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samkerrworshipper · 7 months

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found family | arsenal women x reader

no warnings just sickness, comfort and a little bit of angst

blurb: when r decides it’s a good idea to go out in the snow for the first time after training they suffer the consequences, and then suffer the consequences of trying to conceal their sickness

sorry if this draws on, wanted to give y’all something so this is from the drafts lol and idk how i feel about it

Doing snow angels after training in nothing more than shirts and shorts was never going to be a good idea, but I’d done it anyway. Me, Katie, Caitlin, Alessia and Beth having snuck out without telling any of our other teammates to have a moment in the snow. It was some harmless fun that we were sure our coaches and captains wouldn’t approve of, so we’d snuck out of the recovery room without anybody taking notice and had some fun in the snow. We hadn’t been out in it for much longer than 20 minutes, just long enough to slip out and in. It was rare for there to be so much snow so early in the year, I had hardly been expecting it and it wasn’t the normal sludge that North London was renowned for, it was proper fluffy white snow, the stuff you see in hallmark movies. I was the only player on the team who had never seen real snow before, so when I’d pleaded with Katie to take me out in it, she could hardly say no to me.

Beth, Caitlin and Alessia had just been casualties. Katie had taken Lessi under her wing since her start at Arsenal, the two had very quickly become bonded and there wasn’t much you could do with Katie anymore without Alessia and Caitlin being her companions.

Beth and Viv had happened to overhear our conversation in recovery and Beth had pleaded with us to let her come, Viv just shook her head at us, clearly in disapproval of our decisions but also not bothering herself with trying to stop us, there wasn’t any point, she wouldn’t win.

So we’d somehow managed to sneak out of the recovery rooms and out onto the spare field, which was covered in a blanket of white snow. Almost immediately I’d thrown myself down into the powder, shivering slightly at the coldness but not really caring, it was an experience that felt so incredibly surreal that I was in complete ignorance over my senses.

The four other women just sat and watched as I rolled around in the snow, Katie and Beth shaking their heads at my antics. Alessia busied herself with getting in a snowball fight with Caitlin. It had stayed fairly tame until I’d thrown one at Katie’s head and then it had turned into a full on war, ending with Katie and I wrestling in the snow.

Our snow escapades had ended with Beth forcing me out of the snow and into a jacket, I was shivering all ready but I didn’t care, my heart felt mended in a way that was inexplicably perfect.

I’d been forced into a hot shower by Katie, her overbearing motherly tendencies also making Alessia and Caitlin join me. Beth had been the only one to not enter the snow so she’d slipped her way into the dinner room whilst us other girls had been busy warming our bodies back up. Caitlin and Alessia were fairly quick, but I took a little bit longer, my body still shivering even as I exited the shower to throw on some sweats.

Katie’s furrowed brow was enough to tell me that she was a little worried about the fact that I was still shivering and cold, but she didn’t vocalise her worries, instead opting to rush me and the other girls into the dinner room. Somehow our absence had gone unnoticed, something that I was shocked by because we were hardly the quiet crew of the group.

I’d slid into a seat across from Viv and beside Steph, my body still a quivering mess. Viv’s eyeroll was enough of an ‘I told you so’, the older dutch woman clearly disapproving of our decisions. I tucked into my dinner, pesto pasta with chicken and garlic bread. It didn’t take long for Steph, my fellow Matilda to notice my shivering body. My fingers struggling every once in a while to hold my fork still.

“Little bit cold, y/n/n?”

I smirked and chuckled at the light implication from Steph, trying my very hardest to not give away the intense chills that were wracking my body, I was sure they would fade eventually.

“Just not fully used to this London weather I suppose, had someone warned me it was going to be so cold I think I would have stayed in Perth.”

Steph nodded at me knowingly, before returning to her conversation she’d been having with Beth, leaving me face to face with Viv, who had worry weaved between her brows as she studied me. Beth and Viv had just been two of the people who had taken me under their wing since my arrival at the Arsenal. Viv especially, although she’d never admit it, had particularly gone out of her way to look after me. On top of the two captains, Leah and Kim who had practically adopted me as soon as I’d walked through the doors. Leah was harder on me then anyone else, considering she was also a mentor to me on the defensive side of the pitch, so when she’d taken me under her wing I’d been a little bit terrified. She was always on my ass, I was always the first person in trouble with her and the first person to be blamed for anything. I was also the youngest on the team, and my personality was loud and bubbly, something that didn’t assist in helping me keep my head down around the team.

It was one of the reasons Beth and I got on famously, the both of us always looking to cause a little bit of mayhem but most of all have fun, Katie normally getting caught up in our antics considering she was the team's designated prankster.

Right now though, I felt anything but bubbly, my head beginning to pound against my trembling form as I pushed the pasta around my bowl, no longer feeling the overwhelming hunger I’d left a few minutes ago.

It was the clambering of a teammate sitting down beside me that pulled me from my daze, dropping my fork on the bowl as I turned to see who was sitting next to me.

“Hey lover girl.”

Kyra’s hand found it’s way to my head, ruffling my hair, her hand retracting back quickly though as soon as she made contact with my scalp, her eyebrows furrowing into a similar expression to what Viv had given me a few minutes ago when I’d been caught out by her.

“Why’s your head so cold? Feels like you’ve just come out of the ice baths.”

Kyra’s voice was nothing but friendly, but with the mixture of my sudden headache and my annoyance over people telling me that I was cold I couldn’t help but give her a bitten back response.

“I’m fine, just leave me the fuck alone.”

Kyra visibly flinched back at my words and everyone around us went quiet fairly quickly, everyone sensing the sudden tension and confrontation occurring between me and my teammate. Kyra slid into the seat beside me, one of her hands falling to my thigh which I immediately flinched away from.

“Everything okay, sweetie?”

I moved myself away from Kyra, inching myself further towards Steph, my other national teammate who seemed as equally confused by my behaviour as Kyra was.

“Y/n, a word?”

It was the voice from the other end of the table that captured my attention, Leah standing from the table already, clearly having detected the awkwardness between Kyra and I.

I clambered my way from my seat, scuffing my feet against the carpeted floor of the dining room as I tagged along behind Leah, following her out of the room and out into the corridor. I flicked the hood of my jumper over my head, toying with the drawstring as Leah turned to face me as soon as we were out of earshot from the group.

“What was that about?”

Her facial expression was as stern as ever as she looked at me, I kept my eyes on my feet, my head fucking hurt and I was still shivering, it was less noticeable though as I stood, I kept my hands out of sight and tried my very hardest to keep my body still.

“She was pissing me off.”

I could hear Leah frowning from in front of me, I didn’t need to look at her face to sense it.

“Does her pissing you off make it okay to tell her to fuck off, because I would hardly say that she deserved that, what’s up? This whole attitude is hardly normal for you.”

I kept my eyes focused on my shoes, toying with a bit of fluff that was stuck on the carpet, edging it slowly across the material with my shoed foot.

“Nothing’s up, I’m fine.”

Leah’s arm grabbing for my sleeve covered hand hadn’t been what I was accepting, the action drawing my eyes up to meet her own.

“I won’t have this piss poor attitude, go home, get some sleep and be here with a fresh mind tomorrow morning, understood?”

I pulled my hand from Leah’s, not letting her hold on to mine long enough to feel the tremors coursing across my skin.

“Aye, Aye, captain.”

I rolled my eyes at Leah, fake saluting her as I walked back into the dining room, picking my keys and phone up from the table quickly before exiting the building, not leaving any room to ask any questions as I stormed out of the room.

I somehow made it back to my apartment without passing out at the wheel, a miracle if you asked me. I didn’t have the will to do anything besides fall straight into my bed, very quickly changing into a pair of flannel pyjamas and stacking a pile of blankets on top of my sheets before climbing into the bed and relaxing into the mix of blankets, the mixture of heat and darkness calming my symptoms just enough to lull me into a fever induced sleep.

I woke up multiple times during the night, vomiting, coughing, sweats, chills, it all. My sleep was restless and by the time my alarms were going off I felt worse than ever. I was supposed to be at training by 9, but I could hardly manage to get out of bed to get to the toilet, let alone even attempt to try and put my training gear on and run around on a football pitch for three hours. I let my phone snooze one last time before flicking a text to Jonas, telling him that I was feeling a little bit under the weather and was just going to take the day to recuperate, all though something in my gut told me that one day wouldn’t be enough, not with the croaky cough that was wracking my whole body and the fever that I knew I was running. It was winter in London, I’d probably just picked up a 48 hour bug.

Jonas replied fairly quickly, telling me that he hoped I felt better and that it was a good idea to take a rest day.

With that text I turned off all of my alarms and burrowed back into my blanket fort, the effort of even having to look at my phone and piece together a text being too much for my head. My whole body hurt, my chest and ribs hurting every single time I took a breath, let alone coughed. The chills from yesterday were yet to pass, my whole body feeling like I was still out lying in the snow, even though I knew in reality my whole body was overheating. That thought still didn’t stop me from piling more blankets on top of my body, settling back into my bed with a groan as a wave of nausea and pain washed over me.

I faded in and out of the day, similarly to as I had done at night, my fever induced state making even my conscious moments feel like a dream. I ignored the incessant sound of my phone buzzing on my bedside table, opting to ignore anybody or anything that was popping up on it, I had one job in North London, play football, and I’d alerted my coach so that was as far as my social correspondence needed to go, any teammates or friends who decided my life was their business didn’t matter to me right now, my body hurt to much to care.

Somewhere around 5 or 6 the incessant coughing came to be too much for my body and I found my body keeled over the toilet bowl, dry heaving as I coughed up the mucus and phlegm that was caught up in my lungs. It was a painful experience, my lungs burning with every single breath that left my body, the oxygen burning on its way in.

I dragged myself back to my bed once I was done, the sun just beginning to set and my body having the capacity to do nothing more than lie down in my bed and wait for darkness to come so I could go back to sleep, tomorrow was our day off, so at least I didn’t have to worry about explaining another absence to Jonas.

My sleep through the night was even worse than the previous day, probably credited to the lack of energy I had in my body. The pain in my chest worsening drastically and in the wee hours of the morning I dragged a blanket and pillow into my ensuite, coming to the realisation that I didn’t have the energy to walk back and forth from the bathroom every time I had to go to the bathroom, which was fairly frequent with the amount of shit I was coughing up. I contemplated calling a teammate or Sam, whose apartment was fairly close to mine and I trusted her enough to ask her to come over. I didn’t though, opting to fall asleep on my toilet seat instead of getting up to go fetch my phone.

I stayed like that for most of the night, I think, honestly somewhere along in the night it all blurred into one. Until I was awoken brutally at 8am by the sound of pounding on my apartment door. I ignored it, half not believing that the sound was real and that it was just the sound of my fucking skull pounding against my brain in my head, a reflection of how my head had felt for the past 24 hours.

The knocking only grew louder and more persistent though, until it finally ceased and not much longer than 30 seconds later I was face to face with my two arsenal captains, both of their faces pink and rosy from the London cold and slightly exasperated.

“Hey skippers.”

My voice was laced with delirium, the only thing keeping me conscious at that point.

“Hey Joey, how you feeling?”

Leah walked cautiously towards me, letting Kim do the talking whilst she approached me and pressed the back of her palm to my forehead, grimacing almost immediately as her hand made contact with my own skin. I leant into the contact, her hand a relief from the fluctuating temperature my body had been upholding.

“Fuck, she’s burning up.”

Leah’s accent was thicker than normal, her voice covered in a blanket of concern that I’d never heard before.

“I’ll get Katie and Viv to come up, they can help get her into the car, we’ll have to take her to A&E, it’s bloody impossible to get an appointment with a doctor at this time of year.”

I shook my head at Kim almost immediately, or shook it as much as I could with the headache I had.

“M’ fine, just a 48 hour bug.”

My voice made me sound so much smaller, like I was a six year old and it was doing absolutely nothing to get my point across, in contradiction probably making my argument far weaker.

“Viv told us about you playing in the snow. What were you thinking? Playing in the snow with no clothes on after training, different breed you aussies.”

Kim mused at me, smiling a little bit as she watched Leah hurry around my bathroom, searching around. I frowned guiltily, knowing that once I felt better, once this was all over I’d be on the receiving end of a rather lengthy lecture about not endangering myself, a lecture I was sure Beth and Katie would have already received, considering Viv had snitched on us.

“I’m fine, I feel fine.”

My words were followed up by a fit of coughs that had me leaning back over the bowl of the toilet coughing up more phlegm, hardly a convincing point. My cough was dry, from the lack of fluids I’d consumed and the lack of liquids that were left in my body from the vomiting. My throat completely raw from the continuous retching.

“Don’t sound fine, sweetheart.”

Kim’s words were paused by Leah exclaiming as she located my first aid kit, that the two of them had put in my apartment when I’d moved in, claiming I was far too clumsy to not have one. She pulled out a thermometer almost immediately.

“I’ll make you a deal sweetheart, if you are below 38 then we’ll stay here. Me and Leah will look after you, like we could have yesterday if you had called us, or anyone. If you are above 38 though then we have to go to the hospital, because we don’t want you getting seriously sick, I know it sucks but we have to keep you safe sweetie. Kerr would have my neck if I didn’t return her best defender back in perfect condition when the international break rolls around, understood?”

I frowned at Kim, her stern scottish accent leaving no room for argument. I opened my mouth up to Leah, letting her slip the piece of metal into my dry and inflamed mouth. Waiting patiently until it beeped and frowning almost as soon as she saw it.

“41.”

Fuck. That number even made me frown a little bit, because that was unsafely high and all of us knew it. It explained all of my symptoms, and the cloud that I’d been floating on for the last day, a fever induced high that was the cause of my incessant sweating and shakes.

Kim frowned down at me, I shrugged at her in defeat, both of us knowing what it meant.

“C’mon sweet, let's get you changed and in the car.”

I looked up at Leah, my body folding in defeat as she bent down to lift me from the floor. I immediately wrapped my arms around her, letting her carry me back into my bedroom. She made quick work of changing me out of my pyjamas into a plain grey pair of sweatpants and an arsenal hoodie, giving me a peck to the forehead once she was done getting me changed. Her lips, cold from the London air felt so good on my burning skin, relaxing the itching and searing sensation that had covered every surface of my skin.

“Kim?”

Kim had busied herself with collecting a bag of my belongings, chargers, electronics, a change of clothes, and my toiletries. I had pretty much gone limp in Leah’s arms, letting her brush through my hair and comb it into a plait at the back of my head. The vice captain whispering sweet nothings in my ear as I groaned and coughed, my body tired from the constant pain.

“Yes, Joey?”

She took a pause in her hunt for my things, turning to face me, one of her eyebrows quirked at me in questioning. .

“Do you think you could text Sammy for me, please, and maybe Macca, I don’t want them to worry about me.”

My voice was so quiet I wasn’t even sure she’d heard it. The worry was growing on me though, the realisation that I really wasn’t as well as I’d been telling myself and Sam would want to be the first person called. Kim gave me a little smile before nodding and getting back to her job, collecting the last of my things just as I heard my front door open again.

“Of course I can sweet, let’s just get you in the car and then we can text whoever you need, alright?”

I heard Katie and Viv making their way through my flat, eventually making it to the doorway of my room, poking their heads around the side of my bedroom door.

As soon as I caught sight of Viv I bursted into tears, no longer being able to hold in the emotions that I’d holed up for the better part of the past 24 hours.

She was quick to be at my side, not protesting whatsoever as I threw myself into her arms, soaking the shoulder of her jumper with my tears and snot immediately. I was a blubbering mess, murmuring a flurry of apologies and admissions into Viv’s collarbone, the guilt of my actions settling into my gut.

“Hey, liefje, it’s okay, take some deep breaths for us.”

I burrowed my head into Viv, the feeling of sickness washing back over my body and making me feel worse.

“We’ve got you kiddo, I know you feel icky, but we need to get you to the hospital, to get you some help, so you can feel a bit better.”

I groaned into Viv’s body, rolling my eyes as she snickered a little bit at my reaction.

“I know you don’t want to, but we’re all really worried about you and you need some help, you're burning up like crazy, so let us take you, please?”

Leah’s palms were rubbing circles into my back, relaxing the muscles that were so tense. Viv’s arm was wrapped tightly around my shoulder, like she was protecting me from the world.

“C’mon kid, Katie and I have the car downstairs, all warm for you.”

Viv’s offer was enough to have me sighing in defeat and pursing my lips. I nodded half heartedly, letting Leah pull me from Viv’s arms so she could stand up. Leah helped me to pull my ugg boots over my feet whilst Kim and Katie finished collecting my things. I tried valiantly to walk by myself, but only made it to my doorway before my legs were weakening below me and Leah had to catch me. She carried me bridal style to the car, squishing me into the backseat between her and Kim.

My head found its way into the nook of Kim’s neck, silent tears and snot making its way down my face as we drove slowly towards the hospital. Leah, with a tissue at hand, very discreetly wiped at my face when I needed it and kneaded my arm muscles with her hands, helping my trembling hands to relax just a little bit. Slowly as we continued to drive any energy that I had previously possessed started to fade.

Kim called Sam, at my insistence, Sam was worried as soon as she heard Kim’s voice and after the explanation practically begged Kim to let her speak to me, so I was put on the phone with Sam, even at my reluctance.

“Joey?”

“Yup.”

“Hey sweet, how you feeling?”

I gulped slightly, not wanting to make Sam worry but also not wanting to lie to my skipper.

“Shit, I’m fine though.”

I could hear Sam’s eye roll from the otherside of the phone.

“41 degree temperature doesn’t sound too fine to me, what were you thinking?”

“Just wanted to have some fun.”

Sam’s scoff from the other side of the phone was enough to tell me she was more than displeased with my actions, something that most of the people in the car seemed to share.

“Next time you want to have fun, can you do it with someone other than McCabe, I hardly think she’s a role model for you, considering both of your reckless personas.”

Somehow Katie managed to overhear Sam’s words, a look of complete offence washing over her face.

“I’ll have you know Kerr that she practically begged me.”

Leah shushed Katie with a glare, the guilty look on Katie’s face told me she’d already had to hear a mouthful from our captains, and she would be on the receiving end of another one if she didn’t shut her mouth.

“Mm, sounds like our girl, well I’m going to go collect Alanna, Macca and Caitie, who are all very concerned about your wellbeing and we’ll see you at the hospital, okay?”

“Mm kay, thank you Sammy.”

As soon as the phone call ended I passed my phone back to Kim, relaxing my body back against hers, the actions of the day taking a toll on my body and resulting in a dramatic drop in my energy levels.

When we did arrive at the hospital I was hardly coherent, back on a fever induced cloud that made me hardly conscious. Katie was tasked with carrying me into the ER, Leah not being able to carry me much further than a few feet with her recovering knee injury. When we made it into the ER I was immediately tended to and sent straight into a room. My body was immediately connected to a series of machines and wires.

I fought against the nurses, to the point where Leah had to actually climb into the bed with me to keep me calm, my delusional body unhappy with the cold hands and cords connecting with my body. The contact with Leah though had seemed to calm me enough though for the doctors to be able to do their jobs and connect me up to monitors and IV fluids that my body was in desperate need of. There was a lot of bustling happening around me, but I kept my eyes closed, feeling instantly better when some pain relief and medicine was administered to my body, making me sleepy enough to fade into a deep sleep.

When I woke up I was hit with a reminder of my throbbing headache, my whole body hurt. Chest, ribs, head, it all hurt. I struggled to open my eyes and when I did my headache was only worsened by the light flooding into my room through the gaps in my blinds. I was shocked by the sheer amount of people crowded in my room, a different room to the one I’d fallen asleep in. My eyes flashed across my body, taking in all of the wires that my body was connected to, wires, leads, IV cords, my body was covered in more wires than it was skin. I panicked almost immediately, reaching to pull at the cords but my hands were stopped almost immediately.

“Hey Joey.”

It was Kim’s eyes that caught my own, her deep Scottish accent getting my attention and taking it away from the crawling feeling across my skin that all of the wires were causing.

“W-What happened?”

My eyes were darting across the room, my brain trying to remember what course of events had lead to me being in this position. My eyes caught onto my teammates, who were piled on sofas and chairs in the room.

“You went out in the snow, do you remember that? Katie took you out and you got a chill from it, because your body was vulnerable with the cold you developed pneumonia, pretty serious, you had us all worried for a little bit. Leah and I came to your apartment, because you hadn’t shown up to training and we were all worried about you, and we found you and took you here.”

It was a lot of information to take in, I couldn’t do much more than nod my head at Kim, like a goldfish.

“M’ sorry for worrying you.”

Kim smiled at me, shaking her head.

“It’s okay Joey, all forgiven, we’ll talk about it another day, right now you need to focus on getting yourself better.”

I pursed my lips, eyeing Sam who was sitting at my bedside, looking me up and down. There was a lot of emotions on her face, her jaw was locked and I could see some disappointment and concern in her eyes, amongst other things.

“Sam-.”

“We’ll talk about it another day Joey, I’ve already laid into McCabe about not giving into you, I don’t think Williamson is going to be letting you out of her sight anytime soon. I just want to know why you didn’t call me, or anyone. Sweet, there are so many people around who care about you and you worried us all, had you called anyone when your symptoms had started to show, or even the previous morning this all could have been avoided.”

Sam’s voice was stern, the voice she used when she mad at one of her girls for getting in unnecessary trouble.

“Didn’t want to bother anybody.”

Sam stood up at my reply, taking two short steps to my bedside and looking at Kim.

“Nobody in this room would have felt bothered, you were sick y/n, seriously sick and had Kim or Leah not decided to come and check on you, you could be dead right now, or in the ICU. You are so lucky to have a group of people that genuinely care and love for you and it worries me that you aren’t utlising that, what did I promise your parents when you told them that you were going to be making the move to London?”

I bit down hard on my lip. Sam had always been like my second mom, or older sister, ever since I’d started playing with the Matildas, when I was 15. She’d been a major influence in my life, so when my parents had found out that I had plans to move to North London to play for Arsenal at 19 they were displeased to say the least, I was hardly 18 as well, still a baby. They’d made Sam promise a bunch of things to them, considering we were both in London together.

“That you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, and you’d keep me safe.”

Sam’s jaw locked even more than it previously had, her eyes were dark brown, stormy almost, I could feel the internal conflict she was going through just by looking at them.

“Exactly, so how do you think it makes me feel when you are endangering yourself? It makes me feel like I should be calling your parents and telling them that maybe this wasn’t the best decision, maybe you need another year or two at home before you can live by yourself out here.”

I shook my head at Sam, that was the last thing I wanted. After all, it had taken so much begging with my parents to get me out here in the first place, being sent back practically ensured they’d never let me come back out here.

“Sam, please, this is where I need to be.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that those words are true, on a playing level you should be here. But you continue to prove that you can’t be trusted to make decisions for yourself. Going out in the snow was crazy, not telling anyone you felt sick was crazy. You're not proving to me or your parents that this was a good idea.”

I could feel tears brimming up in the back of my eyes. It had taken a lot of effort to get my parents to let me be here, there was nothing they wanted less than to send their eighteen year old daughter to London, all by herself, playing in a senior women's team.

“Please, please let me stay. I can’t go home, if I go home then that’s the end for me, Perth won’t take me back after how I left. My parents have enough on their plate with six other kids, let alone having to deal with me, please, I need to stay. I’ll make better decisions, I promise, please just let me stay.”

I’d shot up in the bed, tugging the cords and blankets up with me. Sam sat herself down on the edge of my bed, looking at me eye to eye.

“I know you’re sorry, and I really want to believe that you can do this, there is nothing that I want more than for you to be here and proving how amazing you are, but your risking your own health Joey, and I toe the line there. What happens when you get injured and decide not to tell anybody, I know you and I know that you are never going to ask people for help and I can’t be around 24/7 here to look out for you, if I could I would. I can’t trust that you are going to look after yourself when I’m not here.”

I felt a series of big, fat, wet, warm tears drip down my cheek, I felt like shit and all of my dreams were being crushed.

“We’ll look after her, we’ll take her in if we have to. Nobody wants to see y/n/n going home because of this, we’ll look out for her, please don’t make her go home.”

It was Beth’s voice, from the other side of the room that caught my attention. There was a guilty expression across her face, Alessia, Katie, Caitlin and Beth all carrying the same similar guilty expression, my accomplices.

Sam turned to Beth, it was clear she was tossing up her options.

“Beth’s right, she should stay, she’s worked hard enough to stay and we can hardly afford losing any defenders right now. I’ll take her in, she can move into the spare room in my house, I run a tight ship, I’ll keep her under control.”

It was the voice of Leah that was both my saving grace and sent a chill of fear down my spine. Moving in with Leah didn’t exactly sound like my dream situation, I knew that Leah would hold me accountable for my shit, something I wasn’t necessarily ready to deal with. Sam had immense respect for the England captain though, often times she’d expressed to me how much she admired Leah for doing what she did at such a young age, she was stern though, she didn’t forget anything and nothing got past Leah.

“Okay, if she can move in with Williamson then she can stay, this is all stuff we can talk about when you are feeling better though, you need your rest joey, with all those meds running through your body god knows how tired you must be, hm?”

I squirmed a little bit under the covers, not wanting to give into Sam’s words but also not denying that she was right, I did feel tired. Sam’s hand found its way to my cheek, wiping away the tears I had shed and giving me a little smile, the smile she kept for these moments, the rough ones that warranted some kind of assurance that it was all going to be okay.

“Go to sleep Joey, we’ll figure it all out when you are feeling better, right now you need rest, so you can feel better.”

I relaxed back into the uncomfortable hospital pillows, that all of a sudden didn’t feel so uncomfortable to my body, which was slowly starting to fade into a deep cloud of sleep. Sam pressed a kiss to my hairline before sitting back down in her seat and watching me drift off to sleep. Maybe everything wasn’t perfect, maybe I still had things that I needed to learn but I did have one thing, and that was a family that I’d found in my teammates.

#woso #woso community #leah williamson #arsenal wfc #arsenal women #arsenal x reader #arsenalwfc #kim little #sam kerr #sam kerr x reader #kim little x reader #katie mccabe #alessia russo #beth mead #vivianne miedema #caitlin foord #sickfic

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Dolcezza Extra I

Read Dolcezza here | ~4.7k words

From me: this is something I’ve never done before: an alternate idea to something I've already written. I will be copying and pasting parts to keep the continuity but I hope you like it. It was pretty fun. The first couple paragraphs are from the original part. I’m sure you can all follow without me telling you all this. Have fun!

Warnings: stalking, scary (?) Also, no clue what kinds of protocols are supposed to be in place for this sort of thing. I don't think it makes a lot of sense logistically or law-wise. But that's not what we're here for, right?! I wanted it to kind of go right in the middle of Part 8, like starts in the beginning-ish part of it and end essentially in the same way.

It was one of those nights where everything was going wrong, and everything was too busy. Antonio was caring for Leo, the baby, and the missus—all sick with something Leo brought home from preschool, so Harry and Niall were left in charge. Normally, the sweet girl found her way down and situate herself at a station doing the takeout orders but given the little... spat (what else could he call it?) she seemed to be avoiding him.

His phone began vibrating in his pocket without pause for three full minutes, but he literally hadn’t a second to look at it. All he wanted was for the pretty girl to appear. He wanted to apologize profusely for overstepping. He just cared for her so much. Even if she wasn’t comfortable with how he handled things, he wanted to make it better. He cared so deeply for her it hurt to be apart from her without so much as a text message between them over the last two days. He managed to see her exit a car that wasn’t hers parked in her spot. At least her car was getting fixed. But he imagined she had another busy Friday and Saturday. He wished he could have helped more. Wished he didn’t mess up and revealed that he messed it up in a way he couldn’t fix it.

The moment the orders slowed, Harry was planning to race up her steps and beg for forgiveness.

Harry dropped a knife for the third time on the same onion he had been trying to dice for the last five minutes. He growled to himself, snagged it off the floor (nearly slicing his hand from his anger overtaking rational thought to pick it up by the handle), and all but tossed it in the sink.

“Why not just talk to her?” Niall muttered across the way.

“Shut up,” he snapped, bitterness coating his voice. Niall raised his eyebrows at him and shook his head. He turned the other way, turned his attention to the soup he was pouring into bowls. “M’going to,” he mumbled grabbing a clean knife as he started chopping again. “Sorry.”

He nodded. “It’s alright. Just thinking we could really use her help,” Niall smirked.

Harry snorted. “Y’could probably ask her,” he mumbled. “She’d come running t’help m’sure.”

“Yeah, but it defeats your whole she’s spreading herself too thin. And then I’m no different than rest, huh?”

Harry sighed, grateful for his understanding. “You’re a really good friend, Niall.”

“Don’t I know it,” he laughed. It was infectious. Hard to keep Harry in a bad mood and he prayed to God the orders slowed soon so he could run up and beg her to come help Niall and him because as much as he didn’t want to ask her for another thing, working with her on busy nights were some of his favorite moments.

Harry’s phone was still vibrating. He wondered if he set a timer for something and it was just going off continuously. “M’phone’s been ringing nonstop.”

“Mum?” Niall asked.

“No... she knows m’at work. Plus, she’d call the restaurant if it was an emergency. I gave her the number.”

“S’probably an alarm, yeah?”

“Yeah... probably.”

“Oh, she’s here,” Niall mumbled his gaze narrowing at the slip of paper in his hand. “Eggplant and two times the extra garlic bread…” Niall waved the ticket out like he always did when they realized the arrival of Harry’s Principessa.

Well, at least Harry wouldn’t have to sprint upstairs to apologize. Still, it was odd she didn’t make herself known when she got there even if they weren’t exactly on speaking terms. Harry glanced toward the window for a peek to see if she was there, but he was too far away. “Niall did you see her?” He asked.

“No…” his voice was low, over the bustle of the few staff that were in the kitchen, Harry hardly heard him. Like he was piecing a puzzle together. He was studying the slip. Like it would give him the hint.

“See who?” The hostess asked. She was grabbing a take-out order off the counter that Niall had just finished packaging. Niall slid the ticket into the holder still examining it.

“Principessa,” Niall mumbled. “She always orders extra garlic bread with her eggplant.”

“Oh yeah she’s here with her brother or something,” Antonio’s nephew, Matteo, jumped right into the conversation as he brought back empty plates from the dining room.

Harry’s head snapped up from the veggies he was cutting and tossing into a pot to make a sauce. “Brother...?” Harry didn’t think that made sense at all. He remembered seeing “James groceries” on her calendar while he cleaned earlier in the week. It was always done on a day when James had to work in the evening so there was no way he would have come all the way out here for dinner. Still, he thought Harry would have known if James was here—between his protective brother streak or even just saying hello and thank you for the food. Harry thought she would bring him right back here to the kitchen and make herself at home.

But maybe Harry misread it. Or maybe James finally suspected she was tired and strung out and was taking a step to help with his kind older sister.

“Well, it’s not dinner with you; so, who else would it be?” Matteo reminded them with a shrug.

Niall gasped dropping the plate he was holding, and it shattered to the ground. Everyone stopped to look at him and he grabbed the ticket once more. Like it finally revealed the missing clue. At the same time Harry dropped the fourth knife he was using because if Matteo hadn’t said “who else would it be” they might not have put it together right then.

Harry hurried to the window and searched. “Where’s she sitting?” His voice was hurried. There was a one second pause. “Matteo, now!”

“Corner, near the door. What’s—”

“Niall...” Harry’s body felt weak and shaky. His blood was hot and boiling immediately. His vision was getting blurry at the edges, and he had never felt so close to throwing up in his whole life. Not even when he had the flu in university.

Why was his phone vibrating still?

“Oh no,” he murmured reaching for the phone in his pocket.

“Shit!” Niall hissed looking at the direction of the man sitting across from the pretty girl all the way across the restaurant.

Harry slid his thumb across his phone without taking his eyes off the table across the main room. The weakness he felt ached through every inch in his body. “Eleanor, I—”

He yanked the phone away from his ear as she responded, loudly, shouting. “Harry! For the love of GOD! Do you never look at your phone!? Why do you even have one!?”

Harry felt sicker at the accusation. How could he not look at his phone? “El—”

“Harry it’s bad,” Eleanor sobbed, barely getting the words out. Harry could hear Louis shushing her as best he could. “It’s really bad.”

It was every one of Harry’s worst nightmares.

She was trying to process why the door was open. She quietly stepped back from her own door, but she wasn’t in control of her own body. Her heart was beating a little faster than normal. Her brain tried to reason with her muscles that there had to be a reasonable explanation. Instead, her muscles continued moving; she pressed the volume button on her phone to turn Eleanor’s voice down even though she continued rambling about how Harry adored her, and she was pretty sure he was in love with her too.

Not even the idea of Harry loving her could shake the nerves away.

“El... Eleanor,” she whispered listening intently to Antonio’s office door distinctly closing and three foreboding footsteps reaching her door. The clinking metallic sound of someone fiddling with the lock on her door came next. She had the phone pressed to her lips trying to soundlessly alert Eleanor as best she could as she scurried backwards as if the door was on fire. “El! STOP!” She hissed listening for more sound.

“What?” She could hear the eye roll in her friend’s voice. “You have to confront these emotions Harry is—” There was a low voice cursing outside her door as the lock was fiddled with more and she stepped back as the door opened. Her jaw dropped along with her phone smacking to the ground. She could faintly hear Eleanor calling at the sound of the noise.

The man before her smiled excitedly, relieved. “You’re home. I knew I’d find you,” he sighed with relief reaching for her. Instinctively she took a step back, it took every ounce of her self-control to keep from throwing up all over herself or the not-so-stranger. “I’m so glad I’ve found you; I missed you so much.”

Her heart was pounding erratically. Her only saving grace was knowing Eleanor heard. She reached for her phone. Autopilot. Grab the phone that clattered to the floor.

He kicked it out of the way. “You don’t need that,” he assured her with an easy smile. She straightened; cleared her throat.

“I…don’t?” She whispered. She should have spoken louder so Eleanor could hear. Of course, she loved her apartment, and she loved Antonio and the little family he invited her to be part of that was Dolcezza. Right then, however, she wanted to cry that her apartment was soundproofed beyond auditorial recognition. Her eyes dropped to the fabric in his hand. She swallowed the bile that continued rising in her throat while he looked at her as if he had known her his whole life.

“No,” he shook his head.

Her mind wasn’t working. She was exhausted and terrified and poor Eleanor was screaming from the other end of the line. He grabbed the phone. “Hi Eleanor,” he said simply. “She’s okay. We’re going on a trip, she’ll be safe with me,” he assured her.

Then he left her phone on the side table. Hanging up and leaving it there. It started to vibrate immediately; Eleanor desperate to hear her answer again. Instead, he ignored it, held his hand out for her to take. “I need my stuff—” she stepped toward her bedroom, but he grabbed her arm. She yanked it away, like he burned her. She gasped at the touch, and he frowned.

“Sorry—”

Her fight or flight kicked in and she bolted for the bathroom. It would lock and she would drop from the second story if necessary or scream until Harry heard her.

Oh. Harry.

Right as she tried to slam the door shut behind her his foot got in the way. She yelped as he grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the room. “Honey, stop fighting me,” he grumbled bitterly. She felt so sick. So scared. She wanted to scream and cry but it would be useless. No one would hear her. She needed to make someone hear her.

Slowly, painfully slowly, her brain started to work. It wasn’t much. But she prayed silently to herself that it would be. She took a shaky inhaled breath. “I’m…sorry,” her voice cracked, and tears welled in her eyes. She couldn’t look at him. She was too scared. It was a nightmare, but she could feel the way her teeth bit into her cheek. It wasn’t something she would be waking up from. “I’ve had a really long week and a really long day. I haven’t eaten yet,” she whispered. “I was going to go downstairs and eat at the restaurant,” she sniffled. “Can we do that? A date?” It tasted sour in her mouth to say it. Her fingernails dug into her palms reminding her further it was a nightmare. It had to work. Please let it work.

“A date?” He mused. He stuffed the fabric in his hands into the pocket of his pants.

“Please,” she whispered. “I’m starving.”

“And then we can go to my place?”

The idea was so nauseating, so terrifying, she worried that it wouldn’t work. If the food got to her table, she was so incredibly scared she wouldn’t be able to eat it. Her whole body felt shaky and clammy. Like when she had the flu. One bite and she would be puking all over her table.

But hopefully that would get Harry’s attention.

“Okay,” he agreed and held his hand out for her to take. It felt like cheating on Harry to hold someone else’s hand. She forced the tears behind her eyes and willed the nausea to stay in the pit of her stomach.

She placed her hand in his.

Harry was pacing trying to figure out how to tell her he knew. Niall was on the phone with the police begging for no sirens and no lights. Eleanor was, in the smallest of possible ways, relieved to hear she was in the restaurant and not halfway to somewhere they didn’t know.

Harry couldn’t see her face. It killed him. Why didn’t he go up sooner? Why didn’t he beg for her to come down and help so they could make up? Why didn’t he insist and help her stubborn self the way he wanted to?!

“Goddamnit!” He shouted and shoved a bin of clean cutlery on the floor. It was so loud the restaurant ceased to make noise for a prolonged moment.

“Harry,” Niall was off the phone with the police Eleanor sobbing in his other ear no doubt. “You need to be smart. They cannot leave before the police get here or we’re fucked. Eleanor already sent the detective on her case to his old place of residence and there is no sign of him there. So, if they leave…” he trailed off and Harry released a strangled noise from his throat. Not quite a cry, not quite a yell. The pain was so intense from the thought he thought he could feel it in the atoms of his body. “If you cannot have a controlled response...,” Niall warned without finishing the sentence.

Harry swallowed the feeling of being sick down. He knew what Niall meant. “Okay,” he croaked.

Everyone was still trying to work. But the whispers ensued. Within moments, everyone knew. Everyone was trying to piece together a plan and Harry felt so confused, so lost, so scared because the only one he could ever imagine getting out of this situation was his sweet Principessa herself.

“Alright,” he cleared his throat. He needed to be brave. She needed him. She never needed anyone. The weight of that made him terrified. Shaking his head he pressed the heels of his palms in his eyes to stop the stressed tears from escaping. He swallowed and shook his head again. She did the hard part. She got herself in the restaurant and Harry’s attention without even talking to him. “Niall, bring out the garlic bread in three minutes,” he ordered while untying his apron and heading for the door to the alleyway. “Tell Eleanor to tell the detective to hurry.”

The restaurant was easily one of her top five favorite places in the world. But right now, she wanted to scream and run from it. Where was Harry or Niall?! God, she wanted to kill Matteo. How did he not know? Wasn’t everyone under a silent direction to tell Harry when she arrived?

The worry began to take over. Harry wasn’t coming to her rescue because he didn’t want to. She pushed him away and he was going to let—

No.

Harry, despite how mad he might have been, would never let anything happen to her. She was certain.

Wasn’t she?

Perhaps Harry really just didn’t know. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing she could do about it. Especially without any indication that anyone knew she was there. Her back was to the restaurant, and she was still in her gym clothes. With her back turned, hair in a ponytail, she was probably less recognizable than normal. That had to be it. He had no idea she was there.

It was a miracle she could keep her breathing as even as she did. The thoughts started to spiral further. Maybe he wouldn’t know. It was really busy in the restaurant—Matteo might not have noticed she was there with a stranger when he seated them since the hostess wasn’t there. Maybe he didn’t tell Harry yet.

Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears it was hard to hold a conversation with him almost because she couldn’t hear him; more so than the fact that she didn’t want to talk to him. But she didn’t have a choice. He asked her about work, her family, and if she had been reading anything good. She wasn’t into it—it was obvious and she wished she was because the only thing that was going to save her was being able to play it off that she didn’t want to crawl out of her skin at the sight or sound of him. Her stomach was churning, and her voice was so quiet she wished she could do a better job acting but she was terrified. Pain started behind her eyes, and she wanted to scream.

“Good evening.”

Her head snapped up to Harry briefly, who seemingly appeared out of thin air. Her jaw dropped silently. She was really beginning to believe that he wasn’t coming to her rescue. But now he was there. He knew she was there. He was going to help. She was sure of it.

He knew she was there.

Her heart started to pound in a new way, still scared but for the first time in twenty minutes she took a deep cleansing breath; relieved. She looked at her lap afraid to give it away that she knew him. “We are very short staffed this evening. We’re extremely sorry for the delay,” Harry sounded so formal, and she couldn’t look at him. If she did, she would cry. “Your food will be out as soon as we can. Please be patient with us. We’re very sorry.”

If she looked up, she knew his eyes would be looking at her. She knew his apologies weren’t about the food. The gravity in his voice said he was sorry because he didn’t know she was there sooner. He was sorry he didn’t come upstairs or to her rescue faster. A tear slipped across her cheek. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “Do you have a bathroom?” She asked.

“I don’t think—”

“Of course,” Harry interrupted hurriedly; she could practically hear the excitement in his voice. Like he was grateful she had a plan because he was a little stuck, a little lost. It made her feel weak immediately. The worry Harry must have felt because of her made her feel guilty and sad. She wanted to fix it and it was hard she felt like she was balancing on a tightrope. She hoped Harry wouldn’t hate her for running the second she had the opportunity. “I’ll lead you,” he offered.

“You just used the bathroom upstairs, honey,” the man reminded her. His voice was tight.

He was going to be mad if she left; that much was evident. “Well, I just—” She started.

“She’s all set, actually. Thank you.”

Harry stared at him. Weighing his options. She could see it. She cleared her throat. “Um...it’s okay,” she whispered quietly. Refusing to look at Harry again. If she did, she was going to blow what little cover she had. Poor Harry. “M’just a little tired,” she assured him, trying to sound braver than she felt.

“S’back and to the left,” Harry murmured and then headed to the next table and explained the short-staffed shift again. She wondered what he was thinking and what he was saying to the table. They looked like regulars, but she wasn’t completely sure because her mind was frazzled. Harry leaving her to fend for herself, even though he was only four feet away at most had her aching for him more than she ever wanted to hold his hand in her whole life.

Harry was losing his mind. He knew she understood his apology for taking so long. He knew that she understood between the lines that he was apologizing for Matteo’s mistake in not telling him sooner. Harry would have been out in the dining room so much faster. As much as it pained him to see her seated across from another man, regardless of the circumstances. It would have been better if she was with another guy in general. At least he wouldn’t be worried sick about her safety.

It took every bit of his strength to keep blowing their cover. To keep from shaking while he told the next table that they were short-staffed. They quietly inquired about the strange man sitting with the sweet girl they all had grown to know as their sometimes-waitress and Harry’s lovely Principessa. He quietly murmured something and then casually bumped into the table dropping the knife near the edge to the floor. As he bent to grab it, he murmured to the guy, pleaded with his eyes as he tried to whisper devoid of emotion. “Do not let her leave with him.”

Harry moved to the next table—strategically he chose the tables that allowed him to keep her in his peripheral. It was killing him. The shaking was becoming uncontrollable, and the whisper beg to the couples, imploring for help from the people he had gotten to know over the years, was getting strangled in his throat as he moved to the third and fourth table.

He was at a loss. The bathroom was a great idea, but he hadn’t a clue as to how to get her from point A to point B. Maybe he could pour hot soup on her, insist she come to the kitchen for help. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to spill their hot soup in her lap either. He supposed he could throw ice cubes in it and make it less horrible on her delicate skin, but he had to do something! His mind was spiraling. He wouldn’t see her in his peripheral in just two more tables and he was already about triple the distance of what he wanted to be from her—granted even an inch of space given the scenario seemed more horrific than he could bear.

He was feeling nauseous. Maybe he should just grab her by the hand and pull her away. But they had a chance to get rid of him. To keep him away from her once and for all. He violated the restraining order. That had to be something. He would have to go away.

Despite the fact she was so close but felt like an entire galaxy away. Harry was crumbling internally. This poor older woman who had been coming in every Saturday for years looked at him with pity in his eyes as he repeated his spiel once more. The agony he felt was in every inch of his bones, every pore of his skin. His eye was twitching.

When he got her safe and out of harm’s way, he planned on never letting go of her. At least not for a few days. He was going to kiss her and hold her. Apologize to her and cook for her. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Harry was going to tell her he loved her and didn’t care if she was stubborn or felt like she was hard to care for because she didn’t like to be needy. He was needy. He needed her. It was killing him to be so close and so far away. So helpless and terrified that he couldn’t help her the way he wanted to right then. Even scared shitless, he thought she was beautiful and brave. So brave. She got here. She got his attention. That had to mean something. She believed in Harry and that he would find her or know she was there despite the frustration and anxiety she felt.

It was hard to believe it was only three minutes since he actually talked to her and apologized for taking so long. Niall came from the back with a plate of garlic bread as promised. Niall was going to come up with the next part of the plan, Harry hoped. Hell, he would go back to the table, feigning exhaustion for apologizing twice. God, he needed to get a bowl of soup, he was going to have to spill it in her lap! It was the only way.

Harry listened intently as Niall arrived at their table. He could almost see the glitter of her tears in her eyes. Nearly crying again at the sight of Niall. He wanted to make a joke more than anything that it had nothing to do with Niall but everything to do with her favorite bread in his hands. But he was mortified. Speechless in front of a table waiting with waited breath as they heard the murmurs and the wisps of what Harry managed to mumble before Niall’s arrival.

“Garlic bread,” he announced, as if she didn’t know. “Buon appetite,” he winked casually. He was far better at lying and acting than Harry or herself combined. She was itching to run. Niall and Harry, both could stop him. Someone would tackle him, right? She was fluttery. Ready to leave as soon as she saw an opening because she didn’t know what else to do. “Can I get you two anything else?” Niall asked kindly.

“I know you,” he said. It lacked suspicion but was no less terrifying.

She could see Harry’s back straightened in her peripheral and his speech silenced. Matteo and the hostess were working from the other end of the room at the same time. Probably explaining the situation to every table as quietly as they could just like Harry was.

Without any tell in sight, Niall merely tilted his head and looked at him. “Hmm...sorry. M’not sure I recognize you,” he shrugged. Niall stepped closer, getting a better look at the man across from her. His acting skills deserved an award.

But in moving closer, Niall also blocked her a good margin from his view. It was her chance. She bolted. Running from the main room and toward the kitchen so fast it took a minute for anyone to realize she was gone. She zipped out the kitchen door, back through the alley, and up to her apartment. She heard a shout coming quickly behind her, so she had to be faster. She hurried back into her apartment unable to do anything but grab her phone off the table and run into the bedroom and hide in the closet, closing the door quietly behind her. She dialed Eleanor. Her heart pounding as she heard the sound of steps. She left the door open to make it look like she ran back out, but it was impossible.

He was already in the apartment. Already tearing through her belongings, shouting, upending her furniture, and rifling through everything.

“Babe?” Eleanor nearly screeched with relief.

“I can’t talk,” she whispered barely an audible octave.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stay on the phone,” she promised. “The police are on their way.”

general taglist: @justlemmeadoreyou @daydreamingofmatilda @sunshinemoonsposts @tiredinwinter @loving-hazz

@likeapplejuicenpeach @straightontilmornin @freedomfireflies @littlenatilda @kathb59

@babegoals @angel-upon @lilfreakjez @mleestiles @ameliaalvarez06

@canyonmoondreams @summertime-pills @daphnesutton @l4rrysh0use @perfectywrong

@foreverxholland @lovrave @st-ev-ie @pandeebearstyles @toosarcastic03

@luvonstyles @tenaciousperfectionunknown @classychalamet @love-letters-to-uranus @emmaawbr

@crossyourpeter @kissitnhekitchen @kittenhere @stylesfever @harryscherri

@indierockgirrl @michellekstyles @hermionelove @somethingabout1d19

Dolcezza: @matildasatellite @lovingfurypanda @sideboobrry11 @theresnooneheretosave @12yeahiminluvwu

@cohnfusedarling

I'm sorry if I missed anyone in the taglist. Please let me know if you'd like to join, if I put you on the wrong list, if it didn't work, if you no longer want to be included, etc. :)

If you like this, check out my masterlist for more of my writing.

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vampireimiko · 9 months

Text

Embrace of The Evening

warnings, none !! just sweet fluff teehee

note, OKAY SOO this was requested, but I COMBINED two different ones cause they seemed so similar to me 🫶🏾 (and speaking of requests, mine are open🙈)

In the cozy shared space with Neuvillette, you were busy spreading garlic butter on sliced bread to accompany the soup you had prepared. Mid-task, you felt a pair of hands sneakily wrap around your waist, gently trapping you between the counter and their warm embrace. As a delightful shiver ran down your spine, you recognized the familiar voice of the culprit.

"Hello, beloved," Neuvillette whispered into your ear, planting tender kisses along the curve of your neck. Unable to contain your giggles, you surrendered to his affectionate touch, your neck proving to be a particularly sensitive spot. Every time Neuvillette came home, his first instinct was always to come find you, his lovely wife, and love all on her.

"Why hello there," You playfully responded, feeling his presence and attention heightening your senses. "I'm just putting the finishing touches on dinner."

As Neuvillette continued to lavish your neck with affectionate kisses, a contented sigh escaped your lips. The tantalizing scent of the garlic butter mixed with the aromatic notes of the simmering soup created an ambiance of warmth and intimacy. His hands, now tracing gentle circles on your waist, conveyed a sense of familiarity and love that made your heart flutter.

With a playful glint in your eyes, you turned slightly within his embrace, allowing your fingers to dance along the edge of his collar. "You know," you teased, a mischievous grin forming, "I might need a little assistance here. Could you pass me that bowl of grated Parmesan, darling?" Your request was accompanied by a soft chuckle, a playful reminder that even in these stolen moments, there were still tasks to complete.

Neuvillette obliged with a warm smile, retrieving the bowl and placing it within your reach. "Of course, my dear," he replied, his voice carrying a hint of playful obedience. You couldn't help but admire the way his eyes sparkled with a mixture of affection and adoration.

As you carefully sprinkled the Parmesan over the soup, you stole a brief moment to steal a quick kiss from Neuvillette. The taste of garlic butter lingered on both your lips, a delightful reminder of the shared moments you cherished. "There we go," you declared, surveying your culinary creation with satisfaction. "Dinner is ready to be enjoyed."

Neuvillette's fingers entwined with yours, his touch a reassuring anchor amidst the whirlwind of emotions that his presence always brought. "Shall we dine, my love?" he suggested, his voice a soft melody that resonated deep within you.

With a nod and a warm smile, you both moved towards the dining table, hand in hand, ready to savor not only the delicious meal but also the tender moments that made your shared space truly special.

"How was work today?" you asked, your tone filled with genuine concern as you picked up your spoon and blew on it, cooling down the soup. You were well aware that Neuvillette's role as Chief Justice often brought along exhausting and demanding days. The weariness etched on his face told you that today had likely been one of those particularly taxing days.

Neuvillette settled into his seat across from you, his expression softening as he met your gaze. He let out a sigh, a mixture of fatigue and relief evident in his eyes. "It was quite the day," he admitted, his voice carrying the weight of his responsibilities. "We had a particularly challenging case that required hours of deliberation, and the decisions we make in the courtroom weigh heavily on my mind."

You offered a sympathetic smile, empathizing with the weight he carried. "I can only imagine how demanding it must be," you replied, your voice soothing. "But I want you to know that I'm here for you, always. Whether you need a listening ear, a warm meal, or just a moment of respite."

Neuvillette's gratitude was palpable as he reached out and gently squeezed your hand. "Thank you, my love," he said softly. "Your unwavering support means the world to me. It's moments like these, shared with you, that give me the strength to carry on."

As you both began to enjoy the comforting warmth of the soup, the atmosphere shifted from the busyness of the day to the serenity of the present moment. The clinking of utensils against the bowls created a soothing rhythm, punctuated by the occasional exchange of glances that spoke volumes without the need for words.

"I'm truly lucky to have you by my side," Neuvillette murmured, his gaze never leaving yours. "Your presence is a balm for my weary soul."

A tender smile graced your lips as you replied, "And I'm lucky to share my life with you. We'll weather these storms together, and brighter days will come."

With a shared understanding and a reaffirming touch, you continued your meal, each bite a testament to the unwavering bond that anchored you both amidst the challenges of life. In your shared space, surrounded by love and support, you found solace and strength, ready to face whatever tomorrow may bring.

𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞; 𝐑𝐀𝐀𝐇𝐀𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 𝐒𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇, 𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐖𝐀𝐘 !! 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐦 (𝐢𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐟𝐮𝐥) 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 !!

𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨�� 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

#spirits works 🤍#neuvillette x reader #neuvillette x fem!reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #x black reader #black!reader #genshin x black reader #genshin impact x female reader #genshin imagines #fanfiction #fem!reader

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sourcherryandsprinkles · 1 year

Note

Hello, I have an Xavier Thorpe request

Reader can’t swim, but joins Enid’s Poe Cup team as a favor for her best friend. So during the Poe Cup she falls in and without hesitation Xavier jumps in to rescue her

Thank you 😊

I don’t know what to think about this one, but I don’t think I can do better

—

The Sirens were last to depart, but you knew Bianca was plotting something. As Wednesday had pointed out last night, it was impossible for them to be the only boat to make it back across the lake without sinking every year. Unfortunately, there were no rules in the Poe cup. Sabotage was allowed and Bianca had already begun early by sending Yoko to the infirmary because of a major allergic reaction to garlic bread, leaving Enid without a copilot.

Quickly enough, the Black Cats were second in line. You saw Enid’s lips twitch into a grin, but you told her to focus and keep rowing. Gloating too soon always leads to a major downfall.

Then, Ajax and his jesters caught up to you and brushed against your boat as they rowed past you.

‘’Oh, excuse us,’’ one of them fakely apologized, sniggering.

You were tempted to flip them the finger, but you took your own advice and rowed faster instead. ‘’Come on, ladies!’’

The sabotaging soon began with a nod from Bianca. Another siren — Kent — was on the deck on the side of the lake, waiting for his friend’s signal to jump in and tip one of the boats. You would never tell Enid, but you were happy to not be first in line at the moment as you saw their boat being guided into the red buoy and breaking in three pieces, sending everyone in the water.

The well and the pendulum were out.

‘’Faster,’’ Enid told everyone, sensing the sirens were getting closer and if they went past you, the black cats would be last.

Without surprise, the jesters made it to the other side first. They had left their boat on the shore, completely unattended. The opportunity for sabotage was too easy, but unfortunately it didn’t even cross your mind as you stayed behind to guard your boat. What a missed opportunity.

Shortly after Enid and the girls left running, you saw Xavier running back with his flag, Ajax and the other boy right behind. His jester makeup was so extra, but it looked great on him. It was a contrast to his personality.

‘’Does the claws come with the costume?’’ he teased as he was embarking his boat, glancing at your black ears and whiskers Enid had painted on your cheeks.

‘’Don't mess with the cat or you’ll find out,’’ you fired back, making Xavier grin.

The teasing and flirting between you and Xavier was nothing new. It was obvious to everyone who had eyes that you had feelings for each other, but you were both too shy to admit it and settled on dancing around each other instead.

Eventually, Enid came back with the flag and the girl quickly took their seats just as the sirens pulled in. Bianca didn't seem very worried or rushed, meaning she was planning something else. That was no good.

The black cats were almost halfway across the lake when you felt something pushing underneath the boat. You tightened your grip on the oar, not enjoying how unsteady the boat suddenly was. Before you could ask what was going on, the pushing happened again. This time, it was stronger.

Someone was trying to tip you over.

You didn’t have time to react as another — and last — push overturned the boat, making your worst fear come true.

Your heart leaped in your chest as you fell in the water, not knowing how to swim.

‘’Enid! Help!’’ you called, trying to stay above water by kicking your arms and feet, but only ended up splashing in panic. ‘’Eni—’’

‘’The Black Cats are down,'' Ajax announced with premature victory, seeing your boat upside down and your oars floating.

Xavier whipped his head around and saw that, indeed, the boat was upside down. He scanned the water for you, seeing only Enid and the other girls.

‘’Shit.’’

Not many people knew that you couldn’t swim. It wasn't something you liked to brag about. It’s kind of embarrassing. Only Xavier and Enid knew of your swimming troubles, which was why you called for her when you fell.

He stopped rowing and jumped in the lake, making his teammates confused.

‘’We’re almost half-way!’’ one of them said, but Xavier didn’t care about the Poe cup anymore.

‘’Xavier!’’ Ajax called, but he didn’t hear his friend. All that was on his mind was you.

—

Xavier Thorpe taglist: @sofiaadler @partyfly @hoodforcalum @thelilacmourning @ellessecretobsession @su-alteza-emia @achoo---uu @not-leaprvt @xaviersgf @peterparkerdilf @roadworkaheadisurehopeitdoes @dragon-chica @coldtacozinepanda @wrldofsage @eddiemunsonsluvrrr @capriaura @officialsaturn @babyfiva @maevaomizzolo @kelloggs-world @whosljt @ajpanda181 @belovedrey @emerycrt @elizabitchsshit @heaven-hiding @lilithlikestoread @est-liber @moonisu @dessxoxsworld @parker-nite @bellblake121890 @vesperazhier @kaldurahms-lover @beeebo234 @nephilimsss @mayuphoenix @sweetheartlizzie07 @watermelon-18 @snixx2088 @555stargirl555 @robinscardigan @chumchum19 @lilttblog @aphex2winn @heizenka @mystargirl-interlude @hwrtsiren @babygirljay20 @wildflowerlyss @strangersomeone @openfandoms @charlottelaffin @iheartmaddyperez @starless-starkov @ali-r3n

Publier

#xavier thorpe #xavier thorpe x reader #xavier thorpe imagine #xavier thorpe x you #wednesday #wednesday imagine #wednesday netflix

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laracrofted · 1 year

Note

[ BREASTS ] * your muse massages my muses’ breats. - with bradley perhaps, please?🥹

much like reader, i work a corporate desk job, have bad posture, and need bradley to break my spine with his bare hands. enjoy, my love 🫶🏻

warnings: minors and ageless accounts dni, swearing, explicit sexual content, boyfriend bradley is very large and boyfriend, not proofread. bradley x fem!reader.

Work runs late – very, very late.

And when you get home, stomach grumbling from the half-granola bar lunch you'd snuck in between meetings, Bradley is in the kitchen, patiently waiting for you with enough pasta and garlic bread to come back for seconds and still leave you with enough to bring your lunch tomorrow.

No more vending machine lunches for you. You could sob.

Later, Bradley stretches out with you on the couch, dressed in a loose cut-off shirt and athletic shorts that ride up on his strong thighs, nestling you between his spread knees, and asks you about your day in a low, warm voice.

Floodgates? Opened.

"And I have a new client who needs 'extra attention' is just corporate speak for never listens and needs everything explained to them ad nauseam. Like I must've answered the same damn question four times in 20 minutes. It's so... argh."

You groan in frustration and press your palms to your forehead, remembering all of the work that waits for you tomorrow. It never fucking ends. You need a vacation.

Somewhere with a beach, where Bradley can wear little swim trucks and no shirt for a week straight. It's important for your health, actually.

Ever attentive, Bradley hums against the side of your neck, sympathetic, and strokes along your pulse point, sponges a soft kiss on your neck, then another.

"Sorry, sweet girl. It'll be better tomorrow."

You lull to the side, wanting to give him better access, and cringe at the sharp pain that ricochets across your shoulders and down your spine. A hiss of pain escapes from your mouth, and Bradley immediately freezes.

"Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

You want to shake your head but don't want that to hurt even more. You remain perfectly still and rub a reassuring hand up and down the part of his leg nearest your hand.

"No, I've got a crick in my neck. I barely left my computer all afternoon, was in back-to-back meetings."

You have the worst computer posture, sitting at your desk with your legs crossed and your spine curved at an angle that would make chiropractors everywhere keel over dead.

"Need a massage?" Bradley asks, running his palms over your shoulders. He might actually be an angel in human form.

You nod, and Bradley kneads at your shoulders, working the knots and tight muscles with those large hands, pushing and pulling at you like dough. You are doll-like in his hands, moving in any direction that Bradley guides you.

Most of the pain is gone in minutes, and sensing the languid relaxation in your bones, relaxing back against him, Bradley pulls the blouse over your head and unclasps your bra, leaving you bare from the waist up.

He guides you down on the couch, face down in the cushions with your eyes closed. And goes back to work.

He works down the length of your spine, rubbing at the aching spots in your back, near the bottom of your spine. You are boneless beneath him, humming.

When Bradley is sure you're feeling relaxed – and not in any more pain – Bradley sneaks a hand underneath your weight, skimming the side of your ribcage and up.

He cups your breast. You stifle a laugh.

"Is that part of the massage?"

He adopts an oh-so-serious tone. You can't see him, but you'd bet absolutely anything that your boyfriend is grinning from ear to ear right now.

"Oh, yes. It's a very generous package."

His weight presses against your back. You can feel him against your ass, already half-hard.

You raise your hips from the couch and grind back against him with a cheeky grin, buried in the velvet throw pillow. "Oh, I bet. It feels like a generous package."

"Behave," Bradley remarks, shaking with laughter that contradicts the instruction. A hand gently taps against your ass in reprimand, then squeezes that too. A breathy moan escapes from your mouth.

He massages your chest, squeezing the skin with warm hands, pinching your nipples to make you arch back into him. He kisses the side of your neck, tongue darting out to lap at your skin, and god, you want his mouth on your breasts, not just his hands.

You moan for more, whispering his name, and at the desperate need in your voice, Bradley rolls you onto your back and leans down to suck your nipple into his mouth, blowing a cool breath on the pebbled skin, reveling in your shiver.

He does it again to the other breast, kneading the other breast with his palm until you're wet and aching beneath him.

He looks down at you with warm eyes. "Better, sweet girl?"

You nod.

"Much better. Tell me..." You reach for him, easing the waistband of the athletic shorts down until Bradley springs free. Take him in your hand, running a finger across the leaking tip of his cock. "How does breaking my spine in half factor into this generous package? Is that extra?"

He grows even harder in your palm, and Bradley reaches down, underneath the pencil skirt that adorns your legs, and cups you with one hand. You are soaking through your panties, and Bradley grinds the heel of his palm down to catch your clit.

A sharp breath blows across your nipples. You gasp.

"We can work something out."

#birthday 🤠 drabbles #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x you #rooster x reader #rooster x you #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw smut #rooster bradshaw x you #laracrofted writes #fic: bradley bradshaw

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dotieeee · 3 months

Text

The Gamemaker's Apprentice

Level 4

Pairing: Dark!Young!Coriolanus Snow x You, named!Reader

Overall Warnings:

NON-CON, DUB-CON, Dark!Young!Coriolanus Snow, Snow himself should be a warning, lots of blackmailing, gaslighting, manipulation, obsession, possesiveness, eventual forced marriage, eventual loss of virginity, breeding kink, canon-compliant major character death, reader is named but has no physical descriptions in the fic so one might also consider her an OC but in 2nd POV, will have canon inconsistencies, and other stuff that may be added

Masterlist

Level 4 Warnings:

Snow being a manipulative and gaslighting creep, shady deals done behind your back, things begin escalating here!!!

Replay Level 3

Ready? Level 4 Start:

The doorbell to your apartment rings just as you’re setting the table for three. You get the door, and true enough, your only guest for tonight waits on the other side, carrying a box wrapped in a scarlet bow on one hand and a large bouquet of red roses on the other.

He hands the flowers to you as you invite him in and take his coat.

“These are lovely, thank you,” you beam at him. You bask in the aroma of the fresh flowers, but Coryo’s nose seems to focus on something different.

“Pasta, and garlic bread? It smells wonderful,” he compliments. He hands you the box, which you assume is cake, and asks, “Where shall I…?”

“I’ll put that in the fridge and put these – ” you gesture at the flowers – “In a vase. Take a seat and I’ll get you a drink. Any preference?”

He gracefully sits on the sofa and, giving you a warm smile, he replies, “Just tea, please.”

You hear the oven ding in the kitchen, followed by a shout from your uncle, who seems to be in his office.

“Plumcake, can you take the garlic bread out of the oven, please?”

“‘Plumcake?’” Coryo asks with a teasing grin. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“It’s just a nickname,” you reply a little more defensively than you mean to. “I’ll get you the tea in a moment.”

“I’ll help,” he says. You try to get him to stay put, but he’s already following you into the kitchen.

He helps with the garlic bread, and as he’s removing the gloves, he says, “Can I call you that?”

To say you’re mortified is an understatement. “Please, no.”

“Why not?” He gives you a wide-eyed innocent look as he accepts his tea. “It makes perfect sense; your name already gives it away.”

But your Uncle Cas chooses that moment to enter the kitchen.

“Sorry about that, plumcake, I – oh.”

“Uncle, this is Coriolanus,” you begin introducing the two. “I know you’ve already met, but I might as well. Coryo, meet my Uncle Cas.”

Your uncle puts on a pleasant smile and greets your guest. “Coriolanus! I’m glad you could join us.”

Coryo’s posture straightens as he extends his hand and addresses him formally. “Mr Innis. Thank you for having me, pleasure’s all mine.”

Uncle Cas shakes his hand and declares, “So, who’s hungry?”

Dinner begins without any hitches, and the conversation in between is lighthearted. Coryo is just as charming as always, and your uncle is just as delightful a host.

“This is delicious, Mr Innis,” Coryo praises, referring to the pasta.

Your uncle, seated at the head of the table, brushes it off with a laugh. “If I cooked that, you’d be on the floor by now, heaving and having seizures. That’s Nellie’s, although I take full credit for the sourdough bread.”

Coryo turns to you from across the table with a grin. “One learns something new every day. Are there any more talents you’re keeping hidden from me?”

“Oh no, this isn’t a talent: it’s survival. Otherwise, my uncle’s cooking would’ve poisoned me,” you shoot your uncle a pointed look, before turning back to your friend. “And I wouldn’t have made it past the age of seven. But I’m glad you like it.”

“I do. I have not had a home-cooked meal in a while since I moved out from Corso I, and it felt a tad too excessive to hire a cook with me being out for most of the day,” Coryo admits.

His moving out is news to you. “Wait. You moved out? Since when? And where?”

“A month ago, to a new building near the University and the Citadel. It’s a wonderful place, I have it all to myself – an albeit late gift from Mr Plinth for my twentieth birthday. But I’m still trying to settle in.”

“Oh, but that’s nice, still!” you say, before biting into a piece of garlic bread. “You get the place to yourself, practice your independence, and all – ”

“Nellie, I know it’s your birthday and you can perfectly take care of yourself, but I’m not buying you an apartment,” your uncle interrupts flatly.

“What, I didn’t say anything!”

The pasta is eventually cleared up, making way to dessert. When you take out the cake from the fridge and out of the box, you gasp audibly.

Coryo bought you your favourite cake flavour: chocolate cherry.

You gape at him and ask, “How did you know?”

But he just flashes a mischievous look at you. “I’ll never tell.”

After all of you get each other’s fill of the cake – the most delicious of its kind you’ve ever had – your uncle volunteers to clear the table so you and your friend can move to the living room to talk. You decide to bring out the only bottle of wine you have in the pantry.

“No maids tonight?” Coryo questions, setting down the bottle on the coffee table and pouring the red liquid halfway through your tall glass.

“We have two in shifts; they alternate each morning. Uncle decided a long time ago to not hire stay-at-home maids, or a cook, so we could both learn a little responsibility.”

“Hmm. And he doesn’t drink?”

You shake your head as you sip. “No. He’s been sober since I can remember.” You put down your glass with pursed lips.

Coryo’s lips are upturned as he observes you through the rim of his glass. “You don’t drink either, from the looks of it.”

You grin dryly in admittance. You watch as he takes another sip before his expression shifts to excitement.

“I have been meaning to give you this all night.” He takes out a tiny, velvet box from inside his waistcoat pocket. “Your birthday gift,” he whispers.

Too stunned to speak, you gulp lightly when you take it.

“Open it,” he urges.

You flip the lid to reveal a plum-coloured, tear-drop-shaped diamond charm attached to what looks like a fine, white gold chain necklace. Your jaw drops at its sheer elegance. Judging by his look, he’s extremely pleased at your reaction.

“See? ‘Plumcake’ is fitting. Or...how about ‘sugarplum?’ That way, only I get to use it.”

His use of pet names even fails to faze you. “Coryo, this is too much...” you begin, but he just shushes you with a finger to your lips.

His eyes are half-lidded, glinting in the dim lighting, his tone hushed as he says, “Turn around so I can put it on you.”

You do as he says, only because that stare of his unnerved you a little.

His fingertips graze your collarbone as he gathers your hair to the side. You feel the weight of the diamond necklace around your neck: cold, heavy, a little stifling, just like his proximity. His hands finish with the clasp of the necklace, but they remain on your shoulders.

You’re overreacting, you tell yourself.

You almost jump as you feel warm breath brush against your earlobe, and his voice, an octave lower, whispers, “Happy birthday, plumcake.”

You get a sudden urge not to turn around.

In an attempt to break the tension, you lightly joke, “Call me that one more time and I’ll put poison in your tea.”

But his lips brush against your hair this time, and he lets out a breathy laugh that tickles the shell of your ear. “For you, sugarplum, I’d drink it in a heartbeat and ask for seconds.”

Goosebumps erupt on your arm as you feel his fingertips ghost over your back when he releases your shoulders.

“Hmm. I like the sound of that better.”

A pause ensues, but all you can hear is your thrumming pulse, accelerating when you hear his next request:

“Turn back around so I can see you wearing it.”

You breathe sharply and steel yourself to comply.

There’s an odd glint in his gaze that chills you, except you’re not sure what it is or why you’re frozen in place with it. The corner of Coryo’s mouth lifts, he strokes your jaw and lifts your chin while a forefinger traces a line on your cheek. Your lower lip trembles every so slightly.

“My pretty little sugarplum.”

He releases you in the blink of an eye, his smile once more broad and friendly, just as your uncle walks into the living room to declare he’s finished cleaning up.

It’s nothing, you assure yourself.

You’re desperate to change the subject, so you ask your friend if he wants to take home some of the leftover pasta which he gratefully accepts.

“That way, I’ll have something you made for breakfast,” he says.

When you hand him the glass container filled with the food, he addresses your uncle, who’s quietly leaning against the kitchen entryway watching the two of you.

“I have to confess: I actually have a bit of an ulterior motive for coming over, Mr Innis.”

“Oh?”

“The Plinths, specifically Mr Plinth, want to invite you and Nellie for dinner this Sunday. I suspect Mr Plinth wants to make a proposal that will benefit his business and yours.”

Your uncle’s expression lights up, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s two days from now. I wonder what it could be about. Any chance he’s elaborated?” he asks.

Coryo just smiles apologetically and responds, “I’m afraid that’s the extent of what I was told. Their new home is just a floor below ours at Corso I, and the dinner is at seven, if you choose to accept.”

Uncle Cas nods thoughtfully. “Alright. Tell Strabo we’ll be there. Should we bring anything?”

“They will take care of everything, Mr Innis, don’t you worry.”

Your friend, thanking you both for dinner and wishing you once more a happy birthday, shakes your uncle’s hand and finally bids farewell for the night.

Relief takes over your form the moment you close the door behind him.

“Nellie.”

You glance at your uncle with tired, heavy eyes. He gives you a concerned once-over.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, placing both his hands on your shoulder. His stare lands on the necklace you’re still wearing, his eyes narrowing at it, before flicking back to yours.

Did he see... anything in the living room before he walked in?

“Yeah,” you say. You immediately regret how unconvinced you sound. “I’m just tired, uncle. Are we really going to the Plinths?”

“Do we have a reason not to?”

You chew on the insides of your cheek, unable to come up with an answer. You doubt he’d believe it if you say, ‘I just don’t feel right about it.’

Uncle Cas observes you with his hands in his pocket, but he lets out a drawn-out exhale. “We’ll go, but we’ll leave when things get uncomfortable, okay? Get some sleep.”

You hadn’t originally planned on enrolling for summer classes, but you figure you need the distraction, and the extra credits can’t hurt.

No matter what you do, however, no matter how much work you take on yourself in your uncle’s private lab, you can’t seem to get your mind off your friend’s peculiar behaviour towards you after dinner. Perhaps it was all just a friendly gesture to him, and he meant nothing by it; you just misread the whole situation. Maybe you could pin it to booze, but as far as you can remember, he had barely finished half a glass then. Whatever it was, it still leaves you perturbed every time you think about it. And what’s worse is you don’t know why you feel that way.

Thankfully, you don’t see a single platinum-blond hair of Coriolanus Snow for the next two days; so far, he’s only had coffee and some of your favourite pastries delivered to the Uni’s private lab. How he found out you’re there, you don’t want to know. After you finish enrolling in the subjects you felt you needed, you bury yourself in your code work, unsure how you’re going to face a lousy two or three hours sitting down with the family of the dead man you love and the friend whose recent actions have increasingly confused and unsettled you.

And then, there’s Ma Plinth. You have not had a chance to even talk to her or ask her how she’s been since Sejanus’s death. She’s still obviously devastated, that much you know. If she ever finds out about your feelings for her son, or that you have not gotten over him after all this time, who knows what she’ll do or say? Who knows what kind of grief could resurface if she starts talking to you about him?

Just that thought alone makes you dread the dinner with the Plinths all the more.

Saturday arrives without much fanfare, but your misgivings increase tenfold.

“Uncle Cas, do I really have to be there?” you grumble as you adjust your black dress and your hair tie for the umpteenth time. “Coriolanus said it’s a business proposal, I might not even be needed.”

You find your uncle in the living room waiting for you with a deadpan smile.

“Welcome to adulthood, plumcake, where half the places you go to are places you don’t even want to be in.”

You shoot him a half-hearted glare, but he just laughs.

“That’s the spirit.”

You can’t help but pout. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about? I’m the epitome of misery.”

You don’t have to walk that far, seeing as the new Plinth home is just directly across, located in the most luxurious of the Corso buildings. You and your uncle are greeted by a jovial Strabo Plinth with Coriolanus in tow looking like his usual charming self. You greet Sir Plinth politely.

“Ah, the Innis princess! My, you’ve grown into a fine, young woman, Prunella Innis,” he praises. He then addresses the young man behind him. “Coriolanus, see to it that Nellie is taken care of, will you?”

With his arms behind his back, he nods with a smile. “Yes sir, I will.”

Satisfied, Plinth senior turns his attention back to your Uncle Cas, saying, “Why don’t we leave the kids to talk, Acacius? I heard of Innis Tech’s recent CapNet acquisition…”

The two older adults walk away in deep conversation about business, leaving you alone with your friend. You try to avoid eye contact with him, but you can’t keep from brushing past him as you cross the foyer.

“You look pretty,” he leans closer to your ear as you walk by. You mutter your thanks, intending to get as far away from him as the Plinth apartment can afford you, only to be blocked by the arm he places in front of you to keep you in place.

“Nellie, is something wrong?”

He sidesteps to fully face you. You cross your arms and stare right at his collar just so you can keep from looking into those blue orbs.

“Did I say or do something to hurt you?”

“No, I – ”

“Then, what is it? Why are you upset?”

You bite your lower lip, unsure what to tell him. What exactly are you upset about?

“It’s nothing,” you whisper.

“There is clearly something that’s making you unhappy. You can tell me what that is.”

“I said it’s nothi – ”

“Nellie, you’re pushing me away again.”

The obvious hurt in his voice makes you look up at him. “I don’t mean to,” you admit. You could never intentionally hurt him.

“Then what is this about? Is this about that night at your place?” He dips his head further when you avert your gaze. With a finger, he lifts your chin, making you observe his reproachful expression. “Whatever I did, whatever I said, I did because I like you. I like your company; I like being around you. I’ve always felt I could be more open to you compared to everyone else. You’re different that way, Nellie. Is it so bad to want to give a person I like a gift on her birthday?”

Of course not. Is it possible that your head got in the way of your friendship again? Feeling sheepish, you begin explaining yourself. “No, I’m sorry, I’m being foolish. I don’t know why I’m reacting this way. I should be thankful for your gift, Coryo.”

Your friend’s expression softens considerably.

“I’m sorry.”

He kisses your hair gently and flashes you a smile when he pulls away. “All is forgiven, sugarplum. I can never stay upset at you.”

You simply misinterpreted his actions. Right?

Maybe that is what happened. Before you can mull over your feelings, however, Ma Plinth enters the foyer, and with an audible gasp, she makes a beeline towards you. You take a small, backward step between you and your friend, a little embarrassed that you’ve been caught so close to each other by no less than Sejanus’s mother. You think you saw Coryo’s jaw tick at the distance, but Ma encases you in an affectionate embrace and his features are once more genial.

What is it they said about seeing things you’re expecting to see? You’re being unfair to him again.

You hug the mother of the man you loved just as fondly, hoping you can convey everything you want to say to her with just a single touch. She releases you, beaming with pure joy as she lifts your chin with both palms. “My dear Nellie, look at you, you look even prettier than the last time I saw you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. You don’t come by anymore.”

You flash her a contrite smile, regretting not keeping in touch with her. Even after all those times, she still greets you the same way. Unable to think of anything else to say, you settle with, “You look well, Ma. Thank you for having us tonight. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll come visit you more.”

She waves a dismissive hand and takes you by the arm.

“Oh, dear, I understand. Coriolanus talks about you all the time, and he’s been relaying how busy you’ve been under your uncle’s tutelage. He’s told me you work in the same position as he does. Acacius must be so proud.”

“Well, I have to admit; Coryo has had significantly more success in the field than I have.”

Your friend glows at your compliment as he steps beside you and Ma. “Don’t sell yourself short, my dear Nellie. I’m sure you’ve made great progress in your own right,” he says as he places his hand on your arm.

You let her lead you away to a lounge where you’re served tea by a maid. Ma leads the conversation, settling for a recipe that she thinks you might like to try. Coryo just observes the entire time, chiming in when necessary. A little while later, another maid announces dinner time, and you follow Ma to the dining room, your friend trailing behind. Plinth senior pulls up the chair to his right for his wife, before taking his seat at the head of the table. Coryo also pulls up the chair beside Ma’s for you and takes the seat directly across from you.

Strabo flashes him a look of pride. “It’s the important women in our lives who have to be served the most.”

You decide to completely ignore this comment and just smile politely.

Dinner is served in several dishes by several maids, with everyone, especially your uncle, praising Ma’s spectacular cooking. Lighthearted conversation ensues about the Plinth and Innis seniors’ work, followed by yours and Coryo’s, which of course veer into the Hunger Games.

Again, you smile politely throughout the conversation, wishing the night is over and you’re back at home swathed in blankets and dozing off.

Eventually, the torture subsides with dessert – a perfectly crafted panna cotta courtesy of Ma – and Strabo formally requests a private audience with your Uncle Cas and takes your friend with him.

You’re left sitting beside Ma on the couch back in the lounge where you had tea earlier.

“Bring me the magazines while you’re at it,” she tells the maid serving you another cup of tea.

The magazines turn out to be a pile of bridal catalogues – Panem’s most stylish wedding gowns and bridesmaids’ collectionsn plus some of the most extravagant, highly in demand wedding plans in high society – an appalling treasure-trove of overpriced matrimonial junk only to be used once and then promptly discarded as soon as the magic is over.

“I have always loved this part,” Ma tells you excitedly as she flips the latest edition magazine open. “Nellie, do tell me what you think of this theme.”

She extends the catalogue for you to see – a lavender and pastel-green-themed set of table decor adorned with fresh lavender flowers, baby’s breath, and other greens.

“It’s pretty, Ma,” you say. It’s true. But why is she showing you this?

She exclaims ‘Ooh!’ at another one she finds – this time, a shade of atrocious pink and alien-puke green – which she shows with just as much gusto. She shows you several more, before declaring – more to herself than to you – that shades of dark red might be the way to go.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, she gets to the bridal gowns section.

Either she’s getting remarried, or she’s officially gone loopy.

“Ma, you seem keen on planning this wedding. Is this for a friend of yours?” you ask her after she shows you the seventh gown.

She waves her hand and says vaguely, “Oh dear, it’s for family. It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time.”

Eventually, Ma sighs dreamily, relaxing on the couch and sipping her tea. She goes quiet for a few moments before abruptly addressing you, making you almost jump in your seat.

“You know, Nellie, dear, between you and me, I’ve always thought Sejanus had taken a...special liking to you.”

And there it is. The one conversation with her you had been trying avoid.

She senses absolutely nothing of your reluctance to discuss anything to do with her son.

“He would never admit it to me, but I could tell,” she continues. “He would always get nervous about having you over for your school projects. He would suddenly be very nit-picky with the food and he would fuss over the clothes he’s wearing...”

She trails off, her eyes glistening with moisture. You may have lost your first love, but she lost her only son. Your heart squeezes at the thought of her suffering quietly while everyone around her seems to have moved on.

You hold the hands she has folded on her lap and confess.

“I’m so sorry, Ma. I wish I had come by more often after...” You inhale sharply to avoid saying it out loud. “I loved your son, I want you to know that. I love him to this day. I promise I’ll be around more, it’s the least I could do.”

Sejanus would be so disappointed in you for waiting so long to say this to his mother.

She tears up at your words and pulls you in for a hug.

“My dear girl, there is nothing to be sorry for. I knew you were hurting, too. I’m glad my son had you in his life.” She pulls away and lifts your chin, flashing you a wet smile. You shed your own tears, but her warmth is so comforting you can’t help but smile too.

She’s almost as warm as him.

“And now, my other son has you in his life, and for that I’m grateful,” she adds.

What?

You blink twice to make sure you heard correctly.

She goes back to her tea once more as she wipes her eyes with a handkerchief.

“I worry constantly about him, with him moving out and living independently. I suppose there was nothing I could have done; Coriolanus had always been adamant about chasing after his dreams that way. But now that he has you, I can worry less.”

Oh no. She can’t be thinking that you and Coriolanus are together, can she?

“Uh, Ma, there’s – ”

Somewhere in the lush apartment, a door bursts open, indicating the end of the conversation between the men.

“Ah, Nellie! There you are.”

Uncle Cas enters the lounge with a breezy smile. But something’s off, you can tell. You know your uncle well and long enough to figure out that he isn’t in the best mood. He tilts his head imperceptibly at you, indicating his want to leave.

Oh, he’s pissed.

“Thank you for having Nellie and me, Mrs Plinth,” he addresses the Plinth matriarch with a kind smile as you get to your feet. “I’d love to stay a little while longer, but I have early summer classes to attend tomorrow, and Nellie has to help me with the preparations.”

A carefree Plinth senior makes his appearance in the lounge with an unreadable Coriolanus following behind him.

Your friend’s eyes, however, are nothing but enraged.

What the fuck happened in there?

“Strabo, by your leave,” your uncle says with a tip of his head. “Thank you, you three, for a wonderful meal.”

Mr Plinth nods with a wide smile. “You are welcome anytime, Acacius. Again, if you change your mind, we are more than willing to re-discuss our terms.”

“Of course.”

You take your turn thanking Mr and Mrs Plinth and bid your friend a good night. His eyes relax visibly as he returns your farewell.

And just like that, you find yourselves out of their home and back into yours. In one piece, safe and sound.

Uncle Cas plops down onto the living room sofa with a groan of exhaustion.

“That was...eventful,” you say.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he murmurs to himself while he stares at the ceiling.

You take the empty couch next to the sofa.

“You lied to them. You don’t have a summer class, not until Thursday.”

“Eh. They don’t know that.”

You wonder what would make your uncle want to leave like that when the Plinths hosted you so graciously. “Uncle? How’d the business proposal go?”

He sighs, removing his shoes, as he debates within himself. “It went...as well as you’d hope.”

You narrow your eyes in confusion. “And...?”

He gets up with a flat smile and walks off to his bedroom, presumably to deposit his shoes. You follow him, wondering why he’s stalling. You lean against his bedroom doorway with your arms crossed.

“And I ultimately decided that their values don’t align with mine and I declined the proposal,” he says. “Happy? Now go to bed. Whether I have a class or not, those class guides aren’t going to print themselves tomorrow. They may need a certain apprentice of mine to get them printed, sorted, and stapled.”

You ignore the reminder of more work in favour of extracting more information. “Your values don’t align,” you insist. “Which is business talk for ‘we’ve nothing in common that we’re practically enemies, and it will never work out, so I told them to fuck off.’”

He gives you a pointed look as he exits his room. “Language, plumcake. But yes, essentially.”

You follow him to his office, where he turns on his computer and begins typing furiously at a program you’re not familiar with.

“Uncle Cas, did you just make enemies out of the Plinths?”

“Nah, I’m sure they don’t see it that way. On the other hand...” he trails off and doesn’t add anything more, leaving you hanging and all the more confounded.

You finally give up. If he wants to be this secretive about it, fine. “Thanks for an enlightening exchange. Good night, uncle.”

He just hums in acknowledgement. You turn to exit his office, but he calls your name at the last minute.

“Nellie? About Snow...”

Oh no. He, too, can’t be thinking you and your friend are together, can he?

“What about him?”

“You know what, never mind,” he dismisses. “There’s an envelope on my desk at the University lab that I’d like you to bring to Dr Kay tomorrow. At the Citadel.”

Now, this stumps you. Your uncle made you a promise he’d never make you work there. “Why now?”

“Dr Kay needs it. She’s been pestering me about it for days. She wears those ridiculously large pink glasses, she’s not hard to miss.” As if he reads the dread on your face, he adds, “It’s not going to take you long. Bring it to her, and then you can leave, go back to the University, and print those class guides.”

You nod, however reluctantly.

“Nellie? I need you to listen carefully. There’s a reason why I gave you my word never to bring you to the Citadel, despite being my official apprentice. Lingering inside that place can get you in trouble.”

Your uncle’s serious warning stays with you when you finally get to bed, and it’s the first thing you recall when you wake. He’s gone, presumably to his work at the Citadel, so you do as you’re told. You make a quick way of retrieving the typical-looking envelope before you ask the driver to take you to the place you’d never thought you’d ever enter.

The car isn’t allowed beyond the gates, so you approach the Peacekeeper station on foot, where you through retina scanning. They probably would’ve confiscated your bag if you brought it with you. One of them makes a move to take the envelope, but you take a step back.

“Acacius Innis wants me to give this to Dr Kay. I’m assuming it’s top secret,” you defend.

He nods in understanding and beckons you to follow. With your escort, you trudge down a long, empty grey hallway.

There’s a certain special kind of relationship that the Capitol has with Brutalist architecture. Brutalism was designed to be cold, imposing, and utilitarian. It has beauty, you suppose, but the type of beauty that’s distant, almost desolate, and unforgiving.

The elevator takes you deep underground, eventually opening its doors to a bright open space, strewn with long, white tables, and high ceilings covered in what look like glass panels. You exit, turning to the peacekeeper to ask for directions, but the elevator door closes behind you.

Maybe you could’ve asked your uncle for a map in hindsight.

Moving along the path to your right, you get a closer look at the glass panels to discover they’re actually cages.

Cages upon cages, stacked sky-high, containing a slew of creatures, some genetically altered beyond recognition.

Lingering inside that place can get you in trouble.

As your uncle’s words echo in your head, you walk quickly, averting your gaze from the glass cages and doubling your motivation to find this Dr Kay. You meet no other human being as you tread aimlessly, and soon enough it becomes harder and harder to navigate the seemingly endless rows of glass cages without at least peeking at them, or risk going around in circles. Eventually, you find yourself in a section labelled ‘Aviary,’ surrounded by cages filled with nothing but winged creatures of all sizes and shapes, cooing and caw-ing in sickening discordance. You walk several more steps before you hear a voice.

“Fetch the doughnuts.”

Finally, a person!

“Hello?” you call out. You hear someone echo it. You call out again, walking in the direction of the sound. “Excuse me?”

“Excuse me?”

It echoes again, this time sounding more familiar.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” The voice repeats. And then it clicks: the voice is familiar because it’s yours, and it’s coming from a cage to your left.

Jabberjays. Of course.

The plumage is unmistakable from the books you’ve read. Sleek black feathers, morphing to bluish-purple at the base of its neck.

Eventually, the others catch on, and in a few seconds, all you can hear is the maddening sound of your own confusion being repeated a hundred-fold. You clutch the envelope close, having a half-mind to just come back later when you hear a pair of heels catching up on you.

“Wait, are you Acacius Innis’s niece?”

You turn around to find yourself face to face with a woman wearing pink glasses too big for her face.

“Dr Kay!” You sigh in relief.

“Come with me over there, it’s much quieter.”

Glad to finally be away from the birds, you’re quick to fall into step with her, only stopping when you reach a table stacked to the edge with documents and envelopes not unlike the one you’re holding.

“Your uncle told me he’d have you bring the papers over?”

You nod and hand it over.

“They’re quite unnerving, huh?” she says with a smile, referring to the jabberjays.

Sheepishly, you laugh. That’s an understatement; they’d make perfect devices for psychological torture. “Yes, a bit. How did you get that many?”

“We had them flown from District 12, actually. It took a joint effort of peacekeepers to gather them.”

This information piques your interest. Coryo was stationed in District 12 as a peacekeeper. Maybe be rounded off a few of them.

“When did they get here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Uh, September four, if I remember correctly,” she says absently as she struggles with opening the envelope. “...because we had to quarantine them from the rest of the birds, one of them died the day after they arrived. It kick-started a vaccination campaign in the entire Genetics department.”

September four. Two days before Sejanus was executed.

A wave of ice-cold realisation hits you.

“The jabberjays...they can record human voices with a remote, right?” you ask, masking your suspicion with curiosity.

“Yes, if they’re on ‘record,’ otherwise they’d mimic pretty much any sound they fancy.”

Determined to seek answers, you press on, carefully choosing your words. “It’s surprising how they still function so well after all those years...”

Dr Kay smiles warmly at you. “You Innises...so naturally inquisitive. Your uncle is the same, you know. We’ve worked on a handful of projects together before...but yes. Some of the peacekeepers even tested them out before they were sent here. You know, I was wondering when your uncle would bring you around, you’re his apprentice, right?”

“Oh, he occupies me with administrative stuff at school.” Your reply becomes automatic, your mind running on overdrive. Like an algorithm being fed with new information to process.

“Yeah, that sounds like your uncle, alright.” She finally succeeds with prying the files out of the envelope, but you’re only vaguely taking this in. “There must be a mistake, these are test papers for Advanced Trigonometry.”

“Huh? I’m sorry, I must’ve grabbed the wrong files...” Your eyes glaze over the papers as you try to calm your inner turmoil.

A peacekeeper ratted Sejanus out.

As soon as you come to a terrifying conclusion, it’s all your mind could run.

“Nellie! There you are, I just knew you’d get lost.”

Your uncle breaks you from your trancelike state. Addressing Dr Kay, he says, “I had the files all along, I totally forgot I wedged them hastily yesterday inside my briefcase.” He hands the female doctor a similar-looking envelope.

“They really should label these...” Dr Kay mutters.

“So sorry, plumcake. Here. For your trouble.”

Uncle Cas digs into his lab pocket and hands you a lollipop.

You have to get your shit together.

You inspect the candy as you take it, noting how it’s melted in its plastic wrapper and has lint sticking all over it.

“Does the Citadel know you’re casually carrying around a level three biohazard in your lab pocket? How long has this thing been in there?” you joke. Dr Kay’s laughter echoes through the glass-cage-laden hall.

“Try it and then let me know. If you get hives after, we’ll chalk it up to science,” he says just as cheekily. “Run along now. I’ll walk you to the upper level, you might get lost again.”

“Good to know she has your sense of humour,” Dr Kay comments lightly.

Your uncle takes you by the shoulder and guides you to the elevator. “You know what, go straight home, Nellie. Take the day off. The class guides can wait until tomorrow.”

Safe with your uncle inside the elevator, you finally had time to piece together in your head the information you had accidentally stumbled upon.

A peacekeeper must’ve recorded Sejanus on a confession using a jabberjay. It’s not a coincidence only one of them died after the birds got to the Citadel. Whoever killed the bird knew who betrayed your friend and ultimately got him killed, and they did it to cover their tracks.

Coriolanus most likely rubbed shoulders with them, too, and he doesn’t even know it.

The elevator takes you to the top floor with a ding. Uncle Cas escorts you to the gates, but before he takes his leave of you, he casually leans closer so only you can hear what he says:

“Whatever you found out in there, plan your next move wisely.”

With a final strange look, he turns away and disappears inside the building.

Another less outlandish idea crosses your mind: maybe your uncle didn’t forget about the file. He planned your trip to the Citadel on purpose.

Did Acacius Innis just lead you to unearth the truth about Sejanus’s death?

You understand why, but the timing...why now?

You decide to take your uncle’s advice and head straight home – your brain possesses too little processing power to run that much information at once. Like a microprocessing chip that’s overheating and about to crash, running a program that’s too big for its capacity.

Once home, you head straight to the kitchen in a trance. You take out a pint of ice cream from the freezer, and without even sitting down, you demolish it in one go as you lean heavily on the counter. You eat so fast, that you barely taste the flavour: brownie ala mode.

A snide voice invades your thoughts – the familiar one that always resurfaces just before you make incorrect assumptions that lead to horrible decisions.

What if it was Coriolanus?

It takes the loud clang of your spoon on the kitchen floor for you to recognise that voice and push it away.

How could you think that of Coriolanus? There you are again, not giving him a chance and judging him without basis. He wouldn’t betray his best friend. He wouldn’t lie to you. He certainly would never kill Sejanus then worm his way into the Plinths in place of their dead son, and still be able to live with himself. It’s impossible. It’s just your mind trying once more to sabotage the only friendship you’ve gained since Sejanus died; something in you that refuses to allow yourself to live a normal fucking life for once.

Coryo isn’t a cold-blooded sociopath.

You barely make it to the bathroom when you begin retching uncontrollably. As you empty your stomach of the entire pint of ice cream you ate, a single thought makes you even sicker to yourself for even thinking of it: What if he did it?

Enter Level 5

Author notes:

Please reblog and comment, it's always appreciated!!!

Any guesses what went on in the meeting with Strabo?? 🤭🤔 lemme knoooow!!!

#dark!coriolanus snow #dark!coriolanus snow x reader #young!coriolanus snow #young!coriolanus snow x reader #named!reader #or #OC2ndPOV #18+ only #dark!coriolanus snow fic #dark!coriolanus #dark!coriolanus fic #dark!fic

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hopelesslyromanticgay · 1 year

Text

This is Stupid (Don’t Stop)

Wednesday Addams X GN! Reader

I burst into Wedneday’s room in a hurry.

“Y/N, have you been stabbed?” she asks worriedly.

“No.”

“Have you been threatened with stabbing?”

“No!”

“Have you had the urge to stab someone?”

“Wednesday none of this has to do with knives!”

“Then what is it?” she asks curiously, “battle axes?”

“I just had a rough day, and was hoping I could talk to you” I mumble, it seems rather stupid compared to stabbing.

“Give me two minutes, my writing time ends at 6:30, and it’s only 6:28.” I nod, starting to sniffle a little.

“Thing, get Y/N some tissues,” she orders him. He rapidly signs at her, she groans.

“I guess two minutes isn’t the worst tragedy,” she begrudgingly gets up and sits next to me.

“What happened?” she demands, unsure of what to do.

“Just a lot of work,” I respond honestly, “someone gave Yoko and allergic reaction by cross contaminating her pizza and someone else’s garlic bread, so I had to shock an epipen into her, which isn’t exactly fun…”

“So there was stabbing!” Wednesday grins.

“This is so not the time, Nes,” I deadpan.

“My apologies, please continue.”

“I was just overwhelmed honestly, and the bees could sense it when I went to see Eugene, so I got seven bee stings.” I hold up my arm to show her. She looks in pure curiosity.

“What morbidly round shaped wounds they make until you pull out the stinger, barbed, destroys the perfect dome,” she comments, “I realize that’s probably not what you wanted to hear, apologies again.”

“At least you’re listening,” I sigh. I end up resting my head on her shoulder. She doesn’t move.

“What are you doing, L/N?”

“Getting physical comfort.” I wrap an arm around her waist.

“This seems pointless. I am the least comforting person known in this world. You should try Sinclair. She loves to smother people with affection, and not in the suffocating way. Much to my dismay.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll stop,” I start to pull away but she reaches out her hand to stop me.

“Just because it’s stupid does not mean you should leave,” she asserts, “I will call Sinclair so she can comfort you.”

“Wednesday, I don’t want Enid to comfort me, I want you.”

“Why would you possibly want me?”

“Cuz I knew you’d like the bee stings,” I tease her, elbowing her just a little. This earns the smallest smile from her. God I love her smile.

“You know me well, Y/N.”

“I’d like to think so.”

#Wednesday addams #wednesday fanfic #cute #cuddles #Jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader #gn! Reader #wednesday addams x reader #comfort #hurt/comfort #nevermore academy #enid sinclair #wednesday is secretly a softy #Cute #not explicitly romantic #eugene ottinger

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boydepartment · 1 year

Text

Dating him

✉️You had no idea that Felix even had a crush on you before he asked you out. He was the same to you as he was to his close friends, touchy, loud, trying to make everyone laugh, etc. So when he asked you out you looked like that one emoji 😧

✉️He asked you out in such a sweet way too. Felix wanted to do something that he hasn’t done before. So baking brownies was off the table, Felix ended up asking you out by hiding a note in flowers he left for you. It was cliche but to add onto it he also made homemade macaroons.

✉️Felix absolutely loves to match with you, even though you guys get teased a lot for always being all over eachother he can’t help but giggle and bury his face in your arm. He loves being overdramatic in that sense and he absolutely loves that everyone knows your his and that he’s yours.

✉️You and Felix are both two peas in a pod. You can’t bake, he can. You can cook, he CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF HIM. So you try to help teach him some recipes. He ends up latching onto you just watching.

“Are you even paying attention?” You laugh.

“Yeah yeah the thing boils and then stir.” Felix mumbled and he nudged his nose in your neck.

“We’re making garlic bread-“

✉️Both of you absolutely love early 2000s video games. You both grew up on it so when he came home with an old wii and ps2 you both spent hours going through eBay hunting for old games. You ended up spending way too much money, but it was so worth it seeing Felix’s eye totally light up looking at the nostalgic game. Especially when he explained all the theories on it.

✉️Felix treasures you, he would trade his COMPUTER for you if needed. AND THAT’S SAYING A LOT! When he said that during an playful argument with Han everyone went silent.

“YOUD GIVE UP LEAGUE FOR THEM?????” Seungmin said super loudly

“Ummmm…… obviously.”

✉️Anytime Felix gets to go back home, he will take you with him. He was so excited for you to meet his sisters and his family. Especially to show you all the sweets in his hometown.

✉️You are his number one fan, always supporting him whenever you can. At concerts you’re cheering and screaming your head off for him. Felix will look for you in the crowd and sometimes he’ll find you and let out the cutest giggle in the world. He’s totally whipped for you.

✉️Felix loves finding shitty online games for you both to play, his favorite sound is your laugh. Anything that he thinks is stupid enough to make you laugh he’s paying for it and playing it with you. Sometimes he’ll just stare at you completely lovestruck while you’re losing your mind at really bad gameplay.

💌Felix’s love is golden, you’re always laughing and giggling with him. He always wants to make you happy, he always wants to show you off. His heart always wants to love you.

#stray kids #straykids #stray kids x reader #straykids x reader #skz x reader #skz #kpop #kpop imagines #stray kids imagines #straykids imagines #straykids fluff #straykids felix #stray kids felix #felix imagines #felix stray kids #lee felix #lee felix x reader #lee felix imagines

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monstersandmaw · 8 months

Note

I just pictured getting into a silly arguement with your vampire partner and then you get so petty that you go stand out in the sun so they can't get to you.

My hand slipped: (gn reader, f vampire, sfw)

"I can't believe you left the garlic out on the counter where I could smell it! Again!" she hissed, eyeing the offending bulb with glaring, scarlet irises. "You know how it affects my throat!"

"You said you wouldn't come in the kitchen anymore!" you fired back at her. "You get to drink any kind of blood you like -- I don't judge you for it -- and you said I could have the kitchen as my space where I get to have the things I like to eat."

"Yes, but you don't have to smell deer blood on my breath for a week after I go hunting!"

"God dammit, I just wanted some garlic bread, sweetheart," you practically sobbed. "I miss it, ok?"

"I don't see why I should have to pay for your -- where are you going?"

"I'm going outside. This is clearly not going anywhere and I need a minute."

"Get back here," she yelped as you flung open the back door and stepped out into a blazing August afternoon.

Crickets and insects filled the air around you with their raucous chorus from the grasses, and in the oak tree above you at the end of the garden, a pigeon cooed in a decidedly lacklustre voice, lamenting the cooler days yet to come.

You took a deep breath and let the sun's fierce heat prickle all up your bare arms. You'd never had an argument with Celine before, and with it being over something so petty as a stray bulb of garlic, you felt unnerved and off-kilter. After only a few minutes, you bit your lower lip and turned towards the back door of the house again, finding her sitting on the step, staring at you.

Her bare toes were tucked right up against the step as the creeping tide of daylight washed slowly towards her, and your heart lurched at the thought of it scorching her skin because she was too stubborn to go inside and wait for you both to cool off. Metaphorically. It was hot as Satan's balls out there.

"Celine," you breathed, knowing full well she would hear you, even at that distance.

She lowered her head, her thick, dark, curly hair falling in front of her face and her hands dropping to dangle listlessly in her lap.

With slow, measured steps, you returned to her and stood before her on the path, still separated from her by a wall of searing sunlight.

She looked up and met your gaze. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I overreacted. Keep your garlic. Keep everything that makes you human and everything I love about you and everything that you love. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry I wasn't more thoughtful about storing it so it doesn't waft around the house. I forgot how refined your senses are."

You held out your hand, letting the shadows cast by the house slide up your skin so she could safely hold your hand. Celine rose to her feet and drew you into the cool embrace of her arms. "I love you," she whispered into your hair as she cradled you close. "I love you so much."

"Garlic and all?"

She chuckled. "Yes, garlic and all. We did meet at Francesco's dinner party after all."

"That was an awful lot of garlic," you snickered. "Even for me."

#vampire girlfriend #vampire #vampire lover #female vampire #vampire partner #drabbles #night time drabbles #anon ask

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theemporium · 1 year

Note

139 + steve harrington ❤️💫

Ily, hope you have an amazing day!! ♡

send in a prompt + name

139. “I bought a few pieces of lingerie. Want me to model for you?”

Steve Harrington loved nothing more than spoiling his girl.

For so many years he had more money than he knew what to do with, and for so long he was left with no idea what to do with it. Yeah, he could invest it or save it. Maybe even do something more selfless and provide donations to charity. And those were things he did.

But he used money for his own happiness too.

And nothing made him happier than knowing he could spoil the people he cared about. Whether it was getting Dustin that new comic he had been raving about from the fancy comic book store out of town, or surprising Robin with her favourite takeaway when he knew she had worked a long shift and probably didn’t have any groceries in her fridge.

Steve liked to use his money to make other people happier.

But god, there was something addictive about you.

Maybe it was the look on your face when he handed you another gift—that look that screamed ‘there was no need to do this but it makes me happy that you thought of me’—or maybe it was the way your face softened at how giddy he would get before you opened it. Or maybe it was because he really fucking loved you and it was the least he could do to show you how much he adored you.

Some days Steve liked to just hand you his card, press a kiss on your cheek and let you have a day to just spoil yourself on his behalf on your days off from work—even if he was working himself. And he would be grinning to himself on the way home knowing he couldn’t wait to hear every single detail from you.

Tonight was no different as he pulled into the driveway, grabbing his keys from the ignition as he headed inside the house, the smell of garlic bread and something else delicious attacking his senses the second he walked in through the door.

“Baby?”

“In here!”

Steve didn’t think anything was different as you settled the dinner plates on the table, flashed him a smile and pressed a greeting kiss against his lips before you both dug in. He loved to listen to you talk. Fuck, he just loved your voice and there wasn’t much the boy wouldn’t do to hear you keep going.

“I did a little shopping spree too,” you told him innocently as you took another bite of your pasta.

“Yeah? What did you get?” Steve asked with a smile, thinking you had probably went for those pair of jeans in the Levi’s store he knew you had been eyeing for the last few weeks.

What Steve wasn’t expecting was for you to look him dead in the eyes, a wide grin on your face and say, “I bought a few pieces of lingerie. Want me to model for you?”

His fork clamoured against his plate as he stared at you with parted lips, everything in his brain coming to a screeching halt as his brain tried to process the words that just left your mouth.

“What?”

But your grin only widened. “You know, I thought it was fitting I used your card since you ripped the last ones…”

The plates had been left abandoned on the dinner table as Steve grabbed your hand, dragging you upstairs where the bags of shopping had been left at the end of his bed. He was practically bouncing in his seat as he watched you disappear into the bathroom minutes ago, his hands itching to be touching you the second the word ‘lingerie’ left your mouth.

The truth was that you never made it past the first set (a fact you knew deep down).

You had walked out the bathroom, leaning against the doorway, scantily dressed in the dark red material and Steve was long gone.

He dragged you to stand between his legs, his hands exploring the planes of your body as they ran over your stomach and down your sides, as they squeezed your ass and thighs appreciatively before he leaned forward to press a kiss just below your belly button.

You barely had the chance to blink before you found yourself straddling his face, the material of your panties pushed the side as his tongue lapped against your soaking cunt.

“Shit, Steve,” you moaned out, hands gripping the headboard as your hips ground against his face, his nose nudging your swollen clit in a way that had your nails digging into the wood. “Just like that, baby.”

Steve groaned against your cunt, arms wrapped around your thighs to pull you down further on his face before his hands were all over you again. Fingers skimming along his stomach before reaching up towards your tits, pulling the cups of your bra down until his hands could squeeze them in appreciation.

“Fuck,” he grumbled as he watched you throw your head back, a string of curses leaving your lips as your body tensed under his touch.

You couldn’t bring yourself to care about the sound of fabric ripping echoing through the room as you finally tipped over the edge, your boyfriend’s tongue wrapped around your clit as he chucked your ripped panties to the floor before guiding your hips against his face until you could finally breathe again.

And the second you caught your breath, your face was buried in the pillows as he fucked you from behind, the other pieces of lingerie forgotten and kept hidden in your wardrobe before Steve could rip those too.

#steve harrington #stranger things #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fic #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington smut #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things x y/n #stranger things fic #stranger things one shot #stranger things smut

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astraariel · 8 months

Text

you belong with me

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: you're in love with Eddie, but he has eyes for Chrissy.

word count: 7.1K

warnings: none!

tags: based on "you belong with me" by taylor swift; no upside down!au; childhood friends to lovers; pining; not actually unrequited love; slight angst; fluff; chrissy's a sweetheart

author's note: for some reason my hyperfixation for eddie resurfaced so lol yeah this is what this is. excuse the grammar mistakes, enjoy ♡

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

The trailer park was quiet except for the murmurs and soft noises that the residents made whilst partaking in their nighttime routines.

The soft ambiance provided comforting background noise as you made your way over to Eddie’s trailer, you were excited to see what movie he had picked from the Family Video tonight.

Eddie and you had made it a tradition to go over to each other’s houses and watch a shitty horror movie while eating pizza to critique said shitty movie.

This week it was Eddie’s turn to host.

You first met Eddie when you were eight. You had gotten home from school for the day, your mom inside fixing up dinner whilst you played with your jump rope outside. You remember the sun burning down on you but that didn’t deter you from continuing your time for outside playtime. You had been on your twentieth jump with your pink jump rope when a truck pulled up to the trailer beside yours. Your curious eight-year-old self’s attention diverted to the mysterious boy hopping out of the pickup truck. His denim overalls were loose on him, a strap was unbuttoned showcasing his white ribbed shirt underneath. His gaze met yours, and before you could look away, he offered you a crooked smile, wanna see a trick? You quickly nodded and watched him dash over toward you, his hand had retreated into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.

Later at dinner, your mom mentioned how the new boy, Eddie, had moved in with his uncle and was going to be your new neighbor. “He’s a little older, but why don’t you play with him after school, honey?”

Funny to think years later that some silly card trick is what caused you two to be inseparable.

The door swings open before you even make it up the short steps. “You know I've told you multiple times you can just walk in, right? I never lock the door.”

Your eyes skim over Eddie’s bare arm that was extended, your eyes glance over his recent addition of tattoos that peeked from his sleeves. “Yeah, and I've told you multiple times that that is a safety problem.” You waved a finger in front of Eddie as he swatted it away with a scoff.

The familiar home of Eddie and Wayne’s trailer met your eyes as you slipped your shoes off; Wayne’s copious mugs displayed on the walls always grabbed your attention when you walked into the trailer. They offered a sense of home that you loved so much.

Eddie had gone to his room to fetch the VHS of his movie pick while you busied yourself with grabbing the pizza menu and walking over to the phone to place the order.

“What do you want, just pepperoni? Or do you want something else - and don't you dare say pineapple.” You call over to him while leaning on the table holding the phone in your hand.

Eddie’s curly hair appears in the hall as he makes his way toward you, exaggeratedly sighing “Fine, just pepperoni.”

He saunters off to the TV before shouting back, requesting garlic bread while fiddling with the VHS.

You quickly order the food and walk over to the couch where Eddie was sitting waiting for you so he could play the movie.

“What monstrosity have you picked for us today, Munson?”

♡‧₊˚

The sound of students chattering with each other filled your ears as you were rummaging through your locker.

Your usual attendance of watching the guys play during their band practice was missed Saturday due to your mom requiring you to run errands all weekend so you haven't seen Eddie since Friday.

Meaning you left Eddie to his own devices for far too long and you're about to unknowingly pay the price.

“Jesus Christ!”

Speak of the devil.

The sound of your locker closing was muffled by the loud shriek that came out of your mouth.

“Eddie, how many times have I told you not to scare me like that?” You sputter out quickly whilst holding a hand up to your chest.

Eddie offers you a sheepish smile, “Sorry, princess, I was just too excited to see you.”

Your heart flutters slightly at the statement.

The whole “falling for your best friend trope” was a dumb cliche. In the early years of your friendship with Eddie, your mom would make offhand comments about how “oh you two are so cute together” and “you are both so going to fall in love with each other, just watch.” Your kid self always scrunched your nose in disgust and had you turning your head in the opposite direction. But you weren’t sure when the look of disgust turned into you turning your face to hide the blush that was settling on your cheeks.

And yeah so what if you knew that Eddie Munson drank his coffee with an insane amount of creamer and sugar and how he would never admit it, but that he had a soft spot for ABBA. How he gets this one specific look on his face whenever he’s telling you about the new campaign he’s currently working on; how his eyes glow with excitement just reciting all the things he’s planning on introducing and adding for the guys. That he smiles so wide you can’t help to notice the dimples he has and how they just fit his face. How you want to just kiss him all over and just constantly wish to see him happy and smiling.

Yeah, you’re totally in love with your best friend.

“So… I was thinking over the weekend.”

“Oh, that’s never good.”

He ignores your comment by rolling his eyes playfully. “I was thinking that I have been in this hell hole for far too long. And I haven’t done anything memorable.”

You send a confused look at Eddie, “What about how you have weekly lectures on the lunch tables in the cafeteria, or how you helped raise the drama club funding due to badgering Principal Higgins constantly for a month.” Beckoning for him to explain, you begin to walk to class.

He rolls his eyes again, “Okay, Miss Know-It-All, I meant more…you know.”

“No I don’t know, Eddie.”

He hesitates slightly before continuing “Well, I was talking to the guys and well they think I’m insane but you won't, right?” His wide eyes look over at you expectantly.

“I guess that depends on what you’re about to say.” you tease.

He was nervous, you noted. He wouldn't meet your eyes as he begins to fidget under your stare.

He scratches his head before saying, “I'm gonna ask Chrissy to prom.”

You stop walking, your head spinning to Eddie’s. Your eyes were wide open, which were shifting between his own in disbelief. People walked around you but not without complaining and calling out “Watch out” but you couldn't care less about what was happening around you. Your mind was reeling; it was attempting to decipher whether or not he was telling a joke or not.

He wasn’t.

Fixing your composure you look forward and keep walking. “Isn’t prom in two weeks, that’s kinda a short notice.” You attempt to keep your voice as neutral as possible.

You had known about Eddie’s crush on Chrissy Cunningham since middle school. It had been during the talent show, Eddie had come after you to gush about how she had looked so pretty waving her pom poms in the air that night. Chrissy had done some cheer routine which had gotten her the most applause putting everyone else's show to shame. Regrettably for you, you were the follow-up after her spectacle. You can’t say your flute solo, which you had worked hard on the week leading up to the talent show, was a show-stopper after that.

You didn’t hate Chrissy, you never did and probably never would. She, unfortunately, is the nicest person you’ve ever met, she always talks to you when you have classes together, and how she actually complimented you on your flute solo after you had gotten off the stage even though you had messed up the first measure of the song.

You just couldn’t help but compare yourself to her. You wanted to hate her. You assumed it would be easier to hate her, but that wasn’t the case. You simply hated the fact that you weren’t her. You were the complete antithesis of her; it was honestly ridiculous. While she was the head cheerleader, you were in the stands wearing a stupidly hot outfit and a dumb hat while also playing the flute. You weren’t at rock bottom of the social hierarchy but you still weren't high, you were in the band for Christ’s sake.

You couldn’t fault Eddie for falling for miss pride of Hawkins High, the star-studded cheerleader that was Chrissy Cunningham.

“Well, I heard from the cheerleaders that she rejected Jason Carver already so she’s free and totally doesn't have a date so I figured… well that I would ask her,” Eddie whispers the last part before stopping at your first-period classroom door. “What do you think?”

You shift your gaze to the quickly depleting students in the hall before looking back at your best friend. “You should totally do it.” you say while avoiding his eyes, “I’ll see you at lunch, kay?”

You walk into your class before he can say anything back, choosing to drown your sorrows in algebra instead.

♡‧₊˚

Prom had always been a bit of a dream for you. You had fallen for that American high school cliche, ever since you were ten.

You were driving around with your mom when you passed by Enzo’s and had seen so many people dressed up standing outside waiting in line to get in. Your mom explained to you that it was the senior prom that weekend; since then you had looked forward to the moment in your senior year where you would get to wear your new expensive dress you had bought solely for the event.

After you had gotten home that day, you had rambled to Eddie for the rest of the evening while he pushed you on the swingset at the trailer park. He had just shrugged you off and stayed quiet. You paid him no mind and ignored him by beaming at his face with a toothless grin,

“You’ll go with me to prom right, Eds?”

“Only if you let me swing now.”

“Deal.”

You’d like to say you haven't been in love with Eddie till recently but you’d be lying to yourself.

In your recent years of high school, you found yourself daydreaming about attending prom with your best friend, you always played it off as of course, you’d attend this huge event in your life with Eddie, he was your best friend. If you ignored how much he hated conformist bullshit things such as prom. And each time he got held back, the closer and closer you got to both of you being in the same senior class, your hope grew.

Of course, those were always cut short whenever you had caught Eddie looking at Chrissy at lunch or he’d rant to you about how she wrote the most beautifully, detailed short story in English that day and how she would make such a great DM. Or how at the basketball game last week when halftime was over and the band was given a break you had gotten water and had spotted Eddie in the crowd; even though he has sworn up and down (and publicly) that basketball was dumb. You had just shrugged it off as him supporting Lucas, but you knew deep down it was because of Chrissy.

But you refused to acknowledge otherwise.

You should honestly be happy that he’s going to prom now, granted he wouldn’t be going with you. Nor would he take pictures with you. You both wouldn’t awkwardly be posing in your living room together at your trailer as your mom took a million photos along with Wayne taking the day off to see his boy all dressed up for the prom. Or how your fingers wouldn’t tremble while attempting to pin his corsage on his tux hoping you didn’t poke him. Nor would a single shy smile be transpired between the two of you as you walked into the school gym-turned-prom venue.

Nope, he’d be doing that with Chrissy Cunningham.

You took painstakingly slow steps as you currently walked to your last class of the day. You weren't looking forward to seeing Eddie again. Opting for skipping lunch to wallow in your self-pity in the library instead.

Therefore, you hadn't seen Eddie since morning when he stabbed you in the heart unknowingly with his newfound decision, and honestly, it was probably for the best. It’s not like you were going to ask him to prom anytime soon anyways.

The sound of your footsteps stopping in front of the classroom reached your ears. “Just play it cool,” you mutter to no one. You took a deep breath and walked into the classroom, immediately heading toward your seat in the back corner.

Eddie was already in the seat beside yours, his wide doe eyes met yours when he hears your steps and flashes you a smile, “Sup, where were you during lunch, Gareth’s mom made these killer cookies today.”

You look over at him, “Oh I went to the library, I had to catch up on some homework,” you lie.

He didn't say anything back just simply letting out a noise signaling he heard your excuse while nodding.

“Well anyways, about earlier.” he raises his eyebrows, “I’m gonna do it today.” He whispers so that people couldn’t listen in.

“...are you?” your tone was neutral.

He shifts his eyes away from yours. “I need to do it now while I have the confidence because if not, I'm gonna psych myself out,” he nods to himself, “Yeah I'm gonna wait for her after her practice is over.”

You study his side profile. His brown eyes were looking at the ceiling in concentration. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, you find your eyes tracing along his jawline. His hair was a little messy, signaling that he had been running his fingers through it all day.

Willing yourself to say something, “She’ll say yes, Eddie, and if she doesn’t it’s her loss.” You swallow slightly and offer him a small smile.

His hopeful eyes look at you.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

♡‧₊˚

“This is officially the worst day ever.” You groan as you walk into the Family Video.

Steve looks over at Robin from where he was reshelving tapes.

“Uh oh, what happened?” Robin asks reluctantly

“Everything, Robin, everything that could’ve ever gone wrong, has gone wrong.”

After the whole Chrissy-prom-Eddie fiasco yesterday, you had declared the rest of the day a time for self-pitying. All you wanted to do was lie in bed with the covers drawn and completely shut out from the world so that you could comfort yourself in the sad exile you had made.

That was until Eddie called.

Since your blinds were drawn, you hadn’t noticed Eddie coming home earlier. Hence why when the phone rang you almost jumped out of your skin.

Debating whether or not to pick up, you looked at your window longingly knowing who it was on the other side. You ultimately decided to stand up and answer because if you didn't you knew he would just come over instead. And you didn’t exactly what to face Eddie right now, memories rushing to your mind reminded you of how much they were like a slap in the face.

“She said yes.”

He didn’t even wait for you to say hello before revealing his triumph win.

You zoned out after that, not processing the dial zone indicating that he hung up already. You could only recall a little after you walked back to your room that he was going to hang out with the guys because he had promised they’d celebrate the news if she said yes.

The morning had come and gone with you forcing yourself to get out of bed so that you could make it to school today. Eddie met your morning daze with his usual smile when you hopped into his van, you returned it with a small smile but stayed silent. You’d just use the excuse of having stayed up late last night due to catching up on some non-existent homework. Eddie on the other hand took this as permission to gush about how he was finally stoked about something concerning school for once and that he’d be able to share the experience with the girl he had been pining after for years. You simply offer him quiet hums to signify that you were listening.

School was no different, having forced yourself on autopilot, just mindlessly walking to and from class. You attended lunch today, not wanting to rile suspicion and worry with the group, and chose to suck it up and sit through Eddie rambling about how Chrissy had smelled like strawberries and vanilla while he had asked her the million-dollar question.

How she, quote, “had the most radiant smile shining up at him the entire time he talked to her.”

You also chose to ignore the smiles and slight waves she offered him when she made eye contact with him during lunch as well.

Yeah, you weren’t having a good day at all.

Your eyes scanned the store, relief settling once you noticed that it was empty except for your two friends seeing as you didn't bother to note if anyone was there before you blurted out about the nightmare that was your life currently.

Thank god it was a Tuesday afternoon and no one was there to witness your sad-sad life.

Steve was now standing beside Robin having moved during your entire speech after he finished his task.

“It’s just one dance, you know?” he offers, “It’s not like they’ll start dating.” He chuckles awkwardly in hopes of comforting you.

Unfortunately, that was the worst thing he could have said.

“Wait, what if they start dating?” You were going to pass out. “You know, I can’t even be mad at Chrissy, I mean, she’s genuinely the sweetest person. And Eddie, god Eddie, he’s so ecstatic about this, I mean, he’s been pining after her since middle school…middle school! And here I am being a bitch because I couldn't get my shit together and just confess to him about how I feel.” you sigh and drop your head on the counter “He deserves this one thing at least, who am I to get in the way of it?” you say with your voice slightly muffled.

Robin smacked Steve’s shoulder before walking around the counter over to you. “Sweetie, don't get so upset with yourself.” She rubs your shoulders, “Don’t let this small inconvenience deter you from enjoying your prom. Remember? You’ve been looking forward to this since you were ten!”

You look up at her and glance at Steve, meeting his eyes. “Don't let some dumb guy ruin this for you,” he says.

“But he's not some dumb guy, he's Eddie,” you whisper.

“Well, you got me, babe, kay? You can come along with Vicki and me, we’ll have an amazing time together just us, no guys - well that doesn't bother me - but you know what I mean, just us gals, what do you say?”

You don't reply so Robin continues, “This is me officially asking you to prom, are you gonna reject me or not?” she bumps your shoulder with a slight smirk on her freckled face.

You smile at her, “Okay.”

♡‧₊˚

After Robin had invited you to accompany her and Vicki to prom, you felt a little better. It helped you keep your mind off Eddie and allowed you to look forward to the event of which you’d be attending with your other best friend.

It had been almost two weeks since Eddie had asked Chrissy to prom and she had evidently accepted with a “sure why not!” Eddie had ranted to you about how he had a nice conversation with her and how she seemed genuinely excited for prom (you cried in the bathroom after that.)

The entire school was reeling over the fact that Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson was taking the queen of Hawkins High, Chrissy Cunningham, to prom. Jason was livid but every time he tried to say something to Eddie during lunch, Chrissy would shut him down, which you were grateful for.

Another reason why you couldn’t hate her.

Along with Eddie being over the moon about taking his dream girl to prom, he could never seem to shut up about her either. At any possible time, whether at lunch or on the drive home from school, or even during your own personal hang-out time; Eddie always seemed to be talking about one person.

And that person was not you.

Last weekend, Eddie had knocked at your door in a panic about how the suit he was wearing was too big on him and that he looked like a loser, “you always look like a loser.” You pulled him inside so that you could grab your mother’s sewing kit and figure out how you were going to help him tailor Wayne’s old suit to fit him better. “Thanks, princess, what would I do without you?”

While you played tailor, you let it slip that you - surprisingly - haven’t bought a dress yet so in return, he offered to take you dress shopping. The next day he came barreling into your room announcing that the two of you were going shopping at the mall in the town over in hopes of finding your dream dress.

You're one hundred percent sure that Eddie’s cute little reactions every time you stepped out of the dressing room will forever replay in your mind for the rest of your life. Even for the dresses you immediately dismissed and deemed ugly, you were still praised by him.

“I look horrible in this, what even are these sleeves?”

“I kinda dig the sleeves, makes you look like a real princess, princess.”

That smile, god that smile of his. Perhaps it was your delusions or maybe you genuinely saw a flicker of something in Eddie’s eyes when he would glance over your figure, drinking in your body in the dress you were currently showcasing for him. Either way, you were quite literally fooling yourself entirely because he wasn’t going with you,

he was going with Chrissy.

When you got home that day, you decided that you weren't just going to sit around anymore and cry about how things weren't working out. You have been looking forward to prom since you were a kid, you were going to fulfill that ten-year-old you’s dream.

Pulling your blinds close so that they could block any sort of visual that you'll get from Eddie when he got home you grabbed your walkman and climbed into bed. You weren't in the mood to talk to him at the moment, it was Friday meaning the prom was tomorrow and you were currently losing your mind.

Sadly, God wasn’t through with tormenting you just yet.

The sound of the phone ringing ricocheted throughout your house, forcing you to pull yourself up from your current spot on your bed.

“Hello?”

“Wanna go for a drive?”

No, you wanted to wallow in your self-pity and die.

“Sure.”

After slipping on some shoes, you walk out of your trailer and trek the small way toward Eddie’s. He was leaning against his van, cigarette in hand. The moon showered Eddie in its light, making him look ethereal. You didn’t check the time before you left but you knew it was a little late already, the moon was high in the sky, set for the night that was to come.

You hadn’t heard him get home earlier you wondered where he had been the entire day. He must have gotten home just now. Weird.

His head perks up at the sound of your shoes hitting the gravel, he gives you that dimpled smile you love so much and drops the cigarette on the ground before putting it out with his shoe. “Thought we both could go for a drive, hop in.”

He didn’t wait for you to reply and simply walked around to the driver’s side and turned the ignition on.

You took your place in the passenger seat and instantly rummaged through the glove box to look for a new cassette to play.

He looks over at you as you pop in Dio’s The Last in Line, wordlessly. The beginning cords of “We Rock�� play as you sit back and look out the window.

“Where are you taking us, ole mystery man?” you say after a couple of minutes.

“Oh, it’s a surprise, fair maiden.” he laughs softly, “Not really, uh I'm just heading to Lover’s Lake.” His voice is soft, almost too soft. It confuses you slightly, prompting you to look over at your best friend. His eyes were focused on the stretch of road ahead, it felt like he was ignoring your eyes.

The both of you don't say anything after that, simply basking in Ronnie James Dio’s voice till you arrive at your destination.

The soft shutter of the ignition indicated that Eddie had parked already, so you quickly unbuckle yourself and crawled to the back of the van while Eddie cracked open the doors.

He had settled on a lone area off the edge of the lake. It was quiet. You took a quick glance at the dashboard before leaving your seat and noticed that it was nine already. The moon shined on the soft ripples coming from the lake, relaxing your surprisingly tense shoulders.

“Here,” Eddie’s voice cuts the air, offering you a blanket from the back of his van to you.

“Thanks,” you say after a beat, “so, are you excited about tomorrow or are you completely shitting yourself about taking your dream girl to the prom, Munson?”

You peer down to look at his knees that were on display with the worn-out jeans he loved to wear so much. The glint of his rings sparkled signaling that he was drawing shapes on his thigh. One of his nervous ticks, you noted.

You focus your vision back on the water ahead of you, ignoring his stare; you will yourself to not make eye contact with his brown eyes.

You can do this.

You will not lose your best friend over some silly crush.

“Let’s…not talk about Chrissy. I wanna talk about you. I feel like I don’t know about anything that’s happened to you in the last two weeks.” he pauses for a second, “I’m sorry that I’ve just been talking about her all the time recently.”

The unexpected apology throws you off, you look over at your best friend and bump his shoulder, “Are you okay?”

The question hangs in the air for a bit, it seemed as if he was mulling it over. Your eyebrows twitch in confusion.

“You remember that day when you learned what prom was and declared to the entire town that you were going to attend it once it was your turn?” His eyes were glassy.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, you threatened me that if I wouldn't shut up you’d tape my mouth shut.” You laugh quietly at the memory.

After your laughter dies down as you glance over at him. He looks at you and smiles. “I’m not…,” he hesitates, “I’m not sure…how I should style my hair tomorrow,”

Your smile falters slightly before you catch yourself and beam up at him, “I love your hair the way it is, Eds, keep it like that.”

He nods at you and looks away, “We should probably get back, I didn’t tell my mom where I was going,” you murmur.

“Of course, can’t have the princess getting in trouble, can we?” he grins at you.

Oh, how you love him.

♡‧₊˚

If you were to tell fourteen-year-old Eddie Munson that he would be attending prom with the girl he’d been crushing on. He wouldn't have believed you.

He’d turn to his best friend and laugh in your face with her, cackling to the insane statements along with her. That same best friend who encouraged him to ask Chrissy in the first place. The same best friend who has dreamed about prom since she was a kid and the same best friend whom he wouldn't be attending it with.

You’d think Eddie would be excited, but he couldn’t help but have a small feeling inside his heart that hurt.

He drums his fingers on his steering wheel, the anxiety pooling in his stomach. His eyes glance over at your trailer, your blinds were pulled but he could see a sliver of light peeking through, most likely from your lamp. It was quiet in there, he assumed you were listening to your walkman. You had always preferred listening to your music with your headphones rather than blaring it out loud as he did.

He closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh. “Fuck, she was right,” he mutters.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what Chrissy had said.

He had been walking out of the school after he had finished pre-planning everything he wanted to do in the next Hellfire session. Yesterday, the guys had completely thrown him off so he needed to fix up his original idea for the next session next week. It never hurt to start early.

He was making his way over to the picnic table in the woods behind the school so that he could smoke before he left home for the day. His eyes glanced around the parking lot before passing through it, not many students were loitering around; choosing to immediately book it after the bell seeing as it was Friday and on top of that the Friday before prom.

He had barely stepped onto the grass that led to the woods when he heard his name being called.

He looked over his shoulder only to see Chrissy walking toward him. “Hey, Eddie,” her polished nails were waving at him, causing him to stop in his tracks.

“What’s up?” he shoots her a quick smile.

“Oh, were you busy? Because I really need to talk to you.” Her pleading eyebrows were creased in a slight worry.

“Ah nah, I was just heading to my spot to smoke before I went home.” his gaze shifts back to her, “Walk with me?”

Chrissy simply nods and begins walking beside him.

Eddie attempts to find something to say during the short distance to the picnic table, scouring through his brain in hopes of making the walk less awkward than it was.

It was never awkward with you.

He shook his head before he realized he had finally reached his destination, he sits down and pulls out a cigarette before beckoning Chrissy to say what she needed to say.

She takes a deep breath. “When you asked me to go to prom with you, I was inclined to say no.” She pauses for a second before catching herself, “Not in that way, um, I just never really thought you liked me. I mean I don’t think we’ve ever really talked before.” She thinks for a bit, “Maybe during the middle school talent show…” Her eyes shoot up to his, “god what was the name of your band, it was such an insane name, I loved it.”

“Corroded Coffin” Eddie answers with a smile.

“Corroded Coffin! Oh my gosh yes!” She laughs before looking off to the side, “I honestly thought you were dating someone already.” She says your name, “Yeah I could’ve sworn y’all were dating, so when you asked me to go to prom, it completely caught me off guard.” She nods to herself in confirmation.

At the sound of your name, Eddie perks up. “Wait you thought I was dating her?” He quickly laughs, waving her off. “No, we’re not-we’re not dating, we’re just friends.” He doesn’t meet her eyes.

“I don’t think you want to be.” She says quietly.

His eyebrows screw together, “what?”

“Look, I don’t know you too well and I don’t really know her too well either,” she bites her lip slightly, “I think you should go with her…to prom.”

Eddie just stares at her, not saying a word.

Chrissy sets her bag down and sits down now, “I’ve seen you during lunch, well god, I mean how could I not!” she laughs and shakes her head quickly, “Your face just looks so…in love when you look at her. It’s like you hang onto every word she says to you. And I’m not sure you realize that. And if you haven’t, she hasn’t either and is probably devastated that you asked me to prom and not her.”

Eddie finally looks into Chrissy’s eyes now. Her eyes were big and full, they look a little glassy like she was going to cry, but not of sadness, no, Eddie didn’t think she was upset, she looks like she was in awe. In awe at him. At the love that he had not for her but for his best friend. Her face looked like she yearned for this supposed love that she claimed he had for you.

She smiles, “So, I’m not going to prom with you, Eddie,” Chrissy says with a tone of finality.

“Thank you…for this intervention,” he looks away, “didn’t know I needed it.” his voice was quiet.

Chrissy laughs but doesn’t say anything as she gets up, she ruffles slightly with her bookbag and slings it onto her back. She begins to walk away before she turns around to look at Eddie one last time. “I better see you at prom tomorrow and not alone.” She sent him one last smile and walked away.

Surprisingly, Eddie wasn’t upset or sad, instead, he was relieved.

He sits there in silence for what felt like an eternity. The afternoon sunlight beamed on him like stripes due to the trees providing a bit of shade for him. He felt like he was processing everything and nothing at the same time.

He had to leave, he had to get to you now.

Eddie’s mind was still reeling when he was getting close to Forest Hills, as much as he wanted to park in front of your trailer, run into your room, and tell you all that he was thinking,

he simply couldn’t.

So instead he doesn’t turn into the trailer park but rather keeps driving.

How could he have been so blind? All these years of pining after Chrissy Cunningham he thought it was her he wanted. He thought that whenever he would talk about her smile and how her face would light up a room it was Chrissy he was talking about but in actuality, it was you. It was always you.

It has always been you, ever since he had moved in beside your trailer into his uncle's. It has always been you cheering for him like when he had gotten nervous to go on stage for the talent show and Jeff had thrown up backstage. It has always been you whom he would talk to all through the night after you would slip through the window in his room. It has always been you listening to him rant on and on about the new campaign he was preparing for the guys. It has always been you. It will always be you.

And now it was dark outside, the moon replacing the sun for the night. Eddie sits submerged in your presence at Lover’s Lake. He knows that you suspect something is off about him.

“Are you okay?”

No Eddie wasn’t okay. He wanted to scream to the world that he had been in love with you for the longest time. To lose his voice after telling you about all the little things he loves about you, how he was stupid for not realizing sooner and for making you go through the last few years of him pining after a girl he never even loved.

But instead, he gives a lame excuse of not knowing how to style his hair.

He sees your smile falter but doesn't say anything.

And then you offer him that beautiful smile of yours.

God, he hates himself. Why couldn’t Eddie just say that he loves you? He curses himself for being such a coward.

Oh, how you love him.

Oh, how he loves you.

♡‧₊˚

You spent the morning lounging in your bed basking in your sadness before you force yourself to get distracted with the makeup and the music from the reality that was your life.

So what if the guy you’ve been in love with was going to prom with someone else? Totally not the end of the world, right?

“Sweetie, you should be leaving to pick up Robin or you’re going to be late.” Your mom’s voice echoes throughout the trailer.

“Yeah, I'm almost done” you yell back as you grab your heels.

Your eyes dart over at your window. You couldn’t help to notice that Eddie’s van was still parked, meaning he hasn’t left to pick Chrissy up yet. It was getting late already, prom was at seven but it was already quarter past and you had assumed Chrissy would want to get there early or something.

You finish putting your heels on and go to look in the mirror. This was it. You were finally going to attend prom, granted not with Eddie but you were still going with your friends.

With one last look in the mirror, you grab your purse and head out of the safe haven that was your room.

The sound of your doorbell rings throughout the trailer, “I’ll get it,” you say as you pass your mom in the kitchen.

Weird, must’ve been Robin.

A smirk finds its way on your face as you walk up toward the door. “No way, you drove here yourself-”

You open the door, fully expecting a dolled-up Robin (to her standards) in front of you, but to your surprise, it was someone else.

Eddie.

He was standing there in his tux that you had helped tailor. His hair’s down, it looks freshly washed and his curls look bouncy as ever; he had taken your advice that you had told him at the lake. He’s wearing that iconic jewelry of his, the rings he had on extenuating his long fingers. He chose to ditch the tie altogether and instead unbuttoned the first two buttons on the shirt, showing a sliver of his collarbones to the world.

“Uh, no I walked over actually,” Eddie says with a laugh.

After getting over your initial shock you smile at your best friend. “Eds, what are you doing here?”

You look at him expectantly and notice his eyes scanning your form, he swallows quickly before he looks back at you. His face had a slight blush to it.

No way. Did Eddie just check you out?

Eddie doesn't reply so you begin to ramble nervously. “Look at you,” you force a laugh, “Look at you going to prom” without me.

He just stares at you, not saying anything, so you continue. “I can't believe you're going with your dream girl,” you smile sadly, “you did it.”

He finally seems to process that he was standing in front of you and quickly stutters out, “Chrissy dumped me,” your eyebrows shoot up, “yeah, I’m not going with her anymore.” His eyes scan your face.

You blink, “Oh, I'm sorry I didn't - you didn’t tell me.”

“She’s not my dream girl”

“Huh?”

“She’s not my dream girl. You are.”

Were you going insane? You didn’t say anything, you couldn’t say anything. What did he mean that you were his dream girl? You simply stared at Eddie, blinking not saying a word. Your mouth was closing and opening attempting to locate words but your brain was currently malfunctioning.

“I don’t think I understand?” your eyes shift behind Eddie’s form, searching for something.

This was a joke. Surely Chrissy was going to pop out from behind and yell “Sike!” and then they were going to laugh in your face because Eddie had found out that you’ve been in love with him and had found it hilarious. This must have been some cruel prank that they were pulling.

But no one comes out. Eddie doesn’t laugh in your face but instead, he steps forward.

“Princess, you’re my dream girl. You always have been, I was just too blind to notice.” His brown eyes look at yours.

Those wide, loving eyes of his. God, you love him.

“I realized that I wasn't in love with Chrissy, she was just a crush that I had when I realized I would never be able to be with you. I think in fear of being rejected by you, I inadvertently did it anyway by developing that fantasy idea of her. It’s not Chrissy I've been in love with all these years, it's you.” He finishes his confession with a final sigh of relief.

You gulp. “You…love me?”

“Of course I love you, how couldn’t I?” he says with a shy smile.

That’s all you needed.

So you kiss him.

After years of pining. After years of wondering why Eddie wouldn’t just look your way. Of vying after him, you finally have his attention.

The kiss feels rushed like the two of you were chasing the years of lost time. Cursing at the other for having been missing out on this one single act. Hell, at this moment you're not sure how you were able to go years without kissing Eddie, and you don’t ever want to know how again.

He pulls away reluctantly. “So,” he pecks you once more, “if you’ll allow me, I made a deal, and I intend on keeping that promise, sweetheart.”

You crinkle your eyebrows in confusion for a second before it hits you,

he remembered.

A grin breaks out on your face. The childish voices ring in your memories.

“You’ll go with me to prom right, Eds?”

“Only if you let me swing now.”

“Deal.”

“I’d love to, Eds.”

A grin splits onto Eddie’s face, “Whew, thank god, I almost thought I had gotten all pretty for no reason.”

You felt giddy. Your heart was overcome with emotion, you hoped you wouldn't wake up from this dream.

But this wasn’t a dream. This was true.

Interlacing your fingers with Eddie’s you close the door and smile, “Yeah, let’s go to prom together.”

“Wait, what about Robin?”

“Ah, I already called her.”

“Oh, how presumptuous of you.”

“Big words, fair maiden, you know just how to get me going don’t cha, princess?”

#astraariel♡#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson oneshot

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