#anyways these are both partially inspired by songs on their playlists

[keymintt]

in warmth, in cold

#art #body horror #coyotes #digital #grimm #yarrow #ocs #honeybee #my art #did the grimm one first and than i realized how i do cool stuff for grimm but not always for yarrow like hey wait a minute #anyways these are both partially inspired by songs on their playlists #a kindling of sorts by the oh hellos for yarrow and slate by model/actriz for grimm hee hoo #doing those studies of the disco elysium art style in 2022 fucking rewrote my own style i swear

[xdjville]

ilysb

pairing: doyoung x gn!reader

genre: romance, established relationship

cw: none

word count: 448

author's note: directly inspired by this cover by woosung from the rose, i just love it so so much. if you're able to, please listen to the song before/while reading, i promise it will get you in the mood

"mad cool in all my clothes,

mad warm when you get close to me.

slow dance these summer nights,

our disco ball's my kitchen light."

you looked ethereal. your eyes closed as you swayed to the slow rythm of the music playing from your phone's speakers, arms wrapped loosely around doyoung's neck. the ceiling lights were dimmed, only so bright to let him recognise the faint crimson color staining your cheeks and the rouge shade of your lipgloss that he had already partially wiped off with his own lips, but vague enough to let the moon's midnight glow caress both of your faces.

doyoung was far from romantic. before he met you, he had never wished of a fairy tale love story - he would always say that he had better, more important things on his mind, that there was never a person he wanted anything of an affair with, and why would he even need one, anyways. that was, untill you barged into his life, uninvited and without asking for permission, and turned it around completely.

because now there was someone else in his word, and it used to absolutely terrify him. he couldn't understand why he never seemed to be able to get you out of his head, how his favorite restaurant turned into your favorite restaurant, how his days off turned into "i wonder if they're free tomorrow", how the playlists with his most beloved songs had been tucked away and untouched for weeks, because he only listened to the ones made by you to try and soothe the never-ending yearning. suddenly he loathed solitude, because every second of the alone time he used to cherish so much was spent counting down to the next time you'd see each other.

it scared him, so much that he had spent several restless nights wondering if he should just run away (altough he'd never told you that). yet the thought of being away from you was physically unbearable - it felt empty and grim, as if someone had stolen a critical part of him, and nothing, and believe when he says he had tried it all, could fill the void.

but with time and your guidance, he gradually came to terms with this overwhelming feeling, slowly learning how to love and be loved. and doyoung loved you in the most pure meaning of this word, genuinely and deeply. even though there were still moments when he didn't know how to cope with the butterlies and stomach turns and burning face and heart beating out of his chest, he found peace in all of those, because it meant you were there.

and as you moved slowly between the counters of the kitchen, he thought about the journey that got him to this moment, and all the years to come that he wished he would spend by your side.

"oh, my heart hurts so good,

i love you babe,

so bad, so bad."

©xdjville

➼♡ taglist: @bambisnc

#nct imagines #nct reactions #kpop imagines #kpop reactions #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 reactions #nct 127 scenarios #nct scenarios #kpop scenarios #doyoung imagines #doyoung scenarios

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/17/2023

started explaining why this one is a little lighter than last week's gallery wall behemoth bc of a uhhhh kind of dire week, personally and professionally speaking, but then realized when fic authors do that in front of chapters i don't actually care or require an excuse from them, im just delighted to have a new chapter.

listening

this is a deeply cheesy little folk song but the lyrics "man you name it and if we ain’t got it: we’ll get it" gave me a sensible chuckle.

now for a moment to expound upon houston: they truly have imported every possible food service establishment. the two chains i miss most from jersey, jersey mikes submarine sandwiches and 7-11 gas stations, are both here. i get that this is the fifth largest metro area in the US or whatever but both of these companies are SO niche. absolutely bonkers. spotify.

i think this started autoplaying after a playlist inspired by f/allout: new v/egas came on??

-

reading

i originally had a very mean-spirited graf about the utility of a pool in northwestern massachusetts and the kind of person who can comfortably lose $31k, but it is genuinely awful that there are no rules around zelle. that money goes into a black fucking hole and there's no way to get it back, which is not the case for any other kind of recognized money except cryptocurrency

Did we confront Gary Kruglitz [the pool contractor]? Yes we did. We marched right into his office and grilled him hard until he defeated us with a simple and probing question: What's a zelle? It defied belief, we quickly realized, that a man who had been trapped in technological amber since the Nixon era was running a cyberscam designed to come between us and our money out of an AOL account.

-

watching

Van Helsing (2004, dir. Sommers). this movie is horrible. this movie is terrific. i don't have anything to say about this movie bc i was distracted by equal opportunity tits and asses the entire time. the time of the “Kate Beckinsale in a corset” movie genre is long over but GOD. watched with my sister bc it's leaving tubi soon

playing

one week i will have the energy to try New Thing but until i do it’s genshin. there's a poetry event that has terribly boring minigames, but the story quest has finally tied a bow on a piece of folkore we came across in the very first release so that was fun!

wrapping up some stuff in sumeru bc im running out of map pins, this game has done one of the things i hate most: progress-locking one extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the music gates) behind another extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the robots locked in the vines). the next time i see one of those little fucking budget koroks i am going to drop kick it into the sun. what the fuck is the circumference of teyvat anyway. it feels like we have explored so little of this planet's surface

i have graphics turned down pretty low bc of performance issues on my elderly laptop and this is still such a remarkably pretty game. look at this big estuary leading off into the distance

-

making

i wildly overextended myself this week, partially bc im trying to take advantage of this brief post-covid heightened immunity. lot of dinners. lot of late nights. on top of that BOTH of my siblings were in town for unrelated professional reasons this week :) no overlap so we did not have a nice fambly dinner :( but did have pretty okay separate dinners :) if they could learn to fucking communicate their trave plans and the number of peope that will be showing up at my home that would also be pretty okay >:(

one of the party games i played this week asked the question “what could you give a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation on” and i started saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad and they very nicely let me continue saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad, the largest bankruptcy in US history until ENRON, until the round timer went off.

i have some thoughts about Train Guys and how it's very easy to fall into being a Train Guy, bc there's a very easy template to follow, and there's a lot of Train Guy content, and have i been doing this bc i actually like trains, or bc it's easy to listen to Well There's Your Problem on repeat bc it's familiar and comforting, or do i just really really really fucking hate flying?

who could possibly say.

mackintosh update: allowed herself to be scooped up by my brother (who she met at christmas and loves) but did NOT allow herself to be pet by the strangers in his company. did hang out in the middle of the floor observing tho. a regular little extroverted socialite!

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

[n7punk]

Let Me Ride Fic Notes

These notes are going to be shorter/looser than usual, this was an utter lie and I don't know why I thought I could abide by it when I wrote it a month ago. Anyway, Let Me Ride is done and as always I have meta.

Epilogue Life:

It's all set up in the fic, but they start working on spending time together more, talking things out, and generally fixing their relationship. They still have more growing to do, and integrating their lives and new friendships is kind of a struggle, but they get there.

Catra focuses on street racing a while, which is honestly good for their relationship at first because Catra feels like her skill is finally respected, but it's also really dangerous. As she slowly gets brought on as additional help ("as needed") around the track, she also gets access to the track itself during downtime through favoritism, and though she finds street racing a lot more fun, she can also acknowledge it's a lot safer for both herself and others to race on the track. She never fully quits being a nuisance on the roads - and neither does Adora, even if she stops participating in organized races - but she does slow down ("You've made me boring," she accuses Adora. That kind of stuff), it just takes a while.

Entrapta and Scorpia keep living together for a while until Scorpia ends up meeting Perfuma through the track (context further in the notes) and they spark up a relationship.

Playlist:

Dressed To Kill by The Wombats, Disco Heart by Gia Woods, Lesbionic by Gia Woods, Pineapple Slice by Tove Lo, WET by Lauren Sanderson, uh oh by Tate McRae (again), Whiplash by Alex Cappelli, 20 Questions by Zolita (yeah, I know it's a cheating song and the hook-ups aren't actually a problem in here, but it's more the energy of "Oh, did you get everything you wanted? Was it worth it?" applied to Adora leaving), and finally: Kiss Goodnight by I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME. (All of this capitalization is correct).

Chapter 1:

"Let me ride" is... well we all know what it is, but it's also Adora quite literally going "Angella please let me ride", being told no, and then going sulking - accidentally - right into Catra's arms.

I don't think I ever mentioned this, actually, but there's been a steady amount of motorcycle catradora art over the years that of course acts as the big inspiration/motivation for doing a motorcycle AU.

Adora says she "shouldn't" look at the magicat because she's expecting one of two outcomes: 1) it's some random magicat and she might be in for another painful experience like she talks about in Chapter 4, or 2) it actually is Catra and everything ends up hurting more. She wasn't expecting a third choice.

As implied later and unsurprisingly, Adora is autistic in this, hence her strong attraction to certain sensations and need for them or else she gets deeply unsettled. She's just the rare case of an autistic not bothered by sound.

I decided to go with naming the bikes Swift Wind and Melog partially because Swift Wind just made sense for Adora's bike but also because Melog's role in the show as, essentially, a therapy animal for Catra underscores how much of her mental well-being is coming from racing at that point in her life.

Chapter 2:

Neighorhoods like Glimmer's are far from standard where I live right now, but I have seen them here and there when traveling in both fancy and Very Average (or less) neighborhoods. There's no driveway in the front, so the front yards have ~aesthetic~ paths to the front door, and then there's a normal backyard and behind the back fence is a hidden driveway with a back street between the street rows to reach it. It kind of doubles the amount of street needed for a "single street" of houses since they have the "real" (for show) wide streets out front and then narrower backstreets between backyards.

Mentioning them using the strap facedown the first time was supposed to lowkey be a reference to toht, which was the first time I wrote strapping, only I just realized I'm actually thinking of the first strap scene in SLAS so... listen all the smut blends together.

This whole fic was supposed to be 20k and then chapter 2 alone ended up 9k because I couldn't control them and I realized I was a lost cause.

Chapter 3:

Adora speculates on it, but Catra cut her hair both because it was getting in the wound on her neck and making it hard to care for and because it changes her appearance pretty dramatically and makes her feel better about avoiding the Horde and the cops.

Of course Adora blames herself for Entrapta leaving. She's Adora. It's not like she's the newbie and no one who knew Entrapta better could do it either - no, she's the reason Catra found out about Entrapta, so it's her fault.

Adora genders her bike because she has pack-bonded with it, but Catra (though Extremely attached to her own bike) finds it weird to gender cars and the like.

Catra and Scorpia are staying at Entrapta's apartment because Catra ended up moving in with Scorpia after the breakup, and then they were worried about the Horde seeking retribution on them (rightfully) so they moved in with Entrapta since the Horde hadn't actually had reason to learn her address yet, and that way they could all be together to fight back if someone came after them.

Shadow Weaver betraying Catra and the Horde is a mirror of that arc from season two/three, but in this case Catra ended up fully banished because she was never given a path of redemption (even one that was intended to be a suicide mission so Hordak could keep Entrapta happy) and she's lowkey a shoot on sight order for the Horde, only the Horde doesn't really kill people, it's just that if they did she would be the first. She knows way too much and supposedly is already willing to work with the cops, making her a bigger risk than Adora was when she walked. She isn't actually in danger of being killed, but it's best she steers clear from the Horde in every way that she can.

Hordak "seducing" Entrapta wasn't like, real seducing for multiple reasons. In this AU, Hordak is focused on getting in with the Prime organized crime group to work towards expansion, so he hasn't worked with Entrapta but he is around the shop enough to know how useful she is and thus tried to convince her to stay. Part of that "seduction" was stuff like offering her better builds, which is better than sex in motivation for Entrapta lol. In the end, though, he was threatening to kill her friend for something Entapta couldn't see being Catra's fault. Entrapta was also pretty close with Catra and Melog was enough motivation on their own.

She was kind of missing the racers back at the track, too, and sticking with the Horde through this meant she had little chance of going back. While she was free to build without legal restrictions, monetary ones were a much bigger confining factor than they had been at the track, and she wasn't really allowed to do whatever she wanted on most customer cars since they asked for one thing and that was all Shadow Weaver and Hordak wanted to give them. Giving out upgrades for free is bad business, as is doing expensive upgrades that weren't asked for and holding the car hostage until they're paid for. The shop had downsides along with its benefit.

Catra was out in the garage for several minutes because she was 1) composing herself but also 2) looking over "Swift Wind" and inspecting what changes Adora had made (basically everything but the frame) and especially how careful she was when she removed things, looking to see if she left dents or scuffs on Catra's bike (for the most part she didn't because she was careful). It was her trying to determine how respectful Adora was when she took the parts (an act Catra considers disrespectful in itself, but she's aware at this point that Adora doesn't see it that way, so she wants to see how well she did treat it in the process).

Adora just happened to throw her jacket really well so it stayed hanging up on it all night. It seemed like the kind of stupid, jocky thing that Catra thought Adora would practice so she looked smooth when she took off her jacket and acted all effortless - probably flexing her muscles in the process, which would be impressive if they weren't already making out at that point.

When Adora says Entrapta "cuffed" Swift Wind it's not supposed to be racing terminology, but rather personal slang they use do to their origins in this fic, referencing being arrested and handcuffed.

Adora calls Swift Wind "one of the few things Catra has taken proud in", which is partially true, but mostly that's because she's never had the opportunity to do a lot of things she's proud of. Her mechanical skill is about all she has gotten and Swift Wind, being a long time project of her with lots of funds poured into it, and being the only vehicle she has worked on other than Melog that she "keeps", is in another league. It's also missing the context that Catra wasn't only upset about Swift Wind being taken apart because she was proud of her own work, but also because it was the only damn thing she has ever been able to do for Adora with how Shadow cornered them.

Chapter 4:

I was really hoping this would be the last chapter. So hopeful, in fact, that my chapter headings looked like this:

(Obviously I did not end up needing a Chapter 6, but whenever I make a doc I always include a few more chapters than I think I need because I know myself at this point. Also I wrote this bulletpoint before I was halfway through Chapter 4, so hubris really could have gotten me there.)

Obviously Adora isn't really a pillow princess but Catra likes to rile her up.

Catra is so boneless after taking care of Adora because she has been soothed right down to her soul by Adora giving everything over to her like that, trusting her in a way she now knows Adora has only ever trusted her. And then it's her turn 🥰

Adora's speculation was right. Part of Catra's planning was just general scheming behavior and she absolutely wasn't sore after breakfast - and wasn't even really that sore in Chapter 3 either - but letting Adora think that gave her an excuse for slow sex without admitting that's what she actually wanted.

I had so many ideas for when they were laying in bed (pre- and post-sex) in both this chapter and chapter 3, it was ridiculous. Like there's no way I could have used all of them and some of them contradicted each other anyway. That's part of why the smut in this surprised me: 90% of what I had outlined was cuddling and conversation, and then that did Not end up being 90% of the fic.

The "dark edge" to Catra's voice when Adora said her time with the other magicat was gross was her being 100% ready to kill the other woman if she had mistreated Adora.

Honestly my first A/N in the fic was more about the emotional growth these girls still need to go through than the... questionable decisions they have made. Adora is still in her "don't be a burden" mode, and Catra needs to grow into vulnerability more, although she makes good progress in the fic. The rest of that growth is set up by them finally getting back together. They have more to learn and they are going to fight, but after going through the breakup, they can handle it now.

Catra isn't trying to be mean about the plushie - honestly, it makes her affectionate - but it's extremely Adora and that makes her laugh.

When I say the unicorn's mane is "plastic" I mean like really shitty synthetic threads that straight up feel like plastic and tangle easily. That shit is all over "little girls'" toys and it's a nightmare both to touch and maintain.

Adora mentions buying the lingerie for herself because she's never actually worn it in front of anybody else and she didn't want Catra to think she'd done it for some hookup. She had a lot of issues post-breakup, including esteem issues, and it was Glimmer's suggestion. She has put it on once or twice but mostly relegated it to a corner. Post-making-up, however, it finally gets some fun use.

My outline for the end of the chapter was: ["let me drive you home?" "no you cant" BECAUSE SHES ALREADY HOME].

When Catra mentions going back to check on Entrapta, that's partially because Entrapta is getting increasingly more unhinged the longer she goes without work, and because she wants to go talk to her about coming back to the track so they can move onto the next phase of the plan now she knows she wants to go through with it.

Obviously the chapter title is in reference to how I was supposed to have everything wrapped up in the fourth chapter, but it's also kind of the thread throughout the entire fic, expecting every kiss and interaction to be the last.

Chapter 5:

I like the bookending of music being in the first and last chapter, the mentions of sound distortion being in both, and each one ending with them racing off together. I find that kind of thing fun.

Entrapta "isn't a threat" in that everyone at the track knows she would never do anything to hurt them. Girl can absolutely be a threat if she wants to be.

Entrapta hadn't come back to the track immediately because, after becoming friends with Catra and hearing all her rants about Adora, she realized she might not be welcome and they could be mad at her for abandoning them, something that had never occurred to her. It's an aspect of relationships that wasn't immediately obvious to her, but she's been misunderstood and outcast before, mostly in school when she was the subject of a misunderstanding, so it was just easier to not go back and tell herself she liked the freedom of doing whatever personal project she wanted. It was really starting to wear on her though and she wasn't going to be able to hold out for much longer. Catra knew that and getting Entrapta settled back at the track was also part of her agenda when it came to going home with Adora. Catra promised her she could come back that night, after Adora had texted, and she wasn't at all surprised when Entrapta wanted to go immediately, though she convinced her to wait until morning. It moved up the time table on her though and made it harder for her to plan past that in time, something she couldn't do before without seeing how Adora would react to her first.

Entrapta used a simplified ("for younger audiences") dictionary to fall asleep (if she had it her way, it would have been the full thing, but 1, her parents were the ones who had final say and 2, kiiiiind of hard to find audiobooks of the dictionary), one that was designed to introduce new words to kids/teens without going into a million variations of them. I decided this because when I tried to use a real dictionary, I couldn't find my physical one and online dictionary databases are like, a word and then 20 variants of it before moving onto the next one, which didn't really work well for the joke. I ended up searching "words that start with 'au'" on wordhippo and filtering it to common words and then using a couple of the unique words.

Catra went the club a few times without Adora showing throughout the year they were broken up, but like half the times she went without Adora showing were very recent, once she put this plan together and just needed to run into Adora to enact it. As Adora made partying more infrequent, it was harder to find her, but since Adora was also pretty consistent on which days she went, it wasn't all that hard.

I got an ask about what "The Scene™️" is for LMR, and I couldn't answer it 100% honestly then, but I can elaborate now. If you're new, The Scene is the scene (or scenes) that I consider the "big scenes" for the fic, things that really motivated me to write it in the first place or that a lot was building up to/riding on, or that are just a part of the fic I'm super excited for, whether that means to write or share it. For this fic, I had so much outlined that I was excited to write that it's hard to pick one, but if I have to narrow it down to Just One, the conversation in the kitchen where Catra reveals she's hooking up with Entrapta and they finally start to talk things out is probably the answer, with runner-up the scene in the observation deck where Catra reveals the events of the entire fic were planned. When I wrote chapter one at the very beginning, I didn't really do it with that context, but by the time I was doing the final edit I think I knew that was going to be the big reveal, so it has been a secret throughline from chapter 2 at the latest, depending when it happened and how you want to count it. The fic was both building to it, and could exist outside of it, because while it contextualized Catra's actions, before that it was just a hookup and growing fic, and that worked too, but I do think this is a pretty solid moment. I was really excited for all the cuddling and morning after conversation, though, so it's really hard to pick one and say that's it.

I just realized I never said it, but Scorpia got Catra the leather jacket (along with matching ones for her and Entrapta, though Scorpia's is actually a vest because finding one that fit her arms and worked with her spikes wasn't happening. Entrapta doesn't really wear hers because it's a Restrictive Sensation to her) after the stabbing as a bonding, here's-the-symbol-of-our-new-group thing, even though they didn't really have a new group, she was just trying to make Catra feel better about being kicked out of the Horde.

I also never said it in the fic because the scene mentioning it got cut, but the Horde isn't actually based out of Bright Moon, they're like an hour away over the city line to the next town, where Glimmer drove when she wanted to see street racing hoping to avoid people recognizing her (and Bow went with her to make sure she was okay). Catra came to Bright Moon downtown to dance the first time she ran into Adora because they just have a better scene there and then after that she kept coming back for her. It means it isn't too hard for them to avoid the Horde and their old life once they decide to move on.

Sea Hawk is a racer and Mermista is his girlfriend who he has been trying to convince to be his umbrella girl for ages just because he wants to show her off (in a "that's my girl!" way not in like, an objectifying way) but she's refused because that means publicly acknowledging she likes him, something she'll still deny to their friends when they catch them in the middle of making out.

Ok, so umbrella girls (or, apparently, just "the umbrellas" which is. insanely objectifying). I'm not going to pretend to know a lot about them, but I did google some stuff. I was introduced to them when I watched a MotoGP race to see what I was dealing with back when I was first planning this and there were tall supermodel ladies holding umbrellas over the racers before the race started to... protect them from the elements, I guess? Anyway, I don't know if they have to meet all these Requirements like cheerleaders, but it's my AU so I say that in Etheria they're Some Hot Lady who also does promo work for their racer/team and helps deal with sponsors. If you want to be more diverse (and/or get some publicity) you can pick a more unconventional choice like a dude or something. Perfuma is Adora's usual umbrella lady, and she's also a model with this basically being a sidegig she does because she finds the racing and racers hot. Also racing isn't a segregated sport on Etheria, which I'm Pretty Confident it is IRL.

Original Outline:

Surprising Nobody, Probably, this AU is actually two AUs combined. I had the backstory for Let Me Ride (MotoGP/street racing AU) with a few failed attempts at a story for it that never seemed that interesting to me (interesting to read, but not to write, at least not enough for me to actually do it) and I had what I called the "fuckboi drummer" AU, which is what half of the plot for this fic is, but that fic had no backstory or justification for why they were fighting and I just couldn't come up with one that matched the animosity between them, so the two ideas ended up fitting together well.

There were several original stabs at plot for LMR, but the most recent state of it before it became This was that Adora and Catra were both street racers, but they only had the one bike (Adora's bike) so Catra was mostly shoe-horned into the mechanic role, and when Adora got basically sponsored by Glimmer to become a real racer she was like "this is great, we'll move to Bright Moon and I'll pay for you to go to college and do whatever you want", not realizing what Catra wanted was to race and that had been totally discarded. Which like, still is kind of the backstory of the AU, just with some details changed.

The only plot I had after that was that Catra went solo in illegal races once Adora was gone and had her own fancy bike (thus not needing the one Catra built anymorer) and so Catra started tricking it out and eventually got sponsors. She was able to buy her way into low-level professional races and worked her way up through the circuit the traditional way instead of getting scouted and jumping straight to the big leagues. Aaaaaand that was mostly it. I took a couple stabs at coming up with a plot beyond "Oh Catra went up a rank and is getting one step closer to racing Adora" but nothing ever really materialized. At one point they were orphans who stole the bike and Adora was the only racer because they only owned one helmet lol.

For the fuckboi drummer AU, I'd been thinking for a while that Adora would like drums because it feels like hitting shit, and well, there's that TikTok, so I was bored waiting in the parking lot and basically started outlining the hook-up and morning after scenes with the vague idea that the backstory was they ran into each other again at a club and Catra is aware Adora has been hooking up ever since they broke up because she's a little broken inside. Catra comes home with her, they have one night together, and Catra Does Actually Leave in the morning.

The part that existed in the parking lot but that I was never planning on actually writing was that then a few days later Catra does a splice with one of Adora's TikToks - because Adora's drumming was vaguely plot relevant and she sometimes posts short drumming covers on her TikTok just for fun and the compliments she gets on her arms - where Catra sings the words that would go with that part of the song. The song in question was the one I was listening to in the car at the time, the chorus of "Good For Her" by Mothica. Adora comments back "this is so fucked up, Catra", leading to some mild internet drama since they both had a few thousand followers and people in the comments were like oo what 👀 Yeah I wasn't ever planning to write that TikTok part but I was bored XD After that Catra comes around for a second time and this time she stays and there's all that morning after stuff.

When I went to actually write the fuckboi drummer AU, it got condensed down to meeting at the club and going home together with Catra staying permanently after that and all the morning after type stuff. Of course, as I went to write it I found I needed a legitimate backstory, and that's when the "all backstory" AU combined with the "I'm bored in the parking lot" AU and we got the final version of Let Me Ride with at least a bit of an overarching plot in Catra secretly planning it all.

#lmr #ficmeta #fic notes

[raysofcrosby]

christmases when you were mine, fade into new years day – m. tkachuk

warnings: mentions of sex – fingering, language, basically 18+, angst, the word panties [bc again, it needs a warning since it's cringeworthy]. mentions of blood, slightly less of an asshole!matt seeking redemption, italics signify flashbacks! there's also a small ode to one of my all-time fav movies love and basketball in this part 👀

requested: yes | no

inspiration: part three to baby, it's cold outside. otherwise known as the aftermath of the one-night stand, the confrontation and happily ever after...maybe.

word count: 36,381 of once again, pure unedited material [bc i truly just have no self-control and obsess over the details of every little thing it seems...so ya, i stay getting carried away]

an: yes we're in april and yes this three-part series is sticking with the christmas song title theme. the titles are partially based off the songs christmases when you were mine and new years day, both by taylor swift! this is the final part in the series, and sorry for taking so long but now it's finally being posted!! enjoy!

| part one • part two |

“Are you going to tell me what happened last night or what?”

It was the question you’ve been avoiding from the moment Taryn first asked it to you when you both walked through the sliding glass doors of Matt’s apartment complex and out into the cold winter air to get into your waiting uber. There were a million other things you’d rather talk about in the uber with Taryn, Emma and Brady on the way to the airport, and none of them were about your night, Matt or your night with Matt.

When the four of you got through airport security, Emma hung around until it was time for her to catch her plane home, and then it was just the three of you sitting at the gate and waiting to get onto the plane that would eventually take you back to St. Louis for the holidays. And thanks to you and Taryn buying your tickets together over the phone, you two were sitting right next to each other, while Brady was stuck in the aisle next to you, conveniently in the aisle seat. And despite all of the traffic of people trying to board after the three of you and get to their seats, it didn’t stop Brady from consistently leaning forward or backward, whichever put him in your sight and asking–

“So are you going to tell us about your naked night with our brother or what? We already know you guys had sex, so just tell us what happened and we’ll drop it.”

It was dropped anyway thanks to the strange looks received by the elderly couple who stopped just short of your row, waiting for Brady to get up from his aisle seat so they could take their seats beside him. The entire flight home, Brady was trying to get your attention to ask what happened, Taryn had gotten the picture and hadn’t asked again and you ignored them both by putting on your Airpods and listening to your perfectly curated playlist for moments like these.

The ones when your feelings were already hurt and you wanted to hurt them more.

At least until your phone kept spazzing out whenever a new song would play. It somehow gained a charge from Taryn’s charger in the airport while you were waiting to board your plane, but not by much. Maybe 50%. So the last hour of the flight, you’d stopped listening to music altogether and just sat in silence. By the time you landed in St. Louis and made it through Customs, you’d already replayed your whole night and the entire confrontation with Matt this morning in your head as many times as it took to take up the nearly three and a half hour flight it took for you to get back into St. Louis. It was like your own form of self torture, picturing him say the words “one night stand” over and over, as if your brain were trying so hard to engrave it in your heart so you wouldn’t dare look at any of the soft moments between you both the night before and try to find some deeper meaning in them. It was your own form of self-protection that didn’t really work all that well, because by the time your guys uber pulled up in front of the Tkachuk family home, you were already missing the stupid curly headed Tkachuk brother who basically broke your heart without a single care in his stupid NHL player world.

You had made plans for Taryn to come over to your house to spend the night after she showered off the flight, so Brady was the one who offered to walk you home, despite your house being across the street, because it was dark outside and ice was on the sidewalks, a discovery made when he almost slipped getting out of the uber to drop his stuff off on his front steps.

No matter how much you insisted that he didn’t have to do that, that he could just stand on his own front porch and look across the street to make sure you got into your own house safe, he still walked you over. Because he was Brady and he’s always been like that since the two of you became friends, like he was your built in protector while also being your best friend. He was also the number one nuisance in your life besides his older brother, but that just came with the territory. Because in the end, besides Taryn, Brady was the person you could talk to about relationships and sex, unless he pawned you off onto Emma and Taryn– then he wasn’t.

“Okay, so maybe I went about it wrong on the plane, but really what happened last night with Matt because normally you’re asleep on the plane before we take off, but this flight you were all quiet and mopey and pretending to listen to music when I know for a fact you weren’t listening to anything.” He said, leaning against the wall of your house, just beside your front door.

“Brady, I really don’t want to talk about it,” you sighed, digging your house key out from your purse. “Just tell Taryn I’m ordering pizza and I’ve got drinks.”

When you went to unlock the door, Brady grabbed your lanyard from your hand, gaining your attention. “Seriously, y/n. Do I need to kick his ass or what? Because yeah, he’s my older brother and my parents preach family above all else, but I’m not opposed to beating him up if he hurt you. I’m bigger than him now, I can win a fight.”

“Brady, give me my keys.”

“Come on, just tell me!” Brady replied, spinning the keyring around his finger as he squinted his eyes. “Did he hurt you? Did he say something stupid? He does that a lot. Did he force you into anything?”

“Jesus Brady, no,” you huffed, reaching for your keys, Brady playing keep away by holding them up higher than you could reach. “If I tell you, will you leave me alone so I can shower and stuff my face with pizza in peace?”

Brady lolled his head side to side, then nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

You took another deep breath and exhaled, turning towards him fully. “He brushed me off, okay?”

“Brushed…you off?” Brady echoed, raising an eyebrow. “Is that some new code for sex or–”

“No, it means your brother basically said ‘thanks for the drunk sex, it was fun and it’s never hapening again,’ and then sent me on my way.”

“Come on, there’s no way,” Brady laughed, shaking his head. “Matt wouldn’t.”

“You want the rundown, Brady? Fine,” you replied, crossing your arms. “I asked if we should talk about what happened last night and he basically brushed me off and said ‘we had sex, we had fun, it happened and now it’s over, what’s there to say?’ And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was the one who called it a one night stand–”

“What?” Brady asked, sounding surprised. “No way, he wouldn’t.”

“I’d say he was pretty insistent.” You shifted your feet, clearing your throat as you hugged your arms closer to you. “In fact, I’m pretty sure his exact words were that we’re ‘just two drunk friends who got a little carried away and crossed the line a few times’–”

“Ew…” He mumbled under his breath, shaking the thought out of his head.

“Do you want to know or not, Brady?” You huffed, looking at him.

“Sorry, yeah, sorry,” he replied, shaking his head. “But I mean…maybe he just didn’t know what to say, y/n? You guys have been friends for 20 years. Maybe you can just sit down with him and talk about it when he comes home? That he didn’t mean it–”

“‘There’s no way this can become a thing. Besides, you’re home in St. Louis and I’m here nine, ten months out of the year.’ ‘It’s never happening again,’” You said, your throat tightening as you could easily hear Matt’s own voice telling you the exact words hours earlier. “I’m pretty sure he meant it, Brady. Like I said, he was insistent.”

Brady just stared at you, most likely still trying to figure out what to say that could counteract your argument. But instead, he just grabbed your suitcase and started walking down your front porch steps. “Come on.”

“Brady–”

“Nope,” he turned around, nodding his head towards their house. “Matt was a dick and as your supportive best friend, the last thing I’m going to do is let you sleep alone in your house so you can wallow in your feelings.”

You opened your mouth to protest, only for Brady to shake his head. “And before you say your parents will be home, they won’t. Because mom told us in a group chat earlier that they were still out of town cause of the weather and to offer you a place to stay if you didn’t want to stay alone. So I’m making the executive decision and you’re staying over. We can still order pizza and you and Taryn can ignore me if you want, but you’re staying at our house, get over it.”

“I hate you,” you sighed, carefully walking down your front porch steps and coming up beside him.

“Yeah, yeah, I hate you too.” He replied, the two of you walking back across the street and making your way to their house. “But also if you’re going to girl talk with Taryn about last night, please make sure I’m not in the room when you get into the whole…details thing. It’s already bad enough I have picture evidence of an empty condom box on the floor and then hearing you said you guys did it multiple times. I don’t need any more knowledge of you two sleeping together.”

You furrowed your eyebrows as you shook your head, the two of you coming to a stop on the Tkachuk’s front porch. “That box was already empty. We didn’t use condoms.”

“Ah, no,” he groaned, waving you off as he visibly cringed. “God, that's exactly what I don’t need to know. Gross. Just–” he opened the front door and motioned for you to walk in. “Get inside and go shower or something. I’ll order the pizza and make us drinks. I have a feeling I’ll already be a drink or two ahead of you guys thanks to that new piece of information.”

“Coming from the guy who sent me a text the moment he lost his virginity?” You laughed, walking into the house. “Got it.”

“That was a monumental time in my life that didn’t involve anyone you were close to.” He replied, closing the front door. “But you did the same, so just go upstairs and shower, you smell.”

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your suitcase and starting to tug it up the stairs. “Hey y/n?” Brady called out, gaining your attention as you looked back towards the end of the stairs where he was standing.

“Yeah?”

Brady took a deep breath and exhaled, patting his hand on the end of the stairwell before shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Brady.”

He frowned. “Yeah, but I know how much you like him, even after…everything.”

You nodded. “Yeah,” taking a deep breath, you exhaled heavily and shrugged, putting a small smile on your face. “But it’s alright Brae. I’m sure I’ll get over it. He wouldn’t be the first dumb jock to break my heart.”

Brady sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “Come on, y/n. How many times do I have to apologize for that? If I would’ve known you were able to fly up for prom I wouldn't have asked that other girl.”

You laughed, Brady pointing at you with a smile, knowing he got you to break. He also knew that he wasn’t the dumb jock you were referring to, yet he was still willing to take the spot so you didn’t have to think about your one and only ex. That and many other reasons, was always why Brady was going to be your favorite Tkachuk brother.

“I’ll be back down,” you replied, turning back around.

“Love you, y/n.” He laughed, walking away from the end of the stairs.

“Love you, Brae,” you replied, tugging your suitcase up the stairs, making your way down the hall towards Taryn’s room.

The moment you passed Matt’s room, you hadn’t expected your heart to race or a knot in your throat to form. You hadn’t even looked at the door, simply keeping your attention away from it, but he still had an affect on you even after the last three hours you’ve spent trying to convince yourself that he didn’t deserve any more of your time. That what he said and how easily he was able to brush you and your night together off, should’ve been the final nail in the coffin. But it wasn’t. Because somehow and maybe it was the universe playing a really cruel trick on you, there was no way you could cast him out of your heart as easily as he cast you out of his apartment this morning.

And that really, really sucked.

“Oh perfect you’re here,” Taryn huffed, walking out of her room freshly showered and in sweats and a sweatshirt, grabbing your wrist and pulling you into her room, shutting the door behind you before turning around. “What the hell happened after you and Matt left the bar? When did you even leave? One second you say you’re going to the bathroom and then the next thing I know you’re both MIA?”

“Taryn,” you sighed, putting your suitcase down and taking your backpack off of your shoulders, putting it down onto her bed. “I just want to take a shower, have a drink and eat some greasy pizza…can we do that please?”

“If I get Brady to leave us alone will you tell me?” She asked, walking into her bathroom and opening the linen closet, grabbing you a towel before walking back into the room. “Because no offense y/n, but you look like hell and you smell like my brother. I can do the bad friend thing and just assume you’re hungover, but I’m a pretty good friend so I’m going to do the exact opposite.”

“Like I told Brady, there’s just…not that much to say. But if it’ll make you drop it for the rest of our lives, then sure.” You just shook your head, walking over and taking the towel from her. “But only after my shower.”

“I’ll be downstairs, you know where everything is.” She said, leaving her room.

You grabbed your phone and plugged it into the charger she had on her desk, hoping you’d be able to get some charge into it and knowing tomorrow you’d probably end up going to AT&T and getting a new phone. Trying to send a message to your mom letting her know you’d landed safely and were staying at the Tkachuk’s tonight, your phone screen glitched and you ended up pressing on your messages with Matt instead.

Four pictures gracing your screen. The first was from him, a picture of the two of you beside each other at the bar smiling at whoever was taking your picture, though it was probably Taryn. The second was a selfie, the two of you closer than before with you standing in front of him and your pack pressed to his chest his right arm was draped over your shoulder and resting across your chest, your own hands holding onto his arm. The third and forth pictures were selfies that you had sent to him. It was you and Matt again, you could see Jacob and Rasmus in the background photobombing the two of you. Matt was standing behind you, both of his arms wrapped around your waist. The third picture was Matt’s head turned towards you, his lips against your cheek and the fourth was probably taken immediately after that photo because it was you turned towards him. Matt not having moved from his spot and you smiling up at him, most likely in the middle of saying something and him just smiling down at you with his signature closed lipped smile and dimple on display and the tips of your noses touching.

You both were easily three or four drinks in and the drinks themselves in your hands, because you knew for a fact you wouldn’t have cozied up to him like this if you didn’t have a little bit of liquid courage, though the smile on your face was throwing you under the bus revealing you wouldn’t have want to been anywhere else– but, and if this morning hadn’t happened, you might’ve thought that his smile and the way he had his own head leaning against yours would’ve been the evidence that you were more than just another girl to find her way into Matthew Tkachuk’s bed for the night.

But it didn’t really matter all that much now, did it?

You were out of the Tkachuk’s house the moment you heard Brady get up from one of the couches in their basement to get dressed and hop onto the Peloton to do a workout. The three of you had slept in the basement, enjoying beers and pizza and you had told them all about what happened with Matt that morning. While the details of just how you got to the point of you and Matt leaving the bar together were hazy, the night you spent with him was not. And you spared the two younger siblings the details of just how your night with their older brother was spent, you weren’t too shy to tell them the softer moments of the night, more towards the end, but you spent the most detail on reliving that morning.

Brady and Taryn all but refused to step foot in Matt’s apartment unless he got it professionally cleaned and you knew they were trying their best to make light of the situation's aftermath, which you appreciated. But you appreciated it more when the moment they made that joke, all conversations of Matt ceased to exist and you went on with your night.

When you got home, you immediately put yourself to work. You did your laundry, you wrapped the presents you’d bought your parents in Calgary up and put them beneath the tree. You cleaned your room, you cleaned the already cleaned living room and by the time that you were tired of cleaning you’d taken another shower and plopped back down onto your bed, it was only noon and you felt like you were losing your mind. You reached over to your bedside table and grabbed your macbook, opening it and logging in before opening your messages with Taryn.

Y/n: Any chance you’d be up to coming over and having a girls night tonight? 🥺

Tar 🥳 : Are you kidding? Hell yeah.

Tar 🥳: I’ll be right over!

Y/n: Ugh I love you. Door’s unlocked so just come upstairs to my room!

Ready to click out, your eyes stopped on the message from Matt that was unread. Your phone was pretty much dead, dying the moment after you were able to send off your snap streaks earlier this morning and you hadn’t opened your macbook at all until now, so this was the first time you were ever seeing the message.

“Ignore it,” you mumbled, moving your cursor towards the x of the window. “You don’t need to see what it says, it’s probably something stupid.” Your eyes moved away from the blue unread dot and then drifted back over. “Or maybe you forgot something important and he’s letting you know so you don’t freak out later…”

Matt 🐭: Brady and Taryn said you guys made it home safely, I’m glad to hear.

Matt 🐭: I know you said you have plans tomorrow, but if those happen to fall out…I’ll be home around noon and maybe we can hang? If not, I’ll see you Christmas Eve. Goodnight, y/n.

While you originally lied about having plans, just so you wouldn’t have to sit and suffer a conversation with Matt after basically being embarrassed at that moment in time, it turns out that now, you did have plans– with Taryn. But the texts that you got weren’t really the texts that you wanted. Maybe it was better than him telling you that you forgot something in his apartment, and maybe this ‘hang out’ was something where he had intentions of apologizing. Though you also wouldn’t put it past him to use the hang out to make sure he got his original message across that the two of you were going to be just friends and that what happened between you guys wouldn’t transfer over to the Tkachuk’s Christmas Eve party or even your Christmas dinner tradition at their house.

“Okay, I’m here!” Taryn called out, the alarm system beeping twice signaling that she closed the front door. “And thank God you reached out because Brady just got home picking Matt up from the airport and I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted without giving him the stink eye.” Taryn walked into your room, seeing you on your bed. “What’s up?”

“Matt texted me last night and I just read them.”

“Did he apologize for being a dick?” She asked, walking around your bed and standing next to you, bending down and reading the messages on the screen. Then, she closed your macbook and put it back on your bedside table. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” You asked as she tugged you up by your wrist.

“The least, like literally the very least he could’ve done was apologize. So first we’re going to see what we can do about your phone. And then after that, we’re going shopping because you’re showing up to our party tomorrow looking hot and my idiot brother is going to regret ever turning you into one of his hookups.”

You exhaled heavily, dragging your own feet as she dragged you down the stairs. “Taryn I–”

“No buts,” she grabbed your car keys off of the hook on the wall and tossed them to you. “Now come on, girls night starts now and we’re going to transform you into the life of the party tomorrow. Trent’s going to be there, you know. Maybe you guys can rekindle whatever it was you had.”

“I am not using Trent to get back at your brother,” you laughed, rolling your eyes as you both walked out of your front door.

Taryn smiled, shrugging her shoulders as she hugged her jacket closer to her. “I didn’t say anything about using Trent. Your mind went there with no guidance.”

You laughed, waving her off as you locked your front door and caught up to her to run to your already running car. “Just get in the car, loser.”

“I believe the correct line is, get in loser, we’re going shopping.” Taryn smiled, standing by the passenger door as you walked around the front of the car. “Now let operation Deck his halls so he doesn’t know what hit him, commence.”

You laughed, shaking your head as you unlocked the car, opening your own door. “Just get in.”

“Why isn’t she here yet?” Matt asked, leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping his beer slowly as Brady snacked on the cheese from one of the many charcuterie boards their mom had made for the party.

“Maybe she lost track of time getting ready?” Brady shrugged, looking at the different rolled meats before settling on a piece of salami.

“Her parents are here. She always arrives with her parents.” Matt huffed, taking a longer sip of his beer before leaning both arms against the counter. “You’re her best friend, you have to know something.”

“I’ve also been around you pretty much 24/7. How can I know something when she’s been with Taryn the whole time?” Brady replied, rolling his eyes and picking up another piece of salami. “You’re bothering the wrong sibling, dude.”

After his nap yesterday, he met up with Brady downstairs and the two of them talked about what Matt could do to both apologize to you for how your last morning in Calgary went and confess that not only was what happened between you two not just another one night stand to him, but also his feelings for you that he’s held for years. The best they could come up with is that sometime during the party, Brady would ask you if you could go down into the basement to grab more champagne, claiming that he was already helping their mom with something. And when you went down into the basement to grab the champagne that wasn’t needed, Matt would wait a few seconds before following you and hopefully the two of you could talk.

Basically, and since it really had come down to this– he was going to have to corner you for you to even bother listening to a single word he had to say. Not really the most ingenious plan, but it was going to have to work.

“Taryn! Perfect, just who I wanted to see,” Matt said, standing up from the counter and turning towards his younger sister who looked confused at his excitement.

“Why? What do you want?”

“He wants to know why y/n isn’t here yet,” Brady mumbled through his bites of a cracker, going to pick up another one.

“Stop eating all the food,” Taryn said, smacking his hand away before leaning across the counter and picking up the board he was eating off of. “Mom sent you in here to get two of the boards, not eat them.”

“Whatever,” Brady replied, picking up a roll of ham off of the new board before picking it up and walking out from around the counter and patting Matt on the shoulder. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“You’re annoying,” she rolled her eyes as Brady walked by, nudging her slightly. She looked back at Matt and sighed, shrugging her shoulders. “Last thing I knew, she texted me saying she was doing her make-up. That was maybe five minutes ago? So she’s probably almost done and will be here soon.”

“Texted you?”

“Yeah, still on the macbook. We tried to get her a new phone yesterday, but she still has like a year left on her plan and it’d cost a lot to replace,” Taryn replied, turning around to walk out of the kitchen. “But you can always go over and grab her. I’m sure she’s just lost track of time.”

Matt nodded, following her out into the living room and atrium where a majority of the partygoers were mingling. He did his best to make his way towards the Christmas tree, walking around on the side to grab one of your Christmas gifts from beneath the tree and politely smiled at every person he passed on his way to the front door. Once he made it outside of his house without getting stopped, he exhaled and quickly made his way across the street to yours.

Without even attempting to open your front door, he stopped just in front of the steps and picked up the fourth flower pot on his right, knowing that’s where your parents kept the spare key. Putting the flower pot back down, he walked up the steps and to your front door, using the key to unlock it and open it. As he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him, he contemplated calling out to you, but decided against it and just made his way up the stairs to where your room was.

Your bedroom door was open and he slowly walked down the hallway, carefully stepping in front of the doorway to see you sitting at your vanity. He stepped forward and knocked on the door, hoping that he wouldn’t scare you.

“Yeah?” You asked, applying mascara.

“Hey, uh…it’s me,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.

“I can see that,” you replied, applying mascara to your other eye. “What’s up? Is the party canceled or something?”

“No, um,” he cleared his throat as he walked into your room.“Everyone’s pretty much there and I noticed that uh…well you weren’t and Taryn said you might still be over here. So I figured I’d come get you.”

He felt nervous standing there in your room. He could see that he was now in view of your vanity mirror, but the entire time you’d had your back turned to him. He figured you’d be mad at him, especially with how Brady had confronted him yesterday about what went down with you two and how now he knew the reason why you’d been so short and cold with him the last two years.

And that only made him more nervous.

"Thanks I guess,” You replied, barely looking at him through your mirror as you reapplied your powdered foundation. “What's that?"

"It's your Christmas present...well one of them," he said, holding out the small red gift bag complimented with white tissue paper. "Do you want to open it now?"

"Secret Santa isn't until after dinner, you know that," you said, getting up from your vanity and walking right by him towards your dresser, looking at the jewelry tower right on top in search for a pair of earrings.

He couldn’t help but stare as you looked for a pair of earrings to wear, the words he wanted to say next were stuck in his throat. You looked good. Your hair was half-up, half-down, the side pieces pulled out of your face. Your make-up was almost effortlessly pretty, and if it wasn’t for the darker smokey eyeshadow and the winged liner on your eyes, he never would have guessed you were even wearing make-up. Not that he was all knowledgeable on what you had in your closet, but he was almost positive that the deep red sequin dress you were wearing was new. It came to and in the middle of your thighs, long puffed sleeves that cuffed at your wrists and had a near identical plunging neckline similar to the bodysuit you’d worn that night in the bar. And his $25 must have gone to good use considering it’d only been a day since he’d seen the marks he’d left behind and your skin looked like it’d never been touched.

"This isn't a Secret Santa gift," he replied, shaking his head as he walked towards you. "I got Trent for Secret Santa this year. I could find out who has you if you want–"

You turned around, shaking your head as you walked back towards your vanity, putting your earrings in. "That defeats the point of Secret Santa, Matthew. The fun's all in not knowing who bought you your gift until the end."

"Yeah...I guess you're right," he sighed, letting his arm return back to his side.

He saw you sneak a look at him through your vanity, watching as he looked around your room, chewing on the inside of his cheek and trying to come up with something to dissolve the very obvious tension. "You don't have to wait–"

"Do you remember that year when we got each other for Secret Santa?" He asked, walking over to your desk, looking at the shelving above it. "I think it was what...my eighth-grade year, your sixth-grade year?"

"Freshman and seventh," you replied, looking away from him and leaning towards your mirror, touching up your mascara.

"That's right," he smiled, nodding as he laughed softly. He could easily picture you all dressed up in your matching ugly Christmas sweaters with Brady like you had every year, though that year was the first year you opted not to wear Christmas sweaters. Instead, you’d worn a dress he’d seen you wear before, your hair was all wavy like how Taryn’s always get whenever she slept in with her hair in braids overnight and it was the first time he’d ever seen you wear lipstick, and it’d made your braces stick out more…but you still looked pretty.

But 15 year old Matt wasn’t going to tell you that.

"You were so excited and almost ruined it for those two weeks leading up to Christmas. The only reason how I knew it was you was because you had this really big smile on your face when I opened it. You had made me this little Patriots gift basket with a whole bunch of Pats and Tom Brady stuff."

"I used all of my allowance on that stuff too," you replied, putting down your mascara and picking up your lipstick. "It took me a week to put it all together."

"Well, I loved it," he said, looking at you. "I mean, I may have been too cool to show it 'cause I was 15...but I loved it a lot." He turned back towards your desk, looking amongst all the books and knick-knacks you had on the shelves before pulling one out. "And I got you that book clip on night light because your Mom was always getting mad at you for trying to read in the dark and you never wanted to get in trouble for turning your light on after bed. And this...a ticket stub diary, because you always were keeping your movie tickets and sports tickets and then I've always wondered if you filled it out yet..."

You paused with the tissue in your hands, and for a moment it looked like you were going to turn around, but instead you kept your back to him and in the mirror even he could tell that the retelling of the memory even had you wondering how he remembered that about you, before shaking your head subtly in reply. "I have a baggie of stubs in the cabinet," you said, blotting your red lips. "Haven't updated it in the last two years."

"Oh," he nodded, still flipping through the pages until he reached the end...where there were still a handful of pages left. "Maybe you could go through it and fill it out. I could help if you want–"

"That's okay, I'll do it later. I'm sure I'll need something to do on New Year's Eve," you replied, putting your lipstick into your small clutch before moving away from your vanity. "If you're done going down memory lane, I'm ready to leave now."

"Oh, yeah uh..." he struggled to put the book back where it belonged and walked away from your desk, holding the gift bag up. "So where do you want me to put this?"

"Under your guys' tree or wherever, since we come over to your place for dinner. It doesn't matter Matthew," you replied, walking by him and out of your room, your fingers on the light switch. "Come on, I'm already running a little late."

Suddenly he felt like was back in his apartment watching you fake a smile in the elevator before you left for good, only this time you were right in front of him and the both of you were going to the same place– his house for his parent’s Christmas Eve party.

“Hey, so I was um,” he paused once you turned the lights off after he left your room, walking by him and heading towards the stairs. “Do you think maybe we could talk?”

“We’re late to the party, Matthew,” you said, not bothering to stop as you walked down the stairs. “I mean, isn’t that why you came over? Because I was late?”

He opened his mouth to speak as you held the front door open for him to walk through. He considered reaching down for the doorknob and closing the front door, but there was still plenty of party left and he’d rather have your conversation go bad in the middle of the party or towards the end, not the beginning where he’d just know someone would be able to pick up on it. Instead, he just nodded and walked through the front door.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well, mission accomplished then,” you replied, following him out of the front door and locking it behind you.

Matt nodded and walked down the front steps first, offering you his hand to take in the event that you slipped in your shoes– some small strappy nude heels– and when you looked at him he could see the hesitance in your eyes to accept the small gesture, and with each passing second he started to feel nauseous, realizing just how bad he might have screwed up with you. But then…you placed your hand on his and held it, stepping down the front steps and then immediately letting go.

“Come on, don’t want to be any more late than we already are.” You replied, looking away from him and starting to make your way towards his house.

Okay…so some small progress. But still, he was more than positive that he’d need Brady’s plan if he was expecting to get anywhere with you.

He quickly caught up to you and then brought out his phone, opening his messages with Brady.

Matt: Okay my first attempt failed horribly.

Matt: I’m definitely going to need to pull that champagne plan sometime tonight.

Bro with the flow: Got it! 👍🏻

Clearly whatever small moment that you guys had shared when Matt helped you not slip down your front porch steps, was very much a thing of the past because you’ve both been at the party for almost an hour and you’ve done absolutely everything in your power to avoid him, being around him or even being within ten feet of him. Even if you weren’t doing it on purpose, which he was about 90% positive that you were, it just always happened that way.

You’d talked to Brady, Taryn, his parents, literally everyone at the party except for him. And if you were even the least bit upset about the morning after, it wasn’t showing. You were laughing and smiling with anyone you came in contact with, but the very one small slither of hope that he had, and maybe it was a little bit wrong of him to be happy about, was the fact that he recognized the smile on your face throughout the night as the very same one you had one your face as the elevator doors closed. It never reached your eyes, which told him that maybe you weren’t having as much fun as you were acting like you were.

Tossing the bottle cap from his beer off into the glass jar their dad had as a sort of cap collector, Matt took a sip of his fourth beer of the night and started to make his way back into the living room, Brady saying goodbye to Mr. Morrison, one of their Dad’s golfing buddies. Matt immediately walked over, nudging his elbow.

“Can you do it now?”

“Now?” Brady asked, shaking his head. “No, because you’ve got at least another twenty minutes before a champagne refill is actually believable.”

Matt huffed, rolling his eyes as he took another sip, as his eyes found you talking to Taryn, Trent and Maylee, a mutual friend of yours and Taryn’s that you met working kids sports camps at the country club and Taryn played field hockey with. “Come on–”

“Relax dude, there’s plenty of party left.” Brady replied, patting his shoulder.

“She’s avoided me since we got here.”

“No she hasn’t,” Brady laughed, shaking his head. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Anytime I get within like five feet of her, she moves, dude.” Matt replied, motioning towards where you were standing. “I mean, look, she’s got no problem being social with Taryn, Maylee and Trent.”

Brady’s gaze followed over to where you were now laughing at something someone in the group must have said, maybe Trent because all three of the girls' eyes were on him. And it built a knot of jealousy in his stomach when he saw just how genuine this laugh was– the first one of the night it seemed.

He sighed, shaking his head and looking at Brady. “Did I really fuck up that bad?”

“Remember how I said she doesn’t do one-night stands?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, because that fact would make her ignoring you tonight make sense if she’s still a little bitter about what you said considering you’re only the third guy she’s slept with.” Brady stared at the group for a few moments longer before taking a sip of his beer, squinting his eyes and then shaking his head as he looked back at Matt. “Actually no, you’re only the second. Her and Trent never hooked up, only went on a few dates and made out a few times.”

“Trent?!” Matt froze, staring at his brother before looking over back to the group where you were standing next to Trent. He wasn’t bothered by it before, but had you always been standing that close to him? Were you smiling at him like that? Like the way you smiled in the pictures from the bar of just the two of you. “Trent Frederic?”

“Uh yeah, same one,” Brady replied, giving him a confused look before nodding over at the group. “They talked like two summers ago, maybe last summer too?”

“That’s gross,” Matt mumbled, taking a longer sip of his beer this time as he finally looked away from your group. “Trent’s a muppet straight out of Sesame Street.”

Brady snorted, bringing his beer up to his mouth as he nodded sarcastically. “Someone’s jealous.”

Matt shoved him, almost making Brady spill his beer as he walked by him. “Just do your stupid champagne plan now.”

“You weren’t calling it stupid last night when I came up with it!” Brady spoke, rolling his eyes as Matt continued to walk away and down the hallway to the bathroom.

Maybe he looked like he didn’t want to be bothered or maybe he looked like he was a man on a mission and that’s why everyone he walked by on his way to the bathroom didn’t bother to stop and talk to him, but he didn’t care. Instead, he was focused on getting to the bathroom, splashing some water on his face and then hopefully, be ready to talk to you if Brady listened to him to start the champagne plan.

He had no reason to be even the slightest bit uncomfortable or upset with the fact that you and Trent were most likely a summer thing the last two summers. After what you thought you’d heard that last team party, he didn't in the least, blame you for shutting him out of your day to day or general life updates as much as you had. Still, Brady was right…he was jealous that out of all of the people you all were mutually friends with, it was Trent who was the one who got to take you out on dates, hold your hand, even kiss you. Yeah sure Matt now had the title of being the second guy you’d ever hooked up with, but he didn’t much care about that. He’d rather have had it been him in Trent’s shoes– he being the one who took you out on dates in the summer just to sneak you back home late at night or fall asleep with you down in the basement of his home, only to come upstairs in the morning for breakfast and be greeted by his parents with the all to knowing smiles because maybe they’d seen this coming for years.

He’d rather have had your first time together been after a few dates, not a rash drunken push together orchestrated by his brother and sister. Where he would’ve been able to kiss you a few times before you slept together. You in the front seat of his car, his hand on your thigh driving who knows where as you both sang along to a song playing from one of your guys’ phones– though you’d be more laughing at him than singing, because he wasn’t necessarily the best singer, but for you he’d try and even if it failed, it still meant he got to see you smile.

Matt leaned over the bathroom sink and splashed some cold water on his face, filling his cupped hands with water and then bringing them back to his face again, letting himself cool off and calm down before standing up and grabbing one of the towels hanging up to dry off. He took a deep breath and exhaled, leaving the bathroom and walking down the hall, hoping he’d be able to find Brady and tell him again to get you to go grab more champagne.

“Matthew, your Dad said you were wandering around somewhere,” Mr. Rolling, another one of his dad’s golfing buddies said, stopping him as he barely got out of the hallway. “I’ve been watching your games this season, you boys are doing pretty good.”

“Thanks Mr. Rolling,” Matt smiled, shaking his hand as Mr. Rolling patted him on the shoulder. “We’ve still got lots of season to go.”

Mr. Rolling started going on about his glory days or something else, Matt wasn’t really paying attention because Brady was still in the same spot just a few feet away from him, only now he was talking to their Dad and the Williams’s from three doors down and you– well your group dispersed except for you and Trent. The two of you were in the same spot, only a little more off to the side by the door and his heart dropped into his feet when he noticed the red and green Christmas decoration hanging above your heads.

You and Trent were standing underneath the damn mistletoe.

“You think you boys got big odds on the Stanley Cup this year?”

“Oh um, I don’t know,” Matt replied, staring at Brady and hoping he would somehow look over. “Maybe, if we keep playing a strong game.”

Mr. Rolling went off into another spiel, Brady finally looking over in Matt’s direction and raising an eyebrow. “Mistletoe,” Matt mouthed, nodding his head over towards the door.

“What?”

“Mistletoe,” he mouthed again, this time pointing in your direction subtly with his hand that was holding his beer before he brought it up to his lips.

Brady’s face scrunched up in confusion, shaking his head again “What?”

“Mistletoe!” Matt said, only this time it was out loud and right as his mom was standing by their fireplace, getting everyone in the crowd’s attention.

Meaning he said it loud enough for every single person in the room to hear.

Brady’s eyes went wide as his mouth formed an ‘o’ before finally looking over in the direction of where he knew their mom hung the mistletoe and then shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of his beer before looking back at Matt and mouthed. “You’re fucked.”

Matt looked over, just like everyone else in the room had done and you and Trent were both standing there, shocked and unsure of what to do now that everyone’s eyes were on you. “Well, it is a Christmas tradition,” his mom spoke, trying to clear the awkward tension in the room as you looked over at Matt with a look that could kill. “But however, anyone caught under the mistletoe in this house is by no means has to kiss whoever they’re under there with unless they want–”

In seconds, you turned away from him and back to Trent, moved your hands up to his face and pulled him closer to you before pressing your lips against his, earning a few applause, whistles and cheers from the guests in the room before you pulled away.

“Well, way to keep up with the Christmas spirit,” his mom cleared her throat again, turning back towards everyone with a smile. “And with that, we’re going to go ahead and start Secret Santa here in about five minutes, so everyone go ahead and get what you need and we’ll get started once everyone is back.”

Once everyone started to move around to do whatever they needed to do before the Secret Santa exchange, Matt saw you and Trent talking together before he made his way over to Brady, shoving his shoulder. “Really?”

“You’re the one who blasted them under the mistletoe, not me,” Brady replied, shoving Matt’s shoulder back. “Since when did you think I was a lip reading expert?”

“How about you two go find something to help your mom with,” their dad said, nudging them in different directions.

“Yeah, Brae. I think I heard mom talk about needing more champagne,” Matt said, giving him a look.

“Sounds about right,” their dad nodded, patting Brady’s shoulder. “Go help your mom out and you,” he pointed at Matt, shaking his head. “Go find something to do.”

Matt nodded and walked back towards the kitchen, while Brady was finally making his way over to you and Trent, saying hi to you both before turning to you and motioning towards the area the basement door was in. You nodded and looked back at Trent, who just nodded in reply to whatever you said and then made your way away from where you were standing and through the crowd towards the basement. Once you were already turning down the hallway to open the door, Matt immediately walked out of the kitchen, making his way to the hall with a purpose. He paused in front of the open basement door before taking a deep breath and exhaling, walking through it and making his way down the stairs.

This was starting to feel like his only hope, and for all he knew, after that mistletoe accident…it was.

It was one thing for you to spend a ridiculous amount of time on your hair and make-up to get ready for this Christmas Eve party just so you could play into Taryn’s plan of making Matt regret treating you like he did that morning in his apartment and letting you leave like a puppy with its tail between its legs. But it was a whole nother for him to come and grab you to take to the party just because you were showing up late.

Late only because Taryn told you to be “fashionably late to make a statement.” And after last nights confession of her being the sole reason behind why you really did slip your panties in Matt’s backpocket at the bar, you immediately thought that she was one hundred percent behind Matt coming to your house to get you.

“Okay okay who’s next?” Shannon, the maid of honor said, coming back from getting the number of a man who’d been checking her out most of the night.

“I’ll go,” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as you still felt the effects of the blowjob shot you’d taken moments earlier. “I don’t mind going again, this is honestly the most fun I’ve had in forever.”

“We already know she’s going to pick dare,” Chelsea, the bride said with a smile as she nudged your arm. “You’re probably the only person I’ve met who's consistently been up for a daree.”

“That’s because she grew up with older brothers as best friends,” Taryn chimed in, a smile on her face.

“Okay, you give her the dare then!” Abigail, a bridesmaid said, pointing her drink at Taryn. “And since you’ve known each other since practically forever, it’s got to be good!”

Taryn nodded and smiled before looking at you and then looking over your shoulder, laughing to herself before looking right back at you. “Y/n, I dare you to go into the bathroom, take off your panties and then go put them in Matt’s back pocket without him catching you.”

The bridal party all squealed and gasped at Taryn’s dare and you just stared at her too shocked to respond. It was one thing to go ahead and do a blowjob shot while being in the same vicinity as the two Tkachuk boys you’ve known since forever, but it was a whole nother thing to take off your panties and stuff them in Matt’s backpocket when you’ve not only had feelings for him since you could remember, but also since he was currently sitting with two of his teammates.

“Ooh who’s Matt?” Chelsea smiled, her eyes wide.

“My older brother,” Taryn replied, pointing over to where Matt was at. “She’s been in love with him forever.”

“I have not!” You scoffed, rolling your eyes as you crossed your arms.

“She totally has, it’s in her diary. There’s written proof,” Taryn laughed, shaking her head.

“You’re totally blushing right now too!”

“You’ve definitely got feelings for him!”

You looked over your shoulder to see Matt nodding along to something Jacob was saying and sighed, looking back at your new friends. “Yeah, that doesn’t matter because I’m nothing but his little brother’s best friend. Have been for years.”

“Well, I say we change that tonight,” Shannon smiled, reaching at the bar for the new round of shots she’d ordered. “You’re hot, y/n and if he doesn’t see that then he’s blind–”

“Eh, more like he’s lost a few brain cells with all those hits he’s taken and fights he’s gotten in,” Taryn teased, nodding her head to the side.

“Regardless, he’d be a fool not to see you any differently,” Shannon handed you a shot, and nodded for you to take it. “Take a little more liquid courage, go into that bathroom, take your panties off and come strutting out like the bad bitch you are and shove them in his pocket.”

You held the shot in your hands, looking at the tequila and sighing, clinking the glass to hers and then downing the burning liquid. You shook your head, as you got over the taste and sighed. “Okay, wish me luck.”

The sound of your heart pounding was almost as loud as the music as you made your way to the bar bathroom, avoiding bumping into people or any random guy who wanted to say hello. You had to claim a stall to be able to slip off your shoes and your jeans, feeling like you were practically having an out of body experience the moment you were fully dressed again and held the red silk thong you’d been wearing in your balled up in your right fist. You quickly shoved them into your own jean pocket before washing your hands and leaving the bathroom, walking back over to the bachelorette group.

“I think I need another shot,” you said, looking at them all. “What if he catches me and then suddenly I’m the perv neighbor who lives across the street and tried to shove my panties in his pocket?”

“You’ll be fine, y/n, trust me,” Taryn laughed, turning you around and nudging you away. “Now go get my brother.”

You nod and took a deep breath, exhaling and making your way through the people crowded at the bar and over to Matt, Rasmus and Jacob, with a trying your damnedest to feel confident, but aren’t quite that sure, confident smile on your face.

“Y/n, come have a shot with us!” Rasmus called out, a big smile on his face as he waved you over to join them.

“Shots? I love shots!” You smiled, walking over, bypassing giving Jacob and Rasmus a hug and going straight to Matt, looping your right arm through his and leaning against him. You could feel him sort of stiffen at the action and felt a nervous twinge in your stomach. You kept the smile on your face as you nodded over your shoulder. “What kind of shots? Taryn and I have been doing shots with our new friends.

“Tequila,” Jacob smiled, you easily noticed how his gaze moved from you and over to Matt, even you weren’t oblivions to it, so that meant that Matt couldn’t have been either. “And you know what they say about tequila.”

“That it turns you into a fyllo,” Rasmus smiled, handing out the shots, his eyes also switching back and forth between you and Matt. “Amongst other things.”

You thought you heard Matt say something, but couldn’t really hear since he’d said it so low. “A fyllo?” You asked, looking away from Rasmus and towards Matt, in hopes that since he’s been his teammate for years, he’d have picked up on some kind of Swedish.

“Pisshead,” Jacob replied, a small and polite smile on his face. “It gets you drunk.”

You could feel your face warm up at the slight embarrassment but still nodded. “Oh, well, let’s get drunk.”

“I knew I liked you,” Jacob smiled, the first to hold his shot glass up. “Skål!”

You repeated after Jacob and made sure to clink your shot glass against each of theirs before tossing back the shot, once again swallowing back the burning liquor for the umpteenth time that night. And still, you couldn’t help but shut your eyes and shake your head after the shot with no chaser. “Okay, no more tequila.” You replied, putting the shot glass down.

“You okay?” Matt asked, looking at you for the first time since walking over.

“I’m fine, just drunk,” you smiled, nodding at him as you squeezed his arm reassuringly.

He laughed, eyes on you as he reached up towards your hair, bringing back a boa feather. “I know, I can tell. Boa?”

“Bachelorette party are the friends we made, they let us join,” you replied, smiling as you shifted yourself closer to him and instantly getting a whiff of the cologne he often wore and you loved so much.

Once he turned his attention back towards his teammates, you unlooped your right arm from his, still standing close to him and reached into your backpocket, grabbing your own panties, balling them up in your fist and then carefully reached over to his left back pocket and nudged your hand inside, stuffing the silk material deep into his pocket. Matt jumped at the contact and you quickly grabbed onto his arm with your left hand, squeezing it so he would know it was just you.

The dare was to sneak your panties into his pocket without him noticing, and since the second half of the dare was already ruined and you were running on pure adrenaline and tequila shots, you leaned up onto your toes and pressed your lips against his ear. “These are for you.” And then with a small kiss on the cheek, you pulled your hand from his pocket, unlooped your arm from his and turned around to walk back towards your group who were all staring at you with knowing smiles.

“Holy fucking shit, you did it!” Chelsea cheered, a big smile on her face as she pulled you into a hug the moment you got close enough to the group. “And y/n, I can promise you that he doesn’t look at you like some little sister or his brother's best friend, you should’ve seen the way he looked at you after you guys took the shot.”

“He found them,” Shannon gasped, nudging Taryn’s elbow and nodding towards where you’d just left. “Or he at least knows you put something in his pocket– nope, he’s looking, he’s looking!”

You looked over your shoulder to catch Matt looking at you, but all you could do was wink and turn back around before he saw you blush. “Does this mean I lost the dare or won it?”

“Girl, you literally took your panties off for a guy and shoved them in his back pocket,” Madison, another bridesmaid said, handing you a shot. “You just won everything.”

So tonight, your sole purpose was really to just survive the night without buying into any awkward encounter with Matt. It was bad enough that the conversation you both had in your room as he stood there waiting for you to finish getting ready was awkward, you really didn’t need that to happen again in front of friends and neighbors. Once you guys got inside of the Tkachuk’s home, you split off from him using checking in with your parents as an excuse. Which you did, so it wasn’t totally a lie. But after that small check in with your parents and then saying hello to Keith and Chantal, you avoided Matt like the plague.

If you were talking to someone and he was also talking to someone nearby? You excused yourself from the conversation or somehow got them to move a little bit further away. He happened to walk up or be called into a group you were standing in, you easily just excused yourself and topped up on your champagne or found other people to talk to. After the third time, you started to think that maybe Matt got the hint because you were finding yourself catching him more across the room from wherever you were, rather than just a few feet away.

Unfortunately, just because you’d kept your distance didn’t mean that every so often when you looked across the room, and you’d find him talking to someone in attendance, you wouldn’t stare at him or try to sneak looks. Part of you wanted to know if any part of him felt the least bit guilty of what happened between you two, not that he needed to feel guilty about anything except for maybe not walking you down…even though he didn’t need to feel guilty about that either because he did offer, you just turned him down.

And the cycle continued for the first near hour of being at the party. You desperately wish that maybe he was guilty about what happened and then do some logical reasoning with yourself that there really wasn’t anything to feel guilty about. No matter how many times Brady and Taryn tried to say that there was no way Matt could just easily brush you off like he had. Yet he absolutely had and that was just unfortunately your reality. A reality you were also trying not to think too much about, but were also desperately failing at.

“Hey, we’re going to grab some refills, do you guys want anything?” Maylee asked, looking at you and Trent.

“No, I’m good,” Trent replied, looking at you. “Y/n? Refill?”

“I’m good,” you smiled, nodding your head as you held up your half full glass of champagne. “I’ve still got some to sip on.”

“Cool,” Taryn nodded, looking between you and Trent with a smile. “We’ll be back.”

“So how’s school?” Trent asked, taking a sip of his beer. “How’d you guys do this season? This was your redshirt season, right?”

“No I couldn’t redshirt, I missed the cutoff by one game, but this was my Grad season,” you replied, nodding. “And we did pretty good. Won conference, but lost in the quarterfinals in the NCAA tournament to Florida State, but they ended up winning the whole damn thing, so there’s really not that much to be upset about since we held them to OT and they won by a penalty kick. But now I’m ready for retirement.”

“And how’s the knee? Still kicking?” He smiled, trying not to laugh at his own cheesy joke. But that’s one of things you liked about Trent, he wasn’t afraid to make a stupid or silly joke and laugh at it without hesitation or wondering if anyone else would find it funny.

“It’s kicking,” you laughed, sticking your leg out and bending your knee. “You can barely tell I tore my meniscus, huh?”

Trent bent down slightly holding your knee as he poked at the scars. “Nope, as far as I can tell you’re just a total klutz and tripped on some turf.”

You rolled your eyes, putting your foot back onto the ground and nudging him as he laughed. “How’s life up in Boston?”

“It’s–”

“Mistletoe!” A voice yelled, cutting over the silence that it looked like Chantal was trying to gain by standing in front of their fireplace. The voice you instantly recognized as Matt’s.

“What was that about?” Trent asked, furrowing his brows as he took another sip of his drink.

The first person you made eye contact with was Brady, who looked shocked before he looked to his left. And slowly, every one who was standing in the living room and atrium area…were suddenly staring at you and Trent.

“Um…why are they staring?” Trent asked, leaning towards.

“OOOOOH, Trent and y/n are under the mistletoe,” Maddie, the 13-year-old you used to babysit back when she was in elementary school, teased, pointing above your heads as she whispered with her friends as if you weren’t standing two feet away from them. “Now they have to kiss.”

Your eyes widened as you looked up just enough to see that sure enough, the two of you were standing directly under the mistletoe and your stomach dropped into your shoes. You could feel everyone’s eyes on you, staring at you and practically burning holes in your skin as if they were all waiting to see whether or not you and Trent were going to partake in the Christmas tradition or be the Grinch’s of the Tkachuk’s Christmas Eve party.

“Well, it is a Christmas tradition,” Chantal said, giving the both of you a reassuring look as she nodded.

Your gaze followed over to where Brady had looked and you caught Matt’s eyes and for the first time all night, you could see the guilt that you’d been desperately hoping he’d feel even a tiniest ounce of. And you didn’t feel happy that he was feeling as bad as you, you only felt embarrassed.

“But however, anyone caught under the mistletoe in this house is by no means required to kiss whoever they’re under there with unless they want–”

You turned away from Matt and towards Trent, reaching up and cupping both sides of his face, giving him a ‘just go with it’ look before pulling him closer to you and kissing him, counting down from ten in your head as the sounds of mingled applause, cheers and whistles filled your ears. You’d kissed Trent before, many times the last two summers when the two of you would hang out or go on a date or two, so this wasn’t new. And neither was the fact that there were no butterflies, no fireworks and kissing Trent had absolutely nothing on kissing Matt, now that you knew what it felt to do so. You barely made it to three when you pulled away from Trent, no longer picturing in your head who you were actually kissing, but instead, picturing Matt.

“Well, way to keep up with the Christmas spirit,” Chantal said, clearing her throat as she looked at you with a surprised look before turning back to everyone else with a smile. “And with that, we’re going to go ahead and start Secret Santa here in about five minutes, so everyone go ahead and get what you need and we’ll get started once everyone is back.”

You and Trent both stood in your places as everyone started to move around the room, and the moment he looked over at you, you immediately finished off your champagne. “So uh…” he said, clearing this throat as he looked at his beer. “I think you’re great and all, and the last two summers were cool and you know, we had feelings and stuff but uh, I actually have a girlfriend back in Boston…”

Your eyebrows raised and your eyes widened as you felt your face start to heat up from the embarrassment of both unknowingly kissing a taken guy and the fact Trent thought that you kissing him meant you were still interested and not as a way to save your asses while also getting back at Matt…despite the fact you’d both had the ‘this was fun, let’s be friends?’ conversation before you went back to school.

“I’m sorry, I–” you shook your head, desperately trying to keep calm. “I didn’t know and I just thought it would get everyone to stop staring at us and…”

“Y/n, relax it’s fine, I’ll explain the mistake to her and she’ll be cool with it,” he said, resting his hand on your shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “But if you’re looking for a relationship, I know someone you might be interested in. One of my teammates–”

“Hey Trent,” Brady smiled, coming up to the both of you and patting Trent on the shoulder before looking at you. “Y/n. What a show there, you guys definitely brought the Christmas spirit.”

“Thanks,” you replied, not afraid to hide the daggers you were glaring his way.

“I was just telling y/n that my girlfriend won’t mind once I explained what happened,” Trent replied, Brady struggling to hide his smile as you continued to glare at him. “And that I have a teammate she might be interested in–”

“That sounds really great and all, but my mom wanted me to ask y/n if she could go grab some more champagne from the basement,” Brady replied, turning towards you. “What do you say? Think you can help?”

Without questioning just why Chantal was wanting you to be the one to go grab more champagne for the party, you nodded. “Absolutely. Trent, it was great to see you,” you smiled.

“You too, y/n, and really, don’t worry about it.” He nodded.

Once you turned your back away from Trent, the smile you’d kept on your face fell and you just ducked your head down and made your way through the party guests, hoping to avoid your parents from the show you put on and anyone else who might want to stop you from getting the champagne you were also more than eager to refill your flute of. You turned down the hallway, walking up to the basement door and opening it, not bothering to close it as you carefully made your way down the steps, holding the railing so you wouldn’t trip.

You were no stronger to where Keith and Chantal kept the alcohol in the house. Thanks to summer parties in the Tkachuk’s backyard or basement and all the times before when you’d help set up for whatever party Chantal was putting together. There were however, two absolute rules you knew no one ever went against when it came to the alcohol: don’t touch Keith’s rum and don’t touch his whiskey. The rest was absolutely fair play. However, you wouldn’t be going behind the makeshift bar for the champagne, instead, you knew Chantal kept the champagne for the party chilled in the fridge near the wine rack, that was just around the corner of the bar.

“Shoot, I should’ve asked how many bottles,” you mumbled, opening the fridge and seeing a fair amount. You grabbed three, tucking one against your side and grabbing the other two, holding one in each hand before nudging the fridge door closed and walking back around the corner.

“Hey,” you stopped and looked up from the champagne bottles to see Matt standing just in front of the bar, a frown on his face. “Can we talk?”

You almost fell for his stupid blue eyes and the way they were filled with that same guilt you’d seen in the living room, but then you remembered how he put you in the spotlight and used that small feeling to somehow, by the skin of your teeth, not fall for them. “No.”

“Y/n, come on,” he said, stepping in front of you as you tried to pass. “Just give me five minutes, please.”

“No, but for the record I forgive you for embarrassing Trent and I up there, so your five minutes aren’t needed.” You replied, trying to step by him again, only for him to follow you. “Matthew–”

“I don’t care about what happened up there. I-I mean I do, it was an accident, but only because Brady’s an idiot and I was trying to get him to move you and Trent out from the mistletoe.”

You smiled sarcastically nodding your head. “And how did that work out for you?” When he didn’t reply, you shook your head and sighed, brushing by the defeated Matt. “I need to get these upstairs for your mom.”

“Actually…you don’t,” he said, turning around. “I had Brady lie to you about my mom needing champagne so I could get you alone down here because you’ve been avoiding me all night and I need to talk to you.”

You kept your back to him, hoping he couldn’t see the moment that the confession came from his mouth. That one part of you that had been dying for him to explain himself, was now being overpowered by the other part of you that was too embarrassed from being turned away to want to hear it. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Oh cut the shit, y/n,” he scoffed. “You know damn well there’s something to talk about.”

“Actually Matthew, I don’t,” you replied, not bothering to hide the harshness in your voice when you said his name. “Because why would we need to talk about something that’s never happening again?”

“See? There it is right there!” He huffed, the sound of his arms hitting his sides following soon after. “You know exactly what I’m talking about! Stop acting so ignorant–”

“I’m not acting ignorant, Matthew,” you replied, whipping around to face him. “Just because I don’t want to stand here while you try to apologize for something you made very clear was never happening again, doesn’t make me ignorant. I don’t owe you anything and I’m pretty sure we agreed not to talk about it again.”

“I never said I wasn’t going to talk about it,” he replied, shaking his head. “But clearly what happened that night didn’t mean a damn thing to you because you’ve been avoiding me like the plague since we got to the party.”

“You kicked me out of your apartment after brushing off the fact that you had sex with me–”

“We had sex. You weren’t exactly opposing any–”

“Fine whatever, that we” you replied, sarcasm dripping heavily off your tongue as you rolled your eyes. “Had sex all over your apartment and said it was never happening again because of what? I’m your little brother’s best friend? That stupid 13 year-old-girl who used to wear your number on her face at your games? You had sex–”

“We–”

“I don’t care, Matthew!” You yelled, shrugging your shoulders since you couldn’t exactly throw your arms in the air. “The details don’t matter because you’re the one who treated me like I was some random girl you picked up at a bar. Yeah you cuddled with me and let me stay the night and housed me until Taryn could pick me up, but in the end when it really mattered, you treated me like you probably treat every other girl. So excuse me if I don’t want to stand here and listen to you try and make yourself feel better for your shitty actions.”

“Jesus,” Matt ran his hands down his face before bringing them up to his hair and running his fingers through it. “You came on to me, y/n! At the bar that night? You were the one who–”

“It was a dare, Matthew!” You cut him off, feeling yourself get angry. “Putting my panties in your pocket–”

“I’m not talking about the damn panties, y/n! I’m talking about what happened afterwards,” he replied, looking at you as he shook his head, the anger no longer on his face. “What happened outside the bar and why the hell we ended up at my place in the first place. You kissed me–”

“No, you kissed me first!”

Matt stepped towards you, his towering frame freezing your own feet to the ground as he stood barely half a foot away, he was so close you could breathe in that stupid cologne that you loved so much. “That’s not what happened and you know it,” He reached up with his left hand, hesitating at first until he saw you didn’t move or tell him to back away. His Adams apple bobbed as he moved his hand towards your face, bringing his palm against your cheek and you felt the rough calluses soft against your cheek. “Y/n…” he spoke softly, blue eyes staring into your own as his dark lashes touched the tops of his cheeks with every blink.

The group of you all took two more rounds of shots, laughing and getting to know each other more and finding out Chelsea’s wedding plans, not bothering to move out onto the dance floor but keeping your places at the small table they’d claimed as your own and you and Taryn had joined.

You were nursing your rum and coke, leaning against the table and listening to Taryn tell you, Chelsea, Shannon and Abigail about the time she caught you and Brady having your first kiss when you were 11 and how their Dad wouldn’t stop teasing you both about it for weeks afterwards, when Shannon perked up, eyes wide and a smirk on her face.

“Uh oh, we’ve got an intruder coming over,” she replied, taking a sip of her drink and looking over your shoulder. “Don’t freak now, y/n, but you’ve got a visitor.”

Before you could look over your shoulder to see who it was, you smelled his cologne and then felt his hand on your lower back and gracefully moved off to your hip as his breath fanned out against your ear. “Hey, can I get you alone for a sec?”

You nodded, putting your drink on the table and turning to face him, chests meeting as you felt the group of friends practically stare holes into the back of your head. “Mhhm, lead the way.”

Matt kept his hand around your waist as he led you away from the group, keeping you close to him as you walked through the crowded bar before reaching the hallway down towards the bathrooms, walking towards the end and out the back patio door where few people were outside due to the chilly weather, even despite the flamed lamps that provided some heat.

“What’s up?” You asked, swallowing the knot in your throat as you heard the thumping of the music from inside the bar, trying to ignore the couple who were finishing up smoking their cigarettes.

“Uh, well um,” Matt cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just wanted to make sure you’re good and not too far gone.”

“Really?” You frowned, crossing your arms before playing off the slight disappointment and nudging him with your elbow. “College may have strengthened my tolerance, but you and Brady are the ones who started it. I learned from the best.”

Matt laughed, nodding his head. “Well, you did outbeat us both on a keg stand.”

You watched the small puffs of hot breath leave his mouth as he looked anywhere but you. “Are you sure that’s what you wanted to talk about?” You asked, reaching out and touching his forearm. “Just…to check on me?”

When he finally looked at you, the cigarette couple had finally left the two of you out there alone and you saw his Adams apple bob as his left arm reached back and when he brought it back forward, your red thong was dangling from his index finger. “These?”

You froze for just a moment, the slight panic running through your chest and the many what if’s scenarios popping up in your head, but at the memory of Shannon and the rest of the girls commending you on your feat, you pushed it all back and looked at him through your eyelashes. “I meant what I said, Matty. Those are for you.”

He blinked in disbelief and his Adams apple bobbed up and down with each gulp he took to buy himself some time to reply, or even react– if there was anything to say. And with each passing second, your small wave of confidence started to crash.

“Well, if you don’t want them,” You sighed, reaching up for your panties. “Then I’ll take them–”

“I didn’t say that,” Matt finally spoke, raising his arm a little higher so they were out of your reach and you were pressed against his chest, his right hand resting on your hip, his thumb brushing against the material of your bodysuit. “I just–”

“Then what?” You asked softly, looking up at him, your left hand brushing against the inside of his forearm. “What is it?”

Matt stared at you as you carefully reached up, grabbing the silk material from his fingers and then reached behind him and tucked them back into his back pocket. Before pulling away from him, you leaned against his ear, letting your lips brush against his cool skin and feeling the stubble from his beard scratch against them. “I meant it when I said they’re yours,” you whispered, kissing the skin just by his ear and smiling. “And I am too if you want me.”

You were barely able to lean back when you felt his grip on your hip tighten and his left hand come up to the side of your face, his calloused palm soft against your skin as he looked at you. “And if I want you right here and now?” He spoke, voice gravelly like his throat had been dry.

“Then at least have the decency to make sure I don’t get frostbite on my ass,” you smiled, shrugging your shoulders. “The last thing I need is for my parents to get an insurance bill and I have to explain why I suffered frostbite on my ass.” You cleared your throat as Matt smiled. “You see Mom and Dad, when two people get drunk enough they decide that they can have se–”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matt said, leaning into you and your back resting against the snow covered wooden railing. “I’m stone cold sober.”

“Hm, so if I kiss you right now, you’re telling me that I won’t taste some sort of liquor on you? Maybe even cranberry juice for the vodka?” You replied, tilting your chin up slightly. “Because I’m willing to bet that I will.”

Matt tilted his head to the side as he stuck out his bottom lip just slightly, seeming to dare you to do it. “I don’t know, or you could just take my word for it?”

You moved your face closer to him, his hand still resting on your cheek as your noses brushed and you looked at him. “Too bad I’m a betting kind of woman,” you whispered, pulling away just barely and sneaking a glimpse down at his mouth. When you looked back, his eyes were darker almost, but they were still locked on you, daring you to make the move.

And when you did, it was everything that the pre-teen, teenaged and last week versions of you ever could have imagined. You’d always just known that Matt had the softest lips and that even with the simple touch, despite the cold weather, the kiss both warmed you and sent chills down your spine. He held onto your face as he deepened the kiss, sighing into it as he held you closer to him like he was almost desperate to be touching you more than he already was. Your left hand moved up to cup the side of his face, feeling his beard against your palm as your right hand moved to slide beneath his shirt, both of you pulling back from the kiss to catch your breath.

“So?” Matt asked, breathing heavily as he held you close to him. “What’s the verdict?”

“I taste a little bit of cranberry in there,” you replied, a smile on your face. “But I think I might need a few more tests to really figure it out.”

Matt leaned back in and kissed you again, his right hand moving from your hip to between the two of you, and you felt his hand tugging at the button of your jeans, getting it undone in record time before you leaned back just enough to look at him as he moved his hands into your pants. “What are you doing?” You asked, looking down at his hand as you felt him move your bodysuit to the side, his cold fingertips brushing against you.

“Just testing a theory,” he whispered, moving his hand deeper into your pants before you felt his index finger brush softly against your lips, yet to touch you where you were wanting him the most. “If I were to just dip my finger in for a split second, would I find you dripping all because of me?”

This time you were the one that gulped as you met his gaze and nodded, that cocky smirk on his lips that you’ve loved since you could remember as he kept the slow torturous brushing of his finger. “I don’t know,” you replied, echoing his earlier statement. “Or you could just take my word for it.”

The corner of his mouth lifted even higher as he slid his index finger through your folds only once before pushing it inside of you, your left hand moving from his face to his shoulder, gripping it tightly as you gasped from the cold feeling. He pumped his finger inside of you twice just as slowly as he’d done previously before removing his hand out of your pants and sliding your bodysuit back into place, bringing his right hand up to his face and putting his index finger into his mouth, sucking the remnants of you off of his finger as he kept his gaze on you.

“So?” You replied, chest rising and falling from the action as if you’d run a marathon and as Matt reached back down between you and re-zipped and buttoned your jeans. “What’s the verdict?”

He reached up and tucked stray pieces of hair, the wind blew into your face, behind your ears and leaned in and kissed you again, his tongue softly brushing against your own before he pulled away just barely. “I think we should go back to my place so I can get a few more tests in.”

You nodded your head, a smile on your face as you reached your left arm up and rested your hand on the nape of his neck, brushing your fingers through some of his curls. “Take me home, Matty.”

“Y/n, come on,” he whispered, his thumb brushing against your cheek. “Let me apologize…let’s just talk, please?”

You wanted to talk. You wanted to be able to stand there and let him say whatever it was he needed to say because you remembered him telling you to your face while lying in his bed that being with you was so much more different than any other times he’s had girls in his bed, because it was real. And then there was the blurry memory you weren’t sure of if it was a dream or not of laying there in his arms after the last time and hearing him tell you that he loved you. Everything in you was wanting to stand there to hear what he had to say, because you’d been craving for any sort of answer from the moment you watched the elevator doors close as he stood there and waved at you from his apartment door.

But when you zoned back in and met his eyes, it was like standing in the front hall of his apartment all over again when he told you that your night together was only a one night stand and it was never going to happen again. And every ache and pain and stupid sad song that made you want to cry on that uber ride to the airport and every minute between security and that plane ride back to St. Louis– every passing minute until right now, came crashing down and you couldn’t.

All you wanted to do was cry.

“I need to get the champagne upstairs,” you spoke softly, shaking your head and turning away from him. “I need to–”

“Y/n, please–”

“No, Matthew!” You yelled, reaching out to smack his hand away as he went to grab your wrist, instantly dropping the bottle of champagne that had been tucked against your side down onto the floor and feeling it splatter all over the floor, your shoes and your legs. “Great, now look at what you made me do.”

“Y/n let me just get the broom from the closet and–”

“Getting the broom isn’t going to fix this! It’s not going to magically get rid of all the glass o-or the champagne like it never happened!” You snapped, looking down at the shattered bottle on the floor, squatting down carefully and resting the other two bottles on the ground before you started to pick up the bigger pieces of glass, keeping your head down as you felt the tears burn in your eyes. “It’s not going to do anything but make a bigger mess. Just because you apologize doesn’t mean that it wipes away the fact that you hurt me when you said it would never work and instead of just talking about it, you immediately brushed me off as one of your many one-night stands.”

“Y/n–”

“Because it hurt, Matthew, it really fucking hurt,” you sniffled, continuing to pick up larger pieces of glass carefully and dropping them into the bottom half of the bottle that didn’t break.

“What was I supposed to think, y/n? You tried to leave me alone in my bed first!” He replied, coming back from the storage closet with a broom. “Did you forget that?”

“I was scared, Matthew!” You cried, looking up at him. “I was scared of what you’d say because of what you said to Sam at that stupid team party two Christmases ago. I was scared that you’d wake up, see me there and realize it was a mistake.”

“I wouldn’t–” he rested the broom against the bar, shaking his head. “I didn’t…you misunderstood what I said to Sam–”

“So I don’t mean anything to you? The only relationship we have is that I’m Brady’s friend?” You asked, throwing the pieces of glass into the bottle. “Oh and what was that last thing you said? That’s right, I was better off going home with Sam than staying at the party. What about any of that did I misunderstand?”

“Misunderstood was the wrong word, you just–” he huffed, walking over and squatting down, helping you pick up the pieces. “You missed what I said after.”

You kept your head down, continuing to carefully pick up the shards of glass and put them in the empty bottle. “I don’t care.”

“I told him I didn’t mean it, any of it…what I said,” he replied, putting a piece into the jar before stopping and looking at you.

“You still said it,” you replied, looking at him and shrugging. “And I still don’t care.”

“Damn it, y/n, I told him I didn’t like you okay? I told him that I didn’t like you…” You froze as the confession came out, a heavy pause as you heard him take a deep breath and you blinked through the hot tears in your eyes as you continued picking up the few remaining chunks of glass. “Because I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Your head snapped up at the words, and the moment you met with those same guilt ridden blue eyes, you felt sick to your stomach. “No,” you replied, shaking your head and looking back down at the glass.

“Y/n–”

“No! You-you can’t just say that because you want me to listen to you!” You yelled, throwing down the piece of glass in your hand into the bottle, taking a sharp inhale and looking down at your hand to see a cut across the bottom half of your palm, the sight of blood trickling out being the final straw as the tears broke from your eyes. “Damn it.”

“Shit, y/n come on, let me–”

“Don’t touch me!” you yelled, turning away from him as you tried to stand yourself up, Matt being quicker and coming up beside you, holding onto your left elbow and pulling you up. And no sooner than you were on your feet, did you shove him away. “Get away from me, Matthew! I mean it.”

“Hey, they’re starting Secret Santa,” Brady said, coming down the stairs and stopping just at the end when you and Matt were in view. “What’s going on?”

“Brady, it’s not,” Matt said, shaking his head as he watched his younger brother take in the scene in front of him. You in tears, Matt looking frustrated and a broken bottle of champagne on the ground and blood dripping from your right palm. Brady looked at Matt, the anger all over his face. “Brady I swear–”

“I don’t care, Matt,” Brady replied, walking over behind the bar and opening a drawer where Keith often kept rags to dry off the surface, grabbing one and walking back over to you, taking your hand and placing the folded rag against your palm, putting your other hand on top of it. “Mom’s got that kit in the kitchen. Dad’s in there now, we’ll go see if he’ll check it out for you.”

You nodded as he used another rag, wiping at your cheeks to save you from the embarrassment of walking up there with tears streaming down them. “Thanks Brae,” you whispered, turning around without giving Matt a second look.

When his brother looked at him again, Matt felt his stomach drop and he shook his head as he came over. “Brady, I swear to God it’s not what it looks like,” he spoke quietly. “Ask her and she’ll–”

“No,” Brady replied just as quiet, tossing the extra rag back onto the bar and shaking his head. “I meant what I said, Matt. You fuck it up again and I’m not helping anymore. I’m on her side on this.” He walked back over to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “Come on, let’s get it cleaned up. Don’t want you missing the awesome gift I got you for Secret Santa.”

You laughed softly, letting Brady lead you up the basement stairs and trying your best not to give a second thought to Matt, who you’d left behind and his confession of what supposedly happened at the team party years ago. And as much as you wanted to believe it, you just couldn’t. It was too convenient of him to say that, because he knew it’d get you to sit there and listen to him apologize. He would be dumb not to know of your feelings for him all these years, because it wasn’t a secret to anyone else.

But believing that it was all a ruse to get you to stay there, hurt a lot less than believing it was true and him still sending you away from his apartment like that. Because if he’s really loved you all these years, it wouldn’t have been so easy for him to brush you off and send you away like that.

And that’s what hurt the most.

Matt was wrecked, there was no other way to put it.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Maybe he’d expected that you would get angry with him when he tried to apologize, but he didn’t expect it to go that far. Nowhere in his plan was he supposed to tell you how he felt– at least not yet. But he did and you reacted just like he thought you would, you freaked out. And he didn’t blame you one bit. If it were him, he would’ve thought exactly what you did–that he said it just to get you to give him a chance to talk.

But that’s not what it was and it wasn’t what he meant. He just…he panicked. You weren’t listening to him, you were getting frustrated, he was frustrated, and then the champagne bottle shattered and you started crying and it was…it broke his heart. He’s seen you cry before at seemingly all stages of life– as a toddler when Brady stole your favorite stuffed animal, as a kid when you wiped out hard at the lake during tubing. As a teenager when he walked in on you crying in his mom’s arms because your parents had to drive an hour north because your Grandmother was taken to the hospital after a fall and needed emergency surgery on her hip. As an adult, when you lost in the quarterfinals of what was your last season playing soccer ever.

But this was the first time that you were crying because of him and it broke him.

He put the remaining bottom half of the champagne bottle onto the bar, sweeped up the mess, tossed a few towels down onto the floor and soaked it up before grabbing the other two bottles and made his way up the stairs, his mom getting ready to walk down and catching him by surprise.

“Oh, thank you Matthew, I was just coming down to get some more!” She smiled, taking the two bottles from him and kissing his cheek.

“It’s no problem, mom.” He nodded, pointing down the stairs. “One dropped, but I cleaned it up.”

“That’s okay, we’ll mop it up later. But we’ve only just started Secret Santa, go ahead and join everyone in the living room,” she smiled, rubbing his arm before turning back down the hall to make her way into the kitchen.

He just nodded and waited for her to get out of his view before making his way into the crowded living room, easily slipping amongst the guests where he was able to grab the present he’d brought for you back under the tree and then stayed at the back of the crowd. Once he saw you, Brady, his mom and his Dad walk out of the kitchen, he kept his eyes on you, Brady staying close to your side like he was your own personal watchdog as the two of you stopped beside Taryn and Maylee. He could see you had a wrap across your palm and based on the relaxed states of his Dad and Brady, he figured you must not need stitches.

But once two more people took their turns to exchange gifts, Matt slipped back out into the kitchen and then out the sliding glass door into his backyard undetected. It was cold, but he didn’t expect to be out long. He left his own backyard and made his way across the street to your house, finding that spare key once more before letting himself in. Closing the door behind him, he made his way up the stairs and back into your room, walking over to your bedside table where your macbook was sitting and placing the red gift bag on top.

After making an adjustment to your gift,  he left your room, he jogged back down the stairs and out your front door. He locked the door and put your spare key back in its hiding place before jogging back across the street and opening their second garage with the code. Unlocking his car, he got inside and started it, pulling out into the empty driveway before closing the garage from the opener hanging on his sun shield. He pulled a little further out of the driveway so he wasn’t so close to the house and just out onto the street. As he waited in his car for it to warm up enough so he could drive, Matt looked towards the house where he could partially see the party still going on through the blinds. He barely caught a glimpse of Brady walking up to the tree, picking up his gift with a smile before announcing who he had. And when you walked over to him, the same sad smile you had in the elevator days before on your face as you greeted him with a hug, Matt put his car into drive and pulled away.

He missed Secret Santa.

He missed Secret Santa because he had to drive into town and try to get into Michaels when they were five minutes from closing and the little old lady who was locking up early tried her damndest to keep him out. But he pleaded his case, all but telling her his entire life story with you and she let him buy what he needed to– a few white poster papers, a pack of sharpies and a glue stick– then he went back home, parked his car back into the garage and walked back into the house the way he snuck out– out through the sliding glass door in the kitchen and then went back down in the basement, figuring he’d wait for the party to clear out before making his way upstairs.

It wasn’t as simple as he thought though. Once he thought he gave everyone at the party enough time to leave, he grabbed the art supplies and stood up off of the couch, ready to make his way upstairs, only for the basement door to open first. Matt was nervous that it was going to be Brady who was walking down the steps, not quite ready for whatever it was he had to say that he didn’t want to or couldn’t say in front of you and was more relieved when it turned out to be his mom instead. Checking on him to see why he didn’t come up for Secret Santa. Matt just told her he felt a little tired and nauseous, maybe not eating enough before drinking his beers and took a nap on the couch, only just waking up a few minutes ago.

His mom believed it, told him that Trent got his gift and that his gift was waiting for him upstairs if he wanted to open it. He helped her put the one champagne bottle they didn’t need, away before walking back up the basement stairs with her where Matt immediately saw your parents still walking around, helping with the clean-up and panicked that maybe you’d stayed as well. He found out that wasn’t the case when his mom had him follow her into the kitchen to grab the trash to take out before he could go upstairs for the night. Brady and Taryn were snacking on whatever small amounts of food were left of the charcuterie boards, both of them giving him a look but never really saying anything else before he left to throw the trash away.

Your parents were walking out of the front door when he’d come back and that’s when he asked about whether or not you were still inside. They told him that you’d left around the first group of people, saying you’d had a headache and just needed to go to bed, but that you’d be over with them tomorrow for the early Christmas dinner. He said goodnight to the both of them before walking back into his own house and saying goodnight to his family, grabbed the present his mom had pointed out that was from his Secret Santa and then walked upstairs and into his own room, closing the door for the night.

Not like he even slept that well anyway. Once he heard everyone go to their own rooms, he left his to shower and change over, passing out in his own bed only to wake up after a few hours of constantly restless tossing and turning and being fully awake at 6:30 Christmas morning. And after going to the bathroom and returning to his bedroom that’s when he picked the Secret Santa present back up that he’d rested on top of his dresser. It was a fairly large rectangle shape and wrapped up in St. Louis Blues wrapping paper– knowing immediately that it was probably someone’s version of a practical joke since he clearly didn’t play for them. There wasn’t a tag to say who it was from, part of him feeling guilty for missing out on it since he could thank whoever got it for him, but he could always just ask his mom.

Fully unwrapped, it was in a cardboard box and when he lifted the lid up, he saw a two pack of small winter puff coats koozies called cold beer coats that were lying on top of dark blue tissue paper and on top of a simple white card that said ‘Merry Christmas’ written in gold script. He picked the card up and opened it, his heart dropping the minute he saw what was written inside.

Because it was your handwriting. You were his Secret Santa.

‘Merry Christmas, Matt. Hope the koozies keep your hand warm but the beer cold and that this gift brings a little piece of home with you in Calgary.

~ y/n.

P.S. Please at least use anything other than bud light. It’s not THAT good, but since it’s your go-to, I’ve already got you started on your collection.’

He peeled back the two pieces of tissue paper and was greeted with a plywood beer cap holder that was carved into your guys’ home state of Missouri, bottle cap sized holes covering the entire thing. Suddenly the bud light comment made sense and he found himself laughing as he held up the plywood state, staring at the bud light bottle cap that you’d placed dead center of the board. He could easily see this on the wall of his apartment, the one just by the island bar of his kitchen and no matter how hard he tried to imagine himself being the one to put the new bottle caps into a slot, you were in there too, a proud smile on your face as you put the new bottle cap in, then turning around with an even bigger smile and pointing at the spot proudly.

Which was instantly wiped away when he remembered seeing you upset last night. The tears on your face as you yelled at him and told him how bad he had hurt you. And then that guilt and hurt was only made worse now that he knew you were his Secret Santa and he could only imagine how it must have felt when you called his name to come up and get his gift…and he never showed. Twice in one night did he embarrass you, and three times in the last two days did he hurt you. And it killed him.

Matt put the present back into the box and carefully covered it up with tissue paper and closed the lid. He left the box on his bed before leaving his room and going downstairs. He put on his boots and grabbed his winter coat from the closet just by the front door, zipping it up and making his way out of his house, not caring that the sun was barely starting to rise or how cold it was outside. He wanted to talk to you, needed to.

He was just hoping you’d give him the chance to.

Last night was absolutely…just not what you thought it would be. Sure, you expected it to be a little bit weird being around Matt after everything that went down with the two of you in his apartment. But you definitely didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. Matt cornering you in the basement, pleading his case to talk after having Brady lie to you to grab more champagne just so he could get you alone. Dropping one of the champagne bottles and having it shatter when reliving the memory of how the two of you ended up at his apartment in the first place– that rush of emotions from kissing him for the first time and then remembering what happened the morning after too much for you to be able to stand around and listen to him try to apologize. Matt saying that he’s been in love with you for years.

Not one night feelings, not a crush, not even just simply liking you– love. Matt, Brady’s older brother, your longtime crush turned second best friend. That  him telling you he loved you when you were half asleep in his bed…wasn’t a dream, it was real. And then hearing him say it again in a panic, it didn’t make your heart flutter or make you want to jump into his arms and kiss him– it made you feel so deeply hurt that you felt nauseous. You’d believed it for a second, one small second, but then you realized what if he’d only said it because he was scared you would leave that basement and avoid him for however long you did this time?

It only made matters worse when after crying in the kitchen while Brady told Keith that you’d accidentally cut your hand after dropping a champagne bottle, a lie but one that worked, only minutes later that Brady was called so early in Secret Santa and he had you…which meant you would have to give your gift to Matt minutes after the fiasco that happened in the basement. Only, when you had picked up the present you’d gotten for him two months earlier and said his name, he didn’t come up to you. And when you looked around the room, he was nowhere to be found. You ended up putting the present beneath the tree and told Trent that Matt had him, Brady able to remember which present was his and the activity moved on with ease…but you spent the rest of your night locked in your own head.

And when the first break of partygoers started to leave, you took that as your window to leave as well. Claiming you had a headache and just needed to get some sleep before walking out the door with all of those guests who’d brought their children with them to the party.

Yeah, you’d left with all the kids but it was what you needed because you barely made it through the front door of your house before you started crying again. You cried dropping the shoes you’d taken off at the first front porch step. You cried walking up the stairs and struggling to unzip your dress, just dropping it on your bathroom floor to take a shower (which you also cried in). The crying went on and on from shower, to taking off your make-up, finally easing up when you got changed into your pajamas and locked yourself in your room to crawl into bed and just watch older seasons of the Bachelorette to hurt your feelings some more.

It was right after you’d crawled into bed and turned on your tv and HBO Max…when you saw the familiar red gift bag on your bedside table. It was the same red gift bag that Matt had been holding in his hands hours earlier when he’d come over to see if you were ready to head to the party. As the first episode of Hannah B’s season started to play out, you sat yourself up and stared at the bag…contemplating whether or not to open it.

On one hand, you were still incredibly hurt and pissed at him, even more so now since he clearly found his way back into your room just to drop this off without you knowing it. But on the other, you were nosey and wanting to know what it was…and even after everything that happened in the basement, clearly you having this present was important since he’d dropped it off sometime in the night.

You grabbed the strings of the bag and rested it in your lap, the white tissue paper sticking out of the top of it not showing what was inside the bag. You pulled the paper out, placing it on the bed beside you and just stared at what was inside. You pulled out the white Apple iPhone box out of the bag and put it down on top of your comforter, pulling off the lid and revealing a light blue iPhone 13 Pro Max.

He’d bought you a new phone. And not even just a new phone, but the newest iPhone model and one that was at least four models newer than your iPhone 11 Pro Max.

You looked inside the bag, making sure it was empty before putting the lid back on the box and then the box back into the gift bag, ready to put the tissue paper back in too before you noticed what looked like folded notebook paper peeking out from beneath the tissue paper. You pulled it out from beneath it and flipped it over to see your name written on it in Matt’s scribbled handwriting. Your heart was thumping against your chest as you started to slowly unfold the three folded notebook paper, and seeing two pages was filled with his writing.

‘Y/n,

I’m sorry. This probably won’t be the first time that I say it in this letter, but I wanted to start off with that, because that’s what I am (amongst other things I’m sure you’ve called me to B and T, but all deserved) and that’s what I feel. I can’t explain why I acted the way I did, because the one thing that I didn’t do that I should have done, is sit you down and talk. But instead, nervous and scared of how our night together probably freaked you out because of our long history…I took the easy way out by joking with you about it and then never giving you the chance to call it anything but. The thing is though, I lied to you three times that morning. The first was when I called our night a one-night stand and said that’s all it was. The second, was when I told you that the two of us could never become a thing because it would be awkward. The final time, was when I said it was never happening again.

Because the thing is, y/n…none of that was true. I only called it a one-night stand because I thought you wouldn’t want it to become anything else. That sleeping with your best friend’s brother was going to be one of those drunken what the hell did I do moments to you, and I thought you were okay with one-night stands, because you’d alluded to previous ones– but Brady has since told me I was wrong and I’m sorry (see? I told you) because our night together was not what I said it was. Us together wouldn’t be awkward, if anything I think it would be the most natural revelationship of our lives. We fit together, you give me shit when I give it to you, you know how to humble me and there isn’t a moment I can think of where I didn’t enjoy being around you. And most of all, that night together was probably the most raw and emotional and comfortable night I’ve ever spent with someone. Like I told you, it’s different with you, y/n. Everything about us together that night was real.

I was just…scared because I heard you that morning freaking out in bed and then pacing around my bathroom. I just jumped the gun and thought that spending the night with me and waking up in my bed was your worst nightmare. And it hurt, because I’ve loved you for years, y/n. I had a small crush on you that summer before I went into sixth grade when you made me a good luck card for middle school. It was serious for me, that summer before junior year on your 14th birthday when I helped you get rid of the cake that Brady smashed in your face. I can still picture the moment where you looked at me with cake all over your face, frustrated that Brady had done it. It was cute, I’ll admit. And that night when we played 1v1 with your new mini goal set…that’s when I really felt everything change. Anytime after that when we were together, you weren’t just y/n across the street, y/n who was Brady’s best friend anymore. You were just…you.

I was a total goner for you by your senior year. I don’t know if you ever knew this or anything, but remember how you weren’t going to go to your senior prom because you didn’t have a date? And then my Mom offered me up as your date and we got a tux to match your dress and a corsage and everything like just a few days before? You thought that my mom had put me up to it…but she didn’t. It was really all my idea, but I figured that you’d probably say no if I offered…so I told my mom to ask instead. My mom didn’t pick out my tux or the corsage, I did. You thought that I’d rather have been anywhere that night, and yes, you even said it to me so I know it was true, but the truth is…I wanted to be there for you and with you. Because by then, I was in love with you and I knew it from the moment you walked down the stairs in your parents house wearing the glittery red dress with the drooped neckline and the high slit to your thigh. You told me not to make any jokes about how you’d picked a red dress and that it wasn’t because it was the Flames main color, I told you how gorgeous you looked instead. I think you knew that I meant it too, because you looked caught off guard before telling me you initially wanted the dress in a lighter blue because it looked like the one Ariel had in the Little Mermaid, but the red one was ‘perfect for you’ like you said our moms had said…and I agree.

I still remember that night, you danced the whole night with your friends, even letting me join along since you said my prom experience was ‘hockey first, student life second’ and that was the most fun I’d had in a long time. But I knew you were hesitant about dancing with just me, because anytime a slow dance came on, your feet were either tired, you had to go to the bathroom or you were thirsty and I didn’t push you because I was already nervous. But then the DJ announced that it was going to be the last slow dance of the night and there was no way I was going to let you miss out on having a slow dance at your senior prom, so I asked if you’d dance with me, and for a moment thought you’d say no like all the times before…but you said yes. It only took you until the second verse to actually relax, the whole beginning of the song you were talking about anything and everything, nervously may I add…though you tried to hide it. But by the second time the chorus came around, you had relaxed a little more, trusting that I wouldn’t step on your foot or ruin your dress or anything. And when you laid your head on my chest, I was scared that you’d feel my heart race and that when I pulled you closer, you’d step away…but you didn’t.

I was in love with you that night, and I’ve been in love with you every day and night and single moment after that. Yes, especially the night we spent together. If I would have known that you liked me or even thought of me that way…then I would’ve kissed you during that slow dance when you looked at me. I would’ve kissed you when we came back to your house and ate our McDonalds in the tree house. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to overstep. So kissing you that night outside of the bar…it was years in the making and it was worth every year I waited– because it was perfect.

And Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer is still on my phone, by the way. I’ll never forget or delete that song.

I don’t know if writing this will do anything or if you’ll even read it (though I hope you will), but I just…wanted and needed you to know that you mean so much more to me than the way I made you believe you did. So, so much more, y/n– I can’t even put it into words. It’s not part of your Christmas presents, but I know your phone got pretty damaged from dropping it in the sink (sorry, but also not that sorry) so I bought you a new one. Consider it an I’m sorry and Merry Christmas gift.

Really, y/n…I am sorry for how everything happened and I hope that we can sit down and talk it all out like we should have from the moment you asked me why I hadn’t said anything about our night together on the couch. Because it’s what you deserve now and deserved then.

Merry Christmas and I hope you give us the chance to talk everything out, because y/n, I have a deep gut feeling that this…us…it’s meant to happen.

Love,

Matt

P.S. I’m adding this tonight (12/24) though I wrote the letter yesterday when I got home from the airport and Brady chewed me out (rightfully of course). I’m really sorry about what happened tonight, y/n. What happened in the basement, that’s…it’s not what I wanted to happen and I hate that it did because seeing you cry and knowing I was the reason, hurt. And you are the last person in this world that I’d ever want to hurt, let alone make cry. So, if you don’t want to talk to me or see me for a while, I get it and I won’t try to reach out or make Brady help get you to talk to me. Just know that I had no intention of telling you that I love you the way that I did– I swear on everything…I panicked and it came out, but it’s true. I love you, y/n. Always have and most likely always will.

There was no stopping the tears from falling down your face as you folded up his letter and put it back into the gift bag before putting the gift bag back onto your bedside table, slipping down further beneath the blanket and rolling onto your side. You didn’t watch the Bachelorette reruns, you didn’t even make it through the first episode because you spent the whole time wishing that the whole thing down in the basement never happened, because maybe if you’d read this letter before then, it would’ve made sitting down and talking it out with Matt easily possible. But it wasn’t because you were still hurt and torn between wanting to just immediately forgive him because he wrote this letter but at the same time…it still just didn’t seem real because of everything else that’s happened.

And that was all you could bounce back and forth on in your brain before ultimately crying yourself to sleep.

Which is what you would still be if it wasn’t for the loud thump that you heard coming from your window. When you first opened your eyes just barely, you saw that your TV was still on and figured that maybe it had come from whatever episode was playing. And just when you closed your eyes and started to fall back asleep…you heard another thump. Sitting up and more awake, you waited a few more moments, staring at your window to try and catch what that noise was. Only to see a snowball fly up towards your window and explode in a thump.

You checked the time, it was only a minute from seven in the morning– who in the hell would be awake at this hour or even throwing snowballs at your window? You got up, slowly walking over without turning any lights on and peeked through your sheer curtain to see a figure standing beneath your window. And the harder you looked, you recognized the dark blue winter coat– it was Matt. You moved the curtain to the side, unlocking the window and nudging it up just a little more than halfway, your heart thudding against your chest as you started to peep your head through.

And then you felt the cold snow smack against your face, the icy remnants of the snow ball turning into droplets as you exhaled and reached up to wipe the melted snow off of your face.

"Oh shit, sorry!" He called out, dropping the second snowball he had in his left hand and wiping his hands on his pajama pants.

You moved away from your window, walked towards your desk chair, and grabbed your shower towel, wiping the bits of snow and water off your face that you’d missed before walking back over and staring down at him. "What do you want?"

"Come outside."

"It's seven a.m. Matthew, the sun is barely up– no one in the neighborhood is even up yet, so why would I come outside?" You replied, crossing your arms, trying to hide how nervous you were.

He wasn’t even aware at the fact that you’d read his letter. That you knew his feelings for you and how long they’d existed. As far as he knew, you were still thinking his attempt at telling you that he loved you in the basement was a ruse and you were wanting absolutely nothing to do with him. Which, part of it was true, but only the nothing to do with him part because you were still torn on how to feel about his letter and what had happened in his apartment the morning after.

"Because I'm asking you to?" He replied, his typical sarcastic, joking tone he had. You reached up for your window, hearing him curse beneath his breath before stepping forward. "Wait y/n, don't!"

"What, Matthew?" You whispered loudly, holding onto your window, heart thudding against your chest harder as you looked down at him. "What could you possibly want from me at seven a.m. on Christmas morning, hm? It can't be to apologize, you already did that by breaking into my house, trespassing into my room and leaving a note. So if that’s what you want, then consider this me accepting your apology. And if it’s not, then it's definitely not to sleep with me because it was a one-time thing, you said it yourself– multiple times in fact. So what could you possibly want bad enough that you woke me up by pelting snowballs at my window?"

He wiped his hands against his pants again like a nervous tick as he looked away from you and down at his feet. The snow was still falling softly and you watched the snowflakes collect on his broad shoulders and lose themselves in his short curls, some falling as he subtly shifted side to side, snow crunching beneath his boots. When he finally looked up at you, you felt your heart twinge in your chest. One easy flash of his baby blues and he had you once again.

"You." He finally spoke, taking a deep breath and exhaling. "I want you."

That wasn't what you wanted to hear, but to be fair…you weren’t even sure of what you wanted to hear. Maybe it was to hear him say that he really does love you, maybe it was him retelling the moment from his letter about when he knew he loved you. Maybe it was him not even talking at all, but instead just showing you that he did, that everything in his letter was true. Just a way to help you clear out just why you were so torn up inside and so tired, so that you weren’t even sure of what you wanted or not.

But hearing him say that? That he wanted you, there were so many ways your tired heart and brain rounded up the meaning in your mind, so just as easy as his blue eyes, even from two stories down, had you wrapped around his finger again, his chosen words and reason were the knife that cut you loose. You shook your head, exhaling softly as you stepped away from your window, starting to pull it down. "Good night, Matthew."

"Y/n, wait–"

You stepped back to the window, clenching your jaw as you saw him now standing directly beneath you, shielding himself from the falling snow using the gutters along your roof. "No, Matthew, I'm not going to wait here and let my room turn into an igloo because you need to soothe your ego and apologize again. Just...go home, okay? I don't need you freezing to death on my conscience."

You backed out of his view and closed the window just enough to where he wouldn't know the difference that you had left it cracked open just a little, wanting to see if he'd still try to plead his case.

But he didn't.

Matt took a deep breath and exhaled, his warm breath fogging once it met with the cold winter air. "Merry Christmas, y/n." He spoke loud enough to where you could hear him through that small crack, followed by the sound of crunching snow beneath his feet.

And once he was gone, you closed your window the rest of the way, locked it and crawled right back into bed, to try and warm up from the cold air and maybe even fall back asleep before the smell of your parents coffee wafted up to your room, letting you know that they were awake and just waiting for you to join them downstairs. However, you were unable to fall asleep, laying in your bed for the next hour and a half before the strong aroma of coffee filled the air.

You got out of bed and over to your dresser, opening your sock drawer and grabbing yourself a pair of fuzzy socks to keep your feet warm before putting on your slippers and walking back over to your bedside table to grab your barely working phone…and also grabbed Matt’s gift bag to bring downstairs with you. You were about to walk out of your room but stopped at your closet and walked inside to grab yourself a sweatshirt since your long sleeved pajama shirt wasn’t doing you any good. A majority of your favorite and comfy sweatshirts were back in your room at your college apartment, so you were stuck with a bunch of options you’d been wanting to get rid of, contemplating just not wearing one and sucking it up…and then you saw the familiar red sweatshirt.

It was washed, dried and hanging up…ready to be given back to Matt. And you would give it back to him…just not right now because it was the only sweatshirt worthy of wearing that wasn’t too small on you or didn’t itch. So you grabbed it and draped it over your arm before walking out of your closet and then opening your bedroom door, making your way down the stairs. Today was going to be a long day, that much you knew. Every Christmas Day was always the same for as long as you could remember it.

When you were younger, Christmas morning was spent with your family, opening presents, having breakfast and enjoying each other’s company for however long it took for Brady, Matt or Taryn to come over and get you so you could all play in the show. Then you’d go back to your respective homes, wash up for the Tkachuk’s Christmas dinner party that was held at a late afternoon time, before your families would hang out for the rest of the night watching movies and playing games before going home. And your Christmases are still like that, the only difference is that none of the Tkachuk kids are coming over from across the street to ask you to play outside.

Which meant in about seven and a half hours, give or take…you’d be finding yourself in the Tkachuk’s home and around Matt, though this time there wasn’t a big crowd of partygoers to hide behind or around. It would just be your families together. Which also meant that you had the same amount of time to figure out just what you were going to say to Matt…if anything at all. But the moment you walked down the stairs and saw your parents sitting on the couch together with their coffees and greeting you with a smile, your stress about Matt was washed away. You made yourself a cup of coffee, taking the first sip and letting the peppermint creamer take over your sense as the hot coffee warmed your body before walking back into the living room, walking over to the tree and putting Matt’s present down.

“What’s that, y/n?” You mom asked, nodding at the gift bag you’d placed amongst the rest of the presents beneath the tree.

“Oh, just a present Matt dropped off last night before the party when he came to get me,” you replied, taking your seat on the far end of the sectional couch and resting his sweatshirt down next to you as you tucked your legs up beneath you. “Nothing too big.”

“I hope he’s feeling better today.” She replied, nodding. “Chantal said he missed getting your gift because he wasn’t feeling too well and fell asleep in the basement.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” your dad replied, skimming the channels for A Christmas Story. “Keith said he hadn’t eaten and was already on his fourth beer before Secret Santa. Probably just needed some food in his stomach.”

You nodded along with what he was saying as you took a long sip of your coffee, getting lost in your own thoughts as you thought back on what had happened in the basement. It went to hell, yeah, and even now looking back you could tell that Matt was nervous, panicked even as things escalated…but, and tolerance aside, maybe it was because he was drunk. And if that was the case…maybe the mistletoe thing was an accident after all instead of his own way to embarrass you like you’d thought it was despite his apologizing.

You were lost in your thoughts when you heard the doorbell ring and you took a deep breath and shook your head, exhaling. “I’ll get it.”

Your parents nodded, keeping their focus on the Christmas classic as you walked out of the living room and down towards the atrium and to the front door, unlocking it and opening it…only to not see anyone on the porch. You stepped out onto the front porch, giving you a better view of your front yard…only to see Matt standing there off to the left in snow, adjusting the St. Louis Blues beanie on top of the snowman he was standing besides head.

A snowman that looked identical to the same one you and Taryn had spent almost an hour perfecting one winter break morning when you and Brady were 12, she was 9 and Matt was 14, rightfully named Louie. Brady had gone off with Matt and his friends, deciding to play street hockey, leaving you and Taryn behind, but you two had decided to build a snowman after watching Jack Frost, hoping that maybe with a little Christmas magic, it would come to life. He already had your St. Louis Blues beanie on his head, and one of Keith’s scarves that Taryn had borrowed, and a few rocks from the bushes along the front side of the house, all you were missing was the nose. You’d both ran back inside to go and grab a carrot, coming back out to see the group of boys all huddled around and laughing at where you’d build your snowman. When you ran up, there was Louie’s head on the ground and Matt standing up with both the beanie and the puck he’d picked out from the middle of Louie’s face…in his hand. You and Taryn both spent the rest of winter break mad at Brady and Matt, no matter how many times they apologized.

Yet there Louie was, 10 years later and in all his glory…with the one who nailed the shot that ruined him in the first place, standing beside him.

Matt looked at you and even from your spot on the front porch you could see that his cheeks and nose were pink, meaning he’d been out here for quite some time. He must’ve seen the confused look on your face, because he started to walk closer to you, coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk and when you went to ask him what he was doing, he held his left index finger up against his lips.

“Y/n? Sweetie who is it?” Your mom asked, her voice barely echoing out to you on the front porch.

Matt moved what looked like a stack of white poster cards out from beneath his right arm and held them in front of him, turning them around to face you where you saw there was writing on the first one. ‘Say it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

“It’s uh…the Jehovah's Witnesses.” You called out, looking over your shoulder to make sure they weren’t coming out.

“Tell them we’re good and wish them a good day!” Your dad said, but you were already looking back  at Matt with furrowed eyebrows as he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and tapped the screen, the one and only song you slow danced to with him at your senior prom, coming from the phone speakers.

So…he really hasn’t deleted it after all.

Matt moved the first card to the back of the rest. ‘I’ve spent the last eight years,’ he dropped the next card, ‘thinking about the girl who lives across the street,’ he moved the next card back, ‘With any luck, by next year’ he moved the card back, re-adjusting his grip on them. ‘Instead of just thinking about her,’ you could see how nervous he was as he moved the card again, ‘I’ll be lucky enough to call her my girlfriend.’

You hugged your arms close to you, still holding onto your coffee mug as the song kept playing and Matt rearranged the card to the back. ‘Because while life with her like this…’ he dropped the card to reveal the next one, which had a whole bunch of cut out pictures of the kids all together throughout the years, letting that card linger on before picking it up and moving it to the back of the stack. ‘Has been a whole lot of fun. I’d rather have a life like this…’ you could see him gulp as he moved the card, showing pictures of just the two of you.

From middle school dances where the two of you were standing next to each other all dressed up, you and him after his games with his number painted on your cheeks, you both after your soccer games where he (and Brady who was cut out of the picture) had your number painted on their chests from your club soccer team, parties at the country club, his draft day, his first NHL game, the two of you taking pictures for prom…and the newest additions, the pictures of the two of you from the bar, smiling and acting like it was only the two of you in the room.

He moved the card again, looking at the next one, ‘because she brings out the best in me and after all these years,’ Matt paused, exhaling heavily as he moved the card, ‘I’m finally ready to let her know how I feel.’ He was picking at the edge of the card before moving it and putting it at the back of the stack once more. ‘But for now let me say,’ he looked at you as the card dropped and you could see how nervous he was getting with every card. ‘without hope or agenda,’ he grabbed the next card moving it, ‘just because it’s Christmas–’ he moved the next card back, ‘(and at Christmas you tell the truth)’ another card moved to the back, ‘to me, there is no one else in this world as beautiful, kind and who can chirp me good…as you.’

Matt took a deep breath and exhaled again, moving onto the next card, ‘and no matter what happened before or what happens now or in the future,’ he moved the next card back, looking down at it before looking back up at you, ‘my wasted heart will love you,’ he had the same look in his eyes as he did when he was standing beneath your window earlier, and it was the same way he looked at you when the two of you were cuddling in his bed. ‘Whether you look like this,’ The next card had a bunch of pictures of you from your 14th birthday and on, each with your face covered in cake and Brady standing nearby in a full fit of laughter, the cake smash becoming his own tradition with you, though Matt only had to help clean your face off that 14th and 15th birthday, because as the years went on, you always immediately after ran after Brady for revenge.

He moved the card, ‘or like this,’ the next card had pictures of where you were normal looking, from everyday, to you mid-game, post-game, or all dressed up and you weren’t ignoring the fact that every picture was either just you, or at least you and Matt standing together. He moved the card, looking at it before looking up at you, a soft, barely there smile on his face. ‘It will always be you that my heart belongs to,’ he moved the card, holding onto both sides as it read simply, ‘Merry Christmas.’

You swallowed the knot in your throat as the song playing on his phone came to an end and you stared at Matt who hadn’t moved from his spot. This was the same boy who, when you were 8, convinced you to let him tie your loose tooth to a string and the string to the basement door because you couldn’t get it to come out and wanted tooth fairy money. Who knocked you off a tube at the lake at 13 and caused your new bikini top to snap and left you without a top in the middle of the water. At 16, he and Brady crashed your first date the week after your birthday by showing up to the same movie as you and sitting row behind you. At 20, broke your heart when you overheard him talking to Sam and saying you meant nothing to him. And at 22, when he made you realize just how stupidly in love you were with him, but had also left you feeling hurt and confused hours after.

Yet here he was…standing in front of your house, snow falling around him on Christmas morning and recreating one of your favorite scenes from one of your all-time favorite holiday movies, when he should’ve already been back inside with his family who no doubt was starting to wake up for their own Christmas traditions. And you…you were still coming off of reading his letter hours before and turning him away not even near two hours before. Your brain was fogged and whatever your heart was saying, couldn’t make it through. All you wanted to do was cry, but from whether it was his effort and him standing here and basically telling you he loves you no matter what happens or if it was because you were just so overwhelmed with hurt and confusion and your own feelings for him.

You opened your mouth to speak, your throat dry and you saw as he perked up a bit at the motion. You swallowed heavily again, licking your lips and then feeling your heart sink in your own chest as you shook your head with tears in your eyes. “Go home, Matt.”

His jaw dropped just barely as you watched his mouth turn into a frown as he sucked in his lips and nodded his head, his eyes at least the small glimpse of them that you got before he turned away, were showing the same panic and emotion they were last night in the basement when everything imploded.

“Merry Christmas, y/n,” he said, looking at you one last time before tucking the posters underneath his arm and putting his phone in his pocket, turning around and moving to walk back across the street to his house.

“Merry Christmas,” you called out just barely, loud enough to where he could hear you and you knew that he could since you saw him stutter in a step before continuing to walk across the street.

You walked back into the house, closing and locking the door behind you before making your way into the living room, both of your parents back in the kitchen most likely refilling their coffees. You were cold from standing out in the winter air, so you grabbed Matt’s sweatshirt and tugged it on, even after washing it with your own detergent and fabric softener…it still had Matt’s cologne lingering around it. Instantly you felt yourself start to warm up and you made your way to the kitchen where sure enough, your parents were there making their coffees.

“That lasted quite a while,” your dad said, handing you the coffee pot.

“They were nice,” you replied, topping your mug off. “And it’s Christmas, I figured I’d let them say what they wanted to say. It has to be important if they’re walking out in this weather.”

“That was nice of you, y/n,” your mom replied, leaning against the counter. “Did you buy that when you guys were up visiting Matthew?”

You looked down at the sweatshirt, shaking your head. “Oh, no I had forgotten my jacket and Matt let me borrow it. I’m giving it back to him later today, but it’s the only sweatshirt in my closet that’s nearly as comfortable so…”

“Chantal sent me the pictures Matt had sent her of your guys night out before you flew home. Looks like you all had a lot of fun, it’s nice you guys were able to go up and visit with Matthew before coming back home. I’m sure he likes having a little piece of home up there with him.” She smiled, walking by and patting your shoulder as she walked out of the room.

You dad smiled, shaking his head. “Don’t think she and Chantal didn’t rave about that selfie of you and Matt together, because they did.” You just stayed quiet as you poured a little more creamer into your coffee and handed it off to him. “They even talked about whether or not the two of you were a secret item–”

“Dad,” you sighed, shaking your head as you stirred your coffee. “We’re not…that’s not…just, no.”

He laughed, nodding. “Oh trust me, I know and that’s what I said. You’ve been crushing on Matthew since we met the Tkachuk’s. I told her the last thing you’d do was keep it a secret.” He put the creamer away, turning back and walking by you. “But, y/n, if I know anything or remember anything from being a man in my 20’s…it’s that I can tell that boy really cares about you. You can see it in the pictures.”

“Dad–”

“I know, I know,” he replied, holding a hand up in defense. “You don’t want to hear from your old dad about love and boys, I’ll stop.”

“Thank you,”  you replied as you followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room, taking your seat back onto the end of the sectional and trying your best to pay attention to the movie on the tv.

The thing was, is that even as the hours ticked by and you and your parents exchanged and opened your gifts and enjoyed each other’s company, you still couldn’t get your mind off of Matt. He was there while you helped your mom make breakfast, while you and your Dad were looking at the directions on how to build the vanity light mirror they’d bought you from IKEA. When you helped clean up wrapping paper and set aside the presents you were going to take to the Tkachuk’s later for them to open. And when your mom had changed the channel from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and onto Love Actually, you’d only made it 30 minutes into the movie before you excused yourself upstairs.

It was nearing the time where you guys were set to go over to the Tkachuk’s house, maybe in another hour or two before and you knew that there was no way you would be able to spend the rest of the night and day over at their house and around Matthew, without at least talking to him first. And as you put on your boots by the front door, you were really hating yourself for not taking the time to talk to Matt after his big grand gesture.

Because while he was the boy who did all of those things you’d listed off in your mind before he was also the same boy who at 7, hung out with you at recess because Brady was home sick and a group of boys were picking on your pigtails. At 12 when he went with your parents to watch you try out for and then celebrated with you after you made your club soccer team. At 17 he took you to your senior prom when he could’ve stayed home, simply because he didn’t want you to miss out on the experience. At 21, last year and your senior season when you tore your meniscus by the near end of the season, besides your parents, he was the first one to reach out to you to make sure you were okay, even despite your guys lack of communication before then.

And then this morning…you just felt a huge wave of guilt for sending him away like that and all you wanted to do was talk to him now, reach out and let him know how you appreciated what he did and that you read his letter…tell him and ask him if it was all true, just to make sure it really was. Because despite everything he’s done, your brain was still wanting that confirmation even if your heart knew to the core it was all true, that he meant every single word.

You stared at the side of the Tkachuk’s house, having made the walk from across the street and through the gate into their backyard. You swallowed the knot in your throat as you rolled the snowball in your hands, taking a step back and throwing it up towards his window as hard as you could and watching it hit the glass before breaking apart. When there was no immediate answer, you bent back down, picking up two more, and threw up another one, watching it smash against the glass. You waited...and waited...and you were seconds away from texting Taryn or Brady to tell Matt to go into his room...when you heard the window start to open. And you waited just a few more seconds until you saw the short curls appear through the window before you threw your last snowball, hitting Matt directly in the face.

It was hard to refrain from laughing as he spit and wiped whatever snow had remained on his face-off, then fully leaned out of his window and looked down at you. "I'm going to assume that was an accident?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Assume all you want, it was definitely payback for earlier," you smiled, leaning up on the tips of your toes and putting your hands in your...well, his sweatshirt to warm them.

He laughed, a small smile appearing on his face before it disappeared just as fast. "What are you doing here? What happened to 'thanks for the heartfelt cards and for pouring your heart out to me, but go ahead and home, Matthew'?"

"I never said thank you," you joked, feeling even more nervous when you saw him sigh and shake his head, clearly still upset about you sending him home earlier.

Matt leaned further out his window, his arms resting on the sill. "You know, it took me a lot to do that...make you that snowman and then stand on your front porch, pouring my feelings out on those posters like that scene from Love Actually– which, I had to beg the old lady at the art store to let me in so I could buy them last night. Not just because of the time it took, but because I was terrified of letting you know how I feel."

"You know me, y/n. When have I ever been the guy who ever blatantly puts his feelings out there like that? I'm no open book, I know that...but I wanted to be for you." He motioned down at you, some snow falling off the window sill. "And you just let me stand there, thinking that I even had the slither of a chance of making things right with you or-or even getting to be with you for more than just a night, and then you just say 'go home, Matthew' and leave it at that."

You nodded, your hands fiddling together in the sweatshirt pocket as you nodded again. "I know."

"So why are you here, then?" He asked, looking as hurt as you felt leaving his apartment three days earlier. "I apologized for what happened, I told you how I really felt and then some. Plus, you already shut me down, so what else is there?"

You were starting to understand why he looked so nervous when he had been in your very shoes only seven hours earlier. It was scary standing here, out in the open and thinking of all the words you wanted to say as he looked at you, only for them to get stuck in your throat. It was even worse when you could see just how upset and hurt he was about your reaction to his grand gesture, and that hurt you.

Because honestly...you loved it. You loved that instead of going home like you told him to the first time, he stayed outside in your front yard and tried so hard to recreate the snowman he and his friends decapitated and destroyed with a puck. He sat on your front porch, shielding himself from the snow, and wrote down his own feelings on poster cards, recreating one of your favorite scenes from one of your favorite holiday movies. He put forth the effort to show you how much he cared about you, he was honest with you– he'd been nothing but honest with you since the moment he told you his own feelings about the night you two spent together both in his apology letter and on those poster cards.

How he's loved you for years but was too scared to ever act on it or show it.

Matt's heavy sigh broke you out of your thoughts and you looked back up at him to see him shaking his head. "Go home, y/n. I've already got enough on my conscience regarding you and I really don't need you freezing to death or catching pneumonia to be another."

When you saw him disappear from the opening of the window, your body panicked and the knot in your throat tightened as you stepped closer to the house. "Did you mean it?" You called out, voice quivering from both the cold and your own nerves.

"What?" He asked, appearing back out of the window.

"Did you mean it?" You repeated, swallowing heavily as you forced yourself to keep looking at him. "What you said in your letter…an-and when you said this morning that you wanted me...did you mean it?"

"Yes."

"And you meant it in the way where we're together...right?" You felt your nerves start to overtake you, the words and thoughts in your mind running a million miles a second. "Not just like, sleeping together, o-or being good friends, but actually being together. Me flying up to Calgary for games, being your date to team parties a-and events?"

"Y/n–"

"Because if that is what you meant, if you want me to come up to Calgary to visit for a week or two, to show me around town o-or post cute pictures on Instagram with captions like 'you're the cheese to my macaroni' or something–" the knot in your throat kept tightened as you played with your hands, trying to push through what you wanted to say as you took a deep breath and exhaled. "Because if that is what you want...then I want you too, Matt."

It was like a big weight lifted off of your chest the moment you finally got the words out, exhaling a big breath of relief as you waited for his reply. Except his face had never changed– it remained neutral. He never showed a slither or a crack in his demeanor and it worried you. And before you could say another word, Matt left the window and you heard it shut.

Now you were really beginning to understand how he felt this morning and you hated yourself for ever sending him away the first or the second time. You sucked your lips in, nodding your head before turning to your left and making your way away from Matt's window and out through the Tkachuk's backyard fence, leaving their side yard behind you. You closed the gate, turned back around, and carefully stepped out of the grass and onto the Tkachuk's driveway, not wanting to damage it anymore than the snow and winter already had.

"You're the cheese to my macaroni? That's the caption you'd go with?" You stopped in your tracks and turned around to see Matt standing on the front porch, standing on the top step, dressed in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, looking like he had just shoved on any pair of shoes because he wasn't wearing boots– but running shoes and they didn’t even match.

"Your nickname is Chucky...which, when I hear it I think of Chuck-E-Cheese," you replied, fiddling with your hands in the sweatshirt pocket as he started walking towards you. "Plus, everyone in the hockey world calls you a rat, right? So...cheese to my macaroni."

You swallowed heavily as you watched his face carefully for a reaction, your heart thudding against your chest when you saw him contemplate your reasoning as he came to a stop in front of you. He still had that neutral look on his face as he held his hands in his sweatshirt pocket and just looked at you.

"Um...so I totally understand if you probably hate me for making you go home twice–"

"Y/n–"

"And what happened last night, because I would be really mad at myself too. I-I mean you're totally right, you know? You just," you huffed, waving your hands at him before letting them drop by your sides. "You do the whole romantic thing, spill your feelings for me in the 20-degree weather and what do I do? I tell you to go home and I'm so sorry, Matt I swear–"

Matt laughed, crossing his arms. "Y/n–"

"But it wasn't because I didn't appreciate what you did or that I don't feel the same way, because I do. I just needed time to think, because hello, I mean this is like my childhood dream coming true that you said you love me and I just find it really hard to believe that you like me like that too, y'know? And maybe it's too late of me to tell you I want you too and that I still love you and never stopped, but–"

"Y/n!" He laughed again, this time gaining your attention.

You looked up from the shoveled-out driveway, a pout on your face. "Yeah?"

He stepped closer to you, cupping your head and tilting it up slightly so you were looking right at him. His right hand moved closer towards your cheek, his thumb brushing against your skin and then your bottom lip as his eyes stayed focused on your lips before he finally looked into your eyes, laughing softly and smiling. "I love you too."

"Rea–"

His mouth pressed against yours in a searing kiss before you could even question it and it was a kiss that made your knees immediately go weak, even more so than the first kiss you shared outside of the bar in the very same weather. And just like the kiss at the bar, this one warmed you to the core the moment his lips touched yours. You pulled your hands out of the sweatshirt pocket and grabbed onto the front of his sweatshirt in hopes that you wouldn't fall and kissed him back, standing up on your toes to bring yourself as close to him as possible.

Which turned out to be a horrible idea, because it wasn't the kiss that made you feel like you were getting swept off your feet, it was the thin sheet of ice that was hidden beneath the light layer of snow in the Tkachuk's driveway sending you and Matt down to the concrete.

"Oomph," He groaned, his arms now wrapped around you tightly and holding you against him when the two of you started falling. "Ow."

"Oh my God, are you okay?" You asked, resting your hands on his chest as you sat yourself up.

"I guess my big ass is good for something," he laughed, looking at you. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but are you okay? Did you break your tailbone? Or your back? Did you hit your head?"

 You reached behind you and pinched his thigh. "Can you feel that?"

Matt rolled his eyes, laughing. "Yes, I can feel that, and no I didn't hit my head or any of those other things. At least now I can say that I totally swept you off your feet or that you wanted me so bad that you tackled me in my own driveway."

"Whatever, Ratthew," you replied, rolling your eyes.

"Hey," he pouted, pulling you closer. "My girlfriend can't call me Ratthew."

"You have a girlfriend?" You asked, looking around before looking back down at him. "I don't see her anywhere."

He rolled his eyes again, getting what you were saying. "Y/n, will you–"

"Um, not to ruin the moment or anything, but we totally got that on camera," Brady called out, gaining your and Matt's attention as he stood on the front porch, pointing at the camera hanging just above the garage. "Oh, and you guys should probably get up and get changed or something because y/n's parents are coming over in an hour."

"Thanks, Brady." You said, giving him a 'now please go away' look, only for him to laugh and give you two thumbs up before walking back inside of the house. You sighed, looking back at Matt before moving off of him and slowly standing yourself up. "I should probably get home so I can get showered and change before coming over."

Matt held his hands out for you to grab and help pull him up, standing firmly on his feet as he pouted. "But–"

"I'll see you in an hour," you leaned in and kissed him, pulling away just as quick. "And I'll have your Christmas gift with me."

"Y/n?" He called out, trying to peek over your backyard fence. When he didn't get a reply, he walked towards the door, getting ready to bend down and pick up the latch key that was beneath a rock, when he noticed that it was already propped open. "Y/n? You there?"

Without another reply, he sighed and pushed the gate door open, closing it behind him and walking further into the backyard. "So you come over for Christmas dinner, slip your panties in my back pocket," he closed the gate behind him, still talking out loud. "In front of our parents, may I add. And I can't decide if that was hot or if I was scared shitless that one of them would see and well...could you imagine that rest of the awkward Christmas dinner?"

After the kiss in his parent’s driveway, he’d gone back inside only to be greeted by a smug looking Brady. If he was being honest, after you’d sent him home after his recreation of the scene from Love Actually, he thought that after last night, there was absolutely nothing more he could do to try and apologize or convince you that he was sorry and that he really did, truly love you. That after that, you most likely wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

And sitting through opening presents and breakfast and helping set up for the dinner later, he’d spent those last few hours before you threw snowballs at his bedroom window, trying to convince himself that nothing was going to happen between you both anymore, that he needed to start to try and talk himself out of loving you– though he knew that that was going to be nearly impossible.

Until you came and threw that first snowball. He thought he might’ve been seeing things, that you weren’t really standing beneath his window, but when he started talking and you talked back, he knew it was really you. He was still hurt, but seeing you standing there rambling and then when you asked him if he had meant everything he’d said and that if he did, then you wanted him too– he knew that this was finally his one chance to have this conversation face to face.

He didn’t regret shutting the window on you, he didn’t regret meeting you outside, because for the first time since that morning after your night together, he got to talk to you and yeah, you were nervous, but he knew it was for good reason and it was one of the things he loved most about you, your nervous rambling. And then you said it– you said that you still loved him and that you never stopped– and he knew everything he needed to, and for the first time since you were asleep in his bed, he told you that he loved you.

And the kiss was even better than the first one the two of you shared behind the bar. He never wanted to stop kissing you, and swore up and down in his mind that he could probably spend the rest of the day doing so. But then it came time for you to go home and he waited anxiously until you and your parents came over.

When you did, he saved no expense greeting you with a hug and then a kiss to the cheek, not wanting your families to ask a million questions about why he kissed you on the lips if he’d done so. Throughout the whole time before dinner and then dinner itself, it was like a dream. You’d sat next to him and beneath the table he’d rested his hand on your leg and you’d placed your hand on top of his, linking your fingers through his. He couldn’t believe it himself how you’d both gone from fighting in the basement only not even 24 hours earlier, to professing your love for each other and holding hands beneath the table.

You’d excused yourself to the bathroom sometime right at the end of dinner and he was in the living room with everyone to set up games when you came walking back in and stood next to him, sliding your hand into his back pocket, the same one you’d done the same exact thing at the bar. You’d told your parents you’d be right back and forgot something at the house, but not to hold anything up. He later went to help his mom clean up the kitchen as you left and when he found a spare moment, he’d dug his hand into his pocket and partially pulled out the lacey red thong out of his pocket, a small folded piece of paper falling to the floor. He quickly shoved the underwear back into his pocket and bent down, picking up the paper and unfolded it to see your handwriting.

‘Meet me in my backyard <3’

Matt excused himself, saying that you’d sent him a text asking if he could help grab the gifts for Taryn and Brady she’d forgotten and left his own house, which brought him right here to your backyard. He sighed, reaching the corner of your house and rounding it where you were nowhere to be found. The only sign of life in your backyard was some light coming from your old treehouse. With no other option, he made his way towards the treehouse he hadn't been in since he was 17 and started to climb up the wooden ladder, feeling it creak in age with every step he took. When he reached the top, he pulled himself up onto the deck and walked towards the door, your old blue beaded curtain still hanging outside of the sliding door.

It still looked like he remembered it– posters you took from those teen magazines taped to the wall, string lights hung up all around, ottoman storage, a hammock chair hanging from the ceiling, small bookshelves in the corner overfilled with books and some bean bags. It was a place he knew more often than not, was where he could find you and Brady any summer day, despite the no boys allowed sign nailed just right beside the door.

The treehouse was your childhood safe haven and Matt felt lucky any time you let him step into it.

"Y/n?" He called out again, trying to look in through the windows but the old string lights didn't have much juice left.

"What? Did you forget the secret knock and password?' You replied, still out of sight from him.

Matt rolled his eyes, knocking five times before taking a small pause and knocking two more times. "Girls go to college to get more knowledge," he sighed, trying not to laugh at the old rhyme and picturing him and Brady saying it every time they wanted to come into the treehouse. "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

"Password accepted," he could tell you were smiling, just by the one of your voice. "Doors unlocked."

"If the door’s unlocked, then why did I have to knock and say the password?" He huffed, grabbing the handle and sliding the door open.

"'Cause I wanted to see if you remembered. Oh, and to hear you say that I'm basically smarter than you."

He rolled his eyes again, his back to you as he closed the door and turned around for the first time, eyes widening and jaw-dropping the moment he saw you. "Y/n..."

"What?" You asked, your head propped up by your elbow as you laid across the bunch of blankets you'd strewn on the treehouse floor. "Too much?"

He blinked once...twice...three times, still trying to digest the fact that you were laying in your childhood treehouse wearing nothing but a red sweater romper that looked more like a half-sheer bodysuit with the same plunging neckline like the one he remembered you wearing that night at the bar, only this one had tiny buttons going up the neckline.

"I uh...I mean...it's hot." He finally choked out, clearing his throat. "I don't...are we going to...?"

"Have sex in my childhood treehouse? No," you laughed, standing up and turning around, showing off the cheeky cut back as you grabbed a pair of old soccer shorts and his Calgary sweatshirt you never gave back, putting them on and turning back around, a smile on your face as you shrugged. "I mean...not yet, but that really all depends."

Matt swallowed heavily, finally looking up from where he'd been staring at your ass. "On?"

You grabbed the old soccer ball that was propped up by the bookshelf and walked up to him, spinning the ball in your hands as you smiled and walked by. "On whether or not you can score three goals on me."

"Wait!" He followed after you, giving you space as you climbed back down the latter before going down himself, skipping the last few steps and jumping down onto the ground. "That's it? I score three goals and then we just...have sex in the treehouse?"

"I don't know...unless you can think of anything else you want to wager?" You smiled, spinning the ball around again.

He knew what you were getting at, he could see it in your eyes and the playfulness in your wager and in your smile. "What happens if you score three goals on me?"

"You get your sweatshirt back and we have sex in the treehouse."

"And I get to choose what goes for if I win?" He asked, stepping closer towards you, looking at the ball in your hands.

"Mhhm."

"Well in that case," he grabbed the ball from you mid toss, holding it in his own hands and nodding at the goal set up behind you, half the set. "I score three goals on you...we go on a date tomorrow morning before I leave."

You furrowed your brows, tilting your head to the side. "That's it?"

"Mhhm, and at the end I'll ask you whether or not you want to be my girlfriend...though I'm hoping you'll say yes." he smiled, spinning the ball in his hands and dropping it to the ground, placing his foot on top of it. "Unless you really want to have sex with me in the treehouse...then we can add that in too."

The laugh that came from you was the first genuine laugh he felt like he'd heard in years. The one that you smiled so big it reached your eyes and the way your laugh traveled so lightly and effortlessly through the air, echoing in his ears– a sound he'd never get tired of.

"The sex is totally optional. I just thought I'd appease to your mind since you so clearly enjoyed the last time we did it."

"Okay, added wager," he tilted his head to the side, egging you to take his bet. "I score four goals and we have sex in the treehouse."

You shrugged, a smile on your face. "You couldn't even score one on me when you were 15 and back then I wasn't nearly half as good at 13 as I am now. So you're on."

"You don't think I've upped my skills in the last nine years?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not unless one of your many abundant hook-ups was also an avid soccer player, no." You laughed, crossing your arms. "And pre-game soccer doesn't count for–"

Matt nudged by you, kicking the ball ahead of him and going for one hard kick, sending the ball directly into your net before turning around, his stupid, cocky smirk on his face. "Only three more to go."

You glared at him, walking over and taking the ball, dropping it down between you. "You cheated."

"You never said there were any rules," he laughed, his warm breath fogging once it met the cold air. "Besides, since when have you ever played by or even with rules?"

"You know what?" You smiled, putting your foot on the ball. "You're right." Before he could say another word, you nudged the ball behind you and spun around, kicking it further ahead and running after it, Matt stuttering in his step before he was running after you, but it was too late. You'd already scored.

"So we're playing like that?" He laughed, huffing as he rested his hands on his hips and you grabbed the ball from the back of the net, walking back towards him with a smile.

"We're playing like that." You replied, getting as close to him as you could, keeping the ball between you before holding it up and then dropping it down onto the ground. "1-1."

It started out like how the two of you used to play when you were younger– there were no rules, no hesitance to try and trip each other up, use your elbows to nudge and shove the other away, or even accidentally kick a shin or step on a foot. It didn't take long for either of you to score another goal each, tying it once more at 2-2 and the next goal would be winning the bet.

Once you scored the second goal to tie him again, the atmosphere had shifted. You could see that he was playing harder, automatically making you try and step up your game to match his energy. It had started snowing lightly and your guys' clothes were nowhere near warm enough to keep you guys from freezing the moment your adrenaline stopped pumping through your bodies...but neither of you cared because you were too lost in playing a game that made it feel like you two were back at a time when things were so much simpler.

He tripped himself up with the ball, knocking it loose and giving you the chance to seize your opportunity. Lost in that competitive mode, you didn't waste it, immediately running after the ball and kicking it into the top right corner, scoring your third goal and winning.

3-2...you'd won the bet.

Yet when you turned around to rub it in his face, your smile fell once you saw him standing there, hands on his hips and trying to catch his breath, not even the playful smirk on his face he'd had all game.

"3-2," you said, picking up the ball and walking over to him. "I win."

"Yeah, you do," he nodded, letting his arms fall down by his sides before reaching out and grabbing your hand and starting to walk you to the treehouse. "And a bet's a bet so let's go–"

"Hold on," you took your hand out of his, stopping him from tugging you away, and looked at him with furrowed brows. "What's your problem? This was fun, wasn't it? Just like old times."

"I mean, sure I guess," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But I lost, so it's not the best time for me right now."

Somewhere in the middle of your guys' game, maybe when the atmosphere had shifted and Matt started to play harder, the bet had changed. It became serious to him while you saw it as something playful, something fun. A thing to knock off your high school bucket list now that you had the chance...but to him, it was more. You made your bet as a joke. You never intended on giving him his sweatshirt back and the whole sex in the treehouse was just a way to finally cross off the item from your high school bucket list senior year. But his bet...his was real, it actually meant something and you realized that he only added the treehouse in as a buffer– to keep the mood light and funny.

This was never a game.

When his movement in the snow caught your attention, you saw him start to walk back towards the treehouse, his back to you. "Hey!" You said, walking a few steps forward as he turned around. You dropped the ball onto the snow and kicked it over, a small smile on your face. "Double or nothing."

He stopped the ball with his foot, looking at you. "Same bet?"

You nodded, stuffing your hands into the sweatshirt pockets. "We'll keep the scores...just bump it up to four this time."

Matt kicked the ball back over to you, your heart dropping for only a moment before he walked over to you, following after the ball and stopping just in front of you. "3-2?"

"Yep," you nodded, taking your hands out of the sweatshirt pocket. "3-2."

He sucked in his lips, nodding his head before kicking the ball just beside you and kicking the ball straight ahead of him into the goal, turning around and kicking and keeping the ball in front of him as he walked towards you, shrugging. "3-3. Next point wins."

"First to four," you replied, sighing as he came to a stop in front of you. "Ready?"

"Are you?"

Instead of replying, you went to steal the ball, kicking it out from beneath his feet but getting trapped as he held onto your arms to keep you from moving forward as you both tried to get some kind of control on the ball. You got an arm free, managing to turn yourself around and bump against him in an effort to distract and grab the ball. Instead, he grabbed your hips, keeping you pressed against him as he ducked his head down towards your ear.

"Nice try, but it won't work." He whispered, wrapping his left arm around your waist and picking you up, moving you off to the side as he held you and lazily kicked the ball far enough away before he let go of you and went after it.

You ran hard, barely catching up to him and grabbing onto the sleeve of his sweater when he kicked the ball, the kick looking like it might veer off just a little left...but hitting the back of the net and barely missing the post.

"GOALLLLL!" He yelled, throwing his arms up in the air and running around, snow kicking up as he ran in circles around you.

You laughed, shaking your head. "So what you're telling me is that you're a sore loser?"

"No," he stopped, breathing heavily as he started walking towards you. "I just hate losing. And this was one bet I really wanted to win."

"So," you sighed, letting your arms fall to your sides. "You won the bet. What now?"

Still trying to catch his breath, you watched as his eyes moved from your lips and back to your eyes...again and again and again, until they settled just over your shoulder, a smile on his face. "I think I know a good place to start."

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked over your left shoulder to see what he was looking at, only to see the treehouse. "Men," you snorted, shaking your head and looking back at him.

 "They're so predict–"

He closed the distance between you, his hands brushing up your shoulders before cupping both sides of your face and pressing his mouth against yours, catching you off-guard by the unexpected kiss, but nonetheless sending your nerves into overdrive as you wrapped your arms around his waist, pulling him into you so your chests were pressed together.

You pulled away, breathless from both his fervent kiss and still trying to recover from your game of soccer, and looked up at him, seeing the tiny snowflakes falling just on top of his hair and a few, every so often landing on his long lashes. "Ask me," you breathed out, your hands gripping onto the back of his sweater. "Ask me to be your girlfriend now, you don't need to wait for the end of a date– because I'm going to say yes."

Matt laughed, his thumbs brushing against your red-tinged cheeks as he smiled at you before poking out his bottom lip and shaking his head. "Nah, I think I'll wait for the date...maybe not even then. I think I've got something special planned up already."

"That's not fair," you pouted. "I didn't play in the freezing cold out here to be your girlfriend, just for you to go back on the bet and wait."

"Why don't you ask me what I have planned first and then decide," he laughed, squishing your cheeks together. "Dork."

"Fine," you sighed heavily, playfully rolling your eyes as you unwrapped your arms from around him and he held your hand. "What do you have planned, Matthew?"

He smiled, squeezing your hand as he led you over to the treehouse. "I can't tell you, it's a surprise."

"Matty," you groaned, lolling your head back as you came to a stop by the ladder.

"It's a surprise," he replied, nudging you up the ladder to climb, him following right behind you. "But I can give you at least one hint."

"And what's that?" You asked, reaching the deck of the treehouse and walking towards the door, waiting for Matt to climb all the way up and meet you.

He walked over, resting his hands on your hips and leaning you against the door, resting his forehead against yours with a smile. "Don't make any plans for New Year's Eve."

"Why?" You asked, wrapping your arms around his neck. "Something special happening that day?"

"Very," he mumbled against your lips, kissing you softly before reaching down and opening the door to the treehouse and walking you both inside. "And right now you're about to get a little sneak peek."

You laughed, holding onto him as he kicked the door softly behind him, shutting it and then lowering you down onto the blankets you'd layered on the ground, your fingers in his shortened curls as you laughed into the kiss, pulling back and resting yourself up onto your elbows.

"Little?" You laughed, a smirk on your face. "Blaming the lighting already, Matty?"

Matt plopped himself down on top of you, grabbing your hands and holding them above your head, using his left hand to keep them there as his right moved down to your sides, tickling you. "Take it back," he laughed, pressing a kiss to your neck.

"Fine, fine," you huffed, squirming beneath him and barely able to move. "I take it back."

"Good," he replied, his hand sliding the sweatshirt you were wearing up your body before using both hands to take it off, revealing the red romper you were wearing. "Did you buy this for me?"

"No, but will it make you feel better if I said yes?" You laughed, leaning yourself back up onto your elbows. "I know the male ego is fragile."

He rolled his eyes. "Haha, very funny. And no, I don't care if you didn’t buy it for me," he replied, ducking his head down to your jaw and kissing down your neck and towards your collarbones, going over every mark you had covered with make-up like he memorized where he'd made them. "Because I'm the one that's taking it off."

You reached down towards the waistband of your sweatpants, nudging them down and using your feet to kick them off, leaving you in nothing but the cheeky romper before wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him back down towards you. "Merry Christmas, Matty." You whispered, thumbs brushing against the nape of his neck.

"Merry Christmas, y/n," he replied, kissing you feverishly before pulling back, his lips barely ghosting over yours as he looked into your eyes, his left hand brushing against your cheek before moving up and tucking hair behind your ear. "Best Christmas ever."

"Just wait until New Year's Eve then," you replied, bumping your nose up against his. "I hear that might be pretty special."

"You have no idea."

Matty 🐭❤️: Left for morning skate, be back in a little bit. But enjoy breakfast on me! 😘

Y/n: Got it! 🥰

After sending the picture of the taped delivery bag of the cafe down the street that you’d just received from the door dash delivery person minutes before, you put your phone down on the counter and ripped the sealed sticker open, peering inside to see a plastic container and a paper wrap. You reached in and pulled both of them out, restingYou resting them on the counter. You could see inside the paper wrap was a slice of the pumpkin bread and when you opened up the container, you saw an omelet with a side of toast inside. And in the drink holder, you could tell he ordered both a coffee for you and a small orange juice.

You grabbed the food and the drink container, walking over to the couch in the living room and sitting down, continuing to watch the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episode that you’d started when you were woken up by Matt’s text and interrupted only ten minutes in when the door dash delivery came. There were still solo cups both regular sized and shot glass sized all over the kitchen table and throughout the kitchen and on the counter, New Years Eve decorations hanging up, some halfway thanks to the rowdiness of the boys when it came to leave for the official Flames team party.

A party, to which the boys were all very careful not to get too drunk considering they had a pretty big game today, but still loosened up enough to have fun and make it a memorable night. But it was a little more memorable for both you and Matt than anything else. When you flew out to Calgary five days earlier, it was the first time you were doing so just by yourself and as more than y/n, his neighbor across the street and girl he’s known since he was a kid. You weren’t officially dating, but you weren’t ‘just y/n,’ anymore.

After the two of you had had sex in your treehouse, you’d rejoined the party, coming back with gift bags that were stuffed with random things from your room as cover up gifts for Taryn and Brady– the two of them even going as far into the ploy to take the fake gifts up to their rooms– and went on with your night. Matt had snuck over to your house later that night and the two of you just fell asleep in your bed just like you’d done nights earlier at his apartment in Calgary. Only the next morning, he snuck back out of your house before your parents woke up and kissed you goodbye, promising to come over a few hours later for your date.

He did. And he rang your doorbell and picked you up, your mom being the one to answer the door as your rushed down the stairs complete with the red gift bag holding your new phone and then your mom and Matt standing just inside the door, both looking at you with a smile.

You whined softly, shaking your head as you reached the last step. “Mom, please don’t–”

“I’m not saying anything,” she said, holding up her hands in defense. “Just…let me get a picture really quick and then you can go.”

You were embarrassed as you stood next to Matt, so easily able to fit into his side as he wrapped his arm around your waist. “This is so embarrassing…”

“It’s fine,” he whispered, pulling you more into his side and kissing the top of your head.

“So cute, you two,” your mom smiled, seemingly taking the picture without the two of you noticing. “Now just one more and then you’re free to go.”

“Del, they’re not teens going off to prom anymore, let them go,” your dad said, walking into the atrium.

“Thanks, Dad,” you sighed, knowing it was no use as you and Matt smiled for your mom’s picture before she put the phone down.

“Now Matthew, I don’t think I need to give you a speech–”

“And we’re leaving, bye!” You said, turning Matt towards the door as he opened it.

“She’ll be home in a bit, I have to fly out anyway,” Matt laughed, the two of you walking out of the house and closing the door behind you before draping an arm over your shoulders. “Why do I have the inkling feeling that your mom is going to not only send that picture to mine, but probably go over so they can gossip about it in person?”

“Because that’s exactly what she’s going to do,” you sighed, leaning into his side. “But come on, I believe you said you were going to take me on a date where you may or may not ask me a very important question at the end– which, by the way, my answer hasn’t changed from what I told you I would say if you did ask that question.”

The two of you stopped by your phone provider to transfer everything over from your old phone to your new one and then went to breakfast downtown. Pushing the time, the both of you walked around downtown hand in hand for the first time before eventually, you had to make your way home and you dropped him off at the airport and watched him walk his way through security…but not before he asked if you’d fly up to Calgary in two days to spend time with him up there and even join in with the New Years Eve and New Years Days festivities.

Meaning when you flew up here and got to see him play two games, it was also the first time that you were there to support him at his games and mingle amongst the other WAGs as well, whatever you were. You were already familiar with most of them, especially after the last few years of attending the team Christmas parties– so they were thrilled to see you back in Calgary when normally you didn’t come back once Matt flew home for Christmas. They all pressed for what happened over the few days break and what changed and you told them all that you could and when Matt met you after the games, the two of you would talk and laugh on the ride back to his apartment about how everyone on both sides were pressing you for answers.

But the only one who actually knew the answer to their most popular question– ‘Are you guys dating?’– was Matt and he meant it when he said that he wasn’t going to ask you that question until you least expected it.

Because the last thing you expected was for Matt to break away from your New Years kiss to ask you to be his girlfriend, just seconds into the New Year and barely waiting for you to say yes before he kissed you again.

Your first kiss as an official couple.

And, of course when the party ended, the two of you took an uber back to his apartment and ended up in the same predicament that landed you two in those tense few days in the first place. Only this time, when you woke up, there was no panicking about just what would happen or what he would think when he found out and definitely no trying to sneak out of his apartment unnoticed. This time, you woke up early in the morning where Matt was coming back from going to the bathroom and climbed back into bed, immediately pulling you into him and kissing  you before you curled against his side.

“This is sort of like a deja vu isn’t it?” He mumbled, lazily rubbing his hand up and down your left thigh.

“Which part?” You laughed softly, looking up at him. “The sex or the laying in your bed half asleep?”

“Both.”

“Deja vu is when you know you haven’t experienced something before, but your brain is tricking you into thinking you have,” you replied, resting your chin on his shoulder. “Which, you’ve definitely experienced both of this before. I was there.”

“Whatever dork.” He rolled his eyes as his left hand brushed against your hair. “I got you a jacket to wear today.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, looking at him. “What?”

“Mer was in charge of the jackets, she got them from a woman here locally and I texted Johnny to ask Mer if there was any chance the woman could make a last minute one for you to wear and she was able to.” He lolled his head towards you, a smile on his face. “So…you have a jacket to wear with my number on it.”

Your face scrunched as you tried not to smile. “You mean now everyone’s going to know I’m dating you? Imagine what that will do to my image.”

He rolled his eyes again and brushed hair down into your face as you laughed. “God maybe this was a mistake. Should’ve just let you wear a sweatshirt.”

“No, no, I’m only kidding Matty,” you smiled, nudging yourself closer to him before leaning and and kissing his neck before laying your head down on the pillow he was using and bringing your hand up and resting it on the left side of his face, brushing your thumb against his cheek. “I would love and be honored to wear your number on a jacket. Though I think my soccer number is much, much better.”

“Eh, 8’s okay. But too bad that one’s already taken,” he shrugged, his right arm wrapping around your waist. “Besides, you look better in 19.”

“Guess we’ll just have to wait till later today to see if that’s true,” you smiled, leaning in and kissing him. Matt tugged you over on top of him, moving his hands down to your hips, causing you to smile into the kiss before pulling away. “You’ve got a pretty big game today, you might want to save that energy for the ice, hm?”

“I should,” Matt smiled, fanning his fingers across your back. “So how do you feel about giving me that good luck present just a little bit early?”

You’d finished your breakfast, threw the leftovers away and sat back down on the couch to finsih your coffee when you heard the key in the door of the apartment and then the door open, Matt walking inside, looking down at his phone. “Y/n, you up?” Matt called out, turning around to close the door.

“Maybe if you weren’t looking at your phone, you might’ve seen me sitting here on the couch,” you laughed, bringing the coffee cup up to your lips as you sighed. “Kids these days and their cellphones. They’re so attached.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” he replied, walking down the short hall and tossing his keys on the kitchen table. “I was texting my Mom who was wondering if it was okay to come over for a bit, that way you guys can all leave for the arena together.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” You replied, moving the blanket from next to you so he could sit down.

“Hm, maybe because it looks like there was a party here last night?” He replied, sitting down and draping his right arm over your shoulder.

“Oh right, I guess there kind of was,” you replied, the both of you looking around at the scattered party favors. “Plus there’s the other thing.”

“Other thing?” He asked, looking back at you before widening his eyes and then smiling. “Oh yeah, the other thing.” He sucked in a deep breath and then exhaled. “Yeah, we should most definitely clean up before they come over.”

“Mhhm, quite a bit needs to be cleaned,” you nodded, putting your coffee cup down onto the table and then slowly climbing onto his lap, draping your arms over his shoulders and your fingers brushing against the nape of his neck. “The kitchen table, the back counter, the coffee table, we should definitely do something with the couch.”

“The couch?” He asked, hands rubbing up beneath the Flames sweatshirt of his you were wearing…and only wearing besides the underwear. “We didn’t–” He paused as you raised an eyebrow and moved forward on his lap just slightly, then he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, the couch too.”

“Okay, so we’ll definitely clean up” you replied, kissing his cheek and then kissing along his jaw and down to his neck as your hands grabbed onto the bottom of his shirt. “But not until after I give you a sneak-peek of what you’ll be missing out on after games once I go back to school.”

Matt’s hands slid into your underwear, fingers fanned out across your ass. “I think I might have an idea.”

You’ve seen Matt play before, you weren’t new to watching him take the ice while thousands of fans cheered him and the rest of the Flames on. Despite only attending games at the Saddledome more than a handful of times, you still knew your way around and felt comfortable amongst the fans and staff. But this wasn’t another simple NHL game. This was different. Because while you have been to any other game the Flames have played…you’d yet to experience a Battle of Alberta game.

Which coincidentally was today…and it was also the NHL Winter Classic. It was rare enough for one Canadian team to play in the classic, let alone two– so the hype around the game and then it being a big rivalry was elevated by one hundred percent. The game was being played in Calgary at McMahon Stadium, an outside stadium just a ten or so minute drive from Matt’s apartment and despite it being in Calgary, you were surprised to see just as many Oilers fans as you did Flames fans.

But still, the atmosphere was just as energetic and chaotic as any game you’d been to in the Saddledome from the moment the players took the ice for warm-ups. And of course, while you and his parents and Taryn did spend some time watching the team warm up on the ice, you were grilled about the black jean jacket you were wearing that had Calgary stitched across the front, along with the Flames logo and the Canadian flag patched on one sleeve, while the other had Matt’s 19 patch and then on the back, of course, was the big 19 patch and his last name across your shoulders.

And it dawned on you that while Brady and Taryn weren’t unaware of what had taken place between the both of you, no one but Matt’s teammates and their significant others knew that the two of you were officially dating. At least not until you caved in and told them after Taryn had joked about that being the reason why Matt wouldn’t let them come over earlier, because the two of you were “doing boyfriend and girlfriend things.” Which was completely embarrassing because you couldn’t even try to lie.

Even when the news was out, nothing felt that different as the game went on. As you sat with Matt’s family and the rest of the friends and families of the Flames players, also surrounded by fans, you didn’t feel like you were a girlfriend supporting her boyfriend in one of the biggest games so far of the season. You felt like you were that same girl who’d grown up alongside Matt and cheered him on throughout every stage of his career and you were thankful for that. Because the last thing that you wanted for your guys' extremely new relationship, was for things to change from what they had previously been.

 Even better, was that Matt and the Flames were on fire through the entire first period scoring three goals against Calgary’s defense, Matt scoring two of them at the beginning and the end of the period which had Keith joking that maybe the two of you should have started dating earlier and Matt would’ve been playing this good from the beginning of his career.

However, the bliss didn’t seem to last. The Flames were still hot the first half of the second period, but in the second half, the Oilers scored two unanswered goals, one on a power play thanks to a penalty drawn by Barrie that Sam fell victim to. But still, the energy of the Flames fans didn’t die down because with one period left and some of the best hockey they’ve played this season, there was still a big high hope for them to pull out a Winter Classic and Battle of Alberta win.

The third period was rough for both sides. Just when you thought that Calgary had a chance to score, Edmonton’s defense would pull a miracle out of their asses and prevent it– and the same for Calgary. It was a constant back and forth, until Koskinen, when trying to pass the puck off of the boards to one of his own players, ended up passing it to Matt, who immediately took the shot and scored to give the Flames a 4-2 lead, and his second career hat trick. You lost it in the stands as the wave of hats were flying in the air down towards the ice, but not quite making it there since the rink itself was distanced from the fans' seats.

But the joy didn’t last long, because the next shift, the Oilers scored on an intercepted pass and closed the gap by one goal. And it stayed that way as the clock ticked down to the final minute. Both teams were skating hard and everyone was on the edge of their seats as the final seconds ticked down and Edmonton had the puck and was trying to score. A hit by Rasmus let the puck loose and you saw Lindholm take control and pass it just ahead of Matt who was skating to reach for it, beating out McDavid, and just when he got it and went to skate and reassess who was around, Matt blew a tire and fell on the ice. And because he’s Connor fucking McDavid it was no surprise to anyone when he swooped in for the puck and immediately shot it top shelf over Markstrom.

Tying the game 4-4 just as the clock ran out.

And to make matters worse, it wasn’t even twenty seconds into overtime when the Oilers scored again off of the puck ricocheting off of Markstrom’s pads– ending the game 5-4.

It was absolutely devastating watching and hearing the Edmonton fans cheer loudly for their teams win and even more so seeing the deflated Flames players shake hands with their number one rival before saluting their fans and then one by one making their way off of the ice. Your gaze was glued to Matt the moment you saw him fall on the ice and part of you was wishing that it was the loss of a skate blade that made him fall, because that would make it seem a lost less worse than it was…but when he got back up and skated away on both feet– you knew the fall had simply been because he tripped.

A trip that, with six seconds left to spare, gave Connor McDavid the opportunity to score the tying goal. A trip that if it hadn’t had happened– they would be the Winter Classic winners. But it didn’t work out that way, and you could only hope that he didn’t take the loss too heavy on his shoulders. Those waiting on their player lingered around in the stands before you all were allowed to make your way down to the area that was between the ice and the stands, the players who weren’t doing media coming out first opposed to those who were chosen.

And unfortunately, Matt was chosen, and you spent the whole time waiting for him hoping that it wasn’t because of the split second moment where he’d fallen down and gave the Oilers a chance to score, but because of the good he did earlier in the game and scoring his second career hat trick. But you also knew that there was no avoiding the topic at all.

Finally as the players who did media were starting to trickle out, you found yourself feeling antsy at meeting up with Matt, which was totally brand new. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to hug him like normal or hug him and kiss him or kiss him first– the territory was new and you were also in front of his parents and sister, who no doubt would give the both of you some kind of flack– win or loss. The one thing that you did know for certain, was that you were always going to be there to greet him after a game whether that be over the phone or in person, no matter win or loss– you’d continue to be that support that you’ve been since you were kids.

When Matt finally came out from the entrance walking alongside Markstrom, you felt conflicted. On one side, you were itching to just wrap your arms around him, kiss him and tell him how proud of him you were. And on the other hand, you were wanting to sit back, let his family greet him first because you were trying your best to ignore the heat dropping feeling of seeing the disappointment on his face from the loss.

You didn’t feel bad when he greeted his mom with a hug first and then the rest of his family. If anything, that’s what you would do– greet your parents before anyone else because they were the reason behind where you got. And when Matt turned to you, your heart soared because even after the loss, a small smile and a twinkle in his eyes appeared the moment he looked at you.

“Hug your girlfriend Matthew,” Keith joked, patting him heavily on the shoulder. “Only took you about a decade to get to this point huh?”

“Keith, stop it,” Chantal hushed, nudging him as you met Matt halfway for a hug.

While he gave his parents and Taryn a one armed hug, he hugged you with both, kissing the side of your head before resting his head on your shoulder. “I suck,” he huffed, leaning his head against yours. “It’s all my fault.”

“Yeah,” you replied, rubbing his back as he pulled away with furrowed brows and a pout. “What?”

“Aren’t you supposed to, I don’t know…tell me I don’t suck or it’s not my fault or something?” He replied, keeping his hands on your waist.

“Well, what kind of service would I do if I lied?” You replied, patting his chest. “Only what? Not even 24 hours into a new relationship and you want me to lie already?”

He rolled his eyes before pulling you into another hug. “You suck.”

“Yeah,” you replied, laughing soon after as Matt pulled away and kissed your forehead.

“Gross,” Taryn joked, a smirk on her face before turning to her parents. “Now that Matt lost the game, can we go get food now?”

“Taryn!” Chantal said, giving her a look. “We’ll need to pick up your brother first from the arena, but yes, we can.”

“How about a ‘hey best big brother ever, congratulations on your second ever career hat trick! I’m so proud of you?’” Matt said, nudging Taryn’s shoulder as you all started to follow him out of the area to walk him to the bus that would take the team back to the Saddledome.

“I never said you were the best big brother,” Taryn shrugged, teasing him. “Because in case you forgot, which I don’t know how because you stole his best friend from him, I have two big brothers.”

“I did not–”

“Okay, both of you stop now please,” Keith sighed, rubbing his temples. “I need a drink. All three kids are out of the house and yet you always make me need a drink.”

“Technically, we still live there in the summers,” Taryn smiled. “But maybe now that y/n and Matt are dating, you and her dad can get them both out of the house and into their own apartment. You know, start their lives together, get engaged, married, have babies– not in that order or anything–”

Matt reached out with his right leg and nudged the back of Taryn’s leg as he gave her a look. “Cool it, T.”

She just rolled her eyes and kept talking to get a rise out of Matt the entire time until you made to to the bus. They stayed behind as you walked Matt over to the bus, sensing how he was stressed and you just wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your chin on his chest. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he sighed, looking down at you. “Sorry we didn’t win.”

“You can’t win them all, Matt,” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as your hands drifted down to resting on his waist, hooking your index fingers in each pocket. “Besides, I got to see you get a hat trick and play in the Battle of Alberta for the Winter Classic. Plus, I got this really cool jacket…so I think I’m pretty okay right now despite the loss.”

“Any chance I can still cash in on that surprise you said I’d get if we won?” He pouted, a playful look in his eyes. “Especially if that means we get to cuddle on the couch?”

“Oh most definitely,” you smiled, leaning up and kissing him before pulling away. “Now get on the bus so we can get to dinner faster, I’m starving.”

“Alright, see you in a bit,” Matt laughed, kissing you again before turning around to walk towards the bus doors.

“Hey Matt!” You said, just before he got too far away, and when he turned around to look at you, you smiled and patted your own left jean pocket. “Check your left pocket.”

He furrowed his brows before reaching into his pocket with his left hand and then his eyes went wide as he looked up from the half of his hand he’d taken out of the pocket before looking back up at you with a smirk. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” you smiled, winking at him before turning around to meet up with his parents and Taryn. Once reaching them, you felt your phone vibrate in your jacket pocket and pulled it out to see a text from Matt.

Matty 🐭❤️: Hope you don’t plan on getting any sleep tonight. We’ve got years of sex to make up for all the lost time.

Y/n: Only as long as you promise to feed me pizza and garlic knots when it’s all done.

Matty 🐭❤️: Deal. Once we get back to the apartment after dinner, don’t expect to wear any clothes until tomorrow morning when we meet them for breakfast.

Y/n: Aw, but I was kind of hoping to wear what I have on under

Matty 🐭❤️: …Any chance you’re willing to wear my jersey over it once or twice?

Y/n: I think that can be arranged 😉😍

“You guys are gross,” Taryn whispered, nodding down at your phone as she walked beside you. “At least tell me you use condoms.”

There was no hiding the way your eyes widened just slightly when you looked at her or your heating face, causing her to sigh and shake her head. “Well, if you get pregnant, Taryn makes a great middle name for a girl.” She bumped into you a smile on her face. “But really, I’m glad you two worked it out, y/n. Not only because it's been a long time coming, but because you’re both happier. It’s obvious.”

“Thanks, Taryn,” you smiled, leaning against her.

“But also, thanks for waiting till New Years to start dating because I totally won the bet with Brady. He said Christmas, I said New Years,” she smiled, picking up your hand and giving you a high five.

“You suck,” you laughed, shaking your head as you took your hand away.

“You know you love me, now come on, future sister-in-law, tell me all the gossip about what went down. Because you can bet mom and dad are going to ask at dinner and I can’t wait to see Matt squirm like a bug.”

You felt your phone vibrate in your pocket again and saw a picture message from Matt. When you opened it, you saw he sent three pictures, the first picture was of the group of kids when you, Matt and Brady were in elementary school and your parents allowed you to stay up for New Years so you could watch the Disney Channel’s program event, Taryn being too young and already in bed. You were standing between the two boys, all dressed in pajamas and each of you with New Years Eve hats on your heads and fringe blowers in your mouths. The second picture was of the two of you last night, again the both of you wearing New Years Eve hats and dressed up in a gold sequin mini-dress, while Matt wore a black button up shirt and black jeans. He had his arm wrapped around your waist tightly, pulling you into his side as you were partially facing him, the both of you smiling at the camera. And the third one was also from last night, only now Matt had you partially dipped and the two of you were kissing.

The pictures caused you to smile and then your eyes skimmed across the message, feeling your heart race in your chest.

Matty 🐭❤️: Can’t wait to take on the New Year with you and every New Year to come. I love you! ❤️

Y/n: I love you too! 😊❤️

#matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk writing #matthew tkachuk oneshot #matthew tkachuk fic #matthew tkachuk one shot #nhl writing #nhl one shot #nhl fic #nhl imagine #nhl oneshot #hockey imagine #hockey oneshot #hockey writing #hockey one shot #hockey fic #calgary flames writing #calgary flames oneshot #calgary flames imagine #calgary flames one shot #calgary flames fic

[sugar-petals]

SuperM Fluff & NSFW Notes

↳ 🌹aka some of their romantic antics plus random 18+ imagines 👋

warnings ⚠️ rated (super) m, boyfriends hc, porn mentions, partial fem!reader, sex toys

FLUFF

since baekhyun knows how to make scented candles, he creates one for you as a birthday present with your favorite fragrances.

every entry in mark’s diary involves fond thoughts about you.

taemin kisses you more than his cat kkoongie on a daily basis so let that sink in. his smooch obsession is getting out of hand.

lucas, having giant fingers after all, learns how to knit in order to make you a warm scarf. he’s still a bit clumsy with it and had to call kun for advice, but the result is surprisingly proper and quickly becomes your favorite item. it’s a little huge but well, he thinks in his dimensions. lucas’ next project is a beanie.

ten overwhelms you with pet names. in fact, he seemingly seems to come up with a new one each day.

kai is a candlelight dinner, rose petals and music kinda guy. he does every old-school thing in the book.

taeyong can cuddle endlessly in bed. he just doesn’t wanna leave.

lucas gladly shares his sweaters. they’re ginormous so, perfect cuddle material.

baekhyun is already a fool. so — when he falls in love, he becomes an even bigger fool. or, the contrary happens: he becomes dead silent around his partner because he’s so enthralled. he can take this more seriously than you think.

mark likes to write little cards and many many texts to express his love.

lucas is the type who can help you put on your jeans when they were shrinking a bit too much in the dryer. he’s pretty sexy like that and things can get really touchy.

cheesy fucking kai, and there’s only one guy who would do this, has actually lowered himself over a puddle once so you would have a bridge. brushed it off like a daily workout rep.

not one shower missed without baekhyun joining you. yes, it’s not always sexy time, he likes it when you shampoo his hair and whisper sweet nothings. and obviously: it’ll all devolve to a laughing fit.

taeyong is the type who wants to be proposed to.

taemin will get a motorcycle license and take you for a frequent ride. he loves getting those kind of back hugs.

both ten and lucas are great at making bracelets. wayv’s dorm is fully equipped with charms, strings, and pearls, so expect matching ones for you.

we’ve seen it, that one’s his favorite move. kai wraps his hand around your shoulder when you walk together.

mark will ALWAYS share his melon.

making you swoon on a DVD evening is lucas’ favorite hobby. he will buy you the most sugary-sweet romance movies. he will often browse streaming sites to select the latest sentimental plots. all these dramas seem to have a male lead who is suspiciously tall and lanky.

if you allow him, taeyong customizes your white tees with his cute drawings.

since taemin swims in money thanks to his profession as the god of kpop (yes, this is a registered job name because i say so), he can fulfill you any wish. he’s stingy and pouty when the shinee hyungs can pay, and the motherfucker baekhyun is even richer since his albums have been taking off so he opens his mochi wallet when superm is gathered, but you... are a different case. taemin will humbly empty his entire pockets when he overhears you gushing over something. there’s a voice in his mind going: must splurge!!

mark loves christmas, you establish an annual tradition to stage a whole couple evening.

baekhyun likes to play charades and especially do karaoke with you. he’s always cutely wiggling his butt and dances like a drunk uncle. he hits the high notes anyway and makes sure you score 100 points.

taeyong can make out with you while at the same time making sure that the milk doesn’t get burned on the stove. kiss’n’stirr multitask tyong alert. gotta make sure the cocoa is served in time, you know.

all the members enjoy playing board games. yep, imagine the fun and sheer chaos.

lucas has the funniest laugh ever indeed. he’ll react to all your jokes, no matter how lame they might be. intensely reassuring.

taemin’s hand is basically glued to yours.

taeyong and mark are the kinds of boyfriends that spoil their partner with skincare. fancy a nice face massage with a nice fragrant oil?

baekhyun has been baking heart-shaped pizzas ever since you started dating. he just can’t make them round anymore.

mark will join you on anything you’re currently bingewatching. 

kai sometimes — only half-jokingly — goes down on both knees bowing forward with his hands on the ground just to show how much he wants to thank you. in case you didn’t notice: this guy treats you like a deity.

ten usually gets confused glances from the other members whenever he gets the current date wrong: he simply loses track of time with you.

lucas makes a habit of buying you flowers every other week. but on unpredictable occasions, and he arranges them in places you’d never expect.

taemin will build you a weird-looking snowman to make you laugh, and give it an even stranger name. ten will build one that looks like you. kai doesn’t build snowmen, he just stands there challenging you to throw snow balls at him.

mark will hang out with you at the beach constantly bringing his guitar. he’ll serenade you all the time.

returning from three months of touring, baekhyun has once climbed your balcony when your parents were in the other room. yep, he was that desperate to see you. somebody give this man a rope and helmet.

taeyong writes down heartfelt confessions on 365 folded slips of paper so you can open one every day. your reactions will range from ‘awwh!’ to straight-up tears.

ten does regular couple yoga with you. a mildly challenging form, not the circus acrobat version. he’ll do the difficult parts anyway. you can pretzel this guy up, he’ll do anything to make you laugh.

when it rains you hook your arm around his, and lucas always holds the umbrella. even the wildest gush of wind can’t make it turn inside out. you arrive home entirely dry. xuxi is so cute, he’s also a great source of cooling shadow in the summer without even trying.

taemin’s skinship overdrive doesn’t stop with endless hand-holding, back hugs and kisses. he wants to lay down in your lap whenever he can. he looks damn pretty with his hair splaying there. if you work on your laptop, you can pretty much count to ten and he’s already nestled there.

kai does pushups with you on his back. it’s a staple. each time he does one, he says ‘i love you’. he increases his count every day.

NSFW

it’s no secret that taeyong is great at acting or pulling off any outfit and costume. expect roleplay of the finest kind — literally. he looks good in a firefighter uniform. you’ll be burning up pretty much automatically.

taemin can’t keep his tongue in. it’s terrible. he’s always in the mood for head. his sloppy noises are the absolute worst, it turns you on way too fast.

lucas had some major problems finding condoms that fit him.

ten and taemin are so switchy, they have an unresolved power struggle going on. begs for a dominant third party to help them out.

kai owns expensive latex gear.

baekhyun may be the king of vocals and breath technique, but if you push him far enough he does get hoarse.

taemin often jokes how kai will one day break his dick from fucking too hard.

meanwhile, mark’s dick is already falling off – from fucking too often. this guy has some major hormones going for him. no surprise, a guy who can promote in four kpop groups at the same time is a stamina king.

taeyong likes eating pussy with another party involved. three’s a crowd my friend. sometimes it’s taemin who unleashes his spit waterfall power, sometimes it’s baekhyun who preoccupies himself with nibbling at the inner thigh while taeyong digs in.

taemin owns the most underwear.

mark takes valerian drops because he is so nervous in bed. it never really goes away, it’s his nature.

taeyong keeps a lube collection. a different flavor for all occasions. he likes associating certain scents with specific body parts.

kai has a heels kink. he literally goes wild over it.

taemin likes to have sex with favorite glasses on.

taeyong and kai are the most likely to cry during sex. baekhyun as well if you rough him up enough. 

mark gets rock hard the fastest, followed by kai. he’s a grower.

taeyong gets the best inspiration for a song when he gets a casual dick riding.

taemin watches extremely x-rated erotic thrillers and bdsm flicks that are heavy on the plot. he gets more invested in the characters and actors than you think. since his japanese is amazing? of course he also owns a giant 90s hentai collection. 

when he’s jerking off, baekhyun chokes himself. a) because he’d make too much noise otherwise and b) because asphyxiation is his favorite thing.

kai feels pleasure in his every cell. he cums the hardest. and, as you can expect, his body expresses it the most extremely, accurately, passionately. if you’ve seen it even once, you’ll never look at him the same again.

taemin has less experience than his discography claims, but more than you’d think. he researches sexual techniques as well. you can brace yourself.

mark has not just a tiger inside, but a freak inside, waiting to be unleashed.

sex while gaming is a go-to activity for baekhyun.

lucas has the best stamina when it comes to getting head.

taemin throws his head back during sex. and no, he doesn’t T-pose. i’m kidding — of course he does. but only when he’s on his back.

taeyong tends to grip a pillow when he cums.

or he humps one when he’s by himself.

ten has the best taste in sexy time playlists.

baekhyun has the best taste in singing his own playlist along.

oh, the things kai has bought at a gas station at 3AM.

baekhyun sucks strap the best. he can open his mouth the widest, drools a lot, and makes the best noises unsurprisingly.

how to turn on lee taemin? he likes getting slapped.

since he’s the most avid and most diverse eater, lucas’ sperm tastes the best. he’s shove 50 fruits into his system just to give you a sweet experience.

mark is absolutely a starfish. 

kai wears fishnet tops if you fancy it.

curiously, baekhyun out of all people doesn’t announce when he’s cumming. you’ll hear it, though.

taeyong’s dildo collection is one for the books.

taemin has visited a pro dominatrix a couple times. needless to say, he was the #1 favorite client at the dungeon. having fully submerged into a fantasy world, taemin was one whip crack away from falling in love with the mistress. but then covid happened and the venue closed.

mark’s dick looks really pretty.

taemin can grind on the strap at every humanly possible angle. he’s almost always ready to take it. he carries a prep kit.

kai — that fucker — knows how to make you wet the most with his bare hands. prepare for the thigh ride of your life, too.

taeyong, baekhyun, and taemin have the best arches. kai is coming for the top three as well. ten’s arch is so good, it can’t be considered one anymore.

baekhyun knows every adult movie out there. theoretically, nothing can shock him. in reality, he melts in your hands.

taeyong is so sexually active with you, he has quit eating garlic.

kai will exploit your muscle kink in any way he can.

taemin, being a devil, has that one button on his phone that he can press when you go out for dinner. he’s OBSESSED with getting you off. once you head home, it’s basically running down your thighs.

ten has once opened a condom with scissors to scare away a date that grew weird on him by the time it got to the do.

lucas is too tall for doing missionary normally.

this will surprise nobody: mark is great at constantly keeping up the dirty talk.

baekhyun’s car is sort of like a brothel on wheels. he can’t count how many times he got down and dirty in there. he cleans it all up by himself.

kai can technically grip you the hardest but he’s the gentlest and great at caressing the whole body.

taemin has the easiest time saying what precisely he wants. he is also the best people reader — most your wishes he can pretty intuit. taemin observes your interests well.

ten likes his hair pulled and makes angelic noises when you do so.

baekhyun likes camgirls and erotic chats with strangers online. he spends a lot of money for nsfw internet encounters.

#super m #superm #superm fluff #superm smut #superm x reader #baekhyun smut #mark lee smut #ten smut #kai smut #jongin smut #taeyong smut #mark smut #taemin smut #lucas smut #nct smut #exo smut #wayv smut #shinee smut #taemin #baekhyun #ten #mark lee #lucas #kai #taeyong #taemin x reader #ten x reader #mark lee x reader #lucas x reader #jongin x reader

[celestialrry]

gold rush

3.3k

summary: Enemies to lovers, inspired by the lovely Taylor Swift’s Gold Rush!

warnings: mention of alcohol consumption, reader and Harry being bitches, angst, and a good ending bc I can't seem to leave anything on a bad note

If someone asked you to list off everything you hated about Harry Styles, you were positive that you would be talking for a solid 10 minutes.  He was the epitome of everything you despised. To be more specific, you despised people who acted “deep”, people who acted humble, people who pretended to be different from the general population, people who acted like they didn’t know millions would drop to their knees with a simple wave or smile, and people who acted perfect. And as far as you knew, that was everything that Harry Styles was. 

A famous rockstar and millionaire who comes back to his hometown, which happens to be yours as well, and acts like he wasn’t any different. He pretends to blush when someone would compliment him and ask for a picture, like he hasn't been asked for pictures millions of times before. He waves his black amex card around and buys one fucking coffee with it. You hated him, because everyone loved him.

And of course with your luck, a few years ago when your mom had met his mom at a neighborhood get together, they became best friends, and had made Christmas Eve dinner a tradition between your family and his. That’s where you met him, and that's when your hatred began. You knew who he was and had been a big fan of One Direction (Harry was even your favorite), but after you had had a conversation with him? Let’s say your excitement was diminished. 

So here you were, driving through the snow in your rental car to your mom’s house a week before Christmas. Your playlist had changed songs and before you knew it you heard the familiar guitar strums. You couldn't bring yourself to change it, in all honesty you loved Harry’s first album, and most recent album Fine Line. Even though it came out 5 days ago you had it on repeat. As much as you hated Harry Styles, you would always love his music.

After you had arrived at the house you grew up in, said hi to your family and got settled, all you wanted was some coffee. You said your goodbyes and promised to be home soon, and drove through town to the coffeeshop, bundling into your sweater, jacket, and scarf before stepping out into the snow and making your way inside. 

The bell rung as you swung open the door and almost immediately you spotted a familiar face, partially covered by a beanie and a scarf. Wonderful, you thought to yourself. You made your way to the counter and ordered a hot coffee and a scone before sitting down at one of the tables on the opposite side of the cafe. Anything to avoid him. 

You heard your name phrased like a question and looked up, your eyes following from the Chelsea boots on the tile, to the trousers, then jacket covered sweater, scarf, then his face. Your chest clenched in frustration. “Harry.” You nodded back, making it obvious you wanted nothing to do with him.

He definitely did not get the hint because almost immediately the seat in front of you was taken over by his presence. “I didn’t think the Grinch would be n’town so early.”

Your cheeks burned and you quickly shot back. “And I thought Scrooge was dead by now but I guess I was wrong,” You rolled your eyes. “Also, are you sure I’m the one out of both of us who’s the Grinch, look at your sweater.” You added, eyes trailing down to his light green hairy sweater. 

“If we’re basin’ it off looks then yes m’sure you would be the Grinch.” Harry retorted, scoffing. 

“Wow Harold! You are just absolutely hilarious, are you sure you went into the right industry?” You raised your brows and gave a fake smile, knowing he could see right through it. Before he could answer, a waitress had brought over your coffee and scone, setting it down on the table. 

She looked up at you reciting your order and giving you a smile before she did a double take at the man sitting in front of you. Oh god. “I’m so sorry, but are you Harry Styles?” the girl asked, eyes practically turning into hearts before you. 

“Yes, I am, and y’name is?” He asked cheekily, extending a hand for her to shake. She looked like she was about to die as she gently grabbed his hand and shook it, reciting her name like she had attempted to memorize it the night before.

“Well, it’s very nice t’meet you, would y’like a picture?” He asked and you swore you couldn’t roll your eyes back further into your head. 

“Oh! Um,” her eyes darted over to you as you sat back in your seat, sipping your coffee. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything...” She trailed off as if she was asking for your permission.

You wanted to say she already had anyways, but there was no reason for you to be upset at this girl. You would act like her too if you didn't know who Harry actually was. “Don’t worry, you aren’t.” You smiled at her, genuinely. Maybe she would drag Harry away long enough so you could eat your food and drink your coffee and scram.

She let out a breath it seemed she’d been holding and pulls out her phone. You purse your lips and sigh before offering to take a photo for them. She thanks you about a billion times while Harry stands up from his seat and wraps his arm gently around her shoulders. You stand up as well to get a few decent photos of the two of them smiling and hand the phone back to her. She tells Harry she’s been a fan for years and loves him as well as his music and message and he thanks her for supporting him. That’s the one think you like about Harry, how he truly is grateful for his fans. Everything else sucked. After they get done speaking she noticed your coffee and scone are done. 

“God, I’m so sorry, would you guys like any refills or more pastries? It’s on the house.” She smiles, patting down her apron. 

You look over at Harry who had sat down again and look back at the sweet girl in front of you. “No thank you.” She nods while Harry repeats your words and head back behind the counter. 

“That was nice of you, back there. Thought the Grinch was too mean t’take photos for people.” He chuckled at you. 

“If this is your way of thanking me, you aren't doing a very good job Harold.” You said sharply, pulling your coat off the back of the chair. 

“It wasn’t m’way of thanking’ you. Y’need to be brought off y’high horse once in a while.” He shrugged like he wasn't just blatantly rude to you. Sure you both had a witty banter but it always seemed Harry took it too far, and well, that's one of the reasons you hate him. 

“Maybe apply that to yourself once in a while.” You huffed, shrugging your jacket on and pulling your scarf back on as well. 

He ignored your words and raised a brow. “Leavin’ already?”  

“Yeah actually, I came here to relax but that's not working out so well.” You gestured between the two of you. You were going to leave it like that but as you stood up you could see the girl behind the counter waving for you to come over. Brows furrowed in confusion you headed over to her. 

“I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking photos for us, and Harry looks really happy with you so, thank you for making him happy.” She said quietly so only you could hear. Your eyes widened and you opened your mouth, about to tell her there was no way in hell you’d ever date Harry but the way she looked at you with adoration caused you to smile and simply say, “Thank you.” Before bidding her a good day. 

You dug through your bag as you went to go to the door to leave, looking for your car keys when a body appeared in front of you. You stopped immediately, looking to see that fucking grin and a hand holding your keys. “Lookin’ for these?” He teased, waving them in front. You reached out to grab them and he only pulled them away and you quickly realized how this would go.

“Harry, give me my keys.”

“Magic word?” He asked turning his ear towards you. Instead you blew air in it and grabbed your keys when he was distracted, brushing past him to open the door into the freezing air. The sparks you felt as you passed him was definitely because you were cold, right?

**

Soon it was Christmas Eve and you don't think you’ve ever been dreading an evening more, other than the past few years on this exact day. It was snowing when you and your mom arrived at the Styles household. You knocked on the door loud so you both could be let in as soon as possible. 

“Sweetie, I don't think knocking that hard is really welcoming.” 

You pursed your lips and turned around to your mom, knowing this was just how she was and you bit back a snarky comment simply replying, “I’m just really cold.” 

After those words left your mouth the door opened behind you and you turned around, face to face with the curly headed man-child. He nodded at you, saying your name before calling out to your mom. She smiled and gave him a quick hug before he ushered her in the house, forgetting about you outside. Already a wonderful start to the evening, you thought, sighing as you walked inside onto the wooden floors.

You heard laughs and exclamations in the dining room, and you made your way there, knowing this house a little too well. Anne called out your name as she saw you step in, rushing forward to give you a kiss on the cheek and a hug. “It’s so nice t’see you, love. You get more gorgeous every year.” You but your lip and smiled at her, “And you get younger each year.” You softly said as she laughed and led you over to Gemma. 

“Hi Gems,” You grinned, giving her a hug. She returned it, just as happy to see you. Out of the Styles siblings, she was your favorite, obviously, but the two of you had actually become friends, not just family-friends. “Hey, love. Long time no see.” You laughed as you both pulled away. “Too long.”

Your mom had brought over some pie so she sat it down on the dining table where the rest of the food was. “Well loves, let all sit down!” Anne said, taking her seat at the head of the table. You opted to sit in the chair in front of you, while your mom sat to the right of Anne, so she was diagonally across from you.  Gemma then took the seat across from you, next to your mom. Oh no. The only seat Harry could sit in would be the one next to you. 

He looked around the table and bit his lip as if that would help the situation but he ended up sighing just loud enough for you to hear it as he plopped into the seat next to you. His hair moved with him, falling perfectly into place on his head. Of course his hair would be perfect like he apparently is. 

Everyone quickly jumped into conversations about everyone’s life, and what they’ve been doing, focusing on Gemma for the most part as you all dug in to the food. The conversation then led to Harry’s career and life at the moment. 

You zoned in after deciding not to pay attention after he started talking to hear him say, “I don’t think m’different, I just have a different job y’know?” 

You scoffed out of reflex and all eyes at the table turned to you. “Yeah, a different job that makes you known to millions of people around the world, that in itself changes a person.” You pointed out, taking a sip of your water afterwards. 

Your mom hissed your name scoldingly. “That was unnecessary.” she finished, her eyes glaring at you. 

Your eyes grew wide as you realized you forgot you were in front of your family, and the rest of Harry’s family. 

“It’s okay, Miss.” Harry spoke up with your mom’s name, looking at her for a moment with a smile before turning to face you. “We can have different opinions but y’don't really know me all that well d’you?” His captivating eyes locked onto yours and you suddenly felt small in front of him. Before you could respond Anne exclaimed, “Time for dessert, yeah?” 

As everyone went to put their plates in the sink, you trailed behind feeling unusually guilty, not how you normally felt after similar conversations with Harry.  Everyone else had picked up conversation again as they made their way back to the table, but you kept your mouth shut the whole time, only mumbling a thank you to Anne who served you your pie. Luckily no one seemed to notice you had decided to no longer talk, it would only make things worse, you believed. Except Harry.

He was talking the whole night, trying to ignore that comment you made, because well, he knew that you were only judging him on the surface level. It was strange to him though, that the assumptions hurt more coming from you than the hundreds of people who made the same ones at him everyday. He wished he could say he expected more from you, but the two of you had been at odds since the first day you met. He had absolutely no idea why you had been so nice, then 15 minutes later you weren't laughing at his jokes and rolling your eyes. he had become so fed up with it, it was safe to say he hated you. He enjoyed teasing you and pushing your buttons, but the true frustration he felt for you never went away after all these years of sarcastic comments and stolen glares.

So why was his chest clenching as he looked over at you to see you silently eating your pie and looking down at the table cover? Harry was sure that he had never seen you so resigned before, usually you had all the things in the world to say. 

He worked up the courage to softly knock his fabric covered knee against yours. You looked up at the contact, head turning slightly to look at him, but he was faced to his mom, immersed in whatever conversation they were having. An accident it seemed, that he touched you. It was the most contact the two of you have had since you met him, and only then did you shake his hand. 

Soon enough everyone finished their pie and you quickly stood up and offered to take them to the sink while they headed to the living room to have a glass of wine and play some games. As you walked past Gemma she gently grabbed your arm and you stopped, looking at her. “Are you okay?” She asked, her face etched with concern. 

“I’m fine Gems, maybe ate too much.” You laughed it off and she took your answer hesitantly before heading to the living room. You reached the kitchen and set the plates and forks in the sink, pulling up your sweater sleeves and tucking back your hair as you started the faucet. You heard the beginning of some Christmas music and knew there was no chance anyone would come back to check on you with Andy William’s voice serenading them with lyrics of “the most wonderful time of the year”. Bullshit, you thought.

You began to wash the plates with a sponge that was on the edge of the sink, and immersed yourself in the soapy water, placing plates to dry on the rack, and returning to wash the next. 

“Y’don't need t’be doing those.” 

You practically jumped out of your skin when you hear this voice. You lowered the water flow and turned to look at him approaching you on your left. “I know.” Was all you said, as you continued to wash the second to last dish. 

His eyes widened at your response. He was ready to hear, “It’s called being polite, Harold. Maybe you should try it sometime.” Or a snarky comment like that. But no. You just brushed him off. 

He was about to open his mouth and tease you a bit more, just to hear the you that he knew but you beat him to it. “I’m sorry, Harry. About what I said earlier, and... everything before that too.” You mumbled, focusing your attention on scrubbing the last dish that was definitely clean already. 

“Oh! Um, thank you.” Was all he could muster out, his heart beating a thousand times a second, as his cheeks turned red. This was odd. 

You waited a bit, in the silence, for him to say more but he didn’t, You sighed, putting the last dish on the rack and wiping your hands dry on the towel before turning to him fully. 

“Really? I just apologized for like, everything, and you can't do the same?” You asked, looking up at him exasperated. “I’m not the only one here who has been an absolute asshole, it goes both ways.”

He furrowed his brows and looked at you, the wheels visibly turning in his head. “M’sorry too. I mean it. It’s fitting how y’apologized first though, because y’know, you started it.”

He really needed to stop talking.

You glared at him incredulously. “I started it? When I met you, you didn’t even bother to look at me, not even halfway through our introduction you left to talk to someone else. It was like that the entire day, sue me for reacting like any normal person would.” You said, you gaze now focused on his chest. You deflated a bit, after admitting that to him. It was terrible, meeting someone you had adored for years, only for them to leave and not even finish listening to your name.

His mouth formed an “o” shape as his frustration dissipated. Harry couldn't even argue with you on that, because he remembered that night. One of his mates had called for him and he sped off, leaving you in the middle of one of your neighbor’s backyards during a little get together. 

“I-I’m sorry. I remember that, y’didn’t deserve that at all, I was a proper arse.” He managed to get out, his lips turning into a line at the tension. 

“Yeah,” you laughed a bit. “Every year I’d just hate you more and more, because every time I saw you it seems you hated me more than the last.”

“The same f’me too, y’know.”

“What?” You looked up at him. 

“I hated y’cause I thought y’hated me.” He pointed out, his lips turning up into a grin. 

You laughed, your head falling into your hands. “I think we should’ve had this conversation years ago,” You said, looking up at the man who didn't seem so bad anymore. “Do you wanna start over?” You asked. 

“No, let’s treat it as a bump in the road, y’know? Kiss and makeup.” He grinned, looking up to the ceiling. 

You followed his gaze to see a little brach of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. “That’s an odd place for mistletoe.”

“Doesn't matter, y’have t’follow the rules.” He said cheekily. 

He stepped forward as did you, and you brought your hands up to his shoulders. You leaned up and kissed his cheek instead, plush lips against his stubble. You pulled away and smiled at the visible blush on his cheeks. 

“You tease.” He laughed, wrapping his arms around you in a warm hug, and in that moment, you finally understood why everyone would die to feel his touch.

 low-key hated this ending but its fineee. thank you for all the love <3

#harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles angst #harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #enemies to lovers

[juniorgman187]

The Bones (Reid Series) Part 2

Summary: After doing an even deeper dive on Valerie’s past, Spencer finally meets her, but his invasiveness isn’t the worst part ... the worst part is he might actually like her. 

Playlist: “The Bones” by Maren Morris & Hozier  (BONUS: song includes major foreshadowing) Category: Series, Fluff, Soft Angst, Eventual smut and *NSFW content Pairing: Spencer Reid POV x Fem!OC - Valerie Content Warning: invasion of privacy, allusions to Maeve’s death, arrhythmia Word Count: 3.4k

Part 1 |

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

After firmly deciding not to weave Penelope into my tangled web, I was met with the arduous burden of conducting my own research. 

Firstly, I would need a computer - yeah ... a computer. That’s how far I was willing to go for this pursuit. I once vowed never to fall victim to modern technology’s clutches, and yet here I was, doing my research on a public library’s computer. To my credit, I hadn’t gone out and bought one, I was merely using my resources.

With the need for a device out of the way, all that was left was the knowledge of what to look for. But that didn’t pose a problem either.

Funny enough, with as many rules and restrictions as there are regarding patient privacy and confidentiality, all it took was matching dates of news stories with hospital records to complete my research. I was fairly certain I was only scratching the surface of information about Valerie as opposed to the sea of things I could’ve uncovered if I asked for Garcia’s help, but there are only so many lines a person can cross in one week. 

This was my limit.

Call me naive, but I was actually quite surprised with just how expansive the internet is. To an almost relentless degree, I would open an article and it would lead me to ten more about the same topic. It was this never ending rabbit hole that seemed to spiral on forever. I kept digging deeper and deeper until I could no longer dig. 

I’d officially hit rock bottom. 

It took me a grand total of just two hours to unearth all the ‘dirt’ I could on a young Valerie Bishop. 

Local 16-year-old Wins Nevada’s Statewide Art Contest! Published by Henderson Press. 

Valerie, just a sophomore in high school at the time, was donning what any experimental teen girl would’ve worn in the early 2000s - bootcut jeans and a sequin blouse over top of a plain camisole. And if I zoomed in close enough, I could spot the evidence of a sparkly blue shadow coating her eyelids. Surprisingly, though, that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. 

It was that smile. That tooth-achingly sweet smile. 

Though I never got the chance to see Maeve truly smile, that’s what I imagined it would look like. 

The photographer must’ve caught her midway through a laugh, at least that’s what the image of her slightly open-mouthed grin told me. Meanwhile, her two tiny hands were clenching her overbearingly large trophy while her artwork stood behind her as the background.

It didn’t take me long to figure out why her painting won. Simply put, there was no need to see anyone else’s art to know that they couldn’t possibly compete with hers. 

Hers was an abstract rendition of what I believe to be a forest of some sort. The detail is what I was most drawn to. It would’ve been unbelievable on its own but the fact that she was 16 when she painted it? That’s what was unbelievable to me. 

If that’s how talented she was at that age, I could only imagine how much more talented she became with time. However, I lost the chance to investigate the current state of her skill before a related article from The Cleveland Gazette about Valerie succeeded this one. 

From Award-Winning Artist to Henderson’s Hero

Read my interview with 17-year-old Valerie Bishop to find out more about her struggle with arrhythmia and how she turned her pain into a project! 

By Kelli Gallagher from the Cleveland Gazette. 

Gallagher: Thank you so much for letting me interview you, Valerie. 

Bishop: Of course! I’m happy to. 

Gallagher: You’ve become somewhat of a hero in Henderson, Nevada, haven’t you?

Bishop: I wouldn’t call myself a hero ... but if everyone else wants to - I’m fine with that. (laughs)

Gallagher: Don’t be so modest! I mean, what you’ve done is so incredible, and you’re only what? Seventeen?

Bishop: Yes, ma’am. I just turned seventeen this past August. 

Gallagher: Wow, I can’t believe how young you are and yet you’ve already accomplished so much. I saw that you won a statewide art contest last year. Tell me more about that. 

Bishop: That’s a funny story actually. My Grandma Sheila was the one who entered me in that contest. I didn’t even know about it until I won it. She’s always surprising me, though. In fact, she’s the one that surprised me with my first ever art supplies, when I was about eight or so. They were these super expensive oil paints, and I knew she couldn’t afford them, so I told her we should return them and get something cheaper, but she said, “Nonsense. When the bones are good the rest don’t matter. A house don’t fall when the bones are good.” That was kind of her saying. 

A house don’t fall when the bones are good. 

The bones. 

Gallagher: I’m interested to know more about your relationship with your grandma. If I’m remembering correctly, she was also diagnosed with arrhythmia a while back too, right?

Bishop: Yes, she was, but that’s never slowed her down. And as for our relationship, my grandma and I have always been close, but arrhythmia, in a weird way, has brought us even closer. She has always been my biggest supporter and the fact that we’re both on this journey together makes her my biggest supporter even more so. 

Gallagher: Absolutely. Now, I also heard that you’ve started a fundraising program to possibly start a gallery and studio in Virginia Beach. If you don’t mind me asking, why Virginia Beach? Is there any special significance? 

Bishop: Actually, that’s where my grandma met my grandpa, and they got married and started a family there, too. So if Grandma Sheila hadn’t been there to meet him, she wouldn’t have had my mom, and that would mean I wouldn’t have been here either. I like to think Virginia Beach is where it all started. In a way, it’s where my bones are. That solid foundation in Virginia gave me everything I have today.

Gallagher: That is just incredible. I’m so glad to see your fundraising project is thriving, but I can’t imagine any of this has been particularly easy for you. You were diagnosed right around the time your senior year was starting right?

Bishop: Yes ma’am. 

Gallagher: So what brought you from Henderson to Cleveland?

Bishop: Well, actually, I didn’t want to move, especially not before I graduated, but Cleveland has the best cardiovascular hospital in the country and my health is far more important than graduating in the same state I grew up in. So when my parents were willing to move me and my sister out here, I saw it as a privilege rather than something to be sad about. 

Gallagher: I am so inspired by you, Valerie.

Bishop: (laughs) Really, why?

Gallagher: Despite everything that’d been thrown at you, you are still so grateful. I hope you never lose that. 

Bishop: I promise you I won’t.

Gallagher: So one last thing before I go, what is one hope you have for your future self?

Bishop: I hope, future self, that your ‘bones’ are still strong.

Gallagher: Beautiful. Thank you so much again for doing this, Valerie. I sincerely hope you reach your goal and you get to open up that gallery and studio in Virginia Beach. 

At the bottom of the article, there was a footnote from Kelli Gallagher. 

Exactly 10 years later, Bishop was able to move to Virginia Beach and open up her gallery and studio. 

By the end of the article, I felt a genuine sense of pride for Valerie, and I know I had virtually no right to know these things about her, but I could still be proud of her for them right?

I would never fully get my answer to this question before I crossed the final boundary. 

After exhausting all that I could gather from the internet without Penelope’s assistance, the only thing left for me to do was actually meet her in person. However, this would prove to be a bigger obstacle that it seemed. I decided to delay the daunting task until the next day. A decision partially influenced by the phrase, ‘sleep on it.’ I prayed I’d gain clarity on what to do when I woke up the next morning, but even with a night’s rest, I was still undecided as I drove to Virginia Beach once more.

To sit in my car that was conveniently parked right in front of the gallery was a poor choice. Because with every passing second, the temptation to walk in grew, but the fear of regret dampened those impulses. The more I thought about it, the more I psyched myself out. Between my two choices, to freeze or to fight, I should’ve taken the third - to flee. But I was here now and I couldn’t leave empty-handed for a second time. 

After a moment’s indecision, adrenaline coursed through my veins to give me the courage to get out of my car. When I felt an outdoor breeze blow over me, I knew there was no going back now. Right when I walked in, the little bell above the door rang, solidifying that I was officially crossing the threshold, and whether I liked it or not, she was going to see me after hearing me walk in.

“I’ll be right with you!” A small voice called out from somewhere in the back. She was hidden from my immediate sight, and somehow that made it so much worse. It was now I that was waiting for her, instead of her unknowingly waiting for me. 

As though I were prey getting ready to escape a predator, I stayed put by the door. It gave me a full view of the entire place anyway. 

Scoping out my surroundings, I spotted the paintings that were carefully measured and placed on the walls, almost to perfection. I had no time to notice anything more before the person in the back walked out. 

Immediately when I saw her, I knew.

“You’re … not Valerie.” I couldn’t help sounding so disappointed but luckily, the woman that came out took no offense to my observation. 

“No, I’m not,” She laughed. “But I can get her for you-”

“No wait!” I uselessly leapt forward to stop her from saying, “Vee! There’s someone out here to see you!” But that’s precisely what she did anyway. Evidently oblivious of my previous protests, she politely smiled back at me. “She’ll be right out.” 

For the second time that day, I waited with bated breath, anxiously anticipating the arrival of Valerie. And I was almost too focused on subduing the pounding of my heart to realize that she was actually walking out of the back right now. 

“Hi, sorry about that!” A new voice chirped. 

Valerie. 

The moment I laid eyes on her, it became clear to me that the pictures in her files hardly did her justice. Nothing could compare to the real sight of her. I was only able to catch the profile of her face when I saw her in the cafe, but in her entirety, I began to wax nostalgic. Though her face and hair and body had transformed into that of a grown woman’s features, I could still identify the same tooth-achingly sweet smile that a younger Valerie once wore on the front page of the Henderson Press. She was no beast to conquer, she was just a girl, smiling at me in that same gentle way. 

Her expression just as well showed no indication of recognition, not that she would recognize me, considering my letter was anonymous and unless she pulled the same stunt I did, she wouldn’t ever recognize who I was. 

“I’m Val,” She made her greeting to me while untying her dirtied waist apron, and it was merely the action that caused my gaze to fall to her hips, but when she shed the apron, I was still staring. There was something sort of mesmerizing about the way they swayed as she approached. It wasn’t until they stopped swaying completely that I realized they did so because there was no more distance to advance - she was already right there in front of me, patiently watching me stare. 

“Val?” I blinked hard to revert my gaze while also playing into the part that I had no idea who she was. 

“Mhm. Short for Valerie,” She confirmed happily. “Like the Amy Winehouse song.” 

This time, I genuinely didn’t know what she was referring to, and my confused countenance prompted her to clarify, “You don’t know that song?” 

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she began to playfully sing, “Well, sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water ...” 

While she watched my face and waited for the recitation of the song to jog my memory, I was just as much studying her face. I could tell she was only kidding when she sang, evidenced by the laugh that followed her rendition, but it sounded so unironically good that I had to question what other talents she possessed. 

“Um, I was actually thinking more like Valerie, the martyred medieval saint, whose name stood for strength and health.” No sooner than the words spilled from my mouth did I recognize the freudian slip - the simultaneous coincidence and confession. The coincidence was that, now, with Maeve’s heart beating in her chest, she lived up to her name - she was newly strong and healthy. But I worried, she would see the correlation I drew between her name and her successful transplant and would realize that I knew more about her than I let on. Did I just give away too much?

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name earlier. What was it?” Her casual dismissiveness of my previous statement did nothing to ease my worries. Was she beginning to piece everything together?

“Oh, right!” I said dumbly. “S-Spencer. I’m Spencer.” I was such a blubbering bundle of nerves that I actually reached out to shake her hand - a stranger’s hand. 

“Nice to meet you, Spencer,” She softly laughed, which was hopefully not out of the enjoyment of seeing me squirm. “What can I do for you?” 

A loaded question, don’t you think? What can you do for me, Valerie? Well, for one thing, you could’ve answered my letter, but to say something as bold as that would require me to admit the real reason I was here, and how could I do that without mentioning how I found you in the first place?

“Um ...” Whose birthday is the soonest? “My friend Emily’s birthday is coming up and I was wondering if I could possibly buy a painting from you as a birthday present.” 

There was the faintest perceptible skepticism in her expression, but that could’ve just been my paranoia talking because in the next breath, she didn’t suggest a proclivity to my deceit. “Yeah, of course! Do you know what her favorite medium is? Or her favorite artist? Or her favorite style of art?” 

For every addition to the question, I wordlessly shook my head no. Was my lie already unraveling? Could she see right through me?

“No worries. If you want, you can walk around the gallery and tell me if you see anything you think she’d like.” She made her offer to me sweetly, then disappeared into the back room again. I tried to follow her with my eyes for as long as I could, but from where I was standing, I couldn’t see very far into it. I wandered a little further into the center of the gallery to possibly catch a glimpse of what was occupying her time back there, but when I heard the chattering of two voices, Valerie and the other woman, coming from the same general direction, I realized I was completely alone in this part of the studio.

With no one around to bear witness but these portraits, I could’ve easily slipped out and made my escape, and I might’ve even done it had it not been for the unmistakable gravitational pull forcing me to stay here and walk about the room. 

Making my way throughout the gallery, I would pause every now and then when a painting would stand out to me, which was often, considering each picture was impressive. 

But there was one painting in particular that piqued my interest. It made me feel something I’d never felt before. 

It wasn’t special by any means. By rights, I shouldn’t have even noticed it, for it wasn’t the largest painting, nor the smallest one - it wasn’t even the most average painting. But it felt exceptionally ... Valerie. I had no doubt in my mind that she painted this one - in fact, I had a good bet that she painted most of these portraits, if not all of them - but this one. There was just something about it that I couldn’t put my finger on. 

“So,” A draft was created from where Valerie swiftly and unexpectedly joined me at my side. “What do you think?” 

“Um, there’s definitely something,” I struggled to find the word. “appealing about this one.” Almost as soon as the word came out of my mouth, I knew it was only a matter of time before she called out the inadequacy of my answer. 

“Appealing?” She repeated in mockery. “That’s the best you got? Come on, you’ve been standing here for like ten minutes. There must be something about it you like.” 

“I’m not sure.” I honestly admitted with a shrug.

“There’s no wrong answer.” She assured me, but I found that hard to believe. 

“So if I said I see a grizzly bear attacking a UFO, that wouldn’t be wrong?”

“Nope,” She popped the p. “If that’s how you interpret it then that’s how you interpret it. Just because someone else sees it differently, doesn’t mean you’re wrong.” It would’ve sounded like complete bullshit or nauseatingly cheesy coming out of someone else’s mouth, but her delivery felt so genuine. It actually moved me. 

As she said this, she turned her head in my direction to look up at me, causing her shoulder to brush my upper arm, sending a wave of goosebumps all over my body. 

She was so close. 

But I was so unbothered by her proximity that I didn’t even notice exactly how close she really was. If someone else had invaded my personal space like that, I would’ve moved in the opposite direction just on instinct, but I didn’t even think to do that with Valerie. I was so comfortable with her being there. 

But was that just because a part of her was once Maeve’s? Was the entire foundation of my likening to Valerie built upon that single attribute?

Was that my bones?

“Um,” I began fidgeting with my hands to self-soothe. “I like it. I don’t know why. But I like it. How’s that for an answer?”

There was a pause before her response that compelled me to look at her, but when I did so, she was already looking at me. “I’ll take it,” She nodded. “It’s the biggest compliment to me if my art can make you feel something.”

Was it the art that made me feel something ... or you?

“I’ll tell you what,” She walked over to grab something from the front desk. She came back with a small piece of cardstock. “I’m going to an art exhibition next weekend. Why don’t you come with me and see if you can’t find something for Emily there?”

She handed me the paper, which was actually her business card. “You don’t have to have an answer for me today, but call me when you do.” She seemed to think that was the end of the conversation, but I still had more questions. 

“You’re inviting me?” was the first question that came to mind, albeit the dumbest one.

“Yeah, you can be my plus one.”

I gulped to dislodge the lump in my throat. “Like-like your date?” 

She furrowed her brows with mild confusion. “Um ... sure, if that’s what you wanna call it,” which was the last thing she said to me before vanishing within the back room again. 

I peered back down at the card and tapped it gently on the palm on my hand as though to register its presence really being there. 

For all intents and purposes, this card was meaningless. But to me, it was the formal consenting - nay, invitation - to reach out to her again. She was willingly extending this line of contact to me. 

No more public library computers. No more files. No more ‘research.’ Just her number - a way to reach her without veering off my moral compass. 

Despite this, I still had no clue whether or not I was going to accept her offer.

All that I did know was that I wanted to see her again. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

PART 3 COMING SOON!

comment to be added to taglist or CLICK HERE to be added to a taglist of your choice!

tag that isn’t working: @archiveofadragon

taglist: @rainsong01 @calm-and-doctor @inkstainedwritergirl @rexorangecouny @ashwarren32 @carooliina @fortheloveofcriminalminds @watermelongubler  @obsessedmaggiemay @k-k0129 @aperrywilliams @eevee0722​ @spencersmagic​ @spencerreid-mgg​ @half-blood-dork​ @goldeng1rl8​ @just-a-bunch-of-fandoms​ 

@dreatine​ @bisexualwomanofcolour​ @andiebeaword​ @a-broken-pact​ @kylab​ @thelovelyrose​ @rexorangecouny​ @goldentournesol​ @sierraraeck​ @coffeeandendlesswords​ @sweetboyspencer​ ​

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #the bones pt 2 #the bones #juniorgman187 #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds series #spencer reid series

[smalltragedy]

* natalia dyer, nonbinary + she/they | you know philomena carmichael, right? they’re twenty, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, a day? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to the leanover by life without buildings like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole wind whipping around your hair, the gentleness of decomposition, a naked blur dancing around the flames of an everlasting fire thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is april 20th, so they’re a taurus, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 22, est, they/them )

hi thank u all fr being so patient w me as i rapidly switch out muses n figure out wht the fuck im doing atm <3 also sry fr my rare presence work hs been kicking my ass like lets jst say i deserve 2 b smbdy’s housewife (misogny wins this time sry) so i nvr hv to work in my life <3 DFSLKSDHKGLFSHLKAGHLKAHLKSG this is a joke 2 clarify. anyways. this is philly she’s old bt she’s one of my very favorites ever. this intro is also old sry its nt in my usual. style. LKDFKHGLKGF

CANCER, TRAUMA, DEPERSONALIZATION / DEREALIZATION, DEATH, GRAPHIC MENTION OF DECAY, INSECTS MENTION TW.

mini playlist.

the girl who stole my tamagotchi ;; hot sugar / i dropped out ;; and the kids / pork soda ;; glass animals / wonderfully bizarre ;; bendigo fletcher / (dream) ;; salvia palth / alien blues ;; yundabar / dust in your pocket ;; glass animals / warm honey ;; willow / bela lugosi’s dead ;; bauhaus / gecgecgec ;; 100 gecs / blinding ;; florence and the machine / nantes ;; beirut / cherry-coloured funk ;; cocteau twins / not allowed ;; tv girl / oblivion ;; grimes / space song ;; beach house / dog food ;; 100 gecs / the leanover life ;; life without buildings.

statistics.

full name: philomena brontë carmichael

nickname(s): philly, phil, mena, etc.

birthday: april 20th, 2000. 

zodiac: taurus sun, scorpio moon, aries ascending.

mbti & temperament: infp & improvisor / phlegmatic. 

label: the halycon.

sexuality: demisexual.

pinterest.

biography.

a middle child belonging to christopher and imogen carmichael - two stanford professors. christopher specialized in british literature whilst imogen specialized in the classics. hence the name.

the order of siblings goes as such: lysander, elektra, juno, philomena, and twins orion & valora. the deal was that everybody had a greek (or in juno’s case, roman) first name and a middle name inspired by a piece of british literature circa 1800s and under. a family of nerds, if you will.

so, clearly - right off the bat, their parents are … eccentric. they’re both in love with their respected topic, and with each other, and with their kids. the carmichael family is a happy family.

they each have their own quirks and whatnot - though philly’s always been particularly dreamy - even as a child, she’d spend hours watching clouds or caterpillars or the leaves blow in the wind rather than play with other kids. she wasn’t a shy kid - she just had her own interests.

hardship doesn’t hit the family until philomena is five and starts having splitting headaches. they’re slow at first - but as soon as she’s seeing spots and unable to walk in a straight line, doctor appointments are made.

cancer tw // it doesn’t take long for them to discover the tumor, though the official diagnosis of malignant ependymoma comes a month later.

it’s grade ii but slow-moving, small enough to not be as much of a threat as worried, but big enough where removal is necessary. philomena earns a scar and brings it in for show-and-tell. for two months afterwards, philly’s at radiotherapy monday through friday.

they’re lucky - philomena’s considered cancer-free by the next year. she’s babied at first - handled delicately, as if she could break if touched - but with five other children … it doesn’t last for too long. end of cancer tw //

and life continues as normal.

her personality doesn’t shift much over the next few years - she’s awfully independent for a kid, and awfully quiet - when she speaks it’s about faeries and bigfoot, about how the sky is so blue and if you listen quietly, you can hear the leaves whisper their secrets to each other. this is not odd.

she’s close to all her siblings, but she idolizes her older sister - elektra. elektra’s six years older and dyes her hair whatever colors she wants. elektra bought a knife off a seedy guy downtown. elektra threw away all of her heels and renounced god. elektra is god. her music is loud but it’s not heavy - it’s florence and the machine.

they’re opposites - elektra’s boisterous and feels loudly, philomena’s softer and feels…less. when elektra sneaks out, philomena keeps watch. they are a duo.

philomena is smart - but she’s fifteen and hates school. hates sitting inside all day. hates the same routine - day after day - it’s all the same. her parents’ routine is the same, philly feels contained and she wants to live.

elektra’s twenty-one and just bought a brand new spanking (used but not falling apart) 19-something volkswagen … van - using her entire savings account. she says she’s tired of routine, she’s leaving the next day.

naturally, philomena stows away in the back and isn’t discovered until they’re two states away and she’s got to pee. elektra nearly crashes the van in shock.

it’s an argument - philomena vs. elektra, then them vs. their parents, then their parents vs. the school, the state - it’s an ordeal. philomena switches to an online program in the end.

it hurts christopher and imogen - lysander’s not having any of their nonsense, juno’s betrayed and alone - the twins are twins. in the end, it’s alright. the carmichael family is a happy family.

philomena and elektra take their time - it’s not a road trip, it’s their new life, permanently on the road. they stop and explore often - they do odd jobs in whatever town they settle in. they dine-n-dash, they shoplift. they survive in their own way.

during particularly desperate times, they two resorted to identity theft & credit fraud - getting away with it only by ditching the cards once they’ve made it out of state.

she drops out of high school officially when she’s seventeen - they have to drive all the way back to california to deal with the wrath of their parents and to deal with paperwork, but it’s done. philomena doesn’t know what path she wants in life - but it’s not that.

depersonalization / derealization tw // it’s during this time that the episodes occur - philomena’s outside her body, philomena’s wrapped in cotton, her memories are not her own. she’s looking in the mirror and she doesn’t recognize herself. they take shelter in a city for six months, long enough for her brand spankin’ new therapist to figure out what’s wrong with her. she’s diagnosed with depersonalization / derealization disorder - they think it’s stress. philomena doesn’t get stressed. they think it’s trauma. she laughs - she never laughs. depersonalization / derealization end of tw //

death, decay. maggots tw // there is trauma though, deep-rooted but somewhere inside - you just have to look for it.

you. just. have. to. look. for. it. look for it. look for it. look for it look for it look -

you were ten and she was thirteen, an off-trail hike in familiar woods in a familiar town, safe and familiar. it was your idea, to stray from the carved out paths, down creeks and up hills and round, and round again. you’re the one who spotted the scarf first, sticking up from the dirt and dancing in the wind like the beginning of reincarnation. it was not reincarnation, it was discovery. it was ruin. with curiosity drawn, you skidded down - with compliance, followed juno, followed your sister - clumsy in her steps and tumbling down quicker than you. you saw the corpse, but juno felt it. decaying flesh and maggot. end of death, decay, maggots tw //

and she left juno, just like that - just five years later, when juno had finally gone to the end of her wits. philly up and left. abandoned her.

philomena and elektra leave the city after that therapy session. they do not return. she’s always been good at hiding her secrets.

after ending up with warrants from their arrest in florida (after running from the law in texas), philly and elektra have wound up at irving <3 partially hiding from the law and partially bcos their trusty van’s broken down and they haven’t got the money to fix her up yet. 

personality & facts.

she’s quiet but she’s confident - her voice sounds like rustling leaves, if leaves smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

often underestimated - philly’s petite and looks like she’d fall over if a plastic bag blew too close to her. she’s independent - for the most part. elektra is the only person philly takes orders from.

has always been considered odd - weird, strange. still talks about the trees as if they’re listening, as if they’re old friends. she’s vague and doesn’t elaborate on the things she says.

believes in pretty much any superstition you throw her way. luck is very important to her. if you ask her if the earth is flat, she’ll say probably. believes strongly in bigfoot and the lochness monster. has personally seen aliens, and loves ghosts almost more than herself.

she can be amusing - whether you ‘get’ her or not, her outlook is often bright - she talks about the negatives the same way she talks about the positives. can be seen as naive or gullible, but she’s plenty smart. even if half of her education has come directly from google.

philly doesn’t laugh. a smile, yes - often, in fact - not always reaching her ears, or bearing teeth - but these are not indicators of her happiness. philly is consistently content. she thinks many things are funny - she still will not laugh.

her voice is often monotonous - she doesn’t sound dreary, she sounds far-away. her voice carries. her emotions are often unknown to others.

is apathetic in most situations. she’s hard to bother - she’s incredibly patient and enjoys the company of most - tolerates them at the very least. it’s hard for her to express her emotions, because she feels them so little that it’s very nearly not worth it. her affection is not verbal - it’s small touches and gestures of kindness, love in her own way.

is a fan of knock-knock jokes and bad puns. she won’t crack a smile while telling you them, nor does she expect you to laugh. she just enjoys them.

she owns a motorola razr covered in puffy stickers - hasn’t ever had a smartphone. she’s a fan of emoticons. her favorite is :o)

has a lot of bruises and scratches and scars - she’s often getting herself into pickles. there are always, at the very minimum, three bandaids on each hand.

she has insomnia, so she’s awake often. is often seen wandering town - even when she shouldn’t be, even when it might be dangerous. her intuition is delayed. when she does sleep - her dreams are vivid and fantastical.

keeps a box of memories - sentimental bits and pieces she’s picked up over the last few years. there are a lot of buttons and postcards, but any teeny tiny object will do.

her style changes every week - most, if not all, of her clothes are thrifted. one week she’s baby spice and the next she’s lydia deetz. she combines pieces from different styles often - she looks like a barbie clothed by a child. she feels most comfortable like this.

will either patch-up the clothes that get too worn or reuse them in some way. sometimes donates the clothes she gets tired off - isn’t minimalistic, but she’s learned to keep only a small amount of possessions.

the only consistency is her lucky ribbon - it’s pastel yellow and silky and as thin as a shoelace. she ties it onto her outfit of the day, everyday. if she loses it, she’s lost. elektra has a matching ribbon.

has no problem with minor theft - she only takes bare minimum, puts herself and elektra first and that’s how it’s always been.

currently living in florence, their van, with her sister elektra <3 currently residing in lilac ridge.

they used to live in motels on the occasion, the cheapest room, and more often than not they’d both go home with strangers for a comfier bed and a hotter shower.

it was a common occurrence - she didn’t sleep with them - but somehow, she weaseled her way into their homes anyway. has come out mostly unscathed, on most occasions. this has been a practice ever since they’ve been on the road.

really, truly - has not slept with anybody, had her first kiss at thirteen with a frog. this doesn’t bother her. (smirks at leo)

will consume anything you put in front of her - isn’t picky.

listens to whatever they’ve picked up along the way but she likes instrumentals the best. her second favorite genre is 1990′s and 2000′s top hits. they’re nostalgic for her. third favorites? florence, of course. fleetwood mac. the bird and the bee.

loves storms - will go out in the rain and will risk her life for it.

owns a pair of roller-skates and is often skating rather than walking. unless she’s on grass - then she’s walking barefoot.

has many hobbies, and gets bored of them often. her favorite hobby is welding. she’s not certified.

also, juggling.

also, accordion.

the kind of girl who’ll do any job you give her. odd jobs are her favorite jobs. babysitting is her least favorite - but she does it anyway. has lost children before. have they ever been found? not by philly.

dyes her hair blonde often and cuts her own hair - bangs included - finds it cathartic, likes the itchiness of bleach.

everything she does is often in pursuit of feeling free, alive, and meaningful.

( like her frequent visits to the woods, late at night when the moon is high and full. it’s freeing to dance around a fire, stark naked in the cold. builds immunity )

comes and goes wherever she pleases, nothing & nobody can stop her (besides elektra).

has a certain knack for getting animals to like her. has too many ‘pet’ rats that reside with her, alongside a baby raccoon & a few crow pals. has a new animal companion everyday, but she doesn’t contain them or force them to stay.

wanted plots.

speaking through my third eye ... ;; philly is new in town n shes very strange. constantly lives in a state in which she does not exist (at least on the same plane). this is her harassing the locals. this is her slipping thru their fingertips as they attempt 2 understand her. they get close smtms bt philly jst. whisks herself away.

hollows of our eyelids ... ;; perhaps there is smbdy jst as strange as philly. i’m out here calling fr all the weirdos. lets be friends. lets hv philly n co go on adventures n discover horrible sites n uncover ancient secrets tht lie deep below irving. mayb nt tht. bt im jst saying. this is fr the dreamers. da weirdos. the jugheads. LHKDSHFSADLKGFHLSKADG fr those who also feel as if they r not real.

bills n aches n blues... ;; ya this is my call fr all negative plots. bills (catching philly be a thief and a fraud), aches (mayb heartache? unrecruited feelings or w/e theyre called?), n blues (ooooh so sad... so sad ... angst ...) obviously i am a genius. i wldnt say tht philly is here 2 make enemies bc philly doesnt care much abt ppl bt perhaps tht cld b an issue. tht she doesnt care much abt others. mayb ur muse is jst like. cn u pls care. n philly is like. i am incapable. sry. sucks.

n also ,, ;; like. anything i’ll. take anything. philly is weird lets come up w surreal plots tht verge on the edge of like. nt being correct fr this verse. suddenly theres vampires? or so they think ... smirks. anyways. shes been 2 jail n been in the circus (shoutout 2 kirby) n dances naked in the woods n hoards animals n treasures. we hv a lot to work with here obv. 

#irvingintro #death tw #decay tw #maggots tw #dissociation tw #depersonalization tw #derealization tw #cancer tw #trauma tw #zooweemama #anyways. kira's will b up soon

[lavminthe]

Love² playlist: one

Series where I introduce each song from my love sqaure playlist and what I think abt while listening to these songs! Some are just abt characters not necessarily abt the ship. Happy to accept any recommendation! But be aware: it can be already part of my playlist, it might not suit my taste or I personally don't think the song is suitable. Plz mention me if u get inspired to create any artwork plz ;)

https://youtu.be/SgxBfuoxobw

Socks by Out of Luck

You know I can't hide

When I look in your eyes

And see that smile

Why do you make me feel this way

...

My love for you it's crazy I'm like an addict

I hope you don't think I'm being too dramatic

...

What am I supposed to do?

If I can't lay here and love you?

I don't see me with anyone else

And if you left me I'd lose myself

...

I wanna be so much more than friends

Those are just some of the snipped lyrics. I tried to colour code them by green and blue but it didnt work lol. Anyway IT'S LITERALLY THEM. Within the playlist, half of the songs are only partially relevant but this song as a whole fits the ship dynamic so perfectly it makes me happy🥺

I would say marichat but obviously it's mari crushing on adrien and chat crushing on lb. It would be a perfect musical duet as both of them in different places singing abt love they have for each other('s alter ego).

Alsoooo one of the marichat dynamic I love is them flirting and being intimate while they still have their crush. Them somewhat using each other knowing both of them have unattainable secret crush (on each other) which sounds so complicated :')

I would normally include drawing or more specific scenario but this song is just perfect as it is!!! So i wanted to start the series by something easy <3

#Love² playlist #lavminthe #love square #ml marinette #ml chat noir #ml ladybug #ml adrien #miraculous #mlb #ladynoir #adrinette #marichat

[searchingwardrobes]

Happy birthday, @profdanglaisstuff​ ! I am so glad to have gotten to know you through the discord chats for the cssns. Our fandom is blessed to have an incredible talent like you keeping CS alive! (And anyone who hasn’t read her stuff, go do it now!) Not only that, however, you encourage everyone who interacts with you, and you are an incredibly gracious person. I hope your birthday is as incredible as you are!

For those who don’t know her, prof is a world traveler who has seen a lot. Killian and Emma are also travelers who have seen a lot, so wouldn’t they make perfect spies? So here is a one shot in which Emma is an FBI agent and Killian is an Mi6 agent. This could have gotten out of control, so I focused in on the characters instead of the intrigue. I hope you like it!

This is based on the classic song by The Hollies. It’s a story song, but I didn’t follow the plot of the lyrics exactly. Mainly, I have Emma a fellow agent instead of a singer in the club. It just seemed more like her. And of course, it’s a modern au of bar wench Emma, too. I was also inspired by a line I recently read in a romance novel that I loved: “I’m tired of pretending I don’t love you.”

Summary: Killian’s jaw can’t help but drop when Emma Swan saunters up to his poker table. It’s fine, though. After all, he’s supposed to pretend he’s never seen her before.

Rating: M for partial nudity but no smut

Words: a little over 1k

Also on A03 and part of my Fandom Birthday Playlist

Tagging the usuals: @snowbellewells​​​​ @jennjenn615​​​​ @kday426​​​​ @let-it-raines​​​​ @teamhook​​​​@kmomof4​​​​ @bethacaciakay​​​​ @profdanglaisstuff​​​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​​​ @thislassishooked​​​​ @tiganasummertree​​​​@whimsicallyenchantedrose​​​​ @snidgetsafan​​​​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​​​​​ @winterbaby89​​​​​ @distant-rose​​​​​@shireness-says​​​​​ @xhookswenchx​​​​​ @optomisticgirl​​​​​ @spartanguard​​​​​ @branlovestowrite​​​​​ @welllpthisishappening​​​​​ @hollyethecurious​​​​​ @stahlop​​ @scientificapricot​​

Just one look I was a bad mess

Cause that long cool woman had it all

“What are you boys playing?”

Killian looks up from the green felt table and is embarrassed when his jaw drops at the sight of Emma Swan. Of course, that’s probably for the best. He’s not supposed to know her anyway.

Across from him, Will, who’s undercover as the dealer in this op, plays it cool. Nevertheless, Killian’s known the man long enough to recognize that miniscule eyebrow twitch. He’ll rag him for this later, he’s sure of it.

“Seven card stud,” Neal Cassidy, their mark, tells her as his predatory gaze takes her in from head to foot. It makes Killian’s blood boil and his jaw twitch. Not that Emma Swan can’t take care of herself, but that doesn’t mean he has to like her playing the honey trap.

Emma’s hair is curled perfectly, her lips are blood red, and her nails are perfectly manicured. None of that, Killian knows, is the real her.

“I’m in,” she purrs, sliding into the seat closest to Cassidy and giving him her own heated look. Cassidy has pulled off art heists all over North America and Europe, but the real prize they’re after is his father, the mob boss and arms dealer. The slimy man has slipped through the fingers of both the FBI and MI6 and caused more war and carnage across the globe than every major terrorist group combined. Actually, every major terrorist group has Robert Gold to thank for their every success.

Will deals them all in, and Emma bites seductively on her lower lip as she peruses her cards. She keeps leaning over the table, letting everyone there have an ample view of her cleavage. The black number she’s wearing plunges almost to her navel with a slit up one side that reaches her thigh. She keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs, drawing Cassidy’s eye every time. The way his pupils are blown wide, Killian’s fairly certain the man is paying little attention to his cards or the club around him.

Which is exactly how they wanted it. Cassidy has two weaknesses: cards and blondes. Unfortunately, Killian Jones has a weakness himself: Emma Swan. He really hopes this op isn’t the death of him.

And he’s not talking about a shoot-out.

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

“Thank God that’s over,” Emma groans, leaning against her closed hotel room door.

“Aye,” he agrees, loosening his tie, “David texted on the ride over and says Cassidy’s already singing like a canary.”

Emma tilts her head and grins at him. “Then I guess you and Will can get back to London soon, huh? From the way you two talk, MI6 is lost without you.”

He chuckles, unable to stop his fingers from going to his ear in a nervous gesture. Getting intel on Gold will be bittersweet, bringing this partnership between the FBI and MI6 to an end.

Bringing this partnership between you and Swan to an end, you mean. His traitorous heart corrects.

Emma’s head falls back against the door of her room, putting her neck on glorious display. A tiny moan falls from her lips as she lifts one leg to massage her foot.

“Swan, you’re barefoot!” he exclaims.

“Course I am,” she mutters, eyes still closed as she kneads the pad of her foot, “how the hell was I supposed to chase those bastards down in six inch heels?”

“What was Ruby thinking putting in you in shoes like that?”

Emma drops her sore foot and straightens, rolling her stiff shoulders. “She was thinking that Cassidy has a thing for long, leggy blondes.”

“You’re leggy.” He prays she doesn’t hear the light hoarseness in his voice.

“Yeah,” she easily agrees, “but I’m far from long. I’m only 5’5” Jones.”

“And six inches makes that big a difference?”

She squeezes Killian’s bicep and gives him a teasing smile. “It’s all about perception in this business, right?” She keeps her grip on him as she presses her keycard to the lock. “Come in here for a sec, I need your help.”

She yanks on his arm, but honestly, he could never refuse her. Emma flicks on the lights, tosses the key card on the nearest dresser, then turns her back to him, gathering her blonde waves up with one hand.

“Unzip me?”

Is she trying to kill him? Of course, in her defense, the back of the dress covers more than the front and the zipper hits the middle of her back. It would be hard to reach without help, and she had Ruby assisting her before the op. He takes a deep breath then reaches out to slide the zipper down, stopping before it reaches the small of her back. Not that he wouldn’t like to keep going.

Emma sighs with relief as the garment loosens. She clutches the dress to her chest, but the way the back gapes open and the straps slip over her shoulders gets to him. She waits until she gets to the bathroom before she drops the dress, but he catches a glimpse of the curve of her breasts in the reflection of the mirror. He has no reason to stay, but for some reason his feet are rooted to the spot. He averts his eyes so she at least won’t think he’s some kind of voyeur.

Killian hears water running and the familiar sounds of teeth brushing. Emma comes out of the bathroom wearing the tiniest tank top and sleep shorts in existence. She’s running a brush through her hair and watching him with an amused expression.

“So,” she says, tossing the brush aside and gathering her hair on top of her head with a rubber band, “why are you still standing here brooding in my hotel room? And why were you clenching your jaw so hard all night? I was afraid you would break a tooth.”

She’s marched into his personal space, her hands on her hips and a spark in her light green eyes. She’s fresh faced now, and just as beautiful.

“You know why.” He’s almost shocked that the words have left his mouth. He searches her eyes then shakes his head in frustration before turning to go. He freezes at the door when she speaks again.

“I’m tired of pretending I don’t love you.”

Killian turns back around, his mouth agape and his eyes wide, just like when she sauntered up to their poker table earlier. Emma’s twisting her hands in front of her and lifting one shoulder in a tiny shrug. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes bright. He strides across the room and grabs her - one hand grasping her waist and sliding under the back of her tank top, the other burying itself in the hair that’s fallen out of her messy bun. He slants his lips over hers, and she’s moaning again, her hands sliding up his chest and grabbing hold of the lapels of his tuxedo. He swallows her moans with the depth of his kisses, and her hands release his coat and slide around his neck. Her breasts press against his chest, and he doesn’t think he can ever get close enough to her to satisfy.

He finally breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to hers. They are both struggling to catch their breath, and he thumbs her wet and swollen lips.

“I love you, too.”

I’ve gotta be forgiven if I wanna spend my living

With a long cool woman in a black dress

#cs ff #cs modern au #cs spy au #fandom birthday playlist #for saira #on her birthday

[ivorydice]

Writer ask meme

Tagged by @marmolita <333

Author’s Name: ivorydice! For my fanfiction stuff anyway.

Fandoms you write for: FFXV probably forever and ever lmao, despite my lack of productivity recently. I’ve written for Supernatural and a couple of other things before, many, many moons ago, like back when I was a teenager, but I don’t really feel like they count haha. I’m very interested in writing for Supernatural again though, mostly because I’ve had a fic idea in my head for like the past 4 - 5 years or so and my current rewatch isn’t helping matters.

Where you post: I know I’ve posted a few mini fics here on my tumblr, but nearly everything goes on AO3!

Most popular one-shot: Ahaha it’s so hard to tell?? Seems like Breathless wins this one in my opinion. Black and Gold has more kudos, but Breathless has more hits and bookmarks, sooo I’m going with that one.

Most popular multi-chapter story: Three and a Half Men seems to win this one. Closely followed by The Price? I don’t know, what are stats lol. (tw for The Price link, fic deals with dub/non-con)

Favorite story you wrote: Dissolve. Currently only the first chapter is up on AO3 (it also has a tag here with some snippets/previews of future stuff), but this fic, god I love it so. It’s just so fucking me lol, it’s the kind of shit I love, which is probably weird to say considering the traumatic stuff it deals with and the fact that I don’t feel like there’s enough fucked up shit happening in it, but I just asdfghjkl I love this fic okay, I even made a carefully picked out playlist for it that just hypes me up to write it and I wanna make edits and aesthetics just for me to stare at ahhhhhhh. Yeah. That fic. I choose that one.

(If we’re gonna choose a favourite fic that’s currently a completed fic posted on AO3 then probably Breathless. I’m actually pretty proud of that one.)

Story you were nervous to post: Lol all of them? The Price definitely, and The Fallout. That’s probably no surprise considering they both heavily deal with noncon. Maybe even Dissolve despite my love for it. Basically, if it involves content that’s considered problematic, then guaranteed I was nervous and/or hesitant posting it.

How do you choose your titles? I usually steal my titles from songs/lyrics, because TITLES ARE THE WORST THING IN EXISTENCE AND I HATE THEM. If I’m lucky enough, then a title punches me in the gut while I’m working on the fic and it just works, but most of the time my titles are “inspired” from other things.

Do you outline? For original stories/projects, yeah. For fanfiction, no. I have partial outlines written down for some fics, but I mostly just try to keep it all in order in my head. Which, considering how forgetful and spacey I am, and how many fics I have, it’s probably not a good idea lmao. I just don’t do well with outlines, even with my original projects.

How many of your stories are… *complete? 18 posted on AO3 are complete.

*in-progress? 5 (oof) posted on AO3 are WIPS. I have a few other unposted wips in my gdocs, as well as quite a few half-started ideas that may or may not get dusted off sometime in the future.

Coming soon: I honestly have no idea lol. Babbling about Dissolve really makes me wanna work more on it again, so maybe chap 2 of that if I can manage to edit it all. Or an update on Fleurs Captives. We shall seeeee.

Do you accept prompts? Kind of? I’m always open to ideas, but I’m also overwhelmed with irl bullshit that I can barely focus on my own fics, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: The Supernatural fic, though that’s just for me haha. I’m actually really interested/excited to work on my hurt!Noct horror novel sometime soon if I can. Technically the first draft has already been written, but there’s a ton of new stuff I have to add to it and I’d like to see it all come together.

Tag five authors to answer these questions as well: @tauriofthestorm, @mikkalia15, @breakfastteatime, @myoyakodon, @desmondmlles (only if you want to!)

#writing meme things #god i HOPE this makes sense #i know i'm so babble-y i can't help it lol

[myaekingheart]

1, 2, and 12!!

Bless you, Jessie 🙌💕 

Alright so since I reblogged like 20 ask memes, I’m just gonna go ahead and take the liberty of doing all of these numbers for every single one I’ve reblogged that’s applicable to give myself extra stuff to do xD

Fanfiction Asks! 

1. Do you read fic? Do you write fic?

I actually write fic WAY MORE than I read fic. I find that the issue I have when reading fic is that I get really giddy and inspired and then I lose my concentration on the story in front of me and my interests rather shift more towards the story in my own damn head. I really need to start reading more of other people’s work, though. I have a handful saved on AO3 that I just have not gotten around to, but I really should. I really have so many damn things I want to read, fanfiction and otherwise, but lack the motivation to sit down and actually read it. 

2. Favorite genre of fic?

I feel like it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of fic I’m drawn most towards, but I guess the best descriptor would be drama? I don’t know, I just really like stories that focus heavily on character development and interpersonal relationships (so bildungsroman lmfao), especially when there’s some imperfect romance and action/adventure involved. Both of my main fanfics, my Narnia series Temptation and The Scarecrow and the Bell, my Naruto fic, both are pretty much just that: heavy focus on character with imperfect romance and action/adventure. I just think it’s fun seeing characters, especially ones that have feelings for each other, in stressful and dangerous situations trying to work through them together and oftentimes disagree and have to figure out how to handle the disagreements, too. Or have personal stuff they’re dealing with on top of things. I don’t know, I just really love focusing on relationship dynamics and situations like that are a fun lens to look through. 

12. What turns you away the most from a fic?

Honestly, grammatical issues and whether or not the story feels believable. I guess I’m kind of picky when it comes to that stuff, but I’m also used to being critical of writing solely because I’m a creative writing major and a big part of this degree’s curriculum is workshopping peer writing. Grammatical issues in terms of a misplaced comma or something aren’t that big a deal, I’m not that stingy, but things like lacking paragraph breaks, or not knowing when to switch paragraphs, bug me as well as habitual misspellings of common words--the one that peeves me off the most is spelling “definitely” like “defiantly” or “definately” or any other misspelling under the sun. The idea of a story feeling believable might just be me being really picky but I’ve opened up fics sometimes where I could hardly get through the first paragraph because the story didn’t feel genuine to me. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I guess as someone who puts a ton of research into my own fanfics and also really tries to perfectly capture the tone of the source material, sometimes I’ll read stuff that just feels out of place and it really takes me out of the story and honestly makes me cringe. I feel like saying all of that makes me sound like some kind of asshole, though. I don’t know, I’m just so goddamn picky when it comes to what I’m reading and especially with fanfiction, since it’s a lot more organic and it doesn’t go through the same fine toothed editing process that professionally published works do (although I’ve picked up on some questionable stuff even in print books; one such thing was so minor, but it was a forgotten period at the end of a sentence and I kept laughing about it saying to myself “Someone missed a period!” You know, like an asshole.) 

Music Asks

1. your favorite album opener

Beartooth’s Greatness or Death off their most recent album, Disease. It just really sets the tone for the rest of the album and feels like such an appropriate intro overall. They have a playlist for the entire album on Youtube with the correct track listing so that was the first song off thei newest album that I had heard and it just felt like such a great and appropriate intro, it really got me into the vibe and energy of the rest of the album and I just...I love it a lot. The song, the album, the band in general. 

2. a song starting w/ the same first letter of your first name

Aurora Avenue by Defeat the Low. I’m a huge Nirvana fan, and the song is all about Kurt Cobain. The entire first verse was literally pulled straight from his infamous suicide note (”Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complainee.”) I stumbled upon this song by pure chance-- it was playing at the end of a video for a different song, which I think was actually a Beartooth one-- and it sounded interesting so I pulled it up and the minute I heard the first verse, I, who had read Kurt’s suicide note already, was like “WAIT A SECOND THIS SOUNDS REALLY FAMILIAR” but it didn’t hit me that that was what it was, and that the entire song was about Kurt, until later and it made me love it even more. 

12. a song you can scream all the words to

Hospital for Souls by Bring Me The Horizon. It’s an all-time fave, made even more so by the fact that it’s one of my top ship songs (for my Naruto ship, Kakashi Hatake x my OC Rei Natsuki, who I write the fanfic about, and even made an AMV for them with because I’M CRAZY). It also just hits really hard personally, especially the line “Have you ever put a blade to your wrists, or have you been skipping meals?” because it relates to my own mental health struggles. I’ve never had the right opportunity to actually scream all the words aloud along with the song, but I desperately need to find the right place to do it one of these days because I have a lot of feelings I need to get out that can only be done through that exact act and I need to do it in a way where I will not end up getting the cops called on me for being way too loud. I just need a soundproof room in general (not just for these purposes, but also because I’m a voice actress for an independent animated series called Space Hotel and I need someplace to record shit anyways.)

Soft and Ethereal Asks

1.secret garden or forest?

Secret garden! I love the idea of having someplace only I know guarded off by a wall with vines running up the side of it, the kind of place you enter through a wrought-iron gate, where flowers are growing through the cracks and there’s a bubbling fountain in the center you can sit by either on the edge or in the grass or on a dirty old cement bench from times before I was even a thought in my parent’s head, and just revel in the silence with a good book or a pencil and sketchbook and make flower crowns and daisy chains or have a little personal picnic laying out a checkered blanket and carrying everything in a big basket like strawberries and little sandwiches and homemade cookies and shit. I’m such a sap but I live for the idea of that gentle, pastel-tinted quiet afternoon. Pure solace. 

2.the stars or the moon?

The moon. I love stars to death, too, but there’s something about the moon that really hits me. Maybe it’s because it goes through phases but no matter what is still whole even when it appears not to be. Maybe it’s because it’s kind of comforting to look at. More than anything, though, it’s probably at least partially because one of my favorite films is Rise of the Guardians (and by extension, the book series it was based upon, The Guardians of Childhood) in which the moon is a major character, or at least The Man in the Moon. In the movie, he’s never seen or heard but he’s always there watching over the world. Jack Frost, the protagonist, doesn’t understand his purpose in this eternal life of his where no one can see him and no one believes in him, and constantly looks to the moon for answers but never hears any. The very first lines of the movie are even “Darkness. That’s the first thing I remember. It was dark and it was cold and I was scared. But then...then I saw the moon. It was so big and so bright. It seemed to chase the darkness away.” Not to get super religious here but in a way the whole moon thing even reminds me of Christianity a little bit, and I’m not really religious in the slightest (maybe spiritual, but not very religious) but this movie also came to me at a time when I was very at odds with the idea of God and faith and everything, and I felt like Jack Frost constantly questioning what the point of it all was and questioning whether something greater even existed and if so, then how could they let terrible things like this happen? Without any solid answer? I don’t know, I don’t want this to get into a debate about my own religious beliefs, but yeah. The moon and I have some history, so I’ll choose the moon over the stars. 

12.fiction or short stories?

Fiction. By nature of my degree, I have to read a lot of short stories for college and some of them are really enjoyable and interesting but then we get to the debate of genre fiction versus literary fiction, which I think is a stupid fucking debate and literary fiction needs to get off it’s damn high horse with it’s “holier than thou” complex or whatever. Or maybe it’s not the literary fiction itself so much as the people who praise it. Like yes, I get that literary fiction is contemporary fine art and nuanced and shit but sometimes I like stories about vampires and ninjas and teenagers with weird names and social anxiety. Literary fiction is fine and all, but let’s face it, genre fiction is way more fucking fun and that is why I chose “fiction” over “short stories.” 

65 Questions You Aren’t Used To

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

If I’m going to be brutally honest, sometimes. Hell, sometimes I even question my own existence but I guess that’s just the depersonalization aspect of anxiety talking. 

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

With 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, I’d say I’m at about a 3? I’m not as afraid of the dark as I used to be, but it’s situational. If I’m alone and it’s dark, then I get panicky because my awareness is impaired and I’m admittedly a very visual person so if I can’t see and I suspect there’s something going bump in the night, I’m going to freak out. Even hearing something, even when logically I know exactly what it is, freaks me out because I can’t know for sure unless I’m looking straight at it but if it’s dark, I can’t do that. I prefer to sleep when it’s like fully dark, though. I even used to wear a sleep mask to help with that and because the feeling of something soft over my eyes was comforting??? I don’t know, like I can sleep perfectly fine with the lights on, too, and sometimes if my anxiety is bad that’s what I’d prefer to make things easier on myself but for the most part, I guess it’s situational. I also feel like this is an appropriate place to say I have a duck nightlight in my bathroom, which doesn’t really have anything to do with being afraid of the dark so much as darkness in general but I also have a thing for rubber ducks so having a rubber duck nightlight is very on brand and I love it. 

12. Who told you they loved you last?

Probably my boyfriend. He’s the one whose always here anyways. If not him, then from my mother but I don’t particularly want to think about her right now because I’m kind of upset with her so we’re just going to go ahead and say my boyfriend. 

Sensory Asks

[sight]

1. favourite colour(s)?

Red is my top fave, and has been since I was three. I think it was when I got a red VW Beetle for my Barbie dolls that I really fell in love with the color. All the accessories that came with it were red plastic and looking at them just filled with me a lot of energy and joy, which I later realized I felt whenever looking at red in general. It also helps that I can now make the joke whenever I’m asked this question that I love red “like the blood of my enemies,” which is always fun. 

2. least favourite colour(s)?

I’m really not a fan of yellow, chartreuse, and tan/beige. I can handle yellow in certain instances like with sunflowers or lemons or sunshine related stuff, but I prefer gold over straight up yellow. I don’t dislike yellow nearly as much as tan/beige, though. That one I can also handle in certain instances but for the most part, it reminds me of a time I got sick as a kid so looking at it for too long brings back that nausea. Chartreuse is the end-all, be-all of the colors I’m not big on, though. It just...reminds me of snot. It feels really unappealing to look at for me, too. 

[smell]

12. favourite scent?

Clean laundry, hands down. I love nothing more than the smell of fresh laundry, like sometimes I’ll catch myself literally sitting at my laptop sniffing my shirt because I love the smell so much. It’s just so comforting, and I think that’s because it reminds me of this doll I’ve had literally since birth. I called her Baby Doll and she was just a basic baby doll with a plastic head and cloth body that my grandmother got from Avon and I was so damn attached to it as a kid. I brought Baby Doll everywhere with me, even in my backpack on my first day of preschool. I slept with her for way longer than I’d like to admit, too. But she smelled like fabric softener, and when I was a little kid and was having bad anxiety attacks (which I’ve been dealing with since I was three), I would hug her really close and the smell was just really comforting. So now I have to get it from my own laundry because I still own Baby Doll, but I’m a grown-ass adult and she’s very fragile now (and also currently in storage for safe-keeping). So yeah, clean laundry hands-down. 

Fashions Asks

1. What season has your favorite looks?

Fall! I’m such a sucker for big cozy sweaters and jeans. Back to school fashion lowkey excites me, too, and besides: I feel like it’s a lot easier to find appropriate outfits for my personal fashion sense that fit cooler weather than the seventh circle of hell 106-degree-heat-index I’m currently living in. I adore oversized sweaters, leggings, skinny jeans, combat boots, creepers, hoodies, layers, all that good stuff but you can’t do that when you feel like you’re dying of heat stroke even standing in front of the fridge butt naked. Not that I do that, but it’s hot enough here that I could if I wanted to. That’s not an issue in fall, though, which is super fucking nice. I just really love being cozy all the time always. 

2. Formal or casual?

Casual! As much as I love the look of formal clothes, I am chronically ill. I am anxious. I am depressed. I want to be comfortable all the damn time, and I just can’t be genuinely comfortable in formal clothes. For example, I attended my cousin’s wedding last spring and wore these really cute Mary Jane heels that I love. They fit my aesthetic and make my legs look great, too, if I say so myself. I was able to get through the ceremony with them on but after the fact, they started getting so damn uncomfortable that I went to the car and changed into my ratty five year old combat boots like a total punk because comfort. At least they still looked good with the dress I was wearing, though, so that’s a plus. 

12. What fashions do you hate?

Okay, I feel like a lot of people might get on my case about this but I really can’t stand Birkenstocks. They just...look like what your overbearing uncle would wear with socks to the summer barbecue to me. I don’t know, in certain cases they’re at least fitting for a certain look and I commend the people who can pull them off but as for me? I just can’t wrap my head around them. I dislike them even more than Crocs, which I am also not a fan of. But then again, like...I’m also not big on today’s fashion trends in general. There are some things I do like, like oversized t-shirts with leggings especially if they’re a band t-shirt, and those cute Japanese uniform style pleated skirts (I admittedly own one and I love it). The whole ethereal quirky pastel modern grunge e-girl shit, though, just doesn’t vibe much with me. My fashion sense is more on par with Luanna Perez’s alternative looks and the 2007-2012 era of the emo/scene style, as well as some pastel goth, genuine 90′s grunge, and kawaii/lolita inspired stuff. Like I will gladly tease the hell out of my hair, add in extensions and coontails and a little pink bow, and throw on a pink polka dot dress with fishnets and creepers or something. I don’t know, I just feel really disconnected from what’s considered trendy in today’s fashion sense. Maybe it’s because I tried so hard for so many years to fit what was in style despite it not feeling genuine to who I was personally, that now that I’ve finally mustered enough confidence to leave the house wearing what makes me happy even if it is unorthodox and alternative (like black lipstick!!!), I just can’t get on board with what everyone else is doing. Sure, I feel a little weird dressing like it’s ten years ago when everyone else is walking around wearing like those dinky crop tops that say “I have no tits” or have like applique roses on them or whatever and anything else that’s considered modern on-trend but like...in the wise words of Kurt Cobain, “I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.” I’m tired of trying to fit the status quo and doing what everyone else is doing. If I want coontails and snake bites in 2019, then goddammit I’m gonna go for it (though not gonna lie, the 20NINESCENE craze has me crying because I regret not having “the phase” in middle school that everyone else did so much sometimes that it’s physically painful so to think that there are still people out there rocking the thick side fringe and heavy eyeliner and the RAWR MEANS I LOVE YOU IN DINOSAUR shit makes me feel like maybe I’ve been given a second chance to be true to myself and become a part of a community that means something to me, rather than what I was actually doing in middle school being dragged through the mud trying to redeem myself of some sense of popularity because I was losing my best friend to the alpha female clique mentality and I was so damn unhappy, I legit had a breakdown in her pool about it once so you bet your ass I’m going to say screw it and do everything I wanted to back then now that I actually have the confidence and stopped caring what people thought about me.) 

#this got so long i am so fucking sorry xD #answered asks #ask memes #lasaraleen

[virryth]

Finals!AU Monsta X

Literally nobody asked but our struggle with finals brought us here. 

how Monsta X deals with the stress of finals and their study habit

jooheon

spent 3 hrs making the perfect study playlist for finals, skips every song

makes changkyun study with him cause "he can't study alone or he'll fall asleep" and changkyun knows that it won’t end well cause they'll just end up f*cking around but he always comes anyways

hyunwoo looking at their tomfoolery: my boys... no... study…

kihyun: f*cking study you headasses jooheon you need a 98 to get a B

jooheon is that guy that has so many friends in all his classes that he has multiple study groups for every class so he ends up wasting time studying the same thing with different groups

he doesn't procrastinate much but he does take.. absurdly long breaks...

his definition of a break is visiting the study room next door for "a couple of minutes"

jihoon once he sees jooheon waving outside the window of svt's study room: "oh no we're not gonna get anything done"

jihoon as he sees jackson spotting jooheon and they walk to svt's room together: "f*UCK NO I NEED TO GRADUATE"

but jooheon means well! he just loves spending time with his friends and studying feels lonely....

Through the force of exam anxiety he managed to cram and write up good cheat sheet the night before

somehow managed to get the professor to round his B- to a B

changkyun

carries three (3) tumblers with him: one with woTAh, one with coffee, and one with red bull

we don't talk about that semester minhyuk somehow convinced changkyun to mix his coffee and red bull...

he ended up in the ER and he's still trying to pay off his hospital bills... slowly...

kihyun: why the f*ck did u trick the baby you know he's stupid

minhyuk: kihyun… at this point… it's natural selection

aNYWAYS changkyun is very auditory is his learning!

he tries to record his lectures and he'll listen to them. that's his "studying"

has a hard time memorizing… can barely remember his functions and laws and equations

general bio?? yeah he barely passed, made kihyun tutor him the whole semester and kissed ki on the cheek when he passed with a C-

he makes little songs to memorize his equations and it's honestly so cute... wonho had to pinch a cheek

ran out of practice problems to do cause he loves doing them

he and jooheon fool around a lot but he's the level one out of the two and he will sit both his and jooheon's ass down when the time comes for it

gets good grades on his finals! baby deserved it uwu

hyungwon

out of all the 7, he's secretly the most diligent

one of those people who pretends that they don’t study much to act cool but secretly is working very hard on his grades

reviews his notes after every lecture so by finals week he has a good grasp of the concepts

sharp enough to fill the blanks in himself

so yeah he's set he just needs to review

one time hyunwoo meant well and booked the monstas a study room

hyungwon was napping on his notes, citing something about "studying by osmosis"

always makes sure to get a full 10 hours before every exam

everyone else: running on 2 hrs of sleep, hair messy, eyebags, rumpled clothes

hyungwon awake with his outfit picked out, skin glowing and hair gelled: :)

he'll help jookyun the babies with reviewing. he's the friend that you ask to quiz you over concept cause he's brutally honest on when you get it right/wrong 

aces all his exams, but it doesn't even matter cause he only needed a 75 to get an A

kIHYUN

is insanely ambitious, is taking 8 classes and he has 5 finals... rip..

has a study schedule set up by 30 mins increments

do not even bREATHE wrong in his direction during finals week or he will cut you

color codes his notes according to subjects, has flashcards, 3d models for ochem...

goes to every single review session that almost always ends up being useless cause he already knew everything

you need his notes? well maybe if u asked before finals week he'd consider it..

when he's not trying to not kill himself he's trying to make sure his friends are alive cause minhyuk... is that pepsi you're having for breakfast???

mh: yeah... what did u have for breakfast?

ki: uh... nothing??

mh: well i'm already doing better than you, buddy

but seriously he tries to take care of everyone when he himself is a mess.... secretly carries a toothbrush just in case he'll 'accidentally' sleep in the library

during exam day he made sure to have everything he needs

unexpectedly in the middle of the exam his eraser fell and rolled into a gap between the rows in front of him

he was already close to crying

yoongi, concerned, slides his eraser to the table between them

ends up with an A, brags to the monstas about how they should follow his habits

hyungwon: bit*h where

minhyuk

king of procrastination? yes

you thought you were bad? you don’t have anything on lee minhyuk

downloads one of those game-blocking apps on his pc & laptop to block games during finals…plays games on his phone anyways...

loUD. never stops talking in the study room

is the reason the study room next to theirs always knocks on the wall to get them to shut the f*ck up

minhyuk: don’t worry i'll talk to them! :D

"they were my friends! omg i haven’t talked to yoonho in forever wait hyungwon do you remem-"

when the monstas finally got him to stfu he looked so serious looking at his laptop and writing things down the monstas were shook™ 

he was just drawing one piece fan art

is that kid who write inspirational cute things like “you’ll do great” or “grades don’t define you” on the library whiteboards or behind a bathroom stall

showed up to the wrong building on his final because the building abbreviations were similar

doesn't even flinch and walks in leisurely 20 mins late

somehow did decent??? life is unfair

wonho

lives in the campus coffee shop!

cause it's warm and cozy and it smells nice! and of course aesthetics™ 

barista seungcheol seeing wonho every morning when they open: oh you're here again??? :o

wonho: yeah!! :D

but it's cute they eventually become friends and wonho gets free refills

when u thought... the :D smile couldn’t get any cuter... the corners lifted up even more…  how could seungcheol resist the :3

his finals are mostly practicals and oral exams so he doesn't hit the books in the general sense

brings a bunch of papers anyways and takes aesthetic study pictures even though everyone who actually knows him know it's a lie

is the type to rewrite his notes cause they’re not ‘pretty’ enough and ends up wasting time

hey he's doing it for his other followers ok... they don't know how soft n meme he is yet...

he's really good at his practicals and he has the materials down but somehow struggles with the presentation aspect of his oral exams :((

he stutters a lot and he gets nervous... so it seems like he doesn't know what to do when!! he actually!! knows his stuff!!

so he gets shownu and kihyun to help

wonho: uhh.. next.. you would u-uh.. probe the... i forgot!! I can’t do this i’m sorry!!!

kihyun: no!!! ur doing so well!! come on!!

shownu: yes

practiced a lot and aced everything! buys lunch for the crew cause he's so happy...

shownu

is a TA alongside being a grad student!

grad students still have finals! hyunwoo has 2 finals, a paper, and a project presentation so he’s bUSY

but he cares for his students a lot.. is the only TA who actually bothers prepping for his exam reviews (where he unknowingly gives hints)...

student jinyoung: so is this exact example gonna be on the final?

shownu, sweating nervously: uh,, uhh... no?

his official office hours are 3 hours a week but he always makes time for his students!! he always tries to stay in his office a lot in case they need help!!

hyunwoo loves his subject and he doesn’t want anyone who has interest in it to lose interest because a class is bad

keeps a healthy supply of kihyun’s cookies (kihyun stress bakes and it’s most apparent during finals) in case of a sad or stressed student

king of giving partial credit and everyone loves him for it

exams graded by shownu have an A- average

ends up caring too much and not paying enough attention to his own finals... 

loses a couple of hours of sleep but makes it in the end!!

gets a stunning TA review and a fat bonus

puts the bonus into good food… blissfully ignoring his thesis

-M

#legit relate to kihyun #monsta x #monsta x scenarios #sfw #monsta x imagines #shownu au #shownu imagines #wonho au #wonho imagines #minhyuk au #minhyuk imagines #kihyun au #kihyun imagines #hyungwon au #hyungwon imagines #jooheon au #jooheon imagines #changkyun au #changkyun imagines #monsta x au #i.m au #i.m imagines #shownu scenarios #wonho scenarios #minhyuk scenarios #kihyun scenarios #hyungwon scenario #jooheon scenarios #i.m scenario #m

[get-fcking-reddie]

Give You Hell (3/5)

Pairing: Reddie (Main), Stenbrough (Side), Benverly (Side)

Previous Chapters: One, Two

Summary: When Richie Tozier moves into the apartment across from Eddie’s, they nearly start a war. Richie keeps Eddie up at night and Eddie keeps Richie up in the morning. If only they got to know each other, they’d realize they’re actually not that different.

Inspired by the song Give you Hell by the All-American Rejects

Taglist: @princesschelliebelle, @lolrichie, @breakmyreddieheart, @reddie-to-go, @richietoaster, @i-believe-in, @imakittehkatt, @beepbeeprichiellc, @reddieismygazebo, @donvex, @basic-internet-trash, @aristosachaiov, @bitchardtozier, @richiestoziiers, @officiallyreddie, @ihavesympathyforthedevil, @birdie-greenthumb, @the--sun--and--the--moon, @zoinkstoto, @megelizabethvh, @eternitynurarms

It had been two days since he talked to Richie, and their feud had become somewhat of a rinse and repeat situation. Every night Richie would host a party and keep Eddie up, and every morning Eddie would blast music at the crack of dawn to get back at him. Bill had offered Eddie a place to stay several times, but he wasn’t going to let Richie put him out of his house. Mike had advised him to face the problem head on and confront Richie, but Eddie like that idea even less. He wasn’t going to give Richie the opportunity to gloat over him, and he knew he wouldn’t shut down the party anyway. The feud had escalated too much for either of them to back down easily at this point, and in a strange way, Eddie respected that about Richie. In that same strange way, Eddie found himself listening for certain songs in Richie’s playlist from time to time. He suspected that Richie deliberately added songs to his set that Eddie had played for him in the morning.

“Good morning, sir, how may I help you?” the barista asked with a strained smile, and she glanced nervously at the queue behind Eddie.  He usually tried to avoid the café at this hour, knowing how busy it could get, but his supervisor had caught him nodding off and ordered him to get some coffee. He realized that his supervisor had not been too impressed with his performance lately and he had to step up his game if he wanted to keep him on his good side. If this meant drinking regular coffee without cream or sugar, Eddie would just have to power through it.

Eddie tried to read the specials on the menu, but the letters continued to slip in and out of focus. He had the unsatisfying suspicion that he used to be able to handle sleep depravity better when he was in college. He ended up ordering a regular coffee and a bagel he had seen on display. He paid for his meal and sat down at one of the few empty tables.

He resisted the urge to ask the barista to wipe down his table one extra time partially because he didn’t want to give into his germaphobia, partially because he feared she would bring out a reusable cleaning cloth and make everything worse. He rubbed his temples and tried to get rid of the intrusive thought that made him feel like he was back home in Derry.

Eddie picked at this bagel and drank his too bitter coffee, while he gazed around the room at the other costumers and listened to the radio. It was playing the song Feels which Eddie only recognized, because it had been inescapable for a little while. The song ended and Eddie was thinking about getting up and finishing the rest of his bagel at the hospital when he recognized the radio DJ’s voice.

“It’s been out for a little while, but it’s still such a banger. Everything that Pharrell touches turns to gold.” the DJ announced, and he played a soundbite of Austin Powers’ Goldmember.

“Now let’s move on to some message from you guys.” He started to read out texts in a husky sensual voice accompanied by typewriter sounds. “Dear Richard, have you talked to Sexy Neighbor Nurse yet?”

“Well, dear reader.” He replied, in that same husky voice. “True romance takes time, and I’m sure I’ll soon be able to piss him off so much that he will have to talk to me.”

Eddie had started fidgeting with the top button of his shirt as he listened to what was unmistakably his neighbor’s voice. He had grown quite accustomed to hearing Richie: no matter how many people came to his party, he could always distinguish him singing in the crowd. Hearing that same voice outside of the apartment building felt unsettlingly familiar and even a little intrusive. And he had been talking about him as well.

There was no denying, as much as Eddie would have like it, that he was Sexy Neighbor Nurse. Richie had probably seen him come home in his scrubs one day and made the name up. But why had he done so? He didn’t have to talk about romance if he just wanted to feed his audience an interesting story, there feud was ridiculous enough as it was. And if he had wanted to share something about his love life, he could have picked literally anybody else, he could have picked a girl even! But, no, Richie had specifically been talking about him. It seemed nonsensical, even for Richie, that he was doing all of this to mess with Eddie. So, Eddie was forced to accept that if Richie talked about him in a romantic way, he thought about him in a romantic way.

           He brought one hand to his face, feeling his flushed skin burn hotly against his palm. Slowly and almost unnoticeable, a smile crept onto his face and he tried to hide it behind the palm of his hand. Maybe Richie had hoped all his parties and even his radio show would get him Eddie’s attention in some misguided and Gatsby-esque way.

           “Do you mind if we join your table? Everything else is-… Eddie!” Eddie looked up into the clear blue eyes of the redhaired girl he had met at Richie’s first party. Suddenly he noticed that he had undone the two top buttons of his shirt. He hurriedly closed them again, and he felt like he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

           “You found out about Sexy Neighbor Nurse, didn’t you?” the curly haired boy asked not unkindly, but with a hint of a smirk on his lips. He sat down at Eddie’s table and crossed his legs in a fluid, graceful movement that left Eddie impressed.

           Eddie was about to pretend he had no idea what the taller boy was hinting at when Richie’s voice sounded from the speaker to announce a song Sexy Neighbor Nurse had woken him up with. Eddie sank down in his chair, wishing the ground would swallow him up.

           “Is he really talking about me?” He asked tentatively, his eyes fixed on the table, and without realizing it, he had started fidgeting with the top button again.

           “Hasn’t talked about anything else for the past few days now.” The redhaired girl said, before introducing herself to him as “Beverly Marsh, just call me Bev.”

           Eddie shook her hand and introduced himself. He noticed that she was wearing multiple silver-colored rings, some encrusted with teal colored stones that matched her eyes. She was a nice-looking girl, both in the sense that she was pretty and seemed kind. Eddie assumed she was dressed very fashionably although he knew next to nothing about women’s fashion.

           He extended his hand to Beverly’s friend as well who introduced himself with a curt and business-like “Stanley Uris.” Eddie honestly thought the boy looked a little intimidating which was partially due to his poise and partially due to his clear-cut face and high cheekbones. “Nice to meet you.” Stan added with a smile which made his whole face light up. The spell was broken and Eddie no longer thought he looked aloof, in fact, he thought he looked rather dashing. He reminded him of boys he had encouraged Bill to pursuit in the past.

           “First of all, I feel like we owe you an apologize. Richie shouldn’t keep you up at night like that, it’s very childish, and he definitely shouldn’t discuss your private affairs on the radio.” Beverly started. She was holding her teacup with both hands, her elbows resting on the table top, and the steam added something mystical to her elfish appearance.

           Stan had retrieved a magazine from his bag with several colorful birds on the cover and he was leafing languidly through the pages. “I want to apologize as well. Richie is an idiot and he’s gone too far.” Stan said, without looking up. “We’ll put a stop to it and you’ll never have to hear from him again.”

           “No.” Eddie’s voice sounded strained and a little squeaky. He looked at his hands which he had folded in his lap to avoid the two pair of eyes that were now fixed on him He had to restrain himself from fidgeting with the button again in fear of pulling it off his shirt altogether.

           “No?” Stan asked, sharing a quick look with Beverly before moving closer to Eddie. “Why not? Doesn’t it bother you?”

           “I mean, of course it bothers me. The partying needs to stop and I don’t know how to feel about the whole radio thing, but…”

           “But what?”

           Eddie covered his burning face in his hands. He didn’t understand why he was having this conversation with two strangers. He needed to talk about this to Bill and Mike, he needed air! But, everything just came pouring out.

           “I don’t know… does he really like me?”

           Eddie looked at Bev and Stan through his fingers. Beverly had an expression on her face which Eddie usually associated with videos of kittens and puppies. Stan seemed to be hiding a grin behind his hand and shaking his head a little.

           “Can’t believe Tozier did it. His head’s going to get even bigger after this.” Stan muttered before grimacing. Eddie suspected Beverly had kicked him under the table.

           “Sweetheart, he’s crazy about you.” Bev said, before tilting her head a little and asking “Do you like him too?”

           Eddie felt like his windpipe was closing up and he wished he still had his stupid inhaler. Placebo or not, it made short with his panic attacks for as long as he believed in it. He told himself to be calm and tried to focus on his breathing.

           “I-I don’t know.” Eddie said shakenly. He couldn’t tell if he liked Richie, because he had never felt this way for anyone before. Even his childhood crush on Bill, which in hindsight he reckoned it had been, was nothing compared to this. He thought about what Bill and Mike had told him in the restaurant a few days ago. He wanted them to be happy with someone no matter the gender of their partner. So, why couldn’t he wish that happiness for himself?

He thought back at the radio show and how it had made him feel: how it had made his heart beat faster, his face flush, and how he had felt something in his stomach like fireworks. He thought of all those times he had listen to Richie’s music, wishing it would stop but at the same time hoping to hear his voice in the crowd. He thought of that first night when they had danced together and how handsome and carefree he had looked. He had been so happy to be a part of that, even if it had just been for a moment. Yes, happiness. He believed that he could be happy with Richie.

“I like him.” Eddie admitted finally.

#reddie #richie x eddie #eddie x richie #eddie kaspbrak #stanley uris #stan uris #beverly marsh #it #itmovie #it2017 #fanfiction #mine

[kierongillen]

Do you have theme song for each character? Also, if you do, is Cass and Laura's different from Urdr and Persephone's, respectively?

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the playlist, hasn’t it?

Basically, I used to do some essays on random songs picked from the Playlist, but stopped doing that. You can find the ones I did here. Then I sporadically asked people to send asks to me, picking songs from the playlist, and I’d answer telling people why it’s on the playlist. (Or at least, some of the reasons why it’s on the playlists - WicDiv is complicated.) I also haven’t done that for a while.

I was invited on a podcast recently where I talked about how they work, so if you’re interested, it’s worth listening to. The short version is the Playlist is a mood-board, an inspiration sheet and something I obsess over while thinking about the themes. Songs sometimes even get put on the list before I truly realise how they tie into the plot. As I always say, trust your subconscious. By definition, it knows things you don’t.

So there’s a bunch of songs which tie into different characters, and different bits of the character, and the character at different times. So the answer would be yes, there’s songs connected to both Cass/Laura Urdr/Persephone on there.

When WicDiv is over, as part of the emotional disengage from this monster, I do to go through the whole thing and try and do at least a sentence on every song on it. But we’ll see.

Anyway! To partially answer the question, the original Urdr song was Savages’ She Will and Laura’s is - perhaps obviously - Bat For Lashes’ Laura.

#WicDiv