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paarthurnax59 · 9 months

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"Guarded Hearts"

Chapter 1

"The Bridges That Burn"

Summary: Left homeless and alone in Canada, you think back to the last time when you saw Dean Winchester. The time he abandoned you and broke your heart.

Pairings: (Unrequited)Dean Winchester x Reader, ??x Reader

Warnings; heavy angst, assault, violence, Dean is a Dick with a capital “D”!, homelessness, alcoholism and mentions of suicide.

Dean Winchester.

A man that you would have given your life for. A man that you would walk through hell with if he asked you to. He and his brother Sam were hunters, just like you were. You had known the Winchester when you were three years old. You fathers knew each other and would partner in hunts together. Dean was thirteen when you first met him and Sam being nine. By the time you were ten and Dean was twenty, you had developed a huge crush on the handsome hunter. He was sweet, charming, brave and kindhearted. Those traits made you fall in love with the older brother. Sadly, those feelings you had for him were not reciprocated.

You sat alone outside a bar In Alberta, Canada after being kicked out for not paying your tab, hiding right behind the building so that the bar owner would not be able to find you. Patrons entering and exiting the bar as you sat and watched. You could hear the laughter coming from the people as you pretend to not even exist. Sometimes you wished that Hell would just swallow you whole. Maybe you would be reunited with Sam. Poor Sammy. He didn’t deserve to be thrown into the pit. If you could trade places with him, you would do it in a heartbeat.

Why all these dark, self-deprecating thoughts? It all started after the last time you saw Dean Winchester. When he had ripped your heart and stomped it to the ground. When he planned on leaving you…for Her.

One year earlier…

It had been days after Sam had fallen into the pit. You walk into the motel room to watch the man that you had secretly loved for the longest time, was packing his bag. Had just gotten back from a vampire hunt, you arrived earlier than expected. Dean looked at you with a shake to his head cursed under his breath.

“Dean, what are you doing?” You asked placing your bag down onto the floor of the motel as you watched Dean’s lip twitch.

“You weren’t supposed to be back yet.” Dean grumbled as he continued to pack his clothes into his bag.

“I finished early. I had help from other hunters. Turns out they were looking for the same nest.” You explained as your brows furrowed in confusion. Bobby had sent you on a hunt for you to cope with your grief. You asked Dean if he wanted to come, but he declined, said he had some things to take care of. When you got there, some hunters had already started, but you joined with them anyway. You managed to take out the nest in a shortened amount of time. You decided to come back and surprise Dean. Dean, he didn’t look happy at your sudden return. “Dean, what’s going on?” you asked softly, growing more anxious as Dean packed his things.

“What does it look like I am doing, (Name)? I’m leaving.” Dean stated coldly as he zipped up the last of his tote and slung it over his shoulders. You could suddenly hear your heart crack

“What!? Why?!” Your voice cracked as you heard the news.

“Because I made a promise to Sam that I would leave this life, leave hunting. Go and be happy. I’m going to go live with Lisa and Ben.” Said the handsome older hunter as he turned to finally glare at you. It was so different from the look he gave you when you two were entangled in the sheets together, when his eyes were soft and full of affection. Now, his glare was stony and unfeeling. Like the time you spent sleeping together was nonexistent. Ready to leave you for a woman that he had only seen for a couple times a in his life.

“But, what if I wanted to leave too?” You asked trying hard not to sound so pathetic by asking him to stay with you.

“Then do it. I’m not stopping you.” He said as he slung his bag over his shoulder and headed to the door, not sparing you another glance. “As for me, I’m getting out of here. Have a nice life, (Name).”

“Dean, wait!” Your voice breaking as you try to get the man stay, at least long enough to hear you out. You didn’t want to give him up without a fight. He turned to you with a sneer and dropped his bag to his side.

“What for?” He snapped placed his hand to his hips, his hard gaze on you now that you stopped him from leaving you for good. Your mind went blank, words ceased to come out of your mouth as you looked at the hard-hearted hunter. You had to think of something. Anything to get him to stay.

“I…just…I don’t want you to go, Dean. We already lost so much, and I just don’t want to lose you too, Dean.” You said as you took a step closer to him. Dean remained still, his icy glare not changing for one minute. The man scoffed as he picked up his bag and walked out that door.

“You’re a grown ass woman, (Name). I don’t need to be babysitting you. I have my own life to live now. You need to get one yourself.” He said as he walked to the Impala. Your heart pounded in your chest as you saw Dean walk away from you possibly forever. You had to chance it, you had to go after him and try to get him to stay. Running as fast as your legs could carry you, you bolted to the parking lot and screamed at the top of your lungs.

“WHY HER?!” You shouted as tears came into your eyes as he stopped in his tracks before he looked at you with his emotionless stare.

“What do you mean “why her”, (Name)?” He said with his arms crossed to his chest, his back straight and his gaze didn’t falter for one minute.

“Why go to her, Dean?” Your voice began to crack, not able to hold back your emotions anymore. The man you love was about to leave you and you just can’t anymore. He had to know how much this was breaking you. “You only had one night with her and only had seen her a couple of times in the past few years. She barely has ever contacted you, Dean. You barely even know the woman and yet you want to live a normal life with her? Help her raise a kid that’s not even yours? You and I both know Ben isn’t your child.” Tears kept coming down as Dean still showed no emotion. “Why choose her? It doesn’t make any sense.” Dean stood there, and after a long agonizing minute, he sighed and chuckled. It was not the houmous kind where one would crack a joke at a bar. No, it was dark. Dark like he just wanted to just burst out laughing at you. He had a dark twinkle in his eyes as he glowered at you, as you stood there nearly sobbing.

“You really are a sad girl, (Name).” His tone became snarky and cold with a toothy grin appeared on his face. Your breath hitched as you heard the painful insult. “This is why I wanted to leave while you were away hunting vamps, sweetheart.” He paced as he ran his large hand over his sculpted chin. “I wanted to avoid you making a scene when I left. I didn’t need all this drama you are pulling right now after I had just lost my baby brother to the pit. The last thing I need is some clingy girl hanging on to me while I am trying to pick up the pieces. I’m not your handler and most certainly not your boyfriend.” He harshly jabbed at you as he walked over to you. Never in your life had Dean treated you like this. of all the years that you had known him, he was always kind and respectful to you. Over a year ago, he suggested that you would sleep together to find comfort during the painful losses that were accruing during the apocalypse. He was the only man you had slept with.

“You most certainly made it seem that why when you decided we should sleep together for almost a year!” Your tone cracked even more as tears fogged your vision and anger started to rise in your gut.

“Hold on, Princess! Let’s get something straight here! I told you before that I wanted to remain casual with the arrangement we had. You are the one that caught feelings while I was fucking you, not me! I didn’t want a relationship at the time and if I did, it most certainly would not be with you!” He barked back at you, making you gasp at his brutal confession. “Why do you think I never stayed afterwards, hmm!? How about when I refused to make love to you and never kiss you?! Why I told you to never talk about it with anyone else, including Sam and Cas? You think you were the only one I was considering going to bed with? Oh! You are sorely mistaken, sweetheart!” He mocked you with as much venom as Dean could muster. He smirked as he walked closer to you and whispered in low, nasty nature. “You know, before Jo died, I wanted to sleep with her?” His voice dripped with poison as he looked at you. “We were possibly about to die and I wanted for me and Jo to have a good time. You were the last thing that was on my mind at the time, pumpkin. In fact, you were never on my mind except when I just wanted a warm body to vent my frustrations on.”

“Stop it.” You demanded covering your ears as Dean continue to throw hurtful words at you.

“You really think we had something special, (Name)? You think I even contemplate even being with you? You are woefully mistaken, Sweetheart. If I wanted to be with you, I would have gotten on that hunt with you and not go back to Lisa. Why Would I pick a pathetic girl like you when I have a gorgeous woman waiting to take me in?” He said, now getting annoyed with you ignoring him, he forced your arms down and grabbed your chin to see your tear-stained face.

“Let me go!” You screamed as he held you roughly in the dark empty parking lot of the motel, and you try to get him out of his grasp. Why was he getting so much enjoyment tormenting you? What have you done to deserve this?

“Oh, what’s the matter, (Name)? I thought you loved me touching you. You most certainly loved it when you were under me screaming my name like the whore you are.” He chuckled, knowing that this must be hurting you to no end. “You really think you were the only one that I was seeing? The only woman that I was sleeping with? Earth to (name)! We weren’t exclusive, honey! The only reason I ever even consider sleeping with you is because you were there, (Name)! You were nothing more than a convenance for me, (Name)! I wanted to fuck you because I knew you were a virgin and that no one lease had touched you! Hell, you wouldn’t be able to get a guy like me if your life depended on it. You should be grateful that I even looked your way when no one else would.” He continued his horrible rant as you started to sob, wanting to die right there in that dark parking lot. “You want to know why I picked her over you? It’s because I love her and not you. I will never love you, (Name).” He vowed as he looked at your tear-stained face, knowing how much this was hurting you. “But I tell you what, Princess. We will have one last hurrah before I leave your fat ass behind, that way you have something to remember…” Before Dean could get one more word in, your hand had gotten free and without even thinking it, had struck Dean in the face, sending him flying backwards and rendering him speechless. He dropped you and you landed flat on the pavement, out of breath. Dean, shocked beyond words, placed his hand on his face where you had just struck him. Then looking back at you, trying to get after dropping you. Now standing tall as you could, looking down at the stunned man.

“Goodbye, Dean. Hope she was worth it.” With those last few words, you went to the hotel room, grabbed your bag and into your car.

“YOU WON’T SURVIVE ON YOUR OWN! YOU’LL BE DEAD IN A YEAR! SO GO AHEAD AND LEAVE! NO ONE NEEDS YOU!” Dean yelled at you, but for once, you decided to ignore him. His opinion didn’t matter anymore. Dean kept his eyes on you well after you pulled out of the parking lot and onto the dark winding road. You drive on down the highway as the motel finally left your rearview mirror, leaving the lone Winchester behind for good.

…..

For months, you had gone on your own. Drowning Dean's rejection with hunts and alcohol. Moving around the North American continent. You were nearly kicked out of almost every bar you had been to for fighting, drunkenness and even were arrested for the trouble you caused. You got sloppy on hunts and soon found that no one wanted to partner up with you. Seeing as you are more of a liability and get other hunters killed.

You stopped hunter all together and even kicked out of the motel you were staying at. Living in your car until a cop told you to leave. Soon enough, it was towed, and you had no money at that point to get it back. You had to resort to stealing money at times and to survive. Your life was a complete wreck, and you knew it was your fault. By opening your heart to a man as toxic as Dean Winchester, you land yourself in horrible anguish. Nothing good came from loving Dean Winchester. Nothing. He destroyed you in ways that no one had ever attempted to do before.

He’s probably at home with Lisa right now. Cuddling together on the couch, drinking a beer while watching some sitcoms. Enjoying his life and pouring all the love and attention to Lisa like how you wished he did with you. Holding her hand, taking her on dates, dancing to her favorite songs and making love to her all night long. Not a day went by when you didn’t think about how things could have been between you two. What did you do to deserve the kind of treatment that Dean threw at you? It made your heart ache with regret and self-hatred.

Now, you here you were. Freezing to death outside of the bar as you heard all the laughter and commotion going on inside. Probably all cozying up by the roaring fire and having an amazing time. All the patrons surrounded by good company and friends as they drank the night away. Not knowing that there was a homeless girl outside freezing to death. As if anyone would care.

Then you heard the door open burst open, making you flinch as you heard heavy footsteps coming down the sidewalk. As you hear the footsteps coming closer to you, you made yourself as small as possible. Afraid that it might be the bar owner, you shrunk your small shivering body and concealed yourself. You can’t get arrested again, you just can’t. The steps grew louder and then stopped suddenly. You hear someone sniff the air, like an animal sniffing out his pray. Once again, the steps continued walking away. Feeling the coast was clear, you emerge from your hiding spot and walked out of the ally. You looked both directions on the sidewalk street. The streets were practically empty, only a few bar goers and some smog rising from the dark road. Believing to be safe, you began you trek down the street until you reached a bridge. Hearing the trickling stream below, you walked over the edge to look down at the deep dark abyss that waited below your feet. You could faintly see your reflection in the water as it steams down the river. You don’t know how deep it was but you learned from the locals that it was deep enough. deep enough for a body to be buried under the surface. You leaned over and stared at your reflection; a thousand thoughts echoed in your head. One was louder than the rest, and it was saying things that no human should ever have to hear.

‘Go on. Jump. No one will miss you.’ The voice in your head taunting you, trying to manipulate you to. Apparently, you really been drinking too much alcohol. ‘No one loves you. Dean already proved that to you when you left. Your friends left you. what’s the point?” Hissed the voice as you gripped both hands on the stone guardrail. Your eyes tared up as you stared back down in the deep river, your heart rate increased immensely. Feeling like you can’t breathe and you the only thing in your mind was the voice telling you to end it. ‘That’s it. Jump and the whole world can forget about you. Just like Dean had forgotten about you.’ You were about to lift yourself up with a much strength as your limp body can muster, when you heard whistling. You quickly turned and saw three large men whom you recognize.

“Hey, girly. We’ve been looking all over for ya!” Said the man who you learned was Dave. A tall blond haired skinny man with an unfortunate looking face. The two other men where one both men, all around the same height. One guy had dark hair peeking out of his winter hat and a few missing teeth. The other was a man with darker skin tone with a bald head. You recognize these men and immediately stepped back far enough.

“Don’t come any closer! I’ll jump!”

“Oh, you’ll jump, alright. It’s just we got to get something back from you. This the American girl you were talking about, Mikey?” Said the front man as he looked to his friend, a man that you knew very well.

“Oi, that’s her alright. She hustled me about of 70 dollars last week.” Said the dark-haired man, growled as he looked down at your shaking, drunken state. Then the three of them stalked toward you. You tried to bolt away from them, but they were too quick and managed to grab you. They roughed you up by shoving you in the concert railing and started searching your clothes. Kicking and screaming, you fought off the three men as hard as you could.

“Stop! Stop it!!! HELP!!! SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEASE!!!” You screamed as loud as you could before you were hit in the face by one of the men as they searched you. Blood started to drip from your mouth as the men continued to search you. You cried and begged as they even went as far as trying to get into your underwear. Never had you ever felt so violated in that moment. You just wanted to die.

“It’s not here, Joe! She must have used it to buy all that booze. Filthy little yank must have used it to buy the booze. Look how drunk she is!” The man you know as Mikey shook you as you continued to cry.

“You little shit! you need to go back to the States where you belong. No one wants you here! Oh wait! I am betting the blokes in your country didn’t even want you!” He yelled as he dropped you onto the concert road. “And I can see why. You nothing but a useless drunk. A drain on society. Bet no one cares that you are gone wherever you are from.” He mocked while the other two men laughed. You curled yourself up to try to guard yourself from the horrible assault.

“What should we do with her, then?” growled one man as he looked down at your quivering form.

“I’d say we have a bit of fun. There is more than one-way to get your money back, Mike.” The man snickered as he went closer to you and was about to grab you, embracing for whatever torture they were going to put you through, until a voice came that made them all halt their assault on you.

“Let her go.”

.....

Thanks so much for Reading! I'm sorry for always making Dean look like dick in my stories, but he's just too perfect for it!

will try to post chapter 2! Please like, reblog and comment! thank you so much for reading!

#dean winchester #supernatural #angst #dean winchester angst #unrequited love #unrealism #heartbreak #dickdean

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undercoverpan · 11 months

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Family reunion

Jake Sully dreams of many things. He dreams of Toruk, he dreams of Grace, he dreams of life before Neytiri.

In his dreams, he's surrounded by his family. His mom and dad, his aunt and uncle, their children, his brother, his own daughters. Things changed when he died. The family's pride and joy, the one that went to college. It was exhausting, being looked over for his brother, but he lived with it.

He had a girlfriend, but she left. Pretty sure she left for Canada, but he never got any confirmation. He supposed now, in an entirely different body, with a different life in a different world, it doesn't really matter, merely a light sting and some unanswered questions. It didn't weigh on him so heavily anymore. His children, he'd miss them. It felt like they were his only certainty in life, people he could still protect, legs be damned. But they were in the care of his parents, so he's sure they're safe.

As safe as you can be on earth, he supposed.

Still, he missed them. The guilt of essentially abandoning them without so much as a goodbye weighs on him heavily, like a chain around his neck. And even worse, he never told anyone. Everyone thinks he's some noble hero who decided to betray humanity once he could finally See. He's pretty sure he's experiencing imposter syndrome, unfortunately. He definitely deserves it.

He can't help but wonder where they are now.

–------

In the forest, cradled by steril white walls and metal machines, a man awoke. All around him, blurry faces came into view. There was a bright light, akin to a blazing sun in his vision. He reached his hand out, blue skin foreign and familiar all at once. Slowly, he felt the rest of his body–, wiggling his toes and blinking his eyes. He could hear the low thrum of his heartbeat in his ears, like the rhythm of a mighty drum. What is–, where–, who—,

Desperately, he took his first breath since he opened his eyes. His lungs felt like they were on fire, reinflating themselves with air. Unwillingly, tears pricked his eyes, a shuddering breath escaping his gritted teeth, like some kind of failed sob.

"Tommy? Tommy, are you with us?"

The voice sounded curious. It was so strange, how loud it sounded. He had the feeling that voices didn't sound like this before. Looking around, he was engulfed in white–, white gloves, white coats, white walls.

"Tommy Sully, can you give us confirmation that you are awake right now?" They asked, "Say something."

And then suddenly, colour didn't matter. He was breathing! He was alive! The euphoria of breathing, of finally having oxygen in his system was starting to kick in. He was light headed, but in a good way! He felt like he could reach up and touch the ceiling, hell, like he could reach up and touch the stars while laying down. He took another deep breath, before he started giggling. He faced the doctor with a shit-eating grin.

"Something."

–--------

"We're so glad you took up on our offer, Miss Sully." A man from behind a desk spoke, but silenced as the young woman before him spoke. "I will not be referred to by that name." Her voice was cold and unwavering, matched only by her steely gaze. "Of course, Miss Mel. I trust you don't need to be briefed about your mission?"

Dahlia Mel, otherwise known as Lillian Sully, was a cold woman. On the taller side of women in her family, she stood at a mighty 5'4 ft. Half her face bore a burn, singing away her eyebrows and lashes. The flesh on her cheek had melted away, revealing the gums and teeth that lined her mouth. Her hair was brown and hung limply, cut a bit below her chin. Her eyes were a brown shade, dark and lifeless. She was lithe, with endless scars littering across her body.

She wore a black tank top and plants, the cloth hugging her body. Her posture was rigid and straight, and her expression was kept blank.

"You'll meet the rest of your squad soon. But first, you'll be speaking to our main asset, the researcher." She nodded.

–-----

She was looking at her fathers face, his new one. Or–, his real face, depending on who you ask. Blue skin splotched with white, reminiscent of stars. Blue stripes lined his body, the same way they did for every Omaticaya. His hair was buzzed short, with only a long braid behind him. His eyes were wide and yellow, glinting even without any light.

"That's Tommy Sully, our most important researcher. Your assignment is to protect him." He spoke clearly, as if hearing those words weren't like getting hit by a semi. Tommy. Tommy, her dead uncle. Her uncle who is dead. Dead Tommy. That Tommy? The dead uncle? That one?

Her incredulousness apparently made it to her face, as the man laughed. "Get acquainted with him. You'll be spending a lot of time together."

–------

The room stilled as she entered. Brown hair and brown eyes, round cheeeeeks----cheek. Why was she missing a cheek? Where is her eyebrow?

"Uncle?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper, like speaking his name alone would cause him to disappear. "Lily?" He asked back, just as unsure. "What're you doing here?" He continued, pushing himself off the table. "I work here now," she responded, "What're you doing here?" He paused as he approached her. "I also work here."

She shook her head. "No, I mean what're you doing here. How are you here?" Her voice cracked at the end. Slowly, he took a knee, even leaning down towards her so they'd be on eye level. "Remember how I told you and your sister that one day I would come back as a zombie and eat your brains?" She shuddered, but otherwise stayed silent. "Well, I wasn't joking. I'm basically a zombie in a na'vi body. Except I don't eat brains." He explained. "At least, not yet."

She smiled at that. Her eyes were glossy, and her bottom lip wobbled just slightly. Gently, he pulled her towards him, wrapping his now enormous arms (was he made with muscle?) Around her. She buried her face into her shoulder, sobs seeming to wrack her frame. Even though she was an adult now, she felt just like a little girl in his arms.

"Hey," he said softly, "It's okay, it's okay. I'm here now." He rubbed soft circles into her back, not particularly knowing what to do. "Not goin' anywhere, Bumblebee. I promise." She was Bumblebee, and her sister was Ladybug. They were his 2 favourite bugs when he was learning about insect species on earth. He named his 2 favourite girls after them as well.

"I missed you." She said through her tears, pulling away from him. With warm hands, he wiped them away. "Missed you too. Heaven was pretty boring, really needed someone trying to bite my ankles all the time." That managed to get a laugh out of her. "Yeah right. I think being on fire and getting poked with a pitchfork was enough." He gasped dramatically.

"We should go. You have your research to get back to," she said, "and I have to make sure you don't die while doing it." He laughed as he pinched her cheek, pulling lightly. "Aww, are you my bodyguard now?" He asked teasingly. "What about the others? Are they here?" He asked curiously, a light smile on his face.

Said smile disappeared quite soon at her reaction. She was stiff and rigid, and all of a sudden she couldn't look him in the eye. "Lils?" He asked. With a shuddering breath, she turned her sad gaze towards him. "I–," she seemed to struggle with herself, debating, before relenting, "I think you should sit down, please."

With trudging steps, he sat down on the table he awoke on. Lily took a deep breath, taking his hands into her own and wrapping hers around them, as if trying to shield them. "They're……They're gone. Forever." She swallowed hard, keeping her eyes trained on him. He didn't understand. Gone? Gone, as in they're on another planet? Gone as in…..permanent gone?

"It was so long ago. These people, they broke into our house and they…" she shuddered, squeezing his hand. "I was the only one who escaped. That's why I look like this now." She gestured towards her face.

The words didn't compute. People broke in? Why? His family didn't have any money or valuables. Sure they lived in a dangerous neighbourhood, but these days, everywhere was dangerous! So why–, why? Why his family? Why, when he just gets back, are they gone? This wasn't fair, it didn't make sense.

"Why?" He managed, the words slipping out in a pained whisper. She flinched slightly. "Jake did some things on Pandora. I guess it was about revenge." She answered, and though sad, she sounded sure of herself. However, Jake? What would Jake be doing on Pandora? Is he still here? Was he spared from whatever their family went through? Did he look after Lily?

"I–, I don't understand," he whispered, squeezing her hand right back, "What's Jake doing here? Why didn't he also come? What did he do?" Questions rattled off his tongue. For the first time since he's been alive in this body, he feels like he can't breathe. It doesn't feel real, not at all. His family couldn't be dead. It couldn't be Jake's fault. It couldn't, it couldn't, it couldn't!

"Jake went to Pandora after you died. Something about an avatar. I don't really know what happened, but he started a war with the RDA and made them leave. He's kind of their leader now."

That left him with more questions. Jake started a war? Did he join the Omaticaya? How? They were a pretty exclusive people, as far as letting outsiders known for their murderous intent into their clan goes. Last he heard, Dr Grace, even with the whole school thing, could barely make relations smoother. Speaking of her, where is she? She wasn't part of the recom program, but she was part of avatar. Her body would be the most heavily protected out of all of them due to her being the head researcher and the only one making major progress with the Na'vi.

"Maybe you should lie down. No one's expecting you to do anything after you just got…remade?" She suggested, though sounded unsure of the last bit. Following her advice, he pressed his back against the table. He closed his eyes because God, do bright lights burn. The room remained silent for a while.

"So I guess that since today is your first day in this body," she said as she leaned over to look at him. "Today's your literal birth day. Does that make me older?" She broke the silence, and Tommy offered her a tired smile and a flick to the forehead. "No, today is my rebirth day. Still older." She pouted. "Think about this logically. You were born today–", he cuts her off, "I existed before today so I wasn't actually–"

–-------

Jake Sully looked over the horizon. The forest was a vast expanse of green beneath the sky, slowly coming to life as the slumbering creatures awoke. The sky was a pale blue as Alpha Centauri made her appearance. The night sky gave way to a beautiful, peaceful early morning. At times like these, he was thankful to wake up so early.

"Ma Jake?" Whispered Neytiri from behind him. "What are you thinking of?" She asked, wrapping her slender arms around his waist and placing her head on his shoulder. "Nothing, really," He responded, "I just have a weird feeling about today."

_____

Yes hiiii this my daughter oc she's very mentally stable and is taking care of the daddy issues allegations just fine.

Also Tommy Sully!! Because we don't talk abt him enough. He's basically the dead-wife-trope of the fandom, just generally forgotten abt, but because I love the version of him in my head, he's in this fic!! Pls love him

#avatar twow #jake sully #avatar oc #avatar fanfiction #daughter and father #tommy sully #sully family

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topazy · 1 year

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Inside, outside

Pairing: 10k x reader, Addy Carver x sister reader

Warnings: Swearing, Z deaths

Chapter: 4.08

A sigh passes your lips while studying 10k’s emotionless facial expression as he listens to Doc and Sarge sing a song about getting high on weed. It made you sad because a couple of years ago he would have joined in, but now? Not many things seemed to make him laugh or smile the way he used to.

“Here we are, officially in cannabis country,” Sarge says once she stops singing.

Murphy exchanges an unimpressed glance with you before shaking his head. “Oh, my god. Oh, those aren’t pot leaves, dear. They’re maple leaves. Those are Canadian flags.”

A look of confusion crosses her face. “Oh, Canada. I thought it would be... different.”

“The zombie apocalypse definitely takes the charm out of the place,” you smile, thinking of the last time you were in Canada. “It’s usually cleaner.”

Murphy snorted at your sarcastic tone. The Canadian border looked as if someone had emptied a skip full of trash onto it. Despite the mess, the place seemed oddly quiet.

“You’ve been here before?” Sarge asks, sounding genuinely curious.

“My grandmother lived in Toronto. We used to fly out and see her.” You turn back to address the rest of your group, “How far away do you think we are now?”

“Newmerica is probably less than two days' drive now,” Doc confirms.

The same night your group almost killed Zuggalo’s Warren, you decided that it was time to head to Newmerica before anyone else died. She blamed herself for Lucy’s death. You tried to tell her it wasn’t, but she wasn’t ready to hear that just yet.

“Barring any unforeseen zombie action. Saying that, we haven’t seen any dead for a couple of days now.”

You elbow Sarge in the arm and frown, “Don’t say things like that. You’ll jinx us.”

Doc looks over to Warren and says, “What do you say, Chief? Are we doing this?”

Murphy butts in before Warren has the chance to reply, “She’s not that chief anymore; she said so herself.”

“Shut up, Murphy.”

Warren glances at Murphy; the pain in her eyes is obvious. She clears her throat and answers, “We were doing this.”

10k comes up behind you and rests his head on your shoulder. “This kind of seems too good to be true.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, kid,” Doc says. “I remember when Newmerica used to be California.”

Murphy gives the older man a death stare. “Yeah, well, I’m back to believing in nobody but myself. I'm still alive, and I keep going.”

“You’re like a cockroach that way.”

You roll your eyes at the faint snarling sound that is getting closer. You turn your head and kiss 10k on the cheek before pulling your knife from its sheath. You step into view of a pathway leading onto a forest walk and throw your knife. It lands on the head of a Z. You reach for your gun to shoot the one beside it, but Doc shoots it in the head.

“More is coming in from all sides!” 10k announces before firing to his right.

It became clear that a lot of the people who worked at the park’s information center had never left.

—

Before being outnumbered by a large horde, Doc led you all into a church to take shelter.

Catching your breath, you slumped against the wall. The only sounds you could hear were your own heartbeat and zombies trying to break in. Once your breathing had normalized, you started to walk further into the church but froze when you heard what sounded like an animal giggling.

“What’s-”

You spin around fast and press your finger to your lips before pointing upwards towards the staircase. You let Sarge and Warren overtake you so they could lead the way. Truthfully, you were glad; you didn’t want to be anywhere. You followed in silence until you reached the top of the staircase, where a small horde of zombified nuns were gathered.

“Oh shit.”

“Zombie mother of god.”

You never enjoyed killing Zs, but killing in a church turned your stomach. You had to remind yourself that showing them mercy was the kindest thing you could do.

—

You raise your brows while watching as Murphy takes a drink of holy water, then splashes it on his face while Doc freaks out about being in a church. He said it was giving him flashbacks to the Catholic school he went to. “We’re already in hell, Doc,” Murphy says harshly. “We can only go up from here.”

“Hmm, you can only go up if you stop lying,” you say quietly.

“Pfft,” he scoffs. “I’ve lied about nothing. Not today anyway.”

“You keep blathering about only caring and believing in yourself, again like you used to. Just admit it.” You say it in a slightly teasing tone.

“Admit what?” He snaps.

“You’ve always cared about us.”

“Nonsense! I hate you all.”

10k stifles a laugh. His eye met yours, and a brief smile crept onto his face before Murphy sulked off to the other side of the room. For a moment, you see the sweet boy you first met. Your heart ached at the memory of how happy he once was and how much light radiated from him even when the world was in darkness.

You reach your hand out for his, and 10k links his fingers with yours with a grin on his face. He blows on a few dark locks that fall in front of his face, “You really need a haircut.”

“I’ll cut yours if you cut mine,” he jokes playfully as he pulls on the end of your hair.

You turn your attention to Warren, who looks deflated. “We’ve got Zs on one side of the building, and now we’ve got mad Zs on the other side.”

This was bad. All the food and water were left in the van outside, and now Warren was sharing that she didn’t know what her dreams—the dreams that had caused you to follow her instead of heading straight to Newmerica meant nothing.

“Only if we could see inside your head.”

“He could do it,” 10k says. “Murphy’s pretty good at getting inside people’s heads.”

The room suddenly becomes more intense, and you try your best to ignore it and look directly at Murphy. “Warren’s got your blood in her; could it work?”

He shrugs, “she did…”

“Worth a shot, isn’t it?”

Reluctantly, he agrees, “Fine, but if this goes wrong, I’m not getting the blame.”

—

You are staring up at a stained glass window admiring it when you feel a hand resting on your hip. “What are you staring at?”

“The colorful window. I always thought churches had a special type of beauty to them.”

10k looks surprised. “I wish I could take a look inside your head sometimes.”

“You wouldn’t find much.”

“I’m being serious,” he says, tightening his grip. “You find beauty in most places. I wish I could.”

Both of you turn to face the door closest to you, as it opens slightly at the bottom before jamming. Fuck. The wooden panels weren’t going to hold for much longer. You rush to find anything heavy to place in front of the door.

You notice Sarge and Doc going in the opposite direction. 10k goes after them, “I’ll check it out.”

You struggled to push some smaller wooden furniture in front of the door that covered the bottom half of it. Luckily, there were still some nails and hammers in an abandoned toolbox. You're about to start hammering a nail into a panel when the church bells start to ring.

At first, you thought it was an accident, but when the ringing didn’t stop, you knew someone was trying to attract the dead. You follow the noise and reach the end of a hallway just as 10k, Sarge, and Doc burst open a door, and Doc tackles the person ringing the bells to the ground.

You look down at the staircase when you hear a loud crash. “The Z’s have gotten through!”

You rush down the staircase and see Warren and Murphy fighting off the Zs that have gotten through. You use the hammer to show mercy, just as Sarge and 10k come to join you.

Sarge manages to hold Z's back with her machine gun while the rest of you block off the hole in the wall. When it was safer, Doc brought the bell ringer down to be questioned.

He revealed his name was Louis, and he had a bag full of different religious icons that he’d taken from dead bodies. You didn’t know if Louis was crazy or on drugs since he was talking in riddles until he was pressed into making sense by Sarge pointing a gun at his head. “Have any of you ever heard of Saint Teresa of Aurea?”

You nod. “They say her touch could heal the sick.” You sigh and kneel in front of him and start to untie the ropes binding him to the chair. “You do whatever you want, aside from getting us killed.”

“I’m sorry about that... I just didn’t know who you were, where you were, or what you wanted. I thought you would have heard the bells and run. I didn’t know so many Z’s would come.”

“Well, we are now screwed,” Warren announces. “We are completely surrounded with no way out, and those doors aren’t going to hold forever.”

Louis sits forward and says, “I know a way out.”

—

You’d done a lot of stupid things during the apocalypse, but escaping a church full of zombies into a crypt had to have been one of the most stupid yet. All it would take is one Z to let loose, and all hell would break out.

10k takes all his frustration out on the brick wall that was blocking the exit with Louis' ax.

“Hand me that; I’m opening the tomb for Louis.” Warren says sternly.

You felt sorry for Louis; he was clinging to his faith that the saint could somehow save the world. Not long after you’d entered the crypt, he found her tomb, but you went on ahead, not wanting to see what was inside.

You cross your arms over and lean back against the wall. Sarge leans beside you. “You look lost in thought. Care to share with the class?”

“I just thought that since everyone turns when they die, everyone inside the tombs would have turned us well.”

The second the words slip from your lips, you hear a commotion coming from where the tomb is. The saint inside the tomb had officially turned.

—

After finding nothing useful inside the saint's tomb, 10k managed to knock more of the wall down to find out there were metal bars on the other side preventing anyone from leaving.

“You guys hear that? The bells are ringing again.”

“Do you think it’s a trap?” You ask.

“There's only one way to find out,” Warren says before leading the way back to the church.

You were relieved to see the bell was only ringing because two zombies got caught up in the ropes when you climbed back into the church. Your group took the opportunity to leave.

Warren abruptly stops walking when she spots the body of a little girl who had been shown mercy, holding onto a golden hand. Louis said it was the relic he’d been looking for. The young girl had a strong resemblance to Lucy, which made escaping feel like an actual miracle.

—

Once outside, Warren handed the golden relic in the shape of a hand to Louis. On his return, he handed over a large battery to Sarge.

Back at the vehicle, you used the battery to turn on the transmitter. The signal was strong enough to hear Kaya's citizen Z partner, but she couldn’t hear you.

“What now?”

Warren clicks her tongue and says, “We go back to America.”

#z nation #10k x reader #10k x you #z nation 10k #z nation fanfiction #doc z nation #10k z nation #z nation warren #murphy z nation #z nation fandom #inside outisde #10k/you #10k/reader

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metalcursed · 5 months

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maybe i love you. @spiritdreamt

he was lying underneath her bed, head sticking out like some nightmare vision of a metalhead in a music video featured on mtv. her house was quiet like it always was when they were brave enough to speak in hushed voices. he could have pretended not to hear. his eyes were already closed and his hands laid relaxed across his stomach in a vampiric-esque repose. eddie could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and he was sure she could see his chest heaving at this quickened breathing. no one ever said that to him before. no one who wasn't related to him. no who didn't know him before the ripped denim, band buttons, and wild shaggy hair.

eddie's eyes slipped open, finding her silhouette in the dimly lit room. a breathy chuckle permeated from the darkness beneath her bed. "you're still considering it, then?" maybe she loved him. he always knew she was a smart girl. "let's lay it out, as my math teacher would say. figure it up and see what we're left with... i'm an innocent criminal on the run for murder. i'm presently hiding under your bed like the COWARD i am. before that, i was the town freak too stupid to graduate high school. my future prospects include," he fished his hands out from under the bed to count on his fingers. "jail, refuge in canada or mexico, and being found out by your guardians who will then call the cops which brings us back to jail as an option." laughter bubbled up again to be interrupted by a sigh. "love the beatles, perce. don't love me."

#spiritdreamt

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penisunbelievable · 2 years

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A Cat Named Fish

Analyn Potts successfully stifled her scream upon coming to the top of the stairs, but she did not manage to keep from dropping her laundry basket as her hands flew up to cover her mouth. When the basket hit the ground with a crack, the white man she’d seen laying on her couch with one of her cats on his chest lifted his head to look at her, and she doubled over in relief.

“Oh! Mischa, honey, you scared me,” she laughed, crouching down to put the fallen clothes back into the laundry basket.

“Sorry, Mrs Potts.” Mischa gave her a small smile before returning to petting the purring cat. “Did not know you were home.”

“I had an appointment with the dentist, so I took the day off.”

She stood, balancing the basket on her hip, and looked again at Mischa. He knew right then that she would ask but he still hoped she wouldn’t.

“Why aren’t you at school, honey?”

He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes for a moment, then scratched the cat behind the ears until she purred loud enough to drown out the sound of his heartbeat.

“Got angry,” he said, still only looking at the cat. “Penny said, go home. Calm down, then come back. I cannot get calm at home, so Ricky said go to his home. I pet cat, I calm down. But if I go back to school now,” he looked at the non-existent watch on his wrist, “I get back to class, then twenty minutes later, bell rings and I walk ten minutes back here for movie night because is Friday. So I stay.”

Mischa had gotten better at discerning pity from concern since he’d first landed in Canada. When he looked up, Analyn had crossed the living room and put her basket down onto the coffee table, smiling at him kindly, almost maternally. Giving him time to move away, she extended her arm to ruffle his hair, but he only closed his eyes and sighed.

“You shouldn’t skip school, but it was good of you to step away from the situation that made you angry,” she told him, pretending not to notice his breath hitching. “I would offer you a hug, but we wouldn’t want to disturb Fish, would we?”

Mischa opened his now-red eyes and sniffed, looking from the cat to Analyn and back again. “You named her Fish?”

Reaching out to pet the grey cat, Analyn hummed. “Well- Fisher, but we call her Fish.”

Fish blinked open her eyes at hearing the sound of her name so many times. She stood and stretched, putting pressure on Mischa’s heart, then lay back down on her other side as he spoke.

“In my head, I call her тріска,” he said quietly. “That’s codfish. Because she has colour like codfish.”

Analyn smiled and smoothed his hair as she stood. “I like it.”

She took the laundry basket off of the table and turned to go to Ricky’s bedroom. Mischa stayed still, dropping his head back down and running his finger under тріска’s collar. A few moments passed in silence before Analyn poked her head around the corner.

“Mischa,” she started.

“Mhm,” he hummed, talking having become so much effort in the few minutes he’d been alone.

“Whenever you feel angry or need to calm down, you can always come here. Our guest room is always there for you, too. Okay?”

Turning his head, Mischa briefly saw his mother’s face instead of Mrs Potts. He swallowed. “Thank you. I will.”

Smiling, Analyn nodded with satisfaction and walked to the kitchen, preheating the oven and getting ready to make cookies for Ricky’s movie night.

#ride the cyclone #mischa bachinski #check it out on ao3 @planetjupiter to see some bonus facts abt analyn potts #lensflare

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mxromanoitaly · 2 years

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✰ "in space, no one can hear you scream" ✰

hetaween—day one

"Space is a sheer and horrifying blackhole—gloomy, terrifying, finality. The deeper away from Earth’s gravitational influence, the darker and yet darker it grows."

CW: Death, Character Death, Mentions of Death, Murder, Mentions of Murder, Blood, Descriptions of Blood, Vomit, Descriptions of Vomit, Angst, No Romance, No Relationship, Use of Human Names, Reader-Insert, Gender-Neutral Reader.

Word Count: 3k

Rating: Explicit for Blood and Death

Event: @hetaween-event-2022

There’s absolutely nothing around for miles except for the desolate and deserted blackness that stares back with a wide gape through the long, horizontal front window of the ship. There are stars that glitter like spilled sparklers far off in the distance, but they offer no solace to the dawning terror of the emptiness. There are no suns, no moons, no planets in sight. There are maybe some stray rocks scattered haphazardly through the blankness, but they are nothing but hidden debris lost to the ages of time. The blackness swallows all.

Space is a sheer and horrifying blackhole—gloomy, terrifying, finality. The deeper away from Earth’s gravitational influence, the darker and yet darker it grows. Nothing could survive out here, realistically, it was just too cold and spacey. The ship moans quietly.

You try not to think about it too hard whenever you cast your eyes downward towards the heavy clipboard in your grasp.

There are lots of papers present, all written in multiple different languages. It is your duty—and your sole one—after all, to translate these pages for the other crew members of the ship so that any possible mishaps and misconceptions don’t accidentally get misconstrued. You keep things running smoothly. Any possible examinations, interpretations, and opinions are kept word for word, and the other crew members stay happy little campers.

That’s why you’re currently on the other side of hyperspace’s boundaries, surrounded by nothing but cold aerospace-grade aluminum metal and the humming electricity from the ship’s engines and transmissions.

This mission is meant to test the atmosphere and the theoretical liveability of other organisms, to run a physical experiment about the bodily and mental effects of living in such a sunless place for a prolonged amount of time. That’s also why there’s so many different people from so many different countries currently tucked aboard. America, Canada, China, England, France, and Russia—all smart people who are too smart to be on planet Earth for a second longer and your only talent is that you happen to speak all of the differing languages. Anyone would be elated to be a part of such an important mission to their fellow man, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows whenever you see the other crew members skirt around in the docking range or whenever they go into the main awning to handle exploding stray asteroids orbiting in close contact. It feels sobering, remorseful somehow.

You sometimes feel like you just aren’t clever enough to really fit in, but the crew seems to accept you into their little clique anyway. You’re thankful for it, lest you accidentally lose yourself to the forlorn openness of this austere ship.

Really, it just feels so unreal.

You glance up at the front window and lose yourself to deep space once again.

A tap on your shoulders jolts you from your senses and you gasp.

“Woah! Woah, sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to startle you. Sometimes my presence can be a little intimidating, so… I’ll just take a step back.”

Alfred F. Jones, the American on board that should currently be buried by wires and motors as he performs a daily checkup, is currently lamely grinning at you whenever you pivot around. Your heartbeat is a mile a minute in your ears and you swear your blood is rushing all the way to your skull whenever you look at him and his pretty sky blue eyes.

“It’s fine,” it’s not really, but you don’t say that because it sounds rude. “I’ll be okay. Did you need something?”

Alfred laughs one of his boisterous and cheerful laughs. One that, if you weren’t forced to be in his sometimes overbearing presence, would make you feel all warm in the face and you wouldn’t be able to help yourself if you happened to giggle along. He then rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Aw, c’mon, can’t a guy just come chat up our very cool—but not as cool as me—person that keeps the others from imploding whenever they talk?” Alfred rocks on the balls of his feet and you realize that his uniform looks darker than usual.

The jumper suits are meant to be black, with patches that signify rank, field of work, and country of origin. The patches rest on the left breast area, just a little underneath the collarbone. You know Alfred. He’s one of the mechanics that constantly runs diagnositic tests on the ship, while also being a part-time pilot. If it weren’t for him, your crew would go shucking off into oblivion. But… but there’s something wrong with one of Alfred’s work patches:

a speck of deep maroon.

Your brows furrow as you regard such an odd thing, but you don’t comment on it just in case it stems from a place of contempt. One of the others could be behind it, or maybe Alfred accidentally stained his uniform. There wasn’t really any bleach in space now, was there? Might as well not bring it to light if it’s not necessary for the mission. His suit is wet, though. Why is his suit wet?

“You know very well that you need something, Mr. Jones.” your voice is barely above a deadpan. Alfred notices your tone and winces away with a goofy smile and another laugh that seems to really splinter in your ears. His upper body tilts away from you as he shrugs.

“You’ve got me there, bro.” another bout of laughter that feels just a little too strained now that you really think about it for a second too long, “I really just wanted to come talk to you.”

You sigh, but it’s not like you’re in that big of a pinch. The only thing you had planned for the next hour was to organize these papers full of reports, essays about stars, and mathematics and science that give you calculations and hypotheses that completely go over your head. You’re supposed to put them in folders that belong to their respective owner, then hand the folder back to them. You’ve finished with the British man, Arthur Kirkland, but you still have about five more folders left to do. If all Alfred wants to do is chat awkwardly, you might have to pass. Something doesn’t feel natural about this, either.

A shake of your head causes Alfred’s whole body to fall.

you don’t like that twinkle in his eyes.

“Sorry, Mr. Jones, but I’m a little busy.” You wave the clipboard around a few times. “See this? I’ve still got to do Francis’ latest controversial opinion about ‘the temperature of two contrasting stars’, since his papers seem the easiest to translate right now. Don’t even get me started on Matthew’s maths! You know, you guys could speak in simpler terms whenever you write these essays. It would make my job a whole lot easier.”

You halfheartedly chastise the empty expression leering down at you, but it’s all meant to be good fun to lighten the weird mood settled in the atmosphere between the both of you. Alfred apparently finds the humor in it and that grin on his face seems to curl just a little more to the left. He gestures with a wide sweep of his arms as he speaks. There’s something about his face.

“If we wrote like that, then just about anybody could do our jobs! But we’re way too good to do that. We need our big vocabulary.”

Annnnd just like that, you can’t help but finally crack a genuine smile. But it feels off. It feels so forced that you feel saliva collect atop your tongue in a dull weight.

“Sure, sure, I get it.” You shake your head softly, a nervous feeling tickling right about your stomach that feels like a flock of birds flying in a dispersed vee. “Normal people don’t need to understand.”

Alfred nods once boldly, still emotionless, then gives you a thumbs-up, “Right-o, broski!”

Another chuckle slips past your lips as you glance down at your feet before you shuffle the toes of your pointed shoes around a little bit to let some of the tension clear up. It feels tense. Like something’s not right. Laughing with him like this, it feels like Alfred’s being purposefully too upbeat and you can tell. You’re not usually with the group of men often, but you’ve been around them quite a few times to know that Alfred’s usually full of more snark and sarcasm than this. If you had to guess, you’d say Alfred was being purposefully agreeable with you—almost like he was trying to lull you into submission, to draw you in with a gentle lullaby. It’s so uncomfortable that your shoulders shrink inwards a little and you play with your feet again.

“Right, well, then I should go ahead and start doing these now. Once I send these back digitally to base, I’ll need to give out translated copies—you know the shtick by now.” You say as a hint for him to depart before your hand stretches forward and starts leafing through the sheets stacked up, but you stop dead in your tracks whenever Alfred says one last thing.

“Nah, there’s not really a point for that anymore.”

He said that as if he didn’t want you to leave.

Your brows furrowed hard and you cock your head to level Alfred up. His uniform still hasn’t dried. Is it water? What is that droplet on his patch? What did he do to even get himself in such a mess?

“Unlike you,” there’s an air of buoyancy in your voice as you speak, light and carefree, “I work seventeen hours out of the day. It must be nice to put the ship on auto-pilot and just occasionally check the motherboard.”

Alfred stares at you for a long time, a really long time. It almost feels like he’s sizing you up, like he was staring down at his momma’s pie and figuring out how he was gonna cut the pie to get the biggest serving of that gooey goodness. You shudder, but you cover it up by readjusting your lab coat and tightening your grasp on the clipboard.

Then,

“Haha, yeah, you’re right. Sorry about that, dude.”

And then Alfred steps out of your way to let you through. You thank him by curtly nodding your head and mouthing the words as you walk on by, head focused on the ground and eyes wide as saucers as you go past. Once you’re halfway there, you mindlessly lift up one hand to pat his chest in a friendly gesture. Raise, move, pat pat—-stop.

His uniform is still wet. You forgot about that. What you just touched was whatever was on his jumpers. That’s all that was. But whenever you withdraw your hand, the vitriol scent of iron fills your nostrils and you distinctly taste copper in the back of your mouth. You gape a little, floundering like a fish out of water, and you stumble away in confusion. The scents die away by a fraction, but the memory lingers and you just have to look at Alfred again.

He’s still watching you with that regarding smile.

You clamber a few more steps back and your hand slips off of Alfred’s chest. Whenever your arm falls limp to your side, you splutter for another fleeting second as you hastily bring your hand to your face to examine it. There! There there there! On your hand, right there!

Blood

It’s everywhere! It’s all over you. It’s dripping down and it stains your palm and it smells so bad, you can’t help but gag as the world goes a little loopy around you and you feel so dizzy like you can’t quite comprehend why the fuck there was blood on Alfred’s uniform. Spin and spin. You try to find your balance as you look up at Alfred with shaky limbs and fuzzy eyes. There’s tears in your eyes. You’re crying!

Alfred just smiles vigorously.

“I should have probably warned you about that, too, sorry. At least the cat’s out of the bag now, huh?” Alfred has this shit-eating grin plastered across his face and you don’t fucking understand why the hell he’s looking at you like that. What’s so funny? What did Alfred do?

“What cat? Alfred, don’t you speak in idioms whenever there’s fucking blood on my hand from your jumper. Be serious! What in the hell is this?”

Alfred puts both of his hands in his pockets slowly and cat-like, almost as if he were teasing you about how erratic and blown-out you sound. There’s a hint of delirium to your voice, but you can’t really help it whenever you flex your hand and then the blood there glimmers beneath the glossy light of the ship. You gag again and throw your hand away from your face so that you don’t have to look it in the eye anymore. The world feels like it’s rocking side to side, and then you realize that that’s your body that’s swaying in the breeze of the ship’s coolant.

“It’s simple,” Alfred nods. “That’s the blood from Ivan. You know, that one Russian guy? Yeah. He’s dead now.”

It feels like the floor gives out beneath you whenever you hear that. The image of Ivan flashes in your mind, tall and hunking and bulky and how the hell did you manage to kill someone so sweet? Your body feels lighter than a feather. It feels like you’re walking on tons of clouds, but those clouds are sinking beneath you and your feet are dipping into quicksand that seems to want you, need you. It seems so surreal and you feel bile in your throat as you pinch in the middle before barreling forward to vomit. Hot steam and fluid spat from your mouth makes a nice squelch on the ground as you empty the contents of your anxious stomach. You gag and gurgle and you feel so terribly small compared to Alfred now. The same Alfred that lets you get sick against his work boots.

Then, whenever your chest heaves a few more times and you’ve managed to catch your breath again, you’re able to say through the smoke and the flames and the unrelenting ignorance that seems to billow around the pins and needles of your limbs,

“Why?”

Alfred leans forward as he hums and lets his head go a little askew.

“I thought this mission was dumb from the get-go. Like, totally ridiculous. I didn’t even want to do it, but my boss said something about firing me if I didn’t go, so here I am. Those other guys didn’t help. They were… kind of, in nice words, annoying, but like not you. You were fine, I guess. I liked chatting with you because you didn’t want to do anything except for your job, too. The others wanted to constantly talk and talk about this mission, and well, whenever you don’t even really want to be here—you see where my frustration comes from?”

You swallow with chapped lips and let your eyebrows wrinkle upward in disbelief.

Alfred’s body seems to droop as he straightens his posture and looks down at you over the bridge of his glasses.

“‘Course you don’t. You don’t even fully understand the mission.”

Alfred flippantly waves a hand around before he gestures to the spacious window at the front of the ship. His eyebrows are arched as he talks and his jaw looks taut. He doesn’t look at you now. You stare deeply at him.

“I only agreed to this mission so that I could watch it crash and burn and go to hell and back.”

You blanched. Your fingertips flex and then unfurl, they shimmer by a fraction and it feels like your tendons are splitting in two as you weakly attempt to ground yourself. There’s this horrible and suffocating dread that runs through your veins like pure quicksilver, like liquid nitrogen and you feel yourself ignite whenever you mull over Alfred’s statement for even just a brief moment. He inhales to say more, and then that’s whenever you raise your bloody palm print to interrupt Alfred. He pauses, then he glances at you from the corners of his eyes. He seems intrigued.

The words linger at the pad of your tongue, but your palette is dry and parched as you smack your lips a few times and scrounge up the words you want to say. The visages of the other members flash before your mind, and then again, you feel absolutely wretched and sick once more. You have a fit where all of their memories come to the forefront of your mind and you have to close your mouth to avoid vomiting like a sick puppy again. The man in front of you feels so foreign. A ghost of a man, the reflection of someone long gone. How long has Alfred been like this? Was every moment with him nothing but a lie? Had he wanted to kill everyone this whole time? Was he going to kill you next? You retch.

“Wh-Why did you… did you kill them for it? What was the point? What did they do to deserve that? Why did you…”

You can’t even finish—the pain is just too much, insurmountable. Tears stream down the apples of your face in torrential tracks and you can’t even clearly see Alfred anymore. He looks blurry. But he’s solid enough that you can see a wicked smirk cross his face and he belts out one final laugh that tells you everything you need to know as he throws his head back and then yells to the Heavens with a hint of insanity tinging his voice that leaves a hollow feeling in the cavity of your chest. And all you can do is let Alfred level you with swirling eyes down the ridge of his nose, as he exclaims

“Because! My good friend, in Space, no one can hear you scream!”

#hetaween 2022 #cw character death #cw blood #cw vomit #cw murder #hws america #hetalia #hetalia x reader #america x reader #hws america x reader #mentions of hws russia #hetalia america #aph america #this is not a happy ending kind of story lol #cib writes sfw

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fuentesdamborg65 · 5 days

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10 Best Edmonton Hotels, Canada From $70

Both free WiFi and parking on-site are accessible on the mattress and breakfast free of cost. edmonton alberta hotels of Alberta is 10 km from the bed and breakfast and Whyte Avenue is 10 km away. Reservations made directly with hotels and not through Edmonton’s Best Hotels are not eligible for rewards. Rewards are only offered to guests who guide by way of Edmonton’s Best Hotels online reserving platform. Booking reservation confirmations will have Edmonton’s Best Hotels branding on them. Rewards not provided for hotel reservations throughout specified blackout dates. At the Aviation Museum, the focus shifts to airplanes and all things aviation. The prices and availability we receive from reserving sites change constantly. This means you may not all the time find the very same give you saw on trivago if you land on the reserving web site. Edmonton hotels are at their most economical to book in the month of December. The rates you're charged could also be 8% decrease than in the excessive season, making it one of the best time to get an excellent deal. But she said any provincial dollars can be primarily used to cover the station's debt obligations, which doesn't align with the aim of government capital grants. Opposition NDP arts and culture critic Joe Ceci raised the plight of CKUA on the legislature Thursday. During question period, he pressed the United Conservative government about whether or not it might send cash to the station, and the way the federal government would promote it. Momondo finds you an excellent place to remain in Edmonton by enabling you to filter and refine your search. You can filter by worth, location, amenities, review rating and so much more. Many of them alluded to the province’s ongoing push to depart the CPP and create its own provincial pension plan. Hundreds turned out Wednesday night time to hear Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) officials talk about the state of the nationwide retirement plan whereas acknowledging Alberta’s ongoing discussion about leaving it. It is a precedence for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada together with people with visible, listening to, motor and cognitive challenges. Nicholas Frew is a CBC Edmonton reporter, who makes a speciality of producing data-driven tales. Fire crews labored through the night time and into Sunday to comprise a brush hearth north of Grande Prairie, with officers saying it could take a quantity of days to totally extinguish it. An Alberta public broadcast radio station is seeking to elevate $3 million over the subsequent few months within the hopes of staying on the airwaves. Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC exhibits supplied on CBC Gem. The $3 million would help the station get by, Carnes said. The station already has plans to attract more tenants into its Edmonton building and to cowl greater operating costs. Mann described the station as "the heartbeat of the Alberta music scene," however stated it could be taken for granted — and its true influence only realized if it disappears.

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trans-kevin-juice · 1 year

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Some Things About the RM Void AU!!

(quick disclaimer: Aikotoba & Monster do NOT belong to me!! They belong to Miodiodavinci! Only my interpretation of their characters belongs to me. Void is also not my character and belongs to Starbreak! Only Kaeya belongs to me!)

Prologue:

How Kaeya met Void:

Kaeya is one of Void’s biggest fans, and looks up to him heavily. So, he decides to go to space to visit him. After ages of exploring the edges of the galaxy, Kaeya finally finds him, who at the time was busy admiring himself. Kaeya asks Void if they can have a rap battle, to which Void accepted. Kaeya pulled out his laptop, loaded three instrumentals and began to sing along to them. Kaeya was excited to be singing with his favorite idol, and this filled his heart with immense amounts of joy.

However, Kaeya’s excitement levels were so high to the point that Kaeya’s heart began to beat at an unthinkable pace. On their last song, Kaeya passed out, to which Void then panicked. Void then brought Kaeya to a hospital down on Earth, where Kaeya was recovered. After hearing that Kaeya just barely managed to survive dying from inhumane heartbeats, Void then decides to see him. Kaeya was relieved to know that Void had saved him. Kaeya thanked Void, and hoped that they could meet each other more often later.

After Void pretty much saved Kaeya’s life, they then became decent friends! They would talk to each other for what felt like hours, and after a while, void brings up how he doesn’t have a home to live in. This instantly surprises Kaeya, and quickly asked if he wanted to stay over at Kaeya’s home. Void is hesitant at first, but then accepts the request.

How Monster & AiKotoba met Void:

It was July 10th, the day that Void would host his annual meet and greet at the mall. At that time, Monster & AiKotoba had almost no clue who Void was, but was good friends with Kaeya, so they knew that he had a roommate, but they didn’t know that Kaeya’s roommate was Void. They saw the poster for the meet-and-greet, and both were confused on who Void was. But, out of curiosity, they both decide to check it out. After waiting in line, the both of them finally reached Void, and AiKotoba had finally just remembered who Void was. They explained to Void that they were close friends of Kaeya, so they were informed of him being Kaeya’s roommate.

This caused for Void to be a bit more warm towards them, since he trusted Kaeya, and knew that his friends were probably just as trustworthy as him. So he asked Monster to sing a couple of songs with him, the songs being songs for his upcoming album called ‘My Shooting Star’. After singing, Void was about to share his farewells with the two, another fan appeared asking for a photo. Void then asked if Monster & AiKotoba wanted to be in the picture, to which both of them agreed.

After months of being friends with Void, they both decide to move in with Kaeya and Void, simply because it would help them grow closer. Void and Kaeya didn’t mind the idea, so now all of them are roommates, and that’s pretty much it for the prologue.

Fun Facts (Some have been updated, so please understand!!);

The ‘RM’ in the name ‘RM Void AU’ stands for roommate, as a way to show how Void is now roommates with Kaeya & the others.

The RM Void AU takes place in Toronto, Canada.

AiKotoba is the only one of the group who doesn’t use He/Him pronouns. (They use They/Them)

Monster & Void are autistic, Kaeya has ADHD, while AiKotoba has ADD.

Kaeya is the only human of the 4. (Void is a humanoid black hole, Monster is half-demon and half-vampire, and AiKotoba is an Angel)

Void loves Sour stuff, Monster loves Sweet stuff, AiKotoba loves Spicy stuff, and Kaeya loves Salty stuff.

Monster seems like a jackass but is a dorkish sweetheart, while AiKotoba seems like a ray of sunshine, but is actually kind of a bitch.

All of them are trans. (Aikotoba is a Demiboy, but it’s under the trans umbrella, so they count as trans.)

Monster is Vincian, Kaeya is omnisexual with a male preference, AiKotoba is AceAro, and Void is Bisexual with no lean.

Kaeya is a massive tech-nerd.

Void has destroyed 2 of Kaeya’s air-fryers and almost set the house on fire by using his oven.

Void basically cannot cook for shit, reasons are basically unknown as to why that’s the case.

Despite AiKotoba being a master at cooking sweet things, they LOATHE anything with sugar in it. (They especially hate strawberry shortcake)

Void is the shortest being 5’3, while Monster & AiKotoba are both the tallest being 6’9. (Kaeya is exactly 6 feet tall.)

Somehow, AiKotoba has even more of a short temper than Void.

Kaeya was actually going to be a 7’11 elf, but I decided to keep him as a regular human.

Kaeya is basically physically incapable of swearing, Monster rarely curses (but mainly does so on accident), Void never curses when in public but curses a decent amount when in private (still can’t say fuck tho), and AiKotoba swears like a sailor.

Kaeya and AiKotoba are platonically married.

Monster & Void are dating in this AU!! (I’ll drop a google doc about it once I get the chance write it)

Monster & Void are not only t4t’s, but they are also autistic4autistic!

Incorrect Quotes:

#miodiodavinci #kyohell #ac void #void fnf #a.c. void #fnf #a.c void #vs void #ac void fnf #rm void au #rm void #vs void fnf #fnf void #kyo hell

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nasa · 3 years

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NASA Spotlight: Astronaut Mike Hopkins

Michael S. Hopkins was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2009. The Missouri native is currently the Crew-1 mission commander for NASA’s next SpaceX launch to the International Space Station on Nov. 14, 2020. Hopkin’s Crew-1 mission will mark the first-ever crew rotation flight of a U.S. commercial spacecraft with astronauts on board, and it secures the U.S.’s ability to launch humans into space from American soil once again. Previously, Hopkins was member of the Expedition 37/38 crew and has logged 166 days in space. During his stay aboard the station, he conducted two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes to change out a degraded pump module. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering.

He took some time from being a NASA astronaut to answer questions about his life and career! Enjoy:

What do you hope people think about when you launch?

I hope people are thinking about the fact that we’re starting a new era in human spaceflight. We’re re-opening human launch capability to U.S. soil again, but it’s not just that. We’re opening low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station with commercial companies. It’s a lot different than what we’ve done in the past. I hope people realize this isn’t just another launch – this is something a lot bigger. Hopefully it’s setting the stage, one of those first steps to getting us to the Moon and on to Mars.

You served in the U.S. Air Force as a flight test engineer. What does that entail?

First off, just like being an astronaut, it involves a lot of training when you first get started. I went to the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and spent a year in training and just learning how to be a flight test engineer. It was one of the most challenging years I’ve ever had, but also one of the more rewarding years. What it means afterwards is, you are basically testing new vehicles or new systems that are going on aircraft. You are testing them before they get handed over to the operational fleet and squadrons. You want to make sure that these capabilities are safe, and that they meet requirements. As a flight test engineer, I would help design the test. I would then get the opportunity to go and fly and execute the test and collect the data, then do the analysis, then write the final reports and give those conclusions on whether this particular vehicle or system was ready to go.

What is one piece of life advice you wish somebody had told you when you were younger?

A common theme for me is to just have patience. Enjoy the ride along the way. I think I tend to be pretty high intensity on things and looking back, I think things happen when they’re supposed to happen, and sometimes that doesn’t necessarily agree with when you think it should happen. So for me, someone saying, “Just be patient Mike, it’s all going to happen when it’s supposed to,” would be really good advice.

Is there a particular science experiment you enjoyed working on the most while aboard the space station?

There’s a lot of experiments I had the opportunity to participate in, but the ones in particular I liked were ones where I got to interact directly with the folks that designed the experiment. One thing I enjoyed was a fluid experiment called Capillary Flow Experiment, or CFE. I got to work directly with the principal investigators on the ground as I executed that experiment. What made it nice was getting to hear their excitement as you were letting them know what was happening in real time and getting to hear their voices as they got excited about the results. It’s just a lot of fun.

Space is a risky business. Why do it?

I think most of us when we think about whatever it is we do, we don’t think of it in those terms. Space is risky, yes, but there’s a lot of other risky jobs out there. Whether it’s in the military, farming, jobs that involve heavy machinery or dangerous equipment… there’s all kinds of jobs that entail risk. Why do it? You do it because it appeals to you. You do it because it’s what gets you excited. It just feels right. We all have to go through a point in our lives where we figure out what we want to do and what we want to be. Sometimes we have to make decisions based on factors that maybe wouldn’t lead you down that choice if you had everything that you wanted, but in this particular case for me, it’s exactly where I want to be. From a risk standpoint, I don’t think of it in those terms.

Can you describe your crew mate Soichi Noguchi in one sentence?

There are many facets to Soichi Noguchi. I’m thinking about the movie Shrek. He has many layers! He’s very talented. He’s very well-thought. He’s very funny. He’s very caring. He’s very sensitive to other people’s needs and desires. He’s a dedicated family man. I could go on and on and on… so maybe like an onion – full of layers!

Star Trek or Star Wars?

I love them both. But can I say Firefly? There’s a TV series out there called Firefly. It lasted one season – kind of a space cowboy-type show. They did have a movie, Serenity, that was made as well. But anyway, I love both Star Wars and Star Trek. We’ve really enjoyed The Mandalorian. I mean who doesn’t love Baby Yoda right? It’s all fun.

How many times did you apply to be an astronaut? Did you learn anything on your last attempt?

I tried four times over the course of 13 years. My first three attempts, I didn’t even have references checked or interviews or anything. Remember what we talked about earlier, about patience? For my fourth attempt, the fact is, it happened when it was supposed to happen. I didn’t realize it at the time. I would have loved to have been picked on my first attempt like anybody would think, but at the same time, because I didn’t get picked right away, my family had some amazing experiences throughout my Air Force career. That includes living in Canada, living overseas in Italy, and having an opportunity to work at the Pentagon. All of those helped shape me and grow my experience in ways that I think helped me be a better astronaut.

Can you share your favorite photo or video that you took in space?

One of my favorite pictures was a picture inside the station at night when all of the lights were out. You can see the glow of all of the little LEDs and computers and things that stay on even when you turn off the overhead lights. You see this glow on station. It’s really one of my favorite times because the picture doesn’t capture it all. I wish you could hear it as well. I like to think of the station in some sense as being alive. It’s at that time of night when everybody else is in their crew quarters in bed and the lights are out that you feel it. You feel the rhythm, you feel the heartbeat of the station, you see it in the glow of those lights – that heartbeat is what’s keeping you alive while you’re up there. That picture goes a small way of trying to capture that, but I think it’s a special time from up there.

What personal items did you decide to pack for launch and why?

My wedding bands. I’m also taking up pilot wings for my son. He wants to be a pilot so if he succeeds with that, I’ll be able to give him his pilot wings. Last time, I took one of the Purple Hearts of a very close friend. He was a Marine in World War II who earned it after his service in the Pacific.

youtube

Thank you for your time, Mike, and good luck on your historic mission! Get to know a bit more about Mike and his Crew-1 crew mates Victor Glover, Soichi Noguchi, and Shannon Walker in the video above.

Watch LIVE launch coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. EST on Nov. 14 HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

#launchamerica #nasa #spacex #crew1 #astronaut #rocket launch #space #science #STEM #Air Force #us military #hope #resilience #Spotlight

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onlinevampire1898 · 2 years

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𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄?

↳ 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 || “can I request what would druig’s reaction be to having a secret love child with a fellow eternal.”

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 || 1.4K +

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 || slight angst, fluff

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 || druig x eternal!reader

𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 || feel free to make requests, I try to get them out as fast as I can, and if you guys wanna be tagged in any fics for specific characters I write for, I can add you to tag lists 🤍

𝗶 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗮𝘆

You were an eternal, you and your team had been sent to earth to protect humans from the deviants, each member having a specific set of abilities, you ability was spontaneous creation, you could create pretty much every and anything your heart desired. You loved your team, treating them like your family, obviously some of them *cough ikaris *cough got on your nerves, and you didn't always see eye to eye but you loved them.

There was one eternal you loved more than the others, someone you would do anything for, druig. You and the man had a very flirty relationship, before you had even gotten together you were inseparable, so in love that seeing the two of you happy, is what allowed sersi to give ikaris a chance, the two of you were so in love that the humans, created the idea of soulmates because of the love they saw the two of you displayed.

So needless to say when the team split up, you were understandably heartbroken. You had tried to convince druig to stay for you, stay with the woman he loved, you even offered to go with him, and for a second you almost thought it had worked, until he told you that he couldn't take you away from your family. Stating that as much as he wanted to be selfish, he just couldn't let you leave with him and before you knew it everything was dark.

You and druig didn't know why but you figured out early on, that you two could use your abilities on each other, something that you both vowed to never do without the others permission, so when you woke up to Ajax's face, the love of your life gone, and the rest of your family gone as well, you felt betrayed.

The icing on the cake had been when Ajax told you, that she could hear another heartbeat coming from you, something that should’ve been impossible due to the fact the eternals couldn’t reproduce with each other, you knew you hadn’t been with anyone other than druig, so Ajax and you brain stormed.

The only possible conclusion was that your ability of spontaneous creation, was what allowed you to have a child with him, all the times the two of you had sat in bed after a night of making love, talking about what it would be like to have children, had most likely activated your ability without you even realizing.

After Ajax told you the group had been disbanded, druig being gone and off the radar, you ventured out on your own with the happiness of being able to experience motherhood, even if druig wasn’t there to be with you.

Canada, 2024

You were reading an old copy of pride and prejudice as your daughter Selene, paced around your warmly decorated room, ranting to her human friends about one of college professors.

You and your daughter had settled here in 2004, you made a rule of moving around after a while, not staying in one place too long, but Selene begged and pleaded with you to stay, she loved the country and the people here.

You ultimately folded, given that you could never say no to her, not when she had her fathers eyes. She looked so much like druig, her abilities were even closer to his than they were to yours, Selene had the ability to move things with her mind.

You had told your daughter all about who her father was, as well as your family. Often telling her stories of their greatest moments, when she younger she loved them, now that she was centuries old and in college it helped her pass.

"Hey mom, I'm going upstairs for a bit." Selene said, breaking your inner thoughts.

"Yea no problem moon." You replied, the nickname came from many centuries ago, humans who met your daughter often said she was the embodiment of the moon.

As your daughter went upstairs, still on the phone with her friends there was a heavy knock on your door, moving off the couch you moved gracefully to the door, when the door opened you were shocked to say the least.

There almost all of your family, minus makkari and Ajax. You looked over them before your eyes met his, the ones that were identical to his daughters, the smirk on his face dropped once you heard footsteps behind you.

“Y/n, we need to talk.” Ikaris began, while you were staring at druig, all those feelings of betrayal slowly began to leave, as you looked at him smirking and sure you were listening, you could multitask.

After explaining Ajax’s death, and the emergence, you sat there taking in all the information “we need you y/n” sersi all but begged, the others all looking at you.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs drawer everyone’s eyes away from you, And the smirk fell off druigs face when the person spoke “mom do we have- oh we have company.” Selene spoke sheepishly, before slowly leaving and going back upstairs.

To all the eternals they realized that no matter how impossible it should’ve been, that was druig daughter. There was no doubt in any of their minds, she looked too much like the two of them to not be, whereas in drug’s mind he was heartbroken, he couldn’t see the resemblance and assumed that you had moved on, found a man and started a family with him.

“I think we should give these two some privacy, we’ll see you guys outside.” Sersi spoke, making the rest of the eternals follow behind her, many of the smiling and smirking in their way out.

“Congratulations daddy.” Kingo said patting druig on the shoulder, before walking out the front door.

Druig stood there processing what was just said, finally taking the time to think about what your daughter had looked like, he finally realized how similar she looked to the both of you, he looked at you and saw you weren’t making eye contact with him.

“Hello my beautiful, beautiful y/n.” He said walking over to sit in front of you, his hand coming up to hold your cheek, grazing his thumb of the soft skin and looking into your eyes.

“Hello druig.” You responded monotone, sure you were happy to see him but you couldn’t help to but feel slightly betrayed.

He signed, before he spoke “darling, I know I can’t take back what I did but if you’ll let me, I’d love to spend the rest of eternity making it up to you, I never should’ve left you, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t missed you and regretted leaving you.”

“Than why didn’t you come back? Why haven’t you looked for me all these centuries?” You asked.

“I had responsibilities, I couldn’t just leave no matter how much I wanted to.” He told you, looking like he was almost pleading with you to understand.

You did understand, you couldn’t leave your daughter because you had a responsibility to her, and you knew druig would never lie to you, so you slowly leaned in and rested your forehead against his.

“I love you, I never stopped loving you druig, nothing would make me happier than spending the rest of eternity with you.” You told him, causing the man to smile.

He leaned in a pressed a soft kiss to your lips before pulling away, “is she mine?” He asked looking at you with such hope in his eyes.

“Of course she is my love, I’ve never been with anyone else, just you, only ever you.” You told him smiling, watching his smile grow.

“I’d like to meet her.” He told you, so you brought him upstairs and introduced him to his daughter, he loved you her, the two were very similar but druig couldn’t help but love, the fact that she looked more like you than him, in his eyes that made his daughter so much more special to him.

All those late nights talking about your imaginary children, something he had thought was never a possibility for you two, now he was here looking at his beautiful, strong and intelligent daughter, he couldn’t help but think he was the luckiest man to exist.

He finally had the woman of his dreams back in his life, and the family together that you two had always wanted, life couldn’t be much better if only he had found you two before what could be the end of the world.

𝘁𝗮𝗴𝘀 || @uwiuwi @paintingportriat @presidential-facts @waywardsummoner46 @patatas-things @kukungi

#druig fanfiction #druig x reader #druig x daughter oc #druig oneshot #druig fluff #druig x female reader #druig eternals #druig x y/n #druig x you #druig angst

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the-west-meadow · 2 years

Note

24 with greg the egg i plead/yearn

I hope you don't mind but I'm turning this into a series lol. I used this prompt to expand on an idea I've been thinking about for a while... so here's part 1!

Getaway - Chapter 1

Greg Hirsch x Reader

You stood in shock at the front of the conference room. Logan’s piercing gaze still burned through you. He had just torn apart every aspect of your presentation. Everyone at the conference table was either looking at you in pity or avoiding you out of embarrassment.

Your eyes began to sting with tears, but there was no way they were going to see you cry.

“Thank you for your time,” you managed, then walked out of the room with as much dignity as you could muster. Heart pounding, you headed straight for Greg’s cubicle.

He looked up eagerly as he sensed your approach.

“How did it go?” he asked.

But upon seeing your face, he immediately frowned.

“Oh no,” he said. “Bad.”

You nodded stiffly. “I’m finished,” you whispered. “I’m fucking done.”

Greg stood up suddenly, grabbing his coat and glancing around.

“Fuck this. Let’s get you out of here.”

He put a hand on your back and directed you out of the cubicle. You strode quickly down the hall with your head down, unable to look at anyone. Greg followed close behind. Two other employees stepped onto the elevator with you. You stood in the corner, feeling like you were about to burst.

You felt Greg pressing against your shoulder as you stood in silence. He glanced at you occasionally, unable to say anything in the presence of the others until the elevator reached the ground floor.

Finally you burst onto the sidewalk. A cold wind ripped into you, stinging your face.

“Do you have a cigarette?” you asked, voice wavering. Greg quickly patted down his pockets, producing a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. Hands red with cold, he cupped the flame and lit your cigarette. The city rushed loudly all around you, but all you could hear was your heartbeat and the rustle of Greg’s puffer jacket as he withdrew the lighter. You sucked frantically on the cigarette as he watched.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured.

You looked into his eyes for the first time since the incident. He was standing very close, gazing down at you with concern. His blue eyes were clear and icy in the cold morning air. The sight of them shocked new life into you. You felt a sob rise up in your chest. He caught you before it emerged. With one arm, he pulled you gently to him.

“Let’s just leave,” he said, the words rushing out of him as he held you tightly. “Let’s get away from here. We can take a road trip. Go up to Canada and stay with my uncle Ewan. I’ll drive the whole way. You can just rest and play whatever music you want.”

You were crying and nodding into his shoulder.

“Fuck Logan,” you choked. “Fuck all of them.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

You felt his hand on the back of your head, slowly stroking your hair. Then he stepped back to look at you. The cigarette still dangled from your fingers.

“What happened, exactly?” Greg asked.

You just shook your head. “Logan made me feel like an idiot. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

He lay both hands on your shoulders and looked at you.

“Would you really want to go to Canada?” he said. “I mean it. I’ll drive you. I feel like we’re both on the brink of losing our minds in this place. I think Tom is going insane, and Kendall is already off the rails. It’s all making me question reality in a pretty big way.”

“Me too.”

“Then maybe we should get away for a while. Protect our sanity.”

You looked up at the soaring Waystar building over his shoulder. The sight of it caused a knot to form in your stomach. You took a deep breath of cold air and looked at Greg, whose gaze melted you.

“Okay,” you said. “Let’s do it.”

A smile came to his face and he nodded. "Good. I'm with you."

#succession #greg hirsch x reader #greg hirsch/reader #greg hirsch #cousin greg #fanfiction #succession fic #succession fanfic #request

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writemekpop · 3 years

Text

Bad Romance (Part 1) | Lee Taeyong

Pairing: Lee Taeyong x Reader

Summary: Your boyfriend Taeyong wants to fuck you, but you're not ready...

Genre: Angst, Smut, College AU

Word Count: 1.8k

Warning: Sexual Content, Toxic relationship

Part 1 ⭐️| Part 2

Taeyong’s breaths were deafening in your ear. Couldn’t he try to control himself? For discretion, at least. You imagined every ear in your university dorm pricking up. Snickering. “I wonder what they’re up to.”

Taeyong kissed you again, his hot lips colliding with yours.

His hand, ever so slightly rough, pushed up your shirt, sending goosebumps up your ribs. A moan sounded, deep in your throat, and Taeyong groaned in satisfaction.

You felt instantly guilty. You’d told yourself your ancestors wouldn’t mind if you did this for him. But you’d promised not to enjoy it.

Taeyong knotted one hand in your hair. You felt the other one slide up to your back to unclasp your bra. His hand dwarfed your back, sending sparks rippling up your shoulder blades.

“Are you okay with this?” he murmured, voice husky. You nodded. It was a lie.

The truth was, you’d never had sex before. You’d barely even kissed a boy.

When all your college friends were in the basement snogging boys, you would hover by the doorway, holding their drinks. When they began to tease you, you just pretended you couldn’t hear them.

Even when everyone started saying you ‘batted for the other team’, it just felt like a relief. Maybe they’d finally leave you alone.

You were a feminist. You fully believed that women weren’t shiny, unwrapped presents that had to be protected for marriage. But you were also a fake.

Because the idea of sleeping with a stranger still made you feel sick inside.

Well, Taeyong wasn’t a stranger; he was your boyfriend. So, you would just have to grit your teeth and get on with it.

Taeyong’s hand slid down between you. You squeezed your eyes shut. It would be over in a minute; that’s what your friends were always joking about, right?

Then, you heard the unmistakeable clink of his belt buckle. Suddenly, that was the most terrifying sound you’d ever heard.

“W-wait,” you croaked.

You clung onto Taeyong’s firm wrist.

He was breathing hard, his pulse pounding under his papery-thin skin. You were sat on his lap – so you could feel how ready he was, and it frightened you.

He would hate you for what you were about to say, you knew that.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

You rolled away from him, pulling your knees up and hugging them. Burying your wet eyes in your knees, you waited for Taeyong to leave.

But you didn’t feel him get off the bed.

Instead, there was absolute silence. A shiver ran down your spine.

Then, his muscled arms were wrapping around you. Taeyong eased you till you were lying on the bed – fear closed in your throat – but he wasn’t trying to have sex with you. Instead, he helped you pull your T-shirt back on, and guided you so your head was resting on his chest.

You felt his thundering heartbeat slow to a steady, comforting pulse.

Taeyong pressed a kiss on your temple. For a second, your stomach curled; it was so fatherly. You mentally scolded yourself. Taeyong wasn’t like other guys. He was caring, and sensitive, and you should be grateful.

“If you wanna go slow, let’s go slow. You’ll always be my girl,” Taeyong whispered.

So, you pushed down the niggling feeling that ‘always’ had an expiry date. It was time you learnt to trust someone, and Taeyong was the perfect person to let in.

---

Over the next few months, you tried your best to forget about that night. And it was easy enough – Taeyong was electrifying.

You’d never met a man who could tell a Basquiat from a Banksy and didn’t even show off about it.

Each night, after lectures, you’d sneak off to some gallery late opening, and take photos of each other for Instagram.

Or, you’d just snuggle up in his dorm room and listen to him telling you all about his Art History course, or his dreams of starting his own gallery.

You rarely spoke. You preferred to soak in his world, like a cat curled in the sun. And let’s face it – who wanted to talk about Maths, anyway?

Taeyong was like a shooting star: totally uncontrollable, impossible to understand, yet hopelessly fascinating. You couldn’t believe why someone like him seemed to find you interesting. Or at least, worth spending every day with.

---

The second time Taeyong scared you was a Saturday.

You were sitting in his lap, poring over one of his Art History books. Other than toying with a curl of your hair, or pressing a kiss to your shoulder, Taeyong was totally still.

Sighing with pleasure, you flicked through the glossy pages – for the hundredth time. No wonder Taeyong would always say: If I wasn’t rubbish at Maths, we should’ve swapped courses.

Just then, you prised open a page you hadn’t seen before. You frowned.

It was a scan of an old Japanese painting. In it, a wealthy couple were captured in a furious argument with a young woman, carrying a baby. It was entitled ‘Outside Wife’.

You turned to Taeyong, finger on the title. “What’s that?”

Taeyong lifted the book from your hands, then grinned. “It’s when a noble couple are forced to get married, but the man has another wife to, you know, satisfy his needs.” Taeyong chuckled dryly. “Unfortunately, that system isn’t available anymore.”

You began to chuckle too… then your smile melted from your face. “What do you mean, unfortunately?” Goosebumps rippled over your skin.

“Ah… it was just a joke. You know, we’re not exactly getting any.” Taeyong’s body still felt relaxed under you, but your muscles were tensing.

“I thought you said you wanted to go slow…” you mumbled.

Of course. You should’ve seen this coming.

There was only so long a person could go without their needs fulfilled. And here you were, dragging your boyfriend down while he could sleep with any normal girl whenever he wanted.

“I’m not ready yet, Taeyong.” You picked at the frayed wool of your jumper.

Your throat closed as you prepared for what you would say next. “If you… need to sleep with someone else, I won’t blame you,” you whispered. Stupid, babyish tears were filling your eyes already.

“Babe – it was just a joke! No need to get your knickers in a twist.” Taeyong laughed, and kissed your neck.

When you still didn’t make a sound a moment later, Taeyong turned you around on his lap so you were facing him. Tears streaked freely down your cheeks – you couldn’t hide them.

“Oh, baby….” Soft as a whisper, Taeyong placed his palm on your cheek and smoothed away the tears with his thumb. “I don’t care about your… problem. You’re my girlfriend, and what’s good enough for you’s good enough for me.”

A small part of you hurt at the way he said problem, but you pushed that part away. You allowed him a small smile.

Laughing, Taeyong pulled you into a bear hug. You’d never gripped his shoulder so tight. You were so lucky to have him.

----

A few weeks later, Taeyong finally convinced you to accompany him to a house party. You knew what this meant. You’d been dating for four months – this was the ‘meeting his friends’ moment.

All the time you were getting ready, your stomach had transformed into a pit of snakes. Excitement, anxiety, fear – they all wriggled and knotted about inside you.

You chose a midnight-blue playsuit, in a glimmering velvet. When Taeyong pointed it out to you in the shop, you knew this what you’d be wearing.

To be honest, you hated Taeyong’s friends. You were pretty sure Taeil had tried to sneak vodka into your coke, and Mark did nothing but yap on endlessly about his girlfriend in Canada. You were almost 100% sure she didn’t exist.

But as soon as Taeyong’s mahogany eyes met yours across in the heaving living room, all your worries melted away like snow. All he had to do was raise one deep eyebrow, or pull his plump lips into a silly face, and you’d burst out laughing.

Except, as the hours drew by, you realised you hadn’t seen Taeyong in a while. You were perched on the stairs, shivering next to everyone who was too zoned out to take part.

“Taeyong?”

Tip-toeing, you climbed up the stairs, calling his name. You pushed open each of the doors in the hallway, peeking through your fingers just in case anything funny was going on.

But they were all empty.

Just as you turned around to go back downstairs, you heard voices coming from the attic. Gingerly, you sneaked up. They grew louder, more defined.

Pushing open the door just a crack, you heard:

“Really? My god.”

Your heart jumped. You knew that rich, resounding tone better than your own voice. It was Taeyong.

You considered climbing up to join them. But then, you heard something that stopped you in your tracks.

“And the worst thing is, Irene thinks she’s some kind of sex goddess, but actually she’s awful. She just lies there like a limp doll, expecting me to do everything.” It was Doyoung speaking.

There was a pause as they all laughed.

Your heart was already twisting. Something about his tone felt… wrong. Like his girlfriend wouldn’t appreciate what he was saying.

Then, you heard Taeyong say, “Mate, at least your girlfriend’s fucking you, even if she is awful at it. I haven’t got any for months!”

Everyone in the group exclaimed in disbelief. You forgot how to breathe.

“Yeah – I know. Y/n thinks she’s some kind of saint for “waiting for the perfect moment”. I mean, a guy’s got needs!” Taeyong’s voice was low, but to you he could have been screaming.

Black spots were engulfing your vision. Gulping, you staggered backwards, out of the door. You didn’t want to hear what you heard next. You really didn’t want to.

But you couldn’t help it. Not when Taeyong said, “You know, I don’t even feel bad about fucking Joy. I mean, I had no choice. If Y/n wasn’t so frigid, I wouldn’t need to. It’s her fault really.”

That was it.

You sprinted away. Pushing through the line of partygoers waiting to use the bathroom, you locked yourself inside.

Then, you curled up on the toilet seat and sobbed.

It had finally happened.

Your gorgeous boyfriend had finally realised that he was miles out of your league. He didn’t deserve the defect. He didn’t deserve the fake feminist who was too ashamed to admit how sexist she really was.

Then, a thought entered your mind that make you perk up.

Maybe you could pretend you’d never overheard Taeyong. Maybe you could go back to how you were before… Or maybe you could sleep with him and make him forget about all other girls.

After all, you’d do anything to keep him.

Anything.

Read Part 2 here.

---

MASTERLIST

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matwith1t · 3 years

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A/N: Back with angst 👊 Fair warning, this fic is pure angst. All of it 🔪 It’s heavily inspired by Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and it’s the fic where I project my fear of staying stagnant in life (oops). I have a somewhat working outline for a part 2, but I’d love to know your thoughts!! Also, this fic has a brief smut scene, so if you’re not 18+ hop on over to my masterlist for something else !

Summary: Your long-term relationship with Mat brought you more happiness than anything else in the world. But one day, something in your gut felt different, an emotion that you couldn’t quite place felt off. And maybe, that feeling was the catalyst for you wanting a change in life.

MASTERLIST | LET’S CHAT 🥂 | Mat Barzal x Reader

Warnings: Anxiety, Smut, Swearing // WC: 11.2K // Angst

The sun felt warm against your face and the grass beneath you tickled your ankles. With the month of May nearing its end, the sweet smell of spring could still be detected in the air during the seasonal transition to summer. From a distance, the soft sounds of children laughing while running through the park tugged your lips upward into a small smile.

A sense of ease flooded your body as you laid directly on the grass with your arms tucked behind your head. The vital force that came with being outside in the springtime energized your body to the point where you felt your body produce more natural endorphins. You treasured the outdoors––it would always remain a sacred place for you––but as you laid upon the grass, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach clawed its way up at a deliberately slow, and unwarranted, pace.

It felt like a secret message your body was trying to communicate with you, but you didn’t have the tools on how to decode it.

The feeling came in and out, like ocean tides, but you did your best to push it aside when the uneasiness surfaced. So far, everything in your life had been smooth sailing––everything had been going according to plan––so you never paid that feeling any attention.

There wasn’t anything in your life that you wanted to change.

With a deep breath, you tried to inhale as much of the fresh spring air as possible.

“Hey, sleepy.”

With one eye squinted open, you brought a hand from behind your head to shield the sun rays from blinding your face. And when your vision adjusted to the sunlight, you saw your boyfriend at an upside down angle. In his arms he held a blanket as he waved down at you. A smile instantly graced your lips as you shut both of your eyes, before opening them slowly.

As Mat shook out the blanket before spreading it out on the grass, you sat up, and stuck your legs straight out, “You’re a bit late.”

Without looking at you, Mat rolled his eyes, “Practice ran late.”

When the blanket was laid out on the grass, Mat sat down and patted the spot next to him. With a smile, you made your way to sit next to him. Your smile widened when you saw he already had an arm raised for you to tuck yourself into his side.

“It was a morning practice,” you looked up at him through your eyelashes, “It’s nearly four in the afternoon.”

With adoration in his eyes shining just as bright as the spring sun, you felt yourself fall more in love with him. His hand dangled over your shoulder as he lazily traced circles on your upper arm, “Tito wanted ice-cream.”

A laugh of amusement, mixed with disbelief, escaped your lips as you placed both hands on his chest to push him away, “You liar.”

With your shove, Mat tightened his arm around your shoulder as the two of you fell backward on the blanket laughing. As you laid on your side, Mat readjusted his arm around you, with your head on his shoulder. His sweatshirt felt soft, and his chest continued to shake with laughter.

“Practice did run late,” Mat reiterated his first point, to which you only hummed in acknowledgement, “And then Tito said he wanted ice-cream, but he wanted to go to this specific shop.” Mat placed a kiss on your temple, “Would’ve told him to go alone if I knew how much time it’d take.”

Again, you hummed, as you rested a hand on his stomach, “Did you at least tell your boyfriend that your girlfriend said hi?”

Mat scoffed at your remark and poked your stomach in retaliation. You laughed at his childish behavior and moved a bit down the blanket so your head now rested just below his heart. He pulled you closer to him, and with your face nuzzled into his sweatshirt, you took a deep breath and savored how much his sweatshirt smelled like home to you.

He smelled almost as good as spring.

The hand that you had on his stomach rose up and down with his even breathing. And as you laid outside on the grass, surrounded by the spring air and the person you loved most in your life, you felt nothing but peace. Comfortable silence wasn’t uncommon in your relationship. While his voice soothed your most anxious thoughts… hearing the birds sing their melodies, listening in on the slight rustle of tree leaves whenever the wind blew, and the sound of steady breathing, paired with Mat’s slightly faster heartbeat, was more calming than anything.

“I can’t wait until that’s us.”

You peered up at Mat to see his vision locked in on something to his right. In order to see what he was referring to, you propped your chin up on his chest. It didn’t take you long to see that something was really a someone. And upon squinting to get a better look, that someone turned out to be a man, woman, and a child.

Your only response to him was a hum as you traced shapes on his stomach, hoping that your touch was strong enough to distract him from the conversation you knew he was about to bring up.

“I love you,” his words were strong, not faltering in the slightest, as he stared down at you with a promising look in his eyes. He picked up your hand––ultimately putting a stop to what you had hoped would distract him from this exact conversation––and pressed a delicate kiss to your knuckles, “So much.”

Mat gently placed your still connected hands on his stomach as you craned your neck up to press a kiss to his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He squeezed your hand twice, a look of amazement in his eyes as he stared up at the sky with a soft smile, “In a few months, It’ll be six years since we’ve been together.”

Your head softly fell back onto his chest as you nodded. Because while you’ll be celebrating six years of officially being in a relationship, the two of you had known each other much longer. He was the annoying kid at the end of the cul-de-sac who chased you around front yards and threatened to give you cooties. And you were the little girl who ran away from him, pretending to be disgusted whenever he got too close, but secretly loved his attention.

And that’s when your crush on him began.

From playing group games with other kids at neighborhood block parties, pairing up to sit next to each other on the bus in elementary school during field trips, to Mat asking you to the winter formal in eighth grade on a dare…Your infatuation towards him only grew.

By the time you were both eighteen, Mat realized his feelings, and asked you out on a date.

Playing games with other kids went to spending one-on-one time with Mat on dates. Sitting next to each other on the school bus as little kids went to Mat picking you up in his car as teenagers. And going to dances together was no longer the end product of a dare.

Even when Mat went to Seattle to play hockey, the two of you still kept the connection while you stayed in Canada. The four years of University were easier; with Mat playing for the New York Islanders, and your top choice for school was in New York City, it didn’t take more than a second thought to accept the offer.

As if Mat had the same memories playing on an endless loop in his head, he let out a relaxed breath, “I can’t wait until we buy a house, tell our kids how we met, and take them to this park.”

The uncomfortable familiar feeling you felt earlier in the afternoon creeped up your stomach, “You really have it all planned out.”

“I have our life,” he squeezed your hand as he made a point to emphasize a shared future between the two of you, “planned out.”

You were positive he could feel your heartbeat increase. And while the pounding of your heart could easily be mistaken for the heightened feelings you felt whenever you were near Mat, you knew something else was causing this distress. There was no one in the world you loved more than Mat. You loved your family because they were family, but you made a conscious decision to love him. And despite some hardships, he chose to love you as well.

But thinking about the future made you squirm.

A future with Mat was all you ever desired. You knew he was the one person in the universe made for you when you were halfway through university. And you were pretty sure Mat knew you were his person by the fourth date.

You still kept some of your notebooks that had doodles in the margin. The psychology notebook from junior year of high school had Mat Barzal, with hearts dotting around his name, in every blank space. And even in university, your senior year thesis notebook had script writing of your name paired with his last name, so you could practice a potential new signature for the future.

Since the seventh grade, this was everything you daydreamed about with Mat; a future together. Happiness always fogged up your mind whenever you thought about a lifetime together with him, you wanted this, but everything felt like it was approaching faster than anticipated. And the undisclosed feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn’t going away no matter how hard you tried to only think about a happy future with Mat.

Wanting to feel anything other than whatever made your stomach churn, you leaned up to press a lingering kiss to Mat’s jaw. Then you pressed another kiss to his neck, and another further down at the base of his throat. With each kiss you pressed to his skin, the feeling subsided more.

When you detached your lips from his skin and sat up, you heard him let out a discontent hum. With his eyes closed, he wasn’t aware of the adoration in your eyes as you looked down at him. You studied everything about his face; the slight pink coloring on his cheeks despite it almost being summertime, the downward curve on the bridge of his nose, and how he somehow still had a slight smile on his face when he wasn’t awake.

A satisfied silent sigh passed through your lips as your index finger trailed across his silver chain. The jewelry felt cold on your fingertips, but with the way Mat still had a hand holding onto yours, your whole body burned like a furnace. Unable to resist the pull you felt toward him any longer, you leaned down and pressed an innocent kiss to his lips. You lifted your head up, pulling your lips away from his, but Mat brought his free hand to gently lay on your cheek as he lifted his head up slightly to bring you back into a kiss.

It was soft, delicate, and reminded you of the first kiss you shared after your second date outside of his car when he dropped you off in front of your house.

With his thumb caressing your cheek, his fingers curled around your neck to bring your lips closer to his. And as you smiled into the kiss, he slowly lifted himself up until he was properly sitting. You pulled away from the kiss again, not wanting to get carried away while in public, but Mat followed your lips and kissed them one last time.

Your hand that was on his shoulder slowly inched toward the back of his neck where you played with the ends of his hair. He leaned his forehead against yours and whispered, “Wanna get pizza?”

You threw your head back in laughter and Mat dropped his head into the crook of your neck, wrapping an arm around your waist for a hug. Leaning into the hug, you continued to thread your fingers through his hair, “Yeah, pizza sounds good.”

“Good,” Mat pressed a featherlight kiss under your jaw as he unwound his arms from around you to stand up. He reached a hand out for you, and with a smile, you placed your hand in his as he pulled you up.

Once on your feet, he tugged on your arm so that you were pressed flat against his chest, caught in another hug. Never one to deny any of his hugs, you wrapped your arms around his waist as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. His arms were strong and his body felt warm. You melted into his touch like you had for the past five––almost six––years.

But then his stomach grumbled, and you leaned away from him with an amused smile on your face, “Pizza?”

Mat smiled back down at you and nodded, “Pizza,” he said matter of factly as he unwrapped his arms from you and began to fold up the blanket.

When he had the blanket draped over his arm, he reached his hand out again for you to take. Happily, you slid your hand into his, as the two of you began to walk through the park to a pizza place down the street.

The pace of your walk was slow. Normally you wouldn’t mind a slow pace, but it was making the unknown and unwelcome feeling creep back up in your stomach. The feeling seeped through every crevice of your body as Mat recounted a story of how he almost got hit in the face with a puck at practice. And the feeling wedged itself deeper and deeper into the middle of your chest until you arrived at the pizza place.

“Your eyes look pretty today,” Mat offhandedly said as the two of you slid into a table after ordering.

You tilted your head, shoulders instantly relaxing at the sound of his voice, as a soft smile slowly made its way onto your face that was brighter than the sun the two of you just sat under.

You propped your elbows up on the table, resting your chin on your hands, as you looked at the love of your life with nothing but fascination, “Your eyes always look pretty.”

Mat reciprocated your beaming smile.

And the unknown feeling vanished.

–––

The spring air dwindled away and the crisp air of autumn slowly began to replace the weather associated with new beginnings. Even though the seasons changed, the heaviness in your chest you felt in May was still present in September. No matter what you did, or who you spent time with, the feeling continued to grow until it latched onto your deepest insecurities. And it wasn’t until you had an honest conversation with your best friend that she told you the feeling was anxiety.

Anxiety.

What did you have to be anxious about? What was so terrible in your life that made you nauseous in the mornings, kept you up until the late hours of the night, and had you constantly bouncing your leg up and down while sitting? Your life had been going exactly according to plan––exactly how you thought you wanted it to go. All you wanted was for it to disappear, but you couldn’t pinpoint what made you anxious. Which made it hard to try and control the feeling.

But there was one thing you did that proved successful in making the anxiety subside.

With your bare chest pressed up against Mat’s, his fingertips slightly digging into the skin of your hips, you rested your head in the crook of his neck as you inhaled a sharp breath. You had just experienced a shuddering orgasm on his lap, but he wasn’t quite finished.

Mat wrapped an arm around your body and flipped you over. You opened your eyes briefly to see him crawling up your body, adjusting himself in this new position. With raised eyebrows, he offered you a soft smile. And after you gave him verbal confirmation you wanted him again, he nudged your legs apart and guided himself in. You hadn’t fully recovered from the previous act of shared intimacy, but that didn’t matter to you.

The only thing that mattered was getting rid of the tortuous feeling that consumed you.

But when your hips met, and you heard Mat inhale a sharp breath, the feeling lessened.

You always looked forward to that––Mat’s breathless smile when your pelvic bones first connected in a deep thrust. There were other things, too. You knew things about Mat that nobody else knew. Like how Mat always crinkled his nose when he first became aroused. How his biceps were especially ticklish if you dragged your fingertips across them. How it drove him crazy when you would wrap your legs around him, hooking him in to pull him closer. Or how Mat would press a lingering kiss to your cheek when he was perilously close to the edge.

And it was that last movement that brought you out of your head––Mat pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek.

With a ragged breath, you trailed a hand up his arm––skipping his biceps––and curled an arm around his neck. Your fingers delicately moved up his neck as you weaved your fingers through his hair, and then slowly let your hand drag to the side of his face; cupping his cheek. And with a series of quick, deep thrusts with Mat on top, was all it took for your walls to clench around him as you lost your breath momentarily.

As you rode out the high of your orgasm, Mat was close behind. With a few more thrusts, you knew he released when his movements slowed down with a few snaps of his hips. After he inhaled a deep breath and released it through his nose, Mat rested his forehead against yours and then opened his eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered unintelligibly while trying to catch his breath.

You rubbed your thumb over his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, nuzzling his head into the palm of your hand, before a shy smile broke through. With a gentle peck to your lips, Mat rolled off you and quickly disposed of the condom before rolling back into bed.

When Mat was back at your side, he propped himself up with his elbow and stared down at you. Shuffling a bit down the pillow, you pulled the sheets up to your neck and peered up at him. With his free hand, he took one of your hands and lazily played with your fingers. He went from slowly moving his fingers between yours, to his fingertips leisurely moving from the bottom of your palm to the tips of your fingers. And when he had done that for a few moments, he started tracing the lines on the inside of your palm.

The only sound in the room was the two of you silently breathing; basking in each other's presence after a few moments of shared intimacy. Even in the silence, all you heard was him whispering I love you on repeat in your mind.

Every time he said those words to you felt like the first time. And even hearing the echo of them from your memory caused a scintillating smile to unashamedly grow on your face. You diverted your gaze from him playing with your hand to look at him.

Mat’s eyes were already focused on you.

His eyes were the first thing you fell in love with. You didn’t know if you fell in love with him when you were twelve years old; when his wide, nervous eyes offered you a stick and asked if you’d to join his team for street hockey. Or when you were nineteen; when his earnest eyes were bloodshot as he confided in you that he was scared of losing the connection of your relationship when he went to Seattle. No matter what emotion he held in his eyes, you always loved them.

And even now, his eyes were soft. His eyes were so full of love, but there was another emotion swimming around in his eyes that you had only seen before he asked you out; longing.

You didn’t know what he was longing for as he stared at you. A creased formed in between his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows together. Removing the arm you had under the pillow, you raised your hand and rubbed the crease until his eyebrows relaxed. He offered you a small smile, but this smile was more one of concern rather than happiness.

Like you did earlier when Mat was on top of you, you trailed your fingers down his cheek until you cupped the side of his face with your palm. Slowly, you caressed his cheek with your thumb.

“Are you alright?” Mat whispered.

It was your turn for your eyebrows to scrunch together and a crease to form between them. And while you momentarily retracted your hand from his face, you snapped out of your shock, and moved your hand up to brush a piece of loose hair out of his face. The piece of hair didn’t stay in its place, so you pushed it back once more, as you tried to distract yourself from the growing feeling of anxiety bubbling up in your stomach.

The piece of hair continued to fall in front of his forehead, so you focused all of your concentration on making sure it stayed away, “Of course I am, why?”

Mat shrugged his shoulders. And he took your hand that pushed his hair back and intertwined your fingers together, “You seem a little…off.”

You snorted, “We just had sex twice,” your facial expression held a serious look, but your tone of voice was teasing, “Are you complaining?”

Mat let out a breathy laugh as he squeezed your hand, “That’s not––That was incredible––Really really good––definitely not complaining,” he smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I feel like I can say I know you better than anyone else, and…I don’t know.” His eyes dropped to your intertwined hands, and he tried his hardest to force a smile before looking back at you, “It feels like something’s been up the past few days.”

Few months, you wanted to correct him.

You shook your head, trying to ease both of your nerves, “I uh––I’m thinking of looking at grad schools?” you let the little white lie easily slip, “But I’m not seriously looking, it was just a thought.”

Mat playfully rolled his eyes, “Knew something was up,” he brought your connected hands up to his lips to press a reassuring kiss to the top of your hand, “If you do seriously consider grad school, you’re probably the most well off person to apply.” At his confidence in you, you tucked your chin into your chest.

“It’s just…” you inhaled a shaky breath, wanting to come clean about your unknowing anxiety, but something held you back, “I don’t know.”

Mat dropped your hand and slowly stroked the side of your face with the back of his hand, “It’s a lot to think about. But there are plenty of great schools in New York,” when his lips turned upward in a smile, you felt your stomach drop, “Whatever you want, we’ll figure it out together.” Mat pressed a kiss to your cheek, “We have all the time in the world.”

His voice, full of optimism, matched the hopefulness behind his eyes, and his smile finally met his eyes. And the longer you stared into his eyes, you saw a glint of something you had never seen before; devotion.

You don’t know when it happened, but you accepted the fact that you would marry Mat––spend the rest of your life with him. There was no lengthy discussion, but there seemed to be mutual acceptance. Mat always spoke so passionately about starting a family with you when he saw a toddler run around the park. And whenever you drove past a house you liked, you always made a passing comment about how nice it would be to raise a family with him.

You wondered when you started to feel so uncomfortable with the feeling of security.

–––

The month of September was slightly better, but not by much. The anxiety was still present and you kept Mat in the dark about everything. But it was difficult to confide in him when you didn’t even know the root of the problem. You couldn’t pinpoint the cause of anxiety, and you thought the feeling would disappear in June.

But it was now October and your anxiety had escalated to suffocation.

Suffocation.

It felt like there was a bag of twenty-pound rocks tied to your ankles and you were drowning. When you didn’t feel like you were drowning, you felt as if someone was smothering you with a pillow. And when you finally felt free from the smothering, it felt as though someone had cut off your air supply. But there was one thing that temporarily relieved the feeling of suffocation.

And it came with an acceptance email from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

When you applied to a handful of universities to continue your education, you thought your anxiety was based around a fear of not excelling to your full potential. So, with that in mind, you took the little white lie you told Mat a few months ago and applied exclusively applied to grad schools only in New York City. But a program at Georgetown caught your eye and it was the only school outside of New York you applied to. You hoped for the best, but deep down you had a gut feeling the prestigious school in D.C. would reject you.

But when you received a fairly large envelope in the post, one that was not the size of a rejection letter, you felt a brief moment of freedom.

It is with great pleasure that we offer you admission…

You had read the opening line of the letter ten times before skimming the rest of the offer letter. The amount of confidence and pride you felt swell up in your chest was short lived. Because your new friend, suffocation, quickly swallowed up those feelings.

You had never considered moving out of New York––never considered moving away from Mat––but here you were, internally debating with yourself on whether you should take this offer seriously.

There was too much going on in your head––too much going on in the city––as you walked down the sidewalk. Every step you took toward your home felt like walking on a tightrope.

You had a university acceptance offer…Step one…The university was nearly 300 miles away from Mat…Step two…You had other university acceptance offers for school’s in New York…Step three…But the anxiety only grew when you received acceptance letters from schools in New York…Step four…And all of the anxiety went away with the D.C. offer…Step five…Does Mat have something to do with your anxiety––

You didn’t let yourself finish the last thought.

Mat was your person. There was not a chance the universe would play such a cruel trick on you. Life wasn’t fair, but life wouldn’t rip you away from Mat.

Right before you entered your apartment building, you dug out your phone and called your best friend. Once she picked up, you begged to spend the night at her place, saying you needed to get out of the city. She agreed, but you heard the curiosity behind her voice.

Knowing that mat would be waiting in your apartment, you hurriedly hung up before entering the elevator. The ride up was daunting, and the lights that blinked whenever you rose to a new floor felt as if they taunted you. They were yellow and bright, something you had not felt in quite some time, but the lights didn’t care as they flashed in your face.

When the doors parted open to your floor, you scurried out and opened the door to your apartment. You breezed right in before you changed your and decided to drive straight to Newark.

As expected, Mat sat slumped against the couch cushions as he pointed the remote at the television. He couldn’t seem to pick a channel that held his interest. When he heard the door open, he turned his head and you offered him a small wave as you set your bag on the floor.

“Good day?”

You shrugged your shoulders and walked over to sit next to Mat on the couch, “Average,” you leaned your head on his shoulder, “How was your day?”

Mat mimicked your shrug, “Just practice. Uneventful.”

You let out a snort, “What thrilling lives we live.”

That earned a loud laugh from Mat, “Exhilarating,” he leaned over and kissed your forehead, “So, for dinner? We have stuff to cook, but there’s this new place a few blocks over I thought we could try––”

Lifting your head up from his shoulder, you moved away from him slightly as you brought your legs up to your chest, quickly cutting him off, “I’m actually––I’m going to Newark tonight.”

A few awkward beats of silence passed before Mat spoke with a cracked voice, “Oh?”

Nodding, you leaned your chin on your knees, “Haven’t seen Melanie in a while,” you mentioned your best friend, “Just need to get out of the city for the night.”

“Everything alright?”

Mat’s voice was laced with hesitance, as if he didn’t know if he wanted an answer to his question.

You gulped and hugged your legs closer to your chest, “Yeah I––It’s a girl’s night. We just need to clear our heads.”

Mat nodded in understanding. He pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and pointer finger, “Clear your head,” he repeated cautiously as if he sensed there was an ulterior motive. He closed his eyes, and after a few more beats of silence, he opened them. And you felt your heartstrings tug in your chest when you saw the amount of yearning behind his stare.

“That’s…” he cleared his throat, and nodded his head slowly, as he looked at the television, “good.”

He didn’t phrase his words as a question, but they weren’t a statement either. It was Mat convincing himself that you leaving the city was fine…That you were fine…That the relationship was fine.

To ease his doubts––because there was nothing in your life that you were more certain of than your love for him––you took his hand, “It’s just for one night.” Your voice didn’t waver, and you spoke with double the confidence, hoping to transfer some of it to the boy who sat across from you.

“No, yeah that’s fine,” Mat bit the inside of his cheek, “Time with your friends is good.”

Mat never verbally recognized the small rift forming between you two, but in this moment, you knew he could feel it more than ever. And when you felt him pull his hand away from yours, you panicked and squeezed his hand twice. It caught his attention, and you smiled at him, “We’ll try out the new place tomorrow night for dinner.”

There was a far off look in his eyes, but he nodded in agreement.

Mat only using the bare minimum to communicate with you drove you up a wall. You didn’t like how he avoided conversation, and you didn’t like the feeling in your stomach that came with it. He’s disappointed in you, a voice in your head spoke up, you’re leaving him alone when you know he doesn’t feel confident about your relationship––

In order to silence the voice in your head, you did the only thing that you knew would keep it quiet.

You leaned forward, gently placing both of your hands on Mat’s cheeks, and kissed him. At first when he didn’t kiss back, you feared that you wouldn’t be lucky this time around to quiet your insecurities. The toxic coping mechanism you fell into every time wasn’t working. Panic rose through your body fast, and just when you were about to give up hope, he kissed you back.

A sigh escaped your lips as Mat pressed a hand firmly to your lower back to pull you closer.

You needed to be closer.

His hands carefully held your waist as your hands traveled from the sides of his face to the nape of his neck.

You needed to feel closer.

He kissed you harder, hands creeping up your shirt as he was always one to crave skin-to-skin contact. You let your hands delicately move down his neck to his shoulders––lifting your touch on his skin to avoid his biceps––and let your hands fall onto his chest.

Closer.

You needed to physically feel as close as possible to Mat; because emotionally, you felt as far away from him as ever.

–––

The forty-five minute drive from Long Island to Newark was filled with songs from the shared Spotify playlist you had with Mat.

He created it when he first went off to play hockey in Seattle claiming it would be a fun way to stay updated with each other's lives. The playlist was full of songs that reminded either of you of each other, upbeat heavy rock songs that Mat listened to before a hockey game, or more mellow songs you heard in a coffee shop while studying.

Since Mat had started the tradition of creating a shared playlist each year, there was a new playlist for almost the entirety of your relationship. And on your lonesome drive to Newark, you pressed play on the playlist from 2015.

You left your apartment after a silent cuddle with Mat that lasted a few hours; legs tangled together, synchronized breathing, and featherlight touches. There was a moment where Mat removed his arms from your waist––he said he was cold––and asked if you had a sweatshirt he could borrow. Reluctantly, you got up and trudged to your room to look for a sweatshirt of his you once stole.

A black sweatshirt caught your eyes and you picked it up. The Seattle Thunderbirds logo printed on the front, you toyed with the hoodie strings, debating on if you wanted to give him his sweatshirt back. It was one of the first ones you sneakily stole from him in the beginning of your relationship. And as much as the sweatshirt was rightfully his, it had made a home in your drawer over the years.

Missing the way his arms felt wrapped around you, you walked back to the couch––Thunderbirds sweatshirt in hand––and offered it up to him. Mat quickly tugged it over his head, ruffling his hand through his already messed-up hair, and then pulled you down to lay next to him.

He left your apartment wearing the sweatshirt.

After replaying the memory of Mat walking out of your place with his sweatshirt, you found yourself at your best friend’s townhouse sooner than expected. She ushered you into her kitchen saying she was almost done boiling the kettle for tea.

The only words exchanged between the two of you so far was a greeting and barely there small talk. She didn’t push you as to why you frantically called her and begged for a night away from New York. But she anticipated that the conversation would come later in the night.

Once the teas were made to both of your likings, Melanie led you upstairs to her rooftop deck. A fond smile crossed your face as flashbacks from all the times the two of you had spent up here. The two of you had met in university, but she was a few years older than you, so she moved out of New York sooner than you.

Most of your deep conversations about Mat took place on this rooftop. From realizing you loved him on this rooftop to coming to terms that there was no one else you’d rather spend the rest of your life with… This rooftop held the realizations of multiple monumental moments of your relationship with Mat.

Next to the sectional couch the two of you sat on, Melanie lifted the lid of the wicker basket and plucked out two blankets. You quickly wrapped the blanket around your shoulders, bracing your body against the frigid air.

As Melanie adjusted the blanket over her shoulders, she spoke up, “Everything alright?”

You took a sip of tea, keeping your vision set straight ahead, “Yeah, I’m alright––it’s just…” you glanced over at her to see she had her eyes raised, silently telling you to rethink your answer, “I don’t know.”

Shoulders slumped over in defeat, you took another sip of tea.

“I think you’re far from fine,” Melanie chuckled, “Got a call from my best friend panicking about how she had to get away,” her voice waned off amusement and turned more serious, “You worried me.”

You nodded in understanding, “Sorry, I didn’t think––Sorry––It’s just everything…” you nervously itched your collarbone and let out a sigh, “Sorry.”

Melanie placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Never apologize for what you’re feeling,” her eyes were soft, and full of concern, as she weakly smiled and headed carefully with her words, “Even if you don’t…know what you’re feeling.”

“I got accepted to Georgetown,” you blurted out as you kept your eyes trained on the ground.

Her eyes widened, and a genuine smile spread across her face, “That’s––Shit, congratulations! That’s so exciting! D.C.…Wow.”

With a slow nod of your head, you took a sip of your tea, “D.C.”

A brief silence in conversation revealed everything Melanie needed to know about why you suddenly had to escape from the city.

“Mat doesn’t know?”

You repeated her question as a statement, “Mat doesn’t know,” breaking eye contact with her again, you swallowed down your insecurities, “While like––I don’t know––That’s not why I’m…upset.” Melanie nodded and waited for you to continue your explanation, “Things have been…off.”

“Off? As in recently?” Melanie questioned as you stayed silent. With a deep sigh, she whispered, “How long have things felt off?”

You gulped, “May.”

Melanie’s eyes widened again, but not in the joyous sense like they had when you told her about your graduate school acceptance. Her eyebrows were raised high and her mouth slightly dropped open, “Shit, Y/N, it’s November.’

Again, you nodded and took another sip of tea, “It is November.”

“You’re going to have to do more talking than repeat the last words of every sentence I say.”

The words weren’t meant to be harsh, but her tone of voice still caused you to flinch. Her sentence was the truth, and you didn’t come here to be coddled. You needed someone to be brutally honest with you to help bring you to a conclusion. And you knew you had to offer up more information, or else your little one-night escape away from the city would be pointless.

“I feel stuck,” you breathed out, the last word barely a whisper, as you felt your throat close up, “I feel stuck and I’ve felt this way since May. I don’t know why I feel like this and I really don’t know what to fucking do, Mel. I––I’m so scared.”

Melanie scooted closer to you, “Stressed about potentially going back to school?”

You shook your head immediately. The thought of going back to school was the only thing keeping you sane at the moment. You couldn’t wait to expand upon another area of study that interested you. And you had been feeling this way long before you entertained the idea of going back to school.

“Everything is going so so well with Mat and…I don’t know…I’m happy with how things are now, but––“

“You’re obviously not happy if you can’t talk to him about this,” Melanie cut you off sharply before she inhaled a deep breath, “Maybe you need some change.”

You quirked an eyebrow up and tilted your head, “Change?”

She nodded and offered you a regretful smile; one that people had tucked away for when they had to break not so pleasant news to people they cared about, “Change from…how your life has been going.”

You continued to blankly stare at her as the dots didn’t connect in your mind. Melanie took your silence as a way to continue on with her explanation.

“Maybe D.C. is a great opportunity to start over.”

Suddenly, the crickets that chirped on her rooftop blared like alarms, the blanket you had on felt itchy, and the bitter autumn air smelt stale.

“Start…Over?” You shook your head no as Melanie nodded her head yes, “I have a life built around Mat and a––I have a future with him––That’s not––I can’t––“

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Melanie,” you pleaded with your best friend as the scratchiness behind your throat became uncomfortable, “I can’t do that to him––“

She held up a hand for you to stop talking, “You’ve been with mat since you were like twenty––“

“Eighteen,” you corrected her.

She shot you a glare and pretended like she wasn’t interrupted, “You were children when your relationship started,” she waved her free hand in the air, “There’s no denying that you’ve had a great relationship with him. The two of you have grown so much together, but sometimes things get stuck in a routine and people need a change.” You felt a lone tear trickle down your cheek, “Maybe you need a change.”

You carefully set your tea down on the glass patio table as all of the negative thoughts and feelings ventured out of their hiding places. One by one, they creeped out of every corner––no crevice too small––of your mind, as your subconscious tortured you with the lethal words they created.

With the heel of your palm, you wiped away more silent tears that couldn’t stop falling from your eyes.

Change was something you didn’t handle well. Change was something you’ve never liked. Your heart was saying that this kind of change––a change from Mat was bad––but your heart was screaming. Your heart was screaming about how exhausted it always felt suffocated. Your heart was telling you that there was another way. That you didn’t have to feel like this all the time––how you shouldn’t feel like this all the time.

You wanted to ignore how your heart felt and listen to your head. You wanted to ignore the heartbreaking gaze Melanie sent your way. And most of all, you wanted to ignore how your best friend had a very valid opinion.

You craved Mat’s presence now more than ever.

–––

November ended painfully slow and December came without a care for your feelings.

In the midst of juggling your job, figuring out technicalities that potentially came with continuing your education down in D.C., and keeping up with Mat’s hockey schedule…You were also trying to stabilize a relationship that you desperately clung on to.

Ever since your roof top conversation with Melanie, you felt the relationship crumbling on your end. And only a couple weeks later, Mat seemed hesitant around you. Every touch he gave you held doubt. Every night you went to bed, he shifted further to the other side. And every I love you was said with caution.

He was there physically, but emotionally, he was pulling away right before your eyes.

You loathed the situation that you had created for yourself and Mat. You absolutely hated how you no longer synced up. You wanted to go back to the way things were before the summer hit. You craved the smell of the spring air that was synonymous to the safety you felt in Mat’s presence.

Although, you don’t know how possible that was now.

Change.

Melanie nonchalantly brought up the topic of change whenever you called or saw her in person. She reassured you that she would support your decision––whenever you came to one––but she still favored the decision of change for you. She had your best interest at heart, and while you appreciated that, your best interest was entangled with Mat.

And you knew that the decision she wanted you to make was not in his best interest.

But there was one day in the past seven months that felt normal.

At work, you were offered a promotion. And that same night, the Islanders had their seventh straight win, with Mat scoring a hat trick. You walked out of your director’s office with a smile on your face, and you snuck down to the lobby to call Mat with the good news. He sounded ecstatic for you over the phone, and he asked if you wanted to go to the game tonight so he could see you right after.

Eagerly, you accepted his offer, and you felt butterflies churn in your stomach as if it was the first time he asked you to attend one of his games.

You rushed to get all of your work done as fast as possible, and a few minutes before the clock struck five, you dashed out of the office and made your way to the arena. The game felt electric, Mat played with a sense of newfound desire, and you were ecstatic for him to be playing so well. And when the game was over, and Mat walked out in his game day suit––jacket folded over his arm and tie loosely done––you barreled into him.

Mat hugged you back just as tight, if not tighter, and his reassuring touch reestablished a sense of purpose in your life.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mat whispered in your ear, congratulating you on your promotion, “I’ll love you forever.”

That day filled you with hope.

That day made you smile wider than you had in the last few months. It was a light finally shining through the dreary storm clouds. And that day helped you gain clarity as to what sort of change you needed in your life.

You decided that change was needed if you wanted to keep sane. And you had come to the compromise that you could have a change and still keep Mat. All you needed was a change of scenery. You didn’t know why you thought you needed an ultimatum between the two, and it eased your troubles a little bit, but not nearly as much as you thought it would.

The day after your promotion and Mat’s hat trick, you woke up with your legs tangled with Mat’s, his arm thrown over your waist, and his face facing yours for the first time in months. It was so domestic, something you took for granted early on in your relationship, but once you had it back in your grasp, you never wanted to let go.

But the moment you woke up, his arm around your waist felt like an anchor aiding in your drowning. While it felt as if you were drowning, you also felt safe in Mat’s arms, as if he lent you a hand for rescue. Mat always made you feel safe.

Unfortunately, that was a week ago. And you hadn’t woken up in his arms since then.

Ironically, even though both of you knew something was wrong, Mat had been spending more time at your apartment than his. But the dynamic between you two had shifted: Mat no longer came up to hug you from behind when you cooked at the stove. You no longer pinched Mat’s hips as he walked past you. And the two of you blushed profusely and looked the other way whenever you saw the other in a towel after a shower.

Things had been off emotionally for quite some time. But now physical aspects of your relationship were changing, and a piece fo your heart broke off every time you noticed it.

You wanted change, but not like this.

You were at the small table in your kitchen, waiting for Mat to come back to you. He mumbled about heading to the gym with Tito when the two of you were sitting next to each other on the couch. He tied his laces up, and it looked like he was about to walk toward the door before he turned back around and stood in front of you.

Like every time you stared up at Mat, you fell in love with him all over again.

He offered you the smallest of smiles before bending down to your height. Carefully, he cupped your face with his hand, and you immediately leaned into his touch. A peaceful sigh escaped your lips and your eyes closed.

What caught you off guard the most was when Mat leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. And just when your eyes opened, he broke away from the kiss. When his eyes finally opened, they were pleading with you. His eyes begged for an answer you could not give him. His eyes urgently wanted for you to tell him what had flipped your entire world upside down.

But his eyes were also full of love and hope; unconditional love for his high school sweetheart and hope that the two of you could make it over this bump.

“I love you,” he whispered just as soft as the first time he said those words to you, “I won’t be long.”

Desperate for more physical contact from him, you weaved your fingers through his brown hair. You knew how much he loved when you massaged his scalp and ran your fingers through his hair. Instantaneously, his eyes closed, and he leaned forward to brush his nose against yours.

You didn’t want him to go to the gym with Tito.

And like the first day you repeated those important three words back to him, your voice was filled with the same enchantment for the man in front of you, “I love you, too.”

With a sigh, Mat opened his eyes. With the way his eyebrows pinched together, you could tell he was intently debating something in his mind. But before you could pry, he seemed to go against his better judgement and pressed another kiss to your lips. While the kiss wasn’t anything special, he lingered longer than his first kiss.

“I’ll be back soon,” he breathed out softly.

He left before you could open your eyes.

Part of you didn’t want to open your eyes because the last thing you saw––that would be ingrained in your brain forever––was the person you appreciated and cared for most in the world, telling you he loved you. There was no better high in the world than that, especially when you had felt deprived from his love for so long.

But that was six hours ago.

You hoped he would only be gone for two or three hours, but your hope dwindled away with every hour that passed.

You were messing around with your laptop when you heard a key in the door handle. And when you heard the creak of your door open, you held your breath. You felt the inside of your stomach fall and the anxiety crawl up.

Once you looked up from your keyboard, you saw Mat already staring at you.

His cheeks were rosy, lips parted ever so slightly as he heavily breathed, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He held the water bottle in his hands as he stared through you. The way he looked at you was unnerving, and you wish you were able to read his mind.

“I love you, Y/N.”

His voice held conviction as he refocused his gaze to look at you instead of through you.

Slowly, you closed your laptop as Mat walked toward you. He placed the water bottle on the table and looked down at your doe eyed, questioning gaze, “I love you, but I need to know what’s wrong.”

“What––“

“I know you feel it too,” the determination and confidence behind his voice fell, “It’s been a few months and I can’t––we can’t––this?” his voice cracked, “We need to figure it out.”

You sniffled and started to nervously pick at a loose piece of skin by your thumb. Your eyes fell to your lap, not wanting to see the utter heartbreak in his eyes, “Let’s––Yeah. Let’s talk, okay.”

Mat crouched down in front of you, and took one of your fidgety hands in his, “Hey,” he used his other hand to tilt your chin up to look at him, “It’s just me…The guy who accidentally shattered your car window junior year when shooting a puck because I wanted to impress you,” he let out a sad chuckle, “Just…Me.”

You sucked in a deep breath, vigorously nodding your head, in hopes to delay your tears, “I know––And I––That’s what makes this so…” You let out a hiccup and squeezed your eyes shut just as hard as Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, “Hard.”

Before a sob wracked through your chest, Mat was fast to stand up and pull you up with him, wrapping his arms around you. You fell into his chest and he held you close, running a soothing hand up and down your spine. He whispered that everything would be alright, but your arms only tightened around his neck as your sobs increased with his careful words.

After a few moments when your cries slowly started to calm down, Mat slightly leaned back, but made sure to keep his arms securely wrapped around you. He lazily traced patterns with his thumb on your lower back, which caused you to look up at him.

With all your heart, you wished you didn’t look into his eyes. Because seeing his red eyes and heart-rending smile caused you more pain than the last seven months.

He brought a hand up to your face, wiping the tears from under your eyes with his thumb, “There’s my pretty girl,” he sniffled and failed at forcing a smile, “So pretty.”

You felt your bottom lip tremble, another wave of fresh tears waiting to be seen. And when Mat loosened his grasp around your waist, you looked up at him in panic. You didn’t want to be separated from him, but he shushed you, and wrapped an arm around your shoulder to keep you close as he guided you over to the couch.

Much like earlier in the day, the two of you sat on the couch together. But instead of laying together on the couch, he sat next to you.

With your thighs touching, Mat grasped your hand in his, “Talk to me,” his grip was so tight, it felt like he was afraid you would slip away right in front of him, “Please.”

You nodded your head again, but no words came out.

How were you supposed to start off this kind of conversation?

Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, and before you began to overthink about the best way to phrase your feelings, you said the first thing that came to mind.

“I feel anxious,” you let out a shaky breath.

Mat slowly nodded, squeezing your hand again as a silent way to encourage you to continue.

And with a deep breath, you shut your eyes tight, “I feel anxious and stuck––Almost like––I feel like I have no control over anything and it––I think––I need, uh, a change.”

Your words strung together in one rushed out sentence. And as your rambling continued on, your words grew softer and softer until your voice barely carried above a whisper. But the last word––change––echoed loudly in the room. The word was deafeningly loud, and Mat didn’t miss a beat.

“Change…”

The one syllable word sounded foreign coming from his lips. He repeated the word for a second time to make sure he heard you right.

Change.

In a sense, change was ever present in your relationship. There was change when you and Mat first grew out of being friends to more…Change when Mat left for Seattle to play hockey…and change again when Mat got drafted by the Islanders.

Change was almost a constant in your relationship; but the change was always prompted from Mat’s end. There had never been any expressed desire for change on your side.

“What do you want a change from?” Mat’s tone was daring, almost as if he wanted you to make his worst nightmare a reality.

“I––There’s this whole––“

“What,” he didn’t mask the viciousness in his voice, “do you want a change from.”

His voice was demanding, and not at all like the sweet sound that comforted you moments ago. You knew him well enough to know he was growing irritated at you, and you knew it would only get worse.

“I got into a masters program––in D.C.,” you rushed out, and in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best response to reassure his insecurities, but you needed to get that information out there, “And it’s––it sounds so great, Mat. Like really great, and––“

He removed his hand from yours in a swift motion, as if he touched fire, “You’re leaving?”

“That’s not–––“

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?” His eyes shined with hurt and disappointment, but most of all, you could hear the distrust behind his voice, “D.C.?”

You sighed, “I never seriously considered it until last month.”

Mat closed his eyes, no doubt in frustration that you didn’t confide your feelings in him earlier, “You’ve been feeling like you need a change for the past month?” Your silence caused him to flare his nostrils, and edged him on to ask another question, “Since when––Why––How long have you felt this way?”

You gulped, averting your eyes to look at his knees, “I don’t want anything between us to change, Mat,” you spoke carefully, “I was thinking––“

“How long?”

“May.”

You screwed your eyes tight to the point where you felt a stunning sensation in your forehead. You couldn’t bring yourself to look in his eyes, that no doubt would be filled to the brim with pain. And you avoided his stare that bored you for as long as you could.

But when you felt the couch cushion next to you feel lighter, you snapped your eyes open and up to look at Mat.

Mat backed away from the couch, and there was nothing you could have done to prepare yourself for the look of betrayal in his eyes, “May?” Gnawing at your bottom lip, you nodded. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in disbelief, “How could you not tell me––Christ, seven months?” Y/N…” his voice cracked as he said your name.

It killed you to see his jaw clenched and eyes rimmed with redness; and seeing his eyes overflow with heartbreak caused you to shoot up from your seat to comfort him. But what killed you even more was how he flinched away from your touch. Nothing in the world could prepare you for that sting.

All you wanted was to comfort him.

“Mat––“

He inhaled a deep breath and sniffled, “Please, don’t…” he brought both hands up to face, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, “You want to leave?”

He couldn’t even look at you.

Unfair to you, his question held two sides. He was asking for clarification about wanting to leave New York, but also asking if you wanted to leave him. To Mat, leaving New York meant leaving him.

Your arms hung limp at your sides, mouth wide open in shock. You understood his confusion about wanting to leave New York because you had never mentioned it before. But your despair quickly turned into irritation as he verbalized his doubt of your love for him.

“You know I’d never leave you,” you said with a deep breath, trying your best to keep your anger at bay.

He ripped his hands away from his face, “Do I?” He sent you a glare that had you stumbling back, “Because we had this whole plan for us. And now you don't want that with me.”

“I still want that with you!” You threw your hands up in the air in exasperation, “Grad school goes faster than undergrad. We’ve done long distance before, and my job said they could transfer me––“

“You already have a job here!” Mat raised his voice, “There are places to go to grad school here! You have a place here! You have friends here––“

You raised your voice over his, “That’s not the point, please just––“

“You have me here!” His voice cracked, “We had a plan––“

“Plans change!”

Mat had his mouth open, ready to shout over you more, but once your ambiguous statement traveled from the confines of your thoughts and slipped out of your lips, he had no response. You could feel the anger radiating off him as the ringing in your ears grew louder…and louder…and louder…

“Plans don’t just change like that,” he venomously spat out. His words hit you like icicles, cold and sharp before his tone momentarily softened, “I had my life built around you…We––I wanted to marry you. Start a family with you.”

He spoke as if all of those desires he had with you were now a far off fantasy.

You pinched the bridge of your nose to stop a new wave of tears from falling. But these tears weren’t of fear for his reaction to your thoughts about change, he made those feelings loud and clear.

These were tears of mourning.

“Mat,” you spoke his name with a strained voice, “Let’s talk about this rationally––“

He ran a hand through his and narrowed his eyes at you, “Don’t…” he raised his forearm to wipe more tears away from his face, “I can’t believe––I really thought we had it all from the beginning. But who would have actually thought two teenagers would make it this far?”

He let out a soft, maniacal chuckle that made you more nauseous than any amount of anxiety.

“We were just children back then,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “What did we know about life.”

His anger morphed into a cynical tone that sent shivers down your spine. It frightened you when he let out that small laugh, one that was usually saved for comical moments between the two of you.

“But here we are now,” he let out another self-deprecating laugh, “Time’s a funny thing…It seemed like nothing back then––It felt as if we had the rest of our lives together.”

As much as you didn’t want to hear Mat break down everything about your relationship, you knew he was spiraling, and you wanted to help him. Because despite what he may think, you still loved him.

Carefully, you tiptoed forward as Mat continued on with his rambling about how idiotic he was as a kid to think that this would last forever. With each step forward, your heart shattered into the tiniest of shards as Mat portrayed your relationship as childish with no chance of reconciliation.

“You just took my love,” his voice decreased in volume and cynicism, and was replaced with a tone that ripped your heart out of your chest. He pointed an accusatory finger at you that made you stop in your tracks, “You took my love––you took it and have no remorse whatsoever––“

You shook your head and picked up the pace of your walking to reach him, “I still love you, Mat. That will never change.”

He stared down at you, and for a moment, you saw the Mat you fell in love with. You saw the bright-eyed eighteen-year-old boy who took his time in teaching you how to shoot a perfect slapshot in his driveway. He looked like he was on the verge of forgiveness, but once you slightly ghosted your fingers against his hand, he snapped out of whatever trance he fell under.

“I don’t know how to love anyone else,” his shoulders slumped forward as he bit his bottom lip.

Without caring that he pulled his hand away from yours seconds ago, you swiftly took his hand in his and gripped it as if you were hanging off a cliff and he was your only lifeline. You didn’t know if it was a moment of bravery, or a moment of desperation. Because there was a nagging thought in the back of your mind that screamed about how this could be the last time you touched him.

“You don’t have to love anyone else,” you pleaded with him, your voice catching in your throat as tears welled up in your eyes, “I don’t want you to love anyone else.”

“Time’s a funny thing,” Mat let out a humorous chuckle, not believing that the two of you found yourself desperately clinging onto the past.

When he finally made eye contact with you, he slightly tilted his head as a single tear rolled down his cheek. Even when he was crying, his dark eyes still captivated you like no one else had. And the longer you stared into his longing eyes, they were filled with one emotion you weren’t familiar with; regret.

“Mat,” you whispered his name cautiously, petrified of what his next move was, “We can work through this…”

He slowly shook his head, causing your heart to plummet, “May…From what I’ve gathered, you hadn’t applied to grad schools then––Didn’t have an excuse for change,” he stalled back more of his tears, “But you wanted a change. You still want that change.”

“I want a change of scenery,” you tried your hardest to make him understand your feelings, “Not a change from you.”

“The only thing back then you could’ve wanted a change from was me,” it was the first time his voice didn’t falter. He was confident in his theory that you didn’t want him anymore.

You squeezed his hand, “Are you even listening to yourself––“

“You’re the love of my life,” his voice was full of pain, and when he softly smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. With one hand still clutching onto yours, he brought his other hand up––a trembling hand––and tucked a piece of stray hair behind your ear, “I just wish I was yours.”

With a shakey inhale, and one last strong sniffle to conceal his sobs, Mat pressed a firm kiss to your forehead. And when released your hand one last time, he escaped out the door.

You had felt many sensations throughout the past seven months: drowning, feeling weighed down, and suffocation. But what you felt right now, the devastation that encased your whole body, was far worse than any of those emotions.

Because now, it felt as if you were falling.

Mat, your only lifeline, let go of your hand.

He knew he held the power to pull you up and save you, but he decided to let you go. When he released your grip, it felt as if he was releasing it finger by finger, desperately wanting to hold onto what you both had; wanting to hold onto the life both of you had created around one another. But in the end, it didn’t survive.

And as he released your hand, you fell.

You fell over the edge, stomach performing backflips as the sensation became worse with each passing second. The sensation of falling was never ending, as if you were falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland; terrified of what waited for you at the bottom.

The December air felt frigid. The December air made one seek comfort in hot chocolate, or another menial item, because winter wasn’t strong enough to provide comfort. The December air felt nothing like the spring air that offered you solace without asking for anything in return.

Oh, how you wished to smell that spring air once more.

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