#I thought about making the prompts I missed after I finished everything else but I missed making aesthetics so why not | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mieczyslawsravenclaw · 2 months

Text

Eidetic Memory Be Damned -Spencer Reid

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

•Pairing - Spencer Reid x FemFBIAgent!Reader

•Rating - 18+, Minors DNI - Smut - NSFW!!!

•Summary/Prompt - Spencer is tired of only having the memory of you to enjoy during his spicy times , so he just has to intrude into your hotel room after a case is finished…

•Warnings/Content - p in the v unprotected (hey kids- DONT DO IT) ; cursing ; Spence loves to beg to nut in you and does so ; creampie ; some pain play? (just a lil hand on the throat dealio and some hair pulling) ; LOTS of praise on both sides (good boy, pretty girl, etc) ; very mf horny lol ; (basically they do just about everything from first base to last bestie slay)

•Word Count - 3.3k

•Authorʼs Note(s) - Iʼm so mf rusty at writing smut so this is probs not the best, I just wanted to write some Spencer spice cause I had a spicy dream about him lmao RIP >_< Also this'll be my first official post of my writing on Tumblr slayyyyy

•Additional Tags - Switch!Spencer , Switch!Reader , Spencer is a needy brat LMAO , Team has ‘no ideaʼ you two are hooking up (Be so mf fr they do) , Good aftercare is so valid , Spencer loves being cuffed and teased muahaha

As much as this last case had taken out of me, I was more than happy to get to spend some time in my hotel room while the jet refueled and everyone got their bearings. Itʼs not home - far from it, Iʼd been missing my own bed for the majority of our time here in whatever state it was now - but at least it was something.

But of course, the reprieve wouldnʼt last long - a sharp knock on my door confirmed that, about 20 minutes after Iʼd laid down to sleep.

“What…ˮ I groan, frustratedly looking over at the clock.

The knock, again, more persistent this time. And I recognize its pattern now, three short tap-taps. Spencer.

My heartbeat, despite my minor annoyance at being woken up, is hammering now. Spencer seems to do that to me, from the moment Iʼd realized I have feelings for him, carrying into whatever it is that we are now. Secret trysts that Iʼm sure are no secret to our team members, especially Garcia, because sheʼd pried it out of me almost immediately and now waits in her dark little room with nothing else but excitement for the latest updates on us, it seems.

“Are you awake?ˮ A gentle but still much-too-loud voice asks.

I tumble out of bed, rushing to the door. I donʼt even have time to make sure I look okay - Iʼm much too worried about anyone else hearing him. The door is unlocked and pulled open in record time, a stunned lanky man quickly and semi-quietly forced inside.

“Spence, someoneʼs gonna hear you if you keep on like that.ˮ I chastise him, shutting and locking the door behind us. No sooner have I done so, than his lithe form overtakes me, nestling into the crook of my neck with a groan that seems both relieved and not relieved at all.

“Donʼt care,ˮ He pushes me back, until my legs meet the mattress and fold. Quickly following on top of me, he sighs, “Been too long. I miss you. You know I have an eidetic memory, yeah? Doesnʼt mean shit when Iʼm up late and even thoughts of you arenʼt enough to keep me satiated.ˮ

“Someoneʼs gonna-ˮ Hear, I want to say. He knows, of course he does. And Iʼm only half-complaining, with his lips at my neck and his leg sneaking up between mine the way he also knows.

“Donʼt care.ˮ He repeats, the low moan at the back of his throat breaking through into the silent room. “I told you I miss you. Should I tell you about what I use my memory for? And just how much that hasnʼt been enough lately? Or should I show you?ˮ

Itʼs clearly a rhetorical question, but still, he seeks the permission I am more than happy to grant.

“Tell me. Uh, show me. I mean-ˮ

“I can do both,ˮ Even in the dark, I know heʼs got that matter of fact smirk on his lips. He reaches down, holding me by the hip with one hand while the other slips into my pajamas, a practiced motion heʼs all too good at by now. “Usually this is what I remember first. The way your skin feels, how nice it is to make you tremble beneath my touch.ˮ

I buck up, and he chuckles.

“All too eager, arenʼt you? Clearly youʼve been thinking about it too, huh, pretty girl?ˮ A pointed question he knows Iʼll struggle to answer, with his hand and his voice torturing me so.

“No eid- identical- uh, no memory recall whatever for me.ˮ

“Still wouldnʼt satiate, I bet.ˮ He remarks, casually rubbing circles and patterns over my panties. This is how he operates, surely and with no warning. A gentle but firm kiss to my jaw, and he continues, “Itʼs like that for me, at least. I know no amount of recalling how you feel under me will be enough to match just how nice it is.ˮ

Heʼs right, and of course he is; I can barely handle the teasing, the tone his voice has taken in this short amount of time. And I currently dont care if weʼre heard, either.

“Spence-ˮ

“What is it, sweetheart? Too much for you? Not enough?ˮ

“Please?ˮ

“Words, honey. Youʼve gotta use your words. Or you can show me, Iʼm okay withthat too.ˮ He guides my hand down to his.

“More.ˮ I plead, working to undress myself before his hands take over.

“You only have to ask.ˮ

True to his word, Spencer pulls the fabric away, no longer allowing it to be a block between us. Itʼs lost somewhere in the sheets as he kisses me, his practiced hands no longer in the mood to tease. He slips a finger in, and when I let out a keening whine, another, his free hand going automatically to my mouth.

“Now as much as I say I donʼt care, youʼve gotta be a little quiet for me,ˮ He goads, knowing this will only make it harder for me to do so. His breath is hot in my ear, his fingers working a motion thatʼs both breaking pent up weeks old frustration, and yet causing more tension in my belly. “Much as I love your voice. Your sounds. The-ˮ

I rut up against him, my lips opening around his thumb. He works it into my mouth, his voice lowering even further.

“Cmon, show me how much you missed me, huh, princess?ˮ

I moan, words lost in my mind as it spins. Every tug of his fingers between my thighs is building a high Iʼm chasing, and when I get to this point, Iʼm not talking - he is. And he knows it, knows the right words to say to build and break me.

“This is what Iʼm after, this is what I canʼt just remember. Because itʼs all too much to remember how good it feels to destroy you.ˮ

Please, please. I canʼt hold off much longer.

“Now are you gonna cum for me, sweetheart?ˮ

I nod, lips opening and letting his hand free from my mouth as my breaths grow heavy. “Canʼt - Please, Spence, please-ˮ

He presses me further into the mattress, murmuring sweet and dirty nothings into my ear as the dam breaks and I ride my high. Iʼm far too sensitive following, and when I try to push him away for a moment, allow myself to collect some sort of reprieve before we continue, he chuckles lowly.

“See, I can recall that clear as day. But itʼs so much sweeter to have it happening in front of me, you know?ˮ He nestles in beside me, turning me to face him.

Nigh immediately, Iʼm reaching for his belt buckle. Of course he wouldnʼt have changed into comfortable clothes, not even this late- Iʼm sure this was his plan all along, and he tried to fight it as long as he could.

“Someoneʼs eager.ˮ He quips, the smirk growing.

“Youʼve got me thinking about it,ˮ I sigh, letting him maneuver himself out of the constricting clothing. “Coming over and getting me all hot and bothered. I really ought to…ˮ

“Ought to what?ˮ He goads, pulling me onto him with a low noise as we brush together. “Hmm? Are you gonna say…you ought to punish me?ˮ

I nod, rubbing back against him. He lets out a moan, hands gripping my hips tighter.

“I remember how that feels,ˮ He pulls me closer, voice dropping. “But for your sake, maybe you should refresh me.ˮ

When he reaches for me again, I pull back, pinning his hands down above his head. I know he could get out of it if he really wanted to - Iʼm strong, but not stronger than him - but he most certainly doesnʼt want to get out of it. And Iʼm enjoying it far too much to stop myself now.

“Whatʼre you gonna do, cuff me?ˮ He snaps, the bratty attitude far too practiced and already making me a soaking mess.

“I might.ˮ I reach for my pair, knowing all too well that heʼll absolutely lose it once I let go on him. I can hardly stand the anticipation. “Scared, Reid?ˮ

“Terrified. Please, donʼt. Iʼve been a good boy, I swear.ˮ

I push him back while he pleads, tightening the metal around his wrists. The look on his face, muffled as it is by the darkness of the room, is more than enough to spur me on.

“Not thinking about this at all, huh?ˮ I shed my top, if only for the knowledge that his inability to reach for my breasts drives him utterly insane. “And Iʼm sure you havenʼt spent many late nights with the memory of me riding you, have you? Havenʼt had your hands on that pretty cock of yours, thinking about how it feels when itʼs me, yeah?ˮ

“N-Not at all.ˮ

“Itʼs a shame, then.ˮ I tease, feeling him harden beneath me with every word. “Iʼll have to make you confess, I suppose.ˮ

His eyes follow my every move as I back up, slotting between his legs and bending down to kiss along his hips.

“Youʼll never get it out of me.ˮ He groans.

“Is that a promise or a challenge?ˮ I ask, not breaking eye contact as I place a kiss on his sensitive head.

“Challenge? Would I…challenge you?ˮ He still holds onto a moment of sanity, until I take him in my mouth, and itʼs lost with a sigh of, “Oh, would I.ˮ

I bob my head, my practiced motions coming in handy now. The usually-full-of- remarks Spencer Reid folds under my touch, soft deep moans and babble of confessions and wish I could pull your hair passing his lips while I work him out.

After a few moments of this, I let him free - at least from the torture of my lips.

“Where are you going? Please, I wanna cum for you, Iʼll tell you everything I did while I couldnʼt stand to wait for you.ˮ He keens.

“Oh, Iʼm far from done with you, Spence.ˮ I slowly, agonizingly slowly, climb back on top of him, making sure to back right up against him as he tightens against the cuffs. “Donʼt you worry, Iʼll have every measly confession pouring from you. You know I will.ˮ

“Please, let me out- Gotta touch you, I just gotta-ˮ

“Shh, be good for me, wonʼt you?ˮ I lift myself over his face, pressing my folds to his lips. “Unless you wanna stay in those forever.ˮ

He shakes his head, vibrating a ‘noʼ against me.

“Good. Now youʼre gonna pay your dues and clean up the mess youʼve made.ˮ

Eagerly, he laps at me like heʼs never had it before. His utter submissiveness overwhelms him, letting me ride his face to my hearts content. Words are muffled and entirely lost in it, and I know by now that the sounds Iʼm making alone will be heard, but I donʼt really care. Iʼm too far gone in how good it feels to finally have him making me cum again.

“Can I touch you now?ˮ

I slide back onto him, teasingly letting myself rest with just the edge of him pressing into my folds.

“Can you?ˮ I look pointedly at his wrists.

“I-oh, my god, clearly not, but-ˮ

“How about this?ˮ I amend. “You give me a confession, you get a reward. Sound fair?ˮ

“Yeah, sounds just fine. I couldnʼt get off without coming here, you realize that, donʼt you? Youʼre the only thing that gets me off anymo-Oh-ˮ His confession is cut short as I slide him a bit further in, just enough to spur him further. “I mean, I get off, donʼt get me wrong here. But nothing feels as good as when itʼs with you. Nothing.ˮ

“Keep going, youʼre doing good.ˮ I praise, sinking a bit deeper.

“Goddamn you feel so good.ˮ He moans. “Like, my hands canʼt even come close to this, are you kidding? I can try all I want, and believe me, I have - Oh, my god, please donʼt stop - Iʼve been trying all the time, I admit that, canʼt hardly stand being around you and not being able to just fuck you whenever I want.ˮ

I push down further, the stretch he gives me loosing my own moan. “How much do you wanna fuck me, Spence? Tell me, please.ˮ

“God, all the time. Itʼs all I can think about when I get down to it - baby, can I please touch you now?ˮ

“Punishment is a bitch, isnʼt it, Reid?ˮ I smirk, starting to push him in and out of me, slowly and with a devious grin that falters at just how damn good it is.

“Baby, Iʼm gonna get outta these and fuck you so good-ˮ

“Try it.ˮ I raise an eyebrow, stopping my motions.

“Oh- No, Iʼm sorry, please donʼt stop. Iʼll be good, I promise.ˮ

“Yeah, you will.ˮ I drop as far as I can take him, savoring the stuttered animalistic groan he lets out as I press down onto him, pulling his hair and moving my hips around him. As he is want to do, heʼs thrusting up into me, even if heʼs unable to reach me with his hands held up as they are. “Eager, sweet boy. Iʼm gonna ruin you.ˮ

And ruin him, I do. The tension and heat in my belly rides and breaks several times, with him unable to form real words except for the continuous begging of please donʼt stop repeated on a loop until I feel Iʼm satisfied with his demeanor.

Once Iʼve tortured him enough, I reach for the cuffs, ready to let him off the leash - knowing that once I do, the balance will shift. Truthfully, Iʼm just eager to let him be true to his word and fuck me like heʼs been dying to.

“You donʼt need any more confessions from me, then?ˮ He huffs, sweat slicked across his brow from the effort of holding back - though heʼs not really done so, has he?

“One last one, I suppose.ˮ I pull off of him, and the pout he gives nearly makes me sit right back down on him again.

“Alright, Iʼll be good and honest with you, then.ˮ He continues while I set to unlocking the cuffs, “You know the other day, just after we got the final piece of evidence put together?ˮ

I nod.

ˮI was so psyched, I couldʼve taken you right there. I donʼt care that everyone would have known, would have seen. Itʼs just something you do to me.ˮ He finishes, his tone light. Oh boy, Iʼm about to get railed. “I love you. And now Iʼm gonna fuck you like Iʼve been wanting to for weeks.ˮ

No sooner is he free, tearing off the shirt he was wearing and looming over me with the hungriest of looks at my body before pressing himself into me. No wait, no teasing - heʼs not got the control for it, clearly, and Iʼm not complaining one bit.

“Next time, you get the cuffs, pretty girl.ˮ He promises, his hands all over my body now that he can manage it. Hard, precise thrusts, his voice heavy and fucked-out.

“And Iʼll show you just what Iʼve been wanting to do that Iʼm gonna savor in my mind after.ˮ

My nails are leaving deep trails in his back, surely leading to marks that would raise questions if anyone else saw. Heʼs so far in me, almost bottomed out, and itʼs almost too much and yet not enough all at once. I pull him closer, and his hand tangles in my hair while the other clasps around my throat.

“Youʼre all mine.ˮ Spencer growls - truly, thereʼs not other word for it, the purely animal drive taking him to a world where itʼs just us, just this. And Iʼm there too, crying out with the ecstasy his body causes my own.

“All yours.ˮ

“Thatʼs right, pretty girl. Say it for me, I wanna hear you say it.ˮ

“Iʼm all yours, Spence- oh, my god-ˮ

“Good, thatʼs good. My pretty girl. Youʼre so tight, you feel so good wrapped around me, donʼt you? God, what a sight.ˮ Here he is, in his rambles now, and I can hardly contain how close I am. “Wanna tell everyone this is mine. Iʼm the only one that gets to have you, gets to fuck you like this. See you break for me. Only me.ˮ

“Only you, Spence, only you-ˮ

“Cʼmon, I know youʼre close, I can feel it. You get so much tighter, god, if itʼs even possible-ˮ

“Spencer-ˮ

“Thatʼs my girl, cum for me.ˮ

“Donʼt stop-ˮ I can feel the cord in me ready to snap, chasing my most intense orgasm of the night with his words and the feeling of him slamming so deep inside me. “More, Spence, you can give me more-ˮ

“Sweet girl, of course, I know you can handle it.ˮ He pushes himself fully in, my breath catching at the slight pain, yet itʼs still so good, I canʼt stop it, I donʼt want to. “Want me to fuck you so good with all of me, donʼt you?ˮ

I nod against his grasp, and he loosens it a bit, kissing me fervently.

“Please, please cum for me, I wanna feel you all over me, beautiful.ˮ He reaches down, his thumb rubbing circles on my clit. Itʼs the last thing I need to send me over that edge, and I cry out, his name slipping past my lips unwarranted. “Oh, baby, love how you say my name. Like itʼs a prayer, like Iʼm a god.ˮ

“Donʼt stop, Spence-ˮ

“Iʼm close, baby- Oh, I wanna cum in you-ˮ

Another orgasm follows near immediately after this one, and Iʼm grasping at him while heʼs chasing his own, his hands fumbling and his thrusts getting sloppy. He grips the sheets, his breaths stunted.

“Cum in me, please-ˮ

“Iʼm gonna, god, Iʼm so fuckinʼ close-ˮ He tightens around me, muscles shaking as he lets loose, and now itʼs his turn to moan my name a lot louder than he should while he cums. Heʼs so pretty when he does, too - the crease that works between his brows, the round pucker to his lips. Partly through, he kisses me, hard. And when heʼs done, his grip loosens, falling slack on top of me with a contented sigh.

A few moments pass where he just holds me, peppering soft kisses across my face and telling me you did such a good job, baby. Then, he pops up with a smile and comes back with water and a towel, cleaning up after himself.

“Satisfied?ˮ I chuckle, slowly pulling my clothes back on.

“Almost.ˮ He dips his head down, capturing a nipple in his mouth for a few moments. I groan, overstimulated, but still too happy to appease him. “Now, Iʼm satisfied. Iʼm staying in here, okay? Donʼt care if someone sees at this point.ˮ

“Spence?ˮ

“Mmhm?ˮ

“I love you, too.ˮ

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader #sub!spencer reid

1K notes · View notes

greynatomy · 8 months

Text

Right Person, Wrong Time

Trinity Rodman x Reader

This was so fun to write honestly. Thank you to @deynacastellonaswife for the request and prompt. I hope I wrote to your expectations.

Also haven’t wrote a fic with over 1,000 words in a long time so that felt nice.

If you like this, please let me know!

-grey

———

You were standing in the middle of your apartment, figuring out what you should take with you to London, and what you can get rid of. You didn’t realize how much stuff you had until it was all laid out in front of you.

You’ve received many offers from plenty NWSL teams and many abroad, but when Arsenal put in an offer, it was one you couldn’t refuse. You decided to not finish college and go straight into playing what you love. You’ve always been a fan of Arsenal, watching the likes of Leah Williamson, Caitlin Foord, Alex Scott and so much more.

You know you wouldn’t stay in London permanently because you’d be homesick and missing your family. You’d also be missing your girlfriend of two years, not being ready for long distance at all.

You were so far into your own head that you barely heard someone ringing your doorbell and knocking on your door. Opening it, you smile at the sight of your girlfriend, but it quickly disappearing after seeing tears running down her face.

“Hey, hey. What’s wrong?” You try pulling her into your arms, but she pushes past you into your apartment. You close the door behind you and follow after her.

“I-I-I need to talk to you.”

“Okay. About what.”

“I don’t-I don’t really know how to say this, but I-I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” You try to reach out for her, only for her to pull away, hurt showing on your face.

“You’re going all the way to England and I’m staying here and I-I don’t want you to go.”

“I thought we talked about this Trin?”

“We did, but thinking about it more, I don’t want to hold you back, tie you down. You’ve always wanted to play for Arsenal.”

“You’re not tying me down babe.”

“My decision is final. Focus on your career, I’ll get drafted here and maybe we’ll still see each other sometime.”

“You won’t even talk to me while I’m there? I could be there for years. I can’t just not talk to you.”

“You’re an amazing player. You’ll do amazing there, so focus on that, don’t worry about me. Maybe we’ll come back together in the future, but now is not our time.”

“You’re sure about this?” Your bottom lip trembles, trapping it between your teeth to make it stop.

“I am.”

“You’re younger than me but so much wiser, I swear.” You can’t help but let out a small laugh, Trinity letting one out too.

“I love you and I can’t wait to see how you play with them.”

“Can I have one last kiss?”

She doesn’t reposed but grabs both sides of your head, smashing her lips to yours. You wrap your arms around her waist, holding tight, not wanting to let go.

‘Right person, wrong time’, you thought.

———

Here you are now, January 2023, in a similar situation three years before. Having packed all the essentials and must haves into boxes and suitcases and sent some off to be shipped to your new apartment.

After three years in London, playing for Arsenal, truly making a name for yourself, it was time to go back home. You’ve requested a transfer and your managers and teammates were very supportive of you.

You’ve already said your goodbyes to everyone, especially to Leah and Caitlin who’ve taken you under their wing, with lots of tears shed, you’re off to the airport for a long journey home.

———

Trinity Rodman, a star player for the Washington Spirit and the US Women’s National Team, got ready for practice like normal. But today was a little more exciting. Newly drafted and signed players are arriving for their first practice with the Spirit.

Arriving at the stadium, she went straight into the locker room to get her gear on, many of her teammates joining her. Gathering everything she needs, she heads to the field with everybody else. Their head coach, Mark, asks them all to gather around, to welcome all the new players.

“Now, we do have one more person, but she seems to be a lit—”

“—I’m here! I’m here! Sorry for being late!” You come running towards them, gear in your hands, shirt only halfway on.

Trinity froze. She hasn’t heard your voice in such a long time. She didn’t know if she should go up to you, but her body decided for her, not being able to move from her place, looking at the ground.

“Right. This is Y/n Y/ln. Wanna introduce yourself?” He gestures to you.

“Right. Uh, again, my names Y/n and I played in Arsenal and now I play here. I’m twenty-three and I’m a CM.”

“Well, good to have you here. Now let’s start practice.”

The whole practice, Trinity was distracted. She couldn’t get her foot on the ball properly, even missing some open shots. Her friends/teammates notice her distracted, but decided to talk to her after practice.

She found herself staring at you. Some times you would catch her eye, her turning away just as quickly. It was weird seeing you after all this time. It was extremely awkward too because she wanted to just be wrapped up in your arms like you did years ago.

Practice ended, Trinity rushes to the locker room grabbing her stuff and leaving, not bothering to use the showers there like she always does.

You, on the other hand, try to look for Trinity, rushing into the locker room to see if she’s still here. Unfortunately, you just missed her.

“What’s got you looking stressed?” Ashley asks you.

“Nothing. Nothing. Just probably still jet lagged or something.”

“Alright. Let me know if you need anything.”

Needing to cool down, you hop into the showers, taking a cold shower. You didn’t know what kind of reaction you could’ve gotten from Trinity after not seeing you for a long time, but it definitely wasn’t her ignoring you and practically running away from you. Quickly getting dressed, you look for Ashley.

“Hey, do you happen to know where Trinity lives?”

———

Trinity was not chilling on the couch, watching her favorite show when there was a knock on her door. She looks through the peephole, not expecting to see you standing outside. She didn’t know if she should open the door for you or not, opting to stay silent.

“Trin, come on, I know you’re there looking through the hole. Let me in, please.” You sounded so desperate for her to answer.

Giving in she opens the door, moving aside to let you in.

“What do you wanna talk about?” “Why are you ignoring me?” You both asked at the same time.

“You first.”

“Why are you ignoring me?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You practically ran away after practice. Couldn’t even catch up with you!”

“I-I didn’t know if I could still talk to you. You’ve been gone for years and it’s not the same anymore!”

“‘Cause you told me not to talk to you when I left. Said to focus on me when all I wanted was to tell you whenever some good, something great happened in my life, but you blocked me!”

“Because if I didn’t I would be calling you.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You we’re with me. If I hear your voice and you’re not near me I’m gonna cry and I’ve cried for so long already.” Her voice breaks, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

You close the space between you and wrapped your arms around her. She tries punching and punching you away, but you hold on tighter, not wanting to let go.

“I’m not leaving you ever again, you hear me?” You voice muffled into her hair.

She finally wraps her arms around your waist, holding tight as if you’d disappear.

“Don’t leave me again.”

You gently grab her face with both of your hands, looking into her eyes. “I’m with you. I’m staying. Wherever you go, I go. You’re it for me.”

She leans her face up to yours and kisses you passionately, missing the feeling of your lips on hers.

She pulls away, mumbling into your lips, “You’re it for me too.”

Now is our time

#trinity rodman #trinity rodman x reader #woso x reader #greynatomy #woso #uswnt x reader #woso imagines #uswnt #uswnt imagines #trinity rodman imagines #woso imagine

178 notes · View notes

toxic3mmy · 2 months

Note

hii! i hope this isn’t going against boundaries as it is a little angsty, but could you do a fic where the reader is going through a depressive episode and alex tries his best to help them? love ur writing!

of course! i struggle with mental health and love this request idea!

(also, im sorry if this feels repetitive from my other works!! please feel free to leave more requests my lovelies! <33 )

prompt: alex helps you through a depressive episode

warning: mention of depression, sh, and scars

________________________________________

it had been three weeks. alex had been trying to get a hold of you for the entirety of this time and had no luck except for a few texts from you. he was really beginning to worry.

was she in trouble? did something bad happen? is she in the hospital? is she just very busy with life?

alex didn’t know, but what he did know was that it had been long enough since he last saw you.

you were stuck in a terrible loop. wake up around 3pm, watch the show you were hyper fixated on, toss and turn in your bed, eat some snacks, and sleep around 5am. repeat the cycle again and again. sometimes you just laid there and thought about how much you hated life. sometimes you cried and cried for hours at a time. and sometimes, when your head was too full of resentment and hate towards yourself, you would drag your trusty blade across your scarred skin and felt the immense relief as the blood dripped from your self inflicted wounds.

you knew it was an issue. you knew you really were not okay. and most of all, you knew that you could never show this side of yourself to alex. he wouldn’t understand any of it and he most likely would abandon you like everyone else in your life had.

but a huge part of you wanted to see him. maybe seeing him would snap you out of this depressive loop. but maybe not, who knows.

alex had made his way to your house and he waited outside. he tried calling you one last time before making his move.

you watched your phone screen light up with alex’s face as you let it ring. you missed him, you really did. but you wanted to watch your show in peace. so you waited for the call to finish and continued to lay in bed, feeling sleep take over your body.

alex saw his missed call as a sign. he put his phone away and grabbed your extra key hidden inside your pink flower pot on the porch. he unlocked your door and slowly made his way inside. as he turned around from closing the door, he noticed the mess. it was an absolute mess everywhere. he knew how tidy you loved to keep your home so it was confirmed now that something was definitely wrong.

he creeped closer to your room and after opening the door, he noticed you must have drifted off to sleep while watching something on your phone. he looked around your room and saw that your room was in worse condition than the house. takeout food was lying around on the floor, dirty dishes, empty cups and dirty laundry had collected all over the room. the floor wasn’t even visible at this point.

alex knew exactly what this was. you had fallen into a depressive episode. but why didn’t you tell him about this sooner?

he brushed aside the questions and took off his jacket. he then began to pick up any trash he could find without waking you. he took all dirty dishes into the kitchen sink and washed them all. then he put all the littered clothing into your washer and began to wash them. he swept and mopped your room and was genuinely surprised that you had yet to wake up from all his movement.

he cleaned the rest of the house without hesitation. he knew this was probably the least he could do for you right now and he wanted to do anything he could for you.

it took him a few hours but he’d finally gotten everything done when he realized he forgot to clean a few things in your room. he walked in and abruptly stopped in his tracks the moment he met your wide eyes.

“alex…. what are you doing here? i can’t have you here right now i-i don’t want you here! i don’t want you to see me like this.. why are you here?! who told you that you could just break into my house and—and” you let out the most heartbreaking sobs as you broke down right then and there

alex rushed over to you and immediately enveloped you in his strong arms. you were quick to push him off of you, still crying.

“alex i haven’t showered in almost two weeks! i smell awful and look even worse! can’t you see that i don’t want you here!”

alex began to tear up as he simply held you in his arms once again.

“shh, it’s okay sweetheart. ya no llores corazón. i’m here, okay? i know you’re going through a lot right now and i’m here by your side no matter what. i missed you y/n. i’ve missed you so much. i just want you to be okay..”

you began to cry even more when he said these things to you.

“are you sure you’re okay seeing me like this? i… i’m doing really bad and this is all so embarrassing—”

alex sighed,

“princesa, you have no reason to be embarrassed with me. i’m your best friend. i love you and i always will. i want to take care of you, if that’s okay?”

you didn’t know what to say. you were so so grateful for him, for everything. all you could do was nod as tears silently fell down your face.

alex held your hand and led you into your newly cleaned bathroom. he grabbed your favorite hair brush and let your hair down from its messy bun. he softly brushed out all the knots in your long hair. he then handed you your toothbrush with toothpaste on it. although you felt a bit embarrassed still, alex had a way of being so nonchalant that it made the embarrassment lift off of your shoulders. you brushed your teeth as he finished off detangling your hair.

once you both finished, he played a soft playlist on his phone to fill the silence and began to take off his shoes and his tee shirt.

you couldn’t help but laugh with reddened cheeks as you covered your eyes with your hands.

alex playfully threw his shirt at you.

“hey! what are you doing?” you laughed, uncovering your eyes slowly

“i’m showering with you, duhh. now come on y/n, don’t let me make a fool of myself alone!” he laughed as he turned on the shower and then walked towards you.

his warm hands held you by the hips and your breath was caught in your throat as he slowly began to undress you.

“is this.. okay?” alex whispered to you as his hands stopped at the hem of your pants.

“yeah, yes it’s okay. i trust you.”

and with that alex undressed the two of you and helped you into the steamy shower. as the water ran down your body, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. while you began to soap up your body, alex approached you and once again asked if he could come in. you laughed and pulled him into the shower with you.

you spent the remainder of the shower washing one another’s hair and body in the most innocent way possible. when you both finished, alex got towels for the both of you and he rummaged through your closet to find you some comfortable clothes. he also found some clothes you’d stolen from him and extra stuff he’d left at your house from weeks ago. the two of you got dressed in silence until you spoke up.

“alex… i really want to thank you. i really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me. i haven’t really been feeling that well lately. i um, i couldn’t leave my bed for so long. i feel too tired to even take care of myself or to do anything at all. i’m really sorry you had to see me like this…”

“y/n, please don’t apologize. you have nothing to apologize for. you’re only human. and even if you’re struggling with things that i may not completely understand, i’m never going to leave your side. one thing i did want to ask about was um… the scars on your arms and your thighs. have you always struggled with self harm? i… i hate to see you hurting yourself in this way. your beautiful skin…” he said as he held your hands in his

“i… don’t know how else to cope. i know it’s not okay to do but it brings me comfort, as morbid as it may sound. i’m sorry alex… i really am. i promise you that i’ll make an appointment with my therapist. i might have um ghosted her a few weeks ago but i think it would be best to reach out to her for help. i didn’t want to at first but i know you want the best for me and id do anything for you alexis” you were crying again but alex was quick to dry your eyes with his hands

he held your arms out and kissed the ragged red lines across your arms. he kissed every last one, and you couldn’t help but smile sadly at him.

“y/n, let me take care of you okay?”

“even if i get bad like this again?”

“yes y/n, i don’t plan on leaving your side. i’m here now okay? i’m here hermosa”

you waited in your bedroom doorway as alex changed your bedding to clean sheets and a clean blanket. you were so incredibly lucky and thankful to have him here with you. when he finished, he laid you down and followed suit.

“when was the last time you ate?”

“probably yesterday.. well technically yesterday but all i had was a soda and some fruit.”

“would you like me to cook something for you? or maybe i could pick up some food?”

“you really don’t have to do that, you’ve already done so much for me i mean look at this house! it’s spotless and i don’t know how to even thank you for that..”

“don’t worry about that. are you hungry, yes or no?”

you nodded sheepishly

“okay, then give me like twenty minutes and i’ll be right back”

and with that, alex left you alone to get you some food. the moment you were by yourself, you couldn’t help but sob uncontrollably. it was all too much too soon. you weren’t ready to get better. you just wanted to be alone and you wanted to rot away in your bed with no one to bother you.

as these negative thoughts began to surface in your mind, your thoughts immediately switched to images of your shiny little friend that was hiding in your bathroom. you went to retrieve your favorite sharp blade and rolled up your sleeve. you stared at the red healing cuts on your arm and you suddenly remembered alex.

he was kissing your scars and asking if he could take care of you. you didn’t want to disappoint him. as much as you wanted to stay unwell, you didn’t want to do that to him. you stood up and flushed the blade down the toilet. you took a second to walk around your house and admire all that alex had done for you.

you sat in your living room and turned on the tv while waiting for his return.

as promised, twenty minutes had passed and alex walked into your house with some dinner for the two of you.

“honey! i’m home!” he laughed at his own joke as you playfully rolled your eyes at him

“hi… i missed you” you surprised alex with a tight hug

“woah, is everything okay y/n?”

“yeah, now that you’re here everything is perfect”

and the two of you talked over dinner. you thanked alex profusely for everything he’d done. he said it was no big deal, that he enjoyed taking care of you. and that was the end of that. the rest of the day consisted mostly of alex being very cuddly and sweet to you. but you didn’t mind it at all. the two of you simply enjoyed being together and everything felt okay in that moment.

#alex quackity #alexis quackity #quackity #quackity x reader

59 notes · View notes

httpsdana · 11 months

Note

Alejandro Balde 130 🙏🙏 he’s so underrated

Clingy~Alejandro Balde

*GIF isn't mine. credits to the owner*

Another Ale request cause why not 😙

you can request from my prompt list

this is my master list

players/drivers I write for

130-"Are you planned to stay glued to my side the whole day?"

y/n's job at the club of Barcelona was pretty simple but tiring at the same time. She was Xavi's assist. Always following him around in the training sessions and in the locker rooms and around the stadium

But the best thing she loves about her job was the fact that she met Alejandro through it. They had a few disagreements when they first met, but after they hit it off, they realized that they felt attracted to each other. Soon enough they started dated, of course without Xavi knowing. Pedri, Gavi, Ansu and Ferran were a few of the only people that knew about them.

They didn't mind Xavi knowing, but they didn't want him to scold them about how unprofessional what they did was.

The season was coming to an end as the team has a few more games only.

y/n was gathering some papers from her desk, taking them to Xavi so he can sign them, when Ale appeared through the door.

"holaaa mi amorr" he sang, his hands behind his back as he slowly walked into the room. He stood behind her, while she still didn't look at him focusing on the papers in her hands, he put his arms around her waist, placing his face in the crook of her neck, with small kisses ob her neck

y/n gently pushed him away when she finished organizing the papers for Xavi. Alejandro whined, when she didn't spare him a single glance

"Ale I have to give those to Xavi to sign, then I'm supposed to be planning the next team meeting. and aren't you supposed to be in training?" she started walking, knowing he's gonna follow her either way

"well coach gave us a 15 minutes break so I thought I'd come and see you, but clearly the feeling isn't mutual" he said in an annoyed voice, while y/n chuckled

"I told you we're not supposed to see each other a lot. The staff won't hesitate to tell Xavi if they sensed something between us" she was speed walking now, afraid she won't find Xavi

" who cares? Its not like he cares if we're dating" he said, making y/n stop dead in her tracks

"I care Alejandro. I live from the money I make from this job, so please stop with the reckless behavior or else I might get fired" she started walking again, Alejandro still walking behind her too

"you know I wouldn't let that happen" he said, waving at the people who greeted him while passing by

"yes I know but you also can't do anything about it if it happened" she waved at Xavi to get his attention as he appeared in her sight

She ran to him with the papers in her hands, Alejandro too running behind her

"you've got to sign those, and then read this at home and give us your opinion. its about everything related to the new and future signings" she said

Xavi signed the papers quickly before he noticed Alejandro behind y/n

"the 15 minutes are over. Go back to the feild Balde" he said, nodding his head towards the team

"um actually I'm feeling a bit nauseous and I was wondering if I could leave early today?" he asked, making y/n look at him suspiciously as he was doing just fine a few minutes ago

"yeah yeah whatever. get a good sleep and take a visit to the doctor. we're winning the league tomorrow" Xavi said before walking away

y/n looked at Ale with an annoyed look, while he gave her a cheeky grin. She started walking back to her office and Ale was trailing behind her like a puppy

"Are you planned to stay glued to my side the whole day?" she asked as she noticed his presence behind her

They entered the room, y/n sitting down on the small couch she had while Alejandro locked the door

"yeah. I missed you all day and all you did was ignore me" he pouted, a desperate tone evident in his voice

y/n looked up from her laptop at his pouty face. She closed the laptop and smiled at him, as his face lit up.

She patted her lap, Alejandro lying down and placing his head on her lap, while she ran her fingers through his curls

"I missed you too love. but you know how much my job means to me and how afraid am I to lose it. how about making it up for you by dinner at mine tonight?" she suggested causing Ale to grin widely

"I'd love that thank you honey. now gimme a kiss" he puckered his lips at her. She smiled and leaned down towards him, pecking his lips a few times before settling them on each other for a while

260 notes · View notes

imaginesfordifferentfandoms · 1 year

Text

Back To December

Click here for my masterlist.

Click here to add yourself to my taglist.

Prompt - 'So this is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you saying I’m sorry for that night.’

You felt like you could hardly sit still as you sat at a small table furthest away from the door, trying to get the most amount of privacy for the conversation that was to come. Outside the window snow fell down and you rubbed your hands together, both out of nerves and in an attempt to warm them up.

You had played and replayed how this conversation was going to go a million times over in your head, planned what to say only to scrap each idea as nothing you came up with felt good enough.

The drink you had ordered had been placed on your table only seconds before the bell jingled to announce the door opening and you barely had time to thank the waitress before your mouth went dry. As much as you wanted this conversation, as grateful as you were for it, there was another part of you that wanted to run away.

But you couldn’t run away again, not when you were being given a second chance, even if it was only to have one last conversation before living the rest of your life with regrets over what could've been.

You watched as he scanned the rooms, cheeks red from the cold, before his eyes landed on you. You hated the tension clearly readable even from across the room and how he seemed to have to force his feet to make their way over to you.

“Hi.” He greeted softly, his voice sending an ache through you and you had to force yourself to swallow past the lump in your throat as he sat in the seat across from you.

“Hey,” Your voice was just as soft as his was, if a little more obviously shaky. “Thank you for coming, I’m so glad you made time to see me.”

“Yeah, well, I,” Buck started before he trailed off and shook his head. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.” You told him with a small smile, meaning it with every part of you. It had only been two or so weeks since you had last seen him but you had missed him more than words could say. “How is everything? How’s the 118, I haven’t seen them since-” You cut yourself off, neither you or Buck needing you to finish that sentence.

“Things are good, work’s busy but I guess it always is more hectic around the holidays.” He smiled and even though it didn’t meet his eyes you were so glad to see it. “Everyone else is good, Christopher misses you.”

“I miss him too.” Breaking up with Buck was bad but it wasn’t just him you had lost, you had lost the friendship you had made with his friends. You didn’t blame any of them for cutting you off, they were his friends first and would always be in his corner before yours but you missed them all so much.

“How’ve you been?” Buck asked and you couldn’t stop the frown that pulled at your lips because truth be told you hadn’t been great but you wouldn’t tell Buck that, not when it was your fault you were having sleepless night after sleepless night, replaying the same scene, the same conversation, over in your head a million times. You spent nights crying when the memories of weekend trips invaded your mind, summer adventures where Buck drove and you sat at his side, watching him laugh as the two of you sung loudly to the radio, remembered the nights tucked against his chest with his arms wrapped around you and feeling safer than you had ever felt in your whole life.

“I’m okay.” Was about as much as you could muster up and Buck glanced away from you for only a moment before his focus was back on you. The lump in your throat was back and you forced it down, as well as the stinging you felt in the back of your eyes.

The small talk was painful to both of you, the reason why you were here hanging heavily in the air but you were still desperately trying to think of the right thing to say. Buck’s guard was so obviously up and for good reason to. You’d hurt him, you knew he had been hurt before, left behind without a second thought and you had done the same to him.

How could you tell him the reason when you didn’t fully understand why you had done it yourself? How could you tell him that you had panicked, that he had been so perfect, so incredible, always thoughtful, always putting you first, how could you tell him that it was so serious that it had scared you.

Part of you knew he would have understood if you had handled it better, if you had sat him down and told him that this was the most serious relationship you’d ever had, that you loved him more than anything and that terrified you. For some reason you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to do that though, to handle it maturely and take a breath, instead you had walked away in a panic only to regret it every day since.

Buck had every reason to keep his distance now, he had every reason not to show up at all but you were glad he had. You loved him so much and if you ever had a second chance with the man you would never take it for granted.

You shifted in your seat, sitting up straighter and wrapped your hands around your mug just for something to do with them. The lump in your throat seemed to be stuck there but you took another breath and forced yourself to address the reason you had asked Buck to come here.

No part of you was expecting him to take you back but you at least owed him an explanation. People were good at leaving Buck without one and after all the goodness and kindness he had treated you with he at least deserved a reason, he deserved to not spend anymore nights blaming himself and wondering what had gone wrong.

“I’m sorry,” you began and watched as Buck sat up straighter too, his eyes wide and sad as he looked at you and you felt your heart ache. “I’m sorry for that night, Buck. I regret it more than I’ve regretted anything.”

“Why?” Was all Buck was able to choke out and seeing the tears in his eyes made yours sting.

“I wish there was a good reason, Buck. I wish I could tell you something that doesn’t sound as pathetic as the truth.” You told him, voice cracking as you spoke and your grip on the mug tightened.

“Just tell me, Y/N/N, I need to know because I have spent every night agonising over what I did wrong.” He forced out, a single tear sliding down his cheek but he made no move to wipe it away. “I thought we were good.”

“We were, Buck. I promise you, if you don’t believe anything else I say believe this, you were perfect. You were so much more that I could ever ask for, so much more than I deserve and it terrified me. It terrified me Buck because I have never felt this way about anyone in my whole life and I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I love you Buck, I love you so much and I’m not saying this to win you back, I know I hurt you and that, that is unforgivable because you were nothing but amazing and you didn’t deserve me walking out on you and for that, Buck, I am so sorry.” By the end of the short speech tears were sliding down both your cheeks and you were glad you had sat at the back in the far corner of the room, grateful for the privacy.

“Y/N,” Buck whispered but couldn’t seem to say anything else and you smiled at him, a smile filled with sadness and regret.

“I’m so, so sorry, Buck.” You repeated shakily, “I said this wasn’t me trying to get you back and I meant that but I have spent every night since that night regretting not just talking to you, every night missing you more than anything. If I could go back and change it, go back and just talk to you, God Buck, I'd do it in a heartbeat and I’d understand you never wanting to see me again, to walk away and be done with me-”

“I love you too, Y/N/N.” Buck told you softly, cutting off whatever you were going to say next and you were glad for the interruption both because you had no idea what you were actually saying, the words just falling out of you, but also because you got to hear Buck tell you he loved you for the first time. “I love you so much and trust me I was scared too, hell Bobby and Eddie can tell you how many nights I kept them up talking about it so I get it, I just wished you’d talked to me before leaving.”

The two of you were sat with tears falling down your cheeks, looking at one another with love, sadness, hope, as well a whole mix of other emotions. Despite not knowing what was going to happen, for the first time since you’d left Buck you felt like you could breathe again, like the weight that had been sitting on your chest for weeks was finally gone and you couldn’t help but smile at Buck.

“I wish I could change how I handled it.” You told him softly and he just smiled back at you, reaching across the table and gently pried your hand off the mug to wrap in his hand, his thumb brushing gently against your knuckles.

“Promise me that next time you’ll just talk to me, Y/N. I can’t handle you walking away again.” Buck told you and your eyebrows knitted together before his words fully registered and your eyes widened.

“Next time? Buck I-”

“You were scared and overwhelmed and didn’t know how to handle it. I told you I get it but we have to talk about these things, I don’t want to lose you.” Buck cut you off and you couldn’t help but smile at his words even as more tears filled your eyes.

“I promise, Buck.” You told him sincerely, still in disbelief that he was so open to fixing things, to not holding your mistake against you.

God, you loved him so much.

“Good because these last few weeks have been hell.” He laughed even as a few more tears slid down his cheeks. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Buck.” You said softly and the two of you just sat there for a moment longer, unable to look away from each other, unable to stop smiling as you did.

You might not have been able to go back in time, back to that first week of December where you had walked out of Buck’s apartment with tears sliding down your cheeks, but somehow you were here now with Buck, Buck who had the biggest heart you knew, Buck who would bend over backwards to help anyone, Buck who had the capacity to forgive no matter how many times he got hurt.

You swore to yourself as you squeezed the hand still holding yours that you would never take him for granted, would never let another day go by you don’t tell him you loved him, would never mess up your second chance with Buck.

______

Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley Taglist /

New character - use the taglist to add yourself!

528 notes · View notes

illicitlimerence-writes · 1 year

Text

guiding lights | m. verstappen

pairing: max verstappen x singer!actress!reader word count: 1.7k words request: nope, at least i don’t think so. prompt: putting up decorations ⎯ “wow… that’s… a lot of lights.” from this prompt list. not my prompts, credits to the person who created it! warnings: allusions to sex, language, idk what else a/n: am i ready to jump back into a month-long challenge? nope, but i will try my best. i have tomorrow’s fic ready but i’m not too sure i’ll be able to complete this lol. friendly reminder that my requests are closed!

my masterlist / this is part of the 'superheroes and flat caps' series. find all the parts here! / 25 days of christmas masterlist

she sighed, dropping her luggage once she opened the door, leaning her weight against it to close it as she entered her home. the house was cold, and dark. not even the light in the kitchen was on, which dropped her spirits a little.

it was officially the start of her winter holidays, max’s had started a week prior, -technically two, but he’d had other events that first week - which meant he’d been all alone in their house for a week, bored out of his mind with no company or distractions other than his simulator, netflix, or their daily videochats.

during those last ones, she’d insisted he visited some of his friends, or invited them into their new home, but he refused, said she was supposed to be there to welcome guests, too. it was their first official home, and max couldn’t take all the credit for scoring such a great place like that. their new house was big, spacious, without being too much. she’d drawn a line when the real estate agent showed them a house with not one but two jaccuzis, in the backyard, besides a really large pool. she could see max was really, actually contemplating it, but she shook her head and muttered ‘uh-uh,’ her eyes open in a way that said ‘don’t even think about it.’

so, max was really taking the word ‘vacation’ literally. doing absolutely nothing but sit on the couch and watch movies - a few big releases he’d missed during the year-, and yell at the tv whenever a character did something stupid. he was living his best life.

meanwhile, she was working hard, finishing her new album, planning release dates and other marketing strategies ahead of the new year. and once everything was planned, she was more than eager, ready, to go home.

although this welcome wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she thought of finally coming home to max. it seemed that he’d finally listened to her advice and had gone out of the house, for once. she couldn’t be upset about it, max wasn’t someone that took solitude easily, he enjoyed being around people, although he didn’t express it verbally most of the time.

she turned on the lights as she made her way in, grabbing her suitcase and walking to the washing room, making a mental note to wash all of her stuff the following day. after that, she walked further into the house, and couldn’t help but smile, a soft, content sigh leaving her lips as she took in the fact that this was theirs. not just hers, or max’s, but theirs. they’d jumped into this adventure together, and it still didn’t feel real.

a thud coming from upstairs caught her attention, she frowned as she heard another sound, like something had fallen. she rushed to a closet, where max kept his golf clubs, and grabbed one, soundlessly walking up the steps. there was an open door, the third room to the right, what they’d decided would be max’s space. she got closer, trying to peek her head in, and just at that second, max came out of the room.

she yelled, both in shock and surprise, which caused max to do the same.

“why are you holding a club?!” he yelled/asked, making her drop the object to the floor.

“i thought you were a burglar!” she ran her hand through her hair, feeling her heartbeat quickening, “i saw all the lights out and thought you were out somewhere,” she closed her eyes and placed a hand on her chest, catching her breath.

“jesus,” max’s chest was heaving, and they both stood there for a few seconds, recovering from the scare, and once that had passed, she jumped straight in his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, he turned, placing her back against the wall for support, and looked her in the eyes, saying the words he’d been waiting for since he got to monaco, “welcome home.”

she smiled, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close, she buried her face in his neck, breathing in his scent and relaxing under his touch. one of his hands found its way to her hair, he tilted his head and placed a kiss to her neck as he curled his fingers around her hair.

“did you finish the song?” he asked, there was one song left in the album that was not ready yet. and she was okay with it not being in the album, she wanted to perfect it, no matter how long it took. ‘you are in love’ was being a pain in her ass, but this song felt too special, too important for them, for their relationship.

“not yet.” she sighed, “i guess you’ll just have to do more romantic things for me.” she chuckled.

max stilled for a second, before laughing as well, kissing her again as he led her to their room.

after catching up (and making up for lost time), a forgotten thought ran through her mind.

“hey, what were you doing in your office earlier? when i came in?” she asked, looking up at him, her chin resting on his chest, fingers playing with the gold chain hanging from his neck.

“oh!, i was getting something i needed,”

“for what?”

“something.”

“and what’s that something?” she raised an eyebrow.

“a surprise, for you. but it’s not ready yet. actually, i should go finish,” he said, gently cupping her chin and lifting her from his chest, he got up from the bed, putting on clean boxers and sweatpants, and throwing a hoodie on.

“maxwell?” she called for him, max chuckled, it always humored him how she’d find different names to call him when she was annoyed at him, “you’re not seriously leaving me like this, right now,” she held the sheets up to her chest, watching him look back with a smile on his face.

“i’ll be right back.” he declared.

“max!”

“you’ll like it, i swear!”

“payback’s a bitch!” she reminded him, falling down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“i’ll be waiting for it, then. i’ll come back for you when it’s ready!” she heard his voice getting lower as he walked down the stairs, getting farther away from her.

she took her time alone to take a warm shower, doing her extended skincare routine, noticing how some of her products were less ful than what she remembered from the last time she was home. she chuckled at the thought of max experimenting with her products, applying the creams and serums to his face as his thought process told him to.

“it’s done!” max said as he walked in the room, his head whipping around as he looked for her. “baby?” he asked.

“bathroom!” she said, and turned her head to look at him as she finished washing her hands.

“you stole my hoodie,” he noticed.

“what happened to ‘what’s mine is yours’?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“there’s not a ring on my finger yet,” he said, making her laugh.

“there’s not one on mine either. better treat me right if you want me to stay,” she teased, “you’ve got points off for leaving me like that.”

“oh, but this will make up for it, i swear.”

“hm, that’s up to me to decide.”

he grabbed her hand, bringing her close to him, his free hand found her cheek, pressing his lips against hers, she responded softly, sliding an arm on his waist, curling her fingers on the fabric of his sweatshirt. her other hand reached inside his hoodie, grabbing the chain and seeing the small charm again, a smile on her face as she remembered the moment she saw it for the first time.

“no persuading me,” she tapped his nose, “now show me.”

he grabbed her hands, leading her out of the room and down the stairs, meanwhile he spoke.

“so i know this is our second christmas together, but it’s our first in our new home, and we have to make it special, right?” he asked, waiting for her to agree.

“right,” she said warily, not knowing where this was headed.

“we’ll need to get a lot more decorations compared to what we had last year, we have so much space here. anything you want. and i know you looove sparkles, so-” he said, leaving her through the sliding door, out into the garden, where everything she could see was warm glowing light.

little lights everywhere. and i mean, everywhere.

around the trunks of the trees, all along the edge of the pool, the chairs and the roof of the house. even a few christmas trees made completely out of lights.

“wow, that’s… a lot of lights,” she whispered, overwhelmed by the amount of lights everywhere she looked.

“yeah, they’re to guide you home,” he said cheesily, a sly smile on his face. it was meant to be a joke, but she grinned at him, loving how open max had become to express his love for her, to her.

she hugged him, wrapping her arms around him so tight that max huffed out a little, before placing his arms around her shoulders and placing a kiss to the top of her head.

“you know… when i said about doing more romantic things… i didn’t mean like right now. not that i’m complaining but-”

“i know. i just… i don’t know, i feel like since this is out first christmas and other holidays here, i think we should go all out.”

“that’s alright, we can do that.” she nodded, turning her head around, her eye catching a different kind of glimmer. the chain hanging from his neck, the charm with her initial on it, seemed to sparkle, reflecting the lights all around them as he moved. he grabbed her hands, taking a step back and twirled her around. she chuckled, not expecting the movement. she came back to him, placing a hand on his chest as he pulled her close. he started swaying, his free hand meeting her waist. and they slow danced under the moonlight, and all the christmas lights. “thank you. i love it.”

“you’re very welcome,” he smiled, kissing the side of her temple.

“you’re paying the electric bill this month and next, though,” she made it clear.

“yup, i figured.” he laughed.

“we can start decorating tomorrow,” she declared.

604 notes · View notes

calxia · 7 months

Note

I had the most stupid thought. Monopoly with the ghouls... I just know that'd be a disaster. Somebody would be trying to eat the game pieces. Others are fighting over property.. Somebody is just sitting in the corner scared of everything that's happening.

I imagine Copia had put them in timeout many times which did not work and ended up having to ban the game completely because they can't act right

- 🎸 Anon

I very almost added the Monopoly videogame to the 'ghouls and videogames' ask you sent last until I had images of the Nintendo Switch being thrown out of the window when someone gets bancrupted.

The pack has never actually been able to finish a game of Monopoly because it always ends up with someone crying (normally Phantom) and someone in a blind rage flipping the table (Dew.)

The fighting always starts from the second the game box is opened when everyone quarrels over which piece they all want, despite how they always pick the exact same ones every time. Mountain prefers to just watch and mediate any quarrels that break out while Copia acts as the banker because nobody else can be trusted with the fake money.

everything goes smoothly for the first few turns until more and more properties get bought up. the board quickly fills up with bought properties. Sunny somehow always manages to lose all her money which prompts an argument if she gets new notes or if they consider her bankrupt already. The table gets knocked and they have to pick everything up off the floor and try to remember who was where.

Swiss rolls the dice so hard it goes skidding off the table and under the sofa, so they have to pause the game to move it to retrieve it. It's already been an hour and most of them are getting bored. Phantom ended up in jail 2 turns ago and is unable to roll a double so he has to mortgage his properties to pay bail. Cirrus and Cumulus have somehow managed to build houses already which sends Dew into a blind rage when he lands on them.

Copia has had to move the bank to the other side of the room because Rain kept trying to distract him to steal money so he doesn't have to mortgage his properties. Aurora and Phantom quickly get bankrupted when they run out of properties to mortgage. Cirrus now owns half the board.

Swiss has gotten bored by this point and has started flicking houses at Phantom from over the table. He then pulls a card and has to bankrupt because he can't pay his taxes. Only Dew, Aether, Cirrus and Cumulus are still in the game by this point. Dew and Aether have about four properties between them and the rest is owned by the ghoulettes. Most spaces now have hotels on them. Aether loses to Cumulus.

Dew tries to kick Cirrus from under the table but instead boots Phantom in the shins which makes him burst into tears. He gets told off but it only makes him more angry. Aurora and Sunny are trying to stack the unused house pieces as high as possible on the edge of the table.

Dew lands on Cirrus' Boardwalk with a hotel, immediately loses all his money and gets bankrupted. he flips the table in a blind fit of rage and starts screaming at Cirrus. She screams back at him. There are game pieces all over the floor in the living room. Phantom is crying in the corner with Swiss trying to stop him. Aether is trying to calm down Dew while the ghoulettes try to calm Cirrus down. Rain is somehow managing to ignore the chaos while playing Pokemon

Copia bans the game after that. (it's not like they'd have been able to play again anyway given how most of the pieces were now missing)

88 notes · View notes

ssentimentals · 1 year

Text

first crush {choi seungcheol}

pairing: seungcheol x fem!reader

prompt: 'you should pay rent of how much you live in my head.'

warnings: none, it's pure fluff as usual

seungcheol is with his friends at starbucks and they are discussing something, but he’s not listening, not really; his whole attention is focused on you and when that happens, everything else kind of fades into the background for him. you are standing not far up the queue and he already knows you are going to order one cappuccino venti with a small smile and always, always a polite 'please' and 'thank you' on your lips. he already knows you are going to glance at the caramel waffles on the counter, bite your lip in a debate whether to buy them or not and for whatever reason you always decide against them despite your obvious desire and it makes seungcheol sad every single time. for the last two months he has to resist the urge to come up to you with whole pack of those waffles, the only thing that’s stopping him is that you two are… nothing, in reality. not friends or at least acquaintances, not enemies, not strangers - just two people who have decided to take Economy 101 and now are suffering the consequences of that action.

seokmin, ever the gentle sunshine, nudges him with: 'some people find staring creepy, so maybe you can-'

'seok is trying to remind you that you have balls, so man up and make the first move,' jeonghan interrupts, grinning. 'we are not letting this one slide, my friend. it’s your first crush, after all!'

and that is exactly what makes everything bizarre for seungcheol - you are his first crush. he never understood what 'crush' even entails, because he never really found anyone particularly appealing or maybe he just never bothered with relationships being too focused on his studies; 'crush' never happened to him in that big sense, when one actually feels something close to the word that starts on 'L''. he did have his share of dates but nothing turned into something serious and no one stayed in his head the way you managed to do without even trying. seungcheol likes his routine and these unfamiliar feelings towards you were not part of it, which annoyed him at first but then he just accepted that thoughts about you became part of his day. his friends obviously noticed this change in him and got incredibly excited on the prospect of him finally having a crush on someone. ('it’s really not that big of a deal,' cheol tries to reason but they don’t even listen to him. 'you having a crush happens like once in a blue moon, of course it’s a big deal!'). so yes, he has a crush. he doesn’t really understand how others are not like him as well, because surely he can’t be the only one who notices how you stand out from the rest? it was intimidating at first but when he realized that you are single and no one is actively pursuing you, he relaxed and— did nothing. horrifyingly paralyzing fear of rejection stopped him from trying anything out (that one time when he came up to you with a question about upcoming exam does not count). which is also not seungcheol’s style, and it’s again unusual, unfamiliar, bizarre and oh god, he hates it.

'seat next to her is the only empty one,' seokmin notices and seungcheol doesn’t miss him and jeonghan sharing a knowing look. 'um, i suddenly remembered-'

'don’t you fucking dare.' seungcheol grabs both of them by elbows but he’s not quick enough.

'we have to go, my mom’s friend’s fish was left unattended, you see?' jeonghan’s eyes are sparkling with mischief and he pats cheol’s back in a mock comfort. 'but you said it yourself, atmosphere here helps you to focus better and you have to finish that paper, right? so stay and me and seokmin have to go.' little shit grabs seokmin’s hand and pushes him towards the exit. 'and remember cheollie - you have balls!'

cheol glances at your direction and you look too engrossed in the book to notice anything else, so he's a little relieved on that one. he quickly orders his usual americano and with zero hesitation also grabs two packs of caramel waffles, ignoring how his heart decided to gallop out of his chest at this moment. every step towards your table feels like a battle within himself and by the time he reaches you, seungcheol is mentally exhausted and his brain turns into mush because when you look up, all that comes out from his mouth is a rather rude 'that's for you' followed by thrown waffles in your direction. he realizes what he's done only seconds after but it's already too late: you look startled in a very, very unpleasant way. shit.

'shit,' he vocalizes, making you look at him again. 'fuck- i'm sorry for throwing them at you, i was going to- that was very rude, wasn't?' you nod and he sighs, resisting the urge to bump his head at the table. 'i'm sorry, i didn't mean to do that. shit, i really wish i could control myself better around you.'

his mouth finally shuts up and after a minute of a charged silence, you gesture at the empty seat in front of you. 'you wanted to take that one?'

seungcheol mutely nods, unmoving. you are looking at him like he's weird and he is, that's the thing, but you were not supposed to learn that right away. he hesitantly pulls up the chair and as you don't protest, he equally hesitantly sits on it, pulling out his laptop from the backpack. 'i'm sorry again,' he mutters and carefully slides waffles towards you. 'these are for you. i'm seungcheol, by the way, in case-'

'i know your name,' you interrupt quietly, raising your eyebrow. 'we are together in Economy 101 class. we even talked once, i think.'

'we did.' he confirms and again taps on the waffles. 'i notic- i mean, anyway, these are for you.' when you look at him with a very obvious question, he adds: 'just thought you would like them, you know.'

'you bought these waffles because you thought i would like them?' you ask, puzzled.

seungcheol nods. you are silent again and honestly? he's on a low head start of just sprinting the fuck out of here, because this might be the most awkward and embarrassing interaction he ever had in whole life and-

'think of me a lot then, seungcheol?'

he looks up in shock. you don't look mad - there's humor in your eyes and question is asked in a more teasing manner than anything else. corners of your lips are turned upwards and it looks like you are trying your hardest not to smile widely. you sound confident but he sees light blush dusting your cheeks and you're not fooling him, you are nervous too. seungcheol sits back, smiling.

'you should pay rent of how much you live in my head.'

your eyes widen a little and you duck your head, making him grin widely. your shoulders shake with a quiet laughter and seungcheol's mission instantly becomes to get out of here and hear your loud laugh, be the reason of it. when you look up, you are smiling and he feel his heart thump loudly in his chest. ah, so this is what differentiates 'crush' from everyone else. you are smiling at him and just this gesture makes him happy, just this is enough.

'i can take payment in different ways, by the way. i'm flexible like that,' he says, grinning.

'oh really?' you ask, smiling as well. 'what are the ways of paying?'

'giving me your number is the one that i feel most inclined to at the moment.' he unlocks his phone and slides it towards you. 'rest can be discussed.'

he refuses to acknowledge how adrenaline practically pumps through his veins as you enter the digits. you give it back to him and he calls instantly, lightning up when your phone starts buzzing. you laugh, shaking your head in amusement: 'you thought i'd given you a fake number?'

he shrugs, smiling. 'it's always good to check.' he then looks down at another pack of waffles and slides them to you as well. 'these ones are for you too.'

your smile is sincere when you accept them and your quiet 'thank you' warms his heart. he's too excited to concentrate on any work right now, so he stands up, ready to share great news with his friends. 'i'll text you,' he promises, gathering his laptop. 'please reply to me.'

you laugh loudly at this and he smiles. mission completed. 'i will, i promise.' you say. 'see you, i guess?'

he nods. 'see you very soon,' he confirms and runs away with a light heart and a huge smile on his face.

a/n: ah it's almost Christmas! hopefully you are all in a good place and are enjoying it to the fullest <3 here is the link to my other works, check them out as well! - nini

tag list: @pearlygraysky @woozionascooter @smalliechelle @jaetaimjadore @yeow6n (let me know if you want to be added!)

#choi seungcheol #seungcheol imagines #seungcheol x y/n #seungcheol fluff #seventeen fluff #seungcheol x reader #seventeen reaction #seventeen imagine #seventeen scenarios #seventeen seungcheol #svt seungcheol #scoups fluff #scoups #scoups scenarios #scoups seventeen

420 notes · View notes

unicyclehippo · 1 year

Note

reminder to self: finish the dang wash prompt

[have read it too many times & now my brain is fried so that’s it!! im done!! for @possibilistfanfiction the ray fic as promised, i hope u enjoy it!! for everyone else, if you think you’ve read this before, that’s because the start is functionally identical to the thing i posted a few weeks back for the “wash” prompt]

you should have listened to your brother.

the thought makes you shudder and you ignore it valiantly as you start your morning, because at the heart of it, that’s what you do: you’re a runaway.

hop out of bed; don’t think about it. make breakfast in your tiny kitchen, the overhead light a little dim but bright enough against blue pre-dawn morning; don’t think about it. get ready for work, check the to-do list note in your phone twice to make sure you’ve got everything you need; don’t think about it. not thinking about it works just fine until, asshole that he is, he calls you as you’re climbing into the car.

you think about ignoring him but as much as he ticks you off—and you know that the first or maybe last words out of his mouth are gonna be, when are you coming home, ray—it’s been three weeks since the last time you spoke and you miss him. plus, it’s not as if he’s wrong (ugh). it is lonely here, sometimes, and you have friends closeby but no family, and your stomach hurt all last winter because no one wanted to learn to surf when the water was fuck-off cold and the jobs you got to cover those in-between months didn’t ever last long enough, and he’s right about all of that but he’s wrong about it not being worth it. he’s wrong about you needing to come home, because there’s nowhere you’d rather be than right here and maybe, yeah, maybe that makes you selfish or reckless or any of the other things he’d called you in anger, regretted quickly, but the smell of seasalt and smog clings to you and you feel good, healthy, when you swing into the drivers seat of your car and excitement swells up inside of you—like always, every morning without fail—because this was never about running away, not really, it was always about this. about running to something, about having a different home, about making a place where you feel right in yourself, braver and better too. maybe when you explain that to him this time, for what feels like the hundredth time, he’ll get it.

you put the phone in its clip, up on the dash, and answer his call.

‘hey,’ he says, voice gravelly with the early hour and the crackle of your shitty reception. ‘didn’t think you were gonna pick up. figured you were still ignoring my calls.’

god, you miss him. but he’s your brother so you won’t ever say that except under pain of torture, maybe. Instead, you say, tone clipped,

‘thought about it.’ it’s not helpful to be short with him but hell, you answered, didn’t you? It doesn’t fall on you to fix all of this.

he sits with that for a second, then clears his throat. you can picture him clear as day: he’ll be leaning back against the counter of his kitchen, arms folded, face folded up as he listens hard to every word. there’ll be coffee brewing in a pot, and all the stuff for the kids lunches laid out ready for the assembly line.

he tries again. you love him for this, you admire him for this—not that you’ll ever admit it to him. he never stops trying.

‘you off to work?’

‘yeah.’

‘how’s that going?’

for a second, there’s another short answer on your lips. something terse, something not quite unkind but not welcoming or inviting. but then you think about him standing in the kitchen pre-dawn making your sandwiches, day after day, and glance to the passenger seat to your bag where you tossed the sandwich you’d made this morning in your tiny kitchen—exactly the way he used to make it, and makes now for his son and daughter—and instead you say,

‘i have a new student.’

‘oh? kid or adult class?’

‘adult.’

there’s a smile in his tone, just exactly as teasing as when you were fourteen and admitted to having a crush on sophie perez (a year older than you and so much cooler), when he says, ‘is she pretty?’

‘oh, come on marco.’

‘what! i’m just asking.’

‘you’re just being nosy is what you are.’

‘sorry, sorry,’ he laughs. ‘but that’s totally a yes, by the way.’

you roll your eyes. there’s not really a word for what beatrice is. pretty, yes, absolutely. but it’s sneaky, the ways in which she’s really stunning, and even after three sessions teaching her how to surf you still feel kinda knocked around by her, not quite able to find your feet. she’s so composed, always, that it makes you feel awkward. listens so intently to your instructions and advice that under that close attention you feel singular, like the only person in the world. and, you don’t tell him, cannot tell your brother without seeming like the world’s biggest weirdo, you’ve seen her smile two and a half times. the half had been an accident; you’d turned to her at just the right moment to witness it—she’d been looking at nothing in particular, an empty spot on the beach, eyes gone wistful—but it wasn’t for you, and it wasn’t exactly happy, so it doesn’t seem right to count it as a full third. each time she smiles, it makes you want to see another with a fierceness that startles you. you are no stranger to want, nor attraction, and you know that makes up part of your fascination with beatrice but, if that were not enough, there is even more to her.

all the rest, your brother could wheedle out of you eventually, but this is something you keep locked tightly away, something you have not ever spoken to him about.

you should, eventually. you will (you might).

the first time you met beatrice, spoke with her after wading up and out of the hissing surf, with her lingering on the outskirts of your lessons to “inquire how to take part”—she’d taken the sheet you’d handed her and filled it out right there and then in careful script, beatrice, she/her, twenty four, england, never surfed before, email, phone number, emergency contact, the last of which had made her pause for a long time—something in you had recognised something in her. grief, still painful, had welled up in your chest, nailed your tongue to the roof of your mouth, stung in your eyes powerfully that you’d had to turn away and run your fingers through your hair, dig your heels into the sand, step back into the wet sand and the water pooling around your ankles. the ocean takes away everything you’re not ready to feel; while you are out there, it holds you up, weightless. two minutes into talking with beatrice, you know that she wants the same thing.

none of which you particularly want to tell your brother, so you say, ‘yeah, she’s pretty.’

‘single?’

‘i haven’t asked.’

‘you should.’

‘should i?’

pulling neatly into the park by the boardwalk—your favourite, for no particular reason other than this was the same one you always take, the same one you took the first day you came here, ended up here—you turn off the car but don’t make any move to get out. the engine quietens, then goes silent. marco fills the silence. saying things like how long has it been since you went on a date and you never know unless you try. you pull the keys from the ignition, toss them into the little waterproof bag you’ll take down to the sand with you. sunscreen, food, first aid kit.

‘what happened to, it’s time to come home?’ you interrupt his teasing.

he sighs. the line crackles, weirdly high-pitched, as the kettle begins to make noise on his end.

‘listen, ray. i miss you. i’m not gonna pretend that’s not true, or that i don’t worry about you all the time. and with all the shit that’s been going on lately… i want you nearby. but asim said, and i guess he might be right, that i’m being overprotective. and an ass.’

you’ve thought similar things about him before. twice, just this morning. but hearing him say it, voice warm and tired and a little ashamed, makes you want to take the first plane home and hug him until all the weird, unsettled, lonely parts of you find their place. like all it’ll take to fix everything is a hug from your big brother. but you know that isn’t true. knowing it makes you feel a little old and sad. resolute too, because you’re good here, better than you were. you made this place for yourself and you’re filling it with good, important things.

that’s far too many feelings for four a.m. so you say, ‘say asim was right again,’ and marco laughs. and then, because he was open first, and that makes it easier to follow, to admit to your own missteps, mistakes, you say, ‘i think about it all the time. coming home, i mean. i love you guys, and i do miss you guys, and you’re right. it’s hard out here. but…i love it. my life, the beach.’ he laughs again at that, which is fair. you could have said one or the other; the beach is your life, after all. ‘hey marco, i gotta go. before the waves get tired.’

‘yeah. yeah, i get it. hey - talk later?’

‘yeah. anytime.’

‘love you. be safe out there.’

‘always am. love you too.’

beatrice is waiting on the sand when you finally get down there; she’s not looking for you, just watching the sun rise, and you’re going to call out to her when something changes—maybe some ephemeral thing, little more than a change in the quality of the light when you take a step closer; maybe the way she’s holding herself, one hand folded over her wrist where you’ve seen the black ink in the divot of her wrist, delicate letters small enough that you haven’t been able to read it when you’ve snuck a peek or two before. whatever it is, you decide to give her a second on her own.

the sand is hot on the surface and cooler beneath. you shift your weight, dig your feet down until the sand covers the tops of your feet, just to give yourself something to do. and then you stare out over the ocean and breathe.

it’s beautiful. it’s so fucking beautiful. you’ve known this was where you were gonna end up since you were eight years old and your cousin gabriel had pinned a photo of it to your wall—no one will ever consider it a masterwork of photography, that old blurred snapshot of sand and water and the sun, and just a tiny bit of his fingertip, no one but you because it had been his and he gave it to you, because he’d stood on the beach—maybe this beach, maybe right where you are now—and loved it so much he’d taken a photo of it and you’ve got the proof of it (proof of him, always) tucked into a book on your bedside.

‘good morning.’

you drag your eyes away from the sunrise—super gorgeous, thin wispy clouds like cotton-candy, pink in the sunlight, striped across the distant horizon, and everything shimmering in what, logically, you know is the smog haze but for a second it can just be beautiful too—to find that beatrice has wandered up to join you. she’s watching you with the attentive curiosity you’ve come to expect—warmer than polite, cooler than inviting.

‘hey, morning. sorry i’m late—got caught up talking to my brother.’

she nods her understanding. it has a thoughtful tilt to it, or maybe questioning. ‘does he live elsewhere in the world?’

‘excuse me?’

‘it’s early for a call. is he in another timezone?’

you don’t think she’s interrogating you, or she doesn’t mean to interrogate you. you actually think she’s trying to be nice and show interest, so you say, ‘well, he’s home—mexico—so… i think it’s an hour later for him. something like that. but he’s a get-up-and-go kinda guy—has been, ever since i took up surfing. he used to drive me to the water when i was a kid.’

‘older brother, then.’

‘only by a couple of years.’ you roll your eyes, ‘that’s all he needs to get up in my business.’

‘that’s what brothers are for. so i hear.’

‘true.’ you think about saying something more, because all you want to do right now is keep talking to her as long as possible, preferably forever, but that urge seems like a you problem, and something that’ll get washed away the second you dunk your head in the water. ‘okay! hey - mind taking this board and i’ll run back for the other one?’

when you return with your board, hauled down off the roof of your car, beatrice has set her sandals neatly beside her tote a few meters up from the tideline where it’ll all stay dry. you dump your bag right beside hers and jog to join her, check her out with a quick look. of the wetsuit, that is, that you had advised her to buy if surfing was something she wanted to keep doing.

she crouches, wets her hands, and secures the leash of her board carefully around her ankle.

‘good job!’ you compliment, because it’s four-something in the morning and, yeah, it’s your choice to get up this early but that doesn’t mean you’re firing on all cylinders yet. you want to say something impressive and kind and get her eyes on you because she’s pretty and interesting but, here’s the thing, most of the time you’re teaching children so the compliment comes out the way you would say it to little jayla (eight years old and nervous about everything and therefore, in your opinion, the bravest little soul in the world for keeping at it).

beatrice looks over at you, amused, and you earn your third full smile from her.

she’s laughing at you, definitely, which you don’t mind, have never minded when it comes to girls; years of report cards scrunched at the bottom of your bag, with comments amounting to smart enough but needs to spend more time listening and less time clowning around for the girls will back you up in that regard. your mami despaired of your grades and your attention (or lack of it) and she had chided you then, sat you down at the kitchen table opposite her as you made dinner together for the whole family, splitting the excess. she scolded—and pressed a ripped piece of bolillo into your hand to tide you over to dinner—she lamented—and passed over a bowl, diced tomatoes, crisp and red—and she talked to you about hard work and the importance of school and respect for your teachers and you know now that it was all love, that loud bright kitchen and how she made you handle it all together, space and work and life; you didn’t have the words to explain then—though you remember trying, loudly—that you knew, or thought, you were only really any good at two things, that most of the time you feel like you’re sleepwalking through your life and it’s only when you’re out there in the water, or making your friends laugh, that you feel totally real and vital and incredible.

here, today, beatrice’s eyes are on you and you’ve made her smile (laugh, even). you feel invincible.

you laugh at yourself. run a hand through your hair. ‘you wouldn’t believe how many people put their wetsuits on backwards, or don’t bother with the leg rope, so. really, you’re doing great.’

she shrugs very slightly, cheeks gone a little pink under the compliment, or the sunrise, or maybe—a girl can dream—your singular attention. ‘thank you, then.’

‘sure,’ you say, and, ‘i can get your zip for you, if that’s okay? it’s not quite all the way up.’

‘thank you, yes.’

she turns away from you so you can fix it and you do, immediately and without lingering. she has freckles across her shoulders; the teeth of the zipper tug closed, swallow up the sight of them. you think, briefly, about kissing her there on the back of her neck, her shoulders, of taking a zip between your fingers and pulling it down.

‘how does it feel? i know the wetsuits can be weird at first.’

‘it’s fine. i’ve worn stranger.’

you desperately want to ask for details but, aside from her first name, you don’t know anything much about her except that she wants to learn surfing, and probably the first time you ask for more information shouldn’t be about what she’s worn, even though your brain is filled with all kinds of theories. so instead you swallow back a flirty comment—also she is paying you to teach her, you remember abruptly, and maybe you should wait until after the lesson to flirt with her—and nod to the water.

‘let’s hit it, then.’

the sand is golden, and the ocean is starting to turn gold under the sunlight, and you feel a bit golden too. you think idly, self-indulgent, you want heaven to be like this. a golden beach, with everyone you’ve ever loved on it with you. you take it in—a great start to the morning—and, smiling, run forward into the water.

she’s lighter, after surfing.

in your first few lessons, you weren’t sure whether it would be like that for her. it’s not the physical part—she’s obviously fit and athletic enough to be good at surfing (you’ve noticed); there’s this…relaxation isn’t the right word, meditative is close but too dramatic for your tastes.

it’s like this. you paddle out to the calm, past the small waves that break close to the shoreline, and sit on your board and wait, legs dangling in the water, fingers drifting over the surface of it. maybe you sit in silence, maybe you chat with your buddy. and then you pick out a wave and then there’s this feeling when the wave swells and you catch it just right—you’re a little outside of yourself, entirely out of your head, and you experience it totally, trusting the wave to carry you and your body to move the way you’ve taught it to. you thought, when you first met her, that beatrice was too contained for that, every movement so precise, so controlled, intentional and intelligent and totally present, always watched, always watching herself. if there’s anyone who needs to get out of their head, you thought then and think now, it’s beatrice.

and now. it’s only been four lessons, four days of knowing her split up over a couple weeks. you’re sitting on your board, legs in the water, cold spray in your face. august and siti—a couple of the regulars, friendly, you talk sometimes enough to say hello at the least, and lent august your sunscreen last week when they forgot to pack some even though it is not cheap—are a decent way further out. you see a good wave start to roll in and before you can say anything to beatrice, she’s already spotted it and moving. you stay where you are, watching as she catches it alone so you can check her form and you see it happen. she pops up smooth and rides it all the way in. a second later, you’re searching for a wave you can catch and wave at her to stay; you tumble off in the shallows, not your most graceful wave ever, and rush up to her. beatrice is smiling (four and a half, you think, totally brainless), big and so pleased, and you can’t help but grin back at her.

‘you felt it!’ you call out—accuse, almost—when you’re close and she laughs. slicks her hair back off her face with a trembling hand.

‘i - i think - yes, i did, yes.’ she’s breathing hard, from excitement you think—she’s caught waves before, bigger ones even, but this is different and you can tell. it’s entirely confirmed when she reaches out, clasps your wrist, and smiles—all for you. (five and a half.) ‘thank you, thank you.’

‘yes,’ you say, a little brainless, a little helpless. ‘of course.’

(fourteen years old, madly in love with sophie perez and madly heart-broken when you spotted her hand-in-hand with some scruffy-haired unfunny boy, your cousin gabriel had driven far across town to pick you up and, ignoring the impressive sulk you’d sunken into, packed you into his car and took you to the beach. he hadn’t spoken to you at all while you cried into his shoulder, his arm thin and strong around you, holding you tight, a tether, and when you roughly scrubbed the tears off your shame-hot face, he’d smacked your hands away and pulled a pack of tissues from his bag, cleaned you up carefully. nodded when he was done, approving. and then he stood and walked knee-deep into the water, not seeming to care that he was in jeans or that you’d have to get back into his car in wet clothes.

love is like the ocean, he’d said.

you remember rolling your sore eyes because at fourteen years old you already knew that love wasn’t the ocean. love was enjoying all the same music and turning up early to class to get the seat across from hers and the way your heart sped up when you passed her in the hall and staying up way too late dreaming of ways to make her laugh in class the next day. but gabriel was your favourite so you listened carefully, and you’re thankful for that now because you can remember so much. his dark curls, the smudge of his eyeshadow, how cold the water had been on your skin, how warm his arm had been around your shoulders.

not everyone loves her the same way. some people stay for a day and then head back to the mountains. he’d paused. mountains are, i dunno, a loveless marriage in this metaphor. you’d laughed at him. some people paint it, or make movies, but they never swim in it. some people sail out in their nice boats and go fishing. take what they want from her and head back to dry land. but for people like us? gabriel wore rings on his fingers and a shirt, tight, in a dusky kind of orange. love for us is like the ocean. we could drown in it and it wouldn’t be enough. he had a boyfriend in the city, and was beautiful and proud and kind, and you’d looked out over the calm sea and thought the world must be really different for him, vibrant and strange and wonderful. you felt special, nestled into his side.

people like us, he’d said, and you remember because you remember everything about that afternoon, that in amongst his kindness, he’d sounded sad.)

you’re not fourteen anymore. you love the ocean more than you love anything else. when beatrice smiles at you, your heart swells, crashes, drags you under. you love her, too.

‘i love surfing,’ you tell her later, pleasantly tired.

you trudge up toward the car park, stumble a little at the tide-mark where wet sand turns dry and gives way under your weight. you swear under your breath; every spare moment of your life has been spent at one beach or another, and you’d think that would earn some kind of loyalty perk, like, never tripping over your feet in front of cute girls, but apparently it doesn’t work that way. but beatrice only laughs, kindly, and puts a hand out to steady you and you don’t need it but you take it, of course. beatrice is slimmer than you, and a little taller, and far more graceful; you wonder if she’s ever tripped over anything in her life. her hand is cool from the water and calloused and scarred, which you didn’t entirely expect but makes a kind of sense in the collage you’re putting together in your head of what little scraps of information she’s given you.

beatrice takes her hand back; you keep your observations to yourself.

‘you love surfing,’ she prompts. and then, ‘i’m starting to love it too, i think.’

‘it’s okay if you don’t, i won’t think less of you,’ you say, only lying a little bit, which you think she knows because she arches an eyebrow in your direction. you grin back. ‘of course i hope you do. but if you’re only coming to lessons for my many charms, i completely understand.’

‘is it hard? surfing, with such a large head?’ she snarks, unimpressed but eyes bright.

‘god never gives us more than we can handle,’ you say, absolutely facetious, absolutely cocky. she looks away. you put “doesn’t like jokes about god” in the collage of beatrice and move on. ‘you thanked me. earlier. you don’t need to. you’re paying me, first of all,’ you tease, ‘but. i love surfing for what it is, for myself, out there alone. i love every bit of it. but the teaching part… i didn’t expect to love that. it’s turned out to be so cool. getting to know all kinds of people, introduce them to surfing. and the water, too, sometimes. watching them fall in love with…’

you stop at the rocks and look behind you. the strip of sand, the greedy suck of the tide crawling higher up the beach, the shimmering green-glass sea.

‘with all of that.’

you think about being embarrassed about your tone—way too sincere, way too holy—but when you meet her eyes you see she understand this, too: that holy can be found outside the cathedral, that hymns can be the raucous gull shriek and wave crash and breath.

‘getting to partake, and teach, and do what i love every day? honestly my genuine pleasure.’

the words bring something complicated to her face. sad? wistful? a little angry, definitely. her eyes return to the view; you stay looking at her, not keen to lose whatever she might say to the crash and hiss of the waves.

‘i wish…’ she holds herself still. she’s lost the lightness surfing brought her; you don’t know if it’s your fault, you hope it isn’t, or if it was never going to last very long for her. ‘i wish i had that.’

if you were thinking about it properly, you don’t know beatrice or her situation well enough to give advice. but you like her, and you want to be able to help, and you get the impossibly strong (if slightly uncertain) vibe of queerness absolutely radiating off her and that you understand. plus, surfing makes you brave—a little stupid in that invincible way, like nothing can hurt you, like nothing can truly go wrong, like anything that does go wrong can be fixed—so, picking up your board again, you head off toward your car once more and she follows.

as you walk, you say, ‘i think you can have it. i think you can make it. joy, passions, a life you want to live… that doesn’t fall out of the sky, you know?’ she flinches at that but you keep going, since you already dove in. ‘most of the time, you have to work for it. all of the time, it’s about making decisions and figuring out what’s important. figuring out who you are—how you feel, how you want to exist, what you want to do. and then you have to find your way there.’ scraping your fingers through your hair, pushing it back out of your eyes, you take a second to think. ‘once you know the life you want to have, you can go out and get it. a little at a time.’

she stops where the sand hits concrete, which you get. the beach feels worlds away from reality, sometimes, and you get wanting to stay there as long as possible. everything seems smaller, compared to the ocean. more manageable. you stand there with her.

‘what if what i want is impossible?’

‘…damn. great question. i don’t know. set yourself an easier goal?’ that startles her, and for a moment you think it would have been better to be gentle or sincere but then she laughs, louder than before. god, you think, thank you for letting me meet her. thank you for letting me make her laugh. ‘i don’t always turn into a life coach and give unasked for advice after surfing, i swear. it costs ten bucks more for that package, if you want to spring for that next time, but hey, first one for free.’

‘perhaps i will. you seem to have all the answers.’

‘maybe not all of them but yeah, i know some stuff.’ you let sincerity bleed through, here, because you joke around but there’s something serious and seriously healing about being with other people, being able to be open and honest with them, and you can be that for beatrice, if she wants.

‘what about you?’

‘what about me?’

‘you made the decision to come here,’ beatrice says, with that faintly accusing, faintly interrogative tone she gets. ‘why?’

ah. here is what your invincibility gets you—the sting of salt in your eyes; a heavy pressure against your head, your ears, like you’ve dunked you head beneath the waves and all you can hear is the slam of your pulse; and that feeling—one that doesn’t hit so often anymore—that you are just one little creature treading water at the top of the vast ocean, alone, with no one around to help you out.

it only lasts for a few seconds.

you’ve talked to people, on and off, for a few years. and you know how to ground yourself in the here and now—the heat of the sand, the sun on your shoulders, your hair drying into careless waves and curling a little around your ears, tickling your jaw, the taste of salt and lip balm when you lick your lips, the click of your wrist when you flex it.

you step off the sand and into the parking lot, toward your car. for a minute, you work in silence getting your board up onto the rack; the work helps but the collar of your wetsuit is soaked and heavy, tight around your throat. when you turn back to help beatrice with her board, you grab for the zipper and tug it down an inch, let it slacken so you can breathe better.

it has been a long enough delay in answering her that she’s starting to make assumptions, observations of her own. she also has the faintly horrified look of someone who has stepped in something gross—dog shit, or, in this case, brought up a more deeply personal conversation than she was prepared for—and looks like she’s searching desperately for a way to change the subject. but it was a direct question, an honest one and not unfair, not one you’re unhappy answering, so you say,

‘when i say you make decisions, choices…things happen to us in life and we can’t control that shit. but you get to decide what to do after that. something… something kinda rough happened in my life.’ you look at her, and think of a grief so profound that you have to wear it on your skin. you flex your hands, and look down at the tattoo on her wrist that you still haven’t taken the time to examine, not visible under the sleeve of her wetsuit. ‘my cousin died,’ you tell her. ‘he was really important to me. and after that, i chose to come here. left my hometown, my family, and started again. i’d wanted to do it for ages and i guess i realised this was the only life i was gonna get. so here i am. and that,’ you say, tone much lighter, ‘is all you’re getting out of me this morning. you know how it goes—just a little of a great thing at a time. can’t risk you getting sick of me, can i?’

beatrice looks at you for a long moment, fingers resting on her wrist. eventually, she shakes her head, passes over her board. ‘i’m not sick of you.’’

‘oh yeah?’ you hoist up the board and fix it in place. when you look back over your shoulder, you mean to say something teasing but lose your head because she’s looking at you—your back, your arms. you flex a little more than you need to and her eyes dart to your muscles, your wrists, and linger on your tattooed hands.

she turns away with pink cheeks you’re certain isn’t the sun’s fault. clasps her hands behind her back.

‘thank you,’ she says, sincerely. ‘for sharing that with me.’

‘sure, of course.’ it’s not really an of course. you can count on two hands the number of people you would talk to about gabriel. but it’s an of course for her. you don’t think too hard about it.

‘and for the lessons.’

that makes you laugh. ‘the ones you are paying for? you’re welcome.’ it’s kind of obvious at this point that she’s just looking for things to say, to hang out a little longer, and you take pity on her. and also, you want to spend more time with her too so, hey, works out perfectly. ‘if you’re not busy, if you don’t have to run off, maybe we can talk some more? i don’t have to be anywhere for a while and there’s this place down the road—a few minutes that way, walking distance, easy. decent coffee, great view. we could get coffee. breakfast, even.’

beatrice turns super slowly and stiffly to look in the direction you point. it’s a long, long moment before she looks at you.

‘as a date?’

‘hopefully, yeah.’

‘oh.’ her eyes dart around the mostly empty parking lot—it can’t be later than six, if that—and suddenly contained seems a little more like hidden. ‘I’m—that’s kind of you—’ she swallows. sets her shoulders, her jaw, and meets your eyes. ‘i have a partner.’

‘that makes sense.’ you wonder, briefly, what her partner is like. you hope they’re stoic and serious as beatrice is, because if they’re hot and funny like you it’ll be vaguely devastating. maybe you’ll get to meet them. ‘as friends, then.’ beatrice hesitates. ‘would your partner be cool with that?’

beatrice smiles again, one of those not-for-you smiles. you think again, more fervently, that you’d like to meet her partner—they must be something seriously special to have captured beatrice’s attention, first of all, but to get her to smile like that…

‘she’d be delighted, actually.’ she touches her wrist and nods. ‘yes. thank you. i - we - can do that. get coffee.’

she makes it sound revolutionary, like she’s never had coffee before, which you know is not the case because you’d mentioned, offhand, that if one more goddamn politician or bank twitter account advised people to save money and make coffee at home you were gonna lose it, and she’d agreed that she preferred homemade tea and store-bought coffee, and mentioned an article she’d read on how coffee was produced and how it worked, which she though was “quite interesting” and when she forwarded it to your e-mail it wasn’t a think piece like you’d been expecting but rather a fourteen page research article, peer-reviewed, on the social aspects of caffeine consumption, or something like that. there’s genuine nerves in her rigid posture, and you think of how revolutionary, world-changing, bold, fucking terrifying and a little bloody it’s been to get here, where you’re standing now.

‘cool. if you’ve got time after, there’s this surf shop—it’s a bit of a hike but,’ you flick your eyes to the cloudless blue sky overhead. ‘nice day for it. we can look at a couple of boards for you. i’m happy to go with you, help you find something good. borrowing a board is fine while you’re learning but it’ll be easier and feel better when you’ve got one that’s properly suited to you.’

she nods seriously, the way she always does when you talk about surfing, student to teacher. ‘i - would like that.’

‘yeah? awesome, alright!’

the cafe is a decent size and decently popular, which normally makes it hard to get a seat sometimes but today is a day of miracles and a couple is clearing out right as you get in, freeing up a table in the laneway. it’s in a good spot, shaded by one of the wide umbrellas and not in the way of the servers, so you sit sideways in your chair and happily stretch out your legs, pluck off your sunglasses and hang them off the collar of your t-shirt. opposite, beatrice tucks herself into her seat prim and proper, no surprises there; what does surprise you is how still she sits and how, even though you know that she agreed—wants—to be here, it’s like she’s trying to go invisible.

the server who brings out your drinks is young and harried, doesn’t even pause when you thank him. you’d ordered an espresso, and beatrice had asked for the same, but now she’s staring down at it doubtfully.

‘did you want something else?’

she shakes her head no. ‘i’d like to try it. this is your preferred coffee?’

‘my abuelo makes the meanest espresso you’ve ever had. this is water in comparison.’

‘oh.’

‘but it’s a nice place and i like the beans they use here. i really should ask what their blend is one of these days but,’ you shrug. ‘i don’t have a machine at home so what’s the point, right?’

she nods. picks up the little cup and sips at it. immediately, her nose wrinkles and her lips twist and her perfect posture breaks for a second as she bodily fights the urge to say, presumably, judging by her grimace, ‘yuck!’ she lowers it but doesn’t set it down, like it would be impolite to abandon it immediately, and watches with the tiniest grimace as you drink it happily.

‘not for you?’

‘at risk of sounding like a stereotype, i am more of a tea drinker. this is…rather a powerful taste.’ she looks a little guilty setting it back down. ‘do you mind if i order something else?’

‘no, course not. but i might judge you on what you get,’ you tease, grinning, and she just rolls her eyes, nods. you split your attention between enjoying the morning and watching the line creep forward until she’s at the register, shake your head when she folds another note into the tip jar.

she comes back to the table with another coffee—an oatmilk latte, with lavender of all things—and, as promised, you tease her gently about it.

‘really settling in, aren’t you? very LA of you,’ you say, and pretend to gag. ‘lavender. gross.’

beatrice smiles over the lip of her cup, shakes her head. ‘your favourite drink tastes like battery acid, i don’t think your opinion counts.’

‘ouch.’

‘you mentioned your abuelo,’ she says. ‘do you have much family?’

talking about family is easy, even if beatrice does make it a little of an interrogation—she gets everyone’s names and ages, nodding with this intense look in her eyes like she’s filing it away somewhere in her brain, like if you never spoke again and ran into each other in ten years she would still remember. you don’t have anything to hide, happy to tell her: yes, you’ve been here a while, a little over five years; surfing has always been your favourite thing to do; no, it’s not your only job, you have a very boring desk job but the boring bits are compensated by the fact that you get to work from home and your boss is kind of amazing about letting you take your afternoon run down to the beach and back; yes, you’re queer, you’ve known forever and so has your family, and yes they’re fine with it, very supportive, and they love you the same as they always did after you came out.

‘barely needed to, really. my mami said she knew since i was like ten, eleven, maybe. all because i followed my tennis coach around like a duckling, which makes sense because i can’t think of why else i would play tennis, it fucking sucks.’ beatrice sips guardedly at her coffee, looking away, and it’s so carefully inoffensive that you have to laugh. ‘tell me you don’t love tennis, beatrice, please.’

she shrugs carefully. ‘i’ve enjoyed it in the past. both playing and spectating.’

you groan. ‘no, beatrice! christ.’

‘it’s an olympic sport—‘

‘it’s dead boring,’ you insist.

beatrice frowns at you, considering. ‘you’re bad at it,’ she announces after a moment, very confident. ‘if you were better at it, perhaps you’d enjoy it more.’ you laugh, shrug a little, because she’s hit the nail on the head. she continues, ‘to its credit, tennis has serena williams, the most incredible athlete—‘

‘messi.’

‘team sport,’ she counters, and you cede the point with a nod.

‘certainly she’s the greatest tennis player of all time—‘

‘oh undoubtedly.’

‘—and it’s also one of the only sports that pays men and women equal prize money, and has mixed competitions.’

‘great points,’ you allow. ‘and yet, somehow it’s still fucking boring.’ beatrice fully scowls, shaking her head, and you have to ask, ‘are you rethinking being friends with me?’

she relents after a moment. sets down her drink with a sigh. ‘we can be friends,’ she tells you after a moment. ‘so long as we’re on the same page regarding serena williams.’

‘i’d love to regard serena williams.’

‘you should watch tennis, then,’ beatrice tells you bluntly, and smiles, pleased, when you laugh hard at that.

‘okay. you know everything about me now so what about you?’

‘what about me?’

you push a hand through your hair, ruffle it; her eyes follow the movement, your hands, and then she stares down at her coffee. ‘how long have you been in LA?’

‘a month. perhaps a little less.’

‘and you came here because…?’ when she hesitates, you say, ‘wait, wait, let me guess—you’re going to be in movies, right?’ she laughs like that’s ridiculous—even if one in five people you meet here is an aspiring actor, and none of them as compelling or, honestly, attractive as beatrice is—and relaxes. ‘ok, not movies. tv?’

‘no, i’m not here to act. i’m here to…’ she picks up a knife off the table, turns the cutlery smoothly between her fingers. ‘settle, i suppose. i’ve been travelling for some time.’

‘oh yeah? where to?’

it takes a little nudging for her to get going but when she does, she speaks very sincerely of the world, of its people and religions, of sights natural and man-made. she’s light on details but you can tell that the travel was important and life-changing, which you sort of understand. you haven’t been many places but every town away from where you grew up felt like a whole new world, like freedom, and you can only imagine that beatrice’s travelling was like that but no doubt on a far grander scale.

‘and your partner? what are they like?’ you ask, and immediately know that you’ve fucked up, because beatrice looks abruptly striken. ‘sorry, i -‘

‘no. it’s fine. she - ‘ a little of the horror in her fades the moment she says she, like even the thought of her partner is enough to soothe, but most of it stays. she picks up one of the paper napkins, twists it harshly between her fingers. ‘she’s sick.’

sick, she says, voice thick, unsteady. it occurs to you that she’s lying, trying to soften the blow or maybe deny it to herself again, but beatrice doesn’t seem like a liar. you choose to believe her. this is what it was, you realise. the source of that grief you’d felt, seen, ever since you first met her. you recognise the grief in her eyes—loss, fear, confusion too, like she doesn’t know quite what to do with herself. you remember that. the fog, the ache, when he was gone like an organ removed and your life having to close and heal around the lack. trying to find something that filled in that empty space, or fit enough that it didn’t hurt so much.

love for us is like the ocean. that’s true for you, then and now. you don’t think it’s the same for beatrice.

there’s love in every part of her—the joy and the waiting, the grief and the hurting—and there’s a cross around her neck that drags low, heavy, and there are words on her wrist that stand out stark against her skin and you think for beatrice love is like religion, holy, dedicated, faithful. you’re terrified that she’s waiting for a miracle that will never come; you hope, of course you hope and will pray for it tonight, that she gets it.

it’s also far too much to consider on a weekday before coffee, and you’ve already planned to keep her in your life in whatever capacity you can, so. you can talk about it later.

‘oh. that’s -’ beatrice looks like if you say another word she’s gonna bolt; if she does, you’re not sure that she’ll come to her next lesson, even if she has already paid for it. instead of condolences or well wishes, you say, ‘do you wanna hear about the time i hopped a fence and ripped my pants? right in the butt.’

she wasn’t expecting that in the slightest, obviously. a small smile curls her lips upwards and she resettles, looking dramatically less like she’s going to flee. ‘yes. that sounds very amusing.’

‘it’s funny now, sure, but back then? first of all, i got teased a lot. and second, it fucking stung,’ you bemoan, grinning when she looks a little unsure of whether this was, like, the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. she relaxes a little more and you thank god and your parents and brother that you get to be the person you are, someone who can make other people laugh. that’s not a bad life–surfing at the beach, a boring job, and making your friends laugh? not bad at all.

‘sounds like a pain in the ass.’ beatrice says, looking very pleased with her joke when it makes you groan, which is a lot better than her looking devastated. ‘what happened?’

‘usual idiot kid stuff. playing footy with my brother, kicked the ball over the neighbours fence. i thought i could jump it, get it back for us, and i did. mostly,’ you add after a tiny pause. then, slyly, you say, ‘the only reason i didn’t rip my boxers and my pants is because i was going commando.’

‘no.’

‘better a cut up my ass than ruining my good boxers,’ you wink, and beatrice laughs.

it’s just as easy as that to turn the conversation to lighter topics. she knows what you’re doing—you can tell, because her smile is occasionally too grateful than is deserved for just a chat over coffee—but she allows you to do it, and all too soon it’s been an hour and she’s buying you a second coffee, takeaway this time, and tipping, like, two hundred per cent with the most pristine notes you’ve ever seen tucked away in this slim handsome wallet, and you’re walking lazily, slowly back the way you’d come toward the beach. it’s not really a surprise that she declines the offer of heading to the surf shop—she still seems a bit unsteady after the mention of her partner—and you’re a little worried that she’ll disappear from your life now so you slow your pace when you see your car, twirl your keys around your finger.

‘what is it, ray?’ she asks, a touch cautious but mostly good-natured, curious.

‘busted. i was just thinking… you have a partner—major bummer, by the way,’ you tease, which is a fucking risk, but she manages a tiny smile. ‘mostly for you, because i was gonna ask you out and it would’ve been a good time, i know all the coolest places in LA.’ her cheeks go a little pink but she’s still smiling, so, ‘so despite being heart-broken, i’m going to this party tomorrow night. just a small thing, house party with a bunch of folks i go surfing with. you’ll probably meet most of them, if you keep up the dawn patrol, but it might be nice to get to know them out of the water. y’know, wearing clothes.’ much more seriously, much more sincerely, you tell her, ‘it’s absolutely cool if you want to be with your partner, or if you’re not going out much, but i wanted to invite you anyway. i think you’d enjoy it. very casual scene—music, some beers, a disproportionate amount of queer folk. plus, i’ll be there looking hot, that’s always a plus. you can be my wingwoman!’

beatrice frowns, considering her words carefully. ‘my partner is… she’s in a speciality hospital so i don’t get to visit her. i - promised her i would have some fun,’ she tells you, fingers brushing against her wrist. in this life, you’ve managed to read now, sitting opposite her for an hour in the morning sunlight, drinking coffee that almost tastes like home, sitting in a body and a life that entirely feels at home, and you look across at beatrice and see someone who is almost there. almost certain, almost sure, almost happy. ‘yes,’ she says, after taking a bolstering breath. brave, you think, with sudden fondness, protective. it comes to you, a splinter of a memory, being afraid of the ocean; gabriel plunging in ahead of you with such joy that you forgot. ‘yes,’ she says again, ‘i’d love to come to the party.’

‘amazing!’

‘and, while i find it difficult to imagine you would have a problem finding people to go on dates with you, yes, i will be your…wingwoman, if you require it. what is the dress code?’

‘too hot for leather, unfortunately,’ you tease, and have the extreme delight of watching beatrice stumble over literally nothing, ears going pink. so, so valiantly you manage to not comment on it. instead, you say, ‘wear whatever makes you feel good and happy. hot, if you want to feel hot. that’s always the rule.’

‘you get to decide what you do.’ it takes you a second to place her words—they’re your words, from this morning, which makes you smile because she’s quoting you, very seriously and kindly like that actually helped her, maybe. ‘i do best with rules, or a guideline,’ she mutters, but sets her shoulders and nods, decisive. ‘i’ll find something to wear. you have my number.’

‘from your form, i do, yeah. it’s cool if i text you?’

‘yes.’

‘alright. awesome, i’ll pin the address for you.’

‘good.’

beatrice walks you all the way to your car, shakes your hand like you’ve just concluded a job interview, and then continues on quickly. she’s got a white-knuckle grip on the handle of her tote bag and walks away with this quick, neat stride that makes you feel self-conscious about your own walk, like maybe you’ve been doing it wrong for your whole life. more importantly, there’s about a thirty per cent change that beatrice will actually turn up at this party but you’ve hoped for things with worse odds that were way less important to you than this, so you easily, recklessly hope that she’ll turn up.

the likelihood of beatrice actually showing up is still low, you remind yourself, even though she had texted this morning to accept and had thanked you very sincerely - and formally - for the invitation. the uber drops you off on the corner where you had agreed to meet and you hop out, saying a cheerful goodbye to your driver, rajeev, who had taken one look at you and nodded and switched his playlist to something titled GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS which…accurate. he totally earned his five stars and you’re clicking through to leave a quick review—clean car, GREAT music—when beatrice calls your name.

‘hey! you came!’

beatrice strides up the street to join you. the timing of her arrival three seconds after yours is odd enough that, for a second, you wonder if she’s been waiting and for how long. then, you get distracted by beatrice in her gay ass outfit—lightwash jeans, loose, that fall to her ankles; a soft-looking crewneck, blue; and birkenstocks that are either brand new or excruciatingly well-cared for, with not a speck of dirt on the white sandals—and realise you’ve made a huge mistake. there’s no way beatrice can be your wingwoman. every queer woman in this house will flock to her and her damn british accent and her freckles and her polite, comfortable, slightly masculine air, and the way she looks at everyone like they’re important. god. beatrice is devastating at four in the morning in a wetsuit, hair slicked back with ocean water; she’s devastating now, with the sleeves of her crew folded just once, precisely, enough to show off the dip of her wrists, and her hair pinned up in a pristine bun.

she stops mid-step, looks you up and down, and you stop calling yourself an idiot long enough to preen. with beatrice coming tonight, you felt like getting a little dressy and picked everything with slightly more care, ending up in a satin-type top you’ve tucked into high-waisted pants. it drapes open rather handsomely almost to your belly button—you’ve only done up half the buttons tonight, because you believe sincerely in being god’s gift to women and it’s your duty to parade around with a little skin showing, enough to tantalize. maybe a little slutty, just for fun. you’ve got a few chains hanging around your neck, and some rings on your fingers.

‘oh, i am gay,’ beatrice mutters when she gets a good look at you. ‘sorry - that’s,’

you wave off her apology or whatever she’s going to say, because a compliment is a compliment and that is a damn good compliment, especially coming from her.

‘delighted to be of service, honestly. any time you need reminding.’ you stroll over to greet her properly—not a hug, but an obvious once over, so she can see how much you approve of her look too, and then a tap to her elbow in hello—and she examines you a second time, looking marginally less embarrassed to get caught. this time, her eyes linger on your necklaces; no, your cross.

‘catholic?’

‘born and raised. you?’

she only nods, lips pursed. glancing around, she says, ‘the party is around here?’

‘yeah. oh, yeah, it’s on this street. one minute walk, maybe two.’ she looks a little confused and you admit, ‘i wasn’t sure if you actually wanted to come. i wanted to meet up with you first, make sure you were comfortable.’

rather than being offended, beatrice relaxes. ‘that’s kind of you.’

‘well, i want you to have fun. it will be fun,’ you insist, and start in the direction of luis’s place. ‘i’ll take care of you tonight, i promise—you can drink, if you want, or smoke. no pressure. i’ll stay sober anyway. but what i really want is to introduce you to my friends, i really think you’ll like them.’

‘because we’re all queer?’ beatrice guesses, a note of something odd in her tone. it’s not suspicion, but something akin to it.

‘yeah, sure. i know what it’s like moving to a new place and not knowing anyone, it’s rough. especially for us,’ you say, light on the emphasis but apparent enough that beatrice looks at you again, and nods to herself. ‘but aside from being queer, i just really think you’ll like them. luis is the one hosting tonight. they’re super smart, they’re finishing a phd in anthropology, movement in borderlands—oh, and they will offer you weed every half hour but that’s not you, and you don’t have to accept, it’s just their idea of hospitality.’ beatrice nods very solemnly. you can practically hear the information being locked away in her brain and the image makes you smile. ‘it’s this one, up ahead.’

as promised, the party is pretty chill—low lights, not too packed, good music. it’s a really nice night and there are a few folk standing around on the porch, drinks in hand; when you get in, you’ll probably find most of the guests have spilled out into the back yard. plus, you’re only a few streets back from the beach—based on the last few parties luis has hosted, the beach is where you’ll end up in a few hours.

beatrice stops outside the house, stares in through the open door. she touches two fingers to her wrist. you stand with her, beside her, and part of you aches because you know that there is someone else who should be here, who she wants very badly to be here, and it seems terribly unfair that something this simple - a party, new friends, the distant sound of the ocean - isn't simple at all.

‘all good?’

‘thank you,’ she says, softly. ‘for inviting me. and don’t say you need a wingwoman because i sincerely doubt that.’

you grin. run a hand through your hair in a way that makes you look particularly douchey, according to your ex. ‘thanks. i appreciate that. and no, i don’t need a wingwoman but it can’t hurt... except if the girls hear that accent, actually,’ you say with a thoughtful frown, like it’s only occurring to you now that beatrice is hot. you step in front of her like you’re blocking her way to the house, even as you back up toward the house, the party. ‘this is bad, i’ve made a huge mistake, you gotta go,' you insist, teasingly.

beatrice laughs and follows you in.

#tagging my stories #prompt fill #warrior nun #avatrice #sort of but its also like. a love letter to the butch bea world & the introduction of ray my beloved #i need to read it again & edit before i post it to ao3 but its midnight so here have it before i scream

201 notes · View notes

athena-writes-i-guess · 2 years

Text

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Prompt: “I’m yours, I’m not going anywhere.”

Jealousy. Eddie wasn’t sure if he had felt such extreme jealousy like this before in his life. But he knew it was burning white hot right now as he watched you talk animatedly with another student by your locker.

Eddie trusted you. Of course he did. That had nothing to do with it. He just didn’t feel good enough for you and was worried that one day you would realize it too and leave him for someone better. So now here he was jealous and afraid just because you were talking to another guy. The metalhead steeled himself for a moment before making his way over to you.

Once he got to your side, Eddie snaked an arm around your waist and placed a possessive kiss to your head. “Hey babe.” He said, trying to sound casual.

“Hey!” You beamed at him. “Eddie, this is James, he’s my partner for a physics project. James, this is my boyfriend Eddie.” You said cheerfully. Eddie felt a little silly for his feelings now seeing the way you looked up at him with such love.

“Hey, nice to meet you.” James said, barely looking up at Eddie, his eyes seemed to be locked on to you like a magnet. The way this guy was looking at you made the flame of emotion in Eddie’s chest, that had been getting smaller from your sweet look, burst aflame again. How many people looked at you the way this guy did? He wasn’t bad looking, in fact he was one of the more popular students and had the looks for it. And if a popular guy like this one had his eyes set on you, why would you continue to be with the freak of the school?

Eddie was lost in his thoughts as the bell for class rang, not even registering it until you nudged him with your elbow. “Ready for class?” You asked sweetly.

“Yeah, let’s go.” He responded quietly, leading you to your shared classroom, missing the concerned look you had as you gazed at him while you walked.

The day went by like this, Eddie seemingly in a dejected and sad mood. You tried to ask him what was wrong when you got a chance but he just shrugged it off. Eventually you couldn’t take it anymore, his mood worrying you. You grabbed his hand after school was over and dragged him all the way across campus to the bench in the woods behind the school.

“What’s going on Eddie?” You asked as you took a seat next to him on the bench.

“Nothing babe, don’t worry about it okay?” He sighed, fidgeting with the rings on his left hand.

“Bullshit!”

Eddie turned at your outburst, looking at your face fully for the first time since this morning. You seemed hurt and worried. Now he felt like a jerk.

“Eddie, something’s wrong, please talk to me. What did I do?” You questioned, hurt lacing your words.

“You didn’t do- it’s nothing like that.” He stuttered out.

“Then please tell me. I’m freaking out over here.” You pleaded.

Eddie sighed again and looked at you, “I just- I’m afraid you’re going to leave me. I know I’m a freak and just being with me makes life hard at this stupid school. You can do better than me.” He confessed sadly. “You should be with someone better.” He finished with a hurt look of his own directed at the table in front of him.

“I’m yours, I’m not going anywhere.” You said confidently, your boyfriends head snapped to your face. “I don’t need, or want, anyone else, Eddie.” You smiled, grabbing one of his hands as you turned on the seat to face him. “You’re everything I’ve wanted and I’d be stupid to let you go.” You lifted his hand to your mouth, and left a chaste kiss there as you looked at him like he hung the moon and stars for you.

Eddie felt the heat rise to his face, maybe he was worth a damn.

Masterlist

886 notes · View notes

crazyunsexycool · 1 year

Text

My little love

Chapter 5

pairing: Bucky Barnes x enhanced!reader

word count: 2.9k

Warnings: mostly fluff, a bit of angst/panic inducing moment, Charlotte stops breathing for a moment, baby crying, thoughts of having kids

A/N: please tell me your thoughts on this chapter! We finally see Charlotte and reader interact again. Also I think this is my favorite way I’ve written Steve!

Series Masterlist

Chapter 4

The cradle had done wonders to help your recovery but because of the damage caused by the shrapnel you still had to take it easy. Which would have been fine except Bucky decided to take charge of your recovery. It’s how you found yourself propped up against a large number of pillows in your room.

“Ok, do you need anything else?” He asked as he fluffed the final pillow.

“Yeah, for you to chill out a little.” You tease.

“You almost died, you need rest. I’m just making sure you get it.”

You grab his hand and tug on it so that he sits down on the edge of the bed. Bucky’s stare is intense as his eyes roam your face searching for any hints of pain.

“Thank you, I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. I really do.” You smile at him. “Now are you going to bring Angel in? Hopefully now that I’m back in my place she won’t freak out. I miss her.”

“Yeah we can try again. She may have reacted that way but she missed you too.”

It had been a few days since your return from the mission and since her freak out you’ve kept your distance. But you wanted nothing more than to hug her again.

“Ok, good.”

Your phone starts ringing, startling both of you. Reaching for it on your nightstand you wince at the slight pain in your side. Bucky grabs it for you and scrunches his face in confusion.

“Darth Vader?”

Your eyes light up and you yank the phone out of his hand and answer quickly, your voice filled with pure happiness. “Hi daddy.” You hum in acknowledgement at whatever your dad is saying as Bucky watches you.

He wonders if Charlotte would ever react the same way if he called her.

“Well actually I came back from a mission a few days ago. I uh-I’m ok now.”

Bucky could hear your dad ask how bad it was which prompted you to explain your injuries. He didn’t take it well.

“No, dad… Dad. Daddy please listen to me. I’m ok I promise. I’m back in my apartment and I’m resting. Yeah I’m being taken care of.” You look up at Bucky and smile. “Yes, Bucky is helping me.”

“Who the hell is Bucky?” Your father practically yelled and Bucky snorted.

“Father, I’ve told you about him before. He’s my friend. I trust him and before you ask, no you don’t need to drive up here.”

Bucky didn’t bother to listen to the other side of the conversation, opting to just listen to your answers.

“Ok dad, I promise to keep you updated. I love you.” After saying your goodbyes you hang up and sigh.

“So you named your dad Darth Vader?”

“He loves Star Wars.” You shrug your shoulders. “He almost convinced my mom to name me Leia.”

“So you get your charm from him?”

You smile and nod as you think of all the fun memories you’ve had with your father.

“He was my main caretaker. He even helped me with my ability. Made sure I was able to control it before I went to school. And he never made me feel like a freak, just accepted me the way I was.”

“Sounds like a good man.” Bucky smiled at you.

“The best.” You smiled back.

There’s a soft knock on your door and Steve opens it once you acknowledge him. He was dressed in his uniform and holding Charlotte in his arms.

“I know we agreed that you would go pick her up, but I have to finish up some things for this mission.”

“Don’t worry about it. C’mere doll.” Bucky stretched his arms out and Charlotte happily left Steve arms.

During the whole interaction she kept looking over at you. Like she wanted to be closer to you but was also afraid. You smiled at her and waved but she only hid her face in the crook of Bucky’s neck.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better. Bucky has promised snacks and a golden girl’s marathon.” You say as you sit up a bit more.

“Good,” Steve smiles at you. “I should go but make sure you rest. Doctor and Captain’s orders.”

“Sir Yes sir.” You salute him. Steve rolls his eyes before saying goodbye to Bucky and Angel.

Bucky makes his way around the bed and sits against the headboard, kicking off his shoes before getting completely comfortable and settling his daughter on his lap. Charlotte stayed glued to Bucky but every so often she would look over at you. You did your best to ignore her so that she didn’t feel overwhelmed with the attention and focused on finding the show you wanted to watch. Bucky asked a few questions since he’d never seen it and when the theme song came on you couldn’t help but sing along to it.

You had gotten through half of the second episode when you felt a small dip in the bed and then small hands on your thigh. When you looked down you saw a slightly cautious Charlotte looking up at you. There was a little frown on her lips and her eyes looked almost glassy, like if she were about to cry. Being careful with your movements you scoop her up in your arms and lay her against your chest before peppering kisses on her forehead. Slowly she begins to relax against you, her head leaning against your chest. Angel kept looking up at you and her hand would softly land on your cheek as she tried to get your attention. It had been a week and a half since you’d held her but already you could start to see the huge difference since she was found. Her hair was starting to grow and by the looks of it, she had the same dark hair Bucky did. Her cheeks were a nice healthy rosy color and she was starting to gain the weight she needed. She wasn’t walking yet but Bucky did say she was standing on her own so it was only a matter of time.

“Ok, I’m gonna go get snacks. Do you want anything specific?”

“Chips please. Oh and some cookies.”

“Chips and cookies, ok. I’ll make sure to grab Lottie something too.”

“Lottie?”

“It’s short for Charlotte.”

“Not Charlie?”

“You can call her that if you like but I like Lottie.”

You nod as Bucky gets up from bed.

“Your dad is such an old man.” You tell the toddler in your lap.

“I heard that.”

“Oh, is your hearing still intact? Wow, that's amazing for someone your age.” You tease.

“Keep it up and no snacks for you.” Bucky narrows his eyes at you.

Charlotte speaks up for the first time. Neither of you understand what she’s babbling about but she’s loudly babbling and looking right at Bucky.

“You tell him, Lottie.”

“Great now you’re both going to gang up on me.” Bucky rolled his eyes and walked out of the room.

It felt good to be back in your own apartment. To have Bucky next to you and Angel on your lap. Even when you dozed off and were leaning against Bucky’s shoulder.

You always wondered what dating him would be like but it was always the actual dates. Getting dressed up and going out, not the in between moments. But here you are living it and it was nice. Something you could get used to if only you could tell him how you felt. The whole almost losing your life situation really had you thinking about what you wanted in life and you hadn’t realized you were sitting in the middle of it.

With two of your favorite people at your side it was turning into a great lazy day. Until it wasn’t. After lunch and a change of scenery, which meant moving from your bedroom to your living room, the day went from easy and fun to panic filled. Charlotte had been standing on the couch next to you and you had an arm around her just in case she lost balance. Her attention ping ponged from the tv to you. She had started to babble and coo freely, just like she had before your mission. Then suddenly it was all gone. Your sweet Angel stopped talking and you felt her tense up beside you. When you looked at her, her eyes were wide, gaze was distant and fearful and she had stopped breathing.

“Bucky.” You called in a panic as you grabbed Charlotte and tried to run your hands on her back and sides to try to get her breathing again. “Bucky!” You yelled again.

He rushed out from Charlotte’s room where he was looking for her blanket.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know she just tensed up and she isn’t breathing.”

“This happened the day you left for your mission.” He said as he took her from you.

He called her name as he walked out of the apartment with you following as quickly as you could. Bucky headed toward Bruce’s lab while you stopped Vision and asked him to tell Wanda to meet you there. When you stepped into the lab Bruce was rushing around trying to figure out what to do. He was more nervous than ever as he tried to figure out what to do. You worked together to try and find a solution but nothing happened. Charlotte’s lips were starting to turn blue from the lack of oxygen.

“You wanted to see me Y/N?” Wanda asked as she walked in.

“Read her mind.”

“What?”

“Read Angel’s mind, something is wrong but we don’t know what.”

Her eyes turned red and a small spark shot from her hand as she let it hover over Charlotte’s head. Wanda gasped and her eyes widened before she pulled her hand back. You had never been so relieved to hear a child’s cry in your entire life, but your own tears flowed easily when you saw your sweet Angel grab onto her father. A piercing scream filled the room but you’d take that over the terrifying silence you’d witness moments ago. It finally felt like you and Bucky could breathe again as he rocked her back and forth. Your eyes moved from Bucky to Wanda who looked shaken by whatever she found.

“What is it Wanda?”

“We have to call Tony and Steve. The mission is another trap.”

“What?” You and Bruce asked at the same time.

“They have to stop the mission. We need to get them to turn around.” She said as she ran out of the room to head toward the command center where Maria Hill was working out of. The three of you had nothing left to do but follow. By the time you finally make it across the compound Charlotte had finally calmed down.

“You have to call Steve and Tony back.” Wanda tells Maria. “This mission is a trap. Like the one Y/N was on last week.”

“Where are you getting this information from?”

“I’ll explain, I promise but their lives are in danger.”

Maria gives Wanda a concerned look before her gaze shifts to you, Bucky and Bruce. She can see the bewildered and panicked look in your eyes. A quick call to the jet has a confused Steve and Tony agreeing to turn around.

Now it was a matter of waiting for them to return.

Bucky had been extremely tense the whole time he sat in the conference room. He hadn’t let Charlotte out of his arms even when she tried to reach for you. So you opted to sit beside him and hold her hand. Bruce and Wanda were also waiting for Steve and Tony to make an appearance.

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Tony asked as he burst through the door with Steve and Maria behind him.

“The mission you were going on was a setup. The minute you landed hydra was prepared to take you.” Wanda explains.

“How do you know that Wanda?” Steve asked as he sat next to Bucky. Charlotte sees him and immediately reaches out to him. Bucky reluctantly lets her go.

“I didn’t know. Charlotte did.”

Everyone looks from Wanda to Charlotte who was trying to grab the star in the middle of Steve’s uniform. Oblivious to conversation happening around her.

“I’m sorry what?”

“Bucky, we know she has the serum in her system but Hydra not only created another super soldier, they made sure she was enhanced.” Wanda says calmly. “She had a vision of what happened to Steve and Tony. I saw it when I read her mind. ”

“It would make sense, you did say last time she was having a nightmare. Maybe it wasn’t a nightmare but a vision.” Bruce added after thinking over what Wanda said.

“So there’s nothing we can do to prevent her from having these visions. We’re just supposed to watch her react this way any time she sees something?”

“Maybe. At least until she starts talking and is able to tell us what she sees.”

“I don’t want ‘maybe’.” Bucky’s fist hits the table.

The sound startles Charlotte and she begins to cry again. You move around Bucky and take her from Steve. Bucky runs his hand over his face, frustrated that he can’t do more for his daughter.

“She’s been through enough. Isn’t there something that we can try? Just until she’s old enough to communicate and understand what’s going on.”

“We can try to find something but we can’t make any promises.” Tony says. “Bruce and I will try everything we can.”

“Thank you.” Bucky nods.

“In the meantime this information doesn’t leave the room.” You say as you rock Angel lightly. “We don’t need anyone trying to come for her.”

“As if they’d get past you.”

“I heard that, Rogers.”

“I’m only stating the truth.” He shrugs as he turns in his chair to look at you, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Agreed.” Maria spoke up. “We will have to figure out what to tell the team in that room.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“What are you going to do Wanda?”

“Make them forget about the mission.” She shrugs.

“No, I'll talk to them.” Steve said as he got up. “I’ll make something up.”

“Captain Righteous lying?” Tony gasped.

“I’d do anything for Lottie, I am her favorite uncle after all.”

“I don’t think she can decide that yet.”

Steve’s expression was a mixture of bitch please and you know I’m right. You smiled at the small back and forth when Steve called Bucky a jerk. The others began to walk out and Steve finally left, leaving just you, Bucky and Charlotte.

Bucky turned in his chair to look at you and his daughter. There was no way that he could fall more in love with you but you were doing a great job at proving him wrong. He thinks that he should finally ask you out. It’s something he should have asked you a long time ago. For the first time since the 40s Bucky allows himself to dream of a life beyond the next mission. Of sharing a home with his favorite girls. He had no doubt you loved his daughter, would you want kids of your own? The thought of having a baby with you makes his heart race.

“Bucky.” The strain in your voice catches his attention and when he looks up at you he sees the pain in your face.

“What’s wrong?” He asks worriedly as he takes Charlotte from you.

“Nothing, Angel was squirming in my arms and kicked me. Wouldn’t be so bad but she kicked the side that’s sore.”

You grab your side as you take a few calming breaths. Once the pain has died down a bit you look back at Bucky with a small smile.

“Why don’t we go upstairs so you both can rest?” Bucky asks as he puts his arm around your shoulder and starts leading you to the door.

“That sounds good to me.”

After watching a movie, having dinner, giving Charlotte a bath Bucky puts her to bed. Giving you time to take a shower of your own. You finally settled back on the couch in the living room. Bucky had also gone to his apartment to shower, he was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Bucky’s arm wraps around you and pulls you closer to him and you practically melt into his side.

“Feeling better?”

“So much better.”

“Ok, what are we watching?” Bucky asked as he grabbed the remote off the arm of the couch.

“Whatever you want. I’m just here for the warmth.”

Bucky chuckles.

“What? You’re a space heater, I'm just taking advantage.”

“You can take advantage all you want.” Bucky murmured.

“What?”

Bucky’s cheeks flush pink as he realized that you heard him. His mouth opened and shut a few times but he couldn’t think about what to say. When he looked down at you, your eyes were bright and they crinkled in the corners while you smiled up at him. And just with that simple action you took his breath away.

“Go out with me.” He blurted. Your smile faded and you sat up straight but your eyes never left his. Bucky was sure he just ruined everything.

“What do you mean?��

“On a date, go out with me on a date.” He sighed finally and just as quickly as it disappeared your smile was back.

“I’d love to.”

Ch. 6

permanent taglist: @kunaikunari @rebekahdawkins @cjand10 @nalny5 @sturchling @angywritesstuff @seitmai @writing-for-marvel @goldylions @darkhairedmenrule @little--baby--bear @almosttoopizza @littleseasiren @teambarnes72

series tag list: @buckystevelove @vicmc624 @just-someone11

#my little love series #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x enhanced!reader #girl dad!bucky barnes #girl dad!bucky Barnes x reader

277 notes · View notes

luneariaa · 4 days

Text

ღ || faciens certus.

✰ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : { ps5 } harry osborn x reader.

✰ 𝐰. 𝐜. : 1k+

✰ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 : harry stays over your place for the night, and tries his best to convince you that he's alright.

✰ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : just pure fluff bc he deserves the world <33

. dividers by @/saradika-graphics !! 🏹

"Just your luck."

You simply said at the auburn-haired male, who just arrived at your place. He settled himself comfortably by the couch of your home, as it started to rain quite heavily outside, hitting every part of the window that's present.

"Gotta admit that I missed the rain. It's been heating up so badly lately." You handed him the glass of hot chocolate with a small smile.

Harry thanked you while grabbing the drink that you gave him, keeping his eyes on you even after he does so.

"Yeah, it feels nice, doesn't it? I mean, the rain makes it colder than usual, but still nice in its' own way."

You nodded a bit as you returned his occasional brief gazes, before shifting your eyes at the TV, which has lost its' signal due to the harsh weather outside, which prompted you to switch it off for now.

Harry gradually puts the glass of his now finished drink down on the table nearby, before letting his eyes stayed upon your standing figure. "Mind if I stay over for the night?"

"You're always welcome to stay here, Har."

An appreciative smile is plastered across his handsome face, deciding to walk toward your direction after bringing a chair along with him, placing it just next to yours. All while his gaze never once averted elsewhere.

"Mhm, you kept staring at me for the past few minutes."

"Got something in your mind?"

The auburn-haired male elicited a chuckle, now managing to fully catch your attention.

"Honestly?"

"I was just thinking, like, you know-- those old times where we used to spend our time with each other here, watching movies till the early hours of dawn.."

By this point, his eyes are shifted elsewhere as he continued further. "My illness, my dad sort of.. kept me away from meeting you before. Surely, there are valid reasons, but still.."

"It's just nice being able to see you again like this with no one else around."

"Ah, I get that." You leaned your back against the chair you're sitting on comfortably. "I missed you for that too."

"But.."

"Nothing's gonna happen to you after this, right..?" You don't know what has driven you to ask such a question since he is, well, already there looking all healthy and fine. You couldn't help yourself-- the deep fear of potentially losing him in any time scares you so much.

His smile gradually falters upon hearing your words; simply because he wasn't expecting that type of response from you-- not in a bad way though.

"You don't have to worry about me. Nothing's going to happen anytime soon. I've taken care of everything."

Harry tried his best to reassure you, yet deep down, he hated himself for a bit due to how much he worried you.

Maintaining his cheery demeanor, he forces himself to bury the feelings of guilt deep within him, knowing quite well that you have every right to feel this concerned over his wellbeing.

He doesn't want to be a liar, but he had to, for your sake. He cared about you too much to see you in this state.

Harry just.. wanted to be normal again, and he missed how things were between you two.

"Nothing's gonna stop that now, right?"

You eventually nodded it off, processing his words within your mind. "Yeah, you got a point."

"I'm sorry, I just.."

Any other thoughts are being shut out for now, his focus-- full of pure tenderness, is now completely on you.

"Hey, you don't have to apologize."

"Just please.. Don't worry about it anymore, okay? It makes me all sad seeing you this way about me. I appreciate you for that, always."

You eventually nodded, albeit wordlessly; not knowing what to say as a reply. Sensing the sudden slight of change, Harry finally decided to stand in front of you-- placing a finger gently beneath your chin.

"I'm fine, see?" He then grabs ahold of one of your hands while squeezing it lightly, which made you stand with him as well. The shared gazes lasted longer than necessary, but none of you cared much.

Just by the way your eyes looked up into his own; it's enough to make his heart race and melt at the same time. Dare he say-- you're so precious to him. He would shamelessly show it through his actions, even after all these years.

Even words couldn't be described with the way you gazed at him like that-- it's too much, yet never enough.

Slowly, and delicately, he guides your hand towards where his heart is; allowing you to feel the beat of his heart, and how he's very much alive to you.

He wouldn't lie, but he smiles so fondly, noticing on how his heart picks up just by the mere touch of your palm against his chest.

"Feel it as much you want."

"Isn't this nice?"

The warmth radiates from your hand alone, but you thought the opposite-- thinking that his heart and body are the ones who provide the most warmth. You needed this.

He's standing in front of you and alive. That's what matters.

A warm chuckle escaped from your lips, trying your best to stay composed since you started to feel a little giddy and silly.

"You're right.. This feels comforting."

All while letting his soft grip upon your hand stays, he now moves your hand from his chest, and onto his forehead. "You can-- I mean, check for my temperature as well, just to try convince yourself further, yeah?"

In truth, he just wanted to feel your touch for much longer, especially right at this moment. The rain outside was almost being forgotten.

Harry smiled over his own words; partly joking about it, but at the same time, he wasn't. You returned his actions with such ease, simply letting your hand stay upon his forehead for a bit longer.

You were being cautious as ever, as if not wanting to accidentally hurt him or anything in that way.

"You don't have to be so careful, you know," he remarks, finding your actions quite amusing to behold, to which you simply laughed it off.

"But I wanted to."

You did something that could be considered as bold afterwards; where you actually gave his cheek a small, yet sweet kiss. It's quite new, as you never had the courage to do something as such despite being friends for years.

"That should take all the remaining sickness away, hopefully."

As much as a sap you're being right now, you couldn't help yourself, especially when he keeps his gaze at you like that. He's just so.. You can't even resist him; feeling the urge to squish him if he was a plushie or anything akin to it.

It's just a kiss on the cheek, but why would he freeze and appear to be surprised by the sudden gesture? You're scared if you might have gotten too far with your actions--

But then, his expression is failing him once the reddish hue starts to form upon his cheeks, sharing a sweet and heartwarming laugh along with you.

Harry knows how much you cared for him; on how gentle you are with him. Even if the whole ordeal turns out to be a platonic one, he wouldn't mind the slightest, as long as you are within it.

16 notes · View notes

reminiscingtonight · 1 year

Text

Endlessly

Emily Sonnett x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: Happy New Year! Here’s a cute non-Setbacks fic to start off 2023!

[WOSO Masterlist]

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

Kelley raises an eyebrow when she strolls into the room. When she left for breakfast this morning, you were still sound asleep in your bed. What prompted this trashing of your shared hotel room and rare swear-filled vocabulary? Well she had no clue. “Are you auditioning for a movie against Samuel L. Jackson or something?”

Pausing from sweeping your hands on the ground, you shoot the defender a dirty look. “No. I’m looking for my ring.”

She carefully perches herself on the corner of her, thankfully, untouched bed. The gold shimmer of your wedding band catches her eye with ease, and Kelley is quick to tell you so. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s literally on your ring finger. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it leave your side unless we’re gearing up for a match. And even then, it’s back on the second the whistle blows.”

When you let out an even more pitiful sigh, Kelley has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing.

“Not that one. I have a second one, or first one actually, I-- it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was wearing it when I went to bed and I woke up and it was gone.”

Kelley instantly wants to crack a joke about you turning into Gollum, but one look at your face instantly stops her. You look ten steps beyond upset, close to crying at even the smallest prodding. She frowns, never having seen you this upset before. “Do you want some help?”

And that’s where your wife finds the two of you an hour later. After you miss your coffee date, Emily trudges to your room with a sigh. Knowing you and Kelley, she’d be amazed if the defender hadn’t roped you into putting on handcuffs just to complete a weird challenge of hers.

Noticing the door slightly ajar, Emily nudges it open. “Okay Kel, what did you do to my…”

Emily blinks at the sight in front of her.

Your usually pristine room is in shambles, sheets thrown everywhere, every piece of bedding overturned. Kelley shoots the blonde a look of help from behind you, while you’re still on your hands and knees, staring intensely at the floor.

After going through your entire room with a fine tooth comb not once, or twice, but a whopping five times, your ring has still yet to turn up. In all honesty, Kelley thought you were making things up. She’s never seen this so-called “first” ring of yours, and the longer you search with no success, the less she’s inclined to think this is anything else but a taxing prank on your part.

“Babe, everything okay?”

“I-- I--” The sympathetic look on Emily’s face as she waits for you to gather your thoughts only makes you break down into tears.

Emily’s crossing the room in seconds, glaring at Kelley. “What did you do?” She hisses out, letting you hold on tight to her.

“Me? I didn’t do anything!” Kelley looks affronted, the accusation coming out of nowhere.

“Well something obviously happened. She was fine last night when she left--”

“Kelley didn’t do anything,” you blubber into Emily’s neck. The blonde huffs out a breath, not quite believing either of you. “She was helping me look for my ring.”

A beat passes.

Emily really tries to stop herself from laughing. Especially since you seem so upset. But she now understands the exasperated look on Kelley’s face. “Baby, it’s on your finger.”

Kelley mouths out a ‘that’s what I said!’ from across the room, but neither you nor Emily pay her any attention.

“Not that one!” you repeat, sounding even more upset than when Kelley had prompted this reaction.

It’s the slight hitch in your voice that instantly sobers Emily up. Her mouth drops open, knowing exactly what you’re referring to. “Oh, you lost…” Emily trails off, hand automatically dropping to the necklace that held the matching ring hidden underneath her shirt. She didn’t need to finish her sentence for either of you to know exactly what it is that you’ve lost.

After all, you were the one who bought those rings for the two of you years ago, back before you had the money to get the nice gold wedding bands that tie the two of you together.

---

“This is stupid, isn’t it.”

Emily huffs in annoyance next to you and you have to try hard not to laugh at her. After being grounded, Emily lost all of her car privileges. And given that you didn’t have a car yourself, the two of you decided to walk all the way to the nearest courthouse, rather than your original plan of driving.

Nearly an hour later, you could start to see the courthouse in the distance. But with the appearance of the building, Emily starts nervously fidgeting beside you.

“We’re 18, Em. It’s perfectly legal--”

“Yeah yeah, I know, but we don’t even have rings!”

Pulling your girlfriend to a stop, you wait until she hesitantly meets your eyes. You give her hand a light squeeze. “Do you not want to do this anymore? It’s okay if you don’t. It’s just… you kinda were the one who proposed.”

Emily’s instantly shaking her head. “No, no, I do. Of course I do. I just… do you think we’re ready for this? Or that… you really want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life?”

“I said yes when you asked, didn’t I?” You smile but Emily doesn’t return it. Her eyes drop to the ground again where she’s been scuffing her feet against the pavement for a while now. Sighing, you take another step towards Emily, crowding her so she has no choice but to look up again. “Baby, I’d kill to spend the rest of my life with you. It doesn’t matter if we get married today or in five years or until we’re gray and old. I’ll love you now and forever because you’re the one for me.”

Emily’s frowning now, and you know she doesn’t know if you’re being serious or not. You love your girlfriend to death, but she often needs multiple reminders of how much you love her --- something you’re more than happy to voice.

Pulling her in for a hug, you plant a kiss along her hairline. Emily sinks into you, wrapping her arms around your waist.

“We can go home right now if that’s what you want,” you hum, making sure Emily knows you’re being genuine. “We can go snuggle in my bed and pretend we never even came up with this idea. Emma will probably tease us about it for a while but she’ll forget about it soon enough--”

“No, I-- I want to get married today. I want to.” Emily pulls back far enough for you to see the new set of determination in her eyes.

“Are you sure? Because it’s totally okay if--”

“Will you marry me?” Emily interrupts, similar to the way she asked the first time.

The corner of your lip twitches in amusement. You pretend to think on it for a second, but quickly throw out a ‘yes’ when Emily jabs an elbow into your ribs.

“Not even married yet and you’re already treating me badly. You’ll be lucky if I don’t divorce you.” Your complaint dies off when a certain store catches your attention.

Emily turns around, trying to see what’s got you distracted, but you grab her face, turning it back to yours.

“Okay, I love you, but I’d love you more if you stay right here and give me two minutes.”

“Wait, where are you--”

When you swing back closer to five minutes later, Emily’s still where you left her, albeit looking a little poutier than normal.

She perks up when you come into view, but the pout is quick to return. “That was longer than two minutes.”

Ignoring her, you drop your purchase into Emily’s open hand. The blonde drops her eyes to her palms, mouth dropping open when she realizes what you bought.

The two plastic rings are by no means grand wedding bands, but they are circular and get the job done. And that’s exactly what you tell Emily.

Her eyebrows pinch together, a sign when she’s thinking a bit too hard. “Where did you even get them?”

“The shop down the street sells them for pretty cheap.”

You felt confident enough to buy the rings when you spotted them on display earlier, but when Emily starts turning them in her hands, examining them without saying a word, you start to feel the nerves.

“I know it’s not gold or anything fancy, but I promise I’ll get you a real one someday.”

“Not if I beat you to it first.”

Emily’s outburst earns her a chuckle and you loop your arm through hers.

And when the two of you return home a couple hours later, hand in hand with matching plastic rings and a marriage certificate on its way, you know that everything will be just fine.

---

That cheap plastic ring has been with you everywhere. It’s been to Virginia when you and Emily left for college. It’s been to Boston when you were drafted there while Emily headed for Portland. It’s been to the World Cup, the Olympics, and even NWSL championship matches, and you’ve never once misplaced it.

But for the first time since you were eighteen, it’s not around anymore.

You find yourself absentmindedly reaching for the necklace it usually sits upon more than a couple times, but every time you meet skin instead of familiar metal, you can’t help but deflate.

Emily’s quick to catch the dip in your mood. Although the two of you have long gotten those gold rings you promised each other years ago, it was Emily’s idea to keep the original ones upon a necklace. She’s nothing if not sentimental, and watching you tear yourself apart because you lost something so dear to the both of you only makes her all the more eager to fix your hurt.

Which is why you’re surprised when after another one of your absentminded scratches of your neck, Emily lets out a loud sigh. “Okay I can’t take it anymore.”

The hurt crosses your face instantly, but Emily is out of her seat before she can catch it.

You know you’ve been a bit mopey ever since coming back from camp, but you haven’t been that unbearable to live with. At least you didn’t think so. Emily hasn’t complained once, but for her to leave you over losing a ring?

Emily freezes when she comes back into the room, noticing the tear tracks on your face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why are you so mean?” you huff, getting up from the couch where the two of you were cuddling earlier. You push past your wife to the kitchen, wanting to put some space between the two of you.

Emily doesn’t let you get too far. “What?” She sounds bewildered, but you keep your back towards her, not wanting to see her face at the moment.

You know damn well you’re being a bit ridiculous right now, but now that Emily’s hurt your feelings? Well she will just have to deal with you being difficult.

“You know how much the ring meant to me! At least give me time to grieve the loss of something so special before you start finding a reason to leave me!”

“What? No! No, no, no, I would never do that to you.” You feel Emily press her body against yours, one arm wrapping itself around your waist. She presses a kiss against your cheek, whispering quiet reassurances that she would never leave you.

Despite the way you’re feeling, you can’t help but melt into her touch. “Then what did you mean when you said you couldn’t take ‘this’ anymore?”

The look of sheepishness instantly crosses Emily’s face. The blonde slaps a hand against her forehead. “Okay, sorry, wrong choice of words.”

Turning you around, Emily shoves a box into your hands. You didn’t notice her holding it this entire time, but now that you’re thinking about it, this must have been what she left the room to go grab.

You eye it with suspicion.

“I was going to gift this to you for our anniversary next month but you seemed too sad for me to keep it from you.”

Frowning, you slowly unwrap it. When you finally crack open the box, your mouth drops open.

Sitting in the box is a familiar plastic ring sitting upon a simple silver chain.

A thousand emotions flood through you at once. Disbelief, relief, annoyance. You narrow your eyes at Emily. “Where did you find it?”

“Baby, you left it in the bathroom after we… well, you know.” Emily’s face burns red, a flush overtaking her features as she thinks back to the afternoon you spent in her hotel room during camp.

You’re stuck between embarrassed that that’s how you lost your ring and slightly peeved that Emily’s hid it from you for this long, but in the end, you’re just relieved you didn’t actually lose it to the void of the world.

“Can you?” You sweep your hair off to the side, hand holding out the necklace to your wife.

Emily grabs it without any other prompting. “Want to marry me again?” She grins, leaning in close so she can close the clasp for you.

You let out a teary chuckle. “Always.”

#emily sonnett x reader #uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #woso x reader #woso imagine #Ace writes

400 notes · View notes