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fangirlandiknowit101 · 3 years

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Here's the sad pining sasuke i wrote last night... it's not finished and who knows when/if i'll finish it. university AU, not edited and there's some naru//hina and sasuke//OC bc i couldn't think of a canon character that fit. The texting part is also weird bc i wrote it all very fast lol. i'm sharing bc why not *shrugs*

xxx

It hurts, to look at them.

Sasuke can’t help himself. Naruto is his best friend, after all, and he’s not yet so desperate that he’ll avoid him. It’s worse, somehow, that he can’t even dislike her.

She’s good for him, he thinks, when he’s feeling particularly self-deprecating. Her hair is dark and her skin pale as porcelain, and that’s where the similarities end between him and Hinata.

Sweet, and so patient with Naruto. Soft-spoken, but not a pushover. Impeccably dressed, always, no make-up needed to outshine any girl beside her. A picture perfect couple, that’s what they are. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have to watch it unfold from the front row.

How her shyness turned to surety, how her eyes would catch on Naruto and look away before, but now – now she looks at him like he belongs to her, soft smile on her plump lips.

Sasuke can’t even hate her, and he wishes he could.

It’s not her fault that Sasuke is the way he is. She doesn’t know, isn’t doing it on purpose. And yet, there’s a stab to Sasuke’s chest every time she takes his hand, every time Naruto tucks her silky hair behind her perfect ear.

Naruto will kiss her cheek and Sasuke will be looking, always looking. His face devoid of emotion, his voice carefully neutral. He can’t be mean to Naruto’s girlfriend, though he wishes he could. Maybe if Naruto got mad at him and pushed him away, Sasuke would be free to move on.

It’s more likely that Sasuke would apologize and do better, and he’d rather spare himself the embarrassment.

Sometimes he imagines that Hinata will find out, that she’ll start treating him with suspicion, watch his every move with her wide eyes. Feel threatened by him. But Sasuke is no threat. He’s tired and hurting, but he’s not a homewrecker. It would be a lot easier if Naruto didn’t keep nudging him in Sakura’s direction.

It’s not Sakura’s fault, either. She’s dreaming of something she can’t have, and the similarities make him sick to his stomach.

Sometimes he thinks he’ll date her, live the lie to the fullest. Give her what she wants, since he’s doomed anyway. He doubts he’d last long, though. If he had even the slightest bit of interest in women – but when he looks at her, there’s just no attraction. He’s not sure how no one’s noticed yet. It’s not like he’s that good of an actor. He thinks the only reason no one’s figured it out is because he’s so deep in the closet, and they’re all so heterosexual. Why would they suspect he’s gay? It suits them better if he isn’t.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was that late already,” Sakura says beside him, breaking him out of his thoughts.

The bar is lively around them, but the music is at a bearable noise level. She’s looking at her phone, frowning. On the other side of the small table, Naruto pouts.

“It’s not late!” he objects, the beer in his glass sloshing around as he waves his hands around. “We just got here!”

“We’ve been here for three hours, I think,” Hinata says, leaning her cheek on his shoulder.

Sasuke wonders how she manages, the way he moves around so much. Perhaps her body is as soft as her voice, easily following him.

“I told you I have to get up early tomorrow.” Sakura sighs, irritated. She fishes her bag up from the floor, putting her phone inside it. “I really have to get going.”

“I’ll walk you to the station,” Sasuke offers. Not because he particularly wants to, but he’s not in the mood to subject himself to third-wheeling Naruto and Hinata. “I should get going, anyway.”

“What?” Naruto looks disappointed, more disappointed than when Sakura announced her departure. “I thought you were free tomorrow.”

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke swallows down the last of his drink.

“Doesn’t mean I want to stay up all night,” he counters with, easing out of the booth. “I still have to study.”

“You study too much,” Naruto mutters, giving Hinata a smile like an afterthought when she squeezes his arm.

“Maybe if you studied at all you wouldn’t need to panic before every exam,” Sakura nags at him, coming around the table to wait next to Sasuke. “Some of us care about our grades.”

“Nerds.” At least Naruto looks a little happier, and Sasuke hates to think that it’s because he thinks anything’s going to happen between him and Sakura. “Don’t get lost, you two!”

They say their goodbyes, and Sasuke tries to pretend he doesn’t notice how Sakura’s cheeks fill with color when they step outside the bar. She’s put a jacket on, but Sasuke’s fine in his sweater. It’s not cold enough that her blush can be blamed on the weather.

“Thanks for walking me,” she says, hefting her bag higher up her shoulder. She’d joined them straight from the library, researching her latest paper. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” he tells her, hands tucked into his sleeves.

He doesn’t want to run the risk of her attempting to reach for his hand. As much as he dislikes her attention, it’s safer if she thinks he’s just playing hard to get. He won’t have to explain, then, why he hasn’t outright told her to give up. He should, he knows. But Naruto would just nudge him towards some other girl, would bother him about it until Sasuke started going on actual dates. It’s touching, how worried he is over Sasuke potentially being lonely.

Too bad Naruto himself is the cause of it.

“You’re not doing anything tomorrow, then?” Sakura asks, stepping aside as they meet a group of half-drunk businessmen. “I’m working until five…”

It would be so easy to invite her out. To suggest a movie, or trying out that new café near campus. To watch her eyes light up with hope, watch her mouth stretch into an excited smile.

“I really do need to study,” he says. “And I’m almost out of clean clothes.”

None of it is a lie, technically. He’s just not sure he’ll actually do either of those things tomorrow.

“Oh.”

She tries to hide her disappointment, and Sasuke is an expert by now at pretending he doesn’t notice. They walk the rest of the way in silence, waving a quick goodbye at the ticket gates as Sakura’s train is due to arrive in just two minutes. Sasuke buys a drink from a vending machine and takes small sips as he waits for his own, mindlessly scrolling through social media. He almost ignores the text Naruto sends.

> Wanna hang out tomorrow?

He contemplates it. On the one hand, yes, of course he wants to. On the other, having an entire day to himself has its appeal.

> I’ll be busy

> Ooh, with sakura?

The train arrives, and Sasuke snags a seat next to a couple too caught up with each other to pay attention to him.

> No

> Got studying and laundry to do

The reply is instant.

> That’s too boring!!! I’m coming over for lunch

> Whatever

He pockets his phone, and stares down at the bottle in his hands for the rest of the trip. It doesn’t help against the warmth rising in his chest. At least he doesn’t do this to Sakura – doesn’t invite himself into her space, ignorant of her feelings. It doesn’t make him feel better.

xxx

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of friends. He’s got Naruto, and then there’s his small group of friends from high school. Naruto is the only one who still lives nearby. Rather, Sasuke had ended up staying in Konoha like him. It’s a big enough city that most of his classmates are strangers, although slightly less so in their second year. He stayed with his parents for his first year, but when one of his cousins moved abroad for work he took the opportunity to stay at her apartment instead. It’s closer to his university, and if he, potentially, wanted to bring a guy home then no one would know.

He doesn’t think his parents would mind, but there wouldn’t be any privacy. He relishes in it, and Naruto does, too.

“I should just move in with you,” Naruto groans, spread out on his couch. “You wouldn’t believe how annoying my mom was this morning.”

“I think I can believe it,” Sasuke tells him, cleaning up after their lunch. “And just to be clear, I’ve never said you’d be welcome to live here.”

“Stingy,” Naruto grumbles. “How long is your cousin gone, anyway?”

Shrugging, Sasuke dries off the counter just for something to do with his hands.

“A year at least. We’ll see. So it’s not like I’ll be living here forever.”

“But still!”

“Where would you even sleep?”

Naruto happily pats the couch. When Sasuke scowls at him, he simply grins.

“Come on,” Naruto says. “I want to watch a movie.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I need to study.”

Still, he gives in too easily. Naruto lifts his legs to give him room, dumping them all over Sasuke’s lap once he sits down. It’s things like this that makes Sasuke’s heart refuse to give up. He leans his elbow on the back of the couch, cheekbone pressed to his closed fist. He doesn’t say anything when Naruto picks a drama at random, letting him comment on the plot as much as he wants. Watching movies with Naruto is certainly never quiet, and he winces as Naruto kicks his legs as he shouts his anger at the main character.

When the movie ends, Naruto doesn’t start a new one. Instead he chews on his bottom lip, playing with the remote. Sasuke considers getting up to use the toilet, maybe suggesting going to the corner store for snacks, but then Naruto clears his throat suspiciously.

“What?” he asks, irritated when Naruto takes his time.

“So, how are things going with Sakura?”

He resists the urge to pinch his nose. He still lets out a heavy breath, not quite a sigh but close enough that Naruto frowns.

“I mean,” Naruto continues, “you could just ask her out. She’s definitely going to say yes.”

Sasuke shifts, uncomfortable. Naruto’s legs are still on top of his. His socks have little frogs on them.

“I’ve told you I’m not really into the idea of a relationship right now.”

“Uh-huh.” Naruto rolls his eyes, pushing himself up and finally removing his legs, crossing them at the ankles instead. “Sounds like excuses to me.”

“Just drop it, Naruto.”

“But if you get together things will be so much easier,” Naruto insists, poking at his arm. “We can go on double dates, and stuff.”

Sending him a glare, Sasuke pulls a leg up to his chest. It won’t prevent Naruto if he decides to get comfy on his lap again, but it might make him think twice at least. Naruto’s only wearing shorts, and all that naked skin isn’t good for his heart. It’s definitely too cold for it, but Naruto’s never been one to care about the weather.

“We already go places together.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same!”

Sasuke pinches his lips, looking away. If he’s not careful, those large blue eyes will convince him to cave in, and then he’ll find himself with a girlfriend. He does a lot for Naruto, but there are limits.

“I’m not going to ask her out,” he mutters, knowing it will only lead to more questioning.

Sure enough, Naruto makes a noise of protest.

“But you haven’t rejected her either!”

“She hasn’t asked me out either.”

“It’s obvious she likes you.”

“That’s her problem.”

Naruto kicks at his thigh, using his heel. He looks properly annoyed now, as if Sasuke is a petulant child, refusing to do what’s best for him.

“If you got over yourself for a minute, you’d realize what a catch she is!”

He doesn’t reply. Let Naruto think he’s just stubborn, or an asshole, or whatever. Let him think Sasuke’s just stringing her along, keeping her attention while refusing to commit. It’s better than the alternative.

“Leave it, Naruto,” he warns, getting up and moving to the kitchen. “We’re not talking about this.”

At least Naruto doesn’t follow him, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. The apartment is small, no wall separating the kitchen from the living room. He searches through his cabinets, locating a forgotten bag of wasabi peas. He throws them at Naruto’s head.

“Eat these and shut up,” he says.

To his relief, Naruto does as told.

xxx

He picks up the call from Karin half-distracted, mind still stuck on a question for tomorrow’s seminar. As usual, she doesn’t wait for him to say hi, making her wince with the volume of her voice.

“Do you have any idea how tiring it is to listen to Naruto whine about you?” she starts with, the background noise suggesting she’s outdoors. “Can’t you just tell him you’re gay and put me out of my misery.”

“No thanks.” He drops his pen on his desk, rubbing at his eyes. He regrets not going to the university library, at least then he wouldn’t have been able to pick up the call. “Was that all? I’m kind of busy.”

“You know, this is exactly why I moved away,” she continues, ignoring him. “I thought I could get away from all the high school-level drama. Just get yourself a boyfriend, and go on those stupid double dates my cousin is so desperately yearning for. How hard can it be?!”

He can feel a headache incoming, and he rubs his fingertips between his brows. Naruto had sulked for hours the day before, until Sasuke got sick of it and threw him out. It was definitely backhanded of him to call Karin and complain.

“If you really wanted to be left out of it, why are you calling me? That’s the opposite of not getting involved.”

“Because it’s really painful and I’m morally obligated as the only person with functional brain cells to tell you to move on. Juugo’s too nice to say it and Suigetsu would give you terrible advice and sit back and watch. I’m being nicer to you than you deserve.”

“By telling me to move on,” Sasuke deadpans, wondering why his parents couldn’t have settled down somewhere else.

“Well, someone has to do it! Clearly I’m the gay cousin in the family, so you’re screwed. Might as well get over it and get laid.”

“I really hate you sometimes, you know that?”

She huffs at him, traffic and broken conversations filtering through the phone. There’s the jingle of a shop’s door, and the noise cuts off.

“Your pining is just getting sad,” she eventually replies, distractedly. “Trust me, I know my cousin. He’s not worth it.”

Something unpleasant churns in Sasuke’s stomach. He wants to argue with her that he is worth it, but he doesn’t want to land himself in an hour-long lecture if he can help it. He rolls his neck, making a face. She’s got a point, but he doesn’t enjoy hearing it. His life would be a lot simpler if he could find someone who made him forget about Naruto. He’s just not sure it’s fair to expect someone to instantly replace a lifetime of friendship.

“I don’t think I should have to come out just because Naruto irritates you,” is what he says instead, leaning back in his chair. “What if my parents find out and disown me? You want to be responsible for that?”

“Sasuke,” she sighs, “your brother is literally gay and your parents love his boyfriend.”

“So?”

“Stop. Making. Excuses.”

He bites his cheek, holding back a denial. He’s not worried about his parents, he’s worried about Naruto’s reaction. That things will change between them. That he’ll think Sasuke has feelings for him, which would be correct but would also ruin absolutely everything.

“I’ll… consider it,” he concedes, after a long silence, during which Karin has finished buying whatever it was she needed.

“Really? Because I’m going to hold you to that.”

He sighs.

“Next time I’m not picking up when you call me.”

xxx

A few weeks pass, and not much changes. Naruto still takes up too much space in his head and life, Sakura continues to drop hints but refuses to make the first move, and Hinata is still as lovely as ever. She doesn’t seem to have much of a personality other than being Naruto’s girlfriend, but to be fair Sasuke hasn’t precisely paid attention or tried to get to know her. Naruto’s birthday is drawing closer, and he can’t bring himself to do anything to break the status quo before then.

He’s been considering it, though. It would be a relief to stop pretending. He can’t imagine himself finding a boyfriend, though, because where would he even meet someone? It’s too awkward to use a dating app, and he’s not precisely social. He doesn’t have any experience, either, if you don’t count those childish games they played sometimes when they were younger. And that one time Naruto kissed him by accident when they were twelve.

Because of this, he’s really not expecting it when one day in class, just as the lecture ends, his eyes fall on the messenger bag that the guy next to him has just finished packing. There’s a rainbow pin on it, and Sasuke blurts out his question before he can stop to think about it.

“Are you gay?”

He only lifts his eyes from the pin when the surprised silence stretches out a bit too long. Their eyes meet, and the other boy is staring at him like he’s not sure how to react.

“Uh,” he says eventually, fingers clenching around the bag’s strap. “I mean, yes? But if you’re thinking about the pin it’s just a regular rainbow…”

He trails off, and Sasuke feels his cheeks heat up a bit. He can’t believe he just asked, when he himself has gone to such lengths to make sure no one made such assumptions about him.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine.”

Maybe he should know the guy’s name, but he doesn’t. He’s pretty short, hair dyed a light brown and glasses perched on his nose. Cute, but Sasuke’s not sure he’s his type. He’s not sure he has a type, other than Naruto.

“Are you gay?” the guy asks him, eyebrows rising above the frame of his glasses.

Sasuke licks his lips. He could say no, but to what end?

“I am,” he forces out, breathing in a deep breath.

“Oh.” There’s red color blooming on the other boy’s face, his eyes flickering to the side for a moment. “I was kind of hoping, but, um… I mean, hoping sounds weird! Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to ask outright.”

When Sasuke stands up, he realizes he’s almost a head taller than him.

“I’m Sasuke,” he offers, clicking his laptop shut and slowly sliding it into his bag.

“I know. I mean! I’m Hiroshi. Nice to meet you.”

Sasuke nods, and awkwardly turns to leave. Hiroshi stops him with a hand to his arm, though, and Sasuke swallows nervously as the turns back. He’s not interested in Hiroshi, not really, but he’s never been asked out by a boy before and the novelty of the situation is getting to him.

“Do you, um, are you busy right now? We could have lunch?”

He weighs the pros and cons in his mind. As nervous as Hiroshi looks, there’s a determined glint in his eyes that sways Sasuke over.

“Okay,” he says, and just like that he’s doing what Karin told him to do.

He’s trying, at least.

xxx

Over the course of a week, including having coffee together and a visit to the aquarium, Sasuke learns a lot about Hiroshi. Or Hiro, as he likes his friends to call him. They don’t have too much in common, but they’re both gay and studying agricultural economics. Once Hiro gets over his initial shyness, Sasuke finds he’s got a great sense of humor and won’t hesitate to poke fun at him.

It’s a breath of relief, to spend time with someone who doesn’t know him from before. He didn’t realize how much he needed it – just being able to be himself, without constantly keeping himself in check.

He can’t fool himself to think it’s enough to replace Naruto, but maybe he doesn’t need to replace him. Maybe it’s enough that Hiro seems to like him. He doesn’t really think about it, when he invites Hiro over on a Saturday night, after they’d had dinner at a nice udon place.

“Oh, wow,” Hiro says as he steps into Sasuke’s apartment, making an impressed face. “Nice place.”

“It’s my cousin’s, so no need to sound so impressed.”

Hiro rolls his eyes, taking off his shoes and jacket and following Sasuke inside.

“Alright, I’ll try to keep it in,” he teases, sitting on the couch when Sasuke motions him towards it. “But it must be nice, to have your own place like this. The dorms are fine, but I can’t exactly bring guys there.”

Humming his agreement, Sasuke grabs two cans of soda from the fridge, handing one of them to Hiro when he sinks down on the couch next to him.

“Want to watch something?”

Hiro nods, and Sasuke brings the TV to life. He’s not expecting anything to happen – they’ve only known each other a week. He’s still coming to terms with having a friend other than Karin he can talk to like this, and she doesn’t really count since there was never the potential for anything to happen between them. Hiro is… potentially someone Sasuke could date. At least there’s nothing wrong with him, not yet, and Sasuke’s easing himself into the idea of getting to know him better.

He finds a movie at random, some sci-fi that doesn’t look terrible. The movie turns into background noise as they talk, Hiro’s eyes watching his face more than the screen. It’s nice, in a new, exhilarating way, to have a guy’s attention on him like this. He’s not sure what to do with it. When Hiro moves closer, knee touching Sasuke’s thigh, hand resting on the back of the couch and occasionally touching his neck, Sasuke can’t find it in him to move away.

It feels like a secret, shared between the two of them. He thinks of Naruto for a long moment, allows himself the pain lacing through his chest as he imagines light brown hair replaced with blond, dark eyes replaced with blue. Then, he pushes it away, tells himself he can have this. The emotions are only his own.

It’s all happening too fast when Hiro grows bold, leaning in to press their mouths together, but he doesn’t care. It’s no one’s business if he spends the evening on his couch with a boy in his lap, a boy who isn’t his best friend.

The pain is easier to swallow if he tells himself that he’s the only one hurt.

#at this point i'm just writing whatever's in my head #something is better than nothing #i hate tumblr's formatting

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dewykth · 4 years

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SWEET SEPTEMBER.

a @periminkle and @dewykth collaboration.

synopsis. for many, september symbolizes new beginnings. but for namjoon, this month never fails to send him back into the past. though this time, something seems different.

pairing. kim namjoon | female reader contains. fluff, angst, slice of life au, ballet instructor!reader, single dad!nj word count. 7.5k+ warnings. death mentions, mature audience

dae’s note. surprise !!! this fic is dedicated to my favourite virgo karla @guklvr !! happy birthday bae i hope you enjoy this lil thing me n vira whipped up for u!! (i stress wrote a lot of this ha.) also sry for lying & keeping you up but hopefully this makes u forgive me. but i hope ur day goes amazing ILYSM DUDE !!! <333 and a huge thank you to vira for hopping on board for this idea bc i cld not have done this without her !!! pls give her all the love !!!

vira’s note. KARLAAAA!!! i always gotta scream ur name it’s mandatory to start with a good scream ykno? bUT HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL 🥳 i already told u this too many times today but ILYSM !! like that full day without saying a single word to u felt so weird and i kept going into our chat and rereading our mssgs and wishing I was talking to u??? which is weird to admit?? but that literally how much i missed u idk how but im addicted to u so if you leave me I will literally die :))) aNYWAY have the bestestestest day ever and i hope u love the fic bc I ignored all my uni work to finish this !!! (also i feel reallyreallyreally bad about last night sO IM SORRY AGAIN BUT I HOPE THIS IS WORTH IT) 💖

Despite the papers carelessly stuffed into his leather briefcase, the dark coffee stain on his black slacks, and his unkempt locks resembling that of a bird’s nest, Namjoon’s become accustomed to the hectic nature of his mornings.

The kitchen table is practically buried under stacks of files, yet he brushes them aside to allow one corner of the glass surface to peek through. He plops the toddler in his arms onto a high chair before racing to the counter and sloppily pouring some honey nut cheerios into a small bowl, handing it off to his daughter.

“Daddy?” her voice squeaks, a patient smile stretching across her lips. Her brown strands are tied up into pigtails at the crown of her head with pink ribbons that flutter with the movement of her tiny head.

“Yes, angel?” He scurries around to their bedroom, peeling the stained fabric off his body and threading one leg through another pair of slacks fresh from the laundry.

With Namjoon’s focus pinned on checking off the mental to-do list in his head, he misses the gentle, reassuring smile that stretches across her rosy lips. The adoration for her father is clear in her gaze. “You forgot to pour the milk.”

At the reminder, he squawks and hops back to the kitchen on one foot as he maneuvers his other leg through the pant hole. Swinging the fridge door open, he grabs the carton and sloppily pours the milk into her bowl—white droplets leaping out with their newfound freedom and forming perfect domes on the glass tabletop.

Cleaning the mess falls to the bottom of his priorities at the moment, and so he speeds off to the bathroom to ensure that his appearance is presentable for work while Dasom reaches over to pluck a tissue from the box, swiping the milky beads away before diving into her breakfast. She shoves as many cheerios into her small mouth as she can, rushing because she refuses to finish her meal in the car with their wild driver behind the wheel.

Despite her mere four years of age, she knows from experience that a bowl of cereal and a shaky vehicle is a recipe for disaster.

Namjoon races over to his briefcase with most of his hair sleeked back, only the locks of his bangs hanging out to frame his forehead. As he slips his dark blazer on to complete his form-fitting suit, Dasom scoops the last few brown rings into her mouth and slurps the remainder of the liquid.

“Did you finish your milk?” he questions while cramming the edges of the loose leaves that peek past the seam of his briefcase, hurriedly zipping it up and turning to face her.

Dasom flips the edge of the bowl up to display its empty contents, gulping the last of her breakfast down her throat. As per routine, she scans her father for any inconsistencies in his attire, landing on his odd fitting bottoms.

“Daddy, your pants are on backwards.”

His eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets, glancing down to affirm that the pockets at his sides are no longer at the front of his hips. Hastily, he shimmies out of his slacks once more and twists the fabric around to the proper orientation.

Dasom hops off her chair, her bowl and wet kleenex in hand as she waddles over to the sink and waits for him to deposit the dirty dish into the sink and the sullied tissue into the trash. Although her short arms couldn’t reach over the countertop just yet, she’ll diligently drink every last drop of her milk in hopes of growing tall enough to take some of the load off of her father’s back.

He hoists Dasom up at the sight of the red car pulling up to the driveway, squeezing into the back seat. Namjoon doesn’t have to tell the driver to book it, as the calm man in front has learned to keep his foot pressed on the pedal. The car weaves through the morning traffic with concerning speed, snaking through the other vehicles littering the road as if they were no more than stationary pylons, simply there for practice.

Dasom remains on her father’s lap with his arms looped protectively around the seatbelt over her torso. She sinks into his embrace, fiddling around with his long, slender fingers as she watches the blurs of colour speeding past the window.

“Did you put your ballet shoes into your backpack, angel?” Namjoon loosens his grip on her, unhooking one hand to rummage through his own briefcase in order to confirm that he had indeed slid his laptop within the chaos inside. To keep her entertained, he playfully extends his digits out of her reach.

“Of course!” she chirps, a wide grin revealing the gaps between her teeth. The pads of her fingertips brush against his palm and tickle the sensitive skin there when she realizes that her arms lack the length required to latch onto his hand. “I can’t wait for class, we’ve got a new teacher coming in today!”

Humming absentmindedly, he sighs in relief at the sight of the silver device and packs the crumpled papers back in. “What happened to Ms. Kim?”

“She’s teaching the older class now.” The pout on her lips can be heard within the muffled lilt of her voice when she continues, “I asked her to stay until my birthday next week b-but she didn’t.”

Namjoon’s breath hitches at the reminder, but attempts to compose himself for his daughter’s sake. “It’s out of her control, angel, plus she’ll probably swing by anyway.”

His mind starts to fog up with the emotions he thought he buried last year–they swarm his every thought and nibble away at his sanity. He knows better than to believe that they would ever disappear. September will always be an insurmountable month for him.

“I might be a bit late to pick you up later, just sit tight and wait for Daddy, okay?”

She eagerly nods in response, noticing the dull red bricks of her school coming into view. “Okay, bye Daddy!”

Namjoon unlocks the seatbelt, wistfully watching his toddler bounce out of his arms and onto the asphalt below. No matter how many times he drops her off, it’s always difficult to be separated from her bright smile, but he reminds himself that it’s all for her; it makes things a little easier to bear.

“Have a good day at school.” He reciprocates her frantic waving through the window, craning his neck to watch her adorable form become smaller and smaller with the increased distance. Her full cheeks and crinkled eyes are engraved into the back of his mind.

Before long, Namjoon finds himself rushing into his office after an earful from his surly boss about everything from the late hour to the long list of meetings scheduled to all the work he’s got piled up. With his lips pursed and his head bowed, he somehow manages to make it past another lively morning.

Namjoon has a habit of overthinking. He figures it’s normal when you have a stressful job and a four year old full of energy to balance all by yourself. Not that overthinking about his daughter does him any good, because that is far from the reality. If anything, it just makes him, what you’d call, a bit... overprotective (over worrisome if you asked Jin). But it’s something he can’t really help. Even when she had just entered his life, so small and so blissfully unaware of the awful and evil things in the world, all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and shield her from it all as long as he could.

Though he’s very aware of the fact that it won’t be much longer, that won’t stop him from going over every single little thing that could go wrong in the meantime.

So, of course, when Namjoon’s asshole of a boss makes him stay two hours over his shift, all Namjoon can think about is Dasom. Is she okay? Has she eaten anything? Did she drink enough water today? She’s always dehydrated after her classes too. He usually calls Ms. Kim to check up on her, but his calls went straight to voicemail, which definitely wasn’t helping his hectic mind. Perhaps something had happened to her?

Oh god, maybe someone broke in and had injured Dasom?

The doors are thrown open, the sound of the doorknob hitting the wall reverberating through the room. The receptionist wearing her usual polka-dot dress jumps in her seat, eyes lifting from the intense scene on her phone to the entrance of the building. An unsure smile stretches across her ruby red lips at the familiar figure, though a bit disheveled and breathless. But before the customary ‘hello’ can even form on her tongue, the figure is rushing past her, leaving only a gust of air in his wake. The papers on her desk fall to the ground, and she sighs.

Namjoon is prepared to fight the (fictional) person who thinks breaking into a toddler ballet class is a good idea, but the scene in front of him once he pushes past the doors of the studio is one he is wholly unprepared for.

He sees Dasom first, and the relief that fills his body is indescribable. It’s far from the usual sight he’s greeted with when he picks her up late. She’s not sitting on one of the chairs in the far corner of the room. His heart doesn’t feel heavy, which comes with seeing his daughter so glum. This time it’s her laughter that greets him, not one provoked by him but by the figure standing in the middle of the room with her.

Dasom doesn’t seem to be aware of the presence of her dad yet, but the figure twirling her around turns, and her eyes land on Namjoon.

The reaction is immediate. The carefree smile that had been on your face slips off, a look of embarrassment and surprise overcoming your features. Namjoon only catches a glimpse, and somehow finds himself wishing that won’t be the last time he sees it. You let go of Dasom’s hand, quickly making your way to the stereo on the other side of the room. And that’s when-

“Daddy!”

Dasom wastes no time running into her father’s open arms, and Namjoon suddenly can’t remember why he was so worried in the first place. “Hi, angel.” he says, just loud enough for her to hear. She pulls back. “I’m so sorry for getting here so late. I promise i won’t do it again.”

But of course, Dasom holds nothing but forgiveness in her heart for her hard-working father. She does love teasing him, though. “Don't say sorry to me, say sorry to her.” she giggles, pointing behind her and Namjoon furrows his brow until he remembers they’re not the only ones in the room.

His eyes immediately move to where you stand awkwardly near the stereo, eyes moving around the room as if you hadn’t been watching the whole exchange. Namjoon sighs, realizing he definitely can’t avoid talking to you now. He stands straight, holding onto Dasom’s hand as he makes his way over to you. You only seem to grow more nervous as he nears, and Namjoon distantly recalls Jin telling him he came off as intimidating to most people. Something about his ‘beefy’ arms, in his own words. (“And that stupid and unfairly attractive face!”) He goes for a smile because it's not like he can control his physique.

“Hi, I’m so sorry about…”

Namjoon stops.

Maybe it was the overwhelming distress before, or the really shitty lighting of the studio, but he hadn’t realized how pretty you were before. But now he’s standing right in front of you and he can’t seem to form a coherent thought. Pretty can’t be the right word. He realizes how creepy he probably looks, running in here like a madman and then downright staring at the (very beautiful) woman who looked after his daughter? Not cool, man.

You clear your throat, before extending a hand to him. “Hi, I’m ____, the new ballet instructor.”

Your voice sounds just like honey.

Namjoon stares at your hand dumbly, before the sound of Dasom snickering (very discreetly) behind him snaps him out of it. But instead of introducing himself, or apologizing, or just taking your fucking hand, he says-

“What happened to Ms. Kim?”

He mentally face-palms.

Not. Cool. Man.

Your face falls, and Namjoon has never wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole more than he does now. “Uh, she’s instructing the teen class now.” you chuckle awkwardly, dropping your hand.

“Oh-”

“Daaaad,” Dasom's voice sounds annoyed, and perhaps it’s a bit silly of Namjoon to feel like he’s being scolded, but that is exactly how he feels right now. “I told you this. In the morning. Remember?”

He doesn’t. “Ah, right of course,” Namjoon scratches the back of his neck. It wasn’t like he meant to forget, he had just been too busy thinking about the other things every September would bring. “Sorry, I’m Kim Namjoon. Dasom’s dad.”

This time he offers his hand, and he thanks the skies above that you don’t seem to hate him because you fit your hand against his. Warm, like honey. How long had it been since he last made a fool of himself in front of a pretty girl?

Too long.

“I’m terribly sorry for arriving so late it’s just that my boss, who’s a huge-” Namjoon glances at Dasom, who is now in her own world, singing some song she learned in school, “jerk, decided to assign these reports last minute and the printer would just not work and then traffic hour-”

Your hand comes up to cover your mouth, but Namjoon can see the amusement bubbling in your eyes. He flushes a deep red, eyes falling to the floor, realizing he started ranting.

“It’s okay. Really.”

When he looks back up, there’s a smile on your face. Not like the one before, this one was more reserved, but genuine, reassuring. And just like that, he’s sure you don’t hate him.

Namjoon’s not sure he likes this feeling though.

“Straighten your arms out, girls!” you belt over the classical music that floods the studio’s walls, scanning your army of toddlers in tutus whose arms immediately tense at your command. Making your way through the row, you poke and prod everywhere from their shoulders to their ankles. “Arch your back more, Somin.”

Their muscles violently tremble in response to the strenuous routine you’ve introduced, facial features scrunched in concentration and a resolute will to uphold their positions despite the hyperextension of their limbs. A mix of pity and pride swells in your chest at their effort. “Keep your chins up, the annual recital is only a couple of days away.”

Cheers erupt throughout the small room, disrupting the focus and spoiling their perfect form, yet you refuse to quiet excitement because of the renewed vigour buzzing throughout the room. The next hour depletes all of their built-up energy with demi-piles, pirouettes and sautés.

A glance at the analog clock in the corner informs you of the five minutes remaining before the end of class, so you pause the speakers and instruct the girls to stretch themselves out as they wait for their guardians to trickle in. They collectively sigh in relief before dropping to the floor like flies.

You snort at their dramatics with an amused smile playing at your lips. “I said to stretch, not to lay down and nap.”

“Can’t we nap and stretch at the same time?”

Strolling over to the source of the voice, you cluck your tongue at her limp form sprawled across the wooden floor and cross your arms, struggling to keep your giggles from breaking your angered facade. “And how do you suppose we do that, little Miss Dasom?”

She flashes her toothless grin up at you. “Like this!” With one leg bent over the other and her hands looping around to hold her twisted limbs to her torso, she shuts her eyes and exaggerates her snores.

At this point, it’s nearly impossible to withhold your snickers, and the rest of the class joins in your laughter. You pick up on Dasom’s tinkling giggles between each of her heavy breaths. The lighthearted jokes continue as kids are signed out with bright grins on each of their faces.

You wait for the rest of the toddlers to file out one by one, waving goodbye and checking them off your list until, as usual, Dasom is the only toddler left. Her tiny feet still clad in her faded ballet shoes waddle up to you, tugging on your blouse.

“Your pirouette was a bit wobbly today, do you want to go over—”

“‘M tired,” she interrupts, slouching her shoulders with an adorable frown marring her lips. Her exhaustion is justified, since the routine is rather exhausting, and with their recital right around the corner, you worked them to the bone today.

The odd timing of the switch between you and Ms. Kim left you with a little under a week to tweak and perfect their current choreography. A sloppy routine is not the way you want to present your skills to their parents for the first time, thus you were stricter with the kids than normal.

Your sympathy wins out, and so you gather Dasom’s lithe figure into your arms as you head to the closest wall. With your back supported, you spread out your legs and place her in your lap.

“My birthday is this Thursday.”

“Mhm,” you hum, bobbing your head to signal for her to continue her train of thought.

Her back faces you, but when her head tips down to stare at her hands, you know she’s contemplating her words carefully. Rather than encouraging her to speak freely, you wait for her to feel comfortable enough to reveal her thoughts; and surely enough, her shell cracks open just enough for you to peep through. “Do you wanna come?”

“I would be honoured.” A giddy smile splits across your lips. “Is Daddy picking you up again today?”

She flips around in your hold, wrapping her arms around your waist and snuggling her head to your chest. Her words are muffled into the fabric of your thin shirt, but her tone indicates her affirmation.

Suddenly self-conscious of your heartbeat—that Dasom can definitely hear with her ear pressed up against you—picking up pace at the mention of her father, you suppress your thoughts with a guilty conscience. You internally chide yourself for harbouring feelings for the charming, taken, man, defying arguably one of the most important fundamental rules of becoming an instructor.

Do not develop silly crushes on your student’s parents.

“Ms. ____?” her faint question snaps you out of your reverie, attention brought back to the present moment. While preoccupied, your hand took on a mind of its own, gingerly patting the space between the little girl’s shoulder blades at a slow rhythm.

She gazes up at you when you halt your rhythmic movements, sharp eyes boring into yours. “Are you gonna ask Daddy to come see me dance?”

The edges of your lips flip up in what you hope to be an encouraging smile as you nod your head. Subconsciously, you begin to stress over another encounter with Namjoon, formulating a script to hopefully avoid the stiff, tense atmosphere that lingered throughout all your previous interactions.

“Daddy’s always really busy,” she slurs, drowsiness coating her words and weighing down on her lids. Grumbling under her breath about her numb legs, Dasom crawls onto the floor beside you with her head resting on your thigh. “He’s always working hard for me.”

Your eyes soften at the fetal position she’s taken up on the ground; not only was Dasom lucky to have such a dedicated father, but Namjoon was also blessed with a caring daughter. “You don’t think he can make it?”

“It’s okay,” she whispers and you have to crane your ears to listen. You stroke the strands littering her forehead, gingerly caressing the crown of her head. “It’s okay if Daddy can’t come. I know him, he’s trying to do it all because Mommy’s not with us anymore, but it’s okay. I still love him even if I can’t see him lots.”

A knot forms between your eyebrows, a bittersweet ache forming within the creases of your heart. The painful constriction of your chest ebbs and flows with your shallow breaths that can’t seem to make it past your throat. You bite your lip to subdue the plentiful liquid gathering at your waterline.

No more than a croak escapes your lips before the door to the studio flies open, meeting the adjacent wall with a bang!

“I’m so sorry, my meeting ran late and I couldn’t—” the rest of his speech gets stuck in his windpipe at the sight of you, eyes rimmed red and sniffling, with Dasom, ostensibly dead asleep, on your thigh. “Did she…?”

You blink away your incoming tears, although your dignity has been completely thrown out the window, seeing as he believes that his four-year-old kid made a grown woman, who just so happens to be her ballet teacher, bawl her eyes out.

As you go to gently shake Dasom awake, she sluggishly lifts her head off of your lap and starts to scale your torso like a koala on a tree. Your confusion is vocalized through the high-pitched hum in your throat, but your efforts to pry off her limbs, tightly wound around the small of your waist, are futile.

“Uh, Dasom? It’s time to go home now, angel.” Despite his firm words, Namjoon’s tone is unsure and shaky; he can feel cold sweat build up in the lines of his palms. He knows his daughter, and she can be periodically stubborn and insistent the way children are at her age, thus even as you come to stand, she’s stuck to you like glue. “Would you, uh, did you need a ride?”

You mimic the sheepish smile on his face, hoping the flaming blush you feel on your cheeks isn’t as visible as it seems. “Sure.”

With Dasom latched onto you, both of you make your way to the red car outside after you lock up the studio. Namjoon courteously opens the car door for you, what with your arms supporting his clingy toddler; although, with the brute force he uses, you worry for the state of the hinges. Thankfully, they stay intact and he’s able to slip into the backseat after you.

Before an awkward silence can settle, you clear your throat and prepare to ask him about his day, but you’re interjected by Namjoon’s sudden stammering, “D-driving’s such a hassle for me so Jin drives us everywhere. Jin knows how to drive though, so, don’t worry.” He finishes with a deep chuckle that dies off nearly as quickly as it began. Oh, that’s unexpected.

“You don’t to drive yourself?” Rather than being processed in your brain and logically thought through, the question immediately enters your mouth without any prior scanning for dumbass-content. You instantly regret it, feeling as though it’s much too invasive. “You don’t have to answer that, I—”

The hearty laughter that meets your ears is “No, I do. Sometimes. But its easier raising this one like this.” His tone turns sweet at the mention of Dasom as he reaches over to pat her head, and you’re overcome with an intense desire to prod more into his personal life. Why does he have to work so much? Which shirt in his closet is his favourite? How does he like his eggs in the morning?

“I’m not sure if you already knew about the annual recital on Saturday, but Dasom’s been practicing really hard for weeks and the kids are all really talented, so it would definitely be worth your time...”

As he’s gazing at his daughter, galaxies of devotion and longing swirl within his cocoa irises. The cool light of the moon shines through the windows of the car, illuminating his sharp jawline and strong brows. You’re absolutely mesmerized by the sight in front of you. “You must be really busy, huh?”

“More than I’d like to be.”

You rip your entranced gaze away from Namjoon, willing yourself to steady your frantic breaths.

The remainder of the ride still drips with awkward tension, although with a definite lighter tone than before. Jin pulls up to your apartment with your direction and you dislodge a sleepy Dasom from your torso, which is much easier now that her limbs have gone slack with sleep. Handing her off to Namjoon, who practically engulfs her tiny form with his broad chest, you rush out of the vehicle with a quick, “See you!”

You slam the door closed before he can say anything, racing into the comfort of your home with your heart in your throat.

The last thing you had expected to do on a Thursday evening was to go to a birthday dinner. Thursdays are your days off, your in-days. The ones you spend lounging on your couch with a face mask and some wine. And yet, here you are.

When you received a text this morning, the last person you had expected it to be was Namjoon. Much less Namjoon asking you to come over for Dasom’s birthday. You weren’t going to say yes, hell, you had thought of downright ignoring it. It was weird, wasn’t it? But Dasom had quickly carved a toddler-shaped hole into your heart. Truly, you had said yes before the message was even typed out.

And so now you stare at the tall apartment building in front of you, definitely feeling more nervous than before. You knew that Namjoon had to be well-off to afford a weekday chauffeur, but damn did you not expect him to be this well-off.

It seemed today was the day to expect absolutely anything.

You enter the opulent building, signing in at the front desk before entering the large, mirrored elevator. The beating of your heart picks up the more floors you pass, and you can’t help but fidget with your appearance. Namjoon had said it would only be you three, which you guessed was supposed to calm your nerves but really, it did anything but that. The mere thought of eating dinner with Namjoon was nerve-wracking. But now you were about to eat dinner and enter his home; you had no fucking clue what you were getting yourself into.

The doors slide open, and you step into the hallway. A single door could be seen at the end of the hallway, so you quickly make your way over. You stop right in front, taking a deep breath in before pushing the doorbell. A beat, a crash, another beat, then-

The door swings open, and your breath catches in your throat.

Namjoon looks heavenly as always, but seeing him in clothes other than his usual black slacks makes your heart do a cartwheel. God, this is dangerous.

“Ms. ____!”

Before Namjoon can form a hello, Dasom is running past him and wrapping her small arms around your legs. “You came! See daddy! I told you she’d come.” her tongue pokes out of her mouth, aimed straight at her father and you stifle a laugh.

“Did he think I wouldn’t?” you ask, eyebrow arched as you glance at Namjoon, who seems to have a permanent pink hue on his face.

“He said you wouldn’t!”

“Oh, really? What else did he say?”

“He said I had to help him clean either way!”

“Alright, Dasom. That’s enough.” He says firmly, clearing his throat and trying to act as unaffected as possible. His eyes shift to meet yours. “Why don’t you come inside?”

As much as this day really sucked for Namjoon, today had been… different. Not all too much. Of course, getting up was the hardest part, but he had decided to make Dasom her favourite breakfast meal instead of her usual cereal. He had also made sure to get her all the toys she had been wanting, and planned their day out to do Dasom’s favourite things. Namjoon just wanted this day to be special for her. That was all he cared about.

But when Dasom had asked him to invite you, he had hesitated.

Dasom had never spent her birthdays with anyone else but Namjoon. Not that it was intentional, but Namjoon liked to have this day just for the both of them. Because that’s how it’s always been. He didn’t know what it was about you that made his daughter talk about you all the time. Or why she wanted to spend a birthday with you. But how could he deny her? And so, the text was sent.

And now, as Namjoon puts away the dishes while you sit on his couch, he realizes he hadn’t thought of her today. Not as much as the years before. Dinner had been so... nice. It felt nice to have someone else around. Namjoon loves Dasom, but he hadn’t realized how distant he had gotten from everything that had once seemed to be the centre of his life.

Namjoon closes the dishwasher, exiting the kitchen and making his way to the living room. He places the two glasses on the table before pouring the dark red liquid.

“I hope you like Merlot.”

“Oh, please. Anything’s fine.”

You take the wine glass, sending him a thank you before taking a drink. “So,” you lean back, “remind me how to play this again.”

“Ms.____ I told you. You have to take a block without knocking the tower over,” Dasom shows you by pushing a middle wooden block out, “then you have to place it on top, like this.'' She places the same block on top of the tower.

“Ah, right! I just need to make sure if I want to win.”

“You can’t! I’m the best!”

“Oh really? And what about you?” you turn, brow raised and eyes playful.

“Pshh,” he scoffs, leaning forward. “Who do you think she takes after?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever lost a game so quickly.

Namjoon watches as you close Dasom’s door quietly from the hallway before you make your way back to the family room. “She’s out like a light. I guess all that tower building got to her.”

Namjoon snorts. He feels oddly disappointed as he watches you gather your things to go. Was it weird that he wanted you to stay? “Do you need me to get you a ride? I can call Jin to drive you home.”

“No, it’s fine! Really! I already ordered an Uber anyway.” You grab your coat near the door. Before Namjoon can unlock the door, you touch his shoulder. “Listen, thank you for inviting me today. I know you probably wanted to spend this day together instead, but I... “ you inhale, because you aren’t sure of what you want to actually say “thank you.”

Would it be weird to say how much better you made today? Probably. “You don’t… have to thank me. I think I should be the one doing the thanking. I really wanted this day to be special for Dasom and you… you definitely helped. So, thank you.”

The door opens, and the light of the hallway fills his dim flat. “Guess we’re even then.” you smile before turning, making your way to the elevator. Namjoon shuts the door once the sight of you is gone, but the smile on his face remains

“Guess we are.” he whispers wistfully

Perhaps stopping at a flower vendor when you’re already running late was a bad idea, but Namjoon wasn’t thinking about time. He had seen the bouquet of flowers and imagined the huge smile that would stretch across Dasom’s face, and that was all he needed to swerve into the left lane.

Now, though, as he anxiously watches the cars in front of him move a foot forward after thirty minutes, he’s sure he should have just left the fucking flowers alone.

Namjoon doesn’t know how long he’s been shifting his eyes from the traffic to the watch ticking around his wrist, but by a miracle, the cars start moving. Slowly, then he’s speeding down the highway, praying to the skies above he’ll make it in time. Even if he arrives in the midst of the dance, he can’t miss this recital. He won’t.

He sighs in relief when he sees the familiar glass building, though it’s cut short when he sees the parking lot. No available place in sight. Fuck. Namjoon is sure he looks insane right now, swerving around the parking lot in search for an empty spot, or really just any fucking spot that looks like it could fit his monster of a car.

Then the clouds seem to open up, and right near the entrance is a vacant spot. Namjoon swears his mouth almost waters at the sight. Quickly speeding around the lot, he parks, but not before flipping off the angry parent who tries to beat him to it. Namjoon exits his car, quickly grabbing his coat and the large bouquets of flowers from the backseat. He runs to the entrance, practically throwing the shriveled paper at the ticket clerk.

Namjoon slows as he nears the theatre doors, taking a deep breath before calmly opening it. He had completely forgotten to book seats in advance, so he’s not surprised to see the velvet seats filled to the brim. When he looks to the stage, he’s relieved to see that there’s still time until Dasom comes on.

Now, Namjoon knows he’s not the most… balanced person. It’s common knowledge that he trips over his feet and knocks things over sometimes. (Oh, but definitely more than the average person.) Now, if you were to ask Namjoon if he pays attention to his surroundings, he'd say yes.

But if you were to ask Namjoon what he tripped over, he wouldn’t know. It doesn’t matter, because now there’s a furious mother with a horrendous bob cut glaring at him, and what he thinks to be a broken camcorder on the floor. The only thing he can manage is an awkward smile and an even more awkward apology. Namjoon offers to give her the cost for repairs, hell, even offers to buy her a new one. The woman snatches the bills from his hands but she doesn’t go back to minding her business like he thought she would. No, instead she starts to argue with him, in the middle of her child’s recital, no less!

Namjoon can’t do anything but stare at her as she blabbers on about how horrible he is for throwing her camcorder on the floor. (Not like it had much life left, that thing looked like it was from 2007.) She’s damn near spitting on his face, and causing other parents to turn around and glare at them. As if it was his fault. Who knew she had such an attachment to the damn thing!

A hand lands on his shoulder, and for a second he’s sure it’s security ready to escort him out of the building. But when he turns, he’s surprised to see it’s you. Like an angel had ascended from the clouds to save Namjoon from the wrath of a ballet mom. And just like that, you’re leading him away, taking a seat two rows before the stage. Namjoon’s eyes widen at the sight of the empty seat beside you.

It’s that feeling again, and Namjoon’s palms start to get sweaty as he takes a seat. “Jesus, thank you for that,” he whispers, relishing your quiet laughter that follows.

“Of course. She was probably a blink away from going full-blown Karen on you.” you tease.

“Oh, and that wasn’t?”

“Oh, Joon, you haven’t seen how angry ballet moms can get.” you both laugh, huddled together as if you’re sharing a special secret. It seems so natural. As if this is where he’s supposed to be. So much that Namjoon almost doesn’t catch the nickname, but how could he miss it when you say it just like she used to?

The stage lights darken, and Namjoon is grateful for the excuse to look elsewhere. He’s sure if he would have stared at you for just a bit longer, he would have done something completely and utterly stupid. “This is her.” you whisper, and Namjoon buries the thought away.

A blue hue shines across the stage before the soft melody begins to play, filling the room with the sounds of strings and keys. One by one, tiny swans begin to come into view, prancing around the stage. Namjoon catches sight of Dasom, looking adorable in her white tutu and he can’t help the proud smile that makes its way onto his face. He watches with adoration as she does her pirouettes, and maybe there’s some water overflowing in his eyes as they finish their dance, bowing towards the audience.

You both stand, clapping and cheering the loudest, uncaring of the stares from the snobby rich parents because you’re both too damn proud of Dasom to care. For a moment, Namjoon pretends that it’s different, simpler. That it’s not only his child on stage but yours. Ours. He thinks he likes the sound of that too much.

Once the show ends, you lead Namjoon backstage where the buzz of dozens of girls talking fills the air. You tell him that you need to check in on the other kids and disappear through a hallway. He spots Dasom quickly, or rather, she spots him.

“Daddy! You came!”

Namjoon lifts Dasom with his free arm, twirling her around before placing a big kiss on her forehead. Her giggles fill him with delight, and he doesn’t care that his cheeks hurt from how hard he’s been smiling. “Of course I came, angel. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He places her on the ground before he grabs the bouquet of sunflowers from his other arm. The sight of her favourite flower makes Dasom jump with joy. She takes the flowers, and Namjoon silently coos at how much smaller they make her look. Then she spots the other bouquet of flowers in his arm. She scrunches her brows together, about to ask who those are for before her eyes catch something behind Namjoon.

“Ms. ____!”

“Dasom!”

Dasom jumps into your arms, and you laugh at her enthusiasm. “You did so well! I’m so proud of that pirouette!” You twirl her around once her feet hit the ground, smiling as you watch her stumble slightly. Namjoon can’t help but smile too.

“Look what daddy got me, Ms. ____! Look!” Dasom lifts the flowers up, almost shoving them into your face.

“Wow, these are very beautiful, Dasom!”

“Look! He got you some too!” she giggles, and you look at her confusedly then at Namjoon. He sighs, looking pointedly at Dasom despite the cherry hue making its way across his cheeks. She giggles once again before running to her friends. “Dasom!” but it's futile.

If it weren’t for the consistent chatter, Namjoon’s sure there would be an agonizing silence to fill the space between you. You walk closer to him, looking down at your shoes bashfully. “Ah, these-” he takes the bouquet from his arm, “these are for you.”

You looked surprised to say the least. Eyes wide and glassy, your mouth falling ajar. “Wow, uh, really?” you ask, glancing up from the bouquet. He nods shyly.

Listen, he had only planned to buy Dasom her favourite flowers. But then he caught sight of these beautiful yellow roses, tips painted a light amber orange. Somehow they reminded him of you. And the way you had left him with his heart feeling lighter for the first time in years the other night. Maybe it was a way of saying thank you. He’ll admit, he didn’t think it all the way through, but the way you’re smiling at him right now makes him think it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

There’s a moment where it seems to just be you and him, despite the tons of parents and children running around. He’s only focused on you, and the way your eyes drop to his lips, if only for a millisecond. Namjoon wants to say it. God, he wants to say it so badly. “Listen I… I’ve been meaning to ask you,” his voice fades away as his eyes catch yours. Hopeful. Beautiful. Glimmering.

Just like hers.

“Do you, uh, need a ride home?”

And the bubble bursts.

You step away, looking at anything but him and he hates it. He despises it. He wants you to look at him like that again. He wants nothing more than to pull you back and kiss you senselessly, like his mind is screaming for him to do. But he can’t. He can’t do it for some fucking reason and he almost wants to cry in frustration because why can’t this just be easier? Why is it so hard to move on? You don’t deserve this. You deserve so much better than what he can offer you. And that thought keeps him still.

“Uh, sure.”

Quiet.

Say something, idiot! Tell her what you’ve been dying to say! Just fucking say it!

Namjoon hates himself for the next words that tumble out of his mouth.

“Let’s find Dasom.”

The drive to your house is just like it was before, except this time there’s no chatter to fill the emptiness. Dasom is sound asleep in the backseat. You've never seemed more distant than now, facing the window, body pressed against the door. You had almost begged to go in the back with Dasom, and Namjoon doesn’t know why he didn’t just let you.

How did it come to this? This wasn’t what he wanted. This night wasn’t supposed to go like this. Everything should have gone differently.

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever fix this. If things will go back to normal. If he completely ruined it. But he’s too afraid to ask. Too afraid to know.

Namjoon has never hated the quiet more.

The sight of your apartment complex fills him with dread. All he can think about is all he wants to say, all he should have said, all he wants to take back. God, Namjoon wishes he could take it back. If only there was a way to turn back the time. Why had he been so afraid to make a move? Why did it hurt so much? But he knows going back wouldn’t help. Not when he doesn’t know if he would have done it differently.

His car comes to a stop, and the doors unlock. He faintly catches the small thank you before the passenger door slams shut. Namjoon watches as you make your way up the pathway, feet moving briskly and it feels like he’s watching you walk away from him.

You’re shuffling through your bag, looking for your key. And fuck, is he really just going to this go? Is he that stubborn that he can’t see past himself? He can’t. He can’t let you go. Not like this.

Well do something, dumbass!

The door of his car is thrown open, and before he can overthink it-

“____!”

You still. You turn.

Namjoon shuts the door. He walks up the steps and stops a few feet away from you, but he feels like he’s miles away. You look up at him, questioning. Your eyes aren’t the same ones. Not like you looked at him before. Yet they’re still warm. Inviting. Namjoon is tongue-tied, and all those words he wanted to say are gone now.

“Are we… good?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I just…” he scratches the back of his neck. “That moment back at the recital. I… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” you say, simply. When he looks at you, he can’t tell what you’re feeling. You’ve blocked him off. “Namjoon, really. It’s fine.”

But is it really? He wants to ask. But he doesn’t. It’s quiet again, this time the sound of the wind rustling the browning leaves above filling the space. Still.

“I… god, I don’t know why this is so hard. Ever since, you know,” you don’t. “I… I didn’t think I'd ever get an opportunity to…” he inhales, unsure of what he wants to say first.

“I just feel like I ruined it so carelessly.”

You don’t say anything for a few moments. You only stare at him, really stare at him. Like you can see through his mirage, through the walls he’s spent so long building up. You’re taking it all, but there’s nothing he can take back from you.

“You didn’t.” you whisper it so quietly, Namjoon would have thought his mind had taken pity on him. But a smile slips onto your face. Unlike the other ones. It doesn’t fill him with joy. It doesn’t give him butterflies. This one hurts.

And he knows you’re telling the truth.

“This… It might take a while.”

The wind picks up. The leaves rustle. The cold, biting.

“That’s ok. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”

Your lips are bittersweet on his tongue.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN TO KARLA !! ILYYYY <3

#bangtanhq #btsbookclub #ficswithluv #btsguild #btsgoldnet #cypherwritersnet #namjoon x reader #namjoon angst #kim namjoon x reader #kim namjoon x you #bts x reader #namjoon fanfic

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ificanthaveu · 5 years

Text

Work Too Much || Shawn Mendes

Description: You’re working 2 jobs and going to school. Shawn tries to fix it in the wrong way.

A/N: Hello, this is my real life right now, so I wrote it into a story bc what else is new :) that and inspo from Summer On You by PRETTYMUCH and (obviously) Work Too Much by Julia Michaels

Word Count: 3.2k

You glanced at the clock after what felt like over an hour. You hung your head when you realized it had only been ten minutes. Closing on a Sunday was everyone’s worst nightmare which is why you got stuck with it. [Y/N] will take any shift. She’ll just do it. Every. Single. Week.

After what felt like forever, 7:00 hit, and you quickly closed the register down before moving on to the pile of dishes by the sink in the back. You’d be lucky if you got out of there by 9:00. The dishes were gone through as quickly as possible, and then the counters were wiped down. The cafe was swept and mopped and every shelf was dusted.

You glanced at the clock as you wiped up the last crumbs on the last table. 8:30. Not bad. You quickly clocked out and grabbed your bag, jogging to your bike parked in the back.

The sun was almost down as you biked to your apartment just under a mile away. Your bike was thrown in the shared garage, and you unlocked your ground level door and trudged inside. You glanced down at your phone for the first time since before your shift started at noon. One missed call and four messages from Shawn.

Leaving for the airport. Can’t wait to see you, my love.

Security is taking fucking forever, won’t be surprised if I miss my flight.

I didn’t miss it! It just got delayed! Neat!

I’ll be lucky if I get there by midnight. I’m so sorry.

You sighed as you read through them before pressing your phone to your ear to listen to the voicemail.

“Hey, hun. I know you’re probably still at work. I would’ve just called your work number, but you yelled at me last time I did that,” he said. You let out a laugh before continuing to listen.

“Anyways, my flight was delayed. I should be leaving within the hour and hopefully be with you by midnight,” he paused, and you could hear a voice over a loudspeaker in the background.

“Yeah, probably midnight,” he sighed, and you could just tell he was running his hand over his face. “I love you, baby girl. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, you set your phone down on the counter and rested your head on the cabinet in front of you. You took a deep breath before glancing at the clock ahead of you. 8:50. Three hours until Shawn would be here.

You trudged to your bedroom and grabbed your backpack before slamming it on the table and pulling out your homework due tomorrow morning. Luckily, your roommate was visiting her parents for the week which was why Shawn was coming in the first place. Time alone was rare when you both were so damn busy.

You pulled out your Economics study guide and started researching the questions.

Your mind wandered off within ten minutes as you thought about your current situation. You were in school full time, year-round and working two jobs, being a manager at one of those. You were lucky if you got to bed by midnight before waking up around 6:00 for class most mornings. You thought about dropping out multiple times, but you knew you’d never actually do it. This was hell, but it was temporary. This would all be done, and you’d be working a full-time job in less than a year. You watched everyone else at your school party every weekend and not work at all. You wished it could be that easy for you, but it just wasn’t. It also didn’t help that you were dating Shawn.

He begged you to visit him just about every other week which simply wasn’t at all possible. In the almost year you had been together, you’d flown out to visit him once. And it was a Christmas present from him you denied multiple times before he forced you to take it. He’d come to visit you as often as he could, but that wasn’t easy either.

You eventually lulled yourself to sleep on the kitchen table until your phone rang making you shoot up and reach for it.

“Hello,” you grumbled without looking to see who it was.

You heard a laugh before the voice said, “Did you really fall asleep?”

“Yeah, I’ve been up since 5:00. I’m so sorry,” you said as you shut your laptop and set it aside.

“I’m outside by the way,” he said as you heard the light knocking coming from your front door. You left your phone on the table as you ran to the door and swung it open. He could barely say a word before you jumped into his arms. He held you up with one arm as he set his bag down with the other, eventually wrapping both arms around you and holding you close. You hid your head in his neck, and your legs wrapped around his waist.

“I missed you,” you mumbled. He ran his hand up and down your back before squeezing you tightly once more and setting you down. He ran his hand lightly up and down your arm and admired you for a moment before leaning down and pressing a kiss to your lips.

You savored the moment as you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer to you. You pulled away for a moment to let him inside and close the door behind him before he wrapped his arms around you once more.

“Can we go to bed? I’m exhausted,” he mumbled into your hair. You started to nod before remembering your unfinished homework on the table.

“I have an Economics worksheet due tomorrow morning,” you said as you scrunched up your face in disgust. Shawn sighed and threw his head back dramatically.

“You work too hard,” he said as he gave you a look and made his way into the kitchen.

“I just have a few questions left. It’ll take me a half an hour, tops,” you explained to him.

“I can sit with you?” He asked. You looked at his tired eyes, and as much as you wanted to say yes, you didn’t.

“Go to bed. I’ll be there soon,” you said as you leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek before sitting back down at the table and getting back to work. He stood there for a moment and watched you before leaning down and looking at what you were studying, one hand on the back of your chair and the other next to your laptop.

“Production-possibility frontier? Riveting,” he said in a monotone voice as he squinted and tried to read what you were typing into your laptop. You turned and looked up at him.

“Go to bed, bub,” you said. He sighed and kissed the top of your head before turning to go into your room.

“If you’re not in bed in a half an hour, I’m coming to get you,” he said as he leaned out of the doorway. You rolled your eyes at him.

“Like you’ll even be awake,” you said as you turned back towards your homework.

“Ouch,” you heard from inside your room. You shook your head slightly as you went back to your homework.

A half an hour later, you finally submitted the work and packed up your things for tomorrow’s class. As if on cue, Shawn leaned out of your room. He was half asleep, his curls that definitely needed a cut were messed up, and his eyes were half shut.

“Are you coming?” He mumbled as he squinted at the light. You set down your backpack by the door and walked towards him. You gently pushed his chest back into your room, and he made his way back into the bed and waited for you to join him.

You undressed and threw on his shirt that was on the foot of your bed. He pulled back the covers for you, and you gladly climbed in, making your way into his arms.

You both sighed at the same time as you both were finally comfortable with your head on Shawn’s chest and his arm around your waist.

“You know, I’m serious when I say you work too hard,” he mumbled above you. You moved so your chin rested on his chest, and you looked up at him.

“So do you,” you said back. He rolled his eyes at you and tried to hide the smile threatening the corners of his mouth.

“But you don’t have to.”

“Neither do you.”

“I’m not getting anywhere with this, am I?”

“Nope.”

He finally gave up as you both fell asleep.

The distant ringing of your phone slowly pulled you out of sleep. You rolled over and reached for it, but it wasn’t on the side table where it would usually be. You groaned as you got out of bed to find where you left your phone last night.

You found it on the kitchen underneath your Economics notebook, and you quickly silenced it before checking the time.

6:30. Great.

You trudged your way to the shower, almost falling asleep multiple times. You got out after probably ten minutes and threw on your robe, making your way back to your room where Shawn was still sound asleep.

You quickly got dressed and threw your hair up before looking over at Shawn. His arm was holding the pillow close to him as his head was buried in it and one leg was hanging off the bed. You smiled softly at him before pressing a kiss to his head and making your way out the door.

An 8:00 am Economics class was probably the worst decision you’d ever made. Of course, there really wasn’t any other option since it wasn’t offered online like your other summer class, and the night class would’ve gotten in the way of your work schedule. So you dragged yourself here every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and forced yourself to stay awake.

As your professor went over the homework from last night, you pulled up your student account on your laptop and stared at the bar showing your degree progression, hoping for some reason that it would just leap to 100%, and you’d be done with all of this. Sure, you could skip the summer classes and J terms and graduate in 4 years like everyone else, but ever since your advisor told you there was a possibility of 3 years, you couldn’t get it out of your head. So, you’d take the late nights and early mornings if it meant saving a few thousand dollars later on.

A text from Shawn popped up on your screen and pulled you out of your trance.

Did you really ditch me???

You shook your head slowly before typing out your reply. Of course, he forgot your schedule.

In class, be home in an hour.

Want me to pick up breakfast? Coffee from the cafe down the street?

You smiled at his message and stared at it for a moment longer. He knew your small college town pretty well after visiting here numerous times in the past year. He knew how much you loved the coffee from that cafe, even if you couldn’t afford it most weeks.

That sounds perfect.

He sent a heart back, and you exited out of the messages and focused back on your professor with a newfound surge of energy.

Class let out a few minutes early, and you began the short walk back home. The door was unlocked when you got back, and you opened it to find Shawn taking your breakfast out of the to-go bag.

“Good morning,” you said as you set down your backpack. He looked up at you with a smile and walked over to you with your iced coffee in his hand.

“Your favorite,” he said with a smile before handing it to you and giving you a quick kiss.

“You’re too good to me,” you said before following him into the kitchen. He responded with a laugh and sat down across from you as you both dug into the waffles.

He asked you questions about your class, and you answered them between bites and sips.

“Do you work at all today?” He asked. You shrugged your shoulders and swallowed.

“Not really. I just have a managerial meeting at the mall at 2. It shouldn’t take more than an hour,” you said simply as you picked at what was left of your food.

Shawn just stared at you before you looked up and met his eyes.

“I don’t know how you do it,” he said. You shrugged your shoulders and took another drink of your coffee.

“Don’t really have another choice,” you said.

“Yes, you do, [Y/N],” he said with that same voice he always said it in. You calmly set your fork down and took a deep breath.

“We’re not having this conversation again,” you said, shutting it down before it could get started, but you knew that wouldn’t work. It never did.

“At least quit one job.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because then I won’t make rent or my tuition payment, so if I quit a job, then I’m either homeless or I drop out of school.”

“Not if I pay your rent.”

You tried to calm yourself down and not let yourself get mad over this again. You’d had this fight a time too many, and you were sick of it.

“Like I’ve said before, no. I’m not going to let you just pay my way for me.”

“Why not?”

“I shouldn’t have to explain why. You should just respect that I want to do it on my own,” you explained.

Shawn rested his head in his hands and ran his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends and getting more frustrated.

“You’re working yourself thin, and soon you’ll have nothing left and you won’t be able to take it anymore. You’re constantly on the verge of a breakdown, you haven’t slept a decent night’s sleep in months, you haven’t had a full day off since Easter, and you never get to visit me. I’m not asking you to let me pay for everything. I’m asking you to let me pay for one damn thing, [Y/N]. I’m just trying to make this easier on you because it kills me seeing you like this all the time,” he said as soft as he could muster up, but you could still hear the anger laced in his voice.

“Thank you for caring about me like this. I love that you want to do this, and the thought alone is enough for me to see how much you care about me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still going to do this on my own,” you explained for what felt like the thousandth time.

“I don’t know what else I can do anymore. I can’t keep uprooting myself once or twice a month to come see you because you can’t get time off to see me,” he said as he stared down at his empty plate.

Your heart dropped to your stomach. As many times as you’d had this fight, this was the first time he said that.

“What?” You asked as the anger built up inside of you. Before he could even answer, you spoke up again. “Are you seriously giving me an ultimatum? Either quit the job or this is done? Because that’s exactly what it sounds like.” You could feel your heart speed up as it took everything in you to not start yelling.

“Well…” he started but trailed off, not really knowing what to say. “I just want to help you.”

“I don’t need help,” you snapped. “Why can’t you just support me like I support you without questioning it? I’ve never once told you to skip an interview or a photoshoot to come see me. I’d never ask you to quit doing these things you love just because I want to see you. I love my job at the mall. Being a manager there is going to look incredible on my resume once I graduate. The coffee shop is hard, but my coworkers there are my best friends, and they’re extremely flexible with my schedule. This is temporary. I graduate in ten months, and it’ll get easier. But I’m not abandoning any of this until I have finished it. You’re asking me to quit a job now, and if I do that, how long will it be until you ask me to quit the other or drop out of school or give up my full-time job in the future? You can leave me, but my degree can’t. And I’m not going to be some trophy girlfriend who follows you around. I’ve never been that kind of person, and you know that, so why do you keep asking?”

Shawn didn’t say anything. You waited a moment before turning around and going into your room, slamming the door behind you. You laid back on your bed and stared at the ceiling as you tried to control your breathing. You could hear Shawn’s chair against the kitchen floor and his footsteps come towards your room. A gentle knock sounded against your door.

“[Y/N], honey, please let me in.” His voice sounded softer, not as angry as it did minutes before.

“It’s unlocked,” you said to the ceiling. You didn’t move as he slowly opened the door and sat at the foot of your bed and stared at the wall.

“I’m not going to leave you,” he finally said.

“I know.”

“I just want you to be happy and comfortable.”

“I am happy.”

“And comfortable?”

“I’ll get there.”

He finally turned to face you as you looked up at him. He laid down on his side next to you as you faced him, doing the same.

“You’re stubborn,” he finally said. You both cracked a smile.

“So are you.”

Shawn reached across and tucked your hair behind your ear before resting his hand on your cheek and running his thumb across your cheek.

“I got off work for the VMAs, and my summer classes will be done and fall begins a week later, so I can stay with you for the whole week,” you finally said. Shawn’s face broke out into a smile, and he practically jumped on you and pinned you down on the bed as he sat on top of you.

“When were you going to tell me this?” He said, his face inches from yours.

“Over breakfast, but then you made me mad,” you said as you gave him a look. Before you could say another word he shut you up by finally kissing you. You flipped the two of you over as you straddled his waist and pulled away for a moment.

“Are you going to let me pay for your flight?” He said as he looked up at you. You narrowed your eyes at him as he pleaded with you.

“Maybe just this once.”

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brieflygorgeouss · 5 years

Note

Hiii, i love your writing ❤️ im waiting patiently for updates on your fic. But........ number 12 for the prompts bc i like angst

12. “please don’t do this” (you wanted angst, so here it is :’) part 2 of this is coming in a separate post!)

Lucas has made a mistake.

When it comes down to it, the whole thing is pretty simple. Lucas tries not to pay it much attention. In his day to day life, there’s very little space for those kinds of things. See, Lucas is a science guy, not a feelings guy. He likes facts, and undeniable truths, something he can lean on, knowing that it’s not just his own heart messing with him.

But then, sometimes there’s this — Eliott will turn his head just right when they’re hanging out in the park with everyone else, and the sunlight will catch in his hair. They’ll catch a glimpse of each other in the hallway and he’ll smile at Lucas with this horrible, breathtaking smile of his like it’s nothing. He’ll draw something on a napkin while they’re waiting for their coffee orders at Starbucks, then give it to Lucas, just because.

And in those moments, Lucas always thinks — maybe his heart is playing tricks, after all. If the way it stutters and aches is anything to go by.

Lucas has made a mistake and here it is — a throwback to three months ago. Lucas is standing in Eliott’s living room, late at night after they’ve just finished watching some weird Spanish movie, with his hair in his eyes and his heart in his throat, and he’s saying, ”I’m in love with you.”

Eliott is wearing an old t-shirt that hangs loosely enough around his neck to show his collar bones, and his hair is messy from where he kept running his hands through it. His eyes are huge. For a second, he looks at Lucas like he doesn’t believe him, and then he looks like he does believe him and something in his eyes lights up, burns like a flare and then dies down again. He’s turning to Lucas, in the next moment. Then, he’s saying, ”Listen, Lucas, I— I’m not—” and then, turning his eyes away, quieter, ”Please don’t do this.”

So. Fast forward to now — Lucas should have just stayed quiet.

”Hey,” Lucas hears from somewhere above him, ”I really like your jacket.”

When he lifts his head, there’s a guy standing by his table, with thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and a small smile on his lips. Lucas is about 70 percent sure he has seen him around the library before. They’ve caught each other’s eyes once or twice while sitting at neighbouring tables and run into one another by the lockers downstairs. If he remembers correctly, that is.

He says, kind of unsure, ”Oh. Thanks.”

”We’ve seen each other around before, right?” the guy voices Lucas’s thoughts, which, in turn, makes Lucas wonder, again, if they really had. Maybe the Glasses Guy had even introduced himself. Lucas can’t remember his name. ”I’ve been meaning to tell you, this jacket is so cool. And also your hair.”

Lucas is not sure what to say to that, so he just keeps smiling, a little plasticky. ”Thank you.”

”Would you mind if I joined you?” the Glasses Guy says, gesturing at the empty seat across from Lucas.

”Uhm. I’m, actually. I’m kinda waiting for someone.”

There’s a beat of silence when they just keep looking at each other, Lucas having nothing else to add and the guy waiting for him to probably do so.

”Oh,” he says after a few seconds, takes an awkward step back. ”I’ll leave you to it, then. Sorry.”

”See you around,” Lucas barely manages to get out, and then the guy is gone, just as quickly as he appeared in the first place. Lucas follows him with his eyes until he rounds the corner and disappears, then he lays his head on the table. It’s smooth under his cheek.

Then, a thumping noise startles him enough to sit back up.

Imane slides into the chair across from him, already busying herself with flipping through one of the approximately 50 books she brought with her, before saying, without lifting her gaze from the pages, ”You do realise that he was flirting with you, right?”

Lucas plays with the corner of his notebook’s cover. ”Yes,” he mutters. ”But I’m—you know. I’m here with you.”

He looks up at Imane just in time to see her roll her eyes, exasperated. ”It has nothing to do with that. You could have at least asked for his number or something.”

”Maybe I didn’t want his number,” Lucas says, and it comes out a little defensive. His phone buzzes with a notification so he busies himself with that instead of looking at Imane’s questioning expression. ”Maybe I’m not interested.”

”Lucas,” Imane says, this time looking straight at him and he can feel the weight of her eyes somewhere on his face. He locks his phone, then unlocks it, locks it again, just to pretend to be doing something. ”It’s really not my business, but he was exactly the type of guys you usually go for.”

Yeah, Lucas thinks, puts his phone away, screen down. Tall and messy-haired and smiling at strangers. Lucas knows this, and Imane knows this just as well. When he looks at her, the disappointed lines of her face clear as day, he knows what she’ll say even before she says it.

”You have to try to move on,” Imane tells him. It sounds softer than what Lucas was expecting. Imane’s eyes are soft, too, like Lucas rarely gets to see, dim with something he doesn’t want to think too much about.

Lucas thinks, I know. I know.

It’s not like he hasn’t been trying. It’s not like he’s too stubborn to make this kind of effort. After Eliott turned him down, he hid away for a moment, turned off his phone and locked himself in his room until Manon and Mika almost drove him nuts with their constant knocking on the door and are you feeling better’s but right now, he’s all good. The past is the past. Lucas really tries his best to not think too much about how Eliott’s expression looked when he confessed, or how he could barely look Lucas in the eye at all, or how Lucas has spent the entire walk home stubbornly wiping his tears away that night, even though they just kept and kept coming.

Those are all his memories, his and no one else’s, but he doesn’t want them. Revisiting that would be like poking at a bruise — causing unnecessary pain. Not letting a wound heal fully like it should.

And that’s what Lucas has been doing. Healing. He just needs some time.

”I have moved on,” he says stubbornly, not wanting to hear any more of Imane’s too-soft tone, then thinks, I am moving on. I am. ”Anyway, can we get started?”

He gestures to the books that Imane has brought. She shoots him another look, one that lasts a second too long, but then just nods without any further comments.

For the next two hours, they talk about something else.

On Saturday, the sweltering heat finally dies down to something resembling nice breezy summer. Lucas wakes up to sunlight filtering through the curtains and specks of dust swirling in the air where they’re visible in the light. He drags himself out to the kitchen, and it’s early enough for no-one else to be up yet, so he makes himself a coffee and a sandwich and takes the breakfast to the balcony, just because he feels like it. There’s a dog barking somewhere, and a few cars driving by. He can hear someone laughing, sharp and bright and quick.

Then, his phone buzzes with a text notification.

It is, because that’s just Lucas’s life, from Eliott. hi, it reads, are you free tonight?

Lucas is. He doesn’t want to say he’s always free for Eliott because he isn’t supposed to think that way anymore, but somewhere in the back of his head, it rings true whether he likes it or not.

sure, he texts back. want to hang out?

Because, see — they’re still friends. They can still be friends. It’s what he told Eliott that awful night he confessed, after Eliott, beautiful and so, so gentle, turned him down, looking like he was about to cry himself. I don’t want to ruin what we have, Lucas had told him, sounding a little shaky, feeling a little like a child, silly and overdramatic and inexperienced. I’ll get over this. I promise I will.

He can’t blame Eliott for not loving him back. Love is not something you can force yourself to feel. And Eliott never asked for any of this, never asked for any of those messy, overwhelming feelings that Lucas just couldn’t keep a hold on. There was never a reason for Lucas to count on anything, really.

As he finishes up his coffee, he looks over the railing of the balcony. There are two girls in the middle of the sidewalk downstairs, talking about something as they walk. One of them is gesturing animatedly, and the other nods from time to time, and then Lucas watches as she, unexpectedly, catches the other girl’s hand in hers and presses a quick kiss to her knuckles. Her expression is fond, then only grows fonder when the other girl’s face creases up in a smile.

Lucas turns his eyes away.

There is a theory he’s spent a lot of time reading about, a theory that he likes. It’s about alternate universes. According to the theory, there’s an infinite amount of worlds just like this one, somewhere out there, only slightly different. Lucas likes to imagine them, sometimes, because it makes him feel at peace — a world where he still lives in his old house. A world where his parents never split up in the first place. A world where everything is the same, except his eyes are green instead of blue.

i’ll pick you up at 9, Eliott writes back, and then sends another message. It’s a heart.

Lucas stares at it until the screen of his phone goes dark.

”You have to try to move on” is just a nice way of saying ”He’ll never love you back”. Lucas knows this. That’s okay. It feels a little pathetic, this whole ordeal, but then again, it’s been almost exactly three months since he confessed. He’s had enough time to swallow the hurt down. Bury it somewhere where no-one else would see.

According to the multiverse theory, besides the universe where Lucas’s family stayed together or where his eyes are a different colour, there also must be a universe where, somehow, Eliott loves him back.

It’s not a bad thought. If some other Lucas managed to get everything that this Lucas doesn’t have, then, well. Good for him. It’s not like Lucas is unhappy. He’s okay.

Three months is enough to get over someone.

A throwback again, to the same time and the same place: Lucas thought he had a chance. He thought there was something in the air that night that made things possible. He came over to Eliott’s just to hang out like they’ve done times and times before. Eliott let Lucas pick the movie, then promptly retracted the offer when Lucas said, ”Can we watch Green Lantern?” and they ended up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in Lucas’s lap and Eliott’s head leaning against Lucas’s shoulder. Eliott was busy explaining the individual shots that he really liked. Lucas was busy making comments and stuffing his face with popcorn and looking at Eliott instead of the actual film. It was nice. They were comfortable and close and talking in hushes voices, leaning into their shared space. Lucas thought he had a chance.

He never did, apparently.

At 9, when Lucas gets downstairs, trying to put on a jacket and simultaneously stuff his keys into the back pocket of his jeans, Eliott is already there. The sun has just gone down, and in the thinning out light, he looks like someone out of a dream. Lucas smiles when Eliott turns his head at the sound of the front door of the building opening, then closing.

”Hi,” Eliott says, already grinning as well, and pushes himself away from the wall he was leaning against, then stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, like he’s shy. Something quivers in Lucas’s chest and he smothers it.

”Hi,” he answers, looking up at where Eliott’s still smiling at him. ”So, what’s the plan?”

Eliott shrugs, then raises an eyebrow with a glint in his eyes. ”Let’s see where the night takes us?”

And Lucas, laughing a little, says, ”Okay,” and falls into step next to him as they go, shoulder to shoulder, almost close enough to brush.

In reality, not much has changed. That’s something Lucas is really proud of, actually. Apart from the first few awkward days where they acted around each other like strangers and a few sad moments Lucas has to swallow down every now and again, it’s almost like nothing ever happened. They joke around, and Lucas shoves Eliott away when he starts to make fun of how Lucas should probably get a haircut but refuses to, and then they get on a bus and sit in the seats right next to each other, their heads bent together. The whole bus is empty. Lucas keeps stealing glances at where Eliott’s profile reflects in the glass of the window.

This is exactly what Lucas doesn’t want to ruin. This — Eliott being so laid-back and relaxed around him, laughing freely, bright. In moments like these, Lucas feels more himself than he does anywhere else. He can’t afford to lose it, everything they have, how well they work together, just because he’s looking for the sun at midnight, just because he was stupid enough to fall in love.

And at one point, when he asks about one of Eliott’s art projects, Eliott suddenly whips his head around, and, eyes huge, says, as if enlightened, ”Oh my God. I know where I’m gonna take you.”

”Oh, yeah?” Lucas says, and then lets his smile widen a fraction. ”Let me guess, is it McDonald’s?”

”Shut up,” Eliott mutters, his own smile widening, too. ”That was only once.”

Lucas laughs, then, and looks and looks, at the curve of Eliott’s smile and at the slight colour high in his cheeks, until they get to the next stop and Eliott drags him out of the bus.

They only talked about the confession once, during a party at Emma’s, at the very end of their awkward phase. Lucas came out there to finally head home after moping in the corner for hours on end and spoiling his friends’ moods. Eliott was simply already there. They ended up sitting on the pavement with the party music pouring from the speakers from behind the closed front door, huddled close. Lucas remembers feeling relieved at the proximity, and also like someone punched him in the gut.

”Do you have any idea,” Eliott asked him then, quiet under the night sky, sitting so close that Lucas was half-afraid he might do something stupid, ”what it’s like to be told that by someone like you?” And then, shaking his head, quieter, ”I don’t deserve that at all, Lucas. Not from you. I wouldn’t be good for you, you— you’re just so—”

Lucas said, then, unsure of how to respond but desperately wishing for things to just fall into place again, ”It’s okay, Eliott,” even though it wasn’t, even though it was nowhere near as easy. He kept thinking, why can’t you just tell me that you don’t feel the same?

”It’s not okay,” Eliott told him then, looking a little broken and so, so sad. ”I just—I wish it was different.”

Me, too, Lucas thought but didn’t say it.

”We’ll figure it out, Eliott,” he only said instead, proud of how sure he sounded even when did not feel like it as he got up, because it was time to go home. And even if there was something in Eliott’s gaze when their eyes met, something heavy and dim and unsettled, Lucas decided to write it off as a trick of the light. ”We will.”

They end up, somehow, in an art gallery.

Or something of sorts, anyway. Lucas doesn’t know why it’s still open and running at 9:30 at night, but it’s nice, he guesses, or as nice as an art gallery can get, anyway. There aren’t many people here, and Eliott claims that the exhibition is something he’s seen before and liked very much, so Lucas lets himself be taken by the hand and lead inside and only complains a little bit, just for show.

Eliott’s hand is warm in his, and for a second, Lucas allows himself a bluff. A what-if. Between one breath and then next, he can pretend they’re something else. Then, he moves his hand away first and ignores the look Eliott sends his way.

He doesn’t know much about art, arguably. He was never good at it, because, again — he’s a science guy. And there are many paintings here that he doesn’t understand, full of sharp lines and patches of colour, but they’re pretty. He stops in front of a painting of the sunrise, soft and full of light, full of blues and pinks and muted oranges and stands and just looks until Eliott finds him.

”What do you think?” he asks, stopping just shy of Lucas’s shoulder. He sounds curious but also a little nervous. Lucas doesn’t really understand why, so he just brushes it off.

”It’s nice, I guess,” he says, still looking at the painting, but then shifts his eyes onto Eliott and discovers that his expression is just as bright as the landscape on the canvas in front of him. ”I don’t know why you chose an art gallery as a form of entertainment for me, though. I’m not really big on places like that.”

”I’m aware,” Eliott chuckles, but then, startlingly, ducks his head and shrugs like he always does when he’s shy. ”But the first time I saw it, I thought of you, and—I wanted to bring you here. To see it, too.”

And—oh.

Lucas kind of just…stops. At that.

Because, you see — he’s been trying his best. He’s been careful and withdrawn and afraid, just a little, of reminding Eliott of what he’d said, of how he feels, when Eliott made it so, so clear that he doesn’t want that. That he doesn’t want whatever Lucas has to give, whatever Lucas took and tried to push into his hands that night three months ago, all of his crushing, throbbing feelings, this whole mess. And he’s been doing well. Most of the time, it’s almost like nothing ever happened. Lucas is okay. Lucas has been making progress.

But every once in a while Eliott does or says something — texts him a heart or takes him by the hand or says ”Do you have some time” or ”I saw it and thought of you”, take him to look at art because it’s something he wants to share with Lucas and Lucas alone, and all the painstaking progress he has made goes teetering down, down and back to square one.

Lucas doesn’t know how many times he’ll be able to take it. There is something lodged in his chest that suddenly makes breathing difficult. He thinks, I’m so stupid. So, so dumb.

Something must show on his face, or maybe he’s been quiet for too long, or maybe Eliott just knows him too well, because he asks, rocking on his feet, his voice tentative, ”Do you like it? Here, I mean?”

What does it matter to you, Lucas thinks, but swallows the words down, because they wouldn’t be fair. Eliott cares, is all. He knows that. They’re friends.

”I like it, yeah,” he answers instead, then watches another smile break across Eliott’s face, impossible, prettier than all the art in the room.

Lucas thinks back to the balcony, to the girls he saw on the sidewalk in the morning, to fond smiles and kisses pressed to knuckles, to feeling like he was intruding on something he had no right to, and feels like Eliott and his smile and this whole goddamn scene is another thing like that. Something stolen that does not belong to him. Something that is not meant to be his at all.

”I’m glad,” Eliott tells him. His words sound nothing but sincere.

They move onto another painting.

But maybe the truth is this — Lucas is tired of feeling like him being in love has become something to be ashamed of. Before, he’d thought that now when Eliott knew, maybe the feeling of it all would lessen, would become less biting, simmer down to friendship again, but it didn’t. It’s still there, no matter what he does, whether he covers it up or screams it from the rooftops, and he’s tired of hiding something everyone knows about anyway.

It’s not fair, pretending he never confessed, when it took so much courage and strength and nerve.

It’s not much of a revelation, really, but Lucas can’t help but feel very, very dumb. He meets up with Imane again and can barely look at her, keeps thinking, you were right, you were right as always. He goes to class, and to work, and spends the evenings lying on the couch, watching reruns of old TV shows with Mika and Lisa arguing over whose turn it is to choose the channel this time. It’s not bad. The acute awareness of I’m still in love doesn’t change much.

Except when Eliott texts him now, he barely even answers and doesn’t pick up when he calls and lies that he’s busy when Manon suggests that they all go out together. It’s awful, and it makes him feel guilty and like a failure, but he doesn’t know what else to do. It’s all he has left, he tells himself, because Eliott is not his to have. He’s been reading too much into his smiles, and his soft touch, and how bright his eyes get sometimes, into little drawings on coffee cups and text messages saying, let me know when you get home safe.

It’s just how Eliott is. And if Lucas can’t do anything about his stupid wishful thinking, if what Eliott can offer is not enough for him, then maybe it’s better if he doesn’t get anything at all.

It’s sad, in the beginning, but he likes to think he withdraws slowly. The unanswered texts pile up on his phone one by one, and Manon asks less and less about why he doesn’t hang out with them as much anymore, and once, when he sees Eliott in the hallway in-between his classes, he shoots him a smile and scrambles out of sight before anything else can happen.

He misses Eliott so goddamn much. It grows in his chest like vines, this ache, winds around everything else he feels and taints it. But Lucas only allows himself to feel it when it’s late into the night and the apartment is quiet and his thoughts have nowhere else to go. Because, again — Eliott is not his to have. Not his to miss. This is not a universe where they’re together.

He just needs to get it into his head.

And then, one night as he’s getting off his shift and closing up, stepping into the dark of the streets, Eliott is, for some reason, there.

He looks slightly unsure of himself, as if the sun, when it went down, took away the usual bright aura he radiates. His hands are in his pockets, and his hair is a mess. He’s chewing on his bottom lip and something flits across his face when he realises Lucas has spotted him, but then he comes up to where Lucas is standing with the keys still dangling from his hands, in big, quick strides like he’s afraid Lucas will run off, as if he has anywhere to go.

”Can we talk?” is the first thing Eliott says.

So they talk.

It feels a little bit like the conversation they had after Lucas confessed, the one when Eliott had told him ”I wouldn’t be good for you”, the one when Lucas had said, ”We’ll figure it out,” only to fuck up everything even more in the end. They wander through the streets in silence at first, Lucas unsure of what exactly is happening and stupidly happy to see Eliott again, almost despite himself, all at the same time. He can’t help but steal glances at Eliott’s profile, coloured golden in the light of the street lamps.

Then, Eliott says, ”So. You’ve been avoiding me.”

It’s not really a question. Lucas supposes that’s fair, since his behaviour left so little room for doubt. He holds the confirmation like breath in his lungs, then lets it out as a sigh. ”Sorry.”

If Eliott was expecting him to deny, it doesn’t show on his face. Lucas watches him lick his lips. ”Did I—” Eliott stutters. ”Did I do something? Did I say something stupid?”

Something unfurls in Lucas’s chest, then, the vines grow and grow and make it a little bit harder to breathe.

None of this is Eliott’s fault. That’s what Lucas keeps thinking as they walk, as Eliott waits for an answer, as they keep looking at each other like that could serve as a reply instead. None of this is on Eliott. It’s all Lucas and his stupid, stupid heart, him looking for the sun at midnight, him reading too much into Eliott’s kindness, because he just never learns. That’s all.

”No,” he says, looks down on his feet, then up again. ”You didn’t do anything.”

”Then what’s wrong?” is what comes next. Lucas breathes in, breathes out. ”Are you alright?”

”Yeah,” he says. I was just busy, he wants to say, with school and work, you know how it is. But that would be a lie. He was never too busy for Eliott before. Maybe that was the very first mistake in all of this. ”I’m okay.”

”Then—” Eliott starts, quietly, and doesn’t finish. Why, is what he really wants to say; Lucas realises that but pretends that he doesn’t, only walks alongside Eliott and waits for him to speak again, looks at the pattern of light-dark-light as they pass the street lamps. Then, Eliott takes a breath, looks ahead. ”I know it’s not really my business,” he says, ”but—we’re okay, right? Because I feel like I did something. I just— I really miss you.”

And just like that, it’s too much. It’s too much.

Lucas says, ”I’m still in love with you.”

Eliott turns his head fast, surprised. He stops walking. Lucas slows down, too, stands centimetres from where another streetlamp is casting yellowish light on the nearby building. Eliott looks dumb-struck and a little scared, and Lucas looks at him and thinks that he has no right to, because it’s not like he didn’t know. It’s not like Lucas didn’t tell him.

And here they are again, a different time and a different place but the same two people and the same situation. Here he is, defeated and pathetic and like he’s stuck in some sort of fucking loop. It’s so unfair, he thinks, his chest suddenly too small for his heart, too tight for his lungs. So unfair.

”I know you don’t want to hear it,” he goes on when Eliott doesn’t say anything but just stands frozen still, his expression twisted into something Lucas is afraid to work through, ”and I’m sorry. I really tried to keep things how they used to be, but I can’t. I tried to stop—” A breath. Lucas feels shaky. ”I tried to stop feeling the way I do because I didn’t want to ruin anything, but I can’t. Not when you keep acting the way you do and keep saying all those things—”

”What things?”

Eliott sounds very small. Like he isn’t sure what to say but needs to say something anyway, like he’s scared. Lucas is scared, too, just a bit. All the words he says sound like coming from underwater.

”That you miss me,” he hears himself answer and only half-registers that it is really his own voice that’s sounding so strange. ”That you think of me. Everything, I don’t know.” His next breath sounds watery, and Lucas isn’t crying, but he’s almost there. He tries to push through it. ”It’s not like you don’t realise that, right? I know it’s easier to just pretend I never said anything, but the truth is that I did. We both know that. I don’t think it’s fair to pretend everything is still the same.”

Eliott casts his eyes down. It takes him a moment to say, ”No. It’s not fair.”

And Lucas, stupidly, because for just a second he can’t help it, thinks about some other universe, then, where a different Lucas and a different Eliott are happy. Where they kiss on street corners and hold hands as they walk down the sidewalks and where some other Lucas is allowed, impossibly, to lift some other Eliott’s hand to his lips and press a kiss there, too, or to his cheek, to the curve of his jaw.

”I meant what I said about still being friends,” he says after a while, and it burns in his throat, but in this universe, it’s all he gets. ”It’s still important to me. I just need to work through it all, so that we can go back to how things really used to be, this time.“ He licks his lips. "I don’t want to ruin this any more than I already did.”

”Lucas, you didn’t—” Eliott sounds almost as bad as he does. Lucas doesn’t think about the reason. ”You didn’t ruin anything, listen, I—”

”I just need some more time,” he cuts in, because he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to handle Eliott saying ”Please don’t do this” one more time, if that’s what Eliott wants to tell him. ”Some time and some space and I’ll really—try and just. You won’t have to listen to it again. I promise.”

Eliott is quiet, then. The vines in Lucas’s chest grow and grow until there’s no more room left.

”I’d take it back if I could,” Lucas says after a moment because it’s the truth, and it feels important, somehow, that Eliott knows. He’d take it all back. All of his scattered, burning, unwanted feelings and keep them away, safe and only for him to deal with. ”I would. But I can’t. I’m sorry that I need so much time.”

For a second, Eliott looks like he wants to say something, but whatever is it, it never leaves his mouth.

So in the end, Lucas only says, ”See you later,” and then goes.

#skam france #elu #elu fic #skamfr #my writing #pls before u come into my inbox screaming remember that it's part 1 #asks #what is going to happen in part 2 u ask? jk nobody asks that

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spookysanta · 5 years

Text

e. a.

Summary: Ethan and Ari—the best of friends. (Or, “how Ethan parents when (Y/N) isn’t around”)

Pairing: Dad!Ethan Dolan xReader

WARNINGS: literally you’ll be smothered with fluff

this is my first full-length dad!efeet fic. damn. ANYWAY i’m writing other shit don’t ask when it’ll be up bc idk!! :)

UNEDITED.

***

Listen. No one’s gonna ever deny this fact, but the Dolan boys love their kids more than anything. Their little girls are the best thing that’d ever happened to them. Ethan thinks his little girl is the best of all the little girls that ever existed, and Grayson would argue that logic with him for hours. But the fact is that they’re both pretty great.

Arielle’s getting to the age where her daddy is her favorite person and object. Person, because duh, it’s her daddy; and object, because she uses him as a vessel for her entertainment: she climbs his body, she jumps on his lap, and, her favorite thing to do, pull on his hair.

He doesn’t like any of these things but they keep the otherwise loud child quiet so he doesn’t complain much.

She likes to spend time with Ethan because she gets aways with doing things her mom wouldn’t let her do. Things like jumping on the bed, or eating on the couch.

But her favorite thing to do was drinking daddy’s soda.

She’s almost four now, so she’s got a bit more of a vocabulary and can communicate what she wants better. And that’s gotten Ethan into trouble a couple times, like today, because when he was drinking a cup of Sprite and let out a nice “ahhh” after a big gulp, she somehow knew that that’s the sound he makes when he drinks soda. And Arielle now loves soda (because of Ethan). So she says, “Daddy, I want soda.”

And of course, it’ll happen when (Y/N)’s around and naturally she’ll look at him. Why would Arielle know about soda if she can’t read and they don’t keep soda in the house?

And then that becomes a whole thing between the parents, but the little girl doesn’t care at all, because all that matters right now is daddy’s soda. “Daddy,” Arielle said again from the backseat as they drove to the (Y/L/N) family reunion one afternoon, completely ignoring (Y/N)’s scolding of her husband. “I want soda.”

“Just wait, Ari,” he replied, also ignoring his wife.

“No!” (Y/N) exclaimed. “Don’t give her soda! It’ll give her cavities.”

“Oh my God, (Y/N). It’s one sip, she’ll be fine.” The streetlight turned red and Ethan stopped the car, putting the gear in “neutral” and grabbing the large cup of Sprite from the cupholder and reaching behind the seat to put the straw to Ari’s lips. “Here, bubby.”

She took a big sip, Ethan having to pull the cup away so he could drive once the light turned green. She shivered. “Ooh, daddy, mommy! It’s cold soda!”

And (Y/N) had to admit, that was cute. She chuckled. “Yeah, bug?”

“Mhm. It’s spicy, too.”

Ethan snorted. “Spicy?”

“Uh-huh.”

***

In the mornings, Ethan’s job is to get Ari dressed and clean and ready for the day, so that when (Y/N) got back from work they could all do things together as a family. So when she wakes up ungodly late (inherited from her daddy), the first thing they do together is—“Potty!”

Ethan jumped awake. This morning, she’d gotten up early, managed to get out of her crib and get into her mommy and daddy’s room. “Ari?” He responded, because surely their toddler couldn’t’ve gotten out of her crib and bedroom by herself. But she had, and she was particulary proud of herself that she did. “What’s wrong?”

“Potty, daddy.” She whispered. Because when someone’s sleeping you have to be quiet. “Gotta go potty.”

He stood up from the bed, picking up the little girl who was wearing her mommy’s high school P.E. t-shirt, and carried her to the bathroom, escorting her to her potty and letting her do her business.

“Finished.” She mumbled after a yawn.

“C’mon, come wash your hands.”

“Kay.” She got up and went to the sink, stepping up on the Dora stepstool and washing her hands with the foaming hand soap. When she finished washing her hands, she left the bathroom and climbed up onto her mommy and daddy’s bed and laid down with her bum in the air, as she’s always done since Ethan could remember.

He cleaned out her potty and set it back on the floor next to the shower. After washing his hands, he came back into the room and got back into bed, pulling the covers over Ari’s body and his own.

“Daddy.” She mumbled, voice muffled by the cotton pillowcase her head was stuffed into. “I’m tired.”

“So go back to sleep.” He replied with a chuckle. “We don’t have to go anywhere until mommy gets back from work.”

“And then what?”

“And then we’ll—can you get your head out of the pillow? You sound like you’re about to suffocate.” She sat up and flopped over onto her back, resting her folded hands on her tummy like Ethan was. “We’re gonna go to Uncle Gray’s house for dinner.”

“Will GiGi be there?”

Oh Lord, Ethan thought. GiGi and Ari together were a dynamic duo; they did everything together. Whenever Gray or his wife would take GiGi to the park, they’d call Ethan and (Y/N) so that Ari could come along. He’d be more ecstatic about letting her go with his brother if it wasn’t at nine a.m. and he didn’t have to fight with her to get up. “Yeah.”

“And Grant?” Grant, the newest addition to the Dolan family, had the most empathy from Ethan. Because he was only a few months old, he was a spectacle for Ari because “babies look weird” according to her.

He agrees with that logic, but since he’s had a kid, he doesn’t say it out loud anymore.

When Ari’s there and Grant’s awake, she liked to poke him cheecks and tummy and squeeze his nose. Ethan doesn’t know why, (Y/N) doesn’t know why, and Grayson and his wife don’t know why. Hell, GiGi doesn’t know why.

But she does, because in her mind, he’s squishy—and you poke squishy things, don’t you?

And there’s the almighty statement that emerges from her mouth after they’d left and were on the way home. “Daddy, I want a baby brother.”

The first time she’d said that (Y/N) choked on her coffee.

And (Y/N) and Ethan had made a pact since before they got married. “One kid.” She told him when they decided to try for a baby. “That’s it. If we get lucky and have twins, great, but I’m only going through this pregnancy thing once.”

And Ari voicing her want for a baby brother (an alien in her eyes) was right around the time Grant was about to be born. And he thought, well, maybe if I take her to the delivery room and she’s reminded of what having a newborn was like, maybe she’ll want another kid.

That didn’t happen.

He tried though.

***

“Daddy,” Ari grumbled when she was awoken from her nap on the couch. “Daddy, I want apple.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” She let him—emphasis on let him; she does not like to be bothered when she’s woken up—pick her up and take her to the kitchen. He set her in her chair, going into the refrigerator and grabbing the container of apple slices that he’d cut yesterday for this specific moment. He made sure the peel of the slices were removed, putting them on a plate and setting them in front of her. “Thank you, daddy.”

“You’re welcome, bubs.”

They sat in the kitchen in a comfortable silence, him just being there so she wouldn’t worry about where he is—because that happens a lot more than you’d think. “Daddy?”

“Hm?” He looked up from an article he was reading on Buzzfeed. “What’s up?”

“I wanna watch tv.”

He’s not supposed to let her watch tv while she eats because she gets distracted easily, according to (Y/N). But she was at work, and what she won’t know won’t kill her. So he took the plate and the kid and sat down on the couch, putting her in his lap and letting her lean into his warmth. He turned on Blue’s Clues, which, as he’d learned from watching, was nothing like the version he grew up on. He didn’t complain though, because she was quiet and content and was actually not distracted for once.

(Y/N) got home from work about forty minutes later, unlocking the door and calling out a “hello?” into the atmosphere of the house. She didn’t get a response, though she saw Ethan’s truck in the driveway. She walked further into the house and entering the living room she could’ve died at the sight.

Ethan was slouched on the couch with Ari laid across his body, a protective arm around her while she hugged him. Her head was tucked into his chin, a thumb in her mouth. (Y/N) took notice of the two of them sleeping soundly, taking a blanket off the back of the recliner and draping it over them. She decided to join them a bit later after she’d had a chance to decompress from a stressful day.

As she walked toward the steps, she’d heard him groan—a telltale sign that he was waking up. She couldn’t even count the amount of times she’d been woken up by the loud grunts of Ethan Dolan. “Baby?” He mumbled, eyes halfway opened.

“Hey, hun.” She crept her way back to where they were, pecking his lips and peppering kisses on Ari’s cheek. “Just got in.”

“Okay. ‘M gonna wake her in a few, she must’ve dozed off.”

“And I wonder who she got that from, Mr. Lazy Bones.”

“Ha-ha.”

***

“Daddy, I don’t wanna go to bed.”

“For the last time: no Disney tomorrow if you don’t go to bed. I mean it.”

He didn’t mean that.

He’d take her to the moon if she really wanted him to; but someone has to have the authority, because (Y/N) says he’s just as much of a kid as their daughter is. “No Disney tomorrow if you don’t lay down and go to sleep.”

“Can I sleep in your bed?”

He sighed. This always happens when she’s trying to prolong sleep: she’ll whine and complain about how she doesn’t want to go to bed, then she’ll get in Ethan and (Y/N)’s bed and be asleep in ten minutes. “Ari, when are you gonna sleep in your own bed?”

“I do!”

“No, no. When are you going to sleep in your bed without sleeping in mommy and daddy’s?”

“Oh... I dunno. But you keep the bad dreams away.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He kept holding her in his arms, feeling her body begin to settle. “They don’t like you.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think they’ll want your big, scary dad to get them, huh? Same with the boogey man.”

She nodded quietly, letting out a soft yawn. “Sleep in your bed? Just for a little bit?”

“Alright, fine.” He carried her into his bedroom, setting her in the middle of the bed, next to (Y/N), who would wonder why Ari was there but already knowing the answer, she didn’t say anything. He took up the rest of the space, letting the sleepy toddler climb over him like she usually does. One would think she’d grow tired of sleeping on her daddy’s (hairy) chest so often, but he assumes that she sleeps the soundest when she’s with him. “Comfy?”

“Mhm.” She hummed with her thumb in her mouth. She pulled it out to say a, “Comfy, cozy.”

“Good.” He pulled the covers up over the three of them, (Y/N) turning off the lamp on the nightstand and keeping the tv on. “Goodnight, my sweet girls.”

“Goodnight daddy!” mumbled the child.

“Goodnight, daddy.” (Y/N) cooed in his ear seductively, kissing the lobe before laying down to sleep.

He cut her a glare, as if to remind her that there was a child laying across his body and to not awaken anything within him. He allowed himself to get comfortable, watching bits and pieces of Family Guy to keep him entertained as he tried to doze off. But about ten minutes later, instead of hearing snores, he heard in a quiet voice:

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.”

“You want some water?”

“No, daddy. I want some soda.”

He glanced over at his wife who was sleeping soundly, then looked down at the little girl that made his heart flutter. “You know you’re bot supposed to have any soda, especially not this late.”

“But daddy, I just want a little bit.”

He had to give in.. his little girl was dying of thirst, he had no choice! “Fine. Let’s get some soda.”

He took her down to the kitchen, setting her on the counter by the fridge. Then he opened the fridge, taking out the half-empty bottle of Sprite he’d just-so-happened to have stored, getting a straw out the drawer, and holding the straw to her lips.

She swallowed happily, a satisfied ahhhh leaving her lips. She giggled. “Mm. I like soda.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded gleefully. “Yeah.”

“Is it spicy, bubby?”

“Yeah. It’s spicy.”

He had to laugh. He put the soda away, taking Ari back downstairs and laying her back down. “Okay. Now, bed.”

“Okay daddy.” She kissed his cheek, cold lips buttoned against his beard. “Love you.”

“I love you too, princess.”

#dolan twins #dolan fandom #dolan tuesday #dolan imagines #planet dolan #ethan dolan #grayson and ethan #ethan dolan x black girl #ethan dolan x poc #ethan dolan fic #ethan dolan x reader #ethan dolan imagine #dad! fic #dad!ethan dolan #dad!fic #arielle dolan #arielle lisa dolan

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side-effect-of-the-meds · 5 years

Note

Erin and Ania are like holy fuck I can’t even. But for real Neil sees Abby as a mother figure in the book so like is it the same for Ania? Andrew too? Idek I just need to know their relationships with everyone

It’s time I map out their relationships anyways lol so thanks, love!

Let’s start with the lovely Ania

Dan, Allison, and Ania are roommates. It’s tough after Seth’s death bc Ania has to face her all the time. Erin tells Allison her theory too so Allison is avoiding Ania so :////

Dan is essentially what Matt was to Neil. She sees Ania and her first thought is ‘baby’. She adopts her so fast. Every morning before class, she’ll pinch Ania’s cheeks and kiss her fingers, chef-style Idk man. It’s just something my mom does to me ok. Let me be soft.

Renee rooms with Erin so Ania isn’t comfortable with her. Anyone that can spend the night in a room with that girl has to be hardcore.

Allison also gives Ania a lot of shit about her wardrobe. At some point it starts to get to her so when the monsters head to the mall, Erin catches Ania drifting towards the girl’s section on her own. She’s high so she follows her around, prodding her about it. When Ania tells her, there’s this moment where Erin’s drug haze parts for a second. Ania could have sworn that she saw anger flashing in Erin’s eyes for half a second. She shrugs it off until Allison shows up at the dorms with a bruise on her jaw. Erin knows Ania hides her body bc scars and bc she doesn’t like men staring at her. She refuses to let Allison shame Ania into doing something she doesn’t want to. In general, Allison and Ania have a rocky relationship because Erin keeps interfering. After Christmas, the two of them end up getting along a lot better bc they bond while Allison covers Ania’s bruises with makeup. Also after Christmas, Ania and Renee trade dorms so she and Allison aren’t in constant contact. Part of their friction was due to the amount of time they spent together. A lot of things have happened to Allison this year and the fact that she constantly has to see the source of a lot of her problems makes it hard for her to heal.

I’ve considered Fem!Nicky but I personally prefer Gay/Lesbian solidarity between him and Erin a lot better so yeah (However if you want me to run a few Fem!Nicky hcs, hmu and I’ll do it. She won’t be a part of the fem!verse but it would be fun). He’s exactly the way he is in canon. However, he is constantly trying to set Ania and Erin up and Erin? Doesn’t? Stop? Him? She’s so desperately in love with Ania that if Nicky wingmanning for her is what it takes to win her over, then she’ll take it. She also has a really dirty sense of humor. The jokes he makes fuel her late-night fantasies.

Aaron is disgusted with Nicky and, more importantly, himself. Ania is incredibly beautiful and he’s incredibly straight. He doesn’t like her bc he’s so gone for Katelyn. That doesn’t make Ania any less pretty. He finds himself staring at her all the time but so does every other fox so he doesn’t feel bad.

Katelyn thinks Ania is hot. She’s bi but leans heavily towards guys. It takes Aaron a long time to unlearn his homophobia but he manages it because Katelyn is bi and he couldn’t possibly hate anything about her. Once Riko is gone and Ania is safe, she starts to develop feelings. I mean, she always had feelings but now she doesn’t try to suppress them. She lets herself want to be friends with people. Katelyn happens to be at the top of her list. While the twins are with Bee at their sessions, Katelyn and Ania hang out. Sessions are only an hour/hour and a half long so the girls just grab a soda together or go window shopping in Reddin. I hc Katelyn as a genuinely sweet VSCO girl. Let me have this! Ania has a grunge/goth aesthetic because Erin buys her clothes for her but she thinks Katelyn’s clothes are cute too. Erin wants to hate the thousands of scrunchies and anklets she finds strewn across the dorm but they make Ania so happy. Once on a double date, on Bee’s insistence, Katelyn catches sight of a bubblegum pink scrunchie in Erin’s hair. It’s a stark contrast to her all-black outfit but it’s really cute. When Aaron goes to grab their drinks from the barista, Katelyn tells her so making sure to stay well out of Erin’s reach. Erin just grunts and turns to look out the window. The twins don’t blush with their whole face. Instead, their ears turn red. With Erin’s hair pulled up and out of the way, Katelyn has no trouble seeing her burning red ears. It’s progress!

Ania spends a lot more time out at Evermore as a kid than Neil did. As a result, she was really close to Kevin and Riko. She only knew Jean for like a month before she dipped. I got a request for Fem!Jean so you’ll see Ania’s relationship with Jeanie soon. Kevin sees her as a baby sister. He and Kayleigh were actually at the hospital when Ania was born. There’s a baby photo back at Kayleigh’s old house of 3yr old Kevin carrying a newborn Ania. He’s crying rivers in it. There’s an actual video of it as well. In it, Kay asks him why he’s crying. “She’s sho shmall!” little Kevin sobs. “Can I keep her? Pleashe, mom. I’ll be nice to her and take care of her and I’ll tell her I love her all the time.” You can hear someone laughing in the background. The camera pans across the room to reveal Wymack sitting in a chair by the door, cackling

TANGENT BUT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT WYMACK FOR A MINUTE! So Wymack and Kay are friends with some obvious benefits. He flips his shit when Kevin is born because what if that’s his kid??? Kay is just like, I was with a lot of guys and brushes it off. She’s lying through her teeth. Wymack is the only man she’s ever loved. Tetsuji is salty and I will go into this in another post but I think that Tetsuji really hated Kevin because he was Kay’s son but not his. I absolutely believe that Tetsuji was in love with Kayleigh Day and was pissed when she had a kid. Anyway, Wymack flies out to Ireland a lot to check up on Kay and Kevin because Kay is crazy. How could the inventor of exy not be? It’s literally murder lacrosse. He goes out to make sure Kay isn’t overworking herself and bc Kev has no father figure. Kev grows up knowing Wymack and absolutely adores him. When Kay dies, Wymack wants custody of Kevin. Kay knows who the Moriyamas are and recently she and Tetsuji have been fighting a lot. She’s scared that something is going to happen to her so she writes her will and emphasizes that she wants her son sent to Wymack if she dies. Her fight with Tetsuji comes to a head and the car ‘accident’ happens. It’s not an accident. Tetsuji ordered her killed in a fit of rage. He’s devastated when it actually happens. He loved her and now she’s dead. Well, who’s fault is that, ya dumb bish? He flies out for the funeral and so does Wymack. Tetsu finds the will first and is anger. He has it burned and has Nathan forge a new one where he gets custody of Kev. It breaks Wymack’s heart bc now he thinks Kay didn’t want him around Kev. Kevin is five and he’s crying because his mom is dead and now he can’t live with Wymack. He calls Wymack Dad and Wymack can’t do anything about this. Instead, he just hugs little Kev close and tells him it’ll be okay. Wymack tells Kev that Tetsu has a niece his age. Maybe Kev and Riko can be friends. Maybe they’ll even get married. Kevin says that’s disgusting and Wymack laughs a hollow laugh. Anyway, that’s how Kev gets shipped to Evermore. Tetsu doesn’t allow Wymack near Kev bc he knows the truth. The reason why Wymack always has a sports channel on because he used to keep it on in case Kev ever showed up. He watched every one of Kev’s games and interviews and everything. Wymack doesn’t get to be there to watch Kev grown up so he just watched from a distance. I'm not crying you are.

Wymack is a father figure to Ania and Erin. He’s there when Ania is born bc he went to visit Kay and Kev who were in Baltimore to meet baby Nathania. Kay carts him out to the hospital to meet her too. Nathan Wesninski was not in the room when his daughter was born. He doesn’t even meet her until she’s six months old. Wymack is the first man Nathania meets and she doesn’t even know. Mary didn’t want to hand Nathania over to Wymack but she and Kay are friends and she knows that he’s her baby daddy. Wymack doesn’t recognize Ania because he only knew her for a month when she was a newborn. Of course he doesn’t recognize her. However, he thinks about her a lot. She’s actually the first baby he’s ever held. He didn’t get to hold Kevin until he was two. Wymack treats Ania the same way he treats Neil but he puts in a bit of extra care bc he knows about Millport incident.

Abby is definitely as much of a mom figure as she was to Neil. However, after she shows her her scars, Ania gets a lot closer to her. She refuses to tell her things but when Erin gets sent to Easthaven, Ania has a hard time staying at the dorms. She spends all her time at the court bc she has to. She hides in the library bc it’s the one place she wouldn’t see Erin anyways. She crashes at Abby’s a few times because there are times she can’t stand the thought of going back to the dorms without feeling the brush of Erin’s hand on the back of her neck.

Oh. That’s a thing. Every night after midnight practice n Kev has gone to his room, Ania says goodnight to Erin. Erin will trail her hand across the back of Ania’s neck as she passes in response. It makes Ania shiver because her neck is as much of an erogenous zone as Erin’s is. Erin always watches it out of the corner of her eye bc God it’s the most amazing thing she’s ever seen. It makes her feel. Ania doesn’t really realize???? She’s so dumb. She knows it makes her feel good but she just can’t for the life of her figure out why.

It’s time I addressed the real psycho lesbian… While Erin’s is a facade, Riko is genuinely psychotic. She’s seven types of crazy. Actually, it skews a little more yandere but I will go into depth about it in the Fem!Jean fic. Rn, I’ll try to keep it short. Riko has her first crush when she’s eight? Nine? She kisses her crush on the cheek when she’s ten and Tetsuji… doesn’t take it well to say the least. The bit about it’s easier to remain straight? It’s the thing Kevin hears Riko say to herself every morning in front of the mirror. Regardless, Riko never gets over that first crush. Riko will never not miss Nathania Wesninski. When she finds out who Ania really is? She loses it. It’s fate, she tells herself. She will have Ania or die trying. Christmas at Evermore is a thing so I mean, I guess she does have Ania :( But she wants Ania to love her. She tells Ania as much and Ania spits in her face. :)

Most of Erin’s relationships are the same except for the Matt and Renee thing I covered earlier. The only other one that changes is Kevin. I know I say this a lot, but she really thought Ania and Kev would be a thing. She says no to Kevin for everything bc she’s petty. Kevin has always gotten everything that he wanted handed to him on a silver plate. Now he’s taking the one thing she really wants. If he gets Ania, he can’t have anything else. Again, I’ll cover her relationship with Jean later.

Thanks again your ask <3

Edit: I'm really tired and have a quiz tomorrow but I forgot to talk about Cleo. I'll make a separate post about her so stay tuned for that!!!

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manymessyfandoms · 6 years

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Ummm I absolutely ADORE your fics ... can you do one where the avengers see tony and Peter have little bonding moments or something like that? Love your workkkk

YOU BET YOUR ASS I COULD DO THAT

Sorry if this is a little late, I worked today BUT I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS

I did four of the Avengers bc the “Keep reading” thing never works for me, and I didn’t want this getting obnoxiously long

ANYWAYS I hope you like it, m’dear!

BRUCE

Bruce Banner, like everyone else, knew that Tony Stark wasn’t a particularly warm and fuzzy person. He tended to diffuse emotionally charged situation with sarcasm and humor, and was basically allergic to showing his feelings.

That’s why Peter Parker was such a pleasant surprise.

“Banner,” Tony said one day as he walked in with coffee in one hand and the teen following close behind. “Peter’s going to help us out today.”

Bruce nodded his head, accepting that. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for Peter to assist them in the lab, especially recently, but after taking a closer look at the kid’s face, Bruce realized something was wrong. He didn’t have the usual buzzing energy he had when he came to work.

“You alright, Peter?” Bruce asked when he sat down at one of the tables glumly.

“Peter’s pouting,” Tony answered.

“Am not!”

“Are to. You’ve been bummed about something ever since you got home from school- yeah, I noticed- and you’re going to tell me about it right now.”

Peter’s eyes shifted down, and Bruce grew nervous. The kid looked fragile right now, and Tony didn’t do fragile. He was blunt and tough.

“It’s nothing,” Peter mumbled.

Tony gave Bruce a look that he read as can you believe this kid before he said, “Pete. Something’s up. Talk to me.” And his voice… was soft. It had Bruce frowning in confusion.

The tone seemed to be enough for Peter because he cracked. “I just… you can’t be mad at me, okay?” He waited for Tony to nod before continuing. “I sort of… I failed a bio test.”

Bruce almost laughed, thinking the kid was joking. Who cares about one high school test? Everyone had their off days, and what’s one test to someone who’s pretty much helped save the world?”

It was when Peter continued that Bruce realized he wasn’t kidding. “That’s one of my subjects, you know? And- and I know you’re probably disappointed or something, because you always talk about how I need to take my studies seriously, and now I’m probably never going to get in a good college, and I should just drop out now because I’m never going to amount to anything.” At some point during Peter’s frantic rant, he realized just how young the boy was. He truly believed everything he was saying, and judging by how thick his voice had gotten towards the end, he was taking it hard.

Tony walked over to Peter, and Bruce braced himself for a slap on the back with a casual, “Toughen up,” or maybe, “It’s no big deal,” but Tony didn’t do either. Instead he slung an arm around Peter’s shoulder and told the kid to look at him.

“I’m not mad or disappointed, Pete,” he said when they locked eyes. “Everyone fails a test here or there. It’s probably my fault for keeping you here so long.”

Peter started shaking his head. “No, no, Mr. Stark, it wasn’t-”

“Bottom line is that it’s okay. I guarantee you you’re still the smartest little bastard at that school, and colleges are going to be clamoring for you, even with one lousy test score.” Peter’s face was a little bit brighter but he still looked unconvinced. “I promise you that no one’s mad, no one thinks any less of you, and you’ll crush the next one. I won’t keep you here later than 10pm, and we’re going to take breaks. In fact, we’re not working today.”

Peter finally laughed a little. “Tony, it’s fine-”

“Nope. Go on upstairs and order that pizza you like. We’re watching a movie tonight and then you’re getting a full night’s rest. Okay?”

Peter was full on smiling when he said, “Okay,” and hopped off his chair. Tony ruffled his hair when he walked past him to go upstairs.

“I’ll be up in a minute!” Tony called after him and Peter gave him a thumbs up.

Bruce was grinning widely at him when he turned to him. “I’ve never seen you like that.”

“Shut up,” Tony said with an eye roll.

“No, it was very paternal. Would I get punched in the face if I said it was cute?”

“Yes, so can it, Banner.” Bruce laughed when Tony exited the lab to go upstairs where Peter was waiting for him.

NATASHA

Natasha would be lying if she said she didn’t have a soft spot for Peter Parker. The bright eyed kid had the ability to turn their worst days around, and every one of them cared for him.

She hadn’t realized how much Tony in particular cared for him until one night when Peter’s suit went on the fritz and his vitals dropped out, only they didn’t know it was his spider suit that was malfunctioning. They thought they’d just witnessed Peter Parker die.

“FRIDAY,” Tony said thickly into the heavy silence, “pull up Peter’s coordinates.”

“No coordinates found.”

“FRIDAY!” he yelled. “Give me the damn coordinates!”

“No coordinates found, sir.” The AI’s voice sounded as sympathetic as a robot could sound.

“No, no, no, no,” Tony muttered, his breaths getting stuttered. “He was just patrolling. He was just patrolling.”

“Tony,” she said, trying to hold it together herself. “Tony, you’re not breathing.”

“No, he’s not breathing! He’s not breathing, Tasha!” Tony’s voice cracked on her name. “My kid’s not breathing.” He quickly turned and his fist collided with the wall.

“Tony! Stop!” She grabbed him by the shoulder, away from the wall, and he fought her for only a second before all the fight in him evaporated and he fell into her arms.

“I can’t- he can’t-” he cried out, but before she could respond, FRIDAY spoke up.

“Peter Parker is entering the building.” Tony couldn’t have pulled away any quicker if he tried. He didn’t even reply, just ran over to where the elevator was opening and a sheepish Peter Parker entered the room.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, sorry about the suit but- Tony? Are you okay?”

Tony pulled him into a hug and Natasha felt relief rush throughout her own body. He was alive. He was okay. He was here.

“You,” Tony started but his voice cracked again, so he cleared his throat before continuing. “You cannot do that to me again. Unless you want to be responsible for my poor old heart giving out way before my time, then you cannot do that, Pete.”

Peter looked slightly confused. “I- I don’t know what happened. My suit got electrocuted-”

“Excuse me?”

“-and it suddenly went offline. Oh wait.” His eyes widened as he put the pieces together. “My suit went offline.”

“Yeah, kid, we thought you just bit it.” The anguished tone in his voice had Natasha’s heart beating painfully, and she thought back to Tony’s, My kid’s not breathing. His kid.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. I tried to get here as quick as possible, I really did.”

Tony hugged him again. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Just don’t- don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

Natasha walked over a rubbed the guys’ shoulders. “I’m glad you’re okay, Peter. Gave us a scare.”

“Must be weird being the one that’s scared for once instead of doing the scaring,” he said with a smirk.

She shoved him a little. “Yes. I don’t like it, so listen to Tony and don’t do it again.”

Tasha heard Tony say, “Now tell me just exactly how you managed to electrocute yourself,” and Peter’s nervous chuckle as she walked away.

STEVE

“What do you mean she said no?” Steve heard Tony say incredulously as he walked into the kitchen, where he sat with Peter.

“I mean, she said no,” Peter said, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know what to tell you!”

“Why would she say no?” Tony sounded so genuinely confused that Steve had no other choice but to insert himself in the conversation.

“What’s going on?”

Peter turned to Tony and said, “Tony, don’t-”

“Michelle rejected him!”

“Dammit,” Peter scrunched his face. “You don’t tell Captain America about my love life, Mr. Stark! I even specifically said so! What did I say? I said, ‘Tony, if I tell you this, you can’t tell the others.’ And what did I say after that?” Tony just rolled his eyes. “I said, ‘Especially Captain America.’”

Tony waved him off. “You idolize him too much, kid.”

“So who’s Michelle?” Steve cut in with an amused smile, noticing how Peter was ready to scold Tony some more.

“She’s-”

Peter cut off Tony. “She’s a girl from my school that I maybe have a little crush on. It’s no big deal.” Tony’s scoff indicated that it might not have been as small of a crush as Peter led on. “And I asked her to dinner and she said no.”

“Which is crazy, by the way,” Tony jumped back in.

“Tell me about her,” Steve said before he went on to hear an almost thirty minute ramble about the perfect girl from Peter’s school that he tried to ask out. “Well,” he cut Peter off when he paused for a breath. “Do you want my totally objective opinion?”

Peter’s eyes widened. “Yes!”

“From the sound of it, she’s a pretty laid back girl and you asked her to one of the fanciest restaurants in New York. Just ask her to go for a burger or something. She’ll probably say yes.”

There was a brief pause before both Peter and Tony started talking at the same time.

“Oh!’

“That’s what it is-”

“-makes sense, really.”

Steve laughed. “Try that out. If she says no again, then you ask her straight up if she’d rather do something else, and if she says no to that, I’m sorry to say it’s time you give up.”

Peter was bouncing excitedly. “No, it makes total sense! That’s why we were so confused, because she’d told me she wanted to go out, but when I actually did it, she said no.”

“I told you, Pete!” Tony said. “It’s not you.” Peter grinned at him as he rubbed his shoulder a little, and Steve’s heart warmed. He hadn’t seen Tony this happy in quite some time. It was nice.

A few hours later when Steve got Tony alone, he teasingly said, “Helping Peter with girl troubles, huh?”

“You and I both know damn well I’d help that kid with just about any troubles he could ever have,” Tony said with a casual chuckle before walking away, leaving a slightly shocked Steve standing there. The shock wore off after a minute when he thought back to how Tony was around Peter, and then it wasn’t actually shocking after all, not with knowing how much Tony loved the kid.

CLINT

When Clint met up with the rest of the Avengers after the war with Thanos, he was shocked to see that Tony had practically adopted the spider kid. It started off as a joke, really, that Peter was Tony’s son, but one day Clint walked into the living room when Tony frantically was startled from his nap, screaming, “No!”

“Whoa, Tony, you alright?” he quickly asked the man still panting on the couch.

“I- I need-” He grabbed his phone from the table and started shakily dialing a number. He pressed the phone to his ear as Clint watched on, and after a minute, he let out the breath he was holding. “Peter,” he said, relieved, and Clint realized what had just happened. “No, everything’s alright. I just- yep. Yeah, it was a bad one.” A pause. “Can you just- can you tell me about your day?”

Clint stood still for the next fifteen minutes, watching as Tony’s tense body relaxed with each passing second as he listened to the kid on the other line.

Eventually he said, “Thanks, Pete. No, it’s fine, you don’t-”

FRIDAY’s voice suddenly chirped up from around them. “Peter Parker is entering the building.” Tony shook his head, laughing a little.

“You didn’t have to come over, kid.”

“Yes, I did.” Clint suddenly heard Peter’s voice when the elevator opened. “You’d do the same for me.” He glanced back at Clint. “Hey, Clint.”

“Hey, Parker,” he replied.

Peter just walked over to where Tony was laying and pulled out his bag. “I brought over some movies I figured we could watch. They’re mostly just fluff, but I did sneak Alien in there.” Tony laughed. “You want to watch with us, Clint?”

That’s how Clint found himself watching a movie with Peter and Tony when he probably should’ve been training. Although, watching a movie probably wasn’t accurate. He was mostly watching Tony, who was watching Peter. That kid meant more to Tony than Clint had even guessed.

When Peter crashed about halfway through the movie, he slumped against Tony, and Tony didn’t hesitated to wrap an arm around his shoulder. It was only minutes later that Tony started grumbling about the kid getting drool on his shirt.

“You don’t mind,” Clint said knowingly.

“No,” Tony agreed. “I don’t.”

If Clint took a picture after the movie ended of the two of them both peacefully asleep with the reassurance of the others’ heartbeat pounding next to them, then they’d just have to find out when they woke up and saw it in the Avengers group chat.

And if Tony set it as his background, well, then the others wouldn’t have to know that particular detail at all.

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hecamity · 6 years

Text

paper ornaments

a/n: bkdk secret santa fic for @amajikies! happy holidays, friend! i used some elements from my current college au bc i don’t know how to break away from it hfjdks. nonetheless, i hope you enjoy! (word count: 4456)

read it on ao3 here.

summary: katsuki forgoes going home for winter break, planning to spend the holidays alone locked in his dorm room in peaceful solitude. izuku, his fellow residence hall neighbor though, won’t stand for it. college au.

“Are you really not going home for winter break?” Kirishima asked Katsuki for the thousandth time that evening, turning around to face him after managing to zip up his overstuffed suitcase.

Katsuki rolled his eyes, not bothering to look up at him, gaze focused on a panel from a weird, gory, but oddly addicting zombie manga he’d stolen from Kaminari’s shelf earlier that day. “I already told you I’m not going anywhere. Fuck off.”

“Your mom will be disappointed.”

“She sees me almost every weekend—she’ll live.”

Kaminari, who’d been sitting at his desk submitting some final assignments, reached over to shut his laptop and spun around to face Katsuki with an incredulous expression. “You’re willing to stay on campus for the next two weeks instead of going home?”

Katsuki turned a page with a snort. “Fuck yeah. I’ll finally get some rest without you assholes around.”

It wasn’t as if winter break was anything special to Katsuki, anyway.

The last three winter breaks, he’d gone home and he never did much. His days consisted of him lounging around his house until his mother chased him with a broomstick in order to get him to help clean or Kirishima and Kaminari blasted his phone with persistent text messages to spend the day out.

Christmas day itself was also nothing special; his mother usually made a light dinner for him and his father and then they’d have some store brought cake for dessert. Later on, his friends would come around in the late evening and pressure him into a night of karaoke.

This year he was a senior and as an art major, he was expected to create one final masterpiece for his Capstone the upcoming semester.

His inspiration though, had been running low lately, and he planned to use the next two weeks on the empty campus to focus on planning for his Capstone without any distractions.

Kirishima only sighed at his friend before giving him a toothy grin. The redhead grabbed at the handle of his suitcase and with loud bang, the suitcase stood in front of him. “I hope you’re not too lonely without us.”

This time Katsuki lowered the manga volume to give Kirishima a smirk. “Not likely. Now get the hell out of here before you miss your train.”

Kirishima picked up his jacket from his bed and started towards the door, towing his suitcase behind him. Kaminari followed suit, his duffle bag already over his shoulder.

“Remember, we’re only a twenty minute train ride away when you can’t take the agonizing silence of this soon to be cold, lonely dorm room—”

Kirishima was silenced by the third volume of Zombies in Tokyo hitting his head with a mighty thunk.

A few hours after his roommates left, Katsuki found himself lounging in his floor’s common room. His legs were hitched onto the coffee table in front of him and he was using one of the couch’s cushions as leverage, a sketchbook in front of him.

In the background, he could faintly hear the All Might anime re-run he’d turned on, half paying attention to the action on screen.

“DETROIT SMASH!!!!!” the muscular superhero cried as he extended a fist toward a sludge monster who roared in response.

Typically he avoided the area, as it was usually loud and swarmed with the people he shared his floor with, except for late nights when he couldn’t sleep and he could relax in the silence.

This was one of those rare moments in which Katsuki could find himself there without running into anyone or sharing control of the one television, most of the campus having already been abandoned by students going back home for the next two weeks.

“Is that All Might?!” an excited voice squeaked from the entrance to the common room.

The sudden noise caused him to flinch and lose control of the hand that had been sketching. Gritting his teeth in irritation, he narrowed his red eyes at the now uneven line on the page before him. With a loud sigh he shifted them to turn his glare towards the voice that had broken his concentration.

He was met with a familiar face: freckled rosy cheeks, shining emerald eyes, a beaming smile, and a head of messy, green curls.

Katsuki immediately recognized him; he’d occasionally seen him around the residence hall, flanked by a cinnamon haired girl and a bespectacled giant. They’d also shared a Japanese history seminar he’d been forced to take as a prerequisite the semester before; Katsuki remembered him sitting in the front of the class, one of the few students who participated frequently, often times going off on passionate ramblings he’d had trouble catching most of the time.

The boy walked in further into the room, hugging a composition notebook to his chest. It took a moment before his excited smile turned into one of embarrassment, his already flushed cheeks turning an even darker shade of red. “I interrupted you, I’m so sorry!”

Katsuki felt his glare drop slightly and his heart skip a beat at the sight his bashful little grin.

Adorable fuckhead. The thought slipped before he could stop it and it took everything in him not to blanch at himself because for fuck’s sake, he did not find anything or anyone adorable.

Especially not annoyingly overenthusiastic, broccoli-headed individuals who dared interrupt him while he worked.

Katsuki huffed and moved his eyes back down to his sketchbook, aggressively erasing at his mistake. “Apology not accepted, shithead.”

The green-haired boy’s smile did not leave his face though and Katsuki was surprised his unfriendliness hadn’t deterred him from approaching the couch.

“Can I join you?”

“I think the fuck not.”

He completely ignored Katsuki’s rejection, settling himself into the seat beside the blond, bringing his knees up to his chest. The notebook he’d been holding was tossed on the coffee table in front of them. “This is the sludge monster episode! Iconic.”

Katsuki stopped the sketching he had resumed to give him a blank look. “Are you some kind of nerd?”

“If you’re asking me that because of my enthusiasm for this incredibly amazing, legendary series, then yes I definitely am.”

Katsuki refrained from snorting at his response. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Home like everyone else?”

“I’m staying on campus for winter break this year,” he answered back his green eyes shifting from the television to look at Katsuki curiously. “Why haven’t you left for winter break?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“You’re a grouchy one, aren’t you?” Katsuki could hear the teasing lilt in his voice.

“And you’re annoying as fuck, aren’t you?”

“Touché, Bakugou-san.” The curly-haired boy laughed lightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his smile.

Katsuki’s eyebrows rose into his hairline, his head whipping to give him a surprised look. “You know my name?”

“Of course,” the boy’s tone was matter-of-fact. “We were in the same history seminar last semester!”

Katsuki couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of guilt at not remembering his name.

Clearing his throat, Katsuki picked up his long forgotten charcoal pencil to resume his work. “Right.”

A silence fell between them, the only sound coming from the television. From the corner of his eye, Katsuki could see that the boy was watching the screen once more, the corner of his lips upturned in amusement.

Three episodes later, the strangely comfortable companionable silence that fell between them would sometimes be broken with an occasional comment about the episode playing.

Katsuki had almost been disappointed—almost—when the green-haired boy stood from his seat, stretching his arms upward. “I’m going to head to bed. Thanks for letting me watch All Might with you, Bakugou-san.”

“I never—”

“Goodnight! I’ll see you around!”

“No, you the fuck you won’t!” Katsuki growled loudly, listening to the sound of his laughter as he walked down the hall.

When he leaned back against the couch cushions, his scarlet eyes traveled to the coffee table and landed on the composition notebook that the green-haired boy had brought in with him.

Tossing his sketchbook to the side, Katsuki leaned forward and picked the notebook from the coffee table.

In neat handwriting, he finally saw his name.

Knock knock.

Katsuki furrowed his eyebrows, burrowing his head deeper into his pillows in attempts to block the insistent knocking.

Knock knock knock.

“What the fuck?” Katsuki lifted his head and turned towards his door.

“Bakugou-san?” The voice came from the other side, muffled by the door.

Throwing the sheets off of his body, Katsuki jumped out of bed and stomped towards the door, ripping it open. Giving the grinning boy on the other side his best sneer, Katsuki resisted the urge to throttle him.

“Why the hell are you knocking on my door at—” Katsuki paused to turn and look at the digital clock Kirishima kept on his desk. “7:30 in the morning on a day off?”

“Because, we’re getting breakfast together.”

“Like hell we are.” Katsuki grumbled, turning away from him and walking back towards his bed. “Don’t you have any other friends to go annoy?”

“You’re my friend!” he crowed in a voice that was entirely too happy for such an early hour. “And everyone else is off-campus.”

Katsuki raised an eyebrow and gave him an incredulous look. “Since when are we friends?”

“Since we bonded over All Might last night.” A sweet smile spread across his freckled face. “You can’t take it back.”

“Listen here shitty nerd,” Katsuki loudly began. “Just because I sort agreed with you on the genius that was the Impromptu Villains arc, doesn’t mean that we’re friends.”

The freckled boy only ignored his words, heading back towards the door. “I’ll be waiting in the common room.”

“Oi!” Katsuki yelled after him only to have the door shut.

“Little shithead.” The blond mumbled to himself, lifting himself off of his bed once more and dragging his feet towards his wardrobe to pick something to change into.

After pulling on a sweater and some jeans, Katsuki sleepily stuffed his wallet, keys, and phone into his pocket. He’d almost made it past his desk when he noticed the composition notebook he’d haphazardly tossed when he’d come back to his room the night before.

After a moment, he grabbed the notebook and made his way to the common room to see the little asshole that had decided to interrupt his slumber bouncing in his seat.

“You forgot this last night, Deku.” Katsuki practically shoved the notebook in his face.

“Deku?” The boy gave him a confused frown, lowering the notebook to his lap. Katsuki wordlessly pointed towards the front of the notebook in where his name was written on the front.

His green eyes lit up in understanding; he wasn’t the first person that had read his name as Deku. “It’s Izuku actually. Midoriya Izuku.” He laughed a little before his smile morphed into a small pout. “So that means you didn’t actually know my name.”

Katsuki let out a quick cough, bringing his hand up to scratch at his head. “Didn’t you say we’d be going out to breakfast? Hurry the fuck up—if I don’t get something in my stomach, I might have to destroy you.”

Izuku stood from his seat and led this way, all while mumbling, “I can’t believe you didn’t know my name. We shared a class.”

“Can it, Deku.”

“So, you’re an art major?” Izuku’s mouth formed an ‘O’ and his eyebrows rose to his hairline in surprise.

“The fuck’s that look for?” Katsuki asked him around a mouthful of fluffy pancakes, pointing his fork at Izuku.

Izuku’s lips morphed into an impish smile, his shoulders rising into an exaggerated shrug. “You just don’t look very artsy. But now that I’m thinking about it, it kind of suits you—you’ve kind of got a brooding artist aesthetic going on.”

At his words, Katsuki’s scarlet eyes narrowed into a glare. “You’re goddamned lucky these pancakes are good or I’d of thrown my fork at your ugly mug.”

“Brooding and violent artist, I’m sorry.”

“You’re making it really fuckin’ easy to come to a decision to never speak to you again.”

Izuku giggled, bringing his mug of tea to his lips, shifting his already empty plate to the side. “Okay, okay, I’ll let you eat your pancakes now.”

Katsuki watched as Izuku slid the notebook he’d returned to him earlier closer to him, the green-haired boy opening the cover and flipping through the pages, almost as if he wanted to make sure its contents remained the same.

“What’s in that crap anyway?”

Izuku shut the cover of the notebook and looked up with almost startled eyes. “You didn’t look in it?”

Katsuki had admittedly been tempted to peek inside but had decided against it. As fucking awesome as his art was, he knew he wouldn’t be pleased had someone chosen to look into his sketchbook without his consent.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I had, shitty nerd.”

Izuku pursed his lips, his gaze lowering to the table. His freckled cheeks flushed with color and he began playing with his fingers. “I-it’s uh, they’re poems. Poems that I write,”

“I’m a creative writing and literature double major.” Izuku continued, leaning his chin into his hand. “I kind of carry the notebook around with me everywhere in case inspiration hits.”

Katsuki hummed before giving him a smirk. “I thought you might have been a history major.”

“Oh?”

“You’re the only idiot I’ve ever seen get so passionate in a history lecture.”

At his words Izuku’s face turned bright red, an embarrassed smile. “It was an interesting class.”

Katsuki snorted and shook his head in disagreement. “It was awful. I spent most of it sleeping in the back.”

Izuku tsked him teasingly, his eyes shining with mirth. “Not a very good student.”

“Fuck you, I’m an amazing student.”

Izuku chortled at his response. After a moment, he directed a soft smile at Katsuki, his eyes earnest. “Thanks for having breakfast with me, Bakugou-san.”

Katsuki felt his chest constrict slightly, the tips of his ears growing hot. Biting his lip and averting his gaze, the blond let out an awkward cough. “Whatever, stupid Deku.”

Katsuki hated to admit that the company wasn’t so bad. He could tolerate the nerd—even if he was weirdly passionate about a fictional superhero and forced him out of bed too early.

Ever since they’d had breakfast, Katsuki had seen Izuku nearly every day for the past week and a half.

Like clockwork, the green-haired, literature major would knock on his dorm room door at 8:30 in the morning—he’d explained to Katsuki that he was being nice and letting him sleep in an hour—in order to have breakfast again.

They’d then part ways, reuniting in the common room every evening, watching All Might re-runs until late into the night.

Some afternoons, Katsuki would run into him at the local café, where he spent his time sketching or messing around on his laptop and they’d sit in companionable silence.

Other times, the companionable silence would turn into playful banter or long conversations about school, their friends, themselves.

Katsuki learned that Izuku’s favorite color was green, that when he was younger he’d dreamed of being a fireman, his favorite food was katsudon, and that he was incredibly close to his mother.

He was originally from Matsushima, a good ways away from Tokyo and the move from home had been hard on him, though he’d grown accustomed to the many changes that came with living away from home.

Izuku had also eagerly shared that Christmas was one of his favorite times of the year; every year, he and his mother would go out to pick a tree and decorate it together. They’d spend the afternoons baking and settle into their kotatsu for a night of television, nursing mugs of hot cocoa.

This would be Izuku’s first holiday season without her.

When Katsuki noticed the forlorn expression his face, he’d asked him why he’d chosen to stay on campus instead of going home and spending time with his mother.

“It’s a short break and I thought it’d be more economical to stay on campus this year.” Izuku explained, shrugging all while smiling sadly. “I’ll definitely go home our next break, though.”

Today though, had been the first morning that they hadn’t had breakfast together since the first time Izuku had knocked on Katsuki’s dorm room over a week ago.

Katsuki, like clockwork, had risen early and had been waiting for the familiar knock on his dorm room door—a knock-knock-tap-knock that signaled Izuku’s arrival.

With a huff, Katsuki had picked his backpack off the floor, shoved in his laptop, and had grumpily trudged out of his residence hall and into freshly fallen snow, making his way to the café earlier than usual.

He was definitely not disappointed because he wouldn’t be seeing him. He’d just really been looking forward to his pancakes.

“Excuse me,” Katsuki brought his gaze up from his laptop to look at one of the two baristas working that day standing in front of him. “It seems the snow outside will get worse soon so we’ll be closing the café early for the day.”

With one final bow, the barista walked back to the counter.

Katsuki turned to look outside the café’s window to a flurry of snow falling rapidly.

“Fuck,” he groaned, standing from his seat. He quickly shoved his belongings into his backpack and zipped up his jacket, ready to face the high windows outside.

He’d almost made it to campus when he heard a familiar voice call out behind him.

“Kacchan!”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Katsuki whirled around to see a bundled up Izuku grinning at him excitedly. His green curls were tucked into a woolly hat, a puffy yellow jacket zipped up to his chin, and green mittens protecting his hands. The tip of his button nose and his freckled cheeks were pink, nipped at by the frosty winds.

Cute motherfucker.

“Who the fuck are you calling Kacchan, nerd?” he ignored Izuku’s previous question, curling his upper lip into a snarl.

“You,” Izuku continued, smile widening and emerald eyes twinkling in merriment. “You have a nickname for me, it’s only fair I have one for you.”

“You couldn’t have picked something less cute?”

“But Kacchan, you are cute.” Izuku giggled.

Katsuki froze for a moment, his stomach swooping at Izuku’s words. Blinking rapidly, the blond shook off his momentary shock, and growled. “I’ll fucking kill you, Deku.”

As Katsuki approached him threateningly, Izuku yelped. “Wait! If you’re going to kill me, let me set these down first.”

Katsuki hadn’t noticed that Izuku had two plastic bags wrapped around his wrists and carried a huge paper bag in one of his hands, the name of a nearby department store on the front.

Izuku waddled to a snow-covered bench and set his bags down carefully. Turning back towards Katsuki he shut his eyes tightly and opened his arms widely, as if he were ready to accept whatever came his way. “Okay. I’m ready. Do with me what you will.”

The corner of Katsuki’s lips pulled into a smirk of amusement. Bending down, he bunched up a wad of snow into his hands, ignoring the painful burn of cold against his skin. With wide steps, Katsuki walked towards Izuku, the snow crunching under his boots.

Izuku squirmed in place, seemingly in anticipation.

Without warning, Katsuki tossed the ball of snow in his hand at the green-haired boy, hitting him close to his face.

Izuku let out a loud gasp, his eyes popping open to face a now grinning Katsuki.

“That wasn’t very nice, Kacchan!” Izuku cried out, his mouth still gaping open. “That was cold!”

“Yeah, well I ain’t very nice, Deku.” Katsuki gave him a taunting smile. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

A smile grew on Izuku’s face as he leapt towards the ground and picked up a bunch of snow haphazardly flinging the bunch at Katsuki.

“You little shit!”

Izuku let out something between a strangled yelp and hysterical laughter, attempting to dodge Katsuki when the taller boy lurched towards him.

Katsuki felt himself smile at the sound of another yelp when his second snowball hit the green-haired boy in the face, this time not missing his target.

“I’ll get you, Kacchan!”

Stepping to the side in order to avoid one of Izuku’s snowballs, Katsuki, for the first time in a while, allowed himself to enjoy the moment.

Rubbing his tired eyes, Katsuki let out a long sigh, resisting the urge to throw his sketchbook across his dorm room.

Ripping out the page he’d been sketching on, he balled it up and threw it in the bin underneath his desk.

After he’d gotten back from his impromptu snowball fight with Izuku, Katsuki had said goodbye to him and locked himself in his room in hopes of making progress with ideas on his Capstone project.

Although he’d worked diligently for a few hours, he hadn’t had much luck.

“Fuck it,” Katsuki muttered to himself, taking a quick peek at Kirishima’s digital clock.

12:23 AM

He slammed his sketchbook shut, tossing the pencil he’d been using back into the pencil case Kirishima had given him for his birthday the year before.

Lifting his tired body from his desk chair, the blond staggered over to his bed, dropping on it with a groan. Closing his eyes, Katsuki pressed his face deeper into his pillow; his consciousness ebbing away as sleep took over.

Crash, crash.

Katsuki’s scarlet eyes popped open, immediately awoken by the loud noise that despite being muffled had been enough to interrupt his slumber

“Oh, no!” A voice moaned from the common room, which was across from the hall from Katsuki’s dorm room.

With a sigh, Katsuki jumped from bed and stumbled his way to his door, opening it. His bare feet slapped against the cold linoleum floor as he made his way to the common room.

When he peered inside, he saw a familiar head of green-curls bent over what seemed to be broken Christmas tree ornaments, his fingers picking at multi-colored shards of glass.

On the common room coffee table was a bare, mini-sized Christmas tree.

“Oi, be careful, you idiot.” Katsuki barked at him, causing Izuku to jump slightly at his sudden voice.

Rushing forward, Katsuki knelt down beside him, and with a gentleness that was uncharacteristic of him, moved Izuku’s hands away. He cautiously began reaching for some shards himself, placing them into the plastic bag Izuku had been using. “What is all this shit?”

“I wanted to surprise you with a decorated tree in the morning,” Izuku frowned disappointedly at him, blowing out a frustrated breath. “But I tripped and everything shattered.”

Katsuki felt his heart lurch at the sight of his dispirited expression, his stomach churning uncomfortably.

“I can clean up the rest, Kacchan,” Izuku gave him a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sorry if I woke you with all the noise.

Katsuki watched him for a moment, concern in his eyes. “Oi, it’s fine, I can clean up the rest.” Letting out a small cough, Katsuki continued picking up shards. “Knowing your clumsy ass, I’d have to take you to the ER to get stitches if I let you near this mess any longer.”

Izuku let out a small laugh. “Thank you, Kacchan.”

“Yeah, s’whatever.” he muttered in response, lowering his gaze and concentrating on not cutting himself with the remaining shards.

As he tucked the last of the shards into the plastic bag, Katsuki hoisted himself upwards and looked towards Izuku again, his expression still downcast.

Biting his lip, Katsuki rolled his eyes toward the ceiling before opening his mouth to speak. “Oi.”

“Hmm?” Izuku’s eyes snapped up to meet Katsuki’s, the blond’s voice seemingly bringing him back from his thoughts.

“Get that stupid look off your face,” Katsuki reached down to grab his wrist softly, pulling Izuku to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Izuku followed behind him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Where are we going?”

“We’re gonna go make some fucking ornaments.” Katsuki answered his question, opening the door to his room, waiting for Izuku to enter.

Instead of going in, Izuku continued to stare at him with uncertainty. “Make ornaments?”

“Yeah,” The blond art major answered simply. “Do you have some yarn?”

For the first time since he’d walked into the common room that night, Izuku smiled that smile that could light up a room—the smile that made Katsuki’s insides flutter.

“Knitting just happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.”

“Fucking nerd.” Katsuki snorted.

“Last one,” Izuku yawned into his hand looping a red string of yarn through the hole he’d punched on the paper ornament, clumsily typing a knot. He reached over and gently placed the ornament on the now fully decorated tree. “There.”

Izuku got to his feet and slightly stepped away to admire his and Katsuki’s hard work, the duo working into the morning, the sun now shining through the common room blinds.

They’d suffered through heavy eyelids, several paper cuts, and odd marker stains on their skin.

Coming up behind him, Katsuki nudged him gently, a small smirk on his face. “It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“Only because of your artistic talents,” Izuku gave him a shy grin. “Thanks, again, Kacchan.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes playful, the corner of his lips lifting into a more sincere smile. “Anything to have gotten that mopey look off your idiotic face.”

It was now Izuku’s turn to smirk, the green-haired boy giving Katsuki a teasing little look. “Oh? So he does care.”

“Don’t make me regret being nice to you.” Katsuki scowled at him, turning away and heading towards the couch.

With an exhausted groan, the blond slouched onto the cushions and closed his eyes, leaning his head back comfortably.

He felt the seat next to him dip with added weight and a searing yet comforting warmth at his side, Izuku having come to sit beside him. A moment later, he felt a pressure on his shoulder, hair tickling his chin.

“Oi, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Sleeping.”

“Not on me, shithead.”

“Kacchan,” Izuku whined sleepily, sit still. “I’m sleepy.”

Ignoring the heat that rushed to his cheeks, Katsuki leaned back comfortably once more, allowing himself to relax.

“Kacchan?”

“What?”

“Merry Christmas.”

Katsuki let out a small laugh through his nose. “Merry Christmas, Deku.”

#bakudeku secret santa 2017 #bakudeku #katsudeku #mine: fics #long post #text post

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