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kenthoe · 25 days

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was that a 10 things i hate about you reference??

THIS IS CUTE AS HELL 😭😭😭 GOT ME SMILING AND KICKING MY FEET

LET ME BE THE LIGHTER | MV #CH9

series summary : max raced knowing he’d win. You raced as if you had nothing else to lose. That was something the fans of F1 had grown accustomed to since you joined. Being the only driver who could truly make the Max Verstappen break a sweat during this season, all the odds seemed to be in your favor during one eventful race where you could finally overtake him on the last few laps, breaking his winning streak and also —by consequence — yours and his peace in the near future.

warnings : swearing (as per usual), hints at past trauma, some tension, and surprisingly nothing else. This is pure fluff!

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CHAPTER NINE # FOUR DAYS LATE (FOUR DAYS CRAVING YOU)

“Okay, child, what’s on your mind?”

You feel Toto’s embrace before you get to look at him. The characteristic tone of his followed by his never-ending fanatics for calling you ‘child’ or ‘kiddo’, never ceases to amaze you. He does this too with George, despite you two being way over the edge of innocence, and whenever he calls you that way there is a glimmer in his eyes so shiny and pure it shuts down your complaints over the nickname.

Truth be told, you despise nicknames like ‘kid’ or ‘child’ with a burning passion but you’d never admit it out loud. Your father used to call you the same in a despective way, but whenever Toto says it, all letters flow with love and care. He means no harm so you never stop him despite the initial wave of disgust it brings you whenever you hear it.

“What if I’m not thinking about anything in particular?” You question and raise the glass bottle of beer to your lips, stopping to add something else to the newborn conversation before drinking. “You always think I’m up to something.”

“Well, I haven’t known you for many years to know when something’s bothering you, but given the current events I’m inclined to ask.”

The wood cracks under his weight, swaying momentarily under the weak movement of the nearly still fantasy lake surrounding you. The moon remains frozen in its place, painting in a ghostly manner the reflection of the water and casting weak shadows from the top of the trees to the bottom. You lean into Toto’s embrace comfortably, letting his cotton shirt wrap your exposed shoulders in a warm hug and your back rest on his chest.

“I wasn’t really thinking about anything important, I guess. I was just trying to figure out who leaked my address. Max said someone from Mercedes did it.”

“And I suppose Max’s word is a fact now.” Toto tries very poorly to mask his annoyance. From his perspective, you shouldn’t have known someone from your own staff threw you into the wolves so easily.

Your mind has been in a frenzy for many days now, constantly tosing around between the grasp of panic or anger. It did not serve you any purpose to know who could have betrayed the team so easily. The mere mention of someone close to you toying with your health that easily could inject you with some panic and fear, and Toto needed you to remain calmer in this situation and focus on your recovery instead of playing detectives and trying to solve the mystery behind the person who exposed you to those reporters.

He could deal with the matter alone.

“You are saying he lied to me?” You separate briefly from him to take a good look at his expression but he shakes his head in negativity and avoids your gaze.

“I’m not saying that I just think you shouldn’t be paying attention to this specific thing right now. I’ve already launched an investigation. We will get to the bottom of this.”

“And how is it going?”

“It’s only been two days since you got ambushed. The team is looking into it.”

“The same team with a member who leaked my private information,” you push him and he sighs. “Listen, I usually hate to complain here, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to make the investigation so obvious. It will be fairly easy for whoever gave out my information to hide their identity. You can go and launch whatever investigation you want, I just ask you to be discreet and keep me informed. The problem concerns me. I deserve to know.”

The wood sways again and many cracks follow until a second weight rests on the free side of Toto, laying against it and squishing him in the middle.

George sits facing the woods, leaning his full body weight on Toto’s shoulder for support and the old man groans. Is he the boss here or a simple resting device?

“What are you guys talking about?” You don’t see him but you are pretty sure he is smiling. “Lewis said we should start packing our things. He wants to leave in two hours max.”

“Well, he is not our boss and we’ve got our plane to use,” Toto replies rather dryly and you cannot help but chuckle. “We can take a flight later.”

“Nonsense, man. Lewis has more space on his plane and his seats are more comfortable to sleep in. I’m leaving with him,” George sentences and you take a big sip from your beer. “Now, what were you guys talking about? I know Yn’s your favorite child, but I also want to be included.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” you bite back, lightly pressing two fingers to his side, making the British man yelp and move from his spot. “You are the predestined man of Mercedes. Like Lecrerc but with less talent for music.”

“I’d have you know that I can be a pretty decent singer and I’m an amazing guitar hero player, so I’m probably a secret guitarist or some shit. I just need to buy a real guitar.”

“I hope I go deaf by the time you decide to dip your toes into the music industry,” Toto admits and you finally laugh loudly.

“Who needs enemies with friends like you two,” Russell tries to feign some anger but a big smile decorates his features, prompting you to laugh even harder. “I will swap teams next year. I swear.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Red Bull will ask you to be their second driver for the next season,” you tease and roll your eyes.

“Given the circumstances and how much Max has liked you lately, it’s more possible for you to swap teams. Traitor. I thought it was us two commanding the Verstappen hate club, now it’s only me.”

“Come on, we never hated him.”

“Talk for yourself. I’ve known him for longer. He’s a human hazard. That man’s ego is bigger than Red Bull’s capability to build rocket ships for racing — no offense, Toto. Our car is alright, but his is —.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Toto interrupts. “Let’s just finish our beers and stay in silence.”

After chuckling, you take another sip from your bottle and check how much drink you have left. The glass is almost empty and you want some more, but first, you want to discuss something with Toto, so you choose to go against his wishes and break the silence he has asked for.

“Toto…” You whisper. “I was thinking —.”

“No. I specifically said to stay silent and drink.”

Stubbornly, you take the final sip from your beer and shake it in front of him. “I ran out of beer so you’ll hear me babble, grumpy man.”

“Okay, as long as this conversation doesn’t go back to the media leak I think I will survive.”

“I’m gonna call Max and ask him if I can fly with him to our next location,” you express with tranquility and Wolff begins choking on his drink, prompting George to laugh and separate from the man as well just to poke fun at him. “Come on, man. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“F-fucking hell, are you nuts? You can leave with me or George and Lewis. Why would you want to take the Verstappen jet?”

“That’s not the problem. The problem is that she doesn’t look like she intends to eject Max out of the plane mid-flight,” George points out and you groan. “Why would you want to spend so many hours with him?”

“Because…” You trail off, unsure as to why you want to do this but having a vague idea of the benefits this spontaneous flight with your fake boyfriend will bring you. “Me and Max are on good terms now and we should start spending some time together. Plus, the last time I took a plane on my own with friends the media tore me to shreds. People still believe I’m cheating on Max with Carly, it will be good if they see me with my actual boyfriend.”

Toto lets out a huff and finally unwraps his clasp around your shoulders, giving you some space and resting his frame fully on the wood, taking a look at the clear sky. “I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but this is a good idea.” You let escape a soft celebratory ‘yes’ and push yourself up. “I will let their team know about the plan. It will help you two to dissipate some of the bad press you’ve been receiving, but I need you to keep me updated. And please, do board the plane as early as possible. The forecast said storms will hit soon. If you don’t leave tonight you’ll be stranded here.”

Taking a quick look at the sky, you catch glimpses of tilting stars in the vast darkness and shrug before agreeing with him. It doesn’t look like it will be raining any time soon, but you’ll let Max know.

The clouds haven’t ceased their cries since the first hours of the morning, blocking the sun rays from accessing the streets and hitting all windows. Splashes of water run down the pavement, collecting near the edges and creating small flowy waves, sliding down with ease and adding more crescendo to the overall sound of the stormy weather.

Thunder strikes far into the distance, silencing some cords of the guitar you are playing but you don’t stop your movements, barely paying attention to the vibrations coming from the outside. Max scans a few devices around the store until his eyes land on a small storage of vinyls with old compilations of bands. He sees the best of Led Zeppelin, a random album from Kiss next to it, and a special edition of Black Sabbath’s first album.

Momentarily, he lets his vision roam around and finds you sitting next to a guitar stand with one red and white guitar on your lap and some big headphones plugged in. Your back faces him, your mind refuses to process his presence, your attention remains on the sound, and Max takes in the image of you so directly being posed against the big windows of the store, choosing to keep your head low ignoring the sickening weather outside.

Since you missed your flight with him, concern didn’t fill you, much to Max’s dismay. You showed a bit of relief once the first raindrops fell and the sound of thunder lulled you.

At the time, he had been too preoccupied trying to play his game, but he did notice how the increasingly chaotic weather served to put you at peace, and the oddity left a weird sensation on his skin.

For a few minutes, Max struggled to remain seated in front of his computer. Your body relaxed on the mattress, eyes softly closed and arms clasped around the biggest pillow he had around. With the lightning occasionally flashing inside the place and the roaming of water hitting violently onto the glass, your breath followed a sing-song pattern, slowing down the more violent the weather turned, and Max craved to be in bed as much as you.

In a weird turn of events, he found himself still on his chair, physically craving to wrap his arms as tightly around you as you wrapped them around that pillow.

One single image slipped through his mind at that moment. If only the pillow you held was him…

Rapidly, he shook that idea away from his brain, forcing his focus back on the screen for another hour or two, until you slowly woke up from your slumber and offered him a sleepy smile before muttering a sweet hello to him.

Max could only gulp, caught red-handed on his place, light eyes roaming across your frame as you moved from your position to finally jump off the bed. He couldn’t stop tracing patterns on every corner you touched; from the little wrinkles on the covers of his bed to the fading grasp on the pillow and even the small steps you inflicted on the rug. He saw it all and digested it slowly.

You remained in his room for the next few hours, choosing not to bother him unless he went out of his way to start some small talk. When he turned on the camera you didn’t complain but tried your best to seem as uninterested as possible in his ministries, then he invited you to join and the situation took an unexpected turn.

Max was surprised by his own brain when he caught himself shamelessly coercing you to sit on his lap. Your frame remained still for two or three seconds too long before you caved, shyly accommodating yourself on his lap and taking ahold of his joystick, observing the screen in front of you.

Your body did not retreat once his touch became visible, instead, Max could feel you relax into his embrace. His arms flew around you, providing a level of warmth the room couldn’t even dream of offering you, and for a few minutes, all he did was comfortably rest his chin on the crock of your neck, with his eyes fixed on the screen but his mind locked on your presence.

Your skin, forever soft to the touch, clung to a dwindling sweet scent Max couldn’t quite describe because of how faint it was at the moment but he had to physically restrain himself from hoarding against the spot, smelling more profusely into the ghost of your perfume.

Calmly, you played with the functions of his simulator, a bit lost around the menu the screen showed, but too concentrated to even think of asking him for directions, and at some point you could finally access a race to play around, succesfully giving it a try for the first two or three minutes until you crashed your car and ended up pouting.

Max didn’t attempt to tease you or point out any possible directions, instead, he placed his fingers on top of yours and restarted the race, guiding you along in total quietness and tranquility.

The hours lost in front of the screen, softly murmuring some small things to one another and enjoying the entertainment never truly dwelled on either of you. Max was too preoccupied trying to keep you under his embrace and you were too comfortable on your spot to desire to move, but then you noticed the rain ceasing and some weak light sipping through the darkened clouds, signaling you the start of a new day.

You had successfully stayed up for most of the night —, well, Max had stayed up, you had gotten two hours of sleep after arriving.

“Let’s have breakfast outside,” you suggested at the time and Verstappen agreed without giving it much thought.

That’s how you ended up trapped elsewhere, yet again.

It took you two coffees and one shared piece of lemon pie to exit a small shop and walk under the drizzle to a music store per your request and now Max found himself in a predicament.

The weather wasn’t ideal. He couldn’t be less of a fan of storms, especially the ones with so many thunders cracking through the silence, but he had to admit from the beginning of this day up until now, he had only heard two things: the dazzling water running across the street and your faint breathing near him, mixing like liquor to his ears.

It was truly mind-blowing how his body reacted towards your presence, even if he so much desired some space to think.

The harder he tried to keep his posture, the more aggressive the storm grew, pushing you two together.

He failed to admit something from the get-go, something that struck him once your presence was known in the paddock from the beginning of the season. He, against his wishes, was the first one to notice you and from that day onwards, his mind began racing against the beating of his heart.

The more he forced himself to despise you, the harder you dug holes into his skull, cracking open all his defenses and baring his skin to the outside warmth of your tender gaze and polite smiles.

He had hated you, truly, but not for the reasons you believed, and that left Max standing like a pathetic fool for months. He remained quiet on his spot, simply observing, pushing himself to move on, to not comment on you too much, to keep your interactions as cold as possible, but every time you crossed paths you seemed more and more aggravated by his choices. You questioned his reasoning, you fought his logic unapologetically and Verstappen had no choice but to retaliate. You were giving him hell and he was freezing it with disdain.

His lack of interest in getting along well only fueled your distaste for him and that gave him an outing of this sick game he had walked into. If you despised him he could also learn to not feel so attracted to your presence, and at some point, this constant banter got the worst out of him.

He crossed many lines just to set a distance he firmly believed he needed, and just when he thought he had done everything well to force his mind into the competition and not you, the companies pushed you two together and Max lost all his marbles.

Nothing was going according to plan. Not a single ounce of effort he poured through months will be repaid in the way he expected. Life was toying with him now that you were so near and it was hard to keep his mind set straight when all he was forced to was to be near you, filling in the loving gap between your fingers, clasping his arms around you, making you smile and having your undivided attention.

You were driving him insane. He was supposed to hate you.

You were given an opportunity in the paddock due to your connections. Max wanted to spit on the floor you walked on so badly just for having it this easy after he and many other drivers had worked their asses off to obtain a secured place in F1. Still, you and your stupid way of being was making this task absolutely impossible.

You were so unfair to him.

The way he saw it, you held all the characteristics of a human being he despised. From your beliefs to the way you carry yourself around. Whatever Max deemed as unworthy of his attention, you had it, and he couldn’t explain why whenever you acted this way, all the things he saw as flaws could only be posed on you as godly characteristics.

You were a magnet and he was about to collide against you.

“What are you playing?” Max interrupted you. A hand remained occupied holding a vinyl of his choice while the other rested against your shoulder, briefly startling you before you let his presence sink into your space.

Taking off the headphones, you signaled him to lean down and put them on his head. Verstappen accommodated on the floor, right in front of you, and left the album in between, setting a short distance between your seat and his spot.

Drumming your fingers across the cords, he lets in the few notes sip into his ears, shielding him from the outside storm, and he catches onto your protruding frown, which prompts him to take off the headphones.

“What’s going on, Schatje?”

“It doesn’t sound as good,” you admit. “It’s better with a guitar pick, but I cannot find one I like.”

“You are going to buy the guitar?” He asks, a bit surprised, and you nod. “We cannot carry this outside.”

“We’ve got an umbrella and I can put my jacket on top.”

Sighing, Max weights the possibility of telling you to drop this idea, but your fingers grip the guitar profusely and your words sound more like an affirmation rather than a suggestion, so he ends up caving in. “What about the pick, though? Should we go to another store to find one?”

“No, I think I’ve got an idea of what to do. I will just get a plain one for now.”

On his first day with you, Max ends up walking under the rain holding an umbrella to shield you from the cold droplets while you cling to a guitar with a wrapper and your skin gets chilled against the cold weather once you put your jacket on top of it, afraid of the device getting only a bit wet.

Max resolves to stop near a corner, ten streets away from the hotel, and pass you the umbrella handle just so he can take his jacket off and put it on you.

Neither of you comments on the sweet gesture, both of your rosy cheeks being much of a given in this small situation.

“What is that, Schatje?”

Your eyes stay glued to the small black stick delicately lying on the floor while you hunch over it. A yellowish light casts over your frame, creating a dim shadow that barely touches the edges of the guitar you recently bought, and the darkened spot crescends once Max’s shadow joins yours, morphing into the floor as one.

He is sporting his usual attire down to a tee. Even his hat is already settled on top of his head and the only thing he carries between his hands is a small bag with some of his basic things.

He was called to visit the team as soon as he and you arrived at your destination but Verstappen came up with a quick excuse to avoid leaving you earlier than expected.

With the help of some trusted members of Red Bull, he got to keep his plaza inside the hotel room with the rest of his members but also found a small house close to the paddock to spend some time with you in case you desired to travel quickly to the grid to visit your friends and then return to your own space.

Since Mercedes failed to find a safe location that wasn’t so far away from the city they allowed you to stay with Max and for the most part you did not complain, only occasionally asking him if he was okay with paying for an extra place he did not need and promising to not invade his place, but the Dutchman quickly brushed off your worries, easing you into the idea of sharing the same location for the week.

The house was more than big for the two of you. With four rooms separating you, plenty of space in the garden and a pool, you were more than comfortable to roam around and do whatever you wanted, and given how busy Max got with preparations for the race, neither of you expected to run into each other so easily during the day at least.

Today for example, he was scheduled to be in the paddock from ten in the morning until seven in the afternoon, and you had no obligation to accompany him although you did plan to pay your team a visit.

Waking up early, you greeted Max in the corridors and chose to go to the kitchen first while he used the bathroom. You prepared some coffee and toast, cut some fruits and barely got a sip from your drink before you noticed Verstappen freeing the bathroom, giving you a pass to leave.

You did not share breakfast together since you chose to bring your food to a room and since then, Max lost all communication with you but knew you remained awake since you chose to blast some music on the speakers and occasionally scream the lyrics, giving him a sign of your state from time to time.

Near nine in the morning, Verstappen found the encouragement needed to walk into your space and saw you concentrating on the floor using the brushes and paint you bought on the previous day when you arrived.

“I thought about the guitar pick. I think it will be better if I paint it with a design I think Charles will like instead of ordering one online. Personalized gifts are cuter,” you reply calmly and raise up the small thing to Max’s view.

He sees multiple soft traces of petals drawing a flower that has yet to be painted inside and frowns confused. He believed the guitar was for you, not Charles.

“You got me believing you liked playing guitar for a second,” the man murmurs looking at the drawing carefully. “You like painting more then…” He words the last sentence with a bit of uncertainty and you shake your head in negativity, turning around to face him fully and grab the guitar pick again.

Softly positioning the small thing on top of the guitar’s bridge, you occupy your eyes observing his extended palms curiously before grabbing one and bringing it to your lap. “I enjoy playing the guitar, but I already have a stratocaster one. Charles told me his accidentally fell from the handle he had on his wall and broke, so I thought it’d be a nice gesture to buy him one.” You catch the tip of your tongue between your teeth and furrow your brows before bringing up your brush close to Max’s skin. “Do you mind?”

“Don’t you have some paper or a canvas to paint?” He attempts to joke but you retreat, nodding a bit shyly and try to turn around, clearly not catching onto his shenanigans at the moment, and Max panics. “No, no, wait. Yes you can paint on my hand.” He almost pushes himself too close to you, sliding not only one but his two hands on your lap. “I’d like a lion.”

“No, I want to draw a sun or maybe something similar to that flower from the Tangled movie.”

“You like that movie too?” Verstappen smiles and you nod, equally excited over the prospect of painting again.

It’s been nearly a year since the last time you attempted to add some color to anything around you, opting to only draft some clothing stuff and picking the fabrics separately, leaving your designs devoid of any color, but since yesterday you’ve felt the urge to fill all your space with your favorite tints.

“It used to be the movie we’d watch with Lewis whenever he came home from competing,” you admit and dip the ends of your brush on the nearest yellow tube. “Honestly, I don’t remember why we always watched that movie when he was around but if we had a movie marathon we needed to start with Tangled no matter what.”

“I watched it on the big screen when it first came out. I was supposed to go for a horror movie but for some reason I was feeling a bit down that day and the idea of seeing people dying on a screen didn’t really fly with me so I picked a random animated movie to cheer myself up,” he adds, sharing some bits of his past to be at the same level as you and while he speaks you trace the outline of his palm with delicacy. Max notices you biting on the tip of your tongue again and frowns. Doesn’t it hurt you to do that?

The paint is relatively cold against his warm skin but no chills run down his spine over the soft touch of the brush. If anything, he feels sort of relieved thanks to the colder paint since his back was currently getting heated against the sun rays coming from the opened window behind him.

“I can only enjoy animated movies when I’m in a good mood,” you reply, pausing to dip the brush once more on the paint and before you can go back to your ministries, you raise his palm against the sunlight inspecting it.

“How so?” Max pushes, enjoying the way you were slowly opening up to him. The last two days were all about him. You’d start the conversations and guide them towards memories he could recall or topics he liked and frankly, he was sick and tired of being the center of attention. He wanted to know about you.

“I don’t know. I’m more used to watching sad stuff or horror to cope with things for some reason. It helps me more to see characters struggling while I do too, not the other way around.”

“But don’t you want to cheer yourself up?”

“Why would I want that?” Inquisitive like you are, your eyes stop for a brief second to observe the confusion plastered on his handsome face and smile softly. “I think sometimes we need to let ourselves be, you know? We waste so much time forcing ourselves to be happy and we fail to truly process our negative emotions as well. Sadness isn’t bad. Sometimes we need to cry and that’s alright. We can start working towards happiness after we are done healing and letting it all out.”

“And what about anger?” Your movements stop momentarily, with the brush millimeters away from his skin and Max gulps.

He shouldn’t have asked that and he knows it.

The topic seemed delicate once you navigated through it quickly that night in front of him. Waiting only days to bring it up again wouldn’t make it any less difficult for you to confront it; things took time to fall into place and right now you were barely picking yourself up from many other difficulties. Perhaps, asking you this, wasn’t the wisest, but truth be told, Max was a bit curious over your views on things right now.

It’s not like he knew you any deeply but it didn’t take the most intelligent person in the universe to figure out you had some internal conflict showing negative emotions, so hearing you talk so candidly about one of them raised many questions in Max mind. Was sadness the only valid emotion to process?

Truthfully, you described things in a particular way Verstappen couldn’t quite agree with. Not only now but in other instances, he had heard you answer questions to the media, or occasionally saw some clips of you in more comfortable settings on social media. You described certain situations and struggles in a more positive light than he expected you to.

The vase was never half empty, if anything, it could be filled to the brim for instant gratification if it was up to you.

He had heard you on that really popular podcast episode, much like any other driver at the time. You described things as they were but seemed optimistic about them. Your struggles weren’t simple problems or stones thrown at you unfairly but opportunities for you to grow a thicker skin and bounce back stronger. You never blamed those who doubted you but pitied them for misjudging you so badly and openly admitted to holding no grudge against them.

Although some comments did hurt you or fueled your temper, you understood you were in clear disadvantage from the get-go and the only way to change your situation was by pushing harder, fighting with more energy, climbing the ladder quicker.

It sounded so tiring to Max when you described it that way. Didn’t you desire to scream, only a bit at least?

Unfairness struck us all. It was up to us how to deal with adversity and Max respected your patience and will to get the best out of the worst situations, but he firmly believed people could break under the right amount of injustice, and you were probably one of the fewer in this life that hadn’t succumbed to the bitterness and anger living could plant on us.

Everything was too pink. Too sweet, too rosy when you described it.

“What’s with anger?” You reply to his question with another and drop your brush tinted with yellow to grab another one with thinner strands.

“Do you handle it the same way you handle sadness?” He picks up his courage from the floor and decides to dig in further, unafraid.

“If I handled anger and sadness the same way, every person that hurt me would have received a punch a long time ago.”

“And you never felt like fighting?”

Chuckling without an ounce of humor piercing through your veins, you add little details around Max’s skin with the same precision as before but with your mind suddenly debating whether to pay attention to your drawing or your more deeply hidden thoughts. “Fighting got me nowhere. You cannot combat violence with more violence.”

“Sometimes a bit of anger is enough to stop others from hurting you. Like…” He pauses, thinking about his words before spewing them. “Like a shield, I suppose? If you don’t set limits, others will walk all over you.”

“You don’t need to fight to set limits,” you comment and grab on the previous brush again, giving your little art piece its final touches.

“Sometimes you do.”

Your touch abandons him and a wave of coldness sips from his fingertips to the depths of his organs, chilling him on the spot when you finally turn to give him a proper look. The softness you carried on your voice was nowhere near reaching your eyes.

You were pure ice sitting next to him but he was the only one melting under your gaze and the scorching sun reflecting from the outside.

“With the right people, fighting isn’t a need,” you sentence as a final and grab his wrist, raising it once more towards the natural light. “I think this turned out decent enough.”

Finally choosing to look at the final product instead of you, Max sees some sort of splash of colors simulating an attempt to a flower. Many leaves and details are around, decorating part of his fingers and the only flesh your fingers did not grab on his wrist, and the man cannot help it, he blinks profusely, drinking on the sight as if it was water.

The design was beautiful. A little drawing that meant nothing at the moment but decorated his skin so fittingly he almost felt tempted to get it tattooed.

“More cute flowers?” He whispers the question, tracing every corner with his eyes and you nod. “You really do like them.”

“Flower petals are the softest things I ever touched,” you admit and pick up the tubes, sliding their tapes on to secure them. “I’m not saying they are the softest thing to ever exist but —.”

“You like them because they are soft?” His eyes connect with yours and the ice begins its melting process around your orbs.

“I like many things because they are soft,” you shrug off and Max chooses not to push you any more for information. He has asked enough for the day. “Wait,” your hand flies to his cap and without asking, you take it from his head. “You are using the hat I gave you.”

“I thought it fit me way more than the original Red Bull one,” he says, incapable of giving you a proper explanation for his wardrobe choice.

He could keep your small gift in a drawer, see it from time to time, maybe bring it to a few races if he felt up to it, and that could be the end of the story. It’s not like the fans knew you had designed it for him or that it held any emotional value for you or him to show it around, but the small gesture you had with him at the time warmed his heart and erupted butterflies all around his stomach.

It’d be foolish to admit how he deliberately chose to wear your cap just to keep you near while you weren’t around the paddock. That’d be a bold statement to make and Max wasn’t exactly on board with being so openly corny in front of you. If anything, he preferred to keep these burning sensations under his skin and trapped as thoughts inside his brain.

If anybody asked him, he was simply confused and perhaps, only perhaps, slightly attracted to you and a bit tipsy on your comfort. That was it.

“Well, it does look good on you,” you murmur, putting it back on his head and moving near to adjust it better.

Max traces an outline from your extended arms to your exposed shoulders. There are three moles on your left shoulder and if he moves his sight away by a few centimeters, he can see under the sunlight a ghost of a scar near your jawline. Up from that point, your lower lip has a few fresh scars from all the biting you give it whenever you zone out, and even higher, the bridge of your nose has one tiny freckle, close to one of your nostrils, and then your cheeks expand with some blush, with another small scar close to the defined lining of your right eye.

“There, better.” You say, curling the edges of your lips upwards and Max sees your teeth momentarily. Your warm breath fans his skin for a fraction of a second and Verstappen forces himself back to earth with all his might, but his attention diverts from your mouth to your eyes once more and the coldness abandons your sight, helping him ease his body through the initial tension.

Have your eyes sparkled this much before?

“Thank you,” the Dutchman manages to pronounce with a bit of difficulty and you nod, separating bit by bit from his tiny bubble, bursting it with the same delicacy you painted his skin. “I guess I…I should go or I will be late.”

“Will you come back for dinner?”

Your fingers busy themselves with the tubes of color, arranging them around the guitar and Verstappen pushes himself up. “I can arrive earlier if you need me to.”

“Oh, no, no, it’s alright. I don’t want to urge you to leave.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want to spend so many hours around the paddock anyways. Do you have any plans in mind?”

“I was thinking about going to the market to pick some stuff up and cook dinner. Maybe you wanted to help?” Your voice gets progressively less audible for him and Max finds himself bending down by the end just to catch onto what you are saying. “Forget it. That’s a terrible plan.”

“No way. I’d love to cook dinner with you. Maybe we can watch a movie after?” He suggests.

Never mind the fact that he’d rather do equations than touch a stove. If he could, he’d eat take-out every day of his life or simply order something more adapting to his nutritional needs during the season, but never cook. Him and the kitchen were more than mortal enemies at this point, much like water and oil, they never mixed.

But you wanted to cook.

“Yeah, I like that plan,” you reply, more sure of yourself now and smile at him once more from the floor. “Make sure to be here by six so we can go grocery shopping together.”

The man begins walking towards the exit as you give him orders and once the words finish rolling down your tongue, he winks at you, stopping by the door to wrap his fingers near the frame before exiting. “I’ll be here by five just in case we need to buy something else besides food. Have a good day, love.”

“You too, Emi.”

Love…love, love? Did he really just call you that? Yes, yes he did. He finally called you the way he wanted.

How could someone describe the process of starting to like someone? Max knew they called those crushes or mutual pinning at times, but much against his views, he must admit to every person that he was past the stage of crushing by now.

In reality, he had crushed quite violently into you from the very first time you set foot on the paddock and he got to see you near Lewis.

You weren’t a driver back then, just another person with a special paddock pass and the biggest, most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

The moment he caught sight of you up close, an archer aimed their arrow to his heart and suddenly he pumped all the blood more rapidly to his veins.

He’d never admit it, not even if you asked, but your face engraved on his mind for weeks after he caught a mere glimpse of you cheering for Lewis during a race. It took him months just to move on from the dream of your presence and the color of your dress haunted him every now and then until you materialized next to him on the paddock once more, this time sporting the official colors of the Mercedes team.

First you were his unreachable dream. A face with no name. A bright smile within many more. Then you were a nightmare personified, making the beating of his heart erratic and turning his palms disgustingly sweaty.

Max swore he could have died from a rythmia right there and then when you showed up for your first media day. He noticed you first, even before Lewis could, and the smile you gifted to your friend mimicked the same one that caught his eyes and sparkled the little butterflies on his stomach on that very first day he learned from your existence.

He was truly hopeless and he despised it.

You twisted inadvertently around his skin, invisible to the eye and perhaps too light around him to truly wrap him tightly on a firm embrace, but he felt you fully and dreaded the iron fist in which you kept him without intending to.

Much like now, he had to admit, after many failed attempts to despise you, your views, your presence, he was pulled right next to you once more, admiring in silence. Always being the spectator but not another character in your play.

So how could he possibly describe his sentiment at this very moment? Love had a ring to it that chilled him to the bone in the most inexplicable way.

It was too soon to call it that but too late to denominate it as a simple crush. Were you gonna swing between terms, confusing his poor heart until he was ready to put it on your palms?

“What are you thinking about?” Your voice echoes through his brain, bouncing over all edges until he props himself on his side, resting his chin on one of his palms.

You.

All lights are out except for a small artificial one you bought in the market just because it promised to project images of the galaxy.

“I don’t know…us?” That isn’t a complete lie, but what follows is. “It finally dwelled on me that we are getting along now. It’s weird.”

It’s more scary than what I expected.

“Is it really that bad to have me keeping you company?” You lightly laugh, observing the details of the light. A few dots simulate stars near some poor projected images of the planets in the solar system.

“Not at all.”

It’s better than what I expected and that’s what scares me.

“Well, I had fun while it lasted,” you finally see him and the blue-ish tone of the artificial light tones down the sparkle of your eyes, yet Max pushes himself harder just to catch the lightning so characteristic of your sight, desperately wanting to hold you closer just to see you in more detail.

“I had fun too,” he replies, offering you a smile and you grab onto his free hand, beginning to play with his fingers absent-mindedly.

You don’t have to leave. You can stay.

Max, by now, has grown accustomed to your antics. Towards the end of your first day together, you had fallen asleep on the same bed and you replaced your pillow for his body. Then you curiously asked him many questions, sparkling conversation and giving him your undivided attention. You taught him a bit about photography, showed him some of your designs and agreed to play on the sim some more just to keep him busy.

On the plane, you watched random movies Max had downloaded on his computer and when you grew tired, you rested your head on his lap, curling on your seat and falling asleep with ease, failing to notice how Max ended up playing with your hair while being deep in thought . Then, when you arrived at your destination and subsequently to the house he rented, you cheerfully played on the pool, chit-chatted a bit and shared drinks, then took a quick trip to buy some stuff you wanted while Max ignored the multiple missed calls from his team and you also ignored yours.

By the third day you painted on his skin and retreated due to fear. He pushed you a bit, letting his tongue do the bad job while his mind screamed for him to close his mouth, but by the evening no trace of discomfort was visible. You shaped home made pizzas in hearts, against Max’s protests, and surprisingly, he did not burn anything under your supervision. Soft music played in the background, a jazz playlist of your choice, and when the food was ready, he got to pick a Sci-Fi movie to watch while you munched on your dinner happily. You two ended up talking past midnight, neither of you taking the first step to walk to your respective bedrooms until slumber finally caught you and you ended up falling asleep on the couch, heads bonking each other and one arm of Verstappen wrapped around your frame.

You told him about your formative years, describing a childhood with a severe addiction to swings and public parks, and admitting to being really sociable as a kid. Max told you about his first experience walking into the paddock and the things he remembered from his early age.

You shared a few secrets and giggled at the same time over your recalled memories, and then you moved on to your current goals or the things you expected from this season. You discussed the movie, the food, the possibility of cooking something else together the next day, about going to the paddock hand in hand or ditching the teams to visit the city. Conversation simply flew easily until your eyes closed and the next day you both woke up sore from the uncomfortable positions.

You brushed your teeth together on the same bathroom, clinked your coffee mugs for breakfast and once more, your hands accommodated the hat you gave Max on his head under his intense gaze, but this time you noticed his attention on you and slightly pushed his shoulder while blushing profusely, taunting him by asking ‘what are you looking at?’ to which Max shrugged and said it was nothing, but it truly wasn’t.

He noticed another scar on your neck, close to the jawline again, and another tiny mole on your earlobe and you finally got to see his eyes in more detail too, nearly losing yourself on the pretty color he sported.

At some point he had to leave and you occupied your wandering mind on Leclerc’s guitar, choosing to paint it as well to match the guitar pick, and once your job was done, you drove a car to the paddock, surprising your friends and stopping by to give Max a surprising hug from behind, making him initially yelp scaredly, only prompting you to laugh at his expense.

You both wasted a few minutes until he had to get dragged to a meeting and you were forced to leave, seeing as the hour for qualification was getting closer. He missed the chance to properly say goodbye but you saw him on TV grumply talking to Carlos about the qualification results.

When he noticed the cameras were on him, he waved awkwardly and the moment a microphone got close to his mouth he took the opportunity to complain about you making his life difficult by choosing Carlos as your replacement, seeing as he ended up classifying in first position and Verstappen ended in a close second against all odds.

He ended up returning later than expected, missing the chance to cook dinner once more, but you waited for him in the kitchen and chatted away the hours once more, forgetting to pick a movie this time and opting to turn on the light you bought just to observe the galaxy on your last hours together.

Toto had asked for you to move with him for race day just so you could leave with the team this time.

You were finally going to return to schedule after tomorrow so you needed to be caught up to speed.

Regardless, Max dissimulated his disappointment as much as he could and counted on the minutes until he’d no longer have you around to pester him, play with his fingers absent-mindedly, or chat about anything and everything.

“The team told me we will have a meeting with you and Toto next week. Is it about our relationship?” You humm positively and pull on his pinky then slide your fingers between the spaces of his, putting your palm on top of his as well. “I will make sure dad’s not there.”

I promise, I will never let it get this bad again.

“If he is there, I won’t let him treat you like shit,” you murmur and Max laughs softly but ultimately agrees with a nod. “It’s about setting some boundaries and having a clearer view over what we should and shouldn’t do in front of the cameras.”

Right, I almost forgot our relationship isn’t real but maybe, if I try…

“Whatever you need I will do, you know that isn’t a problem.”

“I know now,” you reassure him and move your hands together from side to side. “But Toto thinks it’s important to have everything on paper.”

“I agree with him, it’s for the better.” He re-accomodates himself on the floor, fully lying on his side just as you turn to do the same, coming face to face with your hands still interlocked. “Let’s have everything on paper but also tell me if there is something else you need me to do.”

“The way we are acting right now is alright,” you express in a whisper and the impulse gets the best of Max, making him drop his gaze from your eyes to your lips.

Noticing this, your figure moves even closer, dissipating the tiny space setting you two apart and Max’s eyes go up again to meet yours.

“I’m comfortable with you,” you smile and Max nods, unable to form a coherent sentence.

Your perfume slips up his nostrils. The sweetened scent of flowers mixed with some notes of water, probably from the pool, invades him and numbs his rationality momentarily, making him lower to a position where your lips and his barely brush against each other.

“I’m…” He gulps, feeling the plump of your lower lip against his. “I’m comfortable with you too.” He pauses again and for the first time, he says what’s going on in his head. “I wish we could stay this way.”

And to his surprise, you agree. “I wish for the same, Emi.”

His nose nuzzles against yours and you hum, closing your eyes, craving something else. Craving him even closer.

“We should…” He breathes out, letting go of your hand and setting his on your lower back, bringing you towards his chest. “We should rest, love.”

It’s not the time.

“But…”

“We can wake up early tomorrow and…” He pushes past his doubts. “I can take you on a date? Then I will drop you off at Toto’s place.”

Let me do this right.

“That sounds like a good plan.” He catches the outline of your smile before you hide your face on the crock of his neck, hugging him. “We should sleep then.”

Yes we should, love. Just give me one more minute. It’s comfier on the floor, with you next to me.

#taglist one : @alilcloudy @chiliwhore @halleest @welovediaaxx @its-avalon-08 @hiireadstuff @prudyhoo @almostjollypizza @butterfly-lover @sunsshinesunny @tsukishitm-a @be-your-coffee-pot @bruhhhhhhhhehhhhhhh @ironmaiden1313 @indesicivelyconfuzzled @sargeantdumbass @asmoothoperator @brettlorenzi3 @lewisvinga @dr4g0ngirl @fruity-dirtbag @ladyladybuggg @woozarts @casperlikej @marshmummy @leclercdream @namgification @mellowarcadefun @c-losur3 @boiohboii i @xoscar03 @theseerbetweenus @reidsworld @laura-naruto-fan1998 @sltwins @reyanfia @mvk1ma @softieekayy @gladysmcdonalds @67-angelofthelordme-67

— taglist #2 in the reblogs !!

A / N : I’m dropping this and hoping for the best (but secretly I’m expecting the worst because I suck at writing fluff). Do let me know if you love me or hate me for this chapter thank you very much 🥹. xoxo 💋

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kenthoe · 1 month

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The Matter of Stars (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) ★ Ch. 17

⠀ Chapter 17: Downpour | AO3 Chapter Masterlist | Ongoing Chapter Summary: Complications arise during your attempts to explore Camulos. Notes: ★ living up to my username, I am back from the grave. I would never leave you hanging FOREVER. I’m just a mess, is all. Oops ★ in the months since the last chapter was posted, I have both started and subsequently decided to end my teaching career lmao ★ so, as you can imagine, work stress has kept me from updating. that being said, I have now reached the IDGAF stage of this job and may or may not have written 80% of this chapter during work hours ★ anyway. thank you all for sticking by me. genuinely. luv u xoxo

The drop out of hyperspace hits you like a punch to the gut.

An asteroid field surrounding Camulos necessitates that the remainder of your journey be slow-going, which should be… Fine.

Even though you find yourself increasingly itching for something to do with your hands.

And even though your position in the frontmost cockpit allows you not a single glimpse of Poe, who is the likely cause of your restlessness.

When the dazzling lights of hyperspace fall away, though, your impatience is replaced by apprehension. The airspace ahead is completely littered with glistening blue-black rocks, roughly broken into every shape and size—some not much larger than BB-8, while others still are several times the size of an X-wing.

“Is there not another way—” you begin hesitantly.

“Hey,” Poe starts with mock-indignancy. “It’s me we’re talking about, Sparks, okay? I could fly this field with my eyes closed.”

You can practically hear that boyish grin of his stealing the light from the starlit sky.

You blink.

“Please, don’t.”

You had barely been able to see the forest-coated surface of Camulos from orbit, covered as it was in thick grey clouds…

Now, as the airlock on your cockpit hisses, the promised precipitation hits you at last. The atmosphere is cool and misty as a steady downward spray of water darkens your orange jumpsuit; hastily, you pull the raincoat out of your rucksack, slipping it on before sliding yourself out of the cockpit and down the already-slippery side of the X-wing.

Firm, familiar hands are there to slow your descent, gripping your hips.

Poe has already donned his own inclement-weather gear, a few dark curls poking out from beneath his hood, and it’s an effort not to reach up and tuck them back for him.

He merely raises one dark brow at you in question of your hesitation.

Warmed thoroughly by his proximity, you step back from the comfort of his arms just enough to assess your surroundings.

Poe landed the ship at the edge of a seemingly-endless lake, one of the only areas where the planet’s coniferous trees disperse enough to make room for the X-wing. Plant-life in all the darkest shades of green quickly becomes denser up ahead, a forest that looms like the mouth of a cave. Although it might be midday on this planet, you’ll definitely need flashlights if you’re to trek through those needly branches.

"It's certainly got that woodsy charm you promised," you murmur just loud enough to be heard over the pitter-patter of raindrops against the X-wing.

"Just like the postcards," he nods, scanning your face for... Something, you don't know what. In the overcast light, you feel like the inky depths of his eyes could swallow you whole.

"Commander, I—"

"We should get moving," he interrupts, plastering on an easy smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Something inside you coils tight, but you nod regardless.

Above you, BB-8 beeps expectantly.

“You’re staying here, BB,” Poe explains with a sympathetic smile. At the sound of BB’s unhappy whirring, he continues. “Comm us if anything approaches the ship.”

“You’ll do great,” you offer to the droid.

The long-abandoned Rebellion base is allegedly nestled into the side of the nearby mountain range, only reachable via a trek through the forest. You and Poe extend your portable walking sticks, flick on your torchlights, and, with him leading the way, begin your hike. The darkness of the forest wastes no time in swallowing you whole.

For the better part of an hour, you and Poe listen only to the symphony of rustling leaves and gentle rain. The silence is not wholly uncomfortable, but also not without tension. Your treacherous mind oscillates between replaying the kiss of the previous day—the feel of Poe's hand in your hair, his breath mingling with yours—and overanalyzing that shuttered expression of his that preceded your walk through the woods.

You're so deeply entrenched in your own thoughts that you nearly miss it when Poe reaches backward to help you step over a fallen log.

"Sparks?"

His voice is soft and clouded with worry; it does a bit to settle your trembling heart.

"Sorry," you murmur as you maneuver past the obstacle.

"So," Poe says at length, clearing his throat against the misty air. With a moment of hesitation, he releases your hand. "How complicated might it be to, uh, wake this place up?"

Work is easy... Work is familiar. You gladly flip the switch in your thoughts.

"It all depends, really," you shrug. "Is there any emergency power left on the base? A forgotten gonk droid, maybe? Without that, we'll have to use the portable solar-generator I have in my pack, but given the weather here, that might take a while to manifest what we need. Then we'll have to see if the encrypted beacon was even left behind and in working condition, and, um... You know."

Poe shoots you a curious glance that causes warmth to blossom on your cheeks.

"There's just a lot of variables. You and General Ogmios kind of... Put a lot of faith in me. But I don’t know yet just how much can be done."

"I thought we went over this, Sparks." You nearly collide into Poe as he halts his gait, turning to face you. "I trust you... And I know you won't let me down."

Unease churns through your gut.

"Even now?" You swallow thickly, your voice barely above a whisper. "Even after—"

But Poe's hands silence you as they come to rest atop your shoulders. Gently, so gently it causes tears to well in your eyes—he presses a kiss to your forehead.

"Even now," he murmurs.

Your exhale is shaky as a small portion of the tension is released from your posture.

“...Okay.”

Time has clearly done its work on the base.

One moment, you and Poe are still enshrouded by the same dark forest—the next, you're met with the sight of a large hangar door, overgrown with moss and ivy and surrounded by trees that have grown too close for comfort in the absence of sentient life. You run your hand curiously over the foliage-covered security panel next to the entrance, while beside you, Poe extracts a hunting vibroblade from his boot.

"Looks like we'll have to open it the old-fashioned way," he shrugs, before setting to work carving away at some of the thicker vines keeping the door shut.

"Why do you think they abandoned this place?" You mutter, as much to yourself as to him.

"When the war was over, they thought there would no longer be a need for a Rebellion," he grunts. "Or... They hoped, at least. Who can blame them?"

Unwelcome memories of the First Order flood your thoughts... Of their slow and deadly rise to power; loth-wolves in sheeps' clothing. Quiet, stern officers with silver tongues—

Men like your father.

A shudder runs through you that has nothing to do with the misty air.

You're shaken from your thoughts by a thunderous rattling of metal; Poe has freed the hangar door from its constraints and has managed to pull it up and open manually. With one last firm push from you both, the door slides up to the ceiling, revealing the dark and gaping mouth of a docking bay.

Here and there, the scattered parts of outdated starfighters lay in various states of disrepair. Bits of vines and ivy have crept their way inside, hanging from the high ceiling like Life Day garlands. Through the inky darkness, you might be able to make out doorways leading to other parts of the base...

You share an apprehensive glance with Poe before you both point your flashlights ahead and step inside.

"Stay close," he says, uncharacteristically quiet. You understand the impulse—there's something solemn about this abandoned place, demanding of respect... A graveyard.

Reaching behind you, you pull your datapad out of your rucksack, blinking it to life to reveal a map of the base's interior.

"This way, I think," you mutter, gently grabbing Poe's forearm to lead him in the right direction.

Through the third doorway, down the hall past an eerily empty mess hall, and left at the end of the corridor... You try to ignore the uneasy feeling in your gut and let the surety of the map push you forward. All the while, Poe stays right by your side.

At last, you stand before a shut sliding door accompanied by a simple placard: "COMMUNICATIONS."

You barely have time to nod at Poe before he's prying a sheet of loosened durasteel from the wall, shoving it between the doors and using the leverage to pry them open.

"I was going to say that we could use this opportunity to test the power supply," you say with an amused smile. "But that works too."

Poe only shrugs, offering you one of those easy grins that steals the breath from your lungs.

With a shake of your head, you step into the dark room.

Nothing can ever be easy, can it?

Leaning back to kneeling on the ground in front of the Rebel beacon, you sigh in frustration.

"Like I assumed—emergency power supply has long since run dry." You run a weary hand down your face before turning to glance up at Poe. "Can you do one last sweep of that pile of junk back there? See if there's old batteries, a gonk—anything?"

"You got it, beautiful," he replies with a wink.

You nearly swat at his legs as he exits your reach.

As the sounds of Poe rummaging through piles of old equipment fill the silence of the room, you run a thoughtful hand across the console's keyboard.

You wish you could know the kind of optimism that would lead the Rebels of years gone by to abandon a base of operations like this. Was the future truly so bright, that the idea of an entity like the First Order rising to power seemed outlandish?

"No dice, Sparks," Poe calls out from somewhere behind you. "Just a bunch of random utility cords, empty crates, and—oh."

You hear him still, causing you to rise to your feet with alarm. When you whip around to look at him, though, you find him lost in thoughts of his own... Staring at a long-outdated radio console.

The same kind of console that sits almost entirely unused beside your desk on D'Qar.

The same kind that he...

"Poe," you begin tentatively, though you're unsure what to say.

"Why didn't you just tell me, Sparks?" There's no anger in his tone, only a fond sort of sadness as his fingers trace over one of the dead indicators on the machine.

And as you see the whisper of a smile cross his lips, you know he deserves an answer.

"You... You have a reputation, of sorts, Poe."

His head snaps up to stare at you, and it breaks your heart to see something like hurt flash in his eyes. You quickly continue.

"You're brave. Everybody counts on you, your squad counts on you... You're wonderful and you're this shining light and—and I didn't want to tarnish any of that by getting involved." Your throat feels tight, voice growing quiet. Poe's gaze has softened, now, and you feel... Undeserving. "I didn't want you, or anybody, to know that a nobody like me saw that you're just as human as the rest of us. I wanted to keep the dream of that Poe alive, the dream of the hero of the Resistance alive, because I didn't know you yet and I thought that's what you'd want, and—"

"Fuck what everybody else thinks," Poe murmurs, taking a step to close the distance between you two. You feel the traitorous well of frustrated tears in your eyes as the depth of his gaze meets yours. "I'm not a hero, and you're not a nobody, Sparks. We're just us. Me and you, together...

"If that's what you want," he swallows thickly.

In silent response, you lean into him, and he wastes no time in capturing your lips.

The kiss on D'Qar was angry, frantic like the chaos of battle.

Now, though... Poe's touch is as gentle as the rain falling outside.

His arms curve behind your back to pull your chest flush to his. Reaching upward, you pull his hood off and run your hands through the dark curls atop his head, trailing your fingers down the nape of his neck.

His breath is hot, his lips surprisingly soft—you can't get close enough. You realize that you may never get enough... Of this. Of him.

Poe.

Not the Poe Dameron that’s idolized around D’Qar—

Your Poe.

Pressing your forehead to his, you draw back for air.

"Yes," you smile. "Yes, that's what I want."

His responding grin lightens up the dark of the room, and it's then that... Guilt twists its way back into your gut.

"But... Commander—" you begin, taking a step back.

"No, Sparks," he frowns. "Don't 'Commander' me. We're past that."

"Poe," you restart with a sad smile. "I... There's still so much you don't know about me. And I don't know how... How to—"

"You're not the only person with a past, angel," he shakes his head. Leaning forward, he takes both your hands in his own, running soothing thumbs across your knuckles. You shut your eyes against the sensation. "Let's just go one day at a time, alright?"

A weighted silence passes.

"...Alright."

Your heart feels like it might beat out of your chest as you manage to meet his responding smile with one of your own. The moment glows like a warm ember, but soon enough, you turn to blink at your surroundings.

"So. Um," you begin. "No emergency power, and no fuel... Looks like we're left with our last resort: the solar generator."

Poe nods thoughtfully. "We can set up camp beneath the X-wing while the generator charges on the wing of the ship."

"Sounds like a plan," you agree. "Let's get moving."

Poe only doesn't fully release you when you turn to grab your pack off the ground... And as you and Poe begin finding your way out of the base, you do so hand-in-hand.

Together.

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kenthoe · 1 month

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"have you learned how to drive yet" i have the spirit of friendship in my heart. the joy of lifes little things in my soul. the whimsy of magic. the beautiful enjoyment of nature. the answer is no though

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kenthoe · 2 months

Text

— timeless

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

summary: draco malfoy wouldn’t have thought to come across you in a dark magic shop or how eager he would be to marry you

notes: i changed it up a bit, i hope that’s alright

warnings: mentions of grooming, loved ones dying || navigation

the dim light of the street lantern was falling into the window of the dark magic shop. the wind hit the bells behind the door when it got opened, making them chime a melodic melody.

“hello?” a voice asked.

you looked up from the paper on the counter and searched for the person that had just come through the door. it wasn’t long until draco malfoy entered your field of vision.

“l/n?” he asked surprised when his eyes fell on you.

“malfoy” you noted. his hair was as light as ever, but he looked a bit healthier since the last time you had seen him, which arguably wasn’t the best. it had been the final fight and you had watched him being walked away by his parents.

“what are you doing here?” he proceeded to ask “i wouldn’t have thought that someone like you would come anywhere near this shop”

you hadn’t been friends at hogwarts. quite the opposite really. you had always belonged to ron, hermione and harry, while draco had made it his mission to torture them.

although you had always been by their side, he had never once said anything about you. probably because even draco malfoy pitied you, like the rest of the school. your parents had been brutally killed by death eaters during your second year in hogwarts. even though you hated to see the pity in people's eyes, you had never noticed it when he looked at you. it was just silence, like he had not a single thought in his head whenever he would look at you, as if looking at you would silence the rest of the world.

you had always looked at bit smaller, a bit more fragile than your classmates. so fragile, not even draco malfoy dared to break you.

“my uncle bought the shop last year” you answered truthfully “and as i’m staying with him..” you trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.

“aha” malfoy nodded, and having decided that that was enough smalltalk either of you could endure, without growing uncomfortable, his hand went to the bag he was carrying and took something out.

he set the object down on the counter in front of you. it looked like a normal mirror, but it was black and you knew that it wouldn’t do you any good to search for your reflection.

“it’s my fathers” malfoy said after a few seconds of silence, before he cleared his throat “it was my fathers”

“oh” was all you could say.

“i’m trying to sell a few of his belongings.. that are on the darker side” his eyes found yours as he finally looked up “i don’t think anyone would be particularly happy about us still keeping those things”

“yeah, no” you agreed, gently taking the mirror into your hands.

“what does it do?” malfoy asked and you furrowed you eyebrows, surprised that he was asking you.

“nothing good” you said vaguely, watching his eyes darting over the object in your hands “it’s corruption” you concluded “every object of dark magic just corrupts the soul and in comparison, what they can do is just not worth it”

“i know” malfoy nodded quickly, his eyes returning to watch you instead of the mirror.

you wrapped it up in some paper and taped it shut, so no one was dared to look at it.

“that’s why i’m selling it” he said “that’s why i’m selling all of these things my father owned. it will just take me some time to find all of them”

“okay” you nodded, not sure what you could say instead.

“i just have the mirror with me today, i wanted it out of the house as soon as i found it” he added quickly. it seemed like not saying anything was motivation enough for him to talk.

or maybe, what you didn’t know was that he had so much to say, because he couldn’t tell it to anyone else. there were just him and his mother in that dark house and he wouldn’t try to talk to her about any of this. she had been through enough.

to his surprise he found a bit of comfort in your warm eyes, making it almost impossible for him not to tell you everything. and it was weird that you were harry potters best friend of all people. but you were friendly and you were here, so he didn’t care.

maybe he had never really cared that he should not be feeling about you this way.

you took out a book that seemed so old, that it almost fell apart when it hit the counter and turned the pages to find the price range for the dark magical object that was still laying next to you.

malfoy was watching you in complete silence and before he could question if the mood had shifted to become uncomfortable, a happy squeal broke out of your lips.

“i got it!” you smiled, pointing at the top of the page. malfoy tried to bend his head to look at it, before you were finally friendly enough to turn the book in his direction.

“huh” malfoy nodded “it's more than i thought it would be worth”

“that's quite common with these objects” you smiled happily and malfoy mirrored your expression. he was a bit surprised you were smiling at him, but it seemed like you didn’t harbour any hard feelings towards him.

he remembered you clearly, a few months ago at hogwarts, standing on the stairs, your braid ripped apart, lose strands of hair flowing in the wind. your face filled with dirt. there had been blood coming from a cut in your lip.

he wasn’t sure if he had just imagined it, but for a split second, your eyes fell on him. standing on opposite sides, tears brimming and flowing over your cheeks quickly.

maybe you had been the sole reason for him to throw his wand at harry potter. maybe he had done it because it had felt like you had asked him to.

how could he ever ignore the calling of a beautiful girl, standing in the middle of a war, crying for him to do something?

“thank you” he nodded when you passed him the galleons. he walked back to the door, feeling your eyes on him.

“draco” you called and he turned around quickly. he had never heard his first name coming out of your mouth. it sounded so beautiful when you said it. so soft and gentle, almost like it wasn’t a curse. “thank you”

no, he had not only imagined it.

draco smiled at you and nodded. he left the shop without another word.

it only took him about a day to come back. he spent more than just a few hours searching the house for more of his fathers artifacts, storing them away safely, so he could bring in one at a time. he wasn’t sure why, but the possibility of seeing you excited him. making his days bearable.

“draco” you greeted when he entered the shop. he was almost glad that you stuck to calling him by his first name.

“hello” draco nodded, he wasn’t daring enough to use your first name just yet.

“you came back quicker than i had thought”

just because of you, draco thought to himself, just nodding to you, as if that was answer enough.

just like the day before, his visit didn’t take long. with you inspecting the artifact, taking out the book and giving him his galleons before he could even ask you anything.

he made sure to bring more than just one object when he came in the next day.

“how have you been?” he asked as he watched you turn the pages of the book.

you shrugged, not quite sure what to answer “harry, ron and hermione went back to hogwarts, so it’s a bit lonely, but it’s alright”

it astonished him how often you spoke about your friends. you had even done that during your time in hogwarts, a bit like you were always dependent on them.

“why didn’t you?” he wasn’t sure if he was crossing a line.

“huh?” you looked up at him “went back to hogwarts?” you asked and his smile died down when you began to laugh. “no” you shook your head and he recognized the sadness quickly wandering over your face.

“and why—“ before he could finish his question, you had taken out the galleons and held them in his direction.

“here” you interrupted.

he left the shop with an uneasy feeling, scared he might’ve offended you. but everything was back to normal when he came in the next day and the few following after that.

it had been three weeks of him visiting the shop regularly, his mother already wondering what he was doing there so often, when for the first time it wasn’t you behind the counter, but an elderly man.

draco waited patiently at the door, as another costumer was standing at the counter.

“where is y/n, cornelius?” he could hear the man ask. he was well into his thirties, looking a bit too old to have any connection to you, but maybe you were just as friendly with him as you were with anyone else and draco really wanted to know the answer to his question.

“oh” the bearded man, probably cornelius, behind the counter shook his head “she went off to collect a few things that we need”

“that’s a pity” the costumer noted “i had hoped to see her beautiful face one of these days”

draco grimaced at that. he ignored the costumers greeting, before the man left the shop.

“hello” cornelius waved at draco to come forward.

“afternoon” draco greeted.

“draco malfoy, right?” the man asked “y/n told me about you coming in and selling your father’s artifacts”

“that’s right, sir” draco nodded.

“you two went to hogwarts together, didn't you?” cornelius smiled “i’m her uncle, cornelius barnes”

“it’s very nice to meet you, mr barnes” draco shook the man’s hand “is y/n alright?” somehow he could sense that barnes answer to the strange man’s question had been a lie.

“yes” barnes nodded “she’s just in the back. she’s not fond of hector” he pointed to the door.

“ah” draco nodded. he could understand that you’d rather hide away as soon as that man came into the shop, even draco found him uncomfortable.

“he’s been wanting to marry her” barnes continued and draco wondered if it was in the man’s nature to just tell private things to costumers or maybe, draco was the closest thing to a friend y/n had right now, considering the rest of them had went off to hogwarts.

“isn’t he at least ten years older than her?” draco wondered.

“twenty” barnes corrected and draco shivered. “sad enough that she’s actually considering it”

draco’s chin had almost hit the counter at that “what?” he asked outraged “why would she ever marry someone— like that” he finished quickly.

“i’ve been trying to talk her out of it, but she’s always been too selfless for her own good. she didn’t even go back to hogwarts”

“i had figured she didn’t want to”

barnes shook his head “she decided against it. i wish it wasn’t like that, but money is tight and y/n wants to do anything possible to save me” he pointed down to his leg “i’m not as fit as i was a few years ago”

draco nodded understandingly.

“she’s convinced that her marriage to a man like hector could help me” barnes shook his head sadly “i wish she wouldn’t feel as responsible for me and rather find a man she could have an equal relationship with, someone that could bring her comfort after my death, someone she could actually love”

“yeah” draco nodded and mirrored the man’s sad expression. he left the shop a few minutes later, the galleons clinking together in his pocket, which made him even sadder, feeling like he was robbing you and your uncle of your last money.

it took him more than just a few days to return back to the shop, carefully thinking about how he could help you best.

“draco” you smiled when he entered the shop and he could almost read the relief from your face. “it’s alright, uncle cornelius” you patted your uncles shoulder “you can sit down in the back, i will take care of it”

barnes greeted draco, before he limped into the back of the shop.

“he’s really nice” draco said as soon as the door to had closed.

“yeah” you smiled and draco noticed how much you admired the old man “sadly we all can’t stay young for forever”

draco nodded.

you looked at him expectingly “what?” you smiled “no dark magical object?”

“not quite, no” draco shook his head, before he took out the velvet box and set it down on the counter in front of you.

“what’s that?” you asked surprised. he looked at you and nodded when you went to open the box. a beautiful ring was shimmering so much it almost blended you. “a ring?” you wondered “okay, which curse was it hexed with?”

draco shook his head. “it’s my mothers. it’s not cursed..” he thought for a short second, before he added “or magical”

“draco?” you asked and he admired how his name slipped past your lips so effortlessly, so gentle it reminded him of his first visit to the shop and the shiver he had felt every time you had said it since.

“marry me” draco said a bit faster than anticipated.

“what?” you laughed, entirely astonished at his demand.

“your uncle told me about the money problems you had” he quickly explained “i get access to my father’s assets as soon as i’m twenty-five or sooner if i get married before that”

“my uncle told you that?” you repeated faintly.

“yeah, but it’s not a problem”

you looked up at him with big eyes. “you can’t just barge in here and ask me to marry you.. you can’t just come in here and save me.. that’s not how that works, draco” you shook your head and his heart sank.

“why not?” he wondered “i’d be ready to do that for you. you need money and i have it”

“draco” you touched his hand softly “i don’t want to get married out of convenience” you explained.

“but you're thinking about marrying hector?” he raised his voice.

“he really told you everything, huh?” you muttered, looking back at the door to the private area of the shop.

“y/n!” draco called and your eyes focused back on him.

“that’s different” you tried to escape his eyes.

“how is that any different? at least i’m not twenty years old than you!” draco argued “so you’d rather get married to that disgusting—“

“yes!” you interrupted and your voice was now matching the loudness of his. “you can’t just decide to marry me because it’d be the right thing to do!”

“but it is” he shook his head “i’m trying to help you. marrying me would benefit you”

“but i don’t want to get married to you like that” the sentence had left your mouth faster than you had been able to stop it, immediately making you close it and look down. right at the velvet box and the ring that was still sitting in the middle of you.

“what?” draco asked surprised.

you sighed “i don’t care about marrying hector out of convenience, but i would care if it was you”

the smile broke out quickly on draco’s face. “you would want to marry me?” he asked “but only for the right reasons?”

“i wasn’t talking about a marriage just yet” you raised your finger and corrected him “but i wouldn’t want to destroy that option just because i could profit from it. and if i would get married to you, it surely wouldn’t be because of your money”

draco almost recognized something in your eyes. something that you saw in him that no one ever did. and even though he had never seen it before, it felt familiar and safe. “do you think you could ever love me?” he asked unsurely. maybe he was just interpreting this conversation wrong.

“i think i have loved you longer than what was probably healthy for me” you whispered, leaning on the table and resting your chin on top of your hand. “do you think you could ever love me?” you repeated his question.

his smile grew impossibly bigger. “i don’t think i could even stop if i wanted to”

he was ready to jump over the counter, to hold you close and kiss you, to make all the bad years disappear.

but before he could do anything of that sort, you smiled and closed the box containing the ring, pushing it in his direction.

“so marriage is off the table?” he asked faintly.

“not completely” you smiled “but how about you take me on a date first?” you suggested.

“okay” he smiled, then he looked around the room. there was still your problem, the one that had provoked him to ask for your hand in marriage in the first place. “i think i know someone who would buy a few of these artifacts, for more than just their market price”

“you do?” you wondered and he nodded. it was like a weight had been lifted off you shoulders. or maybe for the first time in a long time, someone else knew what to do.

you went around the corner and hugged him. he held your head in his hands, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear before he finally kissed you. soft and gentle, making a shiver run down your spine.

after all, everything became better than you had hoped it to be. you returned to hogwarts, just having missed two months of classes that you had caught up to quicker than you had been able to worry about it.

draco had started finishing his education from afar, while helping your uncle to sell most of the magic items and finally deciding on new things to sell, completely updating the place until it was filled with costumers coming in all the time.

it took a few more years, but soon enough draco proposed to you again. and in the summer of the year 2002, y/n l/n married draco malfoy for only the right reasons.

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kenthoe · 2 months

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kenthoe · 2 months

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So Gorgeous It Actually Hurts

notes Rafe Cameron x fem!reader + childhood enemies to lovers, the slowest of burns, an unbearable amount of pining, both parties in heavy denial for like 90% of the fic, Rafe’s a total douchebag but he can’t help it (you’re gorgeous), tw for angst, drinking, and drug use

wc 12.1k

a/n a labour of love that I am SO excited to share, I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did writing it <3

Seven.

It’s the scraped knees and bruises age, popsicle-sticky fingers, monkey bar calluses and sneaker toe blisters. It’s the messy hair age, the bike riding age, the sugar-high at your first sleepover, the whispered secrets and pinky-promises under blankets age.

For you, it’s the age that summer changes forever.

When you’re seven years old, your father announces that he’s bought a beach house on the Outer Banks.

At the heart of an island, Kildare, with a funny sounding name and tonnes of roaming space, it’s big with a bigger balcony and a view of the sea, waves that crest and foam, seagulls with hungry beaks.

To seven-year-old you, the place has everything. Sunny weather, a shortcut to the beach, an ice-cream truck that circulates regularly. Hopscotch on the side-walk and a neighbourhood with kids your age, some freckled, some loud, one that you hate.

Seven is the age that you meet Rafe Cameron.

He’s a playground bully with blue eyes and overgrown hair, his makeshift throne at the very top of the jungle gym.

Back then, he doesn’t have as many inches on you as he does now, but Rafe Cameron is still bigger and older than you, the new girl.

When you tug on a bit of jungle gym rope and cause him to teeter, you don’t mean anything by it. You’re just trying to get his attention so you can climb up the throngs too, enjoy the ten-foot-high view alongside him.

He scowls down at you, all narrowed eyes and dangling limbs.

“Who’re you?” He accuses, not asks.

“Hi,” you greet brightly, pulling on the rope again. “I’m Y/n. Can I come up too?”

His features remain the same, hard and defensive, a nine-year-old that hasn’t learnt how to share. “You’re new,” he states plainly.

“Yeah!” You agree, nodding enthusiastically. “What’s your name?”

Rafe doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he braces his knees and jumps down, landing just short of your brand new sneakers. A cloud of dirt settles on the white tips.

“You can’t go up there,” he instructs. “Ever. It’s my spot.”

You frown. “Says who?”

“Says me,” Rafe answers firmly, folding his arms across his chest.

“And who are you?” You ask, folding yours in tandem.

“Rafe,” he says. His scowl hasn’t left his face yet, only deepening when your lips pull down and tighten. It’s a frowning contest of will, and Rafe’s never one to back down from a fight.

Neither are you, as he’ll soon come to realise. The only boy his age that’ll confidently jump the ten feet without a scratch, he’s fairly used to wearing his so-called spot like a bravery badge. There’s no way he’s going to give it up just like that, especially not to a girl who’s shorter than him, smaller with pigtails and frill-hem socks.

Even if she has pretty eyes.

“Well, Rafe,” you throw back, straightening to your full height, scowling some more. Intimidation tactics that are useless on she-has-pretty-eyes boy. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“Yes, I am,” Rafe insists, crossing his arms tighter. “I live here. You don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” you argue, pointing to a walk-way in the distance. “Through there. I do.”

Rafe turns to where you’re pointing, his bully scowl deepening. “You’re lying.”

“No I’m not.”

“Are so.”

“Am not.”

“You have to be. I live through there, and I’ve never seen you around before,” Rafe decides with finality, his shoulders square as he pushes past you. He has that, older-than-you air about him that makes you fume; there’s no way you’re letting him dictate how you live your life, especially not with a mean-spirited attitude.

You huff and lift your nose to the air, catching a hold of the jungle gym ropes. “Maybe,” you mutter, already climbing up them, “you should pay more attention then.”

It takes you the same amount of time to clamber your way to the top as it does Rafe to turn around, now an eye-squint away with features that you think look chastened. You can see far above him, over fluffy treetops and slatted roofs, toward the blue shimmer of a sea blessed by sun.

“Hey!” He yells angrily, running back over. “I told you not to —”

He reaches the bottom of the jungle gym alarmingly quickly, small hands with more force than you’re used to pulling at the ropes below you.

You teeter dangerously, lurching forward and losing your balance at the last minute. There’s a nosedive before a muffled thud; the boy who has caused you to fall has broken it too, his back splintered with bark and dirt, his eyebrows scrunched up.

“Hey!” You scrabble off of him with aching knees and grazes on your palms, bottom lip beginning to tremble. “You hurt me!”

“You fell on me,” Rafe groans, propping himself up on scrape-red elbows. “I told you not to go up there. That’s what you get for not doing what I tell you.”

“I — I… I hate you!” You sputter out as vindictively as you can, eyesight a blur, limbs shaking as you stand.

“Yeah? Well I hate you more!” Rafe throws back, standing up too. There’s a fleeting moment where your seven-year-old brain looks over his longer legs, the bark-stained rips in his jeans. They look like they hurt — why isn’t he crying?

You sniff loudly and turn on your heel, breaking into a run toward the walk-way you pointed out earlier. Past the salt boxes along your Cul-de-sac, with lungs bleeding and wind whipping by your ears. Past the ice-cream truck, past the other children that live here, past the large, Tannyhill Estate that sits beside your house.

And when you hightail it to the kitchen, freshly bruised with tears in your eyes, your mother asks you what’s wrong, and you say, “Rafe did it.”

The same Rafe you re-meet at a barbeque the next day, the hybrid of an introduction and a housewarming hosted by your parents.

His eyes are the same, cold blue that they were the day before, but he’s sporting a new haircut, a two girl posse of younger siblings.

“See?” You say by way of greeting, jutting out your bottom lip obstinately. After the initial pleasantries, your parents have taken theirs inside, along with his youngest sister, Wheezie. “I told you I wasn’t lying.”

“You still shouldn’t have done it,” Rafe argues back, scowling meanly. “That’s my spot.”

You huff dismissively, throwing your palm in his face. “Talk to the hand.”

And when you push past him, shoulders square as can be, you hear six-year-old Sarah giggling, the noise loud and obnoxiously giddy.

She peels herself away from her brother to fall into your step, instead, limbs the same length as yours, soft hair in the same pigtails. Your equal.

“Can we be friends?” She asks significantly, wide eyes looking over your features.

You grin wide, unabashedly pleased. It’s the first time Rafe’s ever seen you smile, and his stomach lurches like there’s something in there fighting to break free. He scowls some more.

“Of course we can!” You exclaim excitedly, extending your pinky finger. “Best friends forever?”

“Forever,” Sarah promises, twining it with hers and squeezing.

Rafe’s rooted to the spot, watching you from a distance away, a one-sided staring competition. You find a patch of grass to sit down on cross-legged, and it’s only when you begin plucking daisies that he acquiesces.

Over the course of the summer, you and Sarah make close to a thousand daisy chains, stems twined together with precariously held petals. Rafe finds them everywhere — playground ledges, dining room tables, the sand on beach days, the deck on days in. And when he does, he remembers you, and crushes them in his hands, monkey-bar calluses his only accomplice. He hates them the way he hates you; he sees them, and they have a Pavlovian effect.

One night, when you’re camped out in Sarah’s backyard, he storms over to your blanket fort and throws one down. The air is thick and treacly, heavied by the smell of marshmallows and coconut sunscreen. Purple dusk on a grey roof, a sea of fairy lights below him.

He makes furious eye contact with you, and crushes the daisy chain with his bare-foot. When you frown, an odd sense of satisfaction bubbles up into his chest, his lower lip curling triumphantly.

With the sliding door open wide the way that it is, your loud giggle can travel into the living room freely, a Rafe-specific, video game distraction. He’s lost three games of Call of Duty to it; his best friend, Kelce, is unperturbed and victorious, and Rafe can’t quite understand how that is.

Isn’t the sound of your laugh as evasive to Kelce as it is to him?

“Stop littering in my house,” Rafe demands, narrowing his eyes at you.

You duck out of the fort and stand up tall, crossing your arms across your chest defensively. “It’s Sarah’s house too. She wants them there.”

Sarah peeks around your ankles, poking her tongue out at her older brother. “It’s not littering. They’re pretty.”

“She’s a bad influence on you, Sarah,” Rafe chastises.

“No she isn’t.” Sarah scowls argumentatively, the spitting image of her older brother. “You just don’t like that she stands up to you.”

Rafe scoffs incredulously, feeling the tips of his ears burn. “Whatever.”

For years, he associates nine with jungle gym scuffles and daisy chains in odd places. And then there’s ten, with the infamous handball fight and sand-castle brawl, eleven and the mystery of the missing Harry Potter book.

Twelve is pretending he isn’t too old to play stuck-in-the-mud, brutal, one-on-one tag games that last all summer long.

It’s the year that Ward bestows him with real, older brother responsibility, forcing him to accompany you and Sarah wherever you go.

“Oi!” He trails behind reluctantly, hands jammed into his front pockets. “Don’t go out too far, I’m serious.”

You turn your head, poking your tongue out at him. When your hair lags behind, pretty, wind-mussed locks that shine in the sun, Rafe notices. He thinks this is something that everyone notices, the subtleties in your appearance, the way your nose scrunches up when you’re making a face at him. He doesn’t think he’s looked over at Sarah all day.

“And what if we do, Rafe?” You hedge, challenging him.

Rafe’s heart lurches violently. It doesn’t matter that you say it in that derisive, high-pitched voice, every time you call him by his name he feels a little funny.

“I’ll tell dad,” he says firmly, narrowing his eyes at you. “He put me in charge.”

“Of Sarah,” you argue, folding your small arms over your chest. “Not of me. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Of both of you,” he corrects. “It’s not like you have an older brother looking out for you.”

Sarah makes a face. “You never look out for me.”

“You think I want to be out here, Sarah?” He throws his arms up in the air exasperatedly, making his way toward the two of you. “I should be at Kelce’s, playing COD on the new PlayStation he got for his birthday.”

You match each step of his with one of your own, backing away with an arm linked in Sarah’s. Rafe’s eyes fall in tandem with your movements, his eyebrows raised, a warning.

“If you want us to stay close,” you say, voice full of mirth. “You’re going to have to keep up!”

And with that, you break into a run, Sarah’s slower legs causing your elbows to untangle, a one girl game of catch-me-if-you-can.

Of course, Rafe’s bigger, taller. He catches up with you a mere, few feet away from his sister, taking a hold of your wrist and tugging you backward.

His pinky finger touches his thumb when he clasps it, and it occurs to Rafe how much smaller you are than him. How important it is for him to look out for you.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, he reasons, like this makes any sort of logical sense.

Like hating you is first nature and protecting you is second.

“Get off me,” you grumble, wriggling out of his grasp.

“Stay put,” Rafe instructs, sending you a stern glare.

“No.” You braces your knees, slapping his forearm before breaking into a run again. “Tag! You’re it.”

He tags Sarah, who tags Rafe, who tags you, him again. Everyone else gets tired of playing, but you and him continue into the night. And then, over several days, back and forth until you’re locking yourselves into bedrooms, doubting shadows on the pavement, walking around the house with backs pressed to the wall, praying for sweet solace.

Pretty soon, the rest of the neighbourhood bans the pair of you from participating in games. Everything from hide-and-seek to bull rush is off limits; your competitive streaks are unbearable, even more so when they clash with each other.

You’re a sore loser. Rafe’s even sorer.

He’s just grateful that you’re only ever here for the summer; he doesn’t think he could stand you in the Outer Banks all year round. Having to go to school with you, deal with four seasons of bickering… he shudders to think what he would have done with himself; two months is more than enough time in your presence.

For the past three years, you’ve left the Outer Banks on the exact same day, in the exact same way.

Skipping to his front porch with your big backpack swinging, where his younger sister Sarah awaits farewell with outstretched arms. A big, squeezing hug, promises to call, and then, you always whisper something imperceptible in her ear. Every year, without fail, and Rafe absolutely hates it — a little because he can’t hear what it is, a lot because he doesn’t know why he cares so much.

From the ages of seven to nine, you don’t bother to say goodbye to anyone else. But at ten, having mastered the art of antagonising Rafe Cameron, you decide to leave him with something worse than plain silence.

“Bye, Sar,” you whisper into her hair, pouting as you pull away. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Her lips pull down in tandem, arms still held out around phantom you. “I’m gonna miss you more. Don’t forget me!”

“Never, ever,” you promise earnestly.

You turn around and walk down the porch steps, the wood sun-faded, your shadow skating down each wrung.

“Rafe!” You call out once you reach the bottom, looking up at his cracked open window.

He almost jumps, the curtain shivering as he clutches it in surprise.

“What?” He asks, sounding irritated, busy, as if he hasn’t been lurking right behind it to eavesdrop.

The sun is directly above the estate when he ducks his head out, creating a flyaway halo of yellow hair. It’s always longer at the end of summer than it is at the beginning; he’s going to get it cut when you’re gone, grow another inch or four when you’re gone. Your stomach feels funny.

“Do me a favour,” you say, frowning sternly, “and don’t be mean to your sister while I’m away.”

Rafe snorts derisively. “Do me a favour,” he mocks, “and don’t come back next year.”

“Aww,” you return, smiling saccharine sweet. “I know you’re going to miss me.”

“When hell freezes over, train wreck,” he throws back wryly.

Your expression falters, the nickname rolling over your skin like a sunburn. “Don’t,” you grit out, “call me that.”

“What?” Rafe lips pull up into a satisfied smirk. “A big, ugly, train wreck?”

“I hate you, Rafe Cameron,” you call back spitefully, sending him a furious glare.

“Didn’t ask,” he returns coolly, already retreating from his window-site spot. “Don’t care.”

——

Eleven.

It’s the staying up past bedtime and writing in your diary age, chipped nail polish and stringy bracelets, neon colours on slogan tees. It’s the flip-flop tan age, the Chinese whispers age, watching High School Musical for the first time, the strange, butterflies-in-your-stomach age.

For you, it’s the age that Rafe goes from boy to boy.

At thirteen, the cusp of teen and almost-grown-up, he’s four inches taller with brand new jeans and larger shoes. His hands are rougher than yours are, limbs somewhere between lanky and long. You begin to doubt that you’ve grown the inch pencilled into your bedroom wall, a once-proud apogee that now feels small.

Oh, and he’s gorgeous. It makes you kind of furious.

On the first day of summer, you race over to Tannyhill the minute you’re home, a force of nature on its way to her best friend, Sarah. But when your knuckles rap the large door, head just short of the knocker, it’s Rafe looking down his nose at you, not her.

It takes him by surprise too, the height difference. Thirteen’s been stressful enough as is — growing pains and wardrobe changes, confusing, terrifying feelings for girls in his class — without him also feeling like a giant all of a sudden.

It occurs to him he’s known you almost four years, now. A third of his life. His palms grow sweaty.

And then, you open your mouth to greet him, and he realises his hands have no business being this clammy.

“What are you, big-foot?” You ask crudely, raising your eyebrows up at him.

Rafe doesn’t say anything at first, his features changing in subtle ways — colder eyes, tightened lips. A powerful emotion rises up in chest; it’s thick as molasses, fiery, that whisper of wistfulness long gone within him.

He turns around without another word, sliding his phone out of his front pocket.

“Sarah!” He calls out, a wry, almost bored edge to his tone. “Your loser friend is here.”

For some reason, his dismissal feels worse than an insult would. You stand just short of the door ledge, a little slack jawed, a lot chagrined, watching the back of him disappear up the stairs. There’s far more brown on his head than there usually is, and you realise he hasn’t had his start-of-summer haircut this year.

An odd, nostalgic ache springs forth at the revelation.

And then, as quick as it arrived, it’s gone; Sarah appears at the end of the hallway, and your elated smile is all you want to focus on.

“You’re here!” Sarah squeals excitedly, running up to you and hugging you hard, a long awaited reunion with wind-chimes cheering in the background.

Her hair’s a salt-matted mess, skin sticky and a little scratchy, a canvas of sand on coconut sunscreen glue. When she draws back, her cheeks are flushed. “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!”

“I missed you,” you insist, and then you frown a little, faux-reproachful. “Kind of mad at you, though.”

“What?” Sarah’s eyes widen worriedly. “Why?”

“Because,” you say, making a face, “you didn’t open the door for me. Had to see him before I did you.”

Sarah grimaces, a sheepish, half-scowl that exposes her bottom row of teeth. “I was on my way, I swear,” she insists, squeezing your arm apologetically. “But he’s been sulking around all day. Waiting.”

“For me?” You ask, raising your eyebrows skeptically. “Yeah, right.”

“I don’t get it either,” Sarah agrees, sighing defeatedly. “He’s been so moody this year… way moodier than usual. Dad says it’s cause he’s a teenager…” she pauses, makes a face, “…whatever that means.”

You frown apologetically, linking your arm in hers. “Doesn’t matter,” you decide. “He isn’t going to ruin our perfect summer.”

And you’re right, he doesn’t — he has his own summer to ruin.

Eleven is the first and only year where the age gap between the two of you feels so apparent.

Thirteen, for him, is a set of diametrically opposed firsts — first fight and first kiss, first girlfriend and first break-up over text.

You’re having an underwater, hand-stand competition with Sarah when you meet Blake Somerset. She’s a pretty girl with wide, amber eyes and her hand in Rafe’s, his bicep to her shoulder in a trendy, Brandy Melville outfit. Everything you want to be at thirteen, everything that you aren’t at the moment, an eleven year old in a plain one piece and stupid-looking swim goggles.

She makes you self-conscious. You blame Rafe Cameron.

“Get out,” he demands wryly, sliding his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to glare at you.

An angry, blanching, goggle-shaped imprint circles your eyes. “Why?”

Rafe scowls irritatedly. “You’ve had your turn. It’s ours now.”

At ‘ours’, he holds up Blake Somerset’s hand, forcing you to look up at the way their fingers intertwine. An ugly emotion grows within the chambers of your heart, making you frown.

“No,” you attest, standing your ground. “We just got here.”

“Besides,” Sarah adds knowingly, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “You and Blake never hang out here, anyway.”

Rafe balks. His eyes flit to yours for a split-second, heat spreading over his cheeks like an impromptu game of connect-the-freckles. With a line of fire. He clears his throat. “All the more reason to give us space to hang out here.”

Blake speaks up then, turning to you with a voice smooth as honey. “Hi,” she greets, smiling brightly, something contagious about it. This is a thirteen year old girl who has already discovered the wonders of pretty privilege. “I’m Blake!”

“Oh.” Your eyes widen, almost affronted by her kindness. “Hi. I’m Y/n.”

Rafe’s brow pulls down, a narrow-eyed warning. “Don’t bother, Blake,” he sneers, looking directly at you as he says it. “She’s only ever here over the summer, anyway. Not worth getting to know.”

“That’s mean, Rafey,” Blake says reproachfully, frowning at him.

“Yeah, Rafey,” you mock, raising your eyebrows at him. “That’s mean.”

Rafe scowls some more, dropping Blake’s hand to take a step closer to the pool. “Was I talking to you, train wreck?”

“You were talking about me, big-foot,” you bite back spitefully, scrubbing the goggle mark on your upper cheek.

“You know that you have a house too, right?” He asks testily. “You don’t have to be in mine every hour of every day?”

“It’s Mr Cameron’s house,” you argue, jutting out your bottom lip obstinately. “Not yours.“

Rafe shrugs a same difference shrug. “It’ll be mine soon.”

“Or Sarah’s,” you argue.

“I’m older,” Rafe returns angrily, an edge to his voice as his jaw clenches.

Your hand drops. His jaw loosens a touch.

“And somehow,” you shrug, “still dumber.”

Rafe scoffs indignantly, shaking his head in defeat. “Come on, Blake,” he says, turning around and throwing his arm over her shoulder. “It’s not worth arguing with her. She never learnt how to share.”

“Hey!” You call sharply, quick to rise to his bait. “That’s — no way. You’re — you’re the one who doesn’t know how to share, from the stupid jungle gym to —”

“We can go to the beach, instead,” he adds loudly, talking over you as he walks away. “More privacy there. No unwelcome guests acting like they own the place.”

“I — I hate you, Rafe Cameron!” You fume, cheeks splotchy with heat, sun on chlorine.

You don’t think he hears it, because he doesn’t say it back.

This hasn’t been possible since he was nine years old. No matter how hard he tries, your voice tends to find him, wherever he goes. It’s like his brain is primed to pay extra attention to it without meaning to — you’re everywhere all at once, and maybe that’s why he resents your presence at Tannyhill so much.

Later, when he’s lying awake and staring at ceiling shadows, he reasons that he didn’t say it back because he knows that you wouldn’t have heard it. The words would’ve fallen on deaf ears — a lone tree in the forest that hits the ground without making a sound.

That’s what you are to him, now, a series of stupid excuses and contradictory emotions.

Summer overflows, drowning the months of June and July before it begins to ebb, leaving you a fresh repertoire of insults by the time August comes around.

The week before you’re set to leave the Outer Banks for another year, the dusk air cools, molasses-thick heat replaced with something more tepid. You’ve come to call this diminution six-day-long-sleepover weather.

On one such night, you find yourself alone in Tannyhill Estate, frozen just short of the kitchen where’s Ward’s voice keeps you rooted.

Sarah’s still in her room under a mountain of plush blankets, having declined to head downstairs for a glass of water with you.

Rafe’s on the other side of the door. Eleven is age that you come to find out how much braver he is than you’d once imagined.

“I mean — you’re thirteen, now, Rafe!” A frightening sound, like a hand making contact with the marble counter, hard. You realise that you’re holding your breath. “I expect more from you — from the name I’ve given you. Cameron. Do you know what that name stands for, what it means to the people on this island?”

“Dad, I…” The shake in Rafe’s voice makes you flinch.

“Get out,” Ward instructs sternly, a dangerous edge to his voice. “Clean yourself up before your sisters see you. I mean — honestly… is this the example you want to set for them, Rafe? Getting into fights and coming home way past curfew?”

A pause. You think you hear Rafe swallow thickly, before you realise that it’s your own throat that’s shifting, a nervous tick.

“ANSWER ME!”

“No — I… no,” Rafe stutters out quietly.

There’s deafening silence, before the dull thud of retreating footsteps. A few feet away, an aperture above the stairwell channels a silver neck of moonlight to the ground, a ceiling-to-floor beam.

It’s dim edges illuminate you in the shadows, not quite hidden.

Although, even if you were, you have a funny feeling Rafe’d spot you anyway.

When he does, he stumbles back in surprise, doleful features hardening. There’s a split second where his armour of austerity wavers.

“Eavesdropping too, now?” He accuses, folding his arms across his chest defensively.

Your eyes fall to his knuckles, reds that graze and purples that bruise. There’s a split-second where your hands ache, as though you’re hurt too.

“Getting into fights too, now?” You counter, equally-defensive, raising your eyebrows up at him.

He averts his gaze, jaw clenching. His eyes tremble with unshed tears, and it terrifies you. “None of your business, train wreck,” he mutters, hiding his hands in his armpits urgently. There’s a cut on his lower lip that’s crusted over, the tell-tale maroon of blood that’s earned it’s place.

A beat. You wait for Rafe to push past you, mutter something derisive and walk away. He waits for you to do the same.

Neither of you move.

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, you know,” you say quietly, the tension in the air palpable.

You think Rafe’s expression almost softens. It makes your palms sweat.

“It’s fine,” he dismisses roughly, running his fingers through his hair. “What did you want from the kitchen? Water?”

You clasp your hands behind your back, and they slide over each other, all warm and clammy. “You know,” you mumble, feeling brave. “It’s okay if you’re upset about what he said. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

And just like that, the thaw halts and reverses, re-freezing double time.

If there’s one thing Rafe won’t have, it’s you — this loud, unabashed, strong-willed girl — feeling sorry for him. If you’re loud and unabashed, he needs to be louder, bolder, with miles more will and enough self-assurance to outdo you. He needs you to think that nothing could ever phase him.

Not the taunting, not his father, not even you.

“I’m not upset,” he says fiercely, glaring at you. “And I don’t want your shitty promise. You — you don’t know me.”

Your earnest expression falters, replaced by something cruel, spiteful. “I don’t want to know you either,” you bite out, pursing your lips. “I — I was just trying to be nice, but I should’ve known that you wouldn’t know how to deal with it.”

“Yeah, I don’t,” Rafe says flatly, pushing past you. “We aren’t friends.”

You let out an indignant scoff, whirling around angrily. “And I don’t want to be, either. Ever.”

Rafe doesn’t bother turning around. His knuckles burn, his split lower lip too, and now, because of you, he has to deal with this funny ache in his chest on top of everything else.

“Good.”

——

Fourteen.

It’s the wispy mascara and strawberry chapstick age, thready crop tops over swimwear, sausages-or-legs Instagram stories on sun loungers. It’s the ripped denim age, the caramel Frappuccino age, going to your first, red solo cup party, the getting hit on by guys that are older than you age.

For sixteen-year-old Rafe, it’s the age that you go from girl to girl.

Fourteen and a little taller, a little more mature; he’s created a tradition out of opening the door for you before his sister can, and it’s the first year that he’s the one balking at the threshold, not you.

Suddenly, he doesn’t remember you being any other age. You look airbrushed around the edges, bruise free with enough exposed skin to make him sweat a little. He scrambles for purchase on something that he knows, something that he hates — the fact that your dress is too short, the fact that your lips are too soft.

If it isn’t already obvious, he thinks that you’re gorgeous. It makes him furious.

“Are you going to let me in, big-foot?” You ask, raising your eyebrows impatiently.

The taunt brings about a predictable scowl, his surprised expression slipping. With callous features hardening the way that they are, you’d never guess that his last thought was: have her eyes always been this pretty?

“Good to see nothing’s changed, train wreck,” he returns wryly, placing his hands either side of the doorway to prevent entry.

You roll your eyes at him, ducking under his bicep and forcing your way in. Despite growing a few inches over the course of the year, Rafe still towers over you, a solid wall of hatred and obstinance and muscle. A lot of muscle.

“And it never will,” you throw over your shoulder easily, not bothering to look back at him.

“Do you not have any other friends or something?” He goads, sauntering behind you. “Other families on this island to leech off?”

You whip back around angrily, arms crossed, nostrils flared. “Do you have any friends at all, Rafe?”

Rafe furrows his brow mockingly, pretending to look confused. “Oh yeah,” he sighs out, non-existent realisation dawning on his features. “You’re not actually from here, so I’ll explain —”

“Except,” you interrupt, irritation piquing, “that I didn’t ask, and I don’t care.”

“Basically, everyone here worships me,” he clarifies faux-sombrely, ignoring the sentiment. “So if I were you, I’d probably apologise and fall in line, princess.”

You scoff incredulously, sending him a glare. It occurs to Rafe that a part of him antagonises you for all this fierce, soul-deep eye contact.

“Worshipping you?” You echo, making a face. “Not only are you a total douchebag, but you’re also somehow delusional?”

“Aw.” Rafe clutches his chest dramatically, pouting down at you. “You think I’m a total douchebag? I’m touched.”

“Don’t get it twisted,” you say, narrowing your eyes warningly. “I don’t think about you, Rafe Cameron. I know that you’re a total douchebag as a fact.”

“You know what else I am?” Rafe asks, trying for disdainful as he looks you up and down. He lands somewhere between impassive and slack-jawed. “Bored of this conversation.”

He moves past you and toward the kitchen, and to the back of him, you say, “Oh how I’ve missed our little chats.”

Rafe knows you don’t mean it like that. His pathetic pulse lurches anyway.

“Yeah?” He asks.

“Yeah,” you reply dryly, turning away from him. “They serve as a good reminder of why I hate you so much.”

You leave no space for him to throw the words back at you, already checked out of the conversation and halfway up the stairwell.

Not that he’d ever do so, anyway. Where you’d brushed past him, the fabric of his t-shirt still smells like crisp bergamot, the sweet vanilla notes of your new perfume.

It’s all he’s able to focus on for the rest of the day.

Upstairs, Sarah squeezes you tight, and demands that the pair of you take a walk along the beach.

It’s how you find yourself on Theo Deverell’s radar that summer, find yourself receiving an invite to his party a few weeks later.

A handsome junior with a skateboard under his arm and ashen hair that hasn’t been cut in a while, he’s confident and kind, his sweet-talk thick molasses.

Like a flytrap.

Along with an invite to his party, Theo innocently requests that you arrive alone and not-so-innocently buys you handful of white claws. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t take into account the fact that someone else at this party might see you, recognise you.

Know you better than they know themself.

Rafe hears your laugh before he does your voice. It has that same, unabashed timbre it did when you were kids; loud and too-familiar, distracting. It first found him at nine years old and hasn’t left him since.

When he follows the sound to you, there’s a white claw in your hand, and Theo Deverell’s arm around your shoulder. If it wasn’t for that fact that this meant extenuating circumstances, he’s sure that he would have stolen a few more moments to look you over.

All of you, from your kind eyes to your pretty smile, the light skating along the column of your throat, the expanse of glowing skin between your singlet and raw-hem denim shorts.

Bare glowing skin. Kind eyes on scum of the earth, Theo fucking Deverell, pretty smile like a sunflower leaning into the wrong rays of sun.

Rafe’s jaw clenches like clockwork. You have no business being here — not with his friends, the people in his year, not in that outfit and definitely not with a white claw in your hand.

He asserts that it isn’t jealousy.

After all, his line of reasoning doesn’t touch the Theo Deverell effect at all; he’s just being protective over you, covering all of his bases.

If something happens and you get hurt, he’s the one that everyone will blame. Rafe decides to ignore the fact that when it comes to you, he’s his own harshest critic.

“Y/n.” He says your name like it’s an accusation, something rough, callous in his tone.

Your shoulders tense. The grip you have on your white claw tightens to a blanch, the muscles that move your jaw, too. When do you finally look over at him, he’s closer than his voice was, taller with broader-set shoulders, an angrier frown.

He tugs off his backwards cap distractedly, and your eyes move to his fabric mussed hair, longer than you remember. It suits him.

“What?” You defend coolly, narrowing your eyes at him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he states, pinning you with a glare. Body heat and cologne rolls off his skin, cedar-wood with something spicier hidden within it. Cinnamon, you think.

“Why?” You argue, nostrils flaring. “Last I checked, this is Theo’s party, not yours. He invited me.”

Rafe’s gaze cuts to the aforementioned boy for the first time that night, a split-second power struggle. There’s an undercurrent of steel to his eye contact that makes Theo sweat a little.

“I’m taking you home,” he says resolutely, grasping your wrist. “Now.”

“What?” You scoff incredulously, quick to break free. “No fucking way. I’m staying.”

Keeping your eyes on his, you tip back the white claw and gulp down half the can. It doesn’t make your insides burn the way everyone says alcohol should; like a drink of soda, it slides down your throat with ease.

Your throat. Rafe’s gaze falls, the unmarked skin making him falter. Bathed in lemon-yellow light, your silver necklaces winks up at him, a taunt.

It makes him fucking mad.

“Whatever,” he mutters spitefully, downing his own drink just as easily. “Your fucking funeral.”

You roll your eyes, looking up at Theo and smiling your sweet, sore-cheek smile. For some, perplexing reason, this makes him even madder.

“Can I have another?” You ask, using a pleasant voice Rafe hasn’t heard before.

Theo nods without question, pulling open the fridge and handing you another. For a split-second, Rafe considers the consequence of giving him a shiner in his own kitchen.

Then, he goes back to channeling all of his anger onto you.

Since this definitely isn’t jealousy, he has no business being mad at Theo, even if said boy’s arm around your shoulder is begging to be broken. It’s you that’s at a party you shouldn’t be at, you drinking a white claw, you with the pretty smile — the siren smile.

The smile he’s never been on the receiving end of.

His head hurts. He crushes the can of beer in his hand like it’s nothing, and as he stares at you, disappearing onto the deck with Theo Deverell, you stare at everything but him.

It’s the first time since he was nine years old that he’s felt that ugly bubble of hatred in his gut. Not for you, though, of what he can’t have, even if he’d deny this if anyone were to ask.

It’s an hour before he finds you next.

There’s an alcohol induced slowness to his limbs by then, but his mind is sharper than ever, miles ahead of yours.

Skin warm and dew-damp, you’re sprawled out on the grass. Above you, the sky spins, a kaleidoscope of purple and indigo, darker streaks of dusk. And then, Rafe’s face.

He’s scowling, the way he always is. You’re alone.

“The fuck?” He loops an arm around your waist, yanking you up in a single, sweeping motion. “Why are you out here?”

Alone, he wants to add. It’s all he can focus on.

“The fuck?” You mock, words liquefying around the edges. “Why d’you always talk like s’that?”

“For fuck sake,” he mutters, cringing at the way your voice slurs. “How much have you had?”

You raise your eyebrows comically high, pretending to zip your lips and throw away the key.

Silence. Rafe’s rough fingers hold firm on your waist, all of your weight pushing into his forearm as you angle away. There’s a lot more skin-on-skin body heat this close, a lot more cologne and fierce eye contact than you can handle.

The closeness is burning hand-shaped holes into your skin. Large hand-shaped holes.

“Alright,” he announces firmly, straightening and pulling you up with him. “We’re leaving.”

“No,” you argue, more for the sake of it than anything else. “You’re leaving. M’staying.”

“Y/n,” Rafe warns, clenching his jaw. “You’re not staying here by yourself. You’re drunk.”

You make a face. “Why d’you care?”

Rafe chooses to ignore this question. A little because his focus is trained on moving your dragging feet forward, a lot because the answer to it is something that absolutely terrifies him.

And makes him furious. Amongst other things.

“Rafe, stop,” you whine, voice all messy and loud. “You — you’re not the boss f’me.”

“Didn’t ask.” He’s already shifted you from the backyard into the kitchen with surprising ease, rough hands on skin like a nectarine — soft and bare and easy to bruise. “Don’t care.”

Once inside, he pushes you toward the sink, reaching for an empty solo cup.

“Here,” he demands, thrusting it into your chest. “Have some water.”

He’s caging you against it with arms either side of you, your dim, kitchen window reflection making the proximity apparent. It makes you dizzier than the alcohol in your veins does, streaks your throat with the taste of bile.

“Don’t wan’t any,” you argue, frowning stubbornly.

“I’m serious,” he warns, turning the tap on and filling it to the brim.

“So m’I,” you throw back.

“Drink,” he instructs firmly, holding it out in front of you. Your eyes fall to it, faucet ripples making your face all soft and blurry.

And as you begin to shake your head at it, an acid-sour trill of vomit rushes out of your mouth, forcing Rafe to drop it back into the sink.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters exasperatedly, one hand steadying your waist, the other holding your hair back. There’s something to be said about the fact that Rafe hasn’t run for the hills at the sight of your puke; his broad torso hides you from view, a shield of armour hiding behind so-called hatred.

He adds, voice still low, “You really are a train wreck, huh?”

It’s the only sentence you remember of your conversation the next morning. Maybe this is because it’s the first time he’s used the insult in an affectionate way.

What you think is an affectionate way. All that booze on an empty stomach has probably messed with your naïve brain.

When you wake, it’s in your own bed with curtains drawn. The comforter you’re snuggled under smells of him, soap and musk pheromones that make your insides tumble. You feel sick.

There’s a note tucked under a glass of water on your bedside table, a blister pack of aspirin alongside it. It reads: for once in your life, can you just fucking do what I tell you to?

You feel sicker.

Like poison, it’s thrown directly into the bin. Like the plague, you avoid Rafe Cameron for the rest of summer break.

——

Sixteen is the first job age, branding you a visor-wearing cart girl on the Island Club green.

Having graduated from the Academy this year, it’s also the last summer before Rafe moves for college. You aren’t sure what this means for him, whether the frat he inevitably joins will lead him elsewhere for subsequent breaks.

Away from you. The thought makes your heart feels too heavy for your ribcage, tight and wrung through, a sinking deadweight.

When eighteen-year-old Rafe first sees sixteen-year-old you, he’s on the course with his best friend, Kelce. You’re manning the drinks cart a distance away, laughing this high-pitched, saccharine sweet laugh as an older man exchanges beers for some cash. It’s a new sound falling from lips he’s known half his life, a fresh coat of gloss making them shine. Your skin looks fresh, sunscreen soft.

“Oh shit!” Kelce exclaims, following Rafe’s gaze to your figure. “Isn’t that Y/n?”

He jogs toward you without waiting for an answer, forcing a reluctant Rafe to do the same.

“Guess they’re just hiring anyone nowadays, huh?” He calls out a little urgently, winning the race for your attention Kelce didn’t know he was participating in.

You turn toward him and your customer service smile slips, pretty features hardening to a scowl.

“Find another cart girl,” you demand, folding your arms across your chest. “I’m not serving you.”

“And I’m not giving you any of my service,” Rafe scoffs, halting in his tracks too close, the way he always does.

It makes him difficult to ignore, which you hate. Your gaze skates over his broad shoulders and chiseled torso, sleeve-taut biceps that become solid forearm, rough hands in rougher golf gloves. His blue eyes are unblinking, fierce, bright as the sun despite his cap shielding from it.

Your gaze shifts to Kelce in a hurry.

“Hey, Kelce,” you say amiably, smiling at him. “Anything I can get you?”

“Your number?” Kelce jokes, grinning back.

Rafe’s jaw tightens, an unnameable emotion rearing it’s ugly head. As his younger sister’s best friend — as a girl that he hates — you’re strictly off limits to him.

By proxy, you’re also strictly off limits to his best friend.

“When did you start, anyway?” He cuts in furiously, glaring down at you.

You sigh warily, sending Kelce an apologetic look.“Last week,” you say in a clipped tone.

“Why?” Rafe demands.

“What do you mean, why?” You throw back, scoffing indignantly. “Because I’m old enough to get a job, now? Because I wanted some extra cash?”

“What?” Rafe hedges, raising his eyebrows. “To go shopping with your one friend on the island?”

Outrage rolls over your skin like a heatwave, making your cheeks burn. “What do you care?” You return angrily, nostrils flaring. “This doesn’t concern you in any way.”

It does when your presence is capable of throwing him off his game. It does when he has to watch you flirting for tips everyday.

Besides, why would you possibly need a job, anyway? Theoretically, Rafe could pay for everything that you wanted and then some.

“It does if you refuse to serve me when I’m here,” Rafe says.

You falter, clenched jaw acquiescing by a margin.

“Right,” you reply curtly, plastering on a smile. “Was there anything you wanted, Rafe?”

“Aw.” Rafe pouts mockingly. “The waitresses at the Club normally call me sir.”

Your smile tighten to a grimace. “Don’t fucking push it, Cameron.”

“Mr Cameron,” Rafe chastises, biting back a smirk. “I’d love a beer, princess. Think you can manage that?”

“And I’d love for you to leave me the fuck alone,” you snarl back, forced pleasantries long forgotten. “But unfortunately, we don’t always get all the things we want in life.”

“Now, now.” Rafe raises his eyebrows warningly, his gaze cascading over your features without meaning to. “You wouldn’t want me to go inside and complain about the gorgeous cart girl with no manners, would you?”

You blink. “Gorgeous cart girl?”

Rafe’s expression falters, his slanted jaw slackening. “Cart girl,” he amends quickly, almost tripping over his words. “I said cart girl.”

“Whatever,” you mutter, ducking your head awkwardly. “If you aren’t going to buy something I can actually sell you, I’m leaving.”

You turn around and climb into the driver’s seat of the drinks cart, switching on the ignition and leaving the two boys in your dust.

When you do so, Rafe realises a few things.

The first, that not letting his eyes stray from your pretty face to your cleavage is an invaluable lesson in self-control. The second, that you’re the same height as his heartbeat, your smaller hands the size of a single chamber within it. The third that your ass looks fucking criminal in a golf skirt, and the fourth? That you’re beginning to make him furious for the all wrong reasons.

Kelce breaks the silence first.

“Holy shit,” he wolf whistles, “when did Y/n become such a baddie?”

“Never,” Rafe grits out, cutting him a stony glare. “Don’t let me hear you say that shit again, Smith. I’m not fucking playing.”

“Woah, relax tough guy,” Kelce replies, raising his eyebrows knowingly. “I’m just stating facts. You know that I’d never actually go there.”

“Good,” Rafe says grimly. “Because she’s off limits.”

“Right.” Kelce eyes Rafe warily. “The real question, though… when are you going to make a move on her?”

“What?” Rafe’s head shoots up in a panic, his expression somewhere between helpless and incredulous. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Kelce scoffs. “The fact that you’re in love with her, obviously.”

Rafe’s heart lurches.

“You’re delusional,” he mutters, shaking his head exasperatedly.

“Whatever you say, bro,” Kelce responds with a shrug. “She’s fucking hot. If I were you, I’d be tying her down before some other guy on this island gets the chance.”

Though the mere thought of this has him seething, he attests that it isn’t jealousy.

Just self-preservation, or something. He doesn’t need some deadbeat with empty promises thirsting over a girl he’s known since he was a kid.

Over the course of the next few weeks, interactions with Rafe at the Club drop to a minimum. Though he’s often there when you are — his golf cap cycling between sitting forwards and backwards on his head — you always seem to catch him in the middle of a conversation. With his friends, other patrons, the waitresses that swoon over him in the break room. Everyone but you. You begin measuring the days apart with his hair, the length the tawny locks grow past the head of his cap.

Somewhere between long and overgrown, the tip jar begins collecting wads of cash with your name taped around them. At first, you think someone’s playing a prank with counterfeit bills; it’s only after they’re properly checked that you gratefully accept them.

To your chagrin, the waitstaff who know of the mystery tipper refuse to reveal their name. After a while, you begin taking the money without question; you presume it’s the old widower who meets you at hole nine every Friday, a little lonely, a lot wealthy. There’s no one else you know endowed with that much disposable income.

No one else apart from everyone in the Cameron family, anyway.

The next time you see Rafe, you’re trying hard to understand something that’s very clearly out of your depth.

“Trust me, darlin’, the clean’s real essential,” the mechanic continues seriously, overplaying the importance of a trivial add-on. “Without it, your car’ll break down within the year.”

“But…” you trail off, frowning bemusedly, “…I mean, my dad only bought it a few months ago —”

“These newer models,” the mechanic explains, raising his eyebrows haughtily, “they need more maintenance. Got bigger engines with —”

“Isn’t it a V Dub Golf, Cam?” Asks a voice behind you. “Shouldn’t need anything done to it for at least a few years.”

It’s deep, a little gravelly around the edges, with a subtle, Southern twang that’s so familiar it hurts a little.

Rafe’s always had this way of garnering the attention of a room without needing to raise his voice.

“Well,” the mechanic balks, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh… shit, I mean, there’s been talk of the suspension on these Volks going bust —”

“Right,” Rafe says steadily, coming up beside you. “I think she’ll take her chances, though, bud. The service on its own should be fine.”

He folds his forearms over the front counter staunchly, an air of resolve to the way he holds himself. It makes you feel nervous and relieved at the same time, as if that’s in any way possible.

Oh, and furious. He’s a wall of body heat with one too many inches on you, his bicep knocking your shoulder, his sharp jaw shepherding your gaze. There’s a shadow of stubble that trails to his Adam’s apple, steely, blue eyes that almost have you drowning.

Your chin falls as you sink, hitting his forearm where it rests on the counter. The contact sends a shockwave-like jolt to your skin, and you shoot back up in a hurry, glowing with embarrassment.

Don’t drown, swim, you chastise in your head.

“At the end of the day,” the mechanic named Cam says, sending you a meaningful glance, “it’s up to you, darlin’. Did you want me to throw in the clean?”

You can feel Rafe’s eyes on your features, his closeness makes your heart stutter a little.

“Uh,” you pause, chewing on your bottom lip absently. “I — maybe not, anymore. Thank you.”

Rafe’s gaze slides to your mouth as it moves without meaning to. Your pretty mouth. He begins scrambling for an excuse to stay this close, this counting-your-worry-lines proximity for a little while longer.

“Alrighty then,” Cam agrees, his Southern drawl kicking in. “Should take two hours, ‘roundabout.”

You nod and smile swiftly, handing over your keys and watching him retreat. It’s only once he’s out of sight that you peel away from the counter, refusing to make eye contact with Rafe as you do so.

“I had that handled,” you say stubbornly, turning your back on him.

“You’re welcome,” he returns dryly, stepping in front of you so that you’re forced to look up.

When you do, a pause. Somewhere within your too-weak glare, Rafe swears he spots a gleam of something softer, diffident gratitude hidden within pretty irises.

It makes his bones ache.

He knows that he’s the one taunting a thank-you out of you, but the last thing on Rafe’s mind is actually getting any sort of credit. The only reason that he even stepped in in the first place is because that’s his job — your best friends older brother, and all of that. Not to mention, he refuses to watch someone else take advantage; he’s the only person that’s allowed to do that, make a fool out of you and be able get away with it.

“Whatever, Rafe,” you mutter, tearing your eyes away again. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

For a split-second, he seriously considers saying, kissing you.

And then you add, “Following me?” in this cruel, defensive tone that has him deftly swallowing the words.

“Newsflash, princess,” he chides, rolling his eyes. “You’re not the only person on the island with a car that needs servicing.”

“What?” You goad. “Your little douchebag patrol posse too busy to run this errand for you?”

“Nah,” he returns wryly, raising his eyebrows. “Gotta do this one myself, make sure they don’t get swindled the way you were about to.”

Your jaw tightens, eyes narrowing angrily. “Like I said, I had it handled.”

Rafe’s noticed, that when you fume, you step closer to him without meaning to.

So maybe he’s goading you on purpose. So what? One look over your pretty, up-close features and his chest is a mess.

“Honestly,” he tuts, shaking his head tiredly. “What would you do without me?”

You pretend to think. “Oh, I don’t know,” you say, knitting your brow mockingly. “Maybe like, be at peace?”

“I’m on your mind that much, huh?” He asks, pressing his tongue against his cheek.

You force a breath out through your nose furiously, attempting to push past him. But he’s taller than you, stronger, catching you wrist just short of an arms length away.

Where his personality is abrasive, his touch is anything but. It’s featherlight like he thinks he’ll ruin you if he holds firmer. Your soft palms sweat.

“Hey, relax,” he chides, not letting go. “You gotta wait here till your car’s done, remember?”

Normally, you’d scowl at his holier-than-thou tone, but the juxtaposition of his careful hands and sloven words has your mind veering off track.

“So?” You bite back, forcing yourself to pull away. “I’m not staying here with you. I’ll go on a walk or something.”

Rafe frowns. “No,” he instructs. “You stay. I’ll come back.”

“Stop doing that,” you reply frustratedly.

“Doing what?” Rafe asks.

“Doing…” you trail off, forcing another breath out through your nose, “…doing me all these favours I didn’t ask you to do. I don’t want to be indebted to you, okay? Fucking quit it.”

Rafe balks. An unreadable emotion flickers over his once-amused features, painting them a rueful shade of grey.

“I’m leaving for me, not for you.” A pause. “You’ve never owed me anything, Y/n.”

He’s gone before you’re able to decipher his expression, find the cause of his sudden change in demeanour.

He doesn’t come back, the way he said he would. It’s a week before he returns to the car mechanic at all, long enough for you to have forgotten about the exchange.

——

Seventeen is the first year that Rafe doesn’t have a date to Midsummer’s.

Maybe this is because it’s also his first year away from home — setting Rafe up has always been Ward’s prerogative, and without the face-to-face, manipulating his son is a little more difficult. Maybe it’s because Rafe’s finally standing up to his father — heir to the Cameron Development empire or not, he’s sick of every girl he takes out being a business transaction.

Or maybe, it’s something else altogether. Maybe turning nineteen and going to a college out of state has forced Rafe to re-examine how he feels about Kildare Island.

The people on it. Person.

On Midsummer’s day, the weather is faultless.

A big, yellow sun coasts over the horizon, irradiating rows of hydrangeas and buttery-white peonies, the brilliant decorations that bedeck the venue. Prematurely hung fairy-lights dangle from green trees, the bright glare making them shine.

Rafe arrives at the Island Club a little before you do, blue skies melting woven periwinkle onto his suit blazer. He knows, from a phone conversation he overheard between you and Sarah, that you’re probably going to be late, so he doesn’t bother searching for you when he does.

Not that he’d actually do anything if he found you, anyway. It’s just that the promise of your closeness keeps him sane.

There’s a time lapse between when you do finally arrive, and when Rafe realises that you have. He’s sneaking a second flute of champagne when he spots you; you’re outside, and he’s in, the crystal-clear sliding door a hindrance.

Seeing you is like having the wind knocked out of his lungs.

You’re wearing a pearly slip of paper-thin satin, the silky fabric cascading down your figure like a waterfall. A gleaming, silver chain loops around your neck, and in your hair, a ribbon of artificial daisies glow. Like when you were seven. Rafe’s poor heart stutters.

And just when he’s sure he can’t catch a break, his legs lead him to you of their own accord — two magnets sucked into a field of charge.

Of course, this makes him furious.

“Nice of you to finally grace us with your presence, princess,” he greets sardonically, halting just short of your figure.

You’re leaning against a tall pillar on the deck, its column bedecked with a garland of ruby roses. At the sight of him, you hurry to straighten, smoothing over the sides of your pearl-white slip.

“And here I thought,” you throw back, narrowing your eyes up at him, “that I’d be lucky enough to get through tonight without having to talk to you.”

“Who else would you talk to?” Rafe’s gaze falls, skidding at your pretty lipgloss, again where your silver chain kisses your neckline. “Me and Sarah are the only two people you know here.”

“How can you be so sure?” You argue stubbornly, folding your arms across your chest.

The barely-there fabric of your slip creases when you do so, enough cleavage spilling over to make Rafe balk a little.

He coughs. “I just am, alright?”

You scoff. “You’re so fucking full of it.”

“Aw,” he pouts, still looking over you absently. “You really think so?”

It’s your cat-and-mouse game on autopilot. Both of you take turns throwing glib insults at the other, stalling. Maintaining this maddening, look-don’t-touch inch between you.

“I would,” you answer, scowling. “Except that I don’t actually think about you at all.”

“Right,” Rafe says, raising his eyebrows. “Why were you late, anyway?”

You scowl harder. “How do you know that I was late?”

“Sarah was complaining about it,” Rafe lies. An inscrutable something flickers over his features, and you realise that he’s standing close enough for you to notice.

Even in heels, he has several inches on your figure, solid shoulders and chiseled torso in soft periwinkle that makes you falter. You swear, as he waits for you to answer, that the fingers in his right hand twitch forward and flex, dropping back down in a hurry.

A trick of the light, you suppose.

“Well,” you answer, jutting out your bottom lip. “It’s really none of your business.”

“Actually, since the event is honouring my father —”

“JJ!” You call out suddenly, forcing Rafe’s voice to break off mid-sentence. “What are you… how are you here?”

JJ? Rafe falters. As in the same, dirty-blonde deadbeat that’s pogue-side and fucking insufferable?

Before he can so much as open his mouth in protest, the younger boy enters Rafe’s peripheral vision. He’s wearing a waiter’s uniform on his figure and a grin on his face, his unkempt hair a wind-mussed mess.

You’re smiling in tandem. Rafe feels his throat close up.

“Shhh,” he hushes, his blue eyes full of mirth. “I’m ‘working’ the party, alright? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

You laugh, and Rafe’s heart lurches. “Whatever you say, J,” you reply, shaking your head bemusedly. “A request, though?”

JJ mock curtsies, fixing you a faux-sombre look. “Anything, m’lady.”

“Can I come with?” You ask sweetly, eyeing Rafe warily. “Not in the mood to stick with present company.”

JJ turns to Rafe then, a silent but fierce battle of wills. “Of course,” he responds after a beat, knowing the older boy wouldn’t lay a hand on him with you around. “C’mon.”

The satin of your slip sways over your heels as you disappear, giving the appearance of a girl that’s floating out of sight, not walking.

A pretty girl, with wide, stubborn eyes and a frown that makes Rafe ache, in his stomach, in his bones, in the stupid, you-shaped cavity within his ribcage. He downs his flute in a single, deft gulp, tearing through the crowd in search of something stronger than champagne.

—

open the door

You’re already downstairs, filling a glass tumblr with water when your phone dings.

It’s the first anyone’s heard from Rafe since your squabble at Midsummer’s earlier that day; a little after 10 pm now, he’s hasn’t been accounted for for at least a few hours.

This realisation, paired with the laconic tone of his text, cloys with your stomach, a heavy vessel of cement. For the first time in your life, you don’t hesitate to do what he says.

When you creak open the door, Rafe’s figure is silhouetted by a moonless sky, dim, doleful stars your only source of illumination.

He can’t stand still. There’s a rumpled bow tie at his collar, sleeves pushed up and blazer thrown over his shoulder slovenly. Gel long gone, his hair’s a dishevelled mess — strands sticking up at odd ends, falling into his line of sight so he’s forced to blink them away.

Or try to, with these wide, all-pupil eyes that have your stomach dropping.

“You’re high.” Too harsh for a greeting, too weak-sounding for an accusation.

“Can I come in?” He asks, swallowing thickly.

You hesitate, gaze moving over his features tentatively. It occurs to you that, even on cocaine, that fond, attentive part of your brain still finds him attractive.

It’s infuriating.

You shake your head firmly, shooting him an exasperated look. “Are you kidding? No fucking way.”

When you attempt to shut the door in his face, he stumbles closer, barring you from doing so.

“Wait — no — shit, please?” He begs. “I — I’ll sleep on the floor. On the deck. Anywhere. I just… I had nowhere else to go.”

You sigh tiredly. “Your house is right next door, Rafe.”

Rafe falters, something harried, worrisome, washing over his face. “I can’t go there.”

A pause. The absence of light has your figure blurring around the edges, but Rafe has so much of you committed to memory that this fact is irrelevant.

You’re wearing PJs he hasn’t seen in years, this tired, out-of-reach glow to your limbs that has him reeling, struggling for air. Face scrubbed clean, exposed skin everywhere he looks, and this close, he swears he can see every frown line that etches your features.

It’s like you’re iridescent. He’s never used that word before, probably never will again, but in this moment, Rafe swears it’s the only one that makes sense.

You exhale again, stepping away from the door to allow him in.

“Fuck… thank you,” he mumbles sheepishly, his movements jagged, sloven. He follows you down the hallway and into the living room, collapsing onto the couch with sigh of his own.

You look him over with uncertainty, chewing on your bottom lip. “Do you need food, or something? Water?”

He lifts his head, parts of his face illuminated by the silver-white streak of the blinds, a barcode of guilt. “Go to sleep, Y/n,” he replies quietly. “I don’t need you worrying about me, on top of everything else.”

You scoff, folding your arms across your chest defensively. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

A pause. “That you deserve better than that. Me.”

There’s dense, sludge-like tension in the air, rising to the ceiling like heat before dropping, slinking through the floorboards and pulling you down with it. More silence. You don’t realise you’re holding your breath until you open your mouth, your response to him a heavy whoosh of air.

“Why’re you high, Rafe?” You ask quietly.

His head drop agains. “Go to sleep, Y/n.”

“I’m not sleepy,” you lie.

“Neither am I.”

“Tell me,” you try again, a little firmer, a little more urgent. “You… it’s the least you could do.”

“Fuck, Y/n,” he groans out frustratedly, roughing his fingers through his hair. “You really wanna to play that game? Why were you hanging with those pogues the entire night?”

“I — huh?” You stutter, eyes widening in surprise. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Don’t do that.” You hear Rafe swallow again, his voice low. “You know exactly what it has to do with everything.”

Another beat. The sludge-like tension returns and roots you to the spot, preventing you from removing yourself from the situation.

Preventing you from moving closer, too. You murmur, “How come you didn’t go to Kelce’s?”

“Because,” he breathes out softly, like he’s only just admitted it to himself, “you’re the one that’s always on my mind, not him.”

Your stomach somersaults. “What?”

“Goodnight, Y/n.” Rafe turns away from you, pulling his legs up onto the couch and exhaling again. “I’ll be out of here before you wake up.”

He lets his eyelids droop and his breathing slow, and you stare at him until you’re sure he’s actually falling asleep.

As you watch him, a million different should dos whizz through your mind. You should get him a blanket, a pillow, move him into the guest room, you should stay.

You do none of them, nor do you get a wink of sleep the entire night. Somewhere between morning twilight and dawn, you hear him creak open the front door, leaving without a trace.

——

“Thanks, Rose,” Rafe hears you say, your sweet voice travelling over from the kitchen. “Yeah, no, I’m super excited about it. A little far from home, but it’s been my first choice since forever.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, my dear,” Rose’s voice answers pleasantly. “You’ll have to make time to visit when you can.”

“Yeah,” adds Sarah faux-sternly. “Just because your parents are selling the beach house doesn’t mean you stop coming here, okay? I don’t care if you’re going to a college across the country, you’ll always be an Outer Banks girl, whether you like it or not.”

It’s as though someone’s dropped a two-tonne rock into Rafe’s stomach. He begins to rush forward slovenly, his gait jagged, desperate to take him into the kitchen.

He walks into it just as you say, “I will, I swear,” in this soft, earnest voice that makes him honest-to-God yearn.

It’s enough commotion to garner your attention, your eyes growing wary as they look over his figure. “Oh,” you say, overplaying your disinterest. “It’s just you.”

For the first time in eleven years, Rafe Cameron doesn’t bite.

“Since when are your parents selling your house?” He demands, not asks.

A pause.

It occurs to Rafe, as he takes inventory of your features — all the smooth planes and pert ridges, the furrow in your brow, the shine of your lips — that he can’t remember a time where he hasn’t thought you were beautiful. He’s spent half of his life antagonising you, being antagonised by you, and it occurs to him that he can’t remember a time where he’s ever actually meant it.

You’re eighteen-years-old, now; he met you when you were seven. Something in Rafe’s chest careens. It occurs to him that it’s the same, heart-lurching feeling your seven-year-old smile had once given nine-year-old him.

You raise your eyebrows at him. Rafe decides in that moment that he isn’t going to bite ever again.

“Since last week?” You answer defensively.

“And when,” Rafe takes a steady step closer, “were you going to tell me?”

The pair of you glare at each other. In the silence, Sarah and Rose share a knowing look too, the pair of them peeling away from the kitchen table carefully.

“Sarah, sweetie,” Rose says, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. “Do you mind helping me sort through the washing?”

“Not at all,” Sarah answers quickly, springing into action.

They bee-line for the door before you can so much as protest, leaving a tension that’s palpable in their wake.

You swallow it down before forcing out a sigh, slipping out of your seat and moving past him. “Didn’t think I needed to.”

The side of your wrist nudges his, shooting tendrils of heat straight to your chest. And then, it’s Rafe’s touch making your skin burn, his rough palm making contact with yours.

“Y/n,” he murmurs helplessly, turning you back to him. “You can’t drop a bomb like that on me and just leave like it’s fucking nothing.”

Your breath hitches, gaze dropping to where your fingers are intertwined. “Like I said,” you say weakly, refusing to make eye contact. “Didn’t think you’d care.”

Rafe cares. Rafe cares a lot.

Rafe’s feels like he’s cared about you longer than he’s been alive.

“Do you care?” He asks quietly, dipping his head to eye level. “About moving, I mean. Do you care about the fact that you won’t be here next summer?”

With me, he wants to add. Won’t be here with me.

You swallow nervously, forcing yourself to meet his gaze.

He’s looking down at you with the same, ocean blue irises he had when you first met him. Eleven years on, several inches more height difference and several inches less personal space, you realise that they also still make the same, fond mess of your chest.

Your mind reels. You try to remember the conclusion of any of the arguments you’ve had over the years.

You can’t.

You realise that what you can remember are the small details, the subtleties anyone else would forget — the way his hair’s grown over time, the parts of his body most susceptible to a sunburn.

For Rafe, it’s the way your pretty smile’s gotten prettier. It’s the number of times your eyes have narrowed in an argument, the neckline of every single one of your dresses. He remembers the forgettable things — when you swapped out that Victoria’s Secret perfume for something more mature, when you first wore that lipgloss that smelled like peaches and vanilla.

When you smiled at him, for the first time ever. Rafe remembers the first time you called him by his name instead of an insult.

“Of course I do,” you mumble. “I’ve spent more summers here than I can count on both hands.”

“Do you care about the fact that I will?” Rafe steps closer. His hand is still in yours, refusing to let go. “The fact that we aren’t going to be in the same town at all, next year?”

Your heart stutters. “Rafe —”

“Because I do,” Rafe interrupts, his other hand moving up to your face. He cradles your jaw gently, reverentially, his rough skin at odds with his barely-there touch. “I care about the fact you won’t be in the Outer Banks and I fucking will. I mean… shit, Y/n, summer won’t be summer without you here.”

Your eyes widen, sitting somewhere between bashful and surprised. “What?” You ask weakly, feeling your knees buckle. “You… we — you hate me.”

“You can’t actually believe that,” Rafe says, a little exasperated.

“And I… I mean — we drive each other fucking crazy,” you add in a rush. His callused thumb swipes over your cheek softly, and you sigh. It’s a tired sound. Longest eleven years of your fucking life.

“It’s maddening,” Rafe agrees softly, drawing closer still.

Lips an inch from yours, now, less than, there’s cinnamon and cedar-wood everywhere.

“Makes me fucking furious,” you mumble absently. “You make me fucking furious.”

“Fuck, so do you.” His voice sounds rough around the edges, strained. Spearmint breath fans over your too-warm skin. “Do you have any idea the effect you have on me, Y/n?”

There’s a brush of lips on yours, just. You say, “Probably not.”

“All I’ll say,” he murmurs, this close to kissing you, “is that you aren’t the one that’s a train wreck, train wreck. It’s me.”

And then he’s pressing his lips to yours fully, urgently, his other hand finding purchase on your waist and squeezing hard. The way he pulls you to him is sloven, pleasurable, a teeth-scraping pressure that has you gasping for air. He backs you up against a wall like he’s afraid that you’re going to escape his grasp, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, so-called hatred melting into a fierce need for more.

Rafe Cameron kisses you like he’s wanted to do it since he was nine-years-old.

And when he drags his mouth along your jaw, down your neck, it’s to create a bouquet of careless, purple bruises — he needs everyone to know that you’re his, and he isn’t going to share, the same way he’d once refused you a spot on the ten-foot-tall jungle gym. His rough hands are worse, grappling for bare skin everywhere they roam, your own palms skating up his chest to his shoulders.

When he pulls away for air, you wrap your arms around his neck tightly.

“Right,” you murmur, smiling coyly. “You’re still big-foot though, big-foot.”

“Shit,” Rafe breathes out a laugh, his cheeks flushed, his lips bruised. “That nickname made me so fucking angry when we were kids.”

“You made me so fucking angry when we were kids,” you return.

“And how about now?” Rafe asks, his voice a little messy from all of the kissing. “How do I make you feel now, Y/n?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” A pause. You think he knows the answer to his own question before you even open your mouth. “Like a train wreck, Rafe Cameron.”

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kenthoe · 2 months

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I'm like if a girl who didn't do much was still experiencing burnout

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kenthoe · 2 months

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hii!! i absolutely love your writing!! 😍 can i request a fic please with steve x fem!reader. mutual pining but they dont know with soulmate au. but steve is the first one who finds out that they're soulmates. thank youu <33

this is so sweet i love it thank u for requesting <3 i'm sorry it took so long, i'm in uni so i haven't had much time to write!! i hope this is similar to what you wanted!! - steve x fem!reader, 4000 words

the fact is that steve harrington knew you were soulmates the first time you opened your mouth, but he thought following that intuition would be corny, so he did not. instead, he let it eat him alive for a decade like a parasite, which made more sense to him to do. in the beginning, at least.

"hi."

this was fourth grade. you and steve had been in the same elementary school classes since kindergarten, and he knew who you were- but not well. you bounced between being quiet and loud; from sitting silently on the school bus with your head rattling against the window, to bouncing around the playground, coattails flapping in the autumn wind. all kids were like this, it seemed. elementary school flew by in a haze of long division, scraped knees, and complementary shaved ice. at the end of the day, every kid would end up talking to one another, at some point, shy or not. but this was the first time you had ever spoken to him.

steve bristled. "hey."

it was an incredibly fascinating phenomenon, you would later realize. the capacity of a child to fall in love with somebody they'd only spoken to once, and for it to never go away, even when adulthood made you strangers.

steve sniffled, cold october wind scratching his cheeks. he had an arm wrapped around the frozen metal pole of the jungle gym, his friends dangling about behind him.

"um," you started. "my friend dropped her journal down there and she's afraid to go get it."

you pointed at the mulch inside the dome of the jungle gym, then to your friend, who was whisper screaming profanities at you for saying, "she's afraid to go get it."

"i'm sorry!" you whispered back.

your frightened eyes followed the trail of mist your breath left in the icy air, dazedly. then you squinted against the breeze, trying not to stare at steve. you didn't want him to think you were weird, and you wouldn't ever have been brave enough to talk to him had your friend not begged for her journal back.

steve swallowed. he heard his heart in his ears; thump, thump. he liked the way you wobbled in the cold, nose all scrunched up as if it would somehow keep you warm.

"you want me to go get it?" he asked. "the journal?"

"yes!" you responded. "if you can. please. thank you."

steve dove into the jungle gym and retrieved the diary like it was a matter of national security. when he returned, valiantly, he banged his head against a rung of the jungle gym and hissed. you gasped, the sound a sharp wheeze.

"are you okay?"

"yeah, didn't hurt. s'fine."

he handed you the journal. the tip of your thumb poked his knuckles when you grabbed it. thump, thump.

"okay," you nodded. "well, thanks. thank you."

"yeah, no problem. you- do you need anything else?"

your lips crept up, threatening to make the widest grin you had ever grinned in your life, but you scrunched them down. don't look stupid.

"oh, no, just this. that's okay."

"okay. just checking."

you blinked at him, then sniffled, wiping your sleeve across your nose. "okay, bye."

steve saw an entire life before him, then; prom, marriage, a mortgage. she's so pretty.

"bye."

that's all he said.

steve's friends laughed like hyenas at him once you had gone. and your friend had dove off the jungle gym to chase you across the field and hiss, "hey, y/n, he definitely likes you!"

you weren't so sure. but you wished he did; that you were sure of.

. . .

steve decided he was going to marry you if you said yes. well, in a few years, at least. he definitely wasn't going to ask you before middle school. that was too early.

middle school came and went and he realized that, regretfully, middle school was also too early to ask a girl to marry you. but he wasn't asking you anything. at all. you never talked to him; and he wondered if it was something he did. he saw you in class, and in the hallways. he saw you help your friends carry their books, and pick the fuzz out of their hair when they couldn't see that it was there. you were kind. he watched your presentations and how your hands shook when you spoke. he wondered why you wouldn't talk to him, if it was because you didn't want to.

"she's just quiet, man," his friends would say. "you gotta' approach her. and, i mean, why would you even wanna' be with a girl like that? sounds boring."

after that, he didn't mention you anymore. to anyone. he didn't like it when his friends poked fun at you, and he especially didn't like that he never knew what to say in return. you were shy, it seemed. or, maybe, you just didn't like him.

or, maybe, you've only talked to her once in your life and if you just talked to her again, she would be your friend.

he decided that this was ridiculous. it was better to never speak to you again, and not have to deal with the scorn of rejection from a girl he had been in love with since age ten.

better to say nothing.

. . .

steve's infatuation became impossible to ignore when you started babysitting max mayfield.

in the fall of 1984- your sophomore year- max's mother contracted you (at a very discounted rate) to watch max when billy, her step brother, could not. at first, this wasn't overly often; just the occasional ride to school and microwaved television dinner. you liked max, and despite her cold exterior, she seemed to like you. when billy realized he could get you to watch max more often at even further discounted rate (a.k.a. no rate at all), he forced her on you more often. what were you supposed to do? refuse to watch her, and let her sit at home by herself? knowing max, she wouldn't sit at home, anyway. she would go find trouble. of course you watched her, even when billy gave you no choice.

this is how you ended up babysitting on halloween.

unbeknownst to you, it was steve's neighborhood that you were wandering through that night. max had gone to meet up with her friends; mike wheeler, lucas sinclair, dustin henderson, will byers- whom you had never seen her hang out with before. she seemed to think they would all be happy to see her, but apparently, some of them were not.

"mike is such an asshole," max huffed.

she kicked at the dirt along the side of the road as you walked. you folded your arms over your chest, fists bundled in your sleeves, hair whipping over your eyes. her michael myers mask dangled in your hand. you hadn't expected to be out all night, you hadn't expected to be working on halloween at all. not that you had other plans to attend to, or anything you would rather be doing, but you hadn't dressed for the weather. a zip-up hoodie was all that shielded you from the brisk wind, erring on the side of winter rather than fall that halloween.

"i believe you," you snickered.

"good. i just don't understand why he has to be such a dick. i mean..."

she continued to flay mike as you meandered down the interstate, having wandered completely away from the sidewalk and any neighborhood you were familiar with. anxiety beat in your chest and pooled in your belly. it had to be close to midnight, and you were nowhere near home. you had to turn around.

"hey, max-"

she ignored you for the distraction of flashing red lights. you had come upon a house; swathes of people milling about outside and dancing dangerously close to the uncovered pool. bodies in bloody corsets and leather jackets swarmed the grass and filled up the windows like paintings. your stomach sunk.

this was steve's house. you just knew it. you didn't know how you knew, but you knew. he always had halloween parties, and everybody came to them. and though you hadn't spoken to steve since, well, elementary school, probably- you didn't want him knowing you had nowhere to go on halloween night. and you certainly didn't want to be seen at his halloween party that everybody was invited to except you.

rightfully so. you weren't friends. he wouldn't want to be my friend.

"oh, shit," max murmured. "whose house is this?"

"i don't know," you mustered. "it's late, though. i'd love to berate mike some more, but we should probably head back towards your house while we do it."

"hey!"

oh, god.

"no fuckin' way," a voice surmised, sauntering over with staggering feet. he was tall, lanky like a pole, blonde as cornsilk. he wore a cheap costume- a blue muscle tank and two fraying boxing gloves. a troupe of boys followed him, each drunker than the last. "i know you!"

"do you?" you laughed, trying to sound unphased. you knew him. he was on the basketball team, one of steve's friends, though you didn't know his name. you wondered if you were about to become the victim of some outrageous, hollywood instance of bullying; like when kids got their skulls smashed in lockers or drowned in toilets in movies.

"yeah. you look alright, huh? never seen you out anywhere before, though. what's that costume? some kinda' track girl?"

thump, thump. your heart was in your ears and your throat. they laughed as you gazed over their heads, scanning the yard. thankfully, steve wasn't around. nancy. he was probably with his girlfriend, nancy.

"you're steve's girl," slurred the blonde.

max glowered. "she's what?"

i'm what?

you blinked like your eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. "no, i'm not."

"yeah you are. he talks about you, like, all the fucking time. well, not so much anymore. cuz' of miss nancy."

the troupe of boys fawned and groaned, mocking and kissing. their laughter filled your ears, an awful sound. they were making fun of you, right? they had to be.

"don't be an asshole," griped max.

they laughed even harder.

"seriously, i'm not joking. he's been talking about you for, like, years. he's obsessed."

your cheeks flared hot and red. there was no hiding your humiliation anymore, no reason to pretend you weren't upset. they could see it. everybody could. how is it possible that you could have made such an awful impression in the fourth grade that steve had been making fun of you for six years? was it that obvious that you had a crush on him?

you positioned max on your left to shield her from the drunken boys and tried to walk away.

"y/n-" max lamented.

"it's fine. no big deal," you whispered.

"goddamn," drawled the blonde boy. "makes sense why he gave up on you. can't even hold a conversation. not nearly fuckin' hot enough to be acting like th-"

the punch that followed landed like a hammer on stone.

you whirled around, clutching max by her shoulders like it would do anything to protect her. the sight before you was something out of dreams and nightmares.

the blonde boy was being hoisted off the ground by two scantily clad firemen, blood dripping from the sweaty skin between his upper lip and nostrils. and it had been steve harrington who'd thrown the punch.

he backed up slowly at first, ringing out his fist like a rag. a black suit was snuff against the breadth of his shoulders, dark hair flopping into his eyes. his eyes scrunched up for a moment, lashes fluttering, and he cursed under his breath. damn. that had to hurt.

you pictured a brunette boy with rosy cheeks, squinting through the cold like it burned him, leaning against a jungle gym.

steve looked at you and you backed away like you would be next. obviously, you wouldn't be. but when he looked at you, his eyes were painted red.

"you alright?" his gaze flashed to the little girl beside you, confused. "both of you?"

he was out of breath. suddenly, you were too. what hell is this?

"yeah," you blurted. "yes. we're fine. i'm so sorry, i don't even know what-"

you took to long to finish your thought. i don't even know what's going on, i don't even know what he meant. why have you been making fun of me?

"i don't know what he said," steve panted. "whatever it was, it's bullshit. he's a dick. don't-"

he faltered.

"i'm sorry," steve scathed. "i don't know what all he said."

"it's okay," you shook your head.

"no." he wiped a hand over his eyes. "it's not-"

"harrington!" the blonde boy shouted. "get your ass over here! now!"

steve kept his eyes on you. "you sure you're okay?"

"we're fine," you nodded, pulling max away, eager to be anywhere else. your head was reeling. "we'll go. it's really alright. we'll just go. don't...don't break your hand."

he made an odd face at you; something amused and furious. you spotted a black glint on the ground. his sunglasses.

you picked them up and held them out. he took them, and your thumb brushed against his knuckles.

thump, thump.

"don't break your hand," you repeated. "just, don't- be...i have to get her home. i'm sorry. thank you."

you took off, max dragging behind you, and halfway home she started cackling. "what the hell was that about?"

. . .

the next summer, babysitting max mayfield turned into babysitting all of her friends, and by then, you were irrevocably intertwined with the upside down, steve harrington, and apparently, russia. you'd seen it all. the demogorgon, the demodogs, steve's bat of one-thousand nails. you'd met eleven, whose pixie cut had grown into a bob, and then bangs. you'd watched her move away, the byers along with her. all of it, you had been there for.

but you refused to befriend steve.

it was the most ridiculous situation (as it always was with the two of you) and you had no idea why. you had no idea why his friends had made fun of you at the halloween party, why your one conversation in elementary school had led him to be so disgusted by you, why, no matter what you did; every class attended, every step taken, every word spoken, every alien-abomination killed- led you back to steve harrington.

steve knew why, of course. you were soulmates. but you hated him. so what was he supposed to do about it? you never talked to him; not when you brushed shoulders hiding from demodogs on an abandoned bus, not when you helped haul him out of the starcourt mall movie theater, his intoxicated head bouncing against the crook of your neck.

he thought about that every time he saw you.

and robin buckley knew all about it. when steve finally caved and told her everything, it was clear to her. she knew, without a doubt, that the two of you were just idiots. and no matter how corny it was, you were definitely soulmates. for better, or for worse.

actually, she knew it before he ever told her. all anyone had to do was watch the two of you.

each time you came to scoops ahoy that summer, steve scooped you a serving of black raspberry chip in a plastic bowl, without you having to order. (he'd seen you ask for it once when robin was working the counter, and had prepared it for you every time since). you were polite each time, saying thank you, you didn't have to do that. and steve would say, oh, no problem. you would turn to whichever kid you were babysitting that day and say, it's my favorite. and each time, steve would smile. but he would turn away and pretend to be scrubbing the sink- which made you think you had pavloved him into giving you your favorite ice cream each time he saw you, that you were holding him hostage somehow, because he pitied you.

this was not the case.

on the occasions in which upside-down business relegated you to riding in steve's car, you always sat in the back, passenger's side, where he could see you in the mirror. steve prefered to drive with the windows down. but his eyes would flick to the mirror, to where you sat in the back. when your hair swallowed your head, the summer breeze blowing it into your eyes and mouth, you never complained. but steve always watched. he rolled the windows up whenever the wind was too strong, without a word.

there was more. when you climbed the rope out of the upside-down into eddie's trailer, he lingered below, hands outstretched incase you fell. when you accidentally snagged your finger on a splinter at the creel house, he set down band-aids and neosporin on the coffee table, and waited around the corner incase you asked for help.

he recognized your favorite shirts. he never touched you without asking, even on accident, even to help. he never made a joke without looking to see if you were laughing. he listened to every word you spoke; to him, to the others, to yourself, but he never pried. he never sat close to nancy when you were in the same room, or robin, even- on the off chance you thought there was something there. he knew your favorite songs, and would search for them on the radio without saying anything. and when you were in danger, he always got you behind him; even if you didn't notice.

"grow the fuck up, steve, just TALK to her."

steve blinked, robin's open-mouthed expression the picture of exhaustion. he swallowed.

"yeah, whatever. okay? i'm not scared."

"don't be dense."

"i'm not dense."

"just tell her you like her," robin huffed.

they were folding clothes at the school, putting them in boxes to donate. vecna had torn a hole in the sky, crimson kindling behind the pewter clouds outside. a storm was coming. things might never get back to normal.

there might never be another moment quiet enough to tell you the truth.

steve nodded. "yeah," he muttered, not unkind. "i guess you're right."

robin threw a bra at him.

. . .

what kind of creep would follow you home in the middle of the apocalypse?

you balled your fists at your sides, charging ahead. the wheeler's house was only a block away, and with no car, you had to go on foot to pick up the remainder of their donations. you were out of breath, sweat beading on the back of your neck, happy and angry to be alone all at the same time. the sky looked like it was bleeding, and everything was changing. so much had already changed, but nothing that you wanted to.

you were aware of the guy's presence behind you, his body a wall of heat, his shadow casting a long grey ghost on the pavement in front of you. his hair flopped over his eyes like some sort of catalogue model, the imprints of his sleeves shown rolled up to his elbows. what a dick.

he'd been following you for about thirty seconds. you were the only person sent to the wheeler's to gather donations, and if this stranger had tagged along for that purpose, he would have told you by now.

you sped up. he sped up. you started running. he reached out his hand, as if to grab the back of your jeans.

you hauled around a wound up a smack that would tattoo your palm-print on his cheek forever.

steve seized your arm.

"what the hell?"

you sucked in a breath. "steve?"

"jesus christ," he panted, glancing between your eyes and your wrist inside his fingers. "you could have killed me."

"oh my god," you breathed out. he released you instantly, and you put your hands on your knees, bending. "oh my god."

"are you okay?"

"shut up! just shut up!"

"okay," he nodded. "okay. just-" he rubbed a hand down his face. "jesus, fuck," he murmured.

"i'm sorry," you stood. lunged closer, lungs deflated like old balloons. "steve. oh my god. i'm sorry."

"no!" he scoffed. "don't be sorry. it's my fault. fuck. i don't know why i didn't say anything, i should have said something."

"i thought you were following me!"

"i was," he nodded. swallowed, like there was a rock in his mouth.

you panted. "oh."

"well, yeah, i-" he squinted. for the briefest, briefest moment, his pupils flicked from your eyes to your lips, swollen in the sun. "fuck."

it was enough. that, right there, that was enough. you suddenly understood.

you saw that stupid brunette boy squinting on the playground, his lips chapped from the cold, his cheeks red as irons. you saw him with blood on his knuckles, staggering away from the friend he had just mauled. you saw his hand outstretched; handing you ice cream, opening the car door, lingering around your wrist.

he hadn't been making fun of you all those years. he liked you.

idiot.

everything bubbled to the surface; you had so much to say but so little at the same time. you were so embarassed, still embarassed, after all this time, after everything.

stop it, you thought. get over it. do something.

so you made a choice.

"kiss me."

his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "sorry?"

you couldn't even repeat it. nerves shot through you like lightning, seizing your heart, making your hands shake.

"if you want to, i mean. obviously. i thought- only if you want to-"

"i want to," he breathed.

"you do?"

"are you kidding me? are you joking?"

you grimaced. "no."

"y/n," steve softened. like a lament, like it was the first time he'd ever said your name. his brows knit together.

he didn't finish his thought. he just did what you asked.

when he kissed you, the two of you locked into place; slotted together like twin shards of broken glass, reunited. his mouth was surprisingly cool despite the blazing heat around you, like his nervousness was palpable, cold to the touch. his hands shook, grazing over your shoulders, your waist, the back of your neck, unsure of where to touch first, like he wouldn't have the chance to touch you anywhere ever again. he landed with one hand on the back of your neck, your hair spilling between his fingers, and the other around your waist, holding you close.

you ducked away for a breath and thought he might cry.

"i have to ask you," you panted.

"yeah, anything," steve breathed.

"at the halloween party, when you hit that guy. you liked me."

"what? of course. always. i always have. i should have said so. i'm so stupid."

"no, you're not. don't say that."

his hands shifted, palms on either side of your face.

"but you weren't making fun of me," you said, even though it was stupid. his pupils were darting across every point of your face- your nose, your cheeks, your chin. "and he wasn't making fun of me. not until the end, at least."

steve's face crumpled. "you're killing me, y/n."

"he meant it?" you grinned. "you did like me? the whole time?"

"for a decade, killer." he grimaced. "stop looking at me like that."

"like what?"

"like that's a good thing. i should've killed him for talking to you like that."

"no," you laughed, because he obviously didn't mean it.

"yeah, i should have. yes."

maybe he did mean it.

you kissed him this time, and you felt him shudder; his fingers twitching across your face. when you pulled back, he ran his fingers over your closed eyes, grazing your eyelashes.

"i'm sorry," he whispered.

"me too," you said softly. "i should have said something."

"no," he shook his head. "no. that's on me."

the two of you sat there for a moment longer. the sky had darkened overhead, the crimson behind the clouds now a shade the color of wine, dark and murky. heat lightning flashed like sirens. hawkins was imploding.

"this town is ridiculous," you muttered.

"i know," steve huffed. like he'd been waiting years to say it. "it's hot as hell. where are you going?"

"the wheeler's, for donations."

"i'll walk you. if you want. next to you, though, not behind you like a creep."

you tried not to grin. "oh, will you?"

steve shook his head, casting you an incredulous look as he fell in line beside you on the sidewalk. "nothing you say could embarrass me, at this point. absolutely nothing."

"why not?"

because i was right, he wanted to say. because i've known we were soulmates since the fourth grade.

actually, it was still extremely embarrassing, so he kept the thought to himself- despite the enormous amount of relief and euphoria it brought him. you'd missed prom, but marriage and a mortgage didn't seem so far off, as long as the world didn't end.

steve just shook his head instead. "nothing. hey, are you following me?"

"shut up!"

. . .

i haven't written in so long i hope this is similar to what you asked for!!! i wanted to write more than just a drabble so i expanded on it i hope that's okay. much love. mwah

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