kind of. building a writing headspace?
i can’t really point to any specific inspirations early on because i really didn’t read very much. most of my favourite poems when i was younger were very structured and used a lot of rhyme - i really enjoyed war poetry when we studied it in high school for example - but i’ve always written pretty loosely, a lot of enjambment and playing around with formatting. i felt very drawn to mary oliver and richard siken when i discovered them in my mid-late teens (although i defintiely think that i understand them better rereading them now as an adult).
i’ve written many different styles of poem, but i really only have two style of writing behaviour: either i write total stream-of-consciousness and don’t edit it until i’ve totally run out of things to say - pompeii, reimagined from this collection was written this way, as was FOIL - or i write very conscious of the formatting from the start - some examples of this are unholied, ajovy and my father thinks i should learn how to code. sometimes there’s a crossover like in inelegant fingers but typically its one or the other.
the city i live in now has a pretty big ~poetry scene~ with several regular live readings, even more random events throughout the year, and people regularly coming from out of town to read here. i hiiiiighly recommend going to readings if you live somewhere that you can get to them because it can expose you to a really wide range of writers, from first-timers to people with long publishing histories. being involved in that scene really taught me that there’s really no hierarchy of talent, that there are fantastic writers at every ~skill level~. and more than anything, that it’s possible to hate a poem or poet and still get a lot out of their work. i’ve made a lot of friends through going to and helping to host events too :)
some recommendations for writing that i personally find useful:
spend a lot of time thinking about writing! when i’m out walking, even when i’m getting groceries, i’m spinning thoughts around my head about writing. i frequently think up what i think of as the ‘headline’ of a poem when i’m busy doing something else. write that shit down! keep a notebook or note on your phone and write them down.
relatedly: absolutely cannibalise your old poems. if you’ve got a piece you don’t like any more, or that you could never finish but you’re attached to it, steal your favourite lines and work them into soemthing else, or challenge yourself to rewrite that poem in a new style or format
i keep a word doc full of lines and phrases i liked that i couldn’t fit into anything or that weren’t developed enough that i go back to and take things from. sometimes it’s just a handful of words - ‘ transposing neuroses onto neurons’ sat in that doc for months before i used it - and sometimes its entire lines or even stanzas. i also paste in here things i deleted from existing pieces during editing - sometimes you like something but just not in its current setting yknow
give yourself writing challenges! there are allllll kinds of things you can challenge yourself to do. find a photograph you like, and try to write the feeling it gives you, or write about the content of it, or from the perspective of the person taking the picture. pick an album or song and listen to it on repeat and write. go to different places and see if your writing feels different there. write a poem first thing in the morning or on your lunch break or write before you go to bed. write when you feel really happy, or scared, or angry or tired. write about someone you love, or someone you really hate. write using found-language - blackout poetry is one version, but you can also cut words out and collage them. a friend of mine wrote an amazing poem using ads on gumtree. i like to hit random page on wikipedia and challenge myself to write using the words on that page or about the content of it. i dont find timed challenges helpful but some people do. experiment! ask your friends for prompts! if you’ve friends who also write poetry, give eachother challenges and give eachother feedback
also, if you’ve got friends who write, absolutely ask for their input on a piee if you get stuck. my friend tasha frequently helps me with my grammar and punctuation to improve clarity and many more people have helped me with ideas, promts, challenges and encouragement :)
my personal favourite: write about fiction! a lot of my favourite of my own poems were about this. ;kodos in error - which desperately needs reworking but that i’m nevertheless very proud of - was written about the tarsus iv storyline in the original star trek. the only overt reference to it’s origin is the name kodos in the title - and it’s very much about myself too - but ultimately the entire time i wrote it i was thinking about that plot. i’ve also written about fortnite and the expanse
play around with what you want from a poem. sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s all about the sound and the feel of it in your mouth, sometimes it’s about imagery and giving the reader a clear picture of something. Sometimes you want to do something fun with the formatting, or make it short and snappy or long and lilting. Try not to get stuck in one type of poem.
personally unless i’m writing for a specific thing - like a reading of to submit to a specific journal - i never think about a reader until i’ve finished at least the first draft. i’m not a professional; i share the things i like but ultimately i write for myself only. i don’t need to have an audience in mind for anything i write, and i think that helps me. not everyone finds this easier, but i do.
read poetry! read absolutely anything you can get your hands on - even when you don’t like something you can learn from it. poetry foundations
talk about poetry! i didn’t go to school for creative writing and most of what i learned in HS went totally over my head, but i find talking about poetry i like with friends to be infinitely valuable. discussion will help you find things you didn’t see before, and understand why the things you do like resonate so much, how you can maybe replicate those in your own writing etc.
if you’ve never written before, it is literally never too late to start. just get going! don’t let your inner critic get in the way, just write and write and try not to worry too much about whether its ~good~ until you get more used to writing. there are a thousnad different ways for a poem to be Good. if you write for emotional release and it works then its good. if you write to get other people to understand how you feel and that comes through, its good. if you just want to make it sound a certain way then its good.
<3
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Spencer Reid x Daughter! Reader [discontinued - rewrite is in consideration]
aight bet this is -basically- part 2/ continuation of the teaser I wrote :0 Ok, so I ended up deciding it to be an xdaughter!reader so I apologize if anyone was expecting something different lmao.
A/n: part 3 is not happening, I apologize. :)
-previously-
“Do you have any idea how you do that?” He asked me. “Umm not really. I’ve just always been able to do it. I’m 95% sure I have an eidetic memory, but I’ve never done tests or anything.”
“How would you like to come to our headquarters sometime and learn some more about what we do?”
-present-
I stood there shocked for a moment. "M-me? I um, I'd be h-honored!" I said, quite enamored at the fact that they were asking me of all people.
"I mean, I've read plenty on the workings of an FBI facility, as well as the work you guys have done, b-but actually going into one to study it? Oh my lords that's a whole 'nother deal! That's twice the amount of information at least, as well as more closer to accurate observations! Not to men- I'm rambling crap." I blushed a bit and pulled out my phone.
"let me um, just, make a phone call home. Vee is used to me staying late after school, but um, ill just call her to make sure she knows." I went outside in the hallway to call her.
-Third POV-
"Vee? You think that's her mother? Does she refer to her mother by her first name?" Morgan questioned towards Reid.
"I'm not sure, but it's definitely her guardian. Who else would she call to make sure they knew she wouldn't be home at her normal time?" Morgan nods as you come back into the room.
"I'm all good to go now. I'm assuming I'll be riding with you two?" They nodded. "Hey kid, do you know how long it'll take us to get there?" Morgan asks, wanting to see what else you could do.
"Well, the normal time between there and here would be around 45 minutes, but taking into the account the traffic level averages at this time and assuming we take the quickest route, it would be close to that, but slightly longer so approximately 55 and a half minutes." Morgan just laughed as you got into the back seat.
"How'd you figure that one out?" He asked as we started our way out of the parking lot. "Well, I've looked at a map of Quantico once before, and the quick route is 45.3 minutes away from my school. Since it's after school and a lot of parents are headed this way to pick up their kids, the traffic levels increase by 6 percent. So I averaged it out and added time based on the added percentage.”
“Reid, my man, she’s like the kid version of you. How old are you kid?” Spencer has been awful quiet, as he was using this time to observe you. “I’m 15. I skipped 7th, 8th, and 10th grade. I personally don’t think that intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I certainly have my theories. I’m not entirely sure about my dad, but I know it’s possible that I got my eidetic memory from him. While having an eidetic memory is extremely rare, It has been proven that memory ability can be passed down genetically. So, theoretically, it’s highly likely.”
The two men in the car looked at each other. They were definitely going to have to find out more. Spencer listened intently as you rambled on about other topics as they continued on their path to the bureau. “We’re here kid. Get your stuff ready.”
-Your POV-
I still couldn’t believe this was happening. Me, an average student, who was an outcast was about to learn more about profiling INSIDE OF AN FBI BUILDING!!! I never thought this would happen to me in all my years. The building was quite large. They gave me a visitor’s badge at the front, and I still had to get my bag checked. Once everything was accounted for, I followed Agent Morgan and Doctor Reid to the bull pen.
“My chocolate thunder, you’re bac- oh! who have you brought with you today? Hi! I’m Penelope Garcia! Who might you be?” I blushed and smiled at the brightly-dressed woman.
“I’m Y/N Barton, pleasure to meet you!” I couldn’t stop smiling as I marveled at the size of the building. “Based on my estimates of what I could see from the outside, you have to have at least 10,354 employees working in this building as a whole. This specific branch can’t have more than 500 employees though.”
“What- hang on-” Penelope typed something quickly into her phone. “You sure she isn’t a mini-Reid?! Those numbers were exact, and she’s never been here before!” I watched as she looked at me in awe and then what looked like realization. “Actually-I’ve um- got important stuff to do in my lair OK BYEEE!!!” Agent Morgan just laughed and patted me on the back. “Don’t take offense to her quick exit, kid. She’s always like that.” I smiled at him as I sat down at what I assumed was Doctor Reid’s desk.
I looked around and saw that a tall, professionally dressed, dark haired man came and talked to Doctor Reid. “I’m assuming he’s the boss? He’s probably wondering why there’s a teenager in the bullpen of a government building...” I said, nervously laughing. “Yeah he is. Aaron Hotchner. He’s the unit chief of the BAU team. He has a, what we like to call, a “resting Hotch face” if you know what I mean.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
Doctor Reid came back and stood next to Agent Morgan. “Did I miss anything?”Agent Morgan spoke up.“Nope, just the kid guessing the exact amount of employees here and actually getting it exact according to Garcia.” Doctor Reid smiled at me.
“I got approval from Hotch for you to observe us if we go on a local case and for me to do some tests for you so you know more about what you’re capable of.” I gasped and jumped out of his chair in excitement. ““Oh my goodness! I’m so excited! Thank you Doctor Reid!!” I eventually composed myself and sat back down, blushing.
“Just Spencer is fine. You’re quite the interesting one.” I just looked at him in awe. It was nice that someone could say anything like that to me.
I stayed in the bullpen for the most part. I met the rest of the BAU team and told them I would be observing them on their next local case after getting permission from my guardian. They were all really nice. JJ told me all about her son Henry, who is just so cute! I offered to babysit if she ever needed it.
Emily talked to be about all the places she’d been to, and taught me some words in Italian since I mentioned I was interested in learning.
-Third POV-
Garcia rushed out of her office with a file in hand, headed straight for the bullpen. She called out to Reid as she arrived. “Reid, a moment?” She asked him in a semi-whisper. He followed her into an empty office and she closed the door. “Garcia? What’s this about?” He looked concerned and confused.
“Ok, so, you know how we kept saying it was funny how similar Y/N was to you and that she was basically the mini-you? And you talked about how she mentioned that she had an eidetic memory and thought that she got it passed down even though it was extremely unlikely? Well, I actually got a good look at her earlier when we met and she looked a lot similar to you so I thought I’d-”
Spencer cut her off. “Garcia! The point?” She looked at him with wife eyes. “Sorry! Just- look for yourself.” She handed him the files she had printed. He opened them and read them at lightning speed, and when he finished, his eyes were wide as saucers. He looked up at Garcia.
“She’s your daughter.”
——————
JESUS CHRYSLER that took me too long to plan out. Anyway, hope y’all liked it! Sorry if there are errors 😳
Part 3? 👀
#criminal minds#spencer reid x daughter reader#x daughter!reader#criminal minds x teen! reader#criminal minds x reader#x teen!reader#spencer reid x reader#bau x reader#bau x teen reader
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Listen... I wrote this right after season 1 ended. I was so sad for not finding any posts in here about the series and I saved this piece for when I felt like posting it.And, finally, Tumblr is catching up!! And I feel like I must give you all this!
All grammar and punctuation errors are mine! Hope you like it!
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Mariana doesn't remember how she got to the hospital. Her brain didn't register beyond Ceci's words.
“They took mom to the hospital.”
She feels the phone slip from her hand, doesn't heart it hit the floor. Pablo approaches her, and everything becomes a blur. Flashes of reality are the only thing that moves Mariana. She grabs her purse, takes a cab, and tells the driver the hospital's name. Arrives at the reception and almost shouts 'Ana Servín' to the nurse.
Everything stops when the nurse asks her, 'are you a relative?'
A yes is ready in Mariana’s lips. But in this circumstance, is she a relative?
A friend?
After living for months at Ana's house. Caring for each other, the babies, and their families. After assuring Ana that neither the babies nor the children would be alone. That Mariana would be attentive and would take care of them as if they were her own.
After everything, they've been through. What were they?
Of course, love is there.
Mariana loves everything about Ana. From her controlling temperament to her obsession with appearances. It’s inevitable not to love someone like Ana. A successful and beautiful woman. Ready to give her everything for her family and job. Ana seems cold and snob, but once you get close and gain her trust, she gives her heart without second guesses.
In the end, Mariana suppresses the desire to say yes, we are family. The thought of lying crosses her mind. She could even say Ana was her mother. But that's not fair to Ana. Much less to her family. It's still not fair to anyone.
Once in the waiting room, she calls Ceci. Knowing how scared the girl must feel while trying to assure Ro that everything would be fine. Ceci's cries break Mariana's heart.
"Ceci. Ceci, I need you to calm down." Mariana wants to sound kind, but she also needs her calm. "Have you talked to your dad yet?"
“No,” Ceci���s voice cracks, “I thought of you when they were taking her away an-and…”
"I understand, Ceci." Mariana chokes back a sob, "but now I need you to be brave. For Ro, Regina, and Valentina. Alright?"
Ceci answers with a sound of affirmation, which sounds more like a sob.
"Call your dad. Tell him what happened and tell him I'm waiting for him here. They only allow her relatives in."
“But, you’re part of the family too.”
The sentence warms Mariana’s heart.
"I know. But our situation is hard to explain." Mariana wants to hug Ceci. "Talk to your dad. I'll wait here, and if anything happens, I'll call you. Don't worry. Your mom will be fine. Do you think Ana Servín is going to let them keep her in this place?”
The little giggle Ceci gives her soothes Mariana's anxiety a little. Yet, the worry won't pass until she sees and makes sure that Ana is okay. Until she talks to the doctor who treats her.
Juan Carlos arrives about an hour later, and Mariana doesn't know what to feel or say. He approaches her with fast and long steps. Mariana repeats what the nurses told her after she made a fuss at the front desk.
'Mrs. Servín is stable and out of danger.’
As Ana’s husband the nurses attend him immediately.
With a glance, he apologizes to Mariana before following a nurse.
While he is with Ana, Mariana ruins her nails with her teeth. She tries to distract herself. Calls Pablo and asks him to take Valentina to Ana's house. Asks him to stay with the children for a day. He replies that he already has Regina's bag ready and texted Elena about the incident. Sometimes Mariana forgets that Pablo is reliable.
Wonders if she should call Tere too.
Would that be inappropriate? She decides to send her a text. After all, Altagracia is with the kids, and Pablo would be there too. Her message is short and direct. Only to inform her mother that Regina and Pablo will be at Ana's house. That she and Juan Carlos are in the hospital because Ana had a little accident.
“She’s still asleep.” Juan Carlos sighs as he plops down next to Mariana. “The doctor said it was most likely stress. He asked me if she had been eating and sleeping well.” He rubs both hands over his face. “It's my fault.”
Mariana places her hand on Juan Carlos' shoulder as a sign of support and understanding. He gives her a sad smile.
“I’ll ask the nurse to let you in.” He holds her hand. “thank you for being here.”
He walks a few steps before turning around.
"She loves you, Mariana. She's just hurt." Mariana bites her lower lip. "If she didn't love you, she wouldn't have reacted the way she did." She tries to understand the meaning behind his words. He shoves his hands on his pants pockets.
"She needs you more than she could ever need me," he adds without looking up from the floor.
Seeing Ana in the hospital bed feels familiar and strange at the same time.
Familiar because that's how they met. In a small hospital. Ana looking as elegant and powerful as always. And if not because her round stomach, Mariana wouldn't have known Ana was about to have a baby too.
Strange because, now, Ana looks older than she is. She looks as if she had aged ten years in few days. Dark circles under her eyes and pale skin. Her short hair unkempt.
That was the consequence of the lies three people in Ana's life kept from her.
‘It’s my fault.’ Juan Carlos words repeated in her head.
It was all their fault.
Taking Ana’s hand, Mariana leans and kisses the corner of Ana’s lips.
Ana feels worse than she did when she accompanied Mariana to Elena’s gig. The day when her life started to go to hell.
That must be where she is now. Hell. Her punishment was to make her feel like this. It's a reasonable punishment, she thinks. Not only did she sleep with her ex-boyfriend, but she also had feelings. Feelings. For a woman much, much younger than herself.
For God’s sake!
The voice of her mother, berating her for all her mistakes, didn’t help at all.
That's when she noticed it, the weight in her right hand. Covering her eyes with her left hand. She tries to get used to the light, the dizziness, and the headache.
Once her focus on the wall didn’t make her feel sick, she turns to her right.
The machine monitoring her heart captures the exact moment when her heart skips a beat and quicken. Mariana is sitting next to her, her face propped up on the bed, one hand holding her own hand. Ana blames the painkillers for clouding her mind. For making the first coherent thought be how beautiful Mariana looked while sleeping. With a loose ponytail and bare face.
Ana moves a lock of hair away from Mariana’s face, her thumb moves of its own volition and caresses the girl’s cheek.
Tears fall like raindrops.
Ana missed Mariana.
At first, Mariana thinks the little sobs are coming from Valentina. It takes her a whole minute to remember where she is and why. She sees Ana trying to suppress her crying.
"Ana." Mariana sits up. "Are you alright?" Her voice sounds hoarse, the product of waking up and the air cooling the room.
Ana tries to calm down, Mariana sees the pain and desperation in her eyes when she fails. Her crying increases when Mariana caress Ana's cheek. Ana pushes the hand away, tries to punch or slap Mariana in the shoulder and arm as hard and as many times as she can.
The entire floor hears their combined screams of 'I don't want to see you here' and 'Ana, calm down, please.' The screaming makes the nurses call security. And by the time they arrive, it seems like a tornado formed inside the room. Ana throws everything within her reach. Mariana tries to cover and avoid all the projectiles.
Everyone in the room rushes to help Ana when they see her body falling against the bed.
The security men leave the room, moments later, as Mariana apologizes.
"She needs to rest." The nurse emphasizes before leaving too. As if blaming Mariana, who can only reply with a guilty smile.
"I want you to leave too," Ana says as she massages her temples.
"Please, Ana." Mariana begs. "Someone has to stay with you."
Ana looks at her with so much anger that Mariana feels it pierce her soul.
"You already made me look terrible to the staff of this hospital." Ana's mouth tightens into a pout that indicates anger and indignation. "What more do you want? Your mother takes money from my husband, you live in my house for months. You even won my children's affection. Changed my life. What else do you want from me? Do you want my money too?"
"Don't be unfair, Ana. You proposed me to stay at your house until Valentina stopped breastfeeding." Mariana approaches the bed with a firm step.
Both women look at each other, challenging the other, as they have always done since they met.
"I love you, Ana," Mariana whispers after a while, averting her gaze.
"Please." Ana snorts.
It's the frustration that drives Mariana to lean into Ana's personal space. To press their lips together. She finds resistance, and Ana struggles, trying to push Mariana away. But Mariana continues kissing Ana. And when she nibbles the edge of Ana's lower lip, Ana stops struggling.
Cradling Ana’s face the kiss turns desperate.
Wild.
Mariana wants to convey all her love and admiration for Ana with each kiss. With each nibble, she wants to promise Ana that she would never make the same mistake.
“Ana.” Mariana sighs between kisses.
Once the desperation passes, the kisses slow down until they're little peaks. Both know that they would have time to talk about how their feelings change everything. Mariana knows this is the right time to give some explanations – while Ana is silent, for once.
When Mariana starts to walk from one side of the room to the other, Ana's brain shuts down for a moment. She dedicates herself only to look at Mariana. Regina and Valentina's mother. To remember all the moments they spent together. Their fights, their talks. The times Mariana made her understand that one couldn't control life sometimes. To live in the moment. No rules, no pretensions.
Mariana cries while trying to explain her side of the story.
"Ana," Mariana takes her hand and kisses it, "please. Forgive me." She presses their foreheads together and squeezes Ana's hand.
The weight she felt on her chest disappears. Ana feels whole again.
In control.
"I already did." She sighs. "I can't live without you anymore." Ana chuckles.
In those lonely days, Ana realized that the anger passed from Juan Carlos to Tere and, finally, to Mariana. It was then that the anger turned into sadness and then regret. She regretted not having Mariana and Valentina by her side.
The disappointment when Mariana confessed knowing everything and didn't tell her was still there. But to a lesser extent. Ana knew it was not going to be easy. Ana was not one of those people who forgave fast. She knew that.
But for Mariana, she would push that part of herself and try.
"I love you too, Mariana."
The sound of Marian’s phone interrupts the comfortable silence they created.
"It's Ceci."
Ana snatches the device. Talks to her daughter, instructing her to pack a bag with a few clothes, her phone and tablet. And when she finishes, she dials Cynthia's phone next. It makes Mariana roll her eyes. Of course, Ana acts like she owns the phone.
“You do know we still need to have a very serious conversation, right?”
Mariana smiles and nods. “Later,” Mariana holds Ana’s hand again, “right now you need to recover.”
Ana smiles.
They will talk. Scream at each other.
But Mariana trusts they will find a way to move on.
After all, Regina and Valentina need both their mothers.
#madre solo hay dos#daughter from another mother#Don't worry guys#Ana was just very tired and fainted#Do we have a ship name already?#I mean... it could be AnaMari or MariAna...#Or whatever#Let me know#and i hope you like it!#one-shot#TheLoneWolf48 writes
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When We Were Young
Word Count: 3.6k
Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader
Summary: Reader is the woman that Javier left behind on the day they were to be married. She sees him again ten years later, when he returns to Laredo for a short break from hunting Escobar.
Warning(s): Angst, Strong Language
A/N: This is the first Javier fic that I’ve ever written, so if there are any glaring factual errors, please let me know. This is based off the song by Adele but I listened to this version as I wrote. I encourage you to listen to it as you read for the Full Experience.
Masterlist
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There is nothing special about your Thursday afternoon trip to the little grocery store on the corner. You’re always in and out in about twenty minutes with the few things that you need to get through another week in your little Texas apartment. You always smile and wave at the pharmacist behind the counter. You chat with the elderly woman, Elaine, that always comes at the same time you do, helping her get the two cans of green beans she needs when she can’t reach the shelf.
It was the same every time.
Until you reached for the loaf of bread on the highest shelf of the aisle.
A much larger hand lands on top of yours, though immediately is drawn back at the contact. You hear a soft apology and a half-hearted chuckle. The sound of the man’s voice sends your heart racing, and you turn to face him.
You take a step back as you meet the eyes of Javier Peña, the bread long forgotten as a quiet gasp escapes your lips. It’s been years since the last time you saw him, since he left you standing on the altar of the little church down the street. He’d moved to Colombia without a word to you, leaving his entire life behind to chase after Pablo Escobar. You only knew what happened to him after that day because his family was so close to yours.
“Javier…,” you finally breathe, hating the way your chest is constricting and your throat is growing tight with the threat of tears. You shouldn’t be this upset. You should be angry. He left you without a word and still years later you’ve never gotten an apology either.
Javier feels his heart sink to his stomach when he realizes that it’s you standing in front of him. It’s been nearly a decade since the last time he saw you. The years have been kind to you, much more so than they’ve been to him. He has so many things that he wants to say to you now, so many questions he wants to ask, but instead he keeps his mouth shut.
He murmurs your name in reply, giving a slight nod of his head. There are a thousand things running through your head, but you settle on the simplest question of them all. “What are you doing here?” It’s not a demand. You’re simply curious. After all, he’s been the talk of the town since he started working with the DEA to take down Escobar. And with the drug lord still out there, you’re not sure why he would choose now to come back to Laredo.
Javier doesn’t answer immediately, trying to process the fact that your first instinct was not to lose your temper. He deserved that and more after the suffering he had put you through. He can still remember his father’s voice on the other end of the phone, not sparing any detail of your pain when they’d told you that your groom had run off. Just the thought leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“I, uh...have some time off. My partner pretty much demanded that I get out of Colombia and come back home for a little while. Bastard practically shipped me off himself,” he told you, his hands coming to rest on his hips.
“Does anyone know you’re home yet?,” you ask. He had to have kept his arrival a secret for you to not have known he was coming. Word travels fast in your small corner of Texas. Word about Javier Peña travels even faster.
Javier shakes his head. “Just Pops. He asked me to make a run for a few things so now everybody in Laredo will know before tomorrow morning.” He shakes his head slightly. He never wanted to be a celebrity.
“Well, tell the family I said hi. I should...get going,” you say softly. You move past Javier and head for the door. Your weekly shopping trip will have to wait.
Javier quickly turns to follow you, his hand darting out to catch your forearm. “Wait! I...I wanna talk to you, if you’ll let me. Let me buy you a drink one night while I’m here,” he pleads, his expression softening as you stop in your tracks and look at him again. He doesn’t try to hold on when you take your arm from his grasp.
“I don’t know about that, Javi. It was a long time ago. I’ve moved on and let go.” Even as the words escape your mouth though, you know they’re not true. For a while you thought you had truly healed from the loss of losing Javier, but with him standing in front of you now, you know that there’s at least a small part of you that will always love him, will always ache for what could have been.
“Please. I–”
“Goodbye, Javi. Welcome home,” you interject, cutting him off before he can say anything else, before you can lose the composure that you’re already barely holding on to.
With that, you leave the little grocery store and start the short walk back to your apartment. You have to force yourself not to look back. That would be the straw to break the camel’s back.
Javier watches you for as long as he can, and even when you’ve gone beyond his eyeshot he still stands there, frozen in place and time. He’s always known that leaving you behind was wrong, but seeing you again now, it’s made him realize that not showing up that day was the worst mistake of his life.
---
When you shut the door of your apartment behind you, the tears you’ve been holding back finally escape you, falling in silent waves down your cheeks. The flood of longing drowns you, leaving your chest aching as you stand there, wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do with yourself now.
Pulling yourself together for just a moment, you go into your kitchen, taking the half-empty bottle of red wine from your refrigerator and taking it upstairs to your room. You’ve already been forced to walk memory lane, you might as well finish the course.
There’s a box buried in the back of your closet. It’s no bigger than a shoebox, and years of neglect have left it dented and beaten. It takes you some time to find it, but when you do, the tears start all over again. The only indication of its contents are the two words written on the lid in Javier’s handwriting: “Mi Amor.” You sink to the floor with the box tucked under your arm and the bottle of wine in your hand. Settling with your back against your nightstand, you take a swig straight from the bottle before opening the box.
The first thing you pull from the box is a set of old Polaroids. The dates are all written on the back, spanning from your late teen years until just a few months before your would-have-been nuptials. They’re all pictures of you and Javier, and you find yourself smiling wistfully at a candid your mother took the day you helped move him into his dorm at Texas A&I. He’s got his arms wrapped around you from behind, face buried in the crook of your neck. Your face is bright with a smile, but the old picture is hiding the tears you remember blurring your vision. He’d only be a few hours away, but anything more than right down the road had been too far.
You go through more of the box, steadily draining the bottle of wine at your side until it’s finally empty. You’ve found old keepsakes, like the dried-out corsage from senior prom and a stolen takeout menu that you’d sketched his face onto during a dinner date. There’s old letters from your college separation, filled with lofty promises and declarations of love. All are lovely reminders of what had been.
It’s not until you find a wedding invitation near the bottom that you really begin to fall apart.
Your grandmother had insisted on getting them made, even though you didn’t think it was necessary. Everyone in Laredo knew when and where the wedding was, and to you and Javier it didn’t matter much how many people showed up in the end. You run your thumb along the edges of the thick cardstock, warped and yellowed from a decade of sitting untouched. You then hold it close to your chest, taking care not to let your tears fall onto it and further damage it.
If you had been entirely sober, you would think this whole display was pathetic. Things are different now. You’re not a lovestruck young woman eagerly awaiting a new chapter of life. You’ve made a life for yourself, diving headfirst into your career. It’s a life without Javier, one that you can’t even wish to bring him into. And yet, that’s exactly what you’ve found yourself doing.
You come undone when you get to the bottom of the box.
You didn’t know they were there. You don’t know how they made it to this box. Your best guess is your mother. But in a tiny drawstring pouch are three rings: your engagement ring and the two silver bands meant for you and Javier.
Sharp, painful sobs break from your chest. You throw everything haphazardly back into the box and press the lid back down. With as much force as you can muster, you push it across the floor, watching it slide until it hits the wall and comes to a stop. You rest your head back against your nightstand, squeezing your eyes shut. It feels like you’re in that back room of the church again, surrounded by yours and Javier’s family, the world crashing around you as his father delivers the news that Javier is gone.
You hate him. You hate him for what he did to you, what his return is doing to you now.
But you’ll be damned before you admit that you don’t still love him too.
---
You’re not sure why you let your mother drag you back to the Peñas’ ranch two nights later. Though you didn’t tell her about your run-in with Javier at the store, she knows he’s home. She knows that he’ll be there. Hell, Pops had arranged the little get together just to celebrate his son’s unexpected homecoming.
And yet you’ve taken more care with your appearance than normal, being more careful with your makeup and making sure that while your outfit isn’t overdressed for the evening, it still looks nice. You’re at war with yourself, wanting to be angry and distant with Javier, but you know that there’s no way you can hold yourself to that. And you’re sure that he won’t let the night pass without trying to talk to you again, without trying to make you understand why things ended the way that they did.
You sigh softly as you walk with your mother to the old barn. It’s been cleaned up and turned into an event venue, and your heart clenches as you realize that this was where your wedding reception should have been.
Your heartbreak doesn’t last long, because before you even see him coming, Javier’s dad has you wrapped up in a tight hug, which you are more than happy to return. You love this man like family, and he’s done nothing but treat you like his own daughter for most of your life. It’s a good thing you came. It probably would have broken the old man’s heart if you hadn’t.
“It means a lot that you came, hija. I know it’s not easy for you to see him again,” he tells you, keeping his voice quiet enough that you’re the only one that hears him.
You just shake your head slightly. “You couldn’t keep me away if you tried, Pops. It’s good to see you,” you reply.
He chuckles and pinches your cheek gently before letting you go, and as he moves on to greet your mother, you go to take a seat at one of the many tables set up in the barn. There’s already a decent number of people, which makes it easier for you to remain undetected. It doesn’t take you long to spot Javier, though. He’s surrounded by a small group of people: his aunt and a couple of his cousins, all of them undoubtedly wondering about his adventures in Colombia. He’s too busy to try and steal you away anytime soon.
When your mother joins you again, the two of you make your way to the long table filled with various dinner options. Your stomach growls in anticipation. One of the best things about being adopted into the Peña family is the food. As you put your plate together, you chat with his uncle who moves down the other side of the table. Slowly, you find yourself relaxing and finding peace in being surrounded by so many wonderful people.
You take your seat again, and other members of the family start approaching you, all of them glad to see you. You laugh as Danny pulls you to your feet and brings you to the dance floor, but quickly lose yourself in all the fun. It’s the most fun you’ve had in a long time, and you certainly haven’t been this relaxed since Javier came back.
You’re so absorbed in dancing around and switching partners that you don’t notice that Javier has joined until he’s taken your hands in his and pulled you to him. You stop in your tracks then, freezing as you realize just how close the two of you are. You can feel his body heat. He’s just as warm as you remember. Suddenly you can’t breathe and you feel like the walls are closing in on you.
Javier releases his hold on you and you look quickly around you, glad that no one seems to have noticed the interaction. You walk away without a word, trying to make your way out of the barn. You need some fresh air and some distance from all of the people.
“...She’s the one Jav left on their wedding day. Poor thing,” you hear.
The words make you turn on your heels, and you find that there are more people looking between you and Javier than you had originally accounted for. Tears gather in your eyes and you make a swift exit from the barn. You hadn’t wanted to become the center of attention. In fact, it was the one thing you had prayed that you would be able to avoid tonight.
Outside, the air is much cooler. There’s a breeze blowing through the Texas air, and gradually you feel your lungs opening again. You start walking, with no true destination in mind. You can’t bring yourself to go back inside and face everyone again, to face Javier.
You find yourself in the middle of one of the pastures. All of the horses have been brought in for the night, leaving you out there on your own. You take in a deep breath, looking up at the endless sea of stars above you. The noise of the barn has faded. From this distance you can’t even see the lights from inside anymore. You let the atmosphere calm you again.
Javier watches you leave. He listens as the loud chatter begins to die down, replaced by the quiet musings of his family as they look back and forth between the two of you. He wants nothing more than to run after you, to escape the eyes that are trained on him, the voices that declare his sins for all to hear.
His head is hung as he makes his way to his father’s table, a sigh escaping his lips as he drops himself into a chair.
“Síguela,” his father commands. Follow her.
Javier looks his father in the eyes, sees their hardened gaze. He doesn’t have to be told twice. He’s lost you once. He can’t let it happen again.
You don’t even hear his footsteps in the grass.
“I need you to hear me out,” he says, the sudden voice startling you.
“Go back, Javier. Before you give them something else to whisper about,” you demand. You don’t want to hear what he has to say. You just want to be left alone. You’re ready to go back home, despite the night being so young.
You turn to face him, finding him standing with his hands on his hips, his chest heaving with a sigh. “Please. Just let me say this and then you can go about the rest of your life hating me. But you have to know that I never wanted to hurt you,” he says. His voice is getting louder with his mounting frustration. You feel your blood boiling in your veins, adrenaline sending your emotions to an unprecedented and volatile high.
“It doesn’t matter if you meant to hurt me or not! It happened!,” you yell back at him, finally losing your temper. You’re grateful for the few feet that separate the two of you. You’re not sure you could resist the urge to slap him across the face if you were close enough to do it.
“Listen, I–”
“No, Javier. You listen,” you seethe. “I loved you. I fucking loved you with every fiber of my being. I had my whole life with you planned. And then you left me at the fucking altar. Gone. Vanished. To godforsaken Colombia to fight off the drug lords. The only reason I knew what happened to you was because of your dad!”
“I wanted to tell y–”
“Shut your goddamn mouth, Peña. I’m not done. Not even close,” you tell him. You can hardly breathe now as you lay into him, letting him have every bit of the anger and the hurt that you have been bottling up for almost ten years. This is the release that you hadn’t even realized that you needed. It feels good. Freeing.
“And what happens then? You become a fucking celebrity. Everybody wants to know where Javier Peña has gone off to and what kind of heroics he’s been performing to save the world from the cocaine crisis. Me? I’m just the poor dear that got left behind. Oh, you know who she is right? You know she’s still never been married? It’s a shame, but did you know he’s off in Colombia now? I heard he’s become quite the ladies man.We’re all so proud of him.” You mock the women that talk about you like you’re not standing right next to them.
Javier closes the distance between you, taking you by the forearms and holding you close to him. And then his arms are wrapped around you and your face is buried in his chest. You can feel his heart pounding against your cheek. His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, which is now tucked under his chin. There’s nothing that can stop the sobs from escaping you as your anger immediately melts down into anguish.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, hermosa. Please…,” he begs you.
“Don’t call me that,” you say, though you don’t have the strength left in you to give it any force.
“Leaving you...it’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made. But I couldn’t bring you to Colombia. And I couldn’t have you following me. It was easier to leave you than to run the risk of having to bury you. That doesn’t make what I did right. There’s nothing that I can do to make it right. You can hate me if that makes it better, pero te quiero, amor de mi vida.” Those last words are desperate and strained. He’s just a few words away from breaking down with you. He wants so badly for you to understand that he hates himself for what he’s done to you.
You pull back just enough to look at him. “What did you say?,” you ask breathlessly.
“Te quiero, amor de mi vida,” he rasps.
“No,” you cry in disbelief.
“Yes,” he insists, “Not a day has gone by that I didn’t wish I could change things.”
“Damn you, Javier…,” you whisper.
He cups your cheek in one hand. “You can go on hating me forever. That’s fine. As long as you know that I love you.”
You gaze up at him, taking in every detail of his face, all the new wrinkles and lines that weren’t there before. But he’s still just as beautiful as the last day you saw him so long ago. Colombia has hardened him, made him rough where he was once smooth. But he’s still the same man whose memory lives in the box on your bedroom floor. He’s still the man you loved when you were young. He’s still your Javier.
“I could never hate you, Javi. Not forever,” you murmur. You watch as his whole face softens. “Tú eres el amor de mi vida…”
And then his lips are on yours, one hand still on your cheek and the other pulling your waist closer. You close your eyes, both of your hands gripping his shoulders. You hold onto him for dear life as all of your pain and longing seeps into the kiss. Finally all the broken pieces of you are whole again, your soul reunited with its other half.
You’ve waited a long time for Javier Peña to come back home to you.
---
Tags: @theforceofdisney @aerynwrites @hail-doodles @murdermewithbooks
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In Your Atmosphere
Shawn Mendes x reader | 9,005 words
Whew. Hi guys. It’s been a while, I know, but actually having freetime again has made me realize just how much I miss writing. This piece is sort of a rollercoaster and I didn’t really edit it or anything, so please excuse any errors or if it just sucks in general. It’s based on In Your Atmosphere by John Mayer, and I’m pretty sure it’s also the first and only thing I’ve written that isn’t an AU. I hope you enjoy it, and I always love hearing what you guys think!!
There was a reason why the majority of Shawn’s songwriting and recording happened in Los Angeles. The city had always possessed a certain spark that inspired him, and the only way he knew how to describe the feeling it gave him was through the music that he wrote there. Its atmosphere was incomparable to that of any other city in the world, even his hometown. Toronto would always be special to Shawn, but Los Angeles was a different kind of special. It was magic.
It was no surprise, then, to find Shawn once again back in L.A. making music even though it had only been a few months since he’d released an entire album. He had a love affair with the city, and he just couldn’t seem to stay away from the beckoning of the lights, the sunsets, the ocean. To him it was all music waiting to be created, and he wouldn’t dare deny himself the opportunity.
Since his first visit, he’d always described the city as being full of magic; so full to the point where he didn’t think it possible to get any better. That, however, was before Y/N walked--well, tripped--into his life; once she happened, L.A. came to mean something else to Shawn entirely. Something more.
He remembered it clearly, the first time he met her. Cliché as it was, he wouldn’t change a thing about it. He was sitting on the beach, facing the ocean as he hummed melodies in his head and scribbled lyric after potential lyric into the leather-bound notebook that rested on his outstretched legs. She was walking through the sand, a tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye clutched between her delicate fingertips as her eyes were glued to the yellowed pages. Neither person was aware of their surroundings, and it was inevitable, really, that she would trip and fall over his legs, belly-flopping into the sand as her book went flying.
Shawn was up immediately, his music disregarded as he offered a hand to help her back on her feet. “I’m so sorry,” he gushed, gently lifting her to sit up. He handed her book back to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she sighed, brushing the sand off of her faded t-shirt. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who apparently never learned to watch where I’m going.”
He laughed lightly, and it was a sound she could get used to hearing. “Must be some book you’re reading.”
“The Catcher in the Rye,” she stated, smiling as she flashed him the cover. “It’s not exactly a typical beach-read, but it’s one of my favorites. I’ve probably read it, like, seven times by now.”
“Never heard of it,” he admitted, and her eyes blew wide. Shawn was immediately taken with her, physically evidenced by the fact that he couldn’t seem to wipe the stupid smile off of his mouth though he’d yet to even learn her name.
“Never?” she quipped, sitting down in the sand across from him as though she were preparing to recite the entire plot of the book.
He grinned, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not a big book-reader, I guess.”
“Well what do you like, then?” she pressed, absentmindedly shaking the sand out from between the worn pages of her beloved novel. “If it’s not books?”
“Music,” he admitted, leaning back onto his hands as a wave reached shore. The tide had been steadily creeping closer to him as his hours spent on the beach increased. He’d figured that he’d have to move soon, but as this girl’s expectant eyes bore into his he found himself wishing that a wave would come swallow him whole and carry him out to sea. He almost couldn’t bear to be in the vicinity of the aura she was casting over him; she was overwhelming in a way he’d never known before.
“Everyone likes music, though,” she answered, studying his face carefully.
Shawn laughed, staring down at the sand underneath him. “True, but not everyone plays music for a living.”
“A musician,” she drawled, in a tone that made it hard for Shawn to tell if she was intrigued or mocking. He quite quickly learned it was the former.
He talked with her until well after the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, the impending darkness and creeping tide the only forces strong enough to tear him away from her. She’d recently graduated college and moved to L.A. upon receiving the internship of a lifetime, and though she’d only been living in the city for a year, she seemed to be just as enraptured with it as Shawn was. He let her scribble her phone number on a page of his notebook after a promise to call her the next day, and the two went their separate ways as they tried to race home before the moon could reach its peak in the sky.
The thought of someone else's writing in his precious music journal would usually make Shawn’s skin crawl; his team was constantly teasing him about how protective he was over it. But Y/N, however, could have up and run off with the thing and he’d have been powerless to stop it. It wouldn’t have been the only piece of him she’d run off with that night, anyways.
Since that day, whether Shawn consciously recognized it or not, Los Angeles was no longer his city, with its entire atmosphere at his disposal. It was her atmosphere now. She was city lights and sunsets and the ocean and music all rolled into one; every bit of inspiration he’d ever needed. She was a million songs waiting to be written, all for him to discover and create.
Any time he went to L.A. after that, Y/N was the first thing on his mind. It was almost routine; his plane would land, he’d collect his things, and he’d race to her door. She’d greet him with the same brilliant smile and mind-numbing kiss as always, and they’d spend every waking second in each others’ presence. Even doing nothing at all meant everything to them; each was intoxicated by the other in the best, most addicting way.
It stayed like this for a while: effortless, constant. Shawn always made sure to clear time in his schedule at least once a month to go see her, and she was in Toronto any chance she got. But then a cloud began looming over the two of them, casting a fast-approaching shadow that would soon coat them in darkness: tour. A nearly nine month long tour, the weight of which pressed down on the couple more intensely with each passing day until, finally, Shawn couldn’t stand to live in a state of denial anymore. Tour was happening, which meant he would have to leave Y/N for longer than he ever had before.
It was a lazy Sunday morning lying in bed when he decided to bring up the subject for real--no more dancing around it. They needed to talk about it. Y/N had her head on his bare chest and one of her legs slotted between both of his, gently toying with the pendant that seemed to never leave its home around his neck. Shawn sighed, and Y/N immediately knew he had something to say.
“What’s up, love?”
Shawn shook his head, prepared to back out of the conversation and continue living in his state of blissful ignorance for a little while longer. “Nothing.”
But Y/N knew him better than that. She lifted her head and tilted her jaw back to look at him, immediately met with worried brown eyes staring up at the ceiling. “Hey,” she coaxed, reaching a gentle hand up to turn his face towards hers. “There’s something on your mind.”
Shawn laughed halfheartedly. “There’s always something on my mind.” Y/N was silent, beginning to gently trace light patterns on his chest as she awaited his inevitable continuation. “It’s just...tour.”
Y/N frowned. “What about it?”
He looked at her, hesitating, nervousness clear in his eyes. “Come with me.”
“On tour?” she queried with a small smile, convinced he was just beginning to make up some whimsical daydream for the two of them to live in until reality eventually hit.
His eyes searched her face for any sign of what she might be thinking. “Yes.”
She let out a breathy laugh. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m completely serious,” he defended, and when Y/N looked up at him, she knew he was.
“I can’t just up and leave my job,” she answered, but the look on Shawn’s face seemed to insist that she could. “I can’t,” she repeated, more firmly this time. But how was she supposed to adequately explain that to someone whose job was quite literally packing up and leaving a million times over?
“But you’re my inspiration,” he whined, teasingly, and she smiled softly as she reached up to lightly scratch her fingers along his scalp. “I need you there.”
“Everything inspires you, Shawn. You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he admitted quietly, the true vulnerability he’d been feeling about the situation finally coming to the surface. Y/N sighed, burying her head into the warmth of his neck.
“We’ve made the distance work so far,” she reassured, but she was mostly trying to convince herself. “It’ll be okay. I’ll come see you when you play here.”
He groaned. “But that’s so far from the start of tour.” He looked at her once again, melancholy brown eyes half-lidded. “Come with me,” he repeated once more, but it was a weak plea; he knew the answer was no.
“I want to,” she breathed out, and Shawn’s grip on her tightened like he was worried she’d be stolen away from him right in that moment. “But I can’t. It isn’t practical for me.”
“I know,” he sighed, reluctance evident even in the way the breath left his chest. “I just wish you could.”
“Stop doing that,” she responded sternly. “It’s not fair to me. You know I’d go with you in a heartbeat if the circumstances were right.”
He let out a heavy exhale. “I know,” he repeated. “‘M sorry.”
“You love touring,” she continued. “The time will fly and it’ll be over before you know it.”
“And the second it is, I’ll get on a plane to LAX and race to your door like I always do. You just have to promise me you’ll be here.”
“I’ll always be here,” she affirmed, her voice not above a whisper. “It’s up to you to come back.” And in that moment, she was certain that he would.
--------------------
The day of the first show, Y/N was physically unable to focus on anything other than Shawn. Her rockstar boyfriend was about to play to thousands of screaming people in a city so far away from her that it made her heart ache, and as much as she wanted to hear his voice, she knew he was too busy to spare the time to talk to her. So she didn’t call, because she knew he’d answer regardless of whether or not he had time, and she waited with painful anticipation to hear from him later that afternoon.
When her phone finally lit up with a FaceTime call just after 1 p.m. (around 11 at night in Amsterdam, she’d memorized the time difference), Y/N surged to pick it up with cat-like reflexes.
“Hey,” she beamed, taking in the way Shawn’s cheeks were still red from the high of his performance. “How was the show?”
He stared back at her with a goofy, love-drunk smile on his face. “Amazing. Best way to start the tour.” At this she smiled, but Shawn’s lingering pause caused her upturned lips to waver. “Would be even better if you were here.”
Y/N’s sighed. “You’re still the Shawn Mendes people are dying to see whether I’m there or not. You’ll be okay.”
“I know,” he mumbled. “Still want you here, though.”
“I want to be there, too,” she admitted. “But--”
“But you can’t be, I know,” he interjected. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Desperate to change the subject, Y/N went fumbling for something lighter to bring up. “So where do you play tomorrow?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Another night in Amsterdam, then Belgium in a few days.”
She smiled. She’d never even been out of the United States until she went to visit Shawn in Toronto, and here he was getting to experience all of Europe in the most amazing way. “That sounds incredible,” she answered, and she meant it. Her eyes lit up at the thought of getting to hear about all of Shawn’s adventures around the world.
“I miss you like crazy, Y/N.”
“You’d better toughen up,” she teased, ignoring the way his words made her heart twist. “You haven’t even been gone a week.”
“So?” he laughed. “I already can’t wait for the L.A. show.”
“I’ll be here,” she smiled. “It’s on you to come back to me.”
“I’ll always come back to you, sweetheart.”
And Y/N believed him, as she always did. But as Shawn got further into his tour and time began to pass, her certainty started to fade. At first, things were fine. They spoke every single night without fail, and usually more during the day. He’d share stories and make her guess what he’d bought her that day, promising to bring back a souvenir from every city he stopped in despite her insistence that she didn’t want him to bring her anything except himself and stories of the things he’d done and seen.
But as days faded into weeks and weeks into months, Y/N and Shawn’s consistency began to fade as well. With increasing frequency, she saw videos on his friends’ social media accounts of him out partying in seemingly every major city in the world. It wasn’t that she was opposed to him having fun, but nights that he had sworn to call were now being spent having drunken adventures without her while she sat at home finding any excuse to absolve him from all of his broken promises. But it only got harder, because he eventually stopped making time to call her altogether. The perspective Y/N lacked, however, was that the less Shawn heard her voice, the easier it was for him to be apart from her.
It was stupid, he knew. But it was a temporary fix, and it worked for him.
But Y/N didn’t want easy; she never had. She didn’t want someone who would avoid the challenge when it came to distance. She wanted Shawn to fight for her, and after all they’d been through together, she didn’t think that was too much to ask. Shawn’s lack of communication led Y/N to an immense confusion and worry as to why he was suddenly being so distant. It didn’t make sense. Does he not miss me?
The one thing Y/N had to look forward to through all of the tumult was Shawn’s fast-approaching tour stop in Los Angeles; when she would finally get to see her rockstar after months of being apart. She bought a new outfit specifically for the concert and had her best friend come to do her hair on the night of the show, not caring that she was acting like an over-excited teenager getting ready for prom. Her mind was clouded with thoughts of Shawn and all of the memories they had made under countless cotton-candy L.A. sunsets, ready to begin adding to the collection in only a few hours. Y/N thanked her friend for the help and hugged her goodbye before ducking into her small car, ready to begin the drive to the venue. Before pulling out of the driveway she fired off a quick text to Shawn: Leaving home now. I can’t wait to see you.
As she drove she had to constantly remind herself to slow down, that there was no need to race to the arena; Shawn wasn’t going anywhere. But as much as Y/N was excited, she was equally as nervous. She hadn’t really had a solid conversation with Shawn in weeks, and even then he had seemed detached and preoccupied. She pushed the thoughts from her head as the miles went by. Relax. Everything will be fine.
She eventually pulled into the closest parking lot she could find, and she rolled her car into a spot and made her way up to the arena, shooting Shawn a quick, excited text. I’m here!! See you soon. She quickly found the side door of the venue, met with a burly security guard. She smiled, but the guard didn’t seem to warm up to her. “Main entrances are around the front.”
“Oh, I...This is actually the door I’m looking for. Shawn or someone from his team should have given you my name, I think.”
He raised his eyebrows at her, and Y/N couldn’t tell whether he was amused or frustrated. “Yeah, I’m sure he did, sweetheart. You can’t get in this way.”
Y/N stumbled over her words a bit, taken aback by the trouble she was being given. “I-I’m serious. I’m his girlfriend, I have pictures I can show you.” She flashed her lockscreen at him, a photo clearly depicting Shawn and Y/N lighting up the display. “Don’t you have a boss, or something?” she pleaded. “A person you can call that can get ahold of someone from Shawn’s team? I promise they’ll recognize me. I don’t mean to inconvenience you, and I’m sorry for being pushy, it’s just that I’m really looking forward to this and they’re expecting me and I don’t have another way into the arena.” She knew she was rambling, as she often did when she could sense that something was wrong, and she was powerless to stop the slight shake in her hands as she waited for the security guard to respond.
The guard sighed, and Y/N felt her heart drop as she realized the answer would still be no. “Look, kid. As convincing as that all is, and as much as I personally would like to open this door for you, I can’t. I have a job to do. I wasn’t given your name, which means I can’t let you in unless someone comes to get you. I’m sorry.”
Heartbroken, she backed away, fighting the weight that came with knowing that Shawn had forgotten about her, had forgotten to tell security she was coming. Had he really not remembered? She shook the thoughts out of her head, convincing herself that maybe he’d just gotten distracted. She reached for her phone to dial Shawn’s number, but her shoulders fell when the call went straight to voicemail. She tried Andrew this time, but again...nothing. After frantic calls to Cez, Josiah, Mike, anyone whose number was saved in Y/N’s phone, all went to voicemail, Y/N finally gave up. By now, it was surely too close to showtime for her to reach anyone.
With no ticket, no security clearance, and no way of reaching anyone inside the stadium, the only thing for Y/N to do was go home. She felt pathetic as she walked down the sidewalk in her new outfit, mascara-stained tears streaming down the face she’d spent hours putting makeup on. Hundreds of fans passed her as they walked in the opposite direction towards the venue, and with each smiling girl she saw, Y/N’s distress heightened. How could he forget about me?
As she ducked into her car she hoped with all the strength she had that her phone would ring before she got home. She’d accept the rushed apologies and speed back to the arena, caring about nothing except finally seeing Shawn. He’d smile so brightly upon seeing her again that it’d make her heart skip a beat, and she’d bounce along to the songs she loved so much from the side of the stage, counting down the seconds until she could hug him again. She wished for that; willed it to happen.
But she was sorely disappointed.
It wasn’t until nearly 11 p.m. that her phone finally rang, and despite her current state, Y/N’s heart still jumped upon seeing Shawn’s name lighting up the display. She lunged for it, taking a deep, steadying breath before tapping the button to answer the call. “Hey,” she mumbled, reaching up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek.
“Hey,” came Shawn’s breathy voice through the speaker. “Where are you?”
She scoffed, pressing a hand to the forehead that ached from crying. “I’m at home.”
A pause. She could easily visualize the furrow in his brow. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t get into the venue.”
“What? What do you mean?”
She laughed, but she wasn’t amused. “You really don’t know?”
“I…”
“No one gave my name to security, Shawn,” she snapped. “I drove all the way there and I couldn’t get in, so I left.”
The other line was silent as Shawn realized his mistake. “I--Fuck. Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry. I was so distracted, and the Q&A went over time, and--”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she cut in, surprising even herself. “The bottom line is that you forgot, and it took you this long to call me. Your show has been over for more than an hour.”
“Why didn’t you call someone else to let you in?” he demanded, accusation lacing his words.
“I did!” Y/N cried out, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “God, do you really think I didn’t try that?”
He sighed, and Y/N could picture his defeated expression in her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing you can do to fix it now. I just--.” She sighed. It wasn’t worth it. “Nevermind.”
“You just what?”
“Nothing. You should go to sleep, you’re probably tired.”
“Y/N,” he pressed, and it was clear that he was frustrated.
“Okay, fine,” she burst, all of her frustration bubbling right back up to the surface. “I was going to say that I was so excited to see you tonight, but I don’t even know why.”
Shawn sucked in a breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Y/N tried to relax, knowing that she’d reached the point of no return; she was finally going to confront him. “I just can’t help but wonder if you ever actually cared that I was coming. I’ve hardly heard from you in months, but I still got all dressed up and was so happy I couldn’t breathe just to see someone who won’t even talk to me. I’m done making excuses to justify why you never call anymore.” She laughed dryly, realizing how pathetic that sounded; he wouldn’t even speak to her to make the excuses for himself. “You act like I don’t even exist half the time. I don’t know why I thought tonight would be different.”
There was some shuffling from the other end of the phone, and Y/N heard a voice--probably Brian’s--asking Shawn where he was going. A few more seconds passed and suddenly the background noise was gone. “Look, I’m with the whole team right now. Can we please talk about this later?”
Y/N’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious right now, Shawn? I’m sick of being avoided. I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“I’ll call you later, alright?”
“No, you won’t,” she burst, sadness quickly dissolving into anger. “If you hang up the phone right now you will never talk to me again.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N.”
“Don’t even try to make me feel like it’s ridiculous that all I want is an explanation.”
She could hear him exhale into the receiver, and her heart pounded with anticipation as she waited for him to finally speak. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard.”
“What’s hard?”
“Finding time for this, I don’t know. It sucks being away from you. Hearing your voice--I just can’t do it.”
While she appreciated that Shawn was finally beginning to open up to her, Y/N didn’t fully buy what he was saying. “It wasn’t too hard when you first left,” she rebutted. “You didn’t seem to find it hard when you were forcing yourself to stay awake at night just because you wanted to talk to me.”
“It’s not that easy, alright? You don’t know what it’s like. You aren’t here.”
A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “Wow.”
“What?” Shawn asked, but it was flat.
“I just hope you’re not insinuating what I think you are.” She was not about to put up with him spitting her absence back in her face as though her staying behind was unreasonable.
“It’s just that—” he stumbled, trying to keep his frustration in check. “I tried countless times to get you to come with me. You know you could’ve.”
“So now the way you’ve been treating me is my own fault?”
“No, it’s just that if you were here--”
“Well I’m not, Shawn, and you need to get over it. You aren’t the only important thing in my life. I wasn’t about to give up my job—the job that I love—to have some nine-month, fairy tale vacation across the world. Don’t you dare put this on me.”
“I’m not trying to--” His voice stopped as someone talking to him became clear through the line. He was quickly back on the receiver, but it wasn’t to pick up where he left off. “I have to go.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I have to.”
“Shawn.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“I’m not doing this with you. If you hang up right now, this is over.”
There was a pause long enough to give Y/N the slightest bit of hope, but as quickly as it had come, it was shattered. “I’m sorry,” Shawn said. Then the line went dead.
--------------------
March. It had been three months since the end of Shawn’s tour, and nearly six since things had ended with Y/N. Not a day went by in those six months, though, that he hadn’t fallen asleep thinking of her and woken up wishing she were there. It was excruciating, and worsened in knowing that it was entirely his fault.
Shawn was nursing a small glass of whiskey and staring blankly into a television screen when he felt his phone buzz from the arm of the couch beside him. He figured it was just Brian wondering where he’d been; he hadn’t been in the mood to go out with his friends even though he was home in Toronto, and he knew they were wondering about him. He set his cup on the coffee table and reached for the device, sighing when he instead saw a message from Andrew.
I need you to verify that you’re good with the dates for LA so that I can confirm our jet.
While tour had only been over for three months, it was time for Shawn, unwaveringly hardworking as he was, to get back to the studio and begin working on new music. But, for once in his life, Shawn wanted nothing less than to go to L.A. and pretend like it hadn’t been six months since he’d last spoken to Y/N. The text from his manager sent a sinking feeling reverberating through his chest, and he was instantly averse to the idea of following through with the plans he’d made months before.
He immediately dialed Andrew’s number, who answered after the first ring. “Shawn?”
“I don’t think I want to go to L.A. anymore,” he blurted, and he could envision the way his poor manager’s eyes had probably gone wide in confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“I just don’t,” he said flatly, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he lied, but his manager knew better.
“You love Los Angeles. I know you do.”
“I don’t,” he mumbled.
“Be honest with me, man. What’s wrong?”
Shawn groaned, tugging tired hands through tufts of unruly brown hair. “I don’t know what it’s like to land at the airport and not go right to her. I can’t be in the same city as her. I’d die if I saw her.”
“Y/N, you mean,” Andrew mused, but of course he knew that was exactly who Shawn was talking about. “So don’t see her.”
“But I’d die if I didn’t see her, either,” Shawn admitted. “Especially knowing I was only a car ride away. So I just don’t want to go.”
His manager sighed. “We already booked the house, Shawn. The whole team is coming.”
“So tell them not to.”
Andrew laughed lightly at this, and as much as Shawn was frustrated by it, it also grounded him in the realization that he was being a bit ridiculous. “The way you feel right now will make for some incredible music, Shawn. I know you, and I know that you'll kick yourself for not taking advantage of that.”
“The last thing I want to do right now is write music.”
“How many times have you said you can’t wait to have your heart broken so that you can write an album about it?”
“I didn’t know it would feel like this.”
“Use that.”
“I can’t. It fuckin’ hurts.”
“Then go see her.”
Shawn paused to ponder whether or not he’d heard Andrew correctly. “I already told you, I can’t do that.”
“I’m serious,” Andrew replied, his tone still as even as it always was. “I think you clearly need to have a conversation with her. You haven’t seen each other in person since you left for tour.”
“She won’t want to see me,” Shawn mumbled.
Andrew let out a heavy breath. “You’re right, she probably won’t. But I think that for both of your sakes, you need to talk face-to-face. You need closure, and I’m sure she does too.”
“God, I’m such an idiot,” Shawn mumbled, and Andrew did well not to comment on it.
“Just relax. You’re going to Los Angeles and we will all be there with you to support you like always. Whether or not you see Y/N is up to you, but I think you need to go.”
Shawn let out a heavy breath, but it didn’t relieve the tension in his shoulders. “Fine,” he groaned. “I’ll go.”
“The original dates still work for you? Two weeks from now?”
“Yeah,” Shawn assented, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I’ll see you there.”
--------------------
The first thing Shawn did after dropping his bags off at the house his team would be staying at in Los Angeles was take the keys to one of the rental cars and drive straight to Y/N’s house.
He had a box filled with souvenirs he’d bought for her at various tour cities tucked into the passenger seat--a box that he’d been dying to give to her. It drove him crazy to see it lying around his condo, and he jumped at the opportunity to finally hand it off to her.
As he drove, every bone in his body screamed at him to stop. Even the world around him seemed to be mocking him. The sunset laughed at his foolishness for thinking that his relationship was different from the thousands of others it had seen come to an end under its golden touch. The streetlights, beginning to flicker on as the sun set further, told him to never mind, forget her. Even the mountains ridiculed him, their deep-set lines seeming to smirk back at him as they awaited a surely inevitable disaster.
He stared at his hands, clenched at ten and two on the steering wheel. It made him feel lonelier, if possible, knowing the hand that usually rested in Y/N’s as he drove was now forced to join its companion on the wheel. Her voice wasn’t coming from beside him directing him where to go because, no matter how many times he swore he knew his way around the city, he was lost without her guidance. He felt empty being in her city without her. It was wrong.
He finally managed to find his way to her quaint house, parking on the street parallel to it. He immediately felt his heart jump into his throat upon realizing that he actually had no plan for what to say or do. He was worried she didn’t love him anymore the way he still loved her, even though she had every reason not to. But he didn’t care; he still needed to see her. If it meant that he could hear her voice, he’d let her tell him every day that she didn’t love him. He craved her that badly.
Shawn hesitated as he raised his knuckles to the front door, eyeing the broken doorbell and wondering if she’d gotten it fixed in the time he was gone. He finally decided to just knock as he’d always done, and it wasn’t long before the familiar beige door was opening in front of him. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her after nine excruciating months. Her hair was longer and she was clad in one of the shirts he’d left behind for her, but he couldn’t ignore how tired she looked.
Y/N’s face fell the second she saw him, and her immediate instinct was to slam the door in his face. But her mind and her body were at a disconnect--her thoughts racing, but her limbs frozen. She didn’t know what to do, so she just stood there, wide-eyed, staring back at him.
“Nice shirt,” was the first thing he could say, and Y/N looked down at herself like she’d forgotten what she was wearing.
“Sorry, I, um, I need to do laundry really badly,” she answered sheepishly, folding her arms over her chest and knowing that it was a blatant lie. She was surprised she remembered how to talk. “You can have it back.”
He cleared his throat, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Don’t apologize. Looks right on you. You look beautiful.”
Y/N’s expression remained stiff and cold. “I didn’t apologize.”
“Yes, you did,” he pushed back, a semblance of a smile playing on his mouth.
Y/N leaned against the doorframe, eyeing the box under his arm and already feeling drained of energy. “What did you come here for, Shawn?”
“I, uh--” he stammered, searching for words that wouldn’t sound as childish as he felt right then. Hearing her say his name didn’t feel as right as it always had. “I wanted to give you this.” He thrust the box out at her, but she didn’t take it.
“What is it?”
“I got you something from all the cities we stopped at on tour up until, uh, you know,” he trailed off, reaching a hand up to scrub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I don’t really have any use for this stuff and I was in town so I figured I should just give it all to you.”
She skeptically took the box, reaching inside and gingerly pulling out a small metal cactus that sprouted from a base that read Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. She sighed and dropped it back inside the box, turning behind her to set it on the floor of her entryway.
“There’s no way that you came all the way here just to give me this stuff. What is it really?”
Shawn let out a huff of breath, running a hand down his face. She knew him so well that it drove him crazy. “I don’t know,” he answered, and it was the truth. “Just missed you, I guess.”
“Bullshit,” she scoffed, looking to the side so as to avoid eye contact. She never swore, and it tugged at a separate piece of Shawn’s heart knowing that he was the one to make her.
“I did,” he pressed, floored at the accusation that he hadn’t when, in reality, he’d missed her so intensely that even his bones ached.
“You cut me off and then gave me six months of radio silence,” she bit back, her words accusatory. “So I don’t believe you.”
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as he concentrated on finding any words that could possibly make this better. He finally looked up, coming to terms with the fact that the damage he’d inflicted was certainly irrevocable. “I messed up, okay? And there will never be enough words to tell you how sorry I am.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you could say to make me forgive you, anyway.”
He swallowed, hard. He had no plan for what to say to her, and the longer she stared at him the more his body felt like it was on fire. “Will you at least let me apologize? Even if you don’t forgive me.”
Y/N was quiet, her incriminating stare unwavering. “Fine,” she reluctantly assented, not missing the way Shawn let out a heavy breath of relief.
“Can I come in?”
“No. You can apologize just the same out here.”
“It’s just that--,” he paused, sighing. “Okay.” He’d wanted to remind Y/N that she’d probably start yelling at him at some point, because he knew her and he knew how she was sometimes unable to fight back her emotions, but he refrained. He was lucky she hadn’t slammed the door in his face by now.
He took a deep breath, and Y/N tapped her foot in impatience. On the inside, however, her heart had begun to beat just a tiny bit faster. She wasn’t happy to see Shawn, but, much to her dismay, she wasn’t exactly mad about it either. She was mad at him, that much was clear, but he was still Shawn. Seeing him here, in front of her, made her realize that her feelings weren’t as far-gone as she’d convinced herself they were.
A nervous laugh slipped from his mouth. “I wasn’t expecting you to let me get this far, I don’t really have much of a plan.” But Y/N was silent, and Shawn cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry I ghosted you. I’m sorry I forgot to get you into the stadium when we planned for you to come. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t stronger, just in general.”
“Me too.”
He took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “It just...it got to a point where I couldn’t stand to listen to you say you missed me anymore. I know my lifestyle isn’t necessarily conducive to a good relationship and it was just hard knowing what I was putting you through. Hearing your voice was hard for me, too. I thought distancing myself from you would make it easier to cope with being away from you, I never--,” he broke off, running an anguished hand through his hair. “I never wanted this to happen to us. I just needed space. There were times when I was completely ready to just up and fly to L.A. not caring what the consequences would be, and that terrified me. I wasn’t focusing on my shows because all I could think about was you.”
She frowned, her face clearly expressing disbelief. “You were willing to abandon your tour to get on a plane to come see me, but then you didn’t have it in you to talk to me on the phone? On nights you knew I was waiting up for you to call?” She shook her head, and Shawn wished he could unsee the tears brimming in her eyes. “How am I supposed to believe that?”
“I know that it probably doesn’t make sense,” he admitted. He clenched his hands together as he physically fought the urge to reach over and wipe the tears from her cheeks. “I wasn’t strong enough to be away from you, so I did everything I could to get rid of the thought of missing you. Worse, of you sitting here missing me.”
“If you loved me as much as you said you did, you shouldn’t have been able to just ignore me like that. I went crazy trying to convince myself that there was a time where I even mattered to you at all.”
“You do matter to me!” Shawn insisted, his words jumping in volume until he remembered he was still standing outside on the porch. “You always have. You’re everything.”
“Then why didn’t you act like it?” she demanded, pretending like her voice hadn’t just broken. “I just--None of this makes any sense to me! We’re here because you couldn’t even make it through the first half of your tour without abandoning all the promises you made to me before you left. You swore you would come back.”
“I did come back,” he replied, weakly. “I’m here now.”
“No,” she spat, pressing her wrists over her eyes as though it would hold in the tears. “You showing up at my door after all this time and blindsiding me like this is not the promise you made to me to come back. Do you have any idea what it feels like to spend months waiting for someone to come home to you, knowing deep inside yourself the entire time that he isn’t actually coming home? Do you have a single fucking clue what you put me through?” He was silent. “I stayed awake night after night for hours waiting for calls that weren’t coming. I started to actually feel guilty for not putting my life on hold to follow you around the world, which is fucking ridiculous, Shawn! I hate that you made me feel that way.”
“I do too,” he responded, tugging an agitated hand through curls that were already messy from his five-hour flight earlier that day. “And it’s clear that you’re not going to forgive me, and I don’t blame you for that. I just--I don’t know what to do. I have never loved someone the way I love you.”
“Neither have I,” she admitted meekly, pretending to be less affected by his words than she actually was. “But that doesn’t change what you did.”
“I know.”
They were silent for a few moments, Y/N’s eyes looking at the floor even though she could feel Shawn’s stare glued to her face. The quiet eventually came to be too much for Shawn to take, and he was the first to speak again. “So now what?”
Y/N finally looked up at him. “I don’t know. I guess you leave.”
“Leave?” he interrogated, taken aback.
She arched a brow. “What?”
“There’s just so much else to talk about.”
“I don’t have anything left to say to you,” she sassed, folding her arms over her chest.
“Tell me you actually want me to leave,” Shawn demanded. At this point, he was grasping for straws to keep her talking to him. Y/N blinked, her mouth falling open but no words coming out. “Tell me you want me to leave,” he repeated, “and I will.”
“I--”
“I know you want me to stay.”
“You have no idea what I want, you arrogant asshole.”
Shawn huffed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve said I’m sorry, okay? I want to start over.”
But Y/N wasn’t willing to give in. “Is that what you think?” she scoffed. “You come here uninvited and give me some spur-of-the-moment apology and then suddenly everything is normal again?” She stepped forward, so furious that steam may as well have been radiating off of her skin. “I am so sorry that you’re frustrated,” she continued, sarcasm practically stinging her lips as the words came out, “but I don’t care what you want, Shawn. You are not going to show up at my doorstep and start feeding me all this crap about how you missed me and how beautiful I am and how sorry you are!” She jabbed a finger into his chest, hot tears betraying her as they finally began to roll down her cheeks. “I waited for you. I knew you weren’t going to call, I knew you weren’t coming, and I still waited for you like an idiot.”
“Please don’t cry,” he whispered. It took everything in him to resist the urge to wipe her tears away, or hug her, or to touch her at all and offer any small form of comfort that he could.
“It’s a little late for that,” she bit back, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her left hand. “I’ve spent the past six months crying over you. You don’t get to make me all worked up like this and then tell me to stop crying like you’re not the reason why I’m like this in the first place.”
“Then we don’t have to talk about this right now, let’s find something else.” Y/N looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, her mind equally as confused as her heart. “We can go get coffee, or--”
“I really don’t think--”
“Just trust me,” he said softly, finally finding the courage to gingerly place his hands on her shoulders. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I have coffee here,” Y/N answered after a silence long enough to make Shawn even more nervous, and he wasn’t sure what she meant until she moved aside to allow him room to come through the doorway.
She stepped over to the kitchen and reached for her Keurig, Shawn hot on her heels. “Let me do it,” he said, gently reaching to take the supplies from her hands.
“Fine,” she sighed. She didn’t have the energy left to fight him. “The mugs are in the same place as always.”
He nodded as Y/N made her way over to the couch, her brain screaming what are you doing at her as though it would weaken its disconnect from the rest of her body. Logic reminded Y/N that she didn’t owe Shawn her kindness, her time, or her forgiveness for what he had done to her. Logic told her Shawn shouldn’t be there. Her heart didn’t care.
“How’s your internship?” he asked with an outstretched arm, offering Y/N a coffee cup and effectively tearing her from her thoughts. She eyed him carefully as he moved to sit clear on the other side of the couch, an awkward distance between the two.
Y/N pretended to ignore the almost palpable awkwardness in the room. Am I really about to sit here and make small talk with him? “It ended a few months ago. The company gave me a full-time job, though.”
“That’s amazing,” he said, and he meant it. “How is it?”
There was a slight upturn in her lips. “I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted and my coworkers are all awesome.”
He smiled. “I’m happy for you, Y/N. Seriously.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled, taking a sip of her coffee and fighting off the voice in her head reminding her of how painfully uncomfortable this all was. “Um, how was the rest of tour?”
He shrugged, knowingly avoiding a rerun of the conversation they’d already had. “It was really great. I’m lucky.”
“Good,” she replied. It took everything she had to keep her voice level and dry of emotion. “I’m glad you had fun.”
“Are you, like, seeing anyone?” he blurted, no longer able to refrain from asking it.
She looked up, a smile nudging at her lips as she found herself suddenly amused. “Why do you ask that?”
“I dunno,” he responded sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders as he did so. “I’ve just, y’know, seen pictures and stuff.”
“So you’re stalking me on social media now?” she asked, but it didn’t sound like a question--more like an observation.
“No,” he rushed out, wide-eyed. “Not at all stalking you, no. Your photos just come up in my feed sometimes and I see...things.”
She hummed, deciding not to dwell on the motivation behind his question any longer. “If you really want to know, I’ve tried,” she admitted bitterly. “But no one that I meet really compares to you, so it’s sort of hard.”
“I get it.”
She looked at him, her expression perplexed but challenging. “You’re constantly surrounded by celebrities and girls from all over the world. It’s different for you.”
“So what? None of them compare to you, either. I thought about you all the time on tour. No one else.”
She quirked an eyebrow, silently prompting him to continue, which he did after a deep breath. “Being in a different time zone almost every night starts to make me feel like I’m kind of just floating. Having the routine of playing shows helps, don’t get me wrong, and I love touring. You know that. But the only thing that anchored me through all that was knowing what time it was in L.A. and imagining what you were doing.”
Y/N was silent, her lips slightly parted as she tried to digest his words, but the discomfort that came with the silence caused Shawn to begin rambling. “I didn’t really care what time it was where I was, because that changed constantly. It didn’t matter. I only cared what time it was in relation to where you were because it was steadying, or something, I don’t know. Basically, no matter where I was or what I was doing, I always had you in the back of my mind.”
“Did you still do that even after we…?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I mean...no matter what happens, I’ll always care about you and think about what you’re doing. We’ll always be tied to each other somehow.”
“I wish I could’ve gone with you,” Y/N blurted out suddenly, surprising even herself. They stared at each other, the wide-eyed expression plastered on Shawn’s face essentially a reflection of Y/N’s. “Things would be so different now if I could’ve gone.”
“Different how?” Shawn stammered, though he already knew the answer. He was just desperate to hear her next words.
“Don’t know,” she muttered, absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on one of the couch cushions. “Like it was before you left and all this happened.”
“It doesn’t mean we can’t get back to that point, though.”
“No, but it’s certainly gonna be a hell of a lot more difficult if I even…” She trailed off, and Shawn swallowed hard. If I even want this. “Nevermind. I just wish I could’ve gone on tour with you because then I wouldn’t have to be dealing with this right now.” It was a harsher-sounding reality than was the truth of her feelings, but she couldn’t take the words back. And, to be fair, Shawn deserved nothing but harsh words from her, though it wasn’t what she wanted to give him. The more time she spent with him, the harder it was for her to fight the feelings that she’d known were still very much there for the past six months.
“But then you wouldn’t have had your internship.”
“Yeah, I know, Shawn,” she snapped. “That’s why I didn’t go and that’s why we’re here. God forbid I choose my career.”
“That’s not what I--”
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’m just--I don’t even know. That was unnecessary.”
“It’s okay,” Shawn answered, but only because he didn’t know what else to say. She was in no position to be apologizing to him, and he knew that. He deserved every harsh thing she had to say to him.
“Can I be honest with you?” he continued, suddenly more nervous than he had been the entire time. Y/N nodded.
“The real reason I came here is because I can’t lose you forever. Six months was hard enough. I just wanted to apologize and tell you how I feel. How I still feel.”
She scrubbed a hand over her forehead, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to process the whirlwind of thoughts littering her brain. “You never lost me, Shawn,” she whispered, eyes still closed because she was too nervous to look at him. “Just distanced yourself.”
“And I’m sorry for that, truly,” he said quietly. “I wish I could take it all back.”
Y/N looked at him, trying to decipher her own feelings. “I’m glad you came,” she finally admitted. “I needed this. Even though I yelled at you, like, basically the entire time.”
He let out a quiet laugh, not taking his eyes off of her. “I deserved it,” he admitted. “I probably deserved worse, if anything.”
She grinned. She knew how she could be when her emotions took over. “How long are you here for?”
“We’ve got a house booked for a few weeks to work on new music, but my schedule’s free for a bit after that. No reason why I couldn’t stay here a little longer if, you know...”
“It depends,” she cut in. She wasn’t one to sugar coat things. “If these first few weeks go okay, then I’d like that. But it depends on that.”
Shawn nodded and became painfully aware of his heart suddenly pounding out of his chest, grateful to be given any chance at all to win Y/N back, though he’d be lying if he didn’t admit how anxious the thought of messing up again made him.
“Can we just take things one day at a time?” she continued, looking up at him with an almost nervous expression. “Is that okay? I’m gonna need a little more time than you, probably.”
He smiled. Anything she’d give him, he would gladly take. “Of course,” he echoed, moving next to her and carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He swore he’d faint when he felt her head softly lean to rest on his shoulder. “One day at a time, sweetheart. Whatever you need.”
Thank you for reading!! Feedback is always appreciated :)
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baby, you’re a haunted house (ot4)
summary: Michael really wants to go to Sydney’s most famous haunted house. He may or may not get super startled by one of the actors, and may or may not hit them in the nose by accident. And, after that, he might keep coming back to to try and apologize properly. And the haunted house might just have a never-ending supply of cute guys working there. (That’s a lie. There’s only three he cares about). ao3 found here
prompt: “I’m working as an actor in a haunted house and when I scared you, you punched me in the nose. Now I’m bleeding and someone had to get me an ice pack, and you won’t stop apologizing. You’re lucky you’re cute” (except i changed the POV because i wrote the prompt and i can do what i want thank u <3)
word count: 12,433
content warning: blood! there is nothing too graphic, but, as depicted in the prompt, someone is accidentally hit, and there is a nosebleed. it is all handled and fine, though, and it isn’t too detailed. lots of pining :)
A/N: whew! i’ve worked on this baby for the last two months and only just finished her this week but i am PROUD! i actually really love the way it came out, and my plot! please let me know what you think, i’m a slut for feedback! this was done for my sexy, sexy halloween event that is happening right now! massive shout out to @mikeycliffords and @glitterblazercalum for beta’ing this! maddie ur comments gave me endless validation and i adore u, and iba u caught all my sexy grammatical errors and i love u for it (and ur reaction to luke’s major <3). and to both @calumcest and @clumsyclifford for having to listen to me scream and not know what i was writing. unfortunate shoutout to Mr. Gerard Way for the vibey Halloween song i named this after. baby, you’re a haunted house slaps.
Michael loved Halloween. He was pretty sure it was his absolute favourite holiday, and would say that to almost anyone who dared to ask, though most people who knew him knew not to. It was in Fall, so it was nice and chilly, and he had an excuse to bundle up in hoodies and stay there until spring. And he was an absolute slut for horror movies of any sort. He absolutely adored them, no matter how cheesy and poorly-produced. If he had any talent in it at all, he said fairly regularly to his few friends, he’d be an SFX artist. But he didn’t, and he was stuck working as a barista and getting his degree in film studies.
So when his best friend in the whole fucking world landed a job working with Sydney’s infamous haunted house - known for being realistic, and terrifying, and all the makeup being technically perfect - and invited him to come see it, insisted he can get him in, who was he to say no? He absolutely couldn’t refuse - didn’t even want to, and he’d wanted to go for years, so this was the opportunity of a lifetime - and that was that. It was most of his favourite things all rolled up into one, with the bonus of it being sort of exclusive. Because it was so well known, they always ended up having to open a month early, and the line still wrapped halfway around the block every night. Michael was going to get a backstage pass to all sorts of shit.
He dressed fairly warm for the occasion, even if it wasn’t quite cold enough yet to justify it, with his hoodie on, oversized so he could cover his hands with the sleeves. Sue him, okay, it was comfortable and warm and he liked tugging on the sleeves or his hoodie strings when he was anxious. Not that he ever wanted anyone to know he’s anxious. Michael worked fairly hard on keeping that part hidden away, so no one else could ever see it. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed, exactly. He just...didn’t want anyone knowing. It took level eleven Michael friendship to unlock his insecurities, thank you, and even then, there weren’t many he'd really disclose.
Sydney never got properly cold, so the hoodie was more than enough to keep him warm in the chilly end-of-September breeze. He made his way to the haunted house, queuing up in the line with the rest of the people preparing for the best fucking scares of their lives.
The waiting process was the worst part of the whole thing. It was just him standing by himself in line, bouncing slightly on his heels every so often and worrying with his sleeves, from excitement, nerves, and maybe it was actually slightly chilly for once. He texted his friend a few times, only to get no reply. He frowned at his phone after twenty minutes of trying with no success. He was supposed to come get Michael at some point. If he was waiting to show him around at the end, wouldn’t he want to know which group he’d be in, or when he was going through the haunted house? Or at least answer him and tell him what his plan was? Apparently fucking not, though, since he made it up to the front without a single stupid text.
His jitters weren’t helped at all by that, but he eventually just jammed his phone into his hoodie pocket and hoped it didn’t fall out in the house. Michael and the people around him were finally let into the haunted house and given the long list of instructions. It was all the usual shit, that everything inside was fake, and to keep that in mind. To remember that the actors were just actors. And to go over the last few warnings - like that the actors would jump out, target people to scare them, ask questions, and generally, you know, act. Everyone agreed to the rules with varying degrees of excitement, and then they were all corralled into the waiting area.
Michael was back to bouncing slightly in place, hoodie sleeves fully over his hands at this point. The decorations weren’t too scary yet, just meant to keep the haunted mansion theme going. The premise was something about a doctor and his torture chamber and all his patients gone wrong or something. Michael has forgotten a couple of the details, but he remembered the gist of it. He couldn’t make out anything specific, really, not through the awful dim lighting and the light fog rolling in close to the ground, thanks to the hidden fog machines, only adding to the chill in the cold building.
One of the women in front of him was murmuring quietly to her boyfriend, gripping tightly to his hand. She didn’t seem much like she really wanted to be there. Michael hoped, for her sake, she’d remembered the safe word. Which was a nice touch, making sure everyone could yell it if needed. That rule was burned into his brain: if you yelled the safe word - mercy - any actor nearby would drop their act and escort you to the nearest exit, and you would absolutely not be allowed back in. Michael wanted to make sure he remembered it, but this was practically a once in a lifetime chance, and he really didn’t want to blow it.
Finally - finally - they were allowed into the actual haunted house. The first room wasn’t too bad, just the doctor guy’s living room with some narration about who he’d been and a little about his ‘abominations’. Michael got enthralled in the story pretty quickly, gaze lingering on the (fake) family portraits on the (equally fake) mantle and on the walls.
Room two brought a couple of scares, but he still wasn’t doing too badly. They were easily moved from room to room, sticking together in a clump. When the narration ended, basically, that was their cue to move on. Or for some sort or scare to jump out.
But, of course, the greatest horror house in Sydney wouldn’t stay predictable. After room number three, the smooth transition was broken up by a long, dark corridor, with the sides pressing in on everyone as they went through. Michael curled in a little on himself, shuffling forward so close to the next person in line that he accidentally stepped on their heels. They didn’t even have time to be annoyed before they were in the next room.
After room number four was worse. They went down an equally dark staircase, Michael’s grip on the handrail white-knuckled, pale skin almost luminous even in the pitch black. He shuffled forward once he managed his way down, unable to see anything, but didn’t bump into anyone. Which was...odd, given how tightly packed they’d all been up to this point. He took a gamble and swallowed his pride, sticking both arms out and stumbling forward, completely blind in the dark. Only then did the awful strobe light kick on above him, even fucking worse than the dark. He only got vague glimpses of where he was, and he couldn’t even see anyone around him in whatever room he was in. Fucking great, he had the best fucking luck in the entire world. Which he mumbled to himself as he continued his blind zombie-shuffle forward until his outstretched hand brushed a wall. Finally.
He kept that palm pressed against the smooth (fake) stone, moving in one direction he chose to believe was forward. He was pretty sure it was the opposite direction from the staircase, at least. Hopefully he’d make some progress that way. This was so fucked. Where had his group gone? He was very, very sure he’d been with them. They’d filed down the staircase with him, hadn’t they? Where the fuck were they? Where the fuck was he? This certainly seemed like a fucking dungeon.
He kept going until the shadows seemed to stay in one corner. He stretched out his unoccupied left hand, fingers brushing against another wall. He let out a frustrated groan, quiet and under his breath, even though he was pretty damn sure he was alone. He pressed his hand against it, palm against the cool stone, and he felt it open with a soft click. And he really didn’t care what was on the other side, he just wanted out of the stupid fucking strobe lights.
And, of course the strobe lights turned off as he stepped towards the open door. His luck was so fucking perfect today, wasn’t it?
He stepped through the hidden door (or whatever it was, Michael really didn’t care at this point), letting it slowly close behind him with the same soft click that definitely wasn’t ominous at all. This room, at least, wasn’t completely pitch black. There were lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and fake torches along one stone wall, that provided dim lighting. He skirted over to the side of the dungeon that was lit, gaze lingering on the shadowy side. His eyes still hadn’t really adjusted to the lighting, still absolutely fucked up from the stupid fucking strobe light. He would enjoy this a lot more if he knew this was intentional - if it was intentional - or if he was with his fucking group. Sue him, okay, maybe this shit was slightly better with company.
He heard something shift from the direction of the door, gaze sliding over there. The room really wasn’t that open, and was pretty small in size. He felt something brush his left shoulder and jumped, stumbling forward toward the shadowy side of the dungeon room - backward, now, maybe, since he definitely whirled around to look at whatever the fuck had poked him, only to find nothing but the stone wall. What the fuck was this fucking place? He knew that wasn’t a bat. Maybe it was a bat? He really, really didn’t know.
There was a weird sound from the shadowy side of the dungeon, which he was way, way closer to, now. He turned to look at it, only to flinch back when something lunged at him, snarling. Michael whirled around to look and let out an absolutely dignified shriek, reacting entirely on instinct, which was the only reason he realized, seconds too late, that that horrifying crunching noise had been his fist colliding with the thing’s nose.
The thing, that he was now realizing, was an actor, chained to the wall with long chains. They’d made the noise earlier, scraping against the floor, as the actor had shifted. Probably. “Oh, fuck,” Michael said automatically, eyes widening. His knuckles fucking hurt, sure, but he was more focused on the poor actor.
The makeup was, as promised, spectacular. He was a half-turned werewolf, shirtless and covered in gruesome patches of fur and deep, gory claw marks. He had some sort of fangs in, too, and weird orange contacts that definitely made him look feral. What Michael was most focused on, though, was the blood dripping from his nose that was definitely not stage makeup.
The actor had a small frown on his face, two fingers coming up to gently touch his nose. He let out a soft hiss, frown pulling more at his lips. “Damn,” he murmured.
“Oh, fuck,” Michael said, ever so eloquent. “Oh, fuck. Dude, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t- I’ve never hit someone before in my life, I don’t know what the fuck-“
The actor shook his head. “It’s alright. It happens.” He gave him a small smile, one corner of his lips pulling up, before it dropped right back into a frown. Probably aggravated his injured nose. That Michael had done. Fuck. “Hazard of the job, you know? I told them not to activate the strobe lights and then put a jump scare after them. They make people jumpy since they fuck with your vision. They put people on edge. And then to have someone jump at you out of the dark….” He just looked sort of amused. Vindicated, too, maybe. “I figured it would happen at some point. I just got lucky until now, I guess.”
“Fuck, I’m so….I don’t even…..I’m so sorry,” Michael said again, brows drawing together. He really hadn’t meant to. Had he made that clear enough yet? He hadn’t meant to. His panic wasn’t helped by how fucking cute the werewolf was.
The werewolf just ran a hand through his brown curls, pushing them back out of his eyes. “It’s alright. Really. It happens.” He eyed Michael, amusement in his eyes despite Michael’s clear panic. “I’m Ashton, by the way.”
Michael felt like he was still a few steps behind. Shouldn’t the werewolf be mad at him? Or kicking him out of the haunted house or something? “Oh. Uh. I’m Michael.” Ashton was a pretty name. And Michael was pretty sure it suited him, since it was clear Ashton was pretty attractive, even under all the makeup. And the blood. His nose was definitely bruised.
Speaking of his bloody nose, Ashton pressed two fingers right below it again, frowning as they came away covered in blood. “Well, Michael, you can definitely pack a punch.” He looked almost amused again before it gave way to concern. “Are you okay?”
Michael’s internal monologue still hadn’t shifted from ‘fuck. Fuck. fuck. Fuck. fuck. Fuck. fuck. Fuck.’ on loop in his head, so it took him a second to register the question. He still felt like he was short circuiting, adrenaline from the scare and the acute embarrassment immediately after still tingling up his spine and all the way to his shaking hands, fingers trembling a little where they were uncovered by the hoodie sleeves. “Wha- me? I’m- yeah? Fine, I- yeah, uh, think. I think, I mean. I mean I am, I’m fine. Okay. Yeah. Good.”
Ashton raised an eyebrow, stepping just a little closer. Michael was pretty sure he could hear his own heartbeat, too loud and too fast, echoing in his ears. Not loud enough to cover the unsettling scrape of metal against stone as Ashton’s chains moved with him. He focused on breathing, pretty sure he’d stopped for a second, inhaling the stale taste of the synthetic fog, permeating through the entire building, though the air lacked the telltale haze of a fog machine, and the equally stale, dank smell of the room itself. It was grounding, sort of. He was definitely not freaking out, though. Not at all. Not with Ashton right in front of him now, gaze fixed on him, Michael’s right hand still tingling, knuckles still aching. This definitely wasn’t social anxiety nightmare fuel. He was definitely perfectly fine.
Ashton reached for Michael’s hand, Michael numbly letting him take it, unable to do much more than watch. Ashton leaned forward a little, chains scraping again against the floor to make the worst sort of unholy noise, grating on Michael’s frayed nerves, thankfully on the edge of what he was paying attention to. He was too focused on how warm Ashton’s hands were, fake blood splattered over them like he was supposed to look like he’d been clawing at himself. “You’re bruised,” Ashton said, inspecting Michael’s knuckles where they’d made contact with Ashton’s nose. “Or, you will be, at least. You didn’t hit as hard as you could have, so I think you’re okay.”
With Ashton tilted forward, it was easier to see that he was definitely still bleeding - which, fucking duh, it hadn’t been that long since he’d punched him - dripping slowly but steadily onto the floor. Noticing Michael’s gaze, probably, Ashton took a few steps back out of Michael’s space, head still tilted forward a little. He lightly pinched the bridge of his nose, giving Michael what was probably supposed to be a lazy half smile.
“Should you- do you need help?” Michael asked lamely. It was a pretty fucking stupid question, since he’d literally just punched Ashton in the nose. And he was bleeding.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Ashton said, as calm and collected as he’d been the whole time. And fantastic, at least one of them was. “I’d go tell someone, but I’m a little bit stuck.” He raised his free hand, chains rattling a little bit. “I’m actually chained to the wall. Someone comes by and lets me out between every couple groups or every couple hours so I can use the bathroom and grab a drink and all that shit. I can’t get myself out on my own.”
“Oh, fuck.” Michael frowned. “That seems like a pretty big fuckin’, like design flaw. Who the fuck came up with that?”
Ashton laughed, short and sweet before he cut himself off, probably because his nose hurt. Which sent a jolt of regret and embarrassment through Michael. “There’s a lot of stuff like that for the sake of ‘authenticity’. Don’t tell anyone I told you, they’d have my head. I don’t mind too much, though. Only lasts two months every year, and it’s fun. Well, except for the occasional scare that goes too well.” He gestured at his face to prove his point, smile tugging slightly at his lips again before it dropped.
Michael didn’t get a chance to reply before someone came in, freezing at the sight of Ashton slightly tipped forward, nose still dripping, but much slower before, and Michael standing stiff and shocked in place. “Oh, fuck,” the stranger said, echoing Michael’s sentiments. “What the fuck happened?”
“Well, Michael here got so startled when I jumped out that he hit me.” Ashton answered for the two of them. “We’re all good, he didn’t mean to. He’s been keeping me company.” He winked at Michael, making Michael’s face heat up, especially noticeable in the gloomy chill of the fake dungeon room.
“Fuckin’ hell, man,” the strange guy said, immediately moving forward to free Ashton from the stupid chains. “So, you mean, the same shit you kept saying was gonna happen, happened?”
Ashton let out some sort of noise that was probably meant to be a laugh. “Yeah, pretty much exactly.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” the stranger said again, succeeding in freeing Ashton. He leaned in close to look at his nose, frowning. “Well. You definitely need to be cleaned up. You’re out of commission for tonight, we’ll just leave the room empty and the supervisors can suck my dick. Come on, let’s clean you up and get you an ice pack or something, and you can sit down for a while.” He wrapped an arm around Ashton, hand splayed out in the middle of his back. They were clearly comfortable with each other, and had the easy familiarity of close friends. Or something. The stranger nodded his head at Michael. “You, uh, Michael, was it? You can come with us, we’ll get you out.” He paused. “Unless you want to finish the house..? But I’m gonna take a wild guess and say probably not, after that.”
Michael startled a little at being addressed, temporarily forgetting he had a corporal form. “Oh. Uh. No, not really. I”m- that was enough, I think.”
The stranger nodded his head. “Makes sense. You kind of got separated from your group, it looks like. Usually people are in groups of two and three. You sort of had shitty luck tonight, huh?” He said it kindly, though. Like he was sympathetic. “My name’s Calum, by the way.”
“He’s not usually the responsible one,” Ashton teased, shooting Calum an amused look, only making Calum roll his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. Ashton. You’re always Mr. Responsible. That’s why we’re going to patch up your boo boo.” Calum patted his back consolingly, shooting Michael a grin. “So is this your first time here?”
Michael glanced up, fingers pausing mid-tug where he’d been fiddling with his hoodie sleeves. “Oh. Yeah, it is. Uh. Always wanted to come but it’s hard to get in and last year I got stuck closing most days and couldn’t make it early enough.”
Calum nodded, like it was a solemn affair, or he was thinking. Michael’s ability to figure things out - he was pretty sure it was called perception, but it just proved his point - was absolutely shot through with his adrenaline. He was still waiting for someone to get pissed at him, to kick him out and ban him for life. “It’s a fun place, yeah. I can’t remember if I actually ever went through it before getting to work here and see ‘behind the scenes,’ but we get pretty good reviews.” Calum grinned. “I’d say a bloody nose means you’re pretty fuckin’ scary, Ash.”
Ashton let out a half laugh. “Yeah, I guess so. Or people scared shitless and blind in the dark don’t like jumpscares. One of the two.”
Calum had led them through a couple dark, narrow back hallways, clearly meant for the employees, the whole time they’d been chatting. They get to the doorway of a brighter-lit room and hear a woman gasp. “Oh, Ashton! What happened to you? Oh, god, it wasn’t those dicks from last night again, was it? I swear I’ll hunt them down-”
“No, it wasn’t,” Ashton consoled, stepping into the room where the woman started fawning over him, leaning up to inspect his face and make sure he was okay. Calum, letting her take over, gently nudged Michael out of view and stepped back into shadow with him.
“Look, Ashton’s a trooper, he’s okay,” Calum murmured, nothing but soothing sincerity in his eyes and coating his voice. “I promise. You seem pretty worried but, uh...The floor managers might not be too happy, you know? We’re missing our werewolf for the rest of the night, so the room will be empty...No one else gives a shit, I promise, I just mean that if you want to come back, you might want to leave before anyone figures it out, you know? Not personal at all.” He gave him a sweet smile that probably would’ve rendered Michael incoherent and weak-kneed any other time, but with his nerves as wired and burnt-out as they were, it only tugged at his anxiety-ridden heartstrings.
“Actually,” Calum continued, tilting his head, “I can get you a ticket or something for another night if you want to do this again.” He gave him a lopsided smile. “You know, as long as you don’t hit another actor again.” Michael assumed he must’ve looked panicked, because Calum was quick to console him. “Hey, hey, I’m kidding. Sorry, too soon.”
“Holy, fuck, Ashton, is that real?” Someone else asked, entering the room behind them.
Calum looked back at Michael, expression apologetic. “I’ve gotta- I’ll have to run damage control, Alisha - the girl - is nice but he’ll need, uh, help. Uh...The exit’s right through there, down the stairs, to the left. If you can get back before we open sometime, cut the line and ask for me. Uh. Calum. That should get you in.” Michael only realized Calum had put a hand on his arm at some point when he squeezed it gently and let go.
With another hasty apology, Calum had to return to Ashton and the whole mess Michael had caused. Michael stumbled on nerve-numb feet through the dark employee back-passageways, hearing the occasional shriek from the haunted house proper. He couldn’t help but berate himself and wish he’d done the entire fucking thing differently. And where the fuck had his friend been? Maybe he wouldn’t have been so nervous to begin with if the fucker had actually texted him back at some point.
This whole thing had been social-anxiety massive-fuckup nightmare fuel. Seriously, Michael thought as he finally managed to make his way out of the stupid house into the city, shivering in the much-cooler nighttime air, this was going to haunt him for years. Let alone punching anyone in the first place - his hand still sort of hurt, though not a proper hurt, more like the vague ache wrapped in the anxiety-spiking memory of what he’d done - but punching an absolutely gorgeous guy in the face? Fucking hell. Worst thing he could think of.
It was still fresh on his mind as he tucked himself into bed, fresh from a shower as he’d tried to scrub the stupid memory off his skin. He just hoped he managed to actually get over this and it didn’t haunt him forever. Though, he’d been pretty fucking haunted when he’d gone to grab pizza and when the guy had said “enjoy your meal,” he’d said “you too, thanks, mum.” He hadn’t even realized his mistake until he’d gotten outside with his prized pizza. In his defense, he’d been texting his mom, and gotten mixed up. There wasn’t really a defense here.
Fuck. He really hoped this didn’t haunt him.
-----------------------------------
Well. It haunted him. That first night had really, really sucked. Like...really sucked. It had taken ages to manage to fall asleep after that, since every time he tried, he was painfully reminded of the moment he hit Ashton right in the nose, and how awful that had felt. And everything afterward had just been an anxiety-fueled mess.
He had class the day after, too, which really fucking sucked, but it meant he didn’t have to sit and dwell on every single mistake he’d ever made in his life. The biggest one was obviously his birth, followed very closely by hitting Ashton. He decided, though, by the end of that day, that he definitely wanted to go apologize again. Just because it hadn’t felt quite like enough just saying he was sorry. He needed to actually prove it somehow. Maybe. Or he was just an idiot. Only time would really tell.
He got a gift card for the coffee shop where he worked, because he got a discount on it, and everyone liked coffee. Did Ashton like coffee? He really hoped he did. He was still kicking himself for not getting his number so he could make sure he was okay and apologize, but, in his own defense, everything had gone upside-down topsy-turvy really, really fast.
He got down to the haunted house, still a while before it actually opened. He went straight to the front of the line, remembering Calum’s promise to get him in. Hopefully he could use the advice to apologize properly to Ashton. The guy at the front of the line was kind of a dick towards him, but Michael managed to find a worker in one of the designated t-shirts for the house.
“Hey, uh, is Calum or Ashton here?” Michael asked, praying he didn’t seem near as awkward as he felt. He just wanted to apologize and leave before he embarrassed himself any further, that was all. Everything was fine. It was fine.
“Oh, yeah. Are you one of their friends or something?” The guy glanced at him before shrugging. “Calum’s working customer service and merch. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Michael followed the guy into the house, down a hallway that wasn’t super obvious, to what was clearly right after the exit of the house. There was a booth set up, shirts dangling from the top and displayed in the back, along with magnets and other sorts of merch along the table. Calum was sitting behind it, earbuds in, focused solely on his phone. The guy Michael had been following tapped on the table to get his attention, making Calum’s eyes snap up. He grinned over at Michael, pausing his music and tugging his earbuds out.
“I’ve got to get back to the front, but this guy was asking for you and Ashton. You know him?”
Calum’s smile didn’t dissipate. It didn’t do much to sooth the suddenly overactive butterflies in Michael’s stomach. “Yeah, I do. I’m good, you can go.” The guy nodded and left, leaving Michael alone with Calum.
“Hey,” Calum greeted, grinning again. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back. I was hoping you would. Are you here for the house?” His smile went coy. “Or for me?” He was clearly teasing, but Michael’s face flushed.
“Uh. I- well. Uh. I came- well, I’m here to apologize. Yeah. To, uh. To Ashton. Again. For hitting him. I mean, by accident. I didn’t mean to.” And wow, way to be smooth. Michael just didn’t know how to function around cute guys at all. Especially not when they sounded like they could possibly be flirting with him, if they were on another planet, where people actually flirted with Michael.
Calum just gave him another sweet smile, standing and leaning against the table. Michael definitely didn’t pay attention to the way Calum’s back arched, or the way he tilted his head sometimes without meaning to, or how good his jeans looked on him. He didn’t see any of that at all because he was a good person. He just..wasn’t blind. And Calum was cute. “Ashton’s fine. I think he’s working tonight, but I can shoot him a text.” Michael didn’t even have to reply before Calum was pulling his phone out of his back pocket and sending a text, presumably to Ashton.
“The house opens soon,” Calum continued, “but we’ll see if we can get him up here.” He smiled a little. “You know, after you hit him by accident, they tested out some fake chains. They thought it worked great - until they did a test run, and Ashton broke them when he moved forward. Guess even plastic couldn’t hold up to his upper body strength, huh?” He smiled, eyes squinting a little when Michael flushed darker. Everything was absolutely, perfectly fine.
Calum’s phone vibrated again and he checked it. “Oh, shit. He’s a bit hung up right now. You want to stick around for a minute and see if he can swing up here? I can give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour.”
Michael considered but nodded. “Yeah, uh. That would be great.” His friend - who still hadn’t fucking gotten back with him, it had been two days, asshole - was supposed to do that when he’d originally come to the house. Better late than never, at least, even if he’d never gotten to actually make it through the haunted house proper. He just had to survive spending time with a super cute guy in the stupidly narrow employee hallways.
Calum grinned again. “Great!” He slid over the top of the table, knocking a couple magnets to the floor. He glanced at them before shrugging. “I’ll deal with that when I’m back. Come on.” He grabbed Michael’s wrist, his hold warm and gentle, and lightly tugged him towards another hallway. “So what do you want to see first? How we put everything together? How we make a couple of the rooms function? Where we keep all the fog machines?”
“Uhhh……” That was….a lot of options. Michael honestly wasn’t sure where to start. The last comment earned Calum a laugh, short and a little nervous. “Anything?”
Calum nodded sagely, like Michael had made some interesting comment that could be considered, instead of fumbling over his words. “I’ll just start with the basic tour then.”
Calum tugged him into another room, launching into an explanation of how they put it together, and how it matched up with the other rooms in the house. He talked about how they had speakers in each room, and made sure the haunted house genuinely felt like an old rundown mansion with a stone basement. The next room was every bit as interesting, if a bit colder.
“That,” Calum explained, “would be because we keep one of the fog machines in this false wall.” He knocked on it, the sound hollower than a real wall would have made. “It adds to the vibe.”
Michael just agreed that it did, in fact, add to the general vibe of the haunted house, unsure what else to say to that.
“You know,” Calum said, eyes lighting up a little when he smiled, bright and mischievous, “I’m pretty sure they spent most of the decorating budget on the fog machines. In order to get the light fog in the dungeons, we had to keep one every couple rooms. And then the one in the front room, so people know we’re spooky.” He wiggled his fingers with his free hand, his other hand still warm on Michael’s wrist where he hadn’t let go yet.
Michael laughed, earning another triumphant smile from Calum. “That sounds right,” he said honestly. The basement - or what little he’d seen of it, at least - had definitely been neat, with the very light fog swirling around his ankles. He just hadn’t really made it that far.
And, like Calum was a mindreader, he almost immediately said “Hey, you didn’t finish the house, right? Want to get a tour of the basement? I can show you where I had to use Klorox wipes to get Ashton’s blood off the floor.” Another grin, clearly amused with himself.
“Uh...Yeah, okay, that sounds good,” Michael said, ever so eloquent. Being in the presence of a pretty guy did not help him at all, only serving to shut down any critical thinking skills he’d ever had.
“Great! This way-” Calum started to gently lead him out of the room, hand still warm on Michael’s wrist in the chill of the room, before he was interrupted by his phone buzzing. “Fuck, what now?” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, which Michael found impressive given how stupidly tight they were. Calum let out a huff, letting go of Michael’s wrist so he could send a text back. “Fuckin’ hell. I’m gonna have to go.” He gave Michael a look that really looked like apologetic puppy dog eyes, but Calum somehow pulled it off. “We’re letting in the first group soon. I’ve gotta go back to my booth.”
“Oh, shit.” Michael was pretty sure that was the right response. He was still distracted by the smiles Calum had flashed him just moments before. Sue him, his weakness was cute guys, okay? And social interaction. Especially social interaction with aforementioned cute guys. Like Calum.
“I’m sorry. I guess Ashton will be wrapped up in that, too.” Calum frowned, thinking for a moment. “Are you free tomorrow?”
Michael flushed, a natural reply to being asked that by A Cute Guy. “Uh. Yeah. I have class in the morning, but I’m free after.”
Calum grinned again. “Great. Swing by here again? You can ask for either me or Ashton. We’ll get you taken care of, don’t worry.” He winked at Michael, smile still on his face. Michael felt himself flush deeper, praying it wasn’t too visible in the dim lighting of the haunted house.
“Yeah, uh, okay. I can...I can do that.” Maybe he was reassuring himself a little bit. But it would be fun. Calum led him back out of the room, his hand going to the small of Michael’s back, warm even through his hoodie. If Michael’s blush had faded, that brought it back full force. Calum’s hand dropped once they were back in the hallway, but his hand brushed Michael’s on every other step as he led him back to the front, to the area where Calum’s merch booth was.
“Here we are. I’ll see you tomorrow?” Calum asked, expression earnest. He squatted to pick up a couple of the magnets and buttons that he’d knocked to the floor earlier. Michael definitely didn’t glance at his butt, because he was a very nice person, and very good at resisting things.
“Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll be here.” Michael was completely fucking incapable of going one sentence without stumbling over his words. It was annoying. It was like being near any attractive guy whatsoever made his brain completely short circuit and stop working. He was pretty sure he just suffered from Dumb Bitch-itis or whatever. It was fine.
After a quick goodbye, Michael made his way to the exit and started the walk back home again. He couldn’t say that excursion was really a failure but he still hadn’t done what he’d meant to do. How many cute guys could work there, anyway? That had to be it. So hopefully he’d function properly next time he had to go, even if Calum and Ashton both completely shut his brain down. The gift card was still in his pocket, even as he reluctantly shucked his outside-hoodie to switch to his sleeping-hoodie. At least this time he didn’t have too much to haunt him before he fell asleep.
Except punching Ashton, his brain helpfully supplied. And with that, his hopes for some peaceful sleep went out the window, just like his critical thinking skills had earlier when he’d had to talk to Calum.
-----------------------------------
Michael prayed that this was the last time he’d have to go to the house. He didn’t dislike it, honestly, it was interesting and incredibly well put together. But he really just wanted to apologize to Ashton and have the whole thing be done with. Or, half of him did, at least. He hated when things got drawn out like this, and something hung over his head. He didn’t like feeling like he owed any debts at all. The other half of him, though, kind of didn’t want it to be over. Because then he wouldn’t get to see Calum or Ashton again. And alright, maybe he was a bit of an emotional masochist knowing that they wouldn’t like him but it was...nice, kind of, hanging out with people. And he wasn’t going to complain about getting to hang out with cute guys. Like...ever.
The thing was, though, it wasn’t like he could really be friends with them. He’d fucking punched Ashton right in the face for fuck’s sake. The friendship ship had long since sailed, and he’d lost any chance of talking to him like a functional person as soon as he’d panicked and hit him. Which sort of destroyed any chances he had in befriending Calum. And maybe he was a little bit lonely, and tired of spending all his free time by himself. The cute guys at the haunted house were a no-go, though, so he wanted to be done with them as soon as he could be.
Michael tugged his hoodie back on, and made his way back out into the outside world, where people weren’t so kind, and there were cute boys to accidentally hit and regret your entire life over. He didn’t want to think about having to talk to Ashton again, or Calum, doing his best to save all of his brain power for actually having to socialize, rather than wasting it on indulging his anxiety now.
He cut through the line again, though it was a bit earlier this time, so it wasn’t as long as it had been, and made his way to the front of the house. One of the workers, in the same haunted house shirts he’d see the others in the days before, stopped him.
“I’m here for Ashton?” Michael said, still not entirely sure of himself, like this wasn’t the second time he’d come back to the house and had to ask for them. “Or Calum.”
The girl glanced Michael up and down quickly, seeming to assess whether or not he was telling the truth. And really, why the fuck would he bother lying? He wasn’t even really trying to get into the house, but apologize fully to Ashton so he could hopefully stop being haunted by the memory of his major fuck-up.
“Alright, come on,” she said, turning on her heel and leading him inside. He followed her back through the room Calum had been stationed in the day before, the merch booth left empty, now, no cute guys with equally cute smiles there to drag him through the maze of the house.
The girl led her down a couple hallways Michael definitely didn’t remember, but he really hadn’t been paying as much attention to the hallways of all things the last time he’d been there. But he was pretty sure he didn’t remember any of this. Which was only reaffirmed when she stopped in a doorframe. “Luke,” she called in, hand on the doorframe. “This guy’s asking for Calum and Ashton. I’m busy downstairs. Can you try and track them down for him?”
Michael could see over her shoulder, but couldn’t see who she was talking to. Luke gave her some form of affirmative, he guessed, because then she was turning back to look at him. “Right. You stay here with Luke. He should be able to find Calum and Ashton. You can wait with him. Good luck.” She turned and headed off back down a couple narrow hallways, leaving Michael more confused than he had been before she’d tried to help.
“Come in, I don’t bite,” came a guy’s voice from the other side of the room. Michael reluctantly shuffled in, already tugging his hoodie sleeves down over his hands. How many times was he going to be shuffled from person to person before he managed to actually give Ashton his stupid gift card and go back to his life of reclusivity, hidden away in his single dorm room. Then he’d finally get to forget how massively he’d fucked up, and not have to think about all the stupidly cute boys that worked at the stupid haunted house.
The room had several chairs set up, with a couple of tables cluttered with a bunch of weird bottles, makeup palettes, and gallons of stage blood. It was empty, except for a girl sitting in one of the chairs, and a guy working on her makeup. He was tall, with ridiculously long legs, and his blond curls pulled back into a small bun, messy, with flyaways wisping around his temples and a couple strands of hair in his eyes when he flashed Michael a quick smile. “Alright,” the guy said, pulling back to inspect his work. “You’re good to go. But maybe try not to fuck up your chest wound next time? It’s not so easy to fix.” She murmured some sort of agreement - and what sounded like an apology - before heading back out, probably to wherever she was supposed to be stationed.
The guy turned to Michael and flashed him a smile, tucking his brush behind his ear and wiping his hands on his thighs before offering one to Michael. “I’m Luke. But, uh, I think you already knew that.” His smile went a little sheepish. Michael just shook his hand, internally cursing himself for having cute boys as a major weakness. Because Luke was definitely cute.
“I’m Michael,” he said, because he was pretty sure he hadn’t yet, and it seemed like the proper time for an introduction. His brain might short circuit a little bit around cute boys, but he didn’t completely forget everything. Usually. Not yet, at least. He was just hoping to keep at least a fraction of his critical thinking skills. So he didn’t end up hitting him in the face, his brain supplied helpfully, even though that had only ever been the one time, and under very different circumstances. It didn’t make him feel much better.
Luke broke into a smile almost immediately, letting out a laugh - more of a giggle, really - that made his nose crinkle. “You’re the guy that punched Ashton,” he said, eyes crinkling a little with amusement. “Holy shit. You’re a legend.”
Michael flushed, feeling his whole face heat up, even though the room was just as chilly as the rest of the haunted house. “Uh. Maybe just a little. The one time.” He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the ground, suddenly a little nervous. Or...more nervous. Luke was just as cute as the others had been, stray glitter stuck to his hands (and Michael’s palm, now, after he’d shook his hand), and his hair in that stupidly endearing bun. And apparently he knew about the biggest fuck up in Michael’s entire life, which really wasn’t all that good for his already not so fantastic self esteem.
Luke nodded, still looking only a couple seconds from laughing. “The one time. Yeah. Ashton thought it was hilarious. It worked out, though, he got the rest of the day off, and convinced them to fix his position so it hopefully wouldn’t happen again. Well, I mean, they mostly agreed that he could keep his phone on him as long as it was silent so he could call Calum or something to come get him if something happened. But he counted it as a win.”
Luke leaned against the table, hip causing a couple bottles to fall over. Luke flushed, pink covering his pale skin, as he rushed to sort everything out, right all of the bottles. He knocked one of them off the table, squatting down to grab it and smacking his head against the edge of the table on his way back up. It knocked the brush from behind his ear, which hit the floor with a quiet clatter. Luke managed to stand up properly, though, his face red, and clearly flustered. “Um. Anyway. So you- Uh.” He shook his head, more curls coming free of his bun and dancing around his temples when he moved. “Ashton wasn’t upset, you’re okay. He’s kind of hard to rattle. Calum and him have been joking about it, mostly. They just didn’t mention you were cute.”
Michael had watched Luke’s moment with the bottles, eyebrows furrowed in concern, but he hadn’t wanted to overstep. He’d gotten it sorted, anyway, and his head seemed fine. So he didn’t ask, just watched him with the same slightly cautious expression. Luke’s last sentence threw him off, though, and it was Michael’s turn to flush, staring at Luke a few beats longer than socially acceptable. “Oh, uh- you think- I’m not- I’m pretty, just, you know- uh. Thank you. You’re- the same. Cute. I mean.”
Luke laughed, soft and gentle and warm, meant to be with him rather than at him. Michael’s blush darkened, but he didn’t feel quite so bad about being an absolute idiot. “Thank you,” he said, head tilting a little to the side, smile back on his face. Luke was tall. Taller than Calum and Ashton had been, enough to make Michael aware of the difference. No wonder he’d been clumsy, though he’d seemed to have reclaimed his grace now, lanky limbs seeming only to add to his charm and poise rather than detract from it now that his footing was stable and no bottles were falling on the floor.
“So why’d you come back, again?” Luke asked, yanking Michael out of his reverie. He’d moved to straighten some of the bottles and makeup palettes cluttered on the table. He glanced at Michael before his eyes shifted back to what he was doing. And yeah, that was definitely stray gold glitter stuck to his hands, front and back.
“Oh. Uh. I wanted to say sorry to Ashton again. I just...haven’t been able to catch him. Came back yesterday and same thing.” Michael tugged at one of his hoodie sleeves, watching Luke’s long fingers tighten what looked like a tall bottle of latex. And okay, maybe he’d watched a few too many behind the scenes videos of his favourite horror movies, and wasn’t completely brand new to SFX stuff.
Luke glanced up at him again, interest in his blue eyes and all over his face. His hands paused where they were. “You were here yesterday?”
“Uh. Yeah? I was just with Calum for a while but then he got some text and I didn’t get a chance to see Ashton before I had to leave.” He didn’t know what about that was so interesting, but whatever. At least he wasn’t tripping over his words now and could talk to Luke like a proper functioning human being.
Luke hummed but didn’t offer an explanation for asking. “Do you want me to do your makeup or something while you wait?” He asked, as random and out of nowhere as anything.
“What?” Michael asked, brows drawing together again. He was pretty sure Luke hadn’t said what he thought he’d said.
“Do you want me to do your makeup while you’re waiting?” He repeated, gaze as earnest as ever. He wasn’t lying.
“I mean, holy shit, yeah,” Michael said, maybe just a tad too eager. Get his makeup done by a makeup artist at the haunted house that had won awards for SFX? Hell fucking yeah! He wasn’t turning that opportunity down. Hopefully it went better than attending the haunted house had.
Luke beamed, looking absolutely pleased with himself. “Okay, come over here and sit down and I will. Do you want, like, a cut or something? I have a couple spare prosthetic injuries I could use. I know I can’t do the missing eye one on you, you can’t really see in that one. I have a couple of the small claw ones, like I think I used on Ashton? If you want some of those.”
“Uh. Yeah, that works.” Michael made his way over and sat down in the chair, shifting a little bit. He’d never really had his makeup done before, but he was more excited to get to see someone do SFX up close. On him.
“Can you pull the hoodie off?” Luke asked over his shoulder, starting to sort through his supplies. “I need more space. I can do it right below your collarbone, I think. That’s enough space. With Ashton, I think I slotted some at the top of one of his pecs and then some on his ribs, on his side.”
Michael flushed but tugged his hoodie off, getting his head stuck in the stupid thing only momentarily, before it was off and he could ball it up in his lap. Luke turned back to look at him, humming softly to himself. He tugged his hair free from the bun, curls falling freely to frame his face, before pulling it right back again. Just like before, curls too short to fit in the bun curled around his temples and his ears. Luke ignored it, stepping closer with the small prosthetic in hand.
He hummed a little again, eyeing Michael’s collarbones and chest. He tugged the neckline of Michael’s shirt down a little bit, holding the prosthetic up, just below his collarbone as he’d said. “This should work pretty well. Has anyone ever done makeup on you before?” Luke turned to grab something else, probably his adhesive, before turning back and frowning. “It might be easier, since I’ll need both hands for this. You can put it back on afterward, it’ll sit right above your neckline. Right here.” Luke tapped a finger lightly where he planned on putting the prosthetic.
Michael flushed. “Uh. Yeah, okay, I guess.” He really wasn’t used to this. Going shirtless in front of a cute guy? Yeah, that really didn’t happen. Like, ever. He reluctantly tugged his shirt off, though, still not about to turn this opportunity down. The shirt joined his hoodie, both balled up in his lap. He was rewarded with a sweet smile from Luke, before he was surveying the area he wanted to stick the prosthetic, which did little to help Michael’s blush.
“This might be a little bit cold. It’s room temperature, kind of.” Luke started applying the adhesive, completely in Michael’s personal space. “So did you like the house?” He asked, fanning the adhesive with his hand, gaze shifting to Michael’s face. “When you came? Before the thing with Ashton, I mean.”
“Yeah, I did. Uh. I’ve been wanting to come here for years, and I finally got to get a look. I really, really like horror shit, and thought about being an SFX artist but I don’t have the talent at all.” Michael resisted the urge to shift in place, or bounce his leg. He didn’t want to fuck up whatever Luke was doing. “It’s, uh, really well put together. No wonder it’s won awards and shit.”
Luke hummed, tapping the adhesive before grabbing the prosthetic and leaning down, tongue sticking out a little in concentration, as he carefully stuck it down. He held it in place for a moment, pulling back to inspect his work. He moved to grab one of his makeup palettes. “Yeah, it’s a lot of work to pull it together and get everything set up properly. But I can get out of some of it sometimes, since I do makeup.” He grinned at him before starting to add colour to the prosthetic. “You wanted to do SFX?” His gaze flickered up to him again, before again it dropped to what he was doing. “I could always show you some stuff, if you wanted. I’ve been doing it for a couple years, so I think I’d probably be okay at that.”
“Didn’t you guys win something last year for your makeup?” He asked, tilting his head a little bit.
Luke turned pink. “Well, yeah, but that wasn’t just me, that was the whole team. But, um. If you wanted that, I definitely could.”
It was then that it really clicked what Luke was offering. This was a chance for Michael to actually get hands-on experience with SFX and get to see it up close. Not only that, but he’d get the chance to actually do it himself, with someone else’s guidance, and see if he was actually shit at it. And that someone happened to be award winning. And really cute. “Fuck yeah, I definitely want that.” Okay, he needed to curb his excitement. Just a little.
Luke let out another one of his giggles, still working on the colouring of the prosthetic. “Okay. I’m happy to show you. I’ll get your number when I’m done? So we can set up a time?”
Michael definitely didn’t turn pink at that or anything. He was totally suave, totally used to getting cute guys’ numbers, especially while he was shirtless in front of them. Obviously. And maybe that was a little bit of a lie, and this was brand new. And maybe he was a little bit pink. “Uh. Yeah, that sounds good.”
Luke hummed, attention mostly back on the prosthetic. He was silent for a few moments before he spoke up again. “You said you wanted to do SFX. So what do you do instead?”
“Oh, I’m a film student. I work at, uh, Great Awakenings? The coffee shop a couple blocks down from here on campus.” Michael, again, had to resist the urge to shift around in place. Not because it felt weird, but because he didn’t know what to do with himself, or his nervous energy. He couldn’t even tap his foot or anything on the ground, for fear of fucking up what Luke was doing.
“Oh, that’s neat! I’m doing philosophy right now. Ashton’s doing English. Focusing on literature, I think. And Calum’s doing psychology,” Luke flashed Michael a bright smile before going back to his work, still carefully adding pigment to the prosthetic.
“Oh, that’s, uh...pretty cool. What made you choose philosophy?” Michael asked.
Luke hummed a little to himself. “I dunno. Just thought it seemed interesting. I’m pretty happy doing this, but I don’t know if I can make a career out of it. Or if my skills are even enough to try.” He paused. “I know I’m good enough to work here, I just don’t know about beyond that,” he corrected, fingers stilling where they’d been working. It only took a moment before he was back at it again.
Michael understood that, honestly. “Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s why I’m in film. I don’t know how far I’ll make it, either,” he said honestly.
Luke gave him a frown, more adorable than it had any right being. “I’m sure you’ll be good at it, Mikey.”
Michael flushed at the nickname, but didn’t have any time to add anything before Luke was turning around to face the table. “Okay, I just have blood and then I’m done.” Luke grabbed the bottle and a tiny brush, turning around to face Michael yet again. He gave him a tiny smile before he was back to work, tongue poking slightly from between his lips in concentration.
Luke was pretty. Michael was struggling to think about anything else, even with how desperately he wanted to do SFX, and how much he’d wanted to visit the haunted house. It only took a few minutes before Luke pulled back slightly, surveying his work. Good thing, too, Michael was starting to get chilly. “Okay,” he said, eyes still on the prosthetic, forehead creased slightly, lips pulled into a small pout. He looked thoughtful. Michael refused to admit it was adorable. “I think I’m done.” He gave Michael another smile, nose crinkling slightly with this one.
Michael’s number one weakness was definitely still cute boys, because his brain short circuited immediately. He was saved from having to say anything, though, when a girl poked her head in the door, knocking twice on the doorframe to get Luke’s attention. “Hey, house’s opening in a few. Stand by in case of any fucked up makeup.” Luke just nodded, and then she left.
Luke frowned a little at Michael. “Okay, you’ll probably have to go before we officially open and groups start coming through. I might get busy, and we aren’t supposed to have visitors.” Luke chewed at his lip, thinking. “Okay. Uh.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket - Michael didn’t know how he fit anything in his pants pockets, they were stupidly tight and didn’t look all that comfortable - and offered it to Michael. “Give me your number? I’ll text you and figure the whole Ashton thing out so you can say sorry to him or whatever. And then I can show you how to do makeup.”
Michael nodded, taking the outstretched phone from Luke and obediently putting his number in. “That, uh, sounds really great. Thanks, Luke.” He passed his phone back and earned another smile from Luke that definitely didn’t make his stomach flip. Michael went ahead and tugged his shirt back on, careful not to fuck up his new prosthetic.
“Okay, sweet. Can you find your way out or do you want me to show you?” Luke asked, as sweet as he’d been the whole time.
Michael shook his head at the offer, though. “I’m okay. I can get out. Thanks, though. I’ll...I’ll catch you around?”
Luke gave him another smile. “Yeah. See you, Mikey.”
Michael made his way out of the haunted house for the third time, hoodie balled up in his hands despite the evening chill so he didn’t get fake blood on it. And maybe he stopped in front of the mirror once he got home to look at his makeup, stupid grin on his face remembering Luke (and the other cute boys that worked there). And maybe, just maybe, that was the first night since he’d punched Ashton that he didn’t seriously struggle to sleep.
-----------------------------------
Michael had almost forgotten the whole dilemma, when he woke up to a text from Luke. The phone screen was stupidly blinding in the darkness of his bedroom, and he cursed himself for bothering to check his phone in the first place. To be fair, though, he’d only wanted to see the time - he slept with his phone on do not disturb for this very purpose - he hadn’t expected the text.
Luke H: hey, r u free 2day? :-)
Michael stared at the text, blinking sleep out of his eyes, before he managed to get his brain to function enough to reply. And of fucking course Luke added a nose to his emojis. He might have only met the guy once, but it definitely seemed like a Luke thing to do.
Michael: yeah I should be. y?
Michael didn’t have a chance to even roll over before Luke had replied, phone buzzing again in his hand. Did Luke have nothing better to do? It had to be fucking early in the morning, and Michael’s main priority was going back to sleep. Though, in Luke’s defense, it usually was.
Luke H: no reason
Luke H: can u meet me at that coffee shop @ 1 later 2day?
Luke wasn’t making any more sense, even with his clarifications. And Michael was way too tired to think too much about his cryptic messages. So he just agreed.
Michael: yeah
His phone buzzed again, seconds after he’d hit send. Did Luke have nothing better to do than text Michael at fucking nine am on a Saturday morning? Didn’t he know how to sleep in?
Luke H: great :-)
Michael tossed his phone to the side with a sigh, resolving himself to being awake way, way too early. This wasn’t usually how he spent his mornings; normally, he slept in until noon if he didn’t have work, and spent the day catching up on homework he didn’t feel like doing during the week, and finished the day with pizza and a few rounds of FIFA. He didn’t usually meet cute boys at the coffee chop, for god knows what reason, and he usually didn’t wake up so fucking early.
The rest of his day passed slowly, starting with two cups of coffee to try and keep himself awake and functional. He could hear his mum in his head, reminding him that nine am isn’t even that early, that most people were already awake and functional by that point. So he just shook his head and told his imaginary mum to piss off, and that he wasn’t most people.
He managed to waste most of the day away until he was already running late to meet Luke. He tugged on a hoodie that he’d only worn once that week, making it objectively cleaner than most of his other ones.
By the time he made it to the coffee shop, he was a couple minutes past one. Which was fine, it was pretty standard for Michael. He never really knew what time it was, but he tried his best. At least he was only a couple minutes late this time. Hopefully Luke didn’t mind too much.
Speaking of the devil, Luke had taken a seat in the corner and, when Michael spotted him, was mid-laugh at something Ashton had said to him. Ashton, who was sitting right next to him, grin on his lips. Oh, fuck. Had Michael just been invited to fucking third wheel them or something? You could third wheel a friendship. Michael knew that, from trailing after a pair of best friends when he was a kid, before he’d just decided to be a loner for the rest of his life. But they seemed awfully cuddly now, too. Maybe they’d just invited him to laugh at him.
Or, the much smaller rational part of his brain pointed out, maybe Luke had invited Ashton since Michael had wanted to apologize to him again and had never gotten the chance. Maybe Luke was just being nice.
Michael just did his best to shove all those thoughts aside. There was no point in freaking himself out now that he was already here. Better to just figure out what Luke had planned and get it over with. Or enjoy it, maybe. Maybe.
Michael made his way over to their table, awkwardly taking his seat in front of them. Luke turned and gave him a bright, happy smile. “Hey, you made it!” He greeted, clearly pleased. “I went ahead and brought Ashton, I hope you don’t mind. You said you wanted to apologize, and we both think you’re pretty cute, so-” Ashton smiled fondly, but nudged Luke anyway.
“Don’t freak him out right after he gets here,” Ashton chided gently. He gave Michael that warm smile, shifting in his chair. “Hey, Michael. Good to see you again.”
Michael nodded a little, socialization abilities immediately leaving him. “You look good,” he said, before flushing. “No, you don’t. I mean - fuck - I don’t mean that, I mean you look good now that you’re not covered in blood. Or, you looked good then too. Well, not really, because I hit you in the nose-” Michael snapped his mouth shut. “I mean, it’s good to see you too.”
Ashton just laughed, good naturedly, but Michael was pretty sure he was one fuck-up away from them hating him. Still, though, his laugh managed to calm some of that built-up nervousness he was holding on to.
“You look good too, no worries,” Ashton said, corner of his mouth pulling up into a smile.
Michael just nodded a little, steeling himself before he spoke. “I’m, uh. Really sorry about hitting you. I didn’t mean to at all, and still don’t know how I managed to fuck up that badly.”
Ashton gave him another smile. Luke was busy fiddling with one of his curls, clearly only half paying attention to the conversation, if at all. “It’s okay. Really. You didn’t do any lasting damage, and you didn’t mean to. I’m fine now, and it made the managers have to reconsider the position. Besides, it just meant Calum and Luke were a little overprotective for a few days. I’m fine now, but they were worried for a couple days about bruising and possible lasting damage. You should really be apologizing to Luke for having to deal with blood.” Michael must have looked confused, because Ashton continued. “I don’t know why, but it freaks him out. He’s fine with all the SFX shit, he’s okay with gruesome fake injuries and fake blood, but any time there’s real blood? He freaks out.”
Luke abandoned his curl, tucking it behind his ear, to pout at Ashton. “Hey. I just don’t like it.”
Ashton gave him another stupidly fond smile and draped an arm over the back of Luke’s chair. “I know.” Michael felt like he was third wheeling, again. Which, okay, Ashton and Luke were cute, but he couldn’t help the way his stomach dropped a little. He’d thought they were pretty cute, and he hadn’t deluded himself into thinking anything would happen with either of them. But it didn’t really make it feel much better to realize he was third wheeling.
Sometime into his quiet sulking (which only could’ve lasted a minute or two at most), Calum had come up behind him, because now he was pulling out the chair next to him. Michael was effectively caged in now by attractive guys. Which, okay, was manageable. If his brain would stay functional. At least now he wasn’t third wheeling Luke and Ashton by himself anymore.
“Hey,” Calum greeted all of them, smiling in the way that made his cheeks squish up and his eyes squint. And okay, yeah, Michael definitely needed to get back into the dating world.
“Hey,” Luke said, brightening a little again at the sight of Calum. “Michael came.”
Calum nodded, giving Luke the same fond smile Ashton had. “I can see that, babe.”
Luke reached his hand across the table, towards Calum. Calum took it, gently squeezing his hand. And fucking great, had Michael gone from third wheeling to fourth wheeling? Was fourth wheeling even a fucking thing? It clearly was, if what he was thinking was correct. Because Calum, Luke, and Ashton seemed awfully fucking close - Calum had just called Luke babe, for Christ’s sake - and he was pretty fucking sure they were all dating. Or involved together in some way. So why fucking bother inviting Michael if they were going to act like that? It wasn’t like he thought it was a date or anything, but it seemed...rude to just be all couple-y with a fourth person there.
“I’ve gotta take a call,” Michael said, and the excuse to step out sounded lame even to his own ears. But it had seemed like they’d been...maybe not flirting with him, but flirty, and he felt pretty fucking awkward fourth wheeling them the way he was doing. So he wanted an excuse to step outside for a moment and breathe. He pushed his chair back, wincing at the noise it made, and awkwardly stumbled outside of the door. The bell above the door chimed as he did, which did nothing for his annoyance.
He took a few steps to the side, so he wasn’t in anyone’s way if they tried to go into the little coffee shop. He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, forgetting his excuse, and completely forgetting that he should probably at least pretend to be on the phone. Even if his phone hadn’t been ringing in the first place.
His melodramatic inner monologue of suffering was interrupted by the stupid bell chiming again. It earned enough of his attention to look up. And none other than Luke was standing there in front of him, apologetic smile on his face. “Hi,” Luke said, making his way a little closer.
“Hey,” Michael said, a little unsure.
“I just, uh...I’m sorry,” Luke said, fidgeting a little in place. His gaze shifted down to his feet, where he was absently scuffing the toe of his converse against his other foot. “I should have warned you about us. We just...it’s still kind of new, telling people, and we all...well, we all thought you were really cute, and I thought the rest of it would be easy if I managed to get you here. But life isn’t really like the movies, and I was kind of a dick to not at least warn you. Ashton said I should have, and he was right. I should have.”
Wait...what? Michael was left reeling a little. At least he wasn’t fucking crazy, and he’d been right about the three of them being together. Or, that was what it sounded like, at least. But the rest of it? What did Luke mean by them thinking he was cute? What the fuck? Why did Luke have to be so cryptic? “What?”
Michael was pretty sure Luke blushed. He just scuffed his toe against the ground again, before making eye contact. “I’m dating Calum and Ashton. Or, we’re all dating each other. Um...and we thought you were cute. We think you’re cute. And I fucked up and should have explained all of that earlier. So you didn't, uh...get blindsided by it when you got here.”
Well, that was...a lot. And unexpected. “So...is this a date or something?”
Luke shrugged. “It is if you want it to be.”
Michael considered that for a moment. Did he want it to be? He’d never dated more than one person before - hadn’t really dated many people in general, honestly. But he didn’t dislike the idea. He had gotten along with all of them individually pretty well...and they were already established, right? So maybe it would be easier for him to just join that. Maybe. “I think so, yeah.” He nodded a little.
Luke grinned, shoulders sagging a little with relief as. “Great! I’m sure we’ll talk about everything soon. Like, boundaries and limits and telling other people and the future and stuff like that. Ashton and Calum are pretty good about all that.” Luke reached for Michael’s hand, and he took it, letting Luke lace their fingers together. “For now, though, let’s go get coffee.” Luke tugged him back into the coffee shop, a triumphant grin on his lips. Michael couldn’t help the smile he gave him, just as fond as the ones Calum and Ashton had worn earlier. Something about Luke’s happiness was just...contagious and sweet. It made you happy to see him so happy.
-----------------------------------
The relationship ended up working out like a fucking dream. Michael had never felt so supported in his life, and he was pretty sure his boyfriends felt the same way. After the initial coffee date, they’d gotten themselves established, and talked about what they wanted and what they wanted the relationship to look like, and the future, just like Luke had said. And, to absolutely no one’s surprise, the conversation was guided by Ashton.
Telling his mum had arguably been the hardest part, but even that was made a little easier with their support. Answering her questions hadn’t been fun - he’d deflected the over-the-line questions, as anyone else would, and flat out refused anything rude - but they’d gotten it taken care of, and she’d been about as accepting as Michael could have hoped.
As promised, they managed to get Michael a job at the haunted house the following year. One of the managers had gotten fired after the incident with Ashton - not that that had been the cause, but he’d been a massive dick about it, according to Calum and Luke, and it hadn’t been a good look, so he’d gotten canned - which let Calum get a promotion. Ashton was happy to stick with being an actor. As long as, he’d said when they’d broken the news to Michael, stupid grin on his face, no one else punched him in the face. He didn’t want another boyfriend. It had earned him three eye rolls, and three fond smiles, from each of his stupidly indulgent boyfriends.
But it had meant there was an opening for the merch stand, and Michael would get three glowing reviews. So they’d managed to get him the job. And, Calum had reminded them at the time, pleased smile on his face, they had a lot of sway with one of the managers.
So after everything got settled, Michael’s life was the best it had ever been. He had three loving, supportive, wonderful boyfriends, a job he loved, and date night every Friday. Even if he was working, they were happy to come sit and entertain him until he was off. He didn’t feel left out with them anymore, either; after that first time, they’d gotten it sorted, and were quick to comfort and console him.
Ashton never fucking let him live down the way they met, though. He made dad jokes about it as often as they let him - “watch out for Michael, he packs a punch,” “ah, Michael’s got quite the feisty personality,” “Michael’s really got a nose for this sort of thing. He fucked up mine, so it’s only fair, I suppose” - which was way, way too often, given how bad they all were. Michael couldn’t even bring himself to care, though. Not when accidentally punching him in the face had been the one thing to pull his life together. Ashton’s dad jokes were definitely worth all of that.
#5soshalloweenevent2020#5sos fanfic#ashton irwin fanfiction#luke hemmings fanfiction#michael clifford fanfiction#calum hood fanfiction#my writing#queue#yall i am BUZZING im so excited for this and that i wrote PROMPTS and people are WRITING THEM#like i DID THIS SHIT!! and people participated!!#VIBRATING w excitement...#i mean this is scheduled#but its likely that im around when it posts#i need instant gratification u see#i will b getting ready for virtual halloween tho <3
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One thousand words a day is too much!
How many times do you have to tell a story before it consumes you and becomes redemption? 1001.
There’s nothing funnier than being told the twentieth “only right way to do something.” Particularly when the only difference is a step there or shifting your weight here. It teaches you things about the world you never had to think about in school, where there really was only one right answer. Supposedly. At least, you could count on there being only one right way to advance. Even the more open-ended arts and literature gave way to easily-graded grammar, symbolism, setting, spelling.
At the same time, there’s nothing worse than someone who is always responsible for when the right thing happens and never responsible for when the wrong thing happens. Even if it’s subjective who’s right or wrong, a three year old can spot that pattern.
When I was eight, I caught a basketball wrong and broke my finger. When I went into the living room of my grandparents’ house to show my parents, my mom asked my dad to set it back in place. I didn’t trust him to do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt, so in my arrogance I set it back myself. So my pinky finger will always be a little bent. Maybe I should wax poetic about how I’d rather hurt myself than trust someone else and get hurt. Or maybe I was a dumb eight year old who knew it would hurt either way, but would rather risk doing it wrong than have an adult do it. I’m almost twenty-five and I still don’t trust the notion of “adults.” “Adults” are awful people.
In middle school, my friend R- and I talked about keeping our middle names secret so that we couldn’t be True Name’d or impersonated. We shared our middle names readily. We worried about our parents, who already knew our middle names. It wasn’t a very good secret.
I would get frustrated with myself in middle school for not having the drive to finish knitting a simple scarf. I made a few bookmarks and coasters. I never considered that maybe the problem was that knitting was boring. These days, I have no issue finishing scarves, so long as the knitting is accompanied by a particularly long and dry class.
I used to plan conversations, sentence by sentence, before I had them. It avoids any freezing-up you might do on the phone, and helps you make it through the conversation. Nowadays, I still hold useless conversations in my head and in my dreams, but I no longer need them. The army’s made me almost too brash.
I hated creative writing lessons in middle school because the teachers always wanted you to write about real life. Nothing was less interesting or more stale and putrid than my life. I think I made up what happened and exaggerated for the assignment. I still dislike that I had to do it, since it bothers me to no end when my mother lies for the sake of a good story. I never had any issue writing or reading fiction, when people knew it was escapism.
I forget the names of second cousins and neglect to ask the names of people I sit across from at lunch for months. I don’t call anyone, and my facebook messages to my sisters are more to show my own excitement for whatever video game or image I’ve found engaging or funny. I dread getting calls, but I don’t despise calls from my Grandma Z- like my mother claims to. I don’t know if she does anymore, my mom isn’t the same person who raised me anymore. That’s a good thing.
I want to connect to people, to scream when I’m mad, to cry when I’m sad, and to spread my joy to those I care about. But I don’t like dealing with problems or obligations that arise from relationships, and I prefer that everything fades away and that I am forgotten. People wouldn’t like “me,” But “I” have a very judgy and spiteful personality. I know better than to sling barbs at others, so I hold my tongue and bury myself ever deeper. Till we’re nothing but pins in a sewing tomato of needles.
They say that Terry Pratchet wrote 400 words a day! Less than what most writing blogs and advice says (1k words, 1.6k if you’re on nanowrimo), but I bet that Pratchett was more prolific than all of them combined! Writing’s a marathon, not a sprint. So that’s why I’m following his sage wisdom, and writing 400 words a month. Absolutely nothing to do with my own lack of discipline, self-imposed sleep deprivation, or general flakiness.
Maybe it’s a problem when things that bring you joy turn into products. There’s a number attached to everything on the internet these days, and I scrutinize even what little heuristics I can squeeze from my AO3 fics. I used to delete unfinished fics all the time, back in middle school, since I only managed a chapter or two and then got bored and moved on. I shamed myself. I’m better now- I no longer delete fics, since I no longer risk writing anything that long and publishing it. My record word count on any work is 18k, and that one was encyclopedic in nature. Pretty much useless, too, but at least the journey was fun.
It’s far easier to spend money on fancy writing books and fancier typewriters than it is to actually write. That’s why I love my AlphaSmart 3000! It was cheap, so it doesn’t hurt as much that I don’t write on it often! (Plus, I bet it’d survive a nuclear fallout)
I gotta be careful not to send to computer too often, though. Then I start psychoanalyzing the word count, pitifully smaller than all my estimates. Writing may be one task where you want to train to time, not to task. But that’s just the pessimism and lack of ambition speaking! Battery life’s pretty Gucci tho…
The strangest thing of all is that the stories I want to read aren’t the ones I enjoy writing, when everything’s said and done. I love the prep, I love the planning, but actually sitting down and going for it after all that work? That’s a no-go. And seat-of-the-pants writing for me leads to incoherent-to-semicoherent blobs of nothing. Word count ain’t anything. So if I like twists, and mysteries, and all sorts of odds and ends, should I break all conventional wisdom and seek to surprise myself with the ending? Should I produce a murder victim with no murderer? I still think the goose was behind everything in Hot Fuzz, so maybe everything’s reasonable if you do it with style.
I like weighty stories, too, but I loathe to write my own weight.
The best fancy writing book out there is Elements of Style, no shot. Stephen King’s “On Writing” is the worst since 12 year old me was irritated that there was no writing advice, and 12 year old me skipped the intro where he talked about how the book wasn’t really about how to write. Intros and prologues annoyed me, since I read a lot of pulp fantasy with useless introductions. Eragon got me into the habit of skimming large blocks of text (My apologies to Paolini), so when I read denser stuff I would miss things and have to go back and reread, lest I frustrate myself with the text. Back then, useless introductions and unimportant blocks of text were just things that books had, they weren’t the subject of critique or judgement. So I wonder why I treat my own works with a judgement I never extend to others? It’s all or nothing with me. Either a sentence is perfect, or the entire passage is barely decipherable but free of spelling errors.
Did you know that you could do warm-ups for writing? Just write nonsense, and then when you run out of nonsense the rest of what you write that day will be fine. I don’t know a better way to hit daily wordcount goals and still feel like you’re doing something meaningful.
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