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#stony friendship
sunnysideprincess · 6 months
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There's nothing sweet about how Steve loves Tony.
He loves him viciously. Like a serpent loving a sweet lie. Like a bolt of lightning loving a lone standing tree. His love for Tony never simmers, only burns until Tony is left gasping and whimpering, raw and aching for more.
Steve loves Tony. It is easy to see. Enough that even their enemies take notice.
It worries the team. It worries Natasha when she sees Steve behead Ivan Vanko with the shield.
"That's a bit much," she notes when Captain America kicks Hammer's lose and limp body, wrinkling his nose in disgust when the man groans in pain.
Steve looks at her. And it's here she remembers him as the man who woke up like a beast. Roaring and snarling at everyone. Seeing enemies all around him until the numbness of grief settled in his veins. His eyes show the rage of a man who's lost one life, and is now on the verge of losing another.
"I thought you were with Potts."
The memory of a soft, subtle rose makes her smile.
"She's fine." Natasha made sure of it. "I'm here about Fury."
"Your boss, you mean."
"My boss," she agrees, checking for any stray henchman. "He's got something that could slow down Tony's... Condition."
"What's the hold up then," Steve doesn't ask. He just squares his shoulder, already catching in on her implications. It's part of the reason she's chosen to work with him for so long. They don't need to speak to know each other's motives.
In this instance, Steve already knows what she does. Fury won't help Tony. Not unless Tony Stark builds Shield something useful. Or becomes Shield's issued collar around Cap's neck.
"Tell me everything."
Years later, Clint would ask her what made her turn her back on Shield, on Phil. She would be looking at Pepper when she speaks. But her answer would be Steve Rogers and his untamed, unchecked wanting for a dying man.
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denebolablack · 7 months
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A normal day on The Avenger's complex:
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Jessica knows that Tony is in love with the Brooklyn's boys.
She also knows they love him back.
That doesn't mean she's gonna go easy on them.
If they want to date the genius then they better bleed for it.
Literally.
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emilythedog661 · 2 months
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Here is 2 mcu art i did
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the first one is steve and tony on a date night
while the second one is bucky telling loki how annoying sam is while sam doesn't like bucky pointing at him
hope you like them and i will do more soon 😁
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gayspacesprinkles · 1 year
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Can we have some stuckony, pretty please?
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Tiny vamp Tony protecting his boys on their nap
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oh-for-love · 2 years
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I just want you to know that no matter how things ended, you mean(t) the world to me
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lazywriter7 · 8 months
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Written for the Stony AUgust event, for week two/time period. Go check them out at @stonyauniverse!
we were infinite (6257 words) by lazywriter7 Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Maria Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, James "Bucky" Barnes, Howard Stark Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Middle School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Childhood Friends, Video & Computer Games, Rollercoaster Tycoon, POV Tony Stark, early 2000s nostalgia, Fluff and Humor, Melancholy, Artist Steve Rogers, Growing Up, Coming of Age, Hyperfixations, Eventual Happy Ending Summary: The year is 2002. Boy meets boy. Both boys get obsessed with Rollercoaster Tycoon. They become best friends. And then they part ways, never to meet again. Probably. But childhood obsessions have a way of coming back to you.
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vellichorom · 2 years
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i sipped the smoke out of my third girlfriend’s mouth & now i’m a talkin fucking horse
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moondoodlez · 1 year
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Smoke sesh with the babes <3
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gyuuberryy · 1 year
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jealousy jealousy
xavier thorpe x reader x tyler galpin
>summary: xavier has been blowing you off for the new girl at your school and you’re fed up  and jealous of it. somehow things lead to you making out with tyler, the barista at weathervane. oh boy, you really need to sort out your feelings.
>warnings: angst, jealousy, mean!xavier, crying, kissing, slight mentions of food
>word count: 1.4k+
>note: hiii, this is my first fic on this app, i hope you’ll like it. this will have a part 2 as well!
part(2)
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ever since wednesday addams had arrived at nevermore, something eventful always happened. appearances of a bloodthirsty monster, creepy rumours about wednesday, the  start of a rivalry between bianca and her. and worst of all, your best friend of six years, xavier thorpe, was obsessed with wednesday.
xavier was too busy following wednesday around like a puppy than to even acknowledge you anymore. recently he had been cancelling your plans at the last moment with sorry excuses, ditching you in lunch, ignoring you for days at a time; to sum it up he was blowing you off like you were nothing but a nuisance to him. 
and it hurt, it hurt so much especially since you had recently developed feelings for him and were planning to ask him out to this year’s RaveN. but now it looked like you would never have chance with him. first bianca, now wednesday. ugh, why was your love life so unfortunate.
you were currently on your way to miss thornhill’s botanical science class and were hoping to be able to finally have a talk with xavier as you were his seatmate. thankfully that hadn’t changed as this was the only class you shared with him. but when you reached there, you were disappointed to see none other than wednesday addams sitting in your place, glaring at xavier as if she was forced to sit with him. a pang of hurt went through your chest as you saw the adoring look xavier gave her. so it had finally happened huh? this was the only thing left to do to completely push you out of his life.he had replaced you after all these years of your friendship. he threw it away like it was nothing. he made it clear he didn’t want you around, so you would do the same now.
you stormed past their table and sat at the back. you noticed xavier look back at you but you just ignored him. soon class started and throughout the class bianca and wednesday bickered, which was amusing. wednesday seemed interesting and you know she was not at fault for what xavier was doing to you, so you had no bad blood with her. although, you couldn’t wait to go to weathervane and get yourself a nice cup of coffee.
after class ended, you immediately gathered all your belongings and walked out when a hand latched around your wrist and pulled you to the side. you looked up to be met with a familiar pair of eyes. “xavier?”
he gave you a timid smile, “yeah.”
you freed your arm from his grip and gave him a stony look, “what do you want?” 
he looked confused at your reaction, “well you’re in a bad mood today, what happened?” you scoffed, “what happened is that i’ve felt this way the entire week. you’ve been constantly ditching and ignoring me all because of your weird obsession with wednesday!”
his face screwed up into an angry expression and his stance turned defensive. “oh so you’re jealous now huh.”
you couldn't believe him, “i’m more hurt than jealous that you would start ignoring your bestfriend for someone you’ve known for a month. i don't mind her, but it would be nice if you spent some time with me as well or invited me to one of your hangouts.” you threw your hands in the air, “you’re acting as if i don’t even exist anymore.”
xavier just scoffed meanly at your words, “you’re not my only friend y/n. don’t be so clingy and get a life.”
tears stung your eyes but you stopped yourself from crying in front of him,you weren’t going to show him that his words affected you. “oh yeah? so all this time you’ve only seen me as a clingy, pitiful person.” you glared at him, “and for your comment, i have a life. now you just won’t be a part of it anymore.” he looked distraught at your words.
“and to think i ever even liked you”, you muttered and walked away. 
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the walk to weathervane was as gloomy as that day’s weather. hopefully it didn’t rain till you got back to your dorm.
the bells of the cafe jingled as you entered and the smell of coffee invaded your senses sighing, you trudged towards the counter and rang the bell kept on it. immediately a head full of brown curls peeked out of the storeroom. “oh hey y/n!” 
it was tyler, the sweet and cute barista who worked as a part timer at the cafe. yet, somehow he was always present whenever you came. you gave him a weak smile, “hey tyler, can i get an americano with three shots of espresso.”
his eyes widened, “whoa are you okay? that’s a heavy order, you usually get lattes.” you grimaced, “yeah i’m not exactly feeling too happy today. might as well get something strong.”
he gave you a sweet smile, “then i know exactly what will cheer you up. lemme surprise you with something nice, yeah?” you smiled softly at his concern for you and nodded. 
sliding into your favourite booth, you put your head on the table and tried not to recall today’s events, but no matter what you did, they came crashing back at you. how could xavier say all those things to you? all the times that you had been there for him, in his highs and lows, meant nothing to him. he just found you clingy and anno-
“y/n why are you crying?”, tyler’s worried voice broke you out of your thoughts. you looked up and he gasped at the sight of you. tear streaks went down your face and your eyes were red and swollen. you looked miserable. he sat down next to you and pulled you into a hug. you leaned on his chest and closed your eyes, breathing in his sweet scent. 
“what happened?”, his voice came out muffled in your hair. you sighed deeply, “i had a big fight with xavier and he said some really mean words.” tyler rubbed your back soothingly at that. “it’s alright, that happens in every friendship.” you moved away from his hug, still in his arms and looked at him, “but he’s been blowing me off and doesn’t even talk to me anymore.” you ranted, “and i even had feeli-” you stopped when you noticed how close you were to his face. your eyes wandered shamelessly over his face, admiring the moles on the right side of his face, his brown eyes that looked like freshly brewed coffee. and his pink lips. you wondered what it would be like to kiss him. no stop! what the hell were you thinking about?
right at that moment the bells at the entrance door jingled, signalling that someone had entered, you both looked to see who it was. surprisingly, it was xavier and he seemed to be looking for something, or rather someone. his eyes brightened when they locked with yours. and as his hand raised to give you a wave, you gripped tyler’s collar and crashed your lips on his. his eyes widened at your gesture initially, but then slowly closed and he tightened his grip around your waist to pull you closer. his lips moved against yours with the same urgency you put in.
the kiss was messy and fast and your head was clouded with fury and all you wanted to do was show xavier that you didn’t need him, to make him jealous. you opened your eyes to make eye contact with him and relished at how his face was scrunched up in anger. he turned around and walked out, slamming the door. you pulled away from tyler, both of your lips swollen and wet. you grinned cheekily as a rosy blush dusted tyler’s cheeks.
“so, what does this mean for us?”
your smile dropped at his words. shit, you hadn’t thought about it. your motive was making xavier jealous, but you hadn’t considered tyler’s feelings. sure, he was really attractive and sweet. recently he had been there for you more than xavier had. and that kiss did make your stomach swarm with butterflies, maybe that was just the adrenaline. but what about xavier, it’s not like you can suddenly push away your feelings for him.
you needed time to think things through and you were sure tyler wouldn’t mind.
you looked at him to see him staring at you expectantly. “i need some time to think things through, i’m not really in a good state of mind right now.” you smiled at him guiltily.
he nodded, “of course, take your time.” you smiled at him.
“meet me at the crackstone crypt tomorrow evening.”
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flowerandblood · 4 months
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The Fall from the Heavens (2)
[ dark • Aemond x Strong • niece female ]
[ warnings: kissing, angst, arranged engagement, violence, swearing, bullying, chauvinism, mention of injury ]
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[ description: A cool distance turns into friendship and more when two children see that they can find refuge and understanding in each other. However, naïve dreams collide with the reality in which every event has consequences and what once could have been love becomes a dark, newly painful obsession. Angst, sexual tension, obsession, violence, madness, very dark Aemond. ]
The story in this series is an alternate reality from the oneshot Stay and love, leave and die, in which Aemond reads the letters his niece has sent to him over the years. They are the same characters and it shows what would have happened between them − I have changed the background story from their childhood slightly for the sake of the plot.
Characters & Series Moodboard
* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *
Next chapters: Masterlist
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She had always felt that she lacked something. Mostly when she looked in the mirror and saw instead of heavenly beautiful white hair her dark curls falling over her shoulders, which she hated with all her heart. Her eyes also had no shade of the gods, no shade of the Targaryens − her brothers laughed that her facial expressions made her look like a hamster.
She once tried, in an act of desperation, to cut her hair completely, hoping that what would grow back would be in a different shade; fortunately one of her mother's servants who brought her afternoon meal snatched the scissors out of her hand, horrified, and told her mother all about it.
That evening the future queen explained to her that there was also a Baratheon line running in Targaryen blood through her grandparents, that Princess Rhaenys also had dark hair.
This explanation reassured her a little, but she still felt that the gods had deprived them of something, robbing them of the looks that would prove who they were.
Fortunately, they had dragons.
Her dragoness, Larax, had beautiful silver-blue scales and shimmered wonderfully in the sunlight. She was still small and was just learning to breathe fire on command, but she was doing well and was her pride.
She visited her when she sought comfort.
She watched from the sidelines the only person among them who did not have a dragon of his own, namely her uncle, Aemond, only two years older than her. She could see that although he kept up appearances under a stony face, his suffering and disappointment was far greater than hers caused by the colour of her hair.
A Targaryen with a dragon was still a Targaryen.
But what was a Targaryen without it?
When Jace bragged to her about what they had done together with Aegon and Luke, that they had given him a pig as a joke, she said they were cruel.
She couldn't believe they thought it was funny.
At first she just wanted to see how he was doing, to see if he was coping, so knowing that he spent his days alone among the books she decided to visit him.
However, it turned out that his aloof nature was due to his caution and insecurity, his readiness to defend himself, although she had never intended to attack him. When he realised that her presence had no undertone he relaxed, even allowing her to exchange opinions with himself.
"I would like to be like Rhaenys in the future." She said softly, thinking dreamily that she was described as a woman of beauty, wisdom and dignity, able to solve many things with her shrewdness, wits, care and compassion.
She heard him snort under his breath, looking at her in disbelief, as if she had said something silly.
"Rhaenys? What's interesting about her? Visenya could fight with a sword and she rode the largest dragon still alive in this world. If I had a choice, I would marry her." He said lowly, as usual pretending to be older than he was − there was pathos in his posture and in his voice, he sat upright, comfortably sprawled in his chair, creating a semblance of confidence.
She raised an eyebrow at his words, unable to hide a smile of amusement and saw the expression of displeasure on his face, as he clearly thought she was mocking him.
"Aegon the Conqueror thought otherwise. Out of ten nights, nine he spent with Rhaenys." She said with a wince and saw that he pressed his lips together, rolling his eyes, impatient with her remark, and shrugged his shoulders, returning to his reading.
He was calm, he was intelligent, he was respectful.
She was really fond of him.
As a very young girl, she had given a lot of her thoughts to her future husband, knowing that as the daughter of a princess she would have her tasks, one of which would be to strengthen their lineage through marriage.
The thought that she would have to marry some boring old man by whose side she would die of despair, and with whom she would have to have many children, kept her awake at night; she wished her husband was someone closer to her in age, someone who shared her values and passions.
She wondered if it wouldn't have been better if her parents had married her to Jace − she knew him and, as his sister, loved him, so it would certainly have been easier − but on the other hand, something rejected her at the thought, she felt some kind of discomfort when she imagined their future children.
This was what she was contemplating when her mother walked into her chamber, wanting to ask her her opinion on the King's decision.
She and Aemond were betrothed.
"You may refuse, my love." Said Rhaenyra, kneeling beside her on the stone floor, taking her hands in her own, fearing apparently that this information would frighten her.
For some reason, however, she was pleased.
Although she did not have beautiful white hair, her future husband did.
He was wise, he was a role model for her, she wanted to be like him.
She ran out of her chamber, rushing into the library like a storm, his pale face expressing shock and fear as she approached him.
"Is it true?" She asked in a trembling voice and saw that he swallowed hard, his lower lip quivering as he nodded.
She covered her face with her hand, a happy giggle escaping from her lips, her heart pounding like mad.
"I'm so happy."
To her relief, it looked as if her uncle himself had no great objections to the king's decision, for he began to speak to her more, introducing her to his world, even explaining what he did during his training, apparently recognising that as his wife she should know what his life consisted of.
She absorbed everything he said, watching him from afar, feeling her heart flutter with joy when he was by her side.
Though she knew it was unacceptable, she dared to ask him to let her kiss him, and after he experienced the taste of her lips, he wanted her to do it more often, though he never said it out loud.
Their kisses were innocent, short, warm and wet, on the forehead, cheek or lips, every time she pulled away from him he smiled lazily, embarrassed. She knew he liked the feeling.
They both felt so mature then.
At his request she snuck into his chamber at night − they would lie then for hours holding hands, discussing about their future, about their children.
"When I become a rider of one of the dragons living in the caves beyond the sea, we will fly to Essos, to see the temples of Old Valyria." He said with confidence and calmness, stroking her hair in a soft, slow motion that her eyelids closed from; she loved it when he did that.
He had never tried to touch her naked body, put his hand under her nightgown or do anything else that Aegon had proudly told her about, but which she did not comprehend.
She furrowed her brow at his words, worried.
"Dragons in caves?" She asked quietly, and he nodded, swallowing loudly; she knew this topic was incredibly important to him, and he hoped to gain her support on the matter.
"Yes. Once I have a dragon, everything will be as it was meant to be. We will marry in the tradition of Old Valyria, beget our heirs, and then explore the world." He said with assurance, as if he had already planned and thought it all out carefully.
She felt warm in her heart at the thought that he had included her in everything about his life, that he saw her at his side as his companion and wife.
And then it happened.
Laena's death, her funeral and the great tragedy that followed.
That night she was roused from her sleep by the shouting of guards running down the corridor. She heard their words that the prince was injured, that he needed to be taken to the maester immediately, that there had been a fight.
With a pounding heart she put on her night robe over her chemise and ran after them semi-conscious, relieved to see her brothers, all bruised but without any wounds.
She then looked at the chair and screamed desperately, covering her mouth, wanting to somehow silence how loud the sound was − she felt someone embrace her, her mother pulled her close, stroking her head.
"He called us bastards, mother, and he stole Vhagar!" Luke whined, Alicent shouted to Viserys that she demanded justice, but the King shook his head, looking at his son.
His wound was all swollen and red, a scar running across his entire left cheek, his gaze directed straight at her, dulled surely by the poppy milk to ease his pain after his eye had been taken out.
She was unable to say anything, her whole body was shaking.
"Who told you such a disgusting lie?" The King asked him, and only then did he look away from her, staring at him; she could see that he hesitated for a moment, his gaze shifting.
"Aegon."
Her mother wouldn't let her approach him despite her despair − she lied that she would be able to speak to him later, but it never happened.
They never spoke a word to each other again.
She wrote to him a letter in desperation, crying over it, having to pause several times, not knowing how she would convey to him what she was feeling, her childish mind unable to properly put into words what she was experiencing.
My dearest prince,
know that my heart is torn by despair and disbelief. I pray for you and your health every day. I hope that as soon as you feel better we can meet. I am sending you books that I thought might interest you.
She wrote this, not comprehending that the last thing on his mind now that he had lost his eye was to read, that he had torn up her letter as soon as he had read it, a lack of response from him made her feel even worse.
She felt he was blaming her and didn't know what to do, how to apologise to him so he would forgive her.
It turned out that there was no way she could do this, and the letters she sent to him in the months that followed were not met with a response.
The guards, on his mother's orders, would not allow anyone from their family to enter his chamber, guarded by Criston Cole himself, who, looking at her indifferently, informed her each time that the prince was unwell, needed to rest and would not receive visitors.
In addition to what had happened, she was heartbroken by what Luke had found out, what Jace had known for months, and what had been shouted in their faces that night.
They were bastards.
She felt even more defiant than ever before.
She had felt little when they moved to Dragonstone, when her mother had married her uncle, whom she had clearly loved forever, when Baela and Rhaena had joined their family.
They were sweet, kind and wise, taking her on long walks among the seaside cliffs, however, she was unable to bond with them.
Although officially their betrothal was never called off, it was clear that the King's resolve was no longer in force, the Queen suggested that any of Lord Baratheon's daughters would be a better candidate for her son, and this marriage would strengthen the royal army.
Instead, her mother thought that she, on the other hand, should marry one of her cousins of House Arryn, to secure their influence in the North and seal Eyrie's support for her cause once she was to become queen.
She was unable to find herself in this new reality, despite being the daughter of a future queen, she felt like a nobody. She find fulfilment and joy in her solitary flights on her Larax, over the sea and between the clouds, only then did she feel free, only then did she feel happy.
To her surprise, her greatest support in her suffering turned out to be Daemon.
He saw her silent agony, he saw her emptiness, he saw her grief and he was able to reason with her, unlike her mother.
His mischievous, mocking nature reminded her in some ways of Aemond; as they walked for hours along the shore without any purpose and conversed, she felt she had regained at least part of her old life.
She liked him because he didn't treat her like a child, because he spoke to her about serious matters and didn't hide anything from her.
"Viserys is weak. He always has been. Your mother is making his mistakes, trying to hide Jace and Luke under her dress. She's trying to protect them from the inevitable." He said more to himself than to her, walking at her side with his hands entwined behind his back, looking off into the distance, his eyebrows arched in disapproval as they always did when he was frustrated.
She sighed heavily, agreeing with him in spirit, knowing what he meant.
Her mother was trying to protect them at all costs, her beloved boys, though the tension between Dragonstone and the Red Keep was greater than ever.
Something hung in the air and everyone felt it.
"And that bastard, that fucking traitor Hightower sits on the throne in his name and rules the kingdom, just as he always dreamed of doing." He hissed through clenched teeth, rage and disappointment beating from him, from which she felt her heart squeeze.
It shocked her how direct he was.
He was like a living, burning fire.
"When there's no cat, the mice scamper. Or maybe a better term would be rats." She said dryly, and he laughed out loud, glancing at her, his lips curving into a grin, a kind of contentment and pride in his eyes.
"You're like quiet water on the outside, but there's a great storm brewing inside you. I have heard that your would-be husband has become a fearsome warrior despite the lack of one eye. I fear that once you meet, heaven and earth will shake." He said with amusement and she swallowed loudly at his words, knowing he was mocking her.
"I have no grudge against him. Only he can have one towards me." She said lowly, pressing her lips together, feeling a tightness in her throat, thinking about how she had cried enough nights because of this event.
She felt him looking at her intently, a light summer breeze and the sound of the sea all around them, grey, gloomy clouds above them.
"You still haven't come to terms with it." He stated more than asked, and she swallowed loudly, feeling tears under her eyelids, shaking her head, unable to get anything else out.
"Sometimes it's better to rip your heart out than to let yourself be humiliated, to lose your dignity. Do you understand?" He asked, stopping, looking at her expectantly, with a kind of determination from which she felt a tightening in her stomach.
She stared at him with wide eyes, trying to behave as she should, trying not to break, but she burst into sobs as he pulled her close and embraced her, letting her pour out the grief that had been flowing inside her for years, which she didn't want to share with her mother or anyone else.
"I still love him." She whined out breathing hard, clasping her hands on his thick tunic, his hand comfortingly stroking her back.
"The boy you loved no longer exists." He said lowly and she felt her heart stop, a cold shiver went through her, a wave of disappointment and the realisation that he was right.
When Vaemond Velaryon challenged Luke's right to inherit Driftmark it turned out, to her horror and despair, that they had to appear in the Red Keep to discuss the matter before the King. Her mother wanted them all to travel there, as a whole family meant to support her younger brother.
She hadn't slept or eaten, she didn't have the strength for this reunion, she felt like flying on Larax at night and just running away.
But where to?
She thought in moments like this about how her uncle had said he would take her to Essos one day, to the kingdom of their ancestors, and she burst out sobbing again, hiding her face in her hands, listening to the sound of the rain falling outside her window.
The journey to King's Landing had been long and tiring for her − she landed on Larax alongside her foster sisters and brothers, her hair tied up in a long braid, a leather travelling attire on her body, more comfortable and giving her more freedom of movement.
They arrived in the Red Keep using the royal carriages; when she stepped outside she was struck by how smaller and tighter everything seemed to her.
She felt tense and looked uncertainly around, fearing she would see him somewhere, but that did not happen.
They were greeted by one of her grandfather's lords, the Queen not honouring them with her presence; they were informed where they would be sleeping and she shuddered when she heard she would be spending the night in her old chamber, feeling the cold sweat on the back of her neck.
Walking through the corridors of the fortress she was hit by memories from everywhere and even though this was her home, she had never felt so foreign before.
She changed with the help of servants into a more appropriate attire, her two-tone gown had bare shoulders, her long to the ground, wide sleeves were red, and the material wrapping tightly around her breasts and hips was navy blue, the colours of the Targaryens and Arryns, her expression that she supported her mother.
She wondered if she should go outside or if it would be better to stay in the chamber, but in the end she decided that she would not be a coward, that she would not allow herself to be intimidated in her own home. Therefore, she moved alone through the familiar corridors of the Red Keep, skirting the entrance to the library, feeling her heart beating wildly.
She heard the sound of blades crossing, saw, standing in the cloisters, crowds of people surrounding a pair of warriors apparently practising hand-to-hand combat, heard applause and sounds of admiration, recognised the faces of her brothers among them.
And then she saw him, first his white hair and then his eye patch − she felt her whole body freeze, her throat squeezed so tightly that she felt like she was going to suffocate.
He was so tall that she could see his silhouette perfectly, she couldn't believe how much the man could have changed over the years.
She saw that he had said something to Luke and Jace, the sight of their horror made him grin broadly, but it was a frightening smile, a sneer that didn't reach his healthy eye, his gaze cold, amused.
It seemed to her that she saw more animal than human traits in him, his way of moving, his gait was defiant, agile, he looked like a predator prowling around his prey.
She thought with pain that he was terrifying, feeling her lower lip tremble, her eyebrows arching in disbelief.
Their attention was distracted by the sound of trumpets; the gates leading into the courtyard opened and Vaemond Velaryon appeared in it, walking at the head of his retinue. She swallowed loudly as she saw his chin raised high, as if he was sure of victory in his cause even though his brother was still alive.
She saw her uncle turn towards her and walk up to one of the servants, reaching out to him impatiently, wanting him to hand him another shield and then their gazes met.
She saw the surprise and disbelief in his healthy eye; he froze and although he took what he wanted he did not turn to face Criston, even from a distance she could see his nostrils moving restlessly with each of his deep breaths, as if he was trying to calm himself, his jaw clenched tightly.
She didn't know why, despite the fact that he frightened her so much, despite the fact that he never answered any of her letters, she felt like throwing herself into his arms and crying, simply to say that she missed him, that she prayed every day that she would see him again.
However, before she had time to do anything under the influence of emotion he turned and nodded at Criston, immediately attacking him with his sword which swished loudly in the air, as if he wanted to take it out on him for what he had just seen.
She decided to return to her chamber, and it was only behind the door that she burst into a despairing sob, realising what had terrified and torn her heart the most.
Daemon was right.
The boy she loved no longer exists.
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Aemond Taglist:
(bold means I couldn't tag you)
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privitivium · 2 months
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thinkin bout a guy who is Mother but rather in the way of "camp" or "drag", he is "Nurturing" and Collected". ahem, ,,,,, use of mommy. ahehrm.
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he's a big guy, ultimately intimidating with his silent nature.. inky black curly hair to his chest, russet brown complexion, long nose... your superior,,, technically,,. cant help but be so nervous around the guy. he's taller than you, by one and a half foot.. scary as shit, stern face.. his name, constance, throws you off. firm, stony expression that happens to grow soft when addressing you, not that you notice the difference,, commenting on your lunch and then sharing with you, forcing you to eat some of his well-packed meal that looked akin to a dinner meal rather that a simple sandwich like you packed - making sure you have your fill. like, just imagining this big ass intimidating guy being so caring toward you, patting you on the shoulder; hand lingering on the small of your back while praising your work so gently,, - very unprofessional some would sayㅡmaking you even more nervous. he was pretty formal with the others, yeah, what makes you so different exactly ??? ahem. he likes you obviously. tracking you down way before you started working with him,,, it was simply a "miracle" you got the job right ???
getting close with him, after he forces his way into friendship with you, ur just so charming and lovely to him,,, inviting you, and only you out for drinks after a particularly stressful workday which you eagerly agree after he says that its all on him,,
immediately takes advantage of the truth spilling from your lips after one too many drinks,, telling him all of your problems,, your parental problems; he was your superior, and who are you to decline his offer of more rounds?? its all on him after all!! ultimately takes you to his house, yknow,, merely holds you while you cry, bursting into tears randomly - a sensitive drunk person.. sobbing into his chest while he holds a glass of water for you, holding you in his chest whilst his free hand caressed and played with your hair,, he knew everything about you beforehand, but it felt a bit more meaningful when you were ranting to him over a few drinks..
"thanks mom,," you thank him quietly, earnestly whilst sipping on the glass of water,, a little sobered up, more coherent. he didnt seem to mind ur little slip-up, rather encouraging it.. he grinned, wildly; maliciously. you were turned away from him, slowly sipping on the water,,, it was quite the terrifying sight, but he was so so so happy, he would be so happy to take on that role for you,, your mother,,. he'd just have to push you in the right direction. he didnt seem to mind you squeezing his tits either. in your drunken haze, hands roaming over his chest, squeezing ever so slightly as you slowly let urself fall asleep on your superior; half-laying on him on his luxurious couch in his rather luxurious place... he encouraged it,, truly. only a matter of time before you were fucking him into his bed and suckin on his nipple while callin him mommy, bro.
again takes advantage of you and your use of mom, he tells you to call him "mother" instead and watches your embarrassed form fumbling around all smiling and shit,,. then it kinda goes downhill from there.. keeping you captive, "punishing" you when you dont call him mother or something,, he just wants to be there for you, hold you,,, just a guy whos called Mother whos literally so in love with you and takes advantage of you basically. ahem. there was another idea where constance just takes you, convenience store worker, under his wing,, kidnapping you would be pretty easy you'd think,,, but anyway. Mother for the win!
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sunnysideprincess · 1 year
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When they break up, Pepper makes Tony promise her that she'll get to give the final stamp of approval for his future partner(s). He is obviously confused, but it's Pepper, so he agrees.
Over the span of three months, she rejects a total of fifteen people—including Darcy. And for some reason, every time she does that she'd throw a look at any or both Brooklyn super soldiers.
Steve and Bucky are terrified of what that means.
It all comes to head after a month.
Tony's birthday roles out and they're all faintly buzzed in front of the TV. It's there she lets it slip that after the Mandarin fiasco, her body temperature ran a lot hotter than average humans. And since Tony is a giant cuddle-bug, she's looking just the right sort of partner for him.
Steve and Bucky don't miss the look she sends their way.
The next day, they tell her their body temperature and finally get her seal of approval.
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tropes-and-tales · 4 months
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Mending Fences
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Day 15:  Virginity (Rhett Abbott x F!Reader)
(For the 2023 Kinktober event that I created on my own because I am boring and basic and am trying to keep it simple this year...found here!) 
CW:  Childhood friends; yee-haw angst; idiots in love; pining; smut (PiV, protected and unprotected); 18+ only.
Word Count: 6954
AN:  This is a sequel to this, and it was requested for Kinktober by an anonymous type!
AN2: Believe me when I say this is not beta read and has not been edited at all. Shitty first drafts, all. Shitty first drafts foisted into publication.
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Rhett doesn’t see you again for three years.
Wabang remains largely the same.  Maria leaves town and Rhett despairs to have missed his chance.  He throws himself into the ranch, into rodeo.  He drinks.  He scraps with the Tillersons. 
Perry and Rebecca make him an uncle, which delights him.  Royal makes his disappointment in his younger son no secret, which hurts Rhett deeper than he’ll admit to anyone.
Three years.  Cecilia mentions you from time to time.  When she runs into your uncle in town, she gets the news, which she conveys over the dinner table to the rest of the Abbotts.  By the time it trickles down to Rhett, it’s just facts:  how you like college, how you’re getting good grades.
Rhett doesn’t think his mother knows about your falling out.  He thinks your uncle can guess at it:  when Rhett sees the man in town, he’s met with a stony stare, curt words.
He hates the way he left it with you.  Every time he thinks about it, his stomach twists and cramps at the wash of shame that courses through him.  There are many times during those three years apart that he thinks of you, that he has the idle thought to reach out.  He has your number, your email.  He could reach out.  He could apologize.
He always thinks of you when he’s working on the lower field of the Abbott Ranch.  It butts against your family’s ranch, a quarter mile of shared fencing, and part of the reason why his mother and yours had been such good friends—and why you and Rhett had been childhood friends too.  There’s a section of fencing with a gap perfectly sized for a child’s body, and both you and Rhett had squeezed through it plenty of times as you went to each other’s houses.
He doesn’t know why your friendship faded.  You used to be inseparable as children, the best of friends.  You used to play in the Abbott barn with Rhett until Royal shooed you both away.  Rhett used to sleep beside you in a tent in your backyard, your mother within earshot and ready to usher you inside if either of you lost your nerve after a night of telling each other ghost stories. 
And when your parents died, Rhett did everything he could to help, in his own childish way:  he clowned around to try and coax a smile from you, he offered awkward hugs when you cried.  Once, he even baked you cookies (with Cecilia’s help).
The drifting apart came in middle school, he guesses.  That’s when the boys and girls started to separate.  That’s when Perry made sly jokes about you, called you Rhett’s little girlfriend, and Rhett bristled at the taunt while you looked hurt at Rhett’s bristling.  You spent less time together:  Rhett fell in with the other boys who drove their trucks outside of town for bonfire parties on the range and dreamed of rodeo and buckle bunnies while you turned inward, studied harder, started dreaming of life outside of Wabang.
When he works on the Abbott ranch’s lower field, he sees the gap in the fencing and marvels that he was ever small enough to squeeze through it…and yet it gives him a pang to see it, to remember those golden years of his childhood he spent with you. 
He could reach out.  He could apologize.  He could, after an opening salvo, express his own confusion and frustration about why you had asked him to take your virginity in the first place.  He guesses that you trust him—or trusted him—but he can’t pretend it didn’t unnerve him all the same.
He could reach out, but he doesn’t. 
Rhett doesn’t see you again for three years.
-----
It comes with no warning, the next time he sees you.  There’s been no chatter about you returning to Wabang for the summer.  You’ve spent other summers at college, working internships and taking classes, so Rhett didn’t expect to see you this summer. 
Rhett sees you in the town proper, just like that, like it’s just another day.  Which it is, except there you are:  standing outside of a restaurant, balancing a flat box of pizza in one hand while a six-pack of beer dangles from the other hand.  You’ve been cornered by one of the older Wabang residents, the mother of one of your high school classmates, and judging by the expression on your face, Rhett guesses you’re calculating how to extricate yourself from the situation.
He's idling in his truck and only has a moment to study you.  You look exactly the same—same face, same hair—yet you seem completely different.  It takes Rhett a long moment to realize why; he doesn’t piece it together until he’s pulled away and is driving towards the ranch.
You seem different because you seem taller—because you’re standing straight.  Perfect posture, shoulders back.  Rhett’s never seen you stand like that before:  as a teenager, you had a way of walking bent over a little, your shoulders rounded over and in like you were trying to pull in on yourself.
-----
He catches glimpses of you here and there.  He hears people mention you—college girl back from the great wider world—and Rhett can’t quite account for the feelings your name or face stir up in him.  Sometimes it makes him duck his head, slink around guilty, like others could read those terrible words his said to you the last time he saw you. 
Pity-fucking the town orphan, he had said.  The words are seared into his memory, as permanent as any tattoo.
Other times, though, the mention of your name or a glimpse of you fills him with a lightness, an airy feeling he remembers from your childhood together.  Like all he has to do is slip through that gap in the fencing to go find you, to take your hand in his for some adventure.
-----
It’s funny how some of the stringent cliques of high school soften once everyone graduates.  Rhett still hangs out with his friends from then, since none of them have left Wabang, but interlopers come and go and are no worse for wear for it. 
The bonfires still occur out on the range but there’s less stridency about who does and doesn’t belong, who was and wasn’t invited.
You never went to a bonfire in high school.  You weren’t exactly friendless back then, but you hung with similarly quiet and studious girls.  Girls who spent their Friday nights sleeping over at each other’s houses, watching movies and dreaming about lives far from Wabang.  But one early summer night, you turn up at the bonfire, in tow with Billy Tillerson and his girlfriend and a handful of other friends.
That riot of feelings.  Guilt and hope in equal measure.  The beer Rhett has already drank doesn’t help.  He’s just tipsy enough, his thoughts just fuzzy and sluggish enough that when you turn up in the circle of firelight, he openly gapes at you, and it draws your attention.
Three years after that terrible fucking night at the hotel, Rhett Abbott is finally looking you square in the eye.
Pity-fucking the town orphan, his memory hisses at him, and a sick wave of shame washes through him.
But if you’re remembering the terrible thing he said, Rhett can’t tell.  You stare at him in the flickering firelight, but then you tip your head at him, a scant nod, and the corners of your lips curve into a semblance of a smile.
It’s been three years, so it’s better than nothing.
-----
He sees you again in the next few weeks, here and there.  At the bar, around town.  Each time, you exchange nods of recognition but little else.
Cecilia gets wind of you being back for the summer, and she spends a Saturday morning baking up a double batch of your favorite cookies—pumpkin chocolate chip.  She underbakes them a shade so they stay soft in the middle, just as you and Rhett always liked them best when you were kids, and then she thrusts the foil-covered platter into her younger son’s hands with the directive to deliver them to you.
Maybe Rhett never gave his mother enough credit.  Cecilia seems to know about the rift between you after all.
“Life’s too short to stay mad,” she tells him before she sends him on his way. 
“Who says anyone’s mad?”
She rolls her eyes, a universal expression that all mothers seem to have that says I’m your mother, you’re not pulling a fast one on me.
“Her mom and I were best friends, but we had our spats.  We never let it turn into a cold war, though.  Talk it out, yell if you have to, but work through it.”  She pats his shoulder, and her eyes have a film of tears as she remembers her best friend, your mother, dead now for these long years.  “Life’s too short.”
-----
Something about his mother’s words make Rhett take the old path to your house—through the lower field, to the gap in the shared fencing, though he has to climb over the fence now that he’s too big to squeeze through the narrow space between the posts.
Each step towards your farmhouse brings back a million memories.  There’s the overgrown bank of Rocky Mountain iris.  Rhett remembers how you cut a bouquet of them (uneven, stems weeping sap) for when his childhood dog died and was buried behind the Abbott barn.  There’s a wide fire pit where your father used to patiently supervise as the two of you caught marshmallows on fire for s'mores.  There’s the flat patch of prairie where your parents pitched a small pup-tent that you and Rhett used to sleep in during warm summer nights.
It baffles him that he used to sleep right beside you, tucked in his Power Rangers sleeping bag while you slept in your Sailor Moon one beside him.  It baffles him how childhood can be so completely innocent, and how it can slip away in an instant.
The house looks the same from the outside, and when Rhett knocks at the back door, he finds that he’s…not excited, exactly.  But not dreading it.  You were his best friend, and his mother is right.  Life is too short.
Your uncle is the one who answers the door, and the cool expression on his face pulls Rhett up short.  But he says nothing other than “c’mon in, then,” and once Rhett steps into the house, your uncle hollers for you somewhere deeper in the home.  Tells you that you have a visitor and that he’s heading into town for supplies.
Then Rhett hears the familiar cadence of you running down the stairs, and it tugs at something in his chest—you ran down those stairs the same way as a child, hitting the top three carefully, then rushing down the rest.  You must meet your uncle near the front door because he hears the two of you murmuring, but he can’t make out the words.  Then the door slamming, the roar of your uncle’s truck’s engine, and then you’re standing in front of him, the same semblance of a smile from the bonfire.
*****
The two of you sit outside near the fire pit, the platter of cookies between you.  You have no idea what bit Rhett’s ass, but after the barest bit of small talk (“How’s it going?” and “How’s college?”), he immediately launches into the big shit.
“I hate how we left it,” he starts.  “That night.  You know.”
You bite back a snort, and you pluck another cookie from the platter, break it in half, pop it in your mouth.  You chew slowly, give yourself time for that old wash of shame to course through you, then ebb away.  It still makes your face burn hot, three years later.  Every time the memory surfaces, you shove it down, but not before you remember the mortification of getting cold feet, of standing in front of him half naked while he called you the town orphan.
“Yeah,” you reply.
“I should have never said it.”
You shrug.  “S’fine.”
“It’s not.”  He sighs, takes his ball cap off and swipes his hand through his hair.  “I’m sorry.  I shoulda said it sooner.  Should have apologized that same night.”
You glance over at him.  You take in his profile:  his jaw twitches at how tight he must be clenching it, and his blue eyes are fixed out in the field, the stretch of land between your ranch and his.  He’s so damned handsome, but you often forget the fact because you still think of him as just the boy next door, your childhood best friend, and you didn’t think of him in terms of “handsome” or not back then.
You shift your gaze back to your shoes.  “I should have apologized too.  I should have never put you in that position in the first place.”  A beat, and you add, softer, “I’m sorry, Rhett.”
You hear movement beside you and feel his eyes on you.  “You don’t have to apologize for that.”  He sounds surprised, and it makes you turn and look him in the eyes for the first time since you sat down.
“I do.  It was awkward, and I made it more awkward, and it was stupid.”  You shake your head, huff in frustration to remember the girl you’d been three years ago.  Not that long, really, but you’ve grown up a lot since then.  “I was an idiot.”
Rhett chances a smile.  “You’re a lot of things, but idiot isn’t one of them.”
“Yeah, but it was stupid to ask you.”
His smile slips a bit; he leans back a shade.  “It wasn’t stupid—”
“I mean, I put you in a weird position.  That’s all I mean.  And it was stupid for me to be so worried about it.  It’ll happen how it happens.  We aren’t…I mean, we weren’t…”  You trail off, huff in frustration again.  “We used to be best friends.”
He sighs too.  “Yeah, I know.”
“And then we weren’t.”
“I know.”
“And I guess I was getting nervous about leaving Wabang, and nervous about going away to college, and I missed my friend and had this…this problem, I guess, so…”  You hold up your hands, helpless, and it makes Rhett smile again.
“Not everything is a problem that you need to solve,” he says, and he sways towards you, elbows you in the side just like he used to do.
You laugh a little.  “That was, though.”
“It really wasn’t.”
“Says the guy who never had that problem.”
He laughs, elbows you lightly again.  “You give me too much credit.”
That makes you remember the tenor of the situation three years ago.  High school.  Rhett pining over Maria.  She left Wabang, you heard.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him now.  “I heard Maria left town.”
He shrugs but doesn’t say anything about it.  He reaches out for another cookie and eats it, licks a crumb off his thumb.
“Anyway, I accept your apology, and I’m sorry I made things so weird,” you add.
He chuckles, elbows you a third time.  “I accept your apology, and I’m sorry I made things fucking awful.”
You elbow him back finally, the answer to his outreach, the old call and response from your childhood.  “I missed you, you know.  In high school and in college both.”
“I missed you too,” he replies, and it feels good, like you’ve excised some old wound together, and now you can perhaps be friends again.
*****
The two of you don’t go all the way back to childhood, but you build something else.  Tentative at first, stilted moments of conversation when you see each other in the wild, but each time feels a little easier.
You’re interning with the town veterinary clinic, and you join the old doctor as he makes house calls from ranch to ranch.  You help steady horses while he vaccinates them.  You smear on paste for ringworm, hold his instruments when he cleans a hoof abscess.  You help him birth breech cattle; you stroke the muzzle of an old dog when it’s put to sleep. 
Rhett sees you when you join the vet at the Abbott ranch one day.  Royal’s favorite mare has a bad back hoof, and it makes Rhett smile to see you so professional.  You question Royal about the horse’s diet; you question the vet about what he thinks.  The vet asks you for your opinion, and you pause before you answer, look off into the distance thoughtfully before you tell him that a supplement of copper and zinc will help.
Cecilia invites you in afterwards for lemonade, and you accept gratefully.  The two of you chat, and Rhett is left as a third wheel so he gets to look his fill of you.  You seem more…comfortable with yourself.  He noticed it that first day when he saw you again in Wabang.  You sit up straight; you don’t curl in on yourself like you want to be invisible.  He remembers you from high school, how you always seemed to be mid-cringe…and it reminds him of that night in the hotel, how you had cringed away from him, shirtless as he got frustrated because you had been nervous.
He knows he apologized and you apologized and it should all be behind you, but it still makes him feel queasy with shame.  Pity-fucking the town orphan.
“Your mom would be proud,” Cecilia tells you, and you duck your head, mumble something, and just like that, you’re that high school girl again.  It makes the queasy wash of shame cede to a wave of protectiveness in Rhett.
Then you stand up and thank her for the lemonade, and she makes you promise to join them for dinner soon.  When you nod at Rhett, you try to step past him but he blocks your path.
“Hug tax,” he says, but it makes you burst into laughter.  Your mom used to do that:  block yours (and his, when he visited) path, demanded hugs as payment for passage.
“I smell like horse manure and sweat, Rhett Abbott.”
“I guarantee you I smell worse, but rules are rules.”  He holds his arms open, and you laugh again, step into them for a moment.  When he whispers “you stink” into your ear, it earns him a squawk of outrage and a pinch to his side, but you laugh the whole way back to your truck.
-----
You join them for dinner a few nights later.  You get to meet the newest Abbotts, Rebecca and Amy, and you break up the general tension that radiates off of the dour Royal like a miasma.
The dinner is largely uneventful.  Rhett catches you matching faces across the table at Amy, which makes the little girl laugh.  Cecilia asks about your years at college so far, and Perry jokingly asks if you’ve had any boyfriends since Rhett.
“No, none,” you reply simply, but it makes Rhett think.  It makes the gears start to turn.  He always assumed your so-called problem was solved while you were away, your virginity shed in some dorm room or apartment or at a party.  But he searches back to that conversation you had when he brought you the peace-offering cookies.  What did you say as you stammered out your own apology?
It’ll happen how it happens. 
Present tense, not past.
-----
He verifies it over that same weekend.  There’s another bonfire.  You turn up with the same crew as before—apparently you’re friendly with Billy Tillerson’s girlfriend.  Now that you and Rhett are back on good terms, he approaches you halfway through the night, and the two of you peel off a little separate from the rest.
“Big fan of the Tillersons then?” he asks, his tone mock-disgusted.  You hear the underlying playfulness and laugh.
“There’s a certain brand loyalty there, yeah.”
Rhett pulls a face, which makes you elbow him.  “Why?”
“Well, their cousin Drew took me to the winter formal sophomore year.”
“So?”
Another elbow to his side.  “He was my first kiss.”
“Gross.”
You laugh again.  “It could have been worse.  He popped a mint beforehand, at least.”
Rhett grunts at that, but he lets the moment lie for a beat before he asks, in a tone he hopes is casual, “did Drew Tillerson help you with your other problem too?”
You laugh again, but there’s less merriment in it.  “Negative, Ghost Rider.”
Maybe he shouldn’t push it, but he’s had a few shots of Fireball chased by plenty of beer, so he plunges head-first.  “Someone at college, then?”
That doesn’t elicit a laugh.  “No,” you reply, and now there’s an edge of tension in your voice.  A tread lightly edge.  Which…Rhett Abbott rarely treads lightly—he more often charges headfirst like a bull, and that’s exactly what he does now.
“Someone I know?”
“No.”  He glances at you, catches your narrowed eyes fixed on the fire.  “Leave it, Rhett.”
He doesn’t leave it.  He plunges head first.  “So it’s still a problem?”
It must be.  You must still be a virgin because you’re so discomfited.  You obviously hear judgement in his voice—judgement that doesn’t exist, of course—because you hike your shoulders up around your ears and hunch away from him.  You look so much like your high school self, suddenly insecure and cringing, and you mumble something about it not being a problem for you, so it shouldn’t be a problem for anyone else, and then you duck away to go find someone else to talk to.
-----
The two of you hang out through the summer.  He works at the ranch and you have your internship, but you fall into the habit of spending the evenings together.  The weekends.  You go to the rodeo with him, watch from the stands.  Sometimes you sit with Perry and Rebecca when they come, and Perry makes sly comments to Rhett afterwards.  He calls you his girlfriend, just as he had teased when you were kids, but it hits Rhett different now.
Things with you feel easy.  Low stakes.  You’re friends again, and you slowly open up to each other.  Rhett tells you a little about Royal, their difficult relationship that has only grown more strained the older Rhett has gotten.  You talk about college, how lonely it can be since you are so focused on your studies.  Veterinary school is more competitive than med school, you tell him, so how can you make time for friends?
The corollary is how can you make time for love?  How can you make time to lose your virginity?
When you asked him to take your virginity three years ago, he had been confused and a little uncomfortable about he.  He couldn’t understand why you’d ask him, but with three years’ worth of added life experience, Rhett guesses that you asked because you trust him.  Wabang isn’t that big of a town.  There’s a dearth of available men you could have asked, especially back in high school.
Three years later, the memory makes a million emotions flit through Rhett.  A nostalgia for when life was slightly easier back then.  Shame that he had said what he did, sadness that he didn’t reach out sooner, that he let the bad feelings lie for three years.
But you had trusted him, even back then, so he wonders if you trust him now.  Would you ask him again, if you weren’t so embarrassed?  What if that evening in the hotel room had gone differently?  What if, instead of getting frustrated with how nervous you were, he had been a gentler man—what if he had handed you your shirt, pulled you into a hug, laid down on the bed with you and watched a movie instead?  What if you had fallen asleep together instead, just like when you were kids?
He has to wonder if that disastrous evening has made your virginity an even bigger deal.  That you had a plan to lose it, and that plan had gone horribly, so now it’s more of an issue.
Pity-fucking the town orphan.  The memory stings.  There were so many kinder things he could have said. 
Well, he has a semblance of a second chance now.  He sees you nearly every day.  You laugh with him again, have long chats.  Maybe he can do it over again, better the second time around.
-----
He’s the one who asks, the second time around.
The two of you are in his truck, driving back from Wabang.  Your truck is in the shop, so Rhett picked you up from work, but he takes the long way home.  You fiddle with the radio, scan through the static until you find the old country station out of Jackson.  There’s an old Loretta Lynn song playing that you hum along to, and you seem to be in a good mood, so Rhett plunges headfirst into it.
“If you wanted to try again,” he says, and his voice is rough at the edges.  “I was gonna offer…”
He trails off, and you stop humming along, and Loretta finishes her song, gives way to Merle Haggard singing about how his mama tried.
“Rhett,” is all you say, but his name is both a sigh and a warning. 
“I’m just saying.”  He swallows, tightens his grip on the steering wheel.  “I messed up before.  Ruined it.”  He glances over at you, but your face is turned away from him.  You’re looking out the window at the Wyoming dusk as the sun sets.
“Rhett, c’mon.”  Less a warning now, more a plea.
“I want to,” is all he says, and you don’t reply.  You don’t say anything else other than to murmur your thanks for the ride when he drops you off, and he doesn’t talk to you again until you call him days later and say, “okay.”
-----
Three years later, he does so much better.
He keeps it simple this time.  He remembers all those sleepovers in the pup tent, your parents within earshot of any nighttime terrors.  He remembers sleeping beside you, waking up to dawn bleeding in through the nylon of the tent, dew coating everything when your mom would unzip the little door and tell you that there were chocolate chip pancakes ready for the two of you. 
You’ve never been a high maintenance sort of girl.  You’ve always loved the wilderness around Wabang, the endless sky and wild storms and purple mountain ranges in the distance.  Where better than to do this than under the night sky, out on the range?
Rhett lays down a thick bedroll in the bed of his truck, then covers it with blankets.  It’s a banner night in Wyoming:  cool but not cold, the warmth of the summer day bleeding away to a comfortable coolness.  The bugs are few.  The sky is a velvety blue-black above you, the stars a scatter of diamonds tossed across it.  The faintest band of orange glows in the west, the last bit of sunlight before it’s full dark.
You’re just as nervous as before, but Rhett keeps his head this time.  He’s not a boy masquerading as a man this time; he’s older, smarter, has more experience.  Three years ago, Rhett only had a handful of sexual encounters to his repertoire—a handful of disappointing moments, drunken rendezvous with girls from high school, a couple of flings.  Nothing deep or meaningful.
He smooths his hands over your arms, then reaches up and cups your face.  He studies you a moment, takes in the unsteady way you’re breathing.  You’re his oldest and dearest friend, and he feels a weird twinge in his chest.  He chalks it up to nervousness on his part, but he’ll wonder later if perhaps it is love.
“Okay?” he asks, and you nod.
He bends his head and kisses you, and it’s the same as before.  You’re tentative with each other, but you warm up to him quickly:  you kiss him back, tease at him with a shy little sweep of your tongue, and when he opens his mouth to deepen the kiss, you’re right there—sighing against him, sinking your teeth lightly into his lower lip before you suck against it.
You must have kissed, at least, in college.  You’re better at it now.  The thought should encourage him—he won’t be your only experience—but he feels an odd wash of jealousy.  He pictures you making out with someone better than him, better looking and smarter and on track to being more successful. 
He takes it as slow as you need.  He lets you set the pace.  He strips you out of your clothing, and he allows you to strip him out of his, and you don’t cringe from him this time.  It’s likely because it’s dark outside; Rhett can’t see much, but you feel amazing under his searching hands, soft and warm.  When he trails his fingertips over your bare skin, he feels how you break out in goosebumps, and he marvels at how sensitive you are.
Rhett’s learned a lot in the intervening years.  He’s no longer an eighteen year-old fumbling through sexual interludes.  He has a better understanding of women.  He spends a long moment stretched out beside you in the bed of his truck, working his fingers into your tight heat, feeling how wet you get as he eases you into this.  He pushes one finger, then a second.  He scissors them inside you, feels the slick muscles of your core push back against him.
“Just relax,” he whispers against your neck, and he kisses you there.  He feels your pulse under his lips, and he nuzzles against you, takes in the scent of your skin.  A moment later, he feels you relax a fraction, the tight grip on his fingers released just a bit.
He can feel you relax more as he kisses you, as he fingers you.  You’re warming up to the moment, pushing past whatever insecurities you have.  The setting helps, he thinks.  It’s not some anonymous hotel room with beige carpeting and the faint scent of old secondhand smoke.  It’s outside, the open range of your home that you love so much.  A waning moon and a million stars burn above you.  It must be a million times more magical than a three-star hotel by the interstate exit.
It's certainly better for him.  It takes him no time at all to get hard, even if he’s nervous.  You’re his oldest, dearest friend, and he’s never thought of you as a woman, really.  He’s never considered you as a sexual being, so it’s a revelation to see your naked body under the faint moonlight.  It’s a revelation to touch you, to cup your breasts and to put his lips against your pebbled nipples, to grind his cock against your bare hip to relieve the tension that coils tight and hot in his belly.
Rhett stretches out on the bed roll.  He fumbles for his discarded jeans, finds the foil packet.  He scrambles to roll a condom onto himself, and then he encourages you to take charge, to take your first time into your own hands.
“You’re in charge,” he murmurs.  He takes your hand, threads his fingers through yours.  He tugs you towards him until your face is pressed near his, and he brushes his lips against yours.  “Just like ridin’ a horse.”
You snort softly.  “Am I gonna need a riding helmet for this?”
He grins up at you.  “I won’t buck you off.”
He guides you as you straddle him, grasps the softness of your hips as you settle over him.  He grips the base of his cock, gives himself a couple of strokes, then holds himself steady as you lower yourself, slide against his length, and even through the latex he can feel how warm you are.
Then you reach down and take him in hand, and it should feel weird, his best friend wrapping her fingers around his cock, but it doesn’t, and Rhett doesn’t question why because you may be a virgin but you understand the mechanics of this, and you notch the blunt head of his cock at your entrance.  When you start to slowly lower yourself onto him, every blessed thought drains out of his head, and every bit of his attention focuses on where he’s entering you—the unbearably tight grip you have, the way your hands settle on his chest as you brace yourself.  You take it slow—so goddamned slow—stilling, taking a breath, then pushing onwards. 
When you’re settled onto him, when you’re sitting flush against him, Rhett breathes out a harsh, punched-out breath, and he asks if you’re okay.  His voice is rough.  His throat feels too dry.  It feels unreal.  His oldest, dearest friend, the girl he used make s’mores with and trade ghost stories with…you’re naked, you’re nodding at his question, you’re sitting on him, and his cock is buried in your depths.  He’s just taken your virginity, and his throat feels too dry and too tight, and his brain struggles to think of the perfect thing to say to you, but your body starts to move above him and he never has a chance to say it.
Your rhythm is clumsy at first, too fast, too jerky.  Rhett grasps your waist and guides you gently.  He sets you in a slower, more even rhythm; you ride him steadily and you make the cutest little whimpers each time to settle back on him.  Each time you do, the coil of tension in his lower belly tightens more, and Rhett breathes carefully to avoid coming too soon.
He slips one hand from your hip and reaches to where you’re joined to him.  He finds your clit, slick and swollen, and he traces an infinity symbol there, around and ‘round with his thumb that makes those cute whimpers turn into outright moans.  He senses that you’re holding back, but you’re in the middle of nowhere.
“No need to be quiet,” he tells you.  “Lemme hear it, baby.”
You moan louder at that, the command or the sweet-talking nickname or both, and he notices that you start to pick up the pace, riding him faster, so he does the same—he rubs against your clit harder, faster, because he feels his own orgasm coming up fast at him.  His balls feel heavy and taut, and he’s so damned close—
“C’mon, let go,” he growls, but his sedate passivity crumbles.  He sits up underneath you, jerks a squeal from you as he sits up and wraps his arms around you.  He pulls you closer to him, and the change in position grants him another quarter-inch into you, and it makes the base of his cock grind against your clit with each bounce in his lap.
“Let go,” he orders; he mumbles it against your lips.  “I wanna feel you come, baby.  Wanna feel you come for the first time,” he says, but when you open your mouth to respond, he kisses you, shoves his tongue into your panting mouth, licks against you as you whimper from deep in your throat.
Then he feels it.  He feels it—the way your orgasm breaks through you, the hard snap of your hips as you arch against him, as your cunt grips him:  your breasts pressed against his bare chest, your arms tight around his shoulders.  You drop your head on his shoulder, and he feels your mouth there.  You stifle the sounds of your pleasure against him, and he’d admonish you, but as your orgasm tears through you, he feels the sharp bite of your teeth into his skin, and it unlocks a kink Rhett never knew he had because the sting of pain is what makes the tension in him snap.  He groans out your name, manages a shit—fuck—baby, then he comes too, ropes of his cum spilling in the condom as you tremble in his arms.
-----
In the end, Rhett Abbott claims your first time that night on the range, under the stars.
He gets your second time too, later that same night:  him on top of you, you with your legs wrapped around him, making good use of the spare condom he brought along.
He gets your third time as well, the next day.  It’s a quick moment, a bona fide quickie in the Abbott barn, the scent of clean hay and sweat as he bends you over the railing of an empty horse stall.  He pulls out in plenty of time, pants as you turn around to grasp him and jerk him off the rest of the way, his cum spilling over your warm palm.
And your fourth time.  He sneaks into your bedroom, and though your uncle is out of town for the night, Rhett still pretends you need to be quiet:  he spoons you from behind, hikes your leg over his and slides into you.  He breathes quietly as he fucks you gently, and he clasps a hand over your mouth as you come, and when your teeth nip into his calloused palm, he groans and comes too.
The next morning, your fifth time as you sit on the kitchen counter and wrap your legs around his ass as he drives into you. 
Rhett never examines his feelings around it.  When he’s alone—baling hay, fixing fences along the ranch parameter—he doesn’t let his thoughts ruminate over you too much.  There’s a truth there, buried under all the sexual interludes and underneath all the shared history and hurt, but he doesn’t excavate it. 
He only lets the facts stand.  You’re his oldest, dearest friend.  You are sexually compatible.  End of story. 
*****
You have plans to meet Rhett in town, at the bar.  You’ve had a long day at your job, deworming a flock of sheep, and you smell terrible, so you stop home to shower and change your clothes.  You stare at your closet critically; you’ve suffered for lack of a mother in your formative years.  You don’t quite understand how to be a woman—you know there’s different lengths of skirts, for example, that work best depending on one’s height or shoes, but you’re damned if you know what those rules are.
Still, you want to look nice.  You want to look nice for Rhett.  Under torture, you’d probably admit it, but you can barely even admit it to yourself:  you’re in love with him.  You have been for a while.  You loved him when you were children in that vague, puppyish way kids love each other.  You loved him when you were in high school, pined from afar and moped over sad songs on the radio because he never looked your way.
And now here you are.  Hope bubbles up in you from time to time, when you’re alone and considering what your future might hold.  You always had a deep, bleak dread that you’d always be alone—sudden orphanhood can warp a psyche, you guess.  But for the first time, you have tentative moments of hope. 
You find a sundress, the cotton a little faded but in the low lights of the bar, no one should notice.  You pull on a pair of strappy sandals.  You dust your face and neck with some of your mother’s old luminating powder, and the scent of it makes a sharp blade of melancholy lance through you.
Then you drive into Wabang, and your stomach gets those fluttery butterflies as you park, slip your keys into your purse, and walk in. 
It takes a moment to find him.  He usually posts at the bar when he’s waiting for you, the door in his line of sight, but when you enter the din of the bar, he’s nowhere to be found.  Maybe he found a buddy and is chatting with him.  Maybe he’s in the bathroom.
If your hope bubbles up in you, effervescent, then your hope is easily popped when you find Rhett.  He’s not in the bathroom and he hasn’t found a buddy, but he’s found Maria Olivares.  The wayward dream girl has returned, and she’s as gorgeous as ever (she must understand skirt lengths, you guess), and her lovely face is tilted towards Rhett as she laughs at whatever he says.  And worse, his handsome face is lit up like a damned Christmas tree, laughing too, and your hope is popped and burnt to the ground and the earth around it is salted because Rhett has never looked at you like that.
“It’s okay,” you whisper to yourself, and you turn on your heel and fast-walk out of the bar.  The path back to your truck shimmers, wavers in front of you.  You realize it’s because your eyes are full of tears, and when you realize it, they break free, start to course down your face.
“It’s okay,” you tell yourself, and you repeat it over and over:  as you get into your truck, as you turn the ignition, as you peel out of the parking lot and as your tires throw up an arc of gravel.  You repeat it like a mantra, and you fix your attention on the road.  You drive home; you leave Rhett at the bar, and it’s a confirmation when he doesn’t text you until the next morning asking where you’ve been.
By then, though, you’re already halfway gone.  It’s August, after all, and school is starting again soon, and leaving Wabang a few weeks early is easy enough.
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foolishlovers · 4 months
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MUTUAL PINING FIC RECS: Below you'll find a list of Good Omens fics in which Aziraphale and Crowley are pining for each other.
You can request more fic recs here.
you play with my feelings (right from the start) by PenroseSun (G, 3k)
There were three things of which Crowley was absolutely certain: 1. Aziraphale, being an angel, was required to be kind and loving towards all things, even when those things were flawed or sinful or fallen. 2. Notwithstanding that obligatory kindness, Aziraphale would never, and could never truly love a demon, in any meaningful sense. 3. Despite this, Crowley was desperately, hopelessly, in love with him.
For To Quench My Thirst by apliddell (G, 6k)
After moving to Sussex with Aziraphale, Crowley is trying so hard to be satisfied with friendship and the suddenly beautiful life he already has.
Slow by write_away (T, 9k)
It started like this: A boy with the ability to warp reality met an angel and a demon and he made assumptions. You might say it started like this: An angel and a demon found a marriage contract hung on the wall of the angel's bookshop. They didn't question it. It also could have started like this: Once upon a time, the angel told the demon he went too fast. The demon took it to heart.   Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves somehow married. Crowley fears going too fast. Aziraphale forges ahead. Neither know how to ask questions of each other.
got a pretty face, pretty boyfriend too by KissMyAsthma, leukozyna (T, 9k)
Aziraphale and Crowley are next-door neighbours. They’ve been attracted to each other since they met. The only thing keeping them apart is a thin wall between their bedrooms and Atticus and Freddie, Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s respective life partners… or are they? A human AU glued together by misunderstandings and wet food.
speed limits (and how to break them) by darcylindbergh (E, 13k)
There is a trick people do with a mint candy and a bottle of cola which results in a small eruption, and something very like it, for much higher stakes than a laugh in a car park, is about to take place in Aziraphale’s back room. Or: what happens when you finally unscrew the cap on a six thousand years of repression, and drop in Valentine’s Day.
Something We Were Withholding Made Us Weak by triedunture (M, 17k)
"Yes, exactly. Retire." Aziraphale reaches for the last remaining tartlet brimming with summer berries. "Somewhere along the south coast, perhaps." Or: Crowley and Aziraphale learn to move in tandem.
32 Questions That Lead To Love by ffonippop (E, 32k)
”First formulated in 1997, [32] questions to fall in love is a study by psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron which took place at Stony Brook University, New York. The aim? Speeding up the creation of intimacy between two strangers.” The Cosmopolitan Okay, fine. Crowley was 32-Questions-That-Lead-To-Love-ing Aziraphale. Sue him. He had no expectations, all right? Just, an innocent curiosity.
Flowers From The Grave Of Our Friendship by WaitingToBeBroken (E, 50k)
Crowley is very good at temptation, not so good with what comes afterwards. Aziraphale knows demons don't love so he is happy to take anything Crowley would give him. Both of them are too blind to realize the thing they want is right in front of them.
Fledging by FeralTuxedo (M, 53k)
Cool Dad was at the school gate again. Clambering out of his ridiculous sports car like a great big spider, all black denim and designer sunglasses. What a prat. He made his way towards the entrance, followed by his equally lanky son. All the mums' eyes were on him. Which was fine. At least they weren't staring at Aziraphale for a change. Cool Dad high-fived his son goodbye, because of course he did, then sauntered back to his car. Making it look so bloody easy. Aziraphale Fell is much too young to be looking after eleven-year old Pepper. He barely has his life together as it is, with his minimum-wage job and a half-baked dream of trading rare books for a living. And as if adopting a recently bereaved pre-teen isn’t enough, there are some rather more adult problems to navigate: playground politics, the shadows of his own childhood, and the growing question of how Crowley, the only other dad at the school gate, feels about him. A human AU/kid fic.
Style and Substance by Cabernet_Woebegone (E, 89k)
“But y’know, if my boss finds out I’m helping you even a little, they’re gonna throw me out on my ass.” “Yes, I understand it is a bit of a conflict of interest for you… Is there something I can offer you in return? Something you would like?” Aziraphale questioned hopefully. You, Crowley thought loudly as he took a second sip. I want to know if you moan when you kiss the same way you do when you try something delicious. I want to know if your lips taste like Zinfandel. “Yes, actually.” Aziraphale is having difficulty running his restaurant, and it isn't helping that he believes the place across the street is trying to sabotage him. To his surprise, chef Crowley comes to him on friendly terms. Together they come up with an arrangement that could benefit them both.
On Espionage and Prophecy (or How to Accidentally, but Wholly, Fall in Love With a Soho Bookseller) by RockSaltAndRoll (E, 133k)
1941 is the London Blitz and the year that MI5 really comes into its own with the now infamous ‘double cross’ system. The service keep tabs on suspects, root out enemy agents and try to turn them into doubles. Anthony J Crowley is fucking great at this job. He can be sneaky, underhanded and damn ruthless but also charming and kind. It’s what makes him good at turning. Aziraphale is just a regular Soho bookseller who loves his shop and books and good food and wine when he’s approached by a woman claiming to be MI5, wanting to recruit him for espionage. The poor man is too trusting and gets the shock of his life when he’s approached by a charming but dangerous-looking man also claiming to be MI5. Crowley recruits Aziraphale to double cross a double crosser and Aziraphale takes to espionage like a duck to water. Danger, hijinks, and sex ensue.
Old Vines by sevdrag (E, 189k)
A.Z. Fell, one of the most respected names in wine and food blogging, has been sent on assignment with his assistant Warlock Dowling to spend six months in California Wine Country. Under direction (by his boss, Gabriel) to use this experience to double his blog followers and write a novel, Aziraphale is both excited and anxious about the opportunity. Anthony J. Crowley is the owner and viticulturalist of Ecdyses, a winery that unexpectedly fell into his lap eleven years ago when he hit rock bottom. He may be in debt, yeah, but he’s paying off his loans — and despite pressure from his lenders and their team of inspectors, Crowley has found a kind of contentment tending his little corner of terroir and producing extraordinary wine. Crowley’s old vines are the heart of his vineyard, and he’s never let anyone in. Crowley finds Aziraphale intriguing; Aziraphale finds Crowley enthralling. Turns out a famous wine expert and an experienced viticulturalist can still learn things from each other. The summer of 2019 unfolds.
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onceuponaoneshotfanfic · 10 months
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You Are In Love (Superstar Chapter 10)
You kiss on sidewalks
You fight and you talk
One night he wakes
Strange look on his face
Pauses, then says
You're my best friend
And you knew what it was
He is in love
Roy and the Reader settle into their life together.
Roy Kent x Reader
9.7k words
Warnings: Language, allusions to smutty things, adults drinking, teeny tiny talk about insecurities, some of the most self-indulgent and fluffy writing I have ever done in my entire life
Author's note: I'm feeling really emotional about posting this final chapter, and I just really want to say THANK YOU. This story really helped get me out of a writing slump, and your love & support has been a huge part of that. I've loved spending so much time with these characters, but more than that, I loved getting to share this story with you. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU. I hope you enjoy all this sugary sweet fluff!
~
Roy stared at me in utter disgust, as if I had just told him I was becoming a Man City supporter or hated The Sound of Music. “That is the fucking worst combination of words in the history of the fucking world.”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “Brunch with Keeley and Jamie is not torture, Roy.”
“To me it is,” he growled, pulling back the blankets and crawling into bed.
“Come on. It’ll be fun. Keeley’s one of my closest girlfriends, and Jamie’s your best friend,” I pointed out as I followed suit, pulling the blankets over us.
Roy let out a deep groan. “Why the fuck does everyone keep fucking saying that?” He turned to face me, propping himself up on his elbow. “I want to really, actually, literally murder him. I fantasize about it almost as much as I fantasize about you. How the fuck is that friendship?”
I shrugged and kissed the tip of his nose. “Everyone has their own love language. And violence towards Jamie Tartt is yours.”
“Want to know my love language when it comes to you?” he asked suggestively, his hand snaking its way under the t-shirt I wore. “I’m fucking fluent.”
“I’d prefer if your love language was going to brunch,” I teased, giving him a playful shove.
He grunted, annoyed at my lack of response to his flirting. “Fine. But I’m drinking as many fucking mimosas as I want.”
The next morning, Roy begrudgingly sat at a patio table across from Jamie, listening to Keeley and I gossip and giggle over mimosas and a ridiculous amount of food. Suddenly, she lit up.
“Oh! Roy, there was something I wanted to run by you.” She took his grunt as the signal to continue. “So, with the Greyhounds doing so well, there’ve been lots of requests for interviews and stuff, y’know? And there’s this hot new talk show, hosted by…” She took a quick look at her mobile. “Ryley Sharp. Two Ys. And his people reached out to see if they could get a gaffer to come on for a chat.” She shrugged. “Would you be interested?”
Roy narrowed his eyes and downed the mimosa in front of him. “Why me? Doesn’t this seem more Ted’s kind of shit?”
Keeley shifted, shooting Jamie a glance. Jamie nodded encouragingly; he’d clearly heard this whole pitch already. “I could ask Ted, but…” She thought a moment. “I mean, you’re a household name, so it would be very good ratings. And, as a friend, I was thinking it would be a good opportunity for you to…” She trailed off, her eyes flickering to me.
“For me to do what exactly?” Curiosity floated behind his stony expression.
“To control your own narrative,” Keeley finally said. When she saw the confusion on both our faces, she continued. “Listen, I know you hate the media-”
“I wish they’d all die in a fiery explosion and then have all their ashes fed to feral hogs who eat their own shit so there’s just an endless cycle of their ashes being eaten and shit out for all eternity,” Roy confirmed.
Keeley nodded slowly, glancing at me as if to ask ‘This is your boyfriend?’ “Right. But think about it this way. You’re a very public figure, Roy. And now that the two of you are done pretending you’re capable of hiding your relationship, you’re going to be going out in public together. And you are going to be photographed together. And your name-” She turned to me. “-is going to become known as well. And I assume none of us want a repeat of… you know what.”
A snort flew out of Jamie’s nose. “Boy-toy Roy,” he cheeked.
Roy bared his teeth. “I have my taxidermist on speed-dial.”
“Boys,” I scolded. “Keeley, please continue.”
“Thank you,” she hummed. “Now, Roy, if you go on this show, you’ll talk about Richmond of course. All about how well they’re doing, how great Ted is, how you see yourself in the lads, that sort of thing. And then, Ryley’ll ask you about yourself. Particularly…” She gestured towards me. “This way you get to decide what people know about you. No room for speculation from the press, no room for making shit up to sell a magazine. Just ‘I’m Roy Kent, I’m in a very happy relationship with the world’s fittest woman, and we have an adorable dog’.” She offered up a hopeful smile. “What d’you think?”
All three of us looked at Roy expectantly. He shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth, then reached over and grabbed my mimosa and gulped it down.
“Tell me about this Ryley Sharp prick,” he finally muttered, taking my hand under the table.
Keeley perked up and gestured to a passing waiter to bring more drinks. “He’s not too bad actually. I’ve watched his show before. Bit of an airhead, but very sweet. And I’ve asked around to see what people have to say about him. Not a bad word from anyone. He’s absolutely not the gotcha kind of guy. He’ll ask you lots of easy, soft questions, make you look good, give you the opportunity to gush about this one here-” She winked at me. “-and he won’t go into anything you don’t want to go into.”
Roy grunted, tapping the table. He glanced at me. “What d’you think?” he asked earnestly.
I looked back at him. His eyes were unsure, eyebrows all scrunched. He’ll do whatever I ask, I realized. He wanted to make me happy, to help me feel safe and secure. And fuck, I wanted to do the same for him.
“I think,” I started carefully. “I think you should do what you want. Keeley makes some really good points about getting out in front of things and not giving the media room to speculate, but if it’s going to kill you, don’t do it.” I squeezed his hand. “I’ll support whatever you decide.”
“Hmmf.” He looked my face over, thoughtfulness in his expression. “Fuck it.” He looked at Keeley. “I’ll do it, but I’m not saying nice things about that prat.” He nodded at Jamie.
Keeley squealed, ignoring the outraged look on her boyfriend’s pretty face. “Ahh! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She grabbed her phone and began typing rapidly. “I’ll pop by tomorrow with all the details. And a backstage pass for you,” she added, winking at me. “And don’t you worry, Roy, I’ll be there the whole time to make sure it goes well, I promise.”
He nodded curtly. “Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat. “I can still swear and shit, yeah?”
~
I smiled watching Roy through the mirror as the makeup woman attempted to powder his face. He was wearing his signature scowl, along with a charcoal suit that hugged him beautifully. At Keeley’s insistence and my prodding, he had gotten a haircut and tidied his beard. All in all, he managed to look even better than he did on any of my old posters.
I really get to go home with this man, I thought with a giggle as I nestled further into the couch I shared with Keeley in the greenroom. Noticing the giddy way I was watching him, he met my eyes in the mirror and cracked a smile.
“No, you’re not putting makeup on me when we get home,” he warned.
“Spoilsport,” I teased as the door opened and a production assistant entered to let Roy know that he would be on after the commercial break, which meant it was time for all of us to leave the greenroom.
Keeley linked her arm through mine as another assistant led us to a pair of audience seats that had been reserved for us to watch the interview. “I made sure they told Roy exactly where we’re sitting,” Keeley assured me as we settled in.
Sure enough, as soon as Roy walked out onto the set to thunderous applause, his gaze found mine. I wondered if the viewers at home would also notice the tiny twitch of his mouth when our eyes locked. He plopped down into the stylish chair by Ryley Sharp’s desk.
We had gotten to meet Ryley Sharp before the show, and Keeley had been right about him; sweet and a bit of an airhead, in the best possible way. He was very excited to have Roy on the show and was thrilled to know I’d be sitting out in the audience with Keeley. He was completely onboard with everything Keeley had discussed with us and thought that Roy wanting to chat about me during the interview was simply “adorable”.
Keeley gripped my hand as Roy was interviewed. I was hugely impressed; he was almost charming and nearly friendly, he actually answered questions, and he even managed to keep his “fucks” to a minimum. It was the best interview I’d ever seen him do, and I’d probably watched every single one he’d done in his entire career. Multiple times.
My cheeks hurt from smiling so much as I listened to the audience laugh at some cheeky comment he made about Ted.
Ryley Sharp shifted in his seat, running a hand through his bleached hair. “Alright, so it looks like things are going well for you, Roy. Happily retired from a massively successful career, coaching Richmond to one of the great underdog stories of our time. What about in your personal life?” He raised his eyebrows. “Got a girl?”
Roy shifted in his seat, clearing his throat. “I actually do,” he admitted, his eyes flicking in my direction as the studio audience ooohed.
“Roy Kent, are you squirming?” Ryley Sharp humorously gasped, leaning forward.
“Do I have to answer that?” Roy asked, a teasing edge in his voice.
Ryley Sharp shook his head. “Not if you agree to tell us about this girl of yours..”
Roy nodded. “Sounds like a deal to me.” He gave a small cough. “She’s, uh, she’s amazing, yeah. We work at Richmond together and, I dunno, we clicked. Decided to give it a go, and so far, so good.”
“Descriptive as always,” Ryley Sharp teased, eliciting some light chuckles from the audience. “Mind if we do some lightning-round questions to learn more?”
Roy nodded firmly. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”
Ryley Sharp cleared his throat. “She like football?”
“Loves it.”
“Fan of yours?”
A smirk graced Roy’s face. “Huge.”
“Her parents like you?”
“I like to think so.”
“She smart?”
“Brilliant.”
“Funny?”
Roy bobbled his head. “She thinks she is.”  He winked in my direction as the audience chuckled.
Ryley Sharp’s friendly smile widened. “She pretty?”
“Fucking gorgeous.”
“And am I to understand…” Ryley Sharp perked up a little. “She’s here in our studio audience?”
Sharp had come up with this idea, explaining that the audience would find it charming as hell. Keeley had left it completely up to us whether we wanted to go along with it, and I’d left it up to Roy, who surprised us all with his yes. My heart skipped a beat when I saw Roy sit up straight and turn his gaze back to me.
“Um, yeah, yeah she’s here.” He gave a little nod in my direction. “Sitting right over there with our friend Keeley.”
Sharp waved to someone off-stage. “Could we get a mic out there?” he called.
In an instant, the same production assistant from earlier was standing next to my seat, holding a microphone. Roy gave me a thumbs up as Ryley Sharp turned his attention to me.
“Why don’t you stand up, love?” he asked as the house lights came on and a camera turned my way.
Keeley pushed me to my feet as my face burned. I smiled and gave Roy a little wave as the production assistant handed me the mic. “Hi,” I said timidly, suddenly hating the sound of my own voice.
Roy smiled, a full smile, and nodded back. “Hey,” he called tenderly. Even from my seat, I could see his eyes were full of affection.
Ryley Sharp cleared his throat playfully. “Alright, lovebirds, back to the interview.” He focused on me. “So, Roy Kent’s girl, eh?” I nodded, suddenly bashful. “What’s it like dating this guy, hmm?”
I lifted the microphone to my face. “Lovely, actually. He’s a pretty good one.” The wink Roy sent me bolstered my confidence.
“Alright, I’m sure all the hardcore football fans out there are dying to know.” Sharp looked at me with mock seriousness. “What is the most romantic thing Roy Kent has ever done?”
My eyes drifted from Ryley to Roy who raised his eyebrows at me. He spoke up. “It’s Paris, innit?”
I nodded, biting back a grin. “Can I tell them about it?”
Roy sat back in his seat and shrugged, as if it were totally normal for us to have a conversation on national television. “Why the fuck not?”
I turned my attention back to Sharp. “Um, well Richmond had gone to Paris for a friendly. And after the match, Roy here surprised me by taking me to the Louvre.” More ooohs from the audience. “After hours,” I added cheekily, garnering more hooting. “And we had a lovely time. Dinner and champagne, the kind of thing only a retired footballer can afford to do.”
Sharp joined in the audience’s chuckles. “Goodness. If that’s a date, I can’t wait to see what his proposal’ll look like!”
My cheeks burned, but I tried to maintain my composure. “Yeah, well, you and my mother have something in common then,” I joked, earning a laugh from the whole room- most especially Roy, who was shaking his head and looking at me like I was the most wonderful, special thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Ryley Sharp asked me a couple more questions- about Oscar and about what Roy and I liked to do when we weren’t at work- before wrapping it up. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Roy Kent and his lovely girlfriend!”
As the audience gave a hearty round of applause, I handed the microphone back to the assistant and looked at Roy, who was still staring at me. I blew him a kiss, and he looked down, clearly blushing. He turned back to Sharp, shaking his hand and looking uncharacteristically cheerful.
After the show wrapped, Keeley and I made our way back to the greenroom, where Roy was chatting with Ryley Sharp. He offered me a smirk when he saw me and placed a kiss on my forehead.
“You were fucking brilliant,” he murmured in my ear.
Ryley Sharp reached out and shook my hand. “How’d it feel?”
I cleared my throat. “It was fun,” I admitted. “But not something I could do every day. Don’t know how you all live with being famous.”
Keeley giggled and nudged me. “Oh, so you don’t want me to set you up with a modeling contract then?”
“Hell no,” I laughed. “Being Roy Kent’s girl is more than enough attention for me.”
~
Life became predictable. Easy. Routine. And I loved every moment of it.
We’d spend our days at Nelson Road, with Roy in training and me doing my best to bring some semblance of order to the coaching staff, eating lunch together almost every day. Our evenings were often spent with Phoebe and Oscar, making dinner together, playing, and watching movies until Roy’s sister came for pickup. Nearly every night was spent together, either at his place or mine, and our mornings were spent waking up in each other’s arms. On weekends we were with the Greyhounds, or taking Phoebe on outings, or meeting up with friends, or just sitting on the couch and reading.
From time to time our picture would end up online or in a magazine: playing at the park with Oscar, or sharing an embrace after a Richmond victory, or getting drinks with Keeley and Jamie. More often than not, the picture featured a blurred gesture on Roy’s part, but he could always be counted on to point out how stunning he thought I looked in the photos.
Amidst this domestic bliss- or “the boring life of dating an old geezer”, as Roy called it- was one thrilling constant: Richmond was still winning. They’d bounced around the top four spots over the course of the season, but there was actual expectation for them. More than one pundit even selected them as their pick to win the “whole enchilada”, as Ted and Dani loved to say in unison. Things came down, in true dramatic fashion, to the last match of the season, which would be against Arsenal.
Roy had already gone running with Jamie and was showered and set to go by the time I woke up, so he sat on the bed with Oscar and read as I got myself ready. He not-so-stealthily watched me over the top of his book as I dug through the half of the closet I was slowly taking up and cleared his throat.
“Wear the sweater,” he mumbled, absently turning the page of his book.
I turned to him. “Hmm?”
He glanced up at me again. “The fucking lucky sweater,” he repeated. “We could use all the fucking help we can get. Wear it.”
“Oh.” I looked at the sweater that was always in his closet. I wore it at home all the time, wore it out for errands occasionally, but had never worn it to a match. It felt a little silly, and I didn’t feel the need to give anyone fodder to tease us with. I turned back to Roy, who had set his book down by now. “Won’t I look a bit funny, wearing your name with you there in the dugout next to me?"
Roy sat up, his face soft. “I mean, people should get used to seeing you wearing my name.” He paused, tilting his head. “Right?”
I felt myself blush. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about marrying Roy someday; I’d been thinking of that pretty much since I hit puberty. And the topic had been one that our friends and colleagues teased about from time to time. And it was something I felt myself wondering about more and more lately.
“Oi.” Roy was grinning at me, clearly amused by my silence. “Don’t worry, I’m not fucking proposing after the match or anything like that.” He stood up and came over to where I was, wrapping his arms around me. “I mean, someday, sure. But not today.” He kissed my forehead. “Alright with you?”
Roy Kent wants to marry me someday. Roy Kent wants to marry me. Roy Kent wants to fucking marry me.
I gave an embarrassed laugh and returned his hug, pretending that he hadn’t just filled my heart with more love than I knew how to carry. “Alright. I’ll wear the fucking sweater then.”
Clad in my dark blue sweater, KENT screaming across the back in white lettering, I stood by the coaches all game long, screaming and cheering louder than usual. Rebecca had been lovely enough to get my family amazing seats, and I swore I could hear my father’s shouts above the rest of the crowd. I tore my eyes away from the gameplay to check the clock, which was fast approaching the 100th minute. By some incredible miracle, we were up 2-1 and just needed the ref to blow the fucking whistle.
As we watched the boys do all they could to keep possession of the ball and push towards Arsenal’s goal, I felt Roy grip my hand tightly and heard him muttering “Come on, fuck, come on,” under his breath non-stop.
Fweet fweet fweeeeeeeeeet!
“Holy fuck!” At the sound of the final whistle, Roy picked me up and spun me around, squeezing me so tight I swore I’d have bruises the next day. Everyone from the dugout raced onto the pitch, where the team was screaming their heads off, jumping on each other like children.
I spent God knows how long on that field, hugging sweaty men and kissing their faces, shouting out expressions of pride over the roar of the fans who were forcing their way onto the pitch. Roy finally pulled me back to himself with urgency, as if he couldn’t bear to be far from me for long.
“Are you fucking crying?” There was a loving edge of teasing in his voice as his thumb swiped across my cheek, which I hadn’t even realized was wet.
I nodded, not caring that I was full grown woman weeping over a football match. “Fuck yeah I am,” I confirmed. “They fucking did it, Roy.”
He shook his head and wiped away more of my tears. “We fucking did it. You’re part of this team. Don’t you ever fucking forget that.” He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, my chin, every square inch of my face. “I love you,” he mumbled as his mouth finally found mine.
“Love you too,” I managed to huff out between kisses that were slowly becoming heated as the boys began shouting the Richmond chant at the top of their lungs and formed a conga line. “Watch it, or Jamie’s gonna give you another warning about keeping things family-friendly.”
“Fuck it. If they wanna broadcast this, we might as well give ’em something worthwhile.” With that, he dipped me backwards, latching his lips to mine in a way that could only be described as cinematic.
That kiss was as if he’d managed to peer into every girlhood fantasy of mine and decided it wasn’t enough. As if he’d taken every great rom-com kiss and wanted to show them how it was done. I knew my girlfriends were sitting in a pub, cackling with glee about how I had twenty-eight posters of this man in my childhood bedroom and was now snogging him on national television. I knew my parents were in the stands, my mum beaming with joy at seeing me so in love, my dad playfully grumbling and asking if Roy really had to kiss her like that, but unable to help the smile on his own face. I knew we’d have to endure lots of teasing at the team celebration, with the guys egging Roy on to kiss me like that again, and with Roy giving in after having just the right amount of shots that would make him forget to be grumpy. And I knew I’d be thinking about this particular kiss for a very, very long time.
As I touched his face, wondering how long we could get away with this embrace before we crossed over into truly insufferable, my mind drifted back to our conversation that morning, and an obvious realization hit me: I want to kiss Roy Kent for the rest of my life.
~
Rebecca’s email took me off guard. It was a week since the Arsenal match, and Roy was outside putting our suitcases in the car while I double checked the reservations for the weekend holiday we’d planned to celebrate the end of the season. It was supposed to be a simple, easy weekend, full of food and drinks, relaxing, reading, maybe a little sightseeing if I could convince Roy, and no football whatsoever. Just us, a normal couple. But now Rebecca’s email would be looming over my head the whole time.
Roy noticed. Of course he noticed, he noticed everything when it came to me. We had stopped to have lunch and for once, I was quiet. He tilted his head at me as I poked at my food.
“Alright. What the fuck is wrong?”
I looked up at him, the concern in his eyes contrasting with the harsh way he spoke. “Nothin’,” I lied.
He shook his head. “Come off it. I’m not going to spend my first chance to actually relax in months with you not talking to me. You’ve got me too used to all your fucking prattling.” He reached out and took my free hand as his voice softened. “Come on. We’re supposed to tell each other things. Fucking vulnerable, remember?”
Despite myself, I smiled at our favorite word. “I, um, got an email from Rebecca this morning.” I squirmed, not quite looking at Roy.
“Doesn’t she know it’s your fucking break?” he teased, clearly trying to help me relax. “Fuck does she want?”
I set my fork down and took a deep breath before I spoke at hyper speed. “Rebecca wants to make me the Assistant to the Director of Football Operations. Working directly under Higgins. She says they both were very impressed with everything I did this season, and they want to see what I can do with more responsibility. And Higgins wants more time with his family, and he and I get along so well already, and it would be a really great opportunity-”
“I know.”
His suddenness caught me off-guard. “What d’you mean you know?”
He bobbled his head in that nervous manner of his, half-smile playing on his lips. “Rebecca and Higgins came to the gaffers before the Arsenal match and asked what we’d think of the move.”
My stomach fluttered as I stared at him. Fuck, I should have ordered a drink.“And what did you tell her?”
Roy sipped the beer he’d been smart enough to order. “Told her she could fuck right off if she thought she could move you out of our office.” He smirked and shrugged. “And that you completely fucking deserve it.” He leaned forward earnestly. “You’re too fucking good to stay down there with us, babe. You should be running the whole fucking club, not just bossing around me and Ted and Beard. You are going to be amazing. I’ll fucking manage to figure out how to get to interviews and press conferences on time, I promise.”
Tears I didn’t realize had formed threatened to fall when I saw the excitement and pride glowing on his face. “Just put a fucking reminder on your phone, you idiot,” I managed to choke out.
“See, it’s that loving, patient guidance I’m going to miss when you’re upstairs plotting your hostile takeover of the football world.” Roy lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. “Almost as much as I’ll miss seeing your gorgeous face every time I walk into our office.” He squeezed my hand. “Take the fucking job.”
“It’s a pretty great job,” I murmured, gazing at our hands. “And I mean, who knows, maybe someday I could have Higgins’s post.”
Roy’s smile widened when he saw me seriously considering the position. “Ruthless woman. I’ll let Higgins know you’re coming for his job.”
He earned a laugh from me. “We’ll see how I like being his assistant first,” I assured Roy. I squeezed his hand, thinking. “I’m just really going to miss sharing an office with you, y’know?”
He shrugged. “Guess we gotta figure out a way to make up for all that lost time.” He paused, taking a sip of his beer as his eyes suddenly became shifty. “Say, what do you think of that flat of yours?”
I almost choked on the sudden shift in the conversation. “My flat? It’s fine. I like it well enough.”
Roy’s face became serious. “But d’you really like it? Because I’d be willing to move in, but fucking Oscar’s spoiled and likes having a yard. I really think he’d prefer it if you moved in with us.” He licked his lips anxiously. “I’d fucking like it too.”
Roy wants to live together. Roy wants to live together. Roy wants to live together. “You want me to move in with you?” I squeaked, wondering, as I often did, when I would wake up from the dream I was living in.
“You already have your own key. You’re there even more than your own flat. Half your shit is already in my closet. I fucking hate it when you’re not there. Besides, you can’t fucking cook, so I’d like to make sure you’re well-fed.” He shrugged. “D’you want to?”
He was doing that thing. That thing where he acted like something was insignificant and casual, like it didn’t matter too much, when underneath he was a ball of nerves, anxiously waiting for an answer. It was a defense mechanism, for sure. A way to make sure people knew that whatever they said didn’t matter to Roy, even though I knew that what I said mattered to him very much. It was, in my opinion, one of the most adorable and attractive things he did.
I didn’t make him sit in that nervousness for long. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely.” My smile was probably the dopiest, silliest one I’d ever worn. “I’d love to.”
“You sure? You don’t seem too thrilled.” Roy grinned and leaned back in his seat, staring at me for a moment. “Look at you. Kickass new job, moving in with your dishy boyfriend. Your life fucking rocks.”
“I’m sorry, did you just call yourself dishy?” I snorted.
He cleared his throat, cheeks tinted pink. “Fucking saw someone call me that on Twitter the other day. Figured my girlfriend would agree.”
I shook my head and laughed. “God, what’re you going to do without me in the office telling you when you sound like an absolute wanker?”
~
The off-season involved a lot of moving on my part. First, I had to pack up my entire flat and move everything into Roy’s house; luckily, Roy was right when he said that half of my things were already at his place. He’d managed to wrangle the players who weren’t away on holiday to help us move all the boxes one afternoon, rewarding them with pizza and beer, which somehow evolved into a karaoke party in Roy’s- our­- living room, with Oscar jumping from person to person, just waiting for someone to drop a slice of pizza.
It was well past midnight by the time everyone left; I assumed Roy would want to go straight to sleep after the exhausting day we’d had. Instead, he dragged me into the kitchen once I’d changed into an old Sunderland shirt of his.
“Didn’t you have enough pizza already?” I asked, stifling a yawn. “’m ready for bed.”
“Just have one thing to do first,” he mumbled, rummaging through the fridge. “Grab a couple of glasses from the bar, yeah?”
Rolling my eyes, I did as I was told, picking up a pair of wine glasses that Keeley had gifted us in honor of the move. When I brought them back to Roy, I stopped in my tracks.
On the counter was a chilled bottle of champagne and a tiny cake, just perfect for two. Roy leaned on the counter, eyeing me carefully, a smirk playing on his lips.
“What’s all this then?” I breathed, blinking from either the tiredness or the surprise. Maybe both.
Roy shrugged, picking up the bottle. “Fucking celebrating of course.” He opened the bottle with ease, but not without champagne starting to flow out. “Shit, bring me the glasses,” he laughed, trying to avoid spilling everywhere.
The kitchen filled with sleepy giggles as we managed to get most of the champagne into the glasses rather than on the countertop. Once we’d finally gotten our glasses filled properly, I sat in my usual spot, with Roy opting to stand next to me, gazing at me softly. He held up his glass.
“Welcome home,” he murmured, tapping his glass to mine with a small clink.
My cheeks warmed as I sipped my champagne, staring at Roy as he did the same. Maybe it was the late hour and my tiredness, but it didn’t feel real, moving in with Roy. And it wasn’t even because it was Roy freaking Kent; rather, it was because I found it hard to believe anyone was capable of feeling the intense love that burned in my chest as Roy handed me a fork and slid the little cake towards me.
We ate and drank in a comfortable silence, the only sounds being the clinking of forks against the plate and Oscar pattering around and our soft chuckles every time our eyes met. After Roy put everything in the sink, mumbling something about taking care of the dishes in the morning, he turned to me, sleepy smile on his face.
“Oi, you brought the blanket, right?”
I had this one particular blanket that had always laid on my couch in my flat. My gran had made it, and it was, without a doubt, the warmest, comfiest blanket in the universe. Roy had gotten in the habit of stealing it from the first time he’d come over to watch The Sound of Music and often brought it to bed when he spent the night. Honestly, there was a very real chance he asked me to move in just so he could have the blanket at his house.
“Um, yeah, it’s one of these boxes somewhere…” I ran my fingers through my hair, eyeing the ridiculous number of cardboard boxes that now decorated Roy’s- our­- house.
Before I could suggest he waited until the morning to look for it, he had already walked over to one of the boxes and started digging. Since he clearly was not going to bed until he found it, I figured I might as well do the dishes. I was rinsing the glasses we’d drank champagne out of when I heard-
“What the absolute fuck is this?”
When I turned around, there were two Roy Kents in the doorway. One was my boyfriend, shirtless and ready for bed, eyebrows raised higher than I’d ever seen them, his mouth wide open in amusement, laughter bursting out of him. The other was cardboard, clad in his Richmond uniform and wearing a scowl.
“Oh fuck!” I nearly dropped the glass I was holding. “You weren’t- that box was supposed to go to my mum’s- shit!” I was choking on embarrassment as my face turned redder than a tomato.
In all the years I’d spent watching him on television and the countless hours I’d now spent in his presence, I had never heard Roy Kent laugh so damn much. He was doubled over with laughter, wiping away tears and making so much noise he woke up Oscar.
I turned off the sink and stormed over, folding the cardboard cutout back up and tossing it on top of the box it had come out of. With a huff, I turned to Roy, who was finally starting to breathe again.
“It was a gag gift from my dad for my birthday a few years ago,” I mumbled, not looking at his smug face. “Kept it because my mates and I thought it was funny to bring out when we watched matches at my place. I was going to take it to my mum’s, figured one of these days I’d sort through all my… football things and throw some stuff out and decide what to do with the rest.”
Seeing the humiliation on my face, Roy sobered up and grabbed my shoulders. “C’mere,” he chuckled, tugging me close to himself. “Please tell me you were not going to throw that thing away.”
I shrugged, still avoiding his gaze. “Probably. I dunno. Wasn’t planning on deciding that right now.”
“Hey.” He lifted my chin, forcing me to look at the tenderness in his eyes. “Don’t you dare be fucking embarrassed.” He tilted his head when I let out a little hmmf. “Did I… did I ever apologize for bringing up your posters that night?”
We both knew what he was referring to.
“Dunno,” I muttered, knowing full well that the answer was no. We’d never brought up that particular comment.
“Oh.” Roy’s hands slid off my shoulders and he grabbed my hand, leading me to the couch. We sat, and he kept my hand in his. “I’m sorry. I… I never want you to feel embarrassed about having a fucking crush on me, alright?”
I shrugged, glancing away. “It’s… it’s silly. All those posters and the sweater and now the freaking cardboard cutout. It just reminds me what a crazed stalker fan I was before we met. Makes me feel a bit embarrassed.”
He smiled and shifted closer. “It might be a little silly,” he agreed. “But it’s also fucking flattering.” He brushed some hair out of my face. “Y’know, when I first saw all that stuff in your room, I thought my heart was going to fucking stop. Because there you were, my stunning new officemate, with my stupid fucking face on your walls. Even the really bad pictures.” He shrugged, suddenly bashful. “Made me realize I had a real fucking shot with you.” He gestured towards the folded-up cutout. “So, I know when you see that shit, you feel embarrassed and all, but when I see it, I remember how fucking excited I got when I realized that you were at least attracted to me. And how seeing you get all flustered, just like you are right now-” He poked my nose affectionately. “-gave me the guts to kiss you.”
To punctuate his point, he leaned over and gently pressed his lips to mine, reminding me of that moment in my bedroom, where he sat on my bed and asked if he was still hot and kissed me for the first time. It felt just as surreal now as it did then, and I asked whatever god was out there to not let me wake up from this dream.
When Roy pulled back, he wore that same fucking smile, the one I didn’t think I’d ever get used to seeing. “Right. Help me find the fucking blanket so we can get some sleep, hmm?” Holding my hand, he helped me to my feet, and the two of us set to work, looking for the blanket so we could finally go to our bed.
~
Working for Higgins was an easy adjustment. I loved my new office upstairs; I had put up photos of Roy, both of my little orange sticky notes, a couple drawings from Phoebe, pictures with Keeley and Rebecca, Oscar, the team, my family, Roy’s family. The handmade card that Ted, Beard, Roy, and the whole team had signed to congratulate me on the promotion sat on my desk, alongside a framed photo of Roy kissing me after the final game against Arsenal, courtesy of Keeley, who’d found it in a tabloid.
I loved having my office right next to Higgins, who liked to pop in for a chat in the late mornings, and brought in treats that his wife made for us to share, and tapped out a beat on our shared wall when I played my music loud enough for him to hear. He listened excitedly to my ideas and suggestions, and he quickly stopped referring to me as “Assistant to the Director of Football Operations” and began calling me “Assistant Director of Football Operations”; it was a change everyone at the Dog Track was quick to adopt.
But I had to admit, my favorite thing about my new office was the window by my desk. As much as I missed my office that I had shared with Roy, this office had one great advantage: the view. My window overlooked the pitch, where I could watch training. Meaning, I could watch Roy. When my window was cracked open, the way it always happened to be when the team was on the pitch, I could hear him screaming “Whistle!” and swearing at Jamie. Sometimes I’d just stand by the window and watch for a bit; that always managed to catch his eye, and I was always rewarded with a smirk and a wave from Roy, sometimes some teasing whistles from the team or a cheerful “Howdy!” from Ted.
After a bit more than a full season working upstairs, I found myself skipping from Higgins’s office to mine. We’d been pursuing a great young player out of Mexico, someone Dani had brought to our attention, and we’d finally signed him. And, despite my insistence that this was a team effort, I had been instrumental in making it happen. So, Keeley and Rebecca decided to take me out to a celebratory lunch, one that Rebecca informed me would take the rest of the afternoon and also required me to dress nice. Accordingly, I had worn heels and a springy little dress that had made Roy’s jaw drop with a soft “Whoa” that morning as we got ready for work. Seeing that man check me out still managed to make my heart flutter with delight.
After popping into Higgins’s office to let him know I was heading out, I went back to mine to open the window and shout down a quick goodbye to Roy. Instead, I found an empty pitch. Weird.
I figured they must have gone into the weight room or something, just a spontaneous change of plans. Par for the course with Ted in charge. So, I made my way downstairs, thinking I’d pop into Roy’s office to see if I could get a proper goodbye.
The changing room was eerily quiet, as was Ted and Beard’s office. I poked my head into Roy’s office, which I hated to admit looked empty since I’d moved upstairs. It was especially empty without Roy. With a small hmmf, I paused to glance over his desk, smiling when I glimpsed the picture of us that sat on his desk, a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa that he’d grumbled good-naturedly about.
“That’s a great picture of us.”
Roy stood in the doorway, kebab takeaway container in hand. He smiled and walked over to me, placing the Styrofoam box on his desk. He kissed my forehead sweetly and let his eyes trail over my face.
“Just wanted to say bye before I head to lunch,” I explained, giving his leather jacket a friendly tug. “You look nice, by the way. Interview today?”
He shrugged. “Just didn’t want to be in fucking workout clothes all day,” he mumbled. He nodded towards the takeaway box. “Got you somethin’.”
I frowned. “Kebabs? Roy, I told you I’ve got lunch plans with Keeley and Rebecca.”
“Open the box.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Roy, I’m gonna be late. Can’t you just toss these in the fridge, and I’ll eat them tonight? Or you can eat them. Or-”
“Just open the fucking box,” Roy said with a laugh, eyebrows raised. “Shit, you really never fucking shut up.”
Narrowing my eyes, I picked up the surprisingly light container. I glanced back at Roy, who nodded at me, encouraging me to open it. With a sigh I opened the lid. Instead of finding our usual lunch, there was a small, velvet box inside and a little orange sticky note that simply read:
To my future wife
XOXO Roy
I snapped my head up to look at Roy, whose smile had grown. Hands shaking slightly, I picked up the black box, letting the Styrofoam container plop back onto Roy’s desk. When I opened the little box, I gasped.
Inside was a diamond ring. It was simple, a small diamond, the exact kind I’d described to Keeley and Rebecca at our sleepover so long ago. I looked back up at Roy, whose eyes had that old anxiety swimming in them, alongside affection and tenderness.
“I’d get down on one knee, but, y’know,” he mumbled, offering up a bashful smile. He cleared his throat. “If I could go back to the first time I bought you kebabs for lunch, I’d have done this. Because every minute of not being married to you is a big fucking waste of time.”
My breath caught in my throat as I blinked back tears. “Roy,” I gasped, my eyes shifting back to the beautiful ring.
He reached over and took the ring out of the box and held it up to me. “What d’you say?” His voice was soft, tender, full of adoration to an extent I’d never heard. “Please say yes.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the familiar phrase. “Yes.” I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, my heart bursting at the feeling of his smile against mine.
To my surprise, he pulled back. “She fucking said yes!” he hollered, slipping the ring on my finger.
In an instant, every Greyhound player, along with Ted, Beard, Rebecca, Higgins, and Keeley, burst into the tiny office, shouting and cheering and hugging each other with even more joy than when they’d finished first. Someone- Dani and Colin and Sam, I presumed- started throwing confetti around the office while we were ambushed with hugs and kisses and congratulations.
Keeley and Rebecca smothered me in their arms, offering their own words of excitement and joy. I looked at them suspiciously.
“There was no lunch, was there?”
Rebecca scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Roy asked if we could find an excuse to dress you up,” she admitted, tears in her eyes.
Keeley, who was openly crying, held up her phone. “And a good thing! Look how fucking beautiful you look!” Sure enough, I looked gorgeous in the photos Keeley had managed to take of the proposal. But my eyes were drawn to Roy’s face and the absolute joy that could be seen there.
I felt someone grab my hand and tug; Roy smiled down at me as he pulled me close. “Did I do good?” he murmured. When I nodded, he grunted. “Good. I’m actually impressed that these muppets could keep a fucking secret.”
As he pulled me into a proper kiss, Jamie and Sam started a chant that everyone quickly joined in: “He’s here, he’s there, he’s gonna marry her! Roy Kent! Roy Kent!”
~
The night before the wedding, I packed a bag to go stay at my parents’ house, where Keeley, my maid of honor, insisted on having a sleepover so she could see the shrine, as my childhood bedroom was often called.
Her mouth widened into that Cheshire-cat grin as she took in all the posters. “Holy shit, it’s even better than I imagined!” she giggled, setting her things down. “You’re telling me that Roy saw this, and that’s what made him decide to kiss you?”
Sitting down on my bed, I chuckled. “I know. He must’ve really fucking liked me.”
Instead of joining me, Keeley meandered around my room, pointing out different posters and tittering at them. She turned to me, eyebrow cocked. “Alright. Which one is your absolute favorite?”
I bobbled my head, grinning. “Well, there’s always this one.” I pointed above me to the poster of a young Roy that my dad and I had argued over the placement of. I stood and skipped over to the closet. “Or this one.” Taped inside my closet was a picture of a shirtless Roy running, the one that I’d secretly ripped out of a magazine when I was sixteen and spent far too many hours drooling over.
Keeley howled with laughter at the sight of it. “Holy shit, no wonder you’re marrying him, he looks fit as fuck there. Has he seen this one?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” I answered, joining in her snickering. “That’s the one secret I’m going to keep from my husband, thank you very much.”
We spent the rest of the night sitting on my bed, gabbing and giggling and sharing the champagne Keeley had packed in her overnight bag, until Keeley knocked out next to me. I gazed up at the ceiling, staring at Roy, unable to believe what my life had become. When I had put that poster up, I was a giggling young girl, fantasizing about what it would be like to meet the guy on the poster, the one who made me betray my family and watch Chelsea matches. And in mere hours, I’d be standing in front of that same man and marrying him.
Oh, if only my teenage self could see me now.
As excited as teenage me would be about marrying Roy freaking Kent (and the fact that we got to shag that gorgeous man), she’d be even more excited to find out that he was kind. And loving. And funny. And good with dogs and kids, despite himself. And that he loved The Sound of Music and reading. And that he was a damn good cook. And that he begrudgingly sang Spice Girls songs on road trips. And that he loved us.
Before I drifted off to sleep, I blew a kiss to the Roy on my ceiling, silently thanking him for his role in introducing me to the real Roy Kent.
~
My hands started to sweat as I heard the violins playing. Keeley had squeezed me tight and shoved my bouquet in my hands before walking down the aisle, where Roy stood with Jamie, who he’d asked to be best man through gritted teeth. After Keeley went Phoebe, in her poofy dress, who, at this point, was probably more excited about the wedding than anyone else.
As I took my position in front of the closed doors, my dad linked our arms, smiling at me with gentle pride. “You ready?” With my mouth insanely dry, all I could manage was a firm nod. “Roy Kent,” he clucked, shaking his head. “You’re really marrying Roy fucking Kent.” He kissed my cheek. “And more importantly, you’re marrying someone who loves you the way you deserve.”
“That I am,” I managed, taking a deep breath as the doors opened.
Roy’s eyes lit up the moment he saw me, just like I knew mine did at the sight of him. As a surprise, I’d asked the violinists to play the wedding march from The Sound of Music for my walk down the aisle; I could see the moment Roy realized it, because he threw his head back and rolled his eyes cheekily.
After my dad kissed my cheek and placed my hand on Roy’s, Roy leaned forward. “My fucking Maria,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“My Captain von Trapp,” I countered with a wink.
~
Rebecca had meant it as a joke when she offered to let us use the Dog Track as our reception venue. But Roy and I jumped at the offer, thinking it was fitting, considering how central A.F.C. Richmond was to our relationship. In the days leading up to our wedding day, we spent hours transforming the pitch into a proper party space, surpassing all of our expectations.
After allowing people to mingle with appetizers and drinks, Ted, who we’d allowed to play emcee for the night, called us forward for toasts. Roy sighed and rolled his eyes, more of a reflex than anything else, and gripped my hand tight as we walked to the stage that Keeley had managed to have brought in.
Roy took the microphone from Ted with a grunt and a curt nod. He let out a deep breath and brought the microphone to his mouth. “Right. So, for some reason, everyone thinks that prick over there is my best friend.” He pointed at Jamie, who stood up, looking prouder than when he was named Player of the Year. “But honestly, this right here is my best friend in the world.” He turned back to me, ignoring the offended scoff from Jamie. “From the moment I crashed her father’s birthday dinner, she’s become my very best friend.” He cleared his throat and gave his head a little nervous scratch. “So, most people who know us know the story of how we got together. Dad’s birthday dinner, posters in the childhood bedroom, secret relationship that apparently everyone at Nelson Road fucking knew about. But, I’ve never told anyone about how I was basically a fucking stalker before any of that.”
I looked over at Roy quizzically. He smirked and continued.
“See, I fancied her the fucking moment I met her. Like, Ted brought her into the office, and I couldn’t say a fucking word. I think I told her not to wear any rank perfume and then just slouched off.” Everyone gave out a light chuckle. “Then I bought her lunch, as a way to, I dunno, make conversation. And we sort of started chatting at work a bit after that. And then this one Friday night she leaves early. And Ted says that he forgot to give her some papers he’d wanted her to work on over the weekend, and he’s all ‘Oh well, she can get it Monday’. But me, being properly whipped at this point, I fucking say ‘I’ll take it to her’.”
My jaw fell slightly; this whole time, I had thought Ted must’ve begged or bribed Roy to bring me those papers. Had he really brought them just to see me?
“I made up some shit about how she told me whereabouts she lived and that it wasn’t too far from my place. And now, looking back, I don’t think he fucking believed me.”
“Nope!” Ted called out with a hearty laugh. “I knew you were in love!”
Roy playfully shot Ted his favorite gesture and continued. “So, I realized I had no clue where she lived. And I felt like an absolute wanker. But then I remembered, we were on some stupid Snapchat group with Ted.”
“You’re welcome!” Ted chimed in again.
Roy rolled his eyes. “And this gorgeous idiot had her location on. So, I did what any sane guy would do: I fucking stalked her. And I turned into fucking Hugh Grant in Love Actually and went knocking on every door in that neighborhood like a right idiot. Until finally, I knocked on a door and saw this beautiful face.” He smiled gently at me. “And I realized right then that I loved that face. And I wanted to see that face every day.” He leaned over and gave me a small kiss. “So, I just want to say, I fucking love you. And I am so happy that I get to see your face and buy you kebabs for the rest of my life.” He took the champagne flute that Ted was holding out to him. “To Mrs. Roy Kent.”
“Mrs. Roy Kent!” everyone repeated, clinking their glasses together and sipping their champagne.
I toasted with Roy and took the microphone he offered me. “All I can say,” I started as everyone quieted, “is that dreams really do come true, and sometimes you get to marry the guy on the poster.” Everyone gave a light chuckle before I went on. “Honestly, though. Anyone who knows me knows that I have had a monstrous crush on this beautiful man for years. Pretty much since the day he made his debut. My poor dad had to watch me put up posters of a Chelsea player on my walls. Best day of his life was when Roy Kent came to Richmond, because it finally meant me putting up Greyhound posters.”
My dad’s laugh was the loudest of all.
“But I realized that today I’m not marrying some guy on a poster.” I turned to Roy and looked into his eyes. “Today I’m marrying Roy. The fit guy I met at work who cooks and who is a wonderful uncle and who loves Dan Brown novels and makes me happy.” I knew my smile was big and silly as I gazed at him. “When I met you, it was a dream come true, getting to know my big celebrity crush. But now, the life I’m living is better than any dream. And I love you for that. I absolutely love you.” I leaned over and planted a heated kiss on his lips, eliciting wolf-whistles from the Greyhounds. Blushing, I raised my glass. “To Roy!”
“To Roy!” came the echo, amidst cheers and sips of champagne.
Rot was relieved when the toasts were over (especially Jamie’s surprisingly tearful speech). We went through the rest of the motions- first dance, dinner, cutting the cake- and finally came to the part of the evening we were most looking forward to: the party. We danced with our friends and drank, reveling in the joy we all shared.
I was enjoying a dance with Beard when Roy grabbed my hand, saying he needed to show me something.
“Roy, can’t you wait until we leave for our honeymoon?” I teased as he led me away from the dance floor.
He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think you talk so fucking much just so I kiss you to try to shut you up,” he quipped.
We came to a stop at the edge of the party, where a flat wrapped package sat alone. I stared at Roy quizzically as he picked it up and handed it to me.
“I think your office can use some more décor,” he started slowly. “Especially because I heard some rumors about Higgins thinking about early retirement.”
I sighed and bit back a smile. “There has been talk,” I admitted. “Nothing set in stone, but I am definitely in the running to eventually become the D.F.O. once Higgins is ready to hand over the reins.” I gestured to whatever it was I held in my hands. “But what’s this?”
He bobbled his head. “Wedding gift. For your office. I’ve owed you this for a while now.”
My curiosity growing, I quickly opened the gift, letting the paper fall to the floor. It was something in a frame. I turned it over and threw my head back when I saw it.
It was the poster from my ceiling, the one Roy and I sat under when we kissed for the first time, only now it was framed. And more importantly, autographed.
“You’re an arsehole,” I laughed, cupping Roy’s cheek and pressing a kiss to his lips. “And I fucking love it.”
He shrugged, taking the poster from my hands and laying it down so he could hold me, leaning his forehead to mine. “Told you I’d autograph it for you,” he mumbled before peppering kisses all over my face. “I think it’ll look fucking great in your office, don’t you?”
I laughed and nodded. “Even if I don’t become D.F.O., I’ll still have the best office decorations in the building.”
Roy pulled back, studying my face carefully. “Fuck that. You’re going to get it.” He kissed me again. “After all, you’re a fucking superstar.”
I let out a small huff, embarrassed by the praise. “Roy-”
“Don’t you ever stop talking?”
And with that, he shut me up in the best way he knew how.
~
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cherryslyce · 1 year
Text
Like Clockwork | Theodore Nott
Synopsis: You meet Theodore as a child, but the promises and laughter of your youth are left to be forgotten as war approaches.
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Pairing: Theodore Nott x Ravenclaw!Reader
Notes: A shorter story that is kind of different from the formatting of my usual writing, but I'm quite happy with the finished result. This one will be a little painful.
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The first time you meet Theodore Nott, you’re seven, still with a penchant for mischief and a habit for knocking your knees against the soft grass. It’s by pure accident that you stumble upon the stony-eyed boy who carried himself with an air of heavy responsibility.
He is visibly burdened. Because at a young age, he was already drifting helplessly in the sea of expectations and danger irreparably encroached into the veins of every Nott heir. Perfectly pureblooded, intelligent enough to know their role, but obedient enough to never question it.
At a young age, you still have your saccharine smiles and lackadaisical walk. It’s improper, your mother would scold, but unlike the steely-gazed boy’s parents, your parents carried little heat in their words. 
It is during an annual get together among the powerful pureblood families that you are positively certain that Theodore Nott was just the friend for you. 
His serious demeanor and watchful eyes left the other heirs unnerved and uninterested in being around him. So when you bound up to the boy, dandelion in hand, extending the sad little stem with an assuring grin, Theodore is sure you’ll be his little solace.
As the years flicker by, your bond only grows stronger, the shared nights stargazing and reading with the flashlights your house elves supplied causing the both of you to become inseparable. 
By 11, you’re both bouncing off the walls in excitement. Theodore barely has time to step out of your floo network before you’re nearly tackling him in a hug. To the both of you, Hogwarts was a place where you could both hang out without a time limit, and without the watchful eyes of your parents. 
The question of Houses and sortings doesn’t surface until you’re sat in your train compartment with an enthusiastic Blaise and a smug Draco. Your indifference to potentially not getting into Slytherin becomes the central topic of conversation between you four the whole way there. 
Theodore promises that it wouldn’t change your friendship, that house colors and its unity would never surpass your tender years of growing up together. 
He keeps his promise as you’re sorted into Ravenclaw. 
By second year, your parents have a falling out with Theodore’s. Theo’s parents seemed to turn like day and night, no longer comfortable with their heir floundering around with a non-Slytherin. Your parents back you, and as they pull away from the former tight-knit circle of dark pureblood families—they begin to question the ways of the Dark Lord. 
Theodore privately disregards his parents' letters, even making it a point to burn them in front of you. In public, Theodore has to play the role of an obedient heir, so you both stop partnering up in your classes and allow everyone to believe that you’re no longer friends.
You were not deterred by the change, understanding Theo’s precarious position and understanding that as long as in private it stayed all the same, you could keep the front up in public. 
It is only when third year rolls around that you begin to feel a rift settle between the both of you. The summer was spent with no contact with each other, even by letter, and the school year is filled with awkward little pauses in your conversations. 
You make friends with Susan Bones and Gryffindor’s Golden Trio to fill the gap. Theo begins to become a regular presence in Draco’s circle of friends, and he also begins to avoid your pointed glances when they all jeer at Harry. 
The rift grows into a cavernous berth by fourth year. Harry’s unceremonious reaping into the Triwizard Tournament seemed like jet fuel for the bigoted, blabbering engine that was Draco’s mouth. Theodore never steps in, hovering to show his silent support for the Malfoy heir. 
Your disappointment hangs heavy over your heart, yet, you soon force yourself to forget it as the tournament wraps up with the delivery of Cedric Diggory’s body from the maze. Nothing left of the kind, free-spirited boy—only an unseeing, glassy stare that would haunt you for the rest of the summer nights. 
Harry’s cries about Voldemort’s resurrection spurs storms of scrutiny and hatred, venomous words piling on your friend as you watch helplessly. No one was willing to believe him. 
But as the year ends and you see an uncertain Draco stride alongside a pale-faced Theodore, you’re sure many people agree with Harry in the shadows. 
Fifth year wipes away your carefree grins and echoing laughter, replacing the pieces of your old-self with fragments of someone unfamiliar. You’re prone to bouts of anger and episodes of self-withdrawal, unable to shake away the chronic stupor. 
Your stormy tides only grow in power as Umbridge begins to gain gradual power at Hogwarts. This only leads to an outcome that has you bonding with Harry over your shared torture in the woman’s office. 
Fifth year sees Theodore sporting uncharacteristic worry on his face, his cold eyes drawn to follow your every move. 
The strain that ripped your friendship apart at the seams, seems to disappear one night after one of your detentions. As you are walking back to your dorm, clutching your bleeding, irritated hand, a firm grip hauls you into one of the dark alcoves of the castle. 
You draw your wand in surprise, and you only lower it once you see the culprit, your heart bleeding over again. 
Theodore doesn’t speak as he gently applies Murtlap Essence to your wounds, running his thumb around the angry letters. And no words need to be exchanged as he’s pressing a kiss to your forehead and holding you in his arms, a silent reassurance of his presence.
The rest of your fifth year plays out the same way. Your friendship with Theo was mending slowly, but surely, an unspoken understanding seeming to bridge the gap that tore you both apart for years. 
By the end of fifth year, you’re both meeting up often in the shadows of the castle, talking about nonsensical topics and sharing lingering touches. The ache that finds residence in your heart only seems to persist as you long for more. 
The last week of fifth year, an owl you recognize as belonging to Theodore’s father, swoops into the hall along with the other owls, dropping a prim envelope onto the boy’s empty plate. You see Theodore’s eyes turn stormy, his grip going white on the paper, and he only tears his gaze away when Millicent Bulstrode pats his shoulder. Your stomach sinks. 
The last week of fifth year has you in a whirlwind of fury again as Theodore stops showing up in your meeting spots, returning to completely ignoring your existence. 
You’re left heartbroken and confused. 
Your answers arrive after a long summer filled with endless night terrors and heart ache. As you sit in the dining hall at the beginning of your sixth year, you have to fight back the stinging in your eyes as you hear a few girls whispering near you. 
“Didn’t you hear? Nott and Bulstrode are betrothed, my mum says the ceremony is next summer.” 
Sixth year is filled with constant reminders of the couple, loneliness flooding your lungs and threatening to drag you beneath the surface. You’re barely staying afloat when Harry approaches you with the burden of war, something you’re readily jumping into to get your mind away from the Slytherin boy. 
When Dumbledore falls from the astronomy tower and is pronounced dead, you feel your whole world flip. 
You have little time to panic before a familiar pair of hands is guiding you to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Theodore’s words come out rushed and shaky, but you manage to snap back to reality long enough to understand him. 
Theo is running his hands down your cheeks, pressing his face closer to yours as tears collect in his eyes. 
The engagement between him and Millicent was a front, he needed to do it to please his father– to avoid getting marked by Voldemort. Draco is not as fortunate. Theodore admits to helping the Malfoy heir with smuggling in the death eaters, but he rushed away immediately to make sure you were safe.
The news has you staring up at him in confusion and he begins to profusely whisper words of apologies, hugging your shocked body to his.
As you both hold each other in the darkness of the forest, you know that chaos was raining upon the world outside the safety of the towering trees. 
It is at the end of your sixth year in the forest when you and Theo share your first kiss, words of promises and apologies whispered between you two. 
Seventh year has you hunting for horcruxes with your friends, shouldering the burden in order to free the Wizarding World from the hellscape created by Voldemort. When your journey brings you back to the castle, your group splits up to cover more ground. Harry leaves for Voldemort, and you leave in search of your own Slytherin. 
Your reunion is nothing short of tears and relieved touches, hearts drumming loudly at the adrenaline of war and the joy of finding each other. Theodore presses kisses to your face, unbothered by the shocked looks you both receive from other students. 
In that moment, it felt like you were both children again. 
It’s 10 minutes after Voldemort arrives and all hell breaks loose, rubble raining from meters above, bodies dropping just as quickly. 
You can’t find Theodore anywhere, but you promise to look for him once it all ends, no matter who comes out victorious. 
You don’t find him.
It’s 5 months after the Battle of Hogwarts, rebuilding the castle takes a collective effort, and some surviving older students settle for odd jobs, others deciding to finish their last year at the fractured castle. 
It’s 5 months after the battle when Theodore finds you. 
His left ring finger is bare, eyes watering as he walks. The flower in his hand spins around as he nervously fiddles with his fingers. 
He promised that he would find you, and he did. 
The leaves cascade in waves of bright green, spring rolling in and highlighting the era of change to come now that Voldemort is gone.
Theo sits on the grass, his flower extended from his hand, and he lets his tears fall for the first time in the new era. 
A promised change is coming to the Wizarding World, and things will get better for the war-hardened citizens. 
Yet, it doesn’t feel that way, not when Theodore has to kneel down and place the lonesome flower on your polished grave--not when he has no anchor to keep him grounded in the new world. 
And he suddenly remembers when you were both seven and naive, feeling unobstructed by the fears of the real world. 
It is when he’s seven that he vows to protect you, no matter the cost. He vowed he would burn the world down to preserve your joyful smiles and warm eyes. 
But it was the fires that he lit which consumed you in the end. 
So, when he’s 18, Theodore Nott closes himself away from the world, and he swears to himself he would never make the same mistakes again. 
When Theodore Nott is 18, he resumes carrying the weight of his burdens and guilt alone. 
When Theo is 18, he wishes you were 18 with him too.
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