#i don’t feel like anything anymore it’s like i’m not even here like i only have school and that’s it it’s constantly on my mind and it’s no
Intertwined*
Paige Bueckers x Fem reader
Summary: Y/n and Paige have been broken up for a month now, and when a party comes around where they both find themselves at, feelings are revealed and its clear that they both can't seem to forget about each other.
WC: 3.2K
Warnings: 18+, smut, minor angst
(sidenote; im so obsessed with this picture UGH.)
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God— Y/n could feel her stare from across the room as she tried to keep up a conversation with her friend, Micheal. It was getting harder and harder to avoid Paige and her intense stares all night but y/n refused to give in because she knew that’s exactly what she wanted- for her to acknowledge her. Y/n wasn’t in the mood to speak to Paige, there was no need to really and she truly only came here to celebrate her friend's birthday then leave.
It has been a good month since the pair had last spoken to each other, and the image of Paige banging on her front door, begging for another chance was something permanently scarred in her mind. Y/n didn’t let her in, she refused to, and told Paige to go home and forget about everything they ever had.
Y/n cared for Paige a lot- she truly really did. A part of her still does whether she wants to or not. Paige just screwed up a lot and no amount of apologies she’d give would make a difference.
If it wasn’t for Micheals birthday tonight, she’d be at home in her bed instead. But, Michael had been her childhood friend for years and she wasn’t just gonna not come just because Paige was friends with him too.
“You look stunning tonight, Y/n.” Michael spoke, grabbing her hand and giving it a small peck, causing her to smile sheepishly and mumble a quiet, “Thank you.”
Y/n took a peek down at her glass, noticing it being basically empty as she chewed on her bottom lip, “I’m gonna go get a refill.”
She slowly moved away from Micheal, making her way to the kitchen, and she felt her expression drop as she did so. Y/n felt exhausted the entire night keeping up the image that she was happy and acting as though Paige being there didn’t bother her but she didn’t want her to know how badly things were affecting her.
Once she was in the kitchen the music from the living room died down a bit while she searched the fridge for a new bottle of champagne.
“Ma.”
Her eyes shot open once she heard the voice she hadn't heard in weeks, causing her to suck in a deep breath before she continued to pour her drink into her glass. Y/n was positive there was no way she’d be able to handle a conversation with Paige, especially not tonight. This was not the right time or place to try and work things out.
“Paige, no.” She told her softly as she took a sip from her glass.
She kept her eyes down at the kitchen floor, noticing Paige’s figure making her way closer to hers. “We’re not doing this tonight, please.”
“I just wanted to see you.”
“You have been seeing me this entire night, Paige.” She was directly in front of her now. She felt as if she was trapped under her frame and was too tired to push herself off.
Paige sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Properly see you. Like this. Not just from across the room.”
“It’s been hard though because of you trying to avoid me all night.”
“Paige, I don’t want to avoid you. I just don’t want to cause anything on Michael's day.” She sighed, placing a hand onto Paige’s chest to move her out of her way. “Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I can’t stay in the kitchen forever.”
“So that’s just it, huh? You can’t even look at me anymore?”
Y/n shut her eyes while sucking in a deep breath before turning back around as her eyes made her way up towards Paige’s body, scanning her body, seeing she was dressed in one of her red huskies jerseys with a pair of sweats. Once her eyes finally reached her face the urge to look away grew stronger as Paige’s stare felt more intense and intimate with each second that passed by.
“See? I’m looking right at you, now. Was this what you wanted? Are you pleased?”
Y/n was quick to notice Paige's expression fall at her words and she watched as she put her hair in a messy ponytail. “No, Y/n I’m not pleased or happy. I haven’t been pleased with anything since that day.”
“Paige, don’t start this.” She shook her head as she indulged in the rest of the champagne left in her glass. “You know I did what was best for the both of us whether you like it or not. Our relationship wasn’t healthy, it was bound to end eventually.”
Paige scoffed, while her eyes trailed over her. “Bound to end eventually, seriously? Look I know I fucked up a lot. Like a whole lot. I'm not proud of it, I know how badly I hurt you and it pains me everyday when I think about how we ended because I know things could’ve been different if I just stopped fucking up.”
“I tried playing it cool and shit acting like this hadn’t affected me.” She sighed before walking over and looking down at her, “Seeing you tonight, so beautiful, so gorgeous and talking to Michael and the rest of our friends as if you moved on so much, it’s been killing me horribly. Because I haven’t moved on, y/n. I haven’t at all.”
Y/n felt her heart pounding at Paige's words. She wasn’t even sure if what she was saying was the truth but a part of her hoped it was. Y/n hadn’t moved on either even though she’d try convincing herself she did, she knew she hadn’t.
She opened up her mouth to speak but was quickly interrupted by Michael coming into the kitchen. He stopped before looking at the pair and letting out an awkward laugh.
“Is everything alright?” He asked, and y/n gave him a small smile in response. “Everything’s okay, Mikes. Just came to get a refill and ran into Paige so we catched up a bit. I was actually just leaving to go find you.”
“It was nice talking to you, Paige.” Y/n whispered as she slipped her way past her, feeling Paige’s fingers lightly brush against her shoulder.
She hated how badly her body got goosebumps just from feeling her touch again.
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It had been two weeks since the party and Paige still lived in y/n’s mind. It was hard enough trying to forget about her but not only seeing her but speaking to her as well made y/n’s mind wander more than usual.
Y/n had been laying down on her couch the last few hours binging a few movies while eating some snacks. She was slowly beginning to fall asleep but a knock to her door woke her up.
Rubbing her eyes she made her way towards the door and took a peek through her doorbell.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Sighing she undid all the locks before opening it. Her breath was quickly stolen from her seeing Paige standing there with a cupcake and a mini bouquet of white roses in her hand, and she could sense the desperation radiating off her.
“I got these for you—I remember how much you loved the cakes from Sweet Mary’s.” Paige mumbled, before handing them over to her. “I’m sorry for just randomly showing up over here. I just had to speak to you.”
She took them from her and whispered a soft, “Thank you” before moving out of the doorway. “Please, come in.”
Y/n wasn't sure why she didn’t just tell Paige to go home again instead of letting her in. She’d never admit it, but a part of her missed her company. She just hoped that this didn’t end badly.
Paige stepped inside, taking off her slides and leaving them by the door as Y/n made her way towards her vessel in the kitchen to place the flowers in. “Are you thirsty? I can make some coffee or tea if you’d like. I also have a bit of wine if you’d prefer that instead.”
“No–no, I’m okay. Thank you, y/n.” Paige spoke, before following y/n to her living room where they sat on opposite sides of the couch. “Thank you, also for uh–letting me in this late.”
Y/n watched as Paige swallowed thickly and turned to her, “I’ve been missing you so badly, Y/n, you truly have no idea. I’m sure at the party it was obvious enough but I don’t want to play the victim, and make excuses for what I did because that’s stupid. I’m so, so, so sorry, y/n, for everything. For hurting you, for not changing, for letting my career get in the way of us, and making you feel unseen. After I gave myself these two weeks to properly think, it was clear that I need you back in my life. I’m a mess without you, ma. I truly don’t want to keep handling everything without you by my side anymore.”
Y/n sat quiet for a few seconds not sure how to properly express what she wanted to say. She could tell Paige was miserable and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“Look.” she began, noticing how Paige dropped her head into her hands, before giving her the chance to finish and letting out shaky breaths. “I know from the outside looking in on things you’ve assumed I’ve been handling things fine. I can tell based on what you said to me at Michaels birthday. But I actually haven’t been dealing with this that well either. I’ve missed you as well, you’re all my mind has been thinking about the past month. And no matter how hard I try to deny my feelings– I really miss you.”
Paige slowly lifted her head back up as a large grin took over her face, “Can I scoot closer to you, please?” she asked, and y/n was quick to nod in response.
“God– you have no idea how badly I’ve missed sharing the same space as you. Just getting the chance to be this close to you is so fucking rewarding.” she spoke as she ran her fingers through y/n’s hair while she laid on her lap. Paige’s hand came up to her cheek, it was clear at first she was hesitant but she eventually stroked y/n’s cheek gently and let out a relieving sigh. “I’ve missed touching you.”
Y/n turned her head and kissed the palm of Paige’s hand. “I’ve missed touching you too.” she spoke, before lifting her head up and running her nose against Paige’s jaw. “Please don’t hurt me again.”
Paige wrapped her arms around her waist tightly and whispered softly into her ear, “I promise, I’ll never hurt you again my sweet girl.” Before Paige got the chance to say any more, y/n was quick to lean in and press her lips against hers, molding them together as she held onto Paige’s shirt tightly.
Paige took the opportunity to roam her hand down y/n’s body again just like she did before. Finally getting the chance to feel her bare skin against hers was something she’d been craving for what felt like years. Her hand slid under y/n’s shirt and cupped her bare breast with her hand, earning a light moan from her against her lips. Her other hand slipped into her shorts, but was quickly taken aback when her hand was met with y/n’s bare ass cheek–instead of the cloth of her panties.
She pulled back from the kiss and looked at y/n with furrowed brows. “You aren’t wearing underwear?”
Y/n’s cheeks flushed pink as she shook her head in response and licked on her bottom lip. “I uh–take them off before I go to sleep now. It’s something I’ve been doing recently.”
She watched as Paige’s pupils dilated, and soon both of her hands were now cupping her ass as she lifted them up from the couch and walked towards her room.
“I forget how strong you are sometimes.” y/n muttered, causing Paige to chuckle before dropping her gently onto her twin-sized bed. “That seems like something pretty hard to forget, ma.”
Paige hovered on top of y/n’s spread out figure and ran her fingers against her bare thigh. “Take off your shirt for me, ma. Wanna see those pretty tits again, been too long.” she asked and y/n was quick to comply, taking off her blouse earning a light grunt from Paige’s lips.
She held them both in her hands as she lightly massaged them, “Fuck, I’ve missed touching these pretty lil’ things so bad, baby.” she whispered before bringing her mouth down and sucking on one of them, and pinching the other one using her thumb and index finger as y/n let out a loud moan.
“Feels good, hm?” Paige mumbled, removing her mouth from her breast and attaching them to her neck, nibbling onto the skin, making sure to leave a visible mark right underneath her jaw.
She slid down y/n’s shorts eagerly and moaned at the sight of her bare pussy on display for her. “Ima take care of you tonight, ma. Just like I used to, gonna help you feel real good.” she spoke, taking two of her fingers and shoving them into y/n’s mouth and muttering a low, “Suck.”
Y/n was quick to suck on her fingers like her life depended on it. She remembered how much Paige loved when she’d take them down her throat–so she was quick to do so.
“Fuck, yes. Just like that.” Paige praised, shoving a third finger into her mouth. “Suck my fingers real good, ma. Imagine it was my strap in your mouth again.” Y/n moaned at the thought of having the strap back in her mouth–missing the way Paige would fuck her face with it or the times she’d aggressively fuck her when she’d misbehave, leaving her pussy sore yet throbbing and begging for more.
“Such a good girl. Sucking my fingers so well.” she said, slowly taking her fingers out of y/n’s mouth as a string of saliva followed, then bringing them down to her dripping pussy. “Always get so wet for me, didn’t even need the spit, could easily slide my fingers right in, just like this.” she spoke as she slid two of her digits nice and slow inside, watching them disappear inside her entrance, before taking them out, licking her wetness clean from her fingers and letting out a moan at the taste.
“God–sweetest pussy I’ve ever had. Could have this taste in my mouth everyday and be satisfied.”
“Paige.”
“Yes, ma?”
“Please lick me.”
Paige leaned down and gave her a peck on the lips. “Anything you want.” she whispered, grabbing y/n’s thighs and putting them on top of her shoulders. Paige was a sucker for teasing, and on any other occasion she’d make y/n work and beg for it. That was the usual for them. It was rare for Paige to give in this easily and early but fuck–she hadn’t gotten a chance to properly taste her in a month.
She was quick to attach her mouth to y/n’s needy clit and start licking. She gained so much pleasure just by eating her out, it was like a gift on Christmas day for her. “Been so long since I had this sweet lil’pussy in my mouth.” Paige lifts her mouth up a bit and licks, causing y/n’s mouth to fall open in disbelief at the soft, sucking sound and gently smacking-noise as her lips sucked onto her clit. “God–it’s so fucking good.” she groaned under her breath, and y/n swears she’s on cloud nine. The feeling of Paige’s hot breath combined with her wet tongue was sensational.
“Come on, ma.” she squeezed her thighs with her long fingers before pleading, “Back and forth yeah? Rock a bit for me, want you to be riding my face a bit.” Y/n was quick to do so, feeling the warm tip of Paige’s tongue press against her. “Fuck, feels so good, I’ve missed your tongue on me so badly.” she moaned, before Paige gave her a warm, long lick, causing her to cry out softly.
“Yes–yes, that’s right baby.” Paige muffled, giving her clit a short, sloppy sounding lick, making y/n buckforward again. “Shit, good fucking girl. Ride my tongue, just like that.” she spoke, having her tongue still buried between her folds, as y/n let out louder moans from the pleasure. Paige began kneading her thighs firmly as she licked deeper and deeper with each sound of y/n’s breathless moans escaping her swollen lips.
Y/n felt her abdomen clench and release, causing her to let out a fluttery sigh. “I’m close, so-so close.” she whispered urgently, as Paige hauls her more tightly against her mouth and presses her tongue more firmly against her needy clit. Y/n inhales sharply and her mouth falls open when her center starts to splinter into pieces, “I’m cummin–fuck.” And before she knew it, she was making a mess on Paige’s face. She pants, caught in place, as Paige rubs her thighs and lifts her face up, revealing her mouth and chin, glistening in her pussy juices.
Paige then leans down and kisses her, and y/n immediately tasted herself on her tongue. The two just stayed like this for a while before y/n pulled back from the kiss. “Now–my turn.” Y/n climbs her way off the bed and stands in front of Paige’s frame. “Let me make you feel good now.” she spoke, lightly shoving Paige back against the bed into the same position she was just in. Paige took off her sweats, leaving her in just her underwear and y/n was moaning already at the sight in front of her.
“I’ve missed having you in my mouth.” she says, licking a stripe against her clothed clit, earning a moan from Paige’s lips. “Ima make you feel good too, promise.” Y/n quickly pulls her underwear to the side, revealing her wet and glistening folds, ready for her to dig in.
Y/n’s quick to start licking as if she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in years. Paige kept a firm grip on her hair, yanking and pulling on it lightly with each feel of her tongue against her. Y/n loved looking up and watching the sight of Paige falling apart above her. Paige’s body grew more desperate with each deep, sloppy lick to her clit as y/n spit down onto her, earning another moan from her lips. Y/n could tell she was close by her pants and breaths, and she was determined to taste her cum on her tongue. After a few more licks and sucks to her clit, her legs shook and she was cumming.
“Mmmmm” y/n dragged out, as she licked her lips clean and offered Paige a cute smile. “So tasty.” she mumbled as Paige grabbed her hips and dragged her body on top of hers and kissed her lazily.
“I’ve missed this so badly, y/n.”
“I’ve missed this too.” she muttered, gently kissing her jaw before pecking her nose. “At least now you don’t have to miss it anymore.”
“And why’s that hm?” she asked.
“Because I’m yours again.”
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what if i told you that i've fallen? * ls2
[part one out of eight]
and what do you do when you fall in love with the person you swear is your best friend in the entire world?
pairings: logan sargeant x fem!driver
notes: u don't have to be acquainted with the original series to read and enjoy this i promise there's context here like i swear i swear i-
this is also A STANDALONE FIC OK THIS Is juST THEIR MEGA TIMELINE FIC WHERE whaT IF i entertained the idea of them ending up together xoxo <3
wc: 6.2k
(series masterlist) | (through the years)
2020
girls and guys can always be just friends for the rest of their lives. realistically, it isn’t that difficult to prove it: her friendship with oscar has always been the one remaining evidence that it is possible. and for years, her friendship with logan also told everyone that the phenomenon of ‘opposite gender friendships are impossible’ is simply a lie.
that was when she stepped out of her university campus one evening: a breeze blew her hair back, stray leaves swirling on the ground as logan leaned against the hood of his car. she felt her heart drop to her stomach when he looked up from his phone to smile at her.
suddenly her best friend didn’t seem like much of a best friend anymore. suddenly, she got giddy at the thought of sitting in the passenger side of his car; blushing when he put a hand on the back of the headrest as he reversed the car out of their parking spot. all of the things that he does have got a deeper meaning to them — is he doing that mindlessly or is she crazy to think that he could possibly feel the same?
truthfully, she has no idea where the feelings came from. up to now, she’d only ever seen logan as a best friend with whom she had several things in common. not to forget 1 of the 2 people who drove her around in their fancy cars whenever she needed them to. and not only that, one of the kids her parents let stay with them in their house during times they had to spend apart from their families back home.
“hey, feeling alright?” oscar elbows her gently.
the girl perks up slightly, turning to him with a wide smile as she blinks rapidly. “yeah, why do you ask?” she follows his gaze down to the untouched cup of mojito sitting on the table. she meets his eyes again with a sheepish laugh. “i just don’t really feel like drinking tonight.”
the sheer thought of having feelings deeper than the surface level for logan was enough to make her stomach churn.
oscar raises his eyebrow, glancing at the mojito again. “i don’t believe that.”
“i swear!” she shrieks, eyes widening as she waves oscar’s concerns away. “i’m just not feeling the club at all, actually.”
“really? but you’re usually in your element when we go clubbing,” oscar frowns, taking the mojito into his hands and starting to drink it immediately. it’s odd that she’s not out on the dance floor, creating a small dance party with random goers. “is something wrong? you can talk to me.”
she looks over her shoulder as the sight of her best friend on the dance floor with another girl greets her once more. it’s only complicated because she got him that girl the minute they stepped into the club. it’s what logan always teases her about being able to score him dates and girls even better than he could all by himself. she has this way of talking him up where girls immediately fall for him. it’s a power, even.
he praises her for that all the time.
as much as she’s convinced that this crush would never develop into something more than it is, it worries her. this one is different. she knows by heart because she’s never been kept up all night by anything before — not even her toughest days in school had gotten her this stressed.
racing, maybe, but nothing else.
and she knows she can’t talk to oscar about this. so she takes a deep breath and shakes her head again. “it’s nothing. i think i’ll just order some bar food.” she scooches out of their booth. “do you want any?”
“i’m alright, mate,” oscar grins. he waves goodbye to her, watching her disappear into the crowd. he turns to lily. “did you notice that? she was acting weird, wasn’t she? it’s not just me?”
lily nods, taking a sip from the mojito that the young girl left behind. “it is. we should try and figure that out soon before it gets bad.”
logan couldn’t tell you when he started seeing his best friend as more than just a friend. it came randomly.
the last time he remembered feeling normal about her was the night they all slept in his room the night before her first race in formula 3. someone was shivering and it sure as hell was not the guy sleeping next to him on the other bed with a blanket strewn over his shoulders tightly. when he sat up, he snorted when he saw the younger girl curled up into a ball as her teeth softly chattered.
he sighed as he got up to his feet, picking up the blankets that she’d conveniently kicked down to the ground sometime during her slumber. he would never have noticed if he hadn’t stepped on it, her stuffed animal lying on the ground, abandoned and betrayed by her after she discarded everything on the bed with her initially.
he remembers that he laughed as he lifted her arm, placing the stuffed animal under her arms. and he thought that she looked so adorable nuzzling her cheek into the plushie, falling into an even deeper sleep.
what got him was when he laid the blanket over her. she pulled the blankets around herself a little tighter, smiling in satisfaction as she felt her body start to warm up. “thanks,” she whispered before abruptly snoring again.
he felt his heart go heavy at the sight, thumping against his chest as she sighed heavily. suddenly his head starts to spin and he feels something he’s never really felt for anyone before.
and, oh, god. he needs to sit down.
he sat at the edge of her bed, scratching his head as both of his friends slept. he looked over at her and felt something tugging at his heart and he knew instantly that it was over for him and the way he looked at her.
he thought it was just a fleeting crush and something that would eventually go away. but it’s been 2 weeks and he still hasn’t been able to push away the nagging feeling in his chest. everything just leads back to the girl with the seemingly brightest smile and most hypnotising eyes.
it wasn’t long until he felt like he could burst from the way he felt. which is why he’s now sitting opposite oscar, at brunch, while they wait for her and lily to arrive from stopping by at a bakery not too far away. he’s bearing holes into oscar’s head, waiting to catch his attention, but the australian seems to be too caught up with what’s on his phone than his friend quietly breaking down across the table.
“oscar,” logan finally says, hand darting out to try and catch his attention. “mate, i need to tell you something. it’s important.”
“oh, you never really have anything serious to say.” oscar puts his phone down on the table, pressing his lips together. he folds his arms and leans on the table. “did you do something bad again? you have to tell her dad this time, i can’t keep doing that for you, mate.”
“no, no,” logan sighs, shaking his head. “i’m serious. this is serious. like, you can’t tell lily at all.”
“wha–“
“i know you tell lily everything, no shame in that. but you really cannot tell her this one.”
oscar furrows his eyebrows. “you’re kind of scaring me. how serious is this thing you’ve done?”
“insanely serious.” logan puts his palm on the table. “mate, i think i’m in love.”
out of all the girls that logan has ever been with, he’s never once said that he’s in love. or at least said it out loud. if oscar is hearing about it for the first time since they met years ago, logan must be pretty serious about this.
logan’s just never been the type to commit to anyone, more or less ever claiming that he is in love with any of the girls that he’s gone out on a date with.
oscar looks around, worried that the girls may have already arrived and overheard his friend. “you’ve never ever said that before. are you serious?” logan nods. “like for real, serious? you’re sure about this girl?”
“that’s the thing.” logan starts to play with the menu, opening and closing it as he tries to play off the severity of his feelings. “i don’t know. but it’s been bugging me for weeks now. i can’t get her out of my head.”
“it must be serious if this has been going on for weeks,” oscar scoffs with a small smile. “how long have you known her?”
logan contemplates telling oscar the truth. will oscar ever slip up and tell her about his feelings? and what will happen if it changes everything and he loses his best friends? literally, the people he knows are his ride-or-die.
“you have no idea the severity. it’s–“
“why are you hunched over whispering like a bunch of schoolgirls with gossip?” she snorts, patting logan on the shoulder as she slots herself in the empty spot next to him in the booth. “anything to tell me?”
logan shakes his head, moving in further to give her the spot. “nope, nothing.”
without anything said, oscar feels like logan’s already told him everything. typically, she’s always in the knows of anything feelings-related, or anything that has to do with a crush. and he knows logan doesn’t mind that lily knows. the arrows are only pointing at one possible person present in the room.
but it can’t be. they’re all best friends.
“ah, keeping secrets now, i see,” she hums, narrowing her eyes down into a suspicious stare.
“way to hold it against me, mate,” logan scoffs, picking up the menu from the table. he glances at oscar across the table who raises his eyebrows at him.
logan, already knowing that he’s caught on, just nods in devastation. in a way that oscar’s never seen him before and that in itself is concerning.
the feeling never stops gnawing at her when she lies awake at night in her bed. she tosses and turns for hours, biting her fingernails as she tugs on her hair in frustration.
her lock screen, a picture of the 3 of them at a track from just a couple of days ago, consumes her. she’s come to overanalyse everything: his hand placements in pictures, their text messages, the way he speaks to her, everything that he does seems to mean more than it used to. and it should not be this way at all.
he is her best friend, after all. and what would she know about crushes and love? she could have been a small percentage of the population that grew up without really having one. it’s not something she concerned herself about over the years.
of course, she allowed herself that one boyfriend when she was 16. but even now she knows that that was not love.
could this be love? surely not — not with her best friend.
not with the boy who moved into her house when she was 13 to live with them for some months of the year, then leaving to spend the holidays with his family in florida. it’s not fair that she is consumed whole by the thought of being his girl.
because when you grow up alongside people, you tend to know the worst side of them. especially when you live together.
but why is it that, as aware as she is of logan’s flaws and everything that made girls want to walk away, she still longs to have him all to herself?
she hears his voice mixed with oscar’s from the next room over. it seems that they are also kept up by something that doesn’t seem to concern her. should she join them for another sleepless night like she typically does?
but it seems to be almost crossing the line of the boundaries of late night conversations they seem to be having. she hums, dropping her phone next to her head as she rolls over to lie on her back.
she looks up at the ceiling and tries to map the past couple of years and how it’s led her here. her heart thumps in her chest as she thinks of the green eyes that have captivated her lately, breathing shakily as the urge to stare into it at this very moment grows.
but she doesn’t know that in the next room over, the older boy feels the same way about her. technically, all her tossing and turning, fears of losing him over feelings that are slowly festering in her gut, are all for nothing. because if she got up right now and just laid it all out for him, he would be okay with it. he’d welcome it with open arms.
not knowing if he feels the same is what scares her the most.
a knock on the door makes her jump, sitting up dishevelled as she turns her attention to the door. she should be asleep for her classes tomorrow — which she would have been if logan hadn’t taken up every inch of space in her mind — so if that’s a test from her parents, it’s over for her.
“it’s us.”
she scrambles out of bed, keeping her footsteps soft to avoid the notion of announcing that she’s out of bed. when she opens the door, it’s come to her surprise that they’re wearing jackets and pants. oscar holds up his car keys with a small grin. “we’re hungry.”
“i’ve got classes tomorrow,” she says in a whisper as she avoids logan’s stare that’s boring holes into her skull.
logan shrugs. “and you’re still awake,” he’s the first to walk towards the stairs and beckons his two friends to follow him, “come on, we were craving ice cream. thank god you’re awake.”
she looks down at herself, in her pyjamas and then glances over at her friends with furrowed eyebrows. “i’m not dressed to head out. could you give me like 5 minutes to change at least?”
“no time for that,” oscar frowns, “do you wanna get caught?”
“besides, i brought an extra jacket for you. your mum would flip if she sees one of your jackets was used, no?” logan stops at the top of the stairs, holding up one of his smaller jackets in the air to show it to her. “i reckon we should get a move before your parents hear you out of bed, dude.”
she takes a deep breath, her gaze softening at the jacket that’s held in the air. it’s not that cold out, so she would definitely do without a jacket. but the thought of being wrapped in a jacket that belonged to logan — with his smell and the whole shebang — almost brings her to her knees. and going to sleep with his cologne all over her? it’s enough to make a typically emotionless woman cry.
“mate, do you wanna come or not?” oscar whispers, still towering over her at her door.
she nods, slowly closing the door behind her as she tries to run silently to the stairs where logan is. “does it smell like you? cause that would be kind of gross.”
a lie: she literally wants it to smell like him. just so she can have a sliver of what it feels like to be his.
“nope. that’s clean.” logan smiles proudly, holding up the jacket with both hands, opening it wide for her to wear it. while normally it would be an issue if it smelled like logan (which is why he took a fresh jacket out of his closet), it’s all she wants right now — to go to bed smelling like him to replace the emptiness of sleeping by herself.
she slots an arm into the jacket, thanking him softly as she feels her cheeks heat up at the gesture. and this is what it’s like suddenly overthinking every interaction she has with logan. did he always used to do this or is everything amplified by the thought of her heart suddenly beating for him?
did his actions always have this romantic intonation in them and she was too stupid to notice, or has it always been this way?
she freezes as logan circles her, pulling the jacket down her shoulders before he zips it up for her. he tugs on it gently and pats her shoulder. “warm enough? i’ve got a thicker jacket if you need one.”
she shakes her head, eyes wide as she looks up at him. he doesn’t seem to notice; turning towards the stairs to make their way to the car. oscar walks past them and shakes the keys as softly as he can. “let’s go. i’m starving.”
she watches the 2 boys walk down the stairs, frozen in the ground at their interaction. she sucks in a deep breath as she tries to process everything: the way he was so close to her and how his gesture was so familiar yet so unfamiliar at the same time.
“mate, let’s go,” oscar scolds, beckoning her from the bottom of the stairs. “i’ll leave you behind if you’re not down here in the next 15 seconds.”
“okay, be patient!” she squeaks, jumping from her spot to rush towards oscar.
by the door, logan keeps a tight grip on the front door as he can barely glance at her happily jumping down the steps. the sight fills his chest with such warmth that he’s never felt before and even forces a small smile on his face that he doesn’t notice.
the gesture with the jacket took everything of his soul to do. it would be crazy for her not to notice the way his hands shook as he zipped the jacket up for her, his breaths shaking as he stood inches away from her. it’s odd because they’ve spent so many years together yet there is this sudden shyness that he cannot seem to escape.
surely she’s starting to catch on as well, right?
he doesn’t even notice that she’s passed him, muttering ‘shotgun’ as she jogs over to the front seat of the car happily. oscar pats him on the shoulder and shoots him a mean glare to snap him out of his trance.
“if you’re going to be this obvious, i’d be more shocked that she hasn’t caught on yet,” oscar mutters with caution before walking out.
logan drags his feet out of the house, slumping his shoulders when he realises that he has to sit at the back. he just shrugs before oscar opens the door to the driver’s seat. “you and i both, dude.”
“see you later, mate.” logan barely lands a pat on her shoulder before walking away, approaching frederik at the other end of the garage.
she looks at the shoulder that he didn’t even touch before her eyes follow the boy now jogging towards his friend. is she going insane or is logan avoiding her?
since they’d gone and grabbed food together 3 weeks ago, it’s been different. logan’s been speaking to her less, keeping conversations short and he barely even looks her in the eye. she can’t say there’s ever been a time that this has ever happened for this long.
she excused it for logan being busy initially, but 3 weeks is too long.
“hey, are you alright?” mick comes up behind her with a small smile and a hand on her back. “you’ve just been standing there for a good minute by yourself.”
“i’m… do you think i’m annoying?” she whispers, eyes wide as her brain goes at a rate it’s never gone before. she starts walking with mick and looks down, bracing herself for his answer.
“what? why would you say that?” he says softly, tilting his head. “did something happen? another reporter get on your nerves?”
she sighs, shaking her head. she looks over her shoulder again where logan walked off before and sighs again as she meets mick’s eyes momentarily. “no… i don’t know… i feel like oscar and logan are avoiding me.”
mick hums, looking around with eyebrows furrowed. surely she is just overthinking it, right? for as long as he’s known any of them, they’ve been inseparable. he can’t think of a time where either logan or oscar went without mentioning her once in a conversation.
it’s like their worlds revolved around her.
“i don’t know, mate,” mick slings an arm over her shoulder as they talk, “maybe just give it some time? it’s a busy weekend and you know they’re your best friends.”
she shrugs. “i guess you’re right. maybe they’re just busy.”
but she can’t just shake away the feeling of something not being right.
“i’m gonna tell her.”
“are you stupid?”
“what? no.”
“then don’t tell her.”
logan puts his hands on his hips, chewing on the inside of his cheek. he stares at oscar with a bewildered expression. “why not?”
oscar mirrors his expression. how stupid can logan be right now? “if she doesn’t reciprocate, then what are you going to do? we literally live with her. tell me what you’re going to do when you tell her you’re in love with her and she doesn’t feel the same way.”
the american throws his hands into the air. “i’m not in love with her!”
“it doesn’t feel that way lately!”
“i have a small crush on her. doesn’t mean that i’m in love with her, okay? and in my head, if i tell her and she doesn’t feel the same way, then it’ll make it easier to move on.”
“babe, i– crush on who?” lily tilts her head, walking into the room with a curious stare. “logan has a crush on somebody? i swear i had this same conversation speculating just 5 minutes ago.”
oscar turns around wide-eyed at his girlfriend. “nobody.”
logan sighs. “oh, lily’s not stupid. you know who i have a crush on.”
the brit blinks blankly at the 2 boys in the room. “no, i don’t.” she tilts her head as she threads the room cautiously. “am i supposed to kn– no way.”
logan nods. “yes way.”
“and you knew this whole time and you’ve been lying to me?” lily shrieks, smacking oscar’s shoulder. “why didn’t you just tell me?”
“so you could tell her and mess up our dynamic? no way!” oscar scoffs, scratching his head in frustration. “listen, i actually like living in her big house with her family. and i actually also like being best friends with her — she’s nice to me.”
“she’s nice to me too,” logan points out.
“that’s different — you’re actually in love with her.”
“i’m not in love with her!”
“you guys have got to start talking to her again,” lily mutters as she climbs into the backseat of oscar’s car. she inches forward and glances out at the window where the younger girl slowly walks over to them. “you’re killing her.”
logan turns around, shaking his leg as he keeps his hands on the steering wheel. “you’re asking too much of me!”
“i do talk to her!” oscar defends himself, throwing his hands into the air. “but i can’t keep a straight conversation with her without wanting to tell her that our best friend is in love with her!”
the urge to tell her gets worse every single time. she’s just blabbing on all the time oblivious to the fact that their best friend spends countless hours talking about how majestic she is.
“i’m not in love with her!” logan scolds, reaching out to smack oscar on the shoulder. he looks at lily and presses his lips together. “and i try to talk to her, okay? but it’s hard.”
and he really does, but she’s got this need for eye contact when she talks to people; it makes it all the harder not to start rambling about how she’s got him wrapped around her fingers currently. it’s just so unfair how she doesn’t know the effect that she’s got on him.
he can barely keep a conversation with her, his defences crumbling when their eyes meet, stuttering and losing his words. and for a guy like logan, feeling like this for someone is beyond his comprehension. it’s just not something he thinks he can get used to.
“well, you’ve got to keep it together! she’s been really upset lately!” lily mutters, smacking both of their shoulders.
logan sighs. “surely, it’s not that–”
the back door opens and the girl slides into her seat with a polite smile. “hi,” she greets them with a small nod. she doesn’t wait for a response before she puts her airpods in and starts to type away on her phone.
“i told you,” lily mouths to the two boys in the front seats, rolling her eyes as she sits back with her arms folded over her chest.
her jaw drops slightly, eyes watering at the conversation she was definitely not meant to overhear. she steps away from the doorframe she hid behind and slumps her shoulders. "you what?"
the two boys, engaged in a whispering conversation just seconds ago, widen their eyes as they turn their heads to the source of the shocked voice.
she had fallen asleep on her couch as they played video games on the playstation, and they had to have a private conversation about logan’s lingering stares and silent pining.
immediately, logan starts stuttering and flailing his hands around to come up with an excuse for what she could have possibly heard. "i- i mean.. like-"
"the girl you fancy is me?" she asks slowly, then turning to oscar. "and you kept this a secret from me the entire time?"
"no, just let me explain, god," logan smacks his forehead, trying to calm the girl down. "will you listen to me for a second?"
oscar presses his lips together and drops his head in disappointment. "i couldn't tell you. don't be like that."
"you guys made me feel like i was going crazy thinking you didn't wanna be friends with me anymore," she complains, stomping her foot into the ground. "i felt like i didn't even know you guys so well in the past month. i felt like you guys were pushing me away."
"what? no, please just listen to me. this is all my fault."
"i thought you guys didn't even wanna be friends with me anymore. all of that to find out that it's because you just suddenly realised i'm cute?" she bursts, giving logan a look. "seriously? you didn't notice that years ago when we first met?"
oscar lifts his head, his look of disappointment quickly replaced by confusion. logan also drops his hands, head tilting at her response.
he had a list formed of possible ways she could react if his secret ever came out. this was not one of them.
"pardon?"
"we've been friends for so long growing up. you think that i never had a crazy puppy crush on either of you?" she scowls at them, wiping the few tears that managed to escape her eyes. "get a grip, my dudes!"
"what?" logan screams. "you're telling me i've been in over my head for literally nothing because you've had a crush on me too?"
"had?"
"you've got a crush on him right now? and me before?" oscar exclaims in disbelief, pointing at logan. "and we never knew? seriously?"
she shrugs, folding her arms over her chest with a smug smile. "i'm just better at keeping secrets compared to you guys, i guess."
she turns on her heel and walks out of the kitchen. “you’ll get over it. trust me. i’m actually in the process of getting over my crush on you, lo.”
but she’s never been more wrong about anything in her life.
logan leans on his car, elbow propped on the roof of his car and chin in his palm. he taps away on his phone as he lazily enjoys the breeze of oxford while he waits.
“i thought you were going to be late?” she hums, tilting her head as she approaches him. she’s got his jacket around her shoulders and an eye squinted from the sun shining brightly above them. “i took all the time i could walking out of campus.”
he shrugs, pushing himself off the car and slips his phone into his pocket. “traffic cleared up a while back. where’s lily?”
she shrugs back at him with a soft giggle. she jogs over to him and wraps her arms around him momentarily before quickly pulling away. “thanks for picking me up, by the way.”
logan throws his head back with a snort, folding his arms over his chest. “did i have a choice?”
he knew better than to decline her wide eyes asking him to please pick him up from campus after an entire day of classes. that, and that fact that it’s just so difficult to say no to her when it came to things like this.
“very funny,” she laughs with a playful eye roll as she rounds the car to the other side. “lily has something on with another module. let’s head out to dinner, you and i?”
he grins and unlocks his car. “yep. let’s go.”
"what's wrong?" worry paints her face as he starts acting calmer than before. her eyes follow logan's hands, lifted up to her face as he tries to brush back her stray hair behind her ears. "are you alright?"
"have i ever told you," he pauses to trace a line down her cheek with his fingertips, "how pretty you are?"
"only when you're drunk," she whispers back with a playful smile. "did you ingest some kind of poison and you've only got a couple minutes to live? is that why you're like this?"
"no," he shakes his head. a small smile appears on his face, tucking a finger under his chin to lift her eyes up to meet his. "i just think you look very pretty. i don't tell you that often."
she admits she almost felt her knees buckle at his words and melt on the ground at his words. logan had never been a very outwardly affectionate type unless he's drunk, so while this is expected behaviour out of him, it's never gotten quite as intimate as this.
she's had him fall asleep with his head in her lap before on the couch, but never has he been this close to her while whispering sweet words at her.
"it would be weird."
"it shouldn't be."
"logan, are you alright?"
he doesn't respond. and she freezes in her spot when his hand drags along her skin, cupping her cheek as he leans down into her. and he would have done it. he would have kissed her but something stops him.
it could’ve been the sheer reminder that they’re supposed to be just best friends. just that, nothing more and nothing less.
he stops himself right as their noses touch and sighs shakily, holding himself up with a hand on her arm. “i’m sorry.”
she lets out a soft sigh and forces a grin on her face. she grabs his shoulders to stabilise him, “do you need to throw up?”
“i think so,” he mutters with a hand on his chest. he turns to look at her with a heaving chest and puffy lips. “can you help me back to the villa please?”
she chuckles, approaching him with her arms held out. “okay, let’s get you back, mate.”
she stands in front of the bedroom door, stuffed bear in hand with a soft huff as she awaits a response.
the door opens, revealing logan in his pyjamas and dishevelled hair. he blinks for a few moments before realising who’s standing at the door. “oh, hi.”
“i couldn’t sleep,” she sighs softly, pursing her lips and slouching slightly. “can i sleep in oscar’s bed?”
logan blinks. he tries to think of what oscar would say if he consulted the australian about what to say in response to her question.
his heart has a simple answer: yes, let her spend the night in your bedroom. but his mind, clearly going with logic, knows exactly the solution to avoid getting himself into deeper shit: maybe you shouldn’t let her because it will complicate things.
guess which answer logan chooses.
“yeah, of course.” logan takes a step back and beckons her into the room. “what’s wrong? nightmare? watched a horror movie all by yourself again and scared yourself?”
“yeah,” she grins sheepishly, climbing onto oscar’s bed.
lie. she couldn’t fall asleep at the thought of logan and her almost kissing a week ago on their trip to the bahamas. and since oscar’s not here to put a stop to their antics, she did the one thing she knows would put her to sleep, or at least to a calmer state of mind.
“oh, what did you watch?” logan giggles, closing the door behind him. “do you need me to turn the nightlight on again?”
she smiles, shaking her head. “just insidious. i got bored while i was doing my homework.”
“you should really start watching that with someone around,” logan sighs, walking over to his bed on the other side of the room. “you know how insidious gets you all jumpy and weird.”
“yeah, i barely made it to 20 minutes of the movie,” she laughs, sighing as she drops her back on the bed. she pulls the blankets up and tucks herself under them. “anyway, thanks for letting me sleep here tonight.”
“of course, dude.”
logan finds himself at her university campus once more, leaning up against the side of his car as he awaits the girl to meet up with him.
he hears heels clicking against the gravel of the university parking lot, making him raise his head in anticipation with a wide grin.
“aw, happy birthday, dude!” logan cheers, opening his arms to the girl approaching him. “how were your classes?”
she sighs heavily, rolling her eyes. “horrid.”
“you left before oscar and i could make you pancakes for breakfast,” logan frowns, squeezing her slightly as she stumbles into his body. “we’re going to take you out for pancakes instead.”
“wow, pancakes for dinner?” she giggles with a hand on her chest. “how lovely.”
“and ice cream,” logan beams with a grin. he gently reaches forward to take her laptop into his hands along with the bag on her shoulder. “because it’s your birthday–”
“where’s my gift?” she teases, hopping forward to rest her chin on his arm. she looks up at him with puffed cheeks and wide eyes. “you promised me a present this year.”
logan blinks blankly at her. he looks at the way she’s cosied up into his body and then back into her eyes. “it’s with oscar.”
she blinks, taking a step back as she realises how close she’s gotten to him. “so you got me a present? how sweet of you, logan.”
“you threatened me to get you a present,” logan scoffs with a roll of his eyes. he starts laughing along with her, shoving her things into the backseat of his car. “as i was saying, because it’s your birthday, i’m giving you 2 options: to drive my car, or to not.”
he flashes her his car keys, dangling them high enough in the air for her to not reach them.
“i’m getting spoiled this year with options,” she laughs, jumping into the air to snatch the key out of logan’s hands. “i wouldn’t turn down the chance to drive your car and send you into cardiac arrest.”
she walks around logan to run over to the driver’s side of the car. “don’t forget to wear your seatbelt.”
“i wouldn’t ever dare if you’re the one driving.”
gen taglist: @33-81 @darleneslane @namgification @localwhoore @happy-nico @nikfigueiredo
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can you do like a spin off to the fic you did where rafe went to the strip club, and instead of them making up y/n stands on business and leaves 😭? thank you if you do i love your writing smmm
based off of this request
warnings: angst, cheating
a/n: i heard y’all loud and clear, i hope you guys like this version just as much, if not more <3
“fuck, they don’t make them like this on figure eight.” you watched with watery eyes as rafe’s hands roamed the body of a stranger, his friends hollering in the background. seeing rafe receive a lap dance should’ve been enough for you to click out of instagram and call it quits, but you couldn’t help yourself in watching the rest of kelce’s stories. after skimming through the rest of the photos and videos, you didn’t have any tears left in you to cry.
getting up on shaky legs, you took everything you could fit in a suitcase, ignoring the calls from rafe as you went around your shared bedroom, grabbing your things. just as you were taking your last bag downstairs, the front door opened, revealing the last person you wanted to face right now. “what’s all of this?” your head shot up at the voice, your lips swollen from biting on them so hard. “what’s wrong?” he moved close, making you back away.
“please don’t touch me.” your voice came out weak. rafe scoffed, blinking rapidly as you took a seat on the couch, holding your head in your hands. “what’s wrong with you? why do you have all your shit down here?” he kneeled in front of you, the smell of cheap perfume filling your senses. “you should probably remind your friends to hide me from their story ‘next time you want to let someone put their boobs in your face.” you sniffled, avoiding his gaze.
rafe sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before he reached for your arm. “baby, please, i can explain everything.” you smiled, shaking your head. “you don’t have to. i really don’t care anymore, i’m leaving.” he narrowed his eyes at you, stumbling over his next words. “w-what the fuck are you talking about?” he grabbed two of your bags, about to take them upstairs before you stopped him. “this isn’t the first time you’ve been unfaithful, rafe, and if i don’t leave right now, it won’t be the last.” your voice cracked.
he shook his head, jogging upstairs, only to see you had cleared everything that belonged to you. rafe’s heart dropped, it looked like you had never been here to begin with. panic settled in his gut. “you can’t leave, i won’t let you.” he came back down, his eyes filled with guilt. “i already have a car on the way.” rafe shouted, punching the air. “y/n, i’m begging you baby, please let’s just go to bed-” you watched him cry, and for the first time you felt nothing. “we’ll forget all about this in the morning, alright? i’ll take you somewhere nice for breakfast, we could spend the day on the druthers the way that you like.” by the way he was talking, it sounded like he was reassuring himself more than you.
“and sweep it under the rug just like the last few times? no.” you laughed bitterly. “you cheat and time and time again i don’t do anything about it. i’m so tired, rafe. ‘tired of hearing the women at the country club call me ‘dumb and clueless’, i’m tired of everyone giving me pitiful looks everytime we walk inside a room.. i’m tired of not being valued.” you looked down at your hand, removing the promise ring that clearly didn’t mean anything.
“hey, hey, come on,” he pulled you up, “i value you, you know i do. i get you everything you want, goddamit, i take care of you!” you flinched at the volume of his voice. “i could get myself whatever i want rafe. all i’ve ever wanted was for you to be faithful, and you can’t even do that.” he watched as you glanced outside. “my ride is here.” he blinked, everything hitting him all at once. “y/n, stop.” he held you in place, not allowing you to move until you shoved him.
“there’s someone out there who is going to love me, and care about my feelings in all situations, someone who isn’t selfish.” you started rolling your suitcase out of the house, rafe following closely behind. “please don’t leave!” he ran his fingers through his hair. he begged and begged until you had the very last bag. “i hope one day you meet someone like yourself, fall in love with them, and see that no matter what you do, it will never be enough.” he watched you get into the black suv, feeling nothing but despair as the car drove away.
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Love and Deepspace; Sleepless Nights
≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫
I was in the shower listening to Sleepless Nights by 9Muses and got this idea in my head. I’m starting to write this at 1am so don’t expect quality lol.
Pairing: Zayne/F!Reader
Genre: Angst, Hurt with Comfort
CW: Written on mobile, nightmares, possible descriptions of gore, some spoilers to his myth i guess?, use of nicknames (dove, aurora)
Summary: When MC has a nightmare that leaves her shaken.
She was running. Boots hitting the concrete with a solid slam as she darted through the crowd of blurry faces. She was running to a burning building.
Then she wasn’t running anymore. She was in a field of wilted jasmine flowers. The sky a toxic grey, clouds masking any hint of a blue sky from her eyes. The wilted flowers crunched under her bare feet as she walked. She didn’t know where she was headed until she saw a silhouette. “Zayne?” She called out, voice hoarse, a hollow echo flooding the nearly empty field.
But he ignored her. As she drew closer, steps growing more frantic, it felt as though he was only getting further away. “Zayne!” She called desperately, tears welling up in her eyes as an indescribable feeling of fear overcame her.
Before she could break out into a run, the ground disappeared below her. She plummeted down, landing somewhat painlessly on a hard stone floor. A chain had been secured on her wrist and a beautifully ominous frost began to creep towards her. She shivered violently, weakly pleading for Zayne to save her. She closed her eyes for a moment and found herself in front of him. He was shackled by chains the same way she had been but this time, he was gritting his teeth. “Zayne?” Her lips were stiff from the cold and a soft snowflake pattern etched itself up her body. “What…what is this? What’s happening?”
His brow furrowed and his eyes shut as an icicle plunged through his chest. “I-I don’t want to hurt you…” Zayne gasped, the icicles continuing to pierce through his skin. “This isn’t me, my dove, I-I’m so sorry.” A sob like sound fell from his lips as a horrid pain shot through her heart. Her gaze fell, it was one of his icicles.
She gasped, lungs expanding as though she was drowning. The man she loved was sitting up beside her in a heartbeat, gently running his fingers through her hair. "You're alright, I've got you." He frowned at her shaken state, the silence filling the room was deafening. "Do you need anything? Water, something to eat?" His voice was gentle, soft. The voice he only used for her.
"I-I...I saw you get hurt. You died." Zayne cupped her face in his hands, wiping the tears from her weeping eyes. "Then-then you lost control of your evol, the ice..." She raised her hand to her chest, the memory of the shard tearing through her skin felt so real. "You looked so scared, so afraid... I couldn't even say anything."
Zayne remained silent, a soft sigh falling from his mouth. "You will never have to worry about that coming true, my aurora, I will never harm you even if it kills me." He pulled her against his chest, placing one of her shaking hands on his chest. "See? We're here, you can feel my heart beating, can't you?"
Her breathing started to even out then, the aching in her chest subsiding now that she could truly feel him in front of her. "I love you, Zayne."
"I love you too, aurora."
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The Thorns in My Soul are For You
Description: a Hanahaki Disease AU, Reader is in love with Dazai and has been for a long while. They were in the port mafia but they left with Dazai
Word Count: 2208
Part 3
Previous Part |
TW: Blood, mentions of sickness, coughing up stomach contents, hospital scene
~~
During the course of a few weeks, things turned from bad to worse. You had been keeping track of the news, seeing more and more vampire sightings along with updates of political meetings. You had to disguise yourself every time you stepped out in public, there were a couple close calls with police and other official authorities. You even had a few encounters with vampires.
Everything had taken a toll on you, much earlier than you’d like to admit. A few nights had been spent crying yourself to sleep or not sleeping at was a more popular outcome. All the running and the emotional breakdowns were not helped at all by the disease growing in your lungs. In fact, it made the disease grow stronger, rendering you weaker by the day.
Petals exploded on the ground, accompanied by their stems and fully grown flowers, soaked in your blood. Another painful cough hacked it’s way out of your system, ejecting even more fully bloomed flowers onto the floor. You’d have to leave this place within the next few hours if you were to escape authorities. Thankfully, you planned to leave within the next few moments.
You were too weak to run, too loud to hide anymore. The inevitability of your capture was approaching. You stopped going out a few days ago, your stomach growled in hunger and your body longed for water. Everything in your body ached, your chest aching the worst of all. But despite all the pain, you would rather die than be caught by vampires or police. But you wanted to make one last stop before you were to die.
You had travelled back to Yokohama, it had taken you a while, but you managed to sneak by everything.
Throwing the hood over your head to better hide your identity, you ventured out of the rundown building you claimed as your final home. It wasn’t far from your destination, but it still took you 20 minutes to get to the cemetery.
The leaves rustled in the wind, almost like they were excited to see you after months of no visits. You clambered up the stone steps, quietly approaching the one lone gravestone beneath a large tree.
“Hi Odasaku. Long time no see.” Your voice was quiet, not by choice as you began to feel the itchiness of another coughing fit brewing.
“Sorry I’ve been gone so long, I had to keep a low profile for a while. But now I’m here again. I can’t keep running anymore. The vines are digging in, even now as I’m standing here I can feel them growing deeper into my lungs.” You take a moment to breathe. “I don’t have long left, I’ll be seeing you personally soon. Maybe we can play chess again, I’ve gotten better since the last time we played. I’m sure I have a chance against you.”
Your mind begins to wander, flashbacks of the past coming to the forefront of your mind.
Moments where Odasaku laughed with you as you swapped out Chuuyas wine for blackcurrant juice. Times where you took a stroll along the beach with him, catching up after a long mission away. You remember the training he gave you, where you first beat him after years of it. That was the only chance you had at beating him. Times where Dazai -
Dazai.
You haven’t seen him in so long. Last you heard of him he had been captured by the hunting dogs and was being held in a highly secured prison.
You weren’t going to get the chance to say goodbye to him. You’d never be able to tell him how you really felt, and you had no way to write it down either. You were going to die without saying anything to him or leaving him with anything. Or perhaps he thought you already were? Maybe he does think you’re dead. That’s why no one tried finding you and bringing you back. You’d leave no trace of yourself in this world. You’d be a memory for those who cared, which were limited.
This spiral of thoughts caused your breathing to increase, triggering the violent reaction your lungs had been cooking up.
You couldn’t breathe in. All you could do was cough and choke, barely a sound left you. Your vision blurred, red spotting the once grey slate in front of you. You collapsed on the ground, convulsing with each cough that forced its way out of you. Vines were spilling out your mouth, a few of them accompanied by thorns which shredded your throat.
You were dying. Right now.
Your final resting place would be that of your best friend. At least Dazai wouldn’t have to go to separate places to mourn.
You laid on your back, giving in to the fact that breathing in was no longer an option. Instead you opted to wait out the seconds as your brain shut down.
Everything hurt. But it wasn’t painful. It was… numb. Peaceful.
Your eyes grew heavy, unable to stay open any longer.
As you closed them, you saw a figure slide into your vision before it finally blacked out.
~•~
Everything felt heavy. Your eyes, your hands, your chest, your mind.
Were you alive? You had no idea, you couldn’t open your eyes or even feel anything. It was like you were submerged in water, forcing you into a senseless pit.
But your ears were still working, sounds filtered through them. It took you a while but you finally managed to decipher them. A conversation was taking place near you, and you recognised their voices almost instantly.
“She nearly died, asshole!” Chuuya sounds furious. “You are one of the smartest people I know yet you were so fucking dumb to not open your fucking eyes! Dazai they could’ve died!” Dazai? He’s here? But what’s Chuuya talking about? “They stopped breathing. Their heart stopped beating! It’s a fucking miracle the doctors managed to bring them back, but they cannot do it a second time.”
“I thought I had more time.” Dazai sounded hurt, his voice soft. But despite that, he was closer to you then Chuuya was. “I thought I could wait until all this was over.”
“That isn’t how the disease works and you know it! It doesn’t wait for the right time, we’re lucky as hell that they managed to survive with it for so long!!” Chuuya was really mad. “They almost died! Is that the moment you were waiting for?!”
Silence subdued the moment before Dazai whispered his response. “No.”
“Did you think you could waltz up to their grave and confess to them? Hoping that would be enough?”
Dazai didn’t respond to that.
“You need to grow your fucking balls and answer the god damn question.” There was silence for a few seconds. “Do you love them?”
The air was suffocating now, suspension hanging on tightly within the room. You could hear your heart beating through your ears. The feeling of a heavy weight seemed to press into you, the suspension dragging on.
Until…
“I do. I love them.”
In the span of three seconds, everything happened.
You felt shock ripple through your system, practically vibrating your body. Your lungs ceased and seemed to convulse into itself, forcing you to splutter out thick liquid. But something was in the way. Your eyes remained closed as your body shook with each strangled cough you let out, blood and roses struggling to get past the intubation tube.
Voices shouted over you saying things that you couldn't quite catch, still muffled due to the shock. Hands were on your body, keeping you still as more were felt at your head.
It was so much. The hands, the tube, the coughing, the mixture of pain and relief. You lost consciousness again.
When you regained your awareness, your body felt lighter, at ease. For a moment, you thought you were dead. But you managed to open your eyes, noting how light they now felt.
White tiled walls. Machines accompanied by wires and tubes. Bed railing on one side. Everything seemed plain and simple for a hospital.
You took a few deep breaths-
Wait.
You breathed in again, air flowing freely within you. You could breathe clearly now. No more breathing through what felt like a blocked up vent. The flowers were no more!
Relief washed over you, a smile carving its way onto your face. You could almost cry.
The sound of slight shuffling startled you. Your gaze shifted to your left, only now taking into account the fact that you were sitting up slightly, bed raised to support you. Dazai rested his head on the bed, one arm being used as a pillow while his other hand held onto yours.
You stared at your hands, his tightly gripped one against your slack one. His hand felt warm. At least warmer than yours. You could tell by the dark circles under his eyes and the sunken features of his face that he hadn’t been taking care of himself. His usual fit was swapped out for a loose fitting jumper, making him appear smaller, along with a pair of track pants. He looked so rugged and tired, different to his typical cheerful demeanour he danced around with. Even his hand looked more skeletal than it should be.
Taking a slow breath, you tighten your grip, allowing your fingers to smoothly rest between his. It felt like the final pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
Dazai twitched, startling you. You wanted to pull your hand away from his, but he stopped you.
Brown eyes opened, lazily looking at yours. You could practically see his brain processing everything. He suddenly sat up, eyes wide and mouth agape.
“(Y/n)?” His voice was hoarse, most likely from having just woken up from his slumber.
“Dazai?” Your own voice was rough, but you chose to ignore it.
Dazai surged forward, swiftly removing his hand from yours, instead wrapping both his arms around you, bringing you into his chest.
You whimpered in his arms, overwhelmed by a rush of emotions. He is here, holding onto you for life. You encircle your arms around his waist, noting how skinny and fragile he felt compared to usual.
Tears flowed down your cheeks silently, soaking into the beige jumper Dazai is wearing.
“I’m so sorry (Y/n), I should’ve said something sooner. It’s my fault you ended up like this.”
For a moment you're confused. But then everything catches up to you. Wriggling out of his arms, you look up at him, his features dulled by malnutrition. Your hands come up to rest on his cheeks, thumbs gently stroking away his own tears that had flowed from his eyes.
“It’s not your fault. I’m okay now. I’m here.” Dazai can only nod, more tears escaping. “Did you really mean what you said? About liking me?”
Dazai stares at you for a moment, his brown eyes flickering between yours. The next moment, his lips are on yours. They meld perfectly together, moving in sync with no rush in movement.
“Fucking finally. Only took you three years to grow some balls.”
You detach from each other, turning to look at Chuuya. A smile spreads across your face. “Hi Chuuya.”
Chuuya scowls. “Don’t just ‘hi Chuuya’ me. You gave me the biggest fucking panic. Do you know how terrifying it is to watch your friend vomit and cough up their lungs and collapse in the middle of the street?!” You frown, leaning your head against Dazai’s chest. “Whatever. I’m glad you two are finally together after dancing around each other for so long.” He walks up to you and drops a plastic bag full of food at your feet. “Doctor says you need to eat to replenish your energy. Your body is still getting rid of the disease so it will take a couple of days to do so, and that means you need to keep up your food. Mackerel you need to eat as well. You look like a sack of bones.”
“Aww does chibi miss me?” Dazai quips back with a smile. It’s good to see their usual banter return. It feels like the entire dynamic between the three of you has returned after so long.
Chuuya scoffs, but you don’t miss and quirk in his lips as he turns away. “Whatever. Just eat all the damn food.” He closes the door behind him, leaving you and Dazai alone once again.
Dazai pulls away from you, grabbing the nearby chair to take his seat, but your hand on his arm stops him. He looks up at you.
“Sit with me?” You say with a smile before shuffling across the bed, making room for Dazai.
“Are you sure?” When you reply with a nod, he slowly climbs into the bed next to you, grabbing the bag of food before adjusting the bed angle so you two can comfortably lean back and eat.
The next couple of days are spent like that. Sleeping together in the one bed, eating bags of food that Chuuya brings alongside the ADA, and talking about mundane topics.
When you are finally discharged from the hospital, you and Dazai walk out the door, hands intertwined with each other.
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for writing requests, the chain givin wars a big ol group hug and letting him cry cus let’s be honest bro is not holding up well
Sunsets were always Sky’s favorite.
It was strange, how much a moment in time could change something like that, though. A few evenings ago, the sunset was stained blood read, dripping with anguish and fear, held together by a firm hand and guidance. It hadn’t come from their leader, however - the Hero of Time had been completely consumed by worry over Twilight’s condition, and Sky hadn’t blamed him for it, particularly after finding out they had a blood connection.
But after that initial horrifying sunset, Sky found that the dusk brought only exhaustion and melancholy, a worry that there would be another sunset that would stain the sky with blood.
Sighing, the young knight glanced out his window and saw the person he’d been looking for. While Time had been by Twilight’s side that entire evening, there had been another Hero who everyone had heavily relied on. Sky had tried to mediate and help as best he could as well, but he paled in comparison, certainly in terms of leadership capabilities.
But everything had a toll. Sky could see it well enough.
Exiting the inn, Sky heard the gentle serenade of crickets filling the air as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. The town was not as peaceful and quiet as camping out in the woods, but it held a warm sense of safety that they usually didn’t have the luxury to enjoy. Any town gave Sky a small degree of anxiety, as they were all foreign to him, but settlements like this put the captain at ease far more than anyone else.
At least Sky knew Warriors could get some peace somewhere. It was obvious the man was trying to seek it.
Warriors heard Sky’s approach, turning his head slightly. His sharp eyes were analyzing him in an instant.
“Hey,” Sky greeted softly, trying to settle the man’s worries; he’d been on high alert ever since Twilight’s injury, and he’d yet to calm down. It had been three days since then. “I just wanted to check on you.”
Warriors blinked, baffled a moment, not expecting such a remark, and then he huffed out a small laugh. “Me? I’m alright. Are you?”
Him? Sky was fine. Sky was always fine. He honestly didn’t feel much of anything anymore, except that sunsets made him anxious. He hoped that would settle eventually, as he did love them. “I’m okay. But I just… you’ve been on edge, you know. Since everything. Do you… our Ordonian is going to be okay now. They said so. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that,” Warriors replied, his smile fading, voice growing slightly snappish.
“It’s just… you’re not acting like you know that,” Sky continued carefully. “You’re… anything sets you off. Everything has to be in perfect order, everyone has to be on their best behavior. You know? I just… wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Warriors watched him for a long time, face blank. His eyes steadily moved downward until they were staring at nothing, boring a hole in the cobblestone beneath Sky’s feet. The Skyloftian waited patiently, knowing when to be silent and let someone else process. Eventually, the captain sighed heavily.
“You were a great help that night,” Warriors said softly. “I wanted to thank you.”
“It was nothing,” Sky brushed off. “That’s not answering my question.”
Warriors huffed ruefully in response. “You’re not usually this persistent.”
“No,” Sky admitted. “But I’m not usually this worried, either.”
The captain’s eyes finally snapped back up to meet Sky’s. His stony expression softened, and he smiled gently. “I said I’m alright.”
“You can be, yeah,” Sky commented. “Like… you don’t have to wrangle everyone in now, you know. I’m here. Our leader’s getting back into, well… leading. It’s okay to step back.”
Something in the captain’s expression wasn’t quite readable, a kind of strange gentle amusement and haunting sadness. Sky wasn’t sure what to do about it. So he just walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Warriors seemed both inquisitive and slightly apprehensive at the touch, so Sky asked to be sure, “Can I hug you?”
The captain looked as if he didn’t even know what to say with such a request. He blinked once, twice, before a breathy laugh escaped his lips, eyes holding a tenderness to them that Sky wasn’t sure he’d ever seen in them. “Yeah. Yeah, you can.”
Sky smiled in return, leaning in and letting the captain wrap his arms around him. Sky gave what he received, not squeezing too tightly when Warriors’ embrace was hesitantly gentle. As they stood there, though, it seemed like the older knight settled into his predicament a bit more, letting himself relax as Sky held him tighter. Being a little shorter, Sky settled his ear against Warriors’ shoulder, and the gesture made the captain shift a little, resting his own head against Sky’s. His breath was shaky a moment, and Sky heard him swallow thickly.
It only lasted a few moments, but it was enough. Sky ached for the contact, honestly, and wished he could hug him more, but he knew better than to push the matter. Slowly, the two pulled apart. If Warriors’ face was a little more flushed than before, neither of them commented on it.
“Thanks, Sky,” the captain said quietly.
Sky’s smile was brighter than the sunset. “Anytime.”
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Was really looking forward to killing Luceris but I just don’t think I have it in me anymore 😩 I think I’m officially defecting from the Burn It Til It’s All Gone Party, sad news 💔 you have my dead ghost twin, Alistair, who’s just so disappointed in me. Then you have my guardian angel dad, Lance, who’s got the googly eyes for Asshole™. And then you have my sunshine soulmate, Helios, who’s literally the flesh and blood of Asshole™. 😕
Initially, even though I understood that killing him wouldn’t bring anything back, I thought I’d feel better and at least I’d get something out of it lmao but now I’m questioning that. Like, I’d allow myself to be surrounded by tragedy, negativity only to wind up with even more of that. I’d hate Luceris to the point of killing him, but then, he’d ultimately win since I’ll have ended up destroying myself. Might as well just dig two graves for the both of us. . . Basically a nasty, destructive, fruitless, probably-not-worth-it vanity project. 😬 So, only two options for me: Give Helios, Lancelot, my family’s memory, Luceris, and Rosea one big middle finger OR give up on my dreams and die ( / live / be better). 😐
Grrrr. I wanted to be bad and angry and stab people! Now I’m being the “bigger person.” To be loved, and to love, is to be changed. . . I guess. . . 🙃
Aw man, welcome to the peace route! 😭 We have hopes and dreams over here, maybe.
Just to clear it up, the Alistair MC hears is purely made up by them. MC thinks Alistair as good which is why at times the voice opposes what they do so technically it's all MC and their dead twin is well plain dead and not speaking.
It's okay, anon, I'm sure love will make not taking revenge all worth it. 🥺
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Come Down Soon
j.m.k x reader
(part two to Head First)
a/n: Hey everyone! It's been a while. Inspiration for the closure of this short story came to me recently, so I've finally been able to write it and get it to you all! I'm really proud of how their little story turned out. I hope you like it.
word count: 10.5k
warnings: THIS STORY CONTAINS SMUT! MINORS DNI!!! swearing, drinking, smoking, angst, arguing, fluff; SMUT: kissing, sexually explicit language, dirty talk, fingering, unprotected sex, spanking, choking, slight biting, tiny bit of breeding kink if you squint, soft dom josh <3
part one
“ Something here
I’m biding time ‘til it disappears
Oh, it’ll come down soon ”
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APRIL 2024 – 5 YEARS LATER
You wake up to your alarm wailing in your ear, shaking you awake. Fuck, you think to yourself. I really need to stop going out on weeknights. You roll out of bed and quickly get ready in the bathroom, coming to terms with the fact that you’ll be late for work. Luckily for you, your boss is your father, so you don’t have anything to worry about.
You’re still in Frankenmuth, working for your dad at the music store, your life staying as consistent as ever. But it was comfortable, and comfortable is exactly what you need. A few years back, you got a business degree with hopes of taking over the business for your dad after he retires. Your younger brother wasn’t as into music as the two of you are, only playing guitar every once in a while. He moved to Chicago three years ago to go to Northwestern to study economics, leaving you here to take over the family business one day. That’s still a solid five or ten years away, but you’re prepared. You already practically run the place, working from open to close every single day.
This didn’t bother you. You were perfectly content with that being your life. You loved music and you loved teaching it, so you were happy, truly. But every once in a while, your mind would wander to the ideas of what could have been, and you get stuck there. You hated when your mind would wander there, to him. It sent a sickening feeling throughout your entire body and you would be stuck, frozen in time. Frozen in the past.
Sitting back in your chair behind the counter in the empty music store, you start to doze off. On a random Tuesday morning like this, hardly anyone ever comes in. It’s way busier in the early evenings and on the weekends, but someone had to be here. You usually have another worker come in around 3 pm, but it’s only you until then on weekdays.
You feel your head start to fall heavily to the side and you’re so lost in your exhaustion that you don’t hear the chime of the bells on the door jingle. You don’t hear the silent figure approaching the counter, watching you curiously as you breathe slow, long breaths through your slightly open mouth. But you’re suddenly jolted awake when the mystery figure taps the little bell on the counter and your head swiftly rushes upright, making you hit it harshly against the wall behind you.
“Fuck!” you exclaim, raising your hand to rub soft circles against the back of your head where you hit it against the hard plaster. As you start to recalibrate yourself, your eyes finally fall onto the figure in front of you who was responsible for the bell. “Sam? Is that you?” The tall man in front of you smiles widely, his dimples appearing at the ends of his mustache.
“In the flesh,” Sam smiles confidently, leaning his long arms onto the counter. “Hi, Smalls. Long time, no see.” You roll your eyes at the old nickname, standing up from your chair to round the counter and greet him.
“You really don’t have to call me that anymore, Sam. We’re grown now, you know,” you joke, bringing him in for a tight hug. He chuckles above you, patting your back lightly.
“You’ll always be Smalls to me, no matter how old we are,” he teases, rustling your hair on the top of your head playfully.
“You’re an idiot. What the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you guys a little too big now for this town?” you ask, releasing him from the hug and leaning your back against the counter. He slots his hands in his front pockets with a laugh as he starts to answer.
“We’re really not all that,” he says modestly, looking down at his feet before looking back up to your gaze.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sam. You guys are selling out arenas left and right… you’ve big-timed us for sure,” you answer with a playful scoff. He just shrugs, avoiding talking too much about their success.
“Whatever. We’re just here to visit Mom and Dad for a while before this next leg of the tour, that’s all. It’s a long one, so they wanted to see us.” You nod, fiddling with your fingers.
“So, you’re all here? All three of you?” you ask apprehensively, slightly afraid of what you know the answer will be. He rubs his hand on the back of his neck nervously, then nods.
“Yeah, we’re all here. Jake and Josh are back at home, they sent me out to go to the grocery store for a few things. Clearly, I got sidetracked…” he says, chuckling at the end. You smile and laugh with him– Sam could never complete an errand without getting distracted somehow.
“I see… well, it’s good to see you. You’ve really grown up, I’m proud of you,” you say with a smile, crossing your arms as you lean back against the counter.
“Thanks, Smalls… It’s really nice to see you, I’ve missed you,” he says earnestly, walking a bit closer to you. “We all have.” That sentence cut straight through to the heart. God, you didn’t think this would be so hard.
You’d successfully managed to evade interaction with them each time they’ve come into town over the years, but now you couldn’t avoid it. It’s been four years since you’d last spoken to Sam Kiszka, or any of them for that matter. You didn’t cut them all off intentionally, but it just happened in the aftermath.
“Right, I… I’ve missed you too,” you say hesitantly, backing away to go back behind the counter.
“Y/N, I think my parents would really like it if you came by for dinner tonight. It would be nice, just like old times,” he says, looking down at you hopefully. Great, exactly what you’ve been dreading.
“Oh, I really don’t know, Sam. I don’t think Josh would…” you trail off, looking down at your feet.
“Look, I’m not entirely sure about what happened between you two, but please. Please come to dinner. It’s been years, I’m sure he’s over it,” he pleads. You’re not too sure about that, but they don’t know the full story. “I promise, Smalls. Just think about it. My number is still the same as before, just send me a text after your shift ends and let me know what you decide, okay?”
Shit. He never makes it easy to say no to him. The puppy-dog eyes still work on his 25-year-old face, the same as they did when he was 18. You were no match for it, and he knew it, too.
“Okay. Okay, fine, I’ll think about it,” you concede, exhaustion coating your voice. “But no promises, alright?” His face lights up with an eager nod. He reaches over the counter and pokes your nose with his pointer finger, eliciting a giggle out of you as he smiles then turns around toward the door.
“Okay, Smalls, I’ve got some shopping to do. See you later!” he yells opening the door and walking out of the store.
God, this was going to be a long day. It wasn’t at all like how you expected it to be. You went through the rest of your shift worrying about the worst-case scenario of how dinner could go down tonight. Before you know it, it’s already 3 o’clock, and your dad walks through the doors.
“Dad? What are you doing here? I thought Parker was supposed to be coming in tonight,” you ask as he approaches the counter. He shrugs, heading to the office behind the counter and setting his stuff down on his desk.
“He called out sick, so I just decided to come in for him,” he says casually, slipping a sweatshirt on over his head. You nod, your mind trailing back to your current predicament.
“Did you know that the Kiszkas were in town?” you ask, looking over at him. His eyes shift guiltily as he approaches you.
“Yeah… I caught Kelly outside on the porch the other day and he told me about it. I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you about it. Didn’t want to upset you,” he admits, rubbing your shoulder softly.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine,” you say, lying through your teeth. If anyone understood how you felt about your fallout with Josh, it was your dad. He was there for you through it all, as you tried to bury your feelings by working endless shifts at the shop. He says it never gave him any bias, but you know that secretly, he felt differently about Josh since that day. No matter what, he was always on your side.
“Sam came in here this morning. Asked me to come to dinner at their house after work,” you admit, fiddling with the hem of your t-shirt.
“Oh. Are you going to go?” he asks apprehensively. You look up at him and see the concern in his eyes.
“Uh, yeah. I think I will. Sam really wants me to and… it’s been four years. We’ll have to get over it some time. Might as well be now,” you say, trying to seem as sure as possible, despite how unsure you actually felt. Your dad raised you to be strong, and you wanted to be that person for him.
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he says, offering a reassuring smile. You nod with a smile.
“Why don’t you just head out now, hon? I can handle the rest of the night. You just go home and get ready for dinner,��� he offers, not giving you any time to protest before he walks off to do inventory in the back of the store. You shrug to yourself and decide to just go home, grabbing your tote from the office and heading out to the front of the store to your car parked in the front space.
The store is only a ten-minute drive from home, so you’re back before you know it. You pull into the driveway then gather your things, heading inside. You walk in to find your mother in the kitchen, cooking some dinner.
“Hi baby, how was work?” she asks, turning around to face you.
“It was alright, pretty slow,” you say, stopping in the kitchen to talk for a moment.
“I talked to your brother today, he should be coming home in a few weeks after finals are over,” she says, stirring the food in the pot as she talks.
“Oh, that’s cool. That should be nice,” you remark, your mind wandering, making you unable to entertain the conversation much more, so she changes the subject.
“Are you hungry? I’m making some pasta with vodka sauce right now if you want some,” she asks. You weren’t sure how you’d explain this situation to her, but you have to.
“Actually… I’m going to the Kiszkas for dinner,” you answer quietly. She stops stirring in her pot and looks at you, her eyes drooping just like your dad’s did not long ago.
“Oh! That’s quite a surprise,” she answers honestly, her face feigning excitement but her eyes give her away.
“Mom, it’s fine. I’m fine. Seriously, it’s no big deal,” you answer, trying to convince yourself as well as her. She gives you a small smile and nods, and you take your leave up the stairs to your bedroom. Over the years, you’ve renovated the large attic in your parent’s house so that you had more of your own space away from them in your adulthood, while still living at home. It’s been nice and quite private, you’ve really made it your own.
As you set your bag down on the floor and sit down on your bed, your mind travels back in time to the last time you saw Josh Kiszka. You still wonder where it all went wrong. It was perfect, truly perfect– until it wasn’t. The worst part about it is that it was nobody’s fault, there was no one to blame. You wondered for years if it was just the right person but the wrong time, but those delusions soon faded away as the years progressed and you still never heard from him. He’d moved on, and so had you.
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JUNE 2020
“I just don’t understand why you won’t just come with us! You’d be perfect there– I need you there!” Josh shouted, slamming his hands down on the counter in frustration as you leaned your back against the kitchen counter, keeping your head low.
“Josh, it isn’t that fucking easy! I can’t just pick up and leave! I have responsibilities here! My job, my family!” you yelled with your head in your hands.
The band made plans to move to Nashville, Tennessee by the end of the month, hoping to record their music there instead. Their success had shot up significantly since the two of you got together, with money pouring in and new music being recorded left and right. You knew they’d outgrow you and this town, but you didn’t think it would happen this soon.
He begged you to come with him, insisting that you could find a job down there and live with him and Jake, but that wasn’t what you wanted. You made a commitment to your father, having started online business classes with UMich in January with hopes to someday run the shop yourself. Josh knew that, but he insisted that you come with him.
“Don’t you think I’m making sacrifices here, too? I don’t want to have to leave my parents, but it’s our destiny, Saph! This is what I’m meant to do, I thought you’d understand that,” he groaned, shaking his head angrily. Tears start to fill your waterline as you struggle to get your words out.
“Of course I understand! I’ve always believed in you, you know that! Since day one, I’ve supported you!” you yelled as the tears started to escape from your eyes. “You know we’ve always had different goals, this town has always been my whole life. And you’ve always been destined for more. I knew that from the start.”
“If you know that this is what I’m destined to do, then why can’t you just come with me?” he asked with a sigh, rubbing his temples.
“Josh, I love you. I love you more than anything I’ve ever loved in my entire life,” you said, tears spilling down your face. “But this is your dream, not mine.” You watch as his eyes start to water, mirroring yours. His face drops as the realization kicks in.
“So, that’s it then? You’re just giving up? You’re giving up on us?” Josh asked accusingly, stepping closer to you, but you backed away.
“I’m not giving up, Josh. But we want different things,” you answered honestly, your voice shaky.
“All I want is you, Saph. I love you so much. Please,” he said, his eyes pooling with tears. He stepped forward once more, reaching his arms to your waist and attempting to pull you closer. “Please just come with us.” You shook your head, backing up more.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” you said, looking into his eyes as they filled with despair.
“You’re breaking my heart, Y/N,” he whispered, his voice cracking. Your heart sank.
“And you’re breaking mine,” you answered, taking one last look at him before turning around and heading toward the back door in the kitchen, yanking it open and rushing out. As you rushed home, you wiped the tears from your eyes, not wanting your parents to see you that way. And that was it. That was the last time you saw Josh Kiszka.
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CURRENT DAY
Deep breaths, Y/N, you tell yourself as you look at yourself in your bathroom mirror. You pull your hair back half-up, putting the small section of hair into a little bun that sits on the back of your head. You pull a few front pieces out to frame your face and then pull a brush through the rest of your long, wavy hair. You’ve got this.
You throw on a grey flannel over the cropped tee you were wearing, which contrasts well with your distressed dark grey jeans. You slide on your Converse and then sit down on your bed to check your phone.
Sammy: Hey, Smalls. Did you think about gracing up with your presence at dinner tonight?
You breathe out a quiet laugh and shake your head at his sarcasm as you type your reply.
You: Don’t get your panties in a twist, Samuel. I’ll be there.
It doesn’t even take a minute for him to respond.
Sammy: Knew you’d come around. Come over around six?
You slide down on your screen to check the time — 5:28 pm. Okay, you still have some time.
You: See you then.
You fiddle with your fingers as you sit on your bed, waiting for the appropriate time to go downstairs and walk next door. The entire situation stressed you out beyond belief. You’re not sure how you managed to get yourself into this mess in the first place, you had done such a good job at avoiding them when they’d come to town for the past four years. But now, it was unavoidable.
How is Josh going to react? After you left that day, he left you dozens upon dozens of voicemails and text messages, all of which you ignored. After a week of trying to get you to talk to him, he eventually relented. He gave up. At the time, it stung somehow. You didn’t understand it, you wanted him to leave you alone and let you both move on, so why did it hurt so bad when he finally did? It was all so complicated and screwed up. You just hope that he isn’t still upset with you after all this time.
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JOSH POV
“Josh, honey,” your mom says from the kitchen, making you turn your head to look at her. “Could you turn that movie off? It’s almost time for dinner.” You nod and take your feet off of the coffee table, reaching for the remote, and reluctantly turning the TV off. No matter how old you got, you still always helped your mom with dinner. It was a tradition at this point, as silly as it sounded.
“Boys, it’s almost dinner time!” she yells, trying to get your bothers’ attention from the garage, which had a door connecting to the kitchen. You hear muffled ‘okay’s from behind the door and soon enough, your brothers emerge from the garage and storm the kitchen.
You get up from the couch and watch as Sam walks over to the dining room to set the table and Jake opens the fridge and takes out a bottle of white wine to drink with dinner. You decide to enter the kitchen and help her transfer the food to the serving dishes.
“Oh, Mom,” Sam starts from the dining room as he gathers the folded napkins from the pantry. “I forgot to tell you earlier, I stopped into the music store today on my way to get groceries. Y/N was there.”
Your movements come to a halt as you hear the words fall from his mouth. How could he just bring her up so casually? You quickly try to shake it off. It’s been four years, it’s nothing. You probably won’t even have to see her, anyway. You’ve gone this long without running into her, anyway, probably by her own doing.
“That’s nice, sweetie. How is she doing?” your mom asks kindly as she hands you an empty dish to transfer the pierogis into. You take the dish into your hands and walk over to an empty counter space to set it down.
“She’s good! I actually invited her to come to dinner tonight,” Sam said nonchalantly with a shrug.
“What?” you exclaim instinctually, your mouth agape as you stare daggers into your little brother. Before you even realize what’s happening, you’re startled by the sound of the dish you were holding falling onto the ground and shattering into pieces. You didn’t even feel yourself drop it. “Oh God, Ma I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ll go get the broom, don’t go anywhere.”
You shake your head and curse under your breath as you rush down the basement steps to grab the broom and quickly run back up to the kitchen. As you clean up your mess, you listen silently to the conversation, too embarrassed by your behavior to say anything else.
“I feel like I haven’t seen Y/N in ages,” you hear your twin remark from behind you, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms. He needs to wipe that smug look off of his face before you do something drastic.
“I know, it has been a long time. It’ll be nice to catch up, won’t it, honey?” your mom asks sweetly, turning over her shoulder to look at you with an encouraging smile.
She knows every single detail about what went down between you and Y/N four years ago. She was here to pick up the pieces. Jake, not so much. While she was there comforting you, your twin was just blinded by his ambition. All he cared about was how great Nashville was going to be, for the both of you.
“You don’t need Y/N, Josh. You have us. We’re your family,” Jake said apathetically as the two of you packed up your things. You just scoffed, shaking your head as you folded your clothes and placed them into your bags.
“That’s not the point, Jake. I really wanted her there, and now I don’t know who I am without her,” you admitted, not looking up from your bags in hopes of not catching Jake’s sharp glare.
“You’re Josh fucking Kiszka, lead singer of a band that’s going to make it BIG, that’s who you are,” Jake said confidently, patting your back. “We’re only just getting started, brother. Mark my words. Years from now, you’re not even going to remember her name.”
He just didn’t get it. Your other half always had an easier time with everything: getting girls, getting over girls, and everything in between. Nothing fazed him. It wasn’t that easy for you. You’re a writer, for God’s sake. An artist. You were nothing without a muse.
“Just make your own muse then,” your brother had said.
And that’s just what you did. Once the four of you got to Nashville, all you cared about was the music. You didn’t let yourself get distracted– no girls, no guys, nobody. Just you and your notebook and your dream. And it’s worked like magic ever since, you didn’t need anybody else besides your brothers and this band. The news of her coming back into your life has now set you back to four years ago, like nothing has changed. But everything has.
“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t think she’s gonna want to talk to me, after everything…” you trail off, turning your back against your family as you try to focus on the task at hand.
“I still don’t understand what even happened, Josh,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. Of course, he didn’t get it either. He was always fond of her, you assumed he had a small crush on her for most of his childhood. Whatever that was has surely passed on by now, but Sam was always protective over her. He was your brother, at the end of the day, so of course he was on your side. But you always knew that he was sad over her absence, deep down.
“We were just different people, Sam. It wasn’t meant to be, that’s all. It doesn’t matter now,” you mutter, not looking up from the floor as you finish sweeping.
“If it doesn’t matter now, then why would she still be upset with you?” Sam asks, frustration coating his voice. “When I talked to her earlier, she seemed to think that you wouldn’t want to talk to her.”
“Oh,” you breathe out, not sure what else to say. Why on Earth would she possibly think you could still be upset with her after all these years? You couldn't admit it then, blinded by young love and all the firsts you shared. But you knew it was for the best, in the end. She didn’t want to leave, and you couldn’t make her.
You were glad that she let you go when she did, rather than moving with you and growing to resent you. She wanted to stay, and you needed to go. You’ve come to terms with it. Do you still think about her every now and then? Sure. The what-ifs do tend to creep in at night sometimes, but you always quickly shove them down. You have no room for what-ifs in your life right now. Things are really starting to pick up with the band, with your world tour and impending new music that you’ll be teasing any month now. The last thing you needed right now was to worry about the one that got away.
“Just try and talk to her, okay? It can’t hurt,” Sam says, walking past you to go sit on the couch now that he’s finished setting the dinner table. Yes, it can, you think to yourself, knowing better than to actually say it out loud. You just simply nod, grabbing a new dish and transferring the food over.
“Okay. I’ll talk to her,” you concede, covering the food with aluminum foil and then walking over to the dining table to place it down in the center. You run your fingers through your hair nervously as you walk back to the kitchen and finish helping your mom plate the rest of the food.
You hear your dad walk in through the front door and he enters the kitchen, kissing your mom on the cheek before going to sit on the couch with Sam. You watch as he reaches for the remote and turns the TV on, switching the channel to put on what seems like the hockey game.
“Hey, I was watching something there! Now I’m going to lose my place!” you scold, walking toward the living room and leaning against the wall.
“Josh, you were watching Silence of the Lambs for the millionth time, I don’t think you need to worry about losing your place,” Jake teases, walking into the living room to sit on the armchair and recline.
“Yeah, Josh. C’mon, the Red Wings are on, it’s almost playoffs,” Sam says matter-of-factly. You hear your dad chuckle at the banter, turning the volume up. Traitor.
“No! No more TV, Y/N will be here any minute now. You four are unbelievable,” your mom scoffs from the kitchen, shaking her head as she finishes preparing the food. Your brothers groan loudly and your dad reaches to turn the TV off. You swallow deeply as you wait nervously for Y/N to arrive. You don’t know what to expect, and that scares you. Maybe it’s because you were the oldest, or maybe it’s because you have a Cancer Moon, but you like being able to predict what will happen next. Now, all of that was completely out of your hands.
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YOUR POV
5:56 pm. Time to go, you suppose. You really don’t know what to expect, but Sam reassured you that everything will be fine. In all honesty, it wasn’t the possibility of Josh being upset with you that worried you. You were worried that, the second you saw him, your entire world would cave in. You were worried that you would just want to fall into his arms and apologize for everything you said.
But you knew that you couldn’t do that, you can’t. He’s come too far now to be pulled down by you. He seemed truly happy and successful, who were you to come waltzing back into his life and tear it all up? No. You had to be strong. For Josh, and for yourself.
As you approach the Kiszka’s porch, you take one last deep breath before laying a few soft knocks on the front door. You hear jostling behind the door and a distant “I’ll get it, I’ll get it!” before the door finally swings open with Sam’s wide grin greeting you.
“Honored guest! Welcome!” he exclaims, reaching out to grab your arm and pull you inside, shutting the door behind you. Your eyes scan the room as you enter, smiling at Sam’s antics before the inevitable happens. First, you see Kelly and Jake sitting in the living room, turning over their shoulders to look at you. But as your eyes drift to the kitchen ahead of you, you see him.
You knew it was too late to turn back now, despite the strong urge to leave now while you still can. But you can’t run away, not this time. You watch as his posture shifts when he feels your eyes on him, straightening his back as he leans against the wall. Your eyes soften as you take it in, almost unsure of where to start.
He looked so different. Yet somehow, as you looked at him, it still felt familiar. You thought that you would feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, but no. You feel safe.
His hair was styled much differently now, his fluffy, curly hair now shaved short on the sides of his head. His cheeks were still as rosy as ever, adorned with little white dots along the cheekbones. You like it, you decide. He always knew how to stand out.
His once bare face was now decorated with a dark mustache and goatee, much like Sam had, but not nearly as long. Josh’s was more clean and precise. Just like him.
He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled slightly. You can see that his arms have gotten bigger since the last time you saw him, which didn’t surprise you. The boy you once knew truly grew into a man, standing in front of you.
They all had. Jake looked so different, with his hair sitting right on his shoulder, sporting some facial hair of his own. He looked more serious now, which wasn’t a bad thing. You should feel proud, but all you feel is regret that you weren’t there to see it.
“Hi,” you say shyly, already beating yourself up on the inside for it. Just hi, seriously? That’s how you want to start? Jake gets up from the armchair on your right to approach you, reaching out to pat your arm supportively.
“It’s great to see you again, Y/N,” he says with a closed-lip smile. “Do you want a drink? I was just about to open this bottle of Chardonnay that I picked out for dinner, if you’re interested.” You nod and follow him to the kitchen, passing Josh on your way there.
His eyes follow you as you walk into the kitchen. You don’t say anything at first, but as Jake works to open the bottle of wine, you decide to work up the courage.
“Hey…” you start, walking over to him as he shifts his body, turning to face you with his back against the wall.
“Hey, Y/N,” he answers, slipping his hands into his front pockets nervously. Ouch. You weren’t necessarily expecting him to use your nickname, it’s been years since you saw each other and the nickname itself was rooted in his feelings for you. But hearing your real name fall from his mouth still cut like a knife. You suppose that if you wanted him to use your nickname, you’d have to earn it.
“You look good,” you say, fiddling with your fingers in front of you as you look behind you to see if Jake has opened that wine bottle yet. God knows you’ll need it. Josh’s eyes drop suddenly at your words, almost as though he didn’t expect it. Fuck, why did you say that? Making him upset certainly wasn’t your intention when you gave the compliment, you just didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that– stupid…” you start apologizing, but he stops you.
“No, no, it’s okay. I was just taken aback, that’s all,” he says honestly, concern covering his face. He’s still as empathetic as he always was. You knew he would be, you don’t know why you’d expected anything else. “So do you. You look… radiant.” Before you can let him see your cheeks flush, you turn around as Jake extends his arm to hand you a very full glass of wine.
“Jeez, that’s one heavy poor, Kiszka,” you joke, taking a short sip of the wine before leaning your back against the wall opposite of Josh. The younger twin chuckles at your words, taking a sip out of his own glass before answering.
“Hey, I figured you could use a little extra. What’s the harm?” he says with a shrug, leaning against the kitchen counter. You smile at him, looking at him as the two of you exchange a silent look. It’s clear that he knows how tense this might be for you, and you feel grateful for that. Maybe this dinner wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Karen descends the stairs and walks into the kitchen, calling everyone to the dinner table. She greets you, of course, expressing how glad she is to see you after so long. You really did feel guilty over abandoning the rest of the Kiszkas when you and Josh had your falling out. They were like a second family to you throughout your entire childhood, so you missed them so much.
The boys rushed to the dinner table, clearly starving from the looks of it. Obviously, they all had their own “assigned” seats around the table, with Josh and Jake sitting next to each other, with Sam sitting across from Jake. The seat across from Josh was probably reserved for their sister, Ronnie, but she wasn’t here, so you suppose that seat’s for you. Timidly, you approach the seat and sit down, looking at Josh quickly before averting your eyes and watching as their parents take their own seats.
Dinner itself actually went really well. Karen asked you questions about your life recently, and you talked about your brother going to college, as well as your own business degree and your plans to run the shop. Josh kept mostly to himself, eating his dinner silently while sneaking glances every now and then when he thought you weren’t looking.
You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, though, and that made you feel uneasy. Was he uncomfortable with you being there? Did he want you to leave? Or was it possible that he wanted to talk things out? You hoped for the latter, wanting to at least give both of you some closure. You were hopeful that he wanted that, too.
Before long, Karen was coming around the table to gather the dirty dishes. As she approached your seat, you pushed your chair back and stood up.
“Here, Karen, let me help,” you say, picking up your own plate, along with Sam’s. She thanks you, and the two of you walk to the kitchen together to put the dishes in the sink.
“Do you want to dry them once I’m done washing them?” she asks, and you nod eagerly. You get into a rhythm soon enough, finishing the dishes in only a little over five minutes. “I like having a helper around here. These boys always get so lazy after they’re done eating.”
“Tell me about it,” you answer with a laugh. “I used to have to drag Josh up off the couch to go anywhere after we’d had a meal.” The memory was fond but fleeting as you gaze into the dining room to see Josh’s eyes locked on you. Shit, you probably shouldn’t have brought it up. His attention was soon drawn back to his brothers as Jake snapped his fingers at him, trying to get him back into whatever conversation they were having.
“It really is nice to have you back here, Y/N,” Karen admits with a soft smile. You return it with a gentle nod and she retreats to the living room to sit and watch the rest of the hockey game with Kelly. You stand there for a moment alone before you look over to see the boys getting up from the table.
“We’re gonna go jam in the garage for a bit. Might be good to get our creative juices flowing in the place where it all started,” Jake says, nodding his head to his brothers as he walks over to the door to the garage.
Sam quickly follows with Josh behind him, who stops at the door and turns to you both. Your eyes lock for a moment before he looks behind him at the garage, then back at you, seeming a bit conflicted.
“Hey, I’ll be in a little later. You guys start without me,” Josh says to them, with his eyes still on you. They were searching for something on your face, some sort of sign. You caught on rather quickly, walking toward him to reach for the door to the back porch, opening it apprehensively. You step out onto the porch and he follows, shutting the door softly behind him.
You walk to the porch swing on the far side of the porch, patting the cushion next to you to tell Josh to sit next to you. You sit in silence for a few moments, unsure where to begin. You open your mouth to start to speak, but Josh beats you to it.
“So, you come here often?” he jokes, looking down at you with a smirk. You giggle and look down at your feet, the cliche successfully breaking the ice.
“As a matter of fact, I do. I live right over there, you see,” you say smartly, pointing to your house behind you. A laugh erupts deep from Josh’s chest as he looks over at you with a genuine smile– something that you haven’t seen in so long. It almost felt normal, all of this, in that moment. Almost.
“You don’t say,” Josh answers with a grin as he reaches into the back pocket of his pants. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a red lighter, pulling one out of the pack.
“Cigarette?” he offers, stretching his hand out to you with it between his fingers. Your eyes travel from his hand to his face, looking back at him with an awkward smile.
“Oh, I don’t smoke,” you say honestly, your cheeks flushing with a bit of embarrassment as he smiles at you awkwardly, sucking air between his teeth.
“I knew that,” he says, retracting his hand and placing the cigarette between his lips. You laugh, the idea of knowing each other so well but also not at all feeling terribly ironic. He knew you, once. He knew what you used to be. But the girl you were at 22 was very different than you are now at 27, in more ways than one. For better or for worse, you’ve changed, and so has he.
Was it possible to get to know the new version of him? Did he want you to know him? Do you want him to know you? At this moment, sitting on the back porch in the same spot that you sat in for most of your youth, you believe that you did want to know him, and him you. Did he want that too?
Josh lights his cigarette quickly and then slides the pack and lighter back into his pocket, taking a drag before resting his hand on his knee and looking back at you. Why were you so intimidated to say anything? It was just Josh, the same Josh you once loved. Once. What were you so afraid of?
“I almost didn’t come tonight,” you finally admit, leaning your arm onto the back of the swing as you shift your body toward him. He raises his eyebrows at your honesty, shifting his body toward you in return.
“Why did you?” he asks honestly, searching your face for an answer. You weren’t sure what the answer even was, but you tried nonetheless.
“Honestly? I’m not quite sure,” you say, fidgeting with your hair. “I think part of me hoped to get some closure. Another part just wanted things to go back to the way they used to be.” You didn’t expect yourself to put it all out in the open like that, but you realize that the large glass of wine loosened your lips more than you thought it would.
“Things can’t go back to the way they used to be,” Josh says quietly, taking another drag of his cigarette and blowing it the other way. Your eyes shifted to your lap nervously.
“I know. You’re right,” you whisper, now avoiding his gaze. You sit silently for a moment before he finally speaks up.
“You’re happy here?” he asks, giving you time to respond. You finally look up at him and his eyes soften as your eyes meet, the same soft eyes you’ve always known. A dark brown color in the darkness of the spring night, only catching the light every once in a while when he turned toward the porch light.
“I am, I think…” you answer, almost hesitantly. He nods silently. “Are you? Happy there? Is it everything you hoped it would be?” He pauses for a moment, seemingly collecting his thoughts.
“Yes, I’m happy there,” he admits, biting his lip slightly as he ponders his next thought. “But is it everything I hoped it would be? Not so much.” Your eyes fall sadly at his words, inching a bit closer.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Josh,” you say, rubbing his arm softly. He flinches slightly at your touch, making you retreat entirely, scooching back to the other side of the bench. He takes another drag of his cigarette and shakes his head.
“It’s just a bit lonely. It’s only work there, no play,” he says softly. “I love the music, don’t get me wrong. I’m making the kind of art I always wanted to make. I just hate doing it alone.”
Oh. He isn’t over it. That much was clear. You can’t help but feel responsible for his suffering. But you knew you weren’t, this wasn’t your fault. You were never meant to move down there, it wasn’t right.
“You’re not alone. You have your brothers, you have friends,” you say supportively, hoping to steer the subject further from the harsh truth. He shakes his head again, taking an extra long drag from his cigarette.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he says, a bit of frustration hanging on his tone. When he catches it, he shakes it off. “Look, it doesn’t matter really. Forget I said anything.” You nod, looking over at him to find that his eyes are already on you.
Music starts to pour out of the open windows of the garage behind you, startling you a bit. You could hear Sam’s keyboard and Jake’s guitar playing a song that sounded familiar to you, but you weren’t sure why. It must be one of theirs. Surely you heard it in one of their practices all those years ago.
“What’s this one called?’ you ask, referencing the song coming from the garage. Josh’s lips tweak into a small smile as he answers you.
“It’s Heat Above. It’s from our second record,” he says. You nod slowly, recognizing the name.
“I think I know that one,” you say with a timid smile.
“You listened to the album?” he asks with slight surprise. You nod again, inching a bit closer once more.
“Of course I did. Listened to the new one, too,” you admit, fiddling with your fingers in your lap. When you look back up at Josh, he’s smiling widely.
“You listen to our music,” he says proudly. You return the smile and look back down at your lap, hoping to avoid him seeing the blush that’s started to cover your cheeks.
“Sometimes, yeah…” you mumble, “You know I always loved hearing you guys play. That never changed.”
“I just thought you might’ve avoided it… like you have us,” he says, which forces you to look back up at him. Here we are again, back to this topic.
“I wasn’t avoiding you…” you start, but he gives you a stern look. “Okay, fine. Maybe I was. But I just wanted to give you some space, you were really upset with me when you left. I didn’t want to rehash it all.” The closed-lip smile on his face as his dimples caved in was enough to catch your breath in your throat.
“You didn't have to avoid me, Saph… I was fine. I was handling it on my own,” he says softly. There it was. The nickname– finally. You still don’t feel like you’d earned it, but it was clear that he was growing soft on you. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t spark up the butterflies in your stomach that you thought were long gone.
Comfortable silence fills the air as you look over at him, only inches away from you. As you sit together on the porch swing, the same one that you used to sit on together every summer, you can’t help but feel your heart swell in your chest.
His eyes drift downward every once and a while as he takes drags from his cigarette every minute or so. You know he’s looking at your lips, he has to be. For a moment, you wonder if he wants to kiss you. Do you want to kiss him? It feels like you do, but you know you shouldn’t. It’ll throw you right back to where you started, two people with different goals in life. But despite the glaring truth, your conscience starts to fly out the window as you let your gaze drift to his lips as well.
He takes one last hit of his cigarette and then puts it out in the ashtray on the table next to the swing. Music still flows loudly from the garage as the two of you sit there together in the quiet night. He turns back toward you, his eyes drifting to your lips again before you decide you can’t take anymore. Your hand leaves your lap and moves to rest on his waist, rubbing his side lightly with your thumb.
“Josh?” you start, unsure if you want to continue the way you intend to.
“Yes, Sapphire?” he answers, making your heart jump inside your chest. The nickname was effective before, but now it felt like something different entirely. How he had so much of an effect on you with so few words baffled you. It was something that you’d never experienced before and likely never will again.
“Are any of those songs about me?” you finally ask, keeping your eyes on his in an effort to feign confidence. You watch as his gaze softens and he nods slowly.
“Yes, some of them are,” he admits earnestly, his eyes darting to your lips as your proximity becomes even more apparent.
“Are some of them about someone else?” you ask, already knowing the answer. But you wanted to hear him say it–no, needed to. He was so close that you could feel his warm breath against your face, sending your mind reeling.
“There is no one else,” he says, his voice deep and low. You breathe out a slow breath, trying not to look relieved. The corner of his mouth tweaks up into a smirk as his eyes burn through yours. After a few more moments of silence, where the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife, your eyes soften as the gap between you gets even smaller.
“Please,” you whisper, a quiet plea for him to close the gap and give in to all of the desire that was looming over you. And that was all he needed to hear before his soft lips encompassed yours.
The breath is stolen from your throat as Josh’s lips crash against yours, his hands wrapping around your waist as he pulls you closer. You almost have a double-take for a moment, wondering if this was really happening, before you’re snapped out of it by the feeling of Josh’s tongue gliding against your bottom lip. You give him access and his tongue slips past your lips and dances with your own, making you sigh quietly against his lips.
The feeling of his hands on your body and his mouth finally on yours is almost too good to be true. Were you dreaming? Surely not. His touch brings you back to reality, his hand grazing your ass and grabbing it tightly. God, you missed this. You missed him. You cursed yourself for even having doubts, but you do. Before it goes any further, you pull away, wrapping your arms around his neck as you pause to think straight.
“Josh…” you whisper, resting your forehead against his softly.
“Don’t think so much,” he says, brushing a piece of your hair behind your ear. “We can talk later. This feels too right to stop now.” After he speaks those words, it all feels reminiscent of a distant memory. Your first time, five years ago.
“Josh…” you start, rubbing your thumb along his cheek.
“Shhh,” he whispers, bringing his finger to your lips. “We can discuss it later. Right now, I just need to feel you… gotta make sure that this isn’t some sort of dream.”
Some things never change… Without ‘thinking too much,’ you just simply nod and stand up from the swing, taking his hand in yours.
“Come home with me?” you ask, lacing your fingers with his. A smile creeps across his face as he nods.
“I’m offended that you even felt like you had to ask,” he jokes, letting his arm be dragged by you as you exit the backyard and enter your own, entering the house through the backdoor. Your parents are in bed by now, so the two of you move swiftly up the steep steps into your attic bedroom. Once you enter your bedroom, you shut the door behind you and lock it.
The room is lit only by the string of lights along the back window, giving you a limited view of the man in front of you. You approach him, placing your hands on the back of his neck as he wraps his arms around your waist softly. Up close, you can see the clear smile across his face. It brought you joy, to see him happy, and to know that you were the reason for it.
Your lips finally find his again, backing him up quickly until the back of his legs hit the bed. He turns you around, laying your back against the bed as he hovers over you. His hands move to slide your flannel down your arms slowly, tossing it on the floor before leaning down to kiss hot, wet kisses across your jaw and down your neck.
His hands find the bottom hem of your shirt, pulling up on it lightly as his lips pepper kisses down your neck. You nod feverishly and he leans back to pull your t-shirt up and over your head, leaving you in just your bra. Josh’s hand strokes your cheek softly and then travels down your neck to your chest, grasping your breast over your bra, making it spill out slightly.
He pulls his own shirt off, throwing it on the floor behind him before leaning back down to kiss down your collarbone, stopping at your bra strap. His finger slips underneath the strap and pulls it up, snapping it against your skin. You let out a light moan at the sensation and you watch him laugh at you before lowering his face to yours.
“God, you’re desperate for it, huh?” he asks, his nose brushing against yours as his eyes darken. “So needy.”
A quiet whimper leaves your throat involuntarily as one of his hands glides down your side to hold you still at your waist, while the other reaches behind your back and undoes the clasps of your bra in one swift movement. He pulls it off, tossing it to the side before lowering his mouth to your bare chest and taking one of your nipples into his mouth.
You throw your head back as his tongue swirls around the sensitive bud relentlessly. It was almost like he was starving, unable to stop himself as he pleasured you. The thought itself turned you on even more, almost becoming too much to handle.
One of his hands starts to work on the button of your jeans, undoing it before slowly sliding down the zipper. Without even bothering to pull the jeans down, his fingers slip underneath the waistband of your panties and immediately dip into your folds, eliciting a whine from you. A smirk grows across his lips as he dips his fingers through your folds a few more times, teasing your entrance before sliding his pointer finger inside of you with ease. His pace is relentless, curling his finger deep inside you before inserting a second finger, making your eyes roll into the back of your head.
“Josh, I–” you start, struggling to get your words out. He flashes you a smile as he quickens his pace, bringing you closer to the edge. “Josh, enough. I want to feel you, please.” He smirks as you beg for him, his ego growing even bigger knowing the effect he had on you. He removes his fingers from you and then grips the hem of your jeans, yanking them down and pushing them to the floor. He stands up off the bed and unbuttons his own pants, dropping them to the floor along with his boxers.
God, he was just as beautiful as you remembered. You’ve relived this moment dozens of times before, on nights when you were lonely and longing for him. It happened more than you’d like to admit. His chest was even more sculpted than the last time you’d seen him this way, bare in front of you. He had grown into this strong, sexy man that you almost didn’t recognize. But he was someone that you were desperate to have.
“I’ve pictured this moment so many times, but it’s still even better than I ever could have imagined,” you whisper, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him on top of you. His lips attack your neck, sucking dark marks along it as you writhe underneath him.
“You’ve pictured this, baby?” he asks, his eyes dark as his strong arms hold you still on the bed.
“Yes,” you nod, melting into his kiss as his lips press against yours. His hand aligns himself with you, rubbing your sensitive clit as he talks to you before slipping inside.
“Tell me what you thought about,” he says, his eyes burning through yours, dark with lust. Before you have time to answer, he pushes himself inside you to the hilt, making a stifled moan erupt from your throat. Your nails dig into his back as he pulls out almost entirely before slamming back into you harshly. “I said tell me,” he repeats, his voice low and hoarse. His hips start a brutal pace as you try to collect your thoughts, unable to think straight.
“I– fuck,” you start, quickly interrupted by a harsh slam of his hips as the tip of his cock brushes against your cervix. “I thought about how badly I wanted to feel you inside me again. Just like this,” you finally answer, throwing your head back against your headboard.
“Yeah? Did you touch yourself while thinking about feeling me deep inside you?” he says, his right hand resting on the back of your neck as his thumb strokes the front of your neck softly. You nod swiftly, your eyes squeezing shut at the sensation.
“Yes, so many times,” you mutter, your eyes still shut tightly.
“What else?” he asks as you whine underneath him, struggling to keep going. “Open your eyes, look at me,” he asserts sternly. Fuck, he was so hot when he was in charge, you never wanted it any other way.
“I thought about when you’d be rough with me… so fucking hot,” you spit out, your eyes half-lidded as they lock on his. He curses under his breath and slams his hips extra hard against yours.
“Fuck,” he groans, pulling his hips back and pulling out of you before swiftly flipping you over onto your knees. Without warning, he pushes back into you and sets a steady pace, his hand gliding from your hip down your back to the back of your neck. He pushes you down by your back as he slams into you, his tip hitting that special spot inside you repeatedly. You whine underneath him as the pressure inside you starts to build.
You wince as you feel Josh’s hand crack down on the swell of your ass, eliciting a high-pitched squeal from your mouth. As he fucks you deep into the mattress, his hand comes down on you a few more times, smoothing out the spot softly after each flow to your soft skin. You hear him panting behind you, muttering a slur of curses each time his hand cracks down on you, the sound of you whimpering underneath him almost enough to make him cum right there.
Josh’s hand wraps around your throat, holding tightly as he pulls you up, his warm chest pressing against your back. The new angle is almost excruciating and your mind is numb, you’re unable to speak. He brushes your hair to the side, planting harsh kisses on your shoulder blade as his neck holds firmly on your neck, squeezing ever so slightly.
The roughness was partially thanks to how much the tension built up, yearning to break free. But you knew that it was out of frustration too. Frustration over you not leaving with him all those years ago, and you deserved it. At this moment, if this was punishment for your decision, you wanted nothing else.
“Is this rough enough for you, baby?” he mutters against your skin, his other hand moving from your waist to rub tight circles around your clit. You whine under your touch, knowing that your climax is near. “Is this just what you wanted?”
“Yes, yes, feels so good,” you breathe, desperate for your release.
“Perfect,” he whispers, moving his hand from your throat to grasp one of your breasts, his fingers pinching your nipple harshly. God, you were so close. “I’d do anything to make you feel good, Saph. Anything.”
Your orgasm crashes over you at that moment, the burning, white-hot sensation washing over you more intensely than you’ve experienced in God knows how long. Your mind goes foggy and you grow stiff against his touch as he kisses your cheek softly and helps you through it.
“I’m not gonna last much longer, baby,” he whispers against your skin, kissing down your neck as his thrusts speed up. “Where should I…” You lean your head back against his shoulder as he gets even closer, overstimulation almost taking over you.
“Inside. Fuck, please,” you plead, and he moans in your ear as he slams his hips into you harshly, chasing his own high.
“Shit, Saph, that’s so fucking hot,” he mutters from behind you, his arm holding your tightly against him as he grows closer. “Gonna fill you up, just like you want. Fuck, I love you so much.”
Your mind is so cloudy from the feeling of Josh inside of you and his lips on your neck that you almsot don’t register it at first. Before you have time to respond, he slams his hips into you one last time before you feel his release shoot deep inside of you. Your eyes roll back just from the feeling of it: warm, perfect. You knew in this moment that you were his. You always have been, and you always will be. It didn’t matter if you were together or apart, you were his.
He thrusts a few more times, pushing his cum deep inside you before pulling out slowly, laying you down on the bed softly. He plants a soft kiss on your shoulder, stroking your bare back softly before getting up from the bed and walking to the bathroom behind you. Moments later, he returns with a towel, soaked in warm water to clean you off with. Once he’s convinced you’re clean, he wipes himself down quickly before tossing the towel back into the bathroom and then lying down next to you on the bed.
As he lays down on his back next to you, you scooch over on the bed, placing your head next to his on the pillow and putting your hand on his warm, soft chest. He leans over, placing a kiss on your forehead with a quiet sigh. As his fingers start to ghost over your arm sweetly, you finally break the silence.
“I love you, too,” you whisper, nuzzling into his neck as you shut your eyes, knowing that sleep will soon take over you. You don’t have to see him to know that he’s smiling.
“What does this mean for us?” he whispers, the cogs turning slowly. “I have to go back to Nashville on Sunday…” You think for a moment, not wanting to jump the gun or say the wrong thing.
“I… I’ll talk to my dad in the morning, and I’ll tell him that I need to move to Nashville. With you. He’ll just have to find somebody else to take over.”
The silence is deafening. At first, you wonder if you’ve scared him away, but he speaks again.
“I thought that running the store was your dream, Saph,” he says apprehensively.
“It was. But everything is different now,” you answer, looking up at him with a soft smile. “You’re my dream, Josh Kiszka. Only you. Everything else can come after. I didn’t know it four years ago, but I know it now. It’s always been you.”
His lips crash into yours and you can feel him smiling against yours. Everything was falling into place.
“I love you, Y/N,” he whispers.
“I love you, Josh.”
The End.
*:·.·:**:·.·:**:·.·:**:·.·:*༺˚ ⊹♫⊹ ˚༻*:·.·:**:·.·:**:·.·:**:·.·:*
Taglist:
@highladyofasgard @jordie-gvf @peaceloveunitygvf @sanguinebats @gvfstuddedmajesty @myleftsock @lilbitx
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Starting to almost wish I could just go do this fucking presentation today solely bc I’m getting mad and tired of the anxiety, how is it physically possible to be this anxious for so many days straight. There has to be a limit how long u can be on the verge of an anxiety attack like ????
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me after attempting to get back into sims and realizing i had a lot more to do than play the game
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Saw this beautiful red tail breaking off branches to make a nest today
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“I’ll be fine i just need to uhhhhhhh idk kill” but like…what if i did haha
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How to explain that going to church makes me hurt and angry, but not going to church makes me sad and depressed.
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tbf i really deserved to lose that poll im stupid af
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i feel like everyone is going to eventually get annoyed at me for still being sad about simba or still talking about it but posting abt it is easier than telling someone because i don’t know how to do that and i’d rather be annoying here where people can scroll past and ignore it and not feel obligated to reply
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