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hockeyboysiguess · 4 years

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sunflowers | m. tkachuk

a/n: today, i offer a humble too long matthew tkachuk fic, full of angst and thoughts about love.

i would like to thank @nolypats, for having a dream that i wrote a fic about? that dream looks nothing like this fic, but that was the og inspiration, and for being so supportive during the writing of this monster. also, @jasondickinsons and @slapshot-to-the-heart for freaking out every time i sent you a preview. never would’ve finished it without these three.

word count: 20K

warnings: swearing, and a ton of angst.

wine pairing recommendation: a full bodied cabernet sauvignon, because this fic is full bodied.

You ran a hand through your hair as you looked at Matthew across your apartment. The mug in your hands felt heavy and the tea inside had gone cold. The look on Matthew’s face when he walked in the front door had made you set it aside and forget about it entirely. He had been nervous, hesitant, his movements almost delayed, like there was too many thoughts swimming in his head for the signals to get down to his muscles at the correct timing. You drummed your nails on the cool ceramic, your fingertips tracing the outline of the sunflower on the mug, as you let out a long breath.

“We literally just-”

“I know,” Matthew cut you off. He stumbled through the next six words, but they stung all the same. “I think this was a mistake.”

It was as if he picked the words right out of your deepest vault of insecurities, sharpened them, then tossed them in your general direction careless, but still wasn’t surprised when they hit their mark. Your shoulders caved in, your body reacting to the weight of the insecurities you had tied to those words in your mind hitting you in the chest. You set your mug on the counter with shaky hands.

“Matthew,” you tried to start, but he just set his blue eyes to the ceiling instead of trying to look at you.

You pressed harder, this time, irritation in his inability to communicate with you boiling over, “You can’t just say something like that then not look at me.”

“Fine.”

His eyes were dead when they rolled back to yours, lifeless, emotionless, almost completely devoid of the person you knew so well that was usually behind them. He looked nothing like the friend you had for the past two years, nothing like the boy who you kissing on his birthday a few months before this terrible moment you were being forced to inhabit, and nothing like the boyfriend you had since that night. He was unrecognizable from the boy you loved, the set in his jaw unsettling you. Matthew had not come over to have a discussion. You could see that now. He was resolved to end this relationship when he walked through your front door. When Matthew Tkachuk’s mind was made up, you had yet to find anything that could redirect his course. You knew you wouldn’t be the first tonight.

“I think we can work on this, if you’ll just talk to me about it.”

The laugh that comes out of his mouth in response to your words made you instantly wish you had never tried. The part of you that had told you to just swallow the breakup he clearly wanted was screaming, “I told you so,” at the top of its lungs. There was no resolution to be had. This relationship was over before he walked in the door, before he walked in the building, before he had gotten in his car. It was over the minute he texted you, curtly informing you he was coming over. Now that your mind was ruminating, the tone of his text felt rough and succinct, like he just wanted to get through it to get to this.

“I think that there’s nothing to work on,” Matthew told you, his tone flat. “I think we were friends, are friends, good friends, and we just starting having feelings because we thought we couldn’t have each other. That whole forbidden fruit thing, right? And we got all mixed up. Sex was great, is great, don’t get me wrong, that kind of chemistry isn’t the problem, but I just don’t think we’re supposed to be together. I think we just got our wires crossed and mixed the chemistry and the friendship up to mean that we’re in love when I just don’t think we are. At best, I think we just had middle school crushes gone off the rails. I don’t think I really have feelings for you and I don’t think you have them for me either. I think that’s why we fight a lot. There’s nothing really here, in all reality, and I think we can both sense it. You know I’m right. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“Get. Out.”

You spat the words out with all the venom and anger you felt. It wasn’t until the door shut behind him, not another word spoken in the tense moments it took to cross your kitchen to it, that you felt the pain in your chest. The anger, and the adrenaline that came with it, had disguised it while he was still here. Now, it was just you, in your empty apartment, realizing you not only had to deal with the pieces of yourself left over after Matthew just shattered you, underneath that was the agony of losing a friend. A friend you had come to know so well over coffees and sheet pizzas and margarita pitchers, in parties and houses and parks and arenas. He left with your now ex-boyfriend, because they were one and the same.

All you had was the now tainted memories of him and an even colder cup of tea.

------

You shuffled around your kitchen island, skipping the tea kettle in favor of your trusty slightly rusty coffee pot. This wasn’t a morning tea could handle. None of the mornings since Matthew told you that, in essence, your entire relationship was built on false pretenses and was doomed to fail from the start, had been tea mornings. They’d all be coffee caliber mornings.

Just as the coffee started to drip into the pot, your phone lit up on the counter. It was either your mom or another friend checking on you for what had to be the hundredth time. Your friends had be rotating who would check on you and who would bring you food. They were genuinely worried this break up was making you a bit of a recluse. The problem was, the person that had gotten you out of ever breakup funk you had over the past two years, every bad date, every ghosted text, was the person that caused this one. Your mind unwillingly brought you back to a memory you had been trying to avoid for the last four weeks.

There was a knock on your door. You pulled your sweatshirt sleeves over your hands to wipe your nose and eyes. You would have thought that after two weeks, a whole fourteen days, you would have cried everything out by now. Your body apparently had other ideas and was content to continue to produce tears until you felt better. When that would be? Who could say.

Matthew Tkachuk was trying to have a say about it when he was on the other side of the door you opened. You sighed. You weren’t in the mood for him and his persistence in getting his way.

“I brought donuts, Legally Blonde because my sister said to, and my sparkling personality and I’m not leaving until you smile, eat at least two donuts, and take a shower.”

He pushed his way into your apartment effortlessly. You didn’t consider yourself particularly weak, but there really wasn’t much you could do against Matthew Tkachuk with his mind made up on his side. He kicked his shoes off on the way to your coffee table, dropping the donuts on it before grabbing the TV remote.

“I said I brought Legally Blonde. I meant that I brought my intent to watch it with you. We both know I’m just gonna rent it on your TV for you. I don’t own a DVD player and neither do you,” Matthew said to you as he started pulling up the movie. “Also, I have no idea how to log in to my stuff on this thing because you have a Fire TV instead of an Apple TV like a loser, so I’m just going to Venmo you $3.99 for the rental.”

“Matthew,” you sighed, running a hand through your unwashed hair.

“Yeah, you can’t physically remove me from your couch, so I will not be leaving this apartment,” he informed you. “Watching Legally Blonde on your couch without you and stuffing my face with donuts I’m not supposed to have feels like it would be a pretty low point in my life. Unless you come watch with me and save me from half of these donuts.”

You saved him from half the donuts. He saved your hair from a record eighth day without washing it. You saved him from actually watching the sequel. He saved you from your torturous thought spirals and your tendency to look entirely for mistakes you made and flaws within yourself in lieu of acknowledging that relationships always take two people. He saved you from becoming a recluse that time, pulling you out of your apartment for dinner with him the next day. It was just Chipotle. He said he chose the environment for low social stress, high food volume ratio. You had hit him in the chest and he’d squeezed your hand softly, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss the back of it softly.

“You know he didn’t deserve you, right?” he told you as you waiting in line. “You can and will do a hell of a lot better than him someday, probably sooner than you think.”

“Thanks, Matty.”

Looking back on that memory, you couldn’t find any fondness for it. It just made the dull ache in your chest that had become a permanent resident over the last month transform temporarily in a sharp, stabbing one, before returning to its original form. You poured your coffee, each movement it required felt exhausting. You felt absolutely spent constantly because you were spending all of your energy trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Relationships were a two way street, but you could never drive down the other side, only your own. Matthew’s side, his view of it all, would always be foreign to you, but you could analyze every word, every movement, and every piece of Matthew’s reaction to all of your actions to find what you had done, what you had done to contribute to the car wreck that had caused the pain in your chest. Did you veer too close to him? Did you veer too far? What did you do?

When you get together with a friend, after years of mutual pinning, it’s supposed to work out. Every book, movie, and hell, every other couple you had ever seen that had been great friends first, then started dating, worked out. It always had a happy, romantic comedy kind of ending to it all. Everything was supposed to fall into place the second Matthew kissed you for the first time because friends falling in love felt inevitable in the kind of way that made you believe in predestination, in fated futures. You had come to the conclusion that fate either didn’t exist, or she was a fucking bitch.

“Come here!” Matthew shouted to you across the party when you were less than two steps into his front door. “I want a birthday hug!”

“I literally just got here!” you shouted back, your voice dropping in volume as you got closer to him, bumping your way through the party to get to him in the kitchen. “You couldn’t wait two minutes for me to like, put your gift down and take off my coat? Needy.”

“Ah!” Matthew raised a finger to you and shook it slightly. “It’s not needy when I’m the birthday boy. Hug. Now.”

You rolled your eyes, but tucking yourself willingly into Matthew’s broad chest. He was so warm all the time, but particularly now that he was definitely a few drinks deep and very much enjoying himself here at his party. Matthew always smelled the same, like the slightly too strong laundry detergent scent boosters his mom made him use and spearmint toothpaste. You couldn’t stand the combination at first, but now, pressed into his chest, you felt calm, the stress of the day washing away when you enveloped in him. He pressed a sloppy kiss to the top of your head and gave you an extra squeeze before letting you go.

“Also, you’re late,” he pointed out as he grabbed you a beer from the sink he’d filled with ice in lieu of people going in his fridge.

You took the beer from him after he slammed the top off on the edge of the counter. You chugged about a quarter of it before scrunching your face up and stopping. The first few sips were always the worst, before any of the wondrous affects of alcohol actually kicked in.

“Work,” you told him with a shrug.

Matthew rolled his eyes at you, a common occurrence, and you rolled yours back, and even more common occurrence. He laughed a little at your routine, before he tapped his beer suddenly on the top of yours, making foam rise rapidly, overflowing the bottle. You cursed and shifted your hand over the sink so the foam covered his makeshift cooler instead of the counter, but your hand was a lost cause.

“Matthew,” you groaned, your displeasure heavy in your voice as you shook your hand free of the foam.

Matthew threw his head back and laughed as you rinsed off your hand. When his head lifted, eyes finding yours again, he was met with a glare and the displeased shaking of your head. He smiled lazily, his blue eyes crossing your face to take in your expression.

“You’re cute when you’re pretending to be mad.” His words were a little more connected than they should be, his faint lisp expressing itself more, endearing in a way that cut through your annoyance at him. “I would like to request a birthday, ‘One of my best friend isn’t mad at me anymore,’ pass.”

You rolled your eyes again at him for the second time in minutes, “You’re going to get real annoying with this birthday thing, aren’t you?”

Matthew smiled wryly at you, “Comes once a year. Feel like I should get my money’s worth for the twenty-four hours I can, no?”

You shook your head at him, then took a sip of your beer. You were pretty sure you knew how this night was going to go and after a long day at work, it wasn’t exactly what you had been looking for. But the smile on his face, the curls falling down his forehead, and the fact that you were head over heels for him, meant that even though you hadn’t been looking to get on a rollercoaster today, damn it all to hell if you weren’t going to throw your hands in the air, scream your head off, and enjoy the ride.

“How about,” Matthew slurred slowly at you, “a birthday dance?”

“You could just ask me to dance. I’m used to you stepping on my toes and elbowing me in the face,” you threw back at him.

He faked pain, like you shot him in the chest, a large hand clapped over his heart as he winced. You giggled at his expression, before your laugh made him laugh. Matthew extended the hand on his chest out to you. You sighed before clapping your hand into his open one and letting him pull you toward where a few people were dancing. He spun you into his chest with a tug on your hand, purposefully putting your hands on the back of his neck.

“Odds you step on my toes tonight?”

Your beer bottle tapped between Matthew’s broad shoulders as he slowly started to sway with you, using his hands on your hips, one hand still with two fingers wrapped around his beer, to guide you. He smiled down at you knowingly. You knew the answer to your question before you’d even asked, but Matthew knew you were just teasing him.

“Oh, one-hundred percent,” Matthew told you with a smirk pulling up the corner of his lips. “I should get you steel toes for your birthday.”

“If you can remember when it is,” you laughed as Matthew spun you by your hips, your hands breaking from his neck to allow the spin.

“Don’t doubt me,” Matthew grabbed your wrists with one hand and pulled them against his chest. “I might have had to make it my phone passcode to be sure I don’t forget, but I definitely am not going to forget it.”

“That might just be the cutest thing you’ve ever done in your life, Tkachuk.”

He rolled his eyes and freed your hands, only to wrap his arm around your neck and yank you into his chest where your hands had been moments before. You squealed at the action, which only made him laugh. Matthew was a touchy drunk, but it was the closest you could be to him. These were the moments you could touch him, dance with him, and let yourself feel like the world you lived in was also the world in which he had feelings for you too. But you knew those worlds weren’t the same. The would you lived in was a world full of stolen drunken moments like these and unrequited love.

“Birthday beer?” he asked you, presenting you with the empty bottle you hadn’t realized he’d finished.

“You are really pushing your luck,” you told him.

The smile that came across his face when you grabbed the empty bottle made your heart beat heavier in your chest. You smiled back up at him and you could have sworn you saw his eyes glance down at your lips, but you shook off the idea like the intrusive thought it was. It was a self-indulgent misreading of him, your mind projecting a motion you wished Matthew had done, instead of accurately reading the moment for what it was. It might have been a false creation of your mind, but it made your chest hurt all the same.

You grabbed Matthew his beer. Then you birthday grabbed him a slice of his birthday cake. Then you had to birthday dance with him again. Another birthday hug. It started to wear heavy on your shoulders because tonight all Matthew seemed to want was you glued to his side. Your mind was twisting and turning, running down dark, unlit roads you had blocked off in your mind for your own good, but the combination of alcohol and Matthew’s hand on your hip was allowing your mind to blast through barricades you’d built to protect yourself and you were imagining this being real. Worse, you were wondering if maybe he felt like you did, which was as dangerous as driving down a twisty, forest road in the middle of the night, with your highlights out, and faulty breaks.

As the last guests trickled out of the party, Matthew said you didn’t count as a guest, he collapsed onto his couch, throwing his arm over the back. He motioned over to you as he polished off his remaining beer. He sighed when you had yet to move, letting his head roll back, curling bouncing at the movement.

“Come on, birthday cuddle,” he whined softly, gesturing you over to him again.

You groaned and hoped off the counter where you had posted up as everyone else left. Matthew smiled and lifted his head up when he saw you coming, adjusting on the couch to give you a clear spot, right under his arm, right against his side. You climbed onto the couch and slid in, dropping your head onto his chest as his arm dropped around your upper back instead of remaining on the couch. You sighed as you snuggled into his broad chest and Matthew’s chest suddenly rattled beneath you as he laughed.

“Well, make yourself comfortable then,” he laughed softly.

“You’re comfy and I’m tired,” you mumbled, tucking your face down to try and hide the flush rising in your cheeks.

Yes, you were tired. Yes, Matthew was pretty comfortable. Neither one of those things had anything to do with why you were thrilled to be snuggled into his chest. The smell of spearmint and laundry detergent was mixed with cheap beer, but you found yourself falling more into him, your shoulders relaxing, your mind slowly, but your heart racing. You might be pushing your luck, tipping your hand with how you were openly enjoying this, but Matthew’s hand playing with the ends of your hair and the steadiness of his breathing plus the sheer volume of alcohol he had consumed tonight was giving you hope that even if you were tipping your hand, he wouldn’t be able to recognize the cards.

“Come here. Birthday hug.”

“I’m literally snuggling you. Why do you want a hug? Snuggling is an extended hug,” you muttered to him.

“Hug,” Matthew repeated, a hand patting his thigh.

You groaned as you lifted your head from your comfortable spot, twisting awkwardly to get your arms around Matthew’s neck. He huffed, clearly not thrilled with your position. His hands found your waist, fingers sliding into your belt loops to pull you onto his lap, situating your legs on either side of his. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you tight against him, hugging you to his chest. His face was tucked into your neck, his hot breath fanning out over your skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

He mumbled something you couldn’t entirely hear, but you caught the word birthday again and rolled your eyes. You sighed as you pulled back, his arms giving way to let you sit up on his thighs.

“What did you say?” you asked him softly.

Matthew swallowed hard, his eyes darting away from your attempted eye contact. His jaw clenched, nerves getting the better of him. You just didn’t know what he had to be particularly nervous about.

“I want a birthday kiss.”

His words were soft, vulnerability keeping his voice tense, but his volume low. His eyes lifted up, scanning over your face, looking for some sign as to how you received his words. Matthew moved a hand to the back of your neck and gently pulled, ever so slightly, to bring your mouth closer to his. His eyes continued to take in your face, trying to read your expression, but he was clueless, his own feelings clouding his judgment. His tongue darted out, swiping across his bottom lip.

“You don’t have to, obviously, but fuck, I really hope you want to, ” he breathed out, eyes still trying to find some sign, something to hang onto in your face.

It was clumsy with excitement, but you dipped your head forward and pressed your lips against his. Your heart was beating loudly in your ears as he started to kiss you back, the sound blocking out everything except how you were finally doing this, you were finally kissing Matthew. All you could feel was him, his hands on your body, his lips on yours, his tongue working yours softly. Just him. You pulled back and resting your forehead against his as his fingers tangled themselves in your hair at the back of your neck.

“Thank god,” Matthew mumbled. “I thought I ruined us for a second there.”

You shook your head softly and smiled down at him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips again. He was smiling before you even pulled away this time.

“Fastest my birthday wish has ever come true in my life,” Matthew told you softly, a smile wide on his face as he spoke. “Also, my best birthday wish ever, if I do say so myself.”

“Wait, what did you wish for?” you laughed, letting a hand run down his chest lightly.

“You,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wished for you.”

Everything after that was easy, for a little while. You both had dreamed, fantasized about having each other, so you were both in absolute bliss when everything came together. It felt like two pieces in a puzzle, finally finding each other after being separated by the expanse of the unfinished masterpiece in between if the masterpiece was the world as far as both of you knew. But you never found your place in it together, never locked into the bigger picture. Two pieces floating out in space can’t stay connected forever when hands start trying to smash them into place, hands that wonder if those pieces even belong together at all.

The hands that ripped you and Matthew apart weren’t from the outside looking in though. They were the same hands that held your hips so tightly on nights between the sheets. The same hands that held yours where you walked through the city after a few too many drinks at the bar together. The same hands that ran through your hair softly when you came over crying about something you couldn’t even remember anymore.

They were the same hands currently wrapped around a glass at a bar across town. The boy, not man, whose hands they were was running one through his hair hurriedly now. He couldn’t get you out of his mind and he just couldn’t figure out why.

“Okay, why did you break up with her again?” Johnny pressed Matthew for what had to have been the twentieth time over the last month. “Because you’re fucking miserable all the time. She’s fucking miserable. None of us can get her out of her apartment. So I’m just not getting this one, man. Why aren’t you at her place right now? Why weren’t you there a month ago really, begging for her to take you back?”

Matthew groaned and screwed his eyes shut hard. He had explained this so many times, the words and memories were starting to blur together for him. If you say the same word too many times in a row, your brain begins to question if what you’re saying if even real anymore. Matthew felt the same type of confusion and disassociation with recounting his reasons for breaking up with you. The version of him that had original thought those thoughts, felt those feelings, wasn’t here anymore. It was replaced with a shell of a boy who realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

“Wait, have you seen her?”

Johnny rolled his eyes at Matthew, but he answered anyway.

“No, I didn’t,” he sighed, motioning to the bartender for another beer. “A couple of the girlfriends stopped by, brought her some casseroles or something.”

“Don’t you bring casseroles when someone dies?”

Matthew forced the terrible joke and his own laugh in response out, in a poor attempt to disguise the ache in his chest at the thought of you. He could see you so clearly in his mind, pacing holes in the floorboards of your apartment, wearing out your favorite mug, but there was no way on God’s green earth you were wearing your Flames sweatshirt you usually did when you were upset. Hell, Matthew would be amazed if you hadn’t burned it after what he done. He knew you had to hate the casseroles, both based on the fact that you barely considered them an edible type of food, and the fact that they seemed to be an homage to the funeral of your love life. You would’ve made a better joke than him too and he wished he could’ve heard it, but you probably hadn’t made one. Matthew was the person who helped you out of the negative thought spirals that sent you spinning around your apartment. He caused this one instead and he was here, sitting in a bar, doing nothing about it because there was no way you’d even talk to him again, not with what he said.

“I just,” Matthew sighed again and fussed with his beer, lining and unlining it up with the condensation ring on the coaster as he talked, “I got too into my head. We were fighting. It just, it wasn’t good, Johnny.”

“It wasn’t good or you weren’t good?” Johnny pressed, watching carefully as Matthew’s body froze in response to the question, glass frozen mid-movement, eyes fixed on a broken neon sign in front of him. “Chucky, you don’t do anything unless you already know you can do it. You’ve never been in a relationship as an, I don’t want to say adult because that’s not entirely true, but as an adult, so you probably sucked at it.”

Matthew rolled his eyes before throwing back verbally at him, “Thanks, Johnny. Loving this pep talk. I’ll make sure when Gio retires, you get my recommendation for the C.”

“We both know exactly,” Johnny tapped Matthew on the forearm, “where that C is going next and don’t even lie. But that’s neither here or there right now. The point is that she was your girlfriend. You were supposed to talk to her about being a shitty boyfriend.”

“I am not in the mood for this,” Matthew groaned, dropping his head to the bar, recoiling when his skin stuck to it, his face scrunching up in disgust.

“I mean, Johnny’s right,” said Monahan as he slipped up next to Matthew’s other side, making a second groan slide from Matthew’s throat. “You were supposed to talk to her, not break up with her like a dumbass. She was your friend first. She knew you weren’t perfect and that she’s have to put up with some shit because you definitely don’t know the first thing about being someone’s partner. She went all in with you anyway,”

“Decided the person you could be and the person she could be with you was worth it,” Johnny jumped back in.

“Good one, Johnny,” Sean nodded appreciatively, tapping his beer bottle against Johnny’s across the bar in front of Matthew. “She gave you a chance, a hell of a good chance. And you decided to throw it all away? Because you fought?”

“Who the fuck are you right now?” Matthew cursed at Sean. “Where did you find all this girl advice, huh? If I wanted this, I would’ve asked your girlfriend.”

“Fianceé excuse you,” Sean reminded him, a smile pulling at his lips. “She relayed all of this back to me. She saw her a few days ago. This is all straight from the source, man.”

“Wait, she said that stuff?” Matthew choked a little on his beer.

“Yeah, she did. Wanna know what else she said?” Sean didn’t give Matthew time, much like Matthew gave you no time during that conversation a month ago, no regard to if Matthew could handle what he was about to say. “She said you weren’t good at communicating or being a boyfriend, but she was okay with it because she loved you. All she wanted was effort. Just a little effort from you, man. And you just left instead of trying.”

Your words, albeit coming through the probably clumsy filter of Sean, stung in Matthew’s chest. He felt like a coward, a fraud. He tried so hard to be tough, to be the guy that kept pushing, kept grinding, kept giving a shit even when his team was down three goals with five to play. He was the guy everyone counted on to try, even when everything else was screaming to just give up and accept defeat. That’s what he’d done with you. He gave up when the waves of trials started coming, when a storm kicked up. Matthew had taken one look at a swell coming that looked to be the type that could swallow ships whole, took the lifeboat, and ran without a second thought. He left you on a battered boat, full of holes, without even a bucket to bail yourself out.

To make matters worse, the wave he had been so scared of was either entirely a fabrication of his own mind and he had run from his own twisted imagination. Or worse, he had created the wave himself and ran before it could catch up to him.

It was catching up to him now though, sitting at a dive bar in Calgary, a warm beer in his hand, and the weight of what he had done sitting heavy on his shoulders.

“Fuck,” was all he could say.

“Your dream girl, really.” Johnny was twisting the knife now, but Matthew knew he deserved it when Johnny added, “And you fucked it.”

“Yeah,” Matthew laughed softly, but the sound didn’t reach his eyes that were still staring at a broken and sputtering neon sign, but really seeing something that wasn’t there.

He was seeing you, in that pretty sundress, the one with the sunflowers on it that Matthew loved on you because you always looked so happy whenever you wore it. Countless memories of you in that dress. You wore it out with friends, the second time Matthew had ever met you. That’s the first time he remembered thinking just how pretty you were, the way your hair fell down on your shoulders, the way your smile formed, the way your nose crinkled when you laughed. Matthew was used to thinking girls where hot, but you? You were beautiful, standing there, laughing at something Johnny had said, in that sunflower sundress.

He remembered that dress from the first time he almost kissed you, a month later, walking down the street together after dinner, his hoodie around your shoulders because you had gotten cold and Matthew was always warm. It was the first time you wore his clothes and it made Matthew’s heart beat loudly in his ears, so loud he couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think about anything else, but kissing you. He almost went for it, but then you pulled him back to reality, actually pulled him out of the street he hadn’t noticed he stepped into because he couldn’t hear the cars over his heartbeat.

That dress starred in his memories of your first date that occurred a week after his birthday, the one where he finally kissed you for the first time, over two years after the first time he almost kissed you. It might have been January in Calgary, but there was that dress again, with tights and a thick coat and knee high boots and socks and a little hole at the bottom hem and it made Matthew want to die. If he died staring at you in that dress, kissing you in that dress, he was pretty sure he would be fine with whatever his obituary looked like.

Except that dress and all the memories of it were tainted because you had been wearing it when he broke your heart, when he watched you break apart and shatter, all of his own doing. Hell, he probably tainted sunflowers as a whole for you. He’d gotten you so many over the few months you’d been together, even though they had cost far too much money since sunflowers in Calgary in the winter weren’t exactly commonplace. The necklace for your birthday, a sunflower and his number in delicate gold, his sister’s idea.

Matthew wondered if people could hate certain types of flowers for the same type of reasons people loved them. People loved them because of how they looked and smelled, but also the memories associated with them. His mom loved pink tulips, but was it more because she always had or because his father always bought them for her and now she couldn’t look at them without thinking of his dad and all the times he has surprised her with them? Was the existing love or the associated love the more powerful factor in her love of them?

Either way, Matthew was just hoping you didn’t hate sunflowers anymore because of him.

“How do I fix it?”

Matthew’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper now, his hand tense around his glass. Matthew had too many thoughts running through his head, but he needed to make sure you didn’t hate sunflowers now. He just didn’t know how to even get you to talk to him to find out if you did.

Johnny and Sean looked at each other and Johnny sighed when the silent communication resulted in him being the one to answer. “I don’t think you can, Chucky.”

“No, I have to, I have to fix it, Johnny,” Matthew’s voice cracked. “I just, I have to make sure...”

He didn’t finish the thought because it wouldn’t make sense and they would both probably send him home, thinking he was either too drunk or having a breakdown, more likely both, if he started ranting about sunflowers.

“I think all you can do is reach out,” Johnny told him softly. “Just let her know that you now realize you made a massive mistake, that you want to be a team this time and work on it, I guess. From there, it’s up to her.”

“Should I bring flowers?” Matthew was asking the universe more than either of the two not so romantics next to him. “Chocolates? Something? Is there anything I can bring or do to fix it?”

“I don’t think you can fix it, dude,” Sean cut in with a sigh. “You can’t force it. if she even talks to you, she’s going to have to decide you’re worth a second shot and knowing her, she’s not going to just give it to you tonight or tomorrow or whatever. She’s going to want to see real change first. You just tell her that you’re going to try and then fucking try, even if she doesn’t ask you to try. Start working on yourself anyway. Start acting like she’ll give you a second shot.”

“Do you think she will?”

Matthew’s voice echoed how it sounded earlier, timid, small, a whispered prayer from a boy who knew his only hope was if fate heard him and decided to twist the world in his favor, if fate wasn’t a fucking bitch after all.

“I mean,” Sean sighed, thinking about himself now, trying to shove his feet into Matthew’s water-logged shoes for a moment to find an answer, “if I was her, I wouldn’t. But she’s a better person than all of us put together, so maybe she will, but I know I wouldn’t.”

Matthew let out a long, shaky breath, eyes fluttering closed for a moment before opening them to pick his phone off the bar. He knew you wouldn’t answer a phone call. He also knew your voicemail was definitely full at this point. He was always the person who had to tell you to delete the old ones whenever he tried to leave you one and couldn’t, but he wasn’t there to do it, so it would be full by now. He had to settle for a text, which felt like a much shittier version of a handwritten letter, but he had terrible handwriting and spelling, but at least it ranked well above an email in the power ranking of methods of communication.

Please tell me you don’t hate sunflowers because of me. I really hope I didn’t ruin them for you.

Matthew placed his phone face down on the bar, then nervously flipped it face up even though he knew you wouldn’t have even been able to read his text in the millisecond his phone was face down. He didn’t know if you would answer, or if you would even read it. You would read it, Matthew assured himself. He knew you. You never got a text or a message you didn’t read. Would you say anything to him about it though? Would it be on your phone, nested among texts from people who didn’t break your heart until one day, probably a year from now, you would meet someone else and have no need to remember him anymore, so only then would you finally delete it?

Matthew tried not to think about it, but his eyes glanced down at the screen every thirty seconds even though he was willing them to just give you time. He didn’t even realize it was past one in the morning. You were definitely up, he knew you better than to think you would be asleep, but awake and awake and answering texts were different. He just hoped if you were awake, that you didn’t hate sunflowers, maybe that you didn’t hate him, and that you weren’t crying.

You were awake though, holding that godforsaken necklace that you had ripped from your neck the morning after he ended it and thrown into the back of your jewelry box. The necklace was in one hand and your phone with Matthew’s text pulled up in the other. You were crying, something Matthew desperately wished you weren’t doing as he drank the last dregs of his beer and headed home with his head hung low, his phone alight in his hand as he ritually checked for a reply from you. You sighed, looking between his text and the necklace, wondering if you hated your favorite flower now. That question hung on another one though, one domino relying on the other to fall. Did you hate Matthew Tkachuk?

Yes, you did. That was decided the moment the door closed behind him and he left you to deal with the crashing waves of grief all by yourself, without even a bucket to bail you out.

Did you hate him more than you loved him though?

You stared at the necklace, the one you hadn’t been able to throw away, and you knew the answer. The delicate golden necklace would be buried deep in a landfill if you really hated him more than you loved him, not in the palm of your hand now. But here you were, staring at it until your eyes went cloudy with tears, before you had to put it back in the box. You couldn’t put it back on, not now, maybe not ever, but you also couldn’t bear getting rid of it, the idea making your heart twist in your chest in a way that made you physically wince.

You put your phone on your nightstand at the same moment Matthew did across town, both with your minds racing over the unanswered text. Matthew went to bed thinking you would never answer it, forever leaving the question hanging in the wind. You went to bed knowing your answer, but unsure if you were ever going to share it with him.

------

Matthew groaned when he heard his doorbell ring, followed by cautious knocking. He hated that doorbell. The noise was absolutely piercing, especially to his hungover brain. He hadn’t even drank that much last night, but he was so incredibly hungover. Matthew could only guess that the alcohol had worked in tandem with the ache in his chest after deciding he needed to feel worse to create a hangover this bad from five beers over three hours. He shuffled to the front door, not even caring he hadn’t bothered to find any clothes other than sweats on his way to it. Whoever it was was too goddamn early and they would need to come back another time.

When Matthew ripped open his front door, a groan falling from his mouth at the effort it took, he was looking at the ceiling, head thrown back in hatred of the exhaustion he was now feeling due to having to actually do something other than lay in bed and be hungover.

“Look, this building better be on fire or-”

Everything stopped when he saw it was you. You looked so small to him, standing there, a tray with two coffees in hand and a brown bag in your other hand. Your sweatshirt was swallowing you up and you looked like you were strongly debating making a break for the stairwell with the way your eyes were shifting to the right. There were dark circles under your reddened, swollen eyes, eyes that only looked like that when you had been doing a lot of crying recently.

Matthew thought you would have a lot of possible reactions to his text. He never once let himself think you would show up at his front door.

“I brought bagels,” you finally said, after far too long of both of you assessing the other.

Matthew looked almost as bad as you did. His hair was unkempt beyond normal, the curls broken and haphazard across his head, hanging into his forehead. His eyes were sunken and absent, vacant like a forgotten home on the outskirts of town. Days old stubble patchily covered his jawline, razor clearly lost among his things again. If you weren’t at his apartment, if you had just passed him on the street instead, you might not have recognized him. There was always a lightness to Matthew, an inability to keep his feet on the ground as he searched for the next adventure he could have, but he seemed rooted in place, held down by some outside force. He was complying with it, the force, but it was clearly under duress and it was exhausting him. The force was absolute agony and it was written all over his face, in his posture, in his every labored movement.

“And coffee,” you added after no words left Matthew’s mouth long enough for an uncomfortable silence to stretch between you both.

“You’re here,” Matthew breathed out, words spoke so softly as if he feared if he said them too loudly, you would disappear.

Matthew’s head was pounding. His mouth tasted awful since he went straight to bed when he got home, not even stopping to brush his teeth. He knew he looked like an absolute mess because there wasn’t a way a person could feel like he did and not look like a mess. He didn’t care about any of it. You were here. You were actually here, with coffee, and bagels, at his front door.

He didn’t think. He knew it was a mistake after the fact, really as soon as he did it, but he also knew there was a chance you were here just for personal closure, that this might be the last time he ever got to see you again. He reached out and grabbed you by your waist, crushing you into his bare chest. His face pressed into your hair, which always smelled like strawberries to him even though you swore your shampoo wasn’t supposed to smell like strawberries. If you never talked to him again after today, he just wanted to hold you one more time.

You hugged him back, hesitation evident in your loose arms and your tense shoulders. It was barely a hug, but it almost made Matthew cry. Even just the small response, no matter how cautious it was, made him feel better than he had felt in a month.

“Go brush your teeth and like, actually wake up,” you told him as you pulled away from him. “I’ll, um, toast the bagels, I guess.”

Matthew was on autopilot as he walked into his en suite and grabbed his toothbrush. His movements were slow, robotic as he brushed his teeth. There was only one thing on his mind, replaying over and over incessantly, persistently. Why did you show up at his place? Matthew was desperately trying to turn the broken record playing his mind over to the other side, hoping to find the answer, but it was only more of the same. There was no reason, no reason he could understand, why you had shown up at his front door. Why you had shown up with coffee and breakfast for him was so far outside of the realm of things Matthew could understand, he had to eliminate it from his mind.

Until it all suddenly clicked in place, Sean’s words from last night flowing back into his mind.

You were here because you were a better person than he was, a far better person. Sean had said you were better than all of them, very much including Matthew, put together and it was true. You were bright and beautiful and good, so incredibly good. You loved people with an honesty and a bravery that made Matthew’s heart ache due to the effort it had to put in to keep up with you when he’d been smart enough to accept your love. You were so much better than he was four months ago when you kissed at his birthday party, so much better than the bedraggled boy looking back at him in the mirror today, and somehow infinitely better than the person he was going to be in fifty years, already. Who you would be in fifty years? You were going to be the kind of person that needed a designated overflow zone at your funeral because too many people were going to want to acknowledge they’d felt your love in front of hundreds of others.

Matthew never deserved the piece of you he’d gotten. He knew that now as he heard you humming softly to yourself as you dropped the bagels in his toaster. Matthew had never deserved you and it’s why he had ended it because he’d known all along. He knew you were fighting because he wasn’t good enough for you and that he never would be. He would have spent his life running at top speed behind you, trying not to slow you down, trying not to be a drag on your life, trying not to lessen the impact for good you could have on the world. You would have never let him go, slowing yourself, stunting yourself in order to accommodate him.

But here you were, looping the train of your life to run back through the temporary station of your relationship with him that was in complete shambles, and Matthew let himself dream it was because you were ready to hold his hand and fix it up brick by brick, piece by piece because you were so good it hurt. Matthew knew the right thing to do would be to make sure your train left the station today, unencumbered by any damage from him, and more importantly, without him. But Matthew Tkachuk was three things that made that impossible. He was competitive, problematically so, always wanting to get better, always wanting to win. Damn it all to hell if he couldn’t spend the rest of his life running to keep up with you because one day, he just might actually catch up if he could figure out how to run fast enough. Matthew Tkachuk was also incredibly selfish and incredibly in love with you, one a personality flaw and the other the purest part of him that had ever existed. He had to figure out how to catch up because he couldn’t let you go.

Matthew stepped out of the bathroom with resolve settling into his clenched jaw. He knew asking you to take him back without any proof he could improve was a hopeless avenue. He couldn’t ask you for that; him asking for anything was already unfair, he needed to try to at least ask for the least he could. Any plan he had formed was tossed out the window of his high rise the second he saw you, sweatshirt hanging off your shoulder, hair piled on top of your head, humming softly to yourself as you spread cream cheese on his and your bagels, barefoot in his kitchen. For a moment, that moment Matthew held his breath so you wouldn’t hear him standing in the kitchen doorway, it was like the last month hadn’t happened and you were still his. Matthew hung in the moment as long as his lungs would allow, soaking it in case he never got to see it again.

“You going to keep staring or are you going to come get your bagel?”

Your words pulled him out of his thoughts violently, head shaking off the ideas that had been swirling, pulling him down that whirlpool of you and him that might just kill him. He yanked the nearest bar stool out, dropping down into it unceremoniously, before graciously taking the bagel and the coffee you’d brought for him.

“Why did you ask me that?” you finally said, words slicing like knives through the palpable tension in the air. “The sunflowers. Why that? After a whole month? That?”

You said a few extra words then you’d meant to say. You were trying to keep everything short and brief, just here in a quest for the peace you needed and nothing more. More words meant more feelings and more feelings meant the idea of peace slipped further away with each expressed word.

“I just,” Matthew ran a hand aggressively through his curls before starting over, “I just wanted to make sure that after everything I did, I didn’t ruin one of your favorite things for you.”

You sighed, debating if you wanted get into this or not with him. What could it hurt? It was just a story.

“I like them because my mom does,” you told him softly. “She always had them growing by our house when I was little. She always had them in a vase by the front door, and she had these sunflower earrings, these little golden ones. They’d kind of like the necklace-”

Your fingers touched the bare skin where the necklace he gave you had sat until a month ago, fingers finding nothing to touch to. Matthew’s eyes had followed your movement, saddening when he saw you weren’t wearing it even though he hadn’t expected you to be.

You cleared your throat before continuing, “Anyway, she lost them a while ago. But I guess they just remind me of home. That’s why I got that dress. I got it when I first moved here. I saw it walking around downtown in a window and just took it as a sign that everything was going to be alright, you know?”

Matthew nodded softly as he continued to listen and mindless pick at his bagel.

“And then when we started dating and you figured out they were my favorite flowers and started getting me dozens of them all the time, I guess you and us started creeping in as part of those reasons I love them. It kind of sucks because they make me sad now and I can’t wear that dress anymore.”

The words were tumbling out of your mouth now, practically on top of each other. You weren’t sure where you’re going, but more words meant more expressed and acknowledged feelings and you were saying a lot of words. Matthew was trying to keep up, trying to take time to process and read between the lines. You always said so much whenever you spoke, half of it jammed in between sentences in pregnant pauses and shifting eyes. He was trying to take it all in, trying to figure out how you were actually feeling, but you weren’t resting in any one emotion long enough for Matthew to identify it.

“But no,” you sighed. “I don’t hate sunflowers. They’re sadder now. It used to just be missing home, but now they make me miss us. But I don’t hate them. I don’t think you can fully hate something that reminds you of so many people and places and times that you loved. I don’t hate them because I don’t hate you, Matty.”

He didn’t ruin one of your favorite things for you and you didn’t hate him. In full honesty, Matthew didn’t think you hated him. He knew one of your flaws, but also your best quality, the one that made Matthew feel so lucky to have been with you, was your capacity for love. It got you in trouble sometimes, kept you with people you shouldn’t have been, made you believe in fake friends’ false pretenses, but it also the only reason you didn’t hate him now and the only possible reason you would ever accept any sort of olive branch Matthew could clumsily extend.

“I fucked up,” Matthew said suddenly. He wasn’t thinking, wasn’t filtering. He should have taken his time, picked his words carefully, but it was you and you didn’t hate him and Matthew was painfully awful at this sort of thing and he was overwhelmed with the idea he might just have an opening back into the warmth that was you. “I’m so fucking sorry. I totally get if you can’t trust me again. I know I’m a shit boyfriend. But fuck, I love you. I know I do. I’m just so bad at showing it. I want to fix that. I want to fix it with you. I want you and I want to show you I’m not a fuck up and that I do love you. I won’t need a second chance ever again, just some patience. Please.”

Matthew let out a long, shaky breath when the final begging word left his lips. He knew he’d been pleading with you with each and every word, hoping something he could say might hit you in just the right away, might have just the right effect to get the result he so desperately craved. You. Back in his arms. Back in his bed. Back in his jersey at his games. Back with him, where he wanted you more than he had wanted anything in an embarrassingly long time.

“Is any of that even true?”

Your question stopped Matthew in his tracks. It felt like a punch to his chest, right over his already aching heart. How could you doubt that? No, Matthew knew how you could doubt it. You could doubt it because you could doubt every single thing about him if you damn well pleased. He deserved every bit of doubt and caution you presented. He had broken you because he refused to take his seat at the adults’ table and talk about how he felt, how he was feeling insecure, how he felt like a bad partner, and how he felt worse about all of that because he felt like he couldn’t fix any of it. He attributed the two of you not working out to you two not being a match, instead of acknowledging his own flaws and what they were doing to both of you. In retrospect, all of that probably would have been far better to say to you than what he had actually said, but words couldn’t be stuffed back in his mouth. They were now in your mind, in your memory, and Matthew would just have to live with another mistake on the laundry list of things he had done wrong regarding you.

“Every single word is true,” Matthew told you softly. “I have so many other ones too, if you want to hear them.”

You breathed out hard, shoving the air forcefully out of your lungs as you ran a hand through your hair, “You don’t get to say those kinds of things to me, Matthew. You don’t have the right to that.”

“I know,” Matthew grimaced in reaction to your words.

He should’ve held his tongue, but he had so much he needed to say to you. But there he was again. Thinking about himself, only himself. He wasn’t considering you, wasn’t communicating with you. He just vomited all of his thoughts and feelings up without even bothering to see if you were actually open to receiving them. Saying you didn’t hate him didn’t even correlate to being open to the conversation Matthew had forced into your hands, unaware he had even pried your fists open to put it there.

“I shouldn’t have forced that all on you,” Matthew admitted softly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I just, I have so much I want to say to you.”

“Matthew,” you sighed. You had been doing a lot of sighing lately. “I don’t think-”

“I don’t want you to take me back,” Matthew cut you off. “At least, not right away. I don’t deserve that. I know that. I’m not asking for that.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, eyes scanning over his face to try and figured out where he was going. You thought he would ask you to take him back, something you weren’t going to do without a sign from him that it would actually be different this time instead of exactly the same, with a shorter honeymoon period. Another two months with him, only to suffer the same heartbreak wasn’t enough time to make you take a blind chance it would be different. You needed something to hang your hat on, something to make you feel like he wanted to be your partner this time around. You needed to see him try, try in the long nights apart, try in the close nights together, try in the afternoon dates, and try in the stolen morning moments. You needed to see Matthew try and be your partner, and not just some emotional, freeloading friend with benefits version of a boyfriend who would spin you around a dance floor, then into his bed, then leave whenever you asked for more.

“Then what are you asking for?”

Your words were quieter than you expected, confusion ringing heavy in each syllable. Matthew ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in how his fingers tugged on his curls at the end. He didn’t really know what he wanted. He just wanted a shot to prove to you he was worth your time, that he could be the partner you deserved. He wasn’t even sure he could be, which was part of the reason he was struggling to speak to you now, feeling like he was trying to row up a rushing creek made of his current feelings and his past failures without any sort of paddle or even a life vest, about to drown at any possible second.

“I just, I want to show you that I’m worth a real shot again.” Matthew was begging now, figuring that if you said no, at least you would know how badly he wanted you. He couldn’t get more pathetic than asking you if he’d ruined your favorite flowers because it had somehow said everything without saying anything at all. “Just, let me be around, let me earn a second chance. Let me show you I’m trying, trying to get better, trying to communicate better, trying to be someone who is good enough to deserve half of you. Let me show you I can try and that I’ll keep on trying forever, if that’s what you want from me. If you want to watch me try for five fucking years before giving me another shot, that’s fine. If you want to watch me try to five fucking years and then not give me another shot, that’s fine, at least I spent five years trying for someone who is so goddamn worth it, it hurts.”

“So, you want what exactly?” you pressed, a defensive laugh edging at your voice. “You want to just, what? To be around all the time? To be together all of the time? That’s just being friends, Matthew, and you were always a great friend, but you were a shitty fucking boyfriend. You want to spend all day with me, showing me that you’re trying to be better, then do whatever you want when you’re not around me?”

“No, I, fuck,” Matthew groaned, hands digging into his hair, head dropping to the cold granite counter in dismay at the mess he had made.

“Here’s your first communication test then,” you told him, letting the passive aggressive biting words you held at the back of your tongue roll off the front of it instead. “Tell me what you mean.”

“I don’t want anyone else.” Matthew banged his forehead on the counter with each word, frustration getting the better of him now. “I don’t even think this is going to make sense, but let me be your boyfriend even though you won’t be my girlfriend. That sounds so fucking stupid now that I said it out loud, but I guess I’m just trying to say I’m going to be one hundred-percent, all gas no brakes, full throttle about you and trying to actually change for you and show you I’m changing, but you can do whatever you damn well please because even letting me try is a fuck load more than I deserve.”

Matthew let out a breath to try and steady himself before continuing, “I know I’m still asking for a lot, both of your time and of your ability to at least sort of try to look at me not like the guy who said all of that shit a month ago. But I promise, I’ll be worth it. You do whatever you want, no strings, no jealousy, nothing. Let me be around and prove I’m worth a real second shot, please. You can send me packing whenever you want and I won’t bother you. You’re just too fucking incredible for me not to ask to try, even though I don’t have any right to ask.”

You breathed out hard, forcing all of the air out of your lungs. Matthew was asking, begging, for an opportunity to prove himself, to prove he could do what you wanted all along, just for him to try. Standing in his kitchen, bare feet cold on his hard wood floor, the idea of giving him that opportunity made your heart pick up in your chest, but made pain radiate through it at the same time. The romantic in you, the part of you that wondered if maybe Matthew Tkachuk was actually worth it, the part of you that loved sunflowers even though the memories attached to them were so incredibly mixed now, wanted to give him a chance. The other part of you, an equal part of you, was screaming, demanding that you be protective of yourself, of your happiness, from the people you let into your life, especially ones who had already proven then had no problem burning the life you were building for yourself and leaving before the ashes started to fall.

But did you even have a happiness you needed to protect? If you didn’t, then the answer was simple. If there was nothing to protect, there was extremely limited risk. You were already in a variation of hell of his own creation, sponsored by the feeling of someone you love deciding you weren’t worth an ounce of effort. What could it do to you if he failed? It would just affirm what you already experienced as a perennial fact instead of a potentially annual moment.

But the romantic inside pushed back, hard. Would you always wonder what would have happened if you gave him a chance? Would you always carry a torch for him? Would there always be an empty room, with a light left on, for him, in the house of the life you ended up making for yourself?

Romanticism versus realism. That was the question at hand. You knew both sides of the argument, the angel and devil on your shoulder both just facets of you, screaming at each other, both trying to decide what was best for you. They were just extensions of you though, so if you didn’t know, they didn’t know. But you did know two things though.

You knew you still loved sunflowers and you still loved Matthew Tkachuk.

And that was enough to convince you punch him a round-trip, one month ticket on the train of your every moving, ever developing life. You would be directing the path, choosing which tracks you would take, making all the moves, and he would have to figure out how to be your co-director. You weren’t going to stop or simplify anything for him. You were just going to continue on. In a month, the train would loop back to the station and you would decide to punch him another ticket, offer him the seat next to you, or leave him stranded there, alone at a run down train station probably in the pouring rain like in all the movies, before he would leave and watch as the station crumbled to dust upon his exit along with the idea of you and him.

“Okay.”

You settled into your answer as you gave it, trying to get it to settle over your body in a way that made you feel warmer rather than colder. Matthew’s eyes were staring into yours and he looked like he was teetering on the edge of crying, like he wanted to tell you everything that single thing that word made him feel, but he bit his lip and held his tongue. He was listening instead of talking, a welcome change, a welcome first attempt.

“You get one month,” you told him, your voice shaking as you tried to force it to be level. “One month of being around, I guess we can call it that. You figure out how you want to prove it to me. I’m not here to help you out. You hurt me. This is me, unlocking the front door for you. You have to figure out how to open it all on your own, okay? After a month, I guess we can talk and see where we’re at.”

“Thank you,” is all Matthew can figure out how to say for a moment. One month to try and show you he was worth another maybe, or if he let himself dream for a second, one month until you might want to be with him again. “I’d take anything, so thank you.”

“Take your fucking breakfast,” you smiled softly, trying to break the tension as much as one joke can. “And your coffee is cold now but that’s going to be a you problem.”

“Is your coffee cold?” Matthew asked you. He just wanted to fix something, even something as small as a too cold cup of coffee. “I can fix it.”

“Well, it’s iced coffee,” you informed him, a genuine laugh in your voice this time as you reached behind you to grab your drink on the opposite counter, giving the cup a little shake, ice rattling, as you showed it to him. “So, I sure hope you’re not going to try and warm it up.”

“No, no,” Matthew laughed softly, hands fiddling with the collar on his now room temperature at best coffee. “Probably should’ve asked what you were drinking first.”

You nodded softly, “Your heart was in the right place.”

Matthew smiled softly as you and your heart picked up in your chest again. God, that smile. It cut through everything, through the dull ache in your chest, through the deafening noise in your head of your own thoughts, and hit you right in the room in your heart that was reserved for him. It was vacant now, but the lights shone brighter for a moment and the furniture in the basement that used to be in there for him rattled, drawers and cabinet doors smashing, a reminder that everything you felt for him was still there. It might be covered in drop clothes and an inch of dust, but it was there. Part of you was already ready for him, but it wasn’t most of you. Maybe one day it would be. Or maybe this was one of the worst things you’d allowed in a long time under the impression that he simply couldn’t make things worse for you, which was almost a challenge to that fucking bitch fate at this point. Your insecurity and shaky foundation got the best of you for a moment and a sentence like a child’s prayer slipped out of your mouth.

“Matthew, please don’t waste my time.”

“I won’t,” Matthew’s words followed yours without a second of hesitation. “I promise. I won’t.”

The romantic in you hoped he was right, that this would be worth how difficult it would be, how difficult it would be to look at him over and over again with his past words playing like a broken record stuck on a broken record player in your mind. If he truly did try, then enduring the torturous reminder of the past would be more than worth it because you were pretty certain that if Matthew Tkachuk could figure out how to be everything you knew he could be, he would be the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. But could he get there? You didn’t know, but sometimes people take risks, people bend until they almost break in search of love, like sunflowers bend towards the sunlight, in search of a new and brighter day.

------

You woke up the next day after breakfast at Matthew’s, after ducking out for a planned series of activities, lunch with a friend, and errands to run. You had tried to fill your day after Matthew’s to give yourself an out if it went poorly and a break from Matthew to process everything if it turned out positive. Part of you was wondering if what had happened was really positive or not, but you felt better today than you had over the last month, able to get out of bed and get the coffee pot started with too much extra effort. The bags under your eyes looked better than they had in weeks.

A knock on your front door, eerily reminiscent of the one you’d delivered on Matthew’s door the day before, brought you and your freshly poured cup of coffee in hand to the door. You opened the door and were greeted with an unfamiliar face with a very familiar expression, one far too cheery for the hour in the day. The smile plastered on her face didn’t falter as she read your name and address off her list to confirm who you were and that she was in the right place. You nodded as confirmation, which just made her smile impossibly wider.

“Great! These are for you then!”

Her voice was somehow worse than the fact that she was downright euphoric before nine in the morning. No one who could be this excited about life before nine could be trusted. She practically shoved a bouquet into your hands, turned on her heels, then seemed to skip down the hallway and out of your building. You shook your head as if to shake off the memory of the world’s cheeriest delivery person from your mind, before turning back into your apartment, kicking the door closed on your way to the kitchen table.

Of course, they were sunflowers. Matthew’s consistency with flowers was never in doubt. You grabbed the card, smiling at the words printed on the small card.

If you don’t hate sunflowers yet, give me a month. You’re going to get so many, you’ll be sick of them. Lunch today? - Matty

You tapped the card in your hand, taking deep steady breathes as you walked over to the counter where your phone was. You were really doing this. You were really giving him a chance to show you he could be better than your downright awful four months full of casual disagreements, fights, and near constant miscommunication had shown you. There were people in your life you didn’t think would approve. No, you knew they wouldn’t approve. That’s why you hadn’t told a single soul about yesterday, but this wasn’t about anyone else. It wasn’t about the opinions they would be bound to have. It wasn’t about what they thought was best. This was you and Matthew and everything that was still there. It wasn’t for other people; relationships never were.

You texted him, accepting his invitation for lunch. He texted back immediately even though it was way too early for him usually. If Matthew had practice at ten, he wasn’t out of bed until a quarter past nine and he lived fifteen minutes from the arena. Your mind wondered if he had been awake, just waiting for your text, but you pushed the thought of side as you headed to take a shower. He wouldn’t get up before nine unless his building was on fire.

Across town, a curly-haired boy who had woken up two hours earlier than he usually did, just to see if the girl he loved had gotten her sunflowers, smiled when he saw her text.

She had gotten them, thankfully. Matthew got to go to practice with a smile on his face, wondering how she’d smiled when she had seen the flowers arrive, and with the knowledge he’d get to see her smile in person after practice. Well, if he played his cards right, he’d probably be able to con a smile or two out of her. He felt damn near giddy, like a kid at a county fair who had too much cotton candy and who has just accidentally won the biggest prize the fair had to offer, even though he hadn’t even come close to winning you back yet. Getting to be around you again was his win, and it was so much more than he thought he would ever get, he could feel like a little kid for the morning if he wanted to.

He could and did feel like a little kid the entire time he waived for you at the restaurant. Matthew arrived fifteen minutes early. Being late had been his specialty the first time around, not necessarily a problem often within itself, but compounded upon everything else Matthew didn’t do then, a list that seemed to grow longer the more he picked apart the past from your point of view, showing up early carried more weight. The shock on your face when you saw him already waiting at the table when the hostess brought you around was proof enough that every effort Matthew made, every single thing he took notice of from the past and changed, would make a difference.

“Hey, how was practice?” you said as you dropped down into the seat opposite him.

Matthew had the smallest sliver of hope that the sunflower dress would have reappeared, but he knew he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to see you look like you had when he had gotten the opportunity to take you out the first time, to do this right the first time. If he hadn’t screwed everything up with his stubbornness and his general inability to be a boyfriend, he wouldn’t be wishing for that dress right now. He could be in your apartment, holding you, face in your neck, arms around your waist, decompressing from practice and life in general. But he was here, sitting four feet apart, in the middle of a restaurant, knowing he wouldn’t even get to hold your hand on the walk to his car later because you hadn’t even driven together.

“Um, practice was good,” Matthew told you, his mind still running through a seemingly endless list of things he could be doing with you right now if he hadn’t given up before ever really getting in the game. “How was your morning?”

“Good. Didn’t do much since I didn’t have work.”

Matthew nodded, taking a sip of his water before doing what he would need to do over and over again, if he really did want to get the chance to love you to you again. He tried again.

“So, um, how’s your mom doing?” Matthew asked, hands trying to find a resting spot on the table, his lap, somewhere.

“Fine.”

The distance across the table felt wider with each passing second to Matthew, like you were somehow slipping further away from him with each clipped answer you gave. It was painfully obvious that the sunflowers had only gotten you to show up. The magic of them had worn off the second you sat face to face with him and had to claw through all of the emotional shrapnel that was heavy in your chest and in your mind that Matthew had caused to sit across a table from him. Just sitting across the table from him, all you had was your past with him on your mind. You had too much time to think, to remember. Matthew needed to find some way to overcome it, to make you see the him from the present and not the past when you looked at him. It wasn’t going to happen in this restaurant with nothing but time for you to get hopelessly lost in the past.

“Okay, nope,” Matthew sighed, tossing his napkin and menu onto the table. “We’re not doing lunch here.”

“You picked it,” your brows furrowed down in confusion as Matthew stood from the table. “Do you not like see anything you like?”

“I see you,” Matthew slid in with a playful smile on his face and just for a moment, you remembered why it had been so easy to fall for him what felt like a lifetime ago. “But no, this just isn’t working. Let’s get out of here.”

Matthew threw far too much money on the table considering the only thing you had ordered was water, but he felt bad for wasting the wait staff’s time, and started putting on his coat. You slowly rose from your seat to do the same, confusion pulling your brows together. A patented Matthew Tkachuk date was a meal and that was pretty much it. A change of venue mid-date? Multi part dates? Definitely not in his wheelhouse. Especially when you considered you hadn’t even ordered an appetizer yet.

“Where are we going?” you asked him as he gestured for you to lead the two of you out of the restaurant.

“Honestly,” Matthew sighed as he pulled the door open for you, waiting for both of you to exit before continuing, “I don’t really have a plan. That just felt stuffy? Weird? I don’t know. It didn’t feel like us.”

“What does us feel like, Matthew?” you sighed, tucking your hair behind your ear, a nervous habit that would never die and never stop making Matthew want to die since he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen, every single time.

“I know what it used to feel like when it was good,” he told you. “We could talk for hours about anything. We used to be able to anyway. I know it might be awhile before we can do that again, but that wasn’t like the good parts of us and you know it.”

You sighed again, something you knew you would probably be doing a lot as you tried to give Matthew the space to just try, but the part of you, a large part of you, the part couldn’t stand not being the line leader in kindergarten, was screaming at you to do something, anything. Kiss him, which would have been the worst idea you might have ever had, slap him, also not advisable, get in your car and leave, not a great suggestion either. Just something, anything other than just standing in the street, looking at him and remembering how much it all hurt, how much it hurt to love someone who always seemed to have one foot firmly planted somewhere that wasn’t with you.

“Come on. I know a better place,” Matthew told you, pulling you out of your spiraling thoughts before you could fall too deep into them.

It took everything in him not to offer you his hand. He was pretty sure holding your hand might make him cry, which wouldn’t be the best look for him, but he was pretty sure it would feel like heaven. But no pearly gates were going to open for him today. He’d have to settle for standing next to you with the knowledge that maybe heaven did exist after all.

You walked side by side with him as he weaved through the streets of downtown, staying close, but far enough apart so you couldn’t accidentally brush his hand with yours. You stayed in step with him into a nearby coffee shop, the warmer more comfortable atmosphere already sinking into you and Matthew, loosening your shoulders, the tension softening. The restaurant had been cold somehow, harsh, and considering your love for him was pretty frozen in permafrost, this was much better.

“They supposedly, according to Benny, have the best blueberry scones in the city,” Matthew said softly.

“You know me,” you smiled softly.

“Love a good baked good.”

You and Matthew spoke in unison, bringing a laugh over both of you, tension continuing to loosen with each passing moment. Matthew asked you what you wanted and ordered for you, mostly so he could pay without hearing a fight from you about how you didn’t need him to pay for you. You sat down with your scone and your coffee at a table Matthew dwarfed, but he didn’t seem to mind too much as he looked at you.

“So, take two,” he joked. “Is this better by the way? You just didn’t seem happy at all there. It seems like this is more your speed.”

To say you were stunned that he was actually checking on you, trying to tune into your emotions, would be an understatement. He had showed up early and was asking about how you felt, genuinely. His blue eyes, long standing one of your favorite features of his, bounced across your face, trying to take in every micro expression before you could even answer the question.

“Yeah, Matty,” the older nickname sliding out, “this is better.”

“Okay, good,” he smiled softly and this one made its way to his eyes, crinkling them at the corners.

He asked you about work, desperate to catch up on the office drama he had missed. You asked for updates on the team, the things the media would never and could never find out about. He asked about your mom again and you actually told him. Sliding back into old ways, it didn’t feel like your relationship in the coffee shop. It felt like your old friendship. The world felt like it felt when you fell in love with him in secret originally. Matthew was actively listening to you the entire time, something he deeply struggled with because did he ever have the tendency to talk too much, but he was trying. He apologized for cutting you off once to tell his own story and you almost got whiplash when he sank back into his chair and verbally gave you the floor. He was making space for you, fully and honestly, and trying to appreciate you inhabiting the space he was making for you in the conversation and in his life. He talked too much, but there was a peace he found in listening to the best person he had ever had the privilege of knowing tell him stories, tell him about her life like she wanted to give him part of it and god, did he ever want part of your life.

Matthew went home that day and was damn near clinical about the whole thing, breaking apart everything he could remember about how you reacted to what he said, what you seemed to appreciate and what you didn’t. He treated his memories of it all like game tape, reviewing what he considered to be a win after a rough first period showing, looking to areas of success and areas of possible improvement and man, he was finding a lot of areas to improve. He kept getting stuck on your smile, the few true ones in the coffee shop, where you looked like the girl he fell in love with instead of the hollow one he created with his own words. Matthew let himself sit with those moments for a couple of steady breaths. You were worth the effort, he reminded himself again. You were.

The next morning you were thankfully already milling about, halfway through your coffee and halfway through getting dressed when the knock came to your front door. You had a suspicion based on the knock which somehow itself was cheery that you were going to open the door to the same delivery person as yesterday. There she was when your door swung open, ponytail swinging, smile tattooed on her face, unable to fall. This time though, she shoved a bouquet of a dozen red roses into your hands, much to your confusion. You almost asked her if she’d given you the wrong flowers, but she had already vanished who you looked up from the flowers, off to curse the next person with her cheeriness.

When you placed them on your side table next to your sofa, the spot on the kitchen table still inhabited by the sunflowers from the day before, you at least knew she’d given you the right bouquet.

Can’t always get you sunflowers, sweetheart. Got to keep you on your toes. :) - Matty

You immediately pulled your phone out of your pajamas pants pocket and shot off the first thing that crossed your mind to him.

Variety is NOT the spice of life, Tkachuk. Stick to the status quo.

You got a text back shortly after exchanging your comfortable pajama bottoms for the confines of work appropriate pants. You checked your phone seven times on your walk to your car, feeling like a version of yourself you thought you left behind in middle school. You had dealt with unrequited feelings for Matthew so long, fell in love with him in secret, that when you had the chance to love him out loud, you jumped at it and so did he. It might have been the only time you had ever been completely on the same page together. Before that, you had been fast friends, falling into friendship without any effort really by either of you. This was something else. Matthew Tkachuk was putting in more effort than you saw him put into anything besides his career. The effort was making you feel like you should be back in a plaid skirt, shoving a binder into your locker, and whispering about the cute curly-haired boy from your science class, a kid with a crush who had no idea what was yet to come.

But you could only wish you had no idea of what was to come. It had already come, running you over faster than you could ask, your heart shattering under Matthew’s feet due to his carelessness. One sentence from the speech he so carelessly used to break your heart felt like this moment. At best, I think we just had middle school crushes gone off the rails. The amount of times you had fallen in and out of crushes in middle school was too high to even attempt to count. Was what you were feeling just a recurrence, a temporary realignment of the train on the tracks? Was Matthew putting in all this effort for fleeting feelings? Was he right this whole time?

------

Matthew Tkachuk was working against himself with you, fighting the mess he’d made of you and him a month ago. He created the situation that made you build the walls he was trying to surmount with an army of sunflowers and his poor excuse for love. Matthew was good at a few things, hockey, being a pest, and creating chaos. Righting the chaos he made had never been a task that was asked of him before and now, three days after that first day in the coffee shop, he was struggling to figure out where to go from here. He wanted to make the right decision, systematically work through the heartbreak he’d caused, taking leaps each time he saw you until maybe he’d be close enough to wrap you up in his arms and never let you go again. He might have to settle for a baby step today though since you were at work, slammed with a new project from your boss, with no time to see him

He sent you lunch at work instead, from your favorite burger place you always went together. You swore you could have cried when you realized he included both sweet potato fries and regular fries, your mind pulled back to the first time you went together, back when you were just friends.

“Should I get the sweet potato fries or regular?” you asked him.

“Get the sweet potato ones,” Matthew told you, running a hand to push his curls out of his face. “You always get regular fries and complain about how you should’ve gotten sweet potato whenever we all go out to eat together.”

You agreed with his suggestion, letting the conversation fall comfortably back over the two of you as you waited for your food. You hadn’t even realized time had passed when the waitress dropped off your food. Spending time with Matthew melted away stress and your perception of the passage of time, letting you live in the moment, unencumbered by the stressful comings and goings of your day to day life.

The sweet potato fries had been a good choice. They had a honey drizzle on them and you were more than pleased with your selection. But Matthew’s regular potato fries appeared to have some sort of special seasoning on them and you were itching to try one, but Matthew wasn’t big on sharing in general, let alone when it came to food. He saw you staring at them and groaned.

“You’re the worst,” but he flipped his plate around so the fries faced you anyway. “Don’t say I never do things for you.”

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Tkachuk.”

You frequented that same burger joint with him throughout the years of your friendship that came after, and during your short relationship. The burgers you ordered changed, but never the fries. You got sweet potato. Matthew got regular. He let you steal as many of his as you wanted without a single complaint sliding between his lips despite dozens of repeat visits to the restaurant.

In your office, holding a container of sweet potato fries and a container of regular in opposite hands, you thought it was a little ridiculous that french fries were making tears well up in your eyes. He hadn’t forgotten. You shook your head to shake off the desperate thoughts that were swirling, the ones that were tying emotional weight to french fries of all things, and shot him off a quick text to thank him for lunch before getting wrapped back up in your day. You didn’t see his reply text until you had already kicked your heels off at home too many hours later.

Would never forget to get my girl her whole meal :)

Sometimes, love wasn’t big gestures. Oftentimes, it wasn’t even gestures that would make much sense to relay to other people. Two kinds of french fries wasn’t something you could explain to anyone else because it would just seem childish, but you felt cared for. Above all, you felt remembered when you’d opened that bag. You felt like Matthew Tkachuk had seen you almost two years ago in a restaurant and remembered exactly who you were in that moment and still knew who you were today. The french fries would go untold to anyone else, but they made you smile more than the roses on your coffee table when you fell asleep that night.

The next month felt like it happened all at once. There were enough sunflowers to create your own you-pick patch of them, rose and tulips and whatever other kinds of flowers Matthew knew the names of interspersed, just to keep you on your toes. Movies nights at his place, complete with half-burnt, half-unpopped popcorn courtesy of Matthew’s non-existent culinary skills. Nights out, full of laughter and storytelling that made you feel like nothing had ever changed, like you had flipped over an extra month in the calendar, skipping one entirely, the month you’d been apart, and moved on without it. He felt like your friend again, something that had lapsed when you’d started dating. You both tried so hard, arguably too hard, to change your relationship into a romantic one that you didn’t leave space for friendship, booting it out without anything solid to fulfill its previously occupied space. The relationship collapsed without a solid core, the frail coverings of romance too heavy for the hollow center to bear.

Matthew wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. He still talked over you, parts of his brain running faster than others. He still forgot to talk to you on road trips sometimes. He still forgot your sister’s birthday. He still resisted emotional responses from you, physically pulling back and trying to dodge conversations that would bring discomfort. The gestures were there, hundreds of them in the form of your favorite flowers, but was it enough? Did you truly believe you two were hand in hand, putting the train station of your relationship back together, or was this just an attractive paint job hiding the cracks for a few months until they became exposed again because of time? Was the effort a permanent fixture? Or was it just a passing small town station that Matthew had created to attract you, pulling you into town with the promise of nice accommodations and restaurants always being available, only to abandon them as soon as the train left the station and your life got on without you, leaving you stranded, trapped in a small forgotten town forever?

As you walked into your favorite coffee shop, you cut the line, heading right to the front like you had become accustomed to doing. Matthew had called your order in and paid for it over the phone every work day before you got there since that first day after he sent you lunch. He knew what time you usually got to your favorite shop, and worked it out with the staff that they had your order ready for you now like clockwork every day. You had been able to gain twenty minutes of sleep from it, but you were wondering now if this would all stop if you took him back or not. Really, the coffee order ceasing would be more than fine. Love wasn’t in monetary gestures like this one technically was, but what else would disappear with it? Would Matthew trying to verbally and physically make space for you in his life disappear too? Would him genuinely trying to, even if it’s hard and he’s pretty shitty at it, understand your emotions fade away? Would all the effort fragment into sporadic moments, slowly growing further and further apart until they stopped happening all together and you wasted years of your life giving Matthew Tkachuk your love and not getting enough back?

You didn’t know the answer, which is why you were thrilled you were having dinner with some of your closest, non-Matthew related friends after work. You had been keeping Matthew a bit of a secret. Actually, a complete secret. You knew your friends wouldn’t approve at the start, so you hadn’t told them a thing. They would have told you he didn’t deserve any semblance of a second shot, that the things he had said in the past could never be overwritten by future good actions, that you weren’t supposed to give people who break your heart second chances. But now, you were at a crossroads.

You could give Matthew more time, maintain the status quo until inevitably your heart gave out. You could open your arms to love him again, knowing full well that you would never be one hundred percent sure or not. You could brush him aside, thanking him for his temporary effort that would never be enough for you. Three clear options left you further from a solution than you thought possible. You needed advice. You needed opinions from people who only had stake in you in this relationship. You needed to be more selfish than you knew how to be, so you were passing the task off to your friends.

While they were usually quick to pass judgment, they were silent as you went through every painstaking detail of your past month, starting with that fated text about sunflowers, through every dinner, every movie, every moment until the text you got before you sat down in this chair at dinner with them. You were exhausted by the time you got through everything, emotionally and verbally spent, feeling no closer to your answer. You had hoped retelling everything would pull you in one direction or the other, with no such luck. Your friends, however, weren’t undecided in the slightest.

“So, you’re ending this experiment, right?”

You were shocked, almost spitting out your drink at the harshness of the words that spilled out of your best friend’s mouth. She shrugged off your shocked expression.

“I mean, it was a nice experiment, I guess, but a total waste of your time,” another friend added. “There isn’t any way to prove this is a permanent change and I, for one, will never tell you to take that kind of a risk. You’re too good to put up with a guy who very well could end up not being worth it.”

Your friends were talking a mile a minute, all at you, but really at each other in their bubble of agreement, agreement that Matthew Tkachuk was not worth your time. He could buy you flowers, coffee, as many lunches as he wanted to. He could make promises about listening and trying and making an effort, but he was on trial during it all. He was under a performance review. It was a manufactured situation as far as they were all concerned, entirely unrepresentative of who he would be outside of it. When there wasn’t a close date, a date he could begin to slack off again according to your friends, and you demanded engagement and effort from him every single day without any relief from that pressure, he would fail. He would fail every single time.

How had you not seen that? You created a situation with a time limit, a window in time he would have to be a different person than he was, with a definitive end date. Was anything he had done representative of actual change, or was it just a temporary side step towards being closer to what you needed, only to return back to his original spot when you took him back? There was no way to know if anything he had done over the last month was real or some elaborate farce.

The farce, this charade of a month, it swept the both of you up with returning feelings of seemingly endless longing from when you loved each other in secret. You were pretty sure Matthew had gotten swept up right along with you by the fantasy of fate and love being something unbreakable that would always pull people back together. This effort wasn’t real, even if Matthew believed it was. It was all part of some twisted game fate was playing by telling the both of you that you were meant to be. Two puzzle pieces that aren’t supposed to go together don’t go together, even if one tries to bend their corners until they can. Matthew thought he was cutting corners off, not just bending them, making permanent changes to fit with you, but it would never matter. The picture the two pieces that were you and Matthew created together would never be correct. You were shades of blue, like the sky on a Sunday morning as you remembered it as a child full of wonder, like the ocean, powerful and unstoppable. Matthew was red, like the deepest tones of a fading sunset, like the feeling of sitting by a fireplace on Christmas morning. Both pieces individually were beautiful and important to the larger picture, but they didn’t belong anywhere near each other. There were no transition colors. It was blue and red, black and white. They couldn’t mix. They just had to fit. And you two just didn’t fit. You didn't create a picture together. It was just two pieces trying desperately to create something you couldn't because red was your favorite color and blue was Matthew's and fate was a fucking bitch.

You were crying as you walked into your apartment building and pulled out your phone. You typed out a text that echoed one you’d received two months ago without even meaning to do it.

We need to talk. Come over?

It was identical to the one Matthew had sent before he set all of this in motion and you were about to mirror him even more closely. Before he came over, you had to have your words collected. You knew he would push back, try and argue that your friends didn’t know the two of you, that they didn’t know what you both felt. But feelings were fickle and often told lies and it was telling you and Matthew the same one right now, that this would work if you tried hard enough even though it would just hurt a thousand times worse when the lie became undeniable six months down the road.

You almost didn’t notice the small package on your doorstep, eyes too clouded with tears to successfully unlock your door on the first three tries. You snatched it off the doorstep, a sob breaking through your chest when you realized it was from Matthew, no address on the package, just your name scribbled on the top in his horrendous handwriting. He had dropped this off himself and somehow that made it all feel more heartbreaking in your chest. You shuffled inside, the fourth attempt being the charm today, and tore into the package as you kicked the door shut behind you. The wrapping was even his handiwork, too much tape, not enough but somehow too much paper, and you were ruining it with tears dripping on and staining the paper.

You sat down on the floor, back against your front door. The lid of the box slid off easily and you tossed it aside. You were greeted with a picture of your mother, one you had framed on your front table, mere feet from where you had collapsed on the floor. It was your favorite picture of her, something you had definitely told and retold to Matthew one too many times. You flipped it over in search of some reason for it’s inclusion, finding more of Matthew’s handwriting on the back.

Hey sunflower,

Hope work was good today :) If it wasn’t, I’m sorry and call me and we’ll talk about it. They switched our flights around for this roadie so I’m on a plane right now, but I wanted you to have these before I left.

You told me your mom was a big part of the reason you loved sunflowers and that she had these sunflower earrings you loved growing up, but that they were lost. I saw your mom was wearing them in this picture, so I took it to a jeweler and well, they aren’t the ones your mom wore, but I hope you like them anyway.

I know you probably aren’t ready to hear it from me, feel free to skip to the end if you aren’t, but I love you and the past month has made me realize just how much I do and how stupid I was in the past. I’m going to keep trying to get a little better every single day and maybe, if I try hard enough, I might become someone who deserves you.

- Matty

Your hands shook as you slowly set the picture on the ground next to you and pulled back the tissue paper. Nestled safely in the box were two golden sunflower earrings, delicate golden wire bending to make up their shape. They were identical to the pair your mother had worn almost every single day of every summer of your childhood. Except these were yours. And they were made for you by a boy who loved you who was trying really hard to become a man who loved you and deserved to be loved back by you.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter. Your judgmental friends didn’t matter. Your negative thought spirals that tried to ruin everything good you ever had that was risky because the best things in life were always inherently risky didn’t matter. Fate and whether or not she was on your side or not didn’t matter. Matthew Tkachuk mattered. His effort was real and raw and pure and the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for you and it mattered. And all Matthew needed for all of his effort to matter was exactly one single act of effort from you. It would have to be a continuous act, a constantly, daily task, but all he needed was your patience with him. And as you sat on the floor, tears staining your cheeks, holding a pair of sunflower earrings you knew Matthew Tkachuk was worth your patience, that he was worth your love, and that you didn’t hate sunflowers at all, not even a little bit.

People weren’t puzzle pieces. You and Matthew Tkachuk didn’t fit together seamlessly to create one image because that’s not how people work. Puzzle pieces are stagnant, fixed, unchangeable. People are supposed to flex and grow and change, be mutable over time, with contact from others. You were blue now, but there was no reason to say throughout your life, from touching other people and their beautiful lives, that you would always be the same shade of blue you were now. Tomorrow, maybe you’d meet the most yellow person you had ever met in your life, and you’d be a little more green for it. Matthew Tkachuk was red and just maybe, purple was supposed to be your favorite color.

You pulled out your phone and deleted six words and two punctuation marks you had typed walking into your apartment building, but never sent. You replaced that text with a picture of the earrings in your lap, and simple red heart emoji because you knew words would fail you and any words that came to you, you wanted to say to his face when he got back from his trip. He texted you back almost instantly, just a simple red heart emoji. Matthew had started the red hearts. When you were friends, he’d send every other color except red. But when when you started dating, he would send a red heart whenever he wanted to kiss you but couldn’t, when he was on the road and wouldn’t see you for a while, when he was across the table from you at dinner with his parents. It was one of your little quirks, little things that neither of you had forgotten, an old habit that never worked its way out of your behavior. You didn’t send red hearts to anyone else anymore, and neither did he. But you sent one to him now.

Matthew Tkachuk sat on a plane that night, wishing he could driven across town fast enough to deserve to get pulled over and kissed you instead of sending you a stupid fucking emoji. He fell asleep that night, letting himself remember what it felt like to kiss you, something he had kept in the back of his mind for the last month because the thought of never being able to do it again made his knees pull up into his chest to try and block off pain that was unfortunately coming from inside himself. But tonight, tonight he let himself remember it, let himself pretend that you were thinking of the same thing, let himself remember what it was all like with you because you wanted to kiss him too. He fell asleep with a smile on his face for the first time in months and woke up the next morning with it too, still thinking about you and getting back home to you to finally get to kiss you again.

------

Matthew didn’t even think twice when his feet touched the tarmac a few days and two road wins later. He knew where he needed to go. He got to his car and tossed his tie into the passenger seat before starting to drive way too fast to your apartment. He didn’t hit a single red light, which made him think about fate again for a brief moment, but then he remembered this wasn’t about her or anyone else. Everything was just about you, you and your love affair with big yellow flowers and hopefully, him again. He took the stairs two at a time after parking incredibly poorly in front of your apartment, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to kiss his best friend, the girl whose heart he broke, the girl that somehow didn’t hate him or sunflowers, the girl that just might love his undeserving self in spite of it all.

He barely got two knocks on your front door before you yanked it open and Matthew could swear he wanted to die. There you were, a lightness in your eyes he hadn’t seen for months returned to you. Your hair was pulled back, the earrings he had made for you on display. His eyes drifted down, taking in the familiar golden chain around your neck, the one that had been missing for two months now, the one that held a small sunflower and the number nineteen at its base. But Matthew Tkachuk swore his heart almost gave out when he saw the familiar white neckline of that damn sunflower dress. You hadn’t worn it in the past two months, unable to take it out of your closet without crying, but you put it on today and it made you smile.

“Hi,” he breathed out.

Driving over with the intent to kiss you was as far as he’d gotten and you in that sunflower dress was making it impossible to think of anything other than that one word he had managed to say.

“Hi,” you breathed back, a genuine smile pulling up the corners of your mouth.

Matthew cleared his throat, letting his eyes close for a second so maybe he could try and think about something other than how you looked right now. He let his head fall back, taking in a deep breath, giving his head a shake in a vain attempt to shake off some nervousness from his mind to clear his thoughts. It worked well enough so one thought could slip through as he let his head fall forward and opened his eyes into your gaze again.

“Do I, um, get another month?” Matthew asked you, his voice timid and frail, on the edge of breaking. “Today is a month.”

You looked up at him, eyes taking him in. The parting of his lips, the happiness that finally reached his beautiful blue eyes, the curls falling on his forehead, the wrinkled game day suit sans tie that you knew was probably crumpled in the passenger seat of his car. He was on a tightrope, ready to fall to either side with your answer. One side was absolute heartbreak, the kind he was pretty sure would taint the concept of love for him for most of this life, and the other was joy and love and happiness and everything he ever wanted. He was ready to fall with your words, giving you all the control to push him to one side or the other.

“No, Matthew,” you told him softly.

Matthew’s face started to fall instantly and he felt like his heart dropped into his stomach where his own body started to eat away at it immediately. The dress, the earrings, the red heart, everything, he thought he had finally broken through to you. More than that, he had thought he finally was loving you in a way you wanted, in a way that you deserved. He thought he finally had enough of the pieces of what you needed, wanted, and liked together in himself to be someone you wanted to give your love to. He knew a month wasn’t a lot of time, but he’d loved for over two years now. He loved you as a friend. He loved you when he thought there were only unrequited feelings. He loved you when he was your lover. He loved you when he broke your heart out of sheer stupidity, when he thought fighting meant you would never work together, that somehow he was wrong to love you. He loved you the entire month he didn’t see you. He loved you this past month he spent desperately trying to show you he could love you through actions, not just in his own head and chest, that he could love you like a partner, like you deserved to be loved.

“You don’t get another month,” you continued, each syllable twisting the knife deeper into Matthew’s chest. “You don’t get another month because you don’t have anything else to prove to me, Matthew.”

Matthew willed his eyes to find yours again, hoping the hope that had just alit itself in his chest wasn’t misguided. You were calm, your eyes steady, keeping contact with his. Matthew almost dared to feel reassured for a moment, like maybe the hope he felt when you said he had nothing left to prove was correct. But if he was wrong, which he so often was in general, but especially with emotions, yours in particular, it would just serve as an additional twist of the knife. When it was already in so deep, did it really matter anymore?

“You’re not on trial. No more tests,�� you said to him, letting your love for him you had tried to store away pour out. “I want you, Matthew. I want you and me. I want to see if purple is my favorite color.”

The purple part was beyond Matthew and he made a mental note to ask you about it in a minute, but he needed to kiss you right now. He reached out and you leaned into his touch for the first time in a long time. His hands cupped your face and you rocked up on your toes as he pressed his lips to yours. Your hands came up to rest on his chest as he kissed you so softly, tenderly. He wanted to crush you into him, but that wasn’t what this moment was. This was hopefully the end of the longest period of his life he’d ever have to go without kissing you again. He wasn’t going to rush this, his second chance with the girl who loved him for some reason and sunflowers for much more obvious reasons.

Matthew was slow as he pulled away and tilted his head down to rest his forehead against yours. One of his thumbs shifted to ghost over your lips, his blue eyes staring into yours, but really past your eyes, and into you, seeing you better than anyone else did. He loved you without the rose colored glasses. He saw you and loved you, it had just taken him almost too long to figure out how to show it. It had almost taken him too long to figure out that love wasn’t just something you could feel and ride the feelings to bliss. Love was daily effort, trying and retrying and sometimes he would fail, but it was constantly showing up anyway. Love was hard, but holding your face in his hands, he knew you were worth the effort he planned on putting in every single day for the rest of his life.

“I love you, sunflower,” Matthew whispered, the words left raw and unpolished by how real the feelings he injected into them were.

“I love you too.”

#Matthew Tkachuk #matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk fanfic #nhl fanfic #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl imagine #Hockey Fanfiction #hockey writing #hockey imagine

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boldlyanxious · 4 years

Text

None the Wiser 3

Masterlist

All fic masterlist

Bio-dad Bruce prompt-siblings

Marinette spent the next few days pushing the idea of alternative parentage out of her mind. Instead she focused back on school. During their afternoon off, much of the class was going to the movies but Marinette decided she would use the time to work on her entry for a fashion contest for lycée students as a joint project among the top 3 fashion schools in Paris.

Marinette had drawn several ideas but hadn't decided which design she wanted to create. For the contest, she would need to submit 4 designs and create one garment to be judged. The panel from the 3 schools would judge then and the top 12 would be featured at a fashion the show along with recent graduates and would be offered a slot at a summer course put on by the fashion schools.

She had several ideas drawn and now she was trying to decide which design she would use. Maybe she could enlist her friends to help her decide but there was always a risk that if she brought her designs to school one of the other students would steal them. She was pretty happy with her inspiration. Slightly inspired by an akuma but could be more universal. The colors of the storm and lightning from Stormy Weather had shown her bright pinks, purples and greens contrasting with greys and blues.

Once she chose which designs to submit she headed to the fabric store to play around with materials and colors before making her final drawings with details of how they would be made. Looking at the materials would also help her decide which of her 2 favorites would be the one she would construct. She was careful heading there. She has seen a boy a little older than her and he left at the same time as her and was moving in the same direction.

She went around the corner and ducked into the store quickly. She was getting nervous. She moved between several rows, back and forth repeatedly checking the door. Eventually she decided the boy must have been walking in the same direction and focused back on her task. She spent quite a bit of time there carefully going through all the color combinations before narrowing her choices down. She purchased small amounts of several options so she could see how they would look in different lighting before she made her final choice.

With that done she was ready to head home. Her parents wouldn't expect her home for awhile but she wanted to finish her assignments so she could keep working on this without interruption. Unfortunately as she headed back down the block she thought she saw a shadow. Most likely she was just jumpy because of the boy from earlier.

She aimed herself directly towards a busier area. It would make her take the long way gone but she would be more likely to encounter other people. When he caught up to her she was almost in view of the back of the Grand Paris hotel. She tried to make a quick double turn down 2 streets but his longer legs and bold attitude had him catch up to her. Rather than attempting to run as he caught up to her, she turned to face him.

"What is it you want?" she asked venomously.

"Precisely what I was planning to ask you." he replied.

"Well you are the one following me around. See something you like?"

"I see nothing. You are nothing. I was brought up a prince and you could never compare."

"Well your majesty you shouldn't have to walk the same ground as me. Stop. Following. Me "

Marinette turned to leave but his arm reached out to block her, She turned her eyes on him, shining bright with rage. He curled his lips and narrowed his green eyes back at her.

"You think this sweet, innocent act will fool anyone? I have exceeded all the expectations put on me and you will never measure up."

He pushed her until her back was against the wall and leaned in close at the end of his statement. Marinette steeled herself for what she knew would probably injure both of them. She masked her face with fear, making her eyes wide. When his eyes showed victory she acted. She threw her head forward hitting his chin with her forehead. She suspected it would bruise but hopefully it would be hidden by her hairline. Grabbing his collar with both hands before either of them could pull back from the blow she pushed him one direction into the wall and ran the other direction.

Running down the street and turning down the next one put her right by the Grand Paris. She saw Chloe and Sabrina sitting at a table near there and without explaining she turned a chair to their table and sat down. She took Sabrina's sweater and put it on. She pulled her hair out and left it down with a piece of fabric from her trip she wrapped it around her head like a headband. Then she snatched Chloe's glasses off her head and put them on herself. This all happened quickly but she knew it would not be without protest.

"Just what do you think you are doing, Dupain-Cheng?" Chloe asked haughtily.

"Shh. Just for a moment and I will be gone. Also I will owe you." Marinette pleaded.

Whatever response Chloe has was paused as the dark hair boy ran out from the same place she had just come from. Chloe watched him knowingly as he looked around swiftly before walking on. They both looked at her as he walked past then and then out of sight.

"Should I call my dad?" Sabrina asked.

"I don't know anything about him. Chances are I won't see him again." Marinette replied.

She pulled off the stolen articles and stood to leave. As she walked away she could hear Chloe direct Sabrina to follow her home and so she could repay them with macarons. She was fairly certain that they did this specifically so she would not be walking home alone and she was grateful.

---

Marinette made it to her first class with a few minutes to spare. She had actually gotten pretty good at showing up a few minutes early during her time in lycée. She usually had her breakfast with her but it worked pretty well.

Somehow she managed to have no classes with both Chloe and Lila. She wondered if the administration had intentionally separated the girls. Her first class had only had Chloe, Adrien, and Kim from her collège class. Still those in the class were slightly surprised when Chloe stopped by Marinette before heading to her seat.

"Was everything okay after you got home?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, yeah. I was fine. I don't think I was seen after." Marinette said, trying to be vague since everyone was listening.

"Seen by who?" Kim said.

"It wasn't that man from the park was it? He looked sketchy to me," Adrien said.

"No, nothing like that. Just had a strange interaction with someone while I was shopping yesterday." Marinette said.

Chloe scoffed, "I'm sure you also just decided to do something decent with your hair today and you weren't just trying to cover that bruise."

"Are you saying I look cute?" Marinette said.

Marinette knew Chloe saying she looked decent was far closer to a compliment than she ever would admit to. Chloe tried to deny it while other voices had more questions. Adrien skipped asking and walked right up to her and started moving her hair looking for a bruise.

"What bruise?" Kim said.

"I think you're cute," said Noah.

That caused Marinette to blush even more than Adrien touching her face and hair. She pulled away and brushed him off. The teacher came in and the conversations slowed as people started pulling out books. Marinette was happy to no longer be the focus of everyone and set about getting her supplies ready.

Classes changed and the day went on. Marinette made the motions of going to her classes and taking notes. She was on her way to lunch when Luka approached her to find out how she was dealing with the revelation she had gotten over the last weekend.

"I don't even know what to think. He wants me to meet his kids. I met one Tim but his oldest and his biological child are supposed to arrive at some point."

"Are you going to meet them?"

"Yeah. We are going to that cafe with the really nice patio Saturday. Then they are headed back home Sunday evening."

"Would it be better if someone went with you?" he asked.

"I'm not sure yet. But you are the only person who knows."

"Well, my schedule is open that day. I'll leave it open just in case."

---

Marinette managed to arrive first on Saturday. She sat outside and waited. She still made sure she was close to the exit and her phone had the gps on. Her parents were still very nervous about the whole situation but they were allowing Marinette to engage as she felt comfortable, as long as she would follow all their rules.

So far Bruce had done nothing but make an attempt to know her more. He was allowing her to guide their interactions when it was clear he wanted more. He has mentioned her visiting him but as soon as she looked uncomfortable he shut it down and suggested he would keep visiting. The only thing Marinette really knew about him was that he was a businessman in America. Clearly he had enough money that he was able to fly to Paris without a thought. He was heading back tomorrow but he was already planning to return soon.

Marinette looked up at the sound of the door opening. Tim walked in with another man and she could see Bruce behind them but he paused before coming out to the patio. He seemed to be fighting with the other member of the party but Marinette couldn't see him. Tim greeted her with a big smile and introduced Dick, who had an even bigger smile and seemed to be vibrating with excitement. He used both hands when he shook her hand. Marinette thought if she had stood he probably would have pulled her into a tight hug.

They all turned back as Bruce walked out. She gave a small smile until Bruce stepped aside when presenting his son Damian. He was scowling and when Marinette saw him she was immediately wearing a matching scowl and crossed her arms. She had no interest in sitting and eating with him after he followed her around Paris just to insult her. She stood and made a mock curtsy.

"Oh, your royal highness, you grace us with your presence," Marinette said while bowing.

Damian clicked his tongue against his teeth. Bruce's face fell.

"Have you two met before?" Tim asked.

"It was nice to meet you all. We should definitely not do this again," Marinette said before she walked out the gate to exit the patio.

She could hear the voices arguing as she walked away and then the sound of footsteps behind her.

"Marinette, wait please," Bruce said.

"What?" she asked sharply.

She stopped and turned to him waiting but when he caught up to her he still didn't know what to say.

"I don't know. But I have to know that whatever Damian did won't cause you to never speak to me again."

"What makes you think he did something?"

"It's his M.O. You are upset and he is smug."

"I always thought it would be nice to have a brother. The reality does not live up to the hype."

"Perhaps I rushed things. We will all be heading home tomorrow. But I want to see you before then. Please."

"I'll let you know."

Taglist

#bio dad bruce #maribat #bio!dad bruce wayne month 2020 #boldlyanxious

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years

Text

Burn it

Pairing: criminal!Bucky Barnes x Reader Warning: yandere, obsession, bondage, non-con. Words: 945. Summary: He broke into your house with his two accomplices, but it was not your money he was after. P.S. This was heavily inspired by the movie “Hostage” (2005). I highly recommend to watch it! _____________________________________ At first, he reminded you of a wolf, his countenance most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible to describe. His dark hair was long and dirty, and his clear blue eyes were never at rest. He followed you everywhere, having little interest in talking to his accomplices, those two kids with guns. You bet they were still studying in school, but the man in the beat-up leather jacket was obviously older and a million times more dangerous. And, despite that tall guy Pietro pretended to be the leader, you knew perfectly well who ran this show.

You nearly got used to the strong smell of cigarettes coming from him when he drew his face closer to you again. His gloved hand covered the top of your head, massaging it gently. He was always touching you one way or another. Always. It didn’t help that you were tied with duct tape they found in the room of your little brother. It felt like you were stuck in the middle of spider’s web. Right. He wasn’t a wolf; he was a spider. The one who could manipulate anyone without saying much, twist people round his finger, make them do what he wanted by pulling the right strings. And you were afraid he didn’t break into your house to steal from your family like Pietro and Wanda did. He wanted something beyond that. You felt his hot hand touching your half-naked breast, barely hidden by your fancy top with “Burn it” printed on the fabric. Fuck, it was the worst time to dress into something so revealing and provocative, but when you had been trying on new clothes you bought yesterday you by no means expected a bunch of strangers with Berettas in their hands to show up in your room. “Bucky.” You whispered, and he looked at your face with those piercing blue eyes. It was hard to speak when he watched you so intently, his hand still on your chest. You had no courage left, especially when your little brother was not around, and you didn’t need to pretend you were strong. “Do you want to ask about my left arm?” He cocked his head to one side, watching you through the strands of his dirty hair shielding his face from you. No, you didn’t want to. You had some doubts when you saw the leather glove covering his hand, but it wasn’t as important as the question you really wanted to ask. Well, you didn’t have the strength to voice it anyway, so you simply nodded trying not to look him into the eyes. “It’s a prosthesis.” He said simply, his fingers still caressing your hair. “I got it once I returned from the Middle East.” “Middle East?” You managed to repeat quietly and licked your dry lips. Shit. He was looking at your mouth now. You exhaled loudly, closing your eyes for a second and trying to convince yourself he would not harm you. He didn’t do it yet although nothing could stop him, both Pietro and Wanda still in the living room downstairs. You needed to keep calm. You didn’t want to provoke him. “I’m a war vet.” The man answered and suddenly reached for a pack of cheap cigarettes in the pocket of his baggy pants. He took one and lighted it up, taking a drag on it. A war vet. Was it the war that turned him into?.. You couldn’t find the right word. You would never guess he was a soldier once, but the voice in your head was telling you he was fucked up long before joining the military. He drew nearer and puffed smoke into your face. You coughed a little and squeezed your eyes shut, inhaling the smoke nonetheless and feeling his hot breath tickling your ear. His hand left your breast as he held the cigarette, but instead you felt him leaning closer, his nose touching your neck. God, his face was on your chest. His chapped lips brushed against your skin, and he took a deep breath. This twisted intimacy was unbearable. “You’re my girl.” He cooed in a low voice, his gloved hand pulling you by the hair lightly. “You’re my girl.” You felt him kissing your skin, moving his lips along your collar bone. You half expected him to sink his venomous fangs into your neck to inject the poison into your body and then eat you alive like tarantula did with its prey. Would he kill you before leaving the house? Would he shoot you and then watch you die? You were almost grateful he held the cigarette with his other hand instead of touching your belly, his arm dangerously close. “Bucky.” Your cracked voice was barely a whisper. His lifted his head, dark hair tickling your sensitive skin. His intense gaze turned almost carnal once he looked at your face with the smeared makeup, your supposedly waterproof mascara ran black tracks down your cheeks. “You didn’t come for money.” You said with desperation. “You came for something else.” He dropped the cigarette to the floor close to your bare foot, and you shivered, watching his nostrils flare. His fingers crawled under the thin fabric of your flashy top, caressing your skin, but then his hand moved down to the elastic of your pants and tugged on it. Bucky was now drawing circles on the lower part of your belly, and you whined. No. Please, no. “Don’t be afraid.” He muttered, and his hand went down to squeeze your pussy mercilessly. “Do you remember the best day of your life?” You shook your head desperately, only hoping it would be over soon. “Mine is today.”

#bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes #dark bucky x reader #winter soldier #bucky x reader #yandere

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beauvibaby · 4 years

Text

bless the broken road - j.benn

a/n: like always I recommend listening to the song it was inspired by also that gif makes me smile idk why

bless the broken road - rascal flatts

-3 years ago-

“Mom, I’m not in the mood for one of those I told you so calls.” You sniffled into the phone, hiding further into your blanket, the sappy romance movie you put on, only making you want to cry harder. “I thought Dallas was supposed to be a fresh start? Now the whole reason you moved there is leaving.” She muttered, you scoffed, “wow thanks mom, way to make me feel better.” You squeaked out, “it’s going to be a real fresh start now, he’s leaving, and I have a life here now, I have friends.” You defended yourself before she could go into the whole ‘when are you moving home’ rant. “I know honey, but still, I don’t know if you should be alone right now.” She tried to play concern, but after everything else she had just said, you found it hard to believe. “I’m not alone.” You muttered in defeat, not wanting her to know who was here because that was a whole other speech. “Oh is Jamie there? You know, honey, I think you two would just be great together.” She spoke excitedly, you rolled your eyes as you heard him approaching. “Mom, it’s not like that, ok? He’s got a date this weekend anyways.” You whispered, “oh.” She sighed, “listen I gotta go, I’ll talk to you soon.” You responded, “love you.” You added, she repeated the words before you could hang up. “I said you weren’t allowed to cry while I was gone.” Jamie chastised jokingly, falling down on the couch beside you. “My mom was just being my mom.” You sighed, not thinking anything of her words, you two were just friends. “I’m sorry.” Jamie muttered, squeezing your knee reassuringly as he handed you the chocolate he had just gone searching for.

-2 years ago-

“What?” You barely spoke above a whisper, this truly couldn’t be happening. “I can’t, I can’t do this anymore, it’s just not working.” Justin spoke, your apparently now ex boyfriend, “how long?” You questioned, sitting on the edge of the couch, he stood awkwardly in your living room, shifting his weight. “If you can’t be honest, you shouldn’t have came to do this in person.” You snapped, if looks could kill, he’d be dead. “I’m trying to do the right thing, Y/N.” He quipped, freezing when you stood up again, “no, Justin, you’re trying to right the wrong you made, do you think I just didn’t notice the lipstick on your shirt the other day.” You spoke, venom dripping in your tone, god how you were tired of guy after guy, coming in and seeming so great, and then just leaving. “That’s not what it-“ “save your breath, just leave.” You cut him off, looking up at him with teary eyes. You couldn’t even feel guilty for being rude, he cheated, he didn’t deserve your tears, he was a jerk. You stared at the floor as you heard him shuffling out of your apartment, then the emotions hit you, and you just needed to get out of there, even for an hour to clear your head. So you got in the car, and you drove, you drove not having a plan in mind of where to go, and then you realized the neighborhood you were in. You made your way down the streets, a pang of hurt hit you for a second as you drove past his house, his girlfriends car in the driveway. You had no right or reason to feel this way, he was just a friend, of course, so you just rolled past his house, making your way back to your apartment, to wallow in your own tears for a while.

-1 year ago-

You sat up in your bed, hesitant as the knocking on your door persisted, your eyes shooting to the time on your phone, who the hell was knocking on your door at nearly one am. You quietly stepped onto your feet, tiptoeing towards the door, “Y/N?” Jamie slurred from the other side of the door, your heart stopped for a moment, “Jamie?” You came to your senses, scrambling to unlock the door, you opened it and the scent of beer hit you immediately. “What’s wrong?” You questioned when he blankly stared at you, “we broke up.” He muttered, but he didn’t sound hurt, that could just be from all the alcohol he consumed. “Oh, Jam, I’m sorry.” You whispered, pulling him inside, “careful there bud.” You laughed when he stumbled, “can I,” he hiccuped, “can I stay tonight?” He asked, foggy eyes looking down at you. “Yeah, of course.” You answered, leading him towards your room. “The couch?” He stuttered out, confusion in his slurred voice. “Jamie, I’m not making you sleep on the couch, we’re both adults here.” You chastised, knowing it was basically falling on deaf ears, as he nodded lazily. “Alright, I’m going to at least need you to help me get you to the bed.” You giggled, groaning as Jamie nearly stepped on your foot. “I’m sorry!” He gasped out comically, “Jesus, you’re going to hurt in the morning.”

-now-

Your thoughts dwindled away as you pulled up to his house after a long day at work, the all too familiar giddiness of seeing him filled your chest. Jamie was sitting on the front porch step, talking on the phone as he watched you pull up, a grin covering his face. You put the car in park as he stood up, you gathered your things, shoving them into your purse as Jamie approached your car. You were about to open the door but he beat you too it, “hi baby.” He smiled down at you, “hi.” You responded, happily climbing out of the car. Arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in for a long kiss, “hmm, well, I missed you too.” He laughed, not used to such a dramatic welcome. “It was a long day, and I just wanted to see you.” You mumbled against his chest, smiling as you could feel the laughter bubbling in him before you could hear it. “I’m sorry it was a long day but I’ll happily take that greeting anytime.” He spoke against your hair, pulling you along to go inside as the wind started picking up, a chill in the breeze. You entered the house, expertly making your way around, despite not living there, but you both knew it was coming. “Don’t ask, not yet, I’m still thinking.” You muttered, knowing he was about to ask what happened, and deep down you knew you were over analyzing, but your mind wandered to the day again.

“Justin?” You all but choked on the air you were breathing in when you looked up at your office door, “what-why are you here?” You stammered out, mentally cursing yourself for feeling so distracted by his presence. “I was nearby, and uh, I heard you still worked here, I just had to see it for myself.” He explained, shoving his hands into his pockets, but not before you caught sight of the steel ring on his finger. “Wow.” You muttered, and he knew you had seen it. “Yeah,” he paused to laugh, a look of love in his eyes as he thought about the girl he ended up with. “I thought you hated this job.” He changed the subject, both of you feeling a little less tense, he was married, you had a long term boyfriend, he stepped into the office. “I did, but,” you paused, glancing at the picture on your desk of you and Jamie from just a couple months ago at the winter classic, grins covering your faces. “Jamie showed me how to make it better, and well, look at me now.” You laughed softly, motioning to your office, one of the perks of the promotion you had gotten. “Jamie?” Justin’s eyes snapped up at that, and then he noticed the little touches of Jamie around your office, a couple of pictures, a stars hoodie meticulously folded in the corner for the late nights you work. And for some reason, you were expecting Justin to be angry, even though he had no right to be. “I’m happy for you two, it was bound to happen eventually.” Justin admitted, smiling softly at you over the desk. “Yeah, I guess you could say we were ignoring all the signs.” You spoke up, arms lightly crossed in front of your frame, “oh please, you were oblivious to the signs.” He couldn’t help but laugh, you blushed a little, “I should get going, it was nice to see you again, Y/N.” He gave you a quick hug, and you didn’t realize there was any closure you needed from him, but it felt good to know it was never a hard thing for him to move on either. That everything really has led you to Jamie.

“Wanna talk about it now?” Jamie inquired, pulling your back flush to his front as you laid out on the couch, you’d cooked and ate, now fresh from a shower.“Justin came in today.” You whispered, feeling him tense behind you, “oh.” He mumbled, arms tightening around you, “what did he have to say?” Jamie questioned. You turned in his hold, wrapping your arms around his waist, “hey, nothing bad happened.” You soothed, “it just made me think about how stupid I was to not realize you were in front of me the whole time.” You whispered, he ran his hands down your arms until he reached your fingers, lacing them with his. “It’s alright, I did the same thing.” He reminded you, thinking back to the night he got absolutely hammered and spent the night at your house, the night he realized he didn’t just love you, he was in love with you. “You did, if only we both had listened to my mom.” You teased with an eye roll, his eyes crinkled with laughter, “don’t ever let her hear you say that.” He snickered, swinging your arms to the side. “Oh definitely not.” You smiled up at him, “Jamie.” You spoke, catching his attention, his eyes looked back towards you and away from the tv, “I love you.” You whispered, resting your chin on his chest, he dropped your hands and opted to cover each of your cheeks with his palms, fingers brushing back your damp hair. “I love you.” He repeated, continuing to look down at you lovingly, “babe, this is the part where you kiss me and then we go back to our tv show.” You teased, shrieking when he carefully but quickly pulled you up to his face, leaving a bunch of disgustingly loud kisses across your face, his beard tickling your skin. He finally settled for one last proper kiss before releasing you from his grasp and staring at the tv, “babe, this is the part where you go back to our show.” He mimicked you, leaving out the kiss part. “You’re a pain.” You rolled your eyes, using his shirt to wipe off the wetness he left behind on your face. “You don’t mean that.” He faked offense, a hand resting over his heart. “No, I don’t. Even when you annoy me, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” You admitted, returning to your earlier position, resting back against his chest. “Aw, baby, that was so cheesy.” He teased, fingers ghosting over your sides to make you squirm, “don’t push your luck, Benn, I can make you sleep on the couch now.” “That’s rude.”

Taglist: @softstarkey @mtkachuk @jmaybanks @wtfkie @literarycharleton

#jamie benn fluff #jamie benn imagine #Jamie Benn #Jamie Benn imagines #imagine #imagines #dallas stars imagine #nhl dallas stars

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twilightofthe · 4 years

Note

So...about that Obitine Anidala rant. Also, you said something about how Sidious and Obi-Wan are foils. I would love it if you elaborate. (Also, I love your blog.)

Awwwww thank you anon! I just be yelling on here!

*wheezes* okie doke! Tho I stress that this won’t exactly be a rant because I adore Obitine and Anidala and rant kinda implies aggression towards them, this is more of just a long-ass ramble because while I love them, I don’t always love the way canon portrays them in the narrative, particularly in relationship to each other, because I often do not feel that what the show is trying to push us to think about them is accurate to how they actually act and come across. Notably, the show attempts to draw comparisons to the two relationships that really don’t exist below surface level similarities. Again, these are my own personal opinions, and in fact, I welcome discussion! I truly do! Please politely debate me on this if you disagree!

(god dammit it got long again, so long I’ll actually put ur Sidious and Obi Wan as foils part in a separate post)

I’ll get to why exactly the show compares the relationships very strangely in a moment, but first we gotta explore the reason why it does this in the first place, which is that the Clone Wars show has decided to make Obi Wan and Anakin narrative foils to one another. Narrative foils, by the literary definition, are two characters that contrast one another. They don’t have to be the protagonist and the antagonist, these characters can be on the same side, basically the thing is that they have “opposite” personalities where if one character is hot, the other is cold, if one character chooses to go right, the other will go left. It’s usually used to show one character’s qualities as more favorable for the situation as opposed to anyone else’s.

TCW does this whenever they possibly can with Anakin and Obi Wan. I get its reasoning behind it. I do. The reasoning is that while Anakin is supposed to be a main character, he makes questionable decisions quite often and for the kiddies watching, those decisions must be seen as Bad even if the hero does it, so they have Obi Wan, the unquestionable good guy, encounter the exact same scenarios Anakin makes his questionable decisions in, and then has Obi Wan make the Right(TM) decision to teach the kids a valuable lesson. They turn Obi Wan into the voice of reason for the entire show, which turns basically almost everything Obi Wan and Anakin do into a constant competition in the narrative in a way the movies do not do (and I’ll get to the movies later). I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing, making them foils, but it’s definitely more of a show-only thing and it does it quite, quite often.

So yeah, TCW likes to compare Obi Wan and Anakin to the point that sometimes they try and use Obi Wan to diminish Anakin’s genuine trauma and struggles by going “well why didn’t you do it like THIS?” and I think that writing parallel plotlines for the purpose of shaming/criticism is kinda ://////, but that’s another rant for another day that again, if y’all wanna hear about, lmk

Anyway, the need to compare them absolutely made its way into their romantic relationships as well, as they acknowledge the similarities in the show, and Filoni and the crew explicitly compare the two relationships in interviews.

Basically my problem with how they try and draw said parallels can be boiled down to one quote by Filoni that a cursory Google search could not find but I know exists so y’all can take my word or not, that went along the lines of “Obi Wan and Satine are like Anakin and Padmé but better because they know how to stay unattached and let each other go. They’re a success story.” I disagreed with this quote so much it inspired me to write a whole-ass fic about it (Mutuals update: yes, it is coming soon, Darth Maul is just himself and therefore an utter pain in the ass to do a POV on and is fighting me like the bitchass he is)

My thesis that I will be arguing today is that while TCW tried to create Obitine as an Anidala parallel, they’re really not similar in the way the writers think they are. Obitine is not a success story to Anidala, they’re a goddamn tragedy too; the real parallel to Anidala is that Obitine also ended in death and tears despite making all the “right” decisions instead of all the “wrong” ones, and that is what is sad about them.

Like, on the surface level? Yeah, the crew-intended parallels are there. A fancy politician and a Jedi get together after the Jedi is assigned as the politician’s bodyguard. The first time they see each other in over a decade the guy’s first words are basically “damn girl you’re still hot”, there is Conflict(TM) and the choice to try and be together or stay yearningly apart because they are Forbidden(TM) to be together, and ultimately a Sith Lord fucks them both over because he’s obsessed with the Jedi and uses Politician Lady to his advantage, finds and exploits a vulnerability of hers, destroys her life’s work, and then lets her die to make Jedi Man sad. The difference is all that one pair said “yeah we aren’t gonna break the rules to be together” and the other said “fuck it yeah we are, let’s do this”

But beneath all of that, they real similarities are different and not at all focused on by the narrative. Obi Wan and Anakin are extremely different people, as are Padmé and Satine, so their relationship dynamics together will not be the same. You want to try and compare Obi Wan and Anakin and then compare Satine and Padmé like the crew attempts to, and you can’t, they have the same job but not nearly the same life. Namely, the funny coincidence is that Obi Wan and Padmé are much more similar in personality, while Anakin and Satine are also much more similar in personality, so the first time they meet again, it’s both Anakin and Satine as the one who’s been pining for over a decade and the one more actively pursuing the relationship, while Obi Wan and Padmé who are more like “uh, hi, wow, you’re hot and this is a Problem because I have a job to do pls don’t look at me like that but also I will Cause Problems On Purpose and flirt with you anyway because I can’t help it”. I get the Corruption TCW ep with Sati and Pads was mostly intended just to help Satine pass the Bechdel test and also show how similar the two leading lady love interests are, but it was a genuinely creative episode that actually ended up showing how much Satine and Padmé compliment each other instead of mirroring each other, much like Obi Wan and Anakin do.

And, onto my next point, despite the character parallels being wrong, the parallels in the relationship are different too. Like I said, the parallel isn’t that Obi Wan and Satine aren’t attached like Anakin and Padmé are. The parallel is that Obitine is actively running from what that attachment means instead of embracing it like Anidala is. The show would argue that since they try to avoid it, that they are able to live without one another, means they aren’t attached like the Jedi define it, but I argue that they definitely still are attached to a degree because they cannot give each other up. They held torches for each other from a timerange of 15 YEARS. Yes I know they spent an entire year together at a young and emotionally volatile point in their lives, but I stand that NO ONE is that hung up on their ex for that long unless there is some serious emotions involved. Anakin was hung up on Padmé for ten years, and that was because Palpatine was constantly bolstering those affections and reminding him of Padmé. Obes and Sati both-- or at least Satine, the show always makes Obi Wan’s feelings for Satine in return much more vague --held on to their feelings for five years longer without the influence of a Sith Lord.

And the thing is, they know it. Obi Wan and Satine are both fully aware that they haven’t been able to shake each other off like they should and that that is a Problem, that’s why they’re both a mite venomous with each other beneath the flirting at first, they’re both extremely frustrated with themselves for not being able to get over this thing they have, and frustrated with the other for being there as an active temptation.

And yet, they still are attached to each other. They try to avoid it, they definitely try, and that’s what makes them different from Anidala, but they are definitely still attached. You can see it in Obi Wan’s actions in Voyage of Temptation when Merrik is threatening to blow the ship, the way he hesitates in attacking him because that would be “striking an unarmed man”. Obi Wan Kenobi does not prefer violence, no, but he has never hesitated to cut a bitch before if it’s for the good of the many. This is the man who stabbed someone with a fork and threatened to eat him just to maintain his cover as a dangerous criminal. This is the guy who had no problem killing Zam Wessel for information to protect Padmé. This is a pragmatist who prefers peaceful solutions, but he does not hesitate if he feels it is a justified offense. But this time, when an entire shipful of people is at risk, Obi Wan hesitates. Because he doesn’t want to upset Satine. Because he’s probably thinking on how she told him that if he had killed the last terrorist they encountered, she wouldn’t speak to him, how she had criticized every time he used violence to escape Death Watch before. He hesitates because he’s putting her happiness, just for a second, over the sake of duty. Do I think that if Anakin hadn’t shown up to save their moral compasses, Obi Wan would have eventually taken out Merrik? Absolutely; hell, I honestly think Satine might have done it.

But the matter was, Merrik could have pressed the kill switch any second of Obi Wan’s hesitation, and Obi Wan knew that, and was hesitating anyway.

I am calling this attachment solely because if the situation was reversed, if this was Anakin and Padmé in this situation, with Anakin not taking out a dangerous criminal because he doesn’t want to upset Padmé (lol ignoring the fact that Pads 1000% would have shot that bitch, and even if she didn’t, Anakin would because he is perfectly fine with hurting his loved ones’ feelings if he feels it’ll keep them safe), god, the narrative would have eaten Anakin alive.

No, I won’t take criticism. I know how the show handles the Anidala dynamic. It would have shown Obi Wan popping up to take out the baddie as him doing the right thing and saving the day, and then Anakin would have been shamed for letting his feelings for his wife get in the way of protecting a shipful of people. THAT would be the Vader foreshadowing, none of this “only a cold-blooded killer” shit, no way would they ever stick that label on Obi Wan.

So yeah, I’m going off of the fact that if that would have been classified as attachment for Anidala-- which, it would, then. it counts for Obitine.

And then Obi Wan and Satine continue to be hung up on each other for the rest of the eps they’re in, Satine saying in words multiple times how much she loves and cares about him and wishes things could be different, and Obi Wan performing it in actions, risking his own neck and political standing to help her even when she’s a fugitive, probably personally putting in to send his own grandpadawan to help her later. Right up to the time when Satine decides that she is going to call Obi Wan when she is deposed. Not the Senate. Not any powerful politician friends. Not even the Jedi Order or the Council as a whole. She calls and addresses her distress call to Obi Wan alone. And Obi Wan, as now revealed to us by TCW S7, defies Council orders and breaks a century old neutrality treaty to try and bust her, a convicted murderer in the eyes of the Republic and Mandalore, out. He didn’t even know Maul had her. Just knew she was in danger and came running to her aid. He risks starting a potential war to come save her. They acted so in love that Vizsla was able to guess from being around them for like five seconds, and was able to tell Maul exactly who he would need to bait Obi Wan.

That is where the attachment comes from. It’s the fact that Obi Wan and Satine tried so, so hard to give each other up and do the right thing, but when it came down to it, they couldn’t lose the other one so they put them first when logically they shouldn’t. And thus, Satine ended up dead.

Now I know most people will argue with me that actually Filoni means that since they didn’t stay together after the year on the run, THAT is what makes them able to give each other up, and also the fact that Obi Wan didn’t go dark side and murder everyone when Satine died.

But I still think that at least the murder front is a fairly low bar to cross, and anyway, that just because they could live without each other didn’t mean they weren’t still attached. Anakin and Padmé were apart for 10 years and then even after that, they were apart almost constantly during the war. Just because they could live apart or even past the other’s death didn’t mean they weren’t attached, as they both still had not let the other go mentally and also broke rules to try and ensure the other would not die, even if the rules said they should let it happen.

So yeah, that’s my big theory. We can’t compare Obitine with Anidala by saying Obitine was a success story, we compare them by acknowledging that both struggled with attachments and letting the other go, but Obitine at least tried to the bitter end to do the right thing while Anidala didn’t really bother, and both ended up with dead women and broken men regardless, and that is the true sad parallel to me.

#ohhhhh my god i really gotta learn how to shut up lol #thanks anon! told ya it was long!#ask #asks #when we were young #star-crossed lovers #our only ho #peace out #one (1) hot mess #queen of my heart #anon

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amandaoftherosemire · 5 years

Text

For She Had Eyes...

Fandom: Marvel Avengers AU

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Characters: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Unnamed OFC!Hallway Blonde

Author: @amandaoftherosemire

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5,146

Format: Two-part series

Warning: Smut, 18+ only, language, unintentional voyeurism, female masturbation, mild angst, embarrassment.

Summary: After accidentally catching Steve in an intimate moment, you can’t stop thinking about it.

A/N: This was inspired by a piece of fanart that I saw that I can’t find now to save my damn life. It was of Steve and Sharon against a wall, mostly clothed, him in a tux and her in a red dress, and I loved it. (If anyone knows what I’m talking about, please let me know so I can credit the artist.)

However, I personally hate how the fandom has treated Sharon Carter at times, so I tend not to vilify her if I can help it. To be clear, Hallway Blonde is NOT Sharon Carter.

I only split this into two parts because of the word count. It was one of those stories that showed up in my brain and wouldn’t shut up until I got it out of there and out of the way. I hope y’all like it!

For She Had Eyes

You didn’t mean to do it. You weren’t trying to peep. But jeez, if he didn’t want anyone to see, then why the hell was he in one of the corridors? Not that you were complaining. You were, but about the fact that you had to stop watching. Really. You had to. In a second.

You'd been heading back to your rooms from the communal kitchen after you’d woken up starving and embarked on an after-midnight foraging expedition. With the slice of pie and the soda you’d acquired, you were quietly padding back to your rooms when the gasping breaths and soft slap of flesh on flesh alerted you to someone else’s presence and their probable current activity.

Expecting Bucky or even Sam, you’d put your training to use and snuck toward the sound rather than away in the hopes of witnessing something you could leverage against them later. They were fun guys, but you needed any ammunition you could get in the unending friendly battle. Catching them in the act of either getting laid or making do could be excellent ammunition.

Which may be why you'd frozen when you peeked around the corner to one of the corridors in the private areas to spy Steve there with some blonde you only vaguely recognized pinned against the wall.

Your eyes widened, but you didn't move, greedily drinking in the sight of Steve, mostly dressed, as he pounded silently into the woman panting in his arms. You knew you should leave, as quietly as possible, respecting Steve's privacy. You stayed, however, for far longer than you were proud of, imprinting the image of Steve in the throes of passion on your retinas.

Though the light was dim, there was more than enough for you to see that Steve Rogers was fucking beautiful lost in pleasure.

His high cheekbones were flushed gorgeous pink, sharp jaw clenched, cheek muscle twitching. His long fingers dug into the woman’s thighs to hold her up and against the wall, in place for his thrusting hips. You could see the muscles of his thighs and ass flexing as he slammed harder into her, driving muffled gasps of pleasure from her lips.

You were grateful for that, as her sounds would hopefully mask your speeding breathing and racing heart. With one last, too long look, drawn by Steve's speeding thrusts, you drug your eyes and self away. You retreated as silently as you had come, praying neither of them had noticed your presence.

Once you thought you were far enough away, you took off running as best you could to your rooms, taking the long way around to avoid Steve and his companion at all costs. Back behind the closed door of your rooms, you dropped the pie and soda you still carried on your coffee table and ran to your bedroom.

In the privacy of your bed, you let your body rule. Sliding your hand between your thighs, you let yourself imagine being in the blonde’s place, your flesh between Steve’s teeth, your arms around his neck, your hands in his hair. As you began to rub circles into your clit, you envisioned Steve’s hands digging into the flesh of your thighs, holding you up and open for the slam of his hips against yours, driving his cock into you with the same relentless rhythm you’d just witnessed. Between your own fevered imaginings and the heated scene seared into your memory, you were coming in no time flat.

With a shuddering moan, you climaxed imagining Steve’s eyes on yours as he fucked you like a madman against a wall.

A while later, despite your physical satisfaction, you stared at the ceiling in horror.

How were you going to face him tomorrow?

You decided not to. Face him, that is. You opted instead to avoid any kind of social setting that day, pretending general surliness to keep everyone, but most especially Steve, at arm’s length.

You skipped breakfast entirely, not wanting to have to make small talk with anyone when you knew you’d be too busy remembering the line of Steve’s jaw as it clenched in passion. You waited until you knew much of the team would be in the gym before you joined them. To make sure you could avoid any interactions, you’d put on your leave-me-alone aura.

When you'd first joined the team, you'd made it clear that there would be days that you needed to be left alone. Those days were signified by the enormous gray hoodie enveloping your torso. Today you wore it over workout gear. You'd pulled the hood up, slid sunglasses onto your nose, and put earbuds into your ears before you'd walked through the door.

Every eye in the room turned toward you, recognized the hoodie and slid away as you crossed toward the outside door. Everyone knew you jogged by yourself on gray hoodie days. Since you studiously did not look at him as you walked out, you didn't see that Steve's eyes stayed on you, his gaze darkening as you left.

Steve's mood, already dark and mean, blackened viciously. With a snarl, he turned on the punching bag Bucky was holding for him. Bucky merely lifted a brow, easily reading Steve's moods. He could always tell when Steve had let his ex-girlfriend get her hooks into him again.

Steve was cursing himself. He'd known better than to let her drag him back in, even for a night, but the craving for you had been riding him hard when she'd texted. He'd been watching you take turns tossing popcorn and catching it in your mouth with Bucky while you debated movie choices with Sam and his heart had been sighing romantically at how sweet and beautiful he thought you were.

He also thought you firmly off-limits. Not only were you a member of his team, and that was no small matter, any change in dynamic possibly detrimental to the safety of everyone, you'd also never given him any indication you'd be receptive. You joked and teased him, but you did that with literally everyone; you were generally the friendly sort.

You also occasionally flirted with him, but it was delicate, almost innocent. There seemed to be more heat behind your flirting with Sam or Bucky. Still, the three of you were the sort of friends that gave each other endless shit, so there didn't seem to be anything to your flirting with them, either. Sam and Bucky always included Steve in the endless shit-giving, too, but you and he had never gotten to that point.

He wished he knew how to talk to you, how to become your friend even if he couldn't tell you he was half in love with you. Every time he tried, however, he ended up feeling too shy to open up for real. You'd always been open and encouraging, but he could tell his shyness looked like rejection to you. It left Captain America perpetually between you.

He'd been lamenting exactly that when she'd texted him, trying to draw him back into her sphere where she could punish him for not loving her enough. Most of the time he was able to resist, but he was feeling particularly sad and lonely. Watching you sit across the room from him, happy and within reach, yet somehow still a million miles away was both temptation and torment. Torn apart by it, he'd been willing to take the punishment to forget what he couldn't have, if only for a moment.

Until he'd been inside her, wishing she was you, and his heightened senses told him they were no longer alone. His inexplicable ability to recognize you by sound and scent alone had set him off and he'd come helplessly, with stuttering hips. He knew he'd heard someone's heart besides hers and his own, and he'd prayed it hadn't really been you who'd caught him in the corridor, that it had only been his own fevered imagination and desperate need that made him think he'd caught the edge of your scent.

He'd been in a foul mood thanks to both the worry of that and the ugly scene he'd endured at her hands. He'd already damned himself for answering her text at all, let alone allowing things to go so far, when, seconds after his climax, she'd murmured in his ear, her voice full of venom, "Thinking of her, again, were we?"

She'd been talking about Peggy; she didn’t know about you. They’d broken up before you’d joined the team, so it had been easy to hide his feelings for you from her, too aware she'd use it against him at the earliest opportunity, the way she did with Peggy. She'd never forgive him for not loving her the way she wanted. She couldn't seem to stop hurting them both because of it.

Then you'd walked in and out without looking at him and he'd known for certain. You'd walked in on him fucking his ex and now you couldn't meet his eye. His already foul mood shifted to something black and ugly as his fists pounded into the bag in frustration.

Outside, you breathed a sigh of relief. You'd made it past the first hurdle. If you could get through this day without humiliating yourself, you'd consider yourself home free. You were sure you could deal with this with just a little more time and distance. You just needed to put Steve back in the No-Sex box where you’d put all the hot people you worked with every day.

You were trying to ignore the fact that just the sight of Steve out of the corner of your eye had your memory flitting back to the sight of his fingers digging deliciously into flesh.

You put the image out of your mind and took two deep breaths as you started to stretch. A nice long run, a cold shower, and something other than last night's pie to eat and you could handle this.

"Y/N?"

You shrieked and jerked in response to the sound of Steve saying your name, hitting your head on the engine you were currently under while you worked on it.

"H-h-h-h-hi Steve!" Deeply grateful for the prototype engine that currently hid everything from your hips up, most thankfully your face, you rolled your eyes at the stuttering giggle. You despised the clear sign of the girlish crush you’d developed overnight, but in your defense, you hadn't been expecting anyone to come talk to you on a gray hoodie day, least of all Steve. He was kind and friendly, but he didn't seem to have much to say to you.

You'd tried to accept it, accept that not everyone was going to click with you, but you really liked Steve. His friendship with Sam and Bucky told you how warm and funny he could be with people he liked and his camaraderie with Natasha made it clear he could be friends with women, and the best of friends, no less. You couldn't help a little bit of hurt feelings that he stayed resolutely apart no matter how you tried to welcome him in. You now realized it was that little burn of resentment that had allowed you to ignore how attracted you were until you’d been confronted with his base sexuality.

Altogether, you'd been blindsided by the sound of Steve's voice, especially as you'd been belting along with the stereo where your phone was blasting your garage playlist. You liked fast and loud when you worked with your hands. Not expecting visitors, you hadn’t been bothering with the leave-me-alone attitude, singing happily as you tinkered. “Volume down fifty percent,” you said, and the music immediately dropped to a murmur.

You realized when he stayed silent that he was probably waiting for you to slide out from under the engine. Fat fucking chance. "Sorry, Steve. I literally have my hands full right now." The lie tripped lightly off your tongue, easier when you didn't have to look at him, but your discomfort was still coming through in your voice, loud and clear to anyone who knew you well. You hoped if he heard it, he didn't recognize it. "But go ahead and talk to me. What's up?"

Steve was both grateful and disappointed that he wasn't looking at your face. He was almost certain, based on your reaction, that you were the person who'd caught him last night, but he was not at all certain anymore that you were upset by it. You sounded… embarrassed? Ashamed?

He felt a rush of chagrin at the thought and spoke with less care than he had planned. "Were you in the hallway late last night?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced in horror. He hadn't meant to ask you that at all, let alone that baldly.

"NO!" You shouted the word, the sound strangled, and so clearly a lie, you merely let your head fall back with a thump as you tried to salvage it anyway. "Why do you ask?" you squeaked.

You turned your head until you were looking at Steve's boots when you heard what sounded like a snort from him. You'd never heard that sound from him before, at least not thanks to you, and it had you smiling despite the situation. "You're as bad a liar as I am," he said, his voice rich and warm and so appealing it almost made you slide on your creeper out from where you were wedged to peer into his face.

You resisted, however, too guilty to look at him straight on. You'd stood watching for far too long last night to have the moral high ground in this conversation. You were terrified he'd noticed, the shame of it miserably crawling up your neck and over your scalp. When he fell silent, you started to squirm with it.

Steve opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, unsure how to go on. He wanted to apologize, but now it seemed you’d rather not talk about it. He also didn't know how to apologize. How could he tell you that he was in the hallway because he couldn't stand to have his ex in his space again? He opened his mouth, still not certain what he was about to say, but painfully aware that he’d been silent for far too long when you’d asked him a question.

Before he could speak, however, the silence had worn you down, and you sang like a canary, the words coming out in a rush of guilt-laden confession.

“Look, I know I might have stood there too long, but I was expecting the chance to ruin Bucky’s night or something and I was really surprised when it was you. Can we just pretend it never happened?” The final question came out on a choked high-pitched squeal that shamed you, but the humiliation was so intense, the guilt so over-whelming, you could only close your eyes and hope Steve took pity on you.

“How--” Steve stopped when his voice croaked a little to clear his throat and try again. He was embarrassed, confused, and sick at the thought that you might have seen the fight between him and his ex, heard the things she'd said to him. “How long did you stand there?”

The silence dragged on long enough that Steve actually felt his knees dissolve as his stomach threatened to revolt.

Meanwhile, you were laying, your head pillowed on the little cushion at the head of your creeper, your body limp as you stared in utter horror at the shiny metal you'd been working on without seeing it. You closed your eyes as your stomach churned.

Steve may have suspected that you'd stumbled upon him last night, but his words made clear that he had had no idea what you'd done. How could you possibly explain? There was no way to tell him you'd stood dumbstruck, watching him fuck someone, without giving away that you'd been mesmerized by the sight of him given over to lust, to passion. He'd just been so fucking beautiful.

But he hadn't come in here to confront you and you'd just sold yourself out. You'd never wanted a hole to open up and swallow you the way you did in this never-ending moment. You didn't want to answer, but the silence had stretched to the breaking point and if one of you didn't say something, you were pretty sure you were going to go stark raving mad.

"Okay," you said, your voice carrying a defensive tone and you were grateful all over again that Steve couldn't see your face. "I'm not a pervert or anything. I wasn't watching on purpose."

Steve's knees almost buckled in relief as he finally understood that you were embarrassed, rather than angry and upset, or possibly worse, judging him. "I shouldn't have been in the hallway." Steve rushed to reassure, not wanting you to think he was here because he was angry. "I'm sorry I embarrassed you."

You figured it was a good thing that you were kind of wedged under Tony's latest prototype. You were, apparently, entirely too susceptible to Steve. You could hear the genuine remorse and worry in his voice and it made you want to shimmy out there and cuddle him. A complete puddle, you responded as thoughtlessly as he when he rushed to reassure, your breath signaling your desire to astute ears.

"I wasn't mad, Steve," you half-laughed, the image of his neck muscles, taut with lust, flitting across your mind’s eye. "Let's just forget it." You slid over enough that you could reach out and give a thumbs up.

Steve laughed when your hand came into view, the tone in your voice making his heart beat faster, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. "Thanks, y/n," he replied, his voice warm with the affection he always felt for you but had never known how to express. He was almost glad that this had happened. The Captain seemed to have faded. He didn't know if it was because he could set it aside or because you could stop seeing it. Either way, he was beginning to feel like your friend.

"So, we're cool, right?" You said it hopefully, praying he'd let you off the hook.

Steve laughed out loud, and the sound was so pretty and warm you could hardly stand to stay still. You wanted so badly to see his face lit up with laughter you inspired. You stayed in place, however, still too terrified that he'd see your almost desperate lust for him if he could see your face right now. You needed a little more distance between yourself and the memory of the way the muscles in his thighs flexed and released as he thrust--

"We're cool." Steve was smiling at the thumb you were making dance in response, utterly charmed by you. He was trying to think of something else to say, wanting to stretch this time out longer, but nothing was coming to mind. With nothing else, "Thanks, again." He cringed. "I'll let you get back to work, then."

"I'll see you later." You said it warmly, catching a hint of the discomfort and seeking to alleviate it even if you didn't understand its cause. You had this newfound overwhelming urge to make Steve happy. You wished it wasn't partly because you really wanted to replace Hallway Blonde.

Steve turned and started to walk out, a smile on his face in response to the quiet humming noises you were making absently as the clink of your tools against metal started up again. He was halfway to the door when he realized that you'd never actually answered the question.

You were starting to hum along with the music as you got back to tinkering when Steve's voice rang out. "But… how long did you watch?"

"What?!" Blindsided, convinced you were home free, you had absolutely no defense or guile and the word was so drenched in pained guilt there was no way Steve didn't hear it.

"You did watch," he pointed out, turning back around with new determination, the guilt in your voice clear to him, but yet unexplained. "But I asked how long, and you didn't answer."

"Of course I did." Your voice was raspy and painfully unconvincing. If you'd been the slightest bit prepared for any of this, maybe you wouldn’t be fucking it up so hard. You cleared your throat and continued. "Not, like, a pervy amount of time, but a… justifiably surprised amount of time. I didn’t have a stopwatch on me.” You tried really hard to sound vaguely irritated and a little offended that you had to explain, and you mostly succeeded.

Steve stood next to the engine, looking down at your legs, jiggling in apparent anxiety. He was considering his options. He didn't want to get overly physically pushy and drag you out from under there so that he could look at you, but he also really wanted to see your face. He felt like he needed to understand what was going on underneath this conversation more than he needed anything else.

Steve lay down on the ground so that he could see you where you lay, one arm limp at your side, a socket wrench in your hand, while the other arm was up, your palm across your forehead in dismay. His mouth began to spread in a smile at how utterly adorable he thought you were, even when you'd been obviously lying to avoid having to look at him.

"Hands full, huh?"

"Fuck me!” The expletive burst from your mouth in an explosion, both startled and horrified at being caught. You whipped your head to the side to see Steve laying on his stomach on the floor next to you, his cheek pillowed on his crossed wrists, pretty face smiling sweetly at you.

Too susceptible by half, you turned your face back to the engine in front of you. You were afraid that pretty smile could get you to do anything.

“Will you please come out here so I can see your face when I’m talking to you?” Steve asked it kindly, aware that you were hiding because something embarrassed you. He wanted to ease that embarrassment, show you that you didn’t have to be embarrassed with him. He was too familiar with the sensation to want it to happen to anyone else, least of all you.

“I don’t want to.”

Steve’s lips twitched and he had to stifle his laughter at the petulant tone and cadence to your words. He didn’t move from his spot on the floor. If all he could get was the sight of your profile from under one of Tony’s massive prototypes, it was better than nothing. “Why not?”

“Because I’m humiliated.” You spoke slowly and deliberately, annoyed and anxious because the conversation that you’d thought you’d escaped unscathed had turned around on you. It didn’t help that you could see Steve smiling at you out of the corner of your eye and you were having a hell of a time not crawling out from under the engine and all over him. “The fuck you think?”

As you spoke, Steve could hear your heart start to race but it didn’t have the pounding rhythm of fear. If he wasn’t also afraid that he was merely engaged in wishful thinking, he’d wonder if it was arousal. Once he started considering the possibility, your behavior made more sense, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t deluding himself, desperate for you to want him with the same need he had for you, the same need he constantly had to bury beneath the Captain America façade.

“I shouldn’t ask how long you watched, should I?” He could hardly believe he was saying this, knew doing so could change the dynamic between the two of you as well as the rest of the team, but he wanted you more than he wanted his next breath and the idea that you could want him too was irresistible. “I should ask why you watched,” he continued, his voice lowering with the first hints of desire.

Your wrench fell the ground where you dropped it when you shoved your creeper out from under the engine as you lost your temper. To be fair, the anger was more frustration and panic, than anything else. The shivers of embarrassment running up your spine and over your scalp, easily distracted you from the desire coloring Steve’s voice.

“Oh my god!” You shouted it as you came to your feet. Steve had already leapt to his feet when you burst into motion. You faced him, eyes narrowed, hands on hips. “Because you’re sexy as hell and it was hot, okay? Are you happy now?” Steve’s jaw dropped at the bald statement combined with the hostile tone to your voice.

Gesturing wildly, you continued to rant. “When I realized how I was violating your privacy I turned around and walked away but I’ve felt guilty ever since.” You sneered and the tone did not match the words of your next sentiment by any stretch. “So I’m sorry." With a scoff of irritation, you turned and walked out on a long stride of anger. “Fuck you.”

Once far away from your garage and Steve, you sagged against the wall in horrified dismay.

Did you just yell at Steve that watching him fuck got you hot?

Were you out of your damn mind?

Steve sat in the window seat in his bedroom. He’d picked these rooms because of the wide, deep bench next to tinted glass where he could look out at the woods behind the compound but not feel as he often did, as though he were on display, a fish in a bowl. These moments of peace, alone with his sketchbook in his designated quiet place, sometimes felt like the glue holding him together.

In these moments, he most often sketched you. Today was no exception.

He'd spent the last half hour trying to get right the exact curve of your eyebrows as you'd shouted at him before storming out of your garage. He never wanted to forget the look on your face, as he'd fallen a little more in love with you that day.

Steve had never had the luxury of self-delusion. He'd been born fragile and small to a world both mean and cold. He'd found cruelty far more often than kindness at the hands of others, until a man of rare vision and compassion had seen more deeply and offered him a chance to do more than the body he'd been born into would allow. He'd leapt at the chance, simply because he needed to right the wrongs he saw in the world and no one would let him any other way.

After the serum, however, he'd learned that the eyes stayed cruel even as the blows became pats, the raised fists handshakes, the sneering disdain simpering flattery. He'd learned quickly to see who meant their kindnesses, their compassion, and who sought his company because of his appearance or name. He rarely made mistakes these days, though his most recent was fresh.

Today, your eyebrows had twisted in distress even as your mouth went mobile in fury, the quiver of your voice so slight only his highly sensitive ears could have heard it. The humiliated, guilty misery had been all over you the moment he'd been allowed to see you and his heart had stumbled.

Where another would look at you and see the oil smeared across your cheek, Steve saw in the agitated motion the compassion that fueled the anxiety and humiliation all over you. The tone of your voice revealed the kindness that inspired such guilt; the shine of your eyes gave away the integrity that caused such misery. In short, he'd been attracted to the surface of you, the funny and bright, but the sweet heart beneath had him captivated.

Steve couldn't deny that the attraction was not silent in this contemplation. His brain kept replaying your voice saying that you thought him sexy. He couldn't stop thinking about the implicit admission in your bald statement. You'd wanted to watch.

You'd wanted to watch him.

The thought alone had had him half hard all day. He wanted to show you. He wanted to show you everything.

He couldn't help the fear, however. He was afraid to tell you that, to admit that he'd developed feelings for you that were anything but professional. He worried that to do so would alter a dynamic that worked, that kept all of you safe. He was also terrified that your interest was merely physical and to admit to anything deeper would do nothing but invite your pity.

All his old insecurities rose up to choke him at the same moment he heard his ex's text tone.

I'm sorry, baby. I just get so jealous. Let me make it up to you.

He thought of her pretty perfect lips sneering in fury and something perilously close to hate, then of your dancing thumb and your shamefaced flight. Everything inside him softened in tenderness at your sweetness, your genuine warmth. Reminded that he had a right to kindness and compassion, his heart hardened against the blonde viper that was once again trying to get her fangs into him.

No. All we do is hurt each other. I'm not doing this anymore.

As soon as he hit send, he felt lighter. He wondered if he should leave you alone for a little while before he tried to talk to you again. Because he would absolutely be talking to you again. He needed to know if you felt anything like the electricity that raced over him every time he saw you.

Not doing this anymore? Who the fuck do you think you are?

She hadn't always been like this. Or at least she hid it better at the beginning, until he'd fallen in love with the woman he thought she was. Over time, however, there emerged cruel jealousy from underneath the funny charm that had captivated him. Even in the beginning, however, he couldn't imagine her reacting to anything the way you had. She lacked the empathy.

Steve couldn't help but compare you. You didn’t just compare favorably, there seemed to be no comparison. Most important, your reaction to what had happened told him what kind of heart you had. He had no defense against kindness, strength, and compassion. Whether it was wise or not, he needed to find out if there was anything there.

He finally listened to Natasha and blocked her number.

Steve went back to his sketch, smiling at the memory of how you’d looked shouting compliments at him, wondering when you’d let him talk to you again.

… And Chose Me here

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#Steve Rogers x reader #Steve Rogers fanfiction #Steve Rogers fanfic #MCU fanfiction #MCU fanfic #MCU AU #Marvel fanfiction #Marvel fanfic #marvel au #Steve Rogers smut #For She Had Eyes #And Chose Me #pantswrites

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loverdrew · 4 years

Text

Promise, You Won’t Fall In Love With Me

He never knew love. He never understood relationships. He never imagined his life after high school or outside of his fame. She was the opposite. She deeply loved her family, she had ambition, intelligence and drive. They were the complete opposite, but together, they wouldn’t know what to do without each other.

Inspired by the movie A Walk To Remember.

Senior year. The year all the students turn 18, throw the wildest parties, the lifelong dreams of getting acceptance letters from their dream college. However, the Ethan Dolan didn’t have to worry about that one bit. He already had a future. He would continue making video comedy content online for his millions of girl fans that adored his soft eyes and bright smile. After this year he would move to California to pursue even bigger dreams, leaving his heart in New Jersey.

The hallways and outside the school yard filled with laughter, hugs, girls wearing close to nothing, and the guys drooling over them. Ethan walked in holding his football, jersey on full display, taking in the last first day of any schooling he’d ever get.

“My boys!” One of his friends, Jason, exclaimed. He hugged both Grayson and Ethan and put both arms around them walking into school. “This going to be the best year yet?”

“Oh you know it! The parties, the easy classes, the girls!” Grayson rubbed his hands together and laughed.

Ethan’s laughed along with his friends walking into the building, when the most unexpected girl caught his eye at her locker. It was Y/N. He had known her since kindergarten, she always wore the same type of outfit: a pastel skirt to her knees and a blouse with the same beige knitted sweater. Her hair always out of her face either in a ponytail or behind her ears, and she wore a brown shoulder bag to carry her books. They never particularly talked or even hung out together, but he somehow knew everything superficial about her. She never paid him any attention, except in class when he tried to be disruptive on purpose. He weirdly wished she would pay attention then. But he’s hooked up with prettier girls than her, so she wasn’t one to be upset over, right?

“Ethan Dolan, to the principals office. Ethan Grant Dolan, please come to the principals office.” They all heard, even Y/N. Their eyes met for a split second, before she closed her locker and headed to home period.

“Damn dude, trouble on the first day?” Jason joked.

“Shut up man. You know I’m the model student.” He smirked, shaking hands with his friends before headed to the office, which happened to be right across from Y/N’s home period, not like he noticed. He swiftly walked into the office and sat in the chair in front of principle Henderson, who closed the door with a stern look on his face.

“Ethan, what did I tell you about getting into trouble again.” He crossed his arms.

“Principle Henderson, I don’t know what you mean but I have been an angel since last semester, haven’t I?” He flashed that boyish smile of his that got him out of every situation, just not this one.

The principle proceeds to pull out 5 beer bottles and 2 bitter nubs of used joints. Ethan stiffened, his mouth running dry.

“I have no idea what those are.” He said quietly.

“Cut the act Dolan. Along with drinking and smoking on school property, you’re on the verge of not graduating. You have a combined GPA of 2.3. You need at least a 2.9 to graduate. Now I could expel you and kick you off the football team now...” Ethan begins to worry sit up straight, trying not to believe this could be true. “But I won’t.” Ethan looked up at him with a big sigh, eyes falling shut.

“Thank you, thank you so much Mr.Henderson I promise I’ll be even better-”

“You didn’t let me finish. Instead of doing all that, you’re going to be doing something for me. You will get a tutor which I will assign to you, and you’ll be spending time after school participating in our schools fall play.”

“Oh cmon Mr. Henderson you can’t be serious. I can’t act, at all.”

“You acted like you didn’t know where that bottle came from. And now you’ll act as the prince in our schools production of Beauty and the Beast.” Ethan struggled with the principles decisions, but if he didn’t do it he would’ve been destroyed having to give up his friends and football.

“When do rehearsals start.” He said plainly.

______

At lunch, instead of being in the lunchroom with his group of friends laughing and being dorks together, he was stuck in the library for the next 45 minutes, waiting for whoever his new tutor is. He tapped his pencil impatiently. All he had to do was pass English and Government/Economics with at least a 75% and he’d be golden, but even he didn’t know how he could manage that. He looked around, and heard the library door open in front of him, revealing the golden eyed girl walking in with such ease. Her eyes found his and slightly pulled at her bag strings nervously. He sighed in disbelief, of course the girl with straight A’s, captain of the science club and the church singer was his tutor.

“Hi Ethan. I’m Y/N, your tutor for this semester.” She said in a soft voice just above a whisper. “Today we’re just going over basics explained in the syllabus but it won’t take long, maybe 25 minutes so you’ll be able to run off with your friends.” She took a seat in front of him, opening up the Government textbook and her notebook with the classes syllabus laid out.

“I don’t need you to do me any favors okay, I just need to pass. I would think you’d want me here considering Ms. I’m-so-holy doesn’t have many friends.” He spat at her. Partially because he felt embarrassed, partially because he didn’t want to give her any impression that he in any way cared about her. It didn’t even phase her, being that her whole life was filled with constant ridicule and bullying. She stayed calm amidst his venomous words.

“The teachers are my friends, my church choir are my friends, my father is my friend. Please don’t pretend like you know me, Ethan. You haven’t even spoken to me ever.”

“But I’ve been going to school with you and living in the same neighborhood as you since we were 5. Your father is a prodigious doctor that always goes to church to watch you sing. You’ve lived in the same white house with the pink flowers surrounding the white painted porch. You always wear pastel colors because you like to be girly but don’t want attention. You started putting your hand back in middle school because it always got in your face when you were studying. I know you Y/N. Don’t act like you don’t know me either.”

“I know you Ethan. Which means I know you’re capable of doing greater things than being the stereotypical jock. You’re successful and talented and smart, learn to use it. Now let’s get started.” She said without even looking at him, and staring daggers into her book.

_____

After school, Ethan trudged his way to the schools theatre, where everyone would be meeting up for the parts and the production of the play. No surprise that Y/N was there, script in hand near the piano, while someone playing ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and she hummed along. The stage lights somehow made her skin shine brighter, and her hair glisten. He scoffed, and sat in the 3rd row, seeing all of the theatre nerds gather with smiling faces ready to start production.

“Alright everyone settle down. We are going to cast roles right now so listen up!” Ms. Davida clapped her hands and stood in front of the stage.

“For the role of Lumiere and Cogsworth, Louis and Jeremy! Mrs. Potts goes to Claira, Gaston goes to Derrick, Belle goes to of course, Y/N, and The Beast is played by the newest member to theatre Mr. Ethan Dolan.” Ethan knew he would get the lead, but Y/N did not. Her eyes spread wide, whites fully visible as her grip on her script tightened just slightly, the realization that she’d have to play his princess. She could barely handle his demeanor during tutoring, but in something that she loves to do she would only hope he wouldn’t ruin it for her.

“Opening night is in exactly 3 months just before Christmas break, so that means you’ll all need to work hard and together to make this production amazing but I believe in you all. So let’s get right to it! Ethan, Y/N on the stage please we will be starting with the scene when Belle and the Beast argue, right after he saves her from the wolves. Feel the anger, feel the frustration.” She had that typical musical theatre teacher ‘passion voice’, really trying to emphasize the feelings within the scene. Ethan couldn’t take her seriously, laughing as he jumped onto stage and grabbing ahold of a script.

“Y/N, you start and pretend that you’re cleaning up his wound.”

Y/N slightly rolled her eyes and put her hand out signaling Ethan to give her his arm. He sighed and slammed his arm into her palm, she then yanked it closer to her not caring if it hurt him, and pretended with her other hand to be patting it.

“If you’d hold still it wouldn’t hurt it as much!” She yelled her first line. Ethan could tell some of that frustration was real. So he decided to do the same.

“Well if you wouldn’t have run away, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“If you wouldn’t have frightened me I wouldn’t have run away!”

“Well you shouldn’t have been in the West Wing!”

“Well you should learn to control your temper.” She said plainly, as if it was an actual piece of advice.

“Now hold still. This might sting a little.” In the script it says for Ethan to wince in pain, so he did, just not well at all. It was forced, and painfully bad to watch his face squint uncomfortably. Y/N sighed, turning to the teacher.

“Ms. Davida he needs to take this seriously, some of us really want this play to go well.”

“I don’t even want to be here, I was forced to join the play, I could’ve gone my entire life without acting in a play.”

“Then leave.” She stepped forward in his face, quickly walking away towards backstage to get some air. He made her so angry. His cocky attitude, his rude tone of voice, the way he could get under her skin over and over again yet she still wanted to see good in him because she truly believed he had some left. Ethan looked off with a surprised face to see all the cast looking at him, and the principle standing at the edge of the theatre, arms crossed. He got nervous, making his way backstage to catch Y/N drinking some water.

“Y/N, hey Y/N, please listen to me.” He grabbed her hand but she angrily pulled it back.

“What.”

“Help me okay. I’m sorry, I really need to do great in this play or else I get expelled. I’m sorry for being so mean and always in your face. I just-this is all new to me.”

“Being nice to someone trying to genuinely help you is ‘new to you’?” she used air quotes, rolling her eyes taking another sip of water.

“No, trying new things. Trying to be good. I’ve always acted tough on purpose because I thought that’s how it should be. People give you more respect.”

“Your act only works on an audience.” Y/N saw through it since first day of kindergarten when he stole her crayons and snored next to her ear during nap time to annoy her. But she paid no mind, there were more important things to worry about than a little boy.

“Ethan, if you promise me you try, like really try, in all aspects, I won’t be opposed to helping you.” She said calmly, with her normal soft voice.

“I won’t say I’ll be perfect, but I’ll do the best I can.”

“That’s all I ask.” She started walking back onto the stage where they were already rehearsing another scene, but she quickly turned back around to say one last minor detail.

“Oh yea and Ethan, one more thing. You have to promise not to fall in love with me.”

A chuckle came from his mouth as he looked her up and down.

“Without a doubt, that is a promise I can keep.”

#ethan dolan #grayson dolan #the dolan twins #ethan dolan imagine #grayson dolan imagine #dolan twins imagine #dolan twins fanfic #dolan twins smut #dolan twins masterlist

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thorinthehottotty · 4 years

Text

The Dark - Part 1

Summary: Having landed in Middle Earth, Addie and Silvia find it to be very nice after Bilbo takes them in. Neither have a desire to return to their world until the book begins to get things wrong.

Warnings: There is no gore yet, but there will be violence and a few trigger warnings. For this part, there is only language and minor violence.

A/N: I have rewritten this part so many times. I'm sorry if it's hard to follow. I promised myself this was the last rewrite. As always, let me know what you think, good bad or ugly, I love feedback! Special thanks to @daisy-picking-lady and @fizzyxcustard for letting me bounce ideas off them for this story. I have had this in my drafts since before I started posting on here.

The Shire was a peaceful town, overflowing with flowers and herbs. It was rolling grassy hills and sweet, quiet folk. Very much the place you'd love to retire in. The vegetables and fruit were delectable and Bilbo was adorably polite. Incredibly introverted, yes, but overall, he was kind. A good friend to Addie and myself.

Addie was a gentle soul. Soft spoken and sweet. Her being easy to get along with and eager to please settle right in beside Bilbo's politeness and my own stubborn streak. Together, the three of us spent our first few weeks in summer bliss.

He'd seen us arrive like fallen stars, shooting through the night sky by fire that didn't burn.

Neither of us remember how it happened, what events lead to us appearing in Middle Earth, but it didn't take too long to figure out where we were. We had both seen the movies, though we hadn't read the books.

To be fair, it was on my reading list.

Addie and I both found ourselves reluctant to leave the Shire and return home. Bilbo asked us about it once only for us to share reluctant looks between us both. She wasn't eager to return to her overbearing mother who was growing ever worse. I had no one waiting back home myself. It was a lonely existance.

So it started off not far from what we had remembered. We were blinded by the gentle charm of Bag End casting it's shadow over the rest of the world. A pretty painted picture to hide the black mold growing on the walls. First it was Gandalf.

One late morning as I knelt in the front garden, enjoying the warm moist earth in my hands as I weeded the garden, a man began to wander up the road. I thought nothing of it for a few moments, only the nagging that he was out of place. It was only when I realized that this was the first man I'd seen, rather than hobbit that I snapped my full attention to him. Bilbo continued to puff on his pipe as the man in tattered grey robes and a flopped pointed hat meandered nearby.

Addie stops pouring the tea she'd just made to stare. She turned her worried doe eyes toward me. Slowly, I lean back onto my knees, pulling the gloves from my hand, I stick them in my apron as I rise with a basket, moving toward where the old man stands by the gate, eyeing Addie in a way I definitely didn't like.

"Good morning," the man greeted with crooked teeth, yellowed from age and too much tea. His grey hair hung in dreadlocks around his face, his beard similarly tangled.

"Ah, good morning to you as well," Bilbo chirps politely, lifting a brow at my chilling expression. Suddenly, these clothes feel all too translucent with this man gazing me over. A traditional hobbit style, skirts past the knee, tight bodices and sleeves that rolled up to my elbow. I didn't normally wear delicate skirts, but the cotton was comfortable and I quite like the blue patterns.

Only now, the low neckline made me feel dirty as this man gave an appreciative eye over it. My hand tightened on a spade as I refrain from driving it into his chest.

"It's a fine morning, Bilbo Baggins. I'm afraid I do not know your companions."

"Oh, tell me that's not..." I groan, unable to finish my sentence to turn and gape at Addie who looked just as shellshocked.

"Gandalf the Grey?" She finishes.

"Is it my reputation, or has Bilbo spoken of me?" He asks, looking much to proud of himself. Addie and I exchange glances and shrugs a bit at me.

"Color me less than impressed," I reply, and Addie finishes pouring more tea. Bilbo looks startled by my callous and rude behavior. "The tales we've head of you are very different than what I see before me." The wizard raises his eyebrows at me.

"Silvia," Bilbo gapes, his pipe weed burning forgotten in his pipe as he nearly drops it. "Sir, you must forgive my guest, she must be in a foul mood today."

"Less foul if he stopped undressing me with his eyes," I snarl. The wizard looks more amused than insulted by me.

"Feisty she is. Where might you be from, my dear," he asks. I pause for a moment, debating telling him. Finally, I decided it wouldn't hurt.

"Not Middle Earth." He nods, not looking too surprised.

"So the rumors of twin comets touching down in the Shire are true. I assume the other beauty happens to be from your world as well?"

"Yes, sir," she replies softly. His smile turns dark at her meek reply and I step closer to him, my lip curling into a sneer. He lifts an eyebrow at me.

"Bilbo, you have two charming guests," he replies. "Perhaps they should come along on our adventure."

"Adventure!?" Bilbo balks in terror. "Oh, no, no, no. Certainly not." His shrieked response relaxes me.

"You are the son of Belladona Took, are you not?"

"There will be no adventures here. You have come to the wrong hobbit!" Gandalf lifts an eyebrow in surprise.

"You are exactly the gnome I had in mind for this event. It will be a perfect fit." Bilbo's eyes darken and he stands from his bench. Those usually light green eyes turn to a dark forest as he begins to put out his pipe.

"The correct nomenclature happens to be 'Hobbit'," he rumbles out with a curl of his lip.

Bilbo normally looked soft and cute with his brassy curls and button nose. I had seen his teeth before when he spoke. Blunt white ones that were charming and a bit crooked. Cute. I was not expecting sharp needles of pearly white to sink from his gums as he bared them. When Gandalf saw our startled expressions, he smiled and drew back a sleeve, exposing the obvious scar of a bite. "Venomous as well," he had grinned mischievously.

I actually gulped at the frightening sight, hair rising on my arms. "Then perhaps you shouldn't call him that," I respond. Bilbo twisted toward me, giving me a glance that I couldn't quite read but felt a bit appreciative.

"Perhaps he should save those teeth for another day, the boggart. You haven't even heard the adventure."

"No adventures!" Bilbo shouts and turns to stamp into the house with Addie. I wait a moment, watching them disappear before turning back to the glowering wizard.

"If you bring your dwarves here," I begin in a quiet warning. "They will be polite, do you understand?" I knew of the adventure he wanted. How could I not. Bilbo was needed on the quest and I knew he would be fine.

Gandalf arches a brow at me, surprised. "And how is it you know of my dwarves?"

"Do you understand?" I demand. "I will not have them being rude to Bilbo." Gandalf smirks and nods at me slowly. With that being said, I moved into the house where Bilbo locks the door behind him.

"The dwarves are coming, aren't they," Addie asks. Bilbo frowns deeply and glances up to see my answer, his teeth had returned to normal and he looked more frightened than angry.

"Bilbo, I believe it is time we spoke of what we know of this world." And to his armchair we went.

And then the dwarrow began to arrive. I don't know what I expected, but this was certainly not it. I expected short men to crowd merrily in the dining nook. This was not the reality I discovered as dwarf after dwarf entered. Most close to my height of five feet, eight inches, but a few of them towering above at nearly six feet. From afar you might think they were short, simply because they were wide.

They were all broad-shouldered with hard muscles. Tattooed and pierced. Each and everyone of them had more piercings than us. All of the older dwarrow had their septums pierced and it made me wonder what had inspired that. I could see a big dwarf with a mohawk had even his nipples pierced, you could see them through his tight, embroidered tunic.

I saw the way one of the young ones eyed Addie. His icy gaze followed her everywhere. She had certainly captured his attention. It made her nervous, I think. She never met his gaze, keeping it cast down at all times. She stuck close to me under his intense staring. His braided mustache twitched up on one side when I met his gaze, just as coolly.

Fíli, if I remember correctly. The crowned prince. He had a long nose and the fairest hair of any of them. It was braided down his back decoratively, like ropes of white gold. He had sharper eyes than I had imagined. Almost white-blue and incredibly eerie to stare into. It contrasted starkly against his warm toned skin.

He leans back on the bench, tattooed arms stretching out bare. Most of them showed off their muscles and tattoos with their sleeveless tunics it seemed.

Bilbo was frazzled the entire time as he was ignored and jostled about. I felt terribly and when his teeth came out, I stepped right out of the way. "Such a bugbear," I grumble under my breath.

When there was a knock at the door, and the house stills. Bilbo's still too busy chasing a fat dwarf for tomatoes to answer the door. I knew who stood on the otherside and try to imagine what he would look like. It's closer than I expect.

When I open the door, I'm greeted by a fierce looking warrior. His septum twitches in annoyance when I stare at him. White blue eyes rip me apart, a gorgeously masculine face stares me down and he steps up. Challenging me to turn him away. "Is this Bag End?" He demands, not amused by my curious examination of the king under the mountain. Truly a mountain himself, only marred by the thick scar dragged jaw to temple.

"Yes, it is," I hum, curiously glancing over the tanned skin they all had and the dark hair tickled with silver that draped over him like his cloak. The wind blew in from behind him, casting me with his earthy, salty scent and I suppress my shiver of delight.

When he tries to step pass me, I step with him. "May I come in?" He spits through clenched teeth. I tilt my chin up and then glance to the little hobbit who's needle teeth are sinking away.

"Oh, what's another. They've destroyed my pantry as is." The hobbit crosses his arm, looking a little too childlike for me to take him too seriously.

"Alright," I hum back to the king, trying not to squirm under his great glare. I step back, opening the door widely for him. He wanders in, sneering at me.

"Gandalf, I thought you said this place would be easy to find?" He snarls in a deep baritone as the dwarrow prepare a spot for him.

The old man, who was much shorter and more portly than expected, lifted a challenging eyebrow. "I was quite clear in my instruction, Thorin."

"I lost my way. Twice."

"Hardly my fault. Everyone else seemed to find it just fine." Gandalf leans my way, a dirty grin on his face. "Be a dear and get me some ale please." When he tries to swat my rear I snatch his wrist away. I lean down into his face, teeth barring.

"Try to touch me again, I'll carve off your fingers one at a time." The dwarrow begin to chuckle around the table. I throw his arm away from me and move from the room.

"Are you still grabbing that ale for me?"

I didn't dignify him with an answer, just gestured to the skiddish Addie. She darts with me into the living room. Happy to get out under the heavy stares.

"What are two human maids doing in the company of a hobbit?" The dwarf king demands as I coax my friend into Bilbo's favorite arm chair.

"Bilbo, do you want tea?" I call. "I'm going to make some."

"Chamomile, please," he replies as I move into the kitchen. I listen to Bilbo tell the story of us falling from the heavens. Of the white fire that brought us here from our world and explained how he took us in, proud to find us civil. (He began to babble nervously about how I was really very sweet, I just had a temper. I think Thorin was glaring him down with skepticism.)

When tea was done, I brought a cup out for our host wordlessly. And then it began. The talk of dragons and mountains and Erebor. I was there to scoop Bilbo up when he fainted. Something about meat hooks and burning to ash in dragonfire.

"Grab the cards," I hum. And while sipping our tea, we played silently, aware of the guests slowly trickling into the room like a leaky faucet. Fíli and Kíli were the first to arrive, looking like a pair of foxes leaning by the fire place.

Addie casts me a worried glance and I sigh, turning to glare at the smirking pair. "Can we help you?"

"Fallen stars, ey?" Fíli hums, eyeing Addie's submissive staring at me.

"Bilbo likes his stories," with that, I return, playing another card. Addie reaches forward and snatches them both as the both of them approach now, curious.

"What's this game?" Kíli with his big brown eyes and messy hair chirps, settling on the coffee table.

"It's called, 'war'. You both play a card, whoever has the higher card wins the round. You play until one person has the deck." I murmur and play the next card on the top of the stack.

"The hobbit mentioned something about you knowing dwarves were coming to Bag End. How did you know?" Addie passes me a look and jerks when Fíli brushes her hair back from her flushing cheeks.

"Please, don't touch me," she murmurs. He gives an amused smile.

"Why? Because I'm a dwarf?" He challenges.

"No, Prince Asshole. Because you're a stranger that been watching her all night! You keep those hands to yourself." I match his glare.

"How did you know I was a prince?" He demands. The commotion has the rest of the company peeking into the room curiously. Thorin in front of most of them

"You're a story where we are from. Only..." I glance over them, "not quite how it was written it would seem."

Thorin approaches, very eager to learn more of this. "What kind of story?"

"An adventure. With Bilbo as the main character." This has them all staring at us. "He decides to go with you lot on your trip to reclaim the lost city of Erebor, steal the arkenstone, kill a dragon and then return home." I answer bluntly.

"Does Bilbo kill the dragon?" Addie mutters.

"No, its the pirate looking guy, remember?" I reply, then frown. "Or maybe it's Orlando Bloom..."

"No, no, I think it's the pirate guy."

"You know of our quest? You have information about how it will go?"

Suddenly, I'm not liking the way those white-blue eyes bore into us. "I guess."

"Then you will join us with the hobbit."

"Someone has to stay to watch over Bag End," I try to argue, my gut sinking at the darkening of his eyes. Tell him 'no' was exactly the wrong answers.

"That wasn't a request, woman." He moved toward me with slow steps, oddly quiet. In the stillness of the room, however, the creaking floor alerted me with how wrong this all felt. Why did so many of them look amused? "I will give you one more opportunity to join us before you regret your circumstances."

"Please, are you trying to make your journey harder?" I scoff, attempting to call his bluff. A humorless smile stretches across his face, looking more like a grimace.

"You leave me no choice then."

My gasp is cut off when he snatches me up by my throat. My oxygen already being cut off, I feel the pressure building in my face.

I don't miss the startled cry Addie gives as she reaches for me. I'm drawn so close to Thorin I can smell his dinner and ale on his breath, ever so faint. "You will both serve under me as slaves until I release you." I press up onto my toes as I claw at his arms. "You are less than the dirt we walk on. You will do as you are told or there will be repercussions. Understood?"

Gritting my teeth, I thump my hand as hard as I can into his nose. He grunts, but there is no noise beyond that, not break like I was expecting. Fuck. Maybe they were made of actual stone.

Thorin releases my neck with a shove and I cough as I tumble back onto the couch. The cards fly and Addie looks terrified, sinking back into the couch. "And what makes you think that you can?" I demand through my coughs.

"We can always burn down this house as an example." His eyes were cold and empty. "This is your last chance. Are we burning the house?"

Clenching my jaw, I meet his eyes and shake my head.

If he burned down the house we'd have no where to stay, even if he wasn't claiming us as slaves. I reach for my throat, dragging my fingers over the tender flesh. It's only now that I think I should have lied and said we were already serving under Bilbo.

Thorin doesn't say anything after that, only glares away toward the fire. Addie snatches up my hand, not bothering with the cards left abused and abandoned. In a way completely unlike her, she spits a foreign curse at Thorin and drags me away toward our bedroom.

....

Taglist: @tomisbaeholland @fizzyxcustard @daisy-picking-lady @queenofmankind @dumbassunderthemountain

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wildshadowtamer · 3 years

Text

A Different Path (What If?) Ch 5

Summary: Perry came back from a non-heinz-related mission, covered in soot and quite out of breath, he expected to just spend a few hours doing paperwork, but when he logged into his profile, he saw something sickening.

Here is the story of why Perry hates OWCA.

Tags (Chapter Specific): Violence, Attempted Murder, Attempted Child Murder, Blood

Tags (Fic General): Ducky Momo - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, car crash, burn scars, burn victim, Fluff and Angst, warning: this fic is dark, especially the first chapter, Inspired by Fanfiction, Based on a Tumblr Post, AU, what if au, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Mentions of car crashes, Past Child Abuse, mentions of child abuse, mentions of child abandonment, Family Fluff, Fluff, Violence, Attempted Murder, Attempted Child Murder, Blood

Notes: Credit to @woulddieforperrytheplatypus for encouraging me to write this fic! TW for violence, attempted murder, attempted child murder, and blood

Rating: Mature

Read It On Ao3

Read It Here!

~~~~

July 18th, 2006

Perry came back from a non-heinz-related mission, covered in soot and quite out of breath, his entire body aching from the fight against 4 goons at once. He stumbled into his lair below D.E.I and collapsed tiredly onto his chair in front of his giant movie-like monitor, he sighed with a chittering noise and pulled the chair closer to the keyboard.

Then he remembered that he would likely need to do paperwork for arresting the villain he was up against, and likely file a mission report and summarize everything that happened. He laid his head on the desk and silently wished for something to happen so he could avoid it, but he knew there was no escaping endless paperwork, and so he turned on his monitor and clicked into his agent file.

Just as he was about to make a new mission report, he spotted something unusual on his file, a hazard sign flickering on his boys’ family file. Thats strange, did something happen while he was at work?

He puts his phone back on noise, as its usually on silent when he’s on missions, and checks his texts. No recent texts from Heinz.

He clicked into Phineas and Ferb’s file warily, the boys, as of last year, had started making amazing inventions and fun creations near daily in the summer and winter, and working on simple projects in the school months. Recently they had been making some admittedly extreme projects, including 3d printing monkeys and teaching them how to ride a unicycle, Perry still isn’t too sure how they cleaned it up before Charlene, Heinz’ ex-wife, saw it.

However, what Perry saw in the files made his fur stand on end; Each of their inventions had been logged and dated, each with a threat level, ranging from safe green to deadly red.

Threat Level? Their not even double digits, how could they be a threat to anyone except the laws of reality!?

Perry quickly scrolled to the most recent addition, today’s creation, which was apparently an ice cream machine gone wrong, and a few wrong wires turned it into a death ray. Perry nervously glanced to the glaring red threat level on screen, he checked the notes to make sure nobody got hurt.

Notes:

Death Ray was set off and hit a tree close to the house, but no person or animal was harmed. However, I still believe these boys to be a threat, no matter their age. Villains only make more villains.

Perry chittered angrily to himself at the notes, his hands shaking as he checked who had been logging the inventions; an older agent Perry was close to, Dennis The Rabbit. He had actually been Perry’s mentor back when he was a pup.

But, if he was so close to perry, why would he call Phineas and Ferb ‘threats’ and ‘villains’? Their just kids who made a harmless mistake!

He shook his head and took a breath, death rays are no harmless mistake, no matter the result. He’ll have to have a serious talk with the whole family about wiring safety and double checking their work.

As he mentally rehearsed his lecture, he spotted a note added to the main file of the boys, and his thoughts screeched to a terrified halt.

Set to be ‘silenced’ at 5:00pm sharp, on D.E.I balcony by Agent Dennis The Rabbit

‘Silenced’? That can’t be good. Perry’s heart raced as he checked the time; 4:58. He still had time. He didn’t bother shutting down his monitor as he ran from his lair and grabbed his jetpack, making a beeline for the balcony before Dennis could get there.

He saw the boys building on balcony, unharmed and safe, and perry nearly relaxed, but he noticed a red-band fedora peeking over the lip of the open roof, and time slowed significantly.

Perry had to choose an option fast, either tackle Dennis and risk hitting the boys, or grab the boys and risking getting hit with it himself. He made up his mind, and silently begged Heinz to forgive him.

A bright laserbeam of light shot down from the roof, aiming right at the boys, but Perry swooped down and grabbed a sheet of metal, throwing himself infront of Phineas and Ferb to deflect the laser, which bounced back and narrowly missed Dennis’ hat.

“Perry?” Phineas asked, but Perry was too focused, he grabbed the two by the wrist and shoved them inside as Dennis parachuted down from the roof and glared at Perry.

Neither needed to talk in animal tounge to know the other’s intent, both wanted to harm, but wanted to harm very, very different people.

Dennis gave a cocky smile and took his parachute off, letting it fall to the balcony floor as the two agents sized eachother up, standing only 6 feet apart.

The distance was shortly broken as Dennis tackled Perry to the floor, punching him hard across the face as the platypus grabbed him by the neck and flipped them both over so Perry was pinning Dennis.

It became a raging battle of tooth and claw, blood splattering on their furs as they wrestled on the ground, and Perry nearly caught Dennis with his ankle barbs, but restrained himself enough to throw the smaller agent across the balcony and through the glass windows seperating the balcony from the apartment.

Glass shattered everywhere, catching Perry in the arm as the entire window crumbled to the ground in shards, but Perry didn’t care. He was struggling to stay steady, he knew if he let go of his restraint that he would kill the admittedly weaker agent. His venom could kill a lot of animals, but he knews his family would miss him if he was sent to jail, or worse, the pound.

Still, he ran across the shattered glass, ignoring the pain in his webbed feet, and grabbed Dennis by the front of the scruff, punching him square in the face mid-action jump. Dennis went limp, knocked out cold from the punch.

“Perry the Platypus, what’s going on in here-” Heinz stopped in his tracks as he looked between the two bloody agents, one unconscious and the other wielding a near-murderous glare, and the shattered window behind them.

Perry simply held up his clawed paws and signed “O-W-C-A”

Heinz pulled a notepad from his labcoat pocket and handed it to Perry “what did OWCA do? And why is an agent on my floor? The boys said you pushed them inside without a hello.” The scientist explained, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously

It took a few minutes, but Perry eventually shoved a series of notes into Heinz’s hands, and walked over to his jetpack on the balcony, which he had abandoned as he grabbed the metal sheet.

OWCA planned to ‘silence’ the boys with some sort of laser, they didn’t tell me. Dennis was the one to shoot them, but i got in the way and deflected it just in time. The -inator is on the roof. I’ll explain the rest later, right now i have someone to talk to.

“Someone to talk to? But perry, your inju-” Heinz stopped as he watched Perry fly away anyway, apparently uncaring of his injuries. Heinz was mad, thats for sure, but not just mad at OWCA. He was mad at, and quite disappointed in, himself.

If he had just kept an eye on the boys or brought them inside when he went to check on Candace & Vanessa, Perry wouldn’t have gotten hurt, and Perry wouldn’t be so mad.

Perry came to a stop at OWCA HQ’s entrance, and, despite the searing pain in his feet and body, he couldn’t care less. He was infuriated, shaking with such anger he almost saw red. When he finds Monogram, he’s gonna give that monobrowed cheapskate liar a piece of his mind.

The automatic sliding doors of HQ opened as Perry was scanned by the facial recognition software, he stormed inside with a walk that Heinz once described as a “murder walk”, meaning with each minute Perry considers his option, jail seems increasingly preferred.

The other agents knew that walk, and all kept their distance from the top agent as he stormed past all of them, headed straight for the Major’s office.

“He’s definitely qutting today” Monty, the Major’s son, whispered to a human agent from canada, Lyla, Perry was sure her name was. Lyla glanced at Perry, then back to Monty, and nodded.

Like the controlled, trained agent Perry is, he kept his composure enough to only kick the door to monogram’s office off the hinges, and not throw it at him like he really wanted to. Carl recognised that enraged look in his eyes, and quickly left the room.

“Ah. Agent P. What’re you doing here?” Monogram asked warily, knowing full well, but trying to stall some time. All he got in response was an angry chitter, monogram sighed “I didn’t want to do it either, but when it comes down to the safety of the agency, we can’t have a pair of villains running around with a death ray!”

The word ‘villain’ echoed in perry’s head, his agent mind getting drowned out by pure anger as everything went red and Perry activated the chitter-to-speech translator built into his collar.

Monogram paled as he realised what he had just done.

And Perry snapped.

Half an hour later,

Perry had left the door open, so everyone in view of the office, which would be half the agency as all of them wanted to hear this, could see and hear perry’s furious rant.

They collectively gasped as he grabbed his fedora and threw it down on the floor angrily “I’ve had enough of this agency, and i’ve had enough of YOU” Perry yelled “I QUIT.”

Monogram, pale in the face and speechless, spluttered “you- you can’t do that!”, Perry slammed a fist on the flipped office desk “well i just did.” he snarled, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the office, the agents parting like curtains to let Perry past without him hitting someone.

There was a dead silence as everyone watched their ex-best agent leave HQ for good, eventually, Monty spoke up

“Y’know,” he looks over to his father “you kinda had it coming.” he commented calmly, hands in his hoodie pockets. He shrunk into his hood as his father glared at him, who then took a breath and flipped his table to the right way up

“Carl, get to work on Agent P’s termination paperwork. I don’t think we’re getting him back.” Monogram told the 16-year-old unpaid intern, who peeked his head through the doorway “a-alright sir, i’ll get right to it”

Heinz knew something was wrong from the moment Perry stepped foot back in the apartment, still bleeding and scratched up.

“Perry? What did you do?” he asked his pet nervously, Perry gave a momentary glare before taking a breath and relaxing a bit, he turned off his translator in his collar and wrote something on the spare notepad he keeps next to the couch, sitting down

I quit.

Heinz spluttered “wh- you what?”, he couldn’t believe it! Perry The Platypus, his nemesis since the day perry could fight, quit his job at OWCA?

Perry tapped the same note in reiteration, then added another sentence

I quit.

Monogram tried to hurt my brothers, and i just can’t tolerate that. I was going to leave next summer anyway, he doesn’t even treat his agents with basic respect.

“Well- yeah i get that, i’d quit too if my boss tried to, y’know, kill my children and all” Heinz had calmed down from his internal rage at both OWCA and himself from almost an hour earlier, “but what are you going to do now? Being an agent was Your Thing, and who’s going to be my nemesis?” He asked, and Perry had no answer, except a helpless shrug

I’ll think about it. I need more time with the kids and you anyway, it’ll be good not to have work for a few weeks.

“Great idea! Maybe you can help out with their inventions! Oh and I know Phineas has been wanting to show you his and Ferb’s creations. Their getting very talented!” he gasped “Maybe take them to that Googleplex Mall and take them shopping, you need a new collar anyways” He suggested, and Perry thought about it for a minute, then smiled a bit and nodded

“Brilliant!” he pulls a blank calender from behind the couch, how did perry not spot that? “Here, i’ve been working on an Inator that works similarly to a time machine, it runs mostly on calendars so i went out when you were working and bought a bunch of them, i hope you don’t mind.” Heinz rambled, Perry smiled and took the calender, using his pen to plan some events him and the kids could do, he was really looking forward to this.

Leaving OWCA was the best thing Perry ever could’ve done.

#phineas and ferb #fic #writing #fanfic #also on ao3 #ao3 #phineas flynn #ferb fletcher #perry the platypus #heinz doofenshmirtz #major monogram #monty monogram #carl karl #lyla lolliberry #dennis the rabbit #what if #a different path

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backinblack1967 · 4 years

Text

The Annual Feeling of Loss or You’re Never Alone (Seonghwa x Reader)

A/N: Hi, everyone! :) Over the years I’ve written several little stories but never had the courage to post them online. I’ve been struggling with the death of my dad the past few months and what better way to cope with it than with writing it down, I thought. So, I made a one-shot with ATEEZ and a reader insert. If you don’t want to read about it, you are warned. (Please be warned that English isn’t my mother tongue, either.)

To be honest, this one is more fluff and (bad) humour after the initial angst. Feel free to leave a comment, ask me about anything or maybe even leave a request for a future scenario.

XXX Sarah

Seonghwa x Reader x platonic!ATEEZ

word count: 3,011

***

네가 힘이 들고 지칠 때 When it’s hard and you’re tired

찾게 되는 그 곳, 나 그 곳이 될게 the place you’re looking for, I’ll become this place

아무 것도 놓을 수 없어서 when you have nowhere to lean on

삶이 버거울 때 꼭 네 곁이 될게 when life is too much, I will be next to you

(BTS - With Seoul)

***

It was that day again. You had dreaded it for the last 2 years and you hated yourself for it. When your father had been alive it had been a funny coincidence that your birthday was on the exact day before his, but when he’d died you had come to loathe both of your birthdays because they had become a constant reminder that you’d never see him again. Never hear his voice again or feel his arms around you in one of his famous bear hugs.

Yesterday you had celebrated your birthday with your friends, trying to suppress the rising feeling of dread and sadness. Currently, you were sitting in a small café, or more like hiding from your best friends you whom were living with. You could try bullshitting them with the excuse of cramps or a migraine, but some would undoubtedly see behind your carefully constructed façade.

And so, you had gone out in the early hours of the day to seek refuge and distraction in the crowds. You were currently sitting in the farthest corner with a cup of warm chocolate in front of you and your iPad and pencil in the other, trying to force the thoughts from your head onto the canvas. Sometimes drawing them helped to forget a little. Or to remember the fond moments you were especially frightened of forgetting over time.

This morning, when you had opened your old chat to listen to his voice again, you had barely been able to contain your cries. The audio messages were still there but the little icon on top which should show his picture had been empty. Maybe it was because he had been offline for too long and at that thought, uncontrollable sobs had taken over your body. You had decided to leave your shared flat then because you didn’t want to ruin their short time off by bringing their jovial mood down.

You had left a note on the kitchen table saying you would be back in the evening and that they shouldn’t wait up if it got later.

You figured if you could only get through today you would be fine tomorrow. Distract yourself until nightfall, sneak in and sleep it off.

Admittedly, you had entertained the thought of talking to Yun-ho this morning and whether you would feel better wrapped in his arms but then you had decided against it. You didn’t want to burden either of them and you really didn’t want them to see you as weak. For good measure, you had turned off your mobile phone so you wouldn’t be tempted to call them or your mom.

***

What you didn’t know was that back in the dorm every sense of carefreeness had been abandoned hours ago. San hadn’t been particularly worried when he had found your note first – sometimes you just ventured off to calm places to concentrate.

He couldn’t blame you when their dorm resembled a playground filled with 5-year olds high on sugar more often than not. He had been curious why you would be staying out late on a weekend but Hong-joong had reminded him that people like them needed the occasional day off to gather inspiration and that you would surely confide in them if something was bothering you.

They had unanimously decided to wait up for you to ask if anything was wrong but to otherwise leave you be for the time you were away. However, San had seen Seong-hwa and Yeo-sang trying to sneakily call you several times through the day. When he had asked them about it, both of them had admitted that they had a bad gut feeling. Both of them had been with you on some of your “alone days” without the others knowing, so their feelings wouldn’t get hurt. When he had gathered all of his team members to tell them exactly that, they had been surprised to hear because as it turned out you had always taken one of them with you when you had gone out “alone”.

Now they were worried. Had something happened? Had they unknowingly done something to hurt your feelings? Or had it been someone else? Jong-ho had oh so kindly offered to beat up anyone who might have hurt their girl, Min-gi volunteering as well. Both Hong-joong and Woo-young had hurriedly convinced them not to do it, in remembrance of the last incident.

And then the phone had rung.

And it wasn’t who they had expected. An angry, high-pitched female voice had greeted Yun-ho on the other end, making his smile drop. That wasn’t you. And she was neither speaking Korean nor English. He picked up two familiar words, however, in her rant: your name and the word “papa”. With wide eyes he told Hong-joong and thrust the phone at him as if it would bite him any minute.

Hong-joong switched the phone to speaker as he waited for a break in her venomous monologue. They winced from the apparent fury in her tone without even understanding what she was saying. When she paused to draw breath, Hong-joong hurriedly interrupted her in English.

“I’m sorry, I assume you want to talk to Y/N, but she’s currently out. May I ask who you are?”

The woman’s voice had turned condescending at that, mocking him for his “horrible” English pronunciation in a sickly-sweet tone before she continued to rant about her little irresponsible and stupid sister who wouldn’t even come home for her deceased father’s birthday. Like, who did she think she was? Not even calling her elder sister to ask her if she was alright on such a somber day. Hong-joong didn’t detect a smidgen of sadness in her voice or any compassion for her family member. And suddenly your absence made incredibly much more sense.

He figured he would let her let off steam before getting rid of her and looking for you with his brothers. It was twenty minutes later when he couldn’t stand the insults hurled towards you anymore and told her to shut up (which shocked his members as they’d never heard him speak less than respectful to strangers or older people). He had tried to tell her of your compassion and warm heart, how you helped everyone around you and brightened their days. But for every positive trait or deed your sister had responded with another insult which were growing more and more farfetched.

They others weren’t too good in English but with certain familiar keywords, their leader’s expression and the tone of the woman’s voice they could piece together the gist of what was being said. Even Yun-ho’s patience began wearing thin as he watched Joong’s expression turning more and more agitated and downright hurt.

He threw a glance at their eldest who held a pensive expression on his face as he stared off into the distance. When Seong-hwa noticed Yun-ho’s pleading gaze and the various distressed and confused faces around him, he lightly tapped on Hong-joong’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Joong, don’t you want to end this conversation? It doesn’t seem to go anywhere… Could you wrap it up and tell us what exactly is going on?”

He nodded and said a few sentences to the other person on the phone that left her silent with surprise.

“You will have to stop right there, miss. I won’t tolerate you insulting my friend any longer. I have no idea how you got this number but please refrain from calling again or I will see myself forced to talk to our manager and lawyer. Have a good day.”

There was a brief silence before Yeo-sang voiced what all of them were thinking.

“So… who exactly was that and why were they so angry at Y/N?”

Hong-joong explained that your older sister had called from home and that today was the birthday of your father who had died two years ago, shortly before his birthday back then, too.

San hugged Woo-young when his face crumbled into sadness at the news. He could vividly imagine what it meant to lose a family member and he didn’t wish that kind of devastating heartache on any of the people he considered family.

Hong-joong couldn’t bring himself to repeat the insults your sister had hurled at you and relied as much to the others. He was visibly angry whereas Seong-hwa looked more concerned.

“Should we go look for her? Do you have any idea where she could be?”

“Don’t you think we should give her some space until she comes back, Hwa? I mean, she obviously had a reason to leave for the day.”

Yun-ho trailed off unsurely because he didn’t want to do anything else besides wrap you in his arms and to cuddle the sadness away.

“I think we should wait here. Don’t get me wrong, I want nothing more than to be with her right now, either, but we don’t know where to start searching. And what if she comes home while we’re running around Seoul? Let’s just wait and cheer her up when she returns,” proposed Yeo-sang, ever the voice of reason, although he didn’t seem to be happy about it. “I don’t want to overwhelm her or make her uncomfortable.”

Min-gi was the first one to agree. “Then can we prepare a movie evening and order take-out?”

***

It was dark when you decided you had wallowed in self-pity and bitter-sweet memories for long enough. You trudged through the darkened streets until you found yourself staring up at the building of your dorm. You had decided to come home earlier than planned because you honestly couldn’t take being alone anymore.

You needed their smiles and distracting chaos to ground yourself in the present and to remind yourself that everything would be okay at the end of the day.

You forced a smile on your face as you walked up the flights of stairs towards your home. Shortly before you reached the front door, you turned on your phone again only to take note of the several missed calls, all of them from your extended little family except one from your sister. You weren’t sorry that you had missed hers, she would have solely reproached you anyway for your so-called heartless behaviour towards her.

You stuffed your phone into your jeans pocket, touched that they had tried reaching out to you despite your little note. You felt childish for ignoring them now.

You had barely unlocked the front door and put your keys on the hook next to it, when something slammed into you and wrapped their arms around your shoulders. Another one joining seconds after at your back. Blinking in surprise, you returned the hugs and automatically your uptight body went lax in their hold.

You felt surrounded and loved and so completely at home.

Judging from the familiar scents, you were currently between San and Min-gi. Over the latter’s shoulder you could see Woo-young nervously bouncing on the balls of his feet. You smiled at him and it felt less forced than all the hours before. When you beckoned with your hand towards him, he bound over to your little bunch and joined the tangled mess. You giggled at their puppy-like behaviour.

“Did something happen? What’s gotten into you, not that I’m complaining?”

“We just missed you,” came Woo-young’s muffled reply.

You smiled at his admission, “I missed you, too. All of you.”

When you had untangled yourself from the hug a few minutes later, Min-gi took your hand and led you towards the grand couch in the living room.

You took in the other members sitting on the couch and on the nest of pillows and blankets before it, with steaming take-out containers scattered in various places.

“Okay, something definitely happened. Are we celebrating a new song? Do I need to beat somebody up?”

You earned various smiles for that and Seong-hwa patted the free space between him and Yun-ho on the couch. You accepted his invitation and after they had wrapped their arms over your shoulders you inquired once more, “Now tell me. What happened?”

There was a tense silence before Hong-joong spoke. “Your sister called today.”

Dread replaced your uplifted mood as you felt the smile slip from your face. In a small voice you asked, “What did she say? … Oh my god, I’m so sorry, guys. I don’t know how she got this number.”

Yeo-sang hushed you from his place at your feet, one hand running up your knee.

“Don’t worry. I don’t think she will call again. But why didn’t you tell us about today? You know you can tell us anything. We love you.”

You fiddled with your fingers, touched by his sincere words.

“I love you guys, too. It’s just- I just didn’t want to bother you on your small holiday. And I thought that if I … don’t need comfort or if I don’t talk about it, it would go away sooner. Like it didn’t actually happen.”

Hearing your reasons out loud made you wince because of how pathetic they sounded. You really were childish. And as horrible as your sister said, for trying to forget your father’s death. I’m sorry, papa. I miss you.

Your self-deprecating train of thoughts was interrupted by a soft palm on your right cheek.

“Sweetheart, whatever you’re thinking right now – stop. You’re not stupid for trying to forget or for being insecure. And you can always come to us if something is bothering you. Have you forgotten the many times you were there for us? Isn’t that right, guys?”

All around the room, there were affirmative nods and assuring smiles. You smiled and leaned subconsciously into his touch.

“I- I think I know, Hwa. I was just being stupid. Sorry for worrying you.”

He leaned in with a soft smile until his forehead and nose were touching yours. You squirmed at his closeness and your obvious blush on display for all of them. He had always been a bit touchy-feely with you, but you had passed it off as Woo-young, Min-gi and San rubbing off on the other members.

You were sure your crush was blatantly obvious right now. Your love for Seong-wha went far beyond the platonic kind and you had been afraid to tell him – or anyone – in fear of making things awkward. But in that moment, as he gazed deeply into your eyes, you could have sworn he felt the same for you.

Your little bubble was interrupted by Woo-young’s coos and Jong-ho clearing his throat.

“So, uh… can we start movie night now? I’m famished.”

You all laughed at that, but you still caught the knowing smiles on their faces. Seong-hwa winked at you when he retreated slightly.

You barely registered Yun-ho mumbling something about popcorn, being far too occupied with Seong-wha draping a blanket over the both of you and engulfing your hand underneath it with his bigger one. You snuggled closer to him, leaning your head on his shoulder. The need for comfort and skin-ship was making you a little bolder than usual.

Yun-ho and Min-gi returned with two big bowls of popcorn and snuggled back into the pillow fort. The next few hours were spent laughing at the people in the movie, munching popcorn and gorging on your favourite take-out.

Sometimes happy moments made you sad when you realized you wouldn’t get to share them with your father. This time, you felt whole and as if you could face any problems as long as they stayed by your side.

There was a comfortable lull in conversation and no more remarks at the stupidity of certain movie characters a few hours later when everyone became sleepy. Your head rested drowsily against Seong-hwa’s shoulder, his cheek on the crown of your head, hands intertwined and blissful smiles on both your faces. You were happy, sorrows not forgotten but dulled and overshadowed by the feeling of absolute belonging.

You heard Yeo-sang whispering and giggling with San.

“Hm?” You raised an inquisitive eyebrow at them.

“Oh, don’t mind us. We were just wondering when one of you will gather enough courage to make the first step,” Yeo-sang remarked matter-of-factly with a good-natured smirk on his face as he made a sweeping gesture towards you and Seong-hwa.

Your earlier blush returned full force. You pressed into Seong-hwa’s chest to hide from their encouraging gazes. His chuckle rumbled underneath your ear as he drew you closer with his arm.

“There you go again, ruining my plans to tell her. And do I have to remind you that most of the time it was one of you two who interrupted me when I was approaching the subject? I should put both of you on dish washing duty for the next month,” he answered jokingly.

You had perked up in the middle of his sentence. Was that an indirect confession?

Your head peaked up at him, catching the warm smile directed at you.

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course, I do. So, what do you say, Y/N. Do you want to be the Light Fury to my Toothless?”

“Yes,” was all you managed through the big smile on your face.

What had begun as a horrible day had ended as one of the best days in your life so far. And all thanks to your little extended family and the guy you had fallen in love with.

“That’s nice and all, but please keep things PG-rated, alright? We have a baby in our midst.”

As Jong-ho hit Yun-ho over his head, Seong-hwa threw you one of those smiles that were a cross between amusement and internal suffering. You giggled and snuggled closer again. You were home.

A/N number 2: Reposting this again because I’m old. I actually messed up the hashtags. Please help, haha.

#ateez #ateez seonghwa #angst #hurt comfort #death #i tried #a second time #the annual feeling of loss #you're never alone

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onthevirgeofdestruction · 4 years

Link

Storytime!

Sanders Sides Canon Divergence AU - fluff/angst - hurt/comfort - some intrigue - actually has a plot (side eyes my other fics) - largely Virgil centric - it’s about growth i guess idk

Words: 4,035 Warnings: Big-ass spiders, zombie mentions, death mentions, gore mentions. Characters: Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan, Remus, Janus Universe: Storytime! Genre: Half-Fluff, Half-Idoicy

Chapter 27: In Which There are Even Bigger Spiders Than Beeps

Virgil is doing good but everyone else has some questions and nobody has answers

chapter 1 for new readers - ffn mirror

Virgil didn’t realize the meeting was today, so he was thankful for Roman’s note. Time must have gotten away from him. He was so focused on Thomas's schedule he had kind of forgotten his own. It was one thing to skip breakfast and another thing entirely to skip a meeting he agreed to. The last few times he skipped were kind of eventful for him so the other sides would freak out for sure. Luckily, Virgil had already started his ‘Patton’ story the other day, and while he was still delirious from Deceit’s room, he could conceivably pull off not killing or maiming anyone by the end. It was much easier to convince himself it would all be okay right now, and he knew that feeling would fade the longer he sat in his room.

Pat liked stories that were sentimental or sweet, which Virgil probably couldn’t come up with no matter how much of Deceit’s influence helped him. But he also likes animal stories, especially talking animals. Finding inspiration in his lack of ability had worked out before, so the story was about a little boy who couldn’t stop having nightmares. It was all he could think about in the day and he couldn’t sleep at night. The little boy tossed a coin in a fountain and wished for good sleep. So a magic psychic bat came that night and granted his wish for just one night of pleasant dreams so he could be upbeat for his little sister’s birthday party.

That was another thing he could relate to, but he really doubted Pat could figure out this one. Virgil’s magic bat was a golden snake with venom that hid his fears from himself so his friends could like him more. That was a stretch unless Logan had somehow figured out what was going on and told Pat. But Deceit would have told him if that had happened, so there was no point in worrying about that. Realizing he didn’t have to worry was a bizarre sensation for Virgil. He was so damn grateful for his magic psychic bat.

Virgil finished up the story with a little time to spare. He’d love to go waste time with one of the sides, but it still seemed like a bad idea. He could maybe make a new friend, though. He could feel the overcharged feeling in his veins that let him know he had enough anxious energy to burn. One who could protect his room and alert him when someone entered since Virgil was out so often. Something bigger that could defend his room and the other spiders. Virgil got up from the couch and stretched out. He reached up and stroked Beatrice, who was still sitting in his hair.

“How about a little brother, Beatrice? A really big little brother?” Virgil asked affectionately. She stomped angrily on his head and said something unsavory. “Beeps, I’m not replacing you,” Virgil rolled his eyes. He reached up and gently stroked her again. “I’d be more willing to take you out of the room more if there was someone else here helping you and to protect you. Your smaller siblings can’t help like that,” Virgil offered. Beatrice conceded grumpily.

Virgil cracked his knuckles and stepped into the middle of his room. A giant huntsman spider seemed appropriate. Nearly a foot of very leggy spider should keep anybody back, and the legs would be easier on Virgil to make than the big body of a goliath birdeater. Virgil focused as hard as he could and held his hand out, palm down. One this big might hurt, so he braced himself. There was a sharp pain in his palm as he focused on creating one. Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and just tried to focus on not messing up. When the sharp feeling finally subsided, Virgil peeked slightly at his hand. A big boy with much larger fangs than he intended was crawling from his palm to the top of his fingertips. He was roughly double the size of Beatrice and mostly black instead of mostly purple like her.

“What would you like to be called?” He asked gently and reached his other hand over to feel its long delicate legs. “Voltaire? I love it. Voltaire, you’re the new room guard. You need to keep all your siblings safe while I’m out,” He said gently. Voltaire rubbed its forelegs together in acceptance and climbed up onto his shoulder. Virgil walked over to the staircase and laid down upside down, holding himself up with webbing. “So tell me what fears you’ve got,” He asked the new spider as it crawled down his arm.

Chatting with Voltaire was nice. His fears were pretty weak, but he was big and scary, so he was perfect to deter other sides without actually hurting them. Much. Plus, he was very gallant, determined which made fun to talk to. Virgil has successfully passed the last of the time without feeling too lonely while chatting with Volt and Beeps on the stairs. Other than being pretty low on energy from making Voltaire and D’s room, he felt good about going to storytime tonight. He was looking forward to laying back and reading some stories that felt wrong. It was going to be unnerving in a fun way, which should be enjoyable instead of horrible. And that sounded nice.

—

Virgil’s legs were over Patton’s lap and he was propped up on the couch arm reading the stories lazily. It had been pretty non-eventful when it was just Virgil and Logan in the living room, even though they were alone for a couple of minutes before Pat and Ro showed up just barely on time again. Logan seemed too distracted to talk, which he was thankful for. Remus’s story yelled at you if you didn’t read it first, so he had started with that one today, just like everyone else had given in to do.

Remus’s story felt profoundly wrong for him, so he must have been listening in after he left last time. His protagonist didn’t die or kill anyone directly. In fact, the entire story was about avoiding action by doing other things. A funny side to pick. The protagonist partied all night and cleaned his bathroom during the peak of the zombie apocalypse. There was a literal zombie apocalypse, but he wanted cookies, so he went to the store and dodged everything. He worked at the lab making the cure and couldn’t be bothered to get up when the zombies raided it and just read comics in the security office. What an icon.

Virgil laughed so hard he choked at the end. Patton reached out to make sure he was okay, but Virgil just chuckled and nodded while he caught his breath. Patton gave him a breezy smile and went back to reading himself, his arms holding the papers resting on his legs. Virgil dropped his hand to the floor out of Pat’s view and flipped Remus off affectionately. Remus smiled a big toothy smile of what seemed to be vindication and also gave Virgil the bird. It tweeted, which got confused looks from Roman, who checked around for a source. Remus and Virgil quickly went back to ‘innocently’ reading and Roman gave up and went back to reading when he saw nothing unusual.

Pat’s was next, which was the ‘Virgil’ story. Patton didn’t have much dramatic irony Virgil usually had, but it was still a negative story with a bleak-ish ending. A group of teens who were camping got lost in the woods while partying. A ‘being punished for breaking the rules’ kind of theme. It would have been a great set-up for a slasher. Maybe Remus could add on to the end for Virgil and they could have a laugh about that later with Deceit. Those kinds of movies were Deceit’s guilty pleasure to watch. Patton unknowingly writing half of one might make his day.

Roman’s ‘Logan’ story was amazing. It was fantastically gay and dry as heck. It was the most scathing thing he could have done without directly insulting Logan. College professors grading things in the coffee shop go out, but they’re both teaching med students so they didn’t ‘hold hands’, they ‘interlocked digits’. Roman must have abused a thesaurus and fell down a biology Wikipedia hole to write this. Nothing big even happened in the story other than the original gay confusion. Roman’s intent was clearly to blast Logan instead of producing an amazing story for the ages, and he mcfreakin’ succeeded.

Logan’s ‘Roman’-style was funny for all the wrong reasons. It followed a dragon, but the dragon’s hoard was books instead of gold. The Dragon liked to make puzzles for adventurers to get lost in when trying to come to defeat him. The story was just the Dragon reading books and frying adventurer’s brains until the one who finally makes it through changes his mind because of the Dragon’s sound logic. Virgil choked on a laugh again when the adventurer conceded to the Dragon’s superior stance. Logan took that wish-fulfillment part of fantasy themes and ran with it.

Remus had looked at him quizzically while he caught his breath again. Virgil figured he wanted to know why he laughed and showed him the navy blue font and pointed to the last paragraph. Remus switched packets and flipped pages to the last paragraph to see for himself. He broke out in a mad giggle fit, which earned some serious glares and shushing from Roman. Logan looked incredibly confused, but wouldn’t dare talk during his own rules about quiet reading time. Which was also amusing in a strange way.

Virgil was in a great mood after laughing at the ridiculousness of these stories and placed his packets on the floor, sitting up to cuddle against the extra-warm Patton while he waited out the reading time for everyone else. Patton was surprised when Virgil wrapped his arm around him but sighed contentedly as Virgil dropped his head on Patton’s shoulder. Remus grunted at Virgil, but Virgil just rolled his eyes and mouthed ‘later’ at him. He wasn’t entirely sure what the duke wanted, but it wasn’t the time. Virgil closed his eyes and appreciated the warm heart, letting himself drift a little while he waited out the rest of the reading time.

—

Virgil woke up sometime later to the TV playing The Office quietly, still entangled around Patton. Patton smiled and reached up to stroke his hair when he shifted. He looked around and saw all the other sides had left. He blinked the rest of the sleep from his eyes and yawned, stretching out his arms.

“Hey, sleepyhead! You fell asleep while waiting for us to finish,” Patton said gently.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Pat. Did I miss the discussion?” Virgil asked sleepily and rubbed his eyes.

“Remus was pretty freaked out about the idea of waking you up, and that spooked Ro, so we decided to postpone it,” Patton responded lightly, clearly trying to sound soothing. Virgil appreciated it, honestly. It was much easier not to freak out over delaying them while everybody was so busy. Virgil released Patton and stood up to stretch his legs, followed by Patton who must have been stuck under him for a while based on the time.

“I’m sorry I had you pinned for that long, pop,” Virgil said and rubbed the back of his head with embarrassment.

“It was a nice cuddle, bud, don’t worry!” Patton said cheerily as he stretched out his arms. “I’ll text the others and see if they still want to do discussion today,” Virgil nodded and yawned, wrapping his arms back around Patton as Pat pulled out his phone. Patton shifted to let Virgil hug him from behind while he texted.

“Ah, the cuddle monster has returned to the living!” Roman declared as he rose up a few moments later.

“You guys didn’t have to reschedule for me,” Virgil mumbled quietly into Patton’s back.

“Well, it’s not much of a discussion without you kiddo,” Patton said softly and held Virgil’s arms wrapped around his waist.

“I’ve never seen Remus act like that in my life, I wasn’t taking the chance. It may be the only thing in the Thomas-sphere he takes seriously. He kept hissing at us to shut up and then left,” Roman explained. Virgil chuckled into Patton’s back. It was nice to have the tables turned for once. Virgil was the one scared of Remus most of the time. Logan rose as well.

“It’s nice to hear you laugh so much these days, kiddo,” Patton commented as Virgil settled down and twisted around to give Virgil a hug.

“Yes, what elements did you find amusing this evening, Virgil? I was curious about what diverted you and Remus. The stories didn’t include your shared sense of dark humor,” Logan asked as he sat back down on the couch.

“Oh, man, if I knew I was going to get grilled I would have basted myself first,” Virgil rolled his eyes backed up into the couch, taking Patton down with him. Patton giggled as he stumbled down on top of Virgil.

“That’s some… vivid imagery, Virgil,” Roman said, sounding a little confused. Patton laid on Virgil this time, seeing as Virgil wouldn’t let him go, though Virgil let him sit up on the couch. Roman and Logan sat in their regular spots.

“Remus’s story was full of cynical humor, Lo. It was completely defeatist and relatable. I mean the world is ending, but where can I get some iced coffee? Peak mood,” Virgil supplied finally. Logan looked extremely confused for a moment. Maybe the slang did it? Logan shook it off quickly.

“I was not aware that being a defeatist could be humorous. I will take note. Remus also chose to write differently from his regular ramblings this week. He left before we had planned to try each other’s reoccurring themes last week. It was an oddly coincidental timing on his part,” Logan said. Virgil was pretty certain Remus was listening in through Roman, but he wasn’t sure if the others knew the creativity twins were linked to each other, so changing the subject seemed safer than possibly dropping a bomb that Roman possibly didn’t want to share. Remus ‘over-share’ Sanders wasn’t here to drop it for him, anyway.

“Ro’s story was hilarious, too,” Virgil said with a grin and a quick thumbs-up of appreciation, which he dropped lazily back around Patton after a moment and pulled himself a little closer to Patton’s warmth.

“Thank you, Virgil, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Roman replied with a flourish and smiled back.

“What was funny about it? It was a cute romance with lots of big words,” Patton asked. Virgil ruffled Patton’s hair.

“It wasn’t about the contents of the story, Pat, it was about what the writing said,” Virgil said lazily. Logan bristled.

“Was there a theme that I potentially missed?” Logan asked and picked up his notes, scanning them quickly.

“Perhaps this is one of those rare things that is over your head,” Roman said sarcastically with a chuckle and waved Logan off.

“I refuse to believe that. Please explain to me what I’m missing,” Logan insisted, still scanning his notes,

“Roman was roasting you without roasting you,” Virgil supplied flippantly.

“Virgil, please do not include me in your strange grilling metaphor, it does not help elucidate me in the slightest,” Logan said shortly and put his notes down to glare at them.

“Over his head,” Roman said with a bemused laugh, and Virgil joined him. Logan groaned in frustration.

“It would not be if you simply explained it to me,” Logan grunted and crossed his arms. Roman just laughed again, which caused Logan to huff. Virgil shifted closer to Patton. He couldn’t get much closer at this angle, so just slid down behind Patton before he became a human feather boa. Patton yelped as Virgil slipped down, but he scooted forward to make space for Virgil who was now wrapped around his back. He was so warm. Virgil’s eyes fluttered for a moment.

“Are you tired again, kiddo?” Patton asked and ruffled Virgil’s hair. Virgil grumbled slightly and lazily fixed his bangs.

“You’re just so toasty,” Virgil mumbled into Patton’s side.

“Sorry, it always slips out at least a little,” Patton apologized meekly.

“No, it’s the best, never turn it off,” Virgil whined and squeezed Patton as close as he could.

“Patton, trade with me before Virgil falls asleep again,” Roman requested, getting up and rolling his eyes in exasperation.

“No, don’t take my space heater!” Virgil whined and grasped onto Patton, refusing to let go.

“We’re not done talking, yet, bud, we haven’t even gotten to your story yet!” Patton said as he got up, trying to pry himself from Virgil. Virgil groaned and released him, seizing Roman as he sat down where Patton was. Roman chuckled as Virgil gripped on. Roman wasn’t warming like Pat, but Ro gave off a light charged feeling which woke him up. Pretty sneaky, sis.

“What’s there to talk about? Mine wasn’t funny like you guys’,” Virgil groaned and nestled into Roman’s side. Even if there was a nap conspiracy, at least Virgil got nice contact. Roman giggled a little when Virgil accidentally tickled him. Then Virgil tickled him on purpose and Roman smacked him upside the head.

“Roman, don’t hit Virgil,” Patton chided him.

“He tickled me!” Roman objected.

“We are extremely off subject,” Logan groaned.

“I didn’t get the funny memo, I was just trying to figure out what I could do that Patton would like,” Virgil grumbled, rubbing his head, eying Roman suspiciously for another attack.

“I did like it, kiddo! It was so sweet that he just wanted to make his sister happy,” Patton said with a shimmering look in his eye.

“Oh, I didn’t think I could do sweet. Neat,” Virgil commented blithely and settled back down. “I think Pat did a ‘me’ story pretty well, though maybe more toned down,” Virgil added. Sort of like he wished he could be. Virgil hid his face in Roman’s side and frowned. Roman ruffled his hair lightly and Virgil grumbled.

“I think it missed that fatal element, though. Pat implied the ranger would find those kids even though they wandered into the woods drunk in the daytime,” Roman supplied. “After most of Virgil’s stories, it was pretty heavily implied they didn’t make it,”

“I tried to leave it a little vague,” Patton muttered.

“You did, Patton. Just because one character mentioned it doesn’t mean we can assume it was to happen,” Logan reassured him and held out his hand, motioning to calm down. “Virgil, was there a reason you pointed out the final paragraph of my story to the duke?” Logan asked shortly and looked pointedly at Virgil.

“Yes. And I’m afraid it’s also over your head, Logan,” Virgil supplied a little bitterly.

“That’s what you guys were laughing at? Logan’s little fantasy projecting? I thought it was some dark joke I didn’t get,” Roman said, sounding disbelieving.

“I would like to be included on this ‘great in-joke’ you two seem to have,” Logan said sourly.

“Lo, buddy, you wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Virgil groaned.

“I would like you to try regardless of your assumptions,” Logan stated plainly, tapping his foot.

“It’s your praise kink!” Remus popped up, laughing wildly. Logan jumped up in surprise and stumbled back into the couch. Patton squeaked and Roman stiffened. “It’s been later, Vi-vi, come on!” Remus whined. Virgil groaned in exasperation.

“We’re in the middle of the discussion! You know, the ones you usually skip while you’re off gallivanting in the mind palace stabbing stuff?” Virgil said slackened from behind Roman.

“And it’s boring!” Remus groaned.

“Fine. I know we didn’t get to everything, but I’m going to go deal with this giant brat if we’re good here? He might blow us up or something if I don’t,” Virgil stated with a little grumble. He was having an agreeable time making fun of Logan with Roman and wasn’t ready to stop yet, but he was going to see Remus, anyway. “Does anybody object to that?”

“Blow you up? Virgey, I would never,” Remus said, sounding fake aghast, holding his hand to his chest and fanning himself with the other. “Teeny-Tiny exploding unicorns all over the room, maybe,” He added with a sinister smirk and showed how small with his fingers, followed by spirit finger mock-explosions. Virgil grunted and pulled himself out from behind Roman.

“Anybody? Bueller?” Virgil asked again. They all looked kind of shocked, but there was no response. The duke did have that effect on them, sometimes. “Cool, I guess,” Virgil shrugged and pushed himself off the couch, reaching on the floor for his copies of his stories. “Hey, remember Pat’s story?” Virgil asked.

“Nobody died! Who cares!” Remus groaned, flailing his arms like limp noodles.

“Exactly,” Virgil nodded at him and grabbed his arm. Remus’s eyes widened and a manic grin split out as they sank to the edge of the mind palace. Virgil created a simple room for them to work in with a big soft rug and a couch. “Okay, we’ve got less than two hours and maybe 30 minutes in one of our rooms, so we got to make it count. It’s the perfect setup for a slasher, right?”

“It is!” Remus cackled. “From grandpa? Who knew!” Remus wiggled his eyebrows and grinned in delight.

“Let’s upgrade it, then,” Virgil said, sitting down on the couch and summoning a laptop. He pressed Patton’s story on to the laptop screen and it loaded into the computer and Virgil passed it over to Remus who plopped on the couch next to him.

“I will do nothing without at least as much contact as you gave my brother,” Remus said firmly, taking the laptop but holding it off from his lap.

“You fucking dork,” Virgil rolled his eyes and leaned against Remus, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Thanks for smelling only mildly terrible,” Virgil added after a quick whiff of the air. It was vinegary and sharp, but less poop or puke smell. Not as great as strawberries but, good smells were probably a rare choice for him.

“It’s only fun if you need a shower afterword!” Remus sang and placed the laptop in his lap and started writing.

“The redhead chick has to die first, she kissed that dude remember? Slasher rule,” Virgil said while Remus began writing.

“That fuckhole who bought the wine coolers is next,” Remus said. “I’m gonna shove the empties into his intestines!” He cackled.

“God, sick,” Virgil wrinkled his nose in distaste but chuckled, anyway.

—

“D!” Virgil called out as he rose into Deceit’s room later that night. “I’ve got the coolest thing for you,” Virgil said excitedly.

“Virgil, what in the world were you thinking?” Deceit demanded, sounding annoyed.

“That you’d like it, come on, read it!” Virgil said, shoving the final story that Virgil and Remus managed to type out before the voices in the mind palace started up again or they started trying to kill each other in one of their rooms. It was quick and slapshot, but it would be funny and gruesome, nonetheless.

“Virgil, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Deceit groaned.

“And I’m talking about this slasher that Patton wrote half of,” Virgil said, tapping the paper and twisting around the back of Deceit and giving him a hug, nuzzling his neck.

“You can’t be serious,” Deceit said, looking down at the paper.

“Dead serious. Like the teens in the woods,” Virgil chuckled. That definitely got Deceit’s attention. Virgil pulled Deceit to the bed. He had already started reading as he sat down. Virgil wrapped his arms around Deceit’s waist again and nestled his face in the crook of Deceit’s neck from behind, watching him read. Deceit absentmindedly ran a hand through Virgil’s hair while he read. Virgil sighed in with contentment and closed his eyes. He hoped D would like it. He had fun writing it with Remus, at least.

personal taglist: @gdaygdaymatey @elizabutgayer

taglist repository tags:

canon divergence au: @legendsgates @rainbowbowtie @10moonymhrivertam

virgil-centric: @demoniccheese83 @thatgaydemigodnerd @arya-skywalker

hurt/comfort: @callboxkat @nonasficcollection @supernovainthenightsky

everything sanders sides: @grouptalekindnesssoul @the-hoely-bleach @anvil527up @fanficloverinthesun @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888

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