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redeemingvillains · 6 months

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sweet disaster - draco malfoy

pairing: draco x f!reader

summary: you and draco are inseparable friends, but deeper feelings come to light when you're asked on a date with someone who is determined to take advantage of you.

words: 7.3k

warnings: reader is put under the influence unknowingly; unwanted advances and affection (nothing more than kissing).

You were snuggled into the edge of the largest couch in the Slytherin common room closest to the fireplace as it crackled. The warmth was welcome against the damp cold that lingered in the dungeons this time of year. You were covered in a quilted blanket reading against the soft light, but you found your attention wavering between the book in your lap and the boy next to you on the couch.

Draco Malfoy had been your closest friend for several years now. First year you had fallen into a fast and easy friendship, clicking right from the very start. You were like two halves of a whole, complimentary in ways other people didn’t quite understand. You could finish each other’s sentences, anticipate each other’s feelings, make each other laugh, even at the most nonsensical things that befuddled your other friends. You had a casual intimacy, your head resting on his shoulder, or wearing his jumpers when you were cold, him always adamant about having the seat next to you whether in class, in the Great Hall, or tonight in your respective spots on the couch.

In many ways your relationship intimidated those around you, who simply assumed that you were dating, though in reality you had never crossed that line. You didn’t even see Draco that way, truthfully… at first. But the more time that passed, and the older you had gotten, you found yourself more and more attracted to him. You were distracted, suddenly, by the way his grey eyes glinted like the cloudy night sky, the way his muscular frame filled out his suit jacket, the way he smelled, like leather and expensive cologne, and the warmth that radiated from him whenever you were pressed close together like you were right now.

You’d lost count of the number of times you had nearly let slip how you felt, only to bite your tongue at the last minute, too afraid of rejection and of ruining the relationship you already had. But that didn’t stop you from daydreaming about twining your fingers into his or feeling his lips pressed softly against your own. You ran your fingers absentmindedly over your lips now, lost in that same thought as you stared at him when your daydream burst like a bubble as Pansy Parkinson sauntered into the common room, leaned over the couch and flung her arms around Draco.

“Pans” he acknowledged, his eyes never leaving his book as she pressed kisses to his cheek. The whole scene turned your stomach, disappointment, hurt and jealousy roiling in equal measures.

Their relationship was a new development over the last few weeks. He had never said anything to you about her, then all of a sudden she was following him around, hanging off of him, kissing him. You squeezed your eyes shut to keep them from welling up. You had been completely blindsided by their relationship and the pain in your heart felt like a fresh wound every day. What made her worth pursuing, but not you? What made her so much more attractive to him? Your mind raced with your own insecurities as you closed your book and stood to leave, unwilling and unable to sit and watch the two of them.

“You’re leaving?” Draco asked, surprised at your abrupt movements, at the lack of warmth he felt as you left his side.

“I’m going to get something to eat, good luck at practice” you said, forcing a smile on your face as you exited the common room as quickly as possible before your tears overflowed.

Draco’s eyes followed you the entire way out of the room. He was disappointed that you never wanted to hang out anymore. He missed you, but he couldn’t figure out how to tell you. Even when you were next to him, it felt like a chasm had opened up that he wasn’t able to cross. He was trying to work it out in his head as Pansy chattered in his ear… It couldn’t be Pansy, could it? He knew you weren’t her biggest fan, but did she really bother you that much? And if so, why hadn’t you said anything? It wasn’t like things were serious with Pansy. Truthfully, he didn’t even know why he had agreed to be with her in the first place. His head swirled as he stood up, pulling away from her.

“I’ve got to get to practice” he said dismissively amidst her whines of protest as he stormed out of the room.

You had absolutely no appetite, but you made your way to the Great Hall anyway, knowing most everyone would be eating dinner and hopeful your friends could help you take your mind off of things. You were nearly there when you heard someone shout your name. You turned to see Cormac McLaggen of all people waving and jogging over to you. You were in the same year and had a few classes together, but the rivalry between your houses and between him and Draco was no secret as competing captains of their quidditch teams.

“Cormac” you said cooly as he approached you.

“Y/N, you’re looking beautiful as ever” he cooed, ever the flirt. You rolled your eyes in response.

“What can I do for you?” you asked, eager to move this conversation along.

“You can go out with me tomorrow night” he said, point blank.

You couldn’t suppress the laughter that came out of your mouth. “And why would I ever do that?” you replied mockingly.

His cheeks blushed and he managed to look bashful for a moment, which caught you off guard.

“Because I fancy you. Have for a while, but I always thought you and Malfoy….” he trailed off. “Now that he’s with Pansy, I thought I’d have a shot. I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’d like to get to know you, if you’d give me a chance?”

You truly could not believe the words coming out of his mouth. You had always written him off as a flirt, well aware of the trail of girls he left in his wake, but he sounded so genuine, so sincere, and just the mention of Pansy’s name had your stomach churning again and your heart beating in your chest. If Draco didn’t see you that way, then why cling to something that was never going to happen? Not to mention a small part of you reveled at the idea of Draco hearing that you were going on a date with Cormac. You knew he’d be furious.

“Fine” you agreed.

“Yeah?” Cormac said, the surprise and joy written clear across his face.

“Sure” you shrugged, a smirk on your face.

Draco was deep in his own head, trying to work out how to make things right with you, while simultaneously trying to focus on his plan for practice as he suited up in the locker room. They’d agreed to share the pitch with the Gryffindors for the evening, both teams eager to get in as much practice as possible before the Quidditch Cup and he gritted his teeth as he listened to the annoying chatter of the opposing team nearby, namely McLaggen, with his obnoxious drawl, going on about whatever girl he had managed to sack that week. Draco was just about to tune him out when he heard something that made his breath catch in his lungs.

“That’s right boys, I’m taking Y/L/N out tomorrow night. Now accepting bets on how long it will take to get her in bed. Ten galleons says we leave after one drink!” Their side of the room howled with laughter and eager cheers and jaunts.

Draco’s side of the room began to spin.

You were going out with McLaggen? Since when? And of all people, why him? Suddenly his uniform felt too tight around his neck, like he couldn’t breathe. He tugged at his collar and found that his hands were shaking. He was furious. Furious at the way McLaggen was talking about you, like you were any other girl. His mind raced with mental images of you two snuggled in a booth at the Three Broomsticks, walking hand in hand down the corridors, you wearing a jersey with his name on it and he felt a wave of nausea wash over him. No, he definitely didn’t want you going out with McLaggen. But, the more he thought about it, he realized he didn’t want you going out with anyone…

You were right that spending time with friends at dinner had been a welcome distraction and you felt calmer as you trailed your way back to the common room. You were about to go to your room to study a bit before bed when the door flung open behind you and Draco marched in, his eyes scanning the room wildly before landing on you. You had never seen him this angry before, and certainly never at you as he grasped your arm firmly and pulled you into the corridor, away from the prying eyes and whispers of your fellow housemates.

“Ouch – Draco – that hurts! Let go of me! What’s the matter with you?” you demanded as you tried unsuccessfully to wiggle out of his strong grasp.

“Is this some kind of joke to you?” he asked. “Because it’s not funny in the slightest.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked, genuinely confused.

“McLaggen” he said, breathing heavily, “you and McLaggen.”

Oh, you realized. News travels fast.

You pulled out of his grasp and straightened up, meeting his burning gaze with your own.

“Not sure what difference it makes to you who I choose to go on a date with” you said smartly.

Draco let out an aggravated sigh and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Of course it made a difference to him. It made a massive difference to him, he realized, but he couldn’t coherently say what he wanted to say through the white-hot anger he felt pulsing through his blood, through the mental images of you with McLaggen that had plagued him all night.

“McLaggen, really?” was the only response he was able to muster.

“Oh, piss off, Draco!” you said. He didn’t have the right to be angry. He didn’t have a say in the matter. He was the one with a girlfriend to begin with.

Realizing what a mess he was making of the situation, Draco tried desperately to backpedal, to see if he could change your mind, to buy himself some time to figure all of this out.

“Look, he’s not a good guy. I heard him talking about you in the locker room, the things he was saying–”

You held up a hand in response, silencing him. “Just stop, Draco. You don’t get to do this” you said as you brushed passed him, back into the common room, leaving him alone in the corridor as he cradled his head in his hands.

You eyed yourself in the mirror the next evening, taking in your stylish sweater, short skirt, tights and heeled boots. It felt nice to be wanted, to be seen by someone, even if it wasn’t the person you wanted it to be. You felt a familiar ache in your chest as you thought briefly of Draco and how deeply you wished you were getting ready for a date with him instead. But you quickly dismissed the thought as you remembered every painful moment you’d watched him and Pansy; instead, you grabbed your coat and headed to the common room.

You tried to make your way quickly to the door when you realized Draco and nearly all of your friends were there. You could feel Draco’s eyes on you like a hex, could feel the weight of his stare, distinct from everyone else’s and you hazarded a glance his way against your better judgement. His arms were crossed and he had an angry scowl on his face. You met his eyes and amidst the palpable anger, for just a moment, you thought you could see a sparkle, a glint that said stay here, with me, please don’t do this. It nearly pulled you back in, but you turned away quickly, unwilling to acknowledge how those eyes, how this boy made you feel.

Your date went as predictably as you could have imagined. Revenge had felt sweet as you thought back to Draco’s reaction to your date, but now you were certainly paying the price. Gone was the bashful, blushing Cormac that had asked you out and in front of you was the self-flattering egotistical boy you had heard so much about. He bragged about himself relentlessly and he laid it on thick, inching closer to you every minute as you wiggled further and further away.

Your first butterbeer went down without any effort, proving to be a sweet distraction and a clear obstacle in front of your lips, which Cormac continually eyed.

“Another?” he asked eagerly, as you set down your empty glass.

“Sure” you said, smiling, looking forward to a moment of peace as he walked back to the bar, though he returned all too quickly.

“Here you are, beautiful” he said cheesily as he took a big gulp of his own.

You reached for the mug, happy to drown in the sweet liquid, but the first sip you took tasted awful: bitter and metallic, like the batch had gone bad.

“Gosh – I think something’s wrong with this” you said as you set the drink down, wincing.

“No, no I asked for another shot in it. It’s just stronger than you’re used to” Cormac said, winking as he pushed the drink back towards you.

Well, thank Merlin for that I suppose you thought as you choked down another sip and he renewed his efforts of bragging and flirting. Before long you felt a fog settle over your mind like a thick blanket. You felt yourself zoning in and out on his words, your thoughts wandering aimlessly.

“Gotta take a piss” he said abruptly, bringing you back to reality as he stood up. You looked down at your near-full drink and tried to think of a way to end this miserable date. You saw a large potted plant beside you, and took the opportunity to dump your drink there, hoping that Cormac would think you’d finished it and take the hint that it was time to leave.

Sure enough, he registered your empty glass immediately. “Whoa! I’ve got to catch up!” he said, as he chugged the last of his.

“I think I’d like to head back, if that’s alright with you?” you asked.

“Of course!” he said eagerly, rushing to help you out of the booth and wrap an arm around you possessively. You tried to create some distance between you but upon standing you realized the foggy feeling in your brain had wound its way to each of your limbs, making you sway slightly, so you relented and leaned into his strong frame.

You walked in silence for a while, your feet crunching on the frost on the ground. It was dark now and the street was illuminated only by the ambient light from the storefronts. Suddenly, Cormac surprised you by pulling you close to him in a small alleyway. He began kissing your neck, his lips working their way to the spot beneath your ear. “So beautiful” he murmured against your skin. “Never thought I’d see the day Malfoy’s girl took up an interest in me, but you are a slithery little minx aren’t you?”

His words, his lips, his everything felt so wrong and you struggled, scraping against his chest, trying to push his weight off of you fruitlessly; each of your limbs felt heavy and clumsy, uncoordinated.

“Sstop, Cormac” you managed weakly.

“What’s that?” he muttered, his hot breath making you feel feverish, flu-like.

“Sstop!” you said more forcefullyas you moved to push him off of you.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked angrily, pulling back.

“M’going backt’castle” you slurred, stumbling slightly as you made for the main road.

“No! Come back!” he said, reaching for you and grasping the back of your jacket strongly, nearly knocking you to the ground. “You can’t come out, dressed like that, then spend all night making eyes at me just to shut me down.”

“Leggo of me!” you said, your voice rising. You wiggled out of your jacket, leaving him empty handed as you forged forward into the cold. A few people walked by, muttering and eyeing Cormac suspiciously, keeping him grounded in place.

The walk back to the castle felt like it took years, like one of those dreams where you’re running but no matter how fast you move your legs you don’t make any progress. It was undeniably cold as thick snowflakes began to fall from the sky and gather at your feet. You could feel the cold on the outside of your body, but your insides were hot, like you could feel the blood running through your veins slowly, weighing down your movements, your thoughts. You could have cried when you finally reached the castle doors nearest the astronomy tower. You were shivering violently, you were uncomfortable and you were desperately confused.

If anyone would have asked, Draco would have said he was reading. He’d even brought a book with him as an alibi, though it remained unopened in his lap as he sat in the window in the astronomy tower, hoping to catch a glimpse of you and McLaggen headed back from your date.

He didn’t know why he was so determined to put himself through the punishment of seeing you with him, perhaps because he knew had to see it with his own eyes to believe it, to believe you were truly happy with him, truly enjoying yourself. He thought about how beautiful you had looked tonight, your short skirt, your rosy cheeks, and he felt his heart squeeze as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration for the thousandth time, permanently mussing his normally slicked back locks. He let his head fall back against the cold stone wall when he saw erratic movement out of the corner of his eye and leaned forward in the window to get a better glimpse. Even between the thick, heavy snowfall and the dim light he could tell it was you, could see the color of your hair and your outfit and when he realized you were alone he was on his feet and moving before he knew what he was going to say. He dashed through the door and into the gathering snow.

“Y/N!” he called as he approached you.

You were hunched over hugging your arms to your body and he realized, suddenly, that you weren’t wearing your jacket. Merlin he was going to kill McLaggen.

“What’s wrong, where’s your jacket?” he asked, frantically, pulling off his own suit jacket to wrap around your shoulders.

You looked up at him and blinked slowly, searching his face like you were trying to figure out who he was, like you’d never seen him before.

“Y/N?” he asked again, as his heart began to quicken its pace with concern. “Are you okay?”

You looked confused at his question and as you stared at him, he took the opportunity to examine you properly. Your pupils were dilated wide and he could tell you were breathing heavily and shivering at the same time. He pressed a hand to your forehead and could feel you burning up despite the freezing temperature.

“Come on, let’s get you inside, alright?” he placed an arm around you gently and you melted into his embrace as he guided you up the stairs and into an empty classroom.

“What’s gone on, then? You’re all sorts of out of it. Where’s McLaggen?” he asked.

You shook your head in reply but didn’t offer more than that as your eyes fell to the floor.

“What were you drinking?” he tried.

“Butterbeers” you whispered.

This is helpless, he thought, yet he couldn’t ignore the feeling deep in chest that something wasn't right. He knew you better than anyone, better sometimes than he knew himself, and it wasn’t like you to go out and get drunk with a lad you hardly knew, and it wasn’t like you to wander around aimlessly without a jacket in the middle of winter, something was definitely wrong.

“Tasted funny” you murmured quietly, pulling Draco out of his thoughts.

“What?” he said, wanting to make sure he’d heard you right.

“Tasted bad, so I didn’t drink all of it.”

Draco’s heartbeat thudded harder. He had read about a potion that was circulating around bars in London, intended to disorient and take advantage of people. This couldn’t possibly be it… McLaggen wouldn’t…. would he? Draco tried frantically to remember what he’d read as you swayed precariously on your feet and he caught you just in time, pulling you into his chest, too worried about you to enjoy the sensation of you pressed against him. He remembered the potion had a distinct taste, which made it difficult to mask. Sour? Tart? Bitter? Licorice, that was it. It tasted like black licorice.

“What did it taste like?” he prompted. “Your butterbeer, did it taste like something?” he asked, praying he was wrong.

“So gross” you murmured into his chest before you turned your head to face him as he looked down at you.

“Please, darling, try to think, did it remind you of something? A food? A candy maybe?” he tried.

“Yeah” you said quietly, thoughtfully. “Bertie Botts – what’s the ones we always pick out? The black ones?”

Fuck he thought.

“Licorice” he said sullenly.

“Licorice” you agreed.

His mind raced. He was going to kill him. He was going to bloody murder McLaggen with his bare hands. He was in utter disbelief that he would do something like this, to you, the most important person in Draco's life. As he thought about it, he pulled you further into his arms and you let out a contented sigh.

He needed to focus on getting you better. While it didn’t have long term harmful effects, he knew this potion was wreaking havoc on your body. From what he remembered the effects came in two stages, the first being disorientation, sluggishness and confusion and the second being a complete loss of inhibitions, making the drinker say and do whatever was on their mind, whatever their heart desired. It was no secret that Draco was good at potions, and he was hopeful he might be able to spare you the rest of the symptoms if they hadn’t set in yet.

“C’mon then” he said, urging you towards the door. You could barely stand on your own, nearly sinking to the floor again. Without wasting a moment, Draco scooped you into his arms, bridal style, one arm around your back, the other under your legs, your head resting in the crook of his neck as he carried you back to the common room.

He moved quickly, his mind working in overdrive thinking of the ingredients he needed for the remedy. You stirred in his arms, winding your own around his neck and pulling yourself closer into him. Your proximity sent a small shiver down his spine and he unconsciously gripped you tighter.

You murmured something against his neck, your breath tingling his skin.

“Hm?” he asked, struggling to understand you.

“Smell so good, you always smell so good, Draco” you said.

He smiled to himself and let out a small laugh, blushing. “Thank you” he whispered quietly.

You giggled back and he was glad to see that you were still conscious and coherent.

You wound your fingers into the hair at the base of his neck and nuzzled into the tender spot just below his ear. He all but dropped you when he felt your warm lips against his skin, pressing kisses to his neck. He was grateful you were near the dungeons, nearly to his room, unsure how much longer he could be steady on his feet.

He tried to wiggle away, his mind and his body fighting each other in their reactions. He knew this was wrong, knew you had no idea what you were doing, but your lips were absolutely sinful against his skin, warm and wet and he couldn’t deny that the sensation stirred a reaction in every inch of his body, especially as you worked your way across his jaw, towards his lips.

He fumbled with the doorknob to his room and quickly ushered you both inside, kicking the door closed behind him as he set you down on your feet. Though he’d let go of your legs, you clung to his neck and pressed your body into his, your face inches from his. He swallowed deeply as he looked at you – you were very much coherent now, your cheeks a rosy red and your eyes, though still dilated, shimmered at him. You bit your bottom lip seductively as your eyes trailed to his lips and you leaned forward.

For half a second, he considered it. You were right there in front of him, the subject of his every waking thought for the last two days, and frankly for the last three years if he was honest, and you wanted him, that much was clear. He imagined sinking his lips to yours, feeling their wet warmth pressed against him, the velvet taste of your tongue.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, using every ounce of strength he had left to pull away from you. You let out a small groan that should not have affected him the way it did as he grasped your hips firmly and walked you to the bed.

“You don’t want to kiss me?” you asked, the pout on your face nearly bringing him to his knees.

“Not like this, not tonight” he managed, his voice husky as he kept his eyes averted from yours. “Sit” he said, gesturing to the bed.

You relented and he made his way over to a small cabinet in his room, pulling out the ingredients he needed to right this unbelievable situation.

“It’s because of Pansy, isn’t it?” you said behind him.

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to find the words to say in response.

“I think she’s terrible, Draco. I hate seeing the two of you together.”

He hazarded a glance in your direction, shocked at the truth of your words. You were laying back on his bed, eyes tracing the ceiling as you spoke. This was a conversation that needed to happen, he had loads he needed to say to you, but not like this. He remained silent as he sped up his efforts, mixing the ingredients in front of him; he was grateful that you remained silent for a while.

He had nearly finished when he heard shuffling behind him. He turned to see that you had pulled off your boots and you were pulling your sweater over your head.

Merlin you were going to be the death of him.

“Whoa whoa” he said, running to your side and trying to get you to stop just as your sweater hit the floor, leaving you in a dark lace bralette that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. He peeled his eyes away, searching for a shirt, a towel, a hoodie, anything he could to cover you, finding one of his hoodies on a nearby chair just as you grabbed his wrist, pulling yourself into his arms again.

“Should be me and you, Draco” you muttered against his lips. You ran your hands up his chest and then ran one palm slowly downward, across his ribs, his stomach, his belt until his hand shot out and grasped yours firmly. His heart was beating so hard in his chest, he was having trouble breathing. He swallowed deeply before taking your face firmly in his hands, as much to get your attention as to keep himself from kissing you.

“Please listen to me. I’m begging you. You are absolutely beautiful, Y/N, breathtaking. And I would truly love nothing more than to have my way with you right now. Really. You have… no idea” he said, letting out a frustrated sigh.

“But you’re not okay, you drank something you shouldn’t have and you have to focus on getting better, alright? Then we can talk about… all of this.”

You looked confused and more than a little disappointed, a pout set against your lips again, but your eyes traced his face, met his own and it was like a deeper part of you understood that he was trying to protect you.

“Okay” you sighed, relenting as you took the hoodie and pulled it over your head.

“Drink this” he said, offering the remedy he had made.

You eyed him warily but took the cup he offered you, sniffing it before taking a sip.

“Tastes good” you said, smiling at him, and he felt the first sense of relief since he’d found you that night as you finished the rest eagerly.

His eyes could have been deceiving him, but he swore he could see your pupils return to normal size as you blinked slowly.

“M’tired” you murmured. “Can I sleep?” you asked, glancing at his bed.

“Of course” he said, without hesitation as he helped you crawl under the sheets. You were out in a matter of minutes and he sunk into the couch next to his bed, exhausted, as he looked at you, trying to comprehend what the hell had just happened.

It had to have been the potion. But the potion didn’t make people say or do things they didn’t mean… it removed their inhibitions, allowed them to relax and pursue the deepest desires of their hearts, things they wouldn’t say or do otherwise. Was that it then? You were really attracted to him all this time? He thought about how long he had agonized over telling you how he felt, how he didn’t want to ruin your friendship and never felt any inclination that you saw him that way. It had driven him mad and was ultimately the reason he had agreed to start dating Pansy, hoping to distract himself from something he never thought possible.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the couch and running his hands over his face.

There was no way he was going to be able to sleep tonight, between wanting to make sure you were okay and reliving over and over and over again the way you looked at him, the desire in your eyes, the pout on your lips and your hot breath against his neck. He pulled off his shirt and pulled on a pair of sweatpants as he settled into the couch, thinking what a perfect vision you were in his bed, your hair splayed out on the pillow, wearing his sweatshirt, your chest gently rising and falling.

Your first thought was that you felt like you were on a cloud. You were immensely comfortable and you burrowed further into the sheets that were soft and silky and warm. You sighed deeply, breathing in a familiar scent that made you smile. You rested a moment longer before your brain slowly came to life; these sheets weren’t your sheets, and that smell was… Draco?

Your eyes fluttered open slowly as you tried to take in your surroundings. You were in a large four poster bed in a sea of emerald sheets; Draco’s room you thought. You looked down at your outfit, an oversized Slytherin sweatshirt you knew well; Draco’s sweatshirt. You looked to the other side of the bed and found it empty and you were surprised at how disappointed that made you feel. You stirred and turned to see Draco’s sleeping figure splayed over the small couch in his room, his frame much too large for it, making you smile. You let your eyes wander over his sleeping form, shirtless with a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips. You looked around the room to see various articles of both of your clothing strewn on the floor. Oh god you thought. Did we…? You frantically tried to remember the night before and felt a sharp ache behind your eyes.

“Ahh” you said in pain as you sat up and rubbed your eyes, seeking relief.

The noise stirred Draco out of his sleep. It took him a moment to register the scene in front of him, you, in his bed, wearing his sweatshirt, him on the couch, and it all came back to him. You were hunched over and rubbing your eyes, your face squeezed in pain and he pulled himself quickly to his feet, making his way over to you and sitting on the bed next to you.

“Are you alright?” he asked, placing a hand gingerly on the side of your head.

You dropped your hands at the feeling of his. You had always been close, but this felt like a new level of intimacy as you met his eyes and saw them clouded with concern for you. His hand moved to cup your face, his thumb tracing your cheek tenderly.

“I’m f-fine” you managed, your skin warming under his touch as you desperately tried to piece together what had happened between the Draco that had scowled at you on the way to your date and the Draco in front of you. It was like a massive black hole existed where your memories should be.

He registered the look of confusion on your face.

“Do you remember... last night?” he asked, pulling his hand back. You wanted so desperately to remember, to understand what had him looking at you like that, his closeness and affection.

You closed your eyes, forcing yourself to try but were only met with the same sharp ache behind your eyes.

“I’m sorry, I can’t… I don’t…” you trailed off and it was silent for a moment. “Draco, did we…?” you let the question linger unfinished as you met his gaze.

His eyes widened, panicked. “No! No. I promise you. Nothing of the sort” he said, trying to reassure you. He smiled at you and you registered an uncanny pink in his cheeks as bobbed his head from side to side “…Despite your very best and most persistent efforts to the contrary.”

Now it was your turn to blush as you covered your mouth with your hands.

“WHAT?” you asked, astonished, humiliated. “Draco, I am so sorry, I—” you paused. What was there to be sorry for? The truth had clearly come out and the way he was smiling at you made you think he wasn’t unhappy to hear it. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t confused, he wasn’t demanding an explanation. In fact, he was looking at you in a way you had only dreamed of, his eyes full of tenderness as they traced your hair, your face.

“You have absolutely nothing to apologize for” he said quickly, his signature smile on his face.

“Okay…” you said, trying to feel out this new situation. “Are you going to tell me what happened? And why I don’t remember anything?”

His smile faded and he looked away from you. You could see his Adam’s apple bob as he took a deep breath, silent for a while.

“Draco… you’re freaking me out” you said, your voice wavering as panic rose in your chest. “W-why don’t I remember anything?”

The pain and fear in your voice squeezed his heart. “Hey, it’s alright, you’re okay, come here” he said, pulling you into his chest. You curled into him, letting your heart beat against his, like it was the most natural thing in the world, your body seeming to remember something you couldn’t as it instantly relaxed.

“I don’t want to upset you, but you need to know the truth” he murmured against your hair. You pulled back to look at him, but he didn’t let you fully out of his grasp, his arms remaining circled around you as he took a deep breath.

“McLaggen – Cormac. You went out with him. From what I can gather you were at the Three Broomsticks and had a few drinks, a few butterbeers, but he put something in them. I’d read about it, it’s a potion that’s meant to…” he grimaced. “It’s meant to take advantage of someone, to make them confused and then drop their inhibitions. It’s said to taste awful, like—”

“Licorice” you said, a memory bubbling to the surface at the tart taste on your tongue, the greedy look in Cormac’s eyes as he encroached on your personal space. Your stomach roiled at the recollection and you scrunched your face in pain, the memories coming fast like flashes of a movie in your mind: you dumping your drink in the plant, Cormac pulling you into the alleyway, his lips, the weight of his body on you. You were breathing heavily and didn’t realize that you were crying until you felt warm wetness on your cheeks.

“No, no, no” Draco muttered as he pulled you back into his arms. “M’sorry. I’m so sorry. Please tell me he didn’t hurt you, didn’t take advantage of you, please. I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.”

He let you cry as the weight of what could have been washed over you, rubbing circles into your back, murmuring calmly against your hair. “You’re safe now, it’s okay. I swear on my life I will never let anything like that happen to you, ever again.”

Soon your cries turned to ragged breaths. “It’s not your fault, Draco. You couldn’t have known, neither of us could.”

“I should have known, I told you I heard the way he was talking about you, like it was such a sure thing you were going to hook up with him.” You could feel Draco physically tense as he talked about it, every muscle taut. “I let my anger cloud my judgement. I was furious at the way he was talking about you, furious that you’d agreed to go out with him.”

You pulled back to look at him, wiping the remaining tears from your cheeks. “Yeah, I gathered as much when you berated me” you said, shooting him a glare.

“I-I shouldn’t have done that. I mean, I meant it, but not in the way it came out. I wasn’t mad at you for going out with McLaggen. I was mad at you for going out with… anyone… anyone that wasn’t me…” he said, letting the truth linger in the air.

“W-what?” you said, your heart beating wildly in your chest.

He smiled shyly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve fancied you for… a long time, but I didn’t want to ruin what we already had. You’re so important to me and I realized I would take having you in my life as a friend over not having you in my life at all should my feelings not be reciprocated.”

“But you’re literally dating Pansy!?” you replied, overwhelmed, exasperated.

“Was” he said.

“What?” you replied.

“Was dating Pansy. The minute I realized what a fuck up I’d been, I broke up with her. Yesterday, actually, just before you left for your date.”

You pouted at that and the familiar look of frustration on your face made him smile as he relived the same look on your face from the night before.

“Well, I obviously didn’t know that” you said, blushing deeply.

“Obviously” he agreed.

Your eyes fell to your lap and he reached over to tangle his fingers in yours reassuringly. You took them hesitantly at first, then eagerly, the warmth from his palm sending warmth to the rest of your body as well as you smiled, blushing.

You looked up to find Draco already staring at you, his eyes sizzling with warmth as they met yours before flitting, nearly imperceptibly to your lips and suddenly you were awash with another flood of memories from the night before.

You and Draco, just centimeters apart, him breathing heavily as he glanced at your lips.

The feeling of his taut chest underneath your fingers, your palm running over his abs.

His hands firm but tender on your cheeks. His words…“You are absolutely beautiful, Y/N, breathtaking. And I would truly love nothing more than to have my way with you right now. Really. You have… no idea.”

Curling into his bed, surrounded by his scent, and warm lips against your temple as he pulled the sheets around you.

“I-I remember” you said quietly.

His eyebrows quirked up accompanying a surprised look on his face.

“And?” he said, treading carefully, not wanting to get his hopes up that last night was more than just a side effect of a potion.

“And...” you started, blushing deeply and tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear, squeezing his hand as you met his eyes, shrugging bashfully, “I meant it, Draco, all of it. Not the way I imagined telling you, but gosh I’ve fancied you too, for a long time.”

He reached out with his free hand and pressed it to your forehead.

“What are you doing?” you giggled.

“Need to make sure you’re not still talking jibberish. You’re feeling okay? You mean it?” he said, moving his hand to various parts of your temple.

You reached up to pull his hand off of you. “I mean it, Draco” you said, smiling as he looked at you and laughed before the familiar look of desire crossed over his face again.

“Then please, for the love of Slytherin, can I kiss you?” he asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper; his boldness and sincerity setting your body alight.

You nodded, smiling widely.

He leaned forward, closing the distance between you as his hand moved to cup your face locking you into him. Your body moved automatically, gravitating to him as his lips hovered over yours, ghosting them, tickling them with the barest touch of his own, savoring the anticipation of the satisfaction to come, the way you had wound your arms around his neck, the way you were breathing erratically against him, reveling in your desire before relenting. He kissed you sweetly, softly but deeply, with a passion that electrified every inch of your body. He pushed you backwards gently, laying you in the feathery softness of his bed as he rested his body comfortably atop you, tracing your bottom lip with his tongue, as you opened up to him immediately. Your kisses were like a dance you both already knew the steps to, effortless, beautiful, natural, your bodies so in tune to each other as your tongues tangled and he grasped you firmly against him.

He pulled away to look at you, breathing heavily and you couldn’t help the whine that escaped your lips at the lack of contact. Never wanting to disappoint you again, he pressed his lips to yours and you wound your hands into his hair, trying to pull him impossibly closer. You could feel him smiling against you as he pulled back again.

“Wait, wait” he said, pressing a kiss to your pout.

“What is it Draco?” you asked, breathless and impatient, his name on your kiss-swollen lips stealing his heart.

“Be mine?” he asked.

“It’s taken you long enough to realize it, but I’ve always been yours, Draco” you replied.

He hung his head in regret before meeting your eyes. “Trust me when I tell you--” he said, pressing a quick, warm kiss to your lips.

“I’m going to spend--” a deeper kiss.

“Every day” deeper still.

“Making it up to you” he said, sinking into you in earnest.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy fanfic #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy fluff #draco malfoy angst #draco x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco x y/n #draco fanfiction #draco lucius malfoy

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takerfoxx · 5 months

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Personally, I feel that the reason Suletta and Miorine work so well as a couple is the same reason why they didn't work for me at first: they're just such fundamentally different people, with total opposite personalities, upbringings, values, desires, needs, strengths, weaknesses, traumas, the list goes on. If it weren't for the very strange set of circumstances that forced them to form a connection, I honestly doubt that they would even be friends, so much so that for the first few episodes, I found myself feeling weirdly disconnected from their relationship, and even found myself wondering if they even liked each other.

I mean, take a look at Suletta. She's a country girl from Mercury's mining colonies who never had any friends of her own growing up. She's a clone created in part to replace her older sister, in part to usher in her mother's plan to free her sister, and in part to be a weapon of revenge, leading to an extremely bizarre relationship with her mother that is equal parts affectionate and neglectful. She loves being around people, but is so socially anxious that any sort of interactions sends her into a stuttering fit. She's terrified of confrontation, and yet is larger and stronger than most, and put her behind the controls of a mech, and she will turn you into mincemeat. She's a total klutz when it comes to dealing with other people, and yet stays cool in a crisis and isn't phased by dead bodies. She trusts with her whole heart, measures her relationships by the value she gives to other people, blames herself whenever others let her down, can and will take a life without flinching to protect those close to her, and is delighted by something so simple as having others laugh at a joke that she made.

Now, take Miorine. A rich girl from an extremely powerful family, she lost her mother, quite possibly the only person to ever show her genuine kindness when she was a child, was "raised" by her contemptuous and neglectful excuse for a father, and grew to resent everyone and everything around her. She hates being around people, but has the confidence and social knowledge to play the game. She's tiny and physically weak, but also angry and assertive. She openly loathes her father and will insult him to his face, but also desperately craves his approval. She's been used as a commodity her entire life by people who see her as a stepping stone into power, and is bound and determined to make everyone who tries damned to a living hell. She was raised in luxury in space, but dreams of running away to what is essentially a refugee camp of a planet. She wants so badly to be allowed to stand on her own two feet and be respected for her own accomplishments, but has no real idea how to do it. She views relationships as transactions, has exactly zero patience for other people's nonsense, can and will sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of the select few that she cares about, will run headlong into the most harrowing of political battles, but also fall apart completely when confronted with the reality of death.

And, like I said, for whatever reason I just didn't feel the sparks between them at first. Their whole relationship just felt like a mutually beneficial arrangement, like it was said to be.

But then we got to that magical episode, where they had that amazingly written misunderstanding in the greenhouse, followed by that incredible argument on the space station, and I realized that this was the plan all along, and Suletta and Miorine are actually perfect as a couple...once they've managed to bridge the gap between their extremely different life experiences and massive communication issues.

See, what's so great about them is that while they are extremely different, those difference are also perfectly compatible. One's strength is the other's weakness, and together they make each other better. In a way, they're less opposites and more of two halves of one complete whole. It was Miorine's confidence that allowed Suletta to start standing up for herself, to learn confidence and make real friends, to figure out what love is. And it was Suletta's bravery that inspired Miorine to find a way to make something of her own, to seek out ways to use their families' legacies to help people instead of hurt them, to bridge gaps long carved out by blood. And in the end, they were two desperately lonely girls who just wanted someone to truly, honestly, and unconditionally love them, and they found it in each other.

Granted, it was rough going for a bit. Like I said, they had such different ways of seeing the world, they didn't communicate in the same way, they didn't see relationships in the same way, and they ended up hurting each other just trying to do what they thought was best. But they also forgave one another. They strove to better understand one another. And they came to realize just how much they needed each other. And though it took even greater loss and pain in order to achieve it, they finally found their happy ending. They found each other.

#gundam witch from mercury #wfm #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #suletta x miorine #sulemio #wfm spoilers

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pb-dot · 5 days

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This latest Adventuring Party really drove home my favorite aspect of Brennan's DMing style. He genuinely loves seeing his players succeed, even against odds he considered to be nigh insurmountable.

Let's take the Last Stand as an example. Now, Brennan made no secret out of the Last Stand encounter being very hard, and for people who do not play D&D it may even seem like he overhyped it, but from a mechanics standpoint, the CR, functionally the difficulty rating of this battle royale was sky-high. Yeah, none of the Bad Kids went down, but that is entirely thanks to a combination of excellent strategic play from the Intrepid Heroes and some choice luck.

To mention some of the game changer moves, the Scatter spell really re-defined the battlefield more favorably for the Bad Kids, the disguise self was a value proposition because it split the flying monsters, which was the greatest threat to the proctor by far, in two, functionally halving the threat to the squishy normie, not to mention dealing with the mega-mosquitos in combo with Spirit Guardians. Those little flying bastards would have been such a pain in the ass if Fig didn't bug zapper them to kingdom come. And the bless. Dear god, the Bless saved so many asses in this encounter.

This isn't to say magic was the only thing that defined the battlefield. The single-target damage dealers did some truly astounding numbers and managed their attention and abilities shockingly well. Yeah, Gorgug crit like a madman, but he also tanked like three or four non-barb PCs worth of effective HP damage without going down even once. If he had failed his saves and gotten eaten by the Purple Worm things would have gotten nasty for him, but again, the touch of luck (and bless) saw him through.

So, this is all to say that this was an encounter meant to kick the players' ass. Not an unwinnable one, evidently, but this was supposed to be a considerably worse experience even without getting into the non dice-roll exam questions. And how does Brennan react when the Intrepid Heroes put their game face all the way on, get really smart with their level 1 spell slots, and dismantle the whole thing? He's overjoyed, he's cheering for his strange adventure children, and we're cheering with him because frankly it's rad as hell.

This illustrates one nuance I feel sometimes gets glossed over about the DM-player relationship. A lot of people have talked about how Junior Year is the "Revenge of Brennan" or what have you, and I feel that kind of misses the central appeal of DMing and Brennan's style in D20 in particular. Yes, Mr Mulligan enjoys playing the heel on occasion. It's good fun to play the personification of everything going wrong and the inherent shittiness of the world, but like the wrestler heels, all that wicked charisma is meant to do one thing, and that is build up the faces, or the players in this case.

Now, the ghost of Gary Gygax may come after me for this, but I firmly believe it's not the DMs job to kill the player characters, or even to inconvenience or torment them. A good DM's job is to make it seem like they're going to kill the player characters, as to provide an environment for the players to succeed, a challenge for them to overcome. It's all one big improv exercise (or kink scene if you prefer to view it that way), where the DM derives their (near)absolute authority over the world the PCs inhabit from the shared understanding that they're going to show the players a spectacular, if not on occasion harrowing, time.

This is Brennan's biggest strength as a DM I think. He genuinely wants to make a spectacular time for his friends, and he understands that to do that he must on occasion be the monster they oppose, and on occasion he must be their breathless cheerleader. On occasion, one imagines, he must also be both.

#d20 fhjy #d20 fantasy high #brennan lee mulligan #d20 #fantasy high #So this turned out long huh #but d20 is a good show #and it's worth saying

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writingsfromhome · 4 months

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If you Love Something II

A/N: okayy I’m finally going to stop overthinking and just post this one. Please note the tw in part 1. Thank you all SO much for the comments and love on the original…hope this one meets ur expectations. It’s definitely more focused on the lost daughter relationship rather than you and Harry so p dense but...here it is 🫣

——————————————

Age 36:

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Harry informs me over the phone. “I went with chicken noodle soup.”

“Mmm,” I close my eyes. “I could use something hot and hearty right now. I’m freezing my ass off.”

“I didn’t need to make dinner for that.”

“So come here, warm me up,” I crane my neck to the left again. “Stupid delays.”

“I can come get you."

I’d mapped it out before calling Harry, it would take him too long to get here. “That’s alright. Doesn’t make a difference.”

The screen on the platform showed 6 minutes…for the past 15 minutes.

“I’ve either been living in the longest minute of my fucking life,” I mutter. “Or this line is taking the piss out of all of us.”

Two dozen of us had gotten off the last train when it announced it was out of service. Now the number on the platform had tripled waiting for the next one.

“Patience,” Harry says. “Is a virtue.”

“Easy for you to say in the warm flat with the chicken noodle soup.”

“It’ll be yours soon.”

Soon. I sigh and try to release the anxious energy with it. “Thank you for taking care of dinner.”

“Of course.” He replies. Like it was that simple. But being with Harry was like that nowadays.

Despite all the catching up we had to do with the 17 years we had lived separate lives, emotionally it’s like we picked up where we last left off.

I’d be lying if I said it was smooth sailing the whole year we’d been together. There had been a hard few first months where both of us felt unnerved by the peacefulness of the relationship. We weren’t used to such an easy quiet.

I’d tried to self-sabotage first by going awol and working longer hours than I needed to. I think I was scared Harry would wake up one day and realize too much time had passed and he didn’t like who I’d become so I minimized our time together. Until Harry called me out for it.

But then he went off the rails, and for a few weeks I’d been an even bigger ball of anxiety. Ultimately I had to give him the hard truth even though the last thing I ever wanted was to convince someone to stay with an ultimatum. But I’d told him, he had to at least attempt sobriety if he wanted us to work.

There were a few sleepless nights, I didn’t know if we were going to make it. But one morning he asked me to go to an aa meeting with him.

Going together, being in the same boat as a group of people gathered in the back room of a dusty church finally gelled us together. For good. He’d been sober since.

We moved in together 7 months ago. Even though it doubled my commute time—tripled with delays, I had never been more sure that I was exactly where I needed to be.

We held space for each other. Even the heavier bits; we knew what they were. What it was like to hold them on our own. We always joked about how our loads had halved despite taking on half of the other’s. Because just like our venn diagram of love, our venn diagram of hurting was the same.

“Oh god, I better not be hallucinating.” I nearly jump up and down when the twin headlights of the next train peek in the distance. The platform board still says 6 minutes.

“You’re cutting up what?”

“Nothing! Train’s here!”

“I’ll pick you up from the station.” Harry says before I hang up.

I spend the remaining 15 minute ride going over the lecture I’d given tonight.

3 years ago when I applied to be a lecturer I didn’t actually think I’d get it. But in the 10 years of my career I had collected, I had done exceptionally well. It was ironic with all the bullshit life threw at me, I had somehow channeled it into a determined work ethic. After failing many math tests in high school I had found a love for it in uni—it made me work hard, get out of my head with its constant thoughts. Harry now took to calling me a masochist for teaching something mathematical.

In reality it wasn’t that mathematical. I taught Management Econ which was a snorefest on paper but I tried to be engaging and include a whole host of ways to teach—I knew not everyone excelled with a textbook.

It had made the course popular, it went from being offered once a semester to 3 times this year because the waitlist spoke for itself. It was one of my proudest accomplishment—getting students motivated and interested. And because it was mostly first and second year students, they were still eager and not jaded by the uni system.

That was how I spent my evenings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Otherwise I worked for the city the same hours Harry worked his creative exec job at a major firm in the city. Sometimes we met up for lunch. It was the little things like that, making time to see each other in the middle of the day even though we woke up and fell asleep to each other, that made this relationship feel so secure.

It felt like coming home each time I caught sight of his face, and knew his smile was just for me.

My thoughts drift to our daughter. She would have celebrated her 18th birthday a few weeks ago. I always lit a birthday candle for her, this year Harry and I bought a cake and a symbolic drink for her. Our baby was old enough to drink.

“Do you think she takes after her parents?” Harry had asked.

“I think she grew up alright.” I always imagined her to have. “I hope she has no reason to drink herself silly.”

“Being 18 is reason enough.”

We talk about her often. She slips into conversation as easily as inhaling. It keeps her with us.

When I spot Harry’s car at the station I nearly weep.

“Your cheeks are so cold,” Harry says after a peck hello. He holds them both in his heated hands and plants exaggerated kisses on each cheek.

“Please sir,” I kiss his mouth and continue in what Harry called my Oliver Twist accent. “Take me to the chicken noodle soup. I hunger.”

Harry responds in the same accent (although it wasn’t as good as mine) and pretty soon I’m forgetting the 20 minute delay, the lecture with 100 technical difficulties, and anything in between.

After dinner and completing my 20 step night time routine I crawl into bed beside a cozy-looking Harry.

“Whatcha reading?” I peek at his book. I can’t believe he was the reading-before-bed type. In a way it was so different from the 17 year old guy I knew. It was also a reminder that even though we knew each other through and through, there were still so many habits and stories and quirks to discover.

“It’s a boring as hell sci-fi novel, don’t ask.”

“Then why are you reading it?”

“I accidentally joined a book club at work!?”

He tells me the story of how he told some people he enjoyed reading, and then being unable to say no when they bought this month’s book for him and presented it to him a week later.

“I bet you that’s their ponze scheme. It’s like an MLM, the latest recruit has to guilt the next joinee. You’ll be doing it soon.”

Harry laughs and holds his book out to me. “That actually brings me to my next question with this very generous gift, do you like reading?”

“Nope.” I push the book away. “I also don’t like book clubs.”

He tosses the book down lightly. “Damnit!”

We laugh. I cuddle into his side and lay my head on his chest as he finishes his chapter. His heart beat is steady, like the life he’s helped me create as we committed to each other. I listen to it as it lulls me to a calmer place.

“So how was work? How’s your students this semester?”

“Work’s good. Same old right now. Teaching was interesting. It’s the second week of classes so still seeing a lot of people come and go. You start to see the regulars by week 3.”

“Full class?”

“Almost,” I tell him. “A few empty seats. There was one girl who was obviously watching tv the whole time, another guy that fell asleep halfway, and this other kid kept looking at the door like he was physically trying to decide whether he would stay. Weird lot.”

“They won’t be there next week.”

“Nope.”

“You think she’s starting uni? I wonder what she’s decided to study.”

“Mmm, I always think it’s something creative like you.”

Harry squeezes his arm around me. “I think she’s a masochist like you.”

We talk more about her, about the upcoming weekend, and as sleep visits we drift away still intertwined like most nights.

***

“Does anyone know why?” I ask the lecture hall. Just like I predicted, most of the people I knew wouldn’t make it were gone. Now there were just under 60 students in total. What had surprised me was the guy who looked nervous the second week stayed. He’d been joined by two friends who only showed up in week 4. He was probably the designated note taker.

A girl to the left puts her hand up and I point to her. “The growing gap between upper and middle classes?”

“Yes.” I give her a reassuring smile. Until I started teaching, I forgot that most answers they gave were questions. “Anyone else?”

The girl beside nervous guy puts her hand up. “The ageing population, it skews the demographic from what was initially projected?”

“Exactly,” I try not to show favourites but that was beautifully said. Maybe she didn’t need to come to all the classes.

“That would also affect the workforce,” a guy sitting in the front pipes in. I smile, pleased that a discussion was forming.

A few others join in and I nod at each point. I loved this job.

After class is over I always got a few stragglers asking questions. The nervous guy comes up to me.

“Um professor,” he hitches his backpack and glances back at his friends. “For the assignment due next week, can groups of 3 be okay?”

I glance at his friends, it was supposed to be in pairs but what the hell. “Sure. But I’ll need extra stuffing in the assignment to make up for it.”

I say it with a joking tone but he’s so wound up that he takes me seriously.

“Of course. We’ll increase the citations and make sure to include more research-“

“Philippe,” one of the girls is suddenly a few feet away.

“Thank you.” He says, finally meeting my eye. I smile and he relaxes. I turn to his friends, to acknowledge them but they stare at me like I’d grown a second head. One of the other students asks her questions and I turn my attention away—weird.

***

“Mid-terms?” Harry asks. I’m reading a textbook while I stand over the simmering pot. We had accidentally ordered 4 times the tomatoes on our online order last week and with three still left I’d decided to batch make spaghetti sauce. It had been a long time since I made it from scratch.

“Kind of.” I push the book aside. “Someone in the department wants to update the textbooks and they left notes in the old one for what needs updating. They asked me to take a look.”

“That’s cool,” Harry walks over to me. He smelled like cologne and outside, the way he usually did right after he came home on chillier days. “That he wants your opinion?”

“She actually,” I poke him. “And it is! I can’t believe I get paid to lecture about one of my passions.”

“Economics,” Harry makes a face like he smelled something bad.

“Makes the world go round,” I smile sweetly.

“Remember when you liked things that were cool like Harry Potter and Coldplay-“

“I still like them! If I recall you’re the one who motivated me to do well in maths.”

“I did?” Harry looks off into the distance but his slow smirk is evident that he was remembering. He tilts my chin up and brushes my lips. “You’re right. So how about now? Would that still work?”

“Do you want me to stroke your ego right now?”

“Amongst other things,” he muses, his hands drop down to my hips and then lower, giving my bum a squeeze.

“Cut it out,” I scold him but it’s cancelled by the smile on my face. I shake my head and go back to the simmering pot.

“Is that tomato soup?” Harry’s suddenly distracted by the pot. We’d been having a lot of it this week because…well tomatoes.

“Nope, I’m making spaghetti sauce. From scratch.”

“Hey, didn’t you make that one time? When we were kids.”

“Hm,” I think back. It felt like so long ago but something niggles at me. “I think? I used to help my mum—it’s her recipe. Maybe you had dinner on a night we made it?”

“Yes. Dinner at your place, around Easter.”

I remember that Easter clearly but not for dinner. It was a night Harry and I had talked our lives all out.

“Aw. We were so young then.” I wrap my arms around Harry.

“I’m still young,” Harry says. “I’m in my prime.”

I pat his cheek. “Of course you are love.”

***

“Taylor I can’t really do this right now!” I tell my sister as she whines to me. No matter how old we got we were always somehow 17 and 12.

“C’mon just call mom! Tell her you met him and he’s really awesome.”

“I’m not lying to mom so you can invite your newest loser boyfriend to dinner. Anyway I can’t talk. I have to get to class!”

“I know.” She says weirdly. And I understand why when I walk into class and see her sitting in the front row. Ugh she knew I would try to blow her off!

My sister had somehow taken up the bad habit ever since her mid-20s of having a string of shitty boyfriends. We all blamed it on her longterm bloke breaking it off around her 26th. I don’t think she ever fully let herself heal from that.

After two separate guys were invited to two separate family dinners and both ended in mum or dad exploding over something, they were banned. This new guy, as she insists, was different. Mature. He deserved an invite.

She holds up 9 fingers and mouths, 9 months! That’s a long time!

I shake my head and start setting up my laptop.

“Hiya,” one of the students, Kim, walks up to me as I do so. “Sorry I was just wondering when we’re getting our assignments back? Will it be before midterms?”

Midterms were in 2 weeks for this class. The assignments were in my bag, marked and ready. I tell her and watch the relief spread through her.

I spend the next hour teaching, and before we break at the hour I announce I’d return assignments. As I call them out student walks down to me and pick them up, leaving with a smile or a frown.

“Philippe?” He had stuck to his word and his group had gone above and beyond. It was a beautiful paper, albeit overly-sourced. But I appreciated it.

“He’s not in,” one of his friends comes down to get it. She looks at me in that same way again, with just as much fear as curiosity. It’s odd.

“C’mon then,” I shake the paper I was holding out. “I don’t bite.”

“Oh sorry,” she grabs it from me in a rush I nearly get a papercut. She doesn’t even look at the grade, turning quickly away before halting, pivoting halfway, changing her mind, and running back up the steps to her seat. That group of kids were weird. Maybe they were on drugs.

I catch eyes with Taylor and she raises her brow. I shrug and continue handing out the papers.

I don’t expect the girl to come up to me after class. Her friend stays hovering behind, close to my sister who I know must be desperate to have sat here the whole lecture.

“Um ‘scuse me. Professor?”

“Yes?” She was the last person in the small line that had formed after class.

“I had a question about the assignment? You um, you said we missed the equations for our answers but they’re um-“ her hands are shaking as she flips the pages to the last page. “They’re on the bottom here.”

“Oh,” I did remember they were missing it but my pen marks were all over the back of it. “I must have missed that, bloody hell sorry about that!”

“Yeah um, do we get the extra points?”

“Of course but I-“ I glance back at Taylor. She’s talking to the friend. I had to get her out of here before she said something ridiculous. “I have office hours after my Monday class. I’ll have it remarked by then and you can pick it up?”

“Um, okay?”

I quickly shut my things down and grab my sister, getting her out as quick as possible.

“I’m a professional,” she reminds me. “Jeez. Anyway Y/n listen it’s the longest I’ve been in a relationship since, well y’know. 9 months! It’s different with this guy. He works like you! A cushy office job. He’s serious. Please!?”

I hadn’t seen Taylor since last month’s dinner when she had tried to convince me to get on board with this guy. She’d been pleading for a month. “Fine.”

“Oh I love you!” She squeezes my arm. “Text me when mom gives the okay.”

I sigh. I’d really got myself in the middle again.

I retell this to Harry when I get home.

“She’s persistent. But 9 months is a new record.”

“I know!” Harry knew all about her string of boys, I’d caught him up months ago. “Anyway I can’t believe she sat through the whole lecture.”

“Maybe this is the guy. The One.”

“You don’t believe in that do you?”

“Yeah?” He squints at me. “Of course I do?”

“So I’m The One?”

“Baby do I even need to say yes? I knew it as soon as I saw you when we were 14. You confirmed it when you kissed me on the roof that day.”

“I can’t believe I did that. I had my first drink that day by the way so I might’ve been drunk.”

“You were not drunk when you kissed me,” Harry points his fork at me.

“Look at you getting all worked up,” I tease.

“I’ll get you all worked up,” he mutters into his plate. I grin as I stretch my leg out under the table and run it up his leg. He grips my ankle when it gets too high and the look he gives me across the table sends my heart racing.

“Oops,” I drop my foot and go back to eating.

We put on a movie after, something we can zone out to. It doesn’t take Harry long to get bored and nuzzle into me, and it doesn’t take much longer after that before the movie is just for show and we’re tangled in our sheets.

There were 17 years of experience Harry showed up with now, and it was another one of those things that made catching up on lost time all the better.

***

In the first half hour of my office hours, the girl walks in. I should remember her name but I just associated her group with Philippe. I was surprised he wasn’t here actually. He seemed to be their spokesperson.

“Hi come in!” I wave her into the tiny cubicle-like room I borrowed for a few hours every Monday. “I’ve got your assignment here all done.”

“Thank you,” she hovers over my desk and I hand it over. Her fingers fidget with the strings of her hoodie and I seriously consider the drug angle. Or maybe her and her friends had serious anxiety issues. I didn’t miss that part about being a teen.

“You wanna flip through one more time? I try not to make mistakes twice but…”

She sits down tentatively and buries her head in the paper as she flips through.

“It’s alright,” she says. Her expression is so serious it nearly makes me laugh. She had pretty hair—blunt cut bangs that I remember rocking in my early 20s, but on her they hide the expression in her eyebrows. Maybe that’s why she always looked so sullen. Her lips are painted a pretty mauve colour and it complimented her green eyes.

“I really um…your class is really interesting.”

Kids saying that was like injecting pure joy right into my veins.

“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it,” I smile at her. But it still doesn’t crack a smile on her end. “It’s dense material but that’s nice to hear.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if I was gonna keep the class.” It’s subtle but she inches back in the seat. The more she talks the more she relaxes back. “But I heard it was worth taking. And people were right.”

“Are you in your first or second year?” I ask.

“First,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s covered in piercings.

“How are you liking uni so far?”

She meets my eyes for a second before they shift away. “Yeah it’s nice? I’ve never lived away from home but I have some friends here that I’ve known since before so it helps. It’s really different, less structure but I like the freedom.”

Wow, she really spoke a lot more when she was comfortable. But I find it endearing.

“That’s really nice. It’s good to have a support system, especially with such big change.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. Her eyes dart around the desk as she goes silent. I wait for her to get up and go but a minute passes and the room starts to feel even smaller.

I could ask her if she needed anything else, or maybe continue the conversation? Did she want me to ask about her? No, that would be weird.

“So um, was that your sister in class last week?”

Okay, didn’t see that coming.

“It was! My baby sister, although she’s not really a baby. Did she tell your friend that?”

She nods again. “She was talking to her.”

“You have any siblings?”

“An older sister yeah.”

“So you get it,” I say. “You love them, they get under your skin, you’d do anything for them, and the cycle continues.”

For the first time she smiles and my breath catches. For a moment…no. No, I was imagining things.

“Yeah. My sister and I were close growing up, but she’s the one person that really knows how to get under my skin. I swear she does it on purpose sometimes.”

“Probably,” I want to say something funny again. I just want to see her smile.

Back off, my inner voice says. Don’t do this again.

Some years back, when I was still in the throes of alcohol, I had followed a girl at the mall for nearly an hour. She had looked so much like my sister but with brown curly hair. I could have sworn it was her—my daughter. But after an hour of drunk stalking she had met up with her mum, a direct clone of her.

I couldn’t be obsessive again. Nobody knew about that phase. Not even Harry.

“D’you have any kids?” She asks. I don’t expect the question and it throws me off what with the thoughts looping in my head. She watches me, waiting for an answer.

“Um,” I usually answered no. To anyone who had asked in the last 18 years. But for some reason I nod today. “Yeah. One.”

I imagine it, I must have. Her face draws in for a second before she looks down. “Does she ever come to your lectures?”

“Oh no,” I feel the prick of tears and try to blink them away without being too obvious. “I’m not sure she’d find them interesting.”

“Oh.” She finally stands. “Maybe when she’s older…but I’ll see you on Thursday I guess?”

“Yeah,” I watch her go and realize she’d forgotten something. “Don’t forget your paper hon!”

She stiffens by the door before coming to get it.

“Sorry, it probably makes me a bad prof but there were two female names on the paper. Which one’s yours?”

“Bridget,” her voice cracks.

“Bridget,” I try to match the name to her face. It fit. “That’s lovely.”

She scurries out and I hear someone say “well!?” Outside followed by a “shh!”

I shake my head and try to focus back on my work, my heart racing an unusual amount.

***

It takes a couple days but I confess to Harry. He’d decided to meet up with me after class on Wednesday to eat out. We didn’t go far from the uni, a pub a few roads down. I actually spotted a couple former students there and they’d waved at me warmly.

“You’re not crazy,” Harry holds my hand on the table. “A few years ago I realized the volunteer interns we took on from the nearby school? They were the same age as her, teens? And I used to check up on them all the time, make sure they were feeling comfortable, until one of the guys on the team told me to quit being so weird and find someone my own age. I don’t know if it came across that way but…I got lost in that.”

“Oh Harry,” I squeeze his hand. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’ve never told anyone.”

“Me too,” I pop another chip into my mouth. “But really I’d kind of pushed those memories out of my head until the other day. I can’t explain it, when she smiled it just felt like I knew her.”

“Yeah. Maybe she just looks like Taylor?”

We finish dinner while Harry tells me about a story about some friends of his I knew. We reminisce about our old friends as we wrap up and head out into the brisk November air.

We’re near the station when I gasp and clutch Harry’s arm. Standing outside one of the nearby pubs, smoking with her friends, was Bridget.

“Harry! That’s her!”

“What? Who?” He’s so oblivious as he whips his head around.

“Hushhh!” I nod towards the northwest side. His eyes scan the group. “Red beanie. We have to walk past just look at her okay? Tell me if you see it.”

Harry laughs to himself, “This feels like we’re in high school walking past a crush.”

“Is that how you walked past me?” I tease.

“I did.” He looks at me in that way that still gives me butterflies. It never got old.

“Stop making me want to jump your bones out here. I have a reputation to uphold!”

“Hey I’ll still have a job to support us,” he whispers as we near closer to the group. “Feel free to do whatever you feel.”

“You’re a bad influence.” I whisper back. By now we’re a few feet away and I sense Harry slow down beside me.

Bridget’s nodding to whatever her friend is saying. Philippe is waving his drink around as he responds. We almost pass by unnoticed when someone completely different calls my name.

“Hey professor! Can we buy you a drink?”

I turn and spot a group of students I taught last semester. They were all friends, always battling out their wits during group discussions. It made my class lively, even distracting at times. But I tried going with the flow of whatever group of students I got.

“Hey kids!” I say. Then I have no choice but to acknowledge Bridget and her friends. “And more kids! Is this the new spot to be at?”

I sounded so lame but shite! We weren’t supposed to get caught.

“It’s always been popular,” one of my old students says. “Can we pick your brain? Buy you a drink? We can buy one for your friend too.”

“I uh,” I glance at Harry but he’s frozen solid. I look to what he’s looking at and it’s Bridget. They’re locked in some silent conversation and her friends eye each other. “Harry?”

“Huh?” He focuses on me, flushed and just as confused as I had looked on Monday.

“We’ve gotta get him home,” I pat Harry’s arm. “Our alcohol metabolizes differently at our age.”

“You’re not that old,” Bridget says. She seems to be surprised she said it at all and her eyes widen. “I just mean you look younger than my parents.”

“We’ll take that as a compliment.” I smile up at Harry who still looks a little lost.

“Miss aren’t you going to introduce your male friend?” One of my old student goads.

“Don’t assume,” the other chides.

“Aren’t you a nosy lot after a few drinks.” I missed dishing it back in class with them.

“Oops!” They laugh.

“Anyway. This is Harry.”

“You can call me Mr. Professor,” Harry jokes and it’s a crowd pleaser. God they were drunk. Harry leans into me, “I can see why you like teaching. They’re an ego-booster.”

“Not in a 6pm lecture on a Thursday night.” I whisper back. He hides his laugh.

“Are you guys heading home?” Now it’s Philippe. I’m surprised he was getting involved in the conversation. He was usually the quiet nervous type.

“We are. Need a good night’s rest so I’m not falling asleep in your lecture tomorrow.”

“We wouldn’t mind,” Philippe goes for joker but his face flushes. It’s cute.

“Philippe you take way too many notes during class for me to believe that.”

His two friends, Bridget and the other girl, look at each other wide-eyed before losing it. And I watch Bridget’s face transform again and I get the same feeling. I look up at Harry and he’s transfixed.

I tug his sleeve and he looks at me, swallowing like he was parched.

“Weird right?”

“Yeah,” he whispers but his mouth turns down ever so slightly.

The girls are too busy cajoling Philippe to say goodbye to so we make our exit quietly. We don’t talk much on the train ride home but Harry simple holds his hand out on my thigh, palm up, and I lock my fingers into his. Even when we didn’t have words, we never stopped staying in touch.

***

It’s exam and holiday season before I know it.

I was actually looking forward to Christmas this year. It was the first that Harry was going to join with my family. Taylor’s bloke was also showing. He had been a hit with my parents and even I could admit he was the better of all the guys she’s every brought over.

It’s the last 30 minutes of the last exam I was facilitating this year. I announce the time left to the group. There were only about 15 kids left.

Bridget is one of them. I watch her tuck her hair behind her ear and bite her lip. She’d been pretty quiet the remainder of the semester, and I tried not to let my eyes wander to her too much.

After that night, bumping into her with Harry, we hadn’t spoken much about it. The hope that was initially so buoyant turned crushing as we faced the reality that the odds were slim to none. That our wishes were just pennies tossed in a fountain, sinking to the bottom of the pool.

Dreary winter days pass by and Harry and I try to keep the seasonal depression away with regular outdoor dates, cozy nights in bed, and seeing friends as often as we could.

On Christmas we go to my parents’. It’s a loud affair as my grandparents and a few cousins join us. After dinner I go up to my childhood bedroom, it’s now a guest room but some of my things still lay around. I open the window, it was cold so I drag a blanket out and sit outside. The street is quiet, I see families in a few open windows and I watch the festivities through them. I feel a mix of nostalgia and an ache that goes even beyond that, like I was missing something.

“Y/n?” Of course Harry would find me even though I’d left the door closed and the window tilted.

“Here,” I say.

“Ah,” he struggles to hoist himself out. “Some things never change.”

“You need help?” I watch him climb on all fours.

“I’m steady,” he grins as he crawls to me. I open the blanket and he gets in.

We sit in silence for a bit.

“It was getting really loud downstairs wasn’t it?” I ask.

“I think your grandma’s in love with Taylor’s guy.” Harry says so bluntly that I burst out laughing. He joins in.

“I feel like old people get to flirt with whoever they want because it’s always harmless.”

“Maybe that’s the case with older women,” Harry grimaces. “Can’t say the same thing about old men now can we?”

“Jesus!” I laugh and then laugh even harder when Harry says: “it is his day.”

By the time I wipe my tears Harry’s gazing down at me.

“Sorry,” I lean my head against his shoulder. “You have to stop being so funny.”

“Nah,” he kisses my head. “Have I never told you how much I like your laugh?”

He had. On a night many years ago on a roof like this.

I go to remind him but he’s pulling away. I watch as he shifts to face my slowly. He pulls something out from behind him and my brain only connects the dots as he starts talking.

“Y/N, this is something I wish I could have done 18 years ago but only feels incredibly right to do now. Especially out here.”

“Harry,” I gasp. When did he get the ring? When had he planned this?

“We somehow found our way back to each other again y/n, and you know I love you more than ever before.” He clears his throat as it clouds with emotion. “Some 18 years ago I told you I knew you, because the first time I ever laid eyes on you my heart knew. You were something special. And I never ever want to spend another moment apart again. So Y/N Y/L/N, will you do me the honour and finally be mine? Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” If I wasn’t sitting on a roof I would launch myself at Harry. I settle for pulling his face down to mine and kissing it. “I’ve always been yours Harry. But yes, of course yes!”

He slides the ring on and it fits perfectly.

It was perfect.

When we go back down my mum knows right away, and if it was loud before it’s absolute chaos as everyone descends on me and demands to know how he proposed and how the ring looks.

“On the roof? When there’s a perfectly pretty tree here?” My grandma asks. Harry and I exchange a look then, trying not to laugh all over again.

We ring in the New Year with friends, as fiancés. I can hardly believe it. Apparently most of our friends knew Harry was going to propose and they all toast to us and our happiness.

Somewhere in mid-January, I drop by my parents’ house to drop off some groceries. That’s when my dad hands me a letter that had been mailed home.

“It came for you, I dunno who thinks you still live here but it looks handwritten.”

I take it from my dad as I say one last goodbye. I barely make it to the tube with wobbly legs. Because somewhere inside I know.

It’s a long and agonizing 2 hours that I wait for Harry to come home. He finds me sitting in the dark; the sun had set while I waited, and I’d been too busy staring at the feminine scrawl on the front of the letter to turn on the lights.

“Hello-y/n, what are you doing in the dark?”

Harry drops his things where they are when I look at him. “Y/n are you alright? Say something.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I just push the letter forward.

He walks towards it. It’s like he hits a brick wall when he puts the pieces together, he halts a foot away.

“What is that?”

“Is was…” I try to swallow so my voice doesn’t sound so hoarse. “My dad gave it to me. It was sent to the house.”

“Is it…”

“I was waiting for you.”

Suddenly he’s in motion. He puffs his cheeks out and lets out a noisy sigh. Then he paces the floor one, two, three, four times before standing in front of the couch.

“We should read it.” I say.

“Yeah,” he deflates into the couch. I want to join him but it feels like my arse has been glued to the chair.

I inch it towards me and Harry nods. He wanted me to read it.

My mouth is parched. I can barely make out any sounds as I open it up. It’s three pages folded in two, the paper itself isn’t anything very special, it’s typed up so it’s literally just ink on paper. And yet it’s worth a whole goldmine.

“Y/n and Harry,” I read before my voice breaks and I bury my face in my hands. Our baby girl had written to us. She had reached out.

“C’mon love,” Harry’s suddenly beside me and his hand squeezes my neck. The touch gives me enough strength to stand with him. He sets me down where he just sat and leaves again, returning with water and the letter.

“Can you read it?” I ask.

He settles in beside me, we touch along every edge of us. The letter sits in between us like our love, our hurting—it’s where it belongs. He begins to read in his soothing voice.

“Y/n and Harry,

I hope it’s okay I’m calling you that. I don’t know if it’s proper but ever since I found out about you two last year that’s what I’ve been calling you.”

Harry lets out a shaky breath and I intertwine my arm through his. He kisses my temple and continues.

“When I turned 15, I asked my mum about you. I started to wonder where I came from. I knew I was adopted for as long as I could remember but it didn’t mean much to me for a long time—I had a mother, a father, and a sister. I had a family so why did I need to know where I came from?

But over the last few years it’s been like an itch I couldn’t get to. See when I was 15, what set it off is that my sister decided to look into her birth parents. They were separated, her father lived in Tokyo and her mother lived in Wales. It took her a year to convince our parents to go to Wales. I went with and I found myself in the home of a woman who looked just like the girl I grew up with. The whole time it ate away at me. I wanted this ending too.

I asked my mum and dad when I turned 15 but they were weird and evasive. I turned my skills to the internet but I didn’t really know where to start.

I felt the missing part more and more as I turned 16. I used to fall asleep thinking about you two, if you were alive, what you looked like, where you were, what you did.

I love my parents. They’re wonderful and amazing, they are supportive and never made us feel like we were anything but theirs. But I wanted to know my background.

On my 17th birthday my parents gave me a letter like the one I write today.” Harry stops reading and takes in a deep shuddering breath. “She got the letter.”

His shoulder shake and he pinches the bridge of his nose. I clench my teeth so I wouldn’t cry too. I wanted to finish this letter. I wrap my arms around him and hold him.

This was unbelievable, what we’d dreamed of. Her words, in our hands.

“Here.” I take the letter from him and continue. “Let me read it.”

Harry stays hunched over, so with my hand on his back I continue, “in it you told me how much you loved me. How much you loved each other, your families, where I came from. And Why you had to give me up. For a better life. I saw the picture of you, and I felt broken and complete at the same time. I realized I was the same age as you in the photo, I had to meet you but I was terrified. And I didn’t know how.

I spent a year agonizing and looking through every google page I could find about you. I learned a lot! But I needed to meet you.

I don’t know how to do this. I’ve made decisions that may not have been the best but I’ve left my number and a picture of me when I was 5 in the envelope.

I hope you call.”

With shaking hands I turn to the third page that has one of those polaroids taped to it and a phone number in the same handwriting as the envelope.

“She’s beautiful,” Harry says while tears continue streaming down his face. I can’t even hide mine anymore.

She was beautiful indeed. She had his eyes, and her curly locks in a deep brown frame her chubby face. She had my nose, she looked a little like my sister as a baby. A scatter of freckles over her cheeks confirm it. She was ours. Our baby had reached out. We knew what she looked like.

“We need to call her,” I say. “We need to meet.”

“Yeah,” Harry wipes his face. “We…we need to do this carefully. It’s delicate right?”

I wanted to call her right now but what would I do but cry into the phone? No, I had to wrap my head around this. Harry was right. “Right.”

“She’s out there,” Harry turns to me. “She wants to know us. Y/n she wants to meet us! She saw the picture I-“

“I can’t believe it,” I whisper. “Our daughter wants to—did she leave her name?”

We open the letter and flip over every piece of it but her name is nowhere.

“Maybe she didn’t want us looking her up?” Harry offers.

“Maybe she has an awful digital footprint.”

Something about it makes us laugh and we can’t stop. But pretty soon it shifts back into tears and we’re left holding each other on the couch, tender and content and anxious.

Our daughter had made contact. Would she like us? Would she be mad at us? What did this mean for us?

The thoughts continue to spiral the rest of the evening. We don’t make much of an effort, we reread the letter and try to get dinner in us. We face each other as we try to fall asleep, whispering questions into the darkness. The darkness doesn’t answer, it grows heavier as does the night, and we fall asleep for the first time in our lives knowing the weight of a decision so long ago was a tiny bit lighter.

***

It’s a few days later. All I’d been thinking about was the letter, when I woke up, at work, during my commute, during breaks, when I went to bed.

It sits on our dining table, we glance at it as we pass by. It becomes part of the decor, three pieces of paper and an envelope. It’s so much weightier than that.

I come home from my lecture on Wednesday, a slight buzz of anxiety humming in the background. It wasn’t unusual for Harry and I to get busy at work and not talk the whole day but today Harry had been radio silent. He hadn’t answered my texts or phone calls in a very un-Harry way.

I walk in to Harry sitting on the couch in the dark, staring at the coffee table. On it sits the letter.

“Hey,” I don’t even take off my jacket. I slide next to him. “Is everything alright?”

“Hey,” he whispers. He stays frozen sitting forward, elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hand.

I wait for him to speak, to say something about what was going on. I rub my hand over his back and he glances up. I tip forward until our foreheads touch. “What’s going on in that brain of yours? Let me help you.”

“It’s a lot,” he whispers. It tears me in two.

“Hey,” I remind him. “Just one day at a time. Let’s just talk about today.”

“I want to call her so bad,” he leans away and buries his head in his hands. I wanted to call her too, I’d been waiting for Harry to give the cue since I knew I could be rash and impulsive about something like this. But something was going on with him.

“We will.”

“We gave her up. What if she hates us?”

“She wouldn’t have written us that beautiful letter, or sent a photo, or left her number if she did.”

Harry sniffles and then asks what he really wanted to, “what if she hates me.”

“Harry look at me,” He unfolds slowly and I make sure he’s looking at me. “You’re her father, you’ve carried her with you for the last 18 years. You love her. She wants to know you. Why would she hate you?”

“I’ve fucked up so much!”

“You’re not your mistakes.” I remind him. I get teary eyed as I feel the echoes of his insecurities. I’ve thought about it too: what if I didn’t meet her expectations? “She’s not going to see you and see every good and bad decisions you’ve ever made. She’s just going to see her father—her biological father, and see where she got her eyes from and her hair from and every other quirk she has.”

“You’re not worried?” He asks, looking at me with grief.

“Of course I am,” I confess, tears leaking out of my eyes damnit. “I’m so fucking worried. But my curiosity overtakes that, my love for her is what I’m focusing on.”

“I love her,” he says.

“That’s all that matters.” I cup his face and press a reassuring kiss to his lips. “That’s all she’ll care about.”

Harry untangles himself from me and my heart sinks. He paces the length of our living room a few times, running his hand through his hair.

“We really should talk about the letter,” he says.

“Yeah. I know. I want to call. Badly.”

He pauses. It’s like all the anxious energy drains out of him at once. He sits back down beside me.

“What do we do?” I ask

“How about Saturday? She’s probably going to be home then right? No school—if she’s in school.”

Two days. Two more days of agonizing over the letter.

At this point the letter is memorized, seared into my brain like I had an exam on it. I want to know the person behind it.

When we wake on Saturday it’s a cloudy day. I don’t take it as a bad omen.

We sit with our phones out after breakfast, just staring at everything before us.

“You should do the talking,” I tell Harry. “I’m too nervous.”

“I think you should.” Harry says. “She sent the letter to you.”

“Only because that’s the address my mum gave…gave her mum.”

It hits me again in another wave I try not to drown in. She was eighteen, she’d lived a whole life with a whole family. There was everything of her we’d missed out on.

“Please Harry?” I was already overwhelmed with the realization. I just couldn’t.

He watches me, must hear the desperation in my voice, and slowly pulls his phone forward.

It rings, and rings a few more times. When it goes to voicemail he turns it off.

“I didn’t think that was an option,” Harry says and we laugh. It feels good.

“It’s only 10 maybe she’s asleep. Try one more time?”

He pulls my phone and tries again but it still goes to voicemail.

We sit there, unsure of what to do. We agree to try again later, in the afternoon.

But around half past 12, while Harry’s working in our spare room and I’m scrolling through my phone, it rings. I don’t think much of it and pick it up automatically.

“Hello?” It’s silent on the other end. “Hello?”

I wait, but as I do it dawns on me. Who called me?

I check my phone screen and swipe through as I say hello again. I match the number. It was her.

I run to Harry but the phone is still silent. I wave the paper with the number saying hello again.

“Is this…well you never gave us your name. But we got your letter. We’re so gl-“

The line goes dead and so does my heart.

“You called her again?” Harry whispers, his brows furrowing as he stares at the phone.

“She called.” I think about calling her back but that was pushy. She was backing out of this.

All of a sudden I feel myself giving out. I catch myself against the wall and slide down.

“She’s backing out. It must be…too much for her.”

Harry stares at a spot on the ground, a million thoughts flickering through. Finally it settles on acceptance. He sighs.

“We can’t force her to talk to us,” he says softly what I already know. But his words are like a saw to my resolve and I just start crying. He gathers me in his arms but the grief feels endless. It felt like she was slipping away again; I’d lost so much and I lost her again. She had been so close. How could she do this? Why did she reach out if she wasn’t ready?

Questions without answers. More of them piled on top of the lifetime of questions I’d built for her.

I know Harry feels the weight of them too. We carry them together. That’s the only reason I hadn’t broken yet.

But I come close to it that day. We don’t hear back from her. And we don’t try to call her back. It didn’t feel right.

It killed me she was so close. And something changes inside.

For weeks I feel like I’m on autopilot. It’s like my first semester of uni all over again.

Harry tries his best to keep me together but he struggles too. It makes me feel worse I was taking the bigger hit, not being there for him as much as I wanted. But life feels like a a million blankets covering me.

I try to keep my usual momentum for my classes, but I’m always exhausted after. It pulls me deeper into my sadness, something I loved made me so tried.

It’s a Thursday at the end of the semester and I’m marking exams during my study hours when there’s a light knock on the door.

I’m surprised to see an old student.

“Bridget,” I wave her in. “Come in, what can I do you for?”

“Hi professor-“

“Call me y/n, I’m not teaching you anymore am I?”

“No,” she says with a stiff smile. The last time I saw her was in February, I’d spotted her with Philippe and a few other friends at a local coffee shop. She had been explaining something to one of her friends from a textbook.

Now her hair was short and more pronounced with waves. I wonder if she styled it, her longer hair had been pin straight.

“I had a question?”

You already asked it, I want to joke. But she was usually wound up so I knew it wouldn’t land well.

“What’s that?”

“Um, well.” She perches on the chair and I wait patiently for her to continue. “Are you taking any applications for TA next year?”

I wasn’t expecting that. She always found a way to take me by surprise. I stare at her for a few seconds, trying to remember what year she was in.

“Aren’t you in first year? If I do TAs they’re usually 3rd or above.”

“I know,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. “But seeing that one of my majors is in econ and my gpa is really high, and I did well in your class, I wondered if you would consider me?”

I hadn’t done TAs since my first year of teaching. I found I liked the work because it got me more familiar with the class.

“What’s your other major?” She had said one of them was econ.

“Sociology, I’m pre-law.”

Ambitious. “Why TA for my class?”

She balks as she meets my gaze. There’s something that flits through her face that I can’t quite read before she drops eye contact.

“Um, I really enjoyed it. I did really well. I think you’re super smart and would learn a lot by TA-ing for you.”

“I don’t give special lessons to my TA,” I let her know. “You’d typically attend some of the classes, mark assignments, and maybe teach exam tutorials, and have office hours of your own for students.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“Why should I pick you?”

She pushes her shoulders back, “I’m responsible, dependable, I submit all my assignments on time and have experience teaching.”

“Teaching?”

“I used to tutor when I was in high school. I didn’t really get an allowance so I found a way to support my hobbies.”

“What are your hobbies?”

She blushes a little, was she still nervous? “I love reading, books are expensive.”

I nod. For Harry’s birthday I’d told him he could get any books from Waterstones and it had been over £100 for 3 only.

“I also enjoy cooking. And um, it’s been a while but my friends and I sometimes go to like. Do you know comic con?”

“Yes,” I’d seen things online.

“Yeah we liked to dress up for that sort of thing. We used to make our own outfits and usually the cost varies depending on what you’re making and how realistic you want it and…” she trails off as I smile. She was really enthusiastic about it. I couldn’t help it.

“Tell you what. Leave your number with me and I’ll think about it. I haven’t had a TA for the last few semesters but I am going to take this into consideration.”

“Really?!”

I laugh. “Yes. Really.”

“Um…” she starts to fidget again. “Can I leave my email? I’m getting a new phone soon so I-“

“Sure. Anywhere I can reach you.”

I expect her to get out a pen but she says it verbally and I type it out.

“Um, are you alright?” She asks out of the blue after I type in the last letter.

“Alright?” I raise my brow.

“I mean, you seem…I just heard, um.” She tries to backtrack but I ask her again and she spills. “Some people just said your last few classes seem scattered. Not that people don’t like you. I just…that’s what they were saying. And I don’t know if having a TA would help? And I just wanted to ask if you’re okay sorry I shouldn’t…it’s none of my business.”

God, this girl was so awkward. But she was sweet for caring, I think. “You’re not applying for the role because you feel bad that I seem…scattered right?”

She blushes. “Sorry. I think I said too much.”

I want to laugh but it strikes me that my students had noticed. I’d let it affect their learning. It didn’t feel very good.

“Life’s hitting me hard recently,” I tell her simply. “But I’m alright. Thank you for reaching out Bridget.”

As I finish up the semester I think about her. It wouldn’t hurt to have her TA for one of my lectures, see how she does. I didn’t care for TAs as a lecturer but something about her is compelling and I find myself emailing her in the middle of the night in June. She responds back a few minutes later,

Thank you!!! You’re the best. I’ll do whatever you need just tell me I can do anythingggh

Sent from iphone.

I laugh to myself as I put my phone away and go back to bed. My guesses were she was drunk at a party.

Harry’s asleep beside me and I reach out to touch his back but think better of it. He’d been busy at work with a project nearing its deadline and I didn’t want to accidentally wake him.

I turn around and try to drift off, thinking about my daughter, about how Harry and I hadn’t really talked much in the last two weeks, about my teaching, and my new TA.

Age 38:

It’s a depressing summer. The air of dashed hopes still hangs around Harry and I. It’s less thunder clouds and more of a fog.

One weekend morning, it’s one of those mornings that start off heavy. I can’t get out of bed, but I hear Harry pattering about doing his weekend morning thing. I hear the dishwasher turn on, and soon after he walks in with our laundry folded in a basket. I feel awful as I normally do, but not awful enough to get up and do anything about it. I think I’d have to feel less awful, to do that.

I don’t expect him to get in beside me once he’s finished putting everything away. He smells like laundry and shampoo, I must smell like rot and decay.

“Y/n,” he says gingerly. I just look at him in response. I felt too heavy to even reply. He sits up and calls my name again.

“Mm,” I say.

He sighs. Despite months of this Harry’s been nothing but understanding but this morning seems different.

Suddenly I’m being pulled up by my shoulders and I find myself sitting up in bed.

“Y/N,” Harry says again. I fold my arms as the duvet slips down and the cool air raises goosebumps. “I love you, which is why it’s so hard seeing you like this. You have to get on, my love. We have to move forward. It’s been months.”

All I could remember after our daughter hung the phone up on us was when I almost got to hold her. Right after she was born, I almost got to hold her but they took her away. And that piece of me that followed after her was nearly returned. It was that almost that was a death blow.

“It’s hard,” I feel myself tear up. It was hard not to these days.

“I know baby,” Harry scoops me into him. “I know. It’s hard for me too but we have to get better. We have to live our lives. She’ll come back to us, I just know it. She’s scared, we’re hopeful. Fear’s gonna keep her away. Hope keeps us patient.”

I cry into his shirt and he rocks me.

“I’m sorry,” I say into his shirt.

“It’s alright,” he grips the back of my neck.

So for Harry, for us, I try to get back to myself. I start to pick up my outdoor hobbies, I try to keep conversations going with Harry, I reintroduce my multi-step night routine. I look forward and re-light the candle of hope, even though I ache to blow it out before it can burn down to its wick.

My wounds inside stay tender.

We had booked our wedding for November and as the days approach we find ourselves with one thing on our mind.

Harry and I finally talk about it.

“I always thought she’d be there at the wedding once she reached out.”

We’re sat in an outdoor space near King’s Cross, coffees in hand as we people watch. We’d just come back from a cake tasting and neither of us felt like going home with such a glorious August day. Kids splash in the water sprinklers and couples sit around arm in arm. I touch shoulders with Harry unconsciously.

“Me too. I think that’s what’s kept me from mentally committing to the fact that the date is coming closer.”

“It can’t be forever,” Harry says. “She reached out. She just needs time. She’ll call again one day and we’ll meet her.”

“I know.” I lean my head on his shoulder. This was a realization I’d also been slowly digesting. I’d waited 18 years, what was a few more months, another year? Her baby picture lived on our fridge, at least we were one step closer.

And the love, I had to remind myself in these moments. Hold onto the love.

***

“I can’t stay for this class,” Bridget tells me. It’s the second week of classes and there were still 10 minutes until it officially started.

“Is everything alright?”

“Not really,” that’s when I notice her nose is red and her eyes are too. “My um, my parents had to put my dog down. She…she wasn’t feeling well yesterday and the-they found cancer? And she was in a lot of pain but she never showed it? And-“

I put my hand on Briget’s shoulder and lead her to the exit. There was no reason for the whole class to see this.

“Sorry. I’m-“

“Don’t apologize.” I rub her shoulder. “I understand. Take the time you need I have this covered.”

True to her word, Bridget had been a loyal TA over the summer. I considered it a trial run not expecting much but she had shown up, aced marking, and I’d gotten good feedback from the students at the end of the semester.

I’d also taken to her. She’d join me during my 2 hours every Monday and when no students would come she would loosen up. She’d told me all about the dog she grew up with, she showed me costumes her friends and her made, I’d asked her about the books she was reading and the classes she was taking. It was like having a younger sister again, except I was mature enough to appreciate her.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Bridget says and this statements seems to be the breaking point. She curls in on herself, shoulders shaking. I don’t even think, I just pull her into me like I would for Harry, for Taylor, for any of my friends.

“You have a lifetime of memories with her,” I hold her. At first she stiffens up and I almost let her go but she only breaks down further and wraps her arms around me. Tighter than I expected.

“I wish I said goodbye,” she says into my shoulder.

“I know hon,” I squeeze her against me, something maternal washing over me. “I know.”

After a minute or so she regains her composure, wiping her face with her sleeve. When she looks at me she looks so much younger, her face grief-stricken and regretful.

“I’m sorry-“

“Don’t be.”

She seems to want to say something more but whatever it is, she swallows it and takes a step away.

I don’t see her for two weeks and I miss her.

When she walks into the lecture the first week of October I try not to rush her but I’m overjoyed seeing her face. It had become so familiar to me.

She smiles shyly when she walks up to me and I pull her into a hug. This time she doesn’t stiffen.

“How are you?” I whisper. Students were still trickling in so I use the time to catch up.

“Okay. Better than that day I cried all over you sorry again. I went home last week, thanks for letting me take it off.”

“Of course. You forget I’ve been doing this without a TA before you. I can hold down the fort.”

She cracks a smile, her dimple making a rare appearance.

“By the way, week 10’s lecture is supposed to be cancelled.” I tell her later during office hours. “But I wondered if you wanted to hold a tutorial that week for some of the material?”

“Really?” A light comes on in her eye. It’s fiery and bright with excitement.

“Yeah! You know the material! I’ll leave you with slides and you can go about teaching them.”

“I’d love to!” She grips her laptop close to her. “Wait why is it cancelled?”

“I’m getting married that week!”

The light dims. Or maybe I imagine it.

“Oh! I thought you were married already?”

“No,” I’d referred to Harry as my partner any time he was brought up. “We’re getting married in November. You’ve met him actually, kind of, that night we ran into you and some students at the pub. Last year?”

“Oh yeah I remember,” she says but her eyes are somewhere else. “So you’re getting married?”

“Yes Bridget,” I laugh. “Married. Tying the knot. You alright?”

“Yeah,” she blinks and she’s back. “You never mentioned the wedding. Do you have a dress?”

“Yeah! Just finalized the tailoring last week. Most things are ready, we’re just finalizing the rings!”

“Cool!” She fidgets with the hem of her shirt. “Is it in London?”

“Yeah, it’s not too big but we didn’t want people travelling too far. This is where Harry and I were born and raised so this is where we want to marry too.”

“Wow,” she seems lost in thought and she stays pretty quiet the rest of the time. I didn’t realize my news was that surprising.

Maybe I still didn’t have Bridget completely figured out.

***

“Harry I can’t pick them up! I need to get home and then head back out to class!”

“Y/n it’s on your way home!”

“Not really! It’s a 30 minute detour. Why can’t you do it?”

“Because you can still get to him right before he closes. I won’t be done here until after he closes. I’m sorry love!”

“Agh and why can’t he do tomorrow?”

“He’s off until Saturday! We need it today.”

It’s the Wednesday before we marry and our rings are still at the jeweller’s. He’d finished them last weekend but we’d been so busy with other things we hadn’t had time to pick it up. And now it was either today and be late for class, or the day of the wedding.

I had gotten delayed at work and missed Harry’s texts explaining the situation. I’d only responded while on the tube, but going out of my way for 30 minutes meant I’d be 30 minutes late to get back to class. And since I’d left marked assignments at home that the kids needed for next week’s tutorial, I had no choice but to head back.

The idea hits me at once.

I hang up on Harry and ring Bridget. She picks up right away.

“Bridget, I’m on a crazy tight schedule. I’m going to be late to class by half hour at least.”

“Oh no. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah it’s just wedding thing but can you do something crazy? And feel free to say no okay?”

“Okay?”

I explain to her that if she rode to my flat, Harry would be there by then and she could pick up marked assignment. She can delay class by taking them up.

She’s silent but eventually I get a yes. “Okay. Can you text me your address?”

“Yes! Yes. Thank you Bridget. I owe you your trip fare and lunch or something. I’ll text you now, leave as soon as you can!”

I call Harry again and confirm he’d be home by the time she arrived. Everything works out.

I get the rings, and have to head home so Harry can try his on. The jeweller was expecting both of us, and let me know he couldn’t do adjustments if I didn’t text him by today. Just my luck!

When I get to the flat I tell Harry not to read his inscription but to try it on and thankfully it fits.

“Hey,” Harry calls out as I try to rush back out the door.

“What?” I was out of breath and frantic.

“Slow down,” he pulls me into a lingering kiss and despite being breathless before, I get some air into my lungs when we part.

“Sorry, so hectic.”

“I know I’m sorry,” he strokes my cheek. “I would have gone if I could make it. Also don’t be mad.”

“Be mad?” I let go of the door handle. “What did you do?”

“Your TA stopped by, Bridget. I forgot she was coming so I didn’t have your papers ready. I invited her in and she was in the living room looking at our pictures and she stopped in front of the baby picture. Of our daughter.”

“Okay,” did Harry tell her our history? I get antsy. “And?”

“Well she asked if that was our daughter. And I didn’t know what to say, if you’ve said anything to her? I panicked?” Harry runs his hand through his hair. “I just changed the subject.”

“Okay, that’s not bad. What’s the bad part I don’t get it?”

“Well. I changed the subject and told her she should come to the wedding.”

My jaw drops. “Harry.”

“I know! I know I’m sorry! I know she technically works for you, she was a student, all that! You’re so fond of her though maybe it’s not a bad thing?”

“Harry that’s…she was my student! I’m a prof at that school I…is that even allowed?”

“Yes? I panicked and googled it.”

I groan, “I swear you’re getting worse the closer we get to the wedding.”

The other week he had tried to buy out a whole bakery in case there wasn’t enough cake for our guests.

“You can tell her we have a full guest list? I don’t know what came over me! She just looked at me with those puppy eyes and she asked about the picture and I tried to talk about something else but the only thing on my mind-“

I kiss him. Just to shut him up. I was getting really late.

“This is like that book club you were tricked into joining all over again-“

“Hey I really like that book club now! It might be a good thing!”

“We’ll talk later.” I shake my head at him. “It’s fine, it’s not a big deal. It’s weird but what’s one more guest?”

“I also said plus one.”

I let out a long exhale and then kiss Harry again. I didn’t want him spiralling while I was gone.

“Baby don’t worry, it’s okay. I’m fine with it. We’ll talk when I get home?”

I mull over it on the ride to uni. But I can’t find a way to uninvite her without it being awful. I text our wedding planner if we could squeeze in two more seats and she gives me the thumbs up.

I did have a soft spot for Bridget, and technically I’ve known her for over a year now.

During office hours, we get a few people in for the first half hour. Then we’re back to just the two of us.

“Thanks for taking over today,” I tell her. “I really appreciate it.”

“That’s alright. Happy to help out.”

An awkward silence slithers in.

“So my partner invited you to our wedding.”

“Yeah! I didn’t know if that was serious am I…?”

She looked so hopeful I couldn’t shoot her down. “Yes! I have a couple people from the faculty coming. And some colleagues from my day job. You’ll probably have to sit with them but?”

“That’s fine!” She’s chirpy Bridget again. “I’d love to. That would mean a lot.”

I watch her as the smile stays on and she gets out her phone, typing away. Maybe her friends, her plus one.

I realize I’m not entirely against it. It had happened, and I was okay.

***

I stare at myself in the mirror, smoothing down my dress in a nervous habit. I never thought I’d get married twice, I always thought after Tatum I was done with marriage, but Harry would always be the exception.

I feel a flutter of nerves thinking about him. Walking down the aisle to him. We started talking on a rooftop one day, we had just been two kids.

“You better not cry,” Taylor threatens as she walks into the room. She had gone to fetch lash glue after my teary eyes loosened an edge.

“I’m not,” I say weakly.

She stands beside me in the mirror, “They’re all waiting downstairs.”

Just 30 minutes ago this room had been a chaotic mess. From my mum, to my friends, to the wedding planner. I’m kind of glad my lash came loose, I’m able to ground myself in these few minutes of silence.

Taylor talks about our family downstairs as she fixes my face. I get up with her help and she beams, but her eyes look misty.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing!”

“Why do you look sad what happened?”

“Oh my god calm down, I just can’t believe you and Harry are getting your happy ending! I’m just…emotional.”

“Aww,” I cup her face even though I want to squeeze my baby sister against me. But my white dress, although not entirely traditional, would be ruined for the ceremony.

A ping on her phone—mum. We rush out. It feels like getting caught when we were younger and quickly getting away from the scene of the crime. I grip my sister’s hand until I stand in front of the doors leading down the aisle.

I don’t remember walking, it felt more like floating. Even if there was a chimpanzee and a talking dog in the pews I wouldn’t have noticed. My eyes are locked on Harry’s teary ones, they anchor me as I glide towards the man I’ve never stopped loving. Who always saw all of me.

When he reaches for my hand I grasp it and I know I made the right decisions. Even the painful ones. After all, I wanted to be nowhere but here.

“Y/N,” Harry reads his vows to me and I try not to cry as he sweeps me away with his delicate words about our love story.

“To be so deeply known by another, without even saying a word, shouldn’t make sense and yet with us we have a language that goes beyond words. A brush of your hand or a look in my direction, it can be enough to unload whatever burden I’d just been carrying. I promise to do the same for you, and to never end this dialogue between us. To love you and to cherish you forever.”

Harry couldn’t keep the tears in and they slide down his cheeks as he reads his words out to me. I reach out instinctively and brush his tear away and he laughs because I was doing it again.

“You’re can’t make me cry in my makeup,” I tell him and our guests laugh.

I had sat and thought so hard about my own vows. In the end after 50 versions, I’d settled on short and sweet.

“Harry, when we first spoke on the rooftop of that party in high school,” I say at my turn. “You told me everything you wanted. One of them was to make the world a better place. And I don’t know if you still want those things as much now as you did then, but one thing is true. You’re made my world a better place. I can’t imagine doing life without you. I love you with all of my heart, there’s no equation that could calculate how much.”

Harry grins at me and my breath catches. My man, he was my Harry.

We finish our vows with a kiss and a lot of noise from the crowd. When we turn to everyone I’m struck by how lucky we were.

The absence of our daughter was tough but when it came to love we had an abundance of it. I see it in every smiling and shiny face in the crowd. It’s like photographing a sunny day with one of those old school films, the sun is covered by a dark spot but the rays still wash everything in gold.

Harry squeezes my hand and I look up to him. He’s already looking at me.

He holds his hand up and lets out a whoop before he pulls my face towards him again for an even longer and borderline inappropriate kiss. I feel myself start to blush in front of the crowd.

We start down the aisle and this time I beam at every guest I catch eyes with.

My mum and Harry’s wave with tear-streaked faces. My friends from high school shout out, always the biggest supporters of our relationship. I catch eyes with Bridget, forgetting for a second she was here. Philippe is beside her, but what’s surprising is her blotchy face. I didn’t take her for someone who got emotional at weddings. I throw her a wave and she smiles through the tears.

Whoever ordered weddings to have a small break between the ceremony and the reception deserved a billion dollars. Harry and I spend the quiet moment doing our outfit change but afterwards we hold each other and let the moment sink in. The day sink in.

“We’re married,” Harry whispers when I tell him we should get going so we weren’t late.

“We took the long way to get here didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” he tucks me under his chin again and even though we would be late we just sway together for a little while. Our own private first dance, before the one for our family and friends.

“We did it all quite backwards actually.” I look up to him.

“Yeah, but we were never ordinary.”

“No, and I don’t think anything we’ve ever done is either.”

“Including our kid. I really wish she were here.”

“We’ll tell her all about it one day,” I promise him. His face eases into a loving smile, the fact that we’d made it to a place again where I can comfort him about this said a lot. Said we’d make it through everything, despite.

“I don’t want to do life with anyone else y/n, I have everything I need right here.”

“Remember that day at Whole Foods?” I remind him. “The first time we bumped into each other.”

“It’s a core memory,” Harry remembers. “I feel like the sun never set on that day. Getting to see you after all those years…it’s cheesy but it felt like coming home.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Me too. I recognized you by the back of your head did I ever tell you that?”

“Stared at it enough in maths, of course you did.”

“That’s probably why I did so poorly that year remember,” I laugh. “Just staring at the back of your head.”

“That’s why I never sat anywhere but in front of you.” He swipes lightly down my nose and I smile. “Now I get to see every angle of you whenever I want.”

“Oi,” I slap his chest. “Save it for tonight.”

He brushes my cheek. Under his gaze I’m stripped naked. There was nothing to hide with him, ever.

“I understand how long it took you to get ready,” he says in his deep silky voice. My stomach flips. “So I can’t do anything right now. But y/n, our wedding night will turn into a wedding dawn, and then to day again. I promise you.”

I tip-toe, even in my heels, and brush my lips along his cheek. In his ear I whisper, “I don’t expect anything less.”

I step away, feeling unravelled by the look of desire in his eyes. I’m sure I had the same look of want. But before we can give in to what we wanted to do, I open the door to our suite and embrace the gust of cool air.

“You should get some air too,” I say and he laughs, following me behind.

***

“Bitch!” Taylor comes up to me on the dance floor later that night. We had dinner, Harry and I had our first dance, there’d been toasts and tears in between. I was finally letting loose as the wedding party crowds the dance floor. We had been taking pictures all night, after this next glass of champagne I was going to call it quits on photos lest anyone captures anything that’s not an elegant bride.

“What?” I turn away from Harry to face Taylor. She’d been running around all day making sure my wedding day was perfect and seeing her just warms me with love. I squeeze her against me despite her protests. “I love you Taylor. Thank you for everything!”

“Ugh c’mon,” she wriggles out. She’d never been very affectionate.

“Where’s your bloke?” I look out for him.

“He taking a call. Anyway don’t change the fucking subject!”

“What subject!?” I ask as someone dances past me, fluttering their fingers in my direction. I blow them a kiss.

“C’mere,” she’s annoyed I’m distracted. She drags me off to the side and I hold a finger up to Harry as he watches us. “When the fuck were you going to tell us about her? And you invite her to your wedding and everything and nobody knows anything!?”

“What?” I was drunker than I thought or Taylor was making no sense. “Wha?”

“The girl you just took a photo with? Don’t act stupid Y/N jeez I can’t believe it. You hid it from me when it happened but why are you still hiding…”

My sister grows more upset as she talks, I realize it was serious. Taylor rarely allowed herself to get this worked up in public.

I put my hand on her shoulder but she shakes it off. I think hard about who she was talking about. Who had I just taken photos with?

Some of Harry’s friends took a picture lifting us up, then there was a photo with my cousin but that can’t be who Taylor was talking about. There was Andie, a few other friends and their partners, then Bridget and Bridget and Philippe.

Bridget.

“Wait what are…who do you think that is? Taylor I work-“

“Your daughter! Why are you still acting fucking clueless!”

“What’s happening?” Harry walks in mid-way into the conversation.

“God you too!” Taylor turns to him and hits the back of her hand on his chest. He rubs the spot and stares at her like she’d gone crazy.

“Me too what?”

“Harry?” His mum walks up to us, her brows pulled together the same way Harry’s does when he’s confused.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s that girl? With the brown hair? Purple dress?”

She’s eyeing Bridget who’s laughing with Philippe.

“Bridget?” Harry glances at me and Taylor grows more pink.

“Bridget? That’s her name?” Taylor blinks away tears. “Really y/n? I get when it happened I was a child, you and mom kept it from me. But she’s, you invite her to you-“

“Invite who?!” I shout. What the hell did Taylor think.

“Y/n,” Harry puts his hand on my lower back in warning.

“Your daughter?” Taylor says with teary eyes and a look of betrayal on her face. “That’s your daughter isn’t it? She looks just like…”

“Jesus I thought the same thing,” Anne looks at all of us. “Harry?”

“That’s not-“ he stops talking and we all look over at her. I had to say, right now she really could be. With her hair curled and wearing what she’s wearing. She could be family.

“She’s my TA. I’ve known her for a couple years guys I’ve bloody taught her. That’s not our daughter. She wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight? Harry invited her last minute.”

They all turn to look at me. Taylor looks miffed, she bites her lip as she looks at her one last time.

“That’s weird. Nevermind.”

She leaves like she didn’t just make a big scene. Anne covers her hand with her mouth and shakes her head. “I’m sorry loves, I didn’t mean to upset anyone-“

“You didn’t do anything,” I reassure her. Taylor did. And she couldn’t even say sorry.

“Don’t worry mum,” Harry pays her arm. She fades into the crowd and Harry stands in front of me so all I see is him. “She’ll get air, she’ll be fine.”

“But how could she just cause such a big scene like I’d hide something like that from her? On my wedding day! And then leave without even apologizing ugh! She is still such a brat sometimes!”

“I know, she’ll apologize later just let her be.” He knew Taylor enough. He knew her at 13 and he knew her now. That’s exactly what she would do. “We’re getting you a shot.”

“That’s the last thing I need! I’m already kinda tipsy Har.”

“This won’t tip you over c’mon. Shake it off.”

He leads me to the bar and we take a shot. I nearly spill half of it, it was awful whatever it was. I lose Harry as we get back to the dancing and end up behind Bridget instead. Philippe noticed me first and slows his dancing, which signals Bridget to turn around.

“Y/n!” Her smile is so bright it hurts to look at. It dims as I just stare at her.

It would be crazy. It was a big fat coincidence. She had a mum, a dad, a sister, she told me all about them. Her childhood dog and the time she twisted her ankle playing football in year 4. She wasn’t who we wanted her to be.

“Are you alright?” I read her lips. There’s only ringing in my ears. “Hey! Y/n!”

Philippe is suddenly on my other side and I’m being led to a chair. He disappears and Bridget pulls a chair beside me.

“What’s,” my voice sticks and I clear my throat. “What’s going on between you two? He’s your date?”

“Philippe?” Bridget’s brows draw together and I can’t stop looking at where they meet. I knew her. I didn’t know her. I was too afraid to ask. “No just friends.”

“That’s not the way he’s looking at you.”

“What?” She tucks her hair back. “No we’ve been friends since high school. It’s not like that?”

“What would you do if he got a girlfriend?” It was a random conversation to have, here and right now but it helps me from tumbling anywhere else. Especially into a pool of what-ifs.

“I’d,” she shrugs but a flicker passes through her face, for a second her jaw clenches. “Be happy for him.”

“Liar!”

“I’m not! Why are you asking?”

“You two like each other. I see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. Why did you invite him tonight?”

She shrugs, picking at something on her arm. “I dunno. He’s good at being a plus one. He always supports me? He’s always been there for me.”

“Sorry,” he shows up with a glass of water. “I swear the guy behind the bar was ignoring me.”

“Thank you Philippe,” by now I didn’t really need the water but I hold the icy glass in my hands. “Let’s see the pictures you took. I want them in my inbox or something soon. We don’t get our official photos for months.”

“Oh yeah here,” Phillipe hands over his phone after opening the photo. There are a couple of all of us, and then a few with just Bridget standing between Harry and I smiling.

I look between all three of us and feel something in my gut. But it’s too scary and big to unpack right now. I shove it away. I couldn’t do this. Not today, not tonight.

“You look beautiful Bridget,” I touch a lock of her hair. “Did I already say that?”

“Yeah,” she smiles awkwardly. “You said that before the photo.”

“You do. And so do you Philippe. Thank you for attending my wedding.”

“Thanks for inviting us,” Bridget looks at me wide-eyed, like she’s about to say something but when Philippe’s hand lands on her shoulder she looks down.

“What?” I ask anyway. Her eyes dart like prey to me, to Philippe, and down to her hands. I grab her hand and force her to look at me, like I could read something in her eyes. Like I would know. “Bridget.”

She looks up and her eyes well with tears as we look into each other’s eyes. My throat feels tight like I was having an allergic reaction, it travels down to my chest, I inadvertently feel myself squeezing her hand.

“I’m so-“

“Bridget,” Philippe’s voice cuts through whatever Bridget was going to apologize for. I look up at him and he’s burning a hole staring at her that hard. Over his head I see Harry.

“Oh look I see my husband,” Harry’s spots me too, relief in his features. His eyes stay on my face as he walks towards me and his eyes keep my steady. I want to tell him something, but everything that just happened was so non-verbal and unreal that I think I made it all up. I must be because this was insane and there was no explanation other than I was drunk, and sadder than I realized. “Gotta go kids. Have fun. I think I need another shot.”

I remember the rest of the night in snapshots. I forget myself later, giving myself up to Harry after that. We actually make it to dawn in a mixture of love and declarations, filthy words and I love yous, laughter and deeper conversations. It’s everything we were. It’s just like he promised.

***

Life moves on and I don’t bring anything up to Harry. I couldn’t, either I’m wrong and get his hopes up, or he thinks I’d gone insane in my sadness.

I feel like Bridget avoids me the week after, I return to class and she sits there, even takes questions after class, but she makes an excuse of studying during office hours and I barely get a few words with her. The week after she has an exam and she skips out after class.

I’m antsy. I want to know more about her; from her. I’m tempted to find a way to access her profile, get more info via the school. But I wait.

Harry notices, as we prep for our honeymoon booked over the holidays, he continues to ask if I was alright. And I try to convince us both I was.

About 3 weeks after the wedding, it’s a Saturday afternoon. Harry’s making lunch and I’m sitting in a pile of our books trying to decide what can be donated.

“Can you get that?” Harry asks.

“Hm?”

“The door?” He says just as there’s another knock. I’d been so entranced in the book I’d randomly started reading a passage of I hadn’t even heard.

I scramble to get it before the next knock and nearly stumble back when I find Bridget at the door.

“Hiya,” she says with an awkward wave.

“Hi��Bridget. What…come in what’s going on?”

“Sorry? Now that I’m here I should have called first.” She comes in and I go further in, waiting for her to follow. She hesitates before peeling her wet boots off.

“Harry? We have a guest,” I announce as I take her further into the home. I guess she’d already been here once before. “Bridget what can we do you for? Did you need something?”

“Bridget!” Harry pops out of the kitchen into the adjoined living room when we get closer. “Nice to see you again! I’m nearly done lunch, did you want to stay?”

What was it with Harry randomly inviting Bridget to things that were not pre-discussed.

“Um, I no. I probably shouldn’t. I just, came by to talk?”

“Sure,” I lead her to our dining table. “Is it about school? Did something happen?”

I sit across from her and Harry mumbles something, turning the dials down on the stovetop before sitting beside me.

Bridget’s eyes dart everywhere, from me to Harry, to the pictures on the wall, the kitchen, the books all over the floor.

“I was just doing a clearout,” I say to fill the silence. “Hey you like books right? Look through that pile there later if you want any of ‘em.”

“Actually,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. I feel Harry tense beside me. “I have a book for you.”

She leans down to where her tote rests and pulls something out. She lays it on her lap first, where we can’t see it. When she looks up to us she has tears in her eyes and her chin quivers.

“Please,” she whispers before pausing. My stomach drops as I take her in. Her face is blotchy and her hair hangs around her face, hiding half of it. She’s definitely cried before coming here, and I almost feel like deja vu as she places the book on the table. “Please don’t hate me.”

She slides it across to us. It’s just a simple leather hardcover, about 30cm by 30cm. The thing in my gut, the suspicion or the intuition, it turns into a cackling ball of energy and moves up to my sternum. I put my hand over it, and then move it to Harry’s leg. He’s frozen like a statue, staring at the book.

“Please open it?” Bridget says with tears streaking her face.

When Harry doesn’t make a move I pull it the rest of the way towards us. I open the first page to a few baby pictures.

I’d never held her in my hands, never even saw her. I’d pushed her out into this world, into another’s arms. But somehow I know who this is.

“Bridget,” I don’t even look at her. I start to frantically flip through the pages. The baby grows, 2 months, 6 months, 1 years old. Another girl joins in some photos, she always has an arm around the other child. I flip and flip and flip and even though I’m expecting it the photo stops my breathing.

I stare at the clone, or the original, of the photo on my fridge.

I’m frozen until another photo is slid towards us. It comes into view: two teenagers on Halloween night. The guy is dressed like the girl, the girl is dressed like the guy.

I throw my chair back and in the time it takes to walk to Bridget she stands too.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs but I just do what I wanted to do the second she was born.

I hug her. I hold her to my chest the way I never got to over 19 years ago. She belonged here. She never got to be here.

She was finally home. My daughter.

“Bridget,” I cry into her hair. Harry’s hair. She had Harry’s hair, his eyes. She got my nose and everything else. I was holding my daughter. She was in my arms, finally.

She really did look like Taylor as a baby.

“I’m sorry,” she cries again. “I was so scared and I screwed up and-“

“No.” I say fiercely. I push her out of the hug so I can grab her face. I wipe her tears and I nearly cry again. How many tears had I missed? Over skinned knees, playground taunts, first crushes and friendship breakups. How many tears had I missed? “Don’t say that. You’re here. You’re—Harry!”

I turn to him, why wasn’t he here?

He’s sat exactly where he was before. Frozen, staring at a spot between the picture of us and Bridget.

I let go of Bridget and move back to him.

“Baby,” I touch his arm and he springs up. Tears coat his lashes.

“‘Scuse me,” he brushes past me and heads out into the hall. Away from us. I want to go after him but I don’t want to leave Bridget—our daughter, alone.

“I’m sorry I knew I would ruin things I-“

“Please,” I want to go after him so bad but I go to Bridget and pull her into a gentler hug. When we part I keep hold of her shoulders. I never wanted to let her go. “He’s just processing it. He’s fine. He’s not mad at you I promise. Promise.”

She bites her lip, it reminds me of Taylor. She was a bit of everyone I knew and loved. She was the love that Harry and I always had. She was ours.

“I just got so scared when I tried to reach…I didn’t mean to deceive you. I didn’t. I felt terrible every day.”

“It’s okay,” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “There’s nothing to be sorry about-“

“But I saw you,” she cuts me off. “After I finally called you back and then just like, ghosted you. And every time I saw you at school it was like…I knew I was to blame. And it made me want to tell you even more but I got more scared any time I came close to it. I almost said it at your wedding—it would have been so stupid. Philippe stopped me.”

“I understand,” I did. I also didn’t care about any of it. She was here. That’s all I cared about. I wanted to know everything about her, I needed Harry here though. “Look Harry…your…Harry. I’m just going to check on him. You stay here and just…”

I trail off and leave. I had to be sure he was okay.

He’s not in the bedroom, or the office. I try the door to the toilet and it opens, he’s sitting on the edge of the tub with his head in his hands.

“She leave?” He asks in a hoarse voice.

“Oh baby,” I crouch in front of him. “No. She’s still here but I just wanted to check on you.”

“I’m pathetic,” he buries his hands in his hair. “I’ve been waiting my whole adult life for this and all I do is freeze. Her first impression is of her dad just freezing and then running away.”

I try not to laugh at his dramatic retelling. “Har you know that’s not true. She’s known you before this. It was a shock-“

“You were fine.”

“You know I…always suspected. Especially after the wedding.”

He looks up at that, finally. “You never said.”

“Harry, I felt crazy. Saying it out loud would have forced me to check myself into the psych ward. We all react differently, it doesn’t matter though. Our baby girl is here. The day we talked about!”

He takes a deep breath, and then another one. I guide him to stand and he looks so limp and sad that I squeeze him in a hug. “She doesn’t care how you reacted. She just wants to know you.”

Harry sighs again, he splashes his face with water and we walk out. I was nervous for him.

We walk back into the living room and my heart sinks when Bridget isn’t there. But her things are?

A few steps further and she’s at the stovetop, stirring a pot.

“Oh sorry,” she steps back and nearly throws the spatula into the pot. “It was boiling a lot and-“

“Bridget,” Harry ignores most of what she’s saying and she freezes at the sound of her name. He’s a foot away from her now. I watch him raise a hand to her face and then drop it. His face is a cross between heartbreak and awe as they drink each other in. I wait in anticipation.

“Hi,” she finally says shyly. But it breaks the ice. Harry pulls her into a hug and she returns it tenfold from the looks of it. I can’t tell who’s crying, but I give them their moment as I turn the dials off on the stovetop.

It was just a regular Saturday, except it wasn’t. Our worlds exploded with our past and was putting itself back together again, all the old broken pieces were being mended back together with love. My chest drowns in it, I can barely breathe. In Harry’s arms, there’s no denying she’s ours.

***

“Thank you,” Bridget says as we tuck into dinner. Harry’s lunch prep had gone cold as we’d all sat down and talked about how Bridget found us (looking me up, finding out I was teaching a course she was interested in, forcing her friend Philippe to take it to see if I was who she thought I was), and going through her album. I found out more about her sister Louisa and her parents. It was weird seeing pictures of them, in my mind they were the people that took my baby as their own and for Bridget they were mum and dad.

We finally decide to do something about food when our stomachs rumble. Harry goes back to cooking, showing Bridget what he’s doing until she leaves to take a call. I recognize Philippe on the caller ID.

I take Bridget’s place but I’m more of an extra weight tied to Harry’s back as I hug hun from behind. We don’t even have words on what this all means to us. For now, just touching each other keeps us grounded, it keeps is in what was happening together.

Bridget comes back from the call when we’re nearly done.

“I just want to say I am sorry—and I know you said not to be,” Bridget says quickly before I can get a word in. “But I never meant to deceive the both of you. My plan was to take your class, leave the letter and then talk. I Googled you so much it felt like I knew you. Yet when we spoke in your office that day, you felt familiar but In a different way than the person I studied. I just liked you so much, and I wanted you to like me. I was scared maybe you wouldn’t. So I just screwed the plan and messed up everything.”

“Hey,” Harry hands her a tissue and she takes it. Under the table he squeezes my hand. “It’s in the past.”

“I know. Still made me feel awful. And I couldn’t tell you but I also couldn’t stay away. I applied for TA and, it felt like having a friend and a sister and a mentor all in one. And I…I screwed up. I took it too far. And then you invited me to your wedding—I got to attend my parents’ wedding! It was so absurd. I couldn’t stop crying.”

Sounded like me. But I don’t say anything. We listen to her attentively.

“I only told my sister. I wanted to tell you two before I told my parents.”

I think about my parents. Harry’s. I didn’t want to overwhelm her but I couldn’t wait to introduce her to everyone that already loved her.

“I just hope…no, I know I hurt you two a lot. I didn’t mean to. I am really sorry about it all.”

“Bridget,” Harry’s hand comes down on hers. “What’s done is over. There are so many things we wish we did differently but ultimately it’s all done. All that matters is you’re here, now. You’re our daughter we never got to meet and you’re finally here.”

Harry’s voice cracks on the last word and he sits back and laughs away the tears. “Sorry. I’m a mess today aren’t I? Your first impression of me is a crying mess.”

“That’s not my first impression,” Bridget laughs but her eyes also fill with tears. “That night at the pub. When I saw you two together I nearly bloody fainted! When I looked you up y/n, there’d been an old wedding registry with another bloke. But then seeing you two together?! I just couldn’t believe it—I thought I dreamed it. And then I nearly cried because my bio parents were somehow together?? And the way you just stared into my soul it felt like you knew who I was.”

I laugh, remembering but also knowing exactly what look Bridget was talking about. “He does have a piercing look doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. It could gut someone!”

“That makes it sound awful!” Harry laughs. “Don’t say that.”

“It nearly gutted me! I really thought oh shite—“ Bridget freezes and looks between us like we were gonna scold her for swearing and I nearly leap across the table to hug her again then. “I uhm, I thought you knew who I was.”

“We thought it then,” I let my eyes roam over her. I realize I’d always been a mother, despite not having my daughter. Holding her earlier had awoken an instinct in me and now every time I look at her I feel a rush of love and something fierce. I wonder if Harry felt it too. “But we thought we were mental!”

Her phone chimes as we laugh. She flips it around and then tucks it into her purse.

“You need to take that?” Harry asks.

“No it’s just Philippe. He was at the wedding? I was just talking to him, I hadn’t texted him in a while he wanted to know how it went.”

“Philippe,” I say with a knowing smile. Bridget blushes and Harry asks what he’s missing out on so I fill him in.

“He sounds like a good lad,” Harry comments.

“A good lad?” I repeat. “Are you hearing him?”

Bridget laughs behind her hand and I can’t stop staring at her. I have to force myself to go back to eating.

“He is. I might have told him about how I felt?”

“Wow,” I put my fork down. “You’re confessing an awful lot lately.”

She blushes even deeper. And suddenly I’m grateful of the weird and layered way she’d come into our lives. Despite hiding the truth, it had allowed us to get to know each other as people first. Without any baggage or give me any inclination to fit who I thought she should be onto who was in front of me.

I got to know her for the young woman she was first, so did Harry in a way. And I would be forever grateful for that despite all the pain in between.

“Sorry,” I get up. The affection was overflowing from my cup. “I’m going to give you another hug because I just can’t believe all this.”

“Ohh,” Bridget stands to meet me and we wrap our arms around each other. Here was a girl I already knew, here was my daughter waiting to be known.

“God, she really is our daughter.” Harry quips from his side of the table. He explains when Bridget looks over at him, “y/n is known to be a big touchy person, I’m kinda like that too.”

“Oh my god,” she smiles at us. “I’m like that too! My sister hates hugs. My dad’s 2 pats on the back man, 3 if he’s feeling a lot. I always wondered if…”

She trails off. It seems to hit all of us all over again every so often. For me it’s when she talks about her mum and dad and it’s not Harry and I. The reminder that she went 19 years becoming her own person that we now were catching up on.

For her, it seems it was realizing all the parts of us that were in her.

“You got Harry’s hair, and eyes.” I comment.

“I did! I realized that as soon as I saw a photo online. But I do look a bit like you.”

“You do! I should show you some younger pictures of us and our families. You’ll see more similarities.”

“Wow. So you have a younger sister. How about you Harry?”

“Older sister. Seems we all have sisters.”

Bridget and I make eye contact, remembering a conversation we had what feels like ages ago about having sisters.

We continue our dinner, swapping stories and filling her in on anything she wants to know. She leaves after, claiming to have to get back home, she had an exam on Monday to study for.

When she leaves Harry and I can’t stop talking about her. Or gushing would be more accurate.

“Did you see the way she laughs?” I’d tell him. “Pure you!”

“The way she tucks her hair back,” he would retaliate. “Just like you. You did that especially back in secondary.”

We talk until we’re exhausted, crawling into bed just staring in wonder. There were still so many details to figure out, so many things to cover, it could drown a person thinking of it all.

But like an anchor in the sea, Harry and I fall asleep with hand clasped together. We keep each other buoyed amidst it all.

It was going to take time for this all to sink in but all I’ve ever had was time, and questions. I think I was finally getting time and answers.

Age 39:

Harry’s pov: Having our daughter in our lives is simple and complicated at the same time. At first there were a lot of things to untangle but as time went on, the knots loosened until our lives became their own knots, tangled into each other.

Meeting her parents, the people I met once many years ago, was likely the strangest part. They already felt so familiar as soon as they greeted us in a warm embrace, as if we were there own children. I guess the last time they saw us we were.

“Oh look at you,” Bridget’s mum had squeezed us tight. Her dad had pat us three times and we took it to mean as much as a hug.

In my mind they were always the age they had been then. They were probably around the age we are now. Seeing them sport greys and fine lines, it was like stepping into a time portal.

Lou, Bridget’s sister, eyes us for the first little while before warming up and sharing all kinds of stories—especially the embarrassing kind with us.

When Bridget meets Y/n’s family, I can tell they’re loud and overwhelming at first but we’re all surprised when Taylor embraces Bridget and takes to her immediately.

She brings out old pictures they had of Y/N and I, but every time she says, “your mum and dad…” when she talks about us through the pictures, I notice y/n protesting less and less.

It makes me feel funny, I keep thinking I was going to wake up and find out it had all been a dream.

“This feels very full circle to me,” y/n’s mum says. She’s watching Taylor talk about her baby bump—she was 3 months along. “I saw Bridget as a wee baby when they handed her over to her parents. I remember running late to hospital and making it to the room just in time to see it. I blinked and now she’s in my living room!”

“Sometimes I feel the same way,” I confess.

My family is slightly quietier but they all fuss over our daughter. They ask a million questions and when it’s all over we take Bridget for ice cream. It’s a pseudo-recreation of a life we never had.

Bridget eases into it too. At first she had bouts of disappearing on us. No more than a couple days. But we give her space, understanding it was overwhelming.

Every time I see her, I see her mum—y/n. I was never there when y/n gave birth. We had to drive up from London when we got the news and by the time I got there the dust had settled.

I never even had the potential of seeing her. I’d always been more sympathetic of y/n; her loss had been physical, mine was slightly more abstract.

Even though I’d spent every year since regretting that I wasn’t there to at least glimpse her, I’m glad now I hadn’t been there to see her. If I had to live the last 18 years with this feeling in my chest I don’t think I could have lasted that long. I don’t know how y/n did it. It’s a concoction of deep unconditional love, and tenderness, and recognition, wrapped in a shell of protectiveness. It took me a while to sort through it all but I had a conversation with my parents one night at dinner Y/n and I had visited. And they’d laughed because they had told me that was simply what being a parent was.

“Maybe she regrets it,” I had said the second time she ghosted us. Really it had just been over a day where she hadn’t gotten back to us. But I couldn’t help the overthinking, being tuned into any potential of loss with our daughter.

Somehow, y/n was the cool headed between us two in these moments. Maybe it was being a mum, maybe it was knowing Bridget beforehand, but she was very in sync with her.

“She needs space. The last thing we want her to be is overwhelmed too. Now don’t overwhelm yourself love, at least she’s in our lives.” She’d say.

It takes us the start of the summer and all those meets later for Bridget to finally feel at ease.

We invite her on a road trip, we were renting a place in the Cotswold for a few days and told her to bring Philippe. When she doesn’t even hesitate to say yes Y/n tells me we’d done it: she was finally more comfortable than overwhelmed.

“Y/N made me a better man,” I say after a couple drinks. We’re all sat around a fire outside the house. Despite it being a warm day of hiking the night had cooled significantly and we’d decided that boozy hot cocoas was the way to go. “I’ve lost my ways a lot of times as an adult. But she’s always been my north star. Even when we got back together she led me to being sober and getting my shite together.”

“Oh…” Philippe looks down at his drink. “Are you…”

“No,” I laugh, Philippe was the most-conscientious teen I’d ever met. “I got sober to get my life in order. But…it’s in order now. I haven’t done anything crazy for over a year now.”

A little before our wedding I decided I wanted to end my sobriety. It had been a thought for months, and I had waited before giving in. But I really felt more in control of my life. I faced my life decisions head on, I confronted my past with y/n’s help, and I didn’t think I’d lose control again. It had been a shaky first week but I was right. It was a proud moment for me.

“You two really have something special,” Bridget comments.

“They do,” Philippe adds. “I can’t believe you got your happy ending after so many years!”

“Yeah,” y/n says as I lay my hand on her thigh, palm up. “Y’know what they say about loving someone and letting them go.”

“I guess you did that with me,” Bridget says so quietly we almost don’t hear her. But out here in the countryside we do.

“We didn’t want to,” I remind her.

“No I know.” She smiles, it’s a bit sad. Philippe tugs her closer. I could see how much he cared for her in that small gesture. “I’m not saying it like that. I hear your story and I just imagine how different my life would have been if I was raised by my, by you two. I wouldn’t have this life. And I really like this life.”

She looks at Philippe and I feel y/n squeeze my hand. She often said they reminded her of us when we were younger; the kind of love you’d do anything for.

“But you two loved me enough to let me go. To let each other go. It’s fucking sad but it’s beautiful. Life’s weird.”

“Here here,” Y/N raises her nearly empty cup of hot cocoa. “Life’s weird, sad, beautiful, but lately my life’s been full of so much love. I wish I could sell all the excess, I think I could solve a lot of world problems with it.”

“Wow,” I lean over and kiss the top of her head. “That’s one hell of a speech.”

“I have a speech,” Philippe stands, a little tipsy, and clears his throat. Bridget rolls her eyes but they shine for him. “Bridget you’re the love of my life. Since we were 13. But Harry and Y/N, I think I love you too. Ever since we were 15, I’ve watched Bridge struggle for answers about her past. And you two have given her all the answers, welcomed her—and me actually, into your lovely life. I’ve watched her become old Bridge but even more confident. I’m falling harder for her these days. And I can’t thank you guys enough.”

“Aw Philippe come here,” y/n lets of my hand to walk around and give him a hug. How quickly strangers became family.

Bridget grumbles about being left out and joins the hug. Soon I join in too. I want to create a mold of this moment, I think as I squeeze them against me, I’d make it out of plaster and let it dry. Any time we wanted, we could always find our way back to this moment here.

Age 40:

Y/N and I watch our daughter cross the stage. Beside us are our parents and in front of us sits Bridget’s parents and her sister. She has a whole army cheering for her. This was the first milestone event we could all really show up for, and show up we did.

“I can’t believe this,” I was so proud of her. I know the kudos went to her parents, and herself, but I beam with pride. Honestly Bridget could spin in a circle in front of me and I would be a proud dad.

“We need to get photos,” mum leans over and says so seriously, as if we hadn’t planned on getting a million already.

We have a framed picture in our hall, Y/N and I on our wedding day, our daughter in between us. Her graduation photo is definitely making it. She makes fun of this wall, calls it the Styles hall of fame, and I never mention it but she always lingers a few second longer in front of the photo of the three of us.

I do too.

“It makes me so sad you won’t be so close to me anymore,” my mum tells Bridget later. We’re all piled in our flat, drinks and celebratory cake in everyone’s hands.

It reminds me of mine and y/n’s 40th birthday, we had gathered our family and friends here and it was some of their first times meeting our daughter. Today is more intimate, and focused on Bridget.

“I know it makes me sad too, but I’ll be here often, visiting Philippe.”

“Only visiting Philippe?” I raise a brow.

“Is there someone else I’m supposed to be visiting?” She mirrors my raised brow.

As Bridget’s gotten more comfortable, me and her could banter for hours if you let us, it’s one of those things that brought us closer together—having the same sense of humour. It’s allowed us to have just as deep heart-to-hearts, a handy joke always close to the surface.

Y/N always says seeing me like that, thoughtful and silly, reminds her of the boy she fell for. I can’t deny that I’ve been feeling closer to my 20 year old self than my 40 year old self lately.

“She’s too cheeky,” Bridget’s mum says. “But I have to say I’ll be glad to have her back.”

Lou, Bridget’s sister, was moving to Wales. Apparently she wanted to know more about her background, and take a trip with her bio mum to visit her bio dad.

I think Bridget was moving back to Coventry to keep her parents’ loneliness away; she said she would commute to Birmingham for school. Even though she got accepted into law schools in London, going to a uni close to her parents just showed me how close she was to her parents. It was a bittersweet feeling.

“I’ll have somebody to watch cricket with again,” her dad says.

“Ohh,” Bridget throws her sister a side-eye. “I love cricket…”

We all laugh at her complete lack of concealing her true feelings.

Later that night, it’s just Bridget’s parents and us. The kids are on the balcony talking.

“I know we’ve said it before,” I say after a long silence. We’d just been watching the kids talk and laugh outside. “But I want to say thank you again.”

Bridget’s dad shakes his head. “It was the greatest pleasure of our lives getting to raise those two girls.”

He looks over at his wife and they smile at one another. Seeing them interact, I’m grateful that somehow fate had led us to them. While Y/N and I were figuring life out, while I fucked up a lot of things, she was raised on a steady and stable foundation.

“She’s incredible,” I murmur. “She’s gonna be a lawyer. She’s going to change the world.”

“She sure will,” her mum says. “We should be thanking you two. For giving us Bridget. I know it wasn’t easy, you told me you thought about her nearly every day. But we can’t imagine our lives without her.”

We sit in a comfortable silence, looking out at the kids until they notice and start to ask questions through the glass.

“She’s happier,” her mum says smiling at Bridget and Lou exaggerating their words through the glass. “She stopped being like this before she left for uni. We thought we lost her but…I think everything worked out for the best.”

Y/N glances at me. Her eyes crinkle when she finds me looking at her first, her eyes steady me as she says what I was thinking, “I think so too.”

Age 45

Your pov: “When did she say she would be here?”

“6?” Harry says for the tenth time.

“It’s 6:20 do you think something happened? She hasn’t texted has she?”

“My love,” Harry puts down the cutlery he was arranging on the table and holds my face in his hands. “They’re driving from Coventry, they probably hit some traffic.”

“Maybe I should call her?”

Harry sighs and squishes my face.

“Don’t! You’ll make more wrinkles.” I warn.

“I love your wrinkles,” Harry kisses my forehead right where the pesky wrinkles had been growing deeper over the last few years despite the additions to my night routine.

Harry always said our wrinkles were just the stories of our lives showing through. I told him to get himself undereye cream.

“You don’t think I’m aging handsomely?” He strokes the moustache he started growing last year. At this age, even I couldn’t deny it made him even more attractive.

“Well it’s no good if you’re ageing handsomely and I age like a troll.”

“I will love you if you age into a troll.”

“But will you love me if I turn into a worm?”

“Do you even have to ask? I’d buy you the best soil and keep you in a beautiful pot.”

“You wouldn’t take me fishing?” I ask. He sighs. Last year while we were taking a trip up north for Lou’s wedding, we’d gotten into a fight and when I asked him the question while he was still stewing he said he’d take me fishing. It had, ironically, broken the iciness of his anger and we’d laughed about it so hard he’d nearly had to pull over.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he wraps me into his chest nearly suffocating me.

I’d spent half my life with a lot of difficulties, but life now felt easy compared to it. I had the privilege of getting older with the man I adored, got to watch my daughter flourish as an adult and a lawyer, watch her get married to the love of her life, and all the while live comfortably in the heart of this city I called home.

When Bruno starts barking though, I gasp and push myself off of Harry, “that’s them!”

Bruno continues to bark as I rush to the door. We’d got him a couple years ago as a pup and I can’t believe it had taken us that long to get a dog. He filled our lives with laughter and long walks. We loved him.

“Down.” I say to him. I open the door and hold my hands out while Bruno runs in circles beside me.

“Ahhh sorry we’re late!” Bridget steps into my hug and I tug Philippe’s hood so he can join. Bruno goes for Philippe when they walk in, he’d gotten obsessed with him after Philippe took care of him while Harry and I took an anniversary trip last year.

“Where are my hellos!?” Bridget says to Bruno and he barks, standing on his back legs to paw at her leg.

I hadn’t seen the two of them since March, that was 6 months ago. It had been their wedding, and they’d gone on a month long honeymoon after that, after which Harry and I had taken time off to road trip around Europe with Bruno, and then time had just zipped by.

After a hearty dinner, Harry and I carry out the birthday cake we’d been hiding.

“You didn’t have to do this!” Bridget fans her face but we treat it like we do any special occasion, plus making up for all the ones we’d missed. We get photos and exchange presents, she cries reading the cards and the whole time she says she had a present for us.

It’s a small bag, Harry and I guess that it was something for Bruno but when we take out a box it doesn’t sound like much when we shake it.

“Is this a prank gift? There’s nothing in it?” Harry asks.

“Open it!” He was making me antsy.

“You open it,” he hands me the box. Bridget and Philippe stare intently at my hands.

I undo the bow and slowly open the box. There’s a small square of tissue paper, and then a piece of paper. I remove both but something catches my eye.

I flip the paper over and stop breathing.

“Is that-“ Harry stops talking too. We stare at the piece of paper in our hands. It looks so much like one I had held 28 years ago. But it’s not.

“Bridge,” I look up at the couple. The parents-to-be.

“We’re having a baby,” Bridget says. Philippe and her are gripping hands and I throw everything off of me to launch myself at her.

“A baby!” I hear Harry say and joining us. “You’re having a baby! Y/n!”

“I never thought we’d be grandparents,” I look up at Harry.

“Those wrinkles were coming in for a reason,” he teases.

We never did have any other kids. Quite frankly, neither of us wanted any. When we first got together we were just starting to get comfortable with the reminder that we had a daughter out there and we could talk about her freely with each other. It felt like having a third person in our little family.

After Harry proposed, while we planned our wedding, we talked about it but we never thought it felt right. We both had first marriages where a lack of conceiving had just put a strain on the relationship we didn’t think we needed. We’d also felt like it was betraying something, before we met our first child.

When Bridget did reach out, it became about catching up on lost time. And then with her in our lives we knew what we suspected all along. We had each other, and that was enough. Bridge was our bonus. And getting to be aunt and uncle to our nieces and nephews it was enough. It was a full enough life.

We never even dreamed in our 20s we’d get to be parents and now we would get to be grandparents! I never realized until this moment that I wanted this. Really wanted it.

“Do you know the gender?” Harry asks.

“No,” Philippe answers. “We were thinking of doing one of those reveal parties? But not for a couple months.”

“Wow,” my hands drift down to Bridget’s belly and I remember I had something. I leap away from the group and find the box in my closet, it’s painted pink with random collages from old magazines. It hosts old diaries, photos, a hospital bracelet, and an ultrasound.

“This was you once,” I show her the picture when I get back. “I carried you like that once upon a time.”

She takes it with teary eyes, holding it close to her face to make out the shape of her. She hands it to Philippe and grabs my hands.

“I’ve thought about it before, but when I got pregnant I couldn’t wait to tell you-“

“She kept telling me I had to make a trip out to London just so she could give you the news.” Philippe interrupts, eyes scanning the ultrasound still.

“No really,” Bridget laughs. “I did. It’s like I got this new perspective.”

She puts my hands on her belly and covers mine with hers. I feel everything at once then, all the heartbreak I ever went through to get here.

“I can’t imagine giving this baby up. And it’s barely 3 months. What you were willing to do to give me a better life-“

She breaks off and Philippe squeezes her shoulder. I watch my daughter try to gain control of her emotions. I remember when I was pregnant with her, anything would set me off.

“It must not have been easy. After carrying me like this for 9 whole months. Thank you-“ she looks up to where Harry’s standing. I barely register his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you as my mum and dad, for making the hardest decision I can imagine ever making, so I could have something you knew you couldn’t provide.”

I reel my tears in, save them for later that night in bed while Harry holds me tight against him.

Right now I kiss my daughter and tell her what a good mother she will make. I tell her and Philippe how proud I was of them, how excited, how wonderful this was.

Age 46

The day we meet our granddaughter is seared into my brain. We get the call at 8:35pm, Harry and I were staying in a B&B in Coventry despite Bridget’s mum insisting we stay with her. We’d been here all weekend, booked it all week, not wanting to miss Bridget’s delivery date.

“Y/N she’s here,” her mum whispers into the phone. Her voice is filled with joy and giddiness. “She’s here.”

“We’re coming,” I say. Harry’s already at the door and we rush out into the night to see our granddaughter.

She has the perfect little face, and when she finally wakes up I gasp when I see Harry’s eyes looking back at me. I turn to him, to see if he noticed, but he’s teary-eyed and gazing at the baby in awe. I soak it in for a second, imagining this exact look if we’d kept our baby so many years ago.

Bridget’s parents had given us the room, to give us a moment alone, and I can’t be more grateful. Bridget encourages us to hold her and as her soft body is pressed into my body I let out a sob and hand her over to Harry. I excuse myself and step outside the room.

Lou’s kids sit on the floor outside, playing with whatever toys are spilling out of a miniature backpack. I focus on the flashy colours, trying to calm down, counting the number of toys falling out.

My life was a 180 from 10 years ago. This moment would go down in our history books as one of the best days of our lives.

But I can’t deny the bittersweet. The experience threatens to push me into the bitter past of not even getting to hold Baby Bridget. But with it comes an undeniable sweetness of getting to experience this now.

I take a deep breath and walk back in. Harry and Bridget stop mid-sentence and turn to me. Bridget’s face is streaked with tears, Harry’s looks concerned but I smile. He sits with the pink bundle to his chest and I ache.

“Don’t look so obvious you were talking about me,” I try a joke.

“Are you alright?” Bridget asks.

“May I hold her?” I ask in return.

I sit on the edge of the bed and she’s placed in my arms; she’s perfect. Just as perfect as Bridget must have been.

“She’s got Philippe’s hair,” I gently stroke the wispy blonde strands.

“She’s got my eyes, her grandpa’s eyes.”

I look at Harry. And he catches the stricken look on my face when Bridget tips forward and whispers to her baby.

“Look baby, this is your mumma’s mum, and your mumma’s dad. You’ve got his beautiful eyes. Say hi to grandma!”

My throat tightens. “Bridge.”

She leans away, her eyes dart between us. “I know I call you Y/N and Harry. It made it easier at first but…you are my mum and dad. Even though I have another pair. You are my mum and dad. And I want her to know you like that.”

“Oh love,” Harry leans down and kisses the top of our daughter’s head. She keeps her green eyes trained on me, grasping my hand that’s wrapped under her baby’s.

I mouth a thank you, my voice couldn’t pass through the block in my throat. She squeezes my hand and it sets the baby off. Remembering when my nephews were this young, I just hand her back to Bridget knowing she only wanted her mum.

Harry and I stay in the waiting room. We couldn’t go home, even though we had spent our allotted time we had inside the room, we stay there.

We watch Lou’s kids as Bridget’s family gathers in her room. We stay as they fall asleep, draped over us. I remember when Taylor’s kids were this small, they would fall asleep anywhere.

We talk in whispers, I don’t remember what about exactly. Mostly how excited we were. How there was so much to look forward to. How different our lives looked a decade ago.

“One day we’ll tell our grandkids,” I remember Harry saying. “We’ll tell them all about us, how we met, how our love burned so bright it shone in the sky. We lost each other but our love was always there to guide us back home.”

“We’ll see them grow up, all the memories we missed.”

“We’ll change diapers.”

“We’ll change diapers,” I giggle, half-delirious by the lack of sleep. It was probably 2am and I was tired.

When I gaze up at Harry I remember him holding our granddaughter. I replace her with Bridget. For a minute I allow myself to imagine how that would have been.

“I think you would have made an amazing mum if we did things differently,” Harry whispers into my hair.

“You too.” I whisper back.

“An amazing mum? You think?” The edge of his lips tug upwards.

“Harry,” I warn. We had kids sleeping on us we were trying not to wake.

“I love you.” He says in response. “To the stars and back.”

On our drive home I can’t stop looking at him. I always wondered how it would be like to grow old with someone; when I was younger and watch my own parents celebrate anniversaries. And then when I was older and my first marriage was so rocky.

But thinking about it now is like a simple mathematical equation. You take two lives, two individuals, and you bracket them in love. You add an exponent—the decision to continue choosing each other. And you get a lifelong commitment. No matter the situation, no matter the challenges or the changes, you choose to choose each other.

His side profile lights up by an oncoming car. For a second he’s the same boy I feel in love with, a few more gray hairs, a few more wrinkles, and a moustache. But he’d always be the boy I followed out to the roof, who held my hand in our high school hallway, the one who turned an I into a we when I got pregnant, I see the man I had coffee with after a run-in at the Whole Foods, I see the broken heart from a harsh life sitting on the steps of a church, I see a bookworm, I see a father, a husband, and now a grandfather. I see the one person who knows me like the back of his hand. The one I am home with always.

“What is it?” Harry asks as we pull into our b&b. “Have you been asleep this whole ride or have you been staring at me?”

“Staring at you?” I ask. “You think I was staring at you the whole ride?”

“Well you were really silent. And facing me

“I was thinking.”

“About me?”

“Why are you so desparate!? Do I not show you enough love regularly?”

“I could always use more,” Harry looks half asleep as we reach our door.

“The people are right: you give someone a hand and watch as they take the whole arm,” I tease.

“When you gave me your hand, I made you a wife.” Harry retorts.

“Ooh,” I poke him. “I have to say that’s a good comeback for being half-asleep.”

Harry grins back. “You keep me sharp.”

“And you keep me happy. Now open the door so I can stop freezing out here!”

We walk into the warmth of our b&b.

For so much of our lives, our past decisions haunted us. We let so much go. Now life was repaying us, returning it all back, with interest.

***

In a small b&b in the middle of a town called Coventry, two lovers crawl into bed. They’d just become grandparents and they carry an exhausted buzz about them as they try to fall asleep. They’re both thinking of the other, of their daughter, of the tiny bundle they held in their arms today.

Some 20 minutes away their daughter lays in a hospital bed, an exhausted buzz putting her to sleep. She dreams of her mother who gave her up, how she had found her parents in the end, and dreams about the kind of mother she’ll be.

A few doors down lay her newborn daughter, she doesn’t dream of much, not yet, but she’s in for a lifetime of love.

Most of life is what we made it. Y/N and Harry loved deeply enough to make it.

———————————————

TAGLIST: @quinnwritezz @unknownnbihh @dilfhrrys @umadirectioner @hermionelove @anonymous-91 @meganxfddf

#harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #writingsfromhome #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #fic #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles series #if you love something #dad!harry #its not my fave but I was getting tired of tweaking it #to shorten it #theres just so much to catch up on #kinda nervous #but also kinda done

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thewintersoldatt · 6 months

Text

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN - RAFE CAMERON (finish or nah?)

pairing: toxic!rafe cameron x toxic!reader

summary: you’ll find out hehe.

warnings: none yet.

a/n: welp! this is just a sneak peek maybe??? tell me what you guys think. 🤔

word count: idk yet

“I fucking hate you.”

And he couldn’t stand you. Yet he was sure that he loved you more than he’d ever loved another person. At times, you suffocated him, and he was nothing more than a possessive lunatic. He wanted nothing more than to push you away, but Rafe knew that he’d be alone if he did that. If there was one thing that was constant in his life, it was you. You, who doted on him, cared for him when no one else would. If everyone else turned their backs on him, you stayed. Even though you made it quite clear you weren’t planning on going anywhere, and so did he. "No, you don’t."

He said softly, pressing his face into your hair. “You want to, but you can’t.”

Rafe's face drifted closer to your neck, “and you want to know how I know?”

“How?” You whispered, while he pulled away, cupping your face in his hands.

“Because we’re two sides of the same coin, baby.”

You wanted to forget about the hurt and turmoil. You wanted to throw yourself against him, to fall from his tightrope and just feel the exhilaration of anything other than the endless heartbreak, love, and hatred that formed the so-called-relationship.

“I do love you. You know that right?”

Whatever love was meant to be, wasn’t this. You knew that and so did Rafe.

But the thing was, no matter how much suffering the two of you put each other through, it didn’t matter because you knew how this would end. The never-ending cycle of you physically pushing him away. Him slapping you across the face. The two of you apologizing which lead to the rough make up sex. Both of you craved the attention and love that you were denied, so you’d found it in each other. In the worst possible way imaginable. You obsessed over the control you had over him, and he relished the control he had over you. “I love you too.” You were almost ashamed of how breathless your voice came out sounding. "I can leave if you want.” He let his head fall to rest on your shoulder. “Do you want me to?” You closed your eyes, savoring every breath he took. His hands were soft on your waist, holding you carefully. Letting out a shuddering breath you mumbled, “no.”

Rafe was right. You were two sides of the same coin, two halves of one whole, and each other's only equals.

#drew starkey #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe x you #toxic love #equals #happiness #pls help #obx fic

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sweet-evie · 6 months

Text

Pure Love

Rewatched JJK 0 recently, and caught the feels...

Content: JJK0 timeline... Post-Suguru... Established relationship, AFAB!OC, nameless OC, she/her/hers pronouns, Fluff, Angst & Comfort, Cheesy thoughts about love (like it's actually disgustingly cheesy), Lovesick!Gojo, Soft!Gojo, Sad!Gojo

✨ masterlist ✨

The blade slipped from his fingers and clattered loudly against the ground — the final punctuation to what should have been an unforgivable deed according to the laws of mortal men. He couldn’t bear to hold on to the blade, not when the deed was done, and not when he had already accomplished what was once unthinkable.

He stared at his own hands and the specks of red that stained the pale flesh, stared at the man he’d called his best friend, his one and only, even after a decade had come and gone. He was horribly disfigured, the sight made uglier by the clean cut across his throat — just an empty shell of what he had always known.

His friend really had gone. The familiar traces of Suguru’s cursed energy, snuffed out — as it should be, and none other than at the hands of the strongest sorcerer alive — none other than at the hands of his best friend.

The tears wouldn’t come and the shortness of his breath didn’t abate. He couldn’t bring himself to stand again either, just numbly content to kneel on one knee before Suguru’s corpse — the murder weapon several inches away from his trembling fingers. Closing his hands into tight fists, Satoru refused to look away. He had priorities. He still had to check on his students despite the fact that he knew they were actually okay. But all the same, his own legs betrayed him and refused to get up — refused to leave. Suguru deserved better than this, and Satoru only had himself to blame for failing to see his friend’s struggles all those years ago — so absorbed in his own tumultuous thoughts, he’d unintentionally left his friend in the dust at a time when Suguru needed him most.

“Satoru…”

His ears barely registered the sound of his own name and the familiar set of footprints behind him. He now knew it was her, but he couldn’t bring himself to move still. He wanted to say something, he knew he needed to say something, but the words couldn’t quite leave his tongue. His own voice refused to cooperate. And for this, he would choose silence over the utterance of something careless and brash.

No number of words could properly express how he felt at this moment. Devastation, loss, guilt, anger at himself, exhaustion.

She was quiet and respectfully distant, offering him respite yet reminding him that he wasn’t alone — that he didn’t have to be alone. Not when he had her.

There were no words of reassurance, no expressions of verbal sympathy. Once again, she just knew that it wasn’t what he needed right now. Perhaps for later, but right now, he needed the silence, and not for the first time, he was eternally grateful for her unfailing understanding of his nature. She let him stew in his thoughts, let him feel whatever it was he needed to feel — just as she gladly shouldered the brunt of the turmoil he felt. She was steadfast and simply carried the burden of his loss alongside him.

A burden shared was a burden halved, was it not?

He vaguely registered her movement, noting that she’d left her naked katana on the ground in favor of kneeling beside him. A pair of familiar arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind as she buried her face into the crook of his neck and just held him. Her fingers threaded through his hair gently, drawing small soothing circles all over his scalp. His body responded to her touch and her ministrations, leaning into her compassion and her understanding.

And he was grateful for it all… Grateful to her even as grief swallowed him whole and left an empty space in his soul where Suguru used to be.

=OoOoO=

His sullen mood lasted all through the night. Even when they eventually returned to the home they shared, her Love stayed quiet and so very subdued.

The heaviness of loss combined with the weight of what he’d done for his best friend’s sake kept chipping away at him until she was left with a grieving husk — a man removed from his vibrant and cheery personality. She didn’t expect him to be okay at all. He could take as long as he wanted, and she would stay beside him all the same — to be there for him whenever he needed her (not that he would ever tell her that out loud). He never shed a single tear, never so much as sobbed or caved under the oppression of his own emotions. But he didn’t need to cry to show just how broken and defeated he felt.

He laid on his side all night, staring off into space — grieving in silence, perhaps even blaming himself. It honestly wouldn’t be the first time. It meant a lot that he was comfortable enough to let her be in his space while he wallowed in undeserved self-loathing. As they stayed longer in front of Suguru’s lifeless body that afternoon, she could feel his trust and gratitude in the way he buried himself in her arms.

And so as the night wore on, she didn’t hesitate to spoon him. They lay together with her arms around him and her lips leaving affectionate kisses on the crown of his head, his temple, or his cheek.

She drifted off to sleep with him in her arms and when she woke again in the middle of the night, the space he occupied beside her was empty. He was still in the apartment. In fact, she knew exactly where he would be. Padding out of the bedroom in her sleeping shorts and one of his T-shirts, she found him standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Her heart breaking for him all over again, she stopped and stood beside him. She pretended not to notice the way his heavy gaze landed on her. Neither dark sunglasses nor pesky blindfolds obstructed her view of those gorgeous blues.

He embraced her this time, took her into his arms and held her tightly as they stared at the distant yet flickering night lights that dotted the rest of the Tokyo metropolis. Sheltered in his grasp with her ear resting on the place where she could feel and hear his steady heartbeat, his fingers found their way into her hair as his other hand moved up a little to caress her face and trace her features like he’d done hundreds of times before.

“Thank you.” He whispered quietly into her hair. “To be honest, I don’t know what to say right now. But perhaps it’s for the best. Just… thanks for not leaving me alone. I— I won’t be okay for a while, but it’ll get better.”

“I understand.” She smiled and squeezed him a little, more affectionately than she would like to admit. “I love you and I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

“Always there.” He echoed quietly. “You’ve always been there.”

“Do you need anything?” She pulled back a little to peer up at him through her lashes.

“You. I just need you.”

His lips pressed to her forehead, she basked in his love and the gentle yet potent thrum of his power simmering just underneath his skin. Inhaling deeply, she burrowed further into his arms, stepping ever closer into his space until she couldn’t tell where she began and he ended. Pressed so close to him, one of his hands drifted to cradle her cheek, tilting her head up ever so slightly so that when he leaned down to eliminate the space between them, brush his thumb across her lower lip, and initiate a tender kiss, she melted into it. They’d kissed plenty of times before and yet this one felt so different — filled to the brim with assurance, absolution, and comfort. A kiss so full of love, it made her head spin and her toes curl.

She was so in love with him and if he wasn’t holding on to her or too busy kissing her senseless right now, the force of the renewed realization would have knocked her off her feet. She sighed onto his lips when they parted long enough to catch their breaths, and when he leaned in again to kiss her, she let him — let him take as much of her as he wanted just as she basked and indulged in the love he poured into her.

It was… beautiful, exhilarating, blissful, consuming, and so unconditional.

It was so raw and wanting, so encompassing. So much love, her own heart could barely take it. He loved her so deeply and completely, all of the longings he’d had pent up, rushing out all at once to overwhelm her and ground her so firmly into his presence — fueled by a desperate need to communicate the depths of his love lest cruel fate intervened one day and he would never have the chance.

For as much as he grieved and agonized over the loss of someone who was tied and bound to his soul, he also reveled in the beauty and consuming nature of the love he found and shared with her — a love nurtured and cherished for nine long and precious years.

They parted quietly, softly gasping for air that couldn’t enter their lungs fast enough, staying close enough for their breaths to mingle.

A fond smile graced those lips as he regarded her with tenderness through half-lidded eyes that held infinite blue skies.

How he loved her so…

He kissed each cheek, the bridge of her nose, each eyelid, her forehead, and her lips again.

When she reached up to touch his cheek, eyes misty with gratitude and adoration for the man who always chose her from the moment they met, he held her hand against his face, turning to the side to kiss her fingers and her palm with the reverence he reserved just for her — his partner, his equal.

For her… For the love of his life.

==========================================

[Dumped in AO3]

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #gojou satoru x y/n #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo x y/n #satoru x y/n #gojo x fem!reader #gojo x oc #satoru gojo x you #gojo satoru x you #gojo x you #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #gojo x fem!OC #jjk x you #wbad fanfiction

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chiefdirector · 6 months

Text

Care for her | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

No. 14: field medicine

As a police officer you always have to stay vigilant. Danger could come from anywhere at anytime, and when you’re putting your life on the line in a daily basis, it becomes a good habit to a) make it home in the first place and b) make it home relatively uninhured.

The LAPD offered training on how to ward off potential attackers, especially those with knives and other sharp, stab-able objects. They also trained their officers in what to do in the event that they were stabbed. This did not provide any comfort to Detective (Y/N) (L/N).

Tim, the LAPD’s poster boy for model cop, already knew what to do. He barked commands at anyone who could listen and (Y/N) was sure he demanded something of her too but she couldn’t hear him. Just looking down at the blood pooling through her shirt from her side made her ears ring at a deafening level.

She had always been good with blood and injuries but when it was on herself she shut down, and Tim knew this. He gentle shook her shoulders, bringing her attention to him. She still couldn’t hear him, but she followed his lead as he guided her to the ground to lean against a wall.

For a fleeting moment she though that she may die. It would be a pitiful end to a life barely lived. Of course it would be her luck to die in a liquor store full of drunks and lowlifes. But as she watched Tim continue to bark commands at any civilian nearby to get what she could only assume was a first aid kit and an ambulance called.

He quickly grabbed a bottle of generic vodka before settling in by her side again. He held it out to her. “One swig then you’re done.”

She hesitated as she took the bottle. However she knocked it bag quickly, wincing as the taste settled in. She shoved the bottle back into Tim’s hand to let him disinfect her very bloody stab wound.

“This is gonna hurt.” He didn’t allow her time to respond before he moved her shirt out of the way and generously poured it over the wound, ensuring no part was left uncoated.

Tim tried to avoid her wince of pain. Their relationship was strictly professional; it was in theory anyway. If anyone asked Tim he would say that they were dedicated but they were a detective so they couldn’t be that great. But he would want to answer about how kind and compassionate they were. He would want to talk about how their sense of humours align or how they’re always in sync, like two halves of a whole.

But he had a relationship with someone on the force before. What happened with Isabelle broke his heart, and Tim knew that he couldn’t put himself in that position again. So he would resign himself to tending to her wounds and caring for her whenever he can.

Masterlist | Whumptober Masterlist

@ailesswhumptober

#tim bradford x reader #tim bradford imagine #the rookie #the rookie imagine #ailesswhumptober2023 #chiefdirector

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nanomooselet · 3 months

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My Brother's Keeper (I)

So, uh, I have seen the complaints that Stampede is "poorly-written". Often enough, really, to get... somewhat overly bent out of shape about it. Stampede was my entry into the story and I may have mentioned once or twice that I like it. You know. Just a little. This is not to say it's without its flaws, but it's technically very skilful, at least to my eyes. It's just… skilful in roughly twenty-two minute chunks, so it crams a whole lot into those chunks.

Vash tells Wolfwood he can "see [kindness] in his eyes" half an hour tops after hitting him with a truck. It's assumed that they're relying on previous characterisation of the two to carry this beat.

They're not.

See, animated shows or films (and definitely in the case of Stampede) aren't only written. They're story-boarded, rendered, scored etc. and all the parts interlock with the other parts. It has to be taken as a whole: spoken, written, visual, musical, situational, compositional. These are twelve instalments of a single story where everything in it develops, comments on, or reflects what lies at the work's thematic heart, but you have to figure out how. It's not going to explain it to you. If the relationship between two characters appears strange, that's because there's more to it. And whenever you see something in it that visually echoes something else in it, get out your pasteboard and stick in two thumbtacks connected with string because the show's letting you know it's important.

Now, because I viewed Stampede first, my reaction to this part was very much like Wolfwood's ("???") but the more of the show I watched, the more sense it started to make, and the more I appreciated what it did for Vash's characterisation. Having since read the manga, in my opinion the boys aren't at all interacting like they're accessing past-life memories. Vash is too busy silently reeling over Jeneora Rock and dreading his confrontation with Knives to keep up the whacky act that the older WW pierced. Wolfwood is too young and trapped by his own hurt to empathise by seeing through Vash's false smiles.

There's something else going on with these two, and if you think carefully, it's clear what it is. There were two loved ones that Vash lost tragically early in life, and we can assume it's not Rem he's thinking of.* The heart of this series is "the song of the brothers."

Whose side are you on?

I have to choose.

Lo and behold, through that lens the character interaction made a whole lot more sense. And I want to talk about how.

So, according to the show's language, right from his very first appearance Wolfwood has a connection with Knives.

In the ensuing scenes/episodes, it was then clear to me that Wolfwood isn't just connected to Vash's brother. He's a representative, serving as a sort of understudy while Vash journeys to confront the real thing. Anything and everything Wolfwood does or says is with that role in mind, because he's either playing along or fighting against it. It dictates his development as the show unfolds. He's got a job and he'll do it, but which of the twins' agendas is he ultimately serving as he does? Even he can't yet be sure.

This is a significant change. It has a huge effect on Wolfwood's characterisation; it's why he comes across as less confident, more surly - he's rebellious, but conflicted and immature. In the manga, the first time we meet Nick he's (mostly) his own man and he (mostly) makes his own decisions. While he isn't honest about his agenda, he is trying to temper Vash's idealism for honest and well-meaning reasons, albeit in a bitchy way. When he reveals himself, throwing down the coin halves, you feel the man is protesting too much so it'll make what's coming easier on Vash. Despite how deeply the two came to love each other they couldn't communicate their forgiveness, but Wolfwood is at his core a good man first who lost his way, then finds it again in Vash. **

Again by contrast in Stampede, Nick's identity isn't his own to shape (yet). He standing in for Knives, and he doesn't much like it. He does know more about the actual shape of things than the reporters - for instance, he doesn't bat an eyelash when Brad mentioned how long they've known Vash. So he can readily talk with Vash and test his convictions. They basically both know each other's biggest secrets already, so they don't have to make a whole production of getting to know each other.

But standing in for Knives is also why the introductory aw-look-he's-nice-really scene is so quickly revealed to be staged. Knives is the primary antagonist, not a neutral agent - he's the most dangerous and personal opponent the protagonists face. He's also cruel, controlling and manipulative. His "help" is anything but. Any gift he seems to freely give, like a protector, will either extract an awful cost down the line or have some hidden purpose (if he isn't "solving" a problem he himself created). Approach with caution.

(You know how Nick did something no one asked him to do then hit Vash, Meryl and Roberto with a massive bill for it like a dick? You know how he then violently rescued them from a situation he himself engineered so they'd have gratitude? Those are Knives's most basic manipulation tactics, when he isn't just hurling verbal abuse: I help you/I love you so I'm entitled to take this from/do this to you. Wolfwood is causing problems on purpose by acting out because it's funny, and knows he won't get whatever he's demanding. Knives thinks he's helping, and rarely hears when he's told "no".

Also, both the English and the Japanese have Roberto calling Wolfwood someone who kills with a smile on his face. He doesn't, really, but we have met someone else who does.)

That means like every other character, Wolfwood isn't quite himself. Not yet.

And that's actually awesome. Because it speaks to who the other characters are - specifically, about Vash.

(Part II)

(Part III)

(Part IV)

(Part V)

(Part VI)

(Part VII)

* OR COULD IT BE, as inevitably assumed on tumblr when two men are in proximity, unspoken romantic desire????

I'm not saying it can't be a factor, but it doesn't explain why they start having discussions over their principles like they've known each other for years. Or at least, to me it doesn't. As I've said I don't ship them. If you disagree, it's totally fine! Hear me out and decide for yourself. There's no reason to believe both can't be true.

** By what's coming, I mean the same development that eventually comes to every iteration of Wolfwood. You know the one. And by "they loved each other" I don't mean necessarily mean romantically. My personal belief is that there were mutual feelings along those lines, but they're both too emotionally reticent to acknowledge them and might not have regardless. But that's just me!

#trigun stampede #trigun meta #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #millions knives #not sure when to add the next part #there are at least three more. maybe four. help it's so long #day? two days?#tristampparty #meta: my brother's keeper

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borrelia · 4 months

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Sonic Old Man Yaoi/Old Woman Yuri Knockout Round 2

Do Not Disappoint Me...

TWO pairings with the LEAST votes will be eliminated

Intros to each pairing + propaganda from last round below

Gerald Robotnik was Eggman's grandfather, introduced in Sonic Adventure 2. He made a false deal with Black Doom to create Shadow the Hedgehog in exchange for the Chaos Emeralds, making them both Shadow's dads. They definitely banged and had some kind of toxic mess of a relationship.

Grimer Wormtongue is a nasty little assistant to Ivo Robotnik in Fleetway Sonic the Comic. He is extremely devoted to his cruel master, which is for sure a sexual thing.

Propaganda by @/jorrated [link]

Ebony the Mystic Mog and Pyjamas the Psychic are two characters from Sonic the Comic who appear briefly in a Knuckles story, then become minor recurring characters that take in Super Sonic from the streets. They appear as old friends in their introduction and are implied to live together. If these two aren't married, it's only because Mobius is homophobic.

Mephiles the Dark and Iblis are two halves of the sun/time god Solaris, introduced in Sonic '06. Iblis is kind of just a big fire monster I think but Mephiles orchestrates this whole plot through the course of the game to re-merge with Iblis and form Solaris. Which sounds like some pretty twisted villainous gay devotion to me.

Starline and Eggman were allowed in by popular vote, mostly by Eggman's qualifying age. Dr. Starline is a character from the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic. He is a fanboy and devotee of Eggman, restoring Eggman's lost memories and assisting him in his Metal Virus plot. Starline eventually plots to betray Eggman, as he believes himself smarter and more genre-savvy than his idol. He is of course wrong and Eggman beats the shit out of him and kills him to death. Starline is sort of like gen z's Grimer, kind of the tumblr sexyman dark academia Grimer, in that he's younger and prettier than Grimer, but he probably still wants to fuck that old man so bad.

#myaa #polls #sonic #geraldoom #grimegg #the yuri train #cat's pyjamas #heehee #eggstar #? i guess it's called #fleetway sonic #idw sonic #old man yaoi poll #id in alt text #okay you hate mightys gay dad.... well. REDEEM YOURSELVES #eggline #mephiblis

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mindibindi · 5 months

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So what do we think? Did Donna lie at the end of Wild Blue Yonder when she said she couldn't see what the Doctor had been through in the 15 years since they were last together? She said it was like looking into a furnace, which is uncomfortable but not impossible. It smarts, it's unsustainable. You may pull back from the heat and the light eventually, you may narrow your eyes to slits to take it in, but it can be done for a short time. Which suggests that Donna can actually see into that decade and a half, but refrains from looking. It's partially a choice. She pulls back, turns away, in part due to self-preservation. But does she also pull back, turn away, not look, in order to preserve the Doctor? To protect their privacy, respect their boundaries and allow them their own personal process? Donna knows better than anyone else what it's like to have the boundaries of her brain breached without consent. To have her history, understanding and sense of her self and the world tampered with from the outside. And they have just come off an(other) experience in which their memories, personalities, thoughts, feelings, fears, desires, voices, bodies, movements, idiosyncrasies, in short everything that makes them who they are, was taken. They were stolen, copied, twisted and used. They both experienced the profound disquiet and existential horror of their self being breached and borrowed. Holding each other in the TARDIS in the aftermath is a way to ground them, to reclaim not just this precious other person who knows them better than anyone else in the known universe. It's also a moment in which they can reclaim themselves AS themselves, as sovereign entities. Based on the level of shock they both exhibit, I think it's possible that Donna made a choice to differentiate between her brain and the Doctor's. Having just experienced what they experienced, I think Donna may have told a small half-truth. I think she chose a response that gave them both a little healthy distance, prioritised their peace of mind and their relationship. She chose not to look, not to say all she might know. She let the Doctor have their history, their privacy, their process, all that belongs to them and no one else. She chose to let them tell her whatever they chose to, in their own way and their own time. Because it's far less important that she know what happened in those 15 years and far more important that the Doctor have the opportunity to talk about it with someone they trust. And that's what's always been central to the relationship between Donna and the Doctor. There was never any sense of romantised enmeshment. Her thoughts, her opinions, her sense of right and wrong differed from the Doctor's. The bigness of her personality matched the Doctor's. They were never two halves of a whole but two equally magnificent wholes that, when put together, became too powerful to defeat. And 15 years on, they still are.

#dw #dr who #doctor who #dw 60th #wild blue yonder #the 14th doctor #the fourteenth doctor #donna noble #the doctor x donna #14 x donna #fourteen x donna #ten x donna #tennant x tate #david tennant #catherine tate #tatennant #otp: i think you'll find we're quite something #no-thing can best these besties #see what i did there?

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buckyarchives · 1 year

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Domestic Life Of a Living With a Runaway Assassin. [Intro.]

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x soulmate!reader

Summary: you hate many things in life. you hate soulmates. you hate the avengers. you hate guns. you hate loud snorers and complicated relationships.

Bucky Barnes is associated with all of those things, yet you can't find yourself hating him

W.c: 2.1K

Series playlist linked here

Author note: this was actually one of my first long form fics I wrote in many years, its carrys a nostalgic feeling and means a lot to me. i wrote it like last October and thought abt kinda rewriting some stuff and posting it here! I thought some of you guys woudk enjoy this story. this is only a short darbble that teases the story, next chapter shows how they met and everything after that. It takes place right after CA:TWS and it’s a soulmate AU!

Masterlist

Soulmates.

The legend goes that when the universe was created and whatever higher power you believed in created humans to have two sets of legs, two sets of arms, and two heads. Now because the world is cruel and no one can have nice things, whoever is in charge up there split us up into two beings but forever being connected by our souls. Spending the rest of our life waiting and searching for our other halves. Never being our true whole selves without them. How poetically tragic.

It turned into a weird way to make money nowadays, you felt like no one really cared about the reality of soulmates now. It was made into shitty romance movies, or stupid scientific searches for your one and only soulmate that was definitely an internet scam. People literally faking soul marks towards celebrities for their one chance with them that their delusional minds make up.

All just a desperate attempt to feel whole and loved but your one and true person. Always and forever destined to be.

What a touching story. Too bad you think it's all bullshit

No genuinely, you were supposed to believe your life's purpose was to find this one person in the entire universe that matched you, and without them, you what? you were going to be miserable for the rest of your life? The universe is a scam. You had given up on the whole mad search for your other half years ago, you didn't understand why you couldn't go out and find your own partner without having to match up those stupid words on your shoulder.

“I'm sorry, you probably don't feel very safe with me.”

Those stupid words. You hated the idea of soulmates but you couldn't stop yourself from the hours of wondering just what the hell that was supposed to mean. You had no interest in seeking out your soulmate but you could wonder what type of person they may be. Were they really a dangerous person? Would you genuinely not feel safe with the said person when you first meet? Would you even meet them?

Questions had swirled through your head since the day you got it. Those questions had died down a little, you were getting older and most of your peers had already met their soulmates. You noticed soulmates were not just romantic, they came in friendships, some didn't work out, some came between children and parents, and some came through your fire escape at night, covered in blood and knocking down your favorite plants.

With a loud crash, your feet carried you through your new york apartment to your living room. You saw the outline of him crouched down on the floor. “I'm so sorry, I know that was your favorite plant.”

Okay, spoiler. You had found your soulmate. You weren't excited about it as the rest of the world expected, but it happened. You weren't some hypocrite that would suddenly abandoned all beliefs and fell head over heels for your soulmate once you met like one of those stupid romance movies you mention earlier, you were not some cliche. Especially not with a poor excuse of a runaway-brainwashed-assassin soulmate, at least you would try convincing yourself that.

“My god Bucky, how many times do I have to tell you to just go through the door.” you pinch the bridge of your nose as the tired old man scrambles to clean up the dirt and scattered pot beneath him. “I mean, you practically live here now.”

“I'm not using the door, someone could see me.”

You think Like that's better than having someone see you climb through the fire escape, asshole. You scoff and shake your head and begin dragging yourself to the kitchen. You had a slight quirk at the end of your lips, an amused smile, you hoped Bucky didn’t see in the dark. Maybe he did, you didn’t really have enough time to ask him the deets on the effects of the serum.

You swing open the cabinet door and grab a trash bag and first aid kit. God only knows how bent out of shape bucky is tonight. Making your way back into your living room, Buckys still muttering under his breath about your stupid plant and “god dammit it's fucking freezing out there.”

throwing the trash back at him, he looks up at you. His eyes are beautiful. His hair is sopping wet and you were hoping to any god above that he wasn't bleeding out on your floor. You were not losing your security deposit for your reckless runaway assassin soulmate. God, that's a mouthful, you need to give him a new nickname.

“So, what's the damage?”

“s’ nothing, I'm just cold. It started raining hard.” he looks like a wet shaking dog. Your heart aches.

You look him up and down. Noticing the water dripping from all his clothing. “I see that.”

You sigh and take a few steps toward him. Bucky eyes follow your moments precisely. He has a bit of a staring problem. You snag the hair tie off your wrist and swiftly tie his brunette wet mop of a head into a little man bun. Cute. you shake your head.

“Stay, I'll be right back.”

Bucky watches you in awe as your body ascends back into the darkness of the room and around a corner. He's uncomfortable and his socks are wet. The leather vest is wet and he feels like he's trapped in his own skin, and Bucky feels too heavy.

Slowly, he begins to unstrap all weapons on his body and toss them to the side so you don't have to see them. You didn't like guns. He had a designated place where he hides them because god-forbid Bucky messes up your apartment aesthetic with his dozen of unsettling and quite scary weapons. Your words, not his.

Unzipping the leather top and peeling the fabric off himself was less than a nice feeling, it made him cringe and sent a quick shiver down his spine. Bucky tossed it to the side, he’ll deal with that tomorrow. His hands feel the thin black shirt that's left, it's wet too. Fucking hell. He doesn’t remember the New York weather being this bad in September, he also barely remembers anything so his memory isn’t too reliable. Bucky slowly peels the fabric over his head, he hopes he doesn't mess up the bun you did, he never did it right.

Bucky hears your feet pad against your floor. He pushes back a smile. You're holding a towel and some clothes. He watches you as you crouch down next to him on the floor, he notices that your eyes are squinted and your bed head is apparent. A twinge of guilt hits him now knowing he had woken you up. Bucky whispers, “I woke you up.”

You sigh, again. “I was having a bad dream anyways.”

“About?”

You inhale, scoffing to yourself. “I was being chased by Jimmy Fallon with a jar of pickles – because you know, I hate pickles – and he was yelling at me about the importance of eating vegetables, but he sounded just like my mom.”

Bucky didn’t remember who Jimmy Fallon was, “you must think you’re so amusing, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

Bucky curls his toes and is unfortunately reminded of his very wet socks. He leans forward to untie his hefty boots. Your eyes trail along his naked back, his muscles flex and suddenly you are just a little more awake. You watch his left arm in all its glory, taking note of the ragged and scarred tissues where metal meets skin. Scratch marks are littered around the edges, and you feel sad for him, imagining how those got there. The moonlight highlights his metal arm, making it shine and look quite beautiful. You could never tell Bucky that.

“It's been a week.” you finally breathe out. Bucky freezes in place as his fingers wrap around his laces. He feels guilty again. “And you didn't leave a note this time either. I thought...”

Trailing off, you stop yourself before you say something you were going to regret. Your mind wanders, you felt so incredibly stupid right now. Truth is, you didn't agree with the whole soulmate ordeal but it seemed like ever since your unconventional first meeting with Bucky, he has stuck to you like glue. He just kept coming back and then leaving again.

It took you many of his overnight stays and weirdly domestic mornings making scrambled eggs together and then turning into a worry machine after he leaves. You realized had grown to care for him deeply. Bucky always came back, but you were scared for the day we might not.

Bucky is– literally, a lost puppy. He had been on the run and actively avoiding the few stray agents that knew he was still alive when he met you.

Bucky remembered back when he was a kid, dreaming about the day he would meet his soulmate. He and Steve would stay up all night talking about their soul marks, or just words (as they used to call it), and what they thought their soulmates would be like. Bucky was obsessed and simply put, a hopeless romantic.

Then Steve met his soulmate, Peggy. And then he technically died and Hydra happened, Bucky thought his soulmate would have been dead because he was out of his time now. After being brainwashed and having been broken and put back together by Hydra, Bucky could still never shake the feeling of you still being out there, it was like some instinctive feeling in his bones, he had hope and it was one of the only things keeping him going.

And he was right.

Bucky had many doubts when he first met you, given his situation. But you were not scared. And that was enough for him at the time.

But now he just feels guilty for giving you the burden of being his soulmate. He was trying, really.

“I'm sorry, doll.” his voice didn't sound like his own, he shrugged the rest of his boot off and followed with his socks. Finally. “I should have left a note. I'm safe, you're safe, and I'm here now.”

Bucky heard you sniffled and you turned your head with an embarrassment look and glossy eyes. Like you were ashamed for caring.

“sweetheart...” he scooted closer, hoping you wouldn't mind his damp skin on yours. Bucky reached for you, wrapping his flesh hand around yours and giving you a small squeeze. Your head turned to him, a small smile hidden on your face by the darkness of the room. He saw it. Bucky might even think you're an angel. “I won't leave without saying something next time, I'm sorry.”

“Do I even want to know what you were doing out there?”

He hated lying to you but his life was complicated. “Just trying to fix some things I did.”

You nod. “Good.”

The silence between the two of you isn't uncomfortable, the past few months have been silent– at least with bucky. He is your soulmate. He is also the winter soldier, and the winter soldier is always moving and hiding. Bucky Barnes is always moving, always. He had been that way even way back in the Howling Commandos.

You were his safe haven. Your relationship was on and off but your bond was strong, it was wordless and tentative and strung together by patching wounds at midnight and soft, domestic glances over coffee. Your house– just you were his place where he could just stop, pretend as if nothing mattered and sit on the couch and watch reality television that you loved. Bucky found it questionable but you said “it will help you get with the times.” Bucky just watched it because he knew it made you happy.

Bucky Barnes had been moving all week, fast. He had almost died, twice. He was never going to let you know that though. Bucky was due for some Hell's Kitchen or dance moms. He was also not going to tell you that.

The moonlight was fading and you could hear the faint sound of birds chirping outside, barely silenced by the bustling city life of people leaving for work. You are still sitting next to Bucky, and you nudge him with your elbow. His attention is now drawn to you. You bite your bottom lip, a horrible habit you had, bucky hated it. Bucky brings his thumb up to your face and pulls your lip away from your teeth. He wants to kiss you.

“Go take a shower, you stink.” That works too. He smiles and you laugh. Yeah, Bucky thinks he can stop for just a little longer this time.

Feedback and comments make the work go round, comment to be added to the tag list!

Tag list : @ivywasmaroon @ozwriterchick @slytherinambitious @wintermischief

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #james bucky barnes #bucky x reader #marvel #marvel fanfiction #bucky fic #sebastian stan #bucky barns imagine #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x gender neutral reader #sebastian stan x reader

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seeingivy · 2 months

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electric touch

satoru gojo x f!reader

**part of my satoru as taylor swift songs series

an: the new and improved (not really)... tumblr delete this post again and I will attack you.

it’s almost like getting primed for a reward. the tiny little breaks between when satoru got to see you – it functioned like a charging port.

satoru would get the sweet, soft promise of your presence. and then be robbed of it consequently. and it would leave him a little bit hollow in the days that followed, until it came rushing back – when you had to pick up leo at the end of the week.

he likened it to him being like a ghost town. and that you would fill him up with light.

and the sweet promise comes flowing back, an almost instantaneous rush, when he gets a less than pleasant phone call about his son getting into a fight at school – and how both parents would need to be present for the meeting that followed.

one of the greatest strengths in his relationship with you – if he could even call it that anymore – was that the two of you were always able to read each other. it’s how two halves of a whole functioned – adapted to be what the other one needed.

satoru had never been able to find that in someone else. and sometimes, late at night, he’d wonder if it was because the two of you were soulmates, that you were so connected, that it was the reason you could feel what the other needed.

or if you had forged yourselves into ones, by having a child together – a little perfect piece of you and him in the world that tied you together. that the secret to it was that when you made leo, there was some part of your souls that were shared forever now.

the thought dies out on its own, when he’s faced with the harsh reality.

soulmates would never be separated. on the heels of a divorce.

so he swallows down the thought. and it comes rushing back to him at times like this – when he’s speeding through the streets and running into the office – only to find the pair of you pressing ice packs into your respective faces, matching steely glares being given to the pair of people across from you.

leo spares him the glance first. you don’t break.

“daddy’s here.”

leo’s voice is uncharacteristically monotone, the usual cheery delight – that satoru claims to take credit for – is gone and it’s chilling. that and the fact that his eye is going to definitely purple up by tomorrow. satoru takes the seat next to you, passing you a halfhearted smile as you meet his eyes, and he gestures for leo with grabby hands to take the place in his lap.

leo all but obliges and satoru takes the close proximity to inspect the little bruise near his eye. it’s raised and red – the white of his eye tinted a tiny pink.

one of his favorite things about leo was that his eyes were just like yours. seeing someone desecrate them in the slightest was enough to make him sear with a white hot rage.

satoru would have every intention to create a living hell for whoever’s kid – and their parents – caused this. but he had a strong inkling telling him that the ice pack pressed to your cheek meant that you had already tried and it was on him to be the mature one here. that he’d have to adapt, for you.

“hi star boy, sunshine.” satoru murmurs.

you turn your head to his, glaring at him. this was not the time for stupid nicknames.

“horrifying. you should try to smile more.” satoru deadpans, giving you a smile so wide you can see his dimples.

idiot.

“and you should try to be more mature. someone punched your son in the face.”

“and it looks like they didn’t stop there. what happened to you? let me look.”

satoru reaches forward, fingers featherlike as they pull the ice pack away from your face, revealing three identical red lines indented into the softness of your cheek. he cups his fingers around your face – the sensation sending an electric touch down your spine – as you try to wrestle out of his hold.

satoru frowns. the marks are raised and swelling, just like leo’s, and satoru really curses that he didn’t drive faster. then he wouldn’t have to save face with the people who had raised their hands on his son and his wife.

soon to be ex-wife.

“kid’s mom. she started bitching and…and i said stuff back and she slapped me. she was wearing three pairs of stackable silver rings.” you groan, shoving the biting cold ice back into the pulsating warm of your cheek, before turning back to stare at her.

you’d slap that smug smile off her face if you could.

“what did she say?” satoru asks.

“just forget about it, okay? let’s focus on leo.”

satoru can tell by your posture, your tense shoulders, that there’s no inkling of regret in your actions. that really, you don’t even feel the smallest bit of remorse – that you think you had ever reason to do what you did.

leo leans his mouth close to satoru’s ear, before failing his attempt at whispering discreetly.

“i’ll tell you later, daddy. it was about you.”

“leo.” you scold.

“mommy.” leo mimics, attempting to copy your scathing tone.

you can’t stop yourself and your soft smile makes both of your boys break a glimmering, two dimpled smile back in return. you reach forward, running your fingers through leo’s overgrown white hair, as you lean forward and press a kiss to the top of his locks.

one of your favorite things about leo is how similar he looks to satoru. snow white hair, same cheesy dimple smile, and the sweet sense of humor too.

and that sickly sweet spot that you have for satoru, that you’d probably always have, simmered. he was always able to make leo smile, even through the pink of his eye.

after a very unpleasant meeting – and a three day suspension for leo – satoru offers to take him off your hands for the weekend. he can see it, the gratefulness in your eyes and the desperate time you need to process it all, as you press a kiss to leo’s cheek and then his too.

it almost bites, like an electric touch – your lips on satoru’s skin after months. his ghost town’s essentially a fifty-strobe light show at this point.

in the close proximity, your sugary perfume and soft hands, satoru’s thankful for two things at the moment.

the first? leo sitting snug in his arms. and the second? the necklace around your collarbone.

or more appropriately, the fact that all three charms are still intact. the sun, the star, and the moon.

you, leo, and him. he watches as you walk away, shooting the two of them a smile over your shoulder, before you climb into your car.

“leo?” satoru asks.

“hm.”

“what did mommy say when she got mad?” satoru asks.

leo gives him a smile, curling his fist around the collar of his shirt before answering.

“that lady needed to leave her son and her husband alone or else.”

satoru smiles, before pressing a kiss to the warmth of leo’s cheek. he can still smell the remnants of the strawberry shampoo you massaged into his hair this morning.

you had been priming yourself for sunday, when satoru would return with leo. there was a certain warmth that satoru possessed, that was almost an innate part of his nature, that you always felt yourself gravitating towards.

every time he walked away from you, it felt like he left you alone in the rain. and all you could feel was the sheer, immense pining.

the two of you had decided that satoru was just going to take care of leo – that you’d address the fight, and your shitty behavior together at the end of the week. and if need be, satoru would stay the night just to help you out afterwards.

satoru offered. you hate that he can still read you like a book. that he’ll make your rain cloud dissipate, just to let it reform again every time he walked away.

at 8:05, the headlights of satoru’s car shine through your kitchen window as you reach for your hair, brushing down the flyaways, before reaching for the little sweets that you had made. they were vanilla glazed doughnuts – the byproduct of the impending doom of the possibility that satoru might share the bed with you and leo tonight.

and right on cue, you hear two giggly voices opening the door, only to be met by leo running up and wrapping his little arms around your legs. you oblige, crouching down as you eye the purple surrounding his eye, before cradling his head against your shoulder.

the sight almost makes satoru emotional. he’ll blame it on the longing.

but watching you nearly moved to tears, leo’s infinitesimal smallness against your frame despite how tall he seems to be getting – it reminds him of the day leo was born. when satoru really wasn’t able to contain his tears, at the sight of you beaming down at your shared piece of starlight. that truly, the stars did align – that there were some types of odds, that each little decision the two of you made had led to him.

“i missed you, star boy.” you murmur.

“i missed you too, sunshine.” leo responds.

you curl your nose, pinching his cheek before you stand up. you eye satoru – the dark green hoodie hanging loose against his frame, hands tucked into his black sweatpants. he gives you a wink as a greeting, to which you respond by sticking your tongue out, before sliding the plate over to the two of them.

“leo, you’ve been spending too much time with daddy. what happened to calling me, mommy?”

“you’re making that sound like that’s a bad thing, sunshine.” satoru states, nimble fingers splitting one of the doughnuts in half before handing leo a piece.

“yeah, sunshine.” leo emphasizes, earning a fit of laughter from the two of you.

you roll your eyes. satoru lifts leo onto the counter, before pulling a stool to the side for the two of you. he gives you a curt nod – one which you return – before you and satoru turn to face him.

“okay, star boy. we’ve had fun for a few days but it’s time to talk about what happened tuesday.” satoru states.

leo’s face immediately droops, and you bite down into the hardness of your cheek.

you were never good at the reprimanding type of thing.

“it was nothing, daddy.” leo mumbles.

satoru sighs.

“c’mon, kid. we’re not going to be mad at you. just want to talk about what happened, talk about what to do next time.” satoru states.

“i don’t want you to think that it’s okay to fight with people because of me. that lady in the office, she…she just…”

satoru’s hand is quick, finding it’s way to your back. the touch is soft, a tiny shock, accompanied by small circles being rubbed into your back.

“she caught me at a bad time. i called her later and apologized for my mean words.”

no, you didn’t. you would rather choke. but leo didn’t need to know that.

leo sighs, before covering his face. you can tell that there’s a red flush creeping up his neck and that it’s going to be followed by a heavy set of tears.

“i’m sorry.” he chokes out.

satoru frowns, immediately reaching to hold him snug against his legs in his lap, as you lean your head on satoru’s shoulder. he’s crying into both of your arms softly, the two of you sharing a strained look, before satoru reaches forward and starts wiping his tears.

“hey buddy. just breathe for me, okay?” satoru murmurs, his voice so soft it makes your hair stand up on it’s ends.

“just relax, sweetheart. it’s going to be okay. we…we’re here for you.” you add, giving satoru a look.

satoru understands what it means. there’s no way he’s leaving him tonight.

leo cries for nearly twenty minutes, your matching pair of soothing voices calming him down until his cheeks are flushed pink, eyes swollen from the tears. satoru instinctively leans his temple against yours, giving him a quiet nod before he starts talking.

“i hate my teacher.” leo states.

“what?”

“she never asks people to raise their hands when she asks a question. she-she just picks a random person out of the crowd. and whenever she does that…i hate it. my throat feels so warm and…and i get scared that she’s going to pick on me and i won’t know the answer.”

you reach forward, combing his hair back.

“it’s okay if you get it wrong, honey. you’re still learning.”

leo shakes his head, so aggressively that it catches you off guard.

“no. no, i have to get it right. you don’t get it. ”

you swallow hard.

“she called on me and i didn’t know the answer. and…and she was staring at me but i couldn’t say anything. daddy, i…i swear i was trying to say something but i couldn’t do it. and…and then the kid next to me told me to just answer and i…i got so mad that i punched him. and then he did it back and i got in trouble.” leo mumbles.

satoru hums in response, nodding before he leans down to press a kiss to the top of his head.

“okay, kid. it’s okay to be nervous sometimes when you get called on, especially when you’re not expecting it. but just remember, it doesn’t say anything about you if you get the answer wrong. and it’s okay to feel so stressed out and frustrated by what people say, but let’s find another way to deal with that without punching them, okay?” satoru asks.

“okay.” leo groans, before crossing over his heart twice, the way the two of you had taught him to promise.

satoru lets him jump off his legs, instructing him to go get ready for the shower, as you can’t help but stand up, busying yourself with placing the dirty dishes in the sink. your hands are nearly shaking, the buttered plates slipping out of your hands and crashing into the metallic sink as the tears start flowing, breaths heavy as your vision blurs.

it’s all your fault.

the second leo’s footsteps subside, you can feel satoru at your side, hugging you from behind as he rubs up and down your biceps, only making your crying worse. and this time when his soft, soothing voice is whispering in your ears and not leo’s, all you can do is crumble in his arms.

“that was not your fault.” satoru states.

you sigh.

“isn’t it though? he-he gets that from me.”

satoru places his hands on your shoulders, twisting you around until you’re facing him, his fingers pushing your cheeks up. your watery, pink eyes meet his as he reaches forward to swipe the wetness away and he can tell that one of your worst, most misplaced fears, has come to fruition.

that your son would inherit your self-proclaimed horrible coping mechanisms from you. satoru always found it frustrating when you said that – because he was always of the belief that you were doing the best with what you were given – not that you would ever agree with him.

that you weren’t a misplaced perfectionist, it’s just that your parents asked too much of you. that you weren’t a ball of anxiety crumbling at the threads, you were a master of adapting to what was called of you.

“he does not get that from you. that’s not how it works.” satoru states.

“satoru. that’s exactly how i sounded as a kid. i had to be the best or i was nothing. and when i got anxious, i-i could barely even stand talking to other people sometimes. going to class. and-and it’s even worse. changing his environment all the time doesn’t help. he misses you. and then he probably misses me when he’s with you. and it’s probably so confusing that he doesn’t even know what’s happening and it’s all my fault because i’m a bad mom-”

satoru presses his fingers to your lips, hard.

“you are not a bad mom. leo adores you. i adore you. i wouldn’t want anyone else to be with us other than you.”

you ignore the implication. it’s underlying – that satoru thinks the reason for your separation, almost divorce – is stupid. and maybe there’s even a small part of him that would resent you for it, letting his family get in your head.

that you weren’t the suitable wife for the clan. that you couldn’t be his wife because of it.

you figured it would be better for leo. not having to live with the pressure to live up to their standards. he was already kind of predisposed to that type of thing – that some part of your horrible traits was somehow in his genetics now – and putting him somewhere it could fester into a mess would make it worse.

and you hated it. watching satoru fight with them, tire himself out just to advocate for him, on your behalf. that most days he would be tired, that you were causing strife in their family, and that he had to put them all aside for you.

and if it meant that you had to give up your relationship for both of them to be free of that, that was the price you had to will yourself to pay.

“satoru.”

he reaches forward, fingers resting against the silver chain. his blue eyes are razor focused on the charms.

“i’ll stay with you till leo’s a little better. i agree, i don’t like the idea of him moving around so much when he’s clearly overwhelmed and going through something.”

“yeah?” you whisper.

“are you really shocked that i want to spend time with my son?”

“no! but…you have to live here with me. and he’s mostly at school all the time, you know.”

satoru rolls his eyes, before he leans forward, hands warm on your hips.

“i used to live with you too, you know? i actually enjoyed it too if you can wrap your big head around the thought.”

“shut up. you know that’s not what i meant.”

it works well. you can tell that it helps leo – and you too – having satoru around all the time. you wake up later, get started on breakfast a little while satoru tasks himself with getting leo ready for school. you go to bed earlier, only because satoru threatens to destory your laptop if you stay up even a wink past the late hours of the night.

you eat together in the morning, dinner whenever leo’s back from soccer practice. satoru puts some cheesy family movie marathon together on the weekends, and you make them breakfast for dinner on tuesday nights.

it almost works too well.

when leo leaves, satoru always makes sure to brew you a coffee before he runs out for work. you always make him lunch before you leave for your errands. sometimes he joins you at the store. you go to his work dinners with him.

you’re getting too close to the fire. you’re going to get burned again.

you had a history of stories ending sadly. the cautionary tale just never seemed to work when it came to you.

and it comes to a head at the goodbye dinner satoru takes you to for his boss, masamichi. or more appropriately in the car afterwards, as the two of you wait outside nanami’s house for leo to come running out from his play date with yuuji and megumi.

“masamichi was checking you out. one last time, for good measure.” satoru states.

you roll your eyes. satoru had a stupid hunch that his boss, had a thing for you since the first time he started bringing you to his work dinners. you just think he’s paranoid. and obsessive – like a little kid with a toy.

just because he for some reason liked you didn’t mean that everyone else did too.

“satoru. your geriatric and married boss was not checking me out.”

“what does him being married have to do with it? that doesn’t stop people.” satoru states.

you click your tongue in your cheek.

“did you look at other girls while we were married?” you ask, giving him a grin.

“fuck off. no, i did not.”

“and masamichi didn’t either. you’re just trying to find a reason to fight with him.”

“well, he was leering his eyes at my wife. you try staying calm when he does that.” satoru defends.

you scoff.

“grow up, satoru. we’re not married.” you state.

it was hard to establish the boundaries, especially with someone as pushy as satoru. that and the fact that the real semantics of the matter never seemed to work in your favor.

“oh, yeah?” satoru teases.

“yes, satoru.” you deadpan.

satoru reaches for your hand, sending an electric jolt up your arm, before holding your left out in front of him. and before you can protest, he presses a warm kiss to your knuckles, dead center on your ring finger – right above your engagement ring and your wedding band. it’s enough to leave a burning pit in your stomach, cheeks searing from the touch.

“satoru. it’s just because we were out at dinner together.” you murmur.

satoru’s eyes are nearly lidded, the tantalizing look in his eyes nearly making you shuffle in your seat as he leans forward, fingers around the silver chain around your neck. he uses it to pull you forward, noses bumping and lips a few feet apart before he whispers.

“then why are you still wearing this? i know you remember what i said when i gave it to you.”

you do remember.

satoru gifted the necklace to you the day leo was born, after the two of you decided to name him after the constellation. because leo was your star and you were his sun. that by simple rules of elimination, he was going to be the moon and the three of you were going to be together forever.

it was cheesy at the time. even worse when satoru decided to make the entire nursery space themed. but now, it stings. the cosmic connection that the two of you seem to have, almost pulsating with electricity, it stings. burns. it’s agonizing.

“i don’t know, satoru. i can’t separate the moon from the sun and the star.” you murmur.

“so why are you trying so hard to do it right now?” satoru whispers.

you shake your head, trying to pull back, but his grasp on the necklace has him yanking you forward again, your forehead resting against yours as you feel your chest nearly start heaving.

“satoru.”

“why are you trying so hard to get rid of me?” he murmurs.

because it goes the same every time. and you can’t do it a fifth time.

you’ve gotten used to him not calling your phone. gotten used to sleeping alone. and the thought of the sliver of goodness this one moment will give you compared to the weeks, months of hurt that will come to pass after…

it simply wasn’t worth it. and it wasn’t something you could bring yourself to stomach.

and you’re not sure what it is. the cool air coming out of the air vents of the car, the dim green light casting on his soft features, or his alluring voice – why you always abandon the rational thought.

but you lean forward. only to be interrupted by leo smacking his little fist against the window.

“can you open the door? it’s cold out here.” he whines.

the two of you pull apart fast, satoru swallowing hard as he reaches for the lock, and you awkwardly tuck your hair behind your ears. leo climbs into the car as you reach back for one of his hands, shaking one of his, and giving him your peachiest smile.

good timing, leo.

“hi star boy. did you say hi to uncle nanami for me?” you ask.

satoru reverses out of the spot, his cheeks still pink, as he heads out onto the street.

“yes, i did. he says hi back. what were you guys doing in the car?”

“i was checking mommy’s teeth for cavities. she’s been laying it a little heavy on the sweets.” satoru states.

you smack him across the chest.

one month after the fact and you realize that it’s gone too far. that leo’s okay now, that he’s been okay for a while, and there’s no reason for you to be sharing a bed, morning breakfast, a life with satoru gojo anymore.

and when leo runs out for the bus, blowing the two of you a big kiss to your spot on the porch, you brace yourself for the impact when satoru follows you back inside, lazily leaning his entire weight on you as he maneuvers you to the coffee machine.

“what are you feeling this morning, sunshine?”

“caramel. and…and that you could maybe go home now?”

it’s enough to wake satoru up. he turns to his side, hands still focused on making your coffee, as he glares at you.

“you have a shit sense of humor.” satoru states.

“i’m serious. leo’s doing well, thankfully. i think he’ll be okay now to go back to how it was before.”

satoru rolls his eyes.

“you don’t know that. for all we know, that was brought on by the fact that he was splitting his time between both of us when we should all be together. changing environments won’t help him, things need to be consistent for his sake.”

“satoru. we…we can’t go on like this.”

satoru frowns, leaving your cup of coffee unattended as it brews, the earthy smell filling your nose as he closes the distance, hands on your cheeks.

“yes, we can.” he whispers.

“satoru.”

“yes, we can.” it’s more adamant this time.

“the problems from before still stand. this-this is almost like a honeymoon period where we don’t have to address that. it…it won’t be like this if we give in.” you state.

“i am more than happy to cuss out my parents here and there for you. for leo. the only standards he has to live up to ours, that much was apparent from the way we’ve spent the last month. and you’re the woman i’ve always wanted. what’s going to be different if you give in?”

“leo. they’re going to press-”

“i’m going to deal with that. they're my beast to handle. do you really think i’d even let them say a word against leo?”

you frown.

“no.” you murmur.

“he’s going to be okay. we’re going to teach him right from wrong, we’re going to help him through whatever it is without pressuring him the same way we did a few weeks ago.”

you sigh, before giving him a nod.

“you don’t have to live here to do that, satoru.”

“i want to live here. with you. you’re my wife. leo’s my son. you’re my family and that’s where i want to be.”

you look up at him, blue eyes beaming into yours. there’s a twinge of hope in his eyes.

“what if it crashes and burns like last time?” you ask.

“all i know is you could either break my heart or bring it back to life. i’m asking you to pick the second one, y/n.”

you shake your head, before wrapping your arms around his neck, murmuring into the softness of his neck. and you look straight at him, at his pale skin, and really contemplate it.

and you wonder if he really is right, that this could bring you back to life.

that just because the previous story ended sadly, doesn’t meant that this one has to as well. that maybe this is what you needed.

maybe the moment’s just right.

“the second. i-i want you now. i’m going to need you forever.” you state.

satoru pulls back, an ear to ear smile when he leans forward – a burning, thrilling, electric kiss being pressed to your lips.

it’s enough to revive you.

the satoru as taylor swift songs series masterlist

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