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fandom-imagines-stories · 3 years

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Lost Boy

Sodapop Curtis x Reader

Words: 4305

Summary: 16 years of never belonging and you’ve finally had enough. You move in with your outcast sister in Tulsa and meet a group of boys who finally make you feel like you’re where you’re supposed to be. Inspired by the song Lost Boy by Ruth B.

Notes: Peter Pan is one of my all time favorite stories and I love this song. I thought it could bring a whimsical, yet still angsty feel to a Sodapop imagine so I hope you guys enjoy!

Warnings: Mentions of abuse

Sodapop and more: HERE

There was a time, when I was alone

Nowhere to go and no place to call home

You always wanted to know what it was like to fly. To soar above the clouds, too far away to hear your parent’s screaming. Watching the world zoom by through the car window was the closest you’d ever felt to flying. You were free.

Pulling up to the little shack of a house, your sister, Beth, gave you a small smile.

“It's not much. You’ll be sleeping on the couch until we can clean out the attic.” She rambled. Beth rambled when she was nervous. “We were going to have you stay in the boys’ room, but Michael has a fever so he’s had to stay in bed-”

“Beth,” You gave her the biggest smile you could. You hadn’t smiled like that in a long time. “It’s perfect.” There was a loud racket coming from the house at the end of the block and three rowdy boys came bounding down the street.

“Hey Mrs. Austin.” One greeted as you both got out of the car. Your sister waved and he grinned. You never knew a boy could have a smile as nice as he had.

“Steve, my engine is making that sound again.” Beth said to one of the other boys.

“I’ll look at it as soon as we get back.” He said and the three took off down the street again. The one with the nice smile looked back at you and for a second you thought he might have winked.

“Who was that?” You asked, turning your attention back to your sister as she helped you unpack. You didn’t have much. Just some clothes and a couple books.

“The one I was talking to is Steve Randal. He’s been helping me keep this piece of junk rolling.” Beth patted the hood of the car. “The others are two of the Curtis boys. They live with their big brother Darryl down the block.” She pointed to the house the boys had come out of. “Nice kids.”

You watched them walk for a moment longer before taking your things inside. Your brother in law greeted you with a suffocating hug and one of your nephews wrapped around your leg.

“John.” Beth laughed, prying him off of you. John was six-years-old and Michael was four. They were two of the sweetest and silliest boys you’d ever met.

“Look at how big you’ve gotten,” You said, feeling a twinge of guilt. You hadn’t seen the boys since Michaels first birthday. You were lucky if your parents let you write Beth letters.

Beth was your age when she got pregnant with John. Your parents kicked her out of the house and told her never to come back. Her and Jack got married and moved here, to Tulsa. Two years later, she had Michael. They were happy, which was more than you could say for your parents. But you’d never have to worry about them again.

After you settled in a little, you decided to find a quiet place in the neighborhood to read. You’d lost count how many times you had read Peter Pan, but you never got tired of it. The idea of a place like Neverland got you through every fight, every tear filled night, and every cigar burn.

You walked around for a while before you found a nice spot in the big empty lot. There were a couple of logs to lean on and a spot where a fire had been. With winter break coming to its end, the January air made you shiver. You didn’t mind. You were too happy to even notice.

Just as you opened to the first page, you saw a figure approaching. He was hunched over with his hands shoved in his pockets. He didn’t even notice you until he reached where you were sitting. This must be his usual spot.

“Hey, who are you?” He spat, though it was hard to be intimidated by his quivering voice.

“My name is Y/N,” You said calmly, setting your book aside. “I just moved here.”

“Yeah, well you better beat it.” He ducked his head like he was trying to hide his face from you. “There are some real creeps around here at night and you don’t look like no greaser girl.”

“I’m usually pretty good at handling myself.” You stood, not to scare him, but to show that you weren’t scared. “What’s your name?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Well, if we’re going to be friends, I’d like to know your name.”

“Who said I wanted to be friends?”

You sighed and tucked your book under your arm.

“Suit yourself.” You walked past him, bumping his shoulder as you went.

“Wait.” He squeaked. You turned around. “What… what are you reading?” A little surprised, you lifted up the cover so he could see it.

“It’s my favorite. I’ve read it so many times, but I never get tired of it.” You beamed as he read of the gold lettering on the cover, worn from years of being very well loved. You could see his face now and you held back a gasp. His cheek was red and swollen and his lip was split. He caught you staring and quickly turned away.

“Like I said, you better get out of here.” He huffed. Without thinking, you put a hand on his shoulder.

“My dad hit me too.” You didn’t know how you knew, but you did. At first, he seemed angry and jerked his shoulder away. But his face softened and he looked at the ground.

“My name’s Johnny.”

“Now was that so hard?” You playfully nudged his arm to try and ease the tension. He even smiled a little.

“Johnny!” Another figure appeared across the lot, barreling towards you like a steam engine. You were worried that it might be his dad, but as he got closer, you saw how young he was. He looked Beth’s age, maybe younger.

“Hey Darry.” Johnny greeted, his voice still quiet.

“I thought that was you I saw slinkin 'over here.” the man crossed his arms disapprovingly. “The hell are you doin out here? You’re gonna freeze to death.” Darry saw the signs of violence on the boy’s face and sighed. “Come on home with me and I'll fix you something to eat.”

“Thanks Darry.” Johnny muttered. Darry’s stare landed on you.

“Haven’t seen you before.”

“I just moved here today.” You meant to sound tougher, but your voice came out as a squeak. Man, he was scary. After giving you a once over and figuring you weren’t trouble, his hard stared turned a little more welcoming.

“You must be Beth Austin’s kid sister.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No need for that, now.” He chuckled. “You can call me Darry, same as everybody else. Your sister told me to watch out for you.”

“She did?” You knew Beth was protective, but she didn’t have to alert the neighborhood.

“Probably wants you to stay away from us greasers.” Johnny said and Darry tousled his hair.

“You can come over for dinner too, if you want.” He offered. You would have declined, but your stomach started growling something awful. Darry motioned for you to follow him.

“That’s Darry for you.” Johnny whispered with a small smirk. “He’s got a habit of takin’ in strays.”

He came to me with the sweetest smile

Told me he wanted to talk for a while

It was kinda funny how well you fit in at a table full of boys. Darry was still fixing dinner and Johnny was talking to the youngest Curtis, Ponyboy. It only took a little convincing from Johnny for Ponyboy to get comfortable with you being there.

“Damnit, where is that boy?” Darry exclaimed, throwing down a dish towel.

“He probably got caught up talking to all those girls that come to see him.” Ponyboy said, sounding a little jealous.

“Yeah, well if he wants dinner, he better get his butt back here.”

“Who are we waiting or?” You asked Johnny in a low voice.

“Oh, they’re just goin’ on about Sodapop. He’s the middle one.”

“His name is Sodapop?” You wondered. You didn’t laugh like other girls sometimes did. You were actually curious.

“Sure is. Our dad liked unique names.” Ponyboy beamed. “And Soda’s as unique as they come.”

“That’s one word for it.” Darry laughed, shaking his head. As if he heard his name, the middle Curtis burst through the front door, an excited grin lighting up his face.

“You shoulda seen her, Darry.” He howled. “Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“You say that about every girl.” His older brother scoffed.

“Well this time, I mean it. And she’s just down the street!” Sodapop leaned against the fridge with a dreamy expression. Darry cleared his throat, jerking his head towards the dinner table. Ponyboy and Johnny were ready to burst from laughter. As soon as Sodapop’s eyes landed on you, he nearly fell over, his face turning a very cute shade of pink.

“You must be Sodapop.” You tried your best to hide the nervousness in your voice, not to mention the furious blush lighting up your face. You had never been called pretty before. Maybe he wasn’t talking about you. After all, he only saw you for a second.

“Yes ma’am.” He straightened himself out and smiled. Lord, that smile. “You-uh-you’re the girl I saw with Mrs. Austin.”

“What’re you calling her ‘ma’am’ for?” Johnny exclaimed. Ponyboy elbowed him in the side. “Ow! What? She’s just one of us!” You laughed at the two, but kept your eyes on Soda.

“That’s me alright. Beth’s my big sister. I’m gonna live with her now.” You said proudly.

“Where are your folks?” The youngest boy wondered.

“Ponyboy,” Darry scolded sharply. He knew that the story probably wasn’t a nice one. In this neighborhood, they never were. You didn’t seem upset by the younger boy’s question.

“They’re still in Chicago. Be glad you’ll never have to meet them.” You shrugged, your gaze returning to Sodapop. His blue eyes were bright with curiosity. He sat down across from you and Darry put down a plate of sandwiches.

It was the liveliest dinner you’d ever had. Darry and Ponyboy squabbled back and forth while Johnny scarfed down his sandwich.

“Whatcha reading?” Sodapop asked, eyeing the book you had set on the table.

“Oh, um, you’ll probably think it’s silly.” You quickly pulled the book into your lap. His lips fell into a pout.

“I promise I won’t.” His voice was so sweet that you knew he wasn’t going to make fun of you. You slid the worn down and well loved book across to him. “Peter Pan?” He read. “I remember that Disney movie when we were kids. Never thought about reading the book.”

“That’s cause you don’t read.” Ponyboy snickered. There was a thud and Ponyboy cried out, rubbing his now sore shin.

“Is it any good?” Soda asked.

“Oh it’s my favorite.” You beamed. “I guess the idea of flying away to a place where you never have to grow up was a nice thought when I was with my parents and all their yelling.”

You felt the tone of the table change. Ponyboy and Johnny looked at each other, Darry clasped his hands together on the table and Soda gave you a sympathetic smile. The grim shift made you think of home.

“Alright, enough with the long faces.” You exclaimed, leaning across to playfully shove Ponyboy’s shoulder. “That’s all over now.” You looked at each boy with the brightest smile they’d ever seen. Your gaze landed on Sodapop and his lips returned your grin. “This is Neverland.”

Smiles returned to the boys’ faces and Darry even chuckled. You and Soda just kept looking at each other.

“You clearly haven’t been in Tulsa long enough.” A new voice sneered. Everybody looked at the boy standing in the doorway. He had a hard stare and a mean look about him, but you didn’t let that scare you. You’d seen meaner.

“Anywhere is better than where I was before.” You replied calmly. The boy narrowed his eyes and looked you over.

“Is there something you need, Dally?” Darry asked sternly.

“Little bird told me there was a new girl in the neighborhood. Didn’t think she’d be slumming with us greasers already.” Dally kept his mean glare on you until Sodapop stood up.

“Come on, Y/N. Why don’t I walk you home?”

“Soda must think you need protecting.” He smirked. “I think you look like you can handle a guy like me.”

“Cut it out, Dallas.” Darry’s voice was a warning now.

“It’s alright. I should be getting back anyway to help Beth get the boys in bed.” You pushed away from the table, thanking Darry for dinner and saying goodnight to everyone. Lastly, you turned to Dally as you and Soda passed him. “It was nice meeting you, Dallas.”

You could feel his stare burning into the back of your head as you stepped out into the cool night air.

“Sorry about him.” Sodapop said, shoving his hands in the back pockets of his jeans as he walked. “Dally’s really not so bad. He’s just acting like that cause he don’t know you yet.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You shrugged. “I knew plenty of boys like that back in Chicago, only I didn’t have a tough guy like Darry or a sweet one like you to stand up to them, so Dallas is right.”

“About what?”

“I can handle guys like him.” You bumped his shoulder with yours and laughed. “I appreciate you walking with me, though. Beth would kill me if she thought I was out here by myself at night.”

“Has she always been protective like that?”

“I guess.” You thought for a moment. “When we were kids, she was always sticking up for me to our old man. She never let him lay a hand on me as long as she was around.” You found a pebble on the sidewalk and nudged it with your toe. “When she got pregnant, she didn't have a choice but leave. I think she just still sees me as that scrawny 10-year-old.”

You walked together in silence for a moment. You stopped suddenly, looking up at the sky. Stars stared back down at you with their bright faces. You liked to think they were smiling. Soda was a few steps away before he noticed that you had stopped.

“What’re you looking at?” He asked, walking back to join you. He tilted his head upward, trying to find whatever had caught your attention.

“The sky’s a lot prettier out here.” You mused. “In Chicago, it’s all lights and smog. But here, you can really see the stars.” That feeling of flying was back, taking you up into the air just like the book.

“You’re a different kinda girl, you know that?” Sodapop laughed. You spun around with your arms extended.

“You have to be different to survive, Sodapop Curtis.” When you looked at him, he could have sworn that your eyes twinkled like the stars.

I am a Lost Boy, from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan

“They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling and there is almost nothing so delicious as that.” You read in a clear voice so that all the boys could hear you. It was strangely nice out and the afternoon had turned into a kind of gathering at the park. You were sitting underneath the jungle gym with Johnny and Ponyboy sprawled out across from you. Sodapop and Steve had their knees hooked on the bars to see who could hang upside down the longest.

“Do you think this counts as flying?” Soda grinned down at you. Even upside down, it was the sweetest smile you’d ever seen.

“Only until you hit the ground.” Steve swung out his arm to try and knock him down, but Soda was quicker than that and Steve was the one that ended up in the dirt. Everybody laughed and Steve was only angry for a minute.

“Let her keep going.” Johnny whined. He seemed less skittish than he had last night. Ponyboy waited until Steve wasn’t looking to nod eagerly in agreement.

“Pony, don’t you have studying to do?” Soda climbed down and gave his brother a pleading look. It didn’t take long for Ponyboy to catch on. He made a face and got up, nudging Johnny to join him.

“Don’t be too late, Soda else Darry’ll take it out on me.” He grumbled, thanking you for the story before taking off back to the house. Steve also came up with an excuse to ditch, leaving just you and Sodapop, who tried to look surprised.

“Is this how you pick up all your girls? Cornering them in parks?” You scoffed, putting your book back in your bag. Man, his face turned red.

“I don’t know what- um- I’m not… no.” He stammered, kicking the toe of his boot into the dirt. You laughed.

“Relax, Soda, I’m just teasin’ you.” You shoved him playfully and slung your bag over your shoulder. The wind picked up a little and you shivered.

“Don’t you have a coat or something?” Soda asked, watching the goosebumps appear on your arms. You’d picked one of your short sleeve shirts since it was so nice, but now the weather seemed to remember what month it was. “Here.”

Soda wrapped an arm around your shoulders, rubbing your skin to help warm you up. His hands were softer than you thought they’d be with him working at the gas station and all. Being so close brought a pleasant pink color to your cheeks. Before you knew it, you were inching closer and closer until he kissed you.

His lips were gentle and soft and perfect. You both forgot to breathe for a while, but that didn’t bother you. When you did finally pull away, you both had the biggest grins on your faces.

“Maybe I should walk you home.” Soda said breathlessly. You nodded and, with a rush of courage you laced your fingers together as you walked.

By the time you got home, you felt like you were floating. It wasn’t the same as flying. This wasn’t rushed or heart-pounding. It was quieter and sweet. You couldn’t help but give him another kiss goodnight. When he was walking back to his house, he seemed to have a skip in his step.

You swung the front door open with a wide smile, giggling to yourself like a little kid. But that happy feeling washed away when you saw who Beth was sitting with.

“Daddy?”

Run, run Lost Boy, they say to me

Away from all of reality

You ran until your lungs felt like they’d burst. All you heard were three terrifying words and you got out of there as fast as you could “Takin’ you home.” You were home. That bastard wasn’t taking you anywhere.

You took the back way to the Curtis house, ducking your way through other people’s back yards so that your father wouldn’t be able to follow you. You were too afraid to go around front, so you found a low window and knocked on the glass.

“Darry!” You whisper-shouted. “Soda, Pony, is anybody in there? Sodapop?”

The curtains were pulled aside and an irritated looking Darry peaked out at you. He lifted up the window pane all the way so he could lean out and get a better look at you.

“The hell are you doing here, Y/N?” He asked. “Soda said he just dropped you off at home a few minutes ago.”

“I couldn’t go around front, Darry, he might see me.” You sniffed, wiping your nose on your sleeve. You must have been crying cause your face was all wet. “Could you help me in?”

He nodded and pulled you up by the arms. As you climbed in the window, Ponyboy appeared behind Darry with big eyes. You must have looked worse than you thought from climbing all those fences and cutting through yards.

“What happened to you?”

“Pony, go get her a glass of water. And where’s that other kid brother of mine?” Darry shouted before turning back to you. “Jeez, kiddo, you’re shaking like a leaf.”

“Yeah, Darry?” Soda popped his head into the room. His eyes went as wide as Pony’s had when he saw you. “Hey, Y/N, what’s the matter?” Darry grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward.

“Sodapop Patrick Curtis, if you hurt his girl, I’m gonna-”

“It wasn’t Soda.” You blurted. You crossed your arms over your chest and stared down at the floor. “It’s my dad. He’s come to take me back to Chicago.” You jerked your chin up, trying to look tougher than you felt. “But I’m not gonna let him.”

“I thought they let Beth bring you here.” Darry closed the window and grabbed you a blanket from the bed. It was then that you realized you must have climbed into Darry’s room. There was a pair of work boots on the floor and an old, beat-up football on the shelf.

“They did.” You glowered. Soda gently wrapped the blanket around your shoulders. “Guess they missed having something to scream at besides each other.”

“Well you can just stay here til he goes away, right Darry?” Soda said, not losing his sunny optimism for a second. Before Darry could respond, a series of loud bangs came from the front door.

“I know she’s in there you little punks!”

“Oh god, it’s him.” You hid yourself in Soda’s embrace and Darry went to answer the door.

“Come out now you-” Your father’s shouting stopped abruptly. Darry, though half his age, towered over him. He didn’t look so confident anymore. “Where’s my girl.”

You held Soda tighter. Your old man must have really hurt you because Soda knew you were one tough girl. You stood up to Dallas.

“You need to leave.” You could just see through to the living room since Darry’s bedroom door was slightly open. Darry was fully blocking your father’s view of the house.

“I’m not leaving without that little brat.” He snarled, his cockiness returning. “An’ if you don’t bring her out here, I’ll call the cops. That wouldn’t end too well for you, would it son?”

“I said leave.” Darry growled again, his muscles tensing. You knew what could happen if the cops came. So you broke away from Soda.

“I’m right here, so you can leave these boys alone.” You snapped, stepping out before Darry or Soda could grab you.

“Thought you could run around with these bums and I wouldn’t come for you?”

“How did you even know where to find me?”

“Those brats of Beth’s started hollarin’ as soon as I raised a hand at her.” He smiled cruelly.

If you hadn’t been standing there, Darry would have slugged him. You just wanted to get this over with.

“Are we going or not?” You frowned, defeated.

“Y/N, you can’t go with him!” Soda cried, trying to reach for you, but you jerked away. Tears pricked at your eyes again.

“I have to, Sodapop.”

“I don’t think so.” A new, hard voice joined the scene. You looked over your dad’s shoulder and saw the rest of the boys circling the house; Two-Big, Steve, Johnny, Ponyboy, and Dallas. Dally was the one talking. “You know something, fellas? I don’t like old me. And I really don’t like old, stinkin’ drunk men hanging around my neighborhood. Especially one that yells in my buddy’s face.”

“I ain’t afraid of a bunch of rats from Oklahoma.” Your father spat, but you could tell he was a little shaken. Dally pulled out a blade.

“How about a New York rat?” He hissed, getting real close to his face. Your dad’s eyes went wide, shifting from the blade to the circle of tough looking boys around him. Then he looked at you.

“You ain’t worth the trouble.” He decided, carefully moving around Dally and walking into the night.

The whole group gathered around, hollering and cheering over their success. Soda pulled you into a tight hug and kissed you right there in front of everybody. One of them, probably Two-Bit, whistled.

“Ponyboy, where the hell have you been?” Darry asked, ruffling his youngest brother’s hair. Pony just shrugged.

“I saw that mean old guy standing out here, so I ran and got Johnny and then we got everybody else.”

You pulled away from Soda and glanced around at the other boys.

“You all came here… for me?” You gasped, a different kind of tears now welling in your eyes.

“As soon as I heard Soda’s girl was in trouble, I got the hell over here.” Two-Bit said and Steve nodded in agreement. You felt your heart swell. Soda’s girl.

You looked at Dally. Without him, it might not have worked. He just shrugged coolly and lit a cigarette.

“I had nothin’ better to do.” But you could tell that, underneath, it was more than that. Johnny gave you a small smile.

“You’re one of us now.”

“And we stick together.” Ponyboy added. And they were right.

“Alright, I’d better call Beth and tell her everything is gonna be fine.” Darry announced. “You all get in here. I’m sure we’ve got more chocolate cake somewhere.” This was followed by more cheers and stampeding feet as the gang rushed inside.

Sodapop gave you the biggest, bright smile yet, taking your hand and following the boys to the kitchen.

Neverland is home, to Lost Boys like me

And Lost Boys like me are free.

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination; @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks

#rob lowe #patrick swayze #the outsiders #80s imagines #sodapop curtis #sodapop curtis x reader #darry curtis #dally winston #Ponyboy Curtis #johnny cade #stay gold #peter pan #lost boy #neverland

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mandoalorian · 3 years

Text

Dancing with Agent Whiskey

DAY TWELVE: Dancing with Jack Daniels [requested by @phoenixhalliwell]

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added!)

Permanent: @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @luvzoria @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @wonderfulfluffer @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal @castiel-barnes @honeymandos @rocketqueen @ladycumberbatchofcamelot @dybalalover10 @girl-obsessed-with-things

December Writing Challenge: @mandos-blaster @silent-and-resigned @valentinasubmarina

December Writing Challenge Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Word count: 1.2k

Rating: PG

Author's note: Highschool AU // you’re Jack's highschool sweetheart that he speaks so fondly of in TGC.,

He was the it-boy. The girls wanted to be with him and the guys wanted to be like him— but in an unprecedented twist of events, he was pursuing you. Jack Daniels was the perfect man. He excelled in all his subjects, had an interest in sports, video games, academics and television. He could charm his way through any conversation and he could be friends with anyone of his choosing, if he wanted to be. What not many people knew about Jack, was that he was a hopeless romantic at heart.

He’d been dating Cindy for a year and a half before she cheated on him in the parking lot at the annual high school pep rally. It was unanimous that Edward, the jock on the baseball team and Cindy’s blonde haired bright eyed conquest, was a downgrade from Jack. Jack didn't show it, but he was devastated upon learning of his girlfriend's unfaithfulness. He was about to give up on love.

But then you entered his life.

It was the January of senior year, and you were new. Shy, and freshly transferred from a different school on the other side of the country. The principal ushered you into your AP history class and introduced you. In that moment, Jack swore he had never met a woman as beautiful as yourself. Fresh faced and glowing, with the prettiest lips and eyes that sparkled like diamonds. His heart blossomed and he knew in that moment he just had to have you.

You slid into the vacant chair next to him, throwing your bag under the desk and pulling out a pen and notebook. "I'm Jack," he whispered, leaning over the gap between both desks. The rasp in his Southern accent took you by surprise and you offered him a sheepish smile, the corners of your eyes crinkling.

You were last to leave the class, scrambling into your bag to pull out a map of the school and your timetable, so you could figure out where exactly you had to be next. You gasped in shock when Jack, who was leaning against the corridor wall, jumped out at you. "Hey darlin,” he grinned, his brown eyes beaming as he shot you a grin.

"Oh, hey Jack," you replied. "Could you help me figure out where I have to be now? I can't tell if this is English or Economics." you scrunched up your nose trying to read the smudged print.

"It's lunchtime doll, how about you follow me to the cafeteria?" he suggested and you nodded your head, interlocking your arm in his as he guided you to the dining hall. Jack Daniels was the truest gentleman you had ever met, that's for sure. You both got your food, and sat down together on a large round table with around a dozen of his friends.

"Who's this?" Cindy spat, looking you up and down with a frown as you picked at your dinner.

Jack introduced you with delight and the rest of his friends said hello and asked you polite questions. It was in that moment, Cindy had decided she didn't like you. Of course she didn't — you were beautiful, and it was clear how enamoured Jack was, but she had already lost her chance when she cheated on him.

Jack lashed out at her when she prodded you, asking uncomfortable and rude questions. After that she was quick to shut up, shuffling into the chest of her new boyfriend and scowling. When the bell rang, Jack took you to your next class (despite it not being a class you shared with him), he just wanted to make sure you got there safely and on time. At the end of the school day, he asked you out on a date.

You rejected him kindly, citing that it was your first day in the city and you weren't ready for such a thing. You blessed him with a sweet kiss on the cheek and your action only affirmed that no matter what, you'd have to be his.

By the time April came around, posters advertising the 'spring fling' began to show themselves around high school. Most of yours and Jack's friends rolled their eyes at the thought of attending a dance, calling it 'lame' and for 'losers'. They talked about heading to a field after the dance was over, having a few beers and setting fireworks off to celebrate the end of the semester.

You pulled Jack to one side. "Can I be honest with you?" you asked him, nervously biting your lip.

"Of course sweetheart." he said, placing a firm hand on your shoulder. You hummed under his touch, a smile gracing your lips as butterflies fluttered around in your stomach.

"I'm really looking forward to the spring fling. I've always wanted to go to a dance and my old school didn't do them." you explained.

"I'm glad you told me, Jack muttered, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "Because there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Yeah?" you asked as he placed the palm of his hand on your face. He cupped your cheek and you found yourself subconsciously sinking into the warmth of his hold.

"Will you be my date to the dance?" he asked with hopeful eyes. You couldn't contain your excitement.

"I'd love that." you revealed and Jack's grin grew ecstatic.

You were a little late to the dance, and Jack grew nervous, tapping his feet impatiently in fear you would stand him up. It was through no fault of your own that you were late, you just wanted to make sure you looked perfect. This was possibly the only school dance you'd get to have. You checked your reflection in the mirror, fixing your makeup slightly and applying some lip gloss before slipping your feet into your new shoes that matched your flowy dress.

When you walked into the hall, Jack's jaw dropped. To him, you seemed to grow more and more beautiful everyday— but tonight you looked like a real life angel. A walking, talking, goddess. And you were all his. The ambience of the hand-strung fairylights as well as the soft melody of the song only spurred Jack on. He took your hand, pulling you close to his chest and sliding an arm around your waist, his hand resting gently on your hip.

"Will you do me the honour of dancing with me?" he asked nervously. You smiled and nodded, as he began to lead the slow dance.

His friends, the ones who had spoke so negatively about the spring fling, watched you and Jack in awe. You were the best couple in the room, that's for sure. And, although they'd never admit it— they were jealous. You rest your head on Jack's shoulder as you swayed your hips in time with the music.

"You look beautiful tonight." Jack admitted, his voice a hoarse whisper in your ear.

"You're handsome too." you revealed with a light giggle, watching the blush appear across Jack's cheeks.

Jack hummed your name softly. "Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked with a rush of confidence.

"I will." you agreed, leaning in and brushing a delicate kiss onto his lips.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #agent whiskey #jack daniels #agent whiskey x reader #Jack daniels x reader #kingsman

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bbysamu · 3 years

Text

House Party Series

First party of the semester ft. Akaashi Keiji x f!reader (special appearances by Atsumu, Bokuto, Terushima, Daichi, Makki)

Song: Lotus flower bomb by Wale & Miguel (slowed + reverbed) (make sure to listen as you read, sets the mood)

Warning: mentions of drinking, suggestive-ish

Preview: Akaashi is a member of an asian-interest fraternity and by chance, got to know you better at a mixer (party). Needless to say, he’s intrigued....

a/n: New series alert! I had so much fun writing this, loosely based on a true story. If you like it, please let me know by pressing like / reblogging and follow me for more! In the meantime, check out my masterlist!

♥️ Special Match-Up Event Open – Check out rules here and submit here or here (for anon)

Akaashi Keiji didn’t know why he always allowed himself to be roped into situations like this. Parties really were not his thing, but his brothers insisted on him showing up at every mixer with the other sororities because it’ll “boost” attendance.

“Come on Keiji, you know all the girls only really attend our mixers for you, apparently you’re the cutest one here”.

“that’s not true, you guys are always the one who end up with the girls in your arms.” Akaashi grumbled quietly.

“that is true, but you better come out tonight”.

[ 10:15 pm ]

Akaashi sat on the rugged black sofa and watched his brothers run around prepping the house for the party. Someone (who sounded suspiciously like Atsumu) yelled, “The girls just texted me saying they’ll be here in about ten minutes. They sent me a picture, the babes are looking so good today. Y’all better get ready!”

“Come on Keiji, help me bring the jungle juice to the table” Bokuto yelled out to his friend. Akaashi reluctantly went over, looking at the bright red liquid in skepticsm, “what the heck did you add in here today?”

Bokuto grinned, “oh you know, the special. Some vodka, raspberry juice, a hint of fireball and a whole lot of love”.

Akaashi could practically feel the burning liquid in his throat, Bokuto’s definition of “a hint” usually meant a little more than one bottle.

Suddenly the lights were dimmed, loud, bass-pumping music echoed throughout the house.

“Smile Keiji, the girls are almost here”.

[ 10:30 pm ]

Akaashi was once again placed on door duty because he was “the cutest”. The doorbell rang once, twice.

“Passcode?”

Girly giggles erupted before saying “Terushima Yuji is the hottest”.

Akaashi rolled his eyes, of course Terushima, the social chair, the biggest flirt of the entire house would choose a password like this.

He opened the door, nose immediately hit with a strong mixture of flower, candy and fruit, making him sneeze.

“Bless you baby”, the president of the sorority said, flashing Akaashi a smile. He returned the smile weakly, wanting nothing more than to escape from door duty.

One by one the girls walked in, giggling and flashing flirty smiles at Keiji. He smiled politely, thinking to himself, “yeah I guess Atsumu was right, the girls are looking cute tonight”.

[ 10:59 pm ]

Akaashi sat on the stairs bored, one more minute until his shift was over. He highly doubt there would be anymore guest. A soft knock on the door proved him wrong. He opened the door to find (Y/N) standing there, surprised to see her wrapped in a winter jacket. Though it was definitely a cold night in January, most girls simply showed up in their dresses or skirt, too lazy to carry their jacket.

“Well, Keiji, can I come in?” (Y/N) asked cheekily.

Akaashi cleared his throat, “yeah, of course, come on in”.

“This is so much better, I was freezing out there”.

“If you were freezing out there and you had a jacket on, how much colder were you sisters? none of them had jackets on.”

He watched as her eyes opened in shock, shaking her head in disappointment “again? I specifically told them to wear their jackets and we could just leave it in one of your bedrooms”.

“Speaking of which, Keiji you want to let my jacket borrow your bedroom for the night?” She asked him.

“Nope, use Makki’s”. Akaashi replied, knowing full well that Makki was in love with you.

“Fine, fine I’ll hang it up in Makki’s room”. (Y/N) replied, unbuttoning her jacket and shimmying it off her body. Akaashi’s eyes slightly widened at her outfit underneath. It wasn’t promiscuous at all, Y/N did not like dressing that way, but she had an impeccable sense of style and knew what worked and what didn’t. And right now, that little black halter top, with her black jeans definitely worked for her. Akaashi quickly looked away, coughing to hide his rising blush.

“I know the way, I’ll talk to you later Keiji. Don’t party too hard.”

“I��ll try my best”, he replied, making the both of you laugh knowing full well he’s most likely going to just stay on the sofa later.

[ 11: 10 pm ]

Now that all the guests have arrived, Terushima lowered the music volume and called everyone to the main living room. His eyes glint with mischief.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first mixer of the year!” He waited for the applauses and whistles to die down before continuing, “we got some fresh new faces, so let’s go around and introduce ourselves, and ladies please, after you introduce yourself give us a little twirl so we can admire your outfit”. That last sentence earned Terushima a smack on the head by Daichi, the president, but the girls nodded and giggled.

One by one people started to introduce themselves, their name, year, and that little twirl, which some of the brothers did as well.

The room fell quiet as Y/N introduced herself, the brothers staring intently at her. A coy smile on her face as she introduced herself before twirling around, giving everyone a 360 look at her outfit.

Yells of support echoed throughout the house as her sisters clapped and shouted, “Go Y/N! thats my sister” or “my sister is so hot!”

“Ever the flirt”, Akaashi thought to himself, smiling, knowing full well that’s just her natural personality. He looked over at Makki, who was so obviously blushing, even in the dim light.

Akaashi sighed inwardly, tired of seeing his brother’s lack of action. If Makki really liked Y/N, he should go talk to her instead of always wandering into Keiji’s room ranting about how beautiful she is.

[ 11:30 PM ]

The music was once again turned up full volume. People were scattered all over the house, some were huddled by the kitchen table playing kings’ cup or beer pong, others dancing in the living room, a few cuddled up by the couch.

Makki came over to sit by Keiji.

“Go talk to her”, Keiji’s head nodded slightly in Y/N’s direction, who was walking around the room checking up on her sisters.

Makki sighed, “no, I know she doesn’t like me that way”.

Keiji had enough of Makki’s lack of action. Makki’s crush was a well-known secret, ever since he first laid eyes on Y/N. They were friends, but as his feelings got more intense, Makki found it harder and harder to carry on a full conversation with her.

Keiji didn’t want to endure another late night chat comforting Makki and listening to him ramble about how “perfect” Y/N was.

“Come on, I’ll go with you and join the convo, then leave a little later.”

Makki sighed again and stood up to follow Keiji.

“Hi boys, what’s up?” Y/N said, eyes side glancing over at the two boys before turning her attention back to making sure one of her already-tipsy sister was drinking enough water.

“nothing, we just wanted to chat with you,” Keiji replied, “right, Makki?”

“yes, and uh...you look very nice tonight,” Makki said shyly.

“awww thank you babe, you look nice too” Y/N said absentmindedly. Unbeknownst to Makki, “babe” was Y/N’s “affectionate word of the day”. Keiji had heard from another sister that in order to boost more sisterly love, her sorority has instituted an “affectionate word of the day” activity. But before Keiji could tell Makki, Makki was already a blushing mess, unable to function.

“I...um...babe...um...need water,” Makki said, before dashing away.

Y/N turned to Akaashi confused, “did I say something?”

Akaashi sighed, “nah, he’s just a weirdo”.

Y/N laughed slightly at Keiji’s comment and flashed him a smile, “so...you wanted to chat. How’s it going?”

Akaashi’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, “same old, same old”.

“You know what your problem is Keiji?” Y/N turned her full attention to him, “you need to relax babe.”

“I am relaxed.”

“Yes yes, but your relaxing is boring.”

Akaashi smiled in amusement, “what does that even mean?”

A sudden change of song had Y/N standing up taller, “it means, come dance with me because this is my favorite song”.

♫ We're living in a fantasy I feel it when you dance with me♫

The light seemed to dim even lower as Y/N grabbed Akaashi’s hand, pulling him towards the dance floor. Y/N started moving to the beat of the music, eyes beckoning Akaashi to do the same.

Akaashi knew Y/N was a good dancer from seeing her move at previous mixers, but to dance next to her was a whole other story.

He moved closer, putting one hand on her waist, she glanced up shyly to him, any hint of her usual flirtiness gone. Her duality shocked Akaashi in the best of ways. The two continued dancing, the space between them gradually lessening as the melody played on and on.

“Now, now, this kind of relaxation is more fun isn’t it Keiji?”

Akaashi smiled down at you and nodded.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #akaashi x reader #akaashi x you #akaashi keiji #bokuto #miya atsumu

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 3 years

Note

Helena x MC, where MC has been growing a garden for Helena, and gives it to her on her Birthday or Anniversary?

"My love? This is not the direction to the restaurant?"

I can't help the mischievous smile the rises to my lips, as I'm very much aware that we aren't headed towards the restaurant that held Helena's Birthday reservations. It was her first Birthday in Chicago, and I intended on making it nothing other than truly magical.

"I told Sophie we'd stop by real quick before heading over. Is that okay?" I ask, watching her long fingers as they trace idle patterns over the deep red fabric of her dress. Her pale skin even more luminescent than usual against the brilliant color.

"Of course, my love."

The rest of the car ride is calm except for the excitement that’s bubbling up throughout me. I had spent months making sure that this night was perfect. To show Helena exactly how much she meant to me. How much she deserved in life - and she deserved everything - the sun, the moon, and every single beautiful thing in between.

The cold night air is welcoming against my flushed skin as we exit the car.

"Sophie asked us to meet her around back, where the old court yard is." I say nonchalantly, only receiving a small hum from Helena as we made our way down the side walk, slowing our pace once we made it to the back of the building. A small string of lights lights a pathway to a small, abandoned green house. Almost looking as if it had been transported form another place and time - randomly left in the center of a bustling city. A large winter moon gleams brilliantly off of the glass roof top.

"And what is this?" Helena asks, pulling her jacket over her shoulders as the chilled January air hit her flawless skin.

"Just a little place I thought you'd like to see. Come with me?" I ask, holding out my arm to her like the knight I always promised I'd be.

"Always, my love."

As we make our way through the fogged glass door, it's immediately apparent, that Sophie had done everything in her power to make this place as magical as possible. Bright lights strung so perfectly along the hand built field of flowers, that it looks like a group of fireflies on a late summer's eve. Splashes of light blue, iridescent whites and fierce oranges, blended together in such a way that could only say 'I love you'.

"This place is beautiful." Helena says, slightly breathless - her fingers dancing slowly over the soft petals of a forget-me-not. "Who does it belong to?"

"You."

I say the word simply and with a sincerity to my voice so strong, that I can see the emotion in Helena's eyes almost immediately. The small blush that rises to her cheeks, the tiny amount of tears that gather in her eyes - totally disarmed by such a genuine act of kindness - of love.

"M-m e? My love?"

"Mhm... I asked Sophie a few months ago to talk to her landlord about using this. We've been working on it for you ever since."

I watch as Helena slowly makes her way through the green house, her delicate nose stopping at each flower that she passes.

"And you have done all of this.. for me?" She asks again, slightly averting her eyes as she does.

"Of course, Helena. You deserve it, and so much more! I even picked out each flower here for a reason."

"Oh?" She asks, her dark blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"Yep. These periwinkle ones over here are-"

"Forget-me-nots. I remember." She interrupts, a small smile forming on her lips.

"Correct. The color of their soft blue petals represent calmness and tranquility, and the name can also mean not to forget one's past. To always respect it."

Helena lets out a small hum of pleasure as the tip of her fingers fondly trace over one of the small flowers. A look on her face so soft that my heart can't help but swell.

"And these over here.." I say walking over the next row a flowers - soft white petals with the slightest hint of pink to them, spread out brilliantly before us. "Are called Gladiolus. They're a symbol of strength and integrity. They also represent healing in times of grief."

"That name is similar to the word for 'sword' in Demon language." Her voice was coated something sadder as she spoke, with an almost longing to it.

For a moment, I just drink in her beauty as she leans over to take in the flower's soft scent - The way her hair fell so elegantly around her face like moonlight chasing after the dawn, how her eyes lit up like the tops of an ocean, basking in the warm sunlight - She was wise beyond her years - but also broken - rebuilt from the bottom up - Always with such a deep rooted innocence, that it only stood her apart from the other of the Witch Queen's generals. I take her hand in mine and lead her further back into the green house, where dozens upon dozens of roses filled the space - From a moonlit white, to the fiercest orange I had ever seen. The smell almost overwhelming - floral with a sweet undertone of musk - almost as delicious as the scent that was Helena.

"I chose the orange to represent your new life in Chicago - a rebirth, if you will." I say, plucking a single orange rose from a bush and handing it to her - the petals and leaves instantly flourishing to her touch.

"Ah, like a phoenix." She replies, and I smile, thinking back to the day that I had taught her about the mythological creatures of the my world. How curious she was to know that at one time, almost everyone here had once believed in magic.

"Exactly." I reply fondly.

"And.. the white?" She asks quietly, the orange rose spinning smoothly between her fingers.

"I know it may seem like an.. odd choice.. given the circumstances. But I also thought it would be a nice way to honor Alain, and Helen as well. I even made sure they were closer to a moonlit white, to match your hair."

Helena gives me a small nod, unspent tears causing her eyes to shimmer in the low lighting of the small garden, a smile on her face so fond that I immediately cup her face, pulling her in for a soft kiss - wiping away any falling tears as I do. She lays her forehead against mine when we finally part, and lets out a small hum.

"Your thoughtfulness and kindness will never cease to disarm me, my love. Thank you." Her warm breath skates across my skin as she speaks, etching a promise of everything she felt into my skin.

"Don't thank me, just yet. I still have one more thing to show you."

She gives me a look of surprised curiosity, as I lead her to the far back corner of the room - a small table, set with an elegant ceramic tea set, sits besides the beginning of a small but very suitable herb garden. The delicate inflections of the light blue and gold, that were so meticulously painted on the teapot, almost twinkled under the string lights that hung with care over the table.

"Is this an herb garden, my love?" Helena asks, looking over the variety that already began to sprout.

"Yep! I thought you'd enjoy being surrounded by some familiar smells as you relax with your favorite tea."

I motion for her to sit down, pouring her a hot cup of mint tea that Sophie had brewed for us. Swirls of steam curling elegantly around her face as she takes in a long, deep sip. The smallest of blushes rises to her cheeks and nose, as I lean over and kiss her again. She tasted like midnight and crisp air - mint and honey - love and life. I curl my fingers through her soft hair, pulling her even deeper in, savoring the perfection of the moment.

"Thank you, my love." She whispers against me.

"Always."

I write the word into her lips, kissing her under the clear winter's sky, until our dinner reservations had long past expired.

#answered #anonymous #lovestruck #women of lovestruck #helena klein #helena x mc #lovestruck love and legends #love and legends #fluffy #fluff #miscellaneous monday

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3pirouette · 3 years

Text

Fic: The Honey Trap (6/?)

Title: The Honey Trap

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

A/N- Again, thanks for your patience. I'm not sure what's going to happen with this story come Steggy Week as I plan on posting something for every day that week, but it's not being abandoned.

Quite the opposite. Once again, I've managed to write a good chunk of the end before I've finished the middle.At least I know where it's going.

Enjoy!

Chapter Summary: Peggy meets Steve at the Pub, and everything changes.

Chapter 6: With My Life

January 2, 1945, 7PM

Peggy could feel their eyes on her. It wasn’t her normal Hydra handlers she’d spotted weeks ago, but they stuck out to her anyway.

She idly wondered, as she moved through the chilled street, if anyone else noticed people who didn’t belong, or if it was something that caught her eye because of who she was and what she did, just like her Mum could spot rot on the tomatoes two days before the black spots showed up in the garden. It felt like she could always just see things and people who stood out, who didn’t belong, little clues plastered here and there that others didn’t.

The thought kept her occupied, able to keep her face blank as she moved to the pub. It wasn’t the pub Wallace took her to, which thankfully made it just that much harder for the men watching her. With a pub or the equivalent on nearly every corner, London was a haven for a spy like her. She turned the corner, only a block away, and started to review the codes in her head. Words they’d used, phrases they’d said that she might be able to slip into conversation to let him know what she knew. She’d been trying to avoid thinking too much about her cover being blown and what that could potentially mean, but the thoughts still simmered deep in her brain.

It made everything more treacherous.

It made everything just a little more fun.

She’d been feeling that things were going sour, and she could kick herself for not trusting her gut. She’d known for weeks something was off with Wallace, but she’d gone along because she knew she didn’t have all the information.

She was about to, and it gave her a little thrill to know she was going to finally have the upper hand and a chance to use her skills to make a real difference.

As she neared the Pub, she realized this must have been what Steve had felt so long ago: the dancing monkey, left with nothing but the crumbs that others would toss his way, so close yet so far from his goal. She didn’t like the feeling, and suffered a deep pang of regret for him.

The warmth of the pub was a welcome change from the biting cold outside, and she spotted the Hydra agent at the bar with no more than a glance. No, she didn’t care very much for the man at the bar, but rather she cared about the man trying desperately to make himself look smaller in the back corner, dressed in civilian clothes that he must have pieced together from the men at the base based on their ill fit. She moved towards him slowly and sat, working hard to keep her face a blank slate as she took off her coat and slipped it around the chair.

Steve’s jaw twitched with the effort it took to hold back his smile, but she could also tell he was fighting to avoid looking concerned and serious, the downturn of his eyes spoke of the danger she was in. “Peggy,” he whispered, somehow making the word full of excitement and fear and pain all at the same time.

“Steve,” she replied, her voice just as heavy with emotion. She took a deep breath and blinked twice, waiting for his answering double blink before speaking. “You should buy me a drink, or three, just for coming out tonight.”

She saw his eyes dart to his 3 o’clock: the code sent and received. His gaze fell right back to her, and his lip curled up. “I think I knew that all along,” he replied, sounding conversational but letting her know he’d clocked the agent long ago. He sighed and reached out over the small table, taking her hand in his and twining their fingers. “We need to talk about us, Peg.”

Peggy took a moment, acting dramatically. To any bystander, they’d see a woman avoiding the stare of a former lover while still preening her hair and trying to catch his eye. Steve, while appreciative of her form, caught the way she played with her earing for just a second longer, how her fingers covered her lips in what was supposed to look like a moment of indecision. “I just don’t know, Steve.”

He nodded, eyes bright up close, letting her know that he understood: she didn’t know how much they could hear, or if they could read lips. “Are things all that different?” His tone asked a lover if she was still in love with him, but his words enquired about the state of Hydra’s spies.

“I’ve been away,” she answered, “far away, and I just don’t know the answer to that.” She sighed, trying to figure out how to tell him more, how to let him know that Wallace hadn’t just been secretive, he’d shut her out of all the decisions and the planning of what they were doing. It was looking more and more that defecting had been his plan all along.

A waitress stopped by their table, and they spent a moment ordering food that she knew would be dry and tasteless and beer that would be flat and warm. Once upon a time, she and Steve would have remarked about that, talking about all the things they’d do once the war was over, once he could take her to the ballpark and out to see the Brooklyn Bridge, and once she could get a descent full English for breakfast somewhere. Those plans seemed so small now, so inconsequential, but she desperately wished they could talk of them, that they could have just one more minute—

“Remember how we used to talk about after the war?” Steve started, as if he’d read her mind. He squeezed her hand tight, smiling. “When we could have a chance to just… just be people?”

Her breath seemed to slowly deflate from her lungs. It’s was such a simple sentiment, but to know that he shared it, in the face of everything, made her heart pound just a little faster. “It used to be all I held on to, that one day this would be over.” Still do she tapped out furiously on his wrist with her finger in morse code.

He smiled as she tapped, nodding his head, but she could still see how he was coiled tight. They paused again, waiting as the waitress dropped their beers on the table. Steve waited, but didn’t pull his hand from hers. “I want you back, Peg.” He said sharply, eyes and lips tight and serious. “I want you to come back.”

She took a deep breath, knowing things were about to escalate. “I left for a reason, Steve.”

He held her gaze, didn’t even blink as he spoke. “It was a mistake. I know it. You know it. Even Phillips sees that now.”

Peggy pulled back her hand just in time for the waitress to return, their plates in her hands. Peggy busied herself with her napkin in her lap. She finally looked back up when the waitress left. “I think I should stay.”

The corner of his lip turned down. “I didn’t come all the way out here—"

She stopped playing with her napkin and set it back on the table, standing. “I need to go wash my hands.” She stood and started to move past him to the back of the building where the bathrooms were, but he stood and caught her arm. He held her gaze for a long second before leaning forward, his lips covered by her hair to keep the Hydra agent from reading them, his words barely a whisper to be picked up even if there was a microphone somewhere. “I’m here to pull you out.”

Peggy stepped back, eyes flat and serious. “And that’s exactly why I should stay.” She pulled her arm from his grip and moved past him, to the back of the restaurant and the little hall that was out of sight from the rest of the bar.

She slipped into the small bathroom and immediately began to look it over, running her fingers under the sink and checking along the light switch to see if the cover had been tampered with and a bug hidden behind it. She turned over her shoulder as there was a knock on the door. “Peggy!”

She shook her head and nearly laughed at Steve’s theatrics. While he was passable, he certainly was no spy. “Don’t you dare!” She called out, leaning over and running her hand over the back of the toilet. She didn’t find a bug, but immediately shoved both hands under the faucet, turning on the water as hot as she could get it.

Steve remembered enough to at least pretend fighting with the door, though she’d left the lock undone. He slipped in, filling much of the available space, and pressed himself against the back of it, turning the lock with a sift flick of his wrist. Clear? He mouthed.

“As far as I can tell,” Peggy whispered, drying her hands. She took no time in closing the space between them, pressing her lips to his. Steve lifted her from her feet as he deepened the kiss, turning them to press her between the door and his body. “Good lord I’ve missed you,” she whispered against his mouth, her hands running through his hair.

He pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers. “I have to get you out.”

“And that’s exactly why I have to stay.” She gently pressed her hands against his cheeks, pushing his head back. “Quickly- all that you know.”

“Wallace has been pulling information, hiding things. We haven’t gotten one of your communiques in over a month. Phillips has been suspicious for weeks now, but last week he gave us a false lead on a Hydra camp. It was a set-up and if we hadn’t done our own recon it would have been…” He trailed off shaking his head. He looked back at her, blue eyes sad and pleading. “Whatever he originally told us, it was a lie. He hasn’t been sharing anything of value, and we’re starting to see his name pop up in places it shouldn’t be. We don’t know what he’s trying to lure us into.”

“So, no immediate danger,” Peggy whispered with a smirk.

Steve stepped back, letting her feet touch the ground, hands holding tight at her hips like he wanted to sling her over his shoulder and run for it. “Yes, there is. If he knows he’s been found out—”

“We don’t let him know,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers. “This gives us the upper hand. He thinks he’s in control, but we are.”

“That will make him desperate,” Steve pleaded softly. “Desperate men do desperate things.”

“Desperate men are also stupid and miss things right in front of them.” Peggy leaned up and kissed him softly. “I know how we’re going to do this. And it’s going to be us. You and Me. There’s no one I trust more than you, Steve. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” he answered without hesitation.

She smiled, running her hand over his cheek. “Then you’re going to go back to the table, and in full view of the Hydra agent wipe that lipstick off your mouth.” Peggy stilled his hand before it got to his lips. “We’re going to have an affair right in front of Hydra, and I’m going to find a way for us to win this war by giving them false information and stealing everything we’re going to need while using that as a cover.”

Steve pressed forward, kissing her desperately and quickly. “I can’t just leave you here.”

“You’re not.” She let her hands run through his hair gently. “You’re trusting me, and we’re going to come out on the other side of this, just like we planned.”

“I’ll take you on a real date,” he whispered, gathering her tight in his arms.

She laughed. “You can date me properly once we’ve finished our affair.” She pulled herself out of his arms. “Now get, I’ll be right behind you.”

He kissed her one last time, deep and intense. He smirked as he pulled away. “How’s this color look on me.”

His joke hit her in such a way that she wasn’t sure if the sound that came out of her was a laugh or a sob, but she had to bite her lip to keep more from erupting. “Go!”

The rest of dinner passed by both too fast and too slow. The codes were done with, the important information exchanged, and what was left was little more than an emotionally and sexually charged date, shared by two people who missed one another but couldn’t do anything about it.

She kept catching his eyes on her lips, and she kept finding herself drawn to his fingers. She couldn’t quite remember eating at all, but the food was tasteless, anyway, and the waitress took their payment far too soon for her tastes.

Peggy bit her thumb, looking at him from across the empty table. She moved as soon as she made the decision, standing and taking his hand, pulling him quickly and decisively out of the pub and around back to hide by the trash cans. She pushed him up against the bricks and he didn’t fight back. Instead, he pulled her to him, curling down to kiss her with all the fire she remembered.

The trash cans around them clattered as they moved, ensuring two things: they were going to be found, and that no one could sneak up on them.

“Quickly,” she whispered, biting at his earlobe, “something that can prove to Hydra I’ll have information but that won’t hurt anyone.” Steve stopped kissing her and pulled his head back. He started to ask her what she meant, but she shook her head. “Now, and loudly.”

She began kissing down his neck and he could do nothing but close his eyes and comply. “There’s an empty allied base six clicks south of the Nazi hold along the French border.”

“We could go there,” she stage-whispered loudly, turning his head to look at just her with her chilled fingers. “Meet there.”

Before he could even think to tell her no, the trash cans to their right clattered. They both turned to see the Hydra operative, eyes wide and surprised that what he thought was a sturdy hideout had collapsed on him. “Just uh…” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just gonna take a piss.”

“Take it somewhere else,” Steve replied harshly, holding Peggy tighter to him.

Peggy turned her head away, pretending to try to hide, “afraid” she’d been caught, but she hid her smile against Steve’s chest. She’d seen the man stand and start to follow them long before they’d even been out the door of the bar. If she’d tipped some of the rubbish bins just a little as they’d made their way out, made them just that much easier to push over, well, maybe Hydra should get some better spies.

The agent looked the couple up and down and smirked. Peggy risked a “fearful” glance that lasted just a second too long, a second long enough for the Hydra agent to be able to positively identify her. They stood quietly, listening as his footsteps echoed away.

Steve slowly dropped his forehead to hers, smiling as he whispered. “How did you know he was coming?”

She smiled and pecked his lips, whispering back. “Spy, darling. It’s what I do best.” She interrupted his little chuckle with another kiss. “What’s the base disguised as?”

He shook his head. “It’s not. Just a shell from earlier in the war. Phillips wanted to use it to stage a push forward.”

Peggy snuggled in his embrace, the chilled wind finally breaking through the heat of the moment. “Would Wallace know about it?”

“No,” Steve pulled her coat from where she’d slung it over her arm when they left and wrapped it around her shoulders before cuddling her back close. “Only Phillips and the commandos.”

“Phillips may have my head, but we need a bit of proof of concept here.” She took a deep breath and looked at him seriously. “Tell Phillips that plan is out. I’m going to slip the existence of the base past Wallace in conversation tomorrow. Monitor the base. If Hydra comes running for the empty base, we’ll know we’ve got him hooked.”

“I’m less worried about the hooking and more concerned about the reeling in.” Steve mumbled, rocking them gently. “I don’t like you staying out here.”

“And I don’t like you going off and getting yourself shot at, but here we are.” She pulled back. “Talk to Phillips. Get him to pull in the Commandos and Howard, and anyone else at the SSR he trusts. We’ve got a rogue agent and that’s more dangerous than we were prepared for.”

“If. If I manage to get them on board?” Steve asked cautiously, not even bothering to finish the sentiment. “I was supposed to be bringing you back with me tonight, you know.”

Peggy hummed a sad, frustrated note. “While heading back with you tonight sounds just about the most wonderful thing I could think of, we can’t waste this opportunity.” She smiled up at him, “We engage in a salacious affair, which won’t be difficult as I quite miss you, and we use that to plant what they will believe is real information for Wallace to find.” She kissed him softly. “We get Wallace.” She kissed his cheek. “We get Hydra.” She snuggled herself under his chin. “And we end this damn war so you can take me on a proper date.”

She felt more than heard his chuckle as it rumbled in his chest. “A suit, flowers, and everything as soon as we get leave,” he whispered.

“Until then, we’ll have to set up trysts. Exchange information as best we can.” She sighed. “Without a clear line of communication with everyone, the best I can do is feed him information, I can’t help you create the scenarios.”

“I’ll hold up my end, Peg.” He let his cheek fall against her forehead. “You just stay alive. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“One week from now. Same place, same time.” Steve wasn’t asking, he was telling.

Peggy smiled. “I won’t be late.”

“Don’t you dare.”

#Steggy Fic #Steggy Bingo Bash #3P's Fic

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estellaelysian · 3 years

Text

Let me be in your Life like that (Dakota x MC)

A/N: First of all, happy Valentine's Day to all of you guys.

I was feeling so bad and guilty that I had written a fic for Ethan and Alishka and not for Dakota and Amber, that I couldn't help myself, and hence, I had to write this. So yes, you guys are in for a ride, and there are going to be two Valentine’s Day fics.

Also, this is complete fluff, because we are saving the angst for the series.

(And please excuse my errors if any, I haven’t gone through them!)

**********

‘Hey Amber,’ Dakota said, sounding slightly raw and throaty. ‘I am running late, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Go on and start the movie without me, I have already seen it anyway.’

Click.

Amber sighed.

No hey how are you? No hey, I am so sorry I can’t make it in time … just I am running late and go start the movie without me.

Classic Dakota.

‘What did he say?’ Mateo asked beside her. ‘Is he coming?’

‘No. He said he is running late. Oh, and that we should start without him.’

‘Oh,’ Mateo said, sounding just as dejected as she felt. ‘Well let’s start then.’

‘Yeah, let’s start.’

She balanced up the iPad she held, and at that very moment, she got a notification of a video message from Dakota.

Holding her breath, she opened the video, and there he stood, dressed in a hoodie, wearing a bright smile.

He grinned at the camera.

‘Hey Amber, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, and I know you are mad at me for not being there to watch the movie like we planned to do… Well, I am not at your house with you. I promise I am not standing you up, it’s the opposite of that. I love you, and I just want your Valentine’s Day to be perfect. I don’t know how to do this, umm … you know, I am just trying to do this perfectly, and my mind being the way it is, I can right now think of a million different ways this could go and I am freaking nervous, but all I know is I want this to be special and that you should always remember this. So, here goes…’

Amber pressed a hand to her mouth, keeping from saying anything as she watched Dakota step away and in the next moment, he was in the school, sitting in front of the green screen, talking to Jayden and Heather.

‘So, hello to both of you. I hope you are doing well on this bright day.’

‘Why yes we are,’ Jayden said, grinning widely. ‘And can I just say what a pleasure it is to have you here?’

‘Oh thank you. It is fun to be around you guys, but today I am actually here because I have something to tell my girlfriend.’

‘Oh yeah? Amber?’

‘Yeah, I think she is watching this right now.’

‘Uh, actually, there has been some technical problem,’ Heather said, looking at Dakota. ‘This is not broadcasting now.’

‘NO?’

‘No,’ she said apologetically.

‘But Dakota wait. I can arrange something,’ Jayden said, looking between Dakota and Heather. ‘Just gimme some minutes, I can–’

‘Nah, its fine actually, I can think of doing something else.’

‘No, no, just give me a few minutes…’

But Dakota was already leaving his seat in haste. ‘I am sorry, you guys, I’ll see you soon. For now, I’ve to go.’

And in the next step, he was at another setting, wearing a white sleeveless tee and blue jeans, smiling. She recognized almost all the classmates that entered the frame, all in same clothes.

Faint music started playing in the background, and Dakota made a goofy grin.

‘We could leave the Christmas lights up till January… this is our place, we make the rules. And there’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear. Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?’

Amber smiled at him singing, the best way he could, her hand still pressed to her mouth as he continued.

‘Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? And ah, take me out, and take me home … you’re my, my, my, my lover.’

The music stopped, and his voice rang out, loud and clear. ‘This is too cheesy,’ he declared, watching as the classmates danced and danced, not bothering to stop. With a scoff, he left the screen…

… to emerge a moment later at another location, this time the dog park, again, a trail of classmates following him.

‘Wise men said, only fools rushed in, but I can’t help falling in love with you.’

She giggled as one of the girls moved around and stumbled into him.

‘Shall I stay? Would it be a sin, if I can’t help falling in love with you?’ he sang sweetly.

But their classmates were completely onto him now, flirting and seducing, pulling down his suspenders repeatedly, making Amber laugh. He tried dodging their attempts, but they continued, quite voluptuously, and he kept pulling his suspenders back on.

‘Cut, cut! CUT IT!’ he said, looking exasperated, and all the people stopped dancing or rather, seducing him. ‘Good god, this is a disaster.’

There was another change of frame, and now, he stood in front of Dairy Queen, amidst the people who barely paid attention to the camera that filmed him.

And then, all of a sudden, music came blaring through, and a man and woman who stood right in front of the camera started dancing, like professionals would.

She watched in awe as the woman was swept, quite effortlessly, off her feet and up into the air, as she spinned gracefully in the man’s arms.

And then another couple followed suit.

And then everyone was dancing to the music, and again, she saw Dakota singing as she smiled at the frame. But this time, it wasn’t right in front of the frame. He was barely visible as he sang and danced in the crowd.

‘I don’t wanna think too much, I just wanna feel. You know that it ain’t no rush. Let me keep it real. Just let me be in your life like that, in your life like that. I’ll bring the light right back, I’ll bring the life right back. I’m gonna make you want more, I’m gonna be your new favorite. Tell ‘em you’re closing the door, I’m the only for sure…’

He kneeled with a rose in his hand, smiling.

She giggled unknowingly, and again, the music stopped, this time, Lennox appearing out of nowhere.

‘Where is Amber? Is she here?’ Dakota asked, and she shook her head.

‘What? You didn’t bring her?

‘No, that wasn’t my job! Amy here was supposed to get her!’

‘Wha–’

‘I can fix it. Just wait a sec, I’ll call her.’

‘You’re gonna call her? he asked as she pulled out her phone.

‘Oh my God, you guys, I am so sorry,’ he said, turning to the crowd of dancers waiting expectantly. ‘I am so sorry.’

His mom appeared in the frame now, holding a fancy tux jacket. ‘Here, darling, put this on.’

‘Mom, what are you doing?’

‘Come on, put this on, you are gonna need it.’

He pulled on the jacket, and she handed him a small paper bag along with a laser tag.

‘Use this. Use it now!’

In a blind moment, he drew a circle down on the ground and jumped in, as a woman, who she did not recognize appeared in the video.

Soon, they were in a pursuit, running down the deserted and dark streets, but before long, the woman caught up with Dakota, snatching the bag right out of his hands.

‘Hey!’ he said, whirling around to face her.

‘She doesn’t need this. Did you ever think what might e in here? What is it that you are protecting with all your heart?’

She turned the bag upside down, and down fell bits of paper.

‘Nothing. She doesn’t need fancy gifts. She needs you, there, right now, and if you do want to give her something, it should be this,’ she said, handing him a basket.

And then she was gone.

By now, Amber was completely still, holding her breath. Dakota turned to look at the empty street in shock, but then, before long, started walking down, under the golden pool of light.

She recognized the neighborhood. He was getting close.

Oh God….

The doorbell startled her, and she looked at Mateo.

‘Go, open it,’ he urged, smiling at her. ‘He’d want to see you after so much of running around.’

A giggle escaped her lips as she stood and went to open the door, and there he stood, her Dakota, looking smart and handsome, and disheveled at the same moment, his hair tousled.

he looked absolutely perfect.

‘I love you, Amber,’ he whispered. ‘I love you so, so much. Here,’ he held out the straw basket to her, which seemed to be carrying gummy bears, roses and a few notes.

But she was way past caring about what was in the basket.

She threw her arms around him, and he held her as relieved laughter and tears left her body.

‘I love you too,’ she said, tightening the embrace.

**********

So yeah, that just happened. It is inspired from a video I watched, and ... yeah, sorry if things got too cheesy.

Thank you for reading.

Tagging: @tenaciouslandvoidgiant @choicesaddict5 @starrystarrytrouble @dakotasteach @kodysteach @vishhhi

Let me know if you want to be added or removed

#dakota winchester #dakota x mc #weh #choices weh #playchoices #choices

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passable-talent · 3 years

Note

Hi yes so I just finished the anakin punk au and it was uh perfect? And you should 100% please write more in that au it doesn’t even have to be in some coherent storyline, just more punk anakin please I am hooked

say no more my dear

I write this. and I think to myself “punks. they like weed. they drink. I should talk about that.”

and then I don’t. because I have a,,, responsibility to promote good health I guess?

don’t do drugs kids. most of them arent worth it i promise

and yes just like i mentioned wattpad in the last one tumblr is coming up on this one we’re breaking the FUCKING fourth wall

part one here

You passed out on his shoulder, exactly as he predicted, at about 2:00 AM.

He didn’t notice for a few minutes, and once he had, he had to make a very hard decision.

He knew you were leaving in the morning, you had other places to be. And he had to get home, Cliegg was going to be pissed he’d been out this late as it was. But- just like you, he never wanted the night to end.

At 2:15, he shimmied out from under you, finding your room key quickly. Once he’d slipped it into his pocket, he picked you up, carrying you all the way back to your room. The door seemed to scream as it opened, but none of the girls were awake. He laid you onto the only empty bed, leaving your room key on the dresser, and kneeled at your beside, for just a moment.

A night he wasn’t going to forget. One he wasn’t willing to leave behind.

He found the notepad left by the hotel for guests and its nearby pen, scribbling his phone number onto it before smacking it onto your room key so that he knew you’d see it.

He wasn’t taking any chances. He did everything he could to make sure that you were safe, that you’d sleep soundly, that he’d see you again. It was a bit of a walk back to where he’d left his car, at the venue, but it was worth it- he shrugged his jacket up around his neck against the cold and kept going, remembering how it’d felt to hold you.

But, in all of his kindness, he had made one mistake. You didn’t get to say goodbye.

You woke up in the hotel room the next morning, for a moment thinking that maybe you’d dreamed the whole thing. But then you realized you still had your shoes on, and you were laying on top of the sheets, why the hell would I do that, and you phone hadn’t been plugged in, and-

And there was a phone number on the dresser.

You weren’t really ‘dating’- you shouldn’t call it that. If you were going to call it that, then there would inevitably be a post on someone’s tumblr that you had a boyfriend, and who was he, where was he from, yada yada... that damn website already had half the internet convinced you were dating Padme, you didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire.

So no, you weren’t dating. But you were texting every day. You learned so much about him, about how he was raised by his mom and worked at her friend Watto’s auto shop, about his step-brother and future step-sister-in-law, how his mom died when he was nineteen, about how he’d tried to move to California with his friend Obi-Wan a few years ago, but it fell through. In return, you told him about your life- living in the outskirts of San Francisco, being pushed into ballet lessons as a kid (as he said- ‘that’s why you look weightless on stage!’), being cut out from your family for quitting college to pursue music.

You texted every day and every night, sent him videos from gigs, and he sent dumb little snapchats from underneath whatever car he was working on. You expected that to be it, probably for a long time- neither of you had the money nor the time to see each other more often. So you held onto the connection you had, the night you’d spent together.

And you thought that’d be it. But- the universe has a funny way of surprising you.

Your record label was based in LA, so you lived in Salta Ana, about thirty miles away, where the real estate was way cheaper. The band lived together, close as four friends could be, so they knew all about how you’d fallen for Anakin. Ahsoka would notice you glued to your phone, and ask snarkily “texting skyguy?” to which you always scolded her that his name was Skywalker.

Living so close to LA made it easy to do gigs at any venue that would take you- bars, clubs, a particularly anarchist biker hall. A bar- such was the case for tonight.

Like usual with a gig like this, Aayla had taken to instagram and called any fan in the area, so the bar was mostly filled with people who knew the music, but there were regulars, too. People who couldn’t be damned to listen to the lyrics, and just let the atmosphere move them.

The setlist changed, when you were at a place like this. You didn’t necessarily rely on the hundred voice chorus that you loved so much, and so couldn’t include some of those songs. Your music strayed a little more to the rock end of the spectrum, when you played in places like this. With that high energy came faster music, more running around the stage, more movement, but you weren’t tired, when the set ended at 11:25. You were more energized than usual, in fact.

“Pads, I’ve never heard you solo like that!” You said, a bright smile on your face as you pushed out of the employee entrance of the bar. She gave you thanks, but not a moment later stopped dead, not saying a word, staring at you. You paused, looking at her, then Ahsoka and Aayla, who’d both stopped, too.

“What?” Ahsoka and Aayla, though, were looking at something past you, which made you realize that Padme was, too. You turned, and leaning against the wall was- was Anakin.

“Oh my god,” you said under your breath, dropping into a run toward him immediately. “Anakin!” He shoved himself off of the wall, letting you run into his arms, and just held you. You pulled away to look at him, amazed that after months, here he was, right in front of you, real.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, bewildered, surprised, ecstatic.

“Visiting Obi-Wan,” he said, and he lifted his hand to your face, giving you a good look at that tattoo you hadn’t quite forgotten, dark lines reaching from his elbow to his palm.

“And you,” he added. You couldn’t help it- you hadn’t seen him in so long, you couldn’t help the way you leaned into it when he pulled you into a kiss, and this time you weren’t exhausted, and you could let yourself feel it, you could pay attention to his chapped lips and the way he slid them over yours, still soft, even after waiting in the cold. You never wanted to leave this moment, like so many of the others that you spent with him, his hands on your face keeping away the January air.

“Yeah, I’m heading home,” Ahsoka said, making you break the kiss. “Coming, or not?” You looked back at her with a bit of a glare, letting Anakin’s hands fall to your neck.

“You guys go ahead,” you said, checking your jacket pocket for the essentials- wallet, phone, house keys. “I think I have a tradition to uphold.”

The bar you’d played at tonight was a bit far away from the place you wanted to take Anakin, but you didn’t mind the walk, since it was with him. You’d been texting every day, and yet it felt different, there was so much more to talk about now.

Apparently, Anakin hadn’t seen Obi-Wan since he’d left to move to LA, so it was a visit to an old friend as much as it was an excuse to see you again.

“So you’re staying with him?” You asked, leading him by the arm down the street.

“Yeah,” he said, hooking his elbow into yours, which let him keep his hands in his pockets. “He’s got an apartment in east LA, it’s got a nice couch.”

“East LA, not bad. What’s he do?”

“He’s a talent manager, actually. Went to business school and everything.” Anakin paused, suppressing a chuckle. “He told me that he’d love to represent you, if you didn’t already have someone.”

“Sadly, we do,” you said, playful, “but I’ll keep him in mind.”

You’d pretend it was the winter chill that brought the flush to your cheeks- he’d told his friend about you. That had to mean you were important to him, right?

“Where are we heading, anyway?” He asked, and you, luckily, could channel your inner dramatic and turn toward the doorway you’d been heading toward all along.

“Right here,” you said, and you took him inside.

This was your recording studio- it was always open, so that any artist could stop in and get out whatever creativity they had. You showed your ID card to the lobby clerk, who approved it and called the elevator. Anakin followed your lead until the door closed, and just like you had on the night you met him, you pressed the button for the highest floor.

“This is one of the buildings for our record company,” you said, the elevator so familiar.

“Which would explain why he let you in,” Anakin said, a slight teasing tone to his voice. All you could do was chuckle, waiting for the elevator to reach the top floor.

From there, you lead him to a glass door, and swiped your ID card through a reader near its frame so you could step outside.

“This is the rooftop set,” you said, gesturing to the wide space, “It’s where we film a lot of music videos.” This close to the door, it was hard to see over the side of the building, and so you took Anakin’s hand.

“The city lights keep us from stargazing,” you said with a smile, and brought him to the guardrail at the edge of the roof. “So I thought I’d show you the city’s version of the night sky.” Looking out across the city, there were a thousand orange sparkles, windows illuminated in buildings stretching as far as the eye could see. Criss-crossed between them were lines of red and white, LA traffic clogging the city streets even so late at night.

No matter how many times you came up here, you’d never get tired of the view. Fifty-five stories up, there were other buildings that dwarfed this tower, but the west was free of them, so your view to the horizon was clear, even in the LA overcast.

“Wow,” he said, looking out over it all beside you. “I’ve never- I don’t think I’ve ever been up this high.” You fixed him with a surprised expression, leaning your elbows down onto the banister.

“No? Really?”

“I didn’t grow up in a city, like you,” he said, settling in beside you, his arm pressed to yours. You let your head rest onto his shoulder, remembering the night you met.

“I’m glad you came out to LA,” you said, “though I’m hoping you’ll stay a while. I want to go on an actual date with you.” You heard him exhale.

“You don’t call this a date?” he asked, and you lifted your head, looking at him, the lights of the city giving his face the slightest, golden glow.

“Well, I mean-” If this was a date, then so had been the one after the show, back in October. Which meant this was your second date, and you’d technically been ‘dating’ this whole time, which kinda made him your- boyfriend?

“Is it?” Anakin slipped his hand into yours, lacing your fingers together.

“This is better than any dinner and movie we could’ve gone to, I think.” He turned over your hand, tracing his first finger over the skyline tattoo that bisected your forearm. “Especially since it seems like this means a lot to you.” You couldn’t believe he’d noticed that tattoo- it meant he really was paying attention to you.

“Yeah,” you said with a smile, lifting your arm up, his hand still held in yours, aligning the tattoo with the skyline you were looking at. “I got this done after we did our first video.” Silently, he examined the ink and compared it to the sky, seeing what you meant.

“That’s really cool,” he said, bringing your hand back down, since his fingers were getting cold in the wind, and he had to assume yours were too.

“How long are you going to be in town?” You asked, resting your temple down onto his shoulder again.

“A week, or so. Watto says he needs me to work on a mustang that we’re getting- I think Cliegg told him to say that since he doesn’t want me in the city.”

“Well, I don’t want to undermine your dad,” you said, “But I wouldn’t complain if you stayed here a lot longer than that.” You ran your thumb over the back of his hand. “It’s really nice to actually have you with me, and not over the phone.” Anakin turned to kiss the top of your head.

“Tell me about it. It’s worse for me, I promise- I listen to your music all the time, and it just makes me want to see you.”

“Sometimes I forget that you were once just a fan,” you said with a laugh, “listening to our music.”

“The luckiest one in the world,” Anakin added, and you almost wondered how you’d ever lived without him.

You let a moment pass, in silence.

“I’m twenty five,” you started, wondering if you had the courage to finish, “do you think I’m too young to be in love?” Anakin didn’t respond, at first. He turned to you, lifting his furthest hand to your face, making you look up at him. You could never get over those blue eyes- you’d forgotten how intense they were.

“I guess it depends on the guy,” Anakin said, his teeth quickly catching his lower lip. “Do you think you are?” You reached up past his arm to his face, your first finger tracing his eyebrow before your palm came to rest on the ridge of his cheekbone.

“No,” you said, and you rushed forward to meet his lips.

-🦌 Roe

#reader insert #imagines #anakin x reader insert #star wars anakin #anakin imagine #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker #punk!anakin #singer!reader #modern au #musician au #star wars #fics

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maggyoutthere · 3 years

Text

| Red, Purple and Orange

This blog is now just me re-uploading stuff from my Amino accounts. More stuff from that AHIT Au I have. Spooky stuff with the Moonjumper. Also legit one of the things I'm the most proud of writing? Like ever?? I'm never repeating this again so hhh I wanna save it-

Anyways a few tws because this is a bit spooky. Nothing gory or unnerving happens but I know some people don't like just scary stuff in general so that's your warning

(this used to be divided in 2 parts but eh who needs that)

Red, purple and orange.

The whole manor was covered by them. Both inside and outside. Vivid warm colors embraced the whole building as if it was a strong loving hug from a long lost friend. It made the house itself warm. Red, purple and orange. These colors painted the empty dusty hallways as the house remained silent... or as silent as it could. The wooden floors and doors still creaked if touched, and the water running through the old pipes inside the walls made them rustle. The yellow light from outside created bridges of light as it entered through the windows. It had been a very very long time since something like that happened. Red, purple and orange. These colors painted the dusty and... not so empty hallways.

Hat Kid ran through the hallways of the manor. She giggled happily as her little feet thumped through the old wooden floors of the house, her yellow rubber boots squeaking as she ran. She'd put her yellow cape away since the weather started getting hotter. She'd never experienced something like this happening in Subcon. The cold Winter was over and Spring was rolling in with its warm sun and change of scenery. The kid had never seen the Subcon Forest so colorful. It was either always restricted to its ghostly dark purples or its ice-cold blues.

The trees were the most mesmerizing thing to look at. She'd never seen such colorful things. Their leafs were red, purple and orange. The tall trees towering over her and the entire village no longer seemed threatening or even scary. They looked like they'd come right out of a fairytale! The best part was that, when the sun was bright enough, like on that day, the leafs would reflect their colors on whatever was down below. As much as she loved the winter months she spent with her BFF and Vanessa, she couldn't fake it: she was absolutely amazed by this change of scenery.

A little after last year's Christmas, in the middle of January, Vanessa finally got the courage to give Hat Kid her very own Christmas gift. She felt bad for not giving the kid anything back on that day. And after the beautiful gift she'd given to her auntie... it didn't matter what it was. The point was that she found someone who she could trust. This little child who one day invaded her house, looking for some "time piece" thingy that Vanessa didn't even knew was there, had now become the closest she could call a friend.

On a cold winter morning, Vanessa woke up Hat Kid to a wonderful breakfast in bed and a small present. The queen explained to her the whole thing and offered her the shiny box. Still nomming on a freshly baked cookie, she teared through the wrapping paper, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. Inside the box was a small porcelain figure of a duck. Vanessa pulled it out of the box and showed Hat Kid the little key that was under it, as well as two wood wheels by its side. The queen turned the key a few times and set the toy down as Hat Kid watched, intrigued. The duck suddenly started moving, racing around the room! It went under the kid's bed and then around a few other toys scattered around the floor. The queen laughed as Hat Kid immediately jumped out of bed and started chasing the toy not just around the room, but around the whole manor, waking up everyone with her loud childish laughter.

Now, she was doing exactly the same, but not still in her pajamas. The brownish duck, with it's shiny yellow beak and shiny black eyes, raced down the corridors with the kid following right behind it. For some reason, some hallways were still pretty dark, even with all the light coming in from the windows. It's as if the light couldn't reflect on anything inside the manor, leaving the illuminated bits clear as day and, the rest of the manor, still pitch black. Like an immense dark void with only a few illuminated patches of floor scattered around, far away from eachother. If she wasn't careful enough, she could trip on things that were hidden in the dark, where she couldn't see them.

Red, purple and orange. The little duck turned the corner on one of the intersections and went to the left, away from the edge of the manor and into its inner corridors. There were no windows there. No light at all. Hat Kid felt hesitant, as if she knew she shouldn't even be there. But it was just a house, in fact, it was almost HER house now. She'd gotten so used to the peeled wallpaper and overall spooky vibe of the manor that it wasn't even scary anymore. And yet, she still felt like something was wrong. The hallway was completely dark, only the edge of the doorframe was visible. She couldn't tell where it led to. Her toy was going full speed into that corridor though. She couldn't lose her precious toy!

She took a deep breath, put on her determined expression and ran into the dark void. Her little feet still thumping loudly as she tried to listen for the squeaky sound of her toy as it echoed inside the corridor.

Red, purple, orange... and pitch black

Black.

She'd been running for a good few seconds now. Just straight forward. No looking back. That little toy of hers HAD to be somewhere around there. She could still hear it moving up ahead. She'd never really realised how fragile that thing probably was until now. I mean, it's porcelain! On wheels! A little crash or bump into some piece of furniture or even a wall might cause it to at least crack.

Hat Kid was finally starting to get legitimately worried. Where even was she? She'd sure never seen these parts of the manor. That was the only thing she still didn't feel familiar about the house: its layout. The manor played tricks on people, even on Vanessa, and she'd been living there for a very long time. Sure, it was big if seen from the outside, but once you'd step inside, you'd be bound to get lost if you didn't stay close to the windows. The inner corridors of the house were never blocked off. No warnings, no spooky tale about never going there, nothing. It was just common sense, something everybody around her knew, a rule that'd been taught by someone who not even time could remember by now. "Don't venture too deep into the manor. Don't go in the inner corridors of the house."

For some reason, she never really felt intrigued about it until now. Deep down, she knew she shouldn't go there. There didn't need to be any explanation or lesson to be taught. It was like one of those gut feelings; when, just by looking at something, you can tell it means danger. It makes you anxious. Not exactly scared, but unnerved, shaken. Like a primal fear of the darkness and the unknown. Suddenly, she snapped out of her train of thought. She thought she'd seen something. In the distance. What was that? Something was shining...

At the end of the dark void, she saw a light. There was another corridor there! An illuminated one! Oh thank goodness! She didn't knew how much longer she could've run for. She sprinted out of the corridor and back into the comforting light she left behind a few minutes ago.

Red, purple and orange.

The familiar sight immediately made her feel safe again. She was fine, everything was okay. She was still at home, nothing bad happened. Hat Kid leaned with her back against the wall behind her and took a deep breath. She then looked down and saw her toy next to her feet! It had probably reached the other end of the hallway and bumped into a wall. She crouched and picked it up.

After inspecting the toy for a few seconds, she could happily assure herself that it didn't had any cracks. She sighed in relief, turned the key on the toy's belly and dropped it. It creaked a little and speeded off down the new illuminated hallway. Hat Kid laughed and went back to her old self, chasing the toy again.

For a few minutes, it was like that whole incident was just a dream. The scary dark inner corridors of the manor seemed more like a nightmare than a memory now. It was just something that happened. She concluded that's just what it was: scary. The Subcon Forest was scary at first as well, but Hat Kid ended up getting used to it. The same applies to the manor that went from a haunted house to a home. But even those had somewhat of a "comforting" feeling to them. Subcon was dark, but Snatcher's "treehouse" was almost as cozy and bright as her own bedroom back in her ship. Vanessa's manor, despite being in bad shape, gained the feeling of an old home. It felt like a place you would go to spend the holidays or summer break. It had its charm and handful of funny secrets.

However, that corridor didn't share that house's same aesthetic. It felt odd, out-of-place. Maybe it was just too dark to even see anything at all, but just being there creeped her out. For some reason, she was fearing for her life, but there was nothing there that could hurt her. Well, not that she would be able to see it if it was there anyways. Now that she thought about it, what if there was something there? Something watching her? Something waiting? Something cruel, or even vile. Something...

Her train of thought was, yet again, interrupted by something outside of her own thoughts. She felt something. In the air. She could smell something. It was strong enough to pull her back into reality. The smell of something acid and bitter filled her tiny nose as she stopped on her tracks and covered her mouth and nostrils. What the peck WAS that?! It was so disgusting, so repugnant, enough to make her eyes tear up.

Red, purple and orange.

Her little toy slowed down and stopped right in front of her, just a few feet away. It stood still right in the middle of the long red carpet that covered the old wooden floor, illuminated by a window on the right side of the corridor. That stink was coming from somewhere near the toy, Hat Kid was sure of that. That same feeling came back. The primal fear of the darkness and the unknown. She had to get out of there. Something bad was going to happen. She just knew it. She had to get out of there now!

With the bit of bravery she had left, and with a free hand that wasn't covering her nose, she reached to grab her toy and run away as fast as possible. Then, out of the darkness, something quickly snatched her toy and pulled it into the black. Hat Kid jumped back. What... what was that?! What was happening? Was someone toying with her? Playing tricks on her? Was this Snatcher's doing? He sure loved to scare the kid, but she thought everyone was too busy doing their royal duties to play with her. She'd never seen her BFF using something like what she saw. What pulled her toy were a few shiny red ribbons. No, strings. Red strings, just quickly flowing and cutting through the air, fast enough for the kid's reflexes.

Hat Kid grasped her stomach. She felt like she was gonna throw up from the frightening atmosphere and the nauseous smell. Screw that toy. Vanessa would understand. She just needed to get out of there. She just needed to talk to someone who might know what was actually happening. The light from outside no longer seemed so inviting anymore. It was getting dark outside. The colors became cold and gained a certain blue-ish hue.

- Auntie! Auntie Ness! Help me! - the kid yelled as she lifted her head, hoping to make the sound somehow louder. And, as she did, she saw what was causing that smell.

Red, purple and orange

And yet...

she wished it was all black.

#ahit #a hat in time #ahit au #a hat in time au #hat kid #moonjumper #red purple and orange #short story #spoopy #spooky #here it is-#this is the ultimate highlight of ny writing career #it will never get better than this and wow that's kinda sad

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iwantitiwriteit · 4 years

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Love Lockdown - Part 3

Lovesick

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: Chris braces himself for his FaceTime with you.

Warnings: Angst, Pandemic backdrop, Profanity

Notes: First In My Feelings Monday™ on books! Hopefully there’ll be more musings as the weeks go on, but I loved the whimsy the mindset added to me day! 🥰 This part was kind tough to write cos it required me to get into an opposing mind frame from the Reader, but a fun challenge nonetheless! Read the previous part here!

As much as he loved Winter in Boston, it was Spring that really captured Chris’ heart.

He’d been watching the beautiful day pass by outside his home office window while he took a few remote meetings with his team. Lockdown didn’t mean shutdown, for Chris at least, as he’s in preparation mode for an upcoming virtual press junket.

However, as soon as those glorious words, “That’s all for today,” were uttered, he upped and gathered his jacket, Dodger and headed for the front door.

“Going for a walk!” He called over his shoulder, his way of saying he’d be back soon.

“Alright, let me grab my jacket!” Scott said in response. Chris sighed and laughed to himself as he waited by the door for his brother. “What?” Scott asked when he got to Chris, who was shaking his head at his brother’s self-invite. He just laughed lightly as they bounded for the street, locking the door behind them.

It took Chris some growing up to appreciate this season. Truly appreciate it. But he’s so glad he does now. There’s a polarity in its elements that make it unique from the other seasons.

The bright sun peeks from behind thick clouds every so often, fully exposed and giving light gloriously. The flowers, shy and budding in March, are now in April, with just a little time, bold and in bloom. The trees billowing in the cold wind are unaware of their own fierce presence, so gentle in their saving grace that is their shade.

Kind of complex, Spring in Boston. Could be perceived as annoying in its inconsistency of temperature within a 24 hour period; cold one part of the day then hot the next. But he loved that not everyday or every hour was the same. Kept him on his toes in a way.

He couldn’t help but imagine how you’d like it here at this time of year. How he’d like you here with him. To have you on this walk right now. To hold you close when the sharp wind cuts through, chilling you both. You’d say what you always say when you snuggle up to him for warmth; that your southern bones feel the cold more than he does.

Maybe it’s true. Or Maybe it’s a lame excuse to be closer to him. Either way, he’d never complain. He loves it. He loves you.

Chris smiles to himself at the thought. Yeah, you’d love it here in the Spring. Definitely more than you did in December. What a start to a shit show that turned out to be. Chris hates to think about it. But his brain can’t help but go back there sometimes.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Scott asks, walking alongside his brother.

Chris lets out a long breath. He’s back there right now. But it doesn’t start and stop there. December makes him think of January. January makes him think of February. Then March, and before he knows it, he’s been through the chain of events that led you two here: Him in Boston, and you in Tennessee. In love but hurting from it. In the midst of a pandemic? Your relationship is just as uncertain as the end to the world’s madness.

Chris kicks himself at the painful memories. Shaking his head, he looks over to Scott who is patient as his brother finds his words.

“I’m thinking that despite the craziness of the last few weeks, months even, and being on lockdown...”

“Uh-huh…” Scott says knowing there’s more

“In an odd way, I’ve felt more free than I have in a while.”

“How’s that?”

“Well… hasn’t it been kinda great being, ya’know, solo...?” Chris eludes, not wanting to say the actual words.

“Huh? Oooooh!” Scott says as he catches Chris’ drift.

Chris won’t lie; the last 3 weeks away from you have been headache free. The bachelor lifestyle coming back to him with ease. He’s spent enough years on his own to know how to revel in the perks of singleness. No side eyes when he’s yelling at CNN or football, no being told to do stupid, necessary chores that can wait til he’s ready, and no one to get hurt when he’s inevitably fucked up in some way or another.

“Only problem is, I’m the only one of us who’s actually single.”

“Right… I know, and don’t get me wrong! I feel really lucky she hasn’t left me yet, and that she’s stuck it out with me for this long. I really can’t imagine my life without her.”

“But…” Scott prompts.

Chris is hesitant as he starts again. “But lately, guiltily...I wonder if that would be such a bad thing. If we were to… ya’know,” Chris makes weird hand motions that Scott eventually interprets as “breakup”.

“It’s a wonder you’re any good at charades.”

As much as he feels bad and knows he could’ve done some things differently, handled some things better, Chris is sooo frustrated with you.

“Why won’t she just tell me what she’s really thinking— exactly what she’s feeling. I’m not a fucking mind reader! You would think it’d be easy for her, considering what she does for a living, I don’t get it man.”

Scott waits for his cue for Chris to ask the golden question, but when he doesn’t hear it, he looks over at his older brother. Chris looks every bit a boy that’s absolutely lovesick, kicking the rocks in his way, pouting down at his feet. “You want my opinion?” Scott eventually offers.

“Please. I don’t think Dodger’s gonna give me anything good.” Chris bends down to pet the pup quickly before continuing their walk

“I think she has told you what she’s feeling— just not explicitly from her mouth.”

“If that’s the case, then her shutting down every time we’re addressing an issue is supposed to mean…?”

“You’ve got to give her some room to emote, cos you can be a bit, well, you know.” Chris did know, but it didn’t make it sting any less.

Accusations from past girlfriends of him not listening, only hearing, what’s been communicated have not gone unnoted. That, coupled with his bubbling emotions have led to many a breakup in his life. Relationships demoted to damn near flings the way women have come and gone from his life. But what he has with you couldn’t just be another relationship for the books. Chris wants to break the cycle with you… for you.

“I thought I was doing that when I suggested we social distance separately. Then last night she made it very clear that I was very wrong.”

“I could’ve told you that you were very wrong. Tax free.” The two men make their way back to the house. Looking at his brother before him, all sad and distraught, Scott was not going to let him start his own pity party.

“I don’t want to lose her. She’s the one. She’s my one. I know it.”

“Then don’t lose her.”

“When’s anything EVER been that simple?”

“I’m not saying it is, but if you know she’s the one, don’t give up so easily bro. Try everything in your power to give her the relationship she deserves. And she will do the same for you. But, if the problems still persist, then maybe, it would be for the best if…” Scott trails off as he sees his brother’s eyes start to look like those of the dog by their feet. “Look, I’m just telling you from personal, very recent experience, that it isn’t all that bad being friends on the other side of it all.”

“Ugh, God! I think I’d rather have a limb caught off and force fed to me than try to be friends with her if we ever… I can’t even say it.” Chris pokes his tongue out like he’s tasted something awful.

“You’re being hella dramatic right now.”

“But bro, I’m not even exaggerating!” The brothers laugh as they walk up the driveway. As they cross the threshold of the front door, Chris’ reminder for your FaceTime call sounds off, echoing in the foyer. He turns it off and looks up at his brother. “That’s the call to my love’s fate” he tries to joke.

Scott wears a soft, empathetic smile “Everything’s gonna be just fine. No matter what.”

Chris tries to wear some optimism, but the possibility of this being the end of your relationship tugs at him. He won’t let it get a hold of him. “Thanks, bro. I’ll see you later. And DO NOT eavesdrop.”

“Whaaaat??? I would never!” Scott feigns offense. Chris looks unconvinced. “Dodge and I are gonna enjoy an afternoon movie, isn’t that right Dodgey Wodgey?”

“Dodger’s not even buying it. Stop it.”

“Yeah, that was weird. See ya later, man.”

Chris takes the stairs to his bedroom two by two. He sets up his laptop, making sure to plug in its charger; wouldn’t want it to die on this call.

He paces around the space in front of his desk. As many video calls as he’s done the past few weeks, none of them were as important as this one. Nervousness washes over him. He decides to embrace it; it’s natural, and a good sign. He still cares. He can only hope you do, too.

The digital clock strikes 2. It’s time.

He calls you, the laptop ringing for a while longer than his beating heart can take. His heart sinks and doubts creep in. Is this is it? Is she done with me? No fight, no… nothing? This can’t be it. But then the ringing ceases and the screen says “connecting”, a sigh of relief involuntarily escaping him.

He can’t help but beam, proud he knows you better than his negative thoughts do. Happy that you wouldn’t leave him high and dry.

Then he sees your face. Your beautiful face. The natural lighting of your room bouncing off your gorgeous, brown skin. Your hair is the perfect combination of defined curls and loose wisps, neat but not overly so. You are the epitome of effortless, natural beauty. He almost feels like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“Hey baby! For a second there, I thought you wouldn’t answer,” he nervously chuckles.

You smile at him but it doesn’t reach your eyes. He senses your apprehension, even through a screen. He hadn’t done a good job of setting up this conversation with peace of mind for you, now that he thinks about it. “We need to talk” is almost always followed by some heavy, unwanted shit. Not that this talk will be easy, but he most certainly doesn’t want you thinking the worst. He genuinely wants to talk; explain his fuck ups and frustrations. And try to listen.

He figures since he’s put you two here, it’s his job to steer this ship to calmer, nicer waters. Here goes. He tries some small talk, anxiety making him ramble. “So, how’s the… weather? That’s a stupid— ugh, I’m sure it’s, like, hot. You’re down south, where it’s hot—”

“Chris?”

“Yes honey?”

“I don’t wanna do this with you.”

There it is; his worst fear. Losing you. No. He was determined to let his optimism win. Determined that his ears were deceiving him in this moment.

“What do you mean?”

Chris is too all in to go down without a fight, and fight for you he was prepared to do.

Part 4 | What’d you think?

#chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fiction #chris evans imagine #chris evans one shot #chris evans x black reader #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #chris evans x y/n #chris evans x female reader #chris evans x poc!reader #chris evans x woc #love lockdown series #chris evans series

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treechangeseachange · 3 years

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The return

It’s coming up to 3 months since we returned to our block and it took us 8 weeks to slow down. On the weekend we slowed down we enjoyed the first official Friday night catch up with our neighbours as the full moon rose. On Saturday we went out for brunch. No sport on Sunday morning meant a sleep in. I played handball with my boys for the first time ever in my life. Lamb shanks slow cooked on the wood heater. We squeezed in a late Sunday afternoon fishing trip. It took us 8 weeks to find some calm. We had forgotten how to do normal. I haven’t written for this blog since um wow December?! My leisure time since then has been extremely limited and when it occurred I prioritised my mental wellbeing and sleep.

This journey has brought me to the edge of my psychological and physical limitations. I watched my husband do a terminator style non stop renovation while trying also to commence a rebuild. His promises to take time off over Christmas dwindled to 2 days. There was so much to do. I helped with whatever jobs I was able to and then focussed on the household and occasionally, our boys. Midway through January this year we realised trying to work on both the renovation and the rebuild was insanity. The local real-estate market was booming. Post COVID, Sydney city dwellers realised they could put in a few days in the city then work from their coastal holiday pad the rest of the week. We decided to get our investment property, come bushfire haven, onto the market before the summer ended. We mapped out each remaining job and the days required to accomplish them. We calculated selling time, settlement time and remaining bank balance. What were need to do’s and what were optional extras. If everything went to plan, we could pay to get some work done at the block and make it habitable enough to move into. It was an extreme test of time, energy and resources.

It worked. We listed by the end of February, sold in three weeks and settled five weeks after settlement. I write that all in one glib sentence. Of course all of that only happened with considerable focus and effort. Life for the boys was hectic. 99% of their toys were packed and moved into storage weeks before the house went on the market. As the house neared completion we stressed about them damaging something. When the house was on the market we stressed about them getting things dirty - the walls, the windows or the cupboards. I banished them from the bathroom, they had to brush teeth in the laundry and shower outside. Luckily it was warm and didn’t rain much in those few weeks! Anyone who has sold a house while living in it knows how painful open homes are. The logistics and effort of cleaning and styling, while working full time from home, scheduling everything between work appointments, getting the dog out of the way and the boys to school, nearly broke me. Thankfully the selling process was short, but we packed a lot of opens into that time and by the end of it all, I had become a shouty, grouchy mum and wife. It was also a real highlight to hit menopause and bring some phenomenal hormonal energy into the mix. Phew.

Before we packed up and left I was lucky enough to have a week away with the boys. My fully wired self hit Melbs and my family gave me refuge and forgave my intensity. We managed some fun and the change of scenery was a big relief. Husband, however, stayed behind to work on the temporary shed home. Holiday behind me, I returned to packup and clean and polish the house for the financial return of our lives. Literally.

Can you then imagine our triumphant and spectacular return to our block bathed in happiness and light? Um well perhaps instead picture this - we arrived exhausted to an unpowered, work in progress temporary residence in the middle of a mice plague and endured 200ml of heavy rain in four days leaving us surrounded by mud. Happy to catch the rain in our tank? I wish! The new tank leaked 8000L the week before we moved, and only our neighbour’s spare tank loan meant we had any water at all. But being so small, it overflowed and made even more mud. The heavy rain was so loud on the tin roof it frequently woke the kids in the night (who then woke us), mice ran across the floor, huntsmen spiders dropped from the ceiling. With nowhere really to unpack things, cooking became like the biggest ever memory game, which box were the bowls in? Where did I pack the cutlery? The rain delayed our solar power install so for 10 days we lived out of an esky and by torchlight. We both kept working full time, getting the boys to school, after school sport commitments and then husband kept building after he got home and into the night. After a week of stress and chaos we knew something had to give, fortunately husband could take time off work to focus on our build and family life.

Fast forward to now. The financial pressure of the summer has eased. The temporary living quarters are functional and steadily improving. We have a beautiful wood heater. Our off grid solar system is powering us even during these short winter days. I have more kitchen cupboards than ever before, plus a dishwasher! I have hung up my clothes in a full wardrobe for the first time in nearly four years. The boys each have clean new wardrobes. Their separate rooms are still being built so they are in what will be our room which is insulated and wall paneled. We can cope with an outside shower and toilet. My husband is a legend.

What’s it like actually being back? I confess I was nervous about my own and the boys emotions. Eldest son is extremely happy to be back. Youngest son has taken time to adjust but that has more been due to his fear of the dark. The noises of the bush are unfamiliar and there are no streetlights out here! There has only been one time where a prebushfire memory overwhelmed me. Every person’s bushfire experience and recovery is unique. Unlike many others we are fortunate have the opportunity to not have to build on the exact footprint of the old place and I think this is psychologically helpful. It’s not the same space, and with some trees dead and gone the landscape is altered, its a slightly different perspective. The boys are older now, so our lifestyle is different too. Slowly we are finding a new rhythm on our land. The boys are absolutely loving being back on their bikes on bush tracks.

I was excited to resume my morning walks, although maybe not as excited the dog! He’s happy to have his off-lead roam again. But the first week of walking I found tough, the burnt and recovering state forest I traverse didn’t bring me the joy it used to. In the heavily logged areas where only isolated saplings were left unlogged, they couldn’t survive the heat of the fire or they didn’t have community trees to share nutrients through their roots to support recovery. The undergrowth is now the canopy and is booming with all the extra sunlight but when I look at it, all I see is fire hazard. Then as the weeks went by, my view softened, I recognise the bush is healing like me. I am appreciating small wonders of nature. A spider’s web highlighted with morning dew or the fascination of new plants thriving. There are trees that have fully recovered, others seem to be doing well, and there is much green in the landscape to enjoy.

On my morning walk I also see which animals are about in the night from what they leave behind. There is at least one very busy wombat! We see wallabies reasonably often and last week one morning I found big roo prints in the clay right near our place. We hear a boobook owl calling most nights and more frogs chirping croaking from the gully than I ever remember. Which now makes sense, we definitely were in drought for some years prior to the fires and the creek has this year been running for months. Less exciting is hearing foxes at night, my son especially dislikes their eerie calls. In daytime the bird life is altered. We are down to one lyrebird, there used to be two with adjacent territories battling loudly with their extraordinary mimicry. But at least there is one, how a ground bird survived I can’t imagine. The yellow robins aren’t around us now, we have wrens in the cleared spaces and in the lush shrubs busy brown gerygones dart and chirp. A shrike thrush has made a nest in our bushfire remains pile, her song is piercing and wonderful. Rarely are the yellow crested black cockatoos here now. This past weekend we did see two circling wedge tailed eagles the silent assassins of the sky wheeling high over the gully with that phenomenal wingspan.

Surprisingly my greatest source of happiness in these first few months being back has come from the sky. Unobstructed by buildings, the sky feels bigger in the bush. I’m loving the late winter sunrises. My very favourite time is just after the sun has risen when the horizontal sun rays set tops of the trees bright orange. Those are magical minutes of golden tinged trees. The sunsets. The stars. The moon. the sky has been a revelation and a source of happiness. Maybe because I’m spending more time outside I notice it more. Seeing glittering stars through the steam of a hot outdoor shower makes the cold walk inside completely worth it!

Slowly I am regaining my sense of gratitude for this place. The quiet. The privilege of not seeing another house. Having no curtains and that not mattering. Not worrying about noise and neighbours. Lack of street lights at night.

All of a sudden things aren’t hectic and we are settling in. It still amazes me after 6 moves in 5 years how intense moving is and then how imperceptibly things transition to not being new anymore. Normalcy sneaks up on me every time. Clearly this isn’t really normal but we’re enjoying this new start in our old place.

#treechange #seachange #nswbushfires #recovery #offgrid

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

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But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 8: The Light]

Hi y’all! Thank you so much for reading and supporting my writing. Each and every message/reblog/comment/etc makes me smile, and it’s a dream come true to get to share my work with you! 💜

Chapter summary: John shares a secret; Y/N excels at Scrabble; Brian makes peace; Roger suffers a misstep.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, medical stuff, pregnancy (not who you think!).

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @loveandbeloved29 @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @deacyblues @youngpastafanmug @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @bramblesforbreakfast @sevenseasofcats @tensecondvacation @bookandband @queen-crue @jennyggggrrr @madeinheavxn @whatgoeson-itslate @brianssixpence @simonedk

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

Medicine teaches you to be fiercely skeptical of things that seem too good to be true. Bodies fail—completely and inevitably, though the timing may differ—and patients lie. Medical records don’t, fingerprints don’t, track marks up the underside of an arm don’t, blood and paternity tests don’t, oftentimes the eyes don’t; but given half a chance, people will lie themselves right into the grave.

Those bruises, doc? Got ‘em from a nasty fall down the stairs. I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck!

Nope, never done drugs, not even a joint, I swear on my mother’s life.

I’ll give it up, I’ll go to rehab. Never again. I promise. I don’t want to die.

Doc, I don’t care if the timing doesn’t seem quite right. My husband IS the father. There’s been no one else!

That doting fiancé is flirting with the nurses. Those grown-up children who fluff pillows and dab away tears are asking about the will. That wife is never going to testify against her abusive husband. That addict is going to relapse again...and again...and again. Are there exceptions? Of course. But if you get in the habit of trusting people—of believing all those tantalizingly attractive, hopeful lies—it’ll break your heart six ways to Sunday. There is no perfection in medicine, and there are very rarely miracles.

And so during those first few weeks with Roger—as you watch him from the reeling crowd, from the other side of the tour bus, from across the restaurant table, from the tiny viewfinder of the Canon F-1—you can’t stop searching for the cracks, the shadows, the lies, the dark malignancies breeding beneath the surface. Because everything about Roger Taylor is too good to be true. He’s bright and he’s loud and he’s brilliant and he’s always smiling, always warm. He careens backstage after every show—you keep bracing yourself not to be disappointed when the novelty wears away, when it ends, but it doesn’t—pushing aside roadies and reporters, shouting “Where’s the love of my life? Where’s my Boston babe?” with the most absurd grin you’ve ever seen until he finds you, collides with you, scoops you up and spins you in ungainly circles as your toes skim the floor. Then he cradles your face in his scarred hands and kisses you, breathes you in, tells you everything about the show (even though you were there to see it) in a rush of pure, manic adrenaline. And you stumble into some dressing room together—or a hotel room, or a taxi, or a limousine, or an elevator—and finally it’s your bare thighs his palms are gliding over, your tongue tasting the Heineken and craving on his lips, and it feels impossible for that to ever change. Roger is too good to be true, that’s undeniable; but when you watch him with those doubtful, cautious eyes, you can’t find anything but light.

He wakes up at 6 a.m. to join you on a bayou tour in New Orleans, taps his cigarette over the moss-covered sides of the boat, points out the alligators with leathered skin and ancient yellow irises lurking in the depths. He walks Fremont Street with you in Las Vegas and makes you choose his numbers for the Roulette wheel, for his fate. He snaps photos of you on a sun-drenched balcony in Miami, roaring cobalt waves crashing in the background. He takes you to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Philadelphia Zoo, Myrtle Beach and the Saint Louis Arch and the Santa Monica Pier. Because he was telling the truth when he said he could show you the world all those months ago when Queen was at Top of the Pops; he was telling you the truth about the list that’s etched into the rushing scarlet chambers of his heart.

When the American leg of the tour ends and the band gets a brief reprieve in London, you move into Roger’s paltry, disorganized flat and scrub away all the remnants of his past life: dust and empty cigarette boxes and women’s socks, ashes and copies of Vogue, a tube of lipstick that isn’t yours. You don’t complain, don’t even frown; you’re under no delusions that something eternal can be founded on resentment, on lies. And so you clear out the clutter and open the windows so sunshine and crisp spring air can breathe through the apartment, so you can both start fresh along with the bellflowers and delphiniums and roses and the tawny newborn ducklings scampering behind their mothers. You hang photos from the tour and John’s sketches on the refrigerator, place your Canon F-1 and pink conch shell from Ostia on the nightstand, litter the drawers with your own socks and makeup. You teach Roger how to sew (although he’s not much good at it) and how to treat blisters (although you’ll always be there to do it for him); and in return Roger teaches you how to trust, how to believe, how to stop searching desperately for faults in the light.

On the second day of April, Queen boards their flight to Tokyo. Brian settles into a plushy, billowing blanket and loses himself in an astronomy magazine; he’s an engaged man now, an honest man in the eyes of society at large...and, far more importantly, his parents. Freddie pens lyrics in his notebook, humming disjointedly, napping like a cat when the mood strikes him. Roger snacks constantly and tries to get John chatting, but John is particularly subdued today, preoccupied, prone to gazing unfocusedly at the clouds that drift by outside and wringing his hands.

And you think, as you peer down into the glistening sapphire waters of the East China Sea: Brian’s a willow tree, Freddie’s a lightning storm, Roger is wildfire...but what is John?

Something deep, something beautiful and strong and constant and hidden.

The ocean, you decide as Queen’s private plane soars over the quicksilver waves that conceal the abyss. John is the ocean.

~~~~~~~~~~

“You didn’t have to stay, you know.”

John is lying on his back under a small grove of cherry blossom trees outside the hotel, sketching grey outlines of petals and arcing branches in a new notebook. He hasn’t given any sign that he heard you coming, doesn’t turn his head to see you. You freeze, startled.

“How’d you know it was me?!”

“You have very distinct footsteps. Dainty, yet purposeful.” He sets aside his notebook and sits up, crossing his long legs. “Why didn’t you go to lunch?”

“Because you didn’t. You turned down ramen, and you never turn down ramen. I was worried. Plus someone has to make sure a roving posse of screaming Japanese girls doesn’t carry you off.”

That makes him laugh. The Japanese fans are inexplicably obsessed with John; or maybe it’s not so inexplicable, maybe they just have a better eye for quiet, unassuming wonders. “Always so thoughtful.”

You sit down beside him, open a pack of chocolate-flavored Pocky and offer John a piece, frown when he lights a cigarette instead. “That’s really bad for you. Seriously. You should quit.”

“At last. One thing you and Brian agree on.” He exhales a gale of smoke and peers up at the cherry blossoms.

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t break up with Veronica, did you?” Chrissie and Mary didn’t mention anything about her tearful devastation, and you suspect they would have had John gone through with it.

He sighs. “I did not.”

“And...are we feeling...okay about that...?”

He twirls the cigarette nervously between his fingers. After a silence, he surrenders. “Look, I haven’t told anybody yet, but I’d tell you first anyway. So here it goes.” He glances over at you guiltily, gloomily, wishing he could disappear. “I didn’t break up with Veronica because she’s pregnant.”

Your jaw falls open. A half-eaten stick of Pocky rolls out of your mouth and onto the grass. She’s what? She’s WHAT?

“Please don’t be disappointed,” John pleads. “I’m disappointed in myself enough for both of us, believe me.”

“I...I...I’m not disappointed, John, I’m just...” You blink at him. “Oh my god.”

He nods, acquiescent. “I’m in complete agreement.”

You shake your head, gaping at him, stunned; and suddenly you don’t like what you’re feeling at all. Because it isn’t just shock and horror, it isn’t just apprehension. You hate the thought of him touching her, of her delicate white hands on him, of innocence stripped away and memories impressed into muscle, into soul.

Because you know she’s not right for him. Because you know he doesn’t love her the way he should. Because you want the best for him and always have.

Oh, there’s a comforting rationale; but is it true?

And then: You fucking hypocrite. Since when do you get an opinion on who anyone sleeps with?

“It must have happened in January,” John says miserably. “Right before we left for the States. She didn’t want to tell me over the phone...I guess maybe she thought if she did I’d never come back. So she told me as soon as I landed in London. And here we all are.”

You stare down at your shoes, trying to compose yourself. “What are you going to do?”

“There’s only one option.”

“Actually, there are quite a few. But I know you’d never consider them.” John’s father died when he was ten, and he never talks about it; which is precisely how you know it’s a wound that can’t ever heal, a gash that goes straight down to the bone. He would never leave his child, never banish them to some dusty, repressed corner of his consciousness while he moves on with a blissfully unencumbered life. You whisper: “I’m so fucking sorry, John.”

That snaps something in him, something he was choking back. He buries his face in his hands. “What the fuck am I doing?” he moans. “I’m twenty-three years old, I’m broke, I turned down loads of jobs, good jobs, as an electrical engineer, I’ve somehow become the bassist in an increasingly famous rock band...I mean, how the hell did this happen? How did any of this happen?”

“It’ll be okay,” you insist with newfound resolve. I have to save him. I have to protect him.

John rolls those soft greyish eyes, hopeless, distraught. “Sure.”

“It will be, I promise you. The tour is going great. I had my doubts about the band when I first met you, I’ll admit it, I didn’t know if there was a future for Queen. But you’ve made me a believer. You’ve made millions of people all over the world believers. The money will keep rolling in, Queen will finally start seeing some of it, you won’t be broke forever. You’ll have two more months on the road and then we’ll be back in London, and it’ll be on to recording the next album, more shows, more money...the hard times are almost over, John. You can do this. And I’ll help you.”

His brow furrows. “You will?”

“Of course. If it’s easier for Veronica, it’ll be easier for you. So I’ll be extra friendly, take her to appointments when you’re busy, help organize the wedding, babysit the littlest Deacon whenever she needs me to. We’ll get through this. I’ll be there to help every step of the way.”

“You’re happy, aren’t you?” he asks suddenly. “You and Roger. You aren’t going anywhere.” He’s reading you closely, sifting through your words and forced smile for something deeper.

“I’m happy,” you assure him. “You don’t need to be concerned about that. I’m staying with the band, I’m staying in London. Whenever Queen is home, that is.”

He nods, but perhaps that wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. He finally accepts a piece of Pocky from you and takes a bite. “Then I guess we’ll plan for a summer wedding.”

“You could do a double one with Brian and Chrissie.”

He laughs so hard he almost inhales the Pocky, then doubles over coughing. “I think Bri would rather slit his own throat, but a charming thought. Thank you for that. Bravo.”

You smile at John, genuinely this time. “You’re going to be an amazing father. I hope you aren’t worried about that part of it, at least.”

“Will you be their godparent?”

“What? Me?!”

“Yeah. Because, you know...” John averts his gaze. “You’d be the person I would want to raise them if something happened to me and Veronica. You’re the most dedicated, stubborn, capable, nurturing, remarkable person I’ve ever met. You’re my best friend. And maybe Roger’s your best friend and you’re his, and that’s all fine, that’s alright, but you’re still mine.”

“Roger is a lot of incredible things, but he’s not my best friend.” You lie flat on the grass and lace your hands behind your head, tracking the weightless snowy clouds as they float by above. When did we become adults? When did all of these rules catch up to us? “I would be honored to be your child’s godparent.”

John plops down beside you. “Don’t tell the others yet, okay? I want to wait until the tour’s over. I don’t want them to panic and think I’m leaving and try to replace me or anything.”

“They wouldn’t try to replace you, John.”

“No?” he asks doubtfully.

“No. Roger knows it, Fred knows it, I think even Bri knows it.” You reach out and weave a lock of his hair through your fingers as cherry blossom petals tumble in the breeze. “You’re irreplaceable.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Sod,” Freddie mocks. “That’s the best you could do? Really? Sod?”

Roger flings up his hands in frustration. “Freddie, I’ve got like a million Cs!”

“You could have done cod,” Brian notes, sipping a cup of hot tea. “Cods, actually.”

Roger glowers down at his Scrabble tiles. “Fuck.”

“And I’m so delighted he didn’t!” You place your tiles, expanding on sod to make rhapsody. John high-fives you and records the points in his notebook. Freddie and Brian groan in defeat.

“What the hell is a rhapsody?!” Roger snatches the Official Scrabble Dictionary off the table and flips through it.

“It’s a, like a...” Freddie waves his cigarette, scattering smoke through the air. “It’s like an epic poem. Or an opera. With lots of bizarre, different parts all pieced together.”

“That sounds made up.”

Freddie cackles. “Darling, it’s a real thing, I swear!”

Roger locates the pertinent page in the Scrabble Dictionary and his shoulders slump. “Goddammit. Fucking...too smart...nerdy...college-educated...girlfriend.” He drags you into his lap and kisses your temple. “You’re lucky you’re cute. I don’t usually tolerate being conquered like this.”

Bri smirks from behind his teacup. “I rather think you conquered her, Rog.”

“Oh, a rare good one from Bri!” Freddie trills as everyone laughs, although John soon busies himself with clearing empty bottles and cigarette butts off the table.

“Yes,” Roger agrees. “Against her superior judgment, I finally won her over. Only took eight months. Which is approximately...wait, let me count...seven and a half months longer than it has ever taken me before.”

You trace your fingertips across his stubbled cheeks, his soft lips, his little dark blond tufts of sideburns. “No one knows how to say no to you, do they?”

“It’s impossible. I’m too charming. Blindingly heroic. Perseus in the flesh.” He kisses your forehead and steadies you, his hands on your waist, as the brakes squeal and the tour bus lurches to a halt.

Freddie leaps to his feet and claps. “Alright, darlings! Off to the new digs we go. Deaky, hand me my shoes, they’re under the table...yes, right there...and toss over Brian’s hideous clogs as well.”

You help the roadies and the band drag luggage into the hotel (no small feat, as the elevator is out of order), unpack your toothbrush and hairbrush and a floral-patterned dress for dinner, giggle as you listen to Roger’s feral, raspy singing in the shower. It’s something about loving a car, how perfectly on-brand for him. Then Roger goes to fetch Freddie and John for dinner while you find Brian. Bri is collapsed on his bed in a striped t-shirt and jeans, freshly-washed and dewy, gazing up at the ceiling in a daze.

You tap gently on the doorframe. “Bri? You want to join us for dinner? There’s a sushi place a few blocks away that’s a local legend, apparently. Lots of veggie options too.”

He looks over at you. You haven’t spoken about the argument since you had it two months ago. Brian sometimes grimaces or smirks or rolls his willowy viridescent eyes, but he never says anything; not to you, and not to Roger as far as you’re aware. “I’m sorry,” he says simply. “I may have been out of line before. Incorrect, even.”

“No need to apologize, Bri. I’ve forgotten all about it.” You haven’t, but there’s no reason for Brian to know that.

“I just want what’s best for you. For you to be happy.”

“I know, Brian.” You cross the room and take his long, moon-white, artful hands in your own. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ll be in the wedding party, won’t you? I know Chris will ask.”

“Of course. And I’ll proudly wear whatever dreadfully tacky and uncomfortable bridesmaid dresses she picks out.”

“Even if they’re a frightful shimmery green?”

“Oh god.” You swallow noisily. “I’ll still do it. And then burn the photos.”

Brian chuckles as he climbs out of bed. “In a stroke of luck, I suspect she’ll ask you to take the pictures. So you can avoid being in them as much as you’d like. And conveniently lose the unflattering ones.”

You study him thoughtfully. “Are you happy, Brian?”

“I am. Chrissie’s excited, my parents are thrilled, they’ll be sitting in the front row with the proudest smiles you’ve ever seen. Next comes a proper house, and children, and all the rest of it.” But something in those mellow olivey eyes is resigned, melancholy. His words from two months ago echo in your skull: It’s necessary. It’s self-preservation. Because sometimes the people who set us on fire would burn us alive.

“Do you still think about New Orleans?” you ask softly. About the woman he’d fallen in love with there before you ever met Queen, about the utopian passion he never quite stops searching for. Everyone has demons, secrets, shadowy trenches like cracks in porcelain; you’ve learned all about Brian’s. What about Roger’s? What about mine?

He shrugs, staring out the window at the dusky skyline of Yokohama. “Maybe I’ll always think about New Orleans. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to grow up and start taking responsibility.”

“Responsibility,” you reply cynically, before you can stop yourself. “Is that all love is about anymore?”

“Not for you. Not for Roger. You both want your freedom, your adventure, your true and uncomplicated love. And you’ll get to keep it.”

For now. But you don’t say that. Instead, you smile appeasingly and gesture for Brian to follow you out into the hallway.

The others are waiting by the door to the stairwell: John in a smart grey suit, Freddie in his black-and-yellow jacket, Roger in sunglasses and a ridiculous leopard-print vest he’d dug out of a trashcan somewhere and precariously tall boots.

“At last, Nurse Nightingale and my darling Brian!” Freddie chirps. “Come on, I’m positively famished, and also I’ve bet five pounds that I can consume more sake shots than Roger and I could really use the dough.”

Roger pushes through the door, leading the way. “Prepare to lose!”

“Roger, please,” you implore. “New livers don’t grow on trees, and I can’t give you half of mine. I’m the wrong blood type.”

Roger laughs as he bounds down the steps, then whirls to grin up at you as he walks backwards. “Relax, Deaks will share! You’re type A, aren’t you John—?”

Roger’s heel slips and he plummets down the flight of stairs. He tumbles as the four of you shriek in horror and bolt after him, slams into the wall of the landing, ricochets off of it and plunges down the next flight as well. There’s blood, you think frenziedly as you descend, screaming Roger’s name. There’s blood all over the steps.

Roger, crumpled on the maroon-streaked landing, slowly unravels and groans. He glances down, appraises himself, then hammers his left fist against the concrete wall of the stairwell, roaring in raw agony and rage. “No no no no no no!”

“Roger—!”

And then you see it.

Roger’s right arm hangs uselessly, unnaturally, his snapped radius bloody and splitting through the skin.

#but you can never leave fic #but you can never leave series #but you can never leave #roger taylor fic #roger taylor x reader #queen fic #queen fanfic #queen fanfiction

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doctors-star · 3 years

Note

writing challenge prompt: apricity - the warmth of the sun in the winter. (Pairing Peter/Alex/Ruth if you fancy it)

prompt list

apricity - the warmth of the sun in the winter

The farmyard looks like it’s on fire. Great coiling, curling masses of steam are rising off it and ascending heavenward, for all the world as if a large dragon had set up shop beneath the chickens’ feet and is now puffing away to itself. The steam is solid silver and grey in the midmorning light, swirling on invisible thermals like Degas’ ballerinas, and edged with sunlight that is altogether too bright to look at.

He is looking anyway.

His eyes are scrunched up with an intensity usually reserved for awkward texts and inscrutable hill forts, brow furrowed and creased over heavy, dark brows. He’s got one hand on his hip, the other wrapped thoughtfully around his chin; his feet are planted squarely in boots coated in solid, cloying mud. He looks immovable as an oak tree, there in the farmyard. The world around them could end, he thinks, and Peter would still be standing.

Peter shifts, hand moving from chin to forehead to form a slight shield against the vivid wall of brightness. His sleeves are rolled up and it is possible to watch his muscles shift under his skin, as has been impossible for the past few weeks of seemingly endless rain. It has been cold and wet and miserable for all of January, feels like, and the dawn of February has not given them much cause for hope; but now, the rain has stopped, the clouds cleared, the mercury in the thermometer made the effort and risen above five degrees, and Peter has his jacket off and sleeves rolled back right away, as if this is the only sunshine he expects this year and he had better appreciate it.

In fairness, it is Britain. Stranger things have happened.

And anyway, Alex can understand the idea. He is, after all, watching Peter as though the man might disappear; as if this is his only opportunity to lean propped up on the cart in the sunlight and see him, sleeves pushed back and squinting and lit up by light and steam. How very long the winter has seemed.

Alex leans back a little and folds his arms, glaring into the east a little more himself, to look the same way as Peter. Ruth - of course, of course they are watching Ruth - is talking with great animation to their flock of chickens, hands on her hips as she chides them. They keep ducking about around her feet rather indignantly, dipping their heads with their strange stop-motion movements to tap their beaks unenthusiastically against the frozen ground as if to say why aren’t you feeding us? we cannot possibly be expected to feed ourselves in this weather! And Ruth is laughing at them, with the sun behind her head and behind the trees so that the rays are oddly defined; segmented spikes, like a great art deco sunburst.

“I will not feed you,” she is telling the birds with stern amusement. “You do not need it. It is a glorious day, at last, and you can go and enjoy it. And eat all the other things who are out enjoying it, too. It’ll be good for you. Lazy sods.” One of the chickens, the buff-coloured, famously bad-tempered one, darts forward and then struts nonchalantly away towards the pig sty. Ruth sputters an indignant laugh, jaw dropped in surprise. “Did you just peck my shoe?” she cries after the retreating bird, who puts on a burst of speed. “The audacity!”

Alex can feel the grin that’s lodged on his face; Peter, face still screwed up against the light, snorts inelegantly and she looks his way and beams. “Are you no longer a chicken authority?” he asks her very solemnly and sympathetically.

“My shoe has been pecked!” she informs him, rather redundantly, but it makes them both grin all the same. “They’ve lost all respect for me.” She watches the other chickens follow the vicious ringleader towards the patch of grass by the pigs where they peck morosely at the grass and dirt as if they don’t expect to find anything and reckon they’ll have starved by lunchtime. The various worms and insects which have ventured to the surface to enjoy the rare sunlight and which are now being snapped up by the sharp, aggressive movements of the chickens appear to do little to make them feel better.

“Get free-range chickens, they said,” Peter sighs, not unhappily. “It’ll be so rewarding to watch them hunt for themselves, they said.”

Ruth turns back to him, hand dropping from over her eyes, to laugh. Then she tilts her head on one side, offering him a lop-sided smile. “Are you alright?” she says. “I’m sure the camera crew would lend you some sunglasses until we film, if we haven’t got any thirties specs - face all screwed up, you look like a gargoyle.”

“I’m feeling great, thanks,” Peter says, voice all level and dry to make her laugh. “Really complimented and supported too. Have we actually got any proper shades, though? Alex’ll love them - he likes pretending he’s in Top Gun.”

“I do not,” Alex protests automatically and without a great deal of conviction.

Peter and Ruth turn to the sound of his voice, faces open with pleasure and slight surprise. “Oh, hello lurker,” Peter says cheerfully. “Was wondering where you’d got to.”

“I do not pretend I’m Tom Cruise,” Alex tells Ruth firmly, ignoring the lurker comment. She raises her eyebrows, one finger pressing against her mouth in futile prevention of a smile, and waits with interest for him to elaborate. “That - that bloke in The Mummy,” he finds himself saying, snapping his fingers as the name escapes him. “He’s got to wear sunglasses at some point, hasn’t he? I’ll be him.”

“Who, John Hannah?” Peter says, chirpy and obtuse with a grin from ear to ear and his hand cupped around his eye to shade against the February sun. Alex sends him a mock-withering glare and his smile somehow widens; Ruth laughs, bright and affectionately evil. “You do kind of look like John Hannah, you know,” Peter says, very deliberately reasonable.

Alex points at him warningly. “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” he tells Peter’s smirk, “but you know I was talking about the other one. O’Connell,” he says, snapping his fingers again in triumph.

Peter tuts and shakes his head sadly. “Nope, the hairstyle will out - you’ll have to be Hannah and I-” he places his hand on his heart like an old-timey Shakespearian actor about to monologue his way through a half-hour death scene, “-shall be O’Connell.”

Alex spreads his arms in indignation, appealing to Ruth in supplication for aid; as expected, she laughs at him.

“Ruth can be whatsherface. Evie,” Peter adds happily.

“No, no, I’m being Lara Croft,” Ruth corrects. “I want to run about in temples and have a mansion and a butler.”

Alex nods, conceding this point. Peter wanders over and places one large, sun-warmed palm on Alex’s shoulder, gesturing at him with the other and squinting towards Ruth. Heat leeches from the sun to the air to Peter, and he presses it into Alex’s joints like a balm. It soothes and steadies, even as Peter says “Do you want Alex for your butler?”

“Oh, yes please,” Ruth says cheerfully and Alex sighs, as deliberately and falsely put-upon as the chickens. Peter snorts and hauls him closer, half hug half headlock; he goes willingly, even as he makes an effort to look hard-done-by for Ruth.

“Why aren’t there any more cool archaeologists?” he says.

“Well,” Peter says, sounding rather apologetic, “there is always…”

“Indiana Jones is a terrible archaeologist,” Alex says firmly. “Great jumped-up cowboy.”

Ruth huffs a laugh at the tired old argument and tips her face up into the sun rather than engage with its well-trodden lines. She breathes deeply, inhaling great lungfuls of warmed, clear air; against his back, Alex can feel Peter breathe slow and steady and perfectly in-time. There’s something soothing about it, in the same way that there was something soothing about watching Peter watch Ruth: it is nice to know, sometimes, that other people operate the same way he does. For a moment, there, in their long-awaited sunlight, the whole thing had been as mana from heaven, all warmth and brightness and that peculiar kind of beauty that cannot be looked at head-on. He’s not sure he had really noticed, before, how much the interminable, rainy January had worn on him, until he had been confronted by the sunshine; by Ruth’s art deco halo, and Peter’s scrunched-up gargoyle face; by truculent chickens for the laws of farm and man. And intensity of emotion can be isolating, if the moment is not shared - but it is. Ruth is breathing it; Peter is holding him a little too tight; they are all together under a sun a little too warm for the season.

“There should be more films about historians,” Ruth declares to the sky, eyes resting closed. “What’s not cool about this?”

“Right,” Alex says. “We haven’t been rained on for, ooh, must be twelve hours now. Hours of action and entertainment in this line of work.”

“What’s it mean for Candlemas weather predicting,” Peter says, shaking Alex’s shoulders slightly but letting him stand fully and lean into his side, “if Candlemas itself is disgustingly wet and rainy but the day following is worryingly sunny?”

“Worryingly?” Ruth snaps, cracking an eye open to frown at them.

Alex ignores this and sucks his teeth. “Oh, nothing good, I’m sure. We’re being lulled into a false sense of security, mark my words.

Peter frowns with deep and false concern. “Snowed in by the morning?”

“If we even last the night.”

Ruth works one glove off her hands and throws it at them, nailing Peter in the chest; he scrambles to catch it. “Worse than the chickens, you two are,” she says, fighting a smile. Peter holds out the glove and she presses her lips together and crosses the yard. Her fingers fold around the leather in his palm; his thumb falls gently to rest over her knuckles. Ruth looks up at them, all amused reproach. “Can’t you just enjoy it?”

Alex and Peter share a look, and then Peter shrugs. Alex looks back at her, and the sunlight, and the chickens and the pigs and the way her hair shines copper and Peter’s scrunched-up face and the warming, thawing ground - like spring is coming. He shrugs too. “We’ll give it a go,” he says.

#all heavily influenced by the time i yelled the audacity! in a public place because a pigeon peckedd my shoe #a pigeon!#the audacity!!#i'm not over it.#incidentally it's minus two and snowing today so this is based on a day last week #i'm cold :(#thanks for the prompt!#i am working on the others #this is your captain speaking

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wistfulcynic · 4 years

Text

...and held her in my arms (CS January Joy Day 9)

HAPPY JANUARY EVERYONE!!

So. This fic. I was not going to write it. I’ve had little ideas in my head for a while of a CS college/university AU but I didn’t really want to dive into anything new. But then the thing I intended to write for @csjanuaryjoy just began to feel a bit uninspired and uninspiring so I thought what the hell I’ll write down some ideas for a college AU and somehow it turned into this monstrous one-shot. (Yes I know there are one-shots longer, but this is GARGANTUAN for me.) It has some smut and some misunderstandings and miscommunication and mutual pining by the truckload, plus Captain Book because they are my forever BroTP.

I hope you enjoy!!

Gratitude as ever to @thisonesatellite for whipping this into shape and also just general awesomeness.

SUMMARY: Emma Swan does not want to think about Killian Jones. She doesn’t want to think about his eyes or his face or that time he pressed her against a wall at a frat party and made her forget her own name. She definitely does not want to think about that. But when they are partnered with each other on a project they both are determined to ace she can’t avoid him any longer... or the feelings growing between them.

@thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu @stahlop @mariakov81 @kmomof4 @shireness-says @thejollyroger-writer @teamhook @darkcolinodonorgasm @snowbellewells @snidgetsafan @tiganasummertree @shardminds @jonirobinson64 @jennjenn615 @superchocovian @courtorderedcake

ON AO3

She’s pressed against the wall, the sounds of the party fading into the background as his lips devour hers. He tastes like beer and corn chips and God that shouldn’t turn her on nearly as much as it does. She clutches at his hair as his hand slips beneath her shirt to cup her breast, the other digging into her thigh as she hitches her leg over his hip and grinds against him. He tears his mouth from hers and stares at her, panting, pupils blown, and then she pulls him back down to her lips…

“Miss Swan?”

The sound of the professor’s voice snapped Emma from her memory and back into the small seminar room, made warm and slightly stuffy by the early afternoon sun slanting through its tall windows.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear the question.”

“Perhaps because I didn’t ask you one,” said Professor Gold, fixing her with that unblinking stare of his that had been setting undergrads quaking in their boots for twenty-five years. “I merely wished to confirm that you are in fact present in this classroom. In mind as well as body.”

She could feel heat creeping up the back of her neck and had to force herself not to squirm. “Yes, Professor. Sorry.”

Professor Gold stared at her for another painful moment then looked away. Emma sighed in relief. “As I was saying,” the professor intoned. “Your pair research papers will constitute twenty-five percent of your final grade, something I’m sure you are already aware as no doubt you have all read the syllabus with great care and attention.”

Emma could tell her classmates in the Political Science seminar wanted to groan, but didn’t dare do so in front of Professor Gold. As and nor did she.

“I do not wish to have any bickering about choosing partners so I have chosen them for you myself,” Professor Gold continued. “You will find this list—” he held up a sheet of paper “—affixed to my office door should you have need to reconfirm the pairings that I am about to announce.” His gimlet stare swept the room. “Are there any questions?”

There weren’t.

He nodded. “Excellent. Now, Mr Booth, your partner will be...”

Emma listened as the professor read out names, trying not to fidget but feeling herself grow increasingly tense as name after name was called but none were hers… or his.

“…and last, but I feel quite certain—despite this morning’s momentary lapse—not least, Miss Swan you will be working with Mr Jones.”

Breathe, Emma.

She glanced across the conference table to where Killian Jones sat slouched in his chair. His posture was relaxed but a pink flush began to creep across his cheekbones as he sensed her gaze on him and then his ridiculous eyelashes fluttered and their eyes met.

Memories assailed her again—of those eyes dazed and wanting… her fingers in his hair… his tongue in her mouth… his hand between her legs… She tore her eyes away and focused on her notebook as Professor Gold reminded them of the requirements and due dates for the pair project, then quickly gathered her things and fled the room as soon as he dismissed the class.

She was halfway down the hall before Killian caught up with her.

“Swan!” he called, “Wait!” His fingers snagged the sleeve of her jacket and she spun around and yanked it away.

“What?” she snapped. Knowing she was being ridiculous and that she couldn’t run away or avoid him when he was her damn project partner made her extra defensive.

He looked taken aback by her tone, then resigned. “I just—” he attempted a smile “—I just thought perhaps we should exchange numbers. For the project.”

She scowled. “I’ll see you in class on Tuesday.”

“But we’re going to have to work outside of class as well,” he pointed out. “You heard the crocodile, this is a quarter of our final grade and I don’t know about you but I intend to ace it.”

“The crocodile?”

“Gold.”

“Yeah, I got that from context but why do you call him a crocodile?”

“Don’t you think he looks like one?”

He did a bit, in his cold, reptilian eyes, but she’d be damned if she agreed with Killian Jones about anything. “Not scaly enough,” she retorted, and he laughed, a deep, rich laugh that settled low in her belly and throbbed there.

“So,” he said, still with a wide smile and eyes bright with mirth, “…numbers?”

Emma hesitated, scrambling to come up with a reason, any reason, not to give him her number. “I just—I don’t think—” She stumbled a bit as the light went out of his eyes and his smile faded.

“All right,” he said, taking a pen from a pocket on the side of his satchel and grasping her hand firmly before she could snatch it away. His fingers were warm and slightly rough on the inside of her wrist as he held her hand steady and scribbled some numbers across the back of it. She held her breath, her heart racing, watching the tip of his tongue play at the corner of his lips as he finished writing and looked up, straight into her eyes. His face was inches from hers, his breath warm on her cheek as it had been that night, his touch on her skin achingly familiar. Emma swallowed through her parched throat and forced the memories away.

Killian blinked rapidly and gave himself a small shake, dropping her wrist like it burned him. He cleared his throat. “There,” he said. “That’s my number. Do with it what you will. But let me reiterate, Swan, we will need to work on this outside of class. I’m going to get an A out of that old reptile if it’s the last thing I do.”

His expression was dark and stubbornly determined, a muscle ticking in the corner of his jaw. She watched it dance, mesmerised.

He frowned. “Is there something on my face—” he began, then from down the hallway someone called “Jones! Hey, Killian!” and he turned to see who it was.

A leggy brunette sauntered up and kissed Killian’s cheek, then made a production of wiping her lipstick off it with her thumb. “Hey, Ruby,” he greeted her, submitting to both the kiss and the cleanup with a fond smile that made Emma’s teeth grind. “What’s up?”

“Oh my God, you’ll never guess who just agreed to play at my party on Saturday!” Ruby waved her phone under Killian’s nose. “DriftWood! That band, the one we saw at the festival last month, you remember?”

“Aye.” Killian took the phone and smiled as he read the screen. “Ah, brilliant, I liked them.”

“I fucking loved them, gah I can’t wait!” She took her phone back from Killian and did a little dance. “This party is gonna be so amazing. You and Belle are coming, right?”

“Of course, lass, we wouldn’t dare miss it.”

“Smart man.” Ruby grinned her megawatt grin then appeared to notice Emma for the first time. “Hey,” she said. “Um, Emma, isn’t it? Mary Margaret’s roommate?”

“Yeah,” said Emma between clenched teeth, wondering why the hell she was still standing there.

“I thought so. You can come too, if you want. Open invite, and MM will be there.”

“Thanks,” said Emma shortly. “I’m busy.”

“Oh.” Ruby glanced at Killian but he said nothing. “Well, if you change your mind—”

“I won’t. I’ll see you in class on Tuesday, Killian.” She turned and stalked down the hall, fingernails digging into her palms as she clenched her hands into fists to stop them shaking.

“Ugh, I don’t know why you like her,” said Ruby, watching Emma disappear around a corner. “She’s such a bitch.”

“She’s not a bitch.” Killian could still feel the softness of Emma’s skin, the thrum of her pulse beneath his fingertips in tune with his own pounding heart. His whole hand was tingling, and he flexed his fingers absently. “She’s just—closed off. I think she must have been hurt in the past.”

Ruby snorted. “Haven’t we all?”

“I’m not just talking about your girlfriend of five minutes breaking up with you, Rubes,” Killian chided. “I mean real pain.” He saw a lost girl behind Emma Swan’s eyes, someone who’d been left alone. He was all too familiar with how that felt, but it wasn’t something he could talk about with Ruby. “Anyway, never mind,” he said, smiling at her. “Have you had lunch?”

“Why do you think I came to find you?” Ruby grinned as she wrapped both her arms around one of his and rested her chin on his shoulder. “You owe me ten bucks from last weekend and I will totally accept payment in the form of cheeseburgers.”

Killian laughed. “Cheeseburgers it is then.”

When Emma got back to her dorm apartment that afternoon she scrubbed Killian’s number off her hand. But not before she programmed it into her phone. Just in case, she told herself. In case she got on a roll with the project and had something to discuss with him before Tuesday’s class. She held her breath as she saved the new contact then turned her phone upside down on the side of the sink as she washed her hands.

She only had one class on Fridays so the next afternoon she went to the library to get started on her research. She was heading back to her table with an armload of books when she caught a glimpse of a black leather jacket in the corner of her eye and ducked back into the stacks just in time to avoid Killian as he walked by. Peeking around the corner of the shelf she saw him sling his satchel onto a table just two away from where she’d left her things and shrug out of his jacket, hanging it on the back of a chair.

He wore dark jeans and a grey t-shirt with ‘Bristol Rowing’ in faded letters on the chest and before he sat down he rolled his neck and shoulders, the muscles across his back visibly flexing beneath the worn-thin fabric of his shirt.

“Ugh, seriously have mercy on us,” groaned a voice to her left. Emma turned to see two girls with their heads close together, books clutched against their chests, watching Killian intently.

“He’s just unfair,” said one, by the sound of her voice the same one who had just spoken. “No guy should be allowed to look that good.”

“Right?” replied the other. “He’s in my American Lit class and I swear I want to die every time he talks. That accent. Is he still with that Belle chick, do you know?”

“I think so. I see them together like all the time. Last week on my way to work I saw them going into the history museum, if you can believe it. I guess that’s his idea of a fun date.”

“Ugh. Too bad.”

“So too bad,” agreed the first girl. “I wish she’d share. They can go to boring-ass museums together in the day and then at night I’ll take that home and climb it like a tree.”

“Ride it like a bronco,” giggled the other.

“Bang it like a screen door in a hurricane.” They collapsed against each other, laughing, and Emma saw that Killian had plugged some headphones into his laptop and was tapping his foot as he opened a document. He didn’t even notice his fans, she thought snidely, firmly ignoring the twisty ache of regret threaded with guilt that thinking about Killian’s girlfriend always caused her. When she was certain his attention was fully on his writing and music she slipped quietly into the study area and over to the table where she’d left her things. Quickly gathering them along with the books she’d selected, she headed for the checkout desk. She’d study at home, she thought.

Emma worked on her various papers and projects all Friday evening and most of the day Saturday, and late Saturday afternoon found her sitting on the couch in her pajamas with her glasses perched on her nose and her hair in a messy bun, a book balanced on one knee and her laptop on the other, typing frantically, so engrossed that she didn’t notice Mary Margaret until her roommate plopped down on the sofa next to her.

“Are you still working?” she said, by way of greeting.

Emma peered over the tops of her glasses. “I have eighteen credits this semester, MM,” she replied, “it’s a lot of work.”

“I know, but you push yourself too hard,” said Mary Margaret, frowning in that mother-hen way that Emma found both comforting and deeply irritating. “You need to take a break, Emma, or you’ll break yourself. Why don’t you come to Ruby’s party with me, have a night off?”

“I’d rather write all my essays twice,” muttered Emma, glaring at her screen. “The second time in pig latin.”

Mary Margaret’s expression shifted into one of fond exasperation. “Don’t be like that, it’ll be fun!”

“No, it’ll be fun for five minutes then you and David will disappear into a dark corner and I’ll be left alone with Ruby who hates me and—her friends,” retorted Emma.

“Ruby doesn’t hate you!”

“Every time she sees me she pretends we’ve never met before.”

“She—”

“And you know she does, Mary Margaret, you’ve seen it yourself!”

“Well, okay, that’s not very nice,” Mary Margaret conceded, “but she’s really great once you get to know her.”

Emma snorted.

“And what’s wrong with her friends?” Mary Margaret continued, then her eyes narrowed. “Or by ‘friends’ do you actually mean ‘Killian’?”

Emma shrugged. “It’s just… awkward with him.” Seeing him with Belle, she didn’t say.

“What, because you two kissed once? Emma that was way back last semester, he probably doesn’t even remember.”

“He doesn’t.”

“So what’s the proble—oh. Oh. OH. Oh I see.”

“What the hell does that me—”

“You like him.” Mary Margaret’s eyes were wide. “You like him!”

Emma scowled. “No I don’t.”

“Yes you do! You like him and you hate that he doesn’t remember making out with you! Oh my god this explains so much!”

“It doesn’t—look, MM, look.” She closed her laptop and her book and set both on the coffee table, then turned to Mary Margaret with a pleading gesture. “Look,” she said again.

“What? What am I looking at?”

Emma took a deep breath. “Killian and I, we—we didn’t just make out,” she said.

“What!” Mary Margaret’s shriek nearly rattled the windows. “What did you do?”

“He—got me off. With his hand.” She winced as Mary Margaret’s jaw dropped and barrelled on before her roommate could ask any questions. “And I absolutely intended to return the favour, at least,” she said. “Though really what I wanted was to find someplace private where I could fuck him stupid.”

“Well. Naturally.”

“And you’d think,” Emma continued, “that in a damn frat house there would be an empty room somewhere, but on the way to look for one we sort of got distracted by, well…” she waved her hand and Mary Margaret nodded eagerly.

“So what happened?” she asked.

“What happened was the party got busted and everyone scattered. We were in an empty hallway that was suddenly full of people running and in all the confusion we got separated. I looked for him once I got outside but I couldn’t find him and so I just—went home.” Emma shrugged again.

“But—why didn’t you ever talk to him about—”

“I did,” Emma interrupted. “I saw him the next day, outside the library.” With Belle. “And he—well, he made it clear that he didn’t remember, or didn’t think it was anything worth remembering.”

Mary Margaret frowned. “Are you sure? That really doesn’t sound like him. Maybe he was just being—“

“I’m sure,” said Emma flatly. She could still feel the hot humiliation of it, the crushing sensation in her chest when she saw Belle clinging to his arm, laughing at something he’d said. Could still hear the dismissive words he’d spoken, annihilating the fragile hope she’d been stupid enough to let herself feel.

She swallowed past the hard lump in her throat and gave Mary Margaret a tight smile. “So you can see why I’m not exactly eager to be around him,” she said.

Mary Margaret was still frowning. “I guess so,” she replied. “But there will be loads of other people there, you know, it won’t be hard to avoid him. And Ruby’s booked a band that’s supposed to be really good.”

“I know, but—”

“And you could really use a night of fun, sweetie.”

Spending the night dodging Killian and Belle was hardly Emma’s idea of fun, and when you added Ruby to the mix, plus the fact that she wouldn’t be able to drink because she could not trust herself in the vicinity of Killian Jones if she were in any way impaired, and it began to sound like actual hell. She shook her head firmly.

“I’m sorry MM, but I really don’t want to go.”

“But—”

“Look, I’m going to finish this history paper then work for a few hours on my PoliSci research and after that I promise I’ll watch a movie or do something else relaxing, okay?” she said. “You go to the party and have a great time. And tomorrow maybe you and David and I can have lunch together.”

“Well, okay, if you’re sure,” said Mary Margaret, still with her worried frown.

Emma forced a smile. “Definitely. Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She texted Killian on Sunday afternoon. As much as she hated to admit it the unavoidable fact was that he was right. They were going to need to meet outside of class to get this paper written if they wanted a decent grade and she was just as determined to get an A as he was. Professor Gold was a notoriously tough grader and even if Emma wasn’t currently rocking a 3.8 GPA with only a semester and some summer classes left before graduation, she would still want to get an A from Gold, just to prove she could. For the challenge.

She had a sneaking suspicion that Killian’s motivation was the same.

She texted him not really expecting a reply; he was surely hung over and in no mood to think about studying, she thought, and so the buzz of her phone less than a minute after she’d sent the text took her by surprise. His message said that he had also made a start on research and was available on Monday afternoon if she wanted to get started on the project. Emma didn’t need to check her schedule to know that she was available at the time he suggested but she did anyway, and debated for several minutes before finally replying that was fine and she’d see him tomorrow.

Her stomach was twisting with nerves when she arrived at the library and saw him waiting for her in front of the check-out desk. He gave her a bright smile which just made it twist harder.

“Hey, Swan. I’ve staked out a carrel for us,” he said.

“Already?”

“I, uh, had some other stuff to work on so I got here an hour or so ago.” He scratched at a spot behind his ear and Emma frowned. He wasn’t lying but her internal lie detector was telling her it wasn’t the whole truth either. There must be another reason he’d gone early to the library.

She followed him up to the fifth floor, where instead of communal study tables small clusters of carrels were scattered among the stacks, a perfect haven for people who preferred to study in solitude. Emma loved it there.

Killian headed straight to a carrel in the farthest corner of the floor, just beneath a large window where sunlight dappled by the early-spring buds of an ancient oak tree made shadow patterns on its scarred wooden surface.

“I hope this is okay,” he said, scratching behind his ear again. His other hand was shoved deep in the pocket of his jeans and his shoulders tight with tension, and Emma realised with a jolt of surprise that he was nervous. Flirty, confident-to-the-point-of-arrogance Killian Jones was nervous. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

“It’s good,” she assured him with a small smile. “Perfect actually. I love this corner, it’s so peaceful.”

His smile bloomed again. “That’s it precisely. I come here as often as I can.”

“Mmm, me too.” Emma declined to mention that she’d seen him there more than once and resented his presence in her preferred space. Or that she’d wished, deep down, that they were the kind of friends who could share it.

She swallowed hard as they sat next to each other at the small table, its high walls protecting them from the view of anyone who didn’t expressly look to see if the carrel was free. They were sure as hell sharing the space now, and she wasn’t sure her heart could take it. Of course, it would help if she could look at his hands without thinking about where they’d been and what they could do there, or his lips without remembering them trailing fire up her neck as she clutched at his hair.

She cleared her throat and looked away. “So,” she said, to fill the silence as she pulled out her books and laptop. “How was the party?”

“Oh, uh, it was fine. Fun. DriftWood was great, and apparently they’ve just been scouted. I have a feeling they’re going to be big.” He shot her a grin. “Selfishly, I hope they are so I can be smug when I tell my grandchildren the tale of how I saw them before they were famous. Beatles at the Cavern Club for our generation.” He laughed, and Emma couldn’t suppress an answering smile.

“You like music then?” she asked.

He nodded, a bit warily. “I do, but I don’t really like talking about it. People get so passionate about what they like and don’t like, and it tends to make them judgemental.”

“Yes!” Emma turned to face him, forgetting her nerves in her excitement at someone saying what she’d always thought. “I hate that so much, when people make judgements about me as a person because of the music I like. So I listen to the Jonas Brothers sometimes, so the fuck what? I listen to other stuff too!”

Killian bit his lip and she froze. Fuck.

“You’re judging me about the Jonas Brothers, aren’t you?” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You so are!”

“Honestly, love—”

“You’re such a hypocrite.” Emma glared at her screen as she opened the document with her project notes, slamming on the keys far harder than necessary. She didn’t see Killian’s hand twitch towards her, just a shiver of movement before he deliberately closed his fist and pulled it back.

“I’m not judging, Swan, truly,” he said. “I agree with you completely, we like what we like and that’s fine.”

Emma shot him a glance from the corner of her eye. “You’d be a lot more convincing if you didn’t look like you were trying not to laugh,” she retorted.

He laughed.

“Oh my God I should never have told you anything,” she groaned, letting her head fall onto the table.

Killian leaned closer, still not touching her but close enough that a tingle spread across her skin at his nearness. “Okay, look, the Jonas Brothers are not something I personally am into, but if it will make you feel better I’ll confess that in certain moods I like to play Taylor Swift at an obnoxiously high volume,” he said, and when she dared to peek up at him his expression was open and earnest.

She sat up. “Seriously?”

“Oh yes. Sometimes I even dance.” He smiled. “Is that an embarrassing enough admission for you?”

“Oh, more than.”

“Good.” His smile widened into a grin, and she felt her own lips curl in response. Their eyes held for a moment, their hearts pounding, until Killian blinked and made a gruff noise in his throat. “Anyway, um, the band.” He opened his laptop and typed in the password. “I chatted with them a bit after their set and they were talking about going on to a club, but I ended up having to leave early because Belle wasn’t feeling well.” Emma stiffened, the smile fading from her face. “Which means I was far less hung over yesterday morning than I expected,” Killian continued, “and was able to spend the afternoon getting started on my research, and—Emma? Are you okay?”

She forced her lips to curve. “Fine,” she replied, “I’m fine. Show me this research.”

He did, and she was surprised by how good it was, then surprised at her surprise. Of course he was good at research, she thought, almost in despair. Everything about him seemed expressly designed to check every box on her ‘perfect man’ list. Everything except his beautiful, smart, elegant, charming, and very nice girlfriend.

He had come up with ideas and conclusions that were exactly in sync with her own, even filling in some of the gaps in the reading she’d done, and in her enthusiasm about finally working with someone whose intelligence and engagement in the project was equal to hers Emma completely forgot her hurt and resentment towards him, forgot Belle, even forgot their kiss. She forgot everything, in fact, except Killian’s smile and the blue of his eyes, his razor-sharp mind and how damned much she enjoyed his company. They talked through the plan for their whole project, divided up the research and brainstormed ideas, and wrote their outline. It was the most productive group project meeting Emma had ever experienced, and when her phone alarm buzzed to remind her of the time she felt genuinely disappointed that it had to end.

“I have a class at four,” she told Killian almost apologetically. “So I should probably be going. Um, do you want—should we check in again on Wednesday?”

He nodded eagerly. “Aye, let’s. Same time and place?”

“Works for me.” She gathered her things together and put them in her backpack, slung it over her shoulder then turned to look at Killian. He was watching her with a soft expression that made her chest flutter and her belly clench.

“This was—well it was—great,” said Emma.

“It really was.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I don’t mean to upset you, Emma, but I think we make quite a team.”

She tried not to smile, but the tug at her own lips was irresistible. “You might be right,” she conceded. “At least for PoliSci projects.”

“It’s a start.” The look in his eyes was so familiar, the same look he’d had at the party. She still remembered it, all of it with perfect clarity, despite all she’d had to drink. The heat in his eyes and how they seemed to caress her face, the way they kept darting to her lips as he licked his own until she couldn’t take any more and had grabbed him by the front of his shirt, dragging him upstairs to the empty hallway and giving in to the lust that she’d felt since the first time she saw him.

“Hey, you guys.” They started in surprise and turned to see Belle approaching, strolling gracefully in those towering heels that Emma could never quite get the hang of. Her warm smile encompassed both of them. “How’d the meeting go?” she asked.

“Great.” Killian grinned at her. “We got a lot done.”

“So are you ready for a coffee break?”

“Absolutely, I could use a shot of caffeine. Swan, would you like to join us? You should have time to grab something before your class?”

Emma felt like she’d been doused in icy water, so numbed that she missed the eager note in Killian’s voice, the hopeful yearning in his eyes. Silently she cursed herself for getting caught up, again, in her attraction to him, letting herself forget that there could be nothing between them except this project.

“No,” she snapped, and suppressed a flinch at the looks on their faces. She could hear how rude she sounded and as much as she hated it, she needed that rudeness, needed the distance it put between her and people who had the power to hurt her. People like Killian, who got past all her defences without even trying and left her far too vulnerable. “I should go. I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Bye Belle.” She turned and left, forcing herself not to run.

Killian watched her go, his heart in his throat and his blood still humming with the effects of two hours spent tucked away with her, so close that he could feel the heat of her skin and smell her hair, and see the gold flecks in her eyes whenever they met his. He felt dazed and off kilter but also triumphant, certain now that everything he’d always suspected about Emma was true—that behind those walls she kept so firmly between herself and everyone else there lay a woman worth knowing. A bloody brilliant woman whose wry sense of humour matched his own and whose perspective and ideas challenged him in a way he couldn’t remember ever being challenged before. It was exhilarating and intoxicating and glorious, and he was so, so fucked. And so not in the way he wanted to be fucked by Emma Swan.

“You know you’re ridiculous, right?” said Belle, observing him with an amused smirk.

He scowled at her. “Are you mocking my pain?”

“I’m mocking your Victorian-maiden pining,” she shot back. “It’s been months since you got off with her and I bet you still think about it every day, don’t you?”

Killian could feel himself turning red. “Maybe.”

“Still sneak glances at her across the table in your seminar, still get coffee every morning at that place you hate because it’s where she goes,” continued Belle.

“Shut up.” Killian shoved his laptop into his satchel and flung it across his shoulder, avoiding Belle’s eyes.

“Still do most of your studying in the library, hoping you’ll see her here.”

“Bloody hell, you make me sound like a stalker,” he grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Belle’s smirk softened into sympathy. “No, just a guy with a serious crush,” she said gently.

“Aaand now I sound fifteen.”

She snorted a laugh. “What you are is smitten, Killian, actually smitten, and that’s not a word I ever thought I’d need to use in real life. It’s adorable and also deeply pathetic.”

“Thanks a lot, mate, you’re always such a comfort to me,” he snarked as they began to walk towards the elevator.

They were halfway to the ground floor before Belle spoke again. “You know you could just ask her out,” she said.

“I did!” Killian threw up his hands in an exasperated gesture. “You were there, and I’m sure you remember that her refusal was pretty unequivocal.” He could still feel the pain of it, of all his hopes of finally having a chance with her ground to dust under the heel of her boot.

“Maybe if I hadn’t been there it would’ve gone differently,” Belle muttered under her breath.

The elevator dinged as she spoke and Killian frowned. “Sorry, what?”

Belle shook her head. “Nothing. But I do feel I should remind you how you’re always the one who says that if you want something you have to fight for it.”

“That doesn’t apply to people, though, unless they want it too. If she wanted me…” He remembered the party, remembered the struggle to control his racing heart when she appeared at his elbow smiling a wicked smile and flirting back at him, remembered losing his breath and his sanity as she leaned in close and let her fingertips trail up his thigh. He remembered the sizzle of the connection he’d felt between them, the understanding he could have sworn she’d felt too. If Emma wanted him, if she gave even the smallest hint that she was open to something happening between them, he would fight like hell for her.

If.

“But she doesn’t,” he continued gruffly, “she’s made that perfectly clear.” He swallowed hard as the familiar ache squeezed his chest.

“But if you—”

“Belle, please, can we talk about something else?” he implored, and after a short pause she nodded. Killian hunched his shoulders as they walked the short distance to the coffee shop. He could still feel Belle’s eyes on him and sense her concern. But there was nothing she or anyone else could do. Emma had made her decision, he just had to find a way to live with it.

To Killian’s relief Emma seemed fine in class the next day, smiling softly when he entered the seminar room and their eyes met, setting his heart racing again. The seat next to her was empty and he hesitated just inside the door, debating whether he should sit in it. Before he could decide if she would welcome or retreat from him, August swaggered into the room, plopped himself right down in the seat and proceeded to attempt to flirt with her.

At least she wasn’t any more receptive to August than she was to him, thought Killian crossly as he sat in his accustomed seat across the table from her, watching the scene play out from the corner of his eye. August’s philosophy-and-creative-writing-double-major pretensions never failed to get on his nerves and from the look on Emma’s face whenever the other man opened his mouth they got on hers as well.

He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed that he was apparently lumped into the same category as August bloody Booth.

The subject of their seminar class was Topics in Political Philosophy, and despite Professor Gold’s cold eyes and often cutting remarks Killian had always enjoyed it. The crocodile was a brilliant mind, one of the reasons he’d chosen this university for his year abroad, and debating him was the kind of fierce challenge Killian lived for. He knew Gold liked to bait him, to play devil’s advocate and watch him squirm, and he prided himself on never giving in.

Ordinarily when he and Gold got caught up in one of their sparring matches the other students would sit back and listen, not daring to venture a remark. Today, however, as he was catching his breath after an impassioned argument in favour of migrant rights and waiting for Gold to fire back, he was astonished to hear a voice, cool and confident, coming to his defence.

It was Emma. He spun in his seat to look at her and she caught his eye, giving him a little smile before refocusing her attention on Gold. The professor turned to her with a raised eyebrow and slightly bared teeth.

“Interesting point, Miss Swan,” he said. “And why do you think that?”

It was Gold’s most terrifying question, one that pinned the student on the spot and forced them to support their argument with solid evidence. Most crumbled beneath the pressure of it and of Gold’s unblinking stare, but Emma sat up straighter, green eyes glinting as she threw down a Plato quote and followed it up with Rousseau, smoothly shoring up the weak points of Killian’s own argument with irrefutable authority.

Gold stared at her in silence for so long the tension in the room became unbearable, drawing out endlessly as the rest of the class waited, barely daring to breathe, until finally he gave a brusque nod. “Well argued, Miss Swan,” he said.

As one the other students turned and gaped at Emma, who herself turned to Killian with a triumphant grin that was also, somehow, shy.

You are amazing, he wanted to say, wanted to shout it, wanted to leap across the table and kiss her. But Gold was already moving on to another topic, and Emma returned her attention to her notebook, and Killian released a shaky breath and tried not to wonder what the fuck he was supposed to do with all these feelings.

Emma normally fled the seminar room as quickly as she could once class ended but that afternoon she gathered her things slowly and timed her exit to coincide with Killian’s. He noticed of course, and gave her a bright grin.

“That was sheer brilliance in there today, Swan,” he said. “You are officially my hero.”

She shrugged, ducking her head to hide her pleased smile. “Professor Gold always says I should talk more in class, so…”

“You absolutely should,” said Killian vehemently. “Especially if you’re going to be saying things like that.”

“And now I’m worried I’ve set the bar too high,” laughed Emma.

“Nonsense. I’m sure that was only scratching the surface of what you have to offer. Remember, I know how you research.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, managing to infuse the word research with such suggestive inflection that Emma felt herself blush.

They walked in silence for several minutes, Emma simply following Killian where he led without really noticing their path as she steeled herself for what she had to say to him.

“Look, Killian,” she said finally. “I want to apologise.”

He frowned at her. “Apologise?”

“For how I acted yesterday,” she clarified. “I was rude to you and to—to Belle, and I’m sorry.”

Killian shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “You have nothing to apologise for, love.”

“No, I do,” she insisted, and rushed on when he opened his mouth to argue. “Please, just let me say this. I know I can be… hard sometimes. I push people away. But I don’t want to push you away. I mean, I want to... I want… damn it!”

Killian stopped and turned to her, and she noticed that they were standing in front of the main doors to the student union. “What do you want, Emma?” he asked gently.

“Can we—” she twisted her fingers together, avoiding his eyes. “Can we be friends?”

She looked up at him just in time to see something flash across his face, something that looked almost like hurt. But then he smiled. “Of course we can. I’d be honoured to call myself your friend.”

She huffed a breath as her stomach fluttered and jangled with pleasure and nerves. “I don’t really know how to reply when you say stuff like that,” she said.

“You could just say ‘yes’.”

She frowned. “Yes?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“Well,” said Killian, striding to the door of the union and opening it for her with a small bow. “First I say ‘I’m going in here to get some lunch would you care to join me,’ and then you say…” he gestured at her, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” she said, fighting a smile.

“Brilliant.” He grinned at her as she preceded him through the door. “How does pizza sound?”

“Sounds great.”

Time to put the past behind her, Emma told herself firmly as they stood in line for pizza. What happened happened and she couldn’t undo it, but she had to find a way to work with Killian and also, damn it, she liked him. And he seemed to like her. That was enough. It would have to be.

Killian slammed his book shut, shattering the studious silence of the library and making Emma jump. Another student in a nearby carrel shot them both a dirty look and she shrugged apologetically.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“I can’t do it any more,” he declared. “I cannot study another moment, Swan! I protest! I revolt!”

She rolled her eyes. “Bit dramatic.”

“Emma. Look at the weather today,” he said, gesturing to the window behind them, where the oak tree had sprouted tender, pale green leaves and the sky was a blinding and unclouded blue. More than a month had passed since they’d started their regular library study sessions and during that time spring had decidedly sprung. “It’s gorgeous out there,” Killian continued, “we are all but finished with this project—which is a work of sheer and unadulterated brilliance, guaranteed to knock the crocodile’s socks off—and I refuse to remain indoors any longer. Let’s take the afternoon off.”

“I have a class—”

“Skip it.”

She stared at him, mildly shocked. “I can’t skip a class!”

“Why not? Will you fail if you’re not there on this one occasion?”

“Well, no.”

“Will the professor die from missing you?”

She snorted. “No.”

“Skip it! Take the afternoon off. Come for a walk with me.”

“A walk?”

“Aye, Swan, a walk. Where you put one foot in front of the other and propel yourself forward.”

“I know what a walk is, Killian.”

“Really? Because you sounded uncertain.” He smirked at her and she rolled her eyes again even as a grin tugged at the corners of her lips.

His grin dimpled his cheeks and crinkled the corners of his eyes and made her stomach clench in a way that was by now so familiar she hardly noticed it. “Let’s get coffee and walk down to the pier and look at the sailboats,” he said eagerly. “I’ll show you the one I intend to buy someday.”

“You want to buy a sailboat?” she asked in surprise. This was the first she’d heard of any such intention, though she knew Killian so well now she sometimes forgot they hadn’t always been friends.

“Oh yes. And sail it around the world,” he replied.

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

He nodded. “I’d like to, anyway. Liam naturally thinks that would be a foolish waste of time. But if the sailboat were mine, well, he couldn’t do anything to stop me, could he?”

Emma smiled and shook her head. “Liam just worries about you,” she said. “You’re lucky, to have someone who worries.”

Killian was instantly contrite. “You’re right, of course, love,” he said, with that look in his eyes that always made her want to throw herself in his arms and just sink into him. “And in truth I will probably not go around the world on a sailboat, but instead find a job after graduation and settle down to fifty years of grind like a good little cog in the machine.” He grinned as Emma laughed. “But let’s go look at the sailboats anyway.”

“But—”

“No arguments, Swan, we’re having an afternoon off.” He stood and slung his satchel over his shoulder. “Come on.”

They got coffee from the little shop just off campus that they now considered their regular place, where they went every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after their study sessions and before Emma’s four o’clock class. Cups in hand, they strolled through the small, residential neighbourhood where student rentals sat alongside slightly run-down family homes until they reached the water.

A weatherbeaten wooden pier stretched out before them, with a small rocky beach on their left and a marina far in the distance to their right. They went to the end of the pier and sat, their feet dangling just above the surface of the water, and watched the boats out on the blue horizon.

“That one,” said Killian, pointing. “That’s the sort of boat I want.”

Emma looked at the one he indicated, a sleek and shiny sailboat that was certainly attractive but not nearly as much as Killian’s face, with its soft, wistful expression that to her surprise she realised she’d never seen before. She shook her head, a wry little smile on her lips. Months of struggling to avoid looking at him, she thought, and now after four short weeks of friendship she knew all his faces, every subtle nuance of his expressions. She knew what he looked like when he was happy, when he was frustrated, when he was angry, when he was lost in daydreams or when he was about to say something outrageous. She knew what he looked like when he was listening to her with that focused attention that made her feel like she mattered, and when he wanted to take her hand but held himself back.

Because he wasn’t sure how she would react, Emma knew, and she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure how she would react either. For as much as she still wanted him and wished things between them could be different—a feeling that only grew stronger the more they learned about each other—the idea of making herself so vulnerable to him again was terrifying. And, of course, there was still the small matter of his girlfriend.

Belle had never again shown up at the library when they were studying, and Killian rarely mentioned her. When he did it was always casually, in passing: a story she had told him when they were having dinner, or something funny they saw at one of Ruby’s parties. Parties Emma herself could never bring herself to attend despite Mary Margaret’s repeated pleas. Her friendship with Killian had become so precious to her and her feelings for him so deeply personal that she couldn’t stand the idea of exposing any of it to the eyes of Ruby or Belle. Even Mary Margaret didn’t know how close she and Killian had become, or that much of the time she spent at David’s, Emma spent at their apartment with Killian.

“Swan!” Killian chided, giving her an exasperated frown. “You’re not even looking!”

“I am!” Emma pulled herself from her reverie and looked back at the boat. “It’s—okay, I don’t know anything about sailboats but it looks… nice?”

He laughed. “One of these days, woman, I will take you sailing, and teach you how to appreciate a vessel such as that one.”

Emma smiled as a rush of warmth flooded her. She doubted she would ever get tired of hearing him say things like that. Things that suggested they would stay in each other’s lives once their project was finished. That he treasured their friendship as much as she did. That he wouldn’t leave her.

They sat on the pier for nearly two hours, watching the boats and talking aimlessly until the breeze off the water grew too brisk and they wrapped their jackets tightly around themselves and headed back to campus.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon then?” said Killian when they reached the corner next to the sciences building where he had to turn left to get to his apartment and she continue straight to go to hers. “Your place?”

“Yep. Come by about four.”

“I’ll bring the beer.”

“Killian, we are still going to have to get some work done, especially since we wasted today.”

“Wasted?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

She huffed. “You know what I mean! It was fun and yes, we probably did need the break but it’s put us behind schedule.”

“Never fear, Swan,” said Killian with a smile, leaning in so that their heads were almost touching. “We’ll be able to get everything finished tomorrow. And then, beer.”

She laughed, her heart pounding as she watched him lick his lower lip and then bite it. “All right, all right. See you then.”

“See you then, love.”

Emma headed home, still with the silly, happy smile spending time with Killian always put on her face. She let herself drift into daydreams as she crossed the campus and was just cutting through the small lawn behind the library when she caught sight of Belle and Ruby sitting close together on the grass. Emma stopped abruptly, wondering if she should turn around and go home another way. They hadn’t noticed her yet so she still had time, and after the lovely afternoon she’d just had she really didn’t want to get stuck making awkward small talk with Killian’s girlfriend and someone who always pretended not to remember her name.

Before she could decide what to do, Ruby wrapped an arm around Belle’s shoulders and pulled her into a kiss. A soft, deep kiss that looked well-practiced, with Belle’s hand fisted on the sleeve of Ruby’s jacket and Ruby’s fingers twined into her hair. It was intense and intimate, comfortable but also hot, the kind of kiss that only happens between people who have kissed before and intend to continue doing so well into the future.

Emma gasped and then she reeled, stumbling backwards and around the corner of the library where she leaned weakly against the wall, struggling to get her head around what she’d just witnessed.

Killian, was her first and frankly only thought. What am I going to say to Killian?

It wasn’t her business, obviously. What went on between him and Belle was between them, and Emma very decidedly did not want to get involved. But she couldn’t bear the idea of him being hurt, and if Belle was lying to him, running around with Ruby behind his back, then his heartbreak was all but inevitable.

Her own heart was already hurting for him.

What was the right thing to do here, she wondered frantically. Would it be better for him to find out from her or from Belle? Was Belle even planning to tell him? Was it a case of ‘he deserves the truth’ or ‘keep your nose out of other people’s business’?

Emma’s mind raced as her feet carried her blindly back to her apartment where she smiled vaguely at Mary Margaret and waved away her attempts at conversation, then retreated to her room. Dropping her backpack carelessly on the floor, she kicked off her boots and her jeans and crawled into bed, wrapped the duvet tightly around herself and tried desperately to think.

She was no closer to a decision about what to do the following afternoon, and as the clock ticked ever closer to Killian’s arrival her thoughts became more and more muddled. Surely it was best to say nothing, she thought. Leave it between Killian and Belle. But could she? Could she spend the evening with Killian, listening to his gorgeous voice and looking at his precious face, all the while knowing he was about to have his heart broken?

But could she bear to be the one to break it?

Her bell buzzed and she took several deep breaths before opening the door to see Killian standing there with a wide smile and a six-pack of brown bottles which he presented to her with a flourish.

“Wait till you try this beer, Swan. It’s made in this place not far from—what’s wrong?”

“What?” She attempted a smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Love, you’re practically vibrating with tension, it’s clear that something’s troubling you. You can talk to me about it you know.”

Emma laughed a bit hysterically. “I really can’t,” she said.

“Of course you can,” said Killian softly. “You can tell me anything.”

There was the faintest note of hurt in his voice, a tiny furrow between his brows caused by her reluctance to confide in him, but he couldn’t know just how much more painful the secret he was trying to pry from her would be.

“I can’t tell you this,” she whispered.

His frown deepened and he looked at her for an uncomfortably drawn-out moment before giving a small nod. “As you like, Swan. But you know I’m always here if you need someone to talk to.”

She forced herself to smile, digging her fingernails deep into the skin of her arms to stop herself from grabbing him, from wrapping her arms around him and shielding him from every hurt. “I know.”

Fuck Belle, she thought with a sudden fierce fury. Fuck her for doing this to him, for treating his heart so carelessly, for hurting him. Emma couldn’t imagine letting Killian go. If he were hers she never, ever would.

God she wanted that so much. Wanted the freedom to touch him whenever she liked, to rest her head against his shoulder as they sat on the pier, to let her hand brush his as they said goodbye. Just those small, casual touches that carried so much intimacy. She wanted the freedom to tell him how she felt, to hold him in her arms and kiss him as she had before, to feel his hands on her again and to finally get hers on him.

Belle had had that freedom and she’d thrown it away, and the unfairness of that, the waste of it, made Emma so angry she couldn’t stop tears from welling up in her eyes and overflowing onto her cheeks.

Her habit of angry-crying was seriously inconvenient.

Killian had his back to her as he set the six-pack on the counter of her little mini-kitchen. “Anyway, about the beer,” he said, glancing back with a grin that fell from his face at the sight of her tears, replaced by a look of panic.

“Emma!” he choked, almost stumbling in his haste to get to her side, stopping just shy of touching her and flexing his hands helplessly in the space between them. “Emma, love, what’s the matter? What’s happened?” He lifted his hand as though to touch her cheek then yanked it away and stuffed it in his pocket. “Please talk to me,” he implored. “Let me help.”

Emma wiped furiously at her cheeks but the tears kept falling. “You can’t help,” she said.

“But why? Has someone done something to you? Has—”

“No! No. I’m fine.”

He scowled. “You are obviously not bloody fine.”

“No, I am, really. I cry when I’m angry, that’s all.”

“Well then, what’s made you angry?”

“Killian, please,” Emma swiped at her cheeks again, and in frustration turned away from him. “Don’t push me on this, it’s something I just—I—I won’t tell you.”

She heard him gasp, a sharp, hurt intake of breath that she could swear actually cut into her. “All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want. Perhaps I should just go.”

“No!” She spun around again, her heart cracking at the sight of the blank expression on his face and the pain in his eyes. “You don’t have to.”

“I think it’s best, Swan, as you clearly don’t want me here.”

“No, I do!” she implored. “That’s not it at all, I just—it’s just this thing I can’t tell you about—”

“This thing that’s upset you so badly it’s made you cry.”

“Yes it has, but I—it’s not my business.”

“It must be, or it wouldn’t bother you so.”

“It—concerns someone I care about. But if I tell them, it will hurt them.” She met his eyes, silently pleading for understanding. “If your friend saw something that they knew would hurt you to hear about, would you want them to tell you?” she asked him. “Even if it wasn’t really something they should be involved in?”

“Without knowing the precise details of the situation it’s hard to say,” replied Killian. “But I think yes, I would want to know the truth. Regardless of the source.”

“And you wouldn’t blame the source for telling you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay.” Emma nodded. “Okay.” She pressed her hand against her stomach and drew a deep breath. “I saw Belle kissing Ruby,” she said, watching carefully for his reaction. There… wasn’t one.

“Where were they?” he asked.

“In that little grassy area behind the library.”

“Ha,” he said. “Well, it’s about bloody time.”

“It’s—what?”

“They’ve been sneaking around for months, I’m glad they’re finally taking it out in the open,” he said. “Belle had her doubts; she was hurt badly in her last relationship and with Ruby being… well, Ruby, she didn’t want to jump in too quickly.”

“Wait, wait… you knew about them?”

“Of course I knew, they’re two of my best friends. They thought they were being so covert, but you can’t play a player,” he said with a faint grin.

Best friends. Emma struggled to process precisely what he was saying. “But—isn’t Belle your girlfriend?”

Killian stared at her. “No.”

“Since when?”

“Since… always?”

“But I thought… everyone says… what?”

Killian scratched behind his ear. “We went out a few times at the beginning of last semester,” he said. “I’d just started here and everyone I met seemed to think we’d be perfect together and they kept trying to set us up, so we gave it a shot. But there was just no spark, though we really liked each other so we agreed to be friends. At no point was she anything like what I’d call a girlfriend.”

She continued to gape at him and he scowled. “Emma, I asked you out,” he said, with an edge of anger in his voice. “When Belle was standing right there. Do you really think I’d do that if she was my girlfriend?”

Emma felt a hot flush of embarrassment creep up her neck. She had thought that, in fact, and had continued to think it even after she got to know him well enough to see that he wasn’t at all that kind of guy.

“You told her I was just someone you met at a party,” she said in a small voice. “It sounded like you were saying I wasn’t anyone important, or that you were trying to explain me away so she wouldn’t suspect you’d—” she broke off as the creeping heat turned her cheeks pink.

His ears had gone bright red. “I’d what?” he asked gruffly.

“Nothing.”

“That I’d kissed you?” he pressed. “That I’d watched in awe as you came on my fingers?”

Emma gasped. “You do remember!”

“Of course I bloody remember! Several times a day, usually. I can’t get it or you out of my damn head, and believe me I have tried. You’re not an easy woman to forget, Swan.”

“But you always acted like—you never said anything!”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘I fancy you madly and still dream about my fingers in your cunt, please let me fuck you before I lose my mind’?”

“I mean, you could have started with coffee.”

“I tried!”

“You gave up awfully quick!”

Killian huffed in exasperation. “Call me old fashioned, love, but when a woman says no, and especially when she says it as emphatically as you did, I take that as her final answer!”

“Which means you thought that that I was the sort of person to just screw someone against a wall one day and then spit in their face the next?” she snapped. “Why would I do that?”

“That is precisely the question I’ve been asking myself for months now.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, tugging at the dark strands. “I thought—I hoped—at the party, before we kissed… I thought that we had a connection. That you might actually be interested in me. And what I said to Belle the next day, about how we met… I was trying to tell her that I had actually met you, properly I mean, and that I’d talked to you, because she knew how I—” he broke off with an uncertain glance at her.

“How you what?” she encouraged, barely daring to breathe.

“How I had a thing for the gorgeous blonde in my politics lecture,” he said softly. “The one who never even looked at me and disappeared after every class before I had a chance to talk to her.”

“I looked at you.”

His eyes widened. “You did?”

“Well yeah, I mean, you’re not exactly hard on the eyes. But I—I saw you. In class, whenever you talked the things you said I just—I always felt like you got me. Like we were coming from the same place, you know?”

“Aye, I definitely do know. I felt the same. I tried so many times to catch you so I could introduce myself but you always ran off straight after every lecture and I never seemed to be quick enough.”

“I had another class right after that one, on the other side of campus. I had to run to get there.”

“So you weren’t running from me?”

“No! I wanted to talk to you too. To get to know you. Why do you think I approached you at that party?”

“Well, you did seem to have rather more than conversation on your mind.”

“Okay, fair enough. But we talked, didn’t we? Before, er—”

“Before you dragged me upstairs and had your wicked way with me?”

“Oh my God.” She pressed her palms to her flaming cheeks and he laughed.

“Aye, love, we did talk.”

“And I felt that connection, just like you. Enough to make me want to… you know.”

“Drag me upstairs and have your wicked way with me?” He was smiling a smile she hadn’t seen since the night of the party, the cocksure one with the predatory edge that made her thighs clench.

“Yeah… that,” she replied in a breathless voice and watched his eyes darken.

“Emma, does this mean—” His smile faded into something far more yearning and he reached up, slowly and with a wary caution that squeezed her heart, and brushed his fingers across her cheek, wiping away the lingering dampness from her tears. She drew a sharp breath and pressed her face against his palm, shivering at the electric tingle his touch sent dancing across her skin. He hadn’t touched her the whole time they’d been working on their paper, she thought, not once. Not so much as a brush of elbows in the study carrel. He’d been so careful to respect what he thought she wanted.

She looked up at him, at his eyes so soft and hopeful. “Does this mean what?” she whispered.

“Does it mean you might want to—that we could, perhaps—”

She closed her fist into the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his. He groaned into her mouth as his arms wrapped tightly around her, his fingers sinking into her hair. She hummed and twined her own arms around his neck, opened her mouth beneath his and let herself be swept away, her blood pounding with the need to get her hands on him, get as close to him as she could, the same desperate urgency she’d felt at the party compounded now by all the feelings that had been slowly growing between them over the past four weeks.

When they broke for air and he leaned his forehead against hers his eyes were almost the same as they had been that night, dark and alive with heat and desire but this time completely sober. There would be no forgetting this, for either of them, and no turning back from it once they’d taken this step.

Emma wanted to take it. She was ready, more than ready, and he was—

“Emma,” he murmured once he’d recovered enough breath to speak, and the gravel in his voice made her ache.

“Hmmm?”

“Please let me fuck you before I lose my mind.”

She laughed and grabbed him by the shirtfront again, tugging him behind her and into her bedroom. The minute they were through the door she pulled the shirt up and off him, tossing it aside.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to see you naked?” she asked as she trailed her fingers up his chest.

“I hope at least six months,” he replied, snaking an arm around her waist and yanking her flush against him, pressing his mouth to her neck.

“Longer. Since—oh, God—since the first day of class last semester.”

“What a coincidence,” he murmured against her collarbone, hands sliding beneath her shirt and snapping open the clasp of her bra with a deft twist of his fingers. “That’s precisely how long I’ve wanted to see you naked.”

“Well then.” She pushed him away and held his gaze as she whisked off her shirt and bra in one move, smirking as his jaw slackened at the sight of her bare breasts. He stepped closer again, letting his fingertips trace along her collarbone and over the curve of her breast, across the hardened tip of her nipple.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I’ve dreamed of this.”

“Me too.” She trailed her hands up his arms and over his shoulders, over the smooth skin and muscles firmed by rowing and into his hair, pulling him close and thrilling at the hiss of his breath through his teeth when her breasts pressed against his chest. She kissed him again, open-mouthed and hot, as his hands roamed her back and downwards to curve over her ass and pull her hard against him. The feel of his erection cradled between her thighs drew a ragged moan from deep in her throat and she clutched at him with desperate fingers, trying to pull him closer. But Killian, despite the dazed lust in his eyes when he broke the kiss, was not a man to be rushed. With a wicked smirk he sank to his knees and pressed his face against her belly, hooking his fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants and pulling them down, following their progress with his lips.

She gasped. “Killian—”

“Hmmm?” He buried his nose in the soft patch of curls between her thighs.

“Oh my God.”

“You smell so good,” he growled. “I could smell you on my fingers, the morning after the party. I’ve never been so sorry to wash my hands.”

Emma clutched at his hair, her head spinning, and at the first stroke of his tongue through her folds her legs nearly collapsed beneath her. She could hear herself moaning, needy, desperate cries that grew louder as he licked deeper, his tongue stroking and pressing against her clit until she came with a hoarse scream, gripping his head to keep herself upright.

He stood quickly, catching her as she stumbled and collapsed against his chest, pulled her head into the crook of his neck and tangled his fingers in her hair. She could feel his cock pressing insistently against her hip and she couldn’t wait to get her hands on it.

Just as soon as she got her breath back.

“That’s two,” she gasped when she could speak again.

“Two what?” he murmured into her hair.

“Two times you’ve made me come. I feel like I owe you.”

He chuckled. “The night is young, Swan.”

“Considering it’s like five in the afternoon.”

“Exactly.” He leaned back to look down at her, grinning that cocky grin that had lust stirring in her belly again. “And I have many, many suggestions for ways you can make it up to me.”

She let her hand trail down his abs, beneath the waistband of his jeans to wrap around his cock, a saucy grin of her own curving her lips when he gasped. “Oh really,” she purred. “Do tell.”

The following Monday morning Killian met Belle for coffee, like always.

“Hey,” she said as he got in line next to her. “I wasn’t sure you’d show. You went dark all weekend, is everything okay?”

“Aye.” He could feel himself flush and rubbed at his neck behind his ear. “Never been better.”

Belle’s eyes widened. “You slept with Emma!” she cried.

“I—what makes you say that?”

“Oh my God, you did! You actually did!”

“All right, okay, I did,” he hissed. “Keep your voice down. How the hell did you know?”

Belle grinned smugly. “You have the worst poker face ever, that’s how.”

“It’s why I prefer dice,” he muttered.

“So tell me everything,” she said, clapping her hands together. “All the details.”

“I am absolutely not going to do that.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Okay fine, but at least tell me she isn’t going to blow you off again. This isn’t another one-time thing?”

The door opened with a jangle of its bell and Killian looked up to see Emma, slightly breathless and with a shy smile on her face as she approached them. His heart soared, and the smile he gave Belle was pure happiness. “Definitely not just a one-time thing,” he said.

#cs fic #cs ff #cs ff au #college au #college/university au #captain swan #captain book #smut #mutual pining #long one-shot #...and hold her in my arms #profdanglaisstuff #cs january joy #csjj2020

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calumcest · 4 years

Text

as he faced the sun he cast no shadow

dont roast me for using oasis lyrics as the title also i think this is the shortest fic i’m humanly capable of writing

Ashton doesn’t really realise he’s fallen out of love until it’s happened.

He only half-remembers the first day, like someone else’s fever dream told to him the next morning. He remembers Luke’s face, strained and tight, telling him I can’t do this anymore, I can’t be with you anymore. He remembers his stomach bottoming out, his mind racing, his palms sweating, excuses and pleas stumbling over each other in their haste to leave his lips. He remembers his voice rising with the panic in his chest, remembers thinking wildly that even his breaths belonged to Luke as his words constricted Ashton’s lungs, threatening never to let go. He remembers the dial tone as Luke had hung up, screen blinking back to his contact list, remembers staring at it for a moment in disbelief, and then sinking to his knees.

Three minutes for a three year relationship. That’s all Luke gave him. Luke had always known that Ashton’s biggest desire was his greatest weakness, and now Ashton knew it too. There was nothing of him to love. He was disposable.

The first few months were the worst. Ashton doesn’t remember those. June, July and August were nothing to him. In years to come (and Ashton remembers wondering if there would be such things) he will have no recollection of his twenty-sixth birthday.

He remembers flashes. He’d drifted through the days, making empty promises about feeling fine without having any concept of what ‘fine’ felt like. He knows he didn’t listen to music for over a month, because it was completely futile, completely meaningless. He knows he couldn’t fall asleep normally anymore, having to stay up until six a.m. to make sure he was so exhausted he wouldn’t be able to think, because the only thought that could form in the muddle of his mind was how worthless he was. He doesn’t remember the pain he felt but remembers it being the first time he’d felt so much pain that he couldn’t feel it anymore, like breaking a bone. He’d been so relieved for the numbness and so frightened of it, because he’d known at some point it would all come crashing down, a dam built of paper and straw.

Time had moved wrong. He remembers standing under the shower at the gym and it taking twice as long to automatically turn off. He remembers turning it up to the highest heat, hoping the hot water on his skin would make him feel something, force the pain to hit. He’d feel nothing, yet look down and see bright red staring back at him like a warning.

Twice a week, he’d paid to display all of his worthlessness, his unloveable nature. He’d wept. His voice had cracked. And then he’d cleared his throat, blinked salt water away, smiled, thanked her, left. She’d said she saw nothing behind his eyes, but she was trained to notice. Nobody else saw, and that was all that mattered.

Everything was Luke for such a long time that Ashton barely even noticed it. He’d see food and think of Luke, hear songs and think of Luke, smell the lingering scent of someone walking past and think of Luke. Luke crowded into every corner of his mind, every topic of his conversation. There was nothing Ashton could see or think or do without thinking of Luke.

For example, Luke had always saluted magpies, and Ashton never had.

(“It’s bad luck not to,” he’d said indignantly, when Ashton had laughed at him the first time he saw him do it. Ashton had rolled his eyes, but he’d found himself starting to salute on autopilot when he spotted a little black and white bird in the distance.)

He remembers the first time he saw a magpie after Luke, remembers the way he hesitated for a moment before touching his fingers to his forehead. He specifically remembers thinking about Luke then, a raw slash to his heart, knowing that somewhere, forty miles away, Luke was saluting another magpie, not knowing what Ashton knew - it was in vain.

Calum had taken him on holiday. A change of scenery, he’d said. Somewhere that doesn’t remind you of Luke.

Italy.

Ashton remembers the hot sun, but he doesn’t remember how it felt on his skin. He remembers the bright afternoons, but he doesn’t remember how they made him squint. He remembers the sea breeze, but he doesn’t remember if it made him shiver.

Calum had taken him to a church, a beautiful white building tucked in the corner of a flagstone plaza, as though he knew what Ashton needed.

Ashton hadn’t prayed in years. He hadn’t believed in even longer, but he was so desperate that he’d grasped at the straw Calum had handed to him, sat on a dusty wooden pew with his eyes cast to the ornate painted ceiling.

Please, he remembers thinking silently, wildly. You might think you know better, but you don’t. I need Luke. I can’t live without him.

No one had responded, but Ashton had left feeling a little lighter, a weight off the heaviness he hadn’t even noticed before.

After that, things got a little easier.

He could laugh without it being meaningless. He could think. He could focus. He still couldn’t sleep, couldn’t let his mind wander, couldn’t be alone, but he could breathe. He’d thrown himself into the music, picking up the sticks he hadn’t touched in months and drumming, writing, drumming, writing. Calum had finally lost the crease between his eyebrows when Ashton started to sing again.

Ashton remembers fearing Christmas. It would be his first one without Luke in four years.

(“I’ll be thinking about him,” he’d told his therapist anxiously, nibbling on his lip.

“You’re allowed to,” she’d said.)

Christmas, however, came and went. Ashton remembers forgetting Luke on Christmas Day, too caught up in the festivities and opening presents and eating lunch and playing with Harry and Lauren, only remembering that he’d been supposed to think about Luke when he was brushing his teeth and grinning maniacally at himself in the mirror.

January in LA had been cold and wet and miserable, but Ashton doesn’t even care because he remembers. He remembers the biting wind stinging his cheeks, the way he had to dig his hands into his pockets because he forgot his gloves, the new scarf he had to buy to hide his nose in to protect it from the icy air. He remembers slipping on wet pavements, running from Target to his car in the pouring rain, feet squelching in leaking shoes. He remembers driving to Calum’s, and sleeping in Calum’s bed, and having to fall asleep without his phone in his hand.

He doesn’t remember doing it, though, because he only remembers waking up the next morning, awake and refreshed and well-rested.

He remembers how trivial things started to matter again. The emails piling up in his inbox, the way the door to his garage squeaked when it closed, the fact that only one charging port on his laptop worked. He remembers the important things starting to matter less, too - Luke’s laugh, Luke’s smile, Luke’s eyes.

He starts listening to the music Luke had introduced him to again. At first, it reminds him of Luke, of muggy summer nights spent driving in Luke’s car singing at the top of their lungs, but he grits his teeth and pushes through it. He walks when he listens, exploring the neighbourhood, making new memories. Eventually, the music becomes Ashton’s, and Ashton’s alone.

He’s listening to it now, leaning over a railing as he watches the sun set over the ocean. The sky is streaked with orange and pink, and Ashton thinks he’s never seen anything so beautifully meaningless. The cool evening breeze licks at his arms and makes him shiver a little as he squints, sun just at the right height to hit his eyes. He doesn’t mind, though, because he can feel it.

There, standing in the warm glow of the sunset and watching the sinking light glitter on the surface of the water, he feels peace for the first time in nine months.

He smiles, and watches the sun sink until he can no longer feel its warmth on his skin.

#lashton #5sos fic #5sos slash #5sos fanfiction #this is less of a fic and more of a thought piece really though

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sheepyships-archive · 3 years

Text

Stickers And Sweets

summary: some gojo satoru self-shipping headcanons with small drabbles sprinkled in for the headcanons i favored/had more of an idea of.

warnings: major spoilers!!!! trauma/angst

genre: fluff and cheesy stuff, angst/comfort

a/n: i have been simping for this man since i started juju, and even before that. look i watched episode seven today(lmao the second of january was when i started writing this) of jjk and i am... simping. ALSO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG MY WRITING BRAIN IS DUMBB

-i don’t have a concrete idea on how we meet

-but i’m thinking that if i am a jujutsu sorcerer, we probably met at jujutsu high?? for him it kinda just... formed from afar

-gojo pegs me at the time to not pay attention in class, and would get into trouble for that, despite having absolutely perfect grades and doing completely fine in the class

-(he’s a jokester too, but won’t be annoyingly distracting, “people like that are annoying, and probably won’t get very far as a sorcerer, or at life in general.” he’d say)

-he sat at one side of the classroom and i would be sat at the other, and he quickly noticed that his gaze would shift over to look at me, lingering for a moment before breaking it away with a light blush

-but eventually, when seating was changed(i don’t know how it works where juju is set so just work with me here), he was set to be seated by me, and that’s how we start talking

-slowly it starts with him asking for a pencil, pen, eraser, etc. and while i was reluctant, i let him borrow one

-he always gave it back with a small sticker on it, and i continued to let him borrow the pencil, more stickers being put onto the pencil

-occasionally, as this continued, he’d grab my attention during class and pass me he sticker sheet, pointing at one of the stickers with a raised eyebrow

-‘this sticker today?’ is basically what he was asking

-before we became comfortable with each other i’d be confused and nod slowly before watching him as he put the sticker on the pencil, it made me smile faintly and i’d nod as a thank you, he’d just grin and nod back

-but eventually as we interacted more and became more comfortable, he’d continue to put more stickers on, but would ask me which sticker i want first instead of just picking one and sticking one on

-which i didn’t mind, he had a good taste in sticker sheets

-when he chose a sticker, i’d either smile and nod in agreement, or shake my head and point to another sticker with a small pout

-this makes him chuckle and place that sticker on instead, he could feel his heart swell and he just felt... happy

-it became our own little thing and would happen when we had class together, and this is how we would silently interact with each other

-that was, until he started to actually talk to me or distract me with topics outside of school and studies, quietly whispering to me whenever we could

-this would get us(mainly him) into trouble

-“do you think alligators can sleep?” “gojo please, you’re smarter than me. i’m not a top student or sorcerer like you are, so please let me study.” i say while cracking a smile, trying not to start giggling at his dumb comment

-“hey! i was just wondering..” “mister gojo and miss [insert my last name fuck you], is there something that you want to share with the class?”

-queue gojo being like “😎 nope.” all confident and cocky, while i’m sinking in my seat, “no, sorry.. 😰” i say apologetically

-when the teacher returns to what they’re doing, i smack gojo’s arm gently and huff, he just chuckles silently and ruffles my hair

-he definitely enjoys teasing me, but he’s also a lot more... softer with me in general

-he becomes a lil protective, since the jujutsu sorcerer world is dangerous, so he always makes sure i’m in perfect health and that i am okay in general

-at first he thought the gazes, the little inside jokes, and teasing and conversing were all just from his little crush that had formed, and that he would get over it

-but then it didn’t go away, it continued to grow more. when he realizes that it doesn’t go away, he himself is shocked at the fact, but keeps it hidden

-you can just picture him with his chin resting on his hand and his black sunglasses lowered somewhat on his nose, looking down at me and zoning out as he was studying my movements

-his piercing blue eyes are half-lidded and he has a blush growing on his usually pale face and fingers, and his face feels warm. but he’s content

-he’s brought back to earth by me either tapping his shoulder to ask him if he’s okay, since he’s been staring at me for so long (which makes him most embarrassed because i caught him staring, but he’ll try to brush it off)

-or by being called out by the teacher for distracted in class again and to answer the question, which annoys gojo but he answers it quickly

-shock to the teacher of course, because satoru gojo was just staring at me and not paying attention to the class discussion at all????

-truly a mystery that he’s so smart... yet never paying attention...

-but the teacher doesn’t dare split us apart because despite the fact that gojo may not listen, and i get distracted by him, we work well together

-this is especially evident in group/partner projects

-we goof off, but get the work done and get (almost)perfect grades

-eventually, we start to meet up outside of class/school, where he’ll take me on small adventures to local shops, to either look around, or he will buy stuff for us(like treats or more stickers), and since it’s usually crowded wherever we go, he will hold my hand to make sure i don’t get lost

-“we don’t need you getting swept up in the crowd, shortie.” “fuck you and your abnormally long body.” this makes him laugh

-he always enjoys going out and getting sweets because this is where he starts gaining his sweet tooth, and enjoys seeing me munching on them happily and having a delighted time, even though they probably aren’t good for us, to him it’s everything he ever dreamed of when going on a date

-wait. date? silly gojo, this isn’t a date!

-gojo always had to remind himself that this wasn’t a date, he was just dragging me around places, like friends do!

-right?

-eventually, gojo’s crush becomes much more than a “crush”, he is now head over heels and in love, as much as he wants to deny it and brush it off

-this results in more teasing, more stickers, y’know the usual just happens more, but now satoru wants to hold hands, cuddle, etc., his arm will almost always be wrapped around my shoulders and will rest there whenever we’re with each other

-even though we aren’t in a relationship, it becomes a common thing

-once the pencil we share is covered up with stickers, we move onto putting stickers on other belongings we own, or onto each other’s faces, arms, or hand during class, but we have to be sneaky about it so the teacher doesn’t notice

-part of him wants to confess his feelings, but the fear of being rejected and possibly ruining everything holds him back for awhile. but he’s observant and will watch for any sort of hints or see if i feel the same

-he’s able to notice the differences there are when we interact versus how i interact with others, like close friends, or with strangers, and it helps put him at ease, and he finally gains the confidence one night and heads to my dorm

-when he gets to my door and raises his closed fist up to knock on it, he pauses and stares at the door, beginning to have second thoughts for the first time in... well, awhile.

-’is this the right time? have i been reading her wrong? what if she actually doesn’t feel the same as me?’

-he shakes his head and smacks his forehead, but freezes upon realizing how loud the ‘slap’ noise that was, ‘well, it’s now or never.’ he thought before knocking on the door finally

-when the door opens, i peak my head out and look up to see him, a smile immediately forming on my features as i greet him joyfully, gojo could feel his face heat up and his shoulders tense up, but he grinned nonetheless

-”c’mon, i wanna take you somewhere.” “oh boy, where are we sneaking off to this time?”

-he felt his heart swell when he heard we, like that’s how it was supposed to be, he held one of his hands out and put a single finger up to his lips. “you’ll see..” he whispers, grinning at me raising an eyebrow at him before taking his hand, “suspicious bastard..” i mutter jokingly

-he would lead us outside, not too far, just out to a small field where the stars were bright and clear in the sky. he sits down in the grass and raised his glasses up, a gentle sigh falling out of his lips as he places them on his head

-i sit down close beside him and wrap my arms around my legs, “this seems a little.. odd, i was expecting somewhere more crowded.” i joke with a laugh, he chuckles and his arm falls over my shoulders

-”yeah, i know, but.. i wanted to ask you about something, and i didn’t want tons of people around us.” he says, a frown forming as his eyes narrow and a hint of hesitation is in them, which is out of character with his usually confident and laid back nature

-i immediately become worried, scooting closer to him, letting our shoulders brush, “gojo.. what’s wrong? you seem.. nervous, is everything alright?”

-“satoru.” “huh?” “call me satoru from now on.”

-i blink in disbelief, quietly muttering the name in shock before i raise my hand up to my mouth and giggle, delighted at the fact i can call gojo, well, satoru by his first name now

“why are you laughing?! this is serious.” “i know, i know! i’m just.. happy that i was given permission to call you by your first name, i think satoru is cute..”

-queue satoru going red before a sudden surge of confidence overrides his original anxiousness

-he reaches over with both hands, gently grabbing one of my hands and placing his other hand on my cheek, staring down at me as i look up and make eye contact with him

-“that’s not the only thing, you have the opportunity to be my girlfriend too. if you would like to, of course.”

-i gasp and blink again, staring at satoru’s piercing gaze that was filled with determination, but also fear

-we sit there for a moment in silence and satoru feels his stomach drop down to his feet

-“please, say something.” his voice is just above a whisper, thumb moving along my cheek, letting his cool facade down to show a more vulnerable side of him

-i lean up and kiss the very corner of his lips before pulling back, “i would love to.” i say, and before i can say more, he tackles me down onto the ground into a hug

-i giggle and snort, but snuggle into him, letting my eyes close as we hold each other for a bit longer

-time skip to many years later: we are both teaching at the tokyo metropolitan curse technical college, he’s now the strongest jujutsu sorcerer and i am like his unofficial sidekick, but also branch out and do my own thing(like missions, training, etc.)

-we are definitely just as love with each other as we were when we first got together, if not more. even if years have passed, it still feels like it was only yesterday that we officially got together, and our feelings have only grown ever since high school

-leaving notes, stickers, treats, etc. is still a normal occurrence, and we never really grow out of the habits that we formed during our time in school

-(yes we still keep the pencil, fuck you)

-since i don’t really teach any classes, i will find him before he has to teach his class and goof off like usual

-he will be sitting in a seat that’s backwards with his arms wrapped around/resting on the top, and i will be sitting on a table in front of him either talking about our days, missions, events that are going on, you know the drill

-during these moments i’m usually combing my hand through his spiked up hair, or putting stickers on his face or hands, despite the fact that he has a class to teach in like fifteen minutes

-but he keeps them on, he isn’t a pussy

-“if someone has an issue with them, they can sort themselves out because i’m not doing anything wrong.” —satoru gojo about the cute hearts and stars stickers on his face

-before he has to go teach a class, i will kiss his cheek as a good luck before he heads off

-when he has to go on a mission that will last a few days though, i make sure to help him prepare for it, and sneak in a few sweets for him

-when he returns he always and i mean ALWAYS sneaks into our shared apartment, i’ll be cooking and focused on other things when he comes in as quietly as he can

-he sneaks up behind me before placing both hands on my sides, making me jolt and look up at whoever grabbed me just to see satoru

-“YOU ASSHOLE I ALMOST SHIT MYSELF!”HE CACKLES AT MY REACTION EVERY TIME

-“sorry love, but your reactions are just priceless!” he says, kissing my neck and cheek before holding his hand out, which has a few of those left over sweets i had snuck into his bag

-“will you accept my apology with these?” he asks with a grin as he looks at me, i roll my eyes with a smile and take one, “i’ll consider it.”

-he feigns a hurt look and places his now free hand on his chest like a drama queen, “you sure know how to wound a man, my love! but you also know how to make a man weak for you too.”

-“my lord satoru, i think your sweet talking is the one making me weak.” satoru grins once more and leans against me, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me

-“we’re weak for each other.”

-on missions where either of us get hurt or go missing, we will panic

-satoru tends to be a little late coming home because he’s just stupid, but if he’s gone for later then usual, i will try to text him and make sure he’s okay, but he ends up always walking through the door right after i text him

-usually he’s completely fine and maybe has a few scratches, but when he comes back and has more wounds than usual, i will sit him down on the couch and patch him up

-”SATORU YOU HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL I KNOW YOU’RE STRONG AND ALL BUT I DON’T CARE-” he just watches with a dumb grin, just letting me rant as i patch him up

-but in the end i hug him and tell him again to be more careful, which he complies and hugs me back

-when i get hurt, if it’s nothing major he’ll just kiss the bruises/scratches, but when it’s more major he completely drops everything and will rush over to me and take me out of the situation we’re in

-specifically if it’s a fight with a cursed spirit, he will pick me up bridal style and escapes with me, more focused on getting us out of that situation that we were previously stuck in

-when he gets to a safe spot, he’ll make sure i’m not in critical condition before pulling out his travel sized med pack(yes i headcanon he brings one on missions we go together)

-this is the only time where he’s actually panicking, he’s cursing under his breath and chewing his bottom lip to prevent himself from cursing to himself under his breath, trying to patch me up as quickly as he can but also being wary of possibly hurting me more

-once he finishes, he sits there for a second to make sure i’m okay, and that no cursed spirits are around before setting me down softly and jumping back into the fight, ready to beat the shit out of the cursed spirit that fucked me up

-he returns back to my side in seconds, able to fight the cursed spirit a lot quicker since he was running on ANGER, but he picks me up and gives me a piggy back ride back to our home, he lifts his blindfold up to his forehead and looks back at me

-a wave of relief washes over him when he sees that i’m asleep with my head resting on his shoulder, he relaxes and smiles before turning forward and continuing home

-when i wake up i’m in bed and he’s laying beside me, passed out with his head buried in the crook of my neck, i smile and run my hands through his hair with a sigh

-anyways lets move away from angst bc the angst took over for a sec

-whenever one of us wakes up, we’ll put stickers on each other’s faces and wait for the other to wake up and the stickers will go unnoticed, or, as time goes on, we’ll feel our faces for stickers

-satoru always makes stupid doodles on post-it notes and will stick them everywhere

-’see you later honey-bun. <3′ with a lazy doodle of him with a peace sign

-”what a dork..” i mumble as i put it in my book collection of all the cute post-it notes

-SOMETIMES HE MAKES IT A TREASURE HUNT AND WHEN I FIND THE “TREASURE” IT’S ONE OF THE TREATS HE BOUGHT ON HIS MISSION AND SPECIFICALY ITS ONE OF MY FAVORITES

-he comes home seeing me munching on it and walks over, wrapping both arms around me and kissing my cheek

-”enjoying the treasure?” “yeah, thank you..” queue satoru kissing my cheek again and making me flustered before i kiss his cheek in response

-we are in love, and that's it

-(he proposes on valentines day, if you’re wondering ;))

#🍡sweethearts . since . highschool 💌#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #sylvie . writes ✎#❀ romantic . f/o

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