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no-pucks-given · 3 years

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TYSON JOST | LIGHT MY WAY HOME

A/N: More than 12.000 words later, more than a month after the initial request from Taylor popped up in my notifications. What a freaking ride. My longest fic I've ever written, and maybe even my favourite one. Thank you, to everyone who hyped me up, send me inspo and send me sweet asks. I couldn't have done this without all of you. Special thanks to @dumb-and-dunner, @chicagoblackhawkslover96, @heybarzy and Chrissy (who doesn't have Tumblr unfortunately).

Warnings: Angst, ‘can I strangle him yet?’ Tyson, swearwords, some major character development and (how could I not?!) a happy ending.

Also: Gabe and Melissa Landeskog play a big part in this fic, so if you aren't comfortable with them, you might want to skip this one.

Word Count: 12.1K

Requested: Yes.

The NHL lifestyle, or the ‘popular’ lifestyle was attractive to all young, hormonal boys. You’d known that for a long time. You stood by Tyson’s side when he got drafted into the wicked world of the NHL. Parties, drinking, sex, training until you can barely move, fights, games, wins and losses. It all had it’s charms, but it also had its dangers. Just like any other guy Tyson wanted to experience it all, the whole package,

You assumed you fell under that ��whole package’, you were his girlfriend for a reason, right? And you did, for a while. You partied together, came home together, did everything together. But the moment Tyson became older and ‘known’ outside the regular hockey fans, that title didn’t mean much anymore. He became more and more the type of guy you didn’t fall in love with, the type to take you for granted, the type to enjoy the attention of other people, other women in particular. You weren’t the jealous type, you didn’t want to claw out the eyes of every woman that looked at him, but you were at a breaking point. Maybe you were jealous, you weren’t jealous of those other women, you were jealous of the attention Tyson gave them. Attention he should’ve been giving to you, his freaking girlfriend.

You were however the loyal type, the type to come home after a long night. And that’s exactly where things went wrong with Tyson. While you were waiting for him at home with a meal, a warm bed or just simply anything else, he was out. You had no idea where he was exactly, he was simply ‘out’, whatever that might mean. You tried to talk to him, you tried to make him see that this wouldn’t end well for either of you, but he simply waved off your concerns, shrugged his shoulders and moved on.

How do you talk to someone who rediscovered himself? How do you talk to someone who thinks he’s on top of the world? How do you save someone from the downfall of success when they don’t want to be saved? You knew one day he’ll come down from this high, one day he’ll realize that he screwed up. One day he’ll come to the conclusion he let something special slip through his fingers, and for what? Fame? Drinks? A rush of adrenaline? One day. But you knew that it wouldn’t be today.

However today is the day that you’re done. Absolutely fed up with all the bullshit excuses Tyson has been feeding you, all the coming home late or not even coming home at all. You have no idea what he’s been up to these last months, he’s barely home. Even when he’s home it’s like he isn’t really there. You can’t even remember the last time the two of you slept together or the last time you actually went to bed at the same time. Breakfast together? A lifetime ago. A lazy day together? Can’t remember. Date night? Months, months ago. Even thinking about it pisses you off to no end, the pain and hurt slowly making place for a new emotion: anger.

It’s frustrating to say the least. You love and take care of him like he means the world to you, and he does. Tyson on the other hand seems to take you for granted, or forgets you’re here at all. It seems like you’re talking to a brick wall instead of your boyfriend. No matter how hard you try, your words have no impact, your tears don’t make him feel anything. It’s like he’s a totally different person. You barely recognize him anymore these days, he feels like a stranger inside the body of the man you love. It feels like you’re both living your life, besides each other instead of with each other. It hurts, that’s for sure.

Like any other day you’ve prepared dinner, put it on the table and sat down on one of the chairs. All you can do now is wait, wait and pray he’ll show up this time. You even texted him, begged him to come home and simply eat dinner with you for a change. Of course you didn’t get a response, of course it’s complete radio silence from his side. God, you were desperate at this point, you don’t even try to deny it.

With every passing minute your hope disappears little by little. You stare at the food on the table until it’s completely dark outside, no sign of Tyson. Hours passed and you barely noticed it, it isn’t until you try to stand up and your muscles ache from sitting in the same position for a long time that you realize how much time actually has passed. “Fuck this, why am I even trying anymore?” you mutter to yourself, shaking your head. This isn’t worth it, it hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe, just maybe you’re finally ready to admit it to yourself.

Deciding to choose yourself over Tyson is a major decision, one you probably should’ve made sooner. It doesn’t matter, what does matter is that you’re choosing you now. You make the split second decision to just grab your stuff, just the necessary stuff. You remember Gabe’s offer, at the time you waved it off with a smile, pretending it wasn’t as bad as it might look to the outside world, but now? You want nothing more than to take him up on his offer. So what’s stopping you?

Even though you were excruciating calm this whole time, the moment you step into your bedroom, or Tyson’s bedroom, you break. This is real, this is really happening. You grab your bags, filling them with some of your stuff. Some clothes, some toiletries, your makeup, everything you might need. It’s a tough job, it’s even harder when you almost can’t see past the tears. At some point you lose track of things you did and didn’t grab, just shoving random items into your bag.

You let out a frustrated sigh, your body sinking down on the floor. In your hands the box containing all your high school love letters, all the small gifts you made each other. Tyson was quite handy, who would’ve thought that? You smile at the memories, sorting through the box. You frown at the feeling surging through your body, is this how heartbreak feels? Looking down at the contents of the box you sigh, wiping away the tears streaming down your face. Why couldn’t life be as simple as it used to be? It shouldn’t be this hard, right? You grab your prom picture between your fingers, smiling sadly at the two people in the picture, both smiling like they just won the lottery, both utterly in love with the other. How time can change..

You throw the box on the bed, maybe it will remind Tyson what the two of you had was special, maybe he’ll realize what he’s about to lose. If it doesn’t, well, it’s his loss. Hauling your bags downstairs is a full workout, you intended to bring ‘just the essentials’ but you have way more important stuff than you originally thought. You aren’t planning on returning to this house any time soon.

Shutting the car door after you loaded in your stuff gives you some form of relief. You let out the breath you’ve been holding in. You made your decision, it’s time to follow through now. You make your way back inside, and into the kitchen. Cleaning up all leftovers from dinner, which obviously is a lot more than you expected. Although.. did you really think he would show up? You shake your head again, putting the leftovers into the fridge. After you finish the dishes you retreat back to the living room, falling down on the couch with a loud sigh. All you can do now is wait.

You could’ve just left and never look back, but that isn’t your style. If you’re going to leave, you’ll do it the right way. You won’t leave without giving him a piece of mind, letting him know he fucked this up for good. You try to focus on the movie playing on the screen, but your heart keeps beating harder and harder, at this point you wish you would’ve just left instead of waiting for Tyson to show up. God, why did you have to do it the right way? Because you know, deep down, you would’ve wanted him to do it the same way. It’s the humane thing to do, it’s only right after spending such a long time together.

The front door opening brings you out of your thoughts. Honestly you don’t even know what time it is, but frankly you don’t care. All you want right now is to get this off your chest and leave. Tyson’s eyes widen when he comes face-to-face with you, surprisingly he doesn’t seem that intoxicated. You suspected he went out, but at this point he could’ve been anywhere.

“You’re still up,” Tyson says, walking past you and flopping down on the couch.

“Yep, and you missed dinner,” you counter, crossing your arms. Tyson simply shrugs his shoulder, clearly not caring enough to explain his absence. “I texted you to make sure you would be here,” you say, even though you know it doesn’t make a difference.

“Yeah, I was busy,” Tyson answers, looking down at his phone.

You almost feel the need to chuckle, to start laughing at his stupid behavior, but this is anything but funny to you, it fucking hurts. “I’m done, Tyson. I’m fucking done,” you say, shaking your head, trying so hard to keep the tears away.

Tyson looks at you with dull eyes, no emotion visible on his face. “Then go to fucking bed, I really can’t deal with your problems right now,” he sighs, turning his head back to the phone in his hand.

Right now, at this moment you know you made the right decision. This isn’t behavior of someone who’s in love, this isn’t even behavior of someone who loves. “You don’t have to deal with me anymore, because I’m leaving. I’m done, we’re done,” you tell him, emphasizing the last part. Tyson’s eyes shoot to yours, the panic clearly written all over his face now.

“No, we’re not. You can’t break up with me, y/n!” he almost shouts at you, standing up from the couch.

“Yes, I can and I will. You don’t get to act like you care all of the sudden, Tyson. You haven’t acted like a boyfriend in months. You haven’t given me any reason to stay, so I won’t. I’m done with whatever this is,” you say, waving between the two of you. Tyson grabs your wrist, tears starting to pool in his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something but you cut him off. “No. No. You don’t get to do this. It’s over. You put on quite a show, but I can’t say it was very entertaining. This curtain fucking closes right now, show is over. You can act like you care, but I know by now that you don’t,” you tell him, ripping your arm out of his grip.

You walk over to the front door, keeping your head high. Now is not the time to break down, your time will come. You hear Tyson behind you, muttering how sorry he is, excuse after excuse leave his mouth. You open the door, turning around one last time to look at Tyson. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, ‘cause you’re not,” you say while shaking your head. You close the door behind you, not looking back at what you’ve left behind, only looking forward to what’s yet to come.

It’s when you’re in your car mindlessly driving around when you realize you have nowhere to go. You forgot to call Gabe, and it’s probably way too late now. You quickly check the time, 2am, shit that’s late. You doubt he’s still awake, you feel bad for even thinking about waking him up. Two young children, both of them under the age of 2, and being a professional hockey player probably cost him enough energy already, you don’t need to add to that. “He did say I could always call him when I made my decision,” you say out loud, more to convince yourself that it’s okay than anything else.

You easily find Gabe’s contact, immediately pressing the dial button before you change your mind again. The line only rings twice before Gabe picks up. “I’m guessing you either finally broke up with him or there’s a fire somewhere,” Gabe says from the other side of the line. You chuckle, shaking your head. “And since you’re calling me and not the fire department, my guess is on the first one,” Gabe continues, trying to make you smile some more.

“I did it, I broke up with him, couldn’t stand to be there any second longer,” you sigh, brushing your fingers through your hair.

You hear Gabe’s sigh of relief. “I’m proud of you, y/n. I know this isn’t what you had in mind, but it’s better like this, I promise.”

Gabe turned into one of your best friends over time, Melissa is the older sister you never had and you love their children like they’re your own. Gabe and Melissa welcomed you into their family immediately after meeting you. You hadn’t expected to make friends and you definitely didn’t expect to make friends with the captain and his wife, but you’re so grateful you did. The support you receive from them is overwhelming, you couldn’t wish for better friends. So when Gabe first made you this offer, you were thankful he did, although you were still convinced at that point that Tyson would change.

“Uhm, you know.. that offer you made me? Is that still on the table?” you ask, praying he’ll say ‘yes’, praying you don’t have to sleep in some random hotel tonight.

“Of course, the guestroom is already prepared. Melissa expects you to be here as soon as possible, apparently she ‘really needs to cuddle her little sister’,” Gabe chuckles, you can almost hear him rolling his eyes at his wife.

“Thank you, Gabe. I owe you,” you say softly.

“You don’t. You’re family, y/n,” Gabe says, and you know he means every word he just said. Family. “Now get your ass over here, before Melissa starts a search party,” Gabe chuckles, making you laugh some more, because you know she would. You quickly say your goodbyes, promising you’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s just a short drive from your apartment, or Tyson’s apartment now, to Gabe and Mel’s place.

You kept up your appearance, keeping the tears at bay, but the moment you step out of your car and into Gabe’s arms you’re done. “Come here, I’m so sorry,” Gabe says softly, his hands rubbing soothing circles on your back.

You stand there for a few minutes, simply crying on your best friend’s shoulder, until Melissa squeezes herself between the two of you. “Hush, I need some sister time. Why don’t you grab her stuff?” she says, smiling sweetly at her husband.

Gabe sighs dramatically, sending a wink your way. “Whatever you say, wife.”

Melissa pulls you close to her, an arm around your waist, her head resting on your shoulder. “Come on, I’ll show you your room,” she softly says, leading you into the house. You’ve been here so many times already, but never like this. You’ve never been in a situation like this before, you’re not sure how to handle this. “I can hear the wheels turning in your head. It will be okay,” Melissa says, rubbing your arm soothingly. You sigh, shrugging your shoulders, not sure what to say.

Melissa leads you to your room, pushing you down on the bed, while she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “I know you’re probably exhausted, but do you want to talk?” Melissa asks softly, her face showing nothing but compassion.

You lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about all that has happened. “I don’t even know what to say, Mel. I don’t even know how I feel right now. I’m just so...” you trail off, not knowing the right words to describe everything that you feel and think right now.

“Confused, relieved, mad?”

You sit back up, looking back at Melissa. “All of the above, I guess? It hurts, but I’m glad I did it. But I also regret it, because I love him, you know? I’m mad he didn’t try harder for me, for us,” you say, trying hard to keep the rush of tears away.

Melissa wraps her arms around you, pulling you close to her. “I know, sweetheart. It will take time, but you’re going to be okay.”

You sigh, knowing she’s right, even though it probably will take more time than just ‘some time’. You did just end a long relationship, it will take a lot of patience and time to work through that. “Thank you, Mel. For letting me stay here,” you mumble against Melissa’s shoulder.

“No need for that. You’re my sister, remember?” Melissa smiles at you.

Gabe softly knocks on the door before opening the door. “Brought your bags, thought you might need them before you go to sleep,” he says, smiling at the sight before him. Your friendship might be unconventional, but he couldn’t care less what other people think about it. Gabe absolutely adores the sister bond you and Mel share, he hoped the two of you would get along, so this? Picture perfect.

“Thanks, Gabe,” you smile at him.

“Do you mind if I steal my wife from you?” Gabe asks, making you and Melissa laugh out loud.

“Nope, she’s all yours,” you chuckle, waving at their retreating backs when they walk out of the room.

You strip out of your clothes, pulling on a sweater. You sigh, realizing you packed some of Tyson’s sweaters out of habit. His smell infiltrates your senses, making it damn hard to keep your emotions under control. It’s right this moment you know exactly how you feel. Heartbroken. The realization that your relationship with Tyson is really over doesn’t give you the satisfaction you hoped for, it doesn’t give you peace, it just fucking hurts. You simply feel hollow, even though deep down you know this was the right choice, this was what needed to happen. You know damn well why you feel so empty, you gave your heart to Tyson a long, long time ago, never expecting to be in a situation you might get it back. You don’t want it back, but you might need it back.

You realize it’s morning when the light softly shines into your room. You sigh, knowing damn well you’re lucky if you slept more than an hour this night. Rolling over you look at the clock on the wall, 9 am, perfect. Deciding it won’t do you any good if you stay in bed any longer, you force yourself out of bed and into the shower. The hot water warms your cold skin, soothing your sore muscles. All the twisting and turning you did all night surely didn’t help the way you feel right now. Why couldn’t life be a bit easier by simply letting the shower wash away all of your hurt, all of your pain? A fresh start, a clean slate.

You slip on some skinny jeans and a soft sweater, not in the mood to even think about doing your makeup. You dry your hair, before making a quick ponytail out of it. You walk down stairs, the chatter and laughter greeting you as soon as you walk into the kitchen. “Morning, guys,” you say, smiling at all the happy faces before you. A round of greetings sound throughout the room.

“How’d you sleep?” Gabe asks you as soon as you sit down next to him with a bowl of cereal.

“Can’t even tell you, suddenly it was 9 am,” you chuckle, shrugging your shoulders at Gabe’s raised eyebrow. “Do you have any idea where my phone is?” you ask Gabe, knowing he grabbed all your stuff out of your car.

“Uhh, I do, but I don’t know if you really want to look at it,” Gabe says, scratching the back of his head before pointing towards the kitchen counter. It’s your turn to raise your eyebrows, walking over to where Gabe’s pointing at.

You unlock your phone, quickly checking your notifications. “Oh damn,” you mutter, looking at the absurd amount of missed calls and messages left by none other than Tyson himself.

You sit back down next to Gabe, dropping your head on your arms. “What do I do now, Gabe?” you groan. “Why does he care all of the sudden?”

Gabe rubs his hand over your back before answering your question. “Because he lost you, y/n. He never thought he would.” You turn your head towards Gabe letting his words sink in.

Gabe gets ready to leave for practice shortly after you settle on the couch with Lucas in your arms. The little man has a fascination with your hair, maybe it’s all babies who have that, but you like to think that you’re special. “Don’t pull out all y/n’s hair, baby boy,” Gabe chuckles, giving his boy a soft kiss on his head. He gives you a kiss on your cheek, softly squeezing your shoulder. You open your mouth to say something, but Gabe cuts you off. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry about it, I’m his captain, but I’m your friend, okay? Just relax, make sure Lucas doesn’t puke on you and go do whatever it is that you women do all day,” Gabe chuckles, knowing you better than you know yourself. You mouth a quick ‘thank you’ to him, wishing him good luck with practice before he runs through the house trying to find his girls to kiss them goodbye.

“Your daddy is a good guy, you know that, Lucas?” you smile at the baby on your lap. Lucas coos, his hands grabbing onto the strands of your hair. “Your daddy and mommy make me feel so loved, even though their children like to see me in pain,” you joke, trying to free your hair from Lucas’s small hands. “Buddy, you’re way stronger than you look,” you mumble, when Lucas pulls on your hair again.

Melissa laughs out loud the moment she walks into the living room. “How many times did I tell you that you need to keep your hair away from him and his grabby hands?” she says, expertly freeing your hair from her son’s fists.

“Apparently not enough times,” you chuckle at her. Melissa joins you on the couch, while Linnea Rae plays on the ground with some of her toys, happily showing you what she got every now and then. It’s times like this that you’re extra grateful for Melissa and Gabe, the way they welcomed you into their family has been nothing but perfect.

“So, what’s going through that pretty head of yours?” Melissa asks, while scrolling through series to watch on Netflix.

You shrug your shoulders. “I don’t know, I’m kind of worried about practice, I think? I don’t want to put Gabe in this position,” you say, keeping your eyes on Lucas.

“You know Gabe would do anything for you, huh? You don’t know how many times he came home utterly frustrated by the way Tyson treated you. He never said anything, because you were still with him, I can’t promise you he will stay quiet this time,” Melissa says, squeezing your shoulder. “He’ll be fine, this isn’t Gabe’s first rodeo.”

You look at Melissa, who simply gives you a wink. “I know, I know. I just don’t want him to get in trouble or anything,” you say, smiling back at her. You trust and know Gabe, so hopefully there won’t be a lot of trouble today.

“If he does though, he probably deserves it.”

Gabe surprises you all with some takeaway when he gets home from practice. It’s been nice eating with other people for change, it’s been way too long. The amount of lonely dinners has been through the roof lately. Gabe nudges you with his elbow, causing you to look up at him. “No frowning at the table.”

Melissa rolls her eyes at her husband while you just stick out your tongue at him. “Sure, dad,” you say, causing Melissa to almost choke on her bite of food before she lets out a loud laugh.

“Yeah, dad. Leave us alone,” Melissa laughs, winking at her husband. Gabe shakes his head at you and Melissa, a grin plastered on his face.

It’s during dessert you find the courage to ask about Tyson. You weren’t sure if you needed to ask Gabe, you weren’t even sure if you wanted to know anything, but now you know you do. “So, did anything happen during practice?” you ask him, playing around with your spoon.

Gabe shakes his head, giving you a small smile. “Not much, just some chirping. Told him I’m his captain and he needs to fucking focus on practice. That seemed to do the trick,” Gabe says, shrugging his shoulders, continuing to eat his dessert.

You look across the table at Melissa who has the same expression on her face as you. Not convincing at all. ‘Sure,’ Melissa mouths at you from across the table. You shake your head at her, furrowing your eyebrows at Gabe’s statement. ‘Nope,’ you mouth back at her, finishing your dessert. You decide to let it go, you don’t even know why you care so much. You shouldn’t, right? You broke things off with Tyson, so why do you care so much what he does and thinks? The answer to that question is pretty simple the longer you think about it. Because you still love him, that’s why.

You thank everyone for dinner and dessert, promising to cook something from them later this week. Right now all you can think about is your bed and a decent night of sleep. God, that sounds like a true dream right now. You strip out of your clothes, crawling into the soft and cozy bed. It doesn’t take long before you fall asleep, showing just how exhausted you truly are.

The weeks that follow are filled with all kinds of activities, the 5 of you falling back into a comfortable rhythm, surprising you considering the situation you’re in. It isn’t every day you take in the ex-girlfriend of one of your teammates, or your best friend, whatever way you want to see things. When you aren’t working you spend a lot of time with the kids, trying to make things easier for Melissa and Gabe whenever they are busy or simply need some time for the two of them. You happily take on some of their care, even if it’s as simple as making sure they get their food in time. Honestly they are two of the sweetest children you’ve ever come across, they always find ways to make you laugh, even though most of the time it isn’t on purpose.

It’s been quiet around the house tonight, Melissa went out with a few of her friends, while she left Gabe and the kids with you. Apparently she needed some ‘alone time’ which didn’t include kids, and definitely didn’t include Gabe after he mentioned he wanted some ‘alone time’ with her as well. You love their friendly bickering, the love they have for each other visible in everything they do. So when Melissa gave her husband a dirty look and flipped him the bird the only logical thing to do was to start laughing at their exchange. “Have fun with them, sweetheart!” Melissa had yelled at you when she walked through the door, leaving the four of you behind.

Together you decide to just have a movie night. It’s late enough for both children to be asleep already, yet early enough to squeeze in a full size movie marathon. “Gladiatorrrrr!” Gabe exclaims excitedly while scrolling through the movie selection on Netflix, pausing on his all-time favorite movie.

You groan, covering your face with your hands. “Please no, have mercy, Gabe,” you laugh, knowing damn well you’re going to sit through this movie again. How many times has it been already? 12? You wouldn’t even be surprised. This dude really loves his movie. You look at Gabe from between your fingers, seeing the look on his face which makes you groan even more. “Fineeee, one more time, Gabe. One more time,” you whine at him, secretly enjoying his taste in movies, something you don’t plan on telling him ever.

It’s a little after 10pm when the doorbell rings. You look at Gabe, who looks just as surprised as you are. “It’s a bit early for Mel, don’t you think?” Gabe asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Definitely, unless she drank the whole bottle of champagne again,” you chuckle, thinking back at one of the craziest parties you’ve ever been to with Mel and Gabe.

“Oh God, please don’t remind me of that,” Gabe shudders at the memory of that night, standing up to see who’s on the other side of the door.

Gabe hates to say that he isn’t surprised to see Tyson’s face as soon as he opens the door. Honestly he had expected him at his door days, maybe even weeks ago. The moment Tyson found out you were staying with Gabe he broke, Gabe expected him to fight, to yell, to scream, he expected him to do anything except cry. Which is exactly what Tyson did, breaking down in the middle of practice. For a moment the whole place went quiet, only Tyson’s cries echoing throughout the building. No one knew how to act, no one knew what to do, until Gabe realized he’s the captain for a reason. On and off the ice. It was a weird experience, one Gabe still feels extremely conflicted about. He comforted his teammate, his friend, while his other friend was at his home, utterly heartbroken, trying to get over the guy who was bawling his eyes out on the ice.

After Tyson got over the initial shock the anger took over, just as Gabe expected. It made him almost drop the gloves, something he tried to avoid, not wanting to hurt Tyson. He let him say his things, things that absolutely didn’t make any sense, until he got everything out of his system. “Now can we continue this fucking practice, Jost?” Gabe told him after everything calmed down. Gabe tried to avoid the Tyson/y/n topic as much as possible after that, not wanting to get in the middle of things more than he already was. Until tonight apparently.

Gabe raises an eyebrow at the boy before him. “Why are you here, Tyson?” Gabe sighs, already knowing the answer to that question.

Tyson looks around, eyes flickering from left to right, clearly uncomfortable being here. “I, uh, can I talk to y/n? I know she’s here,” Tyson asks, scratching the back of his head before putting them back in his pockets.

Gabe shakes his head at him. “You can’t, if she wants to talk to you she will find a way to contact you. As long as you don’t get your shit together and prove to me, but most of all to her, that you’ve changed, I won’t let you anywhere near her,” Gabe declares, starting to get annoyed with the way Tyson acts. There’s no way he lets him close to you until you feel like you’re ready to see him again, no way.

Tyson opens his mouth, but Gabe gives him a look that immediately shuts him up again. “I’m saying this as your captain, and definitely not as your friend right now. Go home and leave her the fuck alone. You had your chance, you fucked up and now you have to deal with the consequences. How you deal with those said consequences is up to you, but I suggest you leave now and think about everything you did and didn’t do, okay?” Tyson nods his head, turning around to walk back to his car.

When he’s a few steps away from his car he turns around, smiling sadly at Gabe. “She’s my home, Gabe. Home doesn’t feel the same without her. You out of all people should understand that.”

Gabe chuckles low, shaking his head at his clueless teammate. “I do. I do know what home feels like, but I never, never choose anyone or anything over my ‘home’. Never. You sure as hell did, time after time,” Gabe says frustratedly, before shutting the door, leaving behind an even more frustrated Tyson.

You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you caught the sound of Tyson’s voice when you walked to the kitchen, grabbing some more popcorn. You didn’t mean to listen to their conversation, but it felt like you were glued to your place, unable to take another step, unable to do anything but listen.

Gabe walks back into the room, the look on your face immediately letting him know you know. “How much did you hear?” he asks softly, approaching you slowly.

“Enough,” you whisper, before breaking down, no longer able to keep the tears locked away, no longer able to keep your emotions to yourself.

With two steps Gabe is in front of you, grabbing the bowl of popcorn you held onto between your trembling fingers. He guides you back to the couch, urging you to sit down, which is a true challenge for someone who can barely feel the ground they walk on. Gabe wraps his arms around you the moment you sit down, allowing you to cry onto his shoulder as much as you want and need. He whispers sweet nothings while softly brushing your hair out of your face, making sure you have room to breath. Time after time Gabe proves what kind of friend he is, always making sure to be there for you when he’s needed, always doing things with the best intentions. Even if it’s just holding you until you calm down, even if it’s just speaking the truth against Tyson, even if it’s just simply being there for one another.

“Sooner or later he would’ve realized what he lost, what he gave up for an evening of clubbing or God knows what. Apparently it’s sooner rather than later, however make sure you make him work for it, if you ever decide you want to give the two of you another chance,” Gabe softly advises you, when you finally calmed down a bit.

“I will, you know I love him, Gabe. But I don’t know if I should?” you mumble, not sure if it’s a question Gabe has the answer to.

“Sometimes the heart wants what it wants. If he’s serious about you, he will work his ass off to earn back your love and trust, I promise you,” Gabe comforts you, after knowing Tyson for so long he’s positive he knows that Tyson goes above and beyond to get what he wants in life.

Maybe it’s Gabe’s comforting words, maybe it’s knowing deep down Tyson still cares, maybe it’s your own strength, but for the first time in a while you feel a tiny flicker of hope, a little bit of light at the end of the dark tunnel. Maybe, just maybe this was all worth it, maybe this is what needed to happen to get better and move forward. Maybe this is how it was supposed to go.

It’s a weird feeling, knowing your ex still cares about you, but also knowing you aren’t ready to let him back into your life like that. You don’t feel like you’re capable of seeing him yet, let alone talk to him. The need to know how he’s doing, how he’s holding up grows, but also confuses you. It’s simply a weird and confusing situation to be in. Choosing between two, maybe even more ways to handle this, while also waiting for Tyson to make a move, which he obviously can’t since you don’t want to see him or speak to him, is a hard task. A task that will require a lot of thinking. You just need a bit more time to gather your thoughts, give all of your confusing feelings a place, while making sure you put yourself first, you need to put yourself first this time.

So when Gabe invites you to one of his home games a few weeks later you say ‘yes’ right away. It seems like the perfect time and place to see Tyson from a distance again, without putting too much stress on yourself, you can just watch and enjoy the game, you don’t have to force anything. Of course your seats turned out to be way closer to the ice than you expected them to be, although... what did you exactly expect with Gabe? You know he’s been talking to both of you, kind of acting like some sort of messenger. He tried to keep it casual, just slipping in some information during a conversation, but you noticed what he was trying to do. Frankly you’re thankful for his meddling.

Steadily your heart starts to beat faster and faster the more players appear on the ice to warm up. When Gabe appears you aren’t surprised to see Tyson close to him, knowing Gabe they probably had a little chat before they went on the ice. Tyson’s eyes shoot to yours the moment he’s close by, completely forgetting the ability to skate. You gasp when he lands on his ass on the ice, earning himself a round of laughter from the people around him, including Melissa and you. Gabe skates over to him, extending his hand and helping him upright again, but not before clearly telling him he’s ‘a dumbass’. Now that’s something you can agree on.

You know Tyson has something up his sleeve when he skates off to the bench, clearly busying himself with something you can’t see. After a few more stolen glances at each other Tyson skates closer and closer to you, until he’s right in front of the glass. His left hand catches your attention, until he gives you a small and almost shy smile. “Look at him, he’s blushing!” Melissa whispers next to you. You shoot her a quick ‘shut up’ look, before you focus your attention back on Tyson.

Tyson shows you the puck in his gloved hand, mouthing to you to catch it. It takes him two tries before the puck lands on the other side of the glass, safely in your hands. Tyson gives you one last quick smile before he skates off to get ready for the game. Melissa nudges you softly, bringing you back from your thoughts. “So, what’s on there?” she asks, knowing damn well you haven’t even checked.

“I don’t know if I want to look, Mel,” you tell her honestly. Melissa gives you a sad smile, throwing her arm around your shoulders.

“Let’s look together?” she suggests. You don’t know why you’re so nervous, how much can you actually write on a puck? He seemed happy to see you, so there’s no need to be nervous that it’s a bad thing. You look at the puck, turning it around in your hands so you can read the whole thing. ‘Talk after the game?’ is written on the puck, you immediately recognize Tyson’s handwriting and his little smiley face, or.. something that should resemble a smiley face.

“That wasn’t that bad, right?” Melissa asks softly, squeezing your shoulder.

“What if I’m not ready?” you ask her, a question that has been on your mind a lot lately.

“Then you take a step back, you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, you don’t have any obligations. But he’s trying, y/n. You’ve heard all of Gabe’s stories, you’ve seen it yourself just now. It can’t hurt to at least talk to him.” You think about Melissa’s words, she does have a point there. Talking is something you should’ve done ages ago, or at least Tyson should’ve done that. So this is progress, he’s at least trying this time, that’s more than he used to do.

It’s hard to keep the smile off your face, you can’t even pinpoint why exactly you’re smiling. Whatever the reason is, it’s a good feeling to smile again. The game sure as hell plays a big part in it, the guys are on fire, scoring goal after goal, never giving the puck away for long. There’s barely any time for you to give Tyson a thumbs up, indicating you’re up for a talk after the game. Whenever you look at Tyson when he’s off the ice he’s smiling, whether it is to himself or to one of his teammates, that smile won’t leave his face.

You follow Melissa down to the locker room after the game is over. You’ve done this so many times, but this time it couldn’t be more different. You greet all the girls who are patiently waiting on their man, getting enough comforting words from them to last you a lifetime. When the door to the locker room opens you come face-to-face with Mikko, someone you haven’t seen in a while. Mikko’s face lights up when he spots you outside the locker room. “y/n! I haven’t seen you in so long,” he says, while hugging you tightly.

“I missed you too, goof. It’s great to see you,” you smile at him, wiggling out of his iron grip. Dude’s definitely stronger than he looks.

“Between you and me, Tyson’s a good kid, he just needed to grow up a bit,” Mikko whispers against your ear, before leaving you alone again.

You raise your eyebrow at Melissa, who just shrugs her shoulders. Weird. After a few more minutes Gabe and Tyson appear in front of you, both of them joking around. Tyson nervously looks around, not sure if he should come any closer. Gabe hugs you swiftly before throwing his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Make sure you bring her home safely, Jost,” Gabe warns him, before quickly saying goodbye to both of you.

You watch them leave, your mouth agape by the way they just left you here. Rude. “Did they just really do that?” you ask no one in particular, still shocked by their actions.

You turn around, looking back at Tyson, who still appears to be nervous. Is he nervous to talk to you? Why would he be nervous? It’s just you. “Hi there,” you smile, looking up at the man in front of you.

“Hi beautiful, it was nice seeing you tonight,” Tyson softly says, giving you a small smile.

Your insides flutter with his use of words, it’s nice hearing them even though you’re not completely sure if he means them the way you hope he does. “It was. You played great, I had a lot of fun,” you say, smiling at the proud look that crosses Tyson’s face for a moment.

Tyson leads you back to the rink, which is now completely deserted, thinking it would be a nice place to chat. For a while the two of you fall back into small talk, ‘how’s life?’, ‘how’s work?’, all that bullshit. You know Tyson and you are avoiding the actual topic that needs to be discussed, or topics? Whatever it is, there’s a lot to talk about. “I missed it here, I forgot how much I loved being here,” you tell Tyson, looking at the lights that lighten up the place, thinking back at the memories full of fun and happiness you both created here.

“I missed you, baby,” Tyson blurts out, completely catching you off guard.

Your eyes shoot back to his, you feel the panic rising inside your body. “Tyson...,” you start, warning him he’s walking on thin ice here.

Tyson’s face falls a bit, seeing the anxious look on your face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Tyson groans, rubbing his face harshly, utterly frustrated with himself and the situation.

It’s quiet for a minute, both of you completely lost in thoughts. “Why is this so hard? We used to be able to talk about anything and everything. What changed, y/n?” Tyson wonders out loud.

You feel a painful pang in your heart, because you know damn well what changed. “You did, Tyson. You changed,” you almost whisper, the truth behind those words more clear than ever before.

You watch as Tyson’s whole composure changes in the blink of an eye, in just a split second he goes from the ‘happy’ guy to the guy who’s just as heartbroken as you are. “I did, didn’t I?” Tyson whispers, the tears pooling in his eyes. “I fucked this up, how could I be so stupid?” he mumbles, burying in face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, I regret this more than I could ever admit to you. I’m so sorry, baby,” Tyson cries, trying to keep his eyes focused on you. It’s hard to keep your own tears at bay when the guy you love so much has a breakdown in front of you, so you don’t. You just let them fall.

You don’t make a move to comfort him, you do give him room to let it all out, give him time to gather his composure again. “I looked through the box, the one you left on our bed?” Tyson says, his voice still broken, still thick with emotion. You nod your head, it was something you hoped he would do. “I had no idea you kept all of that throughout the years,” Tyson smiles weakly at you. “It made me realize what a moron I have been these past few months, maybe even longer,” he continues, shaking his head in disappointment. You listen intently at him, this, this is what you hoped for all this time: realization.

“I’m not telling you that you weren’t a moron, because you absolutely were. But I’m glad you came to the same conclusion.”

Tyson chuckles at your statement, giving you half a smile. “I know, I’m a dumbass. I’m a dumbass for acting this way and a dumbass for letting you go. Any guy would be on top of the world with you by his side, and I just let you slip through my fingers,” Tyson tells you, finally showing he knows he’s been a fool all this time, he knows he let something special go.

“Is it too late for us? Can you give us another chance?” Tysons asks you, his eyes flickering between you and the ground.

You sigh softly, knowing this question would come. It’s something you gave a lot of thought, something that crossed your mind daily. “I don’t know, Tyson. I really don’t know. You really fucking hurt me, you know? I can’t just look past that, I need to heal from that,” you tell him. Tyson nods his head, a guilty expression on his face. “You made me feel worthless every single day. You didn’t even give me a second of your time day after day. All you cared about was being away. Being away from me?”

It’s right that moment Tyson interrupts you by grabbing your hands. “No. No. That’s not true, you need to believe me,” he tells you as fast as he can.

“But how can I believe you when you never gave me a reason to? Your actions showed me exactly that, Tyson. I need answers, I need to know why,” you exclaim, starting to panic again, your anxiety taking over.

“Easy, baby. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, everything you want, but right now I need you to breath. Breathe, baby,” Tyson says softly, trying to calm your shallow breathing back down to normal. “Listen to my breathing, try to follow the way I breathe.” You do as he says, following the rise and fall of his chest, gaining back control of your own breathing.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, while Tyson just shakes his head at you, letting you know it’s okay. “Can you take me home, Ty? We can talk later, okay?” you ask him, suddenly feeling the need to crawl underneath the covers of your bed and just simply sleep for a while.

“Anything you want, y/n,” Tyson says, leading you out of the room and back to his car. You’re pretty sure he mumbled something under his breath, something very closely resembling ‘your home isn’t there, it’s with me’.

The drive to Gabe takes longer than expected, giving you more time to think about Tyson’s earlier question. You still need and want to know how he spent his nights, where he spent his nights, and why he acted like you didn’t exist. That conversation might need to wait until another day, you aren’t up for any more information, any more realizations, you still need to process everything you heard, saw and felt today.

Tyson stops the car in front of Gabe’s house, looking back at you with hopeful eyes. You know he still hopes he gets an answer to his earlier question, and you want to give him at least that. “You need to show me you changed, Tyson. Show me you changed for real and I’ll try to get past everything that happened. I can’t promise you anything,” you tell him softly, meaning everything you just said.

Tyson nods his head, a smile of relief on his lips. “I will, I promise you I will show you I changed and that you’re everything to me. I promise, baby.”

So that’s exactly what Tyson does the next few weeks, every free moment he tries to show you just how much you mean to him, without smothering you. Whether it’s taking you out for dinner, although you’re still waiting for Tyson to actually make you dinner by himself one day, to small coffee dates and fresh flowers at work. It’s been a lot to process, a lot of adjusting to this ‘new’ Tyson, or rather seeing the ‘old’ Tyson again. And you missed him, God you missed him so much.

Tyson seems happier, more at peace with himself these days, it’s a pleasant change. Often you wondered what was really going on inside his head, but you stopped trying after he waved it off again, and again, and again. The late night phone calls, or facetiming during road trips have become a habit again, something you didn’t think you would ever experience again with him. You still take things slow with Tyson, deciding to rather allow yourself to slowly start trusting him again than diving head first into a relationship again. Maybe it will never come that far again, you don’t know how the future will look like for the two of you, but for now it’s enough.

You come face-to-face with a smirking Melissa when you get home from yet another ‘iced coffee and donut’ date, even though you’re pretty sure Tyson isn’t allowed to eat any donuts. “Oh no,” you groan at Melissa’s expression.

“It’s time we have a little sister-sister conversation, don’t you think?” she asks you, ushering you into the living room.

“Do we?” you groan again, not in the mood to handle whatever Melissa wants to talk about now, because you already know it’s either about you, Tyson or you and Tyson.

Melissa flops down on the couch, patting the place next to her, indicating for you to sit your ass down. “Did you already talk to him about it?” she asks, straight to point in pure Melissa-style.

You let your head fall back against the cushions, sighing loudly. “I didn’t. We’re doing great, we’re having fun. I’m going to ruin it if I start asking questions again.”

Melissa stays quiet for a minute, trying to figure out the right way to approach this sensitive topic. “You know you deserve the truth, right? You can’t rebuild a relationship when not everything’s on the table, sweetheart,” Melissa says softly, knowing you’re struggling with this.

“I promise I’ll talk to him after the road trip, I don’t want to create any unnecessary negative energy before,” you promise Melissa, although she gives you a ‘who are you trying to fool here’ look before switching topics.

A few days later you find yourself back at Tyson’s place. It’s weird being here, knowing you don’t live here anymore. Nothing changed, absolutely nothing, Tyson kept everything the way you did, whether it’s out of laziness or out of hope you’ll come back on day. Either way it’s weird coming back to a place that’s no longer your home. You came here to talk, nothing more nothing less. You promised Mel you would, and if you’re being honest with yourself it’s time to know the truth, time to reopen old wounds and finally get some answers. You’ve grown closer and closer to Tyson, without knowing everything, without knowing you’d be able to forgive him if he ever made a misstep. It’s time.

Tyson has been a nervous wreck ever since you called him last night after he returned from the road trip to St. Louis. He knew this was coming, but he prayed you would simply forget, even though he knows that’s not fair at all. He can’t excuse his behavior, and he won’t, not anymore. You deserve nothing but the truth, the full truth. He’s not proud of it, but you leaving him opened his eyes, showed him he really needed to change. Tyson feels like that’s something he truly did, he changed for the better, he can only hope you’ll feel the same way. He can only hope you’re still on the same path after tonight.

“You did great these last games, Ty,” you smile at him. You’re proud of the way he’s been performing these last couple of games, he really stepped up his game.

“I know you didn’t come here to talk about my performances on the ice, so can we please skip the pleasantries?” Tyson sighs, catching you completely off guard with his rather harsh approach. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way, I’ve just been so fucking nervous since you called me,” Tyson curses, frustratedly brushing his fingers through his curls.

“You’re right though, I did come to talk. I think it’s time we lay all our cards on the table,” you tell him, nodding at your own answer.

You nervously bite on your lip, playing with the cup of water in your hand. It isn’t every day you ask your ex these questions. Questions you want the answers to, question you maybe don’t even want to hear the answers of. “I need to know if you cheated on me, Ty,” you blurt out, keeping your eyes on the ground, not wanting to see the look on Tyson’s face.

“Look at me, baby,” Tyson says, urging you to look up at him. “I never cheated on you, I wouldn’t do that to you. I promise.”

You shake your head at him, not knowing what to do with these emotions surging through your body. “It doesn’t make sense, Ty. Where were you all those nights? Where were you every time I lay in bed alone waiting for my boyfriend to come home? Waiting if he actually comes home this time or stays out all night again? Where were you?” At this point you’re past the civil conversations, past the friendly banter, you need answers, you need to know why he did what he did. The reason doesn’t even matter at this point, you need to know why. Why did he leave you alone so many nights, worrying about his well being, worrying about if he would come home at some point?

“Fuck, y/n! I know I fucked up, I know I did. But I swear on everything, I swear on my career, I swear on you that I never, never, touched another woman. I never kissed another woman, I never even danced with another woman, I did not cheat on you,” Tyson exclaims, hoping, praying you hear what he’s saying, that you’ll believe him. He didn’t do anything with another person, it was always you, it still is only you and he’ll do everything in his power to prove that to you every damn day.

“Then where were you, Ty? If you weren’t with another woman, then where the fuck were you every night you didn’t came home? Please enlighten me, because I’m so lost, so fucking lost,” you say, feeling utterly frustrated with yourself, with Tyson, with this shitty situation.

Tyson takes a deep breath, placing his cup back on the table. “Shitfaced drunk to the point I couldn’t even remember my own name, or so stoned I saw freaking elephants running all around town. Spending my money on unnecessary shit at clubs and bars, all to forget, trying to forget the fact that I had a perfect girlfriend waiting for me at home, while I did stupid shit. Fuck, this sounds even worse out loud than in my head,” Tyson groans, burying his face in his hands.

“But...,” you start, before Tyson cuts you off.

“I felt ashamed and guilty, y/n. Ashamed I let it get that far every time, guilty I didn’t tell you, guilty I didn’t come home again. One of the guys would just take me back to their place out of sympathy, letting me crash on their couch, trying to sleep off my haze.”

You try to come up with words to say, with anything but nothing comes out, you just feel.. empty? “I don’t understand, Tyson,” you say, at this point not even sure what you don’t understand.

“I tried, y/n. I tried to just come clean, but I couldn’t when you were so nice all the time, I couldn’t when I knew you would hate it, hate me. You know I’m a fucking lightweight, that makes it even worse. But those are no excuses, there aren’t any. I fucked up,” Tyson sighs, giving you a sad smile, “I couldn’t face you, I didn’t know how to show you my vulnerable side without letting it change the way you saw me. I didn’t want you to see me any different, but I didn’t notice I changed until you packed your bags and left me standing in the doorway.”

You’re absolutely speechless, there are so many things you want to say but you can’t form any sentences, any words. You just stare at him, your mind racing with an unlimited amount of thoughts. “Are you okay, baby?” Tyson asks softly, reaching out to put his hand on your arm.

You shake your head from side to side, wiping away the tears that spilled out. “I’m not okay, I’m definitely not okay,” you tell him. “I feel terrible knowing you didn’t feel like you could come to me, like you couldn’t talk to me. I’ve always been your biggest supporter, nothing would’ve changed that, Ty.”

Tyson gently wipes the tears away from underneath your eyes, scooting closer to where you’re seated. “Come here, baby,” he softly says, opening his arms for you. You hesitate for a second, not knowing if this is the right thing to do. Fuck the right thing, you definitely need a hug right now, and judging by Tyson’s facial expression he needs one as well. You lean forward, putting your arms around his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of his body. How long has it been since you hugged each other? You can’t even remember, way too long. Tyson closes his arms around you, pulling you as close as possible to his own body.

“I missed this, Ty. I missed you,” you confess, the feeling of his arms around you, the feeling of Tyson, bringing back so many memories, so many happier times.

“I know we still have a long way to go, but I hope we’ll do this together. I can’t even tell you how great it feels to have my arms around you again, even if it’s just for a moment,” Tyson says, after you both let go of each other.

“We do, but I’m in if you’re in, Ty,” you agree, wanting nothing more than to work through the issues you still have. It’s time to forgive, time to let go, time to change and time to move on.

“I’m all in.”

The talk you had with Tyson that Wednesday evening did wonders for the both of you. You still had a long way to go before you were even remotely close to where you used to be with Tyson, but the most important thing was that you were working on things. Slowly, but steadily the two of you worked on trusting each other again, telling each other important things again, just simply working on being in a healthy relationship again. Although the word never came up, you were nowhere near ready for that commitment, so you settled on something less intimidating. Friends.

It was supposed to be a regular, normal Friday evening with just Melissa and the kids. Gabe and Tyson were playing one of their most important games this season, both of them begged you to come, but it was too late to find a babysitter. Not wanting to be by yourself there and leaving Mel alone, you decided to sit this one out as well, promising to cheer them on in front of the tv. It’s the least you could do. So there you are, seated on the couch wearing your Jost jersey for the very first time again, just as you promised. Weird, like nothing ever changed, even though the exact opposite is true.

You’re bouncing a giggling Linnea Rae on your knee, looking down at her adorable mini jersey. “Look it’s your daddy!” you exclaim excitedly, pointing at the closeup shot of Gabe.

“Daddy!” Linnea Rae giggles just as excited.

You catch Mel softly smiling at your little interaction with her daughter, enjoying the love you share for each other. It’s been a blessing to have you around here, the way you care for her children, but also for her and her husband has been phenomenal. Mel couldn’t wish for a better friend, for a better sister than you.

“Oh no,” you whisper when Tyson gets slammed hard into the glass. Melissa grabs your hand, squeezing softly.

“He’s going to be fine, he’s a tough guy,” she says, trying her best to comfort you. And he is, like the tough guy Tyson is, he gets up again, shaking off the hard hit. The game continues and you’re glad Tyson is fine, skating like he didn’t just get squeezed between a glass wall and a 200 pound hockey player.

All goes well until Gabe decides the best place to smack his stick is directly against Tyson’s face, again. “Not his face, Gabe! Not his fucking face again!” you yell at the screen, thanking Mel for already putting the kids to sleep.

“Shit, that looks bad,” Melissa almost whispers, squeezing your hand again.

You don’t know many things for sure in life, but you sure as hell know Tyson will be spotting a black eye for weeks. But like the tough guy he already proved to be, he just goes on with the game, trying his absolute best to work as hard as he can, giving himself completely to the game, anything to get his team the victory.

“That’s the second time you gave my man a black eye, Gabe. Why do you keep hurting him?” you whine the second Gabe walks into the living room. For a moment the room stays awfully quiet, until you realize what you just said. “I really said that, huh?” you ask, fighting to keep the smile off your face.

“You sure did. But I’m sorry, it was an accident. Again,” Gabe chuckles, shrugging his shoulders.

“Uhu, again,” you say, rolling your eyes at your best friend.

Gabe grins at you, flopping down on the couch next to Mel. “I’ll try not to hurt his pretty face again, okay?” Gabe laughs, shaking his head at you in a playful way.

“Is it weird if I, you know.. went over to check up on him?” you ask your friends, suddenly insecure about the thought of just showing up at his door.

Gabe gives you a soft smile. “I’m absolutely convinced he’d love that, y/n,” Gabe says, pulling Melissa closer to him.

“I know he would, sis,” Melissa agrees with her husband.

“Fine, okay. I’ll be back in a few. Don’t enjoy yourself too much,” you tell the two lovebirds before finding your stuff and almost running out of the front door.

You’re giddy the entire drive to Tyson’s apartment. This could go two ways, either it goes extremely well or this backfires completely. You’re hoping for the first one. Seeing Tyson get hurt gave you some realizations. One of them is that you absolutely hate to see him hurt, and you want nothing more than to be there for him, care for him, to tell him everything will be alright. Which brings you to your second discovery of the evening: you still love him, you’re still completely and utterly in love with Tyson. You can’t, really can’t imagine your life without Tyson in it. It’s your turn to tell him you need him, tell him you don’t want to do anything without him, tell him you still see a future together.

You pick up his favorite comfort food on the way over, cake. You know his nutritionist will hate you for this, but he deserves a treat after taking a stick to the face. You chuckle to yourself when you think of the small cake you bought, it’s stupid and childish, but you love it. The fun you already had makes it absolutely worth it. You park in front of the building, hopping out of the car and quickly making your way over to the floor Tyson occupies.

You rummage around in your coat pocket for the lighter you bought alongside the cake. Quickly placing the cover back into the bag, and lighting up the ‘2’ shaped candle. You snicker to yourself, enjoying this way too much. You knock on the door and patiently wait for Tyson to open up. You hear Tyson approaching, making it harder and harder to keep your composure.

The moment he opens the door his face shifts from slight annoyance, to confused, to happy, and back to confused again. “y/n?” he asks softly, looking between you and the cake, confusion clearly written all over his face.

“Happy second black eye!” you yell, before bursting out in laughter.

Tyson can’t help but join you in your laughter, if there’s one thing he loves about you, it’s your wicked sense of humor. “You really are something special, aren’t you?” Tyson chuckles, shaking his head softly at you, a smile playing on his lips.

“You tell me, Jost,” you say, giving him a wink before walking past him and inside his apartment.

“So you bought me a cake?” Tyson asks you, looking over your shoulder to the cake on his kitchen counter.

“I sure did, thought you’d deserved a treat after what Gabe did to you, again,” you laugh.

“He sure likes to hit me in the face with things. But thank you, this really means a lot to me, baby,” Tyson softly says, squeezing your hip with one of his hands, before grabbing two plates. While Tyson cuts the cake you look for something to drink, deciding water will do for the night.

You flop down on the couch next to Tyson, immediately bringing the fork with a piece of cake to your mouth. “Oh God, that’s so good,” you moan out, you picked some killer cake.

“Don’t make those noises, please,” Tyson groans, stuffing his face with cake.

“I’m sorry I picked such a good freaking cake, mister,” you laugh, nudging him with your foot. Tyson rolls his eyes playfully at you, grabbing your foot with his free hand before you can nudge him again and again.

“Movie?” Tyson asks after you both finished your plates, although Tyson finished the last few bites of your piece. Like he said he’s a needy and hungry man.

“Sure, but just something light and funny, Ty. Nothing dark,” you tell him, knowing he’d love to scare you throughout some horror movie.

While Tyson scrolls through the movies, you make yourself more comfortable on the couch, laying back against the cushions with your feet against Tyson. He looks at you, scanning your body, clearly thinking about something since his eyebrows keep furrowing and relaxing.

“Come here, Tyson,” you softly say when he finally picks a movie to watch, opening your arms for him. His eyes shoot to yours, like he can’t actually believe you just told him that. He gives you a quick smile, before moving towards you, laying down beside you.

He rests his head against your chest, just like he used to do so long ago, his arm wrapped around your waist. “Is this okay?” he asks you, making sure you aren’t uncomfortable, even though you’re the one who suggested this.

“It’s perfect, Ty,” you reassure him.

Halfway through the movie you can’t resist the temptation to run your fingers through his curls any longer. Tyson groans softly when your nails rake over his scalp, sending chill through your body. “That’s so good, please never stop doing that,” he groans out, pulling you tighter against him.

“I wasn’t planning on it, Ty,” you tell him, smiling at the way his eyes shoot to yours.

“You aren’t? Are you serious?” he asks you quietly, eyes still locked on yours.

“I am, love. I came to the conclusion that you’re worth all the risks in life. You’re my light, my guiding light in darkness, my light at the end of the tunnel,” you say, leaving a soft kiss on his forehead. You try to express your emotions towards Tyson, trying to make him feel what you felt when you came to the sudden realization he’s worth taking a risk.

“What does that mean, baby?” Tyson asks you softly, an uncertain smile on his lips.

“It means I’m willing to give us another shot, another go. I want to try again, Ty.”

You can’t help the smile that forms on your lips when you look at Tyson’s face, the realization setting in, the happiness and the gratefulness spreading all over his face, the relief flooding through his body.

“How does that work?” Tyson asks again, clearly trying to rid himself of any insecurities, any questions he has. You gladly take those insecurities away from him.

“A clean slate, completely starting over again to give us both a fresh start. How does that sound?” you ask him.

Tyson nods at you, the happiness radiation off him. “A fresh start, I like the sound of that,” Tyson muses. The changes on his face fascinates you, it seems like he goes through a whole range of emotions in just a few minutes. Until he reaches one you know all too well, mischief. He looks at you, the familiar glimmer in his eyes tells you he’s definitely up to something. He sends you a soft and sweet smile, that almost melts you into a puddle right there and then. “Hi, I’m Tyson,” he says, extending his hand to you. You can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you, this is exactly how Tyson is. Funny, charming, an absolute dream.

“You’re a goof, you know that?” you tell him, softly shaking your head at him, but the big grin on your face tells him you loved that. Tyson intertwined his fingers with yours, squeezing softly. When he doesn’t make any other moves you take matters into your own hand, slowly leaning in and softly pressing your lips on his. The familiarity, the rush of emotion flooding through your body hits you like a ton of bricks. The feeling of his lips against yours light something deep inside of you, and just like that you finally feel complete again.

#tyson jost #tyson jost imagine #tyson jost fic #tyson jost x reader #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #nhl fic #hockey fic #nhl fanfiction #hockey fanfiction #tyson jost fanfiction

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beyoncesdragon · 3 years

Text

title: catch up now?

× pairing: Idol!Jungkook x Interviewer!Reader, old friends from highschool kinda stuff, abandoned but maybe rediscovered love on both sides.

× summary: Three years are a long time. In three years, many things can and will change. But three years hadn’t been quite enough to change how two people feel about each other.

× warnings: a little teeny bit angsty but it’s nothing, really. Mainly fluff, some flustered, overly eager Gguk and old memories coming up.

× wordcount: 2k

× a/n: Not gonna lie, this might be one of my favourite pieces I've ever written. I really hope you enjoy this too! it’s somehow inspired by ‘Love Maze’ (BTS) and also ‘50 Proof’ (eaJ). Will probably not have a pt.2

main masterlist | bts masterlist

When he had read the name of the interview host - or hostess more like - Jungkook had already felt the familiar tingle in the pit of his stomach that he had thought had disappeared over the course of time. Yet, he wasn’t surprised that it was still there.

He had however not dared to hope that it could actually be you, there sure were other people called (Y/N) (Y/L/N), who has pursued their dream of becoming an interviewer, media person, whatnot. He didn’t even know if you had actually graduated uni and made it in the job, hence he hadn’t seen any of you in about four years of him debuting now. He had occasionally checked out your Instagram or Twitter, yet he shied away from following you on any social media platform. You weren’t really public about your work or personal life on both, you mainly retweeted stuff (he found out about your love for Bingsu and Makgeolli ice cream like that) and posted a few selfies or landscapes. He hoped that you had been able to pursue your dream of traveling around for a bit, in South Korea and outside of it. Though again, he didn’t know.

Jimin was seated right in front of him and Jungkook couldn’t help but nervously play with his hyungs honey blond dyed hair. Jimin chuckled surprised yet amused about his open display of nervousness and turned around slowly.

“Everything okay, Jungkook-ah? You seem more nervous than usually.” He remarked, making Namjoon look over to the maknae in wonder. “He does, right? I thought so too. Did something happen?” Jungkook only shook his head.

Not yet, he thought to himself.

The cameras around them started to blink all at once, the light has been set up correctly and the camera and sound team had settled down around them in the dark. Manager and publicists stood somewhere in the back, swallowed up by the dark. The only person that was missing still, was you. Or the person called (Y/N) (Y/L/N), Jungkook tried to tell himself.

Suddenly there was a soft laugh from somewhere off the scenes and his heart tripped over its own beat and finally, finally, you stepped into the light.

You looked pretty as ever, grown into your features entirely, like a lotus flower finally in full bloom. Jungkook had to swallow dry. The light coral red of your lip balm complimented your skin and the subtle almost invisible make up you wore, accentuated your already beautiful features even more. You hadn’t changed your hair much, but it was a bit longer and looked so soft in the bright light. His eyes almost subconsciously darted to your fingers, searching for evidence of a possible relationship. He was almost ashamed how quickly he ended up thinking about this, his own boldness making him even more flustered. (There was no formal looking ring on your ringfinger though, to his relief.)

There was a warm smile on your lips as you bowed deeply to them all, greeting them respectfully. The boys returned your greeting immediately and a bunch of annyeong haseyo-s sounded through the studio. Jungkook felt Namjoon look over at him again, a piercing gaze Jungkook knew he wouldn’t be able to withstand if he met it. So he just kept looking at everything but Namjoon...not that this was hard to do when you were right in front of him.

“Thank you so much for being here with us.” You said with a smile, looking at everyone with the same look of respect and polite distance. Like you were supposed to, at work, as a professional. Like you didn't know them personally. Everyone, including Jungkook.

He felt his heart drop to his stomach. Could it be that you...forgot about him? It couldn’t really be, right? How would you actually be able to, you really...in this moment your eyes crossed again and something flickered in your eyes, a facade crumbled for a few seconds only. It was an amused twinkle, like a cheeky wink and a minimal curl of your lips.

Acknowledgement.

And Jungkook’s heart did multiple flips, breath caught in his throat and eyes widened.

You had started with the questions, keeping the conversation light and flowing. The vibe in the room was comfortable and built up on mutual respect - yet Jungkook felt as if he was sitting on red-hot needles. He wanted to talk to you, ask about how you had been, what you were doing (if you had a boyfriend) if you were happy, if you got a cat, how your mother’s little business was going (he’d anonymously purchased countless items, to support your family), if your favourite colour still was cyan blue and your still religiously bought Pajeon and Makgeolli on rainy days, if you ever spent a second of your day thinking of him (because he did).

Him, your somewhat ex-best friend from highschool, him, the one you spent hours talking to in the ungodly hours of the morning, him who you had lost your first kiss to (though lost wasn’t the right word: you gave it to him more like). Him who you had poked fun of when the first girl approached him in his Rookie days and he’d been flustered to no end.

Him, who had promised to you that he wouldn’t abandon your friendship and yet the two of you drifted apart anyways.

Not for the lack of trying on either side though. Jungkook’s schedule had just become even fuller, his nights shorter, training longer and fans more obsessive. And you had seen each other less often, greetings were shorter and late night talks turned into good night wishes over text quicker.

You on your part weren’t mad, a little disappointed maybe. Sad for sure, but not mad. After all, you had expected it to turn out like that. So had the rest of your little circle, Haneul, Hwang, Kyong and Myunghee. Whilst the five of you had supported Jungkook on his journey with all you’ve got, you all tried to overcome the obvious pain of him drifting off.

Some (mainly Hwan and Kyong) with working harder in school for example. You did that too, but sometimes you also partied a little harder, were awake at three AM a little more often, missed him a lot more. It hurt letting someone you love go.

Jungkook and you had always been a bit...closer. Why you didn’t know, how you couldn’t possibly explain. But you were and him rising into the heights and new dimensions of being an idol destroyed this almost completely. This strange world of fame, those walls of flashing cameras, the flow of expensive goods and seas of screaming people, that was his world. He was a star, figuratively and somewhat literally. He shone more radiant, higher, longer, prettier and too bright for an innocent, young love to coexist.

So you stayed behind, soon having lost his number due to him having to change it, his contact information soon had less to say than what you could find on the internet.

His new hair colour? Well, you could google it. Height? Current weight? Several fan sights knew the answer. Achievements? The internet again.

It was strange, ridiculous to some extent. And it hurt. But you couldn’t blame him, so you never did.

⋄

When you had heard that you would be interviewing BTS last week you could help but feel scared. You hadn’t seen him face to face for three or so years, three years with no FaceTime, texting, three years of not seeing his bunny smile, smiled just for you.

And when you had seen him again, laid eyes on him for the first time in thirty-five months, you realised that nothing you ever felt for him had faded away. It was all the same again, your heart still jumped in your chest and your stomach still fluttered whenever he did as much as breathing. The only thing that had changed was his height and him having had the biggest glow up you had witnessed in your life, yours included – though this Jungkook would disagree vehemently.

This Jungkook who got pulled out of his thoughts and memories almost violently, as you directed a first question at him only.

“I…” he started, gulping hardly, having forgotten the question already halfway.

“Sorry I can’t – how have you been?” you stopped shortly, stunned and a tad confused at first. You hadn’t expected him to be so bold. Or clumsy, for that matter. Yet you couldn’t help but giggle, and all the unsaid words and ignored truths between the two of you disappeared into smoke, taking all tension with them. Just like that.

“I’ve been fine, Gukie. Busy. Long-time no see, hm. How about you?” somewhere behind the cameras someone dropped a pen and there were multiple gasps being heard. The rest of the bangtan boys didn’t look any better; Jimin had his mouth open, Taehyung was looking back and forth between the two of you, Yoongi just froze, Jin and Hoseok had clasped their hands in front of their mouths and Namjoon just looked like someone poured a bucket of ice water over his head.

But Jungkook? Jungkook was smiling widely, his bunny smile, smiled just for you.

“Busy too. Yes, very long time no see.” He replied sheepishly, a small laugh escaping his lips as he looked around the dead silent studio. “Why…how do you know each other?” Yoongi finally asked, eyes snapping back and forth between the two of you.

“Well I guess we have to tell them now. We know each other from back in Highschool. We were pretty close friends back then.” You explained softly, giving him a small smile. Jungkook nodded quickly. “My apologies. I didn’t wanted to completely ruin the interview but…I haven’t seen you in three or so years. Sorry.” You waved it off. “It’s okay, Jungkook. We will catch up later, alright?” Jungkook nodded, making the mistake of looking over to Namjoon, who looked like he finally understood everything. “Is that why you were so…never mind.” He ended in a mumble and Jungkook was glad he did.

⋄

The second the interview was officially finished and all the cameras shut off, Jungkook was on his feet and approaching you. He didn’t even care about formalities anymore as he just wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into a tight hug.

The first thing he noticed was that he couldn’t nestle his face in the crook of your neck as easy as he had been able to do in high-school. The second thing was that you had changed your perfume into something more flowery and fresh. The third thing he noticed was how much he liked having you in his arms again, especially because he could now rest his head on top of yours.

The first thing you noticed was how broad your Kookie had become. Broad and tall and firm everywhere. The second thing you noticed was how he smelled more expensive, faintly musky but still very much like Jungkook. A scent you could pick out from a thousand, unique and everything you loved. The third thing you noticed was how familiar and how looked after you felt in his arms, how protected from every harm. You had missed this feeling.

“Aigoo, Junkookie!” Jin yelled from behind, causing you to chuckle embarrassed and trying to break the hug. But Jungkook simply tightened his arms around you, having no intentions of letting you go any time soon.

“Just ignore them. They’ll leave, eventually.” His voice was muffled by the skin on your neck, since he had now buried his face there, taking deep breaths.

“And we?” you asked with a small laugh, not moving either. “We stay. We catch up. Got a lot of that to do.” Sounded good enough to you…just that you had expected them to make a bee-line for the exit after the cameras cut due to their busy schedule.

“Catch up now?” you asked after a few seconds of him still having his arms around you, unmoving. The young man shook his head.

“No…not right now.” He took a deep breath, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, mumbling against your skin and the fabric of your blouse.

“In five minutes. Let me just hold you for a little while, you…you have no idea how much I missed you.”

If he only knew.

— ✩ thank u for reading ✩ —

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ladyeliot · 3 years

Photo

I got you.

Request: Anonymous. Hello there, first of all I love your way of writing, the fics are great! Could I send you an request? Maybe the reader and Chris met again after the pandemic, they have an unfinished relationship and she realizes that she still loves him. Don't worry if you don't feel like it, thanks a lot!

Pairing: Chris Evans x Fem!Reader

Warning: Mentions of anxiety and the pandemic. A little angst.

Word count: 2687

Notes: Sorry for taking so long! And for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

There had been so many times when you had imagined yourself growing old with him in that house that you didn't know how to deal with the situation right now. You were in Massachusetts, inside your car, standing in front of his house, without any warning and without knowing how he would react when he saw you after so many months.

You and Chris had a history, a short but passionate history that lasted two and a half years as an established couple and one year with comings and goings. The reason for the break-up was not the end of the love, but the time. The time you spent apart was longer than the time you spent together, your work was not very compatible with his, and although you both did your best to overcome it, it was not enough. Even so, after the friendly break-up the relationship didn't end completely, let's say it never had a point and end, becoming friends with benefits, and it was something that didn't seem to matter to you. However, there was a conversation going on between you, and although neither of you named it, that conversation was present. Every time you coincided for a short period of days everything happened except that conversation, and without it neither of you could evolve, neither of you could have freedom. You felt that you were still bound, and you both knew it.

The global pandemic did not benefit your situation, while he stayed in Boston with his family, you flew home. At first everyone thought that the situation would be resolved in a couple of months at most, but as time went on the problem became bigger. The months passed, the pandemic became uncontrollable and everyone stopped their lives. Your contact with Chris was not lost, but it weakened, there were too many things to think about and the constant fear that something might happen to a loved one made you anxious, and your priorities were elsewhere.

As time went by you discovered to value the little things in life, perhaps because of the pandemic. You realized what really mattered, what made you happy and what you were willing to fight for in your day-to-day life. Chris was one of those things. Your life with him was not perfect, like nothing else in this life, but the positives outweighed the negatives. Confinement allowed you to meditate, to consider how you wanted your future to be and to discover that the important thing was to live in the moment, because you never know what is going to happen. It was clear that during the pandemic you couldn't fight for what you wanted, nor take a plane and fly to where he was, but things would slowly come back to normal, and it would be time to make an important decision.

As you had predicted, light began to appear at the end of the tunnel. Things were relaxing again, taking on a new normalcy and you had to start to take up your old life again. Conversations with Chris had increased over the last few months, you had too much to say but it was a bit difficult for both of you to put it on the screen, so in the end you always ended up talking nonsense and getting a laugh out of each other. Maybe that was what you liked best about him, that he managed to make you smile even in your worst moments. It was comforting to discover that he was well, that he had overcome, with his more and with his less, that period and that your feelings towards him had not changed.

It was obvious that you were back to your routine, and that meant that work would barely let you take a break. The New York company had not dealt with the COVID crisis very well and the situation was quite alarming. You barely had time to reconnect with your friends, as you set foot in New York City hundreds of business problems fell upon you. Stress was trapping you, preventing you from even sleeping at night, and all you needed was to escape from that environment because your head was going to explode. You were told that several trips were planned to discuss the impact the pandemic had had on various locations around the country, and you felt an immediate relief when you were told, unless you could get away from the centre of the bomb.

Your destination was even more comforting, as it was barely 30 kilometres from your previous residence with Chris. The plane left for Boston first thing in the morning, the sky had not yet awakened and you chose to rest your eyes for the 60 minutes that the journey took. You hadn't spoken to him for the last two weeks, basically since you arrived in New York, when he called you, you were in business meetings and always came home in the early hours of the morning, falling into bed. That was your life, quite complicated to complement with external factors.

The meeting with the Boston headquarters was not too negative, which got you to relax and send good news to your company. The most positive factor you brought out is that you had finished early enough to do what you had in mind since you discovered your trip to Boston. You borrowed a car from your company and set off for the house where you had lived for almost two years. You didn't know if he would be there when you arrived or if it would be completely empty, but you erased those thoughts from your mind and just drove.

You knew the route perfectly, you used to do it every morning. It was nice to rediscover the variety of colours that those little forests could have during the autumn. You lowered the window so that the wind would fill the interior of the car, producing extreme relief in you, relaxing every limb and freeing your mind from any stressful event. That's all you wanted during the long, final months of your life. It took you just over 30 minutes to reach your destination, and when you were there the world around you came to a standstill. It had been so long since you had been in front of each other that a little worry had formed inside you.

You assumed that naturalness was the best way to deal with such a situation, so you chose to get out of the car and face what might happen. You analysed the outside of the house, there was no car in the driveway, no sign of anyone inside, but a very familiar voice, along with some barking, guided you to the back of the garden. A wistful look on your face, and your smile widened when you discovered that Dodger, hearing the rustling of leaves under your feet, had noticed you. From the distance he headed towards you at great speed, causing Chris to fix his gaze on you. As usual, Dodger lunged at you, causing you to fall backwards into the wet grass, but you were used to that.

The next few minutes hundreds of emotions met in the air. The reunion with Chris was silent, but many things were said through the eyes. First came the nervous smiles, then the excited look and then the hugs.

"It's been so long since I've hugged you... that I've forgotten how it feels to be hugged by you," he whispered those words in your ear and made you tremble, wishing that the embrace would never end.

There were no questions between the two of you, no "What are you doing here" or "Why did you come here", you didn't need an answer to either of them, you wanted to focus on the moment. You went back into that house, for the first time in a long time, accompanied by a Dodger that was fully seeking your attention and that almost prevented you from walking.

"Let's go, buddy! Let Y/N in the house," he said trying to catch him. "Oh, he just ignores me. I'm sorry you'll have to manage on your own. He has chosen, very smart."

Chris' comment made you show a sweet smile as Dodger tried to lick your whole face as you crouched at his height.

"I've missed you too, sweetie," you said, standing up as you could.

You headed inside the house, where Chris was watching you with a tender expression on his face. As you entered, a warmth and that unmistakable aroma of Chris was in the air. It was a mixture between the smell of wood from the fireplace and his fragrance. That caused your senses to come together and create a familiarity in you. You looked around curiously, quickly analysing every corner, Chris waited while you checked.

"It's all the same," you said in a soft tone smiling at him.

"Yep," he replied in the same soft tone. "Will you stay for dinner with us?"

You showed him a smile as you slowly nodded. "That sounds great."

You knew you had one night before your plane back to New York left the next day. There was too much to do and too much to say for just one night, and neither of you were likely to start that conversation, you were experts at it.

Both of you got down to work in the kitchen, as if you were back in the past. Neither of you were experts in that field, but you used to let yourselves go. Dodger, calmer, took a seat in his basket and watched you with curiosity.

"Beer?" asked Chris, approaching you with a bottle.

"Thank you," you took it and took a little drink, imitating him.

The situation was common, two people cooking, but for you it was not at all common where you were. Chris was a person who did not hide his emotions, and you had seen this during the time you had spent together. In the relationship it was much harder for you to express what you were feeling, but at that moment it was perhaps not too much for you to be back in your old home, with the man you had loved, after a year of not seeing each other and having a relationship that was not quite closed.So you finally put down the knife you were cutting onions with and threw yourself away, knowing that everything could go wrong.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here?" You frowned softly and looked at him.

Chris was caught off guard by the question, as he watched you and arched his eyebrows, while leaning against the refrigerator.

"Okay," he nodded across his arms. "Why are you here?

You remained pensive, you had gone into the lion's den, because even you did not know very well how to answer that question. Why were you there? You opened your lips to look for a coherent explanation, but nothing. Chris was waiting for the answer, but he realised that you didn't know what to say, so he approached you. "It's okay," he said, taking a lock of your hair and putting it behind his ear.

"No," you frowned. "It's not okay."

"What do you mean?" he asked curiously, returning to his previous position.

"To us," you pointed. "I don't know if it's right what we're doing to each other.”

"What are we doing to each other?" he asked gently, trying to get you to express what was on your mind.

"This," you raised your voice a little. "We didn't finish. We have no end..."

"That's why you came," he crossed his arms at a considerable distance. "To put an end to it?"

You asked yourself if you had come to that, and the answer was obvious, no, you had not come to that.

"No", you whispered looking into his eyes, then you put your hand to your face. "God, this is too complicated."

"Hey...", he came up to you again and took his hand away from your face. "If it wasn't complicated it wouldn't be us."

Those were the truest words he had ever said. You both had a magnet for complicated situations and were the first to try to deal with them.

"Try to tell me why you came here," he kindly insisted again. "I have a clear idea, but I need you to confirm it.

You remembered how you felt when you got there, when you drove there, when you discovered that the business trip was taking you to Boston, where he was. All your happiness in those days was for him. During the pandemic you told yourself that you needed a change in your life, that many things had been lost because of your previous priorities, and your mood had also changed.

"I have come... ", you sighed, emptying your lungs and taking in air again. "I'm here... During the pandemic, I realized what really makes me happy, how things can change from one day to the next and that you have to fight for what you want." You felt a little embarrassed. "God..."

Chris knew how complex everything was for you, that you only extracted your sentimental feelings and thoughts when you were angry and had an argument, so that was a big effort.

"Please Y/N, continue", he gave you a soft smile.

"In short..." you started.

"No, don't summarize", Chris cut you off with a little laugh, which relaxed you.

"Okay," you leaned against the kitchen island and took a breath of air. "It's simple, I've decided that I want to be happy, and you make me happy.”

When you released that sentence you felt an inner relief, you freed yourself from a great weight that had been with you for a long time, and now Chris had everything in his hands. The next ten seconds were the longest of your life, you waited to see Chris' reaction, who was just a few meters away looking at you with a little smile on his face, that you didn't know how to take it.

"Well?" you whispered expectantly. "Are you planning to say something?"

The smile on Chris' face widened and he slowly took a step towards you to shorten the distance, standing face to face, finding you between the kitchen island and his body. He didn't say anything, it was what he did that made you realize his opinion. He stretched out his arms to take your face in his hands and approached you very slowly to kiss your lips. Your heart gave a return when you felt him so close to you again, testing his taste on your lips again, rediscovering the touch of his beard. A bark from Dodger came in the moment, but you barely noticed the event, as you were too busy meeting again.

You split up by cutting off the kiss and frowning.

"Wait. You haven't said anything, what do you think?"

"Come on honey, isn't it obvious?"

You arched an eyebrow waiting, Chris rolled his eyes and caught you sitting on the kitchen counter, you being taller than him.

"You're going to make me say it," he said, looking at your smile. "If I tell you that I love you, so that I can kiss you again and then later develop the answer, will that help?”

Those were the things you loved about him.

"It depends on the kiss."

Chris soon had you in his hands again, more firmly than the previous time. You let yourselves go forgetting everything around you, as if you wanted to make up for all the lost time, all the time apart. Chris lifted you off the counter again and you wrapped your legs around his waist.

"I got you," he whispered against your lips.

"You've always got me."

Tag list: @imerdwarf @mycosmicparadise @lavendertales

Requests/Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

#chris evans x reader #steve rogers #request #writing #ff #fan fiction #fanfic #marvel #mcu #y/n #female reader #chris evans imagine

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waitimcomingtoo · 4 years

Text

Far From Her

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: the school trip to Europe makes you and Peter reexamine your relationship

(post endgame, during far from home)

hope you’re all staying safe

Masterlist

You gave it five months.

Five months of strictly platonic friendship following the blip before you and Peter got back together.

You were together for 8 months before it all happened. And when you came back, you both decided that if you still wanted to be together at the end of the five months, you would be. But, it you found that you worked better as friends, you’d stay that way.

Rebuilding your friendship with Peter was more enjoyable than you thought. You found yourself slowly rediscovering why you fell for him in the first place instead of forcing yourself to be with him. It was a good plan, though you missed him. But the Peter that blipped wasn’t the Peter that came back. This new Peter had seen things the other Peter hadn’t. He was sadder, and a little more guarded. He was still a good friend, but in no position to be a boyfriend. That’s why when you suggested the five month break, Peter was more than relieved. He loved you, that hadn’t changed, but he some needed time to himself. Spider-Man had become a beacon of hope for New York and Peter was feeling every ounce of that weight.

You weren’t blind to this. At a press conference May was hosting, you could see how overwhelmed Peter was, even through his mask. When he slipped away from the journalists to get some air, you followed him to the roof to check if he was alright.

“Hey.” You shut the door to the roof behind you and walked to Peter.

“Hey.” He said, relieved that it was just you. He held your hand as you sat down so you wouldn’t fall.

“You looked like you could use the company of someone who doesn’t know how to work a camera.” You commented and he gave you a half smile.

“Something like that.” He nodded before turned his attention to the horizon. You watched his face, noticing how tired and worn out he looked. You rubbed his back in slow circles to wordlessly let him know you were there for him.

“I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but you’re doing a great job. Just seeing your face is bringing people comfort.” You said softly. His jaw tightened as you spoke as if he was trying to keep himself from crying. You put your arm around his shoulder and pulled him in, not pressuring him to say anything back.

“I don’t know. What if I’m just giving them false hope? Everyone wants something from me, and I don’t know how much left to give.” He said quietly without looking at you. You tilted his chin to face you and gave him a comforting smile.

“You’ve already given so much. Just take it easy for a while.” You asked of him. He gave you a half baked smile and nodded.

“What about you? Is there anything you want from me?” He switched to a lighter tone.

“All I want from you is your company.” You grinned at him and he laughed.

“I can manage that.” He told you. You smiled at each other, just appreciating the others company.

“There’s actually something I wanted to ask you.” You remembered and Peter sighed as if he knew what was coming.

“Yes, there are aliens in space. I saw one.” He shuddered and you laughed in surprise.

“That’s not what I was gonna ask but we are definitely gonna get back to that later.” You chuckled. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay with me going on the Europe trip.”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Peter asked, who had been looking forward to spending the time with you.

“Because, I don’t know.” You suddenly felt awkward. “I know we agreed to rebuild our friendship before getting back together, but this might be too much too soon. Europe is very romantic and it could push us before we’re ready.”

“How so?” He tilted his head to the side.

“I don’t know, Peter. You might see me eating a baguette and think damn, I need her so bad. I need her so bad.” You said and he leaned into you as he laughed. “It might cripple you completely, if we’re honest. Who knows if you’ll ever recover?”

“I think I’ll be okay.” He assured you. “And where are you getting this baguette from? We’re going to Italy.”

“They have baguettes in other parts of the world, dude. God, you disappear for 5 years and come back acting like you don’t know nobody.” You joked, making Peter laugh again.

“Alright, alright. What about you, though? What if you see me eating some gelato and fall irrevocably in love with me?” He dished it back and you burst out laughing. “What if you’re so turned on by the sight of me eating that creamy gelato that you become paralyzed?”

“I hear that happens a lot, actually.” You told him. “You’re such a good friend for thinking of me.”

“I try, I try.” He agreed. Your laughter died down and he looked at you fondly. “I’m glad we’re doing this. I need a break from it all. Not from you, though.”

“Me too.” You looked up at him before resting your head on his shoulder. You sat in comfortable silence for a while, just taking the time to be with each other.

You weren’t in Italy for even five hours before you were attacked. You had been standing by the docks, talking to Peter when a giant wave came from the water. You made eye contact from a distance and he gave you a knowing nod. He helped Ned and Betty out of a boat as he made his way to you.

“What is that?” You asked him as the water took shape.

“I’m not really sure. It wasn’t in any of the pamphlets.” The wheels in Peters brain turned as he thought of his next move.

“I’ll make sure everyone on the ground is safe. Try to get as high as you can and do your whole spider thing.” You strategized and he turned his attention back to you.

“Okay.” Peter nodded right as a massive wave was sent your way. He wrapped one arm around you and used the other to shoot a web at the wall. You both flew back against the wall and he covered you with his body as the wave hit.

“I gotta go. Be safe.” He instructed before he turned to swing away.

“Peter, wait.” You called, still pressed against the wall. He turned back to you and you grabbed his face, kissing him like it’d be the last time. “Please make it back this time.”

All he could do was nod before you ran after your friends. He watched you even after you had left before swinging to the tallest building to fight the water.

“Hey, Pete.” You leaned against his doorframe in your pajamas later that night. Unbeknownst to you, a very impatient Nick Fury was also in the room. Peter smiled at little at the sight of you ready for bed, but quickly cleared his throat when he remembered Nick Fury was losing his patience.

“Hey, uh, hi.” He stumbled over his words as an angry look crossed Fury’s face.

“Can I come in?” You asked and Peter looked to Fury for approval. Fury took a gun out from his hip and pointed it at you, out of your sight. Peter gulped and shook his head.

“No!” He held up a hand to keep you from coming any closer. “Ned is sleeping and you might wake him.” He said the first excuse he could think of.

“Oh, okay. No problem.” Your face faltered a little and Peter knew heaven was unintentionally hurting your feelings. He looked at Fury again, who looked like he was ready to kill Peter, and Peter had a feeling he’d do it.

“He’s really sleepy.” Peter said, never taking his eyes off Fury.

“Right.” You nodded awkwardly. “Do you have a minute to talk? About before?”

“Before?” Peter squeaked, playing dumb so you wouldn’t bring up the kiss in front of Fury.

“When we -uh- when I, you know…” You trailed off, wondering if he really didn’t remember you kissing him.

“Right, that. Totally forgot about that.” Peter lied. “Can we talk about it some other time maybe? I’m really busy right now.”

“Busy brushing your teeth?” You half laughed and nodded to his toothbrush. Peter looked to Fury for help, but found none.

“Dental hygiene is very important.” Peter stated.

“Sure. Some other time, then.” You nodded curtly and left his room. Peter sighed in relief when you walked away.

“That was my-“ He tried to explain.

“I don’t care.” Fury boomed. “Next person to walk through that door gets shot.”

Peter complied and reluctantly followed Fury onto a boat, thinking about you the whole ride.

After having to ditch you at the opera to fight an elemental, Peter positioned himself outside your door with an apology ready. You had made plans to sit together before Peter remembered he had previous arrangements. He slapped his face to react himself and knocked on your door. Every second he waited for you to open him brought more anxiety. Finally, you opened the door to him and your face saddened.

“Hey.” You said softly.

“Hi.” Peter responded, nervously shouldering his backpack.

“I missed you at the opera.” You spoke. Peter sighed in defeat and nodded.

“I was sick.” He barely committed to his lie.

“Right.” You nodded, not believing it when Ned told you the first time and not believing it now.

“Did you maybe want to go on a walk?” Peter asked timidly. “I feel like we haven’t gotten a chance to talk really since we got here, and I have something I want to tell you.”

“Yea, sure.” You said, knowing what was coming. “I’ll grab my jacket.”

You and Peter walked a few paces from the hotel until you were past the entry way. Peter dug his hands in his pockets, looking nervous and unsure of himself. You studied his body language and chewed your bottom lip, his nerves giving you nerves.

“Y/n, I-“ Peter began.

“Don’t want to get back together.” You finished his sentence for him with a defeated but accepting look in your eye. Peters entire body retracted in confusion at your statement. He was about to tell you he loved you and wanted to get back together. After the kiss, he thought you felt the same way.

And then you hit him with that.

“What?” He stammered.

“It’s fine, Peter. You don’t have to say it. I got all your hints.” You folded your arms, putting your guard up. Peters felt a twinge of pain at your actions. He never wanted to be someone you needed to guard yourself around.

“My hints?” He repeated. “Wait, what?”

“In your room the other night.” You reminded him like it was obvious. “You refused to talk about the kiss. You wouldn’t even look at me.” You said the last part like it stung you to even think about.

“I have a reason.” He promised, realizing he was losing his handle on the situation quicker than he wanted.

“What’s your reason?” You asked. Peter was dumbfounded for a moment. He was specifically instructed not to tell you his reason.

“It’s a secret reason.” He offered timidly and you rolled your eyes.

“Is it the same reason you ditched me at the opera?” You humored and you shoved your hands in your pockets.

“Yes.” He said weakly.

“How convenient.” You laughed bitterly and distanced yourself from him.

“It’s a really good secret reason!” He pleaded with you to understand.

“I bet it is.” You looked up at the sky to keep from crying. “You don’t have to lie to me, Peter. You obviously took me on this walk to tell me you didn’t want to get back together.”

“I’m not lying. I took you on this walk because I wanted to talk to you for once. And I wanted to sit with you at the opera.” Peters voice cracked as he got emotional. “I really, really did. But I have a lot going on that I’m not allowed to tell you about. You think I don’t want to be walking the streets of Italy, holding your hand? I would so much rather be spending every second of this vacation with you than what I have to be doing.” He cried as you stood silently. “I’d love to talk about the kiss. I’d love to hear about every second of that four hour opera from your perspective. But I can’t. You have to believe me when I tell you, I just can’t.”

“Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even upset.” You shrugged and wiped a tear from your cheek. “I should be used to you leaving by now.”

“What are you talking about?” He panted.

“You left the bus when we were going to MOMA. Ned told me you jumped off to follow that space ship.” You brought up for the first time since The Blip. Peter tilted his head in confusion, never knowing that bothered you.

“The Avengers needed me. I had to go.” He said like it was obvious.

“Did they call for you?” You questioned and Peter was caught off guard.

“No.” He realized, still not knowing why it mattered.

“I did.” You told him. “When the cars piled up because drivers had disappeared from their cars, I looked for you. And when our bus got hit from the back because the person driving behind us turned to dust, I called out your name. And when kids started faded away, kids I knew, I started to cry because I couldn’t find you. With dust in my lungs, dust made up of my classmates, I cried out for you. And you weren’t there. You were off helping the Avengers.”

“I didn’t know that.” Peter said quietly. You looked at him with a pained expression.

“You abandoned me, Peter.” You whimpered as tears fell down your cheeks. “Now I know that if the world was ending, I wouldn’t even cross your mind. How is that supposed to make me feel?”

“I didn’t know what was gonna happen.” He tried to defend his actions, but even he knew what he did was wrong. He left you during the most traumatic moment of your life.

“But you knew something was gonna happen. And when given the choice, you chose to run to the Avengers instead of me. And I bet Mr. Stark tried to send you home. I bet he told you to leave but you wouldn’t go, am I right?” You asked and Peter reluctantly nodded. “I know it’s selfish of me to even think this. A part of me knows that this is your job and you had to go. But the other part, the other part of me really wishes I could’ve seen my boyfriend one last time before I disappeared. Is that selfish?”

“No.” Peter sniffled as his heart broke.

“I don’t mean to blame you. But Peter, you jumped out of a moving bus and swung away without anybody seeing you. I’m pretty sure you could’ve tapped me on shoulder and told me you were gonna leave. I could’ve gone with you. I could’ve helped.” You said weakly and Peter could see just how hurt you were. How hurt he made you.

“You could’ve gotten hurt.” He protested.

“Look at me, Peter. Do I not look hurt to you?” You laughed sadly.

“I didn’t think when I saw the spaceship. I just acted.” He tried to defend his actions, but even he knew he was in the wrong.

“I didn’t even get a goodbye.” You looked down and hugged your jacket to your body as Peter realized what this was about. You didn’t want him to not help the Avengers. You just wanted a goodbye from your boyfriend before he ran off to space to fight a war he didn’t start.

“I’m sorry.” Peter said sincerely. He took a step towards you and you took a step back.

“I was looking for you as my body turned to dust. I just needed to see your face one last time to know everything was going to be okay.” You mumbled. “Were you looking for me too?”

“I don’t know.” Peter shrugged in defeat. You both knew he wasn’t. In the heat of the moment, you hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I don’t know either. Maybe that’s the answer, though. Maybe we’re just too different now. I know we broke up to find ourselves, but maybe the people we found aren’t meant to be with each other.” You found some strength in your voice as you took the emotional upper hand.

“I don’t believe that.” Peter insisted, grasping at the straws of your relationship.

“Look at the material, Peter!” You stated. “Can you honestly look at me and say I’m the girl you fell in love with?”

“No.” Peter said after a moment of contemplation. “You’re not her.”

“But that’s who you want.” You said tearfully. “That’s who you look for everytime you look into my eyes. You want the girl who lived across the hall who you used to stay up all night watching movies with, and the girl you knew like the back of your hand. She’s the one you look for, but it’s me who disappoints you when you can’t find her.”

“But I love you.” Peter swore.

“And I love you.” You told him.

“More than I’ve ever loved anything in my life.” He continued.

“But what if that’s all we have? We can say we love each other, but do we know each other? Can we still read each other? Or am I just a stranger you think you recognize?” You tilted your head and he thought about it.

“I don’t know.” He said, dumbfounded again.

“I don’t think I want to find out.” You said before digging through your bag. You pulled out a black device covered in Peters webs and shoved it into his hands. “Here. I found this by the Ferris wheel. I was there, by the way. And apparently, so were you.” You said as you began to walk back towards the hotel. Peter looked at the device curiously before calling o to you.

“Please don’t go.” He begged you, his heating up with panic.

“I’m taking a page out of your book, Peter.” You called, never looking back.

Peter held the device in his hands, watching you walk away until his vision was blurred with tears. He dropped the device to rub his eyes, causing it to project an elemental monster he hadn’t seen before. When Peter saw Mysterio flying around in the projection, he realized leaving you wasn’t the only mistake he had made that day.

Peter found himself battered and bruised on Happy’s jet after he tried to tell Fury about Mysterio. Mysterio somehow got ten steps ahead and nearly broke Peters will to go on with his illusions.

Nearly, but not quite.

As Peter sat in the jet, entire body aching and head throbbing, he thought of you. It might be impossible to take down Mysterio on his own, but he’d do it if it meant you’d be safe.

“Can you dial Nick Fury’s number on my phone? I gotta get started on this suit.” Peter asked as he tossed his phone to Happy. Happy opened the phone app and was alarmed with the number of notifications Peter had.

“Do you ever check your voicemail?” Happy said when he saw the multiple messages in Peters inbox.

“My what?” Peter asked as he finished up the suit.

“Voice mail. The messages people leave when you don’t answer their calls.” Happy explained like it was obvious.

“That’s a thing?” Peter wondered and Happy looked unamused.

“I hate teenagers.” He grumbled. “Look at this, 28 from May, 13 from Ned, 6 from Y/n. Isn’t that your girlfriend?”

“From Y/n? From when?” Peter walked to Happy and peered at the phone.

“April 10th 2018.” Happy read the date.

“That’s the day we all blipped.” Peter realized. “Can I see that?”

“It’s your phone, man.” Happy said tiredly as he handed the phone to Peter. Peter quickly played your message and put it on speaker phone.

“Hey, Peter. Its Y/n. I don’t know where you went but I’m getting kinda worried. The sky got really dark all the sudden and the road is building up like crazy. Can you call me please? I just need to know you’re safe. Alright. I love you. Call me back.” Your voice sounded through the phone. Peter listened with a pained expression as he played another one.

“Hey Peter. It’s me again. The bus got hit by another car. I don’t…I don’t know if I’m gonna make it out of this. I love you. Wherever you are. Okay. Bye.” A tearful message played. Happy took Peters phone before he could torture himself with another message.

“I messed up.” Peter said stolidly as tears fell from his eyes.

“Yea, kid, you did.” Happy agreed. Peter didn’t say anything, just cried silent tears as Happy watched.

“Look, if she was dumb enough to date you, she’ll be dumb enough to take you back. Okay?” Happy tried to comfort him.

“I gotta see her.” Peter decided, wiping his face.

“Sure. Just save Europe first, if you could. Then you can talk to your girlfriend.” Happy bartered. Peter nodded and readied himself to enact the plan.

A few hours later, Peter limped along Tower Bridge after taking down Mysterio. He was exhausted, dirty, and in a desperate need to see you. He looked around for a moment, thinking he heard your voice, but ultimately decided it was his imagination playing tricks on him.

“Peter!” He heard your voice again and heard footsteps accompanying it. He stumbled through the smoke until he saw you running towards him.

“Y/n?” Peter asked before your arms were thrown around him. He immediately hugged you back, squeezing his eyes tightly shut to keep from breaking down. “I thought I lost you.”

“I know the feeling.” You squeezed him back, apologizing and making up all in one hug. You tucked some hair behind your ear and gave him a tight smile. “Is Mysterio gone?”

“Yea, he’s gone.” Peter said as you rubbed some dirt off his face.

“So everything’s okay now?” You asked, giving him a once over to check for injuries.

“No, it’s not.” Peter shook his head. “Nothing will ever be okay as long as you and I are broken up.”

“I understand what you’re trying to say, but in the current context of our situation, I just feel like that was out of pocket.” You told him.

“I don’t care.” He protested. “Y/n, I just got hit by train, jumped out of a jet, and nearly got shot in the head. But during all of that, all I could think about was seeing your face again.”

“You got hit by a train in broad daylight?” You repeated.

“I think I only survived because I knew I had to come back to you.” He laughed lightly. You stoped thinking about the train and looked at him fondly, taking in what he had said.

“Peter.” You bit your trembling lip and rested your arms around his shoulder. He pulled you by the waist and rested his forehead against yours.

“When I was laying on that train seat, bleeding out, the only thing I could think of was you.” He said softly. “You made a lot of good points on our walk. I did leave you that day on the bus. And you’re right. You’re not the girl I fell in love with.”

You pulled away a little and looked at him curiously. All he gave you was a smile.

“You’re braver, smarter, stronger, and more badass than that girl ever thought she could be. And the girl I see today? The girl I see when I look into your eyes, I’m in love with her.”

“In love with me?” You smiled at his confession.

“Yes.” He confirmed.

“Was it the gelato?” You teased and he let out a laugh.

“It might’ve been.” He said before pulling you into a long awaited kiss. You pulled apart after a moment but stayed in each other’s embrace.

“I’m gonna change.” Peter mumbled. “I won’t abandon you this time. I don’t ever want to be far from you again.”

Tag List 🏷

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madamewriterofwrongs · 4 years

Text

Missed High Five

911/Buddie

For @buckleysjareau who asked for Buck giving Eddie flirting lessons <3

If he was going to blame anyone, he would blame Chimney. No, he would blame himself for listening to Chimney. What did he know about dating anyways? Sure, he and Maddie had been through hell and were still going on dates and discovering things they loved about each other and seemed to be genuinely happy together. But that was a fluke, obviously.

Just ask them out. The worst they can do is say ‘no’ and then you can move on.

Horrible advice. In point of fact, the worst thing they could do was not ‘say no’. They could laugh in their face; they could say yes to avoid conflict; they could ask for a transfer and they’d never see each other again.

Maybe Chimney’s advice would be different if he knew that he was telling him to ask out a coworker.

Either way, it was definitely Chimney’s fault, and not the extra shot he’d done at the bar while they were all out celebrating Albert’s birthday.

“It’s weird, right?” Hen tucked into his side as he lounged at the edge of the party. “Not knowing any of Albert’s friends?”

Eddie shrugged to avoid admitting that he was incredibly uncomfortable. “That seems to be the way with us, though. Any excuse to get together.” He took another swig of beer, eye catching sight of the object of his interest dancing with a few of Albert’s coworkers. “Or maybe it’s just weird because we’re making it weird.”

Hen followed his line of sight, chuckling when she found Buck twirling a young woman who was clearly starstruck by the older man.

“More like we have the common sense to know when the age gap is too wide.”

Just ask them out.

Chugging the last of his bottle with an audible gulp, Eddie kept his eyes squarely on his target as he slammed the glass on the bar behind him. “Then I guess I’d better go save him.”

Eddie hated the dance floor; there was a reason he’d been avoiding it all night. It was overwhelmingly hot and crowded and too loud to hear anything beyond the pounding of the bass under their feet. He’d never held much love for clubbing in his twenties and he certainly held no affection for it now. He was here to celebrate the birth of a mutual acquaintance and save his best friend from embarrassing himself from being too nice to realize when he was being hit on.

How the mighty have fallen, Chimney had teased him the first time the waitress at their usual place pouted over not getting his number. Buck hadn’t even noticed that she was dropping obvious hints about what time she got off work and whether his apartment was close by. He’d just answered her questions respectfully, turning back to his conversation with the table until Chimney had finally slapped him upside the head for being so oblivious.

None of us what Playgirl Buck to make a reappearance but that was just pathetic.

Eddie had never seen the so-called ‘Buck 1.0’, only the lovelorn 2.0 who’d lost his girlfriend long before he realized, and struggled to find solid ground in the midst of rediscovering his priorities. He liked that Buck – there was a reason they’d become such fast friends – but even he had to admit that the man had lost his game.

“Eddie!” He couldn’t help the fond smile that crossed his face when his friend shouted his name over the thrumming music. “Come join the land of the living.”

“Actually, I came to drag you back to the land of the dead. We’re taking Christopher to the zoo in the morning, remember?” Buck seemed to miss the way the woman he was dancing with instinctually stepped away at the mention of the little boy. Eddie did not.

“Fine,” the blond sighed, though his face showed no signs of being put out. That was something that Eddie had admired in his friend from the very beginning: his unabashed love for Christopher. That kid was possibly the most loveable creature on the planet but the way Buck cared for him was a beacon in the darkness of space. “I’ll just say ‘bye’ to Albert.” With that, he’d disappeared into the crowd, leaving Eddie surrounding by sweaty, noisy, thrumming twenty-somethings, without anyone to save him.

Okay, so the music wasn’t that bad. And the crowds – while plentiful – were keeping a respectful distance (he wasn’t getting jostled about, nor was he being judged for using the word ‘jostled’). In fact, it had a pretty good beat to it. He could probably find the rhythm and dance to it, if he wanted to. It wasn’t awful in here after all.

The hand between his shoulder blades made him jump. “Ready to go?” Oh, thank goodness.

With one last wave to his fellow old fogeys at the bar, he followed Buck out of the crowd and into the cool night air.

It was always cooler outside than in some noisy club but in point of fact, it was a warm California summer, dulled by the lights of the city which overtook the starless black sky. Nevertheless, Eddie found himself drawn to Buck for warmth (or so he convinced himself). It had nothing to do with the comfort and ease he felt with the other man, content at his side in a way he never realized he could feel with another person.

He’d accepted some time ago, that he was ready to begin dating again. Life after Shannon was still boiling over with guilt and loss, but he had started to wonder – thanks to some helpful sessions with his work-mandated therapist – that sharing that grief with another person would help the healing process. So, he’d begun to look at the world with fresh eyes; almost immediately, those eyes had fallen on his best friend. The man who’d been by his side since their first meeting, protecting his son, comforting him through unspeakable loss, leaving (as they always did) but coming back.

He couldn’t quite put a word to how he felt for Buck, but if there was going to be a reason to reenter the dating pool, it would be to figure out what that word was.

So, yes, he may have found comfort in leaning against Buck’s side long ago, but he was now acutely aware of how often he did it, and how much he enjoyed it. It wouldn’t be a grand feat to place his arm around the other man’s waist, or let Buck put his hand on his shoulder. In fact, he found the urge to pull himself closer grew stronger the more he let his mind wander.

There were just one or two things he had to get out in the open, first.

“Hey, Buck” he spoke as casually as a man with a singular focus could speak. “If I wanted to ask someone out, what do you think is the best way to do it?”

Eddie tripped over his feet when Buck stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face his friend with laser-focused intensity. There was something etched there – concern? Jealousy (he wouldn’t dare to think)? Excitement?

“You got someone in mind?”

He couldn’t know, could he? Was he so obvious that one question revealed his secret? It was better to test the waters first.

“I do, actually. It’s a coworker; a friend.”

Buck hissed in discomfort, shoving his hands into his pockets with enthusiasm. “That’s tricky. Trust me when I say that sleeping with your coworkers is dangerous.” His shocked expression must have been as evident as his longing, because Buck chuckled a moment later. “Not at the 118. It was before I moved to LA and definitely a mistake.”

It was not as reassuring as Buck seemed to think it would be.

“So you don’t think I should go for it?”

“I didn’t say that, just” Even his non-committal shrug was cute. Eddie was doomed. “Be careful, I guess.”

What was he supposed to do, now? How could he test the waters knowing Buck was hesitant to dip his toe in? Perhaps he should just abort the whole mission and go back to caring too deeply for a man who’d come to mean the world to him.

He couldn’t blame Evan Buckley for turning him into a sap, but his presence in his life certainly hadn’t helped his natural inclinations.

“So…” Eddie startled when Buck bumped his shoulder. They’d been walking towards his truck – parked far enough away from the bar that he’d briefly contemplated just walking from home – for a few minutes while he lost himself contemplating whether or not to follow Chimney’s advice and just ask him out, already.

“So what?”

“Do I know this person you want to ask out?”

He suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to find out if the rumors of an entrance to Hell in Pasadena were true.

“Yeah, actually, pretty well.”

“So it’s someone we work with.” Buck bounced along the sidewalk, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Interesting. What’s your game plan?”

He was wrong; this was hell. This moment, walking beside his best friend on a random Saturday evening, was the definition of hell.

“I don’t really have a plan” he admitted, realizing in that moment, how close it was to the truth. Alarm bells began to chime with a reminder that this was a bad idea. Yet, still, he persisted.

“Then you’re in luck because I am here to help.”

“I’m sorry, when was the last time you went on a date?”

Buck made a disgruntled face, hidden by his smile, the way he did whenever Eddie teased him. He’d long ago catalogued the way his facial expressions changed depending on which of their friends was doing the teasing. This look was his one of his favourites.

“It’s been a while” thirteen months and nineteen days (not that Eddie was counting) “but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I think that’s exactly what it means.”

“Look, do you want my help or not?”

More warning bells clattered through his, admittedly, less fuzzy brain, but for some reason – which, to this day, he still isn’t sure of the reason – Eddie ignored them.

“Fine. What’d you got?”

The man punched his hand in excitement, fairly skipping down the street now; eyes aglow with enthusiasm (or perhaps it was just the smog).

“Okay, so, first of all: do you know if they’re interested?”

If that wasn’t that the million-dollar question on Eddie’s mind. “I’m not sure. I know they’re open to the possibility of dating, but they haven’t made any signal that they’re interested in me specifically.”

“That’s okay. Now you just have to woo them.”

He hadn’t meant to laugh so loudly, but it was impossible to know what Buck would say next on any given day; and tonight was no exception.

“Woo?”

“Yeah,” The firefighter plowed on with his usual fervor. “you know: you spend time with them, give them gifts, take any opportunity you can to touch them.”

“Touch them, how?”

They hadn’t stopped walking, but Eddie found himself dizzy from the realization of how slowly they were moving – how close they were. They were always comfortable standing shoulder to shoulder but suddenly, it was too much and not enough. The space under his collarbones grew incredibly hot.

“Just little things.” Buck bumped his friend’s shoulder with more purpose, rubbing the fabric of their shirts together. “A shoulder touch, a hand on the small of the back,” he demonstrated with a move that startled Eddie with its certainty. “Any chance you get, create a physical connection.”

They’d all but stopped walking now, Buck’s hand cupping his back, his own traitorous limbs reaching out to hook into his friend’s jeans. If he pulled hard enough, maybe he could make Buck gasp the way he did in his head when they-

Buck seemed completely oblivious to the stretch of rope between them; anticipation pulled taut. His smile was as calm and eager as ever, so proud that Eddie was a hands-on learner.

If only he knew how hands-on.

“Does it work?” Eddie found himself hoping for a very specific answer that he wouldn’t dare spell out, even in his mind.

“It always works for me.”

The pair hadn’t separated, though the moment was long past over. Yet, Buck still smiled, unaware of how close he was to everything changing.

That was the chink in his normally confident armor. He wasn’t worried that Buck would hurt him, or that they would lose their friendship if things went south – he wasn’t even concerned with how their work dynamic might be altered by the addition of a more personal relationship in a high stress job. It was that things would change; things, which he’d only barely gotten a handle on. Sharing a bed, sharing aspects of his private life, trusting and opening up more than he already had with Buck. And it would all happen at once. He hadn’t been a wonderful partner the first time around; there was no guarantee he’d get it right now.

When did Eddie start thinking of Buck on par with Shannon?

“So” he cleared his throat but hadn’t found the courage to let go of Buck’s belt loop (nor had Buck removed his hand from the small of his back). “spend time, give gifts, and touch them. Then what?”

“If they’re receptive to all your advances, then you just have to go for it.” Buck nodded unhelpfully. “Ask them out.”

“Why is that everyone’s advice?” Eddie grumbled to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He was doomed. “So when you say ‘spend time together’, do you mean like how we’re taking Christopher to the zoo tomorrow?”

The way Buck tilted his head in contemplation shouldn’t have been as endearing as he found it, but at that point, there was nothing to do but admit that he was a goner for everything that man did.

“Yeah; or how I let you drag me to baseball games.”

“I don’t drag you” Eddie lied.

“I’m not going for the overpriced beer and popcorn.” It was an admission that gripped his heart with something akin to hope.

“And giving gifts. Like that skateboard you found for Christopher?”

“That was mostly for Christopher” Buck conceded, still only a tantalizing breath away and none the wiser. “But yeah. Or when you fixed my bike on your day off. It’s the little things that mean the most, right?”

He hadn’t spent two hours learning how to repair Buck’s broken line in order to see the smile on his face, but the hug he received was well worth the blood, sweat, and swearing.

“And touching?”

He was a fool for asking but he was worse for wishing he didn’t have to. For wanting to have the power to kiss and press and hold whenever he wanted without having to go through the stress of risking his heart.

The worst was wondering if Buck looked down at his lips intentionally or if it was a simple reflex.

“Touch can be as simple as brushing shoulders.” He half-expected the man to demonstrate the way they had been for so many months, but his fingers curled against the fabric of Eddie’s sweater as if willing himself not to. “Or it can be a welcome hug, sitting next to them when there’s space to be apart.” He didn’t need to catalogue the library of examples he had because each touch had been seared into his skin since he realized it was an option. Standing this close, Eddie was certain he could see the same memories flashing through Buck’s eyes, the warmth of their breaths mingling together like smoke in the breeze.

It would be so simple now: reach out and steal that first kiss he’d been craving all night. And it would taste sweet. Buck was always going to taste sweet but he’d also tried some artsy blueberry ale and the scent of it still lingered. He could close his eyes and pretend they’d always been kissing; pull him close and never let go.

But he’d never steal their first moment together. It was meant to be shared, to enjoyed equally and with the same longing enthusiasm; he needed to take the plunge first.

“And then you ask them out?”

“Exactly.” Buck, endearingly oblivious Buck, smiled proudly at his protegee and tilted his head away, still not leaving the safety of their bubbly but no longer engaged in their battle of wills that he didn’t realize he’d won.

How was Eddie meant to resist?

“Go out with me?”

“Just like that. I doubt they’ll say no.”

Eddie’s stomach dropped to the ground and rolled into on-coming traffic. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

Buck furrowed his brow in confusion. “Yes, that was a straightforward way of asking someone out.”

There were many times in his career as a firefighter that Eddie had to control his expression for the unbelievable things people said to him on a call – some were awful, some where hilarious, others were just ridiculous – and he was quite proud of his ability to school his features in the face of adversity. He was never prepared to use that super power while off the clock.

“Are you serious?” He gaped at Buck with pure confusion and disbelief – and no short measure of disappointment. “Is this your way of turning me down or did you really not know?” He couldn’t decide which was worse – yes, he could, but he was still fighting his traitorous heart beating out of his chest at the realization of what he was about to reveal.

“Not know what?” It genuinely was so innocent.

With his last ounce of will power, Eddie released his friend’s belt loops and guided him backwards. Cold air hit his chest and he was reminded of how exposed they were in this moment – not only from the elements but from his heart, as cliché as it was. Buck seemed reluctant to release the grip on Eddie’s now-rumpled shirt but he did it, and the space became even greater as he mourned the loss of being completely surrounded.

He needed the room to offer his heart.

“Buck, I was trying to ask you out.”

Silence; the passage of time marked only by the widening of his friend’s eyes.

“Oh.” Realization. “Oh.” Comprehension.”

His heart crumbled. “Yeah. But, I understand that you’re not inter”

“I am.” The panic was surprising but the sincerity knocked him off-center. “I definitely am.” With every rambled word, Eddie was forced to lean back from the sheer gravity of Buck’s energy. “I had hoped and then I had stopped hoping and then you wanted advice and I thought I’d missed my chance and then I got so caught up I thought I was misinterpreting everything and I didn’t want to assume but I also really, like, being close to you, Eddie and if this was my only chance then I was going to take it but it seems like it might not be my only chance unless I’ve completely blown my shot which I might have because I don’t think I’ve ever rambled this much – why can’t I stop talking, Eddie, I’m never like this, I promise – I think I’m realizing in real-time just how much I screwed up what is probably the best thing in my life”

“You didn’t screw up anything.” The urge to laugh at the breathless man before him was smothered by throwing both hands over Buck’s mouth. “You didn’t screw up a damn thing. Though the rambling is new.” He allowed a chuckle to escape and it seemed to ease the tension in his friend’s shoulders. Everything fell silent again as Eddie stared into those bright blue eyes filled with what he finally recognized as the same hope he’d been carrying around.

“Go out with me, Buck?”

Without missing a beat, the other man nodded vigorously beneath Eddie’s hands, feeling the smile stretch wide.

“Good. I’m glad.”

A warm hand circled his, gently pulling his hand away from Buck’s mouth but never straying far from his face; the smile had turned a familiar shade of cocky and cute – though the latter was a newer realization.

“So I guess my technique worked, huh?”

Eddie gaped in some horrible mix between genuine offence and pure joy. The little-how could he-did he think-why would he-he’s trying to-

“Shut up” he floundered, using their joined hands to push Buck’s chest away, though the other man never released his grip and with a simple tug, he found himself back in their familiar bubble. Not safe from the cruel reality, but secure in their new truth and warmed by hope.

“Make me.”

He had every intention of doing just that.

#cj writes things #buckleysjareau #love mack #911 fox #911fox #911fic #911 fic #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz

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burnedbyshoto · 4 years

Text

Amelioration

pairing: todoroki shouto x reader

warnings: cursing, soulmate!au

word count: 5,792

a/n: here is the final part to the happiness series!!!! does reader forgive shouto??? does shouto marry momo??? who knows!!!

Happiness (part one) ~ Bravado (part two)

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

amelioration: (n) the act of making something better; improving

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

For the first time since that night seven months ago you feel truly and completely happy.

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Two Months Later

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

It took time, but you believed after months of being upset, you were happy.

The periods of you crying over a boy, who didn’t want you, had stopped two months ago. Two months of rediscovering who you were. Two months of figuring out what kind of person you were outside of this soulmate ordeal.

Why did romance always have to overpower everything?

Why did everyone need someone else to love them when they could love themselves?

Why the hell couldn’t you love yourself despite believing no one else could?

So you had thrown yourself into work. You decided to invest yourself into what you did best as you figured out how to make yourself happy. You hadn’t spoken to anyone in your old class since Kirishima’s birthday celebration; you weren’t embarrassed by your actions, but you didn’t want to discuss anything with them.

Your phone number was changed, and you had moved out of Kaminari’s place within twenty hours. You hadn’t opened any sort of social media in weeks because you had started to get DM’s from your friends— if they even wanted to consider you their friend after that.

Yes, your guilt had quickly consumed you after that night, but the truth of the matter was that you were, in fact, happier. Your role as a sidekick to Miruko kept you busy (she was aiming to climb the charts again) and you, finally a Pro Hero, were now inducted into the chart. You needed to perform well to keep Miruko happy.

Todoroki’s name on your wrist was no longer covered; it was visible by anyone and everyone who dared to look.

“Todoroki Shouto?!” the man in front of you exclaimed as he held your wrist gently in his hand. “Isn’t that the Pro-Hero Shouto, son of the number one hero?!”

You nod your head with a smile. It was the downside of being soulmates with someone as big of an influence in Japan as the Todoroki’s. “It is,” you say as you pull your arm back. “Is that a problem?” You ask, your head tilting to the side.

You were on one of the many dates you’d had since that night two months ago.

Each one started or ended sort of like this.

You were happy, yet no one else would let you forget about your cosmic mistake.

“Don’t you know Shouto?” he asks with a confused look. “Didn’t you two go to U.A. together? I remember watching the two of you compete at the Sports Festival!”

“As much as I would love to discuss Todoroki, I am trying to learn about you tonight,” you say as coolly as you can.

It was nearing Christmas Eve.

It was a holiday for lovers. A day that held the record for the most black ink tattoos turning gold in Japan. You just didn’t want to spend it alone, especially seeing that you would most likely not be celebrating it with your old classmates.

“Yeah, but the thing is I’m friends with Shouto! I can’t be here romancing his soulmate!” He exclaims whipping out his phone, and immediately you’re on guard.

“What are you doing?” You ask trying to peer at his phone screen.

“Just texting my friend,” he laughs as he pockets his phone, “but I mean, what did he do to deserve the silent treatment? I know there are fangirls out there who would die to have his name on their wrists! Did you know that some girl actually got his name tattooed on her wrist over her soulmates?!”

Your eyebrows scrunch and you felt uneasy, but you let it go, deciding to continue the conversation instead. “You’re not able to put ink over soulmate tattoos.”

“It was part of her quirk or something like that!” He laughed merrily. “But what made you run away from him? Is it because he’s the worst at keeping conversations going?”

“I don’t really want to talk about Todoroki,” you admit as the waiter set your plates in front of you.

You wanted to leave. You didn’t want to be associated with anyone that would remind you of Todoroki. You could handle your dates being in awe over your soulmate, but them knowing him on a personal level? That was too much.

“Oh, okay sure!” he nods as he grabs his chopsticks. “I have no filter, sorry!”

Your smile is strained, but the dinner goes on smoothly.

The conversation between the two of you flows as smooth as it can. You’re apprehensive about getting too personal with him and he asks anything on his mind. Besides knowing about his connection to Todoroki, it wasn’t a bad date. But it was not likely that you would go out with him again in the foreseeable future.

“So you’re a sidekick over at Miruko’s agency?” He asks.

The plates that had held your food have been eaten to completion. The waiter returning to grab the dirty dishes as he leaned towards you. Your fingers grasped onto your glass of water as you drink it slowly. Your head nodding as you place the cup down.

“Yeah, I started off as an intern my first year at U.A., and I think it’s safe to say we clicked.” You explain brushing your hair out of your face. “It’s really great getting to work with her, I love Rumi.”

“Oh, I bet! Miruko scares me though! But again, I nearly crapped myself the first time I met Endeavor.” He laughed good-naturedly and you smiled in amusement. Being a side-kick at Endeavors agency was a testament to his strength as a hero. Getting in and staying there was no joke. “Plus with that ugly-- oh, hey! Over here!” He exclaimed with a large grin, his arm-waving to someone behind you.

Your eyebrows scrunched in confusion but the warmth of your tattoo grew as you felt someone standing by you.

“Shouto,” He says standing up and bowing to the man behind you. You stay in your seat, frozen stiff while burning holes into your dates head. “I’m so glad you came!”

“You invited a stranger on our date?” You snap as you stand up, immediately grabbing your purse and jacket that hung on the chair. “Thanks for a good evening but I have to go now.” You say ignoring his protests.

Your fingers grabbed a few yen you had and threw it on the table.

Making sure to turn out towards the side that Todoroki was not on, you hurried out. Their calls for you to come back falling deaf on your ears.

Your name being called did not stop you, nor did the looks being thrown your way. Weaving through people, you finally made it outdoors.

It was empty outside. No cars were driving by; no people walking either. It was empty with only the slowly falling snow to keep you company. Your jacket was hastily pulled on and the cold air stung at your cheeks as you continued walking. You needed to get away, yet you have no idea where you are right now.

“Y/n!” A voice called out for you.

It was him.

Your step doubled in speed, not quite running because of your low traction shoes. But the air stung more against your cheeks, and your nose turned red as you continued hustling.

“Y/n, wait!”

You didn’t want to wait. It had been months of you waiting, and now he wanted to make amends?! Now he wanted you to wait?

No.

Fuck that.

But then you heard the all too familiar sound of his quirk being used, and your feet were frozen in place.

Your eyes widen as you nearly fall over, your balance uneven.

“Fucking let me go!” You yell as you power your quirk through your legs, snapping yourself free from his trap, but it’s too late.

He holds your wrist before you can get away, pulling you towards him, and still, you don’t look at him.

Todoroki’s hand burns through your jacket and warms up your body and you hate that it makes you dizzy. You detest how unnaturally your body wants him near. How your heart yearned for him to win you over, but your brain screamed louder. Your brain demands you to move, and you comply.

“Let go of me.” You growl lowly, as you pull yourself away from his grasp.

“Please hear me out.” Todoroki pleads, once again holding onto you, but this time it’s by your jacket.

You despise the cold but it makes you unhappy being trapped by Todoroki. It makes you unhappy feeling like you will forgive someone when they don’t deserve it. So defiantly you slip out from the jacket.

The bitter and sharp air stab into your skin as you continue storming away, his shouts falling deaf on your ears. You didn’t want this, you didn’t need this. You were perfectly okay without him in your life, and now he was doing what? Trying to get you back into his life?

Was he going to ask you for permission to marry Momo?

Demand that you continue being unhappy for his sake?

That wasn’t going to happen, you wouldn’t let him use you like that.

Hot and angry tears freeze on your cheeks as you sniffle from the cold.

Footsteps hit the ground and your eyes widen as Todoroki is suddenly in front of you. His chest heaving, his eyes angry and sad.

“Put on your fucking jacket, idiot.” He speaks as he puts the warm fabric back around you.

“I don’t want it.” You sneer throwing the jacket onto the floor. Your eyes glaring daggers into him as smokey breaths expel from your mouth. “What do you want?! What is so damn important to you that you’re chasing after a girl you don’t fucking want?!”

“You’re my soulmate,” Todoroki flatly states, bending down to grab your jacket. He misses the way you roll your eyes and the temptation you have to kick him square in the dick and run away.

“I’m not your soulmate.” You say, your eyes locked on his as he stands back up. “You made that perfectly clear the first night. Say what you need to say and leave me alone.”

He stares at you at a loss of words.

It’s so cold, and you want nothing more than to leave him standing outside in the cold. You want to take your jacket from his hands. The jacket is warm because he’s using his quirk, and yet you want to yell at him to stop it. Why is he doing this? What is his purpose in standing here in front of you?

“What is it!” You scream but it’s broken. It sounds like a pathetic plead as your heart pounding in your chest.

“I’m…” Todoroki looks at you with panicked eyes. He doesn’t know what he needs to say, and it makes your throat tight. “I’m sorry…” He mumbles, his eyes falling from your face down to the jacket in his hands.

“You’re… you’re sorry?!” You repeat, your voice pitching as you stumble backward. Your face is twisted with anger and defeat. “Why the hell are you sorry?”

Todoroki looks back at you, his jaw dropping to respond back to you, but you don’t want to hear his reasoning. You don’t want to know what dared him to feel sorry.

“Shut up.” You whisper, making Todoroki stop in his tracks.

“What--?”

“You didn’t want me. You were the one who told me that you wouldn’t break your promise with Momo! You were in love with someone that isn’t yours and you decided that no matter who your soulmate was, she was the one. You rejected me! I wasn’t the one who fucking rejected you! A-And now what?! You’re goddamn sorry?!” Your voice is shrill. This is a never-ending fight, a looping argument that will never find its peace. “I deserve someone who fucking wants me for me! You didn’t want me until my name was slapped over your wrist, and even with that, you didn’t want me! So why on fucking god would I want your apology?!”

Your chest heaves and all Todoroki can do is stare at you, his eyes wide, his mouth locked together.

“I wasn’t lying, nor was I being petty when I said I wanted you to drown in your guilt and your thoughts. I want you to never be able to look at me again because you broke me in seconds.” Your finger jabbed against his chest as you took your jacket and pulled it around your steaming body. “But I also wasn’t lying when I said I wished you and Momo happiness and love, so I hope whenever you marry her… whenever you’re years down the road and you have your own family and are happy... I want you to see my face. I want you to remember that it was my unhappiness, my sacrifice, that gave you that.”

Your eyes held no tears as you turned away, the cold wind futile as you walked away.

“You rejected me on my birthday, and now this is me rejecting you.” You mutter just loud enough for him to barely hear you.

The snow falling onto your head a joke. It was a mockery of the beauty and innocence of yourself.

But you felt better, you were getting better, and now you were going to move on.

You were improving, even if it was ever so slightly.

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Ten Months Ago

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Shouto’s eyes stared at your name inked into his skin.

The black ink mocking him of what had transpired that night. It wasn’t that he was unhappy with your name being there. Had it not been for Momo he would have thanked the world for giving him someone he already trusted. But that was not the case right now.

Momo had been there for him for years. A force that reminded him that someone cared for him. She was a great friend, and it was only a matter of time before he fell for her.

Shouto had been there the night of her eighteenth birthday, the white light consuming her as Shouto realized that they weren’t meant for each other. He hadn’t been sad, and in fact, he had been happy for his friend as she exclaimed she knew who was on her wrist.

Shouto listened as she pulled out her phone, immediately calling the name of the person who was meant to be hers. It was exciting, and Shouto remembers laying on her mattress looking up at the ceiling in happiness for her. That is until her voice cracked.

Momo pulled the phone away, dropping it to her lap as she smiled.

Her soulmate was leaving the country.

They weren’t coming back to Japan ever.

Momo sniffs as she brushed away a tear. “What’s a girl to do about it,” she whispers.

“I’ll be your soulmate then,” Shouto said without thinking, as he normally does.

“Wha--”

“I’ll do it.” He insists as he sits up. “Being rejected isn’t something anyone should go through, especially if it’s just about distance. I know you don’t believe me, but if by the time it’s my birthday and I don’t have a soulmate I’ll pretend to be yours.”

“Todoroki-san, I can’t ask that of you!” Momo says shaking her head. “That would be unfair to when you have your own soulmate!”

“I want to help you out,” Shouto insists. “I won’t force you of course, but if you show up tomorrow with the ink-covered up, I’m all for it.”

It was then that Momo’s face flushed red, and her head turned away.

Shouto watched as the following day she appeared with her wrist blank, and his heart pounded at the thought of just what they were hoping to pull off.

But as all things go, a fake romance and a tight companionship turned into a real one, and Shouto found himself falling for the girl who couldn’t be his. Her persona became his drug and like a madman, he craved her, and the thing was she did too.

His birthday came around and he had no soulmate, so they went public.

Shouto was allowed to love the heiress out in the open, his own future soulmate wasn’t a thought on his mind.

That was until that March night.

He had been close friends with you since the end of the first trimester of the first year at school. Having Hero Work so frequently together only strengthened his friendship with you, and when he saw his name appear on his wrist, the reality of his lie came at full force.

Shouto should have known, he’d never been lucky in life. His soulmate both knew of his lie and was someone important in his life. Shouto didn’t know how to respond as you stood before him in complete euphoria. There was a serene look on your face as you seemed ready to give him anything.

But he panicked.

His feelings -- his love -- for Momo were too strong, and he had long ago said fuck what the universe wanted. So, like a fool, he denied you. Rejected a soulmate as Momo’s had done to her. But you were relentless, albeit correctly so at that, and burned away all the reasonings he had for this predicament. Your eyes inflamed, your energy wild, and Shouto made the mistake of lashing out as well. Submitting to his own emotions and saying things he regrets.

So currently, Shouto found himself in Momo’s room as routine. Sitting on her chair, he was silent as his girlfriend chatted about her dream. She then went on about how hopeful she was that you would have your soulmate’s name on your wrist. Shouto wasn’t listening though, his eyes locked on your name, the most twisted reality was coming to life and he didn’t know how to stop it.

“Okay, but my foundation is almost out so we need to go buy some later,” Momo announced as she walked over to him, the permanent marker in her fingers. “I know we tested out the new pen last time, did it work…” Her voice trailed off and Shouto looked up at her.

She had seen it.

“Oh, my god!” Momo panics as she drops the pen. “W-What are we going to do?!”

Shouto looks up at Momo, his face as confused as hers, “I… I don’t know?”

“Where you still with her when she found out?”

Shouto groaned as he put his face in his hands and dropped his head.

“Shouto…”

Shouto looked up at her, his face full of guilt and told Momo exactly what had transpired. Her face only grew in anxiety and a look of guilt exploded within her eyes.

“I can’t believe you told y/n that!” Momo cried as she shook her head. “You probably destroyed her! She’s your soulmate, Shouto! I would have understood!”

“But I promised you that I would be yours.” Shouto whispers. His head feels like it’s ready to explode. He wants to be with Momo but everything within him yearns for you.

Duty versus love.

Which was more important to Shouto had never been touched before, and now it was making his head split.

“I want to try with her, but I don’t want to just leave you… and the class thinks we’re soulmates!” Shouto groans even more as his fingers clutch at his hair. “We fucked up.”

“We can figure things out later?” Momo suggests with a confused face. “We need to discuss this more before we make a final decision.”

Shouto found himself unable to keep his eyes off of you from that moment on.

Your wrist was clear of his name, and he watched as other boys in the class continue to flirt with you. Shouto noticed every fake smile, every moment where you weren’t being truthful about your feelings, and it made him feel like throwing up.

You were everywhere all at once, and Shouto could only watch.

It didn’t help that you absolutely hated his guts now. Every single private interaction had you fifty steps ahead of him. Your steps light as a feather yet felt like an earthquake as you denied him the chance at looking at you.

Shouto found himself in Momo’s room with his decision one morning. The morning that ended with you telling him to forget all about you.

“I want y/n,” Shouto whispered to Momo. “I know I said I was going to stay with you, but… I can’t do this to her anymore. I thought I was sure about you but is missing your soulmate this hard?”

Momo was silent as she rubbed his back, her fingers stiff and foreign. Since your birthday they hadn’t been able to be comfortable around each other anymore.

“Well,” Momo whispers with her lips pursed. “I had you to distract me, it made it so much… more bearable. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them any less, but you have me enough love and attention it wasn’t always in my thoughts.”

That sent a painful twang to his heart as Shouto groaned, yet another heated line to your argument was true. He had fucked you over and now you didn’t want a single thing to do with him. “I fucked up.” He rustles.

“We both did, I owe y/n the biggest apology, I just hope she’ll forgive us,” Momo mumbles. “And I know that the situation is awful timing, but my soulmate reached out to me last night, and well… they’re coming back.”

Despite the bittersweet feeling of that revelation, Shouto smiled for his friend as he pulled her into a hug.

“I’m happy for you,” Shouto says. “I hope that you’ll be happy.”

Momo sobs and Shouto pulls away to see the heiress rubbing tears away as she shakes her head.

“I should have just dealt with it! I wouldn’t have put you into this situation and you would have been happy! It was just six m-months! I could have dealt with six m-months of h-heartbreak!” She guilty cried into her hands.

“I was the one who did the most damage,” Shouto disagrees as he rubs her back softly. “At the end of the day, it was me.”

It was hard for him to admit it but as he said those words Shouto felt the need to prove to you that he was your soulmate. A soulmate you could love.

He was going to win you back, no matter how long it took.

The next day was their graduation, and for the first time ever both Shouto and Momo wore their true soulmates names on their wrist. It just so happened that no one noticed, and before Shouto could confront you, you were gone.

His school uniform, a proud symbol of where he was from and of his journey, wilted. The second button on his jacket broken and in his hand. It was to be a gesture to you, the sign that you held his heart, but you were gone. The worst part was that he had no idea where to begin looking for you.

It seemed that the universe was not in his favor either.

You had blocked his number, no longer lived at home, and Miruko was no longer working in collusion with Endeavor.

He wasn’t sure where you were and no one would give him any hints. The birthday celebrations for his old friends were always attended by everyone, but you. The one he missed you showed up to. It was a constant reminder of his tragedy, and it was the same for Momo.

You wouldn’t let him get near and the first time he saw you, it was in a situation he didn’t want, and yet couldn’t blame you for.

Shouto was running late to Kirishima’s party. He had accidentally fallen asleep at his desk at work and woke up to it being nearly midnight. Cursing he changed quickly and rushed to where Momo was hosting the party. Tonight was the night where he was going to get you to talk to him. He was going to confront his mistakes, and for him to apologize for being one of the biggest douches on the planet.

When the taxi pulled outside of the house Shouto clutched his present close to him. His anxiety high, his heart pounding at the thought of finally being able to see you.

But the first thing he saw were two figures kissing sensually on the doorsteps. He didn’t need to wonder who it was, he could point you out in a crowd of imposters.

Shouto watched in silent jealousy and horror as you pulled away, and your face shines with joy.

You were happy.

Shouto watches with swinging emotions as he can’t figure out whether to be happy, mad, jealous, or sad. Did he have a right to any of these emotions? God, he knew he didn’t but they were stirring within him.

Paralyzed and overwhelmed, Shouto continues staring at you, unable to figure out why the fuck Kaminari is touching you like that. Your head leaning against his shoulder as your fingers play with his hands.

It takes everything within him not to freeze the world into the next Ice Age, but the feeling disappears when Kaminari glows a bright white.

Shouto can’t help the small victory that erupts in his chest as he begins to walk over, his mind on a single track of getting you back. You and Kaminari seem immersed in a conversation so that you both don’t notice Shouto.

He stood there, hearing from you about how you had been hiding your soulmate, and Kaminari talking about staying with you. It angered him, this shouldn’t have been a thing to happen to begin with!

So when his name was finally spoken, and you told Kaminari to shut up, did Shouto finally speak up. But it wasn’t the conversation or tone Shouto wished for. He was angry still, emotionally stunted as he couldn’t keep quiet. Your comments about this being a mistake piled up onto his emotional horror. His anger palpitating as he wanted to say what he had been rehearsing, but it wasn’t coming out.

Blame and anger were what was expressed instead. Hurtful things pouring from each other’s mouths and accusations of not waiting.

You had been angry about something that had happened seven months ago. Shouto thought it was about you hiding away from him, not an engagement ring that sat on Momo’s finger. But when that was revealed to him it was too late to apologize. The deception Momo and he had pulled months earlier was revealed as you left with the last laugh.

Nothing had been accomplished, and Shouto felt like the world was crashing around him once more. He kept fucking up… why was he so bad at this?

Shouto wanted you, he needed you; still, whenever he confronted you it seemed to end in a battle.

Even tonight as he stood under the falling snow watching your figure storm away he paused. He wanted to make things work, but you weren’t bending to his pleas.

He shivered due to the cold, his eyes looking at your name printed on his wrist. Shouto couldn’t blame you for behaving the way you were, and with one final resolve he took after you in the snowy environment.

Even if you didn’t want him back, even if you truly rejected him, he was going to make you listen to his apology.

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

You climbed the staircase into your apartment, the sounds of your shoes echoing through the hallways were loud in your ear.

Why was it that you couldn’t get away from him? Why were you never able to be free of your goddamn soulmate? You didn’t want him and he didn’t want you so why did it matter?

You pushed through the third-floor door and your ears caught onto the main floor door slamming open. Someone was in a rush, you thought as you walked down the halls pulling out your keys and entering your apartment.

It was a hot tea and bath night. You wanted to rub his touch off your body.

Fuck the universe and everything it claimed, you weren’t happy with who they had chosen for you. What made them so sure you and Todoroki of all people were destined lovers?

What made him perfect for you?

You slipped your key into the lock and stepped in. The door clicked behind you as you take off your shoes, saying hello to an empty apartment that was still littered with your moving boxes. You didn’t even have that many belongings, but you had been too busy to start unpacking, too unmotivated to begin.

The apartment was warm and you slipped your jacket from your shoulders and hung it on a hook. Ready to end your night with a cup of tea and a nice soak in the bath, you turned on your heel.

But you stopped.

A frantic knock echoed through your hallway, your front door physically moving from the pounding.

Your eyebrows knit as you walk over to the door, your guard up as you open the door.

It’s Todoroki, his eyes widen as you open the door, and his hand flying out as you try slamming the door in his face.

“Please hear me out!”

“I don’t have to give you shit!”

“Y/n--!”

“Stop! I don’t fucking want to hear it!”

“I want to say sorry!”

“I said I don’t want to hear it!”

“I know you don’t, but -- fuck -- y/n, please!”

You hate that the desperation, pain, and sincere guilt in his voice makes your constitution crumble.

Sighing, you open the door, and Todoroki pulls his hand away. It’s slightly bleeding and most likely bruised from having been trapped by the door.

“You have ten minutes to explain yourself, and after that, you will respect what I want to do concerning you.”

Todoroki walks into your apartment, and you watch as he walks to your living room. You follow behind and sit down on the chair furthest away from him.

“You have eight minutes.” You say as you sit down, your legs pulled up on the chair, your chin sitting on your knees.

Todoroki nodded, his fingers clenching with his nerves as he began.

You listened to every word, every excuse, and every reason for what happened.

Your eyebrows scrunched together as his apology became a speech. His apology was a story that you knew was coming.

Months of wondering what made him choose Momo unraveling before you as he apologized. His fingers locked into his pant legs as you stared at him.

“I know I fucked up. I fucked up more than anyone really could, and I don’t know how to fix it.” Shouto dragged his fingers through his hair, a clear indication of his frustrations. “I know that my apology can be seen as something you can see as being pure guilt, but I want to go back. I want to go back to that night and yell at myself for being an idiot. I shouldn’t have rejected you, and I should have done more to get you back but I didn’t. I just can’t stop thinking about you, and I want you, but I know it isn’t right of me to demand such things.”

Your eyes fall away from his face as you try to figure out your own thoughts.

What should you do? What can you do?

You were becoming happy without him, why did you need him now?

“What are you expecting from this?” You whisper staring at him. Shouto’s eyes widen, he wasn’t expecting that question, and eight minutes had been up ages ago. “What do you expect me to do?”

“I don’t expect anything,” Shouto confesses, his eyes looking at the floor. “I apologized for myself, as you said. I’m not expecting you to forgive me or give me a chance at winning you over again. I know I messed up a lot, and if you don’t want me that’s okay.”

You fall silent, your mind roaring as you try to figure out what to do.

What should you do?

“I can forgive you,” you said with a soft sigh. “I can forgive you, but I won’t be your girlfriend, nor will I be romantically involved with you.”

Shouto’s face falls as he takes in your words.

“Y/n--”

“Let me finish,” you interrupt as you raise your hand. “If you want my name to turn to gold, and if you want my genuine love, you have to work for it. Just because the universe chose you for me, doesn’t mean I agree. Make me agree with the universe. Fight for me, woo me, make me want you in return. I’m willing to love you for the rest of my life, but you need to give me a reason to want you.”

Shouto’s eyes warmed as he nodded, a smile falling on his face as he nodded.

“I can do that.”

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Bonus!

Your arms wrapped around Shouto’s neck as you grinned.

Your mouth pressed kiss after kiss after kiss on his mouth.

“You’re. An. Idiot.” Shouto laughs between every kiss, his fingers tracing up and down your thighs as he had you lifted up on his waist.

It was a year later, and the mess that had come about for the two of you had finally dissolved. The two of you were in love, and yet those words had yet to be told between the two of you,

You hadn’t said it because you still weren’t sure. Shouto refused to before you because he was scared of how you’d respond.

Your mouth moved fluidly against his as he hummed in appreciation.

“I love you,” He whispers as your lips pressed against his jaw.

You freeze as you feel Shouto still underneath you. You pull away as your heart pounds in your chest. It's silent as neither one of you speak. Eyes lock on each other and your smile grows as you press a kiss against his mouth again.

“I love you, too,” you whisper as he drops you to the floor. His hands cup your face and it brings you elation as his mouth pressed against yours.

Neither one of you sees it at the moment, but as his sleeve falls from his wrist and your wrist is exposed as you clutch his shirt, gold ink stains both your wrists.

True love after the pain is possible, sometimes it takes a bit of personal improvement to get there.

#todoroki shouto #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki angst #todoroki fluff #todoroki scenario #bnha writing blog #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha todoroki #mha #mha x reader #mha todoroki

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bearbaitmegs · 3 years

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I know I don’t have a lot of active followers here, but I’ve been going though some major changes in my life recently (both good and/or disorienting), and one of the things I am aiming to achieve with that is to reestablish myself online in some small way. Just casually, socially. I used to enjoy interacting and making friends online and some of my oldest friends remain people that I met through the web.

I hope these sporadic personal posts don’t bother you.

I think part of these changes that I’m aspiring to involve getting into the habit of simply posting more. I honestly am unsure of where to migrate to online outside of Tumblr. I’ve ditched Facebook except to check on businesses I’m planning on visiting and occasionally to sell something. I’m only on Snapchat and Instagram to follow one person. I haven’t logged into DeviantArt in almost 10 years. Yahoo 360 is long gone. Adjusting to Discord has been a slow and lurking process because it reminds me of some particularly haunting memories and it lacks most topics I’d be interested in (publicly, at least). Twitter never fit right. I refuse to engage with people on Ao3 or ffn because I’m very hesitant to engage with people who has the same media interests as I do because I’ve had far too much fandom-related trauma and drama and I still have trouble forming friend groups despite 9 years of distance

My brother has an undiagnosed and untreated personality disorder and it has often felt like his drama has been my defining feature for almost 2 years. I have gotten tired of carrying his monkey into all of my relationships and conversations, especially when trying to make new ones. I wish I had custody of my nephew because he and his ex are both sucky and neglectful, but all I can do is wait until the kid turns 18 or asks about emancipation. My brother deliberately seeks out relationships that renew and reinforce his past traumas in order to legitimize his unwillingness to move on and I hold him at least partially responsible for our parents’ decline in emotional, financial, and physical health. I recently opted to go for No Contact/Very Low Contact with him and it’s been freeing and refreshing and I feel immensely happier and more motivated.

I frequently feel like I don’t have anything worth saying or cannot really think of anything to say. It’s a work in progress. I have always carried a sense of awkwardness and that continues to persist into my 30s, despite the fact that I generally consider myself a confident person. I’ve been in a romantic relationship for 5 years and it fulfills 95% of my social and emotional needs, which... I think has led to leaving many of my other relationships to pasture.

Instinctively, I want to reach out and rectify all of these relationships all at once. Of course, it doesn’t work that way, and in trying to pace myself I find I often procrastinate. I set myself a goal of reaching out to a friend per week, but it’s more like one every two weeks. I know some of us will pick up where we left off like we’ve never been apart. Some of my friends will have moved on and our re-connection will separate again because we’re just different now and I’m honestly not bothered by that. It’s normal. I just hesitate because I don’t know where to start even though the script should be so easy. I feel annoying and needy. “Hey, I hope you’re well! I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I was thinking of you today every day.” Ugh.

I’m pretty financially, mentally, and physically stable and have been for a while. I like my job and I’m paid very well! I like me! I like my hobbies and my apartment! I’ve worked very hard to get here and there’s really only a few key things I want to improve upon.

But somehow I feel like I’m rediscovering myself again. Like I was shut out of something and didn’t even realize there was a door. I’ve missed something. I’m naturally comfortable alone and tend to be willfully obtuse about things that don’t involve me only to get startled by them later.

I moved back to my hometown 2 years ago in order to introduce my partner to my family and be around for some major family events. It was supposed to be a 4 month summer visit. The family drama just never stopped and I’m just...still here. I can’t wait to leave, but I also don’t resent my hometown as much as I did when I left. It’s changing immensely, but so am I. I definitely won’t be able to afford to stay.

I had a patio garden over the summer and, while we hardly got our money’s worth out of it, it was pretty and tasty and fulfilling. A few of the plants are overwintering with us.

I still haven’t lived somewhere that allows me a pet, but I keep saving stray cats.

I have way more fabric than I know what to do with from old clothes and dead ideas, but I finally tuned up my sewing machine and bought a set of sewing machine feet and I have lots of plans and ideas that I just need to sit down and actually execute. Especially embroidery.

I finally spent the damn $70 on an old school drawing tablet and took the time to download some free art programs. A modern tablet is still too much to budget for and a mouse and MS Paint is not enough. I do not know why it took me 10 freaking years when I’ve spent far more money on far less desirable luxuries.

I am hoping to find a decent enough mountain bike at a manageable price to do a long-distance cycling trip next year. If I don’t, I’ll divert to hiking a long-distance trail. I’ve never stopped craving spending weeks and weeks out in the woods with an overstuffed backpack since my first trek in 2016. I’m willing to go out of my way and budget hard to make it a reality on an annual basis.

I’m slowly picking away at my original story, JatGSL, a 10+ year Work In Progress, and I finally have a setting and characters that I feel good about and have a lot of fun imagining. I’m afraid to say much about it. It has dying androids and mushrooms and mythology and domesticated seals and braille and it takes place on a melted Antarctica. But my writing is a muscle long neglected and I don’t know if I’ll ever really get it back.

I sometimes think about moving some of my old fanfics over to Ao3 so they won’t be lost, but my old penname carries weight I’d rather not pick up and I don’t want to add anything else to JKR’s legacy and some of the things I wrote when I was 17-22 have aged pretty poorly. So, I hesitate and debate and do nothing.

I keep having simple, but neat ideas that nobody out in the market seems to be doing/making, but I lack the connections and knowledge to do anything with them.

My romantic partner is an amazingly perfect fit. Absolutely well-fitting, in-sync, mind-blowingly complementary in every way. I increasingly worry it might not last because my partner has 1 (ONE) key issue that I just can’t live with long term and if they can’t figure out a healthy way to cope I don’t know if I can go another 5 years dealing with it. I grew up with it. I won’t live with it.

It often feels odd to talk about myself (even here. even now) because I feel so much happier than I seem to be describing myself.

#megii's commentary #this is more a ramble than anything else

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thekillerssluts · 4 years

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Will Butler explains how his Harvard degree developed into his second solo album

“Yeah, it’s terrifying,” Will Butler says, pondering how it feels to be releasing music away from the umbrella of Arcade Fire.

“It’s the classic thing about all writers,” he continues. “The creative process makes them wanna puke the whole time they’re writing something, then they read something back and it makes them feel worse, then a year later they read it and think ‘yeah, it’s okay’. It’s a glorious experience, but it really makes your stomach hurt.”

On the one hand Will Butler is well accustomed to this writing process, being a multi-instrumentalist in the Canadian indie-rock band fronted by brother Win - Arcade Fire. But on his own terms, it’s an entirely new process. Butler’s second solo album Generations arrives five years after his debut Policy, a collection that rattled with a ramshackle charm and what he describes now as a ‘consciously very unproduced’ sound. Arcade Fire wound down from their Everything Now tour in September 2018, leaving Butler with the last two years of playtime. Most musicians, particularly those accustomed to big album cycles, set aside their downtime for family or other musical projects. Somehow Butler’s managed to do both while also completing a masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard.

“I went to school for a variety of reasons but there was an artistic side to it too,” he says. “I have always tried to let music and lyrics emerge from the world that I’m in; you fertilise the soil and see what grows. It was a way to better understand where we are, how we got here and what's going on. You know, ‘where am I from? What's going to happen?’” Both of these questions explored in his degree are used as fuel for Generations.

It’s easy to imagine an album by somebody who’s just pursued a Public Policy MSt to form in reams of political commentary, probably set to an acoustic guitar. However, Butler instead engages character portraits soundtracked by a broad range of thrilling sonics. Opener “Outta Here” is shrouded by a monstrous bass that lurks beneath the depths of the instrumentation before bursting out midway through. “Got enough things on my plate without you talking about my salvation,” he screams.

While the cage-rattling “Bethlehem” is mania underpinned by a thrashing guitar and bubbling synths that help lift the track to boiling point.While there’s no current world leaders namechecked or any on-the-nose political commentary across the LP, the angst of its contents is instantly tangible, backed by the intellect of somebody who’s spent the past few years studying the ins and outs of government processes. A perfect combination, you could say.

This fuel was partly discovered through Butler reconnecting with the music that defined his teenage years: namely Bjork, The Clash and Eurythmics. While these influences certainly slip into frame across Generations, they were paired with something of an unlikely muse: “I got into this habit of listening to every single song on the Spotify Top 50 every six weeks,” Butler explains. “So many of them are horrible, terrifying and just awful but there’s something inspiring about how god damn avant garde the shittiest pop music is now. Just completely divorced from any sense of reality - it’s just layers upon layers upon layers - it’s amazing. It’s like Marcel Duchamp making a pop hit every single song.”

We turn from current music to current events. Navigating Covid-19 with his wife and three kids in their home of Brooklyn, a majority of 2020 has been caught up in family time for Butler. “The summer’s been easier because everybody’s outside, whereas in spring it was like ‘it’s family time because we have to lock our doors as there's a plague outside.’” While being surrounded by the trappings of lockdown since his second solo album Generations was completed in March, the album itself wriggles with the spirit of live instrumentation, which at this point seems like some sort of relic from a bygone era."I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people."

The source of this energy can be traced back to the way the songs came together; they were forged and finessed at a series of shows in the early stages of the project. “It just raises the stakes. You can tell how good or how dumb a lyric is when you sing it in front of a hundred people,” he reflects. “It’s like ‘are you embarrassed because what you’re saying is true?’ or ‘is it just embarrassing?’ It’s a good refiner for that stuff. I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people.”

Like his day job in Arcade Fire, Butler’s solo live group is something of a family affair - both his wife and sister-in-law feature in the band, alongside Broadway's West Side Story star, and the student of the legendary Fela Kuti drummer, Tony Allen. Together this eclectic mix of musicians conjures an infectious spirit through the raw combination of thundering synths and pedal-to-the-metal instrumentation; an apt concoction indeed for lyrics that are attempting to unhatch the bamboozling questions that surround our current times.

The timing for Butler’s decision to study Public Policy couldn’t have been more perfect, with his course starting in the Fall of 2016. “I was at Harvard for the election which was a really bizarre time to be in a government school, but it was great to be in a space for unpacking questions like ‘my god, how did we get here?!’” he reflects, with a note of mockery in the bright voice.

“I had a course taught by a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur. The class was essentially on race in America but with an eye towards policy. The class explored what was going to happen in terms of race under the next president. The second to last week was about Hilary Clinton and the last week was about Donald Trump. We read riot reports - Ferguson in 2015, Baltimore in 2016, the Detroit uprisings in the ‘60s and Chicago in 1919 - it's certainly helping me understand the last 5 years, you know. Just to be in that context was very lucky.”

As we’ve seen with statues being toppled, privileges being checked and lyrics of national anthems being interrogated in recent months, history is a complex, labyrinthine subject to navigate requiring both ruthless self-scrutiny and a commitment to the long-haul in order to correct things. The concept of Generations shoots from the same hip employing character portraits to engage in the broader picture.

The writing, at times, is beamed from a place of disconnect (“had enough of bad news / had enough of your generation”), from a place of conscious disengagement (“I’m not talking because I don’t feel like lying / if you stay silent you can walk on in silence”) and from a place of honest self-assessment (“I was born rich / three quarters protestant / connections at Harvard and a wonderful work ethic”).

“I’m rooted in history to a fault,” he says. “My great grandfather was the last son of a Mormon pioneer who’d gone West after being kicked out of America by mob violence. He wanted to be a musician which was crazy - he got 6 months in a conservatory in Chicago before his first child was born. He always felt like he could have been a genius, he could of been writing operas but he was teaching music in like tiny western towns and he had all these kids and he made them be a family band and they were driving around the American west before there were roads in the deserts - literally just driving through the desert! He would go to these small towns and get arrested for trying to skip bills and just live this wild existence.”

Butler’s grandma, meanwhile, was just a child at this point. She went on to become a jazz singer with her sisters and married the guitar player Alvino Rey. “The fact that me and my brother are musicians is no coincidence,” he smiles. “It’s not like I decided to be a musician, it’s down to decisions that were made at the end of the 19th century that have very clearly impacted where I am today. The musical side of it is very beautiful, it is super uncomplicated and a total joy to have a tradition of music in our family...but also in the American context - which is the only context I know - it's also these very thorny inheritances from the 19th century and beyond that influence why my life is like it is.

“For me it’s like, ‘I made my money because my grandpa was a small business owner’ or ‘my grandpa was a boat builder and got a pretty good contract in WW2 and was able to send his kids to college’. Both of which are so unpoetic and unromantic but it is an important thing to talk about, that's a personal political thing to talk about; there's horrifying and beautiful aspects there.”

The lament of “I’m gonna die in a hospital surrounded by strangers who keep saying they’re my kids” on “Not Gonna Die” could well be croaked by somebody on the tail end of a life lived on the American Dream. At times, Butler plays the characters off against each other, like on “Surrender,” which chronicles two flawed characters going back and forth played by Butler’s lead vocals and his female backing singers that undermine his memory; “I remember we were walking” is cut up with the shrug of “I dunno” and “maybe so”. “I found having the backing voices there gave me something to play with,” he explains. “Either something threatening to the main character or something affirming to the main character, just providing another point of view.”

Elsewhere, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” explores the feeling of being unsuitably equipped to unravel the complexities that surrounds us day-to-day. “The basic emotion of that song is very much ‘I don’t know what I can do’ which is an emotion we all have,” he ponders. “There’s also the notion that follows that, like ‘maybe don’t even tell me what to do because it’s going to be too overwhelming to even do anything’.”

Some of these portraits materialised in the aftershows Butler began hosting while on Arcade Fire’s Everything Now tour which found him instigating conversations and talks by local councilman, politicians and activists on local issues. “On some of the good nights of the aftershow town halls, you’d feel that switch away from despair and into action,” he says smiling. “The step between despair and action is possible, that sentiment isn’t spelled out lyrically on the record but it’s definitely there spiritually.”

“I learned anew what a treasure it is to have people in a room. Getting humans in a room can be absurd. And we were having from 5,000 to 15,000 people in a room every night, most of them local. I’m very comfortable with art for art’s sake; I think art is super important and it’s great people can like music that's not political. It was sort of like ‘well we’re here and I know a lot of you are thinking about the world and you’re thinking about what a shit show everything is. You want to know what we can do and I also want to know what we can do!’ So I put on these after shows.”"The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change."

Butler would find a suitable location near the Arcade Fire gig through venue owners who were often connected to the local music and comedy scenes to host these events. “The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change. Arguably, the most important way is through the city council and state government. The New York state government is in Albany, New York. The shit that happens in Albany is all super important so I wanted to highlight that and equip people with some concrete levers to pull.

“In Tampa we had people who were organizing against felon disenfranchisement, like if you’ve been convicted of a felon you couldn’t vote in Florida, and something absurd like 22% of black men in Florida couldn’t vote and there were people organising to change that - this was in 2018 - and you could just see people being like ‘holy shit, I didn't even know this was happening!’

“These were not topics I’m an expert in - it’s like these are things that are happening. The thought was trying to engage, I’m sad to not be doing something similar this Fall, I mean what a time it would have been to go around America.”

Understandably the looming 2020 election is on Butler’s radar. “It doesn't feel good,” he sighs. “I’ve never had any ability to predict, like 2 weeks from now the world could be completely different from what it is today. There was always a one-in-a-billion chance of the apocalypse and now it's like a one-in-a-million chance which is a thousand times more likely but also unlikely. It’s going to be a real slog in the next couple of years on a policy side, like getting to a place where people don’t die for stupid reasons, I’m not even talking about the coronavirus necessarily just like policy in general. Who knows, it could be great but it seems like it's going to be a slog.”

There’s a moment on the closing track “Fine”, a stream-of-consciousness, Randy Newman-style saloon waltz, where Butler hits the nail on the head. “George [Washington], he turned to camera 3, he looked right at me and said...I know that freedom falters when it’s built with human hands”. It’s one of the many lyrical gems that surface throughout the record but one that chimes with an undeniable truth. It’s the same eloquence that breaks through as he touches on the broad ranging subjects in our conversation, always with a bright cadence despite the gloom that hangs over some of the topics.

The live show is without a doubt Arcade Fire’s bread and butter. While Butler questions how realistic the notion of getting people in packed rooms in the near future is, he reveals the group are making movements on LP6. “Arcade Fire is constantly thinking about things and demoing, it's hard to work across the internet but at some point we’ll get together. It probably won’t be much longer than our usual album cycle,” he says.

You only have to pick out one random Arcade Fire performance on YouTube to see Butler’s innate passion bursting out, whether it’s early performances that found him and Richard Reed Parry adorning motorbike helmets annihilating each other with drumsticks to the 1-2-3 beat of “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)” or the roaring “woah-ohs” that ascend in the anthem of “Wake Up” every night on tour. It’s an energy that burns bright throughout our conversation and across Generations.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/arcade-fires-will-butler-new-solo-record-generations

#Arcade Fire #generations #will butler #interview #hq

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yuxinbestgirl · 3 years

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Exclusive Interview with the Girl Group that Debuted from "Youth With You 2" - THE9

We Don’t Define Girls, We Don’t Define Girl Groups

New Weekly 2020.7.1 Issue 566

Translated by @yuxinbestgirl | twt | tumblr

Some people think that the birth of THE9 explores another possibility of Chinese girl groups, and others are just being bystanders, looking on to see how these girls’ future will be like. For these girls, rather than being a Barbie doll, they want everyone to see their hard work and personality.

Girls should not be defined, and should not be bound to prejudices. Girl groups are not just “showcase idols”, and neither are they a job just meant for the young. At the beginning of summer this year, with the end of “Youth with You 2” (herein referred to as Youth 2), Liu Yuxin, Yu Shuxin, Xu Jiaqi, Yuyan, Xie Keyin, Anqi, Zhao Xiaotang, Kong Xueer, Lu Keran, these 9 girls, were suddenly thrust in the public eye, and debuted as THE9.

The public constantly expressed their opinions about them, and fans chased them enthusiastically. Some people think that the birth of THE9 explores another possibility of Chinese girl groups, and others are just being bystanders, looking on to see how these girls’ future will be like.

New Weekly approached THE9 with these questions.

In the interview in mid-June, the girls just happened to be in the midst of welcoming their first public performance after their debut. Many people were looking forward to this performance.

3 days before the performance, many fans waited at the hotel lobby, outside the performance venue. They waited for THE9 members, leaving their homes early and going back late, and only left when the 9 girls’ performance has ended, and they have left Changsha. Three days before the performance, many fans and sisters had appeared downstairs in the hotel and outside the performance venue. They waited for the members of THE9, leaving early and returning late, and gradually dispersed until the 9 girls left Changsha after their performance. A security guard on duty outside the rehearsal room initially didn't know who the girls who kept playing "Yes, OK" inside, were. He took out his mobile phone to look up the video and said, "Oh! These ladies are so popular!"

And the girls in question did not dare to slack off one bit for their first live show after their debut. A few days before the official performance, everyone stayed in the practice room until 1 to 2 am, practising the 2 songs that they were about to perform, dozens of times.

There will be a stage with a water performance. During the rehearsal, their shoes, socks and pants were almost all wet, but the 9 of them still continued to dance. After it ended, everyone walked barefooted, carrying their wet shoes off the stage, and after returning, they continued to refine their movements while watching the video shot by a staff member.

With regards to being watched and having expectations pinned on them, the girls feel pressure, but also take it as a motivating force to keep them moving forward. During the interview, we could distinctively feel that rather than being a Barbie doll, these girls would rather that everyone can see their hard word and personalities. Every one of them did not hesitate to show their ambitions, and express their thoughts.

In the face of the uncertain tomorrow, the 1 thing that each of them wants to do, deep down in their hearts, is to continue to work hard, to treasure the stage, and to be their true selves.

Liu Yuxin: I Rediscovered the Momentum Once Again

What it means for me to re-debuting as a girl group, THE9, member this time is: I finally did it, we finally did it.

Previously, I posted on Weibo, to people who like me, saying “Wait for me.”, but I’ve also always been thinking, when should I keep asking them to wait until? I’ve also been waiting for this opportunity all these while.

For the past 6 months, I felt that I had a really strong support and backing that pushed me to give it my all, and to move forward. In the past 4 years, I rarely felt such a strong drive.

It may be because when I debuted in a girl group, girl groups weren’t popular yet, and it also may be because I previously used to be part of the underground scene, and never had the experience of being a trainee.

In Youth With You 2, I asked Teacher Yang Tianzhen a question, “Is having skills the most important?”. This was indeed something that had always been on my mind. In these past years, many people around me have given up, and there were also many people who made it, but I had always been trying to prove my worth with my skills, but I can’t seem to see a future, up to the moment I arrived at this stage.

It’s been a long time since I felt such a momentum. I felt it when I was 17 and went to Shanghai for a dance competition, and that momentum was something that I yearned for, because when I was young, I didn’t know anything, I was untainted, pure, I just wanted to pursue my profession properly, and let everyone acknowledge that it was a really good performance; I also felt such a momentum when I participated in a street dance battle 2 years ago, but it wasn’t enough.

In Youth With You 2, I regained momentum because my teammates around me were all very skilled, and I saw each of their strengths and charming points. This also motivated me to do better, and to not disappoint my fans. For example, for the theme song performance, I was selected as the centre, and during the performance, I would be elevated to the highest point. At that time, as I looked at the lights in front of me, I was thinking “Is this what I have to do to be worthy of this position?”

After so many years, I really treated Youth With You 2 as the last survival show that I would participate in. I thought about it, and decided that if I were to not be selected as part of the final debut line up, I would perhaps open a dance studio and a street apparel store later on. Because to me, a dance studio is also a stage, and to be able to pass down what I have learnt to the next generation, is also a happy thing.

#xin liu #liu yuxin #yuxin #the9 yuxin #the9

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fidgeting · 3 years

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thoughts on my own relationship to fanfic writing, b/c there was some talk about it on the tl (plus many many posts in recent weeks/months):

i went through a period a few years ago when i was trying to convince myself that what was necessary to pursue my original writing “seriously” was to quit fandom and stop writing fic, etc etc, because i was conceptualizing it like a sinkhole for my attention or writing energy. taking that step back was useful for me in some senses, mostly in terms of gaining perspective wrt stupid and stressful fandom infighting and making me reassess what i actually wanted to get out of being involved in online fan communities, but it was quite lonely--for better or for worse, i grew up a terminally online rural queer teenager in an evangelical christian mileu, and online fan culture was really formative to the person i grew into as an adult. it’s a type of social interaction that isn’t easily replaceable, even as i have a very different irl environment now.

so, in practice, what “backing off of fandom in the name of my Art” led to was a fallow period in my writing life. think i was so fixated on the dichotomy between my fic writing as something inherently silly that i needed to grow out of and that had no bearing on the “real” writing i wanted to make, which was going to Say Something About The World, that it became really hard to actually do that “real” writing because it felt joyless and bogged down in expectation vis a vis quality and Seriousness. what ended up getting me back into writing after a year or so of not producing much of anything worth talking about was rediscovering a sense of joy about writing through getting back into fanfic, because it was something that i could do as part of a community that felt playful--i wasn’t overthinking things to death or berating myself for how my work was out of step with what publishers want to see, etc, because it was irrelevant. the only point was to make something for myself--which you can do with original writing, of course, but i needed that encouragement and sense of group interest that comes from sharing work to a limited-but-enthusiastic ready-made audience, which is one of the things fanfic has going for it.

it’s been a few years since then and my relationship to writing in general has changed A Lot, but losing my sense of shame about fic writing being a hobby that i enjoy for its own sake did a lot of good for my relationship to my writing in general. taking on self-indulgent projects that exist outside of publishing marketability has done a lot for helping me get a sense of what kinds of narratives and unexplored corners of existing works i’m drawn to, in a way that i can then take and apply to my original writing. that could definitely have happened even if i never came back to writing fic, but i think would’ve been slower. i’ve stopped writing original work with the mentality of trying to appeal to a nonexistent subset of the publishing market, and instead been following desire lines to figure out what i, personally, want to be reading that doesn’t yet exist, rather than trying to figure out how to pivot my own personal history into thinly-veiled autobiographical queer memoir that could get some minor success as a cancon title or whatever. is writing novels without consideration for what editors want to see in slushpiles a good decision? probably not, but i’m actually, like, writing them now instead of just feeling guilty for not writing them, which is better than nothing. and i do find writing fanfic really fun and joyful, and cultivating a joyful approach to fic writing--as something done purely for pleasure with no expectation of material gain or name recognition etc--really helped me figure out how to translate that mentality to my original work.

so anyway. corny careerist acafans who claim that fanfic is inherently radical and artistically valuable are embarrassing, but i’ve also stopped giving a shit about the opinions of people who think it’s cringe to write fanfic as a 25 year old or whatever, largely because it’s truly just a hobby i do for fun and i don’t think i owe anyone an apology for that. that being said, i think it does enrich my relationship to my original work, which it should be noted is also just a hobby, as i have no desire to be a writer full-time (though i would like to pursue publication at some point.) at the same time, i can’t subsist on a diet of fic alone--i’ve read a lot of fic in my time that’s stuck with me and impacted me artistically/emotionally, but i have a hard time maintaining my interest in writing in general unless i’m consuming other types of fiction and poetry as much if not more than i am ~transformative work~, and i always experience the cringe emotion when people who feel insecure about their writing/reading patterns respond to that feeling with wild takes about the lack of value of genres of published fiction they patently don’t read. kids can we lighten up a little...

tl;dr i think writing stuff for fun in the context of an online fan community can be an end goal itself if you are indeed having fun with it and there isn’t anything inherently embarrassing about it; personally speaking my orig work and fic work have interacted in generative ways but are also just different activities that serve different purposes for me; the two positions of “fanfic is actually the most amazing real and true form of art because it’s METATEXTUAL and QUEER and POPULIST etc etc unlike stupid ‘BOOKS’” and “no one has ever written fanfic for any reason than to jack off about cartoon characters” are both dumb asf and it really is not that serious

that being said i do also just like to read and write weird p*rn in an environment where writing and consuming weird gay p*rn is socially normalized. i’m only HUMAN

#.txt

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aboutcaseyaffleck · 3 years

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Casey Affleck Gets Philosophical About Life, Time & The Whole Damn Thing

“Time,” reflects Casey Affleck, “is something I have been thinking about lately. It is ironic how the older you get, the better you are at being patient. With less time left, people become better at waiting. But this year, I feel much older and a lot less patient. I guess you’ve got to accept that time is never wasted? That doing is no different than not doing? That you can’t kill time no matter what you do, and that no matter what you do you can’t prevent the opposite from happening either? I don’t know. It’s a double-edged sword.”

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in early January, and Affleck and I are doing the Zoom thing, ostensibly to discuss his two new movies, the recently released indie Our Friend and the upcoming 19th-century period drama The World to Come. Yet our virtual tête-à-tête has become far more interesting, jumping wildly from his love of trains and travel to weightier topics like family, the future and the search for something more, something meaningful.

“I like the idea that time is an illusion. That past, present and future are all happening at once. I like it even though I can’t totally get my head around it. But either way, the me in the mirror gets older every day.”

Like most of us, he’s not only had plenty of time on his hands in recent months, housebound in L.A., but he’s tried to use his downtime wisely. “I tried to use this year of quarantine constructively,” the 45-year-old Oscar winner says. “I tried to see it as a winter season for shutting down and restoring something inside, but I just couldn’t. I’m not that evolved, I guess. I didn’t take up a new hobby or learn an instrument or get better at ‘self-care.’ If anything, I let my better habits and routines fall off. It was all I could do to keep my head above water and help buoy my friends and children when I could.”

As a guy with two teenagers at home — Indiana, 16, and Atticus, 13 — it hasn’t been easy, but he’s doing his best. He tried taking his sons on their annual camping road trip over the summer, but it was short-lived. Instead, he’s been focusing on making a happy home. “My kids don’t get to see their friends a lot, so I’m doing a lot more stuff with them, coming up with activities for the three of us, which they mostly hate, and I mostly let drop. And then I try again with the same outcome 90 percent of the time.”

While trying to create innovative plans to sustain his boys, he came up with one he thought might do some good, too. In June, he launched Stories from Tomorrow, a social-media initiative focused on creative writing by kids.

“At the beginning of all this last March, the first thing that occurred to me was that the quarantine would have a big impact on young people’s emotional well-being — the disruption they’re going to feel is really going to affect their mental health more than anyone else,” he says. “When I would sit down to write creatively, I felt better. But I couldn’t get my sons to journal or do creative writing much. I didn’t want to twist their arms about it. So I was like, ‘I’ll make a social media platform that inspires young people to write creatively, because it is such a good way of working out difficult feelings. And the way I will do that is have well-known people read the kids’ writing publicly.’ I knew that hearing your own writing read was exciting. I thought it would be really inspiring, that creative writing would be a great outlet for kids stuck at home.”

He enlisted some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Robert Redford, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jon Hamm, Matthew Broderick, Kyle Chandler and Danny Glover, as well as two current costars, Vanessa Kirby and Jason Segel, and arranged for donations made through the program to go to children’s hunger nonprofit Feeding America and Room to Read, which supports female education. He reached out to schools in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Haiti, hoping to create a global community.

Affleck was excited to make progress, to have done some good, but the initiative didn’t take off as planned. “In the end, an Instagram account for creative writing by tweens just couldn’t possibly compete with the quintillion bytes of daily data generated online. I don’t know. But I tried! And anyway, since then lots of other organizations started doing basically the same thing, and they are more organized than I am, and they have done a better job. So be it.”

Yet, adults have been disrupted, too, including Affleck himself, who is aware that, relatively speaking, he has gotten through mostly unscathed. “Am I happy? I mean, I’m relatively okay. It’s been a hard time to find balance and to keep it. I would say it’s been a hard time in my life, but I know that it’s been harder for other folks. So far we haven’t lost anyone, and we haven’t lost our house. And I rediscovered that when you’re feeling bad, there’s nothing better to do than to try to help other people. Being of service not only helps others but is a great way of getting outside of yourself. Also — and I really believe this — I think this time will be remembered as one when our country made leaps and bounds in the right direction; we are changing and growing and it’s uncomfortable, but we will be much, much better. I wish I could see the next couple hundred years. It’s going to be amazing.”

At the end of the day, it’s family that’s keeping him going. “Having my kids around and being able to spend so much time with them has been amazing. It is the brightest silver lining in all of this. They are what gives me the most joy. They are funny and smart and interesting and interested. They are just the best company ever,” he says. “Anytime I try to parent out some ‘teaching moment,’ I find they are two steps ahead. They help me make sense of stuff just as much I help them, if not more. I don’t have any answers, but batting the questions around, back and forth, is a good way of coping.”

CALEB CASEY MCGUIRE AFFLECK-BOLDT feels he is luckier than most. Although he and many of his peers have gone jobless for a full year, he spent 2019 working hard. He had not one but three films done and dusted prior to the start of the pandemic; the last one wrapped a week before mandatory quarantine. Two of these have back-to-back release dates: the tearjerker indie Our Friend came out in January, and sweeping period drama The World to Come will be released February 12. Thriller Every Breath You Take is slated for later this year. “I am so, so, so glad I spent 2019 working that much. It is what kept us afloat all through 2020,” he says.

The films themselves are radically different, but there are a few common threads. In both of his winter releases, Affleck plays a man who has lost a family member and whose marriage is in shambles. In both, he is a man in pain.

In the LGBTQ masterpiece The World to Come, which revolves around the love that blossoms between two married women on the mid-19th-century American frontier, his character, Dyer, says very little but manages to convey a wealth of emotion with his eyes alone. He may seem stoic, but he is suffering.

“The World to Come is a story about a couple who have lost a baby. They’re dealing with the grief in totally different ways and having a very hard time coming together again,” he explains. “My character wants to heal that by having another, but his wife [played by Katherine Waterson] is coping in a different way. She is severing all emotional attachment to him because it triggers more and more grief. She [only] seems to come alive when she is with their neighbor, a woman on the next farm [played by Vanessa Kirby]. He wants his wife happy, but he also would like her to love him. To me, this is the story of how couples can have their relationship shattered by a sudden loss. And it’s definitely a beautiful story about two women who feel that they have to hide their love and find the courage to love each other anyway.”

Affleck likes layers. He himself has many, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s drawn to roles written as fully formed characters, not caricatures. With Dyer, that’s abundantly clear. “Crisis is fun to play, [and Dyer] is in an interesting crisis,” he says. “I think he’s a really good person — a really decent, solid, loving person — which is what I loved so much about playing him and what I love so much about the writing. It’s more interesting when there’s no bad guy, just a conflict of circumstances and feelings that get so complicated that it drives two people apart.”

In Our Friend, a different set of circumstances drives the leads apart. Affleck and Dakota Johnson take on the true story of Matthew and Nicole Teague, whose imperfect marriage was strained by his long absences and her affair, neither of which seem at all important when she’s diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“To me, Our Friend is really a story about how petty grievances between people can divide them and then be forgotten when a gigantic tragedy is dropped in their laps. [Matthew] was wronged, it’s true — his wife cheated on him. On the other hand, he wronged her in a bunch of ways; [they] were just more passive and not quite so salacious. He wasn’t around. Matt got to be a dad and he got to travel the world as a journalist. He left her to take care of the kids. She wanted to have a life too, she had dreams of her own — she wanted to be a singer, she wanted to work — but she didn’t get to do that. She just got to be a mom. She was left holding the bag, and it wasn’t fair.”

He spent a fair amount of time immersing himself in the journalist’s life while filming in Fairhope, Ala., in 2019. (The film’s title is taken from Teague’s award-winning Esquire essay, “The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word.” The friend in question — played by Jason Segel — is a man who puts his life on hold to help the family during their darkest days.) But he did not become Matt Teague, which is an important distinction. “[Director] Gabriella Cowperthwaite asked that we not portray the personality traits of the real people. No accents, no mannerisms. [But] I did steal his style, because I had never seen someone nail the dad look any better than Matt. I say that with affection.”

As for the dreams Nicole gave up for her family, Affleck says, “If you were to ask Matt, I’m sure he would acknowledge that he was neglecting his role. He was neglecting her dreams, and that is a part of marriage, supporting what the other person wants. Like all relationships, it was complicated.”

Like life itself, really. This is why he can identify with both sides. He understands Nicole’s pain about the deference of her dreams as well as Matt’s desire to escape through travel — especially now, when Affleck himself has been completely grounded. Since the age of 17 he’s taken 20 cross-country road trips. His love of driving is secondary only to his enthusiasm for trains: Amtrak is his jam. He even fantasizes about owning his own train car one day.

Immersing himself in each location — whether it’s the sleepy Alabama town of Fairhope or the more exotic locale of Romania, which served as a stand-in for the East Coast of the U.S. in The World to Come — is actually one of the most desirable parts of the acting life, he says. “One of the things I love about working as an actor is that you go to some brand-new place and the community invites you in in a way that they don’t usually if you’re a tourist,” he confides. “You get to see what it’s like to really be there and imagine yourself living there.”

And he has — over the past ten years he’s spent so much time in cities including his hometown of Boston; Vancouver, British Columbia, the location of Light of My Life; Atlanta, where he shot the 2016 action flick Triple 9; Argentina, where he made Gerry; Dallas, for A Ghost Story; Calgary, Alberta, where much of the epic western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was filmed; Our Friend’s Fairhope set; Cincinnati, for The Old Man and the Gun; and Braddock, Pa., where he filmed the 2013 drama Out of the Furnace. “I have loved moving in and settling down and living a character’s life and then moving on. But I feel most at home in places that are struggling to get by. It reminds me of the neighborhood I grew up in. I feel lighter in those places, more relaxed. I feel like myself. I fit in.”

For him, the where is almost as important as the who — immersing himself in the place is imperative to understanding his character. This is part of what makes him such an accomplished actor — he and most of the parts he plays merge. I draw a crappy analogy about how the characters are like a coat, which he very obligingly works with. “You have to build the coat from all of the scraps and pieces of yourself; all these characters are made up of little pieces of me,” he says, noting, “Obviously, sometimes they can’t be. Sometimes I have no connection whatsoever, and those are the jobs I look back on and I either feel nothing for, or worse. But sometimes you have to take the job that is available, like most people in the world. You know? I don’t think my dad wanted to be a janitor. But he did it.”

He’s won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Critics’ Choice Award, a Golden Globe and an Independent Spirit Award, among others, and appeared in films that run the gamut from box-office juggernauts like the Ocean’s 11 franchise and Tower Heist to indie darlings like brother Ben’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone and Manchester by the Sea. He has even written and directed, most recently 2019’s Light of My Life, a bizarrely prescient movie about raising children in a pandemic. At this point in his career, he should have his pick of parts. “Not really,” he says. “There are a lot of people out there who have done good work, who are driven, and who have something to share. I have never been someone studios embraced as a ‘movie star,’ never knighted. I have always had to fight for the parts I have gotten. And you know what? That’s fine. Let me fight. It’s how I cut my teeth, and it is how I will keep them sharp. You can’t ask for more than a chance to be in the ring. Also, movies and TV aren’t all I care about. Sometimes I think, ‘Well, jeez, I have to work, and there are two jobs available to me, and the one that isn’t as good is the one that is close to home and I can see the kids, so I guess I am doing that.’ I love movies and really try hard to make them good. I really bust my ass every day when I get the chance to make one. I care more about my family than any movie. It’s not [always] the job I love, but this is the reality of my life. But maybe life will be long enough for a few more chapters.

The forward momentum of his future is an interesting topic. At the moment, he isn’t so much planning for the future as he is exploring it, because Affleck is not someone who likes to live with regret.

“I guess [at the end of the day], regret should be reframed as a reminder to be different,” he observes. And so, with this in mind, he embarked on a personal journey several years ago and decided to go back to college (at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia). He had completed two years at Columbia University, but he never graduated — his film career kept getting in the way.

“I went back to school because I hadn’t finished, and I wanted to think about new things in a way that school can help you do,” he says. “I couldn’t go in person, so I found a strong online school and got started. You know, I’m 45, and I just thought, ’This is halftime. This is where you hit the locker room and think about how you want the rest of the game to go.’ You know what I mean? Like, ‘Okay, we went out, we played our best, we didn’t know what the other team was going to be like, we made some mistakes, we are in the game, so let’s adjust like this.’ Also, I’m not sure I want to be an actor forever. I had made a small pivot from acting into directing, and into producing more. And I like to direct movies. The most satisfying creative experience I’ve had in a long time was being a director. But ultimately it wasn’t quite enough. So I wanted to go study some of the things I was interested in. I wanted to do more with my life.”

Although he needed general credits to graduate, he found an unexpected passion for juvenile justice along the way, with a particular focus on alternative accountability programs. “I don’t know where this will lead me, or why I am so interested in it, but finding and implementing better systems for addressing harm and conflict among kids, adults too, but mostly young people, is something I care about. And the work that I have done so far has been fascinating and deeply rewarding.”

When I ask if this stems from his own experiences as a troubled kid growing up in Cambridge, Mass., with Christine, a single mom — his parents divorced when he was 9; his father, Timothy, an alcoholic tradesman, checked into a rehab facility in Indio, Calif., when Affleck was just 14 — he muses thoughtfully, “I love my parents and think they both did the very best they could and cared a lot. Period. Did I get into some trouble as a teenager? I got into some trouble when I was a kid, and I struggled a lot through high school with depression and substances, yes. Much of it I didn’t even know wasn’t normal. I don’t know if I was ‘troubled.’ Either way, as an adult, I’ve come to see that, regardless of how I compare to anyone else, I want less conflict in my life. That might be part of the reason why I’ve been so interested in learning about better ways of resolving conflicts, both with children and with grown-ups. It isn’t something they teach in school for some reason. Man, there is a lot they don’t teach you in school, huh? A lot you’ve got to learn on your own.”

And on this journey, mistakes will be made. That’s par for the course, and Affleck is no exception. “I have made so many mistakes, but life is the time for mistakes. I do believe people should hold themselves accountable and repair harm they have caused. That is important to me, and I try hard to do that whenever it is called for: apologize for mistakes and repair them,” he admits.

This is when our conversation, as such conversations are wont to do, comes full circle. Before we say goodbye, Affleck remarks, “You know, I heard Bono talking on Howard Stern’s show, and he said something about Frank Sinatra that was interesting. He said that he heard two versions of Frank singing ‘My Way.’ One version was recorded when Frank was young, and the other version was recorded when Frank was old. Each had the exact same words, same arrangement, same everything. But when Frank was young the line ‘I did it my way’ sounded proud, and when Frank was old it sounded humble. Whatever else time does to a person, I think it also does that.”

[source]

#casey affleck #interview #photoshoot #photo #quote

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drethanramslay · 4 years

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Part 2: Therapy

Pairing: Aurora x MC ( Iris Everette)

Word count: 3.2K words

Previous part is here

Warning: Includes triggers like eating disorders and mental illnesses

Tagging: @miyakokurono @agent-breakdance @trappedinfandoms @vampiregirlsblog @lilyofchoices (let me know if you want to be tagged😊)

Songs: Therapy by All Time Low and Feelings by Lauv

Forgive me if I make any mistakes 🙈

Aurora stood in the kitchen, tapping her fingers on the kitchen island. It was six in the morning and she knew that her roomates would be waking up in the next half an hour so that they get ready and head to the hospital.

Aurora just don't stand there like a mannequin, move your ASS.

Aurora wanted to make breakfast for her roommates as a gesture of thanks for letting them stay with her for the past three months. She also wanted to impress Iris. Not that the ship had sunk but, she wanted to reciprocate for all the cute gestures she had done so far. Like buying her breakfast at iHOP and having Disney movie marathons, cuddling in her bed.

It had been three weeks since Iris was discharged from the hospital. God, she was a horrible patient. That girl had the audacity to show up in her hospital gown, dragging the saline with her for her rounds at 5am in the morning.

And that's not it.

When they sent her to her room to sleep, they ended up finding her with Amar, her nine year old patient. She was CHECKING on him apparently. It was a joy ride for Dr. Ramsey to explain the parents why their doctor was roaming around in a hospital gown, looking like a lunatic who escaped from the psychiatric ward. It was hilarious to see Ramsey getting worked up over Iris, like a mother hen.

It was so hard to deal with her stubborn nature but there were good times as well. Times like when Aurora would feed her the bland hospital food. Or the times when they played that question game.

Aurora learnt a lot over those two days in the hospital. Things like how Iris was a valentine baby. Or how she loved playing the piano, guitar and singing, her obsession with KitKat and the list goes on and on.

What Aurora enjoyed the most, was sleeping and cuddling with Iris. Aurora craved Iris every night after that, but she didn't dare say it loud so that she didn't look clingy.

And here she was, trying to make breakfast. She settled on making bacon.

How hard could it be?

Well, she got her answer when she almost set the fire alarm. "ARGH YOU PIECE OF-" Aurora shouted in frustration. Smoke was everywhere and she opened the windows to let most of it out.

She looked at the burnt bacon and grimaced. "Stupid goddamn pig!"

Her roommates stepped out, groggy with tired eyes. "What's burning?" Sienna asked.

"Outta the way! I have a fire extinguisher." Elijah said as he zoomed towards the kitchen. He was going so fast that it almost seemed like he was gonna do a wheelie on his wheelchair.

Aurora held her hands up. "Whoa whoa! Calm down everybody...I just burnt breakfast."

"Awww...you wanted to surprise us with breakfast??" Iris cooed as she leaned on the counter, her voice groggy and her eyes sleepy. "Key word being 'wanted'. I know you all have been so nice to me...so I just wanted to return the gesture." Aurora pouted.

Iris just giggled and walked around the island counter. "You are so precious, Rory." She kissed Aurora on the cheek.

Aurora was taken aback. She felt her face heating up and thanked the lord that her dark skin covered her blush.

"Oh god.. Can y'all stop being cute for like a minute?" Jackie groaned but, she could see the teasing glint in her eyes.

Iris just rolled her eyes. "Ignore her Rory. What if I teach you how to achieve prime crispy bacon?" Iris asked as she dumped the pan in the sink and took out a new one.

Aurora smiled. "Yeah, that would be nice."

🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓

Aurora had finished checking in on her patients by two p.m and she headed towards the cafeteria to have her lunch. She wasn't that hungry but she knew that she won't get an opportunity to eat later.

She made sure her pager was on so that she could have constant updates on the patient in room 304, that had arrived this morning.

It was a teen girl who had swallowed a fork. When she sat to speak with her, she learnt that the teen had eaten her lunch and headed to the bathroom so that she could puke.

"How did you end up swallowing the fork?" Aurora asked Elyanna when she was awake and conscious.

"I kept on trying...but it didn't work...so I tried to go deeper and- it got stuck."

Aurora shut her eyes as she felt a pang in her heart. This case hit home. Reminding her of the vicious cycle of her eating disorder she had to break, all by herself. Her father brushed it off as a puberty thing and her mother actually congratulated her when she became thin and weak.

She loved her parents, despite them treating her like a trophy child, who always complained about how what she was doing wasn't enough. She even got a chewing down by her parents when she didn't make the diagnostics team. But she didn't care, because Iris deserved it completely.

I mean, they are your parents, you can't hate them. They brought you into this world. Right?

She finished her salad and coke while she scrolled through the phone, making a list of rehab programs which she thought Elyanna would like. Crushing her can, she headed towards the room.

"Hey, Ellie. How are you feeling?" Aurora asked kindly as she opened the chart.

"Wierd." Aurora looked at the blue eyes and raised her eyebrow.

"Like I have eaten a hearty meal. And I am satisfied." The frail girl said with a small smile.

"Never thought I would hear that about hospital food." She chuckled and the girl giggled.

"But on a serious note, I am happy and proud of you."

"For eating a meal?"

"Yes. See, I know what it's like. I-" Aurora took a deep breath, "I too, used to binge eat and then puke it all out. Somedays, I would starve myself as a punishment. The day when I decided that 'No, we are going to stop this right here right now' and ate a good meal, I felt... liberated."

"I also want to be liberated from this but it's like an addiction...the need to look thin and beau-" the girl stammered.

"No! Don't for a second think that you are not beautiful. Don't let society's image of small breasts, thin waist determine beauty. Beauty is what comes from within. Beauty is not covering up your scars, but wearing it like a goddamn medal. Beauty is fighting for yourself. Beauty is loving yourself. Beauty is breaking the stereotypes and being your own person. So promise me, you won't give a shitty excuse that you want to be beautiful." Aurora said assertively.

"Okay. I promise." The girl said, with a small smile.

"Good."

"So what are the steps from here on? I want to change and reset. I want to be the better version of Elyanna Johnson. Ellie 2.0"

"Well, first of all, you are all cleared to go home. You can choose which rehabilitation program you want. Then it's your path to rediscovering by yourself."

"I can choose??" The girl was bewildered, which showed that she really didn't have much choices in her life. That she was kept under contol, not allowed to have any freedom.

Aurora smiled. "Yes you can. We can talk to your parents, if you want."

"That would be amazing. Thank you so much doctor."

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"Your daughter has been diagnosed with purging disorder, and it has been confirmed by Dr. Francis, our resident psychiatrist." Aurora said to the parents, as they stood outside Elyanna's room.

"Purging?" The mother, Mrs. Washington asked.

"You daughter has been having eating disorders. It means that after eating, she forces herself to vomit. She was using the fork to induce it, but it slipped causing her to swallow and choke on it."

"Oh my god. How could I not notice it?" The mother gasped. Aurora rolled her eyes internally. She knew how oblivious her parents had been. In the last two hours, Ellie had opened up about them and Aurora was just plain disgusted.

Well, you would have noticed if you weren't so engrossed in your manicures and kitty parties.

"Eating disorders? That's just bullshit." Mr. Washington scoffed.

Aurora was taken aback. You gotta be kidding me..

"Sir, it's a real concerning matter. If untreated, it can lead to a tonnes of mental disorde-"

"Please. My girl Ellie has always been a tad dramatic. This is just a phase." He waved his hands dismissively.

"Sir, with all due respect, this is a very serious condition which requires rehab and thera-"

"Rehab??!! Therapy??!! What will our community think?? They will shun us." Mrs Washington exclaimed.

Mr. Washington placed a hand on his wife's shoulder, calming her silently before he turned his hard gaze at Aurora. "Dr. Emery. With all due respect, I know my daughter for the last seventeen years. A trip to our priest, will make all this- drama go away. Can we take her home?"

"But-" Aurora started before being interrupted by Mr. Washington. "Answer me."

Aurora gritted her teeth, counting till ten so that she could control the overwhelming need to punch the oblivious man's face.

"Yes."

Mrs. Washington clapped her hands. "Wonderful. C'mon honey, let's give out daughter the news." Aurora just stared through the window, looking at the spirit of the young girl, slowly draining out of her.

And she hated every second of it.

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Aurora was in the new resident's lounge, taking a nap. She had been on her feet all day, running from one corner to another. Her legs were throbbing and were sore. She draped her coat over her face so that she could block out the light.

"What's up Big A?" Bryce asked as he threw himself on the other couch, groaning at the relief his back felt when it touched the soft cushions. He had had a tough neurosurgery which had extended for five hours. His hands were cramping from holding the clamps in place while Dr. Harper Emery worked her magic.

"Shut up Queen B. I want to nap." Aurora mumbled incoherently. Bryce just shook his head and closed his eyes. After a long moment, aurora broke the silence. "I'm scared."

"For what?"

"For my patient. I think she is suicidal."

"Why? Is she alone at the moment? Because if she is then we need someone checking on her continuously." Bryce said urgently. He knew how vulnerable these moments are.

"I have Danny checking on her every fifteen minutes. I think her parents broke her. Like... She has an eating disorder and she was completely on board to go to rehab and get well... but her parents, GOD THEY ARE SO INFURIATING. The mom is spineless, only worried about what other people think.. and the dad is so backward and refuses to believe that eating disorders are a thing. He thinks that a visit to the pastor will fix this." Aurora scoffs.

"Oh my-" Bryce was interrupted by the beeping of Aurora's pager. When she looked at the message, she bolted for the door. "Lahela, you are with me. They are running a code on my patient."

"I'm with you." They both ran down the hallways and reached room 304. On entering the room they saw red. Red blood pooling on the side of the bed, while Ellie shook, vomiting.

"What the hell happened?" Aurora barked. "She just started puking blood not two minutes ago." The nurse said as they held the tray near her mouth.

"That's not supposed to happen, everything was fine when I checked an hour ago." Aurora ran around the bed and checked the vitals. Ellie had stopped puking and looked at Aurora and wheezed, "I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore."

"Ellie WHAT DID YOU DO?!!!"

"Um, Big A?" Bryce called her. Aurora turned her head, eyes flashing. "I think I know how." He picked up the empty wrapper.

"I think she swallowed the scalpel."

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After a harrowing hour of surgery, Aurora marched towards the parents who were sitting in the waiting room. She walked up to them and showed them the bloodied scalpel, in a sealed plastic bag. "What is this supposed to mean?" Mr. Washington asked.

"This is what your daughter swallowed so that she could die."

The mother gasped while the father's jaw dropped. "Can't you see how serious this is? How this is bigger than any of us?" Aurora said in a cold voice.

"I-I- I didn't know.." the parents stuttered. "No. You do not get the right to say that. You damn well knew what was happening and chose to ignore medical advice. And it almost cost your daughter's life!!" Aurora spat out.

"We will heed by it from now on." Mr. Washington replied somberly, with teary eyes.

"You damn well should otherwise I-" Aurora began but she was interrupted by a voice. "Dr. Emery, can you help me with a patient?" Iris asked. Aurora sighed. "Yes Dr. Everette. I'm right behind you." Aurora sent a last poisonous glare their way before following Iris.

Iris dragged them into an empty on-call room, and locked the door. "Now tell me Rory, what happened?"

So Aurora spills about the events of the day, speaking so passionately, that Iris was blown away. She did not once interrupt her, intertwining their fingers and squeezing them to encourage her.

"I am just so pissed, I feel like breaking something." Aurora hissed. "Well...why don't you punch this...um...pillow?" Iris offered. Aurora stared for moment. "What? I don't have anything else to offer?!" Aurora just chuckled, tension slowly leaving her body.

"Okay, I will punch the shit out of this pillow." Iris stood up and held the pillow in front of her. Aurora landed a series of jabs and hard punches on it. They were so powerful that they pushed Iris towards the wall. When she felt her back against the wall she knew it was time to stop otherwise Aurora might end up punching her through the wall.

"Timeout!! Damn Rory, how did you learn to fight like that?"

"Been doing MMA for the last seven years. It helps deal with stress." Iris hummed and then sat on the bed. She pulled Aurora to sit in her lap, in such a way that her legs were thrown over Iris' thighs and she was facing Iris.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"I have seen you work with patients before and you are very passionate about it, no doubt. But this is affecting you way more than usual... See, I don't want to be pry but, why?"

Aurora sighed. "Because seven years ago, I was her." Iris held her hands and squeezed, encouraging her.

"As you know, my family is practically royalty. My mother is an actress and dad's a surgeon. They were always in the limelight and that meant that I was too. So how I appeared was important to them. And I hated how I looked, overweight and ugly. Sometimes, I still do."

"Rory, you are not fat."

"Right now, no. But, then I was a little plump. I was a nerd, kept to myself, stayed at home all day. My parents didn't like that. They would continuously throw jabs at me like, 'Aurora, you ar so fat that you could break the weighing scale' or like 'Aurora I am surprised you haven't hogged the entire pantry' or my personal favourite, 'Aurora you are such a collosal waste of space. You don't do any activities, you just sit in your room on that damn phone of yours, not doing anything constructive'... When the actual truth was that I was busy reading medical articles, making notes.

I had tried working out but people would snicker and laugh. I was so goddamn tired. I was never enough. My parents were never satisfied. I know they cared for me and that they loved me but some days, the snide remarks would just become so..."

"Loud." Iris completed the sentence.

"So, I started starving myself. As a punishment for not being good enough. They would feed me and I would throw it up in my bathroom, because I wasn't deserving. I hated myself and I couldn't look at my reflection because the ugly would just jump out." Aurora was crying quietly.

Iris let her cry. Let her mourn over her past self. Letting her make peace with her young self.

"My neighbour, a sweet old lady, pointed out that I was way too weak. And I knew that I had taken it far. So I decided to stop this vicious cycle. I seeked help from a psychiatrist and started MMA."

"It's been seven years...but I don't think you recover from such a thing ever. I think a small part of me will always loathe myself. That I am still the weak, pathetic and fat girl. What is that saying? 'Once a fat kid, always a fat kid.'" Aurora shook her head and tears streamed down her face.

"Can I say something?" Iris asked as she cupped Aurora's face. She wiped the tears, and tucked stray pieces of hair that had escaped her immaculate bob cut, behind her ear. "I think you are the strongest-" she kissed Aurora's left cheek "-the bravest" she proceeded to kiss her right cheek "-the prettiest" she kissed her forehead "-and the smartest woman I have ever seen." She kissed her on the nose and Aurora giggled.

"I am lucky to know you Aurora. I look up to you and I love the way you don't let your past define you. Everyday I learn something new from you, and it inspires to be a better person. And I like all of you. The silly, the practical, the ugly and the happy."

Aurora was swooning. Her feelings for Iris just bubbled to the surface. Her heart was bursting for the green eyes girl in front for her.

And in that moment she knew, that she was the one for her. Aurora surged forward and pressed her lips to hers.

Iris was shocked so as to say. To think that Aurora would like her, baffled her. She will leave you when she gets to know... She returned the kiss, tenderly, holding onto Aurora, as if she would vanish. That this was just a dream.

The sweet kiss turned into a passionate one. Both of them poured their feelings into the kiss. Pouring their dreams and their fears. It was euphoria, rushing through their veins, igniting their bodies. Iris pulled Aurora closer to her, to feel everything. Her hands roamed, memorising the curves, the dips, the way their lips moved in perfect synchrony, like two halves uniting as a whole.

Both of them knew that there was no going back from here.

They eventually broke apart, so that they could catch their breath. Iris pecked her lips once, twice, thrice. "So, you like me huh?" Aurora asked breathless.

Iris chuckled and gave a soft smile. "Well I don't go around kissing people like that. So I think this is a clear indicator that I like you..."

"So will you date me?" Aurora asked hopefully.

"Obviously Rory. But I would like to ask you out properly if you don't mind."

"I will be waiting."

This was so hard to write... It's hard when your own parents just brush off your fears and worries...it's hard...that shouldn't discourage you, reach out to your friends and make your own support system.... If you want to talk my dms are always open

Anyways, let me know how you liked it.

Like and reblog :))

#choices stories we play #playchoices #choices #choices stories you play #pixelberry #open heart #open heart 2 #ohsy #open heart fanfiction #aurora emery #aurora x mc #oh aurora #tw: eating disorders

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