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eldritchsurveys · 5 months

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1155.

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? >> Sparrow does, and I know theirs

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? >> I mean, probably

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? >> putting aside the fact that I have no need of sneaking out.... hmm. maybe? like if there was a fire and I had to climb out of my bedroom window I could possibly pull it off. it depends on if I have a way to prop up the pane (and if it opens wide enough for me to fit through -- I haven't tried opening it that much) and whether I could knock out the screen, which I imagine would be the easy part but you never know with these fuckin houses

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? .

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? >> for some things, yeah

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? >> I am never embarrassed to buy things

If a stranger went in your bedroom, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? .

Are your parents gullible? .

Do you still own a VCR? >> I never owned one (VCRs were obsolete by the time I started being able to buy things)

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? >> around $300

If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? .

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? >> I have no idea, this is always a struggle for me

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? >> it was a pair of Teva sandals and they were around $70

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? >> silver, and no, Sparrow put it on their Best Buy credit card

Do you have a second home? >> took me a second to realise this is probably in the symbolic sense and not a more literal "I own two houses" sense lmao (answer's still no, though)

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? .

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? >> cigarette smell repulses me, which apparently is a common ex-smoker refrain. the smell of old beer (like you'll get when you pass by a can return station or a bar) is also repulsive

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? .

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? >> well, of course

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? >> sure

Do you like waffles? >> I do

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? >> I do, aesthetically

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? >> I talk to people I don't know on the internet all the time

How often do you drink Monster? >> never

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? .

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? >> I never bought those

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? >> I'm having a difficult time conceptualising exactly what you mean

Do you own a nightgown? >> I don't, I can't sleep in anything where my legs touch each other like that

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? >> haven't

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? >> haven't

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? .

Have you ever had sex or something like it? >> lol sure

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? >> I read 1984 a while ago but I didn't much care for it

Have you ever worn fishnets? >> many times

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? >> two piercings, three tattoos

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? >> fascinated by this phrasing but it is an older survey so

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? >> I do if I remember

Do you always wear your seat belt? >> I do

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? .

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? >> I don't have any secrets per se but there are plenty of things people just never find out about me because it never comes up or we don't have that kind of relationship

Is there ice cream in your freezer? >> there is

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? >> lol yeah

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? >> that's how I feel about the Mountain Goats

Does your bathroom have a window? >> it does, that was one of the criteria I was set on when we were apartment hunting. I like the ventilation but what I didn't count on was how fucking bright the bathroom would be all day because of the sunlight streaming in and bouncing off all the blindingly white surfaces :'|

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? .

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? >> I didn't

Who was the last band you saw live? >> Scene Queen

Do you believe prayer really works? >> I don't have an opinion? like, the only thing that would really matter is if it worked for me, but I don't pray so it doesn't matter

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? >> amn't

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? >> oh man... that's a tough one :/

Have you been on a date in the park? >> haven't

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? >> sure

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? >> probably, but I wouldn't be the one to ask about them

Do you have asthma? >> I do not

Are tongue piercings slutty? .

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? >> every human I think is hot is over the age of 40

Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? >> this sounds vaguely familiar?

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? >> I would enjoy that immensely

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? >> haven't, but I love reading what others have written

Least favorite alcoholic drink? >> hmm... not sure, actually. there's a lot of booze I'm just "meh" about but I can't think of one that straight up repulses me. unless it's really sweet drinks, maybe

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? >> Paul, yeah

How did you meet the last male you texted? .

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? >> there is no possible way for me to be embarrassed by an email address

Do you and your dad get along? .

Can you see your purse right now? .

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? >> just the remnants of the Mugler Alien dupe that I spray on sometimes (I think the last time I used it was last night)

Are there products in your hair? >> just whatever's left of the tea tree oil and jojoba oil I rubbed into my scalp two nights ago

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? >> sparingly, but yeah

Do you actually like sneezing? >> I don't like it, it's annoying and disruptive

Have you taken a shower yet today? >> haven't, will be in a couple of hours

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? .

Do you wear skirts a lot? >> not a lot

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? >> more lounge pants than sweat pants

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? >> I have two pairs

Do you like hoodies? >> I do, I am almost always wearing one when it's not summer

Big ones or the form fitting kind? >> the big ones for lounging around in and layering, smaller ones for cute lil mild-weather outfits

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? >> I don't wear them at all

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? >> I did not

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? >> I am, because I don't really regret anything. when I do feel regret it's about really minor shit like "oh man I regret eating the ENTIRE bag of chickpea snacks" or whatever

Do you love your computer? >> I love both my computers very much

Do you drink coffee? >> I do, but not with any regularity (whereas I drink tea daily)

Do you basically like all of your clothes? >> I do like all of my clothes. I don't keep things I don't like, because I won't wear them and there's no point in them sitting in my closet taking up space and being visual clutter if I never wear them

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? >> I shop by myself most often (except for groceries, which is a joint effort most of the time)

#surveys #survey #random survey

0 notes

warmau · 3 years

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"his birthday is literally a month away."

kun says and you shrug your shoulders, bringing the straw of your milkshake to your lips

"you're the one who taught me it's always good to plan in advance."

"you don't need a month to plan a birthday party, plus its xiaojun - not ten - who would probably insist on a whole gala."

ten throws a look across the table but doesn't dispute this fact

you tap your fingers on your drink and set it down to mumble something about how fine, you'll do it yourself if they don't want to help

it takes two seconds for kun to give an exasperated sigh after that and agree to help you after all

you smile and tell him you knew he would, he's too much of a micromanager to refuse

ten laughs and sicheng smirks as he doesn't look up from his phone

kun gives you the same look ten gave him a minute ago

you've been friends with xiaojun for a good year now

ever since he nearly lost bella when she got off her leash at the local park and you bolted after her like any good citizen would before she could wander off into the street

xiaojun and you have gotten closer

you kind of get him in a way that not a lot of people do

his humor can be kind of dry, and he tends to be picky about certain things

you're exactly the same way so you never really get mad about it - you both have come to learn the things you dislike and like about literally everything

being friends with someone who is as particular about movie popcorn and indoor room temperatures is a blessing more than people might think

the other members see the similarities between you two and more often than not they're happy that xiaojun, who can also be kind of reserved around strangers, has found someone that makes him so comfortable

everyone in their apartment is a character from hendery to yangyang but xiaojun meshes best with you

so it's kind of no surprise that even after a short time of being friends, and most of that time spent around the others

you two start getting the off-handed "you're so alike, why don't you just date?" comments

hendery is the first person to say it after you guys spend hours playing video games together

you and xiaojun are so in sync about everything that the rest of the team feels like you guys have to be playing together when in reality you're not even in the same room

the immediate response is for you to cackle into your headset microphone and for xiaojun to let out a high-pitched, almost theatrical 'never!'

it passes over your heads and nothing changes

but then everyone seems to be saying it

"only you two can put up with each other."

"have you ever considered being more than friends?"

"oh you're 'hanging out' again or are you just actually going on a 'date'?"

the words are supposed to carry absolutely no weight

but at some point when someone says something you end up looking at xiaojun out of the corner of your eye for some kind of response that isn't just a staunch and straightforward

"never!"

it somehow also manages to get worse the month you're planning for his party in secret, both the teasing questions and your weird hope that xiaojun will one day say something different

nearly everyone knows you're trying to put this thing together but him and maybe that's why they tease

or maybe it's because xiaojun only ever seems fully himself when you're beside him

the way the tension in his shoulders falls completely to pieces when you topple over to spread out like a starfish on his sheets

the way the look of complete boerdom on his features shift around and up into a smile when you open the door holding your favorite cold drinks from the bubble tea place next door

the way xiaojun has never let someone close to him like this before - the way he lets you get cloes.

doesn't flinch when you lean over to brush an eyelash from his cheek, seems totally content with having you put a hand on his knee when you're all seated around the table and arguing over who goes next in this game of monopoly

it's a couple of days till the party and you are standing in the parking lot of the apartment building xiaojun lives in, you both have run away from the noise of his roommates

"hey, what do you want for your birthday?"

you feel hot when you ask - and it's not just because of the summer weather

xiaojun's head tilts as he says he hasn't thought about it

"actually, i'd love it if everyone got off our backs with his 'dating' crap."

dating crap

"do you hate it that much?"

"it just feels like they're taking it too seriously."

you run your tongue over your teeth and the unusual pause makes xiaojun narrow his eyes, in the evening darkness you think maybe he won't notice the confusing expression on your face but he does

"did i say something wrong?"

it's almost like he's poking at the sleeping giant question that you both are too nervous to actually ask - do we like each other in a way that's more than just friends? is everyone just pointing out the obvious?

"no, i just got lost in my thoughts for a second."

your mouth feels dry when xiaojun looks like he's going to step closer to you but doesn't

your saving grace is hendery's head popping out over the balcony and yelling for you two to get back inside before the mosquitos eat you alive

xiaojun holds the door open, but you tell him you need to go home early

that night you look at your checklist of things to do for his birthday

you've already sent out invites, you put in the order for the cake, and you got all the decorations

two things are left, pick up cake and snacks and get present

"dating crap"

you say out loud to yourself and for some reason, it hurts in your chest. you decide you'll just get xiaojun some kind of giftcard, maybe so he can buy more games.

"dude, xiaojun is like a cat."

kun says and you try to balance the cake in your hands as you two make your way to his car

it's the day of the party, kun is lugging bags of snacks and you're thankful that the cake has xiaojun's name on it spelled correctly, but something doesn't feel celebratory about all this

the excitement of making xiaojun happy has turned to anxiety ever since your talk in the parking lot

dating crap, dating crap, dating crap - did i say something wrong?

you squeeze the thought from your mind and look at kun with your brows furrowed

"what?"

"he's like a cat ok, he'll never show how much he wants something until he gets it."

it's cryptic and you tell kun you don't know what he's talking about, the cake is cold even through the bag it's in as you place it on your lap in the passenger seat

kun sighs as if he knows you're just being difficult

"sure, anyway xiaojun will be back to the apartment at seven so we should have enough time to set everything up."

at a red light, just as you're deep in mixing thoughts about xiaojun and your feelings and his feelings and how you sometimes get embarrassed seeing him walk around shirtless or eating from the same plate as him

kun goes, "by the way what did you get him as a present?

"oh a giftcard for games."

kun taps his finger against the wheel

xiaojun is actually surprised when he walks through the door and you all jump up with balloons and cheers and brightly colored party hats

he immediately looks at you in the crowd and asks

"you did this all for me?"

your heart threatens to jump up and out of your chest because he should look normal like he always does

but he's standing there with his grey t-shirt and silver chain looking like a sculpted masterpiece bestowed on you from heaven itself

god, i have it bad.

"we did it together!"

"nah it was like all them!"

hendery counters your modesty before throwing his arms around xiaojun into a half tackle hug

the party is like ... any other party

kun was kind of write, you didn't need to take a whole month to plan, but you're glad it is all going smoothly

people are enjoying the food, people are playing the usual games and chitchatting and summer is wafting in from the open balcony door

the pets are scampering around from lap to lap and someone has put on music that's upbeat but not ear piercing or distracting

xiaojun is being passed around for presidents and hugs and congratulations for another year of his life

and you are in the kitchen constantly putting new bowls of chips out, busying yourself with your hands to fight this weird churn of your stomach

xiaojun looks so handsome i could be sick. i want all of his attention but that's such a horrible thing to think - this is his party, this is literally. his. party.

someone taps your shoulder and you half expect it to be another person asking where the dip is when you turn to see xiaojun

"thank you so much"

his voice is softer than usual

"oh don't thank me, it's your birthday, it's the least i could do."

"i guess when i said i don't want a present you went with a party which is so sweet and unexpected."

the compliment goes over your head because the mention of that conversation has you thinking about it again.

dating crap. did i say something wrong - you feel cold in an apartment of packed bodies - it's like he was saying i don't like you like that. i don't love you.

"a-ah, yeah. i did also get you a present."

you fish the gift card that was put in a pretty envelope by the employee out of your pocket and hand it to him shyly

"i know it's not much-"

"no, you know me so well. you know i wanted to get all those new skins and stuff."

he's gripping the cup of soda in his hand unusually tight, you try not to notice the way it makes the veins that run up his forearm stand out

"xiaojun!"

someone's attention is needed and he disappears with a little smile. the conversation feels so stoic. it doesn't feel the way you and him talk.

and then somehow you end up in a circle on the floor with bella in your lap playing truth or dare

it's a birthday party in a huge apartment, so it's bound to reflect some of the traditions of high school

also hendery got too excited about playing it and no one wanted to say no

everyone starts off the way these things always go, embarrassing borderline comedic dares. stupid truth questions so that roommates can out other roommates for their mistakes.

you laugh a lot, you notice xiaojun keeps looking at you

then it gets to the birthday boy himself and hendery's big white grin kind of scares you

"so xiaojun, truth or dare?"

"truth"

a loud ringing of 'oooh's' plays through the walls and you swallow

"is it true..........you aren't romantically interested in your best friend?"

all eyes turn to you and then xiaojun

bella whimpers in your lap like she's sentenced the shift, she hops out and stretches before finding a corner somewhere else - you wish you could find a corner somewhere too.

xiaojun's face is unreadable, you haven't touched any alcohol all night but your vision feels fuzzy

"no. we're just super close friends."

the smile on hendery's face falls and the crescendo of your heartbreaking thumps through your ears so much that it physically hurts

someone coughs and clears their throat

you don't even register what you're doing as you're doing it, don't hear xiaojun say your name or the hard thwack of kun's hand on the back of xiaojun's shoulder

"are you insane, why would you say that when you don't mean it?"

the question floats from someone's mouth and it's not yours and you don't stick around to hear xiaojun's answer

you only navigate yourself up to your feet and out of that apartment because your body puts autopilot into flight mode

you're maybe two blocks down the street when something warm wraps its arms around you

you don't move - your eyes are fixated on the asphalt

"im so stupid, im sorry."

xiaojun's voice breaks in a way you've never heard before

"you're not stupid for not liking me back."

your voice sounds flat in a way you've never heard before too

the arms around you drop and you start to move forward again, still wanting to get away from him and everyone else

"no. i mean im stupid for lying."

you stop

"i thought you didn't want me to be interested in you like that and then kun said that's the dumbest thing he's ever heard because you obviously-"

xiaojun can't say the rest of the sentence because he's waiting for you to confirm

kun is always right about so many things, when he'd said xiaojun is like a cat, you get this is what he meant

"that i obviously am in love with you?"

you hear the sigh escape from xiaojun before you turn full around

when you do xiaojun nods, opens his arms again and you have never felt more fit for a place than when you tuck yourself into his chest and he buries his nose into your hair

"you're so bad at truth or dare"

you muffle into his shirt and he laughs, squeezing you closer

you don't mind the way you stick to each other under the glaring heat of the last summer month's hold

of course you come back to the apartment and everyone looks like they've just been saved from drowning in the titanic

the birthday party goes to a congrats-on-finally-confessing-your-feelings-you-two-idiots party

and for all the time you two spent apart that evening, you're now glued to xiaojun's side and it finally is in a way that lets your fingers brush and hold onto each other

in a way that lets him turn his head to kiss your temple when he's had enough of the conversation or argument his other roommates are in

you refuse to let him clean when the party is over - he is the birthday boy - but he does it anyway

you get some alone time on the balcony again and you kiss some more, all shy and new and tender

but xiaojun's hand finds your hip and you stammer against his mouth

you want to stay over but literally everyone is home so you peck xiaojun on the lips and he mutters we could just cuddle instead when you say goodbye at the door

the rest of august is sweeter than summer ice cream

you and xiaojun go on dates, which xiaojun is actually good at planning because he just knows you so well and he knows you are not the type of person who wants to go to fancy, uptight restaurant or even entertains the idea of seeing sappy romance movies in theaters

he knows what to order for you two before you even come over

you know what he needs when he just offhandedly mentions that he needs to get some stuff from the store

and it's like you two are connected by something more than just a physical need for the other, it's like your souls have been intertwined and your minds too

you do finally get to come over when the rest of the members are out practicing or hanging out with other people

and you check the door to the room is locked about six times before xiaojun has to rope you into his arms with his pretty lips

before scuttling out from under the covers to check the lock himself too

it makes you laugh, he laughs too, you two kiss and you think you can only remember xiaojun's taste for hours after

no one, not even strangers, seem surprised by you being together as they learn it

an older woman at the beach says you and him just look like puzzle pieces that have found each other, she says she sees happiness in your futures

and it is all happiness - from that birthday to this one - almost ten years later

xiaojun knows you're planning a party, you always do like it's a tradition, so you can't call it a surprise anymore

but he promises to act shocked when he comes through the door anyway

"is this shocked face good enough?"

he asks, putting his hands on his cheeks and opening his mouth

age has treated him so well, he's still got the absolute best cheekbones you've ever seen in your life

you giggle and clamber over onto the sofa where he is

"no, no - more oomf!"

he tries again and then reaches out to pull you into him, you kiss his nose and he scrunches it up

"how about i just jump up and go 'no way!' or something?"

"xiaojun you're not twenty anymore."

he pouts, "fine. ill think of something."

"by the way what do you want as a present?"

you look into his eyes and the browns soften as they reflect the image of you, the person he's sworn to love for the rest of his life

he shrugs - says he got the best present of all time already

"you said that last ye-"

"and it's true, you're the only thing ive ever wanted so badly i was just too dumb of a guy to ask for it."

your hands are warm on his chest

"that's ok, you still got it in the end."

#ok......ok. so now i actually only have three neos left #*strikes a pose* i love this concept i could write 54387928 of these #wayv scenarios #wayv imagines #wayv au #xiaojun scenarios #xiaojun au #xiaojun #xiaojun x reader #nostolgic!au #nct imagines #nct au #nct scenarios

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supernovafics · 3 years

Text

𝐀 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑

pairing: andy barber x fem!reader

summary: in which the night was supposed to be special. however, it seems as if something is always going wrong. on this specific night, you and andy have convinced yourselves that everything will finally go according to plan, but it isn’t long until things go awry. you’re not ready to call it quits on it just yet, though.

warnings: defending jacob au (no mentions of laurie or jacob), fluff, slight angst, explicit language

word count: 2.3k words

author’s note: first andy imagine! hope you guys enjoy<333

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Whatever excuse you’re about to say, save it,” You said when you answered Andy’s call, and it connected to your car’s Bluetooth. “We are going to this restaurant, Barber. We’ve rescheduled so many times that I’m pretty sure at least two of the hostesses know my number by heart at this point.”

Your statement was a thousand percent true, and you were actually surprised that the restaurant hadn’t blocked your number and banned both you and Andy from coming yet because of how much you had called to reschedule. The last time was only three days ago when you and Andy were completely exhausted from the days you had at work and couldn’t bear to do anything more than deliver a pizza to your home and eat it in bed. The number of crumbs that you noticed in the bed in the morning was horrible, but overall it was worth it.

This night was different, though, at least it was supposed to be. That morning before you headed to the environmental law firm you worked at and Andy went to the DA’s office, you said that you would be done earlier than usual because you would only be doing the beginning preparations for a new case you had. Andy told you that he would be done at his office by seven, giving you both enough time to get to your eight o’clock reservation at the restaurant.

When you left your office not even fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t received any calls from Andy, you actually believed that things were finally going to go exactly how you both planned it. But, of course, you could only get but so lucky.

“I’m really sorry, honey,” Andy told you, and you could hear how sincere those words were. “This Jefferson case has been kicking my ass these past couple of days, and I can just tell I’m finally close to a breakthrough with it.”

You didn’t want to smile; you were supposed to feel at least a little bit mad that this dinner was once again on its way to getting canceled. But, you couldn’t muster up even a hint of a frown; instead, you genuinely felt happy for Andy. You didn’t know much about the case, but you did know how much of a pain it had been for him thus far, so you knew that you couldn’t make him stop working on it right then when things were finally about to turn around. Especially because you knew that if the tables were turned, he wouldn’t make you stop, and you wouldn’t want him to.

These heavily work-oriented sides of the both of you were what caused you two to meet in the first place. You were both in the local bar that pretty much all of the lawyers in Boston would frequent, celebrating wins on your recent cases. You chalked it up to the alcohol running through your veins and the pure happiness you were feeling, because that case was such a big win for you, as the reason why you so easily fell for Andy that night. Because you had always sworn to yourself that you would never get romantically involved with another lawyer. But Andy was different.

“How much longer do you need?” You asked him, already thinking of ways that you could rearrange things so that maybe, hopefully, the night wouldn’t be a total flop.

It was quiet on Andy’s end for a moment, and you could tell that he was really thinking about his response. “No more than an hour. I promise.”

You glanced at the time displayed in your car; 7:14 pm. “Okay, I’ll call the restaurant and see if they can push our eight o’clock reservation to nine. And I’m on my way to your office now, so I can make sure that your hour is actually an hour.”

Most of the time, actually all of the time, an hour was never really an hour; it was always, always more. And you knew that for a fact because you were guilty of it too. Your respective workaholic natures were something that you both simultaneously loved and hated about each other.

“I love you,” Andy’s voice was soft and comforting.

Although those three words were pretty much second nature to hear after seven years of knowing Andy and five years of marriage, they never, ever failed to make your heart warm.

“Love you too,” You said and smiled to no one but yourself. “I should be there in twenty.”

• • •

The drive to Andy’s office was shorter than expected, which you were surprised about. However, you were unsurprised to only see Andy’s car in the parking lot when you pulled in; you swore that no one at that office worked harder than he did.

“Hi,” You said as you lightly rapped your knuckles against the open door of Andy’s office to grab his attention. His gaze was solely focused on his computer, and his eyebrows were knit together in a concentrated look that you had always found endearing.

When his blue eyes pulled away from his computer and landed on you, a smile found its way on his face. “Hi.”

You walked over to him, and he stood up from his desk, opening his arms which you wasted no time going into. As you wrapped your arms around Andy, the flooding sense of comfort that you felt made you sigh in contentment. Being in his arms always felt like being home.

“The reservation has been changed to nine,” You said, your words slightly muffled due to the way your face was pressed into his chest, but Andy still heard you.

“I’ll be done soon,” He told you, his voice getting lost in your hair.

When you pulled away from the embrace– it was reluctant at first, but then you remembered that there were actually things that needed to get done– you went to sit at the chair that was on the other side of the desk, shrugging your jacket off and placing it on the back of the chair. You nodded your head at Andy’s previous words, knowing that the definition of “soon” that you two had become accustomed to was different than what most people perceived it as.

As Andy went back to working on the case and you mindlessly watched him, a sudden wave of tiredness washed over you. Although your own day at work hadn’t been too chaotic, it was still pretty exhausting. A small yawn escaped your lips, and your eyes settled on the small-sized couch in the corner.

Your gaze was still trained on the grey couch when you heard the sound of a drawer opening, and when you looked at Andy, you saw that he was holding out a folded-up throw blanket for you to take. You grabbed it, and the familiar forest green color and softness stood out to you; it was the one you would usually keep in you guys’ living room.

“When did you start keeping this here?” You were already letting the blanket unfold and wrapping it around yourself.

“After the last time you came here and slept on the couch, and my suit jacket was horrible at keeping you warm.”

You smiled at the thoughtfulness behind the gesture. “Goddamnit, I love you.”

“And I love you,” Andy smiled back. “Now go take a quick nap, and I’ll wake you up in fifty minutes when I’m done with this, and we can finally make it to the reservation.”

You easily found comfort on the couch as you had done a few times before when you decided to join Andy during his late work nights. The couch was weirdly cozy, and you never knew if it was because of how tired you were that made it feel so nice or if it genuinely felt that way. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for you to drift off to sleep.

• • •

“Hey,” A soft voice slowly pulled you from the unconscious state you were in. “Honey, wake up.”

You mumbled a slight protest, pulling the blanket draped over you higher so that it shielded your face. Then, you remembered where you were.

You pulled the blanket back down, and when you opened your eyes, you saw Andy’s face; he was kneeling down next to you.

“What time is it?”

He evaded the question and instead said, “I’m sorry.”

“Andy,” You sighed as you sat up from the couch. You felt around for your phone and grabbed it, almost immediately checking the time; 10:03 pm. “Andy.”

“I fucked up,” His voice was quiet, and you pulled your eyes away from your phone and looked at him.

“What happened?” You asked as you tried to rub the remaining sleepiness out of your eyes. Even though you had apparently taken an almost two-hour nap, you still felt extremely tired.

“It was eight, and I wasn’t finished with what I needed for the case, but at that point, I didn’t even care and just wanted to go to dinner with you,” Andy took a seat down next to you on the small couch as he began to launch into his explanation. You watched him with intent eyes. “But, then I saw you sleeping, and you looked so peaceful and tired, and I didn’t wanna wake you. So, I kept working, and I was gonna wake you by eight-thirty, but the time got away from me, and the next thing I knew, it was nine.”

You didn’t say anything in response at first. Instead, you leaned back against the couch, closing your eyes and once again pulling the blanket over your head because there was nothing else you really wanted to do.

“I’m sorry. I know that you really wanted to go to the restaurant tonight.”

You finally decided to say something. “It’s okay.”

You felt the blanket shift, and you opened your eyes to see Andy coming underneath it and pulling some over him– luckily, it was long enough– so that the two of you were cocooned inside of it. “It’s not. You deserve to be mad.”

You considered his words and knew he was right, but you weren’t mad. Honestly, if you were a thousand percent truthful with yourself, you didn’t give a fuck about the dinner and the restaurant. More so, you cared about what it represented, or at least what your mind had warped it into representing.

It had been so long since you and Andy had spent a night together that was solely romantic and didn’t involve the two of you lounging about in your home eating takeout or being completely exhausted from work. You had desperately wanted something that resembled how it used to be between you two before things became so domesticated. For reasons you couldn’t decipher, you wanted a glimpse back into the beginning, almost honeymoon-like, stages of your relationship with him. And it seemed as if it was something that was entirely out of reach at this point.

“But, the night’s not a complete bust.” Andy’s words pulled you out of your scattered thoughts. However, they did nothing but confuse you.

Before you could ask him what he meant by his statement, he pulled off the blanket that was draped over you both, and it was then that you noticed the set up of Chinese food takeout on Andy’s desk. The food was plated nicely on disposable plates that you were sure were from the office’s break room, and there was even a lit candle in the middle of the desk. You noticed that the candle was the one you had gotten Andy for Christmas with the sole purpose of him having it in his office; apparently, the scent was supposed to be very calming.

Looking at the setup made you finally fully realize that the restaurant and dinner did not matter. In fact, this was far better than being in a fancy restaurant surrounded by other people and trying new food that you probably wouldn’t like anyway. This was much more romantic, and you loved every aspect of it.

It made you feel slightly frustrated at yourself that you had been making such a big deal out of it all in the first place. It wasn’t the restaurant that would make you feel reminded of the early aspects of your relationship. It was simply being with Andy that would, and always did, make you feel that way and more.

You did not know why you were on the verge of tears, but you did know that they were nothing but joyous. You looked over at Andy and noticed that he was staring at you so that he could gauge your reaction to everything. You smiled at him and wrapped your arms around his neck. “This is great. So great. Fuck, I can barely even form words right now.”

A breath of a laugh fell from your lips, and when you pulled back from the embrace, you placed a kiss on his cheek, his beard grazing your chin in a way that you had always loved.

“I’m glad and relieved,” Andy said as the two of you made your way over to his desk. “It’s definitely not high-end restaurant quality, but it is from our favorite place on Bleeker Street.”

You settled in your chair, your mouth watering at the food in front of you. You hadn’t realized how hungry you were until then. “Maybe we’re not meant to go to fancy restaurants anymore. We’re just takeout people now. And I think I’m okay with that.”

Andy’s lips upturned in a small smile. “Me too.”

“Now tell me everything about this godforsaken case,” You said and then took a bite from your egg roll. You always enjoyed hearing about his cases; it was a contrast from the work that you did that you always found refreshing, although most of the cases were more bleak if anything.

As Andy launched into an in-depth telling about what the case was about and the issues arising with it, you looked at him adoringly and listened intently as you both ate your food.

There was no grand dinner, but everything was still romantic, actually even more so. To you and him both, it was still a night to remember.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know your thoughts<3

#andy barber imagine #andy barber x reader #andy barber x female reader #andy barber x fem!reader #andy barber x y/n #andy barber x oc #andy barber x wife reader #andy barber fluff #andy barber angst

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harryhandstan · 3 years

Text

prompt: harry wakes up early on starbucks cup release days and surprises you by buying all the ones he thinks you’ll like. he’s usually able to escape the paps but this time they catch him and he ends up having to explain it in his next interview and gets all shy and can’t stop blushing.

a/n: hello all!! first I want to apologize for my 4 month long writing absence. life just has not been kind to me lately and unfortunately zapped a lot of my creativity energy, but I’m happy to have something done now! hopefully I can continue and keep a more consistent schedule for the remainder of this year!

immense thank you’s are owed to my kind friends @tobesolonely and @meetmymouth for the encouragement to find my creative spark for writing again and for being amazing betas! and to @taintedwonder for the lovely idea! @theharriediaries was so sweet to beta for me as well!!

word count: 2.1k

writing tag | masterlist | tiktok inspo

Harry was usually smarter than this. He had a schedule, a plan, a way to get in and out pretty quickly without being seen.

But today, he’d lingered too long at the mugs, curious if you’d want one of those as well. Your go-to was iced coffee, even year round in the winter you would prefer something cold over anything warm. He was thinking though, of the nights you were stressed and wanted a cup of soothing tea before bed, or those slower mornings where you don’t have to rush and a mug of coffee fits nicely in your hand while he admires you from across the kitchen table.

By the time he’s decided that yes, you do need this mug with the pastel rainbow print to add to your collection, along with a few of the other cups he thinks you’ll adore and a fresh bag of your favorite flavor of coffee, there’s already a small crowd of people forming in the lobby of the coffee shop and he hopes that he can get through them without being recognized as usual; prays that it’s only the regulars filing in for an early morning fix of caffeine before they rush off to start their day.

The barista thankfully is quick, skillfully giving him his total before rushing off to make the drinks he ordered for the two of you as well. He sees the way her eyes keep darting to him though, knows after years of experience that she knows who he is and is trying to work up the courage to say something to him or ask for a photo. He almost considers offering, she’s been so nice not to draw any attention to him, maybe something discreet could be pulled off.

In the end he chooses not to, not wanting to assume that’s why she keeps looking over at him. It could be that he still has the hood of his sweatshirt tucked over his beanie or the fact that he’s now walking out of the shop with a small handful of the brown shopping bags with the familiar green logo imprinted on the front.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he makes it back to his car without anyone stopping him. He’s so distracted by securing the bags in the backseat he fails to hear the small clicks of the camera not too far away.

There’s a small comfort in the quietness of your shared apartment when he returns. While he loves coming home to the sound of you dancing around the kitchen making breakfast, his favorite is getting to wake you up himself. There’s a sweet softness in the way the side of your face rests against your pillow, mouth parted slightly and a gentle snore vibrating through your chest. It never fails to make him smile. He cherished the way you inhale faintly, stretching your limbs before blinking a few times, adjusting to the new day you’re waking up to. If he was there, already awake, your eyes always found him before anything else.

This morning is no different, except for the confusion on your face when you find him sitting on the edge of the bed instead of snuggled next to you.

“You’re up to something, I can tell.” You’re propped up enough now to accept the coffee he’s holding out for you. You take a few small sips, sighing and letting your head fall back against the headboard as you savor the taste.

“M’that easy to read, huh?” He chuckles, his hand on your thigh now, warming your skin even through the blanket, “Well..would you like your surprise here or will you be joining me in the kitchen while I make you breakfast?”

“Oh I get a surprise and breakfast today? What’s the occasion? Little early for my birthday, H.”

“Don’t need an occasion to spoil my girl, do I?”

“I guess not.”

You shrug, trying not to let the guilt bubble up enough to where it flashes across your face. One of his loudest love languages had always been gift giving, a quality about him you thought was wonderful, but still had a hard time accepting. You had to be careful about mentioning things you may want around Harry, he would use any excuse to treat you.

He’s rambling off his reasoning already as he leads you into the kitchen and settles you in one of the tall chairs next to the counter. He always ends his explanation with “I know you told me not to, but…” followed up by what you’re sure to him sounds like a very logical justification for why you need/deserve whatever he was gifting you. There’s nothing out of the ordinary of your regular kitchen set up this morning though, so you do what you normally do when he announces a surprise for you; let him take the lead, not wanting to take away from his excitement.

“So..surprise or breakfast first?” He stands on the other side of the counter now, his hoodie and beanie discarded, wearing a t-shirt you were sure you bought for yourself but he seems to have laid claim to.

“Breakfast, please. If you don’t mind.”

“‘Course not. Any requests, baby?”

Your heart flutters for a moment, just as it does each time he uses that particular term of affection for you. He’s already opened the refrigerator, scanning over options for what he could make for the two of you. You recover long enough to tell him no, that whatever he wants to make would be fine, sitting back and enjoying the view as he cracks a few eggs into a bowl.

You don’t even notice that you’re staring until he turns and catches your eye, “What? Did I get a shell in the eggs or something?”

You giggle as he even picks up the clear bowl of eggs that he’s already scrambled and seasoned, even going so far as to swirl his finger through the liquid to double check before you can stop him.

“No, it’s just..I can’t get over the fact that you’re making breakfast for me while wearing my t-shirt.”

“S’it yours?” He glances down at it, “Thought it was mine, sorry..”

There’s a smirk on his face as he turns back to the stove, and you know just by seeing that he knows you don’t mind; you love seeing him in your clothes as much as he adores seeing you in his.

It’s not long before he’s presenting you with a plate, sitting next to you with his own plate in front of him. When you don’t immediately dig in, he leans over to inspect the food, worried that maybe he’d overdone the eggs or your toast was slightly more brown than you liked.

So when you say, “You’ve forgotten something very important, haven’t you?” he panics, thinking maybe he should’ve taken the time to include fruit to balance the meal. You take pity on him, not making him wait too long before you lean in and he instantly softens, realizing what you’re asking for.

He meets you the rest of the way, lips soft against yours, the taste of the coffee you’ve both had lingering for a moment before he pulls away, “Very important. How could I ever have forgotten?”

When you’ve both finished eating, he downs the last of his coffee and stacks your now empty plates to take to the sink, pecking your forehead with another quick kiss, “Alright, close your eyes. Count to 20.”

You begin to count off in your head, and you hear his voice, a bit further away, “Out loud, angel.”

There’s a rustling of bags getting closer as you count, and you can even hear a few clinks as they come closer. You can feel him moving around you, positioning things perfectly for when you open your eyes.

He’s still behind you when you finish counting, hands squeezing your shoulders to urge you to open your eyes. When you do, you immediately recognize the bags and know exactly what he’s done.

“Oh no. Absolutely not. This is too much, Harry. I let you spoil me with little things here and there, but I cannot accept this.”

Sitting in front of you are..you stop to count them now; 1, 2, 3, 4..6 bags from Starbucks. You know from experience that each one of them contains 2 cups or mugs. You’re sure at least one of them also includes your favorite roast of coffee. He had done this before around Christmas time, when you’d mentioned how adorable a few of the ones from the holiday collection had been, not thinking that he would go back later without you and buy all the ones you’d touched or admired.

He ignores your refusal, “You can take back any you don’t like. Go on,” He peeks inside one of the bags closest to him and then pushes it closer to you, “Start with this one.”

“Harry, really..”

“Don’t think, just open. If you really won’t accept any of them then I’ll take ‘em back and buy you something from somewhere else.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” You try your best to look serious, but you can’t stop the smile from spreading across your face, “Thank you, H.”

You finally go through most of the bags, offering oohs and ahhs and even a few squeals of joy at certain ones.

“I think I got all the ones you’d pick for yourself. Saw you eyeing one or two the other day and the others I just guessed.”

He had done very well in choosing for you, even going so far as to get the two of you a matching pair of the kind that changed colors with the temperature.

“For our smoothies.” He explains when you give him a particularly soft look at the idea of matching with him.

“Also got us a matching set of these,” He skips to the last bag, too eager to wait for you to open it yourself, revealing the mug he’d taken the extra time to select, “For our Sunday morning tea. Or if you change your mind and ever want a hot coffee.”

All you can do is repeat the same expression of gratitude as before you had opened them, “Thank you again, H. I love them all, really. No more though, alright? We’re running out of cabinet space. Did you go to our regular spot or a different one so you wouldn’t be recognized?”

“Different one. Can’t believe I wasn’t spotted though. Must’ve been too early for the paps to be out and about.”

“Or maybe you aren’t as interesting as you think you are, babe. Harry Styles coming out of a Starbucks is old news now.”

His eyebrows shoot up in mock surprise, “Oh is it now?”

“Mhmm. You’re just plain boring now, H.” You shrug, peeling at the price tag on the bottom of one of the cups, avoiding his gaze; knowing if you look at him you’ll break into a fit of laughter.

He’s impossibly calm, just like he is before any interview he does.

You sit across the room from where he’s currently getting his hair done. The stylist was nervous, understandably so, her hands unsure at first. It only takes a few moments of being near Harry; working his quiet, delicate magic of putting anyone he’s near at ease. By the time his hair is finished he’s pulled a few laughs from her and she leaves the room with a big beaming smile and a wave to the both of you.

Now that you’re alone again, he beckons you closer and tugs you down to sit in his lap, despite your protests of the possibility of wrinkling his incredibly expensive suit.

“Don’t care,” He leans up to press a kiss to your neck, keeping his face tucked there in your warmth, “Just want you close for a moment.”

Normally you would run your fingers through his hair, but you don��t dare do that now, hand drifting to the side of his face instead, “Not nervous are you, H?”

He lets you gently push him back enough to see his face again, “Never. Just happy to have you here with me, that’s all.”

It’s not until he’s in front of the audience, presented with the evidence of just a few days before, displayed on a screen for all to see. He had been caught, despite his confidence of getting away. He falters for only a beat, head down in hopes to hide the blush spreading high along his cheeks. He finds you in the crowd, sending a bright smile your way before he shrugs, turning his attention back to the host.

“What can I say? My sunshine likes her coffee.”

tag list: @harrysblackcoat, @summertime-pills

thank you for reading!! as always likes, rbs, and feedback is welcome and appreciated!!

#harry x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles fluff #my writing

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cloud9in · 3 years

Note

You’re the only one who’s writing poppy x mc fics sooo, i have a request “ bea is a bad girl (like in a gang) in high school and also went jail couple of times for getting in trouble in high school senior year poppy was new transfer student and after 2 months bea join back school and met poppy bea and they just click yk like a connection slowly they started dating and in school everyone was shocked to see bea in a relationship ( bad girl and new girl) poppy is always worried about bea and few days before graduation bea got hurt really bad and poppy gives bea 2 options that she has to choose between her or her this (gang).. bea didn’t say anything to her so poppy left, after 2/3 years they met in college bea was a different person but so does poppy they become enemies (no one knows why they hate each other) one day they were arguing and poppy shout at her and says why you're back and bea put her hand on her cheek and smile and say i am here to win you back because i love you 😬

Promises (Poppy x MC)

Part 1/?

Can i just say I'm absolutely invested in this plot? You've got me hooked on my own story, as hectic as my life is, this is enjoyable to write. I hope you like it as well @iamsimpforpoppy

Word count: 1.8k (i got carried away)

“You know what to do Jackson, same old shit.”

“Yeah but it feels like a movie every damn time”, Bea responds confidently as she unbuckles her seatbelt. She sports a black mask with a yellow bandana, a vivacious color worn by only the Southside Spades, a notorious street gang who were known for robbery, and occasional blood.

Bea found herself wrapped up in the world of gangs when she turned sixteen. But before that the brunette would assist in transporting goods, also known as hardcore drugs. There was plenty enough to go around so Bea could indulge in any she wanted. Drugs didn’t give her the high she craved though, instead it was the thrilling game of cat and mouse with the cops.

Every now and then she’d get thrown in the slammer overnight. But this particular evening earns her one year in the NY State Penitentiary. See, the cops never gathered significant evidence to build a case against her, even though she was well aware of Detective Steinhelm who had some sick obsession with her. Following her everywhere, until Bea confronted her directly after noticing the same black sedan parked a street down from her house.

But she played the game right, and nothing ever led back to her. Until now.

“Where’s the money Bradley? I feel like I’ve been kissing your ass all week, the boss needs it now.”

A skinny blonde boy who looks like he had better days grunts in annoyance, “You’ll get your money...I’m just a little short right now.”

“Time’s up Ken doll, you know Carter will have your head for this.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have to know. Maybe this can be between us…”, Bradley strides carefully towards the blonde, a disturbing grin on his face which screams junkie. “Back the hell up now.”

Bea pulled her knife out with ease and pointed it towards him. She didn’t plan on actually using it. Murder was way out her budget for a simple money pickup but she knew that it would scare the boy easily. Except he kicked the blade out of her hold which prompted it to screech across the concrete before coming to a stop. Before Bea could think her fists reacted as she intercepted a punch that aimed straight for her jaw. She twists Bradley’s arm and he falls on his knees in pain. With his back to her, she kicks him down until he’s flat on his stomach.

“What is it exactly that you plan on doing now Bradley?” The blonde boy struggles under Bea’s foot but manages to reach around and slash at her ankle with a surprise shiv. Bea yelps in pain before kicking his head, rendering him unconscious.

“Stupid idiot. Had to make this harder than it should’ve been.”

Bea eventually finds the stash of money hidden under his mattress, an amateur hiding place at best. She congratulated herself for another job accomplished (kinda) and headed home. What the seventeen year old didn’t expect was the repulsive sound of a siren filling her ears as she stepped out onto her driveway. Her blood rushed to her head when she spotted Detective Steinhelm among the police officers surrounding her and retorts, “oh come on. I thought I told them about you harassing me. What do you want? Back here to strip search me again?”

The older woman only watches the blonde in eerie silence before smiling and gesturing to a police officer. “Beatriz Jackson you have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law-”

“What the actual fuck!” Bea yanks her arms out of the officers reach which initiates a struggle for dominance. This was nothing new to her, but it still felt sickening. Like she was some pet.

“You have the right to have a lawyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you if you so desire.” Detective Steinhelm finishes speaking and approaches the still scuffling blonde, “if you keep resisting I will tase you myself.”

Bea bites back the urge to headbutt the old hag right in her stupid face but she didn’t need any extra charges, for whatever the hell it was she was being charged for.

“Tell me why the fuck I am being arrested and I’ll calm down.”

That’s when Bea notices a familiar (bruised up) face from earlier. His smirk was enough to eat at her skin and she felt burning hot rage.

“Your blood was found at the scene of Mr. Denbroughs assault. You are being arrested in the case of second degree assault with intent to hurt someone with a deadly weapon.”

***

Bea only got one year in prison due to her kickass lawyer Ina Kingsley who played the minor card at every opportunity given. She also pointed out the fact that the knife wasn’t bloodstained, and Bradley never had any stab wounds so there is no proof the weapon was ever used against him. And it technically wasn’t. Good thing she didn’t bring a gun instead.

She did miss her 18th birthday though. And a few months of her senior year. But that’s what summer classes were for right?

All eyes were on the blonde when she returned, and whispers spread throughout the school about a certain new girl. Bea paid no mind to the fingers that pointed in her direction but the newcomer did manage to catch her attention, and pretty quick at that.

“Hey Jackson, how was solitary confinement?”

“I heard they make you use the bathroom right through the tiny food slot.”

Bea rolls her eyes and pelts a piece of not-so-fresh bread right at Ford’s head. The other people at the table join in on the laughter and Bea shakes her head and smiles, “it was Juvie you dumbass, and they made us sit in a circle together every Thursday like we were in an AA meeting.

“That’s jail for babies, goldilocks here wouldn’t last a minute in a real prison”, Carter joins them at the table with a cocky smirk, yet his eyes soften when landing on Bea. She shares a similar look with him knowing they’ll have a real conversation later. Because they definitely didn’t get to have that when Bea was getting dragged away to the police station in cuffs, and every event after that.

“It’s our girl’s first day out, we have to celebrate. And it’s not like she’s on probation...right Bea?”

“I do have a curfew, and I’m on juvenile probation so…when we partying?” The crew laughs as Bea shrugs. Her mother will deal with it. Zoey scoots in next to the blonde and wraps her arm around her shoulder in a side hug. “So glad to have you back Bea, and we are not risking you breaking parole so let’s just go to a sport’s bar tonight.”

Bea nods her head in agreement as the first warning bell goes off and everyone starts to clean up. Zoey taps on her arm and points towards one of the farther tables where a lone figure sits, wiping her hands with a napkin. All Bea saw were blonde tresses until she turned and they made brief eye contact.

“She’s the new girl, Poppy Min Sinclair. Rumor is she’s got a rich white daddy. You should totally invite her to the party.”

“And why would I do that?”

Zoey squints her eyes and leans in closer, her hands under chin in thought, “she seems like the broody type, you two would click.” She laughs at Bea’s comical expression but the blonde can’t bother to look in her direction, she’s way too wrapped up in what little the stranger a few tables away had to offer. She would sit on that thought, Bea was not one to shy away from anything.

***

The two became friends quicker than anyone could think.

One day after school, Poppy’s car wouldn’t start. It just didn’t comply. You would think she’d be poised and call her mechanic to come fix it, but instead the blonde slumped against the driver’s side window and let out a visibly frustrated, high-pitched yelp. Bea watched her pace around the car and even...kick?...the front bumper with her heels in efforts to wake it up.

“You know I may be wrong but I think that only makes it worse..” She approaches the helpless blonde with a small grin. Poppy’s persistence amazed her though, she’s never seen anyone determined to beat a car up. An expensive one at that.

“I hope you have some idea how to fix it, unless you’re here to waste my time and ask me on a date.”

Woah.

Okay that definitely threw Bea on a whim. She lets out a sharp laugh and bites her lips in amusement. She strolls towards the front of her car, holding Poppy’s gaze the whole way. She liked that the blonde didn’t avert her eyes. “And if I did? We couldn’t take your car of course, it’s obviously impaired.”

Poppy smiles and turns to look at Bea properly. She checks out every inch of her with no visible shame. An assessment so to say, and she likes what she sees.

“It’s your lucky day Poppy, I happen to know a thing or three about cars, and I desperately want to get this thing working so we can go on that date.” She winks playfully but god does she mean it. Bea silently prayed that the blonde wouldn’t take it the wrong way, but she knew she won when Poppy didn't protest, instead getting comfortable under some shade and holding her hand out, “the stage is all yours Jackson.”

***

“So what you’re trying to tell me is that I can’t jump over this obvious not-so-protected fence?”

“Judging by the sign right next to it that says...oh wow who would’ve thought, “DO NOT ENTER”, I don’t think so”, Poppy deadpans. It didn’t phase Bea of course because she was already halfway up the fence when the blonde turned away from the sign. The girl had a point to prove, maybe not a valid one, but still a point.

Poppy pinches her eyebrows in exasperation before looking back up to a nonchalant Bea swinging her legs from the top of the fence. She winks down at the blonde, “join me?”

Poppy didn’t expect to be climbing fences with a charismatic girl who had the same color hair as her when she moved schools, but she found herself embracing every moment of it. Although the trip up there was a struggle and some.

“I swear to god there’s a wire in my ass.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“And we’re both going to end up in the hospital. Get. me. Down.”

Bea tries to hold in her laughter the whole way down but lets it loose when she sees Poppy still up there, partly hovering in the air. “Pops...I’ll catch you, don't worry. Climb down slowly.” She doesn’t. But Bea had her feet planted and ready because any moment with the sassy blonde was unpredictable. And she loved it. Especially because she had Poppy engulfed in her arms and they were so close their noses touched.

Bea promised herself she’d kiss the girl next time.

***

“You’re...in a gang?”

Bea felt a clasp of cold air enter her lungs as she stared ahead. It wasn’t like she could hide it from Poppy. She has a reputation, and word has gotten around about the two getting close. This was just like that one time at the end of sophomore year where Bea met Kelly Hall, a beautiful girl with golden rimmed glasses. Unfortunately she only could imagine what could’ve been after whispers ended up right on the doorstep of Kelly’s parents, and she suddenly changed her number, and switched out of every class she had with Bea.

The blonde didn’t want to entertain the thought of Poppy doing the same, but this was a lifestyle she chose.

“I mean...how?”

Bea sighs and turns to look at her, “I fell into the wrong crowd. Or maybe it’s the right one because I never found a true home until I met them. They’re family, I wouldn’t expect you to get it though and I understand if you want to distance-”

“I of all people know what it’s like to not fit in Jackson. You’ve found people who make you feel safe. Maybe I don’t agree with the troubles that come with being in a gang but I don’t know the whole story.”

“Do you want to?”

Poppy wraps her arms around Bea’s and lays her head on her shoulder, “I want to know that you won’t get yourself hurt but I know that’s nearly impossible.”

Bea exhales slowly, not knowing what to say. She knew that this would upset Poppy but her acceptance meant more. She didn’t know what this would mean for the two of them, if there was a “them”, but she felt more encouraged to share more of her other life with the blonde.

“Just promise me one thing Jackson.”

“Yeah?”

Poppy’s voice comes out softer than expected, and Bea ingests every emotion that comes with it, “Promise me you won’t ever put yourself in a position where you have to choose between me or the gang.”

Bea finds her hand in the space where their thighs touched and latches onto it like a lifebuoy,

“I promise.”

***

“I just remembered something Poppy.”

“What, that you have half a brain cell? I thought that was established Jackson.”

Bea launches a pillow that (purposely) misses Poppy’s head by an inch. If she actually hit her and frizzed up her locks then she’d never hear, or see..or walk again.

“I’m being serious. I just remembered this too, we never went on that car date we talked about.”

Poppy squints her eyes in confusion, but was fully aware of what Bea was referring to. “You mean the first time we met?”

The blonde smiles to herself as she replayed that day in her head over and over again. She couldn’t decide if Bea’s openly flirty behavior is what drew her in or if it was her ability to fix any of her possessions with ease. And for free.

Bea pulls Poppy up by her hands until her back is against the lockers. Another perfect opportunity for the blonde to make do of that promise she made to herself, but something told her to wait just a bit longer. “So what do you say? Poppy Min Sinclair, will you go on a date with me?”

Poppy rolls her eyes playfully, pulling Bea in closer by the collar of her letterman, “now who’s being dramatic?”

“I didn’t hear a no”

“I think you know what the answer is.”

That night Zoey helped Bea prep for her first date with the girl that she could say she was almost in love with. The taller girl brushed some dust off of Bea’s jacket and planted her hands on her shoulders, “remember Jackson, give her the ride of her life. And I mean that in every way possible.”

Thanks Zoe.

Bea watched Poppy drive up in front of her house and something inside her mind couldn’t deny the pang her heart let out when she saw Poppy smile the way she did.

Bea took control of the driving and told Poppy to recline her seat and enjoy the ride, with her seatbelt on of course. Safe sacrifices. They cruised through an empty highway blasting Poppy’s spotify playlist named “Rich Bitch Songs” because that was their ideal perfect date. It’s amazing that the two could even come to an agreement, but here we are.

She watched the beautiful blonde sing her lungs out and couldn’t help but mirror her joy, taking her hands off the steering wheel. The pump of adrenaline prompts a new excitement in the air and Poppy wraps Bea into a secure hug, her hair flying wildly with the wind. Bea slows the car down but the rapid beating of her heart made it seem they were going 100 miles per second.

“I feel so alive Jackson.”

Bea stared at the girl in the passenger seat with a look that could only be described as love.

“You make me feel alive.”

Poppy kept talking and Bea found a way to focus on both the road and the blonde next to her. Because when you truly enjoy something, you’ll find a way to keep experiencing it. And Bea enjoyed hearing Poppy’s voice, she loved everything about her.

“I feel like kissing you.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“...Nothing. I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

They kiss when Bea pulls over. A hot feeling consumes them like fire when their tongues collide and Bea plants her hands around Poppy’s hips, pushing her back into her seat until she’s on top. The windows easily start to fog up in reaction to the heat, and not once did they take their hands off each other.

Promise 1/2 kept

--------------------------------------------------------

End Note: This chapter was to build their relationship, more angst incoming. BIG THANKS to @somewillwin for letting me use Jackson <3333

Taglist: @samanthadalton @somewillwin @clowneryme @baexpoppy @poppysmc @doey-eyes8 @veenast @straightlikewetspaghetti @phoennixxsblog @a-ghost-girl

#poppy min sinclair #queen b #playchoices #mc x poppy #a huge bug flew onto my screen during the writing process #gave me motivation to HURRY MY AAAAAAASSS UP

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ginnympotter · 3 years

Text

call it even

Chapter 2: for old times’ sake

A/N: uhhh so spoiler or whatever but this has a small amount of pretty mild smut? which i've never attempted i can't believe i'm pressing post on this thing please don't judge me lol you can also read this chapter on AO3

I’m parked between the Methodist and school.

She read the text, looked at herself in the mirror one more time, and braced herself. She took her coat off the hook and as she was zipping it up she heard her mother coming down the stairs. “Ginny, hun, are you going out?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later,” she said, grabbing the doorknob, trying to get out as quick as she could.

But before she could walk out Molly asked, “You know Harry could have come in, right?”

She looked at her mother’s smug smile and groaned. “Goodnight, Mom,” and swung the door shut behind her.

She walked quickly two blocks down, turned right and crossed the street. It was easy to spot Harry’s old truck, not just because there were only 3 other cars parked on that road, but also because it stuck out like a sore thumb, and also was a staple in so many of their memories. She knocked on the passenger side’s window and opened the car door, hopping into the seat. She looked over at Harry to say hi, and saw him smiling. “Hey, thanks for picking me up.”

“Of course,” Harry said as she shut the door. “But why did you make me park two blocks over?”

“Because I didn’t want it to be awkward, with me staying at my parents’ house, but it didn’t even matter because my mom just knew I was going to hang out with you.”

“Molly knows all.”

“Too much.” She looked over at their old high school building, and then at the field they were parked in front of, nostalgia filling her up. “Nice parking spot.”

“It’s weird working at the school we went to. Where those bleachers are,” Harry responded. She felt a tightness in her throat, feeling both excited and uneasy that he was already bringing these types of things up. “Remember how pissed Molly was when we skipped the prom?”

“Thank God she never found us under those,” Ginny heard herself respond. She and Harry looked at one another, twin smirks on their faces. The school bleachers might not be exactly the ideal, romantic place to lose your virginity, but for them it made total sense. She collected herself before her thoughts would get her carried away. “So, um, where to? Everywhere’s closed.”

“Did you eat already?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay, um...maybe we could just drive around for a bit? And then head back to my place for a glass of wine?”

Memories from last year flashed in her mind. She nodded and buckled herself in silently. He started the car, the engine gave a loud and disquieting noise, and then they took off. “I cannot believe this truck is still running.”

Harry lightly tapped the dashboard. “She never lets me down.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and sniggered. She looked out the window as they drove down the roads. “Believe it or not I kind of missed this place. Has it changed at all?”

“The same as it ever was,” Harry responded. “But I know you don’t like it that way.”

His eyes were on the road but she could feel what he meant without seeing his face. “I do, sometimes,” she clarified, hoping he would hear her for what she meant. “Is Dumbledore still principal?”

“Yeah, he is,” Harry told her. “And McGonagall still teaches math.”

“You were always their favorite.”

“Dumbledore’s, maybe,” he shrugged. “But McGonagall? She still goes on about my dad. They have tea together like, once a month.”

“But McGonagall let you get away with basically everything. She was just sly about it.”

“Much to Snape’s chagrin.”

“Oh God, don’t tell me he still works there?”

“Unfortunately.” Ginny blanched, and Harry laughed in appreciation. “He was so pissed when Dumbledore hired me. I just avoid him at all costs.”

“I can’t believe you willingly accepted a job where you have to see Snape every day.”

“I know. It’s worth it, though. I really love teaching,” he said. They halted at a stop sign and he used the opportunity to look at her as he said, “You helped me realize that.”

“I was a great tutee, if I do say so myself,” she smiled. “How about the coaching bit? Did the kids ever recover from their loss?”

Harry drove them around all the backroads as he talked about coaching and working at the school. Much of the anxiety she was holding inside her had slowly melted away as they eased back into their regular rapport. Her heart felt like it doubled in size as he talked about his favorite students (though at first proclaiming, “I don’t play favorites, but…”). He asked her more about life in LA and her first year being a starter.

When they arrived at Harry’s apartment, Ginny hung up her coat and watched as Harry’s eyes not so subtly raked over her body before he turned to his cabinet and took out two wine glasses. She sat in the same spot she did the last time she was on his sofa as Harry listed off various wine options. Harry updated her on all the most recent Tupelo gossip as they drank and reminisced on the different characters they grew up with. Every time he smiled she felt a piece of her heart break, she missed seeing it so much.

Harry must’ve sensed it- or perhaps he heard the crack inside her chest- as one of those times his smile dropped to a frown as he looked at her with concern. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ginny tried, taking the last sip of her wine and placing the glass down on the coffee table. She then noticed the People Magazine cover where she was in a little square on the top right for her interview with them last month.

She picked it up and held it in front of Harry, who suddenly turned red. “Er, I, um-” he stammered, and she laughed.

“Fred and George were just making fun of me for this yesterday at their party.”

“What’s to make fun of?” Harry asked, attempting to recover. “I think you did great.”

“Just a bit corny of a profile, I guess,” she responded. “Can I ask why you have it?”

Harry sighed, giving Ginny a very pointed look.

“What?”

“I have it because I was proud of you,” he replied carefully, taking another sip of his wine. “Is that a bad thing?”

And before she could register exactly what she was saying, the words “You could’ve texted me” flew out of her mouth.

Harry raised his eyebrows. “About the People profile?”

“Sure,” she said. Her brain telling her shut up, shut up, SHUT UP, but her mouth continued. “Or any other time before that. Or after I left this apartment after my brother’s wedding.”

Just as quickly as Harry’s face reddened before, it had now drained of all color. “I, er… I don’t-” he stopped himself, clearing his throat. “You could’ve texted me too, you know.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“Ginny,” he said softly, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to do this right now. Can’t we just...enjoy our time together while you’re here? Before you leave in a few days? I don’t want to fight.”

“Why didn’t you?” she repeated, more quietly this time.

“You know why,” he said defiantly, in an equally low voice.

“I don’t, actually.”

He groaned, putting his glass down next to hers before looking at her intensely. He looked tired, sad. “Because the only thing I wanted to text you was to ask you to stay. And I couldn’t ask that; it wouldn’t be right.”

She had an inkling that this would be his answer, but it still felt nice to hear him confirm it. “No, I suppose not.”

“And I wanted to text you so many times after, but… I was too afraid of what I’d say. And then too much time passed, and- I don’t know, I’m sorry, Gin.”

“Are you seeing anyone right now?”

Harry blinked, taken aback by the abrupt question. “No,” he said.

“Neither am I,” she told him, and then moved closer to him, so close that their legs touched. “You’re right, you couldn’t ask me to stay. But… how about I stay the night, and we could call it even?”

It took Harry a moment to register her proposal. When he did, he swallowed, his adam’s apple protruding against his throat. “Are...are you sure?”

She decided then to let go of her inhibitions, to act on impulse and burning desire, and placed herself on his lap facing him, her knees tightly against his hips, her hands meeting on the back of his neck, lightly scratching the bottom of his scalp. “I’m sure.”

Harry took a deep breath. “Right, then,” he mumbled, and then his lips were crashing against hers, and his arms moved her impossibly closer to him. She opened her mouth and his tongue swept atop hers; Harry moaned as he did it, as Ginny moved her fingers through his hair and pressed her chest against his. They kissed passionately, slow and hot, then fast and urgent, then slowly again. They fell back into their rhythm seamlessly.

When Ginny pulled away to kiss his neck, Harry’s voice was raspy. “Fuck,” he exhaled. She moved her tongue lightly along his collar bone, up the side of his neck, and to his ear as she ground herself more firmly on his growing erection. He groaned, moving his hands to Ginny’s ass and cupping it. “Fuck,” he repeated. “I missed this. I missed you.”

She was too stimulated to think too much about his words for too long, but nevertheless, they still caused her heart to lurch. And hearing Harry express himself- even just the slightest showing of vulnerability from him- always turned her on even more. She blew hot air on his ear, nibbled on the lobe, and then pulled away to take off his sweater. He smiled in a daze as she got the sweater off of him and discarded it. He didn’t waste another second before throwing off his T-shirt (his glasses momentarily getting caught in the process) and then doing the same to her, so he could have the next several seconds to unhook her lacy blue bra and let it drop to the floor. He leaned back and admired the view of her chest, then glanced up at Ginny before touching her. She gave a quick nod and he let himself feel her breasts in his hands again for the first time in almost a year, massaging them gently, then with more power. Ginny felt herself grow hotter just watching how Harry responded to her. He leaned in and took her right breast in his mouth, using his fingers to play with her left nipple in the way that always drove her mad. She allowed herself to enjoy it fully, moaning as she pleased, arching into him, pulling at his hair as he switched from one to the other.

Before long it was too much, and she grabbed his face and disconnected his mouth from her chest so she could kiss him again. She felt her lips tingle with the touch of his tongue, her skin burn as his hands moved to her back, running down slowly to her waistband, reaching under her pants to touch her bare ass, squeezing and spreading her cheeks gently. God, she loved when he did that. After she kissed him thoroughly enough, and her pants felt too wet to wear anymore, she moved to undo Harry’s belt buckle, which in turn encouraged him to unzip her jeans. She removed herself from him so they could remove what was left of their clothes. Seeing how hard he was for her, full and bare, made her weak in the knees yet simultaneously at her most powerful. She pushed Harry back down on the couch, let her knees give in to the floor, and cupped his balls. “Ginny-” Harry grunted, but before anything else could come out of his mouth she took him in her own, licking up his length, sucking gently as she bobbed her head up and down.

It was only around thirty seconds later that Harry stopped her, pulling her head off of him. “Wait, wait, stop-”

Immediately, she felt embarrassed. “Was that...ok?”

“Oh, God, Ginny, of course, it was more than ok, it was fucking amazing but...but I want to help you out first. Please.”

“Harry, it’s fine-”

“No, please,” he said earnestly. “I want to. I really want to.”

She let go of him and nodded wordlessly. He helped her up, laid her down on the couch, and kissed her gently. He then whispered, “Let me make you happy.”

“You always make me happy,” she whispered back. His features changed from eager to wistful. He kissed her again, much more firmly this time, and then worked his mouth from her neck along her body, over each breast, her stomach, the inside of her thighs, before he reached his final destination. Ginny closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh as he pressed his tongue up and down against her clit.

She didn’t have to think or speak or do anything; Harry knew exactly the way she liked it, no matter how much time in between their sexual activities passed, he never lost track of exactly what made her scream, what made her shake in ecstasy, as she did only a few minutes after he began. As she came down from her high, Harry kissed his way back up her body, until reaching her cheek, which he kissed delicately. “You feel good?” he asked hoarsely.

“Mm,” was all she could respond in the moment, panting from pleasure still.

He chuckled sweetly, kissing her cheek again, then her forehead, then her lips. Once her breathing had steadied somewhat, she heard him speak again. “What else do you want?”

“To fuck you,” she breathed out.

Harry moaned at her words as he pushed his tongue back into her mouth, the vibrations sending tingles down to her toes. “Do you want to move to the bedroom?”

“We can go to your bed for round two,” she told him, smiling widely. “But round one is happening right here, right now on this couch.”

“If you insist,” he said hoarsely, moving over her, wasting not another second. They had already lost enough time.

***

Behind her eyelids, Ginny could feel the light pouring into Harry’s bedroom. She felt a twinge of joy as she moved her arms to find Harry’s torso, but all she could find were the sheets. She opened her eyes and saw that his side of the bed was empty. Her stomach fell as she scanned the room for him. She sat up and heard a bit of clanging around in the kitchen. The bedroom door was half-open. She rose from the bed, opened the drawer where Harry kept his t-shirts, and threw his go-to blue tee over her head. She stepped out of his room and walked down the hall to find Harry, wearing only a pair of boxers and his glasses, his hair as messy as ever, pouring an omelet onto a plate with expert ease.

“Morning,” she said quietly.

He turned to look at her and grinned, looking her over. “Morning. Nice shirt.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you alone in there. I just wanted to make you breakfast.”

“That’s sweet, Harry.” She went to sit at the island and he waved his hands. “No, no, not here!”

“Excuse me?”

“Breakfast in bed ,” he clarified. “I’ll bring it in, you go relax, I just am finishing up on the home fries and then I’ll bring it right in.”

“You sure?”

He waved his spatula in the direction of his room. “Go on, now!”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him fondly before turning around and heading back down the hall. “Fine, but I’m using your bathroom first.”

“Do what you must.”

After using the toilet and brushing her teeth, she settled back into Harry’s bed and scrolled through her phone. Only a few minutes later, Harry entered with their plates, handing one to her and planting a tender kiss on her forehead. Her insides melted at the gesture. She softly thanked him, scooted over and dug in. Harry sat on his side but at the foot of the bed, his legs folded and his plate on his lap, that way he could face her. They ate in silence, exchanging occasional grins. She felt slightly distracted by his shirtless form and the way their feet touched. When she finished she handed Harry her plate. “That was delicious, thank you. Compliments to the chef.”

“My pleasure,” he told her. “I like cooking for people.”

“Perhaps if this teaching thing doesn’t work you can go to culinary school.”

“I know you’re joking, but I’d honestly consider it,” he said as he stacked their empty plates and leaned over to put them on his bedside table. He then sat beside her and grabbed her hand, interlacing their fingers. “What would you like to do today? That is, if you don’t have any other pressing plans…”

“I do have a hot date or two lined up, but I could always reschedule them for next year,” she joked.

“How kind of you,” he replied, picking up her hand and kissing it. Ginny was finding it hard to control herself with all the seemingly small, natural affection he was showing. “But really, anything in mind?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, I thought maybe we’d sleep in half the day- just for old times’ sake?”

Harry chuckled, glancing at the clock. “It’s already 10am. You want to go back to sleep?”

“Well, maybe not right away,” she said, lacking subtlety. “Thought we could do something to tire us out first.”

“Hmm,” Harry pretended to think. “What could that be?”

She grabbed him by the neck and kissed him, and he sighed, using his free hand to cup her face. After kissing each other sweetly for a minute or two, Harry let go of her hand to grab her and pull her onto his lap. He quickly realized that other than his shirt she wasn’t wearing anything else at all, moaning as he grabbed her ass. He deepened the kiss and Ginny became wrapped up in its intensity, returning it right to him, her hands wrapped up in his hair. Although her body was in the driver’s seat, her mind and heart were racing, thinking about how much this man meant to her, how much she felt like herself when she was with him, how much he made her feel like she could do anything. She cherished every second she could steal with him, before all she’d have is memories to replay until the next time, cementing the feel and the taste of him into her brain. She didn’t want it to ever end.

But not before long, Harry seemed to slow down, and then he pulled away altogether. When Ginny leaned back in to continue the kiss, he barely reciprocated.

“Harry?” she asked, breathing heavily. “Are you okay?”

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yeah, I…” He looked at her and she could see the storm of emotions in his emerald eyes. He leaned his head against hers and exhaled. “I’m fine. But...can we pause this for a moment? Can we talk?”

A wave of dread washed over her as she nodded her head and removed herself from his lap. Sensing her tension, Harry grabbed her hand again, rubbing his thumb across the back of it. “What is it?” she asked reluctantly.

He inhaled deeply, his forehead creased. “When you leave later today, I… I don’t want it to be like last time.”

“Well, that’s easy then,” Ginny told him, attempting a smile. “All you have to do is text me when I land back in L.A. this time.”

“And what would that imply, exactly?” Harry questioned. “Me texting you, that is.”

“It-” but Ginny realized she didn’t really have an answer- or, at least, she couldn’t give the answer she really wanted. “It would mean that this wasn’t just some meaningless thing to you.”

Harry frowned, tilting his head to the side slightly. “Is that what you really thought? Or what you’ll think if you leave later?”

Ginny considered his question. “I suppose not.”

“Of course not,” he corrected her, speaking with conviction as he squeezed her hand. “Ginny… I still-”

“Stop,” she interrupted him. “Don’t say it.”

She wanted to hear him say it, of course she did, but she would never be able to leave if she let him continue. She felt her heart break a bit at Harry’s disappointed expression. “What do you want me to say then?” he asked, his voice quiet but his tone stabbing. “That I don’t care about you? That I don’t miss you? That I don’t think about you every time I try to date someone else? I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear, but I have to tell you, I can’t even fathom you thinking for even one second that anything between us could ever be meaningless to me. I’m sorry I didn’t text you. I don’t know how to do this.”

“No,” she said as she put a hand on his leg. She couldn’t take it anymore. He was right, hearing all of that was too hard for her. Knowing the feelings are mutual “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… The meaningless thing was an overreaction, alright? I know… we’ll always mean so much to each other.”

Harry sighed, closing his eyes, his thinking face on. Ginny knew that face too well, and she knew he was trying to work out in his mind how to phrase all his feelings. “I just don’t understand why we gave up two years ago. We did long distance from your senior year in high school through all of college and it was fine. I didn’t want to break up. But you were so insistent that this is what was best once you got a spot on the team and I didn’t want to feel like I had to persuade you to stay together and I just…”

Ginny’s heart dropped into her stomach. There was such an ache in his voice… it hurt her to hear. “I don’t know, Harry, I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing,” she settled on. How could she explain giving up on them to him? To herself? “College was one thing, but as working adults? It just felt like we’d never be in the same place, we’d never be able to actually spend time together… I didn’t want to hold you back. I didn’t realize you…that you would’ve… I thought we were on the same page, I’m sorry.”

“No, I should’ve fought harder for us,” he told her, eyes blazing. “It’s not too late, is it?”

Ginny exhaled as Harry squeezed her hand again. “Harry, I can’t stay here-“

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Well, I can’t ask you to wait for me. I don’t know what’s going to come with my career.”

“I don’t care how far apart we are,” he asserted. “I don’t want to be with anyone else- I’ve tried, and I’m sure you have too, but we always end up back here, don’t we? I want to be with you. We can figure the rest out as we go. It’s us, you know?”

He smirked at the end of his sentence, and all the feelings she’d been holding in for two years seemed to boil over at once. God, she missed that smile. The same smile as the one she dreamed about every day when she was only 11 and he spent every summer day over at their house with Ron. The same smile that he gave her after their first kiss, and after they skipped the prom and hid out under the bleachers, and when he came home to visit from college for the first time, and when he visited her in her dorm, and when he saw her standing in her bridesmaid dress at Ron and Hermione’s wedding, and then when he took it off of her later that night, and when they bumped into each other at the airport a few months ago, and just last night as she curled up against him in his bed and kissed him goodnight.

Tears warned to spill over, and she cursed herself for blinking one free. Harry put a hand on her face and wiped it for her with his thumb. He looked deeply into her eyes, which only caused more tears to fall. He wiped another for her, and then he kissed one away, and then he kissed her lips so gently she could barely register it.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, a hint of desperation in his voice for some type of answer.

She looked away from him, staring down at their knees. “I still don’t know, Harry. I’m confused. Everything you’re saying… I want that, I do, but it just doesn’t… seem practical. And… I mean, if we did get back together, what about everything after that? Do you want to stay in Tupelo forever?”

“Not necessarily,” he responded flatly. “I love my job now but I don’t know if I’ll still want to be here in a few years… But do we need to be making those types of decisions now?”

“Well if we don’t, then what? We get back together and three years down the line we break up because we realize we’re still not on the same page? I don’t want to waste either of our time.”

Harry let out a defeated sigh, causing Ginny to look up again. The fire in his eyes was being stomped out by disappointment. “Gin, listen… all I know is that ever since I was sixteen all I’ve wanted is to be with you, whatever it took to make that happen. That hasn’t changed, not one bit, even nine years later. I know we can make it work. If it’s not what you want… I don’t want you to be with me if you aren’t fully in it. But I want to be in your life. I don’t know what that looks like for you right now, but however it does, I’ll be there. Even if that’s only as your brother’s best friend.” He offered a sad smile as he finished.

But you’re so much more than that , she wanted to say, but felt like that’d just be proving his point, and she still felt too confused and overwhelmed. Selfishly, she leaned in and kissed him, long enough to memorize the feeling for later but quickly enough to prevent any further persuasion from the magic of his mouth. She braced herself for her own heart’s self-destruction as she opened her eyes and said, “I think I should go home, now.”

Harry’s sadness lingered for a moment, before he channeled his expertise of shutting down, his features flickering to blankness. “If...if that’s what you want. Let me drive you home, at least?”

She wanted to say no, that she’d just order an Uber, but her mouth betrayed her. “Ok.”

He let go of her hand and stood up. “I’ll, er, just throw on some clothes real quick, then run and grab yours and leave you to get dressed.”

She nodded and watched him throw on a pair of jeans, an undershirt, a jumper, and socks rather haphazardly. She listened as his feet creaked across the hallway floors, and waited with bated breath as he made his way back moments later, handing her a pile of her clothes. She muttered a “thank you” and averted his eyes as she took them.

“Take your time,” he told her gently, and made his way back out.

The moment the door clicked closed, she clenched her eyes shut and pushed out all the tears she could, so none would escape for him to see when she would have to face him again. She wiped her face and felt the warmth leave her as she got up from his bed, her haven. She threw off his shirt and put on her clothes from the night before, but folded up his t-shirt and stuffed it in her purse. It was an unspoken agreement between them that she could take as many of his t-shirts as she liked; he bought extras just for her.

She looked in the mirror, quickly threw her hair back in a low ponytail, and inhaled deeply, as if the air entering her lungs would give her courage to move forward as she opened up his bedroom door and walked towards the entrance.

Harry had his sneakers on, her shoes lined up and her coat ready for her in his hands. She slipped on her shoes and against her better judgment she allowed him to slip her jacket on for her, arm by arm. She hated the electricity that crackled through their every touch. She did not want to leave, she hated herself for leaving, even.

As if he sensed her self-deprecation, he took hold of her hand after it slipped through the sleeve. “Gin, it’ll be okay.”

She didn’t believe him, of course, it was just his typical optimism in order to protect everyone he loved, Except it made Harry look out for everyone else’s comfort at his own expense.

He grabbed his keys and led them out of his flat. They got into his car quietly. Without taking the backroads, the ride was relatively short, only taking 3 songs on the classic rock station of his ancient car radio to make it back to her home, the Burrow.

He parked right outside, which was a mistake, as her mother was out in the front with their family dog, Pig. She was wise enough to just offer a wave and a smile and resume walking with him.

Harry turned to her and asked in a low rasp, “Can I see you again? Before you fly back? Will you still be at your family’s for New Year's?”

“Yeah, I will,” she told him. “I’ll...I’ll see you there.”

Harry nodded. He clicked the unlock button for the doors. “Just...just think about what I said, alright?”

Ginny swallowed, nodding back. “I will.”

He kissed her cheek, his lips burning against her cold skin, and as he pulled away he leaned over to open her door for her. She attempted a smile in thanks, hopped out of his truck, and closed the door gently behind her.

She didn’t look back as she walked through her lawn, as she heard him call out to her mother, “See you soon, Mrs. Weasley!,” as Pig barked merrily at him and Harry laughed out, “I’ll see you soon, too, Pig!” before driving away.

She was grateful that her mother didn’t pursue her as her legs worked their hardest to get her to the door, through the entrance, and up the flight of stairs to her room, into her own bed, waiting for a sense of safety or relief that never came.

#hp #fanfic #hp fanfic #harry x ginny #harry potter #ginny weasley #hinny #au #alternate universe #modern au #harry potter x ginny weasley #harry/ginny #harry potter/ginny weasley #fanfiction #fan fiction

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watchmegetobsessed · 3 years

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VALERIE - Part VIII. (Harry Styles)

i can’t believe we are slowly nearing the end of this story, don’t forget, we only have two more parts left!! please leave a feedback/coment/like/ANYTHING if you liked this part, it means so so soooo much to me!!

word count: 5k

SERIES MASTERPOST

masterlist

Harry can be such a persistent pain in the ass sometimes. You haven’t decided if you like it about him or not. If he makes up his mind about something it has to be that way, no objection.

He texted you in the morning that he would be coming over to your place after work, because he is looking after Valerie for the night, for the first time ever and he needed you to tell him everything he needs to know about taking good care of her.

“I think Rosa will tell you all about it when they arrive. I got a list from her as well,” you tell him when he calls you during your lunch break.

“I know she will, but I’m a single man, it’s bold of you to think I know anything about babies.”

“What are you talking about? You are always so good with her. I’m sure it’s gonna be fine.” Steven has a business dinner tonight and Rosa was invited as well. You know that because they asked you first if you could look after Valerie, but you had already made plans with Marcus, so you had to turn them down. Guess they found someone who is free, but it seems like Harry is a little panicky about it.

“Is it not the best time to admit that I have no idea how to change a diaper properly?”

You laugh at his question and you can almost picture the worried look on his face, lips pressed together and that little crease showing between his eyebrows.

“Then why did you say that you’d look after her?” you ask giving your salad a shake before you start eating.

“Because Rosa sounded so desperate, and I wanted to help. I thought I would figure it out, even googled it, but I’m not sure I have the right idea about everything.”

“What do you mean you googled it?”

“Well, if you’d look at my search history it would be filled with maternity sites where they describe in detail how to wipe a baby’s ass,” he states, making you laugh once again.

“You’re nuts,” you sigh, shaking your head. “Unfortunately, I have plans tonight, so I don’t think I can help you.”

“When?”

“Um, Marcus is picking me up at seven.”

“That’s perfect, Rosa and Steven will drop Val off at mine at four, so I’ll have plenty of time to go over to yours so you can show me everything.”

“Harry, I’m working until five.”

“Alright, I’ll be right there at five thirty.”

“Harry... “ you chuckle, shaking your head.

“Please, Y/N! I’m begging you! This is a kinda life or death situation. You can’t do this to me! You still owe me for the time you were looking over her!”

Closing your eyes you lean onto the table. You already know you’ll say yes, how can you not when he is right about owing him one, but you should really learn how to say no next time, before people start to see you as the loser who just does as she is told all the time.

“Okay. I’ll be home by five twenty.”

“Fucking perfect. I’ll see you later,” he cheers before ending the call.

Turns out he is quite punctual, because just as you walk around the corner you see his car parked in front of your building and you just smile. He spots you from the rearview mirror and gets out, unbuckling Valerie from her seat as well.

“They left you the seat as well?” you ask and help him get the huge bag Rosa packed for Valerie.

“I told them I need to do groceries so Steven left it for me.”

Valerie babbles to Harry relentlessly, who occasionally hums a response as the three of you go up to your apartment.

“So, what exactly do you want me to show you?” you ask, setting the bag down on the couch as Harry puts Valerie down on the plush rug to wander around a bit as the two of you discuss what he needs help with.

“Diaper change, feeding and burping. I think I’ll be alright with the rest.”

“Okay, first of all, she doesn’t need to be burped, she’s old enough to skip that. Only try that if she is fussy after eating,” you tell him and he nods, mentally taking notes. “Alright, let’s see a diaper changing. How many did Rosa leave for you.”

“Oh, she left a bunch but I dropped by the store and bought another pack just to be sure. Let me grab it from the car.”

Harry runs off, in the meanwhile you sit on the floor with Val and get everything you need from the bag to change her. You figured he just bought a smaller pack in case he might mess up the first few times, but when Harry returns he has a huge pack under his arm, written on the side you see that there are 92 pieces in it.

“What the fuck, Harry? Are you trying to supply her for the rest of the year?” you snap with a laugh.

“I panicked, don’t give me shit about it!” he whines joining you on the floor.

You put an old blanket down and grabbing Valerie you make her lie on her back as Harry opens the mega pack and hands you a clean diaper. You go over the whole process step by step, making sure you cover every detail that might come to you naturally but wouldn’t be that obvious for Harry. He intently watches your every move, at one point you almost expect him to get a notebook and pencil to take notes.

“Okay your turn. Let me see what you learned.”

Scooting over you let Harry take your spot and his hands carefully reach to get rid of the diaper you just put on Valerie, who is still carelessly babbling around, stuffing her fingers into her mouth without a worry in the world. She surely doesn’t give a damn about being experimented on.

Harry’s fingers work delicately on her, doing everything just as you told him and he even folds the used diaper in a prettier way than you did.

“See? It’s not that hard. Just expect some poop in it the next time,” you tell him and laugh at the grimace that tugs on his face.

“How often do I need to change her?”

“Just… give her bum a sniff now and then, you’ll know when she has left a gift for you.”

“Awesome,” he sighs nodding. “Okay, now onto the feeding.”

It’s been a while since the night you looked after Val, since then Rosa has stopped breastfeeding so she is now fully on baby food from any store and basically anything pureed. Rosa packed a few different kinds of foods and wrote on the list that Valerie has been a fan of smashed apples, banana and peas.

Harry takes her to his arms and sits at your small dining table as you get one of the baby foods with a small spoon and her bib.

“Feeding is nothing special, just make sure to give her small portions and wait until she swallows everything. But she is a calm eater, so she takes her time tasting everything and then swallowing it,” you explain to him and show him what you just said, bringing some food to her mouth on the spoon. Harry watches her take it, some of it ending up on her lips and you wipe it off with the spoon when you pull it out of her mouth.

“See? She is quite chill, you have nothing to worry about,” you tell Harry. Some babies tend to turn feeding into a race and they want to get as much food into their mouth as possible at once. Valerie is a luckier case in this field. “Wanna try?”

Harry nods and you drop the spoon into the jar, putting it to the table before you take Valerie from his lap. Once again, he is doing perfectly fine, feeding her just the right amount and wiping the excess off her lips and cheeks easily. He had nothing to worry about.

“You’re doing great, as if you were a natural,” you tell him smiling and you swear you see him blush.

“I’m a little far from that. I’m still in panic that I do something wrong.”

“It was a bold move to say yes to Rosa if you are so worried how you’d do.” Harry keeps feeding her, eyes focused on the spoon and the little girl sitting on your thighs.

“Rosa sounded really desperate, I wanted to help. That’s what godparents are for, right?”

“I guess,” you nod. You watch him treat her so delicately and gentle, before you could even stop yourself, your thoughts wander over to imagining him be just like this with his own baby.

The thought of Harry being a dad and taking care of his baby has a weird and surprising effect on you. You imagine him doing all these everyday things like feeding her, playing with her, falling asleep on the couch with her curled up on his chest. You’d give an arm to see him like that, the vision of a curly haired little girl playing all too vividly in your mind. You see him having a girl, that’s what feels right for him. He would definitely make her feel like a princess and a total daddy’s girl.

Your eyes wander over to his arm where his tattoos are showing from under his rolled up sleeves. Surely soon enough Valerie will be coloring the many shapes and maybe one day he’ll do the same with his daughter. There’s no doubt Harry will be an amazing dad.

Realization hits you hard that how badly you want to witness all of these and it gets to your head a little too heavily, feeling your eyes tearing up a little. You need to take a few deep breaths that draws his attention to you.

“You alright?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows at you as Valerie finishes up the lasts of her meal.

“Yeah, I just… I need to start getting ready,” you say clearing your throat as Harry takes Val from you. “Feel free to stick around,” you tell him making your way to the bathroom with the sheer intention of having an ice cold shower before you lose your mind over your wandering thoughts.

Harry seemingly takes up on the offer and stays, playing with Valerie in your living room while you soak yourself in the freezing water. It helps though, you feel a lot more put together when you walk out, wrapped in your fuzzy bathrobe, your damp hair falling to your shoulders.

“Feel free to get anything from the fridge, by the way,” you tell Harry as you move into your bedroom to start getting ready.

“Thanks, but I’m alright,” he calls back. “Where are you two heading tonight?”

“Just this new Indian restaurant Marcus has been wanting to try out.”

“Sounds nice.” Harry walks into your bedroom with Valerie in his arms as you sit at your vanity and get started on your makeup. You watch him from the mirror as he slowly walks around your bedroom, just looking around, examining the framed pictures and little memories you keep on your walls, shelves and dresser.

You catch his smile when he sees the photo you and him got from Rosa and Steven, you put it next to a childhood photo of Rosa and you.

“You had braces?” he asks looking at that photo.

“For three years.”

“Well, they surely did a great job on your smile,” he teases you. You know you had a quite crooked smile back then, it was actually your idea to get braces. One insecurity off the list once they straightened your teeth, a lot more to deal with that couldn’t be fixed that easily.

Harry continues to snoop around as you do a quick, natural look, just the bare minimum. You don’t necessarily like wearing much makeup, but you like what just some mascara and blush does to your appearance. You leave the room a little to blowdry your hair and when you return, Harry is sitting on your bed, eyes watching over Valerie, who is playing with one of your pillows that has a fuzzy cover on.

You catch Harry’s eyes from time to time as you loosely braid your hair, watching yourself in the mirror. He always smiles when your eyes meet. When you’re done with everything at the vanity, you step to your small closet to find something to wear. You narrow down the choices for three dresses, but you can’t quite decide which one would be the best.

“Wear the light blue one,” Harry speaks up, grabbing your attention.

“I was thinking about that one too.”

“You wore it to dinner once a while ago. It looked great on you.”

“You remember it?” It’s a surprise he remembered since it was quite some time ago, more than a year, to be exact. You weren’t on good terms back then, but it seems like he still had an eye for the small things.

“Yeah,” he chuckles softly, his cheeks turning red again as he turns back to Valerie. You grab the dress from the hanger and go to the bathroom to change.

It’s one of the kind of dresses that just don’t let you wear a bra, but you’re fine with that, because the final look makes up for the discomfort it causes. You try your best to pull the zipper up, but your flexibility didn’t get any better through the years. A heavy sense of deja vu comes over you as you walk back to your room, holding the dress to your chest. Harry looks up at you curiously and you don’t miss how his eyes wander up and down your body.

“Could you please zip me up?”

“Sure,” he breathes out as he gets up from the bed and steps behind you.

It’s just like the day you met, you suddenly feel like it’s years ago and he is helping you zip up your bridal dress. His fingers brush against your skin the exact same way as he pulls the zipper up, and his fingertips even run over it once it’s all done, like they did back then. You wonder if he thinks the same or it’s just an irrelevant little moment to him, nothing more.

Stepping to your mirror you take a look at yourself, Harry standing a few steps behind you, his eyes taking in your look as well. For a moment you doubt this is the look you should go for, but as if Harry could feel your hesitation he steps forward and his eyes catches your gaze in the mirror.

“You look amazing. Marcus is a lucky guy.”

Turning around you smile at him breathing out your thank you.

It’s nearing seven so you quickly pack your bag and choose a coat that goes well with your dress while Harry packs Valerie’s stuff. Just when you put on a pair of white heels your phone starts ringing and Marcus’ smiling face appears on the screen.

“Hi, I’ll be right down in a second.”

“Great, see you in a bit.”

When all three of you are ready to leave you lock the door and you head down. There’s a heavy silence between the two of you in the elevator and you don’t know how to break it, but it’s almost painful.

“Call me if you are having trouble with anything,” you tell him as you walk through the hall, out of the building.

“I’m not gonna ruin your date night, but don’t worry, I had a great teacher,” he smiles at you. Marcus is parked right behind Harry’s car and he gets out seeing you walk out of the building. “Hi Marcus!” he nods in his way.

“Hey, didn’t know you were here too,” he smiles nicely and as he steps to you he presses a soft kiss to your lips.

“Just needed some help with this little Princess, but we are off. Thanks again, Y/N,” he smiles in your way as he buckles Valerie up in her seat.

“No problem.” Stepping to the car you peek inside catching Val’s attention. “Be good and don’t give Harry a hard time, okay?” you tell her and she just stares back at you with those curious eyes of hers. “See you later,” you tell Harry nodding his way before following Marcus to his car.

As you sit in the passenger seat you watch Harry start his car and drive away and suddenly you wish you were sitting in his car. Your heart is aching to spend the rest of the evening with him and Valerie.

The guilt quickly kicks in when Marcus asks about your day. You definitely shouldn’t be thinking about being with Harry instead of your boyfriend who did absolutely nothing to deserve to be thrown away.

You try your best to forget about Harry and focus on Marcus, because that’s the right thing to do.

It takes all your energy to stay present and focus on your surroundings and what’s happening to you, because every other minute you find yourself thinking what Harry and Valerie are doing right now and if everything is alright. You try to tell yourself that if something was wrong he would text or call you, but he said it himself he wouldn’t want to bother you during your date.

“Is there a specific reason why you are paying absolutely no attention to what I’m saying?”

Marcus’ voice snaps you back from your thoughts once again and you feel the heat crawling up your neck to your cheeks.

“Sorry, I just… I’ve had a tiring week.”

“You know, that’s totally fine, but you don’t seem to share it or anything without me asking about it. Is it something I do or you are just… not planning on letting me get closer to you anytime soon?” You can feel the little harshness in his tone and he has all the rights to be annoyed at you, but you still feel the need to defend yourself.

“That’s not true. I just tend to keep things to myself.”

“It’s fine, but building up a relationship kind of requires a lot of talking. I want to hear about whatever it is that’s on your mind. How else should I help you or be there for you if you keep shutting me out every time?”

“I’m sorry if it’s coming off this way, but I’m just… not used to this.”

“To what?”

“Having to always think about someone else too, not just myself. I know it sounds selfish, but I’ve been on my own for a long time, I need time to adjust to the changes.”

“You know that I wouldn’t push anything on you and that I’m gonna wait for as long as you need, but… sometimes I feel like you’re not even trying.”

“I am trying!” you snap, feeling yourself growing frustrated that he is questioning your efforts even though deep down you know he is right. “I do want to share things, it’s just…”

I don’t want to share them with you, you think to yourself and the thought makes you shudder. The worst thing is that in the back of your mind you know exactly who you want to share things with.

You shake your head with a defeated sigh. It’s a dead end and you clearly need to make a choice if you want to climb the walls and see what’s on the other side, even if it’s just another dump filled dead end, or you could just turn around and walk away with the possibility that you’ll never get to see what’s on the other side.

Part of you is struggling with opening up to Marcus because deep down you know he might not be the one for you, but the other part is violently holding onto him because… if it’s not gonna work out with him, who else will it? Marcus is everything any girl would wish for in a guy, nice, funny, good looking and caring. There is nothing you could bring up against him except that you just have this weird feeling in the back of your mind. If you can’t make it work with him, who else could you possibly try with? You constantly feel like you’re running out of time and chances. The music might still be playing and there are plenty of empty seats, but it will eventually stop and you don’t want to be the one without a seat.

Dinner cuts quite short as your little fight poisons the mood pretty fast. Clearly, Marcus is fed up because of your behavior while there’s nothing you really can or would do about it, so the drive back to your place is quiet and tension filled. He kisses you goodbye when he drops you off, but it’s more like a dry peck on the lips before you basically escape from his car.

You are quick to get rid of your dress and change into sweatpants and a hoodie, the urge to call Harry and check in on him takes over your thoughts quite fast and you find yourself calling him.

“Y/N, hey!” you hear his voice on the other end.

“Hi, how is everything going?”

“Everything is fine, I just gave her a bath, we’re gonna watch some cartoons and then I’ll try to put her to sleep. Are you already back from your date?”

In the back you can hear a shriek from Valerie and Harry coos at her, that’s followed by a giggle from her.

“Um, yeah. I…” sighing you close your eyes. You feel like an idiot, but it seems like you just can’t deal with your feelings tonight, so why not completely give up? “Can I come over?”

There’s a short pause before he answers. “Sure, of course. But is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just… I don’t want to be alone.”

“Alright. We’ll be waiting for you right here.”

You call an Uber and in thirty minutes you are walking up Harry’s driveway. The lights are on inside and the nerves you’ve been fighting on the way here feel to dissolve quite fast, as you think that he is still up, even though he told you he’d be waiting for you.

You ring the bell and just a few seconds later Harry opens the door, Valerie in his arms, now wearing a pink onesie with the hood on her head.

“Hey, come inside,” he invites you in. “Can I get you anything?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

“So,” he sighs after locking the door and turning to face you. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Is it okay if we don’t?” you ask biting into your bottom lip. You know he is probably dying to know what made you want to come over and that you probably should tell him since you are seeking shelter at his place, but you just don’t have the energy to talk about it.

“Totally fine,” Harry smiles and you return it with a quiet thank you. “I was just about to put Val down to sleep, wanna join us?”

“Sure.”

You follow him to his bedroom where the same portable bed is set up that was in your just a few months ago. Harry lays her down bringing a blanket over her as you sit next to the crip while he grabs the book Rosa packed. Harry joins you on the floor, your legs mingling as you sit facing each other and Val can see you through the sheer side of the bed.

You watch her in awe as Harry starts reading a story, Val listening to his deep voice as if she understood every word that left his lips. A few pages into the story you see her eyelids slowly close and she eventually falls asleep, her little chest rising and falling steadily.

The two of you tiptoe out of the room so you don’t wake her up.

“I’m gonna make a tea, you want one?”

“Yes please.”

You walk into his kitchen and while you sit on a stool at his kitchen island he starts the kettle and digs into his little box that’s filled with filters.

“Apple and cinnamon?” he asks, holding two filters up and you nod your head. When the water boils he fills up two mugs and throws the filters into them before placing them on the counter in front of you.

“You know, I’m a little mad you had it so easy with her,” you point it out with a smirk, making him laugh.

“I made it up with the panic at the beginning.”

“You really had nothing to worry about. You did great.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles shyly. “Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“I know you said you don’t want to talk about it, but I just need to ask. You’re not feeling down because Marcus did something to you?”

You smile at how careful and protective he is. Shaking your head you turn your gaze to the mug in front of you.

“No. It’s just…” You have to take a deep breath as you feel the tears forming in the corners of your eyes. “It’s stupid,” you breathe out shakily. Harry notices what’s going on and sliding off the stool he steps to you enveloping you into his embrace as you curl your arms around his torso and bury your face into the soft fabric of his shirt on his chest.

You really didn’t want to cry, especially not in front of him, but it’s been piling up for a while and tonight has been a little too hard for you.

“Shit, now I’ve cried in your presence twice,” you sigh with a shaky chuckle as you let go of him and wipe your cheeks.

“Actually, it’s been three times,” Harry huffs with a smirk.

“What?”

“You cried at the wedding too, when we were talking outside.”

“Amazing,” you shake your head with a bitter laugh. “I don’t even remember that.”

“No surprised, you were quite drunk by then,” he chuckles. “But it’s alright, don’t worry about it.” There’s a pause where neither of you really knows what to do or say. You feel like such a cry baby for breaking down at such a simple question, but Harry couldn’t know how deep it was digging.

“Hey,” he speaks up finally. “Wanna watch a movie? I have quite a few movies saved on Netflix that I’ve been trying to watch.”

The small smile on his lips eases your nerves almost instantly and you nod with a thankful smile. The two of you move into the living room and he puts on some kind of romantic comedy as you get comfortable on his huge L shaped couch. The movie is not the best you’ve seen, but it’s good enough to stop your racing thoughts and relax for a while.

When you know it’s nearing its end you think about if Harry will tell you to leave or let you stay. Because selfishly, you want to stay, and not just sleep on the couch. You want to sleep next to him like at Christmas. You miss what it felt like falling asleep with his arm wrapped around you and that’s exactly what you need today.

When the movie ends, you glance over at Harry who is examining the carpet, clearly thinking about something really hard, but you make the move he probably wasn’t expecting.

Boldly, you stand up and just simply walk into his bedroom where Valerie is still sleeping in peace. You climb up to his bed and make yourself comfortable under the covers, waiting for his reaction with your heart pounding against your ribcage.

You hear his tapping footsteps and you wait for him to arrive with your eyes closed. It’s just a soft huff that comes from his way when he stops at the door seeing you all curled up in his bed, but he doesn’t say a word. You hear him shuffle around a little before the mattress moves under you and he lies next to you. When he stops moving you turn around so you are facing him, only making out some of his features in the dark, but you can tell he is looking at you.

“Harry?” you whisper.

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna be a little more selfish now,” you say without any further context.

“Okay,” he breathes out, clearly curious what you meant by that, but he quickly figures it out when you move closer and cuddle to his side, laying your head to his chest. You tell yourself that it’s okay, you can be selfish sometime and just do whatever feels right. This is exactly that, just an act of selfishness because you want to be close to him, feel the warmth of his body and not feel so lost and alone for just one more night.

When you feel his arm weigh down around your shoulders, a wave of relief washes over you. Everything that’s been bothering you quickly fades and it’s just the two of you, lying in his bed in silence, but it has never felt better.

You think about how you would be okay with feeling like this every night for the rest of your life and you wouldn’t ask for more. Nothing would really matter if you could end your days like this.

But then you remember that you might be alone with this thought. That you shouldn’t let yourself get fooled just because he was there for you when you needed him. Maybe you didn’t even need him, just someone and he happened to be the closest. But you figure that’s not true, because you wouldn’t feel the same way with someone else.

You think back to when he apologized about everything he said after the wedding. He said that he was sorry and he shouldn’t have been such an ass to you, but he didn’t say he would act differently if it was to happen again. He would probably still end it right there, just in a nicer way and it makes you think that it’s all just his friendly side, nothing more.

And the thought that you are alone with this heavy and confusing feeling scares you to death, because you have no idea what you’ll do when you lose control over it.

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467 notes · View notes

direnightshade · 3 years

Text

Flight

This is just a little something I've been working on for @han-not-solo's birthday (surprise!). Thank you for allowing me to borrow Nibbles for a little cameo. I hope you have a wonderful birthday. ❤️🦉

Word Count: 2,235 Warnings: A smidge of smut but otherwise, none.

“Look at him! He’s so cute!”

The phone that you hold in your hand suddenly materializes directly in front of him, the light of the screen illuminating his face in the darkness of the bedroom the two of you lounge in. He grumbles out a ‘holy fuck’ at the abrupt brightness that’s found its way to his field of vision. In automatic response, Adam lifts his hand to grasp your wrist, prying it back away from his face, both to ease the brightness and so he can get a better look at the screen of your phone which displays your instagram feed.

“The fuck is this? A wet rat?” Of course he knows exactly what he’s looking at. This is not the first time you’ve shown him what’s currently on your phone, not to mention he isn’t fuckin’ dumb, he recognizes an owl when he sees one - even if the tiny bird is all big-eyed and soaking wet.

You scoff in reply, tugging your arm free from his grasp, the act causing a grin to spread across his face. “It’s Murray,” you reply, your tone carrying a hint of faux offense.

“Ah. Shit. Yeah, I knew that.” He waves his hand dismissively in front of himself. “He looks so different all fuckin’ wet and shit. Really does look like a rat.”

Another scoff sounds to his left where you lie and this time he can’t help but laugh, the sound loud and nasally. Beside him the mattress shifts from your movement as you roll over onto your side to face him. The screen of your phone loses its illumination as it locks itself, plunging the room into total darkness. In turn, Sackler reaches over with his hand to tug on the pull of the lamp that sits atop the nightstand to his right. The light that washes over the bedroom is a soft warm glow, quite the contrast to the blinding light of your phone. When he looks over to where you lie, he finds you looking up at him, your head propped up on one hand.

“Whaaaaat,” he asks, elongating the word unnecessarily as he so often does.

You flash him a smile and now it is his turn to scoff.

“I’d like to visit him some day,” you muse aloud before exhaling a most dramatic sigh.

Sackler watches as you flop back down onto the mattress melodramatically, his lips barely parted before he presses them together and swallows. There’s a question on the tip of his tongue, one that he’s on the verge of asking right when you speak up once more, heading him off at the pass.

“It isn’t fair, you know, you getting to fly over there for your job. Meanwhile I get left behind to babysit,” you say, pointedly eyeing a cage that sits atop the dresser at the opposite wall. As if on cue, the cage rattles with Nibbles’ movements, the sound far too loud for such a small room.

He can’t help but huff out a dry laugh, eyes rolling of their own accord when he hears your complaint. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? You bought Nipples—”

“Nibbles.”

“—not me. If it were up to me, that creepy little fucker would have been evicted the day you brought it in here.” Though he says the words, he-and you as well-know that that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s come to love the little hamster even stubbornness prevents him from admitting such a fact to you, let alone anyone else. “It likes to watch while I fuck you for Christ’s sake!”

He slides further down onto the bed, feet hanging off the edge of the mattress when he stretches out along the length of it. “It likes to watch me fuck you. I mean if that doesn’t say what kind of pervert you’ve brought into this apartment then I don’t know what does,” he says, throwing up his hands in mock defense.

The sound of your laughter wafting out into the room following his declaration elicits a small chuckle from him, though he does his damndest to bite back the smile that has threatened to form. “I mean, fuckin’ look at it,” he continues, waving a hand in the direction of the cage. “It’s looking at my dick right now!”

It’s in this moment that even you have to admit that in the low light that barely manages to illuminate the room, the sight of Nibbles standing at the front of the cage, tiny paws grasping the thin white bars and beady little eyes staring intently in your direction is a bit creepy…

“Fine,” you reply, shifting to roll off of the mattress. Adam watches with rapt attention as your naked form sashays across the small room to approach the cage.

Though you are bent over, whispering sweet little words to Nibbles, Sackler is focused solely on the sight in front of him. Your cunt - still glistening from a mixture of both yours and Adam’s cum - is on full display for him. It should come as no surprise to you after you have said your goodnights to Nibbles and covered the cage with your coat that when you turn back around to face the bed it’s only to find Sackler’s hand gliding up and down the length of his cock.

“You’re just as bad as Nibbles,” you chastise, now taking steps in the direction of the bed once more.

The muscles of Adam’s chest ripple beneath skin with the movement of his arm, and he finds that he can’t decide what part of your body he wants to look at. Every inch of you is gloriously bared to him and loves every goddamn bit of it from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. “I know,” he replies, the words shaky.

The mattress dips when you kneel on the edge, leaning forward to rest your hands atop it so that you are now on all fours facing him. “You’re a pervert.”

Your voice has lowered an octave, taking on a husky edge that has Adam groaning, his cock throbbing in his hand whilst he presses his head further back into the pillow. The comment only seems to urge him to continue, and continue he does. The room fills with the obscene sound of his hand gliding up and down his cock, his fist smacking into his pelvis with each stroke downward. “Nnngh - fuck yeah I am.”

*************

There is a giddy sense of anticipation as you slide into the passenger seat of the rental car one week following your conversation with Sackler. It had taken him all of two days to find a suitable caretaker for Nibbles, and once that had been squared away, he’d surprised you with a ticket to join him on his flight overseas. But it would seem that had not been the only surprise he’d had in store for you…

Last night as the sheen of sweat coating your still-joined bodies cooled, Sackler spilled the secret he could no longer hold in any longer.

“You know that eagle you wanted to go see?” His words are muffled by the soft mound of your breast whilst he nuzzles his face against it.

“An owl,” you correct. Though your eyes roll at his remark, a fond smile still graces your face as your fingers run through the damp strands of Adam’s hair.

“Right,” he replies, giving a quick, sharp bite to your soft, supple skin. “That’s what I said.”

Huffed laughter is expelled in immediate response to his reply which in turn causes him to do the same. “Anyfuckinway, work doesn’t start for another two days, so I have all day tomorrow to do whatever we want and I thought…”

Adam trails off, biting back the smile that’s threatened to form as he takes this opportunity to nuzzle your breasts again. “You just thought what,” you ask rather impatiently, wanting to know what exactly he’s got up his sleeve.

Sackler’s shoulders shrug, the movement jostling you slightly. He takes this opportunity to lavish your breasts with more kisses and bites, marking them up to his satisfaction until you’re imploring him to continue with his earlier remark. With a groan, he lifts himself away from you briefly in order to settle down beside you, his arms reaching for you to pull you closer to him once more.

“I thought that maybe we could go see that bird—”

“Owl,” you interject.

“—owl—I thought that maybe we could go see that owl. Gary or whatever the fuck his name was.”

“Murray,” you cry out in faux exasperation.

Adam laughs in that familiar, nasally way that he does. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m just giving you shit, Kid.”

His hand lifts to cup the back of your neck, drawing your lips down, down, down until they’re pressing to his. When your leg slings over his waist and you position yourself above him, exhaling a soft sigh as you sink down onto him, he knows that he’s done well—he knows that he’s made you happy.

Nearly three hours later, the sprawling urban landscape of London has given way to vivid green pastures and rolling hills littered with varying trees, and the skyscrapers and apartment buildings have been paired down to sleepy little villages. The soles of the boots that you wear sink down slightly in the grass of the sprawling weather lawn where the birds of prey preen and sun themselves. Nearby a Sea Eagle flaps its wings, displaying its rather impressive wingspan and dark brown coloration that contrasts with the bright white of its chest and head.

“Hooooly fuckin’ shit,” exclaims Sackler, edging closer to you, “look at the size of that thing!”

The sound of your laughter draws his attention away from the bird, causing him to swivel his head to look over at where you walk beside him. Suddenly, and without warning, a flutter of wings can be heard and out from the shadows of a nearby tree flies your entire reason for being here. Murray soars with the calm skies, flying just overhead, so close that it feels as if you can reach up and graze his little talons. The two of you turn in tandem to watch as the little owl flies directly to its handler to retrieve a tiny morsel of meat as a treat.

It all happens so quickly that Sackler barely has a moment to register that you’ve reached for him, now clasping his hand in your own. He shifts his hand in yours to lace your fingers together whilst Murray and his handler approach the two of you. Adam redirects his attention to where you stand beside him, fixated entirely on the small owl as it nears. You look happy, he thinks—perhaps the happiest you’ve been in quite some time and Sackler can’t help but feel the puff of pride that swells within his chest because he did this. He brought you here. He made your dream a reality. And that’s all he could ever want, to make you happy.

Your smile widens and the hand that isn’t holding onto Adam outstretches and it’s only then that he realizes he’s been so lost in his thoughts that he’s missed the entirety of the conversation unfolding before him. Delicately, you stroke your fingers through the feathers that cascade downward from Murray’s head, relishing with a small sound of delight as he tips his head back and closes his eyes as if to silently ask for more of the same.

“Can she hold him?”

Your head whips around quickly, eyes widening at Sackler’s request. “What?”

“Yeah,” he responds with a nonchalant shrug, shifting his gaze from you to the handler. “I thought, shit, we came all the way out here, you know? The least you can do is hold him.”

“Adam—” you begin in protest, only to be cut off by the handler.

“Actually, I can do you one better. “Put this on,” they say, holding up a spare gauntlet, “and then go stand about twenty meters away.”

Hesitantly, you reach out to take hold of the black leather gauntlet and slip it onto your arm, finding the spaces for your fingers to be a tad too large. When you look over to Adam you find that he’s smiling warmly at you.

“You heard ‘em, Kid,” he says, the smile stretching into that of a grin.

Any hesitancy you’d experienced previously flies straight out of the proverbial window as you do as you’re instructed with your arm outstretched in anticipation of an impending Murray. With the instruction of his handler, Murray pushes himself up and off of their gauntlet and once again cuts through the air with precision and speed, landing directly onto your gauntlet. It’s a sight to behold, Adam thinks, watching as your lips part and you exhale a gasp, careful not to be too loud lest you scare Murray as he settles onto your forearm. The tiny bird blinks expectantly up at you as if waiting for a treat or a pet, or any sort of reassurance that he’s done well. In the end, you gift him the latter, your fingers once again stroking the top of his head.

As you peer down at the small owl, his eyes now closed in contentment once more, you can’t help but think that this has truly been a wonderful day.

#Adam Sackler #Sackler #Sackler x Reader #Adam Sackler x Reader #han-not-solo

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lloydskywalkers · 4 years

Text

any port in a storm

Pixal and Lloyd and the evolving nature of friendship, as highlighted by the regular burning down of your city.

(desperately trying to break through writer’s block and classes again, this was supposed to be under 2k and it is...very much not hdfjkgh but! i’ve been meaning to write for Pixal and Lloyd for a while so here are a whole bunch of feelings about the two of them and s8)

Pixal meets — truly meets — Lloyd Garmadon shortly after his brother’s been blown to pieces.

She says truly, because if you ask her, Pixal will tell you she met Lloyd Garmadon at exactly 8:48 in the evening outside his father’s monastery, moments before a horde of nindroids led there by Pixal herself descended upon them.

But Lloyd argues that since they said about two words total to each other, it doesn’t really count as meeting, and by the time Pixal’s spending the better part of her day with him running high and low around Ninjago City, she’s learned that it’s easier not to press the point.

Lloyd can be stubborn, like that.

She’d first learned that when she’d met him, just after they’d lost Zane. That loss hadn’t lasted long, especially for Pixal, but the immediate aftermath of it had been devastating. She’d watched with blank eyes as the team had fractured, splitting at the seams as they all fled their separate ways, too heartsore and dizzy with grief to do much otherwise.

All of them had fled, save Lloyd. She hadn’t paid him much attention before that point, the surprisingly small bearer of the Golden Power. Of course, he wasn’t the bearer of that power anymore, but his eyes alone had shown the experience of it. There’d been a brief, lost look that had crossed his face as the others had mentioned leaving, before it had been swept under a mask of stubborn, determined blankness. He wouldn’t be leaving. Someone had to stay behind and watch out for things, he’d claimed, even as the loss had bled through his voice.

Pixal hadn’t quite grasped the concept of empathy at that point, but she’d felt something dangerously close to it.

At any rate, the only interaction they’d had alone was brief. In fact, the only one Pixal can truly remember — and her memory never fails — is the quick exchange they’d had in the hospital lobby directly after the battle. The hospital was for Mr. Borg, and for the ninja’s minor injuries.

There was nothing any hospital on earth could do for Zane.

Pixal had found herself next to Lloyd in the waiting room, trying to distract herself from those thoughts while Lloyd stared at the stark white tiling with dull eyes.

“They never mentioned what your power was,” she’d asked him, almost absently. Collecting data, processing information — anything she could do to distract from the crushing grief.

“Oh.” Lloyd had blinked, startling back into awareness. He’d suddenly looked painfully young. “It’s, ah, I guess it’s just green, now.”

It had been Pixal’s turn to blink. “Green.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd had bit his lip, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, two habits he’ll never quite lose. “I mean — it’s more than that, but it’s like — energy, I guess, is the best way to put it?”

“Interesting,” Pixal had remarked.

“Yeah.”

They’d stared at each other in silence after that, before they’d both been called off to other errands — and then they were having Zane’s funeral and then Pixal was making realizations she never got to tell anyone, and that had been that in her early introductions to Lloyd Garmadon. Quiet, awkward, and possessing an incredible power he hardly even knew the name of.

Looking back, Pixal figures her introduction hadn’t gone much better.

They’d continued as passing acquaintances as time went on, separated by danger and the confines of Zane’s head, and Pixal had figured that’s all they’d ever be. But then their Sensei goes missing and, despite Pixal’s increasing disappearances on Zane as she rebuilds her own body, she’s been given the role of watching out for Ninjago city along with Lloyd.

She quickly learns that quiet is not a term fit for Lloyd Garmadon when you’re trapped alone with him.

************

“How is there not a single station playing actual music?” Lloyd seethes, flicking through the channels almost manically. “It’s two am, who’s gonna be listening to your stupid commercial for toothpaste now, are you kidding me?”

“Statistically speaking, this is the prime time for long-distance driving near Ninjago City,” Pixal supplies, her voice a hint scratchy where it comes through the his car’s radio speakers. “Or, if you factor in the construction in the east district, there could still be traffic from late-night bars.”

Lloyd groans, thunking his head against the steering wheel as another ad screeches through the small space. “Wonderful.”

“Your vocal tones suggest you find it otherwise.”

“Dont trust ‘em, my vocal tones are traitors.” As if to solidify his point, Lloyd’s voice cracks in the middle of his sentence, shooting up an octave higher. Lloyd goes bright red, and thunks his head against the steering wheel again.

Taking pity on him, Pixal aims for reassurance. “It is normal for your voice to break, Lloyd. It shouldn’t last too long.” She pauses, momentarily scanning through another article. “On second thought, this one suggests it could also take two to three years for your voice to stabilize.”

Lloyd gives a strangled moan. “End me.”

“Unfortunately, that would defeat the purpose of why I’m here in the first place.”

Lloyd tilts his head, cracking an eye open as he glances at the camera feed he knows she’s watching him from. “Unfortunately, huh,” he muses. “So you’re saying if Zane hadn’t made you promise to look out for me, you would end me?”

“That — no, that is not — of course I wouldn’t end you,” Pixal backtracks. An odd feeling flickers through her, almost as if she’s lost her place, floundering.

Or embarrassed might be more accurate, she thinks wryly. She briefly considers projecting a a glaring face at Lloyd from the monitor. This is his fault. She rarely stuttered before Lloyd started teasing her at all hours of the morning.

“I mean, you wouldn’t be the first,” Lloyd continues, conversationally. “And if we’re being honest, I’d definitely rather you be the one to off me, instead of like, random bad guy number eighty-five—”

“I know you think you are funny,” Pixal cuts over him. “But casually planning for your death is something Kai listed I was not to let you do. Also, it is not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“Ouch,” Lloyd mutters, though he looks chastised. “Never mind, you just took me out in one sentence.”

Chastised might be the wrong term.

Pixal studies him through the monitor, then sighs. “I am, however, honored you think highly enough of me to offer the right to murder you,” she gives in.

She’s rewarded as Lloyd breaks into a bright grin.

He still looks painfully young these days, but it’s less obvious. His voice is pitching lower and he wears his hair different, and he’s gained a whip-like tendency to quip at people, as Pixal’s experienced firsthand. Kai calls it sass in grumbling but fond tones, and Nya calls it snark somewhere between the fourth book series she’s sent for Pixal to try.

The ninja have been kind like that, sharing the interests they have in an attempt to make her feel…well, more human, she supposes. Less confined to a voice in a computer. Of course, Pixal isn’t confined to a voice in a computer anymore, but they don’t know that yet. She’ll tell them someday soon, she promises herself. Any day now.

In the meantime, it’s easy enough to keep up with Lloyd by lurking in his car radio, as he spends half his time in there anyways.

************

“You’d think we’d have found their hideout by now,” Lloyd notes, as they wait in a darkened alleyway again. It gives them an excellent view of the major highways, so if the rumored biker gang does show up, they won’t miss it.

If they show up being the key point.

“Whoever their leader is, they certainly know how to keep a low profile,” Pixal answers, closing out another dead end police report in frustration.

“It’s weird,” Lloyd says, propping the notebook he’s sketching in on his knee as he squints at the paper. “Normally the boss types aren’t this quiet. They like to show off, y’know? Make a big scene, dramatic speeches and all.”

“Are you referring to the villains, or yourselves?”

“Touché,” Lloyd snorts. “But still, you gotta admit it’s weird they haven’t even made any demands. What’s their end game here, elaborate advertising for motorcycle design?”

“I would hope not,” Pixal says. “Their color coordination is lacking.”

Lloyd fights back a smile, his pencil scratching as he shifts his notebook again. “I don’t know, I kinda like the punk look.”

“I noticed that, when you tried to redecorate the car.”

“Hey, skulls are cool.”

“They are also conspicuous, especially when they come in acid green colors.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Lloyd sighs, making a face as he scrubs the eraser across the paper. Pixal tries to tilt the camera further, to see what he’s drawing tonight, but the angle he’s holding it at remains just out of sight.

She could probably guess what he’s drawing, if she tried. The notebook is one they’ve been steadily working their way through on these late-night patrols, the pages filled with little hangman games and Lloyd’s sketches of animals and his teammates. He’s drawn her a few times from memory, and she’s been tempted to ask him to draw her in the new Samurai X armor more than once.

Soon, she tells herself.

“What are you drawing?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her.

Lloyd’s cheeks tinge pink, and he quickly plasters the notebook to his chest, hiding it entirely from view. “Nothing.”

Pixal waits, letting the silence fill with her judgement. “Lloyd, I have seen your drawings before.”

He doesn’t reply, and Pixal tries again. “It gets boring, being stuck with the car monitors for eyes.”

“I know you can hack other cameras,” Lloyd mutters, but he sighs, relenting as he turns the notebook over. Pixal’s eyes rake over the detailed sketch — it’s a comical little thing of her and Lloyd, jammed together on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a darkening ocean. She can spot the smudges where he’s redrawn her head several times, and the numerous attempts he’s made at his own hair. Pixal studies Lloyd’s portrayal of himself, which is noticeably lacking in facial features. While Lloyd draws the others plenty, it’s a rare occasion that he draws himself, and she can’t help but be curious.

“I thought you were drawing the others again,” she admits.

“They’re on the ship,” Lloyd says, absently. “I’ll draw them when they remember to pull us back in.”

There’s nothing bitter in his tone to suggest it has any bearing on their actual lives, but the lost expressions Lloyd ends up giving their tiny caricatures feel familiar nonetheless.

“Zane has assured me they will be back as soon as they can,” Pixal speaks ups quietly.

Lloyd finally looks up fully, and flashes the monitor a smile. “I know,” he says. “So we better have this thing busted by the time they do, or they’ll never let us run a city on our own again.”

“If only we were truly running the city,” Pixal grumbles. “I could do a better job in two days than the current leaders could do in a year.”

“I’d vote for you,” Lloyd says, sincerely.

It’s a sweet gesture, but Pixal is unable to resist. “You don’t know how to vote.”

“Yes I do, it’s not hard!”

“Really? Then why are you not currently registered in the Ninjago voting system?”

Lloyd makes a strangled noise. “That’s a thing?”

She’s unable to keep the smugness from her voice. “I make my point.” Lloyd scowls, and scribbles a mustache on his drawing of her in revenge.

Pixal thinks it looks nice nonetheless.

************

She can’t really hold it against Lloyd for talking as much as he does, considering she does the same. It gets dull, sitting on patrol for hours on end, and there are only so many hours of light reading they can do before the silence begins to drive them both insane.

Pixal finds herself talking about more useless things with Lloyd than she has in her existence, pointless conversations in circles with each other. She also finds she doesn’t entirely mind. She’s become quite good at quipping back and forth with him, at least. It’s different than the kind of talk she has with Zane, lacking in the depth of feeling with the love they share. Her exchanges with Lloyd are lighter, though that’s not to say they’re less sincere.

For example, Zane hasn’t tried to teach her how to redesign a gi in poor lighting in the early hours of the morning because he’s bored out of his mind, that’s for sure.

“I’m teaching you how to sew,” Lloyd corrects, wincing as he accidentally stabs himself with the needle. “And I’m not redesigning the whole thing, I’m just adding some designs to spice it up.”

“I did not know you were allowed to wear colors other than green,” Pixal comments.

Lloyd pauses, squinting at the monitor. “You’re teasing me,” he finally says. “You’re making fun of how much green this gi has in it.”

“I would never,” Pixal replies, her tone flat and even. “The intricacies of your human humor evade me—”

“Human humor, nice—”

“—unlike the unusually bright shade of green you’ve chosen will fail to evade any eyes of your enemies.”

“I knew you were making fun of me!” Lloyd accuses, then flinches as he stabs his finger again trying to point at her. “And bright colors are our thing. Being subtle is, uh…not. Usually.”

Pixal is losing the battle to laugh at his expression by the minute. “I am shocked.”

Lloyd glares at the monitor, shifting his sewing to rest on his knees as he slouches in the car seat. “How’d you even get so good at sarcasm, anyways,” he mutters. “Zane still doesn’t get it half the time.”

“Perhaps it is part of my glowing personality,” Pixal says. Lloyd gives a huff of laughter, relenting.

“Fair enough,” he says, shifting in his seat again. “Fine, you win. The green is probably too bright, but that’s not the point. I’m gonna show you how to do a backstitch."

Pixal falls quiet, letting Lloyd gesture with the needle as he explains. There are a hundred, a thousand tutorials she could pull up online, digitized knowledge instantly learned on all the countless types of stitches she could use, sorted and categorized in neat columns of use and effectiveness. All of them more detailed, more easily understood than Lloyd’s absent rambling and unsteady hands as he struggles with the end of a knot.

Not one of them will care whether or not Pixal learns the odd way Zane likes to loop his stitches, or will quietly add which stitches knit skin back together quickest.

So Pixal ignores her programming, and does her best to follow Lloyd’s rambling instructions, watching as his scarred fingers tug another thread of dull gold through the green mess of fabric, the city quiet around them.

“You never did tell me where you learned how to sew,” Pixal says, as Lloyd starts up a new thread of black on the other side of the gi. “Was that something the others taught you in training?”

“They’d have to know how to be able to teach it,” Lloyd snickers. “And, uh, no. I taught myself to back at Darkley’s.”

“Oh,” Pixal falters. She’s heard about Darkley’s, both from Zane and the legal reports she’s read online. Neither gave a positive impression of the place. Her mind is suddenly filled with images of a younger Lloyd trying to give himself stitches, and her heart twists.

Lloyd starts, seemingly having picked up on her train of thought. “I mean, I did it for fun, mostly. I like sewing,” he explains. “It’s useful. You can pull things back together, and fix ‘em.”

Pixal is quiet, but she hopes Lloyd takes her silence as agreement with his motive. She likes to think he knows her well enough for that, by now.

************

Pixal finds, somewhere during their fourth month alone, that she’s glad the team elected to stick her and Lloyd together. Not because she doesn’t want to be with Zane — there’s never a moment she doesn’t miss him, and with every day that passes her resolve to keep her secret from him grows weaker, as the longing for actual connection grows stronger.

But there are conversations she can have with Lloyd that she can never have with Zane, and the dangerous thing about spending time with Lloyd, Pixal finds, is that they’re more similar than she’s realized.

“Sometimes I think I’m jealous,” Lloyd whispers to her one night. It’s one of the bad ones, the ones where their enemies struck too sudden to stop, and the mission ends in the hospital. “I think I’m jealous of Zane, and I hate myself for it.”

Pixal is quiet, trying to pick apart the tone of his voice in the words he’s just spoken, and factors in the victims they’ve just left behind at the hospital. She finds herself no closer to an answer.

“Is it the metal skin part?” she finally asks, though she knows that’s wrong. “The, what was it, technical immortality?”

“No,” Lloyd shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he says emphatically, his fingers fluttering at over the steering wheel, tapping incessantly with unspent energy. “I don’t want to, but that’s — it’s not what I’m scared of. I’m more scared of how I go out.”

He swallows, and his fingers move to dance over the woven bracelet on his wrist instead, twisting at the tiny beads and tracing senseless designs in constant, steady movement. It’s a motion he does often, and it had puzzled Pixal at first. She’d decided to write it off as an odd tick, a way to spend excess energy.

Now, she recognizes the desperate kind of reassurance that movement gives. She understands too well the need to remind yourself that you can move — that your body will obey you and you alone.

Pixal thinks back to the other factors in tonight’s accident, of the way the drugged man’s eyes had cleared when they’d finally turned him over to the police, the way he’d sworn he’d never do such a thing in his right mind. She thinks of the way the first victim had thrown themselves over their companion.

That victim hadn’t made it to the hospital.

“Ah,” Pixal says, quietly.

She’s silent again, and she thinks back to when she’d met him, the very first time. She recalls the way her programming had rebelled against her in favor of the Overlord, corrupting her body and forcing it against her, twisting everything she was and wanted to be into something different.

She thinks back again, to the searing-hot anger, the terror, the despair as she was torn apart, piece by piece like a machine, burning out at the whims of another. Her end purposeless, her demise belonging to someone else, just like every other part of her.

She thinks of the last glimpse she’d caught of Zane, bright and beautiful as a supernova. Burning with the terrible brilliance of his own, determined choice. Terrible, because the death of something always is. Beautiful, because it was his own. Zane died, not a machine, not a weapon, not a tool of anyone or anything, but as himself. Zane died to save the ones he loves. Pixal could’ve died for spare parts.

Never again, she promises herself. If she goes out, she goes out on her own terms. This time, they choose the end of their own destiny themselves.

In hindsight, it’s the kind of promise they’re both too young to make, but neither of them have ever seen themselves as such, and promises like that are easy.

“Love can be terrible, sometimes,” Lloyd murmurs. Pixal watches him scrub at the blood on his uniform, and thinks how ironically well-timed it is that he finished the stitching on his new gi this morning. “Sometimes I forget how ugly it can be.”

************

The end of their nighttime stakeouts begins with a break-in at Mr. Borg’s tower. Lloyd argues that she should get to call it her father’s tower, if she wants, but the ninja aren’t the only ones Pixal’s hiding herself from.

And then Lloyd gets very tense at the thought of fathers very fast, and they never finish the conversation.

They stay at the edge of the bridge long after the parachute, emblazoned with the unmistakable visage of Lloyd’s father, disappears from sight. Pixal wonders if it’s burned into Lloyd’s eyes, like the way she’s read black spots linger in humans’ vision after they’ve looked at something too bright. The way Lloyd stares at the river, his shoulders tense and his teeth worrying at his lip, she thinks she might be right.

They’re waiting on the report from the commissioner —they’re waiting for anything, anyone who can offer them any explanation of what’s going on. Pixal’s reminded of how much she loathes this kind of waiting.

“It could be—” Lloyd begins, then breaks off, his voice wavering. He swallows, and Pixal can see the way his fists clench tightly from the cameras they’ve put in his car. There’s a fierce part of her that longs to reveal herself, to meet his eyes herself and offer some semblance of comfort. But there’s a time and place for things, and Pixal isn’t ready.

“It could be anything,” Lloyd finally continues, his voice small. “It could — it doesn’t mean anything. It could mean nothing, right?”

Pixal is silent, her mind racing. She’s run the calculations over and over in her head already, scouring the internet for anything related to the bikers. She’s been foolish, she realizes — they both have. Letting the gang go unnamed for so long, thinking nothing of it. Now, with the name flashing vibrant across Pixal’s vision, a part of her wants to let them go nameless just a bit longer.

Before she can answer, Lloyds phone goes off with a sharp ping, just as Pixal’s sensors alert her to the message from the commissioner. Lloyd snatches for his phone like it’s on fire, and Pixal’s already scanning the message frantically, as if she can salvage this if she’s fast enough, save Lloyd from this one pain.

Lloyd’s gotten much better at reading quickly though, these days.

She can pinpoint the moment he reaches the last paragraph, because his breath hitches. There’s a long, pressing pause of silence, Lloyd’s hands trembling as they clutch weakly at his phone. Then it’s punctured by a reedy, wheezing gasp, and Pixal’s suddenly wishing she’d revealed herself after all.

Instead, all she has is her voice as Lloyd crumples, crouching over in visible distress. Pixal’s mind races, recalling everything Zane’s ever told her about his team, the way their panic manifests in different shades. Lloyd’s is quiet but desperate, rapid breathes that stutter as his eyes slide more and more into a frightening kind of blankness.

“Lloyd, please, listen to my voice,” she begs, trying to reach him in the only way she can. “Please, you have to breathe—”

“He’s gone,” Lloyd rasps, unhearing of her words. “He’s s’posed to be gone, it’s supposed to be over, I’m supposed to be done—”

Pixal fights back the sense of overwhelming helplessness. She knows loss. She knows how to finish his sentence. He’s supposed to be done grieving, done mourning, done clinging to false scraps of hope that his father isn’t lost forever only to be met with heartbreak.

And now, to be met with the possibility of something so much worse.

“We’ll stop them,” she tells him, unflinching. “We won’t let it happen.”

Lloyd’s eyes are a vivid green where they stare at her through the monitor, almost ghostly in the misting light reflecting from the river.

He’s silent, but Pixal is, too.

Pixal remembers the way her head had spun when she’d first picked up the traces of Zane in the system, how the world had rushed then steadied, flooding with color as she’d realized he might not be lost after all. She remembers the surging, overwhelming flood of joy, that someone she’d thought she lost might live after all. She remembers being so happy, at even the smallest chance to get him back, because the voice was Zane’s, without a doubt.

She watches the color seep from Lloyd’s expression as his shoulders shudder, the words from the commissioner’s message almost echoing through the air. Watches the terror as the both of them fill the silence.

Will we?

The radio scratches, as if echoing Pixal’s anxiety. Love can be terrible, sometimes. She’s underestimated how it also be so cruel.

************

She’s also, apparently, underestimated how the universe on the whole could be so cruel.

She should’ve revealed herself to them from day one. That way, when Harumi’s corrupted programming suddenly ravages through her like an electric shock, she could be reassured they’d at least be familiar with the person they were fighting.

Instead, she doesn’t even get to scream. Pixal’s only able to force out a desperate, broken warning before she’s lost again, drowning in her own body as she’s forced under. Furious panic grips her as she screams without lungs, bashing herself against the overwhelming helplessness that’s taken over her.

Not again, not again, not again—

Her limbs creak and jolt against her will, lashing out at the people she cares most about, and Pixal can’t even rage back in her own voice. She’s sworn, she’s promised herself she’d never let anyone do this to her again — she’s sworn she’d die before she let someone reach into her head and snatch control away, and yet here she is, frozen as her body’s used to target her friends.

If she could cry, she might.

There’s not much more to say than that. She breaks free, her body her own once again, but by then it’s too late.

************

If Pixal had the same gift of foresight that Zane did, maybe she would have seen it coming. Maybe she’d have remembered how similar her and Lloyd are, and that this kind of pained desperation always yields impulsiveness and mistakes.

She doesn’t, though. She barely even manages to do what she’s trying to, which is convincing Lloyd to join the others while they celebrate their victory. Their off-key singing is something he normally wouldn’t hesitate to join in on, she thinks, and she hates Harumi a little more.

Maybe she’ll try his mother next. The expression on Lloyd’s face screams unapproachable, and remains fixedly sullen.

Almost to her surprise, he meets her eyes as she draws near— it’s odd, being able to meet his back — and his own eyes are dark, from despair over Harumi or despair over his father, Pixal isn’t sure. She’s thinking it might be both, when his eyebrows crease, and a flicker of concern cuts through them instead.

“You good?”

It takes her a moment to realize why he’s asking, but the answer is obvious. Her head tilts downward, and she watches as her fingers curl and uncurl. Her movements, her choices. She lets out an even breath.

“As I can be,” she replies. Lloyd nods, and his eyes are understanding. His lips twist in a scowl.

“She shouldn’t have done that to you. That was a low blow.”

Pixal’s mouth curves into a humorless smile. “That it was. She’s rather good at those, isn’t she.”

Lloyd’s eyes shadow again, and he looks away, crossing his arms. “This isn’t supposed to be about me,” he mutters.

“Yes, it is,” Pixal counters. “It is why I came over here, in the first place. She hurt—”

“All of us, and who’s fault is that,” Lloyd snaps, his arms crossing tighter.

“I would hope you know it’s hers,” she says, holding firm.

Lloyd looks away again, biting his lip, and Pixal shifts anxiously, rolling her wrists. The sensation of control sliding away still haunts her, worse than it had the first time. She should be better than this, she tells herself hotly. She’s lived without a body long enough that losing it so briefly shouldn’t effect her this much.

Curse her programming, she thinks, tapping agitatedly at the banister. She knew she should have reinforce it sooner.

“Hey, um.” Lloyd is looking at her again, hesitant. He twists at his bracelet, and his eyes lose a fraction of that darkness. “Kai made this for me, after Morro,” he says. “I kept shredding the sleeves of my uniform, so he told me to mess with this instead, when I needed to remember that…that I was in control.”

He shrugs, hesitant. “We could make you one too, if you wanted. It helps, having something.”

Pixal lets out a steady breath, despite not actually needing to. The action is grounding, she’s found. “I would like that.”

Lloyd gives her a ghost of a smile in return. “Soon as this is over, then.”

There’s a heavy weight to his words, and Pixal’s eyes narrow.

“Lloyd,” she says. He looks at her, his eyes dark. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

He’s quiet, not meeting her eyes, and this is where Pixal should stop him. This is when she should see the end of the road they’ve been on since they started this, and force him to turn before it’s too late.

“I know what I’m doing.”

She doesn’t.

************

Lloyd is battered and bleeding by the time they drag him onto the ship, a gruesome portrait of cruelty. Pixal is frozen as she watches him writhe in Kai’s hold, his screams cracked and wet as he thrashes erratically like a broken thing.

Nya is already barking orders before they’ve even gotten Lloyd fully on the ship, and Zane is running scans with a horrified, wavering focus. Pixal follows Cole as he carries Lloyd to the medbay with a blank numbness, the rush of wind streaming past the Bounty sails thunderously loud in her ears.

This isn’t Lloyd, she thinks, staring at his crumpled form. Lloyd isn’t this battered, broken shell of a person. Lloyd isn’t hazy eyes that fail to recognize them and frantic murmuring through bloody lips. Lloyd is bright-eyed and gentle and would rather die before he screams the way he does when Cole moves him to the table.

Lloyd is her friend, and this is where that promise they made has led them. She knows why Lloyd set out for the prison, hot on the collapse of his own star. She also knows he wouldn’t have chosen to burn out like this.

Cole calls out for Zane, his voice ringing in panic as Lloyd screeches in pain again. Pixal thinks of quiet words in the safety of his car, and she feels sick. This is the ugliness of love, the terrible, hideous side of it.

And Lloyd would hate it, if he could see himself, if he were any semblance of lucid. He’d hate to know just how much better he was at breaking himself than Morro ever was.

Zane is gentle as he pushes past her, but Pixal can feel the tremble in his hands. He’s every bit as rattled as she is, if not more so — Zane’s heart is larger and softer than hers has ever been, and he cares about each and every one of them with a painful intensity. It’s a cruel thing, to have to pull those same people back together with your own hands.

Kai’s eyes are streaming as he clutches at Lloyd’s wrists, pinning him in place. Zane’s hands waver again over one of the jagged wounds near Lloyd’s ribcage, the green of his uniform already dyed dark in blood, soaking over the careful stitches Pixal watched him put in himself.

Pixal finally finds her footing, reminding herself of the solid wood beneath her feet. She recalls the steady, smooth stitch Lloyd’s scarred fingers traced out for her.

“Here.” She takes the needle from Zane’s hands, squeezing his briefly before letting go. “I can do it.”

She sets the needle against Lloyd’s skin and wonders what kind of stitch it’d take to pull your heart back together.

************

Pixal cannot cry. It’s one of the features Mr. Borg spent hours debating, weighing the pros and cons of giving her the ability before he was truly sure how rust-proof she was. He’d never gotten the chance to, as the Overlord had interrupted him, then Pixal had lost any body to give the ability to cry to, which had eliminated the need entirely.

She cannot cry, but she can hurt, and the rain that streams through her hair, dripping down her forehead spotting raindrops on her cheeks, could be tears if she pretended.

She doesn’t, though, because tears are a waste of water and overall useless in the grand scheme of things. She doubts they’d have helped her fare any better in the battle with Colossi, either.

Tears won’t bring anyone back.

Lloyd cries anyways. She can’t see him, but she can hear it in his voice, the way it wavers and breaks over the radio, nasally tones pronounced.

He’s barely able to gasp a few coordinates to her before he cuts the radio off abruptly. Pixal’s spent enough time with him to envision his scarred fingers snapping it off with a particular desperation, green sparking from his hands in distress.

She reminds herself those sparks are gone, now, bled away into nothing like the vivid green of Lloyd’s eyes had. The thought makes her sadder than she’d expected. She had a joke, about his eyes, she had wanted to make. Now that she has a body, and her own set of glowing green eyes, she’d — there was something he would’ve laughed at, she thought —

It doesn’t matter, now. Neither of them are likely to laugh anytime soon.

The coordinates blink brightly in her vision, and she’s almost surprised she managed to key them in. She’s running on autopilot, she supposes. It could be ironic — she’s been so desperate for control, it’s been so important that she’s the one feeling. Now, she’d give anything not to feel at all.

She lets out a shaky breath, dispelling the mist in her vision left from the rain. She leans forward, just over the edge of the building she’s crouched on, and her loose hair falls forward, silvery and synthetic and horribly tangled. Irritated, she reaches for another hair tie, and her hands falter around her wrist.

Lloyd had promised her a bracelet there. But he’d promised Kai would make the bracelet, hadn’t he, and Kai couldn’t make the bracelet if he was dead, could he.

Pixal blinks, her breath hitching. She’s been so numb to the pain of Zane’s loss, it hasn’t yet occurred to her that she’s losing Kai, too. And Jay, and Cole, and—

She sucks in the same shuddery kind of breath she’s seen Lloyd do, and carefully fists her hand in the area of her uniform above her chest. Her fingers dig in tightly, clutching in a hopeless attempt to feel some sort of comfort she knows she’ll never find.

But perhaps, for these few seconds, she can pretend the action is holding her together.

************

“It was inevitable,” Pixal tells Lloyd blankly, as he rasps out his third apology in the dark cover of their small hideout. “That one of us would fall, eventually. It had nothing to do with you.”

Lloyd swallows thickly. “It could’ve — it should’ve been—”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. Pixal’s hand shoots out, clamping tightly around his wrist, and there’s a beat of gratitude that she doesn’t need to rely on her voice alone anymore.

“Don’t.” Her voice is strung tighter than the tension in their shoulders. “You cannot change anything. You can’t, Lloyd, and you should not wish to — to change it that way.”

Lloyd jerks his hand free, wiping miserably at his eyes. He sets it back down within her reach, though, and if Pixal were any different, she’d take it.

But Pixal isn’t that different from Lloyd at all in the end, and neither of them reach for the other’s hand, no matter how desperately they crave the contact. Fear is more familiar, and it’s easier to give into it than it is the clawing need for comfort in your chest, after all.

“Still,” Lloyd finally whispers. “Still.”

Pixal swallows. She doesn’t disagree. If one of them had to fall, she knows she gladly would have taken it upon herself. She knows the others care for her, certainly, but she also knows her place in the grand scheme of things. They were six before she came along, and even now she’s kept far too many secrets to be fully counted among them.

She listens to Lloyd’s quiet, cracked voice, and she wonders if he’s thinking that they were five before he came along, younger than Pixal got to know him as.

Now they’re three, hollow and heartbroken. Though counting herself as one whole feels like cheating, right now.

Pixal squeezes her eyes shut, and wonders what it’s like to cry. Perhaps it helps, though Lloyd doesn’t look any less miserable.

************

“I was thinking,” Lloyd tells her, during one of the precious few quiet moments they have while trying to overthrow Garmadon and Harumi. Pixal’s turning the tiny tea flower he’d given her over in her hands, a part of her mind already marking articles about flower-pressing, another part wondering if it’s already too late to save the blossom. “About that promise we made, before all this.”

Pixal finally tucks the flower into the pocket of her uniform, pressed close to her chest. If anything, it can be a reminder of the lives that are safe — the life that’s coming back to her, if she has to drag him back from another realm herself. “And?”

Lloyd’s hands twist together. “Maybe we should focus more on staying alive.”

Pixal coughs out a laugh, breathless and startled. Lloyd wrinkles his nose at her, but his eyes are amused, even with their light lost. “I mean, the emphasis would be on keeping everyone else alive, but it’s kinda hard to do that if we’re dead, so…yeah. Priorities.”

“Staying alive should always be a priority,” Pixal corrects him, but she tugs the edge of his armor out of place with a smile.

“Why didn’t you teach me how to graffiti?” she nods at the designs on the green leather. “Or was this another Darkley’s tradition.”

“This is a refined art, called whatever I had on me that showed up on dark green,” Lloyd grumbles, fixing his armor. “I’ll teach it to you when we get out of this.”

“Another reason why staying alive would be a more productive focus,” Pixal points out. “I’ve heard teaching is easier when you’re alive.”

“And I’ve heard you’re a real riot,” Lloyd mutters. “It’s a promise, okay? I promise to teach you how to do cool armor design if you promise not to disappear into another realm on me.”

Pixal nods, adjusting her own armor tighter as screams ring out from a street nearby. “A promise, then.”

She keeps both the promise and the flower, the tiny blossom dried and faded by the time she’s escaped from the prison, heart racing with leftover adrenaline as Zane sweeps her into his arms. She clutches back every bit as tight, listening to his breathless laughter as cheers rise from the streets behind them, the smoke drifting across the early morning sky above them pale against the lightening blue. Pixal buries her face in his shoulder and breathes, tucking the moment away in her heart where it won’t fade. There’s a future stretching out before her, and she’s got the limbs to walk her path on her own, but all she wants right now is the steady ground beneath her feet and the bright laughter of what she’s managed to keep.

Lloyd meets them shortly after, his own promise kept as he tears his gaze from his father, handing him off to the authorities before sprinting for the others. Pixal barely snags a moment alone with him, and even then no one’s particularly keen on letting him out of their sights.

He meets her eyes as they pick their way through the wrecked streets, the city more alive around them than it’s been in weeks. In the dark of the early morning, Pixal’s eyes glow a bright green, reflecting oddly in the windows they pass. It’s always been her preferred color, in contrast to Zane’s bright blue. Lloyd glances at her, his own eerily green eyes glowing back. He bites his lip, but it’s to hold back real laughter this time.

“My eyes were green first,” she tells him.

“Sue me,” he shoots back, before Kai’s throwing an arm over his shoulders again, tucking Lloyd neatly in between him and Nya. Pixal smothers a laugh at the look on his face, and tightens her own arm further where it’s linked firmly in Zane’s.

It’s going to be an easy promise to keep, she thinks.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd #pixal #there was a point to this but it got lost in pix and lloyd do arts and crafts #either way i'd die for both these characters #ninjago where is the pixal love i miss her #my fic

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kmomof4 · 3 years

Text

CS AU- Coming to Storybrooke (1/5)

It’s FINALLY here!!!!!! I’ve only been talking about this fic for over a YEAR!!! I’m so excited to finally share it with all of you!!!

I have to acknowledge and send all the love and internet hugs to all those who helped me with this fic. I can truly say that I would have given up on it LONG AGO without them.

First to @hollyethecurious. She was my brainstorming partner and never-ending fount of encouragement. She pulled me back from the brink of deleting this fic entirely so many times. So when I say that this fic wouldn’t be here without her, I’m not exaggerating.

Second to @profdanglaisstuff. The best beta in the world!!!! Her suggestions and insights make this writing business so much better! Thank you, babe!

And finally to all the ladies on the @captainswanmoviemarathon discord. Y’all’s encouragement and sprinting dates helped keep me motivated and got me over the finish line.

This fic is a S1 Canon Divergence, sort of, inspired by the 1988 Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America. It is complete with five chapters and I’ll be updating every Saturday.

Fic Summary: Prince Killian of the Enchanted Forest refuses to marry the woman that his brother has chosen for him, so he travels to Storybrooke in the Land Without Magic to find his own bride.

Rating: T for some strong language

Words: Ch1 2224 of 18K Total

Tags: S1 Canon Divergence, Inspired by Coming to America, Neal is an idiot, romantic fluff

AO3 Link

Tag LIst: @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @snowbellewells @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @jennjenn615 @kingofmyheart14 @profdanglaisstuff @branlovestowrite @thisonesatellite @ultraluckycatnd @flslp87 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @let-it-raines @shireness-says @kymbersmith-90 @darkcolinodonorgasm @bethacaciakay @searchingwardrobes @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @aprilqueen84 @qualitycoffeethings @superchocovian @artistic-writer @donteattheappleshook @doodlelolly0910 @seriouslyhooked @tiganasummertree @lfh1226-linda @nikkiemms @xsajx @klynn-stormz @jrob64 @wefoundloveunderthelight @zaharadessert @elizabeethan @xhookswenchx @gingerpolyglot @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @sailtoafarawayland @justanother-unluckysoul @veryverynotgoodwrites @jonesfandomfanatic @deckerstarblanche

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

Under the cut unless Tumblr ate it

Ch1

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” David whispered, awestruck.

Tears filled his eyes as he looked through the door at his other True Love. The little girl sat cross legged on the bed and slowly turned a page of the book in front of her.

David stared, dumbfounded, as a firm resolve filled him.

“We can’t waste another second,” he stated, vehemently. “We can’t wait another second.” He took a step toward the door when Snow’s softly spoken wait stopped him. “What? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at his wife.

Her eyes were glued to their daughter until they skittered away to their surroundings and the door in front of them. Anywhere but at him.

“We can’t go through there.”

David was stunned, incredulity coloring his features. “Snow, we have to.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “If we go through that door, Emma will never become the savior.”

He turned back to the open door. To his daughter. He was heartbroken. He knew exactly what Snow was thinking. If they went through that door, they condemned their subjects, their friends, their family, to live under Regina’s curse, separated from their own loved ones, forever. But that couldn’t be true. Rumplestiltskin said to keep the child safe and she would return on her 28th birthday. No mention was made about the circumstances of her return, only that she would.

“She’ll have a new destiny.” He looked at Snow again. “With us. We will teach her. We will tell her everything. And when her 28th birthday arrives, we’ll all come back and she will break the curse.”

Snow’s tear filled eyes finally turned to him. “How do you know?”

“This family finds each other. We’ve found each other,” he said, taking her hands. He tilted his head slightly toward the open door, “We’ve found Emma. We will find the rest of our family when it’s time for her to break the curse.”

He saw the moment doubt was swallowed up by hope in her eyes. With a small nod and a smile, they turned and walked through the door.

Together.

~*~*~*~

18 years later

Emma Swan sat in the back seat of the family SUV with her brother Leo as they sped through the backwoods of rural Maine toward an uncertain and possibly perilous future. It was her 28th birthday and it was the day that her parents had been preparing her for ever since they came through the closet door to claim her so long ago.

The scenery outside her window went hazy around the edges as she got lost in the memory of the first time she met her parents. She hadn’t been frightened when these two strangers entered her bedroom through her closet door. Something about them seemed familiar. She knew in her marrow that she could trust them and when the woman fell to her knees with tears in her eyes, her arms open wide, and calling her name, Emma hadn’t hesitated to run into them. She rose to her feet with Emma held tightly in her arms, sobbing into her hair and placing kisses all over her face. Emma only caught snippets of what the woman was saying, but the words I’m your mom, I love you, we’ll never leave you, we’ll always be together sent Emma’s heart soaring. It was exactly what this little lost girl had always longed to hear. The man wrapped one arm around them both and cupped the back of her head with the other. She had never felt so safe and loved in all her life.

Now all these years later, it was time to fulfill her destiny. It wasn’t long after their reunion that they settled in Portland, Maine and her parents told her a story. A story through the pages of the book that her mother had brought through the door with her. A story that was more than just a fantasy. It was true. All of it. It was their story. It was her story. The story of where she came from… and what she was meant to do. Beginning with the day she was born, her parents told her why they had to get her to safety. How Doc of the Seven Dwarves delivered her only minutes before her father placed her in the magical wardrobe and the queen’s curse swept over the land. From there, they told her the true story of how Snow White and Prince Charming met and fell in love - very different from the Disney version - her mother’s history with the Evil Queen and how her father came to be in the position to even meet his True Love. She’d become intimately familiar with all the true stories in the book as she grew up, first her, then her brother Leo, and now it was time for her to save them all. She had to admit to being rather nervous about it. It was one thing to hear the story from her parents and believe it because of how young she was and because she trusted them. But it was entirely different to be a grown woman and solely responsible for bringing back all the happy endings for real people that her parents knew and loved. She was about to see everything from the storybook come to life.

Suddenly, her mother’s excited voice from the front seat roused her from her musings.

“There it is, David!” she exclaimed. “The town line!”

“I see it, I see it,” he replied.

Moments later, they crossed the town line and a chill passed over Emma’s entire body before something exploded out of her that nearly made her dad lose control of the car.

“What the hell was that?” Emma cried as her mom and brother shouted in alarm. She reached toward Leo’s shoulder while her other hand tried to find purchase on the door handle as her dad brought the car back under control. She looked out the window and saw a white shimmering something traveling across the sky toward the town. She saw her mom, dad, and brother craning their necks to see it too.

“I think…” her mom began, “that you just broke the curse, honey.”

“That’s it?” she asked, incredulous. “Just crossing the town line? That was all it took?”

“Apparently so,” her dad answered. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t still have to be on our guard.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened and his brow furrowed. “We don’t know what we’re going to find when we get to town. Regina and the Dark One are presumably still here somewhere.”

Silence reigned as they continued to drive toward the center of town in the direction of the white blast. A few minutes later, they turned onto the main street of the small town. Filling the street in front of them, people were laughing and hugging each other in reunions that were 28 years overdue. Her dad slammed on the brakes as her mom cried out, her hands flying to her mouth.

“Ruby! Granny!” She bolted from the car and ran toward a leggy brunette and older matronly woman. Emma could see the surprised joy on their faces as they turned and ran toward her mother. Emma and Leo got out slowly as their dad ran toward his wife as she embraced the two women. They approached the reunited and happy foursome just as seven men got their mom’s attention. Wide grins broke out on Emma and Leo’s faces as realization came over them. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Emma could hear her mom’s sobs as she tried to embrace them all at once. Once she’d finished greeting her dearest and oldest friends, her mom turned toward them.

“Everyone,” she began, “these are our children.” Her mom motioned them closer. “Emma and Leo.” Her brother suddenly looked quite different from the brash and bold teenager she knew. He looked equal parts dumbfounded and like he’d like to melt into the ground. Her father didn’t miss a beat. He grabbed his son’s shoulder and started introducing him individually to the dwarves, placing his arm around him.

“Emma?” asked Granny, drawing her attention again. “The Savior?” The old woman took steps toward Emma and tenderly cupped her face with her hands before kissing her on the cheek and drawing her into a hug. Emma knew the elderly woman from the storybook, but to be held in her arms in love and acceptance was nearly as good as the hug she received from her parents when they came for her.

“Papa,” another man further up the street shouted. He ran toward an older man that was walking toward the group with the aid of a cane.

The man turned, his face infused with disbelieving joy as the cane dropped and he took a hesitant step toward the other man. “Bae?”

Emma could feel the tears forming in her eyes as the men embraced each other. She had done this. She was the savior and she had given all these people the happy endings that the Evil Queen had taken away all because she refused to place the blame for the death of her love where it truly belonged. She turned back toward the crowd again as more reunions were taking place. She saw her parents embracing a red haired man with a dalmatian. Jiminy Cricket, she remembered.

Just at that moment, a joyous cry reached their ears and they all turned toward the sound. A young woman with wild brown hair and wearing nothing more than a dirty white shift ran toward the still embracing men as she launched herself into the older man’s arms and kissed him. A rainbow blast burst from them startling everyone gathered. They separated as the blast flew through the air and yet also concentrated around the man. The young woman’s eyes grew wide as the rainbow light grew brighter and brighter around him before finally fading away to nothing. The man had tears running down his cheeks as he reached for the young woman again. Emma watched her melt into his arms and could just hear him murmur, “Belle. It’s gone. You saved me.” The kiss they shared made Emma’s cheeks flame as she turned toward her dad.

“Huh,” he said. “Rumplestiltskin has a True Love. Who would have thought that?”

The couple separated again and the man she now knew was Rumplestiltskin, the practitioner of the darkest magic in the realm, the man that she had always thought of as the puppet master, since he seemed to have a part in every single story in the book, gathered both the young woman and the younger man to him as the three made their way toward their own group.

“Dark One,” her dad greeted the man with a curt nod.

“No more,” he answered, raising his chin just a bit. “Belle’s True Love’s Kiss just destroyed the Darkness. With my son here, I was ready to let go of the Darkness and find my happiness with my family beside me.”

Then a stately woman in a nun’s habit approached them.

“Your highnesses,” she began with a bow, “the curse is indeed broken. As is the Darkness that made the Dark One.”

Her dad reached out and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Blue,” he said. “Thank you.” He turned back toward the crowd and raised his voice in an exuberant shout. “The curse is broken and the Darkness is no more!” The gathered crowd cheered along with him. Emma wiped away her tears and met the eyes of the man that had embraced the former Dark One. His eyes twinkled as he grinned broadly at her. She felt her heart rate increase and cheeks flush again as she turned her eyes back toward her parents.

It was moments later when she felt a presence at her back. She turned around and found herself captured by a pair of laughing brown eyes.

“Neal,” he said, holding his hand out for her to shake. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as if a sudden headache had come over him. “Baelfire. Neal Cassidy was my cursed name. But you can call me whatever you want.” He smiled again.

She took his hand and smiled back. “Emma,” she replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Neal.”

She could see her mom and brother over Neal’s shoulder exchange a stern and sheepish look. She knew that Leo, at 17, would love nothing more than to tease her about the man in front of her, but thankfully, their mother caught his eye before he could. She rolled her eyes at them before directing her attention back to him.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, “for uh, breaking the curse.” She couldn’t help but smile wider at his clumsy attempts to make small talk.

“You’re welcome?” she answered, with a shrug. “I mean, I didn’t really do anything, just crossed the town line…” she trailed away.

“But, I m-mean,” he stammered, “it was more than that. You…” he shrugged helplessly, apparently at a loss for what to say next. “Listen,” he said, brightening, “Could I show you around town? Maybe buy you a cup of coffee?”

Emma grinned widely. “I’d like that.” She looped her arm through his and he led her away from the rest of the crowd.

#coming to storybrooke #krystal writes #ch1 #inspired by coming to america #cs ff

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