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effortlesshearts · 5 years

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can i request a david imagine? maybe where the two of you are friends and you both started to develop feelings a while ago but you're both too scared to act on it cause you've been hurt in previous relationships and you're scared of commitment and getting hurt/left again? but pls make it end with fluff sksksksk

A/n: Hope this satisfies!

Moving On

She didn’t mean to fall in love with him.

L.A. was supposed to be a new start. She’d finished her teaching degree, gotten her heart shredded, and lit out of Georgia like the devil was after her. Her sister had welcomed her with open arms and she’d spent the first month in town licking her wounds, trying to figure out how her perfect relationship had went so bad so fast.

But there were bills to pay and jobs to find and nephews to take to the park, so she fixed her hair and dried her tears and made a promise to herself to move on, to not let this happen again.

They met in line at the movie theater. Her five year old nephew was gripping her hand, asking if he could have candy while the seven year old defiantly kept his hands tucked under his armpits. Luca had exclaimed that he was too old to hold hands when they weren’t crossing the street and even though she had told him he didn’t have to hold her hand in the movie theater, he kept his guard up like she was going to grab his hand and embarrass him. But Sebastien was happy to hold on to her fingers, still sweet and innocent.

Luca has zeroed in on whoever is behind them and before she can tell him that staring isn’t polite, he blurts out, “I saw you on TV.”

The guy laughs. “That’s cool.”

“It was a show my Mom watches in the morning.” He points up at her. “This is not my Mom, though. This is my Aunt Emma.”

“Thank you for clarifying that,” Emma tells him. “Stop talking to strangers.”

“I saw him on TV,” Luca protests. “He’s not a stranger.”

“People you don’t know in real life are strangers.”

Luca is sullen, gives the guy behind her a look like can you believe what I go through? Emma turns around to apologize to the guy. “Sorry. He’s in a mood.”

He’s a cute guy, but then he smiles and he’s suddenly blindingly handsome and she doesn’t mean to smile back, it just happens. “It’s cool. I have a little brother, I get it.” He shifts awkwardly, obviously unsure of himself but then he’s offering her his hand. “I’m David.”

She takes it. “Emma.”

“I already told him that,” Luca says miserably. “And now you’re talking to strangers but I get told not to.”

“Life is tough, huh?” David laughs. “But I’m not really a stranger anymore, right?” He looks at Emma, a little hope in his eyes and she shakes her head.

“I guess not.”

Emma had heard of whirlwind romances before but she’d never heard of a whirlwind friendship, but that’s exactly what happens. She doesn’t remember giving him her number at the movie theater, but she must have because he texts her the next day wanting to meet up for lunch. And then the next day he wants her to ride with him to IKEA to pick out a rug but he doesn’t end up buying one and she has her suspicions that he never planned to buy one in the first place. Then he calls her late one evening and asks if she wants to come to his house, he’s having a party, and she’s never been a big partier, almost tells him no. There’s something, though, in the way he says her names so softly, the hint of a smile in his voice when he says, “You have to come. You have to.”

She fits perfectly under his arm. That’s how he introduces her to his friends, arm casually draped around her shoulders. They all look surprised except for his friend Ilya who looks at her like he’s been waiting to meet her, like maybe David has been talking about her and when David tells him this is Emma the two boys share a look that makes David turn scarlet.

She’s been in situations like this before, invited to a party and then ditched, but David keeps tight to her the whole night. There’s a hazy moment where they’re on the couch together, talking like there’s not a party going on around them, like Zane isn’t dancing in underwear on the pool table, like his friends aren’t whispering and confused that David’s camera has been perched on his knee the last 45 minutes, not recording and completely off.

Everyone else has left or passed out by the time she looks at her watch, startled at how late it is. She’s telling him she’s got to go and she just misses that look of disappointment that crosses his face when she’s pulling her jacket back on. “What, are you Cinderella?” He tries to joke. “Car going to turn into a pumpkin?”

She laughs, he loves her laugh, and searches her pockets for her keys. “No, not quite. I’m supposed to start setting up my classroom tomorrow.”

David walks her to her car, ignores Ilya’s raised eyebrows, the way he purses his lips as if asking if David is going to kiss her. “That’s cool. Need help?”

“I’m sure you have a million other things you need to do,” she unlocks her car. “But thanks.”

There’s an awkward pause where neither of them know what to do. He wants to kiss her, thinks that she might want him to kiss her, too, but then the moment stretches and she clears her throat. “See you later.”

It goes like that for months. It’s the first time David has ever felt like he’s in a relationship without actually being in a relationship. He doesn’t know how it happens but suddenly they’re having dinner together every night no matter what else he going on and if he’s traveling, he calls twice a day to say good morning and good night. They take her nephews to the park, to the movies, and one weekend he asks her to go to San Francisco with him where he spends two torturous night in the same bed as her with a wall of pillows between them because he had booked a room with double beds but the hotel only had a king available.

She pulls away from him once after a party where one of the IG models that are always hanging around slides unto David’s lap and tries to kiss him. He rebuffs her, the kiss doesn’t happen, but Emma closes off so fast, leaves without saying goodbye and there are two long weeks where she wants nothing to do with him, barely answers his texts. It’s Ilya that saves the day when David can’t put his feelings into words. Ilya who convinced her to go to the fair with them, Ilya sitting in the backseat with enough guts to bring it up, Ilya who casually says, “Dude, that girl’s insane. Anyone with eyes can see you’re trying to marry Emma.”

They’re standing in the middle of the fairground, waiting on Alex and Dima when she slips her hand into his. He can’t look at her, can’t not look at her, and his whole body hurts when he finally gives in because her hair is wild and she’s lit up from the carnival lights and he doesn’t take a picture of her because it will never do her justice.

She’s so beautiful.

It hurts.

It hurts because he tries to kiss her that night, reaches out his fingers to tilt her chin up and she almost complies but then she shies away from him, eyes sad. “I can’t.”

“Why? Is it- did I do something? You know I don’t- what happened at the party, I never wanted that and-“

“It’s not that. It’s just…”

He listens as she explains why she can’t. He listens when she tells him about a snotty Southern boy named Shep had slept with the reigning Miss Georgia and then had expected Emma to stay with him, to not cause a fuss, to still marry him even though he had no plans of ever being faithful. David listens when she tells him that she had loved this snotty Southern boy enough that she almost stayed, almost, until he had grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her because she had talked to another man at a party, just talked, and her future with him disappeared when he struck her with an open palm.

“And I know you wouldn’t. I know that, but I can’t- it’s a risk and I just don’t think I can take that kind of risk. Not when I just put my life back together.”

He understands. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

They don’t avoid each other. The only thing more painful than seeing her would be not seeing her. They still go to dinner together, still take her nephews to the park, but there’s a new sadness between them because there’s not ever going to be a them. It’ll always be David or Emma, never David and Emma.

His friends encourage him to go on a date so he does, and it goes so fantastically horrible that he’s surprised the girl doesn’t make a Youtube channel just to blast him. They have a good time in the beginning, she’s bright and funny, but then Emma texts him to cancel their plans for tomorrow because she’s not feeling well, stuffy with a sore throat, and whatever connection he has with this new girl severs when he launches into boyfriend mode. He’s distracted, wants to know if she needs anything, sends soup to her house. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t realize his date has gone silent until she clears her throat, asks him to take her home. He should make things right, but all he manages is an apology and when he pulls up in her driveway, she gives him a hopeful kind of smile. “Maybe we can do this again? You seemed a little distracted… and maybe, maybe like we can go on another date when you’ve got less going on.”

But he shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, I am. You’re so funny and gorgeous but I’m-“ He wants to tell her that he’s been ruined by a girl who was never his, not even for a moment. He wants to tell her that he wishes she had been the girl to break this spell he’s under, but nothing can seem to pull him away from Emma’s gravitational field and he’s not even that upset by it. He settles for, “I’m kind of in love with someone else. It’s just complicated. I’m sorry.”

Jason makes a catty comment the next day about how Emma probably isn’t even sick. Jace has been through his share of tough breaks, of manipulative relationships, and he doesn’t trust Emma because she makes David lovesick and miserable without even trying. It puts a bug in David’s brain, though, that maybe she was punishing him for going on a date, maybe her sickness was all made up, but when he gets to her house, her sister lets him in and he finds Emma still in bed, shaky and feverish. Hot shame washes over him, disbelief that he would have ever thought she was capable of doing something so conniving, and he crawls into bed with her, strokes her damp hair back from her face, lets her put her cold hands under his shirt.

“I have to get better by Monday,” she tells him, teeth chattering. “We’re applying for a grant and we need that money.”

She’s not better by Monday.

And they don’t get the grant.

It was money for the school, a school that had lots of kids with no supplies and no snacks and not enough readers for them to take their books home. It was just a $5000 grant but it would have made a big difference and Emma cries when she tells David they didn’t get it. It’s not her fault, he reminds her. The money went to a more affluent school, something anyone could have predicted and the two teachers that presented their grant proposal did wonderfully even without Emma, but the board already knew who was going to get it before they had even walked in the door.

To make matters worse, when he thumbs her tears away and tells her it’ll all work out, she realizes she’s incredibly and irrevocably in love with him. She’s known this for a while, like a little tingle in the back of her throat whenever he came around, but it’s the first time it’s hit her that she’s probably lost out on a really good man all because of fear. It makes her cry harder and David wraps his arms securely around her, holds her even though he only knows what half her tears are for.

It’s a few days later when Emma gets the news in a staff meeting that someone has made an anonymous donation to the school. $20,000. It’s a long day after that and she’s distracted, antsy to leave as soon as her last student leaves for the day. She’s supposed to meet David at the restaurant in later, the way they do every night, but she drives straight to his house. He’s busy, she knows he is and he holds up one finger for her to give him a second while he records one of his friends doing something stupid. She wonders if her feelings are all over her face because he takes a second glance at her, eyebrows furrowed then nods his head down the hall towards his bedroom.

She’s sitting on the edge of his bed when he walks in and shuts the door softly behind him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she twists her fingers nervously. “Did you make a donation to the school?”

He could play it coy, tease her a little about it but there’s a different feel between them in this very moment and he grabs it. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

She wants him to lie. She wants him to say it’s for the vlog or for a tax write off or because he bank account felt 20 grand too heavy. But he doesn’t. He sits on the bed next to her, doesn’t let her look away when he says, “Because it was important to you. I don’t like seeing you cry and I could fix it, so I did.”

“Why are you still here? Why do you still care about me even after I said no?”

He shrugs, chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “Because the only other option was to not have you in my life at all and that’s- that’s just not an option. I’d rather have this than nothing at all. You’re important to me, Em.”

She kisses him.

It takes him by surprise, his brain taking a moment to catch up but when it does-

God, when it does-

He cups her face in his hands and he kisses back with all he has, little sounds of desperation and despair bleeding from his mouth to hers, teeth and tongue soothing over her bottom lip and he’s afraid that maybe it’s too much for a first kiss but she’s giving it back just as good, one hand tangled in the shaggy hair at the nape of his neck, the other fisting his shirt as they press closer and closer together until she’s in his lap and he can’t believe he ever survived this long without this kiss.

She pulls back first, eyes wild and big and she looks so sweet with her kiss swollen lips as she whispers, “I’m scared.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to be.”

She knows that.

So she kisses him again.

I have no idea if anyone wants on my taglist for David and I’m too scared to tag my Shawn perma list so... yeah.

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effortlesshearts · 5 years

Text

lollapalooza - d.d.

plot: you meet david at lollapalooza and he invites you back to his hotel room only to back out of hooking up with you

requested: nope! i’ve wanted to write a concept along these lines for a while now and i finally got around to it

author’s note: hi! i haven’t posted in almost a week and i’m sorry. i’ve been so busy with work that i haven’t had time to write anything and i’ve had such bad writers block and i’ve hated everything that i’ve tried writing. i have a few pieces in progress that i am working on and i am hopefully back to posting daily (no promises tho).

word count: 2131

masterlist

It was dark and you couldn’t find your friends. The two of them had left to grab a few drinks about an hour ago, telling to keep your spot in the front row, but you still hadn’t heard from them. You walked away from the crowd surrounding the stage, trying to get cell service to get in touch with your friends. You were now on the outside edge of the crowd, calling out for them. It was pointless though, since the music was loud and they wouldn’t hear you.

“Hey, watch it,” you shouted over the music as someone walked backwards into you, stepping on your toes. You were blinded by a phone flashlight shining into your eyes as the guy turned around to apologize, his camera pointed directly at you.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was behind me,” he said, lowering his camera and turning his flashlight off.

“It’s a music festival,” you sighed and rolled your eyes. “There are people everywhere.” You sounded irritated, even though you were making a joke and hoped he would understand that you weren’t actually mad.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again, not understanding your sarcasm.

“Don’t worry about it,” you laughed, before introducing yourself.

“I’m David.” He ran a hand through his hair, like he didn’t know what else to do or say.

“Nice to meet you, David. Now, what’s with the camera and what were you filming that had you distracted enough to walk into me?” you interrogated.

Before he could answer, you heard a group of people shout his name and he whipped his head around to see what was happening. You saw a large group of people looking at you and David.

“Dave, come on,” someone shouted. David held two fingers up, letting them know he’d be over in a couple of minutes, before turning back to you.

“Are you here alone?” he asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

You shook your head, but paused before answering. “I came with two of my friends but they went to get drinks over an hour ago and I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Come hang out with my friends and I. At least until you find your friends,” he begged, and you knew it was because he was worried about you being alone at a festival. You were skeptical about blindly following a stranger, but he had a large friend group, so the likelihood of you getting kidnapped was low. You scanned the group calling for him, noticing a few girls in the mix, so you agreed. You clung to his arm and followed him through the crowds that had now surrounded you two.

When you reached the friend group, David introduced you to everyone, although you knew there was no chance that you’d remember any of their names. Most of them were drunk or on some type of drug and probably wouldn’t even remember meeting you so it didn’t really matter that you couldn’t remember their names.

You stayed next to David the entire night, the reality of the situation hitting you every now and then. You were surrounded by strangers in Chicago with no clue where the two friends you came with were. You pulled your phone out to check the time, 10:49pm.

The music was blasting, drinks were being poured, and you couldn’t keep your hands off of David.

David and his friends were getting ready to leave, since David wanted to film something with them drunk. As you followed them out, it occurred to you that you still didn’t know what he did or why he carried a camera around.

You had had a few drinks and stumbled a little on the way on, David quickly wrapped a hand around your waist to steady you.

“So, David, what’s with the camera?” you asked as you walked through the crowd of people and out onto the streets of Chicago.

“I’m a YouTuber,” he said nonchalantly. You heard someone behind you scoff.

“He has thirteen million subscribers, baby, he’s not just a YouTuber,” one of his friends said, and your eyes widened. You pulled away from him, your mind racing at the thought that people would see you two together. There were probably pictures of you two dancing together at the festival and if people knew who you were you’d probably get sent hate since people were childish when it came to the people famous people hung out with.

“It’s not a big deal,” David shrugged, slinging his arm around your shoulder.

You followed his friends a few blocks, finally having service again. One of David’s friends, Natalie, you think, waited outside the club with you while you called them. You told them that you made friends with a few people and that you’d meet up with them tomorrow since you were in a part of the city you and your friends weren’t familiar with.

You went into the club to find David. It wasn’t hard. His phone flashlight was bright in the dimly lit club. You heard him yelling, almost directing, people on what they should do while he recorded them. You ordered two shots of tequila from the bar, carrying them over to David. You handed him on, but he shook his head.

He tried to argue that he doesn’t like to drink, but you bat your eyelashes a few times and he gave in and took the shot with you.

You kept passing him shots throughout the night, ones that he happily accepted, and pretty soon, he was drunk. He had passed his camera off to one of his friends and grabbed your hand, pulling you on to the dance floor.

His hands found your waist, pulling you into him. You danced to the rhythm of the song, his hands tightly on your hips. The floor was sticky and your sweaty bodies were pressed tightly together. You wrapped one of your hands around his neck, the alcohol you’d consumed giving you liquid courage, and you let out a slow breath before connecting your lips to his. It was electric, fueled by lust and hormones.

After a few minutes, David muttered something against your lips.

“What?” you asked, pulling away from him.

“Want to get out of here?” he repeated, and you nodded. He pulled his phone out to text his friends that he was leaving, noticing them all look up and over at you when they read the text. They started whispering to each other and you wondered why.

David held your hand and you stumbled out on to the street. He claimed that the hotel was a few blocks away, but after walking around for thirty minutes, you realized you were going in the wrong direction. David called an Uber, and you slid into the backseat with him.

When you two finally made it back to the hotel, you made a beeline for the elevator, barely able to keep your hands off of him. He unlocked the door and you immediately connected your lips to his as you pushed him towards the bed, kicking the door shut behind you.

His hands wrapped around your waist, pulling you into him. They slid your top up your back and over your head, swiftly unhooking your bra in the process. You ran your fingers through his hair as his lips aggressively moved down your neck. You hooked your fingers under the hem of David’s shirt and pulled it off, reattaching your lips and pushing him down on to the bed.

Your hands found David’s belt buckle and when you tugged on it, he immediately stopped and pulled away from you. “I can’t do this,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, sitting up and pulling his t-shirt over your head, worried about him.

“I’m sorry. I just, I can’t do this.”

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize and you don’t need to explain yourself. It’s totally fine.” He gave you a small smile, thankful that you understood without asking questions. He’d never been one for one night stands, they just didn’t seem personal. And David liked when intimacy was personal.

You stood up to find your shirt and leave, but David reached out to grab your arm.

“You don’t have to leave,” he said, his voice in a low whisper. His eyes were empty and lonely, his lip was in a small pout, and you couldn’t leave him like that. So you climbed back into bed with him.

"Wait, so, you just give people cars?“ you asked, picking up a chicken tender that you ordered from room service even though it was 3am. David was telling you about one of his next vlog ideas and he said he was over surprising people with cars, so he was looking for new ideas.

"Essentially, yes. I do sponsored videos with SeatGeek and I use the money they pay me to help out or surprise my friends. Like I recently gave one of them forty-thousand dollars for her wedding and last night I surprised my old high school teacher with ten thousand,” David explained.

“That’s so nice, holy shit.”

“It’s the least I could do. They help me with videos so much, I wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for them,” he shrugged, a smile forming on his lips and his cheeks turning pink, like he was embarrassed to admit it.

You had spent the entire night talking to David, just getting to know him, and you didn’t even realize the sun was beginning to peak through the clouds and light up the dark Chicago sky. A couple hours later, David’s phone buzzed, and a few minutes later you heard a knock on the door. David got up to answer it, and his friend Natalie came in, carrying a bag of breakfast food and two cups of coffee, along with David’s camera.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said when she saw you sitting on the couch in David’s t-shirt. “I didn’t know you brought someone home, Dave,” she hissed, her cheeks burning red as if she had just walked in on two having sex.

“Nat, it’s not a big deal,” David brushed her off, and you wondered why he didn’t say anything about you two hooking up.

“I’m sorry. I can run out and pick up a coffee for you if you want me to.”

“I wouldn’t make you do that, I can get my own coffee,” you promised, confused why David’s friend was offering to go out and buy you a coffee when you could easily do it yourself.

“Well, let me know if you need anything. Are you sticking around today? I mean, David needs to edit all morning and afternoon but you can just hang out and chill with everyone. We can always meet up with you later tonight if you want to leave to change and shower or something,” Natalie rambled and you couldn’t help but laugh. She was extremely talkative and she seemed to know everything about David.

You glanced at David, who shrugged as if to say he didn’t care what you did, before turning back to Natalie. “I should get out of here, you know, let David do his own thing.”

“Do you want me to call you an Uber?” she asked, but you shook your head.

“I can do it, thanks though,” you smiled, and she nodded.

You changed into your top from last night, grabbed your phone, and ordered an Uber back to your hotel. You texted your friends that you were on your way back and decided to look up David while you waited.

You scrolled through his Instagram, surprised that he did, in fact, give away a lot of cars. You noticed that you were tagged in posts on Instagram and you couldn’t believe people had found you so quickly. People were tweeting about you and David hooking up and you wanted to clear the air, but it wasn’t your place. You wanted to text David and ask him what to do, but Natalie said he had to edit all day so you didn’t want to bother him with things he probably doesn’t know about.

You made it back to your friends, filling them in on David and how he backed out of hooking up after he asked if you wanted to go back to his hotel room. One of your friends mentioned that he has an ex that he might not be over yet, which seemed plausible but it didn’t matter why he didn’t want to hook up. It was a personal reason and it wasn’t your place to ask or question it. You didn’t need to know why or any of the details. You knew he needed someone to talk to last night and you were there.

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